Robert Newcomb - Rise of the Blood Royal

“I know, my love,” Persephone answered quietly. “But we will prevail, I promise you.”

The crowd cheered again as one hundred more armed skeens were prodded into the arena to face the vicious Blood Stalkers, and the carnage resumed. For a moment Persephone took her gaze from the games and again looked at her husband’s profile.

It will be a long day and an even longer night, she thought. But most interesting of all will be the meeting that follows the games. It seems that the Pon Q’tarhave some explaining to do.

AS HE WALKED THROUGH THE PALACE, PRINCE TRISTAN of the House of Galland heard his boot heels echo through the largely deserted corridor. It was well after midnight and sleep had not come. Tiring of tossing and turning, he had finally risen from his bed.

He had quickly donned his familiar black trousers, black leather vest, and knee boots. He then arranged his dreggan, baldric, and quiver of throwing knives over his right shoulder. After running his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair, he left his quarters.

Feeling his stomach growl, he entertained the notion of going to the palace kitchens to get something to eat. As was often the case, earlier tonight the Conclave had taken supper together in one of the palace’s elaborate dining rooms. The meal had been tasty enough, provided one liked lamb. But he didn’t, and he had eaten little. His twin sister Shailiha had never cared for it either.

He hoped that eating something would ease his restlessness, but he knew that it wouldn’t cure it. Although the Vagaries finally seemed to have been defeated in Eutracia and Parthalon, the events of his recent visits to the other side of the Tolenka Mountains still lay heavily on his mind. In many ways his amazing adventures seemed to be no more than a series of strange, unbelievable dreams. There had been a time when he would have thought anyone who tried to tell him such tales stark raving mad.

But these things hadn’t happened to someone else; they had happened tohim. And as theJin’Sai and leader of the Conclave of Vigors, it was his responsibility to see that the mission entrusted to him by the late Envoys of Crysenium was fulfilled.

As she died in Tristan’s arms, the Envoy named Miriam had ordered Tristan and his Conclave to do the unimaginable. She said that they must somehow find a way over the Tolenka Mountains and into Rustannica-the menacing nation that was home to thePon Q’tar Vagaries clerics. Once there, Tristan and his followers were to try to contact the mysterious League of Whispers.

The League was supposedly the secret rebel force of Vigors followers that was trying to unseat thePon Q’tar and bring down the warlike nation that the Vagaries clerics had created. Not unlike the Mistresses of the Coven, thePon Q’tar had aeons earlier started a vicious civil war, attracting to their cause many mystics who also believed that the Vagaries should rule as the sole arm of the craft.

When they had secretly gathered enough followers, thePon Q’tar had declared a huge part of Shashida to be independent, and named the new nation Rustannica. Then they trained their amazing gifts on the long Shashidan-Rustannican border. Using the craft, thePon Q’tar enchanted the border area to create a buffer against a Shashidan invasion. Normally beautiful and serene, the newly formed Borderlands could be morphed at will by thePon Q’tar into various types of desolate, unstable wasteland.

With the secession of Rustannica, the civil disturbance that had spawned her soon grew into a monstrous war between the two nations. It came to be known as the War of Attrition, and it had been going on ever since. Untold millions from each side had perished.

With her dying breaths, Miriam had told Tristan that it was his and Shailiha’s shared destiny to secure a lasting peace between Rustannica and Shashida. But Miriam had sternly warned Tristan that in doing so, he and Shailiha must take care to ensure the continued existence of both sides of the craft. For unlike thePon Q’tar, the Shashidan mystics believed that if either side of the craft should perish, so would the other. They also believed that if the world was deprived of all magic, it would plunge into an eternal darkness from which it would never emerge.

Trying to focus on the positive, Tristan took stock of his blessings. So far, he and his Conclave had been victorious, though at a great price. East of the Tolenkas, several savage challenges to the Vigors had been met and defeated. The Sorceresses of the Coven, Tristan’s son Nicholas, and Wulfgar-his and Shailiha’s half brother-had all tried in their own ways to destroy the Vigors in Eutracia and Parthalon. Most recently, the Conclave had thwarted Serena, Wulfgar’s wife, who had vowed to carry on her husband’s legacy. Tristan knew that some of those vanquished foes had been counseled and aided by thePon Q’tar clerics.

But the azure pass that had once allowed travel through the Tolenka mountain range was no more. It had been sealed forever by thePon Q’tar, after the clerics learned about the Envoys and how they were helping Tristan to understand and fulfill his destiny. How he wished that those wise mystics were still alive, so that they might somehow help him in his newly realized mission.

Instead, he had seen the results of the butchery inflicted on the well-meaning Envoys by soldiers of Rustannica’s Imperial Order. Then he had narrowly escaped the Borderlands with his life, returning to Eutracia just as the pass sealed behind him. With the Envoys gone, no one from the western side of the Tolenkas could help him and the Conclave to cross the peaks into Rustannica, or to contact the mysterious League of Whispers. Clearly, whatever actions he and his allies took must be of their own devising.

As he walked, Tristan allowed his surroundings to distract him from his worrisome thoughts. The massive palace was a wonder, literally sparkling with beauty and cleanliness. Rebuilt and redecorated by Minion and civilian workers after Wulfgar’s second failed invasion attempt, the structure had risen to an even greater splendor than before the deaths of Tristan and Shailiha’s parents.

Each hallway corner was guarded by two stern warriors of the Minions of Day and Night. They were the savage winged fighters who had originally been conjured by Failee, First Mistress of the Coven, but now swore allegiance to Tristan. The Minions represented the only standing army Eutracia and Parthalon had.

As Tristan approached another corner, the pair of warriors on guard there snapped their heels and came to quick attention. Tristan gave them a cursory nod. The warriors’ dark wings were folded behind their backs and their leather body armor shone in the light of the hallway torches. Great curved swords known as dreggans-like the one Tristan carried-hung in scabbards at their hips.

Tristan much admired the Minions and he had relied heavily on them to help him win many bloody victories, both in Eutracia and in Parthalon. But they were not the massively imposing force that they had once been. At the height of their power they had numbered nearly half a million. But losses from so many deadly battles had cut their ranks to fewer than sixty thousand. It weighed on his heart to realize that the warriors might not be much help as he struggled to fulfill his newly crystallized destiny. Even if a way over the Tolenkas could be found, there simply weren’t enough Minions remaining to confront the vast Rustannican Imperial Order.

During his time in the Borderlands, from afar he had watched a lone Shashidan force trudging through the snow, only to see it swallowed up by a great chasm that suddenly formed in the earth. To his amazement, the single force had easily numbered one hundred thousand troops. Logic dictated that the Rustannican forces were equally large, if not larger. Moreover, with their dark skin and great wings, Minion warriors would be impossible to disguise, making their use more difficult. It was becoming even more apparent that if Tristan and his followers entered Rustannica, their tactics would have to rely on stealth and cunning rather than brute force.