‘Ehka told me three more days,’ said Issa. The bird had been scouting for the armies and militias earlier that day whilst they travelled south. ‘The militia party from Lans Himay will hopefully join them within that time, along with any of King Navarr’s Feylint Halanoi. The Karalanths might join us tomorrow. The only unknown is Atalanph, although, after I scryed with Haelgon, it seems the king will send his army to join us on enemy soil rather than add to the sea journey by sailing to Davono first.’
She chewed her lip. She had no idea how to manage an army or conduct a war. All she had was a plan. After that, she had to place complete trust in the commanders and officers. She needed Marakon and she needed Asaph. Perhaps if she focussed her thoughts only on what needed to be done—and not how it would be done—she could manage. Thinking of Asaph instilled worry. She couldn’t fight without him by her side, not this time. This was too big.
They crested a hill and the lights of a tavern came into view in the trees below. It was a huge building constructed solely of wood like a hunter’s lodge and, it turned out, made completely empty for their party, except for the barmaids, chefs and housekeepers—as ordered by Domenon on request of the Queen. At three storeys high, it had many rooms and was very secluded and hidden, surrounded as it was by thick forest. A lantern shone in every one of its hundred or so windows, making the place blaze like a gem in the dark.
Their party had grown to fifteen carriages now that a small unit of Davonian soldiers accompanied them to prepare camp. The horses were quickly stabled and the people each shown to their rooms by maids.
Hers was small, warm and bright with only a single bed and tiny table in it. It was all she needed. She stuffed her packs under the bed and ran down to dinner in the huge restaurant. A blazing fire warmed the place and people milled everywhere chatting, eating, and drinking ale.
Dinner was simple; huge baked potatoes with a choice of fillings, and cider, ale or wine. The thought of drinking anything but water after the previous night’s assault made her head hurt. She scanned the people but, oddly, Domenon was nowhere to be seen. She took the empty seat next to Velonorian—he always managed to keep one seat next to him free, for her, no doubt.
Her young aide talked incessantly—uncommon for an elf—mostly about his abilities with the bow and his people. She found his talkativeness amusing, perhaps a little endearing, but hoped his eagerness to please and impress her would lessen with time. She was grateful for his lessons in Elven, though. Learning Elven reminded her of her school in Little Kammy.
After dinner, he walked her to her room and she sighed in relief when she closed the door, glad to finally be alone. But when she lay on her bed, sleep scuttled away. Perhaps because she’d spent half the day sleeping, she was no longer tired.
With a sigh, she sat up and looked out of the window over the dark tops of the trees. No one knew anything about Venosia, so what were they really getting themselves into? The coasts might be crawling with the enemy, guarded by Dread Dragons and totally impenetrable. But if that were true, surely Davono would be under constant, relentless attack? Such attacks were happening on the north side of Frayon. Wouldn’t it be good to finally know something more about the enemy and what they were up to?
We need to do what the enemy does; we need to scout deep into their lands. We can’t send spies or Life Seekers, but we do have wings and magic. She chewed her nails. Somebody needed to scout out Venosia. Only Ehka and I can do this without being spotted—or at least seen as easily as something like a dragon.
Baelthrom was able to detect travelling minds in the astral, but he seemed less able to spot something physical. Could she do that? Could she really fly as a raven all the way to Venosia and scout it out? How else would they know what was there? How would they know where to land the ships and attack?
If they sailed all that way and then had to spend a week looking for a place to dock, the enemy would surely see them and have plenty of time to prepare. Stealth and surprise attacks were the hallmark of their enemy, so they must act the same way. Wandering ships were like sitting ducks to Dread Dragons.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Beloved Zanufey, if this is what I must do, then please protect me. And when should she go? She stood up.
‘Now,’ she sighed. Her mind was made up. There just wasn’t a moment to lose and if she spent more time thinking on it she would only dissuade herself from action.
She should go and find Domenon immediately, but the wizard had disappeared as soon as they had arrived. He hadn’t even gone to his room, or so the maid had said. She couldn’t tell Velonorian, he would be too worried and might try to stop her. She couldn’t tell anyone else for that matter.
Quickly, she opened her pack, grabbed a pencil and scribbled a note on paper that had been left on the little table.
“Back soon.
Issa.”
Would she be back soon? How long did it take to fly to Venosia? What if she were spotted, or worse, captured? Venturing into enemy land was terrifying, especially when there were so many unknowns. It was exciting too. She grinned, tied back her hair and opened the window. If she went now, she’d have the night to hide her journey.
Rubbing her raven mark, she pulled on the Flow and called upon her raven form.
26
Ruling the Dark Rift
‘THE Temple of Carvon is ours and soon the rest of the Order of the Goddess will follow. The faith of the people—their hearts and minds—will belong to us to do with as we please,’ said Cirosa.
‘You will be impressed with our New Order.’ She inclined her head dutifully, her platinum hair cascading freely down her black iron cuirass that the dark dwarves had made for her. An iron coronet adorned with spikes kept her hair back from her face and her dark red cloak kept off the chill of the chamber.
‘Well done, my Priestess,’ said Baelthrom. ‘The religious order of humans was easier to infiltrate than anticipated. Faith can always be broken from within by greed and fear.’ He turned from the priestess to look into the images within the iron ring. It showed what was occurring beneath the Temple of Carvon in the sacred Mother’s Chamber. Harpies chained their new men, who knelt naked, listless and drugged on the floor, and wrenched them up by their hands so that they all but hung from the cell’s walls.
The men were worthless human captives that the bird-women could do with as they pleased. It mattered nothing to Baelthrom so long as the harpies kept their allegiance and did as he commanded. He lifted a hand and the image changed to the Dromoorai carrying the Sword of Binding. Red-robed, New Order priestesses and priests clustered around its hulking form.
Baelthrom’s eyes lingered on the shining blade of the sword, hating its indestructibility. He’d been hunting for the blade for decades, knowing the Dragon Lord Queen had hidden it. Only now, over a quarter of a century later, had it been found by dark dwarves tunnelling beneath Castle Draxa. The necromancers felt it first, the powerful magic shrouding the chamber. But magic could not stop them obliterating the room. The doors and walls were reduced to ash, the protective spells broken, but untouched and unscratched the sword hung defiant, blazing with anger.
The first necromancer to touch the sword died in agony, its innards boiling from within before its body turned black and crumpled to dust. No spell could lift the sword or undo the enchantments upon it. His black fire, cast through a Shadow Stone, did not even blacken the blade, much to his fury.
Two more necromancers died trying to touch the sword before a Dromoorai was brought before it. Painlessly, the undead dragon kin gripped the hilt. The sword had flared as if confused. The old scriptures were proven right; only those with dragon blood could hold the sword, and that included Dromoorai.
It was a source of power in Drax and so he’d decided to move it as far away as possible from its home. The Dragon Lord heir to the throne would be looking for it, it was only a matter of time before the sword called to its master.
‘If you want to hide something, hide it in front of all the
people to see,’ said Cirosa rubbing her hands with a smile. ‘The heir to the throne will never look for it in the Mother’s Chamber beneath the Temple of Carvon and down there he will never feel it nor be allowed to enter. People are so stupid; they will not suspect. If there is any trouble, it can be hidden in the secret tunnels.’
‘See to it that you are right, Priestess,’ Baelthrom rumbled. ‘If the last Dragon Lord and heir to the throne of Drax touches that sword, there will be an uprising of dragons. The alliance between man and dragon must stay dead and buried whilst both are still alive. We do not have enough Dromoorai to fight the number of dragons still sleeping out there. When we have subjugated the world of men, we will… clean up the other races.
He turned to the dark dwarf. ‘Your dwarves have done well to dig the tunnels beneath the city so quickly, Kilkarn.’
The dark dwarf stepped into the light cast by a brazier, his yellow eyes gleaming and his pale grey skin slick with sweat. Cirosa scowled at the dwarf who took no notice.
‘Thank you, my Lord,’ Kilkarn bowed.
Baelthrom turned back to the ring and watched the red-robed priesthood clustering in awe around the Dromoorai. His new priests were weak minded, little more than minions, but they could be used to control the swathes of people. They would be his slave owners. All it had taken to turn them to his will was the offer of a little power—magical power which they had never had—and wealth. Now they sacrificed to the Dark Rift, making it stronger, bringing it closer.
His eyes passed over the rows of trembling prisoners. He had been surprised by the outright cruelty of the priesthood. After their first kill, after the shadows had come from the Dark Rift and given them their first taste of real power, they had sacrificed with abandon as if all empathy had been driven from them. The more beings of Maioria that were given in his name to the Dark Rift, the more power he received from the place that was his home. He longed to return to it with his prize, Maioria.
‘Now I understand the nature of what it is I most desire and remember that which I had forgotten on my journey here millennia ago. Everything is clear,’ he breathed.
He watched the priests drag a screaming child to the altar and tie him down. Before now, Baelthrom had hated death, the end of things, the nothing he did not understand. But now he understood its greater purpose; the Dark Rift had shown him that not all beings or humans were good enough for the immortal life that he offered. The lesser beings must die to feed the greater beings. As the grass feeds the horse, so then must humans and those beings of light feed the greater beings of the dark. Those existing within the Dark Rift were the greatest, most powerful beings of all. Humans should be honoured they were giving themselves to them.
‘If we do not feed the Dark Rift, it will die,’ said Baelthrom. ‘It has been starved too long, subsisting on the weaker things it could find, and now it’s ravenous. It has to grow.’ Indeed, the Dark Rift itself was an entity that needed sustenance like anything else.
The priesthood started to chant in dark dwarven and initiated the opening of the vortex to the Dark Rift. It began, as it always did, as a speck of swirling black. Even just watching it from within his chamber, Baelthrom could feel its energy reaching up into the sky and out across the vastness of space to the black scar. The connection was forged and the tunnel opened hungrily over the terrified boy.
The humans would not be able to see what Baelthrom could see. In the Under Flow the terror of the child was a real thing; a dark red light that seeped all around him, heavy and cloying like blood.
Shadow essences—a purer form of his Life Seekers—poured out of the Dark Rift. They hovered behind each priest and priestess who lifted the boy’s terror-filled blood to their lips. When they drank, the priests allowed themselves to be inhabited. The shadows moved forwards, eagerly becoming one with them, billowing their robes, filling them with power and consuming the victim’s blood just as the body they possessed did.
The priests and priestesses finished their cups, faces flushed, eyes almost black with the power of the Under Flow moving through them. The shadow essences stepped back, bigger and of stronger form than before.
The Dromoorai stood beside the boy and lifted the Sword of Binding. Baelthrom revelled in the protesting hum of the blade.
‘Any symbol or relic used to do the opposite of what it was created for serves to weaken and break its power,’ said Baelthrom, nodding approvingly. ‘All wizards and artificers know this.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Cirosa, her eyes wide with morbid fascination as she watched the sacrifice unfold.
As much as he enjoyed seeing the sword broken, these sacrifices had grown tedious and repetitive. With faint interest he watched the Dromoorai make the killing blow, and the boy’s terrified spirit lift from the body. A pure, shimmering, white light like that which Baelthrom had taught his necromancers to capture in the black drink.
The shadows descended upon the spirit like a pack of hungry wolves. A surging, starving mass snatched the light then dragged it into the vortex; another soul to feed the Dark Rift. He’d witnessed this a hundred times or more, ever since he’d first touched that which lived within the Dark Rift. Before, the rift had been too far away. Now it was so much larger, so much closer, he could reach it through the iron ring. He had come to learn that there were many beings within the rift, but he could only reach the ones without form, for only they could travel through the dimensions.
These shadow beings fed upon the light and were as insatiable as they were powerful. But such need for the sustenance only living things could provide, Baelthrom considered a weakness. So he’d struck a bargain with them. He would feed them if they gave him power. And one day I will return to them as their master.
‘I’d despised death before now,’ he spoke his thoughts aloud. ‘Only the goddess’s weak creations die. But look at it. It is a means to a greater end. I will feed them, and in return I will rule the Dark Rift. Each priest or priestess the shadow essence touches, their minds will be mine to further bend to my will. These Light Eaters from the Dark Rift are the purest form of Life Seeker I have ever witnessed, but they struggle to maintain their presence on Maioria.
‘The more of Maioria and her life-forms we feed to the Dark Rift, the stronger we and the Dark Rift become and the weaker this planet grows. All it takes is for the majority of the people to serve me, then will the power be mine. Then, Maioria will no longer belong to those who seek to destroy us, but to those who have joined our ranks. It all comes down to what the majority of people desire, and look how easily their religion fell. They must be made to desire the “peace” they will be given in the Dark Rift. They must submit or suffer endless war and annihilation.’
‘Then taking control of the Temple has been a huge step towards our goal,’ grinned Cirosa. ‘A superb plan, my Lord. I did not think they would submit so easily, but humans are weak.’
‘We will continue to wear them down with war,’ said Baelthrom. ‘Many will fight bitterly towards the end. It will be a great loss to see their most powerful fall, for they will never submit and never turn to our cause. Which is what makes them so strong. Never forget, Cirosa, that you are a traitor to your race, and that will always be your weakness.’
Cirosa shut her mouth and quickly smoothed the scowl on her face. ‘I am dedicated to you and you alone, my Lord.’ She bowed her head.
Baelthrom gripped the hilt of his blade and squeezed. He admired those who would not fall to him. He knew they would rather die than do so—whether they be dragon, human, dwarf or elf. In that, they were like the Ancients. Those who did fall to him were betrayers to their own race and never to be trusted. Their greed for power made them weak. Traitors were dangerous to keep close and all he could find on this planet were those—apart from Hameka and the dark dwarves. In the Dark Rift, there would be no traitors.
‘The New Order of the Great God will move amongst the people as them and work our agenda in the shadows, feeding the Dark Rift and spreading the Under Fl
ow where they can,’ said Cirosa. ‘They will turn the people to our cause—willingly or unwillingly. The Temple Guard will soon outnumber the City Guard and then Carvon itself will fall. Once touched by the Under Flow, no one can resist.’
‘You will lead this New Order, my Priestess, but remember, overconfidence is a dangerous thing,’ warned Baelthrom. The cunning woman was ambitious, a good thing and a fault. ‘There are still orbs of power beyond my control and great resistance to us which must be broken down.
‘Anchoring the energy of the Dark Rift on this planet will diminish this resistance and turn the minds of the people to our will. The more of the Under Flow we can bring upon Maioria, the faster this will happen.
‘The power of the Dark Rift flows fully into these Mountains of Maphrax. They are a conduit, a power in themselves. It is through these mountains—themselves from the Dark Rift—that the Under Flow reaches Maioria and flows into her core. And now the time has come to finally eliminate the last remnants of an old energy. The last of the Ancients have evaded me for many years but being only two in number, I let them go. They are a blockage to the Under Flow and their light must be removed forever from this world.’
He lifted his hands and commanded magic. The image in the iron ring became a grey fog.
‘Come to me my Knights of Maphrax,’ Baelthrom whispered, his voice so deep the ring vibrated.
An image formed in the swirling grey of the iron ring and the long muzzle of a horse appeared. The nose lifted, inhaled and snorted.
Cirosa stepped back with a gasp as the horse’s head pushed out of the image into the chamber, all smoke and shadow that billowed and wavered. The horse’s eye opened, a pit of black. Its breath was soot like a dragon’s. A shadow hand pulled on the reins and a rider appeared upon the horse’s back, again all smoke and shadow. Three more ghost riders and their horses emerged out of the grey to stand beside the first. The chamber grew deathly cold and silent and there was a rank smell in the air.
Dragons of the Dawn Bringer: The Goddess Prophecies Fantasy Series Book 5 Page 33