The Arclight Saga

by C. M. Hayden

  Below, the sprawling sandstone cityscape of Helia Edûn awaited.

  Kurian looked back, his yellow eyes shining through the haze of smoke and dust. “That worked better than I expected,” he said, his voice several octaves lower than normal. He nodded his head toward his back, and lowered one wing so they could climb on.

  “Hold on tight,” he said when they were secure. He crawled out of the hole in the palace wall until he was perched alongside several stone gargoyles, then kicked off into the open air.

  The vast open Helian desert awaited them. They flew eastward out of the city, over dunes of sand stretching as far as the eye could see.

  Chapter Forty

  The Hidden Army

  Wind lashed against Taro’s face as he hung on to Kurian’s back for dear life. Kurian was flying so fast that when Taro called to him, he couldn’t hear his own voice. Behind him, Kadia had her arms wrapped around Taro’s midsection, squeezing him so hard he could barely breathe.

  Over hours of flying, the sand dunes below had given way to the rocky tips of the Caesos Mountains. On the other side of the mountains was the coastline of the continent, and the Temple City of Nir Daras.

  The clouds wheeled past them as they put as much distance between them and Helia Edûn as possible. Taro could only imagine the events transpiring back in the city. Vexis would be frothing mad, and there really was no telling how she’d specifically respond. One thing Taro knew was that Vexis was proficient with dowsing, and had used a dowsing compass to find Kadia before. Even so, now that Taro had Kadia, he knew he held all the cards. At least, for the moment.

  “Could you slow down?” Taro shouted over the lashing winds. His cloak billowed out the sides, slapping Kadia on the arms and face.

  Kurian didn’t just slow down. His yellow eyes turned to the northern horizon, and for a moment he seemed to stall midair before diving down toward the foothills. His speed increased so suddenly that Taro and Kadia were nearly thrown from his back. When his claws touched the rock, he motioned his wing downward and ushered them off his back before returning to his human form.

  His human appearance looked a fair bit ragged. He was sweating, his hair was matted down and moist, and he was frantically looking up at the sky, his eyes scanning like a searchlight.

  “Kurian, you—” Taro began.

  Kurian held up a hand, silencing him. “Quiet.”

  Fifty feet from where they landed were huge boulders covered in dry vines. Kurian touched Taro on the shoulder, then made a mad dash toward them, kicking up desert sand the whole way. Taro followed with Kadia in tow.

  “What’s wrong?” Taro asked as the three ducked behind the boulder. He kept his voice low, sensing something was terribly wrong.

  In contrast to the cocky, self-assured dragon that he’d been just hours before, Kurian sounded downright terrified. His voice and hands were trembling, and he seemed to shrink as they hid.

  “He’s here,” Kurian said, almost whispering. His eyes closed, and he seemed to be listening to the air.

  Taro soon realized why. The screeching roar that followed sent a hard chill through Taro’s body. Everything grew colder and darker as Craetos’s shadow loomed over the desert, his massive body blocking out the sun. Kadia covered her ears with the palms of her hand, shouting in pain while Taro and Kurian tried to keep her quiet.

  Taro took her hands in his and tried to soothe her. “It’s okay, just calm down. It can’t get us here.”

  Kadia latched on to Taro, pulling him into a full embrace and speaking nonsense into his ears. “The fear. The pain. The last darkness. At the hour of his third death, he reveals himself.”

  Even from a distance, the stench of Craetos’ decayed, rotten flesh consumed the air, overwhelming the senses. His shadow swooped past them, circling around, then flying eastward.

  Taro looked at Kurian. “We’re hundreds of miles from Caelis Enor, and in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “This can’t be a coincidence.”

  Kurian swallowed hard. “No, it can’t be.”

  “Is he following us?” Taro asked.

  Kurian kneaded his trouser legs. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what?” Taro asked. “Come on, tell me something!”

  Craetos’ roar lessened as the colossal dragon moved on.

  “They call him the All-Seer for a reason. His Midsight was the clearest and strongest of any of the dragon seers. Even while dead—”

  “Are you saying he can still see the future?” Taro asked.

  “It’s impossible to know how much of his mind is left. He might be able to see possible futures, but he might be too far gone to process the information. A thousand images are flooding his mind every second; sorting through them is difficult even for the strong-minded.”

  “Maybe we should stay on the ground and walk,” Taro said.

  “Walk?” Kurian asked. “We’ve got no food, no water.” He looked to the green mountain that separated them from the coast. “Getting to the rendezvous point isn’t going to be easy.”

  “Fresh water shouldn’t be a problem,” Taro said, pointing to the mountains. “When we were flying, I saw a lot of greenery in the mountains. There has to be water up there.” He patted his prosthetic leg. “Believe me, I don’t want to walk, but we don’t really have a choice. I’ve never been to Nir Daras before, but I know there are people living there.”

  Kadia loosened her grip on Taro, and spoke with remarkable clarity. “People. So many people. Thousands and thousands. Each a light.”

  “We can’t risk leading that thing to them,” Taro continued. “I saw what it did to Firholt, and to the Eventide. It’s unstoppable.”

  Kurian nodded, wiping some of the sweat from his forehead. “Agreed. We can’t risk leading him to populated areas.” He stood, and his shaking seemed to stop.

  “How long do we have until the Double Eclipse?” Taro asked.

  Kurian counted it out in his mind. “Seventeen days.”

  Taro sighed, looking up at the mountains looming over them. “Then we’d better get moving. Getting through these the old-fashioned way could take weeks.”

  _____

  The Caesos Mountains were unlike the mountains in the north. Whereas those in Caelis Enor had been a tangle of pine trees capped with snow, these had only scant bits of trees on them, as most of the greenery was just long grass bending to the wind. This meant there was little cover from the elements, though it was generally very warm.

  The mountains seemed to go on forever. Their cover was like an endless tapestry of yellow-green grass, running water, and endless patches of bright red and orange flowers that burst out of every rock and crevice. It was as close to an idyllic place as Taro had ever seen, and he had the strange urge to simply lay in a bed of dandelions and stay there forever. Despite the beauty of nature, Taro hated the mountains a little more every day. Climbing the steep inclines was grueling and painful with his artificial leg, shelter was hard to come by (made all the worse by the frequent rain), and insects seemed to swarm every square inch of the sky.

  The water tasted like salty dirt, even after being strained, and the only real food they had was what they could scavenge from the mountainsides. Killing and butchering a tiny jackrabbit made Taro sick, but he had to admit the meat beat the hell out of more berries and tree nuts.

  It wasn’t until the eighth day that their paths crossed another human being.

  It was late evening. Taro, Kurian, and Kadia had gotten down a particularly difficult cliff, one that hovered precariously over a sheer thousand-foot drop. While Kurian hadn’t seemed particularly worried, it unsettled Taro to no end, and he’d insisted they take that moment to eat and rest.

  They found that the red flowers blooming in the base of the cliff were edible. When the petals were peeled back, they exposed a small
, gem-like seed. These seeds had a strong, sour taste somewhere between a raspberry and a lemon, and Taro found them quite to his liking.

  Kadia was surprisingly quiet and calm given the fact that they had, essentially, kidnapped her. Taro could only imagine the verbal lashing he’d get from Kyra when she found out, but he tried to set that far in the back of his mind.

  Kurian finished preparing the fire—no difficult task for a dragon—and took a seat beside Kadia. She was hard at working trying to peel back the sticky petals of one of her flowers, with marginal success. Kurian offered to help her, but she was determined to do it herself.

  Taro watched their interactions with a mote of curiosity. Kurian seemed more tender toward her than he was even toward Kyra. When Taro asked about it, Kurian dodged the heart of the question and simply said that he “felt partially responsible” for her madness. He could only guess what that meant.

  Whatever the case, Kurian paid special attention to Kadia. When she was hungry, he brought her food, when she was thirsty, he fetched her water, and in the late hours of twilight he would try to get through to her broken mind, asking questions and, occasionally, getting real answers.

  Kadia’s mind was broken, but she was still somewhere inside, and in those brief, fleeting moments of consciousness, she proved to be surprisingly learned and an adept conversationalist.

  “Do you remember Magister Lao?” Kurian asked, leaning forward and hovering his hands over the flickering fire.

  Kadia nodded quickly. “Bad man. A bad, bad, bad man.”

  “He was,” Kurian agreed. “But what about after that? Do you remember what happened at the end of our trial?”

  Kadia shook her head. “No,” she whined.

  Kurian touched his hand to her back. “Are you sure? Just try to remember if—”

  “I said no!” Kadia shouted. “No. No. No. NO! Why are you trying to hurt me? I thought we were friends!”

  “I am your friend,” Kurian said, making a calming motion. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

  “He happened,” Kadia said after a long bout of silence. “He said he would help me get the voices out of my head, but he only made them worse. All he wants to do is talk to it…” She whispered the next word very softly, and very slowly. “…to Sith-Narosa.”

  “Who wanted to talk to Sith-Narosa?” Kurian asked, leaning in.

  “Dr. Halric?” Taro offered.

  Kadia pointed to Taro and nodded. “Yes, doctor, doctor. Endlessly, they talk. Both have masks. Bright eyes, dark eyes, masks of iron, masks of copper, masks of bone, masks of flesh.”

  “What do they talk about?” Taro asked.

  Kadia glanced up, her eyes darkened by the twilight. “The end.”

  “The end of what?” Taro asked.

  “Everything,” Kadia answered. She held her hands in front of her and repeated words that were not her own. “Beneath the city of Nir Daras, at the end of the seventh season, the gates of the Celestial Archive will open, and the last Demon of the Old World will be free.”

  “Demon?” Taro asked.

  Kurian nodded. “I’ve heard them called that before. Isaroth, Suborgath, Sith-Narosa, and Cthurihl. Servants of the Mad God, Nuruthil. They were locked away by my grandfather a long time.”

  “But she says there’s only one left to release.”

  Kurian shook his head. “That can’t be. The dragons would know about it.”

  “You’re sure?” Taro asked.

  “Evil like that leaves marks on the world,” Kurian said. “It’s like a bull trying to walk through a glass shop without breaking anything.”

  Kadia’s voice was quiet, but Taro caught her whispering to herself.

  “I don’t know,” Taro said. “Dr. Halric’s original plan was to kill enough people with the Arclight so that he could open a rift and bring Nuruthil back.”

  “Maybe he realizes there’s no way to do that now.”

  “But what would he gain by Nuruthil returning?” Taro asked.

  “Are you actually asking these questions or…?”

  “Just thinking aloud,” Taro said.

  “If killing people breaks holes in the Reach, then there are other ways to do it besides using the Arclight,” Kurian said.

  “But not all at once. Not easily, anyway.”

  “Fires,” Kadia said.

  “I don’t think that would work,” Taro said, then realized that Kadia wasn’t talking to them.

  “Fires, fires, fires,” Kadia repeated, biting the knuckle of her forefinger.

  Her eyes were staring off into the distance. As the sun lowered over the mountains, and night began to take over, Taro spotted specks of light dotting a valley below. They were far away, and faint, but Taro noticed the unmistakable flicker of campfires. It was only now, in the dark, that they stood out.

  Taro stood and ushered Kurian to do the same. He nodded toward the fiery dots. “Can you see anything?”

  Kurian squinted, glaring across the long distance with his dragon eyes. “Tents. Fires. Soldiers. Lots of them.”

  “How many is ‘lots’?”

  “Thousands. It’s hard to tell from here, but…I think they’re Helians.”

  They doused their fire, and under the cover of night, crept down the mountainside to get a better look. It was as Kurian had said: thousands of men beside hundreds of tents and fires. The valley below was set between two mountains, and provided perfect cover. With the difficult terrain between Helia Edûn and here (desert and all), it must’ve been quite a feat to march so many men so far.

  From high up, the regiments seemed to be organized into eight camps, each with roughly five hundred men in all. Most of the men were wearing armor: a shiny, black steel with red rivets going down the sides, the joints protected by chain mail. Even in the dim light, there were archers practicing on makeshift targets, and men sparring with practice swords, but most seemed to be turning in for the night.

  Closer to the bottom, Taro could hear them singing and telling stories while they drank. He and Kurian hid behind rocks and trees, getting as close as they dared. This far in, Taro saw that the men’s armor was not uniform. They were all similar, but their sigils and banners varied drastically. He counted eight different sigils, and figured that the army was actually composed of several smaller armies, each under the control of a different lord.

  “A Helian army this close to Nir Daras,” Kurian whispered. “That can only mean one thing.”

  “Isn’t Nir Daras already under Helian control?” Taro asked. “Maybe this is their staging point, and they’re leaving from here.”

  Kurian grimaced. “I don’t think so. They don’t smell right.” When Taro gave him a quizzical look, Kurian elaborated. “Every town and region has a smell to it. Little things. Coal dust. Redwood. Elm. Ash. Sand. Salt. This place smells like…pollen and volcanic rock. None of them smell that way. None of them are from here.”

  Taro gave him another look. “Sounds like a stretch.”

  “Believe me or don’t,” Kurian said flatly. “But if they’re here to attack Nir Daras, we need to get there first. We’ll never get in through a siege.”

  Taro peered down at the soldiers drinking, smoking, and seeming remarkably carefree. One of the more elaborate war tents was near the center of the encampment, and at that moment the front flaps ruffled and a tall, slender man emerged. He was tall and owllike, and missing several fingers on his right hand. Clad in black armor and silvery mail, he walked through the maze of tents and campfires, inspecting his men and speaking with his officers. He seemed to be a lord of some sort; he certainly carried himself like imperial nobility.

  When Kadia saw him, she made a strange guttural noise and whined. Taro tried to keep her quiet, but when she kept bleating, he and Kurian pulled her away
to a safer distance.

  “Shh,” Kurian said. “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s a bad man,” Kadia said.

  “You know him?” Taro asked.

  Kadia nodded. “Sarinel. Lord Paramount.”

  Taro looked to Kurian. “Any idea who that is?”

  Kurian grimaced. “Lord Sarinel. I’m not too keen on Helian politics, but I’ve heard his name in passing. The ‘Butcher of Serra,’ they call him. He’s known for cutting off the left hand of prisoners captured on the battlefield.”

  Taro tapped his hand as he thought for a moment. “We’ve got an opportunity here,” he said.

  “Agreed. This is exactly the type of situation Magister Sullen talked about. Information collection.” He momentarily assumed Magister Sullen’s harsh voice, tapping the side of his fist on a nearby rock. “Artificers, you listen and you listen good. Inside information is stronger than a sword. Stronger than magic. Given the choice between knowing details like troop size, armaments, movement speed, leadership, and location or a hundred extra men, only a fool chooses more men.”

  Taro nodded. “We should collect as much information as possible, then. Catch a few hours of sleep, and continue on before daybreak. We’ll have to sleep in shifts, they’re bound to have patrols around the area.”

  After an hour of quiet reconnaissance, the army’s numbers stood thus:

  Approximately four thousand men under eight banners. Five hundred cavalry. Six hundred archers. One thousand spearmen. Swords and shields for the rest of them, and a variety of armors, mostly mail, but some thick gambeson and full (or nearly full) plate. Some of the armaments bore a striking resemblance to the ones Thaedos Mathan had been purchasing. If these were of the same type, it meant that Thaedos had been buying weapons for a very long time. Near the back of the camp, a few dozen men were hauling lengths of wood, bringing them to be shaped and bound into long ladders.