The Last Larnaeradee

by Shelley Cass

  It was a beautiful word when it slipped past Kiana’s lips.

  “No!” the General gasped in utter shock, sheathing his sabre and taking a step toward the ledge – but a burst of pure white light surged from where Kiana stood, stopping him in his tracks.

  The light filled my vision with such brightness that the Forest, the clearing and everyone around me disappeared. It was like a wave of energy that rushed from Kiana’s fist to fill the whole area, and there were gasps and shouts of wonder and amazement.

  A blissful, peaceful sensation enveloped me as I breathed the pure light in, and I could tell by the cries of happiness that even the monstrous men of Darziates felt the goodness of the magic from the sea of white light.

  Then I staggered, as in a brutal, wrenching moment, the dazzling white emanation was swallowed by a burst of blood red light.

  “Engrark,” answered a low, biting voice from somewhere within the stone. The voice, and the feeling that accompanied it filled me with senseless trepidation, as though shock waves were rippling in my blood.

  The voice was that of a Sorcerer, and it made my legs want to run, it made me want to cower and grovel, and made me want to lift my hands to fight it all at the same time.

  The men around me cried out in despair and loathing at the stark contrast in what they felt from their King compared to the serenity that had been unleashed from Kiana.

  “SHOOT HER!” the General roared again, witless distress across his savagely contorted face. But none of his men would end the life of Kiana now, or evoke the hate of the Sorcerer King.

  Kiana let her hand fall, looking at it in shaken surprise. She hurriedly pushed the stone back into its case and the red light vanished.

  The General turned in outrage while she did this, knowing his King had seen the destruction that had occurred under his leadership.

  “Cowards!” he thundered frantically, and snatched the loaded bow from the soldier standing dazed beside me.

  Before I could react, I heard the twang of his fingers on the bowstring, and the General had loosed the arrow at Kiana.

  Too late, I made a desperate grab for him, and I heard his own warriors shout out in protest and dread.

  Kiana glanced up at our sound to register the arrow plunging through the air toward her heart. She swung herself to the side, but the arrow hit her with such force that she was twirled around upon the ledge and nearly toppled from it.

  The General let out a triumphant, booming war cry while the strangely converted warriors who had been caught under Kiana’s spell gasped and cried out with as much dismay as spilled from the lips of Noal, Agrudek and I.

  Then Kiana stopped herself from falling, regained her balance, and without uttering a sound, she straightened.

  Everyone below stopped their confused wailing and stared up at her. The General froze mid celebration.

  By turning, she had stopped the arrow from piercing her heart. Instead, the arrow had lodged into the skin just below the collarbone on her right side.

  An alarming amount of blood was already oozing from the wound, staining the shirt beneath the bodice of her tunic. It dripped thickly like teardrops from the stem of the arrow as it slid along the wood.

  Everyone watched wordlessly, as if enchanted. Even the General was still as her eyes held his without blinking.

  She lifted her left hand to the deeply embedded arrow, closing her fingers around the feathered end before slowly, harrowingly, drawing the arrow all the way back out of her flesh so that it didn’t break.

  When it was free the stain on her shirt blossomed more quickly, but as we all gaped, she reached for her bow and knocked the arrow in a flash of fluid movement.

  “This is yours,” she told the General.

  Without batting an eye, she fired.

  The arrow whizzed back through the air, returning along the same path it had taken moments before, until it came to a dreadful stop between the General’s eyes.

  The impact was audible and the General’s body remained tensely upright for a moment. There was a surprised look on his face – disbelief that she’d shot him back, before his vast form crumpled down.

  Then sixteen soldiers turned to one another in desperate bewilderment; unnerved. They scrambled together, chaotically yelling over each other and trying to decide what they should do and how they could avoid the King’s wrath.

  “Kiana!” I yelled up to her.

  “Go!” Kiana ordered. “I’ll find you!”

  Noal pressed my sword hilt back into my hand as Kiana turned and slid down the other side of the rocks and disappeared from sight.

  Noal firmly gripped my arm and Agrudek’s, forcing us to follow him in the direction of the trees ahead, not stopping even once we had slipped into their dense shelter.

  Chapter Seventy Six

  He had been on his way to confront the Emperor of Lixrax when he’d felt the calling from one of the many communication globes he’d given to his mortal Generals.

  Darziates allowed his scryer to materialise on his open palm, uttering its activation word.

  ‘Engrark’.

  The scryer globe burst with a dazzling illumination, casting a crimson light over the walls of his private throne room.

  And for the first time in centuries, Darziates, Sorcerer King of Krall, was surprised.

  Instead of feeling the General’s narrow thoughts he felt the vast expanses of another mind, and he registered both who and what this being was.

  He could see through the scryer, and also feel, the enriched purity flowing from the exquisite woman holding the globe. It filtered through his own globe, filling the stone chamber with a brilliant white radiance along with his own red illumination.

  He had not felt anyone so powerful since before he had culled the Larnaeradee, and even then such magic had never existed.

  Darziates looked beyond her to see his own mortal soldiers standing enraptured. Somehow this woman, this enigma, and her companions had bested over a hundred of his men.

  Kiana. Her name was Kiana.

  Yes … though she seemed to be like a mortal at the moment, she had confounded his men. And when he finally forced his will over hers, the contact of such opposing energy against his own sent pulsating, almost nauseating waves of glorious, prickling, spasming torment across his skin and into his core.

  It was ironic, and perhaps fateful, that he should suddenly covet one of pure magic such as her, when his life Quest had involved eradicating all others of her kind.

  But if she was descended from the Larnaeradee, and if he could corrupt her as she realised her power, she could be the woman he needed for himself and for his cause.

  She must have been saved from his slaughtering for a purpose.

  To be his.

  He saw Agrudek amongst the crowd – which was perhaps grand design again too.

  Darziates lost the vision of the scene as, repulsed, Kiana pushed the scryer into its case. ‘Engrark,’ he repeated, thoughtful, and more energised than before.

  He tossed the scryer into the air and it disappeared as if it had never been, with hot desert sunlight replacing the red illumination within the stone room.

  Oddly optimistic, Darziates turned his thoughts to Lixrax once more and pooled his power, focusing on penetrating this realm to allow himself access to the next. With a burst he was skimming half through the Other Realm, and half through what would be his own realm – warping across the wastelands toward the Lixrax Takal.

  In an instant the scorching desert had passed, and like a phantom he appeared out of thin air, standing calmly in front of the Emperor of Lixrax, Razek.

  Chapter Seventy Seven

  Razek was sitting in his golden, jewel encrusted throne, and his gleaming temple-like hall was filled with vibrant crowds of dark haired, bronze skinned citizens who had all just frozen in astonishment.

  Wide-eyed servants in loin cloths, rich men and women in gauzy garments littered with gold, and shrouded, dusty peasants all watched the Sorcere
r in stupefaction, their almond desert dweller eyes glittering.

  People who lounged on silk cushions had paused with food held halfway to their mouths, and even the musicians and the scantily clad dancers who had been whirling and jingling around the enormous crowd had stopped moving. Their bare stomachs were thrust forward, their tanned arms were held paused in the air and their painted eyes were astounded.

  “Razek,” Darziates said in the Lixrax tongue as the entire crowd shrank away from him. “You must speak with me.”

  Emperor Razek’s dark, creased face turned from Darziates, and then to the crowd.

  “You may talk to me, Sorcerer, but you may not harm my children. Let them leave.”

  “For now I have no interest in anyone but yourself,” the Sorcerer replied.

  Razek motioned with a hand to clear the room, and the crowd obeyed at once, rising from their feasts, from their instruments, or from their cushioned litters to quietly stream towards the arched doors. Hardly a sound rose from hundreds of tinkling, jewelled belts or moving feet.

  When the room was cleared, the great golden doors on both sides of the hall were closed, and Darziates was left with Razek and two advisors. Razek had even motioned for the oiled, muscled guards to leave, knowing that strength would not be enough against a Sorcerer.

  Darziates conjured his own steel throne, and with hardly a pause he was seated upon its towering magnificence, directly opposite the Emperor.

  Razek sat back in his golden throne, his bearded mouth forming a hard, fearless line.

  “What is it you have come for, Crishnarx?” the Emperor glowered, using the Lixrax word for a servant of the Demon King of the Other Realm.

  Darziates considered. “I assure you I am no servant. The Demon King works for me.”

  Razek swallowed, his mouth tightening into an even harder line.

  “And I have come for the ferocious battle skills of your armies,” Darziates continued.

  Razek clenched the arm rests of his throne. Lixrax was smaller in land and population than the other three Kingdoms of men, but its harsh surroundings, isolation and ancient practises of endurance meant that the warriors of Lixrax were highly skilled, and could survive the most brutal of conditions. But citizens of Lixrax were not warlike. They were simply survivors.

  “We want no part in your conflict with Awyalkna,” spat Razek. “And we have no alliances binding us to the likes of you.”

  Darziates was impassive. “You were allied with Krall the moment I decided it.”

  Razek fought to maintain calm. “Lixrax has never made any binding pacts with Krall, not even in the ancient war between Deimos, Awyalkna and the Army for the World. We have no obligations and you have no need to be here Larza Ez.” Evil One.

  Razek’s knuckles turned white as his hands tightened over the golden throne arms. “I know my history.”

  Razek and his people had a long memory. Unlike the other mortal races, the people of Lixrax did not believe that the ancient tales of a magical army, or of the existence of magical beings at all, were only myth. The desert dwellers remembered through the ages and still believed the truth.

  “Alas for Deimos,” Darziates agreed. “That he did not conscript the Lixrax fighters. But this is to be more than just a war between Awyalkna and Krall. This is much greater than any of that. Once I have conquered Awyalkna I will conquer Jenra. And then …”

  “Lixrax!” Razek’s eyes were wide.

  “Yes. I will be King of the mortal lands. And then I will cross the seas and claim every other race and land as my own so that I can be ultimate King.”

  “So it is greed and ambition that rules you. You’re just a tyrant craving more,” Razek glowered contemptuously.

  “No,” Darziates told him calmly. “It seems you don’t remember all of your history.” And out of nowhere the Sorcerer allowed the image of a woman to manifest in the air between them.

  Razek and his advisors jumped, thinking that the feared Witch had appeared, but then Razek frowned in realisation.

  The woman’s image wavered like a dream, but her impression was inked carefully across the pages of many historical scrolls in Lixrax, and Razek knew her. She was the auburn haired, green eyed Lady of the Forest. The guide of Nature sent to the world at the beginning of time to watch over life.

  “Our great Mother …” Razek breathed in wonder.

  “This is a memory of her, given to me and stored in my mind for eternity,” Darziates replied, and as Razek watched her, the Lady spoke.

  “At the beginning of time, as I journeyed to earth, I carried with me the knowledge and will of the Gods. I held in my hands two prophecies that would reveal themselves to me upon my arrival into the new world. The first prophecy was revealed only moments after my arrival, and the voices of the Gods warned that the world’s races would become separate through the ages. The prophecy also told of a deadly threat being born into the world at the end of the ninth age. The voices of the Gods said that the world and her many races must be united once more to survive the threat. If the world does not unite before the beginning of the tenth age, and the threat is able to succeed, the world will be destroyed in a storm of ice and fire. The voices of the Gods ended there, the prophecy laid quiet in my hand and the second did not reveal itself. Remembering the warnings I have travelled far and wide to spread them, telling all of the prophecy so that in thousands of years the world will be ready, and can be saved …”

  The image of the Lady faded to nothingness and Razek stared at the empty space while his two advisors looked as if they were fighting hysteria.

  “How could nobody know of these prophecies? This threat? Why has nothing been done?” Razek demanded, his thick black eyebrows drawing together in alarm.

  “The magical and human races chose to do nothing, and drifted apart despite her warnings,” the Sorcerer replied. “Each civilisation instead became more involved in their own affairs, and before now only Deimos has ever made an effort to conquer and unite each race against the threat.”

  Razek gazed at Darziates in disbelief as he perceived the Sorcerer’s meaning.

  “I have taken up Deimos’ cause to unite the world against the unknown threat, and plan to rid the world of its divisions,” Darziates affirmed Razek’s suspicions. “By giving the world one King, one Kingdom for all races, the world may survive.”

  The tattooed markings over Razek’s crinkled brow stood out as his skin paled. “You believe that Deimos, who sought to subdue all in a blanket of terror, hunger and injustice … was heroic?” Razek choked.

  Darziates inclined his head a fraction. “The ignorance and selfishness of those who stopped Deimos meant our world continued to spiral towards this unknown destruction. Deimos simply used the help of darker powers and passions to break through his human barriers, changing the very fabric of his being and the essence of life in his blood and bloodline. He did all in his power, no matter the cost, to save the world. I am of his line, and must continue his Quest.”

  “How do you know all of this to be true? It was generations ago!” Razek exclaimed while his attendants hovered, pale faced, behind his chair.

  Darziates let his cold stare pierce the strong Emperor’s deep gaze. “Because the memory that I showed you is generations old. It has been passed along my bloodline, always shared from father to son so that each son could remember his true identity and purpose.”

  Razek felt growing despair as he beheld the impartial face of the being in front of him. Darziates was just a ghoul ruled by the dark, with none of the human flaws or beauties that his flesh suggested he should have.

  “You cannot be sure that you act correctly in conquering every race, and Lixrax will take no part in it,” Razek spoke at last. “There may be a threat. But destruction in the name of survival cannot be the answer.”

  Darziates’ brow lifted slightly. The two advisors huddled even closer to the throne.

  “The words of a mortal such as you, who will be old and returned to dust befor
e I can blink, will do nothing to change what I have decided.”

  “Perhaps, like last time, there will be an Army for the World to stand against your cruelty,” Razek answered resolutely. “The cost of you being our saviour may not be worth the end result, if all that is left is a miserable world and barren lands ruined by your magic.”

  Darziates was motionless for a moment.

  “Did you know, Razek,” Darziates said at last, speaking dangerously slowly, “that the ninth age is already waning?” his voice was low. “I have already dealt with any that could challenge my Quest in these lands. Those who sabotaged Deimos’ efforts. And no power has ever been stronger than mine. All who have been tested against it have failed.”

  With Kiana at the back of his mind, Darziates created a blur of images and memories for the Emperor again.

  The mortified Emperor and his advisors saw a stream of visions of what could only be poisoned Unicorns, rearing frantically as purple feather lines were spreading across their gleaming coats and dark, frothy bile streamed from their snouts. On the ground they writhed and kicked until their chests heaved no more.

  “Stop!” Razek cried hopelessly.

  But Darziates pushed on ruthlessly. He showed them flashes of hundreds of his mass slaughters of the Unicorns, and then he showed the bodies of multitudes of Larnaeradee, who looked like people, only, somehow more than that.

  In flashes Razek and his advisors saw countless beautiful creatures crushed before their eyes – victims of Sorcery. Creatures of the lands and seas, some big and some impossibly small.

  When the dead faces, the screams, the horror of the memories faded, Razek had tears burning upon his fierce, tattooed cheeks. His advisors were crouching on the floor, shuddering.

  “Arvix rux Larza!” Razek spat at Darziates.

  “Yes.” Darziates replied. “I am ‘King of Evil’. In the name of my Quest.”

  “Never will I sacrifice my children for you. These are the children of Lixrax. Men of honour. They will not die for a Demon. A shadow of a human’s glory.”