Apologies. Not proof read yet. Hoping to have the rest of Part I of the novel posted between now and the end of April.
Many thanks to those of you who are still reading it.
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Chapter 9.
It can be said that during those years prior to the Upheaval, only the sovereign territory of Sangreal could oppose an eastward advance by the Anderas Empire.
Sangreal was ruled by a queen regnant, Cassidea Sveraine, and was a matriarchal domain with six borders, eyed thereby on all sides by hungry eyes, especially those of the north who viewed Sangreal’s vast, verdant farming lands with envy. Long before the Anderas Empire was born, and long before the first Jotnar stomped across the lands, Faltera had made a push with an army of a hundred thousand men into Sangreal, with the intention of capturing the farming lands to the north of the region. This was met with swift and decisive opposition from Sangreal, under the command of Queen Solveig Sveraine, who proved an able commander of her land’s military might.
Solveig was considered a Warrior Queen who led her armies into battle, and was blessed with an enormous Empath Weaver talent the likes of which has yet to be seen again, though during the Upheaval many people considered Alleyne of Caldera to be a monstrous power in her own right. Then again, her siblings were also strongly gifted with the Ether, in particular her brother, the young Archduke, who was regarded as a man with an unrivaled Ether Kinetic ability.
Considering that Sangreal was a matriarchal land, and the Anderas Empire was ruled by an Empress, it is surprising to learn that both territories viewed each other with disdain and distrust. In fact, the two powerful lands had the frostiest of relationships. And while reluctant to go to war against the other, they maintained a sizeable contingent of their respective armies facing each other across a thousand kilometers of border.
As such, it is less surprising that when the Upheaval came to pass, both lands were the last to enter the fray, since neither one wanted to risk an invitation to invasion by weakening their respective armies.
Excerpt from The North In Flames
A History of War in the First Millennium
(Chiren)
#
We’d no sooner descended to the foot of the climb up to the mountain pass, where the road was bordered by open ground suitable for setting up camp, than Kessler Rohayne rode up to me with a stony expression on his face.
“Knight-Commander, a word please.”
I stared flatly down at him from the carriage’s driver seat. “Thanks for giving me a moment to get down, Captain.”
He edged his horse away, putting a few yards between himself and the carriage.
“Wait beside the carriage,” I said to Irvin.
I climbed down unhurriedly, pulled off my gloves, and walked to the carriage door.
I banged on it loud enough to be heard.
Marina poked her head through the window. “Are we stopping?”
“For now. We’ll set up camp.”
“Can we get out?” she asked with noticeable urgency, then added, “Nature calls.”
“Oh. Yes, by all means.”
Stepping back, I watched Marina and Silvia climb out off the cabin in a hurry, the former carrying an Etheric lantern that began to shine as she stepped away from the carriage. Silvia followed her fellow maid quickly.
However, Fallon remained seated inside.
Looking into the darkened interior, I asked, “Lady Fallon—?”
“Don’t call me that.” Her words were whispered harshly.
I swallowed abruptly. “Fallon—”
“Leave me be. Just go. Leave me be.”
Suddenly the carriage door slammed shut. I didn’t even see her move, and it frightened me enough to make me step back in a hurry.
I heard her voice through the carriage’s open windows. “Don’t keep him waiting, Lady Kell.”
She had closed the door literally on my efforts to reach out to her.
Not knowing what to say, and my heart beating with worry, I took a deep breath, then walked to the front of the carriage where I appropriated one of the vehicle’s Etheric lanterns. Carrying it with me, I walked away from the carriage, stepping past Rohayne who had dismounted and now followed me on foot, carrying a night stick with him. I didn’t come to a stop until we were a dozen yards or so from the black carriage.
Looking around, I noticed the platoon riders had dismounted but no effort was being made to set up camp for the night.
I faced Rohayne. “What’s going on, Captain? Do you want your men to get wet?”
“We’re not camping until I have some answers, Knight-Commander.”
“So what are you asking? You know as much as I do.”
“That’s not what his Grace said. He said you were aware of the situation, and that’s why he was leaving you in charge.”
“I’m in charge, Captain, because I outrank you. Or are you contemplating insubordination?”
“I am contemplating the lives of my men, Knight-Commander, and the lives of those girls.” His expression hardened. “So I want answers. I want to know what possible reason the Archons could have for taking over the fortress.”
I studied at him carefully, doing my best to judge him with my weak Ether Empath talent. I didn’t like what I read on the flows as they passed through his body and carried his emotions imprinted on them. However, there was a severe risk that not telling him would lead to dire repercussions for all of us, including Falken.
“A Khan Wilder,” I said softly.
He blinked sharply, and drew back. “What?”
“They are here for the Khan Wilder,” I answered. “However, his Grace chose not to hand her over and entered the fortress to face the Archons.”
“Hand her over?” At first his eyes narrowed, then they widened when he looked in the direction of the carriage. “That girl…the one that stayed inside—”
“Is a Khan Wilder. She was in Gaellen Forest during the battle between House Kurama’s Jotnar and ours. And she saved the Archduke’s life.”
Rohayne looked stunned, and I thought he would drop the glowing nightstick in his left hand. “She did what?”
“His Grace came within a whisker of losing his life. She was there, and she saved him, killing a Kuraman Jotunn-Knight in the process.” I raised my chin at him. “In short, Captain, she took a life, to save a life—that of the Archduke’s.”
Rohayne swallowed loudly. “Is that true?”
“I have no reason to doubt him, Captain. I’ve known Falken Claymore for almost all my life. I trust that he told me the truth.” After a moment, I added, “Because he feels indebted to her, his Grace has promised to protect her. And that is why he went to face the Archons alone.”
The cavalry captain stared at the black carriage, barely discernible in the darkness.
I did too…and noticed something odd.
Irvin was feeding grain to the horses, and had slung an Etheric lantern around his chest, casting him and the animals nearby in a pale emerald light.
However, the lanterns that hung from the rear and sides of the carriage were also glowing pale emerald in the night. That shouldn’t have been possible, unless Fallon had mastered how to minimize the void that surrounded her, thus limiting how far she warded away the Ether.
I took step toward the carriage and stopped when I saw Marina and Silvia approaching it.
Marina carried the lantern, and opened the carriage door.
I watched her stand motionless for a long, disturbing moment, then suddenly whirl about and run around the back of the carriage.
Then she began calling out Fallon’s name, holding the Etheric lantern outstretched before her.
Silvia did the same, after quickly pulling free one of the carriage’s exterior mounted lanterns.
“Oh no…,” I whispered, and felt the blood drain from my face. I almost dropped the lantern I carried as a cold chill ran down my body.
Rohayne approached me but I could sense he was looking at the carriage and the girls moving frantically in the darkness. “What are they doing?”
Dear gods, I prayed, please let me be wrong.
But when Marina and Silvia began hurrying toward me, I knew that I wasn’t wrong.
“She’s gone,” I breathed out in a heavy shudder. “She’s gone….”
“Who’s gone?”
“Fallon’s gone.” The lantern trembled, then shook in my hand. “Fallon’s gone…the Khan Wilder’s gone.”
“…what…?” he whispered in shock.
My eyes began to search the darkness, quickly turning toward where I faintly perceived the road leading up to Fortress Belgar a half kilometer away at entrance to the mountain pass.
Then the hairs on the back of my neck rose sharply.
It was a premonition of something terrible that went beyond the fact that Fallon had run away.
For some reason I looked up into the sky above the carriage, and I sensed rather than saw something fall through the air.
Time slowed down for me.
I saw Marina and Silvia half running toward me.
I heard them cry out, “Lady Kell.”
And I felt the impact of something unseen land on the opposite side of the carriage.
The ground shook like I’d never experienced before.
It wasn’t an earth tremor. It was as though something had punched the ground so hard that it buckled and raced outward from the point of impact like a giant earth wave.
The carriage flew skyward more than twenty feet, kicked upward by the expanding ring of dirt, soil, and rock. The six horses hitched to the carriage whined in terror as they too were tossed into the air. I saw harness chains snap, and the beasts tumble free to the ground. But I didn’t hear them fall, I didn’t hear them break, because by then the wall of dirty air had reached us.
Before it hit us, it swallowed up Marina and Silvia who were half running toward us.
I had one last glimpse of the girls disappear from sight, before I too was flung into the air as helpless as a rag doll.
I landed on my back with my ears ringing, and the taste of blood in mouth.
I don’t know how long I lay on the ground, not knowing how badly I was broken, but I suddenly felt hands on me.
“…Kell…!”
My eyes wouldn’t focus. Then again, there was nothing but darkness around.
“Kell—!”
I blinked drunkenly at the shadow above me.
Then the shadow was cast in weak emerald light, and I saw Rohayne’s frantic face staring down at me.
“Kell—can you hear me?”
Before I could nod in reply, he looked away.
Somewhere in the distance, I could hear men shouting wildly. Those shouts turned into agonized screams that ended abruptly.
I could hear horses bolting into the darkness, whining in terror.
And I could hear the sounds of wood splintering and innately understood that was the sound of wagons being smashed.
Rohayne had a broken nightstick on him, and by its light I saw him stare about in despair, before he picked me up and hoisted me to my feet.
By the light of dozens of scattered lanterns and nightsticks, I saw the devastation on the open ground to the north of the road.
Horses lay broken on the ground.
Men too, crying pitifully from injuries suffered.
The wagons were in pieces, their contents strewn about as though by a storm.
A half dozen yards away, two bodies lay prone on the ground, caught in the weak light of broken Etheric lamp.
My heart twisted as I recognized Marina and Silvia.
All around me the Ether swirled and roiled as it was disrupted by some incredibly strong void field.
For a heartbeat I feared all this was done by Fallon, but then I realized I was wrong.
In the short time I’d known her, Fallon had never struck me as someone malicious, and what I was seeing now was malicious to the core.
Some of the riders had survived and now fled on horseback. Some of them ran on foot. As I watched them flee, one man was picked up in the air by something unseen, and then slammed into the ground. A moment later the remains of a wagon was kicked into the air, and sent hurtling toward a cluster of fleeing men. It crashed into them, sending them tumbling to the four points of the compass.
And then the air grew still as though we’d entered the eye of the storm.
Rohayne tossed the nightstick aside, then grabbed me by the arms, turning me bodily around.
“Run,” he cried out. “It’s the Khan Wilder!”
Something we couldn’t see – something invisible – had attacked us. I believe it wasn’t Fallon, and that left only one possibility. “No—it’s not Fallon.”
I ran beside him, away from the devastation, and away from the road.
When we first arrived at the climb, I remembered seeing woodlands to the north. They shouldn’t be far, but could we hope to flee in time.
“Not Fallon,” I told him. “The Archons.”
“What?”
“The Archons,” I repeated, then concentrated on not falling in the darkness.
With the clouds blanketing the sky, we had no light to guide us. I had lost my grip on the Etheric lantern and Rohayne had tossed his nightstick to hide us in the dark.
We ran on instinct, our strides high as we hoped to avoid stumbling on what we couldn’t see.
Then I heard the unmistakable sound of running footfalls and the ground trembled behind us.
I tried to run faster but I was already at my limit, and everything changed in a heartbeat.
One moment he was running beside me.
The next moment, Rohayne disappeared into the night.
He didn’t even have time to cry out, and was flung so far away I didn’t hear his body land.
Then it was my turn.
I had changed direction as fast as I could, but it was futile tactic.
Something that felt like steel claws wrapped themselves around my torso, and lifted me off the ground.
I thought I too would be thrown into the wilderness, but fate was not so kind to me.
The claws clenched and my ribs cracked as my body was crushed.
I screamed in agony – pure agony.
Mercifully it lasted only a moment.
Then I fell into darkness as my consciousness faded away into the depths of the night.
#
(Falken)
#
I couldn’t hold back a frown as I stared up at Calypso grinning cruelly at me.
“An anomaly?” I asked between sharp breaths.
With my right wrist wrapped in the glove and gauntlet, I didn’t know how badly my wrist was snapped. But from what I could feel by using my left hand, it seemed like a clean break. I could also feel the Thread inside my forearm reaching into the bone, torn muscle and sinew, busily mending it.
Calypso folded her arms. “Allow me to explain, primate.”
The black, almond shaped machine that floated beside her, now descended smoothly until it floated two feet above the ground and three feet in front of me, with its pointed end facing me.
The top of the foot long device began to glow, before a wide translucent curtain of light shone into the air above it. The curtain grew opaque like a thickly smoked glass window, such that it was hard to see through it.
Calypso declared in a superior, haughty tone, “I’ll try to make this simple for you, primate, so pay attention.”
I watched a familiar map of the Northern Continent appear in the smoked window.
The borders of all thirteen sovereign territories were clearly displayed, including natural details such as mountains, rivers, and lakes. For a moment, my eyes were drawn to Caldera, but then I decided to study the whole map instead.
I was distracted by the appearance of a second floating black almond, also a foot long, appear to the left of Calypso. The device floated down below her backside, and the air shimmered above it in a horizontal band.
To my surprise, Calypso sat down on the shimmering air as though it were a chair.
The Archon woman calmly crossed her legs, while keeping her arms crossed beneath her breasts.
“We Archons have the means to detect when a Khan Wilder is sired. For a few days after the event, we are able to detect their presence. But once the Archetype, or Seal of Arcala, matures beyond the initial birthing phase, it learns how to hide itself from us. You see, the Seal of Arcala radiates a unique energy signature that spikes in intensity when the Khan Wilder summons their Warlord for the first time. Its output falls in magnitude and eventually—a few days later—the Seal learns how to mask itself from our Sentinels. Once that happens, we have only one way to sense their presence.”
I wasn’t able to follow everything she was saying, but I understood enough to say, “The Ether. You Archons can sense the void in the Ether that surrounds the Khans.”
“Correct.” Calypso began to twirl her right index finger in the air. “A Khan Wilder usually takes many weeks, sometimes months, to learn how to reduce the void that encapsulates them. During this time, our Sentinels can sense the disturbance they produce in the Ether as they move through it. It’s the same principle behind the use of micro changes in air density to detect movement.”
“I…I have no idea what you mean by that.”
She stopped twirling her finger and instead lightly waved her hand about. “That’s quite alright. It’s not a method we use these days. However, by dotting the Northern Continent with thousands of Sentinels, we’ve created a grid—a sensor network—with enough resolution and sensitivity to recognize shifts in the Ether that are unnatural, such as someone brushing it aside as they move.” She smiled in dismay. “Unfortunately, matters are complicated by the ever increasing number of Jotnar moving about and churning the Ether, so we’re consistently having to fine tune the Sentinels to filter out the effects of Etheric engines. We still have a long way to go.”
Ever increasing number of Jotnar?
I decided to make a mental note of that for later…if there was a later.
Calypso paused as though waiting for me. “Paying attention, primate?”
I leaned my head back against the wall. “I’m listening, Archon.”
Placing both hands on her thigh, Calypso said, “Keeping track of all the Khans and Khan Wilders that inhabit the Northern Continent is proving to be difficult, even for us Archons. Because of the shifts in the Ether and disturbances generated by Etheric drives, we occasionally lose track of the Khans and Wilders, and the network often fails to reacquire them. When we do happen to pick them up again, we’re uncertain if they are the same Khans we were tracking before. There are other factors working against us, which makes it all a difficult task. However, we have time on our side to refine and perfect our methods…or at least that’s what we thought.”
Rather than frown at her, I narrowed my eyes instead. “Something changed.”
Her grin flourished into a smile. “Yes. You are correct. Something did indeed change, and that was discovery of the anomaly.” She held up a finger. “We call the anomaly the Progenitor.”
I swallowed cautiously before asking, “Why?”
“Because we believe the Progenitor is siring Khan Wilders.”
“Siring? You mean branding people with the Seal of Arcala?”
“Yes.”
I could hardly believe my ears, but decided to keep an open mind. Even so, my mind was in turmoil as my thoughts raced.
The source of the Khans—the one responsible for turning people like Fallon into Khan Wilders. Could it be true?
I studied Calypso’s face, but grudgingly admitted I couldn’t read past her evil smile. If she was lying to me, she was doing an admirable job. There was no doubt she was studying me as well, gauging my reaction to this revelation by some measure in her mind. However, what troubled me more than the possibility that she was lying, was that Calypso had said Fallon was the key to finding the anomaly.
Before I could ask her why, there was something else I needed to know.
“Why do you believe this anomaly is the Progenitor?”
“Whenever a Khan Wilder is born, or sired, there is a breach into our reality with the same characteristics as the breach that takes place when a Warlord steps into our realm. In other words, there is a breach between this realm and what the Khans refer to as Limbo space.”
“Limbo….”
She nodded once, and dropped her smile. “Indeed. Leaving the religious connotation aside, this breach takes place before and after the Wilder is sired. During that time, our Sentinels record a disturbance in the Ether indicative of a Void-field. However, whenever our satellites position themselves for a look, they see nothing but a distortion. It’s a stealth cloak we cannot penetrate. And it’s not just our satellites that fail to see through the cloak. Our Sentinels also fail to record a proper visual on the anomaly. In fact, we’ve experienced Sentinel failures when the anomaly enters their vicinity. Making matters worse, the anomaly’s cloak is getting better at hiding itself from us. Sometimes, the only reason we know the anomaly has emerged into this realm is because the Sentinels record the opening and closing of a breach. Using that, we zero in on the anomaly’s position. However, like I said before, once the Khan Wilder is gifted with the Seal the anomaly disappears shortly afterwards.”
Swallowing the moisture in my mouth, I took another partly labored breath. ‘What does this have to do with Fallon?”
“Fallon? Is that what you call the Khan Wilder?”
“Fallon is her name.”
“Shut up and listen, primate.” Calypso tapped her lips, and made shushing sound.
I glared at her, and not for the first time wished I had the means to knock her into next month. However, I didn’t dare risk making another move against her. Leaving aside the fact she was immensely strong, I had no idea what the almond shaped devices could do.
I also wanted to know more about why she was here.
Calypso continued after a heartbeat. “With the Sentinel surveillance grid almost completed, we are now able to track the anomaly when it enters and leaves our reality—our time-space—but we’ve been unable to intercept it. We’ve been trying to do so for many years, and we’re conscious that the Progenitor is aware of our efforts. In fact, until recently, the Progenitor rarely spent more than an hour in our realm. But that changed about a month ago”—Calypso leaned forward eagerly—“and the hunt for the Progenitor began in earnest.”
“Why? What changed?”
“The Progenitor’s modus operandi. That’s what changed.” She sat back with a hungry smile bending her lips. “Now, let me turn back the clock to four weeks ago.”
The map in the smoked window of light grew large until the southern half of Reinvald and northern half of Caldera filled it. It continued to grow until the south-west corner of Reinvald was the only thing visible, pushing Caldera out of sight.
I saw what looked like forests, roads, rivers, a mountain range, and bright orange dots that represented villages quite a distance apart.
The map grew again, and stopped when I could see a village bordered to the north, south, and west by dense woodlands, though there was considerable open ground between the village and the forests.
Glancing at Calypso, I asked, “What is this?”
“This is the village from whence your Khan Wilder heralds.”
“Fallon’s village?”
Calypso looked irritated. “Didn’t I just say that?”
I swallowed tightly and held back a scathing retort.
Calypso pointed at the map. “Don’t look at me, primate. Look at the map.”
Pressing my lips together, I focused my attention on the map.
After a short while, Calypso began again. “A little over four weeks ago, the Progenitor sired two human females in the span of a day. First one in the early morning hours, the second late in the night. Unfortunately for them, they were almost killed by the villagers when the first Khan Wilder was discovered. The two girls escaped their captors and fled in the morning, taking shelter in the forest to the south. However, they did not run away and waited until nightfall whereupon one of them snuck back into the village.”
The map lost its colors, becoming a painting of the village, surrounding plains, and forests in shades of grey. There were dots of white light in the village and two in the forest.
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I had the sudden impression those dots represented people.
Calypso continued after a pausing for a long moment. “That image is a thermal scan taken from a high altitude surveillance drone. The two heat signatures in the forest are the two girls, but only one of them is a Khan Wilder. The other one had yet to be sired.”
Heat signatures? Does she mean body heat?
The image changed a few times, and I watched one dot move from the forest to the village. It entered where there were no people. As the images continued to change, the lone dot exited a large building with another big dot behind it. I assumed it was stealing a horse or two. However, a throng of other dots representing the villagers quickly surrounded it. A handful of images later, the dot was swamped by the villagers, and became indistinguishable from them.
“I won’t go into detail,” Calypso said, “but suffice to say that the villagers met a grisly end when the Khan Wilder summoned its Warlord.”
The image changed, and I sensed a significant amount of time had passed. This was because all the dots were congregated around the center of the village – probably the plaza – and one dot occupied the inside of the ring they formed. Suddenly, with each subsequent image the congregated dots began to flee from the center dot. Some ran into the village buildings, but the vast majority escaped into open ground, and it was obvious they were running to the forests. But soon the number of dots began to grow faint.
First, the dots sheltering in the village flared brightly then quickly faded until they were barely visible. Then the same happened to those dots running away for the false safety of the forests.
Something was cutting them down.
Something that had no light.
When all the dots but one had dimmed, the images stopped moving.
Slowly I turned my eyes toward Calypso.
She cocked her head at me. “That’s right, primate. They died. Slaughtered like helpless little pigs. Men, women, children. All dead, and before any of them succeeded hiding in the forests.”
Ever so gradually, I began to shake my head. “No.”
“No, what?”
“No,” I repeated. “Fallon did not do this.”
Her canines looked larger as she drew her lips back and smiled viciously at me.
“Are you so sure of that, primate?”
#
(Fallon)
#
When the earth shook, I felt it because I was standing still in the midst of towering trees.
By then I’d run far away from the road and was pretty well inside the woods to the north, about two thousand feet away from where I left the carriage and riders behind.
I was running with the power given to me by the Seal of Arcala inside my body – a power that made me stronger than any man, and strong enough to fend off the forest beasts, including the large kuma.
I was running with the strength that I’d hidden from the Archduke, from Marina, from Silvia, from Lady Kell, and everyone else since coming to Caldera.
It was this strength that had kept me alive during my month on the run.
And it was the strength I hoped would save the people I left behind.
The Seal was afraid the Archons would come for me, and I was afraid that if they did they would hurt the people with me. I didn’t want that to happen, and I couldn’t let that happen.
By running away – by putting distance between them and me – I hoped to spare Lady Kell, Marina, Silvia, and the riders from harm, because like the Seal, I believed the Archons would harm them if I stayed with them.
I had thought of running back to the fortress, and of saving his Grace, but the Seal warned me that I did not possess the strength to fight the Archons. And even if I did, what would I do then? If I defeated the Archons, which was probably impossible, what would happen to his Grace, to his people, and to Caldera?
And why did the Archons want me? What had I done to them?
That made me consider of a second option – giving myself up peacefully.
I came to a stop in between the trees, and stared at the ground.
The Archons haven’t hurt anyone. But maybe by running away I’ve made things worse.
I looked up and stared through the gloom. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness quickly, and I could see the nearby trees and terrain beneath my feet. I knew my Awareness-field was responsible for this, and I was grateful for it.
But now as I looked into the dark distance, I felt as though I’d committed a grave mistake.
By running away, I was afraid I may have angered the Archons.
I didn’t know much about them, but the Seal warned me they were not to be trusted. I didn’t know why it said this, or how much it knew about them, but the Seal had never lied to me…as far as I knew.
And then I felt the ground tremble.
In a heartbeat, I turned around and faced south in the direction of the carriage and cavalry riders.
A terrible feeling washed over me, and squeezed at my heart painfully.
I clutched my chest.
“Marina…Silvia….”
The Seal had become quiet, but now it broke its silence, and suddenly I felt my Awareness-field balloon like never before. I could feel everything within a hundred feet around me. With the field so strong and wide, I could also feel the ground tremors.
They felt like footfalls, reminding of the Jotnar I’d encountered in the past month.
But these footfalls were different, more powerful, more menacing.
Something large was causing them – something that wasn’t a Jotnar – and the Seal was certain it wasn’t another Warlord.
Then I heard shouts, yells, and screams.
They were the screams of terrified men.
Deep in the depths of my mind, I had heard screams like those before, yet I couldn’t remember where or when.
For a brief moment my head ached.
However, it did not stop me from walking south, back to those people I had left behind.
As the screams endured, my steps grew more hurried.
Then there was silence. No more screams. No more yells.
I stopped walking and crouched beside a stout tree as thick as a wagon wheel was tall.
I closed my eyes, and concentrated on what I sensed through the Awareness-field. My whole body was tense as I waited for the silence to be broken because I was sure it would be, and after a dozen seconds or more, I heard and felt running footfalls on the ground.
The Seal spoke softly in my mind, and I listened to it.
Two people. They were distant, and they were running toward the forest.
Then I heard harder, more powerful footfalls behind them – chasing them.
I opened my eyes and began running toward those two people.
The strength that had saved me, I would now use to save them from whatever it was that pursued them.
Without warning one of those human footsteps vanished.
Then the second set of footsteps changed direction, and came to a sudden end a few seconds later.
The ground trembled for a moment or two.
Then a scream cut the air – a woman’s scream.
It was the kind of scream that reached deep into your body and made every hair on your back stand up.
It was a scream of intense agony.
It lasted for a long while in the air, then faded quickly.
I was still running, and when that scream faded into silence, I raised my hand and shouted out a single word.
“ANDRASTE!”
Now it was my shout that made the night air tremble.
A heartbeat and three running strides later, a white mist billowed out all around me.
Andraste had responded to my call.
The breach between this realm and the one the Seal called Limbo took place. The opening widened and through it emerged the Warlord’s Sarcophagus. But not all of it. I sensed a large part of it remained behind, hiding in Limbo.
The Sarcophagus opened its doors, and the skeletal armor that was my Warlord, Andraste, stepped out. As she did, I felt myself lifted into the air by invisible hands, and float toward the standing Warlord. My legs merged with the armor. It was like stepping into another set of legs, but these legs connected to Andraste, while leaving the rest of my body free of the Warlord. I wasn’t wearing Andraste, and I certainly wasn’t inside her, but I was definitely a part of her.
When the Sarcophagus retreated into Limbo, the opening between that realm and this one closed in a second, and the cold mist no longer billowed into the woods. I knew it would be gone in a minute or so, though much of it had already faded away seconds later.
I ran again, but now I ran with the strength of my Warlord.
In the dim darkness, the trees flashed by me at great speed. I was moving faster than a galloping horse, but I knew I could do better. Once, during my time on the run, I had drawn out Andraste’s power to jump and skip great distances. It had felt like I was running on air with wings extending from Andraste’s feet.
I concentrated on the need to move faster, and suddenly my body and the Warlord’s felt lighter.
I glanced down to see thick rings of blue-white light surrounded her feet.
I was still running, but now every step took me farther.
Adjusting my leaping strides, I was careful not to crash into the trees, or to brush against them as I rushed by. After running with Andraste for a half minute or less, I almost flew out of the woods and into open ground. Under my will, Andraste skidded to a halt. It was better to say she floated to a quick halt and then dropped to the ground.
My Awareness-field was now even wider than before. I felt it reached as far as three hundred feet around me. Using it quickly, I searched for moment and for life.
The Seal sent me a thought. It was certain that the scream had come from ahead of us, a few hundred feet closer to the road.
I willed Andraste into a crouch, then leapt low and far over the ground. The rings of light surrounded her feet, and I began to run again.
Without the trees to trouble us, I was able to run faster, and I almost felt as though Andraste’s feet didn’t even touch the ground anymore.
Then the Awareness-field sensed something off to my left, and I changed direction quickly.
I came to a stop a few yards short of an unconscious man lying in the tall grass. Stepping over to him carefully, I used Andraste’s right hand to turn him over.
He was wearing the leather riding clothes of the cavalry riders who’d journeyed with us.
Suddenly his eyes opened.
I didn’t know if he could see me in the darkness, but to my surprise a warm light began to glow from parts of Andraste’s body, and it pushed the darkness away.
His eyes moved about slowly, then settled on me.
I looked down at him and said, “Can you hear me?”
“…who…?”
I touched my chest with my left hand – not Andraste’s left hand. “My name is Fallon. I was in the carriage with Marina and Silvia.”
“…you…Wilder…?”
I gulped air, and pushed down the bubble of emotion bottling up my chest. “Yes, I am a Khan Wilder. My name is Fallon Kassius. The Seal of Arcala inside me gave me this name.”
“…you…ran away….”
A shudder of guilt ran through my body, and I gave him a shaky nod. “Yes, I ran away. I thought if the Archons were after me, I should run away so that they followed me and not you.”
“…something…something came for us…couldn’t see it…smashed everything….” He sucked in air and broke into a cough that tortured his body. “Gah…broken ribs…I can feel them.”
“Please, tell me. I heard a scream. I heard a woman scream. Tell me what happened!”
He took a number of breaths, gathering himself. “Kell…Lady Kell…she was running with me. It caught us. Picked me up…threw me away.” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know…what happened afterwards.” A loud groan escaped his lips, but he sucked in more air, and said, “Where is she? Where is Kell?”
I didn’t need to look around to know she wasn’t here.
Leaning down toward him, I said, “Andraste can’t sense her nearby. I’m sorry, but I don’t know where she is.”
He froze and stared at me in fear, but I sensed it wasn’t because of me. “It took her. Whatever did this…took her away….”
I was suddenly afraid for her, and that fear squeezed my throat. I had trouble swallowing, and had to take a couple of breaths to calm my emotions enough for me to speak.
I tried to sound as reassuring as I could. “I will find her. I promise you—I will find her. I will save her.”
Once I made that promise, the fear strangling me suddenly let go.
Yes, I will find and save Lady Kell. That is my promise to you.
He tried to sit up, so I used Andraste’s right arm to help him. It was then that he seemed to realize that I was merged with my Warlord. His eyes widened sharply, and fear spread across his face again—and this time it was aimed at me.
I shook my head again, quickly this time. “Please, I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
He opened and closed his mouth a number of times while his gaze ran over me and Andraste. “Warlord.”
“Yes. This is my Warlord. Her name is Andraste.”
His eyes met mine, and while I saw fear in them, I didn’t think he was going to run away screaming madly into the night.
“You…you really are a Khan Wilder.”
I smiled at him, but it was a bitter, guilty smile. “Yes. I am. I didn’t ask for this…or maybe I did…I just don’t remember. But for now, I am a Khan Wilder.”
“You saved the life of his Grace.”
It wasn’t a question, but I felt I had to treat it as one.
I gave him another nod. “Yes, I did.”
Again, his gaze roamed over me and Andraste. The fear on his face faded and was replaced by something else – something I could describe as an expression of regret. “Maybe…maybe I’ve been wrong all this time.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, he straightened where he sat, and managed to rise to his feet.
I watched over him carefully, fearing he would fall, but the Awareness-field told me he was steady enough. Even so, I kept Andraste’s hands ready to catch him at any moment.
The man looked me in the eyes, and I found it hard to look away.
“Save them,” he said. “Please, save my men. Save those girls. Save Lady Kell. And protect his Grace.” He swayed a little and staggered back a step, but then he bowed to me. “Please, Lady Khan, save them.”
Andraste had been crouching awkwardly. Her legs really didn’t suit such a posture, so I was a little relieved to straighten and have her stand tall before him.
I placed my right hand over my heart, as I had seen the men do so when they saluted his Grace.
“Aye. I promise. I will protect them.”
And then a scream cut the air, and I turned toward it.
It was a woman’s scream – the same scream I’d heard when I was inside the woods. Only now I knew it was Lady Chiren Kell who screamed.
The agony in that scream my heart tremble not in fear but in anger.
Without turning to the man, I said, “I have to go. I’m sorry. But I have to go on ahead.”
The light that glowed from Andraste faded.
“I have to go,” I said, then willed the Warlord around in the direction of the scream.
From a crouch, I leapt again, keeping Andraste low over the ground. The blue-white rings of light encircled her feet, and in seconds I was running at a pace twice faster than a horse could gallop.
Then the Seal sent me a thought that surprised me. The Seal believed the last scream I’d heard did not come from a human throat – it was faked. But I didn’t have time to ponder what the Seal said because in seconds I’d arrived at where the riders, wagons, and carriage had pulled off the road.
This was where I’d made my choice to run away, but when I left this place the wagons were not smashed into firewood, the horses weren’t lying dead or hurt on the ground, and the black carriage wasn’t broken in two. Scattered about were Etheric nightsticks and lanterns that glowed with a pale emerald light and pushed back the darkness a few feet. Here and there, men lay on the ground, and through my enlarged Awareness-field I could sense they were injured but alive. They were probably saved by the Thread inside their bodies, unlike the horses that did not possess it.
Humans were the only creatures on this world that possessed the Thread.
As I looked around with my eyes and sensed my surroundings through Awareness-field, part of me believed this was my fault. If I hadn’t run away, I would have been here to protect these people. Instead of coming after me, something had come here instead and taken out its anger on the riders and their horses.
Two large bundles on the ground caught my eye, and through the Awareness-field I discovered they were two women lying face down into the earth.
Marina! Silvia!
The Seal told me they were alive. An incredible force had struck them, and it had caused internal damage to their bodies. Like the injured men, the Thread inside their bodies was busy healing them but the Seal believed they would be incapacitated for many, many hours. It did not expect them to wake up until morning.
I was amazed the Seal could tell so much about them through the Awareness-field.
In a way, I was also a little frightened by what it could do.
Then the Seal sensed something and forcefully dragged my attention away from the women, and toward the road.
Peering into the near distance, I straightened and made Andraste stand tall.
Standing on the road to the southeast of me was something I found hard to describe.
It stood upright like a man, and had two arms and legs, but its legs were bent differently, like the hind legs of a horse. It had wide hips and a narrow waist. Its chest was wide, and its shoulders were broad. At a distance, I could tell it was tall, maybe taller than Andraste who stood fourteen feet in height. The arms looked armored with curved shields attached to its thick forearms. Its clawed hands were large and looked too big for its body, just like its feet that had a sharp heel to them. In contrast, the head seemed a little too small. It was shaped like a reptile’s head but with two flat horns.
From its back stretched a pair of folded wings. They didn’t look like bird wings, but more like the wings of a bat. Even then, they were a little too rounded to be bat wings. In the end, I just didn’t know how to describe them.
All of its body appeared to be made of metal the Seal described as a ‘composite fiber alloy’.
Since I didn’t understand what that meant, I didn’t give it much thought. Instead, I looked more closely at its hands, and gasped loudly in shock.
Whatever this thing was, I suddenly believed it was responsible for the destruction lying before me.
No – I was certain of it with all my heart.
That was because it carried someone in its right clawed hand, and the Awareness-field told me it was Lady Kell.
Held by the metal creature, Lady Kell reminded me of a cloth doll I once had – a doll that was nothing but ashes now in the burnt remains of my village.
She was limp in the metal creature’s grip, and her feet dangled high over the ground.
The proud, confident woman I’d met only a day ago, now looked like a child’s toy.
Using Andraste to improve its senses, the Seal said Lady Kell was alive, but she was greatly injured – more injured than Marina and Silvia. Held tight in the creature’s grip, she would die from her injuries despite the Thread in her body.
If I wanted to save her, I would have to save her soon.
The metal creature appeared to cock its head at me.
Then a scream bellowed from it.
It sounded just like a woman’s agonized scream, and I quickly realized that the Seal was right. The scream didn’t come from Lady Kell. It came from the metal creature. It was copying her scream, and making it sound even louder.
It was taunting me.
This—this thing did all of this!
My hands ached as I clenched them.
And now it has Lady Kell.
I dipped my head and willfully lowered my stance, which made Andraste lower hers.
My blood burned and a low growl escaped from the back of my throat.
Then I turned that growl into a roar that sounded too large for my body – a roar Andraste somehow trebled in volume.
“Let…her…go!”
With a thought, I summoned Andraste’s weapons, one for each of her hands.
The chilling white mist bloomed out around me, spilling out of the breach that opened between Limbo and this realm. Again the Sarcophagus poked out of Limbo, opened a door, and then delivered two curved swords into Andraste’s hands, each weapon bearing a blade six feet long. The Sarcophagus retreated, the breach sealed, and the mist that billowed from Limbo began to thin away into the surrounding air.
Crouching the Warlord lower, I concentrated on willing Andraste to leap all the way to the road – a jump of more than two hundred feet since I was aiming to land almost on top of the metal creature. In response, the winged vanes attached to Andraste’s back by thick chains now fanned out behind her.
The Seal sent me a thought.
The six Impulse-Wings were deployed and ready.
I had asked for wings, and now I would have them, but the Seal told me I was not ready to fly. Even so, I would have more than enough power to make the jump.
Then it said something else that made me blink in confusion for a couple of heartbeats.
The Seal told me to overclock, because it believed this was not an opponent I could face unless I was at my best.
“Fine,” I whispered. “Overclock me.”
With my permission, the Seal invaded my mind but did not possess it. Instead, time slowed down for me such that everything around me moved at a quarter its normal speed.
With this, I would be able to react faster and better to my opponent, for it was clear now that this was indeed my opponent. But I wasn’t sure if this creature was sent by the Archons.
As that flicker of uncertainty sparked in my chest, the metal creature moved.
“Ah—!”
Surprised, I watched it jump backwards up the road toward the huge fortress that looked tiny in the distance.
Uttering a curse my mother was fond of – it sounded weird in my ears since I was overclocked – I quickly willed Andraste to chase after the metal creature and Lady Kell.
Taking a stance, Andraste leapt without a running start.
With blue-white rings of light around her feet, Andraste jumped over the camp and landed almost four hundred feet away up the road leading to the fortress. Loose dirt and crushed stones puffed up into the air around Andraste, forming a small cloud around its feet that blew away in the wind.
At first I thought she fanned out her Impulse Wings for balance, but then I learnt the wings were also ringed by blue-white light and would provide me with speed, jumping power, and stability both on the ground and in the air.
The Seal spoke clearly into my mind and this time it was more than just a thought that I could understand.
*LINKAGE DEPTH TWENTY-TWO PERCENT. COMBAT CATEGORY TWO UNLOCKED FOR THREE HUNDRED SECONDS. SAFETY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED.
I understood what the Seal meant – Andraste had powered up and I would be able to use this extra power for five minutes. But whether time was slowed down for me or not, I felt I’d wasted enough of it by standing on the road and not chasing after the metal creature.
In the distance, my quarry ran up the road by leaping every so often. When it did, the two folded wings on its back flared brightly.
With rings of blue-white light surrounding Andraste’s feet and six Impulse Wings, and her two swords in each hand, I charged up the mountain road.
It didn’t matter to me if that metal creature was sent by the Archons.
I chased after it with a clear goal in mind.
I would fulfill the promise I made to that cavalry rider.
I would save Lady Kell.
And I would protect his Grace, the Archduke of Caldera.
As I chased after the metal creature, I felt as though I was running on air.
It was only later that I learnt I really was running on air.