Amidst The Rising Shadows (Book 3) (16 page)

Rordan activated the travel crystal and emerged on the field outside the High King’s tent.

“We will find them. I think we can guess where they went,” the High King said.

Rordan stepped inside. They were still talking about the attack last week. The attack that suspiciously occurred when Sarah had paid them a visit.

“What concerns me are these portals,” General Khoiron said, his craggy face frowning deeply. “Your Grace, if the enemy has the means to use these portals, then I think we need to move up our timetable.”

“In this we are agreed, my old friend. Our reports say they used some type of machine to create the portals. We will circulate the description of it and have it be a target in future engagements,” the High King said.

Rordan made his way through the crowded tent. “Mactar sends word that he has been successful, but he needs more time to gather more of them to make a difference in battle.”

“Excellent news.”

“What has he been successful in doing?” Khoiron asked.

“This, I’m afraid, I will not be sharing with the War Council. Not just yet,” the High King said. “Elite Grand Master Gerric, the time for testing with the crystal is over. The attack will be at dawn.”

“As you wish, your Grace. What are the targets?”

“These four kingdoms, bordering our lands,” said the High King, drawing their attention to the map. “They won’t know what hit them. There will be four more kingdoms the day after. Each group will take a contingent of Elitesmen. I expect the cities to fall by the end of the day. Inform the men that they will get their share of the plunder from these cities. That should rally them.”

Rordan’s heart pounded with excitement. War on this scale had never been possible before. He would be going with Khoiron tomorrow and was eager to test his mettle in battle. A small voice lingered in the back of his mind about the threat to them that Sarah had spoken about, but he banished it as soon as it came. Stepping out of the command tent and seeing the thousands of men assembled that were all part of the High King’s army made him more than confident. Knowing full well that there were eight more encampments with as many men in them gave the High King the most powerful army Safanar had ever seen. Safanar would be reforged and would someday be his to rule. Despite himself, his mind drifted to the Heir of Shandara.

He will never bow to you,
Sarah had said in the Great Hall, and she had meant it. Even knowing what their father was capable of, she sided with the Alenzar'seth. Sometimes in the quiet moments he thought of his own encounter with him. Could they ever be anything other than enemies?

Rordan followed his father and the other members of the War Council. Anyone who stood against them was an enemy. The sooner the kingdoms learned that lesson the better they would be. Even if this threat that his sister believed to be lurking over them proved true, it could never stand against the might of the Khamearrian army.

C
HAPTER
10

LEFT BEHIND

"We've lost it, sir," the Hythariam's gaze bored into his screen, and his fingers danced across the controls with practiced precision. "I'm sorry, one moment it was there, and next it was gone.”

Gavril shared a glance with Iranus. “Acknowledged,” Gavril said. “Flight team, do you have a visual on the target?”

Eight of their flyers were in the upper atmosphere, waiting to intercept the vessel sent from Hytharia. Iranus still gave himself a mental kick for missing the danger brought to their attention by Aaron. He brushed away the mournful feelings for the young man and focused himself on the screen in front of him. The moments dripped by as they waited in the command center at Hathenwood. The Hythariam and the few Safanarions in the room held a collective breath.

“Negative, we don’t have a visual. Permission to sweep the area of the ship's last known trajectory,” Tanneth said.

Iranus didn’t have high hopes that the search would be successful, but they couldn’t afford not to search.

“Granted,” Gavril said. “It was a long shot at best. Our satellites aren’t military grade.”

“I want all the satellites tracking the continent. We can rely on our own search algorithms to alert on anything of Hythariam design,” Iranus ordered.

The techs at the consoles began tapping away, carrying out his orders.

Vaughn, one of the few native Safanarions in the room, came quietly to his side. “Do you think they will find anything?”

“The ship must be equipped with military-grade technology, which means it can evade our means to track it. Tanneth will lead the search, and we’ll have to wait and find out,” Iranus answered.

Gavril came over. The old soldier still had his sleek, black armor on that molded itself to the wearer, almost like a second skin, and was very light in weight. The Hythariam who remembered what life had been like during their last dreadful days on Hytharia all had a deeper set to their jaws and a quieter manner than the others. They hardened themselves for the battles yet to come.
 

***

The Hythariam vessel had traversed the vastness of space, and the onboard ship’s artificial intelligence engaged the protocols for the last leg of its journey. The dataset it had for the planet was eighty years old, but the intelligence it yielded was acceptable. It’s target was located in a remote central-northern area of the land mass below that had little inhabitants. The AI detected passive scanners and engaged stealth protocols to evade detection. The ship’s designers had equipped the vessel with state-of-the-art cloaking technology, so that even if one were standing just outside it, they wouldn’t be able to see the ship. The precious cargo entrusted to the AI would be delivered, and the prime directive assigned to it more than thirty years before would be fulfilled.

The ship breached the atmosphere over the planet’s vast oceans, away from the marks detected by it sensors. The cloaked ship zoomed across the sky in a staggered approach with its mass displacing the clouds in its wake, but nothing else marked its passing. High above the land the ship flew, rapidly approaching its target. The ship came to a halt and hovered in the air, running a threat assessment of the valley it had chosen for its primary target. The criteria set for the AI was met, and it was green for the final stages of its long journey. In seconds, the onboard computers mapped every inch of the valley below. The ship began its descent using its lasers to cut away a landing area with enough room to carry out its tasks. The countdown timer was engaged. The next actions were essential if it were to achieve its prime directive. Two smaller craft detached themselves from the hull and raced ahead, each two hundred feet in length. They slammed into the ground, anchoring themselves into place. Panels opened up, and the batteries of the trans-dimensional Keystone Accelerators ignited to life, charging up as they waited for the final calculations from the ship.

The main spacecraft landed with the ground giving way to the reinforced landing gear. A small army of machines exited to perform their assigned tasks, reading the area for the host that would come through the portal. The subroutine finished, and the AI ran another check against the star maps of Hytharia’s last known position. The AI calculated Hytharia’s current position, taking into account the singularity that had been steadily feeding away at the system of planets for which it had been apart. While the data was being fed to the Keystone Accelerator pylons, the AI engaged the passive drones and sent them out, and another subroutine was dedicated to track the positions of all the satellites surrounding the planet.

The small panels opened upon the roof of the ship, and cyber defense drones zoomed into the air, rapidly accelerating away.

Data transfer complete...

The AI waited for the timer to reach zero, giving the drones enough time to take their positions.
 

The pylons ignited with bolts of energy running the length of each shaft before reaching across to join the other pylon. The energy aligned into a matrix that spread between the pylons, and a portal sheared to life, opening a doorway to a dying world.

***

Alarms blared to life throughout the command center deep in the heart of Hathenwood.

“Sit rep,” Gavril said, standing at the central pavilion.
 

“Energy spikes being reported, sir,” the tech said frowning at his screen.

Gavril punched in the command to bring it on the main screen for all to see, but it was completely washed out.

“That can’t be right. Run a diagnostic,” Iranus said, coming to Gavril’s side.

The seconds dripped past while the techs clattered away at their work, “The system is clean, sir; the report is accurate. The energy spikes are everywhere according to our sensors.”

Gavril felt as if the floor was suddenly pulled away from his feet, “They’ve blinded us. The Zekara are coming,” he said giving word to Halcylon’s military faction.

“Are you sure?” Vaughn asked.

Gavril’s grim face didn’t move from the main screen, “I’m sure. This is an act of war. They blinded us to their doings by flooding our systems with false energy spikes reporting from all over the continent. They knew we would be looking for them. Halcylon wasn’t taking any chances. With the failure of the Drake, that ship was their last effort and must have an AI with a full-complement cyber warfare suite.”

The occupants of the room remained still in a stunned silence.

Gavril turned to Iranus, “We have to find the command center in Shandara; that’s where this war was meant to be fought.”

“I know,” Iranus said, “but we need Aaron to bring the defense online there.”

“What do you mean?” Vaughn asked, dividing his gaze between the two of them.

“Hathenwood has been our home since the fall of Shandara, but it wasn’t meant to take its place. Shandara was to be our safe haven in the event of invasion. We poured all our resources there. However, access to the system is genetically encoded to only be brought online by a member of the Alenzar’seth,” Gavril said.

“Aaron,” Vaughn whispered.

“Yes, Aaron,” Iranus said. “Since his return we’ve been searching for it. Daverim wouldn’t safeguard his city to anyone other than his line.”

“Surely Reymius would have done things differently,” Vaughn said.

“Yes, he would have, but the fall happened so fast. The High King caught everyone by surprise. We couldn’t put contingencies in place should all of the Alenzar’seth perish. Plus Shandara was cut off from everyone by the Drake and the Ryakuls there,” said Iranus.

“In addition to the weapons caches, we’ve been trying to dig our way to the command center amid the ruins,” Gavril said.

Vaughn frowned, “Wouldn’t it have been destroyed with the city along with any of the defenses you had in place?”

Gavril shook his head, “No, but the system never came online, and many of the city’s defenses were protected underground. We’ve been clearing the ruins away, but they can only be brought online by the command center in Shandara.”

“What if,” Vaughn began and stopped, “what if Aaron is dead?”

“Then we’ll make every effort to bypass our own security measures in place to bring the system online, but first we need to get access to it. It’s buried in a part of the city that is almost completely destroyed,” Gavril said and frowned at the main screen. “After all these years we still got caught by surprise.”

“We couldn’t have known,” Iranus answered.

“
I
should have known,” Gavril said, then addressed the room. “Stop tracking energy spikes, it’s useless. We need to focus our efforts and narrow potential targets for us to investigate. Let's make a grid and check these areas. The ship will likely choose a place remote from any city.”

“How do you know that?” Vaughn asked.

“It’s what I would do,” Gavril answered.

“They wouldn’t have come here?”

Gavril shook his head, “The ship could land anywhere. Halcylon will not charge out and blindly attack. He will evaluate and prepare before he makes his move. He will try to remain hidden while he grows in strength.”

“You sound as if you know him,” Vaughn said.

“I did know him. I served under him in the military. I’m not sure whether he is alive, but these events with the ship are reminiscent of the tactics used by the general. He was nothing if not effective.”

“You almost sound as if you admire him.”

“He’s crazy. Brilliant, but the good man he may have been is gone. I aim to stop him and take him out if I can,” Gavril said.

They resumed their work, and Gavril set himself to the task of facing the embodiment of an old nightmare that hadn’t plagued his dreams for eighty years and prayed he was up to the task. He was most senior of the Hythariam military that came to Shandara and knew that if he failed they all would perish.

***

The ground rumbled, and pieces of the hollowed out mountain came crashing down. Aaron stirred awake and didn’t know how long he had been unconscious. Across the stadium an entire section had been pulled away, and a gleaming portal lit up the last bastion that housed the Hythariam, while their planet slowly died.

He was a huddled mass upon the ground with a column digging into his back. Only his eyes moved, and the rest of his body felt off as if his parts were in the wrong place. The Hythariam were flocking to the portal, and Aaron’s pulse raced, trying to catch a glimpse of Safanar. Flashes of light washed through the hollowed out mountain as the Hythariam poured through. A long line of equipment trekked across the way and disappeared in a flash, journeying to the place he longed to return. Aaron tried to move his arms, but they wouldn’t respond. He forced his lungs to expand, taking in as much of the thin air as he could. He focused his mind, looking inward trying to make sense of the wrongness he felt to his core. Nothing worked. Part of his mind scattered at the thought before focusing upon the portal. He remembered gaining consciousness in a blurred dream, and when he wouldn’t eat, the Hythariam forced the food down his throat. The beast called Thraw he hadn’t seen again, and Aaron wondered if he hadn’t imagined it all. His eyes shut as if great weights forced them. When he opened them again, the long line of Hythariam heading toward the portal was gone.