King of Chaos

by Dave Gross

  We were not so close that our presence should have caused them such distress. And yet I saw no other threats nearby, not even after drawing the Shadowless Sword a few inches from its scabbard. I had removed the spyglass from my coat and begun to scan the sky when Oparal reached out an arm to indicate a point midway between our position and the herd. "Look."

  Furrows deformed the earth, their wakes collapsing to form the erratic ravines I had seen earlier. Something burrowed through the ground.

  Or rather, somethings. I counted four individual trails of disturbance, a larger one leading three others.

  "Stop!" I shouted. "Stop moving at once, everyone! Stand absolutely still!"

  The crusaders obeyed at once, although they looked to Oparal, who nodded in support of my order. The Kellids did the same. Alase and Tonbarse slowed to a halt.

  Bastiel continued to chase Radovan.

  "Stop this instant!" I shouted.

  Radovan grimaced at me before looking back wide-eyed at the pursuing unicorn. "Can't, boss. He'll skewer me!"

  "Bastiel, stop!" shouted Oparal.

  The unicorn screamed and tossed his mane, but he obeyed. A moment later, Radovan halted his steed and signed to Arnisant to sit. The hound obeyed instantly.

  "What is it?" Oparal lowered her voice to a whisper.

  "The Shoanti of the Storval Plateau call them—well, an approximate translation would mean something like ‘earth-feaster,' or ‘thunder under the— Ah, my apologies, but there are some terms with no Taldane equivalent."

  "What do the Varisians call them?"

  "Landsharks."

  "They're turning toward us."

  I raised the spyglass to confirm what her keen elven eyes had already perceived.

  "Captain," called Aprian. "What do we do?"

  When Oparal hesitated, I reached for a riffle scroll. "Remain perfectly still," I said. "I will create a diversion some distance from us."

  "What's she doing?" Oparal pointed down at Alase, who had dropped to the ground beside Tonbarse. Her hands glowed that particular blue of her eyes and rune as she pressed them deep into his night-black fur. She said something to the enormous eidolon, and he dashed away.

  "Alase, no!" I shouted. "They are attracted to vibrations. His steps will draw them to us!"

  She turned and cocked her head at me, spreading her hands in an exasperated gesture before raising a shushing finger to her lips.

  Tonbarse loped toward the approaching furrows, moving far faster than his earlier pursuit of Radovan and Bastiel. I realized then that Alase must have imbued him with greater speed before she sent him on this suicidal mission.

  As much as Arnisant, the eidolon seemed utterly fearless as he charged toward the danger. Perhaps his courage came from the knowledge that death on this plane of existence would not destroy him but simply return him home. Even so, I knew that summoned creatures still felt pain and fear.

  Even without the spyglass, I could see a sharp ridge protruding from the earth at the head of the first, large furrow. Grass and soil parted to either side like waves beneath a galley's prow.

  When the great wolf came within a hundred yards of the furrows, he veered away. The furrows turned, rising briefly to expose a glimpse of hardened flanks shining with copper, silver, and flakes of quartz.

  Tonbarse led them away, but I feared the effort would prove futile. The moment he perished or escaped, the burrowing predators would return to us. At least his sacrifice would give us time to prepare. I selected a riffle scroll and considered our options.

  "Look," said Oparal.

  Tonbarse continued to turn, and I understood his plan. He did not intend simply to draw the landsharks away from us. He meant to lead them directly into the herd of aurochs.

  Pausing twice to allow the pursuers to hope, Tonbarse ran directly toward the herd and leaped among the aurochs. Despite their Abyssal afflictions, the horned beasts were huge and powerful creatures. Nonetheless, Tonbarse shouldered like a shepherd dog before leaping away, frisky as a pup.

  The aurochs' bleating rose to bullish roars. They thrashed their curved horns both at the intruder and against each other. Stamping their hooves, the injured shrieked, while the rest bellowed in anger.

  "Where did they go?" asked Oparal.

  I saw that the furrows of earth marking the path of the landsharks had vanished and understood what it meant. "They dove deeper into the earth."

  "Why? Are they coming back to us?"

  "On the contrary. Observe."

  At the edge of the herd, the earth erupted, expelling what at first glance appeared to be a gigantic marquise-cut stone. As it reached its apogee above the herd, the creature extended its four limbs, each barbed with long talons. It fell upon the aurochs as its three offspring, each the size of Tonbarse, burst up from the ground beneath the beasts' hooves.

  The bloodbath that followed was horrifying, even witnessed at such a distance.

  "Inheritor preserve us," said Oparal.

  I looked down to see Radovan shaking his head, lips pursed in a whistle as he sat astride his peculiar phantom steed. From those lips I read the words he spoke. Desna weeps.

  On the ground, Alase stood tall and waved cheerfully in the general direction of the carnage. Puzzled at first, I understood her gesture when I saw that Tonbarse had broken free of the slaughter. He sat back on his haunches in a posture strikingly similar to the one Arnisant assumed after he had laid a fallen partridge at my feet. The eidolon raised his snout in a human gesture of farewell. The blue rune upon his brow faded. So too did the wolf, disappearing from our world as he presumably reappeared on his home plane.

  "Captain?" asked Aprian.

  "Is it safe to move?" Oparal said.

  I nodded. "The creatures should remain occupied for some hours to come. Still, we should shift north for the next few miles."

  While she gave Aprian his orders, I signed to Radovan that we would resume our journey. With a wary eye on the unicorn, Radovan yelled, "Show's over, gang. Let's get a move on."

  "Bastiel!" Oparal called. With a last baleful glance at his enemy, the unicorn trotted over to the carriage.

  Alase reached her arms out to Radovan. He pulled her up and settled her on the saddle before him. From what I understood of summoners, there was nothing preventing Alase from summoning Tonbarse to her side once more.

  Noticing my puzzled expression, Oparal guessed my own question. "What is it with him?" she said. "He's not even that good-looking."

  As discretion is the better part of valor, I declined to comment on the manner in which she framed her opinion of Radovan's appearance.

  Chapter Ten

  The Last Bastion

  Oparal

  A hundred feet above us, the breeze ruffled the fringe high upon the plateau's edge. We rode along the base of a great cliff, the hoofbeats of our steeds echoing off the stony wall.

  A riverbed meandered nearby, parched but for a runnel of murky water. Strange wildflowers sprang up on either side of the damp channel. Their blossoms looked beautiful until they lunged down to snap at frogs splaying through the puddles. The prey appeared no more natural than the predators. The frogs' bright-colored skin and fringed tails attested to their fiendish taint.

  Bastiel veered away from the flowers without a word from me. Trusting the unicorn's instinct, I allowed it.

  Without looking up from his sketch of the queer animals, Count Jeggare remarked that the stream had once been a branch of the great Sarkora River, whose main course lay on the other side of the plateau, beside Undarin. More than his geography lesson, I admired his ability to hold his journal steady and draw a coherent figure while mounted on his phantom steed.

  Farther from the wall, our caravan moved west. My crusaders mingled more and more often with the count's hirelings. They needed no warning from me to avoid attachments with mercenaries, but I could see it was a relief for them to interact with new faces after so long in the field.

  The boastful Valki was especially am
using. No one took his stories seriously, but one had to admire his talent for hyperbole. At times I thought the skald, Kala, was silently memorizing his most outrageous stories to turn them into songs.

  Among the Kellids, Alase Brinz-Widowknife was the most intriguing and, as both scout and a repository of clan lore, the most useful to our mission. Yet the giant Kronug was as physically gifted a warrior as I had ever seen, and I had never seen a more accurate axe-thrower than Selka. In small packs, the Kellids had proved themselves extraordinary hunters. I doubted my crusaders could have stalked and slain the giant elk that supplemented our rations in recent days.

  "First scout returns," called Aprian.

  Erastus rode back from the west. Sweat poured down his face, but his breathing remained steady as he drew rein and saluted before us. "A walled town, Captain. A few hundred residents, all human as far as I could see. Farmers."

  I turned to Count Jeggare. He replaced his journal in the satchel hanging from his conjured mount's saddle. Bastiel remained stoic at its presence, but he obviously disliked the unnatural thing. The unicorn grew restless only when Radovan and Alase rode up on their own strange steeds.

  "Valahuv," said Jeggare, flipping to the maps in his journal. "It must be Valahuv."

  "Dangerous people," said Alase. The summoner—I refused to think of her as a "god caller"—sat comfortably on her giant wolf's shoulders without benefit of saddle or reins. The breeze blew back her bangs to reveal the glowing rune on her forehead, identical to the one on her wolf's brow.

  "Were you seen?" asked Aprian.

  Erastus shook his head, and I believed him. Both he and Naia could vanish like phantoms into the night, or like snakes through the grassy steppes. "They don't appear dangerous. They look half-starved."

  "One of their gods was Ommors," said Alase, "Dweller in the Delvegate."

  "What does that mean?"

  "According to Pastor Shy's Witch-Cults of Northern Avistan," said Jeggare, "Ommors demands blood."

  "Desna weeps," said Radovan. "We got another vampire?"

  "More likely a fiend posing as a deity," said Jeggare.

  Alase stroked her giant wolf behind its ears. "Forgive the outlander, Tonbarse. He is ignorant of our ways."

  "I am well aware of your beliefs," said the count. "You will pardon me if I speak directly when speculating on the nature of the beings we encounter."

  "I might maybe pardon you," said Alase. "But I can't promise Tonbarse will."

  The lupine eidolon sat on his haunches, somehow without dislodging his summoner. His face remained unreadable.

  "We need water," I said. "And it would be good to have a fortified base in case we must retreat in haste from Undarin."

  "We're still at least two days away," said Jeggare. I had thought us closer, but Jeggare's maps had proven more accurate than ours. "Yet I concur. These people might provide critical intelligence."

  "Or they might sacrifice us to their blood god," said Aprian. When we all looked at him, he shrugged. "I'm just pointing out the obvious."

  Radovan alone found the remark amusing. No one else smiled.

  "We will approach in force, but I'll lead a smaller group to parlay," I said. "Aprian, you're with me. Jelani also."

  Aprian saluted and went to fetch the sorcerer.

  "I do have some experience in diplomatic matters," said Jeggare.

  "Your courtly talents would be wasted on these people, Count."

  He began to reply, but Alase cut in. "I'll go with you," she said. "Widowknife people come from Undarin. My ancestors knew the god callers of Valahuv."

  "But you said you've never been here before."

  "That doesn't matter. They'll know Tonbarse."

  "They will remember." The huge wolf nodded like a man. His deep voice and the human motion of his bestial lips still unnerved me.

  "Very well," said Count Jeggare. "The rest of us shall stand ready in case you require assistance."

  "Thank you, Count."

  Tolliver's shout alerted us to Naia's return. She reported no exceptional sightings to the east, nor any substantial source of fresh water.

  I took the lead with Aprian and Jelani riding their warhorses on my right, Alase on Tonbarse on my left. Count Jeggare and Radovan followed a short distance behind, their phantom steeds leading the Red Carriage, the supply wagon, and the rest of my crusaders and their sellswords. I could almost imagine myself at the head of an army.

  Within the hour, we reached the western terminus of the plateau, and Valahuv came into view.

  The village walls were made of stone taken from the cliff. If not for a few peaked roofs and plumes of smoke rising above the walls, one might have looked directly at the site without realizing it harbored a village.

  Before us lay half a dozen plots of tilled earth. Villagers knelt along the furrows, pulling weeds. A few unarmored sentries leaned on crude spears. When one saw us, he sent up a hue that leaped from voice to voice. The others dropped their tools to scurry back into the village. The heavy wooden gates closed, and a clamor arose within the walls.

  With no road to follow, we approached on the untilled border between two fields. Green sprouts had begun to poke through the gray surface of the soil. Their shapes were unfamiliar to my inexpert eye, and I wondered how wholesome food grown so near the heart of the Worldwound could be.

  Behind the village, a grand stair wound up the cliff face toward a small castle. A single watchtower rose above its curtain wall. At first I saw no sign of habitation. Then a bell sounded inside the village. A bird rose from the tower roof.

  The shape of a hawk, it was no natural creature. Even at a distance, its wings refracted the sunlight as though they were made of rose-colored crystal.

  A hundred yards off either flank, Erastus and Naia had their bows in hand. They wouldn't shoot until they received a signal from me or Aprian.

  "Hello!" I called out as we neared the wall. It was barely more than twelve feet tall, but the defenders had cemented sharp stones and shards of glass to its top. Such a fortification might deter bandits or rival tribes, but it was useless against demons. I wondered how Valahuv had survived.

  The hawk descended, flying a loop around the carriage and the supply cart. When Selka hefted a throwing axe, the bird veered away.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" Radovan snapped. "Put those away!"

  The woman had muscles like a dwarven miner, but she pouted and slumped her shoulders. I would never understand what it was about Radovan that elicited such fawning behavior among otherwise capable women.

  "Tammerri," said Tonbarse. "I remember her."

  "You know that creature?"

  "We met before the world's wounding," he said.

  Only then did I appreciate just how ancient Tonbarse might be. Among the shorter-lived peoples, we elves are known for our longevity. If I understood correctly, even the half-human Count Jeggare was approaching a century of age. No wonder the primitive Sarkorians mistook their eidolons for gods.

  Tammerri rose in a spiral. As it banked, the sun reflected gold upon its wings, then crimson, then—for only an instant—blinding white.

  "People of Valahuv!" I hailed the wall a few more times before signaling Aprian to take over.

  "Captain," said Count Jeggare. I whirled around, for a moment believing he had crept up on his silent steed to whisper in my ear. He remained some fifty yards behind us, Radovan at his side. He cupped a palm beside his mouth, using the same spell with which he had alerted us to the deception at Nekrosof. With his other hand, he pointed his spyglass toward the castle on the cliff.

  A man descended the stair. He appeared tall and lean, and he carried a long stick with a T-shaped head. Tammerri flew to him, perching atop his staff. Either the man was very small or the bird was very large.

  I wanted a look through Jeggare's spyglass. Aprian could fetch it for me, but sending him for such a trifle would be insulting. Fetching it for myself was no better.

  I cupped my hand to my mouth
and whispered, "Would you be so kind as to join me, Count?"

  His ghostly steed carried him silently to my side. Anticipating my need, Jeggare handed me the spyglass. I put it to my eye for a better look at the man descending the cliff stair.

  His lined face suggested he had lived some fifty or sixty years, despite the thick yellow hair that fell upon his shoulders. He wore a dun-colored gown ornamented with crimson thread and copper wire. The symbols on his raiment appeared related to the vivid mark upon his brow. An identical rune appeared on the head of the bird.

  Magnified by the spyglass, Tammerri appeared even less like a mortal avian and more like a stylized drawing brought to life.

  The man disappeared behind the walls of the village, and a clamor followed him to the village gate, which opened. The man emerged alone but for the eidolon perched upon his rune-carved stick.

  "Wait here," I said. "Alase, you and Tonbarse come with me. If you have no objection, Count."

  "Of course not," he said. His voice was perfectly civil, but I sensed it was difficult for him to watch me take the lead.

  We approached on foot, Tonbarse falling in without a word from Alase. He behaved more like a protective uncle than a pet or guardian beast.

  The man from Valahuv went barefoot, and even unshod he was as tall as I. As he came within fifty feet of us, I silently focused my intuition on him. His aura betrayed no wicked intent. I doubted he had performed any recent blood sacrifices.

  "I am Oparal of Iomedae, Captain of the Mendevian Crusade. This is my guide—"

  "Alase Brinz-Widowknife." She touched the glowing rune on her brow and spoke again in her native tongue. I regretted not bringing my own translator. It occurred to me that the count spoke fluent Hallit.

  It was probably occurring to him, as well. Despite the certainty that I had been right to leave him behind lest he assume command, I felt a little foolish.

  "Feinroh Balemoon," said the man, touching his rune. Upon his hands I saw bandages stained black and yellow. By the tender motions of his hands, I knew the affliction caused him pain.

  The hawk spoke in a woman's voice. "Tonbarse."

  The great wolf nodded. "Tammerri."