Age of the king, p.1
Age of the King, page 1
part #6 of The Echoes Saga Series
Age of the King
The Echoes Saga: Book Six
Philip C. Quaintrell
Also by Philip C. Quaintrell
THE ECHOES SAGA:
1. Rise of the Ranger
2. Empire of Dirt
3. Relic of the God
4. The Fall of Neverdark
5. Kingdom of Bones
6. Age of the King
THE TERRAN CYCLE:
1. Intrinsic
2. Tempest
3. Heretic
4. Legacy
For Louisa. This is your Age…
Dramatis Personae
Adilandra Sevari
The elven queen of Elandril and mother of Reyna Galfrey
Alijah Galfrey
Half-elf
Arlon Draqaro
King of Namdhor and head of The Ironsworn
Asher
Human ranger
Athis
Red dragon, bonded with Inara
Doran Heavybelly
A Dwarven Ranger/Prince of Clan Heavybelly
Faylen Haldör
An elf and High Guardian of Elandril
Galanör Reveeri
An elven ranger
Gideon Thorn
A human Dragorn
Hadavad
The late mage and ranger
Ilargo
Green dragon, bonded with Gideon
Inara Galfrey
Half-elf Dragorn
Karakulak
God-King of the Orcs
Ellöria Sevari
The Lady of Ilythyra
Morvir
First servant of The Crow
Nathaniel Galfrey
An ambassador and previous knight of the Graycoats
Reyna Galfrey
Elven princess of Elandril and Illian ambassador
The Crow (Sarkas)
Leader of The Black Hand
Tauren Salimson
The late high councillor of Tregaran
Valanis
The late dark elf and self-proclaimed herald of the gods.
Vighon Draqaro
A Captain of Namdhor
Contents
Prologue
Part I
1. Astari
2. The War Isn’t Over
3. Once a Rogue, Always a Rogue
4. Dark Days
5. God-Kings Do Not Bleed
6. Taking Up The Hunt
7. Sacrifice
8. The Forge
9. What Little Hope
10. What Lies Beneath
11. Love and Duty
12. Parting Ways
Part II
13. With Great Power Comes A Great Price
14. Never Alone
15. Bait
16. A Shadow in the Woods
17. Family Matters
18. Choosing Life
19. Who Hunts the Hunters?
20. The Watchers
21. Where the Dead Don’t Lie
22. The Masters of Monsters
Part III
23. A Broken Promise
24. Reunion
25. Drawing a Line
26. Together Again
27. A Call From the Sea
28. The Kings of Dhenaheim
29. An Unlikely Kinship
30. Light from the East
31. Fate-Bound
32. Haren Bain
33. A Hard Truth
Part IV
34. Bound Together
35. A Fool’s Game
36. Tracks in the Deep
37. By the Old Laws
38. A King Emerges
39. The Battle for Illian
40. Clan Heavybelly
41. Rebirth
42. The People’s Justice
43. Brothers Always
44. Becoming the Monster
45. The Whisper of Fate
46. The House of Draqaro
47. Farewells
Epilogue
Author Notes
Appendices
Prologue
10,000 Years Ago…
On the cusp of spring, winter was finally relenting its hold over the realm. It had, however, one final blast of icy air to exhale over the palace of Ak-Tor. It blew open the balcony doors of the highest room and filled the luxurious bedchamber, waking one of its two slumbering occupants.
King Atilan opened his eyes to see the hearth lose its licking flames. His wife, Fiarla, stirred next to him, pulling at the gold-laced blankets to cover her bare shoulders.
In his early fifties, Atilan had already enjoyed the company of numerous wives and, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember how many had come before Fiarla. She was more bewitching than her predecessors, but they had each possessed such a quality until the king met their replacement.
He left her to sleep, since he had found her to be useless outside of this very chamber, and donned his floor-length robes, tailored with the finest fibres of Demetrium. Thanks to the precious mineral, the king’s essence was in harmony with the magic realm, offering him perfect control. He flicked his finger at the balcony doors and they closed before the latch fell into place. With an open palm, Atilan conjured a ball of fire and cast it into the hearth, relighting the embers.
To the east, through the glass panes of the balcony doors, a glorious dawn rose to greet the world. For all its beauty, it was not the dawn Atilan awaited. The dawn of a new era, the end of the war, and the first rising sun of his eternal life was what the king waited for. Today, unfortunately, was just another day. The war still raged, sleep continued to escape him, and time worked against him, ravaging his mind and faculties.
Atilan waved his hand and brought forth a mirror image of himself. Standing before him, as if there were two Atilans, he looked upon his complexion, starting with the skin around his eyes first. He always started with the eyes. For all the youth that shone in those emerald orbs, the face around them was beginning to show signs of the decades that rested behind it.
Potent elixirs kept his body lean and his muscles strong, but they had their limits. He had conquered the world, from Erador to Ayda, but halting time eluded him. It was the greatest injustice that he could build the most significant kingdom that had ever existed but he wouldn’t be around to rule it for all time.
His finger pulled at the lines around his eyes and the intangible image in front of him mimicked the action. Then he noticed it: the grey hair. Much like his father before him, Atilan had enjoyed a lifetime of jet-black hair, which he had grown to the base of his back in the manner of a thick mane. Now, there was a grey hair marring it.
The king tugged at the hair and held the strand out to inspect it. Time was coming for him. His army was vast, his magic powerful, and his resources seemingly infinite, yet there was nothing that could stop time.
Except for one thing…
He turned back to the east and gazed at the empty sky, once scattered with dragons. The eternal creatures had granted their Riders immortality and abandoned their king! Despite a youth spent introducing himself to dragons, none had formed a bond with him, a rejection that sparked a hatred destined to stain the realm with war.
Noting the position of the sun, Atilan finished applying his jewellery and extra clothing and made for the throne room. He paused on his departure to collect his staff, a length of wood coiled in steel and topped with a sphere of amber. Running through it was a core of Demetrium, allowing the king to command magic regardless of his state of dress. It was an added measure in a time of war but, since displaying his staff, it had become something of a fashion. Many others had crafted staffs in the style of his own while some had created a new implement - wands. Taking a liking to them, he was always sure to keep one up his sleeve.
Regardless of the extra security it offered him, the staff was a weapon in itself. Dotted along the haft were tiny green crystals of Crissalith. Mined and transmuted by his own technique, the Crissalith would prevent any around him from using magic; the best deterrent when engaged with dragons, beasts of pure magic. Only the ring on his finger, fixed with a blue Hastion gem, allowed him to wield magic in the presence of the Crissalith. Together, staff and ring made him the most powerful man in any room.
Accompanied by an escort of mage knights, all of whom were forced to rely on their swords alone around their king’s staff, Atilan made his way to the throne room, on the northern edge of the palace.
The master of servants announced his arrival with all the dramatic flair he had long ago been instructed to give. “King Atilan of Etragon Blood, First of His Name, Son of Agandalan, Sorcerer Superior, The Dragon Slayer, Conqueror of the Three Realms, and The Lord of Verda!”
To a crowd of bowing heads, Atilan entered the cathedral-like chamber. He had designed every foot of it himself and had it built by the greatest architectural mages in all the realms. Unlike the throne room in Valgala, the capital of Erador, the aesthetics were original and free of the ancient religion to Kaliban. His father, Agandalan, had assumed the Valgalan throne, as all the kings before him, but not Atilan. Here, in Ak-Tor, the king ruled from a throne none but himself had enjoyed, in a city his forebears couldn’t have dreamed of, and in a land that had remained beyond all of their reach.
The priests of The Echoes had complained to those who had Atilan’s ear that the throne room was disrespectful in its glorification of the Etragon Bloodline alone. The stuffy priests had wanted him to build shrines to Kaliban and erect statues in his honour.
Were the religion not so deep-rooted in his kingdom, Atilan would have brought down their overbearing Citadel himself. The fact that they had constructed their monstrous white tower to be taller than the palace was a great insult to Atilan. The king had no intention of worshipping their false idol. He would much rather become a god himself…
The mage knights cleared a path from the main doors to his throne, made almost entirely from dragons’ teeth. The two rows of pillars, that kept the enormous ceiling and its arches aloft, were crowded with the lords of the great families. Their bloodlines went back through the eons to Erador’s most ancient of days, something they felt made them worthy of being in Atilan’s company.
Having bowed to their king, the Lords of Blood and their entourages began to fill the space in front of the elevated dais. Atilan, seated on his throne, left his staff to stand perfectly upright by itself. More than a few eyes roamed over the green crystals, clearly feeling vulnerable without their own magic.
From the rabble, only one stepped forward - Lord Krayt of Keldic Blood. He was a warrior who had proven his worth as a tactician in The Battle of Thedaria, a decade past. Since then, he had headed the war effort against the Dragon Riders with an equal amount of successes to failures. Should that scale begin to tip towards the latter, Atilan would see him replaced, shortly after a lengthy execution…
“How fares my kingdom, Lord Krayt?” the king asked.
As one of only a dozen in the entire kingdom granted a Hastion ring, Lord Krayt was able to generate a three-dimensional map of Verda between the lords and the throne. The Lords of Blood - none of whom Atilan had seen fit to gift a Hastion gem - could do nothing but gather around the ethereal image and take in the three realms, Erador, Illian, and Ayda from west to east.
Like the Lords of Blood, Atilan couldn’t help but note the vast number of red segments on the map: territory claimed by the Dragon Riders. There were more than a few strongholds in those areas that the king could no longer call his own. Only Ayda, to the east, remained untouched by their rebellion. The eastern lands were new, however, and only the southern territories had been charted thus far.
Faint whispers passed between the Lords of Blood, their words lost on the king, but their tone unmistakable. They were afraid. More than one of them had counselled against going to war with the Dragon Riders, fearful of their power. Pain and suffering had followed their arguments and more than one bloodline had been completely wiped out by the mage knights.
Still, these great families controlled the flow of many resources needed for the war; keeping them on side was a necessity. Atilan rose from his throne before it had even warmed to his touch. He stalked towards the gathered men and stopped by the northern edge of the map.
“For thirteen years this war has raged. We must remember what it is we fight. This war isn’t against Dragon Riders, it’s against death itself. How many of our bloodlines are naught but dust? Would you join them in the ground or as ash in the wind?” The king began to walk around the edge of the map, pushing the lords back. “I know what I am fighting for. I will be the last king of the Etragon Bloodline, young and strong for all time. That power exists! The secrets of immortality lie with the dragons and their Riders.”
Seeing some fire in their eyes, Atilan judged the majority to be in support, despite the victories of the Dragon Riders. He would weed out those who doubted him, those who were too weak to see the war through, and deal with them severely.
“Your report, Lord Krayt?”
The Minister of War drew everyone’s attention to Erador, west on the floating map. “We received word from Elderhall in the night, your Grace. A great congregation of dragons was discovered in World’s End.”
“Do we know the meaning of this particular gathering?” Atilan asked, knowing that since the beginning of the war, the dragons and their Riders had been stretched too far and wide to meet in any great numbers.
“No, your Grace,” Krayt admitted. “They set off across The Hox before anything could be discerned.”
Atilan studied the map, noting The Hox as the only obstacle between Erador and Illian. “They will have crossed the ocean and reached Illian’s shores by now.”
“Indeed, your Grace. We fear they intend to bolster the Dragon Riders in the Moonlit Plains and cut off our route to Ayda.” Lord Krayt stretched his hand and expanded the map, focusing on The Undying Mountains in the south of Illian. “If they block the pass we will be unable to export the Crissalith from the mines.”
Atilan cupped his smooth jaw, contemplating the map. The Crissalith was being mined in its raw state in the south of Ayda, thousands of miles from their current position in Ak-Tor, in the north of Illian. Opening a portal, or even a series of portals, between here and there would require a lot of magic and likely attract the dragons.
At present, however, Crissalith was their greatest weapon against the beasts…
“We must secure that route, Lord Krayt,” Atilan emphasised. He would have compounded that statement had he not caught the flicker of concern on his war minister’s face. “Speak,” he commanded.
Lord Krayt pinched his hand and the map snapped back to encompass all three realms again. “Word has reached our spymasters that the Dragon Riders also intend to occupy Storm’s Reach.”
Atilan shifted his eyes to look upon the narrow strip of freezing tundra that separated The Dread Wood from The Broken Mountains. “If they hold Storm’s Reach,” the king extrapolated, his anger beginning to rise, “we will be cut off from Erador. The bulk of my army and all of our Demetrium mines are in Erador, Lord Krayt.”
“Yes, your Grace,” Krayt agreed, his gaze averted. “We are mobilising our forces now to pass through Storm’s Reach and enter Illian as soon as possible.”
Atilan was shaking his head. “The Dragon Riders don’t have the numbers to hold Storm’s Reach and The Undying Mountains. One of your sources of information is wrong, Lord Krayt. Either that or you are being manipulated…”
The Minister of War looked over the ethereal map as he considered the implications. “Then I will get to the truth of it, your Grace.”
“See that you do,” Atilan replied with a threatening tone - he didn’t suffer failure. “You’re supposed to be war incarnate, Lord Krayt. Do not come to me again with half-truths and whispers.”
“Forgive me, your Grace,” the war minister apologised with a bow of the head.
Darakus of Helteron Blood cleared his throat. “Your Grace, I would counsel caution when it comes to mobilising our forces out of Erador.” As the head of one of the oldest bloodlines, Darakus felt he could ignore Lord Krayt’s silent instruction to remain quiet. “If we secure Illian at the cost of losing Erador, our ancestral homeland, would we not be losing something more than just territory? In the eyes of the people, it would be considered a great—”
Darakus lost his voice. Then, he lost his breath. The older lord gripped his throat, which continued to constrict regardless of his efforts. Only when he dropped to his knees did Atilan unclench his fist and release Darakus from the spell.
