King Of Souls (Book 2) (37 page)

The peak gave way to a rocky valley descending to a long ribbon of road winding through the mountains.

Nervous flutters ran wild in Ronan’s stomach, and he couldn’t shake a feeling of dread. He reasoned that Tara’s appearance in Meranthia didn’t point to a similar threat in Ayralen. But, his rationalization felt hollow. He sat up straight on Rika’s saddle, and scanned the twisting road searching for its exit at Elan’s Gap.

Rika screeched a high-pitched cry of warning and tucked her wings back before plunging downward.

The bear cub popped his head from the leather pack strapped to Ronan’s back. He peered right and left before disappearing inside its murky depths.

Ronan’s stomach sank at the sudden change of altitude, and he reached for Elan’s magic. He reinforced the spirit shields already surrounding him and Rika. He craned his neck searching for potential threats, but the sky surrounding Rika remained empty. Ronan glanced below, and motion on the Queen's Road caught his eye.

Like a rushing river current, ripples of people bustled along the highway cutting through Elan’s Pass. Refugees numbering in the thousands stretched the length of visible road seemingly without end. Unlike the final year of Merric Pride’s reign, the refugees came from Elan’s Gap moving toward inner Meranthia.

Ronan’s stomach heaved. He should’ve trusted his instincts last autumn and insisted on a formal investigation. Danielle and Keely had no business flying into the desert alone. Had he arrived too late? He leaned over Rika’s neck. “Hurry Rika. Dear God hurry.”

As if shot from a ballista, Rika screamed forward hurtling toward Elan’s Gap at speeds fast enough to rip apart an ordinary rider. But Ronan’s shield, spun from Elan’s purest magic, buffeted the wind’s force.

In a blur, she swooped downward whistling over the Ayralen refugees. She loosed a high-pitched screech and raced ahead hugging the Queen's Road.

Ronan shot his fist skyward commanding a deep blue orb of spirit energy into his open palm.

Heads craned and fingers pointed skyward as refugees flashed by. A thundering chorus of cheers erupted below. The refugees stopped to watch the king and his lady ready themselves for battle.

Rika pitched right following the highway’s twisting course. She veered past a raised boulder and beneath a rocky overhang increasing her speed as she surged ahead.

Like an ocean’s wave at high tide, the crowd’s roar grew louder and faster as it followed the couple hurtling toward Elan’s Gap.

Ronan’s head buzzed fueled by the refugee’s raw emotion urging him onward. He couldn’t imagine what had started the exodus. But, he wouldn’t stop until he’d found Danielle, Connal, and Rika’s family safe and whole.

Rika pitched left then darted right racing six-feet above Ayralen’s fleeing populace.

Just ahead, the Queen’s Road broadened like a river delta before descending a hundred feet ending at Elan’s Gap.

A pair of massive iron gates hung open buoyed by the crush of refugees pouring through. Perched along the fortress’s high walls, two dozen spirit shields glimmered with blue energy. Meranthian archers and battle knights raised heavy Ayralen longbows and fired into the sky above the Gap. Heavy ballista launched iron scattershot outward against an enemy hidden from view.

Ronan leaned forward and raised his voice over the crowd’s thundering cheers. “Fly over the right wall, I can help those archers.”

Rika surged upward streaking toward the fortress’s high walls lined with archers and knights.

Ronan leaned over Rika’s saddle and flashed his palm toward the soldiers lining the wall. He directed flows of spirit along the line reinforcing their shields.

“King Ronan!” A soldier fighting near the wall’s inner edge raised his longbow high overhead and cheered pumping his fists. He pointed toward Ronan and cheers erupted from the soldiers lining the high-wall’s parapet. Soldiers raised weapons high on either side of the fortress’s towering gates.

Lighting crackled and Rika screeched pitching down and right. Fingers of white energy pounded her shield sending spider webs of blue spirit racing around her body.

Ronan’s head snapped toward the source of the lightning attack, and his eyes widened in disbelief.

A blond-haired child no older than ten seasons rode atop a silver and green dragon with his finger pointed at Ronan. On his index finger, a heavy silver ring glowed white before morphing into a dull shade of red. The child’s blue eyes betrayed a soul much older than his outward appearance suggested. His eyes lacked a child’s innocence and showed no mercy.

Ronan flattened his palm and channeled spirit. He sent a wispy net of transparent energy floating toward the childlike sorcerer.

When Ronan released his trap, gusts of air from the dragon’s huge wingspan washed over Rika. She spun on a massive updraft of violent turbulence and screeched beating her wings in a furious try to regain her lost balance.

The dragon arced upward and pitched sideways. The sorcerer raised his index finger, and his silver ring flashed bright red. His thin pale lips curved upward into a mocking sneer, and he mumbled words lost in the wind and fighting. A thin line of flames leaped from his fingertip a moment before his eyes widened, and a pale expression of shock settled over his face.

A smear of inky glass-like spirit wrapped the sorcerer in a detention shield the world had never seen. Like a shroud of skintight glass, the shield constricted surrounding the man-child in a spirit prison.

Ronan closed his palm, squeezed, and yanked.

Any confidence the sorcerer had once displayed evaporated as he shrieked like a frightened child. An invisible hand pulled him from his saddle into the empty air above Elan’s Gap.

The riderless dragon swung beneath Ronan and retreated over the blackened forest canopy.

The sorcerer fell thirty feet before Ronan yanked on the spirit line jerking him to a stop on an invisible tether. He resisted the urge to sever the line and let the little cretin splatter against the forest floor like a rotted piece of fruit. The sorcerer might provide useful information.

The sorcerer screamed twisting and flailing trying to escape, but like a fly caught in a spider’s web, he’d find no relief. He deserved no pity.

Across the blackened vale, hundreds of heartwood trees stood naked of any fruit or vegetation. Miles of thick gnarled limbs stretched in every direction. Death’s promise had replaced the forest’s grand majesty. No animal life stirred, and the once lush undergrowth lay hidden beneath a layer of rotten fruit, leaves, and branches.

Cold wind washed over Ronan’s face as he absorbed the full extent of the apocalypse laid out before him. How in Elan’s name had this happened? Three months ago, he’d seen the forest thriving. Worry for his father and sister pricked his thoughts. He had to find them.

Rika’s body shook under Ronan as her eyes swept over the devastation. She rolled in a slow arc turning her gaze from the horror and flew toward the fortress’s base at Elan’s Gap.

A quarter mile northward, a pair of juvenile dragons and their sorcerer riders beat a path toward the forest's center.

Blue spirit energy flashed near the fortress gate while scores of refugees emerged from the tall grass lining the road.

Ronan leaned over and ran his hand along Rika’s neck. “I’m sorry Rika. We’ll find out who did this. I promise.”

Rika glided toward a pair of shield knights directing refugee traffic through the iron gates.

A shrill squeal sounded from the sorcerer where he dangled beneath Rika bouncing off the hard packed forest floor.

Rika dragged the little rodent through burr filled ground cover and thorny shrubs. When he caught on the edge of a blackened heartwood limb, she beat her wings harder until he snapped free.

Ronan didn’t try to soften the sorcerer’s short trip across the forest floor. He’d earned far worse than the meager punishment Rika doled out.

Knight Jeremy Brooks waved his arms overhead. He stood a few feet from the gates overflowing with a steady stream of refugees. Thick stubble lined his unshaven face, and his bloodshot eyes marked a man who hadn’t slept in days.

Fingers pointed toward Ronan and loud murmured conversations came from the milling throng.

Rika passed a few feet overhead and settled on the ground beside Jeremy.

Ronan jumped from Rika’s saddle, worked loose the buckles, and pulled it free.

Rika shifted into human form, faced the decimated forest, and sank to her knees. She cupped her face in her hands, and her body trembled. Tears came to her eyes, and she wept.

A heavy dull ache settled in Ronan’s chest, and he knelt beside her slipping his arm around her shoulders. He couldn’t find words to comfort such a profound loss. He gathered Rika with both arms, and held her tight as she melted into his embrace.

Heavy soul wracking sobs came from Rika, and she buried her head in Ronan’s shoulder clinging to him like a life raft set adrift in a sea storm. “How could this happen Ronan? We have to fix it.” Her words came out broken and halted. “My father…where’s my father?” She pulled at his tunic balling her hands into fists. “Kelwin…we have to find them.”

Ronan stroked Rika’s hair and pressed his face against her tear-stained cheek. He kissed her and whispered in her ear. “We’ll find them both. I promise.”

As if struck by a sudden thought, Rika shot to her feet, her eyes narrowing. Her expression shifted from sorrow to rage, and she stormed toward the sorcerer bound in Ronan's spirit prison. “You have answers don’t you?” She broke into a trot and stopped before the blond boy. She reared her foot back readying a kick.

Ronan chased after her, but felt no urgency to protect the sorcerer.

The sorcerer curled into a tight ball covering his face and head, but the shield surrounding him would prevent any real harm. “No, please don’t hurt me.” He groveled like a mewling coward.

In a blaze of fury, Rika flung the reinforced tip of her heavy leather boot toward the sorcerer’s exposed midsection. Her foot stopped cold, and a white wave of energy rolled over the shield surrounding the cowering sorcerer. She glared over her shoulder at Ronan and wiped away the tears streaking her face. “Take it down Ronan! I want answers, and this…creature can give them to me!”

“Lady Rika, wait!” Jeremy scrambled past the flowing refugees and stopped before Rika. “I have information that will answer many questions, but we have to hurry.”

“What news Jeremy?” Ronan said.

Dark circles lined the shield knight’s deep-set eyes. His voice shook with barely contained emotion. “I’m sorry Your Majesty, I tried to stop them from taking the princess, but they laid a trap for us.”

Nausea curdled Ronan’s stomach, and he braced himself for bad news. “Talk to me Jeremy.”

Jeremy raised his eyes and met Ronan’s steady gaze. “It’s about your sister and the Prime Guardian.” He glanced toward Rika. “And your brother Lady Rika. Along with every warden in the vale.”

Hot bile crept up Ronan’s throat, and he dreaded asking the next question. “What’s happened to Danielle?”

Pain touched every line in Jeremy’s face. “They’ve taken her hostage sire.” He wagged a finger at the cowering sorcerer trapped in Ronan’s detention shield. “Many more like him arrived from the desert almost two weeks ago. They’ve kept the forest under siege ever since. I’m sorry.”

Ronan felt his shoulders tense, and he gazed on the withered Ayralen tree line. They’d kept Meranthia out of the Heartwood for two thousand years. In a short two-week span, their entire defense had collapsed. His gaze wandered across the horizon absorbing the disaster’s full scale. He couldn’t blame Elan and Lora for their decision. If they couldn’t stop the desert dragons, how could he and Danielle? “What of my father? And Kelwin?”

“He and every last warden in the Guard are protecting the first tree,” Jeremy said. “Your sister believes that if it dies, every heartwood tree in the forest will die with it,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s more Your Majesty.” Jeremy lowered his gaze.

“Go ahead,” Ronan said.

“The Obsith stole Lora’s Sphere when they kidnapped the princess. The last time I saw her she sat atop a dragon flying toward the forest’s heart.”

Hard knots twisted Ronan’s stomach. As Moira predicted, Trace wouldn’t stop until he controlled all three orbs. “Jeremy, the forest is lost. We need those guardians and wardens alive. He’ll come for Elan’s Heart next.” He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced over his shoulder at the knight’s manning the high wall. “Gather every shield knight and guardian you can muster, and meet at the first tree. We’ve got to talk sense into my father.”

As if reading Ronan’s mind, Rika shifted into her quicker lighter hawk form, and Ronan swung his leg over her back. “We need to fight off the Obsith long enough to evacuate the first tree. Time is short, so hurry.”

“Where are you going?” Jeremy said.

“We’re flying ahead to track down my sister and father.” He flicked his wrist cutting off the tether leading to the imprisoned sorcerer. “I want that sorcerer shielded and placed in the dungeon. I’ll question him myself when I return.”

Jeremy raised his palm and surrounded the sorcerer in a deep blue detention shield, and faced Ronan.

“Jeremy, send a guardian to Freehold. I need a full report from Devery and Sir Alcott. I want any information they've gathered about Tara.” Ronan glanced toward Elan’s Gap as if he might find Devery standing on the wall. “I don’t want Devery tangling with her alone. If he’s found her, I want her tracked, but I need the military to prepare Freehold’s defenses.”