Chris Evans - The Light of Burning Shadows

The ground beneath their feet vibrated. Alwyn used his musket to balance himself. “What was that?”

The canyon floor continued to shake. The bleached-white trunks trembled and began to work themselves loose. Cracks opened in the canyon walls all around them. Cloaked figures began emerging from the cracks.

“Rallie,” Alwyn hissed. He clenched his fists in preparation. A skeleton turned to look at them, then walked farther down the canyon floor, where it disappeared from view behind a rocky outcropping. More figures emerged, and many of them carried bodies, or parts of bodies, and all headed in the same direction. None came toward them.

“Why aren’t they attacking us?” Alwyn asked, slowly unclenching his fists.

Rallie pushed her hood all the way off her head and took another quick look to the sky. A deep blue tinge was forming above the canyon. She turned back to her drawing. “They no longer have any need. The Star is almost here, and their work is almost done.”

“Work, what work?”

Rallie flipped the page and began a new sketch. Alwyn lost his breath for a moment as the page turned over. He looked down at her drawing. He recognized the arrival of a Star in the night sky, but there was something below that forming on the canyon floor that he couldn’t make out. The lines Rallie drew kept shattering and reforming in an erratic pattern. “What is that thing?”

Her Majesty’s Scribe’s quill never stopped moving as she looked up at Alwyn. “That, my dear boy, is my next big story.”

Konowa fumed as they came upon the oasis. The sun had almost dipped below the horizon and a cold wind was blowing in from the north. The Suljak’s lies and gambits made his head spin. He tried to marshal an argument in his mind that would sway the Suljak to reconsider, then tried to think of a way to convince the Prince to ignore the agreement-he even considered using brute force to beat the old man into submission-but he knew with every second that it no longer mattered.

Her forest was huge. Sarka har stretched as far as the eye could see, and his elven eyes could see far. Everything to the north was a sea of seething black death. For centuries the elves of the Long Watch had kept this horror confined to a mountain peak. Even in Elfkyna it had amounted to only a few thousand at most, but now, it covered hundreds of miles. Konowa looked to the sky and found himself wishing he believed in a god so that he could pray. He tried anyway. “If anyone’s listening, it’s about bloody time you got off your damn cloud and did something useful.”

Just a few thousand yards away the lead elements of the Hasshugeb warrior army stood and waited. They looked impressive on top of their camels and seemed calm, despite the wall of black death approaching. The Prince and the Suljak rode around the oasis and toward the Suljak’s army. Konowa chose to stay back with the Iron Elves. He looked around, and on spying Color Sergeant Aguom motioned for him to come over. The sergeant jogged over and saluted. Konowa leaned over the side of the camel while trying to keep his balance.

“Get the men into the oasis, but I want them pushed right to the far edge and ready to march out the other side. We will not be staying here tonight.”

Sergeant Aguom looked over his shoulder at the approaching forest, then back to Konowa. “I hope it’s a bigger Star this time.”

Konowa could only nod. He dismissed him and guided his camel through the oasis. Signs of battle littered the ground. There were no bodies, but he wasn’t certain that was a good thing. He got to the other side of the oasis and then watched as the regiment marched through. Satisfied, he urged his camel forward.

The Shadow Monarch’s forest had come to the very edge of the right shoulder of the Canyon of Bones while the massed riders of the desert tribes had reached the left. Neither had yet engaged the other, but the gap between them would close within the hour. If Konowa was going to get the Iron Elves in the canyon it had to be now.

The Prince and the Suljak were talking with some of the Hasshugeb warriors. Konowa tried to urge his camel forward, but the animal jerked to a halt and refused to budge. He cursed and gave it a whack with the flat of his hand, but the animal would not move. The other camels began to act oddly as their riders fought to keep them under control. A moment later the sand around them geysered into the air and scaly beasts emerged, their jaws alight with white fire.

“My drakarri,” the Suljak said. He dismounted from his camel and walked toward the creatures.

The drakarri followed his movements, their heads moving in perfect time with his steps. White flame dribbled from their jaws and spilled onto the sand, where it fused the grains into blackened glass.

The Suljak turned and looked at Konowa. The acorn against Konowa’s chest crackled with frost as the two locked eyes.

“I told you, Major, that politics is a messy business! But in the end, power is what rules the day. And this,” he said, sweeping his hands to encompass the drakarri arrayed before him, “is my power! This is the power of the desert!”

The Suljak turned back to the creatures and began to speak. The wind picked up, and sand particles swirled into the air. The voice the Suljak spoke with was in a tongue that grated on Konowa’s ears. He knew without understanding that it was an ancient language. Hundreds more of the creatures clawed their way out of the sand. As each breached the surface it turned to look at the Suljak. His voice rose higher, and with it the wind began to howl. Konowa raised an arm to protect his face from the wind-whipped sand.

As one, the creatures turned and began to move toward the forest. They scrabbled forward on their stubby legs, their jaws snapping in anticipation. Frost fire engulfed the leading sarka har as the sand around them froze over.

It was nightmare against nightmare.

Then the drakarri stopped.

The Suljak’s voice rose above the howl of the wind, his arms high as he commanded the creatures. The drakarri started to move against Her forest again, then turned around and began crawling back toward the Hasshugeb warriors.

Ice crystals of warning seared Konowa’s senses as a new voice carried on the wind. It was coming from the Canyon of Bones. This voice rasped the very air, and Konowa shuddered. He sensed commotion in the ranks and turned. “Steady! Steady, lads.”

The Suljak shouted again, but the creatures were no longer listening. Their heads were cocked as the voice from the canyon called to them. Their jaws snapped open and closed as more white flame dripped down to splatter on the sand.

Then the voice from the canyon ripped through the air like a cannon volley.

The drakarri shrieked, and half of them wheeled and charged toward Her forest. The others charged at the Hasshugeb warriors.

“No!” the Suljak screamed, as white fire began to arc among the assembled warriors. The Hasshugeb muskets crackled to life. Konowa called up the frost fire and smacked the camel again. This time it moved.

He held on as it galloped across the sand toward the Prince. When they got close, Konowa pulled back on the reins and shut his eyes. Miraculously, the camel stopped, perhaps finding some small comfort in being around others of its kind.

The Suljak was slowly walking backward, shaking his head. “No, this cannot be. I command the power! The Shadow Monarch cannot be this strong so far from Her mountain.” He used the ancient language again, but the drakarri paid him no heed. They were listening to a voice much, much older.

Konowa looked around them. Men screamed and sarka har flailed as the white fire scorched the sand and everything on it. “Isn’t it obvious? You didn’t just call back Kaman Rhal’s power-you got him back as well!”