The Lore Of The Evermen (Book 4)

by James Maxwell

  “Well met,” Miro said. “You survived.”

  “Lord of the Sky, I don’t know how.”

  “Come, I’ll take you back to the encampment. We think they’re going to commence their landing tomorrow.”

  “I tried, High Lord, but I couldn’t see any ship being specially guarded,” the bladesinger said. “If Sentar has essence aboard one of his ships, he isn’t doing much to protect it. He sacrificed his own to destroy us. We took his flagship, and he simply moved to another.”

  The smoke from the burning city rolled over the killing ground as Miro took the bladesinger in a wide circle, skirting the red flags and leading him past the thick wall. The smoke-red eyes of the defenders followed them as they headed deeper into the encampment.

  “Commodore Deniz?” Miro asked, holding his breath.

  “Fallen,” the bladesinger said. “I watched the fight through a seeing device. Deniz killed one of the commanders, a man whose flag was red with blue crossed swords, but fell himself, along with Bladesinger Willem.”

  Miro remembered Deniz describing Farix, the pirate king of Torian. The captured necromancer said there were two more of these so-called kings. Miro knew Deniz was a skilled swordsman, yet Farix had bested a bladesinger as well as Deniz.

  “Here,” Miro said. “Rest. Then go to High Lord Tiesto Telmarran. He will have orders for you.”

  Even as Miro mourned the loss of Deniz and the Veldrin and Buchalanti sailors, his mind turned to the coming struggle. Soon his men’s courage would be sorely tested as they watched their friends killed and fought enemies who refused to die.

  This was the worst time: the waiting. Miro knew that the longer he could hold, the more time there would be for help to arrive from the other houses.

  Yet every day bought from now on would be a day bought with blood.

  Miro and Beorn pored over a map of the rugged coastline as they waited to hear from Tiesto.

  “They’re not stupid,” Beorn said. “They’ll make landing either here”—he pointed at a place on the map east of Castlemere—“or here.” He marked another place west of Schalberg, between the two cities. “My gilden’s on the latter. Better beaches, shallower water.”

  “Do you think they’ll have landing boats?”

  “Who can say?” Beorn shrugged. “We’ve never fought a foe like this before. If we were fighting regular soldiers, of course I would say yes, but revenants?”

  Miro voiced the one concern he didn’t have a strategy for. “What are we going to do about Sentar Scythran?”

  “I’ve told the men to concentrate their ranged fire on him, to try to weaken him. You never know; a lucky shot might get through.”

  Miro snorted.

  “We’ll have to put our trust in the Lord of the Sky,” Beorn said.

  “Are you saying we have to have faith, or do we hope Evrin Evenstar has something planned?”

  “Both.” Beorn grinned.

  “High Lord?”

  Miro and Beorn looked up as one of Miro’s palace guards entered the command tent, a civilian at his side.

  “What is it?” Miro asked.

  “High Lord, this man comes from Sarostar. I think you should hear what he has to say.”

  Miro saw a solid man with thin hair combed over a bald pate.

  “High Lord,” the newcomer said gruffly, “I come from Bladesinger Bartolo.”

  Miro’s eyes shot up. “Bartolo? Where is he? Dorian’s also missing. Where are they?”

  “There . . . there’s been treachery. Some men tried to prevent our signal getting through to the lands in the east.”

  Beorn cursed.

  “What? Tell me what happened?” Miro demanded.

  “Some Tingarans swapped the real prism for a false one.”

  “Jehral,” Beorn said. “He said he fought some Tingarans near the river. Now we know what they were doing there.”

  “Treachery,” Miro spat. “I didn’t even think of it.” He pounded a clenched fist into his palm.

  “Don’t blame yourself—none of us could have known.”

  “But we could have guarded the towers.”

  “Guarded every single one of them?” Beorn snorted.

  “High Lord,” the bald man said, “Bladesinger Bartolo, he got it back up. The call went out. He went to check on the station at Wondhip Pass, and he sent me here.”

  “Scratch it,” Beorn muttered. “All this time, wasted.”

  Miro sighed. He didn’t have support from the Louans, from the Veznans, from the Petryans, Hazarans, Toraks, or Tingarans. The Buchalanti had done their part, and the Veldrins; now it was left to Altura and Halaran to hold back the tide alone.

  “High Lord, may I fight?” the bald man said.

  Miro tried to smile. “We won’t turn you down. What’s your name?”

  “Fergus.”

  “Fergus,” Miro said; the name was familiar. “Go and find a sergeant: one of the officers with a double-striped raj hada. Tell him to give you weapons and armor. Good to have you.”

  “Thank you, High Lord.”

  Fergus departed, but he’d only been gone a moment when High Lord Tiesto of Halaran entered.

  “Miro, our scouts have been watching from the coast, and the dirigible pilot confirmed it. They’re going to commence landing at dawn.”

  “Where?” Beorn asked.

  “The beaches west of Schalberg,” Tiesto said, coming forward to point at the place on the map Beorn had previously marked. “These defenses aren’t exactly hidden. They’ll make their landing far from here.”

  Miro’s gaze returned to the map. If he could hold them at the beaches, they might still emerge relatively unscathed.

  “Is there anything you need?” Miro asked Tiesto.

  “Are you still going to be in the sky? I won’t have your vantage, and once the battle starts . . .”

  Miro nodded. “I’ll be up in the dirigible. We’ll coordinate, and I’ll signal you if need be.”

  “I don’t know how you can stand being up in that thing,” Beorn said.

  “I’d rather be up there than down here wondering what’s going on,” Miro said.

  “Don’t worry, Miro,” Tiesto said. “If I can, I’ll stop them.”

  Miro was pensive for a moment. “All right,” he finally said. “We all know the plan. Tiesto, you have the command. Stop as many as you can on the beaches. Be ready to fall back to our strength here. We’ll be ready for you.”

  “I’ll leave now,” Tiesto said.

  “Good luck,” Miro said.

  “And you.”

  29

  Ella waited with the forward guard as the rising sun revealed an empty beach. The only sounds were the crashing of waves and cries of gulls. Nervous, she dug her nails into her palms as she waited.

  And then the sea was empty no more.

  Ella felt a shiver of fear, her heart racing as tiny sails filled the horizon. The surviving ships of the enemy fleet faced no opposition as they carefully approached their chosen landing site; there was nothing any of the waiting defenders on the beach could do about it.

  “Could at least be foul weather,” Ella muttered.

  “If you want me to respond, you should talk so I can hear you,” Layla said.

  Crouched beside Ella, the small Dunfolk healer was a comforting presence. Ella had chosen to wait with Layla rather than with Tiesto, who at any rate was preoccupied with his animators and constructs.

  Layla scowled at Ella, her ruddy features crinkling. “Well? Are you in the habit of talking to yourself?”

  “I said the weather is beautiful,” Ella said. “I wish it wasn’t. It’ll make their landing easier.”

  “Clear skies help us see too,” Layla said. “Would you rather it was raining and foggy, so you couldn’t tell which of the men in front of you was a foe or a friend?”

  Ella smiled. “You’re right. Lord of the Sky, I’m scared.”

  Layla put her arm around Ella and squeezed her, the grip surprisingly
firm. “I will always be with you,” she said.

  Ella let out a breath as she watched the ships grow larger in her vision, creeping inevitably closer to the coast. She could understand how Miro must feel; was any amount of preparation enough to face this? It felt like a doomed effort from the start, and they had yet to face Sentar himself.

  A big warship, the foremost vessel at the point of a wedge of cruisers and motley barges, grew ever larger, and Ella fought to control her fear. She tried to tell herself she’d fought terrible enemies before.

  “Remember, the plan is to wait until the landing begins in earnest, and to engage the enemy as they move through the water. We want to hold a line about knee deep. The drag of the water on the enemy should help us. We need our archers to pin them back while our swordsmen take their heads. Archers should concentrate their fire on the necromancers above all. We must stop as many in the water as we can.”

  “Ella,” Layla said. “I know.”

  Ella realized she was speaking to hide her terror. The closest ship was still out in deep water, but Ella could now see a golden pennant flown next to a white flag that snapped in the wind. She saw a black design on the white flag that could have been a withered tree. It was the symbol of the Akari, but they’d inherited it in turn from the Lord of the Night.

  Ella tore her gaze from the warship and then gasped.

  A single, solitary figure stood at the water’s edge.

  Ella could swear he hadn’t been there before. The man stood as if waiting and wore a sky-blue robe, belted at the waist with a golden cord.

  Ella recognized the white hair and slightly stooped shoulders that were now, somehow, regal.

  Evrin Evenstar stood alone to greet the enemy.

  The advancing ships held off in the deep water, still several hundred paces from shore. It was as if time had stopped.

  Ella held her breath.

  Evrin’s hands began to move.

  Sparkles of light colored the air in front of him, twisting rainbows curling in among each other and threading together to form a startling platform. Evrin’s hands shifted in the air; Ella guessed he must be holding a scrill, but if so, she couldn’t see it. The trails of golden light whirled together, and Evrin took a step up. His hands moved faster now, faster than Ella thought possible, and Evrin took a second step forward, and then a third.

  Evrin’s voice couldn’t be heard, as far away as Ella was, but she knew he must be chanting, calling on each rune as he trailed essence into the very air, connecting the new to the old.

  Evrin built a glowing stairway, taking one step after another as he ascended. His creation took him past the shallows, then further still, to where the dark water met the light, and still he kept moving. He now stood high above the deep sea, and still he kept building, higher and higher, further out into the sea, as if trying to connect the white sand of the beach to the line of enemy vessels.

  Evrin’s stairway continued past the dark water and farther, to where the deep blue turned to black. He was now at an incredible height, and he stopped, looking down at the ships below while the whole world waited.

  Ella tried to stand, but Layla clutched her arm, pulling her back down. “He has a plan,” Layla said. “You are not part of it.”

  Evrin raised his arms to the sky as the watchers on the ridge looked on with mouths gaping wide.

  Evrin called in a voice like a howl, and the thunder of his speech was easily audible to all below. It was a mighty, primal sound, a cry of rage, a bellow of pain, a summons.

  “Sentar!” Evrin roared.

  Ella clenched her fists, her knuckles white, as she caught movement from the ship with the golden pennant.

  Ella watched as a figure in black rose into the air.

  She’d heard so much about him, but it was the first time Ella had seen Sentar Scythran, the Lord of the Night, in the flesh.

  Ella’s gaze took in a man with red hair like Killian’s, though Sentar’s shade was deeper, the color of blood. The two men were too far away for Ella to see much more.

  But as she watched Sentar floating easily in front of Evrin Evenstar, the difference in their abilities was driven home with sudden force.

  Ella felt something terrible was about to happen.

  Evrin gazed at the face in front of him. How long had it been since he’d last seen this face? How many centuries had passed since he’d banished Sentar Scythran, Varian Vitrix, Pyrax Pohlen, and the rest of his brothers to the world they’d opened up with blood?

  As high as he was, wind buffeted him, curling his robe around his body. Evrin stood with his legs spread and resisted the urge to look down into the deep water. In his right hand he held a golden scrill, a metal rod as long as his hand. His left hand was empty.

  “Lord of the Sky,” Sentar said, his lip curled in a sneer. “Human lover.”

  “Sentar, you killed the woman I loved, and you took away what I was. Still, we are brothers. End this madness. Learn to live with the humans.”

  “Live with the humans?” Sentar said. He tilted his head back as he laughed. “We’re gods, Evrin Evenstar! We’re as far beyond them as stars from insects. They swarm, they irritate, but we shine. We burn with power. Can you not feel the power, surging within you, filling your limbs with vigor? Oh,” Sentar smiled, “I’m sorry, I just remembered. You cannot.”

  “They are too powerful for you now,” Evrin said. “They’ve outgrown us.”

  Sentar looked back over his shoulder, down at the multitude of ships below. “The living will never defeat the dead. Every human I destroy feeds my war machine. Once I gain a foothold on this Empire, they will never turn me back. It will only end when I have resumed my rightful place. For humans, there is only death.”

  “A plague,” Evrin said. “You and yours are a plague and nothing more. I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

  “Finally getting some courage, Lord of the Sky?”

  “I sent you and the others to exile out of compassion, not out of any lack of courage on my part.”

  “You sent us to a nightmare world, to a fate worse than death.”

  “It was a world you found for yourselves. You deserved your fate.”

  “If you only knew, Skylord,” Sentar spat. “If I had the power, I would revisit every moment of our brothers’ suffering onto you.”

  “At least you finally acknowledge you aren’t all powerful.” Evrin smiled.

  As Sentar opened his hands, Evrin spoke a series of swift words, and his robe shifted in nature. The pale blue developed a pattern, a mottling like the skin of a lizard as interlocking scales shifted up and down, coating Evrin’s body and limbs, rising up Evrin’s chin and covering his head.

  A jagged bolt of black lightning shot from each of Sentar’s hands, but splashed off Evrin’s scaled armor. Sentar frowned and called on more of his power; each hand now projected two streams of dark fire, then three.

  Evrin’s armor began to smoke, but he chanted continuously, adding more scales to replace those that fell away. He pointed his empty left hand at Sentar and added two sequences to his chants, blending more inflections into his steady stream of activation runes.

  A silver and gold bracelet appeared on his left wrist and a matching ring came into being on his index finger. The bracelet and ring flared brightly and a bolt of blue energy shot forward, followed by a second, and then a third. Sentar raised one of his palms in a warding motion and a field of solid air flattened in front of him, Evrin’s beams diffusing across the field’s surface.

  Sentar’s other hand continued with the stream of crackling fire, and Evrin called on more scales to replace those that now fell in a steady stream to the ocean below. He knew his robe wouldn’t last long.

  Evrin expended the energy of the twin devices on his left hand at a prodigious rate. He could see Sentar’s protective field fading, and he increased the power of the bolts of blue energy to the limit.

  Evrin felt heat touch his skin.

  “Give . . . up
. . . old man,” Sentar said through gritted teeth.

  Evrin’s robe began to smoke and smolder. The skin at his chest, closest to the twisted streams of black lightning, began to sting, and now no more scales replaced those that fell into the water, striking the surface with a hiss.

  “Last . . . chance . . .” Evrin gasped.

  The blue robe caught fire. Evrin screamed in pain, and with the cry of agony he choked. His voice ceased chanting, and the robe began to disintegrate.

  Evrin looked at the golden scrill in his right hand.

  Everything until now had been a distraction.

  “Finistratas,” Evrin gasped the single word.

  The scrill became a handle, and a long line of flickering blue fire, a strand of shining silver, now dripped from its tip, reaching down to the water below. Evrin lifted the handle and jerked his arm backward and then down. The blue line curled through the air, reaching around behind Sentar Scythran. The silver strand curled around Sentar’s waist.

  “Almothar,” Evrin intoned.

  The scrill fused to Evrin’s hand. He could never let it go.

  “Neveran.”

  Evrin’s robe took on sudden weight; it was now as heavy as a mountain. Sentar’s expression registered shock, and the onslaught of black lightning became stronger. Evrin’s hair burst into flame.

  Fighting the pain with all his strength, Evrin could only breathe the last of the activations sequences.

  “Endara.”

  The golden stairway of ethereal light disappeared, vanishing as if it had never been.

  Evrin plummeted, weighed down by his dragging robe, and in his right hand the golden scrill could never be released.

  He’d built the device to do one thing, and one thing only. Evrin had built the coil of silver to grab hold of Sentar Scythran and never let go.

  Sentar screamed as the two men fell through the air, writhing and kicking, with limbs flailing in all directions. Evrin hit the water first and Sentar a heartbeat later; immediately they sank.