Battle Born

by K L Reinhart

  Someone signaling, Terak thought. But who to? He scanned the horizon, but there were no other flashes of sharp light. He wondered if it was some coded messaging system for the Enclave-External. After all, Father Jacques already used messenger finches to deliver his tiny written notes to his novitiates and journeymen, didn’t he?

  Whatever the source of the light was, or the reason behind the strange signaling in the middle of the night, Terak had no idea.

  And I still have to get down from this tower unseen and back to my rooms behind the walls for my next lesson! The elf thought. He put the strange lights out of his mind as he started to drag and loop the heavy rope back up the tower wall.

  He hadn’t gotten very far however, when a whole lot of lights came on. This time, they weren’t on the ground.

  They were in the sky.

  2

  Falan Brecha

  “Holy Stars . . .” Terak breathed at what looked to be a new constellation being born in the stormy skies above the Black Keep.

  Stormy skies, he thought. That meant overcast skies. No constellations and neither First nor Second Moon. The sky should be as pitch as the waters of Mourn Lake that lay under the cliffs on which the Keep sat.

  “Then what in all the infernal Ungol am I looking at?” The elf was frozen in place, looking up at the north-eastern skies.

  The ruddy orange lights wavered and misted as they shined through the wreaths of heavy storm clouds. Terak saw at least three, almost in a row. Then some trick of the weather showed that they were just the first three in a row. The lights got progressively smaller and dimmer the further back and up they curved.

  With the training of a novitiate of the Enclave-External, he counted the lights quickly. At least eight of them, larger at the front, dimmer at the back, curving upward in a broad bend.

  Some new type of creature! Icy shock trickled down the elf’s spine. A spirit or creature of the Ungol. It wasn’t anything that he had ever studied or read about in the Chief Martial’s training bestiaries.

  Did it make its way through the Blood Gate? the elf wondered. He didn’t know where the Blood Gate even was, but hadn’t the Chief External, Father Jacques, told him that it was full of strange and nightmarish beings?

  There was a glimmer as another row of lights, dimmer and smaller, suddenly appeared below the first as if a veil had been ripped away from the creature’s bulk.

  Like shedding a skin, the elf shivered.

  “Novitiate!”

  Terak jumped, dropping the rope. He turned as a black-clad man burst into the room. The elf had been so entranced, horrified, and amazed by what he saw in the sky that he hadn’t heard the Chief External charging up the stairs.

  But then again, the Chief was very good at being quiet, the elf knew. Even in an apparent emergency. Which this surely counted as.

  “Get that rope. Quickly!” The face of Father Jacques was tight, his dark eyes fierce and his mouth small.

  Terak’s hands reacted instinctively to follow the man’s orders. In the last six months, the two had become a tight unit of mentor and pupil. But that didn’t stop the elf from asking, “Sir, what is it?”

  “That, Novitiate, is the airship of the Lord General, ruler of the entire kingdom of Brecha,” the Chief External said grimly, as the last of the storm clouds parted from under the ship’s hull.

  It is a ship, alright, Terak saw. He had never before seen one in real life, just as he had never seen the ocean.

  But a ship was a ship was a ship, his common sense told him—even hovering almost a hundred feet up in the sky. Terak gazed at the large wooden planks of the thing’s hull, which was fat and heavy. It didn’t look as though it could ever go near the ground for fear of crushing under its own weight.

  The lines of light that Terak had seen earlier were in fact windows in the thing’s galleries—twin lines of small rounded portholes that stretched almost from the upward-pointing stern to the aft.

  It was huge. And something that large was clearly powered by magic—the very commodity that a null like Terak could never understand.

  The airship was easily the size of several of the Black Keep’s lesser halls stacked together. Then its height appeared to double as three sails shot upward into the stormy skies. Distantly, Terak heard the sound of burly, gruff human voices, carried to him on the wind.

  “Reef that mainsail!”

  “Stow that line!”

  “Keep her steady!”

  As Terak watched, the ghostly white sails raced upward and sideways, as the crew fought the Tartaruk storms. Terak realized that the airship also had side-sails which he had at first taken to be some kind of reefed cargo. Now, he understood it to be the same spines and sail canvas as that of the topsails.

  There was movement from along the airship’s hull, as double-bay doors opened. Out plummeted two giant objects like spearheads, only far, far bigger.

  Terak saw them hit the night-laden ground and heard the dull roar of their thumps. He imagined them sending up plumes of dirt and rock chips, as they hit home. Anchors, he thought. Those things must be anchors.

  The airship still bobbed and swayed in the storm winds. Terak watched as two more of the giant anchors were dropped, and the sky-boat, although still rocking, subdued its violent motion just a little.

  “Come on.” The Chief External cast a disappointed glance at all of the lanterns, lamp-oil, and spooled rope that Terak had so painstakingly risked life and limb in getting. “None of this matters now. Magister Inedi will be expecting us.”

  She will? Terak thought, glancing back at the airship. It lowered steadily to the gentler areas of rocky field and mountain slope to the east of the Black Keep, stopping but never actually touching the ground.

  There the airship sat in the night, pointing at them like an accusation. Or a challenge.

  “Chief,” the Magister of the Enclave didn’t bother to keep Father Jacques’s position at the Black Keep secret as she marched into the Lesser Hall.

  Inedi wasn’t a large woman, but she had a tight and constrained air of power. It radiated from her sunken eyes, made all the more prominent by her shaved head and ritual black robes.

  The reason for her indiscretion might have been the company that she was travelling with, Terak thought. On her right-hand side marched the barrel of a man known as Father Gourdain, the Chief Martial and head of all weapons training here at the keep. A little further back on her left stalked the tall and skeletal man who was Chief Hospitality. He oversaw all domestic duties for the sacred community. Behind them hurried a hunch-backed and white-bearded figure who made Terak’s lips curl in agitation.

  The Chief Arcanum, master of all lore and magical studies, and the one who had declared the elf a null.

  And who possibly tried to kill me, if I could believe the last, raving words of Big Mendes . . . Terak remembered. He tried to force the cat-like hiss back down his throat. The only saving grace that resulted from the Loranthian Scroll incident was the fact that Terak had been shuttled into Father Jacques’s care. He’d spent the winter and spring months closeted and hidden from the regular life of the Enclave, thus, not having to encounter the Chief Arcanum at all.

  The old man’s eyes caught Terak’s. The Chief Arcanum’s face twisted in a scowl of disgust. I am still everything you hate, aren’t I? Terak thought as he stood a little straighter beside his mentor, the Chief External. The thought that his very existence irked the horrible old man gave the elf some small pleasure. I’ll let you see me, old man. See that I exist and have a place here!

  In response, the Arcanum threw out his frail old hand dismissively to one side. Small sparks of fire and light kindled from his fingertips and flew to the wall sconces, which blossomed with flame, lighting the room.

  “Thank you, Chief Arcanum.” The Magister’s voice was dry, and Terak wondered if she was joking or not. The Lesser Hall was longer than it was tall, and it was a major conduit through the many complicated halls, wings, and stairwells of the Black
Keep. It was made of the same black Tartaruk stone that the outer walls were, laced with fine silver flecks of quartz-mica. Its roof struts were carved blocks of stone, vaguely reminiscent of the branches of a tree.

  “It’s Brecha,” Father Jacques announced, joining Magister Inedi as she kept on marching. Terak fell in on his left-hand side. Uncomfortably close to you, old man. Terak squinted at the Arcanum, who ignored him.

  “Of course it is,” the Magister snapped in her usual curt way. “Who else has an air galleon this far north? The real question is, why has the Lord General come to us?”

  “There can be only one reason for that, Magister,” Arcanum croaked heavily, earning a grunt of agreement from Chief Hospitality.

  “Yes, I fear the same.” Inedi set a furious pace as they reached the end of the Lesser Hall, which was occupied by a wide set of stairs leading up to the First Gallery. From there, double-doors opened to the Eastern Courtyard. “Somehow, word has reached the Lord General that we have the Loranthian Scroll,” she hissed indignantly, pausing on the stairs to scowl at Father Jacques, as if he was to blame.

  The Chief External at Terak’s side said nothing, which was customary for the dark-haired and dark-bearded man.

  The party reached the First Gallery just as the sound of rising, screeching horns hit them. Terak had never heard them before—the Wall Guards used the clatter and clash of gongs to alert the keep to trouble, not the screech of trumpet-horns.

  “Damn him,” the Magister muttered under her breath as she raised the palm of her hand for the main double doors to spring open of their own accord. Terak felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck with the surge of magic from the woman. Of course, he knew that she had magic—and that she must have prodigious amounts of it. If the Chief Arcanum was to be believed, then everyone in Midhara had some latent potential for magic.

  All apart from me, that is, Terak thought.

  But he had never seen it used so casually by anyone here at the Black Keep before. Was this what it was like out there in the “real” world of kingdoms, Lord Generals, and air galleons?

  “Hospitality? Make sure the acolytes and novitiates aren’t running around like headless chickens,” Inedi sighed. “And then—”

  “I’ll wake the house staff and get some state rooms ready, Magister,” Hospitality said smoothly as he stepped out from the group, already turning. “Will the Rose Hall be acceptable for a Lord General?”

  “He can stay in the Star’s damned kitchen midden-heap for all I care!” Inedi said, shocking Terak with her outrage. They swept through the open doors and into the Eastern Courtyard. Terak once again felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck as Inedi threw another overhand gesture. Suddenly all of the freezing rain and gales stopped around them. When the elf looked up, he could see the rain spattering a few feet above and around them, as if stopped by a giant invisible dome.

  She uses magic when she’s angry, the part of Terak’s mind that had been trained to be a secretive agent of the Enclave-External noted.

  The Eastern Courtyard was fairly small and led to the large gatehouse in the external walls. It was crowded with stone-built stables and storehouses, as this route led out to the scratchy, weather-beaten meadows tended by the Black Keep. The other Brothers and Sisters of the Enclave—all wearing their black robes—hurried back and forth to the walls. Guttering torches were being lit all along the high walls, and Terak could see the small forms of the Wall Guards taking their positions.

  “Someone tell them to stand down,” Inedi sighed, slowing her pace until she stopped in the center of the Eastern Courtyard before the doors. “We don’t want to start a bloody civil war.”

  “Magister.” The Chief Martial obeyed, breaking away from the group to hurry to the stairs, where he immediately started barking orders in his bulldog-voice.

  “Weapons a-bed! Ceremonial Guard!” Terak heard him yell the different sorts of orders and movements that the Wall Guard had been trained in. Terak had been denied his right to continue learning under the Chief Martial, so he had no idea what Gourdain meant. But he observed that those on the top suddenly stood taller, straightened their robes, and tugged their small, metal-studded caps into smarter positions.

  The screech of trumpets was coming from the other side of the wall, which Terak assumed must be from the air galleon. And they were getting louder and closer.

  The Magister Inedi gave a deep sigh and squared her shoulders, as if expecting the worst. Terak realized that it was now just her, the Chief Arcanum, the Chief External, and himself, ready to greet whatever was on the other side.

  Is this right? He looked to Father Jacques. I’m a lowly novitiate! Had his Chief forgotten that he was here? The man seemed too busy to answer any of his questions right now. Either way, Terak was privy to the conversations of the most powerful members of the Enclave, as the Magister muttered in annoyance.

  “Who do you think told him? Only the Everdell Elves know. And Lord Alathaer’s Second Family would rather gouge their own eyes out than work with humans,” the woman said.

  My people. Terak thought of the elves who had rescued him at the end of his quest into the Everdell to retrieve the Loranthian Scroll. The Lord had been dark-haired, bright-eyed, and stern. But their apparent kinship had ended at the similarity of their skin, hair, eyes, and ears. Terak recalled the look of disgust on the elf lord’s face. Alathaer and his “Brilliant Host” had been ready to seize the scroll from Terak, were it not for Father Jacques and the other Fathers arriving and challenging them for the right.

  “These are strange times, Magister,” Father Jacques broke his silence, crossing his arms in front of him. From where Terak stood, he could see the man’s crossed right hand in its custom-made glove—he was missing a finger from that hand—nestle into the fold of his robes just above his hip. The elf recognized it as an Enclave-External position to be able to draw the blade that Jacques no doubt had hidden there.

  So, this Lord General isn’t our friend. Terak copied his mentor’s example, his own hand touching the pommel of his hidden dagger.

  The screech of the trumpet-horns suddenly stopped. Outside the gates, there came a pounding sound instead, barely audible over the wails of the Tartaruk night winds.

  “Open the gate, in the name of the Lord General!” A muffled voice rose, before being quickly swallowed by the gales.

  “Shall we pretend we didn’t hear him?” Magister Inedi breathed out. Neither Arcanum nor Jacques answered her, which appeared to be what the Magister had wanted anyway. Terak felt that unsettling wash of magic, as Inedi bowed her head for a second, then raised it to answer their night-time caller.

  The Magister’s voice was now transformed by some trick of the power that she possessed. It was far louder than she could ever produce, and resonant with many tones. Terak thought she sounded like a terrifying ice-queen or giantess, like from the scare stories that the young acolytes told. He knew that her voice would carry plainly to whomever was on the other side of the gate.

  “Why does the Lord General himself disturb the study and sleep of the Black Keep?” her ice-queen voice demanded.

  “The Lord General . . . guardian and protector . . . kingdom of the north!” the voice wavered in and out of earshot as the wind snatched at it. A lull in the wind allowed the last part to sound clear, however. “The Black Keep stands by his grace!”

  Inedi hissed mockingly, sounding like her own rising gale, “The Enclave has always known only one Master: The Path of Pain. The Lord General knows what we protect. And what it means for the future of us all!”

  There was a pause on the other side of the walls, and Terak’s heart thumped faster and faster. What sort of game was Inedi playing at? I thought she didn’t want to start a war!

  But the elf also knew what she was talking about. He was probably the only novitiate in the entire Enclave who knew the truth.

  The gates. There were alleged to be three gates created by his people—the ancient elvish Sorcerer Kings of
a lost time—intended to allow travel between the three realms of the Aesther, Midhara, and the Ungol.

  Well, the Aesther and the Midhara, anyway. Father Jacques had explained to Terak the mechanics of their world after the elf had nearly died retrieving the Loranthian Scroll. Three worlds, and we live only in the Midhara. But something had gone terribly wrong, and a cataclysm had been visited upon Midhara the likes of which no one had ever experienced before.

  And when it was all over and done? The three gates now aligned only with the nightmare realm of the Ungol, and allowed greater access at certain times and seasons. The wave of monsters and spirits and fell creatures that would spill from the Gates could overwhelm all civilizations in Midhara, if something wasn’t done about it.

  Which is where we come in, Terak thought. The Black Keep sent out the Enclave-External to retrieve knowledge to keep and preserve Midhara, secure against the tides of evil that would be unleashed against the world.

  And to find a way to dismantle the gates, Terak thought. Which is why he had been chosen to claim the Loranthian Scroll, a rare artifact written by one of the gatebuilders, and still in the process of being translated.

  All of this made Terak think that perhaps the Magister Inedi did have a right to berate the Lord General’s forces like they were children.

  Whomever was on the other side of the Eastern Courtyard did not see things the same way, though.

  “If you don’t . . . cannon and fire . . . we’ll open these doors ourselves!” the muffled voice shouted through the railing winds.

  “Okay,” Inedi abruptly spoke in her normal, but still annoyed, voice, only audible to Terak and the others around her. “The show’s over. We’ve made our point. Someone get those doors open before that mad fool decides to destroy a millennium of accumulated lore!”

  “As you wish, Magister.” The Arcanum stepped forward and started chanting and making broad gestures with raised fingers in the air. Terak heard the creak and groan as the wooden blocks burst upward from their holders. The gigantic arched double doors started to groan inward of their own accord.