by Darius Hinks
They eventually reached a grove of tall, stately trees, surrounding a heavily carved trunk, hollow and broad enough that a dozen horses could have passed through it side-by-side. Haldus and Laelia had to fight their way through a tangle of brushwood that spread out from the base of trunk. It resembled a robed priest, keeping a watchful eye over its flock of ancient trees. When Haldus followed the nobles through the opening, he staggered in the gloom – the perfume of the flowers was so heady that he began to feel giddy. He would have fallen, if not for Laelia’s steadying hand. He nodded a grudging thanks and noticed that she was unaffected by the scent. She was looking past him, to the centre of the tree, her eyes gleaming in the eternal dusk.
Haldus took a few deep breaths to steady himself and followed the direction of her gaze.
At the centre of the hollow tree was a spiral of bleached, sculpted branches, stripped of their bark and curved into long, serpentine loops, so that they resembled a vast fire. At first Haldus thought it was nothing more than a work of art, but as he followed the nobles and their attendants he saw it more closely. The intricate designs were clearly the handiwork of the same skilled artisans who had carved the slabs in the courtyard. His gaze followed the curve of a giant eagle’s claw, which formed the arm of a great throne, carved from the heart of the tree and enveloped by hundreds of spiralling designs. There was a cadaverous hand resting on the throne, as white as the branches and connected to a pale arm, entwined in beads, jewels and vine leaves. The hand and arm were both colossal – five times that of a normal body and, as Haldus reached the foot of the throne, he saw the enormous regal head of the seated figure, nestling in the verdure like a pale bloom. The giant’s eyes were closed but the head was held erect with pride. It was wearing a wreath of black, glossy leaves but its face was ashen and lifeless.
‘Lord Calaingor?’ Haldus asked, slurring his words and reaching out to Laelia for support.
She steadied him and stepped to his side, staring in amazement at the huge, crowned figure.
The head did not move and the eyes remained closed, but, as the three nobles backed away from the throne with their heads bowed, a smaller white shape emerged from the brittle mesh.
Haldus massaged his face, trying to clear his thoughts. The scent of the flowers had become so powerful that the whole scene was swimming around him, as though it were reflected in a pool. The shadows were full of figures – both highborn and lowborn, staring intently at him. He nodded vaguely at them and stepped closer to the throne, peering at the white shape that had emerged from the branches.
‘I am thinking,’ it said in a low, croaky voice.
Haldus was looking at an ancient hare. It was sitting on an arm of the throne and its posture was just as rigid and severe as the giant beside it; two incarnations of the same mind. They both projected the same austere, ascetic air. The hare’s fur was patchy and balding, but its colour gave it beauty – it was the luminous silver of moonlight.
It studied Haldus with half-lidded eyes, as though considering something ironic.
‘You?’ asked Haldus, looking from the hare to the three nobles who had greeted him.
The nobles had backed away into the shadowy crowd and lowered their heads. They gave him no reply.
Haldus looked at Laelia.
She looked at the hare and raised an eyebrow. ‘He has larger ears than I remember.’
Haldus stared at her, too confused to register her humour. Perhaps the soul of this ancient spellweaver had grown too great to inhabit just one body? He thought of Nuin, waiting patiently at the foot of the stone towers and realised the idea was not so alien to him.
‘Are you Lord Calaingor?’ he asked, turning back to the hare.
‘You might say we are Lord Calaingor,’ it answered, glancing at the motionless giant.
Haldus looked from the hare to the giant and his heart sank. The Cromlech had resisted every assault that crashed against its perimeter. He had been sure that Lord Calaingor would be the one who could lead the asrai in his stead, but Calaingor seemed to be some kind of enormous, mortified wraith. What little of the body he could see beneath the leaves was covered in cobwebs and dust. That, or he was a decrepit, balding hare. Neither was the warlord he was seeking.
Haldus looked back at the giant.
‘Can you wake him?’
‘I am not sleeping. I am thinking.’
‘Thinking?’ Anger crept into Haldus’s voice. He felt vaguely ridiculous venting his fury on a hare, but the animal’s dismissive tone was infuriating. ‘The forest is dying. Do you understand? My kin are dying too, just half a mile from this spot. And the last few lords who are willing to fight are struggling against unbelievable odds in the Saros valley. You might have protected these stones from corruption, but for how long? Our whole realm is being destroyed.’
He looked around at the assembled crowd. He saw nobles and great warriors, but all of them had their eyes locked on the ground. Were they ashamed, he wondered, or scared?
‘You must help,’ he said, looking back at the hare. ‘Whatever power you have used here must be turned against the daemons. You must ride out with me. You must serve the Mage Queen. Time is running out!’
The hare seemed to sag under the weight of Haldus’s anger. The spark of humour faded from its eyes.
‘Time?’ It spoke softly. ‘What do you understand of time, little princeling? You measure it in deeds and bloodshed. The Cromlech of Cadai is beyond such things. Beyond time as you might understand it. It was standing on this spot long before the coming of your Mage Queen. It will be standing here when her final spring has passed.’
The scent of the flowers magnified Haldus’s anger and he found himself glaring at the hare. ‘Nothing will be standing anywhere if we do not halt this plague. You cannot shield yourself from this. Your precious Cromlech is part of the forest, as much as anything else. The seasons have been overturned. There is growth where there should be snow! Time has been displaced.’
There was a low, grinding sound and the chamber shook. Haldus staggered back a few paces and looked around in confusion for the source of the noise. When he looked back at the hare, he realised that the figure in the throne had moved.
The hare opened its eyes wider, revealing two ink-black orbs, but when it spoke, its voice was still gentle.
‘Time has no dominion over the Cromlech, Haldus. We have made sure of that.’ There was sadness in its voice. ‘Duty, Haldus. That is what matters. But such things go forgotten by most. The correct observance of rites. Respect for the gods. Patience. Things that are so easily abandoned by the warlike mind. Do you think yours is the first conflict to reach our borders? Do you think you are the first to try and distract us from our obligations? You are not, Prince Haldus.’
Haldus clutched his head in his hands, unable to believe what he was hearing. Yet again he was facing a noble with no sense of what was at stake. ‘We must join together!’ He waved at the cavernous trunk that surrounded them. ‘It is not enough to support the trees, Calaingor, we must support each other.’
The hare looked over the prince’s shoulder into a shaft of golden twilight pouring into the tree trunk. ‘I preserved what I could.’ The hare turned to its courtiers. They looked back with love and adoration. ‘There is no way back.’
Haldus shrugged off Laelia’s grip. ‘What are you talking about?’
Laelia nodded. ‘I understand. Lord Calaingor has sundered himself from the world.’ She looked around at the assembled nobles. ‘They are all preserved. Insects in amber.’
The hare lifted its chin, assuming the same proud posture they had seen when they first arrived, but said no more.
Haldus stepped closer to the throne, shaking his head. As he did so, he glimpsed a staff in the giant’s hand, as tall as a tree. The thing was decorated with intricate swirls of silver filigree that glittered in the dark. Like all of his kind, Prince Haldus could feel the eddies and currents of magic as easily as he could feel a spring breeze. The staff resonate
d power. The closer he looked the more sure he became – this was the source of the Cromlech’s resilience.
Without thinking, he reached out to touch it.
The noble nearest to him leapt forward and barred his way, drawing a sword as he did so.
Haldus sensed immediately that he had shocked their hosts. Several of them placed their hands on their weapons and stepped closer.
Laelia rushed forwards and held up a hand, pulling Haldus back with the other.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘The prince was overcome for a moment, that is all. We have not come here to undo what you have created.’ She stared at Haldus. ‘Have we?’
Haldus saw that all the figures in the shadows had now moved forwards, drawing swords, spears and glaives. He shook his head and backed away, feeling foolish for acting like a common thief. He cursed himself for behaving in such an ill-mannered way.
He looked back at the throne, expecting to see wrath and outrage, but the giant noble was as immobile as ever.
The hare was staring at him, but he saw pity in its eyes, rather than rage. ‘The Stave of Calaingor would be no use to you, young prince.’ The ironic expression reappeared. ‘Even if you did have the strength to steal something five times your own height.’
The nobles pressed forwards with their weapons raised, and their painted faces were not so humorous.
Laelia raised her hand and backed out of the hollow tree, dragging Haldus with her as she went.
They emerged into the warm evening light and Haldus muttered grudging thanks, infuriated that Laelia had had to help him again.
‘Cyanos was mistaken,’ she said, as they headed back the way they came. ‘Calaingor is no use to us. He has spent all his power stepping outside of the world we are fighting to save.’ She looked pained. ‘He has both preserved, and lost, all that he loves.’ Laelia shrugged. ‘He certainly has nothing left to offer us. Perhaps your learned scholar was reading the wrong book.’
Haldus paused and looked back at the trees. Some of Calaingor’s subjects had wandered out to watch them leave. They were eying Laelia nervously, and made no move to follow, but outrage was still written across their painted faces. Haldus cursed his stupidity, but sensed that Laelia was right. The guardians of the Cromlech would never have aided him, even if he were the most silver-tongued of nobles. They had chosen their defence and, to Haldus, it looked a lot like a retreat.
He shook his head and blushed angrily, furious that he had led his warriors into that vile, diseased tunnel for nothing.
‘Cyanos showed me the prophecy,’ he muttered as they walked. ‘I couldn’t decipher the characters, of course – it was the language of humans, but it was called the oracular something and it was ancient beyond anything I’ve seen before.’ He scowled, growing angry with himself. ‘I do not understand those obscure histories and legends. Why would Calaingor bind himself away from the world like that?’ He shook his head. ‘Cyanos was sure the signs pointed to this place and this person. He assured me that this was the place to seek aid.’
Laelia’s expression changed, growing uncharacteristically serious as she considered Haldus’s words. ‘We should leave.’
Haldus looked up in shock. He had not heard her speak in such a grim tone before.
They hurried back through the arbours, trees and fields and Haldus’s shoulders dropped with relief when he saw Nuin, still waiting patiently where he had left her.
The prince leapt onto the giant hawk’s back and, without a backwards glance, he launched her into the sky.
As Nuin carried Prince Haldus back towards battle and decay, Laelia drifted up after them.
They passed unhindered through the ancient stones and approached the borders of Calaingor’s realm. Then, as they broke through clouds, Haldus groaned.
The scene below had grown much worse. When they entered the stone circle, the hawk lords had the enemy on the run. The fly-riding daemons had been falling from the sky and Haldus’s riders had been on the cusp of victory.
Now the sky was a boiling black furnace. Thousands of giant flies had filled the air, all carrying cankered, one-eyed daemons between their mucus-lined wings. It was impossible to see the distant entrance to the vast tunnel – the daylight had been completely obscured by the festering host. The only light that remained was from the nauseating yellows and purples that shone from the pestilent fumes.
Haldus saw immediately what he had done.
‘I’ve led us into a trap,’ he muttered, with the colour draining from his face. ‘There’s no way out.’
In all these months of war, he had never seen such a hopeless situation. The tunnel was filled with an appalling, apocalyptic din. The air throbbed with the sound of beating wings and clanging, tuneless bells. Of the three hundred riders he had brought from the camp, he guessed that less than two hundred remained. He shook his head in despair as his kinsmen dropped from the sky, torn apart by glinting black mandibles and fuming daemon blades.
‘Where is Cyanos?’ he growled, scouring the reeking clouds for a sign of him. There was no sign of the black-armoured noble, or any of the other hawk riders from his mountain kingdom.
Laelia glanced at him. Her wry smile was still absent. ‘Where did you find Cyanos?’
Haldus gave her no reply. His expression changed from one of despair to fury. He lifted Eremon’s horn from his back and prepared to call a retreat.
‘Haldus!’ cried Laelia as several black shapes dived out of the gloom, heading straight for them.
Laelia rolled to one side as the monstrous flies hurtled towards them, but Nuin was too slow and one of the creatures latched onto her wings, gripping tightly with dangling, segmented limbs.
The fly had three black, featureless eyes and, without thinking, Haldus jammed his horn into the largest of them.
The eye exploded with a moist pop, spraying black, tar-like liquid across Nuin’s face.
The hawk screamed and shook her head as smoke erupted from her feathers.
Haldus shivered in horror at the sound, but had no time to help his mount. The giant fly was hauling itself onto Nuin’s back and the bird was thrashing its wings wildly, trying to stay airborne.
The fly carried a mangy, withered rider and, as Haldus rose to his feet, the daemon leapt from the fly with its sword raised.
Haldus had already drawn his spear and he thrust it into the daemon’s maggot-riddled belly.
The daemon laughed merrily as its abdomen split open, spilling a torrent of lemon-yellow grubs.
Haldus recoiled. They were not grubs, but tiny replicas of the daemon – complete with gangly limbs, pot bellies, tusks and single, staring eyes.
He lashed out at them with his spear, staggering backwards towards Nuin’s tail, scattering the little shapes into the air like seeds.
The daemon laughed harder as Nuin screamed again and began to fall.
Haldus managed to keep his balance, charged forwards and slammed the blunt end of his spear into the daemon rider’s face, sending it flying from Nuin’s shoulders. He noticed with disgust that it continued laughing as it plunged towards the mounds of living offal below.
The fly-monster still had its segmented limbs latched around Nuin and the giant hawk was screaming in pain as she struggled to beat her wings.
Haldus moved to jam his spear into another one of its eyes, but he recalled the tiny shapes that were already clambering all over him and hesitated.
He was about to plant his heel in the thing’s face when it was suddenly wrenched away from Nuin and hurled through the air.
Haldus glimpsed tendrils of green fire, hanging from Laelia’s fingertips as she flew through the smoke towards him.
The crooked smile had returned to her face. ‘I’m not sure Cyanos has our best interests at heart.’
Haldus was too enraged to do anything but glare at her. He dropped back onto Nuin’s back and tried desperately to wipe the black liquid from her feathers. Freed from the weight of the daemonic fly, she had managed to right hersel
f, but the feathers around her head were scorched and smouldering.
Laelia grimaced at the sight and reached out, soothing the bird’s pain with a balm of pale flames. ‘She will live,’ she said as the light vanished beneath Nuin’s feathers. Then she shook her head. ‘We need to leave,’ she said, glancing doubtfully at the heaving, fungal landscape.
Haldus was rigid with anger and shame. All around him, the hawk riders were being devoured by the daemon-plague.
As he cast his gaze around, it came to rest on the stone towers behind them.
He looked from the stones to Laelia and raised his eyebrows.
She laughed weakly. ‘We won’t enter so easily a second time. Not after your attempts at negotiation.’
Haldus jabbed a finger at the carnage that surrounded them and drew his breath to reply, but before he could speak, another daemon-fly whirred towards them. Emboldened by fury and desperation, Haldus leapt from Nuin’s back and kicked the daemon rider from the fly’s back.
The daemon looked back at him in stunned silence as it fell through the clouds.
The giant fly lashed out with a barbed limb, but Haldus was too fast. He dodged the blow, took the blade of his spear in both hands and jammed it into the base of one of the monster’s wings. He roared as he kicked the blade, shovel-like, deeper into the joint and then levered the wing out of the fly’s back and kicked it into the air.
The fly immediately rolled to one side, unbalanced by the missing wing, but Haldus had already leapt clear, landing safely on Nuin’s back and continuing his conversation with Laelia without pausing for breath. ‘You have the power to get us in there!’ he cried, jabbing his finger at the Cromlech as the fly dropped past them, thrashing its three remaining wings uselessly as it went.
Laelia looked wounded by his harsh tone, then shook her head with a bemused expression on her face. ‘And you say you’re not the one to lead an army.’
