Silent Requiem (Tales of Ashkar Book 3)

by Kayl Karadjian

  “Then am I just collateral to you?” Incindir asked, his mind racing through different plans of action, all of which led to failure. He was too fatigued to fight, nor could he run.

  Sevag feigned another frown. “Never, Brother. But… the Child of Light is with you. I’m afraid that crossing the Skyward Hands will only lead to one conclusion.”

  “Don’t use that name like you give a damn,” Incindir said, preparing to do the only thing that he could do.

  A final stand.

  “What?” Sevag asked. “Skyward Hands?”

  “It never meant anything to you,” Incindir said. “It was just an excuse for you to kill and cause suffering.”

  Sevag shrugged. “Sure.”

  “I can’t let you have Halcyon,” Incindir threatened, stepping toward Sevag with blade raised.

  “Then I suppose this is farewell, Brother,” Sevag replied as he readied to attack. “Amalgamation of darkness, Chimera!”

  _ _ _

  Shushana waded through the forest toward her prize. Strange she had thought when her targets had decided to stop and remain here long enough for her to catch up, but it made no difference.

  Not even a god could stop her advances.

  Rainfall had decided to bathe the forest, droplets running across the curves of her armor until they deposited on the ground beneath her feet. As she drew nearer to her targets, that rain turned to snow. Frozen leaves cracked at every footfall, yet still she did not slow down.

  Whatever trap that they had laid out for her, it would prove futile.

  She stepped into a clearing, her eyes landing on the Child of Light. His attention was too preoccupied to even notice her presence, and she made her way over to him. She was halfway when the clanging of steel captured her attention.

  From behind a tree she saw the foolish elementalist locked in battle with another warrior—the one that she had sensed to have both a deep darkness and another orb. The warrior was… unusual. Shushana had yet to sense such a darkness in any one elementalist.

  It was the closest to Muut’s power yet.

  Still, she would walk away from here not only with the Child of Light but also another orb.

  By now, the boy had become aware of her presence.

  “Incindir, she’s here!” he called out to his guardian, but from the looks of it, the boy was ripe for the picking like an apple. Shushana reached for the boy’s shoulder—

  The sound of thunder boomed as lightning flashed from the left, and Shushana lifted her scythe just in time to block a blow from the white-haired warrior, who now stood in between her and the Child of Light.

  “What?!” said the boy and his guardian in unison, their faces full of shock.

  Whatever the surprise as, the gesture only irked Shushana.

  The darkness that she had felt before from the elementalist was now tenfold after their blades met. She inspected his released weapon, a large sword with the blade the length of eight feet and the width of two.

  A creeping darkness enveloped its hit culminating into a twisted pommel that branched out into a gnarled extension appearing like the tail of a beast. That same darkness also covered the blade’s edge on one side, and at the top the blade curved like the maw of a creature.

  “Flee for now, Brother,” Sevag said, a toothy grin flashing across his face. “We mustn’t let unwelcome guests ruin this moment, isn’t that right?”

  Whatever odd quarrel that the two elementalists shared vanished as the guardian rushed forward to grab the boy and then darted away from Shushana’s grasp.

  “As if I would allow such a thing,” she said, shooting a tendril from her right hand at the white-haired warrior’s head and forcing him to evade.

  She then lunged after the boy—

  Another thunderous boom and the man was blocking her path again.

  “Troublesome, aren’t you?” Shushana mocked, raising her scythe to attack. “But I’ve met gods, what are you but another weak elementalist?” She swiped in a diagonal motion, but the white-haired warrior parried her attack.

  Shushana pressed her weight forward, then kicked her adversary’s torso. He grunted as he was pushed aside. She lunged for a killing blow, but her blade met his again.

  “I didn’t know that executioners came in purple,” he commented as he pointed his fingers at her, lightning arcing at the tips. A blast of lightning shot out at Shushana, forcing her to duck under it.

  A third thunderclap boomed, and before Shushana could retaliate she felt her adversary’s blade cut at the top of her head and continue down until there were two complete right and left halves of her.

  She watched for the elementalist’s reaction of shock when the blood of Vaikar reattached back into her whole form again, but she was only met with his childish grin.

  His foolishness must have taken so much room that there was nowhere to fit fear…

  Shushana threw her scythe at her adversary, then whipped both her hands forward and sent tendrils shooting out. He dodged her blade, as expected, but he would not be able to dodge her second attack.

  Thunder boomed, and he was gone in a flash. Shushana had yet to witness such a troublesome technique from any elementalist yet. She felt his presence appear behind her.

  He lunged, perhaps thinking that he had found a weak spot. Without turning to face him, a tendril shot out from Shushana’s back, and she heard a grunt as her adversary was sent flying.

  The sound of a tree being knocked over filled the air, leaves rustling and bark groaning. Shushana held out an arm, her blade morphing into viscous black blood as it flew to her and assumed its deadly form in her hands.

  She turned around to face the white-haired elementalist, his chest expanding rapidly with heavy breaths. She waited for him to make the first advance, but he remained where he was.

  “Soul-corrupting darkness…” he chanted, marking the beginning of an elemental summoning.

  Shushana would not have it. She whipped back her arm, then hurled the scythe again at him. Thunder echoed mid-chant, his form reappearing behind her.

  “…envelop the beast…” he continued, his mouth forming a fiendish grin.

  He can do that mid-summon?

  “…your ruin spreads…” he kept chanting, and no matter what Shushana did, she could not catch him. Thunder struck in quick succession as he kept disappearing and reappearing around Shushana in a circle.

  She was losing ground on the Child of Light, and given the tenacity of this elementalist, she could not afford to humor him further. Even though he carried one of the orbs, this battle was over.

  Before he could finish his chant, Shushana stabbed a hand into the ground, injecting it with a large portion of Vaikar’s blood and sending black spikes shooting upward from the ground in all directions.

  The white-haired elementalist was forced to retreat, giving Shushana the respite needed to gain enough distance before he could block her path again.

  _ _ _

  Incindir cursed and cursed and cursed on his aimless run through the forest. He was too exhausted to even care where he was going, and his legs only carried him through sheer will.

  The failure of the trap wasn’t even the worst of it. If the purple-eyed executioner wasn’t enough, adding Sevag to the list of pursuers just made everything that much harder.

  Serraemas and his gang alone had been enough of a barrier already. It was only a matter of time until the rest of the Skyward Hands were after them.

  Time… how much of it do we have left?

  “Where are we going!?” Halcyon asked, the boy airborne behind Incindir as the two zipped through the air.

  “Anywhere but here,” Incindir answered back.

  “What about the orbs?” the boy asked.

  “The hell if I know?” he said, almost tripping on the roots of a tree. He staggered, barreling into a tree. The momentum kept Halcyon flying, and Incindir lost his grip on the boy.

  But unlike him, Halcyon landed on the ground safely without a scrat
ch.

  “We’ve got… no options now,” Incindir said as he caught his breath. He pushed forward to get up, hit his rear against the tree, then bounced up for the second time. He then lurched forward, placing a hand against another tree before he fell face-first onto the ground.

  He tried slamming the tree with his fist, but his knuckles only manage to tap it like a gesture that seemed popular with Arcadia’s youth.

  Rain continued to poor, droplets falling off the tip of Incindir’s chin and splashing on the ground at his feet. He remained there, his eyes staring at the ground while he took in big gulps of air.

  “We can’t stop moving,” he said, looking left to find Halcyon staring at him in hopelessness. “Who knows how long that battle will last, or who will emerge victorious.”

  “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be…” Halcyon muttered, his eyes lost. A portion of the boy’s radiant aura dimmed.

  “The real world doesn’t act on legend,” Incindir said as he pushed himself into an upright position. He walked over to Halcyon and patted his head. “Let’s go before one of them catches up.”

  “My light is supposed to bring unity, not chaos,” said the boy.

  “We’ve no choice,” Incindir said as he hoisted the boy up to sit on his shoulders, then started into a sprint across the forest.

  “What will we do?” Halcyon asked.

  “For now, run,” Incindir said. “All we can do is run, and wait it out. Maybe our enemies will wipe each other out.”

  “Then Ashkar will become no more,” Halcyon said.

  “We’ll just have to find a way,” Incindir reassured, an odd reversal of roles.

  The faint sound of thunder boomed many times in quick succession from behind them, a sign that the battle had intensified. For more than one reason, Incindir hoped that Sevag would be the one to make it out alive.

  “Did you feel him, Telaren?” Incindir asked within his mind.

  “I did,” replied the elemental.

  Incindir frowned. “There isn’t a shred of Sevag left in there anymore.”

  Chapter 28

  322nd Dusk of the 5010th Age of Lion

  The highest wall looms ahead

  It was built strong, able to withstand the harshest dread

  It was raised early, before the mind sharpened

  It was meant to be unbreakable

  Fire rages, lashing the mind to awaken

  Wind gusts, pushing the mind to face the wall

  Perdition is calling by name

  The mind will never be the same

  The dark star, the false god

  It is everywhere and nowhere

  It is, and isn’t

  Only you can know

  “This is the last night we rest until we reach the gates of Lenas,” Raxxil announced as the four of them huddled around the fire, as was the norm at the end of each night.

  What was not the norm was Arwynn’s unusual retreat from any exchange, one that started right after she had almost been eaten by vilicid.

  But Samantha felt that the vilicid weren’t the ones responsible for this new Arwynn.

  “What’s the plan?” Darius asked as he looked around with brows raised. “I count one, two, three, four… four. Four against, let me see, an entire kingdom plus one unkillable Liberty. You know, the guy running the Order of the Faith?”

  “Anybody can be killed,” Raxxil argued as he clenched his fists. “Besides, did you travel with us all this way and just thought of the numbers?”

  “He’s right, Raxxil,” Samantha said. “Lenas has walls, fortifications, and supplies. Do you plan on just charging in on foot?”

  “We’ve both been inside those walls,” Raxxil said, his brows raised as if waiting for Samantha to understand some blatant truth. “And we both know Lenas very well.”

  It was then that it hit her.

  “The aqueducts?” she said.

  Raxxil nodded.

  Samantha turned her gaze toward the east, envisioning the high walls of Lenas and the city’s infrastructure. “Liberty will have scouts on the lookout day-and-night. I’ll do my best to conjure up a sandstorm to block them from spotting us. But still, it’s not like the situation will be much different once we are inside Lenas. Liberty’s palace is sure to be nigh impenetrable with guards. The second they see us, they’ll raise the alarm and the whole city will be upon us.”

  “I will get everyone’s attention,” Raxxil said. “You three will search for Liberty, but will wait for me to engage. He won’t be able to slip away in battle.”

  “He’ll have nowhere to run,” Darius said as he pretended to hold his crossbow in his hands, raised it up, and closed an eye like he was aiming. He pulled the imaginary trigger and made a clicking noise.

  “Are you sure that you will be okay on your own?” Samantha asked.

  Raxxil leaned back, his eyes lighting up as they looked to the stars. “The Order of the Faith fears the Volcano. Even Liberty does. They will cower in fear just before I strike them down in steel and flame.”

  Have you waited a hundred years for this day, Raxxil? What will you become after this is over?

  “We move out at twilight,” Raxxil announced as he withdrew to his tent. “That will give us enough time to reach Lenas a couple hours before dawn. They will be ill-prepared for what comes.”

  _ _ _

  Arwynn could not find a minute of sleep in the time before leaving for Lenas.

  Between the crushing revelations of a heart-breaking love and the anticipation of deadly battle, there was no room to lay her mind to rest. The sandstorm had been the last time that she had spoken to Raxxil about her feelings. She had not told Samantha about it, and from the looks of things, neither had Raxxil.

  But Arwynn’s words about not being able to stay by Raxxil’s side had not been a desperate cry for attention. After this was over, she was going to leave. She was going to leave behind this purposeless pursuit. She was going to leave the Skyward Hands.

  She was going to leave Raxxil.

  Whether he remained with them or continued to invite Samantha into his heart made no difference. It would be a grander statement than his silence ever could be, a finality that Arwynn needed.

  If he was not going to reciprocate, she needed to know it.

  But that was not now. Despite the turmoil raging in her heart, she was going to fight for Raxxil and what he believed in—a final gift to the man who she cared about most, even more than herself.

  The walls of Lenas appeared on the horizon under the moonlit sky. Dots of red dotted the tops of towers placed along the wall, signifying braziers that burned through the night. And that meant lookouts.

  “Give me a bit to gather up my energy,” Samantha said on cue.

  The closer that the four of them got to Lenas, the harsher the wind blew. The gusts picked up sand until the elementalists were shrouded in the desert’s essence. Only bits of Lenas were viewable through the wall of sand as they approached one of the openings to the city’s aqueduct network.

  The aqueduct was the width of two humans and ran eastward from the city, connecting with other aqueducts until they ran further east beyond the horizon. An iron gate like a prison gate blocked access to anything larger than a rat, and Raxxil stepped forward to take care of that problem.

  With both hands he gripped the bars. He then channeled his power until the iron melted away to form a sizable opening large enough for them to pass through.

  They all darted in, their rapid footfalls sloshing around water. Darkness met them inside the vast network, and they relied on Raxxil’s flame to illuminate their path. Critters squealed as they scurried out of the group’s charge. They made several lefts and rights without stopping, a mark of how well Raxxil and Samantha understood Lenas.

  Arwynn’s heart pounded in anticipation. She was wired from the lack of sleep, and unlike the war in Arcadia, this one was going to be like a bear against a thousand wolves.

  Still, knowing that Raxxil was at he
r side gave Arwynn reprieve. He was the bear that could take on ten-thousand wolves. As long as he led the way, she was sure that they would come out on top.

  “Here,” whispered Raxxil as he motioned for the others to stop at one of the stone staircases leading upward. When the sloshing of feet paused, the sound of panting took its stead. They must have ran miles underneath the city by now.

  “This should be near the palace,” affirmed Samantha.

  The four of them nodded at each other, then began their ascent. Even the softest of footfalls created echoes down the tunnel system, and so they crept up as fast as they could without making a commotion.

  At the top of the stars was an iron gate similar as the one outside Lenas, though this one had bars fashioned into a door locked with chains that could hinge open. Beyond it stood a pair of guards.

  The Order of the Faith was smart enough to guard its only weak spot.

  Raxxil gestured at Darius, mimicking the bounty hunter’s imaginary crossbow from earlier, and then pointed at the two guards. Darius nodded, creeping up slowly until he had a good angle.

  It took Darius a full minute to withdraw his crossbow, an action that would otherwise take a second. He then aimed at the left guard, shot a bolt that struck the guard in the back of the head, and moved to do the same to the right guard. The bodies thudded onto the ground.

  Raxxil held up his hand for them to freeze. They waited to hear of any commotion above, but moments passed by without anyone noticing the two slain guards. The hammer-wielder nodded to the others before ascending to the gate. He looked around for a moment, then set to dismantle the gate just like the one prior.

  The four of them stepped into Lenas, weapons drawn and bodies poised for action. Dawn was only an hour or two away, and it appeared as though most of the city still slept. They had been lucky to only find the two guards blocking their entry point.

  They stepped out onto a street in the shape of a ‘U’ that was at a slope, the right going up and the left down. Tall walls blocked their view of anything up the street other than the tops of some buildings in the distance. Down the street appeared to be some smaller buildings with vendor stands propped up against the sides of the street.