Wraith King

by Argyle, Amber

  The first wave of them breached the wall to Larkin’s right, driving the Alamantians back.

  “Aim for those ardents holding the crossbows!” Gendrin roared from the other tower.

  More arrows soared through the night. A rope finally snapped, mulgars falling back into the lake with a purple splash.

  Aaryn cupped her mouth and shouted to her enchantresses, “Pulse when you see a hook sailing over you! Knock it back!” The orders were relayed up and down the line.

  Seconds later, a unit of enchantresses flared their shields, knocking a hook wobbly, though it still caught in the end. Another unit flared, and this time, the hook ricocheted back into the lake. This was repeated all up and down the line, the flashes of light leaving a faint shadow in Larkin’s aftervision.

  Every time a hook was flared off course or a rope was cut down, another two took its place. And then the first mulgar climbed over the wall. An enchanter instantly beheaded him. A second later, the rope snapped, mulgars free-falling in silence.

  But in their place, a handful of mulgars crested the wall. Then a dozen. Then two. More and more mulgars reached the wall. More and more and more. And yet still they came on.

  And the Alamantians met them. The enchantresses and enchanters worked together. Enchantresses hacked at the ropes, flared to deflect hooks, and created shield walls. Enchanters cut down the mulgars as they came over and tossed their twitching bodies back over the side. All their training, all their drilling, was paying off as they worked together in perfect concert.

  Not a single mulgar survived the climb long enough to do any real damage. The wraiths were throwing their army away. Vast though it was, they couldn’t keep this up forever.

  Except.

  The battering ram came close enough that Larkin could make out the uneven, molten metal that had been poured over the shaft, the end tipped to a wicked point. The mulgars cranked the ponderous thing back.

  “What are they doing?” Tam asked.

  Larkin flared her magic and studied the weave over the gate. She couldn’t find a single weakness.

  “Aim for those ardents!” Gendrin pointed to the raft.

  Within moments, their bodies were riddled to the point they couldn’t move for the arrows in their joints. More ardents and mulgars rose from the deep, dragged their fellows into the water, and took their place.

  Larkin couldn’t just stand here, useless and safe in a high tower, while her countrymen died defending their home. “The forest take them,” Larkin cried. “Farwin, get me a bow!”

  Farwin turned to run toward the stairs when Tam shouted, “Look!”

  Larkin whipped around. A line of ardents drew on ropes that disappeared over the edge of the raft.

  “What are they doing?” Aaryn asked.

  Something was emerging from the water. Larkin leaned over the parapet. A hinged platform rose. Four contraptions that looked like enormous crossbows had been bolted to it. Nestled inside the pocket were sharp hooks—hooks aimed directly at Larkin’s tower.

  The wraiths were doing what they’d been trying to do all along. Come after her.

  From the other tower, Gendrin shouted something Larkin couldn’t understand for the rushing in her ears.

  “We have to go!” Tam dragged her toward the stairs, where Atara was already waiting.

  “What?” Larkin cried. “No.” She wasn’t some untrained girl. She was a warrior!

  “It’s not safe for you here anymore,” Tam said.

  “It’s too late to run!” Aaryn flared, knocking a hook back. “Atara, Larkin, help me!”

  Tam released Larkin, and she and Atara lined up beside Aaryn. The other three hooks fired.

  “Wait,” Aaryn said as the hooks shot toward them. “Pulse!”

  Larkin, Atara, and Aaryn pulsed, managing to knock two of them off course. The third came right at them. Tam wrapped Larkin up and rolled her under him.

  Rope

  Larkin hit hard enough that the breath was knocked from her lungs. From between Tam’s arms, she saw that Atara had done the same to Aaryn.

  And beyond her friends, blood and chaos. The hooks had hit the archers, knocking down half a dozen of them. As she watched, their bodies were dragged, knocking more men down. Then the hooks caught on the edge of the parapet, cutting through the men and catching fast. Larkin looked away from blood and gore and screaming, twitching bodies.

  Tam grabbed the back of Larkin’s breastplate and hauled her toward the stairs, Atara leading the way.

  “No!” Larkin tried to pull free, but she was having a hard time keeping her feet under her. “I’ll fight.” The other pages ran to her side.

  “They’re after you!” Tam came to a sudden stop as mulgars exploded up from the trapdoor. He shoved her behind him.

  To the right, a hundred ropes clustered; thousands of mulgars had overrun the area around her tower. Hers. Not Gendrin’s. Not anywhere else either.

  “Of course they’re after me,” she ground out. “They’re always after me.”

  The other guards meet the mulgars swarming into the tower. Larkin shoved the four pages behind her and moved to join the guards. Atara blocked her.

  Tam jerked her back. “They won’t fight you. They’ll swarm you and drag you off. Stay back.”

  Light, he was right.

  Gendrin’s shouts finally reached her. “Get the queen to safety!”

  “But the boys!” And the others. Tam, Atara, Aaryn. She couldn’t leave them.

  Tam remained planted firmly before her. “Curse you, Larkin!”

  This attack couldn’t possibly be about bringing her in. The wraiths wanted her, but they wanted to overthrow the Alamant more. And yet, the mulgars and ardents had overwhelmed the center of the wall and weren’t even attempting to raise the gate.

  Whatever the wraiths wanted with her, it was worse than anything she could imagine. Fear like she’d never known flooded her. She flared her sword as sharp as it would go. It would be nothing to drive the tip into her heart. Stop it beating. The wraiths couldn’t use her then. It might destroy her friends and family, but maybe it would save them too.

  Atara gripped her arm, squeezing her sword sigil so hard it hurt. “Don’t.” The woman looked straight into her eyes. “Not unless they take you.”

  Larkin gave a grim nod. Tam backed Larkin toward the edge of the parapet. She let him. Aaryn flared her weapons and hacked at the fat ropes alongside half the archers—the other half were busy firing at the mulgars halfway up the rope—but they weren’t making much headway.

  This, at least, Larkin could do. She sharpened her blade to a razor point and joined Aaryn. Their weapons were sharp enough to cut through a falling leaf, but they were barely managing to fray the rope. Black rope with a strange shimmer.

  Aaryn’s expression turned grim. “It’s made of the Black Tree.”

  The pages took out their daggers and helped. Tam shot a look at the guards barely managing to hold off the mulgars swarming through the trapdoor, then at those mulgars three-quarters of the way into the tower.

  They were going to be overrun.

  Tam leaned over the parapet and gauged the distance to Gendrin’s tower. “Rope! I need rope!”

  “There’s some in the bottom of Denan’s chest.” The chest they’d left on the other side of the tower.

  “I’ll get it!” Before Larkin could stop him, Farwin took off.

  “No!” Larkin lunged at him, her fingers barely managing to brush the back of his tunic.

  Tam held her back as the boy darted between two pairs of fighting men, dove between a mulgar’s legs, and crawled between more battling men. He grabbed the chest, unlatched the lid, and hauled out bits of armor and an extra pair of boots before reaching the rope at the bottom. He swung the coils over his shoulder.

  Larkin wanted to shout at him not to risk it, but he couldn’t stay there. Not without a mulgar taking a shot at him.

  His dagger in his hand, Farwin set his teeth and dove back into the fray. A m
ulgar pivoted and lifted a crude weapon to kill him. At the last moment, a guard deflected the blow; he received a spear through his chest for his trouble and fell, coughing blood.

  Farwin was already up and running. He wasn’t going to make it. Not without help. Larkin dodged Tam and rushed toward the boy. She drove her sword into the neck of a mulgar one of the guards was fighting and hamstrung another. Tam and Atara took up posts on either side and fought with her.

  Farwin was a mere step away. She shifted so he could dart past her. He smiled up at her in relief. Then jerked. His smile disappearing. He stared down at the sword point sticking from his chest. Behind him, the mulgar Larkin had hamstrung had reared up and stabbed him.

  “No!” she screamed. Not this sweet, eager, adventurous boy.

  The pages screamed Farwin’s name, as she swept the boy out of the way with one arm and beheaded the mulgar with the other. Farwin fell backward against her. His blood pulsed against her forearm as she dragged him to safety. Atara and Tam closed ranks to fill the gap she’d left behind.

  He sagged, and she couldn’t hold him. They both went down, Larkin’s back to the parapet and Farwin on her lap. She tore off the boy’s sleeve and shoved it into the gushing wound, pushing hard enough that he cried out.

  The three other pages gaped at Farwin in disbelief. A boy with the barest whiff of a mustache held utterly still. His expression went from terrified to furious in a heartbeat. He yelled a fierce battle cry, snatched a sword from a fallen guard, and motioned for the other boys to follow him.

  “No!” Larkin cried.

  They were children. No match for the speed and ruthlessness of the mulgars. If they joined that fight, they would die. But the boys didn’t listen to her pleas. With fierce expressions, they pulled out their daggers and leaped into the fray.

  She couldn’t go after them, not with Farwin bleeding so badly.

  One jumped on a mulgar’s back and thrust his blade into the joint between neck and shoulder, jerking it free in a spray of blood. Another page fell, a mulgar tearing him to pieces. The third boy screamed an animal scream as his friend died. He jumped onto the back of a mulgar and stabbed over and over with a savagery Larkin had never seen.

  Ancestors. They were children. They weren’t supposed to fight, let alone so brutally. But then, there was no place for children in war. If any of these boys survived, they wouldn’t be children anymore.

  Tam took the rope off Farwin’s shoulder, wound it around a fat arrow, and stood next to Aaryn, who was now firing arrows with the archers. Larkin was soaked in Farwin’s blood.

  I must get him to Magalia. “Help me bind his chest,” she cried to anyone who would listen.

  But the guards were nearly staggering in exhaustion. Four of them lay dying on the ground. Atara fought off any mulgars who managed to break through. The archers had given up hacking at the rope to concentrate on maiming the mulgars climbing the ropes. And still, the mulgars were nearly upon them.

  Larkin pushed her free hand through the parapet, gathered every ounce of her power, and pulsed at those on the ropes. Light flashed. Hundreds of mulgars went flying, slamming into the water below hard enough to shatter bones.

  That massive pulse had cost her dearly, her monarch sigil was nearly drained. She could perhaps manage another three pulses. That was enough to hold this half of the mulgars off. For a little while, at least.

  Tam fired the arrow, rope trailing. They could find a way to tie Farwin to it, and the other tower could pull him in. Surely, Gendrin had a healer present. She just had to buy a little more time.

  Farwin’s breaths gurgled. The blood gushing against her arm slowed. Light, he was so pale. She couldn’t deny it anymore. Couldn’t pretend Magalia could save him. No one survived a sword through the chest. The page who’d led the others went down screaming and writhing in agony.

  “I want my mother,” Farwin gasped, his breaths crackling with blood as his lungs filled. His eyes were wide with terror.

  Larkin brushed Farwin’s hair out of his eyes, as she imagined his mother had done a hundred times, and kissed his cheek. “I’ll send for her, all right?” She wouldn’t. Couldn’t. But it wouldn’t matter in a moment.

  She held him as if he were her own son. “I’m here, Farwin. I’m right here.”

  Tam tied the other end of the rope into a loop. “Stand up. They’ll pull you up on the other side.”

  He wanted her to leave them. To leave them all to die. She met Aaryn’s gaze. The woman nodded.

  “I can’t.” She couldn’t just abandon her friends to die. Abandon Denan’s mother to die. But what came out was, “I can’t leave Farwin.”

  Tam tested the knot, his expression haggard. “He’s already gone.”

  She shifted to see Farwin’s face. His head had tipped forward, blood staining his chin and tunic. But it was his utter stillness that confirmed Tam’s words.

  “No!” she cried.

  Tam hauled her up. Farwin slipped from her arms to land in a heap on his side like discarded trash. A breeze hit the boy’s warm blood soaking her and made it cool. Even with the oppressive heat, she shivered so hard she had to clench her teeth to keep them from clacking.

  At the far tower, Gendrin had tied the rope fast to the parapet. Tam slipped the loop over Larkin’s head and tightened it around her waist.

  “Larkin!” Aaryn pointed to the mulgars on the ropes, now a mere ten yards away. Larkin pulsed twice. At least a hundred mulgars were sent spinning into the abyss. One pulse left.

  Tam grabbed Larkin’s shoulders and tried to push her over the edge.

  She gripped the banister. “I’m not leaving you!”

  Tam grabbed her face. “Go to the other tower, and the mulgars will shift focus. We might survive.”

  No. The mulgars would kill him and Aaryn. They were too important for the wraiths to let live. She searched for help—for some kind of miracle—and saw a defensive line of enchantresses nearly to the base of her tower. They pulsed and retreated, allowing another rotation of enchantresses to march forward and pulse. Then they repeated the same maneuver. Behind them, three hundred Black Druids decimated the mulgars that the enchantresses had felled.

  And Denan led them.

  “Look!” She pointed.

  Tam ground his teeth. “He won’t reach us fast enough.”

  Above the sounds of battle, a great moaning sounded. A sound Larkin had heard before. A sound that came from everywhere at once.

  “What was that?” Aaryn asked.

  It was coming from beneath them. From the lake.

  Something dark shot up from the water. In the faint light, it looked like a thousand snakes, some the size of a boat. They writhed and slammed and crushed mulgars. The ropes snapped, mulgars falling. Then the thing turned, and Larkin had her first glimpse of the monster that had nearly killed her months ago.

  The lethan.

  An enormous squidlike creature in deepest, wine red. It tore through the raft in a rage, breaking it like tinder. The ropes snapped. The mulgars fell into the dark water and were crushed. The lethan rolled, dragging a hundred more into the depths.

  Now they just had to fight those mulgars in the tower.

  “Larkin—” Tam began to protest.

  In answer, she cut the rope from around her and glared defiantly up at him. “Denan is coming for me.” And if he didn’t . . . Not unless they take you, Atara had said. She would die fighting with her friends rather than abandon them.

  “So be it.” He turned a deadly gaze upon the mulgars who’d nearly overwhelmed what remained of the guards, pages, and archers and charged forward. Aaryn, Atara, and Larkin followed a step behind.

  Larkin beheaded a child mulgar. She dodged a swing from a naked, dripping mulgar, swept aside the thing’s arms with her shield, and cut deep into its side. The mulgar canted to one side, swinging at her crookedly. Larkin drew back and stabbed through its neck.

  She turned as another swung a cudgel at her legs. She tripped over a body a
nd managed to slam the edge of her shield into its head, the hit reverberating through her arm.

  “Bring her to me,” every mulgar in the place said at once.

  Larkin beheaded the one before her, silencing it midsentence. She’d nearly reached the trapdoor. Unable to avoid the piles of bodies, she stepped on them and flared, knocking half a dozen creatures down the stairs. Tam and Atara rolled bodies off the trapdoor, slammed it shut, and slid the bolt home.

  If she flared again, she wouldn’t have enough magic for her sword and shield. At least not until her sigils had time to recuperate.

  “Larkin!” Atara warned.

  A crack sounded as the mulgars hacked at the trapdoor. It wouldn’t hold them long. But it would hold long enough for Denan to reach them.

  The remaining handful of guards, pages, and archers cornered a group of the creatures. Atara and Aaryn flared and sent them careening into the air above the walkway. Enchantresses scattered as the mulgars slammed into the canopy. On the other side of the tower, Tam and a page fought the last three mulgars side by side.

  The floor slippery with blood and uneven with bodies, Larkin made her way over to help Tam and the pages, but they finished the creatures before she arrived. One boy was bleeding badly. The other seemed all right. Larkin tore the sleeve from her tunic and tied it around the boy’s bleeding leg.

  Ancestors, if the boys hadn’t fought, the tower would have surely fallen. But the cost was too high.

  She made eye contact with both boys. “All right?”

  They nodded. She finished her knot over the boy’s leg and wiped her bloody hands on her tunic. “Stay off it or the bleeding will start again.” It was a foolish thing to say. When that trapdoor broke, the boy would have to fight. And with that injury slowing him down, he would likely die. But what else could she say?

  Two pages, three guards—Maylah was not among them—a single archer, Tam, Atara, Aaryn, and Larkin were all that were left standing. Another handful of Alamantians were too injured to do much.