The Light of Burning Shadows (5 page)

T
he wind began to swirl, snapping the canvas sailcloth above their heads like the musket fire they’d become all too familiar with. Alwyn kept his eyes on the four bodies laid out on the deck in front of him. Each dead soldier was sewn into an old hammock. Iron ingots from the ship’s ballast had been placed inside first to ensure the bodies slid out of sight quickly, but experience had shown it wouldn’t matter. The Queen’s Colors draped each body, though the flags would remain as the bodies were pushed over the side. They were bound to be used again.

The regiment formed a three-sided square around the bodies, although this meant many soldiers were perched on barrels, crates, and parts of the ship in order to see. No sailors were present. Even the ship’s captain, Captain Ervod, was absent. He’d insisted on presiding over the first ceremony, but after the shock of the first one, Captain Ervod left it to the regiment to handle.

Prince Tykkin stood off to one side, tapping a white-gloved hand against his sword hilt. The silvery-green of his uniform jacket looked new and was a marked exception to the dull appearance of his men. Even Major Swift Dragon’s uniform looked grubby by comparison. It was only natural that the future King look the part, but Alwyn knew the main reason was that the Prince stayed on board while the Iron Elves cleared each island. It spoke volumes that no soldier ever complained about it; they all preferred the Prince out of sight.

Major Swift Dragon made a motion to Yimt, who took a step forward. “Parade…attention!” The soldiers came to attention as best they could. Captain Ervod was struggling to keep the ship steady, but the seas did not appear to be cooperating.

Prince Tykkin nodded to himself, then began speaking. The first few words were carried away by the wind, but Alwyn knew the speech by heart. Everyone did. The Prince went through the motions, exalting the fallen, though Alwyn doubted he would even recognize them.

“…through their sacrifice the Empire will survive, and the light of civilization will shine in all the corners of the world…”

As the Prince spoke, Alwyn looked around the formation. Anticipation and apprehension filled the air. Coughs and shuffling feet were muffled by the wind, but there was no hiding the looks in men’s eyes. They all shared the same thought as they looked at the four bodies.
That could be me one day. What happens next could happen to me.

“…in taking the fight to our foe, we stamp out disorder and chaos, bringing the order of the just throughout the known lands. Ours is a cause most worthy, and so to fall in the furtherance of that cause is an honor…”

Alwyn caught Yimt’s eye and realized they were both sneering at the Prince’s words. Alwyn coughed and looked over at the Prince, but he continued to talk, his eyes unfocused and staring at nothing.

The ship took a wave off the port bow, sending a shudder through the timbers. The Prince stumbled, then righted himself. He looked questioningly at Major Swift Dragon, who saluted. The Prince returned the salute and without another look back, walked across the deck and into his cabin.

The roll was called for each section that had lost a man. When they got to Harkon, the entire regiment stiffened. Word of his strange death had quickly made the rounds. Soldiers understood dying in battle—they even were beginning to come to terms with the idea of a ghostly afterlife—but to have your shadow burned was something new.

Major Swift Dragon took a moment and panned his eyes along the ranks. When he came to Alwyn he paused, and Alwyn held his gaze. The major looked away and called the last name.

“Harkon.”

Waves battered against the hull with dull booms.

“Private Harkon.”

A clewline snapped and began whipping back and forth against a sail.

“Private
Kester
Harkon.”

The ship rose on a large wave, then slid down the other side. Spray shot up from the bow and sprinkled down on the assembly, but not a person moved to wipe his face.

Major Swift Dragon pulled his saber from its scabbard and held it skyward. Four soldiers standing at the ready bent and lifted the first body and carried it to the railing.

A mournful, keening sound came from somewhere high in the rigging of the mainmast. Alwyn knew Tyul Mountain Spring, a
dïova gruss,
an elf lost to the natural order after bonding with an overpowering Silver Wolf Oak, was up there. Miss Red Owl had decided to keep him with her, perhaps as another
project,
as Yimt put it. Alwyn wasn’t sure there was anything that could be done for the elf. He seemed to live in his own world. When he wasn’t sitting and staring off into space, he was climbing the mainmast that had once been Jurwan’s
ryk faur
Black Spike to howl whenever there was a burial at sea.

“Sends spiders crawling down the inside of me spine it does,” Teeter whispered to Alwyn.

Alwyn felt something similar, but he thought it had more to do with what was about to happen than with the lost elf’s sorrow.

Major Swift Dragon brought his saber down and the soldiers tipped the body over the side. As they did so the regiment began reciting the oath, a last, bitter sendoff that they had come to cherish the way you trace a finger over an old scar.

The first body went over the side. The splash was barely heard over the wind. The regiment braced up. Spikes of frost fire shot into the air. The flames crackled with energy and spread across the water. A shade emerged from the flames and its cries of anguish reverberated inside every man. The deck became shrouded with mist as breath fogged in the suddenly cold air. The next body went over the side and the frost fire grew. It danced along the railing and surrounded the assembled soldiers in a ring of cold, black flame. Another shade appeared, adding its tortured voice to that of its comrade. Images of a dark mountain, twisted trees, and Her came unbidden to Alwyn’s thoughts, and he was not alone. A few soldiers shed tears. Others laughed while a few closed their eyes tightly and prayed.

The third body went in and a third shadow was born. Its wails of terror rose even as those of the first two began to quiet. It was always this way. First the fear and the pain, then the anguish of acceptance, and then a cold, dead calm.

Hands reached out to Alwyn, beckoning him. Alwyn kept his eyes open, but kept his hands at his sides.
“Join us.”

The air grew even colder, turning the mist to ice. Men began to shiver and would later tell their mates it was entirely due to the weather. All would accept the lie.

Alwyn stared at the shades and said nothing.

The last body, that of Private Harkon, was tipped over the side. Alwyn took a breath of frigid air into his lungs and waited for the last blast of frost fire, the screams, and the final call of the shades.

It did not come.

There was an audible gasp from among the troops. No frost fire rose where Harkon’s body entered the water. No shade emerged. The air began to warm as the shadows thinned and then vanished. Alwyn traded looks with Yimt.
What was this?

Voices rose and the assembly began to move.

“Steady on! No one dismissed you,” Yimt bellowed, and order was restored, but only just.

Whispers raced up and down the ranks.

“Harkon was the one what got his shadow burned.”

“They say he screamed for five minutes as it burned his very soul.”

“Maybe, but what if it broke the oath?”

There was only the howling of the wind and the keening of a lost elf in reply.

As the ship sailed on, the mortal remains of the four soldiers sank into the lightless depths. Fish scattered as the bodies plummeted past them. The stitching came loose on the last body, revealing the face of Private Kester Harkon.

Something large and gray swam up from the depths toward the sinking corpses.

It came in close to each body in turn, but turned away each time from the first three. When it came in toward Harkon’s body it paused, as if studying the face.

Harkon’s eyes opened. They turned and saw the creature.

Harkon’s mouth opened in a scream as water rushed into his lungs. The creature lunged forward and grabbed Harkon’s body between two powerful jaws, and then swam with his corpse back toward the surface, settling just below the waves.

With the body of Private Kester Harkon firmly clutched in its mouth, the creature began following in the wake of the
Black Spike.
What remained of the man who was once Kester Harkon screamed silently as it did.

On the peak of a black mountain, a forest seethed in the cold night air. A drizzling rain fell, turning to sleet. Bolts of lightning ranged down, twisting shadows of already misshapen trees. The trees drew the lightning to them, raising their branches high as if in supplication.

Another bolt struck, splintering the pitch-black wood of one tree into needle-sharp shrapnel. Metal-colored leaves tore away in the wind to scythe the night air. Frost fire flared in the crowns of the trees and thick ichor oozed from open wounds, staining everything an oily black. The sleet hissed as it hit the ground, forming jagged bits of ice until the entire mountain peak gleamed in the night.

Underground, the roots of the trees writhed and stabbed into the rock. For every tree lost to lightning, its siblings fed on the power. Cracks on the mountain surface shuddered and ripped farther apart, creating ever-deepening chasms. Primal roars issued from the depths. The roots continued to dig.

In its need and its rage, Her forest was tearing the mountain apart.

The Shadow Monarch stood among the trees. The cloak wrapped tightly around Her made it difficult to differentiate between Her and the darkness. No lightning touched down near Her.

If She felt sympathy for the offspring of Her
ryk faur,
the Silver Wolf Oak She had bonded with all those centuries before, She did not show it. There was a price to be borne for living in such a cold, barren place—the trees sacrificed themselves to that purpose.

Far below in the great forest, Wolf Oaks grew straight and true. Down there, their limbs were protected from the lightning by the even-more-massive Silver Wolf Oaks that had grown strong and true, unpolluted by such bitter ground. Here on the mountain, however, this Silver and all its progeny were a twisted thicket of anguish. To exist like this with Her aid was pain beyond comprehension, yet the will to live remained. And so Her forest grew, a desperate union of the Shadow Monarch and Her
ryk faur
sowing the seeds of madness in ever-widening swathes of black destruction.

The Shadow Monarch stepped forward into the center of the trees. Branches interlocked in a protective shield above Her, absorbing the lightning while She remained unscathed. She looked down into a pool of ichor that shimmered and revealed the world as it was.

This world would change.

Where plains and hills now rustled with tall grass, Her forest would grow. No river, no lake, no road, and no city would remain. The very oceans would thicken with trunks until no ship could pass.

All would be Hers.

All would be forest.

Then there would be power, enough to end the pain. Though She had failed in obtaining the fallen Star in the east, Her will remained intact and the Iron Elves would be Hers. More Stars would fall, and in time She would claim them as Her own. In this, the bond between elf and tree grew stronger as each warped the other in the madness of their everlasting need.

A hunched shadow crept into the clearing, slipping over ice and rock. Lightning flashed as it neared the Shadow Monarch, revealing it to be a man clothed only in a tattered robe. Large chunks of his skin looked more like the bark of Her trees. His eyes, however, remained wholly human, showing every bit of the fear he felt. Trembling, he inched forward, finally falling on his knees in front of Her and bowing his head.

She had plans for his fear.

Faltinald Elkhart Gwyn, recipient of the Order of the Amber Chalice, holder of the Blessed Garter of St. DiWynn, Member of the Royal Society of Thaumaturgy and Science, and until recently, Her Majesty the Queen of Calahr’s Viceroy for the Protectorate of Greater Elfkyna, shook as he kept his head low.

It was a position he was becoming all too accustomed to since his fortunes had changed.

Only weeks before, rulers of backward lands throughout the Calahrian Empire knew his name and feared it. He was the power of the Empire personified. When he spoke, it was not with his voice, but with the Queen’s…and Hers. It had been a heady game, serving two thrones. Now, he was a wanted man throughout the Empire, but he doubted anyone would ever get the chance to collect on his reward.

Lightning scorched the branches just feet above him, setting his teeth chattering. His life, what was left of it, now hinged on the caprice of his only monarch.

A moment later, another figure emerged from the dark, materializing from nothing with a cold certainty. Unlike Gwyn, this one did not tremble. Its hooded cloak appeared more like that of the Shadow Monarch. There were no eyes to be seen. It, too, bowed before Her, though not as low.

Gwyn found his mind and body warring with each other as Her Emissary approached. Memories of the torture he had suffered at the cold, dead hands of this monster sent fresh currents of fear coursing through him. Even now, his training as a diplomat told him to show no emotion, but his body was not up to the task. He dug his hands into the ice until they bled, but he could not quell the shaking.