[Age of Reckoning 01] - Empire in Chaos

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  For three hours he pushed on, allowing Annaliese little time to catch her breath. He couldn’t explain to her what he feared these tracks portended, but she seemed to understand his need for urgency. He was still confused by the tracks, but a deeply unsettling feeling had settled in his stomach.

  He cursed himself for a fool. If the elven patrol had been ambushed by enemies, then he knew that he and he alone was to blame, and that he would carry the burden upon his shoulders. If he had not gone to the aid of the human child, then none of this would have happened.

  His mind drifted back to the fateful events. The shame of his capture still cut him.

  He had been scouting a wide range in front of the advancing senthanos. The group had been made up of a dozen of the Asur, led by a powerful seer. Eldanair was the scout for the senthanos, their Shadow Warrior, and it was his duty to ensure the paths they travelled were clear of the enemy.

  There had been a scream, the high-pitched cry of a child, and he had dropped to his haunches among the low-lying ferns. The birds in the dark canopy far above had gone silent, and there was no sound but the icy howl of the wind whipping through the skeletal boughs of the trees, the creaking of branches that longed for the thaw to come.

  A second scream carried to him on the wind. Spitting a curse, he had risen from his crouch and raced through the woodland towards the sound. To an onlooker, he knew that he would have appeared as little more than a shadow as he ghosted through the trees, moving at great speed.

  What he had discovered had been sickening. It was the sight of a massacre. Human bodies were strewn across the road, blood pooling beneath their still forms. They had been savagely mutilated, and dozens of wounds covered each of the corpses so that they were almost unrecognisable, little more than hacked-apart meat. There were puncture wounds in most of the bodies, and Eldanair knew that that was where arrows had been pulled from their flesh. Or crossbow bolts, he thought darkly.

  The eyes of each corpse had been cut out, and by the evidence of the ripped open chest cavities, it looked to Eldanair as if they had all had their hearts removed. Even the mule hitched to the wagon had been killed, its throat slashed open and its eyes torn from their sockets.

  A girl, probably less than five human years old, was standing on the back of the wagon, her face pale as she looked around at the devastation that had been wrought. She must have hidden when the attack had come.

  Eldanair had approached the girl, speaking soothingly, and she stared at him with the frightened eyes of a doe, her body trembling. He approached slowly, and his voice was soft and calming. He placed his bow down upon the ground, and walked towards her his hands outstretched.

  Her eyes flicked over his shoulder, and then she screamed again, loudly and piercingly. He spun around to see a score of rough looking human soldiers moving out of the trees to encircle him. He cursed. In his haste, he had not heard or smelt their approach.

  The men stared at the carnage with despair and outrage, their weapons levelled in his direction. When they looked upon him again, he saw the hatred, the fear and the anger written in their eyes.

  He had lifted his hands up, showing he was unarmed, but they clubbed him to the ground anyway, and had dragged him back their village. He hadn’t seen the little girl again.

  Shaking himself from his reverie, Eldanair motioned to Annaliese to halt, and to be silent.

  He ghosted up a rocky escarpment, crouching low to the ground. Nearing the top, he dropped to his stomach and wormed his way to its edge. He was careful to keep himself concealed amongst the wet ferns and not make any of them move, giving away his position. What he saw below made his blood run cold. He had found his companions. He had found the senthanos.

  They were dead.

  Their broken corpses lay strewn across the protected clearing, their white and blue cloaks and robes torn and slashed, stained dark with blood. Sorrow, shock and guilt fought for dominance within him, and he swallowed dryly.

  He almost cried out when he saw the form of the seer, his slender frame hanging against the trunk of a tree. Crude wooden nails had been hammered through his wrists and ankles, and the robes had been torn from his chest. His ribs were splayed open, exposing his internal organs, and his heart was missing. By the look of agony on the dead seer’s face, Eldanair guessed that his death had not been quick.

  The human woman, Annaliese, had crawled up beside him, and her eyes widened in horror as she looked down upon the sight of the massacre. Her mouth opened to scream, but Eldanair clamped his hand over it tightly, holding her firmly in his arms. His eyes were locked on a shadow on the far side of the clearing.

  The shadow was moving, so slowly at first that it was almost impossible to discern. But Eldanair’s eyes were far keener than the eyes of a human, and he could see the movement, even if Annaliese could not.

  It was a slim figure, clad from head to toe in black, and it wore the darkness around it like a cloak. Shadows seemed to follow it, clinging to its rangy form like living creatures, and every muscle in Eldanair’s body tensed with a deep and all-consuming hatred.

  The black clad figure stepped gingerly over the corpses, turning its head from side to side as if sniffing the air. Black cloth covered the lower part of its face, and a deep black hood covered its head, but Eldanair caught a glimpse of the figure’s face, and he burnt its visage into his memory.

  The face was delicate and fine-boned, with high cheekbones that gave it an arrogant and graceful appearance, and Eldanair saw that it was female. Her flesh was as pale as his own, and her eyes were wide and cruelly, seductively curved. A small crossbow was held in one hand, and he made out a teardrop tattoo beneath her left eye before she turned away.

  She dragged the concealing shadows with her as she left, and Eldanair cursed that he did not have his bow to hand. It would have been so easy to have killed her then and there. In an instant she had disappeared, melting into the darkness beneath the trees, and Eldanair tensed himself to go after her, hatred and the need for vengeance burning within him. He would hunt down and kill every one of the cursed murderers.

  He glanced to his side and saw Annaliese’s eyes wide and filled with helplessness and fear. To leave her was as good as a death sentence, and he cursed softly in elvish.

  They lay unmoving for almost an hour before the elf deemed it safe to move from their position.

  His heart heavy with sorrow and grief, he climbed down towards the mutilated bodies of his kin. Annaliese came down with him, tears in her eyes as she surveyed the carnage.

  She said something to him, but he didn’t know what her words meant.

  Fixed in his mind’s eye was the face of his enemy.

  “Druchii,” he said to himself, the word spat with such venom that Annaliese looked at him sharply.

  Dark elves were moving within the Empire.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Four days had passed since they had left the site of the massacre. Eldanair’s eyes were dark and brooding, and despite their inability to communicate verbally, Annaliese could see that a heavy burden weighed upon him.

  If possible, he seemed even more distant, more cold and removed, than he had done previously. Nevertheless, the bond between the two had certainly strengthened, and Annaliese no longer feared him as she had done. She was convinced that he had not been one of the murderers that slaughtered the poor family on the road, for it seemed to her that the same killers were the ones to have set upon his own people.

  Eldanair had worked tirelessly to give his people a simple burial. In shallow graves he had arranged their bodies carefully, crossing their arms over their chests, to death they looked ghostly and ethereal, yet at peace once Eldanair had cleaned away the blood from their flesh, and covered their wounds with draped cloaks. Annaliese was surprised to see that several of the party were female, yet garbed for war in the same manner as their comrades. Their weapons and personal belongings were placed alongside them, and the mourning elf had sung a soft, haunting song for them in the moonli
ght. With Annaliese’s aid, he had gathered rocks and stones that he carefully piled onto the graves, forming a dozen cairns spread in a semi circular arc that clearly had some significance, though its meaning was unclear to her.

  Tears had run down her face as Eldanair bid his comrades farewell, speaking quietly in his lilting, lyrical tongue. Though she could not understand his words, there was a deep and profound sadness about them.

  Eldanair had armed himself, whispering to the fallen as he took up the weapons. A powerful recurving longbow of pale wood was now never far from his hands, and a slender longsword and matching knife were sheathed at his side.

  Annaliese had felt honoured and moved as the elf had solemnly presented her with a weapon from one of his fallen kin—a slim-bladed shortsword of beautiful artistry. It was surprisingly light in her hands, and the blade was so thin that at first she thought it would shatter with any solid blow. It was far stronger than it looked—indeed, she now believed that it was far stronger than any of the broad, heavy blades that her father had on the walls of their cabin. Perfectly balanced, it felt comfortable in her hand. Even its scabbard was a work of art—simple and functional, yet highly elegant.

  She longed to question Eldanair, about his people and about the murderous figure cloaked in shadows that she had glimpsed. It had not been human, she knew that much, for it moved with a sinister grace that human could replicate. It moved, she noted, in the same way that Eldanair did, though the sheer malice and hatred the creature had exuded had been palpable. Being unable to communicate was proving frustrating, though the elf seemed content to remain in silence, lost in his own brooding, grim thoughts.

  Annaliese was unsure of exactly where they currently were, but she guessed that they were nearing the border of Averland and Wissenland, heading towards the Upper Reik that divided the two states. It was the furthest she had ever been from her home, and it made her simultaneously scared and excited. Where Eldanair was now leading her was beyond her, and she wondered if he even had a destination in mind. Earlier he had been focused on escorting her to the camp of his kin, but now she did not know where he was taking her, and his movements lacked the urgency that had previously marked their travel. She could sense that he wanted to go after the shadow-cloaked figure, doubtlessly to enact his vengeance, and he was clearly in two minds. Sometimes she found him staring at her, with eyes angry and full of pain.

  She wondered if he was taking her to a place of safety, to free himself of the burden of her presence. In honesty she could not guess at his thoughts, for he gave little away, and his ways, she reminded herself, were alien.

  They travelled through woodland when they could, thought this was not always possible, for these lands had long been dedicated to farming, and great expanses of trees had been felled generations earlier. The great forests that swathed most of the Empire were far to the north-west, and even the densest woodland in the south-eastern states was utterly unlike the claustrophobic, dark and dangerous Drakwald.

  Eldanair was clearly uncomfortable travelling across the open fields, though they saw few people, and those were far away and easily avoided. They came across many abandoned farmsteads, and passed through icy fields that had long been neglected and left to ruin.

  They paused to eat beside a natural spring. She guessed it was around midday, though it was hard to judge—heavy clouds threatened overhead, making the light dim and gloomy, and thunder rumbled ominously.

  They ate a simple meal of berries and mushrooms they had collected while travelling. Eldanair pointed out edible foods as they passed, as well as indicating which mushrooms and toadstools were poisonous. Where she had viewed the snow-covered land as lacking in nourishment, she now realised that there was abundant food all around if you knew where to look. They drank from the spring, the mineral laden water tasting slightly metallic but not unpleasant.

  After they had eaten, Annaliese slid her thin, elven blade from its scabbard. The metal was bluish-silver, without a hint of tarnish, and she held it reverently in her hands, savouring its weight. Eldanair motioned for her to stand, and she did so warily, sword in hand. He unclasped his flowing grey cloak and placed it on the ground before drawing his own blade and stepped backwards to give them some room. With a nod, he made an overly slow attack towards her.

  She parried the blow with an overhead defence, as her father had taught her, and gave a swift riposte, smoothly he parried the blow with a deft flick of his wrist, and he nodded at her, seeing that she had at least some skill. She felt a sudden need to impress the silent elf, and she whipped another attack towards him, rowing more weight and speed behind it.

  He stepped swiftly to the side and angled her blade away from him. She stumbled, off balance, and she felt a flush creep over her face. He had been so balanced and swift. Frustrated and embarrassed she attacked again, her sword cutting left and right.

  Eldanair’s blade moved like liquid silver, darting back and forth, effortlessly deflecting her increasingly powerful blows, and the sound of steel on steel rang out sharply as each strike was turned away. He was not launching any attacks of his own, and Annaliese felt her frustration grow. She pulled her arm back to launch a yet fiercer attack, but Eldanair stepped away from her, raising his hand, a slight smile curling the corner of his lips.

  Feeling foolish, she dropped her arm, breathing heavily. Eldanair walked to stand by her side and raised his sword into a defensive ready position before him. He nodded to Annaliese. When she didn’t understand his meaning, he motioned more emphatically for her to raise her own weapon into the same position.

  He ran through a series of strikes, correcting her technique and posture as she tried to emulate his crisp, sharp movements. He massaged her shoulders for a second, motioning to her to relax. She felt awkward, and the blush returned to her face.

  Eldanair imitated her, swinging his sword in a wild arc, putting too much power into the blow and stumbling theatrically off balance. Annaliese’s mouth opened in mock indignation.

  “I don’t look like that,” she said, half insulted and half laughing. Eldanair nodded at her.

  “Right, well show me how to move like you, all balanced and everything.” She knew he could not understand, but it felt strange to her to remain in silence.

  They practised for over an hour until Annaliese’s arm felt like a leaden weight. Still, she had begun to feel more comfortable with the sword, that her movements were a little more controlled and sharp. She was now acutely aware that it would take her many years of practice to be classed as a decent swordswoman. She had been humbled, for she had regarded herself as at least competent with the blade, but that fact was now doubtful, she realised. She blew a strand of hair away from her face, and smiled broadly at Eldanair.

  “Thank you,” she said, as she sheathed her blade. She collapsed onto the ground in mock exhaustion.

  When she opened her eyes she saw Eldanair standing looking into the distance, his posture alert and his expression intense.

  “What is it?” she said, sitting up. Eldanair held up a hand for silence and cocked his head to the side, listening intently. Annaliese could hear nothing but the gentle babbling of the spring. The light had dimmed further, so that it resembled the shadowy half-light after sunset.

  Tense and cold, his eyes hard, Eldanair urged Annaliese to her feet swiftly, speaking sharply, and he led her quickly to the east, climbing the gentle rise away from the spring.

  A distant horn sounded, and Eldanair broke into a looping run, nocking an arrow smoothly to his bowstring.

  Annaliese felt a wave of fear wash over her at the horrible sound. It was the sound of victorious hunters closing on their prey.

  But what, or who, was the prey?

  They travelled swiftly across the countryside, Annaliese struggling to keep pace with the elf. Dimly, she heard shouts and a shrill scream, accompanied by what sounded like the snarls and roars of wolves, or bears, though there was also the bleating not unlike that of goats, though deeper and more pow
erful. It made her feel instantly uneasy, and a shiver ran down her spine. There was the clash of weapons, and the hunting horn blared again; two long, hard notes.

  As she struggled to the top of a steep rise, Eldanair pushed her roughly to the ground. She opened her mouth to voice her protest at his rough treatment, but held her tongue as he dropped to one knee and raised his bow. In one smooth action he pulled the bowstring taut and fired; the arrow hissed through the air away from him. In a flash he had another arrow drawn and nocked, and he fired it seemingly without pause to aim.

  She followed the path of the arrows with difficulty through the dim light, and saw a powerfully muscled figure clad in furs stagger as an arrow slammed into its lower back.

  It fell to its knees but struggled back to its feet, pulling the arrow free. Another arrow thudded into its head, and it fell motionless to the snowy ground.

  It had been running with astonishing speed toward a train of wagons, and Annaliese saw that there were women and children crowded within them—more people fleeing the plague, most probably.

  Forming a desperate ring around the wagons were a score of uniformed men, dressed in the black and yellow of Averland state troops. She heard a barked command, and four of the men fired their long arquebus handguns, the cracking sound of their fire echoing across the sky. Flame flashed from the barrels of the unwieldy weapons, and smoke obscured them from view.

  These soldiers were accompanied by a rag-tag bunch of men hefting a motley array of axes, pitchforks and spears—the husbands, fathers and sons of the womenfolk within the wagons.

  Hurtling through the snow from either side of the wagons came their attackers, big men dressed in furs—they seemed to Annaliese to be wearing bestial faced, horned masks as well, and she was momentarily stunned by their bizarre appearance. They streamed towards the wagons and a fusillade from a second group of handgunners boomed, dropping several of them, dark blood misting out behind them.