The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4)

by H. Anthe Davis

  “You didn’t.”

  “That wasn't my choice. It was Darilan—“ He cut himself off, hating to blame the dead.

  “Trevere. Where is he?”

  “Died in the Palace. In my arms.” A lump rose in his throat, too big to swallow; his eyes stung with freezing tears. “I know we hurt you. There's no excuse, no amends I can make. But they’re both gone, and we don’t have t’do this. Neither of ‘em would want it.”

  “So I should show you mercy for your accomplice’s sake?” sneered Erevard.

  The resistance went out from Cob in one long gust. Nearby, Enkhaelen was perpetrating his usual horrors; elsewhere, the enemy mage would be rallying more troops. None of it was centered on him. If he died, Enkhaelen would just mop up and return to Drakisa to find another pack-animal-with-thumbs—and he was tired of all of this. Tired of running and hiding and having to care, having to drag people along and leave them behind, having to watch the bodies pile up on his backtrail and yet press forward regardless. Having to carry all the burdens no one else wanted, and be responsible for any life but his own.

  They didn't need him, not really. If he collapsed—if he admitted defeat—it would change nothing.

  “Do what y'will,” he managed wearily. “But it's not justice. Not even revenge. It's just spite.”

  A pause, then the soft crunch of snow underfoot. Cob braced himself, still half-blind, Erevard's figure just a lighter patch in the gloom. The black sword rose, hesitated, pulsed with red.

  “You think you're a martyr,” said Erevard roughly.

  “I think you're angry and there's nothin' I can do to fix it. I'm jus' sorry.”

  “You're trying to trick me.”

  Cob lifted his hand and his stub. “What d'you think I can do?”

  “Magic. I saw the snow.”

  Despite himself, he huffed a laugh. His chest felt like it was banded with lead, his shoulders hung with stone slabs—but yes, he still felt the snow and earth. Felt the threat they represented, and the way they drained his tiny reserves as he just sat there, open to them. Deeper down, the Dark awaited. “Not gonna.”

  The black sword lowered. “Why?”

  Exasperation touched him, brushing back the heavy mantle of exhaustion and despair. He'd submitted—surrendered—and now Erevard wanted to talk? Wanted him to justify himself, or beg for his life? With a grunt, he forced himself to his feet, expecting to be stabbed at any moment; it would almost have been welcome, with one leg throbbing with incipient frostbite and the other swiftly chilling to match. But as he reduced his contact with the snow, the drain decreased, and Erevard didn't intervene—just watched, backlit by moonlight.

  “Don't wanna,” Cob managed at last, straightening. “I already killed one friend who was chasin' me. It hurt. If I'd known I'd trigger all this pikin' insanity, I woulda walked into Darilan's blade back at camp.”

  “Easy words. You're still here.”

  “Because I wanted to finish this. Mend what we broke. And I can’t trust him alone.” He gestured vaguely toward the blue blur. The screams had died down over there, making him glad he couldn't see. “It's not for me. I don't care about me.”

  “Then who?”

  “The world. I gotta keep goin'. Fix the sun, save everyone…” The words ran out, too much resentment and failure already burdening them. “Look, if you gotta do this, then do it. If not, jus' go now before he zaps you in the back. Because that's what he's like, and that's why I can't jus' let him run around free. I'm not askin' for forgiveness. Jus'...get out while you can.”

  Backlit, Erevard's face was inscrutable. “She wants his life too.”

  Cob blinked. “What? Who?”

  “She pulled me from the poisoned pit and filled my veins with new blood. Strengthened me through the trials of the swamp and erased my need for the sun.” Redness sparked where his eyes would be, still shadowed by the uplifted faceplate. “She promised me your life and Trevere’s in exchange for the Maker’s. If Trevere is dead, you are all that I can claim.”

  Surprise and confusion gave way to understanding. He had been ridden often enough to know possession when he saw it—and it explained the change in the black blade. “Who, Erevard?” he said cautiously, afraid that if he addressed the power directly, it would take the man over. He no longer had the Guardian’s right to banish it.

  “Loahravi of Frenzy,” said the ruengriin, and at the name his eyes flared bright enough to illuminate his twisted face. Ruddy tracks seeped down from them, painting war-whorls on his cheeks in blood, and his voice thickened, grew rapturous. “She filled the hole the Light left in me. Repaired my soul. She will rejoin me with Jas once you're dead—”

  “That's not true,” said Cob, more afraid now than he'd been on the ground. He held up his hands defensively. “If she’s talkin’ to you, don’t listen. These things that wear us like skins, they don’t do it for our sake. Y’don’t have t’ be her tool. Y’weren’t a bad man—”

  “You don’t know me. You never cared to.”

  “I—”

  “Too late now.”

  “No it’s not, it’s—“ Movement within the blue glow caught his eye and he lurched forward in reflex, not toward Erevard but past him as the ruengriin swung aside with a hiss.

  A stone's throw away, Enkhaelen hesitated, one blazing finger aimed at the pair. At his feet lay the remains of at least five soldiers, withered or lightning-blackened, with more bodies fallen beyond. The energy he had stolen cloaked him now with midnight wings—three pairs, the lowest bright and skeletal, the uppermost barely shadows on the night. Blue-white fire reflected from his eyes, its source the current that ran down his directing arm.

  “Cob,” he called with unsettling calm, “is all well?”

  Cob glanced back at Erevard, whose gaze switched immediately from the necromancer to him. The bluish light clashed with the bloody markings, turning his pocked skin a ghastly grey—but his eyes were abomination-normal again, his brows furrowed just slightly. In his hand, the tainted black sword twitched like a beast on a leash.

  “It's fine,” Cob said, giving Erevard what he hoped was an encouraging smile. The fact that the man hadn't struck for him immediately meant that there was still a chance to get through to him—that there was still something he wanted beside blood, or second thoughts he'd started having. Cob was desperately tired of being party to slaughter, no matter which side he was on.

  Taking a breath, he started, “Erevard, the one you serve, she—“

  “Cob?”

  “—isn't actin' for your benefit. I think she—“

  “Cob Cob Cob...”

  “—set up my girlfriend—“

  “Cob!”

  “Hold on,” he said, wearily annoyed, and turned toward the necromancer. “What? I'm tryin' to fix things! —Pikes, you're the Ravager. You can tell the possessor to go away so we can talk, right? Because of some pact?“

  “Cob,” the necromancer singsonged blithely, drawing curlicues in the air with his blazing finger. “Cob Cob Cobbity Cob...”

  “Stop it! For pike's sake, say what you want, don't jus' squawk at me like some crazy crow! I'm doin' my best here, so could you please—“

  “Cob.”

  That tone—derisive, pitying—pushed him forward in sudden fury. “No! You don't deny me this! I let you light up that pikin' volcano and lay waste to whatever's in your path; the least you could do is help me save my—“

  A sick thrill went up his spine at the same instant the flare left Enkhaelen's fingertip.

  He felt it pass him, baking his skin and searing his lashes even as his eyes clamped shut. There was no sound of impact, just a sizzle in the air—then the scent of ozone, followed immediately by that of smoke and charred meat. Time moved like syrup as he turned, and through the afterimage he saw the body crumple—saw the black sword fall away from its spot by his spine, red light fading from its runes and from the white armor, the grey flesh. Saw the hole where Erevard's face had been.

&nb
sp; His stomach inverted. He managed two steps before hitting the snow and retching.

  Footsteps moved to his side. “Pull yourself together,” the necromancer hissed down at him. “I can't part a god from its follower—and even if I could, he'd still have stabbed you. He was just trying to wring more torment from you first. You're not a savior, Cob. Keep trying to be and you'll get us killed.”

  He couldn't answer—couldn't think of a rejoinder that wouldn't devolve into incoherent shrieks. For a moment, fingers curled against hard ice and black rock, he imagined pulling it up and encasing the necromancer in a tomb he would never escape.

  Instead he coughed, and spat, and pushed himself back from the spoiled snow. Tried to get up, only to have his frozen legs dump him onto his backside.

  “Hold on, I'll feed you some energy in a moment,” said Enkhaelen.

  I don't want it, he tried to say as the footsteps crunched away, but his lips wouldn't move. His teeth were chattering, his slippered foot numb, and the wind through the col froze the sick-sweat to his cheeks. Looking back, he saw the necromancer crouch beside Erevard, one hand on the blade, one on that ruined brow. His wings had tucked back like some massive spine-ridge, the upward light from the skeletal third set turning his face into a shadowy caricature.

  “Don't,” Cob managed.

  The necromancer sighed. “Don't what? Don't touch him? Don't kill him? Too late. I had to make sure the soul was gone. This armor… I suspected it might trap souls, but it seems I was wrong, or else it's too weak with the Light fled. Clever design, but she's pulled him out of it.”

  “You didn't have to—“

  “I can't just let someone kill you. We're not done.”

  “You baited him. You made me turn my back.”

  “Better now than later.”

  “Better never!”

  Enkhaelen turned a cold eye on him, glacier-blue in the rippling glow. His fingers were already extending questing tendrils into the body, lighting its veins from within. “Grudges don't end easy. Some don't end at all. He might have been listening for the moment, but he wouldn't have yielded to you. Couldn't have, with her power in him. Now it's done. Leave your regret here with him and move on.”

  Anger rose again, thick and stubborn. “Take your hands off him,” Cob mumbled. “'M gonna bury him.”

  “Don't be ridiculous.”

  “He deserved better, and I'm not lettin' you desecrate him.”

  “It's not desecration. It's just meat. We agreed on this with Geraad and Darilan.”

  “I don't care.”

  “Stop being difficult. You can't even—“

  “It's not bein' difficult, it's called givin' a shit!” He felt it in his throat again: the briny black rage. It took all his will to focus it on Erevard instead of Enkhaelen, to plant his spirit-hand on the living rock and make it shudder and split along a new seam. To reach outward to where the avalanche threatened and hold it back long enough for the earth to swallow its fallen son.

  He saw Enkhaelen stagger away with the broken sword, saw the body slide into the cleft—but he couldn't feel it go, some remnant of the White Flame armor still active. Either that or it was his own approaching death numbing him to the world, for as he released the stone and started dragging at ice and rock-shards and soil, his vision went grey at the edges. A ringing tone filled his head, weight settling heavier on his shoulders, but he ignored it all and kept going, pulling in more rocks, and more, and more, until it was no longer a cleft but a low cairn hard-sealed to the broken stone, and his breath had ceased to frost in the air.

  Then Enkhaelen gripped him by the back of the neck, sending a rill of heat down his spine. In moments it had permeated every limb and flushed each capillary, waking uncomfortable tingles and thawing the slash across his face. The greyness receding, he sucked in a few harsh breaths, then nearly bit off his tongue as his teeth started chattering. Violent shivers followed, strong enough to make him struggle to get upright.

  “Planning to do that for the rest of the dead?” said Enkhaelen dryly, retracting.

  Stung, Cob looked to the others. He hadn't known them, but he couldn't imagine they were worse than Erevard. They hadn't deserved this fate either.

  But he was too tired, and when he glanced to Enkhaelen, he saw the midnight wings collapse inward, their energies fading down to a protective sheath.

  “I can't. I don't have enough,” he said, and hated himself for it.

  Enkhaelen's lips quirked. “You over him. Him over them. Priorities, Cob. We all must have them. And right now, my priority is making sure you can get us away from here. I'll be collapsing soon.”

  “Drakisa—“

  “Can't do anything for us until we've shaken our pursuit. It's been all of, what—three, four marks since we came in? Clearly they expected us. If we portal out now, they'll just stake out this spot, and your old home, and the village. We'll have to find an entirely new route. No, we press onward now and hope we lose them. Their mage called Sanctuary, which means our time is limited before reinforcements come. I have just enough energy to flash-dry and ward you and then crawl onto that sled. The longer you dither, the more I lose.”

  “You're insane.”

  Enkhaelen barked a laugh. “You knew this when we started.”

  Cob wanted to keep arguing, keep resisting, as if it was the only way to preserve his identity against Enkhaelen's overriding will. But he was too torn up inside to find the words, and Howling Spire was still far, far away. His obligation was real. If they failed to replace the Seals, then all these deaths would be in vain.

  So he let Enkhaelen stitch up his cheek and feed him energy, and used it to locate his boot and snowshoes, his staff, their gear. The necromancer ran his hands over everything until it steamed dry, Cob's clothes included; to his irritation, it felt kind of nice, like a stint in a sweat lodge. He could see on Enkhaelen's face that it took a lot out of him, but when he tried to protest, the necromancer raised the black sword. The red had gone from it entirely.

  “Energy supply,” he said, then clasped one hand on the broken portion and one on the hilt and twisted. Dark radiance throbbed desperately between his fingers—then the blade snapped with a sound of splintering bone, a spill of soot falling from it to shape a kneeling figure. The wind took it away as blue-black static raced over Enkhaelen's hands and up his sleeves; in moments, the whole weapon had been reduced to char. He dropped it, dusted his hands off, then reached out to touch Cob's parka and reengage the wards.

  “Thanks,” Cob mumbled. Enkhaelen smiled.

  A figure moved out from the tree-shadows beyond the necromancer.

  “Hoi,” Cob rasped, then grabbed Enkhaelen's arm before he could go for the kill. By the moon's full radiance, their visitor was painfully clear: a Kerrindrixi girl, younger than Cob, one sleeve of her pullover drawn back to show her black bracer.

  “Maker?” she called, voice quavering. “Maker, why did the Light leave us? Will it come back?”

  Enkhaelen stiffened, then exhaled and yanked his arm from Cob's grip. His face was strange as he stared at her: cold, distant. “We chose the wrong Light to serve. We're trying to bring the right one back. Run away if you'd live to see it.”

  “I can help you, Maker.”

  “Not likely.”

  “Please,” she said, stepping closer. Her dark eyes were huge in a face already weathered by cold and wind, her bared wrist wrapped with the traditional bone charms. Just the sight of them made Cob's chest ache. She looked so real, even though he knew she was the same as Darilan—a bodythief, an abomination. A murderer wearing the skin of its victim.

  “I just killed all of your friends,” sneered Enkhaelen.

  She glanced to the bodies, then back. “They shouldn't have attacked. You're my Maker. With the Light gone, I owe my allegiance to you. Please, I want to see it again. I don't care about the army. They sent me here, of all places.”

  Enkhaelen gave Cob an inscrutable sidelong glance, then looked back. “Your name
?”

  “Kina.”

  “You know this area?”

  “I— This vessel was born here.”

  Cob grimaced, but the necromancer simply gestured onward. “You'll lead us to shelter then. And to Howling Spire, once we've rested.”

  The girl nodded vigorously. “I know all the paths to its base, the ones the Imperials can't use. They can be treacherous in this season, but for you, Maker—“

  “Go on then.”

  She nodded again and immediately took a point position, then turned to watch them raptly. From the corner of his mouth, Cob murmured, “And you say my ideas are bad.”

  Enkhaelen glanced up at him. “You'd rather I kill her?”

  “No, but...”

  “I don't like having a cult either, and I certainly don't trust it, but we might as well make use of it. We needed a guide anyway.”

  Cob sighed, but could find no argument.

  *****

  They struck off shortly thereafter, Enkhaelen bundled up on the sled and already sleeping, Cob with the tow-ropes lashed around his waist to keep his hand free. He'd passed their second set of snowshoes off to Kina, who took them cautiously, neither meeting his eyes nor quite looking away from him.

  He didn't like her. Not just because she was masquerading as one of his people, or because she'd claimed some loyalty to Enkhaelen, but because she brought up too many memories—of Darilan, Dasira, his own mother.

  It didn't help that once Enkhaelen had bedded down, she'd switched from a midland Imperial accent to a Kerrindrixi one like his own. With her bracer covered and her scarf and eye-guard on, she could have been any High Country woman. It made him wonder how many abominations lived in these lands.

  “Four marks on from here t' the next village,” she told him, pointing into the moonlit distance. “Past the Zo Lin Vaeru.”

  “The what?”

  Her eye-guard rose slightly, the slits seeking his gaze, then dropped. “Zo Lin Vaeru, the Old Man's Brow. The formation there.” She pointed again, and he squinted until he saw a cliff that dimly resembled a weathered forehead and sloping nose. “Zo Lin Vaede is beyond—Old Man's Village. You don't speak Kiri Va?”