Ferrin dropped, falling to one knee, and activated the keystone. Faint lines of blue light spread out between the stones, creating a web. Wherever the stones formed a triangle, howling winds rose from nowhere, tearing into the fae'reeth and throwing them backward. The tiny figures were tossed from triangle to triangle, hurled in twenty different directions as they passed around the network of the trap-stones, and the wind ripped at them.
Reanne howled, the scream an almost orgasmic release of triumph as she thrust the glyphrod forward, fingers tracing over the inscriptions. The blast of fire tore into the fae'reeth, moving almost like a hunting beast as it surged after them. The winds took it, and the cyclone became an inferno. Fire ripped through the tiny creatures like a spark in dried hay, touching their delicate wings and eating hungrily. Screams of anger turned first to pain, and then to panic as the winds carried smoking bodies through the flames spurting from the glyphrod, time and again, until bodies fell to the earth, blackened and charred.
Blue sparks flew as Ferrin caught a fae'reeth with his blackblade, the iron streaks running through the weapon exploding the creature into nothingness.
And then there was silence. The winds fell, and Reanne's flames guttered and died. They stood at the centre of a circle of destruction, the charred grass littered with tiny bodies. The carnage sickened him. The fae'reeth, their wings gone, looked like bodies of tiny children, scattered across the scorched dirt by some uncaring hand.
Grabbed at him, her face exultant. "Beautiful! Look at the little bastards. Look, Ferrin!"
He grimaced. "I am looking." His words might as well have been whispered. She was beyond hearing him. He tried again. "We need to get out of here, that wasn't exactly quiet."
"Let them come," Reanne said with a smug smile.
"Let them come and then what?" Ferrin snapped. "And then we have satyr and fae to cope with, or even more fae'reeth." He stabbed one finger at the charred earth. "Those stones are done, and I'm betting your glyphrod would struggle to light a campfire. We need to get out of here, now. This isn't about us, Reanne. Damn it, we don't have the right to choose our own end. Not anymore. Not with what we've seen."
He'd gone too far, he realised that as her lips grew pinched, and she turned away quickly. "I know my duty, old man."
He sighed and watched her stalk away until it became obvious she wasn't going to stop. A moment later, he followed. Lost Gods, he was tired. It was more than just the ache of strained muscles and a body abused. They'd been running for four days now, but the pair of them had been scouting for weeks. Passing through the endless forests of the Realm of Twilight in search of the armies everyone knew would be coming.
Weeks of passing through woodlands in silence, working to mask any sound of their passage with the noise of the wind in the trees, or the rustle of an animal's passing. Weeks of not daring to speak any louder than the faintest whisper, with lips pressed to ear. And then they had found them. The army of the fae was an unnatural thing. The fae were unlike humanity in so many ways. Despite the social structure of the fae courts, and the rule of the Ivy Throne, the notion of fae grouping into an army was outlandish. It was unthinkable. And yet they had. The armies of the fae had struck like lightning from a blue sky. Villages and farms had been reduced to rubble as the blood flowed. Village after village had fallen as mankind fled before them, rushing to the perceived safety of the cities, and then there had been silence. The cities waited, listening to the tales of terrified villagers as messengers rushed back and forth between them, trading messages but little news. Until, one by one, the messengers stopped returning and the cities fell silent.
"We need to head further north," he called, breaking a silence that had been uncomfortable so long he'd almost grown to like it. We're south of the bridge.
Reanne glanced back at him and nodded, her gaze passing him to scan the distant tree-line behind them before looking back to him. He knew what the grimace meant. The woods had been filled with bird song, but the plains were quiet in comparison. With only the faintest of breezes tossing the long grasses, there was nothing to fall silent when the fae drew close. There would be no warning. He matched her glance back behind them, hawked and spat. "Let's go a bit faster. It's not like we can hide out here. We might as well run for a bit."
She nodded with a shrug and led off. Within five minutes, his legs were cursing his name, and his throat burned as he struggled to match her pace. The woman was easily half his age. Why had he ever thought they could be a good match?
The plains stretched on, long grasses split by the occasional copse of trees or low scrubby bushes as they cut across to the northern edge. The trees would swallow them again all too soon, and Ferrin looked to the twilight skies as they ran. True night would come soon enough, and their pace would slow to a crawl for the short time it lasted. Would it slow the fae? Individuals, he supposed. The army, though, they would not stop. The image of the thousands of fae, all clad in glamours of shining steel and marching in perfect time, haunted him. It was all illusion. Beyond the glamour and reaching to the discipline. When the armies of the fae reached Tir Riviel, they would descend upon it, screaming for blood until the last of humanity lay trapped in the breeding pens or bleeding in the broken streets. Mankind was doomed. The war had been lost the moment it began.
Their path cut across the corner of the plains until the trees took them again. The gloom between the ancient boles brought a sigh from both of them. The woods would slow them, but not even a fae could see through the forest.
"Reanne, stop a minute." Ferrin leaned hard against the tree, the bark rough against his skin. "Just give me a minute to catch my breath."
She smirked at him. "You were the one who wanted to run," she reminded him.
"I was a bloody idiot," he managed between breaths. "It's not like running is going to make a difference anyway."
Reanne stiffened. It was a small thing, just a tightening of the eyes and a pinch at the corners of her lips, but he knew her well enough to know what it meant. She was a believer. Lost Gods, after all this time, she still believed they could win.
"You don't know that," she said, the words clipped and rigid.
Ferrin blinked. "I don't know that? Are you insane, Reanne? Of course, I know that. We're outmatched. They are fae. Even the weakest could empty a village on its own."
"Until we found the fehru," she said, drawing her blackblade.
Ferrin sighed. "And how much of that do we have? How many blades, Reanne? Twenty? A hundred?" He reached for her arm, freezing before he touched her as she glared at him. "We are not going to win this war, Reanne. We're going to flee."
She frowned, anger forgotten for the moment. "Flee? To where? There's nowhere in the Realm of Twilight anyone could ever hide from a fae."
Ferrin grimaced and shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I shouldn't have said anything. The point is that we're fighting and dying. We've lost too many already. This war needs to end while mankind still exists."
"That's never going to happen, Ferrin," she told him quietly. "The fae would never kill us all. We're too valuable for that. They need their breeding stock."
"The pens," he said, his voice soft but thick with disgust.
"The pens," she agreed, and the argument fell from him. He was old and tired, but she was broken. She had pushed her splintered fragments back into the shape of a person, but she would never be whole again.
She turned away from his expression and shook her head. "Come on, we need to be moving."
They abandoned stealth for speed, crashing through the woods like spooked deer. The conversation had been brief, but it had brought reality home to both of them. There was little point in hiding now. They either outpaced the fae or Tir Riviel fell, and with it, the last place any man could call home.
The bridge loomed out of the darkness between the trees. Dark metal girders had been worked into the thick wood, which stretched over the ravine in a structure that was as much a barrier as it was a bridge. The fehru had
been added to the bridge over the months, preventing any fae from touching it. It was no barrier to the fae'reeth of course, but then nothing was.
Their boots thudded over the planking until Reanne stopped in the centre of the bridge at the silvery capture-plate.
"Now?" Ferrin demanded. "We're only a few hours to the city."
"It only takes a few minutes, Ferrin," she told him, kneeling to set the glyphrod in place at the edge of the plate. "It's the last chance I'll get to infuse it. We might still need it."
He scowled at that, knowing it made sense but not liking it any better. The glyphs shone as she traced her fingers over the capture-plate, siphoning off the energy it had stored from the moonlight and sending it coursing into the glyphrod.
The arrow was white, pale as sun-bleached bone, as it erupted from his thigh without slowing and buried itself in the bridge.
"Ferrin!" Reanne screamed, pulling the glyphrod free and rushing to him as he collapsed. Blood gushed from the wound despite his hands.
"Go, Reanne," he managed from between clenched teeth. "Just run."
She busied herself with the tourniquet, running the line around his thigh and working it tight until he gasped.
"Go!" he hissed again. The fae didn't miss, they both knew that. The knowledge was clear in both of their eyes as he looked at her. The arrow had taken his leg because the creature was playing with him. It had chosen to wound rather than kill because his pain would entertain. Another arrow could come at any second, and it would not miss."
"We can make it, Ferrin," she whispered, an urgent lie that convinced neither of them. "Just let me help you up. We'll get you to the city and you'll be fine."
"No." He shook his head.
"Damn it, old man!" she hissed, tears filling her eyes and speech. "I'm not leaving you here."
"Go," he said again, a low plea that cut through her tears. "They need to know. You need to warn them. There's a worldgate, Reanne. That's how we're going to flee. It wasn't ready when we left. They were going to use it to take us all to our homeland, wherever that is. There's no time now. We use it now or we perish. Get to Tir Riviel and tell them. Just go!"
She stared at him, eyes doubting for a moment as she rose to a half-crouch. "Take the rod," she said, pressing it into hands still wet with his own blood. "I can come back with help."
He nodded, knowing the words for what they were. "I'll hold, Reanne. I can do this. Just get to the city."
She glanced at the tree-line for a moment, and then ran. She could almost feel the arrow that would slam through her chest, but it never came. She was alive because the fae willed it, she knew. She thundered across the bridge and ducked down behind the support beam for a second before risking a glance back.
Ferrin lay where she'd left him, pushing himself up against a thick bar of iron as he readied the glyphrod. The fae stepped unhurried from the trees, long whitebow held lightly in his hands. She had no time to study the creature before others began to emerge, already sporting glamours of gleaming silver. It was the banner that made her run, the blue and silver banner of the armies of the fae, glowing bright as they carried it forth.
Fire blasted behind her, the light bright enough to carrying through the trees as she ran. She glanced back twice, screams filling her ears from fae and Ferrin both until she forced herself to stop. She would watch. She owed him this much. She would watch the flare of the fire until they took him, until the light had faded.
Under the Queen’s Throne
Ed Greenwood
It was not going well.
But then, in Forn’s life, nothing much ever went well.
Never had. It was all the fault of the gods.
It was the gods who’d so regrettably taken King Savagrath, the widely-feared “Lion of Swords.” Very suddenly, of heartstop, on his throne while feasting. Leaving no one to rule the fair realm of Syndaelia but his slip of a daughter, the Princess Aumalle, who’d known but fourteen summers.
And it was the gods who’d made King Tarathur of neighboring Amarrandaer a mad brawling bastard who lusted after the rule of the entire world, and so had a large army ready. Promptly on hearing of Savagrath’s demise, the Amarrandans had invaded Syndaelia like a gleaming black tide—like every other soldier of Amarrandaer, Forn was daily kept busy repainting and polishing his rusty, mismatched armor to keep it the gleaming epitome of gleaming, glossy black—and conquered most of the kingdom. The princess, now Syndaelia’s first ruling queen (and according to the priests, the gods were frowning hard at that), had proved of much sterner stuff than expected, riding to battle and fighting well, but the Syndaer were no match for the might and valor and ten-to-one superior strength of the Glorious Wolves of Amarrandaer, and had suffered bitter defeat after bitter defeat.
Until five months ago, when the Syndaer army had been driven into their last lair, and the army of Amarrandaer had begun its siege on that den. Raging against the soaring, ancient walls of fortified Syndrist, capitol of Syndaelia and seat of its kings (and, aye, its first ruling queen, now). If Syndrist hadn’t been built atop a mountain, it’d have fallen long since, but the gods enjoyed their jests. The walls of the beleaguered Syndaelian city were old and thick and a-crawl with ancient spells no living wizard could now match. There’d be no getting through them soon.
Nor was even an army as vast and fierce and gleaming-armored as the Glorious Wolves of Amarrandaer likely to withstand a typically fierce Syndaelian winter, so there was no time to starve out the defenders, who, after all, had a spring-fed lake and extensive food cellars and a working farm, all within those mighty walls. So curt, simple, and identical orders had come down to even the lowliest Wolves.
“Start digging.”
Which really meant mining solid rock, in small crews like the one Forn was part of: an officer—that was Marace, a lifelong sword in the army; an outlander mercenary—that was Yulusk, a brawny dark mountain of a man of few words who yet managed to be outspoken; and an everyday smartmouthed dog of an Amarrandan Wolf—and that was Forn.
Crew Carnelian been tunneling for almost five months now, and word had been passed down that the Syndaer had been detected tunneling to intercept them, so Forn and his fellow Wolves were forced to work in full armor, with weapons kept ready.
“Amazing how all our wizards don’t have even one spell between them to break rock or move a single stone.” Forn growled. Not for the first time.
“Fall silent,” Marace told him. “Someone comes.”
A light bobbed closer, far down the none-too-straight tunnel they’d carved out. Crew Carnelian took the opportunity to down picks and shovels, snatch up their swords and maces, and challenge the lone man approaching with a round lantern.
They knew who it was, of course. A superior officer they all detested, the swordlord Arangor.
As Marace had once put it, “There’s one or two swordlords worth their badge. And then there’s all the rest.”
Arangor worked diligently at being all the rest, all day and every day.
“Crew Carnelian, attend!” he answered their challenge sternly. “I bring news!”
“War’s over?” Yulusk rumbled hopefully.
Arangor ignored him. Arangor always ignored dusky outlanders. “Crew Garnet were friends of yours, aye?”
“Well, they owed us coin,” Marace replied, “from our last night of throwing the crowns.”
“Get used to not ever getting paid,” Arangor told them, managing to sound gleeful and sinister at the same time. “Crew Garnet is no more. What’s left of them has just been found in their tunnel. Gnawed to bare bloody bones.”
“Gnawed? What was it, giant rats?”
“No. Usual-sized rats, but a salarking army of them. Enough to fill a tunnel with a squeaking, clawing rat wall, I’m told by our wizard who’s best at the farseeing spell. So, keep your torches ready, lads, and be prepared to burn your way out!”
“That’ll take all the air we need,” Forn pointed out. “Can’t we drown them instead?”
“Drown them? With what?”
“Wine. We’ll need two casks. The big ones. If you rush them down here now—”
“You’ll be blind drunk by evening bell,” Arangor said coldly. “No wine.”
“Sir,” Marace firmly interrupted whatever Forn was trying to say next, “what makes rats band together in an army?”
“The spells of Syndaelia’s evil wizards, of course. Somehow, those slumgullions have found or crafted magic that inflames the rats with bloodlust and a common purpose, and musters them together, and sends them a-slaying.”
“Our wizards told you that, too?” Forn couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“Stands to reason,” Arangor replied icily. “Our wizards would never do such a thing.”
“So, if we see this living wall of rats coming,” Yulusk put in gloomily, from beneath his ever-present cloak of rock dust, “we’re doomed, yes?”
“Pretty much,” Arangor said briskly. “Right, men, warning delivered. I must hasten on. The other six crews aren’t going to warn themselves, you know.”
“No? You surprise me,” Forn muttered, swinging his pick again at the rock face. Its backswing brought its sharp hind spike perilously close to the swordlord’s nose.
Arangor swayed back with the swift ease of the longtime veteran, deftly kicking Forn’s nearest ankle so the overbalanced soldier crashed heavily onto his back.
“Careful,” the swordlord’s voice came back to him coldly as Arangor marched away, back along the tunnel. “You could overbalance and fall, swinging wildly like that.”
Forn wisely said nothing at all.
After a time, Marace muttered, “He’s gone, lad. Pity you didn’t swing a handspan wider.”
“What?” Yulusk growled. “And leave Basilisk Cohort without its worst swordlord?”
Their shared chuckle was strained.
And seemed to end in a titter.
Crew Carnelian had time to frown, turn, and look before they realized the tittering wasn’t coming from their throats, but from down the tunnel. And was swiftly building into a roar as it came closer. In a living, swarming wall.
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