Chapter XXXIX
Light in the Dark
34th of Early Summer, 376, 5th Era – The Gelsingean Mountains, Northwestern Gelsing
The journey had been long and uncomfortable. Central Gelsing was much warmer than northern Hargirm, or even Steshour. In the mornings, all was stifling and hot, while nights were cool and infested with fireflies. Hafkil and Kcarc kept the army of Wolves and the battalion of men in a constant march, from early morning to late evening. The horses and Wolves were exhausted and sapped from the warmth, and the men just as much. They had crossed the river dividing Hargirm and Steshour in the early part of their trek, at the point near the Bay of Stone, and then they had followed the River Felding and the Eastern Mountain chain south, dodging Fåry, a large city within Steshour’s border. They went south all the way to the northern shores of Oshyigar.
Kelestil had never seen an ocean before, and the endless waves amazed her almost as much as it had awed Fiar. She had actually managed to say a few words to him, over the month-long journey to Cev Gren. She had first said good morning to him, and then bade him a fair night’s rest. From there it got quicker, until they had small conversations. For as little time as Hafkil could spare to teach her the Hargirmian language, she latched onto every word and learned adeptly, making up for the inferior lessons.
Eventually, the army came to The Bridge, a thin, mountainous and forested piece of land that separated Oshyigar from the waters of Mangrove Bay. A few miles either north or south would lead the army to infinite, rolling waves. But they held the course of a winding road that was used by few. Most people went by ship if they wanted to get from Hargirm to Gelsing, or the other way around. The Wolves stayed out of sight of the road, though, just to be sure. A battalion of men was alarming enough on its own.
Kelestil paid special attention to the climate as they descended south. Obviously, it became warmer, and the animals became more numerous and less recognizable, while the flora was more verdant and crowded. But the Eastern Mountains also changed in shape, and they weren’t so jagged in the south as they were in the north. They were still unbelievably tall, and extended as far as anyone’s eye could tell, but they were rounded at the peaks, and the stone formations were dappled from erosion.
Like the landscape, the weather also changed dramatically. Long, drenching rains and thunderstorms gave reprieves from the steamy heat, though at the cost of being soaked through.
The coniferous and evergreen trees in the north gave way to deciduous and tropical sentinels in the south, while the underbrush became ferny, vine-ridden. Every peak in the Gelsingean Mountains was coated to the very top in subtropical forest, slashed with creeks, rivers and waterfalls, and decorated in rocky outcrops. Some of those outcrops turned out to be carved stone pyres or statues of ancient figures. They were written all over in geometric runes, the Gelsingean script.
They passed only a few villages along the road, ornate places nestled in the mountains with beautifully made houses that were humble as well as attractive. The soldiers skirted around such dwellings, and the Wolves took an even further path, but two dozen or so unarmed and unarmored men with Hafkil entered the places to buy any supplies that they needed to refill their carts. Only a reedy older fellow in the battalion knew how to speak the Gelsic tongue, and he seemed nervous to use it. And it only made it more challenging to trade with the village-dwellers when the men were anxious at the least around the golden-eyed people. Many still held a grudge against the Gelsingeans, ever since the Empire had made an Uprising, sixty years gone. It had taken over a decade to put it down, and the Hargirmians had suffered most for it. Memories lived on, and the Hargirmians ground their teeth at the sight of anyone with golden eyes.
The Gelsingeans just gave the strangers odd looks and asked Fezral, the reedy man a few questions which he had worthy excuses for. They were willing to trade, at least, and accepted the Hargirmian coppers and silvers from Hafkil without complaint. Some of them even helped pull one of the carts out of a rut in the road. Maybe that would change the battalion’s opinion of the Gelsingeans.
Taylan was Helkrasic, so he caused no trouble in those encounters. He seemed to have an eye for some of the Gelsingean women in their short skirted dresses or colorful silk kimonos, though he did hide his glances.
Kelestil and Fiar were too young to have grown a hate for the Gelsingeans, and Kelestil had been told that they weren’t a race to fear anyways. Her friend Sorrel had proven that, but thinking about her dead friend just made her depressed. It brightened her to study some of the Gelsingeans’ odd steeds, called Sambar. They were large elks with split antlers and a somewhat robust build, which still managed to look more graceful than a horse’s proportions. Kelestil wanted one of her own.
Fiar seemed to share Taylan’s taste for the golden-eyed women, which Kelestil found annoying—even if she didn’t understand fully what went on in his mind, or know the fact that he had learned and she had not.
It was sufficiently frustrating because once, she had been talking right at him, but he had just gazed distractedly at a slender Gelsingean girl who was walking by. Kelestil had needed to wave a hand in front of his eyes before he paid attention to her again. The only satisfaction was that he flushed uncontrollably from embarrassment when he realized what had happened.
It was dawn on the thirty-fourth of Early Summer when Hafkil, Taylan, Kelestil and Fiar rode out of a small village together to join the battalion on the other side. There had been a particularly beautiful Gelsingean woman in the dwelling that only Hafkil and Kelestil seemed to ignore.
Finally, the girl could take it no longer. “Hafkil, why do boys stare at girls so much?”
In the dappled sunlight streaming warmly through the thick foliage overhead, Hafkil seemed to hide a smile. Taylan conveniently coughed into his gauntlet.
The Bear cleared his throat. “Well, uh, I’m sure you’ve noticed boys before and looked at them a bit.” When he glanced purposely at Fiar, Kelestil blushed, and made a weak acknowledgment of the fact with a nod. “Um, well, boys like to stare—I mean look—at girls too, they just find it more . . . irresistible.”
“But why exactly do they stare? And why at almost every girl?” She spoke to Hafkil as if he weren’t male himself.
“It’s just a habit, I suppose.” Hafkil deftly avoided the true answer to her question. She may have been of age to learn, but he didn’t feel right telling her because he wasn’t her parent, and the fact that she was surrounded by men might make for an uncomfortable environment to learn such a thing. Taylan obviously agreed with him, because the man gave a secretive nod and glance as if to say that Hafkil had told enough.
Kelestil seemed about to open her mouth to voice another question when she was interrupted by a presence who joined them, as soon as they were out of sight of the village. Kcarc came out of the forest with a broad, barrel-chested man on a horse. The man’s name was Raric, a graying but healthy man past his middle years. He wore a full breastplate of steel with gauntlets, and kept a reserved calm around himself. He was Hafkil’s chosen second.
“General Hafkil,” Raric addressed, putting a fist on his chest in salute, “the road ahead has the trail we need. We’re only a day’s ride from Cev Gren. Alpha Kcarc has confirmed it.” He sounded a little anxious, because the thought of being surrounded by more than two-thousand Wolves haunted even him.
Hafkil sighed in relief and nudged his horse into a trot. “Let’s not waste any time, then.”
They took the trail from the village to a larger road which traversed the Gelsingean Mountains, a particularly thick segment of the Eastern Mountain Chain. The army was waiting for them on the road, and they continued together, armor jangling and horses snorting irritably. Kcarc was the only Wolf in sight, but any of the soldiers would be a fool to think that the other two-thousand weren’t following closely from each flank. The wagons were in the rearguard, and as the companions passed by them, Fiar plucked an apple out of a sack from one of the carts. He ate it quickly, and by the time he was at the head of the column with Hafkil, the core was swiftly thrown aside. A bird fell out of a tree in the forest to scavenge on the remains.
Kelestil looked around as she rode on her horse. The Gelsingean Mountains were dramatic, and almost unbelievable at times. Wherever the trees were hesitant to grow on an outcrop, she could see new peaks rising all around her, covered in thick, tangled forest and broken up with rounded bluffs of stone. Waterfalls cascading from enormous heights decorated the majestic landscape. Fog hung heavily in the valleys, above the rivers, and Kelestil fully believed that she saw shapes lumbering through the covering, just to disappear in the forest.
She looked to The Bear, who rode beside her. “Hafkil, do you think there are monsters in this forest?”
The General looked to an overhead peak through a thinning in the high foliage. The mountain likely had its top three miles in the sky above them. “Any number of things could live here. How should I know? Gelsingeans have great Magical powers, and even they tread quietly here. So I suppose there must be dangerous things that live in these mountains.” He gave a jagged grin. “But we have two-thousand Wolves guarding us.”
“You should be called The Wolf instead of The Bear,” Kelestil commented, thinking herself a genius.
Hafkil shook his head in disagreement. “I’m friendly with the Wolves, but I gained a reputation for fighting like a bear—alone. Besides, the Wolves would be insulted to have a man named after their race. They can be very possessive, sometimes.” He barked a laugh, and then glanced at Kcarc who trotted ahead of them. I wonder if Akendel will be at the Kiendin in Cev Gren when we arrive. If he is anything like I’ve been told, then I will have to ask him a few questions. He trotted his horse forward to come beside Kcarc, and then dismounted to walk with his friend. The Alpha slowed.
The General spoke first, “Does your brother—Akendel—speak any human tongue?”
Kcarc studied the stones on the road. “He has only learned the Gelsingean tongue, so far as I know. And maybe a little of Caldkarien.”
“Do you believe that he really has a prophetic sense?”
Now the Wolf looked directly ahead. It always made him uncomfortable to speak about his brothers, especially Minchardaac. Well, actually, he had never spoken of The Black Wolf, but that just proved his discomfort. “He has . . . predicted things before they happened, and sometimes prevented catastrophes by taking unnaturally early action. He has proven a great High Alpha because of it. It seems that Starlighter Blessed him,” he added in a mutter, naming the greatest of the Wolf deities.
“I think we should ask him what would be the best course for our own path. It might help us, and I am willing to risk a chance to find a better road.”
Kcarc was silent for a moment before speaking. “I should warn you, part of his prophetic sense includes not answering your questions so you will find your own solution. He speaks when he wishes, so you may be disappointed by his response to your interrogations.”
“There’s never an easy answer, is there?” Hafkil asked with a sigh. His friend grunted an agreement.
Cev Gren was located in a half-forested vale, surrounded on all sides by towering, stony and overgrown peaks. Birds flew along the cliff-faces, thousands of feet in the air, and deer could be seen trotting on thin paths underneath the trees. Countless waterfalls lined the walls of the mountains, ranging in all sizes and heights. They roared to meet rivers and streams which meandered along to a narrow lake. The body of water twisted out of sight after a few miles, followed by a clinging forest.
On the valley-bottom was the strewn remains of a city, half buried and overgrown and made of coarse, dark stone. There were bridges (which crossed old water channels that no longer guided streams) toppled towers and terraced palaces, all half-decayed and most of them encroached upon by the trees.
Kcarc and Hafkil came out of a slender pass between the mountains and onto the winding road leading down into the vale, the army of men and Wolves following closely after them and their companions, but in a single file. Both Kelestil and Fiar made noises of amazement when they first glimpsed the ruin of Cev Gren, and they quickly went to pointing things out to each other. Hafkil just rolled his eyes. Those two would make trouble someday. Well, more trouble than they had already caused.
Taylan followed after the two younger people, keeping an eye on both with a hand on his sword-pommel. It seemed that he had adopted Fiar under his protection, though that only applied when the boy was near to Kelestil. Which was almost at all times—not that Fiar followed her everywhere; to say that would be switching the fact around.
They went down into the valley, the road becoming more decayed as it went through Cev Gren. They weren’t greeted by the Wolves who were supposed to be there, as Kcarc had expected. Aside from the army, the ruin seemed to be empty except for wild inhabitants like colorful birds and slinking lizards.
Kelestil looked to the side of the road, between two large stone buildings where the overgrowth prevented her from seeing very far. A huge shape flitted between the structures, hidden by the leafs and stems of plants. She caught her breath. “Hafkil, I saw something move over there,” she warned, pointing towards the fitful spot.
“It was likely one of the Wolves,” the General assured her.
“I don’t think so, it was bigger than–” She cut off as Hafkil grunted in disbelief and Kcarc growled suspiciously. Up ahead on the old road, where it was mostly concealed by leaning trees and broken ruins, a large, lumbering, furry thing crossed the path and disappeared into the forest on the other side.
“Hmm . . .” Kcarc noised. “It was most likely one of the creatures who lives here normally. Strange things take up residence in these ruins, and they flee when the Kiendin take place. They always return afterwards. This one will likely stay away from the area inhabited by the Wolves until we leave. We should be safe from attack.”
They continued on silently after both Kcarc and Hafkil ran orders through the army to be prepared for anything. Kelestil kept peering inside of ruined buildings and down old pathways grown over with vines and moss, hoping for another glimpse of the strange beast. Fiar occupied himself with swatting at hoards of midges and legions of mosquitoes who seemed to pester him more than anyone else. Taylan was like a statue riding on his armored stallion, albeit a statue with a swiveling head and impatient fingers that drummed uneasily on his saddle-horn. The giant, mysterious creature must have put him off.
The army followed the winding, ruined road through the vale of Cev Gren, seeing many interesting buildings with complex architecture, dulled by Eras of rot. The ancient city went right up to the lake, and some structures were carved out of the cliff-faces of the surrounding mountains. They went deep into the vale, following it for two or more miles before they found what they had come for.
The Falls of Cev Gren were astounding, unbelievable. Well over two miles high and two-thousand feet wide, the great waterfall made all others look minuscule in comparison. It had two shorter, companion cascades, but they were like ants to a tarantula. It was the source for the lake of Cev Gren, and it flowed from out of the side of a monstrous cliff. No one had followed its origins because it somehow came from underground, and the dark, gaping hole it came from was dangerous to traverse.
What made the great falls so amazing was that a city of stone was carved out of the cliff-face to either side of it. Zigzagging stairs carved out of the wall led to various stone towers and mansions with red shingles and decayed wood. The abandoned city led to the very heights of the waterfall, but stopped where it came out of the cliff’s wall. An overgrown forest clambered up from there, clinging to sheer root-holds. A few clusters of trees and lone sentinels grew in amongst the cliff-city, and even out of the roof and windows of some of the stone buildings.
“It’s beautiful!” Kelestil said in Hargirmian, so Fiar could understand.
The boy had his mouth hanging open. It had been a sudden turn in the road that had revealed the legendary falls across the lake. A distant roar grumbled in the air, obviously the sound of the cascading water. “We should explore it,” he said excitedly.
Taylan had been picking up some words from Kelestil’s lessons with Hafkil, and he honed in on their ensuing conversation. He brought his stallion between their steeds in a jangle of armor and then addressed them in Helkrasic. “You two won’t be exploring anything until we know what the situation is. And those ruins up there may be close to collapsing. If there is time I will take you up there”—He was interested in the place himself—“and make sure the place is safe to walk in.” He looked at Fiar in particular and spoke in Hargirmian. “You can go to the place, but I would suggest not to. It is your decision. Just don’t bring Kelestil.” Simple but clear, and Fiar nodded in understanding. He looked indecisive, though.
Piercing howls echoed through the air, bringing everyone out of their thoughts. The noise hadn’t come from Kcarc’s army, so the men in Hafkil’s battalion made a great stir almost out of panic. The fact that Kcarc’s Wolves were perfectly serene did nothing to calm the Hargirmians.
Raric sprinted his horse to Hafkil’s side, looking around with obvious self-control. “General, what do you command us to do?” he asked. Even after well over a month of being Hafkil’s second, the graying man still wouldn’t do anything of his own authority without The Bear’s consent, unless it was something trivial. In that instance, Hafkil was glad Raric hadn’t taken charge; the usually calm man might have made a rash move.
“We sit,” he told the older man, “and wait.” Raric consented silently, but his hand constantly dwelt on the haft of his axe.
After an impatient moment of waiting, a mottled brown shape came out of the wooded ruin flanking the lake, followed by more furry masses. Several Wolves stepped from the safety of the forest and approached Hafkil and Kcarc, sniffing and testing the air as they faced them.
An umber huntress spoke to Kcarc first, in their own canine tongue. “You have finally arrived, Alpha Kcarc. I am Fedi, of the Harrowing Kien. High Alpha Akendel has been waiting for you. He expected you to have strange companions, but I don’t think he knew that they would be humans. Come, I’ll take you to the High Alpha,”
“Lead on,” Kcarc said. He then looked to Hafkil and gestured with a paw after the retreating Wolf-usher. “Let’s go. You will finally get to meet my brother.” He didn’t sound as if he were happy about that.
With a gesture from Hafkil, the army of men and Wolves moved forward, trailing after the swishing tails of their new leader and her comrades.
Even Kelestil was quiet in the odd journey that ensued. She felt that something important was going to come about, and she was distracted watching the Wolves anyways. The Wolf-guides trotted along the roads through the forested ruins, pausing to turn and wait for the army when they came to an uncertain part of the path. The whole trek took them around the edge of the lake for miles, leading them slowly to the other side, where The Falls of Cev Gren roared unceasingly.
Hoards of midges played in streams of sunlight, and they began to bother Kelestil just as much as Fiar. Ducking under a writhing ball of them, she heeled Teak across a stream after Hafkil, Taylan trailing her closely. She looked around for Fiar after that, but he had disappeared. Before she could think to go search for him, though, the sun-dappled forest opened again, right onto the shore of the lake, and the falls of Cev Gren cascaded into that lake. She hadn’t noticed how the noise of its rumble had steadily grown louder as they approached, but it now drowned out the sound of the breeze and the bubbling of creeks. The chatter of joyful birds and screeching insects could still be heard, however, as well as the voices of the men and snorting horses.
Kelestil looked to the base of the great falls, and saw something new that she had not seen on her first sight of the lake. An island stood before the falls, and ancient stepping stones led for a quarter-mile into the water to reach the isle. How the stones remained submerged in air instead of water and for so long was as much a mystery as the source of The Falls.
She looked closer and saw a lone white Wolf standing on the peak of the island, and he was staring up at the falls-city. He was absolutely majestic, Akendel the High Alpha of all Wolves, Guardian of the South and famously known as The White Wolf. Akendel, meaning Light in the Dark.
Fedi paused and turned towards the leaders of the army. “Akendel wants to see you, Kcarc, and one here named Hafkil.”
The Bear gave Kcarc a bewildered look because amidst the wild speech he had heard his own name spoken. He dismounted his steed at a gesture from his friend and followed after the huntress. Kelestil went to follow the General, but he stopped her. “Stay with Taylan,” he ordered.
She tried to hide her disappointment as he left with Fedi and Kcarc, but she was still downcast. Akendel was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen, and she wanted to see him up close. She went to look for Fiar, and Taylan trailed after her.
Hafkil gave one last glance to Kelestil, then devoted his thoughts to planning what he would say to Akendel. The umber huntress walked ahead, to the gravelly edge of the lake, and Hafkil followed from beside Kcarc. The Alpha looked determined, like he was bracing himself for something uncomfortable.
They came to the edge of the lake’s beautiful, lapping waters, and Fedi began hopping adeptly across the stones that led to the isle. Kcarc went along just as skillfully, but Hafkil fell behind, jumping from one stone to the next clumsily and stumbling in his armor like a fool. It was just his fortune to trip into the lake and come out spitting and coughing water. It was a refreshing dip, at least, and he wasn’t hot afterwards. But he was soaked through; certainly not a presentable state to show before the High Alpha of all Wolves. But he was not looked at disdainfully; in fact, Akendel hardly took note of anyone, last of all Hafkil, who was dripping to his face.
The White Wolf stared at the falls, seeming to notice something there that no one else could see. “You have arrived, Kcarc,” he stated without looking at his brother. Hafkil thought it odd that they didn’t greet each other like Wolves usually did with close family members. Instead of sniffing each other and rubbing muzzles, they stood apart almost with confrontation in their stance. Well, Kcarc did, at least. Akendel turned slowly to face his sibling, and Hafkil saw that his eyes were unnaturally blue. The Bear had never seen a Wolf with azure eyes, especially not a pair that looked like polished sapphires. He also had three pinkish claw-marks across the top of his nose, old scars from an old battle.
“I have come, High Alpha,” Kcarc said formally in the Wolf tongue, omitting his sibling’s name purposely. He had a resistance in his voice, an unwillingness to accept his blood-brother as family. “Has the Kiendin gone well?”
“For now,” Akendel answered simply, and in an unreadable voice that had a profound ring to it. He looked to Hafkil with a gaze that could unravel a Soul and point out the Darkness within. “You both are here to make an army. Please leave the huntresses; many can fight, but that is not the point. And also leave those hunters under the age of twelve summers. There needs to be enough to start a new generation, when all the others have gone to die.”
“Fateful words, as always,” Kcarc retorted, losing his usual calm. “How do you know how many will die? Another foresight? Or maybe Bloodhunter is on the prowl again?” He referred to the Wolf deity of violence as a sign of the times; it was obvious to see that the continent was slowly steeping into chaos. After all, Kcarc had just lost half his Kien to a traitor Wolf named Keelkzar.
“It is not just the Wolves I speak of,” Akendel said with a little indignation. He seemed to be coming out of a trance, and his voice sounded more . . . mortal . . . than it had. “Many humans will die, and Wolverines, as well as all other races. Every Soul will feel the loss.” He had the attitude of a philosopher now instead of an all-knowing deity. Not that he was arrogant enough to believe himself one. Arrogant was not a word to describe him.
“Why do you mention the Wolverines?” Kcarc asked in puzzlement, forgetting his brother for a minute.
Akendel chose to ignore the question to announce something more important. “I will be going north today, since you have arrived to take my place as the Overseer of the Kiendin. It is . . . disappointing to not have a third brother. Things would take a smoother course if there were a third to help lead.”
Kcarc stiffened at the roundabout mentioning of Minchardaac. “The two of us will have to be enough to lead the Kiens.”
“I was beginning to think that Seqiik could soon lead a new Mission Kien, since I command the Prophecy, and you are Alpha over the Alliance. Since the death of the Mission, I have thought of reviving it.” Seqiik was their blood-nephew, which meant he was Minchardaac’s pup. The Mission Kien had never died; it had fallen apart when The Black Wolf betrayed his family, and his race. Much of it had gone with him into Exile, as well as many Wolves from other packs and Kiens, those who had wished he was High Alpha.
“Why are you going north?”
“I lead the Prophecy Kien in particular, and that means I must search out answers to the world’s past, present and future. I have heard of the Vale of Silence from historians in Formingar, and I intend to search through it.”
“You went to the capital of Gelsing?” Kcarc asked in disbelief. Wolves rarely went into human dwellings and even more rarely had a good reason to.
“The Empress welcomed me when she saw that I was the High Alpha. She is a wise ruler, and a kind one. I was left undisturbed in her libraries with a historian to read the texts to me.” Akendel sniffed the air briefly. “The Gelsingeans are a people more willing to see the strange and unfamiliar. I doubt I will have such a welcome in Helkras as I did here in Gelsing, but then, the Vale of Silence is supposed to be abandoned, so they should not notice me there.”
Kcarc looked at Hafkil, and then to his blood-brother. “The General wanted to ask you some questions that he thought your wisdom could answer,” he explained.
“Tell him to go to Dakryn; the people will listen to him, though they will not come easily. He may find a pleasant surprise there. King Sablar in Firemere should welcome him when the time comes, and then he should await the war with the King.”
“You got that much from looking at him?” Kcarc questioned, feeling frustrated with his brother’s supernatural ability. Everything just went smoothly for him, while Kcarc had to find his way blindly in the dark.
“No,” Akendel answered, “I knew this several days ago.” As if that made it any less amazing. “Also tell him that he can take my advice or not; he has his choice. Destiny will put him at the end of the path whatever he does.”
Reluctantly, Kcarc relaid the foretelling to Hafkil, and The Bear nodded in satisfaction. Hafkil usually needed to be pointed in a direction by a respected leader so as not to doubt himself and take a fortune of time to decide on an action. Maybe that was why he had been such an effective General under Darenhar’s command, and why he had such difficulty now, when he was the highest authority.
Akendel pushed past his brother and went to leave the islet, but he paused at the edge of the shore. “You may have strange visitors who come to this meeting of the Kiens. If you listen to nothing else I say, then choose this one piece of advice that I have for you: stay here until the beginning of Late Summer. If you receive no news by then, I would consider it prudent to leave.”
“I will wait,” Kcarc assured grudgingly. Akendel nodded, but said nothing. He bounded across the stones to the shore, as graceful and majestic as a white dove in flight. “I wonder who these strange visitors could be?” Kcarc muttered to himself after his brother had left.
Hafkil looked from Fedi who had accompanied them, to Kcarc who was obviously brooding. “What did Akendel just say?”
Kcarc retold the important parts, such as the length of their stay and where Akendel was running off to. “We shouldn’t have to worry about the food supply here; most of the Kiens and packs will leave once the major subjects have been discussed, and then it will be just us and whoever is willing to follow us south.”
“And my men can look for nearby towns and stock up since we are going to be here for so long. I had better inform the battalion and get them set up.” He had stopped calling his force an ‘army’ ever since Kcarc had pointed out its pathetic numbers.
Hafkil stumbled across the stepping stones again to get back to the shore, but managed not to tumble into the water on the return journey.
As it turned out, getting his men to make camp was an ordeal, as the Wolves began to show themselves more freely, thousands of them, and all of them hungry (at least, in the humans’ eyes.) The men all thought to live through the month in the falls-city, but when Hafkil explained the obvious dangers of the place, and when the fools saw a couple of Wolves scouting the top, they finally settled to camp on the ground, within the ruin of Cev Gren. Hafkil could be satisfied with that, and Raric sorted out the procedure while the General accompanied Kcarc to his pronouncements. Fedi followed them as well, and her earlier Wolf companions joined her in a call that summoned every canine in the valley.
They went further into the vale of Cev Gren, approaching a clearer area where an intact and enormous dark tower stood imposingly. It had the architectural style of the rest of Cev Gren, but the stone it was forged from seemed alien to the valley. It was known as the Nexus Stone, where the major gatherings of the Kiendin were held. Kcarc went to a dark platform jutting out of the base of the tower, which gave him a view above that of the others. The Wolves gathered swiftly in front of the dais, and there was a mix of the three major subspecies of the canid race; Painted, Timber and Mountain. The latter stood out for being the largest and most savage-seeming, while the former was obvious because of their splattered coats of tan, white and black. The Timber Wolves stood out by being perfectly ordinary among the abnormal.
“High Alpha Akendel has left on a task of his own,” Kcarc pronounced in a clear, loud tone. “As his brother and Alpha of the Mission Kien, I, Kcarc will take position as Overseer of the Kiendin. All of the previously planned discussions will go on as before, except that tomorrow, I will call the Kien Alphas to a meeting. Be ready for it.” He ran his eyes over the hundreds of Wolves. They would report his statements to the other packs in the valley, if he knew anything about Wolf behavior, so he was sure that the other thousands would be well informed. “Leave the battalion of men to themselves. Aside from that, hunt well, and be ready for the call.” A standard Alpha dismissal; he didn’t want them now, but they should be ready at any moment to come to him when he needed them. The Wolves howled in acknowledgment of his command, and then milled about, going in every direction to return to where they had been previously.
Kcarc left the Nexus Stone with Hafkil in tow. The General asked him what he had told the Wolves, and he answered quickly. He went deeper into the vale, with Fedi at his side.
“Where are you going?” Hafkil asked, pulling back on his steed and looking towards where his men were.
“I’m going to search for my blood-half,” the Timber responded.
“What?”
“Sulr, my mate.” Kcarc felt a sting when he saw Hafkil’s face fall in pain. He was likely thinking of his mate, and how she was lost, along with his children. Fedi saw herself away, loping into the brush with some of her companions of the Harrowing Kien.
Hafkil tried to wipe his face of any particular expression, but he failed. “Well, I’ll just go back to the camp. Maybe I could meet her sometime. I would like to see who could distract Alpha Kcarc from his duties.”
“Tomorrow, if you come to the meeting of the Kien Alphas. She will be there,”
The Bear nodded. “I’ll accompany you, if it’s allowed. It’s interesting to see you Wolves interact and work together. I wish humans could be as cooperative and united as the Wolves.”
Kcarc howled in laughter as only a Wolf could do. Wolves were anything but cooperative and united. Kiens were as effective as the canines could get, before they started getting into real battles with each other. He would be lucky as Overseer if he didn’t have several scuffles between Kiens to smooth over. A few deaths were a certainty. Wolves could get into tussles over a dead deer. Territory boundaries and the arguments over them were even worse.
“I’ll forewarn you tomorrow,” Kcarc promised, keeping his thoughts to himself, and his anxiety at what laid ahead. Hafkil nodded, and they each went to their own path.
It took him an hour or more, but Kcarc finally found Sulr, along with the rest of the Alliance, which she had been leading in his absence. Three-hundred remained of his Kien when there had been twice that not more than a few months back. How things seemed to change at a step. Those that he led watched as he greeted his mate, all of them howling in welcome to see him again.
He went directly to Sulr and licked her on the nose, the diminutive Painted Wolf rubbing her muzzle against his in return. They then trotted together into the midday, their Kien dispersing to do whatever needed completion; hunting, training the pups, making dens for a long stay, napping, discussing any sort of topic.
“It has been very long,” Sulr commented, her voice dark and husky, suiting her small form in an odd sort of fashion. “Our pups must have grown bigger than you since the time that you were gone,” she jested, as their blood-pups would likely never grow larger than Kcarc, since they were hybrids and had half of their mother’s traits. They were practically full-grown anyways.
“Where are Salvi and Formik now?” Kcarc asked his mate. His blood-daughter and blood-son were of close ages, and both were over fifteen years, old enough to have gone down their own paths.
“Salvi . . . she found a mate and went off with him and his pack. Formik is preparing to go to Thernfar soon. He still wants to become a Kien Alpha, like you, my blood,” she addressed with affection. “I think Moonbearer has allowed more little ones to grow inside of me,” she added almost as a side note. Moonbearer represented huntresses in particular, and was believed to bestow or take away fertility at will.
Kcarc looked at her anew, seeing that she was indeed a little plumper around the belly than he remembered. He had thought at first that it might have been the bounty of food in the area; hunting was difficult in the south, where all was dirt and sand. But he could see that she was holding new life in her, and he grew excited, if worried. What would happen to them when the war hit? Would they be without a Kien or a blood-father? He was about to make powerful enemies, which would make them targets just as much as him. They would have to remain hidden.
“Sulr,” Kcarc said, deciding to root out the situation before it grew more. “I want you to keep part of the Alliance here to the north, with all of those who don’t want to fight at Thernfar,”
Surprisingly, the Painted nodded in consent. Usually she would have argued such a point, but it seemed that she had come to the same conclusion as him, and accepted her responsibility. That was good; he hadn’t wanted to argue with her—he would rather just enjoy her presence.
As they loped through the living forest, Kcarc wondered if those days were his last chance to be with her.
The next morning in Cev Gren was a lulling and boring one, so Kelestil got Fiar up and in the saddle, then convinced Taylan to follow her to the falls-city. The dawn was golden and clear; it promised steamy warmth later on. The avian inhabitants were already screeching and chirping, wheeling around in groups across the sky or between the trees.
Kelestil and her two friends had camped with the battalion of men, right in the ruined city on the valley ground, where Hafkil had brought them the day before. They had a ways to go before they could reach the base of The Falls, so they made sure to pack whatever they might want on the journey. Fiar chose to pack a fair amount of food, and it seemed that he wanted it all for himself, the way he told Kelestil to bring her own food when she tried to peek into his saddlebags.
The men of the camp watched them go, some of them unbelieving that they would be so foolish as to go alone in amongst the thousands of Wolves. Many of the soldiers were still unsure about the giant carnivores, and the only reason they hadn’t deserted was because they were soldiers; they had joined knowing that they would likely die, one way or another. If it was the Wolves who killed them, then it was no different than dying while battling the intended enemy. Either way they were dead, and a corpse didn’t care who it was that had killed it.
Hafkil had already left the camp to join Kcarc in some gathering of the Alphas that morning, so Kelestil just left the camp without warning anyone, heeling Teak into an easy trot.
As they hugged the edge of the forested lake, they passed by Wolves, some alone, others in groups, but the canines paid little or no heed to them, instead moving about in the woods on errands, holding conversations or searching out a meal. Kelestil kept a look out for any strange creatures, but she suspected that Kcarc’s army had scared out the rest of the odd beasts living in the ruins.
After the better part of an hour went by, they came to the base of the city that hung from the cliffs, and they were surprised to find that it was oddly quiet there. Instead of being barraged with unbearable noise, The Falls was a distant hum. Kelestil thought that it might have been Magic placed around the city to make it livable, an Enchantment of some sort. Whatever it was, she and Fiar were bursting with excitement to explore, and Taylan seemed interested himself, so they started at the only place that they could, the bottom. Concealed by trees and undergrowth, a stone staircase carven into the wall of the cliff led upwards in diagonal stretches that doubled back on itself. It was severely overgrown with moss, vines and small trees, but their steeds could find easy holds. Taylan ‘advised’ Kelestil to go on foot anyways, which meant he commanded her, and she was more than compliant, wanting more to explore than argue small points.
Just at the level that stood above the forests of the valley, they came to their first stone buildings, which were carved directly out of the stone. The architecture was beautiful and elegant, if somewhat decayed and muffled from age, grown over with bird’s nests and flora. Fiar pointed out a cat-like monkey that climbed to hide in a crevice at their approach, and then at a huge, colorful bird that was perched on the domed roof of a tower.
The paths became wider and more easily navigable as they went up, and the buildings began to jut out of the cliff-face in progressive terraces, until the three could almost feel that they were on solid ground, in a normal city. Until they looked out away from the cliff, of course. Then they were brought back to the dazzling moment, and could see that the world below became smaller and its details fainter. Wolves could be seen as little busy specks within the vale of Cev Gren, trees and buildings as large clumps, and men were pathetic smudges on the landscape. All the while, The Falls plummeted to the earth as a huge, watery column with clouds of spray emanating from it whenever it struck a plane of stone.
Kelestil came to a wide street hugging the wall of the cliff, which was bordered by towers and shingled houses. She went immediately to investigating every building, going in and out of sunlit ruins and making her way slowly down the mossy street. Fiar followed behind her on his surefooted mule, ducking his head to get under the empty thresholds. Taylan looked about as well, but he seemed more interested in going up farther than in observing the particular details of the ancient city. They did in fact go higher, until Kelestil’s feet ached and her legs were numb. And that was only one mile up, halfway through. She thought that she could have seen the other side of the world at that height, if the mountains around her weren’t in the way.
She kicked at rocks on one of the streets going away from The Falls, and she ended up scaring a pack of Mountain-Rats who scuttled and hopped to escape her. They all squirmed into cracks and holes in the rocks, squeaking shrilly. When she went to her knees to search out the little creatures, they were gone.
For the moment, she was alone, because Taylan was struggling up a pass that his bulk rendered difficult to navigate, and Fiar had turned around to find another way for his mule.
Coming into a large building with multiple towers, Kelestil almost screamed to find moving, living beings in a pile at the center of the entry hall. But she calmed instantly when she saw that it was a Mountain huntress and her litter of pups. They seemed to be newborns, and hybrids, possibly half Painted Wolf. The mother just gave Kelestil an unconcerned look and went to licking down each of the five pups. Even though they were newborns, they were still the size of large domestic dogs, though they looked nothing like the tame descendants of coyotes.
Crouching down and inching her way closer, Kelestil hoped to get to touch one of the babies. To her surprise, the mother nodded towards the pups, encouraging her to come directly to them. Kelestil took her chance and sat beside the pile of tumbling Wolves. One of the pups managed to land in her lap, a huge, furry mass coated in the spit of his mother. Kelestil didn’t care that she got a more than large sample of Wolf slobber all over her; she could wash it off later. She wouldn’t have missed the chance to hold a baby Wolf for anything. The pup added to his mother’s spit by licking and drooling all over Kelestil. It was just friendly intent, of course, but a whole lot of it.
“Kelestil,” Taylan’s voice called out, sounding urgent and cautious. The Wolf-mother seemed to think his size and armament threatening, because she fixed her eyes on him and growled with her teeth bared. “Come back here, slowly,” the man said, backing away himself until the Wolf quieted.
Kelestil sensed that she was in for a lecture, so she delicately put the pup next to his mother and followed Taylan out the threshold, wiping drool off of herself.
The man sighed in restrained relief and pulled her aside. “I shouldn’t have let you run off on your own; you’re too impulsive. Don’t ever do something like that again. Anything could have gone wrong, and a mother Wolf is no sure friend. Just touching one of her pups the wrong way might have set her off.” He sighed again, and then pulled her off a little further. “I failed in my duty, but this makes me realize that you need to make wise decisions. I won’t fail again, but I can’t point out every danger to you; you have to keep an eye out for yourself. Do you understand?”
The firmness of his voice made her nod unconsciously. She didn’t regret what she had done, and she would likely do it again, but his tone of voice made her feel bad for worrying him.
“Good,” Taylan said, and then pushed her along down the road. “Now let’s continue,”
They met Fiar along the way, and the three went together up a long and narrow staircase, the boy leading his mule adeptly—and yet, very carefully—on the steps. By the time they neared the ultimate height of the falls-city, the sun was at its peak, and Bæl`diis was barely clipping the star’s edge, while Orøs was closer to the horizon. They went up the last flight of stone stairs, which were puddled with water from the spray of The Falls. A small eroded house stood directly beside the curtain of cascading water, just below the peak of the waterfall.
Kelestil led her two companions into the little stone hut, and found that it gave access to a hidden path in the stone wall of the cliff. She went into the dark recess with Taylan close at her side and Fiar ducking his head the whole way through. The reverberations of The Falls echoed through the ground, trembled at their feet. The secret passage went deep into the cliff-side, leading them to darkness before it veered off to the side. They came to its end, and Kelestil had to push hanging clumps of lichen out of the stone threshold to just get through it.
She gasped when she came to the other side, and she urged Fiar to quicken his mule. “Come on Fiar! Get over here!”
For at the end of the passageway, they could see The Falls, and its enormous source. A subterranean river—an ironic fact because it was miles above ocean-level—roared past them along with a cool, underground breeze. The watercourse was gigantically wide, spanning well over a thousand feet at its greatest width, so that made the cavern enormous as well. Its ceiling and walls were rough and overgrown with mosses, lichens and fungi, its roof having ruptures that led to sunlight.
Kelestil looked out across the foaming rapids and lapping waves, hearing Taylan whistle out loud. Fiar was speechless, but not silent—he made a fair imitation of a choking cat as he gaped at the awing sight.
A narrow and uncertain shore followed alongside the edge of the river, leading both deeper into the cave and to the edge of the falls, where a bright, hazy landscape could be seen. She went off towards the gaping opening without first considering it, followed closely by Taylan who aimed to keep her from tripping into the rushing waters. Fiar remained behind, much to his dissatisfaction; his mule couldn’t take him everywhere, especially not over a tumbled path with little traction.
Kelestil forgot about him for the moment, not noticing his absence as she climbed over wet stones towards the crest of the cascade. It wasn’t far—it only took a few moments for her to reach the edge, where she was nearly deafened by the wail of the plunging water. She held onto a stone on the wall of the cavern and leaned out a little over the line where stone met air. She looked out into the vale of Cev Gren, to the mountains of Gelsing. For some odd reason it felt different gazing out from where she was than it had when she was in the falls-city. With The Falls beside her and Taylan behind, ready to snatch her if she fell, she looked out and saw the world before her, line after line of forested, mysterious mountains, moons in the sky, the vale below. Everything in the vale was hazy and faint, separated by two miles of moist air. Little wisps of foggy clouds writhed below her, and they were also out in the distance where they gathered in the dales of the stony mountains. She could see a group of giant statues clinging to the mountain slopes miles off, made small from distance.
Warm, golden sunlight warmed her skin, and she reflected in the glory of the moment, wondering what other adventures awaited her just over the horizon.
Chapter XL
A Growing Soul
10th of Mid Summer, 376, 5th Era – Forbidden Jungle, Northern Dakryn
The Ribbon Viper wound up and around the narrow broadleaf tree, the world a shadowy veil over his eyes. The contrast between light and dark was normal to him, as well as the heat-signatures which dictated where warm surfaces were, as well as living animals. His flattened, sinuous form slid up the woody sentinel, slithering over smooth bark easily. The motion of the swaying leafs didn’t disturb him; unless they were glowing with warmth and moving at once, he wasn’t concerned. Once to a fair height, he straightened himself out on a long branch, then slipped off, gliding through the air like a ribbon—hence his name—going towards another tree where some promising meals looked to be hiding; squirrels or shrews.
A monstrous creature loomed up in front of him abruptly, and he swerved in his path, hissing as he crashed into the underbrush. When he landed he escaped straightaway into a crevasse in the ground, tucking himself in for the long wait before he came out again.
A wind raised up to caress the trees with gentle fingers, making the sunlit foliage sing, the branches sway as if alive. Singing Oaks were mixed throughout the subtropical forest, their oddly shaped leafs whistling with almost musical harmony. Vines grew off of every surface possible, on each rock or branch where there was a root-hold. Greater Ferns blanketed the ground with dozens of other species, Drinking Moss coated round river stones where water flew by, and broadleaf trees grew in thick clusters as far as anyone would be able to see, which was not far because of the vines and tree-trunks. Colorful birds swam through the air in singing flocks, wanting every Soul for a hundred miles to hear their chorus. Fish navigated the muddy waters of the jungle in schools. A wader bird plucked a Burrowing Eel out of a pond ringed by reeds.
The forest was just as Dak`kcar remembered it, from the trees to the howling monkeys in the distance, though he was in a very different place from where he had battled Soul Skulker. It was sweltering in the worst type of fashion; no shade could protect him, no breeze freed the heat building in his body. He didn’t sweat, but he was soaked nonetheless from wading through the waters much like that bird with the eel. The water had only made him soggy and more uncomfortable. He didn’t remember shedding so much fur in his life, though he had been all over the world many times.
Explorers think that they are experts once they’ve seen all of Vaskil. I doubt any of them have even seen Faesiga, or been to Halcyon. The hunt for the Kuldaki had taken him everywhere, taught much, and yet little. Just like his most recent venture. He had begun to go south from Saer Vars, sensing one of the demons near to Hekix, but then their presence had moved north of a sudden, leading him back the way he had come. He wish he knew Teleportation Magic, but creating Wormholes had always been beyond his skill. He had proved best in Combative, Kinetic and Elemental, with a little of Healing and Transference. Transference Magic had been necessary to harden his Winterblades with the strength of stone. He had lifted the trait from hard rocks and bestowed it on the ice-forged weapons, an unconventional way of making them, though the only path he knew how. Aside from Transferring simple physical attributes, he had little knowledge in the area. So most of his Magic abilities stemmed from the Body; that was the Essence where they took their power from. Teleportation was of the Mind, which might explain why he had never been able to learn it. He wasn’t very strong or rooted in the mental realm.
He pushed through a draping of moss and vines, trying his best to keep his weapons from getting caught in the curtain. A few of his quivered arrows caught in the plants, but a quick tug released them. Yan’s arrows had proven of fine quality, if somewhat less indestructible than the Tulmalin’s own Arium bolts. The man was a genius to even come close to their mark. Dak`kcar hoped the smith and his family had made it out of Saer Vars alive, that they had found a safe home.
The stag went on through the lively forest, passing a group of cat-like monkeys who trotted into the underbrush at his presence. He felt directionless, despite having the Kuldaki clear in his mind. His usual vigor in chasing them had dwindled of late, replaced by . . . sadness. It was an odd feeling to experience after five-hundred years of never having felt it except in weak flares. It pervaded through him, now, making his armored limbs heavy, his mind foggy and uncertain. He knew that he had to hunt after the demons, but he wished for another life, one which held something more.
Thoughts of Keri, Tahs, and Yan and the smith’s family gave him a feeling of purpose, but he just wished that he had a companion to share the empty moments with. Another intelligent Soul would have been nice; it had been centuries since he had been accompanied by someone in his travels. A fond memory, now that he thought of it with his new outlook, but a sad one.
Does everyone around me have to die? I wonder what happened to Tahs . . . Did Sakin convince Emperor Araxes of anything? Either one of them could be a great help.
A roar burst out in the distance, echoing across the forested hills, frightening a pair of mouse deer and a flock of screeching avians. Dak`kcar tensed, but swiftly relaxed, knowing that many creatures prowled the Forbidden Jungle, and that there was no point in trying to predict which sort it was before he came upon it. The warrior still remained in him, whatever changes had happened in recent months, and the true warrior expected nothing, thus being prepared for anything. Nothing more sounded ahead, so the stag continued through the speaking trees.
Tiny midges played in the air, shining like spirits in the rays of aureate sunlight. Or were the lights actually their Souls? Dak`kcar could hardly tell the difference; the odd gift to see the Light and Shadow in people had come recently, unexpectedly, and he wasn’t sure if it had extended to include animals as well. The birds didn’t seem abnormal, so it must not have gone so far as that. Just the sunlight, then. Beautiful light.
The darkness in the back of his mind that was indicative of the Kuldaki shifted. One of them had just traveled across the continent, using a method of Teleportation that only they possessed. They didn’t use Wormholes; they just existed in one place and then instantly started existing elsewhere at a whim.
One of those two presences in his mind had shifted to the south of him while the other remained in the north as it had for weeks. The latter seemed closer, leading him to the decision to keep moving north. Perhaps they would cross paths soon. He hoped for that, because if left to wander, they would become unstoppable, leaving the foolish world helpless. They should have called him The Pruner instead of The Hunter; he only seemed to clip back the demons before they grew out too far, instead of actually exterminating them. The first Kuldaki Hunt had only been an especially fine pruning, when their had been a few less fools in the world, and some who believed in the demons as more than legends. Both Kuldaki had fallen into obscurity afterwards, being forgotten for the better part of four-hundred years. They had changed tactics in order to be forgotten, choosing to attack in subtle ways. Karshdr had been the first incidence since then that had broken those secretive ways. Dak`kcar hoped that the truth would spread from there, though he had yet to see any promising news indicating such. Perhaps the fault was his to bear; he had been open-mouthed about the Kuldaki in the beginning, when he had needed help in fighting them, but after becoming skillful in destroying them, he had ignored people for the most part and hadn’t tried to spread the truth.
An unfamiliar sting took him in the heart. Was it . . . guilt? Before, he had felt something close to it, when he realized that he had been about to use Tahs as fish bait, but now, it felt like something was eating at him, making his Soul quiver. Had he made more destruction because he had ignored people, cared nothing for them? His hate of the Kuldaki had pushed him down a lifeless path, and his refusal to give up his solitary mission of revenge had prevented them from being fully destroyed. He hadn’t searched to actually destroy them, but to prolong their lives. That meant that he . . .
Creator of Souls, I’ve only helped the Kuldaki! I’ve hurt more Souls than them!
The realization hit him harder than a spear to the heart. It hurt more than termites in his flesh. He collapsed against a tree, and for the first time he wept, everything in him quivering as the Light of his Soul flickered outwards, piercing the Darkness, burning like a star as it grew.
*
Nether Wraith glided swiftly through the air, keeping no form but a shadow of darkness. She kept to the clouds which provided fair cover. The under layers of the ground was always her preferred domain, but traveling quickly in that fashion could prove slow, and she had lost her usual patience over the last few weeks. In addition to that, she was chasing a flighty—ignorant—and unpredictable pile of scales who had gained enough strength to Teleport about the world. She herself was predictable; one could always know that she was hiding, always sneaking. Soul Skulker . . . he could burst out of the heavens to level a town to ashes, or he could go into the mountains and disappear from existence for a few years. The only thing reliable about the little Kalka of a fool was his presence in her consciousness which pointed him out to her. He was somewhere towards the south in that moment, but he had been moving erratically for some time, only a little after her determination to go search him out.
Stupid imp. She would just continue south, where Soul Skulker seemed to be wandering.
That made her wonder over Dak`kcar. An odd bond had formed between her and him, growing similar to the one she had with Soul Skulker, which had existed since . . . It was hard to think about that, for some reason. Ignoring the fuzziness in her memory, she thought back to Dak`kcar and his connection to her. It had grown weaker, or at least different. It wasn’t what it had used to be; it had become harder to detect, as if it was something she couldn’t comprehend. Even more reason to join up with Soul Skulker. She was sure that she only shared the bond with Dak`kcar through The Dragon because it was The Dragon who had eaten part of the Yindarian’s Soul. Her close ties to the other Kuldaki enabled her to access some of his abilities, such as the awareness he had of his prey. His ability to point out Dak`kcar would likely be stronger than hers, (if he was indeed the source of the sense) which meant that when they were paired together, Soul Skulker could find Dak`kcar for them.
Once I find Soul Skulker, everything should fall into place easily. Then there will be no more Hunter.
Soul Skulker spewed great spires of black flames into the air purely for frustration. He was flying very high in the heavens and in a form half the size that his strength would allow; he had the wingspan of a large Dragon, large enough to look intimidating if Dragons hadn’t been a common sight over much of the continent.
His noises were unnatural, however, and likely gave away his demonic origins. He screeched as he ground his jagged teeth. Why couldn’t he find Dak`kcar? His sense of the Yindarian had faded until he couldn’t feel the fool well enough to locate and destroy him. It had happened suddenly, only a little after he had first set out from Hekix, a fact which only went on to irk him more.
The Dragon had spied upon a skirmish somewhere in the empty plains of Dakryn. He had emptied the battlefield of occupants, gaining just enough strength to Teleport, but the regained ability was not enough to find his quarry. It frustrated him to no end, being helpless as he was to find his enemy. So he flew. And some more.
Why can I not find him when I search him out!? he screamed to the sky, spitting more tongues of flame. Idiot! he declared, though if the word was for himself or for Dak`kcar, he couldn’t decide in that instant. His eyes flashed an angry crimson as he kept on the wing, miles above the land. When he found Dak`kcar . . . Well, he intended to make a mess.
*
Dak`kcar opened his eyes to early morning light, a grayish illumination that made the forest more mysterious when paired with the rolling fogs that slithered through its midst. He had chosen a grass-padded outcropping for a bed to sleep the night out; he had been days without sleep, and a growing Soul could be a taxing burden. The roost overlooked a small pond and its tributary creeks, the whole area shaded over with high-reaching trees. They rustled in a cool zephyr brought from the west, humming a lullaby. Rooted just above Dak`kcar was the largest of the trees, a behemoth Singing Oak with bare, dead branches, a testament of age, a monolith of time.
I still feel . . . horrible, he thought deep within himself, barely able to acknowledge the persisting guilt that bit at him. It made him want to die, to end the cruel path he had tread. He had flown from responsibility to seek vengeance, unwittingly causing unending pain for others. Innocent Souls, like Keri, or Vaery and her children. The will to live had hung on because he knew that he could fix some of what he had caused, not to repay for what he had done, but to prevent more suffering. The stag could no longer look at the Kuldaki as his enemy, but as wild animals let loose on the world. Feral creatures who must be put down, for the sake of the Souls.
Golden sunlight glinted in his eyes, and he realized that he had been laying in thought for over an hour, silently in pain, grappling with the emotions and thoughts coursing through him. They were part of the half he had been missing for five centuries, absent from him since Soul Skulker had eaten the Light of his Soul. One would think that he had held an especial grudge for The Dragon, but in reality, the real hate in him was for what had happened to his village, his race. His own Soul was only a part of it, and Nether Wraith would have fed off it if she had been given the chance, so both Kuldaki had been held in equal hate.
Do I still hate them? The seething rage had faded very quickly after his abrupt realization. Could he hate them as much when he had been the one to let them roam free all that time? He felt the anger turning inward, to himself.
“You look as troubled as I am,” someone said in Ferirgrisi.
It was in that instant when Dak`kcar realized a shadow had been hanging over him for some time, perhaps since the dawn of the morn. Sitting up hurriedly, he looked up to the familiar voice, where the culprit sat perched among the crooks of several branches in the dead Singing Oak. A truly massive tree, to support such a character.
Tahs swayed his head from one side to the other, popping the spinal bones in his neck. He looked more beaten than Dak`kcar remembered, with misaligned scales and scarred plates. “I’m surprised to see you here, back in these trees,” he said in friendly—if cautious—tones.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” Dak`kcar replied. He quickly retained his coarse tongue as well his warrior ways. “I thought you were dead.”
The bronze-scaled Dragon cocked his head awkwardly, cringing at a sensation gone foul in his neck. “I came close to death, but I was saved from it just before it bit down on me. Fire and Wind have served you well since we last met, I presume?”
“I guess you could say that,” Dak`kcar hefted one of his weapons and then placed it absently back into its sheath. “How did you escape? Did you fall into a lake like me?”
“I made a Wormhole and went miles away, just after you jumped off me,” Tahs answered, acting for all Creation like it was a simple matter. Dragons almost never learned Magic of any kind except for Telepathy. Only a few Dragons in all of history had ever been recorded to learn the normal Classes of Magic, and every one of them had been astronomically powerful in it, far more virile than accomplished Gelsingean mages.
Dak`kcar ran his tongue over the base of his tusks. “Did you ever use Magic before then?”
Tahs just shook his head. “It was the first time. I think in that moment, something hidden activated, giving me the ability.” It was possible; such a thing was known as Unconscious Magic, where abilities were set off by physical, mental or emotional stresses. Sometimes the wielder could be ignorant of it all their lives while it worked in the shadows. Other times, the user would discover it when it first revealed itself, and they could use it Consciously afterwards. The latter could be Tahs’ case, if the Dragon spoke true.
“Can you do it again?”
Tahs closed his eyes, focusing. A black, swirling portal opened a few feet in front of Dak`kcar, expanding into a threshold just large enough for him to fit through. “Go in,” the Dragon said once he opened his serpentine eyes again. He didn’t look to be concentrating anymore, now that the Wormhole was open.
“Where will it lead?” Dak`kcar asked, suspicious. He didn’t know the Dragon particularly well, and he had reason to believe that Tahs wanted to punish him a little for his original, treacherous intentions.
“It won’t go far,” the bronze reptile promised.
Sparing another glance for the drake, he hesitantly stepped through the Wormhole—and ended up falling his own height down into the small pond he had bedded near to. He could hear Tahs chuckling as he struggled out of the water, the drake likely thinking it funny to see Dak`kcar soaked through. To his shock, when he made it to land again, a hot wind raised up to dry him out, miraculously getting under his armor to take away the liquid that had gotten under it.
He looked up to Tahs, still sitting up in the tree. “Was that you?”
The Dragon nodded. “I have been practicing here in the forest since our fight with The Black Dragon. Perhaps when I join my flock again, I’ll be able to fight Vaerj and take over as the Alpha.”
“What would happen to him?”
Tahs shrugged his wings. “He would die,” he stated clearly. “He isn’t a very good Alpha, and I don’t think he would fly lower for anything, not with Bahn as his mate. She’s the most beautiful queen I’ve ever seen. I wonder if she would be my mate?”
Dak`kcar cleared his throat; he didn’t want to hear about the lusts of Dragons. “Er, yes . . . How long will you stay here?” he asked, just to change the conversation.
“Until I learn all that I can about Magic,”
“I could help you with that,” Dak`kcar offered without really thinking.
Tahs shifted his haunches against the limbs of the Singing Oak. “And what would want in return?”
“Just an attempt on your part to teach me how to make Wormholes. Maybe you can do what others haven’t been able to.”
“It sounds like a fair exchange,” Tahs assented. He leaned forward and jumped nimbly to the ground, much like how a cat would. “Let’s begin already. First, I want to know about the Elements. Fire comes as easily as it does out of my mouth, and Wind is controllable, but I can hardly touch the Water or the Earth. Why is that?”
“Probably because Fire and Wind is ingrained in you, while the other two are unfamiliar. Have you touched Lightning before? I didn’t think so. Using that can be as difficult as grasping a bolt of electricity.”
Tahs settled down to the ground, folding his legs under him and lounging on the soft soil. “Ah, I see . . .”
Of course it didn’t end there; the Dragon was curious, and Magic was a naturally complex subject, with infinite facets and hues. Dak`kcar found himself trying to answer questions he didn’t have the facts for. Eventually, by midday they stopped conversation for actual practice, putting into effect some of the things they had discussed. The Yindarian summoned up Shields and Elemental wards to block Elemental attacks from Tahs. The Fire and Wind was devastatingly powerful, breaking his guard each time, the Earth and Water nearly doing the same, if not quite. And Tahs claimed those last to be weak. They were twice as powerful as what Dak`kcar could siphon through himself. Stronger than Dak`kcar, a centuries-old veteran of Magic!
The Yindarian could almost see another Kuldaki Hunter in Tahs, perhaps even an improvement on the first.
A jaguar was frightened from her hiding place in the forest as an explosion shook the biome, the result of colliding firestorms, attempted by the two mages for no reason other than to test their strength. Tahs won that debate and had to use his surprising talent in Healing to fix Dak`kcar’s singed fur, though nothing could be done for The Hunter’s burnt pride. Tahs also had to put out a wildfire before it took root, using cyclones of Wind to blow out flames like candles.
After that mishap they went on to test their Kinetic prowess. Dak`kcar could move boulders with his strength using Gripping Force, the most difficult of three types to attain, one which allowed the greatest precision and control. Tahs could only use Pushing and Pulling Force, or a sloppy combination of the two, a feat which could imitate Gripping Force. Despite his ineptness, he could uproot trees, a task far more taxing than moving boulders. Rocks that had seemed so large only a moment gone seemed suddenly very small in Dak`kcar’s eyes.
Well, Tahs may have had extraordinary power in Magic, but Dak`kcar had pure skill, built up over many years of experience with the Kuldaki. There wasn’t any need to compare himself to the Dragon, but Dak`kcar felt weak and novice next to the friendly creature.
“Why don’t you just return to your flock now? What’s the point of practice?” Dak`kcar asked with exasperation as they took a respite in the evening—a rest meant more for his benefit than Tahs’. He was getting old; he tired too easily. He could still feel Nether Wraith’s poison working into him, spreading from his stump of a shoulder into his body, weakening his physical resolution. “You could probably make Vaerj explode with a look,” he added in a mutter.
“I thought that my Magic might end up being unpredictable, so I didn’t want to hurt any of the others in a battle with the Alpha drake, in the chance that I lost control.”
Meaning Bahn, Dak`kcar thought wryly. “Do you think you’ll return now? Or have you considered other paths?”
“What other paths?”
I’m not just leading him to the slaughter again, am I? No, this time it’s different. He could help the world this way, instead of being a pointless sacrifice. I’ll make sure he survives. “Your power in Magic is impressive. I thought it might have a better use. Would you rather help defeat the Kuldaki? Or lead a flock of Dragons who abandoned you?”
“They didn’t abandon me, they just left behind a member who couldn’t survive on his own. With the power I have now, I won’t be in that situation again.” He licked his teeth deliberately. “I thought that you could handle The Black Dragon just fine,”
“If it weren’t for you last time I would have been obliterated by Soul Skulker’s final attack. I find these days that I need help more and more. I have the skill, just not the strength left.”
Tahs sniffed. He scratched his head with a talon, then looked to the ground inquisitively. “I . . . don’t know,” he finally answered.
“You would be giving the world a great gift,”
The Dragon sighed with indecision. “I’ll think more about it, but for now I just want to keep learning more, until I know everything I need to,”
Dak`kcar saw an opening in that and took it. “You could travel with me for a time; we could keep teaching each other.”
“But if I travel with you, I could just make a Wormhole to where you want to be, and if that is the case, then I would end up somewhere near the Kuldaki, and that would be just the same as joining your battle with them.”
“I . . . see,” Dak`kcar said slowly, wrapping his mind around the little deluge. “What would you prefer to do?”
Tahs gave a gesture with his wings towards the forest around them. “I like this forest, I want to stay in it until I’m done. It’s hidden as well, giving little chance for anyone to find us. If you want to leave, I’ll make a Wormhole for you, but I will remain behind.”
The stag thought for a moment or two, pondering upon the feeling of the Kuldaki in the back of his consciousness. One of them was really hopping about, going from place to place every few hours. They were over Oshyigar, now, from what he could sense. What were they doing there? Likely looking for him. He was surprised that they hadn’t found him already. What should I do? The longer I wait, the more Souls who die. But if I fight the Kuldaki now, I might be killed, and then there would be no one left who knows how to combat them. If I learn Teleportation Magic, it would help me massively. Ugh . . .
“How about we work on Magic for a few days, here in the forest?” he suggested. Tahs nodded slowly in agreement, making Dak`kcar sigh quietly with relief. For a few days he would have the chance to learn something legendary. And, he would have a companion.
It has been a long time . . .
Chapter XLI
A Crow’s Feast
12th of Mid Summer, 376, 5th Era – Pillar-Mountains, Southeastern Hargirm
Fælwiix stood upright. Faeyl was gone, his warriors were dead. Faeyl was gone, his warriors were dead and the army had disappeared. The Wolverines that were meant to guard him had arrows pinned in their bodies, where the armor was negligent. They also had lethal gashes painted across them, likely from swords or spears. It had to have been an ambush, or else there would have been a littering of bodies from the enemy.
I have to find Faeyl . . .
His mind, which had been in a half-conscious and pained state for two weeks, suddenly cleared. His limbs felt strong again. He tested the air for scents. He knew Faeyl’s aroma well, and he searched for it in the wind. When that failed, after finding too many colliding smells, he looked to the trampled grasses.
Thank The Creator, he thought as he saw a clear path through the tall grass, freshly crushed by booted feet. He pursued the trail at a loping gait, eyes searching for what was ahead. He forgot about his army and his warriors, thinking only of the need to rescue Faeyl.
The land suddenly darkened, and the light from the sun dimmed; Orøs was beginning to block the sun from view as the two celestial bodies seemed to collide in the heavens. It was one of the twice-monthly eclipses that happened in the sight of those on Vaskil. Fælwiix knew that in a few moments, the sun would fall utterly behind Orøs, the Moonbeam, and would fulfill the name of the lunar body.
As the Wolverine sprinted through the sudden darkness, his eyes adjusted to shadow, and then to the ethereal green moon-rays that started to shimmer across the landscape. The sun was shining through the green veins of Orøs, from one end of it through the other, and the verdant gem-veins acted as a colored lens that cast huge rays of green light on the land.
He ran through the almost Magical light, spotting a mass of movement in the distance to the south, where his trail led. Running across the tumbled and wild landscape, he trotted over fallen trees and pushed past barriers of brush and saplings, getting spider webs in his face as he went. He shook all of it off and jumped down the steep bank of a stream to crawl up the other side. When he rounded a small hill between two sheer pillar-mountains, he saw that he had made progress and was catching up to the group, which was still moving in the south. He could now see what the mass consisted of.
Srinaj and armored men, several hundred of each. The demons made a mixed group of unique shapes and sizes, but they marched along just as unitedly as the men.
If Faeyl was being held captive by that troop, Fælwiix steamed to think what they would do to her. I can’t let that happen. I won’t!
He roared with a snarl, to make himself known by the enemies in the near distance. As long as there weren’t any hidden scouts ready to kill him, some of the enemies in the small army would detach to come and fight him, thinning out the army a little. If he rushed past those who were meant to kill him, he could possibly ram his way into the center of the small army and rescue Faeyl. If she was even there. He would assess that when he was near enough to tell.
He loped forward, and was indeed met with a small group of Srinaj. He continued past them, confusing them for a moment as they scrambled to turn and pursue him. One of them was extremely swift, and it nipped at his tail before he was even near the edge of the larger segment. He turned and whipped the thing across the brow with his paw. It was like a huge, towering antelope. A deadly antelope. It bared enormous teeth as black as ink, sharper than knives, and it hissed demonically at him.
Fælwiix felt that he was running out of time to save Faeyl from something horrible, and he didn’t have a moment to spare. He also realized that he wasn’t wearing his armor. The demon before him might actually win if he locked it in battle, even if his Ravaging kicked in. So he went to his only alternative, however much he hated it.
He went limp and acted as if he had fainted.
The Srinaj looked at him oddly, even if it didn’t have eyes. It sensed that all fight had left the creature who had swatted it in the face just an instant earlier. It went to inspect Fælwiix to suck the life out of him, but just as it went to bite into him, he leapt up and took its neck in his teeth. He clenched it in a toothy vise as it screeched, and severed it violently, throwing the twitching head off to the side. The body of the demon fell slowly to the side.
As Fælwiix stood from his feint, he realized that he was surrounded by the remaining Srinaj sent to kill him, an assortment of vicious beasts of The Void. He also saw that there was no escape.
He would die, and Faeyl and Innocence would be sentenced to death, or a lifetime of torture.
Ta`vik looked about at the settling chaos. The whole army had been drawn off by a sizable force of men and Srinaj, and the Wolverines had chased the enemy into the forest, where the battling was difficult and confusing. He had seen more than one antheran fall, but because of the Wolverines’ advantage of armor, the enemy had taken a much greater toll.
He was ripped out of his reverie as raptor-shaped Srinaj leapt onto him. It matched him for size, and far more for savageness. It hissed and clung onto his armored back with gigantic claws, digging at his helmet with its notched mouth.
Roaring heavily, Ta`vik threw himself against a tree powerfully, trying to knock the demon off his back, but the vicious thing stayed planted on him. The world was a blur as he staggered about, feeling his neck getting pinched by the teeth of the Srinaj, who wrenched at his protective chain-mail.
He tumbled accidentally down the steep bank of a wide stream, rolling down the stony wall and through green underbrush. Landing in the water of the river and causing a loud noise of disturbed liquid, he stood right after, looking about for anyone at all, half-submerged in liquid. The Srinaj had acutely disappeared from his back, and no Wolverines or enemies were in sight, on the high banks or otherwise.
Ta`vik sloshed further into the slow-moving stream which tugged at his muddied paws. Something clenched at his paw.
The Srinaj burst out of the water at him, screeching, snarling, biting at his tail and pulling him back by his leg. He could do nothing other than flee, which he swiftly attempted, though he was sluggish to move at first. Apparently, it had started to feed on him just at a touch. Scrambling to the river bank with the demon being dragged along, he slipped on a muddy slope and ended up in the water again, where the Srinaj struggled to pull him down. He jumped up onto a stony outcrop and pulled himself to the top of the bank, losing the beast. The Srinaj leapt expertly after Ta`vik, snapping at his paws. He regained some of his lost energy and turned to snatch the demon in his teeth. He hauled it in a circle and swung it around, striking it against boulders and tree-trunks until it went limp in his mouth. He tore out the chunk of flesh that was lodged in his mouth from the Srinaj and spat it to the side. The demon twitched as its inner body fluid flowed out of its wound like slime, reaching towards Ta`vik.
The antheran stepped away and turned to look behind him. The Wolverines had won the battle, and were regrouping in a clear patch of land within the forest.
He went to the defensive segment and addressed them. “Call all of the forces here and make a protective circle. Send scouts out to search for more enemy forces and gather our dead into a line nearby. Has anyone seen Fælwiix?” None of the Wolverines answered positively. “Scouts, go out and search for him, NOW. If you find him in danger, protect him with your lives, and Faeyl as well, if you find her.”
About ten Wolverines detached from the anxious force and ran off in different directions. Just as Ta`vik was about to order more to search for the debilitated Commander, a scout, who had gratefully missed the whole battle, returned from the north.
“Commander Ta`vik,” he panted as he came directly to the leader. “We have some new arrivals.”
Faeyl had been swept up in a storm of demons and soldiers, and she was lucky that she had snatched up Innocence and had not let go of the carrier. She was also fortunate too have had her armor on when the ambush happened. Some demented man-shaped demon that was utterly black had tried to bite into her waist with hideous teeth. The Tulmalin-wrought armor had prevented any real injury from ensuing, but she would have a bruise for weeks. The uncontrollable terror that the Srinaj had already inflicted on her would give her nightmares for the rest of her life.
Obviously, one of the men that had partaken in the ambush—with the Srinaj!—wanted Faeyl for his own desires, and had handled her roughly to keep her out of the wild clutches of the demons. He saved her life by doing that, regardless of his foul intentions. He held some command among the Srinaj and he hissed an argument with one of the demons in a language that sounded brutal and unrecognizable to Faeyl. He won the disagreement, so Faeyl found herself being pushed along and forced to follow the squad of demons and men.
She looked back to where Fælwiix and his guards were. The sentinels were dead because they had put up a fight, but she couldn’t tell if Fælwiix had been murdered in his sleep or left to die on his own.
Feeling shaky, she continued along, thinking to her own situation which looked very bleak and painful. She didn’t make a noise except for a squeak when she was prodded forward unexpectedly. She hardly thought, completely overtaken by her fear and her senses. With her sight and tactility, she had to move forward at a swift pace without tripping over the rough terrain. Her hearing was overcome with the noises of steel armor and her own beating heart which pounded painfully. Her sense of smell was uncomfortably occupied with the scent of sweat, blood and a bitter, poisonous smell that originated from the Srinaj.
The group that held her captive joined with a large battalion half a mile off, and they continued together to the south, practicing defensive procedures as if preparing for an attack. That was when Orøs came into the path of the sun, and glorious beams of green light poured out across the land.
Faeyl hardly noticed in her fright. Tonight is when they’ll stop, and then they’ll use me like a . . . It was the first recognizable thought that appeared in her mind, and it was a thought that terrified her. But somehow, she feared the Srinaj, the demons, more than the men and their perverted lusts. Those dark creatures were made of The Void, an evil that could taint anything, forever. Even if the demons only possessed the power to kill, the shadow that emanated from them terrified her very Soul.
For the first time that she could remember, she prayed to The Creator, believing that no other had the power to save her. Please, don’t let us suffer this. Any opening, any chance of escape . . . just help us.
Nothing happened that gave Faeyl any hope. She looked around as best she could while continuing forward at her captors’ brisk pace. But no escape showed itself to her. Help showed itself, though.
The battalion around her stopped suddenly, and all of the demons and men turned quickly at the shouts running through the five-hundred strong army. Faeyl didn’t know what was happening until she felt a tremble deeper in the ground than the commotion around her, and heard the clattering of steel which was too numerous to be the few heavily armored men of the battalion. She couldn’t see what was happening until the men broke from the battalion in fear and ran, shouting in mortal terror. The Srinaj, knowing no fear, stayed planted where they were, and some bared there demonic teeth with expectation. Faeyl didn’t know whether she could escape without one of the Srinaj tearing her apart as she ran. Even when she saw what was bearing down on them, she was consumed with the fear of realizing that she was stuck on the side of the Srinaj. She looked to the oncoming hoard with a little hope.
Hundreds of Arium-plated Ibex charged across the length of land between them and the Srinaj, horns lowered and decked with steel blades that shone in the green moonlight. They were led by an unclad Wolverine, none other than Fælwiix, who had just been rescued from the clutches of a dozen Srinaj, a courtesy fulfilled by the rams.
Faeyl stayed where she was and crumpled to the ground, holding Innocence in her carrier close. She decided to sit and huddle facing away from the battle. If she was going to die, she wanted it to come swiftly and without her knowing.
Like an enveloping wave, the Ibex crashed against the line of Srinaj, and everything turned to chaos as the demons and animals went to tearing into each other. Srinaj rushed past her to meet the wall of Ibex that pushed through their front-lines. The Srinaj gave a challenging fight, throwing themselves against the caprine warriors, who tore them to fleshy tatters.
A huge, feline Srinaj fell beside Faeyl, a deadly gash cleft in its flank. It screeched at the Ibex come to finish it off and leapt from its prone position to bite into the helmet and the unprotected eyes of the goat. The Ibex bleated in agony and fell with the demon. Neither of them stood again after they had fallen.
Faeyl was caught in a storm of blades and teeth, and as the Srinaj were pushed back, slowly, it only became worse for her. She rocked on her heels as the clattering and roaring rushed around her, closing her eyes and praying even more fiercely than before.
Please, let us live, or kill us quickly. The bladed horns of an Ibex whistled over her head to ram into a Srinaj a foot away. She was spattered in black fluid. Don’t let Innocence suffer if I die. A behemoth demon charged at her, jaws stretched wide and dripping with inky saliva. Make it stop! An Ibex in full, clattering steel leapt right over Faeyl and landed heavily in front of the Srinaj, snarling and ramming his horns into it. The demon went into a battle of strength with the goat and pushed against the bladed horns of the Ibex without a care. The two thrust hard against the other, but the Ibex was used to such competitions and slipped aside. The Srinaj lunged forward, seemingly to crash into Faeyl, but the Ibex threw his horns to the side, catching the demon in the flank and sending it rolling away.
Shivering and crying silently, she waited for pain to erupt somewhere on her body, certain that she would suffer a horrible death at any second. But it never came, and the battling slowly—in her mind—calmed, then stopped.
She felt ready to be sick as she looked around herself. There were dead Srinaj piled around her feet and an Ibex with a mauled face. She looked further to find more of the demons, some still writhing and needing more lethal attention from the Ibex before they were finally quieted. The men who had tried to escape were all slaughtered, and none of them had been mercifully killed. Faeyl was reminded of the Avakil as she looked at them, and that tipped the scale. She heaved onto the blood-stained and blackened ground, feeling her Soul quiver and her mind shudder. The world seemed very dark and tainted at that moment.
Suddenly a furry mass encompassed her, and she was greeted with the smell of rotten carrion and wild animal dung. She loved that smell.
Fælwiix had somehow wrapped his forelegs around her and had buried her in his neck and chest fur. “Get out of this, quickly, before the Srinaj try to feed off of you,” he ordered, stepping away from her.
She took a seat on his back as she had always done, fearfully eyeing the gelatinous fluid that leaked out of the severed demons and slithered on the ground, searching for life to feed on so it could restore its damaged body.
Once they were out of the pile of dead bodies and in the shadow of a towering pillar of stone, Faeyl stopped her silent tears of fear and broke into loud sobbing, burying her face in the fur between Fælwiix’s shoulders. “It was horrible! I’ve never been so terrified! Those Srinaj . . .”
Fælwiix understood a little of what she meant. The Srinaj did have the threat of something worse than death in their essence, but he had never known what it was. No one understood it, and he didn’t care. He wasn’t afraid of the Srinaj; it took quite a lot to scare a Wolverine. And if it scared Faeyl, then he would make her feel better, somehow.
His attention was suddenly drawn back to Faeyl, who had calmed her crying, but had lost the color in her face. “What is it?” he asked urgently.
She remained silent, opening the hatch to Innocence’s carrier. Her infant daughter broke into crying, and Faeyl sighed with relief. “You’ve been quiet all this time, I-I thought you were hurt,” she said to her baby, and then comforted herself and her baby by coddling Innocence in her arms. She seemed to give her daughter loving attention just fine, but Fælwiix could see a deep pain shrouding her perfect gray eyes. It was a resurfaced pain that had first been engraved in her when she had helped a boy with broken legs escape his desecrated village. The thing around the well in the village had disturbed even Fælwiix, but it had permanently poisoned Faeyl.
He wished that he could take all of those injuries away from her. He blamed himself for taking her through perdition, when he could have just let her go home on the first day of their meeting.
A huge shadow loomed over them. Eybexus looked down at the two with a glint in his eye. “Well, Fælwiix, you have some explaining to do,” he stated in his usual, gravelly voice. He smiled devilishly, if it could be called a smile. A grinning goat was an odd sight.
Fælwiix retorted with his own fanged grin, teeth tinted green by the light of Orøs. “Eybexus, you old goat! I send out a hundred scouts in your own mountains and they turn up empty-handed, and then you finally show yourself a thousand miles–”
“I came just at the right moment though, didn’t I? And that’s General to you, scumbag,” he said jokingly, but his voice—which was soaked in sarcasm for nearly every word of his speech—made it sound like a real order. “I observed that you aren’t the Commander of this army, that this-this Tael`kik is the acting leader. Do you care to enlighten me on this?”
“I was wounded by an Avakil–”—Eybexus nearly hissed at the name—“–and the poison made me unfit for command for a time.”
“You seem just fine to me,” Eybexus commented.
As if to prove him wrong, Fælwiix collapsed. His wound had grated in pain suddenly, as if shovels were being thrust into his abdomen. “This . . . is new,” he remarked as he slowly stood to his full height again.
Eybexus blinked at the little coincidence, then turned to Faeyl, who hadn’t seen Fælwiix’s sudden pain. “Who are you? A kid playing at being a Wolverine?”
Faeyl couldn’t restrain a laugh. “I was Fælwiix’s prisoner for a while, until he tried to shove me off to the Tulmalin.”
“And then you followed him?”
“Well, yes.”
Now Eybexus burst into hoarse mirth. “You must be insane, or Fælwiix showed the dangers to you when they were asleep. You wouldn’t seriously have come if you knew that this would happen?” he asked, gesturing dangerously with his horns to the battlefield in the near distance.
“I would,” Faeyl said quietly, feeling very determined suddenly. She loved Fælwiix as her friend and guardian, and she wanted to help him, even through horrible ventures such as the one she had suffered just minutes before. She was still alive—more importantly, Innocence was uninjured—so the terror she had felt was a worthy sacrifice.
Eybexus softened towards her. “Well, we will all have quite a lot to talk about—maybe too much—but later. Right now, things need to be reorganized, by myself and the Commander. Ah, just when I needed you, er, Tak`tik,” he addressed the temporary Commander, just as the antheran came to him and Fælwiix.
Ta`vik gave Eybexus an awkward look. “Ta`vik, it is pronounced, Ta`vik.”
“Whatever,” the General shoved aside. “Now, have any of the scouts reported about more enemy forces?”
“Not yet,” came the answer. “What my force defeated and what yours took out seem to be the only enemy groups in the area.”
Eybexus rolled his neck, very dangerously waving his blade-array about. “How many did you lose?”
“Twelve have been counted. What was lost in your army?” Ta`vik answered and then challenged.
“Probably less than the number of claws on your front paws. I was in the battle myself, so be assured that I’m not merely flaunting. This time.”
Fælwiix decided that he had been quiet too long. He was letting the wound get to him, and he was done standing down to the injury. “Stop making useless conversation and start organizing the armies,” he demanded, gaining a surprised look from Eybexus.
“Oh, so you’re in charge now?” the goat questioned.
“Of my own army, yes, for now. Of yours, maybe not.”
Ta`vik glanced from one leader to the other. “Fælwiix, are you sure that you need to take command now?”
“I am. I’ll return and remain as Commander until I think that the army is no longer in danger of attack. Have my armor brought to me.”
Remembering Fælwiix’s little show of pain from a moment ago, Eybexus tilted his head. “You don’t truly believe that wearing armor will lighten your limbs, do you?”
“I need it,” Fælwiix retorted. “I nearly died without it, and I won’t take that risk again.”
Faeyl, who had quietly been observing the three prattle on, suddenly shivered. She felt her bruised waist, which her armor had saved from being shredded by Srinajic teeth. Without it, she would have been dead. With that thought, she glanced down at Innocence with renewed gratitude. Her baby wouldn’t live just to die alone.
Just as the sun was peeking over the outer edge of Orøs, and the light became golden again, the Wolverines and Ibex began marching together in long, wide columns towards the east. Their steel clattered only in muffled tones because they were traveling at a brisk trot instead of a full sprint.
One-thousand Wolverines and the same in Ibex. Two-thousand warriors in total, and likely the most deadly non-Magical infantry to ever march into war. And with two of the best strategists of their time. The two races became instantly comfortable with each other, united by battle and a common enemy, like two sparrows ready to fend off a hawk.
Eybexus smiled at the army trekking over and along the hills, between towering mountains, through forests and across streams. That was where he belonged; not necessarily in that land, but with that army. He turned to Iakiwir who walked beside him in long, calculated strides.
He increased his pace. “Let’s go see what Fælwiix and Tav`kik have planned.” The two Wolverines were ahead in the informal columns, leading both their kind and Ibex forward. Only scouts and a few eager stragglers saw the next rise before they did.
Eybexus and Iakiwir caught up to their mustelid counterparts just as the two were passing under the splotchy shade of a thicket of tall trees.
As they passed under the shifting shadows, Eybexus addressed them. “I think it’s time we spoke more fully.” At that instant, the General recognized that strange girl, Faeyl riding atop Ta`vik’s back as if he were a horse. “Do you want the kid here while we–”
“I trust her,” Fælwiix said, and Faeyl instantly beamed. They came out into the sunlight again, and she shrunk from the heat. She took her hat out of her pack—which had been strapped to Ta`vik since before the battle and had miraculously stayed on—and stuffed it on her head.
The Commander looked to the General. They had different titles but were of equal rank, in both each other’s eyes and their armies’. Eybexus had already given some commands to the Wolverines—the ones who could understand a little of Caldkarien—and Fælwiix had done the same with the Ibex. Although it had been over thirty years since they had seen each other, they hadn’t lost an ounce of respect or friendship for one another.
“What do you need to speak about?” Fælwiix asked. “Our current situation? What lies ahead?” He growled between his fangs, feeling the poison in the flesh of his abdomen, slowly working inwards. Death is what lies ahead, if these Gelsingean Monks can’t help me.
“We need to understand each other,” Eybexus replied. “We need to talk of plans, rumors, histories—the whole mountain. I thought that since nothing is going on for the moment we could use the time wisely, for once.” Eybexus thought it wise because he might need the information that Fælwiix had in the event that the Commander died. The knowledge would be useless if it was hidden in a corpse.
“Let’s start then,” the antheran said. “First off, where in Kal Hallavik have you been?”
“Ah,” Eybexus mused, “so you’ll start the interrogation. Well, you see, I was hiding in a secluded cave like a coward and pissing myself—no. I was being cautious.” His sarcastic tone rose in level and then fell suddenly. “You can’t accuse me for remaining hidden. Your kind didn’t suffer what Quix did to us. When you waged war on the Wolves, we exposed ourselves briefly, which made us easy for you to find, but before and after that, we were a secret race.”
“But you come out now? Has this been your plan all along?”
“Yes, in a way. I was waiting for the right time, hoping it would give itself up to me before I turned to dust. The time began just a few years ago, when a particularly large generation of Ibex came of age. I started sending out messages to the various dwellings, and a few months ago, they began to respond—positively I would say, seeing that I have a thousand rams here and three-thousand waiting in Fydal.”
“Three–!” The Commander sputtered. If he had four-thousand Wolverines in total, he could obliterate the most powerful kingdoms of Vaskil. Well, perhaps not, but the principle remained. “Why aren’t they here?” he demanded.
“They need to be armored, and some will stay near Fydal, just as your five-hundred Wolverines are.” Eybexus seemed almost to mock the tiny number of reserves that Fælwiix had, and that made the Wolverine boil over.
“You lucky bastard; did you leave them with any commands?”
At this point, Iakiwir joined in. “He ordered that two–”
Eybexus snorted. “Don’t give it away, damn it. He’ll find out at just the right moment.”
Fælwiix glared at the goat sideways. “It would be better if you told me now,”
“Forget it,” the General commanded.
It might have exploded into an argument, if Ta`vik hadn’t intervened. “We need to get to Gelsing,” he said bluntly. Logic and pragmatism were his virtues, and his vices. “Eybexus, have you heard of the Gelsingean Monks?”
“A few times. They have a Monastery in the mountains, but that’s all I’ve heard of them. What do you care about them for?”
Faeyl suddenly blew up in their faces, her high voice contrasting with their deep, inhuman ones. “We need to find them so they can heal Fælwiix’s wound, and quickly, or the poison will kill him!” Her unexpected outburst upset Innocence who was in her carrier, and the baby went to crying—loudly.
Eybexus’ ears twitched. “That thing makes a lot of noise,” he stated. Fælwiix grunted in agreement.
Faeyl blushed from anger. “My baby is not a thing; her name is Innocence. And you were the one who scared her,” she finished with a complete guess, just to jab at Eybexus.
“Oh really?” the old goat challenged, but he sobered an instant later. “Accept my apologies. Just keep a rein on your kid, if a situation demands silence. Innocence is a good name.”
Faeyl was satisfied with that, and left the four giant animals to continue their conversation and plans without interruption—from her or her daughter. But just as the Ibex and Wolverines resumed their speech, more important matters burst in on them.
A heavily armored Ibex caused a ruckus at the edge of the column, pushing through the warriors aggressively and cutting across the flow of the army. The offender struggled to reach the General and the Commander, and when he did, they stopped, letting the army pass them by as they faced the newcomer. Faeyl felt queasy when she looked at the Ibex. He and his Arium plating was painted in blood, tatters of flesh and black stains that writhed hatefully on his armor.
“General Eybexus,” the caprine addressed, “there are enemies towards the south.” He had a glazed, stunned look in his eyes, having just seen demented violence for the first time. “I was part of a scouting party . . .” he trailed off.
Fælwiix bristled. He didn’t understand a word the ram was saying, as the goat was using the Ibex tongue, but he could see perfectly when a soldier halted in the middle of their report. “Well? Speak up, damn it!” He had almost forgotten the horror of war—enough to be able to stuff it away when he needed to, at least. It also affected Wolverines less.
Eybexus gave the antheran a well placed glare and then turned to his subordinate with a kinder gaze. “You were part of a scouting party when you . . . ?” He coaxed the warrior to continue.
“We stumbled upon a large force of Srinaj and steel-armed Avakil. Satøs was pierced through the eye, and Kelikir and another were buried in Srinaj. I don’t know what happened to Yuløv, and–”
“It’s all right,” Eybexus said in a soothing tone, free of sarcasm. “Where is the enemy, and where were they headed?”
“They are about a . . . a mile south, and they were moving north, if anywhere. They seemed as surprised by us as we were of them. I don’t know how many there were; the force was hidden by the edge of a forest, so there could have been any number of them.”
“Sik kish,” Fælwiix cursed out loud. More Avakil . . .
Eybexus pondered for a moment. “Good work,” he said to the scout. “Take what rest you will, and try to bath in the next stream or river, if you can.” The other Ibex nodded and trotted off, leaving the leaders alone. Well, as alone as they could be with Ibex and Wolverines streaming past them.
The Wolverine Commander swore again. “Not even halfway to Mithonstorng and we’re already dealing with resistance.”
“We’ll have to shut this force up,” Eybexus remarked, “destroy them before they can continue north, whether they know of our location or not. They will be unstoppable for thousands of miles if they go straight north; there won’t be an army to meet them until Mrithwintr. Don’t ask me how I know that.”
“Then let’s meet them now,” Fælwiix growled, grinding his fangs. His wound made him tired and rash, and he had been thinking with little strategy in mind for some days.
“Whoa, hold on there,” the General said, verbally leashing his counterpart. “Don’t be a dizzy moron. We have to think—actually think. What happened to the legendary Commander you used to be? Eh?” That quieted Fælwiix for a moment. “Tak`vik, you’re known as a somewhat clever Wolverine, what do you think should be done?”
Faeyl’s ‘steed’ perked up, even if the goat had mispronounced his name, again. “If the force is much larger than ours, or even if it is smaller, a chokepoint–”
“Excellent,” Eybexus interrupted. He turned to his own second-in-command. “Iakiwir, what do you propose?”
The calculating Ibex stayed silent for a moment. “Use bait to lure them in place and fear to drive them–”
“Perfect! And you, Faeyl?”
The woman’s eyes went as wide as they could go. “Me?” she asked, her voice breaking nervously. “I don’t know anything about . . . anything! I-I have some Emberstones–”
“IMPECCABLE!” Eybexus roared, causing every set of living eyes within a quarter-mile to turn on him. He shivered with excitement, ignoring the shocked stares from the stray fox as well as his own Ibex soldiers. It was what he had mastered over the centuries—the art of being a lucky procrastinator.
Fælwiix gave the old goat a moody stare. “I see that you didn’t need my input,” he sulked.
“No I didn’t, did I?” the General mused. “I don’t need to ask you for advice, you put it out when you want. I’m relying on you to lead your own army. Do I actually have to explain myself to you?” Eybexus’ tongue was like a whip; he could welt anyone’s pride or certainty. “I have the perfect plan, so here it is—but I don’t want any criticism, not unless it’s rooted in the foundations of the planet itself. And no more sarcasm out of you, Fælwiix.”
*
The ragged Ibex limped along an old gravel path, which was overgrown and had been unused by humans for decades. It was late in the evening, and twilight would consume the sky in less than an hour. Except for the road and a few clearings, everything around Yuløv was an overgrown forest of broadleafed trees. Birds sang hauntingly to him, mainly crows who liked to make a cacophony before bedding down for the night. A group of the corvids flew around the amazing heights of a towering, sheer mountains, likely finding a place to roost in the trees a mile above the rest of the forest. Cicadas screeched like war sirens, and fireflies began to light the gloaming landscape.
Blood dribbled out of a gash in his hind leg, and a rusted arrow stuck out of his flank, bobbing up and down with his ribs as he walked. It was an unlucky shot from an armed, man-shaped Srinaj. The arrowhead was like a needle, and had snaked through the chain-mail protecting part of his flank.
Yuløv paused to listen. He was following the enemy force, even if he was trailblazing for them. He may have been in the lead, but he adjusted his path to every change that the Srinaj made. He wanted to find Eybexus first, but he didn’t know where he was, so he had to rely on the tracking abilities of the enemy to find his General. He had to get to Eybexus, to warn him. Something was with the Srinaj, and it wasn’t just the Avakil.
By The Mountainmaker, the goat thought as he searched around himself and strained his ears. The Srinaj could be quiet when they wanted silence. As if demons and piles of reanimated flesh weren’t enough. I wish it was just them. I wish none of them existed . . . I don’t have much time left. The last thought was a reminder from the arrow sticking out of him, the pain it caused, and the dying daylight. Duty to warn Eybexus drove him on, but what really kept his hooves moving forward was fear. He didn’t want to be caught alive by the Srinaj, or the Avakil, or whatever else it was that accompanied them.
He could almost see the shadows growing longer, a timekeeper that taunted him, and it was emphasized by the tall pillar-mountains which cast the longest shadows of all. He had an hour or more before it became too dark to see; none of the moons would be in the sky to illuminate the night.
He suddenly dived into some underbrush. Was that–? He shifted slowly to peek through the leafs of a low-branched tree, to the old gravel path that was ten feet up the ditch he had leapt into. A Srinaj wandered onto the worn trail from out of the forest, and the demonic beast stalked along it for a moment, a large, serpentine tongue flicking out of its jagged mouth to caress its massive fangs. It made a quiet, indescribable noise and continued along the road, presumably unaware of him.
A straggler? Yuløv wondered.
Three more Srinaj came out of the forest and followed the first, looking around with eyeless faces. Multiple Avakil followed, made up of the flesh of . . . Yuløv didn’t want to even imagine. More of the two races filtered out of the forest, but it was an uncertain, wavering line of individuals, not an organized column of an army.
If they’re moving like that, then they must be marching all throughout the forest. He felt his heart beating through his ribs. He couldn’t keep all of his enemies in sight, and they could be closing in on him from all sides.
Very slowly, cautiously, he trailed the enemies that were within sight. As they went on, more demons joined them, maliciously prowling onward towards some goal. Hardly breathing, Yuløv followed closely until they came to an old cottage within the woods. It was obviously long abandoned, but the demons crawled all over it as if searching to be sure that nothing living dwelt within. After a few moments, both the demons of shadow and those of flesh backed away and made a circle around the structure, standing absolutely still as they faced it. As the sun touched the horizon, and the forest became a tangle of overlapping shadows, the rest of the army arrived. Several hundred Avakil made two flanking columns leading to the cottage, and an equal force of Srinaj gathered in between the flesh-monsters. A man-shaped Srinaj in black armor all painted with red symbols stood at the front, closest to the structure. He (or technically, It) seemed to concentrate on the Avakil, and whenever he made a complex movement with shadowy limbs, some or all of the Avakil responded by moving mindlessly in one direction or another. The whole force waited patiently, and in utter stillness, like conscious statues . . . well, the Srinaj at least seemed to have minds of their own.
But then it came.
Yuløv wanted to beg The Mountainmaker for his Soul to be guarded, but he lost any cohesive thought as the boiling mass of darkness poured out of the woods like a tidal wave. It was enormous, and almost shapeless except for the spindly legs that seeped out of it to propel it forward. The anomaly came towards the cottage, a mass of melting legs and simmering darkness. Each Srinaj that it crawled over was gone when it passed them, and it left an empty trail in the Srinajic army. The demons were unperturbed, and the monster seemed to get larger as it consumed more of them. The colossus came before the cottage and then snaked itself slowly through the door into the building, feeding itself into the cottage until—impossibly—most of it was inside the structure.
The cottage exploded outwards in every direction, shrapnel sprinkling the surrounding trees and onlookers. The demon inside it wrestled with the remaining pieces, simply for the sake of destruction, it seemed. The monstrous anomaly had solidified into a spidery Dragon, black as the sky between the stars, with thorny fangs and a tongue that flung about as it screeched. The noise was unearthly, like a hundred demons shrieking in a hundred different, guttural tones.
The noise wormed into Yuløv’s ears and pierced his mind with horrifying pain. It made him want to die.
Several mismatched eyes bubbled to the surface of the thing’s head, each flaming with a crimson glow, flickering constantly with hate. It threw the remaining chunks of the cottage aside and looked to the army at its base. It growled in a sort of croak, and then hurled itself into the forest, melting into the trees. It passed twenty feet away from Yuløv and headed north. The remaining army followed it, if at a slower pace, while the armored Srinaj urged the Avakil forward.
The spying Ibex almost forgot to follow them, his mind blank from dwindling fear. He trotted between the trees and brush, hoping to surpass the greater demon, and get to Eybexus first.
*
“Now you see what true, masterful strategy looks like, Fælwiix.” Eybexus nodded with a self-satisfied grin. Both him and the Commander were on the precipice of a small canyon, looking down at the scrubby, overgrown ravine thirty feet below. There was dried brush lining the mouth of the canyon as well as both walls. The outer face of the gorge was hard to climb for a half mile in either direction, and forested besides. The sun was halfway below the horizon, so the light was bloody and dim. The two leaders were the only living beings in sight except for the flora and a few disturbed crows. The odd column-shaped mountains were scattered to the horizon in every direction, climbing out of the forests and into the sky.
The Wolverine seemed unimpressed. He might have just been in pain, or he was thinking about Faeyl, who had been sent miles east with Ta`vik. His eyes were thoughtful, and in another world.
Eybexus snorted indignantly. Too distracted to pay my brilliance any heed. He and that girl, Faeyl, have a strange relationship; everything he does seems to go towards protecting her. Maybe he has found a real reason to fight—she represents what he is killing and dying for. He then laughed privately. I never thought I’d see the day when Fælwiix softened, even a mite.
“Well,” the old goat interrupted both of their thoughts. “I think it’s past time to get into position. I expect the enemy to be here any minute.”
Their armor clattered softly as the Ibex and Wolverine went their separate ways, the caprine to the bottom of the canyon and the mustelid to an intersecting branch of the gorge. Fælwiix came to a mixed group of Ibex and Wolverines, twenty in all, and waited for the time to come. They stood stationed beside huge piles of rubble, of stone and dead wood that was stacked above the entrance to the branch of the canyon.
The sun sank below the horizon, and the Ibex were totally blind in the darkness that followed. The Wolverines had a little night-vision, but it was weak, as they were used to having snow reflect the faint light in the north and magnify it. They waited longer, impatiently and nervously.
The stars came out, and the galactic cumulus glowed a rusty orange in the sky, weakly, as if it were a reminder of an ancient age lost to time. Now the Ibex’s eyes adjusted to see, if barely, and the Wolverines’ vision became keener.
But before their sight, it was the Wolverines’ sense of smell that set off the snare.
An antheran trotted up to Fælwiix, just arriving from outside the safety of the gorge. “The Avakil are coming,” he hissed in a hoarse whisper, so the Commander relaid the warning to an Ibex in Caldkarien. The goat tremulously descended into the gorge to inform Eybexus.
Even in the stillness of the night, the smell of decayed flesh made contact with the animals’ nostrils. Now came the last moments of patience. Slight, disgusting sounds of movement could be heard beyond the walls of the gorge, but none of the warriors could see anything yet.
Eybexus’ plan had better work, Fælwiix grumbled mentally. We can’t afford to lose our first battle. This won’t even compare to Mithonstorng. I wonder how this force even got here without being noticed. I wonder why they’re here at all.
There was no time for questions; the bottom of the canyon had erupted in flames.
The moments had passed without Fælwiix’s consent; things were already underway, and he had been caught unprepared. Enormous flames licked up the sides of the canyon, charring plants and scorching stones. The entrance to the canyon was walled in with fire, but the center of the gorge was safe from flame, for the moment. In amidst all of this burning chaos—which crackled and roared like Dragons—were two-hundred screaming Avakil. The monster race hated fire, a strange thing, seeing as the Avakil felt and saw nothing. But fire was one of the only things that could destroy them, other than being forgotten by their creator, or torn into fine shreds.
So they tried to sneak in on us, Fælwiix thought and smiled. His toothy grin faded when he saw the gut-wrenching assortment of Avakil—they really were horrible to look at.
Forgetting their state of decomposition, Fælwiix looked to his ally. Eybexus had routed the enemy well, and it was almost time for the Wolverine’s part of the trap. While the fire tongued the Avakil from behind, forcing them forward, Eybexus and a few of his kind were luring them where they wanted. The bait and the fooled entered the arm of the canyon that Fælwiix and his group presided over. Eybexus and his warriors toyed with the Avakil for a moment longer, and then expertly escaped the flesh-monsters by climbing the canyon walls with ease. The Avakil could not follow. Once the whole force of Avakil was drawn into the separate arm of the canyon, Fælwiix and his group went to work, toppling piles of stones and dead trees into the mouth of the segment, making a heavy wall that the Avakil had not the skill to overpass.
Pawing under the armor guarding his chest, he pulled out two stones and delicately placed them on the ground. Awkwardly, he struck the two Emberstones together, and when they burst into flames, he kicked them into the gorge with the trapped Avakil. More bubbling shrieks followed as the dried brush in the trap caught fire.
Turning to the Ibex clattering up the gorge walls, Fælwiix waited for Eybexus to climb fully out of the canyon.
“Thanks for singeing our tails,” Eybexus accused with as much sarcasm as he could muster. “We weren’t halfway out before you threw the fire at our hooves. Now, have the scouts reported anything else?”
“Not–” Fælwiix was cut off by the very individual he was about to answer for.
A scout trotted up to him and practically screamed in his ear. “Commander! The Srinaj are coming, with a huge th-thing.”
“What are you talking about?” Fælwiix demanded. The scout just stuttered for a moment. “Stop making noises and start making sense!” He batted the Wolverine on the head with a paw.
The scout’s tongue finally unraveled itself. “It’s huge, just look!” He pointed to the forest out in the distance, beyond the mouth of the canyon. Fælwiix stood on his hind legs to look.
An enormous, black form lumbered amongst the trees, twice as tall as any of the woody sentinels, and dark enough to make the night sky look bright. Several burning eyes of crimson decorated its peak, which had the rough shape of a Dragon head.
“Creator Curse it!” the Commander growled. “Kal Hallavik, sik kish . . . fuck!”
“In other words, holy fuck,” Eybexus corrected his steaming counterpart. If he could have stroked his long beard reflectively, he would have. “Hmm . . . we have as much a chance against it as a fly does with a hawk.”
“And what would you suggest we do to take out this hawk?” the Commander asked with a threatening tone.
Eybexus shrugged, if goats could shrug. “Mere mortals would run from such a disaster. But me, I would find a weakness and poke at the thing until it fell over.”
“Well, there’s just never a boring moment when you’re around. You’re immortal now; what else don’t I know about you?”
“A heap of things that I’m sure would fascinate you, but for now, we have a demon to poke at.”
“What should we do?” Fælwiix asked with growing interest, glancing at the behemoth lumbering towards them in the dark, moving through the trees, between the sheer mountains. It was less than a mile away.
“Gather twenty of your Wolverines,” Eybexus ordered, “and I will gather twenty of my own warriors. We will tell the rest to retreat for the moment, to hold the canyon in obscurity.”
Fælwiix nodded, and went to making commands, holding discourse in his mind as he did so—controlling an army was like moving his own legs; it was as much an instinct as navigating the ground. So it will be a skilled maneuver then. We don’t want our armies being stepped on unnecessarily, but we need enough warriors to hold back the infantry while we figure out the greater problem. This will have to be done perfectly, or we will lose this at the first wrong step.
There was little time, so both Eybexus and Fælwiix hurried things along; the armies withdrew into the canyon—it went for miles—and their handpicked group made ready to meet the enemy. The Avakil still croaked and screeched as they burned.
The General gave a hasty speech. “This will be our first real challenge, and if I pull you out of it, you’ll all owe me. Keep the Srinaj off of mine and the Commander’s backs, and we will see to that giant fucker over there.” He nodded vaguely towards the demon which had paused a half mile off. It was staring directly at them, weighing them, running its fiendish tongue all over its fangs. Each tooth alone could impale any one of the giant animals.
Fælwiix bristled; he didn’t like the way that demon was staring at them. “Let’s get a move on.” He started forward, and the small battalion fell in line behind him, following him down the steep slopes to the canyon’s foot, the Ibex much more agile than the Wolverines.
“WEDGE,” Eybexus bellowed, and the Ibex made a spear-point of steel-arrayed horns. The Wolverines awkwardly filled that spearhead, and the whole group made forward at a trot. They picked up speed, until they were bearing down on the demon in a full, terrifying sprint. They saw that hundreds of Srinaj and Avakil surrounded the ultimate giant, spread throughout the woody slopes.
Fælwiix cursed as foully as he could: it was terrible strategy he had adopted with Eybexus, and too far gone to back out of.
Eybexus shivered with excitement—this was where he felt alive. He was born for it. Everything would go as it should.
The two forces clashed, and everything fell into motion. Severely outnumbered, the Ibex and Wolverines made a needlepoint insertion through the army of monsters and demons. In the night, nothing more than vague shapes could be seen. The Dragon-demon waited for them, watching them struggle through the ocean of crawling Srinaj and piled Avakil. It seemed like a mountain to the animals, a mountain of blackness they had to defeat.
Single Ibex and Wolverines were pulled into the sea of enemies and consumed by the hordes, but the main force held together. Fælwiix saw an Ibex gain a deep slash in his flank, but the goat kept locking horns with his enemies—there was no other choice.
They were closing in on the demon, and then the enemy would be hard pressed to keep them away from the shadowy beast. But what would they do then? It was still a stupid plan in all aspects. Why had Eybexus suggested it? Why had Fælwiix agreed to it? He would strangle both himself and the old goat if they survived.
Abruptly, they came to an impassable wall. The last reserves of the Avakil made a semicircle, blocking access to the primary demon. They were stuck full of long spikes of steel, each deadly on its own, but also likely poisoned to finish off those who escaped. Without fire, the Wolverines and Ibex were hopeless to defeat them or scare them off.
Each one would have to be shredded individually before they stopped trudging forward. That or . . .
Fælwiix leapt over an indescribable Srinaj, letting another antheran tear it to the ground. “Look for a sorcerer! The psychic controlling the Avakil!” Fælwiix shouted out suddenly in the still that followed their entrapment. More Avakil were closing in from behind, and the Srinaj had backed off, seeing the enemy as finished. The shadow demons went to go after the armies hidden in the canyon, leaving the few goats and weasels alone with the Avakil and the mountain-demon. Fælwiix beat down one of the few Srinaj who had not gotten away, making certain to unnecessarily rip a few extra limbs off. Black blood trailed after the legs that he threw off to the side.
Eybexus and Fælwiix’s group numbered only twenty-four, now. There were five Avakil to each one of them. One prick and they would likely be dead in a few weeks. One false step and they would all be dead in a few moments.
Fælwiix hesitated. How do we get out? Why don’t they advance already?
Eybexus was just nodding to himself as their warriors made a tight, outward-facing circle, the Avakil having fallen completely still. This is where things get interesting.
*
Yuløv had tried getting to Eybexus first, but somehow the Srinaj had gained the lead. More importantly, that anomaly had won the race, which was expected. On top of that, the red-painted psychic Srinaj was heavily guarded. Yuløv was certain that if he miraculously took out that demon, the Avakil would follow his demise. But he was one wounded warrior against many unnaturally strong beasts.
He kept the psychic in sight, on the clear top of a tall hill. The sorcerer was performing immensely intricate movements with his arms and human-like fingers, constantly drawing patterns in the air.
Yuløv couldn’t see where the Avakil were, but he saw the monstrous Dragon-demon in the distance, where it stood like a waiting sentinel. He could also see an odd, fiery glow beyond the behemoth, lighting a canyon.
Suddenly, the psychic gestured to the twenty or so guards around him, and most of them went off down the hill, into the forest and towards the glowing canyon. Three remained to protect him.
Yuløv’s heart rattled in his chest. This is the best chance I will get. Mountainmaker . . . help me do this. With that thought, his body moved without his consent, suddenly lightened and freed of pain. His actions were perfectly calculated; the three bestial Srinaj bore on him in an instant, but he dodged around their claws and teeth with unexpected agility, foresight even. It confused them. The psychic ignored them all.
He slid between two of them and locked his immense horns with the third. The murderous, black canine wrestled with his bladed horns, hissing and spitting as its forelegs and head were eaten into by the Arium. It kept him in place, matching his strength.
Bucking and kicking the two Srinaj lurking behind him, he tossed his horns in an arc and threw the canine into the ground. Flipped over and helpless for a moment, it couldn’t prevent its own death.
Spinning expertly, Yuløv sent an attacking Srinaj crashing into a tree. It was impaled on a stiff stub left by a fallen branch and struggled for a moment before the Ibex committed the finishing strike, dragging flesh and blood in an arc from its source.
Facing the last Srinaj aside from the psychic, he saw it in the midst of morphing. Srinaj never changed from their original shape, once chosen—it weakened them to do so—but that one had seen the advantage the Ibex had, and it mirrored his form.
He charged at the eyeless, jagged-mouthed demon and cracked his horns against its own. It had morphed masterfully; its horns were as hard as his own. The Srinaj croaked diabolically at him once it had defied several of his attacks.
But he had lived in a goat’s body for well on three decades; he knew every aspect of it. As the Srinaj struggled in a pushing match against him, he slipped aside, allowed it to rush suddenly forward, and then swung his horns into its side. It collapsed to the ground and screeched hatefully. It died without fear; only loathing. A dark puddle spread out under its mauled corpse.
As his last guard fell to the determined Ibex warrior, the psychic paused in his Black Magic. His painted armor creaked as he turned slowly to gaze at the goat with an eyeless face. He made a hasty symbol in the air and then went to circling the Ibex slowly, boots crunching in the grass.
Yuløv had not a thought in his mind, only an intention. He followed every minute action of the psychic and cantered sideways to mirror his enemy.
A swirling, airy form appeared in the sorcerer’s hand.
Faster than he had thought possible, Yuløv found himself leaping to the side, avoiding a powerful burst of Wind Magic. The wind rushed through the trees behind him, making them groan as they swayed from its force. He pushed off of a boulder in mid-jump and launched himself at his enemy. The Srinaj sidestepped him and placed a hand on his armored flank. Wind Magic sent the Ibex tumbling all over himself. He found his hooves quickly, just to see the psychic forming an ethereal Shield and pike out of the air. Both were black, but transparent, like stained glass. The sorcerer twirled the deadly pike in hand like it was a part of his own, shadowy arm.
Yuløv went into a flurry of attacks, swinging his horns in one direction, then bringing them aside to spar with the Shield or pike. The psychic blocked his jarring attacks without staggering, merely redirecting the flow of his strikes, and he stepped dexterously around the Ibex, spinning and swinging the pike in smooth arcs. His attacks only barely missed, and could have skimmed the fur off of Yuløv if the goat weren’t coated in steel.
The Ibex attempted a frontal strike, but hit a solid wall—not the Shield. The Srinaj had set a broad ward between them, like a Shield, but magnified, and with that same dark transparency. The psychic struggled with a spell in one hand while holding the other out, keeping up the ward.
Yuløv rammed into it, and the thing wavered like molten glass. I only have this chance. He struck it again, gaining a fatal cracking noise from it. One last attempt . . . The sorcerer had a demonic whirlpool of Fire forming in his hand, which expanded and brightened, pouring over and between his fingers. None of that light reflected off of his inky flesh.
The ward suddenly fell down as the psychic engaged his second hand in the affair of the firestorm, and Yuløv’s previous attack caught the remains of the ward, making it shatter like obsidian.
The psychic threw his molten hands outward. The Ibex met him in the middle of his leap.
The hilltop exploded with the light of a massive cyclone of Fire. It faded an instant after it had flared to life, and the surrounding forest fell into darkness.
*
The Avakil began closing in, slowly and mindlessly. They had made two ranks in a circle around the Ibex and Wolverines, so it was impossible to push a single Avakil over and escape. The spikes and bits of poisoned steel made a barbed wall around Eybexus and Fælwiix as they faced the pointy enemies. The mountain-demon watched them with interest, swaying where it stood, twice as tall as the forest.
“You say they’re venomous?” the goat asked, and knocked one of the flesh-monsters away. The thing stumbled and gurgled vilely at him, but straightened and advanced just as slowly as before.
“Very,” Fælwiix growled. He and his companions were as closely packed together as was possible without climbing onto one another, and the Avakil were only coming nearer. He was already staring down a metallic shaft. He pawed it aside and thrust away the monster it was attached to. The Commander decided that it was time to take action. “I’ll clear a path, and you can all follow after me; I’ve already been poisoned, so one more scratch won’t matter.”
Eybexus leaned away from a tripping Avakil. “I think that you just want to escape first. Besides, small injuries are unavoidable now; we will all clear a path at once. Fuck! That was close,” he remarked as a flesh-monster fell to the side, nearly skimming his long beard. “Get ready to escape . . .” the General forewarned his warriors. They had not an inch to spare between them and the Avakil. “On my command, follow Fælwiix . . . one . . . two . . . NOW!”
The last word had barely escaped his mouth when all of the Avakil abruptly fell apart, accompanied by their horrendous screams and shrieks, bubbling out from flaps of flesh. A hilltop in the near distance exploded in a cyclone of fire, and then winked out. In the fire-lit canyon behind them, more screeches could be heard, the last of the burning Avakil having lost their power source.
If the animal leaders or any of their followers were confused, they didn’t show it. They dexterously leapt between the piles of flesh, avoiding poisoned metal, and came out of the ring of enemies. They were finally alone with the Dragon-demon.
The anomaly’s eyes darted to focus on them. It screeched demonically, its gaping mouth strung together with pillars of melted, black flesh. Stepping towards them with spidery legs, it leaned forward and crashed like a wave onto the forest. It lost its prior shape and moved between the trees in a spreading, conscious mass. Tendrils searched out its enemies, flaming eyes at the head of each tentacle.
The darkness crawled towards the Wolverines and Ibex, but Eybexus had things well in hoof. “To the right! Split left! Attack now!”
They moved smoothly with him, survival instinct the only thought in their minds, and in their bodies. Only Eybexus and Fælwiix treated the battle like a hunt for the day’s meal. They were ‘poking’ at the demon, as the General had suggested earlier, so they dodged around the black waves and tendrils as if they were training.
Jumping over the head of one of the tentacles, Fælwiix landed and twisted quickly to slash at the feeler’s eye. It shrieked in his ear, but once he leapt on top of it and took a hold of its eye with his fangs, he wouldn’t let go, not for his life and certainly not for the health of his hearing. The consistency of the demon’s eye was unlike anything he had ever felt. It was like a living flame that could be taken hold of, yet it flared and flickered in the grip as though forged from plasma.
He dug his teeth in and started flinging his head from side to side like a Wolf, gaining more screeches from the demon while it thrashed beneath him. With a roar he tore upwards, and found himself tumbling to the ground. He rolled onto his paws and watched as the appendage of the demon was wracked with quaking, and the injured eye flared one last time before disappearing. The black shadow-flesh withered and blew as ashes did in a weak breeze. Like a tree losing all of its leafs at once, the inky tendril disintegrated and was carried away by the wind.
“Attack the eyes!” Fælwiix roared, trying to command the scattered force. There were five or more of the serpentine appendages, and all of the warriors were occupied.
Eybexus seemed to be the only one of them who was enjoying himself. Playing was what he was doing, not fighting, not trying to fend off a demon. He dodged a thrust from the serpent’s head, and when it hissed at him, he leapt to a tree-trunk, using it as a base to launch himself at the anomaly. He slammed his horns into the head of the hydra, pushing the enormous opponent aside. Its two serpentine eyes glared at him hatefully as it reared its dripping head and went to striking the ground like a hammer. As fast as any viper, it pounded the land with precise strength, making craters in the ground, sending dirt and rubble flying in all directions.
Eybexus avoided each successive strike as if he were a fly being pecked at by a vindictive crow. He jumped aside, Arium armor rattling each time he landed, and every time he dodged, the viper’s head struck the ground from above and shook the earth a mere step away from the General.
Dirt and clumps of grass fell on Eybexus, but he simply laughed aloud. “Oh come now, you can do better than that. I’ve stepped on fiercer garter snakes than you.” He lunged forward to land right beside the snake’s head, and he whipped his horns into its face. Black liquid and red sparks flew away with his blade-array. Impossibly, he managed to roll onto the head of the demon and land on his feet on its other side, just as it was rearing. He was too quick for it, and slashed its other eye before it could rise up. The snake-demon shriveled, disintegrating with a final hissing shriek. The goat just shook with laughter as he trotted off to help some of his warriors with another head of the demon. He didn’t stop laughing until the anomaly was finished.
“Gah! The last one,” Fælwiix grumbled, and he struggled for more air; he couldn’t get enough of it after such an exertion. “Aren’t you tired yet?” he asked, turning to Eybexus.
The Ibex gave him a level stare, and annoyingly, he was breathing as calmly as if he were sleeping. “Not now. Not ever.” He glanced past Fælwiix and into the darkness of the woods. They had tracked the last serpentine tendril of the anomaly, having out-sped all of their warriors in the effort and ending up deep in the woods.
With his insane adrenaline subduing, Eybexus found it hard to spot anything with his vision except for the stars that peeked through the foliage high overhead, and Fælwiix’s glimmering eyes. His Sharpening—a Magical strength of the Ibex which activated in times of stress—had worn off, so his senses were dulled considerably. Nonetheless, he could hear perfectly what sounded across the land.
Screeeeeee!
The unearthly noise echoed from out of the heart of the forest and pierced their ears. The sound rang in their minds long after it had faded in the air. It sounded unlike anything they had heard so far.
Fælwiix shook his head like a wet dog would. “What . . . was that?” he asked, feeling queasy from the noise and his wound, which had begun to sting again. Like Eybexus’ Sharpening, his Ravaging had faded, allowing pain to seep into him once more.
“Maybe the remains of the demon we poked at . . .” Eybexus mused, “or maybe something worse.”
“You’re always positive.” Fælwiix had gained some of the goat’s sarcasm. “Let’s just go; we have to see how the armies handled the Srinaj.”
Eybexus nodded without comment for once. They turned back and returned the way they had come, watched over by sentinel mountains of stone.
“How can such a thing exist?” Fælwiix said with a hint of wonder in his voice, which was rare to get out of him. The galaxy-lit columns of stone looming over them—sometimes at odd angles—amazed even him. His loopy, half-awake state made him more impressionable, too.
Eybexus glanced up briefly at the mountains, and then at his companion, eyes glinting beneath his helmet. “Not that this is the best time to be gawking at rocks, but I’ve heard a legend that these were made by Gevrax himself, a tribute to his deceased mate, or something to that effect.”
One man doing all of this? Fælwiix thought silently. I doubt that, even if he was the greatest Magic-wielder to ever live.
He was wrong to doubt.
Iakiwir looked calculatingly over the remains of the battlefield. He and a Wolverine by the name of Ursik had been given command over the armies, and they had both thought that they were just holding meaningless titles until the General and the Commander came back to lead them, but they had been given a rude awakening. A Srinajic army had sprung upon them in their canyon, literally tumbling down the walls of the gorge to get at the living animals. The Wolverines and Ibex had the advantage of numbers, but the Srinaj had the better position and the skill of stealth. It was a poorly executed really, the idea of the chokepoint. Because they had ended up in the trap themselves, thinking that they had the time to draw the Srinaj into the snare. Maybe if Ta`vik had been there to command the armies, maybe less would have died fending off the Srinaj, maybe . . .
Iakiwir shook his head and dismissed the hopeless thoughts of failure. I’ve heard enough to know that this Ta`vik is a genius; I’ll speak with him and learn how we can all improve.
He and Ursik were overseeing the armies as the warriors escaped the narrow passages of the canyon. The battle was already won, but too many came limping out of the gorge. And Eybexus hasn’t returned yet. Nor Fælwiix, for that matter.
“Keep moving, towards the river,” Iakiwir encouraged a few stripling rams, gesturing to the column moving along through the forest.
“East! East is that way!” That was Ursik, who was ‘helping’ an Ibex who had gained a concussion of sorts. Bashing one’s horns into a rock rather than the intended Srinaj made for a painful aftermath. The Ibex eventually got the directions right in his jumbled head and grunted a universally understood curse at Ursik, before lumbering off towards the river. The antheran was unaffected by the coarse behavior; he remembered well enough how he had acted after his first battle. And after the second, and many more after that.
Ursik knew a bit of Caldkarien, and so did several other Wolverines. About one out of twenty in the Ibex army knew a few primitive phrases in the human tongue. That was another thing that Iakiwir would have to speak to Ta`vik about, as well as the General. All of the Ibex and Wolverines needed to know the language, to be able to understand one another without a translator. Yet another thing to improve upon.
Doing a search of the dark canyon bottom with his eyes, Iakiwir confirmed that the army had completely evacuated the gorge. “Ursik, lead the armies to the river, Dele, let’s count the dead.” The latter was another Ibex who gave a short nod in return.
“Save your counting for the morning,” a familiar voice broke out nearby. Eybexus stepped out of the camouflage of the woods and came into view. Fælwiix accompanied him as well as twenty other warriors. “We will need the light of the sun for that. For now we need the dark of the night for rest, and thought.”
It was rather contemplative and philosophical of Eybexus to say that; Iakiwir ignored the oddity among so many others, however. Instead, he silently consented, and they all followed the column going towards the river, which was a few miles off. Soon, they heard the roar of the water source, and then the sight of it greeted them, the rushing waters glinting softly in the starlight. The wide river ran from north to south, and it winded gradually, many times falling in a great cascades, and one in particular came from between two pillar-mountains. At the base of that falls was where the army was spread out in sleeping forms and newly arriving warriors.
Fælwiix quickly detached from the group, leaving Eybexus and Iakiwir in a quiet conversation, held in their own grumbling language. He ambled to the edge of the waterfall that came from high above. It roared almost painfully in his ears, but it was a welcome sound compared to the screech of a demon.
Nearby the edge of the cascade was Ta`vik, and consequentially, Faeyl. The Wolverine’s armor had been laid aside, as he had been ordered, so Faeyl was easily curled up in sleep against his furry flank. He kept a bleary watch himself. It was hard to stay awake for no reason other than to keep watch.
He spotted Fælwiix coming towards them. “The battle is won?” he asked softly, glancing nervously at Innocence’s carrier, firmly in her mother’s arms.
“Yes,” the Commander answered. “And you wouldn’t believe half of it.”
The second-in-command nodded. “Then there will be no running for me.” He said that with relief. It had been Fælwiix’s orders to escape west with all speed if the battle was lost. He would have delivered Faeyl to Caldkere before returning himself to Yindyr, to report the loss to Gæliiq’s Elders, so that the Wolverine race might learn of the failure. But all of that had been avoided, and he would go south with the army, not north all alone.
Fælwiix gave Faeyl a fond glance before setting himself in the embrace of a few trees. He fell into a deep sleep, and this time he wouldn’t wake to find everyone dead around him.