The Black Altar: An Epic Fantasy (The Swords of the Sun Book 1)

by Jack Conner

  “I will leave my castellan in charge. He was wounded and drained but lives still. He’s always been a better organizer than myself and will lead well in my absence—better than I could, most like. And I will send a letter to my brother, for all the good that can do. High Mother, you have a part to play, as well. You and your Sisters can do much in healing and restoring the city.”

  The High Mother looked haggard, but she nodded. “Why must it be you, my lord?”

  “I know the ways of the Shadow better than most, certainly more than any here. I can trust no one else with the mission.” He paused. “But I will need some help.”

  “I will go,” said Tiron, who had been listening to all this intently. “My sister was taken by the Borchstogs, and I have no other family. I’ll go with you on your mission, my lord, but I will also look for my sister Aria on the way.”

  “Of course.” Baleron glanced to Olen. The man was still hale, and his talents could prove useful. “What of you, wizard? Will you travel with me? I will take no others. The three of us will have the advantage of stealth, and we may accomplish more with three than an entire army could.”

  Olen blinked several times, and traded a long, weary look with the High Mother.

  She shook her head. “It is folly, my friend. This quest will lead to your death, I foresee it.”

  Surprisingly, that made Olen smile. “Well, then, good. I’m starting to feel the effects of my victorious struggle through time. I have made it this far, but I begin to feel like my remaining years will be more burden than boon. If I die in the service of the Light, mayhap that will help me when I reach the other side.” He laughed. “It had better be a good death to outweigh all my misadventures.”

  Chapter 4

  “Dear Omkar, it’s huge,” breathed Baleron. “Ixa’s army … I hadn’t imagined she would be leading this many troops.”

  He, Tiron and Olen perched among some lichen-pocked rocks, staring down a broad grassy slope (covered in large patches of snow) toward lines of Borchstogs stomping past. There were thousands—many thousands.

  “I put the count at ten thousand,” said Olen.

  “I feel like I’m going to throw up,” said Tiron. He shook his head, and when he did Baleron could see that, indeed, the younger man looked stricken. “What can we do against so many?”

  “I don’t know,” Baleron said honestly. “Nothing by strength, that’s certain. But by stealth? Maybe.” He scowled. “But what does she need this many troops for? The hosts of Oslog are still numerous, but the Dark Land was greatly depleted with the fall of the Black Tower. To send an army this large forth …”

  “You’re right, my lord,” said Olen. “Whatever Ixa’s mission is on behalf of the Spider Queen, it’s an important one, that’s for certain. I wonder what could be in an old Borchstog fortress-mine worth sending out so many troops.”

  Tiron spat. “And it’s not just that, either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it. Ten thousand troops wouldn’t be needed to assault an abandoned mine, even an abandoned citadel. So what is this army for?”

  “It’s obviously not intended to invest Theslan,” Baleron said.

  Below, the army marched past, lines and lines of them. Dead and nearly-dead humans were held up on poles for use as banners. The humans were nailed to them, their skin flayed, their scalps torn off …

  Now it was Baleron’s turn to feel sick. The Borchstogs were evil, through and through, created by the dark powers and baked in the energies of Oslog. They radiated darkness, and all their deeds were of malice and loathing. Elves and Men called them demons, and so they were.

  But Ixa’s host was not composed of Borchstogs alone. No, nor spider-priests and -priestesses, of which there appeared to be dozens, all wearing black or purple robes. There were great trolls, huge and slow. And tall mobile towers filled with glarums—the great, crow-like birds ridden by Borchstogs.

  And going in front and in back of the terrible force from the Dark Land was one of the massive serpentine creatures called gaurocks—dragon-kin, some said. They were typically used as living siege weapons and were quite hard to kill. Some spat venom or acid, but all were deadly forces to be reckoned with.

  Baleron stared, feeling leaden, feeling defeated. The Enemy was about some grand enterprise, and he knew in his gut that whatever it was, it would determine the fate of the world.

  Swallowing, he forced strength into his voice. “Come,” he said. “They’re getting too far ahead. We must away.”

  And so the three moved forward, bent low, hugging the ground, as the army of darkness rolled on, taking its mysteries with it.

  Baleron and his two companions followed Ixa for days, as meanwhile winter settled in and the snows grew heavier and more frequent. Baleron wished he could light fires for warmth at night, but that would have proven disastrous. Tiron and Olen grumbled but understood the situation all too clearly. It was either warmth and comfort—and certain doom—or safety.

  “It will be a mercy if we don’t all catch cold and die,” Olen said on the fourth night, as they were all gathered on a rocky perch with a steep slope upward on one side and a gentler slope falling away below. Stars wheeled overhead when they weren’t hidden by thick clouds, and the mountain only protected them from a small portion of the wind.

  “We’ll make it,” Baleron assured him with more confidence than he felt.

  Olen grimaced, saying nothing to counter his lord but obviously not taking comfort in Baleron’s words, then passed the flask. That was one good thing about the wizard, at least. He was lazy and lice-ridden, and he refused to carry much in the way of provisions, but what he did carry was largely in the realm of spirits.

  “Is this what it was like?” Tiron asked Baleron. Eagerness shone in the younger man’s eyes.

  “Like when?”

  “When you went off to slay the dragon—Throgmar? Or one of your other adventures?”

  Baleron suppressed a sigh. “If you mean damned annoying, then yes.”

  Tiron laughed, his youthful passion for excitement and heroism undiminished despite the snow that was gathering in his eyebrows.

  Baleron took a long sip off the flask and started to pass it on, but just then Olen said, “Wait!” He held up a hand, forestalling Baleron, and Baleron paused.

  Then he heard it, too—the rustle of wings.

  “Hide!”

  They flattened themselves against the ground near the overhang, pulling their horses against it, too. None too soon. Almost instantly several dark forms swept low over the ridge, black wings pumping against the stars. At first Baleron wasn’t sure what they were, but then he saw the silhouettes of Borchstog riders.

  “Glarumri,” he whispered to Tiron, who would never have seen one before. Glarumri were the Borchstog riders of the giant crow-like birds known as glarums—the principal aerial division of the Enemy.

  “I count six,” said Olen in a low voice.

  The three waited tensely till the fliers were gone, but afterward they remained huddled against the stone wall, just in case. They had barely gotten out of the line of sight when the glarumri had come. Next time they might hear the rustle of feathers too late.

  Days later, they saw more glarumri—a great deal more. An entire squadron of them had flown to Ixa’s host and was giving it protection from any possible attackers. Baleron could only assume the Enemy feared an Elvish army would come upon them, as all the humans in the area seemed preoccupied with troubles of their own. The glarumri hated the sunlight, but these fliers wore leather visors to shield them from it and braved the days as well as the nights. Baleron’s group kept to cover as often as they could.

  On the tenth day they were forced to give up their horses. The glarumri patrols had grown too thick and the horses and their spoor were simply too visible to the aerial observers. Baleron and the others took what supplies they could and sent the horses off into the mountain forest. Baleron hoped they made it to a nearby town before they
froze to death. As for his group, they found caves when they could, but all too often they had to sleep exposed to the elements. And they did have to take pains to sleep now; there was no more slumber to be snatched saddleback.

  Olen grumbled the most about losing the horses. “I had three full bottles stashed away on my mare,” he said.

  “Three bottles?” Baleron said. That was a pity.

  Ixa’s host reached the bridge beneath the Falls of Namir two days later. The bridge spanned the gap between two rocky spurs flanking the great, roaring plunge of water which began less than a hundred feet above, and peering down over the rails one could see the falls drop away to fantastic depths, disappearing in foam and vapor in the Pools of Faros a mile below. The bridge had stood for two hundred years, but it wasn’t meant for such a large host, complete with weapons of war. Baleron and the others watched from hiding as one siege engine broke partway through the planks.

  A Borchstog general ordered the host back and divided it. Some, with the heavier equipment, broke off from the main company and proceeded down the mountain, likely to find some way of crossing there. Baleron knew they would have to go a long way around. It would have been quicker for them to go upward. That’s what his group did, crossing the Faros River above the falls at a fordable spot, then coming upon Ixa’s main host three days later, after they had passed over the bridge but before they had reunited with the part that had broken off. Two days later, still before the other group had arrived, Ixa’s host reached their destination.

  “What are we looking at?” Tiron said.

  He, Baleron and Olen lay prostrate on a ridge under an overhanging tree, taking turns with the spyglass. Above, glarumri wheeled through the afternoon skies. Occasional cries from the great birds sent shivers down Baleron’s spine. Once he’d had such a steed, but Lunir was long dead, and all other glarums were his enemies.

  “They’re staring at a pile of rocks,” Olen said, peering through the spyglass.

  “I know that,” Tiron said. “But I mean, why?”

  Baleron sighed. It was snowing lightly, and he was cold and famished. They hadn’t eaten anything but dried meat in two days, and he knew he was weak and far from peak strength. If battle was to be required of him, he had best be cautious.

  “They’re trying to find a way into the mountain,” he said. Olen offered him the spyglass, but he waved it off. He’d already seen enough.

  Ixa’s host had crept along the shoulder of a mountain to a great spire that towered to lofty heights overhead, its peak lost to clouds. It was one of the highest mountains in the chain.

  “Novstris Mountain,” Baleron breathed.

  Olen frowned. “What could they want in there?”

  “What is Novstris Mountain?” Tiron asked.

  “The lair of a great Borchstog sorcerer-king,” Olen said. “Karkost, his name was—the Mountain King, as he styled himself—far from the only one. But he was mighty, and deep in the counsels of Gilgaroth.”

  “Don’t say that name!” said Tiron.

  Olen’s frown deepened. “He is dead, lad. Baleron here killed him. What is there to fear?”

  “He’s dead, but he lives still, in a way. Don’t draw the Dark One’s attention by speaking his name.”

  “Tiron may have a point,” Baleron said quietly. “Gilgaroth is most certainly dead, but his spirit lives on, bound to the place where Krogbur fell. Many Borchstogs still worship him, and they go to that place to sacrifice victims in his honor. It’s a terrible place. Illistriv was unleashed there.”

  “Illistriv,” muttered Tiron, awe in his voice. “The Second Hell.”

  “Mogra is the Dark One now,” Baleron said. “The Dark Lady, perhaps. The mother and bride of Gilgaroth. She contains her own hell within her, or so I’ve heard it said. The Third Hell—Gosgovor.”

  “At any rate,” Olen said. “The Mountain King, Lord Karkost, dwelt here with his many legions. I don’t know what befell him, or them, but the mountain hold was wiped out long ago and the entrances sealed up. That’s what Ixa is staring at now—one of the main entrances, I think, to judge by the size of the pile of rocks. The way into the mountain has been well and truly blocked.”

  “Why, I wonder,” said Baleron. “And who blocked it off? Was it us … or them?”

  “A question whose answer is lost in the mists of time, most likely,” said Olen. He handed the spyglass to Tiron, and the younger man peered through it eagerly.

  “What could Ixa want in there?” he asked, still looking.

  “Another good question,” said Baleron. “And that’s an answer I mean to find.”

  “How do you mean to do it?” Olen said.

  Baleron chewed his lower lip. Below, across the shoulder of the mountain, Borchstogs were beginning to haul away stones from the huge pile that blocked off this entrance. Baleron supposed that once there had been a road leading to the grand doors that would have hung there, and there would have been towns surrounding the mountain fastness, but there was no sign of any of that now. There was no sign that anything of civilization had ever been here. There was only the mountain, the snow and the wild. If someone had unknowingly stumbled upon this place and seen the pile of rocks, he would have simply assumed it had been caused by an avalanche.

  “I have a plan,” he said. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  Waylaying three Borchstogs from whom to steal outfits proved surprisingly easy. The main problem was simply finding a group of the creatures small enough for Baleron’s party to overcome. Olen finally showed his value as a mage here, altering his voice to sound like a terrified human female calling for help. Though wary, a group of half a dozen Borchstogs approached, rounding a bend only to encounter Olen, a ragged, lice-riddled middle-aged man.

  Baleron and Tiron dropped down from heights behind them and slew three of them before the others were aware. When the Borchstogs wheeled to confront their attackers, Olen threw a knife into one’s kidney, then struck another over the head with his staff. Baleron and Tiron, working together, cut down the final Borchstog. They made sure all the creatures were dead, then stripped the arms and armor off of three of the creatures and donned them.

  “You’re lucky my old friend Salthrick isn’t here,” Baleron said ruefully.

  “Oh?” said Olen. “Why is that?”

  “We did this once in order to escape a Borchstog-overrun fortress, only he had us skin the bastards first so that we could wear their flesh and go doubly unnoticed.”

  Tiron paled. “That sounds … unnecessary.”

  “Well, it worked. But I think just rubbing some mud on our faces and hands should make us look sufficiently dark.”

  Once they were disguised as well as they could (without skinning anyone, anyway), they left the shoulder of the highland ridges and set out across the open shoulder of the mountain to the great pile of rocks and the foul host camped before it. As their reek drew nearer, Baleron coughed at the smell.

  “I hope we don’t smell so good we stand out,” Olen said.

  “After days of being unwashed and sweating hard, I don’t think we need to worry about that,” said Tiron.

  Ahead of them overseers directed the Borchstogs to divide into groups, and as teams the groups dislodged stones and dirt that appeared to be blocking various entrances into the interior of the mountain, especially the grand main entrance where Ixa stood. Baleron could see her intermittently, poised among a collection of servants that looked human, as well as some high-ranking Borchstogs. There were also several priests in gray robes, hoods drawn low over their faces. From what little Baleron could see of them, their flesh was as gray as their robes, but their teeth were black and sharp.

  “You lot, form up!” cried an overseer, and Baleron gasped as a whip slashed across his back. “Git up there now!” added the great, horned Borchstog captain, lashing Olen this time across the chest. The captain pointed to a large company of Borchstogs lined up before the main entrance, waiting for it to be accessible.

&
nbsp; Grumbling, Baleron lowered his head and moved off toward the company, pretending to be following orders, and Olen and Tiron followed close behind him. As they moved into the company of demons, Borchstogs snarled and grunted and cursed all around them.

  We should have skinned them, Baleron thought. We should have worn their skins. Salthrick was right. They’ll catch us out for sure.

  Luckily just then Borchstogs ahead gave a cry, and with an explosion of dust and a frightening rumbling noise the obstruction sealing up the entrance was dislodged by the team of Borchstog engineers and laborers. Everyone in the area, including Baleron and his comrades, glanced around uneasily as the rumblings died away, waiting for an avalanche or who-knew-what. When that didn’t happen, Ixa smiled and spoke to one of the Borchstog generals, who spoke to his captains, one of them being the fellow that had whipped Baleron.

  The captains marched up to the great company and divided it into smaller groups, with much whipping and cursing. Baleron and the other two managed to stay together and joined one of the groups, directed by the Borchstog captain they had met earlier.

  One group vanished into the blackness of the tunnel, then another. Baleron’s group would be third, but before he went in he heard Tiron draw in a deep breath, as if in surprise. The young man stared up at something overhead. Craning his head, Baleron thought he saw something … something white … high and far, far away …

  “What is that?” whispered Tiron.

  “I …” Baleron stared. Sunlight flashed on white wings. Could it be … ? Surely there could not be a Swan Rider, one of the Elvish warriors on a winged mount, out alone in hostile terrain? They did not normally travel alone.

  He blinked to clear his vision, and the shining winged shape vanished. Had it ever truly been there?

  “I don’t know,” he told Tiron honestly.

  Baleron felt mixed reactions as they entered the great, dark hallway of the ancient Borchstog fortress. On the one hand, he was glad of the darkness to conceal their identities. The Borchstogs were creatures of the night and could see well in dimness, but even they needed some light, and their vision was reduced without much of it. But on the other, now Baleron was in a great, primal darkness inhabited by horrors he couldn’t imagine.