A deep voice cut through the air.
“Kyra, the great one, has finally come to my den.”
The voice was dark and gravelly, sounding more like the voice of a creature than a man, setting her hairs on end. His back was still to her, only deepening her sense of apprehension.
Slowly, the creature turned, and Kyra felt dread as she saw that he had the body of a man, but the head of a goat, with sharpened hooves for hands. He looked at Kyra and smiled an evil smile. He was the most grotesque thing she had ever seen, and as he spoke, her stomach tightened in a knot.
“Your mother is not here to protect you now, is she?” he asked.
As he spoke, a long, snake-like tongue slipped out the side of his mouth.
“No. You’re in Marda now, in the Thicket of Thorns. You’re beyond anyone’s protection. You have come to a place you should never have come, and you have come uninvited. Did you really think the Staff of Truth would sit unguarded? Did you truly think you could just walk in here and steal it from us?”
He laughed, a grating, ominous sound. Kyra tried to steady her breath, to calm herself, to focus on the adversary before her.
“I have stood guard for thousands of years,” he continued, “and have protected it from people far more powerful than you. You,” he said with derision, “a lame girl, with a few powers you don’t even understand.”
Kyra flinched, yet forced herself to stay strong, to stand her ground and to speak back firmly.
“I sense the weapon lies beyond that wall,” she said, impressed by the strength in her voice, which did not match her inward fears. “I will give you one warning: you can move aside now, or I will kill you.”
He laughed, an awful sound that sank into her soul.
“Brave words for a terrified girl,” he replied. “I can sense your fear even from here. I can nearly taste it. You should be afraid. You should be very afraid. Have a look at my feet.”
She looked down and saw, at his feet, a pile of bones, some ancient and some new, and her apprehension deepened.
“They thought they were stronger than me, too,” he said. “Your bones shall make a most delicious snack. Of that, I am sure.”
Listening to him, Kyra sensed that this was more than just an encounter. This was a test. A test that she would have to pass by life or by death.
Suddenly the creature nodded and raised his hooves, and as he did, Kyra heard an awful screech. From out of the thickets there suddenly flew down four awful creatures, resembling owls, but with claws twice as long, sharp fangs, and as large as she. She felt a wave of panic, and she knew she had to stay strong, to rise above her fear, above any emotion, if she were to win. This was not a test of her skills, she realized; it was about her inner strength. Her powers. Her control over her mind.
Kyra focused on the creatures before her. The first came at her, swooping down and lowering its claws for her face, and she swung her staff and cracked it in the nose. It dropped with a screech to the ground.
Kyra ducked as another dove for her head, then reached around and cracked that one in its ribs, sending it skidding across the soil.
The third attacked Kyra from behind, circling around and scratching her in the back. She screeched in pain, caught off guard; yet she quickly gathered herself, dropping to her knees, rolling on the ground, then wheeling around and smashing the beast across the face. It screeched and fell at her feet.
One final creature was still circling, and as it lunged for her, screeching, she jumped to her feet, grabbed her staff, stepped sideways, and jabbed the beast in the throat. It fell down, dead at her feet.
Kyra was surprised to hear a screech behind her, and she realized, too late, that a fifth beast had been unleashed. It came at her before she could react, grabbed her shirt with its claws, and hoisted her into the air. She swung at it as it carried her, yet was helpless to reach it.
The beast flew with her, driving her forward, aiming to smash her into the thicket of thorns. She saw a huge, sharp thorn about to pierce her chest, and at the last second she twisted, just missing it, smashing into the wall of vines instead.
She was lucky, she knew, to miss it, as she dropped onto the floor, aching in every part of her body. The beast gave her no time to recover; it lunged down and opened its mouth, ready to finish her off.
Kyra rolled out of the way at the last second, spun around, and grabbed its slimy, disgusting scales with two hands. She kept it at bay, wrestling with it, then finally managed to hurl it into a thorn beside her. It shrieked as she impaled it through its mouth. It finally hung there, dead.
Kyra, breathing hard, aching, turned, grabbed her staff, and prepared to face off against the creature that summoned them.
He stared back, frowning, clearly surprised.
“Impressive,” he said. “But you’re still just a girl. And I am the all-powerful Koo.”
Koo pulled his hood lower, stepped forward, and suddenly there was a ball of fire in his hand. He threw it at her, and as the fire rushed for her face, she ducked. It barely missed, setting the woods behind her aflame.
He threw another ball, and another, and another. She kept dodging, summoning her powers, using her instincts to be faster than the flames. She was in a place of deep focus, a place where she was not in complete control of her own body, her own actions.
She managed to dodge all his fireballs, yet soon she felt the tremendous heat behind her. All around her, the woods were aflame.
Infuriated he could not hit her, the beast suddenly hoisted a black staff covered with thorns, an ominous weapon. He stepped forward and faced her.
Snarling, he swung for her head, and she raised her staff and blocked it. As she did, the thick spikes of his staff impaled her staff, and he managed to yank it out of her hands.
Kyra stood there, defenseless, appalled, stripped of her staff. He laughed back at her as he threw her staff down to the floor. He then charged, raising the spiked staff high and swinging for her throat.
Kyra dodged, feeling the thorns graze her skin, realizing how close it had come, how fast he was. With the woods aflame behind her, her time was running out and she had nowhere left to run.
He lunged at her, jabbing at her stomach, and she looked down and saw a blade at the end of it. Before she could dodge, it stabbed her in the stomach.
Kyra gasped, stunned, the pain blinding. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, and her whole world went blind.
She sank to her knees onto the soft forest floor, and he dug the blade deeper and deeper in her stomach. She felt the tears gush out—tears of pain, tears of failure, tears of surprise. She had never expected to die here.
Kyra looked up and saw him grinning, satisfied, jamming the blade in more, turning it in her stomach, and she knew she was dying, and in an awful way. What an awful place to die, she thought, here in this place, where no one will ever find me. She would be just one more set of bones on a pile of bones.
“You see, Kyra,” Koo growled. “No one has ever defeated me. And no one ever will. You are not strong enough. You are not strong enough,” he insisted.
Something in his words summoned something in her. She hated being told what she wasn’t capable of. It spurred a defiance deep within her, a deep desire to prove others wrong. All her life, as the only girl in a fort filled with men, she had been told she wasn’t good enough.
Not strong enough.
She turned the words around in her mind. There was no such thing as defeat, she knew, unless you accepted it. Unless you chose to believe, to accept, you were not strong enough. And she refused to accept it. She could rise above defeat, she knew. She could be as strong as she wanted to be. As strong as she believed herself to be.
Kyra a felt heat rising within her. It was a heat of rejection. A rejection of death. A rejection of weakness. She did not deserve to die. For the first time, in her life, she truly felt that. Who was anybody else to say she deserved to die? She was entitled to life.
Suddenly, Kyra felt herself cha
nging, felt the momentum shifting the other way. Instead of getting weaker, she felt herself getting stronger. Instead of the pain, she felt herself rising above the pain. She felt herself, amazingly, becoming stronger.
Pain is only pain, she heard her mind say, a mantra within herself. And when we lose our fear of pain, there is nothing anyone can do to harm us. When we don’t fear pain, we no longer fear anything. If we embrace the pain, stop resisting it, rise above it, we are all-powerful. Limitless.
Kyra found herself reaching out and grabbing his staff of thorns. The thorns dimly hurt her hand as her fingers bled, yet she refused to pay attention. Instead, she squeezed the staff, and slowly retracted it from her body.
The monster stared back in disbelief as she extracted the blade, one inch at a time, her arms shaking. Finally she extracted the entire staff and threw it to the ground.
She stood upright, forcing herself to stand proud and strong, and faced the monster. She felt bigger than the pain. And she knew she had reached a new level of her power, the level that she had been most afraid to face, and that nothing on this planet could harm her now.
Kyra reached down, laid her two palms on the wound on her stomach, closed her eyes, and breathed. She took a deep breath in, saw white light rushing through her veins, into her wound, and she felt the healing power being summoned from deep within her.
She did not even need to look down as she opened her eyes. She knew her stomach was now completely healed. Indeed, she felt stronger than before.
The monster stared back in utter shock, his mouth agape.
Kyra did not give Koo a chance to regroup. She stepped forward and kicked him with both feet in the chest.
The monster stumbled back into the branches and shrieked as he caught fire, the flames roaring all around him.
“I refuse your death sentence,” Kyra said, feeling stronger than she’d ever had, feeling as if she’d overcome something within herself. “I deserve life.”
The creature, in a rage, rose to his feet, shrieked, and lunged for her.
But this time, Kyra felt bigger than herself. As the beast charged, Kyra felt the heat within consume her, and this time she let it overtake her. She found herself filled with a power she could scarcely understand, found herself doing things she never would have been able to before, as she sidestepped, dodging his lightning-fast strike, and jabbed him in the face with her staff, knocking him flat on his back.
He jumped back to his feet and charged, leaping into the air for her. She was faster, though, able to anticipate it, and she rushed forward and struck him in the stomach, reaching him first, knocking him flat on his back.
It spun around and grabbed its staff and jumped to its feet, swinging wildly at her. But Kyra backed up, dodging him easily, feeling faster, stronger. He raised the staff higher with both hands, preparing to bring it down for her neck, and she lunged forward and struck him in the throat.
He dropped his staff of thorns and this time, she caught it in midair. Koo stood there, disarmed, shocked, defenseless. And she rushed forward and jabbed the staff through his heart.
Koo gasped, mouth open, blood pouring from it, as he looked back at her in utter shock.
Then he dropped down to its knees, dead.
As he did, the final wall of thorns opened up, the fire still blazing all around her.
Kyra stepped through the opening, right before the fire completely consumed the wood.
She had won. Victory was hers.
Kyra found herself standing on a ledge, a small plateau high up on a cliff. The horizon opened up, the sky a twilight streaked with scarlet red, and for the first time, the entire landscape of Marda unfolded before her. She saw a massive city spread out before her, a megalopolis. It was a city of death, outlined in shades of black.
And somewhere down there, she knew, she just knew, lay the Staff of Truth, waiting for her.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Duncan emerged from the canyon, flanked by Kavos, Bramthos, Seavig, Anvin and Arthfael and several hundred of his men, all, he was honored to see, eager to join him on the most dangerous mission of his life. As they reached the desert floor, Duncan looked and saw, just north, beyond the open field, the massive sprawl of the Pandesian army. There they camped, a sea of black on the horizon, banners flapping in the wind, a silhouette in the breaking dawn. The time had come to risk it all, to instigate them in the open field, and to lure them back down into the canyon.
The mission, Duncan knew, was foolhardy. His chances of luring them down into the canyon were slim; if they attacked before they could lure them down, they would surely not survive. And his chances of emerging from the other side of the canyon after doing so were even more slim. Yet it had to be done. Luring the Pandesians down to the bottom of the canyon was the only way, and if he died at the bottom, drowned with them, then so be it.
Duncan led his men as they marched through the wasteland, until finally, he motioned. They all came to a sudden stop, lined up in perfect discipline, their armor softly rattling in the pre-dawn silence. No sound was audible other than that of a vulture screaming high overhead, no doubt anticipating the meal to come. Duncan raised his hand for quiet as the rattling of their armor finally grew still, all of them standing there, watching Duncan, as he watched the horizon. He was determined not to make a mistake.
Duncan watched the horizon, saw, in the distance, the faint outline of black. There were all the banners of the Pandesian army, flapping in the wind as far as they could see. He scanned the skies, saw the dragons had long gone, and he knew the Pandesians had regrouped, were preparing to attack again. Of course they would: Ra never forgot an enemy.
Within moments, as Duncan suspected, a horn sounded. There came another, and another, all the Pandesian horns echoing each other up and down the ranks. They were horns designed to intimidate, horns that had been used to vanquish all throughout the Empire, in every land and country, as the Pandesians obliterated whoever stood before them. They were horns meant to embolden the Pandesian army, to urge the great beast to move forward.
And that was exactly what Duncan wanted.
The Pandesian army began to march, a great rumble, stretching across the horizon, all heading right for Duncan and his men. Duncan stood there, his heart slamming, watching death approach. He willed them closer.
“Hold the line!” Duncan commanded, feeling the uneasiness amongst his men.
Yet they listened. He saw some of his younger soldiers antsy, shifting in place. They would need discipline for this, discipline to hold the line, to face down a much greater army out in the open field, to let them approach. They would need more discipline than they’d ever had in their lives.
Duncan stood there and waited, the army getting closer with each step, the desert black with soldiers. The sound of their elephants rumbled above all, followed by the sound of horses. The sound of soldiers marching trailed that, and then, finally, as they neared, but a few hundred yards away, there came the sound of their banners, flapping violently in the desert wind.
As they neared, Duncan could see the hunger in their eyes, the bloodlust. He could also see the greed: for them, their prey stood helpless before them. They must have assumed that Duncan had come to surrender.
Duncan watched more of his men shift uncomfortably, as the Pandesians came nearly a hundred yards away.
“HOLD THE LINE!” he boomed.
His men stopped shifting and stood there, boldly, bravely, facing the oncoming death. Duncan was proud of them. They had to let the much bigger army get closer. They had to appeal to their sense of greed. In his experience, armies always overreached when they saw an easy kill. It blinded their judgment.
Finally, when the Pandesians were fifty yards away, Duncan’s heart slamming in his chest, he shouted:
“RETREAT!”
His men all turned and sprinted back toward the canyon. Duncan wanted the Pandesians to think that he had changed his mind and fled in terror.
It worked. Behind him, as h
e hoped, there came a great stampede, a great rumbling of elephants and horses. They were closing in, pursuing them, nearly faster than his men could run.
Duncan gasped for air as he and the others reached the canyon edge and immediately began to descend. They slipped and slid down the steep wall, navigating the tricky terrain until they wound their way all the way down to the canyon floor. Duncan craned his neck and looked up to see the Pandesian army right on their heels, pursuing them, reaching the edge of the canyon, pausing, and looking down, blood in their eyes, before resuming their chase and following them down the canyon on foot.
“TO THE OTHER SIDE!” Duncan boomed.
His men sprinted with him across the canyon floor, and Duncan looked over shoulder to see the Pandesians filing down, filling the canyon, pursuing them, just as he had hoped.
Having done what he had set out to, Duncan knew the first part was a success. But now came the hardest part: he’d have to sprint with his men across the canyon and ascend the other side.
Duncan reached the far wall, the rock slippery in his sweaty palms, and looked back, heart pounding, to see the Pandesians closing in, letting out a shout of victory and bloodlust.
“CLIMB!” he cried.
Duncan began the climb with his men, heart pounding, realizing how risky this was. He looked up and saw the steep ascent before them, and knew that just one slip would mean falling back down into death’s arms. He wondered if they could make it.
Worse, if Aidan and the men of Leptus were unsuccessful, if they did not reach Everfall and could not flood the canyon, then the army behind him would surely kill him, and all his men. And if they did flood the canyon but if Duncan did not ascend and get out of the way of the raging waters soon enough, then he and his men could be drowned, too.
Duncan suddenly heard the sound of metal chipping stone, and he turned, alert, to see the Pandesians, so close now, spears raised. They hurled them, and one just missed Duncan’s exposed back, chipping the stone beside him, and as he looked up and saw how far they had left to go, he suddenly realized that they would die an even worse death than he thought.