The Sunset Lands Beyond (The Complete Series, Books 1-3): An epic portal fantasy boxed set

by Sarah Ashwood

  Angry now, the Simathe tightened his grip on her shoulders. He wanted to shake her, to make her reverse what she’d done and let him in, but did not. Breaking her concentration at this critical juncture could make her lose charge of her wave, bringing about untold destruction. It would be a disaster. It would mean death. And so he merely surveyed her angrily and did nothing.

  It was now Aemela’s turn. Even as the final remnants of the mighty wave cruised down the far side of Aureeyah’s dome, the sea fairy closed her eyes and spread her own hands. Hastily, she set in place invisible bands at the edges of the wave that she tightened and constricted, assisting the Artan in maintaining control, ensuring that nothing and no one except the intended targets would be destroyed.

  The wave smashed into the Warkin, dragons and Dragonkind alike. The roars of the dragons as they saw it advancing could be heard miles away. But even that wasn’t as fearsome as when the wave finally struck, and those roars changed into the strangled, gurgling cries of the drowned—cries silenced forever as both dragon and Dragonkind met their fate beneath the cold waters of the sea.

  Its task complete, the wave began to recede. This time, Aemela constricted the bands until the wave split, splintering into a thousand tiny streamlets that wrought either little or no harm as they flowed back down the hill upon which the Warkin had stood, sifted around Aureeyah’s dome, and returned once more to their home. As the final remnants flowed into the sea, the silvery dome covering the city began to glisten, as if lit by a hundred million moonstones. The glistening magnified into a blinding white glow that flashed once, twice, and then shattered, the dome vanishing in its wake.

  Finally, both Aemela and Aureeyah were free to release the magic they held, and they did, lowering weary arms to their sides. Their auras shone brightly as they exchanged smiles. They had done it! The threat was gone, and the rain had ended. The night was passing, the morning sun was rising. Could anything prevent victory now?

  They carried the Artan to a room in the exquisite, multi-tiered palace of Shayle’s governing Portex. Lady Alvana Wis’ Callen, the Portex’s young wife, could not do enough as she bustled about leading them to the finest chamber and fetching anything that was requested, then stood beside the bed, wringing her hands anxiously. Finally, firmly but gently, Risean took her by the arm, escorting her from the room. Portex’s wife or not, her overt anxiety was not needed here.

  Afterward, the old Moonkind returned to the bed, sadness filling his heart as he gazed down at his great-niece. He was not the only one; others shared his woe.

  The fairy Aureeyah sat beside her on the bed, her lively eyes now dull with grief. Danyele, the Cortain First Lieutenant, put a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. The Ranetron High-Chief slammed a fist into the wall and swore through his teeth. A glittering tear rolled down the fairy Aemela’s smooth cheek. But it was the Simathe High-Chief who concerned him the most. Not that the man betrayed any sorrow, any anger, any pain. No, but his deep, alien eyes never left the young Artan’s face. They were fixed on her with an almost feverish intensity, as if he were silently urging her, with all of his considerable strength, to awaken.

  She was as deaf to him as to the rest of the world. Stooping, Risean placed a hand on the brow of the woman lying so still upon the massive four-poster bed. Her skin was white, cold. Her eyes were closed, and breath scarcely escaped her nostrils. Even her lips had turned a sickly shade of purple. She looked, the Moonkind realized fearfully, like a corpse. What was clear to him, was clear to them all.

  The Artan was dying.

  Dawn’s blush had barely brightened the horizon when all save the fairy Aemela were forced to leave. In her slim hands they left the barely breathing Artan.

  Gently, the Simathe High-Chief took her face in his hands, gazing long upon it.

  Wake up, lass, he pleaded silently, as he had done a hundred times during the past several hours. Open your eyes. Look at me.

  She did not flinch. Her ragged breathing was unchanged.

  He tried once more, infusing his words with a brush of urgency through their bond. That brush alone should have been enough to rouse her. Her eyes did not open; she did not respond. A burden of heaviness like he had never known weighted his heart as he walked out her door and left the palace of the Portex.

  That heaviness continued to grip him as he swung onto the back of his Restless and trotted the animal through the city gates. Behind him, he heard the sounds of the huge, ponderous gates being shut then barred as he rode out to the place where a mounted Norband, Lady Tey, Lord Garett and a few other officers waited.

  Wounded from the Warkin attack had already been removed inside city walls and the dead disposed of as well. Their troops were amassed, ready to meet whatever the Dark Powers might throw at them. Ranetron scouts had returned ahead of what they called a great mass of enemy warriors. They’d seen no more Warkin; albeit there were sightings of drocnords, Cistweigh with their monstrous deathcats, and even Doinum. The Light knew what other abominations swelled the enemy ranks, marching relentlessly beside men. Men who ought to have been fighting for Aerisia, rather than opposing her.

  At the head of Aerisia’s forces, the Simathe High-Chief and his Chief Captain waited together as Lady Tey and Lord Garett galloped down the lines and back, shouting encouragement to their fighting men and women. Ilgard, knotting his reins in his fist, obstinately shut out the despair and helplessness inflicted through his bond with the dying Artan. She should be here, by his side, but lay instead inside the city, surrendering to something neither he, nor the fairies, nor anyone else, could understand or cure her of.

  But he could not think of her now.

  The din of many thousands of tramping feet grew closer, and the warrior-lord eliminated all superfluous thoughts, just as he always did in preparation to fight until there was nothing in the world save the presence of his fellow Simathe, the sword in his hand, the yedin in its sling on his saddle, and his horse’s warm flesh between his knees. That and the approaching enemy.

  A clarion trumpet of war sounded as the first wave of the enemy crested the hill and came pouring down the opposite side. They looked a mammoth black wave, and they swept like a river around the enormous corpses of the drowned dragons taken earlier by the Artan’s wave. The brief detour slowed them not a whit, and as they rushed onward the Cortain and Ranetron leaders rejoined the two Simathe at the front of the lines.

  The Cortain was the first to raise her sword slowly, ominously high. In the space of a heartbeat, Lord Garett was following suit, then Norband. Their own trumpets sounded, and after that Ilgard himself put his sword’s point to the sky and his heels to his horse’s flanks. Those around him followed his example, surging forward to meet the army of The Evil with courage and steel.

  The two forces met with a thunderous crash. War had begun.

  Torture

  The fighting raged off and on throughout the day and did not cease until the sun was far spent. A white, waxing moon rose slowly over a battlefield littered with wounded and slain. Blood and death permeated the air. Calamity wreathed the ground like a fog.

  The battle had not gone well. Although Aerisia’s forces had not been driven back, neither had they gained ground. The enemy were simply too numerous. No matter how many they slew, The Evil kept coming in a terrible, persistent horde. Surpassing this, they were supplied by an unnatural energy that made them difficult to kill: one of the few ways to be certain they were actually dead was to sever head from neck.

  They needed the Artan, needed her desperately—on this all Aerisian war leaders were agreed. If she were there, she could do something; she could find a way around this. Sadly, she could not fight. Neither could she heal. She could not even ride out with her troops, a symbol of all for which they fought.

  All of these thoughts wearied the mind of the Simathe High-Chief as he climbed the steps of the palace of Shayle’s Portex. Heaviness weighing his soul, he made his way to his lady’s bedchamber. The fairy Aemela was within, keeping w
atch at the Artan’s bedside. She looked up as he entered, her eyes revealing her distress.

  “No change?” he asked.

  “None, my lord.”

  It came as no surprise.

  Disregarding the fairy’s presence, Ilgard sank onto the bed beside his sleeping lady. He could not bring himself to touch her, not with his hands still stained with the blood of battle. Helplessness, an unfamiliar feeling, stormed his defenses as he stared down at her. No longer was he a warrior, slaying innumerable rivals on the field of battle. No longer was he a High-Chief, a warrior-lord—no longer even a Simathe. He was now nothing more than a man staring at the woman who had entranced him. And she was dying.

  As if sensing his need for solitude, Aemela now stood. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she said, “I fear this is a sleep from which she may not wake. It would be wise, my lord, for you prepare yourself even now.”

  He’d nothing to say to that, and after a space the fairy removed her hand.

  “I will leave her to your care.”

  He nodded assent but otherwise took no action until he heard the sound of the door shutting. Only then did he rise and go to the nearby washbasin where he ridded himself of the dust and grime of battle, the stains of bloodshed, the residue of innumerable kills. Today, he had fought in a cold, silent rage, offering no quarter, showing no mercy. Within, burned a relentless drive to kill, brought on by the knowledge of this very young woman and her impending death.

  Kill he had. Killed many.

  After snuffing out the candles burning beside the washbasin, as well as those on the stand beside the bed, the Simathe walked to the open window. With a sharp tug on the golden cord, he parted the heavy, wine-colored velvet draperies to look out. The moon shone brightly, uncaring above the scene of carnage far below.

  For a long time, he gazed up at it. Then, speaking aloud but quietly and half to himself, he remarked, “The moon will be full tomorrow’s eve.” Turning to look behind him, he said to her, “You love the moon.”

  She did love the moon, the moonlight. He could not help remembering an incident at Laytrii’s palace where she had called him away from some duty, only to seize his hand and draw him outside on one of the balconies.

  “What is this, now?” he had asked, puzzled, to which she’d replied, “I wanted you to come see the moon.”

  See the moon? He had seen countless moons during his lifetime, but when he said as much to her she’d only laughed and daringly enfolded herself in the circle of his arms.

  “But not with me,” she’d returned with an impish smile.

  She was right. There had never been a moon like this one, a moon that softened every line of her face, while highlighting a mouth he was helpless to resist…

  Shaking himself, he returned to the present. Alas, those memories were his alone tonight. He knew not what she dreamed of, lying so still and silent upon the bed. Or if she dreamed at all.

  Drawing the drapes, he cast the room into darkness and shadow. However, his steps were sure as he made his way unhampered across the marble floor, approaching the bed. Assuming the chair the fairy had vacated, he bent over the woman on the bed, lowering his face into her abdomen. Clutching a fistful of the dark hair fanning out on the pillow, he breathed in her scent and listened to her fast, shallow breaths. Rest was far away from him, and sleep. There was no respite from the pain of knowing their Joining bond was soon to close, and the torture of that kept him wakeful all the night long.

  Awakened

  It began early the next morning, the fighting even more savage than that of the previous day. Around the time the sun was to set, the tide slowly but surely began to turn against Aerisia’s forces. The unnatural strength and tenacity with which their enemy clung to life was having its effect.

  If it continues like this, the Cortain Pronconcil thought grimly, as with a smooth slice she neatly decapitated an undersized drocnord, all will be lost. We need the Artan.

  Sadly, at last report there had been no change in her condition. She clung to life, true, but with a hold so fragile her spirit was but a breath from flying. Should that happen, doom was surely reckoned upon them all—as it was, perhaps, now facing her.

  Tey found herself going up against a towering warrior in a bearskin hood, his long mustaches drooping to his collarbones. With a savage growl, he charged, swinging a massive, bloodstained battleaxe. Nimbly, she leapt aside, escaping the axe’s deadly arc. Pivoting on one foot, she caught the weapon’s downswing with her sword, bracing against the giant’s strength with all of her own. He laughed wickedly, bearing down on her with both hands locked firmly around the handle of his axe. Tey was not afraid to die. She glared defiance into those small, beady eyes, nearly swallowed by tangled eyebrows. Lower and lower he pressed her, until she was on her back in the dirt, the edge of that blade mere inches from her throat…

  With a wild cry, another Cortain came flying out of nowhere, leaping onto the savage’s back and plunging her serrated dagger repeatedly into the huge, bearskin-covered shoulders. Roaring in pain and rage, the giant staggered backwards, flinging aside his axe and clawing violently at the woman clinging to his back. Blood spurted in fountains as he managed to clasp her round the neck, throwing her over his head and to the ground.

  As the Cortain hit, screaming in rage and fear, Tey quickly rolled out of the way to avoid being trapped under the body of her sister warrior. The savage moved to plant a heavy boot on the Cortain’s belly, fumbling for his own dagger as he leered down at the woman beneath him. Certain of victory, he raised the dagger high, preparing to deliver the killing blow…

  Tey struck. The hand holding the dagger went flying, lopped off by a single blow from the Pronconcil’s sword. Blood spurted, soaking the bearskin, hair, and mustaches of the huge warrior, staining even his teeth as he bared them at the Pronconcil.

  “For that, I will kill you!”

  “Try it, then,” the Cortain returned calmly, and when he advanced she neither flinched nor retreated.

  Her opponent blocked one sword swing by grabbing her arm before the blade could strike his flesh, but he never saw coming the second sword Tey pulled from the sheath on her back. With a flick of her wrist she plunged it deep in his side. He threw back his head with a howl, releasing her arm, swaying on his feet. The Cortain previously trapped beneath his boot now shot to her feet, ready to offer assistance as needed. It wasn’t. With the blade in her left hand Tey struck off his head, while opening his belly with that in her right. The huge body crumpled to the battlefield with a crash.

  Finally it was over, and she stumbled a step or two from her prey, weary in body and desperately sick of blood, death, and killing. Without warning, a huge arm caught her behind the shoulders and she whirled, ready to defend herself all over again. However, when she glanced up it was into the smiling face of Prince Kurban, lord of the Tearkin. Laughing, he steadied her on her feet.

  “Tired, little warrior?”

  At the sight of this man and more than three thousand of his Tearkin warriors, her heart lifted, weariness sloughing off her shoulders like water.

  “Not a bit.”

  “Good.” He squeezed her shoulder with impossibly large fingers. “Then let us slay some Evil!”

  Together, they charged into the fray.

  The appearance of Kurban and his Tearkin brethren was like the coming of the sun to chase away the darkness of night. That day, Aerisia triumphed, pushing the enemy back over the knoll upon which the corpses of the Warkin now rotted. Too weary to go any further, soldiers collapsed where they stood. Discontent with such laxity, troop leaders were soon circulating among men and Cortain, encouraging the placement of defenses to hold the retaken ground. Fires were kindled and meals cooked and gratefully eaten. The wounded were sent to the city for care, and night watches were posted.

  A little apart from it all, the Simathe High-Chief sat upon a boulder beneath an ancient willow whose drooping branches had been repetitively slashed during the day’s fighting. He
stared moodily into the fire laid before him, and the granite set of his features—gruesomely splashed with the blood of a mammoth deathcat—were enough to frighten all but the hardiest.

  It was the Tearkin prince who finally dared approach. Squatting on his heels before the blaze, he tossed a branch into the flames. At first they flickered, as if testing the taste of this new treat. Then, upon finding it edible, they snapped their appreciation and began to devour it greedily. Sparks flew upwards, reflecting against the bronze torque clasped round the giant’s neck. Kurban smiled, but the humor vanished when he glanced at the Simathe lord’s grim face.

  “I have heard the news,” he began carefully. “Is it true that the Artan—”

  He broke off, waiting.

  “Aye.”

  The word held no grief. In fact, it held nothing at all. Hearing the High-Chief speak was like hearing a corpse speak, the voice as lifeless as the body. Kurban winced. Somehow, he felt grief would be better than this cold, empty nothingness the man displayed. He hesitated before broaching another subject.

  “If they fight tomorrow, can we meet them?”

  The warrior-lord shifted on the rock, clasping his hands loosely in front of him. Blood darkened them, the Tearkin noted, having even seeped beneath the Simathe’s fingernails. He stared in fascination at those hands, dealers of death that they were. Never had he seen anyone kill as the High-Chief had today. Kill and kill and kill with no pity, anger, sadness, or rancor. He’d appeared a machine built for a single purpose: to slaughter his enemies. And he was skilled at it. Very skilled.