The Sword of Light: The Complete Trilogy

by Aaron Hodges

  “I am sorry,” Archon moved away. “Sorry you have all had to suffer so,” he approached Eric, his power overwhelming, though he was not a large man. “That you have had to run and flee amongst these weak minded fools,” he cast a hand at their frozen companions.

  “Why are you here?” Eric somehow found the strength to speak, grating the question through clenched teeth. “It was you who made us suffer.”

  Archon only smiled. “It was the Gods who made you suffer, sweet child. They are the source of all our suffering. They are the reason my people cower in the desert, their children dying at the breast for want of sustenance. Since the birth of the Gods, the so-called Three Nations have cowered beneath their yoke, bowing to the power they created. Only I dared rebel, to speak out against their tyranny.”

  “You slaughtered thousands of our people!” Enala cursed him.

  Eric’s heart raced as he strained to break the force holding him. He reached again for his magic but found only darkness, an all-consuming fog lying between himself and his power.

  Archon bowed his head, but he wore a smile on his lips. “They left me no choice. I wanted only to see the Gods fall; to free us all from their power. But your people stood against me, time and time again.”

  “Why?” Eric looked up at the fire in Gabriel’s voice. “Why have you haunted me? What do you want?”

  Eric shivered at the truth behind the words, as he realised it had not been a demon haunting Gabriel, but Archon himself. He had been with them from the start, twisting the strings of their fates to his own desire.

  Archon’s eyes softened as they looked on the blacksmith. “Gabriel, my child. I have only ever tried to help you, to free you from the bounds of your mortality. It saddens me so, to watch my own blood waft through life without magic, without power.”

  The blood in Eric’s veins froze at Archon’s words. His blood?

  “I am not your child!” Gabriel growled, the veins bulging on his forehead.

  Archon laughed. “Do you not feel blessed? To know the blood of my family courses through your veins? How else could you have survived my Soul Blade?” he waved a hand at the pile of ash that had been Sylvander.

  “Jurrien protected me,” Gabriel snapped back, a snarl on his lips.

  “Of course, of course,” Archon waved a hand. “The Storm God saved you from his God magic. But that,” he pointed. “That is what happens when one without my blood attempts to use my Soul Blades,” Eric shuddered as the man’s laughter swept the room.

  Then his stomach twisted with nausea at another thought. “Enala used the Soul Blade,” he whispered.

  Archon grinned, leaning down to run a hand through her hair. “She did,” he smiled, stroking her cheek as she struggled to free herself from his touch. “My sweet daughter, so strong, so beautiful.”

  A primal growl rose from the depths of Enala’s throat. Archon chuckled as he straightened. “And Eric, my son, your strength has surpassed every challenge I placed before you.”

  “Why?” Eric hissed through bared teeth. “How?”

  Archon sighed. “The Gods would not have told you; they have never been good at truth. They would not have wished for you to know it was my brother, Artemis, who first knelt before them. For his fealty, they named him as the Trolan king.”

  Eric shuddered as Archon continued. “For the longest time I hated them, those descendants of my blood who stood against me. When I rose to power I sent out my creatures to hunt them down and their line was all but destroyed. Only Thomas and his sister Aria survived.”

  “And they did all in their power to destroy you,” Enala grated.

  “Did they?” Archon’s cold laughter filled the room. “It was not enough. Thomas’ line fell to my magic or turned to my side.”

  “But Aria’s children survived,” Eric countered.

  “Ay. She and her descendants were clever, always a step ahead of my hunters. Whenever I thought the line had been snuffed out, a new branch sprang up. Gabriel, for instance, is a rather distant cousin of a cousin to you,” Archon sighed. “Eventually I was forced to settle on a new plan – to destroy the Gods and take their power, ensuring your line’s survival no longer mattered when I rose again.”

  “Then why did you haunt me?” Gabriel growled.

  “Because as my plan changed, I saw an opportunity. I have no wish to rule your Three Nations alone, children. With the Gods destroyed, I need faithful souls to rule in their stead. And who better than my own blood?”

  Eric shook with anger, with fear; but as he looked up into the blue eyes of Archon, the same eyes he shared with his sister, he found his courage. “Why do you hate them so?” he hissed, refusing to cower before the man’s icy stare. “What could they have done to you, what could have been so awful to feed your hate for so many centuries?”

  Archon stared back and for a second Eric thought he saw a trace of humanity in those empty eyes. “They took everything from me.”

  At the words, Archon raised his hand and black light flashed across the room.

  Before Eric could so much as cry out, the world turned to black.

  Seventeen

  Enala blinked as her vision returned and she found herself standing atop a great canyon. Sheer granite walls stretched down to a winding river far below, while behind her the white peaks of snow-capped mountains stretched up into the sky. A cold wind blew across her neck and swept down into the ravine, bending the long grass on the plains beside the river. The rumble of tumbling water came from a nearby waterfall, the water racing over the edge to fall to the stones far below.

  Then the first echo of thumping boots carried to her ears and she turned to look down. Men were marching around the bend in the canyon, heading upstream away from her. The blue of their cloaks marked them as Trolans, but there were far, far more here than the host that had joined them at Fort Fall.

  Stumbling backwards, Enala searched the clifftops for her friends, but found herself alone. She bit back a scream as the world suddenly jolted and she was drawn backwards. For a second she watched the ground shift beneath her feet, and then with a thrill of fear she remembered the yawning drop behind her.

  Diving to the ground, Enala threw herself at a nearby boulder, scrambling for purchase. But her hands sank through the rock as though it were empty air and then she was out over the edge, the five hundred foot drop stretching out beneath her.

  Yet somehow she did not fall. Enala stared down at the canyon as she drifted in the open air. Picking up speed, she found herself racing towards the distant head of the army. Straining her eyes, Enala stared at the men as she soared over the never-ending mass of humanity. The canyon twisted and turned, the terrain below shifting from open grass, to swamp, to scattered fields of boulders and back. It made no difference to the soldiers. They marched on, eyes fixed on the distant peaks rising to the east.

  Finally the canyon floor rose sharply towards a narrow pass between the cliffs. There, the green cloaked army of the Lonians waited, and she knew where she was.

  And when.

  Swallowing, Enala watched as the ancient army of Trola charged up the hill towards the Lonians. Somehow, she now found herself watching the Great Wars of a thousand years before, in the time just before the ancient priests of Lonia and Trola had joined their magic and given birth to the Gods.

  The clash of steel carried up to her as the two ancient forces met, the roar of their voices drowning out the screams of the dying. The Lonians buckled before the ferocity of the Trolan charge, their line bending back into the narrow pass. Beyond, Enala saw thousands upon thousands of Lonian men waiting to join the battle.

  Chaos enveloped the mountain pass as Magickers from both sides joined the fray. Enala shuddered as waves of fire tore through the helpless ranks of soldiers below. Caverns ripped through the earth, swallowing hundreds into the dark depths below, and lightning rained down from the blackened sky.

  The destruction was beyond all imagining.

  Yet Enala knew the worst w
as still to come. This could only be the final, catastrophic battle, when the best and brightest souls of the two nations had been lost to a great conflagration, to wild magic gone horribly wrong.

  Slowly, inexorably, the Trolans pushed the Lonians back, until their blue cloaks filled the mountain pass. But even as they fell the Lonians refused to yield, stabbing out at their enemy’s legs even as their lifeblood fled them. Enala could feel the hate radiating up from the soldiers, fed by the ancient enmity between the two nations.

  Then she felt it, the pulse of a magic far stronger than anything she had sensed so far. She turned and saw the green cloaks of the Lonian Magickers on the ridge above the pass. Light shone out around them, blue and green hues mixing to form a sickly yellow light.

  The Trolan Magickers saw it too, for she felt the throb of their magic rising in response. A brilliant white rose from their ranks, spreading out to envelop their army. A trickle of horror touched her as she saw darkness mixing with the light and realised the Trolan’s had gone beyond the three elements. They were using dark magic now, such was their desperation to halt the Lonian attack.

  The opposing magics stretched across the sky, tongues of power flicking out to clash with one another. Thunder roared within the canyon, echoing off the narrow walls, but this time there was no lightning. A grumbling groan came from all around, rising up from the pits of the earth itself.

  Still the Magickers kept on, unrelenting. From her vantage point above, Enala watched as they began to collapse, blood gushing from their mouths and ears. Yet the magic continued unabated, thrashing in the sky overhead. Bolts of pure energy raced out, disintegrating rock and wood and flesh alike.

  Then the groans coming from the earth rose to a shriek, and the sheer walls of the canyon tore loose of their bounds. The ground shook, sending the men of both armies to their knees. Terrified eyes looked upwards as they realised the doom approaching them. With another roar, the granite cliffs of the canyon began to close.

  Panic spread through the armies below. Enala looked to the Magickers, unable to believe they would sacrifice their own army to defeat the other. But she saw then it was too late, that the Magickers had already fallen. Their broken bodies writhed on the ground, caught in the last throes of death.

  This was not by design. This was wild magic, its uncontrollable intent on only one thing.

  Death.

  Enala wanted to look away, to close her ears to the screams below. But whatever spell Archon had cast would not allow it, and she watched the horror unfold below, her stomach twisting in knots as men raced to escape the death grinding towards them. Some leapt for the cliffs, but they stood no hope of scaling that five hundred foot climb. Even the most skilled of climbers would struggle to reach the top in an hour.

  These men only had minutes.

  Tears rushed down Enala’s face as she watched on in terror. This was far worse than anything she had ever seen, had ever imagined.

  Others were fleeing down the valley, down the ever narrowing gap between the canyon walls. They would never make it though. The valley had been some twenty miles long – only the rear guard stood a chance of escape.

  The last of the men below simply sat, the blue and green of their cloaks mixing, a final show of peace before the inevitable. Anguish twisted their faces as they hugged men they had tried to slaughter moments before, the truth of their senseless war laid bare. Their hate had driven them to this, driven them to this doom.

  A strangled moan rose in Enala’s throat as she finally lost sight of the men below, as the ravine snapped shut.

  Then there was only silence.

  The image faded then, and Enala found herself instead in a tiny room. Three priests sat in the centre, their robes representing each of the three elements of Magic. The Light, the Earth, the Sky.

  A tingle of recognition raced up Enala’s spine. She had read of this fateful meeting long ago, the meeting where the head priests of the three orders had come together and resolved to end the slaughter between their nations. The cost of the wild magic had been beyond anything ever seen before. An entire generation had been wiped from the world, and they were determined to ensure their people never suffered such a fate again.

  Leaning closer, Enala listened to their words.

  “It has never been done,” an old man in blue robes whispered. “Never been attempted. Even with all of our orders, would such a feat even be possible?”

  “I am happy to listen to other suggestions,” the man in white snapped back. He looked around at the other two but found only silence. Closing his eyes, he ran a hand across his face. Stress lined his skin, seeming to age him twenty years. “We must be reined in – there is no other way. Our people are not worthy of the gift of magic.”

  The woman in green nodded, the weariness showing on her face. “We know; there is no argument of that. But how can we make the spirits a reality? There is no substance to them, no power. What can we do, trap them in an object? That would only serve to place even greater power in the hands of men.”

  The man in white rubbed his eyes. “Of course not,” he shook his head. “The spirits possess thought, have purpose. We know that – our orders have studied their presence for centuries. They must have autonomy, the ability to use their power as they see fit. When we bring them forth, they must take human form. They will be our rulers, our Gods.”

  “They are already Gods,” the old man in blue snapped. “Whether the people recognise them or not. They govern the rules of magic – their power is unlimited.”

  “And yet their influence is limited to the spirit realm,” the woman replied. “That must change.”

  “How?” the old man growled.

  “Sacrifice,” the others replied in unison.

  Enala’s heart gave a painful lurch as the three priests faded away. Within seconds a great hall of people had replaced them, but questions still whirred through her mind.

  Gods, what did they do?

  She had never heard of the Gods’ birth involving sacrifice. Was that how the priests had done the impossible? By slaughtering innocent people?

  Enala floated through the throngs of people packing the hall, unable to control her path. Finally she came to a halt in the centre of the hall where a ring of priests stood in a circle. The blue, green and white of their robes told her all three orders were present, united in this great task. Each member held their hands raised and their eyes were closed. Magic throbbed through the room, stirring in Enala’s chest as the priests sought their power.

  “It is time,” the voice of the woman from the secret meeting rose above the whispers. “You who have volunteered, who have chosen, step into the circle.”

  Enala’s gut churned as men and women threaded between the priests to enter the ring. There were dozens of them; people of all age and size and class. Men in the tattered rags of the poor stood alongside the rich garments of the nobility, and white bearded men held the hands of young women, offering their silent support. Enala’s heart went out for their quiet bravery – that these people were willing to give their lives to cease the wars that had torn their world apart.

  As the last of the volunteers stepped into the circle, Enala sensed the ebb of magic begin to grow. The priests’ voices rose in a slow chant, their words curling through the crowd like a breath of smoke. The language was unrecognisable, but the power in each syllable was could not be mistaken. The hall rang with magic, its throb beating across Enala’s mind like a drum.

  A glow emerged then from the hands of each priest, stretching up to engulf the volunteers in a dome of pure magic. The blue, green and white of the elements twisted and turned, absent of darkness, shining with the purity of natural magic. The light bathed the volunteers, illuminating their fear, their hope, their sacrifice.

  Then the chanting of the priests ceased, and the glow of magic faded away.

  A hush fell over the hall, as those who had gathered held their breaths and waited. Enala waited with them, eyes fixed on the circle.
Had the priests’ magic failed? Each of the volunteers still stood, looking from one to another in confusion.

  Whispers grew, spreading through the crowd like fire.

  Then a man stepped forward from the volunteers, the others moving aside to let him pass. Silence fell instantly as every soul present turned to stare at the man.

  Except he was no man. Enala would never mistake that face, those wild, electric blue eyes.

  This was Jurrien, the Storm God of Lonia.

  As one, the ring of priests fell to their knees. The crowd quickly followed, bowing in a wave beneath the eyes of the God. His gaze swept the room, the piercing blue eyes seeming to stare into the soul of every man and woman present.

  “I am Jurrien, master of the Sky,” he spoke at last. His tone was soft, yet his voice boomed across the hall.

  The old man from the secret meeting rose, his blue robes rustling as he stood. “Greetings, Jurrien. Welcome to our world.”

  Jurrien gave a slow, sad smile, but said nothing. Instead, he turned to watch the other volunteers, and waited.

  Enala swallowed, the breath catching in her throat. So this was how the Gods had been born, why they could not release Antonia or Jurrien from the Soul Blades. They had been freed from the spirit realm only by the courage of these volunteers – these brave souls who had sacrificed their bodies so that the Gods might be made flesh.

  Stomach clenched, Enala turned to watch the remaining volunteers.

  As she turned, a man stepped forth. His hair was long and grey, his eyes turning white as he walked – though it was clear he was not blind. Light shone from his skin, his eyes, his very being. His arms were thick with muscle, though he was clearly well into his fifties. His bare feet slapped on the smooth wooden floor as he joined Jurrien.

  The hush embracing the room, if possible, gathered strength.

  Enala stared at the man she did not recognise, though she knew his name long before he spoke.

  “I am Darius, master of the Light,” the God rumbled, his voice filled with power.