by F. C. Reed
A group of sentry stood watch at the perimeter. There were four of them, bulky and covered in corded muscle, with coal-black skin that crawled with green luminescent runes where veins might have been. The sentries resembled a living, sentient representation of the onyx-like gatespire they protected.
Each one of the four stone segments that made up the gatespire hovered above the next and rotated in a slow cadence. The base segment of the gatespire, shaped like an inverted pyramid, pierced the ground, releasing a blue-black darkness into the surrounding areas like a great greenish hued dagger jutting from the spine of the earth itself. Darkness slowly hemorrhaged from the damaged earth and crawled across the ground in an imitation of life, its black tendrils clawing and gripping and pulling. Heavy and gas-like at the point of origin, the dark aether formed a blanket of void that covered and consumed.
Dark aether’s opposite is the construct of life. The black survived by taking the life essence from other living things. The gatespire served as an anchor and an integral piece of the organic machine that perpetuated the death of all life it touched. The destruction of the gatespire would grind the Legion’s advance to a near halt, if not stop them altogether.
Dark aether smothered and choked the trees and the ground, causing the environment to atrophy into a lifeless black dirt. Tendrils of the fog-like aether extended from the obelisk and wove through the flesh and bones of the Legion, inexplicably linking them to something greater.
Sergeant Trazk Tamir nodded and pulled himself forward across the dirt and rocks. He reached the edge of the cliff and stretched his neck to peek over and into the valley with a quick sweeping glance.
Rubble blocked the roads of the makeshift encampment, which stretched out over at least a mile, its surface pockmarked by dozens of orange and yellow fires. Behind that front encampment lie another series of defenses, and the ruined earth beyond that, the earth touched by dark aether. Tamir counted at least four battalions, each containing thousands of legionnaires. The scorched and blackened armor they wore was a testament to the commander they served, not to mention the black that encompassed them.
Rocks shifted beneath his fingers, sending a shower of noise and debris down the cliff side. Following a few tense moments in which the perimeter guards diverted themselves to investigate, he exhaled the breath he held as he watched them return to their posts, grateful for their arrogance. The thought of discovery created an anxiety which sat like a lump of lead in his gut. They didn’t search for very long, quickly placated because no one in their right frame of mind would approach the entire Legion.
Only then did he spot the gatespire cloaked by the shadows of the night, but betrayed by its glowing green runes. He signaled his squad mate, Gavyud Kasan, to close to his position.
The reconnaissance mission was Kasan’s first. Command considered it wise to pair him with the more experienced Trazk Tamir and Lariss Asirra, two of the best reconnaissance scouts in the Crimson Bloodguard.
“There,” Kasan whispered.
“I see it,” said Tamir. “The gatespire.”
They watched for a moment, far enough away to avoid detection, but close enough to make their observations. The position of the gatespire shifted often throughout the Legion. At first, the recon team charted the gatespire’s location over time, only to find that it appeared and disappeared at random intervals and locations. Trying to predict and ambush its next location quickly became a futile effort. Their only option was to attack it as soon as it showed up.
“Do you feel that?” Kasan asked in an unnecessarily hushed whisper. A low vibrating hum persisted in the periphery of his mind, just present enough to notice. “What do you suppose that is?”
“Yes I feel it,” Tamir said. “The cries of the dead and dying, brother. Our ancestry calls to us. It is the sound of the Legion’s hive mind seeking to gain entry. Surely you have heard of this before.”
“I didn’t take you for a superstitious old fool, Tamir.” Kasan snorted a chuckle. “I’ve heard tales of this… this call, mostly as a child. I always thought it meant to scare me into behaving properly.”
“After witnessing the Legion’s army slowly chewing its way through this plane of existence, and now that scratching at the base of your skull like a rodent skittering about behind the walls of your basement. One can only help but wonder,” Tamir said. “The old folk used to say since we are Natai, that makes us spawn of the liquid death. Because of that, technically we are a part of the Legion. The part that exists apart from the Legion. We are not bound to the black, nor do we need it to survive. But it still calls to us.”
“I don’t believe it,” Kasan snorted. “I’ve never believed it. Superstition for old men like you and older women, like my Great Ginga Leita. She believed in that nonsense.”
“Then what do you hear?” Tamir asked defensively. “What do you feel? What do you attribute that scratching at the base of your skull to?”
Kasan flicked his hand dismissively. After failing to appear nonchalant, a worried fear crossed over his face. He squinted into the darkness at the Legion as they continued their glacially paced crossing of the land.
Tamir, always the father figure, pursed his lips and stared. He cared for Kansan, protected him, and even loved him. He would do what needed doing to see the younger Natai emerge from the experience unharmed. But protecting and sheltering against the thoughts of another had a way of being deceptively difficult.
“Look to your front, brother,” Tamir whispered. “A sea of dead bodies that walk the lands. If that doesn’t force you to believe, then what will? The pale gray color of our skin? The blackness of our eyes? Our immunity to toxin and disease? Our people have always possessed a substantial resistance to the effects of the dark aether. Where do you think that resistance and immunity came from? We are spawned from the black itself. The only difference is that it does not control us.”
Kasan pursed his lips and shook his head again. “The black. Vir’sakul, in the old Verellen tongue. The living death. All myths and conjecture.”
“Why the hells else do you think we Natai are given those tasks involving reconnaissance of the Legion?” Tamir burst forth in a harsh whisper, his temper flaring hot at the boy’s ignorance.
“I once heard it was a tek art created by the Black Montef monastery. They supposedly use nanites to corrupt cellular structure, which gives the appearance of decaying flesh. I’m more inclined to believe that over what you are saying.” Kasan shook his head as he scanned the terrain for an opening they could use to approach undetected. “I’m not convinced. We are just as susceptible to the black as any other living being. We may have a small advantage, but we are not immune.”
“I’ll advance and flank left at that far cliff,” Tamir said, pointing to a heavily forested cliff overlooking a narrow passage. “It’s obvious we will not solve this great mystery between the two of us. But by the gods, I hope you’re right.” He pulled himself toward the thick brush without a sound, not bothering to look back at Kasan.
“I know I’m right,” Kasan muttered. “Superstitious nonsense.”
Kasan waited for Tamir to signal he was in position, but even after several long minutes, no signal came. An icy chill traversed his spine. He listened and watched, and there came no sound. An unnatural silence stretched over the once subtle rustle of leaves and chittering of insects. The chill did not subside, so he put a hand to his short rapier as he hazarded a glance over his shoulder.
The attack caught him by surprise. His jaw reverberated with pain and the bones in his neck and spine shook in his frame as the thundering blow knocked him flat on his back. Someone, or something, lifted him by the leather armor covering his chest. The excruciating thudding in his jaw lanced out at the barest of movement, giving him pause. He tried to call out, but found his voice lacking. The only sound he could make was a weak gurgle around a mouth full of blood. The overwhelming pain exploding from his face in a rapid rhythm attuned to the galloping of his heart led him to concl
ude that his jaw was broken.
From his periphery, he could just make out a hunched, lumbering figure dragging behind it a limp body, the head twisted to an unnatural angle, flopping and swaying at every lurching step. He concluded in his clouded, jostled mind, the broken body must belong to Tamir, however much he hoped and wished it did not.
Asirra posted herself on a limestone overhang, well within view of the glowing gatespire. She wanted to signal her team and let them know what she found without giving away her position, although she suspected they already tracked the gatespire too. As she contemplated her options, two figures approached from behind the gatespire breaching the dark of night and passing between the statuesque sentries. They walked with a stiff, jolting gait. The dark aether clung to their feet and calves like viscous, black mud.
Asirra gasped aloud when she recognized the features passing under the light of the moon. A wave of impulsivity folded over her like a nauseating, brackish sludge, then receded. Kasan and Tamir shook and convulsed, the head of one rolling around on its shoulders while the head of the other flopped against his chest like a gaudy, oversized piece of jewelry.
A lone figure approached to join them. Although his face remained hidden by the shadows, she and her team had identified him as the Iron General’s side officer, Major Dravus Rennier.
Rennier’s lean, muscled frame belied his strength. The lopsided grin he wore also spoke to his tendency toward absolute cruelty. His sadistic nature preceded him enough that the world shied away from him to avoid his exceptionally inventive “experiments.” Still, there were more rumors that he killed slowly those whom he liked, intimate in his sharing of their agony like a pair might share cake and tea on a lazy afternoon.
Rennier stepped behind the shuddering pair of Natai and drew a sword from his scabbard, the blade flashing a silver line in the darkness. Without hesitation, he thrust the sword into Tamir’s back, his head flopping around on the broken neck from the forceful thrust. The tip burst through his chest and sprayed the ground with black ichor and gore. Aside from the force of the steel breaching his chest, Tamir barely moved at all and said not a word.
Rennier yanked the sword skyward, tearing the man from somewhere in the center of his chest clean through his shoulder. Bloody black bile sailed through the air in a violent arc, spattering the rocks and dirt. He then slashed hard at waist level, nearly cleaving the Natai in half. Tamir’s torso toppled over and away, folding at the part of his body that remained connected to his waist. He crumpled into a broken heap. Rennier watched the black grab at the severed halves and pull them apart, enveloping the corpse and feeding from the remnants of life essence.
Kasan stood limp and motionless as the dark aether stretched itself in his direction, encasing his feet. Soon, much like the ravenous devourer it was, the dark aether crawled and clawed up his legs. It took to his arms and pulled him to the ground, snapping one of his wrists and tearing muscle from his calf.
A horrified Asirra could not avert her eyes. Rage simmered within her, but her fear completely dwarfed any notion of heroism.
Rennier watched Kasan struggle against the black as it crept over his body. He rolled over, but the liquid death held fast to him. He appeared to strain to free himself and struggled to pull his head away from the black, but to no avail. The liquid death crept up the sides of his face and forced its way into his throat and wiggled past the crevices at his eyes as he let out a mangled, muted scream.
Rennier grabbed Kasan by his breastplate and ripped him free of the dark aether with one hand. With the other hand, he closed it around Kasan’s neck, pulling him close.
“The girl,” Rennier began in a rumbling voice.
Asirra strained herself to hear them, but maintained her position and remained quiet.
Kasan croaked through gasping breaths, liquid black oozing from the corners of his mouth, snaking and inching its way up to the crevices of his eyes and toward his ears. As much as he wanted to retaliate, his broken, shredded arms were useless.
“The one who has the—
The words fell short as Kasan pelted his face with a slug of bloody spit, laced with strands of the black.
Rennier grimaced and squeezed harder, mildly surprised at the resolve and fortitude of the dying Natai. “You seem to be a bit…resistant to the black. Interesting.”
Kasan gagged and gurgled and kicked, feeling his consciousness waning as it slipped away in a wave of pain. He wrapped himself around Rennier’s upper arm and shoulder, still choking while he struggled to separate himself. With the strength he had left and ignoring the pain that coursed through his wrecked vessel of a body, he wrenched himself straight, stretching the arm through the joint. He had hoped to break it.
Rennier regarded the Natai straining around his arm as though it were nothing more than a mosquito about to plunge a proboscis into his flesh. He tensed the arm to halt the strain and brought the heel of his hand across the Natai’s face in a swift, violent stroke. Surprisingly enough, Kasan still held on, but the strength of the grip weakened and faded at every heartbeat.
Rennier hoisted the helpless Natai and then slammed him back to the ground.
The wind left Kasan’s lungs in a hurried rush. A spray of bloodied black shot from his lips through pained, ragged breath. He rolled over and tried his best to push off the ground to move, but the black latched onto him and held him still.
Rennier wiped the spit away with the back of his hand, his face a contorted mess of anger and contempt. Grabbing the struggling Natai by his ankle, Rennier swung Kasan overhead, crushing his body against the ground in one swift motion.
“I might have let you go with the proper cooperation,” he said to the broken, twisted body that lay before him. After a heartbeat, he smiled. “No matter, little Natai. I will find her. I will find her, and I will kill her slowly. And this pathetic plane will finally dissolve from the aethersphere.”
The intense pain and internal damage was such that Kasan felt none of it. He closed his eyes as the liquid death crawled over his face, its inky blue-black tendrils folding themselves over his view of the star-lit sky. The agony that was once his body welcomed the coming darkness.
Rennier rose and turned to face the surrounding wilderness. He spoke into the air, his gaze fixated in her general direction. “Bring me the other one,” he said to no one in particular.
Her eyes locked onto his when she realized he was staring directly at her. Her heart hammered away in her chest, the anticipation building a constricting lump in her throat. Retreating behind her cover, a sense of foreboding and fear forced her to consider leaving her hiding spot.
She had to get back to the Reach. The snap of twigs and rustling of leaves caused her to freeze again. Outnumbered, alone, and surrounded, she sized up her options. Hoping the foothills were still as clear as when they arrived several days ago, the cliffs overlooking the sea appeared the only means of escape.
The branches of trees behind her snapped and rustled during a flurry of movement as her pursuers gave chase. Three legionnaires converged on her, but she knew there would be more. She broke away from her cover and dashed across the limestone shelf into the clearing, and her heart nearly burst from her chest when she locked eyes on him.
The hulking man was difficult to see in the night’s darkness, but the outline of the jagged black armor and cape he wore stood out against the glow of the moon overhead. Her mind had barely enough time to register that Bastille was there with the Legion. For all the time she and her team had spent in reconnaissance, she had not seen the Iron General.
Until now.
As he stepped into the dark aether, it shied away from his footfalls, moving clear of his every contact with the ground.
She recoiled as she ran by, expecting him to attack. Instead, he stood where he was. In the moonlight a broad, shadowy smile met her glance, but he did nothing more than smile.
Not until she sprinted past him did she see him move again. He positioned himself between her and
her pursuers. He grabbed one legionnaire intent on capturing her, stopping him in his tracks. The other, he lashed out with his foot, connecting with the legionnaire’s side. The legionnaire buckled and crumpled to the ground as the third legionnaire skidded to a halt.
Asirra kept running towards the cliff edge that faced the sea, away from the foothills. When she reached the edge, she cursed the height of the cliff. After a moment’s hesitation, she leapt from the edge of the cliff and streaked toward the choppy waters below.
Bastille walked towards the cliff’s edge after some time, and peered out into the sea, his hands clasped at the small of his back. An abnormal speck created smooth ripples in the water’s surface.
Rennier hesitated a moment before he had enough courage to speak out. “The situation seems to have—
“Major,” Bastille said without turning, “please join me.”
Rennier approached the hulking man, a caution in each one of his steps. He wiped sweaty palms against his sides as he approached. “As ordered,” he said, his voice edged in uncertainty.
“Tell me, Major. What is that? In the water?” Bastille nodded to the figure bobbing on the waves, barely a speck in the dark blue waters.
“I believe it is one of the recon team that has been tracking us. The girl.”
“That is correct,” Bastille said with a nod of his head. An interminable silence stretched between them, the tension building like a balloon filling and fit to burst. Just as Rennier thought to speak, Bastille’s calm, even voice rumbled to life, still carrying with it an air of indifference. “How many times have you failed me?”
