Once We Were Kings (Young Adult Fantasy) (The Sojourner Saga) (38 page)

Failed to protect Render and Ahndien at the moment they needed him most.  He stretched his bloodied hand towards them.  Before he could form his next thought, a sharp pain went through his ribs and shoulder.

Then with an atrocious screech, the cruel curved claws of the giant vulture dug into his sides.  Volfoncé lifted his frail human form into the air.  A gritty gust of wind tore against the open wounds on his neck and arms.

Try as he might, he could not muster the strength to transform.

His vision cleared enough for him to discern the valley below, Render and Ahndien struggling to free the frozen warriors, Mooregaard in human form conjuring up a whirlwind of sand.

And the rocks below, upon which Volfoncé meant to dash him to pieces.

// AND NOW, OLD MAN, BEHOLD THE POWER OF MALAKANDOR AS YOU DIE //

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

This is useless!

What good was talking to statues?  Paralyzed soldiers bent on killing each other, and probably Render himself, if they were able.   Without knowing how long Lao-Ying could hold Mooregaard and Volfoncé off, Render began to doubt his ability to do anything useful.

Speak to the valley...

He may as well be speaking to the rock face of the hills.

// RENDER! //

Ahndien's distant call filled his mind.  He turned around and instead of the beautiful Tianese who he'd come to love, he saw a snarling Tianese pikesman charging at him with a spear.

Just before the point of the spear reached his vest, Render flew into the air.  The pikeman, still stiff as he thawed in the fire Ahndien cast around the frozen multitudes, thrashed his spear about, and finally lobbed it at Render.  But it fell limply to the ground.  The pikeman shivered and hugged his arms trying to stay warm.

Relieved he hadn't killed the soldier, Render sighed and flew over the thawing troops.  In the distance, something odd began to happen.  It first appeared to be a swirling dust cloud.  But then, even as Ahndien called out to him, the sound of howling wind overwhelmed her voice.  Each grain of sand turned black until the cloud itself changed from gold to slate.

"By all that is sacred!"

Beneath Render's feet, the troops began to stir, thanks to Ahndien's warming fire.  But a more ominous threat approached.  Render felt it in his blood.

In one brief moment, three things happened.  Render couldn't react quickly enough to do anything about it.  First, an enormous vulture flew by with the elderly human Lao-Ying in its claws.  Then Ahndien let out a shout directing Render's eyes back to the black cloud, which settled to the ground across the valley.

Finally, from within the cloud emerged what could only be described an army of shadows.  Ethereal, black, and but for the outline of men on horseback with weapons drawn, featureless.

There must have been thousands of them coming at the Tianese and Torians, who were too weak to defend themselves.

"Get up, everyone!" Shouted Ahndien at the staggering warriors.  "Look alive, they're coming!"  But those that were able to stand stumbled and fell again.  Their limbs were too rigid.

Render shot a line of lightning straight into the oncoming horde which for sure outnumbered the two armies they were attacking.

The lightning passed through them as though they were nothing more than a dark vapor.

Then came the first arrow from a mounted archer.

Black smoke trailing as it flew, it seemed nothing but a shadow.

Until it pierced the first Torian soldier's chest.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

Mooregaard laughed subtly as legions of the demon horde sprung to life.  Pure spirit-creatures, nothing could stop them from destroying all the pitiful Tianese and Torian warriors, who were like sheep going to the slaughter. 

They would then swallow them up in flames.  A pleasing sacrifice to Malakandor.

The covenant would be upheld: The middle kingdoms would be Mooregaard's and Volfoncé's to rule in perpetuity.

Streams of black smoke took bodily form and rushed out to the center of the valley.  Render and that feeble girl had no recourse whatsoever.

Mooregaard shouted into the valley such that his words echoed repeatedly. "Valhandra is dead!"

Lao-Ying watched in horror as the demon horde drove at the royal troops under Render and Ahndien's guard.  Nothing could stop them, neither lightning nor fire.

Smoke-like arrows struck down the soldiers, dozens at a time.

// DIE IN THE BITTERNESS OF YOUR FAILURE //

Blood oozed from Lao-Ying's ribs as the points of Volfoncé's claws dug in.  She dangled him over the jagged crags.  He felt his life pouring out.  This was not how he had hoped to die.  Not before he was to behold his beloved once again.  That was the entire reason he had accepted his fate as an immortal, the reason he'd suffered half a millennium.  To be with her again, even in the lifting of the eternal veil.

Valhandra, if thou still livest, grant thy servant but one last effort...

Lao-Ying squeezed his eyes shut.  He clung to his last shred of faith even more firmly than he did to Volfoncé's claws.

Faith.

The power behind the spirit potential.

And then something wondrous happened.

Like the rush of hot air from the opening of a fiery furnace, energy flowed through his body.  He saw.  He intuited.  He began to transform.

With a final surge, Lao-Ying swung his bare feet up just as they turned into talons.  He dug them deep into the monstrous bird's belly and punctured the flesh with a fierce grip.

Instead of an angry screech, the pained gasp of a woman came out of the vulture's beak.  Its yellow eyes widened in shock as it let out a shriek.

Then they fell.

Turning over and over, neither the vulture nor the eagle relenting their grips.

Lao-Ying struggled to right himself, but could not catch the wind under his wings.

// WRETCHED OLD MAN, WE'LL BOTH DIE! //

"I am prepared," said Lao-Ying smiling calmly in his heart as only an eagle can.  "Are you?"

Right away, the balance of power shifted.

The violence in Volfoncé's eyes turned to fear.  Black pools which once boiled haughtily, now darted from side to side as she tried in vain to flap her wings and catch the wind.

They fell faster and faster, the razor sharp points of the rocks jutting up beneath them.

Lao-Ying struggled until he found the strength to spread out one wing.  This caused the two of them to turn over one more time, and now he angled his weight just so the air rushing up prevented Volfoncé to unfurl her own wings.

Then came the crack of bones.

The sinking of petrified stone points into flesh.

A strained cry.

Cut short by the hiss of expiring breath.

Lao-Ying rolled across the enormous aviary form of Volfoncé and pushed himself up with human hands.  From the vulture's neck, bent at a perverse angle, and the stillness of its breast, he knew she was dead.

He climbed down, careful not to cut himself on the sharp rocks, and wrestled himself to his feet.  Blood poured from his punctured side, but it was not the pain that sent him down to his knees.  It was the chill of blood loss.

He was dying.

He had stopped Volfoncé, but would not live to see the promise for which he had waited over the past five centuries.  And worse still, down in the valley below, he beheld a ghastly sight now threatening Render and Ahndien.  Something he had not seen since the fall of the Sojourners at the hands of Malakandor's legions.

The demonic cloud.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

The maniacal laughter stopped just long enough for Mooregaard's words to echo into the valley.  "Valhandra is dead!"

Render shuddered at the thought.  It must not be so.  Yet, where was He?  Why did he not come to help at this most desperate moment?  Render glanced around.  The few soldiers that could actually move stumbled and backed away.  They cowered as the dark horde rushed forward like a demonic swarm of locusts.  Their smoke-arrows pierced many who tried to flee.

He could sense the mass panic amongst the thousands of immobilized fighting men of the two kingdoms, many of whom murmured, groaned and screamed in terror, but could not move.

Speak to the valley...

Was it his imagination?  His memory playing tricks?

Apart from the charging demon horde, which howled unlike anything he'd ever heard or would ever want to hear again, there was nothing in the valley but dying soldiers and the dry bones of fallen Sojourner warrior, centuries dead.

Where was Valhandra now?

// SPEAK TO THE VALLEY...AND PROPHESY //

"Sire?" The voice within resounded unmistakably. 

Valhandra.

Render lowered himself to the ground, even as the thundering hooves of demon horses filled the air.  A smoke arrow screamed past his face carrying the stench of decaying flesh with it.

// SPEAK AND DO NOT FEAR, RENDER, FOR I SHALL GIVE THEE THE WORDS //

He shut his eyes, facing the onslaught which would overtake them all in moments.  The ground began to shake, rattling the thousands upon thousands of dry bones in the dust.

Then, a pulse of light filled his chest—it was not blazing hot, but cool, refreshing.  Render's mind and soul became clearer than it had ever been in his life.  It was as though he could see for miles unobstructed, hear things clear over the mountains, and smell the fragrance of Valhandra's presence.  The pulse rose up to his mouth and his tongue became loose.  It practically moved on its own, though he seemed to already know the words. 

"Warriors of truth!  Arise!"

At this, a mighty cry of opposition rang out from the dark horde, just a few hundred feet away.  At first Render wondered if the Torian or Tianese soldiers would receive these words.  But as he spoke again, he realized that it was not they that he addressed.  Light shot out from his mouth as he spoke again.

"Rise up, warriors of spirit and truth!"

The light spread like a mist and raced out into the sand, straight at the demon horde.

"THUS SAITH THE KING OF ALL KINGS!  THUS SAITH VALHANDRA!"

Demon horses screamed.

Thundering hooves stopped.

White light, the inspired words from Render's mouth, enveloped the entire valley.  The demon hordes stopped dead.

Everything faded into a dreadful stillness.

A beauteous terror filled the entire valley.

And then it began.

CHAPTER NINETY

It was not the blinding light.

Nor was it the sudden cessation of the hordes.

It was the melodious tones of a Tianese flute that flooded the valley.  From behind the white veil which enveloped nearly everything within an arm's reach, Ahndien emerged, her lips pursed over the end of her instrument.

She played a simple yet haunting melody that seemed to cause the hills to tremble, the ground to shudder. 

Render turned and regarded her.  Of course it was her.  Who else could be responsible for such an otherworldly sound?

Head held high, her brown eyes fixed Render with a courageous smile as she strode past him.   Then she looked sharply into the light-filled expanse.  Render followed her into the cloud.

The cloud grew manifold tendrils, supernal and restless.  They wove under and around the innumerable bones on the ground, caressing them, lifting them into the air. 

Ahndien's song grew louder.  Stronger.

Render didn't realize that he'd stopped until the words returned.

// SPEAK TO THE VALLEY...FROM WHENCE COMES THY HELP //

With one punctuated note, high and shrill, Ahndien's song stopped. 

But the music continued. 

The echo of one flute became a chorus of many. 

Though Render didn't understand, yet in his spirit he must have comprehended fully, for it drove him to speak again. 

"ARISE, IN THE NAME OF VALHANDRA!"

At the sound of the name, a bristling wave of grunts flooded through the ranks of the demon forces.

The fingers of light lifted hundreds of thousand bones into the air.  Render could not believe what he saw.  Nor could the weakened human warriors behind him, for they gasped in wonder and fear.

Ahndien came running back to Render's side.  She put away her flute and exchanged it for her father's sword and pointed to the peaks of Handara.  "Over the hills..."

A blazing ball of white fire shot through the air and rushed towards them.

On closer observation, Render saw that it was a mass of small, bird-shaped light entities, flocked together as one.

The demon warriors stepped back as the flock rushed past them.  The few who did not move out of the way soon enough disintegrating into ashes.

"Get down!"  Render grabbed Ahndien by the shoulders and jumped forward.  The flock hit the ground and exploded in the midst of the host of bones, now fashioned into the skeletons of thousands of creatures.

Render lifted his head.

Before his very eyes, flesh and sinew stretched around the bones quicker than he could observe.  In an instant, the valley teemed with life:  Eagles, tigers, bears, men and women girded for battle.

Before he could even blink, legions of spirit creatures haloed with white light stood ready.  This seemed to enrage the demon horde though none of them dared take a step forward.

Render blinked in amazement.  He had finally done as Valhahdra had commanded and spoke to the valley.  From whence cometh thy help.

In the distance, Mooregaard transformed into a giant vulture once again, flew into the air and shouted at his demon army.  "Why do you hesitate? By Malakandor, destroy them all!"

The hordes charged forward with a horrific battle cry—something that resembled the shriek of mountain lions and the howl of wolves.  For a brief moment, the sky darkened with thousands of smoke arrows flying at them.  But this time, the resurrected warriors threw up a wall of fire, extinguishing all but a few.