The Fallen Guardian (The Guardian Chronicles 2) (7 page)

“You
mean to tell me that she has recruited the orcs, goblins, and rock trolls?  She
has also managed to convince the peaceful elves, or at least a part of them, to
join her in her quest for dominion over the free peoples of Tuwa. Why has she
done this?  I thought that the guardians only cared about the elements and not
the peoples of Tuwa.”  He was totally put out by the thought that one of the
powerful guardians had decided to try and take over the free peoples.

“I
share your concerns about our fallen friend. I believe that she has become
hungry for more power and will stop at nothing to get, what she perceives, to
be ultimate power. If she can conquer the people and control them in addition
to the elements she commands, she probably believes that she would be invincible.”

“So,
what do we need to do?  I already see that there is a confrontation in Nairi
and the Black Forest. I have received word that a massive army has attacked
Mount Carrick as well. Do we need to send our army to our friends’ aid?”  He
knew that action was required, and he also knew that Khalida would give him the
best advice.

“I
ask you to prepare your defenses for an all-out assault. Prepare to receive the
besieged peoples of Tuwa and provide them with shelter and food. Their armies,
or what is left of them, will help fortify your defensive positions. I foresee
that the final battles will be fought here…in your country. If you act now and
do as I have asked, your enemies will not set foot on your plains.”

“Is
there anyone else who can help us?” There was a pleading tone in his voice as
he spoke to Khalida.

“I
will ask the eagles to join the cause in a more direct way. I will also recruit
other creatures that will provide you with considerable support. The guardian
council will fight alongside you mortals. We will not allow one of our own to
destroy the people of Tuwa.

Queen
Kishi’s assault on Nairi had gone on much longer than she had anticipated. She
thought that these men would bow before the awesome power of the high elves.
These
people are just as stubborn as dwarves in their mountain homes.
After a few
weeks of fighting, the queen’s army had taken the southwestern part of the
canyons. Smoke filled the air from the barrage of magical attacks combined with
fire arrows. The queen had elevated the usage of her powers and had not
suffered any strain or drain on her physical body. In the past, using magic on
a frequent basis left her exhausted for hours or even days. She had learned a
way of compensating for the price exacted from overuse and that was to replace
what was lost from taking from the earth. She had somehow discovered the secret
of rock trolls who regained their strength or healed themselves by taking power
from the land. She did not fully realize that by doing this she was heading down
a path, which leads to enslavement to the darkest kind of magic.

As
the sun rose on another day of fighting, she could not help but to think that
this day would be significant or special in some way. As she stared at nothing
in particular, the beautiful colors made by the different kinds of smoke caught
her attention. There were purples, reds, blues, oranges, and green wisps of
smoke that twisted about one another like they were locked in a forbidden
dance. They curled and swirled about lazily as the silence of the morning
deepened. There was an expectant feeling in the air and after a few more
minutes of quiet, a strong northerly wind rolled through and the haze
dissipated. The sky was beginning to clear of the incessant vapor, and the air
was beginning to smell less and less like the dead. After so many weeks of
rain, fire, explosions, death, and suffering, this new day had the promise of
something more.

“General
Jaali, today is the day,” Queen Kishi said with a great deal of optimism. “We will
end this overly long siege and deliver the ultimate payback.”

“What
did you have in mind, my queen?” asked the general gruffly. The long battle
combined with heavy losses to his ranks had left him bitter and desensitized.
He tried to put on a smile but gave it up as a lost cause. He was too close to
the queen to waste any energy on hiding his feelings about the situation.
I
simply cannot believe that General Yukio has been able to hold us off for so
long!  How in the name of everything sacred and holy are we supposed to finish
this battle that has raged on for longer than anyone anticipated?

“What
is the strongest point of any group or organization?  In other words, where
does the true power lie in the people before us?” she asked slyly.

“Like
an archway, there is one stone that holds it together and in this case the keystone
is the queen,” replied the general thoughtfully.

“I
am impressed. I thought you would have said that it was their insane general.
You hit the mark spot on. We need to remove the queen so that the rest will
lose their nerve and flee.”

“So,
you want us to direct our assault on the queen for the next few days?”

“No,
I want you to take the army and hem in their troops. I want them to think we
are tightening the noose around their necks. This diversion will draw their
attention away of their center long enough for an assassination attempt. Since
I will be the one taking on the assassin’s role, the attempt will be
successful.”  She had a wicked gleam in her eye as she said this, and her good
friend took notice. He knew that his queen was changing and liked his new, more
confident friend.

“Then
let us make haste and put an end to this fight today!”  He snapped to attention
and saluted his queen. She reached out and gave him a warm hug and then kissed
him firmly on the lips. The general was taken aback by this show of affection.
After a few brief moments, he regained his composure and headed off to deliver
the new orders for the day. As the queen watched him leave, she began to plan
out her assassination attempt in her mind.

She
determined that it would be best to make her approach as undetectable as
possible. She decided that mimicking her environment would do the trick. She
knew that any soldier she came across would have to die. It was while she was
thinking this that the memory of her departed sister burst into her mind.
Kira
would not approve of this course of action; she would try to find a way to
spare every life she could on a mission like this. Why am I so different from
her?
  The queen looked around guiltily as though someone may have somehow
heard her thoughts. She did not care for the feeling of guilt she experienced
when thinking of her sister. She knew that her plan would be successful and
that if she allowed those who came into her path to live she would pay with her
own life.

After
an hour of preparation, the army had finished dividing up and began to move
out. A small number of forces remained behind to feign guarding their queen.
Kishi waited for the army to engage General Yukio’s entrenched soldiers before
easing her way down to the underground castle of Queen Daria. She only had to
wait for a few minutes before the first signs of resistance presented itself.
The battered army began to swarm the dilapidated ranks of Yukio’s army while
Queen Kishi disguised herself and headed toward her target. Smoke began to rise
from the battles that had erupted along the eastern and western sides of the
canyon. The assassin made her way silently down a long, winding rock staircase.
She used her magic to conceal her secret movements as she hugged the canyon walls
during her descent. She reached the bottom after another hour had passed. It
had taken her so long because she had to move slowly because there were
sentries posted along the path at every turn.

At
the end of the winding trail was a small encampment where the sentries that she
had passed along the way slept. She crept quietly through the camp so that she
would not alert anyone to her presence. As she made her way through the tents,
she came upon two soldiers sitting around a burned out campfire. They were
talking conspiratorially about the events surrounding the unprovoked attack by
the elves who called themselves by a different name for some superfluous
reason. They laughed at one another’s comments and views on the subject as they
eyed the fighting that had sprung up along the canyon walls. They were glad not
to be in the fighting because the pointed-eared freaks were using magic, which
clearly gave them a distinctly unfair advantage. They believed the high elves
to be nothing more than a bunch of race haters who believed they were the
enlightened ones. The conversation was beginning to have an adverse effect on
the queen as she tried to slip by. Her shadow appeared on a tent that was in
the line of sight of gossiping soldiers who knew at once that someone was
behind them. They stood abruptly and whirled about to face whoever it was that
was eavesdropping on them.

A
hand was in each of their bewildered faces, and before they could swipe away
the assassin’s hands, they saw a flash of red light, and then they saw nothing
at all. Kishi lowered her hands slowly with a look of fierce determination and
pure loathing. She had used her fiery magic to vaporize the unsuspecting
soldiers’ heads, which helped the queen relieve her built-up tension. Her
attack, however, was not silent. Several of the sentries that she had passed
either saw or heard the commotion. She wheeled about to face a dozen guards
rushing toward her, and she did not move as they rushed at her. She gracefully
moved her hands and arms about as if she were weaving something in the air. A
staff appeared, and she quickly turned the weapon in their direction. A green,
ethereal dart shot from the end of the staff and into the middle of her
attackers. It exploded into a greenish brown cloud and every single sentry was
engulfed in the toxic haze. The poison worked instantly, and all twelve of her
pursuers fell to the ground like a sack of rocks, dead before they landed.

The
queen was lucky that none of the sentries thought to send up the alarm and
instead rushed her. No one had been alerted to her presence yet, and she
quickly resumed her course toward the castle’s main gate. She did not reveal
herself the rest of her journey until she reached the entry to the castle. At
this point she could tell that it would be impossible to conceal her presence
because of the position of the sun. As soon as she reached the gates, the
queen’s guard noticed an unusual shadow being cast by an invisible object. They
immediately shouted for the gate to be closed and the doors to the castle to be
sealed. The small wall surrounding the entrance to the underground palace came
alive with archers who released their arrows at will. Kishi reacted swiftly by
throwing up a defensive shield that deflected the missiles. She retaliated by shooting
forth lightning from her staff into the bowman atop the wall. The smell of
burnt flesh filled the air at once, and shrieks of terror and frustration burst
from soldiers behind the bulwarks.

Kishi
raised her staff high above her head and lowered it with both hands. A gust of
wind blasted the gate that had just been shut but did no real damage. She
wanted the queen’s guard to give into their fears and make a mistake. She could
hear yelling on the other side of the wall, but the voices did not have the
same edge to them. The captains were obviously rallying the troops and calming
them down. The high elven queen was infuriated by the success they were having
and began to twirl her staff in elegant motions around her body. Her eyes
turned an icy blue color as a cool mist began to form around her. After a few
more revolutions of the staff, she was completely engulfed in the magical mist.
The cloud around her began to crystallize, and then she aimed her staff with
both hands gripping tight at the main entry.  A bluish orb shot out from the
end with extreme velocity.

The
gate exploded into tiny shards of wood, leaving the entrance wide open as if it
had never even been there. The ball of ice had hit the castle doors as well and
turned them into sheets of ice. The guards were temporarily stunned by the
attack, and that infinitesimal delay cost them their lives. Kishi began
whirling her staff again over her head this time, and she rose into the air
some ten feet above the ground. She appeared to turn a dark purple color as
unnatural lightning gathered about her. She sent several wicked bolts slamming
into the bewildered guards, and they were all immediately vaporized. She then
lowered herself to the ground again and made a sweeping gesture at the frozen
doors. They blew apart as a gust of wind hammered into them and left the
entryway empty with the exception of the queen’s guard, who were waiting in the
foyer beyond.

Arrows
flew from every direction at the high elven queen. Kishi reacted just in time
to deflect most of the arrows with a magical shield. She had to dodge the
others using her agility and speed to avoid all but one arrow while she called
up her magic. An arrow had pierced her thigh near the right hip and sent her
tumbling backwards. As she lay on the ground, she could feel pain spreading
throughout her entire body as if it were some kind of poison. She instantly realized
that the arrow must have had a poisoned tip. She reached down and gently pulled
out the arrow that was covered in her blood. She shook the dart to see if there
had been something on the arrowhead, and it became clear that it had been
doctored with some foreign substance. As she gripped the arrow firmly, it burst
in flames and vanished. She would have to take care of the poison after she dealt
with the queen. She stood up and closed her eyes for a moment while her body
shook tremendously from the effects of the poison. She quickly sealed the wound
and steadied herself for an attack.

The
arrows stopped flying at her while the guards watched closely waiting for the
vile high elf to drop dead. They were sadly disappointed as she became still
and opened her eyes. She had isolated the poison and surrounded it with her
magic. In essence, she had locked away the poison so that she could later remove
it. Now she turned her attention to the unlucky soldiers that would now feel
the full, unadulterated wrath of the most powerful sorceress in Tuwa. Her staff
disappeared into thin air, and she cupped her hands together in front of her. A
conglomeration of different colors and substances began to form into an orb
shape in the air slightly above her hands. The ball seemed to have colors that
represented the four different elements in nature which had a sickly hue to it.
The small ball grew to the size of a person’s head and then solidified into an
ugly looking ball. It began to rotate slowly and continued to pick up speed.
The guards were mesmerized or were in some kind of trance because they did not
react at all when the ominous sphere emitted a black hand that reached out at
its prey.

The
ethereal hand went to each guard and wrapped its black fingers around their
necks. The hand would then squeeze hard, and the person’s eyes would go blank.
Their souls were literally ripped from their physical bodies, and their spirits
were forced into the netherworld. Their physical bodies were left intact as
though they were still alive. In fact, they were still alive, but they no
longer were capable of doing anything aside from standing there. Such magic had
not been used in Tuwa since the days of its formation. This act of manipulating
the elements to perform such dark magic left a mark upon the place where the
spell was cast. After Kishi had demonstratively destroyed the queen’s guard,
she proceeded into the throne room where Daria sat upon her throne. As the
assassin approached the doors to the chamber, she noticed that there were no
guards there. She opened the doors slowly and slipped in quietly to the ornate
room. The queen of Nairi sat there with a look of resignation and expectancy on
her face.