by Pedro Urvi
“We must protect ourselves!” Komir warned the Bearers.
“How?” Iruki asked. “Haradin is unconscious, we can’t count on his help.”
“That blasphemy mustn’t be allowed to reach us,” Aliana said. She was bent almost double. “I can feel its power.”
“I have an idea!” Sonea cried. She held her hands out to Komir and Asti. They took them. Komir in turn held his other hand out to Iruki, who took it and did the same with Aliana. The five Bearers, united, closed their eyes and concentrated. “Trust me!” cried the little librarian.
The fog kept coming.
“Concentrate on protecting ourselves!”
The fog advanced undiminished, covering everything. When it was within ten paces of the five Bearers, the Norriel began to curse and step back.
“Nobody move!” Gerart ordered, aware that the Bearers were trying to create a protection. “Hurry up, it’s almost on us!”
“The Light will protect us with its grace!” Lindaro cried. “Stand firm, defenders of Good, we shall fight evil until the end!”
The fog stopped a few paces from Komir. The medallions of the five Bearers shone simultaneously, and a protective blue ring rose around defenders, Bearers, Norriel and Rogdonians. The fog tried to reach Komir, but hit the ring once, then a second time, like a sentient being trying to penetrate the defensive barrier in order to feed on the living beings behind it. Failing in its attempt, it tried to find a way around it, looking for new prey. Behind the Bearers, the Norriel and the Rogdonian soldiers withdrew in terror as they saw the sea of blood approaching them.
“Everybody stay where they are!” Komir shouted. “No one must leave the ring!”
But the frightened soldiers did not seem to understand what he was saying.
“They can’t see the ring, Komir, they don’t have the Gift!” Sonea cried.
Then he understood. “Come back, all of you!” he shouted. He pointed to the center of the protective ring. “Quick! Here!”
Gudin pointed to the same spot. “Do what he says!” he ordered them.
The fog circled the ring, expanding around it. Komir saw despairingly that several men, confused by what was happening, had not followed his instructions. The blood-fog reached them. The cries of pain and suffering were heartbreaking. Their bodies were enveloped and devoured alive; all flesh and muscle vanished from their bodies and the skeletons of the unfortunate men tumbled to the ground, to disappear under the cloak of death which kept on its way.
“Damned magic!” Hartz cried at the top of his voice.
At this horrible sight everybody pushed their way to the center, while the fog surrounded them completely. They were an island in the middle of a bloody sea which was seeking to eat them alive.
Komir was looking around him uneasily. What does this Sorceress want to do? She has us surrounded, we can’t escape. I don’t know what she’s up to, but I must stop her any way I can or else she’ll kill us all. He watched her for a moment: haughty, cold, lethal. She killed my parents, and she’ll do the same to all of us and the innocents hiding in the upper part of the city. I have to stop her, I have to stop this sea of death around us.
His eyes turned to the Bearers, his friends and companions; he would not let her harm them.
No.
He would stop her.
As if she could read his mind, the Dark Lady turned to him.
“Your magic can do nothing against me. You will all die. I shall take your guts out and eat your hearts while they are still beating.”
And she began to work magic.
Komir could feel the power of the Sorceress. It was so strong that the dark sky fell on them like the greatest of all curses, while at the same time the ground shook under their feet, corrupted by the red essence of death. They held fast to each other as best they could, while heaven and earth fell upon them and engulfed everything in a gloom of death and abandonment.
The fog began to change color. The blood began to rot, turning brown, darker and gloomier with every moment. Before their eyes it turned completely black, a black as dark as a bottomless pit. A viscous, corrosive black, a black of pure emptiness.
The Dark Lady made a series of gestures with her arms, infusing the black tide which surrounded them with power. Nobody spoke, or even dared to breathe. They were trapped, and the situation was growing worse.
All of a sudden the Dark Lady stopped conjuring and lowered her arms. She smiled sardonically, and her eyes shone.
The hair on the back of Komir’s neck stood on end. He knew that something truly terrifying was about to happen.
And from the fog.
The dead arose.
Before the astonished eyes of all, the thousands of soldiers who lay dead beneath the fog began to rise, infused with a corrupt life-in-death.
“By the Light!” Lindaro cried.
“It’s… impossible…” Aliana said.
“The dead… coming back to life…” Iruki muttered.
Asti was shaking her head, trying to reject what she was seeing. “Dead!” she cried. “They be dead!”
“It’s Necromancy,” Sonea explained. “It’s the most powerful death magic. Mages who are capable of raising the dead to fight for them and commit unspeakable horrors.”
“You damned Sorceress!” Hartz roared.
The corpses were rising, marked with tremendous burns and deformities. Many were no more than bones with rags of flesh hanging from them.
Asti covered her mouth to hold back her nausea. Aliana shivered and put her arms round her shoulders.
Komir shook his head. “That woman’s power is awesome. How was she able to do something like that?”
Gerart was turning from side to side with the look of someone in the midst of a nightmare. “What can we do?” he asked.
“There are thousands of them,” Gudin said. “She’s raised the whole black army!”
“Let them come!” Hartz cried. He drew his sword and joined the Warrior Master. “We’ll finish them off, all of them. Won’t we, warriors? Who’s with me? Who?” shouted the big Norriel, seeking to cheer his fellow countrymen.
A brief silence followed his words. Gudin was the first to break it.
“I’m with you, warrior. We’ll finish them off!”
Hartz smiled at his master, and all the Norriel roared their war-cries.
“Norriel we are, and Norriel we shall die!” Hartz cried.
The Norriel responded as one: “Norriel we are, and Norriel we shall die!”
Komir felt goose-flesh all over him. And his heart filled with pride at his countrymen’s courage.
Gerart looked at his downhearted men. “Never will it be said of this day that the Rogdonians abandoned the Norriel at the last moment! Isn’t that so?” The King looked at them again and repeated the question. “Isn’t that so?” And the Rogdonians burst into shouts.
“Never!”
“For Rogdon!” cried the King.
“For Rogdon!” came the answer from his men.
Komir’s eyes were on the brave survivors, but he knew they would not survive that host of living-dead which was already upon them. There were thousands of them, mindless empty-eyed brutes, marching clumsily forwards, driven by a hunger for living flesh.
And they themselves were so few…
“Form into a circle!” Gudin ordered.
Gerart went to stand beside him. “They’d better not break it, or else we’re doomed!” shouted the King.
Rogdonians and Norriel followed the order and formed a defensive circle as unbreakable as they could. The first living-dead reached them a moment later. The swords struck and cut the fleshless bodies, while the charred faces grunted horribly and searched avidly for the defenders’ flesh. They felt no pain, nor did cuts and thrusts affect them. Several defenders fell in vain, their own flesh torn off in gobbets.
“Their heads!” Lindaro cried. “Cut their heads off!”
Hartz heard the man of faith and spun his great Ilenian sword
. He decapitated several monsters, which immediately fell to the ground.
“Now this is more like it!” he cried exultantly.
“Hack them to pieces! Norriel we are!” Gudin cried as he hacked several of the monsters to pieces.
But the avalanche of revived corpses was too great for them to hold back, and Komir knew it. I must do something now or we’ll all perish! They won’t be able to hold for long, he thought, and looked towards the Dark Lady. The fog emanated from her body as if she were a goddess from beyond, from a bottomless abyss of death and degradation, and her body an inexhaustible source. With arms outspread, she infused a corrupt death into the black fog which sustained the army of living-dead.
“I must put an end to her,” he told Aliana. “It’s the only way, or else we’ll be devoured by these monsters.”
Aliana looked into his eyes and nodded.
“We’re with you, Komir,” Sonea said.
“Let’s kill that witch,” Iruki said, her eyes filled with hatred. “Her abominations killed my Yakumo.”
Asti nodded. “Kill,” she said. “For Kendas!”
Komir made his way to the edge of the defensive ring and faced the Dark Lady in the distance. Between them spread a host of walking corpses. He closed his eyes. The moment has arrived. My Destiny awaits me. I shall not fear. He concentrated on his inner energy and searched for it, with his eyes fixed on the Dark Lady. He touched the medallion of Ether. You came to me for a reason, a reason which has something to do with my Destiny. Now I know. And that is why I am ordering you to serve my will and destroy my enemy. Clear me a path to her.
The Ilenian medallion gave off a brief translucent flash in reply. The strange Ilenian symbols began to fill Komir’s mind, and he felt the medallion draw on his inner strength. One of the living-dead lunged at him, its rotting arms seeking his neck. Komir swallowed. Yet he did not move, for the spell was not yet finished. The bony fingers grazed his throat, and fear took hold of him. A Norriel warrior made his way to his side and cut off both the corpse’s arms with a single stroke. With a second he decapitated the roaring monster. Komir sighed with relief. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at the warrior in gratitude. It was Hartz. The big Norriel winked at him and went on hacking living-dead bodies. The last Ilenian rune filled Komir’s mind with its brilliance and exploded in a tremendous explosion of energy. This in turn precipitated a giant wave of energy, which swept through everything in front of him. The corpses were thrown into the air as the arcane energy struck them. The sea of living-dead split in two, creating a way through to the Dark Lady.
“Follow me,” Komir said to his companions, and walked on.
The Bearers followed resolutely in his steps.
The living-dead, amid voracious roars, tried to hurl themselves at the group, but the ethereal energy which had cleared the way would not let them. Instead it formed itself into a containing wall of high waves along the passage. Komir did not know how long this would last, but he decided not to think about it. They were going into the wolf’s den, and return was no longer possible.
A few steps from the Dark Lady, he stopped.
The Dark Lady’s thin lips twisted into a cruel smile. She fixed her black eyes on him and said:
“The Marked, at last. It is time to die.”
Destiny awaits
Komir studied her carefully, ignoring the Sorcerer beside her and the Guard of Honor which protected her. Seeing her from so close at hand he was able to appreciate the totality of that woman’s unequaled beauty: a savage beauty, lethal, which awed him. Her maleficent aura barely allowed him to breathe in her presence. His stomach, though, warned him with a terrible emptiness that she was as deadly as she was beautiful. She oozed power and death equally. The aura around her was heartbreaking, a poison for the soul. In one hand she carried a silver ceremonial axe encrusted with jewels and in the other, which was gloved, a sinister crystal skull.
Komir felt a shiver run down his back. She’s a terrifying creature. She’s raised an army of living-dead. Thousands of them. By herself. How could she do anything like that? The Power needed for such a spell must be incredible. I feel weak at the knees just thinking about it. How can we defeat someone like this? How are we going to come out of here alive? She’s too powerful and without Haradin we haven’t even got a drop of the ocean of Power she has. Then he remembered this was his final Destiny, just as Amtoko had predicted. I must stand firm so that she doesn’t see my fear. I have to confront her, however impossible defeating her might seem, however impossible coming out of this alive might seem.
He glanced right and left and said to his companions in a whisper:
“Get ready. Prepare the medallions.” He saw the doubt in Asti’s and Sonea’s eyes. “Don’t doubt yourselves, you can do it, I know. I trust you. Concentrate, focus and convey your will to the medallions. They’ll respond to their Bearer’s will. Don’t hesitate, trust yourselves. We must fight, regardless of how remote the chance of victory. We’ve been through a lot to get here, and now it all makes sense. My friends, we’re here to bring this evil to an end, and her with it.”
He looked at the Dark Lady and stepped forward defiantly.
She fixed her deadly eyes on Komir.
She pointed the silver axe at him. “The Marked, at last,” she said in a velvet voice.
“The Dark Lady,” Komir said, hiding the mixture of fear and hate which was eating away at his stomach. He felt the emptiness widen, spread to his soul, filling him with desolation, but he held fast. He drew on his hatred. He had finally come within reach of his justice, she was within reach of his hand. He was in the presence of the woman who had pursued him since he was a baby, the one who had murdered his parents… hatred began to boil in his guts.
“My name is Yuzumi. It would not be polite to kill you without having first introduced myself.”
He kept up his poise in spite of the fear he felt. “I’m Komir. And I’m not going to let you kill me, nor anyone else,” he said,
“Long have I searched for you…” she said. There was a macabre smile under her slanted black eyes.
Komir spread his arms wide. “Here I am. I’m not afraid of you.”
“One of us has to die here today. So it is written. My faithful Isuzeni can confirm it.”
The Sorcerer standing beside the Dark Lady, bowed elaborately:
“So it is written and so shall it come to pass. You will die today, Marked.”
“That remains to be seen,” Komir replied defiantly, tensing his muscles to avoid trembling.
Isuzeni smiled ironically. “Oh you shall see it, rest assured of that. Many years have I longed to see that pale face, the face which always eluded us, and here at last I behold it. I expected something else, it is nothing out of the ordinary.” He grimaced in disgust. “Just another savage, with a common look.” He tilted his head to observe him. “The Premonition did not show us his face, and now I understand why. It is a disappointment. Is it truly the one, my Lady?”
“It is, I have no doubt,” the Dark Lady said. “I know his essence well, it reaches me clearly and unmistakably. It is him. At last, in flesh and blood, here before me.”
Isuzeni nodded. “Now we can put a face to him” ‒ he raised his chin and narrowed his eyes ‒ “and kill him.”
Komir turned to Yuzumi, trying to keep his voice steady. “Why do you pursue me? Why do you want my death?”
“Because it is either your life or mine.”
“Because of a Premonition?” Komir asked in disbelief.
“Yes, because of a Premonition which has tortured me for most of my life.” Yuzumi showed him the Skull of Destiny in her hand. “Because of it, and because of the Oracle’s vision of my twin destinies.”
“The Marked shall die and the Destiny of Glory shall be fulfilled,” Isuzeni said as if pronouncing a death sentence.
“You’ve been chasing after me all these years because of a Premonition? You killed my parents because of a Premonition?” Komir fel
t rage burning inside him.
Yuzumi gave him a disdainful look. “I killed your parents, both blood and adoptive, and countless more, to avoid the Premonition. All of you here today ‒ you, your companions, the warriors and soldiers fighting the not-dead, the Rogdonians in their ruined city ‒ you will all die because of the Premonition, for it cannot be fulfilled and of that I shall make sure by eradicating the last and remotest possibility. Today I shall hold your heart, still beating, in the palm of my hand, and devour it. Then I shall lay waste to everything the eye can see, and nothing will remain. Nothing and no-one. I shall attain my Destiny of Glory.”
At these words Komir’s rage turned to wrath, because he knew that she would kill them all.
“You killed my parents!” he accused her.
Yuzumi laughed. “And while I was looking for you I also killed the parents of those who were like you, the ones with a powerful Gift. Because I was looking for you and could not find you and I was not going to run any risk.”
“You’ll pay for all those deaths! And you’ll pay for the death of Mirta and Ulis!”
The Dark Lady bent her head in amusement. “Go ahead, Marked, nothing prevents you from killing me now. Come on.” She gave him a sinister grin, knowing he could do nothing against her.
Komir felt wrath erupt inside him like a volcano. He clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. With all his being he wished to kill this woman. She deserved to die, she had just confessed without flinching, boasting and laughing, to the murder of his loved ones and of many other people. She deserved to die, and he would deliver the punishment. He just had to give an order to his medallion, or bring out his sword and knife and lunge at her. She was right there, so near, within reach of his hand… he was going to do it… he needed to do it… for his father… for everyone… But something inside him made him stop and think it over. He breathed out hard, letting all his wrath out along with the air, managed to calm down a little and fought to quell his rage. This was not how to do it. He could not endanger Aliana, Hartz, all of them, just to satisfy his thirst for revenge, no matter how well deserved it might be. He could certainly not risk the lives of his friends, of the brave warriors and soldiers who were fighting with body and soul…