Bones of the Empire

by Jim Galford

  Raeln reached the next entrance into the courtyard from the outer temple and almost ran into a group of werewolves. They snarled and nearly attacked him, but managed to restrain themselves. Eyeing him skeptically at first, they soon gave soft grunts of acknowledgement. They fell in alongside him, moving farther up the edge of the courtyard to get closer to Dorralt.

  “Enough of this.” Dorralt waved dismissively at Feanne, hurling her across the room into one of the pillars. He quickly repeated the gesture toward the werewolves, smashing one against the back of the hallway and scattering the others outside the courtyard. Raeln barely avoided being caught in the spell’s blast. He forced himself not to look back at the sound of the werewolf’s body cracking and breaking on the stone walls.

  Before Turess could complete a spell of his own, Dorralt put a finger to his lips. Turess stopped what he was doing, staring in confusion at his hands.

  “Two thousand years I’ve had to study, Turess. Think of all you learned in less than forty years of life. I am so much more than you could ever have become in all your years. Even the hundred years the clans had me trapped underground, unable to move a single muscle, I spent learning how to kill those I knew would come for me. You can barely manage the most basic of magic. It’s shameful.”

  Humans, Marakeer, elves, dwarves, and any other race Raeln had heard of or seen filled the outer halls of the temple, advancing to the entrance of the courtyard. At a gesture from Dorralt, translucent walls appeared in those openings, cutting off all reinforcements. That left Raeln, Feanne, Estin, Turess, Mairlee, Yoska, and Dorralt in the large courtyard.

  “I chose my last stand,” Dorralt told them all, stepping back until he was over Estin. “This place may be my tomb, but I will take all of you with me if it is within my power. Call this off, Turess. I do not want war with you. I want you at my side. Bring these people to heel and they can serve us…serve you.”

  Closing his eyes, Turess raised his hands. A flash of energy around him seemed to shatter the air, causing flaming shards to fall into the snow around him. He cleared his throat and tossed aside the melted remains of the broach Raeln had seen him holding earlier.

  “You are not so strong as you think,” Turess mused, smiling grimly. “If the clan heads could contain you a hundred years, I will find a way to contain you for a thousand. I will find a way to live forever, if it gives me the time and power to stop you from hurting a single person.”

  “That is more like the brother I remember!” Dorralt cackled as he reached down and patted Estin’s muzzle to jar him awake.

  Raeln inched forward, listening to the unending growls from the werewolves behind him. Past Dorralt, he saw Feanne struggling with whether to charge or hold her ground. It was possibly the first time he had seen her indecisive, especially when it came to Estin. Raeln stopped, waiting for Feanne to make her choice before he rushed in.

  “Mortals,” Mairlee called out, standing near Turess. “Time is short. He has trapped most of our allies outside the barrier. The barrier hides Dorralt from the mists, and they can only see our allies. I will not allow this delay to kill my remaining kin. If you will not attack him, I will.”

  “Thank you for the warning,” Dorralt replied, grinning as he bowed. The air all around him wavered the way Raeln would have expected over a stone on a hot day. He knew that shimmer from his fight with Liris. It covered both Dorralt and Estin. They were cut off from leaving or getting close to Dorralt.

  “Now! We have no time left!” Raeln shouted at Mairlee, who nodded at him. “Liris tried to kill me in one of those. Estin will run out of air!”

  Immediately, Mairlee hurled a bolt of lightning at Dorralt, which scattered across the wall and faded.

  Dorralt laughed manically, grinning at Raeln. “Liris never was any good at keeping surprises to herself. The wolf is right. Your time to either join me or kill me has been shortened to an hour. How long will you wait before kneeling, knowing that your dear lemur will suffocate and die before your eyes? I suspect our lovely Feanne will be the first to grovel. When she does, I will mercifully spare Estin, and the two can suffer through their last days together.”

  Letting out a guttural roar, Mairlee’s next barrage of magic lit up the courtyard, melting all the snow and making Raeln’s fur sizzle. Flames tore at the barrier, making it glow like the sun. Dorralt responded by holding up his own hand, pushing the flames back inch by inch without dropping the barrier. Using that moment of inattention, Raeln got himself to the edge of the dome. On the opposite side, Feanne was frantically clawing at the barrier, trying to tear through it with brute force. Neither flames nor claws did anything to the magical wall.

  “Oh, you silly, silly dragon,” Dorralt yelled. The flames continued to push back toward Mairlee, despite her efforts. “I may not have taken any of your brood as one of my children, but I saw enough of your son’s mind in the seconds before he tried to contain the mists. I am far more than a match for you. I got what I wanted, Mairlee. I got all of the woken dragons in one place. Living or dead, you will serve me before I claim the world, or you will die with the rest of the mortals. There will be none of the old so-called gods to stop me from rising as the ruler of Eldvar. Your son drove off the elemental lords, and they will not look to our world for generations. Only my brother can prevent this by choosing to stand at my side as the rightful master of the lands.”

  Pushing as though shoving something, Dorralt flung Mairlee against one of the pillars, ending both of their spells. The impact broke the pillar in half, though Mairlee’s eyes were still open as she crawled back toward Turess. Raeln saw no blood, but that impact would have broken every bone in his body.

  “A hundred of my kin stand at the ready around this temple,” Dorralt went on, turning to grin at Raeln. He walked up to the edge of his magical barrier, dragging Estin by the scruff of his neck. “Hundreds more ignored my call and wait in other nations. I can draw all of their strength as I see fit. Five hundred of my children are more than any one dragon. Everyone in this temple is at my mercy, and I have thus far shown great restraint. You saw what I did to your sister, and I only considered her a gnat to be swatted. What hope do you have? Beg for your lives!”

  Raeln thought quickly, trying to find some way to help. His mind raced through what Greth would say or do in such a situation, and he then noticed Estin’s eyes were slightly open. Raeln had to buy him time. Estin would know what to do, even if it got them all killed.

  A foolish thought came to mind: his sister being spanked when they were kids for having repeated a gesture one of the hunters’ children had shown her. In desperation, Raeln repeated the gesture at Dorralt, whose smile immediately fell away.

  “If that is your final answer,” Dorralt replied, holding up a hand filled with flame and dropping Estin, “you will be the first example made of why the rest must obey, wolf. I will not tolerate disrespect, especially from one of you. If nothing else, I will burn away the last of his air while you watch. There is nothing you can do to reach me, but my magic will easily get to you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Gone”

  Estin struggled to catch his breath as everyone ran into the courtyard. His throat was bruised and his whole body hurt from the rough landing moments earlier. He vaguely remembered being picked back up, but he now lay on the ground again. There was someone shouting something, but he only halfheartedly listened to the man’s bluster. Instead, his attention was on Feanne, lying near one of the pillars, struggling to roll back onto her feet. She was hurting, her fur burned in places, cut in others, and she moved as though every inch of her body ached.

  “Stay on the ground, Estin,” Dorralt warned. He walked toward where Raeln stood, holding up a finger for some reason. The gesture made no sense to Estin, but seemed to infuriate Dorralt. “I will spare you and your wife, so long as you are a good little wildling and remain on your knees.”

  Estin coughed, trying to get back his voice. Magic might not require much speaking, but he w
ould need to be able to control his breathing at the very least. Hoping he would have his voice back by the time he reached Feanne, Estin crawled toward her. If he were lucky, he would be able to get to her to heal her—

  He ran into a barrier with his nose, startling him. Sliding his hands across the magical wall, he could find no opening to get away from Dorralt and to Feanne.

  Lying where she had fallen, Feanne looked at Estin with tear-filled eyes, as though she had already given up. They might all know it was hopeless, but seeing Feanne like that broke his heart. She was coming to grips with the fact that she might well watch Estin die.

  After a moment, Feanne sat up, rubbing at her head. She met his eyes, and in that one look, Estin knew she was ready to die here and now. She had been waiting for this. Her whole life, she had expected to die fighting, and she saw it coming. It was the perfect death for her, would hold no regrets so long as it saved their family from the very things the two of them would endure. There was no anger, no sorrow, only solemn acceptance. When the opportunity presented itself, she would die trying to kill Dorralt.

  “You’ll spare Feanne and I?” Estin asked, though his voice was little more than a wheeze. He tried to put a hand on the invisible wall, but accidentally put his weight on his broken wrist. Whimpering, he pulled that hand to his chest to keep from using it again and took a deep breath in the thinning air. “Can you save her with us in here and her out there?”

  Dorralt heard him. He stopped right in front of Raeln, still holding a ball of flame. He turned partway and eyed Estin with a touch of surprise. “Yes. You have my word. I will spare you both if you obey me, just this once. I will neither kill nor turn either of you, though other fates might be required for you both. I must say, you are amusing me today, Estin. By my honor, your lives will be spared. I make no such promises for the others here. As for the barrier, magic crosses one way. I can choose to send magic through the barrier or allow things through at my discretion, but their magic and weapons cannot reach us.”

  “Just the two of us would be spared?” Estin asked, sitting down and flopping his tail into his lap. “No one else in the whole world? Could we plead for them?”

  “No one outside the temple, no. The wolf I will not spare either. I’m afraid Liris is begging for his head. Those outside the temple even I cannot choose to spare. They are beyond my reach, with the mists at my door.”

  “We’re safe in the temple?”

  “Safe until long after the mists have gone. They cannot even sense us within the temple. They hunt those outside. Even Mairlee is shielded from the mists’ attention by the runes of the temple.”

  Estin looked up at the runes that circled the stones high above. They were burning brightly as they fought the mists outside, attempting to hold back certain death for everyone inside. His magic had them holding for the moment—a profound accomplishment with so little training. All the world might die, but they were safe as a result of one wildling’s actions. He had done less than Atall had, but it was no less amazing.

  Smiling grimly, he thought back to his first meeting with On’esquin.

  “Did you know On’esquin?” Estin asked.

  Dorralt hesitated, scowling at him, and turned his back on Raeln.

  “The orc. Big, green, kind of gentle…”

  “That traitor was my apprentice,” Dorralt snapped, letting the ball of flame vanish as he walked toward Estin. “He refused to obey once I gave him the gift of immortality. He lost his name and clan the day he disobeyed. I gave him the world’s blessings, and he spat in my face.”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Estin said, grinning. “Do you know what he did the first time we met?”

  “Why would I care? He is dead, last I checked.”

  Estin continued. “He made me make a choice. He made it look like I was fighting to take the world’s greatest magic from him, when I was really being asked to decide between power that could save or doom the world, my own family, and my life. I really thought I made the wrong choice that day.”

  “What does that have to do…?”

  Estin pointed at the runes above and summoned a simple thread of magic that wrapped endlessly around the stones. With a twist, Estin severed the spell. The surface of the stone shattered, snuffing out the light of the single rune that the magic struck. One by one, the other runes went dark all the way around, followed by those on the lower ring. Almost immediately, winds picked up in the temple, bringing an almost electrical tingle. Broken fragments of the stones clattered to the ground around the people gathered there.

  “Are you insane?” Dorralt demanded, grabbing Estin and picking him up off the ground. “Your wife and you will die here! I can resist the mists, but you cannot. That was beyond foolish!”

  “I’ve survived them before,” Estin replied, grinning back.

  “With help,” Dorralt snapped. He held Estin aloft with one hand and reached into Estin’s shirt with the other to pull out the battered old black feather on a string. “Turess’s tricks. You had one of these during one trip. You had one of my children, Arturis, during another. No more of that. I will deny you another chance. If you doom us, I will certainly doom you.”

  Dorralt yanked the necklace, snapping its leather string. With a smirk, he threw it out through the barrier, where it landed near Feanne’s paws. “Time to die, wildling. All you have done is killed your friends and delayed my rise to power. Even the dragon cannot fight me. My shell may die here today, but I will live on, below the mists’ attention. I will let my magic dwindle so the mists cannot sense me. My life will go on forever, even if I must sleep a century to hide. One of many tricks the dragons taught me.” Dorralt tightened his grip on Estin’s shirt and chest fur.

  Closing his eyes, Estin waited for the end. He was too tired of running to even try to fight this time. Booms like a hammer hitting the barrier nearby let him know Feanne or Mairlee was trying to tear through it. But he knew it would take time, and Dorralt could kill him with little more than a gesture.

  “Now, this I find somewhat interesting,” Dorralt said, thumping Estin against the dome wall. “You may wish to watch this, Estin. Someone who does not belong here may have come to beg for your life.”

  Estin opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Feanne, standing near the barrier behind Dorralt. She had his feather necklace around her neck and both hands pressed firmly against the invisible wall, watching him with uncontrolled fear. She met his eyes, and Estin watched her calm quickly. She knew this was a good death for him, too, and would not let him see her afraid as his last sight. Beside her, Raeln was far less restrained, punching wildly and leaving blood across both his knuckles and the magical wall. The fool would break his hands sooner or later.

  Neither of those two was who Dorralt spoke of, Estin realized. He was not watching the werewolves or the other creatures out beyond the courtyard. He was even ignoring Mairlee, flinging bolt after bolt of white energy against Dorralt’s barrier, creating thin cracks with each spell. Even more surprising, Dorralt had not bothered to look up at the swirling tornados of mists that Estin could see circling the temple through the gaps between pillars.

  Dorralt was watching Dalania, pacing outside the courtyard’s barrier, shoving aside werewolves and soldiers as she came to one of the entrances. When she got there, she walked through the magical wall as though it were little more than air. She strode emotionlessly up to the edge of the barrier that held Estin and Dorralt and put one hand on the shimmering wall. Then she lifted her green eyes to stare at Estin, with not a hint of recognition.

  “Don’t let me delay the start of your pleading,” Dorralt said, pushing Estin against the magical wall until he had trouble breathing. “Get on with it. We don’t have long.”

  Dalania did not blink. There was something different about her, as though all of the emotions that had consumed her were gone. Estin saw someone cold, almost inhuman, watching him and Dorralt. A faint glow in her eyes caught Estin’s attention, reminding him of the way Fean
ne’s radiated with green light when she was in her lycanthrope form.

  Smiling slightly but without any feeling backing it, Dalania walked partway around the barrier until she could face Dorralt properly. “We never had the chance to meet during your life, mortal. Your brother I found interesting, but you I kept meaning to have a conversation with. I could practically smell the betrayal on you, even from afar. The wilderness can sense such things far better than your kind can.”

  “Mortal?” Dorralt laughed. “I am no mortal, fae-kin. I am a god.”

  “A god? Not hardly.”

  Dalania turned on her heel and walked back the way she had come, going right to Feanne. Without a word, she ripped the necklace from Feanne’s neck, startling Feanne in the process. Ignorant of the glares she was getting, Dalania turned back to Dorralt and moved to the broken section of the stone floor of the courtyard, where Estin had fallen.

  Meanwhile, even Mairlee stopped attacking to watch Dalania.

  “Do you know what a god even is?” Dalania asked, holding up the necklace to look at it. The black feather flickered with green and purple flames. “A god is willing to sacrifice not only its servants, but itself if the goal is worthy enough of attention. A god does not die when a forest is destroyed by a weapon carried by a golem, even if that weapon brings the mists in its wake. A god is not deceived by simple tricks, Dorralt. A god is always ready.”

  Dorralt’s brows furrowed and he looked over at Estin. “Are you getting any of this?”

  “No,” Estin admitted, thankful for the brief respite in the pressure on his chest. The thin air was making it hard enough to breathe, even without Dorralt crushing him. “I’m betting it’s not good news for you, though. Anyone as relaxed as she’s been is likely to snap and kill us all.”

  “Shut your mouth, beast.” Dorralt grabbed Estin’s muzzle with one hand and clamped it shut so tightly that Estin could barely pull air through his nose.