The Path of the Fallen

by Dan O'Brien

  The Shaman came up behind them and extended his arms into the air. A white glow flowed from his fingers and down his arm. The very same light crawled from his feet and then met at his waist so that his entire body was consumed by the clear light. He reached forward and touched the wall. Shimmering like water as the light and the darkness molded together into one form, the wall absorbed the amalgamation.

  “We two give our lives for this mortal to walk…” began Mete as he pressed his arm into the liquid-like portal, so much so that his chest rested against the wall.

  “Within Dok’Turmel for we believe that he…” continued Arivene as she plunged her arm into the gateway. Her features betrayed her fear as tears trickled down her face.

  E’Malkai moved forward, but the Shaman shook his head vigorously. Even without him turning, E’Malkai knew it was meant for him.

  Mete’s face contorted in pain as he spoke again.

  “Is the recreation of the Ai’mun’hereun and that he may…”

  The tears flowed freely now. Her mouth twisted as she spoke again, her voice wavering. “Restore the power of the Original Creator and bring balance back to the universe.” She cried now. Her whimpering brought a rage into the youth’s heart, but he would not move.

  “I bear witness to the opening of Dok’Turmel and the coming of the Original Creator.” Winds erupted within the chambers and a humming noise permeated the air. The Shaman was not impressed. “These children of the Light give their lives willingly.”

  The portal exploded forward like a mass of crawling energy and expanded over the brother and sister. He heard her voice then, a soft whisper. “I love you, E’Malkai, son of Seth.”

  The words drifted over the room as the gales tore through everything that was not a part of the cavern. It lurched back and reflected like a rippling pool of water. Waves of light danced on the surface.

  The Shaman stood alone.

  His hair was wild as it blew all around him. The youth felt his face and realized that he could not feel the wind on his skin. He walked forward without hesitation. Reaching the Shaman, he looked at the one called Ti’ere’yuernen.

  “Go with strength, E’Malkai, son of Seth, last of the line of Armen and bearer of the power of the Ai’mun’hereun. May you find the peace that your father was never granted. Heed my warnings, for you are alone once you pass through that portal,” he called over the winds.

  “I will. May my journey find peace for us all.” E’Malkai smiled sadly and touched the portal. A freezing sensation crawled down the length of his arms as he pushed his arms into the shimmering abyss. As he fell through, the light dispersed and the wall became dark obsidian glass once more. The Shaman stood, his hair falling back into place. The materials caught in the whirlwind caused by the portal fell back to the ground.

  Silence permeated the keep of the Shaman.

  ⱷ

  Fe’rein

  Fe’rein’s eyes snapped open. Unintelligible words roared from his mouth. The shadow fire prickled his skin. His eyes flooded to black as he drove his fist against a wooden table, shattering it into a thousand pieces. As quickly as the energy came, it receded; drawn from him like poison from a wound.

  He gasped for air as he fell back and breathed deeply.

  His eyes pooled with tears, the sensation of suffocation overwhelming. He did not yet have his power back. The veneficus had been true to its word, but it was going to take longer than he would have wished to see his power restored.

  ⱷ

  T’elen

  T’elen lay on the snow-covered ground. Gripping the sides of the binoculars, she grimaced at the light red hue that it cast over everything. It had begun to infect her vision. She was watching for independent heat signatures, movement that could only be human.

  She soon found what she was looking for.

  The army of Culouth had circled back from whence it came. Due to the size of their infantry, it took them far longer than the small company commanded by the Field Marshal. She pushed herself up from the ground and handed the binoculars to the broad-shouldered lieutenant who had been at the third trench.

  “They are here, lieutenant,” she spoke, pulling the hood back over her face. She tightened the wraps that surrounded her features before she continued. “They are moving toward the caverns to the south.”

  The lieutenant looked over the field with a bland stare and could not even see a pale outline. “They are leading them away from Illigard, luring them into a blind corner in hopes of thinning out Kyien’s forces,” he replied without turning back around.

  T’elen had already pulled the dark gray shawl around her shoulders as she watched the cold world around them degenerate further. “We need to make our way to the caverns. If they have indeed holed up there, then they are doing so as a last stand. We need them if we expect to survive this war.”

  “I have never seen so many tracks. There could be hundreds of thousands of Culouth soldiers waiting for us. Elcites and Xi’iom could already be dead. We need to think about Illigard,” reasoned the lieutenant. His voice tapered as the Field Marshal turned to him.

  “If you would like to run back to Illigard with your tail tucked between your legs, then be my guest. After doing so, clean out your things and get off my base. Am I clear, lieutenant?” she challenged, standing right in front of him.

  Her slender features looked up at him.

  Everything was hidden except the fire in her eyes.

  “Crystal clear, Field Marshal T’elen. I will assemble the men and begin our march toward the caverns.” He saluted curtly and spun, disappearing into the snowy haze.

  The snow had stopped blowing in the winds and instead began to fall on the ground, painting the fields in heavy strokes. T’elen had grown increasingly difficult to be with the longer the war dragged on. It seemed that the Stone Tower and Kyien had an inexhaustible amount of men to throw at Illigard no matter what traps and pitfalls were laid before them. She nearly screamed as she stood there, but instead stifled the urge. The rage that built inside her was caustic. It felt as if it would seep from her pores like acid if she did not find justice with her blade.

  She drew the sword deftly and despite the cold, it sung from its sheath. Watching the snow land on the steel, it soon melted into a liquid that dripped from her blade. She turned it over in her hand, the thickness of the hilt greater than the circumference of her wrist, and then drove it into the snow with a grunt.

  A sigh escaped her lips as she did so.

  She knelt against it, allowing her weight to be suspended only by the grip of her hands on the hilt. Her head fell to her chest and she stayed there for some time, allowing the snow to fall upon her. Memories and wishes of lives lost flowed over her.

  ⱷ

  Kyien

  Kyien dismounted from the pitch black steed, handing the reins to an aide without pausing to look the woman in the eyes. Her features were hidden by layers of dark fabrics. An additional shawl was thrown over her face to hide her power––a beauty that could ensnare a man, even one as vile as Lord Kyien.

  Kyien’s host had amassed just outside of the caverns, several hundred feet from the base of the cliff side. It was several hundred more feet up the side of the rocky wall to reach the caverns where the remainder of the Illigard forces hid in darkness. He walked to the front of the soldiers and moved beside Pierce, who was rather busy looking up the side of the cliff in wonderment.

  “To bring tens of thousands of men up such a formation must have taken an excruciating amount of time. They had quite a lead on us it would appear,” he marveled, not seeing that Kyien stood beside him.

  Kyien’s voice reflected his annoyance. “That was rather grand of them, wasn’t it? They made quite a fool of out me. Isn’t that what you are trying to say?”

  Pierce spun at the voice. His delicate features slid horrifically as he realized his verbal slip, and he opened his mouth like a fish upon land gasping for life.

  “Surely you have more to say abo
ut my leadership,” continued Kyien as he placed his hands on his sides and stared up the side of the cliff face as well.

  Pierce looked away and brushed a soldier from his side angrily. “Of course not, my lord. I was merely pointing out the lengths to which the cowards from Illigard must go in order to find a place to hide,” he replied nervously.

  Kyien grabbed a passing soldier by the arm.

  The man looked at the High Marshal with a bewildered stare.

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “Do we have archers?”

  “We did not bring primitive weapons.”

  Kyien drew the blade from his side and swung it viciously in line with the man’s neck, lopping his head clean from his shoulders. The soldier’s body collapsed back and his head rolled to the feet of the High Marshal. Kyien looked down at the head and kicked it. It bounded a short distance away from him and he leveled his gaze at another soldier.

  He addressed the second solider in a calm manner.

  “I will ask you the same question: Do we have any archers?”

  The man swallowed hard before he spoke. “I will round some up immediately, High Marshal Kyien,” he stammered and then saluted before disappearing.

  Pierce looked at the back of Kyien’s head.

  His eyes were glazed and wide.

  “Was that so difficult?” echoed Kyien.

  The soldier returned with seventeen marksmen fitted with makeshift bows and arrows; tips wrapped in oil-soaked fabrics and tail ends made of fibrous shreds of steel taken from pieces of armor that had been found in the battlefield.

  A man wrapped in a dark shawl walked in front of the arches, a torch held in his hand. As each archer lifted his bow into the air, the man lit the oiled fabric and then the next until each smoldered and burned.

  Kyien stood a good distance from them.

  The archers loosed the arrows, the sucking sound as they climbed through the haze echoed over the dwindling gales. The glow of the fiery arrowheads burned brightly as they found their home on a ridge atop the caverns.

  Soon, the screaming started.

  Kyien nodded to Pierce, who dropped his hand to the archers, signaling them to notch another arrow. This time they used dark steel tips, crudely constructed from shredded metal, and loosed them again.

  The screams of those above doubled.

  Pierce nodded again.

  They did not have time to notch another arrow.

  Blades and pikes rained from the skies down on the archers, gouging and maiming without prejudice. The rain of metal ceased and thirty-seven men were taken instantly. Knives and dull points of pikes found homes in skulls and chests. Hundreds more were wounded and carried away.

  Kyien moved toward Pierce who had taken a melee knife in the shoulder. Another soldier pulled it free and tied a dark fabric around it tightly. A sharp sound erupted from the less-than-masculine officer. “The fire will take some time for them to put out. The water is deeper in the caverns.”

  Pierce looked at him in anger. “We lost close to forty men; a hundred more will not survive the night. Yet you worry about a stupid fire,” he roared, his face flushed.

  Kyien darted forward and grasped the man’s jaw in his hands.

  “I am the commanding officer here.”

  Pierce knocked away his hand disgustedly and wiped the dirt from his jaw where the High Marshal held him. He glowered at Kyien, his anger and angst unabated. “You are a madman. They will get those fires out and they might lose twenty men. We suffer down here because you would rather kill one of them than spare a hundred of your own men,” he spoke, his brow furrowed.

  Kyien shrugged and looked back up the cliff side. The glow of the fire was evident. “My men trust in my judgment. Smoke will lower their morale; make them come to hate the corner they have been pushed into.”

  “And what if they do not see it as a corner?” challenged Pierce.

  His anger receded as he brushed off his garments.

  Kyien tucked his hands into the folds of his coat and lowered his head against the comfortable furs that lined the collar of his regal linens. “It matters little what they believe. In time it will be their tomb.”

  Pierce looked up as the wind howled.

  Snow climbed the rocky cliffs and spiraled, making the haze of snow and freezing ice thicker. The wind chilled Pierce, and he pulled his coat around himself and shivered as if to accentuate the point. The world had seemed to slow around their war. Terra was now trapped in an unrelenting, inescapable storm that would eventually consume them all.

  ⱷ

  Elcites

  Elcites used the thick cloth blanket like a whip as he beat the flames down. The mammoth guardian had managed to contain the smaller fires, but the one closest to the entrance had found a catalyst: a dry copse of brush that had received shade from the snowstorm. It had become brittle and susceptible to the flame. The others had taken shelter deeper within the recesses of the cave, but the guardian had remained. The presence of the fire meant smoke, and they could not afford that with the lack of proper ventilation inherent deeper within the caverns.

  His mind wandered as he watched the flames.

  A sneering face seemed to form among the tendrils the harder he tried to beat it back, as if it were mocking him. The worry that tickled his mind would not relent. He could not escape the sense of duty he felt for E’Malkai.

  He slammed the dull fabric against the fire.

  Watching as it diminished only to be reborn once more when the wind blew past––enlivened as the blanket was pulled away––Elcites could feel irritation brewing. Umordoc were known for their fits of rage, but the guardian was not a mindless beast.

  He was more human in his heart and mind than the beast on the outside conveyed. Leane and Fe’rein had seen to his training. He was to be imbued with the logics of the Fallen, as well as the merciless tactics necessary to survive.

  He could hear the soldiers deeper within the caves, their voices echoing, as well as the distant voices of Culouth soldiers below. He felt torn between two worlds: his charge and the war. The soldiers of Illigard had begun to fear. They whispered in the darkness of what might befall them: not making it out of the caves alive; perhaps suffocating if the fires spread.

  Elcites did not fool himself into thinking that they would survive. Yet, he held on to the belief that E’Malkai was what he was destined to be. That was what kept him going when the world felt as if it had stopped spinning.

  He placed the blanket atop the fire once more and allowed it to simmer. Using his hands and smothering it as best he could, he deprived it of the oxygen it so desired; another casualty of the war that marred Terra. As he pulled it away, he was aware of the heat on his hands, but it felt more like warmth against the bitterness of the air. Never in his life had he felt such cold weather upon the Lower Plane. It was if Terra had died and the world had frozen around her.

  ⱷ

  T’elen

  The rock formation was very much like a tower. From the west it tapered until it reached the apex, a narrow winding path that crawled to where the caverns were carved into the stone. T’elen could not be certain if Kyien had known of it, or if he did not wish to risk the possibility of such a perilous attack.

  Either way, she found its presence served a dual purpose: a way to find the remnants of the Illigard Company forced to abandon the swamps and an opportunity for a strategic strike against Culouth. The trail was constructed such that only one solider at a time could walk. As they climbed, they passed through the hazy clouds that obscured visibility from below. They saw the ground disappear, but could still hear the Culouth encampment; their raised voices and the sound of laughter and grumbling rolled together as one.

  She leaned a hand against the side of the rock wall and peered around the corner, her weapon drawn and extended forward. The point bounced slightly in the wind.

  The trail wound dangerously close to the cliff edge.

  The weaving gap was no more than a couple fee
t wide.

  She entered it one foot after the other, carefully making her way despite the breathtaking fall she would suffer with any misstep. The wind tormented them, urged them to fall. They backed themselves against the wall; all the while quiet as the Culouth camp was just below.

  The hundred or so feet felt like miles as the Field Marshal planted her feet upon the curved rocks that led into the dark open mouth of the cavern. The smell of burnt brush assaulted her nose, stinging her senses. She stood tall, taking in the ambiance of the shelter above the cold haze. The stoic, imposing figure of Elcites emerged. His dark body was slick with viscous fluids, blood of those who were enemies as well as allies.

  His face contorted––the Umordoc version of a smile. “I knew that you would come, Field Marshal,” he growled. His voice was hoarse from the smoke that had all but dissipated. A smoldering pile of brush was a reminder of what would come again.

  She smiled thinly and sheathed her sword. Her lieutenant moved around behind her as the rest of the Illigard reinforcements found their way into the darkened cave. They filed past as if it was a death march, silent feet echoing in solitude. T’elen watched them pass, nodding to those who made eye contact and ignoring the others. “I had an obligation to my men.”

  The Umordoc nodded and approached the edge of the cliffs. “Bakar walks among them. Many who had once been friends are now enemies.”

  She stood alongside him as the broad-shouldered lieutenant dodged beneath the shadowy cave. He cast one more glance back at the Field Marshal before disappearing into the darkness. “Did Xi’iom choose this place?”

  Elcites nodded and peered down into the gray cover below.

  She nodded in understanding. “He was always fond of being forced to find a solution.” She turned to him, though he continued to look ahead. “I did not think that you would allow yourself to be placed in a compromising position.”