Bones of the Empire

by Jim Galford

  His fur whipping around in the growing winds, Greth said, “Grab the girl and get moving. I’m not ready to die again just yet, and I’m damned sure I don’t want to die in the mists. I’ll be waiting on the steps.”

  Another rumbling crackle let Raeln know the windstorm was not just at the edge of the temple, but actually tearing into it. From the edge of his vision, he watched as larger stones flew up into the glowing funnel of mists, only to be torn apart and to disappear.

  Raeln ran for Dalania and grabbed her arm with the intention of pulling her onto his back, only to find the roots that had grown from her legs held her firmly in place. At his touch, she lifted her head and smiled sadly at him, while the ghostly wolf standing over her watched silently.

  “Get to safety,” she said gently, her voice barely audible above the roar of the winds. “I cannot go anywhere.”

  “You’ll die out here!” he shouted, tugging at her waist without moving her at all.

  Dalania grabbed his hands and pulled them away with her bark-covered fingers, forcing him to stand and look her in the eye. “Raeln, I chose this. The Miharon told me what he wanted to do and why. I agreed. Go.”

  “I won’t leave you to die alone!”

  “She is not alone,” the Miharon said, its voice reaching both Raeln’s ears and mind simultaneously. “Dalania is the last of the children of my forest. She is all that remains of my life. I will not allow her to suffer. The only way I can ensure the mists depart is to draw them back close to their source, where they will be trapped the same way Dorralt is, while the mortals outside flee. That means we remain here if this war is to ever end. This is where my forest is finally destroyed. Those in the outer halls will be safer than those with Dorralt below. If you must go down there, get out quickly, mortal. I will delay the mists, if I still can. Even my people are destroyed by the mists. I will not last long. My time is at an end. I saw the dawn of mortal life in this world, but they will outlive me.”

  Dalania smiled and shoved him toward the stairs. Behind her—and through the ghostly wolf—Raeln could see three separate columns of mist come together. They tore through the outer walls of the temple and wrapped themselves around the pillars. The entire rise of the temple began to lean as he watched. The mists seemed far more interested in the dome than the outer structure.

  “Go,” Dalania said more forcefully.

  “Raeln! Stupid furless!” Greth shouted, and for a moment, Raeln thought he was insulting Dalania. Turning to yell at him, Raeln saw Greth was pointing at Turess, who was frantically gesturing up at the pillars from a shadowed section of the courtyard.

  The stone ring partway up the temple’s spires flickered with blue magic wherever Turess pointed. The flowing pattern winked out almost immediately after each motion. Turess screamed and stepped back to join Raeln and Greth. He flicked his fingers toward the stone ring, causing a large chunk of the stone to explode in a shower of fragments.

  “I tried to gain us time and protection for this spot!” Turess shouted over the winds. “I am not strong enough! We need to go!”

  “You have done more than I asked of you all those years ago, mortal,” the Miharon whispered, its voice carrying over the winds easily. “Go without shame. Today, all of my people have agreed to this sacrifice. I will use my last moments to keep the mists flowing into this place and away from the rest of the world. I can only hide the people beneath the temple for a short time. After that, I will need to force the mists back into the rift if we are to ever save Eldvar. Get yourselves out of the temple by then.” Turning its massive head toward Raeln, the wolf added, “Tell Feanne…tell her that I am sorry for what I put her through. It was necessary to get us to this place and time. We may not understand mortal morality, but what I did to her and her family was cruel, even for my people.”

  Turess looked ready to argue with the spectral wolf, but Raeln grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the stairs.

  Before Raeln had gone more than a few steps, the spectral human Dorralt had called Oramain appeared again, blocking Raeln’s path to the stairs. He turned to stare at the mists before returning his attention to Raeln.

  “I will do what I can to aid the fae,” Oramain said, his eyes flaring bright yellow. “The Miharon was good to my family in times long past. You have my pledge that there will be a great battle up here to save all of you. Go and leave this last fight to those who have already seen death first-hand. We will ensure that your troops do not die, if there is any way to prevent it. Be mindful that once I am gone, those I have brought back will leave as well.”

  Raeln hesitated and began to turn back toward Dalania, thinking perhaps he should join the ghost and fae, when he was punched hard across the jaw. The blow took him off balance, and he gave up fighting when Greth put his arms around Raeln and dragged him toward the stairs. Turess followed.

  “No more time for stupid gestures,” Greth yelled as the pillars tumbled and fell all around the courtyard. He practically threw Raeln down the staircase, pushed Turess in after, and then dove in behind them. The three of them flattened out on the top steps as a block of stone came crashing onto the opening inches above them.

  Greth lay there panting as Raeln evaluated just how close they had come to dying. Only Turess seemed to snap out of his shock. He hurriedly pushed past the others to get down the stairs in a hurry.

  Realizing he did not have much time before Greth was dead for real, especially if Oramain was killed or weakened by the mists above, Raeln got up and tried to figure out what was going on around him.

  The stairs were full of people, loosely filing down into a room below. Most were family and friends who were probably not going to fight. Among them, Alafa’s family waited near the top of the steps, letting everyone go past them.

  As Raeln got to his feet, the others made an effort to clear him a path toward the bottom. He could make out Feanne at the foot of the steps about a hundred feet below him, illuminated by a mundane torch, held by the grey-furred fox who had startled her originally. Something was happening down there, but Raeln was much too far away to make out any detail beyond Feanne’s distinctive fur color.

  He started down the steps without another thought, rushing blindly toward whatever was there, following the path Turess was cutting through the group. Halfway down, he heard voices as someone spoke loudly, though he was certain it was not coming from anyone on the staircase. The speaker’s voice sounded almost hollow, as though they had too little breath to speak properly.

  When he reached the bottom, Turess moved aside, but Feanne grabbed Raeln’s arm and stepped in his way. She shoved him back along the wall of a small cave-like room, motioning for him to stay where he was. Raeln’s first thought was to charge headlong at whatever had her that frightened, but he obeyed when he saw what was happening.

  The room was occupied only by a few things. The one that caught his attention first was a rippling cloud of dark mists that appeared to be unable to move away from a hole in the air. Standing alongside that cloud was a human—or what had once been a human—dressed in the tattered rags of a Turessian robe. The skeleton’s hands held Estin at the edge of the mists, squirming and trying to keep his back out of the cloud. A toppled throne lay on the far side of the room.

  Feanne had stopped everyone from advancing, causing a bottleneck in the staircase. From what he could gather, the skeleton—likely Dorralt himself—had threatened to kill Estin if they continued forward. With no other exits, Raeln could not see any way this would end well. Dorralt could stall for quite some time—far longer than they had left to spare.

  The skeleton was talking to Feanne, but Raeln could not make himself pay attention. He studied every detail of the creature and how it was holding Estin, trying to find some way to stop it or some weakness he could exploit. Given how little it would take to plunge Estin into the cloud, he could not imagine any way of getting closer in time.

  Then he saw he was not the only one looking for that opportunity. The room was not as e
mpty as he had initially thought.

  Sliding very slowly along the edges of the walls, where the uneven stone allowed for long shadows, were two men. To Raeln’s right, the dwarf he had seen above was cautiously making his way toward Estin. He held a knife along the inner side of his arm to hide the metal from the dim light of the mist cloud. To Raeln’s left, Yoska was doing exactly the same thing. He was able to move a little more quickly, since the skeleton was positioned so Yoska was nearly behind it.

  “Keep still for now,” Feanne whispered without looking back. “I told the others what you said about how to kill him. They have blood on their weapons.”

  “Dorralt said werewolf blood wouldn’t stop him.”

  “They aren’t using werewolf blood.”

  “And where would they get wildling blood?”

  Feanne smirked and reached back and took his hand. She pressed it against the flesh of her back on her right side, where the fur was matted with fresh blood and her shirt was torn open. When he looked down, he could see the claws of both of her hands were coated with fresh blood as well. The deep wound was likely not visible to Dorralt unless she shifted. She had ripped open her own skin to make sure they were able to fight properly.

  “I’m more than willing to bleed for Estin,” she added softly. “Let us hope it’s enough.”

  “Enough stalling!” Dorralt shouted, his skeletal face turning on them. The deep red glow from his eye sockets lit up the foot of the stairs where they stood. “The longer I let you beasts stand around, the more likely you will get everyone here killed. Let me make this ever so simple, so you have some chance of understanding. Turess and any other humans on the stairs, take the wildlings into custody. Subdue them. At that point we may discuss your surrender. Once the wildlings are unable to get everyone here killed, you will send my brother forward to talk. You have ten seconds…”

  Blades flashed on both sides of Dorralt, and he took one hand off Estin in an attempt to defend himself. He managed to get a free hand up and backhand the dwarf, sending him flying into the wall hard enough to dislodge stones.

  Meanwhile, Yoska slashed at Dorralt, sending sprays of steam and flame as the blade hit bone. He aimed for joints, trying to prevent Dorralt from moving Estin. The blood-soaked blades might not be as effective on Dorralt as on Liris, but they were certainly doing more than Raeln expected.

  “Now!” Feanne said sharply. She and Raeln managed only a few steps before Dorralt clawed at Yoska with his free hand to force him back.

  He turned his attention to Feanne and Raeln. “Stop right now,” Dorralt said, shoving Estin into the mists. He showed no indication of the mists harming his skeletal arm, even as Estin screamed in agony, the mists roiling around him.

  Yoska took a single step back the moment Estin went into the mist, and the dwarf spit on the ground. The echoes of Estin’s screaming sounded distant, as though he were being heard down a long hallway.

  “He will survive and not be taken, so long as I keep my grip on him. Kill me and he falls. Refuse to negotiate and he falls. Every second you waste, the mists will continue to tear at his life, draining his magic and aging him. He has maybe a minute before his entire life is torn from him, a year at a time. How much will you sacrifice, vixen?”

  Feanne motioned at Yoska and he backed away. “What else can I do? Pull him out and discuss this. Dorralt, name your terms.”

  As Raeln watched, Estin’s black muzzle began to grey, starting along his chin and then near his whiskers. A minute might be far longer than he had to live. Slowly, Dorralt pulled him out of the mist, and Estin went nearly limp. His eyes barely open as he trembled, his tail hanging on the floor, even as his paws failed to reach the stone tiles.

  “I had a rather nice plan going,” Dorralt announced, his eyeless sockets studying Estin before sweeping over Yoska, the coughing, wounded dwarf, then back to Feanne. “Two thousand years of planning, and now you have me trapped here. You realize this whole world is going to descend further into barbarism each generation that our people do not work to unify them? Look at the world you have seen and tell me that it is not in chaos.”

  “Chaos you caused,” Feanne snapped, taking a delicate step forward, keeping her hands out to her sides so they were visible. “Why are we even having this conversation? Surely you realize that the people behind me will not betray Raeln or I. I would have thought by now you would have run, or is this room more important than your own survival?”

  Raeln shifted a little away from Feanne, advancing as slowly as she did. Another few steps and he might be able to lunge for the arm that held Estin. He only needed to knock Dorralt away from the mists, and Feanne could pull Estin to safety. In a pinch, he would try to throw himself between Estin and the mists. It might buy them precious seconds.

  Dorralt chuckled and shrugged. “The room can be remade. What I cannot do is shift my consciousness to another body. Even the puppets I brought to the temple are too far for me to reach with the mists so close. Mairlee and the fae have trapped me, just as they have trapped you. You did notice how the dragons fled the moment the mists closed in? They know this is beyond saving. If we can come to an agreement, perhaps we will weather this storm together…”

  Feanne took another step, and Dorralt plunged Estin into the mists with a shriek that made Raeln’s ear ache. She froze, and Dorralt removed Estin from the glowing cloud again. With all attention on Feanne, Raeln moved past the dwarf and positioned himself to lunge for Estin. Another few seconds and he could be close enough to tackle Dorralt.

  “Stop trying to be the hero, beast,” Dorralt warned. His head swiveled slightly to gaze at Raeln, silently including him in the warning. “Find my brother. He will understand why this had to be done. Him I can negotiate with. The two of you are far too ignorant for me to reason with.”

  A soft clearing of a throat behind Raeln made him look back. Turess stood at the foot of the steps, with Asha and Greth right behind him.

  Turess walked forward until he was beside Feanne. He hesitated there, raising his hands in surrender. Then, more slowly, he came over near Raeln. “He will let me get close,” he whispered as he moved to pass Raeln. “Miharon gave me small bit of magic. I will attempt to shield Estin from the mists. Kill my brother the moment you have a clear swing.”

  Raeln moved aside to let Turess past. He tried to advance with Turess and saw Feanne doing the same. But Dorralt immediately raised Estin again toward the mist and they were forced to stop.

  Turess walked to the center of the room, only a few feet from Dorralt.

  “Close enough,” Dorralt said, and Turess came to a stop. “I don’t believe we’ve had enough time to catch up, Turess. It has been too long.”

  Frowning and looking at Estin, Turess replied, “Not long enough, if this is how you treat those you are stronger than. This was not our way. Put Estin down so we can talk.”

  “Might I remind you that they attacked me, brother?”

  “I do remember. My memory is not so bad, and was only a few minutes ago that we began this battle. Put down my friend, and we will talk about anything you wish. I would not see any more death today.”

  Dorralt sighed, which sounded like a hollow breeze. “I am not a fool, Turess. Estin is my only remaining leverage. I am doing what I must for the survival of the empire. I cannot release him. Your made me swear to be the shield of the empire, and that means protecting it no matter who the threat might be.”

  “The empire fell two thousand years ago, Dorralt. Kharali’s absence ensured that. Given your hand in her disappearance, you may blame yourself. She was the sword of the empire, meant to attack those who threatened it. Was never your duty.”

  Gesturing toward the rotted old wooden throne, Dorralt replied, “Take the throne back. This empire is yours, brother. I did all that I have to preserve what you created. I will kneel to you gladly. We can reclaim the world we built together.”

  “Death was always meant to be an ending for us,” Turess replied, taking another s
tep forward. Raeln used that movement to hide his own step off to the side, nearing the mists. “We built something for those who came after us. We were not meant to rule it forever.”

  Nodding and then hanging his head, Dorralt groaned faintly. “I know, Turess. I could not let go. We worked so hard for it all to collapse because you had no heir. I had to try. I had to do something. I had to stop the wildlings before they fulfilled a prophecy they couldn’t even understand. They are animals trying to pretend to greatness.”

  “You had to try by killing the person I chose to lead our nation?”

  “Always ignorant of the details,” Dorralt muttered. He lifted his free hand carefully—clearly trying to make sure it was not perceived as an attempt to attack—and motioned toward the mists. Immediately, the cloud parted, and Raeln could see a white-and-black furred wildling woman, shaking violently as the mists tried to tear her apart. “I can remove her from the mist, Turess. She was trapped during…an experiment. I could not free her to come save you, or we would have all been destroyed. She is the capstone in keeping the mists in check. You must believe I tried to free her once I realized you would die without her. By then it was too late. I could not remove her without another.

  “All I need is someone to take her place. Give me Estin and you can have Kharali. Walk away with your armies and take your empire back, with your wife at your side. I will serve you without question, my brother. I attempted to raise the empire in your absence, but I will bend my knee to you. Say the word and your wife walks free. The only loss is Estin. One man for the sake of the empire.”

  Raeln looked to Feanne, but she was not paying attention to anything but Dorralt. Her fingers twitched as she fought the urge to attack, though without anger in her eyes, but horror. She thought Turess would accept the deal. On that expression’s merit, Raeln shifted his footing, ready to go for Turess the moment he betrayed them. He might not be able to save Estin, but he could certainly break Turess’s neck.