Page 40 of Of Empires and Dust
Dann stared on with a visceral sense of awe. The song had grown louder and louder, every other sound in the world yielding to its melody. It was then Dann realised his lips were moving, the words flowing through him. He hadn’t even noticed he’d begun singing. And as he looked left and right, he saw he wasn’t the only one. Every soul in the basin sang.
Erik stood with one hand to his chest, his eyes fixed on the climbing roots. Tarmon’s hand gripped Dann’s shoulder, his lips moving in perfect time.
A hand touched Dann’s, grasping it so tightly he thought his fingers might break. Tears rolled slowly down Lyrei’s cheeks as she squeezed, her golden eyes glistening. Dann tensed the muscles in his hand and allowed Lyrei to squeeze.
He turned his gaze back towards the winding roots to see they now took the shape of a tree trunk, as wide as the entire pit. The trunk spread up and out, forming dense branches that stretched over the statues and covered the central island, casting shadows over the entire basin. Small green buds sprouted from all along the branches, growing and peeling open. Thousands of long, thin vines burst from the buds, tumbling down towards the ground. And from the vines bloomed masses of white flowers tipped with purple that hung in clusters. The flowers sweptacross the vines, like butterflies bursting from their chrysalises until a canopy of purple and white blotted out the sky.
Then, as the song reached a crescendo, Dann’s breath caught in his lungs and the petals of every flower illuminated with a purple light.
Chapter 11
Blood of the Lion
6thDay of the Blood Moon
The Dead Tower, north of the Burnt Lands – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Rist sat in the dirt,his knees pulled to his chest, his gaze lost in the firepit’s flames. A cup of wine rested beside him, untouched, a dead fly floating on the surface. Extra casks had been sent around once they’d made camp near the edges of the Burnt Lands. Garramon had said it was a token of celebration, but Rist wasn’t quite sure what they could be celebrating. The Chosen had crossed, true enough. From what Rist had seen, from the power they wielded, these beings could only have been sent by a god. But how many had died to bring them into this world? How many lives was a single Chosen worth? And the most pertinent question of all: could the gods be trusted? Could Efialtír be trusted?
Rist had always liked numbers. They were certain and true, with no muddled grey, only black and white. Numbers were simple and honest, and there was a beauty in that. But something about these numbers made him feel nauseous. He’d not heard a count of the dead yet, but they’d entered Ilnaen with eighty thousand souls and left with far fewer. No more than sixty Battlemages remained in the First Army. Three-fifths of their initial number. If the rest of the armies had suffered such casualties, that would mean over thirty thousand had died. Just by a glance, Rist could see that wasn’t the case, but he would not have been surprised if the number sat around fifteen or twenty thousand. That number of dead was near inconceivable. Just the thought of it caused his chest to tighten and his stomach to twist.
He sucked in his cheeks, then grabbed the cup of wine and downed it in a single draught. He only remembered the fly when something a little too solid caught in his throat.
He let out a long sigh, placing the cup back in the dirt. The night was still and silent, nothing but the sound of crunching footsteps, the breeze, and the occasional shout in the distance to fill the emptiness. They’d been there for two days and two nights, waiting on Fane’s orders to march for Berona. Most of the other armies had already been sent onwards to reinforce Elkenrim, Merchant’s Reach, Greenhills, and Catagan against the elves and Uraks, but the Fourth, First, Eighteenth, and Seventh armies had remained with Fane and the Chosen.
Only a handful of mages from the First Army sat about the fire, scattered and listless. Rist knew their faces and probably should have known their names, but many of them were new recruits after the Battle of the Three Sisters – now the Two Sisters, as Magnus kept reminding him. He found it difficult to try to learn the names of people who would likely not live to see the turn of the new year.
Rist grimaced at that morbid thought and cast it from his mind, making himself a promise to learn the names of every mage in the First Army. Like numbers, names had power. A name let someone know you cared. At least, that’s how Rist felt anytime someone said his name. It meant they had taken the time to learn it and to associate small pieces of information with him: his name, his eyes, his hair, his sense of humour, his choice in books. There was no greater act of decency than giving someone your time. Time was precious and the only resource in the world that was truly finite. He cherished it.
His breath misted before him as he looked out at the night, the crimson light of the Blood Moon illuminating the clouds in a pink glow.
Rist reached into his shirt and produced the pendant that hung from his neck, the gold chain clinking. The wire-wrapped gemstone pulsed with a soft red light. He remembered what Garramon had said the first time he’d shown Rist the vessel. “Through the gift of Essence, Efialtír allows something to come from death. He allows the act of creation to be born from destruction. With the wielding of Essence, no death is in vain.”
The morality of it all was something Rist still struggled with. A part of him demanded he cast the pendant into the flames and never touch it again. That was what his father would have told him to do, and Calen and Dann, no doubt. But Fane and Garramon had been right in that it was his own preconceptions of Efialtír and Blood Magic that drove that part of him. Preconceptions built on stories and hearsay rather than facts or evidence.
Blood Magic or no Blood Magic, thousands would have died at Ilnaen either way. At least with the vessels, every death, every drop of blood spilled, had not been wasted entirely. At least something could come from death. In fact, much of the Essence collected that night had already been drawn upon by the Healersto keep the injured from Achyron’s halls – or ‘Efialtír’s embrace’, as they said in the North, though that was something else he was still trying to get used to.
He ran his fingers over the glowing stone, feeling the power calling to him. With any luck, the Essence within the gemstone could one day save a life.
With a last long sigh, Rist stood and made his way from the fire to the tent where the mages slept. Neera had gone to rest hours earlier around the same time Garramon had left to see Fane. Rist would have followed her had he not wanted to hold the dreams at bay for a little longer. He had always been afraid of many things, but one thing he never even contemplated fearing was sleep. It was a fear he didn’t much care for. He liked sleep, at least he used to, but sleep brought him little solace of late, for his dreams seemed intent on reliving the carnage of Ilnaen the instant his eyes shut.
That was an appropriate word: carnage. The violent killing of a large number. The great and bloody slaughter of many.
As he thought on it, he could see the Uraks ripping men and women to pieces, see the steam wafting from spilt intestines, smell the stench of shit and burning skin. The Bloodmarked tearing through flesh and bone, the knights in green plate carving soldiers in half with single swipes of their glowing green blades. Níthrals, Rist was sure they were called. He’d never seen one before, but they matched the descriptions inA Study of Control,by Andelar Touran. He made a mental note to ask Garramon more about them. If Garramon’s answers didn’t suffice, he would ask Gault for a reading list. The old man was the single most well-read individual Rist had ever known, possibly even more so than Fane.
Rist allowed himself a sorrow-touched laugh as he felt his brain picking through the pages ofA Study of Control, trying desperately to avoid seeing the images of the níthral carvingthrough Anila, of the look of shock on her face, her innards spilling into the sand, the wails of Magnus’s grief. He’d not heard that sound before: pure, unfettered grief. He hoped he never heard it again.
In The Glade, some of the elders had talked about the Varsund War and how seeing so much death was something that stayed with a person, something that altered souls. He had never quite understood what they’d meant. Of course, any event in life can alter how a person perceives things, but how could something change who a person was? How could something rearrange the core of a soul?
He understood now.
There were things in life that once seen could not be unseen. Things that allowed a person to understand the darkness in the world that they had once thought impossible.
Seeing that darkness, seeing the depths to which living beings would go, seeing the carnage and death and abject horror that was war… Seeing all that had changed the way Rist looked at the world, which in turn had changed the things he was willing to do to save it. Even the thought of that darkness touching The Glade cut cold fear through him. He wouldneverlet that happen. He would die before he did.
As Rist walked through the camp, he lifted his gaze to the sky, admiring the pink hue that tinged the blackness, scattered stars shimmering.
“You’re still awake, lad?”
