by Tim Marquitz
Feragh agreed in silence. The Grol had pierced the ancient lands of the Sha’ree and had returned alive and unharried, a miracle indeed, bearing burdened palanquins that must have contained the fury of the ancient Sha’ree people.
Before him stood proof that the Grol that strode the lands today were not the enemy he had long battled, defeating at every turn. Whatever they had found stoked the fires of their courage, and given the flaming downfall of Fhenahr, rightly so. A shudder crept down Feragh’s spine as he imagined the Grol given the means to assuage their cruel appetites, their hunger for flesh and destruction.
For the first time in his life, Commander Feragh knew fear. He’d crawled from his mother’s womb into the warrior’s life of the Tolen, raised since he’d opened his eyes to rule and wage war. Since he was just a pup he’d known the thrill of battle, his claws blooded upon the Grol before they’d even grown their full length.
Yet in the ruin of Fhenahr, he saw a new world, one where all he’d believed had been cast aside to make room for the miraculous. Never more than a nuisance, the Grol had suddenly become a true threat; one not just to the Tolen, but to the whole of Ahreele.
“We must warn our people,” Feragh told Wulvren. “Send a runner home with orders to rally. I want our forces on the move the day they receive our warning. Have them skirt the inside border of Gurhtol and slice through the heart of Nurin with all haste. I would have them ready at the backs of the Grol should Lathah manage to hold them to a standstill.”
The general glanced to the city. “Do you truly believe the Lathahns capable of such?” He waved a soldier over as he waited on the commander’s answer.
Feragh shook his head. “They are fierce in defense of their homes, and smart in their tactics, but no, I don’t believe they will fare much better than the people of Fhen.” He sat in silence a moment as Wulvren passed his order onto the messenger, continuing once the soldier had been sent away. “My only hope is that they will take their toll upon the beasts and perhaps slow them enough so that we might strike at their backs unaware as they lay siege.”
“Pardon my tongue, but it is a weak hope, commander, if what we see before us is a true representation of the Grol’s newfound strength.”
“We’ve little else to take faith in, general. We’ve no messengers fast enough to take word of preparation to Lathah, or even to their Pathran allies, no doubt next upon the list of Grol victims. Unable to coordinate a plan of attack, we must make do with what few options are available to us.”
Wulvren shifted in his saddle. “Is this truly our fight to so risk our people? We owe no claims to Lathah or to Pathrale.”
“True.” Feragh met his general’s eyes. “However, if the Grol have grown so powerful as to slaughter the Lathahns behind their great walls, what certainty is there that we will prevail against them?”
“They cannot possibly break our fortifications. We are no farmer folk to be caught by surprise and trampled in our homes.”
“No, of course not, general, but would we be so different under the circumstances?” Once more he gestured to the smoldering wreckage of Fhenahr. “This city was brought down from outside its walls, by a force that could reach inside and cause chaos without risk to itself. This was no simple siege with fired arrows and stones hurled over the walls. The Grol killed them from a distance and likely only engaged on foot for the sport of it. Would we fare any better as fire and fury rained down on us while we awaited a force of men to cross our lines that would never come.”
Wulvren sat back in his saddle, his eyes narrowed, his fangs bared, but he said nothing.
“We know not what we face, so I would rather take the fight to the Grol, on our terms, than wait for them to come for us at a time of their choosing. Do you not agree?”
The general snarled. “I do, but the taste of it sickens me. To think the Grol present a threat to us is foul meal to swallow.”
Feragh smiled. “It is the same for me, but I would rather credit the beasts as worthy adversaries and live to skewer them upon my sword than to die upon their fangs because I was too much of a fool to feel threatened.” Feragh spurred his horse and waved his general on. “Let us be on their trail. I would know what we face, once and for all.”
Feragh turned his mount into the trail of ruined earth left in the wake of the Grol army and charged ahead. He heard Wulvren call out orders behind him. The sudden sounds of a thousand horses trampling forward sent a shiver of excitement down his spine.
Though he knew not what fate lay before them, the thrill of battle filled his loins with a lust for blood. Were this to be his final conflict, sent to earth by the unknown power the Grol had come into, he would go to it with glory and honor at the head of his legion.
Were he to fall, his body would find the comfort of dead flesh beneath him for he vowed his path would be littered with the corpses of his enemies.
Chapter Eighteen
The weather-beaten shore that loomed before her like a growing wall of brown and smattered green was the greatest sight Braelyn had ever seen. Though she longed to rejoice, she buried her hope deep inside for she knew death still clutched tight to her cloak.
Lashed to a chunk of wreckage from her sunken ship to keep her from being tossed into the boiling water that whipped around her, Braelyn fought to get to her knees as land approached. Carried as she was on a giant wave of frothing violence, she managed to get her feet beneath her. The lash held her tight and lent her a measure of balance as she drew one of her blades from the sheath at her hip. A sudden chill filled the air as the short sword shimmered in her hand, wisps of steam roiling up as droplets of water met the ice-blue steel of the blade.
She set the tip of her sword near the restraining lash and waited with her heart in her throat as her makeshift raft hurtled toward shore. She waited as the wave she rode began to plummet downward, and then waited an instant longer before slicing the leather restraint that bound her other wrist. Her loose arm held out for balance, she sheathed her blade and made ready.
Momentum beneath her, she hunched and focused the whole of her remaining strength into her legs. Before the wreckage rolled too far and sent her tumbling, she jumped free, diving forward over the fast approaching ground.
The furious water lapped at her as she flew ahead of it, laying her arms close to her side to further her distance. The wave crashed behind her with a deafening roar, the wreckage of her ship driven into the shore by the power of the water. The sharp crack of its destruction was but a murmur in the echoes of the wave as she soared above.
After what seemed a lifetime in the air, Braelyn felt the reins of the earth take hold once more, tugging her toward the ground as it had the water. Her breath like stones within her lungs, she ducked her head at the last moment and curled small, crashing into the sandy beach.
The soft sand was made rigid by her momentum, the impact knocking the sense from her skull. Tucked for a roll, she did just that, though under no direction of her own. Her body flipped and flew through the air, bouncing off the sand, over and over, each jarring blow like a stone cast from a catapult.
Her vision whitened in a blur of agony, she tumbled to a stop in an aching heap. The cloth she had worn over her face had been ripped away and sand filled her mouth and throat. She gagged and spit to clear it away, the gritty bite of it grinding between her teeth. She struggled to rise and every muscle came alive in a searing fury.
Heated splashes struck her exposed cheek as the ocean continued to storm. She bit back a scream and turned her face away, scrambling up the beach. The painful throb of her body was forgotten for a moment as she fled the searing touch of the water. Once she was certain she’d gone far enough to escape its wrath, she took a few minutes to catch her breath.
Everything hurt.
Trembling beneath the thick layers of her cloak and clothes, Braelyn watched as the ocean she’d rode in on tore apart the beach. Deep hisses filled her ears as though she were surrounded by serpents, billows of steam shrouding t
he shore behind a hazy gray wall.
The sun just creeping above the horizon at her back, Braelyn spent a moment getting to her feet, adding her own hisses to those of the sizzling ocean as she turned to survey her surroundings. Her weary eyes shielded from the bright morning light, her optimism at having made it to dry land alive withered to dust.
Nothing but sand sprawled out before her.
As far as she could see, there was nothing but the golden hills that blurred into the distance. No other color broke the hold of the yellow desert that reigned supreme before her eyes. The few instances of green that sprouted near the water’s edge were little more than an illusion of life, which was quickly being washed away by the fury of the ocean.
She could feel the heat of the morning coming even though her soaked clothing. Before too long, she would bake beneath their sweltering weight. Unprepared for a desert journey, having been caught at sea on a trip north, she had little confidence in her luck continuing to play in her favor.
While those she served with had met their end in the churning depths, their drowning voices punctuated with terror, and she alone having made it to shore, there was little doubt in her mind that she had simply delayed the inevitable.
The defeatist thought angered her. She was no victim.
Her breath still in her lungs, steel snug at her hip, Braelyn growled her fury at the desert sand and lumbered forward. If death were coming for her, she would meet it halfway.
She hoped it would walk fast.
The muscles in her legs thrummed like bow strings as each step was its own little agony. She had clutched to her makeshift raft through the night, battling to keep it upright against the rage of the ocean. It had been a difficult fight she had nearly lost, many times over, and every part of her body hurt. Sharp pangs stabbed at her knees and hips. Her back felt as though it were buttressed with strips of cold steel, the muscles rigid beyond anything she had felt before.
She gritted her teeth against her numerous pains and strode forward, mindful to pull the waterlogged hood of her cloak over her head. The short crop of her hair stung as the material ran rough across it, and she laughed at the additional misery. The gods had no pity.
The soft sand shifted beneath her tired heels and added yet another complaint to Braelyn’s tongue. Forced to lift her feet higher to clear the earth that grasped at her ankles, she cursed aloud.
She clung as close to the shore as she dare, both for the nearness of water, as she had lost all of her supplies aboard her ship, and in the hope it might lead her to a sheltered grotto of some sort that might provide her with some form of food and protection from the sun.
The heat of the desert too much for her northern blood, Braelyn knew it would wear on her. So thinking, she drew her sword from its scabbard and sighed as a waft of cold air drifted from its steel. The blade shimmered in the morning light. Its tint reacted to the heat and seemed to glow a deeper shade of blue as though in challenge to the bright beat of the sun.
She let the blade hang loose from her hand, tip down as she traipsed across the golden sand. The ocean foamed and howled to her left as she headed north, the waft of cool energy from her sword keeping the worst of the heat from her flesh.
For hours she walked with no change to the world around her; the sand continued its reign. She’d drifted further from the water as it grew increasingly fitful, casting burning spray at her feet. The sound had become infuriating. She stayed just close enough so that its roar was a gentle moan in the distance, but it was little more than that.
Her limbs cried out for rest and at long last she ran out of excuses to ignore it. She dropped to the earth with a groan. Once down, she feared she might not get back to her feet.
Her breath ragged in her chest, she lay back with her face turned from the sun, and rested her head against a pile of soft sand she gathered together. She pulled her blade out, which she had strung to the inside of her cloak as she walked, and laid it bare across her chest. Its insistent cold was felt first by her breasts, their tips hardening in surprised rebellion against the rough material of her tunic, but its cool touch was a pleasure. She stretched her arms away from her sides, luxuriating in the surprising comfort of the sand.
The weariness of her journey having caught up to her, she lay in the sand’s embrace as the gray haze of sleep threatened to steal over her. Her vision swam and the ground beneath her seemed to sway as if she were still aboard the deck of her ship. The distant rumble of the ocean was a quiet song that lulled her toward the darkness, which crept from the corners of her eyes.
Braelyn’s eyes flickered, having closed without her notice, then opened into tiny slits as her sword tumbled from her chest. She lay staring at it, the sand appearing to shift beneath its blue blade. Her head filled with the thick clouds of exhaustion, it took her a moment to notice her sword appeared to be sinking.
Her thoughts slow, she slid her arm across the ground and grasped the pommel, feeling the tinge of familiar cold pierce the thickness of her leather glove. She gripped it tight to keep it from sliding into the sand as puffs of gold showered her arm.
The ground trembled and a gentle vibration skittered along her back like phantom ants. She blinked her eyes clear of sleep and focused them on her breasts, noticing them rising out of sync with her breath.
Awareness flooded her veins with adrenaline.
Braelyn rolled away from the explosions of sand and leapt to her feet, surprise and fear dulling her pain to a tolerable level. Her blue blade held before her, she drew her second sword with her left hand. The brightness of the day seemed to dim as the obsidian blade cleared its sheath.
Her eyes locked on the desert floor, the small puffs of sand came to a sudden halt. For several minutes she stood poised, no sound reaching her ears but the distant call of the ocean. Her breath slow, each exhalation eased out to be silent, she wondered after a while if she’d simply imagined the motion. Nothing marred the surface of the sand where she had lain, save for the slight impression where her body had nestled into the golden earth.
After several more minutes, she drew a deep breath and let the muscles of her arms relax, her swords drooping to his sides. She looked about to get her bearings, having lost track during her rest, when she felt another vibration at her feet. Its tremble shifted the sand beneath her boots.
She leapt to the side just as the ground beneath her burst upward in a great volcano of golden dust.
Her balance challenged by the shifting sand, she landed awkward, wasting a precious moment to stay on her feet before spinning to face back the direction she’d come. Her pulse thudded in her throat at what she saw.
Right where she had just stood, a motley brown creature that vaguely resembled a snake, rose from the sand. Its squirming body drew itself up, what was visible writhing to hover nearly ten feet above her. Six bulbous eyes extended three feet from its head on spindly stalks. They swiveled to lock their rheumy gaze upon her. Another eye set in the center, three times the size of the others and filled with a putrid green slime that sloshed within its circled depths as it moved, twisted so that it too came to rest its sight on her.
Multiple mouths ran down its length on all sides of it, each filled with sharpened teeth of black. Each maw opened and closed in what seemed random order, the motion and clack of its teeth mesmerizing. The air was filled with its chittering voices, a chorus of ear-rattling screeches.
Braelyn cast a quick glance about to assure herself no more of the beasts had sprung up behind her while she’d been distracted, before backing away. She kept her blades at the ready as the creature continued to emerge from the sand, its snapping body coiling over itself as foot after foot of it continued to emerge from the ground, swirling dirt stirred to a small maelstrom in its wake.
Its serpentine length loose of the dirt, it turned its attention to Braelyn. The green glow of its central eye shifted back and forth as though daring her to run, its stalks swaying about its head. All of its mouths flew open at once and it loo
sed a horrid wall of shrieks. The sound assailed her ears, so piercing that it nearly drove the sight from her eyes.
She stumbled back as her head swam under the sonic assault, fighting the urge to drop her swords and cover her ears. She blinked away the sudden tears that blurred her starred vision, just in time to see the creature lunging toward her.
She dove to the side as a handful of the beast’s slashing mouths crashed into the stand where she had just stood. She rolled away and jumped to her feet, turning to face her opponent. She squeezed the tears from her eyes as the creature’s shrieks became muffled, its mouths spitting out the dirt it had bitten down upon in place of her flesh.
Braelyn moved forward, hoping to take advantage of the creature’s distraction, but its stalked eyes swiveled to glare at her. Its tail lashed out like a screaming whip, sharpened teeth snapping just inches before her face as she retreated. The scent of rotten flesh struck her full in the face, her stomach churning, as she scrambled to put some distance between her and the beast.
It had no intention of letting her flee.
The creature reared up and struck at her, using its length like a coiled spring to speed its approach. Her hands trembling, Braelyn pushed her full weight into her feet, assuring her footing was stable. She held her ground as the creature neared, waiting until the very last moment before springing away. Her blue blade flashed in an arc behind her.
Committed to its charge, the beast’s central eye closed and crashed into the sand, throwing up a cloud as it burrowed deep. Braelyn’s blade sunk into the open gape of one of its mouths as it passed, jagged teeth shattering against steel.
The beast shrieked as its tail lashed out frantic in an attempt to strike her down. Its head, and all its eyes, still buried in the sand, Braelyn dodged the snapping lengths of its tail as it slashed about without direction and closed the distance. No more than a foot from its thrashing torso, she spun her sword in her hand to reverse her grip, and drove the tip of her obsidian blade into the maw nearest the head. Her downward thrust pierced the gaping mouth and skewered the flapping black tongue that wavered inside, sinking into the depths of its throat.
