The tide of unmaking, p.10
The Tide of Unmaking, page 10
part #3 of Berinfell Prophesies Series
“Order, sssth!” General Secretary Sardon commanded, the snake-like appendages flicking from his muscular jowls, one of many peculiarities that marked the Saer race. “Sss-come to order.”
“Did yu hear, that?” Jimmy whispered to Tommy. “Sounded like he said ‘Scum to order.’”
“Should I be offended?” Tommy whispered back.
“Present company excepted,” Kat spoke into both their minds.
Goldarrow’s green-eyed glare fell upon the Lords like fiery searchlights.
Still snickering, Tommy looked away. His eyes traveled clockwise past the other lords. The Conclave of Nations had met four times since its inception in 1413, and not always with all six Highborn races in attendance, as they were this day. But Tommy still found it hard to keep from staring. It was like being in the cantina scene of Star Wars. The beings of Allyra were that diverse.
Seated between two pairs of his red-clad Nemic Priests, Vault Minister Ghrell leaned to the side and thoughtfully rested his chin on the bony hinge of his folded wing. The Nemic were fliers, lean and strong, and absolutely cunning. In a game of chess against a Nemic child, Tommy found his game lost after one errant move, his third move overall. The Nemic were fiercely independent, however, and it was something of a miracle to have Ghrell agree to join the Conclave at all.
Migmar and the Gnomes sat beside the Gwar representatives, followed by the Saer Magistrate, Forlarn, and his kinsman at the podium, Sardon.
The General Secretary rapped all six bony knuckles of his gnarled hand across the edge of the podium. The staccato sound silenced the room. Many watchful eyes gleamed around the massive, black granite table.
“This emergency Conclave gathering isssth hereby commenced,” Sardon announced. Two lips of his triangular mouth parted vertically like curtains, with a horizontal third lip undulating below. Most Saer speech, though clear, came with an odd drawl. And Sardon’s inflection was more pronounced than most.
“Thisssth meeting,” he said, “there had better be good reason, ah, for it.” His enormous red eyes were deeply hooded by a thick overhang of brow that arched down sharply above his nose. Even so, his goat-like, rectangular pupils were quite visible and, for the moment, locked onto the Lords of Berinfell.
On Sardon’s left, the Gwar Overlord Bengfist laughed, a slow grumbling sound like a roll of distant thunder. The slabs of muscle on his upper body—neck, shoulders, arms—shook like quaking boulders.
“Goldarrow, Guardmaster of Berinfell to be recognized,” Goldarrow said as she stood.
Sardon waved a hand dismissively. “The Conclave recognizssth Goldarrow, of coursssth.”
“Thank you, General Secretary,” Goldarrow said. Her voice, at first polite, became stern. “I think you all know the Elves of Berinfell well enough to be certain we would not have called you here for any reason beyond beckoning tragedy. For those who have not had history with the Taladrim, allow me to introduce Princess Taeva, as well as the kingdom’s two surviving royal Prefexes, Louwin Siir and Celandria Ryeot.”
“Surviving?” Bengfist, the Gwar representative, blurted out. “An unfortunate word. What has befallen Taladair?”
Goldarrow nodded solemnly. “Princess Taeva will tell you of her plight.”
“The Conclave recognizssth Taeva, Princesssth of the Taladrim.” Sardon bowed his head once.
Taeva stood, took a deep breath, and told her story.
Tommy listened to, or rather, watched Taeva’s delivery. She was much more dramatic with her story this time. Her body rocked and swayed. Her hair fell out from its braided captivity and swung free. And the way she moved her arms as she spoke…it was as if she were weaving images out of thin air.
Tommy felt a touch dizzy as he listened. The small hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. And his mind wandered once more among the scenes conjured by Taeva’s words.
When Taeva finished speaking at last, some sudden sound startled Tommy. He looked away from the Princess and briefly made eye contact with Kat. He looked quickly away feeling somewhat guilty, though he could not discern why.
The sound had been the Gwar leader, Bengfist. He banged his ham-sized fist once more on the table. “Outrage! Outrage!” he growled. “Why do we sit here like dotards, sleepy and content, waiting as desperate minutes pass? To war, I say! To war!”
“Overlord!” Sardon shrilled his voice to be heard over the swirling murmurs. “Overlord Bengfist, pleasssth! This is the second time you’ve addresssth the Conclave without, ah, formal recognition.”
“But if a new Spider King has risen,” the Gwar rejoined, “we must not waste time with parliamentary procedure. We must swing our hammers and dash his brain—”
“Whether there is truly a new Spider King, issth for the Conclave to consider,” Sardon replied. “But thissth Conclave exists to champion wisdom over rash decisionssth.”
“Lord Felheart Silvertree, to be recognized,” Tommy said, using his formal name.
“Ssspeak on, Berinfell Lord,” Sardon said, his knuckles clacking on the podium.
Tommy nodded. “As you all know, we fought the Spider King at Vesper Crag, but what you may not know is how he came to be what he was. He was bitten.”
The murmurs arose again.
“Yes, he was bitten,” Tommy said. “I don’t understand it all, but by some enchantment, alchemy, or chemistry, he had turned his wife—his own wife—into some kind deformed creature. He used her to begin his race of Warspiders. When her chance finally came, she bit him…drove her venom into him. She meant to kill him, I think, but instead, her venom transformed him, made him ten times more powerful than before. If the Spider King somehow bit the Drefid Asp, I can only dread the might he could now wield.”
“But the Ssspider King was ssslain,” Sardon replied. “Bengfist can confirm thissth.”
“My people pulled his half-rotted corpse out of the rubble of Vesper Crag,” Bengfist said. He clenched his massive fist so hard the knuckles crackled. “Still, he was a practitioner of the Dark Arts. That is the alchemy to which Lord Felheart spoke. The Spider King learned the Dark Arts from his dealings with the Drefid clans. Logic and history could dictate the truth of Princess Taeva’s tale.”
“Are you suggesssting, then,” Sardon said, his red eyes narrowed to slits, “that the Spider King managed to raise himssself from the dead and then, ah, bit the Drefid Asp?” He crossed his long, gangly arms and sneered. Even the serpentine appendages crossed over his chin.
Bengfist shrugged.
One of the Nemic Priests became animated and leaned in toward Vault Minister Ghrell. “You see,” the Priest whispered. “The Drefids are the ones meddling with the Dark Arts.”
Ghrell’s deep breath nearly doubled the size of his chest, but he said nothing. He turned and assaulted the Priest with such a glare that would raze a forest to the ground.
Tommy looked to Goldarrow, but had no answer for Sardon’s question.
“Are you all forgetting?” Taeva said. “I was there! I saw Asp, standing arrogantly in my father’s own courtyard. I saw what he could do! Have I come all this way to lie? If so, to what end? My people are dying…we need your help!”
“Perhaps,” Sardon said. “Perhaps we must all, ah, come to your aid. But, there seemsssth something quite fantastical in your ssstory. How can we, in good conscience, release Conclave forces without confirmation?”
All at once, the room exploded.
“Would you see the Taladrim wiped from the face of Allyra?” Taeva shrieked.
Bengfist was on his feet now. “My race was enslaved!” he bellowed, “because we failed…to…act! March, I say! March for blood!”
Even Migmar’s voice, high and light as it was, managed to mix into the chaos. “March us not into war!” he cried. “Unless wills it does the Conclave or attack does the Spider King to the Moonchildren!”
“People of the Conclave!” Goldarrow shouted. “This solves nothing! Take your seats!”
“Order!” Sardon shrilled. “Order thisssth minute!”
“This is getting bad,” Kat spoke into Tommy’s mind. “Should I have Johnny flare up?”
Tommy was about to answer, when a voice louder than any, clear and resonant like a hammered bell, called out, “ENOUGH!”
Vault Minister Ghrell of the Nemic flapped his wings once, a sound like a cracking whip. In a flash, he tossed a handful of metallic marbles out onto the table. They rolled loudly a few feet and came to a stop in a circular pattern at the exact center of the table.
Then, with his other hand, Ghrell tossed dozens of shimmering fingers of sharp metal high into the air above the table.
BLADES! The thought registered in Tommy’s mind too slowly. He barely had his hand on the hilt of his rychesword, when the Nemic’s blade weapons dove down out of the air. They fell fast, as if some army of archers clung to the domed ceiling and shot them down from their bows. With loud thwacks and cracks, the blades pelted the table, sinking deep into the hard wood.
Though the table had been scored with enough blades to kill everyone in the room, not a single one of them had come dangerously close to any of the Conclave members. It had been a demonstration only. A demonstration that left the room utterly silent.
“There,” Vault Minister Ghrell said, “now that you have all come back to your senses, I motion that we stop arguing and vote.”
“Second!” Migmar yelped.
General Secretary Sardon snorted. “Thank you, Minister Ghrell, for your timely sssuggestion. But, in the future, would you find some other way, ah, than a fussilade barrage, perhaps?”
Ghrell folded his wings and took his seat. His expression was grim as always, but he seemed satisfied somehow.
Sardon held both hands spread open, and they looked like twin tree canopies in winter, gnarled and barren. “Very well,” he said, scowling. “We will vote. Let all—”
Just then, an Elven flet soldier entered the chamber. She made no effort to hide her presence from the group but rounded the table straight to Goldarrow. She whispered in the Guardmaster’s ears for several long moments and then came to Tommy.
Tommy could scarcely believe what he was hearing. “Are you certain?” he asked.
“One cannot mistake something of this magnitude,” the flet soldier replied.
“What isssth the nature of thissth interruption?” Sardon demanded.
“I apologize, General Secretary,” Tommy said. “But our scouts have returned from Taladair at last.”
The room erupted in conversation, but Ghrell cleared his throat and all noise vanished.
“What word, ah, from Taladair?” Sardon asked.
Tommy glanced at Taeva and took a deep breath. “Taladair is in ruins,” Tommy said. “It is as the Princess described: untold thousands dead, but—”
The crowd drowned Tommy out.
“But listen!” Tommy called out, summoning a deeper tone that he rarely used. “Listen to me! Our scouts report all that Princess Taeva told us; in fact Asp has somehow caused the Dollniant Sea to overflow the walls. The city is flooded out. Three legions of enemy soldiers remain there, picking at the flotsam like sea birds.”
“We are too late!” Taeva cried.
“No,” Bengfist said. “There is still time to avenge!”
“Vote,” Sardon said. “If you call the Conclave Legions to Taladair to assault this new threat and rescue the survivors, if any exist, then place your weapon upon the table, blade facing the table center. If you refuse this call, place your weapon upon the table with the haft toward the center.”
Tommy looked to Goldarrow. She nodded, so Tommy drew his rychesword and put it on the table. He turned it until the curved blade pointed toward center.
Taeva did the same with one of her daggers. Bengfist put his waraxe facing center as well.
The younger Nemic Priest again tried to speak to his people’s ruler. “There, Vault Minister, all the evidence you could want that it was the Drefids, not the El—”
“Silence, Dhrex!” the Vault Minister commanded. “You are an upstart, barely past Allyran Rites. Things are not always as they appear.”
Ghrell’s flexed his wings and drew a wide-bladed broadsword. He placed it haft to center. Saer Magistrate Forlarn placed his mace the same way. And, to Tommy’s exasperation, Migmar placed his thwack hammer, haft to center.
“The vote is tied,” Sardon said. “The Conclave has ssspoken its will. As duly commissioned General Secretary, I cast the deciding vote.” He place a long, gnarled stave on the table.
“Which end is which?” Kat whispered into Tommy’s mind.
No clue, Tommy thought back. It was maddening.
“My vote settles the dispute,” Sardon said. “Conclave forces will not go to war. We are adjourned.”
There were cheers from some parts of the room, angry complaints from others.
Tommy gathered the Elves, Taeva, and her attendants. “Cowards,” he whispered.
“Did you expect any different?” Goldarrow asked.
“From Migmar,” Tommy said. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
“But he lost a lot of his people in Vesper Crag,” Autumn said. “Maybe half their population.”
Tommy shook his head. “I know, I know, but still.”
“Is that it?” Taeva asked, her voice trembling. “With a simple raising of hands, my people are doomed?”
“No, that’s not it,” Goldarrow said. “We have another option, but we can’t talk here.”
11: Sport of Champions
DECORATED WARFLY PILOT CAERFASZ SOARED unseen, high above the Texas stadium where the humans watched their precious professional football team play.
No ground or air radar would report the Warfly’s presence. There would be no military response, at least not until it was far too late. The Gnomes’ invisibility paste had seen to that.
It’s all up to the Drefids, Caerfasz thought. Asp better be right about this. As a high ranking Gwar soldier, Caerfasz was more than a little distrustful of the mysterious Drefids and their Dark Arts. Bewildering and powerful, the Drefids—Asp especially—could do things beyond the reach of the former Spider King. But their power was volatile, mercurial even. What worked once might not work again or in the same way. One error in the formula, one slip of the tongue, could mean the difference between immobilizing an enemy or simply making him itchy.
No, Caerfasz liked things he could count on each and every time. Like the heavy warhammer slung on his back. It was guaranteed to break the spine of his foe. Or the narcan powder held in massive pouches on each of the Warfly’s legs. Now, that’s the stuff, Caerfasz thought. Guaranteed to send any creature into a deep, helpless sleep.
Caerfasz banked his Warfly in a wide arc and gazed down at all the humans gathered in the stadium for their game. They looked like ants. Ninety-thousand ants, content in their trap and completely unaware of the doom that was coming.
But the Drefids needed to come through. These humans had advanced communication technology. Not only were ninety-thousand spectators watching the game in person, but untold millions could watch on light boxes all over the world. The Drefids were tasked with knocking out this communications system. Each and every one of them. No one outside of the stadium could witness what was about to happen. All it would take was one missed communication stream to get to the outside world.
And then, the military would be alerted. Their response would be swift and severe. Caerfasz doubted that Lord Asp would appreciate a problem of this magnitude at this stage of his plan. That would mean my head, he thought ruefully.
A red flash down below. The signal! Caerfasz exulted. He watched as there were five more flashes in sequence.
“It is done!” Caerfasz cried aloud. He put his warhorn to his lips and winded a mighty blast. His squadron of Warflies would respond by spreading out into their oft-practiced attack formation.
They couldn’t see each other, but they knew where they would each be at any given time in the maneuver. Caerfasz had seen to that. He’d had to kill eighteen good pilots for mistakes they’d made while training. But it was worth it. There would be no mistakes today.
Caerfasz took his Warfly into a shallow dive. He heard the crowd roar below. Apparently something exciting had happened in the humans’ mundane little sport. Nothing compared to what I am about to do.
Caerfasz and his other pilots leveled out twenty feet above the playing field. Just before they raced over the players’ heads, each pilot reached beneath their Warfly’s neck armor and stroked the creature’s flesh. Each Warfly then scratched two of its limbs together, breaking apart the narcan powder deposits. It released a fine white mist that fell more gossamer than snow.
One of the football players had apparently done something heroic, Caerfasz thought, for this player…he was leaping, spinning, shaking his hips and rear end in some strange ceremonial dance.
But then, the player went as limp as a boned fish and fell to the ground in a heap of pads and muscle. Other players began to collapse as well, some in mid-step. The coaches and players on the sidelines looked on in horror. They rushed onto the field to help their fallen comrades, only to stagger and drop themselves.
A dark hush fell on the thousands and thousands in the stands. The stadium announcer broke the silence. “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats. Medical personnel are—” A deafening blast of feedback cut him off.
Screams and panic broke out. People clambered over their seats, trying desperately to find a clear path to the aisle stairs. The pushing and shoving reached lethal intensity. A man was knocked backward over a rail and fell into the causeway, dead. In the most crowded places, people fell; others trampled them.
“Narfak!” Caerfasz cursed. Letting the merchandise destroy itself was not part of the plan.
The Gwar Commander took decisive action. He loosed two short blasts on his warhorn, so that his team would move immediately to the second phase. He and his squadron of Warflies took their potent narcan payload and spiraled up over the stadium seats.
