The Path of the Fallen

by Dan O'Brien

  “This war has been one compromise after another. Giving up my charge is something I would not have done if not commanded to do so by Leane ilsen. I would have wished to fight beside him until my death, but it appears as if I may die alone here in these caverns,” he responded without inflection.

  She sighed. “You saw the pod, didn’t you?”

  “How could I miss it?”

  She smirked.

  Her face felt heavy, as if she wore a mask.

  “I believe that was E’Malkai coming from the north.”

  The Umordoc did not react.

  “Fe’rein will ravage the battlefields soon, though I do not know why he has not yet. It seems ill-advised of Kyien to fight without the champion of Culouth. Perhaps his power wanes,” she mused, her hands planted against her hips.

  “Perhaps the Intelligence has other plans for him.”

  She turned to him, her eyebrow cocked. “Or they wish to keep him on a shorter leash since he allowed E’Malkai to go free?”

  Elcites bowed his head and turned from the cliff edge.

  “How many remain in Illigard if we fail?”

  “Eighty thousand, maybe more. I can’t be certain anymore. Many returned from the trenches, many more did not. But I saw a hundred thousand or more as we ascended the cliffs, and I’m willing to bet that there are at least that many more sitting at the Stone Tower,” she replied, a note of aggravation in her voice.

  He moved toward the opening of the cave and sat with his back against the side wall of the entrance. He draped his sinewy arms over his knees. “The men need to know that you are here. You should go to them.”

  Nodding, she passed under the arch of the earthen cave. She placed her hand against the wall, facing into the darkness as she spoke. “He will come, Elcites.”

  The Umordoc leaned his head back and stared into the gray skies above. “I have faith that he will, but I fear that it will not be in time. It may already be too late.”

  T’elen’s face was hidden in the shadow as emotion found its way to her features. There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach when she thought of E’Malkai, something unlike anything she had ever felt before. She knew that there were no words to console either of them. Continuing into the darkness, thoughts of E’Malkai plagued her when it was the war below that should have occupied her mind.

  ⱷ

  E’Malkai

  The noise was like thunder amplified a thousand times; shattered glass echoing with enough ferocity that it was like an earthquake of the mind. E’Malkai opened his eyes only to see a white light so bright and encompassing that it felt as if his skull was numb.

  His eyes no longer functioned except as mirrors to the horrific pain inflicted by the sounds and the pure unadulterated light that assaulted his senses. The light blurred and cleared. Spikes of pain radiated through his mind as the light dissolved into a softer shadow, and slowly his vision returned. Objects found shape, a texture and color to the land upon which he found himself.

  He knelt.

  His hands gripped the sides of his face. Dark black strings of his hair were caught in his fingers. He felt the thin, albeit scraggly, line of a beard that had begun to grow. It was only a mere shadow of what it had been on the tundra.

  He pulled his hands away from his face and saw the landscape for what it was. The world around him appeared shrouded in night. There were no stars in the sky; no noticeable lights or any cloud cover, only an endless darkness that extended into oblivion.

  The ground was cracked and dry like the clay left behind when lakes dried up from the heat of the sun. Land melted into a desert. The sands were bright, almost completely white save for patches of darker oranges. He could see dunes farther in the distance.

  E’Malkai spun in the opposite direction and saw that it was identical; same white sands and the impenetrable darkness that pressed upon everything. He realized with an absurd suddenness that is was hot. The temperature was uncomfortable. His clothes felt like lead weights that were simultaneously sapping his oxygen and making the heat that much more intense. He tore at the wraps that covered his face, clawing and tearing them as if they were poisonous.

  Breathing heavily, he struggled to contain his horror, the mystification that gripped his senses and overrode his logics. Falling to his knees, he struggled to shed the layers that had served as protection on the tundra.

  A scream was trapped in his throat. It was a thin whine at first that became a wounded howl. His face was drawn tight from the release, muscles straining against the adrenaline that coursed through his body. The wraps gave way and he gulped air as if he was breathing for the first time. In a fit of spasms, he shed the coat that was still wrapped around his shoulders.

  He threw it aside as he scrambled to his feet.

  Looking from one direction to the other frantically, his eyes bulged. His pale lips were drawn tight. His chest heaved as he darted forward. His mind loosed from its coil and only the former-man remained: a mindless beast relying completely on primal instincts to survive. He curled his legs into a crouch; his arms wrapped around his legs beside the first dune and he rocked himself slowly, muttering.

  He whispered in a hurried tone.

  There were many truisms in Dok’Turmel for which the Shaman had not prepared E’Malkai. Once inside the underworld, you began anew. In order to conquer a world that was situated outside of reality, he would first have to conquer his own fears, his own mind.

  His world flooded before him, all the moments of his life.

  E’Malkai’s eyes snapped open.

  He looked upon the desert of his existence. The unrelenting white and gold sands assaulted his vision, stretching far into the distant horizon. The night had not receded, nor had the heat. If anything it had grown more intense, more uncomfortable.

  The shadow of the dune did not grant him any shelter from the heat; it was not a heat from above, but rather from below. Deep beneath the sands something boiled. He shook his head violently. His memories plagued him like specters of the past. He felt the presence of something else watching from a distance.

  He stood.

  The panic that had gripped him when he first entered Dok’Turmel had not yet left him. Instead, it receded. The silent hiss of sand giving way beneath his weight drew the youth’s attention and he turned his neck, feeling the soreness of his muscles.

  Days had passed, perhaps even weeks.

  He stood upon shaky legs.

  The overwhelming feeling of being hunted returned.

  His mind urged him forward.

  He crested the side of the dune.

  Craning his neck back the way he had come, he watched as a black shadow rose and darted across his vision five or six hundred feet from him. He could not make out what it was, except that it was an animal.

  And before it disappeared, he saw its blood-red eyes. It dissipated into the brilliant white sands beneath and E’Malkai fell back as he watched it, crashing into the sand. Crab-walking away from the dune, he scrambled in a mad dash as he tried to flee from the image that had been revealed to him.

  He stumbled to his feet.

  Falling flat on his face several times before he succeeded in righting himself, he ran into the distance, not bothering to look over his shoulder again. He disappeared into the horizon, not seeing the crimson glare emerge from the white sands once more. It continued its hunt for the only mortal in all of Dok’Turmel.

  ⱷ

  Elcites

  The amber hue of the clouds looming above played tricks on Elcites. He had nodded off, not exactly the best quality for a sentry; it had been some time since he had found sleep. Weeks had passed in a dazed state that was more sleepwalking than anything else. He stretched his arms and yawned, revealing the sharp teeth of a predator. The days of the savage hunting parties of Umordoc were almost at an end.

  T’elen sat only a short distance away. She was wide awake, her blade resting on her legs as she watched the shrouded sunrise. Elcites heard the soun
d of marching below. “They started a few hours before sunrise,” she called without turning to him.

  He pushed himself to his feet.

  Peering over the edge as the flaming tip of an arrow passed just above him, it forced him to stumble back and almost lose his balance. He followed the shaft as it landed on the rock and flickered a second before the wind blew it out.

  T’elen was on her feet, her blade held in her hands as the war chant of an army lifted through the fog. She saw the glint and then the yellow badge of the Culouth army as they came single file. Five of them poured from the pass as quickly as they could muster.

  Her blade met its aim, digging deep into the torso of the first soldier and then swimming over top of him, she drove the point through the face of the next soldier. She kicked the dead man back into the others as she backpedaled toward the entrance of the cavern.

  She turned as Elcites threw a dueling axe, watching as it skimmed by her face. It embedded into the chest of a Culouth soldier, his weapon raised over his head. He fell away, the blade slipping from his grip as he fell toward the ground below. The Umordoc guardian grabbed her roughly and pulled her toward the entrance, putting himself between her and the rest of the Culouth army.

  The cliff side glowed as they backed deeper into the mouth of the cavern. A deep reddish-orange color filled their vision as a sea of arrows crested and then descended on the charging Culouth soldiers.

  “He is killing his own men,” she screamed as she struggled.

  He pulled a circular blade from his side, holes carved into the center where he could grip it. Pushing the Field Marshal back away from him, he curled it behind him and threw it forward into the sea of pushing soldiers.

  The weapon whistled as it spun in spherical waves, cutting through the lines of soldiers. Sticking into the wall of the cavern, the darkness hid the horror that the Umordoc guardian had inflicted.

  “Do you need to be carried?” he called.

  She shook her head.

  “We have to fall back,” he called again.

  His voice was lost on the Field Marshal as she watched the hungry eyes of the Culouth soldiers pour through the open maw of the cavern. She nodded numbly as she delved deeper into the cave with the guardian, constantly looking over her shoulder as she watched the light disappear.

  ⱷ

  Kyien

  Kyien watched the archers with joy. Pierce stood beside him, watching the spectacle as well, but not with the same enthusiasm that had overtaken the High Marshal. This was personal for him. He hated the Field Marshal as much as Fe’rein did, and to see her under such duress brought a disgusting happiness to the cruel commander.

  Pierce could not contain his contempt any longer. “Are we not killing our own men?” he demanded with a hawk-like frown. The points of his eyebrows were shaved into discernible lines for aesthetics, but when he frowned they looked like wings in flight.

  Kyien ignored the man’s accusation.

  He motioned for the archers to stop. “That should be enough. They have been pushed back into the caverns no doubt. We will bury them there,” he laughed with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  “You did not answer my question, High Marshal,” pressed Pierce.

  Kyien looked at the man as if he did not understand the question, or perhaps the severity with which the liaison treated it. “Perhaps, but we were getting some of them as well.”

  Pierce looked at the High Marshal with contempt.

  “That is unacceptable.”

  Kyien moved closer to Pierce, bridging the distance with a startling speed. He grabbed the man by his throat, squeezing until he heard a wheezing sound. “I will do what I wish with these men. They are at my disposal, as are you. In the future you would be wise to watch your delicate tongue, lest I have to tear it from your throat,” snarled Kyien.

  Pierce’s face flushed and the veins of his neck and forehead pulsed as he struggled to breathe. He clawed at the High Marshal’s hand.

  Kyien enjoyed watching the man squirm. Kyien tilted his head, a sick smile spreading across his features. “Do you want me to do that, Pierce?”

  Pierce shook his head as tried to breathe.

  Kyien’s face was inches away from Pierce. He could see the spittle at the corners of the liaison’s mouth. “Do we understand each other, Pierce?”

  The man nodded, the strength leaving his body.

  Kyien let go.

  Pierce fell to his knees, collapsing on himself as he breathed in deep, exaggerated breaths. The blood from his face settled again and his normal color returned. He looked up at Kyien as the High Marshal looked down.

  The brief power struggle had been resolved.

  Kyien returned his attention to the smoke that billowed from the cliff face. “I am going to lead another charge through the pass. You are to remain here with the remainder of the legions until I send for you. Understood?”

  Pierce nodded, standing and bowing curtly to the High Marshal. “What signal shall I look for, my lord?” he spoke without inflection.

  A soldier approached with the dark steed in tow, the equally black reins held in his grip. Kyien accepted them and then hooked his foot into the stirrup of the saddle; he swung himself onto the back of the mount as the soldier held the beast.

  “When I begin to throw those red-striped fools from the cliff side.”

  Pierce nodded and turned to go.

  “Pierce, you wouldn’t be thinking of running out on me?”

  The liaison froze.

  “Of course not, my lord,” he answered without turning.

  Kyien motioned the soldier away with a flick of hand.

  Pierce looked at him icily, no love lost between the two men. “I would never dream of it, my lord. You are my commanding officer and the leader to whom I look for purpose,” he responded as cordially as he could despite his seething hatred.

  Kyien watched him suspiciously. His archaic helmet shortened his already diminutive features so that he looked the part of a dwarf from ancient lore. “Make sure the soldiers do not grow relaxed without my presence.”

  “Of course, Lord Kyien, your word is bond.”

  Kyien kicked his heels into the steed and charged toward the marching line of Culouth soldiers. His mirthless voice could be heard echoing as he rode alongside the troops. The host soon disappeared into the thick haze of the snowstorm. Pierce watched it without interest and turned back to the camp once the visage of Kyien disappeared. He began to plot those dark schemes that dwelled only in the darkest of hearts.

  ⱷ

  Fe’rein

  Fe’rein had listened to the Sea of Torments and the crashing of waves on the walls below the Stone Tower for too long. As he lay on his side facing the cold unforgiving stone, he watched without care. Images of the past plagued him as they often did, though no more than when he had first taken the power.

  Those memories had been warped, changed.

  When he saw Seth, he did not see his brother; just as Summer no longer held the memories of his lover. Instead, there were only recreated, convoluted images that he had reconstructed from a forgotten past––a past that served only as a reminder of a former weakness.

  This was, of course, false.

  He was no more Ryan Armen than the image of Seth was his brother. He had taken to the notion that he was trapped; high up in the keep, he was a prisoner of his own devices. He saw the four walls as the cell to which he had been condemned by the Intelligence until a time when they would allow him to roam once more.

  A war raged.

  The Final War, if some men were to be listened to.

  The Intelligence had begun to keep a tight leash on him once it was known that E’Malkai would undergo the pilgrimage. Once an Armen breached Dok’Turmel, the connection with the energies of Terra would wane and eventually disappear from those who were still tethered to it in some way––someone like Fe’rein.

  Battles raged all around him.

  He had remained within the Stone
Tower for months, every day less powerful than he had been before. The crash of the waves as they assaulted the cliffs below had become white noise.

  He had slept for the first time in months.

  It was a dreamless sleep, after which he felt neither rested nor refreshed. He shut his eyes and searched with the Sight, one of the few gifts that had not been taken away. It was the only power that was irrespective of affiliation.

  His control over the Sight had diminished considerably.

  Before he could focus on any given point, be it a person, a place, or even a concept. The last time that he had tried to find the youth it was a taxing, almost fruitless endeavor. He crawled through the gray mass of storm clouds and snow, seeing the fields for what they were: tattered and beaten swamps with slush over top. Battlegrounds had begun to freeze over once more.

  He stretched out his mind, sighing as he tried to reach the youth. Searching for the cave of the Shaman as he had before, he was humbled. He could not feel E’Malkai anymore, which meant that his journey to Dok’Turmel had been successful.

  His mind was pulled back as he saw an image of M’iordi approaching the keep. He rolled to a sitting position as the knock echoed in the hollow chamber. That was a word that he had begun to use to explain everything: hollow.

  “Come in, M’iordi,” he drawled without real care.

  He pushed himself from the bed lethargically.

  M’iordi was adorned in bright colors, vibrant red robes atop shimmering dark blue colors. It was safe to assume that beneath the layers were duller, warmer colors that made it such that he could still look as regal as he pleased. He carried in his hand a faded yellow piece of parchment paper. The dark stamp of the Culouth army adorned the folded portion of the message.

  “My mion, you knew I was coming. Are your powers perhaps returning?” M’iordi was simply being polite. He knew Fe’rein’s powers had stagnated. The veneficus had served as nothing more than a wall against whatever it was that had been done to him.