30. The Spider and the Fly
Chapter 30
The Spider and the Fly
12 th Day of the Blood Moon
Catagan – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Salara stared at the stars, watching her breath twist lazily upwards.
Olmaír was dead.
The ache in her chest, born from the sorrow that flooded into her from Vyrmír, told her as much. Her old master had taken yet another great soul from this world. She had wanted to go in Olmaír’s place, to be the one to drive the steel through Eltoar’s heart, but Vandrien had forbidden it.
“You and Vyrmír are too important to risk in this,” she had said. “If there is any among us who can best Eltoar with the blade, it is Olmaír. If he falls, he does so with honour and his sacrifice will move our people forwards. If he succeeds, this war will be over swiftly. There will not be a better opportunity to take Eltoar Daethana and Helios from this world.”
Salara drew a breath, holding her gaze on the sparkling broken-glass sky. “Na daui nai din siel v?’ryn von myia haydria, Aeldral. Din imadr? v?rakanra i’lanír.”
To die by your side would have been my honour, Elderblade. Your sacrifice will not be in vain.
“Ah-hem.”
Salara lowered her gaze to stare across at the two humans who stood before her. Two rows of Lorian cavalry were arranged behind them, the lantern-lit city of Catagan at their backs. Salara sensed four mages amidst the cavalry already filling themselves with the Spark.
“This offer of yours,” the smaller of the two men said, gesturing towards the man at his side. “We accept. Keval here will be our champion. If you kill him, we will cede the city to you as you ask. If he kills you, though, your army will lay down its weapons and submit.”
“This is the way.” Salara glanced at the taller man as she spoke, the crimson light of Efialtír’s moon shining on his polished head. He was at least a foot taller than she, and he looked as though he were raised sucking at a Jotnar’s tit. He didn’t concern her.
“And how do we know your people will obey the rules if you die?”
“Honour demands it,” Salara said, turning away from the man and facing Vandrien and the five captains who stood at her side. Behind them, thousands of golden-armoured warriors of Numillíon were spread across the plain, crimson and gold banners flapping.
While Salara’s soulkin had flown to Elkenrim alongside Barath?r and Andrax, accompanying Olmaír Moridain and the others, Vandrien had led fifty thousand souls behind Lorian lines through the Elkenwood. They had encountered Lorian sentries spread throughout the woodland, but not one had seen their death coming. The humans had grown arrogant across the centuries.
The hope had been that the threat of an attack on Elkenrim would draw forces from the other cities, and the presence of the dragons there – alongside Dravír on the eastern coast – would keep the Dragonguard occupied. In this, everything had proceeded flawlessly. But the cost had been great, and it had been Olmaír and his party who had paid it. They had always known there would be a slim chance of returning from Elkenrim. They had volunteered.
Salara took a deep breath, then pulled her sword from its scabbard. She unclipped her belt and handed it to Captain Undrír, who took it with a bow.
She gestured for Taran and Indivar.
“Go to your soulkin,” she said in a half-whisper. “This will not take long, and I have as much faith in these humans’ honour as I do in that of a snake. This night will not know the sound of peace.”
“And yet you offer them Alvadr??” Indivar was a few inches shorter than Salara, with a leaner build and dark hair tied into knots so intricate it hardly seemed worth the time.
“When the outcome is certain, is it truly an offer?”
“Hmmm. And yet, it is more than they deserve.”
“This has nothing to do with them,” Salara replied, looking into Indivar’s eyes. “History will speak of this war. It will speak of us. I will not allow it to say that we did not always strive for the path of least destruction. We will not be what they were. We will not be demons in the shadows, quiet blades on the throats of the sleeping. We will be warriors, and whether we live or die, history will remember us as such.”
“History is written by the victors,” Indivar replied. “It will say whatever we tell it. The humans wrote their own history after they butchered our kin.”
“And as I said, we are not them.”
Indivar made to speak again, but Taran laid a three-fingered hand on her shoulder and shook his head. He looked to Salara. “It will be done, Narvír. We will await your call.”
Indivar stiffened but acquiesced, inclining her head before she and Taran set off towards their soulkin, who waited behind a rise in the land some distance away.
Both Taran and Indivar had been young at the time of the Cuendyar. The Sundering . The night their own brothers and sisters turned against them, the night the humans waged a holy war in Efialtír’s name. That youth still shone through.
“Salara.” Salara turned to see Queen Vandrien gesturing towards the rows of elves that stood apart from the bulk of the force, just over Vandrien’s right shoulder. Each wore newly forged golden armour with blue bands of cloth tied around their arms and waist.
Volunteers from those saved at the mines in the north. Those who felt strong enough, those who wanted to fight. Il’Onarakina – The Unbroken. It was a name given to them by Warmarshal Luilin, and it was a name Salara was inclined to agree with. Had she suffered what they’d suffered, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind she would have been shattered into a thousand pieces.
None of them truly held the strength in their bodies to wage war, nor did they have the skill with the blade. But their lives were their own and if they wished to fight, Salara would be honoured to stand by their side. Along with Luilin, she had handpicked two hundred of Numillíon’s finest to stand within their ranks with the sole purpose of keeping them alive long enough to feel the sweetness of vengeance.
Vandrien grabbed Salara’s pauldron. “Show them what it means to be Evalien. Show them how we stand with our heads high and our shoulders back, how we will never kneel again.” She lowered her voice. “Show them what we do to those who hurt our blood. And Salara, show them the power of a dragon’s fury.”
Salara inclined her head. “Myia’nari.”
“With this victory, we cut the Lorians in half. We threaten the heart of their empire. And if Visenn and Falisín are successful, we will come ever closer to bringing Fane to his knees.”
Salara’s mind shifted to Visenn and Falisín, who at that moment were flying with their soulkin somewhere along Epheria’s southern coast towards Aonar. The fourth prong in the plan.
“Cut off the blood, and the limb will die. Cut off enough limbs, and the body will die.” Queen Vandrien’s words rang in Salara’s head. At that moment, a realisation hit her and she forced herself to look into the queen’s eyes. “Olmaír has gone to Achyron’s halls.”
The twist of pain was only visible on the queen’s face for a fraction of a second, but Salara saw it. She saw Vandrien’s jaw slacken, saw her breath catch and her heart skip a beat. Then the queen was iron once more. “Then we must ensure his sacrifice holds purpose. Go.”
“Are you certain you wish this honour to be mine?”
The queen pulled away and drew a short breath, smiling back at Salara. “I’ldryr viel asatar, Salara.”
In fire we are forged, Salara.
“I sanv?r viel baralun,” Salara answered.
In blood we are tempered.
Salara inclined her head to the queen one last time, then turned to face the human who awaited her. He stood alone now, the smaller man having returned to his horse some ten feet back where the other riders waited.
A thick breastplate guarded the man’s torso, a coat of mail beneath, while more slabs of plate were strapped to his shins, forearms, and thighs, augmented by thick leather. In his arrogance, he wore no helmet, not even a mail cap. The sight brought a laugh to Salara’s throat.
He gripped a wicked looking morningstar in his right fist, almost eight feet long with a thick steel-banded shaft and a spherical head studded with brutal spikes. A singular spike sat at the top of the head, as long as Salara’s middle finger and thick as the weapon’s shaft.
She glanced down at her own weapon, the red light glinting off the smooth steel, the blade curving slightly, the leather handle decorated with delicate ornamentation. The contrast between the two weapons seemed a fitting thing.
One was brutal and harsh, designed to break and snap, to puncture and dominate. The other was sleek and elegant, polished and refined, created with a single purpose: to kill.
“I am Salara Ithan, soulkin to Vyrmír. I would know your full name,” Salara said, offering him more respect than he was due.
“What’s it to you?” The man rolled his shoulders, glaring down at her. “Won’t matter much when your brains are sliding out your mouth. Less talking, more dying, bitch.”
“So be it.” Salara pressed the guard of her sword against her chest, steel clinking. “Det er en aldin g?r til dauv. M? Achyron inwê du ia’sonei unatair.”
It is a good day to die. May Achyron accept you into his halls.
The man shook his head and laughed before swinging his morningstar into a two-handed grip and marching towards Salara.
She felt Vyrmír roar in her mind, his will flowing through her, his power flooding her. The dragon flew towards the encampment on the other side of the Elkenwood, Boud strapped to his back. He had despised the idea of allowing Salara to go to battle without him but trusted her to know what was needed. If Vyrmír flew to Catagan, so too might Eltoar and Helios. That could not be risked. If it was, then Olmaír’s sacrifice would have been for nothing.
We will be together again shortly, my light. I will not leave you alone in this world.
Salara lifted her blade and settled into valathír – the Frozen Soul - as the human drew within striking distance.
The man let out a roar, then swung the monstrous morningstar at her head.
She watched the weapon’s flight, then jerked her neck back, the tip of a steel spike sweeping past her chin close enough to sting.
The Lorian swung again, an almighty blow that would have caved in Salara’s breastplate, but she sidestepped, letting the man stagger from his unmet momentum. He was strong but slow, his armour heavy and thick. He moved like a milk-drunk child.
“Slippery fucker,” he growled, veins bulging in his neck and forehead. He lunged a third time.
Salara watched his feet and hips, his steps cumbersome, his turns slow.
“En aldin g?r til dauv,” she whispered. A good day to die.
Her opponent roared once more and swung his monstrous bone crusher. One blow and her skull would be mush or her ribs shattered. But the blow needed to land.
The swing came from the left. Salara stepped back. The second swing came from the right. She ducked beneath it, then levelled her blade across her body and swept it along the man’s hip where the leather connected the plates. The elven steel sliced through the thick hide and bit into the flesh beneath, causing the man to stumble, crying out as blood flowed.
She twisted, snapping her blade back around and running it just below the plate on his back, slicing through more flesh.
The man dropped to one knee but hauled himself upright with surprising speed, using the shaft of his morningstar for leverage. But as he turned, Salara swung her blade from right to left, carving through his face. The skin, muscle, and tendons parted on the right side, giving way to the steel. The blade smashed into his teeth on the left side of his mouth with a chilling snap .
The man’s knees crashed into the dirt, and he stared at her in disbelief, eyes wide, jaw hanging loose, cheeks split, two shattered teeth hanging on by stringy bits of flesh. She’d seen it before, seen how the body and the mind took long moments to comprehend true trauma. And just like that his eyes bulged, his body shook, and he gave a horrible, muffled, spluttering scream. Blood spilled from his severed tongue as he fingered the remnants of his mouth, convulsing.
Salara stepped forwards and swung, hacking through the thick muscle of his neck. She took his hand with his head, both appendages hitting the ground moments before the body did.
A pang of pity attempted to rise in her heart, but she squashed it. When an animal was in its death throes, the kinder thing was to put it out of its misery. Only a savage let it suffer.
Shouts erupted behind her, and she turned, allowing herself a half-smile at the sight of the Lorian cavalry charging back towards the city, kicking up a cloud of dust in their wake.
Three shapes formed amidst the cloud, rushing in the opposite direction as the others: directly towards her. Hooves lifted chunks of earth into the air, cloaks flapping. All three riders were mages, and Salara could feel the Spark flowing from them.
She didn’t move an inch. They had not yet broken their vows, not yet breached the sanctity of Alvadr?. And she would not be the first to do so.
She pulled in a lungful of air, holding it as she touched her fingers to her chin to feel the thin scratch where the morningstar had grazed her. No matter how skilled or how powerful someone was, life and death were only ever a hair’s breadth apart, a half-second, a hesitation. But she had burned that hesitation from herself long ago.
A tingling sensation ran down her spine. She released the air in her lungs as arcs of blue and purple lightning streaked from the hands of the three riders, tearing through the earth, lifting clay, and setting fire to the dead leaves strewn about the ground.
“Predictable,” Salara whispered as she pulled threads of Fire, Spirit, and Air into herself and slammed them down through the path of the lightning, splitting it and sending it skittering harmlessly around her.
She looked back towards Vandrien and the other commanders and arced her sword through the air, calling, “Ilvar!”
Spear.
In the same breath, Vandrien’s sister, Cala, snatched Salara’s sword and tossed her a thick-shafted throwing spear in return. Salara judged the flight of the weapon, glanced at the riders, then snatched and launched the spear in a single fluid motion.
The spear caught the leftmost rider in the face, tearing open their cheek and mouth before punching through their skull in a cloud of gore and bone. The force of the blow, combined with the horse’s forward motion, sent the rider soaring from the horse’s back. They crashed to the ground while the horse scampered away to the left, letting out a high-pitched scream.
Poor creatures. The humans loved using them as fodder. Their souls were too beautiful for such savagery.
Both surviving riders paid their fallen companion the briefest of glances before urging their horses on faster. One attempted to weave threads of Earth beneath Salara’s feet while the other drew the heat from the air around her with threads of Fire. Both manoeuvres were snuffed out by threads that came from behind Salara – Vandrien and the others.
Salara glanced back and Vandrien gestured for her to continue, giving an acknowledging nod. The humans had broken the rights of Alvadr? and the city would burn for it, but these deaths belonged to Salara.
The two riders drew their swords, glowing red light emanating from beneath their breastplates. They were only a few feet away.
She pulled threads of Air through her, then launched them at the charging Lorians. She split the threads, thinning them and slamming them into the riders’ chests. The two men let out violent howls as they were ripped from their saddles.
It would have been simpler to burn them, but the horses did not deserve that fate. And she could have pulled the air from their lungs or crushed their chests, but these men had ridden away from the city with the sole intent of ending her life. They had deemed her death worthy of theirs, and so she would look into their eyes as she pulled the light from their souls.
The men scrambled to their feet as their horses scattered. A moment of hesitation flitted between them: stand and fight, or run. One plucked his sword from the ground, and they moved towards Salara.
Fight it is.
The two men closed on her, one moving left, the other right. The man on the left walked with a limp, likely sustained from the fall off his horse. The one on the right had a steady hand, and a number of knives glinted on the baldric across his chest. He would die first.
She caught a glimmer of a smile on the knife-wielder’s face at the sight of her empty hands. She’d left her sword with Cala and her spear in the chest of the dead mage.
The two men circled until they stood at the periphery of her vision. A moment of wind and silence passed, then they launched themselves at her, wheeling threads of Fire, Spirit, and Air about them.
Salara pulled threads of Spirit through her, sharpening them like knives as she sliced the Lorians’ threads. Both men swung their steel, one at her head, the other at her shin. She took the higher blow on her vambrace, catching the steel and redirecting it, while lifting her left boot and slamming it down, pinning the second sword to the ground and snapping it free from her attacker’s hand. They moved with the speed and strength of souls augmented with Blood Magic, but they lacked the skill to make it matter.
The man on her left staggered, his injured leg unable to support him. Salara rammed her armoured knee up into his face, the crunch of bone audible. As he flailed to the ground, Salara twisted, narrowly avoiding the swing of the second mage’s blade, its tip almost scraping her breastplate.
Tendrils of something unseen wrapped around her, serpents wrought of Efialtír’s darkness binding her. The coils of Blood Magic pulled her arms to her side and tightened. It had been centuries since she’d last felt the tainted touch of that dark power. She pushed threads of Earth outwards and into the two mages’ breastplates, pushing the metal inwards. She wasn’t sure which of the two held her in their grasp. Better to be certain. Within a heartbeat, the unseen bonds holding her evaporated as both men scrambled to cut through her threads of Earth before their armour caved in.
Salara launched herself towards the closest mage, and as he swung his blade, she pulled on a thin thread of Air, ripped one of his throwing knives from his baldric, and sent it plunging into the wrist of his sword arm.
He released the blade with a howl. Salara caught the weapon mid-air with her left hand and opened his throat in a single motion. As he stumbled forwards, blood pouring through his hands, Salara wrapped her fingers around his opened throat.
“Din haydria er fyrir,” she whispered as the man choked on his own blood. Your honour is forfeit. She plunged the Lorian blade into his belly, then tossed his lifeless body to the ground.
The mage with the limp stood behind her, having regained his blade and risen, his hand shaking around the hilt.
“You call yourselves Battlemages,” Salara said in the human’s Common Tongue, taking slow steps towards him. She looked into his eyes, shaking her head. “You are but shadows of what came before you.”
The man limped backwards, his eyes fixed on her, his sword extended outwards in an entirely useless position. “Stay back.”
A glowing red gemstone pendant had come loose from its nook under his breastplate. He reached for it, but Salara wrapped the pendant in threads of Air and snapped it free, pulling it into her own hand.
It was then she saw it in the man’s eyes: he was nothing more than a child. Perhaps twenty summers, and he’d not known the feel of a blade in his hand for many of those. He was but a fawn staring into the eyes of a starving wolf. The Lorians were growing desperate, sending half-trained children into a war they could not comprehend.
She looked down at the glowing stone, staring into its depths. Something within called to her, urging her to open herself, to welcome its power into her blood.
She pushed threads of Earth and Spirit into her hand, then clenched her fist around the stone. Wisps of red light burst from the gaps in her fingers as the gemstone cracked and shattered, a shiver running through her. She turned her hand sideways and poured the crushed remnants of the stone into the dirt.
“Such a waste of life,” Salara said aloud, sighing as she moved towards the young man.
His eyes widened, and he made to draw from the Spark, but Salara encased him in a ward of Spirit before it answered him.
The fear that had made its home in his eyes now visibly spread through his body, and he turned to flee.
Salara pushed a thin thread of Earth into the ground and formed a small lump at his feet. The man’s boot connected, and he hit the ground like a sack of stones, his face taking the brunt of the impact.
He scrambled onto his back, his eyes flitting between Salara and the ground around him as he searched desperately for the sword he had dropped as he’d fallen. She could feel the fear in him as he tried frantically to push through her ward of Spirit.
“Please…” His voice trembled.
“Please what?” Salara asked, genuinely curious.
A voice called from behind her – Vandrien’s – and Salara lifted her gaze momentarily to see a curtain of arrows stretching across the sky.
“I am sorry,” she said to the young Lorian mage, whose jaw slackened at the sight of the arrows loosed from his own walls. “There is no honour in this death.”
The man’s hands shook and his breaths grew rapid. “For the…” he stammered. “For the empire. Efialtír will take you with me.”
“No,” Salara replied. “He won’t.”
Salara raised her hand and pulled in threads of Air, forming a wedge before her while holding her ward over the Lorian mage. She gave him a tender smile and inclined her head. “M? du alura i’il rhyním un Heraya.”
May you rest in the embrace of Heraya.
As the words left Salara’s lips, the arrows fell, slamming into the ground like steel rain. The hail split around her wedge of Air, leaving a patch of untouched earth where she stood. The young Lorian mage was not so lucky. He thrashed as arrows plunged into his flesh, piercing his legs and arms, ripping into his torso, and turning his face to ribbons.
When it was all done, Salara stood unharmed, a touch of sorrow in her heart at the sight of the body that now comprised more steel and wood than flesh and bone.
An eerie silence followed, holding until dirt crunched beneath footsteps.
Queen Vandrien and her sister, Cala, stopped at Salara’s side, ten members of the Sunguard spread about them, along with High Paladin Thryn Erimal and Warmarshal Luilin.
The queen cast her gaze over the two dead bodies, both studded with arrows, the earth looking like the back of a spined anditar. “They sought glory,” she said, her gaze lingering on the younger mage. “But it was death who came to meet them.” She looked to Salara. “Begin.”
Salara pinched her thumb and forefinger together and whistled, augmenting the sound with threads of Air and Spirit.
Two roars answered her call.
Moments later, the thump of wingbeats carried on the wind and shadows fell over Salara and the others as Nymaxes and Baerys soared overhead. The pair were two of the smallest surviving dragons from the Cuendyar, but even the smallest dragons were enormous creatures in their own right. They swirled around each other, their movements intimate, black scales blending with blue, dark green wings striking against pale cream.
Another hail of arrows loosed from Catagan’s walls, but the two dragons simply rose above the rain of steel and wood, the arrows falling harmlessly to the ground.
Beside Salara, High Paladin Thryn lifted his horn to his lips and blew.
More horns answered, followed by the thunder of footfalls as the army began its march. The dragons descended on the walls, rivers of fire pouring from their jaws.
Less than two hours later, Salara stood at the centre of a wide street beyond Catagan’s second wall, her blade buried in the gut of a woman who had died well, her foot resting on the neck of a man who had not.
Shadows danced across the white stone walls, cast by the flames that consumed the city, accompanied by the screams and shouts of those who prepared to enter Achyron’s halls.
Salara slid her sword from the woman’s gut and let the body slump to the cobblestones, her gaze fixed on the blood-stained white walls. This city had once been home to the Evalien kingdom of Quelyin. She remembered their story well. They had survived longer than most after the Cuendyar, won many battles, sent many Dragonguard into The Traitor’s arms. But like all those before them, they eventually fell, barely a handful surviving to find shelter within Lynalion’s limits. And now she stood in their legacy: a burning husk of a city awash with Lorian blood.
She turned her gaze from the walls to the fighting around her. Though, in truth, ‘killing’ was a more appropriate word. The Lorian soldiers that remained in this area of the city were stragglers left behind by those retreating to the keep, and the Onarakina were brutal and savage in their dealing of death.
All about her, the armoured elves with bands of blue cloth at their arms and waists tore into Lorian soldiers like starved wolves. They hacked limbs and stabbed corpses until nothing but a mush of diced organs and skin remained. For generations, these elves had been forced to work the northern mines until their bodies gave way or their minds broke. Now they had been given a chance to unleash all that rage, all that agony and despair. And though Salara understood their pain, respected it, she found the sight difficult to witness.
The thump of armoured boots sounded behind her.
A column of Numillíon warriors marched through the street behind Salara, their burnished golden armour marred by still-wet blood. They moved in step, crisp and precise, only stopping to drive a sword or spear through the belly of a moving body on the ground.
The column ground to a halt before Salara.
“Draleid.” Captain Undrír stepped from the ranks and removed his helmet. Dried blood flecked the skin around his eyes where the helmet did not cover, and his sweat-soaked hair clung to his face. Another elf moved with him, the ornamentation of golden tree roots on her armour marking her as a galdrín.
Undrír gave a short bow, grimacing at the sight of the Onarakina tearing the remnants of the Lorians apart.
“Sankyar,” Salara replied with a nod. Captain. “What news?”
“The queen wishes you to move on the keep. She has taken the western sector of the city with minimal losses.”
“It appears the majority of the city’s mages were sent to reinforce Elkenrim, Draleid.” The galdrín mimicked Undrír’s welcoming gesture. “We have moved through the city with little resistance. The plan has worked even more smoothly than we had hoped.”
“Hmmm.” Salara nodded her head slowly as she looked at the butchery around her. “It appears so.”
With The Traitor’s moon overhead, the Lorian mages had a distinct advantage over those of the Elven galdrín. Their Blood Magic was the strongest it had been since the night of the Cuendyar. When Vandrien had proposed the four-pronged strike, she had theorised the Lorians would send perhaps a third of their mages and warriors to reinforce Elkenrim. But from what Salara had encountered, they had sent all but a fraction. The city’s walls had fallen in minutes, the garrison routed into the streets. And through all the bloodshed, Salara had encountered but three mages where she had expected a hundred. Something wasn’t right. The city had fallen too easily.
“You seem displeased, Draleid.” Captain Undrír tilted his head, trying to catch Salara’s gaze. “Is this not the victory we had hoped for?”
“It is not a victory yet, Sankyar. There is still much death to come.”
Undrír straightened, lifting his chin. “Yes, Draleid. Forgive me.” The elf swallowed. “Queen Vandrien offers you the honour of reclaiming the city alongside her.”
“She offers too much.”
“Respectfully, Draleid, I do not believe so.” Undrír gave a slight bow at the waist, pressing a closed fist against his breastplate. “She asks that you send word to Draleid Taran and Indivar. No more fire is to be cast on the city, and she wishes them to be there when you take the keep.”
Salara released a short breath through her nostrils, then nodded. “It will be done. First, I would have fifty of your warriors escort the Onarakina away from the fighting.”
She cast her gaze around the street. Many of the Onarakina sat on the ground, their backs resting against broken walls or piles of shattered bodies, blood dripping from their hair, their faces, and their hands. They were the living dead. Only a handful still stood, and one knelt over a body, slowly dragging a knife from the flesh before lurching forwards and driving it back in.
“They have seen enough of this day.”
“As you command, Draleid.”
As Undrír turned and called out to his warriors, Salara cautiously approached the Onarakina who knelt atop the savaged corpse, his blade buried to the hilt in its ribs.
“Akar,” she whispered.
Brother.
The word drifted on the wind. The elf remained where he knelt, slumped over the corpse, one hand on its chest, the other on the pommel of the knife.
“Akar,” she whispered again, dropping to one knee and resting her hand on his back.
The elf roared and lunged at her, a frenzy in his eyes, a rabid hunger.
Salara caught both his wrists mid-flight and twisted left, dragging him from atop the body and slamming him against the stone.
When she looked down, she saw tired, rage-filled eyes staring from a gaunt face marked by scars and lines born of a life in servitude, in slavery. The elf’s hands shook in Salara’s grasp, his breaths trembling.
“Alura, myia’kar. Alura. Du é varno. Inyen v?ra sare du anis.”
Rest, my brother. Rest. You are safe. Nobody will hurt you now.
The elf stared back at her wordlessly.
“Of course,” Salara whispered, bringing the elf’s hands lower, one to his side, one against her breastplate. “I am sorry, brother. They took our language from you, our heritage, our history… You are safe. You are loved. You are Evalien.”
She let go of the elf’s wrist, slowly, holding his gaze the entire time. “What is your name?”
“Tu…” He hesitated a moment. “Tualin, Draleid.”
“Stand with me, Tualin.”
Salara lifted herself back onto her haunches and took Tualin’s hand into her own as she rose. With as much care as she might use to pluck a flower, Salara removed Tualin’s helmet and dropped it to the ground.
His dark hair was soaked in sweat, and streaks of it ran through the blood on his face. He could not have witnessed more than twenty-five summers, but his cheekbones almost pierced his skin, his lips cracked… and his eyes… She had never seen such turmoil, such fear and uncertainty, in another soul’s eyes.
What did they do to you?
She had seen the Onarakina when they had been freed from the mines. Seen their withered bodies, their scarred and scabbed flesh, their dark, listless eyes. And so too had she watched them receive the finest silks and heartiest meals and everything any soul could want. Queen Vandrien had ensured it. And in her naivety, Salara had thought them on the path towards healing, that the clothes and the food and the luxuries would close their wounds, both of body and spirit. She could see now that naivety was too meagre a word. Idiocy, absurdity… ignorance. Yes, ignorance was the word.
What was done to these elves would never heal, never scab over or fall away. It was a torture of the soul and the mind, a torture of the blood.
Salara gave a soft sigh, then gently rested her gauntleted hands on Tualin’s cheeks. “I cannot give you back any of what was taken. I cannot give you solace, or peace, or serenity. And so I will not make that promise. But I can give you vengeance. I can hone you. I can teach you to take that rage in your heart, that darkness, and give it a place in this world, give it a way to earn a different life for our kind. What do you say to that?”
Tualin’s stare hardened, his lips pressing together, his nostrils flaring. He gave a sharp nod. “Ah… Avis.”
Yes.
A smile broke out across Salara’s face at the sound of the Old Tongue – of Enkaran – leaving Tualin’s lips. It was such a simple thing, such a small and insignificant thing, at least on the surface. But language was culture, it was heritage, it was history. Language was the path that connected a soul to their ancestors. “Go,” she said, gesturing towards the elves who were helping the other Onarakina to their feet. “You have done all you can here. Sleep, eat, rest. What remains is up to us.”
Salara handed Tualin over to one of the warriors Undrír had selected to escort the Onarakina back to the camp. Once more, she whistled, three sharp bursts, augmented by Air and Spirit – the signal for Taran and Indivar to halt their assault and join her.
A pair of monstrous roars answered her call.
“Sankyar Undrír,” she called, finding Undrír helping an injured Onarakina to her feet, blood seeping from an arrow embedded in her shoulder. “When they are all seen to, we march for the keep. Kill whatever stands in our way. The time for mercy is long past.”