Curious, he shifted his thoughts from the edge of the wall to the full measure of the side that faced him. He could sense the movement of the material more clearly now, as though he were now floating on the ripples, rather than hovering above them. Tentatively, he reached out and pressed himself against the surface, trying to move beyond it and into the interior.
He felt himself jerk back violently, like a hand retreating from a hot surface, and he broke the connection with the wall. He wasn't sure what he'd expected to find within the dark shape, but he certainly hadn't thought to find another consciousness there! He tensed at the memory of the sensation. He didn't know who or what, but something—a presence that existed on the other side of the wall, but not within the Conflagration itself—had noticed him there.
He also got the distinct impression that the something was coming to investigate.
"Flames," Caymus whispered to himself. He took a few steps backward and brought the blade of his sword up in front of him, holding the grip with both hands. "What was that?" As he still had no sense of time, he didn't know how long he waited, but he felt as though he'd taken about a dozen breaths before a dark figure stepped out of the black mass before him.
The figure was human-looking, and yet, at the same time, it was as far from human as his imagination could comprehend. It was the height of a human. It had two arms, two legs, and a head. The arms and legs, however, ended in forms that lacked fingers or toes. Instead, forearms tapered down to black, sharp-looking points, and the feet, lacking any sort of definition to separate heel from toe, appeared as shapeless globs of a black, undulating material.
The figure had no face. The head presented only a smooth, black surface, yet Caymus could tell it was looking at him, its awareness of him as obvious as the sickly, sweet smell that emanated from it.
Caymus's neck itched. He knew what that meant: this thing was a krealite. He wondered if the wall itself was made of the stuff, but, if so, why hadn't his skin prickled before the shape had stepped through it?
Caymus's thought was cut short, however, as the figure slowly put one foot forward, and then charged at him.
The thing hated him. He knew it with certainty, the same way he'd known that the blank face had been staring at him. He tried to keep his wits as he felt his muscles tense. Could he use that hatred, take advantage of that rage? As the figure neared, he decided to try, and shifted his right foot outward a few inches, raising his sword up, point held high, toward his left shoulder. Just as the thing was about to reach him, he pushed off the extended foot, spinning his body to the right, and brought the pommel of the sword down the back of his attacker's head.
The krealite stumbled a couple of paces and Caymus took the opportunity to take a step toward it and bring his blade down on the exposed back.
The might of his blow knocked the dark shape to the ground. His enemy was sprawled out on its hands and knees, but not wounded: he'd failed to penetrate the thing's skin. Caymus grimaced with frustration and backed off a few steps. For all he'd accomplished, he might as well have just shouted at it.
Slowly, with great deliberateness, the creature rose up off the ground. It didn't appear to be injured in any way at all, but it did seem as though it was considering Caymus with greater wariness now. As the blank face turned toward him again, Caymus raised the sword defensively, waiting for it to make its next move. How did it get here? If it was a krealite, what was it doing in the Conflagration?
His thoughts were interrupted by another charge. Caymus didn't think he could get away with the same move twice, but his muscles seemed to disagree and, before he knew what he was doing, he was repeating his previous motion, letting the creature get close, then spinning and knocking it down. This time, however, he struck out with his blade, rather than the pommel, on the first hit.
As the action was repeated, so was the result. Again, he failed to wound the creature. Again, it was merely battered to the ground. This time, however, he took several strong swings at the thing as it lay there, even taking the time to reverse his grip and thrust the sword's point down into its neck. Still, his blade failed to make purchase, only managing to deliver concussive force.
As he moved away again, he cursed under his breath. The krealite was getting up again, just as deliberately as before, and turning to face him.
Again and again the creature charged. Caymus tried a few variations on his defense, sometimes tripping his opponent, sometimes just driving it to the ground with brute force. His lessons with Rill and Be'Var must have stuck with him, because he always managed to bring the creature down.
But it always got up again.
After what felt like the tenth time going through the pattern of attack and defense, Caymus began to lose his temper and actually shouted at the thing. "What is this!" he yelled between panting breaths. "What do you want?" He was getting frustrated by the creature's persistence, but mostly by its failure to stay down or yield. As he slid a foot backward, preparing for another charge, he marveled at his own luck that the thing wasn't smarter, that it didn't seem to learn from its previous mistakes.
This time, however, when the creature rose from the ground, it didn't immediately charge. Instead, it stood tall, facing him, its arms at its sides. As Caymus watched, he saw the pointed hands of the creature change before his eyes, growing in length, flattening out, until the black shape appeared as though it had two short sword blades attached to the ends of its arms.
Apparently, it was more adaptable than he'd thought.
The new weapons, however, didn't affect him nearly as much as the long, deep sigh that escaped the thing's dark, lipless face. Caymus didn't know why it had done that, but he had an eerie feeling that the sound was some attempt at communication.
Before he could give voice to his thoughts, however, the creature stepped forward, and charged again.
Caymus was amazed at the ferocity of the pins and needles in his neck as he fought with all his might to defend himself.
***
Garrin slammed his fist on the table, knocking over a glass that dribbled wine onto some scattered documents. The prince thought angrily that the fools at the table must not have believed the papers nearly as important as they had said, or at least one of them would be scrabbling to rescue them from the spill.
He stood, pressing open hands against the varnished wood, letting his head fall limp and closing his eyes as he tried to puzzle a way out of this mess. It was late. The candles in the room had been replaced twice already, and these ridiculous men were no closer to agreement than they'd been when they'd entered, that afternoon. He wondered how many of the servants were even still awake at this point, knowing that at least one or two of them would be nearby, waiting to see if the important people needed anything.
He could hear the patter of dust and sand against the single window in the drafty war room, and the sound squeezed his heart. Kepren wasn't accustomed to sandstorms; the dark cloud outside was hardly more than a large dust-devil, but it was stark evidence of just how dry the city had become in recent months. The noise seemed to echo against the bare stone walls and ceiling. Garrin had been in this room more times that he could count, but, until recently, only as a soldier—a commander of course, due to the royal blood in his veins, but a soldier nonetheless—advising his king. Now, here he stood, at the head of the table, in his father's place.
He hated the head of the table.
The three dukes of Kepren, as well as the two ambassadors from Creveya, had been here for hours as the prince had tried to explain to them the dreadful seriousness of what they were up against. Aiella was there too, of course; Brocke always tried to keep her close by, a fact which Garrin didn't mind at all. Not only was she as clever as she was beautiful, but she was probably the only true ally he had in this room.
He opened his eyes again, letting them drift over the same reports, received from either foreign messengers or from the network of air priests that had cropped up since the first krealite attack, that he
'd been looking over all day. They were matters of crucial importance and sources of great frustration. Those messages that were hand-carried by couriers, many of whom had ridden several horses to get here quickly, were generally considered to be the more reliable than those carried on the wind, but they weren't nearly so timely. Quite often, though, the sealed letters contained information that was weeks old, at best. Garrin was immensely thankful for the air priests.
Every once in awhile, one message would contradict another, making comprehension of what was happening up north difficult, but, for the most part, they were in agreement. A large army, calling itself "The Black Moon", was on a southerly march. Nobody knew where they had come from, or even what they wanted, but they were moving steadily and would, sooner or later, reach Kepren.
And they were killing people.
Garrin took a deep breath, thinking about the city of Albreva. He'd been there once, when he was just becoming a man. He'd been sent as part of an envoy to sign pacts and treaties that would keep the Albrevans from warring with the people of the Tebrian League for the next several centuries. His memories were of men in glinting plate armor, with pikes and swords sharpened to incredible degrees through processes his own blacksmiths didn't understand. They had horses and siege engines, too. There was even a moat around a large portion of Albreva—a moat!
Madd's Hollow and Caranaar, too, were said to be the home of some of the fiercest warriors imaginable. Caranaar's bladewhirls were the very hands of death on the battlefield. He'd never been to Madd's Hollow, but he'd heard stories that their warriors were strong enough to tear a man in two with naught but bare hands.
All of them, Madd's Hollow, Albreva, and now Caranaar, had fallen to this Black Moon Army. How such mighty peoples had fallen to this foe, he couldn't understand, but the reports from those who had actually witnessed the last days of each city were all the same. The Black Moon arrived, camped outside the city walls for the night, and then, by the next day, nobody inside those walls was heard from again.
They didn't even ask for surrender first.
He didn't know how he was going to do it yet, but somehow he was going to keep Kepren from the same fate that had befallen the northern cities. He looked up from the table, regarded the people sitting around it, and tried not to grimace. He had been a soldier all his life, was a gifted commander of men. In the field, he was without peer, but these games of politics were something he just didn't understand.
Korwinder, Duke of the Guard District, his bushy white mustache a stark contrast to his bald head, cleared his throat and picked up his goblet. "My dear Prince," he said in that condescending tone of his, "I understand that you are concerned for our city. We are all concerned for our city, but the evidence we would need to rally a force of this magnitude is just not here." He tipped his head at the reports on the table. Garrin hated Korwinder more than any of them. He was an ancient, exasperating know-it-all, sure, but Garrin suspected that the man wasn't actually being devious in his protestations, that he actually believed the words coming out of his mouth.
"He's right." Garrin turned to find that Duke Chenswig was still playing with that wooden quill of his. "The evidence just isn't there, highness, just isn't there." Garrin was less-than-surprised at this response, too. The young man had become duke of the Grass District barely a year ago, after his father had died of some kind of affliction. He seemed to have no sense of his own responsibilities and generally chose to a parrot Korwinder, rather than form his own opinions.
Garrin turned to Duke Fel, of the Reed District. "Well, Your Grace," he said, expecting the worst, "what do you say?"
"Well, uh, your highness." Fel’s jowls shook as he looked around the room at anything but the sets of eyes that were on him. His shrill voice stretched the words out as though it was uncomfortable speaking them. "I think that it's quite a risk, your highness, yes, quite a risk," his fingers spun a circle in front of him, as though searching for the words, "...uh, to be taking when there's this drought about. New troops cost money. There's training them, housing them, feeding them. Uh, until this drought is over, I think it would be foolish to take such a risk."
Garrin's heart would have sunk had he not been expecting exactly that. Fel was a businessman above anything else, and he was losing money to the drought. Men like him were always averse to any risk that didn't positively affect the gold in their treasuries.
Garrin gave a quick glance to Ambassadors Brocke and Cull, of the Summit and the Tower, respectively. They sat a few feet from the table; they were foreign dignitaries and had no say in the matters of Tebrian rule. If Garrin asked them a direct question about Creveya, they would answer, but otherwise, they politely kept their mouths shut.
"My good dukes," he said, as calmly as he could manage, "the evidence sits before you." He picked up a handful of paper and threw it down in the middle of the table, giving them a good spin so that they would scatter across its surface. "Reports given to us from the air priests—"
"Air priests!" scoffed Korwinder, picking at his mustache
"The reports from the air priests," Garrin repeated, his voice rising in volume and intensity, "are corroborated by those arriving from the cities themselves!" He leaned on his fists, looking at each of the three in turn. "If that isn't evidence enough that we need to take action to defend our alliance, then I don't know what is!"
"Your highness," said Korwinder, now smoothing the white puff of hair under his lip, "There may be some matter that affected these places, but there's no way to be certain it's coming toward us."
Garrin was about to respond, but Fel spoke first. "And anyway, uh, your highness, all these reports tell us," he indicated the scattered papers with the same, circular motion of his fingers, "is that these Black Moon folk arrived and the messages stopped coming. There is, uh, no reason to believe that any actual harm came to them."
"Exactly," said Chenswig, still playing with that pen. "There's no way to know what happened over there."
Garrin couldn't decide if he was more dumbfounded or incensed by the three of them. He tried to appeal to them with his own expertise. "Dukes," he said, lowering his tone, "I can accept that we do not have reports of the aftermath of these events. I can accept that you don't have a firm understanding of what happened there." He pushed himself off the table, standing up straight. "I am the commander of the Royal Army of Kepren," he said, "and I say that this represents a threat. Not only that," he said, as he straightened the black sword at his hip, "I say that this threat is coming our way and that we need to raise more troops to have even a hope of dealing with it."
"My dear prince," said Korwinder, not even giving Garrin's words time to sink in. "I know that you worry for the kingdom's safety and we," he indicated the three of them, "are sure you're doing what you think is best." He reached up for his mustache again, twisting one end into a point. "If the king were here to command it to be so, we would obviously all oblige him, but since he is not, we can assume he believes we have the city's best interests and can act accordingly."
Garrin could have run the man through on the spot. It was another of his political games. Indeed, King Lysandus, Garrin's father, wasn't here. Legally, only he had the right to countermand the dukes' wishes and order them to war, but he simply was not present to do so.
Of course, everyone in the room knew that the king had been sick for nearly half a year, that he currently lay in his bed, wasting away, and that Garrin had been forced to take the reigns of leadership in his absence. They also knew that this meant Garrin had not been crowned king himself, that the authority to order them was not yet his to exercise.
Garrin, keeping his rage at the man's impudence bottled up inside him, looked to the other two dukes, whom were both nodding in agreement. He leaned on his fists and hung his head again. "I see," he said.
"Gentlemen," he continued after a moment, not even bothering to look up, "I think you all know the way out of the Keep."
It wasn't a question. The three men sto
od as one, muttered good-nights to his highness, and moved for the door. Behind them, Brocke, Aiella, and Cull also stood, bowed, and followed.
"Ambassadors," Garrin said before everyone vacated the room, "might I ask you to stay behind a moment?" It was Brocke and Aiella that he really wanted to talk to, but to invite them to stay behind and not allow the Tower ambassador also would show a kind of favoritism he didn't want to acknowledge. "And Aiella, would you stay also?"
If the dukes were perturbed by the request, it didn't register on their faces. They turned and left as the others nodded and walked back toward the table. Garrin motioned that they should sit in the dukes' vacated seats.
After the three men—three men that might cost all of them their freedom, if not their lives, as far as Garrin was concerned—had shut the door behind them, Garrin fell back into his chair and heaved a huge sigh. "I'm sorry to detain you further," he said with an apologetic smile, "but I wanted to ask your thoughts about all of this." He motioned toward the closed door. "Just, without those three hearing about it."
The two men, envoys from lands that had hated each other for centuries, exchanged glances that the prince found quite interesting. There was no malice in their expressions, rather they seemed to be like children with an unpleasant secret between them, unsure if they should divulge it to a parent. Whatever it was the two of them knew, however, it seemed to weigh heavily on them.
Brocke spoke first, addressing the other ambassador. "Would you like to tell him?"
Ambassador Cull, a wizened-looking fellow whose frame never seemed solid enough to carry the thick blue robes and gold chains of his office, seemed to consider this a moment, and then let out a small breath and turned to the Prince. "It seems that Creveya, both the Tower and Summit, are seeing eye-to-eye on matters for the first time since anyone can remember."
Garrin sat up straighter in his chair. "What do you mean?"
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