The men of Zuxra cheered the words of their general, and hesitantly, but with mounting enthusiasm, the people of Halversome joined in.
Lorace held out his chain to Captain Falraan. When she reached toward it tentatively, he nodded reassurance at her. She grasped the links with very little effect, as was the case with Tornin and Oen.
Tornin chuckled at her uncertain reaction. “It did not do anything to me either, except to make me feel more certain about the actions I take,” he leaned down close to her upturned face. “Now, everything, somehow, feels right.”
He kissed Falraan deeply, her eyes widening in surprise. A moment later, her eyes shut and her hands came up behind his shoulders to pull him to her firmly. The renewed cheering of the crowd did nothing to dim their display of passion.
After a long moment, Captain Falraan pulled back and turned to the crowd, red-faced, but smiling.
Her smile vanished as she turned to her guardsmen to bark out orders, “Let us find some food for these men. Make whatever room you can for them in the barracks and guardhouses,” she turned toward Moyan. “There are many vacant homes your men can take for their rest as well.”
“This is General Moyan,” Lorace introduced. “He is the leader of these men.”
“I place myself and these men, under your charge, my Lady Captain,” Moyan delivered with a flourishing bow.
Falraan turned back to Tornin with a new flush to her cheeks. “Gather up whatever priests Oen can spare to heal the wounded.” She pointed to the men being carried and those leaning heavily on their companions. Finally, she turned to the grinning Nordoc and ordered him to secure the gate when the last of the Zuxrans had entered.
The guardsmen led the healthy Zuxran soldiers off into the city. A resident of a home near the gate, the candle maker who had first come to the aid of Lorace and Tornin the morning of Hurn’s treachery, called Moyan to him and graciously opened his doors to the wounded Zuxrans.
Lorace, with Iris in tow, walked among the gathered citizens, blessing them with his chain.
“This is all because of the touch of your chain?” Iris asked.
“The people of Halversome remain unchanged, though their fears garnered from days of siege shall be removed,” Lorace answered. “The godstone of Sakke Vrang links me to whoever it touches and draws forth the corruption in their spirit and flesh, which my own spirit purifies into raw power.”
“What happens to that power?” she pressed.
“It fuels my gift over air and strengthens my own spirit,” Lorace replied. The chain in his hand did not arc to the honest coercion in her green eyes and slight smile. He indulged her inquisitive mind with the truth, as an unmistakable connection grew between them. Her eyes widened and deepened reflecting the depth she saw in his own.
“I can sense that power about you, it is akin to the energy that empowers magic,” Iris observed.
“You are the expert in such things,” he said with a dissembling smile. “It is all tied to my destiny. The gods have set many things in motion which I am still trying to understand.”
Iris lowered her eyes briefly, knowing she had reached the limit of what Lorace would willingly share. There was no urge to loosen his tongue with her gift. It would have been the simplest thing for the frightened monster she used to be, yet searching within herself now; she could find no trace of that insecure creature. The mystery surrounding him intrigued her hungry mind, but she shifted her questions to a less personal angle. “I feel different here, more than just remade. There is something tangibly welcoming about this city and her people.”
“These are a pure and kindhearted people,” Lorace explained. “For three generations, since this great fortress was originally built to defend the home lands of the elves and dwarves, people like these have been drawn here. I felt the pull myself when I first awoke to this life. I believe that call is what brought me here.”
“When was this?” Iris asked.
“Only a quarter moon ago, I awoke on a beach to the south of here,” Lorace told her, reflexively using his sight to view that area of seashore as naturally as one would access a memory of a place while speaking of it. “About where the demons are now—wait!”
Lorace’s eyes became distant and unfocused as he halted in his tracks. “There is a lone man fleeing northward along the cliff top with several demons leaping after him.”
She reached out to take Lorace’s hand, touching his chain in the process. In her mind, she saw the man he spoke of, wearing only a few rags of clothing, and carrying a large bared sword that glinted silvery in Voradin’s blue light. He seemed to run tirelessly, and the demons hounding him stayed well back from his blade, though some of them were obviously fleeter. They loped past to block his path, attempting to delay him for more of their slower companions to catch up. The man just lowered his head and plunged through them without slowing, literally cutting a passage through their bodies with long strokes of his sword.
Lorace drew his awareness closer to the fleeing man. Recognition dawned on him. The man was the paladin who stood before him when he was a child, swearing his oath of protection and later trying to sacrifice his own life to the demon Tezzirax. He was older now, streaks of gray in his golden-haired beard, but still the vigor of youth remained within his muscular frame. He recalled the dwarf Ralli telling him of Brakke Zahn, the godstone sword he saw forged, the sword of Sir Rindal.
“It is Sir Rindal,” Lorace said in a voice lowered in concern. “He comes, but the demons are trying to run him down.”
“I am seeing!” Iris said in a breathless whisper.
Lorace floated the length of Sakke Vrang down the street, extending it through the remaining crowd of citizens.
“There is a very brave man who needs our help desperately,” Lorace called out to them. “Take hold of the chain and lend me your strength.”
“What are you going to do?” Iris asked as she met his refocused gaze.
“I am going to try something,” Lorace answered before addressing the people down the length of the chain. “Everyone please focus your will on helping this man.”
Sakke Vrang linking their spirits together with his. They joined along with Iris, sharing his awareness and crying out at Sir Rindal’s plight. Lorace reached through the link, harnessing those individual cries of concern and the accompanying flood of will as though they were extensions of himself. He wrapped them in the added energy of his own growing spirit.
With the air above the running man, Lorace shaped a handful of spears, each like the one he used to slay Hurn and the demons in Vlaske K’Brak.
Once they were fully formed, Lorace unleashed the collected will as a driving force to launch a spear at each of the demons immediately behind the paladin. The sky shook with thunder as the spears drove with the speed of lightning bolts through their targets. The spears blasted the demons apart on impact, so great was the willpower flowing through the link. A burning shock wave lifted the paladin from his feet and flung him forward like a rag doll. Before he could strike the ground, Lorace caught him on gentle air and snuffed out the smoldering fires on the scraps of his clothing. His hair and skin were miraculously un-burnt.
“Such power!” Iris exclaimed.
Lorace’s concentration wavered as the people before him began releasing the chain. They staggered back exhausted, some plopping down onto the paving stones, having expended their own vitality in a way they never had before.
“I am sorry,” Lorace said. “I did not know how taxing that would be for all of you.” Iris held steady to the chain, showing a reserve of strength within her delicate frame that surprised him. “Any more questions?” he smiled at her.
Iris swallowed and shook her head slightly before releasing her hold on the chain and his hand. The energy flowing between them halted with a pang that urged Lorace to reach out and re-forge the connection.
“No, well yes,” she stammered, the porcelain of her cheeks flushing pink. “I want to understand everything about what
just happened, but first there is something I must tell you. There is one I called Master before I came here, a monster who wears your face.”
Lorace thought for a moment then nodded. “He calls himself the Devourer. I know of him, but I have never seen him clearly with my sight. I saw what he did to Queen Ivrane. I saw what he did to an entire town. To hear that he looks like me is disturbing, but I think I understand why that is.”
“He absorbs all life and magic,” she said in a lowered voice. “I am surprised you could see anything of him at all. Nothing affects him, not even my gift. He just keeps growing. It is his will to become a god, and somehow you scare him to his core. I do not believe anything like him has walked this world before.”
“Yes, he has, as a demon of Nefryt known as Tezzirax,” Lorace said. He went on to tell her of the demon who assaulted his childhood home and murdered his parents and teachers as he returned the chain to his satchel.
“The man we just aided is Sir Rindal. He was there at the last,” Lorace continued. “With his godstone sword he clove through the demon’s soul in an attempt to slay him permanently, but this freed his spirit which went here,” Lorace tapped his chest. “That memory was over twelve years ago, the last memory I have that was my own before I awoke on that beach. To protect my spirit, the Lady, Goddess of Destiny, sealed it away within the godstone that now makes up my chain. The Devourer looks like me because up until a few days ago he was me.”
Lorace watched the compassion in her wide green eyes grow. Compassion for a child who witnessed something no child should ever see. A compassion that turned into a deeper emotion as Lorace smiled at her.
Oen’s deep voice interrupted them, “You know, twelve is a very important number to the Old Gods.” The priest came up to stand beside Lorace. “There are twelve full moons to each year and for each moon, one of the twelve Old Gods holds sway over Vorallon.”
Lorace broke his gaze from Iris and turned to face the priest.
“I wager you were born during the first moon,” Oen said in a light manner, a smirk tweaking his lips. “During the winter—the Lady’s moon. Why, Lorace, you are going to have a birthday during the coming moon. You’ll be what, twenty-four?”
“I wager you have been talking with a certain priest of Lorn for far too long tonight,” Lorace said, admonishing the Guardian of Halversome with a wag of his finger.
“He is quite a wise and respectable man,” Oen said, his brows lowered in mock sincerity, “once we had him bathed and put into clean robes.” He said this last with a wink toward Iris.
Her face became a mask of dread as she looked down upon her soiled and burnt robes. Lorace grasped the play of her emotions and gave her a reassuring smile. The woman who stood filthy and unkempt was now appalled, where before such things had never mattered.
Oen gestured back the way he had come. “Captain Falraan was looking for you, dear lady. You will have to peel her away from that tall young man clinging to her, however.”
Iris looked at Tornin and her face clouded again. “I crafted that blade he bears. It is my will that brought Hurn here to betray this city to the Zuxrans.”
Lorace understood now why Iris tensed at sight of the Defender of the Youngest and he nodded. “Unfortunately I slayed Hurn before I had Sakke Vrang to purify him. Aran and Lorn both have blessed his blade to be my defender. Indeed, the amazing sword you crafted has changed allegiance to the light as well.”
While he spoke to her, Iris stared intently into his green eyes with the enormous green jewels of her own. An energy flowed between them that was not her gift at work, but something similar, something natural and far stronger. He lowered his eyes, breaking the ephemeral spell.
“Lorace?” she said reaching out to clutch his arm in a strong grip.
“I know,” he said to her as their eyes locked again. “I share what you are feeling, completely. I will answer all your questions when we see one another again.” Iris held his arm and his gaze for a moment longer before releasing him to go quickly to Falraan.
Captain Falraan removed herself from Tornin’s embrace as Iris approached, and stretched out a hand to take the smaller woman in tow toward her personal quarters in the great south tower.
“Did that just happen?” Oen asked dubiously, watching the two women depart.
“Yes, it did,” Lorace said with a nod, holding up the chain still coiled in his hand. “She did not use her gift on me. We are in love.”
“As quick as that?” the priest asked with a crooked smile.
“As though there were a silken thread on her fingertip,” Lorace said.
Oen coughed, trying to at least feign uncertainty before turning to poke curiously at the bloody hole in Lorace’s robes. “How are you, Lorace, aside from being in love and fairly blinding me with the beacon of your spirit? Are you hungry? There is food and a bed for you at the Temple of Aran.”
“I could eat,” Lorace admitted with a smile, “but I am not tired; the chain’s work out there tonight sustains me. There is much I need to do before those demons arrive. Lord Aran has given me much to think about as well.”
“You prayed again to Aran?” Oen asked as they found themselves mostly alone on the moonlit street, the few people still about were heading for their homes. “Do you want to talk about what he said?”
Lorace put a hand on Oen’s shoulder and smiled. “Lord Aran bears a single lock of silver hair that hangs upon his forehead does he not?”
“Yes, that is the aspect of him that all who have seen him in their prayers have shared,” Oen admitted with a smile. “He has appeared to you at last?”
“Oen, Lord Aran is my elder brother,” Lorace said to the priest. “My brother Jorune bore the same silver lock as a child. This night, when I prayed to him to heal my shoulder he appeared to me and spoke to me of my destiny, of his destiny, and that of my eldest brother, who I believe must be Lord Lorn. This is why the Old Gods brought my parents together; they bred them to birth the Lords of Balance. I was supposed to become the third Lord of Balance upon my twelfth birthday. That did not happen because of the attack by the demon Tezzirax.”
“Lorace? Never has Lord Aran mentioned a third Lord,” Oen said. His expressive face worked as he struggled to comprehend all that Lorace had just shared with him.
“He did not, could not, because while the Spirit of Tezzirax had hold over my body the third Lord could not exist,” Lorace said.
Oen took a step back and wiped a hand through the short gray hair on his scalp. “This is what Hethal was hinting of when he spoke to me of your coming birthday, the significance of twelve. It is the time of your ascendance. That is the destiny before you.”
“Did I hear my name called?” said Hethal, now bathed and wearing clean brown robes. He strode up to them with his brother Moyan at his side.
Oen shook his head with a smile at the lanky man. “I cannot deny that your name was mentioned in association with another shocking revelation. Remind me never to allow you and my brother to speak with one another.”
“I look forward to many conversations with the Truthseeker,” Hethal said earnestly. “But we must see victory tomorrow, first.”
Oen’s face lit up again at Hethal’s mention of the Truthseeker. Lorace shared in his joy; his brother Lehan was still alive somewhere in the world.
“I love her!” Tornin crowed to the night air from down the street, interrupting any further attempt at conversation between them. “And she loves me!” the young knight said as he fairly bounced up to them.
“We know,” Oen and Lorace said as one, clapping the young man on the back.
Oen spoke of the preparations the priests had been making since his arrival as they entered the towering temple and made their way to the priest’s common room. They dined on a simple, but filling stew of potatoes, turnips, and other tubers accompanied by chunks of tender lamb. Lorace ate with almost as much gusto as Tornin, filling a physical need that even his bursting spirit could not entirely soothe.
“Are you sure you must go?” Oen asked in a whisper. “Hethal told me of Sir Rindal’s plight, that you would go to his aid.”
“Yes, I just wanted to wait till he was sleeping before I left you both again,” Lorace said with a nod toward Tornin.
Oen walked over to a wardrobe and removed two white woolen priest robes and handed them both to Lorace. “For you and for the knight you go to rescue. Hethal told me he was near naked.”
Lorace smiled then removed his satchel and the torn and bloody robe he wore, once more revealing his heavily scared body to the eyes of the priest. “I still do not know what they are all from,” Lorace said, washing himself with a rough sea sponge from the stone water basin. “I suspect that the spirit of Tezzirax did this by design. I felt Sakke Vrang burn their corruption from me, but the scars still remain.”
“I am sorry,” Oen said. “I should not have been taken aback by them. It is not who you are now, nor who you were when I first saw them. They do give you the appearance of a battle hardened veteran though.”
Lorace laughed. “That is exactly who I am going to be after this coming day.”
Lorace continued washing himself in the basin of clean water, thankful for the warmth rising from Halversome’s stones. He wrapped the new robe about himself and drew it secure with a woolen sash. He laid the satchel strap across his shoulder once more, and stuffed the extra robe into it, adjusting the chain within so that it was on top and accessible.
Gifts of Vorallon: 02 - City of Thunder Page 9
