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Stories / Stories / James Sterling Scott / Text 3 of 4 / Heritus And Quelis

"Heritus And Quelis" by James Sterling Scott

SF&F Picture 3 out of 4 by James Sterling Scott

In the final moments of his life Heritus tells the story of the events leading to the downfall of the Marsulis Kingdom

Heritus & Quelis
An Arleana Novel
by James S. Scott

       Sometimes there is no storybook beginning or fairytale happy ending sometimes there is only love. “Heritus!” The incessant banging on the sturdy wooden door grew louder but I did not care. “My Lord Heritus the Drahuns have breached the walls your highness we must get you to safety!” The banging only grew louder as the time passed and more guards joined in the symphony of screams outside my door. I was well aware of the horrors that had befallen my kingdom I did not need the guard to reiterate those thoughts. The smell of burning debris and flesh wafted through the small curved window at the end of the room filling my nostrils with it’s acidic stench. The taste of blood enveloped my mouth, the crimson fluid gushed across my lips. The frigid afternoon air had chilled the stone beneath my skull so much that I could hardly feel the tear in my throat.

       A silent word of thanks given to whatever gods watched over me that I may face my end with her at my side. My angel had at last come for me. I could feel my worries slipping away from my mind. Nothing mattered anymore. It did not matter that her children were slaughtering my people in the city outside my doors. It did not matter that I was once proud to call her my queen. It did not matter that it was she that had severed the flesh of my throat.

       Scaled fingers pushed the stray strands of hair away from my sweat-plastered face. No doubt she wanted to watch as the life drained from my eyes. But as I looked up at her all I could see were the tears that slipped down the corners of her eyes. Her bottom lip quivered as she tried in vainly to stop her own tears. Talon like claws that served as her nails gently racked across my cheek tiny shivers of pain coursing throughout my face as I began to bleed through the paper-thin cuts. The sound of the guards outside was slowly drowned to a mere hum as the world began to slip away around me.

       Perhaps events would not have turned out this way if I had… No. There is no point in debating the what ifs and maybes of times long since past. Why bother worrying about things that you have no power over. And yet we cannot help but let our minds wander across long since past days. I cannot help but think how excited I was the first time she lifted me into the clouds. I cannot help but think of the years spent with her happily by my side as Queen of Marsulis. I cannot help but recall the screams of our citizens as her kind washed across our lands on their mad quest for revenge.

       I can feel the cool stones scrape across my bare back as she rolled moved onto my chest her legs wrapping around my upper body as she pinned me to the floor. The sensation of lying in a pool of my own blood was calming in a way as the fluid soaked into the fabric of my shirt. She brushed the strands of sweat covered auburn hair away from my face. The tears dripped from her chin falling quietly onto my chest as she wished she could take it all back and yet knew she couldn’t. I could feel their boots vibrating through the ground before Quelis knew they were coming. Armed guards each with the sole responsibility of protecting there Lord and King. In that aspect they had failed.

       The muscles of her face tensed as the first arrow plunged into the flesh of her abdomen quickly followed by a second and a third. I tried to scream, I tried to stand but the energy to move had all but seeped from my flesh. Quelis fell to the floor beside me her rasping final breaths moving across my cheek. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes mimicking the ones I watched slip from hers. I could see the life fade away from her eyes as her spirit slipped away from the world of the living. I know I will soon join my beloved in whatever afterlife awaits us. My angel… my angel has fallen and only I am to blame.

**************

       From the mountains of Ziel to the swamps of Nimbu and all the lands between lies dozens of kingdoms. Each nation of individuals with their own beliefs and legends on how the world came to be. The kingdom of Marsulis where I was raised was no different. I was raised with the belief thousands of years ago the gods seeded this world with there energies breathing life into the first species of the planet. I was raised with the knowledge that the early days of our world of Arleana were trying times for mankind. Days spent foraging for whatever scraps of food our dragon masters allowed us to fight over. Night spent cuddled together in groups trying to keep warm as sweat turned to ice before it could fall from our skin.

       My kind survived out of sheer force of will alone. Wild magic ripped across the land, sea, and skies of Arleana as the dragons danced among the clouds. We however were not without problems of our own making. Wars broke out between our people over the smallest pieces of food and shelter. None can say which of our species came first all I can say for certain is that when our species first met it ended only in tragedy. My kind was no match for their strength or there magic. The things they could do with but the simply wave of there talons caused us to quiver with fear. To us they were gods, to them we were slaves.

       The time of peace before they realized there own superiority to us was short indeed. We were rounded up by the hundreds herded into caves and kennels of there construction. For generations we lived because they considered us of no threat. For generations they forced us to build there moments, fetch their food, and fight each other for there own entertainment. They used us, as work cattle even if we resisted there was nothing we could have done to harm them.

       No matter how many of us they killed, no matter how bad we wanted to give in we didn’t. Humans really are remarkable creatures in that sense. Even in the face of such grave hardships our spirits could not be broken, our resolve would never flinch, our will would never break. We would have our freedom or we would have our extinction but mankind would not allow those creatures of magic, those…. Dragons to hold our shackles any longer. We would have our freedom or we would have our death.

       Looking back on it now I find it Ironic that I am considered the one to blame for the downfall of Marsulis when in fact it all goes back to Maritiv. Maritiv has been a rotting corpse far longer then I have been drawing breath in this life and yet I cannot help but blame him. Well Maritiv and Marcus Aldemere that is. In the year 103 Marcus Aldemere the closest thing our kind had to a leader back then tracked Maritiv down to his home in the Scurlian Caves. If Marcus had not killed him the Drahuns and Drakiels would never have been unleashed on this world. Maritiv grew bored with the humans. He fetched himself a snack from the Aldemere camp. A meal of humans. They were taken to the Scurlian caves to spend the final days of their life in the dark without hope of escape. The wife of Marcus a middle-aged woman named Nolan Aldemere was included amongst the captives; Marcus could not simply sit back and let her be killed by that monster.

       The content of Sofilwind one of but three of the great landmasses that make up our planet of Arleana. During those trying years it was widely known to be the domain of the Dragons. True there were many that built there lairs and slaves quarters on the continents of Rebek & Horul as well but they were far more rare to be found there. For the majority of the continent Sofilwind is a land of swamps. Marshes cover the land for miles in every direction across the rectangular landmass that is Sofilwind. It’s southern coast can hardly be considered as straight as the other three sides. The southern coast consist rather of a triangle the southeastern and southwestern shores coming to a point at it’s southern tip. This triangular shaped piece of land is known separately from Sofilwind despite the connected land the Medastril is where I was born and where I have spent my entire life.

       Do to it’s dramatically different climate and vegatation it is often argued that the Medastril should not be considered a part of the continent of Sofilwind. The Medastril stretches for nearly 350 miles from it’s southern tip to the mountains along it’s northern boarded which serves as a natural boundary separating it from the rest of the continent. Two hundred years ago the Medastril served as the base of operations for the Dragon Elders. Miles upon miles were given to each of the Dragon Elders as territory for there slaves. Nearly two hundred years later the kingdom of Marsulis…. My kingdom would rest at it’s heart as the capitol for every town, village, and community on the Medastril.

       However my kingdom has not always been here. Two centuries ago a mere twenty miles east of where I now lay sat the Scurlian Caves. The home of perhaps the most powerful Dragon ever to take breath, the home of Maritiv. The Scurlian caves have since been sealed by my soldiers it’s entrance on constant guard by a legion of armed troops. The Scurlian Caves are the grave of Maritiv and the birthplace of my wife’s kind…. The Drahuns.

       Nolan Aldemere, reportedly a woman of great beauty. I wish I could entice you with stories of her life and her time spent with Marcus however besides her death there is little recorded history about the woman. All that is known for certain is that after her capture at the hands of Maritiv she and her fellow slaves were imprisoned at the bottom of the Scurlian Caves. Even if the monster had left them alone they would not have been able to escape from the mile deep that ran as the center spire in the network of tunnels. Only with the power of flight or perhaps years of climbing experience could possible escape unharmed. Jagged walls of rocks and a seemingly endless supply of poisonous insects and snakes are just a few of the dangers that wait inside.

       None believed that Marcus and his men had even the smallest of chances against Maritiv. Until that day in the year 103 when the world was forever changed. The actual accounts of their victory over Maritiv are sporadic and nearly always exaggerated. Some tells stories of how Marcus stared down the nose of the great beast and single handedly slayed him. While others say the gods themselves transcended to Arleana in robes of black and helped Marcus attain his victory. And yet even more accounts range from winged monsters with magical powers to faeries of the forest gathering in mass. I however prefer to believe it was simply the desperate act of a large group of men fighting with every ounce of there being to defeat a creature of pure evil.

       All that I can say for certain is that after his defeat, Marcus and his surviving men searched in vainly for Nolan and her fellow captives. The lifeless corpse of Maritiv toppled over into the bottomless pit that served as his captive’s prison. Marcus had no way of knowing that they were below. His screams and cries bounced effortlessly over the rocks. His dropped torch fell until it’s light could no longer be seen with the bare eyes. Marcus Aldemere collapsed onto his knees besides the lip of the pit in utter despair at the death of his wife. It is said that his men had to physically drag him from the Scurlian caverns forcing him to abandon his pregnant wife and the fellow captives to there fate at the bottom of the pit deep inside the heart of the caverns.

       For the first days the group nearly went mad with thirst and hunger. Starvation pressed the skin of there torso’s against the bone of there ribs. Men and women alike fighting over the tiniest droplets of water that managed to filter down to moss covered walls. Their only source of light coming from far above near the opening of the pit as little more then a single ray of light hardly larger then that of a fist. Before long the first of them laid dead on the icy floor. There own bodies devouring the muscle tissue and fat of there bodies till there was simply nothing left. There bodies simply shut down, a slow and painful death, or so I have been told.

       Nolan Aldemere however was by no means a quitter. In retrospect however I know that she did it as much for her unborn child as for herself. All she had to do to survive was the unthinkable. The food and the water were there for anyone willing to look hard enough for it. My stomach churns simply thinking of the vile deeds Nolan had to do in order to survive off the flesh of a rotting Dragon corpse. The mere thought of a person consuming raw rotten decomposing maggot-covered flesh is enough to make even a grown man such as myself sick. While normally blood would not sustain a human being the magical energy contained within the veins of the beast were enough to bend if not break the rule.

**************

       In the year 103 deep into the Scurlian caverns, in the dead of winter, beneath miles of rock and ice, Quelis Aldemere took her very first breaths. Since the moment she was brought into this world she has been a killer. Her very first victim was none other then the woman that had carried her for nearly three months inside the caverns and six months prior to her torment there. It is far more rare however for a human mother to survive the birth of a Drahun child, Quelis was simply setting the standard for the future of her race. Her scales had yet to harden and her talons were yet to form her wings however had already developed into jagged weapons made for little more then tearing flesh. During her birth those very same wings ripped and tore there way out of Nolan’s body.

       She was born kicking and screaming on the ground, a creature of solid muscle. A being with all the strength and speed of a Dragon but without the capacity for it’s more magical qualities such as fire breath. A threat the likes of which the world had never seen. After her birth Quelis simply did what all of her kind must do the day of there births, eat. There mothers are simply the closest source of food available. Even if the woman is lucky enough to survive the childbirth she has little to look forward to once her newborn child begins it’s first meal. I have seen it first hand and watched as my lunch has spilled across the floor. I have seen horrors in my life but nothing compares to the sight of a Drahun eating her own mother.

       Drahun children carry with them the memories of their mothers. In a certain macabre sense one could even look at the Drahuns simply as humans transformed by the Dragon taint Nolan Aldemere unknowingly placed in the blood stream. But even Maritiv’s corpse in time decomposed into little more then nothing. Quelis had no choice but to hunt down the remaining humans in the caverns. She grew stronger and stronger with each new victim that fell beneath her talons. It was a matter of only months before she stood nearly five and a half feet off the ground and twice that if her wings were added. She fed from there corpses stripping them clean everything except their bones.

       In the end after the final human had been slain nearly a year had passed since her birth. With winter once again looming across the surface tightening it’s stranglehold on the Scurlian caverns. Quelis at last spread her wings for the first time letting the thin pieces of skin and muscle lift her into the air. The young Quelis however was in no rush to escape the confines and protection of her home. The lack of food won out in the end however forcing her to seek salvation above.

       Through her mothers eyes she had already seen the world outside. Through her mothers memories she already knew our language even despite her lack of practice with the tongue. But more then anything she had only one wish. She wished to find her father Marcus Aldemere. Thanks to the memories her mother passed on she even knew where to find him.

       Her homecoming was anything but welcoming. Quelis simply did what came naturally to her. She slipped between the shadows disappearing from the guards view as she snuck into the Aldemere camp. Alas Marcus was alone no longer. Another woman now slept beside Marcus in the bed he once shared with her mother. Whether it was jealousy or simply hatred at her father for filling the role so readily one cannot say. Fire and death swept across the Aldemere camp that night.

       Talons tore through steel armor like a knife through butter. Iron tipped arrows bounced harmlessly off her diamond hard scales, and wings lifted screaming men, women, and children into the skies as she danced amongst the tents. Crushing jaws splintered and shattered through bone as she bit into her prey bathing in there blood. Her green scales were coated with red that night. Marcus however could not be counted amongst the dead. His death was not meant to come with such a lack of torment. He was meant to suffer for his crimes.

       For weeks Quelis stalked the Aldemere camp. She concealed herself in the shadows watching and waiting only showing herself when she needed to fetch a new meal. Merila the mistress of her father would serve as the first in a series of hundreds that Quelis would impregnate in her lifetime. The female Drahuns are not capable of producing there own young.

       They are born with a foot long hollow bone strut beneath their right wrist. During one of there four mating cycles each year they capture helpless human females. This vein covered black hollow shaft of bone extends from a small hole in there flesh. They insert this foot long bone shaft slowly through the breastplates of their captured females until the very tip pierces their prey’s heart. A vile green liquid is spewed from a small hole in the tip of the bone letting the Drahuns vicious taint spread painfully through the heart of the victim before it eventually spreads through their blood stream. The magical energy inherit in their flesh heals the wound as she retracts her bone back into her arm.

       Quelis infected Merila with her taint before letting her return to the Aldemere camp and her new husband Marcus. Had Merila never again lain with a man indeed she could have lived a near eternal life thanks to the taint Quelis had placed in her blood. When they discovered she was with child indeed it had been a day of celebration throughout the encampment. On the day of her delivery Quelis was overjoyed that her revenge would at last be served.

       Quelis was there, watching and waiting from the dimly lit confines of the large main tent. Rain poured down upon the canvas of the tent pelting it with its droplets in a seemingly endless downpour of water. As the birthing Drahun spread it’s wings still inside Merila’s warm body her chest exploded in a spray of red blood. The midwife ran screaming from the tent as the life drained away from Merila’s face. The creature tore and pushed it’s way from her chest falling onto the floor beside the bed as it struggled to take it’s first steps. Blood and all manner of gore dripped from it’s light red scaled body. Marcus did not run, he did not cry, he did not scream, he simply collapsed onto his knees in utter shock at what he was witnessing.

       It was in that moment that Quelis chose to reveal herself to her father. Her slightly slurred speech drowning out the sound of the falling rain above them. “It’ss time for you to atone for your sssinss father.” His tear-covered face glared up at her his eyes full of disgust and hatred. “And what of your sins monster? When will you atone for what you have done!” A grin moved across her features as she spoke in response. “When someone ssstronger then myself deccidess I must.” The sound of steel and iron rang across the open expanse of the tent as the guards responding to the midwifes screams at last arrived. Before Quelis had a chance to defend herself Marcus had taken a firm grip across the hilt of his sword. Shaking fingers pulled it free from it’s sheath as he pressed the tip against his chest. Quelis moved towards him in a vain attempt to halt his actions. Alas his movements had already begun.

       The thin blade of his weapon slid effortlessly through his shirt. Metal pierced his flesh sending a slim stream of blood down the center of his shirt. The tip of the blade extended well through his body until at last moving out his upper back blood dripping from the blade. Marcus took a rasping breath as he fell forward onto the floor. His eyes rolled backwards revealing the vein-covered whites a moment before his lids slid closed. His breathing slowed as silence settled across the tent. Quelis stared down at him a part of her overjoyed that he had paid for his actions with Merila while at the same time saddened by the death of her father. The guards glanced between the pair in quick deliberation before siding with common sense and running from the tent in an effort to save there own lives.

       Quelis was no longer the only one of her kind. Quelis now had a son. She picked the screaming and bloody creature from the ground cradling it in her arms as the talons of her free hand moved around Merila’s ankle. The trio of terror and blood disappeared into the night as Quelis at last returned to her home in the Scurlian Caverns.

       Upon there arrival Merila was made quick work of serving as the first meal of the newborn Bendigo. For years they would remain there together hunting upon any creature or person foolish enough to move within the territory surrounding there home. Quelis taught Bendigo to fly, she taught him to hunt, she taught him things I do not wish to speak of. But that was long ago. Quelis was a different person then. Bendigo was a different person back then. And as for me well I hadn’t even been born yet. For fifteen years they remained together. But at last Bendigo’s curious nature could keep him in the caverns no longer. He set of on his own in search of something, anything to keep him occupied for the near eternal life he had to look forward to. Quelis knew there was no use trying to talk him out of it, all the better to simply let him live his own life. She remained as her son flew south across the Medastril in search of his own life. For two centuries he would call the Bay of Relent his home.

**************