The Foundlings (The Swords of Xigara)

by J. Mark Miller

  “It will give its life for yours,” Cern added.

  Tander looked at the heavy egg, holding it like it were the most precious of jewels. “Why are they called blinkswifts?” he asked.

  “They can outfly any creature in the sky for one.” Winder jumped as Chrysafi gave a low growl. “Er…almost any creature. But most incredible is their ability to blink across distances of a mile or more during flight.”

  “Blink?”

  Winder shrugged his shoulders. “No one knows how, but a blinkswift can disappear in one portion of the sky and reappear far away moments later.”

  “By the light!” Tander exclaimed. “I…I don’t know what to say.” He grabbed Derae’s hand on impulse and kissed it, making her blush as she accepted the honor with a bright smile.

  “Well done, Bearer,” Cern smiled and lifted his hands in the air. “No other words need be spoken. Go with the blessings of the people of Nesos. Onúl guide you and keep you, and may His light illuminate your path.”

  Chrysafi raised his head high and trumpeted a great roar, and the surrounding throng clapped their hands and shouted joyfully. Tander’s eyes welled up from the adulation.

  “Come, manling, we must depart,” Chrysafi said once the shouting dwindled. “Our flight is long and our time wears thin.”

  “My lute,” Tander burst out, “it’s back in my room.”

  “And there it must remain,” remarked the High Cleric, “though it pains your bardic heart. It is an encumbrance on your road, and will be more safely cared for here until your return.”

  Tander clambered upon the dragon’s back and lashed himself down. “Return?” he asked finally.

  “I daresay your road will bring you back here before you reach your final destination, and you will always find a home among us. If you succeed, we will owe you more than we could ever repay.”

  “Onúl bless you for your hospitality,” Tander waved. “ I hope to live worthy of your honor.”

  Derae took a hesitant step toward the dragon, indecision clear on her face until she finally broke her silence. “Onúl carry you,” she said.

  Tander stared at her wide eyed as Chrysafi reared back on his hind legs and surged toward the sky. Derae’s golden hair dancing on the wind was his final vision of the beauty of Nesos.

  43

  The Celadine Mountains

  Tenna stood beside Katalas and Duras at their customary watch post on the mountainside. Zalas stood a few paces off to one side, frowning up at Doulos who stood on a shelf up rock further up the mountain. He struggled with the revelation that the mage had held Ehrler all these years, a frustration Tenna understood, though she thought he was overreacting. He of all people understood the need for secrecy. One only had to consider the theft of two of the legendary Swords to see the necessity.

  Seeing her father unoccupied for the first time in days, she felt a renewed urge to talk. So many things had gone unsaid and she didn’t know how to say them, but she did know how to break the ice. If there was one thing Zalas liked to do, it was educate his daughter in history.

  Tenna stepped over and slipped her hand into his. Startled, he looked down with eyes full of surprise.

  “Hello, my daughter,” his face broke into a genuine smile, “quite the spectacle isn’t it?”

  “Quite,” she agreed simply. Something in her demeanor made him turn and join her in watching the forest. Thousands of yellow skinned yrch milled beneath the trees, settling down with the coming of the sun. Seemingly unconcerned by the presence of their observers, they acted like peaceful villagers living out their daily routines. Anyone looking on knew they were anything but peaceful.

  “Father,” Tenna asked, “where did the yrch come from? I mean, they’re not one of the five peoples created by Onúl, so what are they?”

  Zalas furrowed his brow as he worked to form an answer. He seemed to be looking for appropriate words to say. “Perhaps Doulos would be better suited to answer that question,” he hedged. “I can only tell you what the legends say.”

  Tenna looked back over her shoulder with a grin. “I think he’s a little busy, and besides, I’m asking you.

  “Well,” Zalas couldn’t contain his gleeful smile, “though the Deceiver had led many to rebel against Onúl he was dissatisfied more hadn’t followed him. He set out to create his own army, but lacking Onúl’s power of true creation his efforts met with failure. His creations did not live long, if at all, and the few who did were malformed mockeries of life. None were capable of conscious thought, little more than feral animals.”

  “I’ve seen those things close up,” Katalas said. “They guard the approaches to the Dreadcrest.”

  “How can mindless things be decent guardians?” Tenna wondered.

  “They were originally wild beasts who inhabited the area,” the elf said. “feral creatures who killed and ate anything unlike themselves. Even after Chashak’s twisting, their original natures remained. His minions keep them content with meals of slaves to ensure they do not stray too far.”

  “Ghastly,” Tenna exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Katalas agreed.

  “The Deceiver’s last effort was to imbue some of the creatures with a bit of himself,” Zalas continued. “These were the first yrch, though they were little more than animals themselves. His essence changed them, gave them rudimentary intelligence enough to become self-aware and trainable, even to the point of gaining a bit of language.

  “Chashak eventually gave up on the beasts in disappointment and left them to run wild. Akzab saw their potential, however, and became their goddess. She cared for them, expanded their language, gave them a societal structure, and improved their quality of life tenfold by teaching them how to make fire and make weapons for hunting.

  “Chashak grew jealous and tried to wrench the yrch from her control. He appeared as a god of war and vengeance, and threatened to take back the spark of life he’d given them if they did not return to him, a gift he was in truth unable to rescind. The yrch spurned him as one, refusing to leave Akzab, and proving the impotence of his threat. He was forced to be content that Akzab is his sycophant, and will do anything he asks.”

  “Now Akzab’s brought the foul creatures here to plague us,” Duras said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she hasn’t stirred up every last one on the continent.”

  “Doulos has the remedy, I trust,” Katalas said. “I’m interested to see what happens when the Wood wakes up from this deception to find itself full of yrch.”

  “Whatever it is,” Duras grinned, “I hope it hurts, a lot.”

  “I’m sure it will, my friend.”

  Doulos stood on a shelf of rock, surrounded by a cadre of elven mages. He held Ehrler aloft with one hand, his brow furrowed in concentration. His lips murmured a silent invocation as he stretched a hand out toward the forest below. The air around him seemed to sizzle, and the little hairs on Tenna’s arm began to stand on end. The elves around him struggled to stay on their feet as zephyrs whipped around them with a howl.

  Then Ehrler began to glow.

  Clouds overhead started to swirl and the blade’s mottled surface roiled in response. The old mage’s word became audible but no less intelligible, rising above the stormy gale. Then a blinding pulse of light flashed from Ehrler and the clouds parted. The rising sun ascended over the apex of the mountains, flaring with a brilliance so fierce everyone was forced to turn away.

  The wind howled around them but mage’s voice rose above it all, and so did the light of the sword. It began to outshine the sun, casting long shadows toward the forest. The yrch began to take notice, pointing up the slope and jabbering in rising anxiety as they covered their eyes.

  The gusting winds surged against the forest, pushing the yrch back from the edge before falling flat calm as the mage’s voice fell away. Everything and everyone went silent at that moment. No birds sang, no insects chirped, and even the yrch stopped snarling, allowing an eery vacuum of silence to fill the air. Tenna and her friends hun
kered down behind the rocks, compelled by some instinct, knowing the sudden calm could not last.

  A loud crack, like a piece of the mountain breaking away, shattered the silence. Tenna set her jaw for an avalanche that never came. A bright pulse of white light flashed overhead—one they could feel as well as see—and rushed toward the forest. It rippled from Doulos like water across the surface of a pond, followed by a cold flurry of wind that dove down into the trees below.

  Doulos groaned and collapsed. The elves caught him and lowered him to the ground. Tenna ran up the slope to his side, finding him unconscious but otherwise unharmed.

  “Look!” Katalas hollered.

  The wind fell to flat calm after the cold gust issued from Doulos, but the trees still moved as if a stiff breeze blew through their limbs. The yrch hopped about in apprehension as the forest moved around them, and they retreated deeper into the forest where the trees hadn’t yet started to move.

  Creaking filled the air as the trees swayed with vigor. The yrch began to yelp as the trees swooped their branches down with great twists of their trunks. The beasts broke as one, fleeing away in their terror only to be met by more animated trees. Some of the more intelligent yrch thought they could escape by dashing out of the bounds of the forest, but their paths were blocked by clobbering limbs, bashing the yellow-skinned fiends without quarter until their squeals of agony filled the air like the slaughter of uncountable swine. The yrch, all of them, met a swift and bloody end.

  Katalas leaned over and whispered to Duras. “I think you got your wish.”

  Duras could only nod.

  44

  The Greenholm

  “I wish I could have persuaded you to stay behind, my friend,” Sidero said as he winged over the conflict below.

  “I’m as safe here on your back as in the depths of your hollow,” Vonedil said. “You wouldn’t deny me this last chance to witness crucial history and add my own songs to the Annals would you?”

  “Hah!” the dragon trumpeted, “I’d never do such a thing. My only hope is you live through the experience long enough to compose your songs. A sad tale it would be if you became a tragic part of the story.”

  Sidero’s amalgamated army marched across the open prairies of the Greenholm towards Tibur. They had Valas’s army on the run, but Sidero knew the ancient elf had reinforcements somewhere to the north between The Breaks and the western tip of the Choros Mountain range.

  His army’s arrival had broken the siege of Waterdown. The years of Sidero’s toil and preparation had been vindicated when his army came pouring out of tunnels he’d taken centuries to dig. His people had marched through those passages for two days to reach surface exits on the eastern side of the Helisso range. They took a day to rest and organize for a forced march to the beleaguered river town, arriving only two days after the enemy forces.

  Surprise and sheer numbers were Sidero’s greatest advantage. Their sudden appearance on the high ridge west of Waterdown made an already desperate situation more chaotic. Neither side knew who Sidero’s army fought for, both fearing their enemy was receiving some sort of unforeseen reinforcements. Some even wondered if a third, unknown army was entering the fray to take advantage of the situation.

  Sidero’s army erased all doubt as they began to fire volley after volley into the northern army’s encampment. The battle was short-lived. Accustomed to being uncontested on the field of battle, Valas’s forces suddenly found themselves between Sidero’s hammer and Waterdown’s anvil. Rather than stand and fight, the opposition generals ordered retreat, and Waterdown’s besiegers melted away.

  Victory, though welcomed, was bittersweet. The ancient lake cities of Anneal and Lorranos lay in ruins, set to flame by Sidero’s clutchmate Dar. Scores of smaller towns and villages throughout the region had been ravaged by the enemy army as it marched south, and they suffered a second time as that same army vented its rage in retreat.

  Waterdown had struggled to meet the basic needs of its doubled population. Sidero’s people brought relief in the form of wagonload after wagonload of supplies. With the enemy’s retreat, Waterdown opened its gates again to allow the overflow to spill out onto the plains west of the river. Sidero’s generals worked with the leadership of Waterdown to organize a tent city, and a unified army.

  Debate had raged into the darkness late one night. The Waterdhavians argued the enemy was defeated and the danger passed. Representatives from the lake cities were eager to start rebuilding rather than spend energy and resources on retaliation. Until then, Sidero let his generals be the public face of his army, using Bita as his liaison and mouthpiece. After hearing word of the argument, he insinuated himself in the most dramatic fashion he could conceive.

  He rose up in his dragon form and flew low over Waterdown, roaring and spitting huge gouts of flame into the air. He used his dragonfear on mortals for the first time in centuries, sending it pulsing forth. Waves of unreasoning terror flooded city and encampment alike as he perched himself over the city’s gate like a demon and let loose the loudest roar he could muster, stealing the resolve of the few who’d been able to stay on their feet. Soldiers and citizens alike cast down their swords and good to lay prostrate on the ground, groveling in fear.

  From there he flew across the encampment to the pavilion where the debate was being held. He grabbed the giant tent in his claws and ripped it from the ground, exposing the circle of generals within as they cowered beneath their makeshift conference table. A final burst of flame incinerated the tent as it fell from the sky, its ashes falling like snow onto the trembling leaders.

  Sidero shifted into his humanoid form in midair as he cut his dragonfear. He landed atop their table with a resounding crack and bellowed, “Fools! You think the war is over? You believe yourselves safe? Stand up and face me.”

  The generals crawled from under the broken table one by one to face the dragon. He nodded at his own cowed generals, promising himself to apologize later. They understood his methods, and the stakes at hand.

  “Look at what a single dragon is able to do. In mere moments I, the smallest of my kind, brought an entire city and this army to its knees. Had it been my sister Dar, she would have started eating you alive while Valas’s army marched in and disposed of you at leisure.”

  He looked over at the lake men. “You know this to be true. She destroyed your cities, yet you act as if you can go back to the way things were. Fools! Our victory was a small break in a war that will soon span the entire world. You’ve experienced but a small taste of the enemy’s power. Valas’s forces number in the hundreds of thousands, and he has innumerable yrch at his disposal.

  “No, victory won’t be decided here, but the decisions you make will determine the future of souls for generations. You have two choices. Either do you part and muster every able-bodied person to march with my army, or refuse in the foolhardy belief you can go back to you old lives. If you choose the latter course, I’ll take my people home, seal the mountains, and leave you to weather the coming storm alone.”

  The results of his melodramatic bit of theater marched below, more than fifty-thousand strong. His own army marched beside Waterdhavians and lake cities men. They’d left a force nearly half as large behind to patrol the region between Waterdown and the lake, hoping to protect those staying behind from a rearguard attack.

  Sidero hoped to deliver his combined forces to the brilliant tacticians of Tibur. Whatever hope the people of the continent had for survival lay in standing together against the rising tide of evil. They could no longer afford to act as independent city-states as they had for centuries.

  The real victory in this war would take place elsewhere, just as Sidero told the generals. Either way, they couldn’t stand idle and let the enemy roll them over. Every small victory here would take pressure off of those who would fight the real battle—a battle fought in a land so far away few knew of its existence.

  A place Sidero once called home.

  Sidero’s army might be able
to win against Valas with the added might of the Tiburians, but it would be for nothing if the other, more important battle were lost. Soon—too soon—he would be forced to leave his people and play his own part in the greater conflict. Until then, he would stay and protect them from a threat greater than Valas.

  His sister, Dar.

  She was somewhere out there, very close now. He could feel her eyes watching, searching for the opportune moment to strike. Were he to let his guard down for a moment she would be on him, her teeth at his neck to dispose of her hated sibling once and for all.

  There was no reason for her hate, for the two cluchmates barely knew one another, but Dar’s mind had been twisted. Sane had held sway over the dragon for centuries, reshaping the wyrm in her image—a capricious and bloodthirsty creature.

  Most of Dar’s hatred seemed directed at Sidero. She haunted him, taunting him often through the dragonorbs, belittling him in every way she could conceive. She threatened, no promised, to be the arbiter of his death—a slow and agonizing one. Sidero wondered if some of her hatred stemmed from the abduction itself. She’d been taken and he was left behind. He’d been blessed with family while she’d been given nothing but war and blood. Was her hate some sort of perverted jealousy?

  She made her move, appearing as a tiny speak among the clouds a few miles ahead. Lesser eyes would miss her white body blending with the clouds, but a dragon couldn’t miss her presence.

  Dar was issuing her challenge.

  Sidero banked hard and veered toward the caravan and Vonedil’s coach.

  “Are you done with me already, old friend?” Vonedil asked.

  “I’m afraid I have to put you down, Vonedil,” Sidero said. “My sister has come.”

  Vonedil saw no signs of the beast, but knew better than to question a dragon’s eyesight. If Sidero said there was danger, he believed it.