Echoes Of A Gloried Past (Book 2) (26 page)

Rordan growled as he charged, flailing wildly with his sword. Aaron calmly sidestepped out of the way, but kept his staff ready. The young prince attacked again, but Aaron didn’t engage. Rordan was only a few years his junior, but his world had been stripped raw, and Aaron could sympathize with that. To a point, at least.

“Fight me!” Rordan shouted and swung his sword again.

The bladesong hummed within Aaron, but he needed no focus to avoid the pitiful attacks from the prince. 

Rordan stumbled and regained his feet. “Why won’t you fight me?" he gasped.

“Because
she
wouldn’t want me to,” Aaron answered. “That is the only thing that stays my hand.”

“Sarah?” Rordan sank to his knees with his shoulders slumped. “She cares nothing for me.”

“No, you are wrong,” Aaron said. “It is Mactar who cares nothing for you. Tell me, where is he?” 

Rordan frowned. “He is not coming. He believes the Elitesmen should be able to handle you.”

Aaron took a quick glance around, but there was no one around except for them. “Where is he going?”

Rordan came to his feet, sneering. "Why would I tell you? I can’t stand against you, not even with the training of the Elite. But that doesn’t mean that I will help you.”

Aaron studied Rordan for a moment, debating in his mind what to say. “Then go. You’re at a crossroads, and you need to decide what kind of man you wish to become. There is a war coming that will sweep across this land, and if we are to survive then we will need to stand together. You and I don’t have to be enemies.”

“You intend to raise Shandara from the ashes?” Rordan asked.

Aaron shook his head. “No. There is a threat to this world that none can escape from. The Alenzar’seth have sheltered this world from an invading army. Take a good look around at those in power. Take an honest look at who counsels the High King and then the king himself.”

“You mean Mactar,” Rordan mumbled.

“Think about what I said.” Aaron turned and headed off to the tower. He needed to move on and hoped that Rordan would see reason. He rounded the base and jumped into the air, landing on a ledge four stories from the ground. Aaron looked back and saw Rordan standing in the moonlight with his gaze toward the ground. He knew the bonds of family between Sarah and her half brothers were fragile, but perhaps Rordan would take what he said to heart. Khamearra would be needed to fight the coming war.

Aaron ducked inside the tower to a dark room. He didn’t need any heightened senses to tell him that this tower wasn’t empty. He came to the door and listened to see if anyone were out in the hall. When he was sure it was empty, he opened the wooden door and stepped through. Even though he had memorized the layout from the probes, there was a difference between what was on screen and actually standing inside the structure. He turned down a corridor with a group of men heading in his direction. They looked up at him, and in a split second Aaron walked purposefully forward, taking great strides. As he passed them, some bowed their heads at his passing, and he didn’t take the time to acknowledge for fear that they would call his bluff. Luck had been on his side, as these weren’t Elitesmen.

He came to the hollowed interior of the tower where it opened to a great expanse of space. Lighted orbs hung throughout, giving ample light. The place was bigger on the inside than he had imagined and was made from the dark stone that capped the outside walls. 

Aaron was able to continue up several floors without notice, passing people as if he were just another member of the Elitesmen Order. The farther he ventured, the more it grated at his nerves because he knew at any second that they would discover that he was an intruder. It was interesting to see the various faces of the Elitesmen Order. Not all were clouded with the pristine arrogance that had been prevalent with the other members he had encountered. Perhaps there really were factions within the Order of the Elite. Regardless, he had no doubts that the current indifference of the men and women he passed would evaporate if they discovered him. He had to believe that they would stop at nothing to capture him if they knew who he really was. Unless there were more like Isaac, Elitesmen loyal to an older regime.

Aaron was about midway up the tower when he veered off down a corridor and headed toward the room where the crystals were recharged. 

“Hold!” a man called out from down the corridor.

Aaron stopped, and his hand reached inside his cloak for one of his throwing knives.

“You there,” the man said again, the heavy thud of his boots echoeing down the corridor.

Aaron turned slowly, and the Elitesman’s eyes narrowed.

“You!” the Elitesman hissed.

Aaron’s hand shot forth and sent a throwing knife moving at blinding speed through the air, which buried itself into the Elitesman’s chest. The Elitesman crumpled to the ground, and Aaron fled down the hallway, expecting to hear an alarm at any moment. A few seconds later, a loud explosion from outside the tower shook the entire place down to the floor beneath his feet. Aaron spun and saw a drone hovering in the air along the ceiling. Aaron nodded to the drone and knew Tanneth was keeping watch, but it still bothered him that the interior of the tower held so few guards.

He came to the marked door outside the crystal charging chamber. The door appeared to be made of solid oak with steel bindings. Aaron ran his hands along the door, feeling around the edges. The door had no handles and no visible means of opening it. The door felt solid under his finger-tips. He was sure he could get through the door, but was worried about damaging any of the crystals on the other side, not to mention alert whatever was guarding the crystals. Something inside had taken out the drone earlier, and he wasn’t going to take any chances. Not when he was so close to getting what he needed to save Sarah.

Aaron reached out with his senses along the door and could almost see the mechanism inside. Only someone like himself or an Elitesman could open this door. He solidified the particles inside the door and forced the gearing in the door to move. The doorway began to swing open. He pushed it the rest of the way with his hands and entered the room.

There was an enormous crystal suspended in midair, pulsating with a glow that lit the area around them in waves. The air felt charged and almost crackled with energy. Aaron felt the edges of the dragon tattoo on his chest prickle, and the runes on the staff glowed dimly. There were crystal deposits throughout the room, pulsing in rhythm with the main crystal. On the far side was a barrel with glowing purple crystals that could only be the travel crystals.

Jackpot! 

He stepped inside the room, and the door closed behind him. 

Above the giant crystal was a large open shaft that went straight up to the night sky. The shaft was lined with mirrors all the way up. Aaron guessed that the mirrors were used to amplify the light coming from the outside. He moved farther in, cautiously circling the room. There were all types of crystals, some of which he recognized like the yellow ones that stored energy, but most of the others remained a mystery to him. He scanned the room again, which was empty. He stopped before the pile of travel crystals and withdrew his pack and began to stuff them inside.

“So you are here to rob me?” a voice called out.

Aaron spun around, and there was a giant of a man standing to the side of the charging crystal in the center of the room. The pulsating light distorted his features, so Aaron could not get a good look at him. He quickly closed his pack, now stuffed with the precious purple crystals, and stood up. 

The man slowly stepped from around the crystals. He wore a black uniform with a silver dragon emblazoned on his chest that appeared more finely made than any guard’s uniforms. He wore two katanas on his hips. The set of his high cheek bones and shape of his eyes hit Aaron as if he were kicked in the stomach. Unless he was mistaken, the man before him was the High King of Khamearra, the sworn enemy of Shandara, and Sarah’s father.

“You have come here for travel crystals?" the High King asked with a slightly amused expression.

Aaron didn’t answer, but stood rooted in place. The prickliness along the dragon tattoo on his chest gained in intensity.

The High King regarded him for a moment, rubbing a spot on his arm. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I am Amorak,” the High King said, but his casual tone did not belie the coldness in his eyes.

“You are Reymius’s heir I take it,” High King Amorak continued. 

“Yes,” Aaron replied.

“We went through so much trouble to bring you here to my city, and you up and decide to come on your own. How interesting … Yes quite interesting indeed,” the High King said, circling toward him.

Aaron could sense the waves of energy exude off the High King in a rigid intensity. “Sarah is in danger,” Aaron said quickly, scanning for ways to escape.

“Is she now?” the High King replied. “And how did she get that way?”

Aaron frowned, but kept his distance. “The Drake has captured her.”

The High King stepped closer, glowering. “How could you let this happen?”

“I didn’t let this happen. We were attacked by your Elitesmen, but you already knew that,” Aaron snapped.

“In this you are mistaken,” the High King said. “
You
did let this happen.
You
brought my daughter to Shandara, and the danger she is in is because of her involvement with
you
. If you had simply returned with my Elitesmen, she would not be in the clutches of the Drake now.”

Aaron clenched his jaw shut, but the truth in the High King’s words stung him more than he cared to admit. Curse him, but the High King was right. He was the reason that Sarah was in danger. The seeds of doubt that had been loitering beneath his every action began to firmly take root.

You can’t protect everyone, my love.

Sarah’s voice echoed within him like a golden beacon sweeping away the twisted hold the High King had upon him.

“You’re wrong. Sarah was there by her own choosing. Primus made his choice when he stabbed her in the back, and I made mine when I took his head from his shoulders,” Aaron said and leaped into the air, skipping up the shaft emerging into the night sky at the top of the tower. The orange glow of the fires that burned throughout the city dotted his view.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy,” the High King said, startling him and snatched the rune-carved staff, hurling Aaron to the edge of the tower.

Aaron was on his feet instantly and drew his swords. The bladesong blazed inside him.

The High King smiled in delight. “The Blades of the Alenzar’seth. I have not seen their like in such a long time.”

The High King tossed the rune-carved staff off to the side and drew his own dark blades. “Tell me, Shandarian, are you ready to face another Ferasdiam Marked?”

“What do you mean?” Aaron asked.

“Did you think you were the only one?" the High King asked. “You and I are the same, and never before have there been two bearing the mark of Ferasdiam in a generation.” 

The High King said, rubbing his arm, and at the same time Aaron could feel the sting of the dragon tattoo upon his chest.

“You feel it, too,” the High King said.

Aaron kept an eye on the High King, trying to think of some way to escape. “Perhaps it's because you didn’t fulfill your purpose that another was required. The land sickens and dies spreading from Shandara because of what you unleashed.”

The High King’s face twisted into a sneer. “I crushed your pitiful kingdom and watched as the fires consumed the city.”

“Only after Tarimus opened the way for you,” Aaron said. “You thought you were conquering a nation, but what you really were was a tool, a blunt instrument playing in someone else’s game, and you can’t even see it. Mactar used you.”

This gave the High King pause. "What are you saying?”

“Mactar isn’t loyal to you,” Aaron replied. 

“You tell me nothing that I don’t already know,” the High King replied.

“It was only by the grace of the Alenzar’seth that this world wasn’t overrun by an invading army from another world. An army that almost won its way to this world except for the actions of my grandfather. It was by his actions and sacrifice that you still live.”

“You lie!” the High King howled and lunged for Aaron.

He brought up the Falcons, expecting the High King’s attack, and as the blades met, the sky lit up as if lightning had struck the tower upon which they fought. The crystals in the Falcons flared brilliantly as Aaron surrendered himself to the bladesong within. Each movement flowed into the next as a river flows from an icy mountain top. The bladesong echoed off the rooftops of the towers of the Elite as his blades met those of the High King. Aaron could sense his frustration in their deadly dance. The High King was too used to people falling to his blades, and while he fought with the composure of a master, patient and lethal, he did not expect Aaron to be able to stand against him. 

Aaron gave over to the movement that is life, and the urgings of past souls lent their wisdom to his blades. The bladesong churned within, and with it came heightened senses, including those connections he had forced himself to keep at arm's length. The connection to Sarah glowed feebly in his mind, getting weaker and not at all vibrant as it once had been. The brief distraction for the barest of moments was all the High King needed, and Aaron paid the price in blood that ran from a wound down his side. They each broke apart, eyeing the other.

“I’m fighting to save your daughter,” Aaron pleaded. He needed to get out of here. This fight with the High King would achieve nothing.

The High King smirked. “You say that as if your actions, even on my daughter’s behalf, would hold sway with me,” the High King said and, then his features darkened as if he were standing in a shadow’s embrace. “They do not. She is your weakness and will be your downfall. If she was foolish enough to be caught by the Drake, then you were her downfall as well.”

Aaron’s stomach clenched as if he had been kicked, and from the pit did the fires of his love for Sarah rise within him. He drew in the energy around him, including the rune-carved staff, which flared from the ground behind the High King. Aaron launched into the air, sending a great swath of energy from the arc of his blades, knocking the High King back. Aaron was before the High King in an instant and kicked out with the side of his foot sending the High King into the air, tumbling away from the tower.