by Sean Rodden
Axennus shook his head vigourously against a developing dizziness.
A groan escaped Bronnus’ tightly pressed lips.
“You will adapt,” Harlastian quietly assured them. “Eventually. Until you do, simply look away.”
But it was the demogorg that averted its gaze.
North and east did the demon direct its glittering ellipsoid eyes, its cranial crest crooking keenly, its tentacles reaching and wriggling. The creature seemed to tense as it sensed something. Something wrong. The terrible tusks on either side of its wickedly sharp beak chewed at the night. An angry clacking rattle slid from somewhere within its sunken chest.
Below, the terrible storm of dirt and thunder hurtled over a band of boulders strewn directly in the path of its wrath. And then, abruptly, astonishingly, the tempest burst apart in a blinding blast of light and sound and shooting stars. The field before Lar Theas was illumined by uncounted streamers of cascading light. And beneath that rain of radiant ribbons, the field had changed. Hundreds of great marble rocks and limestone crags remained as they were, where they were, but where some four dozen enormous boulders had been there now stood the massive, hulking forms of indomitable Daradur.
And all about them Graniants were dying.
Great broad-bladed war-axes whirled and threshed, and towering stone giants toppled like felled trees, legs severed at the ankles, knees, thighs. Huge hammers swung down upon the fallen, whelming into humongous heads, splintering helms, crushing skulls, spattering brains. Death flew from Daradun steel like winds of righteous rage, of vengeance and justice. The first wave of Graniants was obliterated within moments, mere moments, as the last streamers of light sailed down upon the scene of savage slaughter like so many exultant tears.
The second wave fared no better.
Nor the third.
And then it was done.
In the deepening darkness of new night, as the clangour of battle to the north subsided into isolated clashes and crashes and short-lived screams, Tulnarron placed the point of his soiled sword on the stony ground at his feet, the upright weapon seeming a great gruesome cross rising from the rock. The titanic Fian leaned casually upon the crimson crux, muscular forearms resting on the quillions, gloved hands dangling, blood drip-drip-dripping from his loosely laced fingers. His cruor-smeared visage wore a satisfied, if rather grisly, smile.
“Took you long enough,” the Master of the House of Eccuron reprimanded as a bulky black figure approached the little rise where he, Sandarre and Gornannon waited with the High King of Rothanar and the Warthane of the caelroth.
“The Erelian said they would come,” replied Brulwar of Dangmarth, First Made of the Firstmade of the Daradur, as he came to stand before the tall Fian. Green-tinged Graniantish blood dribbled from the Darad’s beard to the haft of the war hammer cradled in his immense folded arms. Behind him, monstrous Gulgrum and the warriors of the mara Waratur were hauling and heaving dead stone giants to form a massive morbid mound. “He did not, however, advise when they would come. Mine was to wait until they did so. I was simply doing what was asked of me.”
“Aye, and wasn’t it a grand thing to behold?” grinned Ri Niall, resting the flat of his claymore on his shoulder. “There is something very poetic about the little fella bloodying the big bad bully, is there not?”
“There is nothing poetic about effecting the semblance of a boulder all day while one’s friends are fighting and dying, High King.” The marmoreal intonation of the Earthmaster’s voice was pocked with rue. “This was difficult for us, this watching and waiting. Like you Roths, we Daradur are not by nature a patient people.” He brushed at an unidentifiable dampness on the lower left side of his greatcoat. “And we unfortunately forgot that Urkroks are wont to relieve themselves in much the same manner of dogs.”
The Rothmen grinned, and Gornannon and Sandarre shared small smiles – but only Tulnarron dared to laugh.
“Well, the enemy knows you are here now, Stone Lord. They will not be so easily surprised again. I would suggest the need for watching and waiting and being pissed on is passed.”
Brulwar stared at the gore-spattered Fian. His black eyes shone like obsidian suns. Something rumbled, rolled, reverberating deep within the hulking Darad’s bosom. But that something was laughter of the Earthmaster’s own.
And in the wake of that sweet sound all peripheral clatter of battle ceased.
“That was beautiful,” the Iron Captain murmured in wonderment and admiration. “Brutal. But truly beautiful.”
“Indeed, dear brother.” Axennus hazel eyes shone like lamps. “I will always remember this. This night. When first I saw the mighty Daradur wage war.”
“It is not a thing one might ever forget, Southman,” mused Harlastian.
The Erelian Commander’s gaze strayed to the slope below them. The night-draped dolostone was dark and sharply defined, its curves smooth, its edges hard, suggesting neither sheen nor shimmer.
“What has happened to our friends?”
“The squids have withdrawn,” responded Harlastian, pulling his cowl back from his grizzled countenance. Somewhat surprisingly, gleaming blonde hair fell forth in golden waves. His silvery eyes glittered. “They fear the Daradur. The Stone Lords hunt demogorgai in the hollows of the earth for sport.”
“The presence of the Daradur has shaken them, but they will return,” Axennus asserted as he sheathed his sword. “In the night. They will come in the night.”
The Fian nodded. “They will.”
“We must hold this hill, Harlastian.”
“We must.”
“We shall require assistance.”
“We shall.”
Axennus pursed his lips, his long fingers tapping out a rhythm on his thigh. He looked down, watching his agile digits roll over tense muscle. He then raised his eyes, smiled, called over his shoulder.
“Lionnus.”
The lanky forerider of the North March Mounted Reserve immediately spurred his mount to his Commander’s side. Fisted his breast.
“Sir.”
“Would you be so kind as to deliver some instructions to one friend of mine, and to secure on my behalf a small boon from another?”
“Of course, sir. What is the message and to whom shall I deliver it? And from whom do you require the boon, sir?”
When Axennus answered, both Bronnus and Harlastian cast the Commander curious looks, but neither deigned to question him. The day, the battle, each attack, every counter, the number of casualties – all had transpired precisely as Axennus had predicted. Or near enough to make no difference.
The man had earned a reprieve from questions.
Dismissed, Reservist Lionnus rode away through the trees, the hooffalls of his horse fading fast into the sylvan silence of the forest.
“The day is ours, gentlemen,” declared the wily March Fox past a pearly, pristine smile. “Now we must own the night.”
“It is done, Lord Alvarion. We have won.”
Somewhere before and between Lar Thurrad and Lar Fannan, the Lord of the Fiannar, the Marshal of the Grey Watch, and noble Taresse of the House of Defurien sat astride regal mirarra as the black phantom of moonless night crept over the corpse-strewn killing ground. War-worn and weary, Alvarion removed the winged Helm of Defurien, resting the relic lightly on the neck of his mirarran. Steam issued from the Lord’s sweat-soaked head and neck as the crisp dark air lapped his flushed skin. The ragged scar beneath his right eye burned a blazing red.
“This one day only, Marshal Varonin.” The fatigue manifest on Alvarion’s mien was also explicit in his voice. “The greater – and likely superior – allotment of the Blood King’s forces has yet to engage.”
“Only too true, nephew,” muttered Taresse. “This…this is but a small victory.”
The woman wiped a sopping strand of sweat-darkened hair from her brow. Blood oozed between the links of her chain mail from an assortment of minor wounds. But despite exhaustion and injury, the grim grey Fiann stood tall,
undaunted, defiant. And the silver light in her eyes was as bright and as bold as the golden shine of the rillagh across her breast.
Alvarion nodded. “I am ever grateful for your pragmatism, uncle-wife.”
But at the core of him, the Lord’s heart exulted.
We have won, my beloved Cerriste. We have bested the beast, and it now limps away into the shadows, licking its wounds! And when it returns we shall –
“Squids were seen in the eventide on the slopes of Carn a Mil Darach, Lord Alvarion. Thousands of them. Should the demons return in the night and take the high ground there, the enemy shall have a decided advantage come the sun’s rising.”
“The Southman holds that hill, Marshal.”
“And Harlastian’s Eye of the Watch.”
“You seem troubled, Varonin.”
The Marshal of the Grey Watch inclined his hooded head.
“I am concerned that such a highly strategic position is to be left so lightly defended. But six-score and ten fighters, Lord, and the greater number of them not Fiannar.”
Six-score and ten fighters, Alvarion mused inwardly. But among them the finest military mind Mankind has to offer. Oh, and a man called Teji Nashi.
The Lord’s lips formed a thin severe line. He ran his fingers through his drenched hair, rolled his neck on his sore shoulders, settled the gleaming Helm on his head once more, and stared eastward into the cold black soul of the night.
“Take some rest while you can, good Marshal. I assure you, Caramel Dark is the least of our worries.”
Waif perched atop the decapitated, disemboweled corpse of Arn’badt, King of the Giants. She clasped the burned thing tightly, almost desperately, to her barely budding bosom, soot and char bleeding from the scorched object to blacken the breast of her otherwise sparkling white shift. The bright blue of her wide round eyes had deepened, darkening into an intense indigo, midnight pools of rage in a cherubic countenance of pure malice.
Alone within the close comforting darkness of a modest unmarked tent, the little girl brooded, her mood blacker than the air about her. And she had ample cause for such self-indulgent rumination. Ample and valid cause. Her forces had fallen in their thousands. She had been outfought and outfoxed at every turn. She had not considered that this little Lordling of the Fiannar might prove such a capable adversary. Indeed, she had been led to believe that this second Alvarion was as much a fool as his father had been, and that only a very few Fiannar would oppose her at the Pass of Eryn Ruil.
But this descendant of Defurien was no fool. No, indeed. And those few Fiannar had many friends. Those few Fiannar did not stand alone.
And this she had not been told.
As she sulked atop the shoulders of the cross-legged corpse, a voice played in her consciousness like a whisper at the window of her soul – or rather would have done had she a soul of her own.
Tell me, sister, have you fared well, fared well?
Oh, fuck off.
Silence. And then –
I’m sorry, sister, sorry, so sorry.
It could not be helped. They have Daradur with them. And a Sun Lord.
We were told the Fiannar would be few, and weak, and alone, all alone.
I know what we were told, idiot.
You hurt me, sister. You hurt me, hurt me.
Begone.
Does that mean you want me to go away, away, away?
Yes!
But sister, sweet sister –
Leave me!!!
And she banished Urchin from her awareness with the violent wave of one small hand.
Still steaming, Waif willed the carcass of Arn’badt to its feet, had it yank aside the flaps of the tent. The gigantic corpse stepped into the night between two yellow-skinned half-Urks. The sentries wisely averted their beady little eyes, striving to shrink further into the shadows.
Waif decided to ignore the vile creatures. For the moment.
All about her, the vast host of the Blood King hunkered down upon the night-greased Northern Plains. The few survivors of the day’s slaughter had taken to their tents and sleeping rolls to lick their wounds – some quite literally. Waif resolved to have them sent against the Daradur for their failure. But then another idea came to her, and she was exhilarated for its insidiousness, its abominable ingenuity. Incompetence must ever be punished.
I want to kill them all.
The remainder of the Blood King’s forces rested uneasily in the night, grumbling, cold and hungry, cursing the pungent promise of rain on the wind.
Weaklings.
I should kill them all.
Disgusted, Waif turned her blue-black gaze westward, and her consciousness slid from her, slithering over the prairie, a viper in the grass, slinking across the vast void of night. To Eryn Ruil. To the Seven Hills. To the rocky ridge with the oak trees. And saw there the lower slopes begin to shimmer.
Waif’s nails dug into the burned thing. And she smiled.
I will kill them all.
2
WHERE DRAGONS WEEP
“There is no asylum for the abandoned,
there is no refuge for the rejected,
there is no sanctuary for the scorned;
these things are forbidden them.
There is neither shelter for the forsaken
nor a hefted shield for the forlorn,
nor a haven for those who have nothing;
these things are denied them.
The discarded will wander the wilderness,
dispossessed, destitute and deprived,
bereft of both purpose and destination;
such is the doom allotted them.
Yet here is the coldest of cruelties:
These unfortunate souls are not lost,
no, not lost at all,
for they know precisely where home lies –
they simply cannot get there.”
Rodannus, Poet Primus of Hiridith
Ode to the Damned
The world knows when war is coming.
The land knows, the waters know, the very air knows. All things are aware, all things realize when such terrible pain and horror and death draw near. All things know. And all things alter. The sun shrinks, the moon pales, the stars huddle veiled and vague in the heavens. Small animals skitter nervously, fish dart deeper, songbirds wing wildly away. Everything knows, everything changes. And everything shivers, shudders, shakes, from the soul of the sweet child whimpering in uneasy sleep to the stony bones of the very earth.
The world knows.
Or perhaps it only seems so.
The Lady of the Fiannar shrugged persistent pebbles from her skin, closed her grey eyes. Lifted her face to the dawn. A dawn come cold and clammy and coloured of blood.
Yes. The world knows…because I know.
Night had scored the slumbering earth with covetous claws, had taken it, had made use of it, seeding nightmares and nasty things. And then the darkness had slithered away, withdrawing, slick and wet, and cold incipient dawn oozed in its wake – an unwanted lovechild, a bloodchild, screaming soundlessly from the womb, awash with the gore of afterbirth.
Lady Cerriste suppressed a shudder, shook the image from her mind. Opened her eyes. She frowned, the granite of her gaze blackening toward slate. Such visions were for the bards. Bards and poets.
And Seers.
Pulling her cloak closer, Lady Cerriste glanced to where Sarrane stood silhouetted starkly against a strangely scarlet sky.
And she knows. She has known for a long time.
A little above and a few paces to the Lady’s left, the Seer of the Fiannar stood upon a crumbled battlement high atop the ruins of the ancient fortress of Riam Liath, staring northeastward over the vast luxuriant vista that was Galledine. The Seer was tall and straight of stature, shoulders solid and square, her loose silvery-blonde tresses stained pink by the dawn and flying at her back like bloodied whips. Within Sarrane’s gleaming eyes violescent eddies churned about ice-grey irises, silent storms aswirl, the pupi
ls mere dots drowning in the roil. But her countenance was otherwise calm, and no hint of consternation marred the cool composure carved of cheek and chin and jaw.
She belongs to the Fiannar of antiquity, this one, mused Cerriste. She could stand beside Fircuine and Branne and Yasminne, and none would look down upon her. Verily, they might even find it necessary to look up.
As still as the moss-smothered stone ruins about her, the Seer clasped her spear in one fist, the weapon’s glittering point painted crimson by the shrunken sun. Her nostrils flared slightly, as though she had caught a certain scent on the pink-tainted air. Something of a sigh slipped from her lips – the writhen wisp of a whistle on a whisking wind.
The soft sound did not sneak past Cerriste’s sharp ears undetected. The Lady followed Sarrane’s gaze across the seeming endless expanse of Galledine to the distant line where the red firmament fell upon the earth.
“Has it begun, sister?”
The Seer nodded once, and slowly. “It has, Lady.”
Cerriste found herself gripping the intricately carved shaft of her staff more tightly, her knuckles whiter than the whitewood in her grip. For the first time in her capacious memory, the Lady found herself not simply carrying her staff, but leaning upon it. Not heavily. But leaning nevertheless.
“How do we fare?”
The pink tip of Sarrane’s tongue briefly wetted her lower lip.
“Well enough, Lady.”
Involuntarily, one hand pried loose of the Lady’s staff to stroke the rough, deeply grooved bark of a solitary oak that towered at her side. The tree had rooted itself in the ruins of Riam Liath long centuries before, crowning the forgotten fortress, claiming the hand-hewn limestone for Galledine as the Fiannar had once claimed it from her. The hard black armour of the oak scraped Cerriste’s fingers, and a distinct tingling teasing their tips. Something like reassurance flowed from the sempiternal solidity of the bole to kiss the cool skin of her palm, seeping into her bloodstream, seeking her heart.
