5. Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Chapter Five
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
The Eleventh Karvosi Incursion
Rivers of dragonfire seared across the frozen night overhead as Fane weaved through the streets of Arathín, snowfall grinding beneath his boots.
Crackling fires and echoing shouts filled the air, thick smoke billowing upwards.
The city had not seen the Karvosi coming until it was too late. Neither had he, in all fairness.
He’d heard of the Karvosi mages’ ability to warp a person’s reality, to make them see or unsee a thing.
It was something he’d have to learn more of.
Though, from what he’d read the power came at the cost of the mage’s own memory, their own mind.
And his mind was his sharpest weapon. All power came at a cost, and that cost must be carefully weighed.
His heels clipped the stone as he descended the staircase that led from the university towards Avelon’s Hill, the books in his satchel smacking against his back.
He wasn’t meant to be there, wasn’t meant to be in Arathín at all.
Which made the timing of the attack quite unfortunate.
Though turning unfortunate things in his favour was a pastime of Fane’s.
And if the elves of Arathín were busy preventing their city from being burned to the ground, they were less likely to notice six missing books from the university library.
Particularly if that library happened to burn down, which, all things considered, was a strong possibility.
Fane reached the bottom of the staircase, turning left as his boot touched the cobbled street.
Elves scattered all about him, not one seeming to be running in any particular direction.
Panic was a strange thing. An instinct wrought from the need for self-preservation but developed to such a degree as to decrease the likelihood of achieving that same need.
He observed an elf trip over a dropped sack and scramble across the ground, screaming as others trampled her.
It was panic that prevented the logical action of curling and protecting her head, of rolling from the path.
The panic for preservation quickly becomes the cause of annihilation.
He observed only for a few moments before reaching for the Spark and encasing the woman in a sphere of Air.
One elf was sprinting with such reckless abandon that he smashed his face into the protective shield, his nose bursting in blood as he proceeded to roll down the steps towards the hill’s base. Panic at its finest.
Fane stepped through the shield of Air and dropped to a knee beside the elf, those in flight flowing around them.
“Are you hurt?” he said, reaching out a hand.
She took one look at him and slapped his hand away, shuffling into the back of the shield. In fairness to her, he wasn’t wearing his Arcarian robes and looked far more like a cutpurse – which wasn’t too far from the truth at that particular moment.
“Take a breath. Surely my face doesn’t scare you that much.” Fane pulled down his hood, looking into her eyes. “I am Fane Mortem, Arcarian of The Order. I mean you no harm.”
For a brief moment, her gaze softened, and she stared back at him with a look of relief in her eyes. But in a heartbeat, that relief turned to terror, and she screamed like a doe caught in a trap, dragonfire reflecting in her eyes.
Fane grabbed her shoulders and opened himself fully to the Spark.
He pushed threads of Air, Fire, and Spirit into the shield he’d erected over the elf and surged it outwards.
The world seemed to blaze like the heart of a sun, and when Fane looked up, he saw fire crashing over the ward, a waterfall of molten death smashing down over a force unseen.
About him, he saw elves staring up in wonder at the sight, their faces illuminated by the raging flames. Though not all looked up. Many stared at him, pressing their hands to their chests and whispering prayers of thanks.
The flames lasted but a few heartbeats as the dragon swept overhead, a score of smaller creatures snapping at it and spitting.
Fane released the ward, and a screech sounded in the sky.
He followed the sound only to see a creature careen through the air, smash into the white stone wall ahead of him, and drop into the cobbled street.
A strange stillness grasped hold of the world as every soul stared at the creature that lay in a heap, the fires and sounds of battle still raging in the city beyond.
It was an odd thing, no larger than a horse, with wings like a bat’s and long gangly limbs all wired and muscled.
Its skin was a mixture of thin scales and leathered hide, while membranous frills supported by cartilaginous spines lined its body.
Its skull was dished and tapered, a twin pair of spikes jutting from its chin.
It lay there, still as a mountain, for all of two heartbeats.
But just as the elves settled around it, the creature shifted, its winged forelimbs lifting and slapping back down against the stone.
Its eyes flickered open, gaze lingering on the souls gathered around it.
And then that strange stillness was shattered as it unleashed a violent, blood-wrenching shriek.
The two spikes on its chin parted, splitting its jaw in twain and revealing a second pair of inner jaws.
Fane cycled through his readings in his mind, settling on an illustration in Claw, Tooth, and Fang by Vace Entura.
“A Veyak,” Fane whispered to himself, all the while watching as the creature rose onto its hind legs.
The creature’s jaws shivered as it hissed at the elves around it, a series of clicks emanating from its throat. Fane watched in earnest as the thing took stock of the world, of the elves frozen in place from fear.
All it took was one movement, one sharp sound as an elf fell backwards over a shattered pot, and all realms of madness broke loose.
The creature swiped with a winged forelimb and ripped open an elf’s face, then brought that same clawed limb back and tore through another elf’s belly, intestines and innards spilling into the street.
It snapped its head around, then spat a glob of shimmering clear liquid into a third elf’s face.
The scream that left that elf’s throat was such that he could feel the pain shivering across his own skin.
That single scream turned into many as the elf staggered forwards, and the skin on her face melted like candle wax, blood flowing through her fingers as she desperately tried to peel the viscous spit from her face.
Smoke rose as skin sizzled, and the elf dropped to her knees, the flesh of her fingers and hands sloughing from her bones.
Fane bounded to the elf’s side, once more summoning threads of Spirit, Fire, Earth, and Water to do his bidding. He weaved the threads through the elf’s skin, trying desperately to stop the melting
Globs of clear fluid frothed as they melted into the elf’s flesh like magma, devouring whatever they touched, skin, cloth, bone, all sizzling and smoking.
He could feel the elf’s heartbeat slowing, feel her body relinquishing the fight for life. There was nothing he could do. As the light faded from her eyes, Fane whispered, “M? Heraya tael du ia’sine ael.”
May Heraya take you into her arms.
A series of clicks sounded to his left.
Fane drew a short breath, dropped his hand to the sword at his hip, and leapt to his feet.
In one fluid motion, he ducked below the swipe of a clawed forelimb and slid his sword from its scabbard.
As the claw tore into a vicious backswing, he caught it with threads of Air, twisted, and snapped, his fingers curling into a fist as the creature’s bone shattered in a spray of violet blood.
Violet. He wondered the cause of such a colour.
The Veyak shrieked, reeling backwards, its blood seeming almost luminescent as it dropped from its shattered wing, setting a sizzle in the stone where it landed.
A sensation rippled through Fane’s threads of Air, a vibration coming from the creature’s throat. Fane took a moment to watch its lower jaw split, mandibles opening. Four glands pulsed within the creature’s maw, swelling.
That sensation flexed again, and Fane took the moment to step backwards as a spurt of viscous liquid launched from the creature’s mouth and covered three more of the panicked elves. Screams ensued, followed by melting flesh and smoking bone.
Fane threw himself forward, inside the creature’s reach.
He plunged his sword into the beast’s chest, released his grip, then slammed it down with threads of Spirit, opening it from sternum to groin.
As its innards slid onto the stone, Fane took those same threads of Air and forged them into a disk as fine as a sword’s edge, and up it went, clean through the creature’s neck.
Sharpened air sliced through scales and meat and bone, and the beast’s body dropped in two parts.
Fane knelt beside it, hovering his hand over the smoking violet blood that ate away at the white stone.
“You’re a fascinating thing, aren’t you?” Fane whispered. The blood didn’t seem anywhere near as potent as the venom it spewed, but it would still burn flesh to the bone. If he’d brought phials with him he would have collected some for study.
As he knelt over the body, elves gathered about him, staring down at the decapitated creature.
“Arcarian.” One of the elves stepped forwards, a tremble in his voice. “The Order has sent reinforcements?”
Examining the creature one last time, Fane stood, adjusting his cloak as he did.
“This city will be nothing but ash and rubble by the time The Order sends aid.” Fane frowned as he looked down at the creature and realised his sword was still bedded in its chest, the blood eating away at the steel.
He had liked that sword. “I’m afraid help is not coming.
At least not soon enough to make a difference for you and yours. ”