by A. Evermore
Hands grasping the hilts of his weapons the huge dark shape of Baelthrom stood towering over Freydel who cowered before him. Freydel held the orb behind his back and with shaking hands slipped it into his pocket. Inside the black helmet that covered his face, two eyes burst into pale blue light, slitted triangles leaping and flickering bolts of the blue, like a storm in the night. The only sound in the deathly silence was the rasping of Freydel’s breath as he stood frozen in fear.
I have to get the orb away from here, but terror flooded through him in great waves, scattering all thought and reason.
In a voice deep and booming like boulders falling down a cliff-face Baelthrom thundered.
‘That which bound me in my prison now belongs to me!’ he reached out a huge gauntleted hand.
Freydel tried to sink through the walls as he steeled himself against his fear, sought to climb the insurmountable mountain of his terror. He clutched the orb to him, trying to think of a spell of some use, but the words of power failed him.
‘There is a mistake,’ Freydel said, his voice weak and shaking, ‘I have no orb.’
‘Pathetic wizard,’ the tunnel shuddered as Baelthrom roared, ‘you will be my necromancer.’
Freydel had to get the orb away and it did not matter whether he survived or not. The orb could not fall into Baelthrom’s hands, especially not when he already had its sister orb, the Orb of Life, taken from the Ancients. He could not make it to the Wizards’ Tower and he could not return the way he had come. There was only one other place he had a spell to get to that might save him, the Storm Holt.
Whether the spell worked or not was another matter. Whether he would even survive the journey with Baelthrom before him was debatable. No one had ever gone into the Storm Holt twice in a lifetime, not when the most powerful wizards barely survived their first trial there. It was not a decision to take easily but with the terror in his heart and the Flow blocked from him his options were non-existent.
Baelthrom could follow him there but the spell was an immediate translocation, not a tunnel through which one travelled. His legs went weak as he remembered the Wizards’ Reckoning, as it was called. He would prefer to die at the hands of Baelthrom than suffer that again. But then he would not die, he would become a necromancer, his soul chained forever to the Immortal Lord. And he would lose the orb to him and Maioria would fall. It was losing the orb that sealed his decision.
Baelthrom’s sword flashed in the dim blue light of his light ball, caught Freydel’s cloak, and pinned him to the wall. The blade sliced into his shoulder, not deep but the searing pain of enchanted black iron made him cry out. Hot blood trickled down his arm. He struggled keep the orb in his pocket wedged behind him.
‘Where is the one that has killed Keteth?’ Baelthrom’s voice dropped to low and rumbling.
The flickering blue eyes came close to Freydel’s face. He tried to shut his eyes, tried not to look into those flickering depths but they locked onto his and flooded that flickering blue light into his brain. Images of Issa in her grey robes before she went to face Keteth formed in his mind. Freydel tried to shut them out but his mind was swiftly being taken from his control.
‘It is the same girl,’ Baelthrom breathed, the sound of wind blowing through autumn leaves. ‘Tell me where she is, wizard, and I shall allow you to be a powerful necromancer.’
When he did not answer immediately intense pain flooded Freydel’s body like a thousand knives being driven into his flesh. He cried out in agony as he writhed pinned against the wall. Sweat immediately soaked his clothes. Suddenly the pain was gone and he sagged against the wall.
‘Thank you,’ he gasped, to his horror thanking Baelthrom for ending the pain. ‘Please don’t hurt me. I…don’t know where she is,’ he gasped and the pain came again but this time in his head. With all his effort Freydel narrowed his consciousness into a tight ball trying to shut out all the physical pain he was suffering. Something he had not done since he had entered the Storm Holt for the first time.
The one thing that kept him sane and drove him on was focussing on Baelthrom’s eyes, those blue lightning flickers that reminded him so much of the entrance to the Storm Holt, the one place he could get to that might save the orb. As clear as he could through the pain he recalled the image of the fifteen foot high oval entrance filled with swirling clouds and flickering lightning. He spoke the Ancients’ words silently in his head three times.
A’falee an Doth Any, a’falee an Doth Any, a’falee an Doth Any.
(I enter the Storm Holt, I enter the Storm Holt, I enter the Storm Holt.)
‘Now,’ he gasped aloud.
The spell did not fail and flickering blue lightning filled his body. The walls around him exploded and his mind and Baelthrom’s were ripped painfully apart as if a limb had been torn off. He fell back from the Immortal Lord into the crumbling wall, backwards falling over and over, clutching his throbbing head in one hand and the orb in the other. He had dropped his staff but there was no going back now. He felt his body become immaterial as he spun into blackness, glimpsing flashes of two triangular glaring blue eyes until the darkness of unconsciousness descended.
Chapter 17
Bokaard
MARAKON awoke before dawn, somehow his body always knew when he should awake; it just didn’t always know when to sleep. He lay there for a moment listening to the silence, trying to hold on to the stillness in his mind before thoughts of the coming day rushed in. But he was not able to stay there for long and as the thoughts began he yawned and stretched and swung his legs out of bed.
How many will die in this next battle? Will I be one of them this time? he wondered as he pulled on his thick trousers. How many would be captured by the Maphraxies to become the living dead, to become the enemy?
His left eye, uncovered for sleep, saw well in the dim light. He drained a cup of water from the pitcher beside the bed and washed his face in the basin, shivering against the chill of the water as it trickled over his shoulders and down his bare chest. A glimmer caught his eye and he glanced over at his clean and shiny armour propped up against a tent pole, waiting to be worn.
‘Sir, the regiment are up and eating, sir,’ Avil’s quiet voice called from outside the tent, interrupting his thoughts. The observant man had heard him awaken, Marakon thought with a smile as he pulled on a thick jumper.
Avil was a trustworthy man and had been a good soldier, but his ability to fight ended when Maphraxian poisoned arrows pierced his right arm and left leg. Apparently he was lucky to survive. Much like me, Marakon thought. Avil had recovered, over many years, at least he was no longer bed bound. He now walked with a permanent lurching limp and a crutch under his good arm.
‘Thank you, Avil,’ he said, pulling on his leather boots, ‘I look forward to seeing them at breakfast.’ He got up and stepped outside his tent.
Avil looked at him, saluted, and then anxiously looked at the floor. Silently cursing himself Marakon turned swiftly back into his tent and snatched up the patch from beside his bed. His white eye always disturbed people because it was the first thing they looked at. They made their way silently to the food tent, each man’s embarrassment fading in the growing light of the coming dawn.
‘You know other soldiers get paid for the work they do? Even if they are no longer able to fight,’ Marakon said.
‘No need, sir,’ Avil said as he awkwardly lumbered along, ‘I have everything I need provided for me in abundance. In truth, sir, I doubt they would be so generous if I received pay for my work.’
‘I guess not,’ Marakon agreed thoughtfully.
Avil had no family left, all were killed or enslaved by the Maphraxies, so he had no one to go home to or to provide for or be provided by. He took no soldiers’ wages but had abundant food and good shelter always available for him by the Feylint Halanoi. In return he readied the soldiers for battle, helped nurse them, cooked, cleaned armour, took weapons to the smith for mending and various other small but invaluable tasks. He was a
ctually more valuable now than he had been as a soldier.
Maybe I should be doing his job, Marakon thought with a half smile.
‘Still, I wish I could join you on the battle side, sir, nothing can bring that back for me.’
Marakon looked sideways at the slender tawny-haired man, ‘In all fairness, Avil, I wish I had your job this morning,’ he slapped him on the back. Avil grinned.
‘Everyone feels the same before battle, sir.’
It was unusually quiet in the food quarters, which consisted of several very large semi-permanent tents erected to provide meals for the soldiers. The tent where his soldiers sat eating held none of the usual banter and laughter filling the air. Marakon looked around him at their introspective expressions. His soldiers were pensive, quiet, and probably wondering if this breakfast would be their last on land ever again. Clearly the mood needed lifting and it was always Marakon’s job to do it.
‘What a bunch of sour ugly faces greet me this mornin’ eh?’ he boomed.
They all turned abruptly and, on seeing their commander, saluted before relaxing into nervous smiles.
A wide grin spread across Marakon’s face, ‘Don’t you know this mission will be a victory for us and we will be rewarded as such? The goddess has foretold it!’
The tenseness in the air melted a little and one dark-haired bear of a man, Eran he believed his name was, spoke up in his thick South Frayon accent.
‘I dunno which goddess you were with last night sir, but all I heard in the night was a few farts from Tomant ‘ere,’ he said slapping the shoulder of the short plump man beside him. Tomant snorted over a mouthful of bread and honey. A ripple of laughter ran across the room, even amongst a table of mostly female soldiers, and the atmosphere lifted further. Eran turned back to his food and Tomant dug him in the ribs.
Marakon smiled, pleased at the easing tension, and took a seat next to a slender young man. Perhaps it was the elf girl or the old woman yesterday, he couldn’t be sure, but something about this morning felt different, like a sudden turn in the wind foretelling the changing of the seasons. There was a lightness in his heart, a feeling of hopeful anticipation that seemed to come from outside of him rather than from within. It could be nothing, he thought, stuffing bread and jam into his mouth and washing it down with cocoa so strong it could kill a horse.
‘Is everything all right, sir?’ the young soldier next to him asked, jerking him out of his reverie.
Marakon looked at the man quizzically.
‘Uh,’ the soldier blushed, ‘you said that something about this morning being different.’
‘Ah,’ Marakon hadn’t realised he’d spoken aloud, ‘yes, victory will be ours,’ he grinned, gripping the young man’s shoulder reassuringly. It was all he could think to say. Marakon did not know this young man who was of average height, brown hair, blue eyes and tanned skin. He picked his chewed fingers nervously and Marakon wondered if this would be his first battle. Usually he liked to train his own soldiers himself, but these days they took whatever they could get and placed them in a unit quickly and mostly at random.
‘New recruit?’ Marakon asked.
The man smiled shyly, ‘Yes, sir. The names’ Lanac, sir.’
‘Lanac, you picked the right battle,’ Marakon said and both laughed.
Marakon tucked into his breakfast. Positive thinking was good, but he was thinking far too much lately, and needed to keep his mind clear, in the present, especially today. But he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something important was going to happen. He only hoped he survived it.
‘When will we arrive at Haralan?’ Lanac asked.
Haralan was the largest island that lay almost exactly mid-way between Drax and Frayon. Recently it was a hotbed of battles as the Maphraxie army slowly but surely pushed southwards, drawing ever closer to the Frayon continent. Haralan had become synonymous with certain death to the Feylint Halanoi.
Marakon spoke in between bites of food.
‘In those new Atalanphian ships we’ll be there three nights from now. Sooner if we are lucky enough to gain a good wizard’s hand. Ships from that hot desert of a continent are the fastest in all Maioria,’ Marakon replied.
‘Then the battle will be on land, sir?’ Lanac asked.
Marakon looked sideways at the young man, a quick and clever one, he thought.
‘Ships from Atalanph,’ Lanac said, thinking Marakon’s look was to explain himself, ‘though the fastest in the land because of their lightness, are somewhat delicate in nature, making them poor battle ships.
‘You’ll go far, Lanac,’ Marakon nodded and winked at the young man, ‘you’ll likely make commander if you can keep your head in battle.’
Lanac grinned, clearly pleased to have impressed his commander.
Marakon quickly finished the remainder of his honey cake and slurped down the rest of his cocoa. It made tears come to his eyes, a drink far too bitter up north, but it certainly slapped the brain awake.
‘I’ll see you all on the ships and sharp, dawn is breaking,’ he said loudly as he stood, addressing his soldiers briefly but with a confident smile. He briskly left the food tent and returned to his own.
After he had collected his armour, sword and small pack of belongings, Marakon strode down to the harbour where his ship was docked.
Many ships from all over the Known World filled the harbour; long sleek Atalanph ships contrasted with the wide Lans Himay ships that were more like giant floating battering rams. They were, surprisingly, of dwarvish construction and Marakon thought it strange that the shortest race in Maioria, who liked to live deep within rock, would build such floating beasts, but then again maybe they were making up for their small stature.
In between the dwarvish ships nestled smaller but deadlier Frayon war ships and to their right beautiful elven ships decorated in gold paint and sails made of elven cloth that shone like silver in the dawn sunlight, more fit for a parade than surging into battle. Yet, despite their beauty, each carried wicked elven harpoons which would be operated by skilled archers to match, no doubt.
Marakon fancied he could feel the elven enchantments upon those harpoons even from this distance. They were the last of their kind for there were few elves left to build them and the blue oak trees from the great forests of Intolana, from which the ships were made, stood no more, having been so utterly destroyed by the Maphraxies that nothing new could grow in their place. The Maphraxies sucked the very life out of everything and spread a wasting sickness upon the land, all the life and magic leeched from the earth and sucked into Baelthrom’s war machine.
Marakon stood before his ship, the Sea Hare SM, and the Atalanphian captain, Bokaard, swung down to greet him. SM stood for Sopho Morlin, the capital of Atalanph, where the ship was made and where the big captain was from.
Bokaard was a large man; tall, heavily-muscled and barrel-chested with thick black hair and beard. Blue eyes glittered under heavy eyebrows, a striking contrast to his black skin, like sapphires glowing in the night. All Atalanphians had bright blue eyes for despite their hot desert kingdom they lived partially nocturnal lives to escape the burning heat. As a consequence their bright blue eyes had adapted to the dark in which they could keenly see. Seeing in bright light hurt them, however, and sometimes they wore tinted glasses that they called ‘sunshields’ to protect from the sun.
Bokaard’s skin was somewhat lighter than most Atalanphians, giving away his mixed heritage of being a quarter Frayon. He looked tired, probably irritated at having to travel during the daytime, when he should be sleeping like other Atalanphians, Marakon reasoned. Even after eight years of service he still couldn’t get used to travelling in the light.
‘Welcome aboard, sir,’ Bokaard said with a heavy Atalanphian accent, slipping his sunshields into his shirt pocket. He bowed ever so slightly and touched his weather beaten wide-brimmed hat. He squinted at Marakon in the light, the morning sun was growing brighter and he pulled his hat lower.
‘Capta
in,’ Marakon replied and equally bowed.
Marakon met Bokaard four years ago and, after serving a year or so together, they had become good friends. Marakon grinned and grasped his friend’s right hand, laying the other on Bokaard’s left shoulder, in the Atalanphian way of greeting friends. He felt his moodiness lift a little and stepped onto the ship with a lighter heart.
‘We will have victory soon, my friend,’ Marakon said, ‘then you can sleep all day and party all night once more.’
Bokaard barked a loud laugh, ‘That’ll be a first. It was only last month when I saw you running for this ship with five of them dark devils on your tail. No doubt I’ll be racing to save you again this time. And that’s if you survive the trip there, you white belly.’
Bokaard’s deep laugh was infectious and they grinned at each other. White belly was what the Atalanphians called anyone suffering from seasickness and the mere mention of it churned Marakon’s stomach. He hastily checked for the huge pouch of hessel leaf in his pocket and relaxed when his fingers touched the coarse fabric. What kind of sea sick soldier ever got promoted to commander he didn’t know. He spent half his time onboard every ship trying to mask his sea sickness and the other half trying to work out how he would ever get out of being a commander aboard a ship. Something that, despite his sea sickness, his superiors would never allow him to do.
‘Half of them are well seasoned, the other half are new and barely able to swing a sword!’ Bokaard noted as they watched the rest of the crew board the ship.
‘The goddess help us,’ Marakon sighed. ‘And it’s too soon between battles. All of us are tired.’
Bokaard snorted, ‘I should be going to bed about now,’ he looked up at the brightening sky. Marakon grinned.
The rest of the crew quickly boarded and within the hour they pushed off from the dock and headed out into the open sea.
Marakon stood at the prow breathing the cool fresh air deeply as it rushed past him. Soon the wind was strong and the sails billowed until taut. The calm sea of the coast became a little rougher out in the open ocean and the waves splashed white and frothy against the bow of the boat. He fancied he could even smell the scent of snow from the far northern continent of Drax.