by Ben Galley
‘Then, do you know where Ivald’s forge was?’ Durnus interrupted.
Irien puffed out her cheeks. ‘In his fabled stronghold I suppose. Sword of the Elves, the songs call it.’
‘Sword of the Elves,’ whispered the vampyre as he hurried along, robe flowing behind him. Foreign words trickled from from his lips as he though aloud. ‘If imur means elf… Imur. Kiliz is sword in a similar dialect. Yara, to cut, azin means blade…’ Farden heard it at the same time Durnus did. The vampyre dug into his satchel and frantically rifled until he found the map of the east. ‘Azin Imur. Azanimur. It is not a Khandri name after all, it is elvish. The forge must be—’
‘Halt there!’ came an order from behind them. A gold knight was following them, his sword already unsheathed and ready.
‘Rather not!’ snapped Farden, as he tried to lend his own strength to the wagon. To his dismay, there was no discernible difference. The edge of the camp could be seen at the end of their undulating path. The open desert, falling away into a lowland of scrubland and salt-pan.
Farden clutched Irien’s arm. ‘You’ve kept your side of the bargain,’ he said. ‘Go now, while you can. It’s our turn for a distraction.’
Even then, in the panic and rush of escaping, Irien found time to grin and seize his vambrace with her wooden hand. The contraption was strong. ‘That sounds like forgiveness to me,’ she said.
‘It’s not,’ Farden said. He did not shrug her free but let their diverging paths do it for him.
‘Whatever the south calls you to, do me a favour and stay alive,’ Irien said before vanishing between the tents. ‘I have a feeling our paths are entwined, Farden, King of Scalussen.’
‘If I see you again, Lady of Whispers, it will be too soon!’ he called after her.
‘Farden!’ Mithrid yelled after him. He caught the others as they weaved a zigzag path between tents and woodsmoke. With the knight lost behind them, Warbringer broke the bolts of the cage with several swings of Voidaran. Fleetstar was soon free, snarling at them as she stretched her wings. She yowled as the pain caught her left wing. It hung limply at her side, and she slammed the wagon with her tail in anger. A wheel collapsed, broken in two.
It was a simple drunken soldier that brought the camp swarming after them. Farden saw him all too late. He lounged against a tent, cross-eyed with wine but still able to recognise an angry dragon, even in his state. Whether he sounded the alarm or did it for drunken fun, he raised the horn he held in his hands and blew it.
‘Fuck!’ yelled Farden, before breaking into a stumbling run. The others bounded after him.
‘Can you glide, Fleetstar?’ Aspala yelled by Farden’s side. She managed to catch him as he tripped upon a tuft of sand. He nodded thanks to her in silence. Her face, framed in the firelight of the burning palms, normally serious, seemed alive with the energy of the escape.
‘I may be able to,’ rumbled the dragon. Sand flew from beneath her claws.
‘It looks like we may have no choice!’ yelled Durnus. There was now a growing number of soldiers chasing them.
Farden kicked over a brazier and set a tent ablaze. Goats scattered from inside, providing a wonderful and chaotic reaction. Mithrid followed suit with another, and as they ran, she spun shadow behind them. Even despite all his reservations for the girl – deeply closeted fear, even – she was a fighter.
The edge of the camp appeared all too suddenly. They burst from between two tents into the colder air of the desert. Guards stood about between braziers, arrows nocked and looking bemused.
‘Can I burn the camp now?’ Fleetstar growled.
Farden set his hand to her neck. He could already feel the inferno roaring within her chest. ‘Be my guest!’
Fleetstar opened her jaws wide, sending the guards running for their lives. The dragonfire reduced several of them to ash before she paused for breath. The sand turned to brittle glass wherever her flames of gold swept.
When the first arrow thumped into the sand at the mage’s feet, he knew their upper hand was swiftly crumbling. ‘We need to run!’ he ordered. Durnus threw up a feeble shield as the minotaur dragged him and Mithrid onwards. The plateau of sand reached out into the night before falling down into the lowlands beneath.
Fleetstar! Farden bayed in his mind. He had to throw his hands against her and push the thought through those stubborn scales. Whether it worked, or it was the sight of a monstrous ballista trundling out from between the tents, but the dragon almost knocked him flat as she turned.
Once again, Aspala was there to hold him up.
‘Keep the others safe,’ he yelled. ‘Don’t worry about me!’
‘You forget, King! Without you, there is no Scalussen,’ she snapped.
Something hissed past his ears, and Farden watched as a black streak hammered into the sand perilously close to the minotaur. Another arrow clanged from Mithrid’s armoured back, knocking her into a spreadeagled roll. Warbringer hauled her up and tore into an all-out sprint for the plateau’s edge. Farden stowed every ache and pain and pushed himself as fast as he could go. Fleetstar thundered past him even so, skidding lopsidedly and almost knocking Durnus into the night. Mithrid was aboard, hunkered low as another iron bolt whistled into the darkness. Now the vampyre. Warbringer seized the dragon’s front claws. Farden pushed Aspala on ahead of him. His legs were leaden in the sand. He was tiring fast, and yet he did not slow. An arrow ricocheted from his arm. The shock rang through his armour like a bell. Aspala turned as she sprinted, and as she did, her dark eyes widened. Before Farden could turn, she seized his outstretched arm and with a vicious heave, sent him sprawling.
Even before he had crumpled into a heap, he knew.
The sound was unmistakable. Of steel puncturing flesh and bone. Of Aspala’s gasp.
Farden scrambled upright, sand stinging his eyes as he hurled himself after the woman. An iron bolt had skewered her, pressing her into the sand. The bolt ran her through the stomach. About two foot of iron and bristled fletching protruded from her back.
‘Aspala!’ Mithrid screeched. She was fighting to get off Fleetstar’s back, fighting Durnus tooth and nail. She shouted over and over to be free.
Aspala fell to her knees just as Farden reached her. Blood already dribbled from her lips, but she was wild-eyed. No shock lingered on quivering eyes, just a cold determination. As Farden ducked more arrows, fired wildly into the darkness, he watched her drag the rest of the bolt through her with a blood-curdling roar. Crimson stained the sand black in the starlight. It left a horrendous wound in her belly, but she clung to life with a fierce determination.
Aspala fended off his attempts to pull her to the dragon. They were so desperately close.
‘We have to go!’ he yelled at her. ‘Up you get, soldier! You’ve seen worse.’
But Aspala would not be moved. Digging her sword into the sand, Aspala pushed herself to her feet with inhuman effort. ‘It’s time for you to leave, King,’ she gurgled. ‘Ever since that cave of mirrors, I cannot stop thinking of my mother. Now I know I’ll see her soon enough. Give me a warrior’s death, as I’ve always wanted. As I promised you.’ The smile spread across her bloody lips.
Farden could not leave her, and yet Aspala slowly wound her arms out of his grip, and raised her sword to her forehead in salute. He could see dark shapes swarming across the sand towards them. Gold armour glinted in the now-distant brazier fire.
‘Go!’ she grunted, pushing him away before menacing him with her sword. ‘Do not force me to make you. Do what you promised us all, King!’
Farden raised his sword to her, lingering as long as he dared. It was with a heart struggling to beat and an enraged shout that Farden was forced to turn and run for the dragon.
‘No rest ’til freedom served!’ she bayed to the stars, before crossing blades with the first of Belerod’s soldiers. The man’s body fell to the sand headless.
‘We can’t leave her!’ Mithrid screamed in Farden’s face as he clung to Fleetstar’s back.
‘She won’t leave!’ he bellowed right back. ‘It’s too late, Mithrid!’
Fleetstar gave the girl no further chance to complain. With a lurching flap and roar of pain, she launched herself over the slope of the plateau and careened into the night. Her wounded wing was barely kept aloft, but the dragon burned with more than just fire. A monstrous determination kept them aloft and gliding.
It was with grinding teeth and tears that they watched Aspala fade into shadow. A circle of corpses was growing around her. The ring of her golden scimitar filled the night like the mad tolling of a bell. The last they saw of her, before the ridge stole them from view, the Khandri and Hasp were rushing her with shields. Her guttural roars chased them across the dark and silver sand.
‘Escaped, you say?’
The Khandri soldier bobbed his head again, hands clutched in front of him like a servant begging a boon. ‘They escaped, Lord Belerod. All save one. The one that killed your son.’
A scimitar landed on the steps of the dais. Its gold had been painted red with blood.
Belerod twiddled the knife, drilling a small hole in the table’s varnish. The court held its breath as they waited the warlord’s judgement. The sound of grinding stone came from behind him as one of his golems shifted its weight.
He saw the figure weaving through the gathered, hooded and confident. Belerod raised his knife, ran the blade along his hairless scalp, and then hurled it.
The soldier fell to the sand to hushed gasps and whispers, eyes cross and staring at the knife embedded between his brows.
As the corpse was hauled away, Belerod turned to the shadow that had fallen over him.
‘And what do you have for me?’ he asked her. ‘Oh, Lady of Whispers?’
Irien sat down beside him with a smile. ‘I was right. Just like I suspected in Vensk, Farden is looking for an ancient weapon. One that, if I know my ancestor’s history, is worth more than mages and dragons. More than your golems, perhaps.’
‘Lies,’ Belerod spat. He extended a hand and a servant immediately filled it with a flute of cold wine.
Irien chuckled. Her wooden arm rested on her knee, fingers tapping ponderously. ‘The smithing and crafting skills of the ancients has yet to be matched.’
‘But they shall in due course,’ scoffed Belerod. He had no respect for those who had fallen to history’s ravages. His empire, his Harmony, would last a thousand years when he was finished. ‘What kind of weapon?’
‘Sigrimur’s spear Gunnir. A weapon of great power and fit for the gods, or so say the old songs.’
‘And where is it?’
Irien pointed a wooden finger. ‘It was said to be destroyed or lost to the ocean. Nobody has ever found it, but Farden and Durnus are trying to prove countless scholars and skalds incorrect. He is going south to search for a place called Azanimur, where the spear apparently lies.’
Belerod had studied every map of the Harmony. He dug through his memories as a scribe might peruse a library shelf. ‘At the far edges of Khandri is a ruin of that name…’ Belerod drew another knife from his belt and waggled it at her. ‘I will not let my prizes escape my clutches willingly and chase them hundreds of miles for pure amusement. Mine or yours. That weapon will be mine.’
Irien fixed him with an unwavering gaze. ‘You will not regret this, Lord Belerod. You and I shall have what we want at last.’
‘And what, pray, is your great goal, Lady of Whispers?’
She tapped her nose. ‘A shame you had to kill one of them. That was not what we had planned…’ Irien began.
‘My lord!’ came a cry. One of his knights came wading through the court with little care for who he barged or how forcefully. ‘My lord! The northern envoy has arrived.’
The evening had distracted him. ‘What envoy?’
‘The, er, envoy we told you of earlier. Our spies report their fleet of ships have landed off the northern coast, near Chanark. Thousands of soldiers have come ashore, despite a storm sweeping south. They are Golikan, they say, Lord.’
Belerod exploded to his feet. ‘They invade our lands!’
‘No, Lord, they come to ask for passage south across the deserts. Their queen Peskora waits for an audience with you. She refused to speak in more detail to a mere, er… dusty peasant, in her words.’
‘Passage, indeed?’ Belerod glowered at the man. This was highly unexpected, and if there was one thing Belerod hated in the world was surprises.
‘The Golikan queen, did he say?’ Irien asked, trying to play nonchalant, but already he could see the stiffness of her posture.
Belerod ignored her and instead marched to the edge of his dais to greet the northerners’ arrival. Warm winds ruffled his beard and robe. A dozen of them entered before the Golikan queen. Hands on hips, Belerod stared at their intricate wooden armour and their stocky crossbows.
Queen Peskora was a pale woman of some height, little girth, and even less hair. Her armour’s varnish gleamed. A waterfall of pendants of silver and gold hung around her neck, glowing softly with a green dust. She would have cut quite the formidable figure had it not been for her injuries. She relied heavily on a golden cane. Her other wrist was bound in dressings beneath her armour. A cut scored her brow like a second frown.
Beside her was an older man of weathered skin and many years, and furs dyed yellow and blue. He sweated profusely, and his shoulders were lopsided. One side of his face had been burned quite recently. By dragonfire, Belerod strongly suspected.
Though this man lowered his head, Queen Peskora refused to bow in Belerod’s presence, just as he had refused in hers.
‘Lord Belerod of Haspia,’ she greeted him. ‘I recall you from the Scarlet Tourneys.’
‘That is my name. And you are Queen Peskora of Golikar. And you, sir? I don’t recognise you.’
‘I am the High Cathak Tartavor,’ said the sweating man.
‘And what is it that brings you so far south with no invitation, if not for war or the diamonds of our mountains?’
Peskora looked impatient. ‘We have no interest in your mountains. You have a pest upon your lands. And if the burning palms and tents I saw during my approach are any indication, you have already experienced it. His name is Farden. I seek vengeance on him, as is my right. I hear he’s fled here, and I would ask for permission to take my army after him.’
‘A whole army for one man,’ said Belerod. ‘My, my.’
Queen Peskora’s gaze snuck past Belerod. ‘And while I am here, I will take the head of that woman behind you.’
Belerod turned to find Irien smirking defiantly.
‘Hello, cousin,’ she whispered back. ‘And here was I, thinking you’d come all this way just for me.’
Peskora chewed her painted lip.
‘The Lady of Whispers is under my protection, sadly,’ Belerod replied. ‘And as for your original request, it will come with a price.’
Belerod could see the anger flitting across the queen’s face.
‘A toll?’
‘You can have the mage to do with as you please. His dragon, minotaur, and his belongings are mine,’ he uttered. ‘We will march alongside you as a guide.’
Peskora and her fur-clad ally flashed a fiendish grin. Fools, to not know the price of their own prey. ‘A fair deal. I accept,’ she said.
‘As do I,’ added Tartavor.
Turning his back on the queen and the Cathak, Belerod returned to his ornate throne of a chair while they were ushered from the court. After he had taken a swig of wine, the warlord rested his hand on Irien’s wrist of flesh and bone and began to squeeze. His tone was measured. Quiet. Conversational despite its threatening words. ’You had better be right about this weapon, Lady of Whispers. Otherwise, I will hand you over to this queen that seems to admire you so much.’
The woman was resolute. ‘If you go south, Belerod, you will not regret it. Farden has become weakened. Durnus looks sickened or plagued. And Mithrid is a wild force. They will not be able to stand in your w
ay.’
Irien kept her smile until Belerod turned away and stared across his whispering court with a satisfied expression of his own.
‘We march at sunrise!’ he barked.
CHAPTER 31
AZANIMUR
The daemons forged the dark elves from their spite, the corpses of lesser gods, and tortured magick. It is no wonder they bathed in destruction and death as much as their masters! The elves were so cruel to our ancestors that many stories paint them as the primary evil behind the daemon’s war with the gods, and the slavery of the first humans. They inherited cunning from their creators, built machines of foul intent, and summoned creatures from the void of the other side. Yet for almost two millennia since elves and daemons were banished to the sky by the gods, it was the elves we feared more. That is why parents threaten wayward children with the claws of an elf in the dark should they not behave! Why their wells of magick were destroyed, why their grand fortresses were cast to ruin, and all trace of them burned away! Many believe the elves linger between their daemon masters within the stars, but I warn you, not all dark shadows of this world fell to the gods’ wrath that day. Not all.
FROM WRITINGS OF THE HERETIC FALSO
Silver sands were soaked crimson by the morning sun. The dawn felt cold to all the endless deserts but the handful of travellers who hunkered close to a dragon’s back.
Fleetstar’s claws clipped the dunes. The rising heat gave them another few miles of soaring before the pain grew to be too much, and the momentum of their glide, too little.
At last, Fleetstar landed, saying nothing but growling plenty in pain. Nor spoke the others. They removed themselves from the dragon’s scaled back and clutches, as cold and stiff as the stone automatons that had stood at Belerod’s command.
