Amidst The Rising Shadows (Book 3) (33 page)

A Hythariam lay on his back, firing his plasma pistol using his Nanite-augmented senses, but he kept missing. A dark blade hissed through the air, but for once it missed its mark, and the Hythariam gained his feet.

The runes flared on Aaron’s staff, and the High King’s sword hacked against it, sending sparks into the air. As the High King moved, a trail of darkened shadows followed in his wake. Aaron sensed the tendrils of energy coming from the High King, but instead of strengthening the connection to the energy of those around them, the High King fed from it.

The High King broke off his attack, and the shadows around him faded into the earth. The wailing moans of men dying littered the battlefield around them.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Shandarian,” the High King sneered. “What, no talk of impending doom to strike across the land? No offer of alliances?”

Elitesmen materialized around them and stood waiting. Strapped to the High King’s back were the Falcons.

Aaron glanced at the dead FNA soldiers that were sprawled upon the ground and then back at the High King. “You have something that belongs to me,” he said.

The High King brought up his sword, a curved blackened blade. “Well, then by all means take them back if you can. Let’s see how well Reymius taught you.”

The High King charged, and Aaron sidestepped out of the way on pure instinct alone. The attacks came from all directions, and Aaron moved the staff, blocking the High King. With each blow a small shower of sparks was sent raining to the ground. Silver streaks blurred around the two combatants. A thunderous blow knocked Aaron back, and his body skidded to a halt. A silver-clad Elitesman reached out hungrily for him. Another Elitesman planted his foot, locking the staff to the ground, while another grabbed Aaron by his hair, dragging him up and away. The medallion became as ice against his chest. He let go of the staff and scrambled to bring his feet under him. Aaron clutched the hand that held him and twisted, kicking out with his foot, infusing the crushing blow with energy. The Elitesman cried out and was knocked back. More Elitesmen closed in on him, but Sarah appeared by his side, quickly followed by the others.

“I thought I’d help even things up,” Sarah said and engaged the closing Elitesmen.

Aaron sprang to his feet, his eyes locking on the rune-carved staff less than twenty feet from him. The High King kicked the staff away and smirked at him invitingly. An Elitesman charged in front of him, cutting off his view of the High King.
 

Aaron snatched the curved axe from his belt and hurled it with an energy-enhanced throw. The axe streaked through the air and burst through the Elitesman’s chest. Aaron bulleted across the fallen Elitesman, avoiding the High King’s sword and locking his grip upon the High King’s gauntleted wrist. The High King roared, bearing down upon him with all his strength, but Aaron didn’t yield. They locked together, two opposing forces matching strength against strength. The High King spun, and Aaron felt himself lift into the air, but he didn’t let go. His feet touched the ground again, and Sarah was there swinging her sword down. The High King shifted at the last moment but caught the tip of her blade on his arm. Aaron kicked the side of his knee, sending the High King off balance. Aaron quickly maneuvered around him and grabbed the hilts to his swords and tore them from their sheaths on the High King’s back.

The Falcons were his.

***

Colind flew through the sky, opting to use darker arts to travel through the battlefield. To the untrained eye he was a dark mist swirling through the air. He had limited time for which to travel this way, lest he not be able to regain his physical form.
 

The battle raged beneath him. At least they had been better prepared, unlike the firestorm that engulfed Shandara during the fall. He sped along, and while the Ryakuls were focused upon the FNA and Rexel he still couldn’t locate the who was controlling them. Mactar had to be around here somewhere and within view of the battle. Colind sank to the ground and pulled his essence together. He reached out with his senses, following the flow of energy. The battlefield was a wash of clashing forces, but what he sought was much older, and in spite of Mactar being a master manipulator there were some things that he couldn’t hide. Colind bolted for a small hill upon the rise.

Mactar was so focused on the battle before him that he didn’t sense Colind’s approach until he was almost upon him.

Mactar spun around, his eyes widening, “You never were adept at the more questionable uses of the dark arts.”

Colind pushed his hand out, sending a bolt of energy searing into Mactar, who raised a shield and deflected the bolt.

“You should have wasted away in that prison I left you in,” Mactar spat.

“I almost did, but you underestimated
him.
All of you have.”

“The Heir of Shandara has proven to be a formidable opponent. Your last hope to rebuild the Safanarion Order,” Mactar said.

The two men circled each other.

“If that is his will. Aaron walks his own path. Do the promises of the Zekara still sustain you? Reymius always suspected, but I wasn’t sure until the Ryakuls began fighting for the armies of the High King. Then I knew you had somehow harvested the power of the Drake. After all, how else would you know how to repair their technology? That is why you ran from that mountain. Aaron had already defeated the Drake, but you had gotten what you came for and probably would have been gone if it weren’t for Tarimus dogging your every move.”

Mactar’s eyes narrowed, and his face drew down in a sneer. “Reymius,” Mactar hissed, “was a fool like his father, Daverim, before him, to spurn the Zekara. They are the true power behind the Hythariam and not the pitiful band that remained holed up in Hathenwood after Shandara burned.”

Colind clenched his teeth at the mention of Shandara, and then his lips lifted in a satisfied smile, “Speaking of burning. I returned the favor and found a castle overlooking a small town in northern Khamearra. Sarah was kind enough to share that information with me. Your trophy room was particularly interesting. There isn’t much left of it, by the way.”

Mactar’s face twisted into an evil sneer and dropping the shield, he lashed out with an attack orb at the same time Colind launched his own attack. Colind was knocked back, and the putrid smell of burnt flesh invaded his nose. Mactar’s left arm was a charred wreck where the orb struck.

“What have you done?!” Mactar cried out clutching the remains of his wrist.

Echoes of the Ryakuls’ mad shrieks could be heard across the skies of Rexel. Colind turned toward the whispers of the bladesong he heard in the distance. To the east, the sky became washed out in a dazzling display of sunlight reflecting off the majestic hides of Safanar’s remaining Dragons.
 

Mactar’s mouth fell open at the sight. Colind pulled a dagger from his belt and plunged it into Mactar’s back. The essence of Mactar began to dissolve, and Colind brought his hands up, pulling on the energy around them to keep him from escaping. The dark swarm of Mactar turned and enveloped him in a swirling mass.

“You can’t stop me,” Mactar’s voice hissed.

Colind kept his focus, and the energy flowed freely even as parts of him tore away, but still he held Mactar in check.

“You’ll kill us both!” Mactar screamed.

“
I know
,” Colind whispered.

***

Sarah spun around, sensing the attack coming from behind. Rordan grinned, dodging her sword thrust and grabbing her arm. Using the travel crystal he took her to another part of the battlefield.

Sarah lashed out with her blade, knocking the crystal from his grasp and continued to hack away at her half-brother. Rordan broke off his attack and dashed away. He made a show of glancing off to the side, and it was then that Sarah realized she was surrounded. Elitesmen melted into view from the smoky battlefield, circling around them. She steadied her breathing and held her sword at the ready.

“Afraid to face me, Rordan?” she asked, allowing the energy from the earth to seep into her.

Rordan raised his head, tilting it to the side, studying her through the eyes of a stranger. It was gone in a blink, and he shook his head.

Sarah chanced a look at the Elitesmen surrounding her. “I know some of you don’t hold with the Order. Some of you have already made your loyalties known. Are there are any among you that will stand with me now?”

Sarah slowly circled around, but she was met with the hardened gazes of men who had long ago lost any semblance of a moral code.
So be it,
Sarah thought and clenched her teeth.

“You’re alone, Sister,” Rordan hissed, his pale face and sunken blackish eyes regarded her coldly.

Sarah saw the tendrils of energy flowing into Rordan. He seemed to be drawing upon the Elitesmen around him. Feeding off of them. Rordan raised his sword, and darkness swirled from the tip of his blade.

Sarah stepped back, her eyes darting to the bulge nestled upon Rordan’s chest. “You fool,” she said, her eyes widening in understanding. “Take off the apprentice amulet before it’s too late.”

Rordan’s face lifted into evil sneer, and when he spoke his voice sounded inhumanly deep, “But I’ve become so much more. The amulet allows me to tap into undreamed of powers.”

Sarah cried out, wincing as something burned her from beneath her skin. She focused the energy around her, calling on her training with Verona, and formed a shield. The burning stopped immediately.
 

Rordan leaped forward, swinging his sword. Sarah sidestepped, knocking his blade to the side. She had fought Rordan before, but this time it was different. He was descending into madness in his lust for power. The apprentice amulet that the Elitesmen used to unlock the powers and knowledge from souls past had opened a door to something else. Braden had sensed it when they were in Khamearra, but she hadn’t.
 

Sarah maintained her shield and fought her brother. Why the Elitesmen didn’t attack she didn’t know. She couldn’t spare any thoughts for them as all her focus was on the fight before her. Rordan moved as quickly as she did, and in their deadly dance their blades met in a harsh clang.

Rordan broke off his attack and shook his head as if to clear it. Sarah circled around and stretched out with her senses. Along the fringes she heard the bladesong, and her connection to Aaron blossomed like a flower in the dawn. Releasing the shield she leaped up into the air and closed the distance to Aaron. Rordan’s screams echoed in her wake. Dark shadows pursued her. Sarah went as fast as she could, skimming across the Ryakul-filled sky. She heard the snap of saber-tusked teeth as she went by, and occasionally a pursuing Elitesmen would cry out. Getting her bearings, she headed toward where Aaron fought. Determined to be at his side, she pushed all other thoughts from her mind as she sped across the battlefield.

***

 
The swirling mass of darkness tried to consume Colind, but he stubbornly held on, allowing years of rage to give him vast reserves of strength. This was a reckoning, and he didn’t care whether he lived or died, just so long as he took Mactar with him. That was all that mattered. He owed all the ghosts of Shandara that much for his failure. He had fulfilled his vow to his old friend, Reymius. Aaron had grown into the champion that Safanar needed. The bladesong reached out to him, and he felt the touch of Reymius’s heir, Ferasdiam marked, and the last scion of the House Alenzar’seth would go beyond any of his forefathers. A weariness spread within him that consumed his remaining strength. The swirling mass receded once again, forming into the man that had haunted Colind’s dreams since the fall of Shandara.

Mactar fell to his knees, covered in his own blood. He raised his weary head, his face twisted in pain and surprise. Colind still held him even as his own lifebeat diminished, his essence leaving his body just as the blood soaked the ground beneath it.

A flash of light lit the area around the two dying men.

“Darven,” Mactar whispered.

The former Elitesman that had become Mactar’s apprentice regarded him and the battlefield around them.

“It seems you have nothing left to teach, my Lord,” Darven said coldly, his gaze wandering to Colind before dismissing them both. “The Ryakuls cannot be controlled anymore. Your plan has failed. You are no longer of any use to me,” Darven said.

Mactar struggled to rise, and in a swift motion Darven caught him, holding a knife to his throat.

“You need me,” Mactar said his voice barely above a whisper.

“No. I don’t. And I’m going to do to you what you would have done to me eventually,” Darven said. His knife bit into Mactar’s throat, quickening an already fast approaching death.

Darven engaged the travel crystal and was gone.

Colind had nothing left to give. His vision faded, and he felt his essence, being pulled farther away and drawing him far to the east into the gardens of a palace known as the White Rose. Armies fought along the pristine white walls of his beloved Shandara. The golden shield of a Warden of the De’anjard flashed, driving the High King’s army back. The Hythariam fought at his side, and Colind felt himself drawn past, farther, into a grove of trees. Home to a lone white tree where he had been summoned once before by the ghost of his friend, Reymius. The tree sparkled like a beacon of stars washing him in the warm glow of the Goddess, who at last welcomed home her wayward servant.