Sons of Ellyrion

by Graham McNeill

  Three times he had gained the rampart, and three times he had been hurled from the walls, only to rise from the ruin of broken ladder and splintered bodies to seek a new way up. The deformed monsters dragged towards the fortress in chains battered its crumbling walls, and the musk of their excretions drifted over the battlements in nauseating waves.

  Yet for all the ferocity of these attacks, Menethis sensed a growing sense of something else behind the dark helms of the attackers. He wanted to believe it was desperation, for the walls of the Eagle Gate had held far longer than he would have thought possible. Designed to be impregnable, the garrison had been steadily run down over the years until only a token force remained. The warriors fighting and dying here were now paying for that foolishness with their lives.

  Perhaps our enemies know they are on borrowed time, he thought, thinking of the sealed scroll that had arrived in the hands of a rider from Tor Elyr moments before the second attack had hit the walls. Glorien had read it first, then handed it to Menethis. With every word he read, a growing sense of euphoria filled him.

  ‘We have done it,’ Glorien had said, his eyes alight with the prospect of victory. ‘This will be over in days. All we have to do is hold a little longer.’

  Arandir Swiftwing, the lord of Tor Elyr, was mustering an army and his foremost general, Galadrien Stormweaver, was marching to their relief. Every able-bodied warrior had been summoned to Lothern, but as more and more of the citizen levy had answered their lord’s summons, another army took shape on the martial fields around Tor Elyr.

  A portion of that army would reach the Eagle Gate in two days.

  Perhaps that was why the three great eagles had flown from the fortress, sensing that their aid was no longer required. Some had seen it as a bad omen when the three mighty birds had flown over the northern peaks of the mountains, but the news of their relief made sense of their departure.

  There had been no time to disseminate the wondrous news of Stormweaver’s imminent arrival, for the enemy were attacking once more. Menethis watched the armoured host of enemy warriors marching towards the walls as a host of white-shafted arrows slashed towards them. Stocks of arrows were low, and Glorien had decreed that only the best archers be given an extra quiver. The Eagle’s Claws were out of bolts and their crews stood on the walls with their fellow warriors, spears glittering in the high sun.

  Menethis drew back the string of his bow, picking out a druchii warrior without a helm at the forefront of a group of ladder-bearers. The warrior’s face was pale, and a glistening topknot of black hair hung down to the nape of his neck. His armour was bloodstained and carved with jagged runes. Between breaths, Menethis let fly, watching the arrow arc downwards before plunging home in the druchii’s neck. The warrior fell, clutching at his throat as blood squirted from the wound.

  The enemy broke on the walls with a thunderous crash of iron and wood. Ladders were thrown up and looping grapnels sailed over the makeshift battlements. Menethis leaned out over the crumbling rampart and loosed arrow after arrow into the mass of surging warriors below. Each shaft found its mark, punching through the top of a helmet or slicing home in a gap between armoured plates.

  Menethis did not waste his arrows on the mortals; only druchii warranted his attention. Within moments, his quiver was emptied and he drew his sword as the enemy climbed their ladders. Hundreds of screaming warriors were coming to gain a foothold on the walls, in a mass of stabbing blades, hewing axes and streaking iron bolts.

  ‘Steady now,’ said Menethis, hearing iron-shod boots on metal rungs.

  A druchii appeared at the top of the ladder. An asur spear stabbed out but was blocked, and the warrior hauled himself through the embrasure. Menethis plunged his sword into the warrior’s chest. Twisting the blade, he kicked the druchii from the wall and chopped down into the head of the enemy behind him.

  ‘The ladder!’ yelled Menethis, seeing that the iron hooks at its end had not bitten into the stonework of the parapet. ‘Help me!’

  He gripped the top of the ladder and heaved with all his strength. Three more elves ran to help him, but the first dropped as an iron bolt hammered into his throat. The two elves took position either side of Menethis and leaned into the task. Another druchii reared up and stabbed his blade into the warrior beside Menethis. He gave a strangled cry and dropped to his knees, but with the last of his strength he gripped his killer’s blade tightly, trapping it within his flesh.

  The ladder squealed with a grating scrape of iron on stone, but Menethis felt it pitch past its centre of gravity. Powerless to prevent the ladder from falling, the druchii released his sword and leapt onto the walls with a dagger aimed at Menethis’s heart. A black-shafted arrow sliced out of nowhere and thudded home into the druchii’s armpit. Arterial blood flooded out and the warrior fell as the ladder was cast down. Screaming druchii tumbled to the base of the wall, and Menethis sought out his rescuer.

  He gave a begrudged nod of thanks as he saw it had been the Shadow Warrior, Alanrias, who had loosed the arrow. The cloaked warrior sketched a casual salute and bent his bow once more, picking off druchii warriors who were in danger of forming a fighting wedge on the ramparts. All along the length of the wall, a tidal wave of druchii and barbarians were pushing hard. The ramparts were slick with blood, and though the asur line was bending, it was holding.

  In the centre of the wall, Glorien stood in the midst of the garrison’s best warriors. His sword was bloody and his armour would never be the same again, but he was fighting hard. Even Menethis had to admit that Glorien’s skills with a blade left much to be desired, but war forced a warrior to be a swift learner. Though there was not an elf in this fortress Glorien could best in a clash of blades, there were the makings of a fine warrior coming to the fore.

  Perhaps Glorien’s dream vision was just that; a dream, not some nightmare premonition of doom. Menethis had kept a wary eye on Alanrias throughout the fighting, but the Shadow Warrior had done nothing untoward, calmly and methodically killing druchii with lethally accurate arrows.

  Menethis crouched behind the crumbling rampart and removed his helm, pulling his hair back and securing it in a long ponytail. He reached up to wipe a film of sweat from his brow and blinked as he saw something out of place. A stillness, amid the frenetic scrum of battle raging along the length of the wall.

  A lone warrior crouched in the shadows at the base of the Aquila Spire with a druchii crossbow resting on a broken stub of rock. His eyes were cold and merciless, the eyes of a murderer. Menethis opened his mouth to shout that a druchii assassin had scaled the walls undetected, when he saw that this assassin wore a cloak of pale blue, muted in the shadows, but unmistakably of asur design.

  ‘Here they come again!’ shouted a voice, and Menethis heard the clang of iron ladders and the biting of grapnel hooks into stone. He ignored them, and ran along the wall, ducking and weaving a path through desperate combats.

  ‘No!’ he shouted, knowing where the iron bolt of the crossbow was aimed.

  The assassin loosed and Menethis screamed a denial as the bolt slashed through the air and hammered through the temple of Glorien’s helmet. The commander of the Eagle Gate was punched from his feet, falling against the parapet as blood poured down his stricken face.

  His protectors tried to catch Glorien, but the shock of the impact stunned them to the point where not even their superlative reflexes were swift enough. Glorien toppled forwards, his body falling from the walls to land in the midst of the enemy.

  A terrifying howl of triumph erupted from below, for there could be no doubt which of the asur had fallen. Glorien’s armour clearly marked him as the commander of the Eagle Gate, and Menethis ran to the edge of the wall in time to see Glorien’s body torn to pieces by the frenzied savages who served the barbarian warlord.

  A palpable wave of grief and horror swept over the defenders of the Eagle Gate, a physical sensation of loss and despair. Few had any love for Glorien Truecrown, but seeing their commander slain so s
uddenly tore the heart from everyone who saw it. Even the healers and the wounded beyond the walls felt the pain of Glorien’s death.

  Wracked with grief, the defence faltered.

  Just for a moment, just for the briefest instant, but it was enough.

  Scores of ladders thudded against the fortress as Menethis and the defenders wept for their lost master. Enemy warriors hurled themselves over the ramparts, and this time, there would be no stopping them.

  Menethis turned towards the Aquila Spire, the need for vengeance fanning a terrible fury in his heart. He saw the druchii weapon thrown from the wall as the assassin who had wielded it stepped from the shadows, confident that no one had seen his perfidy.

  Menethis gasped as he saw who had loosed the treacherous bolt.

  ‘Alathenar!’ he screamed.

  Eldain had dreaded this moment, but now that it was here, he felt strangely relieved. Ever since that fleeting moment when he had allowed hateful feelings of jealousy to overcome a lifetime of brotherly love, he had known he would have to answer for his crime. The blade in Caelir’s hands would exact the price he would have to pay.

  ‘Do you want to kill me?’ he asked.

  ‘Can you think of a single reason I shouldn’t?’

  ‘No,’ said Eldain, stepping down into the Summer Courtyard. ‘I deserve your hatred.’

  The wind sighed through the gates, blowing the leaves from the inlaid marble flagstones into miniature whirlwinds. The last embers of sunlight shone from the colourful windows of the villa’s towers and the evening-hued blade in Caelir’s hands.

  ‘Tell me why, Eldain,’ demanded Caelir, and Eldain wanted to weep at the wrenching sorrow he heard in his brother’s voice. ‘Tell me why you left me to die. I need to know.’

  Eldain shook his head. ‘It will not make any difference.’

  ‘It will make a difference to me, Eldain!’ roared Caelir. ‘I rode day and night from Avelorn, trying to comprehend why my own flesh and blood would betray me to the druchii, but I could think of no reason, no reason at all. So make me understand, brother. Tell me what great insult did I do to you that made you hate me so much?’

  ‘Hate you, brother? No, never that. I loved you.’

  ‘You loved me? You must have a strange definition of the word.’

  Eldain circled the fountain, and Caelir mirrored his movements, keeping the waterless centrepiece between them.

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Eldain. ‘I no longer know. I loved you and was jealous of you in equal measure. Nothing I did could ever match what you would accomplish. Anything of worth I could achieve, you would outdo. Wherever I shone, you shone brighter.’

  ‘I only sought to be like you, brother,’ cried Caelir. ‘You were my inspiration!’

  Eldain shook his head. ‘When our father died, who took care of our estates? Who kept our family name alive and dealt with the necessities of life? I did. Not you. I was the one who took care of us when father died, you ran like a spoiled child. Hunting, carousing and riding with the herds was the life you led, being the heroic warrior I had not the time to be.’

  ‘And for that you betrayed me?’

  ‘You stole everything of beauty that should have been mine!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You took Rhianna from me!’ cried Eldain, turning and walking towards the tall building at the edge of the Summer Courtyard. He pushed open the ash doors of the Equerry’s Hall, and a gust of leaves followed him inside. Within was dimly lit and smelled of neglect, though it had been only weeks since he had last set foot in this grand hall. Hunting trophies and faded portraits of former lords of the noble Éadaoin family hung from the walls, and a long oval table filled the centre of the echoing space.

  Eldain sank into the high-backed chair at the end of the table as Caelir stood silhouetted in its wide doorway by the last light of day. The sword in his hand sparkled in the gloaming. Caelir shut the doors behind him and stepped inside, letting his eyes adjust to the thin light coming through the vents in the roof. In ages past, the lords of the Éadaoin would gather here to feast and sing songs of the wild hunt, but those songs were sung and no more would they lift the rafters with their wild notes.

  Caelir sat at the opposite end of the table from Eldain, and laid the sword before him.

  ‘I did take Rhianna from you,’ he said at last. ‘I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. It was that ride into the Annulii. We were attacked by the druchii and I fought them all. We should have ridden away, but I wanted to fight them. I wanted her to see how strong and brave I was. Foolish, I know, but back then I was a little in love with death I think.’

  ‘She was never the same after that day,’ said Eldain. ‘I accused her of being infatuated with you because of your reckless bravery. I spoke harshly to her, and she did not deserve my anger. I had too long ignored her happiness, and all but forced you together.’

  ‘I did not mean to fall in love with her, but…’

  ‘But you did,’ said Eldain. ‘She is a woman impossible not to fall in love with.’

  ‘And you married her,’ said Caelir. ‘I saw the pledge rings. You came back from Naggaroth and told her I was dead. You betrayed me and took up your life where you had left off now that the inconvenience of Caelir was removed.’

  ‘That is true,’ admitted Eldain. ‘But I think that it was not hatred of you, but love of Rhianna that was my undoing.’

  ‘Again, your definition of love is a mockery of the word.’

  ‘Perhaps, but love is a powerful emotion, one that blinds us to many things. Love is also the gateway to other, darker, emotions: jealousy, paranoia, possessiveness and lust. I told myself I loved her, and anything that brought us together could not be altogether evil. I was wrong, I know that now. And though it can make no difference to how this must end, I ask your understanding if not your forgiveness.’

  Caelir rose to his feet, his face reddening as through Eldain had slapped him. ‘You speak of forgiveness? Of understanding? You left me to the druchii and told the woman I loved that I was dead. You cannot know the things the dark kin did to me, how they made me do… terrible things and cause untold harm to my own kind.’

  ‘I know what they made you do, I understand–’

  ‘You understand nothing!’ screamed Caelir. ‘Hundreds of people are dead because of me, because of what you did. Don’t you understand? Kyrielle, Teclis, the Everqueen… Our enemies used me as a weapon!’

  Caelir vaulted onto the table and charged along its length, scattering dusty plates and cutlery. He hurled himself at Eldain and the two brothers crashed to the floor in a tangle of flailing limbs. The sword lay forgotten on the table, as Caelir straddled Eldain’s chest and wrapped his hands around his neck.

  Eldain struggled in his brother’s grip, holding onto Caelir’s wrists and fighting to take a breath. The light of madness was in Caelir’s eyes, yet behind it was an ocean of sorrow and pain and guilt. That guilt was rightfully Eldain’s, that sorrow his legacy, and he knew he had more than earned Caelir’s vengeance. This death was a small thing, the last gift he could give his brother in lieu of any means to make amends.

  Caelir’s grip tightened, and Eldain’s throat buckled under the pressure. He could take no breath, and he released Caelir’s wrists, letting the grey at the edges of his vision deepen to black until he could see no more.

  At last, Eldain knew peace.

  Chapter Eight

  Amends

  No sooner had the bolt left the druchii crossbow than Alathenar knew he had made a terrible mistake. He watched it cut the air, hoping for a freak gust of wind or a chance movement that would see it plunge home in an enemy’s chest. He closed his eyes as the bolt punched through Glorien’s helm, and sent a whispered prayer to Asuryan that he might, one day, be forgiven for this murder.

  ‘What have I done…?’ he said as Glorien fell from the wall.

  Alathenar hurled the druchii weapon away as though it were a poisonous serpent, and
took up his bow as he swiftly stepped from the shadows. He pulled his cloak tight, feeling his soul already growing heavy with the enormity of his deed. He had slain a fellow elf, one of the asur. No less a warrior than his commanding officer. He was no better than the dark-armoured warriors who threw themselves at the walls with bloody war cries.

  He heard his name shouted, and saw Menethis running along the battlements. He knew immediately that Menethis had seen him loose the fateful bolt, and part of him was glad. He didn’t think he could bear the weight of such a dark secret.

  The defenders of the Eagle Gate were paralysed by Glorien’s sudden death, as horrified by his ending as they had been by Cerion Goldwing’s. Sword arms were stilled and bowstrings went slack as they watched their fallen leader’s body savagely torn apart by the enemy. No matter that he had been derided for many weeks, he was a noble of Ulthuan and had finally begun to live up to that title. Only now, when it was too late to undo the deed, did Alathenar understand what Glorien might have become.

  The druchii swarmed the walls, and Alathenar saw the barbarian warlord in his crimson armour scramble onto the ramparts. His sword swept out and three elves were torn apart in a spray of blood. He bellowed his triumph, keeping the defenders at bay with wide arcs of his monstrous blade. Dozens of leather and fur-clad warriors in crudely strapped armour gained the walls behind him, massing for a push outwards along the length of the rampart. Elsewhere, heavily armoured druchii with long, executioner’s blades forced a path onto the wall, and more of their plate-armoured brethren came with them.

  The wall was lost, any fool could see that.

  Menethis slammed into him and bore him to the ground. Alathenar’s sword slipped from its scabbard, and he sprang to his feet as Menethis came at him again.