From the Ashes Read online

  And he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be waiting long.

  The gully at the edge of the Valley had become a ravine and the ravine had descended down, down until it had opened out into a large, underground cavern. Cut off from the sun by the stone roof overhead, the cave system was dark, yet as Stone gazed about, he could tell that he was still seeing in colour, not using his night-vision. It struck him, as he rounded a rock; luminous mushrooms, glowing an eerie blue, lit up the place, lending an otherworldly ambience. Appropriate. The ground was mossy, spongy under Stone’s bare feet, for he had come unarmed and unarmoured, clad only in a white loin cloth – for against whatever foes he might face on this Journey, mortal weapons would be of little use.

  The air was cool, tasting of minerals and plant-life as he ventured further into the cavern. Here and there, rock-pools, the skittering of tiny crabs as they went about their business. At one point he started, as a centipede no less than two feet long scuttled out of a crack in a rock, blindly passing over his foot before snatching one of the crabs in its great, gaping pincers and dragging its struggling prize back to its lair.

  Further he walked into the gloom, slowly, patiently. A shiver as he walked into an ice-cold pool of water now; the crystal clear waters perfectly still till now, rising up to his ankles, his movements making the surface ripple outwards with every footstep. He walked further on, ten paces, then stopped, his sixth sense tingling, smiling slightly.

  For he was no longer alone.

  “Nagini…”

  He turned to look back the way he had come, his suspicions proving correct; for there, standing in the pool just behind him, the lithe and predatory form of the Water Nymph watched him, those impenetrably dark and merciless eyes seeming out of place within the womanly contours of her beautiful face. Unchanged, she was; just as alluring, just as deadly as when they’d first met a century ago. Unsurprising, for she was a spirit. It was natural for spirits not to age. It was Stone, here, who was the unnatural one.

  “Nagah-Slayer…” the Sprite replied, the tones soft, babbling yet insistent, like water eddying about rocks in a stream, her tongue flicking delicately over sharp and pointed teeth as she spoke. “Why do you come back here?”

  Stone answered, his eyes taking in the creature before him, seeing her for the first time in colour. Her skin, that appeared so smooth yet he knew to be so rough, a pale, tree-sap green. Her hair in long tendril-like dreadlocks, the colour of which he’d guessed correctly; the browny-green of seabed kelp. About her waist, preserving the bottom half of her elemental modesty, a dark green loin-cloth, embroidered in sea-shell with the runic symbol for Water. Her top half was bare, showing all the naked, soft-seeming curves of a woman, taut and athletic.

  “I need to meet with the Avatars. Again.”

  The Nymph cocked her head to one side, listening like a dog, long strands of hair falling forwards to half cover the amused, almost pitying smile on her face.

  “No. You are not welcome here. The taint of the enemy still lingers on you. I can smell the brimstone, the fire; it unsettles me. You must leave here.”

  Stone was loath to anger her, for he still remembered the rake of her lethal claws, the determination of her bloodlust; had it not been for the intervention of the Avatar of Water that last time, he would probably be dead now. For the spirit had shown no signs of mercy, only a mounting, dizzying rage, like that of the unstoppable, surging ocean. And, as a spirit, she was undoubtedly impossible to kill.

  Yet he pressed on.

  “I must be allowed entry to their realm. For the fate of not just one world, but countless rests upon them.”

  Nagini laughed, soft, mocking.

  “What matter to us, the affairs of mortal men, hmm? We existed a billion years before you. We will continue a billion years after you are gone. I have seen it.” Her eyes glimmered, dark, inky pools of forbidden knowledge. “Now leave here. If you force me to ask again, then I shall have to kill you.”

  Damn this creature; for a spirit of water she was always thirsting for a fight. Stone snarled slightly, the sound reverberating loud and deep in the cave, sending visible ripples through the water in which they stood.

  “Fine. Then you shall have to kill me. But be warned; I’m less easy a prospect than I was a hundred years ago…”

  The sultry, siren of death smiled as she opened her hands, long, black talons extending from slender fingers.

  ***

  The sweet smell of wood-smoke had her smiling as she made her way from the Hall of the Elders and out, walking down the path that bisected the Retreat. The flavours of the wood were subtly spiced, different here to the wood she’d ever smelt elsewhere on her travels. But then again, everything was different here, in the Valley. Everything was more vibrant, more alive, for this was where the Elements made their home.

  Though, of course, Gwenna was biased; for aside from her brief stay in Tulador and her captivity in Merethia, this valley was all she’d ever known.

  She walked past houses, shops on either side of the path, knowing every single doorframe, every single window with the familiarity of old friends, nodding with a smile to people she’d known for all twenty years of her life as they went about their business. The Retreat was a small settlement, having not grown much over the years. How long had it been since Wrynn had founded the place? Gwenna’s parents had been second generation, she knew that at least.

  The thought still gave her sadness, at times, that she never really got a chance to know those that had conceived her. Her mother, a fair-haired Hills-woman she’d been told, had passed away with the very act of bringing her into the world. Her father, a tall warrior of Plains descent had taken off into the mountains soon after in his grief, leaving her to the care of Wrynn. Never to return. Perhaps it was this loss of roots, this sense of disconnection that had caused the red-haired girl to take so seriously to her studies.

  For Gwenna, more so even than the rest of the trainee shamans of the Retreat, Wrynn had been a father-figure as well as a teacher. In her youth, she had hung to his every word, absorbing his wisdom like a sponge. This, combined with her innate talent, is what made her so good. She was the best, unbeatable in challenge. Never coming across a situation she couldn’t handle, despite her years. This is why she had been chosen to lead the mission to Tulador.

  A shudder went through her at the memory of her capture and subsequent interrogation. A shiver, a start that had caused her to awake, so many times, sweating and wrapped in her sheets of a night. Even now, a year later, she could never truly tell whether it was ecstasy or agony, horror or thrill that coursed through her each time she brought up the violation. Those burning blue eyes, so cold, so sensual, yet filled with such limitless potential for evil, they haunted her, mocked her, appearing behind the lids of her eyes from time to time as she blinked.

  There would have to be a reckoning. A settling. An end to the dark bond that bound the two women together. She would have the chance, soon enough.

  The blacksmiths ahead and she smiled, for this was her destination, the foaming, churning waterfall cascading like a white ribbon down the cliff behind it, to the wheel that powered the bellows. The clanging ring of metal on metal as weapons were being forged for the battle ahead. Then a bang and a puff of smoke, followed by the sounds of coughing. She laughed gently to herself; yes, this is where she’d find him.

  Sure enough, as she entered the round, open-walled building, the youth was there, his – what had Stone called it? – cannon to hand, strips of leather binding his hands to protect from the build-up of heat after the many test fires.

  “Less saltpetre this time!” he called out to Gregor the village Blacksmith who stood, face blackened with soot, carefully realigning an archery target on the grass just outside the smithy. “And I think I need to pack it more, too! This time it’s going to work, you mark my words!”

  Gwenna stayed silent, leaning against a wooden upright and smiling as she watched the lad at work, pouring yet more of that str
ange black powder into the device, followed by a handful of small bits of metal shrapnel, before tamping it all down with a brush. He aimed the contraption towards the target, the cannon suspended from his shoulders by sturdy leather straps, Gregor running at a red-faced sprint, as the youth grabbed a lit taper from the side of the forge. One hand firmly gripping a handle on the side of the contraption – a fresh addition, Gwenna noted – he touched with trembling fingers the taper to the hole at the closest end.

  A cacophonous boom this time, rather than a splutter, everyone at work around the smithy jumping in fright as a great belch of smoke and flame erupted from the end of the barrel, the target some twenty yards distant blowing to smithereens as it was shredded by a hail of red hot metal. As the smoke cleared, a cheer from the workers in the forge, as the youth leapt up to his feet from the floor where he’d been blasted, yelling in triumph and casting his invention aside as he ran over, jumping into the arms of the Blacksmith like an overexcited puppy.

  The cheers slowly subsided, and a faint clapping could be heard from the smithy, the lad turning, unwrapping himself sheepishly from the embarrassed Gregor as he noticed the flame-haired shaman making her way through the soft, green grass towards him.

  “Erm, Gwenna. Hi.”

  “Quite a show, Marlyn. I’m assuming the cannon works as it should now?”

  The youth nodded, unable to stop the grin of triumph from spreading across his face.

  “Aye, it does! Thanks to the Nagah-Slayer, of course; his knowledge of machinery and alchemy is incredible. It’s nice to have some support for my ideas…”

  He trailed off. Gwenna smiled.

  “Trust me, after that little demonstration you can count on my support. If we arm each of our warriors with one of your cannons then it’s almost as if we have an entire army of shamans.”

  He smiled, half-heartedly, at the compliment, but she could tell that he was hiding some unease.

  “What’s wrong, Marlyn?”

  “Nothing…”

  She fixed him with her piercing green eyes. Finally he relented.

  “It’s just… for this last year, I’ve been harbouring so much resentment towards Invictus. So much anger and rage.” He looked up into the sunny sky, squinting in the brightness. “It was him who sent the Khrdas. My best friend died at their hand. And by extension, his. I dreamt of getting revenge on him, or at least venting my frustrations. Arbistrath had the courage to. Yet now I’ve met him…”

  Gwenna nodded in understanding, feeling the same conflict within herself that he did, that everyone did.

  “And now he’s here you find him so likeable, so easy to get on with. And you feel like it’s doing disrespect to the memory of your friend.”

  Marlyn grunted in quiet agreement as they walked together, the soldier and the shaman, feet sinking in the rich and fertile grass. They sat down on a low wall.

  “It’s as though all those tales,” he continued, “a century of bloodshed, a Kingdom built on fear and power. It’s like they’re all about someone else. It’s as though Stone and Invictus are different people, even if they share the same face.”

  He turned and looked to the girl sat by his side, struck once again by her quiet beauty as the gentle breeze blew her ringlets of red hair across her face. She brushed them aside with her hand, seemingly unaware of the scrutiny.

  “Wrynn told me something, once, a long time ago. Before you arrived here in the valley, back when he first unveiled his plan to us.” Her green eyes shone in the sunlight as she recalled the conversation. “Stone wasn’t always Invictus, he told me. Prior to rising to the throne of the Barbarian City, he was a shaman, studying under Wrynn himself.”

  Marlyn frowned.

  “But that must have been a hundred years ago. Wrynn can only be, what? Fifty?”

  She laughed, gently, not mocking.

  “Wrynn looks exactly the same today as he did when I was a child. As he did when the eldest inhabitants of the Retreat were children. But I digress, this story’s not about Wrynn. Did I ever tell you that I’m descended from the Plains People?”

  “No. I find it hard to believe, with your hair and eyes. I always assumed you were a northerner.”

  She smiled as she explained.

  “I am, on my mother’s side. But my father was a descendant of the Plains People, a line stretching back to the very village where Wrynn used to be a Shaman. The very village where Stone studied under him.”

  “Wow.” Marlyn looked suitably amazed at the revelations. This would explain the familiarity between the two, the Master and the Immortal. Though, of course, it now transpired that they were both immortal…

  “Wow indeed. It was in those days that Stone became known as the Nagah-Slayer; a title he’d earned after saving the village Chief’s daughter from a vicious beast. He was a hero among the people. He was their protector. He was their future.”

  “So what happened? Why did your ancestors move up here? And why didn’t Stone come with them?”

  A pained look suddenly crossed her face; not physical pain, but the pain of memory, the pain of sad tales passed down through the years.

  “One day the forces of the Barbarian King attacked the village. Burned it to the ground. Few escaped, following Wrynn’s instructions to make their way North, to here, where they could begin anew. Among them, my ancestors.”

  “And Stone…?”

  “Stone was away when the Barbarians struck. By the time he returned, the village was ash, the people dead or taken.”

  Marlyn hung his head, lost in thought, lost in the memories of another people, another time. It made sense now. His grief, his pain at losing Daveth, his friend; sometimes he’d wondered whether he could bear it. Sometimes, even now, a year later, the tears would come unbidden as he stopped, suddenly, in the middle of his task, stunned once again by the fact that he would never see him again. It never got easier. To think, an entire village gone. All his friends, possibly even loved ones, slaughtered and taken while he wasn’t there to help.

  “That’s enough to send any man over the edge…”

  “Aye. And that is why we fight. To prevent that same fate happening to us all.”

  He looked up as she went on.

  “Stone as Invictus was evil; he unleashed a lot of his inner rage on his people, not stopping to think about the consequences. But despite his own guilt, he was acting under the influence of an older malice. We face an enemy, ancient, implacable and impossibly evil. And it will not rest until it takes away everything we hold dear.”

  “If we lose then, what? It’s the end of the world?”

  She nodded, face serious.

  “Exactly that,” she told him. “The end of the world.”

  For why tell him the truth, she thought? Why burden him with the knowledge that their world was lost, whatever they did? For who, in their right mind, would fight against impossible odds, knowing, in the end, that the world they saved was not their own…?

  “How quickly can you reproduce these cannons? And train people to use them?”

  The question snapped him out of his contemplation, thoughts of his father at work on his farm a hundred miles away.

  “Erm, pretty quickly. We have the moulds now. We have the mixture right. It’s simply a case of casting the parts and putting them together. As for using them, well, they’re pretty easy; point and shoot.”

  She nodded, smiling.

  “Good. We leave tomorrow morning for the South. How many can you make in that time?”

  He looked behind them to the smiths hard at work in the forge.

  “If I’m allowed to requisition all the workers then maybe… twenty? Thirty? Possibly enough to arm each Tulador Guard.”

  Twenty, maybe thirty cannons. Against ten thousand Clansmen and their infernal allies. Not enough, she thought to herself. She hoped that Stone was making progress, wherever he was. For they would need him when the time came to fight…

  ***

  Another thunderous kick and
he was sent careening through the cavern, slipping and sliding as he rolled over sharp rocks, before landing with a splash, face down in a shallow pool of ice-cold water. Stone rose, shaking his long hair dry, a snarl on his lips as he spat blood, even as the fresh cuts on his cheeks began to heal over.

  How long had they been at this?

  It was hard to tell down here in the dark where the sunlight couldn’t reach. It could have been hours and he grimaced at the thought of the wasted time. For he had a task to do. Yet, despite everything, he was also enjoying himself. It was a perverse pleasure, true, but to let himself go, to really unleash himself without fear of killing his opponent was something he rarely got to experience. But when would the stalemate end?

  Stone was larger, heavier and possibly stronger, though he wasn’t sure. But the Water Nymph was faster, more flexible, leaping around him with balletic grace and striking out with those razor claws that pierced even his marble flesh. Neither of them stayed down for long when struck; his enhanced frame healing wounds in seconds; her elemental form refreshing itself on demand, rendering her good as new with but a thought.

  A skittering of feet on rocks and Stone turned, seeing her sprinting towards him in a blur of speed. In an instant she was before him, lashing out with her wickedly sharp fingers. He dodged left, avoiding the worst of the attack, the nails scoring shallow lines across his chest, then ducked, avoiding another sweep aimed for his eyes, before rising, lunging forwards with a mighty right-hand punch, even as the Nymph span to deliver a backwards kick.

  The blows connected at the same time, his fist hitting the side of her head with a thunderous crack that echoed about the cavern, her foot driving hard into his stomach, winding him despite the braced and rocklike abdominals. A booming report, a cloud of spray, and the immortal combatants were sent flying apart by the force of their blows, to land with a splash, ten yards apart in the water.

  They both lay there for a moment, allowing themselves an instant to recover, a brief respite, before rising to their feet. Stone stood, the ache in his midsection fading, his breathing growing steadier by the second, watching with a mental sigh as Nagini noted the thin rivulet of black blood that trickled down from her temple. She took a drop on one razor fingernail, licking it teasingly, before smiling, the cut to the side of her head vanishing in an instant as though it were never there.