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Authors: Chris (chris R.) Evans

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BOOK: A Darkness Forged in Fire
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He nudged the cock all the way back, the chunk of flint held in its steel jaws glinting with purpose. He stood like that for several seconds, his hands growing slick on the wooden portions of the gun. All too quickly the nostalgia of the past bled away, leaving him alone again in a strange land very far from home.

Another sound came from somewhere to his left and Konowa moved toward it, allowing his senses to guide his feet as he kept his eyes searching the shadows ahead. The stillness of the forest hung like a veil from the branches, and the longer he walked the harder it seemed to push forward. He had decided he would only walk another fifty yards when he stepped into a clearing, and what had only been an exceptionally bad day became a waking nightmare.

FOUR

N
ot more than thirty yards away across the clearing crouched four rakkes around a fallen tree.

Four seven-foot-tall, boulder-shouldered, black, scraggly haired rakkes all staring at Konowa with milky eyes deep-set in scarred, leathery faces.

But rakkes were extinct.

What Konowa was seeing was impossible, yet he knew they were rakkes. He'd seen the drawings on stretched hides handed down from generation to generation, heard the ancient tales, even held a skull of one of the creatures in his hands. They had lived high in the mountain, coming down like nightfall to ravage the land below. The elves of the Long Watch had hunted them down and destroyed them. Centuries ago, and an ocean away.

Yet all of that meant nothing now. Four rakkes were only thirty yards away from him. They stood up as one, teetering slightly in this new bipedal stance, like drunks one round away from falling. Long, curving claws slid out from pawlike hands that hung down by their knees.

The largest of them opened its mouth to reveal long, yellow fangs glistening with saliva. It screamed a high, mewling cry and the other three responded in kind, shaking the forest floor.

It was a sound as cold and black as the depths of time it should have been lost in.

"Cawwnnnawahhhh…"

Konowa's chest heaved, his breath rushing out as forcefully as if he'd been hit with a cannonball.

The largest of the four rakkes had clearly said his name. The creature's mouth contorted with the effort as it struggled to pronounce it, its tongue more used to moving around lacerated flesh than words.

"Cawwnnnawahhhh…"

He should have run away. It was the sensible thing to do.

Konowa fired his musket, then ran straight at the rakkes, screaming for all he was worth.

There was a loud crack, followed by a huge billowing cloud of acrid-smelling smoke flecked with sparks as the musket bucked in his hands. The musket ball passing through the chest of the rakke saying his name with a wet thwack, blowing out chunks of eerily white spine through the now gaping hole in its back.

Running hard, Konowa grabbed the musket by its warm muzzle and swung the weapon in a smooth arc at a second rakke's head. The musket struck flesh and bone, jarring Konowa's arms and shoulders and cutting off his yell as he bit his tongue. The closest rakke went down whimpering, its skull crushed like an eggshell, one white eye pulped and oozing down its cheek. Konowa laughed then, a habit he had in battle, tasting the salty liquid of his own blood in his mouth. He swung a low backstroke at another rakke, feeling the satisfying crunch of bones travel up the musket and into his own.

A set of claws whistled by his head and Konowa dove forward, ducking underneath. His right shoulder slammed into the body of a rakke, and he pivoted onto his heels and brought the muzzle of the musket upward with all his strength.

The rakke screamed as the steel barrel slammed into its stomach, but without a bayonet on its end the musket only enraged the beast. The rakke wrapped both massive arms around Konowa and crushed him to its chest. Konowa was lifted off his feet and swung wildly through the air as he desperately tried to let go of the musket and reach for the hatchet strapped to his calf. He heard a crack—and a bolt of lightning exploded in his chest as one of his ribs snapped. His head growing lighter by the second, Konowa finally pried his hands free and reached for the hatchet. His fingers crawled along his leg in a weakening search as the grip around his chest tightened.

He found the handle, only to have it drop from his fingers as he was physically pounded into the ground. Konowa's breath rushed out of him in a scream, and he lay helpless on his back, waiting for the end to come.

A pair of milky eyes came down to hover inches from his, and he could smell the putrid raw meat of the rakke's last meal. Konowa smiled in one last act of defiance.

Jagged white teeth flashed in front of his eyes and hot, steaming blood splashed across his face.

When he focused his vision again, all he could see above him were stars. Konowa drew in a shuddering breath and propped himself up on one elbow.

Jir held the rakke by the throat, shaking the massive beast like wheat in a storm. When Jir was satisfied it was dead, he opened his mouth, letting the rakke's body fall to the ground with a thump.

Three more dark forms dotted the clearing, and the smell of blood and death thickened the air. Calling on the last reserves of his strength, Konowa staggered to his feet, using his musket as a crutch. Jir looked up at him and bared his fangs, a chunk of rakke flesh hanging out the side of his mouth.

"Easy, boy, I'll never be that hungry," he said, carefully sidestepping the feeding bengar to check that the other three rakkes were once again extinct. The large one that he had shot was clearly dead, the fist-sized hole in its back already swarming with flies. He could see the same was true of the second one he had hit, and Jir was making a meal of the third's innards. That meant Jir must have also killed the fourth one.

Konowa looked around for the body, spying one crumpled twenty yards away. He limped toward it, but immediately saw that something wasn't right.

As he got closer he realized it was an elfkynan woman. So where was the fourth rakke? He looked back at Jir, but the bengar showed no sign of unease as it ate. The fourth creature must have fled and never looked back.

Konowa let go of the musket and stumbled the last few feet to the woman's side, kneeling carefully while still holding his aching ribs. The woman lay facedown, dressed in huntsman's garb of toughened linen dyed brown and green. Like most of her people, she had dark skin, darker even than Konowa's. With only starlight and his own elvish eyes, Konowa could just make out the intricate pattern of tattoos that adorned her arms. A single plait of long brown hair with dull-looking bits of pearl woven in it snaked down her back and lay in a coil on the ground. Bracing himself for what he would find, he grabbed the body by the shoulders and gently turned it over.

Only the ingrained reactions of a warrior saved him as a thin stiletto dagger flew up. Konowa jerked forward so that the flat of her palm, and not the blade, hit the side of his neck. Before she could thrust again, Konowa butted the top of his head into the side of her face and rolled out of range.

A startled yell pierced the meadow and Jir growled in surprise, lifting his blood-stained muzzle into the air, spewing bits of meat. Konowa fought to stay conscious while he looked around for his musket. He finally spotted it, but it was too far away. The woman was already on her feet and advancing toward him when she suddenly wobbled and sat straight down, the stiletto tumbling from her hand.

Konowa's eyes went to the dagger. The blade gleamed unnaturally under the starlight, and he realized it was polished wood, not unlike the oath weapons of the Long Watch. He looked back at her and waited a moment to see if dropping the dagger was a ploy, but she just sat there, her eyes unfocused. The head butt must have done the trick after all. Choosing caution as the better part of valor, he sat perfectly still and concentrated on regaining his breath. While he did so, he studied the woman across from him.

She was definitely no elf. Konowa stared at her alluring face, drawn in by the almond-shaped eyes. He guessed she was no more than twenty, although the elfkynan's exotic look meant matrons in their fifties could look much younger. Whatever her age, her smooth, dark skin and full lips were a wonderful change after having only Jir's furry face to stare at. And then there was the matter of her rather quick reflexes. Konowa tried to chuckle, the absurdity of the day growing by the minute, but the effort sent stabbing knives through his chest and he gave up.

When the pain finally subsided to a more manageable level of agony, Konowa slowly stood. Speaking Gharsi, the most common of the twenty-three languages spoken in Elfkyna, Konowa hoped he could make himself understood.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said, "well, again, anyway." Each word was a sharp stitch in his rib cage.

The sound of his voice jarred her back to sensibility and her eyes narrowed. She scooped the dagger from the ground in one swift motion. Konowa remained still, hoping she didn't have the strength to come at him again. He wasn't sure he had any left to fend her off if she did.

"Who are you?" she asked, answering in the common tongue of the Empire, marking her as educated. She risked a quick glance around the meadow.
"And what are those things?"

"My name is Konowa," he said, slowly lowering his hands.
"Those things…are rakkes. Creatures perverted by a dark magic. They were supposedly destroyed a long, long time ago." Suspicion made him cautious, despite the pain.
"Their master was an elf-witch…"

Her eyes narrowed. "I saw no elf-witch," she said coldly. She looked over at the dead rakkes scattered about the clearing.
"So why are these things here, now?"

Konowa stared at her for a long moment before answering, trying to gauge her sincerity. He finally decided she wasn't responsible for them…though he hoped his reasoning went deeper than his immediate attraction to her.
"I couldn't begin to guess," he lied, refusing to contemplate why and how one of them called his name.
"They shouldn't be. They're supposed to be extinct."

"So you keep saying," she said, the skepticism in her voice plain.

"Well, if something's extinct it should bloody well stay extinct, right?" Konowa said, suddenly exasperated by it all.

She opened her mouth to say something else, then paused, looking at him with renewed interest.

"Your name again?"

"Konowa," he said, feeling a sudden sense of dread.

"Colonel Konowa Heer Ul-Osveen of the Iron Elves?"

If blood could freeze in this steaming cauldron of a land, Konowa's did. Only minutes ago he'd thought his past was as dead as rakkes were supposed to be.

She looked up at him with eyes as green as the forest around him, and he saw his doom in them.

"The slayer of the Viceroy?" she asked again, finally sheathing her stiletto and rising slowly to her feet.

"Among others," he said, sinking to the forest floor.

She walked over and looked down at him. "I've been
looking for you."

She took a deep breath, brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, and from within the hunting jacket she wore pulled a thin paper scroll bearing a large wax seal, which she expertly broke with a fingernail. Konowa closed his eyes and prayed for deliverance.

"Konowa Heer Ul-Osveen, by royal decree as dutifully witnessed this day in the Greater Protectorate of Elfkyna of the Calahrian Empire, you are hereby ordered to resume your commission as an officer in Her Majesty's Imperial Army effective immediately. Oh, and sir," she continued, a look of concern crossing her face,
"I strongly suggest that at the first opportunity, you take a bath and put some
clothes on. Your time of communing with nature is at an end."

Konowa sighed. If anything was to deliver him from this fate, it was probably out lost in the bloody forest.

FIVE

N
o."

She let the scroll roll up with a snap and kicked a nettle with her foot, sending it bouncing toward Konowa and forcing him to turn over onto his side. He winced with pain as tiny flashes of light popped and winked before his eyes. Despite the fresh reminder of his ravaged rib cage, he noticed for the first time that she wore delicate-looking sandals of woven green grass revealing portions of her slender brown feet.
She couldn't have walked far at all in those
, he realized.
"You will report to the nearest encampment at once," she said as if speaking to a slightly dull child.
"Besides, we'll be safer with the army than out here in the forest with those
extinct
creatures around."

He ignored the bait, focusing instead on the fact that there was no tremble in her voice, no hint of fear at all. Not even the sound of a bone snapping flustered her as Jir tore through a rakke's pelvis.
Perhaps
, he conceded,
what they say about women is true: They
are
tougher
.

"Is the army near?" Konowa asked.

"They were three days by horse to the south, on the other side of the Jhubbuvore," she said, naming a river Konowa vaguely remembered crossing years earlier.
"But that was over a week ago. Where they are now I do not know. We should start
at once—you are clearly in no condition to fight off any more of those beasts."

A tree cracked just outside the clearing.

Konowa jumped to his feet so fast it felt as if he broke another rib. He stumbled to his musket and picked it up, spinning in a slow circle as he searched the edges of the clearing. Jir raised his muzzle from the inside of a rakke and growled in response.

"What is it?" the woman whispered, the wicked-looking dagger magically reappearing in her right hand.

"There were four rakkes," Konowa said, pointing the muzzle of the musket at the bodies,
"but we only killed three."

"Surely your bengar killed it somewhere nearby," the woman said, gesturing at Jir, who was looking questioningly at Konowa.

Turning to Jir, Konowa made a clenched fist then threw his arm out and opened his hand wide.
"Hunt," he commanded. The animal rumbled a deep sound and disappeared into the forest in a single bound.

"Will he find it?" she asked, coming to stand next to Konowa even as she wrinkled her nose.

Konowa kept his eyes on the trees, but was very aware of her presence beside him. Heat roiled off her like the open door of a smithy's furnace. Then again, it might have been the pain of his rib cage.

"Maybe, maybe not. If that thing didn't look back it could be a long way from here." He spotted his cartridge pouch on the ground and walked over to it, deciding he'd better reload while he could.

"You're not like any messenger I've ever seen before," he remarked while gingerly ramming a new charge and ball into the musket.

The woman's eyes narrowed and the stiletto flashed as she twirled it in her hand.

"Messenger? I am Visyna Tekoy, daughter of Almak Tekoy, governor of Hijlla Province and supplier to Her Majesty's
Imperial Army and the Outer Territories Trading Company in these lands."

"Ah, so your father's a sutler then?"

"A sutler! Do I look like the daughter of some rag and
bone merchant?"

Konowa took a quick moment to run his eyes over her again.
"Indeed you don't. Well, now, seeing as we've established how your father supports Her Majesty's
troops, fair lady, pray tell in what manner do you service them?"

Visyna's retort remained unspoken as Jir suddenly leaped back into the clearing. He sniffed the air for a moment and stretched, sheathing and unsheathing great curving claws that reflected the starlight with lethal intent. When he was finished he walked over to where they were standing and lifted a hind leg.

Visyna yelled in protest, quickly stepping out of the way and into Konowa's arms.

"It means he likes you," he said. He reached over and patted Jir on the head. The bengar began to purr and Konowa relaxed; the fourth rakke was long gone.

"It's disgusting," she retorted.

Konowa nodded and took a deep breath of her dark hair, grimacing with the effort. He imagined it was wonderfully perfumed, but the lingering odor of the skunk dragon and Jir's enthusiastic attempts to make half the known lands his own defeated the exercise.

"I think you can let go now," she said. "Your musket
is digging into me." "That's not my musket," Konowa replied, brandishing the weapon in his right hand in front of her while he kept his left around her waist. He pulled her a little closer.
"You know, I did save your life tonight. In some parts, that sort of thing
engenders a certain amount of…gratitude."

Visyna stilled at the suggestion.
She's not so high and mighty after all
, Konowa thought, suddenly concerned that she might actually take him up on what had been no more than a bluff. A year in the forest or not, he was in no condition for
that
. Visyna turned around in his arm and faced him, her lips only inches from his. He was still wondering what they'd taste like when her fist slammed into his stomach, sitting him squarely on his backside.

"You filthy pig! I am no harlot! And you, sir, are no
officer."

Tears streamed down Konowa's face as he gasped for breath and then he laughed, despite the pain.

"You're right there, m'lady. I'm no officer, not anymore." He picked himself up from the ground for the second time that night. He hurt from head to toe and suddenly there was nothing even remotely funny about anything.
"You take that piece of parchment with you the next time you use the powder room, because that's all it's
good for. The elf on that scroll no longer exists."

"You really are him, aren't you," Visyna said quietly.
"You were the one who killed the Viceroy to save your people, and ours." She reached out a hand to touch his ruined left ear, but Konowa pulled away.

"You think I'm a hero? Do heroes end up exiled in a bloody forest? No, my lady, you have it all wrong. I am one of the
dyskara
, the tainted ones marked by the Shadow Monarch. Just good enough to fight for the Empire, but never, ever to be trusted." A year of bitter resentment flared up.
"Be afraid, my lady. Molten ore flows through my veins and daisies are poison to me. I live in caves like dwarven folk and eat raw meat off the bone." He ignored her crossed arms and scrunched-up nose and pressed on, needing to vent his anger at someone.
"You see before you a spiritual descendant of the Shadow Monarch, the
Horra Rikfa
—oath
breaker, the forsaker of the forest, delver of the deep magic long ago lost to
this world. Fear me, O pure and righteous one. I was marked by Her, ruler of the
High Forest where trees grow in unnatural and vile ways, and elves have little
patience for asinine conversations."

"
Jarahta Mysor
!" she yelled, swinging back her hand as if to slap him.

"Easy there, my lady, no need for that kind of language." As fast as the anger had come, it bled away. He tried a smile, but she wasn't having it.
"You have no idea what it's like to suffer under the foolishness of myths and
legends. I left the Hyntaland to get away from all of that, but it follows me
around like a plague."

"Myths and legends?" she asked, shaking her head. "
They
don't look like either," she said, pointing to the dead rakkes.

"No, they don't, but it doesn't matter. You wouldn't
understand."

"Really now?" Visyna said, her voice sharp, her eyes flashing.
"The story of the elf-witch across the ocean is well known even here. The Empire brought more than oppression to my people, it also brought stories of the
Zargul Iraxa,
as we call Her, Seeker of the Darkness." She appeared to struggle for control of herself, then spoke again in a quieter voice.
"Your ancestors forged a bond with the Wolf Oaks. They learned to harness the Wolf Oak's
great power, using it to care for the natural order."

"I know the legend," Konowa said, sighing.

"Have you seen this forest realm of the Shadow
Monarch?"

Konowa carefully let out a breath in exasperation. "No, I mean, yes, but it's
just a bunch of trees."

"You went up there, then?"

Konowa wanted to say yes to end this conversation, but looking into her eyes he found himself suddenly unable to lie.
"No, no one goes up there, but that doesn't mean the legend is true…entirely."

Visyna made a face then looked back at the rakkes.
"And these creatures?"

"I honestly don't know," Konowa said, realizing just how true that was. How did they know his name?
"Maybe She did send them after me, or," he said, suspicion flaring in his mind,
"maybe She sent them after someone else."

Visyna's mouth formed a perfect O. "Me? You're mad.
Clearly, some elves can be in the forest too long."

He took a step toward her. "My senses are clear enough to know something here doesn't
make sense. How is it you just happen to have a scroll calling me back to
service?"

"There are those who believe you can be of service again. Many of my people consider you a hero for what you did," she said, a note of admiration grudgingly modulating her voice.

"That still doesn't explain you."

Visyna looked as if she might take a swing at him, then relaxed.
"Despite what you think, elves aren't the only people in tune with the natural
world. I have…a gift, for finding things, so I was sent out to look for you."

"Alone?" Konowa asked, refusing to believe any of this.

"Not alone," she said quietly, lowering her eyes. "We
were attacked by those things and I was captured, and you know the rest."

Konowa was certain that he didn't, not by a long cannon shot, but he decided to leave it alone for the moment.

"By the way, what did you call me there a moment ago? I haven't
heard that one before."

Visyna pursed her lips. "
Jarahta Mysor
.
It means bloodless shadow."

Konowa shrugged.

"A being without soul," she said, "an elf not of the natural world. You carry weapons forged in fire, were marked by Her, and serve the Empire that oppresses my people. You have forsaken your destiny and have turned your back on the
ruarmana
."

Konowa gave her a questioning look.

"Trees. They are the bridge between the sky and earth. Only trees reach both up to the heavens and down into the bones of the land." Visyna brushed another strand of hair from her face and stared at him with intense curiosity.
"What is
your
native name for them?"

"Lumber."

Visyna's eyes flashed with anger. "You are more iron
than elf!"

He held up his hands for a truce. "Look, as scintillating as our conversation is, perhaps we could save it for another time?" The pain in his ribs was now a steady throbbing that threatened to pound him right into the ground.
"Who knows what other beasties besides rakkes are out here, and I don't want to
be around when they smell all this."

Visyna looked as if she wanted to say a lot more, but held her tongue and began to pick up Konowa's belongings from the ground, careful to avoid any made of metal.

Konowa watched for a moment, then put the remnants of his uniform back on, grabbed those items she wouldn't touch, and tramped straight into the forest without looking to see if she would follow. He knew Jir would come along when he was done eating.

After several minutes he took a quick look over his shoulder and was surprised to see her only a couple of paces behind him. She moved with the assuredness of an elf of the Long Watch. Konowa wondered just what would make a woman so clearly enamored of nature serve the Empire, the largest single destructive force in the world. He chose not to dwell on his own reasons; he was in enough pain as it was.

It didn't take long for Konowa to realize he was hopelessly lost. Chances of finding his hut tonight were as remote as the chances of his figuring out just where this day had gone so terribly, horribly wrong. Only this morning he had had the forest to himself, with just Jir and the damn bugs for company.

Now he didn't know what to think about anything.

The reappearance of extinct creatures, Her extinct creatures, speaking one's name, along with a royal decree also with one's name, had a way of changing one's outlook on life.

Looking back to see that Visyna was still close behind, he pushed on through the trees, holding his ribs and cursing each step. He consoled himself that if this was the worst life could throw at him, things could only get better from here.

Konowa chose to believe that lie for as long as he could. He succeeded for an entire day.

BOOK: A Darkness Forged in Fire
6.77Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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