Cadorian barked out a short laugh. Somehow, in the emptiness of the Blight, you might have expected it to echo, but the sound died in the air as though it were a snuffed-out candleflame.
‘Even the dracs are not that stupid. They are, in fact, worthy opponents, even if they are not really a match for competent elf warriors. Their magic is weak, but they are strong.’
‘Well, I’ve never been at war with them.’
‘As you say. However, before this expedition reaches its end, I expect that you will know all there is to know about war with the dracs.’
2 nd Anokarte.
Cadorian’s eyes snapped open and he stared up at the lightening sky for a long second before tossing aside his blanket and rising to splash his face with water.
His dreams had been filled with disquieting images. It seemed that the humans dreamed of Serpens in some shape or form. Combat, fire, destruction, and the sound of massive, leathery wings seemed to feature strongly. That had not been Cadorian’s experience. He had seen fires, but they had been burning trees.
He had watched the destruction of the northern forest in abstract form, the retreat of the elves into the jungles of the south, and the loss of everything and everyone he had known.
Born in the northern forests, Cadorian had known them well. He had been told that the Great Forest was a shadow of its former self, but the truth of it had not hit home until he had ridden out of the Skygge Forest south of the White Castle. That area had once marked the northern extent of the trees. Now it was abandoned to monsters and all that remained of the northern forest. Cadorian had stared in disbelief at the grasslands which extended south from there almost unbroken for over six hundred miles. The place he had been born was gone now, along with all the lands his clan had held.
The sound of someone retching indicated that the humans were waking. Patermin, the youngest of the mages, had apparently seen something which had sickened him. He was already faring badly though he had escaped the nightmares the night before. Now there were dark circles under his eyes, and those eyes looked like those of someone who had seen too much war.
Garan was right about one thing: they would not be able to spend too much longer searching these blighted lands.
3 rd Anokarte.
They were riding out of the Blight when they finally found what they were looking for. Patermin had had a very bad night and was on his last legs. None of them were feeling well and even Cadorian had to admit that he was feeling tired. When Garan suggested that they leave, take a couple of days to rest, and then return, Cadorian had agreed.
Since they were close to the mountains, they rode out to where the grass was growing and then set out to circle around the Blight, south and west, until they reached more open, flatter ground. Everyone was listless, drained. Patermin held onto his saddle with a grim determination which suggested he was close to falling off his horse, but he still appeared happier now that he was outside of the Blight. The air was sweeter, or it seemed to be. Maybe it really was as it was only when they were out of the dead zone that Cadorian realised he had not felt a breeze on his face in three days.
And then, as they skirted the southern extent of the Blight, Garan pulled up his horse. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, peering toward something which sat just north of them where the grass began to turn yellow.
Cadorian followed Garan’s gaze to an odd structure of what looked like wooden poles. It looked a little like the frame of a large tent. There were large mounds of soil around the structure and it was those that finally solidified the truth of what they were seeing. ‘Someone has been digging. Let’s take a closer look.’
They left Patermin and another journeyman, Randan, outside the ring of yellowed grass, but the rest rode in to examine the
mineshaft they had discovered. It was not what you would describe as a great work of engineering, but some bracing had been put in to keep the walls of the shaft in one place and there was the frame over the hole to allow buckets of earth to be drawn up for disposal on the mounds. The shaft itself was no more than ten feet in depth, but a side tunnel was visible, heading north under the Blight.
‘Someone has been busy,’ Garan said. ‘Not my area of expertise, but I’d say that tunnel has to go some distance just from the spoil heaps.’
Cadorian nodded. ‘They may have been working on this for years.
It’s a clever strategy, especially for dracs. Placing the start of the tunnel out here makes it harder to find. You would expect
– and I did expect – that they would dig straight down. Instead, they start here where it’s less likely that someone will accidentally come across their mine. They’re never seen trekking out onto the plain either. Yes, quite clever.’
‘And they likely come back out this way every day. Minimise the time they spend inside the dead zone and, I’d imagine, maximise the work that gets done. The question is, did they find what they were looking for?’
‘I think they did,’ Inarir said from a short distance away near one of the dirt piles. He was a Skonar, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and also a competent battle mage. ‘Look at this.’
This was a yellowed area of grass which formed a pattern somewhere between a V and a U. There was a distinct edge to it with the grass in the middle showing less discolouration. The edge also clearly showed signs of being crushed under something reasonably heavy. Cadorian and Garan peered at it for several seconds as they tried to see what Inarir had seen. And then it clicked.
‘That could be where a large skull with a long jaw was resting for some time,’ Garan said. ‘You’ve actually seen Serpens, Cadorian…’
‘The size is about right,’ Cadorian replied. In his mind, he built up an image of the dragon he had slain and how its head might look resting there on the grass. ‘Its jaw would fit the shape… Yes. I believe you are right, Inarir. They found it, hauled it out, and left it here until they could transport it out of the area. They have it. It can only be a matter of time before they succeed in raising the beast.’
‘So what now?’ Garan asked. ‘I need to report this to the castle once we’re out of the Blight, but what do we do from here?’
‘And where would they have taken the thing?’ Inarir asked.
‘To the last point,’ Cadorian replied, ‘they’ll have taken it to the wetlands south of here. That area has always been a stronghold of the dracs. Trying to take them on with just the five of us, however, would be a suicide mission with little chance of success. We go south, across the wetlands and into the Great Forest. It’s time my fellow elves learned of the coming danger. With an army at our backs, we might have a chance of bringing Serpens down before he tears the world apart.’
The Great Forest, 8 th Deokarte.
‘It’s impossible. Resurrecting a true dragon is simply not possible. If it were possible, it would have been attempted before now.’
Cadorian sat in council with the leaders of several prominent elf clans and it was not going especially well. The elves, in Cadorian’s opinion, were not going well. Perhaps it had been the loss of over half the Great Forest to the expansion of human lands. Perhaps it had been the loss of the War of Men – which the humans referred to as the Founding War – when the incomers had beaten the elves back into the far south of the continent.
Whatever the cause, the elves of this age appeared to be… wimps.
And misinformed.
‘It is possible,’ Cadorian said. ‘It was done during the war before I was born. Serpens was slain within five years of the war’s start. His followers managed to return him to life less than a year later, stronger than ever. This was why we took an army to defeat him at the end of the war. We had to wipe out his drac followers as well as defeating a godlike true dragon. We were lucky that none of the other dragons seemed able to duplicate the feat. There was only one Serpens and he was enough to ensure that the war spun on for three centuries.’
The old patriarch opposite Cadorian frowned. ‘We have only your word for–’
>
‘You are suggesting that I might lie in this matter?’ The honeyed tone Cadorian used belied the action of his hand coming to rest on the hilt of one of his swords.
The Grand Council Chamber of the Southern Elves had not changed a great deal in twenty-five centuries. It was essentially a large hole in the side of the Heart of the South, a vast tree of indeterminate species supposedly planted there by Soansha herself to be one of two Heart Trees of the land. The Heart of the North had been lost in the War of Men, but this one still stood proud, taller and broader than any other tree in the forest. It was, however, ancient, and it had a number of voids in its huge trunk.
This chamber occupied one of them, about two hundred feet above the ground, and it featured around twenty chairs set in a circle for the clan representatives to occupy. There was no table. Each chair came with a small table beside it for refreshments – an
addition since Cadorian’s time and one which he felt suggested weakness – but there was no larger table to obscure the view of Cadorian’s threat from the others.
‘No, no,’ the patriarch said quickly. ‘The war was a long time ago. Perhaps–’
‘For you, perhaps. For me, it was a matter of months.’
‘We have received a number of reports from seers suggesting that something evil was preparing to emerge.’ The speaker was younger than many of the others and a woman of striking beauty. Reyanna Ravenhair was the representative of the Sandrose clan which occupied lands on the southern coast. As her nickname suggested, she had long black hair which fell to her waist. Cadorian had heard that she was an accomplished mage. Importantly for what he was trying to do here, she was also more inclined to take action than her peers. ‘One such report even included imagery of fire and war.’
‘The visions of seers are notoriously difficult to accurately interpret,’ another old man countered.
‘Indeed.’ The agreement apparently surprised the man. ‘Often we must attribute some vision to an event only after it has unfolded. And yet, here we have many such visions and a great hero come out of our past who tells us of an ancient foe who will return if we cannot stop it.’ Reyanna favoured Cadorian with a warm smile which, despite himself, he found rather pleasing.
‘Here we have the evidence to interpret reported visions, from no less than the High Priest of Soansha, I might add, in a manner which fits and gives us clear warning. Serpens would undoubtedly return as a threat which could endanger the entire world. We would be considered the most foolish leaders the elves have ever seen to ignore Lord Cadorian’s words. Not since the time of the War of Men have such obvious warnings of doom come to us and been ignored.’
This, Cadorian decided, was someone he could work with. Her words had had something of an effect already; he could see several of the others considering the situation in new light. He suspected that what they were considering was how it would look if they did nothing and were wrong, however. Not that every last elf on the planet would die in flames, but that the blame would, however temporarily, fall on them. It was a weak-minded view, but it might provoke them to act. Perhaps.
~~~
Elves had never picked up the human habit of living in buildings with solid walls. A traditional elven home was a tent of some sort with hide walls. Even in Cadorian’s time, many had taken to something a little more permanent; the hides would be fixed to a wattle backing to stop wind getting through the gaps so easily,
and the roof might be formed of straw where it was available.
Internal division was handled by hanging cloth drapes from poles and the centrepiece was generally a fireplace, either just a fire or a stone-lined fire circle, with the smoke let out through an opening at the apex of the roof.
Reyanna, being something of a traveller, had quite a traditional hide-walled tent which could be pulled up and packed on horses for transport. Despite that, the interior was quite luxurious.
Soft pillows provided comfortable space for sitting or lying down. Lighting was supplemented by magic lanterns, though those were now shuttered. The dividing drapes were brightly coloured silk. Now, the only light came from the fire burning in the centre of the structure. The flames brought out the darker tones in Reyanna’s skin, turning her into an even more exotic beauty than usual as she stretched languidly.
Cadorian watched her lithe body and the play of muscles beneath skin, and considered this turn of events. It had been very simple really: political discussion had cemented their alliance over the need to stop Serpens, and then they had cemented that alliance further and far more pleasantly once the sun had gone down. He smiled. ‘You, my lady, are perhaps the most accomplished partner I have ever had.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ Reyanna replied. The titles had become a joke between them, slightly archaic terms which somehow fitted the occasion. ‘You are far from an awkward novice yourself. She stretched again, squirming a little. The effect of the erotic motion on Cadorian was surprising, considering that he had thought himself finally exhausted thanks to her previous efforts.
‘ Far from a novice.’
‘When you’re almost twenty-six thousand years old, you have to have picked up a trick or two.’
Reyanna gave a throaty chuckle. ‘You were around two hundred when you vanished, I think.’
‘Two hundred and three.’
‘As you say. I don’t believe you can count the additional years since you skipped them. Still, I am not an unsatisfied woman so those two hundred and three years were clearly not spent in idleness.’
‘Too many of them were spent in war.’ He frowned. ‘Perhaps that’s why… When you’ve known nothing but conflict and every day might be your last, you seek to fill the time you have with more pleasant activities.’
‘I can’t imagine it. I admit it. Such a life is so far removed from what I’ve known that I would not dare to think that I know what you went through. Still, there are plenty of elves who hold
a romanticised view of war. They think in terms of heroes and adventure rather than blood and tears. Our elders are at least partially responsible. They look back to a time I don’t believe ever existed, seeing only the better parts of the past.’
It was Cadorian’s turn to chuckle. ‘That has not changed. Old men always look to the past and see only the silver lining. The black clouds go unnoticed.’
‘Perhaps it’s me looking back with jaundiced eyes, but I think it’s different. Our leaders are weak. They lack imagination or the will to act when shown something new. Worse, our people believe that to be a good thing. Keeping our traditions is a good thing, but they have become a crutch holding up an ageing, withered society. Ah! You’ve got me talking about politics again when I see that we can continue with another topic.’ Moving with a fluid grace Cadorian had only ever seen in apex predators, Reyanna rose to her knees and, a second later, she was straddling his hips. She smirked. ‘You may be over two hundred, but you’ve the loins of a much younger man.’
‘Just remember that we must get some sleep before the morning, my lady.’
‘I’ll allow you that. I promise we’ll get some sleep.’
Cadorian was fairly sure that she was lying.
The Blistered Swamp, 10 th Ankarte 6023.
Cadorian sat astride his horse looking out across the broad expanse of sodden, often swampy ground to the north of the forest’s edge. In truth, much of the remaining Great Forest was jungle: dark, green, and humid. The quality of the land changed in only one respect: there were very few trees on the Blistered Swamp. There were actually patches of the wetlands raised high enough that they were drier than the forest floor and these were what had given the place its name. It was currently estimated that some three hundred thousand dracs made their homes here, many of their villages occupying the higher ground to the north and west.
‘We’ll camp here for the night,’ Cadorian said, ‘and begin scouting in the morning.’
‘I’d certainly prefer to keep my seat dry,’ Reyanna replied. She was beside him on her
own mount. She was there at all because of the arrangement Cadorian had managed to make with the clan heads, with no little help from her.
‘I’ll give the order,’ Garan said and wheeled his horse to head back to where the troops were still marching, perhaps a mile back from the treeline.
There were only a hundred men in their small army, all of them inexperienced, though that was hardly novel for clan soldiers.
They were, ostensibly, scouts and escorts. The plan was to seek out the location where the dracs were planning to resurrect Serpens. Cadorian had suggested that the ritual would likely take place in one of the drac strongholds in the swamp, so that was where they were looking. On finding the location, the force would split with some left to keep a watch, some returning to relay the news, and the rest continuing north, around the Soansha’s Crown range, to Alabethi where they would seek assistance from the humans. Reyanna was there to assist with that, mostly.
‘I think we should celebrate our arrival,’ she said once Garan was out of earshot.
‘And I’m sure I know the manner of celebration you intend,’
Cadorian replied. It was hardly a secret that the two of them frequently spent the night in the same tent, but they kept discussion of their love life for private moments anyway.
Reyanna grinned. ‘I’m sure you do. I want you inside me for as much of the night as possible and I see nothing wrong with that.’
In truth, neither did he. ‘Things will get rougher from now on.
We’ll need to be alert. It’s unlikely that we can move a hundred men through these lands without being spotted, but the less the dracs know of our intentions the better.’
‘Agreed. They won’t attack, however. The dracs don’t attack armed and organised elves. We would slaughter them.’
‘Good, since that is precisely what we will need to do to keep our journey secret. You’ll stay with your bodyguards from now on, my lady. Dracs have bows and I’ll not have you killed by a lucky shot from some drac scout or hunter.’
The Girl Who Dreamed of a Different World Page 9