We giving all gained all. Neither lament us nor praise. Only in all things recall, It is Fear, not Death that slays
The night sky deepened, stripped bare in the growing cold. Stars burst forth like silent musket volleys, pricking the heavens with rosettes of white light. On the desert floor below, remnants of lives littered the sand in all directions. Broken bodies draped limply over rocks. Ash piles marked the deaths, though not the final resting places, of many more. Bones jutted from the sand at angles-not odd angles, though, for that would suggest that there were ways bones could protrude that made sense-and the eyes of those still living stared and saw nothing.
Or did their best not to.
Major Konowa Swift Dragon, second-in-command of the Calahrian Empire’s Iron Elves, stood among the carnage. His six-foot-tall frame loomed above the fallen like the last tree in a dying forest. Red-rimmed eyes and cracked and bleeding lips stained with black powder offered the only contrast in a face coated in gray soot. The ferocity of the battle marked his uniform, too. The once vibrant silver green of the cloth was now mottled in blood, dirt, black powder, and bits of gore. Ripped and burned sections of uniform exposed strips of bare brown flesh streaked with grime.
He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there. He realized he wasn’t sure what time it was, or even what day. Battle did that, winnowing away everything until all that was left was a furiously burning spark that ignited only one of two actions-kill, or flee and be killed. But battles didn’t last forever, at least, not in the physical realm. Konowa felt his warrior veneer slip a little as time reasserted itself. The toxic high of battle that sustained and drove him when he shouldn’t have been able to swing his saber one more time began to subside. Visions of the grotesque, the obscene, and the heartbreaking began leaching into tissue and memory, staining his very character and thoughts so deeply that no lifetime of drink and repression would erase them.
The wind snatched at the loose strands of his long black hair tied in the back in a regulation queue. A storm front was moving in.
With his left hand he absently pushed the hairs out of his eyes and behind his ear. His fingers paused as they traced the shorn ear tip. He’d been marked as a chosen one by the Shadow Monarch, his ear tip frost-blackened in the womb. He was one of the first so marked to remain with the tribe, albeit minus part of an ear. So fearful were the elves of the Hyntaland of the Shadow Monarch’s touch that they chose to abandon babies born with the disfigurement to their deaths in the wild rather than raise them. In this way the Shadow Monarch gained Her children, collecting the babes and raising them as Her own. In time, they grew to be as twisted and dark as the Silver Wolf Oak at the center of Her mountain forest.
Neither their fate nor Konowa’s was one any elf should have to bear, but no one had asked if they accepted the burden. A thin, cold pain gripped his chest where the black acorn, the source of the Iron Elves eternal existence, rested against his chest. It was a reminder that the power of the frost fire and the curse of a hellish life after death had been a burden of his own choosing.
His hand reached up to adjust his shako, the distinctive tall black hat with its winged appendages, and realized it had fallen off. He looked down and spied it a few feet away. He walked over slowly, ignoring the wet sounds beneath his boots, bent down, and picked it up. When he tipped it right side up to place it on his head, a silver locket fell out and landed in the sand. It’s not my shako, he realized.
After looking inside to see if anything else was there, he put the shako on his head and crouched down to where the locket lay half-buried in the sand. He grasped it gingerly between finger and thumb as if he were plucking a rose and trying not to get jabbed by a thorn. The metal was cool to the touch and Konowa realized that it wasn’t silver at all, but simple pewter. It was oval in shape and no more than an inch tall, and a small post at one end was broken where a chain would have fastened, no doubt explaining why the soldier had chosen to keep it under his shako for safekeeping.
Konowa stood back up, cringing as his left knee spasmed and threatened to collapse. He closed his fist and pounded it against the joint, and the spasm shuddered to a halt. When he opened his hand again, he saw that the locket had popped open. He brought his right hand up to open the locket all the way and stopped in surprise. He was still holding his saber.
A sliver of his reflection stared back at him from the polished steel. He twisted the blade slowly, letting it catch the starlight. Shadows slid across his face, arcing from nose to eye socket, concealing and revealing eyes that had seen more than they ever should.
Still, they did not blink.
He lowered the blade and sheathed it one handed in a single, fluid motion. Releasing his grip on the pommel sent blood flowing back into his fingers with a fiery sting. He flexed them a few times, then pried the locket completely open. The hinge broke and the two halves lay flat in his palm. The right half contained a small lock of blond hair tied with a thin, purple thread. The left bore an inscription of just four words- Come back to me.
Konowa’s hands fell to his sides, the pieces of locket tumbling to the sand. Noises he hadn’t realized were there filled his ears. The soft ting-ting of cooling musket barrels; the gulping down of brackish water by throats parched and raw from inhaling smoke and shouting; and a single, ragged scream from someone dying. All of it slid in deep between the ear and the brain like a sliver that would never work free.
Come back to me.
It was a plea, an admonition, a desperate hope from a wife. Everything was implied-love, trust, need, desire-but nothing would be fulfilled.
Nearby, a quill began scratching across a piece of paper. The sound carried to Konowa in thin, clear tones. He felt the rhythm of the point as it curved and sliced its path. He turned, letting something more than his hearing guide him. Her Majesty’s Scribe, Rallie Synjyn, sat on a rock among the bodies, a scroll unfurled across her lap. Her black cloak blended with the darkness as if the night itself was part of her. The feather barbs of her quill fluttered as the wind and her writing picked up speed.
Konowa watched, mesmerized. From this distance he couldn’t see what she was writing, yet he imagined he saw every word. The quill rose above the page, moved over, and plunged back down. He saw the story unfold back in the world they’d left behind.
This desert of wasted lives and damaged souls was a battle won, the sharp end of imperial power applied. On maps in headquarters far away, the red-rimmed limits of the empire would surge outward as another pin was pushed in place. Bottles would be uncorked and talk of promotions-discreet of course, lest one be seen as too eager-would creep into conversation. Through the news sheets and crier services, the citizens of the Calahrian Empire would learn of the Iron Elves’ latest feat of arms and rejoice at their triumph over the Shadow Monarch’s minions and the ancient desert power of Kaman Rhal’s dragon. Evil was thwarted once again and the power of a new Star was delivered unto the people, courtesy of the benevolent Empire. The cost-fifty-four soldiers dead, wounded, and missing, and a couple hundred native warriors lost against untold hundreds of the enemy-would seem satisfactorily grim and proportionate.
Sergeant Yimt Arkhorn and most of his squad. Missing…
… his mother, Chayii Red Owl; his father, Jurwan Leaf Talker; Tyul Mountain Spring; and Jir, his bengar companion. Missing…
Visyna…
These names, these people, would mean little to someone back home, except for a very few for whom these names would be everything. No doubt the masses would show appropriate concern at the frittering away of valuable resources in such a far-flung place. Konowa suspected they would be satisfied that the losses suffered offered the requisite sense of drama and the all-important Imperial motif of the few overcoming the many. No one, not even an empire, wants to be viewed as a bully.
Konowa knew celebrations would ensue, albeit without the guests of honor that had made it possible. Still, it was everyone’s patriotic duty to hoist a pint, shout brave slogans, and remind all those within earshot that if not for “this bum knee” or “a wife and six young children to feed” they, too, would be over there, instead of quartered safe in here. Smiles would abound as revelers congratulated one another, winking as they nodded their heads and said with gruff pride, “Damn right, we showed them, eh?” If a twinge of embarrassment caught in their throats as they pronounced “we,” it would be quickly washed away with the next round of drinks.
For now, however, the “we” were confined to a few small acres of ravaged land so far from home that home seemed more like a fevered dream than something real. There was no backslapping, no loud shouts of martial prowess or Imperial superiority. Quiet sobs of those trying to understand that the “we” were now fewer were studiously ignored by those fighting to keep it together. The tenets of diplomatic doctrine and the flush of Imperial pride found no purchase here. Later, perhaps, Konowa thought, they would see themselves as victors. For now, it was enough to struggle to comprehend that they were survivors.
The wind worried the edges of Rallie’s scroll. Konowa shivered. Rallie paused, her quill frozen above the paper. She looked up, pushing the hood of her black cloak back on her head. Gray, frizzy hair framed her face, hard-earned wisdom etched into every crease. The end of the cigar clenched between her teeth glowed fiery orange as she inhaled. Her eyes found his.
She was weeping.
A moment later her face disappeared in a veil of smoke. The drop of ink at the tip of the quill trembled. A chill breeze set the downy barbs thrumming. The drop fell, splattering onto the page.
It began to snow.
Konowa blinked. Flakes fell and skittered along the sand and the bodies lying there. A few snowflakes found the gap between his neck and the collar of his uniform, sending tiny rivulets of water down his back as they melted. He took a breath, his whole body shuddering as he let it out.
It was snowing.
Snowing in the middle of the bloody desert.
The laugh that escaped his lips startled him. He gritted his teeth, but more laughter rose up, spilling out in ragged gasps. His breath exploded in chalky sprays in the cooling night air. Soldiers lifted their heads to turn and stare. He couldn’t stop. His ribs ached and his lungs seared as they struggled for air, yet the laughter only grew.
He stood surrounded by death. The very smell of it permeated him so deeply he could no longer tell where it ended and he began. So many gone, condemned to a living hell of service after death – and here he was, laughing. He doubled over and braced his hands against his knees, but the laughter would not die. The natural order, always a buzzing, confused noise on the edge of his understanding, coursed around him as if storm-tossed by the approaching blizzard. He didn’t even bother to make sense of it. He didn’t need to. He stood up straight, gasping for air, with tears running down his face. He was still laughing, but now finally under control.
He was alive, and he was an elf. Maybe not an elf like the others, but then who said he had to be? What mattered was what he felt. A dawning, as yet barely grasped and understood determination, began to fill him. It flooded into the spaces left empty by the losses he’d suffered. It calmed, though it did not quench, the pain and agony he’d been using as fuel. This was something different, something quieter, yet stronger because of it. He knew now in a way he hadn’t before that the fallen did not die in vain. The missing would be found, no matter what their fate. And the Blood Oath of the Iron Elves would be broken.
He had no words for it, and doubted he could explain it even if he did. This went beyond anything he could say. All his life he’d known anger. It burned him, but he’d come to enjoy that pain. He was never more alive than when he was screaming at the top of his lungs and charging headlong at the enemy. Now… now he saw the first steps on a new path, one that saw beyond the horizon of battle.
He took in a few deep breaths, letting the laughter subside. So be it. There was always a price to pay, and his would be higher than most. He would pay it a thousand times over to end what the Shadow Monarch had started. He wasn’t going to be a pawn any longer. Not for Her, not for the Empire, and not for his anger. He rolled his shoulders and stood straighter. His body relaxed as muscles unknotted. He felt… taller, stronger, more alive than he had in a long time. In another place he might have even felt happy, but the carnage around him ensured that that emotion remained distant. If there was any joy at all to be found, it was in this: Before he took his last breath, he would end Her.
Konowa became aware that silence had fallen around him. The sound of Rallie’s quill on paper had ceased. He glanced up. The stars had vanished, the sky muddled with thickening clouds.
“It appears to be snowing, Major,” Rallie said, as gruff and matter-of-fact as ever. Konowa was relieved to hear she had stopped crying. He couldn’t handle that, not right now.
He shook his head and snow cascaded down from his shako. This wasn’t good. Konowa had never been to the desert before and had no inkling of the annual levels of rain or other weather events that might occur within the Hasshugeb Expanse. Still, he was certain that before tonight, the chances of snow blanketing this typically sunbaked landscape had been specifically “none.” And before his arrival, the chances of snow falling in this desert wasteland would have remained none, probably for eternity. But of course, those damn stars were changing all that.
Konowa turned his gaze to the north. The Shadow Monarch’s forest blocked his view. He should have found comfort in the fact that the malevolent trees and the many foul creatures that roamed within their thrashing embrace were retreating, pushed back by the power unleashed by the fallen Blue Star, the Jewel of the Desert. Having transformed into a towering tree, it rose high above the valley floor, the blue fire of its energy blazing from deep within branch and leaf, wreathing every shadow in cobalt. He wanted to find solace in the knowledge that here, as in Elfkyna, the power of the Stars was greater than that of the Shadow Monarch, but he couldn’t.
One of the reasons stood a few yards away, watching.
Konowa risked a glance at Private Alwyn Renwar. The soldier, if that’s what he still was, had not moved since his transformation. Once a meek and trembling lad barely able to hold a musket steady, jumping at his own shadow… now in command of the shades of the dead.
In another time and another place, Private Renwar’s lone battle against a long-dead dragon magically reanimated from the skeletal remains of donor bodies would have earned him the highest medal of valor and a hero’s funeral. No one should have survived the destruction of that monster. But Renwar had, his body a fused bonfire between the competing magics of Rhal’s dragon and the Shadow Monarch’s oath. Perhaps his intent had been to die, but like Konowa, a sense of service had compelled him to make a far more difficult choice.
I don’t know whether to pity him or hate him.
“You might try talking to him,” Rallie said. “He’s lost a lot this night. We all have.”
Konowa shivered and didn’t bother to lie to himself that it was because of the snow. Rallie’s uncanny ability to know, or at least sense, what he was thinking always left him feeling unsettled. He took a steadying breath and turned to face her. “I know, but he made a deal with Her,” he said. “He made a deal with the Shadow Monarch and became Her Emissary. He defeated the dragon because She gave him the power to do so.”
Rallie shook her head, her frizzy gray hair obscuring her eyes. Her quill remained poised above the paper. Konowa noticed that despite the falling snow, not a single flake fell on the scroll laid out before her. “You’re stating the facts, but not the truth of them. He is Their Emissary, not Hers. He speaks for the dead now.”
Konowa waved away the distinction with a hand. “Hers, theirs, the difference is moot. He forsook the regiment. He had a duty to fight against Her, not grow stronger by joining Her.”
“Major, don’t you see, he followed your example,” Rallie said, brushing snow from her hair. “He sacrificed his well-being and that of this regiment for something greater.”
“The oath remains, Rallie. Those killed still become shades doomed to do Her bidding. Every day Her power over them grows. What is it you think he’s accomplished?”
Rallie shook her head from within her hood. “You’re wrong, Major. She no longer holds sway over them as She did before. It might seem small, but it is important to note. She might think She’s gained an ally in Private Renwar, but I think She’s miscalculated, and not for the last time.”
Konowa’s retort stayed behind his teeth. It was easy to convince yourself that your enemy always knew what it was doing, that every setback you encountered was a clever trap laid by design. Konowa grudgingly considered that maybe Rallie was right. Maybe the Shadow Monarch underestimated Alwyn. Twice now She had failed to acquire a newly returned Star, first at the battle of Luuguth Jor in Elfkyna, and now in the Canyon of Bones in the Hasshugeb Expanse. In each case the returning Star, a vessel of natural magic attuned to the land from which it had originated, was free to transform, becoming a towering tree coursing with power. They were guardians in much the same way the Wolf Oaks of his homeland stood watch over the natural order, bridging the gap between the heavens and the earth.
“Perhaps, but I don’t trust this,” he said, waving his hand vaguely to take in the devastation around them. A gust of wind blew snow in his face. “The Stars of Knowledge and Power are returning, and that appears to be positive, if you don’t take into account the growing likelihood that the Empire will be torn apart from the inside. Every colony and native people see this as their chance to be free. Who will have the power then? The Queen in Celwyn, presiding over an ever-dwindling realm, or the Shadow Monarch on Her mountain? Last time I checked, the ruling monarch of Calahr couldn’t do this.”
Rallie waved her quill in the air. Snowflakes swirled around it as if deliberately trying to avoid it. “Which begs the question, why are we still here and not moving?”
The sigh was past Konowa’s lips before he could stop himself. “Prince Tykkin is still searching through what’s left of Rhal’s library.” He wasn’t sorry the library had been destroyed in the fighting. The Prince’s quest to find the fabled lost library and bring back to Calahr all its purported treasure of knowledge accumulated over the ages had seemed more like a boy’s adventure than anything else. Perhaps it was Konowa’s lack of sentimentality, but a dusty tome on ancient mathematics or spells paled in comparison to the pressing needs of the here and now.
He looked over at her. “I thought you would be there with him.” It wasn’t meant as a slight. Konowa genuinely assumed Rallie would be interested in ancient artifacts. A spark of self-preservation saved him from saying ancient out loud, but as he looked at her pursed lips he suddenly wished he were somewhere, anywhere, else.
“What I’m looking for isn’t there,” Rallie said, her tone as gruff and kind as ever. She blew the hair from her eyes with a smoky puff from her cigar.
Konowa held her stare for a moment. “Dare I ask what that is?”
Rallie shrugged. “I’m not entirely certain myself. It’s more than annoying, I assure you.” Her face brightened and the quill stabbed the air. “But I will know it when I find it.”
“Won’t we all,” Konowa said, turning again to look north. A wall of churning snow crawled ever closer. He reflexively hunched his shoulders and stamped his boots in the sand. “It’s time we were going.” Steel buttressed his voice. He saw his immediate future and it was crystal clear, despite the darkness.
“Visyna was- is the one with the knack for weaving the weather. My abilities work along other lines,” she said, chuckling at the pun. “Putting aside the fact that you still have to pry His Highness out of the library, how do you think we’re going to make it through all that?”
Konowa started to reach for his musket, then instead brought his left hand to rest against his thigh. The fingers of his right hand closed around the pommel of his saber. Black frost sparkled on the hand guard.
“I’m going to have a little chat with the shades’ new leader,” he said, louder than he’d intended. Soldiers turned to look. The wind piled drifts of snow and sand against his boots as the blue light of the Star tree pulsed faster. He fixed his gaze on Private Renwar and started walking.
Renwar remained where he stood, his head tilted to one side as his completely gray eyes stared without blinking, and without emotion. Black frost limned his wooden leg, a magically rendered replacement after his real leg was lost in the Battle of Luuguth Jor. The blue light of the Star tree shattered and refracted through the wind-driven snow, strobing the air with images that vanished and reappeared.
Shades of the dead materialized around Renwar. They didn’t occupy space as much as create a black emptiness in the air, which they temporarily filled while crossing into this world from the one in which they now existed. Looking directly at them was difficult, and not just because of the emotional shock of recognizing the faces of friends and comrades. It physically hurt Konowa to stare at them for any length of time, as if his vision were being drawn into their world, a place where no living being could survive. Pain flowed out from them like a tide, and it was growing stronger.
Konowa narrowed his focus to Renwar. The soldier’s gray eyes gave nothing away.
Unbidden, and without orders, the Iron Elves began to form up behind Konowa, falling into step as he marched across the battlefield. They numbered little more than a hundred now, their ranks decimated by claw, fang, arrow, and magics no soldier should ever have to face. Yet they had, and they would again before this was over. Konowa would understand if they loathed him. It was his doing that had bound them to the regiment for eternity. He hated himself for it, but like them, he was a soldier, and together they would see this through to the end. It wasn’t particularly elegant or even noble, but it was what a soldier did. And so they marched with him, stride for stride. They could hate him a thousand times over, but they would follow where he led, and for that he loved them all.
They were the Iron Elves.
His Iron Elves.
Konowa kept walking. The knuckles of his right hand lost all color as frost fire sparkled along the entire length of his scabbard. All eyes, living and dead, were on him as he led what was left of the regiment across the sand. With each step, the black acorn against his chest grew colder.
Behind the regiment, the fine, sharp stitch of quill on paper resumed. A legend was being woven into the fabric of history. The late-evening cries of thousands of celebrating patrons in pubs around the Empire would no doubt repeat with full-throated joy what Rallie Synjyn penned this night.
Anyone brave enough to look over Rallie’s shoulder, however, would have seen that her quill was not flowing in a smooth left to right path across the page, but instead tracing the same shape repeatedly on one small section of the paper. There, the shape finally clarified and revealed itself as the ink glittered and flickered in the blue light of the Star.
It was the image of a black acorn wreathed in flame with two words in ancient elvish script emblazoned within it. ?ri Mekah: Into the Fire.
T he new forest of sarka har was starving. The Shadow Monarch’s blood trees drove their roots into the cold sand of the Hasshugeb Expanse and found little to feed on. They flung their branches in ever widening arcs trying to trap anything unlucky enough to stray near. Spawned by the Shadow Monarch’s frost-burnt Silver Wolf Oak, these twisted saplings craved the heavy, bitter ores found deep in the distant mountains of the Hyntaland. Here, however, in this wide-open plain of dunes and disintegrating rock, there was barely enough to keep them alive. They took what they could from anything living, but there were not enough humans in this sparsely populated land to satisfy their hunger. Rakkes and dark elves roamed between their trunks and would have been easy hunting, but Her Emissary had forbidden such feeding, and they had no choice but to obey its order.
They needed other prey.
A hint of metal tantalized them to the south. They had no idea it was called Suhundam’s Hill, or that elves from Her land now lived there, only that they sensed the great upthrust of rock in the desert floor through vibrations received in their roots. The rock and what lived there promised them ore and blood and something else. There was a darkness there that spoke to them in a language they understood, but how to get to it? The power of the returned Star, the Jewel of the Desert, kept them at bay, hemming them in along the northern coast of the Expanse.
As their need grew, so did their frenzy. Again and again, the sarka har flung their roots forward in an effort to seek purchase in the freezing sand and move south. All the while, more sarka har sprang forth from the ground behind the tree line that marked the edge of the Shadow Monarch’s influence and the beginning of the land now under the protection of the returned Star. Black, gnarled roots stabbed again and again like clawing fingers into the crust of snow over the desert floor in an effort to get to the rock. They scrabbled at the ground in desperation. Trunks shattered and roots snapped and sheared off in the growing violence, but no matter how hard they tried, they could go no further south.
Rakkes and dark elves began to fall to the flailing limbs. A limb skewered a rakke in the chest, the beast’s howl of pain cut short as it was torn apart by others joining the feast. A dark elf tilted its head, staring with unblinking eyes at a sight it knew should not be. It continued to stare even after a branch scythed its head off and sent it tumbling to the frozen earth.
When no blast of frost fire struck down the trees, more began to search for food. The screaming didn’t last long. When the last of the Shadow Monarch’s creatures had been slaughtered within the forest, the sarka har thrashed the air in search of more. Their appetite was whet; now they needed to sate it.
Unable to move forward because of the power of the Star, the sarka har did what they knew best. The ground was soft here, not like the mountain of Her realm.
The digging would be easy.
Roots burrowed down through the sand, no longer questing for food, but for power. They found fault lines and hairline cracks in the deep bedrock and worked their way in, prying deeper into the darkness. The ground above shook. Cracks opened up in the desert floor, swallowing dozens of sarka har into its black depths. Yet Her forest was relentless, pushing its roots ever deeper. When it seemed that their search would be fruitless, a lone sarka har found disturbed rock in a channel running from the surface. Its roots wormed into the passage and followed it down. Whenever the passage had been dug, it had been filled in again millennia ago. Nothing had been down this far in a very long time.
Other sarka har followed, and soon the passage was filled with writhing, pulsing roots. Only the Shadow Monarch’s Silver Wolf Oak had plunged its roots this deep before. The sarka har knew only instinct, and instinct told them there was great power down here.
Sand crackled underfoot as Konowa came to a halt five yards away from Private Renwar. Only then did he realize he hadn’t given the regiment the order to halt. He half-expected to see them march right past him, but they came to a smooth stop two yards behind him. Konowa didn’t need to turn around to see it; he heard it as every right boot slammed down at exactly the same time.
Konowa forced himself to release his grip on his saber. He casually adjusted the hem of his jacket while taking care to look directly at Private Renwar. I’ll be damned if I’ll speak first, he thought.
Silence cocooned the tableau. Snow swirled everywhere, piling in drifts a foot high, but in the space around Private Renwar not a single snowflake fell.
Konowa forced himself to look past Renwar to the shades of the dead. He squinted as if looking into the sun. Their anguish was growing stronger with every passing day. It flowed out from them with an intensity that caught Konowa in its glare and wouldn’t let go.
He easily recognized Regimental Sergeant Major Lorian sitting astride the warhorse Zwindarra, the pair of them felled at the battle of Luuguth Jor. Konowa hadn’t considered before now that the horse obviously hadn’t taken the oath, but Lorian had talked about the bond between a cavalryman and his horse. Tragically, the bond must have been strong enough to carry over into death, dooming the horse to a fate it had no hope of understanding. And there was one-eyed Private Meri Fwynd, the patch still covering his lost eye. Their forms shimmered as if black flames made up their bodies. Konowa couldn’t shake the feeling that he was peering into the abyss. Each shade appeared darker at its core, as if a bottomless pit now replaced each dead man’s soul. Konowa shuddered at the thought and banished it from his mind. He took a moment to acknowledge each dead face, fearing to see the dwarf among them, but no shade of the salty sergeant appeared. Konowa wished he could feel relieved, but he suspected the white fire of Kaman Rhal had taken Yimt. Private Kester Harkon’s shade never rejoined the regiment, and it seemed Sergeant Arkhorn’s now shared his fate. Maybe, Konowa allowed, it was a blessing. At least those two weren’t condemned to suffer in eternal service.
Konowa ignored the coursing flood of pent-up energy inside him and pushed the frost fire back down. He wouldn’t be ruled by emotions. He knew that with all eyes on him, he had to keep his composure. He was an officer in the Calahrian Army, and standing before him was a private in his regiment. If they were buried in snow a mile deep, he would wait for Renwar to salute.
Private Alwyn Renwar continued to stand and stare. His gray eyes appeared depthless and cast his face in a deathly pallor, but the power that resided behind them was unmistakable. Konowa would have shivered if his body had been any warmer.
Somewhere behind Konowa, a ramrod began to slide out of its brass rings. The sound of metal on metal rang like crystal. A soldier was preparing to load a shot.
Renwar’s eyes never flickered, but Konowa felt the communication between the private and the shades. Though it didn’t seem possible, the air turned colder and every lungful stung as if filled with tiny razors.
Movement to Konowa’s left drew both his and Renwar’s gaze. Rallie stood off to the side, her quill in one hand and a large scroll of paper in the other. At first Konowa thought she was scratching her head, then realized it was a gesture aimed at Renwar. The private looked back to Konowa. Slowly, as if trying to remember something from a very distant past, he stood to attention and raised his right hand in salute. It wasn’t parade ground sharp, but for here and now it was enough.
More surprisingly and definitely unnerving, the shades followed suit.
Konowa didn’t fool himself that the dead saw him as their leader anymore, but they were clearly following the lead of Renwar, and he was still a living member of the regiment Konowa commanded-the Prince notwithstanding.
Konowa waited three beats, enjoying the building tension because now it was his to control, then returned the salute. The air warmed as a collective sigh passed among the soldiers.
“Right,” Konowa said, taking his time to exude a calm he didn’t feel. “Private Renwar, I’ll need you and the lads there to form up and follow me. We’re heading due north for the coast.” He raised his voice and shifted weight from one boot to another in a studied act of nonchalance. “These Stars are going to keep dropping from here to hell. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t plan on spending the rest of my life, living or dead, tracking them down one by one. It’s time we took this fight to its home, and that’s the Shadow Monarch’s mountain.”
The cheer that greeted this pronouncement was hardly boisterous, but it had a flinty edge to it that filled Konowa with hope. The regiment was still with him… or at least those living were.
“You ask a lot,” Private Renwar said in his new role as spokesman of the shades. He spoke quietly and carefully, sounding more like the young soldier Konowa knew. Konowa chose to view it as a positive sign even if the response wasn’t. He decided to bull ahead.
“I’m not asking, Private, but even if I were, I’m not asking any more of you than I am of myself or the rest of the regiment,” Konowa said, taking a couple of steps to turn around and take in the assembled troops. They were no longer the shiny rascals of the Elfkynan campaign. The marching, the fighting, and above all the oath, were taking a fearsome toll. The once tall winged shakos now had a crumpled, weathered look about them. Many wings had shed so many feathers that it was more accurate to describe their headgear as plucked. The original velvety sheen of their Calahrian silver-green jackets was faded, ripped, patched, bloodied, and loose-fitting. Konowa dared look in their eyes, fearing the worst and feeling his heart swell when they met his gaze. There was strength there yet. They were grouped tightly together, shoulder to shoulder, each holding his musket in both hands. Many had attached their bayonet though no bare metal showed signs of frost fire. Good, Konowa thought, good.
“Every last man here, and Rallie, too, knows this has to end, and it can only end one way, and in one place. That means heading north and setting sail for the Hyntaland. Every hour we stand here is an hour She grows stronger and our mission becomes that much more difficult.”
Renwar stared, his eyes revealing nothing of his thoughts. The shades around him, however, began to fade. Konowa felt the unnatural cold of the oath and Her power falling away, to be replaced by the biting wind driving sand and snow before it. Finally, Private Renwar spoke.
“She knows this and will be waiting. She is… not pleased. Her Emissary yet lives and marshals Her forces,” he said, his gray eyes straying briefly to where Her forest lay in wait beyond the snow.
Konowa silently cursed. Viceroys were clearly proving to be the bane of his existence. The last two appointed to oversee the Protectorate of Greater Elfkyna had turned out to be in league with the Shadow Monarch, each acting in succession as Her Emissary. Konowa had killed the first, which had set the entire chain of events in motion leading to here and now. Private Renwar had dispatched the second, but they weren’t done with that foul thing yet. Former viceroy Faltinald Gwyn was nothing if not determined… and as a twisted puppet in the Shadow Monarch’s hands, he had become manically so.
Konowa allowed himself a little bravado. “Not pleased? I should think so. In fact, I imagine She’ll be furious, and maybe a little frightened, too. When the Iron Elves come calling, it doesn’t go unnoticed.” A few grunts of approval from the troops reached Konowa’s ears. They all knew that what he was proposing was tantamount to suicide with only the slimmest chance of survival, but it would be a death on their terms, fighting for something they believed was right. In the life of a soldier, bound by a dark oath or not, that was no small thing.
“As for Her Emissary,” Konowa said, his upper lip curling of its own volition into a sneer, “you seem more than capable of handling it. You flung the creature miles!” More soldiers added their voice to the cheers this time. It had been a spectacular sight.
The shades of the dead and their leader did not raise their voices in support. “I did what I had to do. What you ask now is less… clear. The oath is different now. Those who perish answer to me, not Her. They now have a voice. My voice. Why should those who have gone beyond this life continue the struggle? It won’t bring them back. It won’t bring Yimt back.”
The dwarf’s name caught Konowa off guard. For the first time, Konowa fully saw Private Alwyn Renwar for who he was and not as an emissary of the dead before him. “We don’t know what happened to him. I can see that he’s not among the shades and you should know that no one found his body. He’s the toughest bugger in this army. If anyone is a survivor, it’s Sergeant Arkhorn.”
“I felt him fall, then nothing more,” Alwyn said.
Konowa sensed morale crumbling as the regiment pondered the loss of the dwarf, and he spoke quickly to rally what spirit in the troops remained. “Arkhorn’s been busted in rank more times in his career than there are one-eyed newts stumbling around a witch’s garden, and he’s climbed right back up the ranks again every time. I’m not about to count him out yet and neither should you. But whatever the case, I know damn well he’d be placing one very large boot up each and every one of your backsides if he thought for a moment any of you were going to give up, and that includes the Darkly Departed.” Konowa looked around and let a grin creep across his face. “I don’t know how, but I’m sure he’d find a way to kick a shadow. And with good reason. As long as the Shadow Monarch lives the oath will never be broken. We’re tied to Her and She to us. But remember this: Her power, however dark and unwise its origins, is ours to use as well. And that’s what we’re going to do. Our dead aren’t at rest, and Her sarka har and rakkes and every other abomination She can pull out of the depths haven’t gone away. This only ends one way, and that’s when the Shadow Monarch and Her forest are destroyed.”
Konowa caught motion out of the corner of his eye and turned. A small group of six soldiers accompanying Prince Tykkin and Viceroy Alstonfar were marching toward them from the direction of the library. The Prince led the way, though his gait suggested a man leaving the pub after a few stiff drinks.
The group came to a stop right between Konowa and the Iron Elves on one side and Private Renwar and the shades of the dead on the other. The Prince looked down at his boots, shuffling them like a child. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, all the while muttering to himself “It’s gone, it’s all gone.” The smell of smoke wafted off the Prince and the knees of his trousers were black with soot. He’d been down in the burned-out library sifting through the debris since the battle ended. Konowa realized with some surprise that he sympathized with the Prince. Both had come here looking for something-Konowa his lost elves, the Prince the Lost Library of Kaman Rhal-and both had come away empty-handed.
Viceroy Alstonfar shambled to a halt beside the Prince and attempted a smile at Konowa from behind a huge pile of scrolls clutched tightly against his substantial stomach. Perhaps not entirely empty-handed, Konowa thought, marveling at the load carried by the Viceroy. More scrolls, bronze canisters, and thin wooden boxes bulged from canvas sacks hung from both shoulders. As Alstonfar bent over to catch his breath, Konowa spied an overfilled pack with even more items on his back.
The Prince turned, and catching Konowa off guard as much as anyone else, motioned to a couple of soldiers to help the diplomat. The Viceroy stood up gratefully and nodded his thanks as the weight of the sacks was taken from him. Despite the cold, the Viceroy’s face was red from exertion and beaded in sweat. His pastel blue Calahrian Diplomatic Corps uniform, designed to exemplify and project the peaceful intentions of the Empire during stressful negotiations, now suggested much darker intentions. Konowa tried to imagine the reaction of a foreign ambassador if forced to sit across from the now sooty, sweaty, and bloodstained Viceroy and decided this new look would be very effective during peace talks. Small burns from black powder speckled the front of his coat, indicating that at some point in the battle the Viceroy had actually fired a musket. The once glittering array of silver-plated buttons showed gaps in their ranks and those that remained had lost much of their luster. His scabbard, however, was firmly tied to his belt and the hilt of his saber had clearly been polished since the battle ended. Konowa knew without checking that the blade was clean, too. Alstonfar might appear to the world like a wobbly piece of fat ripe for the first bayonet to split him open and spill his guts on the sand, but there was gristle under there, somewhere deep. The coming march across the sand might help reveal more of it.
The soldiers stood to attention as best they could. Konowa looked at Renwar, wondering what the soldier would do. Never once taking his eyes off Konowa, he, too, stood to attention. The sharp bite in the air lost some of its tooth. The shades of the dead then faded until Konowa couldn’t tell a shadow from a swirling patch of snow. Go back to your darkness and stay there until you’re really needed.
Konowa saluted and Prince Tykkin returned it without fanfare and absently waved the men to stand at ease as he brought his hand back down. Konowa expected him to begin speaking, or possibly yelling, but instead the Prince began to fiddle with his uniform, worrying at a dangling piece of embroidered cord hanging from his lapel. He then reached up to straighten a cockeyed epaulette on his shoulder, slowly spinning in a complete circle like a dog chasing its tail. As he did so every soldier couldn’t help but see the left sleeve of his jacket. A large tear ran from the cuff up to the outside of the elbow, revealing a blood-soaked bandage underneath. The Prince-future ruler of the Calahrian Empire-had been in battle, and not on the periphery.
Konowa fought a battle within himself between disgust and admiration and was pleased that admiration won. The Prince, however reluctantly and by sheer misadventure, was becoming a leader of men. The gilded popinjay who grew up on a diet of privilege and arrogance had run stride for stride with the regiment and had not flinched as the Iron Elves smashed into the enemy. Not having taken part in the Blood Oath, there was no afterlife waiting for the Prince, however horrific that life might be. His death in battle would be finite and forever. Leading the men, Konowa knew, was no more than what the Prince should have done, yet he couldn’t banish the grudging respect with which he now viewed the future king. Konowa was convinced the Prince was still a royal prick of the first order, but the man wasn’t a coward, and that counted for a lot.
“So,” the Prince said, looking around at the assembled soldiers. He seemed to struggle for what to say, opening and closing his mouth a few times as he searched for the words. His gaze fell on Alwyn, but if he was startled by the private’s appearance he showed no sign of it. Spying Rallie, he dipped his head in acknowledgment and stood up a little straighter as she dutifully poised her quill above her scroll.
“So,” the Prince began again, his voice stronger this time. “I should like to congratulate you all on a battle well fought. Due to your exceptional efforts another Star of power has been returned to its land and its people. Our enemies, both ancient and new, have been crushed and sent scurrying for cover.” The Prince pointedly chose to ignore the forest on the horizon marking the limits of their victory. Here and now in this exact place though, the Empire was triumphant.
Instead of filling his lungs and lustily carrying the speech to a roaring climax as he usually did, the Prince grew quiet, his shoulders sagging again as he finished. “Most wonderful and worthy… yes, a feat of special significance. In fact, one that no doubt will go down in the annals of history and mark this moment as an auspicious one for this modern age…” he said, his voice trailing off. He caught Rallie’s eye as if pleading with her to make it so.
Stupid, silly bugger getting that bent out of shape over a bloody library, Konowa thought. He did genuinely feel sorry for the man, but there was a limit. They still had a war to fight. And win. Someone’s going to have to have a talk with him, Konowa realized, knowing deep down that the task would fall to him.
Without looking around, the Prince started to walk away, but caught the toe of one of his boots on a sack that Viceroy Alstonfar had been carrying. He stopped and stared down at the spilled scrolls, nudging at them with his boot tip. Rallie’s quill bit hard into the paper with a sharp ripping sound, drawing the Prince’s attention back to the moment. He raised his head and jutted out his chin. “And of course we discovered the long-lost Library of Kaman Rhal and all its treasures.”
Several soldiers looked to Konowa for guidance, their eyebrows rising along with their shoulders in a clear sign they were unsure if they should cheer. Konowa sighed and slid his saber from its scabbard and lifted it high into the air feeling half the fool and glad the night would hide the grimace of embarrassment on his face. “Three cheers for His Majesty! Three cheers for our glorious victory won this night! Three cheers for the return of the Jewel of the Desert and the finding of a great treasure!”
Still catching his breath, Viceroy Alstonfar struggled to stand straight and lifted his saber into the night sky, almost launching it out of his hand in his enthusiasm. The Prince looked genuinely surprised, and began dabbing at the corner of his eyes. Muskets rose, too, their bayonets flashing in the falling snow. Despite himself, Konowa found his voice growing louder with each cheer.
They had defeated the Shadow Monarch and Kaman Rahl’s dragon this night. They had returned another Star to its rightful people. And though he didn’t give two hoots of a lice-infested owl about it, they had found a pile of books and other ancient knickknacks buried in the sand.
Given all that, a foreign feeling now gripped Konowa, one that seemed at odds with the current situation. The fate of Visyna, his parents, and even Arkhorn and his squad remained to be determined, and he was no closer to reuniting with the original Iron Elves. None of that was very happy news, yet the strange emotion that now filled him only grew stronger. He continued to ponder its full meaning long after the cheers had died down and Color Sergeant, now acting Regimental Sergeant Major, Aguom, began bellowing at the troops to fall in and prepare to march. As the regiment gathered up its weapons and equipment in preparation for setting out, Konowa looked up to the snow-filled sky and shook his head.
“It’s called hope, Major,” Rallie said as she walked past, turning her head toward him so that her words carried on the wind. “Now that you’ve found it, finding everyone else doesn’t seem so impossible, does it?”
Konowa didn’t bother to look at her. He didn’t have to. Rallie would know that for the briefest of moments, a true and genuine smile graced his upturned face.
T he roots of the sarka har stretched to the breaking point in their hunt for power. They were so deep below the desert now without finding anything that the trees above were beginning to wither and die. Without a new source of power to feed them Her forest in this land would soon cease to exist. There was no choice but to go deeper. The passage of disturbed rock they had followed was their last resort. Something had to be at the end of it.
Something was.
A root brushed up against a leathery-smooth object. The root began snaking its way around the oddity, slowly encircling it without disturbing it. Anything found at this depth required caution. More roots followed, branching out and finding other, similar objects. When nothing happened, they wrapped their roots around the exteriors of the strange things.
It became apparent at once that these weren’t rocks. These objects were unlike any others they had encountered before. Their surfaces were hard, but not brittle. They were round, but with one end larger than the other, creating a slightly distorted oval shape. What was most curious, however, was that these objects were hollow, but not empty. Each one was large enough to hold a fully grown elf… or something else of that size.
The roots plunged their tips into the objects, smashing through the thin walls. They had no idea what they’d found, but in the bottom of each object lay a pool of congealed, brownish ichor. As debris fell inside, it landed in the liquid, swirling up greasy strains of darker material that gave off a familiar, bitter tang.
Yes. This was what Her forest needed. This was ancient power.
The sarka har couldn’t know it, but they had come across eggs, potential life that had been long abandoned and left to rot and die deep underground by the last of an ancient race of creatures that had once ruled this world. Even if they had known it would have made no difference.
Their desperate search for sustenance had been rewarded.
Roots drilled into the ichor and began pumping it up to the dying trees above.
The changes were immediate and terrifying.
The few sarka har with roots directly in the newfound power, grew taller. Branches that were once thin and brittle now flushed with the liquefied remains of long-dead embryos as the brown ichor flowed into them. As they grew supple they began twisting and rubbing against each to slough off their old bark. In its place, a new protective armor of dull black scales emerged. Leaves sprang forth like arrows fired from a bow, their needle points eight inches long and dripping with a glistening red fluid that resembled blood. As one, the leaves unfurled, revealing a variety of differently shaped leaves, each one translucent in the light of the falling snow. The veins in the leaves filled with the bloodlike fluid and the leaves began to change colors, rapidly shifting from green to brown to red and more as they swayed in the wind.
But it wasn’t just energy the sarka har had found. These were simple creatures, their sole purpose the survival and perpetuation of Her realm. Each was but a dark, stunted, and twisted offshoot of the Shadow Monarch’s great Silver Wolf Oak. Now, however, those feeding from the dead eggs experienced an unexpected side effect. No longer were they simply creatures of pure instinct. A crude kind of intelligence began to permeate the sarka har along with something far more sinister-they began to think for themselves.
Crude, stark thoughts crawled through their heartwood, worming into every branch and leaf. Images of a time long forgotten imprinted themselves in every fiber. It had been a brutal world, one of even greater peril and death than this one. Every thought struck the sarka har like bolts of lightning. They shook and quaked as this new consciousness permeated them.
They had to move. To remain still and stay here in this barren wasteland was to die. These sarka har were not going to let that happen.
Now thirteen feet tall and towering above their brethren, the newly transformed sarka har spread out their branches, seeing by touch and tasting the air with their leaves. They understood how different they were from the others. They understood they were anchored in place by a root system driven deep into the ground, and so they tore themselves free from the soil, severing their roots when the last of the ichor had been drained. Pain was not new to them, but understanding it was. It filled them with a whole new concept: anger.
They ignored the thrashing fury of the sarka har around them that could not change, and focused on their own growing awareness. In order to move, they could not stay as they were. More pain would be required.
Much more.
They twisted the remaining shards of roots into two distinct shapes. The first wound itself into a corkscrew shape that drilled back into the ground, anchoring the tree in place. The second took the form of a massive claw, and began crawling inch by inch in the opposite direction. The sarka har groaned as the tension built on its trunk. Cracks began to appear in their new bark that quickly spread to the wood beneath. The more the claw crawled the bigger the cracks grew until the night was shattered by explosive ripping and splintering.
These sarka har now had legs.
Pulling the twisted root back out of the ground, they took their first awkward steps across the line of power drawn by the Jewel of the Desert. Sparks flew as they crossed the line. Flame crackled but then died. This new land was inhospitable, the soil filled with the power of the Star, but they remained on its surface, and were not struck down by it.
Each step was a stumbling, broken motion that threatened to topple the trees over, but they soon learned to swing their branches to act as a counterbalance. The sarka har had learned to walk.
As they walked, they began to transform further. In order to better move across the snow-covered desert, the sarka har altered their form to something more suited for traveling upright over distances. Their trunks split further, lengthening the two pieces they were using as legs while their branches twisted together to form two rudimentary arms.
Two sarka har, however, took a different, more difficult form, finding a template long lost in the power of the ichor. Their transformation was much more painful and time-consuming. Branches tore and trunks shattered as the two sarka har remade themselves. Ichor spilled on the snow and steamed as it burned. Leaves spun away in the wind, but more sprouted. Larger. Stronger. They didn’t grow tall, but they grew long, extending themselves along the ground. It was a strange and horrifying sensation for a tree to fall toward the earth, but as more of the transformation took hold, they saw the power in this new stance. When the transformation was complete the other sarka har were gone, their trail in the snow already erased by the wind. It mattered little. These sarka har had discovered a new means by which to travel, and they knew where their brethren were heading.
Deep in the heartwood of every transformed tree lived a surging intelligence adapting itself to its newfound form after laying dormant for centuries untold. There was little for it to find beyond basic needs in the sarka har except for one, pure thing-a hatred of elves. In fact, it was a distorted echo of an emotion so ingrained in the Shadow Monarch’s Silver Wolf Oak that its acorns spread the poison of this feeling. The emotion of Her Silver Wolf Oak was a confused maelstrom of fury and love aimed at a single elf. As a result, the forest sprouted from its acorns reproduced this hatred in every sarka har. These new sarka har felt the hatred burning deep inside them, and while they little understood it, they were driven by it all the same. And unlike the sarka har who had not transformed, these trees could do more than lie in wait. They could move, and they could hunt. Their leaves tasted elf in the air. They weren’t far.
Without knowing its name, its history, or even what it was, the transformed sarka har began to close in on a single point in the Hasshugeb Expanse.
Suhundam’s Hill.
To march is to grind the body slowly with a torturer’s attention to detail. Granules too small to see find that perfect place between flesh and strap, rubbing skin until it blisters, weeps, and tears, staining shirts and filling boots with an oozing, red-tinted mud. Muscle and sinew explore pain so searing that the onset of stabbing needle pricks of numbness comes as a welcome relief. Shoulders erupt in burning cauldrons of agony that ache long after pack straps have been pried off, while wild thoughts of amputation race through the mind with every footfall.
At his most cynical, Konowa even wondered if it was all diabolically planned to be this way. Soldiers have very little to say about marching that’s relatable in mixed company. And when no officer or sergeant is around, their comments usually start by spitting in disgust, and for good reason. The prospect of battle, no matter how terrifying, grows in the mind of the soldier to be a kind of salvation from all the damned marching.
Konowa pushed away those thoughts and scanned the inhospitable wasteland curtained with snow. That in itself was worrying enough. What only yesterday had been a broiling pan of bleached sand and wind-frayed rock was now an unnatural tundra, cold and unforgiving. That the Iron Elves were about to march straight into the teeth of it was of less concern than what lay on the other side. Every man knew that the Shadow Monarch and Her creatures would be at the end of this journey. This march would have to be several types of hell for that prospect to look good.
Konowa did his best to buoy their spirits. “Just a short jaunt to the coast, lads. Not exactly a walk in the park, but we’ll make it.” Soldiers nodded, mostly because he looked at them, but hopefully because some actually believed him.
“Remember, the Prince brought a whole fleet with us when we landed,” Konowa said. “Admittedly, the navy types are a bit soggy, but they’ll be there for us when we need them.” I hope.
Konowa gave up on his pep talk and wandered among the men. Every soldier was busy examining the contents of his pack, lifting it and judging the weight, knowing every ounce carried would become ten pounds of pain in a few hours. Contents were dumped out and reexamined on the snow as soldiers thought long and hard about what to keep and what to discard.
“You might find your stomach will wish you’d kept those,” Konowa said, stopping by one soldier who was kneeling in the snow, busily dumping out the hard-as-rock biscuits given to them from the HMS Black Spike ’s stores. Feygan… Feyran… Konowa tried, but couldn’t remember the man’s name, if he ever knew it. This soldier was scrawny and his uniform so dusty and torn that he looked more like a beggar sifting through a rubbish heap.
“My stomach don’t have a death wish, but if yours does you’re welcome to them,” the soldier said, then looked up and realized who he was addressing. He jumped to his feet and saluted. Eyes still wild from battle stared back at Konowa from a gaunt, sunburnt face smeared with black powder. Konowa recognized the look, knowing his own visage was just as startling. He returned the salute and motioned for the soldier to continue with his packing.
“You’re right; they are an acquired taste. Still, if you dunk them in a mug of arr they almost become edible.”
The soldier’s face took on a puzzled look. He reached up and brushed a greasy lock of blond hair off his forehead. “Well, sir, if that means poison then I agree with you there. I tried feeding one to a rat on the ship and the little bugger took one sniff and hightailed it in the other direction.”
Konowa could smell the soldier from here and suspected the rat hadn’t reacted entirely to the biscuit. None of them, save the Prince perhaps, were too fresh at this point. “Smart rat. How are you set for cartridges?”
At this, the soldier brightened. “Chockablock full there, Major. These heathen warriors use a ball just a smidge smaller than ours. They might rattle a bit coming out the barrel, but we’ve been grabbing up as much as we can carry. I’d wager our muskets will still be true enough to a hundred yards give or take.”
Cartridges weren’t the only thing the Iron Elves were stripping from the dead Hasshugeb warriors littering the sand around them. In addition to jewels and coins quietly pocketed, belts, robes, daggers, and goat-hide water skins were quickly becoming part of the regiment’s dress. Konowa marveled that the Prince had nothing to say on the subject-a far cry from the parade-ground dress he had demanded just a few short months ago. That strange sensation of hope stirred in Konowa again. If the Prince could learn, who knew what else was possible?
“Very well,” Konowa said. He paused, a question forming that he wasn’t sure how to ask, or even if he should. He knew most officers and certainly the Prince wouldn’t inquire of a soldier how he was doing. Soldiers do what they’re told. For the most part Konowa accepted it as the way it had to be. He also believed, however, that a soldier fights better when he understands the situation, at least as far as he’s able to grasp it. And that meant officers needed to understand things, too, most especially the hearts and minds of the troops.
Konowa realized the soldier was staring at him so he simply said: “How are you holding up?”
The soldier pointed to his chest. “Me, sir? Better than most,” he said, waving in the direction of the battlefield. “I’m still here, got all me parts, no extra holes, and I’m looking forward to moving out.”
Konowa strained to hear a trace of sarcasm, but couldn’t detect a note. “Eager to get at the Shadow Monarch are you?”
The soldier shrugged his shoulders. “You could say that, sir. Way me and the lads see it, when we climb the elf witch’s mountain and kick Her down the other side, well, we’ll be good and done with the oath. With that taken care of, I’ve been thinking I might take me back pay, retire from this here army, and take on a new job, one with a little less danger if you take my meaning.”
Konowa did. “Clerking in a shop perhaps, or driving a milk wagon?”
The soldier’s eyes grew wide and he shook his head vigorously. “Lordy no, sir. I was thinking about joining the navy. Except for these biscuits, the sea air felt good somewhere deep inside me, you know? A man can breathe out there.”
Thoughts of the ocean for Konowa brought about the immediate opposite reaction. “I suppose everything qualifies as a job with less danger when compared to our current activities.” Konowa hunched his shoulders as a blast of wind drove more snow down his back, where it melted and trickled down his spine. The chill made thoughts of the ocean a little too real for him. “Can you swim?”
“Not as such,” the soldier said, a shy smile stealing across his face, “but I float like a champion. I figure that’s close enough.”
“Could be, but try to bunk near some cork, just in case. Carry on, Private,” Konowa said. He saluted as he took a step to walk on, then stopped and turned back. “Feylan.”
The soldier’s smile grew. “Aye, aye, Major!”
Konowa enjoyed the rest of his time moving among the troops. Wherever he went, they nodded or gave a thumbs-up. A few even grinned. Despite the horrors they’d faced and the losses they’d suffered, these men were not broken. He felt a small yet rousing speech coming on when an icy blast threw snow in his face and brought him back to reality. It reminded him that despite the black acorn connecting him to a cold magic, he still needed to stay warm. Konowa began to search for a dead warrior still clothed, but wherever he looked, the bodies were already stripped bare. He spied the Prince in conversation with Rallie and deliberately angled away from them. He had all he could handle right now with the coming march.
The determined form of Viceroy Alstonfar heading straight for him, however, begged to differ.
“Viceroy,” Konowa said, nodding his head in greeting as the man rolled to a stop. He was swaddled from head to toe in robes from at least five different Hasshugeb warriors. “Think you’ll be warm enough?”
The Viceroy beamed a smile that suggested he’d missed the sarcasm completely. “You’d think my few extra pounds would keep me warm, but all they’re really good for is lowering people’s estimation of me when we meet.”
Konowa inwardly cringed. This man before him was an accomplished diplomat with obvious intelligence between his ears who had shown real courage on the field of battle. Before Konowa could form an apology the Viceroy carried on.
“I find it works in my favor more times than not, although not as well as I’d like when it comes to the fairer sex. And please, call me Pimmer.” His smile, thankfully, did not leer at the mention of women, but the conversation was heading in a direction Konowa didn’t want to follow.
“Are you ready?” Konowa asked, wondering how the man could ride a camel wearing so many robes. “We should get moving as soon as possible. With a bit of luck, we can break through what trees remain and reach the coast at Tel Bagrussi in two days.” Konowa saw the expectant look and relented. The man had earned it. “Pimmer.”
Pimmer’s eyes misted and Konowa worried for a moment that he might actually tear up, but another cold gust of wind took care of that. “Ah, yes, Tel Bagrussi. Quite a little cesspool. I’ve only been there once and I can assure you it’s not for the faint of heart or those with a sense of smell. They ferment a fish there that attracts a beetle that lays its eggs in the rotting flesh, which then hatch as larvae to consume the putrid mess. Now here’s where it gets interesting. They then take the larvae and grind them into a pulp which-”
Konowa raised a hand to ward off any more. “I don’t imagine we’ll be there for long. We just need to signal the fleet and jump aboard.”
“Quite true, quite true, but alas, we won’t be going to Tel Bagrussi.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s too close to Nazalla, I’m afraid. The citizenry there will be filled to overflowing with anti-Imperial fervor. It was a close run thing getting out of the city. Trying to get back in would be tantamount to storming a castle at this point. The Jewel of the Desert has returned, Major. Our time here, and by that I mean the Calahrian Empire, appears to be coming to a close. Oh, don’t look so surprised-there will be some in the royal court and more on the Imperial General Staff who will try to hang on to every far-flung piece of land like this, but I fear it’s a losing proposition. And even if that weren’t the case, we are faced with the immediate problem of no longer being able to travel under the auspices of the Suljak.”
Konowa sneered at the name. Both spiritual and political leader of the far-flung Hasshugeb tribes, the Suljak had played a dangerous game in invoking what he had thought was the ancient magic of Kaman Rhal. What he called forth instead was an abomination. The feeling of absolute stunned terror Konowa had just experienced when he’d come face to skeletal face with that dragon of bones still lingered.
Pimmer shuffled closer to Konowa. “I’m afraid the poor man has suffered quite a setback in the eyes of his people. Not that I’d wager on such a thing, but after his dalliance with Rhal’s dragon it’s only a matter of time before he’s taken out to a nice patch of desert and diced into small bits.”
Konowa felt no pity for the man. “He caused a lot of needless deaths.”
“I don’t disagree,” the Viceroy said, “but his demise will create turmoil among the tribes as each puts forth a new leader to claim his place. Couple that with the return of the Jewel of the Desert, which is viewed as a powerful symbol of native self-determination in these lands, and you have all the ingredients for a full-scale revolt.”
“That really isn’t our problem anymore,” Konowa said, emphasizing each word. “We have to get to the coast.” He felt his newfound sense of hope wavering in the face of this new reality.
“You are right, Major, and we will. There is a trading route that runs parallel with the coast to the west of here. It has the added benefit of having several fortifications guarding it, which should provide us with some lodging and provisions as we proceed. After no more than two or three days march, we’ll be able to turn north and be in Tel Martruk a day after that.”
“To the west?” Konowa asked, turning to look in that direction. Snow and darkness worked against his elven vision and revealed nothing.
“Toward Suhundam’s Hill, as a matter of fact,” Pimmer said, his voice dropping slightly. “The place where your elves are stationed. For all we know they could still be there even now, although with Her forest…”
It was a thought Konowa had refused to explore, but now he could no longer avoid it. What if he found his elves dead? For all he knew they had been slaughtered and spitted on sarka har all across the desert. He started to curse, then caught himself. He should have found a way to go there first, but that damn Star had changed things. Only a few months ago the idea of the Stars were little more than long-held myths. Konowa wished desperately for those days.
“And the Prince approves of this plan?”
Pimmer looked over to Rallie and the Prince before turning back and motioning for Konowa to come closer still. “The Prince is in a rather delicate state at the moment. The loss of virtually the entire collection of the library has had a devastating effect on him. Defeating the Shadow Monarch’s forces, destroying Kaman Rhal’s dragon, and ensuring the safe return of a Star of power would be more than enough for most men, but his Highness, despite all the bluster, is not a warrior at heart. Not like his father and definitely not like you. I did my best and managed to grab up some truly remarkable documents and a few other priceless trinkets that are… invaluable, to the peoples of the world of course.” At this he paused and looked down at the ground. “Still just odds and ends though. I’m afraid most of what was in the library is now gone forever.”
“Good riddance,” Konowa said, knowing it would upset the Viceroy and not caring. “Searching for treasures, no matter what form they take, makes men do stupid things.”
If the Viceroy was insulted he didn’t show it. He looked up at Konowa with genuine hurt on his face. “Knowledge is worth preserving.”
“So are lives.”
Faces of those Konowa held dear immediately sprung to mind, and he had to swallow hard before trusting himself to continue. “In any event, the library is gone and the Prince will have to get over his disappointment.” He paused to let the building anger subside. Pimmer wasn’t the Prince. “About this caravan route to the west that will take us to Suhundam’s Hill. You’re certain about our path?”
At this, Pimmer lowered his voice again, making Konowa strain to hear him over the wind. “As certain as can be in these uncertain times. We’ll have Her forest to the north, and it’s difficult to say how the tribes further to the west will react should we come in contact with any of them. But one factor above all others makes me believe this is the way to go.”
“And what is that?” Konowa asked.
“Miss Synjyn agrees with me.”
Konowa reached out a hand and placed it firmly on the Viceroy’s arm. The cloth was soft and thicker than Konowa had realized. Frost fire began to sparkle along the fabric and he removed his hand before he hurt the man. A wind gust picked that moment to drive a flurry of snow in his face. They were in for a long, cold march. “Then it sounds like we have a little more walking in the snow to do than I thought. Tell me, Pimmer, I seem to have missed out on the procurement of foul weather clothing. How much for one of your robes?”
T he world appeared washed-out and blurry through Alwyn’s open eyes.
Everything he had known was fading, as if the colors that made life vibrant and fresh now feared to be near him. Even his memories were taking on a patina of gray, diluting the emotions he once associated with them and gave them meaning. He knew that before long the very concepts of laughter, compassion, even love, would be lost to him.
He would fight it, but he wasn’t sure how long he could resist.
Alwyn closed his eyes, but his vision didn’t darken. Even with his eyes closed he saw the world, but now as a vast sea swirling and frothing with energy. Major Swift Dragon stood speaking with Viceroy Alstonfar twenty yards away. He saw them clearly; the elf and the man shone like two torches against black velvet. Alstonfar showed as a warm, soft blend of oranges and yellows. The major’s aura was a twisted mess of greens and reds surrounding a metallic black core, a source of energy and power to be directed and used.
Threads of pulsing force connected everything, and all Alwyn had to do was reach out and pluck one and claim the power for himself.
He understood the Shadow Monarch better now. The pull of the energy surrounding him was seductive. His right hand began to rise as anticipation coursed through his body. He could use his life force, direct it to better purpose. He could make things right again.
Alwyn forced his eyes open, fighting back a scream as he did so. Dizziness threatened to topple him. He brought his already raised hand up to his head and squeezed his temples. The pressure felt good, and he shifted his weight to his wooden leg, testing his balance. Pain flared in the stump of his leg and frost fire sparkled briefly wherever the thin wooden branches of the artificial limb touched his flesh. A wave of cold spread throughout the stump in response, and the pain melted away as his flesh went numb. The magic that had once infused the wooden leg was dying, overwhelmed by the growing power of the oath inside him. Already Alwyn could see new black shoots sprouting from dead branches in the leg.
Before much longer the leg, like the rest of him, would belong to Her.
Snow gathered on the sand around him and he looked up into the sky. A scouring wind was driving the snow at an increasingly sharp angle as it moved in from the coast. Carried on the wind was the unmistakable smell of Her presence. He shook his head and turned to Yimt only to stop and catch his breath.
Yimt was gone.
Thoughts of the dwarf burst through the darkening vistas of his mind and he desperately clung to them, finding strength in the memories of his lost friend.
“Kill him.”
Alwyn looked up as the shade of Regimental Sergeant Major Lorian, astride the warhorse Zwindarra, materialized beside him in the gusting snow. Laced with pain, Lorian’s words were more plea than command. Alwyn returned his gaze to follow Major Swift Dragon as he resumed walking among the troops. The Blood Oath that bound the dead to the regiment and Her lived through the major. Killing him, however, would not break it, but it would satisfy an all-consuming need for revenge. “Kill him,” Lorian said again, his voice a cold echo inside Alwyn’s head.
Lorian’s anguish washed over him in ethereal waves flooding between this world and the next. Alwyn fought for balance again as more shades materialized, their suffering adding to the surging eddies of vengeance that threatened to carry him along until their desire was his.
Alwyn alone would have yielded to their cries, but he was no longer just Private Renwar. He was more. He had assumed the role of leading the shades of the dead, giving voice to their anguish and their anger. In doing so, he held a power the shades did not. Unlike them, he remained part of both worlds-their allegiance, however confused and harrowing, was his to lead. He hadn’t wanted that, but he had bargained with the Shadow Monarch in his dream, freeing the shades from Her grasp while condemning himself in the process. His task was simple-ensure that Konowa arrived safely to Her mountain. Too late he realized that it had been no bargain at all. Alwyn had hoped that in freeing them he would ease their pain, but the brilliance of Her plan was in its very simplicity. The dead were now bound to Alwyn, and he was bound to Her, and so the Blood Oath was not diminished. Through it all, the shades’ suffering grew.
“No, he must live,” Alwyn replied, focusing his thoughts on the shades. These were former comrades, men who had risked their lives for something greater and deserved better than the existence they now endured. All that stood between them and immortal service was Alwyn’s force of will, and he knew he couldn’t hold out forever. Either the Shadow Monarch died, or they were all doomed.
“He caused this,” Lorian’s shade said as voices of the dead around it howled in agreement.
“No. She caused this,” Alwyn shot back, concentrating his strength and adding power to his voice. “He is as much a victim as we are.” As is She, he thought to himself. It was Her love for the dying sapling that had driven Her to extreme lengths to save it. That one, desperate act now drove them all to find a way to end it, and Her.
Shrieking in protest, the shades drifted back into darkness. They could not defy their Emissary. Their agony reverberated in the air for several seconds.
Alwyn shuddered. Time was against them. Even now they watched the major and he felt their need to destroy him.
It was becoming his need, too.
It seemed right. Before long he would know it was right, and then all would be lost.
“Prepare to march!”
It took a moment for Alwyn to recognize the command referred to him as well. No living soldiers came near him, and Alwyn understood. He also knew that if Yimt were still alive, the dwarf would be cajoling him to snap out of it and get a wiggle on. The thought almost brought a smile to his face. Marshaling his thoughts and focusing on the humanity that yet remained inside him, Private Alwyn Renwar of the Calahrian Empire’s Iron Elves shouldered his musket, and without waiting for further orders or looking behind him, began to walk to the west.
From high on a broken rock face overlooking the battlefield, a pair of milky-white eyes followed the procession of human meat marching behind a limping figure.
Even from this distance, the rakke could sense Her mark on the one leading the men. It was similar, but not identical, to the mark carried by Her Emissary, and it was much stronger than the aura that filled the air around the column of men.
Every instinct was on fire, urging it to charge down there and tear into all that wet flesh, to feast until its stomach was full. Drool glistened off the rakke’s fangs. Its eyes narrowed to slits as it calculated the fastest path down the rocks that wouldn’t set it tumbling through the air to its death. The way was difficult, but not impossible. Ignoring the snow falling on its raised hackles, it began to shiver, not with cold, but anticipation.
The rakke leaned forward until it was almost tipping over the edge. Its muscles throbbed with tension as its nostrils flared, drawing in the frigid air and filling its lungs in preparation to charge. It caught the scent of the meat below and almost howled in joy. The procession of men and animals acted like chains with hooks dug deep into its flesh, pulling it closer. It leaned a little more, feeling its body start to fall forward. It would have allowed itself to keep falling, knowing it would then be forced to leap and begin its run, but a thin suggestion of caution slipped through the red haze of wanton hunger, tempering its rapacious needs. It caught itself and leaned back, snapping its jaws in frustration. Reluctantly, it searched the procession with greater care. The rakke could see only the living, but the storm-driven snow alternately revealed them, then hid them from view, giving the column a spectral appearance in the night. The rakke knew to be afraid of the shadow ones. It was difficult to be sure if the shades were there or not, and so it eased itself away from the edge.
Settling back down among the rocks, it turned its head and growled in anger at the glow of the blue tree now dominating the landscape. Everything about the tree was wrong. Instead of offering a wet, dark place to hide in like Her forest, this tree shone light everywhere. It felt to the rakke as if the radiance was worming its way into its skull, slowly killing it with its light. It knew in the most primitive way that the tree was trying to send it back to the nothingness that the Shadow Monarch had rescued it from. The rakke longed for Her power to return here and cleanse the land of this new terrible light. The rakke’s desperation to move away from the tree increased, but it would wait and watch until the enemy left. Only then would it abandon its perch and report back to Her dark elves.
Gnashing its teeth and ripping at the rocks with its claws, it stayed in place. It would endure the agony of the blue light and go hungry. Soon enough, it would be able to hunt again, and when it did, its prey would know true agony before it died.
The rakke was so consumed with rage that it didn’t notice the shadow that suddenly appeared behind it. A soft, gurgling sound like that of water in a mountain brook was swept away by the wind before it reached the rakke’s ears, denying it a final opportunity to escape. A single spark of dull green blossomed into a teeming mass of phosphorescing globules from deep within the shadow. They clustered into a roiling ball as they surged up a black throat and into a gaping maw.
A sudden shift in the wind brought the scent of something sweetly caustic and distantly familiar to the rakke’s nostrils. Its bowels turned to ice water as a fear it had long forgotten shut down its ability to think. Primal instinct took over. It bared its fangs and hurtled its body to the left as it unleashed its claws to slash at the horror behind it.
The rakke was a blur, swinging its massive arm out in a wide arc. The explosive force of its move would have torn plate armor like parchment, but its claw met only air. Without the weight of flesh and blood to slow the momentum of its swing, the rakke overrotated and pitched backward toward the rock-strewn desert floor far below. Instinctively, the rakke pushed its legs out to brace itself, but found only open air behind it and began to topple over the edge. It flung out its right hand to grab on to anything, but by now its body was too far away from the rock face and already beginning to accelerate.
The rakke accepted its impending death on the rocks below with relief. Anything was better than falling prey to the green death stalking it.
The swirling green mass spit forth from the shadow, hitting the rakke in the chest even as it fell.
The green globs separated on impact. Each uncurled, revealing tiny legs and a sharp beak shiny with acid. A hissing sound enveloped the rakke as the tiny creatures released their toxin and began to burrow into its flesh.
The rakke screamed as it tumbled through empty space, savagely ripping at its flesh wherever the minute invaders touched it. Arterial spurts of blood arced through the air as it dug its claws deep into its own rib cage. Howling in agony, it began pulling itself apart in a desperate attempt to get at the burrowing green creatures. Its heart pumped furiously as they crawled ever deeper, burning voraciously through sinew and bone.
The rakke was dead before what was left of its body hit the desert floor with a squelching thud, scattering the pieces in a wide, wet crescent.
K onowa looked up at the canyon as they marched past. Were those rocks falling? The wind howled and whatever it was got lost in a swath of snow that blocked his view, muffling all sound more than a few feet away. He considered pushing his senses outward using the power of the black acorn, but as he felt no urgent warning from the frost fire, the effort didn’t seem worth it. Stomping his boots hard enough in the snow to make the soles of his feet sting, he kept marching, hoping that eventually the process would warm him up.
I miss the heat of Elfkyna, he realized, shocked that he could ever think that. The whole time he’d lived in that accursed place he’d wanted to be anywhere else, but now that he was, Elfkyna didn’t seem all that bad. He reached up and knocked some snow off the wings of his shako. Snow in the desert. He no longer felt like laughing about it, but cursing would waste too much energy. He settled for sighing, and tried to look ahead to where Private Renwar marched at the head of the column. Tiny orange lights bobbed in the gloom. He knew he was seeing the burning ends of cigarettes cupped in soldiers’ hands so that the palm of the hand protected the lit end as they marched. Smoking on the march was prohibited, but Konowa wasn’t about to say anything. They deserved every bit of comfort they could find, and if an enemy could see the glow of cigarettes, it was already close enough to see them.
He could just make out an area of darkness with no telltale orange lights, and realized that would be Private Renwar. He squinted and saw the dimmest of outlines of the limping soldier. He walked a good ten yards in front of the column, alone and yet not alone.
With Renwar out front, it meant the Darkly Departed would be, too. It was a thought that provided Konowa with less comfort than it had just a day before. It wasn’t jealousy, he told himself, but a growing concern over where Renwar’s loyalties lay. The understanding between Konowa and Renwar was fragile at best, and Konowa knew it couldn’t last. The private was bound to Her now in a deeper way than even Konowa, and that could only lead to a very dark end. Killing the first Viceroy had been a clear and necessary duty. What remorse he felt for doing it focused solely on the terribly unfair banishment and disgrace his act had brought down on the original Iron Elves. To kill Private Renwar though would be something else entirely… but he knew that time might soon be upon him.
Konowa’s footsteps broke through the building layer of snow and crunched in the frozen sand beneath, momentarily throwing him off balance. Regaining his footing, he pulled the robe from Pimmer a little closer around his shoulders and leaned into the wind. The cloth was surprisingly good at keeping out the wind, yet wasn’t burdensomely heavy. Konowa still marveled at how little he had had to trade in exchange for the garment. The Viceroy had simply asked that Konowa dine with him once they reached the small fortress at Suhundam’s Hill. Konowa had readily agreed, though it was no real barter at all. Still, Pimmer’s beaming smile and his training in the Diplomatic Corps where negotiations came as naturally as breathing made Konowa wonder if there was perhaps more to the trade than he realized.
A new flurry of snow snapped Konowa’s attention back to the here and now. The snow was falling in ever thickening sheets, so that for most of the time Konowa found himself marching alone. He did enjoy the peace and quiet it afforded him, but as second-in-command, he knew he couldn’t indulge in such luxury for long. Someone had to lead, and the Prince was still in no condition to do so. Slapping the hilt of his saber in annoyance, Konowa halted and turned to look back over the column.
He could just see the shapes of the Viceroy and the Prince atop their camels. Konowa had been offered one of the beasts, but the Prince didn’t insist and Konowa happily volunteered the camel as a pack animal instead. Marching in snow was a frigid version of hell, but it was still preferable to riding along on one of those monsters.
Konowa hunched his shoulders against the wind as the column marched past. It wasn’t a happy sight. Soldiers and animals alike walked with a slow, plodding gait, heads bent low against the elements. There was no singing, no laughing, barely any talking at all. Few even noticed Konowa as they marched past, and fewer still bothered to acknowledge him with a salute or a halfhearted wave. It occurred to Konowa that in his Hasshugeb robe in the dark, he probably didn’t look all that different from any other Iron Elf in the regiment. He hoped that was the case, choosing not to dwell on less charitable ideas.
The camels carrying the Prince and the Viceroy ambled past. Neither man turned to look at him. Konowa made no move to draw their attention. Before long he would have to confront the Prince and snap him out of his sulk, but for now he actually preferred the future king silent and moping. It certainly kept him out of Konowa’s way and let him get on with the business at hand.
A motley assortment of bullocks and camels plodded past towing the naval contingent’s battery of three cannon. Despite the wind and his damaged hearing, Konowa was convinced he heard a good deal of cursing going on. He’d made it clear the guns would travel with them despite having exhausted their supply of ammunition. Pimmer assured him the forts along the trade route they were following were well supplied with gunpowder, among other items that could, in a pinch, be shoved down the barrel of a cannon and fired. The idea of traipsing across a snow-covered desert with no ammunition was clearly not what the naval gunners had signed up for, but it was their lot and they could deal with it.
Behind them and still marching in bare feet were the twenty-three surviving volunteers of the 3rd Spears. Whether it was stubbornness, pride, or a genuine imperviousness to cold, the soldiers from the Timolia Islands refused all offers of footwear or even rags to wrap their feet. Placing these fearsome warriors directly behind the grumbling artillery gunners had been a deliberate move on Konowa’s part. The gunners could grouse all they wanted, but with the 3rd Spears behind them, they would keep the guns moving.
As the 3rd Spears marched past, Konowa squinted to catch sight of the rear guard. He knew they were a squad of scared and unhappy soldiers, but just like the naval gunners, they had to accept it. Konowa had seen the terror and anger in their eyes when he assigned them the task, but there was no other choice. The rear of the column had to be protected, and whoever got that duty knew it was filled with risk. What he had promised them, however, was that they wouldn’t have to shoulder the burden alone. Two other squads were picked to take turns bringing up the rear. Konowa knew it wasn’t time yet to make the change, but he could at least fall back and march along with them for a bit and perhaps pick up their spirits.
As the backs of the Timolian soldiers disappeared in the swirling snow, Konowa stepped out onto the trampled path and waited for the squad to appear. They should be just a few yards behind.
As the seconds stretched into a minute, Konowa grew increasingly worried. The rear guard should have been directly behind the 3rd Spears. He drew his saber, conscious of the fact that he was now completely alone.
“One of these days your impulses are going to get you in trouble,” he muttered to himself. He reasoned that it was likely already too late, but hoped the trouble was something he could handle.
Realizing his current position was the worst possible one he could be in, he started walking backward while keeping his eyes peeled for the rear guard. “C’mon lads, be okay,” he said, gripping the pommel of his saber tight.
He shivered in the cold, only realizing a few moments later that it wasn’t the weather, but the black acorn against his chest.
A soldier appeared out of the snow twenty yards away. “Over here,” Konowa hissed, waving his saber in the air then crouching down as he looked around for the danger. The soldier stumbled as if severely wounded. Konowa could barely make out his form in the snow and couldn’t tell how badly he’d been hurt. His first instinct was to rush forward to help the man, but the stab of ice against his chest was growing colder. The enemy was closing in.
The smart thing, the proper thing, for Konowa to do was to turn and run back to the end of the column. It was foolhardy to risk his life for one soldier when the entire regiment needed his leadership. Konowa was already running toward the soldier before he’d made up his mind that the smart thing and the right thing weren’t always the same.
The soldier stumbled again and went down on one knee. The acorn blazed with freezing intensity, causing Konowa to gasp with pain. Ignoring it, he jogged the last few feet to reach the fallen soldier and help him up.
“How badly are you hu-” Konowa started to ask before his ability to form words left him.
The “soldier” climbed back to its feet on two gnarled chunks of roots. The… tree, Konowa’s mind finally registered, had taken the rough form of a soldier. Its branches were bent and twisted at impossible angles to form a pair of large shoulders, from which two arms hung. Long, sharp thorns for fingers twitched and snapped at the end of each arm. Its head was a thicket of leaves and thorns crafted into something that in the dark and the snow had looked convincingly like a soldier wearing a shako. But as disturbing as it was to see a tree take on human form, it was the bark that froze Konowa’s gaze. It was dragon scale. He was sure of it. The scale had shaped itself to look like a uniform.
How or why he didn’t know and likely never would, but somehow the sarka har had changed.
Luckily, Konowa’s instincts were still working even as his mind pondered the impossibility before him.
Konowa started to backpedal even as he brought his saber up in front of him and slashed at the tree. The stroke missed, which threw his balance off. His boots slipped and he fell backward to land hard on his back. Snow flew in the air hiding the abomination from sight.
Konowa rolled to his right, burying his face in the snow in the process. He felt the thump of a heavy root slam down on the ground just inches from where he had been. He continued rolling several more times before finally scrambling to his feet, one hand pushing his shako back down on his head as the other held his saber at the ready. He shook his head and blinked the snow from his eyes.
There were five of the walking sarka har now. Each one looked like a child’s idea of a soldier. Everything was there, but all of it was distorted. In the light of day, their disguise would fool no one, but in these conditions they were more than good enough to get close to a potential victim.
“I’m not dead yet!” Konowa shouted, mad at himself that he even considered himself lost. He’d been in tough scraps before, where the odds were stacked so high against him he couldn’t see over the enemy’s chips and still he’d prevailed. These were still sarka har, and he had the frost fire at his command.
“This is why I HATE TREES!” Konowa bellowed, charging forward, the blade of his saber wreathed in black flame.
The closest tree had no time to parry as Konowa’s blade slashed down across the midsection of its trunk.
Black ice crystals exploded as blade met trunk. Konowa’s entire right arm erupted in burning pain like he’d been stabbed with a thousand needles. He stumbled backward, barely managing to hold on to his saber. The tree he’d struck was engulfed in frost fire, but whereas normal sarka har quickly burned to ash, the dragon-scale bark seemed to be shielding it from the worst of the flame.
“And Visyna wonders what I have against the bloody forest,” he said to himself, flexing his arm to get feeling back into it. He caught motion out of the corner of his eye and more of the transformed sarka har appeared out of the snow. They marched along the path left by the column, ignoring Konowa just as the soldiers had before. He had to get out of here and warn them.
That’s when he remembered he had more than the frost fire to call on.
“Renwar! Get the Darkly Departed off their arses and cut down these damn trees!” He turned while keeping an eye on the burning sarka har and its four companions. There was no sign of the shades of the dead.
“That wasn’t a request-it was an order!” he shouted into the wind. The black flame on the tree he attacked guttered and went out. Singed leaves fell from its head and it continued to stumble, but it started to come toward him again as the other four fanned out to cut off any chance of escape.
Konowa turned and started to run, but in the deep snow he knew at once he wouldn’t get far. The sarka har would catch him exhausted and that would be that.
He turned to face his fate.
The dawning realization that he was looking at the very real possibility of being killed by a bunch of walking trees brought a snarl of a smile to his lips. His whole life he’d loathed the forest with a passion that bordered and sometimes crossed the line of sanity. It never occurred to him until now that the forest might just feel the same way about him.
He was charging at the trees before his battle cry pierced the air.
“Timber, you bloody pieces of lumber! Timber! ”
A pack of fifteen rakkes clustered around the mangled remains of one of their brethren. Despite the blowing wind, the tang of fresh blood hung in the air above the corpse. Normally, the rakkes would have welcomed the chance at fresh meat even when it was the body of one of their own, but not this time. Green insects crawled over and through the rakke’s flesh even as the falling snow buried the body from sight. A primal fear of the green death kept the rakkes at bay.
Four gray blurs drifted through the snow, coming to a silent stop a few yards behind the rakkes. The pulsing, rhythmic blue light of the Star tree slowed momentarily like an ocean wave retreating down a beach as four dark elves appeared from out of the gloom.
Even amidst the cobalt-tinged darkness and swirling snow it was clear that nothing about these elves was natural. The points of their left ear tips absorbed what light there was, making them blacker even than the surrounding night. Every joint and limb appeared angular, sheared, and incomplete as if sheets of stone as thin as parchment had been wrapped around bundles of metal stakes. For clothing, they wore only ore-saturated leaves secured with steel-colored vines, revealing far more than they covered. If the elves felt the bite of the cold, they gave no indication.
Each elf held a long bow the color of rusted iron in its hands. Drawstrings thrummed as they were drawn to their full pull, the limbs of the bows arching back to create grotesque smiles with tongues of thin, black arrows. At this distance, the arrows would pass through the back of a rakke’s skull and continue on through with enough force to embed themselves in another victim.
Bony fingers flexed and creaked as they curled tighter around the vine-wrapped grips of the bows. Wet, black eyes stared at the assembled rakkes calculating distance and trajectory. With no eyelids, the orbs shone like polished granite, and with as much warmth. The elves would not miss. They waited only for the command.
Her Emissary materialized behind the elves. Or rather it attempted to. Parts of it were simply missing, lost forever when that damnable Iron Elf soldier had summoned a vortex of magic and blown it to pieces. It knew pain now as it had never before, and the experience was transcendent. Twice in the life of the creature formerly known as Viceroy Faltinald Gwyn it had served powerful rulers-always in the pursuit of more power-and each time it had suffered greatly. Now, as every shredded fiber of its flesh and soul screamed in agony, it called on the power so horribly earned to rebuild itself one more time. It focused its energies on a dark, fathomless core-the black acorn planted into its heart by the Shadow Monarch.
It was rewarded with nothing. The acorn had shattered when the soldier had attacked-all that remained of the Shadow Monarch’s gift were cracked and broken shards. Her Emissary’s form mirrored that of the acorn, as did its mind. In its insanity it was finally free, but still the Shadow Monarch’s will filled its thoughts, commanding it to destroy the rakkes.
“Kill them. They grow too wild and will destroy everything in their path. My lost children must be allowed to return to me alive,” said the voice in what remained of Her Emissary’s head. It understood. The pact She made with the soldier that turned him into an emissary of the dead meant Her power over the fallen was diminished. She needed the Iron Elves brought to Her alive.
A crease of a smile cracked across its frost-burned face. If Her dark elves looked like mannequins created in an iron foundry, then Her Emissary was the wretched slag that remained. Redoubling its efforts, it coalesced enough of itself from the ether to create a form roughly human in shape. It drew what little power remained from Her gift, but found a new and more plentiful supply in something far stronger-rage. This was an endless well of power it could call its own.
It stumbled forward, growing stronger with each step. At that moment the wind shifted and the rakkes noticed the terrible being behind them. The elves pulled back on the bowstrings a little more, waiting only for Her Emissary to relay Her command.
It never came. Instead, as Her Emissary found a rasping, hissing voice barely capable of speech, it only needed to utter one word.
“Die!” A ragged scythe of ice formed in the air in front of Her Emissary. It reached out and grabbed it, swinging it in a wicked arc faster than the eye could follow. For a moment nothing happened, then as one the four elves crumpled to the ground, their heads falling away from their bodies. Fingers no longer restrained by life released the bowstrings and the arrows flew true, still aimed at the rakkes. The creature knew it had the strength to stop the arrows in midflight, but it did not. Six of the rakkes fell. Those remaining stood rooted to the ground.
“Build your strength,” the creature commanded. “Soon you hunt for fresher game.”
The rakkes roared their pleasure and fell on the bodies, both rakke and elf. The remnants of the acorn in the creature’s chest flared with frost fire, but it extinguished them with its madness.
The Shadow Monarch no longer pulled its strings.
High above on the canyon wall and undetected by those below, something stirred. A pair of eyes studied the scene on the desert floor through the falling snow. The figure remained deep in shadow as it watched the rakkes tear into the bodies of the dark elves first and then their own kindred. The rakke it had slaughtered earlier was untouched. Stupid, rudimentary creatures that they were, they knew enough to avoid that.
And here, off to the side and cloaked in shifting darkness, a violently misshapen thing directed the rakkes.
Interesting.
Killing one rakke had been satisfying. Killing this pack and its new leader would be… enjoyable.
From deep within a black throat, a green glow came to life. Stalking this prey would be more difficult than the first kill, but not impossible. The green insects began to multiply, responding to subtle signals that a new quarry was at hand. But just as quickly, the signals then weakened. The rakkes were moving off, carrying what meat they could as they began to track west.
The watching shadow had no choice but to move into the open to begin tracking the rakkes, who no doubt had picked up the trail of the Iron Elves.
A group of six rakkes detached themselves from the rocks along the ridgeline where they had been hiding and spread out in a rough U-shaped pack. Claw tips extended and fangs began to glisten with drool as they set out after the shadowy figure.
The hunter was now the hunted.
“Major, get the hell out of the way!”
Konowa was so intent on his last charge that the shouted warning went unheeded. He was still several feet from the nearest sarka har when it blew apart in a red-orange explosion. Thousands of black scales cartwheeled through the air followed by flaming splinters. Konowa’s shako was blown off his head and he skidded to a halt, his arms thrown across his face. Only the flaring of the frost fire into a frigid wall in front of him saved him from being cut to ribbons.
“That’s new,” he gasped, equally impressed by the exploding tree and the frost fire’s reaction to it.
A familiar ringing in his ears told him musket fire had sounded a moment before the tree was destroyed. The remaining trees seemed oblivious to the fate of their brethren and continued to close in on Konowa.
“Major, over here!”
Konowa spun around. Several more soldiers had appeared out of the snowy night. He kept his saber at the ready, unwilling to be tricked again by a shadowy form seen in the distance. The soldiers advanced-Konowa relaxed as he recognized them as his rear guard.
“What in the bloody hell are those things?” Konowa asked when the soldiers came to a stop.
“We were hoping you’d know,” one of the soldiers said. Konowa recognized him as the young private planning on joining the navy.
“What’s your name again, son?” Konowa asked.
“Feylan, sir, Private Bawton Feylan.”
“Well, Private Bawton Feylan, all I know for sure is never trust a damned tree.”
As a group, they began to fall back, walking backward to keep the trees in sight the whole time. Six soldiers knelt in the snow and fired their muskets at another sarka har. Huge chunks of bark and wood tore from the trunk in great flashes of flame. One massive arm cracked and fell away, but unlike the tree before, this sarka har remained intact. The remaining five soldiers walked a few more paces, halted, and having reloaded their muskets, took aim and fired at the wounded tree. This time it blew apart.
“Why do they explode like that?” Konowa asked, resheathing his saber and unslinging his own musket. He banged snow out of the muzzle and unwrapped the leather covering that kept the fire lock dry.
“Haven’t the foggiest, sir, they just do,” Feylan said. If he was scared he was doing a fine job of hiding it. “It’s like they’re filled with gunpowder or something. Hit them with a few musket balls and you can hurt them, but it takes at least five or six all at once to light ’em up.”
“A little more dragon than you bargained for, eh?” Konowa shouted at the trees, ramming home a charge in his musket and preparing to fire.
Instead of advancing, the remaining sarka har converged on the spot where the last tree was destroyed. They unsnaked their branches and began picking up pieces of bark, applying it to their trunks.
“That’s brilliant, that is,” Konowa said, spitting in the snow. “Not only have the buggers learned to walk, now they’ve figured out how to protect themselves.” He was tempted to add “what’s next?” but the question became moot as the trees began grabbing burning pieces of wood and crushing them into flaming spheres. As the spheres grew, the ends of their branches caught fire and began to burn. The night turned an ugly orange as each sarka har held up its two arms, now transformed into massive torches.
“Well that wasn’t too bright now, was it?” Konowa shouted at the trees. “You’ve gone and set yourselves on fire, you dumb bastards. Guess you missed the lesson about fire and wood.”
The private looked up from reloading his musket and screamed. “Take cover!”
“I don’t see-” was all Konowa managed before the private tackled him to the snow.
Konowa looked up from the snowbank Feylan had dumped him into to see the sarka har bend backward as if being pummeled by a hurricane, then whip forward. The ends of their arms splintered and tore from the rest of their bodies to fly toward the soldiers. Konowa stared in total amazement as burning cannonballs of wood hurtled toward him. Did every tree have it out for him? He slammed his head back down and buried it deep into the snow as he tried to burrow to the center of the earth. Searing heat passed over his back, and a moment later the ground reared up and punched him, knocking the breath from his lungs.
Explosions sounded all around him, accompanied by screams. “Is anyone hurt?” Konowa shouted, spitting out snow as he finally dared to lift his head again. Large black scorch marks dotted the snow for twenty yards in every direction. Flames still burned in several of them.
“Grostril caught one full in the chest. Nothing left of him but his musket,” a soldier said, his voice trembling. “He was right beside me…”
Konowa tried to picture Private Grostril, but he realized he no more knew who the soldier was than he did the one who had carried the locket in his shako that he had found back at the canyon. It hurt him, both that he had lost another man under his command, and that he didn’t even have a face he could call up in his memory to honor his falling.
“Major, they’re still coming at us!”
Konowa got up to his knees and pointed his musket at the sarka har . Sure enough, they had resumed their awkward march forward, smoke streaming from the burned ends of their branches. It was time to get the rear guard out of here.
“Listen up. We’re going to keep falling back in an orderly fashion. Stay together and hold your fire. These damn trees are walking powder kegs! We’ll fall back fifty yards, then we’ll hold and wait for them to close in on us. When they do, we’ll all shoot at the furthest tree. That should punch through the extra scales or bark or whatever the hell it is.”
The soldiers didn’t need a second invitation. The ten remaining men got up and scrambled through the snow. Konowa made sure they were all moving, then followed after them. He was sweating freely and almost ripped the Hasshugeb robe off, but the sight of all the snow persuaded him he’d best keep it. He counted out fifty yards in his head then called a halt. The soldiers turned and formed a single line shoulder to shoulder. Without waiting for the order, they took a knee, a few having to yank their robes out of the way. Each man brought his musket up to his shoulder and waited for Konowa’s command to fire.
“Remember, lads, they’re just trees,” Konowa said, walking behind each soldier and patting him on the shoulder. “They might have learned a few tricks, but we’re a damn sight smarter than any walking piece of wood.”
“I see one!” a soldier shouted, swinging his musket in the direction of a sarka har emerging from the snow.
“Steady, and watch where you point a loaded musket. Remember your drill, lads. We’ll wait until the others show themselves, then we aim for the last one. If they want to try that flaming fireball trick again, they’ll have to backtrack, and by then we’ll be gone.”
Three more trees appeared, each moving forward in a stilted, creaking gait. Konowa shuddered, but quickly stamped his boots in the snow to regain control. He waited another minute, but no more trees showed themselves. “Okay, we’ll take out the one on the far left.”
As one, the soldiers leveled their muskets at the sarka har. Konowa brought his own musket up to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel.
“Ready… fire!”
Eleven muskets crackled to life. White-orange flame lit the night as sparks flew from the barrels. All eleven musket balls hit the trunk of the sarka har at almost the same instant. The double layer of black dragon scale bark proved no match for the lead balls. The heartwood splintered, filling the air with a mist of brown ichor. A flickering flame on a piece of bark ignited the mist and the tree went up like a bomb.
Konowa dropped down beside the soldiers as flaming pieces of the tree, trailing an oily, foul-smelling smoke, flew over his head.
“Go back to where you came from, you stupid buggers!” Private Feylan yelled, slinging his musket and picking up a still burning length of branch and snapping it in half before quickly slapping his hands in the snow to cool them. The surviving sarka har ignored his taunt and went about the same procedure as before, stumbling back toward the flaming wreckage and adding more dragon scale bark to their trunks before gathering up burning chunks of wood.
“Nicely put,” Konowa said, tapping the private on the shoulder and motioning for him to fall back. “Now it’s time for us to advance in the other direction and get the hell out of here. We’ve got to warn the column there are more of the damn things coming after them.”
“I sent three of the men after the column as soon as we realized we were in trouble,” Feylan said.
Brave and thinks on his feet. Konowa was impressed. “If they stay clear of those things, they should hook up with the column before long. Good work.”
Konowa risked a quick glance over at Private Feylan and was pleased to see the young private’s face only had the barest of smiles on it. Proud, but professional. It made Konowa wonder how Feylan landed in the Iron Elves, but he’d have to ask him that another time. For now he focused his attention on the trees.
Their branches began to blaze as they caught fire again, but with each backward step the falling snow and the dark masked them until they disappeared completely. Konowa stopped for a moment and stared at the night. It all seemed like a terrible nightmare. Of course, it was-it was just that they were awake.
“Everything okay, Major?” Feylan asked.
“What?” Konowa said, making a show of removing his shako and wiping his brow with his sleeve before putting the hat back in place. “Just had to slow down for a second to cool off. All this running around gets me a little hot.”
Silence greeted this, and Konowa remembered they had just lost a friend. He wanted to ask them to describe Grostril, hoping something would trigger a memory, but he realized that would only make them feel worse.
“Look, lads, just keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll be fine. Grostril was unlucky. Keep your heads on your shoulders, stay sharp, hold your fire, shout out if you see anything, and you’ll have better luck.”
They continued to backtrack through the snow. What had started as a neat line soon collapsed into a tight ball with muskets covering all points of the compass. Konowa had seen it before in battle. Soldiers would seek the comfort of having a comrade nearby and orderly lines began to mesh into ungainly herds. It was dangerous to be grouped so close together like that, especially when the sarka har could hurl flaming chunks of exploding wood, but the morale boost it gave the men was worth the risk, so Konowa said nothing.
“I would have thought the Darkly Departed would have showed up at some point,” Feylan said. It sounded rhetorical, but Konowa knew all the soldiers were wondering the same thing, and so was he. Why hadn’t the dead appeared when they needed them?
“Could be they’re busy elsewhere,” Konowa said, hoping the regiment wasn’t currently under attack. “Or maybe they finally got some leave.”
No one laughed this time, and Konowa didn’t blame them. He opted to change the subject. He slowed his pace a little and motioned for Feylan to walk with him as the other soldiers continued moving in a tight cluster.
“Damn impressive the way you’ve organized the men. What happened to your corporal?”
“A branch took his head clean off,” Feylan said, his voice surprisingly calm for such a statement.
Konowa cringed, recalling he’d just told the men to keep their heads on their shoulders.
Now Feylan’s voice did catch, but he covered it with a cough. “When we first saw the trees, we thought they were soldiers, too, and he started to cuss them out for getting lost. He walked right up to one. After that I sort of just took over, but any of them could have done it. Guess I just piped up first.”
Konowa knew better. Leaders stepped forward in time of danger. “You did more than that.”
They walked on in silence. Konowa became aware of his boots crunching through the ice crust forming on the snow. He strained his ears in hopes of hearing the approach of the 3rd Spears coming back to their aid, but of course they’d have to fight their way through the other sarka har that were now somewhere between the end of the column and the rear guard.
I failed them. The thought struck Konowa particularly hard. If the rear guard hadn’t moved off the path to save him, they would have stayed in position to slow down the sarka har and warn the 3rd Spears. Because of him the entire column was at risk. It all came down to the three soldiers Feylan had sent forward to warn the others. If they didn’t make it, the sarka har would catch them completely unaware.
“I think I hear something,” a soldier said.
The group shuffled to a stop. Konowa doubted any of them were breathing, himself included, as they focused all their energy on the night around them. Konowa didn’t bother pushing his senses. The acorn was a constant cold pain against his chest now, which, when added with the numbing cold of the weather, was making it increasingly difficult to tell one from the other.
After a minute of listening to nothing, Konowa was about to order them to move when a piece of wood creaked somewhere in the dark.
“There, did you hear it?” the soldier asked. “It’s one of them sarka har, and it’s close.”
“Shhhhh,” Konowa said, waving at the soldier to be quiet. Konowa turned his head to one side and closed his eyes. He heard the creaking sound again, but couldn’t get a location on it. Damn these ears. Realizing it was pointless, he opened his eyes and looked at the soldiers around him. They had all turned and were staring in the direction the column had taken.
“Off the road, now,” Konowa hissed, using his musket to direct the men. They moved quickly, pushing through the deeper snow until they were fifteen yards away. He turned and dropped to one knee, wrapping the leather sling of his musket around his left forearm, grounding the weapon on his thigh to keep it out of the snow. The men formed up beside him to his left, following his lead. Konowa kept his eyes on the road as he addressed them.
“We’ll hit the sarka har as soon as they appear. That should draw them this way. While they pick up the bark and get ready to throw more fire, we’ll swing around and run like hell to catch up with the regiment.”
The sound of creaking wood grew closer. Someone coughed, followed by a thump as another soldier whacked the offender.
Konowa rolled his head to work a crick out of his neck and forced his breathing to slow. “I’ll call out the tree to aim at and then we fire on my command. We’ll reload once, I’ll designate another tree, fire again, then take off. If any of you get separated from the group, stay on the road and keep running. They’re slow and stupid. You’re faster and not as stupid.”
There was no telling if the soldiers laughed because the sound of wood grinding and knocking against itself rose in pitch to drown out even the wind.
“Bloody hell,” Feylan said, “that sounds like twenty of them charging.”
“Ready…” Konowa said, bringing the butt of his musket tight against his shoulder and resting his cheek against the stock. The smooth coolness of the wood felt comforting against his skin.
Somewhere down the line a soldier began to sob.
“Remember the boys that aren’t here anymore. Remember… Grostril,” Konowa said, thinking of so many others they had lost. “This is our chance to avenge a lot of wrongs.”
The groan of wood being pushed to its limit filled the night. Konowa shifted his knee in the snow and sighted down the barrel of his musket. His world constricted to a small patch of snow-covered road fifteen yards away. All his anger and frustration poured out of him and focused on that place. The Shadow Monarch Herself wouldn’t survive if She showed up now.
“As soon as the first one appears I’ll call it, then we fire.”
No sooner had Konowa spoken the words than a shadow burst out of the darkness and entered the killing ground.
T he shadow grew in size, filling the area on the road directly in front of Konowa’s musket. “Ready… Aim…” He hesitated before uttering the final command. The acorn against his chest was no longer cold. Konowa lifted his cheek from the stock and looked closer.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire! It’s Rallie!”
Her Majesty’s Scribe appeared out of the dark in a swirl of snow. As it settled, her wagon and the team of camels pulling it became visible, making the sound of the creaking wood clear. She pulled on the reins and brought the camels to a halt. The beasts brayed and spit and shook their heads, clearly agitated. With the reins still bunched in her hands, Rallie stood up and looked at Konowa.
“Bit of a cold night for a walk. I thought you fellows might enjoy a lift.”
Konowa turned to the soldiers beside him to make sure they had lowered their muskets. It had been that close.
“On your feet,” Konowa said, relief making it difficult for him to keep his voice from shaking. “Get in the back and stay alert.”
They ran toward the wagon like a drowning man reaching for a lifeline, and Konowa realized that was pretty much the truth. He walked up to the front by Rallie, ignoring the camels, then turned to make sure all his men were aboard.
A set of large yellow teeth flashed out from the darkness and made a grab for Konowa’s right shoulder.
Konowa shouted and flung himself out of the way, punching wildly and missing. He landed hard on his back and his musket fell from his hand. He fumbled madly for his saber, which was now tangled up in his robe. His shako popped off his head as if the wings on it were giving it flight in the storm-driven wind. The blast of icy air on his scalp cleared his senses.
It dawned on him as he frantically fought to get the blade free that the black acorn hadn’t flared. He sensed several sets of eyes staring at him and he looked up.
“Come now, Major, the darling thing meant no harm,” Rallie said from six feet above him. Her four camels hitched in pairs in front of the wagon stared at him in direct contradiction. She sat back down on the wooden bench and teased out the bundle of leather reins in her hands.
“I beg to differ,” Konowa muttered, scooting back another few feet until he was well out of reach of the-less-than-darling thing’s teeth and hooves. Only then did he risk climbing to his feet, scooping up his musket first and then his shako. He placed it back on his head, all while keeping a wary eye on the camels. He heard a snicker and snapped his head around to look at the back of the wagon. Ten heads looking over the side of the wagon vanished in an instant.
Rallie’s reins snapped and the camels reluctantly turned away from him and began lumbering forward. Konowa let them pass, then jumped up onto the wagon to sit beside her. He set his musket between his legs and turned to look behind him. The soldiers were huddling together to stay warm in between bundles of supplies and what appeared to be at least some of the Viceroy’s things. They had their muskets pointed outward though and were scanning the darkness. None of them risked looking at Konowa, but a couple of them gripped their muskets tighter and leaned forward to indicate their dedication. Konowa growled, but he knew he didn’t blame them. He would have laughed, too, if it hadn’t been him on the wrong end of an angry camel.
“The sarka har can walk,” Konowa said, turning back to face the front, “and throw fire. Oh, and they explode now, too.”
Rallie sawed on the reins and the camels turned to the left, stomping through the deeper snow until they had turned the wagon around and were heading on the road in the same direction as the column. “Rather nifty, that,” Rallie said, her voice revealing more than a trace of fascination. “It seems they found some dragon eggs, Major. Lucky for us a brood nest only held no more than fifteen.”
“Dragon eggs… Is the regiment okay? Did those trees attack?”
“The regiment continues much as it did before, although I must say the degree of overall jumpiness has risen sharply. Three members of the rear guard made it back in time to warn us and with the 3rd Spears leading the way, they dispatched another six of the sarka har. It was a remarkable sight, but I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”
“No, I have a pretty good idea what that looks like,” Konowa said. “And the Darkly Departed?”
“Stellar service, as always. Private Renwar made sure of it. Why?”
“We could have used their help,” Konowa muttered.
“Ah,” Rallie said, leaving it at that.
“But dragon eggs? How did they find any out here?” Konowa asked, choosing to change the subject. “I don’t recall hearing about dragons in these parts for centuries.”
Rallie didn’t answer right away. When she did, she chose her words carefully. “Do you think me… mysterious, Major?”
“You’re a woman,” Konowa blurted out before he could stop himself. “I find your entire species mysterious.”
Rallie chuckled. “Oh what I wouldn’t give to see you appointed to the diplomatic corps one day. But truly, do I seem different?”
The heat generated from his close encounters was rapidly dissipating and Konowa shivered, pulling his robe closer around him. “If you’re asking if I think you know a lot more than you let on, yes. Do I think you have your reasons for that, yes. Do I care, not really. You’ve more than earned my respect and gratitude. I have no doubt that if there was something I needed to know, and you knew it, you’d tell me.”
“Why, Major, you’ve made an old woman blush,” she said, and by the timbre of her voice, he could tell she wasn’t joking.
“Why do you ask?” Konowa said. “You’ve never seemed too concerned about what anyone thought about you before now.”
Rallie stared ahead, her cloak billowing as the wind picked up. “I can accept the aches and pains of old age, but losing one’s memory wasn’t part of the bargain.”
Konowa sensed a shift in her mood to something darker. “What are you talking about? You’re as sharp as a box of tacks.”
Rallie nodded, but kept looking straight ahead. “It used to be two boxes,” she said. “I’m old, Major, older than you think, in fact, older than I think I think.”
It was tempting to ask her if she’d been drinking, but Konowa knew better. “We are going to make it through this, you know,” he said at last, hoping it was the right thing to say.
This time Rallie did turn and look at him. Her eyes were misty, but there was a smile on her lips. “That, Major, was the perfect thing to say.”
They rode on in silence with only the creaking of the wagon and the wind disturbing the night. Konowa fidgeted on the wooden bench. He was still keyed up from the battle. His thoughts were a mess. What was up with Rallie? He hoped it was just the cold and the dark. She’d always been a rock; the idea that even she could crack wasn’t something he’d considered. And what of Renwar? He wanted to rail at the soldier for abandoning them to the sarka har, but was it malice on his part, or sound judgment? A rear guard was often sacrificed in order to give warning to the rest of the column. Konowa tried to convince himself that’s what had happened, and failed. He shook his head and tried to think of something else.
“It’s cold,” he said, blowing on his hands before tucking them into the folds of his robe. A sudden thought popped into his head. “Will your creatures survive weather like this? All the ones you let go back at the canyon?”
Rallie turned and looked to the north before turning back. “Dandy and Wobbly are survivors. I’ve every expectation of seeing them again. The sreexes should be all right if they stayed together as a flock, but in this wind it’s difficult to say. Alas, it’s my brindos I fear for. A bit delicate, if you want to know the truth. I fear I coddled them, but they are such adorable animals, so how could I not?”
Konowa remembered the brindos as vicious-looking, armor-plated beasts that would just as soon trample you, but he kept it to himself. Rallie had even named one of them Baby. “If they had any sense, they would have headed south and away from this,” he said, looking around at the snowstorm. “I hear there’s nothing but grassland to the far south once you get through the desert.”
“I do hope you’re right, Major,” Rallie said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. “They deserve a better fate than to perish here.”
“Don’t we all,” Konowa replied.
The wind blew between them piling up a drift of snow on the wooden bench. Konowa absently pulled a hand out of his robes and brushed at the snow and began tracing out stick figures.
“I believe she’s alive,” Rallie said.
Konowa looked up from the snow. Visyna.
His heart didn’t beat faster as much as it beat stronger, deeper, at the thought of her. He’d done his best not to think about her, focusing instead on the task at hand. The regiment came first. It had to. The lives, and the souls, of each and every soldier depended on him. Who knew what horrors would jump out of the darkness next? Still, if Private Feylan could see a future beyond this, maybe he could, too.
Images of burning trees and exhilarating fear still raced through him, but thinking about Visyna brought memories of her power. He stared out at nothing as he remembered how she infuriated him in the quiet way she held her hurt, aggravated when she raged back at him, and cut when her eyes judged him and found him wanting. But when she smiled… He realized he was grinning and brought his hand up to his mouth to cough.
“Do you sense something?” he asked.
Rallie stared at him for several seconds before responding. “Not exactly, but nonetheless I believe it to be true. I certainly hope it to be the case, and hope is a power unto itself. It should not be taken lightly.”
“And the others?” Konowa asked, thinking of his parents, his soldiers, and his four-legged friend, Jir.
“I don’t know,” Rallie said. “I thought it best to get them out of the way when I sealed them in one of the tunnels. Perhaps I made a mistake in sending them that way, but at the time it seemed the proper thing to do.”
Konowa reached out and patted Rallie’s arm. As soon as he did it he tensed, expecting frost fire or something worse to happen, but nothing did. “You did what you thought was best. That’s all we can ever do. I’m sure they’ll appear again.”
The chuckle from Rallie caught Konowa off guard.
“I said something amusing?” Konowa asked.
Rallie snapped the reins and the camels brayed in response. “My dear Major, I do believe you’re starting to get the gist of this hope thing after all.”
A single transformed sarka har continued to trudge after the column, its pace slowed by the increased weight of several layers of dragon scale bark. Snow and ice started to accumulate in its branches, weighing it down further. It paused and shook itself, keeping the form of a soldier though it wasn’t sure what that was. It knew, however, that this shape would allow it to continue moving, and that need burned brighter than all others.
It sensed a vibration in the wind. It stopped and raised its branches, opening its leaves to better feel the disturbance. Two objects were approaching it at great speed. It saw no reason to defend itself, however. These were more sarka har. It lowered its branches and began trudging forward again, aware that the objects were now only yards away and closing fast.
Thick branches grabbed the sarka har on either side and lifted it high into the night sky. In its short, violent life the sarka har had never been out of touch with the earth. If it had had a mouth, it would have screamed. Then the other two sarka har let go. The tree plummeted to the earth, twisting and turning end over end as it fell. It smacked into the ground with a thunderous crack. Its trunk snapped in two, its branches broke and thick, brown ichor leaked from a thousand fractures.
The two sarka har landed and approached the fallen tree, tucking in their wooden wings as they did so. Unlike their brethren, these sarka har had transformed into the shape of the dragons the eggs had meant to hatch. Instead of many small leaves they had grown green-brown skins that stretched between branches forming large wings. They had no heads, but where a jaw would be a branch jutted out lined with ten-inch thorns as thick as an elf’s wrist.
Looming over the dying tree, each took turns slashing down with their spiked branch, tearing the stricken sarka har to bits. They grabbed its trunk and pulled, ripping it in half, and then half again. With each cut and tear more of the brown ichor flowed. As it pooled, the two trees moved to stand in it, absorbing the liquid through the remnants of their root system.
As they drank, they grew stronger. The scalelike bark covering their trunks thickened and took on a metallic sheen. More thorns sprouted along the leading edge of their wings.
When all the ichor had been absorbed, the two sarka har unfurled their wings and flapped them a few times. With each up and down movement their pace grew faster and more powerful. With a final pump the two trees leaped into the air and disappeared into the night heading due west.
“Are we there yet?” Private Scolfelton Erinmoss asked. Scolly wasn’t bright, but what he lacked in intelligence he made up for in perseverance. “It’s just that it seems that we should be there by now, shouldn’t we?”
No one answered, leaving the question to chase the darkness beyond the light of their lanterns until it could no longer be heard. Boots scuffed over a thin skiff of sand on the tunnel floor in a mindless rhythm, filling the air with a rasping pulse.
The elves led by Private Kritton marched in front and behind the small band of human soldiers with Visyna. Though there was barely room to walk two abreast, Chayii Red Owl stayed at Visyna’s side. Visyna opened and closed her mouth a couple of times to speak, but each time words failed her. Chayii’s jaw continually clenched and unclenched and sweat beaded on her brow.
“Soon?” Scolly asked again.
Visyna cocked her head to the side then caught herself. She had instinctively listened for Yimt to bellow another anatomically unlikely occurrence involving a unicorn’s spleen, Scolly’s mother in the moonlight, and quite improbably something to do with cabbage. The realization that Yimt wouldn’t be answering added to the darkness.
“No, Scolly, not yet,” Visyna said, a tightness in her chest catching her breath. Visions of the dwarf falling to the floor in the library refused to go away. Anger was still in the future. Right now it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. She had no idea where they were going or how long they’d been walking. She was beyond tired to the point of feeling light-headed with weakness. She shook the grit from her sandals as she walked, wishing she owned a pair of boots. Her thin cotton leggings and blouse were not designed for a desert environment.
Visyna recognized the beginnings of a downward spiral and tried to find something positive to think about. The caustic feel of the ancient magic in the library was gone, but even then she had little energy left to try and pull power from the air around them. And even if she could, what then? They were heavily outnumbered, the soldiers were stripped of their weapons, and the tunnel was narrow and stretched on far beyond her sight. A fight in here would be a bloody mess with little chance of succeeding. Maybe, she wondered, they were already dead. Kritton couldn’t let them live, could he?
A low, rumbling snarl raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She turned and saw Jir limping behind her, his wounded shoulder causing him significant pain. She reached back with one hand and the bengar came close enough to let her fingers brush the top of his head. It surprised her that Jir should be so docile. She’d expected the elves to kill the beast out of hand, but in his wounded state the bengar appeared helpless. For reasons she couldn’t comprehend, Jir had been allowed to follow them, and he seemed to understand the arrangement and made no outward signs of aggression. It was as if the bengar understood that this wasn’t the right time to seek revenge.
A tongue like bark licked her hand and she pulled it back in surprise. She looked back at Jir, who returned her stare with an intelligence she had never seen before.
“I regret having to invade another creature’s mind, but it was necessary to keep him calm, and alive,” Chayii whispered between her teeth.
Visyna turned to look at her. “You’re controlling him?”
“In a manner of speaking. I have connected with him, drawing out much of his rage and need to hunt,” she said.
“What does it feel like?”
Chayii turned to look at her. Visyna tried to move away and put her shoulder into the tunnel wall. Raw, savage violence flashed in the elf’s eyes. Chayii’s lip curled into a snarl and the muscles in her neck rippled with suppressed energy. She rotated her head slowly, easing her shoulders down.
“I have never partaken of the flesh of another animal in my entire life,” Chayii said, “but it is all I can do not to rip out the hearts of these elves and feel their blood trickle down my throat.” As she said it her hands flexed as if she were extending claws.
Visyna hoped the horror that suddenly welled up inside her didn’t show on her face. She looked around quickly to see if any of the elves had overheard, but no outcry arose. Perhaps, like Konowa, these elves had lost much of their hearing from constant exposure to musket and cannon fire. She knew her own hearing had suffered since deciding to accompany the Iron Elves.
“Do you have a plan on when to release Jir and we can escape?” She opted not to voice her growing concern that they would likely share Yimt’s fate at the hands of Kritton before much longer.
Chayii shook her head. “I am doing what I can to control Jir. It is up to you, my child, to figure out what we do next.”
The hope of a moment before dimmed, but did not die. She’s right, Visyna realized. Thoughts of being little more than a damsel in distress brought blood rushing to her cheeks. I can do this. She brought her hands in front of her and gently began to weave the air. There was power here she could use. She lowered her hands and began to think. Even elves can’t march forever. They would have to stop sometime to rest. When they did she would have to be ready.
“Are we there yet?”
This time Visyna smiled. “Soon, Scolly, soon.”
T railing the unknown shadow among the rocks, the rakkes moved cautiously at first. The green death was instinctively terrifying, but it was more than seeing one of their own kind eaten alive by it. Buried deep in their primal core lay a memory that any other sentient creature would have understood to be a nightmare. They couldn’t fight the green death, only flee from it, and that went against their very nature.
They didn’t understand why they were here, or even how. Each retained the memory of its death centuries ago-drowning, falling, burning, beheaded-horrors a rakke could understand. But to be here in this time and place, and faced with a death they couldn’t tear with claws or rip apart with fangs added to their distress. They knew, however, that the thing that set the green death free could be torn. It would bleed, and so they trailed it, desperate to feed on its flesh while equally terrified that their own flesh would be devoured before they got the chance. A high wind drove between hairline fractures in the rocks issuing forth a razor shriek that dominated all other sound. Stone and sand tumbled as claws sought purchase on rocks slick with ice and snow as the rakkes picked up their pace, growing bolder with each passing minute they went undetected. They were many and it was alone and unaware it was being hunted.
The shadow continued on, moving from cover to cover, but having to expose itself more to the open in order to keep up with the rakkes on the desert floor below. Each sighting amidst the wind-driven snow spurred the rakkes on. They were closing in. Soon, they would feed.
A heavy gust of wind kicked up a mix of snow and sand, momentarily blocking the shadow from the rakkes’ view. When it had passed the shadow was gone. Surprised, the rakkes lurched forward, forgetting their caution of before and now only focused on picking up the trail of their prey before it could slip away in the night. They bounded over rocks in blind pursuit, howling and yelping to each other as they worked themselves up into a killing frenzy. Long-extinct red-throated screams ripped through the air, seeking to flush out their quarry.
It worked.
The rakkes scrambled up and over a twenty-foot-high pinnacle of granite and descended into a shallow valley in front of another chunk of granite where the shadow stood waiting for them.
It was smaller than they had imagined; its hunch-backed body balanced on just two thick, short legs. Two ragged wings sprouted from its head and its face was covered in a thick matt of windblown fur, but its eyes were visible and without a glimmer of mercy. The green glow of impending death, however, came not from its mouth, which now smiled revealing gleaming metal teeth, but from the long black metal pipe with a wide-mouthed nozzle the demon held in its hands. Only now did the rakkes see the copper-wound hose that hung from the back of the pipe and curled up behind the demon to attach to the brass tank strapped to its back.
“You should have stayed extinct, you stupid buggers,” Yimt said, squeezing the trigger on the weapon.
Three things happened at once. The heel of Yimt’s left boot slipped on a piece of ice and his leg shot out in front of him dropping him straight down onto his backside. Instead of hitting all six of the rakkes the arc of the green phosphorescent insects shooting out of the weapon’s metal nozzle only covered the two on the far right, their howls of fear and pain drowned out by the frenzied glee of the four remaining rakkes now lunging forward.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Yimt shouted, struggling to climb to his feet before the rakkes could reach him. He clutched his chest, his hand covering a torn hole in his uniform. He stood up and swayed under the weight of the weapon on his back. Realizing it was too late to run he squeezed the trigger again, moving the nozzle side to side to spray the oncoming rakkes. Nothing came out. Elevating his cursing to greater heights he shrugged his shoulders out of the straps holding the tank to his back and heaved the entire weapon at the charging rakkes now scrambling up the other side of the crevice toward him.
The brass tank hit a rakke in the head with a satisfying clang and the hose of the metal barrel got caught up in the legs of the one behind causing all four rakkes to stumble and go down in a tangle of limbs. Not waiting to see if the tank had burst open, Yimt rolled over and crawled on his hands and knees up and over the rock he was on and rolled down the slope on the other side until a pile of rock debris stopped him.
He sat up with both arms crossed over his rib cage and let out a growl of pain. The sound of yammering rakkes clawing at the rock just the other side of where he sat got him to his feet, though the effort had him spitting blood. He searched around in the dim light looking for a weapon and a place to hide, but the first rakke had already crested the top of the rock above him. The creature’s howl vibrated off the rock around them and Yimt lost his footing again, going down to one knee.
The other rakkes appeared a moment later and then all four began to make their way down the slope toward him. Yimt took a quick look behind him, but the desert floor was still hundreds of feet below and the slope far too sheer for him to climb down. Turning back to the rakkes, he picked up a large rock in each hand and started calculating the odds. Two rocks, four rakkes.
Yimt blinked and wiped snow and sweat from his eyes and looked again. Two more figures stood atop the rock. It was difficult to make them out through the snow, but the wind died down just as they began to descend. He had time to see a drawn sword in the hand of one and a bow and arrow held by the other. A new gust of wind blew up and just before they were lost in the falling snow Yimt saw something far worse. Pointed ears.
“Nuns in butter,” he muttered, twisting the heels of his boots into the gravel in hopes of better footing on the slippery rock. “Rakkes I can deal with, but dark elves, too?” Fine, he decided, he’d have to make sure he kept an eye on the elf with the bow. If the twisted beastie decided to hang back and shoot he’d have little chance. Think, you daft dwarf, think.
He’d have to take out the elf with the bow first and then turn his attention to the rakkes, who were much closer. Hopefully, if the snow kept blowing he’d have enough cover that he could take on his attackers one at a time. It was a long shot, but it was all he had. He cocked back his left arm ready to hurl the first rock when he noticed black frost burning on its surface.
“Well I’ll be a newt in a pot,” he said, stopping in mid-throw. He focused on the rock and concentrated. Black flames rose two inches high along its surface. The roar of a rakke startled him as it reared up just feet away. Saliva flew from its open maw as its curving yellow fangs lunged for his throat.
With no time to look for the elf with the bow Yimt threw the rock. It smashed into the rakke’s face, breaking one of the upper fangs clean in two. The creature screamed in agony, but not from the broken tooth. Frost fire from the rock covered its face, washing it in flickering black flames. The oath magic took hold quickly, devouring the rakke before his eyes. First its black fur disappeared, revealing a gray, leathery hide that quickly eroded, revealing muscle and sinew that fell away in ribbons until only the silently screaming skull of the beast remained, before it, too, was consumed by the black frost.
Oblivious to the other rakke’s fate or simply too maddened to care, another of the creatures leaped over the rapidly disintegrating remains and caught Yimt full in the ribs with a clenched paw. White sparks exploded behind Yimt’s eyes as the other rock grew heavy in his hand and slipped from his fingers. He flew backward, landing in a crumpled heap on the edge of the ridge line with his head hanging over the precipice. His shako flew from his head to twirl like a top all the way to the desert floor.
Gasping for breath and clutching his side Yimt forced himself to his elbows and then his knees. He reached out with his right hand and patted the dirt looking for another rock to throw. A dark figure loomed over him and he looked up to see a rakke standing a foot away. Its mouth was a gaping jigsaw of sharp fangs. Yimt wondered why it hadn’t already lunged at him when he noticed it was cradling one of its paws. It was clearly shattered.
“You daft… silly… bugger,” he said, forcing the words out between breaths.
The rakke tilted its head in obvious pain and confusion.
“Punching a dwarf in the ribs that’s spent his whole life chewing crute is like taking a swing at a boulder. It’s the rock spice you bloody nitwit!” Yimt shouted, though the effort almost blacked him out. “It seeps into our teeth and bones. Makes them denser than you. Hell, not even a musket ball can make it through these things. And I should know.”
The rakke roared and threw back its head in preparation to pounce. Its head went back, and back, and then kept on going, rolling across its right shoulder and then tumbling down its arm and onto the gravel where it landed face up. Blood spurted from its neck as the body remained perfectly still.
“What the hell?” Yimt said, his hand finally locating a rock. He gripped it as hard as he could, feeling the frost fire take hold. His eyes, however, remained fixed on the headless rakke standing in front of him. Then as if the strings holding it up had been cut, the body collapsed straight down. It didn’t flop or spasm. Standing behind it, shrouded in swirling snow, was the elf with a now bloody sword. Looking past it, Yimt saw the crumpled bodies of the other two rakkes.
“Much obliged to you, but you ain’t taking me alive,” Yimt said, picking up the rock and bringing his arm all the way back. He saw the other elf appear out of the corner of his eye. Its bowstring was pulled fully back and an arrow pointed straight at him. The frost fire blazed like a star in his hand as he brought his arm forward to throw the rock at the elf holding the sword. The second elf released the bowstring setting the arrow to flight.
This, Yimt thought, is going to hur -
K onowa sat up straight on the wagon’s wooden bench and reached for his chest. The black acorn flared then grew quiet again. He grabbed up his musket and peered out into the night. There was nothing to see but snow and rocks and sand. Now back with the column and relatively safe he should have been able to relax, but it wasn’t working. I’m getting jumpy, he decided, sitting back against the bench. He looked over at Rallie, who continued to stare straight ahead, giving no indication she had noticed, though he knew damn well she had.
Better safe than dead, he consoled himself, resting his chin on his chest and pulling his shoulders up as far as he could. The cold was seeping into him, making him jumpy. He crossed his arms and, tucking his hands into the folds of his Hasshugeb robe, eased back further on the bench. With a scarf fashioned from a piece of a burlap sack wound around his face and his shako pulled low over his forehead only his eyes remained visible. Guilt gnawed at him in his cocoon, knowing the majority of the regiment marched in the foul weather while he rode in relative warmth. An icy gust found a chink in his fabric armor jolting him upright. He adjusted the robe before slipping back down into a semi-reclined position. For now, he could live with the guilt.
He wasn’t sure when he’d slept last. If they had any hope at all of getting out of the Expanse and to the coast he’d need to be sharp. It was a rationalization and he knew it, but he dealt with it by knowing the rear guard led by the very able Private Feylan rode along with him in the back of Rallie’s wagon. It was a well-deserved luxury and they had earned it.
Lest he be seen as playing favorites, he had also given the regiment permission to dip into the last sack of arr beans. There was no hot arr to be had on the move, but the soldiers popped the beans into their mouths and sucked on the bitter juice. Just the memory of the vile taste filled Konowa’s mouth with saliva. Each bean was like a shot of lightning. He’d once marched five days straight on nothing but water and a handful of arr. Of course, he’d started seeing orcs riding flying unicorns by the end, but he’d survived, and so would the Iron Elves.
He wriggled around, trying and failing to get comfortable. Muscles ached with memories of battle he was doing his damnedest to forget. He carefully rolled his right shoulder and quickly stopped as the motion gave fuel to the burning coal of pain lodged deep in the socket. His old friend the Duke of Rakestraw called it saber shoulder and said it happened a lot in the cavalry.
Konowa wondered what Jaal was up to. Hopefully something far less desperate than this. The wagon tilted as its right side wheels found a rut and Konowa slammed against the wooden slat that acted as an armrest. The pain in his shoulder flared, bringing his attention back to the here and now. Why couldn’t the damn cold of the oath deal with that? he wondered.
The wagon righted itself and the ride went back to being simply bone jarring. He peered into the sky. He tried to calculate the time and gave up immediately when he realized he wasn’t entirely sure what day it was let alone the hour. Already his sense of time was stretching and twisting. The driving snow dulled everything, turning the world before him into a gray-tinged blur. Not long ago such a storm would have been enough to foul his mood and send him questing deep into himself, asking why him and what the hell was going on. Now he saw the way forward and would not be deviated to either side. The Iron Elves were headed for the Shadow Monarch’s mountain and one way or another, the oath would be broken. That was the why and the what of it.
A sudden gust of wind tore a brief window in the screen of snow. The column appeared, stretching out ahead of them like a black snake, its body a series of curves as the soldiers marched. A moment later it was gone again, lost in the swirling snow. Konowa considered finding Viceroy Alstonfar-Pimmer-he corrected himself, and asking him again if he was certain the regiment was heading in the right direction. Private Renwar appeared to know, but just how sane the soldier was Konowa couldn’t say. Still, Konowa told himself, Pimmer would no doubt sound the alarm if they strayed off course. His faith in the diplomat continued to grow. Besides, to check with Pimmer would mean leaving the wagon seat just when he thought he was finding a position offering the least amount of pain. And the last time Konowa had set off by himself had not exactly gone as planned.
The regiment, Konowa concluded as he let his back sag a little more, was unerringly headed for the fort on top of Suhundam’s Hill. They would arrive at the foot of the hill in the next few hours… probably. What he hoped to find there remained a mystery to him.
The wind changed direction and Konowa picked up voices in the dark. He realized they were coming from the soldiers riding in the wagon bed behind him. A laugh drifted to him and the urge to turn and join in the conversation pulled at him hard, but he instinctively knew this was a time when soldiers needed to be alone, free to piss and moan and laugh about life, the fairer sex, food, officers, and the general state of the world from their vantage point. Konowa forced himself to stay where he was. He did, however, turn his head slightly so that he could catch a bit more of what was being said.
“… you grease it up nice and thick, see, and that keeps it from sticking when it gets hot. Now if you’re baking a rye bread you might want to consider a flat stone instead of a metal pan. Personally, I like to let the dough rise…”
Konowa smiled. A world of monsters surrounded them and their main concern was food. His own stomach gurgled and the taste of a warm loaf of fresh bread pushed all other thoughts out of his head. His fingers twitched as he remembered tearing pieces of a still hot loaf into chunks as steam rose from the soft bread within. His mother always had a wooden bowl of fresh honey for dipping, but only if he promised to eat a handful of berries and nuts as well. It was a bargain he was always happy to make. Maybe one day he’d have that chance again.
“… with the damn recipes. I could gnaw the knobby bits off a camel at this point, so leave off would you? Now here’s what you want to be puttin’ your minds to. Where’s our treasure then, eh?”
Ahh, a soldier with a bit of the pirate in him. Konowa wondered where this would go. Just a few scant hours ago all of them were a hairs-breadth from dying at the hands of infernal trees, and now they were talking about loot.
“Are you on about that again? The library burned, didn’t it? Mostly rubbish was left, scrolls and papers and such which the fire didn’t touch. The Viceroy grabbed those up and he’s welcome to them is how I see it.”
“But not all of it burned, did it?” the first soldier said. Konowa tried to place the voice but he couldn’t. He realized the only soldier he knew by name out of the rear guard was Feylan. He’d have to learn the others. They all deserved a commendation.
“Think about this,” the soldier continued. “We sail across the ocean jumping onto island after island to gut every last rakke and dark elf we find, yeah? We’re all gonna get medals for it, too, right?”
Another soldier interrupted. “Me mum’ll be right proud of me coming home with a medal or two on my jacket.” Konowa recognized the voice. Definitely Private Feylan.
“She’d be a damn sight prouder if you had a small chest of coins tucked under your arm is all I’m saying.”
More voices chimed in. Talk of riches clearly captured their imaginations.
“Duhlik says there was more in the library than we’re bein’ told. He says he knows for a fact that there’s fifty pounds of gold coins in small bags that made it out of the library.”
“Who’s Duhlik then and how many arrows did he take to the brain?”
Laughter greeted this, but the soldier talking about the gold coins would not be deterred.
“Duhlik, short fellow, about yea high, kind of weedy in the face. He’s the one what got the sister who goes bald every time she’s in a motherly way.”
“That ain’t Duhlik, that’s Wistofer, and it ain’t his sister, it’s his wife. Saints and rabid owls, man, can’t you tell them apart by now?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter who said it, right? What matters is that it’s true. We’re marching along here as thin as paupers and the Prince and the major have packed away a fortune in gold coins. Why do you think we’re lugging those cannons around with no shot for them? They stuffed the coins down the barrels see.”
“I don’t think Major Swift Dragon would do that,” Feylan said.
Konowa nodded silently in agreement, but he did admire the other soldier’s view on his general level of craftiness. Hiding valuables down a cannon barrel wasn’t a bad idea at all, at least until you had to use it.
“He’s an officer, ain’t he? They’re every one of them thieves of a sort. You know what it costs to be an officer? Lots, that’s what. You gotta buy extra uniforms for fancy balls and such, mess hall fees, rounds of drinks, nice shiny swords, a horse more times than not, and at least one mistress on the side in addition to a wife and kids. All adds up.”
“That may be true,” Private Feylan said, “but the major’s not like that.”
You just made corporal, my son, Konowa decided.
“He’s an elf, and they’re kinda peculiar when it comes to money,” Feylan continued. “Not too keen on minted coins. Now, if it was something natural like diamonds or rubies on the other hand, he’d be stuffin’ them down his pants and under his shako to be sure.”
And back to private you go.
The first soldier tried to get them back on point. “What I’m saying is, there’s treasure to be found out here. That library was just one spot, but there have to be others. Think about it. We’re going to this fort, right, and it sits on a hill overlooking a trading route. That means those elves have had time to do a little taxing of the merchants’ caravans in return for safe passage. Maybe gold coins, maybe diamonds and rubies. Whatever it is, it’s gotta be worth something. And if them elves ain’t there when we get there I say what’s the harm in snooping around a bit and seeing what we can scrounge?”
Konowa really couldn’t argue with that logic. The life of a soldier in the Calahrian Army was damn hard. Out here it was closer to a nightmare. If his elves had padded their meager pay with a few bribes here and there he wouldn’t judge them any the worse for it. They’d been dealt a crappy hand through no fault of their own. Getting a little something back seemed only natural. It made perfect sense to Konowa, yet deep down it filled him with unease. Deep, deep down, he hoped it wasn’t true.
The wagon found another rut jolting Konowa forward and back. If the conversation behind continued he could no longer hear it. He gave up trying to listen and shook himself upright while shedding drifts of snow from the folds in his robe. Brushing off more of it he noticed the flakes felt drier and colder than before. He rubbed a few flakes between his finger and thumb and immediately regretted it.
“Son of a witch,” he muttered, twisting his head to free his mouth from his makeshift scarf. He brought his stinging fingers to his lips and blew on the skin. When he pulled his hand back bright red drops of blood beaded on the pads of his finger and thumb from several small cuts.
“It’s more ice than snow,” he said, turning to Rallie.
She pushed the hood of her robe back far enough to see him out of the corner of her eye. A black cigar dangled from her lips, the end of the cigar burning bright orange in the night. “It’s worse than you think. This snow springs from the heart of Her forest. It’s tainted with metal ore. She failed in Her first attempt to plant Her forest here, so now she’s preparing the ground for another try.”
Konowa lifted his head and stuck out his tongue. The bitter tang of metal made him grimace.
“She’ll kill everything,” he said, sitting back down. He’d always believed the Shadow Monarch was mad, but in a controlled, specific way. The enormity of what She was attempting left him weak. “Rallie, She really is insane. She’s planning to destroy the entire world.”
Rallie’s cigar burned brighter as she took several puffs before answering. Her words flowed out with a stream of smoke. “I suspect that in Her mind this makes perfect sense. A world populated with nothing but sarka har, their roots ripping into the foundations of all the lands until everything is black forest. It’s certainly not what most of us would consider an improvement, but She is working at a distinct disadvantage,” she said, pointing to her head.
Konowa turned to stare straight ahead, hunching his shoulders against the cold. “And all because of the Wolf Oaks and the stupid need of my people to find a ryk faurre. Nature was doing just fine before we came along. All of this could have been avoided if we’d left well enough alone.”
“That’s a rather harsh assessment, don’t you think?” Rallie asked.
“Harsh? Look around us. Rallie, it’s snowing metal. Forests of sarka har are sprouting up everywhere, some of the buggers have even learned to walk, and we’re bound by an oath trapping us in shadow for eternity. No, I don’t think I’m being harsh enough. And when we get to Her mountain this all comes to an end.”
“So you really do intend to kill Her then?” The tone in Rallie’s voice was measured, but Konowa knew an accusation when he heard one.
“Rallie, Her crystal ball is cracked. You said so yourself. She’s already killed thousands, and for what? So some possibly sentient tree even more twisted than Her will have a lovely little place in the sun to spread its leaves? She’s a poison that needs to be eradicated before She can do any more damage.”
Rallie turned to look at him. Her eyes shouldn’t have shone that brightly from beneath her cloak. “I don’t dispute for a moment the horrors She has unleashed, but when the time comes, don’t forget that unlike Her you have choices. She cared for something so deeply that She lost Herself in it. Surely you can understand that.”
Konowa sat back a little from Rallie. “It’s not the same. All I’ve ever tried to do is what’s right. And look at what I’ve lost because of Her.” He realized his hand had come up to rub the tip of his ruined ear and he quickly brought it back down. “After what we’ve all lost? No, Rallie, there is only one choice before me.”
“You mean like at Luuguth Jor when you could have broken the oath?”
Konowa choked back what he was going to say next. He hated that Rallie was able to make something so simple and clear significantly more complicated just by asking questions.
“Life is messy, Major. We fool ourselves at our great peril if we think otherwise.”
“If She doesn’t die, how does any of this end?” Konowa finally asked, surprised that he was even considering the possibility.
“I assure you I haven’t the foggiest,” Rallie said, turning to face forward again. “But it’ll be most interesting to find out.”
Konowa waited to hear if she had more to add, but judging by the cloud of cigar smoke pouring out from her cloak it was clear she was done talking. The wind picked up, knifing its way through gaps in his robe. Cursing softly, he hunched in on himself to find some warmth. His eyelids closed of their own volition and he began to drift into sleep. He found some small comfort in the fact that with the winter storm still blowing and the horror of the walking sarka har now behind them, the regiment was slightly safer from attack. With the current state of the world, Konowa viewed that as a major accomplishment.
T he creature that had once been the man Faltinald Elkhart Gwyn, Viceroy of the Protectorate of Greater Elfkyna, and until a few hours ago the Shadow Monarch’s Emissary, struggled to hold on to its sense of being. It moved across the windswept desert, oblivious to the falling snow and the chilling cold.
Its thoughts, once sharp and precise, now spun about a wobbling axis of rage and agony. Were it to rest for even a moment it feared it would simply cease to exist, its energy scattered to the far reaches of the world. Even now, precious fragments of memory and personality crumbled and were lost.
“Diplomacy is not the victory of negotiation, but the failure of war,” it muttered to itself. Shards of the life it once lived cascaded through its mind. It saw great halls lit with a thousand candle chandeliers, the light refracting off minutely faceted crystal goblets so thin they sang with just the exhalation of breath. It recalled a map skillfully made by jewelers using the finest gems and metals. It reached out a hand, grasping at something that wasn’t there.
The hand closed in a tight fist and it dug deep into the agony and found white, piercing pain and clung to it while the rest of its mind spiraled faster and faster into madness.
I am free! The shackles that had bound it were broken. With that knowledge its anger grew, coalescing into something clear and simple that it could grasp. The Shadow Monarch betrayed me! The elf witch struck a deal with the oath-bound soldier of the Iron Elves. But the creature had sacrificed much to be Her Emissary, not that human. It was… unfair.
The creature felt a new emotion take hold, one more powerful than its rage or its suffering-revenge. “Talk loudly so that your opponent doesn’t hear the assassin creeping up from behind,” it said, seeing waiters in crisp white jackets moving silently behind a line of high-back chairs. A single flash of a knife and a guest’s soup would grow cold. It laughed, hoping it would soon settle the score with the soldier that had usurped it. Rakkes howled as it laughed and the creature became aware of the growing pack of rakkes surrounding it as it moved across the sand. Hundreds now followed it. The simple beasts looked to it for guidance. More and more rakkes joined as they moved in a northerly direction.
“Diplomacy buys time until the army is in place,” it said, looking around at the ancient creatures brought back to life in order to wreak havoc.
The creature smiled, revealing a row of black teeth hoary with frost. The rakkes had picked up a scent and were hunting.
This was an army. Nothing as skilled or precise as the soldiers it had once directed through its efforts at the negotiating table, but these things knew how to kill, and the time for diplomacy was over.
Distant memories of diplomatic missions broke through the whirling chaos of its mind. Armies were often used as leverage, forcing the enemy to concede without blood ever being spilled. It was a quaint notion, and one the creature no longer understood. Its only reason for living, in fact the only thing keeping it alive, was the need to wreak terrible vengeance on those that had wronged it.
The pack picked up its pace and began growling in low, guttural tones to each other. Prey had been spotted. The creature pushed itself forward until it took its rightful position at the head of the pack, its pace unnaturally quick as it scurried across the frozen desert. Its eyes, now frozen orbs of black ice, pivoted within its head with a grating noise of granite on glass. Pain flared in its skull as pure light, and it stumbled before regaining its footing. Forcing its head up, it peered into the darkness. Three hundred yards away a group of three wagons pulled by teams of camels rolled slowly along a caravan path. The creature waited, hoping. A moment later, a column of marching soldiers appeared out of the swirling gloom following the wagons.
The Iron Elves! It had found them. Saliva trickled down what was left of its face as icicle fangs framed its mouth. There would be no ceremony, no elaborate signing of documents, no fake smiles and exaggerated handshakes. This would be a massacre.
It would have its revenge, and the rakkes would feed.
Finding control in its pain, the creature wrapped itself tight around its desire to kill. Rakkes slunk away from it as it began to hum with an eerie vibration.
The creature considered ordering the rakkes to spare its usurper, but there would be no need. Its power was great, too strong for any rakkes to defeat. That task would fall to the former Emissary, and it welcomed it.
“I have brought you food.”
The rakkes gave full throat to their howls. They stomped the ground and beat their chests. Hackles rose and eyes slitted as their world squeezed down into a single red-hazed need.
“Tear them apart!”
The rakkes raced across the snow-covered sand. All along the column shouts and cries rang out. Camels started and tried to flee as their drivers vainly attempted to keep them under control. The soldiers stopped where they were and began to frantically ram charges into their muskets as the rakkes closed to within two hundred yards. The first shots split the night in a ragged, undisciplined burst. Hot yellow tongues of flames illuminated the hasty line of defense as the column made its stand. Here and there a rakke tumbled and fell, a head shattered, a heart holed, but for every rakke brought down dozens more came after it.
A more controlled volley slashed through the forward ranks of the rakkes at a hundred yards, scything down over a dozen. The surviving rakkes only howled louder and leaped over their dead. Fresher meat was only a short distance away.
The creature looked everywhere for the oath-bound soldier that had stolen its place. It tried to marshal its senses enough to search for it, but the smell of blood was in the air and the rising crescendo of the rakke pack overpowered everything until it, too, was consumed with the need to rend flesh.
Cries and shouts rose above the charging rakkes as the men of the column saw their fate moments away. In a feat of arms made possible by sheer desperation they managed one more volley as the rakkes crossed the last ten yards. Rakkes tumbled at their feet in a spray of blood and flesh and bone fragments, their fur smoldering from the burning gunpowder.
And then the rakkes were upon them.
Screams rose and then cut off abruptly as claw and fang made short work of the flesh before them. A few soldiers used their muskets as clubs in one last attempt to cling to life, but their effort only added seconds. Any man who turned and ran was borne down by claws in his back and felt the hot, fetid breath of a rakke in its ear as the beast’s fangs bit down on its neck.
“Where are you?” the creature shouted, wading through the carnage as the rakkes swarmed over the wagons like scavenger beetles stripping the flesh from the carcass of a dead animal. Camels went down under the weight of several rakkes with a last, defiant braying. Drivers were pulled from their benches and torn into bite-sized pieces.
“… mercy…”
The creature turned, searching for the source of the plea. It spotted a bloody figure a few feet away half buried under the carnage. Part of a gnawed rib cage obscured its view. It strode over and blasted the carrion to pieces. It looked down. The dead were a mix of elves and men. It began lifting and tossing the bodies aside as if they were no more than pieces of wet, dripping cloth. In its haste to get to the survivor it tore arms from sockets and spilled innards in sickening heaps until finally it found a dwarf. It reached down and grabbed the dwarf by its beard and pulled it from the pile.
“Where is he?”
Frost began to sparkle along the dwarf’s beard as it struggled to breathe. One eye was closed, and it was missing an arm. The wet socket where its shoulder used to be froze over in a black, crackling mess and the dwarf cried out in pain. The creature looked past it to one of the overturned wagons. Artifacts lay spilled in the snow, the gold and gems going unnoticed by the rampaging rakkes. Something about this triggered a memory in it. Library. Kaman Rhal.
“Who are you?”
The dwarf motioned with its one good arm toward its throat and the creature released its grasp, letting it fall to the desert floor. Rakkes moved in to finish it off, but the creature hissed and kept them at bay.
“My… my name is Griz Jahrfel, I am a merchant…”
The creature searched what little memory remained and realized its mistake. “You aren’t the Iron Elves!”
The dwarf shook his head. “No. Some of the elves used to be, but not anymore. They work… they work for me now,” he said, his voice breaking into sobs.
The creature conjured a spear of black ice and stabbed it into the fleshy thigh of the dwarf, who began screaming.
“Where are they? Where?”
“I don’t know! If they left the valley they probably headed west along the main caravan route. Stop, please!”
The creature remembered the jeweled map. It had been a thing of much beauty. Precious metals and sparkling gems gleamed before its eyes, tracing borders and marking the limits of the empire it had once helped expand. That the map was worth a fortune meant nothing to it now, but the location of the caravan route did. It saw it clearly and understood. It vanished the spear and walked away.
“Wait! Kill me, please kill me! Don’t let them-” the dwarf’s words turned into screams as the rakkes moved in.
With blood dripping from their fur and chunks of flesh still hanging from their mouths the pack moved off with the creature urging them on, a strange phrase stuck like a metal pick in what was left of its mind.
Suhundam’s Hill.
Konowa opened his eyes and scanned what little he could see of the desert around them. The acorn against his chest thrummed with a cool intensity. It wasn’t a warning as much as an acknowledgment of power somewhere out there in the dark. He wondered briefly if it could be Visyna, but suspected it was something he’d just as soon never meet.
The wagon continued its rocking motion as Rallie steered the camels, and Konowa let his eyes close again, telling himself he’d rest them for just a few minutes.
“Double bloody hell!”
He was standing among the Wolf Oaks of his homeland.
I’m dreaming. Again.
He fought the urge to shout or kick or even try to rouse himself from sleep. Based on his previous visits with the Shadow Monarch there didn’t seem much chance that he was going to enjoy this, but perhaps he could learn something useful.
All right then, he said to himself, let’s have a look around.
The forest blurred and suddenly the birthing meadow spread out before him. The sun sat low in the sky casting long shadows from the towering Wolf Oaks surrounding the meadow. Saplings rose arrow straight above the dark, green grass, their leaves unfurling before his eyes as they oriented themselves toward the sunlight. He took a deep breath and was surprised when he didn’t feel the crisp cold of a late frost. He took a couple of steps then stopped and looked down. His boots glistened with dew. There was no frost anywhere.
This didn’t make sense. The Shadow Monarch bonded with Her Silver Wolf Oak during a late frost. He glanced around the meadow trying to find Her.
A figure sat huddled by a sapling near the edge of the meadow on the far side.
Konowa shrugged and started forward again. He went to shift his musket to his shoulder but his hands were empty. It was just a dream, but all the same, he wanted a weapon in his hands. He reached for his saber, but his scabbard was empty. He stopped and looked down. A twin-headed dwarf battle-ax lay in the grass at his feet.
“Well that’s odd,” he said, shaking his head as soon as the words came out of his mouth. This was a dream. Odd was merely the starting point.
He reached down and picked the ax up, grunting at the weight. It felt good to hold it, but a guilty feeling kept him from enjoying himself. Axes were viewed as evil incarnate by the elves of the Long Watch. Anything that harmed trees was seen that way. The elves of the Long Watch weren’t known for their sense of humor. Konowa knew his father’s choice to transform into a squirrel was partly due to the old elf’s desire to tweak their noses and partly because his mother would have disowned him or worse if he’d chosen the form of a beaver instead.
“What are you planning to do with that?”
Konowa turned. Regimental Sergeant Major Yimt Arkhorn stood among the saplings a few feet away. Unlike Konowa he was fully armed with his shatterbow cradled in his hands and the wicked-looking drukar knife hanging from his belt.
“You’re dead,” Konowa said.
“And a good morning to you, too,” Yimt replied. He didn’t smile, but looked around the meadow. If he noticed the figure in the distance he paid it no attention.
Konowa gathered his wits. “What happened to you?”
“Think, Major, think. How would I know that? I’m not really me, I’m you, or rather the part of you remembering me. All I know is what you know… more or less.”
Riddles, lovely. The conversation looked dangerously similar to ones he had with his father, at least until the old elf turned into a squirrel. Konowa decided to try a different approach.
“Any idea why a dwarf ax would be lying around here?”
Yimt shrugged. “Got all my weapons here. Guess that’s for you.”
Konowa rested the end of the ax handle on the ground and tilted the weapon away from his body to get a better look at the twin half-moon-shaped blades. “So why do dwarves use axes? I never understood that. You’re born miners for the most part. Wouldn’t shovels make more sense?”
“Ever try to bash a man’s head in with a shovel? It can be done, but it ain’t pretty, and it usually takes more than one swing. But that’s not why. It’s like you said, we’re miners.”
Konowa waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. Apparently, Yimt thought it was obvious. Konowa didn’t.
“That doesn’t make sense. There’s no way you swing these things down in a mine shaft,” Konowa said, flicking a finger against one of the blades. A sharp ting rang out that echoed far longer than it should have.
Yimt nodded. “True enough. But mines need shoring up, and that’s done with big, thick timbers, and that means dwarves spend a lot of time chopping down trees to use in their mines.”
“I didn’t know that,” Konowa said, but now that he thought about it, it made sense. “Is that why elves and dwarves don’t get along?”
Yimt lifted up the brim of his shako to get a better look at Konowa. “What, you mean any better than elves and humans, or humans and other humans, or perhaps you mean you and just about everyone else?”
“Point taken, point taken.” This wasn’t quite the jovial dwarf that Konowa remembered. Or maybe it was the best he could remember. Dreams were tricky. He knew he’d missed something, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Yimt tugged on his beard and looked around. “Look, we’re being watched, so I have to make this fast.”
Konowa looked around the meadow. Dusk had fallen, though he could have sworn it had been early morning only a minute ago. The figure still sat at the far side of the meadow. Something about it looked naggingly familiar to Konowa.
“What?” Konowa asked.
Yimt motioned with his shatterbow toward the distant figure. “Use the ax.”
Konowa looked down at the ax, then back up. “That won’t solve anything. This is a dream. I know it’s a dream. Nothing I do here is going to matter when I wake up.”
“Then the sooner you get on with it, the sooner you can wake up,” Yimt said. “Use the ax.”
Mist started pouring between the trees, blanketing the meadow in a white down. A pain began to grow in Konowa’s chest. He tried shrugging his shoulders and taking a deep breath, but it didn’t help.
Konowa looked at the ax again, then out toward the figure still sitting by the sapling. “Look, I hoped I’d figure something out by this-” He stopped talking. He stood alone, and night had fallen. Konowa gripped the ax in both hands and started walking. The mist swirled around his knees. The pain in his chest wouldn’t go away. He rolled his shoulders and got a better grip on the ax. Yimt is right and Rallie is wrong, he thought, there is no other choice. She has to die.
He reached the Shadow Monarch long before he was ready. Though She was still shrouded in mist he could see Her clear enough that he wouldn’t miss.
He raised the ax, ready to swing.
She turned to look up at him. Konowa was now looking at himself.
The ax hung still in the air as he stared at his double. He knew this was a dream, and that it had to mean something else, but what?
“Do it,” the Konowa by the tree said. “Swing the ax.”
Konowa shook his head. “You aren’t real. I know that. So what the hell does this mean?”
His double was gone, and now Kritton sat by the tree. Konowa’s hands gripped the ax harder.
“You won’t have the guts when the time comes, I know it. You know it,” Kritton sneered. “All of this, everything you’ve been through, and you can’t finish things, even when it’s just a dream.” Kritton started to laugh, his mouth growing large and filling with sharp, black teeth covered in frost.
Konowa swung the blade.
Konowa leaned forward, opening his eyes and ready to strike. “Hell and a handbasket,” he said, trying to shake the sleep from his head. His dreams just kept getting weirder. He looked down and saw his hands gripped tightly around his musket. He pried them loose and flexed his fingers.
“You wouldn’t believe the dream I just had…” he said, then trailed off, realizing the wagon wasn’t moving. He blinked and sat up straighter and looked over at Rallie. She was looking straight up. The acorn pressed against his chest was ice cold and he understood what the pain in the dream had been. He looked up as well.
“What-” was all he managed to say before Rallie turned and shoved him hard. Konowa reached out to Rallie to steady himself and managed to grab a scroll of paper from her robe before he was falling off the wagon, face-first into the snow. The shock of the snow against his flesh brought him fully awake. He scrambled to his feet cursing, only to be knocked flat again when Rallie landed on top of him. Before he could try to get up, an ear-splitting noise of rending, splintering wood shattered the night followed by the rush of wind and screams. He drove himself up using his elbows and flopped over onto his back. The backboard of the bench on Rallie’s wagon was in pieces. Two seconds later and that would have been him.
Soldiers ran and stumbled to get away from it. Two of the camels had broken free from their harness and were galloping off into the night. The other two were little more than bloody heaps on the road, staining the snow a bright red. A single wheel from Rallie’s wagon broke loose and rolled down the road like a drunken sailor.
The acorn flared a biting cold, and he heard the thrum of air on wings accompanied by the creaking of wood he’d only ever associated with a ship’s masts. He followed the sound and his legs began to tremble of their own accord at what he saw.
A flying tree in the shape of a dragon. His mind refused to accept it even as something deeper and more instinctual in him understood the horror approaching and sparked every fiber in his body to move.
“What is it with these damn trees?!” he shouted. He jumped to his feet as his fear gave energy to his anger. His understanding of the world kept shifting under his feet. The transformed sarka har flew in low over the column, dipping its front branch laced with thick, sharp spikes. Three soldiers dove out of the way, but a fourth wasn’t as lucky and was impaled through the shoulder.
The sarka har flew up until Konowa could barely see it. He followed its movement by the screams of the soldier. When the pitch of the screams changed Konowa knew the tree had let go. A moment later the soldier fell in a blur to impact onto the road with a sickening thud. Konowa didn’t bother to wait to see his shade appear, but said a silent good-bye to another Private Grostril, whoever this one might be.
“Rallie, are you okay?” he asked, remembering the scribe and turning to check on her. She was already sitting up and had her quill and the scroll of paper in her lap. Konowa felt relief flood through him to be replaced by a cold emptiness a moment later when she began cursing and tossed the scroll away.
“It’s too wet. The ink just smears and won’t hold its shape,” she said, climbing to her feet. She still clenched a cigar in her mouth, the tip of it burning like a smithy’s forge. “My fault entirely for not giving you fair warning, but time was working against us.”
“Isn’t it always,” Konowa said, drawing his saber. “Stay low and try not to move.”
“Go, I’ll be fine,” she said.
Konowa turned and ran onto the road, shouting to the soldiers around him. “Stay low! Load your weapons and fix bayonets, but hold your fire until I give the command.”
A piece of wing from a shako fluttered down to land by his boots. He looked up and saw the two sarka har circling overhead.
“What in the blue heavens are those?” Viceroy Alstonfar said, trotting up to Konowa with something close to glee in his voice.
“Dead in another minute,” Konowa barked, spying RSM Aguom ten yards away rounding up more troops. “Have you seen Private Renwar? We need those damn shades and we need them now!”
Aguom shrugged his shoulders. “No, but I’ll find him!”
Konowa slashed his saber in the air. “Send someone. You stay here and get the troops organized. We’re going to fire a volley straight up at the things and knock them out of the sky.”
“Yes, sir,” Aguom shouted back.
Konowa turned and saw the Viceroy was still standing beside him. “You should find a place to hide, Viceroy, the road is not safe.”
“I’m not sure the surrounding desert offers any better cover. Better to stay among the column and be one of many than off by myself I think.”
The logic of it made Konowa pause. “Where’s the Prince?”
Pimmer’s face turned a ghostly white. “Mercy, in all the hubbub, I forgot all about him! The future king and I left him alone!”
“We’ll find him,” Konowa said, not caring a whit if they did or not at the moment. “Right now we have more pressing duties.” Turning, he marched over to a group of Iron Elves and crouched down on the road beside them. “Just like before, only we’ll be shooting up. On the next pass we’ll shoot at the first one that comes.”
“But Major, what are those things?” a soldier asked.
“Dead in another minute,” Viceroy Alstonfar said, coming up to crouch beside Konowa. “Listen to the major and follow his lead and you’ll all be fine.”
Konowa twisted on the soles of his boots to get a look at the Viceroy. The diplomat met his gaze and gave him a big smile followed by a wink. Konowa decided, barely, that he didn’t want to make a habit of killing viceroys.
“Nicely put,” he finally said, spinning back to face his men.
“Good to keep the men’s spirits up,” Pimmer said, reaching out and patting Konowa on the back before quickly removing his hand as frost fire crackled to life and stung his bare flesh.
“They’re coming!”
Snow swirled and buffeted into trailing vortexes behind the wings of the sarka har as they dove. The column lay spread out and vulnerable.
Each tree lowered its jawlike branch. Wicked-looking thorns gleamed like saliva on wet teeth. More thorns sprouted at the end of branches now shaped like claws.
Several soldiers started to get up to run.
“Hold your ground!” Konowa shouted. “You’re not chickens being chased by a hawk. You’re Calahria’s finest. On my command you will fire and you will knock those bloody trees out of the sky. Is that clear?”
The responding “yes, sir” wasn’t as enthusiastic as Konowa would have liked, but it would do. The men were back under control.
“RSM, did you hear that?” Konowa said, looking over toward the group of soldiers ten yards away.
Aguom waved. The whites of his eyes were visible, but his voice remained rock solid. “We’re ready, Major, just say the word.”
Konowa stood up and walked down the road so that he was just in front of the massing soldiers. He stopped where Rallie’s wayward wagon wheel now stood forlornly upright, completely undamaged. He turned briefly to look as many in the eyes as he could before spinning abruptly and facing the sarka har.
He felt naked in the cold. Every survival instinct told him to run, but he ignored them. Other instincts came to the fore, whispering in his ear to jump into the air and tear the trees apart with his hands and teeth. He settled on something between the two and raised his saber high into the air.
“Ready…”
Soldiers ground their knees a little deeper into the snow to steady themselves. In all their training they’d never practiced shooting up into the sky. Several wound up with bloody knees as they pressed hard enough to reach the gravel of the roadway itself. An enterprising few rested the barrel of their musket on the shoulder of the soldier in front of them while three chose to lay flat on their backs and use the very ground itself as a means of steadying their aim.
Unaware or uncaring of the reception that awaited them, the sarka har dove. Each tucked in their branch-and-leaf wings with a grating shriek and steepened their dive. A high-pitched whistling began to build, cutting through the wind and the shouting.
Konowa tapped into his anger and forced the frost fire to light his blade. He had no illusions that it would make one bit of difference against these monsters, but he had another motive. “On my command, shoot above the tip of my saber, men, and not a moment before. We’ll get one chance at this, so make it count.” He could have left it at that, probably should have, but in a night that seemed destined to be his last, he needed to say more. “Remember, shoot just above the saber, not below. I’ve already had one ear tip trimmed, I don’t need a matching set!”
Konowa’s own laughter filled his ears making it difficult to tell whether anyone else had joined in. Above, the sarka har angled their approach and now lined up one behind the other.
They were diving directly at him.
“Aim…”
Prayers, curses, and possibly even a song rose from the ranks. No matter where a soldier kneeled or lay it looked like the wooden dragons were diving straight at them. More than a few hands trembled, and at least two soldiers had left their ramrods sticking in the barrels of their muskets, but be they terrified or simply scared, they held their ground and took aim.
Still a hundred yards away and forty yards high, the lead sarka har thrust out its wings with a crack like a cannon shot, slowing its descent. The sarka har behind it followed suit. A moment later each had lowered its thorn-lined branch in preparation of a raking run along the column.
Konowa filled his lungs with air and opened his eyes wide. Whatever was about to happen, he wasn’t going to miss it. He sighted along the edge of his saber blade and squeezed the pommel until he was sure he would crush it.
The lead monster filled Konowa’s sky above his saber as the sarka har hurtled downward to ten yards away.
“Fire!”
T he massed musket fire of the regiment lit up the night. Thunder and smoke rolled over Konowa as the volley snapped forth like iron rain. Musket balls whizzed above his head, one even grazing his outstretched saber blade setting the lead ball ablaze with black flame. The lead sarka har took the full brunt of the volley. Its wings shredded as the musket balls tore it apart while its trunk shattered into splinters as the shots carved through it. It exploded in a searing flash, scattering chunks of flaming debris outward as it continued its dive toward the ground.
And Konowa.
Konowa never considered joining the artillery. To be an officer in that branch of the service meant having a superior understanding of mathematics and physics, especially the calculation of such bizarre, finicky notions as velocity and trajectory. He didn’t have the head for that kind of thing. Just how much he didn’t was now hurtling toward him as an expanding fireball.
“Son of a-” was as far he got, not out of any sense of sudden decorum, but on account of the wind being knocked from his lungs. The flaming pieces of the sarka har crashed into the road three feet in front of Konowa and bounced. A six-foot section slammed into the wagon wheel in front of him which, while saving his life, still hit him at a high rate of speed. The world as he knew it vanished in a tornado of bright and dark, fire and ice.
And then he was floating. Blood pounded in his ears and every joint, muscle, and bone in his body felt pulverized. The wind tore at his uniform and he became conscious that he was trying and failing to get air into his lungs. He convulsed and a gulp of frigid air plunged down his throat, snapping open his eyes.
Sounds and sensations flooded back. He could see the flaming wreckage of the first sarka har on the road thirty feet below. He couldn’t see the second.
Konowa became aware of a rhythmic creaking and turned his head just enough to catch the up and down beat of a large wooden wing. As his head cleared, the scope of just how much he hadn’t thought through where to stand hit him. He was hanging by the waist, probably from his leather belt by the feel of his stomach, facing downward, which meant the second sarka har was directly above.
The shouts of the soldiers below began to make it through to his brain.
“Jump, Major, jump!”
“The snow will break your fall!”
“Jump!”
The sarka har lurched and Konowa experienced a feeling of momentary weightlessness. He twisted his body so that he could get a better look at the sarka har. For the second time that night he wished he hadn’t.
The bloody thing was on fire.
The urgent shouts for him to jump rang clear in his ears. He fumbled madly for his belt buckle and began thrashing at the branches that he was tangled up in. The sarka har didn’t appear to know he was there as it was having an increasingly difficult time staying airborne. With his back now to the earth below, Konowa couldn’t see how high they were off the ground, but the rushing wind in his ears and rising emptiness in his stomach told him it was getting closer.
He swung his fists against the branches and with a loud snap he was free and falling. He spun as he dropped and saw a snowdrift rushing up to him as he completed two and a half revolutions. He missed the snowbank by a good six feet, careened off a camel-dead or alive he couldn’t tell, they all smelled the same-and skipped off the ground four times in a succession of geysers of snow before sliding to a gentle stop flat on his back.
Time didn’t stand still so much as avert its eyes. Konowa was aware he wasn’t breathing, but he couldn’t tell if it was because he was dead, or that he’d momentarily forgot how. He suspected he was still alive.
“Bloody hell!”
Pain registered in overlapping waves that threatened to take his breath away again. He tried to lift his head and immediately regretted it.
“… bloody hell…”
A rumbling explosion marked the demise of the second sarka har somewhere off to his left. He smiled, hoping it hurt as much as he did. A sweaty face appeared above him and it took a moment for its features to swim into view before they promptly went the other way into a throbbing blur.
“Major! That was magnificent! I can safely say in all my years serving in the diplomatic corps I have never seen anything that could come close in sheer spectacle,” the Viceroy said, his evident cheer just one more pain for Konowa to bear.
Konowa managed to curl a finger of his right hand and motioned for the Viceroy to come closer. He needed to be quick. His vision was graying around the edges and his body was slipping into a euphoric numbness he recognized as impending unconsciousness.
The Viceroy leaned in and turned his ear to Konowa’s lips. Konowa spoke, though his words were little more than a whisper. The light was fading fast, but he had to tell someone one more time in case these were his last words
Soldiers rushed up to stand around. RSM Aguom arrived a moment later and knelt down on the other side of him. “What did he say, Viceroy?”
Viceroy Alstonfar looked up with pursed lips before responding. Before he could say anything, Konowa rallied enough to say it himself.
“Whatever you do… if there are any ashes left of me… don’t put them in a damn wooden box.”
V isyna pulled her hair back and tied it in ponytail, carefully brushing back every wet strand matted to her forehead. Her hands only shook a little. She hadn’t had a drink of water in hours, and hadn’t slept in well over a day, but it was more than that. She didn’t need her weaving to know that blood was going to spill. With each step they took in the company of Kritton and the disgraced elves, a reckoning loomed.
“They’re going to kill us,” she whispered to Chayii, turning her head slightly to watch the elf’s reaction.
Chayii kept walking, her left hand gently stroking the fur on Jir’s head as he padded beside her. “They have strayed far from their upbringing. Kritton is a foul influence on them, and I fear that his taint is every bit as toxic as the Shadow Monarch’s.”
The procession suddenly ground to a halt. Visyna stood on the balls of her feet, her hands by her sides. She didn’t know what to expect, but feared the worst.
“We’ll rest for ten minutes, no more!” Kritton shouted from further up the tunnel.
The prisoners collapsed to the sandy floor. Visyna was tempted to join them, but she couldn’t rest. Their very lives were at stake.
“What are you doing, my child?” Chayii asked, easing herself into a sitting position against one wall. Jir sank down onto his belly and rested his head in her lap and closed his eyes.
“I don’t know…” she said, letting the thought trail off as she moved up the tunnel.
She was surprised she didn’t bump into an elf right away, but they had stayed as far away from the prisoners as possible. After all, it wasn’t as if they could run anywhere down here. Still, perhaps there was something to that. Had Kritton warned them to stay back? But why? She was still pondering that when a bayonet loomed out of the shadows and pointed straight at her stomach. She froze, following the steel back to the musket and the elf holding it.
“Get back with the others.”
Visyna stood her ground. “I’m just stretching my legs,” she lied, cringing as soon as she said it. They had been marching forever, who could possibly need to stretch their legs?
The bayonet retreated as the elf pulled his musket in closer to his body, but kept the weapon pointed at her. He stepped forward until he was three feet away. “He said to watch out for you, that you couldn’t be trusted,” the elf said.
Visyna offered the elf a sad smile. Kritton would distrust her, and with good reason. Still, in the dim light, this elf looked more like a beggar who needed help than a killer disciple of a traitor. The soldier’s cheeks were gaunt and his eyes blinked slowly, as if he was just waking up. His uniform was a patchwork of inexpert repairs. Several buttons had been replaced by bits of wood, and most shockingly, his bayonet had rust on it. She had been around the Iron Elves long enough to know a soldier’s first duty was to keep his weapon in perfect working order.
“He told me you were the best soldiers in the Empire,” Visyna said, giving her voice a soft, maternal lilt. “He told me that when we found you, everything would be right again.”
The elf blinked and took a hand off his musket. “Corporal Kritton said that?”
“Major Swift Dragon said that.”
At the mention of Konowa’s name, the elf stood up straight and he brought his free hand back down to grip his musket. “Do not mention his name,” the elf hissed between clenched teeth. His eyes were now wide open. “He destroyed us.”
Visyna stepped back a pace, shocked at the vehemence in the elf. “He feels terrible about what happened, but surely you know he did it with the best of intentions. The Viceroy was in league with-”
The bayonet shot forward and came to rest directly under her chin.
“If you mention his name again, I will gut you,” the elf said. Spittle frothed at the corners of his mouth and his hands shook. Visyna could only stare into his unblinking eyes. She was face-to-face with an elf every bit as lost as the diova gruss, elves turned mad by their bond with a Silver Wolf Oak like Tyul… and the Shadow Monarch.
After what seemed like an eternity, the elf lowered his bayonet and turned and walked further up the tunnel, leaving Visyna alone and shaken. She wanted to feel sympathy for the elf, but her overwhelming reaction was one of concern for Konowa. His elves hate him. He’ll be devastated. As she collected herself, she realized she wasn’t grasping the bigger picture. They wanted to kill him.
She turned and trudged back toward the group and found an empty section of wall to sit down against. A shadow loomed over Visyna and she brought up her hands, prepared to try to weave, but instead of a bayonet there was a goat-hide water skin being held out to her. She blinked and brushed the hair from her face.
“Water?”
She reached out and took the water skin, smiling her thanks at the soldier holding it. Private Hrem Vulhber rubbed his wet hands on his caerna then sat down opposite her, careful to keep the cloth wrap tucked. He rested his back against the wall and eased his legs out in front of him at an angle away from her so that his boots almost touched the far wall. Like all the Iron Elves his kneecaps were now a deep bronze from their exposure to the sun. Visyna glanced at the back of her hand and saw the color wasn’t that different from her own.
“Another few weeks and I’ll pass for an Elfkynan,” Hrem said as if reading her thoughts.
Visyna’s cheeks grew hot and she hid her embarrassment by lifting the water skin up to her mouth and pouring a long drink. The water had a sharp tang to it from whatever wine had been in the water skin before, but for all of that it was the best drink she’d had in some time. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve, then leaned forward and gave the skin back to Hrem, careful not to touch his hand. He took it just as carefully and put a small cork stopper in the funnel.
“I saw you try to talk to one of them, not smart,” he said. He didn’t sound angry, more concerned.
“They were Konowa’s brothers. I just can’t believe they could turn so bad.”
Hrem looked up and down the tunnel before responding. “War is like that. I’ve seen bad men become angels, and good ones devils. These elves were good. We all heard the stories about the Iron Elves. Their reputation in battle was legendary. Made them sound inhuman, er, inelfen I guess,” Hrem said.
“Then how could they be so… so lost now?” Visyna asked, trying and failing to understand the rage she’d seen in the elf’s eyes.
“Every man, and elf, has his limit. No telling where or when you’ll reach it, but you shoot and get shot at long enough, and parts of you just stop working. You see things you can’t unsee.” Hrem’s voice grew quiet as his words slowed. “You feel too much, or maybe, you stop feeling altogether. You do things you never thought you’d ever do, or even could do. Every soldier is different, but in the end, you might win the battles, but you’ll never lose the memories of them. It’s the kind of thing that can eat you up inside until good and bad are just words with no meaning.”
“Are you saying there’s no hope for them?” Visyna asked.
Hrem shrugged his huge shoulders, the leather cross-belts over his jacket scraping against the rock as he did so. “Maybe, but I doubt it. If they were going to change, the time was back in the library when Kritton was pointing his musket at Sergeant Arkhorn. When they didn’t stop Kritton, they sealed their fate.”
The rock behind Visyna’s back vibrated as Scolly let out a shuddering snore a few feet away. Yimt’s squad were arrayed around her like rag dolls dropped from a great height and left in whatever position they fell. Teeter, the former sailor, had fallen asleep with his chin resting on his chest and his unlit pipe dangling from his mouth. Beside him, the religious farmer, Inkermon, slumped forward with his head between his knees, his hands palm up on the tunnel floor. Curled up in a ball directly across from them, Zwitty moaned and twitched as if caught in the throes of a nightmare. Visyna debated, then decided against coughing loudly to wake him up. He was less annoying when asleep.
A few yards up the tunnel she could just make out the shapes of Chayii and Jir in the dim light. The bengar’s head still rested on the elf’s lap like a big dog. Visyna tried to reconcile that image with what she knew of the animal’s predatory nature and found it difficult. Jir, like everyone else, was a very contradictory creature.
She tried to see past Chayii and Jir, but there wasn’t enough light. The elves were not in sight, but she knew they were close by.
She decided to change the subject. “It feels like they’re marching us all the way to the Hyntaland,” Visyna said, leaning her head back against the wall and wiggling her toes in her sandals. The bottoms of her feet felt like she’d been walking on coals and her shinbones ached.
“Or as far as the coast, at which point we might need to hold our breath,” Hrem said, his voice deadpan but his eyes twinkling.
Visyna smiled up at the ceiling. “I suppose the ocean might pose a bit of challenge,” she said, although she knew she had to come up with a plan to free them long before then. That elf soldier’s eyes hadn’t shown a hint of mercy.
“We’re still a fair ways away. I don’t think we’ve covered more than twenty-one miles so far.”
Visyna brought her head forward and focused on Hrem. He wasn’t smiling. “You know this?”
Hrem reached up a hand and tapped a finger against his temple. “No magic required, just the ability to keep count in my head.”
“Any idea where we’re going? Are they heading us toward the coast?”
Hrem removed his shako and began scratching his head. His black hair was wet and plastered against his skull. The more he scratched the more the hair stood up on end. When he was satisfied with his efforts he put his shako back on his head with a soft thunk. “Near as I can tell, we started heading north, but then there were some twists and turns. I doubt we’re going south because that takes us deep into the desert and further away from their homeland. Angling toward the coast makes more sense. I heard the major say they were stationed at Suhundam’s Hill, and I know that’s due west of the library. If I had to wager on it, other than my life, which is already in the pot,” he said, a small grin lighting up his face, “it feels like we’re heading west. Makes sense, too. They meet up with that dwarf Griz at their old fort, resupply, and make for the coast.”
“Why not head back to Nazalla? There are all kinds of ships there.”
Hrem waved away her idea. “True, but these elves are deserters now, just like that bastard Kritton, so Nazalla is the last place they’d want to go. Too many Calahrian forces there. Assuming the city didn’t rise up in rebellion…”
Images of their recent escape from Nazalla flashed unbidden in Visyna’s mind. Private Renwar’s calling of the shades of the dead had led to many deaths.
“You’re right, but no one but us knows they’re deserters, and it was Kritton that killed Sergeant Arkhorn. They could still redeem themselves,” Visyna said, knowing as soon as she said it that it was foolish. The elves had cast their lot with Kritton. There was no turning back for them.
“I wish it was different,” Hrem said, “but they just went too far over the edge. I actually feel sorry for the poor bastards. They’re really just as cursed as we are. They may not be bound by this oath, but they’ve had to live with being born with a black ear tip and their banishment a lot longer.”
Anger welled up in Visyna. He blames Konowa. “Major Swift Dragon acted in the best interests of all people when he killed that horrible Viceroy. Do you know the horrors that Viceroy committed against my people? It’s true Gwyn turned out to be even worse, but Kon-Major Swift Dragon wasn’t to know that. And he certainly couldn’t have known his reward for trying to rid the world of such evil would be the loss of his command and the banishment of his regiment out here.”
Hrem held up his hands in peace. “I ain’t blaming the major, Miss Tekoy. He was right to kill the first Viceroy even if it did lead to all of this. I know he feels bad about it and wants to do right by these elves, but Kritton found them before he did. Now they think whatever treasure they scavenged out of the library will be enough to buy back their honor. The really sad thing about it is, they could have had their honor back for the price of a single musket ball put in the back of Kritton’s head. But they had their chance and didn’t take it. Like I said, I feel sorry for them, but because of them, Yimt is dead. If they find themselves on the end of a rope one day, I won’t shed a tear.”
Visyna bowed her head toward Hrem. “My apologies, Hrem, I should have known better.”
“We have faith in the major. He may be as stubborn as a two-headed mule and thrice as ornery, but deep down we know he’ll do right by us.” The conviction in Hrem’s voice surprised her.
“But the oath, the frost fire…”
Hrem looked up to the ceiling as he marshaled his thoughts. “I’ll admit, I sure didn’t expect that when I took the Queen’s coin, but I wasn’t a babe in the woods either. I saw past the fancy uniforms and marching bands when I joined. Soldiers die. I knew it right from the start. We all did,” he said, lowering his head to look around at the sleeping soldiers. “But the thing about soldiering is, we all know that it’ll always be the other guy that does the dying. That’s the trick. People are always talking about hope, but sometimes the best thing you can have is the ability to fool yourself. None of us saw what the oath would do, but if it wasn’t that it would have been something else. So you trick yourself into believing we’ll find a way to escape these elves, rejoin the regiment, get to the Shadow Monarch’s mountain, put an end to Her and break the oath.”
It took a moment for the meaning of Hrem’s words to sink in. When they did Visyna was aghast. He really believes they’re all doomed.
“There really is hope, Hrem. Don’t give up.”
The big soldier said nothing, but looked down at his hands. Flickers of black frost danced in his palms, then went out. “Like I said, Miss Tekoy, sometimes the best thing you can do is fool yourself. If it works, then maybe it was hope all along and you just didn’t realize it. Like when I look in a mirror and say ‘Hey, I’m a good-lookin’ fellow who won’t scare children in the street because they think I’m a giant likely to eat them’ or something like that.”
“I think you’re very gallant, and very handsome,” Visyna said.
Hrem lifted his head and raised an eyebrow. “Best we keep that between us. I won’t tell the wife and you don’t tell the major.”
Visyna repressed a grin. “And a scoundrel, too.”
“That you can tell folk.”
“Gladly,” Visyna said. “We’ll be out of these tunnels eventually.”
Hrem looked around them then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “At which point we’re going to have do something about these elves. Is Miss Red Owl going to have a problem with that? They are her people after all.”
Visyna glanced over again toward Chayii and Jir. “I think our only problem with her will be staying out of her way when the time comes.”
“Good. Now we just need to figure out how we’re going to overpower eighty some elves,” Hrem said.
Visyna looked down at her hands and delicately weaved the air in front of her. Thin skeins of magic began to glow between her fingers. She looked back up at Hrem and saw his eyes gleaming with reflected light. “I have an idea…”
K onowa didn’t wake up as much as the bruising that covered his entire body dragged him back to a state of consciousness. Pain. Endless pain. “Ow,” he said.
“Back among the living are we?” Rallie asked, her usually gruff voice a full octave more… joyful.
Konowa pried open his eyes a crack. It was still dark, still snowing, although not as heavily, and he appeared to be lying flat on his back under a makeshift tarpaulin in the back of Rallie’s wagon. “Ask me again in a year,” he said. He noted the wagon was definitely the worse for wear, but then who wasn’t? Splintered planks of wood making up the wagon bed were bound together with twine. He tried to move and realized he was completely immobilized, swaddled like a newborn babe inside what must have been a dozen Hasshugeb robes and something that smelled like hot manure.
“It was the Viceroy’s idea,” Rallie said, reaching down and removing the top layer of his cocoon.
“Is that…” Konowa started to ask before he was overcome by gagging.
Rallie held up the offending garment. “Camel hide, recently skinned. Apparently it’s an old tribal remedy for those who have been injured. They wrap them up tighter than a tick in wet wool in one of these things and before you know it the afflicted are on their feet and running.”
“No doubt to get away from the stench,” Konowa said, his eyes watering as he gasped for breath. Despite cries of pain from every joint and muscle, he managed to free his arms and push himself up to a sitting position by leaning against what was left of the front board of the wagon bed. It looked the way Konowa felt, frayed and battered.
“And lo, he rises,” Rallie said, bundling up the camel hide, then using it as a cushion as she sat down beside him. She popped a cigar into her mouth and drew in a breath. The end of the cigar lit of its own accord.
Konowa stared for a moment then shook his head and wished he hadn’t. “Ow.”
“Ow, indeed,” Rallie said, reaching a hand into her black cloak and pulling out a small silver flask. “You are lucky to be alive, let alone in one piece and without any broken bones. Here, drink this. It’ll ease the pain.”
He held out his hand, noting that it was shaking. She removed the stopper and handed him the flask. He brought the flask to his lips and tipped it up. The liquid went down his throat like a river of lava. Heat radiated throughout his body, soothing every ache and pain. A smile played on his lips and he closed his eyes, sinking down into the robes.
“What is this stuff?” he asked, taking another sip. The flask was pulled from his hand and he opened his eyes to see Rallie tucking it back into her cloak.
“For the sake of argument let’s call it a very powerful medicinal potion and one not to be ingested in large amounts.”
“Magic?” Konowa asked.
Rallie chuckled. “Absolutely not. Mostly Sala Brandy, a few sprigs of this and that, and the oil from a particular mushroom with… special qualities.”
“I’d like to order a barrel,” Konowa said, marveling at how well he suddenly felt. Not healed exactly, but better, as if all the sharp points of pain had been smoothed down and coated in something soft and fluffy.
“A little is good, a lot is deadly,” Rallie said, clucking her tongue. “Moderation, Major, everything in moderation.”
Konowa sighed. “I’m aware of the concept, just never really been able to put it into practice.” He noticed a large bundle wrapped in more Hasshugeb robes down by his feet. “What’s in there?”
Rallie didn’t look. “That, is pieces from the two dragon sarka har .”
Konowa sat up a little straighter and slid toward the opposite side of the wagon. “I’ve been lying here with those abominations? What if they come back to life?”
“They’re perfectly safe. Oh, what was the word he used…” Rallie said to herself, taking the cigar from her mouth and studying the end. “Ah. Inert. Not liable to reanimate or explode unless acted upon by a spark generated by a metallic object.”
Konowa had no need to ask who. “Did the Viceroy say why he wanted them? Not souvenirs, I hope.”
Rallie placed her cigar back in her mouth before responding. “He just said they might come in handy later. I didn’t press him on it, but believe me, my curiosity is definitely piqued.”
“In my case it’s a sense of dread,” Konowa said, suddenly feeling very ill at ease. Even dead and in pieces, the sarka har were finding ways to torment him.
“To change the subject,” Rallie said, her voice adopting a casual smoothness that Konowa immediately found suspicious, “I had meant to ask you before we were so rudely interrupted by those flying twigs, but when you were napping on the wagon you were mumbling to yourself. Dreaming perhaps? The scribe in me is forever curious… for my readers back home of course.”
Konowa pushed himself back up to a sitting position, wincing as he did so. He took a moment to catch his breath. “I completely forgot about it. Damn, I can barely remember it now…” he struggled to recall it, knowing it had been important. Rallie stayed silent though the cigar in her mouth glowed bright orange with a series of quick puffs.
“I remember… an ax, and Yimt was there. We were in the birthing meadow. He kept telling me to use the ax, but when I got to the Shadow Monarch and Her Wolf Oak, it wasn’t Her.” Konowa turned, and ignoring the pain, faced Rallie. “It was me. Yimt was telling me to kill me… I think.”
Rallie moved the cigar to the other side of her mouth before speaking. “Interesting… but that doesn’t sound quite right. Are you sure that’s what he meant?”
Konowa shook his head, slowly and carefully. “I’m not even sure I’m remembering it right. We talked about mining for a bit, too, though that was because of the ax. Turns out the reason dwarves use axes in the first place is for cutting down trees for their mines. I didn’t know that.”
Rallie smiled. “I did, and it appears you did, too.”
“But that’s just it,” Konowa said, “I really didn’t know that. Yimt told me something I’d never heard before. How is that possible? Does that mean he was really in my dream? If that was really him, then what was he trying to say?”
Rallie sat up a little straighter and looked out past the tarpaulin to the sky before answering. “A dream is a tricky thing, like trying to catch the wind. You know it’s there, you feel it, but the best you can really do is build a sail and let it help you get where you’re going.”
Konowa thought about that. “I really am not cut out for this. Riddles and puzzles give me a headache.” He fished around inside his jacket and found a pocket with a couple of arr beans. He pulled them out and blowing some lint off them held out his hand to Rallie. It wasn’t shaking now, he was happy to see.
She reached over and plucked one of the beans from his hand and threw it into her mouth while still keeping her cigar in place. The tip of the cigar began to glow bright blue. Konowa popped the remaining bean in his mouth and his lips puckered at the acidic jolt stinging his tongue. His eyes watered and his head cleared.
“They’ve got some kick,” Konowa said, rolling the bean around in his mouth and enjoying the shock to his system. He still felt some pain in his right shoulder, but it was more like a distant memory, or at least destined to become one.
“You should try them with liquor sometime,” Rallie said. “You’ll think you can fly.”
“Ah, ha… ha,” Konowa said, memories of his recent flight passing before his eyes to lodge somewhere deep in his spinal column like vibrating harp strings. “I prefer to stay close to the ground. Better odds of surviving when I inevitably fall.”
“You do have a knack for that,” she said.
Thoughts of falling stirred up other concerns. Everything around him was calm, and he didn’t trust it, not after the night he’d had.
Feeling more alert, Konowa brought his left hand to the middle of his chest. The black acorn was still there. Regardless of why the Shadow Monarch had made it possible for him to have this power, it was his to use in aid of the regiment.
Okay, he said to himself, you’re an elf. Despite all evidence to the contrary you’re a creature of nature and at one with the natural order. He closed his eyes and pushed his senses outward, searching for a sign that Her forces were near. He was not going to be surprised by those damn sarka har again.
Cold from the black acorn pushed into his chest like a bar of frozen steel, but with that pain came an awareness of the surrounding desert. The metallic snow vanished as his mind explored around rocks and over dunes. The path they were following suddenly appeared before him as if he were looking at it in broad daylight. He could see every twist and turn and every curving sand dune. He pushed harder, and now he felt the world around him. The dull cold of the rocks, the bone-weary exhaustion of the soldiers, the coursing power emanating from Private Renwar at the head of the column, and an ancient power sitting right beside-
Something hit him in the ribs and he opened his eyes in surprise. He looked over at Rallie who was looking back at him with all the innocence she could muster with an eerie blue-flamed cigar clamped between her teeth.
“My apologies, Major, I thought you were going to sleep on me. Now that you’re awake it’s best you stay awake.”
Konowa rubbed the sore spot and managed a grimace for a smile. “That’s quite all right. You know, I was searching the immediate area and noticing something very interesting. If your elbow hadn’t grazed me when it did I think I was about to notice quite a bit more.”
Rallie pulled the cigar from her mouth and let out a long, slow stream of smoke. Konowa watched it twist and turn within the confines of the space under the tarp as if it were a living thing. After what seemed an impossibly long time, the smoke found its way out and into the night sky. Konowa turned back to Rallie and found her staring directly at him. It wasn’t an unfriendly look, exactly.
“So,” Konowa said, desperate to change the subject, “I can’t help but notice we’re not moving. Any reason why my orders are not being followed? Time is slipping away from us. We need to get to Suhundam’s Hill.” He didn’t bother to add because my elves are there, and I have to find them before we leave this desert waste and head for Her mountain. Rallie continued to stare at him for a moment longer then smiled and put the cigar back in her mouth. “We’re already here, Major.”
“We are?” he said, throwing off the robes and getting to his knees before reaching up to push the tarp out of the way and standing up. The cold night air tousled his hair. He brushed a few strands from his eyes and peered into the darkness.
A crumbling pile of rock covered in ragged sheets of snow appeared a half mile away. It looked less a hill and more like the remnants of a rockslide from a long-vanished mountain. There wasn’t a smooth line in the entire feature. Every inch of it jutted and fractured like a block of ice repeatedly thrown to the ground.
“Major, really glad to see you up and about!”
“What?” Konowa asked, trying to focus. He looked down to see a young soldier staring up at him, the lad’s dirt-smudged face smiling. “Ah, Private Feylan. It’ll take more than a damn flying tree to beat me.” Though not by much.
“Hey, the major is all right!” Feylan shouted. RSM Aguom quickly ran up and shushed the private.
“Keep your voice down. Do you want to bring another orchard of those bloody things after us?”
Feylan nodded, but continued to smile. He stood up straight and saluted. Konowa returned it and turned to face Aguom. “What’s our situation?” he asked, walking toward the end of the wagon and staring down at the ground. The jump looked to be about three feet. He debated sitting down and then hopping off, but soldiers were beginning to cluster around. He was their officer, their leader in battle.
Saying a silent prayer then wondering why he bothered, Konowa leaped. He hit the ground and felt every bone joint crack. He stifled a cry, and drew in a deep breath, using it to straighten up his spine. Still, it could have been worse, and his vision was clear. Whatever was in Rallie’s medicine really did the trick. He slapped his hand against his side and didn’t feel his saber. Before he could turn he heard a clunk on the wood behind him and scabbard and saber slid to a stop at the edge of the wagon. Konowa smiled and grabbed it, strapping it around his waist by its leather belt. That feels better. “I don’t suppose anyone found my musket?”
“‘Fraid not, Major,” Aguom said, “but we do have a few spares.. .”
Konowa paused as that sank in. “I suppose we do. If it’s still with us, I’d be honored to use Grostril’s.”
There was a murmur of approval from the troops. Konowa figured they’d approve, but he also wanted to honor the soldier. No one should die because of a damn tree.
“We’re in as good a shape as can be expected,” RSM Aguom said, waving a hand around to take in the soldiers standing near them. “This weather isn’t helping any though, and we’re pretty much out of everything except powder and musket balls, and they won’t last much longer at the rate we’re going. Major,” he said, stepping forward and lowering his voice, “if this regiment is going to remain a fighting force we need supplies. If there’s so much as a piece of moldy bread in that fort we really need to get it.”
“We will, we will.” Konowa turned his attention back to Suhundam’s Hill. It looked to be three hundred fifty feet at its highest though at this distance he couldn’t be certain where the hill ended and the night sky began. He searched for the small fort he knew was up there, looking for a lantern or cookfire glow, but nothing but the metallic sheen of the fallen snow reflected back.
“Stupid bugger,” Konowa said, cursing the late Captain Trilvin Suhundam. Recorded as a singular act of uncommon valor, Suhundam had led the spirited defense of a company of soldiers from the then King’s Grenadier Guards against more than five hundred Hasshugeb warriors some sixty-five years ago on that mess of rocks. Survivor accounts credited the officer with rallying the troops no less than twelve times when the natives appeared about to overrun them. On the thirteenth, however, Suhundam slipped and fell to his death, at which point the remaining troops conducted what was euphemistically known as a tactical reorientation vis-a-vis their direction of movement-they did the smart thing and took to their heels and ran.
Konowa hoped their experience here would be significantly calmer, but somehow he doubted it.
K onowa took a moment to adjust his uniform, aware that as second-in-command he had to look the part in addition to living it. He’d never gone in for the whole spit-and-polish routine that so many officers aspired to. He was more of a spit-and-get-on-with-it kind of officer. Still, his uniform really was looking more like a vagabond’s rags these days.
“To hell with it,” he muttered, wrapping the Hasshugeb robe around himself and slinging Grostril’s musket over his shoulder. The cold was getting worse, even if the snow had tapered off for the moment.
“If you’ll hold that pose for a moment I’d like to make a quick sketch,” Rallie said from the wagon bed.
Konowa turned slightly and raised his chin, looking off into the distance in what he hoped was a martial pose. Rallie balanced her sketch pad on her knee and poised her quill above it.
“A little less pompous, please. My readers like you; I’d hate for that to change.”
Konowa let his shoulders slump. “Fine, it was hurting my neck to stand like that anyway.”
“This will only take a moment. Try not to squirm,” she said, her quill now flying across the page.
Konowa felt goose bumps on his flesh and put it down to the wind. He surprised himself by realizing he felt good. Physically he was still more bruise than not, but emotionally he really did believe somehow, someway, they were going to make it. There was comfort in seeing Rallie with her quill. Even if she wouldn’t talk about it, he knew there was far more to it and to her. It was like having an extra cannon along. He would have still preferred to have canister shot for the three cannons they had pulled all the way from Nazalla, but Rallie’s quill and the questionable aid of the dead commanded by Private Renwar would have to do.
“Done,” Rallie said, tucking her quill away into the folds of her cloak.
“May I see it?”
“No.”
Konowa was momentarily perplexed. “Why not?”
“I meant to say I’m done, for now. I will have more work to do on it later.”
That sounded suspiciously mystical to Konowa, but as he was learning by trial and error, sometimes the best course of action was none at all.
“Then I look forward to seeing it… eventually,” he said. He started to walk forward beside the remaining camels, but caught a whiff of himself and thought better of it. Stupid animals might think I’m one of them. He headed in the other direction. The soldiers were now milling around waiting for orders. Remembered images of Regimental Sergeant Major Lorian, and his successor, Sergeant Arkhorn, shouting and cajoling the troops into order caused a small pain somewhere deep he knew no amount of medicinal elixir would ever cure. He slapped the hilt of his saber with the palm of his hand and smiled as his flesh stung. This was no time to get misty about the past.
The soldiers turned and looked to him for guidance. He set out into the desert a few yards away from the road and motioned for the troops to follow.
Acting Regimental Sergeant Major, Color Sergeant Salia Aguom, and Viceroy Alstonfar stood in the lee of a rocky crag and out of the wind. The two of them were pouring over a map by the light of a small brass lantern. Konowa looked around for the Prince but saw no sign of him.
Pimmer looked up and smiled. “Ah, Major, just the man I wanted to see. The tribal cure seems to have done the trick.”
“Yes, remind me to thank you for that later,” Konowa said, still smelling of camel and finding it did not get better with age.
The Viceroy took that as a compliment and not an implied threat and motioned for Konowa to come closer. Konowa looked at Aguom who shrugged as if to say he was just as puzzled. Konowa looked down at the map and saw why.
“That’s not a map. It’s just numbers and lines of gibberish,” Konowa said, reaching out and gently lifting up a corner of the paper to see if the map was on the other side. No, just more scribbling in a language he couldn’t read.
“Not gibberish, Major, it’s Birsooni,” Pimmer said, gently correcting him. “They were a tribe that lived here over a thousand years ago. Nomads wandering the desert wastes. It was known that they created a unique code for oasis, wadis, water cisterns, and other important features, but little more than fragments of their maps have ever been found. And I found a stack of them in the library!” Pimmer said, his voice rising with obvious joy. “Judging by the discoloration, the feel of the fibers, and the color of the ink-goat’s blood if I’m not mistaken-this one is the most recent by a good two hundred years. Not nearly as valuable as the others, I’m afraid, but in this inclement weather I thought it better to risk this specimen and preserve the others. Still, isn’t it marvelous! Here in my hands is proof that the Birsooni navigated by numeric code.”
Marvelous wasn’t the first word that came to Konowa’s mind. “I certainly haven’t seen anything like it, Viceroy. Does it give you any details about Suhundam’s Hill? Any secret paths or tunnels we might use?”
Pimmer smiled as he nodded his head. “I’m almost certain it does, but I can’t make sense of one single bit of the thing.” He winked at Konowa and lowered his voice as he continued. “Actually, calling the Birsooni nomadic is being rather charitable. Seems their maps weren’t quite as useful as they’d intended. The history of the other tribes of the Hasshugeb are filled with accounts of the Birsooni wandering hither and yon. The nastier accounts suggest they simply couldn’t find their way back home, which is the only reason they become nomadic in the first place. One day they set out on a raiding party against another tribe’s caravan and were never seen again. For all we know their descendants are still out there today somewhere, still trying to find their way back to their homeland. Quite poetic, really.”
A metallic-tasting snowflake landed in Konowa’s open mouth, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to close it. How in blazes did the Calabrian Empire survive this long? Everyone in power must have been dropped on their heads at birth.
“So no help for our immediate situation then?” Konowa finally asked, turning slightly to spit out the bitter-tasting snow.
“Definitely not,” Pimmer said, his eyes shining. “I was just showing the sergeant here. It really is a remarkable find…” He trailed off as he finally seemed to notice Konowa’s expression. “Oh, but not to worry, this map should provide us with everything we’ll need to know,” he said, pulling a small, folded piece of paper from inside his swaddling robes. “It’s Birsooni, too, but the cartographer was more traditional in his approach, to a point.”
Konowa reached out a hand and took the piece of paper without saying a word. He opened it and saw a finely detailed sketch of the fort in plan view. A wide, straight road sloped all the way down from the fort’s one gate on its northern face to the desert floor. It was by far the quickest and easiest way up to the fort, but going that way uninvited would be certain death. Anyone in the fort would have a clear shot the entire way up. What Konowa was looking for was an escape route, something small and hidden. The Grenadier Guards had found one all those years ago, so he knew it had to be there somewhere. He found it lightly traced on the southern exposure. It had far fewer twists and turns and headed straight for the rear of the fort, where it disappeared under the wall. A secret doorway in and out. Perfect.
Less perfect, however, was that parts of the path appeared to have either been erased or never drawn in. There was more gibberish written in the margins, but at least this was something he could work with.
“This should do nicely, thank you,” Konowa said, fighting the sudden desire to hit something, preferably rotund and smiling.
“Think nothing of it,” Pimmer said, his smile suggesting he certainly didn’t. “I hope you weren’t thinking you’d have to walk up to the front gate and knock?”
Not anymore I’m not, Konowa thought, rubbing the back of his sleeve against his mouth. “No, not at all. Well, now that we have this it’s time we were moving. Will the Prince be joining us?”
Pimmer took one last longing look at the Birsooni map then rolled it up, careful to shield it from the wind and snow. “The Prince is indisposed at the moment, but conveys in his absence that you are to take whatever measures necessary to secure the fort.”
A diplomat through and through, Konowa thought, grudgingly admiring the man’s ability to lie with absolute sincerity. So the Prince was still sulking? Konowa found he just didn’t care. He knew what had to be done, and Prince or no Prince, it would be done.
“Very good,” Konowa said, spitting out the last of the bitter-tasting snow and nodding to Pimmer. “I’ll confer with the RSM here and we’ll get moving within the quarter hour. Perhaps you should check on the Prince and make sure he doesn’t do something fool-adventurish and wander off on his own.”
“Not to worry, I left a soldier in charge of his camel this time,” Pimmer said. “I need to be here with you when we reach the fort.”
Konowa had seen this before. Officers that spent their lives behind desks and conference tables get a rare taste of battle-aren’t torn in two by a cannonball-and suddenly they feel alive. The fear and the excitement of being shot at and missed acts like a drug. Suddenly, they understand warfare in a way no one else does, and they are overcome with a fevered need to be in the thick of it. The inevitable outcome is always bloody, definitely for the soldiers who pay the price, and sometimes, happily, for the fool who caused their suffering. Konowa wasn’t about to let that tragedy play itself out here. And it wasn’t just for the sake of the troops. He genuinely liked Pimmer and realized he was the first Viceroy he’d met he didn’t want to kill. Mostly.
“That won’t be possible, Viceroy,” Konowa said, thinking fast. “I’ll need you at the rear with the Prince. If the fort is no longer held by the elves there could now be a Hasshugeb tribe in there. I don’t speak the language, you do. I can’t risk having you out front getting shot before you get a chance to talk.”
“I do make a large target, I’m afraid,” Pimmer said, looking between Konowa and the RSM. Neither one laughed. “But rest assured, Major, it isn’t vainglory that necessitates my being up front with you. It’s a bit more pedestrian this time. Not only am I the only one who can speak the language, I’m the only one who can read it, too. The writing on this map contains details of the path up to the fort not drawn here. The cartographer chose to keep some aspects of the route secret and so instead of drawing them chose to put them down in writing, ensuring only a native would be able to decipher it. Rather clever, actually. Much smarter than the other Birsooni’s attempt I dare say.”
Konowa interrupted before Pimmer could pull the other map back out. “Can’t you just tell me what it says now?”
Pimmer was already shaking his head. “You’d think that, but there was a real mind at work here. Certain details of the path are missing on purpose. The writing that accompanies the map fills in the blanks, but they aren’t simple instructions.
“You see, these lines are riddles. And not just your run-of-the-mill children’s game either, but riddles referencing ancient tribal legends. Absolute genius. I mean, look at this part here,” he said, showing the map to Konowa and Aguom who dutifully looked. “What, for example, would you do when you come to a fork in the path and you read ‘The lamb with wolves’ teeth suckles from the camel on a moonless night?’”
Have another drink was the first thought that entered Konowa’s head, but he kept it to himself. “I’ll admit, I can’t begin to imagine what that means, but does it really matter? I can see the fort from here. We simply have to climb up. With or without the map and its secrets that really shouldn’t be that hard.”
“Except for the booby traps.”
That got Konowa’s attention. Aguom stiffened. Soldiers trained to fight an enemy they could see. Hidden traps though were like snakes lying in tall grass. There was something fundamentally unfair about them, although the enemy of course thought differently. “It says that? What kind of traps?”
Pimmer rubbed his chin in thought. “Well, in this particular case the camel can only refer to Suljak Emyan who was famous for carting about a massive main tent that could be seen for miles in the desert like a great camel’s hump. One moonless night, or so legend has it, his guards made the unfortunate mistake of allowing a Guara assassin into his tent thinking the man was one of the Suljak’s servants. You can guess what happened next,” Pimmer said, making a slashing motion with his hand across his throat.
Konowa offered Pimmer a weak smile. “I’m still not clear how this helps us. What’s the trap?”
“No way to tell from here, but I suspect it will be something that looks innocuous enough but will in fact be quite deadly.”
Konowa still wasn’t convinced, but it was time to move. “Very well, Viceroy, I can see the benefit of having you with me. Please collect whatever you’ll need and report-return here so that we can begin.”
Pimmer smiled and reached out to pat Konowa on the arm then appeared to think better of it and turned it into a wave that meandered into a salute that only the most charitable, or farsighted, would consider military. “I shall go fetch my pistol and be back in a moment.”
Aguom coughed. “You aren’t carrying it with you now?”
Pimmer made a patting gesture on his robes. “Afraid not. In fact, it seems I’ve left my saber back at the camel, too. Takes a bit of getting used to carting all these weapons around. I don’t know how you do it.”
Konowa made sure not to catch the regimental sergeant major’s eye lest one or both of them burst out with something they’d regret. “As a general rule, Viceroy, you might wish to keep your pistol and other weapons on your person and in a position to use at a moment’s notice. As you’ve seen, things are a bit dicey out here. There’s no telling where or when we’ll be in battle next.”
Pimmer straightened up at the idea and fixed Konowa with a hard stare. “Then it’s time we get going,” he said. “You know, up until your arrival my battles were fought with the quill, strategically planned tea breaks, and wine-soaked dinner parties for the coup de grace.”
“I think it’s safe to say those days are over for the foreseeable future,” Konowa said. “A saber in hand is your best friend now.”
“What a wonderful phrase and terrible thought,” Pimmer said, then turned and strode off to fetch his gear.
Konowa watched him go and then motioned to Aguom to follow. They walked a short distance away so they were well out of earshot of the troops.
“Right, I’m splitting us into two groups.” He knew it was risky to divide their strength when about to face the enemy, but he didn’t see he had much choice. Marching the entire column at Suhundam’s Hill meant following the caravan track that wound its way directly below it and well within range of muskets or arrows.
“A good move, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Aguom said. “If we took the whole column straight on we could find out the enemy is somewhere out there in the desert and we’d be pinned up against the rock. Splitting us up gives us options, and in the snow and the dark the enemy will have a hard time seeing us, hopefully at least until it’s too late.”
Konowa stepped back a pace and studied the RSM. “I knew sergeants were the backbone of the army and put there to keep officers from making too many mistakes they might not live to regret, but I didn’t know they were tacticians, too. I’ve been remiss in not consulting with you sooner.”
“Kind of you to say, Major, but I actually picked it up talking to another officer with us.”
Konowa looked past him to the assembled soldiers a short distance away. “What, the naval ensign in charge of the guns? Where did a fish learn how to fight on land?”
Aguom shook his head. “No, sir. He was killed by one of those flying trees. A branch went right through his neck. Quite a mess.” Aguom pointed at his own neck indicating where the branch had struck and killed the naval ensign.
Konowa reached up toward his own neck then brought his hand back down. Without intending to he hunched his shoulders and tucked his chin in a little. He realized Aguom was staring at him and reluctantly Konowa forced himself to raise his head and expose the flesh of his neck to the cold, night air. He had a newfound sympathy for turtles. “If not the ensign then… wait, you don’t mean the Viceroy?” Pimmer was clearly bright and capable enough in a maddening, eccentric way, but he didn’t know command of soldiers in the field.
“No, sir, not the Viceroy. It’s Lieutenant Imba, sir.”
Konowa didn’t recognize the name. “We have a Lieutenant Imba? Where did we pick him up and where’s he been hiding?”
The RSM looked at the ground then back at Konowa. “He was one of the volunteers from the 3rd Spears. He was afraid you wouldn’t let him join if you knew he was an officer, so he begged me to keep his secret. He took off his rank and blended in. His men admire him greatly. I know his clan. Fisherman for the most part and warriors when necessary.”
Konowa looked back toward the soldiers. “Lieutenant Imba, to me.”
A soldier detached himself from the group and started over. The remaining men began looking everywhere except at Konowa. They all knew, he realized, kicking himself for not spotting the deception back in Nazalla, but he’d had too much on his mind. As Lieutenant Imba marched he carried himself like an officer, a confident one at that. There was an easy grace to his gait. Almost as tall as Konowa, he never averted his gaze as he approached. He held his head up just a fraction higher than was comfortable in order to jut out his chin and throw his shoulders back. The result was subtle yet powerful. He conveyed authority without appearing aggressive. Konowa knew he stomped around like a bull half the time. It had worked, especially in the early going of his career when he was determined to prove elves weren’t all a bunch of flower-sniffing dandies, but maybe it was time for a more thoughtful approach to life’s challenges… although perhaps not too thoughtful.
Imba came to a smooth stop in front of Konowa and saluted smartly. Unlike most of the men, he had not wrapped himself in a Hasshugeb robe and stood before Konowa in a threadbare uniform and bare feet. His musket rested perfectly against his left shoulder and gleamed as if he had guard duty at the Queen’s palace. Konowa stared at his face, mentally tracing each ceremonial scarring band under clear, unblinking eyes. He knew they were made without the aid of any drug or liquor to ease the pain. Ragged scars were a sign of squirming as the blade bit into flesh across the cheekbones and Konowa wondered how many he could stomach before throwing up, passing out, or taking a swing at whoever was doing the cutting. Imba had seven scars under his right eye and six under his left. Every one was ruler straight.
The acorn grew colder, but Konowa didn’t need its warning. The man before him was a true warrior.
“So, it’s lieutenant, is it?” Konowa asked.
Imba’s voice was clear and unapologetic despite his words. “Yes, sir. My apologies for the deception. I shall place myself under arrest until such time as a court-martial is convened and I am tried and convicted for dereliction of duty.”
Konowa looked up to the sky as if considering the idea. Another time and another place not that long ago that’s exactly what would have happened, and the most likely result would have been execution by firing squad… assuming he didn’t die first from a thousand lashes. But that time and place no longer existed. Konowa brushed a few snowflakes from his face and returned his gaze to Lieutenant Imba.
“Yes, well, under the unique circumstances, I’m inclined to view this as a significant but correctable oversight on your part. As of now you will resume the rank of lieutenant. We’ve been a regiment running on wings and prayers from the outset so another officer is a useful addition. I want you, with the RSM’s assistance, to take the column up the road toward the fort. That includes the cannons. I know we don’t have any shot for them, but no one in the fort will know that. Miss Synjyn will follow in her wagon with His Highness bringing up the rear. You will assign the Color Party to stay with the Prince and keep him safe.”
If Imba wondered at the strangeness of the order he didn’t show it. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. If you don’t mind my asking, where will you be, Major?”
Konowa pointed toward the fort. “I’m taking ten men and the Viceroy with me across the desert and coming at the place from the backside.”
“Will ten men suffice?”
“Lieutenant,” Konowa said, drawing his saber and holding it up near his face to examine the blade, “if it weren’t for the look of the thing I’d run right up there by myself and to hell with the consequences.”
Choosing to take that as a signal, RSM Aguom motioned to Lieutenant Imba and they both saluted and marched back toward the troops. Konowa continued to stare at his blade as snowflakes fell on the steel. A quick burst of frost fire burned it clean and he reluctantly sheathed it. He looked back toward Suhundam’s Hill. Please, let there be something up there I can take a swing at.
B lood will spill this night,” Konowa said. The assembled soldiers grew quiet. Konowa let that thought hang in the cold air for a while. Only a few flakes were falling now, which seemed to make the night darker, more sinister. Even though it was hell to march through, there had been something oddly comforting about the snow.
Konowa turned and looked toward Suhundam’s Hill. It had to be clear to every soldier present that it wouldn’t be an easy nut to crack if they had to take it by force. Faced with the prospect of assaulting a fortified position on a rocky hill definitely focused their attention.
Konowa continued. “His Majesty has asked me to convey his best wishes in the coming hours and knows you will do your best. He is currently deep in study, pouring over the many documents and artifacts that were recovered from the library in hopes of finding ways to defeat the Shadow Monarch and break the oath. While this is unlikely,” he quickly added, knowing it was the best lie he had to offer, “there is always hope. And cunning.”
“Lieutenant Imba,” Konowa announced, drawing a few murmurs of feigned surprise from the ranks. Imba stepped forward and turned to look at the gathered troops.
“ Some of you are no doubt aware that Lieutenant Imba has been with us since Nazalla, serving quietly among the ranks. I’m sure you’ve guessed the reason for this subterfuge by now.” Konowa was certain, in fact, that they hadn’t because he was crafting his reasoning as he spoke. “The enemy is wily, and they can no doubt pick out myself, His Majesty, and the Viceroy from some distance. This is good. They will see all of us march toward Suhundam’s Hill and believe the entire regiment is coming straight at them. They’ll be in for a surprise.
“Two soldiers will dress up like the Viceroy and myself and march with the regiment with Lieutenant Imba in actual command. The Prince will remain to the rear and appear to be… incapacitated.” Konowa doubted he’d be able to remember all these lies if ever called to explain this later. “While the regiment goes forward I, along with the Viceroy, will lead a group of ten men across the desert and climb the hill up a secret pathway. If necessary, we expect to catch whoever is in the fort completely by surprise.”
As plans went it sounded pathetic and Konowa was trying to think of an alternative when he noticed the bustling sound of the regiment had quieted. He turned as Private Renwar appeared out of the dark.
Neat trick. Konowa kept his expression neutral.
“Where would you like me?”
Konowa looked past Renwar to see if he could detect any of the fallen, but it was too dark to see. He felt relieved. “Private Renwar,” Konowa said, ignoring the fact the soldier hadn’t formally addressed him, “I wasn’t sure if you were still with us. Your… charges, have been rather absent of late.”
The air cooled around them, an impressive feat considering the already freezing temperature. Konowa refused to be intimidated. This is still my regiment.
“We are here, but even in death there is a cost to battle. The pain we suffer grows. To kill Her creatures compounds that pain. It’s my duty to ease their suffering.”
The use of the word “we” struck Konowa. He’s really going over to the darkness. Aware of the regiment hanging on every word, Konowa had no choice but to keep things light. “A noble attitude, and one we all share, living and dead. That said, we all still have our duty. I need you to continue leading the column toward the fort. If there’s going to be a fight, I’d like the… others to create a distraction while my group sneaks up on whatever might be up there from behind. Is that understood?”
“There is no need. We can kill every living thing in our way,” Renwar said. There was no emotion in his voice. It was a simple statement of fact. Konowa couldn’t tell if it was meant as a larger threat or not, but it was chilling regardless.
Konowa sensed the unease building among the troops. He bowed his head for a moment as if in deep thought then raised it, revealing a big smile. “Well of course we can, we’re the Iron Elves,” he said, deliberately raising his voice and putting on a big smile. He turned and caught the eyes of some of the soldiers, nodding his head in recognition even though in their bundled state he couldn’t tell one from another. “I pity any foe who opposes us this night, especially any villainous rum casks or wine barrels we might find up there.”
Heads nodded and a few soldiers even cheered. Any chance for rest and drink, no matter how brief or where the respite might come, was always welcome. RSM Aguom looked to Konowa to see if he wanted him to instill some order, but Konowa shook his head. Let the lads enjoy the moment. Their dead comrades followed them everywhere led by the increasingly unsettling Private Renwar. Even Konowa wasn’t immune to the growing sense of dread that hung around them like an invisible fog. No, if the troops could find some joy among all this horror then Konowa wanted them to wring every drop out it.
“Any chance there’ll be any women up there, too, Major?” one of the soldiers shouted out.
“That depends,” Konowa said, pausing for effect.
“On what?” several soldiers asked at the same time.
Konowa made a show of adjusting his shako on his head and straightening out his uniform. “On if you find female rakkes attractive.”
Laughter rolled from the ranks, a release of tension by men knowing that in the next hour they might very well be dead, or worse. Konowa casually looked over at Private Renwar. The soldier’s face remained impassive, his gray eyes locked in on Konowa’s.
You and I have a problem.
Konowa held on to his smile, grinning so hard his jaw ached. This is my regiment, and don’t you forget it. “At the very least they make good rugs,” he continued, letting his gaze slide away from Renwar’s unblinking eyes. “Lads, the truth of it is, I don’t know what we’re going to find up there, but whatever it is, I absolutely know you’ll handle it.” Konowa motioned to Aguom to take over and the RSM started barking orders.
Konowa turned and walked a short distance away. He doubted his speech was worthy of Rallie’s quill, and that disappointed him. Her readers back home wanted to hear about glory and adventure, and he understood that, but it was the quiet, impromptu little talks like the one he just gave that made the difference. Throughout history it was small banter, a quick laugh and nod of understanding among a few tired, hungry, and scared soldiers like these that turned the tide and won the day. Maybe if more folks back home knew that they’d be less eager for the empire to push its boundaries further. The truth of it was, talk of queen and country sounded good when you were far from danger and warm and fed and chatting up a barmaid and no one, except maybe her husband, was lurking in the shadows waiting to bash your head in. Out here, however, with rakkes threatening to tear a soldier’s throat out with their fangs and claws, dark elves shooting vicious black arrows, and sarka har learning new and more lethal ways to kill, it didn’t have the same impact. The call of duty that every soldier did carry with him deep in his gut like a precious white diamond was nothing more and nothing less than the desperate hope to live to see another day. Wake up to a new dawn enough times and one of those days a ship would take you back home. Walking off that gangplank and setting up shop in the nearest tavern, a soldier could spin tales of derringdo leavened with a touch of modesty about how he wasn’t really a hero, which only made him sound even more of one. The soldier had been there, and everyone else hadn’t, and they knew it. The screams might still echo somewhere deep in the soldier’s skull and a loud noise might make him start and reach for the musket he no longer carried, but the audience around him would see a gallant warrior, a man who had stood before the enemy and held his ground. Even the stingiest bartender would slide him another round with just the smallest shake of his head indicating that his money was no good there. Konowa had experienced that more than once when on leave, but as good as it felt, his heart yearned to be back with the regiment, somewhere out in the wilds, wherever that might be.
“It is a bit steep, isn’t it?” Viceroy Alstonfar said, startling Konowa.
“Sorry, what is?”
“That,” Pimmer said, pointing up at Suhundam’s Hill.
Konowa realized he’d been staring at the hill without realizing it. Now he looked at it and began to realize the challenge that lay ahead. Suhundam’s Hill looked like a mountain that had been shorn off a much taller mountain and then dropped smack in the middle of the desert. Rock slivers thrust up from the desert floor in sharp lines of gray, black, and white to form a pointed pyramid towering several hundred feet above the ground.
“Steep? It’s a bloody mountaintop without the rest of the mountain,” Konowa said. “Why couldn’t the stupid bugger go and get himself killed heroically on a nice piece of flat sand and not a place where a mountain goat would think twice about climbing?”
“They don’t actually have mountain goats in this part of the world,” Pimmer said helpfully. Konowa turned to glare at the Viceroy, who kept any other observations to himself.
Konowa paled at the thought of climbing up there, not the least of which was the knowledge that the higher he went the farther he had to fall back down. Still, there was no other choice, and at least this plan gave them an advantage. Most of the men were probably uneasy with the idea of his handing over the regiment to an until then unknown junior officer from another regiment while he took a small group on what could be a suicide mission.
Konowa would never say it in front of them, but he wanted to reach the fort before the regiment, especially before Private Renwar and his legion of the dead.
If the original Iron Elves were up there, Konowa hoped he could deal with whatever issues might arise and keep tempers cool.
If he was with the regiment and Renwar, there was no telling what could happen.
Rallie had mentioned Renwar’s calling of the shades when they had departed Nazalla and the slaughter that had ensued, and that was before he had become their de facto leader. Now, the scared wisp of a boy commanded a power of incredible violence, or at least appeared to. Konowa thought it equally possible the Shadow Monarch had more control than Renwar thought.
When Konowa was completely honest with himself he wondered how much that was the case with him as well.
“The men are ready,” Pimmer said, his voice a theatrical whisper that sounded louder than if he’d just spoken normally.
Konowa put on a brave face and turned to see who the RSM had chosen. Deep down Konowa wanted that crusty old dwarf and his ragtag group of misfits, but they were gone, perhaps forever. Konowa inspected the assembled troops.
“An excellent cross-section of men if I do say so myself,” Pimmer said. “Every one of them up to the task ahead.”
This was too much for Konowa. He turned to stare at the Viceroy. “You know these men?”
Pimmer nodded solemnly. “I made it a point to learn the names of all the soldiers in the regiment. The variation in ethnic backgrounds is remarkable.”
Konowa couldn’t tell if this was the man’s attempt at humor or sarcasm. “You know their names? All of them?”
“Certainly. It’s one of the reasons I joined the diplomatic corps. Memory like a jar of honey,” he said, tapping a finger against his temple. “Everything sticks.”
Even though he was certain the Viceroy meant nothing by it, something about his smile irritated Konowa.
“Fair enough,” Konowa said, taking a few steps in the snow and letting the sound of his boots crunching on the metallic flakes soothe his nerves. He marched in a small circle and came back to where he’d stood before, a smile now fixed to his face. “All right, here’s the drill. We’ll double time it across the open ground until we get around to the far end of the hill. There’s a secret path there that will lead us straight up the backside of the rocks and into the fort.”
Instead of waiting for questions he simply turned and started trotting. He could have walked, but all the time standing around had allowed the cold to seep into his bones and he was freezing. He quickly realized, however, that moving across snow laden with metal ore was like trying to push through icy cold, liquid pain. Cursing under his breath, he slogged his way forward, swinging his legs from the hip as he pushed through the fresh snow. The sound of heaving breathing sounded in his ears and a moment later Pimmer was trudging beside him.
“Follow me, Major, I’m built for this kind of thing,” he said as he moved past. Not to be outdone, Konowa tried to stay in step but was quickly left behind as Pimmer surged ahead. The soldiers quietly stepped out from behind Konowa and followed the much wider path left by the Viceroy. Leaving his wounded pride in a snowdrift, Konowa followed suit as the last soldier passed him by.
“I never knew it snowed in the desert,” the soldier said, slowing to keep pace with Konowa. He was short and stocky and looked like a butcher’s apprentice with his red cheeks and double chin. He’d wrapped himself in two robes, one red and one beige which made it look as if his stomach had been slashed open.
Konowa snorted. “It doesn’t. This is just for our benefit, Private
…”
“Meswiz, sir. I was just thinking it’s a shame Miss Tekoy isn’t around to work some of her weather magic is all.”
Konowa said nothing. After a few more steps, Meswiz got the hint and carried on ahead of him. Konowa let him go, then moved over onto the well-trodden path set by Pimmer and found the going much easier. His feet, which had been frozen, now felt like they were on fire. He was certain an evil mix of sand and metalized snowflakes had fallen down his boots and were currently grinding the soles of his feet to pulp. He kept his head down as the wind blew more of the gritty mix around them. Konowa wondered what it must feel like to be wearing a caerna in weather like this, but after the initial shock of being issued the cloth wrap back in Elfkyna, the regiment had taken to it as a source of pride. It was one more thing that set them apart from the rest of the army, and that was something to be proud of.
Konowa was still thinking about that when he walked straight into the back of Meswiz. “Sorry,” he muttered, reaching up to adjust his shako as he looked up to see where they were.
A black mass loomed before them. He craned his head skyward. The swirling snow only added to the illusion that he was looking up at a mountain, and the effect was not welcome.
Konowa blew on his hands to get some warmth back into them. The wind rattled about the foot of the hills, chaffing at the rocks in a grating whine. “Load muskets and fix bayonets,” he said, grounding his own musket and loading a ball and charge. For a moment, there was only the well-drilled movements of men loading their weapons, and Konowa felt at one with them, and more important, at peace. The scrape of ramrods down barrels drifted to his ears like music. He smiled as his shoulder twinged with the effort of jamming the ball home. He kept at it until he heard the satisfying thud of it setting against the charge at the bottom of the barrel. Drawing the ramrod out, he nodded to himself as he hefted his musket. This he understood. This was why he lived.
“I think it best that I lead,” Pimmer said, his voice cutting through the wind. Konowa locked his bayonet into place with a solid click and felt more than heard ten bayonets lock into place at the same time. This wasn’t a parade ground, no sergeants were watching, yet the men had timed their movements to the second with his. Konowa risked a look and saw ten brothers before him.
“Your keenness is impressive, Viceroy, but there might be more than booby traps ahead. For all we know, the place could be crawling with rakkes or something worse,” Konowa said, remembering the flying sarka har. “If we lose you, we lose the only person who can read that map of yours. I’ll lead, and you’ll follow me.”
“Major, we can’t afford to lose you either. I’d like to take the lead,” Private Feylan said. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper, but there was determination in it. “The Viceroy can call out any warnings to me as we approach them. Like you said, we don’t know what’s up there.”
“You only get corporal’s stripes if you’re alive to sew them on,” Konowa said, admiring the determination in Feylan’s voice. “We’re walking into the complete unknown. The first man up these steps is the one that’s going to meet that unknown head on.”
Feylan ran a finger around the collar of his jacket. “Someone’s got to be first.”
“So it seems,” Konowa said.
Even in the dark, the determination in Feylan’s face was apparent. He stood up a little straighter and just a hint of frost fire glittered on his bayonet. “The thing is, we’ll take this fort, then make for the coast and board a ship and then it’s off to the Hyntaland. When we get there, we put paid to the Shadow Monarch once and for all. With Her out of the way a fellow can think about his future. Mine’s out at sea on a ship. So the way I see it, the sooner we climb these steps and find out what’s up there, the sooner we are to being done. Sir.”
Emotion caught in Konowa’s throat and he turned his head. He sees a future after this. He sees hope. Konowa turned back and coughed before speaking. “Viceroys wanting to lead, lieutenants hiding in the ranks, and privates wanting command of a ship of the line. Why not? Very well. Private Feylan has the lead,” Konowa said, looking at the soldier with something close to fatherly concern, “but I want you to stay close and listen hard to Viceroy Alstonfar. This isn’t the wide-open sea. We won’t be able to cross the T going up this path. The only way we’ll able to fire in support will likely be over your dead body, so keep both eyes peeled and your ears perked.”
Feylan came to attention and saluted. “You can count on me, Major.”
Konowa nodded as he looked at the other soldiers. “Same goes for all of you. Eyes wide, mouths shut, and ears on swivels. If all goes well we’ll find the place empty, but we might not.”
“It could be your elves are still there, too,” one of the other soldiers said.
It was a thought that Konowa was doing his best to banish from his mind. For reasons he wasn’t entirely sure of, he hoped his elves weren’t up there. Now that he’d come this far in search of them, he wasn’t ready to see them again.
“Probably have a nice fire going, maybe even a hunk of meat roasting on a spit. Wait, do elves eat meat?” a soldier asked. His voice squeaked, and Konowa doubted the lad was a day over eighteen.
Pimmer turned as if preparing a long sermon on the dietary habits of elves, but Konowa growled and the man simply adjusted his saber and kept his mouth shut.
He turned back to the map and his face brightened immediately. “Private Feylan, the first three hundred steps appear to be clear of any dangers, but the three hundred and first might put a cramp in your plans for a bridge of your own.”
“Can you tell what it is?” Feylan asked. Konowa admired the way his voice barely shook. Maybe the private was cut out for command after all.
Pimmer shook his head, bringing the map in closer until his nose was almost pressed against it. “Could be any number of nasty things, I’m afraid. Won’t know for sure until we get up there and have a look around. I would suggest you pay close attention to your count as we ascend.”
Konowa could tell by the look on Feylan’s face that his confidence was waning.
“Just count quietly to yourself and take it slow,” Konowa said to him, giving him a wink. “We’ll be doing the same just to be safe. When you get over two hundred stop where you are and we’ll check the map again. Just to be sure,” he said, looking over at Pimmer who was now turning the map upside down.
“What? Oh, yes, always wise to measure twice and cut once,” Pimmer said, then his mouth dropped open. “Goodness, that’s not offensive to you, is it, what with the inference about cutting wood?”
“Viceroy, when it comes to trees, I say cut twice and to hell with measuring.”
Pimmer started to smile, then stopped and decided to look down at his map again. After a moment he gave it a quarter turn. “Ah, that’s better. Yes, now it’s making sense.”
Konowa lowered his voice as he tilted his head to get Feylan to lean in. “On second thought, stop when you get to a hundred steps.”
T he creature raged at the scudding clouds driven before an unceasing wind. The sky churned gray and black, echoing the chaotic thoughts in its mind. It leaned into the wind, heedless of the metallic snow scouring the desert floor like an army of teeth. The rakkes, their bloodlust whetted to a shrieking frenzy after ripping through the caravan, charged forward heedless of the deteriorating weather. With every mile covered more rakkes joined the pack until it appeared that a dark crescent was sweeping all the land bare.
Nothing survived the onslaught.
Not wildlife, not Hasshugeb tribes, and certainly not Her dark elves seeking to end the creature’s existence.
The creature, however, felt no triumph. Insanity swirled in an ever-expanding vortex in its mind. More and more of its being was fragmenting, scattered on winds that no mortal could feel. In its fury at being cheated out of destroying the Iron Elves at the caravan, the creature was tearing itself apart. Only its need for revenge kept it from losing itself entirely. That one crystalline thought fixed and shone in the center of its madness like a diamond.
Suhundam’s Hill.
The Iron Elves.
Major Swift Dragon.
The soldier usurper.
Endlessly it repeated the mantra.
As it did a new, cunning thought began to form. The shades of the dead still aided the Iron Elves. No matter how fierce the rakkes, they were no match for such enemies… alive.
Frost fire arced and spit across the creature’s body. The snow, stained with black ore, flew to it and began circling around it. A whirling storm of thick sheets of metal ice bands formed, each one rotating faster and faster. The earth cracked and buckled beneath its feet. Rakkes screamed and ran.
A high-pitched shriek rose above the siren wail of the spinning metal ice as the pull of circling bands began to tighten their orbits until they were cutting into what remained of its body.
Ribbons of flesh were gouged out of it like a plow cutting through loam. Each slice was a new exploration of suffering. Bone chipped and disintegrated while blood misted and crystallized, then fractured into ever smaller pieces.
It kept moving even as its body and mind were honed down to a razor thin existence. It drew more of the storm toward it until it vanished entirely in a maelstrom of gale force winds. For a moment, it was only energy, spinning itself tighter and tighter until the pressure became too much.
The wind died.
Everything went silent.
The spinning stopped.
The explosion released energy and agony. The bands of metal ice fractured, scything the air for hundreds of yards in every direction. Bits of the creature stained the shards.
Rakkes vaporized in a hail of ice and metal. Bodies flew apart, sliced and cleaved so minutely that it was impossible to tell what they had once been.
A remnant of the creature coalesced in the center of the blast. A cold, dark spinning core of black energy. It reached out with its mind, finding pieces of itself all around. It called to them, and shades of dead rakkes by the hundreds answered the call.
The surviving rakkes picked up their pace, their bloodlust unabated. The shades of the dead rakkes flowed between this plane and the next.
They were the creature’s revenge.
The creature would have smiled if it still knew how.
It had transformed itself. It had taken its pain and agony and multiplied it hundreds of times over.
Finally, after decades of servitude, it had an army to call its own.
Konowa rubbed his right shin and climbed back to his feet, waving for Private Feylan to continue. The soldier was moving quicker up the rocky path than Konowa expected. The footing was treacherous as every rise was slicked with ice, as Konowa’s shinbone could attest. Worse, no two were quite the same, so he couldn’t find a comfortable rhythm. Whoever had hacked the steps out of the rock had done so quickly and with little care or concern for craftsman-ship. The more Konowa thought about it the more he wondered about the likelihood of there being any booby traps at all. Considering the condition of the steps he doubted the workers would have had the time or the skill to set anything more dangerous than the uneven steps themselves.
“That’s a hundred, Major,” Private Feylan whispered. He stood just a yard ahead of Konowa, one boot resting on the step above, his musket held at the ready. Snow swirled above their heads providing a pale, reflected light tinged with the blue of the returned Jewel of the Desert. It made everything feel even colder, which was quite a feat.
Konowa nodded, hiding his chagrin. He’d been so busy trying to navigate the winding path without breaking a bone he’d lost count. He turned and looked at the Viceroy, who had the map out and held at what appeared to be a new angle.
“Problem?” Konowa asked.
“Wrinkle is more like it. I can’t quite make out a letter here, and I suspect it’s rather important. No matter, we’re good until the three hundred and first step. Of that I’m almost positive.”
Konowa looked back up at Feylan, whose eyes grew considerably wider. Konowa offered him a tired smile. “You’re doing fine. Just slow it down a bit. We’ll beat the regiment to the fort by a good hour as long as we do it carefully. Now hold there for a second, I want to do a head count.”
Private Feylan nodded and turned back to face up the path. Slinging his musket over his shoulder, Konowa eased himself around using both hands on the rocks near him to steady himself. A thin sheet of ice covered the rock giving his hands little purchase. He pressed harder as a boot heel began to slip out from beneath him.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered, ramming the palms of his hands against the ice and willing his body to stay upright even as his other boot began to slip as well. He tried to dig in, but only resulted in slipping faster. For a moment he treaded air, madly trying to find some footing. An idea formed from desperation sprang to mind and frost fire flared out from his hands to cover the rock and the step beneath him. His boots thudded down into the rough ice crystals and didn’t move.
Konowa’s sigh of relief was cut short as the butt of his musket banged against a boulder.
He cringed, but the noise was dull and didn’t carry. He deliberately looked past Pimmer, who was staring at him with mouth agape and caught the eye of the soldier behind him. “Everyone still with us?” Konowa asked as nonchalantly as he could.
A low murmur sounded followed by a few muffled aye’s before the wind drowned out the rest. A moment later the soldier nearest Konowa gave him a thumbs-up.
Konowa carefully spun himself back around to face up the stone stairs and gave Feylan a hand signal to continue. The soldier set out at once, but definitely with more caution. Konowa kept a close eye on where Feylan stepped and tried to place his boot in exactly the same spot while counting off the steps under his breath.
Before Konowa was ready they reached the two hundredth step. Again they stopped and Konowa did another head count while the Viceroy continued to spin his map for yet another new angle in a most disconcerting fashion.
Three hundred and one remained the magic number. All the soldiers were accounted for, so they pressed on until Konowa counted out two hundred and eighty. He reached out a hand and grabbed a hold of Feylan’s robe and pulled. The private stopped and turned.
“We’re getting close,” Konowa said, keeping his voice low. He motioned for Feylan to sit down as he leaned back against a boulder and caught his breath. Thus far the path, though steep, had run more or less in a straight line. Up ahead, however, Konowa could make out a sharp turn and then blackness.
The wind had a nasty trick of funneling down the path directly into their faces, carrying with it minute particles of sand and rock along with the metallic-tinged snow, stinging his face and making it even harder to see the way ahead.
Pushing his senses forward would be of little help here. If there really was an ancient booby trap up ahead the original builders would have had to have made it out of rock or metal. It certainly couldn’t be anything alive… or could it?
Konowa closed his eyes and drew his thoughts inward, grasping the cold power of the oath bond and then strengthening it with his need. He pushed outward, opening his eyes to stare sightlessly as his mind surged far ahead, questing the rocks above them for something waiting to attack.
Something warm and sweaty loomed in front of his face and Konowa snapped back to himself to find Pimmer weaving in front of him like a ship tossed on a storm. “Major, are you… are you all right?” he asked, his breathing ragged.
“Fine, thank you, Viceroy. I was just checking to see if there was anything with large claws and teeth around the next rock, but I sensed nothing. How are you?”
“I… oh my, this is far more vigorous than I anticipated,” he said, sliding down against the rock face opposite Konowa. “Maps… don’t really impart… a true sense of altitude I’m afraid.”
“Let’s hope they’re better at telling us what the first booby trap is,” Konowa said, motioning for the rest of the soldiers to take a knee. The command had to be relayed back down the line as the path was too narrow for all of them to squeeze together in a circle.
Knowing that was his cue, Pimmer pulled out the map, turning his body so that it blocked the paper from the wind. Konowa pushed himself away from the rock and leaned over for a better look. Pimmer fished around in his robes and retrieved a small brass storm lantern. He wrapped both hands around it and gave it a shake. When he took his hands away, Konowa was amazed to see it had lit.
Pimmer saw him looking and held it closer so Konowa could see. “A little find in the library. Can’t say that I understand how it works, but that’s science for you.”
“It’s not magic?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Pimmer said. “Looks like there is a liquid and perhaps some crystals inside it. When you shake it they get smashed together and you get light. Lasts for a good ten minutes or so until you shake it again. There are several cases in nature of creatures having the ability to produce their own light from tiny fireflies to, well, dragons.”
“When all this is over you’ll have to tell me all about it,” Konowa lied, pointing to the map. “What’s around the next bend?”
Pimmer smiled and set the lantern down and focused his attention on the map. “If I’m reading this right,” he said, tracing a finger along the paper, “the key to step three hundred and one is to avoid it altogether.”
“Beg pardon?” Konowa said. To their credit, the soldiers around them said nothing, knowing Konowa would look out for them.
Pimmer shrugged. “I’m doing my best, but deciphering the code is tricky, Major. Still, my advice is sound. Whatever happens with the three hundred and first step is nothing we want a part of, so it’s a simple matter of not stepping on it and we should be fine.”
“Are you going first then?” a soldier asked.
“Who said that?” Konowa asked, looking around sharply.
“Me, sir, Private Otillo,” the soldier said. He didn’t have the good sense to look sheepish.
It was clear insubordination. However naive about the job of soldiering the Viceroy might appear, he was still the ruler of this land and Her Majesty’s sworn representative. Konowa knew he’d been letting a lot slide since the ramifications of the oath had become clear, but the men were starting to take advantage. Before he could call out the soldier, however, Pimmer responded.
“There’s nothing else for it. The map is tricky and I won’t be a lick of good to someone a few feet ahead of me as I try to piece the puzzle together.”
Konowa waved away the offer. “Viceroy, we’ve been over this. No one questions your bravery,” he said, looking squarely at Otillo, who had just done so, “but your unique talents will no doubt be needed many times in the coming days as we travel toward the coast. You aren’t going first.”
Pimmer stood up with some effort and straightened his robes. It took a moment as he had to readjust his pistol and saber. When he finally had everything in place, he stuck out his chin and pointed a finger at Konowa. “Then I must pull rank on you, Major, and insist that I go first.”
“This isn’t the time or place, Viceroy,” Konowa said, reining in his exasperation as best he could. “You might outrank me, but out here