Darkin: A Journey East Page 24

  By the third night, the Dinbell had grown much larger before them. The army of Oreine and Carbal drew near to the foundation of the wall itself, and Terion called a halt to a long day’s march. The legion set about making camp for the night. It was as Adacon sat to have his dinner that he began to hear an odd, low-pitched humming noise.

  “Do you hear that sound?” he asked Slowin, who sat nearby.

  “Hmm,” Slowin replied. He stopped eating to listen intently. “Just barely, though I cannot say what it is,” Slowin said, unalarmed.

  “Strange—I think I’ll ask King Terion,” Adacon said. He jumped up from his broth near the fire and walked through the sitting company of warriors toward the front of the army. Terion was sitting with Gaiberth, Iirevale and Merol.

  “Greetings, freed slave. Adacon, isn’t it?” Terion asked.

  “Yes, King Terion. I am sorry to interrupt—but the noise I hear worries me…” Adacon said, voicing his concern.

  “That low-pitched humming?” Iirevale asked.

  “Exactly that! What is it?” Adacon asked.

  “Pay it no mind! Pay it no mind…” Merol suddenly interjected.

  “I had just noticed it a moment ago myself, dear Adacon,” Terion commented.

  “It is odd, and I have never heard such a noise before, not in all my life,” Gaiberth expressed.

  “I said pay it no mind—it’s just the tremor of battle, coming through the ground underneath the Dinbell,” Merol said.

  “Is the battle raging now?” Adacon asked.

  “Indeed—as the Feral Army comes against the wall, they are forced to divert their path west or east against its face—either up the Teeth Cliffs they must go, and meet the ambush of scattered militia, or down into the narrow valley of the Blue-Grey Mountains, where the last of the divided Erol Drunne force awaits them. You see, the wall funnels their evil numbers into the two tiny passages, and they can but trickle onward—that is why the last of the Erol Drunne militia still hangs on at all… though I fear we cannot count on that to continue much longer,” Terion explained.

  “So the wall scatters their army?” Adacon asked.

  “It does, and though the Feral Army marches into the traps of our land, they are numberless, and the Erol Drunne militia will not last without our assistance. Tomorrow we march west, up the Teeth Cliffs, to its highest ridge, where we will join their force,” Terion informed him.

  “So I can ignore the noise then—it just sounds so unnatural,” Adacon said, remembering his original concern.

  “Pay it no mind!” stormed Merol, losing his temper. Suddenly, Terion turned and slapped Merol across his face.

  “Mind your tongue in the company of your king, Merol,” Terion scolded. Merol rose up and sulked away into the night, rubbing his cheek as he went.

  “I am sorry. Merol has been in terrible spirits lately, all this has been very difficult for him—you see his family disappeared several weeks ago,” Terion told.

  “I am sorry to hear,” Adacon replied.

  “And still more strain comes to him, as he is the only Vapour of the Oreinen,” informed Terion.

  “He’s a Vapour like Krem?” Adacon asked. Suddenly, Gaiberth, Iirevale, and the king broke into laughter.

  “I wouldn’t compare him to Krem, but yes, he channels magic for good intentions, and so he is a Vapour,” Terion explained.

  “Alright, I guess I should trust his wisdom about the noise then,” Adacon said, trailing off with a noticeable trace of doubt.

  “Trust me, if not him, Adacon. Go to rest, for I will keep our men here only as long as I deem it completely safe to do so. I’ll see you in the morning when we travel west, up the Teeth Cliffs, and into battle together,” Terion smiled.

  “Good night,” Adacon replied, and he turned to retrace his steps toward Slowin and his cooling broth.

  * * *

  The night wore on, and no one stayed up very late, as the coming day brought with it the first sure chance of combat. Adacon slept by Calan’s side, and before long Falen was standing over them, blowing steam at them from his nostrils.

  “Time to get up, young lovers. Today we restore the peace,” Falen roared at them.

  “Falen… ugh, you don’t have to be so loud,” Adacon moaned. Calan and he stood up, stretching under the freshly risen sun.

  “The gnome put me up to it. Said if I startled you, he’d show me the secret entrance to Palailia,” Falen admitted.

  “Joke’s on you, dear drake!” Remtall laughed from afar, and he proceeded to tell Falen that he truly knew nothing of any secret entrance to Palailia.

  “I’ll show you whom the joke’s on,” Falen playfully returned, and Falen blew a great gust of wind at Remtall. The gnome was tossed through air for a second before tumbling into some nearby elves.

  “Egh, sorry about that—pay me no mind,” Remtall apologized to the elves he’d bowled over. He brushed himself off and walked away, though the elves didn’t seem to reciprocate the humor, and they scowled at the unkempt gnome as he went.

  “The noise—it’s grown louder,” Adacon immediately noticed as he became fully awake.

  “There’s more to worry about right now than a noise, Adacon,” Slowin reminded him, and Adacon tried to take his mind off the humming sound. They ate a brief breakfast then broke camp to assemble before Terion and Gaiberth once more. This time Gaiberth spoke to them in the early morning sun:

  “Our scouts have given us word that the Erol Drunne militia is almost defeated. They await our numbers in the hope of renewing the fight. They tell us that they have seen no end to the line of trolls, or Gazaran—that just as each new band is destroyed, one from behind replaces it,” Gaiberth relayed.

  “Gaiberth means not to frighten you—he means only to prepare you for the truth of this war,” Terion interjected. “Many of us will never return to our beloved city of Oreine after this war is ended—yet if we choose not to fight, there will be no such home to speak of.”

  To Adacon’s surprise, the army cheered fearlessly in response to the grim news.

  “Has anyone seen Merol? He did not return last night after receiving—discipline,” the king asked while he still had everyone’s attention. The whole troop silenced, looking at one another, murmuring. Many shrugged their shoulders, but none knew the whereabouts of Merol.

  “It is no matter then. We march now to the Teeth Cliffs, with or without him,” said Terion. He led the army up a trail that ran between the edge of the Carbal Jungle and the start of the Teeth Cliffs. At that moment, Adacon realized that the humming he had been ignoring had grown louder; the volume of the sound grew sharply, peaking in a painful cracking noise. Panicked, the entire troop covered their ears. Adacon looked up in the direction from which the cracking had sounded: to his horror, a gigantic portion of stone near the top of the Dinbell Wall was shattering. Dark lines zigzagged across the grey rock, spreading out like a spider-web. A piece came free, toppled off, rotating through the air down to where they stood.

  “Run!” shouted Adacon as the first boulder landed with a thunderous tremor directly behind King Terion, who narrowly escaped being crushed to death.

  “At a sprint men—sprint!” shouted the king. The whole company began running from the crumbling wall, scrambling toward the steep trail that led to the Teeth Cliffs. Many in the party panicked as they fled underneath the stone rain, and the once uniform line of the troop fragmented.

  “Room for two!” said Falen amidst the frenzy, just as another piece of the great wall came crashing down nearby. “Three if one is a gnome.”

  “Adacon and Calan, get on him,” Slowin commanded. For a moment Adacon froze, not sure what to do, hesitant to abandon the rest of the warriors. “Now!” Slowin ferociously roared. Adacon pulled Calan close and they jumped on Falen, who had bowed his back for them. Just as they hopped on, Remtall, who had been nearby, bounded on as well, slamming against Calan’s back. Falen took off immediately, and with great speed they shot up into the sky. Adacon
’s vision leveled with the crumbling wall, and he could see hairline fractures running its length. He knew the humming noise had to have been a spell of Aulterion’s, slowly working to collapse the great wall. Down below, the funneling line of elves and dwarves could be seen hurrying up the trail toward the cliffs, narrowly escaping boulders that toppled from the Dinbell.

  “I can’t believe they’re destroying it,” Calan said. Adacon continued to look out at the crumbling wall, in awe of the black throng that struggled behind it. Falen took them high above even the tip, and they could see everything on either side of the failing Dinbell; it was the most horrendous thing they had ever witnessed: on the opposite side of the wall writhed an endless army of near-black, stretching into the distance as far as could be seen. The army of trolls was a throbbing sea of arms, legs, torsos and sun-glinting armor and blades. Interspersed throughout the dark mob of trolls were shiny golden specks—warpedes—weaving through the dense Feral army, trying to force their way forward, left or right, away from where the Dinbell brought their path south to a halt. Most shocking to behold was an enormous bubble of shiny film rising as if an island in the north plain, isolated; beneath the film was a patch of green grass, stark against the frenzied black mass that surrounded it. The film of energy encased a single man, standing nearly a league from the chaos unfolding at the wall. From within the translucent blue-gold bubble, a tremendous stream of light was issuing forth in rolling waves. Adacon froze, something clicked; he placed the low humming noise as coming from the direction of the streaming light. The energy was shooting out from the man, through the shiny bubble’s film, high up into the sky, then colliding into the top of the northern face of the Dinbell Wall, precisely where the wall was cracking, falling piece by piece to the earth far below.

  “Aulterion!” Adacon screamed.

  “Let me loose, foul drake, so that I can get down there and fight!” roared Remtall. “Quickly, before I jump!” Adacon did not doubt the gnome’s threat.

  “Fair enough,” Falen replied. He pointed his nose toward the ground and dove, taking them toward the Erol Drunne militia who defended the cliffs. Behind the militia, Adacon saw Slowin marching forward at great speed with Terion’s army, trying to reach the militia.

  “Coming in fast—be ready,” Falen instructed. He descended rapidly to where the Erol Drunne militia fought. Adacon reeled as the figures below enlarged. The drake spun to avoid a shower of arrows, heaved up, and then dove toward solid ground once again.

  “Erguile!” Adacon shouted.

  “What?” Remtall said in shock.

  “Look there,” Adacon pointed. Sure enough, Erguile was charging back and forth atop Weakhoof, thrusting his sword in every direction, slaying trolls wherever they approached.

  “And Great Gaigas, there’s Flaer!” Remtall cheered, nearly falling off the turbulent dragon. A dreadful excitement for battle filled Adacon as he trained his eyes to where Remtall pointed, and just as Erguile was below them battling, so was Flaer: he was forging a path through the Feral army using the Brigun Autilus, alone and on foot, cutting his way past endless trolls, directly toward where Aulterion stood inside his magic field of blue-gold.

  “He’s mad—he marches alone to Aulterion!” Adacon exclaimed. Calan watched in awe, continuously glancing backward to make sure her brother Iirevale was safe. In the distance a great burst of scarlet light exploded around Flaer, and Adacon knew that the Brigun Autilus was laying waste to all who stood in its path.

  “Look!” Remtall pointed again, and Adacon saw a golden warpede barreling for Flaer. “It’s coming for him.” Adacon choked when he tried to yell, knowing they were too far away to help, or even shout a warning. Suddenly, Flaer turned to encounter the warpede, as if he had sensed its coming. The Gazaran attempted to clamp down on him, rising and slamming down in one motion. In a brilliant spark of light, visible even from atop Falen so far away, Adacon and Remtall witnessed the warpede go hurtling through the sky in the opposite direction of Flaer, hit the earth and roll over and over, plowing into the earth several rows of trolls that had been marching in its wake.

  “One for Flaer!” Adacon cheered. Remtall withdrew his blade with a smile as Falen landed on a calm patch of the Teeth Cliffs. Adacon and Calan mimicked Remtall, drawing their swords.

  “Falen, please protect her,” Adacon asked.

  “On my honor as a friend of Krem’s,” Falen replied. Adacon turned, kissed Calan.

  “Come on,” Remtall commanded, “No time for sentiment.”

  “Stay close to Falen, don’t enter the fray—please—I must go aid my friends—I will return,” Adacon said, embracing her quickly.

  “On without you then,” Remtall said, impatient. He rushed ahead to the battle that waited around the corner, where the trailhead led down to the Erol Drunne militia.

  “I love you Adacon,” Calan said softly, her eyes welling with tears.

  “And I love you,” he responded, unsure if he’d ever get the chance to say it again. Adacon leaned close, kissing her until Falen shooed him off.

  “Go and fight, your friends require you. Know that Falen Firewind protects your love. Now run!” Falen commanded, and Adacon did as he was told.

  “Remtall!” Adacon cried, catching up to the gnome. They were both at the fringe of the foray.

  “Come lad—die or lay waste,” Remtall said as he charged. Together they plunged into the heart of battle. Adacon ran alongside an Erol Drunne fighter, a human.

  “Glad to have you,” said the fighter as a Feral troll rushed them.

  “More on the way—an army of dwarves and elves,” Adacon replied, positioning his sword to help slay the incoming troll.

  “Couldn’t be happier to hear that…” grunted the fighter. Before the troll could reach them, Remtall jumped impossibly high, over both of them, and stood face to face with the troll.

  “Sweet Gaigas,” shouted the fighter as Remtall smote the troll, gouging its eye with a flurry of stabs.

  “No time to be idle,” Remtall chanted, and he pressed deeper into the combat, Adacon trailing him. They fought their way through several more trolls, and Adacon sensed he was fighting again as if possessed of a strange deadliness, like when he had escaped the farm. Briefly, in the heat of combat, Adacon wondered whether unseen Vapoury had aided him in battle then, and whether it still did so now. Methodically, Remtall and Adacon sliced through troll after troll, fighting along the front line of the Erol Drunne militia. Looking behind to the top of the cliff from which they had descended, Adacon saw a yellow fire swelling, heard a chorus of screams; he knew then that Falen was doing his part. Turning back, he saw a troll cut down a nearby Erol Drunne fighter. The demonic beast jumped from its prey to the next, catching Adacon off guard. The Troll’s feral blade came down with a crushing blow on Adacon’s left forearm. Instantly, Adacon dropped his wooden shield and his arm went limp, dangling at his side, useless from the blow. Blood trickled down and dripped from his fingers.

  “Cough on my—” wailed Remtall, rushing to the aid of Adacon, “—dagger!” Remtall jumped high, and while the troll was readying its next strike, the gnome’s blade thrusted deep into the troll’s throat, causing it to stumble and roll down a steep incline, clearing more trolls in the process.

  “You alright?” Remtall asked, frantically examining his friend in a brief lull of combat.

  “Just my left arm, I’ll be fine, can still use my sword,” Adacon grunted, clearly in pain. His left arm remained limp at his side. He looked at a dead troll on the ground, staring lifelessly up from a pool of muck-blood, and took in its sickly features: they didn’t look like trolls at all up close, or what he’d seen of trolls in books—they all looked deformed, oozing rancid pus, the same way Bulkog had atop the Ceptical Tower.

  “Erguile!” Remtall shouted. Adacon looked out to see the only horse rider among the Erol Drunne forces: it was Erguile, swiping in every direction with his sword.

  “Come on,” Adacon rallied, taking the lead. They fo
ught through two already-wounded trolls, coming to a Feral giant that was set to attack Erguile. The great beast looked much the same as all the other trolls, save for being larger and fitted with heavier armor. It bore a weapon in each hand, unlike the other trolls who had a single weapon each.

  “We’ve come to help with this one,” Remtall said, rushing in front of Weakhoof.

  “Remtall!” Erguile rejoiced, and then he saw Adacon. “Addy!” Momentarily distracted by his old friends, Erguile was caught off-guard, struck down from Weakhoof by the troll giant. He rolled around on blood-soaked grass, Weakhoof neighing in agony as the giant prepared a death blow.

  “Not Weakhoof—nor any fair horse of Rislind, foul beast!” Remtall goaded. The little gnome flew into action, preventing the giant’s downward strike with a swinging dagger to the jaw, neatly placed beneath its helmet armor. Adacon quickly sliced with his still functional right arm, opening the leg of the troll behind its knee, where flesh had been exposed. The giant wailed, started to topple backwards, then fell down the hill, squashing several trolls.

  “Get up,” Remtall demanded. He and Adacon offered their hands to Erguile, who shot to his feet and quickly mounted Weakhoof again, unfazed.

  “Am I glad to see you two,” Erguile declared.

  “Now is no time for catching up boy, look—they come,” Remtall said, looking ahead where two warpedes fast approached. Atop each of them rode Feral trolls.