The Lost Realm Read online

  “Your animals. Your pack. How many legs?”

  Tarlan stared down at Filos and the cats. “Four?” he yelled back uncertainly. What was the wizard planning?

  “Four!” Melchior bellowed. “My thought exactly! Rally your pack, Tarlan. Bring them in. Bring all of them in. Make them run! Make them run now!”

  Setting his confusion aside, Tarlan raised his voice and called to the animals. At the same time, he sent his thoughts flying out over the battleground like a desert storm.

  “Come to me!” he roared. “Come to me!”

  And . . .

  Come to me, all of you! To me! To me! Come here! Come now!

  Tarlan’s pack came. Gray wolves crested the slopes. Horses turned in their tracks and galloped toward the town. Snakes writhed. Bears blundered in, mountains of muscle and fur. Eagles flocked. The animals swarmed.

  The Galadronians turned to face the oncoming tide. Behind them the spiked defenses of Deep Poynt prevented their retreat. Yet Tarlan’s pack looked pitifully small against their enormous numbers.

  Like a wave about to smash itself to pieces on rocks.

  Tarlan remembered the fishing village.

  Like a wave!

  Light flickered along the length of Melchior’s staff. It sank into the runes, winked out. The wizard’s lips moved. Nasheen’s wings flapped slower and slower . . . then stopped altogether. The still air surrounding the motionless thorrod boomed softly.

  “What comes?” wondered Theeta.

  “Magic,” Tarlan replied.

  The first wave of animals was dominated by the bears. Brock led them, running fast and true. He bore down on one of the Galadronian soldiers, drew back one massive paw, and struck out, his claws whistling through the air.

  His claws!

  Tarlan blinked, not trusting what his eyes were telling him. Brock had too many claws.

  No, it’s more than that.

  Brock’s blow knocked the soldier down. The three soldiers standing beside him fell too. Brock spun around, bellowed, swiped again. His limbs were a blur, but even from this distance point, Tarlan could see there were too many of them.

  Brock has four paws on each arm! He has eight legs! A whole forest of claws!

  The sight was so odd, so unnatural, that Tarlan couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Yet it was happening.

  The rest of the bears thundered in behind Brock. Each of them was just one animal, but it was also four. Wherever there was an exposed Galadronian neck, four sets of jaws bit down. Wherever the enemy was massed together, four sets of claws scythed through their flesh. The bears were more than they had been. And more than their adversaries could contend with.

  It’s like on the Isle of Stars, Tarlan thought, remembering how Melchior’s magic had condensed hundreds of Galadronians into a single body. This was the same thing, only backward: instead of reducing the presence of the enemy, Melchior had somehow multiplied the power of Tarlan’s pack.

  Wolves followed the bears, snapping with their many muzzles. With each bite, four wounds opened up. It was the same with Filos and her cats.

  Here came the horses, each one galloping not only on four legs but also on sixteen. They ran hard, moving faster than any creature Tarlan had ever seen on the ground. The herd hit the Galadronian flank like a battering ram, instantly killing those soldiers unlucky enough to be standing at the edge and knocking the others aside like dolls.

  Tarlan glanced at the wizard, still standing on the back of the hovering Nasheen. Melchior had begun to stoop, bending his back like that of a very old man. He was no longer holding his staff up in the air, but leaning on it instead. He looked tired and haggard.

  It’s no wonder. All that power has to come from somewhere.

  A great cry rose up from behind him. Tarlan turned to see the Isurians running out from behind the Deep Poynt defenses, led by The Hammer. Shouting in triumph, they fell upon the invading army, only to find their enemy scattering before them.

  In fact, Tarlan noted, very few of the Galadronians remained standing. Melchior’s intervention had turned the tide so radically that, with a single assault, Tarlan’s pack had brought the battle to an end. Those soldiers still alive had no stomach left for the fight; instead they raced for the shelter of the forest. The animals chased them, running no longer on their multiplied legs but quite normally on all fours. Already the magic had left them. Tarlan suspected that even a wizard as powerful as Melchior couldn’t sustain such a spell for long.

  Indeed, Melchior had now sunk to his knees on Nasheen’s back. The thorrods’ wings were moving again, guiding her in a rapid descent toward the edge of the town. Kitheen circled her protectively, his tail feathers twitching with concern.

  Urging Theeta in pursuit of the fleeing army, Tarlan shouted down to his pack.

  “Come back! Let them run! The battle is over! We’ve won!”

  The animals obeyed instantly, turning on their heels and heading back toward Deep Poynt. Theeta landed beside her thorrod companions. The three giant birds nuzzled each other with obvious affection, cawing softly. Even the taciturn Kitheen seemed moved by the events of the morning.

  “You did well,” said Tarlan as Filos, Greythorn, and Brock ran up. All three animals were covered in blood, but as far as he could see only the tigron was injured. Kassan rode up behind them, his face streaked with mud. “You too, Kassan. All of you—you’re better than any generals a commander ever had.”

  They were too exhausted to respond, but the looks on their faces—a complex mix of pride in their achievements and adoration of their leader—brought a lump to Tarlan’s throat.

  He went over to Melchior, who was climbing down stiffly from Nasheen’s back. When the wizard’s feet touched the ground, he stumbled. Tarlan reached for him, but Melchior waved him away.

  “No, no, my boy, I’m not nearly as crumbly as I look. It was a hard number to find, that’s all. I’m recovering already, see?”

  To prove his claim, he balanced his staff vertically on the tip of his finger, then threw it up in the air and caught it deftly.

  “Victory is ours!” The ground shook as The Hammer stomped over to them. “Your soldiers are strange, lad, I’ll say that! But they fight like—” He laughed as he realized what he was about to say. “Like animals!”

  His good humor was infectious, and Tarlan found it hard not to laugh along with this giant of a man.

  Still chuckling, The Hammer slapped Tarlan on the back. It was like being hit by a cart. Then the big warrior’s face became serious.

  “You have saved Deep Poynt, boy. I owe you a great debt.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I disagree. If there is ever anything I can do for you—anything at all—you have only to ask.”

  Tarlan grinned. “I’ll remember that.”

  The Hammer gave a curt nod. “In the meantime, my men and their weapons are yours to command. The battle is won. But the war is not over.”

  “War? What war?”

  The Hammer turned Tarlan around and pointed east with one meaty finger.

  “The Galadronians have clearly struck farther inland. See? Idilliam itself is burning.”

  Tarlan gaped. Sure enough, a colossal plume of smoke towered above the trees. It was much bigger and blacker than the smoke rising from the buildings burning in Deep Poynt.

  “There are n-n-no m-m-more Galadronians,” he stammered. “We defeated them all.”

  “Then what is happening in Idilliam?”

  Tarlan stared at the smoke. His whole body turned suddenly cold.

  Gulph!

  “Theeta!” he cried, racing over to the thorrods. “Can you fly?”

  “Thorrod tired,” Theeta replied, her dark eyes drooping.

  “I know, my friend, I know. But I need you. My brother needs you. Can you fly? Will you?”

  “Fly slow.”

  “No. Not slow. Fast. Faster than you’ve ever flown before!”

  Theeta regarded the smoke rising
from distant Idilliam.

  “Brother die,” she cawed softly.

  “I hope not. Oh, Theeta, I hope not!”

  As soon as Tarlan had climbed onto Theeta’s back, Melchior’s hand closed on his ankle.

  “You must not go, Tarlan,” said the wizard. “Whatever fate has befallen Idilliam, you cannot help.”

  “I can try!” Tarlan kicked Melchior’s hand away. “Now fly, Theeta! Fly!”

  Flapping her wings with slow, labored strokes, Theeta heaved herself into the sky. As they rose, Tarlan threw one final glance down at the battlefield.

  He saw dead bodies strewn everywhere, both animals and men. The ground was dark with the blood of the slain. He saw Filos, Greythorn, and Brock moving among the animals of the forest, passing out the news that their work was done . . . for now. He saw Kassan rounding up the horses. He saw The Hammer organizing the townsfolk into groups to tend to the wounded, bury the dead, repair the defenses, put out the fires. Only Melchior was still, staring up at him.

  As Theeta flew on, Deep Poynt shrank to a smoke-shrouded speck in the trees. Then the forest swallowed it completely, and it was gone, as if the battle had never happened, and the place and all the people in it had never existed.

  Meanwhile, Idilliam was growing larger and larger, and the scale of the fire that had consumed the city became evident. What Tarlan had first assumed was a single cloud of smoke was in fact a thousand separate plumes, each one rising from balls of orange flame blazing from one side of the city to the other.

  What happened here? Who set Idilliam alight?

  But there was another question that caused him even more concern.

  Where’s my brother?

  The closer they drew, the more nervous Theeta became. The air was hot, thick with smoke and burning embers. Tarlan’s eyes stung, and every breath seared his lungs.

  “Fire bad,” Theeta observed.

  “I know. But we have to keep going!”

  A low pass over the city walls revealed streets choked with fumes and littered with the wreckage of collapsed buildings. Apart from the flames, there was no movement, no sign of the undead army that had once occupied this place.

  They’ve all burned. Everything’s burned.

  “Gulph!” he shouted. “Gulph! Where are you?”

  Theeta aimed herself toward the huge stone edifice of Castle Tor. The air was a little clearer here, even though orange flames had completely consumed the castle keep and most of its subsidiary towers.

  Nobody could survive this. Tarlan felt drained of all emotion save for a huge, welling anger. I’m too late.

  “What was the point?” he yelled as Theeta circled the blackened castle turrets. It had all been for nothing: Gulph was dead and Elodie had turned traitor. His quest to regain Melchior’s magic on the Isle of Stars had been in vain. Toronia was lost. He was lost. The prophecy meant nothing.

  I don’t care about Toronia! I don’t care about prophecies! I just care about my friends.

  But so many of his friends were gone too. Seethan, the wise, old thorrod who’d been butchered and burned by the Helkrags. All the loyal creatures who’d fought for him in the battle at Deep Poynt, and who now lay dead.

  And Mirith. Of them all, it was Mirith he missed most.

  It’s over. I wish it had never begun.

  “Not man,” Theeta cawed.

  “What did you say?” Tarlan pawed tears furiously from his eyes.

  “High tower. Not man.”

  They were far above the castle now, on a level with its topmost tower. This slender stone needle was surrounded by orange fire. Flames darted up the spiral staircase that wound around its exterior.

  A figure was moving on the top of the tower.

  “Fly closer, Theeta!”

  Theeta obeyed. The figure resolved itself into the shape of a man . . . or something that used to be a man.

  Brutan!

  Tarlan had seen this monster once before, when he’d flown over the chaos of the Battle of the Bridge. That fateful moment when he’d seen his father for the first time. His brother, too.

  Now Gulph was surely dead.

  But I can avenge him!

  Anger filled Tarlan’s body. His head throbbed with it. His fingers clutched tight onto Theeta’s ruff of feathers; his heels clamped hard against her heaving flanks.

  “Fast, Theeta! As fast as you can!”

  Thorrods were silent in flight, Tarlan knew that. Yet even as they swooped toward him, Brutan turned. Close up, he was more of a monster than Tarlan could have conceived—a mutilated mountain of a man whose face was no more than a skull draped with rags of flesh, whose arms were slabs of raw meat hanging from gore-streaked bone. Brutan’s chest gaped with some kind of open stab wound, from which green pus oozed.

  And the empty eyes of the undead king blazed with fire. With anger.

  “You have no right to be angry!” Tarlan screamed. The wind whipped hot sparks against his face. He paid them no heed. “The anger is mine. Do you hear me? The anger is mine!”

  The chest of the undead king swelled. Pus flew from the wound in a syrupy spray.

  “Who are you to defy me?” Brutan roared, raising his arms over his head as if he planned to drag the speeding thorrod out of the sky.

  “I am your son, come to take you out of this world forever!” Tarlan roared back. “I am Tarlan, one of three! And this is for my brother!”

  Theeta tucked in her wings, increasing her speed yet more. Smoke streamed past them. The tower loomed. Brutan brandished his sword.

  Theeta’s hooked beak slammed into the center of Brutan’s chest. Her momentum carried him forward, and for an instant Tarlan was looking straight into the flaming eyes of the undead king.

  The eyes of what had once been his father.

  “This is the end of it!” Tarlan yelled. “The end of it all. The end of you!”

  Brutan’s arms flew out sideways. Theeta tossed her head, almost casually, flinging him over the edge of the platform as if he were no more than a scrap of meat. Brutan tumbled once, twice, falling out and away from the tower in a great, curving arc.

  Falling into the fire.

  Theeta tracked Brutan as he fell. Tarlan watched as the flames tore at his ravaged body. First to burn were the remains of his clothes; then what was left of his flesh ignited. Smoke gushed from his mouth. His bones caught fire. Deep inside his chest, something glowed white-hot, brighter than the midday sun.

  And then, with a vast and soundless concussion, Brutan’s body blew apart. Where the undead king had been, now there was only a bright, expanding cloud of sparks and ash.

  Brutan was gone.

  With a tremendous, shuddering crack, the base of the tower exploded. The tower dropped away, the stonework fragmenting as it fell into a growing cloud of gray dust that billowed out across the burning city. Theeta rode the wave of pressure that accompanied the tower’s collapse and soared out over the chasm, away from Idilliam and all that had happened there.

  Away . . .

  In a single breath Tarlan’s anger was gone. Everything was gone. He felt hollowed out. Yet he also felt strangely renewed. Once, his life had been simple. Now even though his heart was filled with grief, he knew it could be simple again.

  “It’s over.” He fell limp across Theeta’s back. “All of it. Everything that happened was all for nothing. And now it’s time to leave it all behind.”

  “Crown lost.”

  “Yes, Theeta. Lost to me, at least. If Elodie wants the crown, she’s welcome to it. As for me . . . I’ve finished with Toronia.”

  “Find thorrods.”

  Smiling, Tarlan patted her neck.

  “Yes. Let’s find them. The others, too. All that matters is that we’re together.”

  “Fly fast.”

  “No, we don’t have to go fast. Just far. Fly far, Theeta. Far away from here.”

  “Fly where?”

  Tarlan smiled. Thorrods almost never asked questions. When they did, you could be s
ure you’d reached a moment of great importance.

  A turning point.

  “It doesn’t matter where, Theeta. Just as long as it’s away.”

  Behind them the morning sun shone through the smoke as Idilliam continued to burn. Ahead the sun’s rays illuminated the forest where Tarlan’s pack was waiting. They would meet up, and then they would set off together on a new journey that had nothing to do with prophecies and crowns, but which was wholly their own.

  The battle was over. It was time to go.

  Away from Toronia. Away from everything.

  EPILOGUE

  Clouds hid the night. There was no moon; there were no stars. The comet that had dominated the darkness in previous days was gone. Even the three prophecy stars—those bright points of fate about which lives had turned—were invisible.

  Elodie stood at the window of the cell at the top of the White Tower, truly a prisoner at last. She gazed through the metal bars and into the blackness beyond.

  It’s like staring into an abyss.

  That made her think of Idilliam, the Battle of the Bridge, and of her fall into the chasm surrounding the city.

  Of how her brother had saved her.

  Oh, Tarlan, where are you now?

  Had he found his way back to Isur after his journey to the Isle of Stars? Had his mission to restore Melchior’s powers succeeded? She had no way of knowing. But a dreadful suspicion clawed at her heart.

  If he finds anyone from Trident, they’ll tell him I’m a traitor. They don’t know I was trying to save them. They’ll say I turned against them—against him . . .

  As for Gulph . . . who knew what had become of him?

  She touched the empty place at her throat where her green jewel had once hung. Having it snatched away by Lord Vicerin, at the very moment she’d been bundled into her cell, had been the final blow to fall on the most painful day of her life.

  With a deep sigh Elodie turned from the window. She could feel the night at her back. It was like a living presence.

  “Are you ready?” she said.

  Sylva and Cedric looked up at her from where they were kneeling on the floor. The room was dimly lit by candles, and the flickering light played across their faces.