by James Duvall
The gargoyles were joined by black dragons the size of hounds, with yellow eyes and jet black fangs that glistened with venom. Smoke poured from their eyes and wings. One brazenly charged the night seeker, leaping onto Joshua's back and snapping its smoke-filled jaws at his wing shoulders. Joshua twisted his neck and sank his teeth into its dark flesh, letting acrid, bitter blood ooze out into his mouth. The smokey dragon writhed on the ground as Joshua heaved it off, still gagging on the taste of rot. Smoke streamed from its wounded side as though it were filled with nothing more. It hissed fury, and a gob of fizzing acid sank into the ground before it, bubbling furiously as it ate away the rock and soil.
The next Joshua brought down with a deft slash across the throat. The wounded nightmare was quickly trampled underfoot as gargoyles and lesser creatures of dark design marched over it in their lust for the night seeker's blood. For what felt like hours the enemy thronged around Joshua, harrying him and prodding at him with sharp claws. Dull pain throbbed everywhere as scales were torn from his hide. Thin rivulets of blood ran purple against has sapphire armor.
The only proof Joshua could see that Grimlohr was still alive and fighting was the occasional flash of light and comets of silver crashing down on the enemy force. It was rare to see one of the human defenders. Most of them fled upon the first of the smoke dragons arriving. Many of the rest had perished, and Joshua would see their corpses littered across the ground, human blood intermingled with ash and bone of demons. They were demons. He could think of no other way to describe the creatures as they crawled over him and crushed their wounded comrades to death as they struggled to overwhelm him. As the battle wore on, the nightstorm began to fade. Joshua could sense it weakening, like a lamp nearly out of oil, the flame growing smaller and dimmer. When his magic was depleted the glow, but not the fury, had faded from his eyes. With predatory rage he wrestled his opponents to the ground and ripped them apart with the raw strength of tooth and claw.
When it was done, Joshua was beaten and bloodied. He had a tear in his wing that stung like a foot long paper cut. Instinct took over and he found himself licking the wound clean. The metallic taste of blood brought back that nauseated feeling he had after killing Erlo Stolge. The night air felt cold against his injured wing, only this time it soothed him. He let it hang loose against his side, dragging like a torn sail as he hobbled to Grimlohr, also bloodied and also beaten, his left eye nearly swollen shut. A long gouge down one side had cost him nearly two dozen scales, and dark blood oozed from beneath three more at the trailing edge. The old general did not say anything, only nodded silent approval.
Side by side they watched the northern sky where a glow marked the horizon.
"What does it mean?" Joshua asked quietly.
"Camden is burning,” Grimlohr said somberly.
The two sat and watched until the glow was lost to the morning sun, and a new age dawned in the kingdom of Arcamyn.
Part 3
The War of Embers
Chapter 34
From the Ashes
Auldon, Fendiss
And he stirred the ashes up, looking for an ember among the coals.
Auldon was a small town along the Tyngo River, a tributary of the much larger Rilrath River to the east. The railroad from Calderr traveled through the mountain pass here and had set up a small water station for the sake of their steam engines. Years had passed before someone took notice of the rich natural resources in the area, and Auldon had sprung up around the water station in the course of a few short months.
The news came twice a week via the train, until one day it brought word that Camden had fallen and King Isaac was dead. It seemed so improbable that Ralia had taken the city in such a short period of time that the general feeling had been that it was a letter carrier playing a joke. The next few days passed in quiet discomfort as the town awaited the next train, expecting some clarification as to the state of the kingdom of light.
Auldon had much to fear. The Rilrath River was not far away, and just beyond was Ralia. Down the Tyngo, a crater in the ground served as a marker for where Sundor Tower had once stood so proudly. The mayor doubled the town watch and ordered a nightly curfew. When the sun went down, the lamplighters did not ply their trade for fear of drawing whatever foe had dealt so mighty a blow to Camden as to conquer it in a night. Camden's walls were high and thick, and Auldon had none.
When the train did come, a crowd was already gathered at the station, and waited in hushed excitement for the letter carrier to appear. When at length he did not, Tanobin Kanders took it upon himself to get some answers. He was the mayor, after all, and people were counting on him. Several dozen, by his estimation, gathered all around and quietly clamoring for news that seemed to not be coming. Mayor Tanobin straightened his hat, adjusted his shirt collar, and stepped out in front of the assembly.
"I will see what the delay is," he said, and was answered with approving nods and mutterings of agreement.
Tanobin found the letter carrier lounging on a heap of empty burlap sacks that. On any other day they would have been bulging with letters and parcels wrapped in butcher paper and strings, but today they were empty. The letter carrier was human, unlike Tanobin who was faryian, and popped an eye open when the mayor slid the boxcar door open and thumped his scepter twice against the ground to garner the attention someone of his station merited.
"Is there a problem?" the letter carrier asked, yawning and stretching out. Tanobin fumed when he didn't get up right away.
"There most certainly is," Tanobin answered, with each word rapping the scepter's base against the wooden-planked floor of the boxcar. The sound was amplified in the boxcar's interior, much to the his satisfaction. "Where is the mail? What has happened in Arcamyn? Why are you asleep when you should be delivering the news to our station?"
The letter carrier shrugged a little, leaning up against the wall but still not standing. "There's not any."
"Not any what?" Tanobin asked, still quite indignant.
The letter carrier shrugged again. "Not any letters, not any Arcamyn, not any news," he said drearily.
"What?! How can that be!" Tanobin demanded. He had half a mind to pluck the young boy up by the ear and drag him to the engineer or the conductor to have him reprimanded. Briefly the thought flit through his head to write a letter to the postmaster, but the idea was dismissed when it reached the problem of actually reaching the postmaster, it certainly wouldn't in this delinquent's hands.
Again, the letter carrier shrugged, seeming to have barely the energy to do more than this. "Don't know, don't care," he said, and reached into his bag. He came up with a hunk of beef jerky, tore the last few inches off and ate it slowly as he looked up at Auldon's mayor with disinterested eyes that bespoke the truth of his words.
"I'm from Calderr," the letter carrier added, seeing the man's face all twisted up in fury. "And there's no mail cause this is the last train through. They're saying the whole place went down in a single night. They found King Isaac dead, hanging from the white tower of St. Penathor's, all cut up. Tamlin lived, but they've got him locked up. That's all I know; that and I'm out of a job. No letters, no letter carrier."
Then the train whistle blew, and Tanobin stepped out of the boxcar to avoid being carried away with it. Back on the platform his people waited for him, and he repeated the news to a silent crowd. Camden had fallen. King Isaac found dead, slaughtered by a Ralian sword. Sir Charles Tamlin captured by the enemy.
The train chugged away without taking on any passengers or waiting for its cars to be filled with ore from the mines and ingots from the forges. The kingdom behind the wall had shut its gates.
Without the train, life became hard in the little mining town nestled in the crook of the Tyngo river. Ferries now bore Auldon's metals downstream to what few places could be reached in such a manner. Upstream was harder. Tanobin ordered the trees along the banks cut so that teams of horses could pull ferries laden with ingots up the river twice a week. It was a
stopgap measure at best, and he knew it.
Every morning on his walk to work he would pass many of the forges that were the lifeblood of the town. As weeks went by, one by one they winked out until there were more laying cold and dark than were lit. Even still it did not stop until only a small handful remained. As the weeks passed, one by one the forges shut down until only a small handful had survived. Tanobin changed his path every day, making it a point to stop by those that were left at least once a week. The forgemasters spared him a few minutes, and it saddened him that he could offer them little more hope than that as other forges went under, their business spilled over to the survivors.
Cannibalism, that's what it was, but there was nothing left for Auldon. With each forge that went dark it seemed the eyes of the foundering city dimmed a little more, until all that was left was a dried out husk, staring blind into a world that had forgotten it. But someone did remember, and his name was Caedus Beldin.
The night seeker came first. He soared by so quickly that most did not notice his shadow race across rooftops. On his second pass he swooped down low, skimming across the wind just above the roofline, following the main street through town. Satisfied with what he saw, he turned skyward with a twist of his tail, and bled speed to rapidly take on altitude. At the apex of his flight he spewed a pillar of blue fire into the air, then dove back down and landed neatly in town square, directly in front of the mayor's office. Tanobin Kanders gawked through the window, and his pen slipped from his hands. It dropped to the ground like an arrow and thumped into the floor, sticking straight up as the metal tip found purchase in the soft wood. Little flecks of royal blue ink puddled around it and had spattered across Tanobin's white-tipped paws.
Tanobin was out on the lawn in a flash, stopping only to grab his scepter from the umbrella stand. He just barely beat the crowd from the market and had to hold his hat on his head or else it would tumble off from the speed of his exit. He felt both his hearts start beating again when the night seeker turned into a man, liberating him from the fear of suddenly being ripped into pieces by its claws. He was tall and thin and had a weary look about him of a man long on the march. He wore no uniform, but his countenance was that of one who had looked death in the eye and spent many weeks without a roof over his head.
"What's going on here?" Tanobin asked, approaching the dragon head on. He sat on his haunches in front of it, trying his very best to look unafraid. He had never seen one up close, and were it not for the big paw prints in the muddy earth, he would've mistaken the dragon for an ordinary man. The idea that several such creatures might be lurking through his city undetected made a shiver run up his spine. In the back of his mind he made a note to find a way to detect such creatures. Surely Calderr had some technology that could fit the task, but the kingdom behind the wall had shut its gates.
“You have been chosen,” the dragon announced. “Sir Caedus Beldin's army approaches. Please assemble your council to meet him.”
For a moment there was only the sound of rain falling as Tanobin processed the news. It pattered against the cobblestone walk, and made little splashes in the seemingly ever-present rivulets outside his office. It was the rainy season after all and that meant rain nearly seven days a week. Some liked to joke that it kept the fires of Ralia at bay, but it certainly had not kept a dragon out of Tanobin's city. By then the rain had soaked his shirt as well as his fur, and when he stole a look down at his soggy paws he could see that the bit of blue ink had begun to run and was bit by bit being drawn away by the passing current. Well, that was one little blue problem that had solved itself but the much bigger one still loomed in front of him.
The dragon had sounded congratulatory to him, but it left him with a sick, queasy feeling in his stomachs. Gwarell, over in Stormbrooke, never had these problems. Never had trading partners disappearing from the map in the dead of night. Never had dragons showing up on a rainy afternoon to bring entire armies to his doorstep. Why this? Why now?
"I am sure that is excellent news," Tanobin said, choosing his words carefully for fear of insulting the creature that could devour him just as easily as look at him. "But ehm, chosen for what, exactly...?"
"Sir Caedus will explain everything when he arrives," the dragon explained after a moment of thought. "It would behoove you to gather your town council. You will have a lot to talk about when he arrives."
An hour before sundown, Sir Caedus Beldin arrived in Auldon. His honor guard was nearly twenty men strong, with two pages carrying the colors of the Frost Moors high overhead. The flags were blue and white, and bore a silver falcon in the white band in the center.
Caedus wore a black shirt and a matching cloak, dark as night with ruddy brown and white timberwolf fur adorning the neck and shoulders. A dark leather belt encircled his feral waist, holding a sheathed sword snug against his silver-furred side. Over his front he wore a tabard of his estate's colors. The edge of it hung down beyond the proud curve of his feral chest. At his left marched a faryian, and to his right, a man on horseback.
When they reached the town square, Sir Lawrence dismounted. One of the pages who was not occupied with a flag quickly took the horse's reins from him, and led the tired beast to water to drink.
Caedus and the other fendian, like their men, had muddy paws from the long march. This was the common outcome of a march across any part of Fendiss that should span more than a week, for it was certain that the unit should encounter rain at some point in so many days. It was for this reason, among others, that Ralia had never declared war upon Fendiss, whom they referred to as a land of beasts. Ralian officers, like Arcamynian officers, rode horses into battle, keeping their boots out of the mud with their dominion over the beasts of the field. This was a luxury that the panther form did not afford Fendian officers. In the eyes of Ralia, the act of war was reserved for men, and not beasts, to battle Fendiss was to sport.
Free of his horse, before doing anything else, Sir Lawrence dug the toe of his boots into the soggy ground until they were as slicked with mud as the feet of his comrades in arms, making very clear his thoughts on the matter. He did not need to do this, and it would have been strange for him to do so for the sake of Sir Caedus, whom knew Sir Lawrence well enough not to question his loyalties. He did it for the sake of the several thousand men at his back, now pitching tents all across the valley floor, nearly all of them knew him by reputation alone, and acts such as these did well by him around the campfires.
Tanobin was quick to greet Sir Caedus, leaving the rank and file of the town council to offer the general his hand. Caedus took it and shook it firmly.
"Sir Caedus," Tanobin said, "welcome to Auldon. I should say that I am not at all surprised to see you. I was in Andrlossen just before Camden fell. I heard you speak before the senate."
Tanobin's hearts felt heavy at the memory. It had been the first of two lethal blows to the economy of his lonely little mining town. He had gone to see about the fate of Sundor Tower and hear the words of Morgen Dekker, whom had fought in its liberation within the Cold. Afterward, Caedus had spoken about the Ralian threat, and the magic they had weaved to blight Sundor Tower. He had read from the Ralians' sacred text about the seven sorrows of Khalen Morduul. Arcamyn could not be left to its fate, he had said, and here he was, marching to war on the behalf of the Kingdom of Light, now cast into darkness by their young king's folly.
To Tanobin's dismay, there had been no discussion of rebuilding Sundor Tower, and nor was there likely to be until this business with Ralia was settled. Even then, the new towers might come up elsewhere on the Rilrath, and Auldon would be left to its fate. His own request for audiences with the senate and the king had been denied, and that was when he had many forges, now only five.
Caedus Beldin had come as a general, here to fight the kingdom's enemies, but to Tanobin he was much more than that. Caedus Beldin would save Auldon. Tanobin would save Auldon through him. "We have five forges in operation, and I can muster enough good men to get three more
going by the end of the week. They are skilled smiths, all of them, and can make weapons and armor for you as needed. We were called upon regularly by the Shankari until the Sorrow took Sundor Tower away from us. We have also a number of available ferries, that you can use to move your supply lines down the Tyngo River. This time of year the water is calm all the way back to the Rilrath."
It was a fool's hope to believe that Auldon might become the next great fortress on the border of Arcamyn and Fendiss, but Tanobin was no fool. It was his aim that Sundor Tower be rebuilt, and it would be rebuilt with stone and steel from Auldon's mines, even if he had to pull it from the ground himself.
***
The evening came early in the Tyngo River valley. Campfires popped up here and there before the sun had begun to fall behind the mountains. As a general rule, each unit had its own fire, and all of the men would gather around it with their lieutenant, if he was available.
Joshua was not ranked, nor officially part of Caedus Beldin's army. Despite this, he felt welcome at most of the evening fires. Fendiss was not solely a land of panthers, and several human nobles had answered Caedus Beldin's call to take up arms. It seemed only logical to Joshua to pass his evenings at one of the human campfires, as he blended in with them more readily than a circle of panthers. He was correct in this belief, and mingled so easily among them as to become invisible to the incurious eye. It was a problem he had not yet come to fully grasp.
One night, early on the march, he had found his way into a group of men from a place called Gorder's Mill. The fire had listed away to a dull smoulder, and a few of the older men had already gone to bed. Joshua had kept quiet most of the night, and had learned that Gorder's Mill was a farming town, renowned for the herbs and spices they produced in great quantity. A disease among the plants had brought a poor crop this year. Most of the men had come along not for any belief in the cause, but because Caedus paid better than fallow and barren fields. Despite the increased salary, spirits were low.