Dire Sparks (Song of the Aura, Book Five) (27 page)

SONG OF THE AURA

Brother Thief

Winter Warrior

Grym Prophet

Golden Tide

Dire Sparks

Storm Kings

THE EXCATHER CYCLE

Mordred

Book Two, coming late 2012

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

Dreams of Steel

STANDALONE FANTASY

Ghostwalker, coming Summer 2012

Tannarch Avarine, Queen of the Blackwood, stood alone in her tower, surrounded by death.

No less than five Pit Striders surrounded her, clad in black, with blades that extended from their gloves like claws. Red eyes stared at her from beneath heavy, drooping hoods. Their breathing rasped menacingly as they slowly closed her in, stalking forward with the assurance of victory. Two of them limped slightly… her guards had given a valiant account of themselves.

A month of conquest, and I hold my father’s throne for only a day,
she thought sourly. But this was no time for weakness. It was hold or die. The flickering green light cast eerie shadows of the Pit Striders across her face. They tightened their circle around her, and Avarine could’ve sworn she heard a hissing chuckle.

Not today. You will not have me today.

Avarine bowed her head, letting herself drift into that other place, where the world was a swirling pool of specters, and hard reality was no bond. The Power of Spirit.

The Pit Striders, taking her reaction as surrendering, moved in. One seized her hands, roughly binding them, while another seized her about the waist, and a third wrenched her head back. She cringed, trying not to break her concentration… It was happening too quickly. She was too tired… too beaten… what if this didn’t work?

Then, through the fog of the Otherworld, she discerned a presence… no,
two
presences, bearing down on her from afar, piercing the cage of darkness the Pit Striders’ minds formed around her tired spirit. They were like two brilliant balls of flame, shining in her mind, blinding her mental vision: one white, like heaven-fire, one red, like the Blaze-fury.

She was forced to her knees. The Pit Striders were wrapping her in black chains they conjured from smoke and shadow. She would never escape…

…
the presence of white flame shuddered, sparked, and reached out to her. It touched her mind…

“
Tulen!”
she screamed.
“Novashar!”

Yellow light arced out from her body in a hundred flashing tendrils. There was an explosion, and the Pit Striders were hurled away from her with tremendous force, flesh smoking as they thudded against the stone walls of her tower. When the noise had subsided, she knelt where she was, too stunned to move. She was certain she had recognized those strange presences, and that
they
had just worked through her. Her head was spinning, trying to realize what it all meant. How could she recognize Spirit Striders she had never met? That’s what they had to be…

“
The prophet,” she realized. Eyes moist, she stumbled to her feet amid the haze that still hung in the air from her attack. “The prophet is coming, at last…”

Night lay over all of Ancient Britton. It darkened the forests of Rience in the South and swept haughtily over the mountains of Darkumbra in the North. It lay heavily over the forgotten realms of Albion and Cornwall, but over the western empire of Caledonia it floated like a dream. Great forests rustled mysteriously in the midnight wind, mingling sounds of beast and tree and fountain. Immense plains and fields of shadowed amber and muted green swayed in this same breath of air, and mountains rumbled and spoke with hidden thunder. As the wind blew across the realms of living men, the halls of wood and stone sent up to heaven a melody of their own, a silence built by years of toil and valorous deeds. Camelot, the mightiest city of that age, slept in a mantle of moonlight, a monumental guardian of the land.

“Arthur.”
A voice whispered through the night like a breath of wind. No answer.

“Arthur.”
It breathed through the forests, across the fields, under the mountains, and right to Camelot's doors. No answer.

“Arthur.”
A barely perceptible shiver ran through the walls and towers, keeps and steeples of the great city. No answer.

“Arthur.”
The King of Caledonia woke with a start, the voice calling his name through the halls of time.

“Arthur.”
He sat up slowly, feeling for Gwen and knowing she was beside him, asleep. Quietly, he slipped out of bed and dressed, all the while that whispering windy call driving him to wakefulness.

“Arthur.”
Slipping in and out of the nightly shadows, he made his way to the topmost tower of the palace: Merlin's observatory. Slowly and sleepily he made his way past all of the wizard's jumbled artifacts and books. There was a door in the opposite wall that would lead him to a balcony that looked out over the whole sleeping city.

“Arthur.”
Not sure what to expect, he opened the door and stepped out into the cool night air. He was searching for someone, anyone, but there was no one there. Who was calling?

“Arthur.”
The king whirled and faced the wizard who had suddenly appeared. There was silence for a long time. Then-

“Danger, my King. Your rule is failing, your knights are in disarray.”
Arthur tensed as the specter of his old friend spoke. “Merlin,” the king whispered, “can it truly be you?”

“Danger. Your rule is at an end. Beware of Mordred.”
Merlin's face suddenly shifted, wavered, and blew away in the wind, his body following.

“Beware.”
The wind whipped and roared around the king like a living thing.

Mordred is coming.
Arthur cursed and grasped at the ghostly apparition, but the wizard was gone. In his place was a tall youth with long black hair. His white face was marred by what may have been a scar or a tattoo. His eyes shone with otherworldly light.

Doom.
Expressionless, the stranger blocked Arthur's lunge and gave him a violent shove that sent the king over the edge of the parapet. There was a roaring wind, and Arthur was engulfed in a wet, grey mist that stopped his fall and blocked his vision. Sounds of battle sounded like thunder around him, and the king felt a sharp pain in his side. He put his hand to his body and took it away bloodied. And all around that horrible screaming wind-

-Arthur woke up standing alone in a cold, desolate chamber, long abandoned. The king gritted his teeth. Of course. Merlin had been missing for years. He had somehow walked in his sleep all the way to the wizard's old and long since abandoned rooms. It had all been a dream. He turned to leave the lonely room- and stumbled on something he could not see. Hand outstretched, the king attempted to halt his fall by grasping at the door handle. Slipping to his knees, the Roman monarch cursed the dark and pulled himself back up.

Mordred
. The name had been violently burned into the expensive wood of the observatory door. The black marks spread out in spidery lettering like a bleeding wound: Merlin's last prophecy. Underneath the name was a series of scorches and scratches that Arthur had never noticed there before. It was writing, Latin maybe, but in the shadows he couldn't tell what it said.

Lurching out into the darkened hall, the king made for his room once more…