The Alterra Histories: The Fire King (9 page)

No evil being could long endure Aincor’s light—they all wailed and shrank back as the King strode forward, cutting a wide swath with sweeping strokes of his blade. Vathan turned his attention to his own concerns, relieved that all seemed well for the moment, until he noticed something quite strange. Two of the Èolarin warriors, both of the Raven clan, appeared to be fighting each other! They fought with all their skill until one managed to sever the other’s sword-arm. He fell, helpless, but his attacker did not relent, even when the wounded Elf appeared to plead for his life. His head came neatly away from his neck, an expression of uncomprehending anguish still on his face, as the one who had vanquished him stepped over his now-lifeless body as though it were of no concern.

Vathan was confused and horrified. He stood, his sword-arm slack at his side, wondering whether his eyes had deceived him. Yet now he saw another Elf, this one battling a troll, suddenly stop fighting and lower his blade. He turned his back to the troll as though it wasn’t there, taking perhaps two steps before the great, stony hands grasped him and tore him limb-from-limb.

Vathan saw a dark veil moving across the stone of the fortress, settling around Wrothgar’s defenders one by one. When it did so, the Elves would turn their attentions elsewhere, allowing the enemy to strike them from behind. Then the shade would surround one of the Elves, who would soon find himself attacked by those he had thought were friends, falling quickly in his confusion.

There was some devilry at work here, and Vathan quickly realized that the dark, shadowy veil had much to do with it. If no one realized what was happening, they would all be deceived! “PEOPLE OF LIGHT! HEAR ME!” Vathan cried, but few could hear him over the riot of battle. Those who stood nearest turned their attention to Vathan long enough that he could continue. He had to get his people to fall back, to be made aware of what was happening to them. “FALL BACK! RALLY! RALLY TO ME! YOU ARE ALL BEWILDERED! FALL BACK!” Several of the Elves within earshot stayed their blades, looks of conflict and confusion on their faces. This unidentified Elf in dragon-armor had no authority to order them—they moved at the command of the Fire-heart. But they turned to one another as though considering.

The Shadow moved quickly, as it did not wish to be unmasked. It turned upon Vathan, who stood helpless as the black veil surrounded him. He felt horrific violence, hunger and lust envelop him, drawing away his strength, as two of Aincor’s warriors, shocked to see a hideous troll standing where the unknown dragon-warrior had been only moments earlier, turned their blades on him. Vathan fought like a cornered eagle, screaming in frustration, trying to free himself from the illusion. Summoning whatever strength he could, he flared up like a shooting star, throwing off the Shadow, who, not to be denied, assailed one of Vathan’s would-be attackers. Immediately, the Elf transformed into a repulsive, misshapen Ulca. He was run through from behind by his own astonished brother.

To Vathan’s horror, as the dying Elf crumpled to the ground, the Shadow engulfed his spirit as it tried to leave his body. Vathan heard the Elf wail as his soul was consumed, and he heard the insane, hideous laughter of the thing that fed upon it. The hunger and lust of the Shadow would never be satiated.

Horrified, Vathan shouted again: “FALL BACK! WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT IS! YOU ARE KILLING EACH OTHER! FALL

BACK!” Then he noticed a stealthy figure through the haze, creeping forward from the rear of the ranks—a wagon-driver in a green hood— and his blood went cold.

~~

Aincor pressed forward, unseeing and unaware of the terrible fate his warriors were enduring. He was filled with confidence, for there were no enemies here that he could not contend with. When one of the Night-fliers turned a blast of flame upon him, he crouched beneath his dragon-shield, well protected in his scaly armor. He cast a discarded spear straight at the beast, impaling it through its wide-open mouth, felling it at once. Nothing could stand before him as he broke through into the inner chambers of the fortress. With each step forward, his confidence grew. Léiras was wrong, Faelani was wrong—they were all wrong. He had nothing to fear.

He finally broke into Wrothgar’s inner sanctum—a chamber of dark, polished granite with a large fire-pit in the center of the floor. Wrothgar, who was said to appear from within flames, was nowhere in evidence. The polished walls of the chamber gave Aincor an excellent view of his own magnificent, formidable figure, and he could not help but admire it for a moment. Then he called out: “Wrothgar! Come forth and face me! Come forth from your wet, slimy hole, you coward! I’m waiting.”

He heard a sound from the portal at his back, and glanced over his shoulder to see that Asgar and Aldamar had come in behind him.

Aldamar looked around the chamber, his apprehension evident. Aincor knew that neither Aldamar nor Asgar had ever seen Lord Wrothgar, and they had no idea of what to expect. Aincor had, of course, seen Wrothgar as a shriveled weakling—a pale, unhealthy travesty that was only vaguely human—but no vision of Wrothgar was binding. He could appear to be whoever and whatever he wished. Aldamar seemed to know it. “Keep your wits about you,” he whispered to his friend, Asgar. “Do not underestimate the Shadowmancer.”

Asgar’s answer made Aincor’s heart swell with pride. “My father will make short work of him. I’m not afraid!”

Aincor kept calling out to his enemy, naming him “coward” over and over while brandishing his blades. Finally, the summons was heard— four more portals opened in the seamless black walls, and the three warriors stood surrounded by five dark entryways, all but one inhabited by a different, horrific vision. The first portal, the one through which the Elves had entered, was simply as it had been—a doorway back to the battle-ground.

In the second, a terrible winged creature with a long snout full of teeth and scales like a dragon wielded a great, two-handed sword. It made no sound other than a deep, guttural moan. Its beautiful golden eyes filled with malevolence, narrowing as they fixed upon their prey.

The third was filled to bursting with a pale, rotting giant. Its eyes, clouded over like dead moons, held no expression whatever. Its massive muscles flexed beneath decayed, stinking skin of mottled grey.

The fourth portal showed a robed, hooded figure shrouded in black. Only its skeletal hands were visible, sending forth tendrils of mist. The Elves could hear shrieks and moans of agony around it, as though from a thousand unhappy victims.

Finally, the fifth portal was only darkness, but that darkness held both intelligence and awareness that could not be hidden. Whatever that black, featureless thing was, it was most definitely alive. Alive and hungry. Aldamar and Asgar dreaded the thought of approaching it.

Aincor spun on his heels, regarding each fearsome vision in turn,then threw his head back and laughed aloud. “This is what you send to face the mightiest of all warriors? Some dragon-thing, an impotent Bödvar, and the Mother of all Ulcas? THIS is what you send to face me? Where are you hiding, Black Flame? I will waste no more time with underlings. Come forth! Come forth and face me!”

He looked around at the walls of the chamber, which now appeared to be rippling as though with searing heat; any object reflected in them was grotesquely distorted. He wondered whether any of the creatures looming within the portals were real. The dragon-creature certainly seemed lively enough as it expanded painfully lean ribs, drawing a deep breath and erecting a bright scarlet frill on its neck. It let out the pent up breath in a long, menacing hiss. A fetid, reptilian musk rose above the pervasive reek of rotting flesh and brimstone.

“Here I am, Mighty Fire-heart!” cried a voice reminiscent of a nail scraping across a metal plate. A brief vision of Lord Wrothgar appeared amidst the central flame. “Come and get me, if you dare,” it taunted. As Aincor turned to face it, the dragon-creature charged.

Aincor’s blade passed harmlessly though the illusion of Lord Wrothgar, but the dragon-creature’s blade was real enough as it swept toward the King’s neck. Aincor leaped sideways, startled by the sound of clashing blades behind him, turning to behold his son Asgar deflecting the very blow meant to take his head. The dragon beast howled in its grating voice, sending shivers through all who heard it, as Aldamar buried his own blade in its rather ample belly, spilling blood and entrails, filling the chamber with a nauseating stench. The beast kept fighting long enough for Asgar to sweep its gruesome, spear-toothed head from its scaly neck. As the body fell, the long fingers on the tips of its wings writhed with freakish fervor. The jaws clenched and snapped for several seconds before they finally stilled.

“Well played!” said the illusion of Wrothgar, which had reappeared within the flames. “But you are at a disadvantage, for you do not actually know where your enemy is at this moment. I might be anywhere, you know. And you will never see my blade until you feel it. I have brought

you here to face your own death, Fire-heart. I had meant for you to face it alone, but I see you brought two little children along to defend you. How very touching.”

Aincor ground his teeth in silent rage. He knew that Wrothgar’s taunt was not entirely baseless—if not for his son, he would have fallen already. “It is easy to fight under the guise of illusion,” he growled. “Stand before me as yourself, if you have the backbone.”

~~

The Shadow continued in its terrible work, casting its illusions, turning brother against brother and friend against friend. It transformed enemies into apparent allies, who would smile before taking the lives of any Elves within reach. It was an insurmountable foe. Vathan had seen it unmasked, but his warning cries could not pierce the confusion on the battlefield. He ran toward the green wagon-driver, praying that his fears were unfounded, knowing they were not.

To Vathan’s surprise, with neither reason nor fanfare, the veil of illusion fell away as the Shadow lifted, retreating back toward Wrothgar’s chambers. The horrible stone halls seemed brighter until the Elves looked down at their feet, seeing what they had done with their own hands. One Elf of the Wolf clan, who had just slain his eldest son, gave a soul-wrenching wail of grief. It broke the transfixed silence of the others, and the cries that went up from the remaining Èolar—grief, outrage, and terrible guilt—welled forth all around Vathan. He looked around in panic, seeing neither Aldamar nor Asgar. The green-hooded wagon-driver was gone. As he stood distracted, a troll-blade took him from behind.

~~

Aincor stood before Wrothgar’s fire-pit, his blades ready, saving his strength for what he hoped would be the final confrontation. “Come out and face me, you misbegotten coward!”

Every torch in the chamber winked out as the fire in the pit turned black, the flames barely edged with flickers of blue and gold. Aincor stood in the dark, still summoning Wrothgar with words no one else could hear. At last the air in the chamber began to move, swirling around Aincor’s feet. With it came a shroud of darkness, like a cloak of black wool drawn over the eyes. The wind rose higher as the blackness swirled all around Aincor, yet he stood as if unfazed, his fiery gaze still on the pit of weird, flickering black velvet flames. If Wrothgar came, it would be from there...wouldn’t it?

A terrible roar spun him around on one heel as Lord Wrothgar charged forward from the stinking black wind, arms raised to attack him. Aincor raised his own blade just in time, striking at his terrible enemy, deflecting a deadly blow. The Shadowmancer was nothing like his former appearance on the Anvil—this was much more as Aincor had expected—huge, black-armored, and ferocious. Still, it was vulnerable; Aincor could see it in the eyes, which were…odd, somehow. Something made him draw back for only a moment, then he recovered his wits, striking with all his might. The shattered cries of Asgar, his son, pierced through the wailing wind.

“NO, Father! NO!”

Aincor could not heed them—the stroke had been sent, and Lord Wrothgar fell beneath it.

No one moved. The wind ceased and the darkness lifted, drawing back in upon itself, folding and re-folding into the approximate shape of a man, a shape that only Aincor could see. The Shadow threw back its head and laughed as Aincor stood bewildered, not knowing what he had done. Then he saw Faelani.

She lay at his feet, not quite gone, her eyes trying to focus on him, a terrible question in them:
Why?

A deep, malicious chuckle that only Aincor could hear came forth from the black flames as the vision of Wrothgar appeared within them.

“When your foolish life-mate appeared on the battlefield, I could hardly believe my good fortune. See what you have done with your own hands?” Wrothgar laughed again, savoring his victory, only to be interrupted by the Shadow.

“This is my kill, Black Flame! Only I can take credit for it…oh, but wait! No, I am wrong. The King has done the killing, hasn’t he?”

The dark face of Lord Wrothgar twisted into a prideful grimace. “Indeed he has! I’ll take that mighty apology now, Murderer-King!”

Aincor dropped to his knees, cradling Faelani’s head, his body and senses numb. She tried to focus her gaze on him, but could not. “But...you promised to stay in the encampment! Oh…my little one…why, just once, could you not do as I asked?” Asgar had fallen to his knees beside Aldamar, who was too shocked to move.