Crown of Crystal Flame

by C. L. Wilson

  «Rain!» Ellysetta’s warning shriek sounded in his mind.

  He looked up to see the sixth dragon diving in for the kill.

  “I’m all right. I’m fine.” Rain caught Ellysetta’s hands in his. Though the sixth dragon had given him a good scorching, Steli had swooped in to snatch him from harm’s way. She’d jabbed the reptile in the eye with her tail spike in passing, and left his twitching body for Xisanna and Perahl to finish off. Thanks to a bell of intensive healing by Ellysetta, he was fit enough to fight and determined to return to battle. “I have to get back.”

  With the help of Air masters and a few well-timed barrages of Fey bowcannon fire, the allies had kept the remaining dragons at bay. The demons were gone and the allied army was once more on the move, but as they drew closer to the walls of Orest, they would need him in the air, providing what defense he could.

  Ellysetta closed her eyes. He felt her struggle against her shei’tanitsa need to keep him safe. He knew what it cost her to say, “I know, kem’san,” and let him go. She was strong. Much stronger than most truemated fellanas. Much stronger, and far more courageous, than she ever gave herself credit. It was much easier to fly into danger yourself than to watch the one you love do so.

  “Rain. Ellysetta.” Bel rushed into the healing tent. “Come quick. You’ll both want to see this.”

  Curious, they both followed him out of the tent, only to stop in surprise as Bel gestured to the south. There, just cresting the next line of hills to the south, a large army approached. Rain estimated at least thirty thousand troops, all with gleaming bows and quivers across their backs. Their armor shone with rich copper hues in the morning light, and a lustrous golden glow enveloped them, as if they carried sunlight in their skin.

  That glow—and their distinctive cavalry, some winged and others graced with a single spiraling horn—identified the newcomers even before Rain discerned the distinctive leaf-shaped scales of their armor and the delicate, tapering points of their even-more-distinctive ears.

  Despite Galad Hawksheart’s numerous refusals, the Elves had come at last to join the war.

  “Welcome,” Rain said when the leaders of the Elvian army halted before him. “I am glad beyond words that Lord Hawksheart changed his mind after all.”

  The Elvian commander, a tall, broad-shouldered Elf with waist-length hair the color of sunset and rich sapphire eyes regarded Rain with the disconcerting intensity of his kind. “We do not come at Lord Galad’s bidding,” he replied in a low, lyrical voice. “The Lord of Valorian commands the Elves of Deep Woods. We answer to the Lady.”

  “You are from Silverwood,” Ellysetta said.

  The commander’s bright gaze fixed instantly on her, and the power of his gaze made the breath leave her lungs. “And you are Ellysetta Erimea. I have heard tales of your brightness, but they do you no justice.” To her surprise, the Elf commander clasped a fist to his breastplate and dropped to one knee before her. “Blessings of the day upon you, Ellysetta Erimea. It is our honor to serve the Winter Star.” He bowed low, over his knee, murmuring something in Elvish that she did not understand, but the thousands of Elves behind him suddenly followed his lead, each dropping to a knee and bowing low before her.

  “It is I who am honored, my lord commander.” The welcome of these Elves shocked her, and the near reverence with which they regarded her left her unsettled and embarrassed. “Please, rise, and be welcome.”

  “I am called Tamsin Greywing, my lady,” the Elf said as he stood, “general of the armies of west Elvia.” He turned to the two elves beside him, one a broad-shouldered, chestnuthaired male with the unflinching yellow eyes of a wolf, the other a stunningly beautiful Elf maiden. “This is my second in command, Gavin Fenwolf, and this is—” He glanced back at Ellysetta and his voice trailed off.

  “You may call me Commander Silverleaf,” the Elf maiden finished for him. Her voice was pure music, sweet as a song played by crystalline bells, but her face, with its piercing silver-grey eyes, possessed a composed, almost stern quality despite her great beauty. Masses of pale gold hair hung down her back in a multi-ply plait as thick as Ellysetta’s arm. “I lead the Aquiline riders.”

  “We bring you greetings from our queen, Illona Bright-hand,” General Greywing continued. “The Elves of Silverwood extend our hand of friendship and offer you our strength in this battle against the enemies of Light.”

  Across the river, on the shores of Eld, Vadim Maur noted the arrival of the Elvish army. His lips compressed in a hard line.

  So, the Feraz hadn’t been keeping Hawksheart occupied after all. He would have a word or two for Fezai Madia the next time he saw the arrogant witch.

  Turning to Vargus, he barked his next command. “Release the revenants.”

  Sound rumbled across the scorched plains outside Lower Orest. The ground beneath the allies’ feet began to shake. Ellysetta looked down in surprise. “Is it an earthquake, ‘Jonn?”

  The giant Earth master’s dark eyes glowed green as he sent his great magic plunging into the ground below. A moment later, he shook his head. “Nei, not the earth. Something inside it.”

  “Something like what?” Rain asked Before Rijonn could answer, a cry sounded down the line.

  “Look!”

  Rain and Ellysetta turned. Something was pouring out of the ground near the south gate of Lower Orest. From a distance, it looked almost like a swarm of termites bubbling up from a disturbed nest. “What is that?” Ellysetta asked.

  Beside her, the Elf commanders muttered something in their native tongue.

  Rain’s expression went grim. “Revenants? What the Seven Hells are revenants? “

  General Greywing’s eyes went dark. “Black magic. Very old, very deadly black magic. The world hasn’t seen their like in at least ninety thousand years.” He glanced at Commander Silverleaf and said, “The knowledge was lost. How did this Mage find the spell?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Tam.” She turned piercing gray eyes on Rain. “Get your people out of there, Feyreisen. This is not an enemy Celierians can kill, and Fey will find it difficult.” Authority snapped in her voice. “Swords are useless—worse than useless—as is most magic.”

  Rain gave the command without question, then scowled at Silverleaf. “If swords and magic are useless, how the Hells are we supposed to kill them?”

  “Elvish Light arrows. Tairen fire. Hundred-fold weaves—though more than hundred-fold is better. Other weaves have little effect. Whatever you do, don’t slice off even the smallest bit of the revenants’ flesh. They multiply when split.”

  “Lovely,” Gaelen muttered.

  Beside him, Bel’s eyes went hazy as he spun the warnings to the allies. Dozens more holes in the ground had opened up, and revenants were pouring out into the sunlight. The Celierians were running for their lives back to the allied encampment, while the Fey brought up the rear and spun shields to slow the revenants’ advance.

  “Bas’ka, you heard her,” Rain commanded. “Swords and magic are useless. Kaiven chakor, get Ellysetta and the shei’dalins to safety.”

  “Bayas,” Commander Silverleaf countermanded. “That you must not do, Tairen Soul. The Feyreisa must fight at your side.”

  Rain’s brows slammed together. “What? Are you mad?” He glanced from Greywing to Commander Silverleaf. “Who the scorching Hells are you, Elf? And don’t give me that ‘You may call me, Silverleaf’ krekk. Obviously you are not Greywing’s subordinate.”

  “I am a seer of the Elves, Tairen Soul, and I have come to advise you on behalf of Elvia’s queen, Illona Brighthand. If you send the Feyreisa away, you will perish and she will fall to Darkness. Your only hope to survive this battle is to stay together and fight as one. You hold each other to the Light.”

  “Are you saying if we fight together, we will survive this battle?”

  The Elf hesitated. “Bayas. I cannot say that. There is risk. But if you send her from you, risk becomes certainty. You will die; she will fall.”

  R
ain stared hard at the Elf commander, trying to read those impenetrable gray eyes, but as with most Elves, looking into her eyes was like staring down a bottomless well. They gave away nothing.

  “Rain, let’s go.” Ellysetta’s hand brushed his. “You heard her. Tairen fire is one of the few weapons we have against this army.” «It’s time for trust, not doubt, shei’tan. The Elves are right. We’re stronger together than apart. You know it as well as I.»

  He wanted to refuse. The danger to them both was very real. He’d just almost died himself. But already, the entire field around Lower Orest was blanketed with foul, maggot-colored monsters. There were easily two hundred thousand of them, and thousands more scrambled out of their boreholes with each passing chime. Behind the allied lines, the earth shifted and bulged upward as a new line of holes erupted and began spewing revenants to cut off the allies’ retreat.

  Rain spun to face Ellysetta’s primary quintet. “You five organize the hundred-fold weaves. Let’s kill as many of those creatures as we can, starting with those.” He jerked a hand towards the line of revenants threatening the allies’ rear flank.

  “The Aquiline riders will assist you,” Commander Silver-leaf said.

  “I’m counting on it.” Rain leapt into the sky and Changed. Ellysetta’s quintet flung her skyward on a weave of Air, and she slid effortlessly into the saddle strapped to the back of Rain’s neck, her dahl’reisen-forged armor shining in the sunlight.

  As Rain wheeled around to head back towards the field of revenants and prepared to fire, he heard Greywing cry, “Elves! Take aim!”

  The Elvian general didn’t look up to watch Rain’s approach, but just before Rain flew past, he cried, “Fire!” The Elves loosed their Light arrows, and the sky before Rain and Ellysetta lit up with blinding brightness.

  Rain, the tairen, and the Aquiline riders flew through the wake of the Light storm. They burst from the brightness with tairen fire and arrows blazing to incinerate the monsters threatening the allies’ retreat.

  Fire consumed long tracts of revenants in red-orange flame. As they burned, they emitted a grating, high-pitched screech that rattled Ellysetta’s bones. She shielded her ears against the noise but kept her eyes open and scanning the sky.

  Bowcannon bolts turned the sky dark, flying from Orest and across the river. She spun whirling cyclones of Air and Fire to stop them, but the missiles were too plentiful for her weaves alone.

  «Gil!» she cried. «You and the Air masters keep those bowcannon bolts off of us.» Instantly two dozen cyclones sprang up around the tairen and Aquilines, catching the bolts midair and leaving the tairen and Elves free to rain fire and Light arrows down upon the revenant masses.

  The Mages clearly didn’t like that much, because the rest of the dragon flock took wing from the peaks surrounding Upper Orest. They screamed, the sound like great trumpets blaring. Long, serpentine necks ended in wedge-shaped heads with snouts filled with sharp, curved teeth. They flapped their massive wings and soared over the fields of Orest on a direct course with the tairen and the Aquiline riders. With them was a female dragon nearly twice the size of the rest. Clearly, she was the pack’s queen, for when she bugled a command, the others obeyed.

  «Dragons, Rain. Coming from our left, off the Rhakis.»

  «I see them. Silverleaf, you deal with the revenants. The tairen will take the dragons.»

  Commander Silverleaf raised her bow in acknowledgement, and the Aquiline riders spiraled down. Elvish bows sang and Light arrows zipped towards the ground in streamers of golden light, as if the sky were raining sunshine. Each revenant pierced by the golden arrows went bright and exploded in a cloud of black dust.

  Above the fray, Rain’s wings spread wide and pumped to gain loft. Steli, Xisanna, and Perahl raced ahead in a V formation as, with a deafening roar, four more tairen burst from the Faering Mists south of the healing tents. Fahreeta, Torasul, and two younger pride mates sped north across open Celierian land to join their pride-kin above the battlefield.

  The dragons rocketed towards the pride, fangs bared, razor sharp claws extended. Great cats and dragons slammed into one another in the sky, fangs and claws slashing, tails whipping as they tumbled through the air. As the ground zoomed up to meet them, they broke apart. Both tairen and dragons were soaked with their own blood, still neither gave quarter. They simply flew back to a higher altitude and reengaged.

  The tairen belched boiling clouds of flame, but the dragon queen heeled back and flapped her great wings. Magic swirled in the air, and a brutal gust of wind blew the tairen’s fire back upon them. The monster dove below the pride and rolled onto her back beneath them. The dragon queen opened her own venomous maw and spewed searing jets of green, concentrated acid-flame.

  On Rain’s back, Ellysetta cried out in horror as the monster’s corrosive spew sliced through the tairen like Mage Fire, scything limbs from bodies. Maimed and mortally wounded, Fahreeta and the two younger tairen fell from the sky in a shower of blood and smoking gore.

  The queen screamed in victory and shot out on a burst of speed only to circle around for a second pass. Fire boiled from Torasul’s muzzle in a searing orange cloud as he dove to the aid of his fallen mate.

  Steli roared and burst through the concealing cloud of smoke above. With her white ears laid back against her skull, razored claws extended, she stooped towards the dragon queen. The foul beast glanced up too late to dodge Steli’s attack, and the pair clashed in midair, claws and fangs ripping and rending, wings and tails tangling in a savage battle for survival and supremacy. They plummeted towards the earth, roaring and screaming as each fought to rip out the other’s throat and claw open the other’s belly.

  They crashed into the ground with the force of a meteor. Debris exploded upward into the sky, then showered down in a hail of dirt and shattered rock, radiating out from the great crater where the two creatures lay in a limp tangle of limbs.

  Steli had taken the brunt of the fall. Wings and back broken, she lay in the pit, struggling for breath. The dragon queen hadn’t fared much better, but she could still move. She dragged the heavy weight of her body towards Steli and lifted herself up on trembling forelegs over the white tairen’s shattered form. The monster opened her maw, yellowed fangs dripping green poison as she prepared to deliver the death-bite. Steli’s pupilless blue eyes, their fierce glow dimmed with pain, gazed up, unflinching, defiance mixed with the grim acceptance of defeat.

  “Get away from her, you monstrous petchka!”

  Ellysetta’s furious shout heralded a searing jet of tairen flame that enveloped the dragon’s head just before she struck.

  The queen reared back, roaring. Ellysetta leapt from Rain’s back, riding a column of Air down to Steli’s side and peppering the dragon queen’s head and neck with Fey’cha as she went.

  Rain’s curved tairen claws sank into the tough, superheated hide of the dragon queen’s back, and with a mighty pump of his powerful wings, he hauled the foul creature into the air. Curving tairen fangs snapped at the dragon’s neck but the long, serpentine neck writhed and twisted, eluding him. The dragon hissed and struggled, spewing acid flame. He rocketed skyward in a rapid, magic-powered ascent, carrying the queen far above the earth, to a part of the sky where the air grew thin and so cold a drop of water would freeze in an instant.

  The abrupt change in altitude and temperature acted like ice shot on the dragon’s hide. Steaming scales cracked, ripping fissures down into the vulnerable flesh beneath. The queen shrieked in agony as the icy cold of the high atmosphere seared her.

  At last, Rain managed to sink his fangs into the dragon’s long neck. The touch blistered his muzzle and tongue, but he held on with grim determination and pumped venom into her veins until the creature went limp.

  With a roar, he released her.

  The dragon plummeted earthward. Limbs limp, dead wings fluttered like pennants tied to a falling rock as down the body of the great beast fell. She landed on the battlements of Orest with a mighty cras
h, shearing the whole of Maiden’s Gate off the side of the mountain and taking four full batteries of bowcannon and thousands of Eld troops with it.

  With a scream of triumph and vengeance, Rain followed close behind her, tairen fire boiling from his muzzle to scorch the remaining bowcannons.

  * * *

  Ellysetta laid a hand on Steli’s broken body and flooded her with a wave of healing and strength to ease the great cat’s labored breathing. From beneath half-closed lids, the cat’s dimming eyes regarded Ellysetta with mute suffering. The dragon had struck a mortal blow. Steli’s body was shattered and losing blood rapidly. What wasn’t pouring out through the gaping holes ripped into her hide was flooding her lungs and chest cavity. Steli was dying.

  Howling, shrieking with savage bloodlust, the revenants were closing in. They had already reached the edges of the crater. Ellysetta stared up in horror at their round maws, filled with row upon row of needle-sharp teeth, that gnashed and bubbled with frothy green slime. They moved with shocking speed, their clawed hands and feet gouging into rock and dirt for traction. The monsters would be upon them before she managed to do more than stop the worst of Steli’s internal bleeding.

  «Rain!» she cried. «Help us.» “Hang on, Steli,” she begged. She’d cut her fingers throwing Fey’cha at the dragon queen, and she wiped the blood off on her armored leg before holding her hands over Steli and summoning her healing magic. Please, gods, please, she prayed in silence as she sent her consciousness and healing Light into her beloved pride-mother.

  A golden light gleamed at the corner of her eye. Ellysetta turned, expecting to find one of the Elves, only to gasp at the sight of a Fey warrior, gleaming bright as the sun. But it was the sight of the warrior’s radiant, unearthly beautiful face that left Ellysetta stunned.

  “Varian?” It was him. The dahl’reisen—one of the first thirty-six who’d sacrificed his life for her in the Verlaine. She’d felt him die, heard the song in his soul as he passed through the Veil. And yet, here he stood, impossibly beautiful, unscarred, unburdened by the shame that had weighed so heavy upon him. His skin shone like the sun, and eyes were filled with such boundless love and serenity she wanted to weep with joy.