Galithour I - Part 6/13

Chapter XX

Last Chance

13th of Late Spring, 376, 5th Era – Theargern, Capital of Hargirm

Sorrel tugged absently at her hair, sitting with her knees held to her chest in a corner of the room. Dirkfang’s room. As she sat there, she wondered why he hadn’t touched her in the past two days, leaving her to sit at the edge of the chamber all day in a long tunic while he went about his business. He was gone most hours of the day, but when he came back, it had been torture for her. Until the eleventh; on that night he had just collapsed on his bed and fallen asleep, and the same had happened the next evening. She didn’t complain—in fact, she never said a word more than was necessary to him—but she wondered if his lack of virility entailed something worse.

In her time there, Sorrel had contemplated that single window countless times. She could just jump out and wish to luck that she landed on the narrow roof thirty feet below instead of on the ground a hundred paces farther. But the risk was an almost definite death, and she didn’t want to die, no matter what Dirkfang did to her.

Killing the outlaw would do no good; despite his evil, he was her only protection against men who would just murder her on sight, or rape her and then gouge her golden eyes out. So strangling him in his sleep would just leave her in a more dire situation. She had also found no viable way of escape; there was only the window and the door. The wooden door was guarded on the outside constantly, unless Dirkfang was there himself to keep his eyes on her. She had walked out once just to be thrown back in by a ruffian guard. Several attempts had done nothing but gain her more bruises and a growled threat. The guard didn’t want his own head to be lost on her account.

So the Gelsingean had suffered, and now she had been given a reprieve where she could just sit and think.

Sit and think. Even if he doesn’t touch me anymore, my dreams haunt me, and I can’t escape them. I hate him. I wish he was dead; it wouldn’t even have to be a horrible death. Just as long as he didn’t exist anymore. Why does he enjoy hurting me!? She had been taught and had learned that it was wrong to wish death and misfortune on people—it was just a standard moral—but she didn’t care about much of anything anymore. She hardly cared about herself and her well-being, or what future awaited her, just as long as she was alive, and she wasn’t used evilly. She hadn’t given thought to Jacsibial or Kelestil in days.

She felt shaky with memory; she shivered every time he even looked at her, feeling those rough fingers handling her all over again, even when he was ten paces away.

On that bright, hopeful morning, she felt the scars in her spirit starting to scab over. She had suffered the feel of those wounds, and now they were sealing up. Not healing—she thought that would never happen, in her present state of mind—they were just concealing themselves, effectively detaching her from them and their sting.

She observed tiredly as Dirkfang woke up, keeping him in sight as more of a precaution then for an interest. He stretched with a grating yawn, scratched his crotch and put his mismatched armor on over his tunic and trousers. He then went to his table where some coarse food had been laid out the day before, and he put some of the sustenance into his mouth. The man gave her a squinted look, making her shrink away from his eyes. They were suspicious and scheming, full of twisted thoughts.

Dirkfang licked his lips after observing hers. “Come, sit,” he said in his most inviting tone, (which was to say, not very welcoming) patting on a chair nearby him. When Sorrel didn’t respond, he quickly changed moods. “I said, sit!”

The young woman cringed and stood timidly just to sit down again. She shifted her seat away from him and avoided his gaze, keeping her yellow eyes on the planks of the table. Her whole body shook in nauseating fear: Was he going to break his fast and assault her again?

“Eat,” he ordered afterwards, shoving a plate with bread and cheese towards her. “I can’t have you starving yourself until your ugly enough that no one wants you. My sister did that, but she didn’t last long.” He actually didn’t laugh at the cruelty of his sibling’s end. Sorrel wondered if that was an indication that he had a Soul. He went on before she could decide. “I think you’re still pretty enough; you ought to satisfy the others,” he commented in an off hand manner, meticulously choosing between two slabs of identically shaped meat and putting one on his plate.

Sorrel threw her head up to look at him in panic, but she couldn’t find her voice to make words. What others?

“So I’ve gotten a little bored of you,” Dirkfang admitted with a shrug. “Can’t blame a man for wanting all sorts of women. I thought I’d go forage for another sometime . . . maybe tomorrow.” He seemingly got involved in dicing his meat with his dirk as he continued. “Since I don’t want your company anymore, I thought you could help some of my more promising commanders. They’re real lonely you see, and I thought I could buy their loyalty, if you know what I mean. There’s just a few of them, six, maybe seven,” he looked to the ceiling and mused over the numbers for a moment.

Sorrel panted and nearly shook to pieces with fear. She couldn’t even speak, much less scream like she wanted to.

“But don’t worry; I’m gonna make it fair.” Fair just didn’t sound right coming out of his mouth, after what he had just declared to her. “I’m going out for the day, and if you survive when I get back by nightfall, I’ll set you free. Poof! This time tomorrow you’ll be running on green fields.” He stood up and stretched, and then made for the door. “Well, I’m out. I’ll see you tonight . . . one way or another.”

He left, and Sorrel was perfectly alone in the room. But she didn’t have much time. She had only a minute to think with her wild and panicked mind before she heard voices outside the door. The guard outside was asking for names, and various men’s voices were answering back.

She had no choice, so she stood shakily and went to the window. It was odd, because when she went to look out the opening, her heart calmed, and her quivering stilled. She swung her legs over the edge of the gaping window and then turned to slide down on her belly. Once she was hanging on by her fingertips, she hung there for a moment, one instant away from letting fortune decide her fate.

The roof, or the ground. She hesitated to let go, but when she heard the door open in Dirkfang’s room, she let go instantly with a gasp.

She shrieked when she landed on the narrow roof of shingles, collapsing on the sloped landing and scrambling to stay on it. Several clay tiles fell the whole drop to the ground and shattered with brittle noises. Now Sorrel was back to quaking uncontrollably, moaning for her broken elbow and many bruises. She sat up against the wall of The Palace, not daring to look at the shingles on the ground, where she very well could have ended up.

She heard the frustrated shouts of men above her, and then a roughened bandit looked out the window and spotted her. He cursed, then pulled himself back.

Sorrel looked to her right, where the solid wall of a wing of The Palace stood imposingly. The narrow roof of hers ended at that wall, but to her other side it led to some lower roofs and balconies of The Palace, which were shadowed in the early morning. She leaned against the wall and made her way gingerly along the slim walkway. A wind picked up and gusted around her, whipping her hair around, making her sway like a willow. Her elbow wrenched at her, but all she could do was cradle it and jump to the next rooftop. It was a large swath of clay shingles, so she could walk on it with less fear of falling over to her death. It was flanked by the higher levels of The Palace, and out of a window on the lowest level relative to the rooftop came a young soldier.

He approached her from across the roof. “Hold on there strange woman,” he said, coming to her slowly as if he were dealing with a skittish cat. “What are you doing up here? The winds will topple you right off if you’re not careful.”

“Go away,” Sorrel demanded, but he didn’t listen.

“I’m not going to hurt you, just come inside,” he urged in a sincere tone. He really just wanted to help her, which was odd. Someone with his good intentions shouldn’t have been mixed up with Dirkfang and the insane King of Hargirm. He might have meant well, but if he helped her into the keep, he would likely just deliver her to men who didn’t mean anything good for her.

Sorrel just wanted to be alone and away from everything that hurt, and unbridled rage and confusing emotions billowed up in her. “I said GO AWAY!” she shouted, and Kinetic Magic leapt out of her, following the path her thrown-out arm pointed to. The soldier was tossed back by an invisible force and landed heavily on the roof ten feet away from where he had been. He groaned, slipping on his palm as he tried to sit up.

Sorrel moved on, but other, less kind soldiers came onto the roof with her. She could keep her balance better than they when it came to dangerous ledges, and they had armor and weapons to work around, so she kept ahead of them easily, but they were persistent and knew the way better than she did. The woman got herself in a maze that was deadly to take a misstep in. It was a long wing of The Palace that had balconies and their roofs lining the huge cliff-face at all levels, and frequent leaps were necessary to get anywhere.

Tears swelled in her eyes as she gained more scrapes and bruises, and her cracked elbow was struck again and again when her landings went awry. Getting caught was certain death, though, so she pushed forward with the will of a wild, trapped animal. A deeply wounded animal.

More men got caught in the chase after her as she passed by them in her flight. She even landed on a man once when she fell onto a wide balcony. That one just shouted after her to be more careful when she decided to leap blindly.

Finally, she came to the end of The Palace’s wing, and her only options were to either double back and fall into the arms of her pursuers, or jump forward into the open window of a tall tower. She was still high up on the side of the fortress, so if she missed the diagonal leap into the pinnacle, she would end up as a mess on the ground.

Sorrel leapt through the window and landed on the tiling with a thud that shook her bottom and made her think that her coccyx bone had broken clean off. Nonetheless, the woman stood again and gained a significant lead on her hunters, as they had been caught up at a previous jump and were likely still puzzling where she had gone.

The tower had a spiraling staircase which lined its inner walls and left an open center, so she trotted up the railed steps, cradling her elbow again to keep it from bouncing around too much. She moaned when she heard guards coming up after her with clattering shouts. The order must have spread quickly to capture her, as the two following her up the steps were obviously different fellows from the first ones to have chased her across The Palace branch. She didn’t care, so long as she escaped.

When the top of the tower was reached, she found a domed roof with four circular openings pointing in each direction. She looked out every one, but found three deadly falls and only one plummet that she might survive. The smallest drop was fifty feet, the farthest over three-hundred, being the opening that faced the plains of Hargirm. She had to pick one to escape through, or face a worse fate. Sorrel knew quickly which one she would take.

As the two armored men came to the summit of the steps, puffing and gasping for breath, they saw the Gelsingean lean out of the window facing the plains, giving them a resigned expression. She fell back and out of the opening, screaming for a moment, but just as her shriek faded with distance, it was cut off. They didn’t have the grit to look and see what had become of her.

First Kanni had woken from her bed in the grass, (where she had passed out after making a storm of Fire) and gone back to the hideout where the horses were kept. Then she had worried, then tortured herself with demented fantasies. Finally, she had cried. She was alone, and she was certain that Gelvir was dead. The latter tore at her heart more, especially since there could be no doubt of it; the man had gone into The Palace, and he had not returned. The Hargirmians wouldn’t have spared his life, and he would have fought to the death anyway. Part of her mind blamed her for having let him go in alone, or go at all, and she felt that she had failed in the distraction, thus getting him killed.

I should have hen-pecked at him like he did with me; maybe then he wouldn’t have left. Even after nine days, she still squeezed her eyes shut and moaned in grief. She hadn’t realized how much she really cared about the Captain until she was sure that he was dead. It was funny how that worked; her father had needed to die in a collapsed building before she knew how much he had meant to her.

“Damn it!” she cursed, stamping a foot on the cave floor. “They killed him, and I was just beginning to . . .” Why am I thinking about myself? He’s the one who died! They’ll all pay for this, for him, and for what they’ve done to Kelestil, and forced on Leyfian. Darenhar’s insane, is he? I’ll cook his brains for him and feed them to him on a platter! She held back a choked sob. I just want to go home! I never asked for this . . . What about Gelvir? He never complained, even when his life was in danger. Even when I put him and Leyfian in danger. I wonder if he really was in love with me . . . She snarled, putting the thought aside for another. What would he have wanted me to do after he died? I want revenge, but is that really what he would want?

She already knew the answer to that question. He would want her to get Leyfian and Kelestil out of Theargern, back to safety. That would include Mithourn as well, but the first two were most important; the man might die in defense of them, and that was all right, but the two women couldn’t be allowed to perish. At least, that was how Gelvir would have seen it—Kanni wanted them all to come out alive, including the Captain, who she knew logically to be dead, but wished again and again was not.

The mage desperately wanted to save them, but she hadn’t been able to think of a solution. Theargern seemed impregnable, and where there was access to it, the place was swarmed over with sentries, all brutal men. And that wasn’t considering what the underground drumming was about. That was probably trouble twice as steeped as everything else.

She had scouted the whole wall of the city over the nine days, but had found no other entryway or advantageous point. All she had was her Magic, Elemental, Kinetic, Modification, Healing and a little Combat. Her skills in Unclassified Magic were utterly useless in her present circumstances, so she ruled those ones out quickly.

I could open up a hole in the wall with several of the Classes I know, but I could run into enemies at any point, and ruin everything. If I collapsed part of The Palace, that might just hurt Leyfian and Kelestil, and it wouldn’t be much help anyway. If I just burst in and try to take them, I’d be killed in an instant or a minute. I couldn’t use so much Magic to survive that; I’m not good enough. I certainly couldn’t protect the others on the way out. Damn this! I just want to curl up in a corner and forget about this! Putting all of the responsibility on me was the worst thing The Creator could have done! She felt wrong to think something like that, but she thought that it was correct. “What am I supposed to do!?” she shouted at the air, wanting divine interference, but getting none. She decided to leave the cave with the horses; she had delayed too long out of fear and grief, and she was surprised that she had restrained so long. She was going to do something—anything—and she just hoped that it would make an affect.

On her way out the cave entrance, she bumped into someone. A very tall someone.

For a fraction of an instant she thought that it might be Gelvir, but the Captain was not nearly so tall, and her heart withered when she knew that it wasn’t him. She looked up at a looming Boar, a male with huge tusks and a matted coat of black fur, wearing only a pelt that was tied at his waist and which fell to near his knees.

The boar looked down at her in puzzlement and snorted angrily. “Who are you?” he asked gruffly, and surprisingly in her own tongue.

Kanni just gaped for a moment, then stuttered in return. “I-I could ask you the same,” she replied. The mage was shocked at such an odd occurrence.

“I’m Marram Vitiver Reed,” the boar replied.

“What?” Kanni found herself saying.

“You heard me. If you need an explanation, they’re all names from plants, and many Boars have more than one name. Now, do you happen to possess just one title? Or shall I refer to you as Human Number One?”

“I’m Kanni, if you must know, rude clod number seventeen.”

“So you’ve met more than one disagreeable bur in your life, have you? Well I’ve been surrounded by hoards of them for years now, and if you have any intention of getting near them, then good luck. You won’t find any nice truffles around here, because all of those left when Darenhar cracked.”

The woman digested the Boar’s words for a moment. “You’ve been a prisoner?”

“Ever since I got caught in between that stupid war of yours. The Hargirmians won the battle and took me as a captive along with a bunch of other clods from Helkras.”

“It’s not my war,” Kanni protested. “I just want to get out of here.”

Marram pushed past her and sat on a rock near the horses, both of whom shrunk away from him. “Well then why don’t you?”

“Because I have to help my friends, and I won’t leave until they’re free.”

The boar put his hands on his knees, closed his eyes meditatively, and sighed in a long, guttural snort. “I don’t think you’ll have a good time trying that; not every seed grows into a tree. In this case, you’re in dry soil.”

Kanni came a step closer to the black Boar and spoke softly, hoping to calmly infiltrate his mind rather than drill through his ears. “You escaped, so maybe you can help me. I wouldn’t ask you to go back there, just to tell me how you got out, and how to move through The Palace unseen, if it’s possible.”

Marram just squinted at her with his small, dark eyes, and he tongued his knife-like tusks. “I recently found a small opening in the wall to the north side of the city, and that was how I left. I suppose you can go through the opposite way, if you need. The city is abandoned enough to get through unnoticed by those damned stranglers, but The Palace is swarming with them. Determination won’t get you through there, or craziness. Only sheer power could see you through, or sheer invisibility. Either way I don’t see you or your friends getting out.”

“I have to try,” Kanni declared. She shifted and put a hand on her hip, thinking on her problems again. “I just wish I knew where they were being held.”

“The Bear might know,” Marram threw out casually. Imprisonment was no longer his trouble, so he didn’t mind giving the lunatic woman some suggestions.

“Who’s that?”

The Boar rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Hafkil, the ex-general of Darenhar’s armies.”

“Oh. He’s in there as well? Would he help?”

“He might, but the man is busy and up to no good as I’ve seen; I saw him sneaking about with a man and woman—prisoners I think—and he took them down into The Caverns, to show them the Dragons, most likely. They thought they were so sneaky, like creepers, but I saw it all.”

The woman’s mind was blank for a moment. And then it exploded in twelve different directions. “Dragons!? Where did Darenhar get those? Is that where the earthquakes have been coming from?”

“No, at least, not most of them. Usually the Uqauli go to drumming like wild every couple of hours—they drive me mad. Vaerj might cause some of the quakes, though.”

And now Uqauli. Marram just stated one thing after another as if they were standard qualities of life. She questioned him some more, just to make certain that he wasn’t playing a weird joke on her, but he answered her inquiries so smoothly and adeptly that there was little room for doubt. He also explained the features of the man and woman Hafkil had befriended, and the descriptions matched both Mithourn and Leyfian.

So she had several huge powers against her, and she had no hope to hold them back if they descended on her. She would just have to pull on her obscure, timid side and sneak into the place, praying to The Creator that no conflict arose.

So, no revenge for Gelvir, just get in and out. But how? She looked to the Boar, who was swishing his tufted tail about in irritation. “Could you show me your secret entrance?”

Marram shifted uneasily. “I suppose . . .” His tail whipped about a little more fiercely. “I might as well show you, if you’re going to do it right. But I’m out of here by nightfall, so you had better hurry.”

Kanni nodded and went to find her things. She was already dressed in her riding outfit which was made from linen and gave good mobility, so she just donned a hooded cloak and gloves. “All right, I’m ready when you are,” she said as she pulled her hood over her head, arranging her shoulder-length curly hair.

Marram stood on his large, cleft hooves and walked back out of the cave with lumbering steps. “Come along, then,” he said with a deep exhalation. He sounded very tired of a sudden.

The woman followed after him quietly, and the two hugged the edge of the wall of Theargern, pushing past scrubby brush and crawling over tumbled rocks. The boar’s hooves proved to work like a goat’s on the terrain, and his furry, small-clawed fingers were also adapted for the trek.

The boar helped the mage several times to climb up steep, jagged boulders and rocky slopes, and she noticed that he was taking her ever higher on the sheer stones that encircled the walls. It was just a natural part of the landscape that the builders had used to their advantage; the tumbled barrier was perfect to build a wall on, making it even more formidable.

Just within a quarter-mile of the actual gates into Theargern, Marram halted and searched around a gravelly hilltop which was pushed against the sandstone walls. Kanni hugged the wall herself; she was only twenty feet up, but a tumble down the slope would break her, and the gravel slid under her boots frighteningly.

“Found it,” her companion said in a hoarse whisper. Even if the guards on the height of the wall were eighty or more feet above them, it was best to be quiet on such a still morning.

She followed the black Boar into a small hollow within the hill. It just looked like a simple dip into the ground, but Marram slid in and revealed a hidden hole at the bottom of the depression. Kanni followed after, getting coated in dirt—really just adding another layer onto what was already on her—and coughing on the clouds of dust she stirred up. Landing heavily on stone ground, she stood and pounded her head into a brick.

“Agh!” she yelped, and rubbed her throbbing head. Her curly hair had actually taken away some of the impact, but even so, it still hurt.

“Watch yourself,” Marram said in a hushed voice. It was dark except for some light that leaked in from outside, so she could barely see the Boar through the curtains of dust. She made a Light, showing a corridor of giant sandstone bricks, all jutting out oddly from the floor, ceiling and walls. The mage could tell that it was a hollow area somewhere in the wall, not in any way meant to be a passage, likely an area where the builders thought they could save on material, or where erosion had taken a toll on the soil.

Marram led her inwards, and though the path was short, it took many odd turns, and once they were even forced to crawl under an overhang that made Kanni anxious. She didn’t want a freak miracle to occur where the stone decided to give way and crush her under its immense mass.

She laughed quietly when she remembered a joke she had told Gelvir about luck and chance. The short tale had recounted six companions who, at the same place and at the same time, had all miraculously choked and died on their own spit.

Marram was ahead of her, and he suddenly burst out into golden daylight again. She came out on the other side of the wall after him, and was greeted by the sight of Theargern. It was a nicely built city, but it looked dead and empty from where she was, with large brick and wood buildings falling into disrepair and roads scattered with dried horse dung or rats. Flies were everywhere, and Kanni was assaulted with the stench of waste. She curled her nose, and Marram snorted angrily—his nostrils were far more sensitive than hers.

They stepped lightly around the piles of chamberpot contents and horse manure, getting to a crisper-smelling area of the abandoned city. That helped both of their nostrils. Slightly.

Marram looked about suspiciously before ducking into an empty house, gesturing for her to follow him. “I started piling that there when I found the passage so the soldiers wouldn’t want to even look over there. I had to deter some soldiers living in the houses nearby so they wouldn’t see me escape. The burs just left yesterday.”

Kanni nodded at the genius tactic, then crossed her arms. “Marram . . . why did you come here with me? I thought you didn’t want to come back here.”

The boar gave her a level look and then looked off to the side with a twist of his huge nostrils. “You might as well do it right, if you’re going to get into The Palace. No one just sneaks in or out; they need to have a reason to be somewhere, and you obviously have no good reason to be anywhere in the city. I’ve seen what they do to women around here—ever since all of the native girls were either kicked out or sold off, the men around here started using the women they managed to kidnap evilly; most suitable females don’t live long here. I don’t think you would last long, not once you’re caught, and there’s no way around that.”

Kanni shivered as sickening thoughts passed through her head. “What do you suggest?”

“No one will suspect that I left, so I have as much freedom as I did a minute ago. I can show up in The Palace delivering a cart full of hay for the horses, and drop off a certain package where it needs to be placed. That is, if the package knows where she wants to be?”

The mage had to think only for a second. “I would want to be where my friends are being kept. The two that Hafkil was sneaking around with, do you know where they are being kept?”

Marram scratched his head. “I might be able to find where, but I’d have to snoop around, and those damn thorns would think it strange if I started hauling a cart around that part of The Palace. They would ask questions, and then we would both be found out.”

“Then how about you get me as close as possible, and put me in an empty room nearby; I can take care of the rest.”

“If that’s good enough for you,” Marram said as if he didn’t really care.

First, Kanni had to wait at the abandoned house while the Boar found a cart and hay somewhere on the other side of the city, and she took the time to wonder whether he was trustworthy. She ended with the thought that she didn’t have many options, he had shown goodwill towards her, and she didn’t have a better idea than what he had come up with.

When he came back, he had a four-wheeled wooden cart with him, stacked full of dry, itchy hay. She didn’t offer complaints, so she climbed onto the large, walled contraption, laid down, and then curled up to reduce her size. She could become quite small when she wanted to.

Looking up at the black Boar, she made a nervous smile. “Thank you for deciding to help me, nice clod number five.”

His nostrils flared at that. “Oh just save it—we’re not through this yet. Now get ready for this hay; it’ll itch like poison ivy if you’re not absolutely still.”

Kanni guarded her face with her arms and then felt odd as Marram stuffed the dried grass around her and then on top, until it was a nice, insulating blanket that weighed comfortably on her. She thought that she could take a nap right there.

“Here we go,” the boar stated, and the rough-hewn vehicle began to bump along. So began the long, slow trek to The Palace, and as she was jounced about, Kanni absently wished that she could see Gelvir again, and wondered which realm he was residing in now.

The cage was rusted, small and uncomfortable. It didn’t help that his wounds still bothered him, and had hardly healed for lack of attention. Gelvir desperately wished that Kanni was there to caress his gashes and fix them, but more than that, he wanted her spirit and energy. He had none left himself, and anyone within a mile of him only had a fist or a whip for him, certainly no livening attitude to go with the beatings. He was just glad that Kanni wasn’t in his place; likely she still had her freedom, and was forging a plan of some sort to free Leyfian and Kelestil. Mithourn too, if the man didn’t die in defense of them, but the women were most important.

He fingered his wounds which were easy to feel under his tunic; his armor had been taken away, and he would have removed it himself anyways. The Hargirmians had handed him a needle, thread and some tasteless liquor so he could commit self-surgery on himself. He hadn’t made very good stitches in himself, but his major cuts were sealed, if not very pretty to look at. One on his leg and a gash on his face felt particularly puffy and irritated, so he was sure that he had infections to look forward to.

Damn it, I want Kanni . . . His duty to Leyfian was still engraved in him, but any thought of the curly-haired mage made his heart beat strongly again. The need to escape was amplified by the desire to see her again and bring her to safety, where she could be happy and radiant, instead of depressed and fearful. She was his fuel while he stewed quietly in his cage, watched by derisive Hargirmians and their guard-hounds.

He looked to the surroundings beyond the bars of his metal box, seeing a semi-large cavern with other similar cells. When he had been caught, his captors had taken him down a lift into an enormous cavern system, one that housed a military encampment, and the relatively small cave had been where they delivered him.

Below him was the floor, twenty feet down. It was quite an ingenious method of entrapment; the cages were hoisted up on heavy chains and left there until the prisoner needed food or was already dead. He thought that he fell under the former category, seeing as he had been fed enough to continue living. He had two companions hanging from the ceiling with him to demonstrate the two paths. One was dead, not yet taken down, and another was a muttering fellow, a Hargirmian who was likely in the midst of his punishment for some crime. The way things were in Theargern, Gelvir suspected that punishable crimes were actually good deeds rather than evil.

He swung his cage around in boredom, like a trapped Wolf biding his time. If his cage door was ever opened again, he would leap out at the first man in his way and fight his way out. He sighed. I’ve already done that a dozen times, and they just pummel me into The Waste. At least I can frustrate them, he thought with some satisfaction. His jail guards were hard pressed to beat him down each time, and they had shown obvious anger at not being able to beat him into submission.

On second thought, Kanni might just refuse to Heal him because he had been such a fool to add to his injuries. But he doubted that.

I have to get out . . . He gave a sidelong glance to his guards, who were gathered at a table, drinking and playing some sort of game with dozens of little wooden sticks. He wasn’t interested in the game, but in the two guards’ ignorance of him. That incessant pounding began again, and one of the guards hissed a curse before returning to the game. The imprisoned Hargirmian continued muttering. Gelvir sneaked out a needle from his sleeve, one he had been able to keep after stitching himself up; the guards were quite careless, and they hadn’t remembered the needle they had given him. While the noise and their game went on, he snaked his arm out of the bars of his cage and messed with the lock on his door, sticking his needle in and twisting it around in a lost hope. Wishing for a lock to open without understanding it or having the proper lock-picking tools was hoping for a–

Click!

The Captain’s eyes widened. He pulled his hand back, pinned the needle in his sleeve again and acted like he was doing nothing. Looking at the guards, he saw that they were still distracted from him, and the dogs were asleep in a corner of the room. He slowly took the lock off and hung it on another bar of the cage. While the pounding was still going, he quickly opened the barred door to prevent any elongated creaking, slid out of the cage and held onto the floor of the box by his fingers. He had no head for heights, and dropping fifteen feet to the hard ground was difficult to enact when he was broken and bruised all over. He dangled from the cage for a moment, seeing the ground reel underneath him, but when he suddenly remembered the guards, he dropped, falling for a frightening second and landing with a heavy thud. Grunting, he stood despite the equilibrium that was splashing around in his head, ignoring that as well as his pained feet and bottom.

The two guards were just beginning to look around when he came behind the first and snapped their neck with his hands. He drew the dead man’s sword from its sheath and thrust it through the other guard’s throat. Twisting on his heel quickly, he caught the guard dogs as they were charging at him with bays and snarls. He cut them down before they could make too much noise, and then he went to work, taking the armor off of the unbloodied guard and putting it on himself.

This time, I am just running for the lifts and getting out of this Cursed place. I’ll find Kanni, and then we’ll wait for something to happen, or for a better plan. After seeing some of the real power of Theargern, he didn’t see how he and Kanni together could do anything. He had heard earth-quaking roars several times over the course of his imprisonment, and he didn’t doubt that they were the sounds of Dragons. What other creature could make such a brutal noise? None that he knew of, and besides, Dragons seemed to fit Darenhar. The man was obviously insane and bloodthirsty, so his having a flock of the beasts made perfect logic.

The Captain went quickly through the caves, but he found to his dismay that they were tangled and enormous, one connecting right into another. And they were all swarming with Hargirmian soldiers; there was no point to stealth, so he just acted like he was on important business—and made sure he didn’t bump into anyone like the last time.

On his way along a winding subterranean highway which was lined with machines of war, he came across confirmation of his suspicions. A group of men, most with loaded crossbows, were leading a huge, bronze Fire Dragon along the cavernous road. One was urging him on while the others were ready to shoot the drake if he should go feral. With four legs and two wings, the drake moved with lumbering steps, shaking the ground and making the siege engines rattle noisily. He was at least sixty feet long, excluding his tail, and his body was robust. Gelvir could easily imagine the Dragon burning down most of Herkile within only a little time.

He rushed onward, avoiding the Dragon by a wide berth and running into the next cavern at full force. Most men would think that he had a message from Darenhar himself, if they weren’t paying attention to his darting eyes and swiveling head, because he was in fact searching for a way out. He wasn’t panicked, but he felt time pressing on him. How long before Kanni does something rash to get Leyfian and Kelestil out? Is she already caught? He thought that as he continued through the expansive caverns, skimming past dozens of men, some armored and others in their off duty wear. I would die twice over to keep her from becoming a prisoner here . . . I would do the same for Leyfian and Kelestil, but . . . He shook his head and went on, trying to rid his mind of anything but the thought of getting out. There wouldn’t be anything that he could do until he was out of Theargern.

The drums began their low, droning beat, matching the pounding throbs of his heart.

Darenhar studied his two prisoners deliberately, stroking his chin thoughtfully, looking from Mithourn to Leyfian, woman to man. The Dakrynian looked tired and beaten while the Mrithician had a determined and stormy set to his face. All to his master plan. Or maybe not. He couldn’t remember if he even had a master plan, aside from burning Helkras to the foundations of the planet.

He sat back in his throne, guards flanking him and standing at the iron doors behind the two captives. Neither of them spoke, though the woman had pleaded and simultaneously demanded to see her daughter just a minute past. He had denied her strongly enough that she had given up begging with him.

Darenhar felt like playing a game, one that neither of them would understand, so he would hold all the power. Just like a child toying with insects.

“Hafkil, The Bear, the General of Hargirm, the ex-general of Hargirm, the Traitor, the Treacherous One, has escaped my keeping. Any idea where he went? Hmm?” he asked, intertwining his fingers with each other.

Mithourn looked up at him, face unchanging.  “We don’t–”

“A LIE,” Darenhar proclaimed, standing from his seat with indignity. He really didn’t care what they knew or if Mithourn had been about tell the truth, he just wanted to bewilder them, and to see them writhe. The King of Hargirm fell back in his throne and stroked his chin once more. “I can save you from much unneeded pain if you answer me now,”

Mithourn growled, and then relaxed his face. “I said that we–”

“Guards, beat them both, very hard.”

Leyfian yelped as a guard knocked down from behind, while Mithourn struggled and shouted as two of the soldiers took a hold of him and started pummeling him where his armor was ignorant. The woman fought back as much as she could, but she was practically harmless to an armored man who was twice her size. She was quickly forced into submission, and she cried and wriggled helplessly in his grasp. Darenhar watched in fascination, and then looked to Mithourn who took a while longer and much more effort to strike down.

“Darenhar,” the man bellowed with what strength he could summon. “Stop this,” he finished in between grunts.

“Guards, back away,” the King ordered, and his loyal sentinels did as commanded. They were the truly wicked ones, some of the few who needed no threats to do the evils he commanded.

Leyfian panted and stayed where she was on the ground, eyes staring at the floor and the booted feet of Mithourn. He came to her side, stumbling several times before he could kneel by her and help lift her into a seated position. Heart racing unsteadily, she rubbed her tears away and groaned because of her throbbing chest and aching body. Her vision reeled for a second, threatening to take her consciousness with it, but then it resolved, and she calmed after her heart did.

Mithourn couldn’t find any words for Leyfian, but he had some choice few for Darenhar. He glowered at the King and stood, fists clenching where he placed them against his stomach—which throbbed—and teeth grinding. “This has gone on long enough, Darenhar. If you are still a king, then stand and fight for yourself.” Hafkil had told them to be obscure and timid, to wait for Mawing’s arrival, but Mithourn’s patience had frayed to the snapping point.

“A duel?” Darenhar mused, listening to various voices in his head for a moment. “Yes . . . y-no . . . yes . . .” He swept away his alters, put away a desire to stick a finger in his ear, and stood to pace about. “I may choose to fight with you, but only after . . . say . . . four test battles. Yes, you will fight with four of my warriors, one at a time, and if you defeat the last, then I will deign to cross blades with you.”

The Mrithician blinked. “Who are these four warriors?”

“Perfectly trained fighters, that’s who. They listen to my—our—commands, and they are worthy soldiers.”

Mithourn wanted to ask if they were human, but if he said something like that, Darenhar would suspect what he and Leyfian had been shown in the caverns, and only The Creator knew what the mad King would do to them after that.

Leyfian stood shakily and buried her face in his shoulder while she held onto him for balance. “Don’t do it,” she pleaded, “you can’t die. It will be for nothing! I can’t watch you die!” She screamed that, as much as she could with a broken voice. Leyfian apparently had reached the end of her candlewick as well, but she had given way to despair instead of vexation. Vexation was a weak word for what was bubbling inside of Mithourn.

He looked to Darenhar. “Swear that you will fight me once I have completed your challenge the minute I finish it. Swear it with the strongest oath you know,”

The King put a hand over his heart. “I swear to you on my Soul that I will do battle with you the moment you lay down your fourth opponent.”

“Let’s get this started, then,” Mithourn challenged, and Darenhar smiled ominously at him.

Darenhar sent two guards away, each with their own secret commands, while the King himself led his two prisoners through The Palace, with an armed escort, of course. He brought them to a grand spiral staircase which went both upwards and downwards through all of the levels of the fortress. Ascending the steps, they went up several stories until they came into blinding sunlight. They found themselves on the circular viewing stand of a huge coliseum. The whole arena was closed in by the towers and walls of The Palace, and hundreds of windows looked out over the raised stand as well as the arena grounds. The floor of the arena was tiled with sandstone bricks that were stained to a ruddy color from past battles, and a pool of water was held in the center of the stadium. Flags of Hargirm fluttered in the wind on the heights of the arena, displaying a shock of wheat crossed with a sword and held with a shield.

Darenhar took them to the best viewing point, then had his guards flank Leyfian to keep her in place. He pointed to a ladder for Mithourn, the only way in or out of the battleground.

“What about my weapon?” the High Captain questioned.

The King rolled his eyes irritably, as if he had been asked to do the most difficult task in the whole Palace. “Your first opponent will only have a knife. Can you not handle that? Are Kingsguards really so lax?”

Mithourn just glared before he descended the ladder to the floor of the arena. If it came to it, he had a small dagger sheathed on the inside of his boot, but even without it he had a good chance of defeating this first enemy. He had fought men with weapons when he was unarmed before.

Two soldiers lifted the ladder up and took it out of the battleground, to remove any escape, and then they went back to guarding Leyfian. She was transfixed on Mithourn, so he gave her his most confident, encouraging look. Likely nothing could remove her worry and fear, but he would try to lessen it by being strong in his bearing. He hoped her heart didn’t try to hurt her again; his own pounded powerfully in his chest. Mrithicians were always born with strong hearts.

Maybe I can actually do this . . . Mithourn was certain that Darenhar would never live up to his promise of fighting in a duel, but the King was right there, and if Mithourn could just get a proper weapon in his grasp . . .

The inhabitants of The Palace began filing into the stand, filling up the stone seats just as more of the Hargirmians lined the windows looking into the arena. Dirkfang arrived to stand next to Darenhar, holding a bronze war-horn in one hand, looking into the stadium with some interest. Hundreds were now watching Mithourn.

Damn . . . I’ll never get the chance, and even if I do, I’ll get swarmed right after. Leyfian might get killed in the chaos, or she might live just because of her pretty face, and in that case I wouldn’t be alive to get her out of their filthy hands. He watched as an outlaw dropped into the arena from the high-set stands on the other side of the coliseum. But maybe most of them are sick of Darenhar and wouldn’t bother me or Leyfian once the man is dead.

The skinny, knotted bandit approached and then stopped to face him, long knife in hand, leather armor hanging off of him. He waited impatiently, fidgeting and darting his eyes about as the crowd began to chant and cheer. Mithourn couldn’t tell who they were rooting for, but he suspected that they wanted the greasy fellow to die, so that there would be another fight afterwards.

You have to know when you can triumph, and when you need to sacrifice something to survive, Mithourn recalled, all words which his sword master had once told him. That had been many years past, now.

Dirkfang sounded his horn once, letting out a shrill, hollow noise into the air.

The outlaw leapt at him with a howl, but Mithourn could easily see the trajectory of the blade, stepped aside, kicked the man in the face with his heel, and watched the aftermath. The bandit keeled over and clutched at his bleeding nose, staggering for a second until Mithourn pounded him in the back of the head and knocked him out soundly. He took the fellow’s large knife for his own and went back to his original standing point.

Dirkfang’s horn sounded again, but it went off twice instead of once, signaling the second match.

A man got down into the arena, and he was so huge that when he hung onto the ledge of the stands to drop into the battleground, he had only a very short fall to go. He was coated in steel twice as thick as any normal man’s armor, and some of the spectators threw his weapons down to him; two enormous claymores that he picked up with no sign of effort. One to each hand, he twirled them independently in loops and figure-eights as if they were sticks. He was an absolute giant that dwarfed Mithourn, who was a big man himself.

Now I see Darenhar’s plan . . . this is an execution. I expected as much, but I’ll kill whatever he sends at me–!

Mithourn ducked under a lethal swing of his opponent’s twin blades, and then leapt to the side as they came down in quick succession again, both ringing off of the paving stones rather than digging into his flesh. So the giant was quick as well as strong. That just meant that Mithourn would have to be stealthy in his attacks, and swifter himself.

You have to know when to make a sacrifice to survive . . . From what he could see, he was looking forward to a heavy gash, or maybe losing a limb. That latter would be his end though, so he had to avoid any sacrifice at all. His sword master had meant knife wounds and arrows, not swords fit for rending a cow in two.

He sidestepped an impaling thrust and then jerked his neck back as the two claymores were swung like a pair of shears to relieve him of his head. More blows bounced off of the ground, creating sparks and skimming the air near Mithourn, each more violent than the previous attack. One of those misdirected blows landed into the first contestant who had been knocked out by Mithourn. The greasy man wouldn’t wake up from his stupor, it seemed.

 As Mithourn kept up his evasion, the giant became frustrated, sloppy and slow. Eventually, he made his wrong move.

Mithourn crouched under a combined swing of the two blades which twisted the behemoth around on his feet. He jumped onto his opponent when the man turned his back to him for just an instant, and plunged his dagger into the giant’s neck. The man bellowed in agony as blood spurted in a fountain from his wound, and like a tree, he was felled with a loud thud. Mithourn was left standing with a spray of blood that dripped off his face and fingers. He took a claymore from his dead enemy and took a hold of it with both hands, which proved a difficulty in itself. The High Captain couldn’t even picture himself wielding both blades at once.

Dirkfang’s horn went off for the third time, and it ringed with three fleeting blasts. Mithourn had to wait a moment after the warning call, though he had expected a swifter response from the next champion. He didn’t mind the rest; his heart was pounding away fiercely, and it took more than a few moments to calm it and his breathing. He took the time to give Leyfian another look, just to show that he was fine. She was wide-eyed and a little pale, leaning on the banister that guarded the viewing stands for balance. Mithourn knew that the woman didn’t have much of a stomach for violence and blood, and he could understand her fright at it. He had been innocent of such brutality in his youth, until he had been a part of it for some time, then the shock faded away. It just tortured him in his sleep instead.

He suddenly noticed a commotion taking place at the far end of the stadium. The soldiers and men on that side of the stand were shouting frantically and moving in fluctuating waves to get out of the way of something. Not all of them escaped, and several were knocked out of the way, while one was even thrown to the bottom of the arena, where he landed and did not move again.

Mithourn felt his eyes going wide like Leyfian’s. An Uqauli larger than his last opponent leapt into the battleground with a thunderous quake. It breathed gratingly, and each inhalation brought its molten veins to life with light. It was formed from a grayish sedimentary rock that was ingrained with tiny fossilized shells and corals.

Now I’m truly fucked, Mithourn thought; that happened to be the moment when the Uqauli roared like a landslide and charged at him with thudding steps. He could feel the ground quivering underneath his feet more and more with each stride the livid golem took. Once it had closed half the distance, he swung his sword in an arc, throwing it at the Uqauli. It missed by a fantastic margin.

He had no choice but to run, and he did so with great vigor, going around the pool in the center of the arena to go retrieve his weapon. When he got it in his hands again, he twisted, hurling it in a wide stroke across the thorax of his pursuer. It barely chipped the beast.

It howled at him, striking out at him with blows that would have been devastating for a boulder. He dodged each one, and was inevitably chased around the whole coliseum, barely getting a sparse chance to do some damage on the golem.

Leyfian watched in horror as it went on. Mithourn was going to die. He’s going to die . . . what can possibly save him? Her very thoughts quivered at the prospect of seeing him get mashed like an insect by that stone monster. But despite her despair, an inspiration came to her as Mithourn and the golem brought their struggle over to her side of the stadium. She tipped off the helmet from the guard to her side and took it in hand. She hurled it as hard as she could manage, and the steel object pounded satisfyingly right into the Uqauli’s head. It growled, darting to face her for an instant, molten eyes shifting dangerously, but then it went back to finding its original target.

Leyfian’s other guard guffawed, until she tugged off his helmet as well, and threw it into the Uqauli’s back, giving Mithourn another split instant to gain an advantage. Her two sentinels decided that she was getting away with too much, and they grabbed her by the arms to keep her in place. Darenhar seemed too distracted to care about her, and too focused on the battle to notice her little intrusions.

Mithourn had been gifted with enough time to regain his balance, and when the Uqauli descended on him, he was prepared with his claymore. He made a cry and waled the beast in the side of the head, causing a chunk to come off, glowing-hot stone oozing out of its rocky skull. It thundered with a monstrous howl, returning his attack. He was reduced to a retreat again, barely evading the Uqauli’s whistling limbs. He took a step back, then a great leap, threw up a defense with his sword and fell back another step–

Mithourn found himself toppling backwards off a ledge and into cool water, the Uqauli following after him, its molten veins cooling and going dark. There was a struggle where he scrambled through the water in a panicked attempt to get away from the golem, expecting any second to feel its stone limbs pound into him. He crawled out of the pool and ran a good distance before turning to see what had become of his enemy. The Uqauli had not come out of the water, and the pool was still. The lone fighter went over to the water’s edge, looking down to find that the golem had sunken to the bottom of the pool and was utterly motionless, its veins quenched. He realized that it had died because its inner furnaces were put out by the coolness of the water.

He sighed in relief. Looking up to Leyfian, he gave her a grateful smile that she returned with a waver of her lips. He had seen who had thrown those helmets and distracted the Uqauli from him.

Darenhar was less satisfied with the turn of affairs, but he only heaved a breath and signaled for Dirkfang to roll out his call. The General puffed on his horn four times, and there was a long silence afterwards. The audience was quiet but expectant, ripples of speech going through the crowd as the men looked about, occasionally jabbing at each other, some laying bets down on parchment just for the entertainment of it.

Mithourn retrieved his sword, shook some of the moisture off of himself and returned to his side of the coliseum, where he gave Leyfian another glance. He saw that she had a hand to her left breast, likely trying to stifle her heart, and her eyes were closed. She looked to be muttering a prayer for her own ears. Darenhar had a gleeful look, and Mithourn felt his own heart throb in him. He knew who he would face in his next match, and Leyfian had apparently caught onto the fact as well, the way she looked ready to sick up with worry.

A hollow noise echoed in the distance, sounding like leather beating in the wind. There was an impending roar, and then the howling gale of gigantic wings stroking the air with enormous strength.

Mithourn exhaled heatedly just as the silhouette of an orange-bronze Dragon entered the sky above the arena, circling the heavens. The drake alighted in the arena just in front of Mithourn, shaking the whole coliseum and making the spectators whoop or bellow in applause. Now they expected to see some real action, in the form of Mithourn being turned to ashes.

He fingered his blade’s handle. I get one chance at this; I have to make it quick and lethal by going for the head in his blind spot . . . It doesn’t look like he has much of a blind spot. His heart raced as he waited for the huge Dragon to look aside for just an instant. He was so close to getting at Darenhar, yet it looked to be impossible. I should have taken the chance and thrown my sword at him in between the fights—but he kept Leyfian so close that it could have hit her instead, and I proved myself a bad aim anyways. So that left him with one choice; kill the Dragon. He had heard of men slaying Dragons before, but the warriors had always had some Magical ability or supernatural assistance. He would just have to do without.

Unknowing of Mithourn’s thoughts, the Dragon just looked in curiosity at the tiny man, and then turned expectantly towards Darenhar, wondering what he was supposed to do with the midget warrior.

The King raised a finger, preparing to point it at Mithourn. “Tahs,” he addressed the drake. Before he could give the command to kill however, he suddenly cursed as he saw Leyfian jumping into the arena without a thought for herself. “Why doesn’t someone keep her in place!?” he complained.

The woman gathered herself up after collapsing from her fall, ran to Mithourn’s side and stood in front of him, spreading her arms wide to make herself more obvious. The man sputtered in disbelief and pulled her back to stand behind him, but she struggled and they had to compromise by standing side by side.

Darenhar couldn’t release his Dragon on Mithourn while his most valuable prisoner was in the way, and even his cracked mind understood that. “Someone get her out of there!” he screamed, but just as some of the soldiers started dropping into the arena, Leyfian spoke up.

“Darenhar, if you won’t fight Mithourn fairly, then fight me instead,” she announced, feeling weak in her limbs for fear as well as her overworked heart.

Mithourn didn’t have the words to speak in protest; he lowered his sword and took her by a shoulder. His wild eyes spoke everything he felt, but Leyfian ignored him as best she could. She looked back to Darenhar. “Give me a sword and come down here yourself,”

“NO!” Mithourn finally broke out. “He’ll just cut you down! What is the point of everything if you just get yourself killed!?”

“You can’t kill a Dragon, Mithourn,” the madwoman responded, “no matter what you think. I’ll have a better chance of defeating Darenhar. I hope.”

Darenhar was truly intrigued, and he stuck a finger in his ear for a moment before he went to stroking the line of his jaw. “You can hardly lift a blade,” he mused out loud, laughing derisively at Leyfian. “But,” he added, throwing his hands up in acceptance. “I accept.”

It was a quick affair to clean up before the next battle. Darenhar shooed Tahs away, and the Dragon obediently flew off back to where he had come from, if with a little frustration. Several soldiers entered the arena to remove the two dead bodies of the men, dragging them up the ladder to be buried, handling the skinny outlaw with some disgust. On top of being mauled by the giant’s claymore, the Uqauli had made a mess of his legs with a badly aimed blow, and Tahs had crushed him underfoot after that. Yes, he certainly would never wake again.

Leyfian finally relieved some pressure by vomiting into the pool at the center of the arena; the brutal violence paired with her fear had built up in her, and the only way to remove some of it was to remove some of what was in her stomach. It helped her quite a lot after the nausea had passed, and when a soldier handed her a slender sword, she gave it some swings. Mithourn was disarmed and hustled to the stands by several armed men before he could do anything—a wise move on Darenhar’s part. The King himself clambered down the ladder to the arena floor with a vile grin, and was handed a beautiful short-sword by one of his soldiers. He licked the edge of the blade—not just a flick of his tongue, but a long, deliberate drag—and was surprised by the blood it drew from his flesh. He smacked his lips and wiped some of the crimson liquid from the edge of his mouth. After that he went to circling Leyfian, twirling his sword in deliberate ovals. The soldiers left the battleground for the stands, pulling the ladder up after them and trapping the two contestants in the pit together.

“I will not kill you today,” he said, droplets of blood spraying from his mouth and adding to his insane look. “Or perhaps I will.” He cackled at that, like it was a most ingenious joke, and then he broke into further peals of laughter, hunching over on himself and gasping for breath in between giggles. The spectacle was disturbing, but it did not end there.

A darkness started to seep out of him in a foggy aura, making him lean over further, his mirth ending abruptly to be replaced by raspy breathing. The darkness coalesced and writhed about like flames taking shape.

Leyfian didn’t know or like what she was seeing, and she leapt forward to attack him, just to end it all if she could.

But Darenhar wasn’t fully turned, and he had enough presence to strike out at her with his blade. “Stay away,” he said, but it was a guttural, unnatural voice that spoke in his stead. Half his face was concealed by a grinning mask of darkness that contorted and fused in odd patterns.

The Dakrynian woman backed away at the right moment to avoid losing her head, but half of her hair had been cut to shoulder length by his sword. She swallowed anxiously and stepped around Darenhar in a wide circle as he stumbled onto a knee and struggled with the growing darkness.

Mithourn watched in demented fascination at the King’s demonic transformation, but his mind also raced with thoughts of how to assist Leyfian. I have to help her, but how? Armed guards surrounded him, and all had a wary eye on him. So he had to watch the horrific display without the power to do a thing but hold hope.

None of the men seemed concerned about their King, or at least not concerned in a way to do anything about it. Most of them were shocked and unsettled, murmurs and gestures spreading through the crowd.

“Hmm,” Dirkfang noised, crossing his arms. “I like the haircut,” he said to himself, commenting on literally the least relevant subject at hand. Mithourn sighed and looked over the shoulder of one of his keepers, observing Leyfian with no little frustration.

The woman went around the King cautiously, holding her sword out in front of her ineptly, keeping a distance from the darkness that leapt from Darenhar in tendrils. It reminded her of her first encounter with darkness. But that had been a Deadwight . . . or something that looked like one. Whatever was happening to Darenhar, she didn’t care to know, so long as it stopped and she could kill him. She didn’t have a heart for killing anyone, but she had reason enough to run him through, very personal reasons that bit deeply into her.

She leapt at him again, only to jump back as he swung a lethal swipe out at her. It failed to land, but it had gotten closer than the first time. What ensued was an odd battle of forward-and-back as Leyfian tried to land a blow, but Darenhar kept fending her off while dealing with his own crippling process. He remained hunched over himself as he seemed to fight off the darkness. Or embrace it. Such a thing was difficult to behold, much less understand.

The audience watched in mainly quiet interest, until one man pushed through the crowd, making his way through to where Mithourn and Dirkfang were standing. “King Darenhar!” the armored man cried as he pushed everyone aside and came to the railing. He leaned forward and shouted out again, oblivious of the dramatic circumstances. “My lord King Darenhar!”

The King of Hargirm suddenly straightened and relaxed, looking to the messenger. The darkness faded away from him, losing its power on his body, and his face returned to its normal grimace. “Who disturbs my game? What could possibly outweigh its importance?”

“My lord,” the herald cried out again, “an army has been spotted in the north; fifty-thousand cavalry at the least, carrying the Hawk of Helkras on its banners. They are approaching quickly my King!”

A twisted, unreadable expression tortured Darenhar’s scarred face. “This . . . is . . . TREACHERY!” he bellowed, making absolutely no sense, but his intentions were clear: Utter destruction. “TREACHERY!” he yelled again, “RELEASE THE DRAGONS! DEFEND YOUR CITY!” He went to leave the pit, the ladder having been lowered to the ground for him, but just as he turned, Leyfian found her chance and buried her blade in his shoulder. No one noticed in the chaos that followed the messenger’s news; they were all scrambling over one another to obey Darenhar’s command. Even Darenhar himself hardly noticed his gaping wound, only raising a hand to stifle his bleeding shoulder. His clothing was like leather armor so the gash wasn’t very deep, but if it wasn’t treated, it would be his death. He climbed the ladder and went to shout among his yelling men, going on about treachery and Dragons.

Leyfian suddenly found herself with Mithourn; he had gotten into the arena while his guards were confused, and he took her blade from her. She stopped staring in horror at its crimson edge which dripped so languidly.

They weren’t alone together for more than a moment when four soldiers came to take them. Mithourn saw that they were the only ones to pay him and Leyfian any mind, so he took his chance, slashing out at the nearest with Leyfian’s sword. That one and the next fell before they could even respond to his attack, but the other two were more cautious of him, keeping their distance with short-swords in hand. Their blades reached for him, but both were deflected with ringing blows from his own sword; he was quick, and far more skilled than they. Before either got the idea to run and shout for help, Mithourn slashed one across the throat and ran the other through the neck.

He turned to look for Leyfian and found her at a little distance, averting her eyes from his recent bloodshed and shivering uncontrollably. She had never been exposed to such violence before. Mithourn picked up a clean blade from one of the dead fellows and then another, throwing his previous weapon to the ground. He put a hand on the petite woman’s shoulder and then offered her a blade, and she took it, even if she had an expression that said she wouldn’t use it.

Mithourn looked to the empty stands and lonely windows above them. “Let’s go find Kelestil,” he said, leading the way to the ladder out of the arena.

They could still hear a ruckus going on through The Palace with Darenhar’s faint cries, but as the roar of panicked men faded with the mad king’s shouts, the earth began to tremble violently; the Dragons had been released.

King Mawing looked to the intimidating walls of Theargern, leading his army over the green hills of Hargirm, the sun shining off of the armor of the soldiers and horses. His fifty-five-thousand strong army was spread in a long line across the landscape, arranged to make it look larger than it was, just in the instance that Darenhar might need more convincing. The fact that all were mounted would likely help in that affair as well.

Captain Taylan rode as a banner-bearer for the head of the army, holding the flag of Helkras with ease even in his plated armor. The gold and red Hawk pennant flew proudly in a foreign land, ready to conquer and bring justice with gleaming talons. Looking to his right, Mawing spotted the Counselor walking his horse adeptly, wearing a carven leather jerkin and holding a sheathed sickle awkwardly across his knees. The nervous man seemed oddly determined that morning, and he didn’t speak at all, not unless he was addressed first. King Mawing was armored as well, and armed with his sword, though he didn’t expect to fight a battle that day. Not that he would shirk a clashing of blades, but he didn’t see a way for Darenhar to survive except for the madman to either hold out in his city or surrender it. Mawing hoped for the latter.

The army neared the walls, and when they were no more than a thousand paces away from the stone barrier, Mawing held up a fist, and the whole line stopped. Armor jangled noisily as frisky mounts tossed their heads and snorted. They were eager despite having ridden over the past two weeks under armor, but then, they had just wakened, and the morning ride had been short.

Several enormous plow-horses were armored and outfitted with spiked steel guards, ready to charge into any enemy battalion and wreak destruction. Their riders looked like midgets on top of them. More encouragement to make Darenhar surrender.

Mawing looked to Theargern again, but found it oddly quiet, with not a man in sight on the wall or in the domed towers. He signaled for the army to ride forward slowly, and the line wavered for a second as the horses went back into motion, whinnying and twitching impatiently.

When they were five-hundred paces from the walls of the city, it finally came to life. A monstrous roar sounded, and then the iron gates swung open with echoing, metallic shrieks. An army of men poured out of the opening, a quarter mounted and the rest armed with polearms and stakes, bows and crossbows. They swiftly formed ranks, with the polearms taking the front, horses standing ready at the rear. Many of the soldiers were armored in classic, heavy Hargirmian fashion, but the rest were men of scraps, spotted with leather, iron and steel, completely odd and without form like a real army.

So Darenhar has let vermin and lawlessness into his city, Mawing thought as he readied himself to charge.

So there would be a battle that day; it was nothing of consequence to him. His family needed him, and he would not let them down. I am just surprised that Darenhar has not offered them up as sacrifices yet.

He nearly lowered his arm forward to begin the charge, but he never got to point his finger at the enemy. Sky-rending howls and booming roars emptied into the heavens as dark shapes took flight into the air from out of The Palace of Theargern. Dragons; an entire flock of them. The gigantic creatures flew high into the air, their beating wings flooding the sky with rhythmic noises. They swirled up, led by a sapphire queen and an even larger four-winged red drake, and then they stooped like scaly arrows, wheeling around to hover over the Hargirmian army, which had grown to several thousand. The red Dragon flew along the line of men, his shadow flitting over them like a deadly omen, and when he reached the end of the army, he twisted around with a massive thrust of his wings and glided over to the other side.

A pacing Dragon, then, Mawing thought briefly before turning to look at his own halted force. It looked significantly smaller than it had a minute before, and the soldiers obviously noticed that fact, fidgeting nervously and grabbing for their bows. “They will run us down if we flee,” he said in a powerful voice, pulling his sword out and pointing it at the enemy. “And they will slaughter us if we surrender. That leaves us with one choice, one chance at victory; we march against Doom!”

There were no cheers, but there were war-cries and hollers in plenty, and men shouted orders throughout the army.

“Rally to the King!”

“Nock your bows, you layabouts!”

“Plowers forward!”

The army made its inevitable march onward, gaining speed and creating thunder on the plains. None of the men were hopeful, but behind steel bars and plated helmets, they were set and unconquerable. Their King was leading them to battle against the deadliest creatures in the world, but they would live and die by his side.

Mawing readied his sword-arm, hoping to at least strike down a few of his enemies before he was consumed by flame. He looked to either side, finding Taylan with his lance lowered, the Counselor with his sickle, and the army extending to either side of him. He urged his horse to a full sprint and waited for the fire to wash over him.

Vaerj looked with malice over the armies of the men. Such worthless insects, all ripe for crushing, burning and eating, but Bahn had convinced him. She was his mate and had some influence over him, and besides, the castle could be his after he was done there in the fields of Hargirm.

And the chains were off. They would stay off if he followed the queen’s advice. He would take the route of freedom, but also of restraint, not going so far as he had wanted, what Darenhar had promised him. That path would be averted, for a better, if less satisfactory route.

He beat his giant crimson wings and turned around to fly over the Hargirmian force again. Time to cook you poisoned runts . . . He opened his maw and twitched that familiar muscle in his deep chest. The gases in him ignited and poured out of his jagged mouth, billowing in torrents and flooding over the Hargirmians.

Mawing closed his eyes just as he was about to make contact with the first line of enemy soldiers, but his vision was only blocked for an instant before his horse reared and tossed him off the saddle. He felt unbearable heat wash over him, but when he sat up from his back, he found that a palisade of flames to match the wall of Theargern had sprouted up in the Hargirmian army. Only the Hargirmian army.

The Helkrasic army split in two directions, horses steering of their own accord to turn away from the roaring fire and escape in the opposite direction. The men took it in stride, even if they were shocked themselves, and they poured to either side away from the writhing flames, regrouping at a distance.

Mawing stood and grabbed the reins of his horse before the beast could trot away, and he remounted the creature. Screams of the burning escaped the blinding bonfire which now lined the entire frontal face of the wall, and flaming men and horses fled out of the scorching region, helplessly struggling to snuff themselves out. All of the Dragons had joined the red Alpha in burning the Hargirmians, and most of the army was turned to cinders in a moment. The red Dragon chased after a few soldiers who had escaped, and Mawing watched blankly as the Dragon turned them to dust in a second. Only a comparatively small stack of flames showed where they had once existed.

That seemed to satisfy the red drake, and he circled in the sky for a moment while the other Dragons had their sport.

Mawing realized that the Counselor and Taylan had joined him where he was, just far enough from the fire to keep from being slow-roasted. The army was quickly gathering behind him in a long column meant for penetrating the iron gates. They waited for the tree-high flames to die down, waving thin smoke out of their eyes and preparing to retreat if the fire grew any more. They reined in their upset warhorses as the azure Dragon landed in front of them, blowing heavy gales into their faces which was stained by heat. She landed right on top of the flames in front of the gates, utterly unaffected by the plasma cloaking her and licking her flanks. She stomped and rolled around on it for a bit, gaining ash and dirt on her shiny, scaled hide, but stifling the flames around the entrance to Theargern. It seemed that she wanted them to go in, or just wanted to assist the Helkrasic any way that she could. She stepped aside to let them through, but then she glanced at the iron gates, finding that they were slowly closing. If a Dragon could frown, she did just that, and pounded into the doors a moment later, throwing them open a little and stuffing her front limbs in between them to give her another advantage. It was a contest of wills between her and the Titan Rhinoceros, though none of the Helkrasic men knew that. The Titan might have won, but he was tired and didn’t really care, so he disobeyed the gate watcher and laid down with a defeated roar, sighing as the man screamed at him incessantly.

Bahn gave a great push to get through the gates, which were just wide enough to allow her access, and that action pulled on the chains around the giant cogwheel, also tugging at the harness around the Titan Rhinoceros. He was pulled back with a jerk, and the whole gate-mechanism groaned. The queen gave another push and burst through the gateway, and to the Titan’s glee, the weakest link in the massive chain broke. He stood and walked around, pulling along the broken chain from the cogwheel, finding himself free of the contraption, if with a permanently attached length of steel chain. He roared in victory.

King Mawing rode towards the imposing gates after the sapphire Dragon, going over the scorched earth, a fact which made his steed trot lightly and with some discomfort. Cavalry poured around him in loose groups, the plow-horses taking the front, lancers close behind them, all of them spreading throughout the city to scour it top to bottom. The sapphire queen looked around in satisfaction and took the empty highroad through Theargern for herself, chipping several buildings while dutifully ignoring the mounted soldiers who poured around her and engaged in battles with scattered Hargirmians. The other Dragons had taken to performing aerobatics in the heavens, though some were patiently circling The Palace while they waited for their Alpha to lead them.

Mawing found himself under the shadow of the gate’s arch, and then beneath the looming form of a Titan Rhinoceros. He hardly knew what to think of the sudden appearance of the beast, but he did know to maneuver his horse around the treelike legs of the monstrosity as the beast walked around uncertainly. One hoofed limb swept in front of him, and he had to adjust his rearing horse to move aside and then sprint through the ensuing opening. The Counselor and Captain Taylan followed after, both with wide eyes. Mawing rode ahead a little ways while his men worked around the beast and its chain; the creature apparently wanted to duck under the arched opening of the gates to get out of the city, but he had found an army in his way.

King Mawing ignored the frustrated growls coming from the Titan and instead focused on the huge crimson Dragon. The Alpha was gliding towards The Palace, where it stood on its high clifftop. The Dragon flew in a charge directed at the structure, and then hatefully rammed into it.

Gelvir had finally found his way out, but trouble came with it: He didn’t know how to operate the damned lift. It was an oversized steel platform, meant for taking siege engines to the surface, and he thought it might take a giant beast to operate it. But it was his only way out, and things were getting dangerous. The caves had suddenly gone in an uproar, men moving about wildly like a stamped anthill, arming themselves and flooding in multiple directions. Dragons had been unchained and led to a hole in the cavern ceiling, where they had escaped to the surface. He was sure that a war had just begun, but he just didn’t know the details of it.

I have to get to Kanni, he thought as he kicked at the only lever on the giant lift. No one was around any more, thankfully, so he could act as strangely as he wanted without being questioned and discovered for an escaped prisoner. He kicked at the lever again, and gained a reaction out of the lift. It stuttered, and then rose up slowly, going to the surface. The Captain grunted in disbelief, but didn’t whine. It went slowly, but ever upwards. He was just starting to feel hopeful when a quake reverberated through the earth, and he was thrown to the floor of the lift. Rocks and clouds of dust fell in around him as following quakes shook the very planet, it seemed. The lift kept going, but how long before the shaft collapsed?

I will . . . get to . . . Kanni . . .

Bumping along in the cart full of hay, the mage felt cramped in her position, and she was getting tired of it. Maybe she couldn’t have taken a nap in there after all. She had heard the panicked shouts of men running through The Palace as Marram took her around the fortress in the cart, and then the roars of Dragons had followed, all but proving the Boar’s unbelievable tales. But it had calmed after a quarter of an hour, and she suspected that they would soon–

Even in her wagon, she felt the tremor that passed through The Palace and shook it to its roots. She was thrown around as Marram lost his balance and his grip on the cart, but the quakes only became worse and more frequent. She slid out of the cart and to the floor, but before she could panic at her ruined disguise, the black boar was at her side, removing the pile of hay that still half-concealed her. He found her hand and tugged her up to her feet, and they stumbled together down the hall as a roar shook the whole world.

“We have to get out of here,” Marram stated gruffly, and trotted down a corridor with alarming urgency.

Kanni felt like asking why, but the reason was obvious, so she followed after him, hesitantly at first. What about Leyfian? Kelestil?

Marram’s commanding bellow hurried her feet and made her go after him into the quivering Palace. “Move it, you creeper! This whole place is about to fall apart! MOVE!”

Leyfian and Mithourn were desperately searching The Palace for Kelestil when the whole fortress staggered underneath them, and they toppled to the ground together. A few guards up ahead of them in the hall fell down with shouts and clatters, completely unaware of anyone but themselves.

The two escaped prisoners hadn’t seen many of The Palace’s residents since Darenhar had called for the defense of the city, but the few who had crossed paths with them were unconcerned that they were loose. One outlaw had tried to give Leyfian attention she didn’t want, but he had run with a howl when she flashed her blade in his face.

The High Captain helped Leyfian to her feet and then sprinted after the men further down the corridor, grabbing a straggler by the collar of his tunic and throwing a sword to his throat. “Where are the prisoners kept?” Mithourn interrogated with a rough shake.

“O-over there!” the man squealed, pointing vaguely down a hall. “Let me go! I have to get out of here!”

“Only after you show me the way to the prisoners,” he demanded, and thrust his captive forward. Held at sword-point, the Hargirmian performed remarkably well in his task, running through the halls of the shivering fortress, while the flock of Dragons brutalized it from outside. Stone was strong, but it would only hold so long under a Dragon attack.

Mithourn could hear the hiss and crackle of flames as the flying beasts blanketed the outer layer of The Palace in fire, turning it into a giant beacon. More crippling tremors groaned through the structure, and dust fell from the ceilings. He saw one of the first halls collapse, crushing several fleeing soldiers and exposing the crumbled passage to the smoke and fire of the outside. It seemed Dragon-fire was hot enough to set stone aflame, and melt it.

“Hurry!” Mithourn shouted to his guide, though the man was running for his life as it was. If we’re not crushed to death, we’ll be cooked alive, he brooded, just as his captive pointed down a flight of stairs and then escaped before Mithourn could do anything. He shook his head irritably, then led Leyfian down the steps, coming into a darkness which the woman had to light up with her Magic. They came down into a large dungeon, full of empty, iron-barred cells. Except for one.

Jacsibial quivered in disbelief at the sight of them, and he immediately reached through the bars of his cell. It was amazing to see how much weight he had dropped by being a prisoner, and that his arms could fit between the rods of iron. “Mithourn, old chum!” he cried in joy. “You’ve come to save me!”

Mithourn knew that it had been pure fortune, and that he hadn’t considered rescuing The Trader even once, but he let that little fact rest and instead went to go find the keys to the fat man’s cell. Jacsibial still had some considerable weight left, even if his dirtied silks hung about him loosely, so he could still easily be called a fat man.

Before Mithourn could find the keys however, Leyfian took matters into her own hands and used Modification Magic to pull the metal latch away from the lock. The steel piece morphed and was pushed back like paper before it fell still again. That was about the limit of her strength in the Class of Modification, which was why there had been no use in implementing against her and Mithourn’s own prison.

Jacsibial leapt out of his prison, almost ready to embrace her out of gratitude, but then he realized how dirty he was and settled to bow grandly towards her. “I owe you both uncounted wealth for this; you are heroes worth singing of!” Leyfian just nodded awkwardly at such an odd display, fingering her sword absently for a second.

Even in that deep dungeon, the moaning shivers of The Palace could be felt in full effect, and more dust coated them. They coughed on the raining clouds and swayed with the quakes of the fortress. One of the dungeon cells collapsed while another’s bars were bent with a grating hiss; Jacsibial’s own previous cage was caved in with rubble and huge stones.

Leyfian leapt to her senses and took the lead, going out of the dungeon by the long staircase, but when they were out into the upper halls again, she stopped suddenly and faced The Trader. “Do you know where Kelestil is?” she asked bluntly.

“Yes . . . she is likely held somewhere near the throne room, and I can lead you to it, but we must hurry. This castle is under attack!” he exclaimed, as if the crumbling halls around them weren’t evidence enough.

The woman nodded eagerly, thinking hopefully of her daughter. “Quickly, then,”

The fat man went along with all the speed he could muster on his shaky legs, which was impressive for a man of his health, so he jogged through the halls huffing and panting. He had a sense of confidence though, because the field of mathematics, directions and logic were his skills, and he had a sharp mind. He had memorized the path from The Palace’s entrance to the throne room, and from there to his prison, something most people would have found near impossible.

They all went together through the halls, pursued by rumblings, howls and the heat of growing flames. Several chambers were choked with smoke and ash, flames eating at the windows, melting glass and stone alike. All three were coated in sweat which allowed dust to cling to them, but none of them considered halting, even Jacsibial, who was particularly taxed by the whole affair. Leyfian felt her heart straining from fear, anxiety, hope and physical effort, a dangerous combination, but she wouldn’t stop, or allow herself to pass out—she was so close to Kelestil, so tantalizingly near.

The Trader abruptly halted and pointed down a long, wide hall, which led to a set of iron doors. “The throne room is behind those doors. From there you’ll have as much luck as me finding her.”

“We could use your help,” Mithourn suggested, but Jacsibial shook his head.

“I have my own daughter that I must find. Farewell, good people!” he said, running off down another hall, shouting above the din of the angry Dragons. “Sorrel! I’m coming for you!”

Just after The Trader disappeared around a corner and when Mithourn and Leyfian were well on their way to the throne room, a cascading roar of collapsing stone deafened their ears for a long moment, followed by the victorious roars of Dragons. One of the major wings of The Palace had fallen to rubble; the rest of the fortress would come to pieces soon after.

The passage ahead of the two companions caved in, causing Mithourn to curse venomously. Leyfian just gasped for breath as her heart flailed inside her, creating tendrils of agony that seeped through her chest. She leaned against him to keep from falling over, but it wasn’t the shaking hall that threatened to tip her over. Mithourn swept her off her legs and carried her in his arms, trying to run back the way they had come, but he was stopped when the path collapsed right in front of him.

Leyfian watched with reeling vision as he carried her down another corridor, but was blocked by a landslide caused by Dragons’ talons. There was one last way of escape left to them, but Leyfian didn’t get to see what happened. Her heart thumped with finality as her sight fell away, and her ears were filled with the loudest roar yet as it burst across Theargern and over the plains. The Palace shook from the final blow.

Kelestil looked desperately out of her cell, hoping for someone to come and release her, listening anxiously to the increasing noises of destruction that signaled the fall of the fortress. None of her attempts to break out had opened her cell door, and things were getting dire. The cell next to hers had already filled with rubble, and its bars were bulging outwards from the immense weight pushing behind them. One of the ceiling blocks in her own prison was frighteningly near to falling down on her head. She shook at her bars and cried, fear strangling her every fiber. Would anyone come for her?

Making his way through the crumbling Palace, Hafkil choked on dust and waved the billowing smoke out of his eyes. Convincing Bahn to make the Dragons turn on Darenhar had been his most ingenious plan yet, but it had turned sour; he had never meant for the flock to destroy The Palace. He had hid in an abandoned house near the keep, hoping to retrieve Kelestil after Darenhar was defeated and clapped in shackles, but his plans had been altered dramatically with Vaerj’s little tantrum. The Bear had only left so that Darenhar wouldn’t suddenly get suspicious of him and chain him to a wall—one could never know when a madman was about to truly crack. He was glad that he had not gone too far away; everything had turned to chaos very quickly, so it was good that he could respond almost as swiftly.

He swung his iron bar around irritably, ignoring the corridors collapsing all around him. My plans always get ruined! he thought, climbing over a pile of broken stones that had once been a rooftop. The sky could be seen out of the opening in the ceiling, as well as the smoke, the flames and the Dragons who were still plaguing The Palace. He continued through the keep as it creaked and moaned stonily in its death throes, and quivered at each blow the flock of enraged Dragons inflicted. Those creatures could very well destroy anything if they were pushed to it, so it was no surprise that they were a highly debatable matter when concerned with military. Everyone had their opinions on the moral use of the beasts, and men like Darenhar made the matter more divided; countries would either be hunting down Dragons and outlawing them or running to buy every one of the scaly creatures after the news of Theargern got out.

Hafkil squinted and gazed down the hall, spotting a dark figure stumbling along through a wide chamber. Is that–?

It was. King Darenhar himself, and half consumed with writhing shadows, by the sight of it.

Hafkil came up behind the madman and struck him in the back with the iron bar, then pounded him again. The King grunted and staggered forward, but it seemed that the darkness blanketing him reduced the damage of the metal rod. No matter; Hafkil just hit harder, and faster, forcing the shadows to retreat, swinging at them until they shrunk inevitably away from his iron. The last strike caught Darenhar in the shoulder, where the darkness had its last stronghold, and that blow reduced the King to his knees. Screaming, the tyrant grasped his doubly wounded shoulder—there had been a bloody gash there before Hafkil had punched it with his rod.

The ex-general pushed Darenhar down the rest of the way with his boot and then took the keys off of the King’s belt. One of them had to be Kelestil’s cell-key, if Darenhar had cared a smidge about his valuable captive.

Hafkil went to walk off, sure that the insane man would die of his wound, even staunched as it was with dust. Either that, or The Palace would finish him, and Hafkil didn’t care which would end up being his executor.

“Wait,” Darenhar gasped, grovelling pathetically in the dust and gravel. The chamber shook as a Dragon passed overhead, and then continued to sway as other parts of the fortress were attacked. Hafkil stopped, and that seemed to be fair enough for the tyrant. “Hafkil; we used to be like brothers, the best of friends, and I’m . . . I’m sorry I injured you.”

The Bear’s eyes flashed dangerously, but he remained where he was, faced away from the other man. “You’re sorry?” he said, growling deeply enough to make a Wolf flinch. “Sorry, is it? That’s all you can say!? After you forfeited your Soul!?” He spat at the downed King, and then went on his way.

Darenhar screamed after him. “I am doomed for The Void, but you, you can be saved from it! Listen to me!” He started giggling maniacally at that point, and he writhed madly on the ground. “When the Demons come out of the ground, run! Run for your Soul! No,” he paused, and took a final breath. “RUN FOR YOUR EXISTENCE!”

The Bear was pursued through the halls by the King’s mad prophecies and his insane laughter, until finally, the raging storm around the fortress buried his voice in thunder. Hafkil went on to the throne room which was still whole, to his relief, and he trotted down the stairs at the back of the room to enter the dungeon below. One of the cells had caved, but thankfully, Kelestil’s prison was intact, and so was the girl.

“Hafkil!” she shouted out in unimaginable joy. She reached out to grab his arm while he tested several of the keys on her cell door; her touch was shaky, communicating her fear to him. The whole dungeon joggled around them, and a distant sound like breaking waves echoed at the other end of The Palace, the noise of a collapsing wing of the fortress, perhaps even two of the wings. The whole structure had only a moment left before it was no longer standing.

“I promised I’d get you out,” the ex-general said, failing with one key and trying another. It was unsuccessful in turning the lock as well. “And I am about to fulfill that promise. Don’t worry anymore, we’re almost free.” He didn’t feel very hopeful himself, despite what he said. So many things could go wrong at that moment, and ruin everything. Finally, one of the keys turned in the lock, but just as Hafkil’s hopes were lifted, they were instantly dashed to the pits of the planet. He leaned against the bars of the cell as a roar and quake tore into the dungeon. Rocks and debris flew past him in a torrent, and a large stone barely missed his cranium. The cell and wall with the one window had been completely obliterated, and its material blanketed the other end of the dungeon.

Wasting no time, Hafkil swung open Kelestil’s door and carried her towards the new opening in the prison, after the girl had leapt onto him and firmly attached herself to his side. But The Bear halted when he looked out of the gaping opening in the wall. It led to the outside, facing the immense wall of Theargern, but it was twenty or more feet above the ground, a dangerous fall to escape out of.

But it was not the descent that stopped Hafkil with a devastated expression on his face, only the sapphire Dragon about to coat the flank of The Palace in flame, which included the dungeon.

He held out a hand in defense, though it was useless against any sort of heat. “Bahn, no!”

The queen paused, mouth half agape, a flame flickering out of the back of her throat. She closed her mouth, then licked her teeth with a forked tongue, studying Hafkil for a second. “Now how in The Sky did you end up there?” she mused aloud, speaking the only tongue she knew, which was Ferirgrisi. She stepped over to the open dungeon and pressed her snout against the lower ledge of the opening, quickly getting a response out of Hafkil and the girl. They stepped onto the wide plane of her snout and balanced there precariously as she took them to the ground, a good distance from The Palace. The whole fortress was half aflame, and creating a haze in the sky from the smoke billowing out in tempests; stone melted while boulders tumbled in great heaps and landslides. Half of the structure was already turned to rubble, and the other portion was swaying dangerously above the mountain of burning stone. Dragons swirled around the place wildly, pouring spouts of fire on it and tearing at it with their massive talons. Vaerj easily wreaked as much damage as four of the other drakes combined. All of them took glee and satisfaction from The Palace’s destruction; their prison, their master was turned to ash, and their freedom was springing up like a flame.

Hafkil stepped heavily off of Bahn’s snout when she put her head to the ground, taking Kelestil with him. She clung tightly to him, but when they had alighted to the ground, she let go to look at the queen and the other Dragons in wonder.

Hafkil looked up sadly to Bahn, knowing that after that fateful day, he would never see her again. “Never let yourself be imprisoned again,” he said as best he could in her language.

Kelestil stared expectantly at the Alpha female, but all she heard the Dragon say was “Del tay,” and then the sapphire creature was gone, taking to the air with a gust of wind.

“What did she say?” the girl asked her protector, watching as The Palace gave a final groan and fell over with a shattering roar. It had made a powerful struggle, but eventually, the strength of the Dragons had proven too much for it to take. The flock looked satisfied with their work, so they flew after Vaerj and Bahn, both of whom led the group to the west and south, flying with victorious roars into the horizon.

Kelestil tugged at Hafkil’s arm. “What did she just say?” she questioned again, too curious to think about her current situation, which was jumbled and troubled, to say the best.

The Bear turned from absently staring after the Dragons. “Never again.”

Chapter XXI

Mended

13th of Late Spring, 376, 5th Era – Theargern, Capital of Hargirm

A Gold-Beaked Hawk flew high in the heavens, surrounded by his friends, the wispy, ever-changing clouds. Only a few creatures could reach such heights like those of his race, but at that moment, he was aware only of himself up in those windy summits, not of other beasts. He spread his huge, eight-foot wingspan of umber feathers and glided playfully through the sky, clicking his burnished yellow beak in satisfaction.

Below him was a vast city, though it was only a small patch compared to the land that he could gaze across. Smoke raised in great, pale columns out of half of the dwelling, and even he could smell the harsh aroma of dead fires. He stooped and plummeted towards the ground, throwing out his wings to slow his swift descent once he was near enough to investigate the ruined city. Half-ruined, at least.

A giant creature was out on the plains, just outside the walls of the metropolis, and groups of comparatively tiny beings as well, though those ones stayed far from the prancing and roaring titan.

The Gold-Beaked Hawk wheeled in wide circles until he came to the cliff-top where the burning mountain of rubble was, and he alighted on a pinnacle of stone, where he could observe three men and their horses.

King Mawing looked grimly over the ruins of Theargern’s palace. Taylan and the Counselor observed the place as well, the former with calmness, the latter with his eyes wide from unshaken disbelief. The nervous man’s eyes had been that way since the battle had begun, though he had avoided any actual contact with the enemy. It seemed that most of Darenhar’s army had been burned by his own Dragons, and the rest had escaped south, if Mawing’s scouts were correct in their reports. A small force headed by a man in mismatched armor had ridden by horse out of the backside of Theargern, coming from a cave at the bottom of the wall there. The enemy had fled quickly, and likely wouldn’t be seen again.

The Counselor abruptly perked up. “Well, there at least, is some good news,” he said, and went at a trot towards a girl and a man who were coming around the edge of the rubble’s extent. It was Kelestil and Hafkil, though none of them there knew who the latter was.

“Uncle!” the girl exclaimed, jumping towards him, hugging him fiercely. “Grandfather!”

Mawing laughed for the first time in weeks and patted her on the head when she gave him a squeeze as well. “It seems that miracles are becoming commonplace, now. But who is this man?” he questioned after she stepped away from him.

“He’s Hafkil,” she answered simply. “He saved me from the dungeons, and then commanded a Dragon to get us out of The Palace!”

The Bear barked a laugh. “I didn’t command her; she decided to help us because it’s in her nature.”

“Whatever the truth,” Mawing stated, “if you helped Kelestil, then you are owed a great deal, Bear of Hargirm.”

“You and your army was reward enough for me,” Hafkil announced, crossing his arms. “Darenhar wouldn’t have fallen otherwise, and his tyranny would have remained. I might sound demented, but I think all of this was a Blessing from The Creator; how else could Darenhar have been defeated?”

The King of Helkras nodded thoughtfully, likely seeing exactly what Hafkil meant, and more besides. “Yes, it does seem that Destiny has woven a fine tapestry for us . . . But what of my daughter, Leyfian? Do you know what has become of her?” His voice held an urgency that was more than the desire to see his beloved offspring again. An urgency for something more important than that.

Hafkil pointed reluctantly to the tumbled mountain that had once been The Palace. “The last time I saw her was in there. She and Mithourn might have escaped, but I can’t be sure. You might have to dig through a lot of stone to find out.” The man shook himself of some dust and then made to leave. “If you don’t need anything else, I’ll be on my way. I’ll see you all in the city,” he finished, waving farewell to Kelestil before he walked off to the stairs leading down the bluff.

Mawing frowned briefly, but wasted no time. She can’t be dead; Destiny promised me that! “Taylan, organize a search party of five-hundred and have them spread over the ruins to find my daughter. There will be a hundred gold Ferirgrisi Marks for the man who finds her and delivers her to me.”

Taylan put a fist to his chest in salute. “As you say, your majesty,” he addressed, then mounted his horse, trotting the armored beast down to the base of the cliff, where he could find the necessary men.

Kelestil stared up at her grandfather with wide eyes. “Will maea be . . . all right?” She wasn’t sure what to think, or what to expect.

Mawing patted her on the head again, then looked to the smoldering ruins. “I can not say, but I have hope.”

Captain Taylan was quick to find enough men for the search team; once there was mention of gold, and a woman in ‘distress,’ they all lined up and followed him to the clifftop with eagerness enough for children. They all seemed to think that they would get the reward, though how five-hundred men could all find the same woman at one time was beyond Taylan.

The battalion spread out across the ruins, tying wet cloths around their mouths and nostrils and keeping their eyes clear of the smoke and ash. Many parts of the heap were still boiling hot, so they avoided many areas and went for the most cooled regions. It was an ordeal just to climb the mountain, but every soldier was thorough in his search despite that; a hundred gold Marks was worth a lot of trouble, and half a year’s pay.

When Taylan and a few others reached a sort of plateau on the height of the mountain, they heard a scuffling noise come from somewhere out of the tumbled landscape.

“Help! Creator help me!”

Taylan looked around, and then saw someone’s hand reaching from underneath a half-broken tabletop. He gestured his men forward to have them help move the table. A fat man crawled from under it, covered in dust and ash, but clothed in ridiculous silks under all of that grime.

Jacsibial stood and wiped at his clothes—pointlessly—and then bowed stiffly to the soldiers, his back pained from being pinned down by a table for so long. “Thank you my fine men—I owe you all my life!”

Taylan guffawed with several of the other men. “We just lifted a table for you,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” another man noised. “Just like moving furniture.”

The Trader seemed taken aback, but he recovered himself. “Nonetheless, no good deed should go unannounced. But if I may ask a favor of you all: would you search this place for a woman? She is a Gelsingean, so she can’t be missed.”

Taylan looked around impatiently. “We’ll keep an eye out for your Gelsingean wench,”

“No,” Jacsibial protested, “I mean for you to look for her specifically; I’ll pay her weight in gold if you find her, dead or alive.” He choked up at the end, and gave them a forlorn look.

“Fancy yourself a rich man?” one of the soldiers questioned.

The fat man drew himself up and rearranged his silks. “I am The Trader, and I always pay my debts,” he stated grandly, though he looked a pathetic beggar at that moment.

“No need to get ruffled,” Taylan said quickly, “I can search for her, but only after I find lady Leyfian. Afterwards, I’ll look for this Gelsingean woman, and we’ll see what happened to her. I keep my word as well.”

“I thank you from the core of my Soul,” Jacsibial said with a more graceful bow than the last. “And if you are searching for Leyfian, she and my good friend Mithourn went towards the throne room as The Palace was falling apart. It’s somewhere over that way,” he said, pointing with a chubby finger towards the center of the rubble heap.

Taylan thanked him briefly before going on with as much speed as was safe to traverse the treacherous landscape, going in the direction The Trader had indicated. His men came quickly after him, all doubly on the lookout for women of any sort. It was quite obvious that they intended to get two rewards in one day. Taylan wouldn’t have minded getting rich quickly himself, except that he didn’t know what he would use all the gold for.

He looked behind a group of sandstone blocks the size of wagons, and saw someone crawling out of a crevice between the huge stones. It was pure fortune that anyone could have survived the fall of The Palace, but it seemed that Taylan was Blessed to have found two survivors, and in a minute’s time. “Well men, it looks like I’ll be getting the reward today,” he said, coming to Leyfian’s side. He didn’t mean to rub it in, but he couldn’t help a wide smile. “I’ll take her to the King, and you all can search for the Gelsingean.”

Leyfian coughed hoarsely as he took her into his arms and picked her up; she quivered in the effort to not go limp, but eventually settled to relax with a few more coughs. The Dakrynian woman was coated all over in dust, and she had bruises on her arms, her face, and likely everywhere else as well. “Wait,” she pleaded weakly, “Mithourn . . . he’s in there,” Leyfian pointed towards where she had come out of.

“Don’t worry, my lady, we’ll get him out,” Taylan assured, breaking off to shout towards the dispersing search party. “Hey! High Captain Mithourn is buried in the this crevice over here; fish him out! And help me make a stretcher for the lady.”

Leyfian found herself getting transported gently over the mountain that had once been The Palace of Theargern, by men of her own country, and she smiled tiredly. She lost it quickly, though, at the thought of Kelestil. Before she faded into sleep, however, Taylan said some of the most wonderful words she had heard in her life, as if sensing her darkened mood.

“Kelestil is safe, my lady—she walked right up to King Mawing without a care . . .”

At the edge of the ruins that was once The Palace was a heap of gravel and sand which had spread out in a wide fan. It was nearby some of the buildings that had been put up next to the fortress, but the whole area was abandoned at the moment, so no one was present to see a spot of the gravel deposit shift suddenly.

A hand burst out of the coarse sand to grope around and flex desperately, a feminine hand that was scraped and coated in dust. Another arm crawled out of the gravel-bank to join the first, and then both worked to pull the owner out of the rubble. Kanni popped out of the sand, her curly hair caught with a pound or more of debris, and her face gray enough with dust to convince a Deadwight that she was one of them. She coughed horrendously for several moments, and then looked around, only halfway out of her burial place. Trying to tug herself the rest of the way out quickly made her exhausted, and when she finally laid on top of the gravel rather than under it, she panted there for a long while.

Her mind sorted itself out for a few minutes. I was running, and then something in the hall collapsed behind me, and I was carried away. Then I got buried. I’m still alive . . . I don’t know much else but that. Finally, she became comfortable and calm enough to start thinking about someone other than herself, as her survivalist side went to sleep. Marram was with me when I was buried. The Boar . . .

She stood up weakly, shakily, wanting nothing more than to sleep, but being too worried to allow herself that remedy. “Marram Vitiver Reed!” she called out as if to a naughty child. “I swear to the heavens, if you die on me . . . !”

“I’m over here, you uprooted potato,” the boar’s voice called out from down the slope.

A potato? Kanni looked tiredly to the edge of the gravel scree and found the black Boar crawling from out of the debris. He didn’t look black anymore, his coat of fur having contracted so much dust that he looked more brown and gray than anything. He tugged at his ragtag pelt and swished his thin tail irritably. One of his tusks was bent at an odd angle in his mouth, and he licked at some blood welling around his lips.

“Here, let me Heal that,” Kanni suggested in a sleepy voice, and took the tusk in her hand. He recoiled at first, but only grunted when she pushed it into place in cooperation with her Healing Magic. She almost fell over from exhaustion as the Magic drained her strength—no, she did fall over, but Marram caught her.

“What in The Marsh’s name happened to you? I don’t remember you being so weak just this morning.”

Kanni struggled to stand on her own, failing at first. “I think that . . . that some Unconscious Magic activated in me when we were buried . . . that’s probably what kept me alive . . . What’s The Marsh?” She started to fall asleep against his furry chest.

“It’s the Boars’ version of a land of evil. Like what you humans would consider The Waste, only, it’s damp.”

For some unknowable reason, that woke Kanni out of her trance, and she put the idea of sleep to the side. Well, in a corner for the near future. Leyfian, Kelestil, Mithourn . . . and Gelvir. I have to find him—I mean, them.

The mage staggered away from Marram and then stumbled off on her way around the mountain of collapsed stone, towards where the main entrance would have been. The black Boar followed after her cautiously, frowning around his tusks at everything, his cleft hooves clicking on the paving stones.

Despite her awakening, Kanni was still very tired and not thinking three steps ahead, as she should have. She knew that the Dragons had gone rebel, but that was all. The Hargirmians might be picking up after the destruction and she could walk right into them. But she had to search for her friends; she owed them that before she left Theargern.

When she walked into a group of soldiers, she almost prepared to shock them—carefully—but she found that they were armed and armored in the style of Helkras, with rounded plates of steel encasing them, and broadswords on their backs or strapped to their hips. She laughed maniacally, releasing her sudden relief.

The men (who had previously been standing around discussing something about a Gelsingean woman) turned to look at her in disbelief. “Looks like another survivor,” one of them said. “But the poor wench looks insane.” He came up to her carefully, like he was trying not to scare off a flock of sparrows, but she batted him away and giggled again.

“I’m not insane; just relieved,” she explained, and then realized that wiping her face clean would help prove her point. She did so with a spurt of Wind Magic, but all that succeeded in doing was making her look like she had exploded into a cloud of dust. She waved the haze out of her face. “Now, can you tell me what Helkrasic soldiers are doing here?”

One of the men went on to tell her most everything she needed to know, about how Mawing had received a messenger from a Dirkfang fellow, and that he had come to retrieve his captive daughter and granddaughter. Apparently he had succeeded in that, though the soldier was vague on that point, and Kanni had to press him for details.

“Well,” the fellow said, “a search party found her in the ruins, barely alive, but she’ll be all right, if the Healers speak the truth. Captain Taylan was given a tidy sum for finding her and High Captain Mithourn.”

“What about Kelestil?” Kanni asked with a happily pounding heart.

“She walked out of the rubble without a scratch, apparently, and with General Hafkil as her protector, no less. Now, why are you so curious–”

Kanni gave the man no quarter. “Were any other survivors found? Anyone?”

“Sure. There were a few Hargirmian soldiers who crawled out in a bad state, and then The Trader of all people.”

“Was there a man by the name of Gelvir? Captain Gelvir?” Why am I shaking so hard? I already know that he has to be dead. But maybe . . .

The Helkrasic soldier fingered his beard and shook his head. “I don’t know any particulars about the other survivors, but I can say that I haven’t heard that name fly around. Sorry about that.”

Kanni didn’t say anything in response to that; all she could get herself to do was walk off towards the ruined fortress, ignoring the questions from the bewildered soldiers, who had yet to even learn her name. Marram shoved them off and followed her from a distance, giving her a look that said she was not in her right mind, at the least. She didn’t notice and just climbed the first boulders of the ruins, getting her voice ready to shout.

“GELVIR!” Her call echoed over the still smoking mountain of stone, but emptiness filled the following silence. She yelled out again, and then crawled over some more of the boulders, going up a steep slope of dangerous falls and leaning stones.

Marram was hesitant to follow at first, thinking that she was just a madwoman who was going to get her neck snapped with or without his help, but when he saw how she was desperately clinging to the stones and slipping on ash-coated tiles, he went after her with a sigh. Just maybe, he could prevent her from breaking her neck.

“Stop trying to get yourself killed,” he said when he caught up to her, on a plain of shattered clay tiles that had enough sharp points for a field of Deathweed. “You’re moving around aimlessly anyways, like a dandelion puff. Why don’t you use some of that Magic of yours?”

“What would I do with it? I can’t turn this wretched place upside down, if that’s what you mean, you . . . fat puff.”

Marram snorted through his wide nostrils. “Can’t you sense the life around you or something?”

“Only if it’s inside of me,” the mage answered quietly.

“There is such a thing as growing your skill, if you’ve forgotten.”

Kanni was silent at that, but she took his idea and considered it. I owe Gelvir my best; he came for me when I needed help, and I’ll do the same for him. She concentrated, trying to find whatever Magic it was that allowed her to sense life inside of herself, when she was carrying an unborn baby. It still made her sad to recall that none of those babies had ever been born, but she put the thought away.

Either the ability to sense life was an Unclassified Magic, or it was just an affect that female mages gained when their senses were heightened by their arcane abilities. She closed her eyes and reached for Marram, putting her open hand on his furry chest, feeling it swell and fall under her palm. His breathing was grating, but strong, and perfectly natural, with two huge lungs pumping breath and life into him. She could feel his massive heart thrumming inside of him, shifting the bones and flesh of his rib-cage slightly with each throb.

Pulling her hand away, Kanni focused on what she had felt from the Boar—life—and tried to sense it in her mind after she had lost contact with him. Nothing.

Wait, what was–? She turned and looked towards the edge of the ruins, where she had heard a foreign noise. Stumbling after it over the field of deadly clay tiles, she ignored one of Marram’s odd curses and went towards the source of the noise. After a moment of climbing and crawling, another sound was made, and she reoriented herself with it, until she was on top of the noisemaker. The mage looked around for a second but found nothing, so she pulled on her Kinetic Magic and started moving things around: a stone over there, a small boulder away to that spot, a panel off to—make it dodge Marram, and place it somewhere else.

A hand came out of a crevice in the ground and grasped Kanni’s ankle. “AGHHH!” She leapt away, landing in a heap as she looked with wide eyes at the groping hand in the ground, and scrambling to put more distance between herself and it.

What am I doing? she thought, calming herself and standing with some dignity, when she realized it was just a human hand—not a monster’s paw from the pits of the planet.

Marram just gave her a bland, disappointed look as she Kinetically uncovered the owner of the hand, and then turned to see who they would find buried under the stone. She removed a large block of sandstone with some Magical effort, revealing a pocket between several other blocks, and the survivor who had taken shelter in the nook.

She didn’t have any words that she could form, just a squeak, and then insatiable laughter as she jumped into the fissure with Gelvir and threw herself onto him. He was in a sitting position, since that was all the space would allow, so she practically laid on top of him as she tried to squeeze the breath out of him with her arms. That wasn’t very effective because the Captain had Hargirmian armor on, but she filtered her Magic into him as she had done before with both him and Leyfian. But it felt . . . different . . . with him than with a woman. He exhaled in bliss, and she sighed with content, ignoring the orgasmic feeling coursing through herself and settling to enjoy the miracle of finding Gelvir.

She took her head off of his shoulder and inspected the man, pausing with her face held over his. He gave her a look that made her heart beat faster, but she backed off from him and licked her lips nervously. “You’re covered in wounds,” she finally spoke.

“And you’re covered in dust,”

“I know that, you . . .” She couldn’t think of anything to name him at the moment, which was a rare occurrence. “. . . Just sit still while I Heal you.”

Gelvir sat very still, and he closed his eyes almost in meditation as she gently stroked his half-healed injuries, sealing them together and removing infections in a few caresses. She could remember petting her husband like that, but she wasn’t so eager to think about Ålund at that moment, not when she was so content to watch Gelvir’s wounds become clean, healthy flesh again. Just as she finished fixing him up, a shadow loomed over the both of them, and she looked up at Marram, who could loom very easily.

“If you’ll both stop cuddling like kittens, I need one or two of you to stand and walk the way back. I’ll carry one, but to The Marsh if you think I’ll haul both of you out of here.”

The roomy attic was well lit by sunlight, which streamed plentifully through the rough windows all planted in its slanted wall, and the whole chamber was warmed by the golden rays. The room was bare and clean, furnished only with a few chairs, a washbasin and two beds. On one of those beds, Leyfian woke slowly, bathed in sunlight and feeling as comfortable as a napping cat. It was her first waking moment after being rescued from the collapsed Palace by Helkrasic soldiers, and she reveled in it.

She sat up, finding that she was clean and dressed in a bright white gown, and that her hair had been trimmed to her shoulders. Well, Darenhar had already clipped half of her hair to that level, so someone must have finished the job for him. She would have to get used to not being able to toy with her hair so easily, but that was an unimportant thought.

Standing unsteadily, she went to the other bed in the room, finding Mithourn laying on it, in a deep slumber, but with a slight snarl on his face. Leyfian tilted forward and kissed him on the brow. You were willing to fight a Dragon for me and Kelestil . . . You say that you’ve changed enough that I don’t really know you anymore, but I think that you haven’t changed at all.

She went to leave the room, glancing back at him before she opened the door out of the room. “I’ll be back,” she promised, then walked out the door, only to collide with someone coming in. Kanni quickly turned the collision into a hug, and Leyfian felt the woman’s mixed, positive emotions throbbing around her; the mage had always been good at that kind of Magic. Leyfian had never gotten it down to such a fine art like the other woman, but she was just fine with that.

“It’s a miracle!” Kanni exclaimed, embracing her like a close sister. “I thought I was alone for so long, and when those scaly runts attacked The Palace, I believed you were all dead—I feel like I’m in a dream, or in paradise!”

“I do too,” Leyfian agreed, stepping back when the mage did, and nearly collapsing when she saw who Kanni had brought along. She instantly scooped her daughter into her arms and held her wordlessly, kissing her on the head and breathing in her familiar scent. I don’t remember her being so tall, Leyfian thought, seeing how her child was past the height of her own shoulder. She has certainly taken after father . . .

She realized that she was crying into Kelestil’s hair, and Kelestil was sobbing into her dress, clinging to her tightly as if she couldn’t stand otherwise. Kanni gave them their space, walking over to inspect Mithourn closely, not feeling awkward from their display of emotions, just sensing that it was important they be left alone.

Kelestil felt unmatched happiness bursting inside of her, so she couldn’t tell whether her tears were from joy or from sadness at having been deprived of her mother for so long. “Maea, why were you gone so long?”

“For many reasons, but it was never supposed to end up like this. I’m sorry you were dragged into this, Kelestil; I wish neither of us had ever left home.”

The girl looked up at her with those wide umber eyes; another trait from her father. She sniffled and blinked back the last of her tears. “But then I never would have met Jac—The Trader and Sorrel and Hafkil. Hafkil saved me! He told a Dragon to not burn us, and she took us out of the castle!”

“So you finally got to see your Dragon?” Leyfian asked, and then laughed. She had worried that Kelestil would be traumatized permanently by the whole mess, but when she looked into her daughter’s eyes, she saw that they were bright and happy, not scarred and hurt. Even so, she did what any good mother would do and coddled her child. “Did anyone hurt you at all?”

“Well, Darenhar tried to hit me, but Hafkil fought him before he could. Dirkfang threatened to cut me with a knife, but he only did it to scare me.”

Leyfian gasped angrily, though to speak the truth, she wasn’t surprised and was actually quite relieved that Kelestil had escaped without really getting hurt. “I’m so sorry Kelestil!” she said in a muffled voice, burying her face in her daughter’s hair and hugging her protectively, again. “I’ll never let anything like this happen to you again!”

“Maea!” Kelestil said with a little frustration as she was crushed and stifled all at once. She had to be forceful before Leyfian finally let go of her, and even then her mother was slow to respond. When she was free, the girl walked over to Mithourn’s bedside, and looked down at the unconscious man. Kanni had already moved on to look out of the windows in the attic, and she looked like she was impatient to get somewhere, though she waited on the other two women quietly, without a word of complaint.

Kelestil poked Mithourn in the cheek with a finger and then smiled from amusement. “When is he going to wake up?”

“I don’t know,” Leyfian answered, coming to stand next to her. “He was struck in the head by a rock when everything collapsed, so he might be in a trance for a while. I hope he wakes soon.” That last was said more to herself than anyone else.

Kanni looked away from the window at this. “The Healers said that he should be as healthy as before, if he’s just given some time. They think maybe in a day he’ll be up and walking like normal. You lazy potatoes have been sleeping for an entire day and night as it is,” she added, with a phrase picked up from Marram.

“I’ve been asleep that long?” Leyfian asked incredulously.

“Just come look out the window and see,” Kanni said, pointing towards the glass.

Leyfian went to it and looked out across the central mass of Theargern, finding that it had become like a beehive, with life blooming in every street and at every level. It seemed that news of Darenhar’s defeat had spread, and the people of Hargirm had moved back into the city, emptying out of the overpopulated villages to make a residence in their capital city.

Kanni bounced on her feet, looking ready to burst with excitement over . . . something. “Get your boots on and come outside; there’s plenty to see, and I have someone I want you to meet. Hurry up you creeper!”

Leyfian took her time putting her boots on, but by the moment she was out of the door with her friend and her daughter, she was eager to see the city, and to discover what Kanni was so hyped up over. They came out of their temporary residence, a fine, large inn confiscated for Mawing and his group’s use, guarded by Helkrasic soldiers, but inconspicuous otherwise. The city around it was roaring with work, commerce and craft, the streets running with people, mules, horses, wagons and carts. The houses and buildings were all newly inhabited with families and businesses, and smoke climbed from chimneys into the sky, the smell of roasting meat and boiling stews seeping out of several structures. The city wasn’t only being set up anew, but also being repaired and set aright. Men on roofs fixed damaged shingles or broken windows, and the streets were being shoveled clean or paved with new cobbles in several places.

Leyfian and her companions went into the streets, several Helkrasic soldiers trying to accompany them into the city, until Kanni waved them off and assured them that she and Leyfian were about to meet with a Kingsguard. The soldiers gave suspicious looks, unsure of her word, but they left the women to go on their way unhindered. The mage took the lead through the uproarious streets, and busy they were, right into the narrowest of alleyways as well as the widest of squares. Anvils rang with blacksmith’s hammers, farmers and merchants sold wares straight from the back of their wagons, and people of every age and gender went about on tasks of their own, though all seemed to share a common goal; they were rebuilding their homes. There seemed a shortage of young men and women, but they were still mixed within the crowds, enough that there was a promise of a full generation to come out of them.

Kanni stumbled over a yowling cat, then tripped completely on the second feline that was chasing after the first. The Hargirmian people had brought their pets, it seemed, if the noise of barking dogs throughout the crowds wasn’t enough indication of that fact. All of the dogs had fox-like looks, owed to their coyote ancestors.

When she regained her feet, she took Leyfian and Kelestil to the great fountain of Theargern, a monument which was situated in the center of the largest trading square in the city. Maybe not so impressive as a similar structure in a city of Caldkere, yet it was still a fantastic piece of art. It was carven from dark granite, in the shape of various creatures joined together in a complex ring that made the basin of the fountain. A charging bison trailed after a gaping nighthawk, and a lumbering bear came next, then a fish of some sort, a giant beetle, a spiky lizard and finally a squid with huge eyes. The centerpiece was a bare-branched tree that spouted water out of its limbs, and it seemed that the fountain had just been activated; the water came out muddy and polluted, because the decoration had laid dry for some time.

Kanni stopped by the squid and leaned against the odd creature while Kelestil studied it with some distaste. The mage drummed her fingers against the stone and observed the bustling square, which held the most commerce and wares, and bellowing merchants. Most of the supplies for sale seemed oriented towards home repair or housekeeping, not to forget food and fodder, as well as the eternal presence of useless trinkets.

“He said he would be here,” Kanni muttered to herself, darting her eyes about, searching the crowd.

Leyfian was doubly startled when Gelvir pushed his way out of the crowd towards them, though she was happy to see him alive and well. The first surprise was that he came out of the crowd at all, and in rough, off-duty clothing with only a knife at his hip. The second shock was that Kanni all but leapt to him with a smile and a sort of awkward half-hug; Leyfian gave him a friendly embrace as well, but if the mage had already known that he was well, why would she hug him again so amiably out of habit? Leyfian definitely wanted to study their dynamic—they were her two closest friends, and she loved to observe people as a pastime.

Kanni blushed a little as she pointed to Gelvir and said, “This is the first thing I wanted to show you,” she explained as if he were a museum piece.

“Thing?” the Captain asked. “I’m not an object, Kanni.” And now Gelvir was addressing the mage by her name!

Kanni chose to ignore his comment, and instead pointed to a hulking form behind Gelvir. “And this is the rude clod I wanted you to meet,” she said, and Leyfian took in the huge black Boar for the first time. He had been behind Gelvir since the Captain had arrived, but in the hubbub of the trading square, he had just looked to be another horse or wanderer in the crowds, at a glance.

The boar flared his wide nostrils and snorted critically. “My name’s Marram Vitiver Reed; and you must be one of the helpless captives that Kanni was trying to rescue. Unsuccessfully, I should add.”

Kanni gave him a disappointed look before explaining to Leyfian the whole of the story, how he had stumbled upon her, helped deliver her to The Palace, and then finally rushed her out of the place just in time to be buried at its fringe. Her voice was warm with appreciation, but when she went on to tell how they had found Gelvir, her sentences became clipped and a little confused, seemingly from nervousness. After she finished, the Captain retold some of his story, and then they both prodded Leyfian for her side of things. She decided to recount her experience while walking through Theargern, so she gestured for them to go along with her, and they followed, flanking her, listening intently. Marram came as well, and though he seemed disinterested in her talk, he never interrupted or looked for something to entertain himself, and his ears even pricked up at certain parts of her narration.

Leyfian kept a hand on Kelestil’s shoulder and hugged her daughter frequently just because she could, and she asked the girl about her time in captivity. Kelestil didn’t have much to say because little had happened while she was in The Palace, and most of her comments had to do with Hafkil and how wonderful he was. It seemed that she had grown deeply attached to The Bear over a short period of time, and that made Leyfian want to meet him, to see what he was like. She was quite convinced that he must be a good man, if Kelestil liked him so much.

Eventually, their walk took them to the gates of Theargern which were now eternally opened, until the cogwheel that operated it was fixed. Even then, the wheel would be impossible to turn unless a Titan Rhinoceros was attached to it again, and the last beast to have done so was taking a nap close to the highroad several miles out—and he had no intention of being tied to it again.

Leyfian led her companions out of the city to find a large swath of land which had been turned black by Dragon-fire, and a military encampment just beyond the patch of ruined soil. Most of the Helkrasic army was held in that camp, though a good number of men still resided in the city, to keep things in order until the Hargirmians rebuilt their city and their government. Leyfian looked out across the busy camp, full of soldiers and the laborers who followed after the army; cooks, seamstresses, Healers, smiths and horse-handlers.

The highroad was active as well, a train of carts, horses and people coming from out of the distance and flowing into the city. Several newcomers passed around Leyfian and her group, pulling in loads of supplies or possessions by the wagon-full.

She breathed deeply with renewed vigor, feeling that the world was turning back to how it should be. “I think . . . I think I’ll go find my father, and then check on Mithourn afterwards.” Taking Kelestil by the shoulder, she herded her daughter off towards the center of the city, back towards the inn where she had first woken up. The others followed her, but after a moment, Marram grunted something about finding a meal, and he walked off in a different direction. Kanni just waved goodbye to him and looked unconcerned, as if she knew that they would meet again soon.

When they reached the inn, Gelvir excused himself so that he could find himself a proper sword and armor in the armory at the encampment, both items of which he had lost in the ruination of The Palace. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, seeing how their dynamic had changed so greatly, Kanni went to go with him, so the two left Leyfian and Kelestil alone at the inn.

Leyfian just shook her head. What was the point of having those two bound to her if they were constantly running off without her consent? She supposed that they had accompanied her to a secure place, and that she wouldn’t have liked it if they started grovelling for her. Besides, she thought of them as friends, not servants, and true friendship never lasted if one side was a slave to the other.

She had a guard within the lodge lead her to King Mawing, who kept his temporary quarters near the attic room where Mithourn was still sleeping. Her father gave her a warm welcoming, even if he was reserved and somewhat formal. He had always been that way, except when she had been very young, and her mother had still been alive. After the Queen died, he had saddened, but it was when Leyfian had become seven springs old that he had fully turned frosty. It irked her that he paid more heed to Destiny and converting Helkras into a republic than he did to her, but she still loved him.

He had her and Kelestil sit in two comfortable seats while he stood and paced about in his armor, requesting that Leyfian recount her whole journey. For the most part, he didn’t interrupt, but when she came to tell him about the Deadwight and its color-shifting eyes, he muttered something about strange things walking on the world. He didn’t sound as if he knew what it was, though. When there was mention of the flashing light and earthquake that came unmistakably from Jelril, he claimed that Herkile had felt the tremors and had seen the light invade the sky. After that came the long retelling of going to Theargern, and the troubles that Darenhar had caused. There, Kelestil told her half of the story, liberally sprinkling in comments about Hafkil and how wonderful he was. Truly, Leyfian had to meet the man.

Right after they had finished the recount, the Counselor popped his head in through the ajar door, then invited himself in, briefly hugging Leyfian and Kelestil before he took a seat in a third chair. For a wonder, he was quiet except for a murmur about how glad he was to see Leyfian awake and well.

Mawing seemed uneasy as he finally halted his pacing to stare out the window in his quarters. When Leyfian had mentioned Darenhar’s demonic transformation into darkness, he had quickly become quiet with worry—and who wouldn’t? “It seems . . . that we have much to discuss, but I think that Hafkil should be a part of this. The man should have answers for us that no one else can supply. And it would be best if Mithourn is involved, as well Gelvir and Kanni.” He looked from the window back to Leyfian. “But for now, we can speak of the next part of your journey.” The ensuing silence was so deep that one could almost hear the motes of dust shifting in the air.

“What?” Leyfian asked, feeling as if she had been kicked in the stomach. “I want to go home,” she said in defeated tones. Why did she feel like she wasn’t about to get what she wished for?

“You did not find what you were searching for,” Mawing announced gently.

A dark look passed over her, and she stood out of her chair. “What I’m looking for? I never wanted this; you forced it on me! I’m done, and I want to go home—make someone else finish out your stupid quest!” She wasn’t quite shouting, but her voice, quivering angrily, did as well as any screaming would. By the moment she was finished speaking her part, the Counselor had already taken Kelestil out of the room and the vicinity, seeing that the argument was not their business.

Mawing’s blue eyes followed them out the door, and then were drawn back to his daughter. “You already know that no one can take the role you must fulfill. Darenhar has proven that your journey must go on; he is but a mere taste of what is to come, if you and many others do not follow the path of Destiny.”

“And what would happen if I didn’t follow the path?”

“I am not utterly certain, but I know that it would be a dark future, with no hope of return.”

Leyfian crossed her arms and looked to the ground in frustration. Her father had always preached to her about how important she was, but she thought that it was just an illusion he had convinced himself of.

Except . . . she had seen confirmation of much that he had said; Darenhar had been helped by a demon, and inhabited by one, it seemed, and that was enough to turn her world upside-down. Something had to be done to stop more of the darkness from spreading, but Leyfian didn’t see how she fit into it. “You’re always vague about what it is I’m supposed to find. What do ruins like Jelril hold that is so important? Couldn’t you find what you are looking for in a library?”

King Mawing sighed. “I have explained this to you already,” he said as if he were dealing with a blatantly ignorant child. “All books, whether they are from the great libraries in Formingar, or on some shelves in Lavlin, all of those that record history go to a certain point in the past, but then stop. The most ancient and the newest of tomes all end at the same point in history, so they do not hold the information we need. But, some of the ruins on the continent are more ancient than that blank point in history, and they might hold what we need to know.”

Leyfian nodded slightly, but felt her eyes stinging with the effort to hold back tears. “But I want to go home; I just want to raise Kelestil in peace. I nearly died! I don’t want to leave Kelestil alone in this world, not when she is so young.”

Her father came to stand in front of her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Just remember that this is for the world. I regret that I did not see your importance before it was too late, or I might have prepared you more fully for what you had to face. I am sorry that you have to carry this responsibility, even after having the children that you had, but Kelestil must come second in your duties.”

Leyfian’s emerald eyes looked venomous with agonizing memory, but her voice was calm. “How do you expect me to lay her aside like some sort of project? She needs me, and I can’t just toss her aside!” Why did he always state serious things in such a cool, unconcerned voice? Or bring up memories she would rather leave dead? Sometimes she hated him for being so detached and prophetic—he might as well declare himself the next Akendel of the age, if he kept up with his ramblings on Destiny. She wondered how The White Wolf would like having a competitor. The Wolf probably wouldn’t even care.

Mawing took his hand away from her shoulder and sat tiredly in a chair, sitting back with a sigh. “Just think on it. The choice is ultimately yours, but the world will suffer or rejoice depending on your actions. Think carefully on what really matters: Kelestil, or the world?” Those words held a truth that hurt; one Soul’s wishes were petty compared to the needs of all the others—even if those Souls didn’t know they were in need of something.

Leyfian crossed her arms defensively, trying to ward off the feeling of defeat crushing in on her. She could see the truth, but she didn’t like it. When she answered, it was with a quiet whisper. “I’ll think about it.”

The Helkrasic camp was a city in itself, a group of over fifty-thousand tents and shelters grouped together in neat columns, with tens of thousands of horses spread throughout the place and tied in long lines outside of the camp. Even when kept at a distance, the horses’ dung was the prevailing smell in the camp. It wasn’t a very upsetting aroma; it was just musty, and as always, it quickly faded and became an ambient scent mixed in with the others, like hot steel and cooking beans. It seemed that the Helkrasic men had taken some of the food from the region; Hargirmians loved their beans, and legumes were in just about every dish of theirs.

Gelvir led Kanni through the camp, on the search for the armory, though it eluded him for the moment. The only directions he had obtained from the camp residents was to go to the center of the dwelling, but that was difficult to get to when traversing a dense site that extended for several miles.

The Captain was still a little taken aback that Kanni had joined him, though he was perfectly happy with her company. He was just surprised that she would want to spend her time with him.

She smiled nervously at him. “Are you as excited as I am to get home?”

“I don’t know,” Gelvir answered, “I was beginning to get used to the adventure,” he said, then smiled pleasantly when she gave him a gaping expression. “It was a joke,” he added. “I’ll be glad to get lady Leyfian and you home, where neither of you will be in death’s jaws. I hope you never have to suffer like you did again.”

“Thank you,” Kanni returned, looking to the ground and flushing a little. “It’ll be nice to not have to seal up your cuts every other day; your face was almost ruined by that last injury, and I nearly couldn’t fix it. Maybe you’ll find a wife soon, one who can take care of you for me.” For some odd reason, she blushed even fiercer when she said that. She muttered something to herself, likely about her husband who had been out of her life for three unfortunate months.

Gelvir swallowed awkwardly and tried to not look at her too much, so he focused on the paths through the encampment, and finally got the armory in sight. It was nothing more than a hastily built forge with carts full of raw material and finished products, namely armor and weapons, and horse buckles and headgear. Of course, the smiths in the camp just repaired things and made a few odd items—it would be ridiculous to arm a battalion on the move—and the arms and armor were just there with the forge for convenience and order.

Gelvir came to a barrel full of broadswords and inspected them, finding that they were all from the forges in Herkile, by the engraving at the base of their blades. He didn’t really care when or where his next blade had been forged, so long as it swung well and was made in a quality fashion. Taking his knife, he tested its edge on various points on the first specimen’s blade, seeing where it was soft, and where it was hard.

Maybe good enough for a grunt who doesn’t know how to use it, he thought, finding that his knife scratched the sharpened edge of the broadsword. His knife had been forged hard, but the blade of his next sword needed to harder.

While he went on with the rigorous testing of each sword (only after he swung each one a few times) Kanni gave him a bored look, wanting his attention. He would like to give it to her, but first, his sword.

The mage tugged a sheathed longsword out of the barrel, a blade that was longer and more slender than Gelvir’s preferred broadsword. “It can’t be that hard to swing one of these,” she muttered, taking the handle in a firm grip and tearing the sword from its scabbard. Looking around, she saw that no one was within hitting range and took a swing with it. She found that holding a sword and swinging one were two entirely different things, and that the latter was hard to stop once started. The sword’s momentum forced her to twist on her heel, and she nearly hit Gelvir with the end of the swing.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have thrown all my weight into it, she thought as her heart pounded away. The sword was gingerly sheathed and placed back into the barrel next to the others, and the mage decided to leave blades and the like for Gelvir to deal with; she had her Magic anyways, which would do for a hundred swords, if she decided to use it like that again.

She shivered. No, I don’t want to think about that.

Gelvir didn’t notice Kanni’s little adventure, so he went on with his search uninterrupted, eventually finding a decent broadsword that felt comfortable and was made to his exacting standards. Next came the armor, which would prove to be even more of an ordeal—he might even need to have a new set forged, tailored to him. Gauntlets came fairly easy, and he had managed to keep his boots through his troubles, so that left the helmet and the cuirass. The helmet came quickly, a fine piece that extended well below his jaw and which had a full visor with sufficient eye-slits. Kanni sat on a crate while he struggled with several cuirasses, removing favorable pieces by their buckles and putting them together to make a piece that fit well. Of course, it didn’t feel as comfortable and familiar as his old set, but he would wear it in.

He gestured Kanni off of her crate and went to make his way out of the camp, the woman walking companionably beside him, if silently. He had gotten used to her being in constant company with him, and he liked that, if perhaps a little too much; he had grown very fond of her, so he might feel slightly empty when they returned home, and when she turned all of her attentions to her husband again. For some reason that made him want to snarl. But I already know she only cares for Ålund; I know that I’ll never have a chance with her.

Kanni gave him a mischievous smile of a sudden, as if she knew what was going on in his mind, but she just fingered the collar of his tunic which still showed under his armor. “It looks like you’ll have to get another emblem of rank made, or someone might mistake you for a grunt.” Those dark, merry eyes looked into his, and the Captain found that he could only swallow and nod with an indescribable sound. “But you can do that later,” she added, waving the whole notion aside. “I thought that maybe you might want to come with me when I go and approach that Titan Rhino. I’ve always wanted to see one up close.”

“I would advise against that; the thing might go feral,”

“But haven’t you seen? Thousands of people have walked right past him on the road, and he doesn’t even twitch an eyelid. Besides, he’s taking a nap right now. Come on you worrier!” She tugged playfully at his arm and tried to pull him towards the highroad.

“I–”

“Don’t hen-peck me!” she warned, and Gelvir clamped his mouth shut. He supposed that she was a grown woman and could make her own decisions, unless of course they were really stupid ones. It was just a matter of whether he would follow her or not, and for him, he could only see one choice, so he went with her towards the Titan.

On the road they passed several people and their wagons going towards Theargern, but no one bothered them or even said a word above a simple greeting, which they acknowledged with a nod, since neither of them understood Hargirmian. The passersby could be Cursing them for all they knew.

They approached the Titan Rhinoceros together, walking through tall grasses to get to him, since he had chosen a spot a hundred paces from the road to sleep on. He was laying on his flank with his long legs stretched out in a relaxed posture, his head laying on a round knoll like a pillow. His dull beige skin was rough and dirt-coated; it looked like he hadn’t had a decent drink in a long while, and Kanni got a wild idea when she realized that. She also noted the harness and huge chain that was still attached to him, soon contriving a second plan to go with the first.

As she approached him, his nostrils flexed and sniffed the air, searching for her foreign scent, which he quickly caught. She could almost fit into one of those nostrils. His dark, squinted eyes opened slightly, then blinked furiously to scare away the flies that pestered his moist eyes. He shifted his legs so they came under him, and then he viewed the newcomers in a more comfortable position, his huge, dark irises expanding to take them in more accurately, even if all he could see were two blurry figures in the end.

“What do you midges want?” he asked with his harsh voice. The smaller one came closer—he could tell that they were the smaller one—and she spoke up to him in a language he didn’t recognize. He took a mouthful of grass and chomped absently, deciding to ignore the little runts. Of course, with a mouth like his, he took up as much dirt as grass.

Kanni saw that there could be no communication between her and the Titan Rhino, so she went ahead with her first idea, calling on Water Magic to fill a large depression between two hills with water. She almost staggered from the effort; pulling Water from a naturally dry area was several times more difficult than in a moist place, and it was quite dry around Theargern, so she had to pull the liquid from farther out. Nonetheless, she steadied herself and forced Water to well and bubble up out of the ground until it filled a good portion of the depression. Making Water appear out of nothing would have been even harder.

She panted for a moment, feeling suddenly out of breath once she let go of the Magic, and she watched as the Titan leaned forward and sniffed at the water. He drank from the concavity until it was just a damp marsh, and then tugged at some of the wet grass to eat it, gaining more moisture.

Kanni walked around to the Rhinoceros’ back, where the harness could be accessed, and studied the enormous metal clasp, pins and chain links. Gelvir was right beside her, she noticed, and that was just fine. She enjoyed his firm presence; she just wondered how much he liked to have her energy around.

Taking a hold of one of the pins locking the clasp shut around the Titan’s midriff, Kanni used Modification Magic to shrink it at one end, and then Kinetic to push it out of the hinge where it had been placed. She backed away a good distance with Gelvir and waited for the Titan to break out of the harness. When the creature finally did decide to stand, the clasp around his stout body fell open like an unlocked shackle, then fell to the ground along with the connected length of chain. His jaw fell down four feet. “Guess I broke the damn thing,” he thought aloud, and roared victoriously, trotting off with renewed freedom towards the west.

“So much for a show of gratitude,” Kanni whined as she watched the Titan Rhino break into a run which shook the whole plains for miles around. He wheeled to the south, going towards Lake Aragen, which was just out of sight, and he disappeared in amongst the hills after a moment.

The mage turned on her heel to face Gelvir. “Well, I guess we can go back to Theargern. Lead the way.”

 A breeze picked up and pushed around them, making the grass ripple like ocean waves. It didn’t take long for them to reach Theargern, and by the time they reached the walls, Kanni was neck-deep in telling the Captain about her memories of her brother. She had a plethora of stories to tell about her sibling and her earlier years, which had been quite adventurous. Recently, especially since she had found him alive when she had thought him dead, she found that she wanted his attention more, and liked his company more than before. Funny, because just two months gone, she had been nervous to even speak to the man alone; his quietness had been intimidating to her, but something had quickly changed between them, and now she found it irresistible to be alone with him. I’m not . . . betraying Ålund . . . am I? No. I’m just talking with Gelvir, nothing more. And it’ll stay like that.

“Kanni?”

The mage realized that she had trailed off in the midst of her story, and that the Captain was wondering why. “What? Oh, yes! Where was I . . . ah, of course! Well, when my father was halfway done building a palace in Ekminx, me and my brother thought it was a good idea—actually, he thought it was a good idea, so he dragged me into it—to climb all over the unfinished building . . .”

Leyfian spent the rest of the day with Kelestil, doing all sorts of things, from riding their horses out into the fields—their mounts had been retrieved from the stables nearby The Palace, and thankfully the beasts and their saddlebags had been untouched—to eating their meals, which were like feasts, compared to what they had suffered in Darenhar’s keeping. Kelestil had nothing to talk about except for Hafkil, and though Leyfian found that to be a boring subject after several hours, she listened and contented herself with the fact that she had only a day to wait before meeting the strange man. He had made friends with the Wolves? And Alpha Kcarc, no less. He was the second most well-known canine on the continent, after his brother, Akendel.

Amidst her time with Kelestil, she hoped for Mithourn to wake the next day, as well as dreaded it. She had to grow the courage to tell him the truth, but that was difficult, because she didn’t know how he would take it. In all honesty, she didn’t even know how she wanted him to react, because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to get close to him again, or take a separate path. What she wanted to tell him might push him either towards or away from her, and even her keen understanding of people couldn’t tell her which it would be. All she knew was that he would be shocked, maybe even angry, but he would hide most of his emotions, only letting through what made him appear strong and unaffected. He hadn’t changed much that she could see since eight years past, except that his aggressive and insensitive side had taken over. Oh, he had always been like he was now, but she could see that it would be more difficult to get under that layer of him, to where his strong and caring spirit resided. She knew it was still in him.

Even with those things on her mind, however, the most taxing worry she was occupied with was what her father had said to her, and the decision she had to make. Think carefully on what really matters: Kelestil, or the world?

The answer was simple, but the choice was not. If she could take Kelestil with her, Leyfian might have been fully willing to go, but she had seen how dangerous the world could be, especially on the type of journey she would have to make, so taking her daughter was not an option at all. That left two distinct choices; go home or go out into the world. She knew which one she wanted, and which was more important, and she also was certain that she should take the latter, however much it hurt. It was her duty. And yet, Kelestil was also her responsibility. She felt torn in half over the choice.

Father was right that Darenhar is proof of the dire need to find answers, but . . . Kelestil would be so hurt if I left again. And who knows how long I would be gone. It could take months, maybe years of searching before I found anything. But then, if I don’t do anything to help the world, how many other horrible people would sprout up and find ways to hurt her? Darenhar was proof of that, too. The world could find ways to hurt her daughter, even if she decided to return home and keep Kelestil close.

That night, she went to bed in the attic room where Mithourn was still sleeping on his mattress, and the bed was large enough that Kelestil could snuggle in next to her. She hummed to her daughter and stroked Kelestil’s raven hair until the girl was asleep, but she couldn’t become unconscious for a while. Only when it was the dead of the night did she come across her answer, and that was the moment she fell into the darkness of slumber.

It was very early the next morning when she woke, so she cleaned her face and left both Mithourn and Kelestil asleep in the room while she searched out her father. She found him in the common room of the inn, which was heavily guarded, and had several dozen seats scattered across the floor with small tables pushed to the walls. Mawing sat eating his breakfast at one of those tables, so Leyfian came directly to him. The Counselor, in another corner of the room, watched her, as well as Gelvir and Kanni, who were apart yet seemed to be keeping each other company. Captain Taylan leaned against a wall as he waited patiently for something to happen, though it was anyone’s guess what that might be.

The King looked up to her. “You seem troubled, Leyfian. Have you been thinking over what we spoke of yesterday?”

“Yes,” Leyfian answered curtly, taking a seat opposite of him. “I’ll go, but only if you have someplace in mind where there is a definite chance of finding something. Otherwise I’ll go home with you and Kelestil, until you do find something.” When he just nodded, she frowned slightly. “Do you have any ideas?” she asked, hoping to the heavens that he didn’t. Her heart quivered a second later, and she couldn’t prevent herself from crying a moment after that.

He did have places and names in mind. Dozens of them, and each further away from home than the last. The time she had finally been able to share with Kelestil, the mending injuries . . . they were all going to tear open again. The bridges would become rifts.