Heroes of the Crystal Star (Valcoria Book 1)

by Jason James King

  Lorta nodded to Salache, and the general barked an order that was relayed like an echo.

  Rayome mounted his horse, making a point not to look at the pathetic sight of Gevan tethered to the spike like a disobedient dog. He made ready to snap his reins when he heard Gevan cry out, “How can you leave me like this?”

  That gave Rayome pause. He waited for Gevan’s Father to claw his way up from beneath his rage, but nothing happened. He didn’t come. He was finally dead. Rayome prompted his horse forward as the army resumed its march.

  “Father!” Gevan screamed.

  Your father is dead, I am the Medasylas.

  The time for Adariel to act had come, and she learned from the Arch Sage that much more than her husband’s soul was at stake.

  Chapter 24

  The Desperate Son

  Sitrell was astonished when Draciak Eletar came into view. Impossible, there’s no way we could’ve come this far so fast. True, he and Etai had been riding nearly non-stop at a furious pace, but was it even possible to cover the distance from Micidian to the chasm, some five hundred miles, in just over two days? Apparently so. Then again, it had not been a normal ride, even for an endurance run. They had stopped only when Sitrell needed to relieve himself, at which time Etai would repeat his strange ritual of touching the horses on their necks and shutting his eyes as if in prayer. This always seemed to revitalize the beasts. They had not needed food, drink, or rest for the entire trip. Etai had even used his “magic” on Sitrell a couple of times, banishing his hunger, quenching his thirst, wiping away his fatigue, and making him feel as though he had just risen from an exceptional restful night’s sleep in perfect health. Was that something Yuiv could do as well?

  They crested a rise, bringing hundreds of miles of forest into view. Like the conspicuous bald patch of an aging man, Draciak Eletar cut a narrow swath of barren rock through the forest over a fifty mile decline to the west. Draciak Eletar was the landmark travelers relied upon to mark their descent into the Aldora vale as well as the only path down through the Aldora’s sheer valley walls. It was also the home of an endangered species of large lizard, the Viska Aran, creatures that were trophy hunted by ambitious gamesman. Sitrell might have felt pity for the reptiles, Istran doctrine teaching that to kill animals for reasons other than necessity was sin, except that the lizards were predators in their own right. Not a few travelers had left Salatia Taeo to journey to the eastern provinces and had not reached their destination on account of the horse-sized reptiles. It was for this reason that wise wayfarers avoiding journeys through the chasm with fewer than ten armed persons, and then never at night.

  Sitrell checked the sky. The sun was setting. Even at their miraculous pace, they would not be able to make it through the chasm before dark. Sitrell slowed his mount to a halt. Etai overshot him and then slowed his mount once he realized Sitrell had fallen back.

  “What is it?” he called over his shoulder.

  “It is dangerous to pass through the Eletar after dark.” He pointed at the setting sun. “Perhaps we should camp for the night.”

  Etai moved his horse back a few feet. “You throw yourself into battle with the reckless abandon of a condemned man, and yet you worry about a few hungry lizards?”

  “Lizards the size of your horse,” Sitrell retorted, “and fifty miles of chasm wall lined with their nests. Who knows how many live down there?”

  Etai looked toward the barren strip of rock. “Not as many as there used to be,” he said, sounding wistful.

  Did Etai regret that the Viska were a dying breed? Sitrell shook his head, he would not be sorry to see the creatures pass out of existence. They were too dangerous.

  After a moment of apparent contemplation, Etai said, “We can’t wait.” Before Sitrell had a chance to argue, Etai launched his horse into a gallop.

  He hesitated. Am I really following this man, this stranger, into the Eletar at night?

  Trust him and do what he tells you, for he is a guide, Sitrell heard Enot Trauel’s voice echo from memory.

  Sitrell snapped his horse’s reins and followed.

  Gevan shook his upended canteen, catching the last few drops of water on his cracked and bleeding lips. He had tried to ration it, but the chasm was parched, making him drink it faster than he realized. When the tin canteen would not yield any more, he tossed it aside and sat on the ground, hair full of dust, his metal collar chafing the skin of his neck.

  Hungry, Gevan picked through the satchel. General Salache had seemed oddly somber when delivering that to him, as though he felt sympathy for him. Perhaps he just disapproved of the method Lorta had chosen for my execution. It probably violated some foolish Aelic tenet.

  Gevan glanced at a dark cave yawning at him from the opposite wall. Remarkably, he had survived two nights without drawing the attention of the Viska. Though the first night he had heard them prowling about, the urgent cries of a deer announcing that at least one of the lizards was actively hunting. The second night he had seen the silhouette of one stalking back and forth across the chasm floor. Looking for me. Although nocturnal, the creatures had very poor eyesight. They relied more on smell and sound for hunting their prey. Crouching behind his boulder had shielded him from the creature’s sight, while a fortuitous wind had masked his scent.

  Gevan rubbed his eyes with the back of a chalky hand, Vaekra take me, but I’m tired. Save for a few midday naps in the narrow space between his boulder and the canyon wall, Gevan had not been risked much sleep. Sleep was now becoming less of a choice for him, desperate fatigue enticing him to shut his eyes and surrender to it. He shook off another involuntary doze. I can’t sleep. Not if I want to survive. Unto what end? Even if he could escape, where would he go? He wouldn’t last long this far from civilization without supplies.

  After the army had passed, taking with them their jeers and spittle, Gevan had strained furiously against his chain in an effort to dislodge the metal spike. It had proved an exercise in futility.. It’s only a matter of time now. Either the Viska get me or I starve, those are my only options now.

  Feeling both physically and emotionally exhausted and finding nothing more to eat in the satchel, Gevan dragged himself into his cramped space behind the boulder. I should’ve slept instead of trying to escape. Lengthening shadows signaled the approach of evening. It was going to be a very long night.

  Gevan leaned his head back sucking on his tongue in an effort to ease his thirst and keep sleep at bay. How did I come to this? Here he was, at the end of his short twenty-four years of existence, situation not at all what he imagined his death would be like. What would Tianna do when he never returned? His wife had tearfully pleaded with him not to go; she was convinced that tragedy awaited him if he did. You were right, Tianna. I should’ve stayed with you. That thought dredged up an odd combination of emotions, mostly various degrees of guilt mixed with anger and indignation. Selfish, she had called him. But how could trying to save your own father, the man who had sacrificed so much for you, be selfish?

  Rayome had raised Gevan, taught him everything he knew. He had done it alone and, for a long time, homeless. Their shared exile had forged an strong bond between the two of them, for it had always been just them against the world, an epic struggle against adversity that they had won together.

  Gevan loved his father. “More than me?” his wife had asked through bitter tears. That question, more than anything else, had made him feel the recreant. But Tianna didn’t understand. How could she? She had never been stripped of prestige and possessions and forced to leave her home. She had never had to swallow her pride in order to beg a meal for her four-year-old son. She had never had to sleep secretly in the loft of a stranger’s barn. Gevan and his father had experienced all of that and more, endured it together. His father had suffered so much, they both had. How could his father have known what he was planning? Of course he could have guessed why Gevan had fled, but how in the infinite dark of the Void did he know the specifics of his plan? How had
he known to remove the fuses on those four particular firebombs? The thought chilled Gevan’s blood. Something else was acting upon his father, something connected with that belt. Yes, somehow it had changed him, made him a perverse reflection of the man he knew.

  Rayome had always hated Amigus for what the king did to their family, but as far as Gevan knew, his father had never been a violent man. In fact, he could scarce remember Rayome ever raising his voice to him and he had never struck him, not even when he had deserved it.

  It all started on that day four years ago when we delved into Cestra.

  They had been exploring the lost city, Father finding the belt while they had separated to cover more ground. Right away his father had seemed enamored with the find, which Gevan had attributed to the artifact’s mysterious novelty and his father’s passion for historical treasures. The details of the artifact’s design should have been Gevan’s first clue, the belt not conforming to what they knew of Valakyrian technology.

  Gevan knew something was wrong when his father had first donned the belt. Not because of the way the jagged teeth on the belt’s arms clawed into Father’s flesh, not even when its sleeping jewel burst into an angry red glow. No, disturbing as those signs were, it had been the way his father had looked at him that had disturbed him. It was like something else was looking at Gevan through his father’s eyes, something hateful, something alien. Of course, he had dismissed that foreboding, for Gevan did not believe in the supernatural. Like Father, he had just assumed the belt to be some advanced piece of technology.

  The weeks following their find brought with them a change in his father, one that was just subtle enough that Gevan hadn’t really thought it extraordinary. After all, Father had always been prone to occasional bouts of melancholy, and his reclusive withdrawal to study the belt hadn’t seemed outside his personality. It wasn’t until he produced a functional copy of a Niazeride hand unit that Gevan started to suspect something had changed. Brilliant though Rayome was, he had nowhere near the understanding of Valakyrian technology needed to duplicate one.

  Not long after he had completed his first prototype, Father began to parley with the Aukasian government, first through letter then through live messengers. Nine months after Cestra, Rayome made a deal in which he would build Niazeride hand units for Aukasia’s military in exchange for an advisory position in the emperor’s court. Gevan had pled with his father not to leave, not to get involved with the empire, but his words did nothing to dissuade him. So Father left, and Gevan heard from him only occasionally in brief, cold, business-like letters that bore no hint of familial warmth. Two years passed like this, a hole grew in Gevan’s heart where his father had once been.

  Then the war started, and when news of it reached Gevan’s village, it had stirred a chilling foreboding inside him, and he somehow knew that his father was at the center of the conflict. That’s when Gevan had determined to find Rayome and if possible bring him home. He had never guessed that upon arriving at the Aukasian capital, Dalathiel, that he would find his father a revered, albeit controversial, religious figure with almost as much influence as the emperor himself.

  Rayome had seemed genuinely excited when Gevan first arrived in Aukasia, an encouraging glimmer of the man he remembered. That didn’t last long, however. Gevan’s argument that they return home was met with an angry response. After that, he had offered his help with Rayome’s plans in order to stay close to him, his father passing him off to Lorta as an acolyte.

  The sound of bestial breathing shattered the quiet of the chasm. Gevan started, snapping his eyes open and lifting his head up. To his horror, he was met with the dark of a night hours past sunset. Shards! When had he fallen asleep? He had been dozing, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes ago.

  He sucked in a breath and froze, listening intently at a sound coming from the other side of the boulder, a hissing wheeze accompanied by slow and heavy footfalls. It was a Viska and it was prowling just a few feet away, the boulder the only thing separating Gevan from a horrifically painful death. He carefully released his pent up breath, as he watched the beast’s shadow stretch out on the wall in front of him. So close. If it caught his scent he was a dead man. He drew in another deep breath and again held it, doing all in his power to remain undetected.

  A tug on his chain forced a sudden exhale, followed by panic as he heard claws clatter against stone. It was climbing the boulder! Heavy panting above him accompanied by hot wet breath bathing his hair in the stink of old blood and raw meat made Gevan clench his teeth and shut his eyes. This is it. A mental parade showed him in quick succession everyone that he loved. You were right, Tianna. You were right. I’m sorry.

  He waited for the first shock of pain, perhaps it was a lucky thing that the monster would attack him from above. If it wounded his head, maybe he would die quickly or unconsciousness would take him before the thing tore into his abdomen. Odd the thoughts one thinks when one is about to die.

  He waited, but no attack came.

  Gevan warily opened his eyes, ears straining for signs of movement.

  Nothing.

  He tilted his head back and found only a clear night sky with an unusually bright moon looking down upon him. The furious pounding of his heart slowed as he released a pent up breath. Apparently, luck was on his side. The Viska didn’t catch my―

  A terrible hissing came from his left. He ducked, finding a gigantic lizard crouching to the side of him, its mouth gaping to reveal dozens of long, sharp teeth. The Viska was as almost as large as a horse, though not as tall and more wiry, with visible ribs and a protruding spine. A long tail flailed as it squeezed into Gevan’s hiding spot, its forked tongue flicking in and out splashing him with foul smelling saliva. Conscious thought fled from his mind, Gevan instinctively kicked the monster hard in the underside of its jaw. It screeched and pulled its head away.

  It furiously danced about, writhing and shrieking as it pressed its head against the dirt. Maybe it will flee. It shook off the blow and made another attempt at squeezing into the crack. Gevan tensed, readying his foot, but was caught off guard as the Viska changed tactics, lunging into the crevice instead of carefully squeezing. Rocks scraped its head and neck, but the hungry Viska didn’t seem to care. Gevan brought his foot up, but instead of connecting with the lizard’s jaw, he put it directly in front of its mouth.

  Teeth dug into Gevans leg as the Viska snarled, dug in its feet and tugged backward in a series of violent jerks. He screamed so loud that his ears rang as the lizard dragged Gevan’s entire body out by his leg bone. Once in the open, the Viska released its hold and loomed over Gevan’s belly, sniffing as if it were determining the optimal position to begin its feast. Tears of pain streamed down Gevan’s face, and although he had decided at the beginning of his ordeal that he would not watch the Viska eat him alive, he couldn’t look away. It reared its head, maw open, exposing its full arsenal of dagger-sized teeth.

  Something struck the Viska in the side of the head causing it to pause and then look south.

  “Over here!” Gevan heard a man shout.

  A second rock struck the monster in the face and it hissed, forgetting Gevan for the moment and moving off toward the source of the missiles. Gevan gripped his chain and began pulling himself toward the boulder, but stopped when he caught sight of a silhouetted figure moving toward the Viska, sword held aloft as he settled into a practiced battle stance. Forgetting his retreat, Gevan watched as the horse-sized reptile warily approached the swordsman.

  The Viska crouched, hissed, and then struck. The swordsman reacted almost as fast, dancing to the side and bringing his sword down in a strike, aiming for the beast’s neck. He failed to decapitate the Viska, but succeeded in laying open its shoulder. It screeched and whipped around, wild tail missing the swordsman’s head by mere inches.

  The swordsman thrust his sword at the Viska’s chest. A quick move from the lizard deflected the blade, and it sank into its scaled side instead. The Viska screeched
, but pressed its attack and succeeded in nipping the swordsman’s left shoulder. He ignored the wound, whirling to his right and bringing the pommel down on the Viska’s protruding spine with a loud crunch.

  The Viska collapsed to its belly. It tried to stand, but its rear legs and tail were dead. Without pausing, the man stepped towards the creature’s shaking head, raised his sword high and let it fall. The noises ceased as the Viska fell flat, its severed head lying askew from its body. The swordsman stabbed his sword into the Viska’s corpse, letting go of it to nurse his shoulder.

  “Why didn’t you help me?” the swordsman asked, looking at someone out of Gevan’s sight.

  “I was tending the horses,” an impertinent voice replied. “They would have bolted had I not hung back to hold and calm them. Besides, a simple hireling like me would have only gotten in the way of your artful display of martial expertise.”

  The swordsman scoffed. “Well could you at least do something for my shoulder?”

  “Him first,” the other man said.

  He tried to sit up, but the sharp stinging from his torn leg kept him down. The swordsman’s sarcastic companion approached, the moonlight revealing his face and features. He knelt beside Gevan, inspecting the wound before looking him in the face.

  “I am going to help you,” the man said with the ghost of an accent Gevan couldn’t place.

  “Who are you?” Gevan asked, surprised by the weakness of his own voice.

  The man laid a hand on Gevan’s leg just above the wound. “My name is Etai,” he said before shutting his eyes.

  A sudden electric jolt shocked through Gevan’s leg and he gasped. He looked down, incredulous as his wound closed right in front of his eyes, gnawed bone reforming, sinew and skin knitting back together to cover it. Before he could ask what the man was doing, the sensation left his leg and expanded up to his chest and out to his extremities. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, and pain vanished and Gevan felt completely healthy as though his ordeal had never happened.