The Quintessence Cycle- The Complete Series

by Terry C. Simpson

  She rushed through the bit concerning him and the wisemen, clearly uncomfortable with the telling. When she said Terestere had gone off on ereskars to hasten the delivery of reinforcements, he was surprised. Before worry could set in she told him of the queen’s safe return.

  “Where’s my dear wife now?”

  “Questioning the other wisemen as to Elder Forstren’s whereabouts.”

  “Go, tell her I sent for her. And Commander General Lestin also.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  After she left, Ainslen continued with his meal, the thought of her death crossing his mind on more than one occasion. He ignored the idea. Allowing her to live would be the reward for her service and silence. He opened his vital points and tested his soul. Satisfied with his strength, he plotted the counterstroke against the western armies and waited for his wife and Lestin.

  Terestere arrived first. She fawned over him and apologized time and again for her absence when he woke. Lestin entered soon after. He and the queen shot stony looks at each other.

  “Both of you need to set aside your differences,” Ainslen said.

  “She could’ve cost us the war,” Lestin growled.

  “And you might have cost the king his life.” A hand resting on Ainslen’s shoulder, Terestere’s voice was ice and daggers.

  “Stop it. Both of you.”

  “But, my dear—”

  “Neither of you were wrong. Danalyn was important enough to make an attempt to save it, my love. As for Lestin’s choice … the kingdom possibly means more than one individual life, even mine. Your wish to ensure my good health is more than a worthy cause, and I cannot begin to think of a way to repay such a show of love.” He squeezed her hand and stood.

  “I’m to blame for much of this. I underestimated this High King, thought I could outsmart him, that he wouldn’t think like me, be as devious as he proved capable.” Ainslen strode to a window and gazed toward Danalyn and the expansive Wetlands. The enemy blackened the fields in front and beyond the city. Wisps of smoke still curled into the air. He hardened his voice. “I saw them only as savages who would sacrifice us to their evil Gods, who would cast our children into the Ten Hells beyond the Pillars of Dissolution, and not as intelligent generals and warriors. I won’t make that mistake again.” Scowling, he added, “Lestin, send the signal to activate the traps beneath Danalyn.”

  “Already tried, sire. They didn’t work.”

  The king opened and closed his mouth. At every turn the enemy thwarted him. After thinking for a bit he laid out his plan. His wife and Lestin nodded or shook their heads and offered their input. When he was finished he sent the count to coordinate with the generals.

  Alone again with his wife, the king said, “I see the way you look at him still. He was doing what’s right for the Empire.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it. Or him. I did promise to make him pay for disobedience.”

  “True on both counts, but he saved me, and you cannot punish him for that.”

  “Perhaps.”

  He sighed. A knock sounded at the door. “Come in.”

  Sabella entered and bowed, first to him, and then to the queen. “Two Farlander cohorts have arrived, sire.”

  “Finally, a bit of good news.” Ainslen smiled, and almost as quickly, the pleasure faded. “Wait. Two cohorts? Two thousand men? That’s it? Tell me Seligula is with them.”

  “He isn’t. Their leader is some Egini who walks as if he owns the world.”

  “Where is he?” He was already striding toward the door.

  “Waiting in the first meeting chamber.”

  “Fetch me a translator and Lestin.” He stopped and turned to Terestere. “I’m sorry, my love, there’s business to attend to.” She gave a slight nod. Turning on his heels, he left and strode down the long hall, footsteps echoing. Sabella had already disappeared up ahead.

  First, Seligula had yet to appear or report, and now the man had sent a mere two cohorts when an army was needed. What game was the Warmaster playing? Ainslen could think of no reason for the absences of the man and the brunt of the Farlander forces.

  Lestin and High Priest Jantien waited at the door to the chamber, the latter dressed in his station’s tall black hat and red robes with blue sleeves and belt. Sabella and another Blade stood guard not far from those two. Ainslen swept by them into the chamber.

  Upon Ainslen’s entry, the Egini turned from the large window. He was taller than others of his ilk, actually reaching to Ainslen’s chest He was baldheaded and had a mustache that circled his mouth, ending in a long, dark beard separated into two braids. Grey streaked that beard, giving him a weathered look. His pale leather vest featured dark stains and his long-sleeved shirt did little to hide arms like support beams. His eyes were little green beads.

  “Your Grace,” he said in thick, accented Kasinian. “I am Warleader Kurosh.”

  “Kurosh, can you enlighten me as to why I’m speaking to a Warleader and not Warmaster Seligula? And why is it you’ve come with only two cohorts when I was promised an army?”

  The green eyes narrowed. “The Warmaster is still dealing with other matters, the same issues that prevented me from arriving here with more men.”

  “And those issues are?”

  “Attacks by your people.”

  “What?”

  “No matter what paths we choose to cross the terrain between our workshops and this place, we have been ambushed. Some of these men are even riding our ereskars.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Ainslen paused to think. Controlling ereskars required Mesmers, and the only Mesmers he knew of were secreted away within the Grand Chantry. Would Hamada and Merisse dare to stand against him or was there some unknown division within the Order?

  “I know what you may be thinking, sire,” High Priest Jantien said. “I assure you the Order has no knowledge of this. It cannot be any of ours.”

  “These renegades have struck our supply caravans repeatedly, diminishing the resources we need for a successful campaign,” Kurosh said. “Worse yet is the Dracodar among them, and supposed sightings of Kargoshi. I doubt that last, but I can confirm the first. I saw the scales myself.”

  “That can’t be true, can it?” Lestin asked. “I’d heard rumors, and I’ve been to the auctions, but livin’ Dracodar?”

  The mention of Dracodar chased away any thought of the Order’s involvement. “Lestin, pass me your map.”

  The Commander General reached into his satchel and produced a rolled parchment. He strode to a table, unrolled the map, and placed weights on the four corners.

  “Show me where,” Ainslen said.

  Kurosh studied the map and then stabbed a stubby finger near the Blooded Daggers. He traced a line from there to the west, following the Whetstone Mountains, and then north along the Shifting Stones.

  “They’re using the vantage from the mountain ranges to see you comin’” Lestin said. “But that many Dracodar? I’d be willin’ to say one or two might still live, but to cover this much territory we would be talkin’ hundreds, maybe more.”

  “Not all were Dracodar. We put a few we captured to the question. The majority were Blades, and some others looked like common rabble. They claimed they served two of your counts, Cardinton and Adelfried, as well as some queen who they could not name. Some called themselves the Consortium.”

  For a moment Ainslen considered whether the so-called Dracodar might have been Blades who’d completed the ingestion of remains, their bodies transformed by the process. He thought to suggest as much before deciding otherwise. Let the man fear the Dracodar. Such angst could prove useful. The former counts, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. To think they would stoop so low as to ally with dregs. “I should’ve killed those two long ago, now they’re proving to be pebbles in my boots. We’ll deal with them soon enough. For now, send word to your master as to what you’ve seen out there. Let him know of our dire need for reinfo
rcements.”

  “It will be done.”

  “So, along with the men you brought, what else do you have?” Ainslen asked.

  “Three hundred firesticks and twenty firebreathers, as well as skilled Blazers to use them. And twenty ereskars.”

  “Good. Prepare them. We launch a counterattack today. The westerners will learn we aren’t easy meat.”

  ******

  Hours later, Ainslen sat atop a warhorse behind four cohorts of Blades and one of Farlanders. A cavalry of byagas, horse, and ereskars spread wide to his left and right. Kurosh and Lestin rode next to him. The air was thick with the scent of churned mud, man, and animal as well as the nervous anticipation that heightened before battle. Ahead of him, Blades occupied the two flanks while the Farlanders had formed a square within those lines. A single rank of Egini made up the Farlander perimeter, the short, squat men trained in the skills of Magnifiers and Manifestors. Rectangular shields to match the men’s height and girth were planted in the ground beside each. Vailonders filled the next two lines, each one a Blazer armed with a firestick. Behind them were Allonian Casters. Jophite Alchemists, robed and baldheaded, made up the final rank.

  Across the field was double their number in western soldiers, separated by the kingdoms they represented. There were Caradorii, bronze-skinned and light-eyed, dressed in cloth; Berendali, tall and lithe and fair of complexion and hair, their colors blue and gold; Tesadonians, marbled skin the color of slate, hair like wool, wearing red and green; Aladeli, mostly large in stature, bodies every shade of brown imaginable; and Nausiri dressed in black, yellowish skin reminding him of Marishmen, their long locks taking on the appearance of ropes.

  The westerners chanted, voices carried on the wind. The stomp of their boots reverberated. Armor and weapons glittering, they advanced at a steady pace, confidence in every stride and with every bellow. Soul spilled from each individual, intertwining to form a single luminescence that spanned the entire force. Conspicuously absent among them were the Soulguards on their yuros. Ainslen signaled for his cavalry to wait and for the infantry to prepare.

  Horns mourned. As one, the enemy charged, legs augmented by soul allowing them to cover the distance faster than any horse. They bounded across the ground, despite muddy conditions, howling in their battle lust. Muscles thickened, bodies expanded as the Magnifiers among them enhanced their limbs. Swords appeared in the hands of the Manifestors.

  Ainslen felt the nervous shift from his Blades. Normally, they too would be rushing headlong into the clash. The Farlanders, on the other hand, were as still as rigor.

  “Steady!” shouted the Blade Captains at the head of the cohorts.

  In minutes the westerners had crossed several thousand feet. Ainslen had to fight against his own urge to strike out, to order an attack. He took a calming breath and found himself smiling.

  Swells of soul among the enemy signaled their first strikes. Flaming spears and arrows of pure soul burst from them, leaving trails in the air. The Allonians melded, expanding their nimbuses well beyond the Egini. Wherever the western projectiles struck, they slowed, and eventually stopped, like insects caught in a web. The enemy melds dissipated.

  Undeterred, the western Casters sent another volley, this time arching it up and over the Allonian nimbuses. With moves almost too quick to follow, the Egini snatched their shields and tossed them up. The shields, laced with kerin, cut through the incoming melds. Ropes of soul stretched from the shields to the Jophite Alchemists, who yanked them back. Arms and hands swollen by magnification, the Egini caught the weapons and set them in their original positions beside each man.

  The Blazers stepped up behind the shield wall. They slid aside small plates set in each shield to reveal holes. In these they placed the open end of their firesticks and sighted down the length. When they squeezed their fingers, there came a concerted roar. Small trails of smoke puffed into the air.

  Charging westerners fell, holes the size of a fist blossoming in their chests. The impacts tossed some of them aside. Others simply crumpled. Battle cries cut off for an instant, the attack seeming to pause before the enemy surged forward once more.

  Another volley drowned out all else. More westerners succumbed. Even the ones with the nimbuses activated, kerin balls cutting through soul as if it were paper. The first Blazer line fired again with the same devastating effect. They stepped aside, and the second rank took position while the first reloaded. The barrage continued unabated. A death knell. Acrid smoke clogged the air.

  As had been the fate of King Jemare’s Blades at the battle of the Golden Spires, the western melders broke, their charge depleted by half in minutes. Bodies littered the ground. The enemy fled, bounding away toward the safety promised by distance.

  No such sanctuary existed for them. Blazers picked them off one by one. A hundred feet became a thousand; one thousand became two. And still the Blazers continued to fire, not once missing their marks, even when a target tried to dodge. In such cases, the kerin ball would redirect, shifted by its connection to a Blazer’s threadlike soul. When the volleys finally ended, the firesticks’ thunderous echoes drifting away, not one enemy soldier from the charge was left standing.

  Silence hung thick, palpable. The Farlander cohort advanced at a trot, Egini with their shields in front. They halted among the dead. The Blazers bent to retrieve their kerin balls. When they were done, they returned to the king, Kurosh, and Lestin.

  Horns let out several short bursts. The waiting western forces retreated toward Danalyn.

  “We should gather more of my Blades,” Ainslen said, “retake Danalyn now that they’re in disarray. We could put the firebreathers to use.”

  “Such a tactic would be a mistake.” Kurosh nodded toward the armies blackening the fields around Danalyn. “With numbers alone they would sweep us away like leaves in a flood should they send more than a probing attack. There is also the matter of our limited supplies of kerin and spark-powder, thanks to the raids by these rebel counts. Add in the lack of a proper ereskar complement or the presence of a single Soulbreaker here and we would be courting disaster. Until Warmaster Seligula arrives, you should be cautious.”

  “Sounds about right to me,” Lestin said. “Patience also makes certain the firebreathers remain a surprise, like you wanted. The firesticks already gave them somethin’ to fear. Let them work out a plan against one weapon then we hit them with another.”

  Ainslen ground his teeth. He wanted Taakertere to wallow in dismay. Not only for the trickery employed outside Danalyn, but also because the impostor had named himself Balbas’ Echo. An obvious taunt. What else could choosing a name that coincided with one of Humel’s Swords and the Farlander leader be?

  Out on the field, the black-robed Abandoned rode toward the battlefield on byaga-drawn carts. They piled the corpses on the beds, moving in an unsettling, lethargic manner. With a growl, Ainslen gave the command to return to Merelyn.

  Back in the Sword’s confines, he had the servants bring him a meal in the command room. He was instructing Lestin of their next move when Sabella entered.

  “The Thelusian Stonelords have arrived,” she said.

  “Just in time. Have them attend me.”

  “They’re not pleased. In fact, they won’t enter the city. They sent a message.” Sabella reached out with two letters. “The other one is from Kasandar.”

  With a resigned shake of his head Ainslen took the letters. He opened the one from the Stonelords first. His eyes narrowed as he read, until eventually he was scowling. When he was done, he crumpled the paper. The message couldn’t be true.

  Ainslen tore open the second. Surely this one held better news. He read the letter. Then read it again. Kurosh’s words concerning the attacks on the Farlander cohorts fell into place. He’d take Leroi’s head for this treachery. You should’ve killed him when you had the chance. Seething, Ainslen stormed from the chamber.

  A M eeting

  L omin had been gone for days now, leaving Keedar to tr
udge through the forest under guard of the eight Soulbreakers. Each grey-scaled creature measured at least nine feet in height, and their bodies rippled with muscle like some Magnifier’s transformation. For all their girth, there was no crunch of their clawed feet on dry leaves, nor thud of footsteps on harder ground. They didn’t so much as leave an imprint in soft detritus. It was as if they walked on air. Each carried a scabbarded, oversized sword crossway on its backs, hilt jutting above one shoulder.

  At first they seemed eerily identical, but further study provided him with differences he might have otherwise overlooked. Of the three closest to him, one had a scar across the left cheek, another was missing an ear, and the third had darker patches of scales along the arms.

  None spoke. Not a grunt, a snarl, some unintelligible sounds that passed for speech. Nothing. Keedar assumed they communicated with their minds in the same manner Winslow had told him occurred with the Aladar tester, Na-Rashim, or a more complex form of the connection Thar used with the derins. Any effort to touch their minds was met by a thick wall of sintu. He kept a similar shield on his thoughts, refusing to allow the chance they might be adept at mindbending. However, unlike his nimbus, which carried soul’s smoky luminescence, theirs was invisible.

  Oddly enough, they hadn’t restrained him with kerin shackles. Nor had they taken much offense when he melded. At first he’d praised Hazline for such incompetent captors, but so far his attempts to escape had been futile. They either stopped him immediately or let him run for a bit before giving chase and returning him with no more concern than a derin grabbing an unruly pup by the scruff of its neck.

  Melds directed toward them met with the same results as his first attack: they dissipated before touching the creatures. He had learned one neat trick that brought a slight tilt of his lips even now despite his frustration at the hopelessness of his captivity. Using soul to launch debris—a rock, dirt, tree branch, or anything of the sort—could strike them. The first time he figured out the weakness in whatever protected the Soulbreakers, they greeted his actions with a warning glare. Now, they simply swatted away further attempts or added tern to their nimbus.