The Curse of the Phoenix Crown

by C. L. Werner

  In short order, the archers were killed or driven into retreat. Brok called his warriors to him, those who had so far emerged from the pit. He wasn’t willing to wait for his full force. Like some hunting beast, he seemed to smell Salendor nearby. He wasn’t about to let the elf lord slip through his fingers this time.

  ‘We’re for the Diamond Tower,’ he shouted down into the tunnel. ‘Anybody who’s coming better get his arse moving! The rest of you bring up pitch and oil. I want this elgi warren burning so bright that Caledor himself will be able to see it from his perfumed throne in elfland!’

  The Lord of the Tunnels didn’t hesitate a moment longer. Brandishing his axe overhead, he pointed it towards the Diamond Tower. With a fierce cry of ‘Khazuk!’, his warriors charged after him.

  Forek glanced back at the burning towers and trees. In the distance he could see other fires raging in the outskirts. Overhead, a dragon swept past, flames billowing from its maw as it flew towards the walls and Morgrim’s besiegers.

  Even if the elves somehow managed to repulse them now, there was nothing that could save their city.

  Athel Maraya was going to burn.

  The streets were a confusion of terror and bloodshed. Liandra’s armour was filthy with the gore of the dwarfs she’d cut down with her sword and the dying elves she’d briefly lingered over. There was only so much her magic could do. In the close quarters of the streets a blade was faster than a conjuration, as the dawi had discovered for themselves. Revenial, armed with his own blade, proved a capable fighter in his own right, claiming six dwarfs during the escape from Liandra’s tower.

  The asur were fighting for every house and every tower, desperately trying to protect their homes and the families cowering inside them. The dawi were equally determined, stubbornly fighting for every inch, heedless of what it cost them. She’d witnessed dwarf warriors crawling over their own dead to force their way into a tower only to put the building to the torch.

  Fire burned everywhere. The combined malignity of the dwarf arsonists and the dragons was turning entire streets into infernos. Worse, the flames were blazing away so fiercely that they were creating terrible winds that howled and raged, spreading the fires faster and farther than either dragon or dwarf. Liandra had seen a horrible thing, like a whirlwind fashioned from flame, rise up from the pyre of a field to dance across the district, burning all it touched.

  ‘The Librarium Lacoi!’ Revenial howled in a cry of anguish as they hurried through the streets. Liandra froze and turned to stare at the ghastly sight that had overwhelmed her servant. The Librarium Lacoi was engulfed in flame, its skylights collapsing from its tall roofs, its great spire toppling into the conflagration of its main structure. ‘Nothing can rebuild Athel Maraya now,’ Revenial moaned. ‘Even if we win this war, nothing can restore what we’ve lost.’

  ‘Then we make the dawi pay,’ Liandra told him, seizing his shoulder and urging him onwards. ‘We make them suffer as we’ve suffered.’ Prodding him ahead of her, they started towards the Aspen Road, the vast parkland that stretched across the city like a belt. They both froze when they saw that the trees were on fire.

  Revenial watched the flames as they spread down the belt. ‘If that fire isn’t quenched, it will consume the outlying districts and then spread to the very core of Athel Maraya.’

  ‘We’ll be ringed by fire from within and without,’ Liandra observed. ‘Every asur in the city will be destroyed.’

  A desperate light crept into Revenial’s eyes. ‘High in the Diamond Tower there’s a bell,’ he said. ‘Lord Salendor had it placed there after the last siege. When it is sounded, it will be the dirge for Athel Maraya. If the bell is struck, it is the order for every elf in the city to abandon it and flee into the forest.’

  ‘Then we have to reach the tower and ring the bell,’ Liandra decided, thankful that they were already headed in that direction.

  Revenial shook his head. ‘Only Lord Salendor can authorise striking the bell,’ he said.

  Liandra seized him by his tunic. ‘He should have done so already,’ she snapped. ‘That he hasn’t done so is proof enough that he’s still clinging to delusions about prophecy. His people – your people – are all going to die because of him!’ She gestured to the spreading flames. ‘There’s no time to argue with him even if we find him. I’m ordering the evacuation. If it comes to it, I’ll make my excuses before the Council of Five.’

  Revenial nodded his head slowly. ‘I will take you to the bell, but you must be the one to strike it.’ He looked down at his hands, shame in his expression. ‘I have served Lord Salendor too long to betray him now.’

  ‘Lead the way, then,’ Liandra said. ‘Leave the rest to me.’

  Running down side streets and narrow pathways among the copses and groves so far untouched by the flames, Liandra and Revenial were able to avoid the fighting in the outlying districts. The dwarfs were too intent on tearing down everything in their path to bother overmuch about a few stray elves.

  As they neared the core of Athel Maraya, Liandra was surprised to find fires raging among the towers and trees. At first she imagined that it had been caused by the dragons, some error made by either reptile or rider. Then she saw the dwarfs rushing about the buildings, giving battle to the asur who tried to oppose them, setting fires when their advance went uncontested.

  ‘The beasts are between us and the tower,’ Revenial swore.

  A solid block of dwarf warriors was marching across the broad bridge that spanned the Aspen Road. Among them, Liandra saw a figure who had become infamous among the elves: the long-bearded, stout-bellied Brok Stonefist, Arhain-tosaith himself. How the dwarf lord had come to rage and ravage at the heart of Athel Maraya when Morgrim’s forces were still fighting past the defences, Liandra didn’t know. At the moment it didn’t matter. All she knew was that he was here and the effect his presence would have on Salendor.

  ‘We have to find another way,’ Liandra said.

  Revenial was quiet a moment, then cast a worried look at the Aspen Road itself. Grimly he pointed to the defile, already thick with smoke. ‘Maybe we can make it across,’ he said. Shunning the bridge with its burden of dwarfs, they climbed down into the smoke, flitting among the aspens as they hurried to the other side of the narrow defile. Towards the east, they could see the fires of the outskirts spreading down the Aspen Road, roaring like some daemonic horror as they devoured the trees. If the wind shifted, the conflagration could spread to the centre of Athel Maraya in a matter of minutes.

  Liandra was climbing up the slope at the other side of the defile when she saw asur soldiers marching out onto the bridge to meet Brok’s advance. Her heart felt like ice when she saw Salendor leading his troops. The elf lord’s banner snapped in the fiery breeze, letting his foe know exactly who it was he faced. Neither bolt nor arrow rose from either of the converging forces. There was too much hate between these foes to take any satisfaction from killing at distance. Only the play of sword and axe would quench the fury of these warriors.

  ‘Lord Salendor,’ Revenial gasped. Liandra had to grab her servant to keep him from joining his old master as he marched towards his hated enemy.

  ‘The bell,’ she reminded Revenial. ‘We have to sound the evacuation.’

  One of the dragons flew overhead, diving towards Brok’s dwarfs. The flash of Salendor’s banner warned the dragon rider off, alerting him that this wasn’t his fight. The drake veered off at the last instant, the gout of fire it had been about to send into the dwarfs instead igniting the rooftops of tiered manors and palaces.

  Liandra and Revenial hastened to reach the elf-held side of the bridge. The dismissal of the dragon told her all she needed to know about Salendor’s intentions. He was fixated upon the premonition, the prophecy that joined his doom with that of the dwarf. As he brought his household guard into battle with Brok’s warriors, Liandra knew he wasn’t fighting for victory. He was
fighting to answer the demands of fate.

  As they reached the other side of the defile, Revenial turned to Liandra. ‘Help Lord Salendor if you can,’ he told her. ‘I will attend to the bell.’ The steward turned and hurried down one of the desolate streets, soon lost among the ruins of Athel Maraya.

  ‘I’ll try,’ Liandra promised the departed elf, already knowing her words to be empty. She doubted if it was in anyone’s power to free Salendor from the path he was set upon.

  The wind shifted, sending the fire roaring down the Aspen Road. Beams and tiles from the buildings the dragon had set aflame came crashing down upon the bridge, slowing the rush of combat as elf and dwarf alike tried to dodge the burning debris.

  Only the two warriors at the heart of the conflict took no notice of the fire and smoke. Even now, Salendor was resplendent in his silvered armour and silken cloak, a mild enchantment keeping the grime of war away from his vestment. His sword shone as it slashed and thrust, wove and parried. There was an expression of regret stamped upon his noble features, but in his eyes shone a fierce determination.

  His foe was no less determined, but it was there that the similarities ended. Brok’s armour was black from soot and ash, his beard stained a dull charcoal colour. The axe the dwarf swung was heavy, ponderous and clumsy beside the nimble elven blade. Again and again, Salendor’s sword darted past it to slash against the grimy mail that guarded the thane’s body. If the axe was less nimble, it had the benefit of greater strength. The few times Brok pressed home his attacks, Salendor was knocked back, staggered by even the most glancing blow. There was no regret or misgiving in Brok’s face, only a primitive, bestial sort of fury.

  Liandra cried out to Salendor, begging him to withdraw. She pleaded with him to save himself, to defy whatever doom he imagined he’d seen. He was a valiant warrior and a great leader. The asur needed lords of his calibre to lead them in all the battles to come, to avenge the destruction of Athel Maraya. Members of Salendor’s household guard who’d already withdrawn from the fight took up Liandra’s entreaties, urging him to end the senseless duel.

  Through the air, the dull, dolorous note of the bell in the Diamond Tower rang out, sounding the evacuation of Athel Maraya’s survivors. Revenial had honoured his word and broken faith with his old master. Liandra felt shame that her promise to the steward wasn’t so easily discharged. The tolling of the bell seemed to antagonise the dwarf artillery beyond the walls. While it sounded, no less than half a dozen boulders were sent hurtling at the edifice. Several struck true and with the sixth, the tower came apart like a rotten tooth, raining chunks of rubble down upon Salendor’s estate. Somewhere in that debris would be the body of Revenial and the bell.

  The fires roared closer. Now burning branches and leaves were being blown onto the bridge, forcing still more of the dwarfs and elves to disengage and withdraw to opposite ends of the span. Liandra was surprised to see a great body of dwarfs already gathered there, doubly so when she recognised Morgrim and the dwarf ambassador among them. Like the elves around her, the dwarfs were crying out to their champion, urging him to withdraw from the fight.

  Like Salendor, Brok ignored every entreaty. His world had narrowed down so that it consisted only of the elf lord who stood before him. Smoke and fire, the burning debris crashing around him, none of it mattered. All he saw was Salendor’s sword flashing out to defy his axe. All he wanted was the opening, the opportunity, to drive that axe into his foe’s body.

  Back and forth the two champions fought. The fires were on both sides of the bridge now. Only the dead shared the span with them; all others had retreated before the advancing flames. At either bank, the onlookers continued to plead with their heroes to disengage, to save themselves.

  The fires on the dwarf side of the span caused Morgrim to pull his forces and what remained of Brok’s back. Liandra saw them hurrying through the burning streets, retreating before they could be engulfed by the flames they themselves had kindled.

  The elves lingered a little longer, but their calls to Salendor went unheeded. The elf lord’s sword licked out, hewing one of the wings from Brok’s helm. The dwarf’s axe raked across the asur’s arm, ripping free his cloak. It fluttered there a moment before flying off into the fiery breeze. Elf and dwarf took a step back, glaring into one another’s face, then they threw themselves back into the fray.

  It was the last Liandra saw of them. In the next instant the bridge, its wooden supports weakened by the fires burning beneath it, shuddered and groaned. With a terrible howl, the span lifted up and then went crashing down into the blazing inferno raging below.

  Such was the doom of Lord Salendor and Brok Stonefist. The vision that had haunted the elf lord for so many years.

  Liandra turned from the fiery holocaust. Sternly she ordered the grieving warriors of Salendor’s household guard to make their escape from the dying city.

  More than ever, the elves of Elthin Arvan would need every warrior they could find. The question was, without Salendor, who would lead them?

  Chapter Six

  Changes in the Tide

  322nd year of the reign of Caledor II

  It was a strange thing for Thoriol to look out over the familiar vistas of Tor Vael after such a long time. There had been many opportunities to visit his mother, of course, but somehow something had always arisen to interfere with such a meeting. Always some court function, some visiting dignitary who had to be attended, some royal hunt that wouldn’t wait. It was as though the king had become jealous of him and didn’t want to share him with anybody.

  Thoriol would have called such an idea absurd once, just as he had called Caradryel’s talk about him being groomed as the king’s heir absurd. Now, after nearly a century in the court of the Phoenix King, he knew better than to discount any possibility. His uncle was, by turns, fawningly indulgent and obsessively possessive of Thoriol. King Caledor was proud to display his nephew at the court, to dress him in the finest raiment, to attach him to the most beautiful courtiers and courtesans. He had arranged the finest instructors to be found in the ten kingdoms to teach Thoriol the most intricate nuances of courtly custom, dance and diplomacy. When it seemed to the king that life in Lothern was becoming dull for his nephew, they would quickly leave on an expedition to hunt lions in Chrace or griffons in Cothique. The king was prepared to indulge any whim Thoriol expressed, so long as it kept his nephew close to him.

  At last, however, even King Caledor had to concede to Thoriol’s desire to again walk the halls where he had played as a child. On past occasions he had always invoked a longing to see his mother again – a tack that typically resulted in the king summoning Yethanial away from Tor Vael to attend the royal presence. This time, Thoriol had invoked the memory of his father. It was something that never failed to make the king bow to his wishes, but it was a tactic that never failed to make him feel ashamed.

  Thoriol turned when he heard footsteps on the balcony behind him. He expected to find his mother coming out to check on him. Instead he found that the light tread belonged to Caradryel. The diplomat’s expression was as inscrutable as ever.

  ‘What is it that you see out there?’ Caradryel asked as he joined the prince.

  Thoriol smiled at the question. He’d come to understand Caradryel better during his time among the king’s court. He’d even come to appreciate the intricacies of how the diplomat operated – questions such as the one he’d just asked, innocuous things in themselves that could nevertheless reveal the thoughts and intentions of those who answered.

  ‘It isn’t what I see,’ Thoriol said. ‘It’s what I don’t see.’ He leaned against the rail, staring out across the purple horizon. ‘How many times I stood here as a child watching for Draukhain to come flying out from behind the clouds carrying my father back home.’

  ‘Lady Liandra writes that Draukhain still makes his lair in the bay of Tor Alessi. A spit of rock they now call “the Dragon’s
Lament”. She says it is piled high with the bodies of the dwarfs he kills when he flies away to hunt.’ Caradryel fixed Thoriol with a sympathetic gaze. ‘He’s refused any rider since your father, even refused the company of his fellow dragons. It takes a great soul to cause a dragon to mourn him.’

  Thoriol turned his back on the view, staring back at the tower and the hall where his mother was waiting for him. ‘What else does she write?’ Even now, he was loath to speak her name, loath to acknowledge the indiscretion his father had shared with Liandra. It would tarnish his memories, and memories were all he had left of his father.

  ‘That is why Lady Yethanial was so eager to see you,’ Caradryel said. ‘That’s why she was so insistent. She wanted to speak to you directly, not convey her meaning through me.’

  Thoriol clapped the diplomat on the shoulder, a comradely gesture he would never have spared Caradryel back in Kor Evril. ‘Here I thought you were simply weary of playing the messenger.’

  Caradryel shrugged. ‘It’s rewarding work, after a fashion. Where else would I develop such a knack for eluding Hulviar’s spies?’

  The prince followed Caradryel back into the tower. As he’d expected, Lady Yethanial was seated near the fire, a fur wrap hanging about her shoulders. For some time she had been given to chills, steadfastly refusing the ministrations of either mage or physician. It was always like his mother to think she could find her own answers buried away in some ancient tome of lore.

  The other occupant of the room was more surprising. Thoriol had seen Lord Athinol only a few times at Caledor’s court. Usually he was away in the east, leading the troops in driving the last scraps of Malekith’s followers to their well-deserved ruin. He tried to keep prejudice from his dealings with Athinol, though he found it hard since he knew the silver-haired lord was Liandra’s father. To drag him away from the battlefield, his daughter’s tidings must be dire indeed.

  Yethanial rose as her son entered the hall. With a step that struggled to marry haste and dignity, she walked over and embraced Thoriol. ‘It is good to see you home again,’ she said.