Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

Visyna felt sick. She looked down at her hands and saw they were trembling.

She had listened to that thing, taken its advice, done whatever she could to help it. This was all her fault. Everything.

"Really now, my dear, you're getting as melodramatic as Konowa," Rallie said, walking over to give her a pat on the arm. "This is the Shadow Monarch's fault, first and foremost. Our task, and it's a significant one, is to undo the damage."

"I should have seen through it," Visyna said.

"Perhaps, but it is skilled in the art of deception, and you saw what you wanted to see."

"That was the last Viceroy, wasn't it?" Visyna asked, looking at Rallie with a newfound respect.

"Her Emissary now," Rallie said, reaching into her cloak for a cigar. She pulled one out and made no pretense of lighting it, the end suddenly glowing red of its own accord. "It's been looking for the Star for some time, believing, apparently, that it is buried somewhere beneath the fort."

"Do you know where the Star is?" Visyna asked, hope rising in her chest.

Rallie shook her head. "Not that I can find it, but don't despair, my dear, I think it will reveal itself when it's ready."

"What did it mean about this not being your time?"

Rallie cackled softly and blew out a long stream of smoke. "That, my dear, is a story for another time." She flexed her fingers around her cigar and for the briefest of moments filigrees of light flowed from them like gossamer threads caught in a breeze.

Visyna looked at her in stunned surprise.

"Oh, come now, dear, you suspected as much, no?" Rallie said, cocking her head to the side as if listening to something far away.

"Then you are a witch," Visyna said.

Rallie brought her head up straight and clamped down hard on the cigar between her teeth. "After a fashion. I like to think of myself more as the one you least suspect…until it's too late. Now, I suggest we get out to the ramparts. We're about to become rather busy, you and I. The trees that surround us are focused on digging for the Star, but Her Emissary may soon decide to redirect their energies."

Visyna nodded, following the old woman, the smoke from Rallie's cigar swirling about them in the darkening night.

M ajor, there!" Lorian shouted, pointing toward the gap.

A group of four elfkynan came walking through, their pace slow and even. They were dressed in bright crimson-colored robes and tall white hats that rose to a point more than a foot above their heads. Each hat bore a shining blue gem in the center that sparkled with the last rays of the setting sun. All four carried tall walking sticks of a dark brown wood entwined with green vines.

"Shamans," Lorian said, his voice rising with indignation. "These poor buggers have been throwing away their lives thinking they could protect them from musket balls."

"Don't judge a tree by its bark," Konowa said, the old proverb of his father's coming back to him. He watched the shamans, looking for some grand gesture or conjuration, but they showed no outward sign of being in the midst of battle, or of being in danger at all. Wizards were forever getting under Konowa's skin.

A group of thirty elfkynan warriors dressed in dark blue robes and carrying spears followed close behind. As they passed through the trees, they fanned out in a circle around the first four.

Konowa pushed his senses outward. He came up against something incredibly vibrant and warm, a feeling so natural and peaceful that it caught his breath. The four red-robed figures turned as one to look in his direction.

"Magic all right…" he managed to say, grabbing hold of Lorian to steady himself in the saddle. The feeling reminded him of the calm he had felt when Visyna had woven her magic earlier. It wasn't the deadening of the voices of life, but a complex harmony that made simple, beautiful sense.

"Major, are you okay? Major?"

Konowa tried to speak, but no words would come to his mouth. The four shamans continued to stare at him, their faces calm, their posture relaxed.

"They've bespelled you," Lorian muttered, shouting orders at once. "Take out those shamans! Front row, by volley…fire!"

Most of the troops had not had time to reload, but at least twenty had, and at a distance of less than a hundred yards they couldn't miss.

The sound of musket fire sounded from far away. Konowa knew he should care about it, but found it difficult to do so. He started to urge Zwindarra toward the circle, then gasped, feeling as if he had fallen through ice on a frozen lake. He came to his senses at once, the acorn bitterly cold against his flesh. The air shimmered in front of the circle of blue-robed warriors and then cleared again. Not one had fallen. His siggers had missed. Shouted orders echoed down from the fortress. The howitzer in the fortress boomed, its flight almost straight up as the gunners tried to land a shell within the circle. The shell carried long, coming dangerously close to the Iron Elves by the river, and exploded harmlessly in dead ground, throwing splinters of red-hot metal through the air.

The elfkynan warriors nonetheless decided it was time to find safer ground and moved toward the protection of the four shamans, slipping through the ring of blue-robed warriors. As more and more elfkynan stepped through the circle the warriors moved out, increasing its size until it held more than a thousand elfkynan. Soon, all the elfkynan able to make it to the circle had. Chants of "Sillra! Sillra!" rose in volume again as they called on the Star to finally reveal itself.

The Iron Elves looked to Konowa, waiting. This was far beyond their experiences. Muskets and bayonets were their tools, tried and tested, yet they had failed in front of their eyes. It was an unsettling feeling in the lee of the coming night. Not believing what they were seeing, a couple of siggers actually fired without orders. Both times the air shimmered about the circle and no elfkynan was hurt. Somewhere in the line a soldier laughed. Konowa shared the sentiment. Just minutes ago, the elfkynan were being cut down in droves, the shamans doing nothing to prevent it. Now they stood in a perfect killing ground, surrounded by the Iron Elves, and apparently impervious to harm.

Torches and lanterns flamed to life as the last rays of sunlight dimmed. The regiment was growing restless, and Konowa knew Prince Tykkin would be apoplectic, wondering why Konowa hadn't ordered a charge to finish the elfkynan off, shimmering air or no shimmering air. Something would have to give.

The cold in Konowa told him something now would.

It started with the trees. As the sun disappeared below the horizon, the shadows were stretched to their full length, their shapes a dark, twisted stain on the ground. Frost began to crackle wherever they lay, the grass withering beneath the weight of obsidian crystals sparkling in the twilight. To look down was to see the night sky beneath their feet, and many soldiers and elfkynan alike felt a sudden nausea at a world inverted.

A ripping sound criss-crossed the earth between the trees and then surged upward as sickly white roots stabbed skyward, impaling the many elfkynan bodies littering the battlefield. Red blood turned black as the roots began to grow into new trees, their limbs stretching outward like many-fingered hands, groping for contact with the other sarka har .

Konowa swayed in the saddle as the hunger of the trees washed over him. He felt a surge of anger, a hunger of his own to destroy them all, to leave him in peace. The confusion of the world as he had known it, that constant thrum of life just below the threshold of understanding forever poised to overwhelm him, seemed a simple, wonderful thing now.

A musket fired, the ball tearing into a tree with no real effect. The howitzer in the fortress boomed in response, tossing a fizzing cannon shell high into the air, its path easily followed by the trail of sparks it smeared across the sky. The gun crew's aim was better, as this shell landed near the trees to the left of the square. It detonated on impact, and both trees and foes were shattered by the blast, but not enough.