Page 29 of Of Empires and Dust

Once again, the world faded to black and burst forth in a flash of incandescent light.

He was in the sky, rain pummelling against his scales, death all around him.

Ahead, a smaller dragon with scales of pure white tumbled through the air with a much larger beast – Hrothmundar. A rage unlike anything Calen had felt in centuries ignited within him. As he tore through the sky towards the two dragons, a pillar of fire poured from the white dragon’s jaws, consuming Hrothmundar’s soulkin. A pang of sympathy flared within him, but he quickly snuffed it out. They deserved to feel the same pain they had caused.

In that moment, Calen watched the smaller dragon clamp their teeth around Hrothmundar’s neck and rip out his throat.

One final time, the world shifted, and Calen was standing in the Eyrie, sweat cooling on his skin, lungs heaving, heart pounding. With his hand still resting on Varthear’s scales, he stared back at the dragon and dropped to his knees, his breath misting in the air before him.

Above Calen, Valerys leaned forwards, the side of his snout brushing against Varthear’s, tender and warm.

There, in Alura’s eyrie, the light of the Blood Moon tainting the sky, all three dragons roared so loud as to rival thunder itself.

Chapter 8

The Beginning and the End

6thDay of the Blood Moon

Temple of Achyron – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom

Kallinvar stoodat the edge of the great plateau, his loose shirt flapping in the wind. Dark clouds streaked the sky in lazy brush strokes, mottled with pink and grey. The Blood Moon, full and clear, was a wound in the world, leaking across the night.

He could have summoned the knights to the war room or the Heart Chamber, but this was where he wanted them. He needed them to look upon Efialtír’s mark, needed them tofeelThe Shadow, to understand what it was they truly faced.

To Kallinvar’s left, Ardholm spread out across the mountainside, set into an enormous horseshoe-shaped inlet. Smoke wafted from the chimneys of the many homes, lanterns illuminating the hundreds of windows carved into the rockface. In the time from when Kallinvar had taken the Sigil until that moment, Ardholm’s population had grown tenfold, if not more.He had always known it as a village and still called it as such, but in truth, it was a city. And as the city’s numbers rose, they pushed deeper into the mountain, carving new homes, stores, chambers. He would do anything to protect this place, to protect its people,hispeople.

Ruon moved so she stood at his side.

“They will follow you wherever you lead,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder at the knights – what was left of them – gathering on the plateau.

Kallinvar nodded, pulling a lungful of air in through his nose.

“I need more…” he whispered. The words weren’t for himself or Ruon, but for Achyron, for the god who held them all in the palm of his hands. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I need more.”

“Come to me, my child.”

Just as it had before, the Sigil fused with Kallinvar’s chest ignited with a furious energy, sending a ripple through him. A brilliant green light burst across his vision, obscuring the world before him, and everything fell silent.

One heartbeat. Two.

A shriek pierced the silence, followed by a second and a third. A thunderous explosion roared in Kallinvar’s ears, screams and shouts, the clang of steel, the raging of fire and the wails of death.

Slowly, the green light faded.

Kallinvar stood on the rise of a hill covered in blades of grass that glistened like emerald shards. Hundreds of warriors surrounded him. Each was garbed in armour of shimmering green steel, the Sigil of Achyron emblazoned across their breastplates. Not one looked to be from a race Kallinvar knew. Their appearance was almost human, but the smallest was over a head taller than he, with skin the colour of terracotta. Its face was sharp and angular, its nose flat, eyes green from edge to edge with pupils that looked like beaded black slits.

A few of the warriors glanced in Kallinvar’s direction but gave him no heed. They looked out over the hill’s crest, towards a battlefield like none Kallinvar had ever seen.

A crush of bodies swarmed at the base of the hill. No fewer than a hundred thousand. Even from where Kallinvar stood, he could see the pulsing light of thousands of Soulblades in a myriad of hues. Arcs of lightning and plumes of black fire streaked through the mass while monstrous creatures as large as dragons tore through swells of bodies.

With every second Kallinvar stared, he saw something new: gargantuan warriors in red plate swinging axes larger than his body, creatures four times the size of a horse with three horns jutting from their skulls, winged creatures with dark jagged scales and ferocious mandibles crashed down again and again.

As Kallinvar watched in awe, a figure marched up the hill, armour-clad warriors at his flanks.

Kallinvar dropped to a knee, pulling his hand across his chest. After the disaster at Ilnaen, after so many of his brothers and sisters had been taken from the world, souls sheared, an anger had burned within him at the god who spoke in his mind. But still, in Achyron’s presence that fury melted away, replaced with shame for ever having doubted his god.

“Rise, my child.”

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