by T. D. Steitz
Alistair did not share the twins’ sympathy. “If they leave,” he said in veiled disgust, “they’ll have no home to go back to. Their families will wander in the forest, hungry and vulnerable, and it will be their fault. They’ll have to live with that. They’ll get no pardon from me.”
Serilda agreed. “I’m with you, Alistair. Any Forest Clan soldier who turns back doesn’t deserve the title.”
Alistair smiled. “Well said.”
The companions looked to Wybert, who spoke hesitantly. “I don’t think this is wise, but what we do, we do together. We need to inform the others of the danger, but I have another request. Let’s go further south. Then, we can turn east, and approach the Shadow Lands from there.” Wybert ignored Alistair’s look of disgust. “We can’t lead all these people straight to Calamity’s fortress. It would be a massacre. If we go south, we can explore the Shadow Lands more safely. If we’re lucky, the fumes won’t even reach that far.”
“That would take us two more days at least,” Alistair replied.
“Yes, it would. But it could save many lives.”
Alistair couldn’t find a reason to disagree. “Alright then, Wybert, you can inform them of our decision.”
Wybert stood and walked back towards the anxious soldiers. He climbed to the top of a nearby snowdrift and cleared his throat. “The Shadow Lands are worse than we thought. If you continue, you may not return. There are dangers there that you have never faced. We have decided to go south, around the Shadow Lands, and approach from the west. The risks there may not be as great.”
The soldiers whispered to each other as Wybert continued.
“None of you need to go any further. If you choose to return to your families, you will receive no judgment from us, and you will have nothing to be ashamed of. Those of you that choose to, go now with our blessing.”
More whispers and murmurs drifted up from Alistair’s host. Wybert waited, but not a single soldier abandoned the mission they had accepted.
Alistair was overjoyed to see his army remain intact.
Wybert’s heart was heavy. He knew many of these people would never return to the forest. He felt responsible for their fate and already mourned their loss.
Alistair began the southern march along the harsh border of the Shadow Lands without acknowledging his company’s dedication.
Wybert watched the columns of devoted soldiers pass by and a tear rolled down his cheek as he considered each face. “How many will never come home?” He wondered. “How many awaiting their child or parent’s return will receive only grief?” The last soldiers passed, and Wybert descended the drift, steadied himself and followed.
The gray day turned to black night. Without Wybert beside him at the head of the column, Alistair was free to push the company as hard as he wanted without question. He ordered them to make fires; not for rest as the soldiers hoped, but for torches, so they could press on. The blackness of the Shadow Lands beside them was even darker than night.
Wybert and the rest of Alistair’s followers trudged on in flickering firelight, and at some point, turned east. It surprised them all when, as morning blurred the horizon, Alistair stopped.
Wybert passed the curious Forest Clan soldiers to see Alistair on his knees in the black dust beyond the Shadow Lands’ perimeter, staring straight ahead, without saying a word.
The scattered remnants of a town were in the distance beyond him. A few destroyed homes were scattered along a wide riverbed that glistened with toxic sludge. A cold wind blew the dust off old roads and the town center where the paths came together. The crumpled remains of larger buildings stood beside the intersection. A massive bell had fallen from a tall tower and lay half-buried in the black dust.
Alistair had told Wybert enough about his childhood that he knew this was once the Valley of Plenty. Wybert knelt beside Alistair and placed a strong hand gently on his shoulder. “Alistair, I’m so sorry.”
Alistair stared ahead.
Wybert considered his face and where he expected tears, he saw fury.
Alistair stood and walked deeper into the Shadow Lands that were once his home.
“Alistair, wait!” Wybert shouted. “Where are you going?”
Alistair didn’t respond.
Serilda, Anujah, and Ahian followed him.
Wybert hesitated for a moment before turning back to the awaiting company. He nodded them on and followed Alistair into the Shadow Lands.
Wybert and the Forest Clan warriors caught up with Alistair as he wandered through the wreckage. He ran his hand over the arching doorway of the Valley’s tavern. Two large, wooden doors hung haphazardly from melted hinges. “Tell them to make camp. We’re stopping here,” Alistair ordered without turning.
Wybert stepped towards him. “Alistair, it isn’t even mid-day yet.”
“Are you challenging me, again?” Alistair’s question was sharp and drawn out, like a knife cutting slowly.
“I don’t want to challenge you,” Wybert replied gently. “But we’re in the middle of the Shadow Lands. We’re in the open. We’re exposed. We shouldn’t stay here. I understand why you want to; this was your home. But we have daylight on our side. If we press on, we can do what we came here to do and get out of the Shadow Lands before nightfall. Don’t you see how much riskier it is to stay?”
Alistair spun around and slammed his fist into Wybert’s jaw. “Never question me again!”
Wybert stared into his eyes, not with anger, but with pity. Alistair had always tried to hide it, but Wybert knew the depths of his pain. If he needed to strike out at someone, Wybert would be that person.
Alistair stormed away to be alone.
Wybert watched him stomp off and sighed. A terrible sadness had burdened him for years as he watched Alistair be consumed by hate. Alistair was a different person now, and Wybert missed his friend. “Make camp everyone,” Wybert said. “We’ll rest here.”
The order confused the soldiers, but they gratefully accepted the respite.
Wybert was too anxious about the company’s vulnerable position to rest, so he sat away from the others to think. He flipped through the tattered pages of Long Live the King, the book Ahian had given him, and as he browsed the handwritten text, a piece of Kendric’s writing caught his eye. “I’ll never forget the first time I encountered Ardent’s fire. It hit me in the chest like a bull and flowed through me like a gentle whisper. As one of the Fallen, I had lived my life in fear. I didn’t realize it was such a part of me until the fire burned it away. It was the most painful, and joyous experience of my life. All the fear and darkness I could not escape was suddenly torn away. Purpose and courage filled my heart. Ardent cleared the fog from my eyes, and I saw and understood the world in a brand-new way. He did not abandon or forget us. Terrene has forgotten. Ardent is a loving King that will never give up on his people. I see him everywhere. I hear his voice within me, and my soul has no choice but to cry out, long live the King.
Wybert looked up from the book. He wanted to believe that Ardent hadn’t forgotten them. But the reality before him weighed down his heart and made hope difficult to cling to. Alistair seemed determined to drag their company along on his self-destructive path, and Wybert was helping him. Calamity’s grip on Terrene continued to tighten and they were powerless to stop it. Wybert whispered the last words he’d read, hoping they would help him find the small piece of his heart that wasn’t afraid. “Long live the King.” He repeated the phrase slowly and savored each syllable. “Long live the King. Long… live… the King.”
Alistair wandered alone through the wreckage of his childhood. He followed the riverbed out of town. As he passed each ruined home, the faces of people who used to live in them ran through his mind. Being there only brought him pain, but he was drawn to stay. His anger, fear, and pain had become so deeply a part of him that he craved more. Alistair neared the ruins of his family’s farm and pain welled within him. Splintered chunks of walls that once made up the cabin and barn jutted out of
the black ground. Alistair’s gaze wandered beyond them and rested on a cracked stone on the ground.
Alistair moved towards his mother’s grave like he was walking in his sleep. His knees hit the dirt. It felt like a lifetime since he last knelt in that spot and silently read the words etched in the stone.
Layla – You were a light in the dark.
He remembered the unbearable grief and sadness in his heart the last time he read those words. He remembered the hot tears that poured down his young face and soaked the dust. This time all he felt was a tempest of hate brewing within him. Rage was his purpose and his fuel. The battle he sought would quench it for a time, and it was so near. The anticipation excited him in a way nothing else could. Alistair turned from his mother’s grave and laid down in the black dirt. He closed his eyes and entered a tortured dream with nothing but his hate to warm him.
Endless hills of lifeless dust surrounded Alistair. A hot wind caught the dust and twisted it into mighty billows. He wheezed as it dried his lungs and threw shards of course dirt in his face. Alistair’s foot caught on something and he sprawled out in the dirt. He twisted around as the blistering wind cleared dirt off a smooth, cracked stone with the words: Layla – You were a light in the dark etched into it. The wind became a torrent. It shifted the dirt beneath him until he fell into a deep pit.
Alistair looked up to see a rectangular patch of light with his mother’s gravestone at its head. He plunged his hands into the dirt walls and crawled frantically out. He struggled to his feet and saw a woman, clothed in billowing white, eyes ablaze. He wasn’t surprised to find her. She was in all his nightmares. He considered his mother’s face, not with love, but with anger. “What are you doing here?!” He demanded. “Get out of my head! I don’t want you here! You left me alone, so stay away!”
Layla, blurred by the rushing wind, smiled with love and understanding. “Alistair, my son, you have been living in darkness for so long you have forgotten the light. It is time for you to prepare. You are about to pass through a darker shadow than any you have experienced. But on the other side, your heart will remember things long forgotten.”
Alistair turned his back as his mother drifted deeper into the gale. In a moment, she was gone. The dust storm became a dust tornado. Alistair shielded his face and stumbled forward blindly. Then, the sound of grinding metal shattered the air around him.
Alistair’s eyes snapped open as trapdoors opened around him. He sprinted back the way he came, dodging open conduits that connected to an elaborate pipeline below the Shadow Lands. He breathed hard, and his mind raced. He had to save his army.
In every direction, colossal pillars of thick, black gas exploded from the ground. Alistair began mapping out the terrain in front of him and committing it to memory. He knew that in a moment, the fumes would surround him, and he wouldn’t be able to see anything. That moment came.
The trapdoors slammed shut, and the pillars collapsed. Gas descended all around him. Alistair took a final breath of fresh air and lurched forward.
Alistair’s lungs burned, but he fought his need to breathe for as long as he could. Eventually, he had no choice. He gasped the fumes in deep but still couldn’t catch his breath. His vision blurred as he choked on the fumes. He had no sense of where he was, but he could see vague figures through the smoke. Alistair stumbled towards the shapes, but his eyes were darkening. He panted and gasped, but there was no air to relieve his suffering. He was going to die.
Panic set in. Alistair fell to his knees, straining to keep the spectral forms in view. His eyes blackened completely, and he collapsed in the dust. Darkness took him.
Chapter Nine
The Tusk Clan
Jacosa, Sakina, Amani, and the eleven Forest Clan soldiers that accompanied them stopped running. The Key Village was a distant cluster behind them.
“How did the Fallen get here so fast?” Sakina asked.
“The council must have invited them before you arrived,” Amani answered. “The question is, what do we do now? Without the support of the Southern Villages, the Forest Clan cannot withstand Calamity.”
“Without the Key Village, I cannot lead them.”
“We need help,” Jacosa said. “There are others in the Southern Villages who will honor Sakina as Yetta. We need to find them.”
“The Southern people are cowards.” One of the Forest Clan soldiers spat. “If they hadn’t abandoned their people, the council would never have taken control, the Fallen would never have come, and Captain Conall would still be alive. We are better off without their help. We should return to the forest.”
Amani glared at the soldier. “Calamity grows stronger every day. We need each other. Captain Conall gave his life so that we could unite with the Southern people. Do not dishonor his sacrifice by speaking of things you don’t understand.”
The soldier fell silent.
“What’s your name?” Jacosa asked him.
“My name is Pallaton,” he replied.
“Pallaton, the Southern people are afraid, and fear does not make them cowards. They have no one to follow. They have nothing to fight for. When we give them that, they will rally, but we must take back the Key Village. Everything hinges on that.”
“So where do we start?” Sakina asked. “Do we go back to the Coastal Village? They know who we are there. They might help us.”
“Fishermen will be no use against Fallen soldiers,” Amani said. “We need fighters.”
“The Southern Villages have no fighters.”
“We may not have fighters,” Jacosa said cautiously, “but we have the best hunters in Terrene.”
Sakina smiled. “She’s right! We should go west to the Tusk Clan. They’re the best riders we have.”
“Will they follow you?” Amani asked.
“I don’t know, but we have to try.”
Amani nodded. “Then, lead the way.”
The small band followed Sakina West. The journey was slow. They had no horses, weapons, or provisions of any kind, so they scavenged what they could from the wasteland. The blazing sun beat down on them as they stumbled through the wild. Heat blurred the horizon by day, and a cold wind swept over them at night.
One night, they huddled around a dying fire as the wind whipped the flames around.
Jacosa lay awake. Her mind wandered through the story of her life and landed on the voice that saved her. She whispered to the night as if to a close friend. Speaking to the voice warmed her heart even as her teeth chattered from the cold. “It’s me. I wish I knew what to call you. I want you to know that I remember what you told me to. Thank you for being here. I hope…” Jacosa fell silent as she heard a scuffle behind her. She whipped around.
The soldier keeping watch was sitting at his post, but he had an odd look on his face. He slumped forward with a dagger hilt protruding from his back.
“Get up! Everyone wake up!” Jacosa shouted. She leaped to her feet and searched the darkness. Whoops, and shouts erupted around her as camel riders emerged from the night and circled their camp.
The soldiers snapped into action. They armed themselves with what they could find and created a protective ring around Sakina and Amani.
The night raiders galloped around them, drawing closer with each pass.
One rider attacked. His curved sword gleamed in the moonlight as he charged the ring of soldiers.
Pallaton ducked his swing, and another soldier grabbed his arm and pulled him off his mount. Pallaton struck the rider hard and left him unconscious before taking his sword.
Camels snorted, and the raiders’ shouts grew louder.
Jacosa counted at least a dozen. Attacks were coming in from every side.
The soldiers around her fought well, but the stones and branches they wielded failed them. They were losing ground.
Jacosa broke from the group and ran towards an incoming rider. The knife he threw at her sang past her ear. She grabbed his saddle and pulled herself onto the camel’s back. Her boot collided with
the rider’s face as he swiveled around.
He slumped out of his saddle, and Jacosa took his place.
“Hya!” She cried, urging the camel forward. Jacosa pulled a curved sword from its sheath on the saddle and galloped towards the struggling ring of soldiers.
She slashed through the leather straps of one rider's saddle and sent him careening into the awaiting soldiers.
One of the soldiers hoisted Pallaton onto the rider-less camel.
“Follow me!” Jacosa shouted as she rode away.
Pallaton galloped after her and killed two more riders.
The rest of the invaders fled back into the desert.
Jacosa slid off her camel and led it to the Forest Clan soldiers.
Sakina and Amani were safe, but seven men had died protecting them.
“Who attacked us?!” Sakina asked.
“Desert marauders,” Amani answered. “The sun will be up soon. Let’s bury our people, but then we must go on.”
Jacosa, Sakina, Amani, and the five remaining soldiers buried their comrades and when they had said their goodbyes, continued their journey west. They now had camels, weapons, and even some food and water from the raiders, but the supplies didn’t last long. The sun beat down on them, forced them to use their water, and drove them each deep into thought.
Jacosa lifted her head when she heard a lizard scurry out from beneath a rock. It was ugly, but it was the most life she had seen in some time, so she welcomed the sight. As she looked around, she realized the desert sands were giving way to tufts of dead grass, and cacti. Taller trees stood in the distance.
Jacosa nudged Sakina who rode groggily behind her. “Sakina, look. I think we’re close.”
Sakina looked up weakly and her dry lips cracked into a smile. “I know this place. We’ve been here, do you remember? My parents used to bring us here on the way to the Tusk Clan, we’ll reach water soon!”
