*
In a similarly swift fashion to his transformation into a statue Vulthian lifted his head up. The red glow returned inside the visor and he looked at Karmalaine.
“Are you there?” asked the Prince of the Lord Captain.
“I am, My Prince”, said the silver claw, lifting his arms as if getting used to being back in his own body.
“What happened?” asked the Prince, but the silver claw did not respond. Prince Karmalaine looked around. The battle in the sky had ebbed away, most of the sorrow hawks were gone having flown east to Eredyss with the dreamer, he assumed. The dark cloud of Gulgazish and a large host of angels and demons had followed them, but still more had remained to do battle with the mysterious grey knights who continued to march from the forest.
Despite their superiority as individuals the Prince saw that the angels and demons which had descended to battle with the knights were on the back foot. For each dead angel or demon there were twenty casualties in the knights, but numbers were playing a crucial role here. The Prince had never seen so many soldiers in one place. The silver claw legion was ten thousand strong and had often appeared for ceremonial purposes back in Fenn. The number of grey knights which Karmalaine could see was many times this number and they kept on pouring from the trees in an unstoppable tide, swarming over the angels and demons.
Only Balg-Miur stood against them. He was a red giant now, the blood literally dripping from him. The mound of dead knights around him was so large that others were struggling to get up the steep slope of corpses to be able to reach him. The northern part of the battlefield on which he stood had started to empty as the main thrust of the battle had shifted south. Though the grey knights were pushing inexorably north towards him through the demons and angels their objective, like everything else about them, was unclear. The Prince assumed that they fought here for the same reason as everyone else, the reason which was now winging its way north on the back of a sorrow hawk.
Just as the Prince was considering his options he heard a strange noise. Beyond the thundering of the cannons of the grey knights, beyond the roaring of the demons and the angelic war screams of the angels, there was a familiar droning which it took the Prince a few moments to place. He realised it was the sound of a sky-ship; No, not a sky-ship but hundreds of sky-ships.
From the east they came, filling the sky. Those demons and angels still in their air which chose to engage them were shredded to pieces by the sabre cannons mounted on the side of the ships. The remaining minions of Bloodren and Archaven were too few in number to stand against this new foe, they either joined their brothers in the fight on the ground or flew north behind Gulgazish who pursued the sorrow hawks and talented jackals who had stolen his prize.
Wave after wave of sky-ships appeared. The Prince’s pride and hope swelled, his father’s arm was long indeed and had reached out to intervene. The lead ships descended towards them whilst others formed a defensive perimeter. The ship which lowered towards them was much larger than any of the others and for a moment the Prince wondered whether or not his father had come in person, but it was a silver claw and not the King who stood on the deck waiting. A boarding plank was lowered which Vulthian walked onto first, much to the Prince’s annoyance, but he made no issue of it and went to follow.
The silver claw stopped and turned and looked at the Prince. Then, much to Karmalaine’s surprise he lashed out with a powerful kick which sent him sprawling down the plank into the bloody snow. This had been a day for surprises, a day for betrayal, but this one shook the Prince worse than any of the others.
“Just what the hell do you think you are doing?!” he raged at the silver claw. “Seize him”, the Prince shouted to the other silver claw who stood watching from the deck of The Lonely Ghost. Not one of them moved.
“I am the son of King Corul Geddon, heir to the Kingdom of Avalen. I command-”
“You commands no longer hold any meaning, My Prince”, he said the last words with exaggerated derision and sarcasm. “Your father is already dead and you are the heir to nothing, you're just another dream now Karmalaine”, finished the Lord Captain, before walking up the plank onto the ship’s deck. The plank was swiftly withdrawn and the ship lifted up into the air. It met up with the others and then the whole fleet started to move away, back east from where they'd come.
The Prince sank to the floor. He reeled from the silver claw’s words. Was he lying? The boy in the Prince hoped so, the man in the Prince suspected not. It was all gone within the space of hours. Why did I come here, he asked himself? The angels, the demons, the silver claws, turncoats and betrayers one and all. Why did Fenn do this, why make a world for the dreams to live in? All they will do is fight you and when you are dead they will fight each other.
The sounds of the battle were drowned out by his own dreaming heart, which moved to its unique beat inside his chest. What the Prince needed to do was heal, to flee somewhere safe, to rest and recover from the wounds the dreamer had inflicted on him. But to do so would require some form of hope, a hope that the Prince did not have, so instead he sat and wallowed in the snow. Until the hand came down and scooped him up. Until he felt himself being carried through the air by something big and fast. There had been one this day who had not betrayed him at least, there was the spark, there was the hope. As Balg-Miur gathered up the Prince and ran north Karmalaine came alive again. The inside of the giant’s hand was slick with blood, so much so that it took him a while to climb to his feet and look out.
Behind them the battle ebbed. The grey knights continued their advance across the field of blood, but with the absence of the dreamer the demons and angels stomach for fight was lessened. Those who remained had lifted into the sky and flown away, with their departure Balg-Miur had also moved away.
“I thought you were done with running”, the Prince called up to the giant. Balg-Miur’s crimson face was horrific to behold. Though much of the sanguine splatter which covered him belonged to the hundreds of knights who'd fallen before him that day no small amount of it was his own. There were dozens of deep gashes in his face alone, and across his whole body there were more than the Prince could accurately count.
“My mind was changed”, said the giant in pain.
“By what?”
“We giants are prone to whimsy, little Prince”, he responded with the hint of humour showing through his physical discomfort. The Prince stayed silent and on the giant ran.
He continued running as the light rose and fell and rose again across Avalen. The giant and the Prince crossed rivers, ran through forests and stopped infrequently in the shadows of mountains. They left their enemies far behind, they left the world behind as they ran through the wilderness. There were dreams that lived out here, wild dreams, but not so wild as to disturb a giant.
The Prince thought back to the instances of a giant who had protested most strongly at conveying him across a small chasm, yet now he carried him for hundreds of leagues. He stayed silent on such matters; to have spoken of the sudden change in the giant’s opinion would have come as an insult. As they travelled they spoke little. The Prince tried to form some sort of plan but nothing could come together in his mind and if fruition would not present itself to his consciousness then how could he hope to cause it out here in the real world.
Prince Karmalaine knew where the giant was heading. Though the path might seem rugged and random he knew where it led. Again he did not comment, there were worse places to be going at a time like this. Several days after they'd left the ruined valley where Snowdell had been the giant began to slacken his pace, slower and slower he got until eventually, at a cleft in the face of a small nameless mountain, he stopped and lay back, uncurling his hand so that Prince Karmalaine could crawl out.
The Prince looked up at his carrier. Balg-Miur had left a trail of blood and he bled still for he had not stopped to rest and heal for long enough, so intense had been their pace.
“I am at the end, little Prince”, he rumbled.
“You are Balg-Miur, son of the God-giant Rokumung, surely not to be laid low by a few knights with their tiny swords?” said the Prince.
The giant almost managed a smile through ruined bloodied lips. “The little Prince attempts to lift me, but you have not the strength of will or body. Here I lay and here I will stay, for my last breath draws near.”
“You saved my life twice”, said the Prince, “yet I cannot do you even one turn of the same.”
“Feel no woe, Prince Karmalaine”, said the giant, suddenly very serious, “you have greater responsibilities now than saving the lives of giants.”
“My father is dead, the world is lost to war”, said the Prince despairing.
“Then you must find it again”, said the giant.
The Prince had already radically revised his opinion of giants following his time with Balg-Miur but still they continued to rise in his estimation.
“I don't know how”, said the Prince, realising how hollow his words were as soon as he'd finished saying them.
“You will do fine, little Prince, I have faith”, said the giant, closing his eyes.
“Balg-Miur, who were they, the grey knights? You said you recognised them”, asked the Prince.
The giant’s eyes opened. “I saw them before, long ago. I fought alongside them on an ancient battlefield at a place called Meregoth”, said the giant in a distant voice.
“Meregoth! the fall of Arma, they were his creatures?” said the Prince. But he received no answer for Balg-Miur’s eyes had closed once more and they would not open again. The son of Rokumung was dead.
For a long time the Prince stared at the still form of the giant, a red mark on the side of a mountain, a giant in life and a giant in death. Finally he looked to the horizon and considered his options. As far as he was concerned there were three. The first was to head for Whistlewood to Brukiel, the King’s brother and his uncle. The head of the Whistlers’ Guild needed to learn of the tragedy and treachery that was engulfing Avalen.
The second was far to the south-east, to his mother in Lyrilia. This is what his heart wanted, for his elder sister was there also and never before had Karmalaine missed his family in the way he did now.
The third option was the wall. Lemer Starys had been a loyal subject and he commanded the Octaris, not a force to be dismissed in this unfolding age of war. But a warning bell in his mind stopped him. Kalwyn had seemed a loyal subject, Vulthian had seemed a loyal subject and both proved themselves false. Faithful or not, the Prince dared not get close enough to the Octaris to find out lest he be captured if they had turned.
In the end he opted for the fourth path, the option that was not an option. He did not follow the path of his head to Whistlewood or the path of his heart to Lyrilia. Both places were far from here with a host of known enemies and potential enemies separating him from them. Instead he decided to continue on the road which Balg-Miur had been treading, instead he continued north.