Soldiers of the Heavens

  SOLDIERS OF THE HEAVENS

  _____________________________________

  AIELUND SAGA : Book 6

  STEPHEN L. NOWLAND

  Smashwords edition

  Copyright 2014-2019 Stephen Louis Nowland

  2019 Final Edition

  Map Illustration by Cornelia Yoder

  http://www.corneliayoder.com

  The Author asserts the moral right to be

  identified as the author of this work.

  Prologue

  The brilliant flash of violet light from the wizard's incantation subsided as soon as it began, bringing with it a change in scenery. Aiden Wainwright blinked his bleary eyes, attempting to adjust to his new surroundings. Gone were the cramped, towering buildings of Fairloch and the ash-covered desolation the Ironlord’s destruction had unleashed upon the city.

  Instead, Aiden stood in the middle of a circular chamber not more than six yards across. Grey stone bricks interwoven with lines of glossy black metal formed the walls, and this fact alone indicated he had returned to the Tower of Blackwood Glade. A tall cylinder filled with swirling blue light hummed nearby, a familiar design to Aiden who had come across such generators before. This tower was practically full of such ancient relics, an astonishing achievement considering their age and rarity.

  Terinus, former wizard to the king of Aielund, had taken the form of a small black cat for the past few days to “hide from his masters”, as he’d put it. The cat looked up at Aiden briefly before darting through his legs and running through an open door behind them. Slightly bewildered at this odd behaviour, Aiden slowly began to follow him out, but stopped short when a small person appeared in the doorway.

  “’Ullo there guvna,” the small man greeted him in a cheery voice. Given his short stature he was clearly a raelani, with a wide grin and mischievous green eyes. “Don’t you worry about the boss, 'e’s prob'ly just a bit tired from prancin’ around like a cat for a few days. Does funny things to the mind after a while, I reckon. 'E’ll just go and cough up some fur balls and be right as rain, ‘e will.”

  “Who the hell are you, his butler?” Aiden asked in a not entirely polite voice.

  “Aye, that I am, sir, that I am,” the chatty man replied. “Lucas is me name. See to all ‘is needs, I do. Well, some of ‘is needs, let’s be clear about that! Oh, that’s a corker that is. Yeah, me and the missus sort of ‘ang around, do the cookin’ and cleanin’ and such. Sure, living in a tower with a giant wizard ‘as its downside too, but ‘e’s very considerate of my, shall we say, vertically challenged nature.”

  Aiden moved past Lucas and peered down the hallway. The walls had been repaired since his last visit, and there were no lingering signs of their previous battle remaining. As before, the immense area within the tower seemed impossible — the hall went on for nearly fifty yards in either direction, with doors leading off from the main thoroughfare at regular intervals. Of the black cat, there was no sign.

  “I don’t recall seeing you or your wife here last time,” Aiden remarked.

  “Maybe ‘cause we was ‘iding from the earth-shaking battle goin’ on in ‘ere, wot?” Lucas chuckled. “If you don’t mind me sayin’ so, you look ‘alf dead on yer feet, so ‘ows about I get you a room? If you’ll follow me, sir...?”

  Aiden followed Lucas along the hallway for a short distance until the raelani butler opened a door and ushered Aiden inside. It was a small stateroom along the edge of the tower wall, with the usual amenities and a narrow, vertical window offering a spectacular view over the surrounding forest. The walls were the same dark stone as everywhere else in the tower. A raelani woman with sharp features and long hair pulled back in a tail was busily preparing the bed.

  “Almost done,” she said in a high-pitched voice, as she smoothed out the blankets. It must have taken some effort to make a bed for someone twice her size, but she performed her task with practiced ease.

  “There you are, my sweet,” Lucas crooned. “You recall Mister Wainwright, don’t you?”

  “I could hardly forget,” the tiny woman remarked ruefully. She scrutinized Aiden with piercing blue eyes before continuing to speak. “A right mess you are, sir. I’ll draw down a bath before leaving you to rest up. My name is Saffron, and if you need anything during your stay at the tower, Lucas and I are at your service.”

  “That’s right,” Lucas chortled, “we’re ‘ere to service your every need. Well, almost, if you get wot I mean! Geddit, luv?”

  “Yes, Lucas,” Saffron sighed, “it’s only the thousandth time you’ve made that joke.”

  “Well, the classics never get old, know wot I mean?” Lucas shrugged with a wink to Aiden. “Course you do, guvna. Yeah, Saffy and I have been together a long time now, ain’t we luv?”

  “A very long time,” Saffron answered in a flat voice, as she began pumping a handle on a nearby metal pole, which poured steaming water into a ceramic tub.

  “Try not to sound too enthusiastic there luv, you might give the wrong impression,” Lucas advised, rolling his eyes as he spoke. “What couple doesn’t have some ups and downs eh?”

  “How did you come to be working for Terinus?” Aiden asked, curious in spite of his weariness.

  “Oh, that’s a long story that is,” Lucas answered, “but I don’t mind tellin’ ya we wouldn’t be alive now if it weren’t for the benevolence of the man in the black robe.”

  “Benevolent is hardly the word I would use to describe him,” Aiden grumbled.

  “Ah, that’s ‘cause you don’t know the terrible burdens 'e carries, see? I’ll leave it for ‘im to speak for himself, as is only proper.”

  “’Ave you eaten?” Saffron asked of Aiden as she finished up with the tub.

  “I… no, not for some time,” he confessed.

  “I’ll make you something nice while you wash off that layer of muck. You look like you’ve been in a fire, doesn’t ‘e Luke?”

  “Aye that ‘e does Saf,” Lucas concurred sagely. “’ardly a surprise, given the size of the fireball that went up over the city. Could see the flash all the way down ‘ere, don’t ya know?”

  “Yeah I saw it,” Aiden whispered, recalling their near-death experience in the aftermath of destroying the Ironlord.

  “I think our guest needs to freshen up,” Saffron advised, nudging Lucas out of the room as she went past.

  “Right you are luv,” Lucas agreed. “If there’s anything you need, just pull the blue cord and one of us’ll be ‘ere quick as ya like.” Saffron pulled him out of the room and closed the door before he could say anything else, leaving Aiden to peace and quiet. The steam from the tub billowed into the cool air, beckoning Aiden to relax his weary muscles and clean off the grime.

  Slowly, he dropped everything he was carrying to the floor and shed the torn and dirty robe which had seen him through so much turmoil. He saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and noticed a floor-length mirror reflecting his image. He stared at it, taking note of just how far the golden scales had spread over his body.

  His entire left arm was completely transformed into that of a dragon’s, and most of his left leg looked the same. His back was covered in scales. This was the price of tapping so heavily into his sorcerous power, for the origin of that power was the dragon Salinder, long dead, but evidently still having an influence on his life.

  Aiden could barely generate any feeling at all, even looking upon the extent of his changes, and he came to realise he’d felt this way since the fall of the Ironlord. Gone was his anger and fear, leaving only a hollow emptiness in its place. As he slipped into the warm waters of the tub, he contemplated his recent decisions which had led him to this place and concluded he wouldn’t change a thing
. They had won the war, but at a terrible price.

  As Aiden thought about the mysterious things Terinus had recently hinted at, the warmth of the water carried him off to sleep. He dreamed of soaring through blue skies on golden wings, of descending upon helpless people below and piercing their feeble skin with his sharp talons, sending a river of blood flowing over the ground.

  Chapter One

  Aiden awoke later in the day to the warm light of the setting sun, streaming through a narrow window. The bathwater had become cold, and he shivered as he climbed out and dried himself off. He was momentarily startled by the appearance of his right hand, which was perfectly normal as far as human hands went. His dreams of soaring through the skies seemed to have gone on for hours, leaving him confused as to what constituted “normal” where his body was concerned.

  There was no sign of the robe which had seen Aiden through the long journey from the wastelands of Hocarum, to the bustling civilisation of Fairloch. Instead, fresh clothing was laid out on a chair nearby, suggesting he had received very quiet visitors while he’d slept. He quickly dressed, then left the room in search of his enigmatic host. Aiden had many, many questions in need of answers.

  The interior space of the tower’s top floor still amazed him. Its dimensions were simply impossible given the building’s limited size, and it took a few minutes of searching to locate the black robed wizard in another room further along the hall. This one had odd-looking tools arranged in prepared spaces along the wall.

  Terinus stood at a workbench, with his attention focused on something laid out on the surface before him. Aiden watched him working for a moment, before stepping into the room on soft-soled slippers.

  “I trust you find your accommodations adequate, Aiden?” the wizard asked in his rasping voice, without looking up.

  “Quite,” he replied, caught off guard by the unexpected greeting. “I would even go so far as to call them ‘palatial’, the décor not withstanding. I see you’ve put your royal stipend to good use.”

  “I have never accepted money from the king,” Terinus said, turning to face Aiden. “Face” being a relative term, for the wizard’s features were, as ever, hidden within the depths of his hood. “I serve another master, as I’m sure you’ve—”

  “Show me your face,” Aiden interrupted him. It wasn’t an order, as such, but he’d had quite enough of the wizard’s ongoing subterfuge.

  “I do not see how my appearance is relevant,” Terinus hedged.

  “On the contrary, it’s very important,” Aiden pressed. “If we’re going to be working together, I want to see who it is I’m dealing with. Remove your hood, sir.”

  Terinus seemed to consider this for a moment and then slowly raised his hands to the edge of the fabric surrounding his head. When he pulled it back, Aiden’s theories as to the wizard’s true nature crumbled in an instant.

  “You’re an elf?” he exclaimed in surprise, noting the pointed ears poking out from his hair.

  “You were expecting something else,” Terinus stated dryly. His hair, like the stubble on his chin, was white, but long and sparse. Elongated grey eyes gazed back at Aiden, filled with a combination of ancient wisdom and great pain. His skin was weathered and cracked like old parchment, and dark tattoos in sweeping shapes weaved across his face.

  “I thought you might have been one of the ancients,” Aiden mumbled. “Your knowledge of their relics…”

  “Stems from long years of study, and service to those who created them,” Terinus finished, obscuring his face beneath the confines of his hood once more. “I trust I have satisfied your curiosity?”

  “You’ve only scratched the surface.”

  “I thought you might say something like that,” Terinus muttered. “It would be expedient for me to explain more while we dine, along with my other guests.”

  “Others?” Aiden inquired. “Oh, you mean Nellise and the rest.”

  “Indeed,” Terinus rasped. Aiden now understood that the nature of his dry voice was his extreme age. Elves were renowned for being long lived, but the elf standing before him must have been pushing his people’s renowned longevity to their limits. “Lucas will guide you to the dining room, where I will meet you shortly.”

  “Wotcha?” the diminutive butler squawked from behind, giving Aiden a start.

  “Yes, quite,” he mumbled as Terinus returned to his work. Evidently, their brief discussion had concluded for the time being.

  “Busy man, ‘e is,” Lucas advised as he led Aiden down the hall. “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing, mate, Saffy and I ‘ave got ya covered. Just take a seat with the others and we’ll bring out a proper meal.”

  “How did you and your wife come to be working for him?” Aiden asked curiously.

  “Oh, that question again eh?” Lucas chortled. “Must look strange to you, for sure. Truth of it is, a plague struck our ‘ome town near Brigham, in the Rael Islands. You know where it’s at?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen maps.”

  “Well, the ‘ole bloody place was green to the gills,” Lucas explained with expansive gestures. “Figuratively speakin’, of course. Problem was, nobody looked sick ‘til they keeled over. Trifling inconvenient, if you ask me. I was comin’ over all feverish and such, with Saffy doting over me when this towering figure in black robes appears at the foot of me bed. Figured I was seein’ the grim reaper and I was about to shall we say, step off, when there was this flash o’ purple and Saffy and I show up ‘ere.”

  “He saved you?”

  “Aye, that ‘e did,” Lucas confirmed. “Came better overnight while he did some tests on the both of us. He said there was nothin’ that could be done for the others, and he was bendin’ some rules just to keep us ‘ere, but ol’ Teri’s done right by us ever since.”

  “So, you recovered overnight, without any direct help from him?” Aiden inquired, pausing in the middle of the hallway.

  “Yes, well, he didn’t heal us directly, as such,” Lucas hedged. “There’s something ‘bout this place keeps us alive, so we can’t actually leave it or we’ll be dead within hours.”

  “Ah, that explains much. I don’t recall hearing about such a deadly plague anytime recently,” Aiden mused. “When did this happen?”

  “Oh, well, time passes a little differently ‘ere, if you know wot I mean. ‘Ard to keep track of it.”

  “Lucas —”

  “A hundred and seventy-two years ago,” the raelani blurted to Aiden’s astonishment.

  “You and Saffron have been here, serving Terinus, for the better part of two centuries?”

  “Beats dyin’, I guess,” Lucas said with a shrug.

  “And in this time, you haven’t aged a day?”

  “Nope, I’m the same ‘andsome young stallion I was all that time ago,” Lucas confided with a wink. “I know wot you’re thinkin’ now. If this place stifles the passage of time, ‘ow old is black pajamas back there, eh? Probably bordering on a couple of millennia, if you ask me. Look, don’t worry yourself with any o’ our troubles, ‘cause from what he tells me, you and yours ‘ave a lot more to deal with in the near future. ‘Ere’s the dining room, just go make yourself comfortable, and we’ll be back in a jif.”

  As Lucas scuttled off, Aiden’s mind whirled at the possibilities of what he’d just learned. Not only did this strange tower defy all conventions on size, but shirked the laws of time as well. On top of all that, the very idea of Terinus being nearly two thousand years old beggared belief. It was too much to think about on an empty stomach, so he entered the dining room and took in the simple splendour.

  The chamber was large enough to comfortably accommodate a long table, and had a roaring fireplace at the far end. Simple candelabra lined the walls, shedding a soft light across the smooth wooden table in the centre. Seated at the table were Aiden’s friends and companions, cleaned and attired for proper dining. They ceased a quiet discussion amongst themselves when Aiden stepped into the room and turned to regard him in silence.
/>   “Hello,” Aiden greeted them, waving his clawed hand.

  * * *

  What followed was the most awkward dinner Aiden had ever experienced. Few words were spoken, but many looks were exchanged back and forth between the tower’s guests. Even the cheerful Lucas took one look at the scene and departed soon after delivering platters of food. Roast boar, potatoes and a rich gravy occupied Aiden’s attention, interrupted only by the clattering of cutlery on plates. Nellise Sannemann’s golden eyes followed his clawed hand as he reached for a bread roll, and it was she who finally broke the silence.

  “Am I the only one who finds that disturbing?” she inquired of nobody in particular. She wore her fine golden hair in a braid this evening.

  “Get in line,” Robert Black mumbled without looking up. The scarred mercenary seemed out of place wearing fine garments and sitting at a table.

  “How do you think I feel?” Aiden remarked casually. He was beginning to become used to his altered appendage, and certainly understood their concerns.

  “Honestly, you seem rather calm about it,” Nellise pointed out, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.

  “It’s been gradually transforming over the course of the past couple of weeks, so I’m used to it already.”

  “Have you been toying with strange magic again?” the cleric asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “If I may,” came Terinus’ ancient voice, drawing the attention of all present with his first spoken words since sitting at the table. His hood was pulled back, revealing both his elvish and sorcerous heritage to all.

  “By all means,” Robert answered dryly.

  “Aiden’s body has been dramatically altered by the dragon Salinder, essentially fusing the essence of two creatures into one body,” Terinus explained. “The more Aiden invokes the dragon’s power, the more he grants it greater dominion over his physical form.”