Pale Kings (Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  Vice fearlessly stormed forward to meet them. As the two fire spells reached their roaring crescendo, the Arkmage raised his hand with a flourish. Fire met a wall of air with a deafening crash and the three mages duelled, two against one. The spells raged like waves against a cliff. The very air seemed to burn and combust around them. The marble tiles turned black and cracked in the blistering heat.

  It seemed like a lifetime of straining and sweat-soaked concentration before their spells finally broke. Vice pushed with all his might and the fire flew back in the mages’ faces. The smell of burning hair filled their nostrils. Farden somehow managed to stay upright. It was his turn to lift his hands to the lofty ceiling. Suddenly his knees began to shake. His armour rattled as though it were possessed. His dark hair stood rigid and scared. On his back, his Book was ablaze. Farden had felt this type of power before, and he grit his teeth. Feeling the vibration in the air, Tyrfing knelt by his side and gripped his nephew’s leg, lending his own power to Farden’s spell. His nephew’s magick was finding its way out.

  Vice looked to his feet. He was suddenly very aware of what was about to happen. He remembered the night in the Bearded Goat very well. He spread his hands and the floor beneath him cracked under the pressure of his immense shield spell.

  Unfortunately for him, this time Farden’s spell struck from above.

  With a deafening roar, a gigantic pillar of fire burst through the marble ceiling and fell upon Vice like a landslide of flame and molten stone. He disappeared under the boiling, roiling tower of orange and yellow fire. As Farden strained and heaved to keep the spell under control, Tyrfing caught a glimpse of the clouds above, and how the pillar of fire burnt a hole through them, as if the spell had come from the gods themselves. What a sight this must be, he found himself thinking, over the deafening roar of the flaming maelstrom.

  But to their dismay, a dark figure began to emerge from the pillar of fire, unhurt and casual as though he were escaping a mere rain shower. Tyrfing swore and groped for his sword. He hurled it like a spear and as it flew its edges burst into white-hot flame. It caught Vice in the chest and the Arkmage was thrown backwards into the blackened, half-molten, thrones. Dizzy, head throbbing, Farden let his spell die away and rushed forward with his own sword.

  ‘Die!’ shouted Farden, raising his sword high above his head. He swung the blade downwards with every scrap of strength left in his arms. Tyrfing looked on, disbelief frozen on his face.

  Was it this easy?

  Had they done it?

  Not even close.

  Farden’s sword broke in half, and he found a fist in his gut. He was catapulted so far into the air that his head brushed the ceiling. The mage crashed through several rafters and cried out as his ribs splintered. He landed hard, cracking his head on a stained-glass window, and stayed where he was, fighting for breath. A small glowing rock rolled out of his pocket and lingered by his side, trying to attract his attention.

  Incredibly, Vice pushed himself to his feet and smiled at Tyrfing. ‘I wonder, did you see my face in your dreams, Tyrfing, hear my voice in your sleep?’

  Tyrfing didn’t answer. He simply twitched. ‘I wonder where you hid yourself. I’m surprised in you, old friend, surprised you’re still alive, surprised you came back, and surprised you haven’t grown wiser after all these years. Can’t you feel it? You have no idea what I am, Tyrfing, no idea what I have become,’ spat the sneering Arkmage. With one hand, he pulled the blade from his armoured chest, wrenching it from the jagged teeth of his buckled armour, and snapped it in half over his knee. Tyrfing’s heart fell in his chest. Fear washed his veins cold again. Something about Vice was disturbingly different. This was a monster, not a nefalim.

  The older mage had no time to ponder the issue.

  With a simple flick of Vice’s fingers, stars, exploded inside the mage’s head and Tyrfing skidded across the blackened floor. Dazed, but not defeated, Tyrfing stood up. Thunder rolled in his hands, lightning flickered, and a wind began to howl around him. Vice laughed. ‘Tenacious to the very end, aren’t you?’ he yelled in a deep booming voice, still slick with oily confidence. Vice threw a bolt of lightning at him and Tyrfing rolled to the side.

  ‘Just as you made me,’ replied the mage. ‘Farden was wrong; your first mistake was me.’ Tyrfing retorted with a powerful spell of his own, and Vice snarled as the sparks scorched his skin.

  ‘What do you think is going to happen, without me, hmm?’ Vice spat out his words as if they were hot coals. ‘Do you think you’ll win? Do you think that the child will just disappear and dissolve, as if she had never been? The plan is already in motion, Tyrfing, with or without me, the stars will fall.’

  The old mage winced as a pillar exploded beside him, spraying him with marble shards. He said nothing, and shuffled backwards, trying to buy his nephew some time. Farden was slowly coming to. He was clutching at the glowing daemonstone. Behind him, a shadow skimmed across the rainbow-coloured windows.

  ‘This land will become the playground of the daemons and you worthless creatures will be our slavelings once again,’ laughed Vice. ‘Your gods will have no choice but to sit and watch.’

  ‘I always thought you talked too much,’ said Tyrfing, narrowing his eyes at the hateful man.

  Blades of light spinning around his fingers, Vice yelled and swung for the old mage, slicing Tyrfing across his cheek as he rolled to the side, and as he rolled he threw his hands towards the ceiling to release his magick, and with one giant boom his vortex spell ripped the rest of the roof from the great hall, just in time for a giant golden dragon to swoop in, jaws open and full of flame, claws ready and outstretched.

  It was hard to follow what happened next:

  If Vice was shocked, he didn’t show it. His reactions certainly didn’t. The Arkmage threw himself to the floor In the blink of an eye as the huge beast flew at him.

  Farfallen’s claws missed Vice by a hairsbreadth, snagging his cloak as he passed by. Svarta, arrow nocked to her bow and at full stretch, face grinning in a wicked snarl, she turned to fire.

  As Vice slewed across the floor his hand found a spear and, before anyone could do anything to stop him, he turned and hurled it with all his might.

  Farfallen landed heavily, claws empty. Sparks flew as his armour grated on the marble. Svarta, standing high in her saddle, turned around, relaxed her fingers, and let her arrow loose.

  Vice’s spear flew through the air in a blur of deadly metal and buried itself deep in Svarta’s chest. Screaming, the Siren queen crumpled like a rotten sapling, and was hurled from her dragon’s saddle.

  Her arrow found its mark, just under Vice’s arm, and the Arkmage was thrown backwards.

  Krauslung had never heard a sound so loud, nor so full of pain. Farfallen roared at the top of his mighty lungs, and for a few brief moments he scrabbled at his armoured chest, claws rending his armour, hoping it would stop the pain. But it couldn’t. It never would, and with a final, heart-wrenchingly terrible whine, the Old Dragon toppled over, and fell dead beside his rider.

  ‘NOOO!’ Farden’s shout almost equalled the dragon’s in volume and pain. Without a hint of caution or fear, he threw himself at Vice, brandishing the glowing rock in his hands. As the Arkmage struggled on the floor, Farden slammed the stone against his temple. Vice yelped. A sliver of dark blood leaked from his pale skin and dribbled down his dusty face.

  ‘I knew I’d finish the Old Dragon and his bitch off eventually,’ spat the Arkmage, grabbing Farden’s hand and viciously prying it away from his neck. The mage screamed as his little finger was yanked free of its socket.

  But before either of them could make another move, the air above them cracked and wobbled and split in two. The daemonstone in Farden’s hand began to glow hotter than it ever had before. There was an almighty burst of blinding light and a shower of cold rain, and suddenly a thin, pale man appeared in mid-air, holding a golden disk high above his head. Thunder boomed. The man crashed to the floor like a falling s
tar and pinned Vice to the marble. The Arkmage looked up at this sudden attacker and uttered one shock-filled word. ‘Ruin!’

  Durnus looked around, squinting with milky eyes. His face was so different that Farden didn’t recognise him. ‘Vice,’ whispered Durnus.

  The Arkmage snarled like a caged sabre-cat. ‘I knew it. The tearbook was right all this time. You didn’t die.’

  Durnus shook his head and prodded his filthy, ragged chest with his finger. ‘Oh but I did, Vice. Ruin died a long time ago.’

  Vice looked his brother up and down. Was this the nemesis he’d feared? Durnus’s clothes were ripped and ragged and his grey face was bruised and scratched. He was plastered in brown mud. His thin grey hair was slicked back to his scalp with rain and blood, and his hands were shaking. His eyes were dazed and cloudy, and they roved to and fro as if searching for something. Vice sneered. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You didn’t die, you simply forgot who you were. You hid under your vampyre skin and curled up like a worm, hiding in the shadows and devouring farmhands and peasant boys. And look at you now, Ruin, a frail and weak old man, a shade of your former glory, robbed of your memories, and blind too, by the looks of you! Nothing but a blind, wild beast! I should have known the moment Farden mentioned you…’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ Durnus jabbed him with his voice, pawing for Vice’s neck. Vice pushed him away. Behind them, Tyrfing helped Farden to his feet. They looked on, waiting, watching the duel of words. Farden couldn’t take his eyes off his old friend. He looked like death incarnate. ‘And now I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago,’ snarled Durnus.

  Vice laughed long and hard, but somewhere deep behind his laugh, a whisper of doubt escaped his mouth. ‘And what are you going to do then, hmm, brother? Bite me? I’m too strong for that now. Hah! What can you possibly do to me? You’re not a pale king any more. You’ll die like Bane and the rest of them, weak old man, and then I’ll wear your fangs around my neck!’

  ‘Father would be so proud,’ growled Durnus. ‘You should have remembered your lore, Vice.’ His nacreous eyes began to flash and sparkle as he lifted his shaking hand to his mouth. He smiled then, and bared his teeth, and prodded the area where his fangs should have been with his thumb. Vice’s confident smile died on his lips. He watched as his brother’s hand moved lower, and pulled back his torn shirt to reveal a furrowed field of bloody gashes across his shoulder. ‘Lycans,’ he said, ‘have bigger fangs than I.’

  ‘It’s not possible…’ Vice stammered, suddenly recognising the fire in Durnus’s eyes. He had seen it in the mirror countless times. Dread seized his heart and jabbed it with icy forks, but before the Arkmage could do anything Durnus grabbed him by the neck and began to strangle him. Vice cried out, swearing and cursing, trying in vain to push his brother off.

  ‘Traitor!’ Vice spat.

  Durnus simply smiled a grim smile. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way!’ he yelled. Tyrfing and the wounded Farden leapt forward and tried to hold the thrashing Arkmage down.

  ‘He’s too strong!’ yelled Tyrfing, casting around for a blade.

  Farden quickly pressed the daemonstone into Durnus’s chest. ‘Durnus! Use this!’

  Durnus groped for the rock with his free hand. Farden pushed it into his palm and it sizzled against his skin, and suddenly a lost memory bubbled up into his mind.

  Vice snarled and growled like a dragon. ‘Get off me!’ he bellowed, pushing harder and harder. Durnus clung on doggedly. Magick surged through them like floodwaters. Dark blood streamed from both their noses. Fire raged around them, whirling like a tornado and burning the clothes from their backs. Durnus held the daemonstone high in the air. He swung once, twice, three times, pummelling the Arkmage in the face and ribs. Vice hit him back and clawed at his pale chest, slicing his skin with his nails and blades of light, but still Durnus didn’t falter. He head-butted Vice hard in the face and stunned him. Moving like lightning, Durnus seized him in a headlock while Tyrfing and Farden pushed down with all their might and magick. Durnus lifted the stone again and brought it crashing down on the back of Vice’s head. The rock burnt in his hand like a hot coal as he hammered down, again, and again, and again. Tyrfing and Farden, their hearts in their throats, did all they could to hold the Arkmage’s writhing body down. They grunted and heaved like rock trolls. Marble split beneath their feet and knees. Fire scorched their faces. The hall began to shake.

  In the end, Vice, died without a sound. Not a word escaped his contorted lips.

  He bit down on his own tongue and swallowed it, and as the daemonstone made the first crack in his skull, his hazel eyes began to glaze over. The Arkmage flailed wildly like a panicked beast. The daemonstone was a blisteringly bright orb of light, and like a crashing sun it fell on Vice’s head, again and again. Clouds gathered at the corners of his eyes, like the storm he had summoned on the world, and the last thing he saw was Tyrfing standing above him holding a broken sword. The mage’s face was full of desperate fury. He lunged, and there was a clang as the sword bit into the bone. The fire and the rumbling slowly faded way, and soon there was no sound save for the burbling hiss of blood still pumping through Vice’s magick-burnt veins. The daemonstone plunged deep inside his skull and it stopped. Vice, the pale king and Arkmage, died.

  The bells had finally stopped tolling.

  ‘Good riddance, brother,’ Durnus whispered into the dead ears of the body in his arms. He let go of the daemonstone and it tumbled to the floor, glowing dimly behind its mask of sticky blood. Durnus grimaced as he felt the deep burns it had left on his palm.

  Weak and dizzy, Farden stood up. Legs and arms hung limply, muscles demolished. His lungs were twin furnaces. He could hardly breathe. A pool of blood was collecting by his side. The ripped flesh where his finger had been throbbed and dripped. With his good hand, he grabbed the sword from his uncle and plunged it deep into Vice’s corpse. The others watched him with grim faces.

  Three times he did it, three times he stabbed the body, grunting and cursing, three times before he swayed, fell, picked himself up, and then walked away, tears running down his face to carve little white trails through the blood and the dirt and the sweat. The pain and emotion finally caught up with him. Throwing the sword across the hall, Farden slumped to the floor beside Farfallen’s golden head and let the tears flow freely.

  ‘It’s over,’ gasped Tyrfing. ‘It’s actually over.’ With a hand as shaky as an autumn leaf, the old mage reached inside his tunic and fished out a golden coin dangling on a chain. A quick tug set it free. Tyrfing couldn’t hide the relief. A single tear crept along the bottom of his eye and hid amidst the dust and soot. He tossed the golden coin at the ugly body at his feet, and relished the sound it made against Vice’s armour.

  The mage turned around and saw Modren, Lerel, and Eyrum standing in the doorway, their faces painted red and weapons chipped and notched. The Siren, agape and horrified, ran to Svarta’s side, gingerly touching the spear that impaled her. He put a finger to her neck and closed his eye. With one giant hand, he reached out and touched Farden. The mage flinched and looked up. His tear-stained face was the epitome of grief. ‘My luck has all run out,’ he said. Eyrum could do nothing but nod. Lerel joined them, and put a respectful hand on the dragon’s cold snout, and stared into his golden eyes. Modren stood and bowed his head.

  Faces drained of colour and limbs like sand, Tyrfing led the blind Durnus to the edge of the hall where the walls and windows and roof had been ripped away. They stood together amongst the rubble. Durnus put his hands to his white eyes while Tyrfing stared out at the city cowering beneath the heavy clouds. Like the fighting, fires raged here and there, gnawing at what was left of the broken streets. The battle was slowly coming to an end. Somehow, presumably with help from the masses of desperate Arka men and women from the ships, their forces had managed to scrape a victory. Against all the odds, they had won.

  ‘We did it,’ muttered the old mage.

  ‘But at what cost?’ Durnu
s asked. Tyrfing didn’t have an answer. He rubbed the Paraian rainring on his finger and held it up to the iron skies. There was a soft rumbling in the heavens and, like Farden’s tears, the rain came freely, and somehow there was a tinge of warmth in those raindrops. All over Krauslung the free people of Emaneska lifted their hands and faces to the skies and opened their mouths to taste the water on their dry tongues. The fires that threatened to consume the city hissed and moaned and finally died away, and slowly the gutters were washed of blood.

  Down in the streets it was oddly quiet. Silence, gagged and muffled, had been dragged into the city against its will. It hovered between the buildings. It stared at the countless dead bodies littering every corner, every doorway.

  Outside the smashed Arkathedral doors, lines and lines of captured soldiers, both Arka and Skölgard, knelt on the wet cobblestones. They were silent and still. Behind them stood the victors: the Sirens, the witches, the Lost Clans, the gathered tribes, the Dukes and their peasants, and the rest. Every single one of them, woman and man, looked like hell or worse. The rain had washed away most of the muck of battle, but it wouldn’t wash away the cuts or the scrapes or the scars. Healers trawled their midst, doing as best they could under the circumstances.

  Behind them stood a crowd of thousands, and every one of them was soaked to the bone and dripping wet. They were pale and gaunt and shivered in the rain. They hovered in the streets, running their hands over familiar walls and savouring their well-deserved freedom. They had won. But, as Durnus had surmised, it had come at a high price indeed.

  Krauslung was broken.

  An Old Dragon had died.

  Farfallen’s body was reverently lowered from the great hall to the streets by his captains, and there the Sirens and their dragons paid their final respects to their leader and his Siren queen. They filtered past one at a time. Their bright scales and colours seemed drab and ordinary now. Tears vied with rain for space on the cheeks of the bedraggled dragon-riders.