The Passage of Kings

by Anant V Goswami

  That is when he had seen and heard Elsa laugh for the first time. And that is when he knew he was in love.

  From the first day he had seen her, he had been drawn into her beauty, her fierceness, and her aura. She was more a warrior than a princess, a warrior the could slay with her sword as well as her emerald green eyes. But she seldom smiled, and never laughed. Ever since he had met her for the first time, late in the night, among the trees and howling wolves; he had met her every day. They would walk together, hand in hand, beside slow-moving streams overhung by trees, beneath the canopies of leaves, and the words she would speak in his ears would be sweet and sad. She would tell him all about her kingdom and its people, about her brother and about her torments.

  “I was only fifteen when the armies of Lord Erling assembled outside the city walls,” Elsa had said, sitting beside Olver, their legs dipped into the cool waters of a rivulet, her hand on his. It was the type of day when birds sang in the woods and deer grazed on the grass without the fear of being mauled by wolves, “a host of fifteen thousand men, and catapults, trebuchets and all kinds of siege weapons stood on the battlefield like beasts from the depths of hell. But it did not deter my father from meeting him head-on, only five thousand men at his back, and yet the battle had raged on for two days, till every one of the five thousand Harduinian soldiers was slain, and only three thousand of the enemy remained. They asked my father to surrender, to lay down his crown and to kiss Lord Erling’s feet, but I knew my father would die before he would bow down to such dishonor. And he did die, but not before he was stripped and paraded naked through the streets of East Shade. In front of people he had ruled, in front of knights and warriors he had commanded, and in front of his own children. Sanrick had wept as he clutched my hand, asking why they were whipping father, and I stood beside him without a tear in my eye for I did not have any more to shed.” Elsa had then looked straight at Olver, without a tear in her cold eyes at that moment as well, and had said, “but I swore vengeance, I swore to strip Lord Erling of his skin, just how he stripped my father of his clothes, and before he could burn Sanrick and me alive, I asked him to marry me. And for five years he used me in every way he could think of. And when he would be done with me, he would send his commanders and knights into my bedchamber, who would rape me until my throat would be sore because of the screaming, then he would send the soldiers, ordinary pikemen or archers, chosen at random to fuck the Queen of Harduin. And then after an excruciating wait of five years, during which I thought of killing myself every night, as I lay raped and beaten by men that looked like goblins, I had my vengeance.”

  Olver did not ask how and neither did he care. He had kissed her at that moment, feeling her soft lips press into his and her arms wrap around him. She had parted her lips, and the taste of her tongue had lingered with him long after he had gone back to his tent. And when he had tried to slide his hand under her gown to feel her wetness, she had stopped him. “Not now,” she had said with a smile, “You are a king, and I am a princess, do you really want our first time to be on broken branches and dead insects?”

  “Then come back with me to my tent, and the only thing broken there would be the bed after we are done,” Olver had said, leaving a trail of kisses on her neck. Elsa had moaned, and he had never heard anything sweeter.

  “And risk being caught? Rein in your horses, my stallion of a liongloom, there will be plenty of beds for you to break once we are married.” Elsa had said, trailing her hand down the front of his breeches and giving his hardness a squeeze.

  And there, beside the lazy brook and its leaping trout, Olver had decided to marry Elsa Faerson.

  But everything changed after the Great Council. Olver decided not to claim the crown for Aerdon and Elsa had did not spoken to him ever since. She did not speak to him when the soldiers sat together in the Forest of Eravia and shared stories of old, stories of war and plunder. She did not speak to him when the heat became a demon and started taking lives, and she did not speak to him when the misery ended, and they came upon the meadow, where he now sat alone while she swayed gracefully to the sound of a flute, and joined in to sing some of the verses.

  No sword or arrow had ever hurt Olver as much as Elsa Faerson’s silence, and he never knew that a maid could inflict such misery on him. For years, he had stayed away from the serving wenches who would regularly end up in bed with his friends and cousins. For years, he only had his kingdom on his mind.

  A king is no ordinary man, his father had told him, and thus he cannot act like one. You will marry a girl who will one day become the queen and the mother to your children, and she should be the only woman you love. For honor cannot just be won on the battlefield or in the court of the king, but also in how you protect your family, and how you treat your woman, and raise your children.

  “I was expecting you to come and gloat over your victory,” said Garen Swolderhornn, as he joined Olver beside the fire, his long hair tied in a ponytail and his tunic hunched up to reveal the same blisters that now adorned Olver’s body.

  “It is not honorable to ridicule someone who has just come back from the jaws of death,” Olver said, wearing his long shimmery tunic that was richly embroidered at the collar with golden threads.

  “Honor? Is that all you care about? Is that what you moan when you pleasure a woman?”

  “Well, we are not so different in that regard, King Ga…Your Grace,” said Olver as his lips curved into a grin, “You are an honorable man as well, although you do not know it.”

  “Then pray tell me, for I have been called a lot of things in my short life; fearless, brave, handsome, and never forget my most favorite, cunt, but never have I been called honorable,” Garen said as he collected the ashes of the burnt wood in his palm and blew them into the wind, some of them still alight and throbbing with a faint orange glow.

  “You honor your father’s wish by coming on this journey, even though you did not want to. I saw how you revere him. I saw how much you love him.” Olver said as the glowing ciders floated all around him.

  Garen chuckled. “I believe you can call it that, though if I ever said the words to him, he would laugh on my face and call me a woman. It’s not the way of the warrior.”

  “And my father would never hear it even if I told him,” Olver said, his voice full of pain.

  “Why? Is he hard of hearing?”

  “No, he has The White Curse. He does not hear, he does not see, and he does not smell. He breathes, but for how long, the gods only know.” Olver said and saw Garen’s expression change. For a heartbeat, his eyes widened, and his mouth fell open, and the color left his face. However, he composed himself quickly, and averted his gaze.

  “I wish him a speedy recovery,” said Garen and stood up, brushing the cinders away from his breeches, “Well, King Olver, in the end, I think we might not be so different, you and I. Now put on some clothes and get some sleep, tomorrow we enter the Endless Forest.”

  ∞∞∞

  Four hundred and eighty soldiers had left the encampment in Eravia, and only two hundred and fifty-six now stood on the border of The Endless Forest, the rest perishing in the grasslands, their corpses becoming a feast for the crows. Two hundred and fifty-six hearts were beating wildly, with long cold fingers of dread clutching and clawing the walls of their stomach, and two hundred and fifty-six pairs of eyes did not reveal any of it. The Endless woods lay before them. The forest that stretched from the lofty snowcapped peaks of Zaeyos all the way to the shores of Moonlands. An unending stretch of trees that stood taller than any in Aerdon, with leaves that were the lightest of green, with thin red veins all over their surface, like rivers of blood flowing on green fields. The Aerdonians had reached the end of the map of Aerdon, mayhaps the end of the world, and every step now would take them deeper into the unknown, perhaps towards death. Perhaps towards a new realm.

  Olver looked back at the men and women behind him. Solemn faces looked back at him. Beside him stood Garen, Diyana, Elsa, and Sanr
ick, looking regal in their royal armor of various embellishments and colors, the bannermen of each of their dynasties standing beside them with raised lances bearing the emblems of their families, their eyes staring ahead into the eerie calm of the forest.

  Are they as scared as me?

  “We should enter, for the longer they wait, the more nervous they get,” said Sir Pederick as he trotted up beside Olver.

  “So do I, Sir Pederick,” said Olver.

  “Should I ask King Garen to give the command? He seems to be lost in his thoughts.” Olver looked at Garen, and sure enough, the young king sat motionless on his horse, staring straight ahead into nothingness.

  He has returned a different man ever since he came back from the darkness.

  “I will give the command,” Olver said and wheeled around to face the host of Aerdonians.

  “Men and women of Aerdon,” Olver yelled, surprised at the strength in his voice, which he himself was having trouble finding, “I know you fear the forest, you fear the unknown that awaits us. But I ask you,” Olver said, riding his horse in between the lines of soldiers who sat grim and serious on their horses, their eyes following Olver, “How many of you have lost someone you loved to The White Curse?” silence followed, a few soldiers shuffled in their saddle, but none spoke. “Answer me.”

  “My son, Your Grace,” a Harduinian archer shouted from the back. “My beautiful wife,” someone else screamed.

  “My Mother.”

  “Everyone in my family, Your Grace, the damned curse left none alive. I buried my children and my wife with my own hands, and I curse myself every day for having survived.”

  “Aye, and my father is not yet dead, but the curse has him, and he lies in his bedchamber in agony, in torment and pain that breaks my heart every time I gaze upon his face.” Olver’s voice was now roaring like the waves in a tumultuous sea, crashing down upon the soldiers with intent and intensity.

  “For the children you have lost, for the fathers who still suffer, for the wives who weep blood, march with me into that forest. For the people who are still alive and may yet endure, and for the survival of your realm, your kingdom, your home, march with me into that forest. Let the swords of the four kingdoms rise as one and let the sound of our swords clamoring on our amour reach the Vizarins and let us show them that the race of men will not perish without etching our name in history. MARCH WITH ME! MARCH!!!”

  And the sound of swords on armor was deafening. Olver turned to face the forest and was the first to enter beneath the canopy of trees that blocked the sun, the sky, and the clouds. Behind him, the Aerdonians followed, swords and lances and bows raised in the air, fists slamming on chests, banners fluttering in the gentle breeze.

  And thus, it begins. The last hope for men to make it through the end of everything. The last hope for me to save my father.

  Olver stole a glance at Elsa, riding gracefully on her magnificent horse, donning the most richly decorated armor he had ever seen, with a galley painted in gold emblazoned on her breastplate, sailing over the waves of the sea, represented by blue sapphires studded in a way as to give the image of waves of an ocean. Beside her rode her brother, far more cheerful than he had been when crossing the grasslands. Diyana rode behind Elsa, conversing with another Maeryn warrior who was taller than any soldier that entered The Endless Forest.

  The Maeryns, known for their skill with the sword. Their skill will be tested like never before.

  Garen Swolderhornn, who had been quiet while the soldiers around him burst into screams of passion, rode on his enormous destrier, his greatsword hanging from his sword belt and his hair tied in a bun.

  Has he finally realized the graveness of the situation? Has he understood the importance of unity? Or is he just shit scared?

  The Endless Forest was not so different than any other forest where Olver had hunted as a child with his father, except the trees were far taller and grew together closely and in shapes that were absurd and strange. And also, the red veins on the leaves of the trees gave them a distinct appearance, an appearance of trees that have been bathed in the blood of the travelers that dared to venture in. For many leagues, the scenery did not change, and Olver and the company did not feel any change in their hearts as well. They rode on with the hope of survival and victory.

  Although the sound of birds or the occasional rustle of bushes due to the scampering of a rabbit was entirely absent, the sound of men and women talking and horses whinnying more than made up for the calm that would have surely filled the heart of a lone traveler with dread. Olver tried looking at the sun to determine the time of the day, but the overhanging trees entirely blocked out the sky, giving the impression of riding under a massive, lofty roof of leaves that stretched endlessly above and in front of Olver and the riders of Aerdon. And then the ground began to slope downwards, and the trees seemed to grow even closer, if that could even be possible. The Aerdonians had to form a single column once again, and suddenly the conversations stopped, and the sound of laughs and even the horses ceased. And as the Aerdonians slowly moved deeper into the green bastille of trees and roots, unease started to creep into the hearts that were earlier filled with hope. The descent was very gradual, but it gave Olver the feeling of riding into a valley, and as time slowly passed, the color of the soil began to change from the dark brown of a muddy ground to a light red, as if the forest floor was covered by the dust of crushed red sandstones.

  Red leaves and now the red ground. Is the forest trying to tell us something?

  Red be the color of blood, red be the sky at sunrise,

  Red be the color of wine, red be the devil with horns and yellow eyes,

  Red be the cheeks of a maiden fair, red be the color of lies,

  Red be the color of death, and yet, it be the color of light.

  The ancient war song of Indius floated in the corners of Olver’s head, as he remembered the sigil of the Liongloom Dynasty, the red prancing horse between red pillars, and then he remembered his ‘Strawberry city’ and the red walls of The Wilder Keep.

  Red is the color of your kingdom, you fool of a Liongloom, do not fear it.

  And the descent continued. The color of the ground was now changing from the light red to a darker shade, and the soil was slowly transforming into sand, similar to the golden sand that covered the deserts of Dreadlands, the sand that slowly trickled into the hourglass back in the forest of Eravia.

  “Olver!” Diyana shouted and beckoned for Olver to slow down and catch up with her.

  “I do not like this one bit,” she said, and for the first time, she looked scared.

  “What troubles you?”

  Diyana did not answer immediately, and it seemed as if she was mulling over something in her mind, and then she spoke after a deep sigh, “Everything that I read in ‘The Myths and Legends of The Endless Forest’ has been accurate up until now. From the leaves to the height of the trees, and now the color of the ground.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing? We will know what awaits us deep in the forest, and we will be prepared.”

  “But what if something terrible awaits us, something we cannot escape, something we cannot kill?” Diyana whispered, making sure the riders around them did not hear, “If the book is correct, then I know what we will encounter in a few days, and my blood freezes in my veins when I think of it, when I imagine it.”

  “What is it?” Olver’s heart pounded in his chest.

  “Traznug, the human-bat, a vile creature that dwells with his army of Bat-soldiers deep in the woods. A monster born after The Great War to guard the Endless Forest, a creation of Vizarins.”

  “And they cannot be killed?” asked Olver, already used to such revelations by now.

  “How can you kill something that is already dead,” Diyana’s voice wavered as she continued, “It is said that there was no Endless Forest before the Great War. In its place was a battlefield, where the war was actually fought, and then after Azgun and their Wizard-God Vornoth lost the bat
tle and were sent to the Dreadlands by the other Vizarins, trees began to grow from the corpses of the thousands of men who lay dead on the battleground, and thus, each tree in the Endless Forest represented a fallen soldier and the veins on the leaves symbolized the blood that flowed freely on the battlefield.”

  Olver looked around, and suddenly the trees appeared to come alive, to become animated, living creatures who had a past. A painful past. The swaying of the trees and the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind became a language that Olver did not understand.

  All he knew was that the trees were talking to each other. The trees were talking about them.

  “And what of this monster? Why can’t he be killed?”

  “Toren says that as the trees grew and time withered away, and as the kingdoms rose and fell outside the Endless Forest, a host of bats made the forest their home. Hanging from the branches of the trees, their black wings wrapped around their body, they grew in number. And then, the trees turned them into something more, something evil. The souls of the dead soldiers trapped in the trees traveled into the bats, and that is when they became human, but not entirely. They grew in size, and stood up on two legs, but did not lose the wings and the face of a bat. They ended up becoming monsters with souls of dead soldiers trapped within. And the greatest among them came to be known as Traznug, or the bat-god, who was the commander of the armies of Azgun which fought the Great War,” Diyana fell silent and then suddenly she spoke again, “the red dust and the red sand on the ground are the indication of the beginning of their lands, an indication of the blood spilled by them, the blood of travelers and wanderers who entered the Endless Forest Perhaps it is the blood of these travelers that we now walk on. Blood that became dust over thousands of years.”