by Adam Blade
“Please,” said Affren. “Wear it.”
“But …”
“You’re our leader now,” said the villager. “The army respects you.”
Tanner took the cape in his hands. The cloth was coarse and heavy, and he threw it over his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he said. “I hope I don’t let you down.”
“You couldn’t do that now,” said Affren. “You’ve given us something to believe in.”
Tanner took to the air in front of the cavalry, Gulkien and Gwen beside him. The first of the sun’s rays glinted over the horizon at their backs. They flew ahead and doubled back, scouting the lands ahead as the army followed.
Cool mists squatted over the ground to the west, obscuring most of the view. Firepos descended, emerging over the smoking ruins of a settlement. Houses crumbled, their doors broken from their hinges. The bloated corpses of dead livestock littered the abandoned streets.
“Only ghosts live here now,” Tanner muttered as Firepos lifted away.
Late morning, the sky turned lead-gray and condensation seeped through Tanner’s clothes, chilling him to the bone. They left the rolling landscape, and dropped down into a plain dotted with hundreds of tree stumps among the long grasses.
This was once a forest, Tanner realized.
Every so often, Firepos called softly to Gulkien, who growled back. From the ground Falkor would hiss. The sounds were hesitant and cautious. They’re making their own battle plans, Tanner realized. The Beasts were fighting for their lives, too. If Derthsin got his hands on the mask, he could control them for his own evil ends.
The flame bird gave a low screech in response, and heat surged through her feathers. Tanner gripped his Beast tighter as an orange glow shone through the fog.
“We’re close!” he shouted to Gwen. “Tell the others!”
She nodded and placed a hand on the back on Gulkien’s furry neck. The Wolf Beast dipped his head and sank through the air with the wind buffeting his leathery wings. Tanner fixed his eyes on the volcano’s peak as they broke through the last shreds of mist.
His gaze fell from the spurting lava, down the scorched track where it flowed through the steep, forested slopes. His heart almost stopped when he saw what awaited them.
A massive fortress built of black stone squatted halfway down the slope, guarding access to the volcano. Battlements, carved out of the rock face, towered over a moat of boiling lava. But the edges of the stones were still rough-hewn and none of the wood had been treated properly. This place had been built in a rush. Is that why he had heard no mention of its existence?
A huge gateway drawbridge, taller than any building Tanner had ever seen, was drawn up. How will we even get inside? he wondered.
Tanner took out his Looking Crystal and held it to his eye. The milky surface cleared. Along the turreted walls, he picked out hundreds of soldiers clutching bows. They all wore gleaming chain mail and helmets with jutting spikes. Some gripped spears and deadly pikes in their gauntleted hands.
“Derthsin’s prepared,” Tanner muttered to himself, steering Firepos toward Gwen and Gulkien. His friend looked over with a pale face, and Tanner tossed her the Crystal so she could take a look.
“Why don’t they attack? Have they not seen us?” she asked.
She had a point. Something’s not right about this, Tanner thought.
Suddenly, a commotion of shouting rose up from the army below, human cries mixed with animal snorts. Firepos dropped quickly through the cloud with Gulkien close behind. A terrible sight met Tanner’s eyes. A horse lay on its side, eyes rolling wildly, while its rider, a young woman, desperately tried to get close to its flailing body.
“Poor thing!” cried Gwen.
The rest of the army had come to a halt behind. Falkor slithered through the crowd, Rufus clutching his back. As Firepos extended her claws, preparing to land, Tanner noticed that the horse’s leg was enclosed in a rusty iron trap, its metal jaws buried in the flesh.
“Don’t land!” Tanner yelled to Gwen. “There are traps!”
But Gulkien bounded onto the ground, and Gwen yelped as her Beast’s paw seemed to disappear. The mossy turf fell away, revealing a mesh of branches laid over a pit. The wolf staggered, his hindquarters falling into the trap, while his front paws scrabbled for purchase at the edge. With a growl and a heave of his wings, he managed to tug himself to safety.
“Thank goodness!” breathed Gwen, sagging with relief over her Beast’s back.
Firepos hovered over the concealed hole, and Tanner saw sharpened stakes lining the bottom. If Gulkien had fallen, his body would have been pierced through and he would have been unable to heal himself.
“Please! Oh, please. Help my horse!” the female rider called.
Falkor nosed closer to the fallen stallion, which had started to move more weakly. Rufus called to the watching crowd: “I need two strong men to pull the trap away.”
Raurk ran forward with another soldier, while the woman stroked her horse’s head. “There, there,” she said soothingly. “Try to stay calm.”
The injured creature shuddered as the men pulled the trap’s jagged edges open. The flesh of the horse’s leg hung in ribbons, and Tanner could see the gleam of exposed bone. The horse tried to stand but slumped down with a neigh of distress.
“Now, move back, all of you,” said Rufus. He pointed his serpent’s crook at the horse.
“What’s he doing?” asked the woman, stepping away.
A pale blue light burst from the end of the staff and shot into the wound. As a wisp of smoke cleared, the hundreds of spectators gasped at once and Tanner saw a smile spread across Rufus’s face. The bloody injury was completely healed.
“Oh, thank you!” cried the woman, her arms wrapped around the horse’s neck. “How did you do it?” she asked Rufus.
As the young wizard exchanged explanations with the people below, Tanner flew closer to Gwen.
“I’m stupid,” he said. “I should have known Derthsin wouldn’t make it easy for us.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she replied. “No one’s hurt now.”
But Tanner wasn’t prepared to risk any more lives. “We need to find another way to the fortress,” he said. “Tell the army to stay here for the time being.”
He left Gwen and Gulkien with the soldiers and flew upward to get a better view. The folds of the scarlet cape fluttered around him. “I should never have offered to lead them if I can’t keep them safe,” he muttered.
War isn’t without casualties, Firepos replied. Remember that.
Tanner steered the flame bird left, to the north. As he did, the plain broke up into uneven ground, and then fell away in a wide gorge through which a river flowed over stones and between boulders. There was no track, but at least the ground was too rocky for traps to be hidden. High walls ran along both sides of the gorge, which would help keep the army hidden from Derthsin’s scouts.
“Not perfect,” said Tanner. “But it will have to do.”
He took a last glance at the hulking black fortress and told Firepos to descend back to the army. Every fiber of his being warned him that this was a place of death, and that he should turn around and fly away. But his heart gave him strength. The last piece of the mask is in there somewhere, he thought.
The army was happy to leave the dangerous long grasses, but the going was difficult up through the rocky gorge. The soldiers broke into a single-file march. Tanner flew low below the ridgeline, staying out of sight, and Gwen and Rufus took turns to climb up and take a look with the Crystal toward the fortress. Each time they reported back that the rows of enemy soldiers hadn’t moved. So far, they hadn’t been spotted.
The river became a small stream as they made their way slowly up the gorge. It took half a day before they reached the valley head, and at the summit, Firepos and Gulkien landed on a heap of boulders. Falkor wound between them and formed himself into a coil. Rufus was staring ahead, openmouthed.
Tanner cl
imbed off Firepos’s back and gazed across the remaining distance to the fortress. He didn’t need the Looking Crystal anymore. The turrets and towers seemed to stab into the sky.
Affren appeared at Tanner’s side. “That’s Derthsin’s lair, isn’t it?” he said.
Tanner nodded slowly. “We should take the men closer,” he said. “Just out of arrow’s range. Follow us.”
On foot, with Gwen and Rufus alongside them, Tanner and Affren led the people of Avantia down into the sandy plain in front of the fortress. Every so often, the ground would rumble as the volcano spewed more flames. The black walls seemed to tower over them, and Tanner made out the mutterings of unease in the ranks:
“We can’t get in there!”
“Derthsin’s too powerful.”
“Even with the Beasts, it’s suicide!”
Gulkien turned his shaggy head toward Falkor and growled. Clearly the Beasts were anxious, too. Tanner could see the sentries without his Looking Crystal now. More soldiers swelled their ranks, raising their pikes and readying their bows and arrows. Their movements were swift, efficient, as if they were completely unafraid of the army marching toward them.
And why shouldn’t they be? Tanner asked himself. They’re safe behind their walls, and they have varkules and real weapons.
When they were two hundred paces from the fortress, Tanner waved along the line to draw up his troops. Already he could feel the distant heat from the lava. The Avantian soldiers huddled in groups, sharing the last scraps of food they carried with them, or sipped water from their flasks. A few sat down in the grass. The horses tossed their manes and stamped the ground. Affren sat alone, examining his sword blade.
He’s thinking of what he’s lost, Tanner realized. He could feel the whole army rolling the same question over in their minds. They’ve given so much already. Can I really ask them to give more?
“They’re scared,” said Gwen.
“Aren’t you?” asked Rufus, with a grim smile.
Tanner placed a hand on each of their shoulders, squeezing them tightly. Then he ran over to Firepos, and the flame bird lowered her wing for him to climb. Tanner sat astride her feathers. “Take me up,” he said.
Firepos dipped her head and sprang off the ground. Tanner guided her above the crowd. One by one the faces of the people turned upward.
“Wish me luck,” he muttered to the flame bird.
Speak from your heart, she replied. And you will speak true.
Tanner closed his eyes for a moment. Then, his fists clenched with determination, he shouted down to the watching army.
“People of Avantia! Behind those walls lurks an enemy greater than any we have faced before. You know him well.”
“Derthsin!” shouted a man.
“That’s right,” bellowed Tanner. “His soldiers have ravaged your villages and burned your crops. Many of you have lost loved ones, as I have. Brothers, sisters, mothers, sons. Derthsin has shown no mercy in his quest to take this kingdom as his own.”
Firepos beat the air steadily with her wings as the crowd muttered and nodded.
“As individuals, in our scattered villages,” Tanner went on, “we’re powerless to stand up to his forces. He has weapons of steel, and his soldiers outnumber our own. He has a Beast.”
“We have Beasts, too!” Affren called.
Below him, Tanner saw Gulkien shake his head and snarl, while Falkor rippled his scales in a wave of silver and gold, letting his tail thump the ground.
“We have more than that!” called Tanner. “Derthsin’s soldiers fight because of fear. You who join me today to take on his army have right on your side. We fight for each other, and to rid this land of Derthsin forever. Only together can we wield our strength.”
He paused to catch his breath and steered Firepos around to face the black walls.
“Derthsin seeks a magic this kingdom is better off without,” Tanner continued. “If he claims the pieces of the Face of Anoret, if he wears the Mask of Death, he becomes unstoppable. Many will die today, but let’s make sure they don’t give their blood for nothing. Let’s show this monster that Avantia will not fall beneath his boot without a fight.” Tanner drew his sword and pointed it at the fortress gates. “Who’s with me?”
A long silence descended over the crowd. The villagers looked from one to the other, their weapons on the ground, at their sides, or held limply in their hands. Tanner looked down to Gwen and Rufus. The wizard boy shrugged.
Then, toward the back of the crowd, a young woman carrying a staff rose to her feet.
“I’m with you!” she called.
“Me, too!” yelled an old man with a cracked voice, standing stiffly and clenching a fist over his head.
One after the other, the rest stood, too, and joined their voices until their roar seemed to lift Tanner higher. The soldiers of Avantia brandished their weapons, or hammered their shields until the sound shook the sky. The only face missing from the crowd was Castor’s. Firepos let out a screech that lingered on the air.
Tanner’s heart swelled with pride. If only his grandmother were here. He imagined her smiling face and knew she, too, would have tied back her gray braids and seized her ax, as she had that day when Gor came to their cottage.
I’ll fight for you, Esme, Tanner promised.
He grinned down to Gwen, who nodded with grim satisfaction.
“We’re ready,” he muttered under his breath, feeling a rush of bloodlust. “Are you, Derthsin?”
As soon as the words left his lips, a low, blaring war horn sounded from the fortress like some enraged creature calling out its anger. The noise burrowed into Tanner’s skull so that he had to put his hands to his ears. Falkor hissed below him, his scales taking on the gray sickly hue of anguish. When the sound died, Tanner heard a crack and the rattle of chains. Slowly, like a giant pair of jaws gaping open, the drawbridge in the fortress wall began to descend.
Tanner nudged Firepos forward until she hovered in the air just above Gulkien. The wolf gouged the grass with his paws, his nose wrinkled and eyes narrowed.
“Is Derthsin just going to let us in?” asked Gwen.
“He’s expecting us,” said Tanner.
The drawbridge thumped down with a mighty crash, forming a steep ramp over the lava moat. Tanner stared into the black orifice beyond. A shape appeared, lit by the flickering orange light from the molten rock below.
“It’s a horse,” said Rufus, shifting forward a little on Falkor’s scales.
The creature lumbered forward, and Tanner saw he was no ordinary steed. Jets of hot breath snorted from his flaring nostrils, and his coat, where he wasn’t covered in tough leather plates, was black as the night sky.
Varlot, Firepos said, her wing tips sparking flames.
As the creature emerged from the shadows, Tanner made out General Gor sitting astride the saddle. My old enemy, Tanner thought. Gor’s shoulders rocked arrogantly as he gripped the reins. Tanner couldn’t see his face under the black, dragon-snouted helmet he wore, but he could feel the general’s eyes drilling through the slits and resting upon him. The army of villagers behind Tanner drew a gasp of fear.
“Hold firm!” called Tanner.
Varlot’s hooves crunched over the boards of the drawbridge, and behind him came the slow trudge of four lines of soldiers, huge brutes in matching armor, carrying oblong shields on their arms and tall pikes in their hands. The shields were marked with white slashes in the shape of a feather.
Firepos’s feather! Tanner realized in horror. The one Derthsin tore from my Beast.
The flame bird gave an anxious caw of recognition, and Tanner could see what flashed through her mind: the image of Derthsin’s body, released from her talons and spiraling into the volcano, one hand clutching a feather from beneath her wing. Tanner reached forward and stroked the scar.
“It’s not your fault,” he soothed. Firepos could never have known that Derthsin would survive.
The soldiers fanned out in front of the moat, for
ming ranks across the length of the fortress walls. But still they kept coming from inside, pouring like cockroaches from their hiding places, until the columns swelled ten or a dozen men deep. Men on snarling, hyena-like varkules came last of all, padding between the lines to take their positions in the front. Affren’s cavalry horses snorted and stamped.
Gor held up a fist and his army stopped, banging the stubs of their pikes against the ground as one. Counting across, Tanner guessed there were over two thousand trained soldiers facing their makeshift troops. Varlot continued to pace toward them, as if Gor were challenging Tanner to make the first move. Tanner could sense the evil seeping from every pore of Derthsin’s commander. A chilled silence seemed to swallow every sound, and even the horses fell quiet.
Twenty paces away, the general swung off Varlot’s back. He stood well away, and Tanner guessed what would happen next.
Varlot snorted and reared up, his hooves churning the air. But instead of falling back to the ground again, his forelegs buckled and thickened, the hooves splitting into anvil-sized fists. The Beast’s chest swelled and his hind legs bulged with muscle. Varlot’s rear hooves rooted to the ground, growing and taking on a bronze sheen. Their edges glittered, as sharp as the blade of any sword. From the Beast’s mouth, a strange, half-choked breath steamed the air as his lips drew back over grinding teeth, and his eyes rolled into the side of his head. With the transformation complete, Varlot towered three times as tall as Gor now. He’d grown larger every time Tanner saw him, and now he looked almost impossible to control. Even the general seemed uncertain as his companion loomed over him.
Tanner felt a shiver cross his skin. He’d faced Varlot before. And this will be the last time! I’ll make sure of that.
The Horse Beast stamped his bronze hooves, making the ground shake.
“Remember what I told you,” he growled. “I promised I would make you bleed.”
“My blood comes at a high price,” said Tanner.
Varlot grinned, showing bone-crushing teeth. “Like your Beast’s?”
Tanner could suddenly taste Firepos’s blood again on his tongue: hot, thick, powerful. He’d inherited his Beast’s strength, and now Firepos was weak.