Exiles & Empire

by Cheryl S Mackey

  Ears ringing and half blinded by his sweat dampened hair, he staggered. He righted himself with the momentum of the shove and groped for the hand attached to the arm. He found it, warm wool gloved fingers, and held on. Propelled sideways, he stumbled into a dead run as a familiar voice barked hoarse orders over the deafening rain of projectiles.

  “Run, for the love of The Four, run!”

  “Gabaran!” Emaranthe stumbled beside him.

  Dehil raced past them and reached for the red headed elf swinging a massive hammer in an attempt to bat aside the arrows raining down. The sky lit up with a thousand colors, and a haze of creeping smoke slithered between her and Jaeger.

  The Unknown Sun had unleashed all of its powerful magic in one go.

  Jaeger’s shield, littered with dozens of arrows, bounced to the ground beneath a rocket of black smoke. The shield held as the arrows melted into dust from the deadly spell.

  “Grab on!” Dehil yelled as he rushed past Jadeth, his body a shimmer of light in a world of blinding color and sound. She flung the hammer into the shadows at her back and gripped his outstretched arm as it blurred past. They whipped past Jaeger just as a layer of frost bled over his exposed skin and hardened. “Jaeger! Hold on!”

  Ice cracking as he lunged, Jaeger did so. He caught Jadeth’s other arm just as Gabaran shoved Ivo and Emaranthe closer. She latched onto the nearly invisible hem of Dehil’s tunic and all six vanished.

  A whistling screech turned into an explosion to their left. Arrows peppered the ground. Rock pummeled the air and bounced off skin, cloth, and armor. They dug bloody gouges into exposed skin and peppered armor with enough force to rend it. Dust choked the air and lungs threatened to cave beneath the raw stench of death that heralded curses.

  Ivo twisted as he dodged the projectiles and squinted to see the enemy. The acrid smoke hugged the ground and burned his throat with each sharp breath. Heart slamming against his ribcage, he flung an arm wide. The wind obeyed and swept aside the noxious spell. It instantly reformed and billowed like clouds roiling over mountains.

  A wall of ice lurched into the sky inches behind him, blurring the maddened world into swirls of frost. He spun on his heel and nearly crashed into Jaeger at his side.

  “Jaeger, come on!” Ivo bellowed over the thunder of cannons and the hiss of spells testing the ice wall. He reached for his brother’s arm, noting that his weapon remained hidden, his shield gone.

  Cries ahead of him turned panicked. Emaranthe’s were louder than all the rest. He’d shoved her ahead of him to give her more time before trying to turn back the spells with the wind.

  He saw her then yards ahead, halted, her fear starkly written on her ashen face. Wild lights and colors arced overhead, bathing them all in ethereal reds, golds, blues, purples, and yellows.

  “Emaranthe! Run!” he screamed. His words vanished in the whine of a cannon ball. It exploded through the top of the ice wall, sending shards of ice in all directions. The cannon ball vanished into the darkness, having overshot its mark. The remnants of the ice wall cracked and groaned, and then shattered, revealing the host of the army swiftly advancing, completely oblivious to the small sea of water rushing ankle deep.

  A fireball whipped past, far too close for comfort, the split-second flare of warmth and light familiar. He ducked aside with Jaeger, grateful that it wasn’t aimed at them, but the enemy behind. In the darkness ahead, twin flares illuminated Emaranthe’s face. A fireball formed between her hands. Ivo jerked Jaeger to the ground as she hurled it.

  It sailed overhead like a comet, a trail of smoke and heat behind. He turned in time to watch the fireball obliterate the front line of the army. The soldiers crumpled and stilled as the living continued to advance. Rodon’s blackened sneer remained in place as he deliberately stepped on a charred body.

  Emaranthe’s scream snagged his attention again and he turned to see her eyes flare hot in the night.

  “Ivo! Jaeger! Run!”

  Too late, he understood her words. The cannons.

  The blast ripped the earth from beneath his feet. Light burned his eyes. Heat and debris slashed and scoured skin. The impact tossed them like rag dolls. The guttural thunder of cannon fire drowned out shouts. Dust and rock exploded, stirring the chaotic cloud of smoke and ash into a colorful, deadly rain.

  Ivo bounced off a boulder. The sound of metal shrieking stabbed into his mind like a pike. He rolled into the center of the pit and to an agonized halt. The smoky haze obscured everything. The unknown spells were the least of his worries. Sticky warmth dripped into his left eye, painting the world a darker shade of red. He ignored it, and struggled to his knees. He swayed, the chaotic colors and sounds now spears of pain and confusion.

  “Em…Ema?” He choked on a mouthful of dust and blood, but forced her name from his cut lips. Unable to see in the blinding haze, or hear over the buzzing sound in his ears, he inched forward and searched with his hands. He spat out a gob of blood.

  His hands landed on something. A leg. It twitched. If the owner said something he couldn’t tell, but his raw finger tips, now skinless, told him that the armor belonged to his brother.

  “Jaeger?” Ivo bellowed his name, uncertain if he spoke aloud or not. The leg jerked, recoiled, and Jaeger peered at him. He couldn’t tell if the horror on his brother’s face was for the damage to him, or the entire scene.

  “Ivo, come on!” Jaeger croaked, the words muffled by a bloodied, raw mouth. Helmless now, his blond hair dripped in sticky browns and reds. Ivo staggered, wild eyed, stunned.

  “Jaeger, your armor.” He pointed at what was left of the armor on his brother’s torso. Instead of cold iron, ribbons of shredded metal were all that remained as if the blast tried to rip it free from his body. Blood ran from gouges in his flesh. Remnants of the armor imbedded in his left shoulder, ribcage, and arm. With each movement, muscle gaped from jagged wounds. Judging by the slowly creeping pain in his legs, face, and hip, Ivo knew that he fared no better.

  “No, can’t worry about it now. Go!” Jaeger shouted.

  Ivo finally heard, muffled, as if from far away, and reached down to drag his brother to his feet. He ignored Jaeger’s belligerent commands to leave him and instead they staggered through the dense haze in search of the others.

  The rain of enemy fire ceased abruptly. They stumbled forward as a white glow behind them turned the eerie haze into an opaque fog, but didn’t dare turn back to look.

  Sickened, numbed to the pain and chaos, Ivo did the only thing he could.

  He fell to his knees with a roar that echoed in the eerie silence. Jaeger stumbled to the ground, half entwined with Ivo, and faded into unconsciousness. Anger mingled with fear. Pain tore apart rationality. Anguish battled hope.

  The cascade of emotions ripped into Ivo and wove a ball of energy where his heart and soul met. The two separate entities, combined with a body made Immortal, worked in perfect harmony to keep the warrior perfect for war.

  Ivo chuckled grimly. The war begins… now.

  The energy exploded outwards, invisible, violent. Winds howled into a vortex, a scream louder than any hurricane, and blasted debris and the enemy in all directions. Shielded at the eye of the storm, Ivo swayed, weakened, but watched, heart pounding, as the deadly haze rushed away to be replaced by clean, fresh air.

  Light, white hot and familiar, lit up the battleground. Sounds halted and silence fell.

  Ivo bit back a cry when four huddled figures appeared on the far side of the massive crater. The cry escaped when they stumbled apart, bloodied, battered, but alive.

  “Ivo, Jaeger!” Emaranthe’s scream was muffled music to his ringing ears. Fuzzy figures grew larger as they rushed closer, but Ivo was beyond caring. His eyelids, possibly torn, were far too heavy.

  “Ivo!” Emaranthe’s hoarse cry roused him for a moment. Small gloved hands cradled his bloodied, grime coated face. Keen eyes noted every shocking wound. She swallowed and their eyes met, though Ivo couldn’t really see anything but a pa
le blur. “Ivo, you did it. You saved us.”

  “Liar.” Ivo choked on a laugh that shook his massive frame. Waves of pain turned the forced sound into a hiss of agony. “What happened?”

  Emaranthe traded solemn looks with someone on the other side of him. Mostly deaf to everything but the strident ringing in his ears, he waited. She glanced back down at him and this time, tears burned.

  She glanced at the origin of the bright glow and swiftly silenced explosions. The motion pulled her to the side just enough for him to see, too.

  The shield had returned just feet behind him and Jaeger, a dome of energy that he’d never seen the like of before. Someone blocked the light directly before them, and he squinted, suddenly suspicious of the shapes spreading wide on either side of the male figure.

  Wings, fully extended, braced against the energy shield– no they radiated the shield. Stunned, he squinted and the scene warped into focus enough for Ivo to recognize Atil, the Last Windwalker. He grimaced, the waves of pain now fighting for control of his heart. It twisted, sickened at the sight of the powerful waves of white-hot energy arcing from each splayed feather. The dome hadn’t been formed before him. It formed around his leanly muscled body, the sparks of energy merging with his form until he was part of it. The widespread wings fed every last ounce of Atil’s energy into the shield, draining the imprisoned spymaster.

  It would kill him.

  “Save. Him.” Ivo swallowed. He tasted blood and dirt. And pain.

  “It’s too late,” Dehil spoke from somewhere outside his line of sight. Unable to move or see the spy, Ivo didn’t have to look to see the rage and anguish on the elf ’s face. It bled into his voice, a raspy whisper that filled the silent world around them with all the words no one else could say.

  “What happened?” Ivo asked. Blood dribbled on his lower lip. He had no energy left to move to wipe it away. How he stayed conscious, he did not know. Beside him Jaeger breathed shallowly, unevenly, but the angry and badgering whispers of Jadeth consoled him. If Jaeger was worse off, she wouldn’t bother telling him that he was a fool for trying to protect her. She would have simply slapped his unresponsive face and demanded that he return.

  The thought drew a bittersweet chuckle from somewhere, and he felt, rather than saw all gazes land on him in puzzled worry.

  “Atil just bought us time, at the cost of his own life,” Dehil rasped after a long moment once Ivo’s odd fit of laughter had subsided. “When his energy is depleted the shield will fall and those cannon balls will decimate the rest of the plateau. And us.”

  Ivo squinted at Dehil, then the unmoving figure silhouetted against the bright white shield. True enough, though fuzzy, a dozen very large round shapes peppered the shield and frozen within its edges. If the shield was to fall and time was to resume, they would destroy everything in their path. Sometimes the deadliest weapons weren’t magical at all.

  “We need to go, now.” Gabaran grunted. Jaeger’s limp weight vanished, hauled over the shoulder of the massive elf. Startled, Ivo blinked at the towering male. Gabaran studied him in the blistering glare from the energy shield. “Can you walk, Earthlander, or do I have to carry you too?”

  Ivo scowled. “I don’t need help, elf.”

  Gabaran’s eyebrows nearly touched his scalp. He studied Ivo for a long moment, then turned away with Jaeger. Jadeth shot a worried look at Ivo before following close behind, pointedly ignoring the other elf lingering behind them all.

  “Jadeth?” Dehil whispered, but didn’t move.

  She walked on, her back an unyielding wall. Her steps hitched unevenly, but resolutely, despite the fact that the shredded and charred chainmail fabric of her tunic bared patches of angry red skin between her shoulder blades. The fabric, made from nearly invisible links of chain, had been considered ideal armor for Healers among The Unknown Sun battalions. Light and easy to maneuver in, it was hard to distinguish from the linen tunic of the mages, but afforded more protection to a class of warrior that did not fight on the front lines and were yet targets of the enemy.

  Take out the battalion Healer and you take out the battalion.

  Ivo chuckled at the look of naked rage and anguish twisting the Dehil’s face. Half hidden behind a strand of bloodied hair, the smaller, leaner male grimaced.

  “Let her be,” he said. “She will speak to you again, eventually.”

  Dehil’s glare almost twisted Ivo’s bloodied lips into a smile, but a smirk of pain appeared when he shifted to gain his feet. Two sets of hands rushed to his aid. He shook them off with a growl. He staggered, but stayed upright, swaying.

  “I can walk, I said,” Ivo snapped. The silence stretched, long and reproachful, but he didn’t dare turn to look at Emaranthe or Dehil. “Let’s go.”

  He forced his numbed feet forward and was surprised that they actually kept him upright. Everything tilted with each successive step, but he would not give in to the thought that he couldn’t make it on his own two feet. Sweat streamed down his neck and raked tendrils of pain across his back and shoulders. Somewhere he’d lost most of his armor, like Jaeger, and judging from the amount of pain he figured he wasn’t feeling– it was bad. He took another step and waited for the world to cease spinning and did it again. And again. And again. Light footsteps echoed behind him.

  The lip of the crater emerged from the deepening darkness. Thankfully it was barely a rise, or Ivo knew he’d have to ask for help. He staggered over the edge and saw for the first time, the destruction that had rained on the plateau. Piles of burning debris made for a grim path to the remains of the main tent. Acrid smoke flooded the air, but he had no strength to remove it now. Sweating and swaying, he stumbled on. The footsteps echoed on either side now and the slight warmth at his right elbow gave him a degree of comfort. And guilt.

  The procession staggered through the destroyed camp, each step pulling them further from the static laced light of the energy dome, but no further from its path of annihilation. Ahead, the main tent burned unchecked, and Ivo’s stomach twisted when the memory of their quest returned.

  “The map?” Ivo asked the group at large. Some distance ahead Gabaran stumbled. He righted himself with a hiss no one could mistake.

  “Later, Ivo. Please,” Dehil whispered over his left shoulder. Ivo glanced at him, startled by the grim plea in his words. On his other side, Emaranthe broke into a hoarse cough and staggered. Ivo twisted and snagged her elbow before she could hit the ground. He opened his mouth to ask, something he should have done long ago. Self loathing burned like acid and he swallowed as if he could taste it.

  “I’m fine, Ivo. We need to hurry,” Emaranthe said. He stumbled at her words, and dared to glance down at her slight shape hidden in the smoky darkness. She didn’t return the look, but turned to watch the shield behind them instead. She freed her arm from his weakened grip and grasped his hand in hers. “Come!”

  She tugged him forward. Usually her petite frame would have no chance of moving his large one. They broke into a painful trot and Dehil shouted a warning to the others farther ahead.

  “Run, make for the edge of the cliff!”

  They staggered faster, the sounds of hoarse breathing, crackling flame, and stumbling feet the only sounds to punctuate the grim darkness. Jadeth and Gabaran halted their figures and Jaeger’s unmoving one draped over the elf ’s shoulder, now cast in and out of golden light and shadow thrown by the burning tents. The blackness beyond the inferno was absolute. The edge of the plateau beckoned… It was the one thing between them and escape.

  Washed in firelight and shadow, Gabaran’s eyes glowed when he turned study their options. Ivo felt Emaranthe inhale when the macabre shadows cast the elf ’s face into a grim mask. She urged him to move faster. Emaranthe’s ragged breathing sent Ivo’s insides into a steep dive of dread.

  Gabaran’s piercing gaze steadied on Emaranthe, burning with both rage and defeat. His lips twisted.

  “Emaranthe,” he called to her over the crackle of flames. “We need y
ou again, little sister.”

  Ivo struggled to place the words in their proper order around the buzzing in his ears and the tilting of the ground. When they did, the fear turned to naked terror.

  “Emaranthe, no!”

  She ducked beneath his arm and spun away, giving Ivo only a brief glimpse of her hair as the hood tumbled back. Unevenly charred to shoulder length, the fire-licked pale strands raked the air between them as she vanished in a surge of smoke and ghostly flame.

  “We have no choice, Ivo,” Dehil muttered from his left. He snagged Ivo beneath the left arm when his knees buckled. “Curse The Four, there’s no other way to escape.”

  “No!”

  Pain was nothing.

  Fear became everything.

  Emaranthe reappeared a few yards from the lip of the plateau. Lit by flame and shadows, her cloaked body wove a graceful, determined path toward the precipice at a full run.

  Ghostly flames trailed from her ruined hair as she dodged charred debris and pillars of smoking rubble. They burned hot in the darkness, bright in the smoke shrouded sky.

  She raced past the elves who watched with grim hope.

  She raced away from the male she loved because hope was all she had left.

  Her bare feet, blistered and bloodied, touched the edge of the cliff. Elegant toes, blackened by soot, blistered, and sticky with blood, curled in the dirt as she threw every ounce of her strength into doing the one thing she could do to save them all.

  She leaped.

  “No!” Ivo screamed. He lunged forward, not caring that snapping flames lashed out at him from all sides. “Emaranthe!”

  Still lit by ethereal fire, her tiny body sailed out into the middle of nothingness. Her limbs curled in on themselves as she neared the apex of the leap. She crested it and flung them wide.

  Power exploded out of her. The blast of energy surged free and spread like fire licking the sky. It hovered, arced, and spiraled. The shockwave rocked everyone back on their heels. Ears popped. The orb flattened and spun, prodded into a very familiar shape on its own. The center swirled with ghostly fire and cleared, revealing a bright fluid light within.