Kora couldn’t decide which foreign landscape distressed her more, the physical or emotional.
The White Owl Woods paralyzed her with a fearful apprehension. She had always lived on open farmland where you could see for vast, open distances around you. One could feel the wind off the eternal ocean on your face. Here, dangers could be concealed behind every encroaching tree. Murderers in wolf masks could be lurking an arm’s length away, skulking behind massive moss-covered trunks. The towering trees cast a canopy of branches above her head and around her, making her feel cut off from the world.
So, when the canopy opened enough to offer a rare glimpse of the sky above, Kora tilted her head back to take in the great expanse of stars above. Familiar stars. Fixed. Something to cling to. Kora tried to focus on the The Three Cups, occupying the same position in the sky here as they did at Lonely Fort. There flickered The Fair Maid. The Hourglass. The Hissing. The Lute. All the legends of the night sky. Legends her father and Gram had taught her.
Now, she wanted nothing but to be shot up into the vast, black emptiness above. To be lost forever in its sparkling eternity.
She had lost those who had always protected and cared for her. For all her power, she couldn’t save them. She couldn’t save anyone. She bobbed along in a sea of covetous strangers, trusting none.
She seethed with contempt for the stars and moons above for their part in her destiny. While the stars were fixed, the moons were always in motion, creating driving forces on the happenings of the world upon which they ruled. Gram taught her that, as a farmer, you ignored their trajectories at your peril, when it came to planting and sowing. But also, in all things. Eclipses, above all, were events to be feared and revered, both. Throughout the annals of history, moments of great change very often occurred during eclipses. The Great Doom. The death of Adela Laverium. The fall of the Rapacious Eight. The list stretched on.
Maybe this eclipse would herald her death.
She wondered if she should fight it.
The two exhausted horses had been climbing steadily for several hours when they came to a stop at a steep rocky decline where the trees broke away and offered a rare view of the land ahead. The sylvan woods shone in the moonlight, with a small hillock rising ahead, like some perfectly oval rise in the earth, out of a novice painter’s imagination.
“That’s it,” Calandoe said, and he looked up at The Father and The Son. “We need to hurry.”
The Son had begun crossing in front of The Father.
More like a boy reciting school lessons than one who truly owned a full understanding, Calandoe explained, “The Father is logic. Clear thinking. Wisdom. Cynicism. The Son is imagination. Creativity. Innocence. The Son has power over The Father tonight.” Calandoe looked over at Kora and shivered, “She’s feeling very wormsy.”
It was true. As the fading moonlight darkened the wood, Kora felt increasingly uneasy. Waves of jittery angst kept washing over her. As if something wriggled inside her, desperately squirming to get out, aware of the moons’ positions. Wormsy. The boy’s word was remarkably accurate.
“Kora, we’re almost there,” Landor said with confidence, as he urged his horse to push forward one more time. “I don’t know what awaits us at The Crown. If anyone confronts us, let me deal with them. Your job is to find the place where you can rid yourself of the dormu-lilies. Remember, it’s not you they want. It’s the power of the flowers.”
“The Autumn Folke can only harm you if you have the flowers in you, and only then because one of the noble families allowed it,” Calandoe added.
“Devils,” Landor spat. “Garakul shouldn’t be able to harm you once you’re free of what he has been charged to obtain.”
“One of the noble families asked him to kill me? Was it your family?” Kora asked.
“I’m… confident my family has not fallen to such depths,” Landor replied, without turning. “But to sign such a treacherous pact? I suspect a Ghaultic family. I’ve heard my father say that the Ghaultic families are even more desperate for… items such as this than the Anduiris.”
“Why?” Kora asked. Her experience suggested Morvan Laverium was not above working with the Autumn Folke, and she wanted to hear more about the noble families and their motivations from Landor. Landor might withhold information, but he wouldn’t straight out lie. Or so she hoped.
“A story for another time. Focus on tonight.”
Kora forgave that haughty attitude that she found insufferable when she first met Landor. Now that she knew more about his brother, and his place in the family, the attitude took on a different meaning. She heard it differently now.
“As soon as you see the opportunity to rid yourself of the flowers, take it.”
“How?”
Landor threw a look over his shoulder to Calandoe, unsure. It was jarring to see this able, self-confident young man deferring to such a small boy.
“The stones,” the boy replied as if the word had just popped into his head, “the stones.”
At that, the sound came to her, buoyed by the night air.
Clackety-clackety-clack-clack-clack.
The black hound. Scharzger.
* * * *
Eles had expected so much more.
As they crested the hill and reached the top of The Crown, Eles looked around, underwhelmed.
The Crown turned out to be a clearing atop a low hill that allowed moonlight, in woods where moonlight rarely gained passage. A ring of jagged stones of differing heights, shapes, and sizes bordered the clearing. The ‘crown’ they formed felt anything but regal. They felt dilapidated. Cracked. Broken. Smaller stones laid strewn about at the edges of the crown, and if Eles squinted his eyes and used a bit of imagination, he could see that perhaps the stones at one time could have been of uniform size and shape. It appeared something had broken many of the menhirs centuries ago, leaving them looking like a set of badly decaying teeth.
Kelshar looked around, weapons drawn, ready for an ambush, but was met only with crickets and the occasional rustle of leaves, swirling in the evening wind.
Quiet.
Dargon looked up. Hella sat almost entirely in Helene’s lap now.
“Are we too late?” Eles asked.
“I don’t know. Rakana spoke of seeing the eclipse,” Dargon replied, unsure. “But for all I know, Garakul could have the flowers already.”
“This has been a fool’s errand from the start,” Kelshar complained. She hadn’t spoken ill of the quest since that morning they arrived in Venaisin. She wouldn’t, in front of Nadja and Rakana, but even Kelshar’s unwavering loyalty had been strained.
“It had to be done.”
“Other components will appear,” Kelshar whispered, aware that, even here, to speak of such things was verboten.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t have time for others. I need this. I need it now. All of Greyarch depends on it.”
“And when you get the flowers. You give half to Garakul,” Kelshar grumbled. Eles looked to see if he would refute it.
“That was the promise.” Dargon placed a hand on one of the menhirs and ran his fingers over the cold stone. “Kelshar, Garakul can be dealt with. My great grandfather contracted Garakul’s aid in defeating an invading Anduiri army at this very spot. These stones bore witness to a victory that turned the tide of the war. So long as the contract is followed, Garakul will pose no threat to us.”
“Forgive me, my liege, if I don’t share your confidence in the candor of this ill-conceived allegiance,” Kelshar said boldly, “and should it go sour, I’ll be ready.” She patted at a dagger strapped to her side that Eles had never seen her use.
“What is that?” Eles asked.
“Cold iron. It’s said to be the bane of the Autumn Folke.”
“I thought that was an old wives’ tale.”
“Maybe it is. And maybe it isn’t.” Apparently, Kelshar hadn’t abandoned the tales of her forebears. “Still, Dargon knew I wanted one, when choosing my gear.”
Dargon responded by putting a finger up to his lips. He listened intently before whispering, hope in his eyes.
“Horses!”
* * * *
Clackety-clackety-clack-clack-CLACK!
The pounding beat of avarice drew near.
By now, the full eclipse had to be imminent. Even through the branches, the moonlight had waned, as one moon moved in front of the other. The horses arrived at the base of the hill they had seen from the cliff face minutes before. Kora had warned Landor of the sounds – of the approach of the Autumn Folke – and he led them, grim-faced but ready, sword in hand.
Kora expected ash-skinned Folke and a vicious hound to step out of the woods to bar their way.
But no.
Two humans stepped forward. Alone. One of them was a tall, stately-looking older man with a salt and pepper beard and steely eyes. The other, a younger, dark-skinned woman, standing in a wide, ready stance on muscular legs, with a sword in one hand, and what appeared to be either a very large dagger, or a short broadsword, in the other. They didn’t wear wolf-masks, and they didn’t bear the crossed sword and axe family crest. Kora wondered who they could be, and what circumstances led them to be standing here, alone in the middle of the White Owl.
Landor slowed his horse’s gait. The two parties seemed to study each other for an eternity, both sides scanning the surrounding woods for what must be the rest of their enemies. As odd as it was for her to encounter two lone travelers so far from civilization, Kora imagined it must be even more baffling for them to come upon a lone young knight of Chrais with two children in tow.
The comely bearded man seemed to scan Kora from head to toe before calling out to Landor with a voice steeped in confidence. “You wear the Laverium crest. What brings you all the way to the White Owl?”
It wasn’t a demand. It wasn’t angry. It sounded almost cooperative. A voice you should trust.
“Our business is our own. Forgive my bluntness but stand aside. We must pass. Now,” Landor demanded, with all the intimidating aggression he owned.
“I can’t do that,” the man replied in a darker tone. “You have something I need. I’m willing to pay very handsomely for it.”
Clackety-clackety-clack-clack-CLACK!
“They’re really close,” Kora urged.
Landor growled in frustration, “We don’t have time for this!” He dismounted, grabbed his shield, and drew his long sword. “I don’t care who you are, or where you’re from. We will pass, or I will drop you where you stand.”
The muscular woman took one step forward. “That would be unwise,” she said calmly. Too calmly, Kora thought.
“Sell me the flowers,” the older man urged Kora, “and we will avoid any bloodshed.”
“This is your last chance,” Landor warned, “step aside!” Fed up with this whole business, his impatience and frustration overtook him. Kora could hear it in his voice. He pointed his longsword a little too close to the woman with two swords, eliciting a swat of Landor’s blade. Metal clashed.
That’s all it took.
Landor attacked the woman. He struck lightning fast, but his opponent managed to avoid. The two-weapon warrior struck back with a flurry of blows that surprised Kora with their viciousness. Landor’s shield rang out from the pounding, and he fell back a few steps, momentarily surprised.
Only momentarily. He collected himself and came back with the kind of fluid, well-coordinated combination of strikes that reminded her of her father. Still, his opponent parried them with her own proficiency. The two opponents acted and reacted so quickly, Kora thought. She could barely follow.
Suddenly, Kora realized that the older man wasn’t attacking Landor. He was running at her.
“Kora! Ride! To the top!” Landor yelled as he attacked.
* * * *
Steel clashed from the bottom of the hill, echoing up to the clearing.
Eles could hear it, if not see it. He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. He had hoped Dargon could obtain the flowers the way he obtained most things, with a combination of money and irresistible persuasion.
He had remained at The Crown while Dargon and Kelshar investigated the horses, so that in case anyone else appeared, he could warn them. He peered down into the dense woods, wondering if he should go down and help in some way. But then, a figure appeared out of the darkening woods. Maybe the last thing he expected. A single, teenaged girl rode a struggling riding horse through the trees. The horse worked against the hindering branches and incline of the hill so mightily that the girl slipped off the horse, grabbed her crossbow, and began scrambling up the hill on foot.
Dargon’s holler echoed from the cover of the trees, “Eles, get the girl!”
Get the girl? His mind raced. Why? How could this child pose any danger?
The girl approached. Nearer.
Now, Eles could see Dargon climbing the hill in pursuit, so he hid behind one of the great stones, listening to steel clash at such a rapid pace below that Eles wondered just how many opponents Kelshar battled.
Eles reached into his bag. Digging. Searching.
The girl was only a few steps away. One more moment. Eles’s right hand clutched the small pouch in his alchemical bag. Now! He stepped out from behind the great stone and startled her. He threw his fistful of Blurring Dust right at the girl and it exploded into a white, chalky cloud, catching her full in the face.
* * * *
CLACK – CLACK – CLACK!
Kora’s world spun and spun. She couldn’t see more than a whir of colors and stars, and everything went hazy. Even her thoughts. She lost the ability to focus on anything, and it infuriated her.
Powerless, again.
They were coming for her, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Damn them all. They could have her.
* * * *
The poor girl stumbled to her hands and knees, groping the earth, looking for something to hold onto.
Eles knew the feeling. He had spent decades in that state. But the first time was a jarring, chilling cross into helplessness.
Dargon rushed up the hill with a rabid look in his eyes Eles hadn’t seen before, a desiccated horse who had finally found water. “Hold her up,” he directed.
Eles picked her up from her underarms and held her so that she faced Dargon. Her head hung limp.
Dargon rifled through her clothes, desperate. Finding nothing, he shook her, confounded. “Where are they?” he screamed at her, not understanding that she was incapable of replying.
The screaming did trigger a physical response, though. Her head bobbed up and her eyes opened, trying in vain to focus on something.
Her eyes.
Purple eyes. Glimmering in the moonlight.
Dargon pulled away as if burned. His eyes went wide with disbelief.
“No,” he whispered in horror, “how?”
Eles finally understood. The girl didn’t have any dormu-lilies. She was the dormu-lilies.
* * * *
CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!
They’re here! The words rang in her head, lyrics to the song of death that pounded in her head.
* * * *
A dozen specters came slipping out of the woods from all sides. Eles remembered the parley at the Tears of Eleanore. Like Garakul, these tall, lithe figures had long dark hair contrasted starkly against ashen skin. Their pearly skin seemed an extension of the pale moonlight that drifted down on the crown like snow. Dark veins visible below the skin at their necks and jaw gave the impression of vines reaching up for light from somewhere deep in their cores. Agile bodies, wrapped in fluid cloaks of thorns, stalked silently.
An inky emaciated hound with six legs hopped and paced amongst them. The thing half snarled and half squealed when it saw the girl in Eles’s arms, saliva dripping from its bony maw, bespattering the long green grass at its feet.
The figures stepped aside to allow passage.
Garakul.
He looked more frightening than he had at The Tears, Eles thought. Proximity will do that. Or maybe it was his height and carriage when compared to his entourage. He had a conquering smile and the quality of a puppet master whose stage was the whole world.
The young girl in Eles’s arms shuddered, as if sensing Garakul’s arrival, and the shudder transferred to Eles. She clung to him for protection, and suddenly he felt a powerful protective urge swell deep within him.
“Dargon Lodern,” Garakul cooed, “Lord of Greyarch, and the inheritor of the centuries long reign of Loderns. I am impressed. Verily, I did not seriously consider you had a chance to obtain the flowers before I did. Yet, against reason, the flowers have eluded me, and here you stand, the prize in hand. Once again, you have proven yourself much more resourceful than your rival. Victory is yours.”
“What trickery is this?” Dargon asked with clenched jaw, “you said the ingredients were dormu-lilies. There are no dormu-lilies here.”
“Aren’t there? Is it not clear to you?” Garakul asked, surprise in his voice, “The flowers were greedily devoured, tis true. But not to despair, the power remains. I can extract it for you and fulfill the contract. Half will be yours. Hand them to me.” He stretched out his hand. It was a small movement, but somehow it seemed out of character for Garakul. Sudden. Forward. Needy.
“What happens to the girl? When you extract the power?” Dargon asked the question Eles could not bring himself to utter.
Garakul’s brow furrowed, as if he didn’t understand the question. “Of what relevance is that?”
Dargon stared forward, not betraying any opinion on the matter. Eles had no such ability.
“The Loderns’ place as the divine rulers of Ghault for another century is assured.” Garakul motioned to the ancient stones that encircled them. “In the same spot your ancestors joined forces with me to repel the invading Anduiris and secure your reign. Scores of Ghaults and Folke died that day.” He said it in passing, almost to himself.
Almost.
Eles could somehow vaguely see the battle, as if a faraway dream, he heard the clash of metal and screams of the dying. Was it his imagination? Or some subtle trick of the Autumn lord?
Dargon’s posture stiffened and he grabbed the girl by the arm. He tore her from Eles’s breast.
* * * *
The blurring darkened. The spinning slowed. Replaced by a ceaseless descent into a baleful abyss. She stretched and reached for something, anything, to slow her fall. Anything to grasp that might convince her that the world she knew still existed somewhere. She felt nothing.
She decided to let it all go.
But then, a sound…
* * * *
“You can’t!” Eles blurted out in a hoarse whisper as he clutched at the girl’s sleeve.
“Base…” A single word, laced with warning.
Eles’s heartbeat pounded in his head, but still, he didn’t let go. “You cannot.” He said it plainly. Firmly. Without flinching.
Garakul watched in perplexity. “The mysterious advisor from The Tears… what possible hesitance?”
The wind picked up and swirled about The Crown, the personification of Eles’s emotional state. The dark hair of the Autumn Folke blew in their faces as they waited, cold and impassive. The hound crept closer to the girl, anticipating its long sought-after prey.
Around them, runes appeared within the smooth, stone faces of the menhirs, as if absorbing and radiating, prism-like, the moonlight of the eclipsing moons.
Kelshar and Landor, panting with exhaustion, emerged out of the trees and into the clearing, in search of their respective charges.
“The boy was right,” Kelshar whispered to Landor.
Dargon stayed focused on the girl. “Let go, Base. These are the dormu-lilies.”
“This is a girl.”
“One person. Hundreds have died in defense…” Dargon countered.
“Soldiers,” Eles shot back, “who chose to fight. This is an innocent.”
“He cannot be serious…” Garakul interjected, bewildered. “He would have you forsake your legacy? Hand over the rule of Ghault to Volans?”
“This is the entire kingdom!” Dargon snapped, agitated at having to justify his actions.
“Not the kingdom. Your place at the head of it. It’s not the same.”
Dargon froze. Stung.
Eles could feel it. His throat grew tight. Still, he pressed on, “You once told me you knew what lines could and could not be crossed. This is that line, milord! You call me The Base. Tis true. I am The Base. I know this line, milord. I crossed this line! Who will be base now? I ask you!”
Dargon looked at the girl, lost, in pain, one hand still on the girl’s arm. Did he feel a protective urge? Was it some overriding power of the girl? Or perhaps an uncovering of something that was already there? Dargon winced. Eles almost pitied him.
Garakul suddenly scowled. “What bedevilment is this? The contract is writ. You will take your power. I will take mine.” Again, he held out his hand for the girl.
“The contract…” Dargon repeated in an urgent undertone, “breaking the contract. He will have the ability to kill us. He will kill us.”
“Without question,” Garakul confirmed.
Eles refused to throw away the soul that he had so painstakingly mended and nurtured in recent weeks. He couldn’t go back. He wouldn’t.
“So be it,” Eles said with finality.
Dargon stared at him, hard. He looked across the clearing to Kelshar for guidance. If he refused Garakul, it meant all their deaths, so Kelshar deserved a say.
“So be it,” Kelshar called.
Dargon took a deep breath, his hand clinging to the girl’s arm. He seemed in that moment to shrug the weight of a kingdom off his shoulders. “So be it,” he whispered with resolve.
The intensity of the shimmering runes grew.
* * * *
Such a beautiful melody. A perfect blend of winds and strings. A siren’s call, promising to rid her of all her pains and struggles. It started as a barely audible, perfect blend of sounds, echoing from a faraway cave. But it had arrived, clear and strong. So attractive. So soothing.
It wasn’t that remarkable descant that cleared the cobwebs and blurring sway that robbed her of her senses. Another sound inexplicably held more power. A simple sound.
It was the voice.
The voice of the man. The man who had never met her.
She could hear him. Fighting for her.
A fight she had lost the will to fight for herself.
He risked everything for her. His life. And then the lives of his companions. They all risked their lives for her.
It changed everything.
The penetrating glow of the singing runes finally shattered the blurring sway and set the tall, lithe figures in silhouette. She blinked, shook off the spinning world, and looked around. The Autumn Folke loomed everywhere. The hound Scharzger crept near. And there stood Garakul, the figure she heard from behind the waterfall in Glain. The one who set the Master of the Hunt upon her. She heard him call out over the music of the runes.
“This is madness,” he said in a voice neither male nor female. “This girl means nothing to you, Lodern. I know this. And your lapdogs would have you hand over your kingdom, the treaty betwixt our houses, and your life, for her? It is incomprehensible to me.”
“Yes,” the man he called Lodern said proudly, “I believe it is.”
The song of the runes grew to a crescendo, and suddenly, in the middle of the clearing, quite close to Kora, a light appeared. A portal of light, opening in thin air.
A rift.
Garakul’s face grew dark, impatient. “I will gladly kill you all. Now, fulfill our contract and give me my flower.”
“No,” Lodern replied.
A dozen rapiers hissed against their scabbards.
* * * *
Eles could feel the change in the girl in his arms. She stopped clutching at him. He no longer had to support her full weight. She had her legs under her.
Not that it mattered.
Garakul ordered death to all of them.
Eles saw the sudden nexus of moonlight to his side. A spot that he deduced was the central focal point of all the surrounding standing stones. He had no idea what it could be. Some power of Garakul’s? He prayed it might be some trick up Dargon’s sleeve.
The Autumn Folke whirled their rapiers, quick as a cobra’s strike, blocking any escape.
The Anduiri knight yelled out. “Kora! Into the light!”
So much for it being a trick of Dargon’s.
* * * *
Landor understood, Kora realized. The music from the growing illumination offered that which she had travelled so far for: step into the light and be rid of the dormu-lily power. Be rid of the threat of Garakul and his forces.
She would be saved.
Swords clashed on the outer edges of the clearing as Autumn Folke swarmed Landor and the other warrior.
She would be saved. They wouldn’t.
The urge to step into the light overwhelmed her. Every pore of her demanded to bathe in it and survive. The power inside her strained to rid itself of her mortal coil.
She resisted it all. Instead, she sang.
No, that wasn’t the right word. She wailed.
It was music, undoubtedly, but a rage of a song. It roared out of her, guttural, basso, full of wrath. It formed unlike any song she had ever sung, and she let the music within her, empowered beyond anything she could imagine by the surging combined power of the dormu-lilies and the menhirs, inundate her and blast out of her, a vocal assault.
* * * *
Whoa! What is this? Eles let go of the girl and stepped back.
She was… singing? It exploded, an outrage-driven storm of a song, and he’d never felt anything like it. His spirits and energy soared! He stood two inches taller, and became convinced, had he a blade in hand, he would be able take on a dozen Autumn Folke! Somewhere deep, he knew it to be folly, but he didn’t care. He would gladly give his life for this girl.
All around him, the advancing Folke stopped in their tracks. The song buffeted them; the waves of condemnation practically visible. Their rapiers rose in a defensive gesture, and they stepped backwards, unsure.
The waves made it to the back of the circle and even the Autumn Folke that clashed in combat with Kelshar and the Anduiri knight broke off.
“What is this?” Garakul spun his head around, taking in the scene and appearing startled for the first time, as he watched his entire clan sag.
They’re losing the will to fight, Eles realized, swelling with confidence.
* * * *
Oh, the power! The rapport between her and her audience linked so strongly it filled her to bursting with a surge of energy that only bolstered her song. Everybody around her felt her anger, sensed her personal sense of outrage at the injustice of the universe, as if it were their own. They all connected to her, empathically, in a way that made it impossible for them to want to harm her.
Almost all of them.
Garakul drew his cruel, impossibly thin rapier.
“The flowers,” he whispered in awe as he moved in to kill her.
* * * *
Dargon drew his longsword and leaped in front of Garakul’s strike. He whipped his blade from side to side, parrying lightning-fast strikes, all his energy focused on staying alive. The effort allowed time for Kelshar and the Anduiri knight to rush forward. Eles had seen enough swordplay to know they both attacked with skill and power that few in the lands possessed.
It was not enough.
Garakul moved impossibly fast. He parried and pirouetted out of every bad position and struck back with reach and power.
“You dare break your contract with my house? I assure you my longevity is no façade.”
Eles worried that the combat might somehow break the music’s spell on Garakul’s Autumn Folke. It didn’t. The girl’s hold on them was inexorable.
Dargon backed away and grabbed his ring.
“May ancient bloodlines hold. Emerge Garalaxx,
And fulfill your charge!”
Nothing. Dargon cursed under his breath.
The aura from the stones, and the portal, increased in intensity slightly, it seemed.
Garakul pressed his attack. “Your pathetic noble families prance about in their masquerade, pretenders in a desperate bid to hold sovereignty.”
The Anduiri knight slashed forward and caught Garakul on the forearm, but the Folke Lord shrugged it off. The knight grunted as Garakul railed against his shield, “I… I cannot hurt him.”
Kelshar circled Garakul, dropping her broadsword and drawing the cold iron dagger from her belt.
Garakul did not miss the move. The Autumn Lord switched from Landor to Kelshar, attacking with a rapid sequence of blows. Lunge, slash, and slash. Without her longer sword to parry with, Kelshar was vulnerable, and the second slash caught her across the stomach. As the tip of the rapier flicked through her stomach, it whipped a spray of blood all the way across The Crown and spattered the menhir on the far side.
Kelshar screamed in pain and spun a half revolution before stumbling to her knees, blood soaking the grass beneath her.
Garakul continued to rail, “Loderns, Volans, Laveriums… you have lived a lie so long, you have begun to believe you have been chosen by the gods. You have not.”
Dargon pressed from his flanking position. Though a skilled swordsman, Dargon paled in comparison to Kelshar, and Garakul had little trouble dealing with his attack.
Meanwhile, the six-legged hound screeched and snarled as it skittered back and forth, as if trying to combat the girl’s song and encourage the Autumn Folke to attack. It bent its sinewed rear legs, poised to pounce.
* * * *
Scharzger. She heard the devil dog’s name at the waterfalls of Glain. It eyed her with evil intent, and she realized that the hound became emboldened enough by the combat with its master to attempt an attack. It screeched in hatred, and even though her song kept its hold on the clan, the hound readied.
She raised her crossbow.
She had never hit anything alive.
Ever.
The bolt struck Scharzger square in the neck.
It screeched a final death howl before falling in a clump at her feet.
* * * *
Garakul now turned his attention on the Anduiri knight. “And you. Even now your brother strikes deals to find the components necessary for another elixir, securing decades more youth. Whilst you die for a farm girl.”
As skilled at offensive assaults as the young man appeared to be, he was even better at defensive fighting, Eles thought, as the knight prevented Garakul from delivering a killing blow. Sparks flew as the long narrow blade assailed the knight’s shield. He wouldn’t last long, though. Garakul was too much for him, and when the knight fell, nothing would stop Garakul from killing them all.
Dargon came to the young man’s aid again, but this time Garakul stepped aside and deftly disarmed Dargon, sending his longsword flying to the stones at their feet. Dargon retreated quickly, and Garakul charged the young knight once more, this time the Anduiri tripped on the rubble behind him and fell to the ground.
Garakul smiled, regaining the self-assured air he had briefly lost.
That’s when Kelshar, keeping conscious through sheer force of will, forced herself to her feet and threw herself at Garakul’s back, a last gasp effort.
Garakul had written Kelshar off. He never saw her coming.
The cold iron dagger bit deep into Garakul’s back.
He had a split second to realize what had happened before his cloak closed around him like a huge upright foxglove. His face contorted in anger, but too late… BOOM!
Nothing lingered but a wisp of dead leaves.
In a rapid succession of reactions, the Autumn Folke all around them followed their lord. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! And on they went, as figure after figure became enwrapped and disappeared, until the party stood amidst only a collection of dead leaves, swirling in the wind.
* * * *
As the leaves danced on the wind around her, Kora let her song fade. Without the wail of her own song, she could hear the hypnotic music of the runes once more.
Fading.
The aura of the runes, the music’s visual equivalent, followed suit. The coruscating portal began to ebb as The Son began to move out of The Father’s embrace.
“Kora, it’s closing! Go!” Landor warned, and she knew it to be true. She had to step in now. Doing so would rid her of the dormu-lilies… and the power that came with them. That wonderful, potent, compelling power. She loved it. Craved it. Addicted to the way it allowed her to enthrall her listeners.
But she had always been able to do that, hadn’t she? Not to this extent, maybe, but it was always there. She heard her father’s voice telling her that riches gained, and not earned, through work and application, were no riches at all. Riches gained without effort were not appreciated and likely quickly squandered.
She didn’t need the dormu-lilies.
She would grow that power herself, thank you.
She stepped into the rift of ethereal moonlight.
And like that, the ecstasy of the flowers disappeared.
* * * *
The girl stepped into the waning portal of light. Her body shimmered, as if a thousand tiny purple flash bugs were forced out of her pores at once. The lights lingered for an instant, like a beautiful, effervescent cocoon, before getting sucked into the rift. As the last of the purple specks of light disappeared, the portal to the Chimera collapsed on itself and disappeared, leaving only the soft amber glow of Helene, muted by the presence of Hella.
Eles rushed to join Dargon at Kelshar’s side, reaching into his pack for whatever healing aloes he had left. Upon closer inspection, however, he confirmed, to his dismay, that no aloe strip would heal this gash. Kelshar’s wound was mortal.
Suddenly, a small boy Eles had never seen before emerged from the darkness of the surrounding forest. Clearly some relation to the Anduiri knight, the boy’s eyes shone blue and his chin bore a similar cleft. His clothes, however soiled with travel, were of the highest quality. He looked down as Eles worked in vain to close the wound. He spoke softly, an idea striking him in the moment. “Kora, sing to her.”
Kora, wobbling uncertainly in the middle of the clearing, in a daze, turned and focused on the boy. “The power is gone. The flowers are gone.”
“Sing to her,” the boy suggested again.
Kora knelt at Kelshar’s side. She thought a second and then began a soothing lilt that Eles hadn’t heard since he was a young whelp.
This wound won’t hold,
Whispered his wife.
Release your worries,
And will and wait.
You will be whole,
Whispered his wife.
Think good thoughts,
While your wounds abate.
This wound won’t hold,
Whispered the man.
I’ll will and wait,
I’ll will and wait.
I will be whole,
Whispered the man.
Wounds will abate,
Wounds will abate.
Her voice caressed Eles like a hot bath suffused with juniper and eucalyptus. He could almost smell it. The song transported him to a time his mother held him to her bosom after he had fallen and cut open his knee. He had to fight back tears.
Kelshar’s body reacted gradually. Her convulsions ebbed. Her bleeding slowed. Her heartbeat steadied. The song seemed to trigger a subtle but critical thing. As Eles worked, he wondered if somehow, impossibly, this girl’s lullaby might save Kelshar’s life.
He looked up, locked eyes with her and nodded, encouraging her to continue.
Her eyes no longer sparked purple. They had faded to brown. But damn him if he didn’t spy tiny purple flecks, almost imperceptible flash bugs floating in a bed of solid, good earth.