Alexa Drey- the Gates of Striker Bay

by Ember Lane

  Chapter Four

  The Woodsman

  I felt badass. I looked badass. Melinka had conjured me a new outfit—it was…black ranger, dark elf. Black was the "in" color in Valkyrie, and if we wanted a chance of going unnoticed, we needed to blend with the masses.

  “It’s no good. You two couldn’t look any more mischief if you tried.” Vassal checked my horse’s shoes, knocking each in turn. “And it’s not your clothes. It's just the pair of you—you’re trouble.”

  “She could be a goblin…anything, really.”

  Vassal finished up. “And you’re sure you want the old road?”

  “We do.”

  I knew what Vassal meant. Melinka looked like a highborn lady playing dress-up. Her clothes fitted perfectly—they weren’t new nor were they rags—and they were the type of thing that foresters wore. It was her, though. She bled power, confidence, where a peasant and pauper wouldn’t.

  Vassal saddled up. “Old road it is, then.”

  We had our forester.

  I picked a straw of hay from my hair. It had been an uneventful night. We’d eaten, and then we’d retired to the barn with a pitcher of ale. Melinka had begun my instruction. It appeared I wasn’t at one with my body, mind, or spirit.

  In many ways, it was similar to Zenith’s meditations, except this way blended self and surroundings. It was all about harmony within, like Zenith’s, and then add the land. Your body had to be in balance, but to find true balance you had to synchronize. That was the trick, but the trick was elusive. How did you attune to a leaf, a bird, a wolf?

  In order to leach mana from around, you had to be able to open your channels to its frequency. Shadowmana was the same, except for this. You had to search out the dark, like its namesake—the shadows. Darkness had a different tempo, a different mood, and it would come to me like a lazy river, whereas light would be a burbling brook.

  And that was it—all I had to do to make use of my magic.

  Poleyna had made a huge mistake.

  Huge.

  We walked the horses along the riverbank into the folds of the forest. It was a full woodland of rippling glades, broad deciduous trees, thick bursts of rolling undergrowth. Vassal picked his way through with ease, turning away from the river and heading north.

  I tried to tune to my surroundings but knew any harmony would be hidden from me until I stopped asking why: why had Poleyna and Star altered my magic, changed everything that I had striven to learn?

  Only one theory fit. We’d—Lincoln, Pog, Megan, the drunk, and I, had all been aboard the final ship—the last to escape Earth. Assuming things had changed since the first ship had launched, then you’d have to assume certain software and programming had changed—improved. What if my magic didn’t work in another system?

  Yet that could only mean one thing, and that conclusion pointed to the fact that I was no longer on my ship, but on Valkyrie, and that is why my systems didn’t work here. That in itself had to be impossible, not ship-to-ship transport—we’d already theorized that all the ships had bunched up—but because I was in a VR tube, and as far as I knew, VR tubes didn’t get up, walk around, and transfer ships.

  There was only one way I would know for certain: if Pog had been altered too.

  Once I got that out of the way—once I’d accepted that the explanation was as good as it got for now—I changed my approach. Now, all I needed to do was adjust, and relearn a new system. Zenith had already taught me meditation.

  “Are you okay?” Melinka asked.

  “Yeah, fine. I’ll work it out.”

  “The mana will refill naturally, but through balance, you can accelerate it.”

  “Until that time, I’m kind of screwed. A few dozen blasts and I’m out.”

  “Nonsense. I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  The first bolt hit me at noon, like they’d timed it exactly. It crashed through my brain, squeezing it hard, choking my thoughts. Convulsing, my eyes rolled to the back of my head, and I saw them as I tumbled from my horse.

  Ten of them had me. Ten old men all around a firepit, chanting. All, barring one, was cloaked in black. The eldest, the straightest, clearly the one in charge, wore crimson. His eyes drilled into me, his lips chanting, sending every evil word to my heart.

  Amber flames reached up to the tower’s domed roof. I could smell the cloying incense as their monotone chorus grew. They began circling. I sensed their magic intensifying, but my pain eased, vanishing, counter to their actions. Their heads snapped up as one, each glaring at me. Then their power returned, its force bearing down on me, more intense, my convulsions coming in waves. I gathered my will, imagining the path that linked us.

  Their focus was singular. I felt the euphoria of their victory. The one clad in crimson grinned, spittle leaking from the sides of his lips. His mouth captured my entire attention. Yellow teeth like tombstones, sweat on the top of his lip, a name came to me—Akkadian.

  His hair fell in sweaty clumps, clinging to his pockmarked, pale face. Ranging eyebrows sheltered tired eyes, their gaze intense, but only through driven will. Then as if he saw me looking at him, his rage suddenly surfaced, twisting his face in anger, shedding any semblance of exhaustion and turning his words into bullets, spat with hate-filled ferocity. Their magic smashed into me, doubling me over.

  “Is that the best you can do, old man?” I growled, sending a viscous burst of magic straight back at him, plowing through his onrushing spells like a schooner cutting through an ocean’s swell. It thumped into him, sending him crashing back against the dome’s black wall.

  The pain vanished. Melinka and Vassal stared down at me.

  “Does the name Akkadian mean anything to you?” I asked.

  Vassal unstoppered his water bottle, dribbling some on my mouth, before sitting me up and handing it to me.

  “Akkadian?” Melinka questioned. “That was the combinium?”

  “A scan—I’ve had it before. They all gather at the top of one of their black towers, around some cauldron. It’s like some all-seeing eye, some—” I stopped myself. I wanted to say radar, but that would have meant nothing to either of them.

  “How long to the old road?” Melinka grabbed Vassal’s arm.

  An understanding appeared to pass between them.

  “We could run the horses for a while—an hour, maybe.”

  Melinka pulled me up. “Let’s go.”

  Vassal’s horse flew like the wind. I followed as we galloped through the woodland. Jumping brooks, leaping trunks, banking steeply, leaves whipping as we hurtled past. Desperation filled all of us. Evading the combinium was now our only concern. If they could find me that fast, we had little chance of sneaking up on Kyrie.

  The woodland began to age, thick moss blanketing all. I guessed we neared the old way. A hillock rose up before us, like a tomb, too rounded to be natural, domed like a beehive. Vassal hurtled straight toward it. I screamed at him to stop, dithering, panicking, about to turn my horse even as the forester vanished.

  Scrunching up my eyes, waiting for impact, I knew instantly that things had changed—the air was cool. It smelled of rich earth; we’d entered the shadows. Roots brushed me as I ducked, the low mud ceiling only inches above me, yet underfoot it was stone. The roof receded as our path led down. Vassal sparked a torch into life, pulling up as our way widened.

  “The old way?” I asked.

  “Aye,” said Vassal. “New to Kyrie?”

  I drew beside him. “First time.”

  “Fits,” he said. “New or a witch—one or the other.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Do you know much about our land?”

  “Kind of didn’t expect to visit.”

  “Ah…well, it’s a feudal kingdom, so people tend to know their place. Kind of think you don’t.”

  “What?”

  Melinka laughed. “Let him finish.”

  “Have a place—don’t think you have a place, and the only folks who really don’t sit well
with station are either witches, bandits, or outsiders.”

  “Better,” I said. “Much better.”

  “So do you think it’ll help?”

  “What?” I appeared to be getting a little tongue tied.

  “Being underground. Should it nullify their reach a bit?”

  I turned, inquiring eyes asking Melinka.

  “Can’t hurt,” she replied. “We’ll rest when we get to the first stop and see.”

  The route continued down, twisting and turning, its sides changing from mud to rock—layered rock, some form of ruddy sandstone—and it became irregular, falling away then closing in.

  “So this route… Why?”

  Melinka answered, “Feudal. Kyrie is feudal, like Vassal said, and as such, all have to pay a tithe: their taxes. Horn’s Isle was once the closest port to Kyrie’s, except Horn’s Isle was remote, so the king's arbiter tended to be a bit lax, and if you’re going to smuggle goods to the capitol, you need an anonymous way to travel.”

  “So all this was to avoid a bit of tax?” It seemed a little too much work.

  “Tax, religious purges, wars. A few dozen lords in armor, and war is never too far away. It’s fairly easy to find yourself exiled with a price on your head. Of course, much of that is quite often retracted: the exiled lord fought a dragon, killed a few bandits, something, anything to get his name back in good stead.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “A dozen bannermen and one king. One of the bannermen falls out of favor with the king. He gets locked up, tried, found guilty. What does the king do next?”

  “Kill him?”

  Melinka laughed. Vassal laughed.

  “Then he’d need to find another bannerman. This is an island. What’s the phrase—the devil you know? The king still needs the bannerman because the bannerman controls his part of the island.”

  “So he lets him off?”

  Melinka cocked her head. “And lose face?”

  “So?” I was confused.

  “They needed the lords to escape. There are only ever a handful of desirable families—wouldn’t do to kill them off.”

  “But the king had to save face.”

  “Exactly.”

  If you say so…

  Vassal jumped off his horse, and I realized we’d come to a hollowed-out rest area. The forester vanished through a doorway carved into the wall, and soon a golden glow spread from it. Melinka offered me a hand down, and we followed him in.

  “It’s not much, but it'll do,” Vassal said, sitting at a table, skinning a bird. “I take it I’m the only one who can cook.”

  If Melinka could she kept quiet about it, and so did I; he looked like he was doing a reasonable job of it.

  “So tell me,” I asked, our earlier conversation still plaguing me, “if it was in the interests of the king to let his lords escape, surely there would be hidden—”

  Melinka smiled at me, cutting me off mid-sentence. “We’re counting on it. Kyrie has its escape routes. We just have to hope Ruse hasn’t found them.”

  As we all fell silent, I began to look inward again, determined to understand this new system within me. First, I sought the interface within my loins, hunting down my elusive shadowmana. Whereas my light mana almost burst from between the membranous plates, its darker twin skulked and hid within their folds. I tried to coax it out, imagining it to be a sulking child backed into the corner of a crowded room, but this had no effect, and I had the sense that it wasn’t its true nature.

  To understand it, I merely had to look at its counterpart—bubbly, filled with light, with the joys of nature, and then I could appreciate the opposite of that was more reflective, reserved. Both could be deadly if riled, but one was the berserker swinging its ax and shouting “Glory!” whereas the other was an assassin. In simple terms, Mezzerain would be light mana, and Cutter shadow.

  My shadowmana preferred direction to exact its terrible power, and that was why it needed the black knight's artifacts to act as a catalyst. They gave it purpose, focus, and that was what I had to do. I dove within those shaded plates and sought it out, and I found it there, and I made a promise as it leached from its dark burrow, expanding into the interface.

  The thrill of discovery ran through me, and I knew it wasn’t even half full, a quarter or an eighth. It was a weak gray where it needed to be black. Ten thousand—my limit—was a lie; my ability was infinitely greater than that. I let my mind wander to the room’s shadows—the dancing shade behind Vassal’s torch, the cavern beyond our little rest point, my deepest pocket, the dustiest corner, and I found more lurking. I coaxed it to me with a promise of understanding.

  I held that suspended conscious until I’d sucked it all in, and I smiled, my limit stripped away, my potential infinite.

  Mana: 10,000/10,000 Shadow Mana: 10,357

  “Alexa?” Melinka’s hand settled on my arm. “Alexa, we must go.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d shut my eyes. Opening them, both her and Vassal were studying me.

  “I’m ready,” I said, but she indicated my food, a mug of white ale, and a crust of bread.

  “You must eat and drink. What you are trying to achieve demands sustenance.”

  I didn’t need asking twice—I was famished.

  We left the traveler’s rest soon after. The path wound down, farther into the rock, which slowly became pocked with a speckled, black stone, until a huge fold of it ended the sandstone completely. I had the sense that this part of Valkyrie had seen some huge upheaval in the past. Water dripped down its walls, clear as if a pure aquifer was above us. Vassal ran his fingers along the smooth walls, wetting them and then bringing them to his mouth, sucking hungrily.

  “We’re under Thornberry Lake—have you heard the tale?”

  “The tale?” I asked as Melinka scoffed from behind.

  “Of how Taric fell to the earth.”

  “Nope, can’t say I have.”

  “Mezzerain should have told you. It puts these gods into perspective.”

  “So how does it go?”

  He reined his mount in, letting me come beside him. “Imagine a lake surrounded by snow-covered foothills. The lake is partly frozen, and the day is clear—a spring morning. A great knight is traveling from Kyrie to Striker Bay; his recent days have been filled with woe.”

  “I take it this knight is Mezzerain.”

  “You take it correctly. Now, did I tell you it was a clear day?”

  I told him yes. Melinka huffed. Vassal pressed on.

  “So Mezzerain had fallen foul of the king. His greatest friend, Jammer, had been blinded by the evil lord Krestova, branded so that Jammer, who’d merely looked upon Krestova’s bride-to-be, would never lay eyes on a woman again.”

  I inhaled sharply. “Jammer?”

  “You know him?”

  “Knew.”

  “Well, if you had, you’d know the love Mezzerain had for his boyhood friend. Mezzerain demanded the right to redress, but alas, he had no chance.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Krestova’s fiancée was the king's daughter, and Jammer had no standing.”

  “What happened?”

  “Mezzerain killed Krestova—drove a sword into his gut and two bollock daggers into his eyes. There was no hiding his complicity.”

  “Mezzerain left?”

  “Had no choice, that or swing—the crime was clear cut; there was no leeway. So that morning he was walking his horse along Thornberry Lake and on his way to Striker Bay when he saw the strangest thing—a man falling from the clouds. Not only that, the man was screaming obscenities, like he’d never heard. Mezzerain picked up his pace, riding up snow-filled vales after the man.”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “Nope,” Vassal said, shaking his head. “So Mezzerain catches up with the man as he’s clambering out of a crater, and the man brushed himself off as if nothing had happened and laid claim to all the lands.”

  “And this man was Taric,” I said. “What di
d Mezzerain say to him?”

  “He said, ‘If you’re a god, I’ll be your champion, kind of at loose ends at the moment.’”

  Then I laughed—laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. “So that was how Mezzerain met Taric?”

  “If you believe every drunk from Kyrie to Cracker Falls.” Melinka’s tone was driven by derision.

  I glanced around and sent her daggers, a smile on my lips. “What happened next?”

  “They went to Striker Bay—where else? That’s where all the crooks and cutthroats resided. There, he made his base, plotted, and planned until Mezzerain paraded at the head of his army as they conquered Valkyrie, sweeping into Kyrie, and truly avenging his friend, Jammer.”

  “Then how come he got exiled the second time?”

  “Exiled?” Vassal replied. “He never got exiled—he fled. He was Taric’s second, and the new god’s custom is simple. Once your god is dead, you and your army are forfeited. Mezzerain ran, and no one blamed him. They’ll have fun with him in Kyrie.”

  “Have fun?”

  “Yep. Belved is missing his tributes. He demands his sacrifice. The priests will torture Mezzerain until he gives up his army.”

  “So not just waiting for me, then.”

  Melinka coughed. “Well, not quite.”

  We fell silent again. Visions of Mezzerain’s body, stretched, flailed, haunted me.

  What if they used Pog against him?

  I saw little Pog’s smiling face as the maelstrom swallowed him.

  “If they touch a hair…” I growled and then tried to seek out my shadowmana but found my mood canceled my efforts.

  We stopped a while after. How long, I couldn’t tell. No trailside dwelling this time except a pool fed and drained by a subterranean stream, with a hollow above that let in the last of the day. Vassal made a fire and cooked again, teasing a few fish from the pool.

  “So tell me—Striker Bay,” I said, after resting back on the pebble shore. “Know any stories about the scourge of Striker Bay?”

  Melinka burst out laughing, Vassal too.