The Chronicles of Lumineia: Book 02 - The Gathering (45 page)

“Sorry,” he
said.

Her smile
turned sad. “I know Taryn. I don’t fault you for not being able to see when
someone favors another. I knew that early on.”

He barked a
laugh, but even during the brief moment of levity his mind still dwelled on the
task before them. Then a question he’d been meaning to ask her came to mind.
“Can you tell me what was it like to use the wind bow?”

She sat up and
pulled the bow off her back. Setting it in her lap she caressed the knotted
wood. “Like nothing I have every experienced,” she said, her voice gentle. With
her eyes still on the bow, but not seeing it, she went on, “I could see the
arrow, and in my mind I could
feel
the air around it. It seemed natural
to touch the arrow from any side I wanted, nudging it to go where I needed it
to.” She cocked her head to one side and added. “It was like I could see four
times as far as normal, like peering through a distance viewer and shooting an
arrow while knowing I could reach out and place it precisely where I wanted. It
was exhilarating.”

Taryn found
himself smiling, the war momentarily forgotten as he thought about his parents’
enchanted weapons. “I know what you mean,” he said.

“Is that how
it is with your swords?” Liri asked, turning to him with curious eyes.

He nodded.
“Wielding my father’s sword is like swinging contained, limitless power. It
seems to anticipate where I want it to go and already be on its way when the
thought crosses my mind.”

“And your mother's?”

“Hers is . . .
different. On the one hand I feel its energy, but it is more subtle—no less
powerful, just less obvious.”

She gave him a
crooked smile, an expression that Taryn loved and which she rarely showed to
others. This close to her, he felt he had to confess something that rankled. “I
have to admit that in one way, fighting the fiends two days ago was . . . wonderful.”

“Really?” she
said, her eyebrows pulling together. “In what way?”

He took a
breath, unsure of how she would respond, “I have trained my whole life to
fight, and it has always come naturally to me.” He paused and looked away.
“With the exception of Draeken's assassin, I have never been in a battle where I
could use every skill I have honed. I felt such a fear of killing someone who
didn’t deserve it, like a father or a brother. You said once that there was
something in me that didn’t like to kill, and that piece of me saw good in
others. If that is true, then when I saw the fiends, I saw no hint of goodness.
I fought with everything I had, every trick I knew, and for the first time in
my life, I felt like I had a purpose. I just wish that purpose wasn’t to kill.”

He fell
silent, and didn’t have the courage to look at her. When he finally did, he
found her smiling. “When you fought the fiends, it looked like you were free,” she
said with a shrug. “You were born to do this, Taryn, to defeat this evil. You
weren't born to kill.” She leaned towards him, her eyes piercing his. "You
were born to save."

Taryn’s brow
furrowed as her words reminded him, for the first time in a while, of the orb
that Siarra had given him so long ago. She had told him that it would reveal
possible fragments of the future, and he’d been hesitant to look into its
depths for fear it would cause them to fail. He also recalled his decision in
the gnome city to activate its magic. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the
small, leather bound bag and emptied its contents into his hand.

“Is that what
I think it is?” Liri asked, her eyes going wide.

“The orb that
Siarra showed the queen,” Taryn answered in a small tone. “She said that it
would reveal possible futures for me, but she didn’t know if I should use it or
not. It sounded like one choice dooms us, and the other saves us. She gave it
to me to choose.”

She let out a
slow breath, and Taryn could see her thinking through the possibilities. “Are
you going to do it?” she asked, her eyebrows full of concern.

He shrugged.
“If there was ever a time to, it would be now. We are stuck, with no idea how
to reach Draeken. Perhaps this holds the answer.” He hefted the ball to
emphasize his point.

“Or it will
show you something that will sabotage us,” she said.

 “What do you
think?” he asked. “Do you think I should?”

Her lips
thinned as she considered the ramifications of both choices, but then she shrugged
and her eyes met his. “Yes. As we are, we need direction. If we don’t get some
guidance, everyone dies anyway. At least this gives us a chance.”

Cocking his
head to one side, he thought about her logic. It made sense, and her words rang
with truth. His mind made up, he took a deep breath. “Here goes . . .” Before
he could change his mind he forced his gaze to the orb. At first there was
nothing, but a moment later everything around him faded into nothingness.

For one long
moment, all Taryn saw was black. Then he turned and saw Liri—but not the one
sitting beside him. Rather she lay as a still form on stone steps where she’d
been cut down. Blood ran from fresh wounds, and Taryn tried to run to her aid,
panic engulfing his soul. Just as he reached her the scene changed.

Now he stood
in a large stone circle, and in front of him he saw a mirror image of himself
staring back at him. He reached out to himself and saw the image do the same,
and suddenly he understood where he was. Looking upward he saw a figure
shrouded in darkness chained against a wall above him.

Kill him
and you kill me
, it said. The voice penetrated his mind, the tone sinister
and dark. The words sank into his heart like black ink. Then he watched himself
draw his sword at the same time as the mirror of himself did the same. Though
he tried to stop himself, his sword reached out and pierced the mirage, but his
eyes were on the evil sword entering his own body, and the pain was excruciating.

Abruptly the
view shifted to Azertorn, and he saw Braon standing in the house of Runya. The
young man gazed skyward, his expression sad, and Taryn looked upward as well.
The enchanted ceiling of the house of Runya showed the sky, but all he saw was
the black shadow that hovered above the army. As he watched, the dark cloud
encircled a shaft of light that still existed above the city, and then
extinguished it. When he looked at Braon again, he lay dead on the floor with a
fiend standing over him. Taryn's heart wrenched, but before he could do
anything his form lifted into the air above the city and flew over the cliff.

Thousands of
bodies lay dead, and only fiends were left. In that moment the sky above him
cleared, the darkness washing away to leave the brilliant sunset, and when he
looked down again, the army of fiends was gone. Only the bodies of the dead
races remained.
Even if I sacrifice myself I am too late,
he thought,
and pure anguish tore through his soul as the view dissolved.

Now he stood,
again in the air, but this time the view was familiar. Hovering, he stood above
himself and Liri sitting on the cliff as he looked into the orb. Then he was soaring
through the air. Flying east along the mountain, he drifted down and landed in
front of an obscured opening in the mountain. His body glided in, leading him
into a tunnel that appeared to be an abandoned mine. At the first junction he
saw the shaft split into three directions. One headed east and he could sense
that the mine shaft would get them past the first valley.

One more time,
everything around him faded, and he saw himself in the stone circle facing his
mirror image once again. For several long minutes he stared at an evil copy of
himself. Then he looked upward and saw Draeken, almost fifty feet off the
ground, with a smooth wall underneath him. There was no way to reach him . . .
but then he felt his body somehow rise upward and cross the intervening space.
Raising his father's sword high, he plunged it deep into Draeken’s chest.
Mortally wounded, the Lord of Chaos arched his back and screamed before the
image faded to black.

Taryn blinked
his eyes open and saw Liri’s concerned face inches from his. “Are you alright?”
she asked, her voice tinged with worry.

He nodded, realizing
that his body felt fine while his head pounded with a dull ache. Before he
could forget, he ran through the images he’d seen so they would remain fresh in
his memory, but couldn’t bring himself to look at Liri’s dead form. In his
heart he refused to believe that she would die. He would not allow it.

“Did you see
anything?” she asked, her voice hopeful.

He forced a
smile and focused on her. “I know what we are supposed to do.”

Chapter
35: Hope Burned

“Deiran
reports that a rider from the southern kingdom has arrived. He is alive, but
not by much,” Thacker said from behind Braon.

He nodded to
acknowledge the report but didn’t turn. If he did, he was afraid his emotions
would betray him. “Inform me when he wakes. I would like to speak with him.”

Like every
person in the gathered races of Lumineia, he stood transfixed, watching the
forest of Numenessee burn. The fire only covered the southern half of the elven
forests, but the wind was driving it northward. Smoke and cinders flew thick in
the air, blotting out the entire horizon, and forcing many of their army to
wrap cloth around their mouths to prevent inhaling the smoke.

Like a hungry
beast, the raging inferno crept closer and closer to the cliff. Unable to turn
away, Braon watched from the roof of the House of Runya, listening to the great
outcry from the elven nation. Cries of rage mingled with despair as the fair
people watched their beloved forest disintegrate before their eyes, helpless to
stop it. Trees toppled in a shower of sparks, birds scattered and flew north,
calling their anger at the destruction of their homes. Each sight and sound
sent a blade through the heart of every onlooker.

Knowing it
would take a long time to burn, Braon wrenched his mind away from the terrible
sight and walked to his room to prepare himself for the impending ordeal. He
ate alone, washed the smudged ash from his face, and tried to sleep, unable to
ignore the lamentations of the elven race. At long last he fell into a
nightmarish slumber, where trees and people burned, and he ordered them to
their deaths.

Throughout the
night and the following day, the forest of hope burned bright. By the time the
flame had eaten its way out of things to consume, silence reigned on the Giant’s
Shelf. Numb disbelief on behalf of the gathered nations had no other way to
express itself, and soldiers of every race passed the day with barely a word.

Once again on
the roof, Braon watched the smoky landscape and charred remains of the once
lovely wood, and then stayed as dark shapes began to materialize in the haze.
Ghostlike, the small groups of snarling fiends turned into thousands . . . then
hundreds of thousands . . . and finally millions of roiling bodies advanced
towards the cliff. Thick smog obscured his visibility, yet it was still evident
that the fiend army already covered more than four times the ground of his
entire army—and still they poured out of the smoke like demons in a nightmare.

“By Ero’s
staff . . .” Thacker breathed, his jaw working in shock. Around him he heard
more curses as the fiends approached, close enough to make out the different
types.

Sipers, the
huge dogs with scales and silver eyes growled and snapped at the sparks rising
from their paws. Man-shaped quare, their thick manes shimmering red, bounded
forward, seeking blood. Giant kraka’s, marked by their bone armor and their massive
black swords. Then skorpians appeared in the gloom, their pincers snapping with
menace, and their tails twitching with anticipation.

The black army
of Draeken advanced through the scorched remains of the forest of hope, until it
came to a halt at the base of the Giant’s Shelf. For one long moment, utter stillness
stretched between the two armies. The united races of Lumineia, defiant in the
face of annihilation, readied themselves for the attack that would slay them
all.

“
For seven
days the light will fight the dark
,” Braon whispered to himself, remembering
the words of the Oracle. Then his eyes were drawn skyward, where the last rays
of daylight were fading behind the shadow that hovered above the evil throng.
Somewhere nearby he heard Reiquen scream a furious challenge, but the sound was
strangely muted. In that instant, all that existed to the fifteen year old boy
from Terros, was the light shining from above. Drawing on its strength, he took
a deep breath and looked back at the darkness he had to outlast.

The silence
shattered as skorpian bolts darkened the air.

###

For the epic conclusion
of the Second Draeken War, you can find
Seven
Days
on Amazon after December 11, 2012.

Author Bio

 Originally from Utah, Ben has
grown up with a passion for learning almost everything. Driven particularly to
reading caused him to be caught reading by flashlight under the covers at an
early age. While still young, he practiced various sports, became an Eagle
Scout, and taught himself to play the piano. This thirst for knowledge gained
him excellent grades and helped him graduate college with honors, as well as
become fluent in three languages after doing volunteer work in Brazil. After
school, he started and ran several successful businesses that gave him time to
work on his numerous writing projects. His greatest support and inspiration
comes from his wonderful wife and three beautiful children. Currently he
resides in Florida while working on his latest writing and business endeavors.

To contact the author, discover
more about Lumineia, or find out about his other works, check out his blog at
Lumineia.Blogspot.com
. You can
also follow the author on twitter
@
BenHale8
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