by Alex Irvine
Clouds covered the sun and wind howled down the gorge from the north. The Raven Queen’s affections turned elsewhere as she saw that her favorites would be fed.
Iban Ja spoke instructions to a stone that carried his voice to every wizard who fought under his command. They turned as one and directed their attacks toward the sappers in the caves, besieging them with magical energies designed to kill the living without damaging the stone underpinnings of the bridge. At that moment, the Turathians played their last card.
On the walls of the gorge above the bridge, stones began to move. They shifted, spread wings, reared fanged heads on long necks, uncoiled tails tipped with hooked stingers. Ridden by cambion hellswords, these fell wyverns swooped down from the heights to tear into the ranks of Arkhosian wizards. The wizards fought back, but the distraction proved critical. Cambion magi worked magics upon the bodies of their tiefling servants while Iban Ja devoted all of his powers to destroying the wyverns. Incinerated, arrow-shot, lightning-struck, they fell from the sky to die on the stones of the bridge or in the depths of the churning river far below.
And as Iban Ja and the Arkhosian wizards returned their attention to the cambion magi, a great shudder ran through the stones of the bridge. Cambion magic drew the ghosts of dead dwarves from the stones and their spectral picks crashed into the most vulnerable seams, where buttress met cliffside and Arkhosian engineering met the ageless genius of nature.
Iban Ja called down a raven that wheeled over the battlefield. “It is your Queen that has done this, is it not?” he demanded.
The raven squawked but consented to speak. “Is this not an unnatural spring?” it answered. “And does not the wilderness rebel against the works of mortals? Beware your blame, wizard. Look you to yourself.”
It cast itself back into the air over the bridge as the last words left its mouth, and the great buttresses on the Turathian side of the gorge slipped, cracked, and fell with a sound like an earthquake into the misty depths of the Gorge of Noon. The span sagged, leaned, split two-thirds of the way across and carried Arkhosian support troops and the bodies of the fallen after the broken buttresses. Unsupported, the remainder of the span jutted creaking out into empty space for a moment longer than Iban Ja thought he could endure—then with a sound like a peal of thunder the entire span broke off and fell end over end into the gorge. The bodies of Iban Ja’s wizard corps fell with it. Those few who managed to fly, and managed to survive the barrage of tiefling arrows, returned to the Arkhosian side to watch in horror as the final part of Bael Turath’s great trap sprang.
From every cave, every notch, every sheltered space below a fallen rock poured tiefling and human, cambion and lesser devil. Like ants they poured blackly over the rocks, overwhelming the Arkhosian troops and closing like a flood around the island formed by the Knights of Kul. Rallying to a defensive posture, the Knights saw the collapse of the bridge. Instantly they knew what had happened. In the falling of the stones they saw their deaths, and with useless clarity they understood that even the most seasoned of soldiers can fall victim to the thrill of battle.
It began to snow. The raven that had answered Iban Ja’s questions wheeled over the broken stub of the bridge.
He killed it with a flick of his fingers. The Raven Queen’s fury would follow him beyond his grave, but Iban Ja did not care for her regard. He rose into the skies over the gorge, flicking aside arrows from the other side, summoning and mastering the wild energies of the storm that blew down the gorge from the great peaks of the Draco Serrata. He did not expect to live through the next hour, but Iban Ja had done a great deal of living; he was interested now in doing a little dying for the empire whose service had dominated his life.
The storm’s winds blew around him, and Iban Ja breathed them in. He found the elemental language of their strength, taught himself to speak it, and commanded the winds to his service.
On the other side of the gorge, the Knights fought their desperate holding action. They saw Iban Ja suspended over the depths and believed without question that he would come to their rescue. Never before had the Knights needed rescue. Perhaps they never would again. Iban Ja commanded the armies on the Arkhosian side of the gorge to rally and prepare. “This will be my last command,” he said. “In the name of every dwarf that carved you, every Arkhosian who died when you fell, every ghost whose unquiet cry shivered your stone, I say to this bridge: Know me. I am Iban Ja. And with the power of the winter wind, I command you rise.”
Lightning crackled through the driving snow. The rumbling of a thousand stones echoed up along the walls of the gorge in counterpoint to the thunder and the howling of the wind. Iban Ja became the center of a whirlwind, the snow spinning so tightly and so densely around him that it appeared to the astonished soldiers as if he had spun himself a cocoon of snow and wind. Below them, blocks of stone rose from the depths of the gorge, the Noon’s waters pouring from them as they came once again to the level of the roads on either side.
No single mortal could rebuild the bridge whose building had taken the work and lives of thousands. Yet such was the power of Iban Ja that he himself, as his body was swept away by his icy whirlwind, brought stones out of the depths and held them there. By force of will and magic, by strength of belief and essence, the stone rose and leveled and hung in space as the cocoon of snow spun apart and revealed that Iban Ja’s body had vanished. Across the gorge stretched a hopscotch pattern of stone blocks, snowswept and icy. On one side, the armies of Bael Turath threatened to overwhelm the Knights of Kul; on the other, the massed forces of Arkhosia stood waiting the order to charge.
The horn of Arkhosia’s generals blew, its note clear and piercing through the canyon winds. Arkhosia’s armies charged. The hordes of Turathian tieflings rose to meet them. The sky filled with arrows and spears, magical energies and the black wings of wyvern and raven. On stones held up by the magical will of Iban Ja, the Solstice War of Arkhosia and Bael Turath came to its awful climax.
The day’s ride had brought the party to a saddle between two peaks along the first row of mountains, with the foothills behind them and the higher ranges of the Serrata ahead. “How much of that is true?” Remy asked when they were settled around the night’s fire.
“All of it,” Iriani said.
“The gods sport with mortals that way?”
“And with one another,” Kithri chuckled.
“Some of them do,” Keverel said. “Some of them do not.”
“Oh yes, Erathis would never do something like that,” Lucan said. “Or Bahamut, that pompous old lizard. He’s the most prudish of the gods. They see him at their god-feasts and wait until he leaves so the real fun can begin.”
Biri-Daar had been silent all day, while Iriani told the story and then while they set up their camp and took care of the horses. Still without saying a word, she caught Lucan a hard backhanded slap to the side of the head. The blow knocked him sprawling, but he rolled and came up with a knife in one hand and his sword in the other. Biri-Daar didn’t look up.
“I don’t care for blasphemy,” she said.
“And I don’t care for paladins thinking they have the right to put their hands on me,” Lucan said. He leveled the sword at Biri-Daar. She put a piece of jerked meat in her mouth, chewed it carefully, and swallowed. All the while Lucan’s sword hand stayed rock-still and his eyes never left her.
Biri-Daar took a drink of water, then said, “I apologize, then. But were things to happen the same way again, I don’t believe I would do anything differently.”
The two of them looked at each other. Some of the tension drained from the moment. Remy realized he had been holding his breath. He exhaled, slowly, not wanting to call attention to how nervous he had been.
“Didn’t someone buy … Lucan. It was you, wasn’t it, who bought the spirits back at the market? Share them around,” Kithri said. “It’s going to be a hard enough trip up the Crow Road without the two of you killing each other the whole way.” She made an insistent beck
oning motion. “Come on. Don’t stand around waving your sword when you’re not going to use it. Kill something tomorrow. Tonight, let’s have a drink.”
She kept talking, and eventually Lucan pulled the bottle out of his saddlebag. It went around the fire and the mood lightened as the sky darkened. “Who won, anyway?” Remy said in the middle of a conversation about the kinds of fish that could be caught in the estuary of Karga Kul.
“Who won what?” Iriani asked.
“The battle. The Solstice War.”
“Arkhosia, I think,” Iriani said. But right away Biri-Daar contradicted him.
“At the time, it looked that way,” she said quietly. “But it is not always clear who has won a battle when the crows are still picking the bones of the dead.”
Kithri started singing a vulgar song about a tiefling whorehouse, just to change the mood. Everyone laughed except Biri-Daar. By the time the moon was directly overhead and they knew they had to sleep, Lucan’s mood had swung all the way around. “I’ll watch first,” he offered. Nobody argued.
In the morning Remy woke first, to find Lucan still sitting exactly as he had been when Remy fell asleep. “You took two watches?” he asked.
“One long one,” Lucan said with a slight shake of his head. “The peace does my mind good. And elves don’t need sleep the way you do.”
Remy stretched and poked at the coals of the fire. “Then you can take all of the watches,” he said.
“I didn’t say we didn’t need rest,” Lucan said. “Just that we don’t sleep the way humans do.”
“How do you rest, then?”
“You might call it a kind of meditation,” Lucan said. “To those who don’t do it, it’s difficult to explain.” Fog sat in the valleys between their campsite and the rise into the next range. Remy could just see the road on the other side, winding its way up and to the north. They had been traveling west and northwest for the last day or so.
“How long before we get to the bridge?” he asked.
Lucan shrugged. “I’ve never seen it. Only heard stories. And the only times I’ve been to Karga Kul, I’ve taken ship from Furia.”
“Furia,” Remy repeated. It was the fifth of the grandiosely named Five Cities of the Gulf, the southern bookend to Saak-Opole in the north with Karga Kul, Avankil, and Toradan in the Gulf’s interior. Of them, only Avankil and Karga Kul were real cities; the others might once have been greater, but had become only glorified towns. Still, Remy was smitten with the idea of it. One day, he resolved, I will go to Furia. I will see all five, and those beyond the Gulf.
“I can see what you’re thinking,” Lucan said. “The world’s a marvelous place, for certain. On the other hand, the world can also make you very dead very fast in a very large number of different ways. So keep the stars out of your eyes, boy. Learn.”
Remy nodded as he flipped twigs into the fire. He blew on them until they flared and caught. “I have learned,” he said. “Already.”
Lucan cracked a smile, a rarity for him as far as Remy could tell. “I think you have. There’s always more, though. Don’t forget that. You’ve got a good spark in you,” he added, standing up and stretching. “You might go a long way if you live through this first trip.” The elf cracked his knuckles and went to see to the horses. Often, Remy had observed, he did this before the others awoke. The storied elf affinity for animals and the natural world was strong in Lucan; Remy was starting to think that it made him unfit for the company of the speaking races.
“What’s Furia like?” he asked.
“I think it’s my favorite of the Five,” Lucan said. “Although I hate cities, or any settlements, really. So that’s something like asking me what my favorite aspect of Orcus is.”
The name of the demonic prince took some of the gleam out of the morning. “Odd comparison,” Remy said.
Lucan grinned again as he looked at one of the horses’ teeth. “They told you never to use his name, am I right? That he might hear and be angry that you weren’t being reverent enough? I’ve heard that as well. The truth is, Remy, Orcus doesn’t care what anyone says about him. His human minions might, or might pretend to so Orcus will take notice of them and transform them into one of his hierophants. But if someone told you that Orcus would come and eat you because of something you said, they were just trying to scare you. Who was it, your mother?”
“It’s been a long time since I saw my mother,” Remy said.
“Me too,” Lucan said. His smile faded. “So who was it?”
“Philomen,” Remy said.
“The vizier?”
“Once I was taking a sealed scroll from his chambers to a ship waiting to sail for … I think it was Karga Kul,” Remy recalled. “He told me to run as fast as I could, to stop for nothing. I said that the only thing that would make me run faster was if Orcus was chasing me. He said …
“You don’t want to joke about that. That Orcus isn’t a fit topic for humorous conversation. He said he’s far too real, and far too … I don’t know.”
“Sounds sensible to me,” Lucan said. “But only if you believe that certain topics cannot be joked about. I don’t believe that. Want a bit of advice? You shouldn’t either. Laughter is one of the few things we have that will always be strong against the darkness. You’re going to die, right?”
Remy didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure it was a question that required an answer. Instead of answering, he added larger sticks to the fire. It was nearly the last of the firewood they had brought from Crow Fork Market; fortunately they wouldn’t have much trouble finding it in the country ahead. Remy could see pine forests growing up the flanks of the mountains. He could smell them as well, as the rising sun burned off the fog and brought out the scents of the foothills.
“Right?” Lucan prompted.
“Right.”
“Right. And if you’re going to die, and you know you can’t prevent it, you might as well laugh at it.”
“How old are you, Lucan?” Remy asked. He heard stirring. The others were awakening, kicking at their blankets and hearing the sound of the fire as it licked up around the fresh fuel.
Lucan shrugged, moving on to the next horse. It was Remy’s, and he paid close attention to what Lucan did. Here was something else he could learn, since he didn’t figure Lucan would be around forever to do it for him. Teeth, ears, eyes, hooves … Remy watched.
“I’m not sure,” Lucan said. “I celebrate my birthday on the spring solstice.”
“Do you have some idea?”
“Seventy, eighty. No matter. I’ve got some years yet to live.”
“Famous last words,” Kithri interjected. She scuffed a spot in the coals for a comically battered metal teapot. Setting it in the ashes, she scooped dried herbs into a spoon of metal mesh and set it on the rim of the mug she was never without. She had brought a loaf of bread to the fire too, setting it on a rock to warm.
“Possibly, Kithri,” Lucan said. “Good morning to you. How old are you, since we’re interested in each other’s natal moments?”
“Forty-four,” she said. “Remy?”
“Nineteen,” he said.
“I can tell you right now you’re by far the youngest of us,” Keverel said. “I have thirty-six years and can guarantee that both Iriani and Biri-Daar are older.”
“And what that means,” Iriani said as he broke off a piece of bread, “is that you should go get water.”
Remy did, a bit annoyed but also satisfied that he was being taken into the group. He was past being grateful but not past appreciating the way Biri-Daar and the rest had brought him along and made him a part of their group.
Part of that, of course, probably had to do with the mysterious enchanted box that swung against his hip as he walked. If they had just wanted to take it, they could have killed Remy easily enough. He was no longer worried about that. He was, however, still conscious that however much they might gesture toward making him a part of the group, they were still more or less forcing him to come al
ong. Now that he had a horse, he could have turned around and headed for Toradan, but …
He looked around, remembering. Scorpions, kobolds, the cacklefiend … they were after him, no doubt about it, which meant they were after what he had. He drew the water, filling everyone’s skins at a freshet that ran down into a narrow gully and disappeared into the valley. Returning with them strung together across his shoulders, he put a question together in his mind and asked it of the first person he saw. “Keverel,” he said. “Should I just open the box?”
The cleric was just standing up after his morning prayers. “What?”
“The box I’m carrying. Why not just open it? If it’s going to draw pursuit either way, wouldn’t we be better off knowing what’s in it?” Remy took it out and tapped the latch with a fingernail. The characters carved in its lid glowed dimly and a buzzing sounded in Remy’s ears.
With both hands held out in front of him, Keverel said, “Don’t.”
“Why not?” Remy felt the latch under his thumbnail. Two of his other fingers pressed against waxen seals worked into the seam under the box’s lid.
“Remy, none of us know what will happen if you do that. You might well not survive it. Do you think Philomen put those seals on it so they would tickle you if you opened it?”
“You’ll die, boy,” another voice said, just off to Remy’s right.
Reflexively he looked in that direction; as he did, Keverel stepped forward and ripped the box from his hands. Remy reached after it and Biri-Daar, who had appeared at his right to distract him, pinned his arms. She held him fast, and after an initial struggle Remy relaxed. “Are you going to stay settled if I let you go?” she asked.
