“He is strong,” Deryn said reassuringly. “He walked the whole day, with barely a protest.”
“I know,” Cal agreed. “I had almost thought that last bit of doctoring had worked. But it doesn’t seem so, Deryn.”
“No, it does not,” Deryn sadly agreed.
Their rest was not comfortable, but sleep came upon them quickly and with little resistance. When they woke with renewed energy, they paid a bit more attention to the faint, rushing sound within the tunnel.
“Do you hear that?” Astyræ asked them.
“Is that…?” Cal stood, stretching and straining to make sense of the sound. “Is that water? Is that falling water?”
“You don’t suppose we’ve been walking in a circle this whole time?” she said fearfully as she rose to her feet.
“Deryn?” Cal asked. “You don’t think so, do you?”
“No,” he said. “I mean … yes, it is water. And no, I do not believe we have gone wandering in circles.”
“Then what it is?” she asked, a bit lighter now. “What could it be, I mean?”
“I am not sure,” Cal said as he peered into the darkness before him. “But I know I am not going back to sleep, not now. So I say we go find out.”
“Agreed,” Astyræ answered.
“Let me go ahead of you while you ready the horses,” Deryn told him. “If it is danger before us, I doubt anyone is going to be expecting a Sprite to happen upon them here in the dark of this tunnel.”
“Very good, then,” Cal replied as he tightened his scabbard belt and packed up his supplies. “But don’t go too far ahead of us.”
Deryn nodded his agreement and unsheathed his tiny, azure blade from its scabbard. In a wisp of blue light, he darted off down the cavernous pathway.
Cal knelt beside Farran, whose breath was still labored and weary. “Come on, boy, I don’t think it is much further now.” He stroked the worried face of his friend.
Farran opened his eyes, and Cal could see that the love he shared with his rider was as real as the rock beneath their feet. With great determination and muted anguish, the horse rose once again upon his weakened legs.
“Thank you, my friend,” Cal whispered into his ear. “I’ll get us there soon enough.”
“Are you ready?” he asked Astyræ.
She smiled a guarded smile, exhaling her worries and nodding her golden-haired head.
With one hand on the leather reins and the other at the flowering hilt of Gwarwyn, Cal led them forward, towards the sound of falling water. Despite the faint, violet glow in the tunnel, no markings or signs of life could be seen.
“Do you see Deryn?” Astyræ asked.
“No,” Cal said, scanning the dark before him. “I don’t see him at all. I just told him not to go too far…”
“Shhh,” she hushed him as she held her slender finger to her lips. “If someone happened upon him, we should do our best not to announce our presence, too.”
He nodded and drew his sword from its white sheath. “The water,” he whispered after a few paces of silent steps. “It is getting louder.”
Farran snorted, agitated by something before them. “What is it, Farran?” Cal asked without taking his eyes off the black before them.
They continued like this for a hundred more paces, the tension nearly strangling the breath from their very lungs.
“I still can’t see him,” Cal whispered to her. “Where in the damnable dark did he go?” He felt worry rise within him as they wound around another bend in the tunnel.
“Wait, Cal!” Astyræ said in an excited whisper as she pointed ahead. “There, what is that?”
“It …” Cal paused, trying to make sense of what he saw. “It looks like water, like … a waterfall of some sort.”
“Yes, but why … why is it glowing?” Her voice rang of both confusion and curiosity.
He walked closer, holding his ancient blade at the ready. “It … is that …” he tried to connect his words to the image in front of them. “There is light behind it … yes! It’s glowing because there is a light behind it somehow!”
“But how?” she said, her mind still swirling in a tumult of thoughts.
Cal smiled a knowing, wide smile; his clouded eyes came alive with excitement. “Come on, my lady!” he said as he placed his blade back in its scabbard. He reached out and took her hand in his own. She tore her gaze from the view before them and met his own with her still-searching eyes. “It’s here,” he said, his voice catching with emotion. “We found it, my lady.”
She looked to the glowing falls and then back again at him. “I hope you are right, tree man.”
With a steady breath, they walked together towards the light until they passed through the small, rushing falls of glowing water into the hopeful unknown before them.
Chapter Nineteen
The realization of the magnitude of the Raven Queen’s power fell upon Seig’s mind with such force that he nearly doubled over. He slumped, hands upon his knees, eyes wide with amazed terror at the two impossibilities that flanked his small outpost here on the wild shores of this wild land. The air was silent, save for the sounds of the dragons breathing, but a storm of panicked words and frightened thoughts raged with unprecedented volume in the minds of guardsmen and governor alike.
Pyrrhus reached for his blade as his men dropped theirs, but the Nocturnal soldiers of the Raven army stood resolute and unmoved by the twin serpents of Nogcwren.
Yasen’s heart sank, for he knew that these two beasts of war were responsible for the fall of his city and the desolation of his home. If he were honest with himself, he also feared that these two abominations might have brought something terrible upon his Keily. Yasen looked upon the Sorceress as he got gingerly to his feet, and hatred entered his heart at the very thought of all that had been destroyed by her hand.
Just then, a duo of voices sounded inside the minds of the colonists.
Men of the dead tree.
Behold, your Queen has come to liberate this world from the chains of darkness and the slavery of your impotent god.
“Where is that voice coming from?” came a panicked cry of a guardsman.
“What kind of devilry is this?” shouted another. “Make it stop!”
Yasen looked back towards Seig, gauging his reaction. He saw both wonder and resignation there in the once-strong eyes of the governor. Pyrrhus stood next to him, fear plain as day upon the face of the fire knight.
Do not be troubled, for she offers a gift to all who are worthy to receive it.
The dragons continued, their words toxic yet dripping with a compelling sweetness.
Your kinsmen have taken her at her word, and no longer do they toil and labor in the merciless darkness of a dying deity. Behold, a new light has come to Aiénor.
“My Queen,” Seig said, his voice cracking under the strain. “What would you have of me and my men?” He knelt as he spoke, this time of his own accord.
“I’ve asked you for the whereabouts of this chieftain’s woodcutters,” she replied brusquely, her eyes alight with a feverish yellow. “But have you given me what I have asked for, Governor?”
He dropped his eyes from her gaze, knowing that he had already failed. And although shame was brooding, wrath quickly rushed into the forefront of his mind.
“No, you haven’t,” she said coldly. “So, what would make you believe I would waste another moment of my illumination on you, dear Governor?”
“I ask your forgiveness, my Queen,” Seig said quietly, hardly able to keep the growl out of his voice. “But my only failure was to entrust the fool Pyrrhus with the task of gathering the information.” He pointed accusatorily at his former confidant, then rose angrily to his feet, a desperate madness raging in his eyes as he marched towards the one-armed knight and the bloodied woodcutter.
Nogcwren smiled, ever-so-satisfied at the display of frightened hubris and the violence that was sure to come.
“Governor, what would you have had me do
differently?” Pyrrhus shouted in protest. “I have beaten this man for days, I have starved him half to death, and you can’t tell his right side from his left for the amount of swelling and blood that covers his face!”
Seig reared back and, quick as a snake, backhanded the fire knight across the face with a tooth-jarring slap. “I would have had you never let his men out of your sight in the first place!” he growled.
“That is not what you ordered me to do!” Pyrrhus said, his remaining hand raising to comfort his now-aching face. “You said to bring Yasen here, and that is what I did.”
“I knew I should have sent you with the Determination and not Tahd. He is a true captain and would have known how to follow the heart of my orders! Your foolishness … look what you have done!” He landed another slap with his left hand and then punched the knight’s stomach with a crushing right blow.
Pyrrhus coughed and groaned, spitting blood. Confusion and hatred were ablaze and uncontrollable now. He straightened himself with great labor and limped closer to the bound woodcutter. “You,” he seethed at Yasen, spittle and blood frothed upon his lips. “This is your fault.”
The dragons laughed, a sinister accompaniment to the clash of wounded wills.
Oh, blame!
Their voices seemed to gloat in delight.
How easy it is to assign, when your own failure is too ghastly a reflection to endure.
“Tell me where your damned men went!” he tried again, but Yasen just breathed through his bloodied nose and stared at his accuser, silent.
Without warning, Pyrrhus kicked the legs out from under the woodcutter, and Yasen fell, his bound hands doing very little to break his fall. “Your fault! This is all your fault,” Pyrrhus shouted again as he reared back his leg and landed his boot in the woodcutter’s face. It hit Yasen with such force that the patch Keily had made for him flew from his face and landed in the dirt before him.
Seig drew his sword from its sheath as guardsmen and Nocturnals alike watched in both horror and delight. “You are a waste of a knight, a shame, a shame of a knight!” He swung his blade wildly, and Pyrrhus managed to stumble out of its reach. “A shame of a knight,” he yelled. “I should have left you on the Isle! I should have let those men with the mirrors cut you to ribbons!” He swung again, drunk with embarrassed rage. Pyrrhus danced away, backing into the stone-like body of Durai.
Pyrrhus heaved, his mind reeling. The words of the governor rang in his mind. Shame and mirrors, shame and mirrors. There was a connection there, and something began to take root in his mind.
Durai pushed him forward. “Meet your justice, dog of Haven,” he said lifelessly.
Pyrrhus looked at the heap of a woodcutter on the ground nearby, and then at the raging bear of a man who held his two-handed blade with deadly intent. The words of the governor raced through his mind over and over again until his eyes suddenly shot open in a brilliance of understanding.
“I know where they have gone!” he managed to say as he tried to catch his breath. “I think I remember now! I heard them say it!”
Yasen raised his head from the dirt, willing Pyrrhus to be wrong. His face was a mess of blood and dust, his eyes nearly swollen shut.
“Shame-era… sham-,” the knight tried to cough out before the Sorceress interrupted him.
“Shaimira?” she seethed. “Is that what you are trying to say?”
“Yes … I think that’s what he said. Shaimira, I am certain of it,” the fire knight replied to her with a greedy hope.
“Where is this Shaimira?” Seig said warily. “I’ve never heard of such a place.”
Yasen dropped his head in defeat, exhaling a bloodied, defeated breath. Nogcwren’s eyes went wide with understanding and her captain turned to meet her gaze.
“It was Soma, or one of his damned bearded brothers; I can’t remember.” Pyrrhus said stumbling over his words. “That day I brought him to you. He said they were off to find something… I’ve just now remembered that word... Sham- Shaimira.”
“If you are lying,” Seig growled as he grabbed the collar of Pyrrhus' shirt and pulled him in close, “I’ll rid you of your other arm, and both of your legs, and leave you to fend off the ravens with nothing but your own lying beak.”
Seig pushed Pyrrhus aside and stole a contemptuous glance at Yasen as he turned to face the Sorceress. “My knight seems to have remembered something he should have never forgotten to begin with,” he said respectfully, bridling his wounded pride for the moment. “Does Shaimira mean anything to you?”
She stood there, the temperature of her displeasure quickly coming to a boil. The yellow in her eyes turned sickly and vile, the beauty of her facial features beginning to harden as the discoveries of the moment sank in. “Does it mean anything to me?” she asked in a menacingly exasperated voice which escalated into a roar of contempt. “Does it mean anything to me!?”
The men of the colony clasped their mailed hands over their ears, the sound of her rage threatening to burst their eardrums. A mist began to roil about her feet, and a tempest of lightning and thunder lit up the sky and threatened the stronghold with its cumulous wrath.
The dragons shifted as they too became uneasy in the wake of her displeasure. She tilted her head and looked to the gathering sky before she spoke. “Shaimira is the last stronghold of those who remain willfully unenlightened! The last of an ungrateful and insolent people who spurn both my generosity and my will!” She turned her gaze to meet the eyes of the governor. “And now, because of your foolishness, dozens of armed men have gone to join the ranks of their resistance!”
“Why not just go to them and present them with the light of your generosity, my Queen? Show them the might of your strength, the graciousness of your offer, and be done with them for good?” Seig blurted out, trying to deflect her wrath.
“Oh, my dear Governor,” her voice went sickeningly sweet once again. “If it were only that easy. You see…” she raised her scepter, pointing it at Seig. Fingers of yellow lightning shot forth through the air and into the governor.
Seig writhed, his body lifting from the ground, suspended by her malice. Currents of sorcery wound themselves over his entire body, searing him with a burning pain. He twisted and screamed, the very veins threatening to burst straight through his skin.
“I have been looking for the Asierians for nearly a century of time, and still they elude my grasp! And your men, your charges, your fools have allowed these woodcutting traitors to find them, right under your imperceptive nose!” she raged aloud.
She lowered her scepter and the torrent of magic ceased. Seig collapsed to the ground like a beaten dog, as she walked towards him with the forcefulness of great power. Just then, a commotion rose up from beyond the gates. The Nocturnal army parted as two raven sentries dragged a bound man into the entrance of the stronghold. Yasen lifted his head and leaned upon one arm, working laboriously to get to his knees so that he might have a better view of what was happening. Nogcwren paused her stride and gestured to her captain.
Durai met the sentries at the gate. Within moments, he had turned back to address his queen, pleasure upon his ashen face. He spoke as he approached her. “It would seem that favor has shifted in our direction. We have finally caught the miscreant who has been skulking about the grounds.” He motioned to his men and they brought a man, a woodcutter bound with irons, toward the Raven Queen.
Yasen saw his friend, and his heart plummeted. “Soma?” he whispered.
“So, you know this man?” Nogcwren asked, delight returning to her countenance.
Soma looked at his beaten brother and then to the yellow-eyed woman who lorded herself over all who had gathered. “What … what do you want with me?” he managed, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.
She smiled, the delight in her eyes like those of a barn cat who toyed with its prey just before devouring it. “I have a gift for you, dear woodcutter,” she said as sweetly as she could. “Sight in the darkness. No more need for watch fir
es and felling timber … this new light I offer you is my gift to all of Aiénor.”
“Yasen?” he said, tearing his eyes from her and looking pleadingly at his friend and chieftain. “Forgive me, I was just trying to rescue you.”
“I but ask one small token in response to my enormous generosity,” she cooed.
“And what is that?” Soma said bravely. “You want me to do your bidding? Or what, I’ll end up like him over there?”
“No, dear woodcutter,” she said, amused at her own malevolence. “I simply want you to follow the will of your chief, this broken dog that you have put your trust in.”
“I … I don’t understand,” Soma said, looking back and forth between Yasen and the gathered ranks of Raven soldiers.
“I only ask that Yasen be the first of your kind to take and receive my gift. And then that all of you who give your allegiance to him would but follow his wise and noble example.”
“Never,” came the grunt of the wounded woodcutter as he rose to his feet in defiance of her suggestion. “I’ll never bend my knee to your will, never.”
“Oh, Yasen,” she said as if she had lived this exact moment a thousand times before. “You will, if you are any man of valor, if you have wisdom left in that poor, swollen face of yours … you will take my blessed gift.”
Almost on cue, both dragons lifted their enormous heads and stretched their inky, scaled necks in over the all-too-short palisade walls of the stronghold. Their massive talons reached for purchase upon the battlements, only to crush them beneath their immense weight. They leaned down towards Yasen, and their green eyes, alight in a sinister glow, came within a handsbreadth of his face.
Yasen could barely see through the swelling of his beatings. When his eye focused on the twin terrors that loomed before him, true fear gripped him in ways that none of the beasts of the dying forests had ever done before.
“What? Will you have them eat me?” he said, doing his best to muster some semblance of courage. “And then what? How will you find the woodcutters then?”
The Coming Dawn: Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 3 Page 15
