Benjamin Tate - Well of Sorrows

The Phalanx fidgeted on their horses, a few pacing their mounts closer to the fighting. Aeren watched in silence. Screams rose into the air, tattered and torn by the wind, coming in gusts, along with the familiar coppery taste of blood. Alvritshai fell upon a human contingent, the cries of the men muted at first, then suddenly loud as the wind shifted, as if the fight were happening twenty paces away instead of over two thousand. A group of Alvritshai on horseback were repulsed by a human charge, the horses banking away, circling around, one body dragged behind, a foot trapped in a stirrup. The horse trampled two more bodies already lying on the ground as it panicked at the unfamiliar weight pulling at it, and the body jerked free, falling loosely among the dozens of corpses already littering the ground.

Aeren grimaced, bile rising at the back of his throat. He swallowed as he watched the rest of the Alvritshai group rejoin the fray at the rear.

“House Licaeta,” Eraeth said. At Aeren’s raised eyebrow, he added, “I recognize the style of the riding… and the colors on the saddle.”

Aeren frowned, focusing on the battle again, trying to pick out colors. He hadn’t looked too closely at first, too sickened by the ferocity and the deaths. “Do you see the Tamaell’s colors?”

“There,” one of the Phalanx guards said, pointing, “to the left of center, where the fighting is thickest. You can see the House Resue banner.”

Eraeth asked. “Do you see it?”

Aeren stood up higher in the saddle, then caught the red and white flare of the Tamaell’s pennant. “I see it.” He settled back with a frown. “We’ll never reach him.”

“Not with only an escort of six,” Eraeth agreed.

His gaze fell on Colin and remained there for a long moment.

“No,” Aeren said. When Eraeth looked up, a protest on his lips, he repeated more firmly, “No.” He knew what Eraeth was thinking, and he wouldn’t allow it. Not for something as trivial as this. They could wait. The dwarren wouldn’t be arriving for at least another two days.

Eraeth sat back, disgruntled. “Then what will we do?”

“We’ll find the Alvritshai camp and report to the Tamaea instead.”

Eraeth shot him a surprised look, but Aeren had already begun searching the plains, drawing upon old memories of the Escarpment. Old, bloody, dark memories. He tried to push those memories away, focusing on what he remembered of the land around the Escarpment before the fighting had started. If the Tamaell had been coming from the south, and the Legion had already arrived, then the most likely place for the Tamaell to set up his encampment would be…

“There,” Eraeth said, pointing toward the east.

Aeren had already turned. He could see figures on a rise watching the battle, one of the Lords of the Evant who’d been left behind to guard the camp. On the battlefield, the lords were subordinate to the Tamaell, their individual House Phalanxes subject to the Tamaell’s orders first, then their lord’s. The tents and wagons and the rest of the support were mostly hidden behind the rise, although a few banners and the tops of a few tents could be seen.

“Let’s go.” Aeren nudged his horse into motion, picking up speed. He banked wide, keeping his distance from the battle, approaching the camp and the Phalanx on guard from the south. The Phalanx saw them approaching, and a sortie of twenty headed toward them along the top of the ridge.

Aeren swore when they rode close enough to see their colors: black and gold.

The sortie spread out, and Aeren slowed, motioning the rest of his escort to fall back slightly. He could see the rest of the encampment now, and the plains beyond, but his attention remained fixed on the Alvritshai lord who stood at the front of the sortie where it had halted, waiting.

“Lord Khalaek,” he said as he pulled his mount to a stop. He did not nod formally, and his voice was cold and stiff.

“So,” Khalaek said, looking past him toward his escort. “Have you managed to get the Tamaell Presumptive killed? Is this all that remains of the entourage sent to meet with the dwarren?” He paused for a moment, then added blandly, “Were they even there?”

Aeren gripped the reins tightly, but he refused to be baited. “The Tamaell Presumptive is following behind us, with the rest of the escort. We were sent ahead to speak to the Tamaell.”

Khalaek’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, his previous mild amusement gone. “About what?”

“That is for the Tamaell alone.”

Khalaek said nothing, but Aeren could see him considering options. His dark eyes flicked toward Colin, standing far back in the group, as unobtrusive as possible, then toward the south and east, the direction he knew they’d come from, but the plains were empty there.

Not satisified, Khalaek motioned toward the battle. “As you can see, the Tamaell is currently occupied.”

“And he left you behind,” Aeren said. “Interesting.”

Khalaek twitched the reins he held in one hand, his horse shuffling at the movement. “Someone needs to protect the Tamaea. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to her, now would we?”

Eraeth shifted forward at the underlying threat, but Aeren didn’t react.

To the west, battlehorns cried out, distantly. A gust of wind pushed past them and sent the pennant that Khalaek’s sortie carried flapping. Aeren and Khalaek held each other’s gazes, the hatred between them palpable. Aeren could taste it.

But a ripple of strange but familiar movement caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

He turned to the east with a frown And the bitterness and hatred bled out of him in one shocked breath. “Aielan’s Light,” he said, voice filled with a terrified awe.

“What is it?” Khalaek demanded, voice tinged with anger and doubt, as if he thought Aeren’s gasp some kind of trick. But then he turned.

Aeren saw him stiffen in his saddle, then spit a curse under his breath. On all sides, the sortie and Aeren’s escort gasped, Eraeth edging his horse out in front of Aeren reflexively.

On the plains, still distant but approaching fast, one of the occamaen-what Lotaern would call a “breath of heaven,” and what Colin called a Drifter-slid toward them. It was beautiful in a way, its rippled distortions stretching high into the sky and even farther to either side, its center clear, like an eye. Through that eye, Aeren could see the plains beyond… but altered. Sunlight glowed on the horizon there, the clouds in the sky suffused with a purple-orange haze, the grass on the ridges a vibrant, spring green, waving in a contrary wind.

Aeren glanced up at the sun that glared down on the autumn-dead grass at his feet and shuddered. The juxtaposition-two suns, one setting, one angled an hour after midday; early spring grass against late autumn-twisted in his stomach.

“It’s huge,” Eraeth said.

“And it’s headed straight for the camp,” Khalaek hollered. He spun his mount and roared out orders, his sortie breaking into two groups, one headed toward where the occumaen bore down on the camp from the east, the other, including Khalaek, headed toward the rest of Khalaek’s men on the ridge behind them, both groups shouting and pointing as they charged their horses across the grass. The men on the ridge hadn’t seen the danger yet, were watching either the battle below or the confrontation with Aeren. After a moment of confusion, they turned… and then broke into sudden motion as Khalaek arrived. Horns sounded, piercing the air, frantic and warbly. In the camp below, men and women turned from whatever task they were doing in confusion, but they couldn’t see the occumaen, not within the confines of the tents and wagons.

Aeren swore. They weren’t reacting fast enough. The occumaen bore down with silent, deadly grace. And with sudden dawning horror, Aeren realized Eraeth had been right. It was huge, large enough and wide enough to encompass at least half the camp, if not more.