Episode Four - Ancient Races BACK
The past two months hadn’t gone well at all, and Sir Cenni mac Coilin had despaired of finding any help from any of the other city-states of Yere.
The places like Tupper, Galle, and Shanoy didn’t bother him. These were huge city-states with problems of their own, just as confused and scared as Ammuntir. They were beset by shortages, emigration, and worst of all, treachery. While thoughts of treachery in Ammuntir were enough to tighten his stomach in fright, it was finding places like Athney that truly tested his bounds as a soldier.
He rode into Athney in mid-spring, the land lush and exploding with dazzling brilliance. He’d known something was wrong miles out, when burnt debris started appearing in the yards of what used to be farmhouses, the pastures of what used to be stables. But he never imagined the desolation he would see when he reached the city of their once-great ally. Athney looked like a barren wasteland; but for the occasional hill of rubble or small memento at the side of the road, at was hard to tell there had been a city here at all. Not a tree or blade of grass remained that Cenni could find. Athney was simply gone.
As the season wore on, he found more and more villages and once-great cities reduced to nothing. Occasionally, he would find survivors, remnants of some outlying farming family, confused and starving, begging him for help he couldn’t give. On these very rare occasions, it was hard to resist the children that would run up and beg him for food, grubby hands outstretched, and harder still to ride away.
Sometimes, a small community of people would welcome him, hoping for help and news. Cenni told them of everything he encountered, and learned a great deal from these scattered remnants of Yere’s once-great city-states. He learned that all over the country surrounding the Fords, the Druids’ monasteries had been sacked and all their magic stolen. They’d moved with slow deliberation all year, churning up piece after piece of Yere, creeping ever north and westward.
It seemed like the entire eastern side of the country was one vast, gray wasteland, interrupted by the occasional city still standing. Cenni didn’t dare enter cities he saw in the midst of the grayness; usually they were surrounded by huge metal beasts and once a few huge metal men made chase for him, but he had a long lead and outran them quickly.
Headed back west, he finally began to see signs again of nature intact, of trees and unspoiled rivers, of crops and cities and people. He wanted to return to Ammuntir before the summer, before the cold set in. Riding around with full armor was not summertime work, if it could be avoided.
He was relieved to see that the closer he got to Ammuntir, the less the land was spoiled.
Nonetheless, he still made his camps off the main roads, and kept his campfires low. Whenever he could, he camped in caves, thickets, and dense vegetation, using it as a natural defense. This was a habit formed after failures with his horse.
The horses used by the knights and the city-state were raised by the Druids, and had skins like armor. They didn’t need to eat or rest, and they could be given explicit instructions. The first nights after being chased by the huge metal men, Cenni tried to instruct the horse to stand guard for him.
“Diyod, guard, five foot radius.”
In the darkened dead of night, he was awakened by the wailing of the horse’s alert, but when he investigated the camp, he found nothing. Finally, he asked the horse, “What did you see?”
The horse emitted a magic beam, which made a green image in the air. Cenni looked at it studiously before realizing what the horse was trying to tell him – that the alarm had been triggered by a worm digging its way about three feet below them.
“Guard off,” Cenni snapped and returned to sleep.
A week later, he tried again.
“Diyod, guard against attackers, five foot radius.”
He’d not quite fallen asleep yet when he felt a mosquito alight itself on his arm. Before he had a chance to reach out and swat at the insect, it stung him. The alarm sounded again. Cenni didn’t even bother to get up.
“Guard off,” he ordered, irritably.
However, a few days later, near the borders of the grayed lands, persistence won out and he tried a third time, certain that if he could not get the alert system to work, he wouldn’t bother a fourth time.
“Diyod,” he sighed, choosing his words carefully. “Guard against anything trying to incapacitate me, five foot radius.”
The night seemed to go by well. Cenni dreamed of home, of the rich forested hills that surrounded the city proper, of the warm, welcoming arms of Duchess Tera. He dreamed of the great feast that would be awaiting him at Summer’s Day, if he returned from his failed mission quickly enough. Cenni had hoped he would be home in time for the feast, and at the pace he was making, he would have a few days to spare. A feast would be most welcome after a discouraging two months, and refresh him as he spent the heat of summer trying to figure out what to do next.
He managed to drift asleep with pleasant thoughts of feast floating through his mind, however, and was being carried on a mist of dreams to waiting arms and welcoming blue eyes when he was awakened by what seemed to be an argument.
“Push!” said a gruff voice near to him. He laid and listened, not budging.
“I am pushing!” protested a second, equally gruff voice. They both had the accent of farmers from Kar, a minor city-state that was just under a week’s ride from Ammuntir, and through which Cenni was passing through.
“Me too!” added a third one, breathlessly.
Carefully, his movements ever so slight, Cenni opened his eyes and turned to look at the source of the commotion.
“Well push harder!” a lanky vagabond, whose clothes indicated that may indeed once have been a farmer or farmhand, said in an authoritative voice, as gruff as his first utterance. He was pulling on Diyod’s reins, or rather trying to, as two accomplices attempted to help him by pushing on the horse’s rump. Cenni tried to peer through the darkness for other accomplices, but saw none, and so he rose, in one fluid motion, annoyed that once again the horse had failed to alert him of danger. He grabbed his sword belt, ever by his side, and unfurled it as he approached the three vagabonds.
“May I help you?” he asked calmly.
All three of the men stopped and looked at one another.
“I thought you were watching him!” one of the pushers told his corpulent partner beside him.
“Not my job!” the fat one replied. “I thought Earl said it was your job!”
They both looked to the lanky one for guidance. His eyes were on the knight, and he was grinning, his eyes desperate and full of greed.
“It was everyone’s job,” he replied, letting go of the horse’s reins and walking to a tree nearby. He reached out and retrieved a hardwood quarter-staff. “But, since we botched that part, I guess we’ll have to resort to Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B, Earl?” the fat one asked.
“Rush him.” Earl grinned, and the three of them advanced. Cenni, his eyes not leaving Earl, grinned back.
“O, goodie,” he replied.
All three rushed him at once, and Cenni was mildly impressed that they tried to attack from different angles, as he really wasn’t sure they’d even be capable of mounting a joint attack. He laughed out loud, however, at their ridiculous slowness, even waiting till the very last second before leaping out of the way, allowing the two pushers to collide. Earl, slightly smarter than his comrades, pulled back.
Diyod’s alarm rent the air.
“Thanks, Diyod, guard off,” Cenni said with a sigh, pulling his belt from the scabbard of his unsheathed sword. He added to the would-be horse-thieves, “Really, he’s not worth it. His alarm? Well, trust me, I’ve had to fiddle with it to get this far.”
“What do you know, fancy knight with his fancy horse?” Earl spat back. “When the Fomor tried to sack the Druid fortress at Kaash all the farmlands and pastures around it were burned to the ground. You don’t know what we’ve been through!”
“I know you’re desperate, but there are better paths than petty thievery,” Cenni replied.
Earl shook his head. “No-um, our Duke is scared of the Fomor and says he’s saving his resources to fight. So long as nobles like you aren’t hurt, the rest of us can go on the manure heap!”
With an emboldened yell, Earl’s fat friend took it upon himself to charge. Cenni had time to noticed Earl’s disappointment at this development before turning his attention to the fat man. Flipping his belt over his hand once to brace it, he sidestepped the charging juggernaut. He lashed his makeshift whip out at the retreating form, catching his ankle and bringing him down with an audible thud.
Laughing, Cenni said, “Too slow, and wide open!”
He whipped around for the second one, who, while shorter than Earl, was much better built than the fat one. Cenni dropped the belt and grabbed his sheathed sword by the hilt.
“This really is stupid,” he said, sparing a quick glance at Earl to include him in the conversation. A quick glance – only enough time for the built farmer to make for him, and then start back in surprise when Cenni turned his full attention back to him. “I don’t want to fight with you. Just go away, and we’ll call it a day. Or you can come back to Ammuntir with me. The Duchess can help you.”
“Maybe,” said the built one in a surprisingly soft voice, given his musculature. “Till she sells out to the Fomor.”
“Foolish words, Al,” said Earl, leaning against his staff in amusement. “Duchess Tera wouldn’t do that. Everyone knows that. But she probably will wind up like the Duke and Governor Marshal of Surford – “ Here he turned his attention to Cenni, whose eyes flitted between the two warily. “ – whose corpses were hung on the Fomor standard and carried around the city.”
Cenni pushed the image of Duchess Tera being thus displayed from his mind and focused on the task at hand.
“We will not let that happen,” he said.
Suddenly, Al charged, and Cenni caught a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. Still not unsheathing his sword, Cenni swung at the tender spot on the built man’s neck, striking home and causing Al to recoil. In the same motion, not even admiring his handiwork with Al, he followed through by crouching down and sweeping out with one leg, catching the fat one at the side of the knee with his heel. This being the more painful blow, Cenni rebounded into a defensive stance, parrying a swing from Earl’s staff as the lanky leader joined the fight.
Earl and Al came at him together, and again, Cenni was amazed by how much slower they were than him. Years of conditioning his reflexes for just such occasions had made him accustomed to moving and thinking at such speeds, and it was clear that of the three of them, only Earl had even remotely the same kind of reflexes.
Al was swinging his fists at Cenni, and Cenni danced out of the way as he used his undrawn sword to parry Earl’s attacks. The muscle-man’s power was strong, and his strikes well-delivered, but finally Cenni found an opening in Earl’s attacks wide enough to have time to poke Al in the ribs with his sword. Al jumped back, enraged, and then charged forward as his fat friend had. Cenni ducked down, and allowed the big man to fall over him. The knight even helped him a little by propelling him further. This was fortunate, as the fat one was recovered from the painful but otherwise harmless blow to his knee, and Al’s flailing body crashed into him. Their heads collided, and they went down, both stunned and moaning.
Earl snarled, and then started with a flurry of attacks with both sides of the quarter staff. Cenni had to admit, he was impressed; Earl had gotten some practice somewhere, and could be a good warrior if he was willing. Grasping his sword by the hilt, he met Earl thrust for parry. However, for Cenni, it was a half-speed fight, and finally he decided to test the horse thief’s mettle.
Whacking Earl’s arms near his elbows, he cried out, “Please, elbows out! Gives you more range of motion!” He even risked a sliding kick to Earl’s instep, forcing the lanky man’s feet apart. “Feet shoulder-width! Balance is key! Now attack!”
Glaring and snarling (but, Cenni noticed, taking his advice), Earl cut loose an attack which used one end of the staff to draw a J in the air. Cenni jumped back, the move still so close to his nose that he could feel the air displaced by the weapon.
“Good!” he cried, batting the staff aside with his sword. “Now rebound it! You and the staff work as one!”
Earl didn’t take this bit of advice, instead attempting another long sweep, as though his staff were a sword or a Pitch bat. Cenni beat the staff down and the vibration from the parry knocked it out of the lanky man’s hands. Taking advantage, Cenni ran up, using the tip of his sword’s scabbard to lift Earl’s chin.
“Now, as I was saying, there’s no point to all of this,” Cenni continued. “I could have killed each of you at least five times apiece by now – “
A flash of motion came bounding up and suddenly, Cenni was clutching himself in agony, knocked to his knees with his eyes watering. The deliverer of the punch grabbed Earl’s hand, big wide green eyes looking up at the lanky horse thief from beneath a mop of curly red hair. She looked to be around Brian’s age.
“Come on, Uncle Earl! Run!” she cried before bounding off into the woods. Al and the fat one took off too, both stumbling. Earl knelt down to retrieve his staff.
“Sorry, sir knight,” he grinned. “Nothing personal.”
And he, too, ran.
A few minutes later, Cenni’s eyes stopped watering and his head cleared, he check around camp. Nothing was missing – not even his sword – so with a glare at the horse, he went back to sleep, but this time a little more warily.
A few nights after his misadventure with the horse thieves, Cenni found himself in a grassy section of hills that offered little cover. Night was falling, and while he could see the trees at the outskirts of the state of Ammuntir in the distance, he would not make it this night. He chose the tallest hill in the area instead, hoping to use the terrain to his advantage. He lay and looked at the stars, Diyod nearby and perfectly still. Cenni hadn’t yet taken out his bedroll, he just looked up at the pinpricks of lights gazing down upon him, his arms behind his head and his sword strapped to his side. An overwhelming fatigue made him dizzy, as though he’d consumed some of Ammuntir’s best mead, and made him procrastinate, not wishing to disturb the moment just yet. He closed his eyes, savoring this mildly drunken feeling, and a warmth spread over his face.
It felt like he blinked. But when Cenni mac Coilan opened his eyes, it was not stars he saw, but a brilliant golden light that seemed to come from everywhere at once. He could feel the warmth of its radiance against his face, could feel his body seeming to drink it in and become energized by it. More than anything, he felt refreshed.
He pushed himself up to his elbows and looked around the strange setting. He was on a bed in the corner in a decently-sized room, the entirety of which was completely white. All the furniture, the bedding, the bed itself was all white wood and white stone, all the exact same color, Cenni’s colored clothing a slash in the whiteness. Yet traced within it all were intricate golden patterns, little sparks dancing along lines which wove together in a tapestry of light.
However, Cenni’s stomach lurched for a moment. There was no discernable door. Sitting up all the way, he reached for his belt, and felt that it had been removed. However, he looked over and spotted it lying on a table near the bed. It had been drawn, and lay next to its sheath, glittering in the light. He rose, and sheathed it.
You’re awake.
Cenni turned sharply at the sound of the female voice, but there was no one in the room. As she spoke again, he realized that although her voice was stark and audible, it was not with his ears that he could hear her.
I will guide you. We must be quick, there is little time.
“Time for what?” Cenni wondered aloud, feeling foolish talking to the air.
Just listen. Touch what you perceive as walls.
Cenni did as he was told and was amazed to discover that the wall simply vanished the moment his fingers touched it, revealing a hallway that stretched on in both directions. It seemed to go on forever. He was directed to his right, and he began to walk down the endless white corridor whose light came from nowhere and everywhere at once.
He was surprised to reach its end so quickly.
At the end of the corridor was a wall. Without having to be told, he reached out and touched it. It dissipated much as the first one had, and on the other side was even more radiance, so much he had to cover his eyes until they adjusted.
This room was huge, many times the size of the Great Hall at Ammuntir, and one entire side was dominated by a huge window that looked out over what Cenni could only presume was a city. Tall, graceful white towers spiraled their way to the golden radiance above, joined together by golden cords that seemed to travel with light. These did not dominate the landscape, but seemed rather to grow from it like trees; the land itself was so green Cenni would have scoffed if an artist had painted it. It too glowed with brilliance, as thought it too was moving like the wires and the designs in the wall.
Welcome.
This time, Cenni turned more slowly, because even though her voice still did not reach his ears, he could feel her considerable presence in the room with him, and knew where he would find her.
He was not expecting three.
They stood together, grasping hands, their faces identical warm welcomes. Long blonde hair flowed down their backs and shoulders in curly ringlets, blending in with the pale blue robes they all three wore, and seeming to become the delicate golden chains that were belted around their slender waists. Their faces were slender, dominated by huge blue eyes of the same color as their robes. All of them also wore identical golden circlets adorned with some sort of pale blue gem that gave the illusion of flowing water. They seemed to radiate with a pale blue light that weaved itself in with the golden light-from-nowhere around them.
“Who are you?” Cenni asked in awe.
We are the Amerid, the three replied as one. Cenni would never truly be sure if his confusion showed on his face or if he simply thought, “Who?” But they continued on, in one voice, explaining, We are the ambassadors between our world and yours.
“Where am I?”
You are in the city of Taas, in the world your Bards call The Land of Life.
Cenni’s eyes were drawn outside again, to the pulsing land, the growing towers, the beams of golden light that webbed between them.
“The land where all things are living, on the other side of the Cave of Stars,” he mused. “The land of the Tuath.”
A mirthful laugher responded to these words.
In the tongue of your ancestors, ‘tuath’ simply means ‘people,’ they said. But since you have no way of saying it in our tongue, you may think of us as the Tuath if you wish.
Cenni nodded, the reached out and touched the glass. It was hard, cold and firm, and his entire mind was focused on that sensation, because it was the only thing convincing him this was not a dream.
“Why did you bring me here?”
Did you not seek help from your fellow man? They approached him, gliding toward him as one, never letting go of one another’s hands. Their expression was inquisitive, their wide eyes curious. Against the monsters you call the Fomor?
“So you brought me here to help me? How?” Cenni’s full attention was now on the three of them, and he took his hand away from the glass in his earnestness.
In time. But first, you must know who your Fomor are, as that will help you, too.
“Yes, if we are to defeat them, it’s vital to know them,” Cenni agreed, and then waited.
You will not defeat them.
Cenni still waited, but his heart sank. After a long pause, the Amerid began.
Thousands of years ago, the world was complete. Our world, the Land of Life, was connected to your world, and both worlds were one. Many peoples besides ourselves live here, and many more dwelt on the world when it was whole. Some of these races brought great warriors, and some wise scholars, and some inventors of magics beyond your imagination.
The race you call the Fomor – a generic term, also – is one of the eldest of these races. They’re feral, brutal, and deadly, because they are the twisted remains of an even more ancient race, one of the first races of the world, from when it was new and chaotic. For thousands of years these aggressive creatures waged war upon the other races, defeating many and growing in numbers. And eventually, they came for us, and we rose to fight them.
The war lasted a thousand years, and split the world. The Land of Life was blocked away from your world, and we – we were trapped here, while the Fomor were on the other side of this rift they’d created between the two halves of the earth.
Fortunately, we had allies, then, and the Fomor were forced back into their own territories, weakened and defenseless. They were left alone, since none of the other races wanted to engage in their cruelty by destroying them. They are, after all, only the victims of their ancestors.
Meanwhile, as we struggled to heal the rift in the world, your people began to appear. We admired you. We befriended you. And we knew we had to go home, because that world was your world, and our world was here.
We couldn’t heal the rift, but eventually we made the Cave of Stars, and finally made our way back home.
We watched you. We watched mankind grow and become stronger, learn some of the things we knew about magic, but you didn’t call it that. Eventually, your people got so strong that they found their own way to create a gateway between our worlds. But it was unstable, and instead destroyed a lot of your world. A few of the races from this side of the gate made it through, however, and pillaged the land for the resources we don’t have here, things we don’t need. Their draining of your resources, however, took its toll on our side. The worlds may be separated, but they are still the same, and things that happen in your world affect things that happen here. So our world began to die as yours did.
So we, and several of the other races, went through the Cave of Stars and fought them. This was the last great war of your world.
Everyone lost. Even now we are still recovering from the heavy tolls it took on us, and what resources we do have are depleted. It is all we can do to keep this land alive.
However, the other races lost as well, and were driven back to their places within our side of the world. Your attackers, your Fomor, were not among these races. They never came through the gate.
“So what were they doing all that time?” Cenni wondered.
Observing and recreating the magics of your race. Some of it they succeeded at, and some of it… Cenni felt a chill in his mind, a dark shudder.
“Why are they attacking us?”
We do not know. And right now, we have no way of investigating it.
“Then how do you intend to help us?”
We have already given you one aid. Our best creation, our greatest magic: The Child of Light and Dark. The magic in this child is what has twice saved both our world and yours. The Child is the essence of this world. Seek this child in its human form, and you will have our first aid.
“Where should I look?”
The three of them reached out, and, letting go of one another for the first time, all clasped their hands around the wrist of Cenni’s sword arm. A low hum seemed to sound in the back of Cenni’s mind. Gazing up him, they said, We’re sorry.
“Why won’t you tell me?” Cenni asked desperately, fighting his way through the hum. “Why are you sorry?”
This is going to hurt.
The hum rose to a crescendo, and Cenni could feel a heat around his wrist where their hands here. They withdrew their hands after a moment, however, and went back to clasping one another’s as they had been. The distracting hum was overwhelming, and Cenni felt it rising in his mind as he looked down at his wrist.
They’d placed on it a bracelet that completely encircled his wrist. It was two fingers thick, and wrought with the same kind of delicate designs as the lines in his room, but these flowed with a soft green light. The lines, small rivers in the bracelet, flowed into a green gem which dominated the center of the piece, twinkling with liquid life. Cenni reached his other hand out to it… then recoiled and doubled over in pain.
He watched in shock and white-hot agony as small sprouts grew out of the bracelet and burrowed into his wrist. His hand when numb and he would feel the roots digging further and further down, looking for purchase. He tried to move the bracelet, to pull it off, the action only causing even more torture. White specks began to flow behind his eyelids as he grimaced and gritted his teeth against the pain.
“What… did you do… to me?” he demanded, gasping.
We’re very sorry. That is not made for your kind, it is made for ours. But it is the only other help we can give you. They leaned down and caressed his face. The pain will go away in time. But now we must send you back through the Cave of Stars. Time flows differently here than it does in your world. Here, one of your years might be one of our days. You have already been here too long, Sir Cenni mac Coilin.
The humming was now accompanied once again by the drowsiness, which even seemed to dull the pain. Cenni tried to cling to it, however, to stay in this dream-world for just one more moment, just one more answer.
“Why?” he cried out, the noise echoing through his mind, intensifying the humming, getting lost in the haze.
We will be there to fight as soon as we are able…
Still screaming, he fell into darkness –
– And awoke with a start. The first thing his mind registered was the pain in his wrist, and when he looked, he wasn’t surprised at all to find the bracelet still attached, and even still wriggling, as though making itself comfortable. He cried out again, a prolonged cry of anguish, to the heavens, clutching his wrist to his abdomen. Falling over, he doubled from the torment and for the first time since he was a child, wept –
– He didn’t know how long he remained at the top of the hill. Day and night were lost in a gray haze of misery; consciousness was something he couldn’t be sure of. Fevered dreams haunted him, filling his consciousness through the fog with nightmare terrors of blood and darkness. At every moment his wrist screamed from beneath the silver manacle. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, as lucidity was elusive –
– Yet occasionally a clear thought broke through the miasma like a beacon on the stable shore. The Duchess… Brian… Ammuntir… He knew he had to get back, had to shake this bleariness, but by the time those thoughts drifted through his mind, the misery overcame again and washed his body with a new wave of anguish. At one point, he stumbled to Diyod, and took his med kit out of storage, but he only knew this because later on he phased awake to find in his hand the blue painkiller he’d retrieved. He swallowed it, but he did not remain lucid long enough to see if it worked. He just drifted on through his living nightmare –
– Eventually, he was vaguely aware of being on Diyod, and for a panicked moment he couldn’t figure out where they were going.
“Ammuntir, Diyod,” he mumbled weakly, unsure the horse even heard. Hills went by in a conglomerated blur. Then trees started to dot the hills, and when they finally thickened to forest, Cenni passed out and let the horse travel the rest of the way.
He was home.
He was jolted into consciousness by the hard landing from off his saddle. The shock of white-hot lightning from his wrist alone was enough to cause his mind to explode into awareness, but a few other aches now accompanied it, and Cenni lay there for a minute, assessing himself. His mind was still foggy, though somewhat more lucid than before, and except for the hard landing even his wrist was down to a dull ache. None of his bones had that sharp pain that would accompany a break, so Cenni rose to a sitting position and took stock of his surroundings.
The first thing he noticed was that is was snowing. He looked up at the gray sky and wondered about that. It was far too hot for snow, so he examined the flakes that fell around him.
It wasn’t snow. It just seemed that way. It was soot.
The next thing he saw was the gate to the city. The ruined gate before him, only half the guard-house still standing like a jagged tooth, was the east gate to Ammuntir.
Cenni could only gape in shock for a moment before his body reacted the way his mind wanted to – he leaned over and vomited. Vaguely, he wondered how he could do this, how long it had been since he’d eaten, but his stomach could care less about food right now.
Once this business was done, Cenni rose and took his first real look around, fighting the second bout that was rising in his gorge. The east gate was located at the edge of the forest, through which black pavement had extended; the pavement was now cracked and deeply pitted. The trees themselves were bent, twisted, charred, and, in some areas, flattened entirely. The city walls had crumbled into chunks of rock. Most eerie of all was that nothing stirred – no man or beast save himself and Diyod could be ascertained amidst the ruin, and even the wind was silent.
This creepy stillness was punctuated by a loud caw from the remains of a nearby tree. A raven had roosted there, and now took flight, crying over the city as it flew westward. Cenni’s stomach did another flip (and this time he couldn’t contain it) – ravens were carrion eaters, and anywhere they were in abundance meant death, had since before the cataclysm of long ago. This one lone raven, though, coupled with the soot and rubble he was seeing, did more to disquiet him than a whole world of ravens could have.
He climbed atop Diyod and rode through the wastes of the once-great city, his mind numb and only registering the destruction in terms of what it once had been. Nothing in all of his training as a soldier, from his days as a young squire, through battles with brigands, pirates, and the occasional city-state, to his office as Knights Marshal of Ammuntir, had prepared him for it. It was worse than Athney. There were places that were reduced to flat planes of gray ash, where even the rock had been decimated to dust. With roads covered in residue, and the majority of the buildings completely destroyed, he found himself lost, with only one beacon through the devastation to guide his way.
Of the great castle that topped the hill in the center of the city, a single tower remained, and it was the tower that housed the chambers of both the Duchess and her ward. It was the only thing breaking through the numbness in Cenni’s thoughts. If that tower stood, maybe Ammuntir would again…
He wandered for hours, though, meandering through blocked roads, his stomach knotting and tightening. He had to stop a few more times to relieve it, and by the time he rode into the courtyard, it was nearly dusk, and he was weak.
He climbed down from Diyod and instructed the horse to guard the courtyard; even an earthworm or a mosquito would have been welcome now. He looked around at the gray snow that had fallen even here, covering the ground and the detritus on it, and Cenni was startled to note that much of the garbage on the ground were the remains of weapons.
Where were their wielders? Their victims?
The only sign of anything even remotely humanoid was the head of the statue of Brian Daly, founder of Ammuntir. Beyond it was the remains of the Great Hall, if the burnt-out pit where it had once stood could be called remains. Cenni spared the barest glance to that, instead drawn by Brian Daly’s eyes. The knight gazed at the statue for a time, at its stern face looking out over the courtyard, the top side of it covered in ash, seeming to demand revenge for what happened to his city.
As he had done before every mission, as he had done at his very knighting, Cenni mac Coilin drew his sword, the Sword of the City of Ammuntir, and knelt before the statue’s head (of course, previously, the statue had been whole).
“I swear by my blood, and the blood of my ancestors, I will defend the City of Ammuntir,” he said solemnly over his sword, his eyes closed. He’d said it hundreds of times, and it always brought him strength and courage, but this time, it faltered and seemed weak. So he added, “And I will do everything I can to avenge you… Just please, let your descendants be safe…”
This last utterance lit up his innards with purpose, and he turned toward the remaining tower, hoping there was a way up, hoping against all reason that he would find his wish granted. All the spirits of the ancients smiled upon him – he charged up a staircase that was missing only a few steps here and there. It drilled through the center of the tower in dizzying spirals, and in Cenni’s state of panic, illness and pain, he became disoriented quickly. By the time he reached the Duchess’s floor, he was panting, and his knees were shaking. He rubbed at his wrist as it screamed again in torment, but gritted his teeth and continued on.
There wasn’t very far to go. The floor dropped to the ground below, neatly bisecting what had once been the Duchess’s chambers. Most of the walls had also collapsed, and only a portion of the roof remained. He could see right through the bare, ashen room that had once been the salon into the room he had once visited numerous times in the arms of his love, a room that was now as bare and desolate as the city below. Slowly, he entered, his hope dissolving as the room turned out to also be bare, but still had one corner of wall remaining. Cenni could discern shapes in the shadows cast by the setting sun, a gray disk in a gray mist that gave off very little light to begin with. He approached cautiously, both scared and excited by what he would find. From his belt he drew an electric torch, and shined it into the corner.
There was a table that he paid little heed to, although his mind registered it as one of the night-tables next to Tera’s bed. What drew his attention was the other form, which he would have mistaken for a pile of rags had it not reacted to the light.
Cenni edged closer for a better look, trying to breathe deeply to keep himself calm. Dizziness encroached upon his tortured body, and he felt like he was walking through jelly as he got a closer look at the lump. It was a figure under a makeshift blanket with the Daly sun-moon on it, and Cenni had but a moment to consider the figure’s dimensions versus those of the Duchess before it leaped up.
By reflex, he drew his sword and parried the clumsy flash of steel that accompanied this startled fright. His would-be attacker’s sword clattered to the floor, and Cenni swung his light on the figure’s face, already knowing with relief flooding his bones who his opponent had been.
“Brian!” he cried out to the wild-eyed boy, but was forced to dodge a flurry of wild punches, some of them very well executed. If he felt like he was moving through jelly, though, he was shocked to discover the boy seemed to be moving through the earth itself. Brian’s punches were so slow that he finally just reached out and grabbed both his wrists, kneeling down to meet Brian at eye-level.
“Brian, it’s me! Cenni!” he tried again, and this time, a sudden glimmer of recognition flared up in Brian’s eyes.
“C-cenni?” he stammered. Cenni released his grip, moved his hands to the boy’s shoulders.
“What happened here, Brian? Where’s Tera?” he asked frantically, as panic faded to recognition and then a dullness that chilled him to see in so young a face.
“Ma… Mama…” Brian whispered. The hint of a tear formed in his eye, and Cenni’s heart fell. He knew then that he would never see her alive again. His mind flooded with a million memories of her face, her smiling eyes and melodious laugh, and he fought back tears of his own. As if it would help in this endeavor, he embraced Brian.
“I’m here,” he comforted. “I’m right here, and I will protect you.”
Fighting the flood of emotion that attempted to overwhelm him, he knelt, holding Brian in his arms. Eventually, Brian went limp, and Cenni lifted him and laid him down on his makeshift bed: a backpack served as a pillow, and what Cenni had thought was a blanket turned out to be the Ammuntir standard from down in the Great Hall, folded in half. Marveling that it had survived, he carefully wrapped it around the sleeping form of Ammuntir’s last heir.
He turned his attention to the table, and all his work to maintain control collapsed. Brian had set up a small shrine of odds and ends that had survived whatever apocalypse had taken place here. Bits of jewelry, pictures, articles, and even a book had been carefully arranged on the night-table, and a scabbard with the Daly crest leaned against its front edge; a glance at the sword Brian had dropped confirmed it was the Daly family sword. While all of this stabbed at his heart with a million little daggers, the terminal blow was dealt by the pink heart-shaped gem in the center of the display.
“My heart is with you, Tera,” he said to the shrine, tears flowing freely now. “Always.”
His knees weakened, finally, and he fell to the floor, turning away from the table and having no luck containing his careening emotions. He looked across the floor to the Daly sword again. He’d dropped his own when he’d discovered Brian’s survival, and it lay crossed over the Daly sword. He gazed at this as the final waves of weariness, dizziness, and starvation finally claimed his consciousness.