Chris Evans - The Light of Burning Shadows

“I sensed five of Her elves on the island,” Konowa said, pointedly changing the subject.

“And I counted five of them gone right back to Her,” Arkhorn replied. “Those gold pieces of the Prince’s are going to get stale before we ever find one of them buggers to have a talk with.”

A headache named the Prince of Calahr blossomed behind Konowa’s eyes. He would have to explain again, for the umpteenth time, why the Iron Elves had not managed to capture one of Her elves alive. So be it. They’d find enough of them on Her mountain once they got there and the Prince could talk to his heart’s content, or until he was torn limb from limb.

Either would suit Konowa just fine.

“Clear the area and head back to the boats. We’re leaving now. Bring the private’s body,” Konowa said, though he knew the soldiers knew the drill. His men just stood there, the shock of what they had just seen overriding everything else.

“Kester, Major,” Private Renwar said. “His name was Kester Harkon.”

Konowa held his tongue. What, did they think he didn’t care?

A voice pitched so that it felt like needles in Konowa’s ears cut through the silence.

“But begging the major’s pardon, what was that? What burned them like that?” Zwitty asked.

Konowa looked around at the faces of his men. How could they despise him more? “I don’t know. Whatever it was is gone, and so are we. Sergeant, get the men moving. Now.”

As Arkhorn barked orders, Konowa walked closer to the place that Renwar had seen…something. Questions piled on top of questions.

Konowa stared a moment longer at the sand, but no answers came, only a growing sense of foreboding. He turned and began following the men back to the boats.

Out at sea, a dark shape slid quietly just underneath the surface. Silently, and without a single ripple, it lifted its head just high enough above the water to watch Konowa’s retreating back. The creature never blinked as it slid back beneath the waves and was gone.

If life had ever been easy for Konowa, he couldn’t remember it. Not during his childhood, not when he commanded the first Iron Elves, and not now when he served at the pleasure of the Prince. In fact, things had taken a decidedly downward trajectory for him since, well, always. Just how far down they could go remained to be seen.

He paused in his self-pity long enough to lean over the railing of the Black Spike and vomit.

Then there was this. Konowa stared at the green waves below and wondered what it would take to drain the bloody ocean and be done with it. His stomach heaved and he vomited again. For all its power and grace and family history, the Black Spike was still a ship, and ships had the single most unfortunate attribute of having been designed to sail on water. As much as Konowa detested traveling by horseback, riding the waves was worse. After all, you could always shoot a horse.

The ship dipped into a trough between waves, then surged upward, leaving Konowa’s stomach and the last of his dinner twenty feet below. An elf, he told himself-this elf at any rate-was designed to have his feet firmly planted on the ground. Konowa was not-and experience had confirmed this many times over the years-meant to be in a saddle, up a tree, or on the water. Whenever he was, the end result usually found him flat on his back on the ground. The problem with being at sea, however, was that the ground was a hell of a long way below the waterline.

Sailcloth snapped and rigging thrummed above his head. He glanced up. What had been a breeze the last few days was now turning into a steady wind. Billowing clouds on the horizon threatened a coming storm. Captain Milceal Ervod had assured Konowa they would make safe harbor in two days at Nazalla, one of only three cities of any size along the shoreline of the Hasshugeb Expanse, before the storm came upon them.

It couldn’t come soon enough. Assaulting the seven islands had been a bloody and costly affair. Each attack served to satiate his blood lust, but he would have forgone even that for a quicker passage to the deserts. Despite the number of Her creatures he had dispatched by his hand, his anger and his frustration had only grown. For all Konowa knew, even now Her forests were growing again in the blood-soaked sand. The falling Star in the east had unleashed dormant powers across the world, although Konowa was convinced the Shadow Monarch’s hand was also involved. Since then, rumors of other Stars had rippled through the Empire and beyond, but no sightings had yet been confirmed. In a way, Konowa wasn’t sure it mattered. The damage was done. Stars or no, the very idea of change sped through the air. Call it unrest, call it the urge to be free, call it fear of the unknown-the world would never be the same again.

The Shadow Monarch haunted his sleep, though he no longer believed they were simply dreams. Things had been set in motion that were bigger than any of them. Yes, change was coming. Knowing what he did of the world, Konowa found some small comfort in that thought…and a hell of a lot of trepidation.

“Sergeant Arkhorn reporting, sir!”

Konowa turned to rest his back against the railing. The dwarf stood to attention, his caerna flapping dangerously high in the wind.

“At ease, Sergeant, for all that’s good and proper, at ease, and secure that hem.”

“Right you are, sir,” Yimt said, draping his ever-present shatterbow across his front. The back of his caerna continued to wave in the wind.

It took a moment for Konowa to realize what the dwarf had said. “Reporting, Sergeant? I don’t recall asking you to report.”

“Ah, no, not exactly, Major, but I reckoned you would soon enough so I anticipated your command. Sir. Besides, I can’t stay too long down in the hold of a ship. Makes me feel what my great-grandparents must have gone through.”

Konowa suddenly felt less sorry for himself. “So they were-”

“Slaves,” Yimt said. If there was resentment in his voice he hid it well. “Last group shipped over before the royal decree abolishing slavery. Took another fifty years, mind you, before dwarves were granted the rights of full citizens, but as me mum always said, ‘It’s a long journey for people with short legs.’”

Konowa found himself wanting to meet the mother dwarf who had raised Sergeant Yimt Arkhorn. There were so many questions he wanted to ask her.

Yimt cast a look down at his feet before returning it to Konowa. “I heard stories growing up, all dwarves do, about the conditions in the ships’ holds. Do you know the ship owners actually threw rocks and dirt down there to make the dwarves feel more at home?”

“I didn’t know that,” Konowa said. “I would have thought that might have helped a little.”

The dwarf’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his shatterbow. “They threw the rocks in after the dwarves were already chained inside. Whoever survived and dug their way out was strong enough to work. The rest would be carted out later by the survivors.”

Not for the first time Konowa questioned his service to the Empire. “I always thought my people had it the worst when the Empire brought its idea of civilization to our shores. They came primarily for the oak, looking to build more ships like this one,” Konowa said, patting the railing. His rejection long ago by the Wolf Oaks in the birthing meadow still stung. Bloody magical trees had judged him and found him unworthy of sharing their power with him. Still, looking around a ship of this size, he found himself sympathizing, a little, with the elves of the Long Watch. “A lot of Wolf Oaks were lost in their prime. Many bonded elves took their own lives. I lost an aunt and two cousins. It was indeed a dark time.”

The color in Yimt’s knuckles returned. “We all had it the worst. If you aren’t part of the Empire, you’re probably about to be, and joining don’t come easy.”