“We cannot get to it in time,” Délin said softly.
“We need an archer,” Geldirana said.
“I can shoot it,” Thalla told them, “but I need a bow.”
Thúalim nodded and backed away slowly to the armoury. The guards there helped him rummage through the weapons for a bow, which the Ferian and Al-Ferian seldom used, for arrows were always the enemies of birds, and most birds were the allies of the Ferian and Al-Ferian.
As Thúalim searched feverishly, Ifferon kept his gaze upon the bird. He wondered why it had not yet flown off, and he thought it was waiting for him to pounce, so that it could show how close he could get without succeeding. It was a kind of gloating that most birds would never do, and so he knew clearly that this one, large and menacing, was truly evil in its heart.
In time Thúalim produced a shortbow and a handful of arrows. He handed it to Thalla, and then he closed his eyes, calling out to the few good birds who had survived the battle. Thalla loaded an arrow and stretched the bow. The creaking wood drew the bird’s attention, and it saw the arrow as it shot towards it. It flew off. A handful of other birds raced after it, but some were injured, and others simply could not keep up. Thalla fired another arrow, but the bird vanished into the sky. Two more bows were taken from the storehouses, and the Al-Ferian guards fired them swiftly, but they were unpractised, and their aim was poor.
In moments the crow was gone, and the clatter of parchment against the wind could no longer be heard. The Scroll of Mestalarin, of the Last Words, was Ifferon’s no longer.
Ifferon sat down, cradling his head in his arms.
Délin approached him and put his hand upon his shoulder. “We all lose things in the battle against evil.” He turned and looked at Thalla, who had lost her mentor and her lover, then to Thúalim, who had lost his leader, then to Elithéa, who had lost her chance of a second life, and then finally to Théos, still sleeping the endless sleep. “Perhaps we can find it again.”
Geldirana approached, but Délin looked at her coldly.
“You still have your Ilokrán,” she said.
“You mean Rúathar’s?” Ifferon asked, looking up. “I still have it, yes, though I lost the one Melgalés gave to me.”
“Then you also have something they do not,” Geldirana said. “Your life.”
Ifferon nodded slowly and gulped back his tears. This was no time for despair. Everyone around him had been through as much hardship as him, if not more, and they were still standing, and still fighting. A thousand years before, when Telm felt his life slipping away, he did not resign or give in to self-pity; he used his last breath to imprison Agon.
Ifferon stood up, and he looked to the sky. It was dulling, but it was not yet dark. Through the murky grey he could see the sparkle of stars already shining, preparing for the onslaught of the night.
“Now I am without the Scroll,” he said. “My weapon.”
“Take a real weapon,” Délin said, handing him a sword. “The Dark Men do not bleed from words, even if they are the Last Words. Maybe when you learn to be a warrior without it, then when you reclaim it you can truly be a child of the Warrior-king.”
The night deepened, and the moon shone directly upon the cloister of the Mountain Fortress, as if it were betraying their location, or giving them better light for battle.
“Rest while you can,” Délin said, and he sat upon the chair near the stone bed where Théos lay. “But do not give in to slumber, for the nightmares are in this world tonight.”
They sat down and rested their aching limbs, and despite Délin’s words some began to doze, while others ate what little the Al-Ferian could pull from the storehouses without exposing the people hidden in the bunkers and caverns underneath. The food was dry and mostly tasteless, and Ifferon barely took a bite, for while his body needed energy, he could not stomach this strange food, and his fear of the next impending battle meant truly he could not stomach any food at all.
While some rested, others tried to bolster the broken door that led into the cloister. Wood was taken from anywhere that did not need it, and it was nailed across the opening, where it looked as though it would not survive long. Yet perhaps it would help those inside survive longer.
Thúalim and several of the Al-Ferian began to meditate, and they seemed much more restful because of it. The surviving Wisdomweavers continued their ritual, humming ancient verses and communing with nature, with the acorn in which Théos’ soul, and that of the god Corrias, now dwelt. Délin looked to them periodically to see if they were making progress, but he looked seldom to Théos, for it was clear the priests were not making progress enough.
Ifferon’s eyes were instead drawn by Geldirana, who looked at him harshly from time to time, and sometimes more softly between each glare. He could tell she had mixed feelings for him, and he was not surprised. He had mixed feelings about himself. He made a feeble attempt at a smile to her when their gazes met once more, but she did not return it. To her, nothing could be feebly done—she would smile a strong smile, or she would not smile at all. This night she did not smile.
* * *
Though all were prepared for the next onslaught, its sudden appearance caught most of them by surprise. There was a great roar of voices from outside the Mountain Fortress, chanting and screaming in dark and twisted tongues. The Nahamoni had returned, and by the tumult their voices made, they had returned in greater numbers.
“They are weak,” Geldirana said. “They may have many, but each of us is worth a thousand of them.”
Délin stood up and drew his two-handed sword. The steel rang out like the instruments of death. Around him other weapons were drawn, adding to the death cries. On the other side of the stone gate rose the clamorous sounds of a hateful army, a force that knew only one aim in life: to end the life of others.
And so they came.
The wooden barriers across the doorway shook and creaked as a battering ram was launched against them. Dust rose and fell like rain. Then the gate trembled again, and some of the guards behind it trembled in sympathy, for a great force of fear had struck the door—and struck their hearts. Yet Délin did not shake. Geldirana did not stir. Thalla did not move, and Thúalim remained in silent meditation. Even Ifferon did not quail, even though his mind was full of dark and frightful things. His body felt strong, as if he could finally feel the blood of Telm within him.
“How have they crossed the chasm you created?” Ifferon asked Thúalim.
Thúalim took what felt like a very long time to respond. He shook off the drowsiness of his meditation and looked with distant eyes to the cleric. “They have made a bridge of wood and iron.”
“Can you knock it down?”
“No,” Thúalim said. “I have spent myself too much already. There is some weather left in me, but not enough to knock down what they have constructed. I will save it for the Dark Men themselves.”
And so they came.
The gate broke open in a hail of wood and stone. Some ducked and dodged the debris, while others cast themselves at the flood of Nahamoni that came charging through, hammers and cleavers waving madly in the air.
Lightning crashed down from the heavens, striking dozens of the Dark Men, killing some and stunning others. All were temporarily blinded by the flash, friend and foe, and Délin found that his last sword swing was at nothing, for his enemy was already felled by the weather.
“Fight fair or not at all!” Délin shouted to Thúalim. “They might be serving an evil master, but the Dark Men still deserve to die with honour, not struck from afar by lightning they have not a hope to parry.”
“Then perhaps I will let them come,” Thúalim replied. “Then you can see if you can fend off the horde with your sword alone. Then you can wonder if they will think of honour when they reach for Théos with their blades.”
Délin grumbled like thunder. “Have at them with the sky,” he said.
Another bolt of lightning crashed down upon the cloister, and the battle in earnes
t began.
The Nahamoni bore self-inflicted scars across their faces and their bodies, and they wore little of clothes, so as to better show the wounds that attired them. Where there were no wounds, there were marks of ink, and where there were no wounds or ink, there were studs and rings and chains of metal. Their faces were painted for war, with black, red and blue, and those who had hair, for many had shaved it tight, tied it together with metal hoops and made it stand on end, so as to mimic the horns of the Bull-men of Arlin. They charged forth as if they were equally wild.
Ifferon stabbed and sliced at the Dark Men that came racing towards him. Though he had spent years mastering the use of a sword in his younger days, the feel of the blade felt odd to him now, and he thought it was not weighted properly, or perhaps he was just not used to the newer styles of sword. He was out of practice, without doubt, but with enemies approaching by the dozen, he soon got back into practice, and instinct took the rein of his hands.
Thalla stood on top of Elithéa’s cage, firing her bow at the Nahamoni who seemed fiercest and most deadly. Her arrows were few, however, so she was forced time and time again to leap down into the fray to reclaim them. Many times she narrowly dodged a swinging blade, and a few times she was forced to scald one of the Dark Men with her fiery hands if they came too close. Always she retreated back to the top of the cage, and frequently she found that Elithéa reached her hands out to pull arrows from the nearby fallen, which she handed to Thalla up above. At other times Elithéa simply broke the necks of any who strayed too near, or grabbed them and held them to the cage until they were defeated by an ally.
Geldirana swung around dexterously, her steps light and lithe, but the blows from her weapons heavy and crushing. She ducked and dodged, and any who dared to swing at her were greeted by a returning swing that knocked them to the ground, and knocked the life out of them. While most others stayed their ground and dug in deep, using bodies as barricades, Geldirana moved across the battlefield, cutting through where the enemy thronged thickest, parrying blows not parried by her comrades, and pummelling foes not pummelled by her friends.
Délin cleaved asunder a great many Nahamoni at the gate, where he had space enough to swing his great two-handed sword. The other defenders left him to it, for fear they might be sundered also, and the sheer shock of seeing ten Dark Men fall in a single blow sent some of the enemy fleeing back across the bridge they had hastily constructed.
Time battled on, the minutes murdering other minutes, until it felt like there was no time left to kill. Wave after wave of the Nahamoni came through the gate, pushing against the defenders, and time after time the defenders pushed them back. Bodies fell upon bodies, building walls of their own, and the survivors were forced to clamber up on top of them to fight once more, standing upon the little grains of sand in a mounting hourglass.
The defenders of the Mountain Fortress still swung and parried for a time when the last of the Nahamoni fell dead, almost swinging their maces and blades into their kin, and parrying the blows of other friendly weapons that almost struck them. The last of the dead fell, and then some of the injured fell, and then finally the weapons fell, and silence fell upon them all.
“So it is won,” Geldirana said as she peered into the valley below, where she could see the few remaining Dark Men retreating.
Délin looked outside the gate, which was now deserted. “The battle is won,” he said. He looked then to Théos and the Wisdomweavers, who were now reduced even more in number, for several had been struck in the chaos that went before. Still they recited and still they conducted the ritual, and still Théos lay motionless.
* * *
The moonlight faded, and with it went their vigour. The night drew in like a blanket, pulled tight across them all, and many collapsed into a much-deserved sleep. For some, however, the battle still raged in their minds, and Ifferon and Geldirana sat alone near the broken gate.
“You fought well,” Geldirana told him.
Ifferon knew how high a compliment this was, and how long it had been since he had heard it last. He slew the Derakar of Remradi when last she spoke such words of praise.
“And you,” he said. “Though you always do.”
She gave a hint of a smile, as if she wanted him to guess her feelings.
“You know,” Ifferon remarked. “I met a girl here who is just like you, or what I imagine you were like when you were a child.”
Geldirana shifted in her seat, withdrawing her face into the shadows, where the mystery of her feelings might go unsolved.
“She reminded me so much of you,” Ifferon continued. “The strength, the vigour, the passion. Yet you are wiser—and stronger, and more vigorous, and more passionate.”
Perhaps she gave another clue upon her lips, but he could not see it. He felt like going on, listing more of her wonderful attributes, but he thought he might seem like he was mocking her, and he knew well not to mock her.
“What is her name?” Geldirana asked at last.
“Affon,” he replied. “A boy’s name.”
“If boys can own it,” she said. “Or do it justice.”
“I think she will own all the boys,” Ifferon said with a chuckle, remembering the battered Ferian twins.
“And her mother?” Geldirana probed.
“I do not know. I presume she died like most other Children of Telm.”
“If she were a Child of Telm.”
Ifferon paused for a moment. “Yes,” he managed. “I guess I did not think much of this. It might have been her father.”
“And of him?” Geldirana asked.
“Again, I do not know.”
“Perhaps you do,” she said.
He drew closer to her, and she drew closer to him, at last revealing the features of her face, wherein lied the answer to her feelings, if he dared to look more deeply.
“Do you not see it?” she quizzed.
Ifferon began to see, but he was afraid to admit what he thought he saw. “The clearsight does not help with all things.”
“She is my daughter, Ifferon,” Geldirana said. “She is your daughter too.”
XVII – A GRAVE REUNION
Melgalés planned and pondered, crafting plots and conjuring schemes as if from the wellspring of magic itself. He thought himself greatly clever at times, and thought himself not clever enough at others, for every idea that sprang to life leapt quickly to its death in the realisation that he was not yet powerful enough to see it through.
As he battled with his mind like this for a time, he began to notice strange noises on the edge of hearing, and he thought that they were taps and scraping from the edge of existence. He wondered if he was going mad, or if the Gatekeeper was toying with him, and he hoped that it was either one of these, for the alternatives were more terrifying.
Then Melgalés felt something crawling up behind him, like a spider emerging from its web, or a figure emerging from a nightmare. He turned slowly, for time seemed to have dulled even more than normal in the depths of Halés. His eyes met with a shadowy form, emerging from the gloom, and the gloom recoiled from it, as if the very darkness was frightened of the creature.
Then the eyes of the Magus met with a sight he did not expect, nor want, to see: amidst the disfigured limbs and rotting flesh of the demon standing before him was the face of Teron, the face of the head-cleric who had consigned him to this fate. Over the years he had known him, he had grown to loathe him, and yet he never felt such loathing as he did now when faced with this hateful, twisted form.
Melgalés stood frozen, his eyes wide in horror. The shock silenced him. There were simply no words fitting for the hideous hulk before him, no words that would dare to describe how a monster of a man had become just a monster.
“Good of you to join me,” Teron said, and his voice was as derisive as ever. “I hope you find this abode to your liking.” He forced a smile, but Melgalés looked away, for Teron’s mouth was mangled. He looked more like the Karisgors he had fought in A
rdún-Fé than a man, and yet still beneath the corrupted flesh was the soul of Teron—and it was more rotten.
“So Iraldas is free of you,” Melgalés said at last. “Yes, it is, but now Halés has become cursed with your presence. I knew you carried hate for me, but I did not think you would follow me into the grave.”
“As ever, you think highly of yourself,” Teron said. “I would blame the Ardúnari, were you not already in love with your own voice before you drank of the Elixir of Life. And look, death came to you all the same. For all your supposed wisdom, for the clearsight you claim, you did not see the Molok-runes on my letter to you, and you did not see death coming for you, for you were drunk on your own self-importance, a fool wearing the costume of the wise.”
Melgalés instinctively reached for one of the beads in his braided hair. There was some comfort in its touch, even if there was no real sense of touch in this twilight place. “So, have you taken this demonic form so you can mock me with words? I remember you were good enough at that in your other form, yes, I remember.”
Teron laughed, and even though his body was not his own, his laughter was truly his, for it was scornful and mocking, and its sound struck the ears like a lash. “So you are dead,” he said, “but not yet in your dotage.”
“I still live,” Melgalés said. “Yes, I still live.”
“You can say it as many times as you want,” Teron said, “but it still will not be true. Yet I did not follow you to death, for I am not truly dead. I was promised life eternal, and so I have claimed what was owed to me.”
“If you were promised a body, I think you were swindled. Yes, swindled. Even your decrepit form in Iraldas was better than what you live in now.”
Teron’s eyes flared and his face bulged, the muscles distorting through the force of anger. His features were buried beneath a multitude of boils and blisters, and as he moved and spoke, some would ooze puss and others would bloat to great sizes, as if there were something deep inside trying desperately to get out. There was a putrid smell that wafted up from every pustulent pore, and even the dead were not immune to the horrid stench.
The Children of Telm - The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 53
