Excerpt: Sun on the Western Horizon

The three men ran through the Nersha Forest, away from the threats and cries of their pursuers. They were all lightly armored, and dirt streaked their travel weary faces. Each held a hand-and-a-half sword ready for battle, but they did not turn. The trees suddenly opened into a wide clearing. Through the gap in the treetops, they could see a pinnacle of stone rising far above the tallest redwood. They paused to realign their path toward the rock, and dashed into the forest once again, but they had not gone a hundred yards when the soldiers of the newly formed Kingdom caught up to them.
The three men wheeled around, their cloaks swirling around them. The leader twisted away from a stab, and blocked a slash aimed at his neck, before slicing his opponent across the stomach. A second man charged him, and the leader rolled aside, kicking his attacker’s knee, and driving his sword into the man’s back.
“Reimina!” one of the other two yelled, and the leader glanced up, only to duck away from a strike aimed for his head. The one who had cried out tackled the soldier into a group of three others, and with four quick cuts, killed them. Five soldiers now backed away slowly, and began to form a circle. The king blocked the first attack, and knocked the aggressor to the ground with a punch to the jaw. He crouched, and spun, his sword’s tip just barely slashing through a second soldier’s throat.
“Vanithquan! Sharfion! Move!” he ordered, and the other two reluctantly ran on towards the rock. The king leapt at the third soldier and knocked aside an attack. He dodged a second attack, and slashed the back of the soldier’s knee, driving him to the ground. The king’s sword came up and slashed the soldier’s head clean off his body. He spun around, as a soldier rushed him. He stepped aside from the thrust of the spear, and stabbed the man through the stomach. The body slid off his blade, onto the ground. The final soldier stood frozen. The king flicked droplets of blood off his sword, and advanced. The soldier turned, and ran.
The king took a moment to smile at himself, and then dashed through the forest after his two followers. They were waiting for him a few hundred yards on. He nodded to them, and they resumed running, though slower now, through the quiet serenity of the empty forest.
Thirty minutes later, they were nearing the base of the rock. They could see it through the trees, and with renewed speed, ran again. They had not gone twenty feet, when the thundering of hooves reached their ears. Sharfion’s hearing, which was better than either the king’s or Vanithquan’s, also heard the click and twang of crossbows. He tripped the king, and shoved Vanithquan down, diving to the ground as he did so. Hails of bolts began shredding apart the foliage above them. Sharfion pointed to a large boulder, and they slithered towards it, now hidden from the soldier’s view. The sounds of the soldiers reloading their crossbows quieted, and they knew that it was only a waiting game.
They were all breathing heavily. Vanithquan peeked out from the side, and drew his head back swiftly. “I count about twenty-five.” He began to take deep, long breaths, and the other two began exercising calming techniques for themselves as well.
“I do not know why you asked us to come with you,” Vanithquan said quietly to the king, “but you can accomplish your task as I draw them off.”
The king and Sharfion looked at him. Both their faces were incredulous.
“You have a son,” Sharfion whispered. “What has he done to deserve the name ‘son-of-none’?”
Vanithquan shook his head. “That is not the point-”
“I’ll go,” Sharfion cut him off. “My wife will find another.”
“No,” Vanithquan groaned. Sharfion reached forward, and gripped his arm.
“Don’t let them forget me,” Sharfion whispered. And in his eyes, Vanithquan saw a flash of fear. For one second, before it was replaced by a gaze of only determination.
“Never,” Vanithquan began to say, but Sharfion drew up, and stepped out from the cover of the stone.
“Ein oarbrunthar namni!” Vanithquan yelled. You were a brother to me.
“An ein oarmnin!” Sharfion called back. And you mine. He drew his sword, and spun it twice around his hand, crying to the sky, “I nol einarfath! Shan rekshamni wean!” I am your death, receive me well.
The horses wheeled towards him. He raised his sword, and screamed his challenge again. Vanithquan saw him slice into the lead horse’s neck, then spin to face the next, before he turned away to follow his king sprinting to the pinnacle of rock.
As they drew closer, Vanithquan saw a small, man-sized opening in the rock. The king disappeared through it, and after a moment of hesitation, he followed, and the doorway opened into a huge circular chamber, the entire width of the stone.
“Welcome to Feanthas Stone,” the king said, and walked down a flight of stairs that led to the center of the room, where a large chain rose into a hole in the ceiling. The only two sources of light were dusty beams all around the perimeter of the room, and a beam that lit the area around the chain. The king walked around the chain, and crouched to examine the ground.
“Don’t touch anything.” The king said, just as Vanithquan was about to investigate a spiraling pathway that led into the next level of the rock. “Come over here.”
Vanithquan obeyed, and realized that the chain was attached to a wooden platform set into the ground. The king drew his sword, and began levering it out, Vanithquan drew his own, and pried the opposite corner up. There was a creak, a groan, and then a snap and the platform began to rise smoothly. It rose through the first hole, into a room just as big, and an enormous counterweight dropped onto the pathway. They rose into a third chamber that was completely empty, then into a fourth one that was filled with waist-deep water, kept from spilling over by high walls around the edge and the center. The fifth room was overgrown with vegetation, growing from the inside walls of the rock. Vanithquan was fairly certain that he could hear the growling of wolves all around them. They rose into a sixth chamber that wasn’t as tall as the others. A pulley system squeaked as the chains were drawn over its multiple wheels, and the platform came to a halt. A stairway rose into a final smaller hole, through which unfiltered daylight shone. Vanithquan followed the king to it, and they ascended, coming into clean open air.
They could see for miles. It was a clear day, and the edge of the Northern forest, fifty miles south of the Stone was clearly visible. He turned, and saw that the southern shore of the Great Lake was also visible from the tip of the stone. The king knelt in the center of the stone, and Vanithquan approached him asking, “To whom do you kneel?”
“Na oan fensandar dainwe,” the king said quietly. To one far greater than we.
He rose, and drew his sword. Vanithquan watched his movements carefully. The air seemed to hum with energy and anticipation. With a swift, sudden motion, the king plunged his sword towards the rock. Vanithquan cried out, sure the blade would break, but in a flash of blue white light, it buried half its length into the stone. As he watched, the rock which had not even cracked around the blade began to grow, and twist, till it was the form of an angel carrying the sword in her lap.
The king stood shakily, but the effort was too much, and he dropped back to his knees. Tears began to spill from his eyes, rolling across his cheeks and splashing the rock.
“Naeina san lathaen, Vanithquan,” he said. We are the last. “Ein nol san lathaen.”You are the last.
“Naenwio ensarin,” Vanithquan reassured. We will endure.
“You will. Go back to our people, Vanithquan. Tell them I fell gloriously in battle,” The King looked up into the sun.
“And what will you do?”
“I will remain at Feanthas.”
“To do what?” Vanithquan
The king smiled.
“Ensarin.”