by Sean Rodden
Harlastian. First General Midnight Sun. Master Collinan. White Frost and Holy Shore. Watchtenant Valerre. Captain Whiskey Kisses.
But there was one among their number that needed no immortalizing, for of all beings born upon the Three Earths he alone would never die, neither of age nor affliction, save at the edge of a blade.
Arbamas. The Black Prince. Father Death.
Some legends are born, not made.
And others are Made.
Brulwar of Dangmarth and fewer than thirty surviving Wandering Guard stood in a single disjointed line before the vulnerable gap between the hills of Lar Fannan and Lar Thurrad. A veritable mountain range of corpses snaked across the battlefront, over which legions of the enemy poured like great ferric army ants bridging moats and breaching earthworks upon the backs of their own dead. The mara Waratur met the relentless flood of Shadow with unshakable resolve. Daradun axes thrashed, hammers pummeled, mauls mauled. And in the Earthmaster’s massive hands, Whulm whirled and struck, over and over, again and again, crushing skulls, breaking bodies, snapping spines. And when the onslaught of the Blood King’s forces threatened to become overmuch, the First Made of the Firstmade brought the head of his hammer down upon the wounded earth with such force that the ground buckled and rolled, and the enemy fell upon their faces and shrieked in terror, convinced that their doom had come and with it the destruction of the world.
And the Leech screeched, and her troops roused themselves, shaking off one terror in favour of another, and the assault was resumed. Unmen howled, Urkroks roared, giants bellowed in rage. Striving. Fighting. Slaying and being slain, the latter with far greater frequency than the former. Once more, momentum swayed in Shadow’s favour, but then Whulm slammed down again, and the battlefield rocked and quaked, flattening entire legions of attackers. So it continued, a seemingly endless cycle repeated ad infinitum, or at least until the last black ashes of night drifted across the Seven Hills.
Still the Stone Lords stood. Only one score and three now. But they stood.
And they did not stand alone.
From the crown of Lar Fannan sang the ivory bow of Thrannien, Prince of the Neverborn. And that song was a dirge of doom set to the clangour of funereal bells – sigh, creak, strum, whir – and to hear that dark refrain was to know death.
And in the gap between Lar Theas and Lar Fannan towered Tulnarron, Master of the House of Eccuron, an unholy apparition returned from death and entirely sheathed in the gore of war, wielding the arcane blade of the First Master of his line. The luminous Yll Sabar, Thresher of Souls. Numbers meant nothing against that greatsword in the hands of that titanic Deathward warrior. None passed there, though dozens, scores of foes were slain in the effort, and the vale became a place of pure horror where the fiends of Suru-luk came to die, broken beings bereft of all hope.
The rain relented. Night groaned with age. And as the eye of the earth winked open and a faint violet shadow emerged from the eastern horizon, the mournful moan of the Horn of Defurien called the retreat once more. Rather than feed their fury, the sorrowful sound seemed to cause hesitation in the minions of the Blood King, and they wavered and withdrew. And for a time the world fell strangely silent.
The surviving Daradur waited only long enough to witness their own dead sink into the deep dark embrace of the Mother. They then slowly walked back along the hollow between the hills, their black eyes remaining fixed upon the enemy, their hearts still thundering, weapons ever at the ready.
Thrannien lingered momentarily upon the crown of Lar Fannan, his golden gaze ablaze, seeking the sumanam among the massed enemy. Yet denied and defied, the Sun Lord loosed one more arrow, and something died. He then lowered his eyes and his bow, and vanished into the last fading nimbus of night.
And Tulnarron simply turned and trudged away.
Runningwolf felt the flanks of Eveningwind shiver as the glorious elliam slowed from a trot to a walk before coming to a halt upon the drowned grasses of the Northern Plains. The night was at its darkest and coldest, that wretched black hour of wickedness and witchery right before the dawn, and the rains drove down in a deluge. The Left Tenant’s naked shoulders were raw and numb, pummeled past the point of pain by the torrents tearing into him. But the elliamir were immune to the dark and the cold and the rain – what then would make Eveningwind shudder so?
The Rhelman could sense the steed’s exhaustion, an extreme and encompassing enervation that would surely have exploded the hearts of even the hardiest of Rhelnians. But it was more a spiritual fatigue than anything physical, precipitated by prolonged existence within and exposure to Eilla Evvanin. Alone and without aid the splendid creature had led nearly two thousand men and more horses through the ethereal Everworld between All and Nothing, binding every one of them by sheer force of will, drawing them forth for as far as immortally possible. Nevertheless, even undying beings have their limits and limitations, and the elliam had of necessity borne his burden far too long and far too near the voiceless void of the Untold. Eveningwind would recover, certainly. But he would need time.
A rider drew up to Runningwolf’s right, another to his left. Sensing more than seeing their leaders halt, the blue-cloaked riders of the North March Mounted Reserve splashed to a stop behind them.
“What is it, Left Tenant?” Undercaptain Anconas shouted through the raging rain. “Why have we stopped?”
Runningwolf stared into the storm. Sheets of rain washed over his muscular chest and back and slapped the surfaces of his eyes. But his aspect remained detached and dispassionate, and he paid the tempest no heed. For although tohonta shrakkas might flay his very flesh, the rampaging world slayer could never reach his soul.
The Rhelman raised one arm, pointed. “There.”
Anconas leaned forward, squinted against the night, then shook his head.
“What are we looking at?” Left Tenant Lacius called across the neck of his mount. “I see nothing.”
Runningwolf was not inclined to repeat himself. Instead, he lowered his arm, reached into the roll bound behind him and withdrew a small square bundle of coloured linen. He then held out an open hand.
“Your spear, Undercaptain.” And then in afterthought, “Please.”
Anconas frowned, but did not protest. He watched silently as the Rhelman deftly tied a beautifully woven paradigm of the Blue Banner to the weapon and proceeded to raise the standard on high. Only then did the Undercaptain object.
“The Blue Banner is no less esteemed than the White Eagle, Left Tenant. Perhaps more so. We do not fly our flags in the rain, save in battle only.”
Runningwolf stared straight ahead. “Precisely.”
Anconas scowled, then nodded. “Ah. I see.” His charger tossed her head. At his hip, his hand found the pommel of his sword.
Runningwolf lifted the silver horn with which the Iron Captain had entrusted him, and sent a single long lingering blast across the rain-ravaged Plains. He then slung the horn over his shoulder and peered impassively into a night, waiting.
The wait was not long.
“What is it with you and rain, Left Tenant?” came a voice from the bleak black soul of the storm. “Rain at your going, rain at your coming. Let me guess, you’ve been dancing again.”
Runningwolf almost smiled.
A familiar form then materialized in the tempest, and a garrulous white grin gashed the night.
“Welcome back, Master Abbawontandontas.”
Lord Alvarion lowered the Horn of Defurien. Far to the east, the rounded rim of a pale sun edged above the horizon. Night faded, fled, but darkness remained – in the heart, in the soul, cold and raw. No more than four thousand exhausted Roths and less than half as many fatigued Fiannar spanned the flowered Field of Cedorrin between the Warwatch and Sentinel Ridge. Behind them loomed the green wall of the Fend, dark and silent. And with an expressionless regard that belied the hurt in his heart, Alvarion watched but thirteen Warders of the Wandering Guard tramp wordlessly up the slope behind their Earthmaster
. Off to the right strode the Master of the House of Eccuron, drenched in blood, a dreadful agony to his gait, and an unfamiliar greatsword glowing ghostily across his back. There was a tale there, and a good one – but also one Alvarion would never hear told.
“They will come now, nephew,” Taresse advised wearily. Her voice held the sound of oozing, seeping, dripping blood. “They will come, one final time, and this war will be won or lost within the hour.”
Alvarion did not respond. He did not trust his voice. He could not bear to look upon Taresse, for her wretched state would surely shatter his heart and render his resolve impotent. Instead, he stared at the three grassy rises which he had so easily and so shamefully surrendered. And as the sun thrust spears of pallid fury at the firmament and the first fighters of the Blood King’s army swarmed over hill and vale, he adjusted the set of the Helm of Defurien, whispered fire to his sword and ice to his eyes.
It ends here, my beloved Cerriste. It ends here and now. Whatever my uncle might accomplish, whatever the Southman schemes and strategizes, whatever may happen at Doomfall and New Ungloth and upon the Northern Plains this morning, it all ends right here, right –
And then the deep booming roll of a thunderous voice carried clear and cold into the crisp damp air of dawn.
“Fly! Fly! Fly to the Fend!”
Tulnarron? speculated the Lord. But no, the voice had come from behind the allied formation – behind and to the west. From the far side of the Fend. Who, then?
Alvarion turned and gazed at the impervious implacability of ancient Faendomin, and he felt himself rise from a fen of despondence, his spirit ascending into a place of bright and shining wonder.
And then another sound came to him, an elated chorus of joy and hope:
“The Fend is burning!” cried his fellow Fiannar jubilantly as the dense evergreen forest burst into brilliant flameless golden fire. “Burning! The Fend is burning!”
Tears spilled from Alvarion’s eyes as his soul soared, soared, soared into ecstasy and delight.
And then he heard Tulnarron laugh, and from that Master’s mighty bosom arose a tempest of pride and power, an irresistible call to arms, defiant unto the end of ends.
“Stand! All ye Deathward souls! Good Men of the North! Stand! Stand and die well! And know at your doom that the Teller’s Tale does not end here!”
Alvarion smiled. The Fiannar cheered. And the Rothmen broke into song.
The Teller’s Tale does not end here!
Nor did it.
15
THE LAMPS OF WELCOME
“What sorrier slave than the one
who does not perceive his chains?”
Omereo, Fata et Vanitate
The kulg-Kor of the Ten Axes of the Fifth Army stepped out from the rip in the rock into the basin of the White Warren. The night there was wholly black, unblemished by bleach of moon or stray strand of starlight, and the chill was sharp and wintry and was chased about the gorge by a dozen different winds. The Darad’s teeth made strange crunching noises in his jaws as he struggled to shrug away the raw wrongness that had assailed him in the defile. The spoor of the Hag had been more a stain than a scent there, closer to an ongoing echo than a mere memory. And now, in the cold rupestrian night of the White Warren, that echo of the earthblight was a shrill scream in the Daradun soul.
Dandar trudged to Jadun’s side. Neither Stone Lord said aught for a time, but only stood there, both breathing as shallowly as they possibly could. The Captain did not need to glance upon his urthron to know the appalled and sickened look that had taken the smaller Darad’s aspect. Priests were more sensitive to the ill flavours of the urthvennim. But they were also decidedly more resistant. Jadun himself felt like puking. But he was a Darad, and the Daradur did not puke.
At length – “We are close, kulg-Kor.”
The Captain grunted past his churning gut. “You think?”
Dandar tramped forward, crouched, placed his hand on the stone.
“The urthvennim still prevents me from sending, but I can read the rock well enough.” A pause. “There is great anguish here. Blood and tears have washed this stone. Death has visited this place.”
Jadun spat a sourness from him mouth. “They killed someone?”
Dandar wiped his callused palms together.
“Not they – him. The Drone. He ambushed one of the Fiannar. The Seer, I believe. Assailed her with urthvennin. She is gone. The others burned her.”
“Others?”
“Other Fiannar.”
The kulg-Kor frowned as the warriors of his Ten Axes assembled about him and the priest. “What are the Fiannar doing in the Hard Hills?”
But the urthron only shook his head. “Women and children,” he muttered. “Women and children, only. Twenty hundred, give or take.” Then his eyes flashed, blacker than the blackness of night. “Ah, I see. A terrible war has come to the Deathward at Eryn Ruil. They fight there even now. The Lady likely seeks asylum at Allaura.”
“What about Doomfall?”
“War has come there, too,” replied Dandar, gazing eastward, “though there’s a respite in the fighting. Drogul’s there. So is the Wild One.”
“And the dwar-Durka have invaded the Hard Hills. What the hell is – ”
The urthron straightened abruptly, peering westward now, the cold air of northern night slapping against the surface of his glittering obsidian eyes. There was more than a warning of winter there, something greater and more perilous than murmurs of war. And then a distant din reached his ears. The remote but distinct clangour of metal on metal reverberated through the labyrinth of limestone, resounding from wall to wall, punctuated here and there by shouts of defiance and by the ear-shredding screams of dying souls.
And with neither further words nor the need for them, the Ten Axes of the kanga Kulgum broke into a thunderous run.
Hyrre of the Green Watch died beneath an irresistible storm of dark steel. The solitary swing of a great savage khurl sliced diagonally across and through her, from the right side of her neck to beneath her left armpit – her head and left shoulder flew from her form and slammed into another dying Watcher. A huge and heavy maul pitilessly pounded the bodies of both young women into the ground.
Nearby, the Shield Maiden slid the tip of her blade from the slit of a Dwark’s faceplate, ducked beneath the bone-breaking blow of another adversary’s hammer, cut behind the knee of this second assailant, then dashed aside as the first foe swept blindly with his khurl and quite literally hewed the hammer-wielder in two. Another precise thrust through the visor, deep and twisting, and Caelle brought the dwar-Durk with the bloodied axe-sword hybrid down.
The Shield Maiden then leapt to her left to engage the remaining pair of Dwarks that had slain Hyrre, but Watchcaptain Emanthe and several others were already there, and vengeance was served both hot and cold upon the hulking foes. Caelle needed only watch.
Emanthe ripped her blade from the snapped jaws of one of the fallen. Steel slid along teeth with a cringe-inducing screech.
“They are like mountains of iron,” she muttered into the night as she wiped viscous black blood from her blade. “This is what it must be like to do battle with the Daradur.”
“Hardly, Ema,” the Shield Maiden replied, staring down at the gruesome remains of two dear comrades, both hacked and beaten beyond recognition. She waited in silence as others removed the soiled and battered rillagha from the corpses. Then, “The Dwarks were made in mockery of the Stone Lords, not in their image, and have neither their strength nor the sturdiness of their souls.”
Watchcaptain Emanthe looked upon Caelle, but said nothing, yet in her eyes and in her silence were hard words –
Strong enough to slay our noble Seer without lifting a hand, Shield Maiden – and against but two of them poor Hyrre and Gesirre did not stand a chance.
“Nevertheless,” continued Caelle, her breath purling like cold smoke in the near total gloom of the defile, “had we not the advantage of surprise against
these Dwarkash scouts, we would surely have fared far worse. Our sisters strove to stand against them and meet them might for might, and in doing so erred fatally. The size and strength of the dwar-Durka is beyond us. Most of us, anyway. We can only hope to defeat these creatures with the speed and agility of both muscle and mind.” She paused, peering eastward into the night, specks of sapphire sparking darkly in her eyes. “And we can ill afford to continue to offer up one life for every two of theirs.”
“How many, Shield Maiden?” Emanthe’s voice was a hiss of dread. “How many more of them are there?”
And as though in answer, the very rock of the crevasse began to tremble. A single continuous tremor shook the stone cliffs, gradually mounting, growing, escalating in both force and volume. The dusts of ages were shivered loose from fractures and fissures in the ancient dolostone and glided downward like ash cast from uncounted urns.
“Too many,” Caelle said simply.
And she turned away, striding swiftly into the night.
Behind her, Emanthe of the Green Watch sang a few soft words, and the two fallen Fiannar began to burn.
Eight thousand four hundred and sixty-six.
Well, eight thousand four hundred and sixty-two, now.
The Drone did not care. There were hundreds of thousands of dwar-Durka in his Swarm, though only a small portion of that horde was with him in the Hard Hills. The others were already at war. Many, if not most, and possibly all, would die on the adamantine edges of Daradun war-axes below Dul-darad, and beneath barrages of heavy hammers at Dangmarth. Oft was there little to distinguish gallant futility from necessary sacrifice – indeed, the two were not always mutually exclusive. But again, the Drone was not concerned, not in the least. He was the Solemate, the Seeder of the Queen – from his virile loins had come a million dwar-Durka, and from those same loins would arise millions more. All were expendable. Mere soulless shells. Their lives meant little, their deaths meant less.
This.
This was all that mattered.
This hunt, this chase. The spoor of fear, the shrieks of pain, the thrill of the kill. The eager anticipation, the expectation – no, the promise – of the obliteration of the Fiannar from the face of Second Earth. This glossy-eyed euphoria of envisioned genocide.