Storm Holt (The Prophecies of Zanufey Book 3) (9 page)

MARAKON found Tarn. Tarn had actually been looking for him, and he thankfully carried a flagon of jungle spirits, so he called it. It turned out to be a clear peach coloured liquid that was more potent than any dwarven spirits Marakon had tasted. It scalded the throat, but after only a few sips Marakon felt his body relaxing. He felt he hadn’t relaxed for days, or slept either. But he couldn’t sleep now, never this soon after a battle.

The Gurlanka funeral pyre had been built, and now they were beginning to set light to it. People filled the area before it, around the drinking well and reaching to the steps of the Elder’s house where Tarn and Marakon sat. No one sobbed loudly. Everyone seemed to be sat or stood silently in deep reverent thought.
 

‘Did many die?’ Marakon asked sombrely.

‘Yes, more than we have ever lost before,’ Tarn said briefly. ‘But no children, though some children now have no parents. They will be well looked after by everyone.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Tarn looked at the ground. ‘This is an old enemy, but they keep us strong. Our warriors have gone to the One Light, there’s no shame in that,’ he said the last proudly although his lips trembled.

‘I had wondered at the quietness of your mourning,’ Marakon admitted. There had been no sobbing wails, or inconsolable people amongst the Gurlanka, only a shared solemn silence. ‘But I agree. When people said my father should leave the army and war behind, and live to a good old age, he used to say, “Better to die on the battlefield than to die an old man in bed.” I have never found a reason to disagree with him. I have lost so many friends I find it hard to mourn anymore. I think I pity myself more for not having fallen.’

Tarn smiled, his eyes glistening with tears that did not fall.

‘Is she your partner?’ Marakon asked, indicating behind him to the Elder’s house where Jarlain still slept.

‘No, she’s my older sister. Half-sister, we have the same mother. Her father was killed by Seadevils before she was born.’

‘Ah, you seemed alike,’ Marakon nodded.

‘She likes you,’ Tarn grinned. Marakon simply smiled back sheepishly. Knowing that pleased him.

Two of the Elders, the deaf High Elder he’d nicknamed Red Beard and a woman, joined them. The High Elder spoke.

‘You fought bravely and selflessly today, half-elven. You did not have to help, but you did even after the horrors you faced in the Drowning Wastes. We thank you. You and your knights are always welcome as equals among us,’ he said spreading his arms wide to include the other knights.

Marakon stood up. ‘It is my duty,’ he said. Even though the man was deaf he could lip read and understand what was said in other ways. Something which Marakon marvelled at. ‘The Seadevils took many from me before I arrived here. It was an honour to fight back alongside the Gurlanka,’ he bowed slightly to the High Elder.

The female Elder smiled and said, ‘There are things we need to speak on, Marakon half-elven. If you have time now, the sooner the better for we know you will soon leave us.’ Marakon raised an eyebrow, how could they know he planned to leave?
 

‘I have time,’ he said. He’d given up trying to work out how they always seemed to know so much about him. Whoever these Hidden Ones were that they spoke to, they knew about a lot of things. She inclined her head, and led him inside the house via another door that bypassed the sick and wounded.

Marakon followed the Elders up a winding wooden staircase until they came to the top floor. A large open room stretched out in front of them. There were no windows or doors, just thick wooden posts supporting the roof and a waist high protective handrail all the way around. The climate was so warm that the Gurlanka did not need to shut out the weather, and welcomed the constant sea breeze. Huge purple flowers wound themselves around the supporting posts and balcony, scenting the breeze with their sweet fragrance.

The floor was made of orange wood polished to a high shine. The house was no different to the other Gurlanka houses in material, just bigger and of a slightly different layout. A small pot atop a metal tripod under which a flame flickered stood to one corner of the room. From it steamed a delicate scent of incense that Marakon did not recognise as it mingled with the smell of the purple flowers.

The other Elders came up the stairs, nodded respectfully to Marakon, and sat cross-legged in a circle in the centre of the room. He admired their flexibility despite their age. Red Beard motioned him to join them and together they sat in the circle. His stomach rumbled. He’d already had plenty of bread and soup but his hunger was insatiable today. He hoped they couldn’t hear it.

They sat quietly in the circle. The minutes ticked by, but still they sat, their breathing slowed, their eyes focusing in front of them but seeing nothing. He tried not to fidget and wondered if they were somehow communing silently. He never sat still and hated to be alone too long with his thoughts. At least he used to - now he understood who he was better, sitting still with his thoughts didn’t seem as bad, as long as they didn’t turn into memories. He couldn’t cope with memories. One of the Elder women spoke.

‘We have seen in our future a sky without stars, a world without hope. You could say that we have seen in our future no future at all. Nothing. Have you seen our future, Marakon?’

‘No,’ he replied.

They were silent at that. Then they all began to hold hands and when Red Beard and the woman beside him reached for his, he tentatively took them.

‘Then close your eyes and see,’ she said.

He frowned and closed his eyes. What was it they were going to do? He was quite astonished. Behind his lids blackness stretched out around him. Not the enclosed dark that was normally there when he shut his eyes. No, this darkness was expansive, a huge open space of endless nothingness.
 

‘I see nothing,’ he breathed, taken aback by what they were somehow able to show him.

‘And then in the darkness a light grows…’ she whispered.

Indeed, in Marakon’s vision he saw an indigo orb appear as a speck of light. Then it either grew bigger or it was coming closer, for its soft blue light was expanding. Slowly that light revealed the gentle contours of desert sands under a night sky filled with stars. Everything was bathed in soft indigo light. A huge glistening trilithon stood in the centre of the desert, so alone and out of place. Then a robed figure formed before the doorway created by the three stones. Her face was hidden in a hood, the swathes of her robe moved gently in the breeze. He had a strange longing to go and stand beside her, to be in her presence.

‘… And she appears…’ the Elder said, her voice tinged with wonder. ‘She beckons to us.’

Sure enough the robed figure lifted a slender luminous hand, and beckoned to him. He started towards her and strained to see within the folds of her hood, but all he could make out was a smooth pale chin and perfect lips.

‘… Then she is gone…’

The vision ended abruptly. He opened his eyes, blinking.

‘Do you know what this means, half-elven?’ the Elder woman asked, her clear brown eyes looked into his.

He shook his head. ‘I have never seen this. I have never even seen a place like this in the Old World.’ He wondered what it could mean for a moment and then spoke his ponderings aloud. ‘Before I came here I met a man, a man cursed to row a boat for eternity. He asked me whom I served, and I knew then when I had never known before that I had come to serve Zanufey the Night Goddess. I still don’t know why I told him that, only that I know it is true. Since then her messenger the raven has often been with us. All I can say is that I think she is Zanufey, and I think she is calling you, but for what I don’t know.’

The Elder woman smiled. ‘Yes, that is indeed what we think. And that is what the Hidden Ones say. Zanu calls us. But why? We do not know either.’

‘All I can say for certain is that Baelthrom and his Maphraxies are coming to every corner of Maioria, the Known World and the Unknown,’ Marakon said, and leaned forwards. ‘I think that is why Zanufey is calling to all those who would help.’

‘Have you seen this… Baelthrom?’ the High Elder asked.

Marakon shook his head. ‘Few have seen him. But all know what he looks like because some of his horde take a likeness to his form. They are called Dromoorai, and they ride atop Dread Dragons.’ He closed his eyes as memory of that last day with Bokaard flooded back to him. The screams of the Dread Dragons made his heart shudder now as it did then. The hands holding his clenched and sharp intakes of breath echoed around him.
They can see what I see?
He blinked open his eyes, everyone else had theirs shut so he closed them again.
 

‘Yes,’ several Elders answered his unspoken thought aloud, further shocking him. ‘When we are joined like this and the memory is vivid, we can see what each other sees,’ a strained voice said.

‘Evil, greater even than that which destroyed our ancestral home, Unafay, moves upon Maioria,’ the High Elder said. ‘I see again our utter annihilation. Maioria will be no more, just as Unafay is no more. This is why the future is dark.’

Marakon half opened his eyes, saw the sorrow and anguish upon the faces of those around him. ‘Yes. That’s why I fight. It’s all I can do. I wish I could tell you they will not come here, but that isn’t true.’ He closed his eyes again, not wanting to see their pain.
 

A black helmeted face flickered in his mind and his white eye burned behind its patch, making him gasp in pain. The eyes of Baelthrom were completely white as they glared at him from behind triangle slits. Fear grabbed hold of Marakon’s gut and clenched painfully. He was dimly aware of the gasps of terror around him. He clamped his hand over his white eye and gritted his teeth. Sometimes it did this, burned with pain as fierce as when he got the wound, and always he wanted to claw it out of his face.

‘I see him,’ a woman’s strangled voice said.

Slowly the pain dimmed and he forced his good eye open. The image of Baelthrom went along with the pain. He gulped air into his lungs and wiped the sweat rolling down his forehead.

The Elder woman opened her eyes, her face pale and drawn. ‘We must consult with Jarlain every day, and ask her to see with her vision. This enemy is unlike any we’ve ever known.’
 

The other Elders murmured their agreement. They looked at the floor in silence, frowns of worry on all their faces. Red Beard spoke and an enigmatic smile spread across the old man’s face, replacing his frown.

‘The Hidden Ones spoke to me whilst you were in the Drowning Wastes, Marakon half-elven. The goddess moves in mysterious ways, but it seems you and your knights, and we the Gurlanka share an ancient bond.’

Marakon frowned and then realisation slowly dawned on him. ‘Unafay,’ he breathed. Speaking the name aloud with this growing understanding immediately brought a lump to his throat, he blinked through the mist covering his eyes. He remembered a land, a beautiful land of green hills and many lakes, warm summers and mild winters.

‘Yes,’ Red Beard said, and the others smiled. ‘We were very different then. But sometimes, for all our ancestors’ great advances, I think we are better now. Here we are more connected to Maioria and the Great Spirit of All than ever we have been. In our dreams we all share a memory of a bountiful land, and our hearts ache. The Hidden Ones showed me that you were a great leader, until the demons came.’

Marakon nodded, his mind drifting in ancient memories. ‘ “In the Valley of Death terrible things happened,” ’ he murmured aloud the boatman’s words. ‘That is why we have returned.’

‘Your curse can never be fully lifted until you find the one that cursed you,’ an Elder woman said, concern furrowed her brow.

‘We will find him,’ Marakon said resolutely. ‘That is why we have returned.’

‘When the demons came, our land was lost,’ the High Elder said. Marakon nodded, he remembered that part all too well. ‘Their evil destroyed our minds, hearts and bodies in ways only demons know how. The land was poisoned and turned against us. Those of us that survived fled west across the sea. There we became one with the small groups of people we had once traded with. Now the peoples of Unafay survive along the coast of this new land where food is abundant, and we spread as far to the north as one can go. We, the Gurlanka, are the most southerly of the tribes. Here we came and here we remain to this day.’

‘Then you must warn the other tribes.’ Marakon leaned forward and wrung his hands. ‘Tell them there’s a threat more deadly than all the Seadevils combined. An enemy more dangerous than the demons who destroyed Unafay. You must try to unite yourselves into one people. There’s greater safety in numbers.’

‘Yes, he’s right,’ one of the other Elder men said. ‘It will take time but the half-elf warrior speaks wisely.’

‘We must plan and plan now,’ Red Beard nodded. ‘But first know this, Marakon half-elf from the Old World, the Hidden Ones have told us that whatever has cursed you has cursed you well. Even now you bring danger even as you bring honour and justice. Until you are truly free, wherever you tread so too does danger. Be watchful and never let your guard down.’