Chapter Six
SHADOW DANCERS
ELANDON AROSE QUIETLY and went out into the dawn. Tongo greeted him cheerily enough, a telling portent in its own right. High in the hickory tree along the trail to the Naleotra that had come to serve as one of their lookouts, Renyo awaited. The still air was cool and crisp. Pale hints of daylight limned the shadowy crests of the mountains, and beneath silvery tufts of fog that ribboned the lake, the dark waters glittered like gemstones.
In the distance, mingled with the first faint chirping and cooing of magpie-robins and cuckoos came subtle clucking sounds; these were the expert pigeon calls of the boundary warriors manning the watch, assuring him that no threat was present. It was the third morning and still Chenghist and his army had not come.
Sleepy-eyed and just as restless as he, the others began to rise and wander out of the spelled passages. Before long, Manuuwan, Javari and Yano, along with the five dragon children and many of the Bayang Penari reinforcements that had arrived over the past several days, gathered in measured silence beneath the branches of the majestic hardwood. His newly annointed brothers of the thunderstone, Jemi, Yntan and Velang, closed their eyes and called to their Naga, but each boy merely shrugged and shook his head. Neither the keen sight of the soaring wyverns nor Elandon’s crystalline vision had anything new to reveal; the mighty warlord, along with his Mischanter snake-men and his assembled forces of darkness, which included several thousand Horks and Trolls and a multitude of vicious Gebbeths, remained stationed across the valley and around the watering holes at the base of the Sannarka Peak.
“It’s not just that Chenghist refuses to be goaded,” announced Elandon, calling down to his companions. “He waits for something.”
Taking several moments to survey the landscape again, he was about to climb down from the tree when Renyo cawed urgently and beckoned with a single word, a warning. “Draagul,” cried the raven. The sleek black bird then spread his wings and took flight.
Elandon felt the kinetic energy brush the length of his body and as the trance quickened, he instinctively braced himself between a sturdy branch and the bough of the tree. Renyo called forth their etheric connection and at once they joined consciousness, rising into the brightening skies of daybreak. The robust hickory and those standing beneath it faded into the distance as they crossed the glimmering Naleotra and flew up through lofty banks of clouds that frayed to mist around them, bursting apart into an ever-reaching azure zenith. Catching updrafts from the Sannarka Peak and soaring high above the hazy gorges, dark ravines and sprawling spires of the Na Jao, they tilted wings and veered into a faintly shimmering pocket of air, abruptly entering the dreamscape and vectoring through the slipstream of ambient energy.
You will grow accustomed to the sensation of totemic journeying, Lan.
It had been a few days since Almyath had spoken to him and hearing her voice again was heartening. The dream within a dream, the dual realities of being wedged high in the hickory tree while at the same time flying with Renyo, was at once exhilarating and unnerving. This time there was no mushroom cake to conjoin his passage through the incorporeal vistas of the dreamscape, and the lucidity of the space-time continuum invoked a looming feeling of vertigo.
Your discomfort is resistance to what is unfamiliar to you. You must learn to inhabit the synchrony of the dreamscape. Remember your mantra!
Elandon heeded the advice of the Golden Dragon and concentrated on breathing while repeating Naleotra to himself. As before a deep inner calm, gradual and yet unmistakably familiar, supervened and he entrained with his surreal milieu. In so doing, he experienced a more luminous bounding with Renyo than before, and came to better understand the remarkable geometric flux of light and dark energy, the fractal inner workings of the winds and storms, the tides and currents―the upward shifting earth around its fiery core and the wheeling stars in the heavens―the intention, both willed and encoded, of all living things manifesting the infinite torus that is life’s interconnected web. And in this equipoise of perception, in beholding the enigma of creation’s old magic as the energetic sentience and ordering of the universe, the twofold purpose of his totemic journey came into focus.
Phantasmagoric but at the same time appearing lurid and all too real, the matrix converged upon a scene from the distant past, one that passed quickly and yet conveyed a cryptic and intricate chronicle upon which Elandon would deliberate long and hard. There beneath the raven’s wings, standing in a fishing dory on a remote coastline of the Boreal Seas and wielding a battle axe that somehow deflected the bursts of luciform from their infernal eyes, a young and hale King Asmund faced the two fierce Draaguls that history remembered as Mammon and Nergal. Alas, this was the conflict where the young Sea King suffered his dolorous wound, for before the mighty Einish dragon ships with their catapulted harpoons and spellbinding mages could rescue him, a blistering flash glanced from his axe blade and seared his groin.
Asmund can still be healed.
Almyath’s equivocation would spur abiding reflection upon King Asmund’s infamous and ill-fated fishing excursion and the interminably festering wound that robbed him of his masculinity, but for the time being, Elandon had more pressing concerns. His second witnessing occurred in real time, as they emerged from the dreamscape several leagues from the tempestuous skies above Innes Ein. Once the cherished home of the Sea Kings and their wondrous Dwarven-built fortress known as Ein Castle, it had long ago fallen to the Shadowkind and become blighted and barren, the castle reduced to a desolate ruin. Alas, the forbidding Mage Winds that interned the bornless inhabitants there had exacted a ravaging toll upon the once lush and magnificent island.
A chilling, primordial screech pierced the air, rising above the tumult of squalls and gales. Out from the roiling cloudbanks of lightning and thunder winged one of the fabled skulled birds, eyes radiating evil banefire. It flew unhindered through the storm-laden Mage Winds and into the rising sun, giant wings casting deathly shadows upon the sea. The joined pulse of man and raven quickened, for neither Renyo nor Elandon had ever actually encountered a Draagul. With astonishing speed and fury it climbed high into the southern sky, leaving Innes Ein behind. Yet before the skulled bird had passed from their range of sight, both noted the sparkling pendant chained around its neck.
They got a clear enough view for Elandon to recognize the curious adornment as yet another talismanic rendering of a pentangle and star cross entwined by a serpentine larva. Memory, knowledge, realization; sinister whispers echoed at the boundaries of his intuition―whispers from the shadows of his past, filled with menace and loathing.
The Draagul flies to aid Chenghist and his army.
♦♦♦
Renyo’s familiar caws in the skies above, one followed by two, broke his reverie. Only a short while had passed, yet like before the experience possessed a dream-like, time out of mind quality. Elandon needed a moment to consider the significance of what he’d seen and compose his thoughts.
Of one thing he was certain, however; a greater truth had been revealed in the augury of his totemic journey―that of somehow healing Asmund’s wretched wound, which the Sea King had taken with him into the afterlife. The conundrum was firmly etched in Elandon’s mind, a puzzle he knew that he alone must solve. Like a dark and curious passageway amidst the long shadows cast by the threat of the Draagul, this intriguing perception and his sense of its importance called to him by inviting contemplation upon the mysterium of death. His journey to Darkwall had taught him that such musings, and the sublime understandings they provoked, cast reality into a wholly different light.
“Come Sir Elandon, masked Paladin whom our tribes have named Topengorang. Tell us of your raven’s warning.”
He accepted the steadying arm and allowed himself to be helped down from the hickory tree. Once more, Elandon found himself taking measure of the engaging candor and formality, the ease and presence in dealing with others exhibited by this charismatic sorcerer named Enliukee, who appeared to be in command of the Bayang Penari.
An understudy of Manuuwan’s for the better part of two years, he was now a powerful and skilled soul-catcher who had been accepted by the Ungorath tribes as a Mischanter in his own right. Though younger and less experienced, Enliukee was nonetheless keen of observation and wit, and brought with him a vibrant leadership character to which the boundary warriors clearly responded. Also schooled extensively at Mission’s Cross, he had been bidden by the white witches to follow Manuuwan and try to discern Elandon’s whereabouts. Indeed, he knew just where to look and showed up with three warriors a day before the other Bayang Penari reinforcements, those located and summoned by the cave bats, began arriving.
“What is this business of a Draagul?”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Elandon sighed. “One has somehow broken free of the Mage Winds. It flies here from Innes Ein at this very moment.”
“That is troubling, indeed.”
A silent moment followed and Enliukee got a faraway look in his eyes; then he spoke again. “Almyath urges me to ask about your sword and how it is tied to the history of the Draaguls, creatures the ancient tribes called the Aza Kree, the sky lizards.”
Although he hadn’t forgotten, the reminder that the Golden Dragon forged her abiding consciousness with all the Bayang Penari was nonetheless reassuring. “Very well,” Elandon replied, drawing the steel from its scabbard across his back.
He then told those gathered before him something of the weapon he had worn for more than twenty years, the glowing blade bestowed upon him by the mythical Shepherd of the Fánaí, the revenant of the sword King Harek used to slay the notorious Draaguls, Mammon and Nergal. This heroic act took place when the Sea Kings were betrayed and ambushed in a bold siege by the Shadowkind, which led to the fall of Ein Castle and commenced the Fourth War of the Hordes. In the end, the fleet of skulled birds proved too powerful and the mighty Sea Kings, Asmund and Harek, along with their powerful mage, Cedwyn, succumbed to the savagery of the three remaining Draaguls, those known as Haygleoth, Shamadyn and Vlanghoul.
The victorious skulled birds and their forces then took up residence in the vaulted suites of the castle, as the court of the Sea Kings and all others who remained were forced to flee or be slaughtered. From Ein Castle the three Draaguls directed the hordes and executed the strategic attacks across Saorsa that ultimately defeated the allies of the Sea Kings and drove the ancient guardians into hiding. Yet in a final act of retaliation, the Mages of Awen used the greater of the Star Cross Pentacles, the Wind Pentacle, to conjure an impenetrable belt of oceanic tempests called the Mage Winds, which bound Innes Ein and its inhabitants. The war had been tragically lost, but two of the fearsome Draaguls had been slain, and the other three, along with a large contingent of Horks and Trolls, were confined. Yet how King Harek’s sword disappeared and later came into possession of the Shepherd, Taoiseach, remained a mystery to all but the Fánaí.
Enliukee translated fluently and appeared as enrapt by the tale as the dragon children. The boundary warriors were also transfixed and exchanged wary looks as they spoke among themselves, the term ‘Aza Kree’ distinguishable among their sing-song of words.
Once the chatter died down, the young soul-catcher looked at Elandon and stated matter of factly: “So your blade is hallowed, and carries a legacy worthy of such challenge as a Draagul might pose.”
“One might surmise that,” Elandon replied. “I was still a young man at the time it was given to me and it was merely a shepherd’s crook then. But as Taoiseach promised, when I was ready the crook became a great glowing sword in my hands, a magnificent weapon that has served me well.”
“Yet perhaps the fabled Shepherd foresaw this perilous circumstance, that the most feared of all Diuul’s bornless beings would someday be unfettered from Innes Ein. Thus he entrusted the revenant, a legendary blade that has slayed their brethren, into your custody?”
Elandon’s witch-eye glimmered. “I suppose that is possible.”
“Especially if one considers that the Fánaí are enjoined from directly opposing Diuul and his minions,” continued Enliukee, “unless I am mistaken in my recollection of the old lore?”
“You are not mistaken.”
The young sorcerer had drawn an astute conclusion. As with Manuuwan, his perceptual abilities and depth of knowledge were impressive. It seemed that when it came to defending the Darkwall boundary against the forces of darkness, no nuance escaped the Mischanters of the Bayang Penari.
Up until then Manuuwan had maintained an amused silence, but he now looked at Elandon and spoke softly. “Show him the inscription, Topengorang.”
Elandon carefully handed over the sword, pointing out the engravings on either side of the blade just below the hilt.
Turning the sword both ways and holding it at the proper angle, Enliukee read the cryptic words aloud. [“’Hold no blackness . . . In thy heart.’”] He then smiled to himself and exchanged a conspiratorial look with Manuuwan.
“Its full force and power have yet to be unleashed, Sir Elandon,” he said finally, as he returned the sword.
Feeling the many surrounding eyes upon him, Elandon shuffled his feet uneasily. “And that is,” he hesitated, “because I still hold a measure of blackness in my heart . . . because I have not entirely vanquished it?”
Enliukee smiled, spreading his arms wide. “Perhaps the greatest strength of the Bayang Penari is that we do not resist our lives. We take comfort in answering a greater call, one beyond ourselves and our individual successes or failures, as the case may be. In our dance with the shadow, the endless struggle to defend the Darkwall boundary, it is our victories and our defeats that teach us about the great mysteries of life and death. We must savor such lessons and learn from them, for they grant us the most potent weapons we possess against our enemy.”
“You came here seeking the heart of darkness,” added Manuuwan, his voice easy and mollifying. “It lies not only in the Na Jao jungle, but also within you. The serpent visions have helped you reconcile the past but still, somewhere . . . perhaps in the gap between your fate and destiny, ignobility lurks. Tell us of it now, so that you may finally shed the snake skin of your old life.”
During his time at Darkwall, Elandon had come to trust and profoundly respect Manuuwan, the wisdom of his time honored sorcery and uncanny connection to the jungle and all its inhabitants, which regard extended to Enliukee, as well. These men, while primitive by some standards, were sage beyond measure in the knowledge of creation’s old magic and clearly recognized the greater purpose they all shared. He was compelled to listen and consider their empathic entreaties. Yet it was Yano, ever quiet and watchful and missing nothing, who spurred him to the deeper realization that at once seemed so obvious but had still managed to elude him.
In the urgency of the past days preparations to defend the boundary against the pending attack by Chenghist and his army, the lightning spear left behind by the Na Jao Mischanter had been nearly forgotten. Now, the boundary warrior stepped forth and produced the snake-man’s perplexing spear; its talismanic mount was blackened by the flames that immolated the iridescent worm which had been wrapped around it, but the sigils and symbols, along with the pentangle of white gold centered by the cross of petrified wood inlaid with star stones, were still clearly distinguishable.
From a high branch of the hickory tree, Renyo cawed in raucous recognition.
“Tell to us, Topengorang,” beckoned Yano. “What means it?”
Elandon looked around at the curious eyes waiting for his answer. “The Draagul we saw wore a similar rendering on a chain around its neck.”
Hence he revisited the saga of the greater and lesser Star Cross Pentacles forged ages ago by the Mages of Awen to battle the Shadowkind, including why the Paladins were chosen to wield the lesser pentacles and how over generations his father and forefathers had borne the Sky Pentacle, mounted upon an Eldenwood quarterstaff spellcrafted by Rhangorian Shamans. He described the ordeal of being called upon by the Sorers, despite his youth and inexperience, to summon the elemental force of the Sky Pentacle and quell the insurrection of the dark sisters of Old Cathonia―where he lost the precious pentacle and quarterstaff after being stricken down himself in the thunderous devastation wrought from the skies.
In condensing the long and intricate tale, Elandon largely avoided the expressions of self-admonishment that came so readily to his tongue―although this required a concerted effort. But as Enliukee translated and he witnessed the ardent reactions of those listening, Elandon stood humbled by the force of their collective empathy, which suffused the undercroft of his being and calmed the unrest residing there. Little by little this puissant agency of human caring, unreserved and absolute and every bit as potent as the serpent visions, helped him tame a tired and persistent litany of muddled and guilt-laden thoughts and emotions, and clarified his perceptions.
Although the malefic intuition steepened as it emerged from the recesses of his mind, he was buoyed by an inexplicable keenness, a renewed sense of wonder that harkened back to his rigorous boyhood training, when the threat of danger promised welcome adventures with his father. Indeed, the expressions on the war painted faces of his fellow boundary warriors and in the fathomless eyes of the dragon children, the profound camaraderie they all shared, had invited Elandon to recognize and cast aside his long suffering burden of reproach.
Ironically, at that moment the visage of Erang Kastil and the seething vapor hand of Puta Hantu, swirling finger pointing at him reprovingly above the dark castle, came into his mind’s eye. But just as the threatening image formed―precisely as he remembered it from his second serpent vision―a gentle wind arose and shredded the wicked brume.
Blame is a veil of fear to be used against you, Lan. You have seen through it.
“I recognize the distinctive design and markings on the mount of the lightning spear and the talisman worn by the Draagul,” he concluded. “They are from the Sky Pentacle, which suggests it was recovered from the ruins of Old Cathonia. My instincts tell me the Sky Pentacle has been unmade somehow and recast to serve as an exemplar, a template from which foul talismans such as these are being created to countermand the old magic that binds evil. Alas, the arcane theurgies conjured by the Mages of Awen and later by the prophet appear to have been rendered vulnerable.”
“Puta Hantu,” spat Yano, “Terrible Spirit.”
“Yano is correct,” sighed Elandon. “Only the fallen mage, Maershyl, possesses the knowledge and will to commit an act of such vile consequence. But I assure you, the sullied hands of the dark sisters are in this as well.”
“There is a way to know more,” said Enliukee, taking the lightning spear from Yano and examining it more closely.
Manuuwan nodded in agreement. “If your suspicions are correct and these dreadful renderings are linked, the reinforced spells may reveal something of their chain of consecration.”
♦♦♦
Toward evening the war music resumed. The baleful and entrancing rhythms of the double-skinned and rope tuned berbicar lunna, the customary low-pitched talking drums of the Na Jao tribes which had been silent for three days, once again echoed menacingly through the dusky jungle and up the mountain shadowed ridges and valleys of the Sannarka Peak. The unprecedented siege of the Darkwall boundary by the Shadowkind, led by the fierce warlord Chenghist and his massive force of darkness, appeared to finally be at hand.
As planned, the Bayang Penari set up the tents of their faux camp in a semi-circle along the shores of the Naleotra. A large fire burned on the beach and the pole with the impaled head of the snake-man, the Na Jao Mischanter, had been repositioned in the sand on the lakeward side overlooking the blaze. The rest of the gored corpse had been kept intact and cured over the past days, the blood drained and the bones softened and removed, the innards meticulously scraped clean, the skin soaked in bark tannins and stretched to dry. Soon it would be time for the shadow dancers to bring the death dreams to life, and the headless hide of the snake-man―worn as a lurid disguise of a deadwalker―would be at the forefront of the macabre spectacle. Having suffered the brutal indignity of being captured by the hulking snake-man before Koda came to his rescue, Manuuwan derived a certain satisfaction in anticipating the clever masquerade and its strategic impact.
The thought momentarily tempered his misgivings about all he had seen earlier, when he took the snake-man’s curious lightning spear to the dragon bone seat and invoked the crimson-eyed divinity of the shrunken head amulets, the preserved wisdom of the prophet’s ten lifetimes. In response, the convergent energies of the dreamscape had revealed cryptic and unsettling visions involving Davada Cruz’s progeny, whose whereabouts were among the few well-kept confidences of the Cathonian Sisterhood. Initially he saw the youngest son, Dayfid, accompanied by the Mother Superior herself as they peered into a scrying glass, where a frightening creature―one known by Mischanters and Shamans as a Morphling―remarkably shapeshifted from a flower into one of the Aza Kree, a Draagul. It later became painfully evident that this creature was the prophet’s older son, Crystian, and that he possessed the lost and now desecrated Sky Pentacle of the Paladins, which invoked the elemental forces in unintended ways and granted him obscene power.
These images took place in a blighted quagmire that could only have been the fabled Nah Kenna Swamp on the island of Saorsa. Manuuwan again witnessed Crystian Cruz in the shape of a Draagul, savagely offering blood sacrifices upon an arcane altar fitting the description of the lost Tablet and Rose Stone of the Mages of Awen; then an ambiguous metamorphosis revealed him as both superhuman and sadly pitiful―a vassal of blood magic bonded by the very talisman that granted his empowerment; this was followed by a scene where two enormous black wolves emerged from the marshy underbrush and braved the deadly luciform gaze of his reasserted Draagul aspect, luring him away from their hidden pack mates and allowing them to escape.
Manuuwan had then been given a glimpse into the future, where he saw himself in the Nah Kenna Swamp amidst this foreboding chaos―leaning over the Tablet and Rose Stone and studying the blood-caked runes and symbols. Next to him stood Elandon di Brehon, the last Paladin, even though most believed that he perished in the conflict with the Shadowkind at Darkwall. And from beyond the trees on either side of the altar, their yellow eyes shining like beacons through the murk, beckoned the two mighty black wolves. Follow us! They spoke directly into his and Elandon’s minds. Follow us!
As the perplexing divinations faded and his consciousness returned to the dragon bone seat, he had been shown a vivid memory of Davada Cruz’s final visit to the Darkwall boundary, when they had spent an entire morning traversing the network of cliff paths and mountain corridors together. The prophet had carefully examined the scarps of the Sannarka Peak by pitching his voice in various tones and from different positions and angles, measuring the echoes and marking the critical fault lines in the shale with points of crimson light that connected back to the spelled passages. The prophet’s inscrutable words had returned to him and now resounded in his thoughts: When the time comes, Manuuwan, you will understand.
Although Manuuwan wasn’t quite sure what it all meant, he gave credence to the visions and trusted that their significance would occur to him, in ways both expected and unexpected. Experience had born out the sagacity of the sacred flesh and its great sacrifices, the last of which had just been consummated. The incarnate wisdom of the prophet’s ten lifetimes and that of the Bayang Penari Mischanters who had tended his prophecy by reinforcing the spells, as well as the enigmatic dreams within dreams of the Golden Dragon and her hatchling―all were embodied in the sacred crèche of Darkwall and there was no denying its providence.
Of one thing he was immediately certain, however, as the the watchwords that came to him rang true: I have fulfilled the calling to tend the last and greatest sacrifice of the sacred flesh, and I cannot fail its final teaching. My Bayang Penari path has become intertwined with that of Elandon di Brehon, and in the gap between my own fate and destiny, I must now take my place beside him.
The time for Manuuwan to share these revelations was nigh. Standing before the hot blaze beneath the impaled head of the snake-man and spinning the foul lightning spear back and forth in his hands, he caught the eyes of Elandon and Enliukee from across the way and waved them over. He then cast a high moan into the sky and clicked his tongue loudly, summoning Tongo and Koda. The giant, brown-furred bear burst through the trees and lumbered out onto the beach toward them, while the lemur broke from the company of the dragon children and obediently answered the call.
“Come,” said the soul-catcher. “Let us take counsel while there is still time.”
♦♦♦
Thus began the siege of Darkwall that no one except the prophet had anticipated. It would be a terrible and portentous affair, and the accounts would be largely inaccurate. Suffice it to say that words fell short of describing the mystical powers of light and dark energy that clashed on that momentous occasion. But slight-of-hand was also present, the infamous and highly irregular ‘little war’ tactics of the Bayang Penari known by the Ungorath and Na Jao tribes as sedihat perang, which played a significant role; indeed, many of those who lived to perpetuate the tale beyond the confines of the jungle were tricked and confused by what they saw.
The forces of darkness ascended the pathways of the Sannarka Peak in loose bands; there were no coherent ranks or orderly divisions of any sort. Without the pretense of discipline, the Horks and Trolls swarmed up the mountain as a ragged and blood-thirsty horde. Such was the sum and substance of it, for so arrogant was Chenghist, so smug and self-assured―so confident of his superior numbers that he made no attempt to order his ranks. Obviously he meant to storm the shores of the Naleotra and overwhelm the boundary warriors, to simply sweep through and crush them. Furthermore, despite the exponentially potent final reinforcement of the spells of the Darkwall boundary, the warlord seemed to believe his serpentine-possessed Mischanters could defeat the ancient enchantments and allow the Shadowkind to pass through, just as the hulking snake-man and his talismanic spear had done.
Night fell and the moon rose red-rimmed in the sky. The foreboding, war-hammer wind cropped up again from the south, searing and tinged with the reek of volcanic ash. Brilliant spirals of lightning arced across the sky and cascades of white fire flashed in the draws through the mountains, leaving blinding after-trails in their wake. Serpens-like meteor showers emerged from the glaring heavens, writhing, faceless astral anomalies, miasmal clusters of light rayed with enfolding shadows; and flying over the vapor clouds of the jungle just above the horde as it climbed to the boundary, was the fearsome Draagul, its luciform eyes flaring.
The defenders were comprised of forty-six boundary warriors, five dragon children, and the multitude of spirit totems that had flocked to the shores of the Naleotra when the spells were reinforced. They belonged to one another in an enigmatic ordering that went something like this: Manuuwan was bonded to Tongo and Koda, and while all the Bayang Penari communicated with the cave bats through airy squeals and whistles, the sorcerer clearly held a special sway with the legion of clever creatures. The Paladin was joined with Renyo; Javari shared the broad province of a great rhinoceros named Eyghaar, and Yano hunted with his pride of stealthy lions. Then there were the Andapa, a pack of hyenas with a fierce female leader―after whom the wily clan was named―who roamed the boundary with Enliukee. A host of curious wyverns, of which only some were the Naga of the dragon hunters, circled vigilantly above the rocky ledges and perched on the overhangs, while countless other animal guardians, some bound to members of the Bayang Penari and some to the spirit of the land itself, occupied the surrounding territory.
Of course they were no match for the warlord Chenghist and his army of two thousand Horks and Trolls, with their savage Gebbeths, snake-man Mischanters, and a Draagul aiding them from the sky. Hence the plan of the shadow dancers—to which certain alterations were made in the counsel of Manuuwan, Enliukee and Elandon and communicated among the totems by Koda and Tongo—concerned itself with the death dreams they would enact to distract their enemy. These illusions were intended to play upon the superstitions of the Shadowkind and break the blood bond the mighty warlord held over his forces, while at the same time presenting them with something unexpected―something to throw them off balance and at the same time make them believe one of their purposes had been fulfilled―to convince them that their prey, Elandon di Brehon, was already dead.
♦♦♦
Show them death! Almyath spoke to all of them, boundary warriors and spirit totems alike. Even the dragon children heard her through their firedrakes, her voice steady and assured.
Elandon lay unmasked on a pallet of grass; his head was propped up just enough to see into the surrounding mountains. The luminous flux of the night sky reflected in his witch-eye, dancing with the flames of the freshly stoked wood fire. The time for regret and uncertainty had passed. Firmly woven into the weave traced by the solemn auguries of the day, he could only trust the ruse and hope that his unreserved consent would grant Manuuwan and Enliukee enough leverage to negotiate the onslaught.
In the event his constraint failed to achieve its desired purpose, however, his hallowed blade, the revenant of King Harek’s sword, lay unsheathed and waiting beside him. Absently, he reached over and wrapped his hand around the hilt. Then he checked the pocket of his leather jerkin to make sure the pouch of thunderstones was still there.
“Hold still, Topengorang,” said Kahya, kneeling beside him. “Remember, you’re dead.”
“Yes,” echoed Diah, tucking the grass more tightly about him and covering the scabbard and faintly glowing blade. “The enemy draws near.”
The dragon children had fearlessly gathered by the fire and were accompanied by a number of wyverns that had come down to the shores of the Naleotra. Some of the cagey firedrakes shuffled restlessly in the flickering shadows beyond the firelight, while others took brief flights over the lake. Manuuwan sat cross legged and silent beneath the impaled head of the snake-man, watching and listening. Enliukee and the rest of the Bayang Penari had constructed a protective barrier of spear-anchored war shields around the perimeter of the blaze and then taken their places, hidden from sight. Renyo cawed from the hickory tree. All was at ready.
Show them death! The Golden Dragon repeated her decree. Each time she did this their collective sentience—their Naguia, expanded, inviting an increased sharing of perception even with the wyverns. Yet through this omniscience, Elandon and his fellow boundary warriors became aware of a distressing development, something the uncanny creatures had already communicated to the young Naga Anak: The Shadowkind had taken Lebatuh, the old Mischanter of the Rainwalker tribes, as a hostage.
Kahya stood up, realizing now that through Almyath they could all hear her speak. “My grandfather is brave and wise,” she declared, with perfect command of the common speech. Yet while resolute and determined, hers was still the voice of a child and quavered with emotion; all were saddened by her words. “Lebatuh is Naga Pemburu. A dragon hunter knows that to die protecting the tribes is a most honorable death, one that merits favor in the afterlife. He created a diversion to keep the Tempat Suaka from being discovered by the Draagul. For now the Rainwalkers are safe. He urges you not to barter for his freedom.”
A pall hung in the air. Tongo mewled from somewhere along the path nearby and Koda bellowed woefully in the distance, for they had known Lebatuh most of their lives.
“There is more,” added Kahya. “The warlord is accompanied by two dark sisters. One of them is an old blind crone. The Draagul is tethered to her wand by the talisman around its neck.”
♦♦♦
Manuuwan stood patiently, watching the roiling heavens heave and flare. Vapor clouds trundled like tattered rags over shadowy whorls and coiling trails of light, the entire expanse of the southern sky undulant and menacing. Amidst the volcanic winds that raged and moaned from Nìos Isle, swirling through the gaps and gorges of the Sannarka Peak and fanning the flames of the fire before him, he listened—with his own trained ears and with the manifold ears of his companions, the sense amplified immeasurably by the keen hearing of the spirit totems―for the approach of the horde. Any hope Chenghist may have had of masking the movement of his forces in the sweltering gusts was readily defeated by the joined awareness bestowed upon the defenders by the voice of the Golden Dragon.
Before long the first raucous throngs streamed down into the far end of the basin from the upper scarps. Bearing scythes and battle axes and spiked cudgels, and lacking any semblance of order or structure among their ranks, they smacked of haughty insolence and false pride. Even as the rage rose inside him, Manuuwan recognized their deportment as an aspect of the warlord’s blood bond. While Horks and Trolls were vicious and brutal creatures made over into the enduring service of evil, their intelligence was compromised by the transmuted depravity of soullessness, as was their countenance, which could be fractious when faced with reminders of their previous lives.
They know they are atrocities, reptilian husks of their former selves.
The blood bond compensated for these deficiencies, linking the Horks and Trolls in a cogency of acumen, attitude, and purpose; they became obedient and loyal soldiers, unquestioning and unyielding, binding reflections of the warlord himself. Hence the impudence they now exhibited actually belonged to Chenghist, who was clearly confident in the forces of darkness he brought to bear. Breaking his bond would not be an easy task, but no one was more accomplished at sedihat perang―the staging of illusions of death as a way of battle, than Manuuwan. Moreover, the warlord’s choice to assail Darkwall and test his strength against the ancient enchantments of the Golden Dragon, reinforced over the generations by the incarnate prophecy of the sacred flesh, presented the Bayang Penari with their own unique advantages.
There were unpredictable factors present however, which included the Draagul and the dark sisters, particularly the one to which the Aza Kree was yoked, and the talismanic empowerment of the snake-man Mischanters who blasted the sky with elemental conjuring. There was no way to anticipate the threat they posed, or to conceive a strategy to deal with them. Like Chenghist and his horde, they were out of their element here at the boundary, yet that fact merely emphasized the brashness of the siege. All the same, what mattered at the moment was the first wave of the attack, which consisted of an unruly swarm of Horks and Trolls.
Despite their ferocity, Horks and Trolls harbor fear of an eternal reckoning that comes for them from the hereafter.
As the vanguard advanced, a series of tormented screams descended from the trees and the enemy hesitated, lifting their heads to listen. A few moments later the haunting wails echoed down again, this time seemingly closer, and the monstrous saurian creatures slowed once more and looked at each other, hunching down now in caution and uncertainty. The shrieks could not have been made by a human voice, nor did any jungle or mountain animal cry out with such explicit despair. The nearness of the weirding yowls that came next, which sounded from every direction in chorused answer to those first lamenting cries, keened and cackled hauntingly.
In truth it was Tongo who raised the eerie ruckus of the afterworld―the deathly singing Manuuwan had taught him―and the Andapa pack, sounding every bit like ravening daemons that cleverly joined their voices in reply to his. Simultaneously, the spelled passages came to life; the caverns once again filled with misty light and the inner strata resounded as Davada Cruz’s skeletal images pushed out further from the rock faces, fixing themselves in final and emphatic detail. And emerging from the main passageway was Javari, wearing the gored and headless hide of the snake-man and waving Elandon’s mask back and forth.
“Paladin mati,” he called out in the Na Jao tongue. “The Paladin is dead.”
The echoes rang, “Paladin mati! . . . Paladin mati!”
Manuuwan joined in the fervent cry, as did the bold Denai―the three boys having taken it upon themselves to load their deadly slings and climb into the trees along the path to the lake—and the boundary warriors stationed among the rimrocks and upper ledges of the peak and across the forested basin. “Paladin mati!” they shouted together, “Paladin mati!”
The effect was dramatic and instantaneous. After a few moments the enemy had entirely halted their advance. The howls and cries and shouts beset them from every side. They scanned the boundary for their foemen, but all they saw was the deserted camp with the ring of war shields and the soul-catcher, standing over a body near the fire, and the luminous, fossilized passages of Darkwall, where the headless deadwalker beckoned. Still, the echoes encircled them, showering down upon them. “Paladin mati! Paladin mati!”
Chenghist’s frontline forces scattered. The main body turned and drove back into those still descending from the mountain passageways, while others broke off for the hills and still others made their way to the distant shores of the lake.
During the cacophony and confusion of this spectacle, only Manuuwan and Elandon took notice of the two Lalar. Ducking behind the soul-catcher as he began to shout and disappearing into the shadows beyond the fire, Kahya and Diah quickly mounted their wyverns and took to the sky above the Naleotra, then winked away into the dreamscape.
♦♦♦
During the hushed waiting that followed, something occurred that seemed both out of place and yet extraordinarily relevant. Elandon continued his ruse of being dead to defy enemy eyes that might be upon him, and the fitful rest of the past few nights caught up with him unexpectedly. He had dozed off lying on his grass pallet and now came to with a start, as the cheers and whoops erupting from the horde in the distance announced the arrival of the warlord and his entourage. The tempests of wind and sky were unchanged and the fire still blazed, but he was unsure of how much time had passed.
A brief but vexing dream lingered into his waking.
He had witnessed the stricken King Asmund in a great hall attended by a mysterious assembly of nobles, including clan lords and ladies and envoys of the Fair Folk, bearing tokens of unknown import; among these were a gilded hauberk, an Eldenwood lance bloodied at its point, and a brace of jeweled knives presented by a young, tawny-skinned maiden of striking beauty and a similarly complected boy, silent and serious. The focus of this odd procession was the Coire Ardagh, a sacred cauldron carried by the Sea Kings on their voyage to Moirai from the land of Ein, from which damsels in flowing white raiment dipped cloths of holy water and folded them into the hands of waiting mages, each of whom ministered to Asmund’s black and festering wound.
Many myths and rumors surrounded the ceremonial Einnish cauldron. Hewn of spun silver and intricately appointed with gold, stained glass and polished crystal, it was engraved with elaborate depictions of various animals and mythical beings, the most notable of which were dragons. The magnificence and splendor of the Coire Ardagh, along with the strange nature of the ritual and the urgent way the beautiful maiden had fixed her lucent eyes upon him, were such that Elandon had been rendered speechless. Consequently, he failed to pose an important question to his long deceased liege―a question that he could not now recall. The images and the distinct feeling of frustration, the sense of allowing himself to be distracted and therefore missing a critical chance to solve the riddle of healing Asmund, were vivid and unsettling.
King Asmund’s wound embodies the dark aspect of divinity.
Once again Almyath’s equivocation was steeped in a confounding wisdom, one that spoke to some aptitude Elandon possessed but was not entirely in touch with. Her sage words nonetheless coaxed a deeper reckoning; for despite the numinous nature of the explorations into King Asmund’s plight, there was no denying the spiral of percipience expanding within him. Still, he could not make sense of the disturbing dream, nor could he put it out of his mind.
His deliberation was soon broken, however, by Chenghist’s deafening roar to rally his Horks and Trolls. The warlord was rejoined by a series of strident shouts and hoots and war cries, as if some formation of the horde had taken shape after all, with each division answering in turn. Then the surge began and a low rumble swiftly grew into a thunderous and fearsome rush, as the regathered forces of darkness charged across the boundary.
♦♦♦
All who would look upon the chaos that ensued after the Darkwall Conflict and raise their profane complaint knew not the truth of Chenghist and his incomparable siege, when the mighty warlord and his ferocious horde invaded the soaring scarps of the Sannarka Peak with their ungodly bloodlust and violated the hallowed ground of the Golden Dragon and her hatchling.
Those residing in the lofty towers of righteousness and omnipotence who perused all that occurred in the realm of Moirai and pronounced upon it, could not have foreseen the catastrophe that came to pass or presumed its consequence. Davada Cruz himself, the estranged prophet of the Cathonian Church who presaged the disaster and its repercussions, and whose sacred flesh served to fortify the ancient spells that defended against the threat, did not possess the power to prevent it.
Accordingly the blame imparted on Elandon di Brehon―the aspersion cast upon the last Paladin that played to the trepidations of the many―flew in the face of reason and served a more sinister design; only those wise to the corrupted wiles of the Sisterhood knew better than to heed such falsity. Yet even the brave souls who understood fear as the foremost enemy of mankind and came forth to cast their own safety to the wind, those whose lasting allegiance to the sovereignty of the Sea Kings compelled them to continue seeking light along the conflicted pathways of darkness, would have occasion to grieve the ever deepening shadows of heaven. Conversely, for the Bayang Penari and the Naga Pemburu, conquering the fear imposed by blood magic and transmuted serpentine larva had always been a just reward, and so it would remain.
The defenders triumphed that night, but they also fueled the carefully banked coals of anarchy and fanned them into flames. Aided by the spelled passages and the divine sacraments of the sacred flesh, they succeeded in protecting the boundary and preserving the sanctified crèche of Darkwall, but not without incurring an abiding toll. Alas, the victory that purchased liberty not just for the Ungorath and Rainwalker tribes but for the entire island of Dramhail heralded a new time of travail for Moirai, one in which insatiable evils long banished from the realm would be revived. And at the apex of those evils were the most savage and maleficent of all the Shadowkind, the Draaguls.
One of these treacherous creatures, which history commonly referred to as giant skulled birds but which the tribes knew as sky lizards―the Aza Kree, started the battle. Bearing the foul talisman chained around its neck and leading the enemy advance, its mighty wings flapping and its predacious screeches resounding across the waters of the Naleotra, the Draagul flew out in front of the horde. Casting red banefire in wide sweeping arcs, its luciform gaze exposed the hiding places of many of the boundary warriors and spirit totems.
Do not look directly into its eyes.
With the collective sentience impelled by Almayath’s words, the defenders all discerned the Draagul’s seething, primordial malice, a timeless antipathy. But alas, her warning went unheeded by several impetuous members of the lion pride. The Aza Kree swooped suddenly to the ground between the stunned pair of young lions, picking one up in each curved talon and slinging the formidable big cats through the air as if they were playthings. The bodies hurtled through the trees with sickening sounds, careening off branches and crashing into trunks as bones twisted and snapped and flesh was pulverized in swift and appalling death. The sky lizard cocked its horned skull and let forth an earsplitting shriek, then climbed back into the sky.
It circled and with furious speed dove once again, this time into a row of boundary warriors who braved the horror and stood ready to strike the winged monster. Hoisting spears and hurling finely balanced daggers and bone knives, the honed points and blades of their weapons merely bounced off the thick-scaled hide. Sweeping one of its sinewy pinions through their midst and raking its wicked talons at those who leapt aside, the creature left four or five warriors slashed and bleeding; among these was Yano, who was the first dragged to the relative safety of the thicket by the fearless lions.
More blades and heavy spears flung by the surrounding Bayang Penari simply deflected off the Draagul’s shimmery scales, which were seemingly impenetrable. In response, it whirled around and launched red-hot streams of luciform that fired the underbrush, again dispersing the defenders and driving them to seek cover wherever they could. Once more it issued a booming, primal screech and then took flight.
A thunderous cheer erupted from the rapidly approaching enemy, a harsh baying of shouts and cries mixed with the pounding of drums. But instead of commencing the attack, the horde came to a halt and separated into isles, opening the way for two large platforms that rolled up to the Bayang Penari camp. Each was moved by the strength of enormous Trolls, giants that pushed effortlessly. Upon one platform stood two snake-man Mischanters wielding the lightning spears that blasted the sky; on the other were two dark sisters, a younger priestess and an old blind witch whom she attended, her habit tattered and dirty and her eye-lids long sewn shut. The crone steadied herself with a cane while directing a swirling, shadowed vortex from her wand that illuminated the star stones imbedded in the talisman around the Draagul’s neck, holding it at bay as it circled overhead.
Finally Chenghist himself, a Troll larger even than the giant attendants, emerged from between the rolling daises. Carrying a fierce battle-axe in one hand, the mighty warlord possessed a physique of chiseled muscle and like all the Trolls, wore only a loin-cloth. Pitching his voice in a manner both commanding and beguiling―his facility with the common speech eloquent and without the customary sibilance of the Shadowkind―he seemed to raise the already sweltering heat of the night, filling the air with a haughty menace that dripped like beads of sweat down the spines of the defenders.
“Come my cunning tricksters,” he said, spreading his arms expansively, “can we not be reasonable? Our shared destiny, the Age of the Shadow, is upon us. All who resist shall be annihilated. You have already glimpsed the ease by which that can be accomplished.”
He then turned and gestured and after a moment, hands bound and stumbling at the brutal prodding of two Hork captains, a harried looking Lebatuh came to stand beside him. “Here is one of your kin who understands this fate. Indeed, the past may be put aside. The proper recompense necessary to usher in this new age can be agreed upon.”
Manuuwan slowly stepped out from behind the fire, moving forward but remaining inside the ring of war shields. “We strike no deals with the Shadowkind,” he said calmly, “now or ever.”
“Very well, soul-catcher,” replied Chenghist, his voice inflecting a discordant warning, “but I invite you to reconsider. All we ask for is the Paladin. In return, the old Mischanter goes free and his Rainwalker tribes are absolved of their yearly slave tribute.” The warlord then smiled, pausing for emphasis. “Otherwise . . . his blood and that of the Rainwalkers . . . will be on your hands.”
“The Paladin is dead.” Manuuwan looked back at the impaled head above him. “He died of wounds inflicted by your vile snake-man and his lightning spear.”
“In that case, give us his corpse.”
Manuuwan motioned at Elandon’s prone body. “Before his untimely passing, the Paladin became one of us, a Bayang Penari. His memory shall be celebrated by our people. But for the proper turning of the bones, his sacred crossing to the afterworld, he belongs with his own kind in Rhangoria. In the way of our tribes, his body has been preserved in honey and tangle grass. Later he will be packed in salt and I myself will take him back to his homeland.”
“We care nothing about these asinine death rituals,” Chenghist bellowed, losing patience with the situation. At that moment, however, one of the Hork captains stepped forward and hissed something only the warlord could hear.
Chenghist composed himself. “Perhaps you will listen to reason from one of your own ilk. It seems the Rainwalker Mischanter here believes he can persuade you.”
Although he possessed an alluring power of speech that was almost musical at times, Chenghist’s volatile outbursts belied the sincerity of his words. Clearly the Shadowkind and those who served them―such as the tainted priestesses of the Cathonian Sisterhood, had reasons for wanting custody of the Paladin, for he posed a threat reaching far beyond the Na Jao jungle. But what stood before the defenders was more than a mere show of strength, and they knew that despite his feigned diplomacy, the mighty warlord had every intention of rallying his massive and divergent forces of darkness to defeat the spelled passages of Darkwall, which would sound the death knell for the Ungorath and Rainwalker tribes.
The defenders also knew Lebatuh, and thus were not surprised by his last words. “Only lies come from lizard tongues, Manuuwan,” he shouted. “Don’t believe!”
With that the warlord’s battle-axe fell.
♦♦♦
Many things appeared to happen at once. But in reality there were a rapid succession of events, and Elandon’s gift of crystalline vision allowed him to witness them in the order they occurred. Rainbow shards flickered from his witch-eye and the passing of time seemed to come almost to a halt; then, akin to his first serpent vision but without the venoms of spider and snake, he was moved to pass between the worlds of the living and the dead, something he accomplished by simply thinking about it. Arising from the confines of his flesh, the specter of a young boy floating in the air above where his body lay on the grass pallet, he observed the Darkwall Conflict commence in earnest. And in those brief and vivid moments, the sky seemed to once again come down and save him, showing him what he must do in order to thrust his sword into the heart of darkness.
The medicine cloud exists within you, Lan.
The undergrowth heaved apart as Koda roared and charged with blinding speed into the enemy. Saliva dripped from his fangs and his claws ripped furiously as he thrashed through the horde and toppled over both rolling daises. Globs of reptilian flesh and entrails were strewn this way and that before the huge bear, outraged at the ruthless beheading of Lebatuh and spouting blood from wounds inflicted by blades and cudgels, collapsed as the Gebbeths converged to tear at his flanks and clamp their vicious jaws around his hind legs; still bawling madly, he was swallowed by the swarm.
Tongo trilled from the treetops and Manuuwan moaned sorrowfully. But alas, now was not the time to mourn the deaths of the valiant Lebatuh and Koda.
With a shrill whistle the soul-catcher summoned the legion of cave bats, which emerged from the spelled passages and filled the air with their distinctive clicking sounds, like the striking together of thousands of pebbles. The ultrasonics―the echolocation dynamics of these flying mammals―somehow interrupted Chenghist’s blood bond, thrusting the horde into a state of disarray. At the same time, the wyverns understood and shared this distinctive modus of communication, for they immediately mobilized in flight above the boundary and were joined by the Lalar of the Naga Anak, who suddenly appeared on their firedrakes. Together they navigated strategic aerial maneuvers, flying in and out through the dreamscape and occupying the Draagul with adversaries too numerous and elusive to overcome.
Their presence unannounced and materializing as mere specks in the distance beneath moonlight and flashing sky, four large parties of dragon hunters emerged from the deep caverns and crevices along the upper scarps and fanned out across the southern stretch of the Sannarka Peak, behind the enemy. Bowstrings from powerful recurves twanged together in release and the humming of air over feathers was the only discernable warning before the hail of arrows, one volley after another, struck their targets. The Naga Pemburu had years of skill hunting and defending their territory against the threat of the Shadowkind―the women had been Lalar as children and mastered marksmanship mounted upon their wyverns, while the men had been Denai who carefully fashioned the mighty bows and crafted the arrows and arrowheads. All were expert archers who routinely brought down prey over distance with pinpoint accuracy; hence they were unerring in calculating the spiraling currents rising from the basin.
At Enliukee’s signal, heard by all through the shared sentience of Almyath and answered no fewer than seven times across the basin, the boundary warriors and spirit totems drove like banshees into the disoriented horde. By employing multiple points of attack led by the charging rhino Eyghaar, the deceptively quick and daring pride of lions, and the shrewd but savage Andapa, they repeatedly forced the enemy to back in upon themselves in defensive posture. Though the striking forces were small, the befuddled Horks and Trolls struggled to respond to all of them, and were punished severely as a result. Chenghist and his forces could neither unify nor concentrate their defense, and were therefore robbed of the advantage granted by their superior numbers. Again and again the swift moving defenders struck and retreated, timing their raids between the barrages of dragon hunter arrows, severing jugulars and beheading as many Horks and Trolls as possible.
Meanwhile, under the cover of teeming cave bats and having called down some of the wyverns to ward against their foes, especially the Gebbeths―many of which had torn away from the leashes of their masters―scores of the Denai who had descended unseen from the heights moved in behind the attacks. Joined by Yntan, Jemi and Velang and wielding the razor-sharp blades they took such care in forging themselves, the courageous boys of the Naga Anak rushed onto the battlefield and deftly slit the thickly scaled necks of the remaining victims, bleeding the husks to prevent them from regenerating.
Not until Chenghist himself stood with the giant Troll attendants and shielded the upended Mischanters and dark sisters did the enemy regain any semblance of equilibrium. The serpentine-possessed sorcerers reasserted the force of their lightning spears to detonate the skies directly above, and for a moment the horde seemed to rally. But on this occasion the uncanny conjuring, at least doubly as powerful as when the lone snake-man invoked it to pass through Darkwall, served only to trigger those vast and prescient dominions of the sacred flesh that had been sacrificed to uphold the sanctity of the Golden Dragon and her hatchling. Indeed, the reinforced spells held against the foul talismanic magic that would defeat them.
Along with her young attendant, the crone whom Elandon recognized from many years before at the Ring of Ardhath seemed none the worse for wear, despite having fallen beneath Koda’s rampage. The old blind witch spat as she hoisted her wand and summoned the Draagul. But the spelled passages were awash in a brilliant silvery light awakened by the fell magic of the lightning spears, which safeguarded the openings and extended into the tempest above Darkwall. The sky lizard dove and smashed against the eldritch barrier, only to be violently jarred backward and sent into a tail-spin. For a moment it was rendered vulnerable to the firedrakes but then recovered mid-air and screeched furiously at the aged dark sister, as if to admonish her.
The essential shadow of heaven is death itself.
Almyath’s words urged Elandon to come to the ground and reach for his sword, which seemed to rise from its covering of grass to greet him. Grasping the hilt and holding the glowing revenant before him, still in the form of his spirit child―his pneuma, he walked from the Bayang Penari camp. He stopped and stood halfway between the ring of war shields―each of which had been captured by the triggered spells to reflect Chenghist’s image―and the bewildered horde. Though clearly perplexed by the spectacle, the fuming and frustrated warlord could not resist and with his battle-axe raised, came to meet the unspoken challenge.
Like a whirlwind the mighty Troll swung his crescent cleaver, only to be thwarted at every advance. Renyo swooped back and forth between the combatants and persisted in distracting the warlord, while Elandon, his gossamer, child-like frame not even half the size of the giant, skillfully side-stepped and parried the assaults. It soon became evident the axe could not best the hallowed sword, but still Chenghist pressed the fight.
At each resounding clash of their weapons the silvery light of the spelled passages intensified, spreading farther across the basin and up into the steep cliffs, illuminating the fault lines in the shale of the Sannarka Peak with oscillating, crimson dots. The mountains rumbled and the inevitable finally dawned on the warlord: he was about to bring down an avalanche upon his forces of darkness. His first nervous glance over his shoulder was ignored by Elandon, who treated it as a feint and held steady in defense.
Perhaps this lulled Chenghist into a false sense of security, for as boulders and loose rock began tumbling down from the scarps he chanced a second look backward, which proved fatal. With his lone thrust of the gravid dual, Elandon ran his sword through the mighty warlord, who stumbled and fell backward, a look of fear and disbelief in his melting eyes. Stepping forth and pulling his blade, which still glowed despite the putrid gore dripping from it, Elandon then slit the throat of the giant Troll. Viscous black blood infested with serpentine larva fountained over the ground and a series of changing, anguished faces―some contorted in rage and others in terror, but all registering the resignation of despair and self-loathing―came over the reptilian beast as the many lifetimes of a treacherous and ancient existence passed across his dying visage. An odd and bitter pity lingered briefly in the air and then faded, giving way to the reek of black blood.
Even as another temblor shook the heights and the frantic forces of darkness turned and fled, Almyath drew the attention of the defenders toward the heavens and the primeval malice of the Aza Kree. The talismanic magic that yoked it to the crone had been used to tantalize the creature, allowing it to sense freedom even though she manipulated it from afar; and for that, the Draagul held deep contempt for the old blind witch. Vassalage to humankind was an outrage for this demonic being from the dawn of time, which had served as one of the vaunted warmarks of the Shadowkind in the Wars of the Hordes, leading them to victory in the last of those conflicts.
Sensing the barrier of the spelled passages diminishing its tether to the wand of the dark sister, the great skulled bird had gained altitude and would never return to its hated constraint. Shrieking in exultation and caring little about the death of the warlord Chenghist or the failed assault on Darkwall, the Draagul ripped the chained talisman from its neck and flew off through the great maelstrom over the boundary, knowing that for the first time in ages it was truly free.
He is the one called Haygleoth.
♦♦♦
Copyright © Shawn Quinlivan, 2019. Shawn Quinlivan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All original images used by permission. Digital artistry by Shawn Quinlivan.
