The Archer From Kipleth (Book 2)

by K. J. Hargan

  The full light of Nunee, Mother Moon, helped, but the darkness of the night meant that many soldiers on both sides unintentionally wounded their own comrades.

  The Wanderer, the second moon, was growing brighter as it grew in size, as it approached the earth on it’s odd orbital path.

  Arnwylf hacked and slashed with all his might. His soldiers fought well, fought as a unit, having spent nearly a year together in the northern wastes, but they lacked the advantage of their wolves.

  As well as the humans fought, there were just too many garonds, and they kept pushing and pushing the humans back.

  “Fall back to the Flume of Gawry!” Caerlund ordered. “We can defend from the far side of the flume!”

  The retreat only emboldened the garonds and the human army began to crumble.

  “Now is the time to show the sword and lead the army to victory,” Apghilis said behind Arnwylf.

  Arnwylf didn’t hesitate, or wait for his father’s murderer to cowardly strike from behind. Arnwylf spun and brought his sword up, slicing off a third of Apghilis’ head on the right side. Arnwylf paused at the height of his swing. Apghilis was frozen with the quickness of Arnwylf’s attack. Then, Arnwylf brought his sword down, slashing off a third of Apghilis’ head on the left side. All that was left of Apghilis was his nose and a thin bloody section of his head. His fat, disgusting body slumped to splash in the water now pouring over Byland.

  “Get every soldier back across!” Arnwylf said, then he turned to stand next to Caerlund and protect the soldiers who now scrambled back over the bridges that spanned the flume.

  The Archer and the elf shouldered their way past the retreating human soldiers, and made their way up to Caerlund and Arnwylf.

  “Have you seen Lord Stavolebe!?” The Archer asked.

  “No,” Caerlund said. “But, you should have stayed on the other side. I fear you have rushed to your doom.”

  The Archer fought with the elvish sword Bravilc, and the elf wielded the Moon Sword with deadly effectiveness.

  However, the garonds pressed their advantage and pushed their own soldiers onto the spears and swords of the humans. Every garond killed was replaced by three more. Ravensdred was nearby. He barked out orders that energized his troops. The garond general smashed human after human with his massive club. Ravensdred spotted Arnwylf, roared, and pushed towards him.

  Then a clanking, grinding, clashing sound made every warrior, human and garond, pause.

  “The paricale,” the elf whispered.

  A large black adder whipped past Iounelle, sinking its fangs in a garond ready to club her.

  “We come to save you,” Baalenruud lisped to the elf, and then turned to strike at the garonds again and again with obvious delight in the violence he wrought.

  Iounelle turned to see Ronenth advancing like an undeniable engine of destruction, his face a blank mask of pain, desiring justice and revenge. Ronenth kept the sixteen, silvery segments in constant motion. It was mesmerizing.

  Ronenth moved the paricale back and forth like a long saw. He walked sideways to get to Caerlund and Arnwylf. The garond line in front of Ronenth was cut to pieces, arms and torsos cut off as though they were made of paper.

  The garonds rushed Ronenth, but he brought the paricale around into a circle around his body, spinning, spinning, cutting and slicing.

  In a move similar to the action that beheaded the garond in Lanis, a curling loop swept up behind Ronenth. Iounelle gasped. Ronenth expertly bent forward completely at the waist as the paricale whipped over his back to decimate four garonds before him.

  Several garond archers were brought up to kill Ronenth, but as soon as they loosed their arrows, Ronenth brought the paricale in with a snap of his wrist, and the sixteen segments locked into a shield, as he gathered each segment. The garond arrows harmless deflected with resounding clangs.

  Ronenth whipped the paricale out to its full length and decapitated the garond archers with a flick of his wrist.

  Ronenth spun the paricale in a figure eight in front of himself and pushed the garond line back. Garond hands and arms were hacked off with vicious, unrelenting precision.

  Ravensdred bellowed in rage and shoved his own soldiers aside to get to Ronenth. Ravensdred hefted his titanic club and swung at Ronenth.

  The Glaf boy brought the paricale back into two, conical clusters of six segments on either hand, and he punched and deflected Ravensdred’s blows as effortlessly as though swatting at an annoying fly.

  “I know you,” Ronenth coldly said to Ravensdred. “You. You were the one who destroyed all my people.”

  Ravensdred growled in anger and fought harder, despite the humiliation he was suffering at Ronenth’s hands. When the supporting garonds got too close to the showdown between Ravensdred and Ronenth, the Glaf boy shot the paricale out to it full length, gutting every garond within ten paces. Then he quickly snapped the paricale back into close fighting formation against Ravensdred.

  Iounelle suddenly winced in intense pain and clutched her arm. She ripped open her sleeve to discover that there was still a splinter from the fight against Deifol Hroth in the Weald embedded in her arm. The wound was very red and weeping with puss. The end of the splinter was just above her skin and she plucked at it. But, she couldn’t get a good grip on the slippery sliver.

  Ronenth was easily keeping the garonds back. And, Arnwylf, Caerlund and Derragen were efficiently holding the line to protect the human soldiers as they retreated back across the Flume of Gawry.

  “Derragen!” Iounelle called. “Hold my sword!” The elf extended the moon sword to the Archer’s opened hand, just as an earthquake shuttered through Byland.

  Iounelle focused on the splinter that suddenly racked her whole body with pain. Her mind was white with the agony and she thought she might pass out if she didn’t get the fragment out immediately.

  Iounelle suddenly realized that the splinter had to be poisoned somehow my Deifol Hroth. She could feel his presence nearby, as though he was trying to kill her in that instant.

  The whole world seemed to slip and slide in a horizontal motion with the energy of the earthquake.

  Iounelle handed her Moon Sword to Derragen, but he slide away from her. And, the sword went into the hand of Stavolebe.

  Stavolebe!

  Iounelle gasped at her blunder. Lord Stavolebe laughed and hit her hard with the pommel of her own sword in an upward strike.

  “Derragen!” Iounelle cried as she held her chin.

  Stavolebe stepped forward to the garond line and they opened up to protect him, as if planned from the very beginning.

  Stavolebe could feel the Dark Lord of All Evil Magic laughing with delight.

  “Give the three objects to Ravensdred,” Stavolebe heard Deifol Hroth say as though he stood right next to him.

  Stavolebe looked over at Ravensdred who was being badly beaten by the dark haired boy with the strange weapon.

  “No,” Stavolebe said to thin air. “I will take the power unto myself.”

  Stavolebe opened the rucksack and immediately the rucksack transformed back to being only a blood soaked cloth. He took up the Mattear Gram. Stavolebe popped out the wood core in the Sun Sword’s hilt. He clicked the Moon Sword into the cradle of the Sun Sword’s hilt. The very air all around shuddered. Garond and human alike tensed without knowing why.

  Stavolebe slid the Lhalíi onto the metal tube protruding from the end of the Sun Sword’s hilt.

  A glowing fire began to envelope Stavolebe. He laughed maniacally.

  “Behold me and fear!” Stavolebe cried.

  The garonds withdrew, and the remaining human soldiers climbed even faster back over the bridges spanning the flume.

  Stavolebe held the combined device in his hands and felt the power surge through his body. He felt stars and planets far away. He saw everything. He felt and saw every grain of sand. If he wished, he could cause every living thing in the world to die with a word. He felt the waves of force stretching out and
up to the heavens. He was filled with a fire that hadn’t been seen since the first of creation.

  Both armies backed away from Stavolebe.

  “Whatever you do,” Deifol Hroth said, standing right next to Stavolebe, “don’t thrust the Heaven’s Key into the earth.”

  “No force, power, or person will ever command me ever again,” Stavolebe said with an imperious sneer. Stavolebe turned the device and pounded the Sun Sword’s point into the earth.

  He ground shook, and the bridges across the flume shattered.

  Stavolebe clasped both hands on top of the Lhalíi. Fire and energy raged all around his body, turning and whirling, spreading and whipping. Wheels of fire spread out from the radius of Stavolebe and the combined devices. It seemed that beings of light materialized and clutching, swam through the very air above Stavolebe.

  Deifol Hroth laughed and laughed.

  “Perfect,” the Dark Lord said. “You have acted the perfect pawn, Stavolebe.” Then Deifol Hroth was gone.

  A deathly silence was followed by a sound so loud, every creature in Byland held its ears in pain.

  A blinding beam of power burst out of the Lhalíi up, up into the night sky. The line of power hit the Wanderer, and caught the second moon with a shudder that shook the whole earth.

  Stavolebe opened his mouth and tried to scream, but the energy was too great as it coursed through his body. He was paralyzed as the energy crackled all around him with more and more force. He tried to take his hands off of the Lhalíi, but his hands were fastened to the crystal with an unearthly power.

  The Wanderer moved closer. The second moon wobbled, enveloped in the pulse of energy, beginning a new momentum, a direct path towards the earth.

  “Derragen!” Iounelle cried. “Use an Arrow of Yenolah!”

  The Archer knew instantly she was right. He nocked one of the last of his two, black metal arrows. He didn’t need but a second to find his target, and released.

  The Arrow of Yenolah zipped at Stavolebe. As it entered the growing, glowing, sphere of fire and energy it slowed, but stayed true to its destination.

  The Arrow of Yenolah seemed to hang in the air as it slowly traversed to its target. Lines of energy circled and sparked against the arrow. The Arrow of Yenolah slowly rotated, as it inched its way straight and true through the miasma of intense energy.

  Stavolebe was tensed with complete agony. He slowly turned his head, and seemed, for an instant, to be relieved as the Arrow of Yenolah pierced his skull between his eyes.

  The explosion of light and power flattened every standing creature in Byland. The Lhalíi popped off the end of the Mattear Gram with a shrill whistle, and flew high to the north over the Great Lake of Ettonne, like a cork popped from a bottle.

  The Sun Sword and the Moon Sword were white hot and fused together.

  All day Frea and Wynnfrith had chased Garmee Gamee without gaining on her. All the Far Grasslands were empty and silent with every garond attacking Byland.

  Night fell, and Wynnfrith could tell they were now north of Byland. What was Garmee Gamee hoping to accomplish? Where did she think she would escape to?

  Just over a rise, the Great Lake of Ettonne was a black expanse as the sun set.

  Garmee Gamee stopped and turned to look south.

  Wynnfrith and Frea turned to look as well. A hundreds of thousands of torches were lit on the garond side of Byland. Even though miles away, the sound of human and garond fighting and dying carried over the still waters of the great lake.

  “Do you see!?” Garmee Gamee cried. “The garonds invade! Wealdland is lost! The only hope is to use this stone!”

  Garmee Gamee began to unwrap the Ar.

  “Garmee Gamee, don’t!” Frea cried.

  Garmee Gamee held the Ar in her cupped hands. Her flesh quivered against the bare stone.

  Although it was night, everything was glowing, the water, the hills, the ice. It was like a pale purple day. Garmee Gamee had felt the Ar’s power when she put her hand over Yulenth’s, just before the Garond Mother gave the Ar to Wynnfrith, but this was more, so much more.

  Garmee Gamee had seen Wynnfrith use the Ar against the garond soldiers to escape. But, she was surprised at how much more power was connected to this black stone.

  She could command any living creature and it would be compelled to obey. She could draw to herself anything she wanted. She could command Arnwylf to come and beg to be her husband, wherever he was, not that she would want that foul person now. When she spoke, her words would take the will from whomever heard her.

  The earth would be hers to command. Mountains would lay flat if she wished. But even more. She could reach out to the stars. She could speak to any being, no matter the distance. She would just have to find them first. She began to understand just how large the universe was. She felt as though she could scream, but was afraid if she did, she would never stop.

  But right now, she could make both human and garond kneel and obey. She could stop this war and become the Queen of All the Earth.

  The earth shuddered with the intoxication of her power.

  She turned in her victory to face Frea. She was right in front of her, nearly nose to nose. But something was wrong.

  Blood drooled from Garmee Gamee’s mouth.

  Frea held her short, slim sword against her breast. Garmee Gamee was confused. She was stabbed?

  Frea took the Ar from Garmee Gamee, and then slowly drew her sword out of Garmee Gamee’s breast. Frea felt the power of the Ar like a hot flame, and quickly dropped it.

  Wynnfrith used the piece of leather, and carefully picked up the Ar without touching it. Wynnfrith and Frea looked down at Garmee Gamee’s bleeding body.

  Then, a bright flash lanced up into the sky and hit the Wanderer.

  “What is that?” Frea cried.

  “It’s similar to when Deifol Hroth moved the second moon, a year ago,” Wynnfrith said.

  Then a bright light arced up from Byland to soar out far north over the Great Lake of Ettonne. A silvery shower flashed where the Lhalíi hit the water with a towering splash.

  “Something strange is happening on Byland” Frea said.

  “Worse is to come,” Wynnfrith said, pointing to where the light had hit the water in the northern part of the lake.

  A great black swelling rose up.

  “Is that the lake?” Frea whispered.

  “I think we’d best run,” Wynnfrith said pulling at Frea.

  Arnwylf looked about, regaining his vision from the blinding flash of energy. Most of the human army had got across the flume. Stavolebe was a blackened corpse. The Sun and Moon Swords were still white hot. There was only Caerlund, the Archer, the elf, who held her arm, Ronenth, and Baalenruud, still a viper, left on the southern side of the Flume of Gawry. Before them was nine hundred thousand garonds. And, there were no longer any bridges. Behind them was the raging, icy torrent of watery death from the Flume of Gawry.

  Arnwylf picked out Ravensdred. He had a gleam of vicious victory in his eyes.

  Then, an excited jabbering amongst the garonds gripped the whole garond army.

  The garonds were pointing to the north and turning to run back across Byland. Ravensdred snorted in anger and confusion.

  Arnwylf looked to the north. Something was different about the Great Lake of Ettonne. An immense black wall seemed to by moving on the lake, rising up, getting closer.

  The rising black wall was puzzling, until he realized it was the lake. The Great Lake of Ettonne was coming.

  “Any suggestions?” Caerlund said with numb fear.

  The garond army was in full, panicked retreat.

  “I can swim,” Baalenruud said, and the giant viper leapt into the flume.

  “The mountains of ice,” the elf said, “perhaps-”

  She never got to finish her thought as the roar of closing crush of water loomed.

  For Ronenth the next few moments were a tableau of still images.

  The elf ripped an arrow from the
Archer’s quiver and jammed it into her arm to dig out the sliver.

  The dark water rose higher and higher. The water underneath the wall seemed to be pulling back into a soaring wall of water. It rushed at Byland with incredible speed. Huge slabs of ice slowly cruised up into the rising wall of water with a vertical motion. Ronenth gathered his paricale together.

  Ronenth saw Ravensdred, fleeing with his troops, turn and run back. The garond general gripped the fused Moon and Sun Swords. He roared in pain as the swords burned his hand. He fell to his knees in pain.

  Out in the center of Byland, immense slabs of earth, covered in grass, heaved up with fountains of gushing water, everything was slowly moving south, breaking apart. Titanic portions of Byland, freed from the earth, slowly turned in the welling water, like icebergs of dirt shifting with the terrible force of the gathering, insistent wave.

  The elf reached out and grabbed the Archer with one hand, and the Archer grabbed a hold of Caerlund. With her other hand, the elf grabbed Ronenth, who grabbed a hold of Arnwylf.

  Ronenth felt himself moving up onto a moving iceberg.

  Then Ronenth felt Arnwylf pulling at him, slipping away. He looked down, fiercely clutching at his friend.

  Ravensdred, with the swords in one hand, snarling, had a hold of Arnwylf’s ankle with his other paw. Arnwylf desperately clung to Ronenth.

  Iounelle struggled to keep a hold of all her charges as the ice shifted under her. The whole world was lifting up with the wall of water.

  Ronenth griped Arnwylf with all his might, but held onto his paricale with his other hand. Ronenth was about to drop his elvish weapon, when he looked down at Arnwylf, who looked up at him with understanding. Arnwylf let go of Ronenth and tumbled into the water with Ravensdred.

  “No!” Ronenth cried.

  Ronenth saw Arnwylf and Ravensdred fall down, down into the foaming, black water.

  Ronenth felt like he was flying. The elf ran from ice mountain to ice mountain, hauling the Archer, Caerlund and Ronenth with what felt like no effort.