by A. Evermore
Harpies would not go unnoticed, hated as they were by pretty much everything, but they were not uncommon in the south and they were closer to where this new power came. One of the witches had reported sightings of a dark-haired girl on the shores of the Celene after the dark moon had risen. She had “smelt different” to the others and a strange magic collected around her. But that was all that could be gleaned and he had not thought much about it.
‘You must go immediately to The Lost Sea on the borders of the Shadowlands,’ Baelthrom commanded ignoring his question. ‘This force, this thing that destroyed Keteth, must be stopped before it gets any stronger, it is already too powerful and the people will become hopeful. Their hope will make them stronger. I trust you understand the gravity of the situation?’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Hameka gave a tight bloodless smile as he accepted his undesirable orders.
The death of Keteth meant nothing to Hameka, the new magical power, that even he could feel blooming in the west, held no interest either. What bothered him most was sparing any part of his army to begin new and unplanned excursions for, as he saw it, pure folly. The fighting was proving quite difficult in the press into northern Frayon from southern Drax. Battles at sea were never easy and here in the north the sea surged viciously between the continents, swelling around hundreds of tall jagged-rocked islands ready to rip apart the hull of any warship. Adding to the surging sea the wind was high and frigid, seemingly blowing in whichever way it chose and it changed its mind by the minute.
But more than that, and Hameka did not like to admit it, since the rising of that cursed ominous blue moon the Feylint Halanoi, as the army of the enemy liked to call themselves, were putting up a vicious resistance. He chanced his thoughts.
‘The war is in the north, Lord Baelthrom. The humans have already dared venture further north since our last major offensive that destroyed most of them. We have already lost an island or two since we moved our forces from Haralan to the Isles of Kammy. If anything we need more forces pushing southwards into Frayon, not less, my Lord.’
Baelthrom’s eyes turned a darker blue. Hameka never liked it when they turned dark, no matter what colour they were. It always meant his Lord was growing angry.
‘You are my most prized Commander, Hameka. You have proven your excellence in battle countless times and have I not always rewarded you for your prowess?’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Hameka stood up straighter with a proud smile curling his lips. His Lord had always rewarded him with power, gold, jewels, and exquisite earthly delights such as every type of pleasure women could bring. All enjoyable things but never as enjoyable as winning battles. Despite being Baelthrom’s most favoured Commander he would always tread carefully with his Lord, he would never be able to wield power such as Baelthrom could and he did not want to lose his place as Baelthrom’s right-hand man.
‘It is just that… My greatest concern is that our battles are won with careful planning and the ability to foresee ahead,’ Hameka tried to phrase it carefully. ‘This mission has had little or no planning and the necromancers have not had time to foresee ahead.’
‘My Lord,’ he continued after a brief pause, despite the sweat building on his brow. ‘You know how increasingly intense the fighting has been for the past few years now our enemy is pinned to Frayon continent. Frayon is vast and any move forward has become painfully slow, sometimes it seems as if we have gained only inches. The cursed Feylint Halanoi refuse to know when they are beaten. They fight desperately now, like a cornered animal, as if they sense their impending doom. We are so close, they know their end is near,’ he could taste the inevitable victory even now and it made him rush on excitedly.
‘With a bigger push, with more resources all focused on the northern front, Frayon will at last be ours. It is only the visible end of their short pathetic lives that makes them fight harder, a struggle for one last breath…’
Baelthrom cut him off.
‘We have been fighting the north for too long. It is time to attack where they least suspect it, where they are most vulnerable. I want them in shock, weak and grovelling. They must know I will stop at nothing and nothing is beyond me. Take the most skilled necromancers and the fastest and strongest ships - take as many as you can spare. Go immediately,’ Baelthrom pressed.
‘Lord…’ Hameka began weakly.
‘My decision is final, Hameka. As always I am quite certain you shall not fail me. I have my complete trust in you.’
‘Yes…’ the communication ended before Hameka could finish, ‘…Lord Baelthrom,’ Hameka sighed the last and slumped down onto his heavily cushioned chair, shivering and pulling his double layered fur coat closer around him. The Shadow Key turned swiftly dull.
Chapter 7
Battle In The Ocean
THE sea changed the farther from shore they flew until it was far different to the one Asaph had seen through the raven’s eyes.
Gone were the calm waters and still winds, instead a stormy sea greeted him, complete with gusts of wind and thick dark grey clouds that hung clumped together and low upon the ocean. Far beyond those clouds and all about both east and west the sea was calm, the sky clear, as if this swirling storm spun in the centre, an island of dark clouds and lashing waves. It was not a natural storm. The ocean swell and gusting wind was fuelled by magic, the air itself was charged with dark destructive energy.
As a dragon it seemed he was always in the Flow, the energy of magic that flowed through and within all things upon Maioria and beyond. Like all dragons and Dragon Lords in dragon form he could easily read the signature of magic and its wielder if he were close enough. Only the very best magicians could read magic in this way.
Magic was all energy but its source could be water, fire, air, wind, ether, or a complicated mix of either, which added an extra ‘signature’ to it. What it was used for; destruction, equilibrium, protection, healing or creation added yet another dimension. Finally, who was directing the magic added the last signature, depending on race such as human or elf, and whether male or female.
What he sensed now was an old magic that he could not read easily. It seemed older than he was, older than dragons! It seemed to be flowing from the blue moon that had not long set. He could feel a female signature to it that he assumed to be Issa, but it was more than human and so pure it was almost divine. He shied away from the concept, unable to fathom what it meant. The magic was being used destructively and at the same time protectively, as if it was destroying something bad and restoring it to its original good. Its source felt to come from ether, itself a primordial force, and yet it was beyond it or before it. Then the power changed to come from wind, but then again it was before wind, pre-wind. As he drew even closer the magic became stronger and clearer.
It is power before the base elements, as if she draws upon the dark matter that exists before creation, the dark light before there is light. A hundred realisations seemed to hit him at once and were it not for the battle scene unfolding before him he would have pondered upon what he had discovered a lot longer. The only thought that stuck in his mind was; that is why she is called the Night Goddess, the Goddess of Dark Waters, the darkness before creation; the ultimate creative force. Before creation there is the darkness, but not an evil darkness, rather a loving sea of pre-creation, the force of intention before thought, before word, before action!
The thought was swept away as he tilted his massive wings and arced down, descending through the swirling mass of thick clouds. Driving wind tore at him but his bulk fared much better than the raven below who was struggling to maintain course. Asaph respected the bird immensely; nothing would stop it from reaching its master. There came surges of magic, felt like subsonic thunderous booms and seen as electrical lightning that flashed and sizzled around him. The static flickered off his scales as the magical wind gusted around him.
When the Flow was used, all magic users could see, hear and feel the magic, to a lesser or greater degree depending on their own mag
ical ability, as Asaph could now. It was a light and sound display overlaid atop the ordinary world. All around Issa’s magic flashed and flared in deep blues and purples. The sound thundered from deep vibrational rumblings to high-pitched screeches as the magnetic and electrical properties of the magic surged. There was feeling too and it felt like the greatest excitement, adrenalin coursing through the body.
The chaos and stress of the magical forces did nothing to frighten Asaph, in fact they filled him with utter exhilaration, as if the magic itself fed him power and strength. The Flow was another world of great wonder for in his human form he could not use magic and could only feel a little of it. There was another source of magic too, this one came not from the Flow, the natural magic of Maioria, but from a dark place he could not read.
They call Baelthrom’s magic the Under Flow, and it comes from the Dark Rift. This magic sapped at the Flow, trying to steal its living force. Asaph felt it sapping at his own life-force so he pulled away from it and formed a protective magic shield around him. He tilted the front of his wings lower and fought harder to get beneath the clouds. A small clearing passed beneath him and through the lashing rain he glimpsed five Maphraxian ships closing in on a tiny speck of pale floating in the sea.
The exhilaration and excitement he felt turned to fury in one seamless motion. His dragon mind focused into a single-pointed object; destroy the enemy. He dropped lower through another patch in the clouds and saw clearly the great black ships lumbering upon the ocean, each some fifty metres in length with three curved masts hoisting aloft many sails that stretched from bow to stern. Swarming on the decks were hundreds of black armoured Maphraxies scurrying like beetles. Asaph grimaced. Though they were only indistinct creatures at this height he could feel their unholy essence, could smell the stench of death they exuded and something sickly beneath.
Sirin Derenax, of course. So that’s what Coronos meant. “The deathly sweet smell of the undead immortals.” Asaph had only ever seen the Maphraxies in The Recollection and though he could recognise them from afar it would be the smell and unholy feel of them that he would always identify first. They exude wrongness! He thought. It made him angry. By Feygriene’s fire, these abominations should not be, must not be!
Asaph considered his plan of attack and then angled his body upwards to hide himself completely in the clouds. Stealth was always best and he hoped they had not spotted him, reasoning that they had not. He drew the Flow to him, just a little so that no magic wielder would notice. Unlike humans he, like all dragons, needed no object or gesture or even a word to direct the Flow, the magic moved at his will and intention, with purely his directing thought.
There was no endless stream of complex spells to learn that Coronos had told him was the norm for a practising wizard. Indeed, magic was easy for a dragon, but then their magic was far wilder than the sophisticated spells of wizards and, though both were powerful, for a dragon it took less of a toll on the mind and body. Humans (and elves, dwarves, harpies and all other intelligent magic wielders) had to sleep deeply and frequently in order to recover. It was impossible for a dragon to overuse magic, and thus die from overusing it, but also a dragon could never overstretch its limits, limits that were set from birth. Humans could learn to use more, their abilities were not necessarily determined.
The barest coral coloured shimmer around him told him his body was cloaked. Those that looked in his direction would see only a denser patch of rain, or a slightly darker cloud. He could have used a much more powerful spell but he daren’t alert Maphraxie necromancers to his presence and hoped they were too engrossed in the battle to sense his magic.
Asaph turned to look for the raven, angled a little towards another clearing, and nearly fell out of the sky. To his horror a dozen more ships had appeared on the horizon and they were moving swiftly closer. The Immortal Lord must have sent a whole fleet! He thought in disbelief. He has felt her magic and the passing of Keteth, that must be why they are here so soon. There are too many to fight…
They were only black dots on the horizon at the moment but these ships looked built for speed for their hulls were long and thin and sleek and they sliced through the water with unnatural speed. With necromantic magic speeding them on, it would not be long before they were here.
Asaph dropped down through the clouds like a stone, swooped low over a ship and recoiled at the sight of the Maphraxies this close up. No shared dragon memory could ever have prepared him for the reality of meeting the undead immortals in the flesh.
He shuddered at the sight of their soulless eyes, alight with a feverish madness, eager for the life force of living victims. In places their grey skin was so taut across their unnaturally big bodies that it seemed about to split apart, whilst in other places it sagged into folds. Their faces were wide and flat and their muscles bulged and contorted in abnormal places, as if the Sirin Derenax had made the body strong but in a disorganised manner. It was these huge muscles that caused their lumbering gait.
Asaph looked away in disgust. Scanning below he turned and flew towards where the battle raged thickest. In the sea between the circling ships were the bodies of Wykiry floating amongst debris, bouncing against broken wood like macabre bobbing apples, their silvery light now turned dim in death. All around and beyond the ships were more bodies drifting out upon the ocean.
Amongst them were the dark forms of Maphraxies, their grey-white faces the same in death as they were in whatever form of life they had been. There were not many, but then few would float under that heavy dark dwarven armour, he reasoned.
I hope for my Wykiry friends that two or more Maphraxies have been slain for every one of them!
As he looked closer he could see it was not just Wykiry that had joined the battle but animals too. Dolphins, porpoises, even whales fought and died like the Wykiry. Some bobbed lifeless on the surface, others moved amongst the dead, the sound of their clicking and the burst of their blow holes filled the air, their light-grey shapes darting amongst the debris and beneath the waves. The battle was far from over and the stench of death flared his nostrils.
Even the creatures fight to protect her! Zanufey’s creatures of the ocean. They know this battle is important, they fight for the future of Maioria!
How many had come to her aid? he marvelled in wonder. If they had not then she would long have been captured. And they can’t have wanted to kill her, he thought, or they would have done it by now. But where is she? He could see clearly high in the sky, but down low in the chaos of battle, the raging waves and wind and rain, he could not find her.
Flying as slow as he could without touching the water, Asaph angled around the black hull of a Maphraxie ship and came to a tight knot of living creatures. Mainly Wykiry moved, but every now and then a burst of air and gasp of breath told him the cetaceans stayed close.
Many Maphraxies had taken to their raft boats and left the big ships. The small boats were packed full, maybe twenty immortals to each, and there were at least five boats. Their axes, swords and spears hacked and slashed into the waves sending sprays of bright red blood and sea-water all around them as they fought towards their goal.
In response blue-grey tails slapped the waters savagely and when they could get near enough the whales struck the hulls as hard as they could. Suddenly a boat titled alarmingly and dumped half the Maphraxies overboard before it righted itself again. Beaked jaws closed upon the fallen instantly and dragged them under to their deaths in the depths below. Necromantic black magical fire flared across the surface, incinerating anything that did not dive deep enough, even killing the Maphraxies still struggling in the water. They do not even care about their own, Asaph thought, a truly ruthless opponent.
Magic, this time from the Wykiry, crackled in the air and blue fire flared in the boats and upon the Maphraxies. They frantically splashed at the sea water but the fire was immune to it. Wykiry magic is water born, idiots. Asaph nearly laughed aloud and wanted to join his own fire with theirs but he dared not drop
his cloak until he found her. The Wykiry’s victory was short lived as the less exhausted magic of immortal necromancers extinguished the flames.
The sky was slowly brightening and the dark moon moving further away, its power waning. In the growing light of dawn it was clear they fought a losing battle against the Maphraxies. Asaph’s eyes darted over the wreckage of splintered wood bobbing between the living and dead that all served to hamper the fighting on both sides. Where is she? He could feel her but teeth, fins, tails, swords, axes, and searing scorching blasts of magic created a chaotic scene and he struggled to find her.
A huge tail erupted out of the ocean, barely missing his forelegs, and crashed back down upon two Maphraxian boats, splintering them apart. Many aboard were crushed under the whale’s blow and the rest fell screaming into the water. Two down, but more raft boats were swiftly being lowered off the sides of the big ships and there seemed an endless stream of Maphraxies boarding them.
And then he saw her, a pale limp form clinging to a piece of wood, too exhausted to do anything else but control the storm that was slowly draining her strength away. In one hand she grasped a turquoise orb in a grip that not even death would release. Keteth’s Orb of Water stolen from the Wykiry. The orb glowed in the darkness like Coronos' orb did and Asaph was suddenly afraid.
Baelthrom seeks the orb!
He knows Keteth is dead, but does he know who killed him? If he does not then perhaps her identity is still concealed. The thought gave him some hope. Wykiry swam protectively around her but they listed weakly onto their sides as they swam, as exhausted as she was.
‘I am here, friends,’ Asaph whispered to them quietly with his mind, knowing they could not see him but would see the signature of his voice and form in their minds.
‘Help us, brother,’ they called back in unison, even their mind voices were faint with fatigue, ‘we cannot escape them, the black wizards have created a net of death around us.’
