by Tristan Vick
The Queen sends me a reassuring glance as if to say you can do this.
I take a deep breath and try to calm myself. “Right,” I say. Turning toward the soldiers, I give them their orders. “Position yourselves at strategic choke points within the city streets. I need groups of eight guarding each major gateway to ensure that if there is a breach in the wall we can limit the flow of dead entering into the city. If one group becomes overwhelmed it can fall back to the next group and increase defensive strength while continuing to narrow down the path of the advancing army.”
The group of warriors stand looking at me, a little confused as to why Queen Sabine suddenly put a young woman in charge. “Well,” I growl, “What are you waiting for? We have a battle to win!”
A roar of confidence erupts and every available man and woman takes their positions—ready to defend their city with their lives.
Zarine steps forward and waves her fingers about in the air. As she motions with her hands, a gaseous energy begins to emanate from her fingertips. It glows purple, and the more she repeats the incantation the stronger it seems to get. Finally, Zarine screams out, “Bellerathine, efrallel endurium, eb quoratarium, protectus bastillium!” and discharges a wave of purple energy which seems to engulf everyone and everything within the walls.
Fatigued, Zarine collapses, panting and sweating profusely. I notice the queen inch closer, as if she wants to help, but two other soldiers step in and help Zarine back to her feet.
“It is done,” Zarine informs us, her voice weak with exhaustion.
I glance over at the queen, who gives me a nod of understanding, and I turn and run toward the stairwell. Racing up the stairs as fast as my heart races in my chest, I can only think about getting back to Master Kel.
Reaching the top of the city walls, I run to the section overlooking Master Kel’s last known location.
Deep, guttural moaning relaying the torment of the dead seeps up from below and I look down to see a mass of decaying bodies, bones protruding from rotting flesh, pawing at the city walls. I estimate at least two hundred, but it could be more. If it weren’t for Zarine’s magic, a purple shimmer of the numinous barrier keeping the monsters at bay, we’d all be done for.
I look back up and peer across the glade to see Master Kel dispatching one dead warrior after the next. Around him the ground is littered with at least a dozen twice-dead bodies. Having killed the last remaining dead soldier in his vicinity, Master Kel raises his blade and challenges the dark knight on the horse. The face plate of his helmet resembles a fire demon from the depths of the earth, the one dwarf miners tell tales about. Along with curled horns like that of a ram, the face only has a couple of narrow slits for eyes.
The menacing dark knight climbs off his demonic steed and slowly draws out a mammoth longsword. The sword is at least four feet from tip to pommel, and in the hands of the monster his reach extends to just slightly greater than Master Kel’s total height. This is my first clue as to the dark knight’s true power. No mortal man could wield such an unruly blade. There’s just no way. The only thing which could do that is something supernatural. This, then, is the general of the dead I’ve heard Master Kel talk about. And if memory serves, his name is Ashram.
Ashram is a fitting name too, as it literally translates to “Death comes” in the old tongue.
Suddenly I hear Master Kel shout out a warrior’s cry, and see him engage the dark knight Ashram, who stands head and shoulder above Master Kel. Even so, Kel easily deflects the dead general’s blows. But I know that Master Kel can only last for so long. He is mortal, after all.
Slowly, I close my eyes and, taking in a deep breath, begin to meditate. What I am about to try has never been attempted. I am going to try a wind rush technique across an entire battlefield and then some.
“No wait!” Zarine calls out from down in the square. “Once you go outside the perimeter of the walls, you will not be able to get back inside. Not until I unbind the magic spell.”
“I’m well aware of that,” I say in a low whisper.
I take in a another deep breath and then, opening my eyes, I exhale.
A rush of wind engulfs me and my clothes flap all about me, sounding like a sailing vessel’s sails as the wind tugs at them. A tempest picks me up and carries me over the wall and the army of dead, and I’m whisked clear across the battlefield.
When I land on the other side, I look up in time to see Ashram slowly pull his blade out of Master Kel’s chest. I’m too late.
3
My lungs rattle in my chest and I feel as though my heart has shattered into a thousand pieces. “Nooo!” I scream, stretching my hand out toward Master Kel. My voice soars across the distance between me and Master Kel, but it’s too little too late. Ashram doesn’t advance, he doesn’t have to. The blow to Master Kel was a lethal one. There’s nothing anyone can do anymore. Helpless, all I can do is watch on in horror.
Mast Kel staggers back, gripping his chest with blood-soaked hands, then looks back at me and smiles one last time. The crow’s feet gather around his eyes along with a hundred other wrinkles I’ve grown to know so well. Master Kel has been like a father to me and I can’t bear to lose him.
I lunge forward, letting the wind carry me the rest of the way, and manifest right beside Master Kel in time to catch him and prevent him from falling face-first into the dirt.
Ashram raises his sword to strike me down, but before he can do so I raise my sword and release a spiraling wind funnel that blasts into the dark knight’s chest. He leans into the force of the cyclone and growls, thinking he can intimidate me with his power, but it only angers me further. In my rage my power spikes, and the swirling vortex grows exponentially in the power surge. It picks Ashram up and throws him several hundred feet backward, giving me enough time to attend to Master Kel.
“Master, I have failed you,” I weep. A torrent of tears runs down my cheeks and drips off my chin. A few drops land on Master Kel’s cheek and I wipe them away with my thumb.
“No, my child,” he whispers. His voice is weak and fading by the second. Mast Kel coughs up some blood, and with crimson stream dribbling down his chin he manages to mutter, “How did you intend to beat me?”
Blurry-eyed with tears, I push down a torrent of shuddering sobs so I may answer. “I knew that my skill was no match for yours, so I was going to relinquish my blade to you. Once you took it from me, my hope was I’d somehow be able to get you into a choke hold and use my dagger as an incentive to force your surrender. A blade is a blade, after all. And sometimes it’s more about using your wits than a simple matter of skill. I thought that’s what you were trying to teach me these past few months.”
“Indeed,” Kel says warmly. His eyes beam with admiration as he gazes upon me fondly. Master Kel has taught me since I was four years old. He has been like a father to me. In fact, his admiration is all I’ve ever truly wanted.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper again.
Reaching up, Master Kel touches my face. “My child…” His voice sounds distant even as I hold him in my arms. “You are Valandra’s last hope.”
Master Kel falls limp in my arms and his eyes suddenly flint then grow vacant under my very watch. It’s as though his soul suddenly expiated from his body.
I crane my face up toward the heavens and cry out with all the sadness and rage that can escape my lungs in one long, rattling battle cry. But my voice finally gives out and all I can do is sob a deluge of tears which won’t stop no matter how hard I try to fend them off. Somehow I find the strength to force it all back inside me and put a lid on it.
Gently, I place Master Kel on the grassy meadow, and then I stand and pick up the Moon Blade. By now, Ashram has made it to within thirty feet of me.
“Ashram, I presume.”
The great dark knight looks down at Master Kel’s lifeless body from behind two narrow slits in his thorny mask. Although I cannot see his face through the menacing faceplate of his helmet his eyes are glowing red-h
ot, like iron from the forge. With an intense hate that threatens to consume everything it touches, he shifts his gaze toward me. “And who might I have the honor of killing next?”
Ashram’s voice is deep and gravelly. It sounds like a mix between the voice of a demon and that of a man. It sounds otherworldly, almost as if there is an echo of a second voice overlaid onto his original voice. It’s the kind of dreadful sound that invokes instant trembling in its victims. But I’m no victim—I stand firm. Even so, I still shudder at the sound of it.
“I was about to ask you the same thing, Ashram.”
Ashram bellows with demonic laughter. Then, with an inhuman speed and strength, he lashes out at me.
I deflect his blow. But just barely. Before I can advance my offense, a second attack immediately follows the first, and the twang of it interrupts the first blow’s ringing before it has ceased in my ears. And then another. And another. Each one faster and more powerful than the last.
Before I know it, I find myself pushed to the limits of what I can defend against, and it is clear that between the two of us Ashram is the superior warrior. But, almost as if by instinct, I feel the urge to stab the ground. In fact, it’s as though the earth beneath my feet is calling out to the Moon Blade, and, in turn, the blade is being drawn to the Earth’s center somehow.
Soon enough, the blade seems to take on a life of its own, and a bluish-white vapor begins to emanate from the blade. I find myself acting as if by instinct.
“So, this is the secret of the Moon Blade,” I mutter in a hushed tone. I take the Moon Blade in both hands and raise it high above my head, then, obeying the will of the sword, I bring it straight down into the ground. Once the blade pierces the soil, to my surprise, I am engulfed in blue flames.
Ethereal flames leap out in all directions, swirling about me like a raging inferno. Then, revolving about me, a ring of fire forms, and although the flames touch my skin, they are cool to the touch. It seems I am unaffected by the blue fire raging all about me. In fact, strangely, it seems that the blue fire is emanating from me. As though I were the very source of it all.
Without warning, the blue rings suddenly radiate outward, like ripples expanding from a stone tossed into a lake. Soon enough the halo of blue flame has expanded across the entire battle field, scorching all the wheat and grass in its wake. It engulfs Ashram as well, who looks down at his hands as the blue flames climb up his body and leap off his fingertips.
Ashram roars in agony as he burns in the blue flames, along with his black armor and cape. Even his midnight black steed standing behind him is not immune to the mystical blue flames and rears up as it turns to ash along with its master. A gentle breeze kicks up and the remaining ash flutters away on the wind until nothings left.
Ashram and the dead army have vanished. All that remains on the burnt battlefield is Master Kel’s body, unscathed by the blue flames. I rush to where he rests, on a burnt hillside overlooking a charred meadow.
Suddenly golden rays break through the dark clouds that are quickly dividing. At the same time the dark fog, which brought the hellish army, dissipates. Glancing back toward the city walls, I see the last contingent of the dead army turn to ash and disappear as well. Without their master, they are nothing.
I sheath my sword and bend down to scoop Master Kel’s lifeless body up into my arms. My tears stream down both cheeks but there is nothing I can do but let them evaporate in the arid wind. Turning back around, I head for the city walls.
“I’ll avenge you, master.” My voice breaks as I choke on my anger and sorrow. And I promise myself that, no matter what, whoever is behind this remorseless attack will pay. With their life.
4
Dancing flames cast the hillside and city walls in a blanket of orange light as the dead burn in massive funeral pyres that stretch from one end of the city wall to the other. The deceased are set to flame so that their souls will be free and let ride the winds of Bellera as they return to the great bosom of the Moon Goddess, El Lunaria.
I grip a bottle of wine in my hand, my third one tonight, and saunter over to Zarine who stands alone off to the side.
“So are you and the queen, like, an item?” I ask, emboldened by the alcohol.
She smiles at me. “You mean lovers?”
“What I want to know,” I say, letting out a uncouth belch, “is are you committed or would a one-night stand be out of the question?”
Zarine is obviously being patient with me, her crossed arms giving away the fact that she’s not entirely comfortable with my frank line of questioning. But in my state of drunken sorrow, all I care about is finding another distraction to keep me from dealing with Master Kel’s death. And the truth is, I don’t want to have to think about how I failed him.
“Are you propositioning, Mistress Arianna?” she asks.
“And if I am?” I say coquettishly.
Zarine leans in to whisper into my ear and I brush my hair back to better hear the words pass from her delicate lips, which are painted a dark plum shade.
“Nocturne, el delirium, memorium annihilate,” she whispers.
It’s a spell to make me fall asleep and forget, but magic doesn’t work on me. It never has. And I can tell by the shocked look on her face that she’s never seen anyone immune to magic before.
I playfully bop her on the nose with my finger.
“Nice try.” I smile at her, feeling the blush on my cheeks. Letting my eyes trail down to her petite chest, I become fixated on her cleavage, displayed quite enticingly in the crevice of a posh v-cut dress that practically screams seductress.
Unable to behave myself, I place my finger on her chest, right between her breasts, and gently pull on the bottom point of the ‘V’ of her dress and try to sneak a peek. “How does this thing stay on?” I tease.
She swats my hand away and then covers herself with both arms. She shoots me a flushed look of embarrassment. “Ms. Arianna,” she begins, “you’re a very attractive young woman, but I’m afraid…I can’t accept your gracious offer.”
There was no need for her to be so gods damn polite. It annoys me. A simple “No thank you” would have sufficed.
I have no interest in playing games and so I cease my advances. I shrug off her rejection of me and then smile and wink at her. With my bottle in my fist, I stagger back toward the city walls. My maudlin mood compels me to roam the city streets for a while, maybe thirty minutes or more, before I finally stumble into a tavern. Once inside, I find a quiet corner, sit down, and kick my feet up onto the small round table. Or is it a stool? I’m too drunk to be sure.
“What can I get you?” a voice asks.
Without looking up I reply, “A bottle of your cheapest wine.”
“Cheapest wine?” the voice asks, confused as to my order.
“Cheap wine tastes better,” I say. It doesn’t actually. It tastes sweeter since they usually mix rum in to help counteract the tartness. Besides, I can’t afford the expensive stuff anyway. After all, I’ve only been training to be a knight of Bellera. I haven’t even passed the seven challenges of becoming a knight yet, so I don’t have a knight’s stipend. I can’t afford the fancy stuff.
“Hey, wait…I know you!” the woman chirps.
Raising my groggy head, I find a pretty barmaid with blonde hair done up in pig-tails staring down at me. “You’re Master Kel’s student. The one everyone has been talking about all day. You’re the one who saved us from the army of the dead.”
I blink at her vacantly, hoping she’ll just go away and fetch my wine, but she begins talking again. Usually I’d make some scathing comment to get her to bugger off, but I’m too sloshed and emotionally drained to care. So, I just sit there listening to her, pie-eyed and light-headed.
“I am so grateful to you,” she says. “I have a husband and two kids. If it weren’t for you, well, I don’t know what we would have done!”
I burp and then hold my empty bottle upside down in front of my face alerting her to the fact tha
t the wine isn’t going to refill itself.
“Oh, right. Sorry,” she says, and then rushes off to get the cheapest bottle of wine she can find. The cheapest because the coffers I have left on the table aren’t enough to buy another round of wine.
Before tonight I had only tasted alcohol once before. It was four years ago, on my fifteenth birthday, when Master Kel’s friend, a fancy dwarf, came into town. He went by the name Mr. Gremlin. Or Gromelin. Something like that. Anyway, I don’t remember precisely—my head is a bit cloudy from all the drinks I’ve had.
At any rate, the dwarf though it would be funny to give me some of the nastiest fire whiskey they could find and then waited to watch my reaction to the terrible, volatile, burning taste. Naturally, I spat it out all over the place and they both bellowed with laughter. I’d never seen Master Kel laugh so hard in my entire life. And never at my expense.
Gromelin told me that it would put hair on my chest. As you can imagine, as a young woman, I was mortified that it might actually be true. After that I swore off drinking. Until now, that is.
After today’s events, I thought the best thing for me to do was to try to be someone other than myself for a while. Even if just for an evening.
I’m fairly certain Master Kel wouldn’t approve and would likely tell me to stop wallowing in self-pity and go do something useful with my time instead, like meditate. But he’s not here now to reprimand me, and that realization is tearing me up inside.
Luckily for me, the waitress returns with my bottle of wine and sets it down on the table between my legs.
“Here you go, sweetie,” she chirps jovially. It’s obviously a much nicer vintage of wine than I can afford. Noticing my confusion she leans in, winks at me, and whispers, “It’s on the house. You take care now, you hear?”
With that she turns and leaves to attend to some new customers who seat themselves on the opposite side of the tavern. I’m glad they keep their distance because I just want to be by myself right now.