by K L Reinhart
His would-be assassin growled in frustration, pulling back ever so slightly.
“Hya!” Terak lunged forward with his knife, a straight-ahead, stabbing blow that would have plunged into the man’s belly had he not swiveled on his hip with ease.
But that was only Terak’s feint. He didn’t pull his dagger-arm back for another strike, as any other fighter might do. Instead, he raised his elbow and slammed it into the man’s face.
There was a satisfying thump and a gasp of pain, but not the sharp crack of breaking cartilage as Terak had hoped to break the man’s nose.
Still, it’ll do. Terak raised his dagger once more, but the man stumbled back, expecting it.
So Terak stamped out with his lead foot, scraping the edge of his foot against the man’s shin.
“Argh!” The man hopped and staggered backward, jumping to avoid a broken leg or ankle. But Terak knew that injury, too, would just be an annoyance. He was only wearing the soft-soled shoes all members of the Enclave-External wore for their quieter operations. If only he had been wearing the heavy hobnail-and-leather boots that the Wall Guards wore!
Terak was free from the wall and was slashing at the man with blisteringly quick strikes.
Clang!
Clang!
Somehow, though, the would-be assassin managed to catch and turn the blows. He was a better knife-fighter than Terak was, the elf realized.
But half the battle is the expectation . . .
The elf remembered another of Father Gourdain’s favorite phrases. He had meant that any fight was won or lost in the mind as much as it is in the hand. If Terak could keep the advantage, then the man would tire. He would start to despair.
Clang!
Clang!
Terak stabbed and swiped, lunged and lanced, forcing the man backward with every blow. Every time, his knife met a parrying knife blade. It was as if the man had a shield of steel around him.
Be better! Faster! Stronger! Terak demanded of himself, his small, lithe body side-stepping to perform another series of blister-quick blows, seeking to catch the man off-guard.
Clang!
Clang!
No good. Terak’s arms were starting to tire, and his opponent knew it.
Silently, without growling or shouting or telescoping his blow, the man flicked his wrist after one of Terak’s blows, and the elf felt a line of fire curl over his knuckles.
“Ach!” Terak hissed, pulling back as blood sprayed into the air between them. He had been cut across the back of the hand, but he resisted the urge to drop his blade.
“Kesari!” The man punched out with his free hand into the blank space between them, hissing an arcane word as he did so.
Oh no, Terak’s confusion at this strange move turned to realization, as a shockwave of force exploded outward from the man’s air-strike. It expanded and shimmered like a heatwave before it hit Terak across the chest, flinging him backward.
“Urk!” Terak slammed against the hard decking of the floor and crashed into the nearest stack of crates so hard that he saw stars.
He had forgotten that everyone had some magic in Midhara. Everyone except him, that was. Most people had never had any official training in it, and could only create a little light or warmth to make their lives easier, or have true dreams, or read the signs of the birds in the sky.
But these assassins were trained in magic, as the Enclave was.
As Enclave members like me should be, Terak thought, gasping for air. He pushed himself forward, his pointed ears still ringing from the impact.
There was a hiss in front of him. His assassin had raised his weapon-less hand and from around it, there emanated another halo of shimmering force. It made the air haze and distort, like the heat given off above an intense fire. Terak felt no warmth nor saw any flames from the man.
His attacker had clearly realized that fighting with blades wouldn’t get him anywhere.
The man was too far away to strike. Terak bared his teeth as all of his muscles tensed, and the man opened his mouth to speak his curse-word.
“Kesar-Majeur!” the man snapped, punching forward with the corona of power as it started to boil into a white radiance.
Terak leapt, flinging his arm out to send his blade twisting through the air toward the man. At the same time, the ball of force caught Terak’s chest, side, and legs, turning him over in mid-flight and throwing him like a child’s toy.
Crunch! Terak’s body hammered against the hull wall of the air galleon, and everything went black for a moment before his body burst into life again.
He was lying on the hold floor, his head ringing and his chest feeling like it had suffered a stampede. His limbs ached, and he knew that he couldn’t be quick enough this time . . .
But there was a gasping, coughing sound. When Terak looked up, the would-be assassin had dropped his blade and was clutching at the crook of his shoulder and throat. From between his gloved hands there welled the deep crimson of blood.
My dagger hit! Terak stumbled to his feet, his vision trying to double as he blinked. He staggered forward.
“Who . . .” Terak demanded. “Who do you work for!?” He raised his own long-fingered hands in a fighting stance. The man was wounded. He was also wounded. But at least Terak wasn’t bleeding severely . . .
“Ungol take you!” the man hissed, staggering backward.
“Tell me, and I’ll spare your life,” Terak said, although he wondered if he had the strength left to keep that promise.
“You’re too late, Enclave!” the man gasped. Every word seemed an effort for him, and every movement of his jaw made more of the rich red pump from between his fingers.
“What do you mean, too late!? Tell me!” Terak said, taking a step forward.
A deep, reverberating noise suddenly started up from above them.
BWAAAARRM!
“I told you it was too late,” the man gargled, as the booming noise grew louder. Terak heard shouts of alarm from the air galleon crew members around them.
“It’s the ship’s horn! To your stations, we’re under attack!”
This was all a ploy, Terak’s thoughts raced. He had seen lights in the dark earlier that night before the Lady of the North’s arrival. They had been signaling lights!
“And now the new Lord General and all of his top courtiers and most important people are here, at the Black Keep.” Terak frowned. He had believed that it was a conspiracy to start a war between Brecha and the Enclave. What if it wasn’t? What if it was instead a way to get all of these important people in one place, at one time?
BWAAARM! The ship’s horn continued to blare and wail, and Terak was certain that he could feel the deck underneath his feet wobble to one side, as if the massive air galleon had been struck by something . . .
“Tell me who it is!” Terak demanded. “Who do you work for!” He grabbed the assassin’s jerkin as he stepped forward.
The would-be-assassin opened his mouth, but before he could speak there was the air-ripping, hissing pheet of noise, as something buried itself into the other side of his neck.
BWAAAAR—
The man’s eyes rolled white, and he shuddered and crumpled from Terak’s grasp. The elf hissed in alarm, looking over his shoulder, but the second assassin was nowhere to be seen amidst the chaos of the running crew members.
“Battle stations! Man the decks! Close all doors!” Terak could hear people shouting. Even more worryingly . . .
“Up anchor!”
“Dammit!” Terak snarled. They were going to pull the land anchors from below. The Lady of the North was taking to the air—whether to flee or to battle, Terak didn’t know.
BWAAAARM!
Terak had only one way to get off this boat now, and he took it, diving for the heavy steel chain that dove through the floor ring, his body still aching and shivering from his injuries.
8
Green and Red
Terak descended into a dizzying world of running bodies, clattering wea
pons, and the omnipresent sound of the ship’s horn that blared through the pre-dawn gray of the Tartaruk Mountains.
The elf descended as quickly as his aching body would allow, feeling the muscles in his side and legs shout in pain. Whatever curse that the now-dead assassin had thrown at him had been powerful, enough to blister air and turn it into a whirlpool of deadly force.
Only pain, Terak thought, as he gritted his white teeth. And he jumped—from the top rondel of the massive land anchor to the hard mountain ground ten feet below.
He rolled as he hit the floor, awakening new pains from aching muscles across his back and shoulders. Only pain, he told himself. Only pain.
Pain, he knew from the Book of Corrections, was there to teach him. It was not there to punish or thwart him. It was the only constant of teachers in this life, and it would never fail him if he listened to it.
And right now, the twinges and spasms in his body were telling him that no lasting damage had been done, yet. They told him that he could go on if he were really committed.
And Terak was.
The elf rose into a half crouch He observed that the encampment of the forces of Brecha were in disarray and were desperately trying to regain their muster. One of the large tents poured smoke and flames. Shouts and screams echoed from the other side of the camp.
They’re under attack. Terak’s feet moved in the direction of the battle. Then he stopped himself.
No. This had been a part of the assassin’s plan. He said as much, before his fellow had killed him. Terak still had the picture of Thorogood in his mind, who died right in front of him, trying to get word out about the murder of the Lord General and an undercover Brother of the Enclave-External.
And the use of the Black Hand. Terak’s face soured.
“No time.” The elf turned, instead, in the direction of the Black Keep. The green-tinted fire had already consumed two of the guard huts. Not only the Brecha forces were under attack. The Black Keep was as well.
Terak broke into a run.
“To Arms! Muster, muster, muster!” Brecha guard sergeants and captains roared their desperate orders in an attempt to form an effective counterattack.
But a counterattack against who? Terak wondered as he ran through the burning camp. No one paid the oddly-dressed young man in the green jerkin any mind, as scores of troops marched and jogged past him, heading on their own desperate missions. Terak heard the cries of the different regiments and units that made up the Brecha force:
“Aldburg Patriots! To me! To me!”
“Any members of the Lord General’s Guard—get to the keep! Protect the Lord General!”
Terak ran between two of the canvas marquee tents. He had to jump back before he was almost run over by a wheeled contraption. It looked like a small cart, only on two wheels, but with a massive winch wheel and rope under a long, protruding snout. Two Brecha guards heaved and pushed it along, and a third struggled under the shoulder-mounted weight of a collection of large iron rods, capped with steel spikes.
Some kind of arbalest! Terak thought. The Black Keep had no official war weapons as far as he knew, but Father Gourdain had introduced them to the major types.
They are used only against large targets, Terak thought. Buildings, ogres, giants. Was that who was attacking them?
“Out of the way!” one of the guards shouted. Terak skidded back to let the harpoon-firing arbalest past. Then he ran forward, to the burning canvas tents on the edge of the Brecha military encampment which appeared to be in a state of pitch battle.
Who is it!? Who dares to attack the Black Keep? Terak paused, breathing for a second. The ground nearest the Brecha camp was filled with struggling and fighting knots of bodies. Under the early morning sky, still in the first blush of opaque greys, it was hard to make out anything but the shouting of Brecha guards fighting.
Each group appeared to be surrounding a melee, as more Brecha guards rushed to join their fellows. Terak heard screams, and shouts, and then—
Whoosh.
One of the writhing, struggling knots of humans fighting exploded in a ball of green flame, quite literally.
“First Moon!” Terak gasped. It had looked like something detonated in the center of the battle, sending up incandescent sprays of white sparks and a brilliant ball of green flame that tumbled and threw the Brecha fighters in all directions.
When the smoke settled, Terak could see moaning, twitching bodies of humans, all suffering rent limbs and horrible burns. In the center of the circle of devastation was a blackened scorch mark and fragments that flashed and shone from the reflective torchlight with an emerald green.
Terak had no name for what could have caused such a thing. He also had no time, if he wanted to get across the battleground to where the doors of the Eastern Gate still hung open in the confusion.
The elf started to run, forcing himself not to look at the bodies that he jumped over or passed on the way. It was only a hundred yards or so to the walls of the Black Keep. He could make it!
Behind him he could hear the screams and angered roars of the Brecha forces as they continued to fight their mysterious enemy. And rising above that cacophony was the still blaring alert of the Lady of the North.
Sussusussususs . . . Terak’s sensitive elf ears picked up a high-pitched, keening noise. It was like a strong wind in tall grasses, making them scratch and hiss.
Or the drone of a dragonfly, Terak thought. As cold and as austere as it was up here on the top of the world, for a couple months in high summer, the mountains came alive with wildflowers and insects. Then the black waters of Mourn Lake reflected the flash of the deep red-and-black dragonflies that spawned there.
Sussusussususs . . . The sound was growing louder and louder by the moment, but Terak forced himself to keep running. He had to get his message to Father Jacques. That was all that he had to do.
Sussususs! A shape flashed before his very eyes—falling to earth as if it had been thrown from a great height—and Terak finally encountered the enemy that was attacking his home and the forces of Brecha.
It was, of all creatures and in all places, the insect-men known as the Ixcht.
Sweet Stars and Moons! Terak was not an elf given much to fear or trepidation. Perhaps accidentally killing two fellow acolytes and fighting off monsters and orcs and now assassins had beaten that out of him.
However, he wasn’t immune to blatant shock, and the sight of a green, yellow, and cream-scaled insect-man landing in the dirt before him was enough to make him skid to a halt.
Terak knew that the Ixcht were one of the strangest of the races in all of Midhara. And they live in the far south of the land and should never be up this far north in mid-spring, Terak thought.
The Ixcht had a head, two legs, and two arms just like any other of the intelligent races, but that was where all similarity ended. Their skin consisted of tough plates of chitinous scale that gleamed an iridescent green, indigo, and plum-red around the shoulders and the backs of their wiry arms, before taking on lighter and muted shades of green and cream across the chest and face.
And the face . . . Terak didn’t have words to describe it. He had never seen one in the flesh—or the scale, as it were—but instead only depicted in the bestiaries of the Chief External. They were bald, of course, but had two small and beady black eyes above their mouth parts. No discernible nose or ears, but it was their jaws that made Terak shudder.
Instead of an upper and lower jaw, the Ixcht had four-part mandibles that flared open and hissed in rage.
The Ixcht that Terak currently faced had landed as gracefully as any acrobat. Both his long arms ended in four-point claws, each clawed hand holding a scimitar. He had some sort of tan, skin-like material that stretched from his elbows to almost his hips.
The Ixcht warrior released the harness he wore, and Terak could see the four teardrop-shaped insect wings that the Ixcht had used to glide down to the ground.
“What in the Ungol are you doing here?” Terak
said, his shock forcing honesty from his mouth.
In response, the flying Ixcht warrior hissed and clattered his mouthparts, stepping out of the discarded flight-harness, and raising both scimitars in the elf’s direction.
9
Who’s Fastest?
Terak stumbled back from his opponent over the hard ground, as the dark skies above them started to churn and break, releasing shafts of the cold Tartaruk sunlight onto the battlefield.
The Ixcht warrior snarled an eerie ticking, hissing rasp as he stepped forward. Terak could swear that he heard the thing’s limbs making strange scratching, popping noises as he limbered up.
What in the Ungol are the Ixcht doing here? How did they get here!? Terak’s mind raced as his quick elf eyes studied his opponent.
He wished that he had his dagger, but it was currently still embedded in the neck of the assassin.
It was impossible to read any emotion or intention from the creature. Its mouth parts fluttered and moved constantly in what could have been rage, joy, anticipation, or fear, for all the elf knew.
But at least one of the elf’s questions was answered, as the sound of the winds gave way to a deeper droning sound. Terak couldn’t help but glance upward, where a titanic battle was being waged in the air, just as his battle was on the ground.
The vast bulk of the Lady of the North was rising up from where she had been moored. The heavy chains of two of her land anchors were still being winched upward into the craft’s belly, while the other two had been loosed completely, and lay on the ground.
The Lady was listing hard to the side under her acres of white canvas, moving slowly upward, as something flew down toward her.
Or many somethings, Terak corrected.
The droning sound came from what looked to be three long canoe or barge-shaped craft. Each with two sets of the same insect-like, iridescent fabric wings like a dragonfly that had been on the Ixcht warrior’s flight harness. Only these dragon-fly wings were far, far larger, and their rapid movement created the strange sound.