Page 2 of Of Empires and Dust

Just short of a thousand warriors stood in the clearing. Some were arranged in columns, ready to march, while others moved about, checking the injured and loading bodies onto hastilylashed-together sleds, drawn by the giant, white-furred stags that were the Dvalin Angan. Many of the warriors – those whose armour Valdrin and the smiths had finished – were garbed in silver plate and chainmail, the symbol of the white dragon peering through blood and dirt.

Calen didn’t think he would ever look upon that marking and not feel strange. These warriors looked to him; they fought in his name, bearing Valerys’s likeness on their breastplates. They had charged at his back on the night the Lorians attacked Aravell, and they had never faltered. In the days since, they had done so again and again as they routed the Lorians from the woodland and the areas around and pushed back the Uraks that ventured into the Aravell from Lodhar.

It was a strange feeling – to owe a debt of loyalty to so many. But they were willing to die for him, and he was willing to do the same in return. If his father had taught him anything, it was to protect your own; and he would. The people of The Glade never stood alone, and nor did they allow others to do so.

As Calen looked out at the clearing, six figures pulled away from the others and approached: Dann, Tarmon, Lyrei, Ingvat, Narthil, and Harken Holdark.

The elf, Narthil, was the first to speak. Calen had not spent much time with him before the attack on the city – Haem had selected the captains – but in the past few days, Narthil had proven himself more than capable, if a little rigid.

“Draleid,” he said, bowing slightly towards Calen before inclining his head to Vaeril. “Narvír.”

Commander.

“Two hundred and eighty-three casualties. One hundred and seventy-two elves, one hundred and nine humans, two Angan,” Narthil said matter-of-factly.

“Just the count, Narthil.” Calen’s tone was sharp, sharper than he’d intended, but he gave no apologies. He knew the elfmeant nothing by it, but after everything that had happened, they could not afford to see the differences between them. They needed to stay united. It was humans who had burned this woodland. Humans who had attacked Aravell. It would be all too easy for those facts to take root in elven minds.

Narthil gave a slight nod before continuing. “Two hundred and eighty-three casualties. By our count, at least six Bloodmarked are dead and over one hundred Uraks along with all Lorian soldiers. Despite the Urak ambush, the pursuit was successful.”

“Tell that to our dead.” Dann’s eyes were fixed on the ground, his arms folded, jaw clenched. “I’m sure they’d disagree.”

Calen allowed his gaze to linger on Dann. “Where are Atara and Aelmar?”

“They took fifty soldiers to scout the area for stragglers.” Harken stepped forwards. The Rakina towered over the others, his face and hands still smeared in blood, his long hair tied in a braid that fell over his shoulder and down to his hip. The man had thrown himself into the thick of the fighting, and the soldiers had rallied around him. “They will follow us to Aravell. The Uraks grow bolder, Calen. And if the past is any indication of the future, they will continue to do so as the Blood Moon waxes. We should pull our forces back, closer to the city, where the remaining Nithrandír stand guard. We were lucky. Had their numbers been greater, we would not be standing here drawing breath.”

Calen nodded. “We’ll discuss it with the others. For now, we need to move.”

The thrumof the Spark in the air reached Calen before the southern gates of Aravell came into view, like lightning crackling over his skin. The Craftsmages had begun the city’s repairs a fewdays prior, though with the chaos that had followed the attack, progress had been slow.

Calen’s heart ached as he once again set eyes upon the devastation that had been wrought on the ethereal city. Shattered veins of glowing erinian stone glittered like fragments of broken stars strewn across the crater-filled courtyard that fronted the gates. Uprooted trees as tall as towers lay amidst chunks of wall and cliff that had been broken free by the Lorian mages. At the very least, the bodies had been cleared, the elves prepared for the ceremony, the Lorians fed to the forest.

The repairs to the courtyard may have been neglected in favour of higher priorities within the city, but the enormous white gates that had been blown apart during the attack were now resurrected, and several watchtowers of white stone now stood about the courtyard’s perimeter.

As Calen and the others led the column of warriors across the rubble, the Highguard who patrolled the yard in their silver plate all stood to attention. Each bowed their heads, whispering ‘Draleid’ and tapping the butts off their glaives against the stone as Calen passed.

At any other time, Calen would have expected Dann to make a smart remark about it, but Dann had been different since the attack, quieter, more withdrawn. Alea and Baldon’s deaths had hit Dann hard. He had grown close to them both. Calen wished he knew what to say, but it had always been Dann who’d comfortedhim. Rist would have known what to say; Rist always knew what to say. He might have taken a bit longer to say it, more time thinking and weighing each word, but in the end, Calen could scarcely think of a time when Rist hadn’t been proven right… eventually.

The simple thought of Rist set a pang of guilt in Calen that manifested as a tangible ache in his chest. With each day that passed, the hope that Rist was alive withered; not that it hadbeen a large hope to begin with. Calen grabbed hold of the guilt, shoved it down into the dark abyss of his mind where he kept all the things that clawed at him, and kept walking.

In truth, he feared the moment he stopped and dwelled on the things he couldn’t change would be the moment they swallowed him whole.

Once they passed through the gates, Harken, Narthil, and Ingvat led the warriors to the makeshift barracks that Queen Uthrían had gifted them in the eastern section of the city. Meanwhile, Calen and the others carried on to Alura.

A dark mood hung over the city of Aravell like a dense fog. Thousands had been lost during the attack, ripped apart by the Spark and steel, crushed beneath falling rubble, butchered by the dark spirits of the Aldithmar, burned alive in dragonfire. The loss of life was at a scale Calen still struggled to comprehend. In The Glade a death was a significant event. The mourning of the loss and the celebration of the life could carry on for weeks. The entire village ached. One single death. This was thousands upon thousands.

He and the others walked through the city in silence. Aravell’s residents flowed around them carrying lanterns and wreaths in their arms as they prepared for the ceremony the following night. Many of them stopped in their tracks and bowed their heads at Calen’s approach. The elves of Aravell had treated Calen with respect from the first moment he’d stepped foot within the walls, but since he and Valerys had fought in the skies over the city, that regard had only grown. They had all lost so much, and yet still they stopped, still they bowed their heads and whispered ‘Draleid’.

Calen tried to be grateful, but the truth was he felt only guilt. Simply by his presence he was forcing these elves, bound by their honour, to halt their grieving and acknowledge him. The thought made him sick. All he wanted was to let the shadowsswallow him whole. Instead, he stopped and bowed his head in return to each and every soul that passed.

As they moved through the city, Dann, Lyrei, Tarmon, and Vaeril each mirrored Calen, not one grumbling at the slow pace they set.

“You do them a great honour,” Vaeril whispered in Calen’s ear. “It will not be forgotten.”

“I know what it is to lose the ones you love,” Calen answered as he inclined his head to an elven woman holding the hand of a small child. “It’s they who honour me. I brought the death here. They suffered its wrath… because of me.”

Vaeril grabbed hold of Calen’s arm, locking their gazes. “This was always coming. The empire was never going to leave us here, and neither were we going to stay put. This is known. It has been accepted for a long time. You were not the cause, but on the night the Dragonguard flew over this city, you rose to meet them.”

Calen sighed through his nostrils, giving Vaeril the faintest of nods before pulling his arm free and carrying on. He understood Vaeril’s words, but they brought him no comfort.

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