The Demon Horsemen (34 page)

He sneered. ‘That’s the work of the Seers. I have nothing to be afraid of.’ He drew his peacemaker and took aim at her. ‘This will guarantee me endless wealth and status.’

Before she could cast her spell, the village echoed to the boom of peacemakers. Warlord Fist jerked upright in his saddle, jerked again, and slid from his horse, landing in a crumpled heap. Two other soldiers also fell.
The remaining three wheeled their horses and rode for safety, but a second volley from the huts dropped two more, leaving a solitary rider to gallop away.

Meg turned to see Cutter, Chase, Trackmarker, Hunter and Keeper lowering their weapons. ‘There’s been enough killing,’ she scolded.

Chase went to Fist’s corpse and spat on it. ‘He deserved a worse death than that,’ he pronounced and looked up at Meg who was glaring at him. ‘You know he did,’ he said, and stalked towards the hut where Passion, Ella and the others were waiting. Then he stopped and yelled, ‘They’re coming this way! See?’

Everyone looked towards the rapidly expanding blue light in the west and knew he was right.

‘They must know where we are,’ said Cutter.

‘Or they’re moving more quickly than we anticipated,’ Inheritor suggested.

‘Either way, we can’t stay here,’ Wahim said, expressing everyone’s thought.

‘Meg?’ Inheritor asked. ‘Where will we go?’

‘North,’ she said. ‘We’ll buy some time.’

‘What about A Ahmud Ki?’ Cutter said.

‘He’ll be safe with Erin.’ She looked towards Keeper’s hut, where the portal was shining, and sighed. ‘Tell the others to gather whatever they can. Take utensils from the huts and any food. I don’t know what my home village is like any more.’

‘That’s where we’re going?’ Cutter asked.

‘Yes.’

Cutter went to leave, then paused and turned back to her. ‘Is there any hope?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly.

Cutter nodded. Meg watched the old man’s bulky figure limp away, remembering the handsome young warrior she had met all those years ago.
Age takes no prisoners and treats no one kindly
, she decided.

She crossed the bridge to the portal.
Where are you?
she asked silently. One option was to take everyone to the Khvech Daas library; the Demon Horsemen would never find them there and they could buy enough time to find a way to defeat them. She chided herself. There was no other answer; the sword was the only way to stop the Horsemen. She knew that. But could it be reforged without Elvenaar blood? Had she or Erin missed a crucial detail that only A Ahmud Ki might find?

‘Meg!’

The cry startled her. She glanced into the sky. Blue light illuminated a solitary Horseman sweeping down towards the village. Lightning cracked, chased by sharp thunder.

‘Here!’ she screamed in the echoing aftermath. ‘Run!’

As the group of men broke and ran towards her, she refocussed the portal on the home of her childhood and sent them through. Then she imagined herself in the hut where the women and children were asleep. ‘Wake up!’ she cried, conjuring a light sphere. Passion and Ella started from their beds and the children woke, the littlest bursting into tears at the sudden shock.

‘Through here!’ Meg yelled, creating a portal in the door frame, and Passion ushered the children into the light. Seeing Ella trying to gather things, Meg screamed, ‘Leave it! Hurry!’

Intense blue light flooded through the window, bathing everything in its bright hue, and thunder exploded above the roof with a deafening roar. Meg pushed Ella into the portal and then imagined herself on the hillside above the village. An instant later, the hut erupted in blue flame and dissolved.

From the hilltop, Meg watched the Horseman reduce the village to dust. The huts, the bridge, the trees, even the tiny creek vanished in a blaze of blue light. The
portals dissipated. Further west, the other Horsemen were weaving back and forth across the night landscape in a storm of wind and lightning, destroying everything with methodical efficiency, purging the earth of life.

When the nearest Horseman reined in his steed above what had been Littlecreek she knew instinctively that he was searching for her. There was nowhere to create a portal on the hillside. Instead, she shaped into a kookaburra and took wing into the dawn, flying north.

T
he place was rife with magic. He could feel it in the core of his being, tingling through his veins, teasing his old memories. He could also smell the mildew of a library, a vast library. The air was cool and still. He was surprised by Whisper’s familiar shape as she appeared from the portal directly behind him. She scampered past into another chamber.
You know this place
, he surmised. Meg had given him the impression that he had nothing to fear here, so he trailed the rat into the adjoining chamber.

He could see little in the darkness except that the room was octagonal and had openings in each wall. A faint and soft golden glow emanated from one opening to his right. He approached it warily, peered through and saw Whisper settled on a plush black chair under the soft glow of a floating light sphere, surrounded by piles of books. The rat stared at him, her black eyes glittering with energy.

‘So where is Erin?’ he asked.

‘I’m here,’ answered a disembodied voice. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m A Ahmud Ki.’

A short, dark-skinned man materialised beside the chair and stared at A Ahmud Ki just as the rat was
staring. The floating sphere brightened until its light filled the chamber, causing A Ahmud Ki to blink, his night vision fading.

‘It’s true,’ said Erin quietly.

‘What’s true?’

‘Everything she said.’ Erin came forward. His feet were bare and he wore a beige ankle-length smock. His dark eyes studied A Ahmud Ki and he circled him as though viewing an interesting museum exhibit.

‘See anything worth buying?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.

Erin stepped back. ‘What happened to your hair?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Every description of you refers to the braided silver locks, the Aelendyell styling,’ Erin explained.

‘Times change,’ said A Ahmud Ki. He felt uncomfortable under the lithe black man’s appraising gaze and wondered how much he knew of his past. ‘What are you?’

‘Something I wish I wasn’t,’ Erin replied and sighed. ‘You are bigger in the books,’ he said as he returned to the chair. He lifted Whisper, sat and put the rat on his lap. ‘Why have you come here?’

‘Mareg’s Dammeraag have escaped from Se’Treya and they’re destroying everything. I need to find out how they can be stopped.’

‘You know there’s only one way.’

‘The sword,’ A Ahmud Ki replied. ‘But it’s shattered.’

‘And needs to be reforged,’ said Erin. ‘I know.’

‘Meg said you have a host of ancient books here from the Andrakian kingdom.’

‘I do,’ said Erin. ‘I’ve read them all.’

‘Aelendyell books?’

‘Even three Elvenaar books.’

‘The
Book of Lore
? Do you have that?’ Erin nodded. ‘Where?’

‘What are you looking for in it?’ Erin asked in return.

‘An answer.’

‘You won’t find what you’re seeking.’

‘And what is that?’ A Ahmud Ki challenged.

Erin sighed and stood, letting Whisper slide to the floor where she sat up and began preening her fur. ‘Another way to stop these Dammeraag, these Horsemen,’ he said. ‘The sword was made to destroy the magical things that could not be killed. It is infused with magic, the blood of magic, and that allows it to strike at the creatures of magic. But it is so potent that creatures of magic cannot wield it without being destroyed by it. And non-magical creatures lack the capacity to harness its magic. Only a human with a special gift can wield Abreotan’s sword.’

‘Dylan wielded it,’ A Ahmud Ki argued.

‘Dylan was a child of prophecy, the one with the moon-marked face. Surely you remember that?’

A Ahmud Ki remembered all too well. He had tried to manufacture a replacement for Dylan in an effort to control the sword, a young man named Liam who had perished when he tried to remove the weapon from a protective glyph.

‘There is no such person in this time,’ he said. ‘No prophecies. Nothing. So you’re telling me that no one can wield the sword.’

‘The prophecies weren’t the key to Dylan’s power,’ said Erin, shaking his head. ‘He received a gift: an amber bracelet of Alfyn origin.’

‘When?’

‘If his drycraefter’s records are true, he was given the bracelet by the Tree Keepers when he was lost in a place called Ethelreddor Forest. The amber bracelet became his key to wielding Abreotan’s sword.’

The revelation left A Ahmud Ki speechless. There was so much he had never known; so many reasons why he was doomed to be defeated by Dylan; so many groups
and forces entangled in the fulfilment of the prophecy that brought about the downfall of the Dragonlords.

‘Are you all right?’

The question sharpened his focus, echoing a question asked on a small bridge in Littlecreek.

‘So even if we reforge the sword, there’s no one who could use it against the Horsemen. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it?’ he said, exasperation edging his voice. ‘No matter what we do, the world is lost. Mareg’s minions will destroy everything.’

Erin bowed his head and when he looked up again, there was a tear in his eye. ‘Yes.’

‘No,’ said A Ahmud Ki, glaring at him. ‘There is another way. There
must
be another way. Show me where you keep the
Book of Lore
. You aren’t Aelendyell. You can’t read the nuances, the codes, the secrets. There will be an answer.’ When Erin hesitated, he yelled, ‘Show me!’

‘This way,’ Erin acquiesced and he led A Ahmud Ki from the chamber.

The ancient Khvech Daas library was larger than A Ahmud Ki had imagined such a place could be, and its structure as a map of the world, chambers representing continents and regions, left him pondering the intelligence that had planned and built the place. He saw a copy of the
Book of Lore
on a table, recognised the green leatherbound, deceptively thin text of his forest heritage, and memories of the first time he had opened it flooded back. He had been an outcast in his Aelendyell village then, a childling spawned from the brutal rape of an Aelendyell woman by a human warrior. His pure-blood peers had ridiculed and bullied him, so he stole the
Book of Lore
—not just out of curiosity to learn the art of magic but also out of spite, a spite that grew to hatred and ultimately led to him taking revenge on his own kind. He had felt the magic surging from the
volume and knew its secrets even before he opened it. Once, he’d been a powerful being, the equal of the Dragonlords. Now…now he was mortal in a doomed world.

‘That is the only copy,’ said Erin. ‘I’ll give you a light in case you want to read anything else. Whisper and I will leave you alone.’

A Ahmud Ki’s eyes remained fixed on the book on the table; he was locked in an overwhelmingly painful past. The magic tingled in his fingers as he touched the soft green leather, and he wondered which village and which Aelendyell Chanter this particular copy of the
Book of Lore
had so long ago been taken from. In the greater scheme of events and time, his revenge against his village had been pointless. Even without his intervention the Aelendyell were dead, forgotten dust condemned forever to the realm of legends; dust like the dust being left in the wake of the Horsemen.

‘There must be another way,’ he whispered. ‘There
has
to be.’

He stood in the doorway and gazed at the strange scene of the rat and the man apparently deep in conversation. The man sat on a three-legged stool, the rat was perched on another, the room of books and parchments lit by a floating sphere. A third stool was positioned equidistant from the other two. As if they sensed him watching, they turned towards him and waited for him to speak.

‘I have to die,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t I?’

When they didn’t respond, he crossed the space to the third stool. ‘You knew I wouldn’t find any other answer.’

‘You don’t have to die,’ said Erin. ‘I mean, you will eventually, but not how you think. That’s your choice.’

‘Meg knows, doesn’t she?’

‘She knows how the sword can be reforged,’ Erin confirmed.

‘I am the only living descendant of the Elvenaar,’ A Ahmud Ki said as he sat on the stool. ‘Their blood runs through my veins.’

‘Your blood might not work. It might have to be…’ Erin paused, as if trying to choose a better word.

‘Pure,’ said A Ahmud Ki. He met Erin’s gaze and old pain flickered across his face. ‘I hadn’t considered that.’

‘And even if it does, who will wield the sword?’

A Ahmud Ki stared at the rows of books. ‘The entire world will be consumed and Mareg will triumph. After a thousand years he will finally triumph.’ He shook his head. ‘There was a time I wouldn’t have cared, so long as I could have his power.’

‘And what’s changed?’ asked Erin.

A Ahmud Ki looked at him. ‘Me,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve changed.’ He reached for Whisper and stroked the fur around her neck, much to her pleasure.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Erin.

‘Neither do I,’ A Ahmud Ki replied. ‘And yet…I do know why.’ He shook his head again, looked down at his hands and clasped his long elegant fingers together. ‘It’s her,’ he said. ‘Meg.’ He looked up at Erin. ‘I love her.’

‘Does it really matter if the Horsemen destroy everything? Cultures come and go and still life goes on in some form.’

‘How can you say that?’ A Ahmud Ki challenged. ‘If they consume everything, not even you will matter.’

‘You forget, I’m safe down here. Forever. They’ll never penetrate the magic that holds this place together.’

‘You call this living?’ A Ahmud Ki asked and stood.

‘It’s where I’ve lived for more than three hundred years,’ said Erin. ‘The world may change outside, but in here I live without fear and without pain.’

‘You live in a prison!’ said A Ahmud Ki. ‘This is a tomb. You’ve buried yourself alive and you’re as dead as anyone else.’ He paced the chamber. ‘Did Meg tell you where she found me? Imprisoned in a glyph. Not dead. Not alive. For a thousand years I existed like that. A thousand years.’

‘And this might be my fate now,’ said Erin. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’ He shrugged. ‘At least I will still be alive.’

A Ahmud Ki glared at him. ‘Have you ever been in love? Do you know what it feels like to love someone?’

‘Yes,’ Erin said quietly. ‘I do,’ and he reached for Whisper and petted her gently.

A Ahmud Ki snorted and turned on his heels. As he strode from the chamber he said, ‘I’ll find a way to do what has to be done.’

He headed for the place where he had entered, but when he reached it there was no portal. He stared at the dark chamber as if he couldn’t believe the blue haze had vanished. Light flowed into the chamber from behind him and he turned to see Erin there, the floating sphere bobbing above him.

‘If you went back, would you offer your blood to reforge the sword?’ Erin asked.

A Ahmud Ki’s grey eyes met the young man’s steady gaze. ‘What other choice am I left with?’ Erin went to answer, but A Ahmud Ki cut him off. ‘I was locked away a thousand years. Never again. I wouldn’t stay here, even if you offered me sanctuary. I know what it’s like to have power, great power, awesome power beyond the imagination of any human. And I used it to get whatever I wanted. Even revenge.’ He chuckled quietly. ‘Have you ever ridden a dragon? Have you seen the sun rising on the tops of mountains as you fly into the east? Do you know what it’s like having hundreds of thousands of people chanting your name?’

‘No,’ Erin replied.

A Ahmud Ki shook his head. ‘I went back to Se’Treya to find the amber relics that Mareg had taken from me. Instead, I found a doorway to an entirely different power, the power given to me by the will of the Ranu people.’ He stopped and smiled. ‘You think I’m mad, don’t you?’

Erin blinked. ‘No. You’re not the mad one here. I am.’ He drew a breath and sighed, and held out his hand. Glowing in his dark palm was a wire-thin amber bracelet. ‘I think it’s a good replica of the band the Tree Keepers gave to Dylan.’

A Ahmud Ki stared in disbelief. ‘Where did you get this?’

Erin’s voice cracked. ‘You know the making spell as well as anyone. I had a fragment of amber. This is what I made.’

A Ahmud Ki stared at the young man and for the first time noticed grey streaking his dark hair. There were faint age lines on his face that he was sure had not been there earlier. The light in the chamber dimmed. ‘Something’s wrong,’ he said.

‘No,’ Erin replied. ‘Something is being put right. Take the bracelet.’

‘But it’s useless. I can’t use it.’

‘It’s not for you. Give it to Meg. She’ll know who should wear it when the sword is reforged.’

‘Then you’ll make a portal for me to return to Meg?’

‘I can’t,’ Erin admitted. ‘I’ve never been to where you want to go.’

‘Then how do I get back?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.

‘You use this,’ said Erin, and he opened his other hand to reveal a shard of amber.

A Ahmud Ki gaped in wonder. Already his body tingled in the presence of the bracelet, but now his nerves sang with latent energy. ‘I—I don’t understand,’ he stammered.

‘Take it. It’s my gift. You know what to do with it, how to use it. I wasted it. I used the power I was given to hide away from the world in the naive belief that if I kept the ancient knowledge out of the reach of madmen the world would live in peace. I couldn’t have been more wrong.’

‘But how did you get the amber?’

‘It’s a long story and I don’t have time to tell you now that it’s no longer part of me. Neither do you. Look at the walls.’

A Ahmud Ki did. The walls when he arrived were a clean light-coloured stone, but as he watched they changed, becoming smeared with dark water streaks and covered with cracks like a thousand spider webs. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

‘You know the answer,’ Erin said. He coughed, and then chuckled. ‘I haven’t coughed in three hundred years,’ he said. ‘I never realised it until now.’ Dust trickled from the ceiling. ‘Take the amber,’ he urged. ‘It’s yours. Be what I was meant to be but never had the courage to be.’

A Ahmud Ki took the bracelet and shard from Erin and gasped at the surge of energy that shot through him.

‘Embed the shard in you,’ Erin said. ‘It’s what the Elvenaar who became Dragonlords did to themselves and to their dragons to make them fly. But then you’d know that.’