“The mages are being ordered to attack. They are launching fireballs and throwing a barrage of stones.” Her eyes went wide. “The fireballs have disappeared! The stones have fallen out of the sky! The king is shouting for answers from the mages. The mages claim their magic hit some sort of barrier which dissolved their spells. They are trying again.” A few moments passed. “It has happened again - the spells dissolved. Panic is spreading through the ranks - the men are becoming nervous. The creatures are not slowing. The king is riding forward, shouting encouragement.”
John watched the expressions of the others in the room. Dawyn’s face was a stone mask, his lips tight, his eyes focused only on the queen. John had come to know him well enough to realize he was very concerned. Beside Dawyn, Anwyn clutched his arm, her expression grim.
Next to John, Ashley met his gaze, her eyes wide. Words were not needed to know that she was scared. Jason stared off toward the north, his gaze unfocused. Bridgette wore a similar expression, so John assumed they were communicating through their link.
Alivia had been pacing at the start of the battle, but froze at the mention of magic failing to strike the enemy. “This can’t be right,” John heard her mutter. “I was able to strike the creature with magic, what is going on?” No one answered.
“The creatures have reached the front line of pikes. They are slamming into the pikes. By the Founders, the line is bowing inward! Men are flying into the air, there’s blood everywhere! The king has ordered the cavalry to strike the flanks. The cavalry have charged. They are being repulsed - the creatures are tearing them apart! The pikemen are being torn into. Some creatures are dropping, but too few.
“The mages are still trying to use their magic - it continues to dissolve - they are shouting frantically that there must be some sort of field around the Krai’kesh army. Wait, there’s a crystal in the center of the army, being carried aloft by several creatures.
“By the Founders, a giant creature, at least three times as tall as the tallest man! It is crushing dozens of men at a time!
“Men are starting to flee. They are dropping their weapons and fleeing. The creatures move too quickly - they are stabbing the men in the back as they flee. The cavalry have been swallowed by the enemy army. The Shadow Watch Guards are urging the king to retreat. He is refusing - stubborn man. Please retreat, my husband,” her spoken plea to her husband, likely repeated through the link between them, broke John’s heart to hear. He could only imagine that he would feel the same if it were Ashley out there.
“The king is charging forward, his Guards are following. He has engaged the creatures. He has killed one! He’s killed another! Some of the fleeing men are joining up with the king’s retinue and turning to fight. The creatures are flanking them. They’re surrounded! The large creature is approaching the king and his men. It has broken the lines. Shadow Watch Guards are moving forward, trying to strike at it. It’s no use. The massive creature is swinging. The king-,” her commentary on the status of the fight was cut short as her head snapped back, her eyes opened wide and she emitted a loud, ear-piercing shriek before clutching her chest and collapsing to the stone floor.
“Mother!” Coryn shouted as she rushed forward. Anwyn detached herself from Dawyn and rushed forward as well, followed by Alivia. The nobles gathered near the rear of the chamber gasped. John exchanged helpless glances with Ashley and Jason. Dawyn’s expression had not changed, though John thought he saw him wipe a tear from his eye.
Anwyn moved Coryn aside with a gentle push and her hand went to the queen’s neck, where she felt for a pulse. Moving her hands, she laid them on the queen’s chest. Her back was to John and the others, but he knew she would have her eyes closed. She was still for several seconds before speaking. “I am not feeling a heartbeat or a pulse. Starting compressions.” She began pushing on the queen’s chest, performing CPR, John realized. After several rounds of compressions and breaths, she stopped. “Nothing,” she muttered. “Let me try magic.” She raised her hands and began to chant in the ancient druid tongue.
Mages and druids used different systems of magic, so John could see nothing of what she was doing, but he closed his eyes and called upon his magic. The world expanded around him as his mind flowed from his body. Focusing on the body of the queen, John moved his consciousness to encompass the queen’s body. He allowed his senses to penetrate the skin and delve deeper. He focused on the chest area, then on the heart. It was not beating. As he watched, he felt pulses of energy flooding the chest cavity, splashing against the heart like waves on a beach. It’s Anwyn, trying to electrocute the heart to get it beating again, John realized. She was pulling energy from the air somehow, in a way different than mages - more primordial somehow - and focusing it. Moving on from the chest region, John expanded his awareness across the rest of the body. He knew very little about the human body, so he did not expect to find the cause of the queen’s collapse - death - but still he searched. He searched last in the brain, and there he saw it. Her brain was hemorrhaging. A part of her brain had burst, filling the skull with fluid. The link, John thought. When the king died, the link must have shattered, or self-destructed. Remembering how Jason had described the link as an implant of some kind, John could believe that the implant within the queen’s brain might have self-destructed when the implant it was linked to - the king’s - became inactive.
Pulling his mind back, he spoke. “She’s received damage to her brain. I suspect it was from when the king died and the link was severed. I don’t think there’s anything that can be done.”
Coryn shot him a glare, not wanting to hear that her mother was beyond saving.
“Let me try,” Alivia said. Kneeling opposite Anwyn, she stared at the body and her eyes began to glow white. John could see energy flowing from her into the body, the corpse, John corrected himself grimly, of the queen. He considered delving once again into the body of the queen, to see what Alivia was doing, but decided not to. He could look if Alivia saved her.
After several minutes, Alivia’s eyes opened. She shook her head and stood. “John is right, there’s nothing that can be done. She’s gone. I’m sorry, Coryn.”
Tears that had been held back by a firm composure flowed as Coryn sobbed. Anwyn stood and tried to comfort her, but Coryn motioned for her to stay back and moved away.
John saw tears in Ashley’s eyes as she cried. He blinked against his own set of tears, and watched the nobles for their reactions in between frantic blinks.
Most of the nobles had tears in their eyes - men and women both. Some stared to the north, as if searching for signs of the battle that had taken place hundreds of leagues away. Others looked down, not wanting to meet the eyes of their fellow nobles or the princess. As the king’s eldest daughter, Coryn would assume the throne and become queen of Tar Ebon. John wasn’t sure about succession laws, but he thought that was how it worked.
Dawyn cleared his throat and confirmed John’s thoughts. “My queen, we must make preparations for the defense of the city and for the defeat of the Krai’kesh army.”
“Defeat?” one of the nobles, a dark-haired man with a pointy nose, asked. “They just defeated our entire army, plus the majority of our mages. Pray tell how you expect us to defeat them?”
“That was not the only army on the continent,” Dawyn replied. “Things look bleak, and they are about to become more bleak, but hope is not lost. We must act soon, however, or it may be too late. The fate of the world rests on the decisions we make today.”
“Can’t you see the queen is mourning the death of her mother?” a plump noblewoman with her hair pinned up asked. “She should not be bothered with such-,” she was cut off as the queen raised her hand to silence her.
“Dawyn is right, Lady Alviarin,” Coryn said. She wiped at her face with a sleeve of her shirt. “To delay in making plans is to invite destruction into the city. There will be a time for mourning, make no mistake, but first we must turn our attention on surviving to mourn. Take one hour to mo
urn the loss of soldiers, loved ones and subjects of the kingdom, then we shall all meet in the king’s - in my antechamber, to make plans. You are all dismissed. Dawyn, please remain for a moment.”
* * *
As the others filed out of the room, Dawyn remained as bid by the queen. With events transpiring so rapidly, Dawyn had been given little time to adapt to her new title. He was proud of how she had composed herself and asserted control so soon after both her parents were killed.
The door clicked shut and Dawyn opened his mouth to speak. “My queen, what-,”
“Did he know?” Coryn interrupted. “Did my father know that he would not return home?”
“I don’t know,” Dawyn said. “I admit that I wonder the same thing. Your father, he came to speak with me before leaving. He told me to garner the aid of the other kingdoms on the continent in the event that he fell in battle. He also forbade me from riding north with him.”
“He forbade me as well, and the way he was acting before he left - I should have seen it.” She pounded her fist into her palm. “How could I not have seen it! What could it have been? Prophecy? A vision?”
“I doubt we will ever know, my queen.”
“Oh, stop calling me that, Dawyn. You have known me for over a decade and always called me Coryn.”
“That was before you became queen, Coryn. You deserve to have respect shown to you.”
“Fine, you may address me as ‘my queen’ in public, but you will address me as Coryn in private. Are we clear?”
Dawyn bowed. “Yes, Coryn.”
Coryn gave a slight smile that vanished when her eyes fell once again to her mother’s corpse. “She didn’t deserve to die. She was innocent in all of this. She died merely for loving a man - my father.”
Dawyn nodded solemnly. “Hers was the first innocent blood spilled, but I expect not the last.”
Coryn gazed into Dawyn’s eyes. “I will make these abominations pay. I swear on the Founders I will, or die trying.”
We still might die, Dawyn thought, though he did not voice his thought.
* * *
So, are we going to talk about what happened? Jason asked through the link as they walked down a hall in the Celestial Palace. Doesn’t that concern you?
You mean the fact that if one of us dies, the other may very likely die of an internal explosion in their brain? Bridgette asked, irony being conveyed through the link. Yes, that concerns me. Are we certain it will happen to us? Perhaps the nanites will prevent that reaction from happening?
I don’t know, but I’m not sure I’m ready to find out. Jason shuddered. Don’t do anything dangerous, alright?
He got the impression she was laughing, as a sense of mirth was transmitted across the link. You know I can make no promises.
Chapter 38 - Freedom
“Oh, where will we go?” the frantic screeching voice of a slave woman said. “We’re all going to die!”
“Be quiet, all of you,” Boris said. The eyes of the slaves assembled in the sewers beneath the city focused on him. “We are not all going to die. We have the upper hand down here. If the soldiers or slavers want us, they have to wade through the sludge and the rats and winding tunnels in order to find us. For now, we are safe. It is starvation and disease that we will be fighting, not men.
“Now, if any of you wishes to leave, now is the time. Those that remain will work with my companions and I to prepare an escape plan out of the city. You have more safety, however, if you remain here in the sewers with us.”
After departing House Helgstad, Boris had led the slaves into the sewers, knowing it would be suicide to try and walk out of the city. Such a large group of slaves walking down the street would draw attention, with guards trying to kill them and slavers trying to capture them, mountains of gold the subject of their fantasies.
“What about the other slaves in the city?” a voice asked from somewhere in the crowd.
“We cannot free every slave,” Boris said. “We must look to ourselves first.”
“But my son is out there,” a woman cried. Her sentiment was echoed by many slaves. The Empire did not care if families were broken apart, and the slavers probably broke families up on purpose to make slaves hopeless and malleable.
Boris held up his hands in an attempt to restore order. “Alright, alright. When we are making our escape from the city, we may, I say may, be able to free other slaves on our way out. I will make no promises, though. Everyone should get some rest while possible. My companions and I will take turns standing guard for now, until some of you are trained to fight.” He would make no promises he could not keep. Although he disagreed with the institution of slavery, what could he, one man, do? For now, his focus was survival.
Chapter 39 - A Plan
“Thank you all for coming,” Coryn said to the assembled group. The same people who had been in the chamber when her mother died were assembled again now, in the antechamber of her bedchamber. The furniture had been moved aside, and a large table carried in. A massive map lay upon the table, depicting the continent of Tar Ebon, which included the kingdom of Tar Ebon and six others.
“As you are all aware, the Krai’kesh have struck a devastating blow against the kingdom of Tar Ebon. Our army was destroyed, and we are left with naught but city watch, militia and rangers now. Though I do not doubt the bravery of such men, I fear they shall not be enough to face the coming threat. To this end, I am appointing Dawyn Darklance as Supreme Commander of Tar Ebon’s military forces and placing him in charge of the tactics surrounding the defense of the city and defeat of the Krai’kesh.” She gestured to Dawyn. “Dawyn, would you please outline your proposed plan?”
“Thank you, my queen,” Dawyn said with a bow and stood as the queen sat. “My plan relies on the cooperation of the other kingdoms on the continent. As all of you know, there are seven kingdoms on this continent. Tar Ebon has fought against most of the lands at least once, but in this time of need the hope is that they will set aside old grudges and come to our aid.”
“So then we are sending out ravens?” one of the noblewomen asked. “To ask for their aid?”
Dawyn gave a thin smile. “If only it were that easy, m’lady. I fear that ravens will be insufficient to convey the gravity of the situation. We must send emissaries - people we trust - to visit each of the other kingdoms and garner their support.”
“Who is going?”
“Many of the people in this room. As the trusted confidants of the realm, it is clear that you each share a desire to see the kingdom, and the world, remain standing. Each group will consist of an emissary and a small escort of rangers. When a nation agrees to aid us, have them send all available military forces to Henry’s Crossing. It is there we will assemble our combined military forces for a strike on the Krai’kesh.
“What follows is the assignment of who is going where. You do not have to go if you do not want to go, but know that if you refuse, the likelihood of our success decreases.
“Jason, you are being sent by boat to the Citadel, in the kingdom of Kalandor far to the southeast. They are known for their heavily armed and armored knights and have always been a staunch ally of Tar Ebon. Bridgette, you are to go to the desert lands of Shar’Hai, to the west. Be cautious, for they have fought Tar Ebon in centuries past. Their warriors and ninjas are known around the world for their discipline and swordsmanship. John, we are asking for you to go northwest to the Rovarkian horse lords. They are a fierce, proud people, who may have already encountered the Krai’kesh as they traveled south. I suspect it will be easy to convince them.
“Anwyn, you are being asked to return to your homeland - the forest lands of Volandir to the east. There you are to ask the druids and the woodland people to come to our aid. Relations have not always been good between our lands, for they constantly skirmish with the Citadel, but I hope that the druids will be wise enough to see that they and their people are needed. Ashley, you are to go to the southeastern kingdom of Valnaria. They are known fo
r their pikes and crossbows, a valuable core to any army. I will go southwest to Mara Damare and entreaty their king to support us. They take pride in the swordsmanship and discipline of their soldiers there - a suitable place for me to go in the event they wish to challenge me.
“Our queen will be remaining behind to hold court and help the city remain steadfast in the face of our foe. Are there any questions?”
“What of me?” Alivia asked.
“I wouldn’t presume to give you directions, Alivia, you being a master of the Tower. But, considering that most of the masters were slain in the recent battle, it would make sense for you to remain behind to oversee the operation of the Tower and assist Coryn as needed.”
Alivia did not look happy at Dawyn’s words, but nodded all the same.
“Ranger-general, how many rangers do you have in the city?” Dawyn asked.
“A few dozen, sir.”
“Draw back as many as you can from the surrounding countryside prior to the Krai’kesh arriving here. Send some north as scouts - hopefully we can get some advance notice - and send any others who cannot make it before the siege begins south to Henry’s Crossing. On their way, have them gather any able-bodied men who are willing to fight. Such recruits can be trained at Henry’s Crossing while we wait for the other kingdoms. Any other questions?” There were none.
“Alright, you are all dismissed for now,” the queen said, standing. “Make preparations - you will leave as soon as possible for your destinations. May the light of the Founders shine upon you in your journeys.”
Epilogue
As the north wind blew across the fields beneath the walls of Tar Ebon, Coryn watched as a procession of people exited from the eastern gates. The last hope for Tar Ebon, nay, for the world, rode forth in an effort to prevent the coming apocalypse. Her hair billowed in the wind and she reached back to pull the hood of her cloak up.
Time of Shadows (The Saga of the Seven Stars Book 2) Page 19
