Legends of Marithia: Book 1 - Prophecies Awakening: Uncut and Extended Second Edition (28 page)

Karven saw through the swarm of enemies
around him and caught sight of the fallen boy of prophecy. The
dragon king roared and his charge shook the ground as he closed in
on their position. "No! Vartan! This cannot be!"

Vartan’s eyes became heavier as he choked on
his own blood, his pain turning to a dull ache. Kassina’s eyes
suddenly widened and she cried out in agony. Her body slowly began
to disintegrate on top of him.

Vartan heard Kassina’s voice whisper,
“Who?”

As the dark sorceress’s body turned into
dust, Vartan saw Trisa standing above him, with Helenia’s sword
shaking in her hand and Karven's great form behind her. Vartan felt
weak, and his eyes were too heavy. He closed them, barely able to
keep up the energy to listen to what was going on around him.

Trisa wrapped her arms under his. “Quickly
now, help me move him!”

Vartan grunted in pain as he was carried for
a short distance. He opened his eyes one last time and saw
Helenia’s and Trisa’s blurry faces crouched over him. Standing
behind them was his mother, her form translucent and flickering in
his vision.

This is not right, my child. It was not the
right time for you to end your human life. You must hold on and you
must live. Focus on something that you can hold onto, quickly.

“I love you, Helenia…” began Vartan, as his
eyes closed and he began to drift into unconsciousness.

“I love you too, but you can tell me that
again later! Vartan – Stay with me!” Helenia screamed, slapping his
face.

“Look – what is this?” said Trisa’s voice.
“It fell out of his backpack.”

Vartan felt his head being shaken until his
world became dark and he could hear no more.

Chapter 20: Ashes to Ashes

“The darkness surrounds me like an endless
suffocating blanket. Its threads run straight through my soul and
hold me tightly within its vice-like grasp.

I can hear its voice – its sweet voice –
calling to me, aching to pull me deeper into the abyss. All the
while, I can still feel them clinging on to me, holding me back
from the unknown. Why won’t they just let me go?

Were we victorious? Am I dead? I don’t even
know what to think anymore. Wait, I can hear it again. It
wants
to talk with me… I am here, Talonsphere; I am waiting,
and I am ready to be reborn.”

(Sir Vartan of Greenhaven)

The air was pungent and reeked of rotting
flesh and blood. The skies were filled with the thick smoke of the
smouldering forest. Fallen corpses began their slow decomposition
to join the elements, while the remaining wounded edged closer to
death as each moment passed by.

Rumble…

The first icy drops of water fell from the
dark sky and splashed heavily on Andrielle’s armour. The rhythmic
beat of the rain on her moulded exoskeleton almost sent her to
sleep and made her nearly oblivious to the horror surrounding her.
The hail beat on her armour like a drum. Slowly, the enchantment
wore off and her armour moulded back to its original form. Her
entire body ached and was freezing cold, but she managed to prise
herself up to a seating position and take in her surroundings. Her
foggy breath escaped her helm and she blinked her eyes heavily to
focus them.

Rumble…

The rain increased its intensity and pounded
down as if the gods were beating the survivors in anger, large
chunks of ice rattling against her armour. She heard screaming in
the distance, a familiar voice escaping the almost deafening cries
of the dying.

“We have to find cover and get out of this
rain!” shouted Trisa, her voice strained and dry.

“And what of the thousands of wounded? We
can’t just leave them all here to die!” said Helenia, grunting as
she gently nursed her agonising shoulder.

Rumble…

Another flash of lightning revealed the
devastation surrounding them.

By the gods,
thought Andrielle, as the
shock of an endless battlefield of dead and dying overwhelmed her
senses.

Dryden spoke resolutely. “I will do what I
can for them, but there is no way we can save them all. There are
only a handful of us left alive, and the dragons have already
retreated to Trahoterra. If only we could move the queen’s armour…
but it’s too heavy. Only the gods know how she had the strength to
fight with all that weight."

Rumble…

Yet another flash of lightning revealed
Andrielle standing and limping slowly towards them.

“Mother, you’re awake! Are you all right?”
asked Helenia. She ran to her mother’s side, put her mother's arm
over her shoulder and led her to the shelter of a tree.

“I am pretty far from all right, but I will
live. Where is Vartan?” asked Andrielle, looking around in
vain.

Dryden's face hardened. “Karven and the
dragons took him to the only place where nobody would dare follow,”
he said grimly. “They took him back with them to Trahoterra, along
with their queen’s body."

Rumble…

The queen's eyes widened and she swallowed
hard before asking, “What happened? Is Kassina alive?”

“Trisa stabbed that walking horror through
the heart. As far as I know, that usually means the end of any
vampire, sorceress or not,” replied Dryden.

“Then we can only hope that she will never
return,” said Andrielle, “and that this was all worth the cost. We
have paid dearly for this victory.”

“I understand, my Queen. What do we do from
here? Do you have any orders?” asked Dryden.

Andrielle pushed her helm open and looked him
in the eyes. “There – that is much better. Orders? Help me tend to
the wounded and we will do whatever we can for them. Helenia, I
need you to go back into Veldrenn, and start rebuilding the city
with whatever survivors can follow you. When we are ready, we will
have to make the long journey out of the forest to Greenhaven; we
can only hope it was left undefended."

Dryden nodded, stretching his neck and
looking skyward. He scrunched his eyebrows as he stared at the
moon, and then turned back to his queen with a pale face.

“That’s strange, the moon looks different
tonight,” he said, beginning his walk towards the dying. “I have
never
seen it like this.”

Andrielle paused, fighting her urge to look
up with all of her strength until she could take it no more. She
laid her saddened eyes on the moon, now covered by a shade of
burgundy.

“Damn the gods! I can't believe this. The
Blood Red Moon prophecy has already begun to be fulfilled, even
after all of our efforts,” she screamed, tightening her fists and
kicking the tree.

Nymira’s body lay lifelessly in a pool of
cold water on the cavern floor. Karven lay beside her with his neck
placed gently on hers. Sparkly streaks of tears had dried on his
scaly face.

“Is Karven going to be all right?” asked
Trisa, preparing the healing potion for Vartan’s shivering
body.

“Don't worry about Karven. He has been
through much worse than this, but he needs to grieve the loss of
his love,” replied Finn. “You should be more concerned about
Vartan. I do not sense his presence, but his body lives on. Can you
really save him?”

Trisa sighed as she put the ingredients down
and turned to face the dragon with watery eyes. She spoke softly.
“I honestly don’t know. I have never experienced something like
this before, but I will do everything I can for him. It’s really
cold in here, and his body is shivering. I wish there was something
we could do to warm him up."

Finn nodded and made his way to a corner of
the cavern, where he picked up a wooden crate with his teeth. He
returned and placed the crate near them, torching it with his
breath until it caught fire. The flames cast an almost pleasant
light over them, warming the frail human bodies.

"Will that do it?" he asked, smiling.

“Thank you, Finn. You are a kind soul. I only
wish I had known you in your human form,” she smiled.

Vartan stirred, mumbling under his breath in
an incomprehensible language.

"You know... I never knew what it felt like
for Vartan, that day in the woods where I was killed in my human
form. I know now," said Finn.

Trisa's eyes widened as she stared at the
dragon in disbelief. "I think you have some stories to tell me,
young dragon... And we have nothing but plenty of time."

She lay down beside Vartan and held his body
close to keep him warm, stroking his head gently. “Shh, it’s okay,
Vartan,” she whispered softly in his ear. “You are safe now. Come
back to us.”

In a realm far from Marithia, Vartan heard
her voice.

The underworld was filled with bloodcurdling
screams as Shindar viciously tore through the bodies of his slaves,
his fury fuelling an anger that was seemingly unquenchable. A trail
of blood and destruction was left in his path as his slaves
attempted to flee their bonds.

"She is gone!” he growled between blows. “Was
this how the prophecy was to be fulfilled? Why do the gods continue
to take away what is dear to me?"

Amidst the chaos, a group of dark monks ran
up behind him. One of them screamed, "My lord,
please
, stop
this madness."

Shindar turned with eyes that pierced through
the soul. "How
dare
you tell me what to do?!"

As he was about to kill the monk, he dropped
his sword and came face to face with him. "I sense that you have
good news, so tell me...
now
."

The monk dropped his shaking hands and his
voice wavered as he answered. "We detected the use of one of our
forbidden spells, and the energy originates from Greenhaven. Queen
Kassina may still be alive."

The queen growled with annoyance as she
caught up to a busy Dryden and began tending to a young elf’s
bleeding wounds. She muttered something in Elven under her breath
and Dryden heard her mention the Elven word for moon, which he had
learned in his time at Veldrenn.

“My Queen, what does this new moon mean?”
asked Dryden.

Queen Andrielle sighed loudly and stared up
at the moon with narrowed eyes. “It means that this war is far from
over,” she said. “Vartan may already be dead, and we have a lot of
hard work ahead of us to prepare for who is coming. This is not the
end of anything, but the beginning of everything."

Epilogue: The Blood Red Moon

“One universal lesson can be learned from any
world among the stars. True evil
can
indeed be defeated, but
it can never be completely eradicated. Even if you destroy every
dark soul that comes your way, others will rise up to replace
them.

The passage of time does deliver us
surprises, but also repeats itself as events tumble together to
lead down the same road. Then again, we hold the power to change
the path that lies ahead of us, and find new alternate realities
for the future.”