Darkness has Fallen (Elf World Saga Book 2) Read online

  Darkness Has Fallen

  By Matthew Pequegnat

  Published by: Matthew Pequegnat

  Monterey, CA 93940

  Copyright © 2016 by Matthew Pequegnat.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission from the publisher, Matthew Pequegnat.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Maps Created by Matthew Pequegnat.

  Cover Art by KRP.

  ~ ~ ~

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  A pale day for dying, he only hoped it wouldn't be him doing it. Killing on the other hand he was perfectly fine with. Certainly it was what he was really here for, paid for, among other things. He looked up at the hard desert sky, a miasma of dust and heat washed-out the usual stark blue, turning it today to a dusty pale grey-blue. He wiped his blue eyes with the sleeve of his coat, it was also dreadfully damn hot, certainly far past the century mark, on this cruel dry late summer day in the Surin foothills. The low mountains stone cliffs baked ocher red under the afternoon sun a thousand feet farther up slope. Washed out pale green scrub thickets covered most of the rocky desert ground.

  He had been at the hunt for hours now, scouting for Orcs who were probing the Elven armies fortifications, skirmishers in the no man's land between the two forces. It had not so far been a good day for the Orcs, but they had the numbers to loose, his people did not.

  The late afternoon wind stirred the dust in a cloudless sky, but brought scant relief. The monsoon rains that gave this semi-arid land much of its life sustaining water, had stopped surprisingly early this year, and now grit was the only thing likely to be fall from the sky until the winter rains returned, “bloody hell I hope we are still not stuck here that long.”

  He had a women he wanted to get home to, and a castle vineyard that soon would be at harvest, in a far softer and gentler place than this pale place for dying.

  Mystros Greydon Sunstar, or Myst to most people, again whipped a sheen of sweat from his rugged face with the back of his dark sage green coat sleeve, “it takes a lot for elves to sweat, but this damn well will do it,” he thought, and today he had long past that point. “Anything sane was resting in the shade, hiding from the heat, certainly not out in it…But I probably don’t count as sane, gave that up a long time ago...”

  The ‘trail’ he was on, if you could call it that, was leading up through the brush covered hills to the sun baked mountains, it followed a dry creek bed that had held a trickle of water just a few weeks ago, but was now bone dry. Myst searched the Scrub Oak and Thorn Trees that created this dense nearly impenetrable brush that clung to the hills to either side of the dry wash.

  “Another hour and we’ll head back, screw this heat,” he thought, he hated sweating and being dirty more than just about anything, but somehow found he had long ago chosen a career that brought all sorts of these discomforts. “Yes I have no doubts regarding my sanity, or lack thereof.”

  Myst had on a long dark green coat over his black leather Brigandine armor and grayish green uniform pants. He found it better to sweat more than be cut to shreds by the heavy thorns, “Besides everyone says Elves don’t suffer from heat or cold… and the next person that tells me that gets their arms ripped off and beaten with them!” He used the coat sleeve to again, wipe the sweat from his eyes, surreptitiously searching the both sides of the creek bed with his gaze as he did so, he was not alone.

  He was hunting for Orc scouts in the no man’s land between two warring armies, you could learn a lot from the dead, and even more if you caught them alive before killing them... Orcs were well suited for this terrain, they were a rugged lot, with coarse dark hair, thick rusty tan to pale gray color hides, reddish eyes, porcine nose, thick protruding brows and heavy lower jaws and longer than normal canine teeth,and a thick muscular build, unfortunately they also blended in well. He knew they were very dangerous foe, if not usually terribly bright.

  He glanced down at the compound crossbow, casually resting across his lap, making sure the bolt was in place, not something you want to discover missing when you need to shoot something.

  The dun horse he was riding stumbled as it crossed the dry rocky stream bed as the trail seemed to continue up the other side. He dug into her sides and wrenched the reins with his left hand, to get her up the slope while ducking the low branch of a thorn tree.

  From behind a tree to the right two Orc charged at him, thick heavy spears ready to impale, Myst triggered his crossbow and the first Orc was hurtled back as the steel tip bolt punched a hole through its chest. Quickly Myst thumbed the latched that let the mechanical crossbow break in two, pulling back the front handle and the one in the butt stock, the crossbow re-cocked itself. Snapping the crossbow back together in less than a second, Myst grabbed a ready bolt from his saddle, placed it in the firing grove and fired again just before the Orc could strike. The Orcs head seem to explode into a mist of red, as if a watermelon had been hit with a sledgehammer.

  Another dark shape rose suddenly to his left and hurled a throwing ax at him, striking hard on his black leather Brigandine armor. The little round metal studs, set in a diamond pattern did its job and turned the ax blade. That he had broken ribs crossed his mind as the force of the impact caused him to fall of his horse to the right. The horse bolted with Myst’s right foot still caught in the stirrup as his head bounced on the ground. Bright red agony flared as he felt the ankle break, he fought to remain conscious and free his boot to keep from being dragged to death. He rolled clear into the base of another thorn tree, shaking his head to clear his sight from the pain, and struggled to rise to his knees. The orc was charging him a second hand ax raised to cleave Myst scull.

  Myst grabbed a dagger from his belt, whipped the blade forward and flying it took the orc in the base of its throat. The creature stumbled to a stop only a few feet away, trying to stop the blood flowing from its neck, hate in its red eyes as it gathered the will to charge one last time as it knew it would never breathe again but determined to take the elf with him to hell...

  A black horse charged down the narrow trail, a sword flashed and the Orcs head slid free from its still standing body. The rider wheeled about and rode back as the Orc finally toppled over to leak blood into the parched dirt.

  Ser Ious Taustara looked down at Myst, who was sending a small wave of healing earth magic into his right ankle. “You’ll have to cut the boot off…”

  “Yah, that’s probably true Ious, but the least of my concerns at the present” Myst replied to the dark sandy haired Sun Elf Knight.

  “They were nice boots though…” Ious looked down from his horse, “Ser Wills is trying to catch your mount, but you had better ride behind me, keep you out of trouble brother… I turn my back and you find another Orc, or it looks like Orcs, to play with… I guess we head back to camp,” he looked back up the trail, “I hope I hope…, besides all this noise will have drawn extra attention?”

  The sound of hooves on rock had them looking up trail as a rider in a dusty dun colored cloak le
d Myst horse to them. “Did you fall off your horse.., again” a dark haired Ser Wills asked?

  Ser Ious laughed and Myst simply shook his head, the little healing magic had only slightly dulled the pain and the normal rough camaraderie was beyond him at the moment.

  Myst pulled his dagger from the dead Orc, whipped it clean on the body, then whipped it again on his own dusty greenish grey uniform trousers. “Wills you and Ious continue on with the scouting, I’ll head back and find a healer, if I can get on the damn horse.”

  Ser Ious slid down and helped Myst mount, then steadied him as the pain made Myst sway in the saddle. Myst right hand glowed green as he pushed as much magic into the leg as he could without weakening himself too far, the cracked ribs a mild annoyance compared to his leg.

  “I think I will head up alone,” Ser Wills Cadous told them, “Ser Ious the clumsy makes even more noise than you do, and you look like you’re about to tumble off your horse again. And Gods help us if you get yourself killed, the Captain General will put me in charge,” he gestured vaguely around, “and really who, beside you, is stupid enough to want to lead this band of miscreants?” He chuckled, “Besides as a fellow Andalisesse I have to look out for you… Forward the Golden Eagle.”

  “Forward the Golden Eagle.” Ser Ious echoed quietly looking up at Myst.

  Myst looked hard at both of the Knights of Andalis, “None of that,” said sharply, “that bird does not fly! I will not see you lose your heads, the Emperor would count that as treason.”

  Wills spit, then stared back at him uncowed, nothing much ever bothered Wills, a very deadly professional ‘spy’ who had looked deep into the darkness one time too many. He had quit the game a few years ago but the current crisis had pulled him back in, Myst wondered it the darkness would let him go even if he lived through the war, probably he was made of a strong metal.

  Ser Ious looked away in discomfort but also obviously not cowed or discouraged in his passion. He went about searching the dead orcs for papers or anything useful.

  Wills grinned his usual somewhat unhinged smile, “maybe I can get some orc hunting done without you two scaring them away…” He turned his horse and rode into the thicket of brush.

  Ious gracefully vaulted back onto his mount to return them to the army’s encampment “Just hold onto your beast Myst and I will take the lead, the going down will be harder than the way up with that broken bone…” And he was right, for Myst it truly was a pain.

  ~

  The camp of 60,000 Sun Elves was neat and orderly, but full of a busy hustle and military traffic that kicked up a choking dust, dun colored dust deem to coat and covered everything. Ser Ious led them back thru the northern gate in the fortifications, the deep wooden spike filled trench and the low earthen and log wall behind it, that surrounded the army and kept the orcs out. The medical tents were their first stop where priest of the Creator and priestess of the Consort practiced the holy magic that was significantly better at healing than the elemental forms of magic.

  Letting Myst lean on his left shoulder, Ious helped Myst to his tent. The healers had spent some magic on his ankle, the normal twelve plus weeks of healing nature would have taken, now would only take a couple days to finish, or so he hoped. Magic had its limits and forcing the healing further would have taken considerable strength from the Healer who needed it for those closer to death's door and relying solely on healing by magic frequently left the patient with an inferior healed wound or healed bone in Myst case.

  The wood framed canvas tent was larger than most of the officers quarters, with multiple rooms, as it also doubled at the military intelligence center for the army’s expeditionary force, a force that was not going anywhere very quickly.

  The army had had to land at Cortas the closest Keshian seaport as the Imperial Navy had been unable to break through the blockade and relieve Surin City by sea. Three times the Sun Elf Navy had clashed with the combined fleets of the Shadow Elves, Orcs, and of their hired pirates. The Moon Elves had even sent a fleet from Ferinzia for the last try but that too failed. So the army had to be landed a hundred miles into Kush, marched up the Sea Road and into the narrow strip of land between the mountains and the sea that separated the border and then barely a few miles into the province of Surin they had found a fortified encampment of two hundred thousand Orcs and their allies blocking the way, and so they sat, and had been sitting for weeks.

  A frontal attack on a fortified enemy who has a four to one superiority is not usually a sound military strategy, so they waited, each side would probe the other daily, and skirmishes were frequent, but until more troops or a way around could be found here they would sit… The problem was not finding the troops but in finding the ships, as so many had been lost. A quarter million Sun Elves were waiting in the city of Neve a short hundred miles across the strait on the North Continent, but it was a very long, long way to swim.

  Ral Cordan, Captain General in command of expeditionary force, had just left Myst’s complex of tents, hoping for some good news, he left disappointed. He had been the Military Attaché to Kush prior to the Orc invasion, promoted to full Captain General and given command of an Army usually commanded by a Field Marshal, but none of them had been available on the East Continent, or had any made it over with the advanced army, and now the smell of disaster discouraged Field Marshal Mallan Valse from crossing over to take personal command, he would sit with the main force in Neve for the time being. Ready to take credit for any surprize victory, or shift blame if things went south...

  Surin City the besieged provincial capital, continued to evacuate civilians magically and even using a couple of highly paid dragons, and thankfully by now much of the civilian population had escaped, but that was the best of the otherwise bad news. The effort had completed tied up and exhausted most of the available Sun Elf mages, and even with the help of a goodly number of Moon Elves who had come to help, it had taken months to move over a hundred thousand people, the one way across the open sea. The city had not been reinforced or even greatly resupplied. A quarter million Ocrs had the city invested, with a much smaller mixed force of elven military and volunteers holding the city walls.

  They would also not be any help from the Star Elves in neighboring Kesh anytime soon, as they were dealing with another invasion from the south of their county, from Ishmar, a country that really had not even existed as a country a few generations ago, it used to be nothing more than outcast Horcs (half Orc, half Elf) and Wild Elves who had banded together in small lawless outposts. Now apparently Ishmar was a new power to be reckoned with, and also presumably now allied or at least working with the Shadow Elves for some unknown gain, probably territorial conquest, but no one was sure, speculation was rampant, that they had plenty of, facts not so much...

  And somehow all the intelligence services had missed that. Someone had planned this war very carefully and caught the free world unprepared, not the first time and Myst was sure not the last either.

  Saddly, with over hundred thousand of the Sun Elf population of the province missing, many presumed dead or enslaved, it was a humanitarian disaster, as well as a military one. Some elves will have escaped in boats or a foot, many it was hoped still in hiding, and every day a few dozen refugees made their way down from the mountains to the army, poor and starved, but alive and free. Most with tales Myst would rather not hear, but it was his duty to do so as the intelligence chief.

  Later that evening, Myst was waiting in his bedroom section of the tents for one of those who had made it to the camp a few weeks ago, but what to do with her… She was wanted for murder of her husband, the Baron of Summerhall, a killing the day or two before the invasion had occurred, she had ran and somehow made it here. If he turned her over to justice, a military court would hang her most likely. And Myst had no doubt she was guilty of the crime, but she could be of more use to Myst alive then dead… And he really had never liked her husband anyways, a miserable elf who had caused problems for his neighbors most of his life,
and was possibly a traitor suspected of dealing with the Orcs and trading with the enemy for money. But the Baron had never been caught, not for lack of trying, but he was slippery or had been... Also her father was the Count of Marigny, and having him owing Myst a favor and not enraged for hanging his daughter would be a factor worth considering...

  He had put her to spying in one of the military brothels, they were desperately understaffed, mostly with volunteers from the local population doing their civic duty or simply starving refugees looking for shelter and coin, or a little of both… Most of the professional’s courtesans were with Field Marshal Mallan Valse in Neve… of course, they had not been a priority to ship over. So the army would make do with what they could find locally, because the army had its priorities...

  The tent flap open from the larger main tent to the smaller tent Myst used as his sleeping chamber, Moss Blackforge, Myst Dwarven bodyguard stuck his head in, “you have a visitor boss.” A cloaked and hooded figure walked into the tent, stopping before the camp chair he was seated on reading reports.

  “No one comes in,” Myst ordered. The dwarf nodded and went out.

  The figure, a slender five foot seven, unfastened the cloak and let it fall to the carpeted floor, all she had on was a pair of gold sandals, and those too she casually removed, dug her toes into the soft carpet and stretched for full effect. She was giving Myst her usually insolent and somehow incredibly innocent looking pout. Her dark honey blonde hair cascading over her almond shaped bright blue eyes. With a flawless petite heart shaped face, Natalia Marigny, or as she preferred Alia, was the widow of the late Baron of Summerhall, and she was stunningly attractive, even for ‘the beautiful people’, she was an Elven rarity, fey and delicate she seemed both much younger and more innocent than she really was, by far...

  Usually by thirty or so summers, Elves would take on a beautifully ageless appearance until they gained with age the ‘mature presence’ in their fifth centuries of life, even later in they take on the subtle yet visible signs of aging, subtle lines around the eyes and greying hair, and by nine hundred years white hair and a thin frailty. But Alia while over two hundred summers still had the ‘fresh’ youthful look of a elf in no more than her late teens.