The crowd stared at him, not really knowing how they should react to this strange man and his outlandish claims. He made a show of pulling out his talon guards and putting them on, then he drew his blade and brought his shoulder back to create the most imposing figure that he could.

  “I have been imprisoned for over three hundred years, but I am here now and I challenge anyone to stand against my rule.”

  “So, you think that you can just come in here and claim to rule us? Just like that we are to be your minions?”

  “What is your name?” Nigel asked menacingly then continued. “I need to know for the marker on your grave.”

  “You would kill me? Over this? That’s absurd!” The man’s shout was half rage half panic.

  “You see, if I would have said this three hundred years ago then there would have been a thousand aerials standing up to challenge me and not just an old man too afraid to fight.” Nigel’s tone was suddenly gentle. He sheathed his blade and shook his head with disappointment. There was no fight left here, his cause was lost.

  It was a boot planted in the middle of his back almost putting him on his face that gave him his first sign of hope. He spun and to his surprise found a woman, no…she was still a girl, close to being a woman, and she was backed by three young men with stern looks upon their features.

  “You will not speak to my father without respect,” she said, her eyes flaring with rage.

  “What’s this? Hope?” Nigel asked, sending the girl back on her heels.

  “Ramita, stifle,” the man behind Nigel said.

  “No, Papa, I will not stay quiet while some blowhard comes in here with his lies,” she snapped at the man Nigel had cuffed. “What do you want from us? It had better be good or we will kill you where you stand,” she said and the men behind her took another stepped forward with murder in their eyes.

  Nigel laughed loudly, finally he had found what he sought.

  “What do I want you ask? To rule the world of course, nothing less. The ground may belong to the Five, but the skies belong to us and only us. I intend to prove that to all who doubt,” Nigel said and saw that they were listening.

  “Who are you really?” Ramita asked, her face softening slightly.

  “I am exactly who I say I am. I have been imprisoned by a sorcerous witch who I intend to rip limb from limb. I have tarried long enough for many things are in the works. Grab your weapons if you have them and follow if you would see our people returned to their proper place.”

  To his surprise two of the men behind her jumped forward, fully intending to beat him to a pulp, but they weren’t trained as aerials and tried to fight like humans. Before they knew what was happening, his talons had each of their heads in his grasp. He lifted them off their feet and flung them behind Ramita, hoping that he hadn’t broke their necks but not overly concerned.

  “There!” He pointed toward the highest peak in the distance. “In one hour, or wallow in the mud like the pigs you have become,” he said before flying away.

  * * *

  “Well, I could have handled that better,” Nigel said to the empty peaks around him. “I don’t know why I wait, there wasn’t a true warrior among them anyway.” Yet he knew why he waited. He had made friends among the ground hogs, people that he felt he could trust…but they weren’t his people. Nigel had been a man to command armies and strike fear into all of the races. He never agreed with the agenda of King Rothimeadies, he never felt that the low landers or ground hogs were nothing but slaves to be beaten into submission because he had seen too many signs of intelligence. Too many signs of ingenuity and independence. However, he was a soldier first and foremost. As a soldier it was imperative that he do his duty and follow the laws laid down before him. So, he went to war, for many years he warred and dominated all who faced him until the day he was plucked from the air by powers beyond his knowledge and imprisoned.

  Three long tortuous years he remained a prisoner in a place that raped time and turned his life into three hundred years of loss. Now he waited upon a mountain top for the only thing that might turn it all around, something that might make him whole again. Possibly even make his people whole again.

  It had been an hour and still no sign, he thought about waiting longer but the times would not allow it. If these would not change their own destiny, then he would find others who would.

  He stood and stretched his wings when a small voice caught him by surprise.

  “Are you for real, or just full of so much shit we have to buy into it?”

  Nigel turned and found Ramita standing behind him. He looked at her quizzically.

  “Yeah, we’ve learned to be stealthy since the Five conquered our ancestors,” she said as what looked to be fifteen others with her.

  “A useful quality, I have no doubt. I am very much for real,” Nigel said with a smile. “What is also very real is our time of opportunity. Our time is nigh and it is up to us to create our own destiny. It will never again be like it was under King Rothimeadies, but in a way it might just be better. We have much to do, come,” Nigel said and fell off the peak allowing his wings to catch the updraft causing him to float effortlessly toward the Bone Spires.

  He scanned below himself as they crossed over Riverhouse and noticed something that needed his attention. He settled his people upon a ridge and instructed them to watch.

  “I need you to see just what people such as we are capable of, we do not fight from the ground with fists and spears, we are aerials.” He spoke as if they were superior to anything that could exist down below and he could feel them wanting to be a part of it. “Watch and learn for there is much you do not know,” he said and swooped down upon a mass of foul folk intent upon three individuals, two of which were familiar one of which he had a special affinity developing for.

  He showed the power of his legs and talons as he ripped bodies in half, tore off heads and slashed throats with giant sweeping kicks. He showed his people how aerials do it, a knowledge and skill lost to them three hundred years hence. To their astonishment, he left without killing all of them and returned to the ledge where they waited, covered in enemy blood up to his chest. His chest plate and grieves dripping ichor on to the flat stone.

  “We are aerials, no one can stand against us in battle. I intend to make sure no army will stand against us in the future,” Nigel said to an audience that wasn’t quite buying into his plan. That’s alright, we aerials never were easy to fool. It is how dwarf hockey came to be. He chuckled dryly when Ramita spoke up.

  “You didn’t kill those three, why?” Her tone bordered on accusation. Nigel stared at her for a long time, not because her tone angered him, but more in appreciation of her straight forward nature.

  “Two of them are connected to the man who rescued me from my imprisonment. The ugly elf down there has actually become a good friend to me believe it or not, I know I find it hard to swallow. King Rothimeadies was right in that we are the greatest species to ever exist, no one can deny this, which is a big part of why they fear us. The king and the kings before him were wrong in that we needed to enslave and dominate.” He sat back on an outcropping and looked at the disappointment from his last comment. Now was the time, doubters they were, but they were also ready to listen. His plan would not work without their full investment.

  “Three hundred years ago we were masters of all. They grew our food and made our clothes while throwing themselves at our feet weeping for mercy…okay that was kind of nice.” He winked and they smirked on cue. He couldn’t help but notice that some in the crowd were his age or even older, yet in reality of experience they were three hundred or so years younger.

  “Since I have been free, everything has improved. It was like that was all they did. They did just enough to survive and they did it without passion. Now, since they have been free, the steel has become ten times stronger and better designed for all sorts of uses thanks to the dwarfs. Frost pine has developed into an economic bastion for the north and elves have established great kingdoms. Gnome weavers are putting out silks and linens of the quality you have never witnessed in your lifetime and certainly not in mine.” He paused as they all scanned the rough burlap style clothing they wore and continually stitched back in place.

  Ramita couldn’t remember the last time she had new fabric to work with, let alone had it made for her. They had been forced into poverty, their activities scrutinized and restricted on a level of severity that was killing her people. Was this man from the hundred years past the answer? She didn’t know, but she was listening. Is he real?

  Nigel reached down and pulled the gilding from his talons and showed them the stirrup shoe that Tia had come up with. His toes were still free and nimble, but he now had a very thin traction pad on the bottom that enabled him to land on the roughest of surface.

  “That woman down there designed these and her brother, who is my very good friend, spent hours making them for me. He gave them to me freely. Not because he feared me or I threatened him, but simply because I am his friend.”

  “I’m confused. What are you telling us?”

  “I’m telling you that we will rule this world again, but not over the Five. We will rule with them and it will be better than it has ever been before,” Nigel said and saw them almost smile, but then to his surprise some lowered their heads as if in shame.

  “What is it? That was a speech that should have raised an army from the dead yet you hide your eyes,” Nigel said and locked his eyes on Ramita knowing that it would be her that spoke. It took her a long time before she did speak and she looked at her friends for some sort of sign of assent. She pulled her head up and looked at Nigel with her eyes filled with honest regret.

  “We have been visited,” she said and Nigel only had to think about it for a second before he knew who she meant.

  “I can’t fucking believe this…was it the neurotic bitch that can’t even sustain her own pigment or the man with no pigment at all?”

  “Both,” she replied.

  “So, I’ve been wasting my time? I came to find individuals who could share in the vision of our rebirth…our return.” He paused and looked out across the vista seeing all of the armies gathered there to smash and destroy the last of the fair folk. A folk he had grown quite fond of.

  “They don’t care about you. They want purity, they want one race and that race ain’t us. I came here for people who stood on their own, men and women who fly their own path. Not the followers imps.” He paused for a long moment realizing that his dreams had already been shat upon and buried. He may not change the fate of this war, but one thing he would do was tear that flickering bitch in half.

  “Be gone, slaves,” Nigel said and took to the air, he had other places to be. He still hadn’t checked the old homes, where the base of his population once lived. Not for the first time he wished that aerials were more like elves and lived for four hundred years. He had no doubts that there were elves alive today who would recognize him, or at least his reputation. If he had been physically seen back in the day, there is a strong possibility that the elf hadn’t survived. Elves and aerials had never been on speaking terms as most would have it, there is a lot of water that needed to go under that bridge. He flew north.

  “We need to keep an eye on him,” Ramita said.

  “Why, we know where he is going,” Lothar replied. “We also know that being alone he is probably not going to survive the encounter and I don’t care how tough he is.”

  “Maybe,” Ramita said while looking down at the carnage he had left behind in the valley. Destruction came very easy to this lone aerial, it thrilled her to no end, while also terrifying her.

  “Back to the village,” she said with a wave of her hand and they took to wing.

  It was only a couple of minutes of flight when Lothar turned his head and stated, “It would be nice to live in an aerie again. Do you think the two sorcerers will allow it?”

  Ramita said nothing and kept her eyes pointed forward. Lothar’s innocent question appeared harmless, in truth it was harmless with the exception of one word and that word gnawed upon her for the rest of the flight.

  Allow?

  56

  Missing:

  Drick wished that he could see where his party was, but they were too far away and there were too many obstructions. He simply had to trust that the estimated time was accurate. They had to strike as soon as the camp was beginning to stir, then they would have over a thousand alert beings instead of just the forty or so on guard duty.

  “Everything is ready, Har Karoome,” Lancalm said.

  “Thank you, no horns until we are engaged. Where have you placed yourself, First Spear?” Drick asked referring to her by rank.

  “I will be closing the door, Har Karoome,” she said, noting that she would be the last person in, a position requiring a person of great skill to man it. In truth, she would be second to last as the point man would keep the passage open, a position Drick thought might land in his lap, but may end up being Juin, Leldeif, or both depending on how wide the entrance was. These types of entrances were for cargo and rarely seen by those who didn’t use it on a commercial basis, which was miners, ranchers, wool gatherers, farmers, and the occasional frost piner.

  Drick patted the shoulder of his steed, his steed that he had thought lost in the Bone Spires had been returned to him once the kings had been freed from their glacial prison. He was a charcoal gray three-year-old, not yet to his full charger status, but what he lacked in girth, he amended for with speed and maneuverability.

  The clash of steel from the opposite side of the clearing was the precursor they had been waiting for. All of the muridai and kalfmen directing their gaze toward the fracas and away from the lancers being their que.

  He swung his arm and pointed, their chargers started at a canter, their ranks closed into a single angled line to push the defended away from the cliff wall of Riverhouse and the passage in. Each carried at least three lances, the first of which were designed to break after impact. The temptation to pull the lance free from a skewered corpse leaves them exposed for critical moments, but a broken lance is easily dropped.

  The chargers slowly crept up to a gallop, causing the ground to shake with the thunder of their hooves, a cloud of dust obscuring the lower half of their steeds, the creak of boiled-leather equine breastplates heard within the thundering hooves. A hundred yards out, still unnoticed, their out guards were quickly trampled under-hoof while facing away from the unknown adversary. Seventy-five yards and Drick saw several closest to them look confusedly at each other and slowly turn around. Sixty yards they were seen and the shouts went out, but it was too late.

  Less than fifty yards, chargers at full steam and the enemy finally blew their horns of alarm. Those who managed to turn saw an angled wall of metal tipped lances coming right toward them. Some drew their weapons and others tried to hastily form a pike wall, but most started to run. It was too late, the horses were moving too fast and they were too slow on the draw.

  It wasn’t the typical sounds of leather and steel crashing together as opposing forces in collision. It was the sound of three hundred axes sinking into hardwood sequentially for over thirty seconds. The entire front row fell backward, pierced through throat, chest, or gut, the group behind them found themselves ducking or being hit with broken lance shafts as the elves discarded the old before reaching for the new. The broken portion could be four to five feet long and could foul in the legs of their chargers or knock an adversary unconscious so they were cast out at the enemy for whatever mayhem they might inspire.

  New lances in hand, they kept the drive up toward the passage as the foul force still worked to get their people in line. A giant swept men of his own army from his path as he made his way toward them. His angle suggested that he knew their objective, which wasn’t surprising since there was nothing out here other than the entrance to Riverhouse’s main channel. He slammed his lance through the side of a muridai’s neck and into the chest of a halfmen behind using the force and weight of his steed, he drove deeper and knocked two more off their feet.

  He cast the broken lance into the face of a troll before quickly grabbing his last lance, his best lance, which he would hang onto as long as he could. His last option would be swordplay and he had better be to the entrance by then.

  “Cover!” he shouted and dropped behind his line of lancers. “Rotation blue, double row formation, make me a path to the gate!” His eye now locked on the giant who was making incredibly good time toward that very same gate.

  Twenty of his men had clustered in front of him, pushing the mass that was now getting some semblance of an act together back until there was just him and two keeping pace. The two with him had lost their final lance and were hacking their way through foul folk like machetes against a jungles brush and he finally saw his path open. The giant had his back to him and was actually attacking the human woman who was surrounded by dwarfs and a donkey.

  He spurred his mount forward, the horse sensing his rage jumped toward the massive man-thing. Drick dropped the point of his lance and screamed a primeval rage at this beast of legends existence. It turned to face him and bellowed a monstrous challenge; he swore he could feel the wind of his foul breath rush past his face.

  He swirled his lance so it wouldn’t be easy to misdirect while falling into the tunnel vision required for a fatal strike on such a beast. This was when a lancer is most vulnerable from outside attacks, his attention had to be unwavering, his focus absolute. This in turn left him vulnerable to the unseen, he could still feel one of his elven comrades by his side, but he couldn’t worry about it, he just had to take it as it came.