Swept Away: An Epic Fantasy (The Last Elentrice Book 3) Read online

  ‘So, you choose death instead?’ she hisses. Her eyes scour the men and women standing proud at Brixen’s side. ‘You think death the better option, eh?’ she yells, so all can hear.

  Some shuffle or avert their gaze but none retreat.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Brixen yells back, ‘but not our death. No, not ours.’

  ‘It will be yours, you idiot,’ Lexovia cries so loud, so close, that spit sprays from her lips and onto his face.

  He seems to relish it, a sinister sneer stretching his lips. ‘Save your barking, bitch.’

  A few of the member’s chuckle, but most just stand there, stricken and seemingly torn.

  ‘The Exlathars are breeding,’ Lexovia says, shoving past Brixen, letting him stumble. She addresses the others: ‘The infants are even more unpredictable and savage. And we don’t know how many there are.’ She paces now, scowling at every flushed and paling face. ‘Give Vladimir and the others a chance. They will find a way. I know they will. You saw what those monsters did to our unfortunate Court members who went there. Do you want us burning your bodies, as well?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Brixen growls, stomping up beside her. ‘I have already found a way, one that will yield actual results. I am about to set things in motion, so we can stop waiting around for ‘If’s, ‘But’s and ‘Maybe’s. He turns his attention to the others. ‘And if any of you are tired of waiting for answers that will never come, join me. Join me and make a difference.’

  The members once again assemble, tightening weapon chains and readjusting their satchels. None meets Lexovia’s eye as they begin to march for the gate.

  Brixen chuckles. ‘The last Elentrice was good enough once, but the people need more than just a title. They need action.’ He goes to rest a condescending hand on her shoulder but Lexovia viciously shrugs him off, her mind swimming as figures in black trample past, their feet pounding the earth like the sound of rolling thunder.

  Helpless, Lexovia watches as clanks that sound like shackles erupt from the gate and it slithers into the wall. She barely notices when Howard runs up behind her.

  ‘They wouldn’t let me through,’ he pants. ‘I tried to stop them.’

  Lexovia inhales, her eyes still following the shadows as they shrink into the distance. ‘They can’t be stopped.’

  Howard kicks the ground. ‘It’s going to be a bloodbath.’

  ‘How many?’ Lexovia asks, her voice calm, her face a picture of indifference. The sinking feeling of an overturned ship plummets inside her, dragging her down, but on the surface she remains afloat.

  ‘Not all of them, but,’ and Howard sighs, ‘a goodly amount. And some of the best.’

  If Brixen thought himself a lesser man, he may have heeded Lexovia’s warning. He may have called back his troops and told them to sit and cower as Vladimir had asked, but he will never ask that. Surrender, wait, caution: in his opinion, all words of a coward and a fool. A fool who has finally done one thing right: left him in charge.

  A slanted smile carves Brixen’s face, almost splitting it in two. He glances to each side and over his shoulders, admiring the collection of warriors soldiering beside him. Tonight may well be the start of a great war, but a war he is not afraid to fight. A war he knows they will win.

  They move as one, a beast with a thousand legs, nestled in the tall grass that barely moves as they creep through it, crouched and heads low. The air smells burnt and raw, carried on a slight wind. Brixen wrinkles his nose, struggling to recognise the stench.

  Then high-pitched screeches shatter the night, raining down on him like glass thorns, so shrill his teeth ache and his vision blurs. He halts, bringing the others to do the same, faces twisted in agony, hands clamped over ears, mouths clenched shut to keep from screaming. They haven’t even made it close enough to see the Exlathars base, yet something tells Brixen the Exlathars can see them.

  Each Court member, including Brixen, collapses, knees pressed to their chests as they wait for the piercing cries to ebb. At last they do, the night once again falling silent, and on trembling legs, the Coltis pull themselves to their feet.

  ‘I’ve never heard them cry like that,’ a woman puffs, her voice hoarse.

  ‘That was their children,’ someone murmurs from behind. ‘That was their warning.’

  A few members shift apprehensively beside Brixen, and he knows that the longer he stands here, the longer he hesitates, the more reason he gives these people to turn back; the more reason he gives them to doubt him. Pushing out his chest, he takes a determined step forward.

  ‘Since they already know we’re here, Ku-ta,’ and in one fluid motion, he draws out his elongated xyen. ‘No sense in being quiet.’ His eyes burn as adrenalin courses through his veins. He stares back at the others with a wild grin and the promise of battle, his fervour heightened when they return his zest, drawing out their own weapons.

  ‘Let’s get ‘em.’

  Roaring, the Court members charge forward, an untamed wave of bodies, beating the earth like an avalanche. They reach the Exlathars base in no time, the children almost giddy to see them.

  ‘You lot, go that way,’ Brixen bellows, directing half his force at the mass of children suspended in the air like a detached sheet of night sky with burning green stars. Glee is carved on their gaping mouths as they eye their new toys. Brixen doesn’t slow. ‘The rest of you, follow me,’ he cries out the order, pivoting to one side and charging at the entrance to a dark cave beside them.

  The children swarm on the warriors like flies on honey, releasing piercing cries, though not as harsh as the ones that nearly paralysed them earlier. These are vicious but bearable. The children are savouring this fight; they do not want it to be over too soon. Brixen grits his teeth and doesn’t look back, convincing himself that the howls of pain from his people and the shrieks of delirious pleasure from the monsters are all the result of a fight that will ultimately lead to a Coltis victory.

  Brixen marches inside the dark cave, the hot air drenched in the stench of sulphur. He gasps as the heat slams into him and sweat promptly claims his skin but still he thunders on. His followers close behind.

  ‘Show yourselves,’ he hollers into the unlit and silent cave, the only sounds the horrifying wails of those outside. ‘Ochis, if you will.’

  There’s a shuffle amongst his force and soon the cave is lit by swirling orbs of fire resting on the dwarfed palms of the Ochis. Brixen’s eyes widen at the sight that greets them and he’s gripped by an unfamiliar pang of fear. He struggles to catch his breath, a part of him longing to be bathed again in darkness.

  The men and women beside him stand proud and Brixen forces himself to do the same as his eyes scour every crevice of the cave. Its walls and ceiling move, squirming with the eagerly awaiting bodies of the Exlathars. Their bright eyes tilt with every twitch and jerk of their misshapen heads. As the creatures splay their mammoth wings, each feather a shuddering mark of death, Brixen barely has time to hate himself as he screams ‘RUN!’

  His cries are futile, drowned out by the howls of the beasts as they descend. Their wings slice through them like giant swords and their talons grab hungrily at the tattered bodies, dragging the Coltis back, kicking and screaming, before being ripped apart. The sounds of cracking bones and the tear of torn flesh echo from the walls. A yellow mist soaks the air, drenching those not quick enough to trample their way out or bury themselves beneath the dead.

  Brixen cowers beneath a dying Court member whose innards tumble out and slide around him. He covers his nose against the sour stench and closes his eyes, willing himself to stay deathly still, begging his jagged breaths to silence. Complete and utter carnage ranges around him, torturing his unstoppable hearing with the sounds of a battle that holds no triumph.

  He trembles, like the coward he really is, convinced that if he can stay still long enough, the beasts will eventually leave the cave and he can slip away. But then he’s struck by a cold whip of terror and scorched by the sting of Exlathar skin as
spindly claws coil around his ankle and yank him from under the corpse.

  LET HIM BURN

  Lexovia bursts through the great doors of the Court and is in the garden the second the first clash sounds, marking the arrival of a Teltreporthi. It’s a woman, half a man in her arms: his torso and head sunken and discoloured.

  Her feet skittering in the gravel, Lexovia comes to a stop. Before she can form a sentence, more clashes sound around her as more and more barely breathing and beaten Court members appear. Howard is on her heels, followed by many of the remaining members, those who refused to go to battle. Cries ring out, people race forward and Repairees in matching olive lab-coats thunder forward, shoving past grieving Coltis. In pairs, they poise their hands over broken bodies and their eyes gleam, directing their power.

  ‘Tixtremidral’ they utter and the figures lift off the ground, hovering with their heads and arms hanging limp as the Repairees guide them through the great doors and away to incubation.

  Howard braves a step towards the mutilated body of a man so badly scorched it’s impossible to tell who he is. His skin, red, raw and swollen, bubbles and flakes. Howard crouches beside him, studying the man’s unrecognisable features.

  ‘Will he make it?’ Lexovia asks. She hasn’t moved, frozen, numb, hands bunched into fists, looking on as the world crumbles around her and as shouts and howls of grief fill the still night air. As members race in and out, children are woken by it all, rushing into the garden to discover they are now orphans, and Repairees struggle to peel mourner after mourner off the near dead or lifeless bodies. She watches, unfeeling, as everything falls into chaos.

  Howard shakes his head and Lexovia notices the subtle shift in the man’s eyes. Filled with sadness and pain.

  ‘End it,’ she murmurs.

  ‘What?’ Howard gasps.

  ‘The venom will only get worse,’ she says, her voice cracking, threatening to shatter her resolve. ‘End it before it gets worse.’

  Howard lets the words settle. His mouth twists, his thoughts seeming to take him away. Then, at last, he turns back to the dying man.

  ‘I can take away the pain,’ he says. The man does not respond. ‘Would you like me to make the pain go away?’

  It feels like a lifetime and Lexovia holds her breath until the man slowly but surely blinks.

  ‘Blink again if that’s a yes,’ Howard murmurs, doubling into Fuerté form, and sure enough, the man musters the strength to blink one last time. Gently, lifting the man’s head in the palms of his hefty hands, Howard’s grip grows tight. ‘Elev nos senaremdos,’ and he twists, the man’s neck snapping in an instant.

  Lexovia gulps. The parting phrase: elev nos senaremdos, meaning live on in memories, sends her back to that night so long before when her world turned upside down and her empire was destroyed. A night not so different to this.

  ‘It’s Brixen,’ someone yells from a little way away, and Lexovia thaws. No longer numb, she is on the move and raging with red-hot fury. She leaps over corpses, shoves aside mourners, barrelling towards the one who caused all this—to Brixen.

  She barely notices his missing leg, the blood and filigree of shredded muscle dangling from where his thigh should be. He is being held upright by two Repairees. His skin is charred and shrivelled, struck by fire and the mist of the beasts, though in her opinion not enough. He’s missing an eye, half his face crusted with blood and fragments of skin, the other half somehow unscathed.

  ‘What have you done?’ she roars and instant silence saturates the grounds. Only faint sobs and the patter of racing feet can be heard. ‘What have you done?’ and she charges towards him, fists clenched, enraged when strong hands grip her arms and hold her back. One pair belongs to Howard, the other to a Fuerté she still hasn’t properly met.

  ‘I made a mistake,’ Brixen slurs, his voice weak, his lips drooping on one side.

  Lexovia releases a shuddering breath; the men still restrain her. ‘You have killed them,’ and she growls. ‘We barely have enough eligible fighters as it is and you killed them. You killed us.’ All her resolve shatters and Lexovia doesn’t know what strength she calls upon to keep from pummelling him and smashing his head on the ground.

  Brixen says nothing, simply lowers that head and closes his one good eye. The Repairees begin to move him inside, hovering him between them. Lexovia watches as they make their way up the steps and into the building.

  At last, Howard and the other man, release her.

  ‘Wait for him to get better,’ Howard murmurs, ‘then make him wish he’d died.’

  Lexovia considers this for a fraction of a second before hurtling after Brixen and the Repairees.

  ‘Lexovia!’ Howard calls, thundering after her.

  She bombards into the great hall, bounds down the torch lit corridor and skids into the incubation unit, just as they’re carefully beginning to lift Brixen’s body above the vat of extroosal. They won’t lower him quickly. They’ll do it gently, slowly, to see how he responds, to see if he can handle being soaked entirely.

  ‘Stop,’ she barks, and immediately Brixen’s bloody form hangs in mid-air. ‘Let him burn,’ and with glowing eyes and a flick of her head, she plunges him into the searing liquid. It sloshes over the edge, everyone leaping back. Howard pants as he catches up and Lexovia turns away. Brixen’s screams of agony do little, if anything, to ebb her corrosive anger.

  The Court has never felt so empty. Not just for the lack of warriors but for the absence of laughter, of passion, of hope. From the few hundred warriors who followed Brixen into battle, less than one hundred have returned. And what little hope the Coltis had of being victorious against the Exlathars, has been snuffed out. Though the Repairees speak of remedies and claim those injured will make a speedy recovery, their eyes say something entirely different.

  In the days after the battle, the only sounds heard, were those of sorrow: a staggered sigh, a sob, a cry of outrage. Training ceased. Nobody cooked or seemed to eat and black robes were worn like a second layer of skin.

  Lexovia paces the Seniors Chamber, the worn carpet feeling rough beneath her feet. Her gaze sweeps across the stone table spanning almost the entire room, stone thrones set around it. One is for Vladimir, engraved with a bolt of lightning sprouting wings; a Spee’ad who as Senior will carry them to new heights. One is for Baxter, marked with a whirlpool set on fire; a teltreporthi who will pull them from the flames. And one is for Brixen, a ruby eye on the wrist of a clenched fist, symbolising his connection to Prevolid and Fuerté.

  Lexovia glowers. Stupid joint-breed.

  The three remaining thrones are less grand and unmarked, there for the Senior’s advisors, all of whom left to accompany Vladimir. All who will soon return to find their efforts have been in vain. Even if they uncover Diez’s plan and find a way to return or destroy the Exlathars, they no longer have the means to do it. Brixen has made sure of that.

  Lexovia snarls and rests her tense hands on the back of Vladimir’s throne. She looks up when the door creaks open and Yvane steps in, followed by Howard and Dunt, the kind Travisor who had helped Jude discover his ability. Silently, they settle into the unmarked thrones, turning their attention to their new Senior as she in turn stares back at her new advisors.

  ‘Lexovia,’ Dunt soothes, his voice calm and inviting, ‘sit,’ and he gestures to the throne she grips for support: Vladimir’s. She hesitates, unsure of what would be right. Nothing feels it anymore. When Vladimir left her in charge, none of them could have expected this. She was merely meant to be a figure head, to hold down the fort, but things have gone horribly and utterly awry.

  And now, for better or worse, Vladimir did leave her in charge and the time for doubt has died with the fallen. She is the only leader the Coltis have, and now more than ever, the people need to be led. With a deep sigh, Lexovia draws back the throne—the chair, she tells herself—and carefully sits down.

  ‘As I am sure you’ve all guessed: we need a new plan,’ she states, her voice ho
lding more authority than she feels. ‘Unlike the Exlathars we cannot just breed ourselves new warriors, so somehow, we must find a way to win without those we’ve lost.’

  ‘Do you have a plan in mind?’ Howard asks. He sits straight, arms resting on the table, a vision of poise and strength, but Lexovia recalls the pain that has been etched on his brow and the tears that have coated his eyes every day since that night he put that poor man to rest.

  Lexovia twists a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘We can lower the fighting age. Let those who wish to fight alongside us, fight,’ she says and braces herself for the reaction.

  The others exchange glances.

  ‘To what age?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  Silence floods the room.

  ‘That’s very young,’ Dunt murmurs.

  Lexovia simpers, ‘I was younger. When I first felt the wrath of Vildacruz. When they stormed my empire, destroying everything and near everyone in a heartbeat. When the Coltis regrouped and my parents went to fight, I wished I could have fought with them, that I could have made some kind of difference, but I was simply left in hiding until it was safe to run.’ Lexovia sighs, turning her gaze from those staring back at her. ‘It would have felt better knowing I at least tried, even if the outcome wasn’t changed.’ She pushes back her shoulders. ‘Without younger recruits, we will surely be defeated, maybe even with them. But if we are to die, let us all go out fighting.’

  ‘I agree,’ and Yvane clasps her hands in front of her, her voice emboldened. ‘Not long ago, I came here to help and was turned away because I wasn’t of age. I want to fight for my land, for my life, and I know I’m not the only one.’

  Lexovia meets her eye, extending an unspoken ‘Thank you’.

  Dunt makes a noncommittal sound as he regards Lexovia with a mix of pity and pride, then he nods. ‘I will have the Rijjleton Guards put up notices and immediately send out parchments to families.’