“If you can make jokes, then—Ah, Silver Wind, no.”
Wreathed in sickly fire, Thyran rose into the air from behind the pile of corpses that had been his creation. He glanced at Olvir as he hovered there and grimaced, but a jewel in his crown flared and he seemed to take no more hurt from that moment of contact. “You,” he said, with a wave of his hand, “are a problem for later. But you, var Faina—”
He turned his attention to Amris. “Mongrel filth.” Thyran’s lips drew back too far, exposing dark-gray teeth as long and pointed as those of his creatures. “I hope you think your insolence was worth its price.”
He lifted both flaming hands.
* * *
Darya was too far away.
The twistedmen had started retreating. Her path to Amris was clear, and she was pretty sure no son of a bitch would stand in her way, not just then. Simple distance was the problem—there was too much for even her reforged body to cover.
Given that, it was damned mean of chance to give her a clear view of Amris, leaning helpless against Olvir, who was wavering on his feet and had blood pouring from his eyes, and Thyran rising up in front of them with awful power crackling around him. Olvir feebly raised his sword, a well-crafted sharp bit of metal with no magic about it at all, and Thyran’s hideous smile twitched. Katrine had turned from the twistedmen, but, like Darya, she was too far from Thyran.
Darya ran toward them, knowing she’d be too late, eating up the ground in half-leaping strides that left her thighs burning and a sharp pain down her side. As she passed over the blood-slick dirt, she had time enough to find reasons. The first blow might not kill them both; maybe she could stab Thyran while he was distracted. He might run amok with Amris and Olvir down, instead of retreating like a reasonable person, and somebody needed to try and stop that.
None of them were the real reason. If she’d had breath to scream, she would have been shrieking denial at the top of her lungs.
Gray-orange flame flowed like water from both of Thyran’s outstretched hands, right toward Amris and Olvir.
A summer cloudburst of magic washed through Darya and outward. It took her strength with it, and she stumbled over the uneven ground on suddenly liquid-feeling bones, but she saw green radiance flicker around the two men and was glad and sorry at the same time—sorry, because she saw how faint it was, and knew it would make very little difference.
Then, as Gizath’s power met Gerant’s shield and began to tear through it as though it were wet paper, strands of violet-blue wove themselves into the green radiance. Lighter blue joined that in the blink of an eye, and Darya’s skin tingled with the heat of a smith’s forge, then the red of hearts’ blood and the smooth feel of worked wood, and finally a pale silver and a cool spring breeze. Each wove itself into the rest, bolstering the places where Thyran’s twisted flame had done damage.
When all were there, Darya felt the combined power rise. It surrounded the corrupting force coming from Thyran—even at a distance, and not a mage, she felt the hunger and the hate within the flame, squirming like maggots in a corpse—and, as a child might have done with a ball, threw it back at its source.
* * *
Surprise that he wasn’t yet dead, and wonder at the magic he dimly sensed around him, quickly took lower priority for Amris. When Thyran’s spell rebounded upon him, deserving as he was, nobody could have viewed the results with anything but horror.
The former Lord of Heliodar had flung up a ringed hand to guard himself, and he managed to shield one side of his face, but the hand itself rippled and changed. Fingers melded, grew, and blended with his bone rings, so he ended with a spatulate mass, raw flesh grown around three concentric circles of bone and blackened gems.
On the side he didn’t shield, the bone crown likewise became part of his face, melting and growing so it covered the eye entirely. The cheek below that eye sunk in, forming a ragged hole through which all of his teeth and a large part of his jawbone could be seen, and his lips sheared away, leaving everything below his nose a spiked maw.
He screamed, and went on screaming, but he didn’t die.
Above the screams, Amris heard, from outside Oakford’s walls, the sound of horns and horses: the army of Criwath, come at last.
“Take him,” he croaked at Olvir. “Now. Leave me—”
With a pained look, Olvir obeyed. Amris slumped to the ground, and Olvir rushed across the short distance, sword raised. Katrine came from the other side, glowing even more brightly.
Around Amris’s pain, dulling the worst of it, he felt love wash over his consciousness. Darya, nowhere close enough to reach Thyran, fell to her knees beside him instead. She reached out with infinite gentleness to lift Amris’s head into her lap—bloody and burnt, but hers—and together the two of them watched the others charge forward.
Thyran’s single eye narrowed and his malformed mouth shaped a single, unpronounceable word. As the last syllable hit the air, a pillar of rancid smoke rose up. Olvir and Katrine drew back, coughing—and Thyran had vanished.
Chapter 42
Ninnian, Arcanist-General of Criwath, was one of the rare people significantly taller than Darya. She was still sore after two days of rest, and the difference was beginning to matter.
“Etiquette be damned, sir,” she said, pointing to the other chair in Hallis’s study. “If I have to look up at you for another minute, my head’s going to fall off. Don’t even think about it,” she added to Amris and Olvir. “You’re both in worse shape than I am, and neither of you heal like a Sentinel. Sit or I’ll put you through a wall.”
Sleep and victory improve some people’s temper, said Gerant.
“Nothing wrong with my temper. Now hush and let the nice man do mage things at you.”
She passed over her sword, and Ninnian took it with ceremonial care. Darya leaned against the desk while he made mystic gestures over the hilt, peered at it, whispered a few words, took another look, poured a fine blue powder over Gerant’s gem, studied it again, and finally shook his shaved head.
“I have no notion how you managed any of that. This blade, like those of the other Sentinels, seems as it was. I can sense—I have sensed—the spell on all of you, and it’s an unexpected creation for certain, but it shouldn’t have had the capacity for such a feat, not by any mechanism I can think of.”
The open window let in the smell of summer rain. Two days of it, not to mention active cleaning with the aid of Criwath’s forces—including two Blades, a Mourner, and a mage who’d specialized in fire spells—had cleared the stench of the battlefield. Darya suspected a weather mage might have pulled some strings, but she’d been either asleep or too busy to ask.
My supposition, Gerant said, is that it had to do with Olvir.
“Olvir,” said Amris, not sounding too surprised. To be fair, he wasn’t sounding too much of anything just then. The Mourners had done what they could, but they’d had their hands full with the more severely wounded, and fixing the hole in his chest had taken a fair amount of magical effort. The broken ribs that had caused it were still strapped, and his arm was in a cast and a sling.
“Me?” Olvir blinked, but he didn’t sound surprised either. His damage wasn’t as straightforward as Amris’s, but he’d passed out again shortly after Thyran disappeared, and the whites of his eyes were still entirely red. He moved more gingerly, and seemed not to be quite aware where objects or people—even the ground, half the time—truly were. The Mourners, he’d told Darya, had said that would heal.
You’ve heard of his reactions to Thyran’s presence, Gerant said. I was…not at my best when I shielded him and Amris, and there’s plenty I likely missed, but I did feel my spell anchor to him and grow stronger from it, and I believe it called to the others in the same manner. After that, I was…overtaken.
“I don’t remember much either,” said Olvir, when he’d been filled in. “The sigil, and be
ing prepared for it, helped me go on when Thyran was close, so long as his attention was elsewhere. Maybe they saved me from a worse fate later, but once he started to focus on us…it felt like being torn apart.”
“Shame Thyran didn’t feel it,” Darya said.
“I suspect either the ornaments he wore—likely magical, after all, given their construction—or his followers helped him shunt off the worst of it.” Ninnian smoothed a hand over his scalp. “It could be Tinival, I suppose. In a metaphysical sense, Gizath’s power is to turn bonds against themselves, or their holders, and Tinival’s domain is largely the upholding and maintenance of those bonds freely entered into.”
“He stands as firmly against the Traitor God as his sister does,” Olvir agreed, “but with less hatred, or…less personal hatred. Loathing what Gizath became, not what he did. But none of my training ever spoke of”—he waved his hands—“any of this.”
“Nor has any theory I’ve ever read.”
Nor have I seen it, Gerant put in, and I’ve read a great deal. The Mourners or the Blades, or the Adeptas, might be able to shed more light on the matter.
“Many might hold the knowledge, or parts of it,” said Amris, “and we’d best begin to search. I know not what Thyran will do next, but if he hated us before this, what he feels now is likely beyond imagining.”
* * *
“Well,” said Darya, coming up behind Amris as he stood by the outer wall, sheltering from the rain under one of the walkways where they’d stood for so many hours of desperate battle. “Looks like we’re bound for Affiran.”
Amris turned from watching the first efforts at rebuilding, and smiled at her. “Oh?”
“Gerant and I, definitely. Probably Olvir. The Order has a chapter house there, and they’ve got plenty of mages to study us, not to mention being the closest army.” Darya shrugged diffidently. “I told them I couldn’t speak for you and I didn’t know if you were taking orders these days. Ninnian said I should let you know, if I encountered you.”
“Taking orders is no hardship,” Amris said, “and I’d be glad to go, but I thank you for the choice.” He reached out his good arm. Darya blinked, but came to his side with every evidence of gladness, though she kept most of her weight to herself, not leaning against him the way she’d done when they’d rested during the siege. Briefly, Amris wondered if peace, or the prospect of going with him to a civilized land, had given her second thoughts. Then she looked up at him with her brows furrowed and said, “Are you sure your ribs will hold up? I don’t know how this works for normal people.”
Gerant snickered, and Darya muttered an obscenity.
“My ribs,” said Amris, drawing her more firmly against his side, “will endure—though sadly, likely not for anything more energetic than this for a few days yet. And,” he added, glancing down at the gem that held Gerant, “any comments about my normality or lack thereof can go unsaid, thank you.”
They certainly can…
“Oh, you save a few lives and suddenly you’re not worried about being made into saucepans,” said Darya.
You know I don’t live in the blade.
“All right, I’ll make you into a pendant and give you to some court lady in Criwath. One fond of sentimental poetry and badly trained dogs.”
I do, Gerant said thoughtfully, occasionally miss being able to stick out my tongue. Or to make other gestures.
“The feeling comes across, I assure you,” said Amris. Darya was warm and strong against him, her hair smelling of the rain, her scales shining with it. Gerant was laughing in his mind, cheerfully content. He deeply regretted his ribs.
Moving with care, she slid one of her own arms around his waist, and then laughed softly. “This is so much easier without armor.”
“I’d nearly forgotten how it feels not to wear it.”
The town was full of people once more, though not yet those who’d fled. Amris wasn’t certain how many would come back. Criwath’s troops were starting the rebuilding, with the priests of Sitha to help, and already wooden frames had gone up on most of the blackened squares where houses or shops had once stood.
But Thyran was likely rebuilding, too, or would soon start. Knowing that, Amris thought, and having fled from one attack already, a farmer or a shopkeeper would likely hesitate before returning—and certainly before bringing their family back.
“Are the others staying here?” he asked. “The Sentinels?”
“Emeth and Katrine are.”
Much to Ninnian’s disappointment.
“Really?” Amris asked.
“He’s been doing experiments with Katrine and Olvir, since her main blessing comes from Tinival. But they haven’t come to much, and given how effective she is against Gizath’s creatures, the Order couldn’t justify sending her to Affiran. Emeth’s animals can give good warning if Thyran or his people move in this direction again, and those two work well together.”
Not unlike some other people, said Gerant.
In a phenomenon almost as rare as that which had felled Thyran, Darya actually blushed. “Last I heard,” she went on quickly, “Branwyn’s going to Heliodar. Criwath can send word to the other kingdoms and they’ll listen, but there’s too much bad blood with the Heliodar Council—and more, maybe, things that a Sentinel might need to check into. Bran’s the best of us at passing for a regular human.”
“Gods go with her,” said Amris. He remembered Heliodar only vaguely firsthand. It had joined the war eventually, but after a great deal of division.
I always thought, Gerant added, that we should have turned over more rocks there and found either what loyalties Thyran might have left or how he found his way to Gizath so quickly.
“Yes,” said Amris, “but there were ten things to fill every hour by then—and more after, I’d imagine.”
Precisely.
“And that’s Bran’s mission, thank the gods. Court intrigue—ugh.” Darya made a face. “Even if it is in pretty surroundings. Criwath’s got nearly as much real art, in its own style, and not nearly as many political mazes.”
“It was a pleasant country, as I remember it,” Amris agreed, “though I’d imagine it, too, has changed.”
“Probably.” Darya looked up at him with a small, rueful smile. “I’ll do what I can, but I’m not much of a guide, especially once we get off the borders. Best you can do with me is being outsiders together, you know.”
Amris didn’t have to bend far to kiss her. It was an awkward process with his sling, but it was soft, slow, and gentle. The rain fell quietly beyond their shelter, soldiers called cheerfully to one another while they piled stones, and Darya’s mouth was warm and seeking against his. Gerant surrounded them both, a gentle presence in their minds, a faint haze of green, and a soothing hum, not intruding on the kiss itself but a happy witness and one whose joy added to their own.
Eventually Amris drew a little way back, but he didn’t let her go. “Beloved,” he said, “if you gave me another hundred years to consider it, I could think of no fate I’d prefer.”
The story is far from over. Keep reading for a sneak peek of The Nightborn, coming Spring 2021.
Chapter 1
She was going to die.
Yathana would have reminded her that everyone was going to die. But Yathana was leagues away, where the spirits that charged the magic of each Sentinel’s swordsoul went to rest after exhausting themselves channeling the gods’ gifts. That burst of magic had left Branwyn with temporary metal skin and an absence at the back of her mind—which was normal—facing a horde of malformed, malicious creatures.
That had become normal, too, over the last few days.
Now the twistedmen came on, pouring through the shattered gate of Oakford. They swarmed past the colossus of warped bodies that shambled across the yard, a moving charnel construction that held their leader, Thyran.
Branwyn knew t
he name, a shadow from the past given horrible life. She’d glimpsed the man himself, but her more immediate concern was his army.
Together, they formed a writhing mass of oversized claws and skinless-seeming red flesh. Some looked as though their faces were melting. Others had the beaks of birds, full of teeth and traps for the unwary who viewed them too closely.
She threw herself at them. Talons screeched as they ran along her arms. Black blood hissed in the air. The enemy never became individual bodies, simply one entity with lines of vulnerability: a leg here, a neck there. Branwyn carved a path through the shifting wall of flesh, Yathana slicing away what obstructed her.
Hallis’s voice rose above the shrieking of Thyran’s troops, yelling the signal that Branwyn had been waiting for.
One of the beaked creatures had caught her by the wrist when the word reached her. It yanked her forward, opening its mouth too wide. The shifting grey presence within had entranced more than one of Branwyn’s companions to their death—but now the sigil on her forehead let her mind turn the charm as easily as her metal skin turned claws. She spun into the monster’s grip, let Yathana’s edge take its head from its shoulders, and then, when she’d made a half-circle, started running.
She wasn’t alone. A dozen others, soldiers stationed at Oakford and half-trained peasants who’d stayed to face the siege, kept pace, leading Thyran’s troops on. They raced for the middle of the shattered town, where archers hid behind piles of rubble and the ground concealed a dozen sinkholes.
The twistedmen followed. Arrows did take some, and others stumbled, becoming easy marks for the archers’ second volley or simply having to slow down, letting Branwyn and her companions gain a few precious feet of space.
More to the point, they had followed, away from the rest of the troops, away from the walking abattoir that carried Thyran. Branwyn saw the construct off to the side as she turned to fight. It lurched onward, crushing the wounded beneath its rotting feet, and Amris var Faina, Thyran’s foe from a hundred years before, charged forward to meet it.
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