by Alex Raizman
Tythel held up a finger to forestall any response. As she had expected, the moment she sat up, the sounds of footsteps started pounding on the ground – headed towards them. Tythel sat up and held out her hand for her hammer and shield. “They’re coming,” she said.
Five foes of unknown strength, charging the three of them. Eupheme vanished into the shadows, and Tellias and Tythel readied their weapons.
Then, pausing for a moment, Tythel placed her hammer on the ground and rubbed at her eye. She might die here, but she’d be forsaken by Light and Shadow both if she’d die with that flathing itch in her eye.
Satisfied, she grabbed her hammer just as the Writ Hunters burst into view.
They didn’t approach like soldiers. They didn’t start with a single barrage of unlight fire designed to cut them down. Instead, uncoordinated beams lancing through the air and cutting swaths of darkness across the woods. Tythel dropped behind her shield and let the beams ricochet off it. Eupheme ducked into the shadow of one of the trees and vanished. And Tellias just stood there, letting the arcplate absorb the beams, an implacable force against the attack.
Just as Tythel was thinking this was going to be too easy, two of them broke out of cover, weapons raised and charging, a howling fury darkened by unlight weapons. They were the two with the ringwands, and when they fired, expanding circles of unlight sliced through branches and shrubs in their path.
Tythel could feel the impact all the way up her arm as one impacted her shield, grunting against the sudden force. She dug her talons into the forest floor before she went skidding away. Tellias took a ring to his chest and was sent tumbling backward. Tythel could hear him cursing in the armor as the dry leaves crunched under his bulk.
I can’t use flame in here, Tythel realized. She gritted her teeth and charged towards one of the shooters. The man fired a couple more rings, each one striking her shield and slowing her for a moment, but her advance was inexorable. He cursed and drew an unlight blade, just in time to block her hammer strike.
The shockwave of the hammers detonation against the shield drove the man to one knee and sent branches snapping nearby. The man’s eyes widened, and he slashed at her with the sword, a frantic, desperate motion. Tythel caught it with the edge of her shield, inches away from her stomach.
He was so focused on her, the writ hunter didn’t see Eupheme step out of his shadow. He didn’t know she was there until her dagger drew a thin line across his throat.
Eupheme was gone before the Writ-Hunter hit the ground.
The three who were still firing from range had been focusing their fire on Tellias, but when their compatriot collapsed, Tythel could hear angry curses. It gave her enough time to bring her shield back up before they could perforate her.
She dropped to one knee, making sure the shield completely covered her body and braced herself as the impacts struck her shield over and over again. The unlight crystal in the back of her shield was drawing in a higher amount of light as it strained to compensate for the repeated impacts.
She was pinned.
Tellias had engaged the ringwand wielder. He didn’t throw his weapon aside as the first one had, instead dropping to one knee under Tellias’ wide strike, shooting an upward blast into Tellias’s chest. That close, the ringwand had enough force to lift him armor up into the air from the impact. He landed on his back, and the attacker stepped over him, ready to shoot him in the chest again.
Then Eupheme stepped out of the shadows and ran the shooter through with a dagger into his back.
The shooters in the brushes were beginning to panic, firing wildly at any movement they could see. “Run!” Tythel shouted. “Run and live!”
All she managed to do was focus their fire back on her. That…suited her purposes perfectly. With the pressure off them, Eupheme and Tellias were able to dispatch the remaining three with relative ease.
The forest was oddly silent in the wake of the short battle. No animal stirred in the wake.
“That was too easy,” Eupheme said, stepping out of a tree behind Tythel.
“Agreed,” Tellias said, walking back their way with the unlight weapons slung over his shoulder. “They might have been arrogant, but that arrogant? I find it hard to countenance.”
“Because they were betrayed,” Tythel said, blinking in thought.
The other two looked at her. Before she could elaborate, Eupheme reached up and smacked her forehead with the palm of her head. “Right, of course. There were five of them.”
“And the sixth never showed,” Tythel said, “which means they were probably counting on him to assist in taking us down – they were arrogant because they had a trump card they thought ensured victory.”
“Someone who could enable them to watch us from afar,” Tellias said, arriving at the same conclusion as Tythel. “You think they had a Lumcaster.”
Tythel nodded. “A powerful one, someone able to bend light to watch us.”
Eupheme vanished into a shadow of the tree without warning. Tythel looked at Tellias, and then stepped behind him, pressing her back to his, her shield raised. I should have thought there might be an attack coming, Tythel thought, cursing herself for the oversight.
Eupheme reappeared a moment later. “He’s gone,” she said. “At least, he’s not with their camp.”
“A single Lumcaster couldn’t fight the three of us alone,” Tellias said as the tension began to drain out of his posture. Tythel was amazed she could feel it through the armor, but he’d been wound tighter than a clock spring. “We’re safe.”
“So…why didn’t he strike?” Tythel asked, stepping away from Tellias so she could see both him and Eupheme. “If he had come with the others…” Tythel didn’t need to finish the thought. A lumcaster could have hampered her, banished the shadows Eupheme relied upon, even restrained Tellias’ armor. It would have completely changed the slaughter they’d just perpetrated against their attackers.
“Do you hear him, Tythel?” Eupheme asked.
Tythel held up a finger to pause the conversation and listen. She could hear in the distance animals that hadn’t been frightened by the fight. She could hear the rustle of leaves on the winds. She could hear heartbeats, but none that sounded human. And she could hear a buzzing on the air, like the wings of a great wasp.
Oh no, Tythel thought, her eyes widening. “They’re here!” Tythel shouted, scrambling for the cover of one of the trees. “The flying Alohym is here!”
Eupheme and Tellias leaped for cover as a great beam of unlight lanced out of the sky and carved a furrow in the earth directly towards where Tythel hid.
Chapter 28
Tythel threw herself to the side as the unlight beam approached and covered her head with her shield as the beam stopped tearing through the forest floor and struck the tree that had briefly been covering her.
That saved her. The unlight hit the tree and, for a moment, it sucked in all light that was hitting its branches, creating a massive circle of darkness around herself and its trunk.
Then it exploded, sending unlight-infused splinters spiraling through the air, a hail of deadly shrapnel that could have punched through her scaled hide. She could feel a couple pieces stick into her arms and tore them out with hisses of pain. The idea of having to endure unlight poisoning again was motivation enough to overcome the sharp stinging sensation.
“Move!” Tellias hissed, and Tythel realized she was exposed. She got up and ran, moments before a beam of unlight impacted the forest floor she’d just vacated. This time, it wasn’t a sweeping beam. It drilled into the ground, sending chunks of earth and stone flying away, and unlight corruption began to seep into the leaves and trees.
Tellias opened fire with one of the arcwands, beams of crimson light lancing up towards where the attacker was. The beam shifted in direction and angle as the flying Alohym twisted away from the incoming fire. “Die you monster!” the human inside the flying Alohym-suit screamed, still propelling unlight into the spot Tythel had vacated.
Tythel didn’t want to dissuade him of the notion that he’d managed to strike her. She began to scrabble up a nearby tree with her talons. Get above the tree line and burn him while he’s distracted, Tythel thought to herself. No time to focus on the energy needed for ghostflame. If she hit him hard enough, she might be able to ground him, and once that happened…then they’d at least be on a more even playing field.
She reached the top of the tree before the man inside was finished firing. He was every bit as imposing at Tythel remembered. Easily as tall as Tellias in the armor, but slender and graceful with an unnatural grace. The huge thorax that emerged from behind his legs was shrinking as he maintained the beam of unlight, and Tythel could hear his breathing, ragged with every second.
Ragged and…sniffling. He was crying. The man inside the Alohym skin was crying as he fired into the ground, thinking he was killing Tythel.
Pushing her confusion aside, Tythel took a deep breath and let out a torrent of dragonflame.
It was perfect. The flying Alohym didn’t see it coming. It streaked towards his back, completely unaware, and Tythel braced herself to leap as soon as he fell.
The fire struck a golden barrier before it could hit the flying man, flaring outwards from the impact a good span away from the Alohym’s back.
Oh, right, Tythel thought, looking around wildly. The lumcaster. He was there, in a nearby tree, and waved his fingers when he saw Tythel looking. “Careful, Catheon,” the lumcaster said. He was speaking quietly enough that he likely didn’t believe that Tythel could hear him.
At least she had a name for the man in the flying Alohym suit. Catheon.
Tythel leapt from the tree and latched onto another one. She began to run through the branches, using the skills she’d honed long ago in Karjon’s valley with her new strength and talons for better grip. The lumcaster’s eyes widened as Tythel drew near, brachiating like an ape to close the distance. He leapt out of the tree and began to channel a barrier of golden light.
Tythel landed and heard Eupheme appear behind her. Good, that means I don’t have to worry about my back. Tythel prepared herself to smash her unlight hammer against the lumcaster’s barrier – when it occurred to her that Eupheme’s footsteps sounded wrong. Too heavy, too quick.
She turned just in time to prevent the woman behind her from ramming a spear through her heart. It glanced off Tythel’s ribcage instead, drawing a line of blood. Tythel hit the ground and rolled away from her attack. It wasn’t Eupheme. She was too tall, wrapped head-to-toe in black fabric, and carried a spear that glowed with unlight.
Some other umbrist had joined the fight. An umbrist on the side of the Alohym.
Tythel took a deep breath, fighting aside the pain as best she could. The Umbrist was every bit as fast as Eupheme, and Tythel found herself leaping back repeatedly to avoid getting impaled.
The real Eupheme had appeared behind the Lumcaster. He’d managed to create a collar of light around himself to prevent Eupheme from slitting his throat from behind and had banished all shadows around him. He was now engaged in a swordfight with Eupheme, who was forced to only rely on her speed and skills. In that, at least, the Lumcaster seemed to equally match her.
A beam of unlight streaked from the sky again. This time it slammed into Tellias, driving him to one knee. Catheon – didn’t maintain the beam this time. Tythel prayed he couldn’t, or they were damned.
She caught the head of the new umbrist’s spear on her shield and reminded herself they might be damned either way.
They needed a plan, desperately. They were out maneuvered, out armed, and running short on time. Tythel couldn’t even use her greatest weapon here, not without…
A horrible, dangerous, and beautiful plan occurred to Tythel. She took a deep breath between the umbrist’s strike and let loose a stream of flame. The umbrist ducked into the shadow of a tree and vanished, reappearing on the other side of Tythel, but Tythel wasn’t aiming for her. Tythel spun around, maintaining the flame as she did.
The flame nearly caught the Umbrist mid-leap. She twisted her body in the air, the flames just barely missing her, and the daggers that had been aimed for Tythel’s back went wide. She landed with a curse and rolled to the side, and Tythel chased her with the flame. “You’re going to burn us all!” she shouted at Tythel.
No. I won’t, Tythel thought grimly as she maintained the stream of fire and pivoted in a full circle.
Around her, the forest burst into flame.
The new Umbrist leapt back from the expanding circle of fire that surrounded Tythel. The woman considered the flame for a moment. “You are touched in the head,” she said after a moment’s consideration of Tythel’s predicament.
Tythel smiled, collapsed her hammer and shield, and stepped into the inferno that raged around her.
Everything she owned had been treated by Karjon to protect it from flame. A dragon did not keep possessions long without those protections. She was grateful for that – it protected her garments and even the fragile notebooks within her pack. Heat intense enough to sear a human to the bone was comfortable against her scaled hide. She could feel the metal of the hammer and shield growing hot against her back, and reminded herself that this slow, menacing walk had to have an end time.
“The princess just killed herself,” the Umbrist said into a songstone. “I think we’re flathing shadow she’s alive!”
Tythel came roaring out of the fire, her talons outstretched. The Umbrist fell backwards, and Tythel’s claws only raked across her arms. The Umbrist turned the awkward stumble into a roll, taking herself into the safe shadows of a nearby tree and vanishing.
Tythel whirled, slashing behind herself and downward. The Umbrist was coming up from the shadow, and Tythel’s talons drew lines of blood across her face and torn off the ebon mask she was wearing.
Tythel recognized the woman. The Writ Hunter from the tavern, the one who had seemed to command the others – and the one that Eupheme had seemed so disturbed by. She looked exactly as Tythel remembered her, although with several more bloody lines in her face than she had before.
The Umbrist dove away. The flames had progressed enough that Tythel no longer cast a shadow behind herself, and the woman was caught out in the open. She was still quick as a snake, but Tythel did not need to fear the flames that were penning them in.
Above the treeline, Tythel heard a sudden curse, followed by hacking coughs. The wind had carried the smoke to the lumcaster, it seemed. “Eupheme! Meet at the rendezvous!”
She didn’t know if Eupheme heard her. She didn’t know if Eupheme would listen. Deepest shadow, she might be furious with me for trying to send her away. Tythel brushed the thought away. This was different. Eupheme had a choice this time. Sure, and she could have come out from behind the rocks last time, and she didn’t because it was too dangerous. But that didn’t stop her from being furious with you. Just like she will be for this trick.
Tythel growled at her own internal monologue. The wind was spreading the flames, and she added to the torrent.
A thick cloud of smoke rose up, obscuring the ground. She could still hear Catheon buzzing up there in the smoke, but he didn’t come any lower – and his unlight beams had ceased for the time.
The Umbrist was gone. Tythel was certain of that, at least. A blazing forest would be a poor battlefield for a woman who relied on shadows for fighting. Just like Eupheme…are you certain you haven’t burned her too?
It was too late to undo it. Tythel forced the thought down, as she had already, and hoped she’d be able to keep that away for a bit longer.
Tellias was coughing in his armor. The repeated blows from Catheon had cracked his breastplate and driven him to the forest floor. Smoke was gathering around him, and the armor was beginning to glow with heat. Tythel rushed forward and scooped him up in her arms, grunting at the exertion. This armor was heavy. Far heavier than Tythel remembered it – although when they’d been carrying it before, they’d expelled the arcc
ell. And he was storing the weapons they’d purchased.
