by Sanan Kolva
Behind them, blades rang as Aikan’s battled Ewart. Lyan walked toward Porephyn. “I don’t know what Torqual told you, and honestly, I don’t care. If I’m really as incompetent as he claims, then I shouldn’t be much challenge to a skilled mage. If I’m not so useless, who should you deal with first: the lord you cursed, the archer, or me?”
Porephyn smiled like a cat seeing easy prey. “Another novice Spearbearer. Truly my lord’s favor shines on me.”
“Lyan, be careful!” Cailean warned.
“I’ll provide you with a little extra incentive, Spearbearer,” Porephyn smirked. He waved a hand, and Lyan heard Cailean gasp in sharp pain.
He couldn’t help but look back over his shoulder. Cailean doubled over on the floor, panting for breath. A trickle of blood ran from his nose.
Porephyn continued. “While I questioned him in the dungeon about Solstice, I gave Lord Dev’gilla certain gifts from my lord: spores from one of my lord’s favorite plants. Balevines take root in living flesh and devour it for their nourishment. They are fragile, though, and can’t survive outside of Murdo’s prison without my enchantments. At my command, they have begun to grow. You could, of course, use the Spear’s power to attempt to slow them, but doing so will draw from your strength. If you succeed in defeating me before they kill him, my enchantments will be broken, and the spores will die immediately. So, Spearbearer, what will you do?”
Lyan faced the priest, his face grim. “Kithr, help Cailean if you can and watch my back.”
“Less talk more, dead priest,” Kithr responded. “I’ll keep an eye on the lordling.”
Porephyn smirked and stepped into the center of the large ring of runes. With one crooked finger, he beckoned Lyan, taunting. Lyan stopped at the edge of the runes, not crossing them.
“Come, Spearbearer. Face me here. Or would you prefer we duel outside of these wards, where the splash of magic can strike everyone else as well?”
Lyan’s eyes darted over the runes. He didn’t know the meanings of all of them, but he recognized enough to know they were meant to contain, and magic used within the circle would not strike anyone outside it—a protection necessary for any manner of summoning, as this circle was probably used for. Though he suspected a trap, Lyan stepped within.
The runes flashed as he did so, a barrier springing into place around the ring. Lyan said nothing, his gaze fixed on Porephyn. The priest, in return, watched him. Lyan prayed his face didn’t show the fear that settled like a rock in his stomach. He lunged forward, Equinox held to strike.
Porephyn avoided the clumsy attack and lashed out with his knife, opening a gash on Lyan’s left arm. A rush of energy dulled the pain. Lyan tried one of the few attacks Kithr successfully taught him, and swept the Spear low at Porephyn’s shins.
The shaft of the Spear hit hard. Porephyn fell back with a cry of surprise and pain. Lyan stabbed at him, but Porephyn rolled aside and up into a crouch. He flung his hand open, palm toward Lyan. A blast of wind and ice tore across the circle.
Lyan raised Equinox protectively, but while the barrier that could stop arrows blocked the ice lances, it didn’t shield him from the frigid wind, nor did it prevent the stone underfoot from coating with frost and ice, becoming treacherously slick. Lyan fell back against the barrier, then cried in pain as heat scalded his back. He jerked away, trying to keep his footing on the icy floor. Porephyn loosed another burst of ice and wind at him.
Lyan dropped to his knees, bracing himself with Equinox. The cold bit and tore at him, even though the lances of ice shattered before they struck. Ice caked Lyan’s red hair and fell from his clothes as he pushed back onto his feet. Porephyn smirked, mist gathering in his hands again.
Lyan acted by impulse, letting Equinox guide him. As the third blast roared toward him, he swept the Spear horizontally and felt a rush of air. The icy wind followed the sweep of the Spear, curving away from Lyan and rushing back around on the priest.
Porephyn made a sharp gesture, closing his hand and jerking his arm downward, and the wind died before the full brunt struck him. Ice shards still ripped the maroon robes, and the floor under Porephyn’s feet shone with frost and water.
Lyan cast his thoughts into every epic he knew involving battles against mages.
Porephyn wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth. In his eyes, Lyan read confidence. Lyan lunged forward, finding enough footing on the slick stones to keep his balance.
Porephyn sidestepped. Lyan jabbed Equinox’s head into the stone floor and gripped the Spear’s shaft as his feet hit the slick, wet patch where the priest had stood. Momentum swung him around into Porephyn. Elf and priest collided, both tumbling to the floor. Lyan lost his hold on Equinox as he fell. Pain met every muscle when he hit the ground. Porephyn cursed and shoved away from Lyan, struggling to untangle himself.
Lyan pushed up and saw the priest reaching for Equinox. The Spear vanished just as Porephyn’s hands closed around the shaft and reappeared in Lyan’s hold.
“Equinox is not yours!”
As if the air were a solid thing, a ripple snapped from Equinox into Porephyn, sending the priest flying back into the barrier.
If the barrier hurt Porephyn, his expression didn’t show it. He did find a cruel smile, though, as a whip-like coil of fire appeared in his hand. “Torqual suggested you might have an aversion to fire, Spearbearer.”
Lyan froze as fear raced through him. Porephyn flicked the blazing coil at Lyan’s face. He reflexively blocked with Equinox.
“I’m not bound, and you’re not Vynzent!” Lyan snapped.
The heat melted the ice and raised clouds of steam around them. From the corner of his eye, Lyan glimpsed shapes that might or might not have been his imagination. Every move Porephyn made, they mimicked, and as the fire lashed out again, so did five tendrils of mist. Lyan twisted away from the flame, but one mist tendril tore his skin, then another. He staggered. More steam rose, forming a thicker mist.
Equinox drove into Lyan’s thoughts, and he seized on the Spear’s answer. Wind roared suddenly through the rune circle, catching the mist and lifting it overhead. A storm. Give me a storm, and rain to quench the fire!
Water poured down in a torrent, soaking Lyan to the skin. It added to the chill in his bones from the ice. Porephyn cursed and lashed at Lyan, but his whip sizzled, flickered, and died like a wet candle. The mist-figures had been swept up into the storm, torn apart. Energy crackled, like lightning hanging just over Lyan’s head.
Porephyn raised a hand, grasping at the air as if to draw something down. The mist began to sink again. Lyan bared his teeth and pushed back. The mist roiled and twisted in turmoil as they struggled for control over it. Sweat ran down Lyan’s face, and he shook. The mist ever so slowly sank closer.
“Lyan…,” Cailean gasped. Lyan’s eyes shifted to the Tathren lord. Blood ran from Cailean’s nose and trickled from the corner of his mouth, but he’d somehow pulled himself to the edge of the rune circle. “Remember what… I told you…” He panted for breath, pale and trembling.
“I carry my god’s favor,” Porephyn shouted, grasping the medallion around his neck. “I am the vessel for his will. You cannot stand against him. Not even the Spears of the Stars can stand against the might of Murdo!”
“You know nothing of the Spears or their might,” Lyan said, voice chill. “And you know nothing of how an elf of Eilidh Wood does battle.” I’m sorry, Cailean. I need the strength I lent to you.
A fresh surge of energy raced through Lyan as he withdrew the Spear’s protection from Cailean. Suddenly reversing his tactic, Lyan stopped fighting Porephyn’s efforts to draw the mist down. For a moment, the mist choked Lyan, clawing at his face to steal his breath. Lyan squeezed his eyes shut and added Equinox’s power to the downward force. Magic dragged the mist down to the floor, then further, forcing it between minuscule cracks where the stones had been set together. The surface was tainted and desecrated by the shrine, but deeper, Murdo’s corruption hadn’t yet reached, and th
ere, Equinox found an acorn. Buried long ago, perhaps by some rodent, it still held life, hibernating and forgotten.
Wake. I need your help. Wake. Come.
Even Nylas and Patch working together not could have forced a seed to mature tree in less than an hour. Equinox pulled the seed from its long slumber and it grew in an instant. Stones underfoot cracked, then shattered as the tree forced its way up, fueled by the water of the mist and by magic. Porephyn fell backwards, gaping in disbelief. Lyan looked at the tree spreading its branches upwards to tear through the shrine’s roof, then he turned to the priest. He felt the tree’s spirit, also woken from slumber, and felt it touch his thoughts.
The trees of Eilidh Wood kill those who would harm travelers who pass through in peace.
Lyan panted for breath, but spoke. “I am an elf of Eilidh Wood. I don’t fight like the Lost.”
Branches speared down: thick, straight branches with no leaves, only tips like spikes. Porephyn staggered back, hitting the barrier that now trapped him. The priest called a shield of fire around himself and grasped his medallion. “My lord, protect me!”
For an instant, the world froze around Lyan, and nothing moved. He heard a whisper echoing with mad laughter. “Porephyn, you have failed me.”
Porephyn’s fire shield sputtered and died. The medallion crumbled to dust. Branches drove into his chest, and he screamed, then began to choke, blood foaming from his mouth. The branches jerked free, and his body crumpled into a bloody heap.
The barrier fell, and Lyan stumbled to Cailean. Kithr caught Lyan’s arm and helped him. The Tathren lay still on the stones, pale, his breathing ragged and strained. His eyes barely opened, and struggled to focus as Lyan stumbled down beside him.
“Cailean?” Lyan asked. “Cailean! Nachyne!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Earth unmoving, boon of life,
Source of soil, source of stone.
Raise the walls, shield from strife.
Plow the fields, that seeds be sown.
At Lyan’s shout, the god of monsters appeared beside him. Nachyne didn’t ask why Lyan had called him—he looked at Cailean. His expression grew grim. “I’ll do what I can.”
Not the confidence Lyan wanted to hear. He bit his lip, unsure whether his words would come out as questions or demands of the god.
Aikan limped toward them. Blood spattered his clothes. When he saw Cailean, Aikan’s face lost what color remained.
“Lord Cailean?” He dropped to his knees beside the man.
Cailean focused with an effort. “Ewart?” he asked in a raw whisper.
“Ewart Col’Renn is dead, my lord.”
“Good.”
Aikan continued, though whether Cailean heard or listened was questionable. “The wound I dealt him at our last encounter never healed—he called it his price for the gifts given him by the Mad God. His greatest weakness, my greatest advantage. Are you listening to me, Lord Cailean?”
Cailean’s eyelids fluttered. “I’m… listening…”
Aikan scowled. “My lord, under no circumstances are you permitted to die before producing an heir.”
“Been a little busy recently…,” Cailean managed. “Shiolto and Yion? Safe?”
“They’re fine, Lord Cailean,” Aikan assured him.
Lyan looked at Nachyne, and realized the god was as worn and exhausted as the rest of them. Sweat gleamed on his bronze skin, and his wings drooped even while folded back. Nachyne met Lyan’s gaze and spoke quietly. “This might be beyond my abilities, Just Lyan Stargazer.”
Lyan shook his head in denial. Equinox? You must be able to do something!
No spell of healing came to him. Lyan sensed the Spear’s urgency, a mirror of his own as Equinox reached out to its place of power—its shrine. Venycia had told him the Spearbearer could compel the Guardians of the Spear to assist him. Any Guardian, except the demigods, who had entered service to the Spear willingly.
Yet to the demigods Equinox called. Not an order, but a plea. Lyan wasn’t sure if he actually heard words, or if his own mind interpreted the emotions he sensed in the Spear’s cry. Help the Spearbearers! Help my brother!
The scent of pines and of lavender reached him. Lyan raised his eyes and saw her. Long black hair with white streaks, brown eyes, Venycia stepped through a doorway that, heartbeats before, had been merely a decorative arch carved into the stone wall. Of all the demigods, he’d most hoped she would answer. The sight of her chased the exhaustion from Lyan.
The doorway vanished behind her. The Guardian of the Spear shuddered as she set foot in the shrine, then hurried to the gathering around Cailean. Nachyne raised an eyebrow and stepped back, allowing her to crouch next to Lyan.
“Lord of Solstice, look at me,” Venycia ordered.
Cailean turned toward her voice, but couldn’t bring his eyes into focus.
“Call your Spear back to you,” she said. “Lord of Solstice, call your Spear.”
Cailean’s brow furrowed in concentration, and his lips moved in silent words. One hand lifted, curling as if to grasp something, and Solstice, mirror to Equinox, appeared. Cailean gasped in surprise, then his eyes sank shut. Solstice began to glow. The light crept over Cailean until it covered him. Lyan found himself scooting back from the Tathren lord in response to a gentle but insistent push.
“Lord Cailean!” Aikan said urgently, the only one who refused to budge.
Venycia rested a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Rest easy, Aikan. Solstice is rejoined with its bearer, and will not permit him to come to harm. Lord Cailean will heal. Solstice will allow no less. The Spears are jealous in their protection of their bearers. The bond gives the Spears powers to heal and safeguard them, just as Equinox is doing for Lyan.”
Lyan looked at his arm, where Porephyn’s blade had gashed him, and realized it had already scabbed over.
“Even wounds that should be mortal, the Spears can heal so long as they are with their bearer,” Venycia said quietly. “For now, Lord Cailean will rest. But be assured, he hears you, though it is difficult for him to respond.”
Lyan nodded and smiled gratefully at Venycia. “Thank you.”
She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Just because you cannot require us to help you, Lyan, doesn’t mean you can’t ask. Whatever the reason.”
He swallowed hard. “I’ll remember that.” Lyan tore his attention from her before he made a fool of himself and looked around the Mad God’s shrine.
Overhead, the oak had driven through the ceiling to spread its branches in open air, hiding the night sky from sight. Pulverized rock dust drifted down on everyone. Lyan’s gaze skirted away from Porephyn’s mangled corpse as the roots began to crawl over the body. Near the doorway, blood trickled between the floor’s cracks and pooled around the bodies of Ewart’s guards. Ewart lay against the wall, blood staining his doublet, eyes open—blank, dead.
Shiolto sat against a wall opposite the corpses. Yion crouched beside him, winding a bandage around a gash on Shiolto’s head. Shiolto looked dazed, eyes not quite focused. Praett stood in the doorway, silent. He inclined his head in a nod to Lyan when their eyes met. No one spoke.
Finally, Lyan climbed to his feet, steadied by Kithr. “Careful,” Kithr cautioned.
“Sorry.” Lyan caught himself. Exhaustion weighed down his limbs and he prayed no new threats assaulted them. Kithr, at least, was steady and fresher than the rest.
Lyan moved to the tree and rested a hand on the rough bark. Knobby roots broke and cracked the stones and crushed the runes of the mystical circle. At Lyan’s touch, branches rustled, and leaves brushed his head. Lyan smiled faintly and leaned against the trunk. He hadn’t sensed such a welcome from any tree since leaving Eilidh Wood.
“What have you created in my lord’s keep, Lyan?” Aikan demanded. He eyed the tree with suspicion.
“It’s… just a tree, Aikan. I didn’t create it, only used Equinox to make it grow. The seed was already there… a Tathren acorn of a Tathren oak.”
“Tathren trees don’t move without wind,” Aikan said.
Nachyne slumped wearily back on his elbows. “They could, if something woke their spirits. Any plant has some potential, really.” The god of monsters addressed the air. “So, now that the damnable wards are finally gone, is anyone going to bother cleansing this place and thanking the elven Spearbearer for killing a high priest of Murdo?”
Lyan blinked, not sure who Nachyne addressed. He jumped when Murdo’s altar split with a sharp crack as if struck from above. In response, Equinox glowed in Lyan’s hand. The ground trembled. Lyan expected tree roots. It wasn’t the tree, but Equinox, determined to proclaim its hate for Murdo. A rock spike burst from the ground, slammed up through the altar’s center, and split it in half. More cracks spidered through the black stone, and it crumbled into shards. The rock spike sank back into the earth.
Lyan closed his eyes a moment, drawing deep breaths. Fresh sweat dripped down his face as more weariness fell on his shoulders.
He sensed a change in the air, a new presence in the shrine, and his eyes snapped open. Beside Lyan, Kithr stiffened. The rubble of the altar crunched under the tread of a heavy foot, twisting to grind the rock into powder. Aikan’s eyes opened wide in disbelief and he sank to his knees. Lyan’s gaze, however, was arrested by the figure who eyed the shrine with obvious loathing.
He looked Tathren, but his presence filled the confined space and left Lyan feeling crowded and unwelcome. He stood two heads taller than Lyan, and wore a tunic and trousers of leather. A stylized bear reared across the front of the tunic, and his muscled body implied a life of labor. Short-cropped black hair did nothing to soften the hard face. Lyan felt as if he gazed at a stone wall—harsh, unyielding, unbending, and unsmiling. Cold gray eyes fixed on Lyan and the tree at his back.
“An elven tree, within one of my fortresses.”
