Excerpt: Ilfin of Arc - Green Orb

My story with a Celtic twist, so fits in nicely for St Patrick's Day :)

ON THE THIRD day of employing Horin’s bridges, it changed.

The plateau dwellers had to fight the authorities to leave their cities and towns; they escaped slave masters, ran from raiders, coped in extreme weather conditions, and even suffered the cavalry chasing them. All this happened while they brimmed with both fear and hope. They had also seen and lived sorcery now. The latter had saved them numerous times.

Mirlin grew up accepting the talents as a natural condition, but even in the west it was not commonplace. He, too, needed to fight the authorities to leave, and walked across the plains in the hottest dry season in living memory. It nearly killed him.

Thus, everyone marching knew about hardship, wherever they originated from, and expected the unexpected, but they had overlooked something integral.

The authorities tested for talents long before Damin sprung the Porlese trap and therefore discovered many latent abilities; why else continue the program of testing? Logically, it meant those authorities, whoever they were, possessed certain talents as theirs to command. The unfortunates caught before the march to a haven did not now walk with the host; they remained as captives upon the plateau.

This fundamental oversight did not occur to Mirlin until everything changed, and by then it was too late.

On Horin’s second bridge of the day they heard what sounded like the drone of insects, possibly a swarm in flight. At first Mirlin thought of bees, perhaps even locusts, but there was nothing to be seen. Eyes darted everywhere, his and many others, only to look again at each in confusion. The wildlife inhabiting the plains, whether mammal, reptile, avian or insect, was another unknown factor; the approaching mass could be anything.

Except there was nothing to be seen.

In consternation, he halted. The Mur girl’s face captured his attention and drained him of all hope. Siri lifted her head upward and her face lost all colour. Her jaw hung slack and she could not move. With shivers of dread coursing through him, Mirlin too looked up.

Blue war shields were in the air, flying in formation, on swift approach, and atop each curved platform perched a man, bow raised, face manic, and mouth wide as if screaming challenge.

This was the effort of someone controlling the talent for utter manipulation, able to alter the normal into something extraordinary. Perhaps more than one mind achieved it, a concerted joining of power, he could not know, but it was obvious that someone had taken an ordinary war shield and created from it a flying machine.

Many flying machines.

This was something straight out of a Glonu legend.

How the soldiers were strong-armed into accepting the duty was anyone’s guess; men did not fly, after all – creatures feathered and scaled did. Perhaps those gaping mouths had more to do with fear than it did with challenge. However it came to pass, it no longer featured, for a host of trained men was about to attack from the heavens.

Cursing under his breath, Mirlin flayed himself for his lack of foresight. By the sands, not that anyone would have foreseen a situation close to it even in imagination. This event would be difficult to recover from. Many would die this day.

The first arrows flew.

“Off the path!” Damin shouted.

Fear paralysed everyone.

“MOVE!” Damin hollered, cupping his hands at his mouth. “Horin needs the bridge!”

Animation returned, and men, women and children launched into the scrub, hauling animals with them. It was a mess of limbs and gear, but it happened fast. Arrows thudded to earth and some found flesh. Gargles swiftly became screams.

Damin and Mirlin immediately formed a buffer over Horin when the boy kneeled, the men locking into a forearm grip and crouching over him. Mirlin suffered the sense of a thousand arrows smacking into his exposed back; no doubt Damin felt the same. Siri hunkered between Forest’s legs beside them, praying to Massin’s so-called benevolent stars.

“Quickly, Horin,” Damin murmured.

Mirlin marvelled at his calm.

The rain of barbs intensified, and the shields overhead blotted the sun. They squatted within a twilight of death with eternal doom but an arrowhead away. Gooseflesh assailed skin and ears twitched.

“Horin,” Mirlin urged also.

The lad shook head to toe. Fear had him. He swallowed with difficulty, eyes flitting into every direction.

“Concentrate on what you must do,” Damin said. “We deal with pain after, all right?”

“Do it,” Siri added.

Horin stared at her for a moment, and then nodded. He elevated his hand and, thank the sands, the ‘bridge’ lifted and swiftly altered both substance and shape. It became fluid, as heavy water.

Everything froze in the ensuing moment. Arrows juddered to a stop in the air. Shields halted in mid-flight and -turn. Soldiers were immobilised in various poses, while the marchers were as living statues. The green barrier did not move either.

Frowning, Mirlin wondered what the boy sought to achieve. Horin gazed at Damin. It appeared only the four of them were able to move.

“The only way to end it, Damin, is by killing all of them.”

Those words explained the frozen state surrounding them. Horin sought permission to do what he had to, or hoped for absolution before the act. Siri was pale, but remained silent, her gaze moving to her brother also.

Damin closed his eyes. His jaw worked through his inner tension. “It is us or them, Horin. This is defence, not cold murder.”

Horin nodded, his face oddly expressionless, the reaction of a mature man rather than that of a mere boy, and his fingers opened to bleed tendrils of red light. Those scarlet wisps, reminding Mirlin of blood, weaved into the pulsating jade substance, to form a lattice within the fluidity. Abruptly Horin clenched his hand into a fist and they flinched as sound and movement resumed with the next heartbeat.

It was chaos. People ran and stumbled, screamed, and groaned. Arrows caught in mid-flight smacked down. Donkeys brayed and horses neighed. Shields in the sky buckled briefly before correcting for the next pass.

Mirlin read terror in many eyes. The soldiers on those shields stared at the rising substance, and they were afraid. On the ground, silence fell as everyone gazed up. Even the animals were now quiet.

Arrows were nocked and loosed ever faster, but now none found target; the spreading green and red ‘net’ absorbed every impact. The magical device lifted ever higher and stretched wider and further, becoming almost transparent, it was that thin. It was now a veil between the marchers and the archers on their flying blue shields.

Mirlin’s heart threatened to escape its cage in his chest. Peripherally, for the spectacle overhead garnered all his attention, he noticed Horin punch the air.

The miasma exploded.

The sonic boom accompanying it felled those on the ground. They stumbled to knees, fell to all fours, but still all stared up, transfixed. Small pellets of sorcery targeted the archers. Tiny missiles smacked into flesh with popping, wet sounds that served to empty a few guts on the ground.

Siri gagged, but held on to the contents of her stomach.

Mirlin expected the archers to explode also, by the sands, but instead they became as nothing in an instant. One moment a man perched atop a shield, the next he was ether. His shield hurtled to earth, and his bow and arrow pouch joined the headlong tumble. Within two minutes the sky was cleared, and shields, bows and arrows littered the scrubby terrain.

Horin unwrapped his fingers. The miasma instantly formed anew and then contracted swiftly until a tangible green orb rushed to him, and lowered gently into his palm.

His fingers enclosed it and he stared at it in horror. “It was inside me,” he whispered, “and now it is free.”

Come, reader, join the great march today …

 According to legend, a paradise awaits across the plains, a sanctuary that has survived every impact and every battle. Known as Arc, it is a place of isolation, a place to restart civilisation.

 A fireball grows ever larger in the skies and ancient enemies wing through the spaces; the world Massin is the gathering place for every omen of disaster. Every resident soul faces a choice. Time now to march south to the sanctuary, from the eastern highlands and the western seas, there to escape apocalypse, and the renewal of the war between the Ilfin and Glonu, or stay behind, hoping for a miracle.

 An Elemental will find the sanctuary – Lyra is gifted – a Warrior will defend the dispossessed – the boy Horin will grow up fast – and a Marsh Devil will lead them – Damin spends years preparing for this epic event – but it is also true that a sanctuary is not always a haven. Has the legend lied? Will Arc protect them?

 Prepare for an adventure that will journey from ancient ways of living into high-tech environments. Ilfin of Arc is a dystopian Fantasy tale that flies into star filled spaces – strap in!

Ilfin of Arc