AN: Wow, all the way to Chapter Nine where the action begins... inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com Feedback will most likely encourage more timely updates. ************************* Nightmares: Chapter Nine ************************ Queen Selenai watched, face pale and drawn, from her balcony as her city fell. As her kingdom was torn and rent and trampled beneath the vengeful feet of the Sleeping Ones and their blades took vengeance in her people’s blood. Men and women fought, desperate, in the streets as children cowered. Shadows, Nightmares, Monstrosities fought against the merchants and peasants with obsidian swords and brutal strength. Their hollow laughs of victory turned her blood cold. She watched, silver hair twisting around her slender, unbowed form, as the open blue of the sky surged to black, boiling with terror as waves of warriors spilled from the ominous clouds to join their fellows in their pillage. She watched as the Four Kings of Nightmares rode great beasts from their perch in the heavens to bring Bleserd to hell and heel. There were distant sounds of mortality as Palace Guards fell. Royal Guards soon followed. Selenai felt the darkness brewing behind her with the certainty of Fate. She trembled as she stood, dressed in white, gleaming even amidst the carnage and destruction of humanity. She was not her daughter. She was not one meant to be soiled by pain and life. She lead; she did not endure. “Turn and meet your death mortal.” The voice was cold, ice, and so beautiful that tears ran from the Queen of Bleserd’s lowered lashes to wet her cheeks. She took a deep breath and turned slowly. Verl, King of Kings stood resplendent before her. He was blinding in his glory, in his darkness, blinding like twisted god. He smiled with gleaming fangs and Selenai looked away. “Do you know me mortal?” She turned her pained gaze back towards him, daring to meet his terrible golden gaze and nodded once, briefly. “I do.” Verl stepped closer, close enough for her to smell brimstone and smoke and ash and eternity. Queen Selenai would never forget what immortality smelled like. “Do you know what I mean?” he asked softly as his clawed hand reached out to touch her ivory cheek. Blood ran at his touch but she didn’t flinch. “I do.” He stared at her, looming, overwhelming with despair. His gaze studied her features, studied the gentle planes of her face, the depth of her eye, the lines of her small body. His clawed hand threaded and fisted itself in her long, flowing hair. Verl tore a handful of silken strands out as Selenai bit back a wretched cry. She stumbled to her knee but did not fall before him. She was prouder than that. Strong enough for that even if she wasn’t strong enough to live. She rose, shaking, to face him again. The Queen of Bleserd watched mutely as the King of Nightmares brought her hair to his face and smelled, face so inhuman she wondered how she could find him as beautiful as she did. His terrible gold gaze flared with open hunger and he turned to her with the swiftness of the hunter that he was. “You smell of the Five, of Sandere.” Selenai said nothing. Verl’s smile curled into a frightful smirk. “So,” he whispered, chill voice warm with dangerous, destructive power, “they DO live.” His shining eyes were the last thing Selenai saw, as Verl slid a rusted blade into her heart. She died with a gasp as the light left her beautiful gaze. He watched, dispassionate, as her body slid to the ground and blood pooled at her feet. He inclined his head in a show of slight respect before pocketing the strands of silver hair. Bleserd had fallen. It was time to take Roshanna. He called his forces around him and rose, triumphant, to the sky. The Sleeping Ones gathered around their Master, leaving Blanchant in ruins behind them as the destructive wave continued to crest upon the mortal world. A still Queen of Bleserd stared out at her dead kingdom with unseeing eyes as her heart beat its last and breath, life, stilled. No one else moved in the capital and Blanchant became the first true City of the Dead. *********************************************************************************** Darius wished he had had more time to be King. Wished he could have talked more with his cousin, with the man he respected as much as Darius had respected his late Father, who his Father had respected more than any peer Darius knew. Wished he could have prepared his Kingdom better for the plague that was descending upon it. Wished he could have done so much more in the short time since he had lain his Father, King Trennan, to rest in the cold unfeeling ground. But wishes were futile as he washed hope and dreams die with the rising tide of darkness. The Sleeping Ones were laying waste to his land. There wasn’t any time for anything but survival. “My King!” Darius was startled from his near shock as Kunzath shook him. “Yes General?” he asked, jarred, disoriented. Kunzath was as rumpled as he had ever seen the impeccable warrior. His light hair was wild, disarrayed, and his uniform was already torn and soiled from fighting early fighting within the Palace and from trying to evacuate the populace. From trying to evacuate anyone still unharmed enough to flee. That was all mortals could do before the force of utter destruction that the Sleeping Ones provided. There was no mercy. There was simply death. Kunzath’s silver eyes darkened with compassion and a friendship that was built on a solid foundation of loyalty and respect. Darius was barely a man but Kunzath proud to serve the almost boy he called his Liege. The King of Roshanna was barely a man but given time, given time he would grow into a man of myth and legend. All anyone needed was time. “We must go my King. The Guard is holding them off the best they can while we escape but there’s little time, and no hope of holding the capital. Rosha has fallen.” The last was bitterly said by the proud General and Darius looked, dazed, really looked, around the ruin that was his throne room. “I failed my Father, General,” Darius said softly. “I swore, I promised to find the Five, to keep this from happening.” Kunzath swallowed at the raw vulnerability in his King’s shaken voice, in his shaken faith. He placed strong hands on his Liege’s shoulders as the boy man stared up at him, sapphire gaze wide and pained. “You cannot fail to do the impossible my King. You could not stop this catastrophe.” Darius’s sapphire gaze hardened. “So you claim General.” Kunzath shook his head firmly. “So I know.” Jadreth stumbled into the throne room, the Lady Aimes in tow. They were ragged, bruised, but on the whole unharmed. “We must go, now, the Guards are failing! We haven’t any time…” Kunzath and Darius stared at each other. The silver General watched the resolve form and take root on his King’s face. Darius was becoming a man. “Lead on my King,” Kunzath said softly, “Lead on.” Darius nodded abruptly and turned heel, taking off for the back of the Palace, towards the Royal Suites. “Follow me, I know a secret way out.” The three of them fell in step behind the King of Roshanna as the Palace of Rosha fell around them.