War of the Raven Queen: The Goddess Prophecies Fantasy Series Book 6

by Araya Evermore

  Ehka landed on the bannister as Issa took the first creaking step up to the front door. Maggot hid behind her knees. She paused and swallowed. What if her father wasn’t there? What if it wasn’t him? What if he was dead? It was all too much. She suddenly wondered if she could bring herself to knock on the door at all.

  The decision was made for her. The door flew open and magic in the form of luminous yellow-green energy exploded out. Issa barely had time to duck as it whizzed past her crackling. Maggot vanished into the shadows and Ehka squawked into the air.

  ‘Wait! I mean no harm,’ said Issa, flattening herself on the stairs. ‘Are you Thanon Bard?’

  ‘Who’s there? What do you want?’ a male voice rasped.

  Issa lifted her head and dared to peer over the top step. Stood in the doorway was a thin, stooped old man whose grey, tattered shirt hung off his bony shoulders. His grey and white beard was poorly cut, and his grey hair hung limply to his shoulders. Around his eyes a rag of cloth was tied. He couldn’t actually see her, she realised. Was this frail old man her father? He was surely far too old. She struggled to find the words.

  ‘I’m your… I’m a friend,’ Issa forced the words out.

  ‘You don’t sound or smell Saurian and there are no friends round here,’ the man said. He reached behind the door and pulled out a sword.

  ‘I came from the Saurians,’ Issa said, daring to stand up. ‘Please, put away your sword. I—’

  Ehka cawed loudly then flew to the man’s feet where he continued to caw.

  ‘A raven?’ whispered the man. He bent down and reached a searching hand towards the bird. When he touched Ehka, he paused and inhaled sharply as something passed between them. His mouth opened, and his face contorted, then he sunk to the floor, his shoulders shaking.

  Issa ran to him. ‘What is it? What’s wrong? I can help you. I have some healing ability.’

  The man reached up to her with gnarled, calloused hands, feeling her arms then her shoulders, chin and up to her cheeks where he rested them gently.

  ‘Can it really be so? Is it really you? Our little Issalena?’

  Issa began to cry.

  All the past terrible months and years came crashing down upon her as they embraced. Issa lost herself in a sea of emotions. Nothing was said, not even when the tears had dried and the shaking had subsided.

  When they finally drew apart, Issa looked at the old man who was her father, old before his time. The faded green swirls of the bardic tattoos on his tanned skin reached up beneath the worn collars and cuffs of his clothes.

  ‘What happened to your eyes?’ Issa asked gently, holding his arms, not wanting to let him go.

  After a long moment he said, ‘You’d better come inside.’

  Warmth from a small log fire engulfed her as she stepped inside the house that was little more than a hovel. The heat drove back the damp of the swamp, and behind the glass of the log burner she could see clumps of peat burning.

  There was one tiny stove and oven, a single bed pallet, one chair with an old cushion, and a table made out of a thick tree stump. Using his hands to feel everything he did, Thanon hooked back the curtain covering one of the two windows and the fading light of day filtered in. He poked a stick into the fire until it was alight and then lit a couple of candles. Soon the place was glowing and almost homely. He clearly didn’t need candles to see, so perhaps he did it for her benefit and perhaps for the extra warmth they provided.

  Without saying anything he passed to her a misshapen, firm peach-coloured fruit and set about pouring some small round vegetables and water into a pan. Issa was bursting with questions, but she sensed he needed to take his time. A thick cloak of sadness draped around his shoulders, and her presence had helped lift it, if only momentarily.

  ‘What is it?’ Issa asked, sitting down on the only chair. ‘The fruit, that is.’ She added hastily, remembering he couldn’t see what she held up.

  ‘It’s a swamp apple. I’ve come to prefer them to the others, thankfully. It is possible to survive in the swamps, but the food is the same every day. There is little variety, and I can no longer catch fish or the unfortunate croc.’

  Issa’s stomach rumbled, and she bit into the hard fruit. A burst of tart and sweet hit her tongue and she devoured it, setting the core aside. Ehka jumped onto the table and pecked at it.

  Issa shook her head. ‘I’ve so many questions, so many years have passed… When the Dread Dragons came… When Fraya told me she wasn’t my real mother… The raven came too. Uh, I don’t know where to begin.’ She stopped suddenly as overwhelming memories threatened to make her cry again.

  Silently, Thanon reached over, found her hand, and squeezed it. Tears slipped down Issa’s face, so much time had been lost.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Alive, but nothing more. Now you’re here I…I can believe again, I can love, again. But anyway, the most important thing you want to know is where is Eritara. Where is your mother?’

  ‘Yes,’ Issa said in barely a whisper. ‘Why isn’t she here? Why are you living out here in this bleak and defenceless place so far from people who can help you?’

  Leaving the pan to slow boil, her father let out a long sigh and sat down on the edge of the bed. He was about to speak then instead reached under the bed and pulled out a long covered object with a bulbous end. He rested it lengthways on his knees and pushed back the old cloth. Underneath was a beautiful lap harp, its smooth polished wood gleaming happily in the firelight. Issa was reminded that before her sat a Master Musician, and she longed to hear his music.

  Lost in thought, Thanon stroked the wood, his hands seeing what his eyes could not. ‘There’s too much to tell, too much to explain. I’ve not played or sung since the day it happened, Eritara. Since the day you were lost to me.’

  Issa leaned forwards, butterflies in her stomach. ‘Tell me,’ she breathed. ‘I must know, no matter how bad.’

  Thanon gripped the harp, his mind made up, and began to play with a sudden firm hand. Rich notes flooded into the cabin, immediately capturing Issa’s attention and soothing the butterflies in her stomach.

  The music was neither happy nor sad but carried within its notes a story. She leaned back and let the music flow into her and carry her with it. Ehka settled down and ruffled his feathers, dozing.

  Issa felt herself drifting too, but not to sleep. Her father’s playing was seamless, beautiful, a part of his being expressed. Mesmerised by his strumming fingers, she didn’t even notice he had begun to sing until his voice rose a little higher. As he sung his words created pictures in her mind so that she didn’t so as much hear his words as see the pictures in her mind his music was making.

  Entranced, she saw her mother, Eritara, just as Sheyengetha had shown her with her sea-green eyes and long, dark-brown hair. She was smiling, and her father took her hand. Around them clustered Saurians, and before them Hallanstaryx the white snake. There was joy in the air.

  The images changed, her mother’s belly swelled.

  ‘Another child?’ Issa’s eyes widened. I have a brother or sister?

  ‘It was a miracle, after all that had happened,’ said Thanon without pausing the notes. ‘But one day, years later, we were expecting another child. However, it seems a happy life was never meant for us.’ His voice trailed off into a whisper and his music turned dark and turbulent.

  In her mind, harpies filled the skies, thousands of them, and peaceful Hallanstaryx descended into chaos. The music moved faster, and the images of a bloody, violent battle whizzed past as if Thanon didn’t want to linger on the details. Bloodied grass…Weapons and bodies—both Saurian and harpy…Screams, howls, screeches, and the clash of weapons and magic assaulted her senses. She captured glimpses, nothing more.

  Thanon, then a younger, fitter man, fought harpies, his sword swinging, bardic tattoos glowing. Behind him stood her mother, her hands raised commanding the Flow. For the speed at which the images moved, the battle lasted a long time.

 
The music calmed, becoming low and sorrowful. The images turned blurry and dull and then empty. Thanon ceased singing, letting the harp carry them gently in the aftermath.

  ‘The demon who helped us through the demon tunnels betrayed us to the harpies who hunted us the other side of the yew. Together, they made a bargain.’ Images formed in her mind again as Thanon narrated.

  ‘The harpies only wanted us, they had no interest in the Saurians. Many died because of us being amongst them. So we ran, hoping to draw them away and then hide. But there were so many harpies, and their magic so strong. They caught us.’

  Issa watched in horror as the bird-women plucked her parents from the ground, binding them with magic so they could not fight. Thanon they lifted into the air, but Eritara they took in a different direction. The sound of her parents screaming for each other as they were carried apart would haunt her forever.

  ‘Me, they took to their nests. For days they tortured me trying to get my seed. I wouldn’t give it to them. Bards have powers that can nullify harpy magic, but they were relentless. I think they wanted to make something more than just more harpies.’

  Issa saw a high place atop rounded crags. Huge nests made out of sticks covered the tops, and scores of harpies brooded there. Thanon’s bloodied face and cries of anguish faded into a grey mist. She saw his shoulders tremble.

  ‘I resisted ferociously but they broke me, and, in the end, I was unable to resist their magic. Through my mind they discovered what we had done. That we had given you to Fraya and that you were far away. They became enraged, especially when I did not give them my seed, they drained my soul and took my life-force. They took, and they took and made me an old man, weak and feeble. And then they took my eyes. I can still feel the agony…’ Thanon’s voice broke. Issa went to him and sat beside him on the bed, wrapping her arm around his shoulders.

  ‘I survived long enough for the Saurians to come. I can’t believe they came for me, but they did, and they wanted revenge. Unawares, the harpies were easily outnumbered and, thankfully, slaughtered. The Saurians, when prepared, are devastating warriors.

  Thanon focussed on his music once more, finding solace. His voice became strong, filled with anger as he beat the notes out. In her mind she saw Saurian spears fall as rain onto the harpies with devastating accuracy. Thanon, bloodied and blinded crawled out of their nests and was carried away by the lizard-folk. The images faded.

  ‘When I was well enough, I hunted for Eritara with a Saurian friend to be my eyes. For days and days we wandered the swamps, and then I found her broken body.’

  Issa gasped as she saw her mother, lifeless, discarded in the swamps. Quickly, the image faded as if Thanon didn’t want her to see. He seemed about to say more but instead stayed silent and turned his focus on the music. Issa hardly breathed for fear of what she would see next. The harp made long, mournful notes.

  ‘She wasn’t dead,’ he whispered. ‘But her baby, our daughter—Eritara was certain it was a girl—was gone. It had been beastily cut out of her—there were vicious, bloody scars. I carried her back. The Saurians tried to heal her with their powerful arts but even they failed. Black magic held onto her, all the Saurians could do was form a mind-link and discover her last conscious moments. These are her memories.’

  Hazy images formed in Issa’s mind. A wall of rock and then a grey, gloomy place as Eritara fell forwards. Harpy cackles faded away, and a hundred pairs of demon eyes appeared in the shadows, yellow eyes gleaming. Eritara cast light and the hairless, dark grey and brown skin of the demons was revealed, some huge, others small, some with wings, others heavily muscled. Grazen and Shadow, yet I recognise none of them, Issa thought.

  ‘Eritara they gave to the demons, as they had bargained for within the yew tree,’ Thanon explained. ‘The demons got Eritara and the harpies got me. The harpies knew she no longer carried Zanufey’s Chosen, and so she was of no use to them, unlike me.’

  The demons surged towards Eritara, gripping and grabbing, dragging her deeper into the tunnels, their excited demonic howls echoing loudly off the walls.

  ‘When the demons took her, the black vortex came.’

  A cold chill ran down Issa’s back. The music clanged and scraped out of tune.

  ‘To this day, I don’t know if the demons were in league with this…alien. Perhaps I’ll never know, but she came out of that dark and evil energy, and she took our child. For what purpose, I do not know.’

  Issa felt the Under Flow grow from just the image she saw in her mind. A black hole appeared, no bigger than an egg, spinning suspended in the air. It grew rapidly into a rushing vortex and the demons scuttled away from it. The tip surged backwards and up, unconstrained by the tunnel walls as it moved into another dimension, forging a connection to the Dark Rift. Painful pressure built in Issa’s mind and she felt sick.

  Eritara struggled but the demons held her. Her laboured breathing came in gasps. Issa clasped her hands over her eyes, but the images were inside her head. In the centre of the vortex, a figure walked forwards.

  Thanon paused and the single note he played slowly faded. For a moment there was silence.

  ‘Lona,’ Issa whispered.

  Issa saw Lona’s face clearly, her pitch black eyes gleaming with predatory malice, her paper-white skin glowing in the gloom. Black magic swamped Issa’s mind and the images became broken and garbled.

  ‘Over and again I have relived these images, but they never get any clearer,’ Thanon’s voice shook.

  Demonic growls intermingled with Lona’s voice. Screams cut through both, perhaps the screaming of her mother. Issa didn’t want to listen. A pain filled howl, then the sound of a baby crying. Issa’s heart thundered in her chest. She realised her cheeks were wet and her hands shook as she wiped them.

  ‘The demons drank her blood, the alien took our child. Then they discarded Eritara into the swamps like garbage.’

  The music faded to nothing and Thanon sat hunched over his instrument, shoulders quivering, his tattoos no longer glowing.

  At the edge of her sorrow, red-hot rage grew. She felt betrayed by the demons, even by Gedrock and Maggot, and yet the little demon had done nothing but help her. Gedrock had to know something of this, was he tricking her? Confusion befuddled her mind. She sat up.

  ‘You said she wasn’t dead, so where is she?’ Issa dared to ask.

  ‘There is little left of Eritara, save for her broken body barely housing a soul that lingers in some cursed place,’ said Thanon.

  Issa jumped to her feet. ‘We must go to her at once. Maybe I can reach her. I have a gift…it’s too much to explain now. I must see her!’

  Thanon nodded. ‘Indeed, you must, though I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I’ll take you to her, though it won’t be easy, I stopped going to that place long ago. I’m so sorry, Eri, I could not bear to see you in that state. I didn’t have the strength to help you pass on.’

  ‘We must go now!’ Issa swept towards the door and flung it open. Before she could stride out, a small green light hurtled inside, sucked in by the sudden vacuum of the opening door. The light squealed and circled in the air.

  ‘Thiashar?’ Issa blinked in surprise. This is a swamp, thought Issa, so it wasn’t unusual for a swamp fairy to be here. But Thiashar?

  ‘Seer Iyena knew you would find your father,’ said the swamp fairy in her quiet yet high-pitched voice.

  Issa smiled. ‘Seer Iyena knows many things.’

  ‘You make interesting friends,’ said Thanon thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Issa, then eyes went wide as she looked beyond Thiashar. Outside, Saurians gathered. The lizard-folk sat on the porch, or stood in the swamp, their eyes gleaming in the light spilling out of the cabin.

  Thanon came to stand beside her, his hands feeling for the doorframe and she wrapped an arm around him. He was still tall despite his stooped form.

  ‘They are here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know why,’ she said.

  Ata a
nd Ekem, stepped forwards. ‘We waited to see if she would find you, to be sure that she is yours. Then your music called to us and we came, like the old days.’

  Thanon nodded and leant heavily against the door. ‘It has been a long, long time. My daughter brings me strength, and a little of my music returns.’ He squeezed her arm and she took his hand and held it against her cheek.

  ‘So, you’ve told her all, as we knew you would,’ said Ata. ‘And we are ready to take you to your mate once more.’

  Issa looked at Thanon in surprise then back at Ata.

  ‘The swamps are dangerous at night for humans,’ explained Thanon. ‘Normally I’d wait until daylight before making this journey. The place we go to is a Saurian graveyard, hidden and barred to any non-Saurian.’

  Issa would have been intrigued had it not involved her mother. She waited anxiously as Thanon grabbed his walking stick then stepped out into the swamp. Ehka flew to her shoulder and Thiashar stayed close as she held Thanon’s arm and followed the group of Saurians into the dark swamp. Two held torches to light the way but still the night pressed in close as they waded rather than walked.

  Saurians surrounded them on all sides, not too near, but not too far either. Always they looked around them and held their spears ready, but her eyes and ears, though better than most in the dark, picked up nothing of note apart from reeds, giant frogs bigger than her hand, and tiny geckos jumping between the grasses.

  For a long time they walked until Issa longed for her bed. Thoughts of her mother helped pushed back the tiredness and never did her hand leave her father’s. Often her eyes strayed to him and she wished he were more talkative, but she was content to just be with him.

  Frequently he would squeeze her hand, father and daughter finally united after decades of pain, too much had happened for it all to be shared and understood. Issa looked forward to the future times they would have together. She dared even imagine a future without war, and walking with her father in the beautiful, peaceful countryside. Beloved Zanufey, I long for such a time.