the wind and her writing picked up speed.
Konowa watched, mesmerized. From this distance he couldn’t see what she was writing, yet he imagined he saw every word. The quill rose above the page, moved over, and plunged back down. He saw the story unfold back in the world they’d left behind.
This desert of wasted lives and damaged souls was a battle won, the sharp end of imperial power applied. On maps in headquarters far away, the red-rimmed limits of the empire would surge outward as another pin was pushed in place. Bottles would be uncorked and talk of promotions-discreet of course, lest one be seen as too eager-would creep into conversation. Through the news sheets and crier services, the citizens of the Calahrian Empire would learn of the Iron Elves’ latest feat of arms and rejoice at their triumph over the Shadow Monarch’s minions and the ancient desert power of Kaman Rhal’s dragon. Evil was thwarted once again and the power of a new Star was delivered unto the people, courtesy of the benevolent Empire. The cost-fifty-four soldiers dead, wounded, and missing, and a couple hundred native warriors lost against untold hundreds of the enemy-would seem satisfactorily grim and proportionate.
These names, these people, would mean little to someone back home, except for a very few for whom these names would be everything. No doubt the masses would show appropriate concern at the frittering away of valuable resources in such a far-flung place. Konowa suspected they would be satisfied that the losses suffered offered the requisite sense of drama and the all-important Imperial motif of the few overcoming the many. No one, not even an empire, wants to be viewed as a bully.
Konowa knew celebrations would ensue, albeit without the guests of honor that had made it possible. Still, it was everyone’s patriotic duty to hoist a pint, shout brave slogans, and remind all those within earshot that if not for “this bum knee” or “a wife and six young children to feed” they, too, would be over there, instead of quartered safe in here. Smiles would abound as revelers congratulated one another, winking as they nodded their heads and said with gruff pride, “Damn right, we showed them, eh?” If a twinge of embarrassment caught in their throats as they pronounced “we,” it would be quickly washed away with the next round of drinks.
For now, however, the “we” were confined to a few small acres of ravaged land so far from home that home seemed more like a fevered dream than something real. There was no backslapping, no loud shouts of martial prowess or Imperial superiority. Quiet sobs of those trying to understand that the “we” were now fewer were studiously ignored by those fighting to keep it together. The tenets of diplomatic doctrine and the flush of Imperial pride found no purchase here. Later, perhaps, Konowa thought, they would see themselves as victors. For now, it was enough to struggle to comprehend that they were survivors.
The wind worried the edges of Rallie’s scroll. Konowa shivered. Rallie paused, her quill frozen above the paper. She looked up, pushing the hood of her black cloak back on her head. Gray, frizzy hair framed her face, hard-earned wisdom etched into every crease. The end of the cigar clenched between her teeth glowed fiery orange as she inhaled. Her eyes found his.
She was weeping.
A moment later her face disappeared in a veil of smoke. The drop of ink at the tip of the quill trembled. A chill breeze set the downy barbs thrumming. The drop fell, splattering onto the page.
It began to snow.
Konowa blinked. Flakes fell and skittered along the sand and the bodies lying there. A few snowflakes found the gap between his neck and the collar of his uniform, sending tiny rivulets of water down his back as they melted. He took a breath, his whole body shuddering as he let it out.
It was snowing.
Snowing in the middle of the bloody desert.
The laugh that escaped his lips startled him. He gritted his teeth, but more laughter rose up, spilling out in ragged gasps. His breath exploded in chalky sprays in the cooling night air. Soldiers lifted their heads to turn and stare. He couldn’t stop. His ribs ached and his lungs seared as they struggled for air, yet the laughter only grew.
He stood surrounded by death. The very smell of it permeated him so deeply he could no longer tell where it ended and he began. So many gone, condemned to a living hell of service after death — and here he was, laughing. He doubled over and braced his hands against his knees, but the laughter would not die. The natural order, always a buzzing, confused noise on the edge of his understanding, coursed around him as if storm-tossed by the approaching blizzard. He didn’t even bother to make sense of it. He didn’t need to. He stood up straight, gasping for air, with tears running down his face. He was still laughing, but now finally under control.
He was alive, and he was an elf. Maybe not an elf like the others, but then who said he had to be? What mattered was what he felt. A dawning, as yet barely grasped and understood determination, began to fill him. It flooded into the spaces left empty by the losses he’d suffered. It calmed, though it did not quench, the pain and agony he’d been using as fuel. This was something different, something quieter, yet stronger because of it. He knew now in a way he hadn’t before that the fallen did not die in vain. The missing would be found, no matter what their fate. And the Blood Oath of the Iron Elves would be broken.
He had no words for it, and doubted he could explain it even if he did. This went beyond anything he could say. All his life he’d known anger. It burned him, but he’d come to enjoy that pain. He was never more alive than when he was screaming at the top of his lungs and charging headlong at the enemy. Now. . now he saw the first steps on a new path, one that saw beyond the horizon of battle.
He took in a few deep breaths, letting the laughter subside. So be it. There was always a price to pay, and his would be higher than most. He would pay it a thousand times over to end what the Shadow Monarch had started. He wasn’t going to be a pawn any longer. Not for Her, not for the Empire, and not for his anger. He rolled his shoulders and stood straighter. His body relaxed as muscles unknotted. He felt. . taller, stronger, more alive than he had in a long time. In another place he might have even felt happy, but the carnage around him ensured that that emotion remained distant. If there was any joy at all to be found, it was in this: Before he took his last breath, he would end Her.
Konowa became aware that silence had fallen around him. The sound of Rallie’s quill on paper had ceased. He glanced up. The stars had vanished, the sky muddled with thickening clouds.
“It appears to be snowing, Major,” Rallie said, as gruff and matter-of-fact as ever. Konowa was relieved to hear she had stopped crying. He couldn’t handle that, not right now.
He shook his head and snow cascaded down from his shako.
Konowa turned his gaze to the north. The Shadow Monarch’s forest blocked his view. He should have found comfort in the fact that the malevolent trees and the many foul creatures that roamed within their thrashing embrace were retreating, pushed back by the power unleashed by the fallen Blue Star, the Jewel of the Desert. Having transformed into a towering tree, it rose high above the valley floor, the blue fire of its energy blazing from deep within branch and leaf, wreathing every shadow in cobalt. He wanted to find solace in the knowledge that here, as in Elfkyna, the power of the Stars was greater than that of the Shadow Monarch, but he couldn’t.
One of the reasons stood a few yards away, watching.
Konowa risked a glance at Private Alwyn Renwar. The soldier, if that’s what he still was, had not moved since his transformation. Once a meek and trembling lad barely able to hold a musket steady, jumping at his own shadow. . now in command of the shades of the dead.
In another time and another place, Private Renwar’s lone battle against a long-dead dragon magically reanimated from the skeletal remains of donor bodies would have earned him the highest medal of valor and a hero’s funeral. No one should have survived the destruction of that monster. But Renwar had, his body a fused bonfire between the competing magics of Rhal’s dragon and the Shadow Monarch’s oath. Perhaps his intent had been to die, but like Konowa, a sense of service had compelled him to make a far more difficult choice.
