A Realm of Shadows

by Morgan Rice

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Merk stood on the cliffs of the isle of Knossos, alongside hundreds of fierce warriors who glared out to the sea, as if to challenge whatever it brought them. He glanced over his shoulder and was reassured to see behind him the tall, stone fort of Knossos, rising out of the rock, and in its narrow windows, the glowing yellow eyes of dozens of Watchers, watching the battle with hoods drawn close over their heads. Hundreds more soldiers stood on its battlements. At the very top of the fort, standing atop the parapets, he spotted Lorna, standing there proudly, watching over it all from above.

  He turned and looked back out at the black waters, filled with Vesuvius’ ships, a nation of trolls sailing steadily their way. They were small ships, and they filled the bay, rocking on its currents, making their way ever closer. The relentless waves of the Bay of Death crashed into the rocks, their white spray shooting up into the air, moistening tops of the rocks, Merk and his weapons wet with spray. The wind had picked up to a driving gale, as if a perpetual storm were on the way, and hadn’t slowed since.

  Merk tightened his grip on his new weapon, the long chain with the spiked ball dangling to his feet, and his heart beat faster as he braced himself. Sailing to the drumbeats of war, the trolls were hardly a hundred yards away now and approaching fast, the currents bringing them closer with each breath, as if carrying demons from hell.

  Merk looked about and was reassured to see all the proud warriors of Knossos, with their strong, square faces, their pale skin, their long beards streaked with gray, all staring at the sea, all unflinching. All held onto their long chains, spiked balls at the end, and he could not see a trace of fear in any of them. On the contrary, they looked as if they were looking out at the waters on a normal clear day, watching them with only a passing interest. Merk could not understand the complexities of these men, their deep reservoir of courage. It was as if, for them, life and battle were one.

  “LONG CHAINS, ADVANCE!” their commander suddenly called in a booming voice able to be heard above the wind and the waves.

  As one, the well-disciplined army advanced in rows, a great rattle of armor and chains filling the air, stepping past Merk to the very edge of the rock.

  At the same time, the first dozen ships rushed forward in the currents, rising and falling in the waves of the Bay of Death, the trolls scowling, their grotesque faces now visible up close. They came within a dozen yards of shore, clearly preparing to disembark on the shores of Knossos, while the Knossos warriors awaited the next command. Merk stood there, palms sweating despite the cold, wondering how long their commander would wait as this nation invaded.

  “FORWARD!” the commander finally cried.

  His soldiers stepped forward, raised their long chains high overhead, and swung them around in broad circles. They whistled in the air, a chorus of high-pitched noises as the chains extended in broad arcs, stretching out a good twenty feet. They swung them expertly, so as not to hit each other—and then finally they swung them straight down.

  Merk was shocked at what he saw next: the balls dove down, twenty feet in front of them, and smashed down below, into the hulls of the ships. A cracking noise filled the air as the spiked balls smashed the ships to pieces.

  The boats, gaping holes in them, keeled over, then immediately sank into the bay.

  The trolls, caught off guard, fell into the treacherous waters, weighed down by their armor, and, flailing, immediately sank into the raging currents of the Bay of Death.

  The next row of ships advanced in the currents, and these trolls looked up in panic, realizing it was too late for them to turn back. With the currents as strong as they were, they couldn’t slow their advance if they tried.

  Once again the soldiers of Knossos stepped forward, swung their chains, and smashed the hulls.

  These ships, too, sank.

  Another row of ships advanced—and another was smashed to pieces.

  Row after row of ships were destroyed, and before long, the waters were filled with smashed ships, their debris smashing into the rocks.

  Merk grinned as he watched hundreds of trolls flail and sink in the rapid waters. Yet he heard a snarl, and he looked up to see their leader, Vesuvius, standing at the bow of his ship, in the midst of his fleet, scowling back and pointing. He was still a good hundred yards from shore, far enough away to stop his momentum.

  “BOWS!” cried Vesuvius.

  Within moments hundreds of trolls raised their bows, and arrows filled the air.

  The wind coming off the Bay of Death carried the arrows every which way, many of them falling short, down to the rocks, into the water. But enough of them sailed through, and they fell for the warriors of Knossos.

  Thurn was prepared, though.

  “SHIELDS!”

  Dozens of his men rushed forward, held up huge shields, and came together, elbow to elbow, blocking the arrows in a perfect line of a discipline. Merk knelt beside them, as one handed him a shield.

  More and more arrows fell, and each time they were stopped by this wall of bronze.

  “SPEARS!” Vesuvius shrieked, from his wildly rocking ship.

  Trolls hurled a host of long, glistening spears, soaring in a high arc above the shields, heading for the body of Knossos warriors. But the warriors, well-trained, reacted immediately.

  “SHORT CHAINS!”

  The soldiers pulled short chains from their waists and swung, and the spiked balls at the end smashed the spears from the sky before they could hit.

  Vesuvius, enraged, grabbed a spear himself and chucked it low and hard, straight for Thurn.

  Thurn just stood there, unfazed, and as the spear came, he merely swung his chain and ball and smashed the spear out of the sky.

  Vesuvius sounded the horns, and as he did, dozens of his ships converged in a line, single file. They sailed forward, and as the first reached shore, the warriors of Knossos smashed it. Yet while they were able to reach the ship behind it, Vesuvius took advantage, reaching out himself and grabbing one of the chains after it came down.

  He yanked, and the Knossos soldier fell off the cliffs, face-first into the water.

  The other trolls all joined in, following Vesuvius, all rushing forward and grabbing the chains; they caught the warriors of Knossos off guard as they yanked, sending one man after the next down into the bay.

  “CHARGE!” Vesuvius yelled.

  So much debris had backed up in the crashing waves that Vesuvius was able to use them as a bridge for the last few feet to shore, jumping from one plank to the next, rocking in the water as he leapt for the rocky shore. All around him his men did the same. Vesuvius used the chain he had snatched, swinging it himself, a handy weapon which he quickly used to entangle several more chains and send dozens more warriors down into the waters below.

  Hundreds of trolls charged onto the rocky shores, scrambling up the cliffs like goats and heading right for the rows of soldiers—and right for Merk.

  Merk swung wildly into the onslaught of trolls, standing side by side with the soldiers, fighting back against the never-ending stream. A particularly large troll with hideous fangs charged him, raising his halberd and lowering it for Merk’s head—and Merk sidestepped at the last second, swung around, and smashed the spiked ball into his head, killing him.

  Merk stepped forward and kicked another troll in the chest as it climbed the rocks for him, halberd high, and sent it flying back down into the waters below. He looked over and watched it fall, and as he did, a wave of panic overtook him: hundreds of trolls were now on shore, and hundreds more were landing by the second. The ships clogged the bay, all of them smashing against the rocks, creating such a logjam that the trolls could storm it. Some ships were still smashed by the warriors of Knossos, but dozens slipped through the ranks.

  Shoulder to shoulder with trolls, the fighting became hand-to-hand. Merk swung his chain and smashed the heads of two trolls as they neared. Yet more came, and as the fighting grew thicker, Merk realized he no longer had room to swing
his chain. Four trolls charged him at once.

  Unable to swing his chain, he instead grabbed it with both fists, sidestepped as a troll swung a halberd for his chest, then snuck behind the troll and wrapped the chain around his throat from behind. He quickly spun, holding the troll hostage, choking him, and faced the other three. One lunged with his sword and Merk used the hostage as a shield, forcing the troll to kill his friend. He then dropped him and kicked the shocked troll back over the cliff.

  Merk drew his dagger as the other two approached and sliced one troll’s throat. He leaned back and kicked the other, sending him flying back over the edge—but this troll, floundering, reached out and managed to grab hold of Merk’s boot and pull him down with him.

  Merk, caught off guard, hit the ground hard and began to slide over the edge with the troll. Panicking, halfway over the edge, Merk wheeled, grabbed onto a root, and held on for dear life.

  Merk found himself dangling over the edge of the cliff, the troll hanging on, yanking on his foot from below. Merk, losing his grip, knew he needed to act fast. He picked his other leg up high, then kicked down with his other foot. He connected with the troll’s nose, and finally the troll released his grip and fell shrieking to his death below.

  Merk pulled himself back up, one hard pull at a time, until finally he collapsed on flat stone, out of breath. He looked up and saw dozens of Knossos warriors fighting valiantly, swinging their chains, smashing trolls in the face and neck and shoulders and ribs, smashing away their halberds and shields, fighting like men on fire. They had few men compared to this nation of trolls, and yet they did tremendous damage, holding their ground, filling the air with the sound of their whistling chains, the thwack of the metal balls hitting armor. They were warriors to be feared, unlike any Merk had ever seen. Single-handedly, they were stopping the tide of an army.

  Yet for every troll they killed, three more appeared, a never-ending parade of these creatures from the sea. And soon enough, the men of Knossos, only human, began to fall.

  First there came one—then another—then as Merk turned and looked, he saw the warriors being swarmed and overwhelmed from all directions. In no time, the tide turned, and their situation became dire.

  Horns sounded, and Merk looked out to sea and saw hundreds more ships arriving. They were disembarking faster than he could count, ascending the cliffs like goats, and Merk felt a pit in his stomach as he soon realized that the men of Knossos would be no more.

  Merk looked up and saw Lorna standing before the door to the fort, flanked by warriors who fought back the trolls, led by Thurn. She beckoned him, and Merk knew he had to reach her—or die.

  Merk let out a guttural cry as he jumped to his feet and fought his way through the crowd. He grabbed a halberd off the ground and hacked his way through, felling trolls left and right with big, mighty swings. When his shoulders tired and the fighting became too close, he drew his dagger and used it expertly, bringing back his assassin days, cutting through these creatures as he ducked and weaved and stabbed expertly. Finally, he felt his skills being put to use for Escalon.

  Merk stabbed and slashed and dodged his way all the way through the lines and back to the entrance to the fort, guarded by an arched wooden door. Finally, he reached Lorna’s side. She stood surrounded by warriors, who swung chains and fought back the trolls valiantly.

  “Have we any chance?” he called out to her, fighting back two trolls, crying out to be heard over the din.

  She stared out at the sea and the sky, inexplicably calm.

  “But one,” she replied. “Yet it is far more dangerous than this.”

  “More than this?” he asked, shocked.

  “The dragons,” she said, turning to him. “I can summon them.”

  He looked at her in shock, swallowing hard, realizing.

  “I, and the Watchers here, together. We can bring them. But we can’t control them.”

  Merk looked out at the never-ending stream of trolls, and he realized their options were bleak. If they didn’t do something, they would surely die at these beasts’ hands.

  She looked back at him silently with her crystal-blue eyes, and finally, he nodded back his approval.

  Lorna turned and looked up at the fort, raising her palms high overhead, and as she did, dozens of Watchers, their yellow eyes shining, stuck their heads out of the narrow windows, reached out, and raised their palms to the sky, too.

  There came a great humming noise, rising even over the din of the battle, of the wind, of the crashing waves. It soon dominated the very fabric of the air, the sound of Lorna and dozens of Watchers humming together, eyes closed, faces raised to the sky.

  Suddenly, the sky rumbled with thunder and lightning, and a moment later, the battle stopped on both sides as everyone froze and searched the skies. There followed an awful roar, louder even than the thunder, as the skies parted and from their midst there suddenly appeared a host of dragons, ferocious, horrible, enraged, all opening their great jaws and diving down right for them.

  It was, Merk knew, death coming for them all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Kyra stood unsteadily on the small raft, watching the sluggish, black river pass by below her as she wound her way silently, deeper into the heart of darkness. The creature behind her kept his head down and dragged his pole along the river floor, the gentle splashing the only sound punctuating the thick and gloomy silence. The deeper into Marda she went, the more her sense of unease deepened. She felt as if she were being led in a funeral procession to her death.

  The air here was hot and moist, sticking to her like glue, the sky stuck in twilight, the only sound in this land that of distant explosions of volcanoes, of the hissing of the streams of lava that cut through the black mountainside. This land was all shades of black: the black sky, the black waters of the river, the black soil and ash of the countryside, and the two towering black mountains which loomed before her.

  Kyra looked up with hesitation as the river carried her between the mountains, feeling claustrophobic. Each rose hundreds of feet high, black as ink, and as she looked closely, she saw thousands of tiny yellow eyes appearing in their crags, tiny creatures watching her as she passed. They looked like a thousand small stars in the night sky. She braced herself, wondering if they would pounce as she went.

  Kyra tightened her grip on her staff, wishing she were anywhere but here. She had never felt so alone. She peered into the horizon, wondering where these waters were taking her, and sensing that wherever it was, it was leading her to the Staff of Truth. She felt she was being led to it, and yet she also sensed it was a trap. Yet she had little choice. She had no other beacons in this foreign and hostile land.

  Kyra sensed a massive battle coming, a battle of spiritual forces, and she closed her eyes and felt a slight burning in her stomach. She knew that where she was going would test all that she had, all that she was, would force her to face the darkest parts of herself. She would rather battle a thousand men in an open field than grapple in this realm of darkness, a realm she did not entirely understand. It was the realm that held the key to saving Escalon, a realm of spirits, a realm of hidden powers. A realm of shadows.

  The river finally led her out to the other side of the mountains, and as it did, the landscape opened up again. Kyra looked out into the countryside and this time spotted thousands of small, black structures, looking like clay cottages, abandoned. This seemed to be one of the cities of the troll nation, all deserted when the trolls fled south, for Escalon. Now Marda sat empty, awaiting their return, if ever. Lucky for her, Kyra realized—or else she would be battling thousands of trolls right now, on her way north.

  Kyra studied the city as she passed through it, the endless cottages all the same, the streets of dirt, and she recoiled at what she saw: the black ground was littered with bones. There were bones everywhere, carcasses of rotting animals, all, she realized, the trolls’ victims. It looked as if the trolls ate these creatures and then just left the bones on the groun
d. She also spotted fresh bodies on spikes, and realized the trolls slowly ate away at them. A savage nation.

  Amongst these, Kyra spotted grotesque troll heads on pikes everywhere she looked, and she wondered if these trolls had been killed as a warning, because they had defied some sort of law, or if this was just some sort of sport. She felt sick as she saw some human heads amongst them, too, and wondered if these were the innocent victims kidnapped during their expeditions into Escalon.

  The river turned, and Kyra recoiled as she saw an entire field of human bodies, dead, chained to each other. She gasped. Slaves. Poor, innocent humans the trolls had abducted when raiding Escalon, humans who’d had the bad fate to live a horrible, awful life here as slaves of these creatures, before finally meeting a miserable end. Kyra tightened her grip on her staff, determined to avenge them. A part of her wished all the trolls were here now, so she could battle them herself. No, she knew. A much worse battle was awaiting her.

  Hearing an explosion on the horizon, Kyra forced herself to look away and instead focused on the huge ball of lava shooting into the air, sending thousands of streaks of bright light into the gloomy landscape. There arose a gentle clacking noise, and she looked down into the waters and was horrified to see they were sailing past bones, all floating downriver, bouncing gently off the raft, first a few, then dozens of them. They were of all shapes and sizes, and she tried not to wonder whose they were, or how they had got here.

  Kyra thought of her mother, needing her strength. She pondered her words: You must empty your mind, Kyra. You must unlearn everything you know. What had she meant? It is you, Kyra. It is you who must go there and retrieve the weapon.

  Had her mother been right? Did Escalon’s salvation really lie here, in this hell? Had she ever even truly seen her mother? Or had it all been a dream?