The Last Null Read online

  Terak had been brought here by the human storyteller Kol—who was also a null, as each and every one of the Emarii storytellers were. He had been brought here to enlist the help of these strange bird-like beings in the fight against what came for them all: the opening of the Blood Gate.

  If it hasn’t happened already, the elf sighed as he heaved the pained and murmuring Kol tighter to himself. Like Terak, there would be no healing cantrips for Kol. A null had to bear their wounds, grunt, and bite down on their pain without the aid of magic.

  At least I have the Path of Pain, Terak thought to himself, remembering his lessons as he breathed through the aches and tiredness of his body, allowing the hurt to only add to his iron resolve.

  Ahead and above them, the Elder Being loped easily, lightly reaching its long-fingered hands to caress the trees around it, or prodding the dirt with its white-wood spear. It hopped to the top of the rise where the ancient trees began to thin.

  “Hsst!” It immediately flinched backward, raising the spear in a warning gesture.

  “What is it!?” Terak gasped, pushing himself and the storyteller fast to scrabble up the rise. He joined their guide to see for himself.

  The great and ancient Forest of Hon, spread out below them like a mottled green-and-black blanket—was burning.

  “Yuoee-aii-eee!” Every hair on Terak’s body seemed to stand on end, and even his ears twitched as the Elder Being let out a long, ululating cry at the scene before them.

  The Forest of Hon, although apparently a fraction of its former size according to Kol, was now further threatened by the raging fires that surged between its hills and along its wending riverbanks. Lines of cherry red sparked and flared at the seat of rising plumes of heavy smoke. And behind it, Terak could see a blackened wasteland of withered trees and mounds of smoking ash.

  The fires were spreading toward their position, where the edge of the great forest gave way to the lakes and Fell-lands that skirted the human kingdom of Tor. The fires burned northwards, squeezing all life up and out of the southlands.

  “My home! My Hon . . .” the Elder Being called again and again, convulsing as it fell to one knee. It planted the spear end into the ground as its form shook, and it clutched at its breast with spindled fingers, as if it, too, were pained.

  “This land is my body, and I belong to it,” the creature sighed.

  “Then we shall stop it,” Terak said matter-of-factly, as the Book of Corrections had never given any time for mourning. Only pain. “And if we cannot do that—” His sharp eyes saw moving, running, hooting shapes down there in the dark. Orcs. “Then we shall avenge it!”

  “There!” Terak breathed. He hit the last rise of mossy boulders before the ground of the forest swept downwards into a heavily thicketed river gully. The smoke was thick in the canopies above them now. The elf could taste the acrid woods and char.

  On the lower side of the riverbank, Terak could see where two of the large orcs were heaving splintered wood, torn and chopped from the trees about them, into mounds. One stood back and started to liberally spatter lamp oil over the mess.

  Each of these orcish warriors was easily six feet tall and three feet broad—perhaps seven feet tall were they not naturally hunched over. They had gray-and-green mottled bald skin and jaws that held cracked, pronounced tusks. For their armor, they wore plates of heavy, scratched, and dented steel, crudely fashioned. Any orc on their own would probably be enough to counter three or four human warriors. Such was the wild strength of these people.

  “Elf . . .” coughed Kol, the storyteller. The Emarii still had one entire side of his face caked in a mask of dried blood where he had tried to fight an orcish warrior before. The older human’s eyes were glassy, but he appeared to have his tale-spinner humor about him still, as he said—

  “I told you elves should use bows.” He nodded to where they would have a clear shot at the two orcs, ready to start another of the forest fires.

  Terak hissed. The human was right, of course, but what good was being right when you couldn’t do anything about it?

  Use what you have. Terak remembered the words of the Chief Martial, his long-fingered hands scouring the ground about them for a suitable missile.

  This. His hands enclosed around a fist-sized rock and tore it from the ground. The Elder Being beside them readied his long spear.

  “Now!” Terak urged, rising into a half crouch at the same time as he pivoted on his hip and threw his arm forward.

  The rock shot down from the rise and across the river a fraction sooner than the bird-being released his white-wood spear.

  Thock! The stone hit one of the two orcs on the side of the temple, sending it staggering to one side. It fell to the ground, hands fumbling with the skin of lamp oil.

  “Urk—” The other orc had already managed to raise its flint and steel box, holding it before him just as the Elder Being’s spear struck home. It let out a surprised grunt as the spear shot through its back, causing it to flail wildly with its hands.

  “Interlopers! Intruders!” The Elder Being hissed in agitation, seizing from its belt a smaller, curving long-blade. This weapon appeared to be fashioned from the same white wood as the spear. The bird-being moved to the edge of the rise and leapt.

  Terak’s eyes rounded as he saw the Elder Being roll its shoulders back as it jumped over the river. Two short, black-feathered wings snapped out from either side of the mane of feathers that ran down its back, allowing it to swoop downwards and land in a heavy crouch on the opposing bank.

  “Wait!” Terak snarled, turning to look at Kol briefly, who nodded.

  “Go. I’ll be fine,” the human wheezed, propped against one of the sapling trees.

  “Ixcht!” Terak swore in frustration, swinging himself over the boulder to skid down the bank of the river. He sprang from one river rock to another to join the already-advancing Elder Being.

  “Foes, fire, and fight!” The elf heard the bellowing battle cry of another orc deeper in the forest. He pulled his two daggers from his belt and started to climb the riverbank.

  The scent of oil was heavy in the air here. The ground was trampled and muddied with the passage of the orcs. But the Elder Being appeared incensed, leaping to kick and strike at the pile of wetted woods in its fury.

  “Gruh?” A confused grunt, as the orc that Terak had felled with the rock rose on the other side of the fire-mound, rubbing its head, slick with lamp oil.

  The Elder Being hadn’t noticed it, so rapt was it in dismantling the fire-trap.

  “Stars damn it!” Terak swore. He leapt around the mound of wood as the confused orc seized up a heavy axe from the ground.

  “For the Queen!!” The bellowing orc burst into the clearing.

  It held a heavy spear in one hand, with two heavy barbs of black metal on either end. In its other hand was a burning torch, which it flung toward the mound of wood at the Elder Being’s feet.

  “Watch out!” Terak cried, just as he closed with confused, axe-bearing orc. The Elder Being let out a sharp squawk and jumped from its work, just a plume of fire blossomed under its clawed bird talon feet.

  “Rakh!” The orc swung its axe in a wide arc at the elvish assassin. Terak ducked and darted forward to strike with his curving long-knives.

  Clang! One of the knives struck metal, while the other found flesh at the side of the orc’s belly.

  “Oof!” The orc stamped outwards with one heavy foot, sending Terak flying against one of the smaller trees.

  He hissed, spinning himself back over and jumping to his feet. The orc advanced, raising the axe. Blood streamed down one side of its body.

  “Hyagh!” The assassin kicked out, hitting the orc on the side of the knee under his injured side. The Chief Martial had done more than just teach them how to kill. He had taught them as much anatomy of the different races of Midhara as possible—all the better to get the job done.

  The orc grunted as it stumbled to one side. The pain of its side flared suddenly,
forcing it to hop backward onto its good leg.

  But it stood too near the bonfire. Its rear leg, spattered with lamp oil like the rest of it, hit the burning limbs and boughs. The hungry flames raced up the orcish form in a burning column.

  “Pointy!” the burning orc screamed. Apparently, a mere conflagration wouldn’t stop it. It swept its war axe across and around again, attempting to kill its enemy, the “pointy,” or elf.

  Why won’t you give up and stars-damning die! Terak cursed. He hopped to one side behind the nearest sapling, and then to another as the orc’s axe bit into the wood. At least his adversary couldn’t see and was wreathed in smoke. Terak ducked and jumped to one side to slash down with one blade.

  “Urk!” The orc cried out in pain. The elf leapt back again, feeling the heat of the orc’s inferno searing his face briefly.

  But the orc charged forward again. It leapt to where it thought the elf was—before tripping over a root and landing with a heavy thump on the forest floor. It cried out in a tortured whimper once—then fell silent.

  One down, Terak thought. He turned to see how the rest of the battle was faring.

  He saw the Elder Being seize his white-wood spear in one hand from the body of its first victim. Flaring its wings and spinning in mid-air, it threw the spear once again at the bellowing orc that had chased it.

  “Urk?” The charging, fire-starting orc coughed. The spear of the Elder Being ran through its body, and the orc fell with a heavy thump to the burning floor.

  “Think twice before you dare the wrath of the First Creature and its people!” The bird-being hissed in victory at the dead orcs.

  “Uhr . . .” But Terak had stalled, looking beyond the victorious Elder Being. A mass of orcs approached who looked as though they very much did dare the wrath of Grom and the Elder Beings . . .

  “Your courage and loyalty are pretty admirable,” Terak whispered. He watched fire glinting off of steel plate and reflected from gnashing tusks and bright, fierce eyes. The bellowing orc and the fire-starters were only the outliers of a wave of stampeding orc warbands. They flung torches around them as they set fire to the Forest of Hon behind them.

  “But I think we’d better run!” the elf said.

  2

  Blaze

  “This way!” the Elder Being called from ahead of them. They ran through the burning forest, ahead of the rampaging army of the orcs.

  “Easier said than done!” Terak snarled. He hoisted Kol closer toward him. He attempted to carry as much of the older man’s weight as he could . . .

  The elf had splashed back through the stream as the Elder Being had swooped. There, Terak discovered that Kol had managed to skitter and slide down the bank. Now they were running, stumbling, and falling between river and bank as the trees smoldered and cracked behind them.

  The only thing keeping us alive is that the orcs seem more intent on setting fire to the forest than they are on chasing us! Terak thought disgruntledly. He wasn’t sure that the orcs even knew that they were here. Had they paused to consider the bodies of their felled comrades by the banks of the river behind them? Perhaps the warband was more concerned with the racing fires—

  Which are moving fast, the elf swore. Almost as fast as the running orcs.

  “Fiends! Intruders!” The Elder Being had paused in the middle of the river, turning to one side with spear raised as the first of the charging, loping orcs ran between the trees.

  “No!” the assassin of the Black Keep hissed. He splashed forward to seize the edge of the Elder Being’s elbow in time to stop it from flinging the spear.

  “What!?” The Elder Being hissed. But Terak hunkered down as best he could while holding the Emarii, who slipped to kneel in the cold forest stream beside him.

  Terak’s suspicion was proved right. He held one long-fingered hand to his lips and pointed back.

  The rampaging orcs hadn’t seen them at all. One, then two, then another two ran through the forest beyond the stream where they crouched.

  “They’re running from the fires they set, too!” Terak whispered. The Elder Being reluctantly hunkered in the cold river beside the elf.

  Terak could see that he was right. The orcs must have fanned out, deep into the Forest of Hon, building bonfires and chopping woods. Then they had started the fires, running back from the advancing inferno to the edge of the forest.

  “They’re either geniuses or idiots,” Kol grumbled, his voice shivering with the freezing cold of the river.

  Better cold than burnt alive, though, Terak thought. He kept perfectly still and watched the orcish warband ran past them in small groups, hooting and hollering in their destructive joy as they did so.

  “For the Queen! For the Queen!” The orcs were overcome with passion. Their rough voices grew thinner and muted as they raced ahead of the hiding trio.

  “Sst!” The Elder Being made a hissing, whistling noise of disgust at the diminishing orcs. “They destroy this world for their Queen of a Thousand Tears. They seek to prepare for her arrival with a bed of tears and burnt misery.”

  Terak nodded that he understood. The Queen of a Thousand Tears was the God-Queen of the nightmare realm of the Ungol—a world that was even named after her. She was the older sister of the three beings that had sung-together the three worlds: Grom of Midhara, Hyxalion of the Aesther, and Ung’olut of the Ungol.

  And with every breath we spend, she advances to us, Terak knew. toward the Blood Gate.

  “Come on!” The elf rose from his crouch. His legs and body were freezing from the fast-flowing river, but he could feel none of it. He extended a hand to the Emarii, who nodded with certainty to grasp his palm and rise, too. The orcs had moved on, and they still had work to do.

  If they could out-run a blazing forest fire, that was . . .

  “Sckrechk!” The Elder Being broke into its twittering avian speech, flaring its wings and one arm at where the river bent ahead.

  And where a spread of the racing fires had reached right to the riverbank. Flames spit and floated across to hiss and steam on the dark waters.

  “We can make it!” Terak urged them, pushing ahead as he felt waves of heat batter his shoulders and face. “Stay low!” He tried to hunker around Kol, keeping the stumbling Emarii shielded.

  There was a flash of silver-sheened wings as the Elder Being ducked and darted upstream to the bend in the river. The Elder Being turned on the far side, where the river must widen a little.

  It was Terak’s turn next. He held Kol close as he judged the splashing run he would have to make.

  CRACK! For there to be a deafening cannon-shot of noise. One of the smoldering trees gave way under its torment and fell across the river, showering sparks and burning bark.

  “Ach!” Terak shoved Kol down behind him. He turned on his hip, feeling the thump of super-heated branches against his shoulders burning his already-tattered cloak.

  “Now, elf! There is no time!” Terak heard the Elder Being call ahead of him. Terak spluttered and coughed in the steam and the smoke. He raised weeping eyes to see that the burning tree had lodged over the river, allowing a small gap to wiggle under at the far side.

  “Leave me, you fool—” Kol was coughing, attempting to push the elf away.

  “You’re calling me a fool!?” Terak snapped, batting away Kol’s attempts. He hauled him as he pushed through the rushing waters and under the burning branch.

  There was a time . . . The very unhelpful thought blossomed in the assassin’s mind as he crouched and squirmed, feeling the heat singe his hair and the tips of his ears. He couldn’t see through all the bitter smoke. He had to trust that he had judged his crawl right—and hope that the Elder Being would seize Kol on the other side.

  There was a time when I might have taken your advice, human! Terak thought grimly. A time when he had served the Book of Corrections because he had never been taught anything different. When pain was not a hindrance but a help. Where the only weakness was anything that held you back from yo
ur task.

  Terak shoved Kol ahead of him under the inferno, his burnt hands slipping to splash into the waters up to his shoulders.

  KERRACK! Another shower of coals littered over Terak’s back, feeling like a hundred pins stabbing into him. The elf snarled, gritting his teeth against the agony.

  It is only pain. Only a feeling like any other—

  And then, the elf felt bony hands seize his shoulders. With a surprising strength, they hauled him through the water and flames to the rising squawks and chirrups of hurt.

  “Ugh!” Terak was rolling and floundering in the river as hands seized and hauled him forward. The burning heat lessened, but the smoke was still in his eyes when he was shoved to a muddied bank. He wiped his eyes to see who had saved him.

  It was the Elder Being—and more.

  “The Nest! The Nest is returned!” the original Elder Being crowed. Terak recognized it. It had more dark feathers, a few shot through with iridescent gold.

  And it was right. There was now five more of the bird-beings around them. Standing in the bend of the river and twittering anxiously or sternly to each other, they eyed the burning forest warily. Kol was already on the muddied bank beside Terak. This side of the river hadn’t been set alight yet—but it wouldn’t be long.

  The Emarii storyteller weakly croaked and held his head in his hands. The man looked fit to give up and die right then and there in front of them. The human was only going to slow them down in the fight that they had to win, the elf knew. There was a time when anything that I couldn’t rely upon, I ignored . . .

  But something had changed in the elf. He recognized what it was when the Elder Being—the first Elder Being they had met—approached and offered one fine, bony hand to help Terak up.

  We need all the help we can get, Terak realized. He accepted the hand, then turned to help Kol to his feet. What faced them—the forces of the Queen of a Thousand Tears—was simply too big for any of them to win against alone. This is a fight of life and death, Terak knew. A fight of all life against death.