Chris Evans - The Light of Burning Shadows

“Sends spiders crawling down the inside of me spine it does,” Teeter whispered to Alwyn.

Alwyn felt something similar, but he thought it had more to do with what was about to happen than with the lost elf’s sorrow.

Major Swift Dragon brought his saber down and the soldiers tipped the body over the side. As they did so the regiment began reciting the oath, a last, bitter sendoff that they had come to cherish the way you trace a finger over an old scar.

We do not fear the flame, though it burns us,

We do not fear the fire, though it consumes us,

And we do not fear its light,

Though it reveals the darkness of our souls,

For therein lies our power.

The first body went over the side. The splash was barely heard over the wind. The regiment braced up. Spikes of frost fire shot into the air. The flames crackled with energy and spread across the water. A shade emerged from the flames and its cries of anguish reverberated inside every man. The deck became shrouded with mist as breath fogged in the suddenly cold air. The next body went over the side and the frost fire grew. It danced along the railing and surrounded the assembled soldiers in a ring of cold, black flame. Another shade appeared, adding its tortured voice to that of its comrade. Images of a dark mountain, twisted trees, and Her came unbidden to Alwyn’s thoughts, and he was not alone. A few soldiers shed tears. Others laughed while a few closed their eyes tightly and prayed.

The third body went in and a third shadow was born. Its wails of terror rose even as those of the first two began to quiet. It was always this way. First the fear and the pain, then the anguish of acceptance, and then a cold, dead calm.

Hands reached out to Alwyn, beckoning him. Alwyn kept his eyes open, but kept his hands at his sides. “Join us.”

The air grew even colder, turning the mist to ice. Men began to shiver and would later tell their mates it was entirely due to the weather. All would accept the lie.

Alwyn stared at the shades and said nothing.

The last body, that of Private Harkon, was tipped over the side. Alwyn took a breath of frigid air into his lungs and waited for the last blast of frost fire, the screams, and the final call of the shades.

It did not come.

There was an audible gasp from among the troops. No frost fire rose where Harkon’s body entered the water. No shade emerged. The air began to warm as the shadows thinned and then vanished. Alwyn traded looks with Yimt. What was this?

Voices rose and the assembly began to move.

“Steady on! No one dismissed you,” Yimt bellowed, and order was restored, but only just.

Whispers raced up and down the ranks.

“Harkon was the one what got his shadow burned.”

“They say he screamed for five minutes as it burned his very soul.”

“Maybe, but what if it broke the oath?”

There was only the howling of the wind and the keening of a lost elf in reply.

As the ship sailed on, the mortal remains of the four soldiers sank into the lightless depths. Fish scattered as the bodies plummeted past them. The stitching came loose on the last body, revealing the face of Private Kester Harkon.

Something large and gray swam up from the depths toward the sinking corpses.

It came in close to each body in turn, but turned away each time from the first three. When it came in toward Harkon’s body it paused, as if studying the face.

Harkon’s eyes opened. They turned and saw the creature.

Harkon’s mouth opened in a scream as water rushed into his lungs. The creature lunged forward and grabbed Harkon’s body between two powerful jaws, and then swam with his corpse back toward the surface, settling just below the waves.

With the body of Private Kester Harkon firmly clutched in its mouth, the creature began following in the wake of the Black Spike. What remained of the man who was once Kester Harkon screamed silently as it did.

On the peak of a black mountain, a forest seethed in the cold night air. A drizzling rain fell, turning to sleet. Bolts of lightning ranged down, twisting shadows of already misshapen trees. The trees drew the lightning to them, raising their branches high as if in supplication.

Another bolt struck, splintering the pitch-black wood of one tree into needle-sharp shrapnel. Metal-colored leaves tore away in the wind to scythe the night air. Frost fire flared in the crowns of the trees and thick ichor oozed from open wounds, staining everything an oily black. The sleet hissed as it hit the ground, forming jagged bits of ice until the entire mountain peak gleamed in the night.

Underground, the roots of the trees writhed and stabbed into the rock. For every tree lost to lightning, its siblings fed on the power. Cracks on the mountain surface shuddered and ripped farther apart, creating ever-deepening chasms. Primal roars issued from the depths. The roots continued to dig.

In its need and its rage, Her forest was tearing the mountain apart.

The Shadow Monarch stood among the trees. The cloak wrapped tightly around Her made it difficult to differentiate between Her and the darkness. No lightning touched down near Her.

If She felt sympathy for the offspring of Her ryk faur, the Silver Wolf Oak She had bonded with all those centuries before, She did not show it. There was a price to be borne for living in such a cold, barren place-the trees sacrificed themselves to that purpose.

Far below in the great forest, Wolf Oaks grew straight and true. Down there, their limbs were protected from the lightning by the even-more-massive Silver Wolf Oaks that had grown strong and true, unpolluted by such bitter ground. Here on the mountain, however, this Silver and all its progeny were a twisted thicket of anguish. To exist like this with Her aid was pain beyond comprehension, yet the will to live remained. And so Her forest grew, a desperate union of the Shadow Monarch and Her ryk faur sowing the seeds of madness in ever-widening swathes of black destruction.

The Shadow Monarch stepped forward into the center of the trees. Branches interlocked in a protective shield above Her, absorbing the lightning while She remained unscathed. She looked down into a pool of ichor that shimmered and revealed the world as it was.

This world would change.

Where plains and hills now rustled with tall grass, Her forest would grow. No river, no lake, no road, and no city would remain. The very oceans would thicken with trunks until no ship could pass.

All would be Hers.

All would be forest.

Then there would be power, enough to end the pain. Though She had failed in obtaining the fallen Star in the east, Her will remained intact and the Iron Elves would be Hers. More Stars would fall, and in time She would claim them as Her own. In this, the bond between elf and tree grew stronger as each warped the other in the madness of their everlasting need.

A hunched shadow crept into the clearing, slipping over ice and rock. Lightning flashed as it neared the Shadow Monarch, revealing it to be a man clothed only in a tattered robe. Large chunks of his skin looked more like the bark of Her trees. His eyes, however, remained wholly human, showing every bit of the fear he felt. Trembling, he inched forward, finally falling on his knees in front of Her and bowing his head.

She had plans for his fear.

Faltinald Elkhart Gwyn, recipient of the Order of the Amber Chalice, holder of the Blessed Garter of St. DiWynn, Member of the Royal Society of Thaumaturgy and Science, and until recently, Her Majesty the Queen of Calahr’s Viceroy for the Protectorate of Greater Elfkyna, shook as he kept his head low.

It was a position he was becoming all too accustomed to since his fortunes had changed.

Only weeks before, rulers of backward lands throughout the Calahrian Empire knew his name and feared it. He was the power of the Empire personified. When he spoke, it was not with his voice, but with the Queen’s…and Hers. It had been a heady game, serving two thrones. Now, he was a wanted man throughout the Empire, but he doubted anyone would ever get the chance to collect on his reward.