Chapter Eighteen
Battle Plans
One week later
I lay awake in the darkness too caught up in my thoughts to ever hope of falling asleep. Tonight was the last night I would spend in this cavern before we had to leave to join the East and my brother.
Reports had come in confirming the success of our plan. The entire Western force was besieging the city. Now all that remained was for us to do our part and hopefully win the victory, but I was filled with dark doubts as to the success of the plan.
How many good people would be lost?
Would I die in the fighting?
Such a concept hadn’t really bothered me before, but now it did. The precious woman lying next to me stealing my heat had also stolen my heart. The thought of losing her or not being able to live a lifetime with her was an unbearable thought to have to face. Why did all this hardness have to come when things were just getting good for me?
I was admittedly being selfish. This confrontation was a lot bigger than me. I had a responsibility to free these people and come to my brother’s aid and I knew that was what I would attempt to do. But the potential of what I could lose haunted me and I held on to the greatest of my heart’s desires, a little tighter as I prayed for strength and many other things.
I must have squeezed too hard because she stirred and lifted her head up, her glorious hair going everywhere with the movement.
“I’m sorry.” I whispered brushing the hair from her face.
She sat up more fully as she straddled me and a whole range of different emotions assailed me and I rolled her off of me to my side, “Don’t you try to distract me Raya! I have a lot on my mind that I need to think about!”
She squirmed against me and whispering into my ear she said, “All the more reason!”
I caught her wondering hands and pinned her beneath me. I looked down at her and she smiled up at me looking absolutely adorable.
I groaned, “What’s the use!”
She laughed out loud, even as I leaned down and began to kiss her hard cutting her laugh off.
Later as I still lay awake she propped herself up on one elbow and studied me, “What concerns you so much Zevin? Is it the battle? Do you think it’s possible that we might lose it?”
I nodded yes.
“Why do you say that? Lanorian warriors are the strongest and most skilled warriors alive on Assoria and you have over 15,000 of them to command and there are also the 4000 archers from the North as well. You do not think you can crush the West with such a force, when the chance of catching the enemy by surprise is assured?”
“I don’t doubt that we can crush the Western army, but the problem isn’t the West it’s the sorcerer and his troops of which I’m told there are several thousand of. It’s predicting what he will do is the problem.”
I looked her in the eyes. Her face was enigmatic, but I knew what she was trying to hide from me.
“He told you didn’t he? The meddling old fool!”
She started to roll way, but I pulled her back and caught sight of the big crystal raindrops making their way out from her closed eyelids.
“Raya look at me honey!”
She opened big sad and pain filled eyes to gaze up at me with shame written all over her features.
“You didn’t have to know!” She whispered brokenly.
“Yes I did! Listen Raya we can’t choose the parents we’re born to in life or what they do after we’re born. All we are responsible for is what we do and make of our lives. You are nothing like your father Raya! So don’t blame yourself for the evilness of his actions for there is nothing for you to be ashamed about honey!”
She shook her head rebelliously.
“You’re just saying that! You can’t really mean that and besides you don’t know everything!”
I caught her face in my hands.
“Raya I love you! I would never lie to you about anything much less this!”
Her big eyes gazed into mine and must’ve read the truth of my words there, “You do love me! How?”
“Very easily Raya. I find more to love about you with every passing moment the Creator has blessed me to have with you!”
She started bawling and I pulled her close hating how she had gone without love for so long. After she cleared up some I leaned her back from me.
“Do you think you could help me some in regards to what your father might do? I hate to ask you this right now but……”
Her fingers brushed up against my lips, “I know.” She said simply.
She was silent for a while, as she lay with her cheek against my chest.
“He will be surprised by your army. He knows there were survivors, but I don’t think he thinks that we number as many as we do. He no doubt will think his flanks are secure because of the treachery of the Northern King refusing to support you, which he will know about by now. In any case his forces will not be with the attacking Western army. He will use the West as an expendable dishrag. He cares nothing for them. He cares only for himself. His army will be close by, but perhaps we will be able to destroy the West before he can send aid to them, I don’t know. His troops aren’t normal though. There experiments. He creates people to do his bidding that have no consciousness or sense of humanity. They are very strong like the Lanorians and he may have created other things too by now.”
Softly I asked, “Did he experiment on you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not right now.”
“Okay we won’t, but Raya can you tell me of anything that can be used against him? Any weakness anything we could take advantage of?”
She was silent, but I felt there was something she hadn’t told me, “Raya?”
“The tannin! He is afraid of the tannin. I think he thinks there all dead.” She choked out.
“Take me to them tonight!”
Her tone was pleading, “Don’t make me do this please! You don’t understand what you’re asking of me!”
“Raya as I see it we have no chance at complete victory on our own, with these guardians maybe we have a chance. Take me to them now!”
We glided through the dark quietly. It was comforting to know that the two big wolves followed along close beside us.
Even making fast progress it took us nearly two hours to reach the molten waterfall. We continued past it following the seething river of molten rock. The river eventually disappeared beneath us, but we could see where it had flowed in the past.
Raya was in front and she had not spoken once since she had pleaded with me back in the home caverns and now she appeared to be becoming highly agitated. She would jerk now and then and her fists were clamped shut, as if she was concentrating on something very hard.
She passed a chunk of trinial in the wall and I saw it dim down until it barely glimmered. After she had passed by a ways I saw its usual glow return. Both wolves hung back around me, watching her suspiciously.
Just what was it that I didn’t know about my lovely bride?
I began to wonder at what sort of experimentation had been done on her by her father. The long cavern came to an end, when it opened up into a gigantic cavern the likes of which I had never seen yet in terms of massive size.
A large underground lake dominated the ground plane of the cavern. The habitat seemed sparse and there was little light to illuminate the cavern.
A voice spoke out of the darkness, “My my! How long has it been Raya? Seventy five years? No it’s been close to a century since last we met. A long time in the life of a human to be sure, but not so long in the life of tannin.”
A huge rock that was just offshore moved and I saw that it was no rock at all, but a monster of huge proportions!
This was a guardian!
Huge green eyes fully opened and studied us thoughtfully, even as traces of green and purple light started to trace up and down the massively scaled body illuminating the beast’s features as it went. Massive jaws were lined with thick sharply studded teeth. Forelegs, which were tipped off in savagely curled talons, looked as sharp as a swords edge.
What I suspected were wings folded against the massive body were outlined in colored light threads. Powerful scale like armor led down to powerfully built rear legs that featured a long heavy scaled and barbed tail trailing out beyond.
I could well see how the sorcerer or anyone for that matter would be afraid of such a beast. It had certainly won my respect. I had the suspicion that the beast was a female.
It spoke again its intense mesmerizing gaze upon Raya, “Your control is impressive my dear, but it’s slipping!”
The massive head swiveled to me, “Do something quick or there will be another mess to be cleaned up in here and I’m not sure the place has recovered since the last time!”
There was a compelling urgency in the beast’s tone, but also seemingly an out of place wry sense of humor. My eyes went back to Raya and I gazed at her in shock. She was jerking repeatedly and whole areas of her skin would briefly flash with a trinial blue color. I reached out to touch her.
Snap!
Searing pain coursed through me as I jolted back from Raya. Somehow she was absorbing the power of the trinial!
I had to stop it or she would destroy this place and perhaps even herself. Suddenly I remembered an incident that had happened on my first mission away from home, when I had gone to Earth. We had thought it funny at the time that is everyone other than Thannic, who’d got the brunt end of it.
I stepped in front of Raya.
Her eyes were wild and panicked and she was barely just able to jerk out haltingly, “Don’t touch me!”
“Not happening honey!”
I drew my sword out and jammed the point downward into the rock strata and then grasping the handle firmly with one hand I grabbed hers with the other. There was no searing pain, but wow what a jolt.
I felt energy flashing through me like a tornado as it went through me and down the sword to disperse into the rock strata of the cavern. The entire cavern lit up like it was day, as the diffused energy permeated the rock strata reenergizing the depleted energy of the trinial deposits. Raya stop jerking as the flow of energy out of her stopped and then she was falling.
I caught her desperate to hear her say something so I knew she was all right, “Raya? Raya can you hear me?”
“Easy now young warrior she has but fainted, nothing more. She will come around soon. See.”
Raya’s eyes opened and she gazed up into my eyes as she lay in my arms. She appeared dazed for a moment and then her eyes seemed to clear, “Thank you for stopping me.”
The voice of the monster behind me spoke again in a jovial tone, “Yes indeed! Well done young man! A few moments more and I’m afraid Kregridor was about to light you up in an entirely different way. He is not as tolerant as I have learned to become…… yet.” She finished pointedly.
A disgusted grunt sounded from and even larger rock outcropping that uncoiled and began to glow red with slight traces of purple and gold here and there. This new monster was easily half the size again of the first one!
His eyes were a purplish hue shot through with red and he glared balefully at us and I was certain that he intended us harm. I reached for my sword. Where was my sword?
Alarm coursed through me as I didn’t see it anywhere.
“Up here if you’re wondering.”
Dreading what I would see I looked up and the green eyed one had it clutched in one taloned fist as she held it up still glowing to be studied by her eyes.
“Tell me young warrior strange to these lands how and where did you come by such a sword as this?”
Somewhat frostily I replied, “I did not come upon it! My brother made it for me.”
She looked from the sword in her grasp to me with an intense gaze, “You say your brother made it! How could such a thing be done?”
Defensively I responded, “He is a master blacksmith and through prayer and study of my father’s sword he was able to make the one you hold, which I would like back now!”
She smiled, if you could call the opened rows of teeth to be such a thing, “You don’t know much about these swords do you? But of course not, else you would know that all you have to do is concentrate and focus on how much you want the sword in your hand and it will be yours. Why don’t you try it?”
I did try closing my eyes in the process. I heard the bigger monster shift its weight and my concentration doubled and the sword instantly slammed into my open palm.
I opened my eyes and stared at it unbelieving.
The green eyed one chuckled, “Good, but you could use a lot more practice.”
Her surly counterpart grunted disgustedly once more and slipped off his rocky island into the dark waters of the cavern and out of sight.
“You’ll have to forgive my mate. Being cooped up underground is not easy on him, especially when someone turns out all the lights!”
Her gaze shifted pointedly to Raya, who ducked her head low. The monster’s eyes came back to me.
“There is little to do in the dark except well….” She gestured with one taloned paw at something above us.
I looked up and on previously unnoticed ledges above us there were scores and scores of smaller younger versions of their parents. They ranged from the size of a large horse to that of a small forest elephant, but none of them were even close to either of their parents in size.
“Kregridor and I were the last of the tannin, but in our spare time down here we’ve managed to rectify that problem somewhat.”
There was a murmur of short chortles on the overhead ledges that she silenced with a single stern motherly glance before offering her attention back to us, “Where were we, oh yes, you said your father has such a sword also?”
“Yes he is the second of his family honorable enough to bare it.”
She seemed to go still and then more seriously than her former manner she said, “You have met my mate Kregridor, my name is Elsantha Thora, you may call me just Thora for short. I am well acquainted with the name of your mate as it is emblazoned in my memory, but yours warrior? What is your name?”
“Zevin Ta’lont.” I said curious to see her reaction.
Kregridor’s head came back out of the water, as he climbed back up onto his island as water from his recent dive sheeted off the platelets of his heavy scale armor.
Thora looked at him, as if seeking further direction, which was surprising given her independent nature so far.
And then Kregridor’s deep voice spoke, “So a Ta’lont has finally come. Tell me Zevin why have you come to us?”
His gaze, while not so menacing as it had been at first was no less dangerous now.
“I have come to seek help in destroying the sorcerer and his allies, something you failed to do the first time!”
Raya gasped and grabbed my arm in a panic over my choice of words, but neither tannin seemed to react to my choice of words negatively.
“A bold choice of words for a human, but sadly I cannot dispute the truth of them. We did fail!” Kregridor finished somberly.
Thora spoke up, “Tell me Zevin why have you come seeking help from us when you possess a weapon greater than any strength of ours and any remaining power that the sorcerer has?”
I looked at the sword in my hand, but she corrected me, “Not the sword, but rather she who stands beside you. She is of the sorcerer’s own making and his greatest weapon. A weapon never since equaled. There are none else like her, as her mother made sure to remove any chance that her father would ever have any more offspring before she died.”
I stared incredulously at her and then at Raya, “How is she greater than you in strength?”
I exclaimed looking at the two tannins. Kregridor’s rusty deep voice intoned, “Because she is. She was created with only two purposes in mind. Firstly she was created to destroy us the tannin. The sorcerer knew that some of us had escaped and he sent her down here to finish the job that he had failed to do. Secondly she was created in order to prolong his life in just the same way that she is now prolonging yours. His plan would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for one thing.”
Kregridor grew silent and I wanted to scream the question at him of what he hadn’t said. I looked at Thora, who was gazing at Raya almost tenderly.
I looked at Raya, who was crying as she looked at the ground her body shaking with sobs. I looked back at Thora not understanding.
Thora spoke softly, “The mistake the sorcerer made was that his perfect weapon had a heart and a mind of her own. Something he has been careful to eliminate from all his creations since then.”
“I still don’t understand!” I exclaimed.
I looked at Raya and she raised her eyes full of misery to me. “They weren’t alone when I found them! They had just had a baby. I…… I killed it!”
She broke into deeper sobs and I looked at her stunned.
“Raya.” Thora said softly.
Raya looked up still crying hard and Thora continued, “You know I forgave you for that a long time ago. Be at peace with yourself child.”
“I can’t!” Raya half screamed.
“I’m more of a monster than you are!”
And with that she ran from the cavern back down the longer cave entrance, as the two wolves that had been standing back followed after her. I started out after her too on the run.
“No! Stay here a while she needs some time alone.” Thora said quickly.
I stopped knowing it was good advice, but everything in me wanted to chase after her anyway.
I turned back to the two guardians, “I don’t understand Raya wouldn’t kill a baby anything! I know her!”
Thora looked sadly down the tunnel and then back at me. “Raya the person wouldn’t you’re right, but her father had programmed her to do otherwise. After she killed our oldest and she saw what she had done her consciousness broke through and stopped her or she would have killed all of us in her fury. I saw and felt what the sorcerer had done to her and I took pity on her and convinced Kregridor to do the same. She tried to kill herself, but I stopped her and instead I focused her on how to overcome her programming. It was hard let me tell you! She is very stubborn and hard to work with at times, which I’m sure you’ve discovered by now. Despite that it was going well until Kregridor said something he shouldn’t of that sparked her anger and flared up her old programming. She didn’t kill Kregridor, but she took from him the only thing he cares for other than me and our hatchlings down here, which is light. She drained the energy out of the trinial deposits in this cavern in mere seconds thus plunging us into near darkness.”
She looked over at Kregridor and said somewhat peevishly, “A costly mistake on your part my dear.”
Kregridor’s face remained impressively stoic in the face of what she was insinuating had all been his fault.
“What about the second reason and what he said about continuing my life?” I asked.
“Yes…… that.” Thora responded sounding somewhat reluctant to go into it.
“By what manner of means I do not know, but the sorcerer injected trinial into Raya while she was yet in the womb and then after birth and again I do not know how, but he manipulated and activated the deposits within her so that the trinial became part of her entire system. The trinial as a substance is self generating. It only loses small amounts of power over even a long span of years. Essentially the trinial is part of Raya and it causes her body to regenerate continually, much like the first human bodies did. She does age, but only very slowly because the trinial inside of her is always working to repair her back to a perfect state of energy or close to it anyway.”
“Okay I think I can understand how that might work, but what does that have to do with my life?”
Thora looked at Kregridor, but no help was forthcoming.
“There’s really no delicate way of putting it. When you are intimate with Raya and yoked together you are of one flesh. Her bodily systems look at your body as being part of a whole and they fix what’s found degraded in your body the same way it continually does in Raya’s. It was through this process that Raya’s father intended to use his daughter to gain the benefits of being younger and prolong his already overly prolonged life.”
“The sick bastard!” I exploded out with.
Not only did I want to kill the Sorcerer, but now I wanted to do it with my own hands wrapped around his neck watching his face turn blue and purple.
“Quite so!” Thora responded.
“However things have turned out differently and she now has you to protect her and yours is a life worth preserving longer that is if you both stay together regularly.”
I heard a strangled snort issue forth from the stoic looking Kregridor and my face flushed red, as Thora’s meaning hit me.
I tried to steer the conversation elsewhere, “So can you help or not?”
“At present only indirectly. If we show ourselves into the light of day to aid you in the battle we risk being shot out of the sky by the trinial bolts that the sorcerer wields. If we die our children may not reach adulthood and our kind will be no more.”
“What can you do then?” I asked.
“Something we’ve contemplated doing for a long time and have been saving for just such a time as this. The Western Kingdom’s cities sit overtop a highly unstable area. With a little redirection of lava and a little applied leverage we might be able to send the Western cities tumbling into the abyss that lies beneath them.” Thora said.
Well that answered one part of the problem, but it didn’t help with the battle any.
“Is it possible that you could undermine the Blue Castle too?”
“No unfortunately. It is built on solid rock. There is no way we can get to it, but from the air and we would never be permitted by the sorcerer to get so far.”
“Destroying the Western cities is all you can do for us then?”
Thora nodded in response.
“Perhaps not Thora.” Kregridor intoned surprising me with his input, “Look at the ring on his hand.”
Thora looked and the big toothy smile was back.
“Did you see the one on the sword to?” Asked Kregridor, with a hint of excitement in his deep toned voice.
“I did see that one, but not the other. I would’ve thought the master had taken it with him or left it in the Blue Castle, but he was wiser than to do that it would seem. Zevin on second thought we can do a lot more, but only if you are able to accomplish one thing first.”
Looking from one to the other I asked, “What?”
I found Raya sitting on a fallen boulder as she watched the magma shower down onto the molten river below.
“Do you hate me now? Do you think me a monster?” She asked softly.
I passed the alpha pair, who lay panting heavy against the cavern wall trying to stay cool. I walked around to the front of Raya and pulled her up to her feet. I raised her head up with my hand.
“No one is calling anyone a monster and as for my love for you it hasn’t dimmed any either, but is stronger than ever!”
“You’re telling the truth?”
“Nothing, but the truth Raya!” I said as I closed my arms around and held her.
“I’m sorry that I had to make you bring me down here and relive old memories.” I said softly into her hair.
“Was it worth it?”
I drew back from her and let my relief show to her, “I think we’re going to win now, both the battle and the war!”
She smiled wanly in return, “Good now maybe you’ll go to sleep and stop worrying.”
“Honey I’d rather spend the few remaining hours we have left together doing something else.”