Shadowheart

by Tad Williams

  Rasha-sha, omuro-nah, rasha-sha, omuro-nah! chanted ghosts from a hundred different battlefields in a hundred different centuries. Tooth and bone, tooth and bone! They had sung it in victory many times, but they had sung it even more frequently as their allies had died beside them and as they themselves had formed the ring in which they would postpone defeat as long as possible.

  You will not see us because we hide in the night. You will not feel us until it is too late. You will not defeat us because we will die with our fangs in your throat—tooth and bone, tooth and bone ...!

  Barrick scrambled forward to fight beside these anciently familiar yet barely known allies, trying to remember all that Shaso had taught him. Each moment that unfolded was so full of sharp blades and screaming faces that for a while even the singing of the Fireflower rolled off him, as unremarked as a light rain.

  He stopped at last to rest, lungs burning, sweat stinging his eyes, dozens of small and large cuts stinging him too. He was amazed by his own strength and stamina; even the Tricksters could not keep up with him.

  They woke your blood, a voice sighed in words he could just separate from the din around him.

  Ynnir? Speak to me! Dizzily, he looked around. The southerners were giving ground, but Xixian arrows still fell all around him, appearing suddenly and quivering in the churned ground of the city’s bayside commons like some odd crop. They are so many, Lord! What can I do to help Saqri?

  You can make haste, the voice told him. Midsummer comes with the morning. If the southern king can keep you here until tomorrow, he has won—he has already nearly reached his prize.

  Make haste? How?

  Tell my sister-wife that you and the rest of the People have served your purpose here. You must find a way down into the depths before it is too late ... too late ...! The king’s voice, already faint, trailed into silence.

  Barrick could not find Saqri. The sun had set behind the hills, but that was not the reason. He could see much better than he should have been able to, so that the night seemed no darker than late afternoon. Catlike, his eyes made use of light he had never noticed before, light which gave edges and colors to things that ordinarily would have been obscure and gray. And his muscles and sinews seemed already to have recovered enough to begin fighting again. It was as though the power and experience of all the kings inside him were plaited like the fibers of a rope, strengthening all that he was, making him a newer, stronger thing.

  Godlike. That was the word—there were moments he felt almost godlike. The Fireflower was like molten silver in his veins, strengthening him, filling him with heat and weight. Even with all Shaso’s careful training, he would only have been a crippled boy of sixteen years who would never have survived this fight, but instead he had killed at least half a dozen men and wounded a dozen more, his blade finding its way through the Xixians’ defenses time after time, like a stroke of lightning.

  As he hurried toward the nearest fighting, some of the Xixians turned and saw him. They shouted with dismay. Something hot and gleeful rose up in Barrick Eddon’s chest, like hands of fire cupping his heart.

  They fear me!

  As he reached the edge of the nearest skirmish, he finally saw Saqri and Hammerfoot and the others who had led the way. The queen and her friends were trapped in a swirling melee near the center of the Xixian camp. The moon had crept above the horizon, and its bony gleam was enough for him to see color, detail ... everything. He could even make out the terrified faces of the men Saqri was fighting—or destroying, rather, because if Barrick’s own blade had been like lightning, the queen’s spear was something even swifter and more deadly, perhaps the heavenly thunderbolts that had once flickered around the peak of Mount Xandos itself.

  But the Xixians had so many more soldiers that they could bury Saqri and the Ettins in bodies. Cavalrymen from the farther reaches of the embattled camp were now galloping toward the Qar in great numbers, and these newest arrivals, unlike the earliest defenders, were fully armored. Battle standards waved from the backs of their saddles in the colors of half a dozen Xixian companies, horsetails flapping, leather straps jangling with coins.

  As Barrick watched, three of the riders split off and headed toward him. Good sense should have made him drop back to the security of the rest of the Qar forces, but something in Barrick was afire and would not let him do the sensible thing.

  I’ve been running for years. No more. My banner is my blood—if they want it, let them come take it!

  “For Whitefire! For Kupilas!” he shouted, and leaped forward so that he would be better spaced between the approaching riders. Something black flew at him, and he let his momentum carry him onto his side in the dirt as the arrow hissed by. “For Crooked!” he shouted, climbing to his feet again.

  Something boomed on the bay behind him, but Barrick had no time to look. The first of the riders was upon him, leaning half out of the saddle and swinging a long, metal-headed club. Barrick took the blow on his shield and managed a cut at the rider’s back, but his own blow only bounced harmlessly from the Xixian’s armor. As the rider wheeled past, Barrick confronted the other two horsemen, both carrying long, small-headed axes. Instead of retreating, he ran forward, forcing them to mistime their swings. He feinted toward one, then shoved his blade into the other Xixian’s chest just below his armpit. The Xixian clung to his saddle and did not fall, but he was shouting in pain and bleeding badly.

  More thundering noises, and from the corner of his eye Barrick saw a huge burst of fire and smoke and flying dirt in the midst of the Qar, and bodies spinning through the air. The ships in the harbor! The autarch’s men were firing their deck guns, but in their eagerness to destroy the Qar, they were firing into the mass of their own men as well!

  The horsemen who were after Barrick had turned and were coming at him again, slower this time, to take better advantage of having him outnumbered.

  Surprise them, the voices urged. A thousand different invisible maps of things he could do came to him, as if he could read every page of a book at the same time. He took a few steps, then suddenly sprinted forward and rolled beneath the middle rider’s swinging mace. He grabbed at the man’s wrist as he passed, something he could never have done with his arm crippled as it had been, then held on, digging his heels into the earth so that the horse’s own force was enough to yank the man out of his saddle. The soldier fell only halfway and dangled with his foot caught in the stirrup, thrashing helplessly until Barrick caught up. He vaulted into the saddle, then turned and hacked away at the screaming man’s trapped ankle until it parted company with his foot and both parts of the Xixian soldier fell to the bloody sand.

  As soon as Barrick had his own feet in the stirrups and the horse under his control, he made a point of riding after the wounded man he had already stabbed, not because the noises the man was making bothered him, but because a certain cold implacability was growing in him and he wanted to leave no loose ends, but before Barrick caught him the wounded horseman grabbed at his throat and fell from his horse, pierced by a Qar arrow. The last rider, now confronting a very different kind of fight, abruptly turned and spurred back toward the greater safety of the Xixian ranks at the edge of the camp.

  Mounted now, the experience of a dozen kings helping him to calm the Xixian horse, he caught sight of the Tricksters fighting a group of southerners.

  “Longscratch, Riddletongue, Blackspine—here!”

  As he waited for them, Barrick could see a group of Xixians running away from the fight, but not with the desperate haste of men trying to flee the field of battle: they seemed to be under the control of an officer and were headed toward a large tent near the center of the camp, out between the edge of the city and the bay—the quarters of the autarch himself or some other high-ranking Xixian? Or perhaps something more directly of use in the battle, like one of their huge cannons? Or it might even hold important prisoners. “Hurry!” he shouted at the Qar. “Those Xixies are hiding something. We have to catch them!”

&nbs
p; By the time the three Tricksters reached him, the fighting had surrounded him and Barrick was battling for his life again. As he and the Qar fought their way free, Barrick could see that something was happening on the hillside just outside the edge of the city and the camp. A great force of men was riding down out of the heights, singing and shouting. Were they enemies—or unexpected allies? Who could it be? They sounded like northerners! For a moment Barrick could almost believe the Fireflower was showing him some long-buried memory of Coldgray Moor, some vision of men and fairies at war, but it was no ancient Qar battle, it was here and now.

  They fought their way out of the worst of the battle. Blackspine found a horse that had lost its rider and clambered into the saddle, soothing the frightened beast with a few whispered, hissing words, then extended a slender arm to help Riddletongue up behind him. Longscratch had found a mount of his own; the previous owner’s severed hand was still tangled in the reins, bouncing against the horse’s shoulder.

  “They are hardy, these sunlanders,” said Longscratch with a nod toward the dangling hand, “but the fighting does not have much savor. I liked them better in the old days, when they fought one at a time like proper warriors.”

  “And one had time to suck their marrow when they were dead,” added Blackspine wistfully.

  Barrick pointed with his bloodied sword. “Look! Those southerners have fallen back to guard that tent. Let’s go have a look at what they don’t want us to see.” He spurred toward it, and the Tricksters followed, laughing and singing wordlessly.

  Even as the Xixian horse hit full stride beneath him, its brute strength flowing as smoothly as oil from a flask, something darted past Barrick’s face, passing so close that he ducked down against his stolen mount’s neck. The men guarding the tent had seen them coming and were loosing arrows as fast as they could, but they did not flee. What was it they were willing to give their lives to guard? Barrick’s heart began to pump even faster. Could they truly be so lucky as to have caught the autarch himself on the field?

  Several of the guards disappeared into the tent. Barrick and the Tricksters came down on the rest and scattered them. Riddletongue killed one with a swift lunge and a thrust through the eye while his cousins occupied the others, and Barrick swung down from the saddle and forced his way in through the tent flap.

  Half a dozen men were backed into the corner of the lavish tent, which was so full of lamps the interior seemed bright as day. Behind them, mostly hidden by the guards, stood a smaller figure with dark hair. Barrick could feel the blood racing in his veins—holy blood, god’s blood. He leveled his sword calmly, as though he could pierce all the guards with one thrust, which at that heady moment did not feel impossible.

  Careful—you will overstep ... warned Ynnir’s quiet voice, but Barrick could hardly hear it through the roaring triumph of his thoughts. Find yourself, manchild.

  Oh, but I have found myself, he thought. And I have found our enemy. “Step out, Sulepis, you coward!” he shouted at the shape half-hidden behind the guards. “You have thrown men’s lives at us like they were stones. Will you test your own arm?”

  The one who stepped out was not the man Barrick expected. In fact, it was not a man at all, but a woman, strongly built and with her black hair cut short. She was clearly a Xixian but broader than any of the guards. She had a brutish look in her small eyes.

  “Who you, little flea?” she demanded, her accent thick, her voice deep and hoarse.

  “The autarch’s death—and yours if you are hiding him, woman.”

  The woman laughed, showing discolored teeth. “I not autarch’s wife! I am Tanyssa—I am Royal Strangler of Seclusion!” She lifted her surprisingly large hands to show she held a long knife in one and dangled a red silken cord from the other. “Come. I send you to hell.”

  The old Barrick would have wasted time on foolish doubts about fighting a woman, but this Barrick leaped forward, sword swinging. The guards bunched together in front of him—apparently the strangler’s life was more valuable than theirs—and he suddenly realized he had set himself a problem that might be beyond even the skills the Fireflower had brought him. He managed to kill two of them, but the other four had him surrounded and the strangler Tanyssa was doing her best to reach his unprotected side with her blade when three dark shapes slipped into the tent, yellow eyes aglow.

  “Do you require any help, Barrick Eddon?” Longscratch asked.

  Barrick deflected a blow meant to take his head off and then spun away from the woman’s long knife. “I would accept some, yes.”

  A moment later, the Tricksters were among the guards, ivory rashayi digging into flesh and even through Xixian armor. Barrick leaped over a newly fallen corpse toward the muscular woman. She spun to pull something from a golden chest.

  “Where is the autarch?” Barrick demanded, his blade only a quivering inch from her back. Where is he?”

  She turned around slowly to reveal she was holding a small piece of clouded crystal in her fingers and grinning like a castle gargoyle. “This to protect Golden One,” the strangler said with a note of satisfaction. “Golden One gone now—I use to kill you!” And as Barrick stared in astonishment, Tanyssa popped the murky gem into her mouth like a sweetmeat.

  Sand sprang into the air as if from every corner of the tent, a whirling cloud that blinded Barrick, but the sand rushed past him as though the strangler were its target, flowing over her, covering her body in tiny particles of stone. In the rush of air and sand, most of the lanterns blew out. The guards, suddenly uninterested in Barrick and the Qar, broke away and ran shouting in terror toward the tent door.

  The thing that had been Tanyssa seemed to be getting larger but also more shapeless, no woman anymore but only a vague figure, big as an Ettin and growing bigger, with clublike hands that sprouted spiky claws. It had eyes like stars behind fog and a mouth that seemed a pit leading down into darkness. An unlucky guard that had not escaped was caught and shoved toward it by one of the Tricksters; the thing snatched up the screaming Xixian with talons that clacked like broken bricks, then lifted him to its gaping hole of a mouth, swallowed the hapless southerner to the shoulders and bit down. As the rest of the guard’s still-twitching body fell to the monster’s feet one of the Tricksters flung a lamp, but it bounced off the demon’s stony skin and spread gobbets of fire along the tent wall.

  “Run!” Longscratch shouted as he scrambled for the door. “We cannot kill a Stone Swallower!”

  Flames ran everywhere. Barrick pushed his way through the smoke and followed the Tricksters outside. A moment later, with a bellow like a hamstrung bull, the thing that had been Tanyssa burst through the blazing silk in a shower of sparks.

  Who do I pray to now? Barrick wondered as he dragged himself to his feet once more. The gods are asleep! Arrows whipcracked past him. The other Qar were hurrying toward the scene, but although a dozen arrows hit the demon, they bounced away and the thing hardly seemed to notice. Even the Fireflower voices had gone quiet in confusion or fear.

  “Turn and run, Barrick Eddon!” Longscratch shouted. “There is no killing a beast like that. It is too strong ...!”

  “No! It will kill dozens of our warriors if we let it go!” he shouted back. The thing had caught Blackspine’s horse and although the Trickster leaped off and escaped, the Stone Swallower was tearing the still living animal into pieces. Shouting as loud as he could, as much to keep out the terrible sound of the horse’s death as to steel himself, Barrick picked up his sword and ran forward, then slashed at the thing’s arm. It was like attacking a stone wall; the monster scarcely seemed to feel it. Other Qar joined him, jabbing at the thing with spears but achieving no more than Barrick had. The Stone Swallower caught those who came too close and tore them apart with horrifying speed and strength. Barrick picked up a spear and threw it, but it bounced off uselessly. The inhuman silhouette stood stark against the burning tent, a victim in each hand. Barrick couldn’t tell if the ruined corpses were horses or Qar.

 
; The beast’s bloody, scraping hand closed on him and this time all Barrick could do was hack at it over and over until the demon flung him to the ground like a man harried by biting flies. The fall dashed the air out of his lungs; for a moment blackness flowed over him as though he had tumbled into a cold, lightless river. He felt the Fireflower folding around him as if to ease him into the waiting dark, but then he heard one of the Tricksters screeching in agony, and Barrick swam back toward the light and the world.

  As he tried to struggle to his feet, a huge, icy hand curled around him. He smelled breath that stank like molten iron as the Stone Swallower lifted him toward its gaping mouth. Most of the strength had run from Barrick’s body as if he were a stuffed doll that had lost its sawdust. From the corner of his eye he could see flames, but now they had sprouted in a most unexpected place—out on the water of the Bay, great flaming banners rippling above the autarch’s ships. He could not understand what that meant and, dying, did not much care. A voice drifted up from his memory—not the Fireflower, but old Shaso, berating him: “You always ask to be given quarter when you tire, but your enemies will not care!”

  This thing thinks it’s already killed me ...!

  The black maw stretched wide just before him. He knew he would have only one chance. He braced himself in the monster’s grip, then shoved his sword as far as he could into the thing’s mouth.

  His blade vanished, ripped from his grasp by the violence of the creature’s convulsion. It dropped him, then reared up over him with a horrible gurgling howl so loud it seemed the sky itself had torn loose from its vault, a seemingly unending howl of fury and pain. It gasped and coughed and gurgled wetly. A bloody, smoke-colored stone fell to the sand beside Barrick. Then the sky, or something just as big and dark, crashed down on top of him and stole the world away.