The Arena of Lost Souls

by Martin Swinford

  "HEAVE!" FIN'S SHOUT rose above the noise of the fight to be picked up by the other boys.

  "Heave!" they shouted, and for just a split second felt their enemies' resolve falter.

  "Heave!" they shouted with Drustan bellowing louder than them all. This time the shields moved.

  "Heave!" Sinews strained and muscles bulged. A shuffle forward, then half a step, and then that most glorious of feelings as the tribesmen broke before them, turning and running.

  "Hold!" shouted Fin, but Drustan was already out of the wall. Leaping forward he delivered a sweeping blow that felled the hindmost of the tribesmen.

  "Get back here you stupid great oaf!" Fin's roar brought Drustan up short and he turned, red faced, back to Fin.

  "Why the hell should I do what you say?" he asked, voice shaking with rage, the "you" emphasised with the point of his bloodied sword. Fin stepped forward.

  "Because," he stated, stabbing his fingers in the hulking boy's direction. "One, if you go past the end of this passage you're dead. Two, if you break the wall we're all dead, and THREE," he continued, his voice rising to a crescendo, "if you don't, I'll kill you myself!" Drustan stared at him for a moment and then smiled and lowered his sword.

  "You know,” he said. “I think I'm starting to like you!" Then he turned and surveyed the four bodies sprawled across the path. "Do you reckon any of these scum have got any food on them?" he asked. "I'm starving!"

  "Fin?" Brenn tapped his friend’s shoulder. "Accio's hurt"

  Most of the boys stood leaning against the walls, but Accio sat white faced while Druca tenderly tried to remove his boot.

  "It was a thrust under the shield," Druca said. "I killed the man but he got Accio in the leg." Accio gasped and gritted his teeth as the boot finally came off. Druca upended it and watched as an astonishing amount of blood flowed out. Quickly Brenn cut back Accio's legging and started to bind the wound.

  "It's deep," he said, "but clean."

  "I can still fight!" insisted Accio.

  "Maybe," Fin replied, "but not in the wall. Callum can take your place. You can have one of the spears, use it for a crutch if you have to." He looked around the boys. "Any other injuries?" he asked.

  "Nothing serious," Druca replied, "and we killed four of them."

  "A good start!" Brenn said cheerfully.

  "We had shields and they didn't," Fin replied. "It caught them out. Right now they're working out how to overcome our advantage."

  "Oh." Brenn looked downcast.

  "Cheer up," said Druca. "That means we get to do more fighting!"

  "Oh good," Brenn replied, trying to look like he meant it.

  THE SHOCK OF DIZZINESS almost brought Luan to his knees. For a moment he crouched on his heels, left hand on the ground as he tried to clear his head. Slowly he stood, trying to come to terms with where he was. He could still see the worn flagstones beneath his feet, the broken walls at the edge of the road, but at the same time he could see these things as they once had been, the road clean and new, the walls neatly jointed, surmounted with pillars long since fallen. His mind twisted away from the bizarre sight of the ruins of Cy Malg overlaid by the glorious spectacle of a royal palace. He heard a noise behind him and he spun, sword at the ready, to see a horseman bearing down, but before he could even yell, it rode through him and disappeared. There were phantasms all around him he realised, sometimes silent at the very edge of vision, then blossoming with a burst of sound almost into reality before fading again.

  "Truly a city of ghosts," he said to himself as he turned back towards the entrance. He remembered his dream, when he walked with the wolf with the silver eyes. "This is how it will be," the beast had said. Luan nodded to himself.

  "This is how it is!" he said out loud, before moving forward towards the door. Pausing for a moment on the threshold, he readied his sword and stepped inside. Even though he expected it the screech of the Nedlehain made him jump, but as the black shapes hurtled out of the shadows his sword was already moving to meet them. He cut the first out of the air in a bloom of grey smoke and was already turning to take the other before the cry had faded. The smoke drifted down in the sudden silence, a few black feathers twisted as they fell before fading into tendrils of mist. Warily Luan moved to the foot of the stairs and started to climb, pausing at the small landing where the stairs turned. Carefully he stepped forward, and then sprang back as a black cloak like creature dropped from the ceiling. His blade met it in mid-air, cleaving it in two, clouds of dust suddenly blossoming and then fading away. Luan stepped onto the landing and peered cautiously round onto the next flight of steps.

  "Hail and well met Leantor-cosan!" There at the top of the steps stood Zand, his pale skin gleaming faintly in the shadow.

  "What was that?" asked Luan.

  "A Brollachan," replied Zand. "Shapeless demons that lurk in the shadows." Luan swallowed nervously.

  "Are there any more?" he asked.

  "Perhaps," Zand replied. "But from now on we face them together. Come, time is short." Luan ran up the steps and followed his enigmatic guide deeper into the darkness.

  FIN LEANED ON HIS GROUNDED shield and stared down the path. He'd got the patrol back in position quickly, fearful of another attack, but it hadn't come.

  "How long has it been?" Brenn asked from behind him.

  "I don't know."

  "How long do we wait?"

  "As long as it takes."

  "What if they don't come back?"

  "They will."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because..." Fin got no further.

  "I hear something." The Ghost's cool voice stopped the argument dead.

  "They're coming." Drustan drew his sword.

  "Shields!" Fin called. "Remember, hold the line." The passage filled with sound: iron blades scraping from scabbards, shield clashing against shield, boots stamping.

  TOGETHER THEY WALKED the dark corridors of the ancient fortress. Twice more the Nedlehain attacked and were defeated, reduced to smoke by bright sword and bronze spear. Luan began to recognise things from his dream, a doorway, a section of passageway, and when they entered the room with the great pillars he knew they were close. The throne room was just as he remembered it, open down one long side, eroded by wind and time, bathed in light by the westering sun. Zand led him across and through a doorway on the other side, along a passageway and then down a long twisting stair until eventually they emerged into the light.

  "Lathair Du Anamu, the Arena of Lost Souls!" Zand announced. Even now it was a magnificent sight. The vast amphitheatre was built into the cliff side, open to the wind and sky. They stood at the top of a great set of stone stairs that led down to the arena floor. On each side tiered seats carved from the stone itself stretched round to form a semicircle. Luan could see that the far half of the arena floor actually protruded out over the cliff. It was a stage set for spectacle with all the southern lands as a backdrop.

  "It is time." Zand turned to Luan, reached out and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Remember, the Selgir Orduin is a creature of nightmare. It will try to use fear to leach your strength. It will test the strength of your heart and mind as much as your arm."

  Luan looked into the ancient eyes of his strange companion and nodded. There was nothing left to say. He turned and started down.

  After only a few steps he became aware that a strange noise was accompanying his progress, a susurration that grew with every step. Glancing over his shoulder he saw the rows of seats filling up behind him, ghostly figures of men, women and children, dim shades of crowds long gone. The lost souls were returning to the arena. He reached the bottom more quickly than he wished, stepping onto a small platform from which open stairs curved down along the arena wall to the left and right. Luan leant on the stone balustrade and looked over. The sandy floor was probably only about a man's height below. Yet he couldn't see the foot of the wall and Luan realised he was standing directly above a tunnel entrance. Hugging the wall, he crept down t
he final steps and tried not to think about what he might find. The final step onto the sand took all his courage and for a moment he paused by illusory safety of the wall. Eight steps out into the middle Luan turned and looked up. Once again he saw that the ruin was overlaid by the phantasms of the past, the eager crowd, the hubbub of noise, guards standing to attention, flags and banners snapping in a breeze long gone. Then his attention switched. In the tunnel something stirred.

  Luan felt his heart thump as a wave of adrenaline crashed through him. His tongue darted to wet his tingling lips. Black smoke boiled from the mouth of the tunnel and coalesced into a creature of nightmare. Vaguely human in shape, the Selgir Orduin towered over Luan, it's constantly mutating form a mass of ever changing horrors. Monstrous faces appeared and dissolved. Claws formed and grasped before dissolving into smoke. From out of the dark two glowing eyes seemed to emanate hate.

  "Pathetic child!" A sibilant voice sounded in his ears. "How can you possibly hope to defeat me?"

  Luan said nothing, just tightened his grip on his sword.

  "Soon you will die!" The creature grew taller, looming over Luan.

  "Your long journey wasted," the voice continued. "Your friends dying for nothing, and dying they are!"

  Suddenly Luan saw a flashing cavalcade of images, Cail lying in the road, Fin drenched in blood, Drustan fighting desperately, Brenn felled by a vicious blow, a boy curled round a bronze sword embedded in his stomach, Bridie screaming as she was dragged away.

  "And it's all your fault!" the Selgir Orduin continued. "Your pride brought them to this end, sacrificed to your fool’s quest."

  Luan felt his strength slipping away, his courage faltering. "It's right," he thought as the monster leaned forward to engulf him "I'm just a boy. I can't win." He stepped back, one step and then another, retreating as the monster boiled after him, now taking the form of a giant serpent. “I’m going to die!” the thought surged up within him, no matter how hard he pushed it down. Then, as he backed away, Bridie's words rang in his mind. “Hail warrior of the Bani-Tivar!” Another memory quickly followed, of standing in the shield wall with Fin and Brenn, waiting for the Boar’s charge. They were fighting now, he realised, for him, and at that moment he realised that there was something worse than dying. He could not let his friends down.

  He was at the edge of the arena, standing on the brink. He could feel the wind pull at him as it whistled up the cliff. The Selgir Orduin towered over him, poised to strike.

  "Nowhere left to run little boy," it hissed. "Any final words?"

  "Yes," Luan replied. "Shut up and fight!"

  Eight – The Selgir Orduin

  “To gain the victory that you seek

  Cast in darkness you must be

  To fight in lands beyond this earth

  Until in trial you find your worth”

  LUAN CUT LEFT THEN ducked and rolled right. For a moment he felt the enormity of the drop below him as he careered along the very edge of the arena but then he was up and back on solid ground. The monster was on him in a flash, the serpent head splitting and reforming into three reptilian jaws that reared and snapped. Luan backed away, parrying each attack. He could feel the disconnect now, stronger than ever before. The inner warrior had taken complete control and he almost felt he was looking on from a distance. He blocked two attacks in quick succession, then his sword swept up to meet the third snaky head that tried to pierce his defence. The crowd roared as the head dissolved into smoke. For a second the Selgir Orduin wavered back but the respite was short lived. Luan felt a sense of crawling horror as he watched the monster melt and reform. Now he was fighting a giant bear like creature that slashed at him with oversized claws. He ducked, parried, leapt backwards and again managed to cut at the monster. Again the roar of the crowd, again the Selgir Orduin dissolved and reformed, leaping into the air on huge bat like wings. Luan found himself cast into shadow as the creature swooped down and tried to seize him in its talons. Luan slashed once but then slipped. Falling to the ground he rolled out of danger just as the monster pounced from the sky. Back on his feet, Luan stabbed downwards, seeing the creature boil away into smoke around his sword. He stepped back, assuming a guard position as the monster reformed itself once more. Was it his imagination or did the Selgir Orduin seem smaller? Certainly it seemed more wary, not so quick in the attack, still it had not taken form. Then it took to the air, a flowing cloud of smoke that suddenly bulged and split into a great flock of dark birds. "Nedlehain!" thought Luan as he cut the first from the air. Then they were on him, pecking and tearing even as he slashed them into smoke. He felt them in his hair and on his back, wings buffeting his face and even as he pulled them off they hurled themselves back at him. Luan kicked and slapped, swinging his sword wildly. He threw one to the ground and stamped it into black smoke. He felt he must have destroyed nearly half their number before they broke off and flew back, the Selgir Orduin dissolving and reforming once more. It was much smaller now, he could see that, but he felt no measure of success. The damage was done. Luan could feel the wounds even though there was not a mark on his body. Each peck or scratch throbbed with pain, each one sending out numb veins of cold, spreading a network of paralysis over his body. He felt dizzy and stumbled, falling to one knee.

  "And so it ends," the mocking voice hissed. Luan watched as the Selgir Orduin reformed into the shape that had haunted him for so long: the black dog. It took a step closer, red eyes glowing, almost close enough to pounce. Luan allowed himself to slump further, his sword point dropping to rest on the ground. The great black dog took a further step and paused, gathering itself for the final spring. Time seemed to slow. Sickening and dizzy, Luan forced himself to be still even though all his senses screamed at him to run. The phantasmal hound opened its maw in a howl that echoed from the darkest depths of the underworld and reared up, high over the stricken boy. But even as the Selgir Orduin pounced Luan launched himself upwards, shouting himself now, thrusting his sword two handed, stabbing right between the two glowing eyes. For a moment he felt the monster claw at him, stabs of freezing pain as he pushed the sword home. Then with a scream more felt than heard the monster pulled away, the eyes flaring into a wave of fire as its essence began to dissolve, billowing upwards in a great swirl of smoke. Round and round it twisted, a quickening gyre with Luan at its centre. Desperately the Selgir Orduin tried to reform itself but something in its nature had changed. Looser and wider the smoke billowed, vague shapes of nightmare creatures forming and dispersing. Upwards and outwards it blew, thinner and thinner until all that was left were mere wisps of smoke that drifted away on the wind.

  For a moment Luan stood alone as he felt the warmth return to his limbs. Then a noise like the wind sighing through empty branches murmured round the arena as the ghostly crowd rose in silent ovation before they too faded and were gone. Luan raised his sword.

  “I name you Nightbane,” he said. “For you have slain the Nighthunter.”

  In the west the sinking sun turned the clouds to fire. Of Zand there was no sign.

  BACK ACROSS THE BROKEN bridge, Luan collected his pack and cloak before setting off towards the gate. He could hear no sound of fighting and only hoped that was a good sign. Wearily he picked his way past the shattered arch, before him huddled shapes lay in the road, resolving themselves into bodies as he walked towards them. As Luan feared, one was Cail. The warrior lay on his back, surrounded by the enemies he had defeated. The wound in his shoulder looked terrible and his stomach was a bloody mess but to Luan’s relief he was still breathing.

  "Cail?"

  The man's eyes opened slowly.

  "Well boy, looks like you did it." Cail's voice seemed to come from a long way away.

  "Yes."

  "Knew you had," Cail struggled to raise his head before giving up and letting it fall back. "That beast had a claw around my heart. When I felt it gone I knew you must have won." His eyes closed and for a long few minutes he was quiet. Luan knelt next to Cail, not knowing w
hat to do. Suddenly Cail sucked in a deep breath and his eyes opened again.

  "If it had just been me I would've told them where to go, but my sister!" Cail's arm twitched and his fingers clenched. "The things they said they'd do! And to her children!"

  "It's ok!" Luan reassured. "They’re safe now."

  "No!" Again Cail struggled to rise. "Not just the monster. Men! The Ciardabrar! They gave the orders, put the Nighthunter on the trail." Luan felt Cail's bloodied right hand grasp his tunic. "And I agreed! Swore to help them, and with it that thing came into my heart."

  “The Nighthunter?”

  Cail nodded, coughing. Luan wiped the blood from his mouth.

  “I’m so sorry!” Cail spoke more quietly. “Those boys...” His eyes shut again as a wave of pain wracked his body. Then he cried out.

  “What have I done?”

  “Easy,” Luan reassured. “You couldn’t have stopped it!”

  “I didn’t try hard enough.” Cail’s voice was fading again.

  “You fought the tribesmen!”

  “I couldn’t let them kill you, couldn’t let them kill Bridie.” Luan had to stoop to hear. Cail opened his eyes and with a last effort lifted his head.