This attempt had failed. But if he could find the Drakebane, they could withdraw. They could regroup. And they could strike at the White Lich again.
His ether remained locked in the grasp of the Odo Sein, but that which had been disturbed would still show itself when looked at with purity of vision. Tuning his sight to the light, he took another look at the ground. The Blighted had left many tracks of their own, yet there it was: a cluster of dimly glowing white footprints carrying north across the jagged, alien landscape.
Gladdic drew himself up and moved on.
As he walked, he tore another piece from his robe to bind around his stump. The sight of the sliced meat and bone made him breathless. It wasn't the wound itself that disturbed him—flesh had never concerned him; it was a vessel, nothing more; when it was broken, it was no more gruesome than the breaking of a clay pot—but where it had come from.
Galand, again. Was there a symbolism to the taking of Gladdic's right hand? The hand that served the gods? A shudder racked his body, one that had nothing to do with the rain. After the fall of Collen to the barbarous rebels, certain rumors had spread forth. Gladdic had dismissed them as transparent propaganda—or, if that was giving too much credit to the crudely warlike leadership, as the superstitious whisperings of heretics and near-pagans—but what if they were correct? What if Galand truly was an avatar of Arawn?
One sent to whisper lies far and wide. To bedevil Gladdic wherever he went. And, at last, to spread the ultimate darkness across not only Tanar Atain, but the entire world.
The thought frightened him. But fear put a spring in his step. He tottered over the rolling, unholy white rock of the Wound, occasionally spitting on it, and only altering course to avoid an upthrust stone or a passing Blight. He was afraid the Drakebane would make haste for the boats and depart before Gladdic caught up, but within minutes, he gazed across the unclean vista and spied the emperor and his retinue holding a conversation beneath a stand of especially tall bone-growths.
The Odo Sein were the first to notice him. He could feel the judgment behind their masks. Though he begrudgingly admired their dedication, he didn't care for the knights' stoic scorn. Ignoring their gazes, he presented himself to the Drakebane and bowed his head.
"Gladdic." The man's voice was as heavy as his features, which were unusually thick for a Tanarian. The mark of the well-guarded Drakebane line. His black hair was streaked with orange—a sign of general nobility, one significant enough that dyeing one's own hair orange had been illegal for centuries. The emperor stood on that brink of male age when youth was almost all but spent, and in the blink of an eye, a man could collapse from the haleness of a warrior into the doddering of an old fool. "You live?"
"The White Lich is freed." His news caused even the Odo Sein to declare oaths. Used to being at the center of such shock and dismay, Gladdic waited for the hubbub to pass. "Neither the Andrac nor the Odo Sein could stop him. When I saw that this was so, I retreated. For I believe we may yet destroy him."
The Drakebane shook his head slowly. "It is too late, priest. Your promise is broken. You have failed."
"I do not understand, Emperor."
"And you don't need to." The lord nodded to his retinue and turned as if to go.
"Emperor!" Gladdic fought to keep the plea from his voice. "Will you not fight? You've already lost your throne." This caused three of the Odo Sein to turn; even with their helmets in place, he could feel the murder within their eyes. "If you let the foe take free rein, you'll lose your country as well."
"No, priest. I have the feeling Mallon will prove quite welcoming to as many of my people as I care to save."
"While I am sure they will provide accommodations for displaced royalty, I know King Charles well, Your Majesty. I am afraid he will turn away all of your…refugees."
"My line has fought the liches for centuries. We know their power. Do you think we were so arrogant that we never considered a day like today might befall us? We knew our home could be destroyed at any time—you believe we never thought to secure another?"
"Please, Majesty. I do not know what King Charles has told you, but I do know his mind. He will make you promises, if that suits him. And then he will break them, because that also suits him."
The emperor broke into laughter. "We have no need for his promises! We have been preparing since before Charles' time, priest. Why do you think my people have all been made to speak Mallish? Our spies are in your palace. Our priests are in your temples. Your priests have been taught to fear the return of the Dragon; they chafe at your faith's denial, champing at the bit for reform. Your military has built boats to carry us from here to Bressel—and to make it our new home. And if your king denies us, then he will soon be king of nothing."
Gladdic's mind felt as though it was tumbling into an abyss. "But I pledged myself to cleanse your land. For this, you betray me?"
"You betrayed yourself when you failed. I do what I must to keep my people alive. I've fought this evil for too long—let it take this land, and the rebels with it."
"No." Gladdic reached for the Drakebane's raincloak. An Odo Sein interposed himself between them, pressing a gauntleted hand against Gladdic's breastbone. "Your Majesty! You can't do this!"
"Oh, priest." Pity and contempt entered the Drakebane's piercing eyes. He lifted a silver charm from his neck showing a snake wrapped around the eyes of a proud man. "I already have."
He turned and walked away. Gladdic's throat closed on itself, his chest tightening. His legs weakened beneath him. Was his aging body about to give out on him at last? He smiled at the thought. Everything he'd worked to build had been ruined; everything he'd tried to make pure had been defiled; where he'd placed trust, it had been betrayed. Worst of all, he had abetted the very man who would now try to take Gladdic's cherished home—Bressel, civilization's north star in a black void of brutality, ugliness, and heresy—and cast it down from the sky.
But at least death, at last, would spare him the fate of watching the shadow he'd helped give birth to as it devoured the world's last lights.
He sank to the horrid grimstone, the rain beating against his gaunt, wrinkled face, and waited for Arawn to claim him. He was an old man and everything he had ever done had only made the mortal realm a more wretched place.
His breathing slowed. The pain in his chest eased. Did he cry then? Perhaps he did. Because he wasn't going to die, and that, finally, taught him the only lesson worth knowing.
There are gods, and they are not merciful.
~
Dante stood against the wrath of the giant and searched for any meaning to be found in his last moments. He found them as empty as an old skull. He was going to die, and so were his friends, and their deaths would mean nothing. Lost to a fight where victory, even if it were possible, would gain him nothing.
The giant charged and he scampered to the side, feinting an attack to engage the towering man while Naran came at him from the rear. As before, the man was wise to their tricks, batting Naran away with the blade of his glaive.
Dante rushed the giant, sandals splashing through the rain gathering on the solid ground. Before he'd come within range of the nethereal sword, the blue-white man pivoted about, slamming the butt of his polearm into Dante's side. The blow sent him flying. He landed on a span of iron, his forehead cracking into the metal.
Blood dribbled from his eyebrow. It and the ground beneath him smelled the same. Out of hopeless habit, he reached out for the nether, meaning to feed his blood to it. The shadows kept their peace.
He wondered if he should bother to get up. The thought of accepting his fate was so tempting he closed his eyes. An end, at last, to all the struggles he never seemed to be able to escape. Yet this thought troubled him—he'd had it not long ago, when the swamp dragon had nearly drowned him. And he'd discovered he had more backbone than he knew.
He cocked his head. Heart pounding in his ears, he reached into himself, seeking out the nether entwined in his spine. It was th
ere, but his whole body was alive with shadows. Just like when he'd been constructing his sword, he couldn't tell what part might be the trace.
Another drop of blood fell from his forehead. He ordered the nether to it. Nearly all of the shadows within him stayed put, locked in place by the aura of the Odo Sein. Yet some of those braided inside his spine began to stir.
He drew his trace from himself. The act felt startling, a combination of pain and relief, like diving into icy water or removing a long thorn from your flesh. He held the shadows in one hand and made a fist with the other. His face hurt—he was grinning.
He rose to his feet and faced the giant, who'd been distracted by Naran slashing at his ankles as he advanced on Dante. Shaping the nether into a killing bolt, Dante finally understood why they went through such strife. Why they fought all the smaller fights even when it was for the good of someone else rather than themselves.
Because when they fought the little fights, they grew strong enough to be able to fight back when it truly mattered.
The giant drove Naran into a full retreat. The enemy glanced at Volo, who was tending to Blays, or possibly trying to take one of his swords, then turned back to Dante. He tilted his head, color-shifting eyes locking onto the shadows in Dante's hand. As Dante hurled them at the man's face, the giant bared his teeth, the muscles of his cheeks striated like granite cliffs.
It took Dante a second to understand the twisted look on the man's face was a grin. At the last instant, the giant turned his head and ducked his chin. The nether gouged across his forehead and into his hairline, sending ether swirling around his head like powdery snowflakes. Faint blue fluid seeped down his face.
"Sorcerer." The man spoke Mallish with a thick accent that made the word sound like "zor-zor-or," uptilted slightly at the end. He laughed like a tin sheet being shaken back and forth. "You have skill. Skill earns choice. I will offer it to you one time."
Dante backed across the iron ground and the giant followed. "Let me guess. Join you or die?"
The blue-white man shook his head in four slow sweeps. "Join me—or join them."
He gestured to the pool-dwellers who had come to a stop to watch them from a hundred yards away. Their faces were sick with anxiety.
"If I join you," Dante said. "What then?"
"You will be made as me. My servant. But to the others, a god."
"And my friends?"
"Keep them. All gods need slaves."
Dante retreated another few steps and the giant strolled after him. The wound on the man's face was already closing. The bolt of shadows hadn't caused more than a groove in his skin. It was like his body was so infused with ether that it had a natural armor against sorcerous attacks. The nether in Dante's trace was limited. Even if he depleted it entirely, he doubted it would be enough. And he did not want to see what happened if he used it all.
"And once I serve you." Dante felt for the iron beneath his feet. "What will we do together? Conquer?"
The giant shook his head again. "We will consume."
"Sounds like a generous offer. But I've got one for you: die."
Dante jerked his hand upward. A spike of iron ore shot from the ground, aimed at the giant's guts. With a grunt—it might have been a chuckle—the man stepped to the side. As he put down his foot, Dante sent a second spike jutting beneath it. Yet the enemy seemed to be able to feel the shifts in the nether and was already sliding his foot away. The impromptu blade nicked the side of his foot, drawing blood but causing no major damage.
Looking amused, the giant jogged toward the side of the uneven spread of iron. Dante considered trying to gore him with one last spike, but if the man dodged again, that would be the end.
But just as Dante didn't stand to gain anything from winning the fight aside from his own life, he didn't have to kill the man to survive.
He reached into himself and the metal-rich rock. Drawing deeply on the trace, he heaved a wave of iron over the giant like pulling a quilt over an unruly dog. With the last drop of trace he dared to spend, he shaped the iron to allow the end of the glaive through, then slammed the metallic ore closed around the shaft, trapping the weapon in place.
His makeshift chamber was a poor match for the rune-inscribed hexagon. But inside its walls, the giant bellowed with rage.
Naran gawked. "Will that imprison him?"
"I have no fucking idea," Dante said, feeling lightheaded and ready to vomit. "Get Blays on his feet!"
Volo slapped Blays in the face. He opened one eye. From the slackness of his face, it was exceedingly obvious that he didn't know what was happening, and possibly even where he was, but Blays had always been possessed with a supernatural ability to understand when it was time to move his legs until the landscape changed enough to escape whatever was threatening to kill him. Volo propped him up on her slim shoulders.
Naran moved to join them. The water-people each shrieked once and burst forward, faces drawn back so tightly by their anger that their noses looked ready to slice through their skin. Dante sprinted to join Naran, who jogged to engage the closest people before they could get to Volo and Blays. Naran's crackling sword deposited their foes to the ground in several large chunks.
Naran jogged uphill, Volo and Blays trudging along behind him. Dante took up the rear, decapitating one of the pale people and sticking his sword through the ribs of another. Flickers of shadows stole from the corpses and into his sword.
Behind them, the giant pounded on the inside of his prison, fists booming like thunder. For the moment, the walls seemed to be holding. The pounding stopped. Dante suspected he was pulling on the glaive—if he could get it free, he could probably carve through the iron in seconds—but it didn't appear to be budging.
The people from the pools were threatening to overwhelm them, but Blays was starting to get a feel for his legs again, running hard. Dante was so dizzy he felt himself reeling side to side. He focused on his friends' backs. A half dozen of the strange people awaited them at the top of the ridge. They carried shards of bone, but apparently the wits had returned to Blays' arms, too. He drew his weapons and sheared through the welcoming party.
Ahead, the land sloped down gently, littered with bony growths and the odd chunk of iron. Dante's first priority was getting the hell away from the giant, but the pressure in his head told him that Gladdic was practically straight ahead of them. Gladdic seemed to know this area. Including, presumably, the ways out of it.
"Volo," Dante said. "You knew what that thing was."
She glanced over her shoulder. "If you've heard of a mountain but never seen one, do you really know it?"
"Much better than someone who doesn't even know mountains exist!"
"Okay, but what if you've heard about mountains, but you think the whole idea of a big pile of rock that's miles high is so crazy it can't possibly be true?"
"Quit trying to argue your way out of this. Who was that man?"
Still running, she gazed down at the ground. "They call him Eiden Rane. The White Lich."
"Finally, some progress! And who is this White Lich?"
"He was one of the sorcerers. One that's so old he probably did exist before the mountains were around. But that's all I know."
"You know more than that. You said he might take our souls. What does that mean?"
Volo watched a pair of water-people running toward the valley at full speed. "It means he turns you into them."
Dante blinked. "Was Gladdic trying to keep him sealed up? Or to kill him? Why would he do that?"
"I dunno," she said. "To save the world?"
"Are you being serious?"
"They told us he would help us. But I don't think they were telling the whole truth."
She wouldn't say more, even who "they" was. The ground began to rise again. The white fields and mounds looked like they could be endless. To get some idea of the path ahead, Dante diverted to a small, steep hill. From its top, the western edge of the Wound looked to end in a steep drop that might have be
en cliffs. The eastern fields were pocked with rifts in the surface. The north, where Gladdic had gone, looked the same as the ground they'd already crossed.
He could also see behind them into the round valley of the White Lich. There, a small army had entered the bowl, flying the colors of the Monsoon. Scouts ran ahead, approaching the iron prison Dante had sealed the White Lich inside. As they neared, a hole opened in the side of the prison, disgorging a massive glowing figure.
Across from the Lich, the members of the Monsoon bent their knees and bowed their heads.
~
The boy was late. And getting later by the minute. When Raxa couldn't stand it anymore, she scaled the side of the warehouse and crawled across the roof, getting down beside the chimney. Out in the darkness, the fleet awaited at the docks. A small legion of soldiers milled around the grounds. Word around the palace was that they'd be leaving that night.
After ensuring nothing interesting was happening, Raxa backed off to the edge of the roof, but there was still no sign of Sorrowen. She wasn't sure why that irritated her so much. She was better off on her own. Less chance of getting spotted. And if they did see her, she had a much better chance of rabbiting.
An unusual amount of hollering was going on in the neighborhoods around them. Raxa hadn't thought it was a holiday, but maybe it was one of those that the nobles were too good to celebrate with the peons.
Lanterns pricked up along the docks. Sailors detached from the crowd of troops and embarked. As they made what looked like their final preparations, the soldiers began to move. A few hundred men walked onto the piers and divided themselves up between the forty-odd boats. Most of the soldiers remained on dry land. And now that Raxa really looked at it, there weren't all that many of them. Not nearly enough to fill the boats. Barely enough to row them.
The Cycle of Galand Box Set Page 141
