A Facet for the Gem (21 page)

“Faster!” he growled, pushing for the dark plume that spewed from the mountain before them, in the hope it might shield him from his attackers’ aim. Above the toxic clouds, they continued to rain projectiles down on his position as he veered haphazardly through each volley, knowing the lethal walls would soon crush him.

As it succumbed to the fumes and smoke, the bird no longer paid heed to even the harshest lash. It merely resorted to a feeble repetition of wing flaps that sank them toward the pitch black opening, which gaped like an expectant mouth. The Eaglemasters’ onslaught persisted nonetheless, blasting like a windswept storm.

“There!” He heard the cry high overhead when the black fumes parted, followed by a zealous assault that cut his thigh and back like lashes, riddling the eagle whose cries were finally silenced. They ceased gliding, and plummeted instead through the suffocating volcano spout while he clung to the aerodynamic carcass. Soon the creature’s feathers ignited beneath him as he skidded down the scorched walls, scalding him through a steamy plunge that abruptly ended when he crashed upon a jagged rim that encircled the pool of magma below.

Hovering in a bright red cluster over the hot steam that concealed their fallen target, the Eaglemasters belted a united chorus of triumph that vibrated down the open rock to its orange depths, which bubbled a morbid greeting when Felkoth rose on trembling legs. There was nowhere to go now. Nothing to do but wait while each breath seared his lungs and brought them closer to rupturing, depriving the Eaglemasters of any true victory, after every one of their aimless volleys left his flesh only shallowly flayed.

Imagining himself the first ever to set foot within this fiery crypt, he examined its glowing innards with great curiosity, his attention particularly drawn to a light aura encasing the molten surface. Not thick like smoke, it merely lay, as still as an ancient shroud.

Suddenly the aura began to stir ever so delicately, swimming in his direction while he paced around the elevated platform. Moments later he felt an inexplicable pull on his sword, which lifted to meet the approaching vapors, stopping him in his tracks while the connection grew stronger. He had to plant his boots firmly to avoid being dragged over, until, like a scabby crust, the bluish haze peeled away from the dense, burning liquid, stretching toward him and wrapping deftly around the Dark Blade like silk from a spider. Then, it rattled his outstretched arm with an explosive blast and shot up out of the mountain in a burnt, smoky jet, dissipating beneath the huddled Eaglemasters.

Holding the sword as it pointed upward, unchanged, he looked more closely at the molten lake, which rumbled with an unprecedented shudder, causing the rock beneath his feet to crack open while he scrambled to find better footing. He kept both eyes fixed on the churning lava. Its bubbles popped much more turbulently, almost as if something breathed from below and was slowly rising. A groan quaked deep in the earth’s core, growing louder, closer, like a gargantuan yawn that even liquefied stone could not silence. Standing rigid, he remained transfixed by the pulsing reservoir. Its inner disturbance grew as the surface rippled, hissed, no longer flat, but concave, sucked down to flood a newly vacated recess far below, while the remainder slowly lifted off, pushed out atop a solid berg that dwarfed him.

An immense beak of sharp black diamond protruded through the flaming sludge, followed by a boulder-sized head that shook clusters of white-hot slime all around the crater walls, its lava-encrusted lids peeling open to reveal dark red eyes. Folded wings emerged next, opening barely half their full span within these crushing confines, covered, along with every inch of its neck and body, in long granite feathers that overlapped like impenetrable armor.

Its lower half still submerged, the fiery leviathan sucked all breathable air out of the crater in one voracious breath, leaving Felkoth gasping for what slowly trickled back down through the clogged ash roof. Then the creature belted out globs of bright orange phlegm into the surrounding stone.

Blinking all around like a hatchling for its mother, its dreadful countenance soon found him, its massive neck bending down for a closer look while he held his ground, a mere sapling beneath a great shadowy hill.

“Bloodsong,” Felkoth whispered, feeling his heels suddenly jolt upward as the beast’s head-sized nostrils drew in a gust that pulled him to his tiptoes, pushing him back to stand flat again with a satisfied release. Retracting its head, it trained adjusting eyes on him.

“The blood of the One Hundred is on your blade,” it rasped, every word sizzling, crackling, as though each took a charring toll when spoken. “You have slain one of the Blessed Ones, my captors.”

Felkoth stared back expressionless, certain that he had encountered no such man. Their time was long past, and he would know beyond any doubt if he had ever come across one of them. But, perhaps his first ancestor to wield the Dark Blade had taken his share of blood from them, when the shriekers brought their fall.

“Long have I slumbered beneath those who once filled my shadow.” The sonorous voice rattled the precarious magmatic structures around them. “I listen to their children laugh and stomp the earth, as though they have forgotten how pale the sun looked behind my silhouette, and dried the tears that soiled their faces when they heard my call, for in hearing, they knew my name.”

Wrenching its lower body out of the sweltering soup, it revealed two monstrous arrays of talons, each curving longer than the height of any man into a scythe of polished volcanic glass. An enormous barbed tail followed with a jagged, clubbed tip that could devastate scores of foes in a single sweep. Hibernating muscles stretched against one another in thousands of grinding plates, and it broadened its chest as widely as the stifling walls would permit.

“I want them to know it again, Master,” it declared hungrily, waiting patiently before him, as if the simplest command would hurtle them both skyward.

Felkoth was shocked to hear such a word uttered by this flame-dripping terror. “Master,” he repeated.

Meeting him with a loyal nod, as though he now held the chains that would release it upon the world, the creature answered, “You have broken the seal which bound me to the depths, and, in breaking it have become my master. Only you may take me to the skies, where the feathered herds shall reign no more.”

Rearing his soot-covered head back to peer up toward the lightless roof, anticipation penetrating what his gaze could not, he saw the amassed Eaglemasters gloating as though he were a charred ruin. He smiled, imagining their shock as he emerged, brief though it would be. Lavishing pride upon his newest and greatest servant, he was ready to bask in blood spilt from those above, and watch it mingle with their flesh into the dust.

“Yes,” his voice resounded with a deep appetite. “They will know. They will all know it, soon enough.”

Ivrild looked back to see that the king’s haste to catch up with them had grown, despite their static position above Felkoth’s billowing tomb.

“Whether he comes to congratulate or scold, I cannot tell,” he said to his brother. “And with the army’s entire remainder at his sides, you would think we waited here for aid.”

Ondrel nodded, treading air triumphantly above all that was left to see of the Tyrant Prince. “In Father’s mind there is always a worry. And more than one, I suspect, to accompany any beckoning peace.”

“All that beckons now are the biggest flagons crafted by men,” Ivrild replied. The mighty host laughed heartily, enjoying an overdue sense of elation. “After we reclaim Korindelf and the last of those skeletal abominations lies cold with our arrows between its ribs, I should like to take a short leave. Maybe there will be some advantage to be found in my standing as a liberator of the people.”

Ondrel laughed. “Father would summon you back in a heartbeat, what with all the unknown dangers left to repel.”

Lifting a carefree chin, Ivrild said, “All dangers now are those we know quite well. We’ve treaded within the shadows where they creep, dug them out of the holes they thought well-hidden, and they slink away at our approach. Whatever remains unknown is too afraid to reveal itself, and always shall be. I say there is nothing else to fear ahead.”

Suddenly, the most silent calm swept all around them, and the underlying ash dome swirled downward, churning in a great spout of black to the very belly of the mountain. It drew their devoted attention through smoke, through flame, until they could not look anymore, could not see at all, for hearing alone became in that moment more than they could bear. The rising sound of wailing, inescapable death drew tears as profuse as the sweat that trickled from each pore, and they could do nothing but sit, helpless, while it furiously grew.

Valdis heard it too, though still a mile off from the ominous peak. His eagle trembled like all others in the fleet with the same staggering shock that would otherwise deter their advance, were it not for the two thousand souls, his sons included, hovering at the very source.

“Steady!” he commanded as every wing stroke drove them deeper into a stinging mire flooded by the unending sound. He had to reach them now. Something was wrong, terribly…

The cluster of men remained huddled above the summit, all of their faces angled down toward the volcano mouth, the eagles beneath them struggling to merely tread air, as though slipping through mud toward something climbing from below. And then—

A great mass, shrouded in smoke, erupted directly through their center as it sprayed liquid flame that obliterated dozens. Droves that were spared the initial impact scattered with renewed urgency, only to be swatted down like flies by an airborne mace that swung wildly left and right, which, Valdis shuddered to realize, was a tail. He traced its thickening stony length to the base of a creature grotesque and enraged, which spread razor wings of black rock to drape all beneath it in shadow.

Heartbeat smothered by every figure that fell burnt and bashed, pounding for those who still fled each malicious swipe, he led a desperate charge to the chaotic scene. The dead seemed to double with each enormous jet hurled from the beast’s lungs, and all others broke off in every direction, forming new lines to launch rapid volleys that bounced pathetically off of every sought weakness.

“Ready arrows!” Valdis yelled hoarsely, and the ranks behind him drew their bowstrings uncertainly, releasing upon his command only to find—as had their beleaguered comrades—every shot was ineffective. Hundreds ahead had already fallen, the rest abandoning any further attempts to counter or regroup, dispersing like a ring of debris around the invulnerable predator that clearly had only begun its pattern of destruction.

Then, blinding him to everything else, two figures caught his eye, narrowly ducking a ferocious thrash that crushed many others behind them as they sped out directly toward him. The creature saw them, too, slithering around to follow. They were but a quarter mile away as he leapt forward to meet them, the gap in between refusing to shrink like in some torturous nightmare, while the stalking creature drew closer at their heels. And then he saw Felkoth, standing securely within its left talons that enclosed him all around like a fortified box, oozing laughter while peering out at the two princes, and then at him, as though to savor what was to come.

He reached for their distant outstretched hands, and saw only infants’ hands, waving as he’d lift them to sit on his shoulders. He would lift them now, as he’d done then. One on each shoulder.

The dragon sucked in a heaping gulp of air, stealing every ounce within his own deflating lungs while his throat and mouth opened to give no sound, vocal cords rattling bloody and raw as he watched the fiery blast shoot forth in a polarized stream. It exceeded his sons’ speed, licking their backs while they began to cry out with eyes seeking help that would not come. It crawled up their helmets and around their arms, melting silver into skin that soon cracked and lost all color, finally bursting within the orange and black cloud that enveloped, vaporized. The force blew him back, limp and grudgingly alive into the fold of his men, who whisked him away in retreat, though still he gazed into the fading smoke, seeing that where they had been, there was now nothing.

He heard only Felkoth’s satisfied cackling, pounding each battered eardrum to a withered pulp no matter how far they flew toward safety that would undoubtedly expire. Then his trembling limbs convulsed with the rest of him into deep unconsciousness, from which, he would not willingly wake.

Chapter Thirteen

Father of Fathers

F
or Morthadus, sleep
was no blissful withdrawal, but a tormenting excavation of all he wished to keep sealed away. Fatigue merely drove him deeper to a cruel realm where body was immobilized while mind was peeled like a poisonous fruit, its spines piercing all corners of him with an electric current.

His dreams carried him to the Dark Mountains, to stand nearly one thousand years in the past with the other ninety-nine of his order, whom he’d lost. Their eyes peered like beacons into rising desolation, swords glinting silver in the moonlight, each with a round crystal centered in the hilt.

“We were told never to set foot on His ground,” he warned. In this memory he was tall and lean, with muscular arms and legs. His face was young, like smooth stone, and brown hair jutted down his forehead. “None of us fully understands the power that sleeps here, if it sleeps at all.”

“He is defeated, Morthadus,” one beside him replied. “Not for one thousand years can He return. And even so, you forget the power
we
have. Now is the time to cut each one of them down to the last.”

“But Korine’s wound has weakened him,” he implored. “He can no longer safeguard the city. If we fall, it will be left defenseless.” But they would not listen, instead marching high into the cliffs, and he reluctantly kept up alongside.

They searched all around, listening warily for familiar morbid cries as it grew difficult to see, though the bright moon bore down on their heads like an executioner. Each step only sapped their strength, making them recall the aches and pains of mortal men. And the voice… It slowly froze their blood, until finally, as they reached the summit, the enemy horde emerged behind them, pinning them against the swirling abyss.

They brandished their swords as one, countering high and low, though merely a sunken reef in ravaging currents. Their faces nearly touching those of their disfigured foes, whose ghastly breath burned their nostrils, they could feel the darkness clasp their shoulders with ghostly fingers.

“Weak… You are weak,” it whispered. “Come to me, and you will be weak no more.”

He broke rank and pushed forward alone, away from its malevolent caress, and his noble brothers wailed, backing away from the murderous beasts that replaced him and into the cold vacuum at their heels.

“Don’t leave us, Morthadus!” they pleaded. But he could only look through the tangle of claws at their desperate faces, which vanished one by one as all agonized screams were smothered, and the black mists wrapped around their helpless bodies, swallowing them whole. Clattering to the ground, unable to go into the mists with them, their swords reverberated in a chorus of unanswered calls, finally fading to utter quiet.

He wept in grief, his body twitching against the ground while every groan pulled him back from the replayed vision, and he shook violently awake. His tears imprinted damp pockmarks into the dusty rock floor, as many as all the lifetimes that had progressed, and ended, under his watch. Now, he wished only to cease watching altogether.

Yet lately, in allowing himself a closer glimpse from below at the youngest, had he renewed that bond he swore to forever keep severed? Could he truly embrace that part of himself which lived on in others, knowing that one day they would be lost while still he lingered?

Morlen abandoned any further efforts toward sleep, sitting up stiffly on his blanketed pallet as the dark tunnels echoed with a fearful din. He had returned the previous day and found Nottleforf distressed as though some growing threat approached, which finally compelled him to depart just before nightfall. Staying put at the wizard’s request, he had soon been drawn out by a sound of insatiable ruin, and as he looked upward to the stars a great shadow streaked far across the sky.

Wondering restlessly what Nottleforf had ascertained, unsure of when or if he had come back, he donned his cloak and boots, heading up through the stairwell. He was splashed with snow as the trapdoors opened, and tentatively peered west looking for columns of smoke, feeling relieved to see none so far. But he still feared that the Eaglemasters would soon face devastation even they were ill-equipped to combat.

Hearing a most welcome rustling through the foliage, he turned to see Roftome, who’d kept to the forest since their day’s flight, descending now with his beak stained from a fruitful hunt.

“Trouble for the city men,” said Morlen, eyes furtively scanning above for any movement.

“Trouble for all,” replied Roftome alertly, his voice intrepid as he worked his beak to dislodge tufts of fur. “Only the darkest heart among my kind could inhabit such lifeless flesh. And only one darker still would it call master.”

Pacing numbly through the heavy frost as every extremity tingled awake, Morlen searched for the next prudent move. Only yesterday had he thought Felkoth wounded and buried. What inhuman resolve could have driven him to elude so many, to harness the unquenchable plague whose service could only be purchased with the blood of the Blessed Ones?

Their blood had run through his father’s veins, there was no doubt, spilt with cowardice, used toward such a foul end. Yet each day he doubted its presence within his own. He had only one reliable solace: feeling the Goldshard’s jagged, flat embrace against flesh made stronger, faster, by its power. He would use that gift to fight Felkoth and his winged bearer. But, he needed to walk a path yet to be revealed, at the end of which, somewhere, sat the one who could give him real answers. One who, he had been led to believe, was a part of him.

Thinking back to the strange specter’s message high on the snowy peaks, he still had no understanding of what direction it pointed. Suddenly his attention was diverted when another concealed set of doors opened farther out in the clearing, above the wizard’s quarters. And, groggy and disheveled, as though the night’s reports had brought far grimmer news than expected, Nottleforf emerged and ambled over to them.

He feared to know how dire the Eaglemasters’ position truly was, because if they stood no chance against Felkoth now, he felt he could make little difference. “Does King Valdis live?” he asked, thinking the monarch’s death would surely leave the realm vulnerable to defeat.

Looking grave, almost as though the answer no longer mattered, Nottleforf gave an unconvincing nod. “Barely,” he said, studying the sky like a field of battle. “His two youngest sons were among those killed, four hundred in a matter of minutes when they met Felkoth, who flies now with the creature Bloodsong.”

Fears confirmed, Morlen glanced over at Roftome, who knew the imminent danger. Were they really ready to fly out against such a storm?

“There is more,” Nottleforf continued, yet to have reached the worst. “Valdis has issued a stay of flight for the Eaglemasters. They are to remain at the capital, on foot, since he has fallen to the fear that any airborne force is now futile.”

His stomach sank, as any show of submission from the Eaglemasters was unprecedented. “And what about the four lower cities? What defense will they have?”

Nottleforf shook his head, visibly weary. “The king thinks they are beyond saving, and that is not altogether mere pessimism, not with the overwhelming weapon now at Felkoth’s disposal. He has already prepared his last stand, thinking Felkoth will surely strike the capital as he did before. But… I am not so convinced.”

“You think Felkoth would rather divide the Eaglemasters than take them all on at once?” asked Morlen.

“I think he would savor their suffering for as long as possible. I think he would first have them watch as every blood-lusting wretch kept for centuries at the fringe was finally given safe passage to take its satisfaction. He will use his ascended position to make servants of all those who creep in the shadows, and only when Valdis has seen every brick toppled, and every soul devoured, will Felkoth finish him.”

Staring off in silence, Morlen knew the king must be swayed quickly if any challenge was to be mounted against such an offensive. But, to be heard, he would have to first prove himself a worthy ally, to instill in them enough confidence to meet the coming tide before it spread too far. He would need every advantage possible, all strength and guidance to be found, if he were to draw them out of hopelessness and add their momentum to his.

Nottleforf seemed to know where his mind was going, like the trail he had promised to help uncover now lay inescapably before them both, when Morlen finally said, “I need to find him now, Nottleforf. I need to find Morthadus.”

Unable to abide his scrutiny, Nottleforf looked away through the forest, perhaps toward the very place he felt so reluctant to explore. “He may not help you,” the wizard warned. “You may wish you’d never sought him out… as will he.”

Morlen refused to withdraw his attention. “I must,” he pressed adamantly, saying nothing more as Nottleforf pivoted, doubling the space between them.

They stood silently, until Nottleforf uneasily gave a deep sigh, ready to yield. “There is a cave,” he said with reservation, “at the northernmost point of this system. If you fly to the corner of the forest just overlooking the river, you will find its entrance in a small crevice at the mountain base. The tunnel leads deeper than any man would dare crawl. It is there, I believe, that you may find him.”

Back still turned, Nottleforf gave no other movement or sound, waiting only for his departure, and perhaps the peace in solitude that it would bring.

“Thank you,” said Morlen, briskly climbing onto Roftome’s waiting back and launching up while Nottleforf returned to his quarters.

Gliding along the bristly forest roof blurred by Roftome’s speed, Morlen looked unwaveringly ahead. He felt great promise to be found in the small patch hugging the distant mountain base, and in the one who dwelt far below, no longer to be obscured from his sight.

The city of Veldere rang with mournful silence for both dead and living, as every Eaglemaster stood shoulder to shoulder on its walls, staring for the first time with dread up at the skies. Deep within the citadel’s great hall, gilded with silver that now appeared dull and tarnished in the absence of laughter, King Valdis sat colorless and rigid on a cold throne.

“You cannot lie down before him like this,” Valeine implored with stained cheeks, though she held firmly against more tears. Her older brother leaned against the wall of a nearby corridor with his head pressed against the inner bend of his arm, muffling each sob that was ripped forth by memory of the two faces he’d never see again. They still shone as clearly as when he’d left them the previous day, an act for which he would never forgive himself.

“The four lower cities swell beyond capacity with all our people,” she persisted. “If you leave them vulnerable you erase all we’ve ever bled for, all reason to have ever called ourselves a kingdom of free men, women, children. You erase all hope… Father.”

Valdis slouched forward, lost in every nebulous swirl rippling through the marble floor, as though to dive out might submerge him in a dense cloud that would crush all memory away.

Giving only a feeble rasp, he muttered, “He is coming. He will come… I know.”

Frustration drew her aggressively toward him, though he paid no heed to her advance. It took every ounce of restraint in her possession not to reach out and grab him by each shoulder, knowing that even with such a physical act she stood powerless to restore any purpose in him.

“How can you be so sure he will strike here?” she demanded, louder now. “How can you yield the sky to him so openly, when he could just as easily roast you where you sit half-dead? What if he moves on my city first with the allegiance of the ferotaurs, who would gladly serve any with the means to provide them a full breach of our borders? Will you let my people fall first to them?”

His head bobbling as though barely attached, Valdis could not bring himself to look up. He merely studied the long spear laid down at his feet, its upper half of bright crystal beckoning to be wielded by arms he no longer desired to lift.

“He will come,” he repeated. “He will.”

Her stinging eyes remained locked on him, threatening to soon give way, until she was unable to look even a moment longer at what he had become. Seeing the Crystal Spear relinquished between them, she stepped closer and drew it up, striking its base forcefully to the floor, and the sound of it bounced across the hall.

Bending down toward him, she said without sympathy, “If you won’t bear this any longer, I will.” Then, unwilling to waste another moment, she turned and strode hastily out into the courtyard where her eagle sat ready to fly.

“Where are you going?” asked Verald hotly, following her out of the castle as he wiped his face of any smudge.

“Where I must,” she replied, mounting her carrier with the Crystal Spear at her side.

“If he strikes Veleseor you’ll stand no chance!”

“It is
my
city; they are
my
people,” she answered, pinning him with a scathing glare. “They will stand a chance with me, and with you too if you have the stomach.” Saying no more, she sharply faced forward as the bird launched away, flying far above all others who were committed now only to ground, and disappeared off toward the realm’s southern edge.

Sitting alone in the rusting hall, Valdis clung to the only remaining comfort he had, envisioning what would cleanse him of all fear, all doubt, and bring him fully revived to his feet. Only at the coming of the hero with the Crystal Blade, whom he’d imagined so vividly for years, would he rise again.

And the hero would come, very soon. He had to come.

Morning had grown late when Morlen and Roftome neared the northeast corner of the forest, touching down on a carpet of needles just below the mountains.

“You really mean to crawl like the tiniest of mice through some unstable fissure?” Roftome protested as Morlen dismounted and approached the snow-packed base. “Such low places were not meant for men, not even the worst ones I’ve met in my long days.”

Disconcerted to see no visible opening as Nottleforf had described, Morlen knew he would have to dig out a substantial area before pinpointing the entrance. “I mean to, yes,” he answered, scraping away one small dent at a time. “I mean to face the first of my father’s line, and see what value there is in my being the last.”