by A. Evermore
‘You always were practical about such things, Marakon,’ the admiral was pleased, ‘if only we had a hundred more like you.’
His superior’s praise no longer fed his ego or confidence. Words, that was all they were, words. Action, it was action that changed things, not words. So, then, that was his reason to fight, it was always good to be reminded as to why he was here. There was nowhere else to go, except retire at home with Rasia. It would not put a meal on the table and he had no clue how to farm. All he knew was how to fight, how to kill Maphraxies.
‘Humans like us do not have the elven choice, Commander,’ the admiral’s face had became more serious, ‘we were never gifted with a special land to which we could flee. Always we had to stand and fight.’
‘Cowards,’ Marakon growled.
‘Mind you had I had the option of fleeing to a haven I wonder if I would have taken it,’ Linker mused, ‘so don’t take The Burden to heart.’
To the elves that remained in Maioria the exodus of their people was seen as a sin and their guilt they labelled The Burden.
‘I never would have fled,’ Marakon scowled, thinking about his cowardly elven half-kin. The Ancients had their sacred land, Aralanastias, if it ever existed, and the elves had their Land of Mists. The rest of Maioria had to stand and fight when Baelthrom pressed onwards out of Maphrax.
The elves feared that they too would share the fate of their distant cousins if they did not flee. So nearly all departed for their hidden land. The few that refused to go were forbidden entry into the Land of Mists forever. The elven homeland of Intolana was now Maphraxie and had been for hundreds of years.
What an easy picking for the Immortal Lord when its inhabitants simply fled without a fight, Marakon grimaced. Well, good riddance to them, cowards, Marakon snorted aloud and gave silent thanks to the goddess for the half of his blood that was human, the part that gave him courage to stand and face the enemy, so he saw it.
‘Still, you can’t blame them,’ Linker continued. ‘After centuries of infighting against the greedy dwarves and us warring humans why would the elves feel an allegiance to any other race upon Maioria?’ Marakon wondered if the admiral was trying to appeal to his half-elven heritage. ‘Perhaps, after all, we are indeed the lesser race as the elves think us.’
‘Someone needs to stand up and fight the bastard,’ Marakon said, ‘what if the whole universe turned and fled from the darkness? Then there would only be perpetual darkness by now. The elves are not up to the job. They would rather sing and dance and tend to their forests.’
‘Is that not what you would prefer to do, Commander?’ The admiral’s eyes were watching him closely. ‘For it is certainly what I would like to do.’
Marakon looked away. Yes indeed that is what he wanted to do, today more than ever.
‘It is our duty,’ was all he could think to say. And it was, wasn’t it? Our lives spent for the hope, the desperate longing hope, of freedom. What else is there to do in this life? ‘And there is nowhere else to go… Unless we are cowardly elves.’
The admiral laughed and slapped him on the back, ‘Indeed, Marakon, indeed. We are stuck in this hell-hole of a war whether we like it or not. It’s sink or swim, Commander, fight or die. Even the dwarves think they are safe beneath their mountains, as if it is a different planet completely to the scourge that spreads on the surface above them. I think the dwarves hide in guilt, thinking that, by withdrawing from the world it will undo the damage. By failing to destroy the dark dwarves they let a darkness spread in ready for Baelthrom.
‘But perhaps I am being unfair,’ Linker stood up straight. ‘Blaming the dwarves for Baelthrom would not have stopped his arrival in Maioria.’
‘Probably not,’ Marakon agreed, ‘but the elves’ refusal to aid Maioria in the fight against him have made the Maphraxies stronger. Though I can never forgive them, I wonder, even if they fought alongside us whether it would be enough to defeat him now. Not even the Ancients, with all their wisdom and magic, could stop the Immortal Lord’s rise to power.’
‘We can’t change history and so I guess there is no point in dwelling on what might have been,’ Linker reasoned.
What might have been… they were thoughts for dreamers and poets and Marakon was neither of those; he was a soldier and had been since he was fifteen years old.
‘You always were this dour before a battle, Marakon, but when you’re in it I’ve never seen such a gifted fighter,’ the admiral regarded him seriously. ‘No one could ever beat you in the field and, for all your wounds, you are the last one of your original unit to still be active in battle. Which is why you are our most valued Commanders. Though I’d hate to lose you on the field, why do you turn down every promotion offered to you?’
It was true, he should be at the top by now, but he had turned down every promotion and accepted just the reduced pay rise. Now he earned nearly as much as Admiral Linker. All that money and he was too busy fighting to spend it. He knew Rasia would be spoiling the boys with it, and that was good.
‘It’s more than just a sheer hatred of desks and paperwork isn’t it?’ the admiral chanced.
Marakon smiled at his officer’s insight. He was the last one of his unit it was true, but what would the coming battle bring? Was his death waiting for him on this mission? All of his battles against the Maphraxies had been different but they were always brutal. His first encounter with them had been no different, the events were branded upon his mind.
‘I was a boy, when they slaughtered my family,’ Marakon began. Oh how many soldiers had that same story. Did they also have the same half-elf guilt mixed with the same vengeful hatred of the immortals? Probably not. That’s what made him so viciously effective. ‘Back then our home in south-western Munland was far from the front-line.
‘My father, also a soldier of the Feylint Halanoi as you know, was home for a short time. It was a surprise attack, as always from those honour-less Maphraxie dogs. They arrived on the backs of Dromoorai,’ and it was the first time I soiled myself in fear!
He remembered the dragon fear with a shudder, it gripped hold of your spine and shook the body so hard even the soul trembled. You could not run, the fear immobilised you. The admiral listened silently and Marakon wondered what the man’s first encounter with the Maphraxies had been like. Brutal and deadly no doubt. He carried on speaking.
‘They came with nets, magic, fire and blades. The village was essentially unarmed. Apart from my father and his friend the village was filled with the old and the young and mothers. The Maphraxies moved with organisation and devastating speed, we did not stand a chance.’ Even now he could hear their screams and smell the choking dragon smoke, feel the heat of his village as it burned.
‘My mother, father and baby sister fled on horse and mule but the foltoy and death hounds gave chase, they would not let anybody escape.’ The green-eyes of the foltoy burned in his mind. Massive undead catlike beasts the size of a bear, furless and able walk on two feet or run faster than a horse on four. They also had a terrible intelligence, a handful of soldiers who had confronted them recently said they could even speak.
‘Of course there was no escape and in the struggle I fell from a cliff and miraculously landed on a ledge. There I lay unconscious as my parents and sister were left to the Maphraxies. I never saw their end, thankfully. I still pray they were killed rather than…’ he trailed off. ‘So you could say I have an insatiable desire for revenge,’ Marakon gave a hollow laugh, Linker’s mouth was grim.
‘How did you survive alone?’ he asked.
‘Well, I nearly didn’t. It took me a day to inch down the cliff through nooks and crannies until I reached the ground. Nearly died of thirst. Then I met an older man, an elf named Falharlen fleeing from an elven village in the south. He gave me water, took me into his care. It seemed the Maphraxies were purging the whole area as we met others on our way to the port. We took whatever boats were available and fled to Frayon. Falharlen cared for me until he died quite su
ddenly and without reason, ten years later. It was then that I joined the Feylint Halanoi, for as always, there was nowhere else to go. The rest is history,’ Marakon smiled wryly.
‘And now you have a lovely wife and children,’ Admiral Linker leant on the railing, ‘mine ran off with the Smith and now I’m too old and fat to find another,’ he sighed. Marakon laughed.
‘To be honest I worry all the time for their safety,’ Marakon admitted, ‘and if I didn’t have such a slave-driving officer I’d be able to see them more often!’
‘You’ll have a full month of leave after this excursion. More than I get you lucky bastard,’ Linker scowled. He glanced at the sky and his demeanour switched to his rank. ‘I’d best be off,’ he stood up straight and adjusted his sword belt. ‘See to it you leave at dawn, Commander. The rest I shall leave in your capable hands.’
‘Yes, Admiral,’ Marakon too stood up straight, saluted and accepted his orders.
With a curt bow the admiral turned heels and strode back towards the officers tents. His limp causing the characteristic metallic clang of his sword against his boot. The clang faded into the distance and Marakon turned back towards the sea.
Marakon hadn’t been totally honest with the admiral. It wasn’t just revenge for the death of his family and friends and the loss of his home that drove him to battle against the enemy. He also held an unresolvable guilt on behalf of those elves that abandoned Maioria and her peoples to the Maphraxies. Falharlen also felt that same guilt and Marakon learned that all the elves who chose to stay and help Maioria felt the same, all felt The Burden like a shameful sin. Each death he dealt to a Maphraxie was a salve upon his soul, a balm upon The Burden. But his guilt, like his revenge, seemed to be insatiable.
It wasn’t just revenge either that kept him fighting. He gripped the railings and clenched his jaw as that familiar awful feeling of emptiness swept through him. He didn’t know why it came or where it came from but it was as if he’d done something awful and yet he could not remember it. Like brutally murdering someone in a rage but having the memory of it removed whilst the feeling still remained. He wanted to remember and yet he didn’t, he really didn’t.
The feeling plagued him and left him in darkness. The darkness had been with him his whole life like a black hole, a void he could never fill. An empty loneliness that brought upon a desperate searching for something he did not know what. If he could find that something that would make everything make sense then he would find peace. He thought having a wife would fill the void, but it did not, it only held the darkness at bay. He thought having children was what he sought but though he loved his sons the dark emptiness still visited. Only when he was fighting Maphraxies was he free of that darkness and free of the elven guilt.
Marakon shifted his weight onto the other foot. ‘Rasia, I wish you were with me now,’ he sighed, focusing on thoughts of his wife. Thoughts that swiftly turned into wondering, as he always wondered before every battle, whether he would see her again. Her long copper curls falling to her voluptuous hips, her big brown eyes. An unlikely soldier but she had been a good one, though less driven by guilt and revenge and more driven by skilled archery. They had served together for many years before they married and she became pregnant with twins, now young boys that he also missed.
He pushed thoughts of his family aside and scratched his eye patch irritably. The black leather only served to absorb the sun’s heat. I should get a tan one, he thought, and not for the first time. The Maphraxie’s blade that took his eye had been vicious and enchanted, they always were, and the beast moved with a speed he had never seen before. He remembered those dead eyes watching him with an unusual and unholy intelligence that made him hesitate. He fought with everything he had and nearly lost it all.
There had been magic involved, he was sure of it, blackness had surrounded him so completely that he could not see or breathe or think. The enemy struck and then came the searing pain in his eye. Attacking wildly in the blackness he had fallen backwards, stumbling through the cloud, and fled, something he had never done before.
Ever since that day he always wondered why the Maphraxie did not follow. It hurt like hell but Marakon had not lost his left eye and it healed, kind of, but now was pure white with no iris or cornea and it gleamed brightly, embarrassingly. He covered it up, mostly to stop people staring, but there was another reason, one he had told no one, not even Rasia.
The change frightened him at first but now he was more used to it, though never would be fully. His right eye was normal and saw as well as anyone else’s, but the vision in his left eye had been replaced with what he could only call far sightedness, extreme far sightedness. He could see a bird in a tree ten miles away and make out every detail, the colour of its eyes, the fine strands of its feathers. If he covered his good right eye he could also look straight at the sun and it would not hurt.
Fear of this new sight had turned to wonder. He could see the enemy coming from miles away and it had saved him and his soldiers many times. His soldiers and superiors just thought him an excellent commander, not suspecting the help his sight gave. It was an asset as much as it was an embarrassment and yet something deep within him recoiled from it, wanted it gone, this strange gift from his most hated enemy. Many a time he had held a knife to it but for all his fearlessness on the battlefield he could not stomach putting his own eye out.
Marakon arched and stretched his stiff back. He could not stand here thinking of the past all day, there was work to be done. But when he looked at the sun it had moved only a little, he had been stood here half an hour at most. The time always passed so painfully slowly before the coming battle. He needed this battle, when he was fighting all thoughts apart from striking the enemy before him were blissfully gone from his mind.
Chapter 14
Time To Forget All Else
THERE was no Land of Mists when Issa next opened her eyes and she was far from whole and healthy for every muscle in her body screamed in pain. It was light enough to see now and she found herself alone in a large round hut where a fire burned low in the central hearth. She gingerly reached for the water pitcher beside her bed and drank deeply of it. Next to it was something round wrapped up in a dirty rag.
Her right arm ached and her hand was thickly bandaged, a dark red spot where blood had worked its way through was on her palm. Still, considering, her wounds were not nearly as bad as they should have been. Ely's bracelet, she traced the silver leaves about her wrist, glad she had not lost it. A healer’s bracelet worn by a healer.
She reached for the rag bound object and relief washed over her. The Orb of Water was safe, she could feel its magic as a soft hum beneath her fingers. But what was she supposed to do with it? She couldn’t lug it around with her, had no idea how to use it and had no pocket large enough for it. This magic is not mine to use, she mused. No, her power came with the dark moon. The Wykiry should have it, but why didn’t they take it?
There had been lots of magic… the Wykiry died, along with many others… her throat constricted at the memory, she could hear their crying voices. It seemed so hazy, like some terrible dream, but it had been real! Zanufey had left her when the blue moon set, and with their leaving so did her power and her strength.
When Keteth was gone the Wykiry had come to take her back to Celene. It had been slow going for she could no longer breathe beneath the waves and she was frigid with cold. They had almost made it too, not another hour more and her feet would be on land. But then a thick dark fog came and surrounded them, filled with the stench of immortals. They became lost in it and in the confusion the black ships had come. Huge things lumbering on the water.
She had no power to fight. Without the blue moon her magic ability was so small. But with the help of the Wykiry and the magic of the Orb of Water which they knew how to use, she delved deep into her magic reserves. Then consciousness came, in and out, and in the spaces she glimpsed a golden dragon before all turned black. Yet here she was, safe, hopefully, and le
ft wondering how many had died that day.
She set the orb back down and fell back upon the bed. She had no strength to worry for the Wykiry. Pray that they are safe! Though exhausted she had to know where she was and who had brought her here. Where were Freydel and Ely? Through a gap in the curtains surrounding her bed she glimpsed a wall made of mud not stone, a shelf littered with jars and vials, a simple wooden table and stool. Far simpler an abode than even Edarna’s, she thought. Was this a hermit’s house? Whoever it belonged to meant her no harm, they could have killed her by now as it was.
With a lot of effort she pushed herself up and swung her legs out of bed. The action sent her breathless and she had to stop to catch it. There was a deep pain in her side and her left leg was bandaged from her groin to her ankle. Cuts and grazes covered most of her body and every one of them stung. She certainly felt like Cirosa saw her, not one of the Goddess’s chosen but a frail weak girl.
She still wore the far-too-large man’s shirt. Where she got it from and what happened to her own clothes didn’t bear thinking about, and she smelt bad. How wonderful a bath in the wet room of Castle Elune would be!
People’s voices came from somewhere outside. She struggled to her feet and immediately slumped against the wall. She stayed there for a moment willing her body to obey. Slowly her legs began to give in to the assault and her breath calmed. Clinging to the wall of the hut she inched her way to the door, her wounded left leg forcing her to shuffle.
By the time she got to the door, and it took a good few minutes to get there, she could almost stand up unsupported if she didn’t try to move. The door was simply two planks of wood nailed together and beyond it came the muffled voices.