Roger Taylor - The Return of the Sword

Yet they pressed their savage attacks relentlessly.

Until the Uhriel drew their own swords.

Devices of strange vanity for such powerful creatures, they were long and bright, and they shimmered and sang like the Uhriel themselves as they cut through the blue light. Then the roles of the fighters were reversed as the two moved against the many. The swords, moving from hand to hand and swinging in wide and unexpectedly swift arcs, forced the Goraidin out into a defensive circle. Injured though they had been by the Goraidin’s assault, any hurt done to the Uhriel had not been sufficient to still their intent. Bleeding and ghastly, they moved towards Pinnatte whom Marna and Gentren had finally managed to drag to comparative safety.

Marna looked at Pinnatte, now barely conscious, and understood.

‘He’s still binding them somehow!’ she shouted. ‘That’s why they can’t use the Power. Kill them! Kill them now, while you can! Quickly!’

She drew her own sword and stood in front of Pinnatte, as did Gentren. The air was ringing with the high screeching of the Uhriel and the dreadful sound of their whirling swords. Yrain attempted to parry a scything blow from Dowinne but the impact tore her blade from her grasp and sent it spinning high into the blue air. Only long-sharpened reflexes took her backwards quickly enough to avoid Dowinne’s shrilling point. As it was, it slashed through the slack of her tunic. The gash became blue and crystalline. Yengar and Jaldaric lost their swords similarly whilst Tirke’s was shattered and his arm numbed into uselessness. There was a momentary lull, then knives were drawn and the Goraidin were rushing into the backwash of the swinging swords to attack their foes. But, stripped though they might have been of the Power, the Uhriel were still oblivious of the wounds they were receiving and were also possessed of great physical strength. One by one, the Goraidin were hurled back across the rock terrain.

Then the Uhriel were at Pinnatte, the Goraidin, exhausted and broken, scattered about them. Dowinne’s sword swung in a broad, singing arc over them, while Rannick faced Gentren and Marna, his whitened eyes and blasted face alive with hatred.

Marna stared back at him with an expression that was little better, though she tried to look through what he had become to what he had been before they had both been drawn into this nightmare – vicious and cruel, but still human, still vulnerable. But there was nothing there, no weakness in him to wring out pity in her. Teeth bared like a cornered animal, she tightened her grip on her sword and held it high.

Rannick paused momentarily, his head inclined as though he were listening to something. Then, as she struck at him, his arm swung up dismissively and knocked her off her feet. She landed several paces away. Gentren replaced her, crouching low and as determined as he was terrified. He met the same fate.

Rannick looked down at Pinnatte for a moment, a dreadful smile lighting his dead face. He raised his sword.

‘No!’

It was Olvric. The Goraidin, grim-faced and bloodstained and with a bone protruding from a useless arm, was levering himself up on his sword. Dowinne could have struck him, but she hesitated, as did Rannick. For a frozen moment, it seemed as if the ground beneath their feet was coming alive, as those Goraidin who were still conscious struggled to follow Olvric’s lead.

Doomed they might be, but not defeated.

And in that moment none saw a brightness on the horizon.

A brightness that was not the sign of a coming dawn.

They saw it only as it swept over them.

Desperately, Nertha bent close to Antyr, first listening for his breathing, then offering her cheek. But she could feel nothing. She checked his pulse. It was still there, more distant than weak. She had never felt anything like it before.

A bizarre mixture of fear and professional pride wrapped about one another and became a deep anger.

She swore. ‘I will not lose you to this – whatever it is. I will not lose you!’

Her face grim with determination, she quickly checked the others. Lying on their sides like sleeping children, as she had placed them, they were unchanged. She lingered briefly, running a loving hand down her husband’s cheek, then she rolled Antyr on to his back and, holding his nose and arching his neck, placed her mouth over his.

His chest rose as she blew, then sank as she stopped. Still she counted as she worked, periodically checking his pulse and the condition of the others. After a while, she began to intersperse her counting with profanity and an aching inner cry for help.

‘Tarrian, Grayle! Tarrian, Grayle!’

‘Tarrian, Grayle!’ Antyr cried out. ‘To me!’

But no sound came, other than the dreamsong of the dead in the living.

Vredech’s voice reached through it, like a distant sound carried on the wind.

‘No one can help us here, Antyr. This is our burden.’

Anger from the song leaked into Antyr.

‘Your faith tells you this, Priest?’ he cried.

The reply was unexpected.

‘Yes. Faith in you, Dream Finder. That and the hold I have both on Nertha and on you… just.’

‘But…?’

‘This is what I do here, Antyr, and what I will do, while I can.’

Antyr felt the song drifting over him again.

‘But why am I here?’ he managed.

‘What are you?’

What am I?

Dream Finder. Adept. Warrior of the White Way. Words. Only words. To hide as much as to reveal. He was Antyr, son of Petran, flawed and frightened, blundering and ignorant in a place where no one should be. He was no different from the endless rows of figures stretching away from him in every direction, their faces lit by the unseen light that had unmade them and that had bound them to this time.

He did not know what to do.

But flawed and frightened as he was, blundering and ignorant as he was, he was also the Antyr who had faced Ivaroth in mortal combat and the terrible power of the blind man.

He could not do nothing.

He looked into the unseeing eyes of the nearest figure. ‘Turn away from this fearful glare,’ he said. ‘You hold the living to your time. Your pain is the source of Sumeral’s strength here. Release them, and be free. Turn to the light that reveals, turn to the truth.’

He placed his hand over the figure’s face and, for a timeless moment, as with his Earth Holder, he was it and it was he, knowing all that he knew and was.

The figure closed its eyes.

He passed to the next.

And the next.

Faintly he could hear Vredech calling.

‘I can’t hold you, Antyr, I can’t hold you…’

He moved on.

Antyr’s heart stopped.

Nertha searched for its beat frantically. Her profanity worsened. She tore open the neck of her tunic so that she could breathe more easily. Both sweat and tears ran down her face.

Fingers entwined, she began pressing Antyr’s chest rhythmically. Counting, swearing, and calling openly now on Tarrian and Grayle.

Then they were there. Eyes like wild suns. Deep-throated growling like the sound of tumbling rocks and pitiless killing teeth bared white in the greyness.

Her every instinct told her to flee, but her will denied them. She met Tarrian’s awful gaze with one of her own and bared her teeth into his slavering maw.

‘This is my domain,’ she snarled. ‘Find them in yours. Find them both. Bring them back.’

Gavor flapped his wings.

The Labyrinth, its columns becoming ever more like roots and trunks, twisting and tangling up into unseen heights, was becoming steadily brighter. With the increasing light came also sound, and a breeze.