Rocks of red and ravaged land
In the darkness, a final stand.
Carmine ran, her boots sloshing in mud slick and black as a corpse's blood in the darkness. There was movement all around; canvas writhed on flimsy, broken poles like maddened ghosts desperate to escape. The flapping sound masked her own footsteps and those that surely followed.
The weather was fitful; heavy rainstorms pounded the Isle every few minutes, interspersed with patches of clear, starry sky. A wash of moonlight passed over Carmine as she darted to and fro, illuminating the pale, ragged and sodden wig that thrashed about her face, and the long coat that flared out behind her. She paused for a moment to catch her breath in the shadow of some tangled wreckage, glancing behind her.
If Dreikan was truly mad enough to believe that she was the ghost of Sirannor, or if he saw straight through her ploy, she wasn't sure. But it didn't matter.
He had finally snapped, and set fire to the entire camp.
Even his command tent was ablaze.
Carmine's red-rimmed eyes burned with vicious victory. Finally, he not only noticed her but wanted to kill her. Finally, he hated her. Anger had clawed its way up from the depths of his blackened soul, burned away the last of his reason, and she was sure he would stop at nothing, now, to put an end to her. He was determined to flush her out, leave her no place left to hide.
Dreikan meant to end this game tonight.
Smoke rushed over her in a sudden, acrid cloud and she crouched low, putting her arm to her face and trying suppress the irritation in her throat. Ghosts did not cough.
A cough escaped anyway, but it worked to her advantage. A dark figure appeared, his armour gleaming in the light of the fire that spread up around him as he went. He was burning everything in his path. Beyond him, flames licked the black sky, twisting in the wind, revelling in their destruction.
Getting to her feet, Carmine made sure the General caught a glimpse of her, then hurried ahead.
All she needed to do now was ensure that he followed her.
That wasn't proving to be a problem.
One or two minutes later, she reached the northern edge of the encampment. Here the tents ended, giving way to a large, open space ringed by more permanent and sturdy buildings made of red clay bricks and wood. These buildings were the remains of a much older settlement, constructed by whomever had originally occupied the Middle Isle centuries ago. They had now been converted into forges and an armoury.
Ahead of her, beyond the smithies, the sea crashed with an invisible roar in the darkness. Off to her right was another open space – a training ground and weapons testing area.
In an instant, the darkness vanished, replaced with a hot, red, dusty summer's day. The sun glowed overhead like the eye of a Dragon. Her hair blew into her face and there was grit in her eyes, but she didn't blink it away, because she stared up into the cold, angry eyes of her father.
Yet, she wasn't afraid. Her small, six-year-old hands gripped her wooden sword as she smiled up at him, feeling proud with herself for having found him, for having made it all this way on her own.
She would be just like him one day. She would wear an officer's coat and carry a real sword and everyone would do anything she asked.
She would slay a Dragon and be a hero, just like him…
The darkness returned, the vision snuffing out abruptly, like a candle whipped by the wind. For a long moment she simply stared at the empty, moon-drenched training ground in confusion, unsure of who she was.
Was she Sirannor or was she Carmine?
Or had both of those people died already?
An approaching brightness from behind caused her to turn.
General Dreikan came after her, a black and orange demon aglow in the light of his torch.
Carmine turned to the west and kept running, passing abandoned mining equipment and tools, carts and overturned barrows, and half-constructed siege weapons. She dodged a scattering of corpses with pickaxes still in their hands. Icy droplets prickled her face and the moonlight faded just as she reached a yawing black hole in the cliffs ahead.
The entrance to the mines.
There she paused again, and looked back.
Dreikan crossed the yard unhurriedly. The dark sky opened up and poured down on him, slicking his armour and fluttering his torch.
Carmine reached up and removed her wig. For a moment, she stared at it, before letting it drop to the middle of the floor. Then she retrieved the black sword she had earlier stuck in the ground against one of the support poles.
Then she backed away, into the darkness.
It was pitch black in the mines; she had not lit any lanterns to guide her way, relying instead on memory and a strange instinct to guide her. Feeling her way along the wall, somehow she knew which corners to take without thinking about it. Her blood seemed to run hotter when she was going the right way, her nerves buzzing with exhilaration. Her breath sounded too loud in the musty silence. Her feet seemed to move of their own accord.
A bright glow followed her, revealing the rocky walls as it came.
Yes! Carmine thought. Just a little further…
She reached her destination quicker than she expected, feeling a surge of excitement as the light from Dreikan's torch glinted on something huge, silver and metallic.
An enormous disc, about twenty feet in diameter, was set into the wall of the tunnel. Stalactites obscured the upper part of it, but the base had been cleared of debris. It was a curiously pristine object to be found buried in a dusty mine; it was so highly polished that it almost looked white. The surface wasn't completely smooth, however, but etched with some kind of flowing script or elegant runes. Apparently, whatever it was made of was difficult to destroy, as the miners had simply smashed through the wall beside it.
It looked like they had been in the process of hacking the silver disc out, judging by the array of scaffolding surrounding it.
Carmine had no idea what the thing was, though she vaguely remembered Hawk mentioning something about it in one of his letters, a lifetime ago.
In any case, this was not why she had led Dreikan a merry chase down into the blackness of the mines.
It was the gaping hole beside the disc that interested her.
A short set of iron steps led upwards into the hole. Carmine ascended them quietly, out of habit, though stealth was no longer necessary.
She felt a strange, excited sort of reverence as she approached what lay beyond, as though she were entering a holy sanctum.
The stairs ended in a circular walkway that ringed a cavern. More stalactites dropped from the ceiling high above, like spears poised to fall from the shadows. Below them was a deep, almost perfectly round, sheer-sided pit.
At the bottom of the pit was what appeared to be a reflective surface, but instead of silver like the seal, it was black, with a faint iridescent rainbow sheen.
Just like her armour.
And Dreikan's.
A pulley system with a metal bucket attached to a rope jutted out over the pit, on a swivelling arm.
This was the moltmetal mine, the source of all the black armour and weaponry that Dreikan had created.
The cause of innumerable deaths.
Carmine had heard enough about moltmetal from Hawk to know that it was liquid in its natural form. The surface down below was deceptive – it was, in fact, a lake.
The General paused at the base of the stairs, considering.
Carmine moved further along the walkway, into the shadows. There was dim light here, an eerie purple luminescence from fungi growing all along the walls of the cavern. It wasn't completely silent, either; now and then she thought she could make out an odd whispering sound, like voices too soft to hear.
The sound unnerved her, caused her to keep checking over her shoulder, as though someone was standing right behind her. That was impossible of course; she and the General were the only people left alive on this island, of that she had no doubt.
She wondered if it was the mushrooms talking to her, then scolded herself for being nonsensical.
What does it matter, anyway? she thought bitterly, adjusting her grip nervously on her sword. Nothing made sense any more. Perhaps the voices were entirely within her own head. It would change nothing, if they were. Ever since her father had died, the world had turned around and lurched about, leaving her sick and disoriented. Nothing was the same; nothing was where it used to be. Her life was changed irrevocably, into something dark and shredded, like a corpse flung off a capsized boat.
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Perhaps I AM Sirannor, she thought. Perhaps it was his voice whispering in her ear, wanting vengeance, ordering her to finish Dreikan…
He will be so disappointed if I don't.
So disappointed. So angry…
Dreikan still stood at the base of the stairs. Reaching out, he took the note she had attached to the railing, and unfolded it.
Despite herself, Carmine's lips twitched into a smirk as she mentally recited the words she had written there.
YOU ARE WALKING INTO A TRAP, DREIKAN.
He stared at the note for a long moment. So long that Carmine's confidence wavered.
This is ridiculous, she found her own thoughts telling her. It's a stupid plan! He is never going to fall for this…
The General let the note fall to the ground, and clanked up the steps.
He came slowly, now. The message had worked. Half of his brain was telling him that this was another game, that Carmine was lying. But he couldn't be sure.
His gaze was burning ice as he swept it around the cavern, finally finding her in the purple-gloom shadows. He attempted to keep himself composed, but she could tell that rage seethed just below the surface of skin and armour. She could see it in his pale eyes and gaunt features, in the way he held his massive Dragon blade and torch as though he desired to smash the world apart with them.
She had angered him.
She had angered him like no one had ever been angered before.
Forcing herself to maintain control over her own composure, she held her black sword in both hands, remaining firmly in position as the General made his way around the walkway towards her.
His boots clanked on the metal grating. There was nothing beneath their feet but the glossy lake of moltmetal.
The voiceless whispers became louder. Carmine tightened her jaw and ignored them.
Dreikan stopped four feet away and simply stood there, staring at her.
The orange pattern on his black armour glowed in the firelight like cracks in hardened magma.
Carmine felt sweat trickling down her temples, beneath her stringy hair. Just one more step, she prayed. One more step…
Dreikan did not advance any further. He said nothing.
Just stared at her.
The whispers were distracting, and the tension was unbearable. Finally, Carmine spoke.
“You finally decided I was worthy of your blade?” she said.
Dreikan kept his horrible gaze fixed on her, a slight smile creeping onto his lips. “If you think,” he replied quietly, “that I came here to kill you, then you are mistaken.”
Carmine stared back at him.
“If you expect from me,” he went on, “the same swift end that I granted to your dearly departed father, then you truly are deluded.”
The unsettling smile remained on his face. “No. I did not come here to kill you, girl.” His eyes narrowed. “I came here to destroy you.”
A faint black mist rose off his armour, mingling with the smoke from his torch. Carmine could feel the hate radiating off him. Her heart thundered in her chest.
“You think you have experienced pain, horror and torment?” he continued. “Not yet. Not. Yet.”
“You don't scare me,” Carmine said, inclining her head. “But I scare you.”
He laughed. It was not a normal laugh. It rose in pitch, like a squeaky door becoming unhinged.
And there was a flash in his eyes: of anger, amusement or madness, she did not know.
“You are a child! A child that should never have been born! You think you are a hero?” he continued laughing. “Like Sirannor! Your father's life is smeared with a long trail of blood, including that of your mother!”
A chill passed through Carmine at the mention of her mother, but she knew what Dreikan was doing and refused to take the bait. No matter how badly she wished to know what had happened to her mother, she did not care to hear it from him.
“And you think yourself a hero then?” Carmine sneered back. “By using my father as Dragon bait! By slaying anyone who sets foot on this island! How much blood have you left behind, Dreikan? You're a monster!”
Dreikan just kept laughing.
“Destroy me then!” Carmine challenged him. “Go ahead and try!”
Dreikan held out his torch, pointing it at her as though it was a blade. Then he opened his fingers and let it drop onto the walkway between them.
The section of metal grating that Carmine had carefully loosened earlier gave way, plummeting, along with the torch, into the black pool below. Both objects splashed and sank into the oily, metallic liquid. The torch went out, plunging the cavern into violet-tinged darkness.
Barely before Carmine could react, the General was leaping at her across the gap.
She felt the spiked tips of the Dragon blade swish past her face as she threw herself backwards. Dreikan's sword smashed into the wall beside her.
Carmine turned and ran.
Her heart sunk with dismay. The entire walkway shuddered as Dreikan gave chase. The first trap had failed.
But it wasn't over yet…
He was fast. She was almost in position when she was forced to spin and block his sword, which was aimed at her back. The force of his blow staggered her, but he caught her blade in the curved edge of his sword, and the backward swing threw her against the railing.
Her own sword went tumbling into the pit. She flung herself to the ground as the Dragon blade swung down, cleaving the railing and sending metal flying everywhere.
Her heart was in her throat. She would not survive much longer in a straight up fight; indeed, she had hoped to avoid a battle.
Dreikan was too fast and too strong.
But if she could get him in the right position…
She rolled desperately as his sword plunged viciously down at her. She felt it glance off her back as it slammed into the walkway with a shuddering squeal of metal, but her armour saved her. Coming to her feet, she snatched up a piece of broken railing and flung it at him.
Dreikan batted it away effortlessly, but it gave her a second to throw herself against the rocky wall to her right.
His sword came at her face in a deadly arc, but this was what she wanted. Ducking, she rolled to the ground again, covering her head with her gauntleted hands.
The Dragon blade smashed into the wall where Carmine had been, severing a length of rope concealed there and releasing a slide of rocks and debris that rained down on them both.
When the crashing roar had died away, Carmine uncurled herself and climbed to her feet, wincing. Her armour had protected her from injury, but the impact of the stones bouncing off her had still hurt. The largest boulders had fallen on top of Dreikan, but unfortunately, he was not dead. His screams of rage echoed through the cavern as he struggled to extricate himself from the pile of rubble, hacking awkwardly with his sword at the huge rocks that trapped him on the walkway.
Desperately, Carmine looked around, cursing the fact that she had lost her weapon. Dreikan was in a vulnerable position; all she needed to do was finish him off, but in a minute or so he was going to break free…
Something glinted oddly in the purple light, off to one side. Carmine stared at it for a long moment, uncomprehending, as the General cursed and smashed rocks behind her.
Then, with a shock, she realised what it was.
A black sword lay on the walkway a few feet away, to her left.
There was no way that her sword could be lying there. She had seen it spin away into the pit just moments earlier.
Was it a different sword, perhaps, abandoned by some soldier? Had she not noticed it in the darkness, when she was setting up her traps?
Carmine didn't know, and didn't have time to care. It was a stroke of luck, and she took it.
Leaping forward, she snatched up the black blade and ran back to Dreikan. He had almost freed himself, and was attempting to stand up, but his orange cloak was still pinned by another boulder.
Carmine swung her sword.
But not at Dreikan.
He was too well armoured. Instead, she plunged it into the walkway just beside the pile of rubble. Her sword went through the iron grating effortlessly.
Pulling her sword out with a shower of sparks and a weird screech of metal, she hacked at the grating again.
The walkway beneath Dreikan buckled and then broke free; everything on it tumbled downwards into the dark, oily pit.
Dreikan screamed again as he fell downwards with the rocks.
Carmine held her breath as boulders splashed into the pool of moltmetal below, flinging black, shining droplets across the pit…
But Dreikan did not go with them.
The section of broken walkway sagged downwards at an angle, still clinging to its supports. But the General had caught the grating with the spiked end of his Dragon blade and clung to it, hanging over the pit.
Still alive.
Carmine let out a cry of frustration to equal Dreikan's. “No!”
The General hooked his armoured fingers into the grating and began to pull himself up using his sword as a hook. The walkway let out a tortured creak, but held. “You… BITCH!” he screamed.
Gritting her teeth, Carmine's thoughts raced as fast as her heart. She had to end this now; she wasn't going to get a better chance…
Her eyes fell on the metal arm extended out over the pit. The pulley system with its bucket that was used to draw liquid metal out of the lake.
Spinning with a flare of her long coat, she raced around the walkway toward it.
Clanging sounds and a metallic squeal accompanied her own ringing footsteps as her enemy continued to climb to safety. She could not allow him to regain his footing…
Reaching the pulley, she searched for a moment, unhooked the rope that was used to pull the arm in towards the railing, and yanked on it.
Fortunately, it was well greased and swung smoothly towards her. The metal bucket hit the railing with a loud clatter.
Dreikan shouted threats at her from across the cavern, but Carmine ignored him. Swinging her legs over the railing, she took a firm hold of the rope, just above the empty bucket.
The pool of moltmetal was a wickedly gleaming mirror below her.
An image of her father's death flashed through her mind, like a sudden slash to her brain, and for an instant she thought she heard laughter – odd whispery laughter that mingled with the General's sardonic bark from across the cavern – and she shook her head to clear it.
Then, with a deep breath, she pushed herself out into open space.
Dreikan reached the stable part of the walkway and rose to his feet; a dark, gleaming and seemingly indestructible monster in his black armour. His cloak was a pale purple colour in the violet luminescence from the walls, his eyes bright chips of hatred beneath his magnificent, Dragon-winged helmet as he turned to see where Carmine had gone…
He did not expect her to come at him like a wraith from the air.
Pulling her legs up as the arm swung her across the cavern, Carmine lashed out with her feet as she passed, catching General Dreikan in the chest.
The impact wasn't strong enough to knock him over, but it did make him stumble backwards.
However, there was no solid footing behind him.
Looking back as she swung away, Carmine caught sight of him flail, fall off the walkway and plummet downwards into the lake.
Swinging over to the railing, Carmine leapt back onto the walkway and hurried around to the place where he had fallen, her breath in her throat.
This time, he hadn't managed to catch himself, and thrashed around in the pool below, screaming curses.
Leaning over the railing, she stared down at the General, watching as he first attempted to find his sword; failing that, he swam sluggishly to the wall and scrabbled at it, trying to find a handhold. But the pit was sheer and slick, with nothing to catch on to. Her gut twisted sickeningly as his screams of anger turned into something much more awful.
The cries of a man who knew he was about to die.
He took far too long to drown.
To her horror, he stopped clawing at the walls and started clawing at himself, as he floundered in the liquid metal. He was completely covered in it, a writhing, squirming black form that lost all human shape and simply became a dying, suffocating, gargling thing, swallowed up by the moltmetal…
Carmine felt herself trembling as the panicked sounds stopped abruptly, and deep silence filled the cavern.
She could not seem to tear herself away from the railing. Her hands gripped it so tightly she felt she was a part of it, just another part of the chilly cavern, of the darkness itself. The blackness of the pit grew deeper, the shiny gleam of its surface disappearing, becoming a fathomless, bottomless void, blacker than black, darker than the shadows.
It was horrifying, yet entrancing. It seemed to promise, in the whispers that danced around her, in the languid black mist that slithered like smoky serpents up the walls of the pit, an infinity beyond despair, a cold kind of peace, a pain that was beyond pain…
Mist billowed off her black armour, mingling with the inky fog that swallowed the cavern. Her armour itself seemed to turn almost liquid, shifting and sliding coldly over her skin with an oily, prickly sensation…
In front of her, the mist formed itself into shapes. Clawed hands, like nothing Human, made of smoke and lost dreams, reached for her out of the depths.
Some small part of Carmine recognised the danger, and as the strange hands moved close she gasped involuntarily, unclenched her hands from the railing and threw herself back against the rocky wall of the cavern.
The place had gone completely dark – dark as the bowels of the mountains, the purple glow extinguished. She did not know how she could see anything in the pitch blackness, but the eerie, grotesque hands appeared to be something beyond vision.
Perhaps they were inside her head…
Feeling suffocated, nauseated and confused by the deathly attraction of the pit, Carmine turned and blindly fled.