Craig Saunders - Tides of Rythe

Men, on the other hand, they were not at home in the mountains. The Culthorn mountains, perhaps, were a bane that travellers could live with. This range was something else. The peaks were difficult to judge, but looming large even at this distance Drun thought they might top five thousand feet at their tips.

Hopefully he would not have to climb so far. He was far from young, and while his faith gave him strength, his bones and muscles told the truth of it. He was not fit enough to make the climb. His brothers told him that the entrance to the volcano was on the west side — they would have to find passage over the mountains. The Protectorate encampment, and their portal, waited for them on this side of the mountain. He had no ideas on how to pass them, allowing his brothers, and Tirielle, to join them.

He was not a tactician, he was a priest. Best leave the planning to Shorn and Wen. Two men born for war. But, he thought with a smile, Shorn had changed. Drun had played no little part, but Shorn had made the change himself. From a bloodthirsty monster into a man to call a friend.

Wen had seen the change. It was gratifying, and somehow pleasing, to be travelling with the man that Shorn was becoming. Even though he was in his middle years, it proved that a man was never too old to change. Never too old to learn.

A pain gripped Drun’s tender bowels. He calmed himself, relaxing as best he could, and turned his face to the sun. Now it shone from those icy peaks, and with the red glow of dawn remaining, it seemed as though those mountains were a blood drenched blade…Drun did not believe in omens, but it boded ill for their chances. He was under no illusions, though. They would not all survive the coming battle.

Sighing, the pain past, he pulled his cloak tighter, although it was warmer than it had been for a week. He turned his head as he heard someone approaching.

Wen rubbed some life into his arms. The snow beasts were stirring now, moving out into the plains, some returning from their night time hunting and scouting.

“Good morning, Drun. It is a fine day.”

“Something to be thankful for, perhaps,” said Drun with a smile for the old warrior.

“Well,” said Wen, cracking his broad shoulders and settling them again, “we’ll be there tonight. Are you ready to die?”

Drun laughed freely. “I have been ready to die for the last ten years. But it need not come to that.” He kept his doubts to himself. “Do you have a plan? Tomorrow, we will fight. If the snows come, I will be blind and powerless. You cannot rely on me.”

“What of the Terythyrians?”

It was their one hope. The Terythyrians had a magic of their own. While all could not cast, some among them could wield the magic of the land, a magic pulled from the rock underneath the snow. Those with magical abilities had eyes of slate grey, unlike the Protectorate, somehow warmth suffused their eyes.

“They will stand beside us. But the Protectorate are strong. If what I know is true, they are at some disadvantage. They feed on the land, and on people, to wield their most powerful magic. They use a breed of magician called Particulates. They feed their incantations with the power of life that they steal. But there is little life for them to feed on. But as you saw when we landed, they are far from powerless.”

“Their soldiers are fast and wily, too. Without the Terythyrians, there would be no way to prevail. It is luck, or a gift…I do not know. I will leave the philosophy to you, my friend.”

“And what of you? Are you fit for the battle ahead?”

“I am. Just one more fight in a long life. If it is my time, I know I am long overdue to pass into the Kingdom of Dunmain.”

“In Sturma, they believe you pass through a set of gates, into Madal’s kingdom.”

“And what do you believe, Drun?” said Wen, eyes watching the priest shrewdly.

“I believe we all return to the sun. Perhaps it is different for every man.”

“Maybe so. I have seen the dead though, but I have yet to see paradise or peace.”

Drun nodded, and turned his eyes to the distant peaks. “Pray that you don’t tomorrow. We need you still.”

“My altar is my sword. Does that bother you?”

“As you say, every man has their own beliefs.”

All the warriors had risen now, and donned their armour and taken up their packs and weapons. Ice Walker approached them, with another beast who had introduced itself (like the rahkens, the younger warriors had no gender) as Roamer, and spoke with swift hands.

“Time to go. They want to be in the mountains by nightfall. It will be a long day.”

“I don’t know. When you reach our age,” said Wen, “days somehow seem too short.”

Drun, feeling the pain in his gut take hold again, paled but held himself straight. He could only agree.

Klan arrived at the coast with little fanfare.

The void had been more disconcerting than usual, the haunted voices that drifted to his ears through the darkness somehow tortured, and he sensed in them rising fear. He did not know why. Perhaps, he thought to himself, it was because of his increasing power. It was unknown, and troubling, but he concerned himself with it no more. The space between worlds would forever be a mystery, and he was no student to waste time studying the phenomena of the disembodied voices. Leave that to others. He had more pressing worries.

The Sard had arrived. It was an unknown quantity that affected his goal directly.

The air by the coast was brisk, invigorating. He did not have the time to take pleasure in its cold caress. Around him, at the cove, were signs of battle, a scene of death frozen for all time, or at least until the return. Then things would warm up enough to thaw even the frozen wastes. The dead that littered the cove would fester and split open, decomposition finally destroying the tableau of carnage that greeted his arrival.

He stalked the beach, looking carefully at the frozen bodies. A sword thrust, he saw, brushing snow from the chest of one of his soldiers. Clean through, he noted, turning the body with some effort. An incantor, throat slashed. Another clean cut. The story was the same no matter where he looked. Too few bodies. Some must have been washed out to sea. But not since death. Almost immediately they would have been frozen. His enemy had landed, and somehow overcome his casters. There were only two ways to overcome his casters — with stronger magic, or a well aimed arrow. None of the dead sported arrows. He could only imagine that it was the Sard wizard.

Together, with Shorn, and their mysterious companion, they had slaughtered all his warriors. Powerful adversaries indeed.

He was not annoyed. He was piqued. The loss of more of his elite bothered him, as did the power that the Sard obviously wielded. The warriors, Shorn, famed as he was, worried him. Somehow, although he was merely a man with sword, he continued to elude his grasp. His ally, though, the Sard…he was something to be reckoned with.

Klan knew all about human power. For centuries, the Protectorate had tried to stamp it out. But like a roach, it survived, against all odds. Sometimes he wondered. Was it more powerful, more dangerous, than the arts his own kind used? Were the legends true?

He kicked a body with mild manners, and opened the portal.

They were coming to him. All he had to do was prove ready. There was no more time, or need, for subtly.

It had been the hardest week of Tirielle’s long flight to date. The wildlife shunned the forest between Beheth and Arram, as if sensing the darkness to the north.

Tirielle had wondered many times if it was some enchanted laid down for an age by the Protectorate, magic lasting from the dawn of time, stilling the forest so that they could hear the whisper of any approach through the silence.