by N. M. Howell
Just then they were startled by the sound of screaming. They leapt up and ran in the direction of the noise, but they were met by a phalanx of soldiers. Their instincts saved them. Raesh and Sarinda were casting before they even fully understood what was happening. The soldiers were strong and had been well trained by the Beautiful Dead, but they weren’t trained for the hallways Sarinda and Raesh knew so well. The two fought back against the soldiers furiously and soon more professors came to their aid. What the professors lacked in fighting ability, they made up for in sheer knowledge. Raesh and his fellows fought admirably, but more and more soldiers were pouring from Leabharlann and marching down every hallway. Raesh knew it was only a matter of moments before they were surrounded.
“We’ve got to get back to the tunnels!” he called. “We can regroup and plan a defense, but we’ve got to move, now!”
They began to retreat, casting behind them and running as fast as they could amidst flying spells and flying debris from hexes exploding into the walls. As they reached the main hub, the citizens who had yet to enter the tunnels saw the coming army and began to panic. They flew to wherever they thought they were safest, leaving all their things behind. A few brave souls turned and tried to fight, but they were cut down instantly by the well-trained battalion. Raesh, Sarinda, and the professors held the battalion off just long enough to get the final stragglers into the tunnel, then they all entered. Once they crossed the barrier, Raesh touched the tunnel wall, which initiated the magic seal to keep the enemy out.
“I don’t understand,” Sarinda said, still gasping. “How did they get inside? How did they even get within ten kilometers of the city without us knowing?”
“I don’t know,” Raesh said, slumping to the floor. “This isn’t right. They weren’t supposed to be here for another week. We were supposed to have more time.”
“Well, however they did it they’re here now. What about this seal? Will it hold?”
“Yeah. We’ve been working on them for months, before we even knew an army was coming. Nobody gets through that we don’t want to get through.”
“Andie and Saeryn, wherever you two are, we need you now,” Sarinda said, closing her eyes and trying to catch her breath. “There’s no way we’re going to win this without you.”
Outside the seal, the soldiers set up a dense patrol to guard the tunnel entrances and commence trying to break in. The entrance to each tunnel was guarded by fifty soldiers, each armed to the teeth and dead-set on ending life in Arvall. The tunnels were full of screams, cries, and prayers. The people had been told about the terror and senselessness of war, but few of them had ever truly seen it. All of them were waiting for her to return, for Andie to cut the sky on the back of a dragon and save them.
Column after column of soldiers filed in through the Archives, up and out through Leabharlann, and then into the University. They went down every hall, tunnel, corridor, and passageway that hadn’t been sealed off. They checked every room, lecture hall, closet, laboratory, and office. They found no innocents to terrorize, but they destroyed everything they touched, leaving trails of fire and debris all throughout the newly renovated university. They blew up whole sections of rooms, disintegrated critical loadbearing pillars. They filed out to the mountainside and begin ensuring that none would escape, blocking anything that even remotely resembled an entrance or exit. They stationed themselves across the mountainside and took up positions.
In Arvall City below, the next wave of the army swept into the city streets from the portal there. Professor Iceubes was still at the portal, attempting to perform a few final calibrations, when the second wave started. The soldier who killed him did not even give him a chance for his life, but merely ran him through with a spear of black bronze. The soldiers set about discovering the hidden shelters in the city. With the training they had received from the Dead, it wasn’t as difficult as it should have been. However, the citizens were not completely helpless; knowing they would be ill equipped to physically take on the coming army, the citizens had set up traps over seventy-five percent of the city. Mines, darts, blades, tar, and other traps were soon going off as the army marched through the city. Even that was not enough because the army’s sheer numbers guaranteed their progress. As some of the shelters were found, the soldiers commenced trying to break through the protective magic and barricades, hungry for death.
At last it was time for the battalion and the Dead to emerge from the portal. The battalion marched out in perfect ranks, strong, fierce, undeniable. Their sleek and powerful armor shone in the sun and their march shook the ground. They were bent on destruction. The Dead came through the portal too fast for the eye to track, racing through the city streets, effortlessly sensing and avoiding the traps. They leapt and climbed the buildings looking for vantage points and lives to end.
Raesh and Sarinda sat in the tunnel of the University, thinking how they might get out of this mess.
“This is no time for one of your lectures, Saeryn.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to schedule a later time for me to remind you of what damage the time spell can do? Do you truly need reminding of what it has done to your people, to you yourself not so long ago?”
“I did what I had to do,” Andie said, turning from Saeryn to continue tending the wound across her chest.
“No, you did what you wanted to do. And you used a spell that is not only heinous, but dark. Tampering with time is no meager thing, princess, and if you had made even the slightest miscalculation or mispronunciation—”
“If this, if that. With you it’s always about what could go wrong. You never miss an opportunity to second guess me. Can’t you ever just be happy I’ve saved your life?”
“Being prudent does not preclude my ability to be grateful,” Saeryn said, offended. “You act as if my berating you is a task I enjoy. You are not like other people, Andie. You’re nothing like them at all. You cannot imagine the power in your blood. I know because it is the same blood that runs in my veins.”
“Enough. I get it already. I’m special, I’m going to be Queen. You want me to put our people first, fine, but I’m going to do it my way. And I’ll be glad when I’m Queen so I won’t have to listen to these condescending tones anymore.”
“You do not even see how far from the path you’ve strayed. Torturing people for information, putting your personal quests before your people, wasting precious time on missions you conjure up to soothe your own feeling of inadequacy, judging your friends—”
“What friends? Yara? She’s in love with the enemy!”
“Do not tell me who the enemy is. I resisted and fought them as a child, and my friends and family were being slaughtered long before yours were ever born. Yara has traveled and worked on her own for months, winning priceless victories for our cause when we almost had her executed. I hardly think loving whom she loves should bar her from us. Unlike you, I trust her judgement.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what you’re really upset about, Saeryn?”
“To put it bluntly, I worry that not only are you far from the girl I thought you were, but that you may never be fit to call yourself Queen.”
Andie looked Saeryn squarely in the face, furious and hurt. She felt as if Saeryn had not only taken her birthright, but also threatened to cut her out from the dragonborn altogether, take away the last vestige of family she has.
“You would cut me out?” Andie asked, tears welling in her eyes.
“If I thought it was best for our people. I have told you time and time again that being a Queen is not easy, that it requires decisions that shake the very foundation of who you are. I love you, Andie. You have been a daughter and a friend and a partner to me. I would not cut you out willingly, but I cannot allow someone so caught up in their own pain to lead our people. And before you try to defend yourself, I must tell you what I know. I know you sneak down to the prisons and fight the Searchers and soldiers who have been imprisoned there. I know you’ve taken some of the grimoi
res from the collection. I know you’ve been studying dark magic. And I know that you found the Searcher who took your mother and I know what you’ve done to him. None of this makes you in any way fit to lead us or even join us. And if you think it brings me any pleasure to say this then you never knew me at all.”
With that Saeryn turned from Andie and returned to tending her own wound. Andie turned, too, and lowered her head. She had no idea Saeryn had been watching her so closely. Now that she did know it dawned on her that Saeryn had spent every day hoping for her to change. Andie hadn’t even realized how serious things had gotten. It started off so innocently. She fought in the prisons to train, test, strengthen herself. She took the grimoires, not to steal them, but to study the subjects she knew Saeryn wouldn’t approve of and she only studied them because she knew they needed all the help they could get. But Saeryn was right. Andie had gone too far. She thought on this. And thought. And then she came to her decision, knowing it will shape the rest of her life.
“I don’t care.”
“What?” Saeryn asked, turning.
“I don’t care. I don’t care what you think of me or that you don’t want me to be your Queen. I don’t care that I’m reckless and selfish and that I’m willing to do anything to save the people you can’t seem to protect yourself. I am bad. And angry. And hurting. And all those things have worked in me to get us here, alive. I pulled you from that portal. I tipped the scales in the Archives. I defeated the Chancellor and his battalion. I defeated Ashur. I saved those warriors from the Church. I found the portal in Thabes. I saved our lives in that grotto. What have you done? Walked around in all your dignity and integrity, judging me for getting my hands dirty when you knew you were too much of a coward to do those things yourself!”
“You forget your place, Andie,” Saeryn said, rising. “I am your Queen and you will address me as such.”
“As of right now, you’re nothing but a means to an end. It’s time to go. And when this is all over and I’ve saved the dragonborn and Arvall, then you can judge me while you sit back and enjoy the safe world I’ve handed to you.”
Minutes later, they were in the air again, the other four dragons flying without riders behind them. By the next morning they should be back in Arvall. The search for the portals was at an end for the time being, the final portal the one belonging to House Melpomene, the Chancellor’s family. Marcus’ notes in the journal indicated that he believed the Chancellor had no idea that his family was in possession of a portal, but that he may have inadvertently had it sent to the Old World.
His research showed that the more power the Chancellor acquired, the more paranoid he grew. He was convinced the other families were plotting to steal his wealth; he arranged to have several barges of his most valuable assets sailed across the Spider Sea, including a wooden container described as being twenty-five meters long, thirteen wide, and ten deep, more than enough space to hold a portal among other family heirlooms. But those are thoughts for another day. Right then, Andie’s mind was tuned to one thing and one thing only. Violence.
On the outskirts of Abhainn, Lucas moved through the camp, ignoring both the dragonborn captives he passed and the crashing claps of thunder from the Hot Salts in the distance. They had finally moved out of that area the day before and had since already set up a portal that would take them straight to Arvall. Beladorion and the Dead appeared to know everything about the portals, every variation and fluctuation, yet Lucas had watched them very carefully as they manipulated it, just as he was directed to do. Now he made his way purposefully across the field to fulfill his mission. He entered the large black tent that sat at the head of the battalion forces.
Ashur was there, standing over a map that he read with great focus and intention. His burned and scarred face turned to look at Lucas when he entered. With a nod of his head, Lucas confirmed that his mission had been successful. Ashur nodded in return to express his gratitude. They began talking, making up a conversation that had nothing to do with what they wanted to talk about. They spoke of the weather, the war, the Hot Salts, any banal and common topic they could think of, because they knew that ears were listening.
By then they were fully aware of what the Dead were capable of and they knew that the only way to deceive them was to surprise them. An almost impossible task. Part of every battalion member’s training was learning to communicate in two different sign languages, for instances when silence was critical. Lucas and Ashur sat down at the table and never stopped talking, yet they had a completely different conversation with their hands.
“I think I’ve figured out how we can get our autonomy back,” Lucas signed.
“Good,” signed Ashur. “When we first got into bed with these people I had no idea they would take us over so quickly, without our even noticing. But the victory must be ours. I don’t plan on sharing anything.”
“I apologize, my leader. You warned us this was a dangerous move, and though it may pay off in the end by helping us destroy the dragonborn, it may also destroy us. But I have found the secret of controlling the portal.”
“Excellent work, Lucas. You can recalibrate it to find and connect to other portals?”
“Yes, my leader, to any of the portals that are switched on.”
“I’m not so sure they didn’t let you learn how to control the portal as part of some master plan. We need to be careful now, more careful than we’ve ever been.”
“I understand.”
They laughed then, still having a completely different conversation by mouth than the very grave one they were having by hand. Lucas banged the table as if was the funniest thing he’d ever heard and Ashur gave a hearty laugh. Their hands told a different story.
“We need to kill these people,” Ashur signed.
“Forgive me, leader, but we may not be able to.”
“Have more faith in me, Lucas. I’ve had our engineers working on modifications for our suits since before we ever went groveling to the Dead. They tell me they’re close to a solution. I believe that by the time we step through that portal it will be the Dead who are afraid.”
“Excellent, my leader. Do you mean the engineers from Hessian’s Bridge?”
“Yes. Our new recruits are proving indispensable. All we need to worry about now is making sure the Dead step through that portal as planned. As soon as they’re all through we’ll upgrade our suits and recalibrate the portal. By the time they figure out that we’re no longer with them, we’ll already be plunging our hands into their chests.”
“I look forward to it. But—and forgive me if a I cross a line, my leader—but what about our forces who are already marching on Arvall. They won’t know whose side to choose.”
“They will either learn or die. We have no room for mercy now.”
The night passed and the morning came. Lucas and Ashur did not so much as nod to each other when they came together with Beladorion. Ashur had guessed that Beladorion’s bloodlust would outweigh his incredible intelligence, causing him to want to go through the portal first with his people. No sooner had the whole force gathered than the Dead began to go through the portal, dragging along the chained and captive dragonborn behind them. When all the captives have been taken through, the Dead flew the dragons through the portal. It seemed a kind of betrayal, that the dragons would allow the Dead to ride them, but no one quite understood how magic worked in the blood or how it passed things on from one species to the next hybrids. The dragons, after all, were only creatures. After some time, the Dead were finally all through, except Beladorion.
“We’re not cannibals,” he said, standing before the portal. “It’s a common misconception. We don’t like raw flesh and we don’t eat human flesh at all. We don’t care much for the taste of blood, though, to be fair, we don’t mind it as much as others do. We will only have the blood of the traitors and only because it is the way to obtain their magic.”
“And so you will,” Ashur said. “When the time is right.”
“Th
e time is right when I say it is right,” Beladorion said, rounding on Ashur. “I know you and your battalion are planning to cross us. I know that as soon as I step through this portal you’ll have Lucas recalibrate so that you come out where you wish. Perhaps you thought you were actually fooling us. Perhaps you also thought we didn’t know you were trying to enhance your suits.”
“How could you know that?” asked Ashur.
“Because it’s my business to know these things. Honestly, I haven’t seen or heard anything to give you away, it was simply the logical thing to do. Think about it: you want the dragonborn destroyed, but you want to do it yourself because who would want to go through everything you’ve been through and not get the glory? Of course, you’re going to try to go behind our backs because we’re better than you and you can’t confront us face to face, so you scheme and plot in the shadows. Not only that but we’ve practically taken all control from you and you want it back. And we’ve noticed your clumsy, dull-witted friend there lurking around. Your best and most logical course of action would be to let us go through the portal first, change it afterwards, come out in a different part of the city with enhanced suits and stab us through our backs when the fighting reaches its most intense. A perfectly reasonable plan except it’s too reasonable, it’s exactly what one should do in this situation. You lack creativity.”
“But how did you know?”
“You’re not very hard to figure out, commander. I wanted to know what you would do so I reasoned it out and now you’ve confirmed it. I would advise against this little coup of yours. We’re willing to forgive you just this once. But I would advise this: if you do choose to cross us, don’t miss.”
Beladorion turned and stepped through the portal. Ashur stood still for a moment, looking into the portal and contemplating his next decision. Lucas and the entire battalion waited, anxious now that they know the Dead were onto them, but still undyingly loyal to their leader, Ashur. Finally, Ashur turned to Lucas.
