by ML Spencer
Markus didn’t look very happy about it, but he relented with a scowl. Elder Hammon inclined his head, a gesture Aram appreciated more than the man would ever know. With that, the meeting was adjourned, and people started filing out. Before Aram could follow, Vandra caught both him and Markus by the arm, pulling them aside.
She raised a finger at Aram. “The moment you find something, come right back. Don’t do anything rash.” She turned to Markus. “Candon Laiel is right—Eld Anoth is the most impregnable fortress in the world. I need to find out why Kathrax thinks his army can take it. Until we know that, we know nothing.” With that, she clapped both their shoulders and strode out of the room.
Markus turned a resentful glare on Aram. “If you see one damn thing—”
Aram raised his hands. “I know. I’m just going there to read the strands. And I won’t be alone—I’ve got Agaroth.”
Markus ground his teeth, but he didn’t say anything more. Aram followed him toward the door but paused, turning back. He crossed the room to Elder Hammon and bowed his head deeply.
“I’m truly sorry about Dedicant Mandrel,” he said. “I promise I’ll do everything I can.”
The old man gazed at him harshly for a long, silent moment before saying, “I will hold you to that promise, Champion Raythe.”
Aram stood looking at him a second longer, then bowed formally.
Chapter Eighty-Six
Dedicant Mother Althea stumbled over a hollow in the ground and would have fallen, had it not been for Nadira, her teenage acolyte who walked at her side, holding her arm. The night was dangerously dark, and the shadows that dappled the ground were even darker. After their wild flight across the prairie, the people of Winhome were exhausted, and Althea was no exception. She had lived for hundreds of years on the plains, yet her body was no longer young and agile. She felt every jarring stride in her joints and knew she did not have many leagues left in her.
She walked at the head of a column of women and children, refugees from the terror that had befallen their home. Every time Althea glanced behind, the shadow that obscured the northern horizon seemed ever more oppressive. As the night wore on, that shadow deepened, and she knew with growing desperation that they would not reach safety in time.
The people who walked behind her were strong both in body and spirit. They were people of the plains, servants of the Great Horses, and they had known their share of hardship. But nothing like this. Every one of these children had lost a father this night. Babes cried from their swaddling and toddlers wailed in trauma and fear. The older children and women did not weep, however, for they understood that their lives were inconsequential. It was the lives of the Elesium they warded that must be preserved at all cost.
Nearly fifty of the Great Horses had fled with them from Winhome. They walked beside the column, their glowing spirits shining like beacons in the night. Althea had hoped they would flee to the fortress of Eld Anoth. But the Elesium were proud, and they disdained the walls of men. They were fleeing toward what they knew, and she couldn’t blame them for it, for that was their instinct.
Althea stumbled, her ankle turning. She stifled a gulp of pain and nodded at the girl next to her, assuring her acolyte that she would be all right. But when she continued forward, she could not hide the limp that plagued her stride. Sweat beaded on her brow, and she bit her lip in determination. But all the determination in the world would not help her if her body failed.
Glancing behind, she took note of the shadows and felt her heart quail, for they appeared much closer than they had just minutes before. She trembled, for she knew it was no mere shadow that plagued their trail, but an army of creatures shunned from the world, unnatural and despicable, against whom they had little protection.
“Mother Althea,” Nadira said, her voice barely audible. “Do you need to rest?”
“No.” The Dedicant Mother shook her head. “There is no time to rest.”
The girl glanced behind them, her eyes widening. “We will not make it.”
Althea feared she was right, though her heart still clung to hope. She patted the girl’s hand on her arm. Her eyes went to the sky, searching there for signs of movement. She saw nothing. For now, the sky was clear of dragons. But one by one, the stars overhead were winking out, and her hopes were fading with them.
With a deep sigh, Althea stopped and turned back.
The people of Winhome stopped with her.
She let her gaze rove over them: mothers and daughters, small boys with thumbs in their mouths, babes carried in arm or by sling. All stood before her with bleak and haunted faces, eyes drawn to the shadows behind. Flanking them were the golden Elesium who had fled with them, arrayed in a large crescent that stretched out before and behind their column like the wings of a butterfly.
Raising her voice, Althea informed them, “We can go no further.”
The people exchanged fearful glances but said nothing. They trusted her, even in this. Never before had she felt so grateful to have been chosen as Dedicant Mother of these people. Most knew her words foretold their death, and yet none spoke in protest. They trusted her to make the right decisions, and they knew that, ultimately, it was the lives of the Elesium that mattered. Not theirs. They knew that she would help them if she could.
She could not.
Walking forward, Althea made her way toward the nearest stallion and laid her hands upon his velvet coat. The stallion uttered a soft whinny, breathing warm breath into her face.
“We have served you as well as we can,” she told him, “but now our presence only slows your flight. Go with our love, and may the speed of the wind carry you.”
Removing her hand, she bowed her head.
The stallion snorted, stamping his feet. Then he reared halfway, neighing his acknowledgment of the respect she had paid him and his kind.
But instead of turning to leave, he walked past her and stopped beside a woman holding a small boy. Stretching out his head, he nuzzled the child.
The woman’s face slackened, and her eyes widened in awe. Moving around to his side, she lifted the boy and set him upon the back of the Elesium stallion. Althea brought a hand to her face in shock, for never in her life had she known an Elesium to bear a rider. The boy sat astride the magnificent stallion without fear in his eyes, small fists clenching the silver mane. All around the column, the Great Horses came forward, offering to accept the burden of a rider upon their backs. There were not enough horses to carry them all, though.
Some would have to remain.
Althea knew better than to protest when a stallion came forward and offered to carry her, and she allowed her young acolyte to help her onto the Elesium’s tall back.
Nadira wasn’t so lucky. No horse came to bear her away. Instead, she moved to stand with the women and older children who would not be saved, who were doomed to remain behind. Althea felt her eyes moisten with tears, for she loved each of them dearly. They were her kin, her daughters and sons, and it was unbearable that she would be borne away, leaving those she loved to perish. As the stallion started forward, her eyes were drawn to the shadow behind them, and she knew she did not have time to grieve.
Markus leaned forward over Siroth’s neck, squinting against the wind as his eyes scanned the ground far below. The speed of their flight tore the breath from his lungs and filled him with an exhilarating rush. It didn’t matter how many flights he took on Siroth’s back, every flight was just as exciting as the first. He felt born to the sky, far more comfortable on his dragon’s back than on a horse. In the sky he felt truly alive, truly awake, in harmony with the dragon beneath him and in awe of the world below.
They soared over a landscape drenched in moonlight. Ahead, the plains spilled like a silver tide in all directions, while below them, snow on the high mountain peaks glowed a luminous white. Siroth’s wingtips parted the clouds as he glided gracefully down the flanks of the mountains, the land tumbling away beneath them. At the base of the foothills was their destinati
on: Eld Anoth, the ancient fortress that guarded the entrance to the Winmarch, its many towers and high walls forming a roughly circular perimeter that ambled over the irregular landscape.
His eyes were drawn to a darkness on the ground, and he willed Siroth toward it. The dragon complied, banking gracefully, giving Markus an unobstructed view of what looked like a wide, black lake ahead of them.
As they grew closer, he realized that the darkness below wasn’t a lake at all, but the encampment of an army. A vast army, numbering in the tens of thousands, their campfires dotting the plain. In the distance, he could make out the silhouettes of four dragons circling like vultures over the encampment. He urged Siroth lower, wanting a better look at the enemy. The dragon dipped toward the ground, taking him low enough to see individual tents and soldiers arrayed there.
What Markus saw shocked him.
Behind the encampment of humans was an army of void walkers. He could recognize their pale and emaciated bodies from the air. They were mixed in with therlings and dark insect-like creatures with segmented bodies that sheltered together like a tremendous swarm.
Light flashed, and a peal of thunder jarred the sky. It was as though the air itself had been jerked out from beneath them. They lost altitude quickly, but then Siroth recovered, flapping to gain height. Markus’s bones felt frozen, and he knew for a fact that he had repulsed an enormous lance of magic. If it had been any other rider on Siroth’s back, they wouldn’t have survived the attack.
Another bolt of lightning stabbed at them like a spear, the clap of thunder that followed shuddering the air.
“Turn back!” Markus cried, and gripped the spines of Siroth’s neck as the dragon rolled sideways, pivoting in the air. Pumping his wings, Siroth surged back toward the foothills, Markus glancing frantically behind.
As they gained the slopes of the mountains, Markus urged Siroth faster with a gnawing anxiety, for he knew how dire the news was that he carried. Somehow, Kathrax had tripled the size of his army. And they would be arriving at the walls of Eld Anoth a day sooner than expected.
Siroth soared faster than the wind, cutting like a dagger through the night sky. He gained the summits of the mountains then flew out over the gorge, navigating its twists and turns with expert precision, at last gliding to a stop upon the wide terrace of the Southern Eyrie.
There, Markus slid from his back and sprinted into the cavern, looking for Vandra. He found her in her alcove, sleeping on the ground alongside her dragon. Markus crouched over her, panting and trembling, and shook her awake.
“They’re there already!” he blurted as Vandra sprang upright. “They’ll arrive at the fortress tomorrow morning! And there’s a lot more of them—I saw therlings and void walkers. And dragons! They called lightning—”
Vandra threw her hand up, cutting him off. She pulled on her leathers and grabbed her sword off the floor. Marcus followed her as she ran out into the cavern, shouting orders and obscenities at the top of her lungs. Windriders rushed from their alcoves, quickly surrounding her.
“Send a messenger to the commander of the Altierian army,” she ordered one of her captains. “Tell him if he can’t get reinforcements there by the afternoon, then there’s not going to be a fortress. Hell, send riders to every nation! Find out where the forces are that they promised us months ago!” She glanced toward the mouth of the cavern, her expression pale and grim. “We need Aram.”
“I’ll go get him,” Markus said, but Vandra shot out her hand, stopping him.
“We can’t wait. I need you to fly me down to the fortress.”
Markus sighed, casting a dispirited glance back at the cave mouth, wondering what could be keeping Aram.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Althea rode bowed forward, clinging to the neck of the Elesium stallion that bore her, galloping, across the plains. Her bones were old and her muscles weak, and it had been years since she had last ridden more than a few leagues. But the stallion’s gait was preternaturally smooth, and though his speed rivaled the wind, his hoofbeats did not jar her.
Behind them, the shadow that had pursued them throughout the night was taking on definition. When Althea glanced behind, she saw that the darkness was an infestation of thousands of insectoid bodies, the kind born of the void, their numbers supplemented with eel-like creatures with long, triangular jaws lined with sharp rows of teeth. They came clacking and skittering along behind them at great speed, their segmented legs blurs of motion.
“Faster,” she breathed into the Elesium’s mane. Beneath her, she could feel the great stallion’s muscles gather for a fresh surge of speed. Neck outstretched, tail swept back behind them, he raced in the direction of the foothills with ever-lengthening strides, the mountains looming over them like jagged sentinels. Althea squeezed her knees into the horse’s sides and clung desperately to the stallion’s back, his mane whipping her cheeks.
With a powerful surge of muscle, the stallion cut across the prairie and began its ascent into the foothills. There, they rounded a ridge of green, rock-encrusted hills and entered a narrow ravine, its walls formed of craggy layers riddled with cracks and seams. The sound of their stampede clattered off the walls of the ravine, echoing sharply.
There, the stallion slowed his gait, drawing back from a gallop to a canter and then to a trot as they rounded a steep bend. Realizing where they were, Althea sucked in a gasp. The Great Horses had borne them to Ayar Elysse, the sacred valley of the Elesium.
Her eyes widened, and she sat upright, her heart beating furiously as she looked upon this hallowed place. Before her stretched a wide lake whose glassy waters were clear and glowing with the light of a Wellspring. Its shore was lined with edylberry trees, whose pink blossoms shimmered on their weeping branches. The lights of fireflies zipped through the shadows, weaving a dance of light over the shimmering lake, and the fragrance of spring filled her nostrils with the scent of rebirth and renewal.
Tears gathered in her eyes as she realized the danger they had brought to this place.
What had they done? All around her, the fleeing Elesium halted and collected before the lake, snorting and neighing, tossing their heads in apprehension as the refugees slid from their backs. Althea followed them to the ground, leaning heavily against the stallion’s lathered side as she fought back a dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her. Taking in the awe and the majesty of the surrounding valley, a terrible fear trembled her bones.
They could not stay here. They could not bring death to this place.
“Go back!” she shrieked, staggering toward the mouth of the ravine. “We must leave! Quickly!”
The stallion surged forward, inserting his body between her and the valley’s exit. He turned his head and regarded her with a proud fire in his eyes, reminding her firmly that it was she who served them, and her life was not hers to give. Broken, Althea fell to her knees, weeping into her hands. Why? Why had the Elesium spared them, their thralls and servants, at the expense of their sacred birthplace?
The stallion reared on its hind legs and pawed at the air above her. Althea raised her hand reflexively to ward her head. But instead of coming down on top of her, the stallion whirled and charged toward the lake, tail carried high, neck proudly arched. He stopped at the shore of the Wellspring and lifted his gaze.
In that moment, a profound darkness eclipsed the sky, and the refugees moaned and huddled together. A harsh wind rose, whipping the manes and tails of the horses. A gusting whoosh of beating wings echoed off the valley walls, and from out of the sky, an enormous red dragon appeared and landed before them.
Althea went rigid in terrified wonder, for it had been centuries since her eyes had last looked upon a Greater Dragon. Dizzy with disbelief, she staggered to her feet and lurched forward, her hands raised in front of her like a blind woman groping for sight. All around the meadow, Elesium tossed their heads and whinnied, bucking and rearing in excitement, while the women and children stared fearfully at this monarch of the skies who had descende
d into their midst.
The great creature spread its massive wings and raised its head, emitting a mighty roar. A helmed man armored in black slid from the dragon’s back and strode toward them. Althea gaped into the shadows of the man’s helm, desperately searching to make out the features of his face. But it was only when he stood before her and removed the helmet from his head that her eyes widened in recognition.
“I remember you,” she whispered in a haggard voice. “You were the boy who sees in color.”
Lifting her trembling hands, she closed her eyes and touched his face. What she felt made her insides tremble. This was no boy who stood before her. She could feel the power within him burning with the might of a thousand angry suns. No longer were his body and spirit as she remembered it, young and frail, but he contained a force of presence that eclipsed even the silver radiance of the Elesium. Althea gasped, flinching back.
“You have grown,” she whispered.
The young man blinked his burning eyes, and uncertainty darkened his face. His gaze left hers and scanned the surrounding valley, lingering on the Elesium arrayed before them.
“What is this place?” he asked.
Althea drew herself up as much as she could and stood before this formidable man with all the strength of spirit her old body could muster. “This place is Ayar Elysse, the Loins of the Mother. It is Her sacred womb, the birthplace and bastion of the Elesium. Our enemies have come to defile it. To defile them.” She glanced toward the Great Horses who stood ringing them, looking on.
The young man nodded slightly, taking in the surrounding valley with an intense and distant stare. His hand rested on the hilt of the star-steel blade he wore at his side. Behind him, the last Greater Dragon in the world regarded them all with ferocious eyes.
“I am Althea, Dedicant Mother of Winhome. What is your name?” she asked.
“Aramon Raythe.”
