A Darkness Unleashed (Book 2) Read online

  No arrow flew this time, but Jaerd could see the movement of burnished armor over the gate.

  “Go blast yourself, Mandibor, you jumped up knave,” came an echoed reply from the mayor’s captain. “Run off to the Gannonites for help, you craven. We’ll protect what’s ours.”

  Captain Mandibor cursed, and Boris clenched his jaw.

  “If the orcs get those granaries, they could bring their entire force here,” Khalem Shadar whispered to Jaerd. “A hundred thousand of them would ravage the Free Cities before any of us might return with aid.”

  Looking up at the beehive domes of the granaries, Jaerd saw them in a darker shadow – now a target to be destroyed, rather than an asset to be protected. “We can’t let them have it.”

  A sudden commotion broke out along the top of the gate. Metal flashed in the dying sunlight, and clanging crunches sounded up the long street. A few men broke from a postern door. One took an arrow from above and fell, while three more ran for where Jaerd crouched near Khalem. Two soldiers leaped from a tower down the wall. Jaerd heard the snap of one’s leg as he came down hard. The other ran toward the city, never looking back at his companion, who the guards finished off with a volley of arrows.

  “By the Waters,” Jaerd whispered, rising with the spare bow he had grabbed from a fallen militiaman. He turned his voice to a shout. “Cover them! They’re trying to join us.” He launched a steel-tipped arrow toward the gate, desperate to slip one through the parapet. “Fire and Flames, they’re killing their own men!”

  One of the three Kirathi guards fleeing towards them took an arrow in the shoulder. He stumbled five good steps before another caught him in the neck. The lead man lost his helmet in the mad dash, while the second shook off a wooden shield. More arrows fell toward them, but a flick of Magus Britt’s hand threw a dozen flashes of light that dissolved the quarrels in midair.

  Jaerd, Khalem, and Mandibor led a few of the Range Riders in a dash forward. They launched arrows in a return barrage that slowed the attack on the escaping men. When they passed behind the line, Jaerd urged his fellows back, shooting more arrows as they retreated. The entire group slipped into cover, gathering behind a cluster of buildings just beyond their enemies’ range.

  “Welcome, Corporal,” Captain Mandibor sneered, casting aside the bow and placing a hand on his rapier. “Are you sent to spy among us, or are you simply cowards?”

  Earl Boris held up a calming hand. “That’s enough, Captain. These men fled when their own sanity overruled their commander’s madness.” He turned to the gasping newcomers. “Easy, lads. I am Earl Boris Mourne. If you come in peace, we welcome you among us.”

  “Aye, Milord.” The corporal got through his heavy breaths. “Thank you, sir.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Everything’s gone mad over there, sir. The mayor and the officers…they know the minute they give up their position as masters of the grain…the minute they are stuck amongst the rabble, they’ll be torn to pieces.”

  The other soldier grimaced. “They’d rather face a pack of orcs than their own people.”

  Joslyn Britt barked a harsh laugh. “There’s more than a pack coming, boys. Best get those shiny swords sharpened.”

  His face screwed up in disgust, the corporal grunted. “Most o’ the other men…they’re more scared of the officers than anything. They turned on the few of us who refused to stay.”

  Fighting back his rage, Jared glanced back at the two pinpricked bodies lying dead outside the wall. Pools of blood, dark in the low glare of sunset, spread in square runnels between the cobblestones.

  “How many would stand against us if we charged them?” Mandibor asked, his brow knitted in impatience.

  “At least a hundred, sir,” the shocked corporal replied. “And they’ve heated pots and stacked stones.”

  One black eyebrow lifted, Earl Boris looked to his Battlemage. “Joz?”

  Magus Britt sighed. “It’s been a long day, Boris.” He looked toward the keep and granaries. “If we could get close enough, I might be able to get them burning. But to get all four…that would take some time…time I don’t think we can make.”

  The anger on the earl’s face was not for his friend. “Then I don’t see how we can do it. We are far too few to assault them – we’d be cut down. And I don’t see any way of giving you the cover you need.”

  Magus Joslyn Britt sucked a tooth. “And we don’t have the time for me to rest and gather my reserves. If I had an hour or two, I could get at least one of them going from this distance.”

  Boris’ steely gaze caught fire when he looked toward the setting sun. “We do not have that time. We need to be on to Novon and Gavanor.”

  Frustration plain on his face and in his voice, Mandibor gripped the hilt of his sword. “Then there is nothing we can do?”

  Lord Gael faced the Kirathi captain. “There is nothing we can do.”

  The earl looked one last time at the granaries, the light in his eyes fading with the last of the sun. “Then let’s go. We have a lot more to worry about now.”

  Jaerd stood for a moment, staring at the gate full of metal-clad idiots. “Damn fools!” He cupped his hands to his mouth. “I hope they gut you before you die!”

  A few minutes later, Jaerd sat in his horse’s saddle on the ridgeline where most of Mandibor’s Range Riders had waited. He lifted his father’s old spyglass, tracing the edge of the trees on the far side of Kirath.

  “There,” he called when he saw the first few orcs step into the cleared fields surrounding the city. Bands of hundreds followed the first few platoons. Soon, thousands of orcs trotted toward the city in closely organized companies. Jaerd lowered the spyglass once he saw fires spring up among the wood buildings.

  “Captain Westar,” he heard Boris shout. “The city is lost. There is nothing to be done save move on to save the next one. Come, let us be off.”

  As he spurred his horse after the others, Jaerd heard shouts of orcish joy followed closely by screams of pain and death from those who had not heeded their warnings.

  “Serves them right,” Mandibor grumbled.

  Jaerd questioned his earlier conviction at the sight of so many men dying. Does it when their leaders made them stay?

  “Since Lifetrees can no longer bloom upon the mainland, no longer then can we.” – Leolan Lastking upon the arrival of elves at Valen

  Prince Adaan Calais ran his fingers along the alabaster smoothness of the lifewood railing. It curved upward along the white staircase, grown from the same seed as all of Fartower. The stairs looked polished as new porcelain, but his boots still gained traction as he climbed out onto the roof. A fresh blast of sea air, warm even in winter, greeted his nose with the salty tang he had loved as a child, near a thousand years ago.

  “My tower,” he whispered to the lifewood parapet, his hands stroking the warmer-than-natural edge.

  Adaan turned south, toward the nearby emerald island set in a sapphire sea. The waves of the Clarion Ocean swept against the golden beaches of Valen in low breakers. Beyond, forested hills rose against the sky to hide A’Valen, last Lifetree of his people.

  The rocky outcrop on which Fartower stood met harsher waters not quite a mile out from the much larger isle, but its black granite boulders held firm against the rough seas. That’s why I chose this place…the only place able to grow lifewood away from Valen since the Cataclysm. The only Lifetree not to go mad. The Woodsingers lost a good deal of love for their prince that day, but I proved them wrong.

  His thoughts drowned out the pounding of the surf, and he hung his head. If only they would have let me try upon the mainland! But they will never again allow me to have one of A’valen’s seeds.

  Adaan sighed and turned away to watch the northern skies. She will not be late. She has never been late in a millennium.

  For a few moments he watched the azure emptiness, his sharp vision
finding nothing save the specks of distant birds. Then a different speck appeared above the horizon, leagues farther away than the swooping seagulls. A wry grin curled his lip at the foolish hope that his sister might once be late. The speck grew, larger than any bird at such a distance. Widening and flattening, a cobalt shape sparkled when it moved. Sarravix is such a beautiful creature in flight.

  The dragon at last came down from the sky, sweeping brilliant wings with amethyst ridges through the air in graceful patterns. The creature’s violet eyes matched those of his sister, who clung more to her own elegance than to Sarravix’s neck. The dragon’s lower claws extended, large enough to grasp Adaan’s favorite horse by the chest. She fluttered her wings more swiftly and reached out to grab Fartower’s parapet. The wings lifted once more and then folded along her shoulders. She leaned forward on one dagger-like claw and padded knuckle. Once the dragon had a firm grip on Fartower, the woman on her back slid down. Adaan could not help his smile when Sarravix leaned in to touch her forehead to his sister’s. The woman’s fair-haired beauty and loving smile were matched by the regal, yet soft demeanor of the dragon. Then she turned her amaranthine gaze upon Adaan.

  “Varana, my sister, welcome home…or at least to the edge of it.” He offered a graceful bow before reaching out with a loving hand. “It has been too long since we have seen each other.”

  Varana’s expression shifted in a flash to a frown almost as dark as her gaze for Sarravix had been bright. “Our father’s hidden trove has been found. Knowledge of the Dragonsouls is once again in human hands.”

  Adaan lowered his hand. So she is in that mood.

  “Dear sister, the Dragonsouls are trapped beyond even a foolish human’s reach.” He glimpsed up at Sarravix, who listened to their words with extreme intensity. “That is why father never destroyed those scrolls. He knew they were useless.”

  His sister deepened the furrows in her brow. “Not true. He knew they might be needed one day if the Dragonsouls returned.”

  Now it was Adaan’s turn to frown. “Before he died, our father told me that the trap he and Gan created would last a hundred millennia. I believe it has only been one.”

  Varana waved a delicate hand at Adaan. “Something he told to a young elf to calm his fears. I know of the magic they used, though I do not fully understand it. It is not eternal.”

  A brief sadness passing through his heart, Adaan sighed. “Nothing is.”

  She stared at him with a face so much like the one he always saw in the mirror. “Your mother said much the same thing when father died.”

  He met her squarely. “And you said it when she died.”

  The woman’s scowl softened. “You and Gael had more time with your mother than I had with mine. She never saw the shores of Valen, never left Lond before its Fall.”

  Offering a smile, Adaan reached his hand out again, and she took it, her grasp warmer than he expected. “We all have lost so much, but you have lost the most, dear sister. Will you not stay among us for a while?”

  Varana’s face fell into sadness. “Valen was never my home. I feel more comfortable at my Academy with my students.” She turned to the western horizon. “I was born in Amgedon’s shade, but that turned to a black shadow long ago.”

  He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, something he had not done in decades. “You were the last one to be born there.”

  Varana sighed. “And you were the first born to Valen. Our father knew our people had to reproduce quickly if we were to survive.” She stiffened her lip. “I do not blame your mother, as I once thought I did. I was a young woman with too much rage.” A short laugh broke her melancholy look. “I am certainly that no longer.”

  Adaan let the moment hang there in the sky above the sea, arm around his prodigal sister and warmth in their grasp. In that moment, they were neither great nor small, just siblings. The cobalt dragon looming above him stood still as the lifewood tower, while the waves crashed below.

  Far too soon for him, Varana stepped away. “The Dragonsouls, Adaan, that is why I came.” She focused on the ocean spread before them. “Something moves in the Dreamrealm, or so the only Dreamer I know has claimed.”

  “You have spoken with the Ravenhawke? And you did not kill him?”

  A strange smile edged along her lips. “He is a different man than when last you saw him. His pain and trials have humbled him.”

  “Humble is no word to be used for the Ravenhawke. He is the human who read father’s scrolls?”

  Uncertainty written on her face, his sister nodded. “I still have them. I only let him read them. As did Tomas Harte, the paladin.”

  Placing his hands upon the parapet so he stood watching the waters next to Varana, he dared a small shrug. “To be honest, there are few better humans to know. Those scrolls only touch the surface of what father did…of what the Dragonsoul Gan did. I read them before father hid them with that Viridian Stone. They do not tell how to free a Dragonsoul. Who says anyone might even accomplish it?”

  A slurring voice, nearly as deep as the ocean waves, resounded from above. It thrummed in a powerful bass, but still held a clear feminine edge. “I say they might accomplish it.” Sarravix shifted her weight, but the hard lifewood of Fartower held strong. “We dragons knew these spirits – these Dragonsouls…” The distaste rang clearly in her swelling voice. “…long before even your kind. How they drew my elder siblings into your wars I will never understand.” She twisted her head violently, as if shaking her webbed crest free of the thought. “We have a sense of them, and they are not gone from this world. Many of the lesser of my kind have been drawn to it already, as have some of the greater. The threat we face is real.”

  Adaan bowed his head before the dragon, and Varana stepped toward him. “News has come of the siege of Highspur, by numbers too great to believe. Rumor has come of its fall.”

  A stab of true fear ripped through Adaan’s heart, and his breath began to quicken. “Gael still serves there, though I have called for him to return home for years.”

  A cool expression masking her face, Varana ran one finger along the twisted railing. “I fear the rumors may be true. The Ravenhawke warned of a darkness in the Dreamrealm, a darkness he did not recognize. Sarri describes much the same thing.” She reached up to stroke the dragon’s membranous wing. “Her kind senses the Dreamrealm in a way that is different from the Dreamer mages.”

  Adaan rolled his father’s ring around his finger. The thick gold set with a giant moonstone glowed in the sunlight. “You think it is this darkness which drives the orc hordes?”

  “I have no doubt that it drives them.” Varana’s face clouded with thought. “However, even a million orcs in a mob could not threaten our lands in the long term. It is not them I truly fear.” She looked up at him, her eyes ablaze with intensity. “The Dragonsouls’ influence spreads farther than just those they directly touch. The chaos that comes with Galdreth is insidious. It creeps into the cracks of ordered societies and breaks them open.” She shook her head gravely. “The orcs are just the first challenge to befall us. Who knows where next Chaos will rear its ugly head.”

  The weight of her words hung heavy on Adaan’s heart. “Father would have known what to do.” He twisted the ring again. “He always had a plan.”

  Varana laughed. “It wasn’t always a good one. The Cataclysm was never part of his plan, yet the consequences were there for all to see. We are still dealing with them.”

  “The Red Death was his plan, and Hadon is no longer the threat to us it once was.” Adaan put a hand on her shoulder. “As was bringing the Navigator and his people back to Tarmor. Gannon will help us stand against the storm.”

  Varana pursed her lips in doubt. “We shall see.”

  The Temple itself seeks only the freedom of all races to tune themselves to the Balance. We offer a hope for justice, peace, and salvation. No state, no knightly order, no guild
of mages or merchants can hope to do this. Only the Temple. – High Elder Banon Gastahl, 266 A. R.

  “I hope you will accept my offer, Miss Conaleon.” Duke Aginor’s voice remained firm despite the three glasses of bourbon Maddi had witnessed him consume since entering his study. “The thirty-thousand marks is just a down payment. Plus, I have already received a vast quantity of dwarf-cut stone – a gift from the dwarf king. He was very thankful of our help after the dragon attack last spring.”

  “Your gift is very kind, Your Grace.” Even though she hated the gesture, Maddi pulled off an elegant curtsey, her leather pants notwithstanding. “Especially since it is a gift to your people.”

  The duke shook his head. “It was your idea, my dear. I heard of your plan for one in Daynon through a peer.” He cleared his throat. “I want a hospital in Gavanor, and I want you to direct its construction. There is a place near Statuary Park that I have already ordered cleared. The stone is being delivered there directly from the docks.”

  Maddi bowed her head, afraid her discomfort showed through her poise. “Thank you, Your Grace, but I had been considering going westward with my friends. Ami takes good care of Tanya, and they are very comfortable in my old house.” She winced. Her heart was torn between leaving Tanya and abandoning Tallen and the others. She looked over at the young wizard who pulled at her heart, sitting nearby on one of the duke’s chairs. He gave her a knowing smile. The Wastes are no place for a girl like Tanya. Truth be told, they are no place for anyone, not even him.

  “Those not trained in the ways of war do not belong in the Wastes.” The duke waved his glass in the air. “I do not think it wise for you to join our force. We have plenty of healers with more experience in battle medicine than you. Besides, when the wounded and refugees come wandering eastward, Gavanor will need to be prepared.”

  “Your Grace, I—”

  The duke lifted a firm hand to silence her. “I am a man used to getting his way, Miss Conaleon.” He reached into a drawer and tossed a bag heavy with gold coins onto the table. “I much prefer the carrot to the stick.” He lifted a significant finger. “Please do not make me use the stick.”