Emerging from the mouth of the Prime Passage, Saskia blinked up at the clear blue sky. Just a few months ago, the sky had been dark even at midday, and the air thick with smoke. It was—and for the foreseeable future, would remain—bitterly cold outside. Most of the trees of the forest were dead, and stripped of all their leaves.
And yet there were signs of new growth peeking out from the ash and snow. Shoots of green, and white-petalled flowers, and spindly stems that would one day grow into tall trees.
Those were Garrain’s doing. He’d been travelling far and wide, and everywhere he went, Ciendil had been springing to life.
Speak of the devil…
A dark shape swooped down from the cliffs above, flapping leathery wings as it came into land before her. Eyes like black pools regarded her unblinkingly. Garrain sprang off the roptir’s back, roots spreading beneath his feet to break his fall. The druid—or perhaps dryad would be a better name for the walking, talking tree he had become—strode to meet her, inclining his head in greeting. Behind him, the roptir shrank down into the form of a dark furred cat, which sat at his side, winding her tail about his legs. Nuille was spending more and more time in her various animal forms these days.
“The alvari of Emberleaf send their regards,” said Garrain. “They will not stand against you, though neither will they take up arms against the Arbordeus.”
“No surprise,” said Saskia. “I’m just glad there are more of your people out there.”
Emberleaf was a tiny settlement on a branchlet to the east that had been spared the worst effects of the Great Winter, as the apocalyptic events of the past year had become known. They were among the most reclusive people on Ciendil—more so even than the oracles of Fellspur—and they’d sat out all the major conflicts of the past millennia. Smart elves.
“Indeed,” said Garrain. “Little good it will do us in the coming battles, though.”
“We don’t need them,” said Baldreg, coming up behind her. Amber light shone from the ex-Chosen’s eyes. The scowl he wore had rarely left his face after he emerged from his coma. “Our people have been reforged in fire and ice, and sharpened to a knife’s edge. The tyrant will piss his cloudy breeches when he larns we’re coming for him!”
Behind him, a clamour of duanum boots struck the tunnel floor in unison, driven by stout dwarven legs—and more than a few spindly elven ones as well. At the fore stood old Myrna the Matron, looking deadlier than ever with her duanum blades and armour. Among those making the journey from New Inglomar were seven newly-rekindled stoneshapers (now Saskia’s vassals); Yasmithe and Sionne, druids of Wengarlen; and Vannach the spidery beastmaster. Most of the rest were battle-hardened warriors, but there were also engineers and craftsmen, hunters and farmers and cooks—everyone they would need to build and maintain a forward base in a foreign land.
Compared to what they would no doubt be facing, this would barely even qualify as an army. But they’d make do with what they had. And they would not be alone.
Another winged shape soared overhead, larger than Nuille’s roptir form. The bone dragon circled once, then landed in a nearby clearing, lowering its belly-cabin to the ground. Calburn’s ghost had recently told her the name he gave this heap of bones: Iscaragraithe. A bit of a mouthful, but it was a name, and it felt more personable than ‘bone dragon,’ so that’s what she’d taken to calling it.
Out of Iscaragraithe’s cabin stepped Ruhildi and Zarie, followed by a handful of mer—Zarie’s compatriots from the Pillar of Strife. Saskia spied what looked like a tempest standing at the rear, with an arlium shard inset in her spear. Not many of Zarie’s people would take her side against Abellion, their god. But she still had some friends in the Pillar, it seemed.
There was an elf with them as well—a scaly beastmaster with a crocodilian pet. Saskia had met him before in her brief sojourn through the floating tower, though she didn’t know his name. How in the nine howls had Zarie managed to convinced him to join the battle?
A moment later, she got her answer, when Vannach dashed out of the tunnel, spider eyes gawking in astonishment. “Cargard!? I thought you were dead!”
“And I you, blood brother,” said the second beastmaster, whose name, apparently, was Cargard. “When Zarie told me you were living among the dwarrows, I could scarcely believe it. But now I see with my own eyes that it is so.”
Saskia eyed him sceptically. “You’re willing to fight against the Arbordeus?”
“Where my blood brother goes, I go,” said Cargard.
“That doesn’t exactly answer my question,” said Saskia.
“I will fight,” said Cargard. “Abellion has brought our people to ruin. He is not worthy of his mantle.”
Actually, it was the stoneshaper dwarves who had brought about the calamity that devastated their homeland. They may never have escalated things to the point of madness had Abellion not stoked the ancient conflict between elves and dwarves, but the so-called god didn’t hold all the blame. Saskia wasn’t about to correct him on this point, though.
“Best that you don’t, no,” murmured Ruhildi, coming to greet her. Her friend was looking as badonk as ever in her duanum shell, with a metal faceplate covering the side of her face that had been seared to the bone. Unlike the armour worn by the other dwarves assembled behind her, Ruhildi’s shell was fused to her body. Beneath the shell were layers of arlium and bone and not much else. Kinda like a dwarven Robocop.
Zarie looked between them in obvious confusion. “Do not what?”
“Never mind,” said Saskia. “I’m glad some of your people chose to join us. Who’s the other tempest?”
“Renia is one of the new conservators,” said Zarie. “I have known her since she was a little spawn. She is quite young, but eager to prove herself.”
“How young?” asked Saskia.
“Three span and nine,” said Zarie. “Not too young to fight, yes?”
Thirty nine. Mer years were almost as long as elf years, so that would make her…equivalent to an eighteen-to-twenty-year-old human, maybe?
“Not too young,” agreed Saskia.
Zarie glanced up at the sky. “He is nearly here, yes?”
“Yup,” said Saskia. “Just about…there.” She pointed at the sky, where a pair of large airships had just risen behind a nearby hill. The he Zarie was referring to was her dwarven partner, Kveld, who was onboard one of the approaching airships.
The giant flying vessels were the fruit of months of labour by Dallim and a team of engineers. They had come up with a solution that would not only travel the skies of Ciendil, but hopefully carry them up and down the trunk of the world tree as well. It was a decidedly low-tech design, lacking even steam engines or propellers. Instead, these airships were steered by sails.
Air currents on the branches of Arbor Mundi were quite predictable—always blowing in roughly the same direction at a given altitude. This was also true of the trunk of the world tree, but unfortunately those air currents were all travelling lengthwise up or down the trunk. Once away from Ciendil, hot air and sails alone would not allow an airship to move toward or away from the trunk, or travel around it.
But these airships were not at the mercy of natural air currents, because each of them had onboard a team of frostling tempests who could direct the air any way they pleased. All the airship crews had to do was point the sails in the right direction, and the tempests would take care of the rest.
Still, even with frostlings propelling them, airships were slow and fragile. It was a shame their attempts to resurrect one of the skyships of Old Ulugmir had thus far borne so little fruit. They could patch together the ancient vessel’s hull, but they hadn’t been able to repair its arlium engines, or build more of them. Calburn had dodged the subject every time she’d brought it up. It seemed, for whatever reason, her dad’s ghost didn’t want them reviving that particular technology. So instead, the skyship’s hull served as the gondola of the airship Freygar, currently being operated by Kveld and a small dwarven crew.
Oracles Dallim and Wuishe, joined by a mixed crew of elves and dwarves, operated the other airship, the Hindenburger. Yeah, she cringed whenever she heard that name. She so should have vetoed it.
Saskia had been astonished at the speed with which they’d managed to build and test these airships—a task that would have taken years back on Earth, even with a decent industrial base to build upon. Stoneshapers could shape the metal frames faster than any mundane construction workers. With an oracle’s intuition, and all of Earth’s knowledge to draw upon, Dallim could correct any major design flaws before they became a problem.
The oracle in question waved down at her from the rigging of one of the Hindenburger’s sails as the airship settled in to land by the dragon. She waved back, trying not to let her nervousness show. If she got him killed, she’d never forgive herself. Where they were going was no place for one as young as he. But on the other hand, Dallim was their airship expert, and a very capable pilot and navigator, to boot. They needed him.
Without further ado, the dwarves and elves and mer began to climb aboard the ships that would bear them skyward. These airships were huge, but there were a lot of bodies to transport. It would be…cosy.
While this was happening, Kveld clambered down the Freygar, and spoke to Zarie in low, urgent tones. Saskia didn’t eavesdrop, for once. The pair would be flying separately, so they would have few chances to see each other before…well, anything could happen.
Saskia boarded the dragon with Ruhildi, Zarie, Baldreg and a few too many elves and dwarves who she knew only in passing. She tried not to think of the extras as redshirts, because, well…that would be mean. But they were totally redshirts. Also joining them would be the family of adorribles that had taken up residence inside. Garrain would be riding Nuille (and yeah, her mind kept going there), while everyone else would squeeze into the two airships. Once they got to the trunk, they’d shuffle things around a bit.
The flight north along Ciendil wasn’t comfortable, though it was scenic. They soared over white snow-capped peaks, white snow-covered foothills, white forests, white fields and…yeah, everything was white. Except the sea, which was blue with white icebergs floating in it.
From time to time, they flew over great spires of ice, reaching high above the frozen wastes. These were watchtowers built by her frostling vassals. Similar spires had sprung up across Grongarg. They would give her advance warning of any incursion by the enemy’s forces. Thus far, there had been no further sign of the skarakh who had attacked Cloudtop, but they would come. And when they did, she wanted to know about it.
The frostlings’ efforts hadn’t been confined to just Ciendil and Grongarg. Every frostling on Arbor Mundi was Saskia’s vassal—or at least, all of them connected to their queen, sealed in her icy prison above the seed of frost. There may be others that were not part of that vast collective consciousness, but without the magic of their queen, could they really be considered frostlings?
Her tiny tempests had travelled far, bringing frostling tribes across three other nearby branches into the fold. Technically, all frostling tribes everywhere were already linked to her, but the only way she could see or do anything meaningful with them was to concentrate on one small group at a time. And the only way she could pick out a small group from the teeming millions was to have one of her known vassals get close enough to select it on a map. Through the eyes of her frostling vassals, she’d explored those branches. One was inhabited by monstrous beasts—and the frostlings who devoured them. Another, containing a single gigantic sea surrounded by mountains, was home to nomadic clans of mer, and two other sapient aquatic species—all of whom worshipped Abellion in one form or another. The third was Lumium, the branch directly above Ciendil. Its inhabitants were high elves, close relatives of Ciendil’s forest elves. Though more secular than many of their Ciendil cousins, they still paid homage to the Arbordeus, and held little regard for outsiders.
She had her frostlings keep a close eye on them, but otherwise didn’t try to interfere. While a slow conquest of all of Abellion’s supporters might ultimately be successful, she suspected if she went down that path, she’d still be embroiled in this war a hundred years from now. No, she aimed to cut off the head, and deal with the limbs later.
Recently, several of her tiny spies had ventured further up the trunk, to the crown of the world tree. They’d glimpsed a huge amber structure nestled among the highest branches. Before they could get close, a large winged beast had descended upon them, and they’d been forced to flee.
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Even if that creature was what she thought it was, Abellion’s defences seemed surprisingly light. Still, she weren’t going to take any chances. He may not be a real god, any more than she was, but she’d be a fool to underestimate him. Her friends and allies would bring enough firepower to get the job done.
After days of hard flying, they reached the northernmost tip of Ciendil, where it joined with the trunk of the world tree. The famed dwarven city of Climber’s Gate had once sprawled across this huge junction. Now, the city was little more than crumbling ruins, crawling with vines and covered in trees. During the Great Winter, the ice had encroached even here—and partway up the trunk—but it was recovering more quickly than the rest of the branch, now that the ash was no longer blotting out the sky.
The frostlings were present here as well—marked by the large glaciers that reached high up onto the trunk. They’d also sent a small contingent of elves and dwarves to establish outposts and build fortifications in certain strategic locations along the boundary. There weren’t enough to fight off any invasion of Ciendil, but they wanted to show at least the semblance of strength to any outside force that might come knocking.
Their little fleet landed at one such outpost. Here, they waited for their allies to arrive, and while they waited, the engineers and stoneshapers and druids set to work building up the rudimentary fortifications.
Two days later, Saskia was just drifting off to sleep when a horn sounded. She dashed out of her little shelter to find Ruhildi standing there, smiling at her and pointing into the sky.
Dozens of airships, sleek and deadly, and bristling with ballistas, drifted through the sky, skirting close to the trunk. Tall, spindly figures with hunched backs and long claws dashed back and forth across the decks, shifting sails to guide them toward her little outpost.
The trolls of Grongarg had come through for her.
Her staunchest allies, the Cloudtop Queendom, had been devoting every resource to the construction of the vessels. They were by no means the only queendom to join the battle, though. There were representatives from Cragspear, Riverside, Cramjaw, Bulwark and many others aboard the fleet. The Goldclaw Queendom had sent a battalion of its immensely powerful (but intellectually challenged) lifters—trolls who had received the dubious blessing of the seed of strength. There were even a few Parakumakorai—fierce warriors (though tiny, compared to other trolls) who normally never ventured out of the wildlands of Krakura.
It wasn’t just regular troops who would be fighting at her side, though. There were queens and princesses among them. She could tell their royal status by the smoothness of their skin—and, in many cases, by the absence of anything covering it, besides jewellery. Some of those faces she knew personally, having met them during her month-long stay at Firespring. There was Princess Aele of the Goldclaw Queendom, standing next to another smooth-skinned troll who must be her mother, Queen Moebe. And there, Queen Raku of Riverside. Her granddaughter, Nuhu, wasn’t with her, thank dogs; Nuhu was barely more than a child. In the leading flagship stood Queen Vask of Cloudtop. And beside her…
Saskia drew in a deep, steadying breath. Down girl, she told herself.
Like the Ciendil-built airships, each of the troll vessels carried a number of frostling tempests to help steer them. These particular frostlings had all come from Ciendil, even though Grongarg had plenty of its own. Only those conceived near the seed of storms inherited its power, whereas every frostling born anywhere inherited the power of their queen, sealed in the icy prison of the seed of frost.
Roptirs hung from the sides some of the gondolas, wings folded over their sleeping bodies. The giant bats had been sedated for the journey skyward. By all accounts, the beasts went a little batty when they got close to the trunk. Their riders would wake them only after they reached their destination.
Saskia waited impatiently as Vask’s flagship came in to land. A ladder descended, and a pale, smooth-skinned troll shimmied down it, spun, and spun to face her.
“Queen Saskia!” beamed Queen Vask.
Yeah, they were both queens now, apparently. No-one but the trolls of Grongarg called her that, of course, though the elves and dwarves were following her lead in this war against Abellion. After this was over (assuming anyone was still alive to care) she’d go back to being just Saskia. No way was she going to be saddled with the responsibility of royalty. No frocking way.
Queen Vask hesitated for a moment, then dove for Saskia, arms outstretched.
Uh oh.
Saskia stepped backward, narrowly avoiding the almost-naked troll’s overeager embrace. Vask staggered, and almost face-planted on the ground, her fall halted only by Saskia’s steadying hand.
“Sorry,” said Saskia. “Personal boundaries, remember?”
“Feh!” said Vask. “We have shared so much, and you refuse a friendly hug? Speaking of sharing…” She glanced up at the second troll descending the ladder behind her.
Touching down lightly on the grassy landing pad, Rover Dog strode toward her, grinning broadly. Saskia rolled her eyes when she saw that he was wearing just as little as Vask. His skin was very nearly as smooth as hers, too—a feature that had made him very popular with the troll ladies, as if he hadn’t been popular enough already. Sometimes, Saskia regretted dunking him in the scouring pools.
“Princess,” said Rover Dog, who would continue to use that title for her until the end of time, whether she ascended to godhood or lived under a bridge. “I…missed you.”
“I missed you too.” Even as she said it, she wondered if it was true. Her body had certainly missed him, but she hadn’t felt much in the way of loneliness these couple of months he’d been gone. She’d been too busy for that. She didn’t begrudge him all the other fields he’d no doubt been ploughing in her absence. Any woman who expected Rover Dog to be monogamous would be in for a rude awakening. So what did that make them? Still just friends?
“Your queendom is…not what I was expecting,” said Vask, eyeing the overgrown ruins of Climber’s Gate, and the fortifications that had been constructed atop them.
“It’s not what it used to be,” said Saskia. Also, it’s not really a queendom.
Vask looked at the rows of dwarves and elves who had assembled around them. “Where are the trows?”
Saskia shuffled awkwardly. “There aren’t many of our kind on Ciendil. And those that are here are…”
“Savages,” said Rover Dog.
Saskia gave him a wan smile. She had considered the possibility of recruiting the trolls from the Pillar of Strife for the coming battle. But in the end, she hadn’t had the time or inclination to deal with them. They were big and heavy, and difficult to transport. The equivalent weight in battle-hardened dwarves and elves would be far more useful than a few extra untrained trolls. There would already be trolls aplenty, thanks to Queen Vask’s and Rover Dog’s efforts.
“Your queendom is a queendom of tiny people,” said Vask, frowning.
Saskia laughed. “I suppose it is. Some of them are quite powerful, though. They have survived things you wouldn’t believe.”
“We will find out soon enough just what they can survive,” said Vask. “I am eager to teach this godling on the amber throne how foolish he was to pick a fight with us, but I do not expect all of us will live to celebrate our victory.”
“You’re probably right,” said Saskia. “We’ll find out within the next few days. Get some rest. Tomorrow, we’ll begin our ascent.”
At the crack of dawn, Rover Dog shook her awake, his claws tracing lightly across her back. “Time to rise, princess.”
“Is that supposed to be a pun?” she asked. Her eyes drifted downward. “Something else is rising too, I see.”
His only reply was a grin.
“I guess I’ll see you when we get there, then,” she said, as he helped her into her armour. “Please don’t die.”
Thanks to all the redshirts—uh, indispensable people—they had to carry on Iscaragraithe, there wasn’t room for a second troll. So Rover Dog would be travelling on Queen Vask’s airship again today. Nuille and Garrain, for the time being, would also be riding aboard the same ship. Carrying her lifemate up all the way up to the crown of the world tree in roptir form would have been too much for Nuille—like climbing a hundred Mount Everests with a large boulder strapped to her back. Better that she conserve her energy for when she’d really need it.
“Not worry, princess,” said Rover Dog. “I will live forever.”
He was obviously not being serious, but in that moment, she could almost believe him.
Soon, Iscaragraithe and dozens of airships were rising into the sky. Watching the intricate and varied landscape of the trunk fall away, Saskia found herself once again in awe of the beautiful strangeness of this world. What was Arbor Mundi, really? Was it even a tree? It had no leaves, and clearly wasn’t fuelled by photosynthesis. How had it come to grow so huge? Had it really devoured half of the planet below?
It was as if the world tree—or whatever it truly was—had been perfectly designed to harbour life. The branches, for the most part, where quite flat along the vertical axis, with plenty of depressions that could hold water. Each of them was the size of a small continent on Earth, and they were far enough apart for each to form a distinct ecology, without too much cross-pollination.
As the hours became days, and they continued their ascent, the world tree became…gnarlier. The relatively straight trunk began to splay outward into a tangled nest of spurs and longer branchlets, initially as thick as mountains, but narrowing and multiplying, the higher they went. Streams of water collected in the cracks between them, forming deep, dark pools. Sinuous shapes churned beneath the surface of the pools, and writhed at the water’s edge.
The skies weren’t exactly clear, either. Birds of every size and colour flitted between the branchlets and nested among the various hanging growths. Some were as big as a horse, and not all were friendly. Several times, the trolls put their net-throwers to good use, taking out birds that dove at sleeping roptirs or attempted to land on their fragile balloons.
Nuille flapped over to one of the huge birds struggling to free itself from its net. She brushed up against it for a brief moment—keeping well clear of its beak and claws. Then in a flurry of dark feathers, an identical bird appeared in the air beside it.
One of the trolls turned her net-thrower toward the new ‘threat.’ Garrain and Rover Dog shouted at her to stand down.
“Enjoying your new form?” Saskia asked Nuille through their shared oracle link.
These days, Nuille needed only to touch a bird or beast to adopt its form. She still hadn’t figured out how to take the form of another sapient creature, but she now had hundreds of animal forms to choose from.
The giant bird landed lightly atop the gondola’s upper deck, and a moment later, Nuille stood in its place. A radiant smile spread across her face. “It feels much more powerful than a roptir body,” she said. “Faster, too.”
As sun wobbled behind the planet below, Saskia began to discern a light shining through the bizarre canopy. It was a warm, golden hue, like a candle flame, or…
“The light of the amber throne,” said Saskia to no-one in particular.
“Aye,” said Ruhildi. “’Tweren’t visible from further down, so we must be getting close.”
The gaps between the branchlets continued to narrow; the sky growing increasingly crowded. It wasn’t yet a navigation hazard, but it soon might be. Even with the frostlings present, the airships weren’t particularly manoeuvrable. She could imagine what would happen if a fragile bag of air scraped against one of those rough, spiny protuberances.
“Careful,” she warned her vassals stationed on every ship. “Slow and steady wins the race.”
“This is a race?” said Zarie, eyeing her quizzically.
“It’s just an expression. Nuille, would you like to scout ahead? You can stay hidden, right?”
“Of course,” said Nuille. “I have been looking forward to using this form.”
Releasing Garrain’s hand, Nuille shucked off her gown, shrank down—and vanished. The only evidence of her presence was a faint smear of grey, fluttering into the tangled sky. Nuille had been working hard to perfect this hybrid form over the past few months. The bird was nearly invisible under most lighting conditions. She would have gone up the trunk in the initial scouting expedition, but unlike the frostling tempests, she tired easily when travelling long distances on those tiny wings.
Saskia watched from Nuille’s eyes as she flew higher and deeper into the canopy. The light grew brighter. Her ascent slowed. And now she was pushing inward more than she was gaining altitude.
She must be getting close now. Saskia couldn’t see anything special on her map, but the light…it was so bright. Almost blinding.
Except…something was wrong. It took Saskia a while to realise it, but when she did, she mentally kicked herself for not having cottoned on sooner. Nuille wasn’t flying toward the light, but around it. And she’d been doing this for some time.
When Saskia pointed this out, Nuille faltered, and turned to face the light. But a moment later, she had turned away, and once again she was flying around it.
A closer inspection of Nuille’s map confirmed Saskia’s suspicions. She couldn’t seem to look at the right side of the map. Whenever she tried, her gaze slid away.
“It’s one of those repelling wards,” said Saskia. “I don’t understand. This wasn’t here when the frostlings scouted the area a week ago.” She sighed. “I wonder what other surprises he has in store for us. Anyhow, now that we know it’s there, we can get through it. Focus on the light. If you turn away from it, I’ll correct you.”
It was slow going, and she could tell that Nuille was in some pain, just as she herself had been when she crossed the greenway on Ciendil. But eventually she managed to guide her vassal through the barrier. Nuille emerged on the other side—and flew straight into a wall.
“What the frock!?” said Saskia. “Nuille, are you okay?”
Nuille slid down the shiny amber surface for almost thirty seconds before she came to her senses, pushed herself away from the wall, and hovered there, shaking her tiny head from side to side. Not just a wall, Saskia realised. A dome.
It was the colour of shining arlium, but something told her it wasn’t actually made out of any physical material. It was magic, just like the other barrier.
“I have no idea how we’re gonna get through that,” said Saskia. “Could you try blasting it with spells, or—Nuille, look out!”
Something massive had suddenly emerged from the dome just above her. Huge, leathery wings, vicious curved claws, a scaly undercarriage, and a long, sinuous neck.
Nuille spun and dove. A wingtip lashed at her, sending her careening end over end, before finally she righted herself.
There wasn’t just one of the great winged beasts; there were dozens—possibly hundreds—swarming out of the barrier. Sitting astride their backs were legions of archers and spellflingers: elves and skarakh, and other races she didn’t recognise. A few were clad in white, and wore pale masks.
They’d flown straight past Nuille without even noticing her, tiny as she was. She wasn’t their target. They were coming for Saskia. For the entire fleet.
“Crap crap crap!” she shouted. “We have to get out of here, right now.”
“What is it?” asked Zarie. An edge of panic leaked into her voice.
Their death approached. Iscaragraithe might be able to outfly their foes, but the airships couldn’t.
They were frocked.
The beasts their enemies rode bore a close resemblance to the wyverns that had attacked Cloudtop, but they were sleeker, and more sinuous. More heavily muscled. And much, much bigger. She knew exactly what they were.
“Dragons,” said Saskia.