The Ember Blade

by Chris Wooding

  Doubt crept into Aren’s heart as he understood the cost of what he’d committed to. Destruction was always Garric’s plan, never Aren’s; but Aren had broken him out, freed him to complete his task. He bore the responsibility for that.

  But there was no retreat now, no route back to the boy he was before this all began. It was far too late for all of that. So he squared himself, aimed his sword and took his stance.

  ‘To the end,’ he said.

  ‘As you like,’ said Harte, and struck.

  Back and forth they went, swords blurring. Aren had sobered a little now, and he’d gained proper respect for his opponent’s skill. He tried to force himself to be calm, to study his adversary. To overcome your enemy, you must first understand him. But his thoughts were awhirl, and he hated too much. He saw nothing but that Harte’s injured ankle was hampering his footwork. If not for that, Aren would likely have been dead already.

  But Harte was impatient and distracted, too. The heat was becoming difficult to bear and it was hard not to cough in the gathering smoke. The fire was moving to cut off their exit, timbers were bulging and splitting overhead, and though Aren couldn’t win, still he wouldn’t give way. Harte’s attacks became more purposeful, more risky. He needed to finish Aren off.

  You’re getting careless, Aren thought.

  But that moment of confidence made him careless himself, and he mistimed his thrust. Harte twisted his wrist and knocked Aren’s blade from his hand. With a quick movement, he brought his own sword back across and drove the pommel into Aren’s temple. Aren fell, stunned, a blinding pain in his skull.

  Harte stood over him, shoulders heaving, sword pointing at Aren’s chest.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘That’s that. You did know your father was a traitor to his people, didn’t you? That he sold your country out for his wealth? I hope he was worth dying for.’

  There was a sudden crack from above. Harte looked up in alarm and Aren drove a vicious heel into the watchman’s injured ankle. Harte bellowed in pain and collapsed to one knee, clutching his leg. Aren planted his other foot in Harte’s chest and shoved him away with all the force he could muster. Harte staggered across the room, his leg folded under him and he fell onto his back.

  Aren scrambled over to his sword, snatched it up and jumped to his feet. Harte, a short way from him, was struggling to rise. Aren headed towards him, lured by the red temptation of vengeance, but stopped as he heard a groan from the ceiling and it began to bulge downwards. There were mere moments left before it caved in, but maybe moments would be enough to do what had to be done. And if they were both buried in flames, so what? Wasn’t that a better end than facing what waited on the other side of his rage? The only desire he had left was to plunge his blade into the breast of the man who killed his father.

  But Garric had taken that path, and Cade had died for it. Aren owed it to his friend to make that mean something. With a savage effort of will, he tore himself away from his helpless enemy, and the satisfaction he felt he deserved. He’d take the harder road, and live.

  The groan of the timbers overhead reached a crescendo as he ran through the closing flames towards the exit. He heard Harte’s rising scream as he dived through the doorway, and then the ceiling gave way and the watchman was silenced in an avalanche of rock and blazing wood.

  Aren lay gasping in the corridor outside, his mind blank with shock. Now that it was over, if felt like madness had taken him for a time. A few more moments and that hall would have been his tomb. In avenging his father, he’d have joined him.

  But he’d chosen otherwise. He chose to carry on.

  He pulled himself to his feet and looked back through the doorway. From beneath the pile of rubble, a black-clad arm protruded, a hand lying limp and bloody at the end of it.

  ‘He was a traitor,’ Aren said quietly. ‘But he was still my father. And I loved him.’

  It wasn’t much of an epitaph, but it was what he had. Eyes tearing from more than the smoke, he sheathed his sword and set off after his friends.

  From somewhere in the depths of the burning fortress came a thin, inhuman shriek: the voice of Sorrow, chasing him towards the dark.

  105

  Fen stood against the railing, thin hands gripped tight round the cold metal, and stared fearfully into the shaft below. A cage lift waited at the top, suspended by a winch, with gatefold doors on two sides. A vertical metal track ran down the wall into the depths. There was a substantial gap between the lift cage and the shaft’s far wall, which had been ribbed with timbers. Beyond the range of the lanternlight, Fen could see nothing. It might have been thirty feet to the bottom, or thirty thousand.

  Grub chuckled by her ear. ‘Long way down,’ he said, enjoying her discomfort.

  It had been a long way down for Cade, too.

  Don’t lean on anyone or anything, Fen. Not no place or person. Elsewise, when they fall, you’ll fall with ’em.

  She shut her eyes. It didn’t stop her seeing it.

  ‘Where is he?’ Mara hissed. She was standing by the door to the cellar, looking out into the corridor. The others waited anxi­ously among the mess of the excavation: rubble, stacked pickaxes, lanterns and oil. Some of the lanterns had been put to use, their light reflecting from the damp bricks of the barrel-vault ceiling.

  Grub brandished the Ember Blade, still in its scabbard. ‘Grub not worried. Grub ruler of all Ossia!’

  Vika surged towards him, staff clicking on the stone, and snatched it from his hand. ‘Show some respect!’ she snapped and shook the sword at him. ‘This is not for you.’

  Grub glowered, and Fen saw real anger in his eyes then, a glimmer of pure malice, quickly cloaked. He gave Vika a wide smile, as if it had all been a big joke. ‘Grub just keeping spirits up!’ he said lightly.

  But it would take more than that to lift the gloom over them. Even Ruck whined uneasily and didn’t seem herself. Cade had been liked by everyone, and he was gone. Fen hadn’t been attached to Osman – she hadn’t let herself get close – but Cade was her friend. Had been.

  She couldn’t stop seeing him fall.

  No. He didn’t fall. He let go. Just like Da.

  Garric was gone, too, and though he wasn’t so pleasant or kind, he’d loomed large in all their lives. They’d suspected that the explosion was his doing, and Mara confirmed it when they found her. She’d made her way to the cellar before the chaos began, reckoning it the safest place to be when the Iron Hand started searching for her. She’d revealed that she knew of Garric’s true plan when they rescued him, but she’d never believed he would be mad enough to still attempt it.

  Halfway through, Fen realised she wasn’t giving an explanation, but a confession. ‘There are children here,’ Mara had said, her voice going thin. ‘Danric was here, though it’s my hope he left in time. I just didn’t think …’

  No one was in the mood to judge her, and she lapsed into a prickly silence. Fen’s only concern was Aren, who’d taken a bewildering detour before anyone could stop him. She wouldn’t dare to guess at his state of mind.

  Come back. I can’t lose you, too.

  Hammerholt shuddered and grumbled overhead, loud enough to make Fen tense her shoulders. Dust sifted down from the ceiling and she saw cracks spreading in the bricks.

  ‘We must go,’ said Mara.

  ‘Not yet. He will be here,’ said Fen, her voice dull and flat.

  ‘Or the guards will. Or this fortress will come down on our heads!’

  ‘No guards will come while Hammerholt burns,’ said Harod. ‘Not even the Krodans are so fanatical as to seek us out now.’

  From somewhere above them, they heard an anguished shriek. Orica hugged herself at the sound.

  ‘There are other things than guards abroad tonight,’ said Mara.

  ‘Grub knows that sound,’ said Grub, his tattooed brow creasing in puzzlement. ‘From the mountains round Suller’s Bluff.’

  ‘It is the sound of Sorrow,’ said Vika. ‘He comes for us.’


  Mara held up a hand, listening. ‘I hear footsteps!’

  ‘Aren!’ Fen breathed, for the hooded dreadknight made no such sound. She hurried to the doorway in time to see him approaching down the corridor. His chin and neck were smeared with blood and there was a huge bruise developing next to his eye, but he was alive. Swept up in a flood of relief, she moved to embrace him; but something in his grim manner made her hesitate, and the moment was lost.

  ‘About time Mudslug got here!’ Grub called.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Mara demanded.

  ‘Mara. You’re safe,’ Aren said, dismissing her question with a brusque air of command. ‘Where is the Ember Blade?’

  ‘I have it,’ said Vika, walking over. ‘And now you shall have it. You are its keeper, at least for now.’

  Aren met her gaze gravely. He took the sword and strapped it to his belt while Grub watched with weasel’s eyes.

  ‘Hold still,’ said Vika. ‘That cut will keep bleeding until it is salved.’ She took out a small pot from inside her cloak and smeared a paste on his chin. He endured it impatiently and shook her off when she was done.

  ‘Sorrow has our trail. We shouldn’t delay. Vika, can you stand against the dreadknight if he comes?’

  ‘I cannot,’ she said bitterly. ‘I do not have the strength.’

  ‘Then you go down first. Mara as well. How many more can it fit?’

  ‘Grub staying with Mudslug!’ Grub announced.

  ‘Harod and Orica – you, too,’ said Aren. ‘You might need Harod’s blade down there. You have lanterns? Go!’

  They crowded into the lift with Ruck. It seemed sturdy, supported by thick ropes from above and fixed to the vertical track on one side of the shaft by metal wheels. Fen still didn’t like the look of it. She hated to be confined, and her first instinct was mistrust. The thought of climbing into a tiny cage hanging over an unknowable drop made her sick with fear.

  At the top of the shaft was a winch and a brake, and there was another inside the lift. Aren and Grub set to work and managed to get it turning. Ropes squeaked through pulleys and the lift began to descend, rolling down the track. Fen stood at the railing and watched the anxious faces of those inside disappear from sight.

  The light of their lanterns illuminated the sides of the shaft as they were lowered. It occurred to Fen that she could climb down the shaft by using the timber planks as a ladder, for they were set close and would offer good hand- and footholds. But that felt scarcely less terrifying than the lift, and a great deal slower.

  You will get in that cage, she told herself sternly. You have to, or Aren will not.

  It was that thought, rather than any of safety, that gave her heart. He’d be there beside her, just like he was in Skavengard. Sombre as he was now, she took strength from his company.

  The rope slackened and they heard a cry from below. ‘We’re down!’ Mara called.

  ‘How far?’ Aren shouted back.

  ‘Ninety feet, no more!’

  ‘Shades, you must see this!’ Vika yelled up to them, her voice full of wonder. She didn’t go so far as to tell them what she’d seen.

  ‘We’re out. Bring it up.’ Mara called.

  ‘Send it down, bring it up, send it down, bring it up,’ Grub carped as they reversed the direction of the winch and started hauling.

  In the distance, there was a grinding noise which grew to a rumbling avalanche. It shook the walls hard enough that they stopped winching and covered their heads, fearful of the roof caving in. But though bricks fell from the ceiling and new cracks grew, the cellar held and the sound faded.

  ‘Reckon that was a whole tower coming down,’ Aren said as he straightened. He’d just set his hand back on the winch when they heard Sorrow shriek again. He was closer now.

  ‘He won’t stop, will he?’ said Fen, remembering the pursuit through the mountains. ‘He doesn’t rest. Once he has our trail, he’ll keep coming.’

  Aren said nothing and turned the winch. At last, the lift rattled into place at the top of the shaft and Grub put the brake on. ‘It’s time,’ Aren said to Fen.

  She walked around to the door, hesitated a moment, then stepped inside. It was easier than she thought. Fear of the dreadknight on their heels was a powerful motivator. Aren told her to put on the brake in the lift, and then he released the one at the top of the shaft. The small lurch as the weight shifted made Fen swallow hard.

  All you have to do is stand still, she told herself. You can do that.

  Grub and Aren crowded in with her and Aren pulled the gatefold door shut behind him. Fen closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing steadily. Grub’s sour smell was hard to bear this close up.

  ‘Heh. Freckles doesn’t like heights,’ Grub said.

  Fen couldn’t manage a retort. She just wanted this to be over.

  ‘Down we go,’ said Aren. He released the brake and began turning the winch inside the lift.

  Their descent was painfully slow. The toothed wheels of the lift squealed like restless mice as the cellar dwindled to a lit square overhead and the stone closed in around them. Fen pressed against the side of the lift and tried to forget there was only a half-inch of metal between her and the drop into the dark beneath.

  All you have to do is stand still.

  There was a loud boom from overhead and a shiver passed through the rock. Fen’s eyes flew open and she clutched the bars of the cage as the distant rumbling grew louder, closer, louder still. In moments, the whole lift was shaking and she had to bite her lip to keep from whimpering.

  Please let it stop please let it stop please let it stop

  But Meshuk, the Stone Mother, was in no mood to listen to pleas. Pebbles and then stones bounced off the roof of the lift as the frame rattled and timbers creaked. There was a crash of masonry, a shriek of bending metal, then the lift was struck hard from above, making Fen scream in terror. She held fast to the sides of the cage, fingers wound through the metal bars, as a chunk of stone bounced past them and plunged down the shaft.

  Finally, it was over, and there was quiet again, but for the plangent groan of stressed metal coming from all around them.

  ‘Aren? Fen? Are you hurt?’ Mara shouted from the bottom of the shaft.

  ‘Yes, Grub is well, too, thank you for asking!’ Grub yelled back.

  Aren put his hand on Fen’s arm. She opened her eyes, found him gazing at her with concern on his face.

  ‘Get us down,’ she said. ‘Just get us down.’

  Aren nodded. He put his hand to the winch and tried to turn it, but found that it wouldn’t move. He tried again, harder.

  ‘Let Grub try,’ said the Skarl, muscling him aside. He strained at the handle for a moment, then stood back and harrumphed. ‘Stuck,’ he declared.

  ‘The winch must be damaged,’ Aren said, looking through the roof of the lift. He peered down the shaft. ‘I can see the lanterns at the bottom. It’s not more than forty feet. We can climb it.’

  Fen shook her head. She didn’t want to move. If she moved, she’d fall.

  ‘It’s easy! Grub go first!’ Grub said.

  Fen winced as Grub clattered over to the other side of the lift and pulled the gatefold door open. Beyond, there was a gap of about eight feet to the far wall, where the timber planks formed a makeshift ladder. Grub launched himself without hesitation, springing through the air to catch the other side.

  He looked over his shoulder at them. ‘See?’ he said, and climbed down the shaft as if it were nothing at all.

  Another shiver ran through the earth, the death throes of the fortress above. It had been cored by Garric’s bloody farewell, and now it was collapsing in on itself. Aren glanced up, worried.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ he told her

  ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘You can. You can do it. It’s a short jump and a simple climb. I bet you used to climb mountains that made this look like nothing.’

  ‘I’ll fall,’ she said, and hated herself for saying it, hated the
way her voice sounded.

  ‘I’ll make sure you don’t. I’ll—’

  The lift tipped forward, its top edge coming away from the wall with a screech. Fen clung to the bars but Aren went stumbling sideways towards the open door of the cage. She screamed his name as she saw him lose his balance, but then, at the last moment, he half-turned, planted his foot and jumped out into the shaft. It was clumsy, but luck was with him. His hands snagged a timber plank and he crashed against the wall and hung there, panting.

  Once he’d caught his breath, he found a foothold and checked that the Ember Blade was still safe at his hip. That done, he looked back at Fen, who was still pressed against the side of the cage, breath short with panic.

  ‘Jump,’ he told her.

  There was a slow shriek of warping steel and the lift gently bowed forward, tipping her towards the open door.

  ‘I’ll fall!’ she cried, and though she wanted desperately to move, she couldn’t. She was locked in place, already falling in her mind as she fell in her dreams, her da’s hand opening and pitching her out into empty air.

  ‘You won’t. I’ll catch you.’

  ‘You’ll let me go!’ she accused.

  ‘I won’t let you go, Fen. I promise.’

  His voice was calm, strong as iron, and she believed him entirely. Cade had let go, but Aren never would. No matter what.

  Move. Jump. Move.

  ‘Trust me,’ he said.

  Something snapped overhead and the lift lurched. The rope began thumping and slithering in coils onto the roof of the cage.

  ‘Look out below!’ Aren barked. ‘Fen! Now!’

  The new note of fear gave her the spur she needed. She ran two steps forward and launched herself out into the air an instant before the arm of the crane smashed down into the cage with terrifying force and both plunged away, taking their lantern with it.