By the second rusted iron key attempt, the door opened. The shrike marched into the room and came face to face with Ahna. He walked toward her. He seized her face in his hands and took one step closer to wrap his arms around her. She let out a silent, unexpectant moan as he pulled her in. The warm sensation of her body against his pulled him away from reality. Cedric inhaled deeply as he passed his hands around her waist. He caught her scent, filling his lungs with the sweet smell of bellflowers.
“Cedric,” she softly said. “What are you doing here?”
Her voice startled him, and he let go. The shrike noticed the strange item that was lodged into her neck. He wanted to pinch it between his fingers and pull, but she stopped him.
“If you try to pull it out, it will hurt you,” she warned.
He smiled and dismissed her. “I wield the Cursed Bow, Ahna, I can handle this.” He sat tall and pulled the quūora fang out of her throat, simply, without even a flinch, and let it drop to the floor.
Ahna gasped in a deep breath of air, as though she had suddenly regained the ability to function. Relief flooded her senses. She cleared her throat as Cedric prepared for their escape.
“How did you get here?” Ahna asked, baffled by the events.
“I thought I’d lost you, then I used the salt circle. It worked! Now, we need to get out of here.”
Of course! Their bond may have been severed, but the circle of salt back at the granary was still active, still bound to the Abstract Plane!
They heard the march of at least five different guards coming toward them. They hurried outside the cell, and Cedric brandished his sword.
Ahna politely pushed him aside. “Leave that to me.” She looked back at the shrike with an old flame in her eyes. “I just got my magic back, and it needs to roar!”
The five men approached them. Ahna began to twirl her wrists slowly. A curved flickering circle of light appeared around both her hands. As the guards encircled her, she raised her hands to the height of her head. The flickering halos converged in multiple rings of radiance. The blinding hoops spun around her and grew larger and larger until the guards had to cover their eyes not to be blinded.
Ahna suddenly clapped her hands together, and the circles of light burst into a shockwave. The flashes turned the men to shreds instantly.
Cedric looked at the scene, flabbergasted. He turned to Ahna. “Please, never do that to me!”
The elf staggered to Cedric and clasped her hands around his. They could hear the march of ten guards more in the distance.
“I want to kill that son of a...” Cedric began with a determined voice, prepared to march to the hallway, but Ahna gripped his arm.
“Cedric, I don’t know if I can hold on much longer,” she confessed.
He looked at her and acknowledged, as he understood that his wish to end the Dark Lord could not be fulfilled. They could try, but would soon be eradicated by his army of guards, marksmen, and warlocks. And Ahna was obviously not in good shape.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
“I don’t know if trust is relevant at this point.”
As Ahna looked up to the hidden sky, her eyes turned black. She pulled Cedric closer to her. A sudden chill sensation enveloped them, and the ground appeared to fluctuate. It felt as though the world warped around them, and reality had bent to Ahna’s will.
When the sway of the fade had dissipated, Cedric freed his hands and scanned his surroundings. As he turned around, his eyes met with Jules’. A rejoiced smile drew on his friend’s face. When Cedric turned back, Ahna had collapsed to the ground.
As she regained consciousness, the elf slowly became aware that she was back in the barn. She opened her eyes. She was on the ground, her back leaned against Jules’ body. Cedric kneeled in front of her with his hands on her shoulders. She heard her name be called repeatedly by the two shrikes. Once her thoughts were sorted, she sat up straight and looked around.
“It worked,” she said with honest surprise.
Cedric went to gather their things but accidentally stepped on the circle of salt. Afraid of the potential result, he checked with Ahna for damage.
“Well, there goes our portal to the Abstract Plane!” She chuckled awkwardly.
Jules helped her stand up. As his captain fiddled around with the satchels, the man cast a troubled glance over them. “We need to move quickly,” Cedric declared.
The lieutenant, despite being dazed and confused by the events, felt the same sense of urgency as Cedric. They picked up their swords, bow, satchels, and further equipment, and latched everything to themselves or the saddles.
Ahna was happy to see Bark by the fields outside the granary. She dashed to him and began to prepare him. She then looked at Cedric as he mounted his grey horse. She felt his rush and the anxious way he moved.
And she knew why.
She wanted to ease the situation, to perhaps get a chance to explain herself, to apologize. Because this mission had not only revealed her darkest truth, but the mission had failed, Xandor was coming to Orgna, and Cedric’s soul had slowly slipped away from their reach.
She slouched her shoulders and hesitated. “I want to explain it all.”
The shrike looked at her with an apprehensive glare. He was angry, but his anger was not directed at Ahna. He remembered when he had found her in the prison cell, and he remembered the last thing she had felt. When they were bound, he had felt everything. The guilt and remorse. The pain of facing the curse of her family, the anger that had brooded inside for fifty years. And mostly, the loss, and the reason why she had fled Bravoure. Somehow, it reached him deeper, beneath his own consciousness. Something in his soul had untied, and Ahna was now an answer to many of his questions.
“We can talk in Orgna,” he declared before pulling the reins back and leading his horse to the path.
The jailor was quivering at the Dark Lord’s enervated glare. “He just appeared. He killed them one by one and went straight for the cell.”
The frightened man looked to his feet as Xandor inspected his sister’s cell. On the stone floor, the King saw the shimmer of a pointed, rhodium object.
The quūora fang.
He picked it up and examined it pensively. “He just appeared?” Xandor hissed, offended.
He closed his eyes and smelled the needle as if to absorb its essence. One of his warlocks stood by him, a young human male born in the Bravan squalor. Xandor plunged his amber eyes in his and demanded explanations.
“It’s powerful magic, my Lord. A rift was opened.”
“One doesn’t just pull out an active quūora fang,” he inquisitively declared. “The pain, it’s unimaginable.” He stared absently at the object. “Unless it’s you again, marksman.” He remained silent for a minute, his gaze more scornful than ever. “You and your blasted Cursed Bow!”
The warlock remained behind him. He did not dare to move a muscle nor to speak a word. Xandor stepped out of the cell and passed him without looking.
“My Lord, what would you have us do?” the warlock carefully asked.
“Nothing. My army’s ready.”
Beyond the plains, through the hills and valleys, was a place of enduring hope. At the end of a narrow canyon, stood the Resistance base of Orgna. Inside the barracks that had once been a place filled with gold, there was a tiny cloistered room, where an old man sat to meditate. But the old man, despite being as devoted as he could be, was exhausted, and he had fallen asleep in front of his handmade statuette of the god Varko.
The old man stood in the middle of an endless spring field. The tall grass swayed to the rhythm of the warm breeze. He was alone, and the spring field spread past the horizon.
He suddenly heard the music of a goldfinch. The small passerine bird chirped and chanted a sweet melody that reminded him of his joyous youth. The bird flew closer to him, and the man opened his hand to welcome it. The small finch landed in the middle of his palm, and delicately looked at him.
“Hello, Gideon
!” it tweeted.
The old man gasped in pleasant surprise. “Oh, hello, little one. You speak?” Gideon asked and giggled innocently.
The little bird hopped enthusiastically. “Of course, I am a bird.”
Gideon was slightly puzzled. He kept smiling at the bird who spread its wings and flew again. “Come, follow me,” it requested. “We don’t have much time.”
And so Gideon heeded the call and followed the bird through the infinite field. As he came closer to the horizon, he finally distinguished the figure of an old temple in the distance. A humble edifice made of the stones of Gurdal. The little bird led him inside.
“Quick, they want to speak to you,” the finch tweeted furtively.
The wise cleric walked between the two columns at the entrance and stepped into a room lit by a single brazier. When he looked around for the bird, the passerine had flown out of the temple.
“Hello, Gideon,” a man whom he had not yet seen appeared and greeted him.
The man wore a long gold and burgundy robe. He had the eyes of the old monks of Gurdal from the legends of centuries ago. They were the eyes of Gideon’s ancestors, those who lived in the mountains.
The stranger approached him slowly. He walked around the brazier and came close to him.
“Follow me, Gideon,” he told the cleric. “The world you know is ending, and we don’t have much time.”
He held a welcoming hand before him, to invite the old man to follow. Gideon walked behind him, past the brazier and to the stone wall at the opposite side. The monk then stayed behind and motioned for Gideon to come and stand before the wall. The cleric, hesitant, turned his head to the stones. He noticed encrusted inscriptions he had not seen before.
And as he approached the writings, he could finally decipher them.
Once sired but cannot be tamed,
A new dragon must now be named.
To shadows sworn, in shadows may die,
High in Gurdal, where the sentinels fly.
His eyes opened wide, and so did his mouth in astonished surprise. He turned to the monk, the latter had vanished. The temple then collapsed around him, and he found himself in the grass fields again. He could hear the song of the passerine bird fade into the horizon.
“A new dragon must now be named! A new dragon must now be named!” it chirped and chanted.
When the cleric looked to his feet, the grass had turned to void, and Gideon opened his eyes.
11
The Battle of Orgna
Deep underneath Terra was a world known for the chaos and treachery that reigned. It was an empire of power-hungry monarchs, illicit trade, slavery, torture, and preachers of the demon-god Khor. Beneath the lesser tunnels, lay the vast caverns of Mal, one of the largest provinces of the Dwellunder.
1199:AV, in the beginning, there were three siblings. Xandor Kun, Meriel Ahn, and Thamias Son, from the dark elf House of Sharr. The Sharrs reigned over Mal and led the most potent military force of the Dwellunder. Karlus Sharr, the Duke of Mal, wedded Skaiel Arkamai, ranked Sorceress Prime at the Circle, and borned the three siblings.
1284:AV, apprentice Meriel, after her military service, began to climb the Circle’s ranks, just as her mother had done in her younger years. When madness drove Karlus and Xandor to seek more power at the feet of Hollow demons, Skaiel fled with her daughter and second son, Meriel and Thamias, to the surface. She arranged her escape with the benevolent people of Bravoure. When they reached the surface, the Twin Priestesses of the Congregation welcomed them and gave them a new home. In the meantime, left with a seeming feeling of rejection and abandonment, Xandor followed in his father’s footsteps.
Meriel, accepted by the surface’s human kin, joined the Magi Academy of Bravoure. A decade later, she, more gifted than most, received the title of Archmage of Bravoure. At the Academy, she met the man who moved her in ways she had never imagined were possible, Luthan Hyehn. The members of the Academy also discovered something revolutionary, Thamias could speak to wyverns and dragonets. He became known as Dragonborn, a mortal with dragon essence in his veins.
1312:AV, unrest caused Bravoure to implode from the errors of the past. The tensions became too intense, and the Dwellunder seized the opportunity to conquer the divided kingdom. Xandor was unaware the rest of his family had sought refuge in Bravoure. He rose to the surface for his own selfish gain, to prove to his father that he was better than him. He sired himself and began the destruction of everything Bravoure stood for.
However, in a glimmer of hope, a new prophecy echoed through the plains. The prophecy that foretold of the Dark Lord’s demise at the hands of dragon-blood. Or as so the people interpreted it to be. Xandor’s men massacred every last dragon descendant they could find across the land. But Meriel, the fallen King, and the Congregation’s Mother Divine named Thamias, Bravoure’s last hope to defeat the horde.
Thamias’ naming was the most majestic sighting of all. He was engulfed in divine light and transformed into a glorious golden dragon. The Opposition movement began, a military force of united soldiers, magi, and the Knights Templar ready to fight for their freedom.
But Bravoure was slowly crumbling on itself. Fear had taken over. Xandor ordered a cleansing, a magi genocide, banishing or killing the opposing magic-users and enslaving the remainder. Many of the Academy’s disciples surrendered or fled after the order’s execution. The Opposition failed. Thamias was vanquished. The King of Bravoure was executed.
Xandor, unable to kill his bloodbound brother, imprisoned the Dragonborn in his primal form within the Tomb of Ghydra, underneath the fortified castle. He sent for Skaiel’s execution and proceeded with the oppression of the rest of Bravoure’s Populi.
Meriel, who believed Thamias to be dead, who had just seen her mother be hanged, who lost her husband and her fellow magi, made the most difficult choice of all: flee to Miggdra. Xandor and his horde had taken everything from her, and she could no longer bear the shame of the House of Sharr. Meriel Ahn Arkamai became just Ahna, and Bravoure became a deep chasm of darkness.
1314:AV, in the squalor and misery, the defeated Opposition sparked a new hope. On the ashes of the failed movement, the Resistance rose, and the Resistance survived ever since.
Ahna recalled the pages of history as she rode her brown steed through the Bravan planes 1362:AV today. Cedric led in front, Jules galloped behind. Dusk was upon them when they reached the valleys below the gold mines. The horses trotted uphill. Ahna gazed over the rose landscape in the light of the ending sunset. Her mind wandered back to Thamias’ majestic first flight, to the smile on her mother’s face, to the green eyes of her long lost lover. They arrived at Orgna after nightfall, and as Ahna brought Bark to the stables, Cedric rushed inside the barracks.
Ahna and Jules soon followed the captain of the shrikes past the gates. When they entered the Resistance base, there was a group of rebels piling up a set of multiple large crates. People were moving around and about between rooms, inventorying or searching for something. Some carried heavy barrels of what seemed to be fire medicine, explosives.
Cedric, puzzled but determined, raced toward the council room. David stood by the entrance and gave a few inaudible orders to a group of swordsmen.
“Commander, what’s going on?” Cedric asked as he got close to him.
David sighed deeply, and his shoulders dropped.
“Thank the gods, you’re safe!” His eyes darkened with a grim veil. “Cedric, we’ve been made. Luk Ma’s scouts just came back with the news, Sharr gave the order.” He was stern with his words—exact.
They were made. Sharr’s army was to depart the next morning and march to Orgna, with cannons and trebuchets ready to send a stampede on Resistance grounds. The rebels were alerted but a few hours ago and had begun speeding their evacuation.
Cedric breathed in and adopted a ready stance. “What’s the plan, David?”
The commander signaled a group of cadets to join him. He gave them orders to carry the crates to t
he nearest tunnel. Concerned, he pulled his lip down as he looked at the shrike. “We move to Fort Gal. The elders and children are already on their way through the tunnels. We’re moving supplies, armor, horses...We move as much as we can!”
He motioned for more soldiers to get moving.
High Commander Joshua Sand stepped out of the council room and greeted Cedric.
“Rover, I take it the mission was unsuccessful,” Joshua inferred from the unrest.
Cedric shook his head, his eyes were dark with the shadow of failure. The image of Jade, beaten and bruised, on the cold floor of an abandoned cell, flashed in his mind. He shared everything with his commanders and apologized.
Joshua quickly dismissed him. “You did your best, Rover. We knew our chances,” he said with compassion.
As much as he wanted to keep the memory of his superior untainted by betrayal, Cedric had to report the truth. “He held her father captive. Gods know what they did to him...” Cedric glanced down at the ground again. “I can’t imagine what she went through.”
Joshua laid a comforting hand on the shrike’s shoulder. He noticed the man’s grief and his difficulty to deal with Jade’s forced act of treason.
“I don’t think any of us would have done better, Rover,” Joshua assured his subordinate. “Jade was a hero, let’s remember her that way.”
Cedric crumbled at the high commander’s words. He hid his face in his hands as David embraced him to comfort him. When the shrike regained his calm, he swiftly wiped away his tears and looked to David and Joshua.
“What would you have us do?” he asked his commanders.
Joshua took a deep breath. “We evacuate as many refugees as we can, and then we stay and fight. Sharr’s army will reach tomorrow. The more we kill, the less will get to Fort Gal, and maybe we can save what’s left of a fifty-year rebellion.”
Tempest of Bravoure: Kingdom Ascent Page 15
