“What happened to it?” Keily asked, “How did it fall into such ruin?”
“A great evil, dear one,” Klieo told her. “Evil will always destroy what it can’t manage to control.”
The old Poet stood to her feet, her aged joints cracking and popping as she rose. “We don’t know the whole of the story, but we did find a library here in these ancient halls, and we have been able to piece together bits and pieces of what befell the kingdom of Terriah.”
“I guess we are not much different, us and them?” Keily said. “I could never have thought that Haven itself would fall as it has. If you would have asked me, or any of my patrons, we would have called you mad. We would never have believed the great walls could be toppled, or the city burnt and ruined.” She took another long draught of her warm ale. “And now, look at us. Homeless wanderers, taking refuge in the ruins of another dead kingdom.”
“It was Šárka,” Klieo said, her eyes fixed on the long, dark corridor just beyond the great hall, watching the comings and goings of the Poets and their guests.
“I’m sorry?” Keily said, feeling as if she must have missed something.
“The downfall of this place,” Klieo continued. “The demise of it all, really. Terriah, Haven ... and many other kingdoms, I’ll wager.”
“I don’t understand,” Keily tried.
“She was a magician, a Sorceress of dark magic. But Queen Herrah took her as an advisor. The queen’s husband, King Faramund, son of the High King Æðelric, convinced Šárka to return with him back across the Dark Sea as an honored guest, but secretly he wanted to collect her as a novelty for his court. Her hatred of Terriah grew as she was forced to be nothing more than entertainment for the lords of the East. Though her malice was concealed from them, she plotted, in the depths of her dark heart, to bring forth her wrath.” Klieo shifted her eyes from the hallway to directly meet Keily’s.
“She preyed on the kindness and superstitions of the queen, and her royal curiosities fueled deeds vile and dark.”
“What kind of deeds?” Keily said, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling under the eerie chill of the story.
“While Faramund voyaged long and far, Herrah would safeguard his passage and assuage her worry by employing the charms and spells of the Sorceress. We don’t rightly know all that bewitched her … but we do know that all of Terriah feared the shadow that followed the queen.”
“But I don’t understand how Šárka destroyed Terriah? Did she have dragons like the ones that attacked Haven?” Keily asked.
“No. A beautiful maiden named Branwen was one of Queen Herrah's ladies in waiting. Some say she was the most beautiful woman in all of Aiénor,” Klieo went on. “She attended to the queen, went where she went, gathered where she gathered … and in turn participated in the very same dark enchantments that Šárka performed for the queen.”
The old Poet leaned forward. “Her heart became poisoned by the Sorceress. When Reynard the Wise finally managed to entrap Šárka with his powerful magic, it was too late for Branwen’s mind and heart to be rescued from the evil it had embraced. The young woman forsook king and kingdom, husband and home. With the imprisonment of Šárka, she took command of her evil serpent creations. She became the very embodiment of her mistress, and the hatred within her sought to destroy all that was bright and beautiful.”
“Much blood has been shed because of the witch from the west, and many an innocent has been corrupted by the darkness she brought with her,” Elder John, who had sauntered over to sit with them mid-telling, interjected. “The beauty of Terriah has become the beast that hunts us still.”
“Do you mean to say … is Branwen… the Raven Queen?” Keily asked them.
“The very same, dear,” Klieo replied.
“Did she destroy this palace like she did our city?” Keily asked.
“No … not in the way you might think,” Klieo said. “She broke its heart rather than its walls. And once the heart is dead, there isn’t much of real worth to keep fighting for.”
Keily thought on the words of the old Poet for a moment before she spoke again. “Did you learn all of this from the books and the scrolls you found in the library?”
“Some of it, yes,” Klieo said with a sad smile. “And the rest, the Sprite Queen Iolanthe told me, though I suppose there are parts that she witnessed that are still left unsaid.”
“Witnessed? Queen Iolanthe? Were they both really here that long ago?” Keily asked, bewildered at the thought of someone so old. “That must have been—"
“Centuries ago,” came the even, regal voice of the queen herself as she approached the group that was starting to gather in the great hall. “Yes, dear child, but the sad tale of Šárka and her progeny is of little help to us now.” The queen turned to the elderly Poet beside her. “Klieo. Are they mending?”
“Meledae and Eógan have been hard at work tending to the wounded. Between their healing arts and the soups Clivesis has been conjuring up … their strength is nearly fully recovered,” she told her.
“Yes, we are all nearly recovered. Thank you, your majesty,” Keily said humbly. An awkward silence hung in the room for a moment. “My Queen?” she asked finally. “Klieo said you knew her … the Raven Queen, I mean?”
“No,” Iolanthe replied. “I never knew this Sorceress who commands dragons and fells cities with a brutal fist of darkness.”
“But I thought—" Keily tried to protest.
“I knew the wife of Caedmon the dragon slayer,” the queen interrupted. “I knew the beautiful young woman who once dined in the flowing, white halls of Islwyn as my guest. I knew Branwen, friend of queens. But I have never known this … this Sorceress that assails all of Aiénor.”
“If even you do not know much about her,” Keily said with a frustrated sigh, “then how will any one of us know how to defeat her?”
The queen flew over towards Keily and sat upon the long bench beside her. “My child … do you not know?”
“I’m sorry?” Keily asked.
“There is not one of us who can defeat her,” Iolanthe said gravely. “Her power has grown far too great, surpassing our own, fueled by the resignation of all who have lost sight of the coming dawn. Her dragons, the devils of Aerebus, haunt the skies and devour whole cities in their fury. Her Nocturnal armies far outnumber what little remnant of the faithful still remain in Aiénor.”
A silver tear fell down the Sprite queen’s face. “Neither the love of men nor the skills of my healers could stay the venom of Šárka poisoning Branwen, though we labored long and tirelessly. We shall not be able to stop this Raven Queen from exacting her vengeance.”
“Then what hope have we?” she asked as exhausted tears formed upon her brave face.
“None, if your hope is in the strength of men or sword,” the queen replied.
“What, then?” Keily said, her anger sparking. “Hide here? Wait here for her dragons to lay waste to this half-dead city all over again?”
“No.” Iolanthe spoke without emotion. “Though, wait we must. Our hope lies only in the strength of the new light of our Great Father. If we are to see victory and beauty restored to this world, it will be by His light alone.”
Keily turned her back to the Sprite Queen. The enormity of the moment unfolding in these ancient, ruined halls sent a flood of emotions and thoughts racing through the inner workings of her heart and mind.
“Keily?” came the familiar voice of a little boy. “Keily, what is the matter?”
“Roshan,” she said as she wiped her tears on the sleeve of her tunic. “I am alright, my boy.”
“Keily, where is everyone else?” he asked with childlike frankness.
“What do you mean?” she asked, as Iolanthe and the gathered Poets looked on.
“There were many more with us when we left Piney Creek. But they didn’t come with you to find the mountain palace. Where are they now? Why haven’t they come here?”
She knelt to meet his worried gaze. “Yo
u did a very brave thing, riding like you did to find us help. But the rest of them … Roshan, I am afraid we are all that is left.”
“That can’t be!” he said, his brow furrowed and his voice adamant. “It just can’t be.”
“What do you mean?” she asked him patiently.
He scrunched up his little-boy face as he thought of the words he needed to convey his thoughts. “We made it out of the city, but we can’t be the only ones that did so. There has got to be more of us out there … somewhere, out there.”
“I hope you are right, Roshan,” she said truly.
“Well then, we have got to go and find them! We have to help them find this place too,” he demanded.
The same fire that had driven her to fend off the boisterous patrons of the Gnarly Knob, the fire that drove her to muster her bow to the top of the wall, and to scrape and grapple for every inch past the fallen city, was now the same fire that caught wind in the words of this young boy.
“He is right,” she said as she stood to her feet and addressed her rescuers. “We have got to search for others. How will they know of this place if there is no one to guide them here? And how, in the midst of all of this hell, will they know to hope if there is no one to tell them of a coming dawn?”
“Tell me, my dear,” came the old voice of Tolk from out of the shadows of the hall. “What do you propose we do?”
The lot of them talked for what seemed like hours, putting together plans and gathering a heroic energy as they spoke of bringing other survivors to the safety of Petros. When at last they came to an agreeable conclusion, Tolk stood to his feet to address them all.
“The intention of this plan is true, and it is most certainly good, but let us not be foolish in our foolhardy endeavor … for rescue alone is our great mission. The enemy of darkness is not might, nor power, nor strength of arms. No … light is its only true opposition.”
The gathered remnant of men and women from Haven, the Poets, and the Sprites all nodded their heads with grave understanding.
“Now, with that settled, who do you propose should lead this rescue mission?” Tolk asked expectantly.
“My men and I will,” Marcum said, speaking through a pained expression as he stood at the entrance to the hall.
“Nonsense!” Clivesis said, with little regard for decorum. “You are clearly wounded! Though you may be noble and brave, this is no mission for a wounded man, whether he be guardsman or goldsmith.”
“I will do it, the duty is mine,” Keily said matter-of-factly. “I am a good rider, and whatever scrapes and bruises I may have had are well on the mend.”
“But what about the children?” the Miller asked. “Who is going to see to them?”
“Oh, you old fool,” Meledae said with a shake of her head.
“What?” the Miller said, oblivious to the insult. “She brought them here, I thought she might know best how to care for them.”
“We have plenty of capable hands to mind the children,” the Poet woman said with a scolding tone. “What we don’t have is skilled riders who are fluent with a bow and arrow.”
“Very well,” Tolk said, his bushy eyebrows raised high in amusement.
“I will go with her,” the white-bearded corporal said as he stepped forward. “We can move swiftly, and I know these outlands, at least the ones between the Kings’ Road and the wall.”
Keily smiled at him gratefully.
“I’ll gather some provisions and fresh bandages and balms from my workshop,” Marigeld said aloud. “If you find any poor souls out there, they will probably need a good mending.”
Just then, in a flurry of violet light, the doors to the great hall burst open. Arthfael and his Sprite scouts flew into the council gathering.
“My Queen,” the Sprite said, his breath labored and his brow beaded with sweat.
All eyes went to the center of the room as they waited anxiously on the report.
Iolanthe rose to her feet and calmly addressed him. “Go on, Arthfael, tell us what you and your brothers have seen.”
“My Queen,” he said with a bow. “We have spotted the army of the Sorceress, in full parade, making its way through the black mountains of Cair, heading east without delay.”
“How many did you espy?” the queen questioned.
“Thousands, my Queen,” Arthfael reported.
“And the dragons?” Faolan, his commander, asked.
“No, Captain.” Arthfael said. “None that could be seen.”
“They move without the cover of dragons?” Faolan said, perplexed at the imprudent strategy.
“East?” the miller blurted out. “Why in the damnable dark would they be heading that way? There is not much out there but rocks, shadow cats, and a few miserable sorts.”
“He is right, though I hate to admit it,” Clivesis chimed in. “The city … I thought they wanted Haven … and now they are headed into the middle of nowhere?”
“Leaving?” Keily said, hope now coloring her voice. “I don’t understand. Why would they do that?”
“Perhaps it wasn’t the city they were really after this whole time,” Tolk pondered calmly through a puff of his pipe smoke.
“What else could there be?” Marcum said gravely. “And where the hell are those dragons?”
Iolanthe closed her eyes as an unlooked-for gust of wind blew up from the bowels of the hidden grove and into the great hall of the mountain palace. The fragrant smell of blossoms filled the air about them as the fire in the great hearth began to whip and dance in the wake of the gusts. Violet petals rode upon the current of cool, fresh wind. Voices in triad harmony, singing words unknown to all save the queen herself, were whispered amidst the breeze.
The Sprites knelt and bowed their heads while the queen stared into the swirling cyclone of petals and power. Almost as suddenly as the beautiful storm was upon them, it ceased. And in the receding of its might, the petals that had moments before swirled in delight upon the gust of wind, now fell limp and lifeless to the stone floor of the great hall.
In the silence, a small knocking could be heard from somewhere off in the distance, interrupting the awe that had enraptured them all in the holy moment.
“Let him in,” Iolanthe spoke to the white-bearded corporal.
“But how do you—" Meledae tried to ask.
“Llinos has returned from the eyrie of the Watchers,” she said with confidence.
Johnrey turned and left without so much as a questioning glance, seeing to the outer door at the queen’s bidding.
“Is that what the wind told you, dear queen?” Tolk said humbly.
“No, that is what my heart told me,” she said with a kind smile. “That, and the small sound of his young fist. I am quite sure he cannot manage to open so large a door by himself.”
“But the wind?” Elder John pressed. “We all heard it speaking. What did it tell you?”
“The voice of our Great Father has spoken,” she said as the room drew near to her radiant glory. “We shall gather the host of the Sprite army, and with the spirit of our Great Father, the fruit of the trees of beauty will fly east in pursuit of the army of darkness!”
“What? But you just said moments ago that they could not be defeated!” Klieo argued. “Why would you needlessly sacrifice yourselves for a lost cause?”
“The Great Father knows and sees more than any mortal eye could ever behold,” she said definitively. “When He speaks, we must answer His call.”
“My Queen!” came the small, frantic voice of the young Sprite.
“Llinos!” she said, worry coloring her face as she beheld the tattered and wounded Spriteling.
“Forgive me, I would have been here sooner, but I was waylaid by a hoard of ravens and barely escaped with my life,” he said as he awkwardly landed before the gathered council.
“What say the Watchers, dear one?” Iolanthe asked.
“They fly west, my Queen,” he said, as bravely and as resolutely as he could under the weight of
his wounds. “They fly west, for war.”
“For war?” Keily whispered aloud.
“War?” came the confused clamor of the gathered crowd. “What war?”
“I thought the war was here?” Marcum reasoned. “What could they possibly…” his voice trailed off as the thought of the colony of Haven came into the forefront of his mind.
“The colony!” Keily blurted out nervously.
“That is why the Raven army is headed east,” Tolk said quite assuredly. “To return by the very same way they came to Haven … to finish the war, once and for all.”
“Then we will stop them before they reach the Western Wreath!” Faolan said as the fire of battle lit his violet eyes.
“But we are too late,” Johnrey said. “The Ravens are already on the move, your scouts just told us!”
“Ah, my dear guardsman,” the queen said, as her eyes, too, blazed with the fire of destiny. “You have not yet seen us fly!”
Ardghal, the herald, shot high into the rafters of the mountain hall. With his silver trumpet to his lips, he let loose a bright and terrible blast of proclamation.
“Éist leat go maith ó dhúchas an domhain agus tá súil agam. Eaglaim ort anois ar arm na dorchadais, mar a bheidh an óstach an Violet ag eitilt go cogaidh sa mhéid seo!”
“What is he saying?” Keily asked nervously.
“Hear thee well, oh darkened world, and take hope. Fear thee now, oh army of darkness, for in this very moment the violet host will fly to war!” Arthfael told her with a mischievous glint to his eye.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Uriel wheeled about, back towards the Itxaro, and Cal exhaled a sigh of relief as he watched the last of the woodcutters reach the fortifications at the base of the mountain.
“They made it!” Astyræ exclaimed. “They are safe … at least for now.”
“Safe?” Cal asked, the worry in his voice as thick as the cold fog that rolled upon the ground below them. “I would not name them safe, not with those winged devils still out there.”
The Coming Dawn: Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 3 Page 27
