Chronicles of Pelenor Trilogy Collection

by Meg Cowley

  He bowed. “What next, Lord Ravakian?”

  “Revenge,” Saradon said, savouring each syllable of the word. “Revenge on the royal line of Pelenor, and their abhorrent sins. Then the restoration of order and fairness to Pelenor, and as far afield as can be touched by my hands.”

  Dimitri smiled, a tight-lipped one of approval, as anticipation curled in his stomach. It would not be long before he would not return to Tournai as Dimitrius Vaeri Mortris, the king’s spymaster, snapping at heels to find small favour. Soon, he would return as the right hand of Saradon and the new order.

  He had accomplished a mission beyond his wildest dreams. Now he stood a chance of overturning Pelenor’s ruling class as Saradon’s chief advisor. For once, he would be at the helm.

  It was time to show his hand.

  It was time to break the wheel.

  It was time to build a new world.

  Order of Valxiron: Chronicles of Pelenor Two

  One

  The stench of carrion clogged his nostrils in the warm, moist air. Dimitri stood utterly still, taking shallow breaths through his mouth to avoid the worst of it. He resisted the urge to flinch away from the ones prowling around them warily, darting forward and back as Dimitri and Saradon turned upon them, the threat of their power keeping them at bay.

  Saradon seemed unperturbed by the nature of their hosts. He stood tall and uncowed by the numbers that faced them, and seemed not to hear the shrill chatter that echoed around the caves. It peppered their ears with harsh, guttural shrieks and clicks that Dimitri wished he could silence. His head pounded with the raucous din of it. But it would not do to offend the goblin horde, for Saradon had brought him here to seek their help.

  He wished he had never mentioned them. Never fed Saradon the information that they massed in rebellion against the dwarven kingdom of Valtivar. He had meant to seed instability in Tournai, not inspire Saradon to seek a new ally. They were even worse in person than he had feared, and for the first time, he wondered how any of the reports had ever made it back, for the goblins were not shy about their murderous intent.

  How can these creatures be an ally? How can this be a vision for a peaceful Pelenor?

  Misgivings lurked in his stomach, but he pushed them aside.

  At the subtle beckon of Saradon’s curling finger, Dimitri stepped forward, bearing the small chest. A bribe. It had been easy to take from the king’s horde unnoticed, so trivial it was to Toroth. But the goblins’ shrieks intensified at the sight as he flipped the lid back to reveal a nest of cut and polished gems.

  Immediately, it was snatched from his grasp by hands that felt warm and unpleasantly clammy. Knobby calluses and broken nails scraped across his skin in their haste. Dimitri clenched his jaw and forced himself to slowly drop his hands to his sides. He longed to recoil and cleanse himself, his skin crawling with the ghost of their touch.

  Squabbling amongst themselves to touch the stones and carry the chest, they carried it to the goblin pascha, their leader. Torn, dark rags fluttered about them as they fought, savagely biting and clawing each other out of the way.

  Dimitri thought he discerned mismatched leather, skin, and tattered furs covering their disfigured forms, but it was hard to tell. Like so much else of theirs, it seemed cobbled together with whatever scraps they found or took, having no protection against the seeping cold of the stone underfoot. He wondered fleetingly how they coped, scrabbling around barefoot, before realising that he cared not.

  He watched with amusement. It took four of them to lift the chest, so bowed and stunted were they. If they stood tall, they would have come to Dimitri’s chest. Their advantage laid in numbers and feral abandon, not in training or strength.

  These goblins were bigger than the tikrit, the lowest goblins of all. They hovered around the fringes of the gathering, as was their place, too lowly and puny to dare enter the presence of the pascha.

  The pascha hissed with anticipation, showing his filed, yellowing teeth. “Ssssssspeak,” he growled as he scooped up handfuls of gems and let them flow through his splayed fingers. He spoke the Common Tongue with difficulty, as if his mouth struggled to form itself around the words. His sibilant voice echoed, and the host around them quieted at his orders, turning expectedly to Dimitri and Saradon.

  Their shadows flickered grotesquely on the wall, thrown by the huge pyre in the centre of the cave. The host seemed unable to keep from shifting in a constant ugly dance, and their shadows cavorted even more hideously behind them, distorting on the rough-hewn stone.

  Dimitri stirred and inclined his head, though not too much. The goblins needed no opportunity to think he and Saradon were weak or subservient. “Announcing Lord Saradon Ettrias Thelnar of House Ravakian.”

  Hisses arose and the frenzy around them intensified, until a glare from Saradon and a guttural bark from the pascha silenced them.

  “I know that name,” said the pascha. He bared his teeth at Saradon. “It cannot be. He is dead.”

  “I was never dead,” Saradon said and stalked forward. He spread his hands wide and turned in a slow circle, inviting them all to look at him. “I am Lord Saradon, and I will take my dues. I bring my blade, the likes of which no one else has yet met, as proof of my claim.”

  Saradon drew his sword with a metal hiss, holding it high. The slim, river-steel blade shimmered with its own glow in the dark cavern, and the ruby pommel blazed with a bloody light.

  The growing noise confirmed that the goblins indeed knew the legend of his blade that, before he had come to wield it, had slain many of their kind in the hands of his forefathers.

  “You will help me, and I will raise you from this pitiful hole in the ground to where you desire.”

  The chatter crescendoed around them, the goblins’ excitement clear. Dimitri snuck a glance around the cave. It was much as their underground passage had been. Once great, carved, dwarven halls under the hills ruined by the vermin inhabiting them now. Pristine carvings had been battered and chipped away until they were unrecognisable, and the walls ran red with daubed blood. Whose, Dimitri did not care to dwell on.

  The dwarves had abandoned it, albeit reluctantly, with the ebb and flow of their race’s dominion over the land as they chased the seams of mineral riches through the mountains. The goblins had been only too eager to seize the location and strip it of any association with its former masters.

  The dwarves had closed ranks to defend their remaining strongholds, abandoning the occasional tunnel network or spent mine.

  Had the goblins been more organised and less cutthroat, perhaps they would have stood a chance of reaching their goals of total dominion over the mountain realm, Dimitri mused.

  Their location was but a small part of the dwarven realm of Valtivar, but the rift between the races ran deep. Ever had the goblins loved the caves and fought the dwarves for control of their territory. Inexorably, they had been pushed back and, as in the case of the tikrit, enslaved by the dwarves for their own ends.

  It was the only thing Saradon could offer that they would have been tempted by. He had chosen wisely, as much as Dimitri disagreed.

  The pascha bared his teeth in a feral smile. “You will take Valtivar with us?”

  Dimitri could see the greedy gleam in his eyes at the prospect.

  “We will. After you help me take Tournai,” Saradon clarified. His tone was dark with the threat of revenge for those who had wronged him. Dimitri felt it, too. “As it should have been five hundred years ago, so it will be now. I will rule Pelenor. You may have Valtivar. I care not for the dwarves. Do what you will with their strongholds.”

  Dimitri stiffened. He could not have heard him correctly. Why would Saradon make such a generous offer, one that involved the fall of their own, most desired kingdom?

  He would not. Surely. He cannot ask Pelenor to ally with...these scum.

  The pascha clicked, hissed, and chattered in his strange tongue to his chieftains, who lurked behind him. They were all dressed in the finest garb
s, taken and re-shaped from dwarves, men, and even elves, judging by the patterns on their robes. Dimitri swallowed yet more distaste.

  “We will consider it,” the pascha said eventually. “Leave us.”

  To Dimitri’s surprise, Saradon did not challenge the lack of respect, but turned on his heel without a further word and strode out, Dimitri quick to follow. Tikrit bounded through the wide halls, close enough to snatch at their heels, though they did not dare to, scattering away on all fours as soon as they got too close. The goblin-kin surrounded them, stampeding down the halls in chaos.

  Dimitri and Saradon refused to be hurried, striding confidently side by side through the seething mass of bodies. Dimitri could bear the moist, fetid, rotting air no longer. As the first caress of outside air touched his cheek, he hurried forward, as did Saradon, until they burst through the shattered dwarven doors into the cool night air to breathe in deep, fresh breaths.

  A heartbeat later, they raced side by side through the ether of the world. Dimitri had been unsurprised to learn that Saradon could travel as he did, unseen through the world’s essence, though he wondered how the half-elf had learned such ways. Little surprised him about Saradon...except his deal with the goblins.

  He could not help but wonder if Saradon had learned his skills at the same hands as Dimitri. Hands teaching arcane ways in a secret Order that did not exist, which Dimitri had only been too glad to leave, even though it had inspired his own dreams of defiance and creating a new order.

  As they stopped, stepping from the void into Dimitri’s chambers in Tournai, the royal city of Pelenor, Dimitri turned to Saradon.

  “Lord, you cannot be serious about dealing with such...such...” He could not find a word that fit how lowly and scum-like the goblins were, how beneath either of their notice. This was not the new order he wanted to create.

  Saradon barked with laughter as he grabbed a crystal tumbler and helped himself to the contents of Dimitri’s finest drink before he answered. “They are a means to an end. Fear not, Dimitrius.”

  Dimitri waited for more.

  Saradon sank onto a couch before the roaring fire Emyria kept stoked, then beckoned for Dimitri to join him. He drew closer, but did not sit.

  “For now, I must take my allies where I find them. And it will do us good to sow fear and discord. If the king thinks I have united the goblins against him, he shall hesitate in his own machinations. Yet the common people who know we act for them will be unperturbed by it.”

  “You hope.”

  Saradon shrugged. “It will be what it will be. No one will know of our involvement with the goblins until such time as it befits us. All Toroth will know is that his empire is threatened from within and without.” Saradon smiled at the prospect.

  “What of afterward? After Toroth is gone and Pelenor is at peace? To what end does it serve us to have such bloodthirsty, unpredictable, hostile neighbours?”

  “They shall not be hostile if we are allied with them. Of that you can be sure. Besides...” Saradon smiled a wolfish grin. “Who said they had a place in my peaceful lands?”

  Dimitri raised an eyebrow. “You will betray them?”

  Saradon shrugged. “Whatever it takes to ensure peace – for all lands. If there are even any goblins left after the battles ahead are won.”

  Dimitri paused in thought, but he could not see how Saradon could ensure, by agreement or force, the goblins kept peace. He had a sneaking suspicion Saradon meant a far worse fate for the goblins.

  Will they decimate themselves for his cause? He could not see it.

  As much as Dimitri could not deny he would gladly see them destroyed, it niggled at his conscience. This is not the wheel I’m trying to build.

  He was not so naïve as to think that compromises would not need to be made. After all, nothing could be gained without sacrifice. Yet he wondered if it would really require the alliance of such unsavoury creatures to succeed.

  “Do you think the pascha will accept your proposal?” Dimitri asked eventually.

  Saradon nodded decisively. “Without a doubt.”

  “And if they do not?” Dimitri’s voice was brittle. So much was at stake. Too much to trust creatures such as the goblins.

  Saradon’s sly, cunning smile curled up once more. “A willing subject is far more biddable, but whichever way they choose, they shall serve me.”

  A prickle ran down Dimitri’s spine. What does he speak of? It sounded like Saradon would bind them to him using dark magics. It could not be so. Dimitri had seen the visions of a green and pleasant Pelenor, prosperous and free from corruption. We break the wheel to build a better one, he reminded himself. I hope.

  “Surely the moral goal of our crusade will be enough,” Dimitri suggested, keeping his tone light. “We do not need to bind others to our cause through force.”

  Saradon almost snorted out his fine wine. “You would trust a goblin’s conscience? Come now. Do not be a fool. I am not naïve enough to hope for such things. I was foiled once before. I shall not see it done again. I will do anything it takes to succeed and will take no risks, for there will not be a third chance.”

  His eyes flashed with determined menace. Saradon stood, drained the crystal glass, and nodded to Dimitri as he set it upon the table.

  “Return to court, Lord Ellarian. We both have work to do.” With that, Saradon vanished into the ether.

  For a long while, Dimitri stared at the spot where Saradon had stood, as the flames died in the fire before him and the lamps burned out, wondering at Saradon’s plans...and what he did not know of them.

  DIMITRI’S TINGLING unease abated into smugness that bubbled up through him as King Toroth’s unceasing tirade at Raedon, master and general of the Winged Kingsguard, continued. Dimitri slunk back into the shadows – it would not do to catch the king’s ire himself – to enjoy the show. Raedon’s hunched shoulders and bowed head said he had long given up on trying to protest his position.

  Dimitri smirked. That ought to take the arrogant dragon turd down a peg or two.

  Dimitri had foisted blame upon the Kingsguard for the Dragonhearts’ disappearance. It would only appear so. The Kingsguard had faced Aedon and his companions in the vaults, yet failed to stop them. To his relief and glee, Dimitri was not connected in the slightest to any of it.

  The king had mercilessly leapt upon the first poor fool he could punish for the loss of his greatest treasures. For Raedon, general of the Kingsguard and the most fearsome warrior on the king’s retinue, the failure and the punishment were his to bear.

  Dimitri did not know what the king would do to Raedon, so angry was he, nor did he care. Raedon was an even bigger ass than his brother, Aedon, the king’s former golden boy.

  Maybe he’ll exile him, too, he thought hopefully. Mind, there’ll only be another jumped-up, arrogant prick to fill his place. There always was when it came to falling in and out of the king’s fancy.

  Toroth’s face reddened and spittle flew from his mouth as he stormed around the room, gesticulating wildly with vicious jabs of his fingers.

  “Get out!” he thundered. Raedon, after the briefest of bows, fled. Dimitri melted farther into the shadows. He did not wish to be the king’s next victim.

  Only Dimitri knew what had truly happened. That Aedon had burned through the stolen pile of Dragonhearts, using up their stores of magic to save his companions until only two were left in their possession – the one they had stolen to cure the village’s sickness, and the one he had taken to raise Saradon. The rest remaining in the compromised vault had been removed and taken somewhere so secure, Toroth would tell none of it.

  He suppressed a grudging respect for Aedon and his ability to control such magics. He had tenacity, that was certain, and was resourceful, but Dimitri still resented that life had bestowed such powerful capabilities on an elf he felt was so unworthy.

  No one knew he had let Aedon and his companions walk free, either. Why had he done it? If he were being honest with himself, it was
because of her. He had allowed himself to grow overly familiar until compassion stung him. Nothing would have pleased him more than to abandon Aedon to his fate, but she had stopped him. Stopped him even thinking of it.

  Harper...

  For a moment, he saw the tall, winged warrior, Aedon’s companion, standing on the parapet before him, Harper clutched in a burly arm. Exhausted, afraid, yet defiant. He still thought of her. Who she was in all of it. There was no chance it could be coincidence, but with the work yet to do, he could not dwell on it. All the same, he regretted not keeping a watch on her. Now she was...heavens knew where.

  Dimitri pushed away all thoughts of her, Aedon, and his band of outlaws, and allowed himself to savour the moment, and the maturation of his plans and long-held wishes to topple the establishment.

  It’s finally coming together, he thought with a smug grin.

  Two

  No matter how much Harper squinted, the water still glowed. She drew closer to the azure pool, cocking her head this way and that. The pure, clear waters captivated, the strange light they seemed to emit not the reflection of the sun far above them.

  Surely it cannot be glowing?

  Yet so much had happened that Harper would have called impossible that she could not entirely dismiss the prospect.

  Around her companions, the forest loomed, a watchful protector of the secret place. Birds sang and creatures rustled in the distance, along with the gentle peal of animals’ bells as they grazed on the last of autumn’s bounty, but it was silent there, in peace and watchfulness.

  Their horses, stolen from the Kingsguard of Tournai, waited and watched, tethered to the great trees, whinnying, stamping, and tossing their heads.

  Harper had not believed Aedon’s promise that all would be revealed. She looked to him. He grinned, mischief sparkling in his eyes, and beckoned her.

  He had promised her the climb would be worth it, but as beautiful as the pool was, hidden deep within the forested valleys up the foothills of the mountains, it did not seem worthy of a visit.