The Raiden

by Shelley Cass

  My sister was teaching me the runes to spell my own name, marking the funny lines on parchment with charcoal.

  I was eight, she said. Time I spelt at least my name right. Then she looked up from the parchment spread between us in surprise.

  I heard a cry and a thud from the driver from outside, and the cart veered off the road while the horses panicked.

  My father put his arm out to steady us, but then his eyes widened as he stared past my mother to the window behind her.

  “Thalia!” he cried in warning, and his hand went to his sword hilt. Up until then it had only ever seemed like a part of his clothes. But he didn’t have time to draw it before my mother screamed and was dragged by her lovely honey hair through the window of the carriage. Then my father roared as he was torn away from my sister and I.

  “Do what the Trunes say,” my sister whispered to me. “Be a good boy and you’ll be safe.”

  I felt her tears on my cheek and her arms around me. She was breathing fast in gulps and sobs. Then they took her from me too.

  I cried as they kicked me down the steps of the carriage and I fell onto the dirt road.

  A heavy boot crunched into my back and pinned me to the ground.

  “Watch.” The owner of the boot had told me with a bark of laughter.

  And I watched as blows and blood made my mother’s honey hair turn red. I watched as a quick slit silenced my sister’s cries. I watched as my father was felled.

  I was struck mute and the boot in my back moved and kicked my face down into the dirt.

  My wrists and ankles were bound tightly while the murderers were hacking the heads from the bodies of my loved ones, before the Trunes kicked the heads across the dirt into a pile in front of me.

  The face of that Trune, who put the letter in my pocket, was smiling. And when they all left I still did not roll away from that place, away from the heads. I just laid there and gazed at the faces of the ones I had lost. I stayed frozen and bound, crippled by the horror.

  “Noal! Noal wake up, you’re fine!”

  I woke with a violent jerk to Dalin and Thorin leaning anxiously over me.

  Everyone else was awake already. The howling of the wind outside our shelter seemed even more foreboding than usual.

  My head sank wearily back down to the ground and I held my brow with a shaking hand.

  “Are you alright?” Thorin asked.

  I nodded. “Just a bad dream. Sorry if I woke everyone up.”

  But I noticed that Nikon, who had been sharpening his blade during first watch as I’d fallen asleep, was now releasing his hold on Thale. Thale sat up, pale and shaken.

  “If it was just a dream, then everyone had it. All of you started moaning and thrashing about at once, and I nearly sharpened myself instead of my blade,” Nikon grunted.

  I took a long breath. “Everyone had a night terror?”

  I saw Dalin glance at Kiana, who was stony faced and dangerous looking. She shook her head and focused her eyes. “These weren’t ordinary dreams. What I just experienced was nothing like the nightmares I used to have. It was like reliving the attack on Bwintam, reliving the death and fear. Every sensation, everything was the same. As if I was back there again.”

  “Aye,” Thale said in a low voice. “I was reliving the day that Angra Mainyu forced my troop to surround, trap and watch as he burned an entire field full of rounded up villagers he said were plotting against the Sorcerer King.”

  “And I was back to the day my parents were taken and I was cast out into isolation,” Thorin told us grimly.

  I noticed that Agrudek huddled, haunted and withdrawn, behind Thorin.

  “Mine was simply a parting argument with my father over my level of competency,” Dalin shrugged grimly. “But it seems somehow our worst memories or insecurities have been used as weapons to hurt us.”

  “I think,” Kiana said slowly. “That this is our second warning that Agrona is on our trail, and isn't wishing us well.”

  Chapter Fifty Nine

  Dalin

  “I am so sick of these accursed mountains,” Thale muttered to Thorin and I after a particularly hard climb over a massive fallen rock. “It feels as if I’ve been wet and tired and surrounded by howling wind for years.” He wiped at drops of misted rain that had begun to cling to his beard like ornaments.

  “I swear I’ll turn into a rock if I see nothing else for much longer,” Thorin groaned.

  “You’d make a lovely boulder to sit on while we eat lunch,” Noal told him.

  “Believe it or not,” Kiana said, “we have only a few days of this rock left before we see Jenra.”

  Tane frowned as he slid down the boulder Thale had just struggled with. “Shouldn’t we be starting to descend soon then? It doesn’t feel like we’re going downward. The easing pain in my buttocks muscles would surely tell me.”

  “Midroone Pass keeps climbing until the very last stage before it opens to Jenra,” Kiana answered. “When that happens you’ll definitely feel the downward slope.”

  “Gods,” Phrixus moaned. “There’s no relief in this place. It goes from one treacherous extreme to another.”

  “Yes,” Kiana agreed. “An incline up for the entire climb, and then an extreme slope down at the end.”

  “I don’t even have the energy to be excited that this will end,” Purdor said gloomily.

  “Because there’s no sign that it really is going to,” Phobos answered as he caught Agrudek effortlessly. The scraggly scientist had just tumbled down the boulder. “Every rock looks the same.”

  There were sour mutterings of agreement all round, and our group’s mood was morose as we toiled along the dreary path until Kiana led us to settle into a melancholy camp in a cave for the night.

  But despite the dreariness and exhaustion, after the previous night’s dreams I laid listening to the others breathing deeply instead of settling for myself.

  “Can’t sleep?” a soft voice caught me by surprise in the dark. I hadn’t noticed Kiana crossing to kneel by my side.

  I regarded her ruefully. “Perhaps I am too tired to sleep.”

  She held her hand out from where she crouched and I took it, allowing her to pull me up.

  “Why aren’t you resting?” I asked curiously.

  “Perhaps I am too magical to rest,” she teased. “Here,” she wrapped my cloak around my shoulders and clasped it at my throat. She had been so quiet that I hadn’t even heard her draw it from where it was drying beside my pack.

  “Where are we going?” I whispered, though I knew I didn’t care.

  “To be awake together,” she smiled, and I followed unquestioningly.

  Wolf was puffing away on his dwindling stash of pipe weed. He was wrapped up like a swaddled babe, keeping watch at the entrance, but he nodded quietly to us with a small smile as we stepped past.

  I shivered the moment we were outside, feeling my face become pinched in the harsh chill straight away, and I rubbed my hands together roughly.

  Then a warm hand rested on mine and I stopped.

  Kiana entwined my fingers with hers and she watched my face expectantly.

  At first I was simply gratified by the gesture. But then I felt my mouth become an ‘o’ of amazement as a tickling sensation started in my fingertips.

  It moved up to my elbow, spread across my shoulders, and bloomed throughout my core so that heat swelled through the lengths of my legs, and blushed warmly in my cheeks and ears. Even my damp cloak suddenly felt as if it had been touched by the sun’s rays.

  “Kiana,” I breathed in wonder. “You are a treasure.”

  “I’ve been wanting to try this,” she told me. “But don’t let go of my hand,” she warned. “The wind is less mournful tonight. But if our connection breaks, you’ll freeze.”

  “I won’t,” I assured her contentedly, and followed her as she led me along the path we would continue on tomorrow.

  For once we were high enough in the cliffs to be close to their peak, and t
heir walls did not tower high above us tonight.

  “The stars have missed seeing us,” Kiana said quietly, gazing at the glittering, silver fires – burning almost within reach.

  “I’ve missed every part of the world beyond this Pass,” I answered.

  “Well wait until you see what else is out there.” She pulled me along more quickly until we crested a steep slant in the path and found ourselves at an opening in the cliff face.

  It was as if a portion of the cliff top had fallen away from there, and now there was just a yawning dip in the rock. A window in the cliffs.

  “Oh ...” I was breathless at the sudden appearance of the world beyond the encasing of the rocky walls, and could not take my eyes from the great, incandescent moon that soared magnificently before us.

  Beyond the gap in the cliff, and below the moon, there was a fatal drop. But the drop was obscured by the swirling mists of the clouds hugging the mountains below. The mists looked like a stretch of endless, rippling water – as if we could plunge in and swim across the white tendrils, weightless and free.

  “Spectacular,” Kiana breathed softly.

  I could imagine what our two figures would look like standing there. Dark, small shapes surrounded in the glory of the moon, hand in hand.

  “It’s like we’re on the edge of the world. As if we could just step away into the mists and be amongst the Gods,” I smiled and turned to Kiana. “But I wouldn’t want to lose my life in the process.”

  “Oh there’s worse ways to lose your life,” Kiana shrugged. “There is a war coming up,” she reminded me.

  “This world is worth fighting for,” I answered, pulling her down to sit, our legs dangling over the edge so that the mists seemed to swirl beneath our boots. But I felt completely calm and safe with Kiana by my side, and we held each other steady.

  “Tomorrow as we get closer to the top, things will be harder.” Kiana leaned her head on my shoulder. “I can’t yet spread my warmth to everyone, and there will be ice to make the paths even more hazardous. Perhaps even snow.”

  I rested my cheek against the top of her head. “I should be frozen right now. Somehow you’ve kept me alive. You always look after us.”

  Kiana was quiet for a moment. “The cold won’t be the hardest part. Once we’ve finished the climb and descent, we face the real task. In three days we face our original challenge.”

  I took a deep breath. “Jenra.”

  The idea of coming upon a new civilisation beyond the rolling mists seemed surreal.

  “Imagine we have come all of this way, and are not able to convince the Jenrans to form an alliance.”

  Kiana squeezed my hand. “We already have the Elves and Nymphs. That’s better for Awyalkna than when we first started.”

  I frowned. “But not quite the full unity of all races that the prophecy asks for.”

  “I have every faith that the Jenrans will follow you,” Kiana answered simply. “You are a Prince after all.”

  “I can impress them with all of my protocol and training,” I smiled.

  “Perhaps a nice courtly dance?” she suggested.

  “Well, my dancing method is quite polished,” I agreed.

  “Oh of course.”

  “Don't believe me?” I teased, pulling her up with me again, away from the edge.

  With trained upright posture, I launched her away from myself in a twirl and pulled her back so that she was tucked in my arms, and for a moment her face was surprised. Then she laughed lightly in delight.

  Her hand was still in mine and my other hand rested on the small of her back.

  “Amazingly graceful, Your Majesty,” Kiana smiled and moved in to rest her head against my shoulder again.

  I held her gently and we moved slowly to a silent tune that only we could hear, relishing the simplicity and peace that came with there being just the two of us.

  “What do you miss about home?” Kiana asked me quietly after a while, and I thought about it as I turned us gradually.

  “I miss my land. The green planes of Awyalkna, and the energy of the people before all of this happened. But if you were to ask me what I miss about my life,” I winced. “There wouldn’t be much to say.”

  “Your family?” Kiana regarded me now with concerned eyes, her face close to mine as I looked down.

  “I love them. But my life was politics and expectations. I was an orphan to Council Halls and Wilmont’s training. I was too immature or there was never time to discuss the important things, and I was surrounded in officials and servants.”

  “Now you’re the Raiden,” Kiana said.

  “I have become the self I want to be,” I affirmed. “Anywhere the Quest has taken us has become home.”

  She came in closer, sending thrilling pulses of magic throughout my core. “I’m glad we have found home together then.”

  I hugged her gratefully, but then noticed the shapes that had just begun to dance in the air. “Look,” I told Kiana in fascination.

  Tiny white flecks were dancing about in the night. Floating slowly, as if the Gods had sprinkled little pieces of the clouds over us.

  They landed on our eyelashes and in our hair, tingling on my skin in contrast to the warmth from Kiana.

  Already they were starting to fall more quickly.

  “Tomorrow promises to be harsh,” Kiana observed in a low voice, seeing through the beauty of the moment to the bleak challenges that snowfall would cause for our path.

  “But we love the Quest, it’s our home,” I reminded her, trying to break her seriousness.

  “Shall we return to our physical home for the night?” she asked.

  Wistful that our escape was over, I bowed as our dance ended, and allowed her to lead us back to where sleep beckoned.

  It was almost heart breaking when our hands parted and the full force of the mountain’s chill came rushing back as we moved towards where Phobos was on watch now.

  Chapter Sixty

  Noal

  “Gods … snow on the Pass…” Ferron sat back in astonishment when Kiana and Dalin described how the snow would add a slippery, deep coating to our upward path.

  “So there is likely to be a deep layer of it?” Purdor mulled the news over slowly.

  “Probably deep enough to sink in as we walk,” Kiana affirmed grimly.

  “And it is going to be all cold and white?” Wolf questioned.

  “We’ll be even colder, wetter and more miserable than before,” Kiana admitted. “It’ll be hard to see snags and rocks in the road.”

  “So this is going to mean a lot of breaks and rest stops?” Phrixus was rubbing his hands together.

  “A lot of time will be wasted,” Kiana sighed apologetically.

  “Right.” Thale looked serious as he thought.

  “We’ll follow your lead,” Tane encouraged his bearded leader, putting a hand on the grim warrior’s shoulder.

  “Whatever you decide,” Thorin added his support.

  “Yes,” Thale frowned as if he was feeling the weight of a terrible decision.

  “I know it will be hard, but I am positive I will be able to find our way through,” Kiana promised them in concern.

  “We don’t doubt you,” Cadell told her reassuringly, but then turned back to Thale expectantly.

  “We will split into two teams. Nikon will lead one and I will lead the other,” Thale declared at last. “The winning team gets out of the watch tonight.”

  “What in the Gods’ names are you working out?” I interrupted in perplexity.

  Kiana appeared as confused as Dalin and I as she spoke again. “We can stick together and all make it.”

  Tane snorted. “Oh we would never let one of us die, this is all in good fun.”

  Dalin gaped at him. “I don’t think I fully comprehend how you feel about the snow.”

  Phobos was grinning. “We’ve never seen real snow. When the Sorcerer’s snow does fall it is filthy and becomes like mud immediately anyway.”

  �
��So of course we must pit ourselves against this challenge, and test our strength against the snow, the cold and each other alike,” Vulcan explained.

  “We must battle in an epic snow fight,” Nikon finished for him.

  They looked at us excitedly, waiting for the enlightenment of the venture to dawn on us.

  Kiana had her hands on her hips.

  “Certainly, it will only occur during breaks and when it is safe,” Thale implored her.

  “Please Kiana!” Tane begged. “It’ll break the monotony!”

  “Fine,” she granted with a roll of her eyes. “I’m sure I’ve developed my little fires enough that they can dry everyone off and prevent harm.”

  “Hooray!” Wolf exclaimed gleefully, and our group preceded to break camp more quickly than ever before.

  We soon lumbered out into the blistering ice and calf deep snow, which was deepening as white flakes fell to blanket the path – and the men bounded about joyously.

  “It’s so white!” cried Ferron.

  “Dazzling!” Thorin laughed.

  “Duck!”

  Thale yelped as a white missile struck him in the forehead. “I didn’t say we could start yet!” he growled in protest. But Nikon was already scooping up a new snow ball.

  “You’re like a bunch of children,” Kiana scolded their antics. “Somehow the altitude has made you all soft in the head.”

  But by the second rest stop she was calling out tactical advice to both teams and criticising their more foolhardy moves.

  Later, when Tane had fallen down ‘dead’ from a snowball to the head, she sent a white globe of heat floating his way. “You’re going to have a wet behind,” she groaned.

  He spread his arms and legs out to leave an imprint of himself in the snow before the white globe thudded into his chest. He sat up to take hold of it gratefully.

  “My boy would love this,” he said then, his curls sticking to the back of his head as he tossed his little ball of magic from hand to hand. “I wonder if he will ever see the beauty of Nature like this. Rather than the unnatural wasteland that the Sorcerer has made out of Krall.”