Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

Her Emissary hissed. The dragon looked up and turned a bloodstained eye on the Viceroy before resuming its meal.

"We care nothing for the message." The temperature in the room grew colder still.

The Viceroy abandoned pretense and wrapped his arms around his body. Not even the warm air coming through the window helped now. His breath began misting in front of him and he knew he had to get out, or he would die in the most absurd way in the middle of this sweltering land. He had made up his mind to run for the door when the top of the table shimmered and the parchment dissolved into its surface. The Viceroy blinked and looked again. Solid wood was changing before his eyes, and he was suddenly looking at blue sky.

He forgot about the cold and bent over the table, an act that felt like leaning over the edge of a cliff.

His vantage point was that of a winged creature. He recognized the plain of Qundi at once, its twisted mass of vines shimmering in a heat he couldn't imagine at that moment. As he watched, he saw a regiment begin marching across the plain, its progression a black line through the twisted green. The image faded, to be replaced by one of nightfall, the same regiment now encamped. More images flowed through the wood and the Viceroy saw faeraugs attack, a desperate struggle, the very strip of parchment being fed to the sreex that now resided in the stomach of the dragon not five feet away.

He saw everything.

"Use it well, and keep it safe from harm," Her Emissary said. A frigid breeze whistled through the room and it was gone.

The Viceroy barely noticed. He gripped the edges of the table and accepted the freezing pain.

"Show me more."

T here's a small village to the north of us on the Olopol River," Konowa said, holding out the folded map for the Prince to take a look.

They were riding at the head of the regiment as it marched across the plain. Konowa had lost count of just how many days they'd been on the move, but it felt like an eternity, and still, it showed no sign of ending. As far as the human, elfkynan, dwarf, or elf eye could see, the plain shimmered with green heat above vines bulging with hidden terrors.

The Prince let his mount's reins drape around its neck and used both hands to push back the shako on his head, revealing a clear line between the pale white skin of his forehead and the now-most-unroyal ruddy complexion of his face. The areas under the arms of his silver-green coatee were black with sweat, and he was constantly fidgeting on his saddle, now denuded of its fur covering. Konowa knew, in fact, that the Prince had developed a rather virulent heat rash, a tale Rallie had enjoyed sharing with him the night before.

Hope it rubs you right raw, Konowa thought, careful to keep his face neutral as he leaned over a little more with the map.

"What? Oh, yes, fine. Can we make it there by nightfall?" the Prince asked, not even bothering to look at the map.

Zwindarra snapped his head around at the map and Konowa cuffed him on the ears. The horses and brindos had grown testy, reacting to the heat and the stress as badly as the troops. The muraphants, on the other hand, had become so lethargic that it took a musket with a blank charge fired at their hindquarters to get them up and moving.

Not even the piece of mountain pressed against Konowa's chest seemed immune. It had been days since he felt even a twinge of cold emanate from the pouch, and he was starting to wonder if he had somehow exhausted its power.

"If we push on through the afternoon I think so," Konowa said, deciding then and there it was better to risk a few more cases of heatstroke than to stay out on the plain another day…and night.

There had been no further faeraug attacks, but the temporary camps they set up each afternoon to avoid marching in the heat of the day had been anything but relaxed. The strain, both mental and physical, was taking its toll. The troops grew more sullen and quarrelsome with each mile. Fights broke out over dirty looks. Two more floggings were ordered by the Prince in a fit of pique, and no matter what Konowa said, he would not be talked out of it. The act, predictably, bred even more resentment and tension and created a growing cadre with an ax to grind, spurred on, he knew, by Kritton.

"Very good, Major, we'll press on," the Prince said, sitting up straighter in his saddle.

He made it sound as if it was his own idea, nodding as if the world was in complete agreement with everything that tumbled from his lips. Konowa reasoned that a person brought up to be King probably came to believe that everything was his own idea, even when it was spoon-fed to him.

"They have some very talented weavers in this part of the world, did you know?" the Prince said, turning about in his saddle to look around them and back at the regiment snaked out in their wake.

"Weavers, Colonel?" Konowa asked, wondering if this was the nit's attempt at small talk.

"Weavers, Major, spinners of yarn, makers of cloth. Elfkynan embroideries are famous the world over, and quite prized among the finer households in the capital."

"I can't say as I've seen any, sir," he said truthfully. Zwindarra started as a butterfly flew up from a vine in front of his face. "Bloody idiot," he said, then turned and saw the Prince's eyes narrowing. "Oh, the horse, sir, scared of his own shadow. You were telling me about the embroideries…"

The Prince relaxed visibly in the saddle and pulled a hanky from the end of a sleeve, dabbing his brow with it. Konowa got a whiff of perfume and bent forward to adjust a stirrup, taking in a deep breath of the gelding's musky scent to counter the cloying smell.

"I think it's their delicate features, especially their fingers," the Prince said, clearly warming to his subject. He held the hanky in one hand and moved the fingers of the other over it as if playing the piano. "Marvelous dexterity. Tens upon tens of thousands of stitches in some of the larger ones. I've heard rumor that they employ a certain form of magic to make them as ornate as they do. What do you think?"

Konowa looked at the Prince, surprised. "About what, sir?"

The Prince gave an annoyed flick of his head. "The stitching. Do you think they use magic?"

Maybe the heat's frying what part of a brain he's got, Konowa thought. "I really don't know, sir, but I suppose they might, though it seems a bit of a waste, if you ask me. I'd think they'd want to use magic for something more useful."

The Prince tut-tutted him. "You must keep in mind, Major, that we are dealing with a simple people here. The elfkynan aren't as evolved as us humans, or even you Hynta-elves, for that matter."

Zwindarra neighed and stamped a hoof, and Konowa unclenched his fists and let the reins slide through his fingers until the horse's head was back at a more comfortable position. "Very kind of His Highness to say."

The Prince waved away the compliment, completely oblivious to the sarcasm. "It's true." He suddenly leaned over in his saddle, looking furtively around them like a child with a big secret. "They are a simple, earthy folk, swayed by beliefs in things they cannot see. They don't think like we do, Major, which is why the Empire is here. They need us. They need our guiding hand to become civilized. The Star of Sillra is the perfect example. I've studied the origin of the Stars for years, you know, talked with the finest scholars and wizards on the subject, including your father, I might add," he said, still casting around to see if they were in danger of being overheard.

"My father never mentioned it," Konowa said flatly. Wizards, royalty, and their intrigues. Ideas born in the flickering shadows of midnight candles and snifters of brandy that invariably sent soldiers like him tramping through some gods'-forsaken land in search of what only the mages and their patrons knew. This time, he knew the what-at least, he thought he did. He looked at the Prince's eager face and felt the cold sharp bite of the stone beneath his uniform.