Earth

by Rosie Scott

  Within minutes, the alliance was formed, and the contracts signed. I breathed a sigh of relief, because somehow, I had done it. I was on the road with my goal to overthrow Sirius and slowly change the world. It was shocking to think that this had all started with me wanting to run from my royal duties in Sera just a year and a half before. I had run from Seran royalty, found I was the half-breed daughter of a god who treated herself as royalty, and was now, technically, fighting to become royalty all over again.

  Perhaps it was meant to be. Perhaps I was just fickle.

  “Now,” King Adar said happily, when we both had ahold of the scrolls which proved our alliance, “I treat my allies as friends, so I would like to treat you all to something special.” The king stood, before watching us expectantly. My friends and I began to stand up from our chairs, stretching limbs that had fallen asleep during our negotiations.

  “What is that?” I questioned, curious.

  King Adar beamed with my interest, and turned to lead us out of the room, two guards at his side. “I will show you my collection, friends. The last known artifacts of the Ancients.”

  Seventeen

  The room which held the artifacts of the Ancients was specially modified to display them, for the first thing I noticed as we walked in was the bright Naharan sun shining down directly into the room from an open skylight, casting a metal ball twice the size of a human head in bright light. The metal was a deep blue, so deep that a quick glance could convince one it was simply black.

  “This is my most prized artifact,” the king spoke, hurrying to the ball. When he touched it, it began to spin, slowly on the small stand he'd had built for it on its pedestal. “Look, Kai. It glows.”

  Sure enough, wherever the sun hit it, patterns consisting of dots and lines glowed in a bright, turquoise blue that was so unlike any light I had ever seen.

  “It is the language of the Ancients,” King Adar said, his eyes watching the spinning orb. “Touch it, Kai. The metal is so strong, yet lightweight.”

  I walked up to the ball, doing as I was asked. I barely touched it with a fingertip, and the orb began to spin, new patterns of dots connecting to lines arriving before my eyes.

  “This is not a language,” I mused, my eyes catching on a small set of overlapping lines, each line connecting to a dot. I tilted the orb, allowing the pattern to glow in its turquoise light.

  “What is it?” King Adar asked, watching me with intrigue.

  I glanced back toward my companions, to see if any of them could tell what it was. Only Theron looked as if he had a clue, and even then, he only nodded, before waiting for me to say it.

  “These are constellations,” I explained to the king, letting my finger glide over the pattern of lines. “This, here. The Minotaur, astronomers call it. It would show in the skies of Sera once a year, in the midst of Red Moon, and it would be high enough in the sky that I could see it from my bedroom. It is one of the few constellations I know, because I could recognize it.”

  “Why would the Ancients care about constellations?” King Adar asked, looking to me for answers.

  “I...don't know. Where was this found, again?”

  “In some ancient ruins, north of Jaalam,” the king replied. “The ruins are made of metal, much like this artifact. We have never known its origin, because my miners did not recognize the metal.”

  “Perhaps it is dwarven,” Nyx suggested.

  “We thought the same,” the king agreed. “But I have never cared for the dwarves, so I do not seek information from them.”

  “Nahara's relationship is still strained with Hammerton because of the Metal Conflict?” I asked him, referencing a small war between the two countries over ownership of the Jeweled Ridges, which was a mountain range sitting directly between the modern day beastlands of Nahara and the dwarven country of Hammerton. In my readings of military history as a young girl, the Metal Conflict had been one of the lesser wars of those I learned about, due to its relatively short length and low fatality rate. The war had spanned just twelve years, between 281 and 293 of the current Mortal Era, and was waged over the simple fact that both countries involved wanted access to the metals and gemstones which were ripe within those mountains. Nahara had eventually lost the war, needing to pull their armies from the conflict to combat its beasts.

  “Oh, yes. I hate those dwarven bastards,” the king admitted, sounding frustrated. “And now that you and I are allied, you should hate them, too. They will become your enemy, given your quest.”

  I nodded. I'd already thought of that. Dwarves were not a very magical race, and they abhorred necromancy due to their culture, which took extreme measures in honoring the dead. It was part of the reason why Sirius was always trading between the dwarven led cities in Chairel and the neighboring country of Hammerton. The dwarves relied on Sera for their magic use, and they always had the gold with which to pay the exorbitant prices. They also, naturally, agreed heavily with Chairel's ban of necromancy.

  “This is not the only artifact I have to show you,” the king went on, after a moment. He walked to one of the side walls of the room, where a few miscellaneous trinkets sat upon a shelf carved from sandstone. “These all came from the ruins,” he said, pointing them out as he showed me each one. “This, my scholars believe, is some type of knife or tool,” he said, pointing out an oblong, thin object. It did look like the handle of something, though it appeared it was detached from any usefulness. I touched it, and it felt hard, like glass or metal, but was neither. I was left confused by its use. “And this, I was told, was probably some sort of plate,” the king went on, pointing out a flat piece of material that appeared the size and shape of a small tea tray, though it was glass on one side, and metal on the other.

  “It looks like some sort of writing tablet,” Theron pointed out, leaning forward from his stance and pointing toward the bottom of the object, where there sat a variety of small squares, each etched into the hard material. It appeared the squares had at one point been painted, but the paint had faded over the centuries.

  “Yeah,” Nyx agreed. “Whoever wrote this didn't get very far.”

  “I will take your theories to my scholars,” King Adar said, pleased to hear our own ideas about the ancient artifacts. “Unfortunately, that is all I have to show you. The ruins are protected by the anubites, and I lost many soldiers in retrieving them. Be careful whenever you tread the Naharan sands, friend, and if you see the glare of metal, stay far away.”

  “We plan on it,” I agreed.

  Before the day was through, King Adar offered us rooms to stay in at his own castle, given the people still were swarming for a chance to see me, and our treks back and forth through the city would be inconvenient. I was to start training the armies of T'ahal the following morning, and the king gave me directions on who to meet and where. Cerin planned to teach the soldiers what he knew of life and death magic to help my workload. We knew that not everyone would have the ability to wield elemental magic; after all, it was the most trying school of magic to wield. Even still, just finding the people who had the ability and sorting through possible students was going to be time consuming. Then, the time would come to actually teach the magic while relaying the dangers of wielding it to the prospective mages. After all, Nahara was a nation of mostly humans, and their lifespans were the shortest of the races on Arrayis. Human mages in particular had the shortest lifespans of any.

  The day Cerin and I started training mages was the last day of High Star. The switch over to Red Moon came with barely a notice. Here in Nahara, the weather did not change as much as it did in Chairel. My home country would be cooling off from the sweltering heat, and the plants would be preparing for their hibernation. In the desert, however, the heat remained, though I heard murmurs that the winds became stronger over the cooler two seasons, and storms were more common. The cooler weather of Chairel mixed with the heat from the deserts, making particularly the dunes near the border more perilous.

  For many weeks,
Cerin and I built up the foundation of what we hoped would eventually be a school of magic to rival the Seran University. For now, T'ahal did not have a designated building for it, and we taught within the confines of the army barracks which normally housed the active soldiers. A unit of King Adar's men had been sent out on a mission out east some time before we'd even arrived in the capital city, so there was enough room for us and many students within its walls.

  While Cerin and I taught, the others took the time to train in their own ways. Nyx somehow found the time to finally practice with the Naharan throwing stars she had bought in Comercio between spending a good portion of her gold on the city's brothels. She also learned some illusion magic from Jakan, and thankfully, learned it easily enough. The Alderi were as magically efficient as the other races of elves, but they tended to stick with the schools of illusion and alteration. They found magic to be a weak weapon, and stuck with killing with melee and supporting their nefarious actions with the magics which could aid them. I knew Nyx would have a ton of fun being able to charm others into doing her will or becoming temporarily invisible; I simply hoped she would have the self control with which to keep from abusing it.

  Jakan, on the other hand, trained with both Theron and Anto to become better in combat. The thief had been using his illusion magic and a small knife, but he soon became proficient in using a scimitar in his right hand, and a one-handed crossbow in his left. He had fallen in love with the interesting weapon, and loved the idea of being able to use melee and range at the same time. Anto's past career as a blacksmith allowed him to make ammo for the crossbow, which would become helpful in the future during our travels. Though Anto had long become an expert at wielding dual arm blades, which strapped around his thick arms by heavy leather bands and sliced outward from the exteriors of his arms, his experience with the blades allowed him to help train his lover, since the one handed crossbow required straps to keep it secured to Jakan's forearm. Reloading the weapon required his right arm, though Anto modded the weapon to enable it to hold five bolts at once in a small clip. If Jakan used up the five bolts, he would be able to manually reload either the clip, or simply one bolt at a time. Anto also modded the crossbow to include a bladed shield over its top, allowing Jakan to be able to use the weapon as a small bashing shield in melee.

  The orc was fantastic at making weapons and armor, that was for sure. With Cerin's help in getting my armor sizes without my knowledge, Anto soon made me a new suit of armor to replace my previous set which had been mostly ruined in my battle with Malgor. He created it with thick, tanned leather that he dyed just enough to make it a unique shade of blackish-green. In the sun, the armor reflected to the eye an emerald green, which contrasted beautifully with my bright red hair. In low light to darkness, it simply looked black. It was a beautiful set of armor that Anto gifted to me upon its completion in mid Red Moon, as a surprise gift for having freed him. The orc was just as sweet and humble as Jakan had told us, and I found myself befriending him easily. Even Theron, with his predispositions toward the orcish race, found himself slowly coming to terms with his joining us.

  We went on like this in T'ahal until the 64th of Red Moon, when a messenger came to the room Cerin and I shared in the castle in the early morning, and asked us to gather the others and come to King Adar's throne room. Though we often ran across the king due to our stay in his castle and exchanged pleasantries and words of progress about the growing school of magic, he had never called for us to meet with him with such urgency.

  “Perhaps Chairel's armies have breached the border,” Cerin suggested, as we dressed to meet with the king.

  Though my stomach soured, I would not have found that surprising. We knew the time would eventually come when Sirius would send his armies into Nahara, with or without the support of the queen. As far as Chairel knew, they were still on friendly enough terms with Nahara. Until Chairel found out about the alliance between the country and my own rebellion, King Adar continued trading with them, to maximize the benefits of the partnership before it would be forced to break apart.

  Our small group headed up the stairs from our second floor lodgings and to the throne room, finding a pensive King Adar waiting in his seat, surrounded by a number of scouts. The king looked so conflicted, that at first, I wondered if he had some issue with our work or alliance.

  My friends and I bowed politely before the king, and waited for him to speak.

  “Kai...” he began, the fingertips of his right hand grazing distractedly at the arm of his throne. “I'm afraid I have need of you.”

  I said nothing, and only listened. We had been fulfilling our part of the bargain in building the king's school of magic, so I felt this was not news. However, he had to have had something else in mind in order to call a meeting over it.

  “You and Cerin Heliot have been doing fantastic work building our magic education system,” the king complimented, before his eyes met mine in question. “Do you think it would be safe to let the students practice in your absence?”

  I glanced to Cerin, who said, “I have a few students who could lead the others. At least temporarily.”

  I nodded, agreeing. “Me too.” Turning to the king, I said, “We can set a few of the students up into leadership positions, if we are to leave T'ahal. Have armies come from Chairel?”

  “No—not yet.” King Adar hesitated, before he exhaled heavily. “You have not yet met my son Hasani, because he was tasked with leading an army unit out to Jaalam just weeks before your arrival. The town of Nen lies to the south, at the edge of where my deserts meet the Dhahab Canyons. The people there have reported tremors in the sands which are causing their livestock to flee west. Hasani and his unit were supposed to track down the beast responsible and kill it.”

  “You say he was sent to Jaalam?” I questioned. “How far from Nen is the lost city?”

  “Two days by hyena,” the king replied. “The beasts from the east are large enough that their movements provide us a few days notice. I sent Hasani to Jaalam, because that is where we figured it was. I sent runners along with him, who were to report back with updates. None of them returned, so a few weeks ago, I sent another. He arrived back yesterday evening, on the back of a hyena which was running free without a master from the east. He claims there were signs of a battle, but he could not find my son, or any of his army.”

  “What were the signs of battle?” Theron spoke up. It had been awhile since the ranger had been given a reason to track a foe. I knew he missed it.

  The king turned to a runner nearby, who stepped forward to speak. “There was blood on the sands. Saddles that had been ripped from the backs of hyenas which were missing. The sands were disturbed...the last time I was east, the lost city of Jaalam was overburdened with sands from its southern side. I was sure of that. This time, it was as if our planet tilted, pushing the sands to the other side, for the southern ends of Jaalam's covered buildings were showing to the sun for the first time in many years.”

  “It is the work of Mantus, my king!” One of the soldiers standing watch at the wall exclaimed. I remembered Jakan telling us about the beast. Though I did not know what manner of beast it was, if this was the work of Mantus, which was claimed to have been the beast which caused the fall of the entire city of Jaalam, we had trouble on our hands.

  “Do not fear mere superstition,” the king snapped, frustrated with the outburst.

  “With all due respect,” Theron replied, “Armies do not simply vanish into sands on their own.”

  The king's eyes rose to meet the ranger's, but he said nothing.

  “You want us to kill the beast,” Nyx said, impatient.

  King Adar's gaze switched to her. “I want you to find my son. He is my only heir, and my wife is dead. Had I known this would happen, I would not have sent him. But I have sent hunting parties out before, and all have failed. Hasani is a great warrior and general. If anyone could find and kill the beast, it would have been him.”

  “You want us to
find your son and kill the beast,” Nyx corrected her earlier statement.

  “If you can, yes. But my son is most important.”

  “King Adar...” I trailed off, bringing his attention to me. “If his army has disappeared, your son may be dead.”

  “I refuse to believe that unless a piece of him is brought back. His armor, his hyena, even one of his javelins...I need proof he is dead. Otherwise, I will forever search for him, and I will eventually run out of soldiers.” The king's eyes were pleading in my own. “If anyone can do this, Kai, it is you. It must be you.”

  I hesitated. On the one hand, I wanted to fulfill my obligations as the king's ally, and do it well. On the other, this may very well have been an impossible request of us. How could we kill an ancient beast with so few people, when whole armies had failed? How would we know what to look for when trying to find Hasani?

  “I need an army,” I informed him. “If we come across this beast, I will need more than a handful of warriors. I will also need people who know what to look for when it comes to Hasani. Ideally, I would like to take the hyenas, as well. If your son made it as far as Jaalam, it will take us a season or two by foot. By the time we come back to T'ahal, our agreed period of building your magic schools here will have ended.”

  “Do you think you are capable of leading an army?” King Adar asked, looking for honesty.

  “Absolutely.”

  The king sighed, and slumped in his throne from stress. “Very well. You will have your army and your hyenas. Kai, please be aware that each soldier is desperately needed in my armies; I cannot risk many casualties.”

  “I would hope so,” I agreed. “I will treat each soldier as my own.”

  King Adar looked over to Talib, who stood to the side of the room, watching our conversation. “Talib, prepare a unit of one hundred soldiers. A mix of arbalests, lancers, and infantry. Be sure there are enough hyenas to carry them all so this mission may be quick. Be sure the hyenas are fed and watered amply tonight.”