The Devastation #10

He was drowning, Owin likewise, and the shadowy ropes were already tangling about his arms. Narg, overcome by fear and the helplessness of knowing he could not win, felt himself dying, and for a moment it reminded him of standing upon the sand, in that final contest before he became king.

The dampness with which he gripped his sword, the heat of the helmet upon his head boiling in the sun, and the distant cawing of the ravens.

He relived the fear, his face drenched, his heart palpitating, and refusing to lose himself in that inner darkness, he closed his eyes.

He lowered his arm and grasped the blade of Santiana with his bare hand.

Owin beheld his liege, and the devotion he beheld therein gave him fortitude to bear the grievous agony.

His breast felt as though it would cleave asunder to admit the malice.

It would have been easy to yield. Moreover, to conjure such might without rendering fair exchange served only to consume his soul.

The conflagration of good and evil raged within him, and, perceiving this, he conceived a notion.

'Odín!' roared Narg, raising his eyes to the sky. 'Father, I need you!'

The entreaty was sincere and not a last resort.

Had Arwel or Kuopio or any of his warriors been present, he would have implored their aid, for he had learnt to do so.

Trusting that it would succeed, he murmured to himself, as he thrust the hilt towards Owin’s breast and gripped the blade with his hand until it bled: 'Tkäjäbkom nimunshe' [4] .

It came to pass three minutes before midnight, though they did not know it.

The murder of ravens answered their master’s summons.

As if they had been circling overhead in anticipation, or had been sent from some rent in the veil.

They plunged in free fall towards the bubble.

Narg opened his eyes when, in the darkness, the first feather of the hundred falling upon them touched his shoulder.

He felt the same guilt for their deaths as he did for his men fallen in battle and for his name.

The cawing was still there, somewhere in the forest; they could hear it amidst the wails of the souls, the crackling of the flames and the howling of the wind.

King and sorcerer raised their heads and beheld one feather in particular that defied the darkness, camouflaged amongst its peers; white, it swayed, cradled by a magical void as it dodged the snares that sought to trap it.

Never in his life had Owin been so certain of what he was about to do.

Whatever was to be, would be. He redirected the light from his chest into a single thin thread.

It wound itself about his hand, which gripped the blade of Santiana, and as it began to bleed, he prayed: 'Ei käähkä eitä siehkä.

Jköërrëdkohsa sahdoom cumëälisa, uhjdäärajmem valoska ja dorckëdësska' [5] .

The beast, in its endeavour to stay his hand, became entangled within the violet threads upon the silver blade.

It was the instant that the immaculate feather touched the blade of Santiana—stained by the blood of the wolf, the raven and the beast, bathed in darkness and divinity—that, with a flash of amethyst, it came to pass.

In the final blink, ere being blinded by the flash in which the light emitted by Owin died, Narg noted how Santiana, his sacred sword—the one his beloved wife had given him so that in its polished reflection he might see the good on his path—mutated until it became an intense, opaque black.

A howl rose above all other sounds. It did not come from any of his wolves, but from the very centre of the dark mass surrounding them. As if being burned, the purple tentacles began to retract.

Narg was tempted to relinquish Santiana, appalled by what he had become, until he perceived that with her he could sever the threads that held them captive. He shook his body to free himself, from right to left; he could see nothing, yet he felt them yielding to the black edge.

With two steps backwards, he managed to move away from Owin.

The light in his chest had gone out; the last remnant of his soul of light had been consumed in that spell.

The sparks emitted by Santiana as she cut the bonds, like flashes of light, illuminated the heart of the bubble, and Narg was about to celebrate because the shadows surrounding Owin were no longer there.

He kept swinging, even though most of his strength had been exhausted, whilst Owin remained motionless, on the verge of fainting. Then, alerted by a damp, scorching vapour, they turned at the same time.

A few paces away the shadow had regained its form, and this time it resembled a gigantic wolf standing upon all fours, some six times taller than the largest ever beheld upon Earth; and though it was still wrought of shadow, its fangs were fire.

Behind the beast, Narg could just make out Maed’s silver eyes as he rose to his feet.

They would attack together. He readied Santiana and, with his back to Owin, ran towards the shadow.

He believed he no longer needed to slay his sorcerer, that he could save him, that he could do with the darkness the same as he did with the souls he used as weapons. But that was not the case.

The beast charged towards Owin, and Narg towards it.

The black blade of his sword availed him naught.

He stood his ground, facing Maed, and when the shadows had finished passing over him, a savage blizzard swirled within the bubble.

As if drawn to its centre, the electrifying walls merged with the darkness into a dazzling mass of nocturnal light.

Narg set off again to protect Owin, but before he reached him, he was sucked into the vortex. He stretched out his arm as he rose, and, with naught else he could do, the wolf-shaped shadow devoured Owin and pierced right through the centre of his chest.

A roar of pain and a desperate cry rang out alongside the distant trumpets of Old Minister’s castle announcing midnight.

Four turns of the upper disc bathed the erstwhile white sands in gold, and the taut ropes wound the clock which, guarded by none, hung above the hearth. The empire’s king’s fortieth birthday had begun.

The Devastatio n

They leapt into the flames. As one beat the flames from the other’s burning cloak with his fists, Arwel and Cloet beheld the thick mist concealing the secrets within.

With Celtión’s lifeless body at his feet, Cloet crouched down to close her eyes and, as every hair on his body stood on end, raised his head.

There was not a single raven that night that did not heed its master’s call.

Like projectiles, ready and eager, they threw themselves upon a precise target.

One by one, they plunged into the infernal blackness that stretched up to the heavens.

Both squads gathered. Cheas’s honey-coloured eyes were glazed over, Arwel’s sky-blue ones reddened with anger and frustration, but Cloet’s bluish eyes, which seemed too large for his face, could express nothing but panic.

The bubble began to shift, and Arwel leaned forward to enter, but Cheas stayed his hand just in time as the materialised darkness began to spit out feathers and blood.

They took cover behind Tobert, who, once again, saved the night, but this time with a glass-like wall he conjured after catching one of the feathers in mid-air.

Arwel had no time to ask him who on earth he was or what he was doing there. From the walls of Old Minister, trumpets sounded. There would be twelve blasts, all of equal length, spaced two beats apart, to announce the end of the wait and the start of the king’s birthday.