The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (53 page)

So be it
,
Asahiel. It shall be given to Vandar to carry my Orb
,
to banish the Illysp to the well beneath Thrak-Symbos
,
and to construct a seal as her forebears once did. Since none other might comprehend and execute the magics involved
,
it is upon
her
shoulders that this burden will rest.

Torin looked to her in apology, but Annleia had already turned away, her focus upon the Dragon God’s unblinking eye.

“I am ready,” she said.

Torin could only stand there and grind his teeth, flush with a guilt from which he saw no relief. Did she not understand how foolish he would have to be to saunter off under the assumption that he could bring the Sword’s divine power to bear? It was only prudent to know their every option. Besides, it was not as if he would let her go off and do this alone. He would be there to ward her every step, to lend what skill he could to the quest she was being given. Together, they would see it done.

It occurred to him suddenly that Ravar’s voice had gone silent. Annleia was still looking at Him, gripping herself against gusting winds. Every now and then, she would nod or shake her head or glance again in Torin’s direction. Clearly, the pair of them were still communicating, but saw fit to leave him out of it.

“Am I to not know how this will happen?” he asked with some irritation.

Annleia only waved at him to be silent, intent on catching words he could not hear.

I can share only what
did
happen
,
Asahiel
,
little of which you will believe
,
and less you will understand. If you mean to be her warder
,
let your focus be on the path you must tread.

No small matter, that, Torin acknowledged privately. Pentania remained a long way off—a voyage of at least two weeks with favorable winds, added to the time it would take them to travel to a port and find a ship. Afterward, it—

“Ravar has agreed to carry us,” Annleia announced.

Torin blinked in surprise. Either the Vandari had read his thoughts, or she and Ravar had reached the same point in their own conversation.

“He…has He now?” Torin stammered.

The titan moaned, and Torin’s bones shivered. Not the most settling of prospects, though better than some he had heard this night. While he had no real way of knowing, he suspected the snaking leviathan could swim faster than any ship, without threat of being becalmed or misdirected by squall. Assuming the beast did not drown them, He might even convey them directly to Pentania’s treacherous eastern shore—upon which no vessel of wood and sail could safely land. Once there…

His grudging enthusiasm faltered, then slipped away. Once there, who would lead them through the ruins?

I will deliver you upon the southern shore
,
to where your people battle their last. There you will find your guide—one you will recognize.

Torin perked up at once. “Kylac?” he blurted. “Has Kylac found his way back to us?”

The Eternal Youth treads upon another path. In this
,
he cannot aid you.

The sudden, certain hope, dashed so quickly, left him raw with disappointment. The mere possibility led his gaze back to the spine embedded near his feet, so much like the weapons Kylac had fashioned for himself.
The Eternal Youth
, he mused. What did
that
mean? Was it meant to reflect—

A new suspicion gripped him, as sudden and certain as the last. “Is he one of yours?” Torin asked. “Is he one of those who bear your legacy?”

Kylac Kronus is one whose prowess is fed by an endowment of my divine strength—sapped from me by my fellow gods.

If so, it would explain much. Kylac’s speed, his skills, his warrior’s anticipation…won through years of training, yes, yet preternatural nonetheless. A paragon of finely honed—and seemingly divine—potential.

“If not Kylac,” Annleia pressed, “who is to guide us? How will we know them?”

His appearance will leave no doubt. Already
,
he hunts for you.

A dubious reassurance, Torin thought, sobering quickly. But he couldn’t well hope to navigate that labyrinth by himself. His prior trek through the buried halls of that city had been a meandering one, marked by trial and error. Doubtless, his trail would have been further obscured by the many Illychar to have—

His thoughts froze with yet another jolting realization. So obvious, had he only thought far enough ahead to consider.

“The ruins themselves are guarded, are they not?”

Along with your guide
,
the south holds those who will perish in your stead.

Torin shared another look with Annleia. His mouth felt suddenly dry. “And why must any be asked to do that?”

But the answer was evident. The Illysp would not take the defense of their
portal lightly. They had ambushed Darinor. They would be lying in wait for him as well.

This is the course you have chosen. Would you now choose the other?

The Sword. Once again, Ravar was taunting him, baiting him. Torin refused to bite.

“An army, then,” he decided. It would
have
to be, if Annleia was to be given a fair chance.

As many lives as you mean to sacrifice.

Torin scowled. “Are you saying all who accompany us will be lost?”

I say
,
wager what you will
,
numbers will not save you.

Torin gnawed on that a moment, disliking its taste. “Can you describe the dangers our company will face?” He knew of one already, which they would have to battle past or seek to avoid. But he had to assume there would be others as well.

Your peril lies threefold
, Ravar confirmed.
Against them
,
I offer these warnings
:
A spider’s web does not forbid entry
,
but escape. For one to press forward
,
the rest must be consumed
.
The greatest danger is that which lurks unseen.

Torin repeated them quickly in his head, mulling them over while committing them to memory. He did not trust in Ravar’s willingness to repeat them—or anything else He had shared.

The more he considered them, however, the less reason he found to hope.

Hope is impotent. It is deeds
,
with or without hope
,
that will save you.

True enough, Torin supposed. Sometimes, a man’s only recourse was to keep moving. “I suppose I must ask, then—”

Time wastes
,
Asahiel
,
Vandar. You have so little left. Should you question me unto eternity
,
I will yet have puzzles to share.

“He’s right,” Annleia said. She turned and plucked the longknife from its bed of sand and sea stone. The earth gave another shudder, and Ravar another moan. “We’ll sort it out on our way.”

So be it. He had more than enough to digest just now, and felt sufficiently ill because of it. Perhaps Annleia had made better use of her questions, and would have some small encouragement to lend.

With the spine tucked away, the elven woman began picking her way cautiously across the naked beach—still stripped of its tide by Ravar’s emergence. After a moment of peering vainly into the Dragon God’s distant eye, Torin sheathed the Sword and followed.

The exposed tidal flat was a rugged stretch of boulders and loose stones, all of it gritty with sand and slick with ocean growth. It took them some time to reach the end of the visible reef, stretching just beyond the cove’s mouth. Ravar’s immense bulk shifted closer to meet them, grinding and scraping as He aligned Himself against the shore.

Annleia waited until He had settled, then scaled His hide as she might any other coral rock formation.
She hides her trepidation well
, Torin thought, and
he was determined to do the same. Trying not to breathe too deeply of Ravar’s overwhelming, unfamiliar stench, he clambered after her from hold to hold, wary of the many jags and spiny growths and concealing crevices. He spied crabs and other clawed creatures hidden amid those holes, as well as beds of oysters and mussels growing in clumps.
At least we won’t starve
, he thought.

He took special care to avoid the leviathan’s spines, which sprouted forth like a forest of mismatched trees. Some were no longer than his forearm, while others easily reached twice his height. Most were filthy and salt-stained, coated like so much else with algae and barnacles. But he had no delusions about their razor sharpness, even in their natural state.

At long last they crested Ravar’s side and worked their way toward the ridge of His back. Looking north and then south along that line, Torin saw only more of the same: a bizarre jungle of scale and spine and coral, ravaged in its appearance, yet inhabited by urchins and sea stars and a thousand and more scuttling creatures he did not recognize. It might have been the ugliest terrain he’d ever seen. Or else the most beautiful.

Take hold.

Torin did not expect a second warning. But he knew not where they were expected to lie. Annleia, however, quickly found a nearby grotto with a larboard opening, and called him over to join her. Its floor was carpeted with sea moss. The moss was wet, and soaked through his breeches the moment he sat, but he supposed he would have to get used to that.

Uncertain of what to expect, he gripped the edges of the grotto, though the sharp coral dug into his palms. Annleia, who had sat down behind him, cinched her own arms about his waist.

No sooner had they settled than the earth beneath them lurched and twisted, detaching from the shore. He had anticipated worse. Even though Ravar swung His head to starboard with a serpentine thrust, His flesh rippled so that the momentum seemed to dissipate within the vastness of His form. This was no ship they sailed, Torin reminded himself, but a mass bigger than many an island.

Ravar dipped lower into the black waves on either side, sending the ocean’s waters rushing back into the cove. But that was behind them. Ahead, they found themselves skimming along just above the windblown crests. As their speed increased, so too did the gale of their passage, whistling through gaps in the grotto wall. Torin could scarcely feel the behemoth’s snaking movements—as deep and widespread and powerful as the sea’s own currents. The eastern horizon was dark and bleak and boundless, instilling a sense of isolation both fearful and wondrous. With night all around and the taste of spray upon the wind, he felt a stirring of the same exhilaration and freedom that sailing had first taught him.

To his left, however, the coastal face of the Dragontails veered north and east in a ragged line, craggy features limned in moonlight. Growing smaller, with every passing heartbeat.

An undeniable ache took hold in his chest. It made no sense to him, that
he should feel so strongly about a place he had scarcely known. Yet here he had found faith—those who trusted in him when he did not trust in himself. Here he had found hope—aims and aspirations for a life he had never before imagined. Here he had found love—a woman who had shown him with a single smile why men were given life. He had not asked for it to happen, yet his heart had somehow tethered itself to this place and people. To separate himself was like tearing it out by the roots.

Still, better to endure the grief of bittersweet memories, he supposed, than to have never known either.

So many to cling to. So many images to defend against the immutable decay of time. He couldn’t possibly retain them all, and time alone could tell which would remain. If only he had something more to grasp them with, something more than fallible mind and fickle heart.

His hands let go of their unnecessary hold on the coral walls. His left formed a fist around Dyanne’s pendant, her once-radiant fire reduced already to this mere ember. He would channel his efforts, he decided. All else would live through her memory, and her memory through this small token.

It was more than he might have expected. It would have to suffice.

Annleia’s arms slipped from around his waist. “I’m going to take some rest,” she said, her voice in his ear. “You might do well to join me.”

“Should we not share what we learned while our thoughts are fresh?” He turned as she rose.

“My thoughts are anything but fresh,” she said, her expression weary.

“Nor, I daresay, are yours.”

A maelstrom, more like. He held his tongue against any claim to the contrary, while Annleia moved away to curl up against the back of their little cave, her cloak wrapped close about her.

I suppose I should go and keep her warm
, Torin thought, before realizing that, with their coral windbreak and Ravar’s internal heat, the surrounding cold posed little real threat.

His fingers released Dyanne’s pendant and slipped to the hilt of the Sword.
Its power could consume a form even such as mine.
As boundless as the sea, but only in the hands of one who commanded it. He would do his best, of course, but when had his best ever truly been enough?

He looked to the ocean for an answer, soon losing himself in the rhythm of its swells.

A
LLION DID HIS BEST TO
keep his eyes forward as he made his way through the dwarven encampment. Hrothgari, the gnarled envoy had named them. Allies and saviors, when judged by their actions. But in that early morning mix of red light and flickering shadows, with their misshapen limbs and their stern, suspicious gazes, they looked to Allion more like ghouls.

Thus far, victory within the Gaperon had been a somber affair. The fires had surged with the dawn, feasting upon the bodies of the slain. Ash and cinder rained down amid gusting winds. The fighting had ended, the Illychar defeated—save for a few stubborn pockets entrenched upon the rocky slopes, and the occasional rising of a wounded one feigning death amid the carnage. It was mankind’s first real triumph since Rogun had quashed Darinor’s initial uprising at Krynwall. Yet, with all that Allion had seen of the aftermath, the outcome still tasted of defeat.

He had thought to spare himself the worst of it, to remain behind the Kuurian blockade and serve the wounded carried in for treatment. Perhaps he would find Marisha and try to make amends. But he was still with Commander Troy, out near the front, when the dwarven herald had found them, escorted by one of Troy’s own runners. The Hrothgari king, Hreidmar, had invited the various leaders of this impromptu coalition to meet with him. With only cleanup remaining, the time had come to take stock, greet their new friends, and plan their next maneuver.

Troy had agreed, and, before thinking the matter through, Allion had begged permission to accompany him. Too late, the hunter found himself wending past heaps of bloodstained corpses—not only of men, but of women and children. While some Illysp might seek only the strongest physical vessels, as Darinor had once claimed, there were plenty of others, it seemed, who would settle for whatever was available. And once possessed of an Illysp frenzy, none could be spared.

He had known it, he had seen it, though not on this scale. The Illychar he had battled before now had mostly been races of another age, many of them deemed monsters already. But this slaughter had come against their own, against innocents fallen at Atharvan. It made the atrocity of the wounds required to hew them down a second time all the more sickening.

Not that he could ignore the damage they had inflicted in turn. Wading through the still-simmering sea of bodies, he had suffered the anguished groans, the twitching limbs, the crawling wounded who writhed about, not yet realizing they were dead. These were the worst, he decided, those who
clutched at severed stumps or punctured organs with one hand, while clawing at his feet with the other. More than once, he and Troy had paused to lend aid or comfort, but for every one that might be saved, they encountered a dozen whose moaning pleas would be answered only by disease or blood loss. The hope and fear that shone in their eyes, coupled with Allion’s sense of helplessness, was enough to etch another scar in the wall of his heart.

Reaching the Hrothgari muster area had been of no great relief. The dwarves had weathered the battle better than most. Even those who had been maimed or injured bore their pain with tight-lipped determination. But Allion was immediately uncomfortable in their presence. His eyes seemed drawn to their deformities—the spurs and lumps and awkward angle of their appendages. He guarded his reactions, yet they seemed to sense his pity and dismay all the same. Their tart, indignant stares suggested as much. Some might only have been wary. Others regarded him with outright disdain.

Still, they parted before him without contest, deferring to the Hrothgari messenger who led them. So Allion kept pace with Troy, who seemed perfectly at ease, and dared not look back. He could sense the path closing behind them, making him mindful of his every breath and glance, understanding now why Hreidmar had invited them into
his
camp rather than wait to be invited into theirs.

Just ahead now, a clutch of boulders climbed a shallow rise. A pack of sentries formed a wall before the opening. These did
not
appear in any rush to step aside.

Their escort turned his head. “His Glory’s warders will unburden you of your weapons.”

Again, Troy uttered no protest. He had already agreed to leave his mount behind, sending it off with one of his grooms. As naked as Allion felt without his bow, he handed the weapon over along with his arrows and knives. They would do him little good at this point, anyway.

The
warders
watched him with disgruntled expressions. Then again, so much of their face was hidden behind those bristling, unkempt beards. Underneath, they might have been smiling, for what little he could tell. All he really had to go by were the knuckled brows and dark, agate-colored eyes. Given these, even the broadest grin would have done little to soften their overall bearing.

He forced his misgivings aside and even managed to nod at one of the warders as they parted before him. These were not his enemies, he reminded himself. They had proven that already. His mistrust in this instance was undeserved.

He followed Troy up the narrow footpath, feet scuffing upon a layer of pebbles. His boots were soaked with gore, stiffened leather turned soft and malleable against his toes. His ears rang with the distant clangor of swords and shouts, while his nose fought to reject the pervasive stench of smoke and sweat and rotting flesh. He wondered idly if he would ever smell clean air again, or glimpse a sky unstained by soot.

Troy’s sudden chuckle caught him off guard. “Mercy’s shade. Can that be who it appears?”

Allion looked up to take in the scene. The council had started without them, but came now to a murmuring halt. Bodies crammed the boulder-studded meeting ground—dwarves mostly, but the hunter realized quickly enough whom Troy had spotted.

“General!” he exclaimed, as Corathel turned to face them. “You’re alive!” He hastened forward, all else forgotten, until their guide reached out a twisted arm that stopped him after his second stride, nearly taking the wind from his lungs.

“
Tagge grem
,” the dwarf rumbled, “
hig marren groat
,
Tobarri. Drumguir aute.
”

His words were directed at a dwarf flanked by sentries and perched upon a boulder, who wore jewels within a striped beard. Hreidmar, Allion supposed. Heads turned to gauge the Hrothgari king’s reaction.

“Friends of mine,” a rising Corathel assured the dwarf leader. Hreidmar inclined his head, and their escort lowered his arms. The Parthan general approached, limping noticeably. His armor was dented, his clothing torn, his flesh battered and bloodstained. His face seemed a mesh of scabs and bruises.

“Allion, Commander,” he greeted with a grim smile.

“I should have known,” Troy said, clasping the other’s arm. “Who else would be mad enough to—”

“U’uyen?” Allion gasped. An apparition, surely, slipped from the crowd’s perimeter to appear at Corathel’s back. But there was no mistaking the Powaii chieftain’s lithe movements, his towering height, that crown of sharpened stakes. “How can it…? Is it really you?”

Cwingen U’uyen made a chittering noise and drew a pair of fingers in a line across his chest.

“You know this one?” Corathel asked Allion.

“It’s him,” was all the hunter could think to say at first. “The one who led our search for the Sword. The one Kylac told you about, when you and I first met.” His mouth was racing now, his thoughts almost feverish. “Where did you…? What’s he doing here?”

“I couldn’t say. He and a pack of his kind saw us safely from Atharvan. Been snug as a sword belt ever since. I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s saved my life.”

Again, U’uyen gestured, while his mouth made strange clicking and popping noises that Allion could not begin to decipher.

“Is Kae not here?” the hunter asked. “Or someone else who might tell us what he’s saying?”

Corathel shook his head. “We’ve discerned no more than his name. Few among us care to attempt even that. We’ve been calling him Owl.”

“He is pleased to see you,” a voice called over at them. Allion turned with the others to see who had spoken, and found it to be Hreidmar.

“You understand him?” Corathel asked.

“His general meaning. I’ve not heard the Illian tongue in decades, and theirs is a unique offshoot of that, even.”

With the entire assembly—and their king in particular—staring back at him, Allion became suddenly self-aware. As shocked and delighted as he was by these unexpected reunions, this gathering, he knew, was meant to serve a greater purpose.

“Begging pardon,” he offered, glancing between his friends and the dwarf king, “I did not intend a distraction. Only, I had feared these comrades dead.”

Hreidmar waved the apology aside. “Your familiarity with one another should hasten these proceedings. You are commanders from the south?”

Troy stepped forward, then bowed crisply. “Troy, named high commander of the Imperial Army of Kuuria by King Thelin of Souaris. My companion is Allion, regent of Krynwall—the capital of Alson.”

“Former regent,” Allion corrected. He looked again at U’uyen, who hovered protectively at Corathel’s shoulder.

Hreidmar beckoned them closer. Corathel led them to the flat shelf of rock on which he’d been seated upon their arrival. Behind them, U’uyen slipped into the shadow of a nearby boulder.

Hreidmar waited until they were situated, then fixed his gaze upon Troy. “Is it true, then, what this one’s been telling me?”

Neither the king’s somber tone, nor the gruff stares of the many dwarves in attendance, could hold Troy’s familiar half smile at bay. “What has he told you?”

Corathel answered. “Word is, Souaris has been abandoned.”

“Assaulted from within.” Troy’s smile had vanished. “The Imperial Council deemed her walls unsafe, given the nature of this enemy.”

“You fled,” Hreidmar stated plainly.

“I serve as my king commands, guarding the exodus of my people—and many a refugee from throughout Pentania—from these lands.”

Allion turned to Corathel. “Those I marched with from Atharvan—your citizens, your soldiers—went with them, to blaze a trail across the sea.”

“They will be reaching the coast by now,” Troy added. “At last report, they were just a few days out.”

A chorus of complaints broke out among the dwarves, in a tongue Allion did not know. Hreidmar raised a fist to quiet them.

“My kin came forth to fight, not sacrifice themselves to the mercy of wind and wave.”

“And we’re indebted to you,” Troy said, “make no mistake. Our defenses were crumbling. Your timely efforts have won us a reprieve.”

“Temporarily,” Corathel muttered. When the others looked to him, he explained, “This was a mercy killing, no more. A chance to lay past failures to rest. The true threat is still en route.”

“How many?” some dwarf asked.

“Fifty thousand, at the least. All of a much deadlier variety than that faced here.”

“The Imperial Army alone can muster that and more,” Troy observed.

“My warriors number greater than twelve thousand,” Hreidmar added.

“And the Parthan Legion stands at better than twenty, discounting our night’s losses, and without including those to the south,” Corathel said. “It matters not.”

Emboldened by the growing count, Allion was confused by the sudden turn. “But…we outnumber them.”

“At first glance, perhaps,” the Parthan general allowed. “But ours count no better than half—and more likely a third or a fourth—given their need to battle in shifts, while the enemy comes continuously at full strength. And the fifty we face might well be a hundred, two hundred, before we are finished, since many will have to be killed several times over ere their coils are finally destroyed.”

The momentary joy Allion had felt at seeing Corathel and U’uyen again, the hope their appearance had fostered, seeped away like water through parched earth. He could sense the truth in Corathel’s words. How many times had they witnessed it? As King Thelin had pointed out, the underlying threat was not the Illychar, but the spirits that raised them—over and over again.

“As loath as I am to admit it,” Corathel said gravely, “I cannot fault Thelin or his councilors the decision they’ve made. If the Illysp were no more, then perhaps—just perhaps—our numbers might stand sufficient. Barring that, it seems we are hopelessly outmatched.”

Hreidmar’s beard rustled. He seemed to be grinding his teeth. “We were led to believe your kind was stronger than this. We believed there was still a chance.”

“And there is,” Allion heard himself say. Upon realizing that he had drawn the assembly’s attention, he spoke up. “If it’s survival you speak of, there are lands aplenty, I imagine, far grander than this one.”

“With perils of their own, I do not doubt,” Hreidmar countered. “And should this plague we seek to leave behind gain in strength, there may come a time in which we’ll wish we’d done more to stamp it out when presented this opportunity.”

“Looking back,” Corathel said, “I fear the opportunity was never more than a mirage.”

Again the Hrothgari grumbled among themselves. Some looked or gestured angrily to the eastern slopes rising overhead. Allion peered in that direction, shielding his eyes against the brightening sun, but saw only cliffs and fissures and clinging growth. He was more concerned with Corathel and all that the chief general must have endured to have soured so completely on their chances. Once again, false hope had given way to only deeper despair.

As the arguments grew louder, with Hreidmar sitting still in silent appraisal, the approach of a fresh envoy drew Allion’s gaze. When he saw who accompanied the herald, his chest tightened with an odd mix of fear and pride.

“I do pray I’ve not missed the festivities,” Rogun boomed in sardonic greeting.

The envoy bowed. “
Tobarri
,
hig drumguir gragmel. Rogun
,
dar Alson roke.
”

“How many leaders do you men require?” Hreidmar asked of the three already present.

Rogun ignored the king’s comment. “Well, now,” he said, staring squarely at Allion, “venturing a bit close to the fire, aren’t we?”