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

by H. Anthe Davis

'She's somewhere dark, and she's scared, but I can't tell anything more. Sorry.'

  “That's fine. If she's in the wreckage—“ She tilted her head, listening to the hiss of the eiyets. “The wraiths have quit with the crush-wards. Not sure what they're doing now. Watch out over there.”

  Houndmaster-Lieutenant Vrallek cut in. ''We're holding our alleyway. Too much light just now, so we can't get out yet. Got ruengriin on both ends like you said, sir, but with your permission I'll send my hounds into the mob to do some damage, and send some men up the walls to help shoot.'

  'Granted. Do your best.'

  'Rather do my worst, heh heh.'

  'Voorkei has a scry open with Drakisa Snowfoot,' Zeli reported. 'I can't tell what they're saying but hopefully we'll have some help soon.'

  'We need that teleport-block,' sent Sarovy. 'As long as the city is open, they can make portals wherever they can fly to.'

  Ardent glanced from Magus Presh, who was wringing his hands next to Linciard and his crew, to Scryer Mako and Magus Lahngi being tended to by the medics. “Can't even get started on it until Drakisa sends aid,” she said. “How many does it need, six? We're down to three with the right training, and one of them is over there with you.”

  'Can't spare her,' sent Vrallek. 'Her flying knives are all that's keeping the wraiths off our faces.'

  “My agents will get aid to you shortly.” She repeated the plan to the eiyets, though in simpler terms, and hoped it would be translated properly; she couldn't duck into the Shadow Realm lest she lose the earhook link. For the first time since this mission started, she wished she had an Overseer at hand—someone she could pass authority to while she drew her kukri and dove into the fray. She'd never been this distant from the action.

  You can't fight these things, she told herself. You saw how even the little ones tore into the soldiers; what in the name of the Dark do you think you could do?

  But it was one thing to know that, quite another to be unable to try.

  'Thank you, Enforcer,' came the captain's response, which made her role hurt worse. She didn't want to be stuck here like a glorified dispatcher, organizing the resistance while others carried it out. She wanted to be over there.

  With him.

  Stop, she told herself. No matter their connection, they were both professionals. She had never set aside her duty for the sake of another, and to judge it, neither had he. It didn't matter that she wanted to guard him from the shadow-side; her work was here, watching over the people she'd been sent to Bahlaer to protect. The normal citizens who clustered Rakut Center with makeshift weapons held tight, the dust-coated Shadow Folk bringing survivors in from the crush, the Trifolder women and girls in their rarely-used armor, their new swords and mauls.

  “Ready for transport,” she heard Lieutenant Linciard tell Ticuo, heard Lieutenant Sengith confirm it to Zhahri.

  “Take them where they need to go,” she told her agents, and watched jealously as they disappeared into the shadows.

  To the eiyets, she said, “Find Lark.”

  *****

  Lark had put all her will and strength into the wards and drained every drop she could take from the crystal. On her skin, Vallindas' presence had ceased to fizz, the purple-gold light reduced to a mere glimmer. The wards shone like bronze in the sun, but only when she pushed at them; when she tried to catch her breath, they ebbed low like dying embers.

  Beyond them, all else was rubble.

  She and Maevor lay at an incline, the ward-pyramid having come to rest on a tilted slab that had once been a floor. This put uncomfortable pressure on the upward face of the ward—more than it was supposed to bear, forcing her to divert energy to it from the other panes. If she lost that one, the chunks of stone and concrete that loomed in the rusty light would complete their collapse, and it would all be over.

  Only the effort of maintaining the wards kept her lucid. Panic rattled in the back of her mind, clawing insistently at her control, and bad memories swarmed her—of Rian, of her nightmares, of her abandonment by the Shadows. Maevor lay half-sprawled across her lap, one arm on either side of her, head bowed, shoulders shuddering. Though she was glad he was alive, he was no help here. Just another person she'd tried to protect but couldn't.

  They had this little pocket of air, but already it had thinned. At least the wards kept it clear; she could feel dust and crushed stone tickling constantly down the outside of the panes, ready to engulf them. Soon they would suffocate, or be crushed, or…

  No. Won't happen. I'll come up with something.

  She just couldn't think of what yet. The spirit realm was beyond her reach, the Grey beyond her strength. She'd said her Shadow prayers a dozen times before choosing to save her breath; clearly they wouldn't come. She couldn't scry, couldn't make any kind of portal, and her sense of Mako was muted and wordless, the gestalt just a faint hum of far-off life. It was only a matter of time before the wards ran out.

  “Maevor?” she whispered, feeling weirdly hesitant about disturbing him. Perhaps it was their closeness in this confined space, an echo of that nightmare of her uncle—the one where he crawled out from the opening in the tunnel and assaulted her. Perhaps it was just fear of confirming his helplessness, of verifying that they had no way out.

  He didn't answer, so she lifted her knee a little to nudge him in the chest. “Maevor, wake up, we need to figure out—“

  His head jerked, and she shut her mouth, because there was something wrong with that motion. Something artificial—external—like an invisible hand had grabbed him by the skull and pulled.

  “Maevor?” she repeated.

  His body went still, the last shudder draining out of it. Then, with slow deliberateness, he planted his palms on the slab and raised his head.

  In the rusty light, his eyes gleamed like ink-spots, completely black. His jaw hung slack, more blackness dripping from his lips, and when he exhaled it was with the scent and sound of the sea. She hissed in recognition, having seen it in Cob at Hlacaasteia: true Dark possession.

  Immediately she rammed her knee into his breastbone, forcing a burst of black water from his mouth. It beaded on her robe then flowed upward even as he fell back, droplets joining into an ebon worm that wriggled toward her face. She swiped at it in disgust, but instead of being brushed off, it stuck to her hand and started coiling up her arm.

  Maevor lurched for her again, ungainly as a puppet with twisted strings, and she kicked him with a strength born of panic. He made no attempt to balance himself on the incline, just toppled away—

  And slammed into the lowest ward-pane, sending fractures across its embered surface. The ward's energies automatically surged that way to mend the damage, and she had to wrench hard to bring them back under control. Above, the stones creaked menacingly. If the topmost pane failed—

  A chill ran up her arm. She slapped at it through her sleeve, to no avail; the black worm slipped through the arm-hole and crossed her chest, still angling toward her face.

  Just as it peeked up from her collar, a sheet of clear water slid from behind her other shoulder and engulfed it. The black worm sprouted thorny growths, and for a moment she feared it would tear Ripple apart—but then those blurred and dissolved like smoke, followed by the whole of its body. Triumphant, Ripple arched over her neckline and sped down her robe to sweep up the remaining black droplets before they could spring toward her face.

  “Thanks,” she gasped, then looked to Maevor. He was trying to get up, but awkwardly: clawing one-handed at the slab while the other arm twitched and spasmed. Blackness painted his chin and wept from the corners of his eyes, the oceanic stink of Darkness filling their tiny shelter.

  Her gaze fixed on that twitching arm—the left, where his bracer would be. “Maevor!” she called. “I know you're in there! Whatever's going on, you can fight it! Take back that body, push the Dark away! You've lived through so many changes, you can survive this one too. It doesn't matter if the Light's gone, if the Shadows have pushed you away—they jus
t don't know you yet. We'll find a place for you. It's not over.”

  What came from his mouth had no translation, no meaning beyond the guttural gurgling sound of it. The laughter of a drowning man, submerged beyond recovery, burbling brine in place of air and mocking her little speech—mocking all the hopes she'd had, for escape and knowledge and control of her kai, for survival itself.

  Her face clenched. No one laughed at her like that.

  When it surged forward again, she slammed her boot into its head.

  It lost its grip, tumbled, and smashed through the lower pane to splash down in a tide of black water. Cracks propagated through both side-panes, bright orange against the dying spell. She cursed herself and pushed all she could into the topmost pane, trying to hold it in place even as the others crumbled. Her vision greyed at the edges, everything going to glitter and noise.

  Something dropped into her lap, then started scuttling upward. She felt Ripple flow after it but couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't smell anything but the thick brine. The weight of the roof came down on her shoulders and she couldn't bear it, had nothing left to give.

  The spell failed. The rocks came down.

  Then tiny hands gripped her from behind, where the stone slab had been, and she was falling, falling—

  Caught by human arms, the world around her a seething mass of eyes and teeth and furious hissing. Eiyets, she registered dimly as she was pulled free of them. I'm in the umbral wall.

  She tried to get her feet beneath her but her rescuers wouldn't let her. They half-dragged half-carried her through the dark membrane and onto the white filament path beyond, and she blinked in the smoky umber air, disoriented. Under her robe, some multi-legged thing was creeping down her arm, Ripple now ignoring it, and—

  She realized its identity and almost thrust that arm back into the umbral wall. The eiyets would find it, tear it apart, and she would be free of him. Safe again.

  But she couldn't. She'd confronted him, confused him, made him run off with her. Dragged him here, when he'd wanted little more than to collapse with the Palace. She was responsible for him—not just for what he'd done but for what had happened to him—and she wouldn't discard him now. Not after he'd just jettisoned his Dark-possessed body.

  That wasn't even supposed to happen unless the victim let the Dark in. For it to possess a creation of the Light, apparently against its will…

  The bracer settled itself at her wrist, and she grimaced in anticipation of its piercing barbs. Instead she felt them fold inward, just lumps against her skin, as the whole entity latched on like a clinging hand.

  “You all right?” said the Shadow agent holding her up. “We've got to get back to the boss. Bad shit is happening and we need the goblins.”

  “Yes,” she murmured, then shook herself and said more firmly, “Yes. Let's go.”

  *****

  As promised, seven Tasgard horses awaited Linciard and his lancers as they crossed over from the Shadow Realm. Several men exclaimed and moved to their mounts immediately, the horses snorting their own greetings to their long-lost riders; Linciard just looked them over, waiting for the others to pick. His Vada had died on Old Crown and he wasn't ready to replace her.

  'In position on the next roof, firing on the crowd,' came Lieutenant Sengith's voice through the earhook. 'Not seeing much effect yet.'

  'They might not feel it, but hopefully that salve will hurt them.' Enforcer Ardent.

  'Yeah, I see the Trifolders coming out across the way. Hope they know what they're doing. Wraiths have spotted us all, so there's no Shadow escape now.'

  “Lancers mounting up,” Linciard reported as the last horse was led to him. It was an older stallion, hard-eyed, and barely huffed at his offered hand. He swung up into the saddle with the same scarred indifference and took up the reins. “Just tell us when to go. —And where,” he added aside to the Shadow agents with them. “How far are we from the fight, and which way to the bridge?”

  “This is the Sandcastle,” said the woman who'd brought him the horse. She was loading a crossbow, and to his surprise offered it to him once the bolt was set. “Go out the gate then straight on and you should come to the garrison-house and the mob. Stormline Bridge is down the big road to the left just past that; if you can't get by, you'll have to come back here and take Pebble Road to Pebble Bridge. We'll be out there to direct you if so.”

  Linciard looked around quickly, frowning. This didn't look like a castle, sand- or otherwise: just a communal garden and some livestock sheds in the center of a circle of apartment buildings. Only the heavy brickwork and the barred gates at the four cardinal points gave it any appearance of fortification.

  “It's just a name,” said the woman as if catching his thought. “We won't be defending it, so if things go bad, don't try to come back here. Ride further south, cross the river and head east for Rakut.”

  He wanted to protest about rescuing his trapped comrades, but knew it was pointless. Instead he accepted the crossbow and waved off the offered pack of bolts. He couldn't reload on horseback, not with his fingers as they were. The others took theirs with some complaints about their lost horse-bows; the Shadow Folk only shrugged.

  He ran down the plan again once his men reined in close. These were his best riders: Sergeant Kenner, the Jernizen including Stormfollower, and Lilliart, a fellow Wynd. All long-familiar or well-attuned to horses; all comrades from before Blaze Company was formed, back when they'd served together under Captain Terrant.

  Too many of the old crew were gone now, but looking around at these men by the rusty light of the Shadows' lamps, he couldn't help thinking how many he still had to lose. No rousing speech rose to his lips; he hadn't the heart for it.

  “All ready?” he asked instead.

  Every man affirmed it. They were soldiers. This was why they were here.

  'We've got Lark back, and contact with the goblins,' came Enforcer Ardent's report. ''Stormline Bridge was already rigged but we need to get operators out to it. I'll keep you informed.'

  “Moving in to get eyes on the enemy,” Linciard responded, then signaled his men to follow. Turning his new horse toward the opening gate, he led the way out.

  The Shadows' lamps receded in his wake, leaving starlit streets ahead. Beneath him, his horse stepped with confidence but he could tell it was nervous, those tawny ears turning every which way.

  They set off at a trot, hooves and paws clattering sharply on the brick pavings. That was fine; they weren't trying to be stealthy. To their right, more communal housing rose in dense clusters, windows shuttered above locked-up storefronts or tiny walled-in gardens. Beady black eyes stared out from the faces in the decorative mosaics—the sign of the nearby Shadowland.

  To the left were warehouses, carriage yards and the steep slope down to the river. Linciard couldn't see it from here, not with the walls in the way, but on the other side of it the city center rose dark in the night, the ruins of Old Crown like jagged teeth against the stars.

  The road ahead of them sloped as well, but not as precipitously. Still, it would be rough if they had to ride back up, especially if the monstrosities took to it better than the horses did. At least it was wide: plenty of room to maneuver, and a chance to pull the maximum number of monsters away from the others.

  They had just reached the base of the decline when he spotted the garrison house and the glow beyond it. Sounds of conflict followed: muffled roars and shrieks and the thunder of spell-battle, a far cry from the clash of arms he was used to. Though the fight seemed concentrated on the far side of the building, he could see by the spillover of arcane light that the garrison gates stood wide, great shadowy things lumbering out from it to join the fray.

  “Lancers in position,” he told the earhook, taking his crew down to a walk. They were still a good distance from the garrison, and if anything there had seen them, it didn't react. He couldn't guess the creatures' speed, though, so judged it too dangerous to try to lure the enemy back the way they'd come
; their best bet was to ride by, loose their bolts at the mob down that side-street battleground, then keep going toward Stormline Bridge.

  He relayed that to earhook and crew and received a 'bridges ready' confirmation from Enforcer Ardent. A last check of the men, then he signaled the ride-out, nudging his horse into the lead.

  At first, they cut close to the leftward buildings to keep from peeling away the creatures by the garrison gate, but once they'd reached the intersection, Linciard turned them toward the main mob. The brightness of the occupied street made him squint—then flinch as a flaring bolt cut a line through the night.

  It struck a wraith on the garrison wall, lighting up its crystal substance and making its white robe seethe with smoke. Below, the street was filled with monsters, jostling and screeching and climbing on each other in their eagerness to reach— He couldn't tell what. His fellow Blazes were in there somewhere, but there was too much tormented flesh in the way, too many dragging entrails and mangy-furred backs, slavering maws and maddened eyes.

  Steeling himself, he rode toward it. Twenty yards distant, ten, five—and then the entire first rank turned toward him, a panorama of horrors. He completely forgot his crossbow, just hauled the reins and jammed his heels into his horse's sides as it turned about.

  The horse was in complete agreement, taking off like a bowshot. A slow tide of monsters followed; a backward glance showed them crushing against each other in their eagerness to chase, the Jernizen skimming by with their war-whoops and steadier crossbow shots. More bolts hissed down from above, and Linciard glimpsed the shapes of Shadow agents and Sengith's archers ducking away from arcane retaliation.

  Another glance showed him the wraith on the wall rising up from it, preparing to pursue. Then a steel spider the size of a horse hit it from behind, driving it down into the chaos of teeth and limbs, and Linciard focused his attention on their pursuit.

  There was a lot of it: a boiling wave of human debris being pushed after them relentlessly. None of the monsters were particularly fast; one, many-legged and headless, managed a kind of lopsided jog, while others clambered over their slower fellows or clung to the faster to affect a quick-march pace. Against the wishes of both his heart and stomach, he reined in somewhat; the others were doing the same, reloading their crossbows at a trot.