[Ulthuan 02] - Sons of Ellyrion

by Graham McNeill

  Eldain leapt from his saddle and cut a path towards the creature through its whipping limbs, organic debris and thrashing, frond-like tentacles. Stinking fluids gushed from each wound, and Eldain retched at the miasma as a jelly-like limb of toothed suckers wrapped itself around Caelir and lifted him into the air. A pair of mouths rippled into existence on the monster’s unquiet flesh, fangs like sword blades unsheathing from drooling gums of pus-yellow meat.

  Before they could bite down, Eldain slashed his sword through the side of the creature’s head. A flood of stinking black blood and fatty tissue frothed from the wound. The reek was incredible, rotten meat and decaying matter that smelled as though unearthed from a freshly opened grave.

  The beast hurled Caelir aside, gurgling in lunatic amusement as it sensed a more succulent morsel nearby. Eldain ran to his brother’s side as Rhianna stepped before Issyk Kul’s new and repulsive form. The Everqueen’s light filled her, white fire shining in her eyes and blazing along her body like the magic that thundered through the Annulii.

  “Are you hurt?” said Eldain.

  “I’m bleeding, but nothing serious,” answered Caelir. “Come on, we have to help her.”

  “No,” said Eldain, holding Caelir back. “This is not a fight for the likes of us, brother.”

  Rhianna stood before the monster, unfazed by its expanding horror, and magical vortices of fire spun around her body in pulsing waves.

  Acidic drool and hissing spittle flew from the monster’s jaws as it hauled its lumpen mass towards her on twisted limbs of misshapen bone and roiling frills of undulant flesh. Faces blurred on its drum-taut skin as though a hundred bodies writhed within it, and claws, teeth and drooling orifices opened in the meat of its distended belly.

  “I am a mage of Saphery,” said Rhianna, her voice resonating with wells of power no mortal ought to tap. “And a daughter of Ulthuan. The blood of queens flows in my veins.”

  Eldain and Caelir shielded their eyes as a torrent of blazing light erupted from Rhianna’s body. A horizontal geyser of white fire shot from her hands and eyes.

  It was killing magic. Dangerous magic. Old magic…

  Alarielle would not destroy, but Rhianna was more than willing to do so.

  The light played over Kul’s transformed flesh, and where it touched, it burned like the fires of Asuryan himself. Like tallow before a flame, bloated flesh sizzled and ran like butter. Drooling ropes of it melted from grossly twisted and deformed bones that cracked in the heat with a sound of splitting wood. The creature’s many mouths gave voice to one ululating shriek of pain and horror as its body was devoured by the cleansing flame of Avelorn.

  Eldain tasted the ancient power of this magic. This was the energy that had brought the world into being, a fragment of the power that had shaped worlds and allowed its builders to cross from one side of the cosmos to the other in a single step. Against its awesome potency, the power of the dark prince was as a leaf in a hurricane.

  Kul’s body shrank before the firestorm, but whatever spark of life remained to animate his monstrous form remained alive until the last. The screaming went on until nothing remained of the creature save a molten pool of smouldering ash and liquid bone.

  The spear hosts charged into the ragged horde of northmen, and drove them back with disciplined thrusts of their weapons. With graceful, methodical precision, the tribesmen were either slain or driven back to the river. Caught between the precise slaughter of the spears and the crazed whirl of magical beings, spells and creatures of legend, the warriors of Issyk Kul had already held beyond the limits of human endurance.

  And, without him to lead them, they broke.

  Here and there, small groups banded together, but the Reavers simply circled them and sent well-aimed shafts through helmets, exposed limbs and necks until they too collapsed. Fewer than a hundred warriors survived to reach the riverbank.

  The spear hosts left the final slaughter to the creatures of Avelorn, obeying the shouted commands of their sentinels to reform and march to the aid of the centre. The Everqueen moved through the wounded, spreading her healing light to those who were still beyond the reach of Morai-Heg’s banshees. She would take no part in the killing, and the magical beings she had brought to Ellyrion swarmed around the edges of the spear hosts, eager to take their killing to the centre.

  Beneath the ragged, battle-torn banners of Tor Elyr’s citizen levy, the victorious warriors of the northern flank turned south.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE LAST HOUR

  The raven ships hit the quayside first, sweeping the docks with iron bolts that killed any of the defenders not behind cover, and driving the rest back. Heedless of the damage to their ships, the slave-masters of the troop galleys cracked their whips and drove their hulls straight into the sloping quays. The ugly boats cracked and disgorged scores of druchii swordsmen onto stonework that had known the tread of many races, but had never seen Naggarothi in thousands of years.

  Tyrion had joined the Phoenix King and Korhil in the centre of the battle line, amid a silent, armoured host of Phoenix Guard. Tall and unmoving, silent and grim of feature, these warriors were unlike any other of Ulthuan. It seemed a lambent light glowed beneath their skin, and their eyes were dark pools that had seen too much. Even standing next to them gave Tyrion a sense of ages passed and ages yet to come.

  He felt the weight of grief borne by Ulthuan, the endless cycle of battle and bloodshed waged in the name of a power struggle begun thousands of years ago. He saw the bloody Sword of Khaine above it all, revelling in the long-burning hatreds that flared anew with every generation, as mothers and fathers told their children of ancient wrongs over and over.

  Truly Aenarion had saved and cursed his people by drawing the sword.

  “Would you have drawn it had you truly known the price we would pay?” Tyrion wondered aloud. “If you had seen the millennia of woe it would bring, would you still have drawn the sword?”

  He knew the answer to that, just as he knew what his own answer would have been.

  The druchii were massing beneath a relentless hail of arrows, but still the Phoenix King did not give the order to advance.

  Tyrion moved along the front of their line until he stood next to Finubar. The king gave him a weak smile, and Tyrion saw the fear in his eyes. He feared to give the order, and not without good reason. The Phoenix Guard’s presence was a grim omen: praetorians and pallbearers all in one.

  “Sire,” said Tyrion. “We must advance. The druchii need to be driven from the quayside.”

  “I know,” said Finubar.

  “Then give the order.”

  “I am afraid, Tyrion,” said Finubar. “If I order the advance, I will die. I know it.”

  “You will die anyway,” said Tyrion. “We all die sooner or later. Better on our terms than theirs, my king.”

  The warrior beside Finubar nodded, and Tyrion saw the rune of Asuryan upon his brow. Clad in a shimmering hauberk of orange-tinted gold and ithilmar, he was swathed in a white cloak of mourning and carried a slender-hafted halberd with a shining silver blade. The warrior’s face was full and roguish, like that of a libertine, yet his eyes were filled with the shadows of past regrets and future knowledge.

  “Caradryan,” said Tyrion, recognising the famed Captain of the Phoenix Guard.

  The warrior mimed drawing a sword and cocked his eyebrow.

  Tyrion looked from Caradryan to Finubar and Korhil, seeing their incomprehension. It was the question only a warrior without words could ask, and Tyrion knew the answer even as the question was posed.

  Yes, the Sword of Khaine would give him the power to end the druchii threat once and for all, but the price was higher than Tyrion was willing to pay. Aenarion might not have known the full truth of the damnation he laid upon his people by drawing the Widowmaker, but Tyrion knew it all too well. Power such as the sword would grant could never be given back by something so simple as driving it back into an altar. Once loosed, it was always loose
; in the hearts of all who heard of it, and in their blood that sang of its slaughters.

  Nothing could undo the damage Aenarion had done by wielding the Sword of Khaine, but Tyrion would not add to his people’s woes by drawing it anew. He had the strength of his friends, and courage of his own to steel him in the face of the enemy. Yes, the sword offered a chance for victory, but Tyrion would not let its temptations draw him into its web. The faces of lost loved ones paraded before him, but Tyrion welcomed them, reliving the joy he had known in their lives instead of mourning their passing.

  Tyrion held himself taller than he had in a great many years as the anger he had carried for so long vanished in a heartbeat.

  Tyrion smiled, and Caradryan saw the revelation within him.

  “You look different,” said Korhil.

  “I am,” agreed Tyrion.

  “What has changed?” asked Finubar.

  “Me,” replied Tyrion. “I have changed.”

  Korhil shrugged, dismissing the matter as irrelevant, but Finubar continued to stare at him. The Phoenix King seemed to take a measure of comfort in Tyrion’s calmness, and looked over to the druchii massing on the quayside. Crossbowmen were moving out with their black weapons tucked into their shoulders, and swordsmen marched behind them beneath freshly raised banners.

  Above them all, the Witch King flew on the back of his dragon. The sky above Lothern was calm and peaceful, unsullied by so much as a single cloud, and Tyrion followed the Witch King as he swooped and dived over the city, unleashing bolts of purple fire from his gauntlets and noxious breaths of toxic fumes from the dragon’s jaws. Flames leapt up from the stricken city, and the sight of his city burning galvanised the Phoenix King at last.

  “Everyone dies,” he said at last. “And if this is to be my time, then so be it.”

  Finubar raised his sword, and the fiery banner of the Phoenix Guard caught its golden edge. All along the elven battle line, swords and spears were raised in answer.

  “In Asuryan’s name!” shouted Finubar.

  The Phoenix King charged, and the host of Lothern went with him.

  Eldain and Caelir rose to their feet as Rhianna approached. The light of borrowed power still shone in her eyes, and it seemed that she did not know them for a moment. Then the light of recognition arose and her face went through a complex series of expressions ranging from relief, to anger and regret. So many emotions churned within her that Eldain had no idea how she would react to seeing him again. The last time they had stood in one another’s presence, Rhianna had tried to destroy him with her magic.

  Caelir took matters into his own hands and swept Rhianna into a passionate embrace. Her arms hovered for a moment before returning the embrace, and Eldain let out a relieved breath as he saw tears of happiness spill down her cheeks.

  “My love,” said Caelir. “Gods above, but I have longed for this moment.”

  “Caelir,” said Rhianna. “I thought I would never see you again.”

  “I have a habit of doing what others do not expect,” he said, kissing her on the mouth.

  She returned the passion of his kiss, and Eldain felt his heart break anew. He had lost Rhianna to Caelir once before and it had hurt like no other pain ever could. That wound had festered, but this one was clean.

  Caelir and Rhianna belonged together. Eldain knew that now, but still it hurt.

  No one could ever lose a maiden like Rhianna without pain, but this was good pain, as though a barb he hadn’t known was lodged in his heart had suddenly been removed by a healer’s magic. Guilt had been a torment he had lived with for so long, he had forgotten what it was to live free of it.

  He made to turn away, but a restraining hand took him by the arm.

  “Eldain,” said Rhianna. “I do not know what to say to you.”

  “You do not have to say anything,” said Eldain. “I do not expect your forgiveness, for I did you and Caelir great wrong. He and I have made a peace of sorts, but I expect nothing of the kind from you.”

  Rhianna took a deep breath. “I can forgive you, Eldain, but first you have to forgive yourself.”

  Eldain shook his head. “Look around you. All of this is my fault. I brought this death and destruction to Ulthuan, and I can never forgive myself for that. Do not waste your forgiveness on me, Rhianna. I do not deserve it.”

  “The heart that does not want to heal cannot be remade.”

  “Maybe some hearts should not be remade.”

  “I said the very same thing once,” said Rhianna. “I believed it then, but I do not believe it now. Broken hearts are empty, and empty hearts soon fill with all that is dark in this world. I would not see you live so.”

  Eldain said, “It is not your choice to make, Rhianna.”

  “No, it is not,” said a sad voice of radiant wonder. “And it never will be.”

  They turned to see the Everqueen standing before them in a pool of golden light. None of them had heard her approach, and Eldain fought down a rising fear as he felt the presence of the ancient power of the Everqueen lurking behind the mask of Alarielle.

  Which of the Queen of Avelorn’s two faces would be in the ascendancy?

  “Be at peace, Eldain of Ellyr-Charoi,” said Alarielle. “You need not fear me. Nor should you, Caelir of Ellyr-Charoi. The Everqueen spared your lives, for reasons I could not fathom, but which I now understand. Ulthuan needs you like never before.”

  “I am yours to command,” said Eldain, dropping to one knee.

  “My life is yours,” vowed Caelir.

  Warm approval greeted their pronouncements, as a black shape passed overhead, a stain on the purple sky as it passed over the face of the sinking sun. Eldain looked up and saw a black steed galloping through the air. Its sweeping midnight wings beat with powerful strokes, and there could be no doubting the identity of the ivory-skinned druchii sorceress sat astride its back.

  “The Hag Sorceress,” hissed Caelir. “She flees!”

  “No,” said Rhianna, with a haunted look settling upon her features. “She does not flee.”

  “Then what is she doing?” asked Eldain.

  “She seeks to unmake that which she cannot possess,” said the Everqueen.

  Eldain said, “Where is she going?”

  “Rhianna knows,” said Alarielle. “Don’t you?”

  “Isha, no…” said Rhianna, as though reliving a dark memory or despairing foresight. “The vision of the oracle… the druchii princess… I saw her kill them.”

  “Kill who?” asked Eldain.

  “The mages!” cried Rhianna. “Without them the ritual will be undone!”

  “What does that mean?” asked Caelir.

  “Aenarion’s bride flies to the Isle of the Dead,” said Alarielle. “To unmake the vortex of Caledor Dragontamer.”

  * * *

  The song was killing him. He knew it, but kept singing it anyway.

  His body was wasted, drained of energy to keep the melody alive, and his mind was lost in the darkness of ancient dreams. Prince Imrik, though the name now held little meaning for him, floated in the depths of the mountains. He had long since cast off the silver threads that bound him to his flesh in his desperation to reach the ancient minds of the slumbering dragons. Even were he to succeed, his mind would be lost forever in the spaces between thought and physicality. Unable to return to his body, his mind would wander in darkness for all eternity, or at least until his empty frame eventually succumbed to the ravages of time.

  Yet it would be worth it if he could only reach the minds of the sleeping dragons.

  He raged and pleaded for them to awake, but still they ignored him. He offered them riches, magic and servitude if only they would rouse themselves from their dreams. They took no heed of his blandishments, and dreamed on.

  He felt them moving around him in the darkness; vast, mountainous consciousnesses that rolled and turned like vast leviathans of the deep. They took no notice of him, lost in their own dreams of glory and open skies. What lure did the
world above have for such minds?

  The magic of the world was in decline, drawn away by an ancient ritual, and without that magic, the world of mortals was a cold and tasteless realm. Better to live in dreams, where magic was all powerful and never faded.

  Who would ever choose to leave such a place?

  Why would he?

  Imrik finally accepted the truth of the naysayers in Lothern.

  The dragons were sleeping away the ages of the world, and would never reawaken.

  He had avoided that conclusion for so long, but now it was inescapable. With its acceptance, Imrik felt his will to awaken the dragons erode until there was nothing left, just a broken mind bereft of a body to which he could return.

  Imrik surrendered to despair, adrift on currents of ancient thought.

  Lost forever in the shared dreamspace of dragonkind.

  The air above the Inner Sea was cold and flecked with clouds like rumpled snow. Eldain held tight to the feathers of the eagle’s neck, though he knew it would never let him fall. Primal fear of heights kept Eldain’s grip firm, and though the view beneath him was spectacular, he tried to keep his eyes fixed on the creature beneath him.

  Its plumage was gold, not the gold poets spoke of when describing a beautiful elf-maid’s hair, but the gold that would drive a dwarf to madness with its lustre. Only the eagle’s head was different, pure white and unblemished by so much as a single feather of another colour.

  The bird’s name was Elasir, and he was the lord of the eagles. Such a self-proclaimed title among mortals would have invited ridicule, but for Elasir it was completely appropriate, and, indeed, seemed entirely too prosaic for so magnificent a creature. Its two brothers were no less spectacular, and when they had landed behind the Everqueen, Eldain felt the need to bow to them as he had bowed to her.