The Light of Burning Shadows

FIVE

If life had ever been easy for Konowa, he couldn’t remember it. Not during his childhood, not when he commanded the first Iron Elves, and not now when he served at the pleasure of the Prince. In fact, things had taken a decidedly downward trajectory for him since, well, always. Just how far down they could go remained to be seen.

He paused in his self-pity long enough to lean over the railing of the Black Spike and vomit.

Then there was this. Konowa stared at the green waves below and wondered what it would take to drain the bloody ocean and be done with it. His stomach heaved and he vomited again. For all its power and grace and family history, the Black Spike was still a ship, and ships had the single most unfortunate attribute of having been designed to sail on water. As much as Konowa detested traveling by horseback, riding the waves was worse. After all, you could always shoot a horse.

The ship dipped into a trough between waves, then surged upward, leaving Konowa’s stomach and the last of his dinner twenty feet below. An elf, he told himself-this elf at any rate-was designed to have his feet firmly planted on the ground. Konowa was not-and experience had confirmed this many times over the years-meant to be in a saddle, up a tree, or on the water. Whenever he was, the end result usually found him flat on his back on the ground. The problem with being at sea, however, was that the ground was a hell of a long way below the waterline.

Sailcloth snapped and rigging thrummed above his head. He glanced up. What had been a breeze the last few days was now turning into a steady wind. Billowing clouds on the horizon threatened a coming storm. Captain Milceal Ervod had assured Konowa they would make safe harbor in two days at Nazalla, one of only three cities of any size along the shoreline of the Hasshugeb Expanse, before the storm came upon them.

It couldn’t come soon enough. Assaulting the seven islands had been a bloody and costly affair. Each attack served to satiate his blood lust, but he would have forgone even that for a quicker passage to the deserts. Despite the number of Her creatures he had dispatched by his hand, his anger and his frustration had only grown. For all Konowa knew, even now Her forests were growing again in the blood-soaked sand. The falling Star in the east had unleashed dormant powers across the world, although Konowa was convinced the Shadow Monarch’s hand was also involved. Since then, rumors of other Stars had rippled through the Empire and beyond, but no sightings had yet been confirmed. In a way, Konowa wasn’t sure it mattered. The damage was done. Stars or no, the very idea of change sped through the air. Call it unrest, call it the urge to be free, call it fear of the unknown-the world would never be the same again.

The Shadow Monarch haunted his sleep, though he no longer believed they were simply dreams. Things had been set in motion that were bigger than any of them. Yes, change was coming. Knowing what he did of the world, Konowa found some small comfort in that thought…and a hell of a lot of trepidation.

“Sergeant Arkhorn reporting, sir!”

Konowa turned to rest his back against the railing. The dwarf stood to attention, his caerna flapping dangerously high in the wind.

“At ease, Sergeant, for all that’s good and proper, at ease, and secure that hem.”

“Right you are, sir,” Yimt said, draping his ever-present shatterbow across his front. The back of his caerna continued to wave in the wind.

It took a moment for Konowa to realize what the dwarf had said. “Reporting, Sergeant? I don’t recall asking you to report.”

“Ah, no, not exactly, Major, but I reckoned you would soon enough so I anticipated your command. Sir. Besides, I can’t stay too long down in the hold of a ship. Makes me feel what my great-grandparents must have gone through.”

Konowa suddenly felt less sorry for himself. “So they were-”

“Slaves,” Yimt said. If there was resentment in his voice he hid it well. “Last group shipped over before the royal decree abolishing slavery. Took another fifty years, mind you, before dwarves were granted the rights of full citizens, but as me mum always said, ‘It’s a long journey for people with short legs.’”

Konowa found himself wanting to meet the mother dwarf who had raised Sergeant Yimt Arkhorn. There were so many questions he wanted to ask her.

Yimt cast a look down at his feet before returning it to Konowa. “I heard stories growing up, all dwarves do, about the conditions in the ships’ holds. Do you know the ship owners actually threw rocks and dirt down there to make the dwarves feel more at home?”

“I didn’t know that,” Konowa said. “I would have thought that might have helped a little.”

The dwarf’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his shatterbow. “They threw the rocks in after the dwarves were already chained inside. Whoever survived and dug their way out was strong enough to work. The rest would be carted out later by the survivors.”

Not for the first time Konowa questioned his service to the Empire. “I always thought my people had it the worst when the Empire brought its idea of civilization to our shores. They came primarily for the oak, looking to build more ships like this one,” Konowa said, patting the railing. His rejection long ago by the Wolf Oaks in the birthing meadow still stung. Bloody magical trees had judged him and found him unworthy of sharing their power with him. Still, looking around a ship of this size, he found himself sympathizing, a little, with the elves of the Long Watch. “A lot of Wolf Oaks were lost in their prime. Many bonded elves took their own lives. I lost an aunt and two cousins. It was indeed a dark time.”

The color in Yimt’s knuckles returned. “We all had it the worst. If you aren’t part of the Empire, you’re probably about to be, and joining don’t come easy.”

Yimt took a hand off his shatterbow and began tugging at his beard, a sign Konowa knew to mean a deep and possibly deeply disturbing thought was about to be shared.

“Something on your mind, Sergeant?”

“As it happens, Major, there is. We cleared seven islands filled with all manner of terrors. We lost a few of the boys along the way, though I suppose they ain’t all the way lost, but it amounts to the same thing. And now we’re headed to the Hasshugeb Expanse, a land that’ll cook your eyes right in their sockets, and that’s just at midmorning.”

“You’ve been there?” Konowa asked.

Yimt shrugged his shoulders. “Made port in Nazalla twenty some years ago. Never made it past the local entertainment establishments, though. Found myself in a slight disagreement with a fellow dealing cards off the bottom of the deck. One thing led to another and somehow most of his nose wound up on the floor. They’ve got some right nasty diseases in them parts, I told my commanding officer at the time.”

“Your point, Sergeant?” Konowa said. The dwarf could peel paint from a wall just by talking to it.

“My point is, some of the men now say we have two princes leading the regiment.”

Konowa stood bolt upright. “Who’s saying that?”

Yimt smiled. “Ah, you see, that’s exactly the sort of thing the Prince would say, now isn’t it? The men are concerned, Major. A Star from myths and bedtime stories turns out to be real. So does the Shadow Monarch. Extinct monsters aren’t and the lads think they’re doomed to never really die. But that ain’t what’s really bothering them.”

Konowa knew the surprise showed on his face. “It isn’t? What’s worse than all of that?”

“You,” Yimt said, looking Konowa straight in the eyes. “They need to trust in you. They need to believe that no matter what kind of hell is out there, their commanding officer will do everything he can to bring them home.”

“The Prince is-”

Yimt interrupted Konowa. “The Prince spends most of his time in his quarters with his maps and books. The lads even have a pool going on what we’re really doing going to the Hasshugeb Expanse. Three to one says we’re chasing another Star. Four to one has it we’re going after other assorted treasure for the Prince.”

“I thought you would understand,” Konowa said. “When we find the first Iron Elves, we’ll be whole. They’re the key. We have to find them before She does. With them we’ll be able to take the fight directly to the Shadow Monarch and finish this.”

The dwarf didn’t back off. “And just how, exactly, with all due respect, Major, is that supposed to happen? Near as I can tell, it’s us who are bound by the oath, not them. It’s our boys that are starting to go a bit funny in the head. Why should your elves want to join up for this? If Kritton, that miserable excuse for a soldier, was anything to go by, some of those lads might not be too happy to see you.”

Konowa turned his face to the wind and let the salt spray sting him. The pain brought him some small measure of relief. In choosing to destroy Her forest at Luuguth Jor, Konowa had given up a chance, perhaps his only chance, to break the oath that doomed all soldiers in the Iron Elves to eternal service, and perhaps something worse. By using the Shadow Monarch’s power so cunningly given to him through his father, Konowa had unwittingly done Her bidding. With every passing day, the treacherous pull She exerted grew, though whether that was Her doing or something dark and twisted within Konowa himself he did not know.

Konowa was the only one who truly saw things as they were. There was solace to be found in the fact that the soldiers currently bound by the oath were not the original Iron Elves, and Konowa clung to that thought. Even if he couldn’t explain it to Arkhorn, Konowa knew finding them would mean salvation for both. He would find his original elves and return their honor to them. Combined with the soldiers he now commanded, they would overcome any foe the Shadow Monarch sent. And when Her creatures were defeated, Konowa would lead them to the very heart of Her mountain forest and break the oath for all time, setting them all free.

“We both know,” Konowa said, “I can order these men to do whatever it takes, but I hope with your help they’ll follow me because they know I’m right, and because they trust me.”

“Well, as my dear ol’ mum is wont to say, “In for a tail, in for a dragon.’ I can keep the lads focused, for now. A little rest stop in Nazalla certainly wouldn’t go amiss either. After a few weeks floating around out here with only horror islands and nightmares about trees to keep them busy, they’re starting to lose the polish off the old crystal ball.” Yimt took a step closer to Konowa and lowered his voice an octave. “But, Major, when we do go for our stroll in the desert, I hope for all our sakes those elves of yours are there waiting.”

Yimt stepped back and sniffed the air. “You know, I think I’ve breathed enough salt out here to never need it again at the dinner table.” He stood to attention and saluted. “Evening, Major.”

“Sergeant,” Konowa said, watching the dwarf walk away.

Konowa turned back to watch the sea. The wind threatened to lift his shako off his head and he reached up and took it off, letting his black hair blow wild in the coming storm. A steely glint flickered in his eyes and a trace of frost fire sparkled in his hands. Soon, he would be reunited with the original Iron Elves. And with them, the regiment would be unstoppable.

Konowa held on to that thought as he heaved his guts over the side, cursing every drop of water in the ocean as he did. It almost made him long to be back in the forest.

Almost.