Kelven's Riddle Book Two

by Daniel Hylton

  “I have never run from an enemy, Lord Aram.”

  “I know that, Thaniel, and I am sorry. You are the bravest warrior I have ever known. But we have been fooled, and now we must return the favor.”

  The horse fixed him with his large eyes. “What are you going to do, my lord?”

  Aram shook his head, giving no answer. “Go, Thaniel. Go now. They will move upon us at any moment. Please – go.”

  Thaniel stared at him as the minutes stretched out. Aram gazed back in silence. Finally, the great horse shifted his weight, angry and frustrated, but compliant. “Do not die, Aram, my friend.”

  Aram shook his head again. “I will not die. When our people are safe – and you can – come back for me.”

  Thaniel gazed at him a moment longer, and then turned and charged back up the slope. Aram watched him until he rejoined the pitiful, small line of men and horses and wolves; then he pivoted to face Manon’s army. Deliberately drawing the sword of heaven, he held it straight out in front of him, pointing toward the foe. The sun was down in the west, just above the bank of fog, and the sword naturally pulled in that direction; it required no effort to wield it.

  Flame began to twirl up and down the length of the gleaming metal and he heard, as if coming from far away, the high-pitched sound of its song.

  There was a tingling along his shoulders, and though they did not appear, he felt the presence of the Guardians. Their voices came, like soft, echoed thunder.

  “For all its power, that sword cannot protect you from this host, Aram. There are too many.”

  “I know, my lords.”

  There was silence for a moment, and then the quiet thunder sounded again. “We listened to your conversation with the horse, and we agree with him. You must turn away. We also cannot protect you against this host.”

  “Where will I go?” Aram asked bitterly. “They will follow me to the very home of the one I love. No, my lords, this doom cannot be escaped. I must face it here.”

  “As long as there is life, Aram, there is hope. There is only death here.”

  Aram didn’t move. Below him, the army of Manon did begin to move, marching up the slope, the tramping of thousands of boots and clawed feet seeming to trample down and rend the very fabric of the earth.

  Aram watched them come. “My lords – I cannot command you – this is so, is it not?”

  “You may not.”

  “Do you command me?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, as if they struggled to grasp the essence of his unknown intentions, and then – “No.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “We will do what we can, but we cannot provide ultimate protection from this host. There are too many,” they repeated, as if they thought that he did not truly understand the peril.

  Aram thought about it a moment. “My lords – are you in any danger?”

  “No. There is no threat to us. But you are in very great danger.”

  Aram answered grimly. “My people are in greater danger.”

  “That is perhaps undeniable. Still, you should not die here today.”

  “I don’t intend to die, my lords.”

  The Guardians fell silent but their confusion was palpable.

  As the army gained ground, rising up the slope toward him, the front ranks began to move faster, those out on the wings moving fastest, slowly forming an eager crescent with him at its center. The man their master had sent them to kill was offering himself up. It appeared as if he meant to fight them alone. Many of them would die – they knew that from prior experience with this man. But today would be his last day upon the earth. Within a month of his death, his head would be presented in triumph at the end of a pike to the grim lord of the tower.

  When the army had closed to within fifty yards or so, the lashers and the gray men in the front ranks running now, the rhythmic pounding of their feet making the mountain tremble, the archers far in the rear stopped and took aim, releasing a storm of arrows, rising like a dark, narrowing cloud, converging upon the lone man atop the rocky rise.

  The Guardians went to work, and the sword of heaven came to life also. As the dark storm of arrows fell from the sky, they were reduced to ash, and fell about him in an enormous cloud of black dust.

  The front ranks of the army did not hesitate. This man’s peculiar magic had been seen before. But he was alone and they were many. The magic could not save him from their overwhelming numbers. This time he would die.

  “Aram.” The Guardians’ voices were heavy with anxiety. “What do you mean to do? You should run – we will aid your escape.”

  Aram’s breath was coming quick and fast in the face of his onrushing enemies, but he answered deliberately. “I will not run.”

  “When you die, we must take the sword.”

  “I know – but not until I die.” He answered, fiercely. “You cannot take it until I am dead.”

  “So you mean to die?”

  “I hope not.”

  The front ranks were within twenty yards of him, coming hard up the slope; he could see the eagerness in their eyes. Their prey was within reach.

  He drew in a deep breath, grasped the sword in both hands, leaned forward and drove it into the ground, a split second ahead of the Guardians —

  “NO!.”

  “Aram,” they thundered, “you must remove the sword from the earth. You cannot do this.”

  “I have done it.” He answered, gritting his teeth against the trembling, bucking ground. “You cannot command me, my lords. And you cannot take the sword until I am dead.”

  The earth groaned in its agony. Deep underground, far down in the depths of the realm of Ferros, something enormous moved and fractured. The ground around him boiled and smoked, and became fluid.

  Manon’s soldiers began to go down, unable to keep their balance on the shaking earth. With a thunderous crack! the mountain split open along the spine of ancient lava, burning rock poured from the earth, spilling down the slope, scything through the massed host of Manon’s forces. Those that could, attempted to turn and flee, but the mountain was shaking in the throes of a mighty earthquake. Molten rock spewed outward and shot into the air. The mountainside split along the tangent of the rocky spine; magma came forth and flowed down the slope in an unstoppable, ever-widening river of fire. Manon’s army ran in confused terror, but rank by rank, the molten rock caught them and reduced them to ash.

  Aram moved up the slope as the rock crumbled away beneath his feet, trying not to sink into the suddenly liquid earth, but the force of the eruption sent magma both ways, up the slope as well as down. Within moments, he found himself swimming in lava. Very quickly, his suit of armor from the mountain of Kelven began to succumb to the terrible heat. The immensely high temperatures of burning rock began to find his flesh, and hideous pain came with it.

  He lifted the sword, holding it above his head and splashed at the fluid rock with his free hand, in an attempt to keep his head above the surface. His effort to stop Manon’s army accomplished, he kept the sword aloft, holding it above the earth with one hand while trying to push his body free of the lava with the other. But he was swimming against a swirling, implacable current of molten rock.

  The suit of armor failed incrementally, gradually succumbing to the vicious heat. Instinctively, blinded by smoke, fumes, and pain, Aram twisted his body uphill and tried desperately to swim free of the lava. Though the sword was no longer imbedded in the ground – he continued to hold it over his head with a trembling arm – the earth had sustained injury and continued to vomit burning rock.

  He found an eddy in the current and for just a moment, his feet found purchase. Blindly, half stumbling in the viscous rock, half swimming, he kept struggling up the slope, aided by the backwash, and finally he felt firmer rock beneath his feet and he climbed upward, out of the fiery liquid mess. Then, all at once, he came out of the lava and stepped onto firmer ground above the level of the rocky spine. He could see no more than a few feet to his
front; an unnatural darkness, separate from the smoke and ash of the eruption, closed in upon him. The pain and heat had begun to overwhelm his senses.

  As he stumbled upward, away from the yawning gap in the earth behind him, holding the sword over his head like a standard, he found that he was still wreathed in flames of fire. Crackling and smoking, they rose up around him as he walked. He understood; the heat from his armor was setting the dry grass of the hillside aflame. The armor was at the edge of complete failure; when it failed, he was doomed. Maybe, he already was.

  Groping behind his back as he stumbled up the slope, he found the sword’s sheath and slipped it around to his front. With his last clear thought, he blindly but carefully aimed the sword into its sheath and slid it home. Then he went on, unable to see at all now, feeling for the angle of the ground with his feet.

  The world had gone dark; sight had abandoned him. He knew that it was not the smoke from the lava or the burning grass; his eyes had failed. Behind him the air was full of the sounds of the earth’s fury and the screams of his dying enemies; the air was rent by the sound of their torment. That which he had intended was accomplished. Blindly, clutching the sheathed sword, he stumbled on, but the heat and the pain numbed his mind, reaching out with dark fingers to snuff out the flame of his life.

  Darkness yawned suddenly beneath his feet. He did not know how it had come to be or what had caused it; but there was an abyss. He could not see the earth around him but he could see the darkness below. Utterly blind, he gazed into a chasm. It was blacker than night, and there was a spirit down there in the dark, wanting him.

  Death. The relentless hunter.

  He could sense that it reached up to him, urged him to let go and slip downward. And then, as he swayed, stumbling, upon the lip of the chasm, darkness spilled upward, out of the abyss, and spread out like the blossoming of an evil flower; it went even blacker everywhere, the world went absolutely dark. Except for the ability to feel pain, all senses had failed. His skull was like a pot suspended over a fire, cooking his brain.

  He trembled on the edge of the precipice. Death lay below him, flaming magma behind, there was no going back. In blind uncertainty, wreathed in heat and pain, longing for the cooling embrace of the dark spirit and the cessation of suffering, something nagged at him. His mind was too overcome by the terrible heat to grasp the thought of why he should resist the lure of the darkness, yet he knew with perhaps the last lucid function of his failing brain that there was a reason.

  He became aware that someone was speaking near him; he could hear voices like soft thunder, echoing as if from the depths of a well.

  “He is dying – he burns.”

  Another voice came, singular, deep, ancient, sounding as if it originated in the vast halls of space and time. “Fear not. Behold; the rain comes.”

  In the darkness that surrounded him, Aram heard the tumult of thousands of small hisses, like water falling on hot rock. Then, even in his debilitated state, he felt the heat lessen. Despite that, the pain grew.

  The soft thunder of the echoed voices spoke once more. “It has gone too far, Most Ancient One. We did not discern his intent – there was no time to make a shield and protect him. His life fails, he is beyond our aid. You must help him.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, the universe fell silent for a heartbeat, and then the deeper voice sounded again from the distant vaults of eternity.

  “I will help him.”

  In that moment of hesitation, Aram’s will gave way; the terrible pain could no longer be managed. The tenuous flame of his life force guttered at the edge of extinction.

  With the words of the ancient voice echoing in his dying brain, he slipped off the precipice and fell into darkness.

  End Book Two