Empire of Dirt

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  “Now!” Tauren called, running his blades through the nearest assassin.

  Nathaniel wasted no time cutting them down while their senses were overloaded. A part of him hated killing anyone who couldn’t defend themselves, but he could see the faces of so many Graycoats that had been murdered by the dark foe.

  Then the assassins were no longer a threat, Nathaniel couldn’t help but drop to one knee and lean heavily on his sword. He was exhausted. Looking around, so many others, both friend and enemy were doing the same, with some even playing dead. Only Faylen remained upright and able to fight the soldiers that came from the back. The Graycoat could no longer tell what was blood and what was sweat on his face.

  Nathaniel grunted and pushed himself up, side-stepping a dark-cloak’s swing and spinning about with his sword angled to remove his attacker’s head. The resistance in the man’s bones jarred against Nathaniel’s wrist and forearm, threatening to release his grip on the hilt. The knight had never fought for so long and so hard before. The Graycoats kept the peace, they had never fought in wars.

  Salim roared into the night and Tauren screamed in protest. Nathaniel turned about to see the old honour guard stumble to his knees with a hand across his stomach. Tauren jumped between him and the three soldiers who surrounded Salim. It was probably a stupid thing to do on a battlefield as crowded as this, but Nathaniel threw his sword end-over-end into one of the three men, leaving Tauren to dispatch the others. One successfully slashed the White Owl’s leg and the other managed to backhand him across the face. They were all becoming too exhausted to fight now.

  Nathaniel wanted to help Salim, but in the moment he was numb, as if the ranger hadn’t been mortally wounded. He knew he should feel something, anything, at the sight of Salim in peril, but making sense of his feelings in the bloody slaughter was impossible; he could only move forward.

  With no sword to hand, Nathaniel barrelled into his next opponent and landed on top of him. The Graycoat dropped his forearm into the man’s throat and pressed down until the life left his eyes. When he looked up again, Faylen was launching one of Tauren’s attackers into the air with a telekinetic spell and cutting the throat of the other with her scimitar. Nathaniel rolled off the dead body beneath him and prayed to the gods for the strength to stand up again.

  It was going to be a long night…

  Tauren stumbled to Salim’s side and half-fell to the ground. His adoptive father was bleeding to death with a gash across his stomach and another across his chest. The son-of-none ignored the pain in his own leg and instinctively held a hand over Salim’s gut, but the blood pumped out relentlessly.

  “Father!” Tauren couldn’t bear to see the look on Salim’s face; a look of resignation.

  “Get up!” Faylen called from behind, cutting down two more dark-cloaks.

  Tauren ignored the elf and stared at his father. It was the cruelest twist of fate that they should just be brought back together and then ripped apart forever.

  “You need… to fight, son.” Salim gritted his teeth and squeezed Tauren’s arm. “Now!”

  The alarm in Salim’s eyes had Tauren raising his short-sword to prevent his head from being removed. The White Owl gave into his rage for the briefest of moments and barrelled the soldier to the ground. He stabbed him repeatedly long after he was dead.

  “You fight for naught, son-of-none!” a voice cried over the din.

  Tauren slowly stood up, recognising the voice, and looked beyond Salim’s prone body. Argo was braced defiantly between a group of Karathan soldiers, his short-swords in hand. The assassin’s blindfold covered his eyes and he had now swapped his watch uniform for his real Arakesh armour.

  “Fighting for the dead will only see you join them…” Argo glanced at Salim, who was close to death now.

  “I will kill you for your part in all this.” Tauren’s statement was flat, despite his resolve.

  Before he could launch himself at the assassin, a pair of horses galloped through and made a bloody mess of things, their riders swinging mercilessly. Kail, the commander of the allied Karathans, leapt from his horse and brought Argo’s entourage down in a heap of limbs. Tauren wasted no time in closing the gap, bringing Argo within arms-length. The new limp in his leg was affected the speed of his attack, making him clumsy and predictable.

  “You’ll have to do better than that!” Argo spun away and brought the flat of his blade across the back of Tauren’s head.

  The son-of-none fell into the fray and took a kick to the face, as one of his own owls stumbled past. Kail was already on his feet and back to fighting his own kinsmen, too far away to help now. Tauren crawled over the bodies and through the blood, desperate to get back to Salim’s side. There was no hiding from Argo, however; the assassin’s heightened senses would find him anywhere.

  As Salim came back into sight, two strong hands gripped his head, one under his chin and the other around his temple. Argo was standing over him with a wicked grin on his face. The assassin pulled the son-of-none to his knees and held him in a vice.

  “You were so easily tricked,” he hissed into his ear. “You led so many to the slaughter, White Owl.”

  Tauren’s head was fixed with his gaze over Salim, who continued to cling to life. The son-of-none recognised the grip he was in, having employed it before, and knew he was moments from having his neck snapped, but seeing his father bleed to death, seeing Halion tortured and hung, seeing Braigo take his last breath, and now his owls were dying around him.

  He could only see red.

  With both hands, Tauren threw his arms up and sunk his thumbs into Argo’s eyes, pushing through the blindfold. With his elbows, the son-of-none squeezed Argo’s hands, preventing him from executing the neck snap. The assassin screamed and Tauren smiled. That was all he wanted to hear.

  With the strength he had left, Tauren flipped Argo over his head, bringing the assassin down on his back, hard. The fine blade strapped across Tauren’s chest slipped from its scabbard with ease, but it sunk into Argo’s throat even easier. The Arakesh spat blood, which quickly became a gargle before his body spasmed and went limp.

  Tauren roared into the night. Killing Argo did nothing for the rage trapped inside of him, a rage that would see him find his feet and keep fighting. Until the empty embrace of death claimed him, the son-of-none knew he would never stop.

  32

  The First War

  Gideon strode into the clearing, where Mournblade rested in the stone. He swivelled on Ilargo, who had followed him in, his mind racing with questions. The stars were out now and the moon cast the tranquil setting in a pale glow that sparkled over the dragon’s scales.

  “What do you mean Adriel has lied to me?” Gideon had made for the clearing at Ilargo’s behest before they continued their discussion.

  Ilargo looked down at the mage and his narrow pupils expanded. Gideon could feel the dragon inside his mind, inviting him into their sanctuary. Giving himself over to the magical pull, the Dragorn, as he now was, opened his eyes under a different canopy of stars. The endless fields of green were somehow calming in their infinite depth. Unlike before, there were tall, lush trees dotted about the fields, giving the mage some idea of the distances he was looking at. Small flowers of every colour had sprouted from the ground and the grass had grown taller in his absence.

  Sensing his confusion, Ilargo said, The sanctuary grows as our bond does.

  Gideon closed his eyes and shook his head. “You said I’m not the first human Dragorn.”

  You are not. There were many more before our bond, before either of us were born.

  “Are you not supposed to tell me this?” Gideon could feel everything Ilargo was feeling. The dragon felt guilty for both keeping this secret and telling it.

  You are Dragorn... This secret is yours to guard now.

  “Tell me, Ilargo. What is it?”

  I will show you…

  The sanctuary was ripped from under him and the familiar feeling of falling through cl
ouds had his gut twisting in knots. As the mage broke through the last bank of clouds, the battle that had plagued his mind was raging below, with dragons weaving and diving between giant spears and hordes of soldiers swarming over the land. Ilargo appeared from nowhere and glided beneath his falling form, until the two came together with Gideon astride his armoured back. Ilargo tucked in his wings and dropped towards the ground, bringing the memory into focus.

  The green dragon drifted in the air for a while, allowing Gideon the time to take it all in. They appeared to be in no danger, with neither the dragons nor the men taking any notice of them; they were just visitors in this place. A great city was spread out before them, built partially into the rock amid towering spires decorated with Crissalith.

  “What is this?”

  The First War. The war that changed everything.

  “When is this?” Gideon still couldn’t believe how real it all felt.

  The true history of Verda is not one even the elves can recount. This battle took place thousands of years ago, not long after the creation of the elf.

  “After the creation of the…” Gideon could feel the world he knew tipping upside down.

  Mankind created the elves in their image. They were the first attempt at trying to become immortal, but the king failed, and in the process created another species you now know as the elf.

  “We created elves…” Gideon said the words out loud but he couldn’t understand them.

  Mankind came first. The king, Atilan, was perhaps the strongest-

  “Atilan?” the mage echoed. “The king of the gods?”

  He wasn’t always a god. In the beginning he was a man.

  Ilargo banked to the left and flew straight for the fortress, in the heart of the city. With a mighty thud, the green dragon landed atop the tallest tower and dipped his neck, allowing Gideon to clamber off. Standing by the edge was a man draped in billowing, scarlet robes and a belt laden with scrolls and mage’s tools. The Dragorn walked around the man, who was oblivious to the observation, and took him in.

  The man had long, white hair and a beard to match and he shouted into the sky, every word eliciting another lightning strike that found a dragon. The staff in his hand was that of wood, but the end was adorned with an amber sphere, wrapped within a coil of steel. The shaft was clearly decorated with shards of green Crissalith from top-to-bottom.

  “This…” Gideon looked from Ilargo to the man. “This is Atilan? This is who everyone in the six kingdoms worships above all others? He’s just… he’s just a man?”

  He was the king of the first men and a powerful mage, perhaps the most powerful. The seed was sown by his father, Agandalan, while Atilan was but a child. Agandalan became obsessed with the idea of immortality, an obsession he passed onto his son.

  “How did he create the elves?” Gideon asked.

  With magic, and the assistance of his trusted council. But he intended to make mankind immortal, not create an immortal race. Atilan saw the elves as a failure and cast them out of his kingdom, jealous as he was.

  “How did he get from creating elves to… this?” Gideon looked out over the battle between man and dragon.

  Dragons are at the heart of Atilan’s obsession with immortality. We were the first of the long-lived that mankind met. Before us, they had no concept of life without death.

  “So he tried to enslave your kind.” The mage looked at Atilan in disgust.

  He wanted our scales. He believed they held the key to lasting life. Atilan had his right hand, Naius, perform experiments on those he captured. Our scales were used in various spells, but none had the desired effect.

  Gideon shook his head. “It’s barbaric. How could he believe that would work?”

  Ilargo looked from Gideon to the other dragons in the sky. Because of the Dragorn…

  The mage followed Ilargo’s gaze and tracked a golden dragon soaring between the lightning strikes. The dragon had a rider on its back! Gideon rapidly searched the skies and found other dragons with riders nestled between their wings.

  Before the elves, dragons chose humans to be their companions. Our bond was significantly stronger and easier to form than it is with an elf. We were natural companions…

  “They fought against Atilan with you?”

  Yes. They rebelled against their own kind when the war started. None survived to the end, however.

  “How did they anger Atilan?” Gideon waved his hand out and watched it pass through Atilan’s robes as if they weren’t there.

  Because they are immortal, Gideon.

  Gideon wanted to frown but his whole face froze in a blank expression. He wasn’t stupid enough not to understand what Ilargo had just said, he just wasn’t sure what to do with the information.

  All Dragorn, human or elf are immortal.

  “Immortal… How can I be immortal? I’m human.” Gideon had walked away from Atilan now and come to stand before the green dragon.

  The magic we naturally expel will be absorbed by you over our time together. You will not appear as you do now forever, but eventually you will cease to age. This can only be achieved with those bonded to us, hence Atilan’s jealously. He was not chosen to be Dragorn.

  “So…” Gideon was finding it all very hard to piece together. “You’re saying I’m immortal? I’m never going to die?”

  Not if I have anything to say about it. You can still be killed as any elf can, but time can no longer touch you. Ilargo bent down and Gideon massaged the scales between his eyes. You are the first immortal man since the end of The First War.

  Gideon turned away and walked across the top of the tower. The wind blew his dark curls and he had to remind himself that none of this was real. He was desperate to wrap his head around the idea of immortality, but it was beyond him. It was impossible to understand something he couldn’t touch or see or even measure for years to come.

  “Is all of this the secret the Dragorn have been keeping? That man came first? That the gods were just people?”

  If only it were so simple…

  Gideon could hear Rainael’s wisdom and age in Ilargo’s words. It was easy to forget that the green dragon was younger than him, with so much experience available to draw upon from his mother’s life.

  The war came to an end some years after this battle. My mother and Garganafan rallied the dragons and drove what remained of mankind into The Wild Moores, where they were forced to live, without their castles or magic. Over the millennia they became as wild as the forest that shielded them from us. Malliath wanted to burn it all down, but Garganafan stopped him, preserving your kind. If he had not stopped Malliath, we would not be bonded, and so I am thankful.

  Gideon’s jaw dropped. “The Outlanders… The Outlanders are the descendants of the first men.”

  As are you. When your kind first emerged from the Moores after so many millennia, there were no elves still living who remembered you.

  “But how did they become gods? Even the elves worshipped them before men did.”

  Even the elves were wild in the beginning. What facts they had about Atilan and the others eventually fell into myth and legend. These legends became stories that were taken on as something more, something to be worshipped. Ilargo lifted his head, assuming a regal pose. I have shown you all that my kind has seen. The secret kept by all Dragorn is more of a purpose than a piece of knowledge, but it should only be passed on by another Dragorn.

  Gideon could feel the shift in reality coming this time. As Ilargo broke away and the sanctuary became a distant place in his mind, the young mage took a lasting look at the king of the gods, chanting into the sky. The experience was less jarring, and Gideon opened his eyes to see Adriel enter the clearing beside Mournblade.

  “I have been in council with Rainael,” Adriel announced softly. “You have not been a Dragorn for nearly long enough to learn of the truth, but these are different times… and there are only two of us now.” The elf glanced at Ilargo and Gideon felt a brief conversation pass be
tween them. “Ilargo has shared the history of our two people. I know it is a lot to take in; I remember Galandavax imparting those memories to me, so long ago. I assure you, learning that your entire race was made out of one man’s greed and lust for power was a lot to take in for me as well.”

  Gideon needed the missing piece. “What is the real purpose of the Dragorn, Adriel?”

  Adriel walked around Mournblade. “In the beginning, when your people were dragon riders, there was no purpose beyond companionship. It was thousands of years later, when my people ruled over Illian, that the Dragorn came into being. The dragons chose their companions from my people, and over time they shared the true history of the world with us. As shocking as the truth was, we all agreed on our singular purpose… we must protect The Veil.”

  “The Veil?” Gideon had never heard of it.

  “When Atilan failed to replicate the immortality he created with elves and the war with the dragons was tipping against him, he turned to other options. First, he created Crissilith to bring down the dragons and cancel out magic. Only Atilan knew how to use magic in its presence; a secret he guarded jealously. Still the dragons continued to beat his forces, so he had Naius, the god of magic, make him something special.

  Atilan sent Naius to Kaliban, his personal sanctuary in the mountains, and had him create The Veil. No one knows exactly how long it took Naius, but his work came to fruition as The First War came to an end. Most of humanity had been driven into The Wild Moores by then, but Atilan retreated to Kaliban.”

  Adriel casually gripped the hilt of Mournblade, but Gideon couldn’t tell if the elf was pulling or not.

  “What did this Veil do?”

  “It granted them immortality.” Adriel released his grip and turned back to Gideon. “The Veil opens a gateway to another world, one above this realm. It’s hard to say what existence is like there, but they have some level of omniscience that allows them to watch this world. Their ability to affect this world is limited, however. Paldora’s star is said to have been sent by the goddess, but there is no proof of that. If they had any real power in this realm, we would all be dead by now.”