Anger.
Hatred.
Evil.
He ran faster. All those things smelled like… fire.
The main tent loomed before them. The canvas shuddered as gusts of wind pushed the group from behind as if driving them. Thunder rumbled. The ground shuddered. They burst through the canvas flaps just as a shard of lightning hit the ground behind Ivo. The stench of scorched air followed them into the cavernous room.
Emaranthe twisted free and slipped from Ivo’s arms. A small flame appeared in the palm of her hand, illuminating their small group in the near total dark. The flame flickered wildly, but Emaranthe met everyone’s stare, her chin tipped up. Everyone exhaled in relief when her gaze once again ignited.
“We need to grab the map and get out of here before this Stormwarden can reach us,” Jaeger said. He spun on his heel, squinting at the heavily shadowed contents of the tent. “We have to assume that whoever it is doesn’t count us as friend.”
“I agree,” Ivo glanced down at Emaranthe. Her hand had steadied and now the small flame cast a wider golden glow on the circle of friends. “Search everything, everywhere.”
***
Gabaran lifted a toppled desk with ease, not surprised to find the black wood scored by blade marks and splashed with dried blood. The smallest of details didn’t escape his notice, including the fact that the tent had already been ransacked before their arrival. Long before, given the dried blood.
“We’re wasting our time,” he muttered. He kicked at the ruined desk, sending it skittering into the back wall. “We’re not the first ones to look for the map.”
“Who would have been here before us? None but us knew to look for something,” Jadeth asked and frowned at the old Elf. Her gaze strayed to the gruesome marks on the desk across the room. Thunder drowned out her soft swear but didn’t drown out Jaeger’s.
“Son of a bitch,” Jaeger threw his hands up, his lips twisted in disgust. “Everything has been torn apart.”
Jadeth scanned the room, turning in a circle. Her shadow danced along the four walls, looming and twisting when gusts of wind jerked the canvas. “More people had to have known. Dehil knew. His master?”
“We don’t even know who his master is, or if he’s trustworthy,” Emaranthe added. She lifted the flames higher and their shadows jolted in a macabre dance. “We are blind in a world gone dark.”
“Keep looking,” Ivo said. He shoved aside a large mirror propped on the canvas wall next to the entryway. Nothing. He dragged bare hands along his jaw, the scrape of unshaven skin a welcome distraction from the reflection in the mirror of the woman standing motionless in the middle of the room, holding two floating fire lamps in her upturned hands. Eyes closed, head tilted as if listening, she’d not moved from that position in a long time and her voice had been gravelly as if from misuse.
Thunder cracked. Everything shivered. Closer again, it heralded the coming of a powerful Mage that may be more enemy than ally. Without any prior knowledge of the unknown Immortal, Ivo didn’t relish an introduction just yet. They needed time, but had none to spare.
Oh, the irony.
“We need to go,” Emaranthe gasped. Her eyes snapped open, but their fiery glow dimmed into molten swirls that emanated little light. Ivo wondered if she did that on purpose, or instinct.
“We haven’t found anything yet,” he said. He flinched when lightning illuminated the tent from directly above. Jagged shadows danced with the white-hot light.
“Hurry,” She frowned at the closed tent flap. She left one lamp hovering midair, and reached for the swaying fabric. She tugged it aside and gasped at the sight beyond. “They’re at the causeway.”
“They?” Jaeger asked, startled. He glanced up from the trunk he’d overturned, his face washing pale beneath strands of hair clinging to his forehead in sweaty spikes. “How many?”
Everyone froze, breaths held, as they waited a long moment for her answer. Thunder rumbled, but it did little to mask the sudden intrusion of a sound they had hoped not to hear.
Thud. Thud.
Thud. Thud.
Thud. Thud…
The rhythmic tread of heavy boots on stone, the telltale sound of an army on the move. Ivo, Jaeger, and Jadeth turned in unison and peered beyond Emaranthe, out the opening. Torches flickered into existence one by one, revealing rows upon rows of Immortal soldiers. The collective glow illuminated the causeway and the legion of Immortal soldiers stretching roughly ten people across it. The column stretched to the entrance of the stone arch and then spread in a sea of unknown faces. Shields and weapons gleamed cold in the meager light.
Emaranthe let the flap fall. “Thousands.”
“May The Four save us,” Jadeth whispered. She reached for the hammer nestled weightlessly in the shadows between her shoulder blades and lifted it. She leaned on it, her head bowed until scarlet braids all but hid her ashen face. She peered through the strands at Emaranthe.
“Emaranthe, do you see the Stormwarden?”
“No,” she answered. She glanced over her shoulder at her best friend, her sister in spirit. “No, but I feel his anger. It burns.”
“We take him out, and the rest will fall into discord,” Ivo snapped. “We focus on him.”
“It won’t be that easy,” Gabaran said. His black bow gleamed in the golden glow of Emaranthe’s lamps. She hadn’t bothered extinguishing them; it was too late for that. They were trapped.
“He’s right,” Jaeger slipped his shield over his arm and adjusted it out of habit. “We don’t know who they are.”
“I can guess,” Emaranthe whispered.
All eyes shot to her in surprise.
“How so?” Ivo asked. He stepped closer to her. She hadn’t moved away from the entrance, had continued to stare at the blank canvas flap with haunted eyes. She glanced up at him, the shadows beneath her eyes highlighting a bone deep weariness that she could no longer hide from him. He frowned when she didn’t answer, but continued to study him with gold swirled eyes that were infinitely pained.
“Emaranthe?”
She jerked, blinked, her eyes flaring hot for a split second before she refocused her attention on him. “Allies or enemies? What if they are one and the same?”
“I don’t understand,” he said. He couldn’t keep his gloved hand from stretching out to smooth aside a wisp of blonde hair snagged on a long, dark eyelash.
“They are one and the same. Can’t you feel them?” she asked. “That is the entire host of The Unknown Sun. We are betrayed.”
Ivo stiffened, shock washing his tanned face pale in the firelight.
“She’s right,” Jaeger exhaled the words with a groan. His breath fogged the air before him and the temperature within the tent noticeably fell. Cold blue eyes fixed on the muffled sounds beyond. “I can feel it too.”
“Feel what?” Jadeth asked. Her gaze darted between the Mage and the male trying to freeze them. “All I feel is sick at heart and a chill in the air.”
“It’s like a feeling of pushing against an invisible bubble,” Emaranthe explained. “If I push on it, energy pushes back. Familiar energy, Immortals, with varying abilities.”
Jaeger nodded. “I feel it similarly. I don’t know how or why.”
“You can’t tell individuals though?” Ivo asked. He reached for his shield and sword. “Just the entire host?”
“I feel the Stormwarden,” Emaranthe whispered. “He is powerful, his magic is… loud or wild, perhaps. It’s angry.”
“Jaeger?”
“I feel a focus of anger. It burns,” Jaeger said. He jammed his helm on, not caring that frost crept along the battered iron. “But I don’t understand it.”
“We meet them head on, distract them,” Ivo swung to face the old Elf. “Gabaran, continue the search, keep our backs covered with that bow.”
Gabaran nodded. Starlit eyes flared in the dim light and both Emaranthe and Jaeger traded looks. All thoughts fled as Ivo positioned himself at the lead of their meager en
tourage. Jadeth and Emaranthe fell in behind the giant Warrior and Jaeger took up the rear position.
“The Four are calling upon on us in this hour,” Ivo snarled. He donned his helm and shifted until his sword and shield were ready to face what was waiting them outside. Thunder cracked, harder. The ground beneath them shivered. “We will answer!”
He shoved through the tent flap and stepped out into the unnatural gloom.
Emaranthe cast one last look at Gabaran before the floating flames guttered and vanished. He stood, tall and grim, bow ready. His eyes, unusual before in their brightness, now all but glowed. Unlike Jaeger’s and hers, his glowed from within the white centers, as if stars had been placed within.
Those odd eyes locked with hers for a long moment, before a sad smile twisted the corner of his mouth and he turned away.
Ivo, Jaeger, Jadeth, and Emaranthe moved with deliberate confidence, their pace steady. The expanse of the plateau between them and the causeway remained empty. The clouds now completely blocked the sun and sky. Silence reigned but for the overloud tread of boots on stone, and the distinct buzz of energy rising from the army crowding the stone arch and the desert floor below.
Torches flickered in the darkness, a sea of tiny lights that gave shape to the enemy’s position. They hadn’t bothered to hide their numbers, just as they had heralded their approach with a not so secret weapon…the Stormwarden.
The causeway loomed before them, and Ivo took in the scene in one sweeping glance. His shoulders stiffened at the sight of the first line… shielded Warriors blocking the path… but he didn’t slow. Behind him, the slight whisper of weapons materializing was the only sound heard to indicate that the others had honed in on the import of what was before them.
The entire Immortal Legion, some ten thousand strong, had come to kill or to be killed. Ivo’s jaw flexed in raw anger. His fingers dug into the hilt of his sword.
So be it. Allies or enemies?
He halted at the edge of the causeway and the women positioned themselves at either side. Jaeger remained at their back; his cold blue eyes scanning the sea of faces, weapons, and torches for would be assassins.
The wall of shields, three high, stretched edge to edge, completely blocking any view of those directly behind. Undoubtedly, the Stormwarden hid there, a coward wearing the courage of the storms he brewed.
The silence stretched long as both sides waited.
To kill…or be killed.
***
Gabaran kicked at the tattered carpet bunched underfoot. It flopped over; much like his heart was trying to do in his chest. It tripped and stuttered as he forced himself to turn away from the tent flap fluttering closed behind his friends. Bow in hand he paced the length of the tent. Tables, cushions, and a battered cabinet scattered with each vicious kick.
Bitter anger stirred by fear halted his feet before the tent flap on his third lap. He crouched and peered through the gap, his bow drawn and aimed with the unerring precision afforded by his hyperaware vision.
The arrow slipped slightly, jolting his mind back from the dangerous path it wanted to tread. A thousand years of exile had done little to soften his thoughts about that day.
“Curse The Four,” he muttered. The arrow straightened as he focused. “Curse the day you stole everything from me.”
His people had been made Exiles the day the fields ran red with blood, but something else that happened that day, which had driven him to the edges of his control. That day had all but destroyed him, his faith.
A crack of thunder shook the tent. The arrow didn’t waver. Sweat trailed a sticky path between his grizzled eyebrows and down his misshapen nose.
Lightning followed, tossing jagged shadows. Gabaran chuckled humorlessly at the twisted shapes dancing along the canvas walls. The light stilled and he squinted at the figures standing silhouetted against a wall of shields.
Ten thousand to four, hardly fair.
But life wasn’t fair was it?
***
The sea of Immortals stood stiff, blank faced, and unmoving. If they breathed, Emaranthe couldn’t tell and it was so unnatural that goose bumps peppered her exposed skin. The urge to surround herself in a shield of fire was almost too much; but other than her quickening breath and pounding heart deafening her ears, she didn’t move a muscle either. If a waiting game was what they wanted, so be it.
As if spurred by her thoughts, something stirred in the center of the column midway up the arch of the natural stone bridge. The soldiers parted, rippling into motion like disjointed puppets.
Puppets.
Emaranthe’s eyes widened. Her gaze burned hot for a split second, throwing a flash of light on the wall of shields before them.
Ivo shifted, startled. His gaze cut down to hers in silent question, but Jadeth’s sharp gasp drew everyone’s attention.
“They are enslaved,” she whispered. “Their eyes are dead.”
Emaranthe shivered, glad her eyesight, though wreathed in flames, was somewhat normal and she couldn’t see the eyes of the nearest Immortals. Just their souls.
“All of them?” Jaeger asked, his voice a stiff whisper that carried in the uneasy silence.
“Yes,” Jadeth said. “The Immortals of The Unknown Sun have fallen to the enemy.”
Jaeger swore softly, “Then the city is emptied and unguarded.”
A heavy ache settled in Emaranthe’s chest, a spike of regret. Then one of anger.
“The Stormwarden approaches,” she said. “Be wary.”
The wall of shields split like a door and a familiar figure stepped from the darkness beyond. Recognition struck hard and fast, like a blow to the gut, leaving them breathless with shock.
Cold silver eyes inspected them in silence before halting on Ivo. A cruel smirk edged the corner of his mouth up. They darkened until liquid black voids stared at the small group of Immortals.
“Rodon,” Ivo’s grip on his sword tightened. “Where are Ishelene and Atil?”
“Ishelene and Atil are no longer my concern,” Rodon spat. “Where is the map?”
“Why are the map and the lost city so important? What is it you are truly looking for?” Ivo asked. His jaw ached from the effort it took to restrain harsher words. “What is the Crown of Gods?”
Rodon sneered and closed in on Ivo until they were chest to chest. Now mere inches apart and equal in size, Ivo could see the swirling blackness in the elder male’s eyes. Empty voids were all that were left… Rodon was a puppet, a soulless minion of the Dro-aconi.
“You are taken,” Ivo said, not really surprised. Anger rolled off Ivo and bled into the air around them as a gust of wind peppered them with dust and rubble. “How long ago did you fall?”
Rodon’s dead eyes were hard to read in the dim light. Lined with age, his skin wore many scars. He had not been young when immortalized. Nearer to fifty, his battle-hardened body had remained heavily muscled and lean despite the centuries pressed on him.
Rotten teeth, spelled to seem passable when not possessed by an evil puppeteer, spread wide into a horrible grin. “Nine hundred and ninety years I have waited for you. Nine hundred years of searching. But you still don’t see the truth staring you in the face.”
Ivo swallowed, resisted the urge to shove the puppet who had been the leader of their people for centuries, away. “Waited for me? What truth?”
If it were possible, the soulless voids rolled at Ivo’s statement. Rodon shoved away from the younger Immortal, rocking him back on his heels with a leather-guarded shoulder and paced away without looking back. He spun so fast that his heavy cloak caught the wind and billowed. His armor, stained leather over dulled mail, gleamed damp with a darker substance that Ivo hadn’t seen until then. Ivo’s stomach rolled at the thought of what that substance had to be.
“Waited for you? No, not just you. Them,” Rodon sneered and flung a crow thin hand at the others standing at his side. “All of you.”
Ivo stiffened, watched the fallen leader’s black eyes
fall on Emaranthe, then Jadeth, and Jaeger in turn. A quiet rage roiled at the center of his soul, surged with absolute power until it reached the leash he set upon it. It bled through in the form of a deceptively silky breeze that stirred the hair and teased the skin. Deceptively innocent, it waited.
“We’ve been at your call for over two hundred years!” Jadeth blurted out, no longer able to keep her tongue. “What, praise The Four, have you been waiting for?”
Black eyes regarded the Elf Healer with a leer of hatred. “For all of you to appear at the same time. Harder than it was supposed to be of course. Took many tries to get even myself fully here.”
Jadeth recoiled from the surge of abhorrence emanating from Rodon. “What are you talking about?”
Soulless black eyes burned with loathing. “Come now, surely you recognize me?”
“You’re crazy!” she gasped. “You speak of madness and harbor an evil that controls your body.”
“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Rodon sneered and turned away. “Too bad. I’d imagined what you all would say when you recognized me. I guess it will have to wait.”
Emaranthe swayed, stiffened her spine. “You are the Stormwarden, Rodon?”
The Immortal Leader halted, his broad back to them. His bitter chuckle echoed off the stones.
“I am. I am more,” he said. He spun to face them, his black eyes pools of rage. “I am the only one left with my memories I guess. Too bad about my body. But I like this one too. Too bad it took centuries for my pets to free me entirely.”
“You speak riddles!” Ivo said, his voice a low rumble of warning.
“I speak the truth! You are all on your, what?” Rodon spit black slobber on the ground and paced away again, ignoring or enjoying, their looks of utter horror. “Fifth, perhaps sixth bodies now? How does that feel by the way?”
“You’re mad!” Jadeth choked out. She barely resisted the urge to back away. “What do you mean by that rubbish?”
Grizzled eyebrows raised as he regarded her once more. “Rubbish, Elfling? Have you already lost count then?”
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