1.
They stood on the ancient ramparts together, watching the refugees stream into the city. The sunset behind them, the long shadows of the delicate spires of the great Aldohthiir City looked like dark teeth, raking the very land itself.
She wore her battle regalia, finely wrought, delicate-looking breastplate of bronze covered in runes and script, and leather pants with matching bronze greaves and bracers. Her arms, tanned and sculpted from her days campaigning in the Queens service, were bare save campaign tattoos and a collection of scars.
He stood next to her, his rightful place as lord-commander of her majesty’s armies. His armor, no less finely wrought, was mangled and dented. Deep gouges and scratches marred its surface. He wore pauldrons and a chain-scale skirt of bronze as well, his helmet lost on some distant field.
She turned to face him and he saw there were tears in her eyes.
“It’s all going to burn, won’t it, Marcus?”
“Just things, Zarana. Just things. Buildings can be rebuilt.”
“But it’s our home.”
“Not anymore. Now it’s a piece of history.”
She turned back to watch the refugees.
“I-I have to go.”
“What? Where? The armies are defeated. Even the Handmaidens are passing through the Gate.”
“You should be with them. You’re their leader.”
“I know.” she turned to him again, “I just wanted to look one last time.”
He nodded his understanding. This was the view they’d both enjoyed more than thirty years past, as young adventurers, tramping across the countryside, cutting a swath of daring-do, fighting the Great Orcs, almost single-handedly winning the first war. It was Marcus Tenibrass himself who struck the killing blow against the demi-god bastard of their beloved queen, sending the Great Orc hordes fleeing into the dark north.
“So where are you going? Won’t you be escorting the Queen with your Shayleen?”
“Zarana, the Shayleen are all dead. I’m going to hold the walls as long as I can, while you all pass through the Great Gate.”
“By yourself?” She was shaking her head, her typically unemotional demeanor lost. As the First Handmaiden, she was Master of the Queen’s Assassins and Protector, a position that required a level head at nearly all times.
“No, there are about two hundred of us that will stay.”
“I’ll stay to then.”
“No, I think you won’t. The Queen will need you, and the Handmaidens will need you.”
“Orc-son! You’re trying to keep the glory for yourself,” she tried to joke with him.
“We’ll be the last through, I promise.”
She moved forward suddenly and embraced him. He held her in turn, gently, though his armor made it awkward and then drew back. He looked into her eyes, slate and storms swirled there. He acted as if he were going to say something, but closed his mouth and left her, Zarana, First Handmaiden and Protector alone on the ramparts with her memories of their wild youth.
2.
The Gate was ancient, and few knew exactly how its magic worked. The elder sorcerers and magi had consulted the most ancient scriptures and realized that the Gate was built into the city itself, and would consume settlement wholly. None of the magi or wizards or sorcerers could offer an explanation of what would happen to the city as the magical energies that fueled the Gate surged through it.
Many were optimistic, suggesting that the ancients knew this day would come to pass, and that the entire city would be transported through the gate.
Zarana, part of the Queen’s inner circle, had heard the archmages talking in hushed tones to their ruler. Many elder magic-users believed the energies required to open the gate, to rend open reality itself, would eat up the city, burn it to ashes from the inside out, leaving the refugees and their monarch alone, on a strange world.
A world without orcs, at least.
Zarana and her seven Handmaidens rode in a protective circle around the Queen’s carriage, Zarana at the rear, her tear-brimmed eyes ever watchful for that last threat, that final encounter that would render her decades of service inert. She’d told the courtiers that not even the Great Orcs of Northwild knew of the Gate, that their fears were unnecessary. It was a lie of course. In her years at court she’d learned to be diplomatic and outright treacherous when it was called for. She’d been warned by Marcus one day to never become the viper she guarded against so vigilantly.
She looked back, thinking of him, hoping she’d not become that viper.
The Gate loomed before the Queen’s entourage. A massive arc of stone, some hundred feet high, engraved with runes so old, so alien as to not even be recognized as ancient Aldothiir. They where strange and angular, jagged and altogether alien. Their meanings could only be surmised by even the most learned.
Zarana could hear the chanting of the mages grow louder, their strange words at once guttural and poetic. No stranger to wizards and their scuttling ilk, she reigned in her horse, a white mare with a golden bridle decorated with rubies, a gift from queen herself. She patted the beast’s flank and whispered nonsense words to it.
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Stories in the Ether, Issue #4
A Digital Storytelling Anthology
$2.99
Stories in the Ether is a quarterly story telling anthology of fantasy, steampunk, and science fiction short stories from Nevermet Press. This issue features 11 compelling works including:
- The Gorgon’s Love, by Martin Shelby
- The Stars at Night, by JC Hemphill
- Big Heart, by David J. Fielding
- The Chase, by J. A. Gonzales
- A New Beginning, by Colin W. Campbell
- The Mechanical Turk, or All’s Well That Ends, by Tucker Cummings
- Shelled, by M. R. Williamson
- Exodus, by Eric Staggs
- The Emerald City, by Per Wiger
- The Occurrence of the Cavalry Horse, by Teel James Glenn
- Empyrean Skies, by David Gaither
With artwork by Paul Hagwood
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