by B J Hanlon
Edin blinked as small orange dots began to appear.
“That looks like…” Arianne whispered.
“Fires,” Edin said. He was certain of that. There were orange dots spread out around the twin mountains… their mountains. They were around all sides but the west. Edin swallowed.
“They found us,” Arianne said.
Edin nodded and suddenly it felt as if they were falling. Edin shut his eyes.
“It’s okay,” Arianne said after a few moments, “you can look now.”
He did. They were now above a camp with at least twenty men. Some dressed as soldiers; others were dressed in black cloaks.
“Por Fen warrior monks…” Edin said.
“There’re so many.”
“They don’t like me.”
“I can sympathize,” she said. “But…” The view leapt back into the air. A soft glow came from the side of the mountain, then he saw a different fire. This was the east one.
Then another fire, no two fires, and they grew larger as if being stoked. More men. A lot of them. Thirty, maybe forty.
His mind was racing. Were they guarding the perimeter for a siege? They were spread out. Not exactly thin ranks but they did only have the two of them... No, only Edin. They didn’t know about her.
Edin pushed that thought from his mind. He knew where it’d lead.
They had a well-defensed position, and with a lot of food and drink. It wouldn’t be too difficult to hold out for months.
A future staying in the keep with a beautiful princess didn’t sound bad. But when the woman tells you that you’re not good enough for her it sounded torturous… but they’d be alive.
Near the top of the dish Edin noticed a cart next to a large tent. He tried to make out what was in them. The contents looked like pickaxes and rope.
“We have to assume it’s the same at every campfire. Probably hundreds of men,” Arianne said.
The view began to rise again. Edin was about to shut his eyes when he saw a soft glow on the eastern slope of their mountain.
“There,” Edin pointed.
It pulled in tight on a single man standing outside of what looked like a solid wall. He puffed on a pipe and wisps of smoke came from his mouth as he blew out.
“They found the entrance,” Arianne gasped.
Edin was barely hearing her. How many more were inside the chamber already? What was their plan?
“Is there any way to adjust the angle?”
Arianne shook her head.
Slowly, the man’s head began to tilt back. His eyes rose toward the sky. It was a purposeful type look as if he already knew where to peer to see them.
Edin’s heart began to pound. Then it felt as if they were looking into the man’s eyes and he into Edin’s. “Is it me or…”
“He can’t see us.”
After a moment he said. “It doesn’t look like their planning anything tonight.”
“They found the entrance though.”
Edin nodded. “They’d have to get through the door, and you said it was impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible. And do not become overconfident,” Arianne paused. “These were things my father would say.” A sad smile grew on her face.
Edin twisted his hand in hers and squeezed. “What do you want to do?”
“With the only entrance being the tunnel their numbers will be meaningless. We have the advantage of the mountain, and we have plenty of food and water stores. As well as a lot of wine.”
“So, you’d like to prepare for a siege?” Edin asked.
“What do you think?”
“The sellswords may leave, but the Por Fen, they will never abandon their task. They see it as their sacred duty to murder us for being born.”
“But we’re here. Safe. We can stay for months, years maybe.”
“You could put up with me for that long?”
In the luminous light he saw a sassy grin on her face. “I need a servant.”
Edin laughed. He didn’t mean to but he did. There was something in her face, the way she said it and the fact that they were in a bit of trouble, to put it mildly.
She laughed too. Her eyes brightened in the light. “It’d take a lot to be overran.”
7
The Timeless Keep’s Fall
The stairwell defenses were not set. There was a safety mechanism that needed to be triggered and some genius decided it had to be set from inside the tunnel. Stupid.
Additionally, Arianne found a ward spell that would warn her of an approach. She also found one that made men believe they had insects inside their skin… That one sounded terrible.
Edin assumed they already had men on the other side of the door but she had a plan. Though she didn’t seem as confident as her words sounded.
It was early in the morning, still dark, and Edin was tired from ale and a lack of sleep. At least he was able to move again and gripped the sword as he stood outside the large door.
His breath was visible in the chilly air though sweat beads rolled down his head. It was the anticipation. Was there a platoon of sellswords or Por Fen with wan stones and swords at the ready?
She was at the fountain with a hand on a lever that unlocked the door. A long cloak tight around her in the cold morning.
The connection to the energy was strong. To him, the feeling had become natural, like breathing. If it left, he’d feel that void.
Edin held the longsword in his off hand, the short sword was in its sheath. He needed to attack as quickly as possible.
They had to set the traps and the ward, the latter would take a few minutes.
Edin nodded and she flipped the switch. His heart raced. He stared at the thick stone slab as if he could pierce it with his eyes. He touched the lock stone.
For something so large, he was surprised it opened silently. He summoned and sent three ethereal knives into the darkness. A bright light left a film that etched a man’s surprised and bloody face in his mind. A gargling sound coming from his throat.
Edin summoned a mage light. Three men reached up to cover their eyes. A fourth was on the ground, his fingers clutching at his neck.
Edin leapt toward the closest, switching to his right hand. It was a man with a red tabard that looked to have a golden plant on it and thick iron armor beneath. With a quick slash, his Eluvrian steel blade cut through a man’s stomach beneath the armor. He screamed and collapsed as entrails splattered on the floor.
“Attack,” a man yelled.
Edin wasn’t sure if it was meant to call attackers or if he was warning of an attack but the man was backing away despite it. Edin was about to thrust toward his neck when he saw a glint of steel to the left. He dropped his attack and spun the opposite way.
Edin dropped to the ground as a horizontal slice went over his chest. He twisted and threw a foot into the attacker’s knee. The man dropped with a grunt.
Suddenly, he felt the talent cut and the light disappeared. His connection ceased as if it were cut by a greatsword.
It went dark with only a trace of light coming through the doorway. Then one was silhouetted in that light.
Edin had only a moment as the man’s eyes were useless. Edin leapt into the man’s guard and stabbed him through the chest. Through the armor. The man was taller than Edin with a gnarled gray beard. His breath smelled of coffee and smoke.
Edin tried pulling his blade. It was stuck. The dead man clattered to the ground his body twisting the sword out of his grip. A moment later, the crashing of metal on stone echoed through the stairwell. It rang like a dinner bell.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glint of a blade heading toward his head. Edin ducked and tried to call his talents. They were gone, so was his weapon.
He felt a burning pain in his cheek. Edin started scrambling backward on his hands and feet. The attacker was quick, the man’s steel was now above his head and coming down.
Then there was nothing under his left hand and he tumbled backward.
His shoulder slammed into a hard corner of a stair and he flipped heels over head to his feet. His toes caught just the edge of a stair but he couldn’t get himself steady. Edin flipped again, pain in his lower back. A flame appeared at the top of the stairs behind the attacker. Edin saw glints of the man stumbling, though still upright.
Edin landed on something and he stopped. He saw the hilt of his blade sticking out of the dead man a few feet away. It was as if the blade were telling him to grab it.
Edin gripped it and tried yanking. It was stuck.
A war cry came from above. Edin glanced up to see the silhouetted man leaping down the stairs, his sword aimed at Edin’s chest.
He had no protection, nowhere to hide.
Something hit the attacker, a splatter of warm liquid. The strength seemed gone and the man dropped with his blade. It clattered to the ground barely a half foot from Edin’s manhood. The man didn’t try to brace his fall and crashed into Edin with the force of an armor-clad horse.
Breath escaped him as they further wedged the dead man into the stairwell. After a few moments, when he was able to breathe, he saw the fletching of an arrow protruding from the man’s back.
Edin glanced up and saw Arianne standing in the doorway. A gust of wind lifted the back of her cloak causing it to flap in the wind. With her golden hair twisting behind her head, she seemed the embodiment of a goddess looking out over the land she protected.
“Are you alright? We need to hurry,” Arianne said.
Sounds of men were already beginning to come from below.
After a few moments of steadying his breath, Edin began to extract himself then his blade as voices rose up the stairs.
Edin glanced at Arianne who pressed a few runes, they glowed white for a moment before fading.
“Defenses set,” Arianne said. “Starting on the ward.”
“I think we’ll know when they’re attacking,” Edin said to no response. He sighed, “I’ll hold them off.” Then he started checking the corpses. The man who leapt at him last seemed to be the leader, his armor was slightly better, the tabard held a giant bird, and his mustache looked like it was neatly groomed. After a few moments, he found the black hunk of rock in a small satchel on his hip. Edin cut the satchel off and tossed it into the courtyard. A moment later, the energy returned in a wave. It was reinvigorating like a glass of icy water on a torturously hot summer day.
Arianne was chanting something in highborn and a symbol, an O with what looked like an S and P overlapping, appeared around the ground between him and her.
The clattering of men from below was growing. Maybe it was the echo, but it sounded like a few dozen at least. The shouts were unintelligible, there where choruses of metal, boots, commands, grunts, and battle cries all rising like the groaning of an ancient monster awakening.
Orange firelight began to flicker on the stone wall.
“Almost here,” Edin yelled over his shoulder.
The energy was coursing through him, he felt strong. He suddenly remembered the statue down below, the water and the lightning. An idea… Edin took a breath and closed his eyes. He focused like the night before. He could feel the water in the air and the soft electrical current. They floated just in reach. It was all around him, all around the enemy.
He summoned small drops of water into existence. Slowly, he felt them merge into a sphere. It grew beyond his closed eyes. The ball hung in the air, rotating and growing until it spanned the hall.
Edin looked and as soon as he saw the first torch, he sent it crashing into the ceiling. It splashed and broke into a thick wave. Instantly, a torch was extinguished.
Lightning flows through water unchallenged.
Sounds of clattering armor and confusion rose. They were blind and soaking wet. Edin felt the electricity crackle in his body.
“It’s hard to…” Arianne wheezed, “breath.”
Edin ignored her, but he felt it too, the air was thin. In his mind, he saw the same particles beginning to move fast. It grew in his mind, in his body. He let loose a hand and a burst of lightning slammed into where the ball of water had first exploded.
A buzzing sound erupted with the yellow burst, Edin saw the first glimpse of a man. His body lit up and he seized, and a waft of smoke rolled off his skin.
Men screamed and the smell of burning flesh rose to meet Edin’s nose. A cacophony of men and armor began clattering back down the stairs for what seemed like an entire minute.
Then it was silent. Edin shivered, there had been a drop in temperature. He turned toward her.
“What happened?” she said, in between gasps.
“Did you finish?” Edin responded breathless.
She nodded.
The cold air began to warm slightly and his shivering slowed. A part of him wanted to see what happened. Another was scared what he might find. They shuffled into the courtyard, locked the door and went to the keep.
Arianne put a bandage and some salve over a cut on Edin’s face.
The ward hadn’t sounded so Arianne was certain that they hadn’t come back up the stairwell.
“I was able to reset the traps along with the ward,” Arianne said, “the door should be impenetrable… they’d need an army to get through here… or a mage.”
Edin swallowed, “they seem to have the first.” Then remembering the conversation with Dephina he said. “And maybe the second.”
“What?”
“Just in case, we need to prepare the escape,” Edin said. “We’ll need to put some bags together, we need food, bedrolls, waterskins in case we have to abandon this place.”
She nodded. “I know… but it’s the last home of my father… of my family,” her voice cracked slightly. Her gaze flew around the room as if taking the whole of it in one last time. “If we leave this way… we won’t be able to return will we?”
He remembered abandoning the manor. At the time, he’d hoped it would still be there along with his mother. Even if he never came back, there would be a part of him, somewhere deep down, that thought of Yaultan as home. “It’s still your home… even if its gone.”
She was facing that now. Edin remembered the anger that boiled up at Horston and Grent as they pulled him away. He remembered the burning wood turning black by a nearly invisible flame. He didn’t want her feeling that toward him.
The Por Fen were after him. As far as they knew, she wasn’t even here. If he were to escape… cause them to give chase. The Por Fen and their army may just chase after him and leave her and the keep alone.
She caught him staring at her.
Edin tried to smile, it didn’t feel right.
“What is it?”
Edin shook his head. He couldn’t tell her, she wouldn’t have any of it. Beneath the sadness, Arianne was a fighter. She’d do what she must. He saw it when they fought in her chambers and again when she stood above him in the doorway like a mythical hero.
“Let’s get our packs together,” Arianne said.
They packed quickly with the necessities and Edin added a waterskin filled with ale. Then he added another. Extra pounds, yes, but after a long day’s march, he was sure to want a drink… or eight especially on the lonely road. Maybe one day he’d come back, one day he’d climb those mountains and find her living like a monk.
As he packed, he thought about how he’d be able leave and draw their attention. The exit through the bottom floor most likely came out somewhere near the base of the mountain. If he could get there, maybe he could get them to follow… but they already knew of the front and then they’d know of the back. It would effectively trap her if his plan didn’t work.
The front door would mean he’d have to fight through dozens maybe hundreds of men. There were Por Fen monks with wan stones and most likely terrins. Not survivable.
The side of the mountain was the only other option. While packing he searched for rope. There were coils here and there. The frilly tassels on the curtains in the bedrooms didn’t seem strong enough.
After a half an hour, he realized that wasn’t an option.
It came to him as he reached for a cloak. His finger was still slightly off center from when he broke it… falling down the cliff. He thought about it.
It was the only option, but instead of going down like a stone, he could use the culrian like a ball. Could it work? Could he keep hold of it?
It’d be bumpy and he’d probably be bruised when he reached the ground… but it was the only option. He could cause enough of a scene with a few jolts of electricity to draw their attention. Only then would he have to figure out how to get away… hopefully he wasn’t too injured…
Arianne knocked on his chamber door and walked in without him acknowledging her. She sat on the bed and looked at him.
“We’ll get through this,” she said, “together.”
Edin caught her stare. They held eye contact for a moment before he looked away. He was planning on leaving her, abandoning her to the keep alone. But it was the only way she’d stay safe, the only way she could have her last home.
Edin knew It had to be tonight. Under the cover of darkness, he could drop down the mountain, maybe cause a scene at the bottom and run. He could head for the valley, maybe he could disappear there… if the she-elf was around she may help him. The other elves would want to kill him, especially if he brought more humans back… then there was that beast. The Ponnoa whatever that was.
Maybe that could thin out the army.
By the height of the sun, Edin estimated it was about ten in the morning. It had been five hours since they fought in the stairwell but his anxiousness from the attack wouldn’t go away.
“I need to train,” Edin said and brushed past her. He grabbed his longsword and headed toward the courtyard. He picked up a shortsword as well and an ironwood staff from his little arsenal.
To calm his mind, he began with the Oret Nakosu and built up a good sweat. After he moved to the single sword, then the short in his off hand. As he was practicing, he saw Arianne take her staff to the other side and practiced her moves. They were just as impressive as before.
Then she moved onto another form. They were even more advanced than the one she’d shown him before. Her hand position moved from double-over hand grips, to over-and-under grips, then to holding it at an end and using it like a club.