Kell's Legend (24 page)

How could he not know?

How could he not realise his country was under attack? Infested, even.

“What are we going to do?” said Elias.

Leanoric gave a grim smile that had nothing to do with humour. He pulled on his battle-greaves. In a voice resonant of his father, he said, “Old friend, we are going to war.”

Standing there, as the sky streaked with red and violet, as he watched his world, his country, his beloved Falanor die under a blanket of darkness, Leanoric outlined his plan to his general, and his friend.

“These bastards have come from the north, taken Jalder, and taken Jangir. So their forces amass to the west of the Great North Road, somewhere around Corleth Moor, maybe Northern Vorgeth; this makes sense, these damn places are desolate, haunted, and people try not to go there because of the twisted history of Jangir Field. A good place to hide an army, is what I’m thinking.”

“What then?”

“I have a brigade at Gollothrim, and a division here at Valantrium. We can pull our battalion down from the Black Pike Mines, and we have a brigade near Old Skulkra. If we can surround the bastards, hit them from each flank and make sure the Black Pike infantry emerge from the north…well, we can rout them, Elias. They’ll think the whole damn world has descended on them.”

“We need more information,” said Elias, warily. “The size of the enemy force. Exact locations. Does this Graal have heavy cavalry, spears, archers? Are his men disciplined, and do they bring siege weapons?”

“There is little time, Elias. If we don’t act immediately I guarantee we will be too late. This Graal is a
snake; he is striking hard and fast, and taking no prisoners. We did not see him coming. It is a perfect invasion.”

“Still, I advise despatching scouts. Three to each camp with your plans following separate routes, in case any rider is captured; we can code the messages, and pick hardy men for the task. I’ll also arrange for local spies to scour Corleth Moor; we can send message by pigeon. I have a trusted network in the north.”

Leanoric nodded. “With a little more information, and time, we can encompass them. I still only half believe Mary! Who would dare such an outrage? Who would dare the wrath of my entire army?” With twenty thousand men at his disposal, this made Leanoric perhaps the most powerful warlord between the four Mountain Worlds.

Elias considered their plan, rubbing his stubbled chin, his lined face focused with concentration. Internally, he analysed different angles, considered different options; he could see what King Leanoric said made sense, made complete sense; yet still it sat bad with him, an uneasy ally, a false lover, a cuckolded husband, a friend behind his back with a knife in his trembling fist.

“Consider,” said Elias, voice as quiet as ever, and as he spoke his hand came to rest on the hilt of his scabbarded sword—a blade no other man alive had touched. “This General Graal cannot be a foolish man. And yet he marches halfway across Falanor to steal the queen; why? What does he gain?”

“He makes me chase him.”

Elias nodded. “Possible. Either chase him, or to undermine your confidence. Maybe both. And yet he has already, so we believe, conquered two major cities with substantial garrisons. So he either has a mighty force to be reckoned with, or…”

“He’s using blood-oil magick,” said Leanoric, uneasy.

“Yes. You must seek counsel on this.”

“There is little time. If I do not muster the Eagle Divisions immediately, the entrapment may not work. Then we’d be forced to fall back…” his mind worked fast. “To Old Skulkra. It is a perfect battleground. And I have a…tactic my father spoke of, decades ago.”

“But if Graal uses the old magick, your plan will not work anyway,” said Elias. “You know what I’m thinking?”

“The Graverobber,” said Leanoric, voice sober, voice filled with dread. “I fear he will kill me on sight.”

“I will go,” said Elias.

“No, I have another job for you.”

Elias raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. He knew his king would speak in good time.

Leanoric pursed his lips, lifted his hands to his face, fingers steepled, pressed against his chin. Then he sighed, and it was a sigh of sadness, of somebody who was lost. He spoke, but he would not meet his friend’s gaze.

“What I ask of you, Elias, I have no right to ask.”

“You have every right. You are king.”

“No. I ask this on a personal level. Let us put aside rank, and nobility, for just one moment. What I ask of you, is…almost certain death. But I must ask anyway.”

Elias bowed his head. “Anything, my king,” he said, voice gentle.

“I would ask you to travel to the Silva Valley.” Leanoric paused, as if by leaving the words unspoken, he would not have to condemn his general, would not have to murder his friend. He sighed. He met Elias’s gaze, and their eyes locked, in honour and truth and friendship and brotherhood. “I would ask to you find and rescue Alloria.”

“It would be my honour,” said Elias, without pause for breath.

“I recognise-”

“No.” Elias held up a hand. Leanoric stopped. “Do not say it. I am a man of the world, and if I may point out, far more seasoned a warrior than you.” He smiled to take the sting from his words. “I trained with your father, and I admired your father; but I love his son more. And I love my queen. I will do this, Leanoric, but feel no burden of guilt. I do it gladly, of my own free will.”

Leanoric grasped Elias, a warrior’s grip, wrist to wrist, and beamed him a smile; a grim smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“I will save the country; but you must save my heart-blood. You must find my wife.”

“It will be an honour, my friend.”

“Bring her back to me, Elias.”

Elias smiled. “That, or die trying,” he said.

After thirty minutes, Elias was ready to depart. He had a swift black stallion, compact saddlebags and his trusted sword by his hip. He looked down at Leanoric, and the few men gathered.

“Ride swift,” said Leanoric.

“Die young,” replied Elias.

“Not this time, Elias.”

“As you wish.”

“Bring her back to me.”

“I’ll see what I can do, my liege.”

He touched heels to flanks. The stallion, a fine, proud, unbroken beast of nineteen hands, needed little encouragement, and with a snort of violence galloped off down a wide cart track, and towards the distance snake of grey: the Great North Road.

Leanoric watched for long, long minutes, long after Elias, his Sword-Champion, had vanished from view. He listened to the night air, to the hiss of the wind, and fancied he could smell snow approaching.

Grayfell, one of Leanoric’s trusted brigadier generals, glanced off into the gloom. “There’s a storm coming,” said the short, gruff soldier, rubbing at his neatly trimmed grey beard. His eyes of piercing yellow met Leanoric’s, and the king gave a curt nod.

“That’s what I am afraid of,” he said.

As dawn broke, Elias stopped by a fringe of woodland and surveyed the Great North Road. It glittered in weak dawn light, wreathed with curls of mist, cobbles gleaming like grey and black pearls. For long minutes the king’s Sword-Champion watched, listening, observing, analysing, wondering. He eased out from cover, and within minutes allowed the stallion his lead so that he galloped along the cobbles, hoof-beats clattering through the early morning air.

Elias rode hard, all day, pausing only in the early afternoon to allow his horse a long cool drink by a still lake. As he stood, stretching his back and working through a variety of stretching exercises taught to cavalry riders, which he usually reserved for before battle, a few eddies of snow drifted around him and he gazed off to the distant northern hills, and saw the white gathering eagerly like icing on a cake. Cursing, Elias continued north, sometimes running the stallion on smooth grass alongside the hard cobbles, sometimes dismounting and walking the beast. He knew in his heart this was going to be a long journey; a test of stamina, and endurance, as well as strength and bravery. Still, Elias thought grimly, he was up for the task.

That night, camping beneath a stand of Blue Spruce, wrapped in his thick fur roll, Elias came awake as snow brushed his face. His eyes stared up at thick tree boughs ensconced in needles, interlaced above him, rich perfume filling his senses, and beyond at an inky, violet sky. Snowfall increased, and with it a sinking in Elias’s breast. The enemy, with Alloria as prisoner, had a good head start. Snow would slow them down; but it would also slow him. He could only pray they were travelling by cart, or on foot; but he doubted it. They’d kidnapped the Queen of Falanor; they would be riding fast horses, hard, to put as much distance between Falanor’s Eagle Divisions and their reckless prize. Once they hit the Black Pike Mountains, Elias knew he was doomed. The range was treacherous, the valleys and narrow passes a labyrinth, and once inside their enclosing wings Elias would have lost the queen…and even if he did
manage to navigate to this Silva Valley, what would he find there? A waiting army? A division of grinning soldiers? Damn, he thought. He had to catch up with them before the Black Pikes. He had to rescue his queen before she entered the death-maze…

He started before dawn, filled with a rising panic, and an increased level of frustration.

Elias pushed the stallion hard, too hard he knew, and just after noon as more snow fell muffling hoofbeats on the Great North Road, he spied a village and guided his mount from the cobbles, bearing east down a frozen, rutted track. However, a hundred yards from the collection of rag-tag huddled cottages, he halted. His stallion snorted, stamping the snow.

Something was wrong, he could feel it, and a cold wind blew, ruffling his high collar and making him shiver. Unconsciously, he loosened his sword in its scabbard as his gaze scanned from left to right, then back.

Nothing moved. No chickens clucked in the yards, no children squealed, no people walked the street, or stood on corners with pipes and gossip. Elias narrowed his eyes, and dismounted. Feeling foolish, and yet at the same time fuelling his sense of necessity, he drew his sword and dropped his mount’s reins. He advanced on the deserted village, sword at waist-height, head scanning for enemy…

And who are the enemy, mocked his subconscious?

The Army of Iron? Halting in its mighty conquest of Falanor to annihilate one tiny, insignificant village?

The answer was yes.

Elias stopped at the head of the main street, and gazed out, and down, across frozen mud and fresh
new drifts of snow, at the corpses which littered the thoroughfare. Elias squinted. He’d thought of them as corpses, but as he peered closer, now that he thought about it, they seemed more like…

“Gods!” he hissed, skin freezing on his bones, blood chilling in his veins, eyes wide, lips narrow, sword gripped unnaturally tight. “What in the Nine Hells has caused this?”

He stopped by an old man, face down, frame shrivelled, skin little more than parchment shell over brittle narrow bones. Elias dropped to one knee, crunching fresh snow, and rolled the old man onto his back…only to cry out, stumbling back as he realised it wasn’t the corpse of an old man at all, but a young woman, her flesh melted away, skin pulled back over her grinning skull like some parody of decrepitude and death.

Elias stalked down the street, his horror rising, his hatred rising, his rage and anger fuelled to a white-hot furnace by what he saw. And he knew; knew without truly understanding the intricacies of blood-oil magick that this this was a result of the dark art; the old art.

“Bastards,” he said, shaking his head, gazing down at children, shrivelled husks, still holding hands. Their faces were far from platters of serenity; they had died in terrible pain, without honour, without dignity, and Elias stared and stared and cursed and spat to one side of the street.

“Is this what Graal has in store for us?” he muttered, considering this Army of Iron and its white-haired general.

Back down the street, a scream rent the air, and it took Elias long slack moments to realise it was his horse. He turned and ran, skidding on ice as he rounded two low-walled cottages, their doors barely high enough to allow a child entry.

The horse was on its side, in the street, quivering as if in the throes of epilepsy. Mist curled in tendrils at boot-height and Elias narrowed his eyes, approaching warily, searching left and right for signs of enemy. Had it been struck by an arrow? Or something more sinister? He was ashamed to notice that his hands shook.

“A fine beast,” came a soft, lilting voice, mature and yet…deranged, to Elias’s ears. “Such a shame the source is poor, toxic you understand, for purposes of refinement. Otherwise, we might not have to harvest you.”

Elias whirled, sword flashing up, to see a tall creature in thin white robes, delicately embroidered in gold and blue. But it was the face that sent shivers down Elias’s spine, and had the hairs on his neck crackling like thin ice over a deep pond. The face was flat, oval, hairless, and incredibly pale. Small black eyes watched Elias with what he considered to be intelligence, and the nose was little more than slits in pale skin. The creature, for this was no man, breathed fast, hissing and hissing and sending more shudders to wrack Elias’s body as it suddenly moved towards him, bobbing as it walked, a display which would have been almost comical if it wasn’t for the aura of death and the stench of putrefaction which seemed to pervade the creature and its surroundings with every living, breathing pore…

“What are you?” breathed Elias, words barely more than a whisper.

The creature came close. “I am a Harvester, boy. And you are Elias.”

“How could you know that?”

“I know many things,” said the Harvester, and lifted its hand, the sleeve of its robe falling back to reveal long, bony fingers. “I know you are the friend of King Leanoric. I know you seek his Queen, Alloria, taken by the vile Watchmaker Graal…but all in time, my son, all in time, for you are prime fodder, are you not? And you have information which may aid our cause. Come, come to me…”

Elias leapt, but even as he leapt ice-smoke poured from the Harvester, from its tiny black eyes and open mouth, from its fingers and very core and it slammed Elias, dropping him in a moment, sword frozen to the skin of his fingers, body convulsing and juddering, spastic fits wracking him with a violence he could not have believed possible…