“I’ve no idea,” Turi said. “I hope they went back to Kanumorsus and had enough sense to go back to their damn pit.”
“Not all of Mórgomiel’s chieftains died,” Elgahar pointed out. “A lot of wraiths were wreaking havoc when the shadow grew. Many of the chieftains fled with the orcs. I suppose they could stage another attack,” he added with concern.
“I’ll get a division of explorers ready to hunt down the demon army,” Valímidos said as they were on their way back to Kathanas. “The war isn’t over. If there’s one thing we learned in Farwas, it’s that when you fight an enemy like the Yundal, to defeat them you need to make sure you cut off the body of the attack for a long time so that they don’t attempt anything again before long.”
“Take a division of insects, humans, and centaurs,” Elgahar said. “You shouldn’t take just a few with you in case violence breaks out. Those orcs are brutes who are capable of anything. And Ítalshin, Uroquiel, or I ought to go with you. If you find yourself up against a vorwraith, you won’t come out alive.”
Manchego was shocked. “Hasn’t the war ended?” he asked. Hadn’t he fought with all his being to win? He was walking slowly with one arm around Turi’s neck as the young thief helped him walk. He was not limping, nothing in his body hurt, but he felt as though he had been drained of all his energy. It was still as though he were in a dream. He could not believe he was back in the Meridian, safe and sound, and that he had said goodbye forever to the God of Light.
“There’s a lot you need to tell me, Manchego,” Elgahar said. “We’ll find the time for it once this war is truly over. Now’s the time for convalescence and taking the last steps that are needed to win absolutely. The enemy has dispersed, but we need to hunt them down and cut down their numbers as much as we can. The last thing we need is a handful of orcs multiplying in some dark corner to attract evil all over again. Mórgomiel may have been defeated, but I’m sure there’s a demon somewhere who’ll find a way of using them.”
Manchego knew that no matter how hard they might try to exterminate the orcs, they would never find them all. Somewhere, somehow, a handful of orcs would manage to hide, and sooner or later, they would unleash their terror. The world would never be far from some insane mind and would never be completely free from danger. But as long as that danger was quelled and kept under control, Good could spread in comfort and live in peace.
“Did you feel anything when the figure brought you down from the sky?” Turi asked. “Who was it? What was it? I saw it had wings, I swear I saw them.”
Manchego turned to him with a look of confusion. “What do you mean, I came down from the sky? All I remember is waking up with all of you around me. Did anything else happen?”
“Hellfire! You don’t remember anything! An angel or something brought you down from the sky and laid your body on the ground, wrapped in a blue cloak!”
“Really?” Manchego shrugged. The city of rock towers greeted him with its imposing outline. He sighed, exasperated after so much conflict, and thought about his mother’s face. Had it been real? Was she really his mother? Just as she had told him, he could decide to believe or to disbelieve. He had decided to believe and would forever keep within him that image of his mother and her immaculate beauty.
“Take me to Luchy,” he said.
Turi turned to him with a calculating glance. “I wouldn’t take you anywhere else. I know where your heart’s direction is. She’s a lovely girl!” He felt a flood of emotions at the memory of Meromérila.
***
Kathanas was a complete mess. Blood, death, dying, wounded, and heroes. Everything was mingled together in its corridors and chambers. Janikur had suggested going in search of water and food, and his suggestion had been well received by the diversity of races and species. The Catalgar got ready to go in search of timber and the centaurs in search of water. The humans opted to go hunting while the insects devoted themselves to tending to the wounded. The elves were more depressed than any other group. Long-lived people had died and Lohrén, who had expected to die, had survived the terrors of Mórgomiel once again. Now his existence had been turned completely upside-down. There was no way of going back to Allündel. What on earth would a hundred elves do on a planet of humans? Part of him smiled. If he had not been forced to stay in another world, he would have never done so. This was a new beginning.
When Manchego arrived to visit Luchy in one of the infirmaries, he found Funia stroking the girl’s head and hands. The patients around her had died or been taken away to have a limb amputated with a hot iron. Around her flew the seraph Teitú. Manchego felt relieved to see his little friend of earlier days flying around his beloved. He also noticed that a huge elf with platinum hair and grey eyes was studying her from a seat beside her bed. What about King Mérdmerén? Mother had said that all those who were still alive would return to go on living.
Teitú, how did you appear? Manchego asked. He was surprised that he was still able to communicate with the seraph through thought.
It was the strangest thing! We just appeared as if out of nothing. Luchy and I suddenly found ourselves in the infirmary. I suppose Mother, or someone, sent us.
I’d imagine Mérdmerén must have appeared somewhere else. You haven’t seen him, have you?
No, Manchego. I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember anything until Mother woke me to tell me certain things.
Manchego guessed that Mother had told each survivor something different. Perhaps she had shown each one the thing that would bring them freedom. She had shown him one of the enigmas of his past, the mystery of his parents. He had had the privilege of meeting his mother. He had no father, and he was not sure whether this felt strange or not.
“The human returns from his mission, having left behind the essence of the God of Light,” Lohrén said in perfect Mandrakian. The elf was good at the language. Funia turned to look at Manchego to study him. That look, she had seen it before. She remembered when she had slapped him!
“Lord God!” she cried in surprise.
Manchego put a finger to his lips. “Don’t say anything to anybody. I don’t need any more attention. The God of Light has been set free. Now I’m me, nothing more or less than Manchego the Shepherd.”
Lohrén’s eyes met those of Manchego. The elves were deep and eternally wise. Manchego remembered the general of the elves, the same hulking great individual who, when in Allündel, had behaved so insolently. Now he was filled with a strange peace, and he seemed to have respect in his gaze.
The elf came across to him and offered him his hand. Manchego took it and returned the clasp. “Manchego the Shepherd. You have, and always will, all my respect and admiration. Truly, I judged you unfairly when we met for the first time in Allündel. Forgive me.
“You are a lucky man. Luchy is a woman who steals hearts. I say that from experience.” Manchego felt a flash of jealousy. “Don’t worry. I know she loves you and will love you forever. She was wounded by Wrath the Godslayer, that accursed sword that I hope has been destroyed.” He gave Manchego a stern look. “And for reasons I don’t understand, Luchy has healed from the poison of the God of Chaos’s sword. Go on, lad, love awaits you.”
Lohrén turned and left the room, leaving Manchego, Funia, and Teitú alone.
“Thank you for taking care of her, Funia,” Manchego said. “I know you did everything to heal her.”
The healer stood up. “I apologize for slapping you,” she said.
“Never mind. It was necessary at that moment. And listen, seriously, don’t tell anybody who I was, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll take your secret to the grave.”
“Why doesn’t she wake up? Can’t she hear us?”
She’s waiting for you, came Teitú’s voice in his mind.
Thanks, Teitú. Manchego sat down on the floor, taking Funia’s place. He snuggled as close as he could to Luchy and leaned against her cot. Funia said nothing more and left. Luchy no longer needed her services. Many other souls wo
uld benefit from her healer’s talent, and so she went looking for those wounded who needed her.
“What took you so long?” Luchy said with her eyes closed.
“Have you been awake all this time?”
“Of course! I’m not like those people who need a song to wake them up,” she joked, still without opening her eyes.
Manchego felt terrible, but then he saw the smile on his best friend’s face and said, “It’s because you’re stronger than me. It’s as simple as that.”
Luchy sat up with a start. Her gaze turned serious and hard. She faced Manchego and said, “You idiot! Never, ever, give me an engagement ring with a jewel in it! Because I promise I won’t ever go looking for you again!”
She collapsed and began to sob loudly, burying herself in his embrace. The young shepherd welcomed her and held her for a long time, allowing the girl to release her accumulated woes.
She told him every detail of the journey that had led her to the moment of saving him, and how horrible it had been to be stabbed by Wrath the Godslayer.
“It was like being in a nightmare, always surrounded by a horror that threatened to take my soul away from me. It was thanks to the elves that the evil sword didn’t go right through me. They gave me these clothes I’m wearing.”
All this time Teitú was fluttering around them.
“Will you love me like this, as the mere human I am?” Manchego asked. He had intended to make a joke, but what he had said sounded strangely serious. He could not deny that he missed Alac’s presence. He supposed it would take him several months to get used to his new state of existence.
“Are you messing with me? Mere human? What do you think I am? A mere woman? I’m going to beat you! At least now you haven’t got wings any longer and you’ve got no way of escaping. None of that stuff about leaving me because you’ve got a mission to carry out.”
“Come on,” Manchego said. “It’s time to keep our promise.”
“Ooh, so straightforward.” She looked strangely at him. “No shyness anymore. You’re asserting yourself now.”
“I’ve spent all my existence longing to be with you, that’s the truth.”
“Right now?”
“Who cares? What I want is to be with you.” His eyes strayed to the girl’s bosom and his hands found themselves mysteriously near her hips. They both turned tomato-red and burst out laughing. Laughter brought them together, closer and closer. Before they knew it, they had melted into a furious kiss, and soon their bodies were struggling out of their clothes.
“Blessed Gods!” cried Turi, who was about to come into the room. “Wait! They need privacy!”
By the instruction of the king’s squire, the only two corridors that gave access to the chamber remained guarded at every moment for a little over an hour. The young man estimated that an hour would be enough for them to make their wishes come true. Teitú fluttered as he left the room, looking for something to do during this intimate moment between Manchego and his beloved.
When Turi saw Luchy and Manchego kissing, the only thing he wanted was to find Meromérila as soon as possible. He hoped she would feel the same.
***
The division of three hundred centaurs, a hundred Catalgar, three hundred humans, and a hundred insects stopped at the edge of the entrance to the caverns. They were southeast of Kathanas near the slopes of the Marsemayo Volcano. The sea of orcs had separated into thousands of separate groups. A number had been caught and defeated by the watch guards of the great cities that had not been destroyed. Others had been caught by the division that was marching south in search of the remaining orcs to destroy them.
On two occasions, Ralwa, the centurion in charge of the division, had mounted a surprise offensive against a hundred orcs and defeated them easily. The orcs appeared lost. They had offered hardly any resistance and simply died. At the same time, it was obvious to Ralwa that combing the entire area to find the remaining orcs was going to be an impossible task. Whether they had fled to Kanumorsus and disappeared or whether they had fled to some other land in search of shelter, it would be impossible to hunt them down.
“We’ll go back to Kathanas with our report,” Ralwa said.
“So be it, Captain. Back to Háztatlon!”
Chapter LXV — Mourning
The world of the Meridian had been turned upside-down. The truth was that everybody had wanted to defeat the Times of Chaos, but nobody had imagined that it might be possible. And now they had won, they did not know exactly what to do.
The most important empires of the planet were in mourning. On the one hand, it had taken the winners days to accept that the war had indeed finished and that they could lower their guard, take off their armor, and think about going on with their daily lives. Perhaps this was the most difficult thing of all: to go back to the calm of earlier days. The definition of daily life would be different after so much tragedy, particularly for those who had crossed a portal and found themselves in a new world where they would have to start a new life from scratch.
As they relaxed and began to take off their chainmail and helmets, every soldier began to feel the weight of the death of his comrades and his fellow countrymen, and the high price they had paid to survive. It was then that weeping and depression became widespread.
The absence of bodies was a reason for concern and unhappiness. Having no bodies to bury was an ill omen for those who wanted closure. With no proper farewell, it simply seemed to them that the war had not ended, and they felt as if they still had to go on fighting. It was not unusual to see centaurs, Catalgar, elves, and even some humans prowling the Fields of Flora late at night, speaking to the wind as if they could somehow communicate with the dead. It was depressing.
The foreign cultures missed their homes and their worlds of origin. As the days went by, calm and far from the calamities of war, they had more time to study the Meridian and realized how different it was from their worlds. Most of all they missed their families, kings, leaders, customs, food, and landscapes.
For the Catalgar, for instance, the Meridian was generally too hot. For the centaurs, the sky was a very meager one and they were unable to see and greet the stars in the way they had enjoyed for centuries. The constellations here were very different since the Meridian was in a galaxy far from Terigión.
And yet it was the elves who suffered most from the effects of living on a planet instead of a fragment of land like Allündel. They felt tired and most of them had developed all kinds of illnesses from being on a planet full of living, infectious creatures. When in Allündel, none of those noxious elements existed any longer. The elves missed seeing Oris, elemín, the Lï trees, and their people. The food was very different as well, and they did not always agree that killing animals was necessary when people could live on vegetables and fruits.
Most of the elves were beginning to take an interest in the human opposite sex. The more conservative of them began to be concerned that a whole new generation of elf-humans would emerge in the Meridian and grow away from elven traditions. All the same, the cultural phenomenon was unstoppable. There had still been no word of any human who had become pregnant by an elf or an elf-woman impregnated by a human, but sooner or later it would happen. Elves like Lohrén were the ones who contributed most to the possibility of elven reproduction outside Allündel. Many elves felt the disapproval of Azuri the Praise. Others, like Lohrén, knew they would never be able to return to their land of origin, and so it mattered little what they did with their lives in the world where they would be living from now on.
The Dakatak reacted to victory best. The creation of Yumbala, a nation under nobody’s control but their own, gave them the benefit of going back home after the war. The prophet Gach-milukta-chochin-chimbam-loki had foretold a new era for them. For them, the Meridian was their world. Although Queen Gochuka Inquik-cha macha-chak-na-ma had died after laying the hundred thousand eggs that had been the origin of the soldiers who had supported the defense against Mórgomiel, a new que
en had been born and was growing day by day, soon to begin her reign in Yumbala. The surviving insects had returned as soon as possible to their new land, and there, they had fed and rested.
The Divine Providence was one of the empires that had suffered the loss of its leader and its army. Civil war and murders among the families who sought power became widespread in the empire now that Haziiz Farçia had died. With that, a new period of turbulence had begun. Nobody knew how the struggle would develop, and the fight for control could last anything from months to decades.
More solid empires like Moragald’Burg, Doolm-Ondor, and Grizna celebrated in their own style when they received news of the victory. The news was sent by carrier birds since the leaders were still recovering from Armageddon and not yet well enough for the long journey home. Besides, King Mérdmerén had announced that there would soon be a funeral service to commemorate the fallen. For the men of iron and stone, the fact that many of their soldiers had died to save the world was a reason for celebrating. For the Empress of Grizna, as for Düll Donn, the loss of so many lives was a cause for many days of weeping.
Devnóngaron was the land that had suffered most of all. The Great Mesh and the Lands of El Malush had been reduced to ashes. Animals, beasts, trees, and all its sacred sanctuaries had been decimated during the terrible attack by Górgometh and Mórgomiel. A huge migration of red wyverns took place during the following days, and the creatures that had survived the assault of the shadows started building nests elsewhere, far from the destruction. The clans that survived the attack, and had now united under the sign of a single leader, worked day and night to restore nature. It would be years, decades, perhaps even centuries before nature would flourish again as it had before.
The land of the Wild Men had remained isolated from the influences of the world for four hundred years, but the Times of Chaos and the allyship of so many different forces and species had taught them that there is strength only in union with others. Marzgarg, the leader of all the clans, was a giant of a man, nobly-muscled with an impressive tattoo on his left breast. He had received a ceremonial invitation to stay at the Imperial Palace, and for the first time, a Wild Man other than Balthazar would receive the homage granted to all foreign leaders at the palace. Some commented that Marzgarg resembled Balthazar, though others said that Marzgarg was bigger, fiercer, and more daring in battle. What the new leader of the Wild People did not have was the title of shaman.
Necromancer’s Sorrow: (Series Finale) Page 65
