CHAPTER 27: PROPHECY

“Princess?” said Orvin, his tone full of wonderment and awe.

The giantess turned from the many weapons on the racks to her friend, saw what he was looking at and her heart lurched, eyes widening. It was the sword—her mother’s sword, ensconced within a monolithic shrine encrusted with skills and gems. The size of the shrine was surprising and Harrkania glanced up at it, craning her neck to take in all the scrollwork and entablature, like verse from old books.

With the sword, placed in the alcove, were candles and the skull of an infant. She made a face. The disgust and revulsion of it all came crashing in at once as she came to know that her sword had been used in dark rituals.

The metal of the blade gleamed in the glow of the alighted orbs, the shadows in the chamber dark and recessed, full of hidden items and jewels.

Footsteps, heavy and fast, sounded from behind. “Oh!” exclaimed Orvin. “Falinor is—“

With sudden horror in his eyes, Orvin shot his finger forward like a javelin.

“PRINCESS!”

She whirled around as two giants lumbered into the chamber, one with a sword and the other an axe. The larger, with the axe took three strides forward and swung, chipping at Orvin.

He screamed, jumped and managed to save himself.

Harrkania yelped, moved to grab her mother’s sword from its enshrined placement. As she scrabbled to attain the blade, her fingers were pushed back. She looked at her hand in confusion, but then the giant grabbed the back of her raiment near the collar and pulled her back, growling a curse.

The princess shrieked, turned and whirled out of his grasp. She ran across the chamber, her oar sliding down her arm into her hand. She turned around, sliding over the sand upon the floors.

“Come here, you little whelp!” the axe wielder snarled as he snatched at Orvin, who scrabbled on all fours across the sand as he made frightened sounds.

“Orvin—run!” she cried. Then to the giant advancing upon her, she said, “You leave him alone!”

The warrior only smiled maliciously.

“I am a princess of the house of Dar and you must obey me!” The giant made no move that indicated acknowledgement of her noble place above his own, or even above her cousin Orchan’Da’s. “My father will have all of your heads!” she spat.

The giant laughed, raised his blade and swung his sword at the Princess of Dar.

She shrieked, not bothering to block the blow with her wooden oar, which would surely be cut in two if he hit it. No, Harrkania jumped back, then lashed out with her weapon. It had much longer reach than her opponent’s sword, and she hit him across the shoulder, the sound of wood on flesh a solid one.

The giant recoiled and growled, his eyes narrowing with pain. Then he screamed angrily.

Harrkania’s heart thundered and her ears throbbed—all of her surroundings melted away as this warrior before her, in a rage came at her.

She swung her oar in a sideways arc, angling the flat of the end into the warrior’s ribs, and even though she did a great deal of damage to her opponent, he barreled forward like a bear keg, screaming and snarling.

The princess was certain he would kill her, but instead he grabbed her by the front of her raiment, his grubby fingers pressed between her breasts. She screamed and he threw her to the sand and her oar toppled beside her.

The giant then picked up her weapon and hurled it away with an angry grunt. “You little whore,” he snarled. “If it were not for the Sorceress of Da, I would gut you like—“

He came back to grab her, but Harrkania screamed, kicking her legs to keep his filthy hands away from her.

“Come here!”

She grabbed a fistful of the sand and threw it in his face. He screamed, covering his eyes belatedly, but it was little help, as she had hurled a good handful of the dry and glittering scree directly into his eyes.

Grunting, the giant could not pursue her, but instead of simply running away, Harrkania kicked him in the face and he flailed over violently, his sword falling from his grasp into the sand.

She almost reached over to grab that sword, but ignored it, her head jerking up as she glanced about for Orvin. He was there, on the other side of the chamber.

He needs my help!

She lurched from her hands and knees to her feet.

The giant behind her screamed.

“Where are you going?!”

Stopping, she turned around as he loomed before her, his teeth gritted in a half snarl. He pointed his sword at her.

Glancing to her side, the Princess of Dar saw the shrine—and her mother’s sword. It practically called out to her.

*

The giant grunted as he raised his axe high above his head. Orvin watched with wide eyes and a slack mouth, every muscle in his body a taut cord ready to snap.

He screamed.

The giant snarled.

The axe came down.

Orvin flinched, pulled his shoulders and hips to the side and rolled as the heavy blade sunk into the sand beside him.

Glancing up and to the side, he saw that axe blade, and then the angry visage of the giant looking at him. He bared his teeth and Orvin screamed anew.

As the giant lifted his weapon again, he scrabbled over the sand and through the giant’s spread legs.

The warrior snarled and cursed.

“YOU LITTLE RAT!”

And then Harrkania called him.

“Orvin!”

He could do nothing, could not even look her way as he screamed and fled from the giant after him. He ran directly for the arched corridor leading out of the chamber.

His leather shoes pattered and slapped wildly as he ran through the corridor, the lights from the torches ebbing and flowing with the breeze in the halls.

“COME HERE!” the giant called from behind, his angry tones carrying like a deadly storm on the wind.

The learned man shook like a leaf as he slammed to a halt, the corridor breaking off in three directions, one to his left, one to his right, and stairs directly ahead. Orvin whirled, indecision plaguing him.

Oh—I do hope Harrkania is all right!

Please—

No!

Nonono—she can take care of herself.

Can she not?

The giant’s footsteps barreled to the entry of the corridor, his large shadow looming across the stones. Orvan made a sound unbecoming of a man as his heart lurched into his mouth. He forced himself to make a decision.

He turned and ran up the steps direction ahead.

*

Harrkania reached into the disgusting shrine of bones and gems and infant skulls. Whatever had prevented her from doing such before, resisted once again, as if a clear and invisible membrane tried to eject her hand.

“Go ahead!” the giant called. “Take the sword, little girl.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide, but he was still trying to get the sand out of his eyes as he half stumbled in her direction.

With a grunt, Harrkania pushed her hand through whatever attempted to prevent her and grasped the hilt of her sword, and just as she had taken the weapon, whatever unseen force was there shimmered darkly, a low and thunderous sound as it dispelled into nothing ness.

“Are you ready—you little whore?!”

Harrkania turned to meet him, twirled her blade in her hands.

Between when she had gotten up off the sand intil taking the sword from the shrine, only a few moments had passed. In that space of time, Orvin had run from the chamber in a panic as the giant with the axe chased after him.

Anger and a rage took Harrkania.

The warrior before her laughed as she stalked toward him. He lifted his blade with an easy air to block her strike.

Metal on metal clanged within the chamber and the giant defended himself as she growled out a curse and an oath, her blade flashing, licking for his neck.

Her opponent’s eyes eyes widened in apparent surprise and he struck at her, but Harrkania parried his blade away.

“YOU!”

She hit his sword.

“…WILL!”

She arched her blade and he blocked again in a loud skirl of sharp steel.

“…NOT KILL MY FRIENDS!”

With another swing her her long blade, she hit his sword away and then brought her blade across his neck in a wet slice of metal through flesh. His head whirled through the air, flinging and spurting blood thickly over the sand.

The body fell limply, the hand twitching over the hilt of the sword.

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Looking down at the corpse, she breathed out heavily, squeezed her own sword hilt to keep from shaking as the blood pooling before her was soaked up into the glittering sand at her feet.

Then the princess whirled, remembering Orvin. She loped across the sand, calling out, “I’m coming! Orvin—I’m coming!

The princess entered the corridor and ran down it, her boots thumping on the stones. She came to a three-way split, stairs leading directly toward her.

“Orvin?”

She glanced about.

Where has he gone?

And just then, as if he had heard her, his frightened and harried voice came, a wordless cry of fear. It echoed down to her from the stairs.

“ORVIN!” she cried. “I’m coming!”

She thundered up the stairs and down the corridor. The giant in pursuit of him snarled and cursed, the sounds of his axe hitting stone rung through the corridors.

Harrkania picked up her speed.

Turning the corner, Orvin and the giant came into her field of view. She ran out to meet him standing in the light of day and she screamed as loud as she could as she raised the hilt of her sword to shoulder height.

She could see Orvin on the ground, his hand raised in defense as he howled, cringing from what would be his sudden death.

The giant was about to cut him in two with his axe, but he seemed to hear Harrkania just in time to turn around.

“Huh?”

She screamed anew and thrust the point of her sword forward with a powerful push of her arms, the blade taking the warrior directly in the lower stomach just above his hips.

He stumbled back and grunted, the sound of steel penetrating flesh deep and indicative of a wound that he would not recover from as he spasmed once, looked at Harrkania in surprise and fell back.

Orvin screamed as the weight of the giant covered him, the axe he had wielded clanging metallically over the stones near his head.

When her blade had come free, a gout of blood shot forth over the stones at her feet. The giant had fallen on his hip across the much smaller human. Orvin winced painfully as he squirmed to get free. Finally he pushed at the giant’s shoulder and barely managed to get out and pull himself back.

The giant’s movements were slow and labored as he pulled an arm to his wound and curled in on himself in pain.

“Orvin?”

Wheezing, Orvin scrabbled over to her, tried to rise, but called out sharply and fell across his forearms.

“Do not move,” Harrkania commanded him.

The giant was mortally wounded, but by no means dead. “That wound,” Harrkania snarled, “will be the end of you, warrior of Da.”

He looked at her, breathing in and out and grunting with every effort. He did not respond and his brown eyes were becoming heavy lidded.

She raised her sword, the giant seeming to notice this. He shook his head, a movement that was barely perceptible as he pleaded for his pathetic life.

The giantess brought her blade back down over his face, cleaving his skull in two and ending him, both out of anger and rage that he had tried to kill her friend, but also out of mercy—as his death would have been a long and excruciating one.

There was a moment of silence, but finally Harrkania turned to Orvin. She lowered her bloody blade and offered him her hand.

“Are you all right?”

He nodded, took her hand and grunted as he got up on one leg. They breathed together, their eyes meeting, and Orvin wilted slightly. “Oh, Princess. I am so, so sorry you had to do that.”

“I am the daughter of a warrior queen,” she said flatly, then lifted her sword so that the skull-ornamented cross guard was near her face. She looked at it as rivulets of blood fell down the blade’s edge.

This was her mother’s sword.

“And now my blade has tasted the blood of my enemies for the first time.” She looked at Orvin. “I am a warrior. I was always meant to be, a warrior.”

He sighed in a defeated sort of way and nodded. “Now,” he breathed. “We must help Falinor.” He limped forward.

“You are injured.”

“I am fine, Princess.” Ignoring her, he limped back out over the roofless platform, the view a staggering and breathtaking vista of the God’s Eye as it rumbled and spouted hot ash into the sky.

Thunder growled across the sky like the angry of a deity.

“Is there a way down from here?” she asked.

Orvin stepped gingerly around the dead giant and went to the ledge. “Yes!” he exclaimed and pointed. As Harrkania went to his side, slowing as the drop before her became more pronounced, Orvin added, “But it is rather perilous, my lady…”

Her eyes widened, as the steps before her led down steeply without a safety rail of any kind, leaving room of about a pace and a half. She swallowed, following the switchback with her eyes.

“It goes down to a platform, my lady,” Orvin said. He leaned over. “I see something below. It is hard to see, but perhaps a lift or a pulley system.”

“Teacher,” said Harrkania. “We do not know where this leads.”

With a shrug, he said, “We have no choice. We must get Falinor and leave this horrible place.”

She nodded. “Then come. I fear we do not have much time and I fear for Falinor’s life.”

“So do I,” said Orvin.

Together they backtracked the way they had come, their footfalls hurried and anxious to return as quickly as possible, though Orvin limped like a cripple.

Finally he winced and an anguished sound came out of his throat.

She stopped. “Orvin, we must go.”

“Go on, Princess!” breathed Orvin. “My leg—it cannot… carry me so fast, I think.” He stopped bent and put his leg down to the stones. As he pushed some weight on it, he flinched back and growled painfully.

“You cannot continue like this,” said Harrkania.

Shaking his head, he then nodded. “Go.” He waved a hand, shooing her away from him. “Go, Princess. I beg you. Help Falinor.”

“Wait for us,” she said with a nod, and she ran.

*

The giant’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as his balance became wobbly. His hand was slack, his sword lay next to his knees on the stones.

Falinor brought his blade over the top of his skull, finishing him off in a spray of blood. It was gruesome work, killing the wounded, but Falinor had done it as a show of brutality—that, and the giant was dead anyway. With a slash like that across his ribs, the the depth of which was comparable to the span of his blade’s width, he had no chance of surviving long.

It was a mercy.

Glaring at the giants, his sword held high, he asked, “Have you had enough?” But Orchand’Da was smiling ear to ear like a mad woman. “Your sorceress”—he thrust his chin in her direction—“does not seem to mind watching you all die at my hand.”

A moment passed.

They did not seem to care either.

“Are you all mad?!” Falinor shouted.

“They serve the Demon Lord,” Orchan’Da said, her tone full of amusement and arrogance. “We are bit his pawns.”

Thumping boots sounded behind him above the steps and the sorceress glanced up, her face dropping from delighted amusement to a heavy frown.

Knowing that the princess must have handled her two attackers, Falinor grinned a little. “Are you all right?” he asked, turning his head just slightly as he addressed the princess.

“I am fine,” she said. Then she called across the bridge. “Orchan’Da!”

“What is it, little girl?!”

“This is over!”

“Ha!” the sorceress scoffed. “It is over when I decide it is over. You know nothing!”

The giants had stopped their advance on the bridge. Then Orchand’Da turned her head. “Bring me the prisoners. Line them all up across the precipice.”

“What are you doing?” demanded Falinor.

“Do you really believe,” intoned Orchan’Da, “that I am going to stand here and watch you kill all of my warriors one by one on this little bridge, Falinor?”

The way she moved her head and shoulders was full of sardonic mockery.

“I had hoped.”

“Mmm. Even so… you could never defeat me.”

“Why not come down here so we can discover the truth of your claim, Sorceress.”

“Just let us go!” called Harrkania. “You mad woman! Find some other man for your sacrifice.”

Orchan’Da seemed to take genuine amusement from her cousin’s words. “You stupid girl—you will not leave her alive!”

“You intend to kill me? A princess of Dar? Truly? Then you are mad!”

The sorceress shook her head slowly. “No.” she said the word as if Harrkania were dumb. “You are right here, exactly where your father wants you. If maybe a little earlier than he wishes.”

“What?” asked Falinor, confused. He glanced back at Harrkania, saw the blade in her hand as the cross guard was pressed to her thigh.

She narrowed her eyes.

“Yes!” called Orchan’Da.

The prisoners were now being lined against the precipice of the drop below. Falinor spotted Chiarro and Captain Doldriss. He could not help but swallow with apprehension, but the little sorcerer smiled and nodded, as if everything were preordained to turn out well on this day.

I wish I had your confidence, little man.

“You,” the sorceress continued, and raised her arm. Her coiled whip hung from her grasp as she pointed a long and nailed finger at Harrkania, “are a sacrifice!”

Harrkania said nothing.

“That is right,” continued Orchan’Da. “Do you not know the prophecy? No, of course you do not—little Harrkania’Dar, Princess of House Dar. You fool!” Then Orchan’Da spread her arms exultantly.

“For he, the servant of the Usurper Lord

“In the Mount of Fire will he be risen up!

“From whence will come the noble virgin—a firstborn heir from afar

“Her gift, the crown of her house

“Her blood will mingle with that of the virgin blood of the last born from the House of Malik!

“Her offering, the sword of her mother’s mother…

“From whence the virgins give up their blood and their gifts…

“RISE AGAIN, XUADRYN, LORD OF THE DARK PLANES!”

And then she broke into a mere whisper, a hiss of breath.

“…from whence his work begins.”

And then, like a mad woman devoid of humanity or compassion, who only possessed the love of power and maligned sorceries, she laughed maniacally, her cackling busting forth from a wellspring of insanity, cruel amusement and an utter lust for dark dominance.

Eyes narrowing, Falinor watched—listened. He understood it not, neither did he care to. He turned and saw Harrkania, frozen like a statue. Her eyes wandered, and finally fell to Falinor.

Then, as if she might fall, she ambled down the steps, the tip of her sword scraping upon the stones at her feet.

Falinor took three steps back. “Harrkania!” he hissed. “What is the matter with you?”

“I am… the sacrifice.”

Orchan’Da laughed then, an arrogant and musical evocation of delight and glee. “I never imagined it would be like this. Yes! This is perfect! You know it to be true, Harrkania’Dar!”

The sorceress’ words were having a profoundly negative effect on Harrkania. Falinor found himself concerned—outraged even—that one, even her cousin, might do this to her. The swordsman felt a want, no a need, to protect her. He wanted to snarl as he glanced up at the sorceress, but he did not. Then to the princess, he said, “I don’t understand. It is all nonsense.”

“From whence will come the noble firstborn heir from afar.” She said the words quietly, musingly. Then Harrkania looked at him knowingly, and he could not feign ignorance of what was clearly so obvious.

“Princess Kindrin.”

Then Harrkania continued, her words merely a breath on the air. “Her blood will mingle with that of the blood of the last born from the House of Malik.”

“But…” said Falinor. “You are not of the House of Malik. That was the first king of the giants, was he not?”

“We are all of the House of Malik!” called Orchan’Da. “He who rules the Giant Isles is of Malik, you fool!”

Harrkania said nothing as her eyes filled. Then she looked up at her cousin, lips trembling and her countenance of wild hate.

Reaching over to her, he put a hand on her wrist. “Princess,” he said. “You always knew you had to leave the isles. This changes nothing.”

She looked at him for a moment, but her eyes found their way back to her cousin. Unable to help himself, Falinor glanced behind himself at the terrible statue, the one leaning over the blooded altar of sacrifice.

“You die here today, Harrkania,” said Orchan’Da. “The first sacrifice has come!” She spread her arms once again as she peered across the way toward the terrible statue of the demon. “Your blood will flow and—“

Harrkania took the hilt of her sword in both hands and raised it above her head, then she screamed, a wild and convulsive scream of pure rejection and frustration and anguish, but also of a warrior’s resolve to destroy evil.

Something happened then.

A light flicked across the sword and shot up into the darkness, illuminating the stalactites above where dark formes swayed and disconnected to reveal massive bats, crying in the darkness as they disconnected from their rocks to fly about the cavern in a swirl of outrage and anger before flying farther up into the dark recesses above them.

This distracted Orchan’Da from her exultations and she glanced down at her cousin, her smile wide, her glee—

Her face changed.

The blade, thought Falinor. It has magical properties.

“What is that?” asked the sorceress sharply. “What is that sword?!”

He smiled.

“This,” intoned Harrkania, “is the sword of my mother’s mother, and I intend to kill you with this blade, cousin!”

“NO!” she snarled. “Nonono! This cannot be!” She glanced about wildly, up and down and all around. “You were not supposed to take the offering back, you little slut!”

“Did you not hear me, Orchand’Da?” said Harrkania, her voice a dangerous edge thirsting for blood. “I am going to kill you with this sword.”

“You fool!” she spat, spittle flying out of her mouth. “You do not know what you have done! You have brought the demon’s wrath down upon us!”

As the sorceress uttered the words, a deep and dark tone rumbled through the rocks, barely perceptible as to make the hearer believe he had heard nothing, and yet so certain he had.

Every head in the chamber swiveled. Eyes were wide, and the giants on the bridge glanced back to their mistress, who was now pacing back and forth, her shoulders turned in and her countenance that of a skulking slave.

Whatever that had been, it put the fear of their demon in them, and though he believed not, Falinor could not help feel an apprehension.

“We are leaving,” he intoned. He took two steps back. “Harrkania—we must leave.”

“I will not,” she said, resolve firm.

“Come.”

“You go nowhere, Falinor!” Orchan’Da snarled. Then she took pause, seemed to claw at the air as if she held something in her grasp. “We must—we must mend this indiscretion. We must kill Harrkania’Dar.” Then she looked at them, a swift movement of her head, her eyes the piercing eyes of a predatory lizard. “Kill my cousin! Kill Harrkania’Darandbringmebackhersword!”

“Shit!” snarled Falinor, his eyes wide as the giants bristled.

“Kill the prisoners!” the sorceress howled.

“NO!” Falinor screamed.

The prisoners flinched as one and screamed as the giants started pushing them over the edge. Falinor looked to Chiarro one last time, who simply regarded him, his smile still unfaltering.

And he fell into the black void below.

“NO!” Falinor screamed. “Damn you, Orchan’Da! I curse you with the fury of all the gods and demons!”

“Nothing can change what will come!” she screeched, “save for Harrkania’Dar’s death.” She howled at the ceiling. “We place the sword back in the shrine and we beg his forgiveness for our offenses—O’ Xuadryn—forgive us our transgresssssionns!”

The giants came forward, their fear and intent for the princess’ head plain to see, a palpable need as they inexorably marched across the bridge, howling and cursing and calling for blood.

“Take them!” ordered Acro’Nor! “Kill them!”