by T. D. Steitz
Alvah’s face parted in a wicked grin. “Kill! The-!”
Thud!
Alvah hit the wooden platform and black blood seeped out of a gash in his head.
The flaming stones surrounding Wybert shot out. The first hit Alvah. The rest targeted the Fallen slaves and guards. None of them had time to react before they hit the ground dead, or badly injured. The stones were extinguished the moment they made contact and were cold as they rolled to rest.
Wybert ran to Rael and searched for burns on his little hands as he helped him up. The flaming stones hadn’t even singed him. “Come on!” Wybert shouted. “We have to go!”
They ran to join the writhing sea of escaping slaves surging up the hill to the mysterious hooded man.
Wybert stopped. The dungeons: there were still people down there. Wybert shouted over the chaos. “Rael, you have to keep going! There is something I need to do. I’ll find you after!”
“Don’t leave!” Rael pleaded. “I’m scared!”
“I know, I’m scared too!” Wybert shouted back. “But remember the story I told you? Remember the Good King?”
Rael nodded.
“Well, this is it! This is him saving us; just like he said! Remember Ardent! He’ll help us be brave!” Wybert wiped the tears from Rael’s face. “I’ll see you soon! Now go!”
Rael disappeared into the crowd.
Wybert ran the other direction; deeper into Malum.
“Come on! Hurry!” Alistair shouted to the slaves.
Some of the Fallen began to wake.
“Keep going! Don’t stop!” Nearly all the slaves had passed. Alistair saw Wybert among the rest. He was kneeling and talking to the boy Alvah had threatened before. Then he stood up and ran the other way. “No, Wybert! Where are you going?!” Alistair shouted, but Wybert was too far to hear him. “Keep moving!” Alistair instructed the slaves as they passed. Alistair pointed at Wybert “Matana, follow him!”
Matana roared and tore forward in pursuit.
Wybert breathed heavily as he flew down the metal steps spiraling into the dungeons. The Fallen guards outside the heavy, steel door ran at him, but Wybert was ready. Without slowing down, he caught the first guard’s sword hilt and stabbed the blade into the second guard. Then, he slammed his head into the first guard’s face, sending him crumbling to the ground. Wybert rolled him over and found his keys. He walked through the heavy door and locked it again behind him. He turned around to face the rows and rows of harvest chambers, each with a screaming victim inside. Even after spending months in these chambers, the sight still disturbed him, as if he were seeing them for the first time.
The harvesters, being cowardly torturers who only stood against the helpless, took one look at the bloody blade in Wybert’s hand and ran. He hurried up and down the stone aisles of harvest chambers; slamming down their activation switches and pulling out their victims as he went. More Fallen had responded to the commotion. Wybert could hear them trying to open the steel door.
“Break it down!” He heard one of them shout. The door shuddered as the Fallen slammed a battering ram into it.
Wybert was running out of time. He ran harder, but the Fallen were nearly through.
A powerful roar echoed from the other side of the door. Cries and the clang of steel weapons replaced the pounding of the battering ram. Flashes of bright light flashed through the gap beneath the door. Wybert had shut down every chamber and was halfway through releasing the prisoners still in their cells when the fight went quiet. Wybert opened another cell door and helped a young woman out.
Boom!
He instinctively shielded her with his body as an explosion ripped the door apart. Wybert stood as the dust settled and the hooded man rode his bear in. Wybert looked up at the man, but he couldn’t see his face.
The stranger’s eyes shone brightly beneath his hood, casting the rest of his face in shadow.
“Who are you?” Wybert asked.
The man’s voice sounded like two voices speaking in unison. “There’s no time to explain. They’re coming. You need to get the prisoners out now. Meet the slaves and lead them to safety.”
Each of the intertwined voices sounded familiar to Wybert, but he couldn’t recall them. “What about you?” He asked.
“I’ll hold them off as long as I can. Don’t wait for me.”
The hooded man slid down from his bear. She whimpered and looked at him with a confused expression on her face.
“Go with them,” he said.
She laid her chin on his shoulder refusing to leave him.
He lifted her head and looked into her eyes. “Matana, I need you to stay with them. Make sure they get away safely.”
The hooded man ran his hand down the bear’s snout, and as he did, Wybert noticed a scar on the back of his hand.
Matana’s sad eyes drooped as she reluctantly followed Wybert and the prisoners.
Wybert shot one more look at the hooded man. “Thank you,” he said.
The man nodded. “Go.”
Wybert led the prisoners through a small door the harvesters used, and up a narrow, dark staircase into the belly of Malum while Alistair turned to face the coming horrors.
Ardent’s presence was so strong within Alistair, that he found clarity where he shouldn’t. He knew the black storm was on its way. He knew the Shadow Creatures would find him in moments, and he knew there was nothing left to do but face them. He would fight and give Wybert and the others the window they needed to escape. Alistair felt a question rise within him; a question Ardent asked him before. “Are you ready to accept it if my will is for you to die here today?” Alistair smiled. The fear of death had no more power over him. When the black clouds rushed into the stone corridor and spat out the vilest monsters imaginable, he faced them; unafraid.
Wybert led the freed prisoners through Calamity’s fortress, only guessing how to get out. The sounds of the hooded man’s fury echoed behind them as he battled the Shadow Creatures. There was dreary, gray light ahead. They were nearly outside when Wybert waved them back into the shadows.
A company of Fallen soldiers marched by.
Matana bristled and growled.
“Sh, sh, it's okay,” Wybert whispered, calming her down. The soldiers were passing. Maybe they would go unnoticed.
“You!” The Fallen leader shouted. “Go check the dungeons. Make sure the harvesters aren’t interrupted.”
A Fallen soldier entered the passage hiding Wybert and the others and froze, staring right at them.
The Fallen soldier didn’t move. He didn’t raise an alarm. His eyes darted from face to frightened face.
Wybert didn’t know what, but he saw something different in this soldier. “Listen,” he said, “you have a choice here. Pretend you didn’t see us. Please.”
The soldier shot a glance at the terrified children, then reached up and pulled down the wrap around his face. The soldier was a woman. Her eyes were cloudy and gray, but somehow, still piercing. She spoke to Wybert. “If you go now, you’ll be seen. Another company is right behind ours. Wait until they’ve passed; then go.” The soldier turned to leave.
“Wait.” Wybert grabbed her arm.
She glared at him.
“Will you come with us?”
She scoffed at him, but he pressed further.
“You can get away from all of this. There is so much goodness and life out there. I can show you. Come with us.”
The Fallen woman paused for a moment and her face softened, but then hardened again. “There is nothing else for me,” she said plainly. “Wait for the next company to pass; then go.” She covered her face again and walked away.
Wybert listened as she gave her report.
“The dungeons are secure.”
Moments later, another company marched by. Once they passed, Wybert, Matana, and the freed prisoners took their window of opportunity, and fled.
Alistair whirled around. The Shadow Creatures were closing in. His movements, his decisions w
ere his own and not, simultaneously. Ardent’s fire blazed within him and he blasted, beat, incinerated, and tore through every monster the shadows created. A dozen tongues bound his arms and legs; he melted them away. Enormous jaws snapped shut around him and he exploded out of them with dazzling fire displays. The Shadow Creatures attacked him from above, around, and below. He crushed them all beneath Ardent’s power.
The Shadow Creatures kept coming. Alistair was locked in a stalemate. For every Shadow Creature he destroyed, two more appeared. There was no end in sight. Then Alistair felt something he hadn’t felt since the last time a Marked One rescued someone from the Shadow Lands when Osmin saved him. He felt heat spread across him, but it didn’t burn. White flames rushed up along his body. Alistair closed his eyes and felt weightless for a few moments until the warmth and flames returned. He opened his eyes. He was out of the dungeons. The Shadow Creatures were gone.
Wybert led the prisoners over the crest of the hill where the Marked One first appeared. There they found a thousand cold, weak slaves huddled together; scared and confused.
“Wybert!” Rael appeared from within the crowd and ran to Wybert’s side.
Excited whispers spread through the groups of slaves and prisoners as Wybert approached. He was the man who couldn’t be harvested. They had all heard of him, and they looked to him now for direction.
Wybert thought of the last time a group of leaderless people looked to him for guidance. He remembered their bodies littering the Shadow Lands, and he was terrified of leading these people to a similar end. But he knew the fear on their faces and felt compassion for them. There was no one else to accept the burden of leadership.
Before Wybert could speak… Boom! A sound like thunder shook the ground.
A pregnant silence descended on the crowd.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Fallen battle drums rang through the air. The armies of Malum were coming.
The waiting crowd became a screaming, terrified mass. They scattered away from the coming army like insects. Their frightened wails were almost enough to drown out the sound of creaking metal as the giant, steel trapdoors across the Shadow Lands swung open and pillars of black gas burst forth.
The slaves feared the fumes as much as they feared the Fallen. The gas settled, but they were beyond its boundary. A thick wall of poison blocked their escape through the Shadow Lands, and a Fallen army closed in behind them. There was no way out.
The terrified people cried out in panic.
“We’re trapped!”
“We’re all going to die!”
In their fear they looked to Wybert, demanding answers, but he had none to give.
Wybert pulled Rael into his chest. He refused to let the trembling boy die alone. He held him tight and waited.
A wave of hot wind washed over Wybert. He turned around. A great, white flame had erupted from the ground, just beyond the wall of gas.
The fire slowly died down and revealed a hooded man kneeling in its center.
Alistair opened his shining eyes to see a wall of black fumes towering over him. He turned around to see a crowd of shocked faces staring at him.
Matana ran over to him and licked his face.
Alistair chuckled. “I’m fine, Matana.” Alistair swung himself onto her back and they faced the crowd.
The first rows of Fallen soldiers ascended the hill behind them, and the black clouds were gathering over Malum, preparing to reenter the fight.
The scared crowd screamed at Alistair.
“They’re going to kill us all!”
“You should never have come!”
“We’re all dead because of you!”
Matana roared. Her bellow rumbled through the crowd and silenced their shouts.
Alistair closed his eyes. Ardent’s blazing mark shone out from beneath his eyelids. He began to whisper. The people leaned in to hear, but they couldn’t make out what he was saying. They were not meant to. The words were for Ardent alone. They were words of love and admiration. They were words of request, beseeching Ardent to finish what he’d started; to save them. Without opening his eyes, Alistair slid down from Matana’s back, turned away from the crowd and walked up to the wall of gas; still whispering. He knelt in the dirt, leaning on his staff. Then, he leaped to his feet and thrust his staff high over his head. The air exploded.
The slaves shielded their faces from the heatwave that whipped their hair and clothes around wildly. A powerful column of white fire shot into the sky from the Marked One's staff. The fire twisted and sparked with wrath. The fire rose higher and higher, farther than the eye could see, and lit up the dark, gray sky.
Alistair’s eyes flashed open, and bright light burst out from beneath his hood. He slammed his staff down into the ground beside him, and stood tall, arms outstretched. The unending beam of light surged forward, into the sea of black gas, casting it aside as it went. Alistair, and the crowd with him, stood frozen in amazement at the wide trail of clean air the light carved through the fumes. Alistair smiled. Matana stood close behind him.
The Marked One took the first step; strong and deliberate, after the fire. The people followed, and soon, every freed slave and prisoner followed the clear path to freedom.
The Fallen army chased the fleeing people into the waves of toxic gas. They were gaining on them. People scrambled over each other in their desperate attempts to escape until the walls of gas collapsed behind them. The Fallen were engulfed in the fumes. The fumes were intoxicating to them. They broke ranks and dove into the gas, dropping down on their hands and knees like beasts and gorging themselves on it. The fleeing crowd vanished into the distance.
The spirits of the free people lifted as the Fallen army disappeared behind them.
Alistair rode Matana at the head of the crowd and listened to them talking excitedly and laughing with one another. Children were giggling and playing. Families long separated were reunited. The slaves raised their voices in songs of freedom and hope.
Wybert looked down at Rael, smiling up at him. He lifted him onto his shoulders, and they sang aloud with the rest.
“You did it,” Alistair whispered to the air. His voice was only him now. The light shining from his eyes receded into his heart. Alistair smiled and breathed deeply. The air was sweet. The air over the Shadow Lands never smelled that way. In the distance, the black dust gave way to green life. Alistair led the slaves across the farthest boundary of the Shadow Lands. Great shouts of joy filled the air as they crossed the scar in Terrene from death to life. The people reveled in their newfound hope; hope unlike any they had ever experienced. They were free.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mallory
Alvah groaned and stood slowly. He was alone. Fallen bodies were scattered in the dust around him. The constant commotion of grueling labor was gone. The slaves were gone. The skies above him blackened as Calamity’s dark clouds spread across Terrene, searching for the runaway slaves. Alvah’s head spun. “How?!” The question plagued him and fueled his anger as he stumbled back inside Malum.
Crack!
Alvah’s whip came down hard against his victim’s exposed back and split it open again.
She screamed out in pain, and black blood pooled beneath her dangling feet.
Crack!
“I spoke with your company leader,” Alvah said calmly and menacingly. “He told me he sent you to check on the prisoners in the dungeons.” Alvah paced slowly around the semi-conscious woman. “He told me you reported that everything was fine, and yet, the dungeons are empty.” Alvah grabbed her face and pulled it close to his own. “You let them go, didn’t you?”
The girl did not respond.
“DIDN’T YOU?!”
She whimpered.
Alvah wrapped his hand around her throat and squeezed tight. The veins in her forehead bulged as he choked the life out of her. He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “If you were anyone else, Mallory, I would kill you right now. Fortunately for you, even though you’re weak, the
strength of my bloodline runs in your veins. The sons you will bear are more important to me than the satisfaction of killing a spineless traitor.” Alvah released Mallory’s throat, and she gasped for breath.
Ahem.
Alvah’s eyes darted towards the Right Hand, standing in the doorway. “Get out, this is no concern of yours!” Alvah demanded.
The Right Hand smiled wickedly. “Calamity wishes to see you.”
Six Fallen soldiers, members of the Right Hand's guard, marched into the room and surrounded Alvah. These were not ordinary Fallen. These were Fallen Elites. Elites were Fallen selected from childhood as the strongest, and the most violent. Calamity’s fear and pain, harvested from others, ran through their veins, and dark fumes leaked from their gray eyes.
“Come with us. Now.” The Right Hand ordered.
Alvah left his bleeding daughter dangling from her chains and walked out of the room. He followed the Elites outside. The ringing of metal against metal filled the air as Malum’s ironsmiths worked to equip a new army of Elites.
“Behold,” The Right Hand said with a wicked grin, “your extinction.”
A shiver ran down Alvah’s spine as the Right Hand led him into Calamity’s icy chamber. The Elites forced him to his knees before Calamity’s throne. His hot breath turned to steam as it hit the cold air.
“Leave us,” Calamity's deep, gravelly voice echoed down from his towering throne.
The Right Hand and his guards bowed low and backed out of the room.
“Alvah… Oh, Alvah…” Calamity slowly descended the stone steps. “Let me ask you something.” Calamity reached Alvah and paced around him.
Alvah didn’t dare look him in the eye.
“Do you remember… what the Fallen used to be? You and your people were nothing but scattered packs of rabid dogs, fighting over scraps. I gave you a home. I gave you a purpose and a chance to be part of my beautiful world.”
