Nightborn

by Anders, Lou

  Karn drew Whitestorm while Thianna readied the sword gifted her by the wood elves.

  “Maybe I should call this Elfbane,” she laughed, remembering Karn’s fight with Tanthal.

  “I’m not sure the wood elves would appreciate that,” said Karn.

  “Tanthal’s Tears, then,” suggested Thianna.

  “You’d need a pair of them. Tears is plural.”

  “Don’t be such a stickler.”

  The enemy closed in on them, and the time for banter was over. By unspoken agreement, right-handed Karn would defend on that side. While Thianna, who was proving adept with either hand, would defend their left flank.

  Karn saw with relief that Desstra was coming at them from the left, so he wouldn’t have to face her. He was afraid if it came to it, he might hesitate to swing a blade at his onetime friend. Against Tanthal, he had no such reluctance.

  The dark elf came in fast. Karn raised Whitestorm in anticipation, but at the last minute, Tanthal pulled up. The bat flew across them, its back claws raking savagely at Karn’s head and arms. Karn threw himself aside, narrowly avoiding a serious laceration. He almost tumbled off the wyvern, but Thianna caught him with her right arm and hauled him back in place.

  At the same time, Desstra drove her bat under them, stabbing upward with one of her darts. In desperation, Thianna kicked the elf girl’s wrist, throwing off her aim.

  Then the bats were out of range. They began their curve in preparation for a second pass.

  “If they try that again, aim for the patagium,” instructed Karn.

  “The what?” said Thianna.

  “The patagium. The leather bit between the wing bones.”

  “Why didn’t you just say that?”

  “Because it’s called the patagium. You should know the proper name.”

  “I don’t have to know what it is to hit it!”

  Having crossed sides, Thianna would now face Tanthal. Unfortunately, this matched Karn with Desstra.

  “Can’t this thing go any faster?” said Karn. He was unhappy at the prospect of facing the she-elf.

  Tell the idiot boy that he should try flying all night without a rest, replied the wyvern.

  “He says this is the best he can do,” Thianna relayed.

  The way you paraphrase my words leaves something to be desired.

  Then the elves were upon them.

  This time, Tanthal attacked with his own weapon. He had traded his mace in for a long gray sword more suited for opposing someone of Thianna’s reach. Their blades clashed loudly as they swung at each other.

  Karn and Desstra were less enthusiastic in their combat. He swung at her halfheartedly, and she jabbed weakly at him with her darts. In combat, it was important to look your opponent in the eye. Instead, they both kept their gaze on each other’s hands.

  Karn heard a shout from the left. Thianna had scored a hit.

  Tanthal broke off, flying wide. Seeing this, Desstra steered her bat away as well.

  Karn noticed that the dark elf had tied blindfolds over her mount’s eyes. That explained how they had gotten the bats to fly in the daylight. It also meant they were flying by hearing alone.

  “It’s time,” he whispered in Thianna’s ear.

  “Get ready,” she said, speaking to her mount.

  The dark elves came around, readying for another pass. Karn sheathed Whitestorm and withdrew the small cloth bag with the contents he had gathered from the Blackfire Forest.

  “On my mark,” said Thianna.

  The elves approached.

  “Dive!”

  The wyvern folded its wings to its side. Pulling in its limbs and ducking its head, they dropped like a stone.

  The bats both dove after them, but the wyvern had pulled ahead with the benefit of surprise.

  Karn waited until the bats were squarely in their wake. Then he opened the bag.

  The insects swarmed out. Moths, fireflies, other buzzing things. Everything he could gather with the glow of the phosphorescent stone.

  The bats—starving from their long flight—broke off their pursuit to snatch at the insects as Tanthal and Desstra fought to stay in their saddles.

  The wyvern extended its wings, bringing them out of their dive. Its larger wingspan and greater speed meant that the smaller, weaker bats could never hope to catch up.

  Tell the boy I’ve revised my opinion of him, thought the wyvern. He’s only a half-wit, not a complete idiot.

  “The wyvern says you are pretty smart,” said Thianna.

  I begin to think I am in need of a new translator. My current one is severely underqualified.

  “Relax,” said Thianna, patting the reptile’s neck. “This is a day where everybody wins.”

  —

  Having left their pursuers behind, they passed the time with Karn pointing out the countries and landmarks as they flew east. They crossed the green rolling homeland of the gnomes, then the enormous landlocked Sea of Catara. Next they crossed the beautiful, mountainous realm of the high elves. Karn told the giantess how the elves had once ruled most of the continent, long ago before even the Gordion Empire.

  “Dark elves, wood elves. What’s a high elf?” she asked.

  “I think it’s like other elves, only snootier,” he replied.

  “Wonderful. Can’t wait to meet one someday.”

  By late afternoon, they were admiring lush green landscapes vastly different from anything in their lives in the far north. They knew they were heading somewhere warmer and more densely populated than their own remote corner of the world. Finally, they came to the territory of the Sacred Gordion Supremacy. The Muspilli Mountains, home to several active volcanoes, provided an impressive land barrier to the north, explaining why the control of the strait was so crucial.

  Gordasha, when they saw it, proved to be an enormous city, bigger than Bense, vaster than Castlebriar, greater even than the ruins of Sardeth. A formidable double wall surrounded the city on all sides, protecting it from land on one side and sea on every other. Towers were set at intervals along its length, and soldiers could be seen marching along its ramparts. Inside this barrier, buildings were packed together as tightly as cobblestones in a Gordion road. Greenroot had said it was home to half a million souls. Finding the Horn of Osius would be like searching for a single pebble on a rocky coast. But that wasn’t the worst of their troubles.

  A fleet of warships choked the waters to the north of the city, while to the west of the land wall, an enormous army was camped. Karn and Thianna saw a multitude of tents, troops, huge siege engines, and great, ferocious beasts that looked like nothing so much as giant warthogs, armored and saddled for riding.

  “What in the world are those?” said Thianna. “War pigs? Who rides war pigs?”

  “The Uskirian Empire,” said Karn. “Gordasha is under siege.”

  “There must be thousands of troops. Hundreds of thousands.”

  Karn studied the battlefield. His mind took it all in, studying the defenses. He saw cannons, bowmen, spearmen. But not in numbers equal to the invaders.

  “Thianna, the city may not be able to stand up to all this. Gordasha may be about to fall.”

  And this is where you two want to go? thought the wyvern. My estimation of your intelligence has taken another dip.

  “We’ll just have to find the horn before it falls,” said the frost giantess. “Because when those walls come down, Gordasha is the last place we want to be.”

  “Imagine trying to get through that army on foot,” said Karn. “It’s hard to believe there are so many soldiers in the world.”

  They were soaring above the Uskirian forces, gazing down in wonder at the thousands of troops camped outside the walls of Gordasha. Neither Karn nor Thianna had ever seen anything on this scale.

  “And this is just one army,” said Thianna.

  “Our biggest battles only had a few hundred people in them, maybe a thousand,” Karn said. “Look how disciplined they are. They move with such…such mathema
tical precision. We just bang on our shields with our axes and yell until the enemy pees themselves.”

  “That’s better than us giants,” Thianna replied. “All we do is lob rocks at each other’s heads.”

  Karn couldn’t see what two young people could be expected to do in the face of such an army.

  “What are we doing here?” he said.

  Finally, a sensible question, thought the wyvern. Shall I turn around?

  “You know you love it,” whispered Thianna to the reptile, patting its neck. “But you’ve got the easy part. Once you get us inside, that’s when the real fun starts.”

  They saw huge siege engines being erected. A giant cannon, cast to look like the head of a boar, was being wheeled to the front lines. It was just like the war pigs that made up the Uskirian cavalry. Soldiers moved to and fro like ants. In the sea to the north side of the peninsula, the fleet of Uskirian warships was keeping its distance. The ships stayed moored just outside the range of the defenders’ cannons.

  “The battle hasn’t started yet,” Karn observed. “The Uskirians are still moving their forces into position.”

  “Lucky us,” said Thianna. “I hate being late to a party.”

  Inside the city, Gordashan troops marched back and forth across the ramparts and towers. Archers, spearmen, and cannon. The double walls were each fifteen feet thick. The terrace between the two walls was wide enough for two wagons to move abreast and crowded with troops. Two enormous city gates were shut by massive iron doors. Another gate was shut against any water traffic on a small river that flowed through the fortification.

  “What’s that?” said Thianna, pointing to a structure that looked like a high, straight stone bridge. It stood on multiple arches and ran across the land and through the wall.

  “An aqueduct,” Karn explained.

  “What kind of duck?”

  “No, aqueduct. A watercourse. It carries fresh water from the mountains all the way to the city. Probably built a thousand years ago by the Gordion Empire. Nobody can build them like that anymore.”

  Thianna whistled.

  “So where do we put down?”

  Karn scanned the city interior.

  “There’s a patch of parkland inside the walls,” he said, indicating the area.

  The wyvern was just adjusting its course when their flight path was suddenly, abruptly, and quite rudely interrupted.

  Then Karn, Thianna, and the wyvern were all screaming, yelling, and hissing as they tumbled through the air. Their limbs and wings were entangled in a heavy rope net. Weighed down with rocks, it had been cast by a catapult to pluck them from the sky.

  “We’re going to crash,” Thianna hollered. “Brace yourself!”

  I just want you to know, thought the wyvern, I’m holding you responsible for all of this!

  The ground rushed at them. They were plummeting too far, too fast. Karn knew their time was up.

  —

  The tent deflated like a bladder.

  It broke their fall, collapsing under them as it carried them to the ground. The wyvern shook them from its back, flapping its wings to toss off the tent and netting.

  “We’re not dead?” Thianna wondered aloud.

  Don’t think this gets you off the hook, the reptile shot back.

  Karn stood up.

  “We’re not dead,” he answered. Then he took in their surroundings. They stood in a circle of spears, all aimed at them by fierce soldiers riding atop savage war pigs. And the soldiers themselves were like nothing Karn had ever seen. Gray-skinned, white-haired creatures with pointed ears on their heads and large tusks protruding from their wide mouths. Their bestial appearance was in stark contrast to their finely embroidered clothing. These were Uskirians, Karn realized, and they didn’t look at all happy to have visitors.

  “We’re not dead…,” Karn repeated, taking in the angry faces. “Yet.”

  Thianna drew her arming sword. In response, the Uskirians prodded her with their spears.

  “Cut that out,” she snapped, batting a spear away like it was just a buzzing insect.

  “Thianna,” said Karn, “we’re in the middle of an army. Not even you can fight your way out of this.”

  Thianna considered whether this was true. She shrugged and put her weapon away.

  “For now,” she said, glaring at the soldiers.

  With a great deal of hissing and snapping of teeth, the wyvern had a rope tied around its neck. Your fault! Your fault! it screamed in Thianna’s mind. Karn and Thianna were left unbound. They weren’t even disarmed. Escape was impossible. It was obvious that it was obvious.

  The three of them were marched through the encampment at spear point, where Karn got a close-up look at the attackers’ capabilities. He had to admit he was impressed. There was a refinement to the troops’ armor and gear that spoke of wealth and sophistication, as well as an appreciation for design. Karn and Thianna marveled at row upon row of richly embroidered tents erected to house the encamped forces. An enormous pavilion, positioned in the shadows of the aqueduct, was obviously the command center of the entire army. It was made of multiple tents of varying sizes, some with peaked roofs, others with domed roofs. Hundreds of flags crowned their peaks. The flags showed the face of a boar glaring from the center of a flower-petal design.

  “It’s like a mobile palace,” Karn observed.

  “It’s like a big pile of rugs,” Thianna retorted.

  The wyvern was dragged to a hitching post. It saw what was intended and immediately reared up in protest. For an instant, the spearmen turned all their attention to the reptile. Thianna chose the moment to throw herself into them. They went over like bowling pins.

  Fly, she thought to the wyvern.

  It burst into the air while the Uskirians were still trying to extricate themselves from under a frost giant.

  A few spears were hurled in its wake, but they fell short. The wyvern flew across and behind the ancient aqueduct, disappearing from sight.

  Call me if you live through this, Thianna heard it say in her mind. She was hauled to her feet by angry soldiers, their weapon points pressing into her back.

  Karn and Thianna were walked past guards who wore helmets that covered their whole heads. The metal of the helmets had been cast to look like the tusked faces that lay underneath. It was beautiful and frightening at the same time. The soldiers’ armor was made of interlocking rings of flattened metal, reinforced with rectangular metal plates at the front and back. The craftsmanship was more sophisticated than any armor Karn had ever seen. Again, he felt like a bumpkin from the edge of a far more complicated world.

  Once they were through the tent flap, the heavy green canvas of the exterior gave way to rich red tapestries of finer materials. They saw that the tent was subdivided by curtains into numerous hallways and rooms. All the walls were embroidered, largely with beautiful flower patterns. The flowers seemed an odd design for an army engaged in a war.

  Karn and Thianna were led down passages where numerous underlings ran back and forth, carrying messages or bearing supplies. No one paid them the slightest attention. Finally, they came to a room where an impeccably dressed Uskirian with a braided white beard and an enormous turban sat upon a throne on a dais and presided over a room full of officers and court officials who stood chatting in groups or sat on pillows and cushions.

  An Uskirian wearing a fancy cloak and a large turban approached them. He bowed slightly.

  “Welcome to the court of Shambok Who Borders on Spectacular,” he said in perfect Common. “I am Dargan Urgul, Speaker to Barbarians.”

  “We aren’t barbarians,” Karn replied, somewhat miffed. Dargan’s white eyebrows rose.

  “You speak Uskirian?” he asked.

  “Is that what I’m speaking? I guess I do.”

  Dargan studied them.

  “You are strange spies, I’ll give you that,” he mumbled to himself.

  “We aren’t spies!” Thianna protested.

  “No?” s
aid Dargan. “I think that is highly unlikely.”

  “I don’t care what you think,” she roared.

  “My dear, I spoke that last sentence in Herzerian. And yet you understood it immediately. Common, Uskirian, Herzerian. Such a command of language can only mean you are spies, scholars, or diplomats.” Dargan glanced at their clothing disdainfully. “And, your pardon, but judging by the rough manner of your dress and your muddy appearance, you clearly aren’t scholars or diplomats. So I say spies.”

  Karn looked down at his own clothes, with his torn pant leg and muddy boots. Norrønir weren’t exactly the best when it came to personal hygiene, but he knew that he seriously needed to bathe and change.

  “We don’t actually speak all those languages,” Karn explained. He brushed self-consciously at the mud on his shirt. “In fact, I’m not sure which language I’m speaking now. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “Try me,” said Dargan.

  “I’m not sure we should say,” said Karn.

  “We were sent by a dragon to find a lost magic item that we think is hidden in Gordasha,” blurted Thianna.

  “Thianna!” Karn gasped in shock.

  “Look,” she explained, “it’s not like he’s going to believe us anyway. Or it matters if he does.” She turned to the Uskirian. “We don’t really care about your war. We aren’t planning on staying for it. We just need to get in and out of Gordasha quickly. And you’ve sort of cost us our ride.”

  “You don’t care about the war?” he said.

  “Well, yeah. Like I said, we’re not here for it,” replied the giantess. “I mean, not that war isn’t bad, right?”

  Dargan rubbed his brow. “I admit I will be sorry to see these uncivilized realms tamed,” he said. “They always lose some of their uniqueness and vitality when they are brought to heel.”

  “Listen to you! ‘Uncivilized’! ‘Brought to heel’! You’re really big on your own superiority, aren’t you?” said Thianna.

  “I mean no offense,” said Dargan. “I’ve often thought it would be pleasant to travel the world before our empire brings enlightenment to the far corners of the earth. I’m intrigued by other customs, especially primitive ones. But Shambok Who Borders on Spectacular requires that we fight this war. So fight we must.”