Echo of the High Kings (The Eoriel Saga Book 1)

by Kal Spriggs

  It found that a surprise, so much so that it delved deeper. It found an iron core of strength there, something that tasted so foreign and yet so familiar. Buried in the boy's spirit it found something that it had never expected to see.

  Southwatch released the spirit meld and retreated into the stone of the fortress to think. It had much to think about and to realize that perhaps, there might be more than duty.

  ***

  Aerion Swordbreaker

  Aerion stumbled forward as the darkness vanished. For a moment, he felt the cold alien thoughts which had seemed to flicker though his mind while the dark wave had enveloped him.

  He almost stumbled into Katarina, who still stood where he had seen the cloud engulf her. Beyond her, he saw Cederic, where he leaned on his staff.

  “I thought I told you to let me handle it?” Katarina asked, her voice sharp. She grabbed him on either side of his head and drew him in, “You stupid idiot! You could have gotten yourself killed!” She leaned in then and suddenly their lips met. It was Aerion's first kiss and for a moment he was overwhelmed by the feel of her lips against his and the electrifying touch of her hands.

  Then she leaned back drew back her hand and slapped him across the face, “How dare you scare me like that!”

  “I thought it had killed you,” Aerion said lamely.

  He caught a flicker out of his the corner of his remaining eye as the dark cloud vanished. He saw Katarina take a self-conscious step backwards. Aerion was still too confused to really do anything.

  “I thought the both of you stupid before,” Bulmor rumbled, as he walked towards them. “Now I know it.”

  Aerion looked around. The spirit had vanished, and the afternoon seemed brighter without the dark presence. He felt his ears burn with embarrassment, yet he couldn't help but stand a little straighter. “Well, I guess it worked then?”

  “Yes,” Katarina said, her voice eager to change the subject. “It... Southwatch told me that we could take what we needed, that it would support me.” She frowned, “But there was something else, almost like it held something back.”

  Cederic nodded, “This place guards a number of secrets, some are not ours to investigate. But I think it best we get everyone within the walls.” He turned to face Katarina's followers, “We may enter, but be respectful. Keep in mind that the spirit here is not gone and that it senses everything in this place. Do not anger it...”

  “Understood, don't make the thousand cycle old spirit angry,” Gerlin said. “I promise that's near the very top of my list of things to avoid while I'm here.”

  Aerion snorted, but he couldn't shake the odd feeling, almost as if the spirit had passed him some message, but that he couldn't understand it.

  Katarina looked around, “Where do we go?”

  Cederic spoke, “It told me some of the layout. I will lead the way to the inner keep, and the great hall. That would be the best place to set up camp, for now. The vaults and the treasure and weapons we'll need lie in the catacombs below the keep.”

  Cederic led the way in and most of the others followed immediately. Aerion frowned, however, and stared up at the gatehouse. He could almost feel the spirit's message, like a word on the tip of his tongue. Overwhelming that, however, was the memory of Katarina's lips meeting his, the panic and worry on her face. She feels the same way as I do, Aerion realized and it made his heart sing.

  A sharp pain on the side of his head shattered his thoughts as his mother pulled his head down by the ear. “Aerion! If you scare me like that again, I'll shoot you someplace very sensitive, do you understand me?”

  He gave a quick nod and she released him. Then she embraced him, “I thought I'd lost you again, my son. Keep this up and you'll have me old and gray like some grandmother.”

  “Sorry, mother,” Aerion flushed.

  He looked around and saw that all of the others had left. “Mother, about what happened...”

  “You don't need to say a thing.” Eleanor said, and stepped back. She stared up at him with what looked suspiciously like tears in her eyes. “You denied it before and I cautioned you against it, but I can tell you've fallen for the girl.” She sighed, “Ancestors watch over you and I wish you better luck in it than I had.”

  “You aren't angry?” Aerion asked.

  “I can't be angry at you, not for that,” his mother said softly. “I might as well be angry at the sky for being blue or water for being wet. But I pray that I am wrong about what I expect to happen and that if I'm right that you will come to love another.”

  Aerion shook his head, “I don't know. This is all new to me.”

  “That's the worst part, isn't it?” Aerion saw his mother look off into the west, almost as if she could see something or someone in the distance. “That shock, the realization that something new and wonderful is there... It makes it that much harder to step back and turn away.”

  Aerion shrugged, suddenly embarrassed, “Well, mother, we shouldn't let them get too far ahead.”

  “We can't have that,” she answered dryly.

  Aerion led the way into the gatehouse. His mother spoke up again as they walked. “You know, tomorrow is your birthday.”

  Aerion paused, he tried to count the days that had passed since Hector's Hound had attacked his home. “I suppose you're right,” he finally said. “Though I think we may be the only ones to celebrate the new cycle.”

  “True, to most it is a very inauspicious day,” his mother said softly. New Cycle Day was also called Sundering Day. It had once been called the High King's Day, but not since before Moral killed his father. That had happened on New Cycle Day, Aerion knew, by legend and story. “But I think your birth certainly changed that for me, and it reminds me that the day used to mean different things to different people. But think of something you want for your birthday, my son. We may be homeless fugitives, but that doesn't change the fact that you're my son, and I want your birthday to be special.”

  Aerion shook his head, “Thanks, mother.” He gave her a smile, “Honestly, just knowing you're alive is a great enough gift, though I wish you would tell me more of what happened from before... like who my father is.”

  She stared at him, “Let's talk about this later, the others have gone out of sight already.” He could hear a tone of resignation in her voice, almost as if she felt she could no longer protect him. He wondered if that meant she would tell him the things that she had so far refused to speak about.

  Aerion nodded. He stared around at the dark fortress around them and he seemed to instinctively know what direction to follow. He led the way towards the gateway to the inner keep. Once inside the keep, he walked through several halls and corridors and made turns without hesitation until they stepped out into the keep's great hall.

  “Aerion,” his mother asked, as they stepped out into the larger room, “How did you manage to follow them, how could you see?”

  Aerion shrugged, “I guess I just... knew the way.”

  “No, Aerion,” his mother said, she turned him around and pointed at the dark hallway from which they had emerged, “How did you see at all? We had no light.”

  Aerion could not answer.

  ***

  Lady Katarina Emberhill

  Katarina looked around the dusty, gloomy chamber. “We'll camp here, I suppose. Do we have sufficient lamp oil and torches?”

  Cederic smiled slightly. He reached into his belt pouch and removed a stone. At his touch, the stone began to glow with a diffuse white light. “I have several of these. They should last three days, after that, we can recharge them in a fire.”

  “What do you know,” Arren said as he tried to brush dust and cobwebs out of his beard . “A wizard is useful to have around, now and again.” The old man looked up, “Well, then, do either of you fine people know where we start?”

  “There's a council chamber, behind the pedestal there,” Aerion said from behind her. He walked past her, and then up the shallow steps. “This door here.”

  �
��How do you know that?” Katarina asked.

  “I think it showed me some things, maybe on accident when I stepped into it,” Aerion said. “But I know that the last defenders fell in the council chamber.”

  Katarina nodded, “Yes...” She looked over at Cederic. “There is a set of stairs to the armory there... I think.”

  The wizard cocked his head and stared at Aerion. Katarina saw him frown in thought. He absently nodded, “Yes, the armory. We'll find the weapons you'll want there and the money to fund your forces in the treasury deeper below.”

  Aerion seemed drawn to the doorway and Katarina saw he had no torch or lantern, yet his feet never stumbled. “Aerion, wait.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “We need light,” Katarina said. She looked back and saw most of the others hung back. She could see unease on their faces and an awareness of their danger should the spirit of the place take offense to their actions. “Cederic, pass out your stones to the others. Bulmor, who should we bring?”

  Bulmor pursed his lips, “I'd like to move as quickly as possible, so we don't become trapped here. I'd say that we leave ten to set up camp for the night, the rest should come. Just... tell us what to avoid and I'd suggest the wizard leads the way.”

  “I'll stay back,” Gerlin said, his voice oddly subdued. “Quinn, Lyle, Brenner, Doug, Hans, Padrek, Nate, Fred, and... Nakkiki, you stay here with me. Lyle and Brenner you have first watch.” Katarina looked over at the big stranger who had joined their party. She did not know if he understood Gerlin's words, but he seemed happy enough to stand still.

  Cederic passed out his glowing stones. Katarina took one and passed her torch off to Gerlin. The small, smooth stone felt warm to the touch. She felt carvings on the stone, symbols or runes of some kind, though she couldn't see them against the glow.

  Cederic passed his last one to Aerion. He stepped forward into the doorway, Aerion not far behind. Katarina let Bulmor walk ahead of her, but more to ease his own nervousness at her safety than from any genuine feeling of threat.

  Ahead, she saw Cederic stop at an ancient metal door. Unlike the others, this one showed no signs of rust or decay. The dusty metal surface held a pattern of symbols. “High Magic, designed as the last line of defense,” Cederic said, his voice soft.

  Katarina nodded, as the information that Southwatch had given her came to her mind. “There's a catch, to open it–”

  Before she could finish, Aerion reached up into a hole near the ceiling and flipped the catch. The door clicked, and opened. Cederic stared up at Aerion, “You realize that if it was trapped, you could have killed us all.”

  “It was trapped,” Katarina said. “There should have been three catches. The middle one was the correct one.”

  Aerion gave a nod and a sheepish grin, “Sorry, I just knew which one to flip.”

  “Let's be a bit more careful, in the future,” Bulmor said, his voice hard.

  Cederic led the way into the next room, but something there stopped him just inside. Aerion and Bulmor squeezed in and then Katarina made use of her elbows to get them to move far enough for her to pass.

  The next room had more light, given from high windows that faced the western horizon. The high ceiling also had skylights. That gave Katarina enough room to see what had befallen Southwatch's last defenders.

  She gave a gasp at the eight skeletons, sprawled in death across the chamber. Ancient clothing had rotted to rags, though they retained their armor and weapons. Two skeletons lay tangled with one another just inside the door, daggers still locked in their skeletal fingers. At the long stone table, five more lay sprawled, their ancient bones lay across silver plates and cups. The last sat on a large stone chair at the head of the table. His skull tipped back, as if he'd fallen into a sleep from which he never awoke.

  “What happened here?” Katarina asked. The dusty room had a pall of tragedy, of men gone into death suddenly. No wonder their spirits still remained, unable to rest.

  “Legends say that after a cycle of siege, only six of the King's Guard remained, to include their commander, Captain Wade. They also had one of the King's Heralds, who arrived just before the siege,” Arren said from the doorway. His face seemed pale and his voice distant. “The Duke had come to think the fortress would never fall, so he chose from among his men one man to be a messenger. But he didn't know that man had long served another master.”

  Katarina stared at the bodies locked in death at her feet. “He killed them?”

  “With poison. All but the Herald, who lived long enough to kill the assassin,” Arren said. The old man looked incredibly weary.

  “Then how'd you hear of it?” Bulmor asked, his voice harsh.

  “The Herald's mission was of such importance, that his spirit went on to pass the story to his son,” Arren said. “And so the tale became legend.”

  Bulmor stepped past where Aerion and Cederic stood, still transfixed by the deaths. “Well, they fought and died as warriors. Does this place have crypts?”

  Katarina frowned, “I'm not sure...”

  “It does. On the levels below the treasury,” Aerion said.

  “Then we will intern them with their fellows,” Bulmor said, his voice gruff. “But we'll keep their weapons and armor... those I think we will need.”

  ***

  Captain Grel, The Duke's Hound

  Grel looked out over the broad mountain valley. The sun had just begun to sink past the western peaks, and parts of the valley already lay in deep shadow. He shivered, but not in cold. His bloodshot eyes stared at the distant fortress which loomed over the road ahead and at the pass to the northwest, where he saw the ancient road continue on towards the sea. He wondered if he had died and if the wizard had trapped his spirit for torment.

  The past weeks had become nightmarish, even to Grel.

  Though he had worked with occasional Noric mercenaries and even taken pay from them before, he had never spent so long around them. The fifty they encountered had only been the first group. More arrived as they continued their pursuit, sometimes one or two, sometimes an entire tribe.

  What power the wizard had over them, Grel did not know. Nor, after he witnessed the way they fawned over Xavien, did he wish to know the answer. Grel craved power and longed for control and he well knew his own urges. The harsh world had shaped him and trained him to take what he wanted and to terrify or kill those who might stand in his way. That first night, as he listened to Narash scream until dawn, Grel realized that even he drew the line at some point.

  The Norics, despite Xavien's assurances, eyed the mercenaries like prey. Worse, their shaman's spirits and their demons seemed to hover just out of reach of the men on horseback. The spirits scared Grel badly enough, shadowy things, like ink poured into water. They hovered in and around the Norics and only sometimes drifted to circle the mercenaries.

  The demons, those seemed to stalk them. Time after time, Grel looked over his shoulder to find one of the twisted beings watching him. At the end of the second week, he had counted seven of the demons. Each ranged in size and appearance, though all seemed designed only to kill.

  The worst, he felt, was the tiny one, the size and appearance of a child. One of the mercenaries had mistaken it for just that. The man had left the safety of the camp the second night out of some misguided urge to protect the child and Xavien had not said a single word of warning. Thankfully, the demon had ended him far more quickly than Narash.

  Grel shivered and he heard Xavien chuckle. “Do not fear, Grel. Have some faith in me... we have nearly reached the end of this hunt. And such an auspicious day for it. Almost a thousand cycles ago Moral killed his father... a thousand cycles to the day come tomorrow. Rather a good sign for our fortunes, eh?”

  Grel cast his bloodshot eyes on the wizard who now owned him. “My Lord, how do you know we are near?” He hated his tone of fawning respect, but he could not help but put it there. Xavien held not just Grel's life in his hands, but his very soul.

  �
��Because I had allies coming down to meet us, to ensure they couldn't move past us.” Xavien said. “And here they are now.”

  Grel peered at the distant pass and saw a tide of figures start through the pass. He frowned and with hands that shook slightly, pulled his spyglass out. He stared through it for a long while, while he tried to make sense of what he saw.

  When he finally recognized the banners, he felt his heart stop.

  “Armen?” Grel asked, his throat gone dry.

  “Yes, but don't worry, Grel, they'll follow orders. Just, make sure none of your men leave the safety of my protection,” Xavien said. “And as I said, we have an auspicious day ahead of us... an anniversary of sorts.”

  Grel nodded. His throat had gone too dry to speak. He raised his spyglass and watched rank after rank of Armen and Norics pour through the pass. It took several minutes for the tide to ease.

  By his count, almost a thousand Armen and six hundred additional Norics marched to Xavien's call. Combined with the four hundred Norics who stalked the trees along the road next to the mercenaries, the wizard had marshaled over two thousand warriors. “Why did you even need us?” he asked.

  “I didn't think that they would move so fast,” Xavien said. “And then, I had not wanted to pull the Armen away from their mission here in the south. I had hope that you could run them down before I had to get them moving.”

  “Why did that change?” Grel asked.

  Xavien didn't answer right away. His gaze had gone to the distant fortress on its tall perch above the road. “This Lady Katarina has become an irritation. And the wizard who travels with her knows too much, it would appear. There are things best left forgotten at Southwatch,” Xavien's voice had gone soft, almost as if he spoke to himself.

  Grel glanced around at the mercenaries who had followed him here. He saw despair on their faces, especially as word of Xavien's other allies passed from one to the next in a handful of muttered words.