The Ember Blade

by Chris Wooding

  They were strung out in a line, halfway across the hall, when a deafening boom of thunder sounded from the heart of the keep and Hammerholt shuddered. The floor shook beneath them and they staggered this way and that. Chunks of masonry plunged from the ceiling, smashing around them and driving them to the walls, which seemed less dangerous than open space. But the walls were shivering, too. Great cracks appeared in the masonry, jerking and branching like black lightning.

  At last, the sound faded, leaving the hall quiet but for their terrified breathing and Ruck’s wild barks as she spun in circles, snapping at phantoms. A haze of dust hung around them, and a long, ominous groan sounded from overhead. They looked to the ceiling, newly conscious of the immense tonnage of stone above them. In the distance, they heard faint screams.

  ‘He did it,’ Aren whispered, half in horror and half in awe. ‘Shades, he did it.’

  Far above, a rumble of stone and a dull crash sent a tremble through the hall. It shook harder as another crash came, closer now, then another, loud as the end of the world.

  ‘Run!’ Fen screamed, and they fled for the exit. Aren tripped and sprawled as the ceiling burst, spewing a torrent of rock and dust which smashed through the floor behind him. The Ember Blade jolted free from his grip as he fell. He reached to snatch it back, but a stone smacked off his arm and he withdrew it quickly, folding it over his head in a futile attempt to protect himself from falling masonry. Something punched his thigh with numbing force, making him jerk and curl up. The noise was overwhelming, drowning his senses in a blare. He could do nothing but cower and wait for his fate to find him.

  The tumult died as rapidly as it had come, leaving a loud ringing in his ears. He raised his head and blinked dust from his eyes. The rocks had stopped falling, and somehow he was still alive.

  The hall had become a netherworld of drifting grey, where lumps of shadow loomed at the limit of his vision. He heard a sob from Orica and tried to find her. One of the lumps, which he’d thought was a fallen rock, unfolded and separated. It was Harod and Orica, together. The knight had thrown himself across her.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Aren called.

  ‘Grub is here! Grub is alright!’ came the Skarl’s voice from somewhere.

  ‘She is not hurt,’ said Harod.

  Aren pulled himself upright, wincing as his leg protested. He tested his weight on it, but it was only bruised and not broken. A trickle of blood ran down his temple from his hairline; he couldn’t feel the cut. Still dazed, he looked around with a growing sense of alarm. Orica, Harod and Grub were all accounted for. He heard Ruck barking and saw Vika moving nearby, a shambling silhouette amid the destruction. But he’d lost sight of the Ember Blade in the murk, and where were Cade and Fen?

  ‘Aren!’ It was Fen’s voice, filled with such fright it made his blood freeze. ‘Aren, where are you? I found Cade!’

  ‘Aren!’ Cade’s terrified cry set him running, all thoughts of the Ember Blade forgotten. The far end of the hall had completely disappeared, leaving only a ruined hole above and below. He could see its near edge dimly, ragged and torn, with broken timber beams thrusting out.

  ‘Where are you?’ he cried.

  ‘Aren!’ Cade wailed again. ‘Oh, shades, Aren!’

  ‘Over here!’ Fen called.

  Aren saw her now, crouched near the edge of the hole. He ran to her. Green eyes stared from a face caked with grey dust. She pointed at the swirling haze above the hole. Aren tried desperately to find Cade, but to no avail.

  ‘Out on the beam,’ she said, her voice tight.

  Aren’s stomach upended. Cade was sprawled awkwardly across the end of a splintered beam that projected horizontally over an unknown drop. His arms were flung across it, fingers locked to the far edge, legs dangling. ‘Oh, Nine! Oh, Nine!’ he was whimpering.

  ‘I can’t go out there,’ said Fen helplessly. ‘I can’t. I’ll fall.’

  Aren ran to the beam. It was perhaps two feet wide, with a jagged split where it emerged from the stone. Cade was a dozen feet away, his upper body spread across the beam, legs hanging in space.

  ‘I can’t hold on!’ he cried.

  ‘Can you move along the beam?’ Aren called.

  ‘I’m stuck! I can’t hold on!’ He was panicking. Aren tried to keep his own panic in check.

  ‘I’m coming to get you.’

  ‘Hurry!’

  Aren lowered himself onto the beam with clumsy haste. The murk was thinning a little now, enough to see the far end of the hole. The wall of the hall had been destroyed and the rooms beyond exposed. Below him, he saw the orange glow of fire blooming through the dust. Cade’s lantern must have smashed and ignited something down there. Over the ringing in his ears, he could hear distant screams drifting through the fortress. There was a dull rumble as another section collapsed and he held tight to the stone at his back as Hammerholt shivered in response.

  Orica, Harod and Vika arrived, with Ruck at their heels, drawn by Fen’s cries. He heard them frantically discussing ways to rescue Cade, but Aren couldn’t wait for them. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled out along the beam.

  A low, sinister creak sounded beneath him, followed by the stealthy sound of wood peeling apart. He froze.

  ‘The beam is too weak, Aren,’ said Vika. Her voice was grave and flat.

  Aren sucked in a breath, bit his lip and inched forward again with his eyes on Cade. A loud crack beneath him made him start, and the beam tilted fractionally downwards.

  ‘Stop! Stop! You’ll break it!’ Cade pleaded. Aren could see his face now, powdered with grime, his eyes wide and glistening with terror.

  ‘We’re making a rope!’ Orica called. Harod was pulling off his jacket, Vika her cloak, but it was a hopeless effort driven by the need to do something. All their clothes together wouldn’t make a rope long and strong enough to save him, and the moment Cade let go to take it, he’d fall.

  The only chance was to get to him. Aren moved forward again. The beam creaked and sagged.

  ‘Stop!’ Cade begged.

  ‘I’m coming,’ Aren said relentlessly. ‘Hold on.’

  ‘You’ll kill us both, you mudwit!’ Cade screamed.

  The hysteria in his voice halted Aren. Cade had never screamed at him like that before. Tears of frustration welled in his eyes. He could almost reach out and touch his friend. Going back now was impossible.

  Just a little further. The beam would hold. It would.

  ‘I have to try,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Cade said. His eyes became clear, terror replaced by firm purpose. A decision had been made. ‘You don’t. No sense both of us dying today.’

  ‘I told you,’ Aren said, his voice thick with tears. ‘I’ll never leave you behind.’

  Cade gave him a sad smile. ‘You ain’t,’ he said softly. ‘You ain’t, Aren. I’m leaving you.’

  He loosed his grip, and fell.

  Aren screamed and lunged forward to catch him, but he was too late. Cade plummeted like a stone, the dust and smoke swirling around him as he dropped out of sight.

  ‘Cade! Cade!’ Aren shouted into the gloom. He was laid out flat on the beam, reaching down as if he could stretch far enough to bring his friend back. The world rushed in on him like a torrent. His senses roared with shock.

  Cade was gone.

  It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.

  Dimly he realised the others were shouting at him. He felt the beam shift beneath him and heard a long, tortured creak. Suddenly focused, he scrambled backwards along the beam, but his dive to save Cade had taxed it too far. It jerked and tipped forward as it broke away from the stone. He shrieked in fear as the beam slid out from under him and he fell, head-first and flailing, into the same abyss as Cade.

  A hand closed round his ankle, arresting his fall with a jolt. Looking up, he saw Harod there, holding fast to him. Fen seized his other foot and, grunting and groaning, they hauled him up. When he was near enough, Orica and Vika took hold, too, and between them the
y pulled him to safety. No sooner did he have the ground under his feet than he was up again, staring over the edge, yelling Cade’s name.

  ‘We have to go down there!’ he insisted, tears cutting paths through the dust on his cheeks. ‘He might still be alive! We have to look!’

  But he knew by their expressions that they couldn’t, they didn’t have the means. Cade was lost to them. Fen turned him away from the edge, put her arms around him and laid her head against his shoulder. The tenderness of her touch was almost unbearable. He wanted to throw her sympathy back in her face. Cade wasn’t dead, he wasn’t! He was down there somewhere and they had to rescue him!

  Hammerholt rumbled again. A fresh crack ran across the ceiling and a slab of masonry tumbled down, smashing to pieces nearby. Vika looked up, her hand shielding her eyes from the dust.

  ‘The ceiling will not hold for long,’ she said. ‘If we stay, we will all die. We have the Ember Blade – we can save that, at least.’ Her face fell as she realised Aren was no longer carrying it. ‘Aren, where is the sword?’

  ‘Grub got it,’ said Grub, emerging from the dusty haze. He was holding it before him, staring at it with a strange gleam in his eyes. ‘Mudgrub very careless to lose something so valuable.’

  ‘He’s still down there!’ Aren snapped, pushing Fen away.

  ‘Aren,’ said Fen softly. ‘He let go so you wouldn’t kill yourself trying to save him. Don’t waste the chance he’s given you.’

  He loathed her for saying that. Hated her for being right. He knew how near this hall was to collapse, knew he was risking all their lives by arguing. He just didn’t want to face it.

  But the truth was the truth. Cade was gone.

  He stalked away from the edge, pushing angrily past them and out of the hall. The others followed. Behind them, stonework creaked and groaned, and it sounded like the voices of damned spirits, calling him back to share his best friend’s doom.

  104

  Aren was hardly aware of the rest of the journey through the abandoned reaches of Hammerholt. His mind felt like it had suffered a physical blow; his brain throbbed with loss. An aching hole threatened to open inside his chest, and it was only by furious effort that he could hold it closed and keep the void from consuming him.

  The others struggled to meet his eye. There was nothing they could offer to salve his grief.

  In time, they emerged from the empty chambers into the lower reaches of Hammerholt near where they’d entered. The fortress shuddered periodically and they heard distant collapses and screams. A thin smoke drifted along the ceiling. A pair of servants spotted them as they ran past, but though they were ragged and bloodstained and carrying swords, the servants were too interested in escape to care.

  They made their way down as far as they could, reasoning that the lower they went, the fewer people they were likely to find. They only stopped when they reached a level flooded ankle-deep with foul water. Below them, the sewers were still submerged. It would be a long time before they could access the caves, and they didn’t have time to wait. They were heading for the underkeep.

  ‘Aren, you have the map?’ Vika said.

  ‘That way,’ said Grub, pointing along the corridor.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Grub was born underground. Grub knows.’

  They took his word for it and let him lead. He still had the Ember Blade jammed in his belt, its magnificence a ridiculous contrast to the man who wore it. The sight stirred faint concern in Aren – the Skarl wasn’t the safest choice to carry Ossia’s most prized treasure – but he was too numb to do anything about it.

  The water rose around their legs as they went, and soon they had to climb up a level for Ruck’s sake, and for Vika’s. The druidess was weak, and she was finding it hard to labour through the water even with Harod supporting her. The smoke thickened as they went on and they could hear the crackle of flames. Distant footsteps hurried away from them. Voices called for the lost and fallen.

  None of it felt real to Aren. Their predicament reached him through a haze. The others wore worried expressions, wary of fire or collapse or guards, but such concerns were meaningless now. He knew they had a destination, and he followed his companions towards it. More than that was beyond him, in the ringing aftermath of Cade’s death.

  Their route took them towards the fire and past burning rooms. Once they found their way blocked by rubble and smouldering timbers and were forced to backtrack and go around. They heard the cries of trapped people and encountered several who were trying to find their way out. An armed guard blundered coughing from a smoky corridor right into their path; he looked them over and staggered the other way.

  Then, as they passed a doorway, Aren saw a man on the other side. He was hurrying through the blazing room towards an exit, his arm across his face. It was no more than a glimpse through the smoke, but it brought everything sharply into focus, and the fog lifted from Aren’s senses.

  Harte. That was Harte!

  Suddenly he couldn’t hold back the emotion any more, but it wasn’t sadness he felt; it was rage. Rage was safer, easier, better. His back teeth clenched hard enough to hurt. He needed to destroy, to kill, to have his revenge on a world that had ripped his best friend away.

  ‘Aren?’ Fen asked. He’d come to a halt in the doorway, glaring like a madman.

  ‘I’ll catch you up,’ he heard himself say.

  ‘What? No, we must stay togeth—’

  ‘There is something I must do,’ he told her flatly, and he headed into the room before anyone could object. ‘I will catch you up! Go!’

  He was gone too quickly for them to follow. They had the mission – and Mara – to think about, and his tone didn’t allow argument. By the time he was across the room, he’d forgotten them, and the Ember Blade with them.

  In the midst of his blackest hour, he’d found his father’s killer, as if the Aspects themselves had put him there.

  The heat of the flames beat at his skin and smoke clawed at his throat. At the end of a corridor, he saw his quarry again, a darting figure in a black overcoat disappearing through another doorway.

  The fortress rumbled around him, but Aren ignored it. His sword sang from its scabbard as he ran, now bright, now dark as he passed the scattered fires.

  Beyond the doorway was a short hall. One wall had partially fallen, leaving a heap of burning rubble blocking the far door. The timbers overhead sagged and creaked, thick wood smoking in the heat from below.

  Harte was at the end of the hall, searching for a way through the rubble. His hair was red with blood and he still limped heavily on one ankle. The sight of him ignited a flame in Aren. His fury was so wild that he trembled on the edge of tears.

  ‘Harte!’ he roared.

  The watchman started at his name and whirled around. When he saw Aren standing there, wet and bedraggled and blood-spattered, his face changed from shock to mocking incredulity.

  ‘You can’t be serious?’ he said.

  ‘Draw your sword,’ Aren told him.

  ‘Get out of my way!’ he said dismissively. ‘The castle’s coming down around our ears!’

  ‘Draw your sword,’ Aren told him, ‘or I’ll run you through unarmed. It’s more of a chance than you gave my father.’

  Harte had to think for a moment to remember who he was talking about, and that small hesitation brought Aren’s blood to a boil.

  ‘That’s what this is about?’ Harte asked, as if it was something so petty it was amazing Aren would trouble him with it.

  ‘Fight me or die, murderer!’ Aren screamed.

  Harte rolled his eyes, pulled his blade and strode along the hall towards Aren. ‘You really want to do this now? Here?’ He tutted. ‘Ossians.’

  Aren had never felt such hate for the Krodans as he did then. The gods-damned arrogance that oozed from him! They were all responsible, all those squarehead bastards that had brought him to tragedy. All Krodans, and one other. He felt his hatred condense into a hard knot around on
e man, one he hated above all now, but who was forever beyond retribution.

  Garric. Garric, the author of all this destruction. Garric, whose suicidal quest had claimed Cade’s life along with his own.

  He charged, his sword raised and ready. Harte met his first swing, knocked aside a second, then slashed at his ribs. Only Aren’s training saved him; it was a textbook manoeuvre, and his dodge was an instinctive response.

  Undeterred, Aren pressed the attack, hacking at the watchman’s guard. Harte, the stronger of the two, deflected the blows with ease, then struck with his free hand. Aren’s vision flared white as a gloved fist lashed across his face, sending him staggering. He barely got his sword up to parry the thrust that followed.

  They broke apart, panting. Blood trickled from Aren’s split lip. Harte’s hair was mussed and he wore a fixed grin.

  ‘Last chance, boy. Whether you live or die is neither here nor there to me. But I’m getting out of here, one way or another.’

  There was too much anger in Aren to permit compromise. He knew Harte was the better swordsman, even with an injured ankle, and he was taller and stronger, too. But he’d dash himself against this enemy, even if it meant his death. It was all he could do.

  He flew forward again with a cry, blade swinging. Harte, infuriatingly calm, stepped back before the assault. He parried, parried, and struck. Aren felt a sharp pain as the blade nicked his shoulder. His next swing was more savage still, born of frustration. Harte dodged and feinted; Aren fell for it, and the watchman struck at his throat. Aren pulled back, but not fast enough to avoid a stinging cut along the underside of his jaw.

  He broke away again. His fingertips went to his face and came back wet. By now the fire had spread, the wallpaper running with flame. The heat was rising and the ceiling timbers fumed and glowed. Blood trickled over Aren’s collarbone and his head was becoming light. Smoke seeped into his lungs and he coughed hard.

  ‘It’s not going how you imagined, is it?’ Harte sneered. ‘You thought that feeling of righteous vengeance would be enough to guarantee victory. Do you think the world owes you justice? Ask the women and children, crushed and maimed and burning right now, if your resistance is worth it. Most of the servants here are Ossian, you know. You call me a murderer, but I’ve not killed one-tenth the number you have. And my victims, unlike yours, were all guilty of something.’