They stared at one another for a long time, before he shifted uncomfortably and turned away. "We eliminated them. Some of us were lost, but I am unharmed.”
Meridia took a sip of her tea and said nothing. He flicked his eyes back to her. "What else do you want? I need to see to our expedition."
Her eyes grew colder than the Mergen Sump. If that were possible. "Once again, you come home and have to leave again."
"You knew I had to do this. We've spoken about this before. My visiondreams—"
"You care nothing for any of us. Your children barely know their father; your wife sits by herself in the dark, spat on by those around her, treated like a vile husk by her own first-born daughter." Meridia stood, her pale face glistening. "And all you do is prance about, dealing with other people's problems. Helping them, caring for their needs... sleeping with whores!"
"Meridia.” His anger burned in his guts. “I did everything you wanted, just like I always have. Why can it never be enough? Kristia can no longer be a part of my life, so why can’t you let it be?"
“Because your disgusting bastard daughter is out there.”
Arden balled his fist behind his back. Why did she always have to make him feel so wretched? She’d never been like this before they had wed. “Stop, please. I came here to say goodbye before we set out.”
"You always have to leave me." His wife glared out the window with a curled lip. "Those people out there. They always need you, pathetic weaklings that they are."
"They are our kin and I am their leader. Of course they need me." Arden wanted to go, but this was his wife. She was hurting and he was the only one who could ease her pain. Reluctantly, he stepped forward and widened his arms to embrace her.
She let him hold her, but remained as rigid as a stalagmite. He kissed her on the forehead, more out of formality, than wanting it. As he held her, he saw Kristia's lovely face. Every time he had made what should have been love to his wife, he imagined it to be Kristia. It was the only way he could do it.
And Meridia knew it.
It was as much his fault as Meridia's that things had grown so icy between them. But there was nothing he could do about it now. They were bonded together in marriage, and in the Covenant of the Lost Sun—marriage was for life.
Such was the way of things.
"I need to check on Semira." He let his wife go and gave her a quick peck on her dry lips. "She won't like it very much, but I still need to say goodbye and leave her here with you."
Meridia pushed him away, more than a little roughly. "Then be gone." She began to head toward her bedroom. It had once been theirs, but he had long ago been exiled from it. "Tell her to come home. She has chores to do."
AS HE STRODE OUT OF Sunholm’s gates, Arden’s thoughts turned back to the last time he’d seen his beloved Kristia. He recalled walking into the Golden Keg, speaking to her at the bar, seeing his half-blood daughter Kara, and then leading Kristia to her room.
When they arrived at the room, he led Kristia over to the bed and sat her down. Hands shaking, he got on his knees before her. She took in a startled breath, her eyes glittering. "Arden..."
He lowered his face. “You know why I have come.”
Sobbing, she raised a hand, like she was going to strike him across the face. He grabbed her wrist, and gently lowered her arm. "I’m sorry." He found it hard to speak, so great was the lump in his throat. "I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Lost Sun help me. “I can't bring you with me."
Her tears started to flow. "But you said... last time you were here, you said—"
“I know.” Arden kept his face lowered. He couldn’t bear to look her in eye. "I know. But things have changed. As much as I want to take you with me, I can’t." I should have never made the promise. What was I thinking? My people trusted me. Meridia trusted me. I failed them all.
“That’s it? You can’t?”
He nodded grimly. There was no way he could tell Kristia the truth. She would not understand. No one outside the Covenant would.
Kristia’s body was wracked by great sobs. "Why? You love me, you said you loved me. You promised."
"I know I did. I feel a wretched husk for having to do this." His wife’s face filled his mind. Her angry, twisted snarl, her vicious tongue, her painted-on eyebrows. Meridia was hideous, on the inside and out. And yet, I married her, bound myself to her forever, never dreaming of more... until I met Kristia.
Then the memories faded as Arden found Semira in one of the passages near Sunholm. She sat in total darkness, staring into space, near the edge of a drop. "Semira, my love," he said, coming up behind her.
She squinted in the light of his torch. "Father." Her voice was taut. She knew why he was here.
Putting his torch down, he sat beside her and watched the light glitter on the surface of a nearby pool of water. They said nothing for a long time. Then Semira finally moved next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her.
A few nights ago, he’d had another visiondream. It had come to him several times over the last few years. A dream in which his first-born daughter killed him and destroyed Sunholm. He didn't understand the vision. Semira’s life had been hard, but she knew he loved her more than anything else in the world.
Yet every time he tried to spend time with her, father and daughter, something always came along and interrupted them. Like now. Time was running out and he had to get this over with quickly so he could journey to the city he’d seen in his visiondreams.
Swallowing a lump in his throat, he said, "I don't know how long I’ll be gone.”
“I want to come with you," she began, gripping his arm. "I always get left behind. No one ever needs me."
Semira always came out with this, every time he had to leave her behind. “We've already been through this. You have to remain here and help your mother. It will be dangerous out there.”
"But you're taking Liana and Erinie. Why not me?" Her voice was strained and he knew her tears would follow.
"Liana is needed, for she has been having the same vision as I have. And Erinie is needed because she can decipher the map device. You know this."
Semira looked at him, her eyes glittering in the torchlight. "Mother will hurt me, as soon as you leave. They all will."
She bore more than a little resemblance to his late mother when she was like this. Nothing like Meridia, for which Arden was thankful for. "Semira, no one is going to hurt you, girl. Please.” He brushed back her bangs, his heart sinking when he saw the pain in her eyes. Why does she always make things so difficult? “You have to stay here. I will return, and then we can spend some time together." He glanced at the dagger at her waist, finding something—anything—else to talk about. "Wrynric tells me you've become quite the fighter."
"Stop trying to change the subject, Father. I want to come."
He let her go and stood. "I’m not going to do this with you. I have more important things to do than argue with my stubborn daughter."
Semira got to her feet and tried to stare him down. She’d become so intense these last few years, and had started talking to herself. It had all began when she got sick. Arden had changed in small ways since then too, for Semira wasn’t the only one who got sick that day. After he had recovered, he’d noticed his visiondreams became much more intense and sometimes during them he felt like his consciousness left his body and he became one with the dream. There wasn’t anything like this recorded in the Covenant’s records. But then, nor was there any record of a full-blood scion like Semira not being able to share in the visiondream either.
What had made them sick? What had caused the changes? Why were they different?
Suddenly, Semira took a step toward him, and he almost thought she was going to strike him.
But she didn't. Instead, she embraced him, as stiffly as Meridia might. Wrapping his arms around her, he buried his face in her damp red hair. "I love you."
She didn't say it back but she did put her arms around him for a few
blessed moments. Then their time was done and he had to leave.
WRYNRIC STOOD WATCHING the final preparations of equipment. "Where are Liana and Erinie?" Arden asked, as he came up beside the old warrior.
He glanced at Arden, his aged and bearded face as grim as ever. "They are in the repository charging one of the map devices. They shouldn’t be much longer." Wrynric grimaced. "How did they take it?"
Arden didn't have to ask who the old warrior meant. "Meridia was... her usual self. And Semira. Well, you know."
"I said goodbye to Semira already." He placed a mailed hand on Arden’s shoulder. "She’ll forgive you. She always does."
Arden nodded absently. He wasn’t so sure. Not this time. Something felt off with Semira and he couldn’t quite place what it was.
A crowd of people came to wish Arden luck and embrace him. These were his people and he had work to do to set them in good spirits before he left them on his long journey. As half the town gathered before him, he raised his hands in the air in reverence to the Lost Sun.
"I shall be thinking of you all as we head deep into the Nether,” he said. “Deeper than any of us have ever been. But my visionsdreams and that of my daughter, Liana, are clear. This ancient artifact must be found."
There was a half-hearted cheer by some of the oldies. Most of the younger scions stared at him, with grim faces, hard eyes, all weathered and beaten by the many recent skirmishes with the marauding bone-people.
And now he had to leave them to battle on without him. But only for a time. When he returned, he would set things right.
The bone-people were being driven closer to Sunholm by something or they had decided these caves were better than their own and tried to force their way into them. Either way, there had been some hard fighting of late, and Arden hated having to leave his people at such a difficult time for their community.
But there was no choice. The visiondreams had shown him the winning path. The artifact would save them all.
Arden stood tall and proud to project the courage and determination he felt his people needed. "I shall return in good time, and when I do, we will learn what this artifact is and use it against the bone-scum. This is the reason the visions are showing me this thing. It is some kind of weapon that will aid us in our war."
Finally, the young warrior scions were listening. Anything that could save lives and make their day-to-day existence easier was a welcome thing indeed. "But know this. When I return I will begin plans for another surprise attack on our enemies. Forge us more arrows, more swords, more shields, but most of all, forge your hearts into iron, for Sunholm will need brave warriors in the days ahead."
Now everyone was cheering and Arden reveled in it. He started waving his hands around in a display of eager energy, making sure to stand tall, with a straight back, flexed arm muscles and a raised chin. It almost began to feel natural to him again, and not the act it really was. "We shall drive them from our ancestral caves, burn them to ash, crush them under our boots, hack them to pieces and leave them for the carrion eaters."
Men roared their defiance, holding swords aloft. Women hugged one another, the warriors among them, joining the men in their shouts of defiance. "Death to the bone-scum.” Came the communal cry. “Death to them. Death to them! May they burn under the Light of the Lost Sun.”
His work done, Arden took Wrynric aside and said, "We need to get this journey over with as quickly as possible. I fear our respite from the bone-people attacks is temporary.” He glanced at the cheering crowd. “If we’re away too long, I worry they will be angry at me and that some of them might desert us and head to Stelemia. Maybe I should..."
Arden hated feeling so insecure. It hadn’t always been this way. Once, nothing got him down, until, about five years back, Meridia had found out about his relationship with Kristia. By then, everyone in Sunholm had known, though Arden never learned how they came to find out. Meridia had overheard the gossip, and had waited for him to come home and made him grovel at her feet for forgiveness. He had shattered her heart, fathered a bastard half-blood, and had broken the Covenant’s sacred oath.
And, oh had he groveled. She’d made him feel so worthless, he almost contemplated suicide. He’d never recovered from the shame she’d inflicted upon him, and ever since then he had sometimes started second-guessing himself. Something no leader should do!
Wrynric frowned. "You are doing the right thing. They believe you will find a way to help them and that this artifact is a weapon which will drive the enemy away for good. I believe that too, as do you."
Do I? Arden wasn’t sure what to believe. He had just told his people it was a weapon, but in truth, he had no idea what it could be. In the end, as long as the other scions believed in it, did it matter what it was? It gave them hope, and hope was something in short supply of late.
Arden forced a grin. “I believe it, old friend. It will save us all.”
Wrynric had always helped Arden set his mind straight. How could anyone have a better and more loyal friend than the old warrior? Arden embraced Wrynric, who hugged him back. It was hard for the old man. Only once, many years ago, had he revealed his true feelings for Arden. How it must hurt him to embrace the one he longed for, while knowing it was the embrace of old friends, kindred spirits, and not that of a lover. Arden could never return Wrynric's love the way he could that of a woman.
Kristia, I'm sorry. I will always love you.
CHAPTER 3
They were two days out of Sunholm when they had their first run-in with a group of bone-people. With a bellowing war cry, the savages burst from a side passage, wielding their bone clubs, bone swords and one of them firing bone arrows.
Arden shouted orders to the three scion warriors, Kalisha, Etrian and Perren, then to Wrynric who were all only now waking from sleep and drawing their swords. "Liana, draw your dagger and keep down and stay under your blanket. Erinie-" The librarian was already mixing reagents. Arden raised his shield and positioned himself between the two young women and the enemy archer. "Everyone, take cover."
The bone-scum charged through the chamber, roaring like a pack of jamalganas. Their chief ran at the front, a big man with a bald head, many scars and barely any clothes. Arden moved to meet him. Leader versus leader.
Moments later, the bone-people were on them, thrusting and stabbing, cutting and tearing, kicking and punching. Arden sidestepped a mighty downward swing of the bone-chief’s great club. The weapon struck the ground with a resounding thud. Spinning around, Arden cut a long gash out of the chief’s leg, slicing through muscle and vein. The giant man bellowed a vile curse in his own guttural language and fell back.
A bearded bone-man leapt in front of Arden, screaming incoherent threats as he swung his blade in an arc. Suddenly, a blade came from the side and sliced his face off. Blood gushed out of the front of his skull; the gurgled scream that followed died quickly. Another bone-person came for Arden, and he spilled her guts with his sword, spilling them across the ground, turning it into a spongy mush. The chief was coming at him again, kicking and shoving his own people aside to get through them.
Wrynric took down a bone-man, and the savage toppled into Arden, making him lose his balance and fall. The chief leapt forward, raised his huge club, and roared, his jagged teeth bared. Arden raised his shield, but knew it would not be enough to stop the blow. When it came, it would crush him.
Then, a clump of white powder struck the bone-chief on the arm and he screamed in agony as it ate away at his scarred skin. Arden leaned forward and brought his sword up from below, sinking it almost hilt deep into the man's abdomen and up the center of his ribcage. The bone-chief puked red, his body stiffening, head lolling to the side. Then he toppled forward onto Arden, pinning him down in the spilled guts and pooling blood.
Shoving the man off, Arden dragged himself to his feet and kicked the leader in the side. The man tried to get up. Arden shoved the chief onto his back with his boot, ripped out his sword, then drove it down into the chi
ef’s forehead until the point struck the ground on the other side. The giant man’s body jerked in a death-spasm, then went still.
Then another bone-woman was on Arden, cutting a deep gash through his leather armor. Arden backed up, almost falling over a severed leg. He parried a thrust of a dagger, and then in a backward arc, cut the bone-woman's arm off at the elbow. The woman screamed, staring at her gushing stump with wide eyes.
Arden cut her head off, ending her pitiful screeching.
Gasping in air, he searched for his next target. Bone-scum deserved the most violent, gore-splattered deaths one could devise. Their kind were murderous vermin. A blight on all who considered themselves civilized. The sooner they were driven from these caves and back into whatever vile pit they once inhabited, the better.
The enemy archer hung back, firing arrows at Kalisha, who cowered behind her shield. Arden charged the archer who tried to swing his bow around to fire at him. But he was too late. Arden shouldered into him, sending him flying backward. He landed atop a stalagmite and became impaled. The man wailed, grasping at the sharp stone protruding from his guts, clawing at it, pleading with it, trying to tear it out in a madness of pain.
Arden left him there to scream.
The fight was over. The enemies were dead.
As he fought for breath, Arden checked over his companions. Perren had taken an arrow to the shoulder and Kalisha had been stabbed in the leg. Wrynric had a gash on his forehead and Erinie had a small cut on her arm.
Liana poked her head out from under the blanket, staring at the carnage around her in shock. He knelt beside her. "Are you alright?"
She looked up at him and nodded. He went to put his arms around her, then remembered he was covered in blood and probably worse. She gestured at something on his boot and he saw part of someone’s intestines had stuck to it and had trailed behind him. Following the grisly rope, he saw it belonged to the first bone-woman he’d killed.
Fall of a Lost Sun_The Prequel novella to the Lost Sun World Page 2