by Darius Hinks
As Nuin rocketed away from the struggling daemons, Haldus drew a bow and arrow from his back, sparked a flint across the arrowhead and loosed a shot.
There was a glimmer of pale green light as the arrow flew.
The arrow sank into the fly-monster’s abdomen and the oil-soaked net erupted into flames.
The fly-monster and its rider became silhouettes, trapped in a ball of fire.
They lurched and struggled, but the more they moved, the more the flaming mesh tightened around them.
Haldus whispered a prayer of thanks to Laelia. Ariel’s handmaiden might be infuriating, but she knew how to weave a charm.
The thrashing ball of flame dropped back towards the valley floor.
Haldus watched it fall for a moment, patting Nuin gently on the neck as she lifted him back up away from the ground. Part of him still recoiled at the idea of introducing fire into his home. He felt like a thoughtless outsider, lighting flames beneath dry summer boughs.
Nuin took him higher and the festering valley spread out beneath him. He saw all too clearly why the old laws did not apply. Only months before, the slopes would have been clad in precious, green robes, but now there was nothing to burn. The quivering mounds of fungus had strangled the forest and replaced it with a gaudy mockery of life. Wherever Haldus led the army he had found a landscape that was painted purple, pink and yellow. The world should have been dressed in the drab colours of winter but the daemons had made it bloom – filling it with colours so bright they made Haldus’s eyes ache.
The other warhawk riders followed Haldus’s lead and, everywhere he looked, plumes of flame were dropping from the air, wrapped around struggling, sword-wielding horrors. For a second, he felt the tightness in his chest lessen. Laelia’s mage-fire would destroy the monsters. They would defeat the daemons and the sight would give him a brief respite from his rage and pain. Until the next valley.
He sighed and reached for more tendrils, preparing himself for another dive.
Nuin screamed in pain and jolted to one side.
Haldus was hurled from the hawk’s back.
His stomach lurched and his legs kicked uselessly.
As he toppled from the sky, he glimpsed Nuin overhead, fluttering her wings wildly as one of the grotesque fly-things latched onto her belly. The weight of it dragged her down and Haldus cried out, not because he was falling, but because Nuin was. He knew that even a single wound from one of the daemons could infect her with the plague.
He rolled as he fell and lost sight of Nuin. He was blinded briefly as he passed through a cloud of noisome fumes. When he emerged from the other side he was surrounded by a blur of toiling, battling shapes. Screams, flames and war cries accompanied his fall and his own cries were drowned out by the din.
Air exploded from his lungs as he collided with something.
He realised he was slumped on the suppurating, armour-clad abdomen of a daemon-fly. The monster lurched under his weight, then righted itself. The figure on its back turned to face Haldus. It was a single-eyed horror clutching a crooked, rusty sword. At the sight of Haldus its face split open in a toothless grin, revealing a black, snake-like tongue. It babbled, gibbered and lurched towards him, drawing back its sword to strike.
Haldus regained his senses fast enough to draw his own sword and the two blades clattered off each other.
Haldus saw weevils and mites crawling over the daemon’s blade. Even the smallest scratch would be enough.
The daemon prepared to strike again.
Haldus tried to lift his sword but saw to his horror that a black, scaled limb had sprouted from the plague fly and latched around his weapon. He tried to wrench it free, but the blade held fast.
The one-eyed daemon belched laughter and brought its sword down towards his face.
Haldus whispered a prayer to Kurnous, let go of his sword and jumped back into thin air.
The battle rushed by and Haldus reached out as he fell, trying to latch onto something.
The combatants rolled and weaved out of reach and he saw the foetid ground rushing to meet him.
The impact came, but rather than landing in pus and rotten flesh, Haldus thudded against something warm and feathered.
He laughed with relief as Nuin soared back up from the ground. He did not have to open his eyes to recognise his oldest friend. The hawk’s musk was the smell of home and childhood. He hugged her in silent gratitude as she carried him to safety.
The colossal hawk did not pause until they were high above the battle. Then she spread her wings and drifted slowly through the clouds of lurid yellow gas, giving Haldus time to recover.
He lay face down in her feathers, trying to steady his breathing. Then, once his pulse was calmer, he hopped up into a crouching position and looked around.
He shook his head. From this height he could see the full horror of the situation. Like the rest of the forest, the valley had been contorted by madness. Everything was gripped by unnatural maladies and creeping, purulent legions.
As he studied the putrid apocalypse below, daemons fell past him, lighting up the feverish tableau they had created. It was a nightmare sprung to life.
The prince reminded himself of the reason for this particular assault. He turned his exhausted gaze to the far end of the valley. Surrounded by the tunnel of mutilation was the last remaining citadel of this particular realm. Every other defence had been destroyed by the daemons, but a lone hill at the end of the tunnel still wore a defiant crown, visible for miles around – a lonely bastion of stone and simple, green leaves. It looked like a circle of colossal, branchless trees – seven massive columns entwined with blooms and fronds. They were not trees though. Haldus knew the truth. They were mile-high standing stones, reaching up towards the roof of the hideous tunnel and carved to resemble the lords of the gods. Beneath their evergreen mantles he could make out crumbling, noble miens, and sceptre-wielding fists. The unnatural light made the faces sinister and cruel, but Haldus knew this place of old and felt calmed by the sight, rather than unnerved.
As Nuin glided overhead, wings splayed, Haldus considered how close he had just come to death and whispered a prayer to each of the gods in turn: Asuryan, Isha, Kurnous, Hoeth, Lileath, Loec and Ladrielle.
Nuin dropped closer and Haldus saw that, at the base of the stones, the cesspool ended. The pallid, vermicular growths clawed at the threshold but could not break through. The stones endured, maintaining their dignified silence and protecting the realm within the circle. What power, thought Haldus. However hard the fingers of plague grasped at the stone circle, they could not gain an inch. For miles around, there was nothing but rot, bubbling streams of acid and shambling legions, but none of it could pass these mute, ancient sentinels.
‘The Cromlech of Cadai.’ The voice was nearby and it jolted Haldus from his thoughts. His cheeks flushed as he saw who it was.
Laelia was hovering just a few feet away, carried by her delicate, tessellated wings. Even in this baleful light she was beautiful. Like all of Ariel’s handmaidens, she looked half-spirit. Her messy, boyish crop of hair could do nothing to disguise her radiance, but it was not her appearance that made Haldus blush; it was her habitual, crooked, smile. He felt, as always, that she was laughing at him. There was no malice in her smile, but he was painfully conscious of how she must see him. The subtle complexities of the Mage Queen’s court were a mystery to him. When Laelia discussed the politics of the great realms or the mysteries of the Great Weave, his head began to pound. He was a hunter, not a courtier or a mage. He felt sure she must consider him a fool. The sooner he could return to his mountains, and his own kind, the better.
He gave her a gruff nod, refusing to meet her eye as he straightened his headgear and brushed the filth of battle from his chest.
His awkwardness only made her smile more. She looked down at the lichen-clad towers and took a deep breath.
‘Beautiful.’
Haldus nodded, noticing again how effectively the plague had been ha
lted at the edges of the circle. ‘The forest still has power.’
She glanced at him, surprised. ‘It does have power, but that isn’t what you’re looking at.’
Haldus turned to face her, his embarrassment forgotten. ‘What do you mean?’
‘As Cyanos told you, Prince Haldus, this is the work of Lord Calaingor.’ She nodded at the mysterious area within the stone circle. It was a few miles wide but, even from the clouds, it was impossible to see what it contained. The foliage and blossom that shrouded the seven towers threw unnaturally long shadows, obscuring whatever they guarded. ‘Your friend was right to send us here. Calaingor has not been seen at court for centuries – not since I was a child – but his skill as a mage has never been forgotten. Naieth said he is one of the greatest of us. That he travelled across the sea with our forebears. It is his power you see, Prince Haldus, not the power of the forest. If you can win Calaingor over to our cause, your army will be doubled in power.’
Your army. Haldus clenched his teeth at the words. How in the name of the gods had he allowed himself to become a general? He had looked, at every turn, for someone to hand this onerous duty over to, but there was still no one he could trust. Laelia was powerful beyond his understanding, but she was right – the archers and cavalry he had left at the camp would not follow her into battle. Ariel’s winged handmaidens were as feared as they were respected. And most of the nobles in the forest were either dead, or cowering in their halls. The few he had convinced to join him were either teetering on the brink of lunacy or just looking for an opportunity to flee. Only Cyanos seemed truly willing to aid him. Haldus felt a rush of gratitude as he considered how invaluable the scholarly lord had become to him. The burden of leadership would surely have crushed him by now if not for Cyanos’s support. It was his tactical advice that had led them this far, rather than Haldus’s brutish rule. It terrified Haldus to consider how badly things would have gone if the tactical decisions had all been left to him alone.
‘So, this Lord Calaingor could lead the army, then?’ Haldus glanced warily at Laelia, expecting a joke in reply.
Her crooked smile was still there, but she nodded. ‘I imagine so – if you can drag him out from those old stones. Cyanos has a strange kind of wisdom – but it is wisdom nonetheless, I have to admit. I had not even thought of seeking Calaingor’s aid until Cyanos unearthed his name in those old texts, but, yes, I believe he could lead this army.’
Haldus looked down at the battle, trying to make out the black-armoured shape of Cyanos. There was no sign of him. Haldus imagined he would be hunched over one of his old books somewhere, plotting their next move. The thought gave him hope.
He saw Avernus, though, not far from one of the stone towers. His white cloak flashed as he balanced lightly on the back of his hawk. Despite the speed of the hawk, Avernus was firing arrow after arrow into the tumbling fireballs that surrounded him. Haldus could hear the excitement in his voice as he issued orders and he understood the delight Avernus was feeling. Watching the forest die was more than any of them could bear. Each chance to strike back was a gift from the gods.
‘Calaingor will have seen me,’ called Laelia, drifting away from Haldus, buffeted by the wind. ‘The way between those stones is usually barred, but I believe we will be safe to approach. I have reached out into the Great Weave and he will recognise my touch. He knows his own kind.’
Haldus nodded. Then he took Eremon’s horn from his back and let out another long, lowing note.
Avernus and the others turned to see him make a circular motion with his hand. Avernus nodded in understanding and formed the hawk riders into a defensive formation, leading them slowly around the circle of stones.
Haldus nodded at Laelia and allowed her to lead the way down.
The Cromlech of Cadai preserved at its heart a single, summer’s evening. As Prince Haldus leapt from Nuin’s back, he dropped into a meadow of waist-high pasture and gasped with pleasure. The grass was rippling and shimmering in the light of a sun that would never set.
Haldus closed his eyes for a moment and turned his face to the golden sky, savouring the warmth and the dizzying scent of honeysuckle. Some of the lines melted from his heavy brow. His muscles relaxed and the cuts and bruises that covered his body grew less painful, but the thing that most delighted him was the sensation of timelessness. Here was an idyll that would never end.
He heard Laelia land gently behind him and he opened his eyes to look around, remembering to adopt his usual scowl. She said nothing, so he looked back at the meadow. A path led through the grass to a living archway of apple blossom. Beyond the archway he could see, oddly vivid in the twilight, a series of interlinked wooden arbours, clad in tumbling wild flowers.
He noticed that the air was alive with movement and, as he held out a hand, butterflies settled on his skin. Their colours were dazzling and vibrant but, where the gaudiness outside had hurt his eyes, these colours only soothed him.
He gave Nuin a gentle pat on the neck, indicating that she should wait, and headed off down the track, swaying slightly as he went, drunk on the scent and sunlight. He could sense Laelia drifting a few steps behind, but did not look back, for fear that she would see how easily beguiled he was.
They stepped through the archway and into one of the delicately framed arbours. The air here was even more crowded with butterflies. Haldus smiled despite himself as they buffeted his face and settled in his hair and he heard Laelia laugh at their touch. Buddleias towered overhead, alive with movement, laden with as many butterflies as petals. Some of the insects were huge and, it took a few minutes for Haldus to realise that three of the shapes he was approaching were not butterflies, but people.
The figures bowed as Prince Haldus approached and he saw that they were asrai nobles. They were much taller than he was and clad in the most outlandish garb. Their robes were woven of the same iridescent scales that covered the butterfly wings and they were of an antiquated, ornate design. They reminded Haldus of the tales he had heard of his ancestors who dwelled across the sea. The robes were so dazzling that Haldus had to narrow his eyes as he approached. The nobles also wore the most fantastic crowns – a combination of high, swooping dragon wings and carved, wooden flowers. Even the nobles’ faces were unrecognisable – painted with inks and dyes to resemble long-forgotten gods.
As Haldus came to halt in front of these luminaries, he saw the reason for their height – they were being carried a few feet off the ground by trails of apple blossom that tumbled from their robes and cloaks. There were other figures following behind them – an entourage of guards and attendants – but they were mere shadows in comparison.
Haldus resisted the urge to kneel, reminding himself that he was a prince, and simply nodded his head.
He looked from one dazzling face to another. ‘Which of you is Lord Calaingor?’
They stared at him in silence and, for a moment, the only sound was the fluttering of insects and the tidal rush of the breeze in the meadows.
Then one of the nobles smiled. It was a strange, awkward kind of smile, as though she had not used those particular muscles for a very long time. When she spoke, Haldus had the same impression – that she was doing something that had long ago ceased to be natural for her. Her lips struggled to wrap themselves around the words, so that the vowels and consonants tumbled into one another.
‘The Warden of the Cromlech is resting.’
Haldus has not expected this. The forest was being torn open by mutation and these nobles were holding the daemons at bay. He would not have imagined their lord to be asleep. He turned to Laelia for guidance, but she simply raised an eyebrow and gave him her usual wry smile.
Haldus wracked his brains to find the correct, formal language with which to address such august people. ‘Can you wake him?’ he grunted eventually.
The nobles glanced at each other. As they moved, their robes rustled and released even more butterflies into the failing light.
They spoke no words, but
Haldus could sense from their expressions that they were engaged in some kind of debate.
After a while, the noble that had spoken gave him another wooden smile and headed off down a path between the arbours. ‘My name is Lady Ailerann,’ she said as she drifted away. ‘Let me escort you to the Warden.’
The other nobles did the same and Haldus stood shaking his head in confusion until Laelia gave him a gentle shove, indicating that he should follow.
They crossed a broad, circular courtyard of sun-warmed marble and Haldus guessed that it was the centre of the whole structure. Banks of foliage towered all around and Haldus sensed that the courtyard was much larger than the area he could see, but that it had long ago vanished beneath the tide of growth. He noticed that the stone was hard to walk on and looked down, expecting to see that it was broken. Rather than cracked, the flagstones were deliberately uneven – they had been decorated with sweeping bas-relief patterns, showing vast portrayals of the gods in battle. The work was breathtaking in its beauty. For a moment, Haldus forgot everything but the art that was spread at his feet. He cleared away some leaves and gasped at an image of Kurnous leading a great hunt. He traced a finger over the god’s face, imagining he was with him in the heavens. It was something he often imagined and, as always, the idea comforted him.
‘I’m not sure they’ll remember we’re here if we don’t keep up,’ laughed Laelia, nudging him forwards again.
Haldus looked up and saw that she was right. The nobles were drifting away from them, carried along by their trains of flowers.
He grunted self-consciously and hurried after them.
They walked for an hour or so, beneath the endless, westering sun. There was something hypnotic about the way it hovered on the horizon, destined never to sink beyond it. With every minute that he walked, Haldus felt his body relax a little more. The warmth sank through his muscles and deep into his bones, until he would have liked nothing more than to lie down and abandon himself to dreams of Kurnous and endless summers. The thought of what lay beyond this perfect evening kept him moving though. He pictured his kinsmen, battling disease and disorder, as the forest died around them, and he stumbled on after the nobles.
