The Fall of Neverdark Read online

  The Fall of Neverdark

  Echoes of the Lost: Book 1

  Philip C. Quaintrell

  Also by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Echoes of Fate Trilogy

  1. Rise of the Ranger

  2. Empire of Dirt

  3. Relic of the Gods

  The Terran Cycle

  1. Intrinsic

  2. Tempest

  3. Heretic

  4. Legacy

  For Emma, the one who showed me the real meaning of strength.

  Dramatis Personae

  Adilandra Sevari

  The elven queen of Elandril and mother of Reyna Galfrey.

  Alijah Galfrey

  Half-elf rogue

  Asher

  Late human ranger and hero of the War for the Realm.

  Athis

  Red dragon, bonded with Inara

  Doran Heavybelly

  A Ranger and son of Dorain of clan Heavybelly

  Galanör Reveeri

  An elven ranger.

  Gideon Thorn

  A human Dragorn.

  Hadavad

  A mage and ranger

  Ilargo

  Green dragon, bonded with Gideon

  Inara Galfrey

  Half-elf Dragorn

  Karakulak

  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

  Leader of The Black Hand

  Tauren Salimson

  High Councillor of Tregaran

  Valanis

  The late dark elf and self-proclaimed herald of the gods.

  Vighon Draqaro

  A human rogue and friend to Alijah

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  1. A Pact in the Dark

  2. Old Bones

  3. Origins

  4. Dragons’ Reach

  5. Red in the Snow

  6. A Dark New World

  7. Out of the Light

  8. Rogues and Rangers

  9. A Crown of Horns

  10. Divine Coincidence?

  11. Far From Home

  12. Unwelcome Guests

  13. Reunion

  14. Status Quo

  15. Alone in the World

  16. A Dark Reflection

  17. Evil Never Sleeps

  Part II

  10,000 Years Ago

  18. Grey Stone

  19. Astari

  20. First Blood

  21. On the Other Side

  22. Welcome to the North

  23. Broken People

  24. Into the Dark

  25. Reclamation

  26. A Red Raven

  27. The Balance of Power

  28. Lirian’s Burning

  Part III

  10,000 Years Ago

  29. Rise of the Orc

  30. A Lesson in Dwarves

  31. Above and Below

  32. Ilythyra

  33. A Precious Gift

  34. An Empty Kingdom

  35. A Cold Farewell

  36. Parting Ways

  37. Brotherly Love

  38. The Eye of the Storm

  39. Cloudless Thunder

  40. The Enemy of my Enemy…

  Part IV

  10,000 Years Ago

  41. Dragorn Unbound

  42. Fire and Ice

  43. Gods Do Not Bleed

  44. A Fiend in the Deep

  45. Dragon Fall

  46. The Long Night

  47. Home

  48. Journey’s End

  49. Last Stand

  50. The Bastion

  51. The Fall Of Illian

  Epilogue

  Author Notes

  Appendicies

  Prologue

  10,000 Years Ago

  The day began like any other for Sarkas. The bitter and unforgiving cold of the northlands disturbed his slumber with its icy embrace. Next came the shouting. His parents would inevitably fall upon their poisonous words to convey their feelings towards each other.

  That was the nature of starvation, though Sarkas was old enough now to see that his parents had their addictions too. His father preferred to spend what little coin he had on drink. His mother enjoyed the out-of-body sensation granted by the Yellow Poppy.

  This morning, Sarkas awoke to the same argument as yesterday and the day before that. Where would the coin come from today? How would they eat? Of course, the burden of feeding Sarkas himself always came up. Any love they had once displayed towards him had been replaced over his short life with resentment.

  Unfortunately for Sarkas, today was not to be like any other.

  There was to be more dark than light this day, that of the winter solstice. Every year, on such a day, The Echoes would accept offerings in the form of new servants. The order of Kaliban had swelled over the years, and the towering Citadel had grown with it. The priests needed help and they rewarded such offerings with coin.

  His father’s hand snapped around his wrist and dragged him from their squalor.

  “You’re coming with me,” he growled.

  Sarkas knew something wasn’t right and the boy looked back at his mother with a pleading face. His tears went unnoticed as his mother closed the door without so much as a second glance.

  His father marched him through the streets of Ak-tor, the capital city in the great kingdom of Atilan, first of his name. It didn’t look so great from Sarkas’s point of view. On the outskirts of the city, the poorest of folk dwelled in the mud and died young.

  Leaving their district behind, Sarkas’s father dragged him through the streets until the buildings rose so high neither of them could see The Citadel or the glistening palace. Mage Knights in scarlet cloaks patrolled the streets here, keeping order for those who could afford to pay the army’s wages.

  “Father, where are we going?” Sarkas begged in his little voice.

  “Shut it!” he barked.

  It wasn’t long after that when Sarkas noticed other children, clearly from the poorer areas, being ordered through the streets by their parents. Like him, they appeared frozen to the bone and starved.

  Finally, The Citadel came into view and took his breath away. The spire rose so high as to rival Atilan’s palace in the west. Its stark white walls spoke of virtue and enlightenment. It was beautiful.

  “You can have this one,” his father said bluntly, thrusting Sarkas into the path of an Echoes priest.

  “Father?”

  Ignoring his son, Sarkas’s father began to haggle with the priest over the price.

  “A queue is forming,” the priest said curtly. “Take your coin or take your boy.”

  Looking at his father’s tremulous hand, it was clear to see that he was running out of time before the lack of drink arrested him.

  “Just take him then!” Too busy counting the coins, Sarkas’s father didn’t even register the boy’s sobbing cries.

  “Prepare him with the others,” the priest commanded.

  Without a word, a large fiend of a man grabbed Sarkas around the back of the neck and pushed him up the grand staircase and into The Citadel. The interior was an opposing image to that of its exterior. The majestic white walls were replaced by dark and narrow corridors. The only comfort came from the heat. Even without the fiend’s hand pushing him forward, the heat alone would have kept Sarkas moving.

  What awaited him and the other children was not worth the warmth. Once strapped down to damp
chairs, a tall priest in opulent robes gave them a speech about serving the Almighty Kaliban by serving the High Priests of The Citadel.

  Sarkas noticed that the girls were taken elsewhere and saved from being strapped to one of the chairs. So too were the stronger-looking children. Where they were taken was beyond Sarkas. His attention was on the tables beside him and the others. A curved blade sat on top of an old piece of cloth which appeared to be covering other utensils.

  Along with six others, Sarkas was told he had the honour of serving in the Red Tower. It was a protruding extension to the main tower and home to The Echoes council. It was said to be a place where the voice of Kaliban could be heard. Such a voice, however, was not for just any ears.

  Seven men, one for each of the chosen servants, approached from behind the tall priest. Wearing long aprons, smeared with dried blood, they picked up the curved blades, disturbing the instruments under the old cloth. With brutish efficiency, the men proceeded to shave the children’s hair, drawing blood in arching scrapes. Sarkas, like the others, cried out in pain as his hair dropped over his face and over his skinny shoulders.

  The boy tried to blink the blood from his eyelashes as he pulled hard on the bindings around his wrists and ankles. The children screamed for their parents, but nothing would stop the fiends.

  “Find comfort in Kaliban,” the tall priest announced. “For your service in The Citadel, you will be rewarded tenfold when you return to His embrace.”

  At last, the curved blades were put down, leaving them all bloody and bald. Together, the seven fiends removed the old cloth from atop the table, revealing a row of metallic implements. Sarkas didn’t like the look of any of them.

  The tall priest clasped his hands inside his sleeves. “Let us begin…”

  Part I

  1

  A Pact in the Dark

  For hundreds of miles, The Crow had endured the rocky path his carriage had forged through The Arid Lands, navigating the ruins of Karath, and the treacherous valley of Syla’s Pass.

  The rhythmic sounds of the carriage wheels had worked to put The Crow into a trance, taking his mind back to memories past. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the dragons swarming above, the cities burning, and the armies of man being laid to waste.

  The smell of bodies consumed by fire would never leave him, nor the sound of men, women, and children screaming for their lives. Those violent days were over now for the realm of Illian, though fractured into six kingdoms, had finally found peace.

  That time would soon come to an end. It always did, after all.

  This new Age was celebrated by those under the protection of the Dragorn. Both dragons and their riders had drawn a line in the sand and kept the darkness at bay.

  The Crow cared little for the light or the dark, good or evil. He knew only what the world used to look like, and what it could be again. Of course, what the world needed could not be found in peacetime. To forge that which the realm required, he needed a war…

  The carriage stopped abruptly, bringing an end to his musings. The Crow pulled back the curtain and opened the door to make his way across the hard desert plain in the wake of the others. His followers, devout believers all, were running to the front of their caravan, their black cloaks blowing out behind them in the rush. The Crow walked, having already seen the spectacle in his vision. Still, looking upon Paldora’s Fall with his own eyes was quite the sight.

  The men and women who served him stepped aside, giving him a clear view to the colossal crater at the end of the valley.

  Twenty-four years ago, a star had fallen from the heavens and forever changed The Undying Mountains. Of course, no one but The Crow knew of the star’s real impact, a seismic ripple effect that had spread across the southern lands and shaken loose that which was lost.

  The crater itself was hard to see, shrouded by the floating boulders that continuously collided with each other above. Some were tethered by roots, destined to be knocked about and forbidden from floating free.

  Paldora’s Star, as it had been so named, was unique in its magical properties. Displays such as this were unusual outside of a congregation of dragons, whose proximity to one another could affect the physical world.

  “Incredible…” Morvir, his first servant, was transfixed by the vista, reminding The Crow that the people of Illian hadn’t witnessed all that he had. “A gift from the old gods,” the smaller man said absently.

  “They were never gods.” The Crow’s reply had the first servant cowering, fearful of his master’s wrath.

  Flashes of his vision returned, blinding his eyes and filling his mind with divine purpose. He saw the crater from high above, as if he were a bird. Beneath the crater was a web of earth-shattering cracks. The most catastrophic of these cracks ran to the west, deep into the heart of The Undying Mountains.

  That was where they must go.

  Without warning, the ground moved under their feet. The Crow looked down at the tiny pebbles vibrating on the surface. The effects were becoming stronger the farther south they travelled.

  “We have lingered long enough,” he said. “The journey beckons us.”

  Their route through the mountains took another day and night but, after coming across Paldora’s Fall, the excitement among his followers was palpable. For too long they had been led astray by the fools who came before him.

  “Stop!” he commanded from within his carriage.

  “The Lord Crow demands that we stop.” Morvir’s message carried down the line, halting the entire caravan.

  The sun was beginning to wane, casting long shadows across the barren ground. The Crow walked ahead of the caravan, his head low, and his eyes searching for the exact spot he had seen in his vision. The Crow parted the robes hanging over his legs and knelt, placing one hand flat against the cooling ground.

  “This is the place,” he said quietly to himself. “Here, the lost shall be found.”

  The Crow stood up and produced a slender black wand from his belt. The wizards who had followed him on the long journey came no farther, forming a line of black robes behind him.

  The Crow whipped the wand around his head and brought it down, unleashing a destructive spell with enough power to break stone. The valley floor exploded again and again as he bombarded it with spell after spell. To any onlooker, it would appear he was simply laying into the ground with obtuse precision, but every strike was surgical, his wand directed by his vision. He flung his wand this way and that, removing the larger slabs of rock with ease, clearing the way.

  Plumes of smoke and sand rose from the hole, making the others wait to see the sloping tunnel that lay beneath. Inside, there was nothing but an inky abyss to greet them.

  Morvir crept to his master’s side. “Are they really in there?” The first servant looked around at the others, their excitement mingling with fear.

  The Crow looked at the others and decided it was time he fed them the lies that bolstered the resolve of all men. “Have faith. Remember, all of you, that the light of Kaliban shines within us. He will reward your strength.” He felt ridiculous saying it but, as history proved, their entire order was easily manipulated.

  “What are we to do, Lord Crow?” Morvir asked.

  The Crow looked up at the approaching night. “Now, we wait for darkness…”

  And wait they did. Long after the sun had set and its light been banished from the world were they rewarded for their efforts and patience.

  The Crow heard them first, though he suspected it was because they wanted to be heard. What few myths remained of them had their kind noted as the deadliest hunters, as cunning as they were strong.

  It would have been easier to communicate with them and negotiate, but this was not a breed that appreciated words. Strength and dominance was their language.

  There was hesitation on their behalf, uncharacteristic of their kind. The Crow had expected this, however, since it was the first time in five thousand years that they had seen the sky or the
moon.

  Their eyes glowed when they caught the pale light, much in the manner of a cat or dog. It was foolish to think of them as animals, The Crow thought. Once upon a time, that way of thinking had almost cost the elves and dwarves their entire way of life.

  The shuffling of his followers’ retreating feet filled the night air when the first emerged from the shadows.

  The orc…

  The Crow stayed his ground, his wand gripped firmly in his hand. Had he not already seen how this was going to play out, he too would have taken a step back with the rest of the wizards.