by Cindy Dees
A noise carried to their position that he did not need Selea to interpret. Shouting. Reinforcements were arriving from beyond the ridge to their left, roaring battle cries. But for which side did they fight? Agonized impatience flooded him as he waited to see the allegiance of the warriors who would top the ridge.
“If you will not do what must be done, I will.” Aurelius ground out. “Move aside, Selea.”
The nulvari threw Aurelius a look that he had absolutely no idea how to read. Maybe that was icy rage. Or mayhap disdain. Or mayhap resignation. Or mayhap all three. Selea spoke urgently. “Your thinking is too direct, old friend. This is Anton we deal with. Misdirection is required, and so far, the Boki have failed to do so.”
“What do you suggest?” Aurelius snapped. At least the nulvari was engaging in strategic thinking about how to defeat Anton. It was better than nothing. But it still was not action to help De’Vir’s boy.
Instead of answering him, Selea stretched out on top of the pile of rocks they currently hid behind and rolled silently down the far side. As Aurelius watched, shocked, he spotted Selea crawling off into the trampled brush. What was that wily assassin up to?
Whether or not Selea would actually enter the fight when the moment came was anybody’s guess. But at least he’d made his old friend do more than just observe from the sidelines.
Stay alive, younglings. Everything rests upon your shoulders now.
* * *
Raina peered ahead into the mist, but saw merely featureless white upon white upon white. They began walking forward. At least we made it away from the door, finally. But gradually, as they walked, the mist began to turn gray, and then a faint green. She began to notice texture underfoot. As if the hard ground gave way to softer soil. And then to a suggestion of grass.
“Are those trees?” Cicero murmured, peering off to the side hard.
They stopped walking and she thought she might just be able to make out the vertical columns of tree trunks.
“Reminds me of the Wylde Wood in a bad fog,” Will murmured. “I do believe you are right, Cicero.”
A few more minutes of walking brought them into a wooded valley. The path was narrow and bounded on each side by trees and lush ferns. It was unlike any forest she had ever seen, beautiful and verdant. Tyrel was an arid land prone to stunted trees with leathery, dust-grayed foliage.
“Have you ever seen a place like this?” she asked Cicero.
He nodded, “Aye. Long ago. In an unsettled land far west and south of here, untouched by the Kothites. But never have I felt such … life energy … flowing through a forest.”
Now that he mentioned it, this place did throb with life. It was invigorating. Refreshing. It almost seemed wrong to experience this place after the terror and death their companions had so lately faced.
Cicero froze ahead of her, listening.
Now what? She froze as well, straining to hear what his sharp elven hearing already discerned. There. A rhythmic breathing sound, as of something huge bearing down on them hard.
Will lifted his staff defensively and Cicero’s sword rose to the ready as a tall, rapidly moving shape rounded a curve in the path ahead and charged them. As her companions braced for combat she cried out, “Wait! The black lion’s head!”
Will planted his staff on the ground, and Cicero lowered his sword as a massive black lion, bigger than a bull, bore down on them. A man rode on its back, one hand twined in the creature’s bushy black mane. The other hand held a giant spear, longer than the mighty beast he rode.
Poised on the balls of her feet in preparation to dodge the massive, speeding apparition, Raina awaited its approach.
“Whoa, Aegenis,” the rider ordered his lion firmly. The beast planted his hind paws and scrabbled with his front claws to slow himself. Clods of dirt and turf flew up as the lion slid to a stop no more than two of the knight’s spear lengths from them.
“Who goes?” the knight demanded. “Dost the Elder send thee with tidings? And the Chosen One? How dost he fare?”
“The Elder?” Will asked cautiously.
“Aye. He who bears the symbol of the seeing eye.”
“Gir’Ok?” Will responded.
A snort of derision. “Gir’Ok served the Elder, but is no more. He has not lived in more years than have count. Identify yourselves or die, strangers!”
Raina dived in. Perhaps she would fare better with him than Will or Cicero. She asked formally, “Do we have the honor of speaking with the Laird of Dalmigan?” She did not recognize any of the many blazons crowding his chest, but their sheer number indicated that they’d likely found the laird himself.
Sure enough, the knight bowed over his lion’s neck with a flourish and replied courteously, “Fair demoiselle, I am he. Prithee, mightest thou honor me with thy name that I might praise thy beauty?”
“I am Raina. Uhh, Initiate Raina of the White Heart.” She stumbled a little over the title. Its source was still too painful to speak of calmly. “And there are my companion, Will Cobb, and Cicero, my friend and protector.”
“Come thee not with the blessing of the Elder, then?”
“No, my lord. Many people have helped us and led our footsteps to you, but sadly, not the Elder.”
“Whence knowest thee my name, then?”
“A dryad named you, sir. She told us to seek you out, in fact.”
“A faerie, is it? Are times so desperate, then, that the fae courts involve themselves in the affairs of men?”
“I fear it may be so, Lord Dalmigan.”
The knight dismounted and knotted his reins around the animal’s neck. “Rest, Aegenis,” he murmured.
The Laird of Dalmigan was heavily armored in plate mail from neck to ankles. He carried a massive gold shield with a black lion’s head embossed upon it, and the sword at his hip hung nearly to the ground. He appeared to be a human of early middle age, but vigorous.
His keen gaze took in Cicero quickly and then settled on Will. As she watched, the knight’s eyes widened in surprise. He blurted, “You bear a portion of Lord Bloodroot’s spirit?” Dalmigan looked impressed. “Thou hast not wandered upon this place by chance, then, hast thee?”
Will answered, “No, sir. It is not chance that brought us here. It has been an arduous struggle to find this place.”
“Long have I guarded these lands, and thou beist the first to come upon it. Only those with nothing can pass into this place.”
“With nothing?” Will quieried.
“Correct. No magic, no skills, no strength. Only spirits washed clean of all urthly abilities may pass into this place.”
Raina laughed painfully. “I am sorry to say that describes us to a tee. I am completely without magical energy. My friend Will hovers on the verge of death and is all but without the ability to do more than walk. And my boon companion, Cicero, looks so exhausted he can hardly hoist his bow, let alone swing his sword.”
“Just so,” the laird nodded. “Hadst thee attacked me, or possessed the ability to attack me, I would have slain thee where thee stood.”
“How long have you been here, good sir?” Raina asked curiously.
“Time has no meaning for me in this dreaming land. Others tell me thousands of years have passed away in the living lands.”
Thousands of years he’d been here? He looked mighty well preserved for someone so ancient.
“Why comest thee, young sir?” the knight demanded of Will.
“We have been sent to find and wake the Sleeping King.”
Dalmigan’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker in surprise. “Why seekest thou His Majesty, then?”
Will jumped on that. “You do not deny his existence?”
“I guard his existence, boy. Wherfore wouldst I deny it?”
Excitement leaped in her belly to match the exultation on Will’s face. “Where is he?” Will demanded. “Let us finish this thing.”
Stubbornness flashed in the knight’s eyes. Raina stepped in quickly to ask more diplomatica
lly, “What must we do to prove our good intentions to your satisfaction, Laird Dalmigan?”
“Tell me why thou wouldst wake the king.”
A frisson of excitement passed through her, as if the finger of fate drew lightly down her spine. Close. They were so very close, now. “Is this king of yours also called the Mythar by some?”
“The Lord High King of Gandamere is also ruler and protector of the natural realm within his lands. I do believe the title the forest creatures gave him is Mythar.”
She’d never heard of a kingdom of Gandamere, but now was not the moment to split historical hairs. She was not in a hurry to tell this noble knight that her reason for being here was to take some of the king’s magic to solve her own problem. Her instinct told her Laird Dalmigan would not be impressed. She glanced sidelong at Will. “Perhaps you would like to explain your reasons for waking the Sleeping King?”
Will answered slowly, “I will try. I first heard of the Sleeping King from my father. We were under attack by Boki and—”
Dalmigan interrupted, exclaiming, “The Boki still live?”
“Aye,” Will answered. “They guard the chamber which leads to this place.”
Raina added, “And they ferociously guard the secret of the king’s existence.”
Dalmigan nodded in satisfaction as Will continued, “My village was under attack by the Boki, and my mother and father made a last stand to let me escape. Just before the Boki closed upon them, they told me of their quest to wake the Sleeping King and bade me to finish it in their stead.”
“And why didst thy parents seek to wake His Majesty?” Dalmigan prompted.
“For everyone. For Urth. The Empire of Koth has crushed the spirit of its subjects and systematically destroys the land. The Emperor has ruled for so long that few remain who remember a world without Maximillian. A world with hope. Where the word ‘freedom’ had meaning. We need the Sleeping King to lead us out from under the Kothite fist before all hope is lost.”
Dalmigan studied the three of them long and hard. At length, he finally said, “This is a worthy reason. However—”
They never got to hear Lord Dalmigan’s “however,” for a new sound intruded upon the silence. It was as if a great ship approached across unseen water nearby, its sails snapping and flapping in a stiff wind.
The knight cursed under his breath and barked at his lion, “Under the trees, Aegenis! Hurry!” The lion’s head whipped up and the animal bolted for the cover of the trees.
Cicero’s sword whipped up and he bit out, “Who comes, knight?”
“If yon glimpse of green lies not, Hemlocke sends her minion to investigate. If you have drawn her attention, then the three of you obviously must finish your quest.”
“Who is Hemlocke?” Raina panted as they ran for the cover of the spreading tree boughs beside the path.
“The Green,” Dalmigan replied low and hard. “She durst not come herself. It would draw too much attention to this place. But apparently, she would risk sending one of hers to destroy thee. We must ascertain how dangerous a creature she has sent. ’Twill tell us how great a threat she doth deem thee.”
Within moments a huge, winged creature came into sight. Covered in scales with leathery wings, it looked reptilian. Draconic. Great stars above, was that a dragon? Raina stared in disbelief. She’d read of many wondrous creatures in her studies, but of them all, the one she’d never dreamed of seeing was a dragon.
“Drakken,” Dalmigan breathed. “A great one. Well then. A most serious threat Hemlocke perceives in thee.”
Will and Cicero looked as astounded as she. Drakken were mythic creatures, said to be made of Dragons much like a golem, and only slightly less powerful than their legendary creators. Or so the hearth tales went. To her knowledge, no living being had seen an actual dragon in ages. Literally, ages. And a single age was measured in thousands of years.
“I will face this beast in combat, young adventurers, whilst thou flee with all haste. I shan’t defeat the beast, but mayhap I shall grant thee time enough to reach thy destination.” He whistled low for his lion, which crashed out of the underbrush momentarily. “To my death I ride, then. These thousands of years as guardian of the grove come down to this moment. For the promise of hope, I ride!”
“Wait!” Will blurted as the knight made to mount his steed. “Where is the king? Where do we go from here?”
“All paths lead to the king, boy. Make the leap of faith!”
The drakken, no doubt attracted by their sound and movement, swooped down in a deadly dive toward them, its great, toothed maw open hungrily. Dalmigan spurred his lion, and the pair charged forward to meet the drakken in mortal combat.
“C’mon!” Will shouted at Raina as she stared, aghast.
“We can’t leave him!” she cried. “He’s sacrificing himself for us!”
Cicero gave Raina a light shove. “Go. I will stay and help him as best I can. We will fight the drakken together.”
Not Cicero. Not her stalwart Cicero on whom Raina could always depend. It was too much. This final blow would break her. “I cannot lose you!” she cried.
“I have resurrected before and will do so again. Go!” he shouted over his shoulder as he ran forward to meet the beast at the knight’s side.
Will grabbed Raina’s arm. “Do not let their sacrifices be in vain. Let’s go!”
Heartbroken, Raina did the only thing she could as the huge creature’s leathery wings blotted out the light above. She turned and crashed after Will into the forest. The sounds of battle and terrible, inhuman screams erupted behind them.
Creatures began to materialize out of the trees around them, clawing at them as they tore past. Grasping fingers reached for her ankles to trip her, for her eyes to blind her. She ducked and tripped, staggered, and right herself, but always she ran on. In spite of his weakened state, Will’s longer legs allowed him to keep ahead of her as they fled through the rapidly darkening forest.
They ran flat out for several minutes before Will’s steps flagged. She pulled up beside him and gasped, “Where are we going?”
“He said all paths lead to the king. We’ll find a path and follow it.”
And as if his words conjured one, a narrow path opened up before them, running at an angle to their current direction. Will veered onto it and Raina dived after him. Mist began to form around them, but not the bright, white fog of before. This cloud was dark and cloying, smelling foul and sliding unpleasantly across her skin.
The last, dim green light of the forest gave way to the colorless darkness of the gloaming around them. Worse, that awful flapping sound became audible again. She dived under what might be some sort of overhang beside Will, and they plastered themselves close to the cold, slimy surface at their backs. A gigantic shadow glided low overhead.
“Is that the same drakken from before?” she whispered.
“I don’t think so. This one looks even bigger than the last one.”
She hoped desperately that the appearance of this second drakken meant Cicero and Dalmigan had survived and somehow defeated the first one. “We must hurry,” she breathed. “If these monsters are going to keep coming until we find the king, Cicero’s and Dalmigan’s lives depend on us.”
The weight of so many’s blood upon her hands sat almost too heavy on her spirit for her to go on. But that weight was precisely the reason she must go on.
The second monstrously huge drakken flew out of sight into the putrid cloud and Will nodded at her. They took off running again with renewed desperation. Invisible hands continued to reach for them, and she spied a massive cliff rising ahead. It was smooth and gray and looked formed of a great upheaving of granite from the earth.
They pulled up short before its base, staring up at the smooth, several-hundred-foot-high wall.
“Can we climb it?” she asked doubtfully.
“No handholds. It might as well be a mirror, it is so smooth. Not a chance we can scale it.” Will looked left and right, and the
wall stretched away from them in both directions. “We cannot go back. The drakken are behind us. But I do not see a way around this.”
Screeches and clicks and all manner of inhuman noises rose up behind them, closing in fast from all direcitons. The creatures of the darkness were almost upon them and would tear them limb from limb.
She said, staring at the cliff, “Dalmigan said to make the leap of faith.”
“What does that mean?” Will snapped.
“Are we supposed to … leap up the cliff?” she asked slowly.
“It is no crazier than anything else in this place—four-armed trolls and crystal fire, hydras and immortal knights,” Will grumbled. “How do we do this?”
They both took an upward leap and landed unceremonious on their feet.
“Umm, problem, Will.”
He turned around with her to face outward. Monstrous creatures were materializing rapidly out of the dark mist. And they looked dangerous and hungry. It was just their bodies these creatures wanted to consume. It was their spirits they drooled for. Will swung his staff in a desperate arc around them both, and it passed harmlessly through the insubstantial bodies of the mist creatures.
But as she looked on, the forms were becoming more solid. Something sharp raked across her arm, and it hurt.
Will winced beside her, his staff flailing wildly. “There are too many of them,” he panted.
He sounded as exhausted as she felt. They had nothing to use to defend themselves. They were going to die if they didn’t get out of here soon.
“We have to believe it will work and … jump!”
“On the count of three?” Will gasped.
She cried out, “One. Two. Three!”
They jumped a little ways in the air and landed right back on their feet once more.
“Nothing happened!” Will cried. “Now, what?”
She was out of ideas. Despair washed over her, threatening to crush her. They could not endure so much, sacrifice so much, come so close to their ultimate goal, only to fail now.
There had to be a way. But what? Dalmigen said to take a leap of faith. What if the leap wasn’t the thing? Maybe faith was the key.