A Kingdom Rises

by J. D. Rinehart

Now it was transformed.

  Every breach in the castle’s red stone walls had been repaired with smooth patches of gold. In place of every fallen tower stood two new towers, also of gold. A new moat had been excavated; it seemed to be filled with a liquid that rippled with a life of its own. Like the new defenses that overlooked it, this liquid was the color of gold.

  Not gold . . . sand.

  The battlements of the resurrected castle were lined with soldiers. They wore flowing robes of many colors, some plain, some patterned. Some had pale skin, others dark, and some were the color of the gleaming sand.

  Gulph’s horse stirred restlessly. He patted its neck. Behind him, the Army of Survivors was silent.

  Sudden movement caught his attention. Soldiers edging round the castle’s northern tower? When he looked that way, he saw nothing, but the tower seemed strangely taller.

  Hypiro must be using the Sandspear, he thought. He remembered his mother’s words: Whoever wields the Sandspear has the power to create anything they want out of sand.

  “I do not like this,” murmured a voice in his ear. Gulph jumped, but it was only Captain Ariston. The Vicerin officer looked troubled. “Shall we advance?”

  Gulph gripped the reins, trying to think clearly over the thunder of his own heartbeat.

  “No,” he said. “Let them get a good look at us. The more we can hold their attention, the more time Tarlan and Elodie have to get into position.”

  “You speak sense, Your Highness,” rumbled The Hammer, riding up to join them. “Yet I care for this quiet no more than our Vicerin friend here.”

  “I am no Vicerin,” Ariston snapped. Gulph looked at him in surprise. Ariston shrugged. “I am a Toronian.”

  Time dragged on. The sun, sinking slowly into the west, fired its rays straight into their faces, glaring between the castle’s turrets and making the enemy soldiers crowding its battlements hard to see. All was still, and yet Gulph couldn’t help feeling there was movement happening everywhere, always just out of sight.

  The Army of Survivors began to grow restless. Muttered conversations broke out. Neatly formed columns started to break up. Metal blades clattered nervously.

  Still the Galadronians didn’t respond.

  “Does our army look so feeble to them?” growled The Hammer. “Do they think us beneath them? I say let them come! Let them see what we are made of!”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” said Gulph. “I think they’re trying to intimidate us. Make us feel uneasy.”

  “It seems to be working,” remarked Ariston, regarding the concerned faces of the soldiers.

  “Well, I won’t let it.” Gulph took up his reins. “Very well, then. If they won’t come to us—I will take the fight to them.”

  Digging in his heels, he spurred his horse forward.

  “No, lad!” roared The Hammer. “There is great danger here!”

  “Of course there is! That’s why we came!”

  “Then at least let me come with you!”

  “No!” Gulph called over his shoulder. “Stay here! Hold the line and wait for my signal! I have to do this alone!”

  “I will come with you!”

  Gulph wheeled his horse around. Much as he admired the big man’s bravery, he knew what he had to do. “I am your king,” he told The Hammer, “and I say you will not!”

  The Hammer stared at Gulph with his jaw gaping wide. He seemed about to protest, then thought better of it.

  “Yes, Your Highness. As you command.”

  Gulph spurred his horse into a gallop. Warm air smacked his face.

  I must be crazy!

  He stopped on the bank of the newly created moat. As he’d suspected, the liquid that filled the trench wasn’t liquid at all—it was a churning, spitting cauldron of sand. From the top of the looming castle wall stared down the faces of the Galadronians. At least half of them possessed the strange golden sheen he’d seen from a distance, and he wondered if Hypiro had conjured them like she had sections of the castle.

  Gulph scanned the rows of soldiers. “I come in the name of Toronia!” he shouted. “I wish to speak with your leader, the Witch-Empress Hypiro!”

  Something whistled through the air barely an arm’s length from his head. There was a loud thunk behind him. He glanced back to see a metal bolt from a side bow buried in the grass. His nerves screamed, his heart pounded. He had to muster all his courage just to stay in the saddle.

  I won’t let them see how afraid I am.

  An odd-looking shadow was descending the castle wall. Gulph blinked—had someone dropped something from the battlements? Then he saw it wasn’t a shadow at all. It was a doorway.

  The doorway—a vertical black oblong—continued to slide down the wall until it was at the height of a second-floor window. There it stopped. Around the edges of the slot, the sand from which this part of the wall was made flexed for a moment, then became solid.

  Gulph held his breath.

  Something emerged from the wall immediately below the doorway: a finger of sand that seemed to grow out of nothing. It extended halfway across the moat before stopping. The end swelled and flattened, became a circular platform. All the while this was happening, a dusting of sand rained down from the underside of the structure to be greedily sucked down by golden tendrils reaching up from the moat.

  A woman walked out of the doorway and crossed the curious half bridge. Hairless, she was almost a giant—to Gulph’s eyes, she looked at least a head taller than The Hammer. Her face was broad, smooth, and deeply tanned. It was impossible to tell how old she was. Her flexible white armor seemed to follow her every movement.

  On her right arm she carried a round shield emblazoned with a symbol that might have been a lightning bolt, or perhaps a striking snake.

  In her left hand she carried a long golden javelin that blazed as if it were filled with fire.

  The Sandspear!

  “This is Hypiro!” she called. Her voice was deep and melodic. “She who is named the Scourge of the Desert. She who is named the Light of Galadron. She who is named Witch-Empress. Who dares to come to her door? Who dares to call her name? Speak!”

  It was the very same woman he’d seen in his vision, and then in Kalia’s bubble of magic. Yet seeing her in the flesh was entirely different.

  It was terrifying.

  Gulph tried in vain to sit up straight, acutely aware of how bent his skinny body must look under the weight of his armor. Then he scolded himself for thinking that way.

  I don’t need to be scared. I have more right to be here than she does!

  “My name is Gulph!” he shouted. “If it’s fancy names you like, I suppose you could call me One of Three, or King of the Prophecy, or Child of the Stars. But all that really matters is the message I bring.”

  “Speak your message.”

  “Toronia is not yours to take!”

  He’d expected Hypiro to sneer at this, perhaps even laugh. But the giant warrior-woman showed no sign of emotion.

  “What you say is of no consequence. Hypiro has taken the realm of Ritherlee. Her army is rested. Her defenses are reinforced. The remaining realms of Toronia will fall in their turn. It is inevitable.”

  Hypiro turned smoothly away and set off back toward the doorway she’d somehow conjured in the castle’s sand-built wall.

  “You’re sure of that, are you?” Gulph yelled at her retreating back. “You’re sure that every village in Ritherlee is under your control? Every tree in Isur? And you haven’t even been near Idilliam yet.”

  The Witch-Empress waved a dismissive hand. “Hypiro will take Toronia. This is what she will do. This is how it will be.”

  “Not as long as we’re alive!”

  Hypiro had reached the doorway. Here she paused.

  “We?” she said.

  “My brother, my sister, and me! We are the Prophecy Triplets, and this is our kingdom. If you want to take Toronia, you’ll have to take us first.”

  Still Hypiro’s expression didn’
t change. Gulph thumped the horn of his saddle in frustration. Was there nothing he could say to draw out the Galadronian army?

  “The prophecy you speak of is a children’s tale,” the Witch-Empress said. “That Toronia’s citizens cling to it is a sign of how barbaric this kingdom has become. Hypiro will be glad to rid Toronia of this superstition.”

  Again she turned away. Desperate now, Gulph did the only thing he could think of.

  Bunching his fists, he thrust his thoughts across the moat on a wave of dry, pulsing heat. Even before his physical body had time to blink, his disembodied consciousness had plunged into the retreating mind of the Witch-Empress Hypiro. At once, he was swallowed by . . .

  . . . the roar of the triumphant crowds, the riot of bright flags and banners as the Galadronian army sweeps into Idilliam, everywhere a sea of color and chaotic rejoicing. Riding high on a golden platform, overseeing the victory, is Hypiro herself, directing her troops to cut down the last defensive line of the pitiful Toronian army. And there, on three wooden scaffolds, hang the bloodied bodies of three children with red-gold hair, hunted down and murdered by Hypiro’s own assassins before being displayed for all to see. Even now, her slaves are stacking firewood beneath their mutilated corpses, ready to burn . . .

  . . . silencing a scream, Gulph reminded himself that none of this had happened yet. He also remembered that he couldn’t control Hypiro’s actions.

  But maybe I can change what she thinks. Better still, what she fears.

  No sooner had he thought this than he was . . .

  . . . rising up from the wreckage of Idilliam, an army of brave and powerful warriors with the strength to drive back the invaders. Shrunken in defeat, the once-mighty Witch-Empress turns on her heels and flees back to her ships, back to Galadron, defeated at last and resigned to the knowledge that there, in the heart of Toronia, the triplets sit in triumph on their three thrones . . .

  . . . and as Gulph broke free and returned to his own body, the triumph came with him, filling him up from the heels of his boots to the crown of his head. At the same instant, Hypiro’s tanned face darkened with the unmistakable shadow of pure rage. Waving the Sandspear furiously above her head, she vanished into the doorway, which immediately collapsed as sand from the surrounding wall poured into the space where it had been and froze in place.

  It worked—I made her angry! thought Gulph in satisfaction as he galloped back to where The Hammer and Ariston were waiting. Now let’s see what she does.

  Just as Gulph reached the front line of his army, horns began sounding from the towers of what had once been Castle Vicerin. All along the battlements the Galadronian soldiers were swarming like ants.

  It’s the whole castle that’s swarming!

  Gulph watched, stupefied, as the sand-covered walls of the castle peeled apart. This time it wasn’t just doorways that were appearing—it was gateways. Three, four, five enormous mouths opened up, spitting out tongues of sand that extended all the way across the moat to meet the field beyond. Pouring out of the newly formed gates, racing across the waiting drawbridges, came hundreds of enemy warriors.

  There was no time to think.

  “Attack!” roared Gulph. “Attack!”

  At once The Hammer drove his horse along the front line, breaking several battalions away in an effort to flank the Galadronians even as they made their first charge. At the same time, Captain Ariston directed another smaller force to come round at them from the opposite direction.

  Gulph led the main body of the army out to meet the enemy head-on, urging his horse on as the gap closed between them and the oncoming Galadronians. At the last moment, he pulled up short and shouted the command he’d been drilling into his soldiers all the way here:

  “Lances!”

  Responding immediately, the front line of the Army of Survivors dropped to their knees and planted the blunt ends of their spears into the ground, creating a row of lethal points angled upward to meet the enemy advance. It was a simple strategy—one that should have seen at least half the Galadronians taken by surprise and impaled.

  Instead, it was Gulph who was surprised.

  The instant the Galadronians made contact with the spears, their bodies turned to sand. Gold mist exploded through the ranks of Gulph’s army. On every side, men and women fell to the ground choking and clawing at their eyes. Many flailed uselessly with their swords, and Gulph could only look on in horror as several of his troops fell under the blows of their own comrades.

  “Second line!” he yelled. “Second line!”

  But the next row of soldiers was already in disarray. Out of the swirling cloud of sand came squads of regular Galadronian troops, swinging their curved swords with cruel accuracy.

  One Galadronian—a sand-colored man dressed all in purple—made straight for Gulph. Gulph parried his first two blows, feeling the impacts judder all the way up his arm. As the man struck out for the third time, Gulph slipped his feet from the stirrups and jumped nimbly up to stand on the saddle. The enemy’s weapon came round; Gulph jumped over the blade and stabbed his own sword down into the Galadronian’s chest. Even before the man had hit the ground, Gulph was back in the saddle and riding into the heart of the action.

  Two more Galadronians came at him. Fighting fiercely, he beat them both back. All around him the battle raged, the sight and sounds of it filling up his senses: the thunder of horses’ hooves; the bellows and screams of the soldiers; the rising dust and swirling sand. Cutting through the chaos was the sharp orange light of the setting sun.

  “Onward!” roared The Hammer, wielding his hammer like a club and smashing his way through the Galadronian ranks. The pincer movement had found little success, so now that the two armies had met, there was nothing left but to slug it out, hand to hand. And, as they’d always known they would be, the Army of Survivors were hopelessly outnumbered.

  Gulph brought his sword down on another Galadronian head. As the enemy soldier collapsed to the ground, three more gateways opened in the castle walls, spilling yet more soldiers onto the battlefield. Many of them were riding on wheeled machines that looked as if they were built entirely from spinning blades and spitting fire. Gulph had never seen anything like them.

  We won’t last long like this! He raised his sword against another attack. Tarlan, Elodie—where are you?

  CHAPTER 19

  Curse these trees! We’ll never reach them in time!”

  Tarlan thumped the air in frustration. From his vantage point high in the sky, he could only watch helplessly as the Galadronians surrounded Gulph’s pitifully small army. The mixed troops of Vicerins, Darrands, and Deep Poynters fought bravely, but little by little they were drowning in the rising tide of the enemy forces.

  Theeta circled back over the woodland. Looking straight down through the canopy of trees, Tarlan could just make out his pack as they struggled in vain to push their way through the unusually thorny undergrowth. Brock led the charge, swiping whole trees aside with his massive paws.

  “I thought we’d get through more quickly,” groaned Tarlan. “Well done, Brock—we’re relying on you.”

  “Fire claws!” cawed Theeta suddenly.

  Puzzled, Tarlan looked at the battlefield again. Rolling through the middle of the Galadronian ranks were war machines similar to those he’d seen at the fishing village where the invaders had first made landfall. These machines were bigger, and moved so fast that all he saw was a frenzy of spinning blades, most of which seemed to be covered in flames—the “fire claws” Theeta had done her best to describe.

  Wherever the machines drove into the ranks of Gulph’s army, soldiers fell instantly and began to burn.

  “Tarlan!”

  It was Melchior, shouting up from the woodland below. Tarlan guided Theeta down to the tiny clearing where the wizard was waiting beside a large earthy mound.

  “How is Gulph doing?” the wizard demanded as the thorrod landed.

  “Badly. Melchior, we’ve got to—”

  �
��Theeta! A feather, if you please.”

  She looked round at Tarlan and blinked.

  “Do it, Theeta! Whatever he says!”

  Lowering her huge head, Theeta allowed Melchior to pluck a single golden feather from the ruff around her neck. Tarlan watched bemused as the wizard held the feather up before his eyes and ran the end of his staff along its length.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am counting the strands.”

  “What good will that . . . ?”

  A large tree exploded into splinters and Brock burst into the clearing, followed closely by Greythorn and Filos. Behind them, Tarlan could just make out the enormous shadowy mass of the rest of his pack, slowly forcing their way through the thorn trees.

  From the opposite direction, he could hear the shouts and screams from the battlefield. So close, thought Tarlan, but so far. Hold on, Gulph! Just hold on!

  “Melchior! We have to keep moving!”

  “Seven hundred and thirty-eight!” the wizard announced. He planted the feather in the top of the mound of earth. “Tarlan—I need ants!”

  “What? I don’t understand!”

  “One strand for every ant. One ant for every tree. Do you see?”

  Tarlan suddenly realized the mound was an anthill. But why . . . ?

  Don’t argue! Just do it!

  Pushing back the sounds of the battle, ignoring the struggles of his pack to force their way through the trees, he thrust his thoughts deep inside the mound.

  The ants’ nest was full of tiny, buzzing minds—tens of thousands of them. Tarlan squirmed his way to the middle of the seething mass of insects and roared out a pure, simple thought:

  One ant! One strand!

  He flew backward out of the nest and watched in amazement as hundreds of black insects boiled from the top of the anthill. It looked like a volcanic eruption. They swarmed up the thorrod feather and began snipping through the individual golden strands.

  In the forest before them, trees began to topple.

  They fell so quickly that Tarlan barely had time to register what was happening. Every time an ant cut through a strand and carried it away, another thorn tree collapsed sideways. As each tree fell, a fresh beam of sunset light pierced the woodland. Soon there was only a single line of trees standing between them and the battlefield. As the ants stripped away the last few strands, this final barrier disappeared and the way ahead was clear.