by Matthew Ward
Hands grasped and tugged. A yank of Viktor’s surcoat dragged him back, then ceased as his sword bit into flesh. Cloth tore. Filthy nails scratched at his skin. But no sword came for his throat, no dagger stabbed at his spine.
He tore free, bellowing as the action left a hank of hair tight in a thrall’s grasp. A lowered shoulder barged another aside. A bunched fist felled a third. Then he was at the base of the charnel throne, scrambling for the summit.
Elda rose from her chair, the motion as regal as ailing bones allowed. “I’m starting to wonder if you’re worth the trouble.”
Fingers locked about Viktor’s ankle. He twisted about, expecting to see that a thrall had followed him onto the slope. None had. Men, women and children waited at the foot, beyond wooden spars and the fountain perimeter.
The pale, waxy hand belonged to the dead.
A second burst from the corpse-pile, pulling on the cloth at Viktor’s thigh. Fighting for balance, he backswung his sword, severing fingers and splitting bone. His leg came free, but more hands burst from the mass of dead, pinning his legs anew. Others closed about his arms, holding him fast. Fingers dug into his wrists and twisted the sword from his hand.
“It’s done, Viktor. Let it go.”
So she did know his name. “I will not yield!”
For every hand he tore free, another took its place. The ground beneath his feet shifted, his boots sinking as if into a mire. Viktor glanced down. The carpet of corpses peeled apart like wriggling petals. His lungs filled with a rancid copper-stink. Slack faces and pallid eyes stared up to meet his.
His boots sunk beneath the surface, then his knees.
“Hush.” Elda tapped her stick against the foot of the throne. “We’ll talk when you’re less excitable.”
Viktor’s shoulders slid beneath the surface. With a last surge of effort, he tore his right arm free and clawed at the pit’s edge. The last thing he saw was Calenne atop the bridge, lantern held high above her head as thralls closed in about her.
Dead hands heaved anew and drew him down into their clammy embrace.
Lumendas, 15th day of Radiance
If all else fails, put your faith in fire.
from the sermons of Konor Belenzo
Sixty-Seven
Minutes crept by at a foetid crawl. Shards of red framed Viktor’s vision, scant glimmers of firestone light worming through the cage of bodies. He struggled against his bindings, but the embrace of the dead remained tireless and unflinching. Muscles faltered and Viktor hung in the stinking void, lungs straining for what sustenance the confines allowed.
Through it all, Viktor’s shadow lurked beneath the surface, at once closer than ever and yet beyond reach. Malatriant’s doing, he was sure. But how? Why was he even still alive when she’d made no bones about wreaking slaughter on Eskavord?
Focusing on Calenne made matters both easier and worse. Easier, because it set his mind adrift. Worse, because his thoughts delighted in conjuring the very worst outcomes. What hope had she of reaching Josiri and Rosa? A few hours reunited, and then he’d led her straight back into danger.
After uncertain eternity, the cage of dead shifted. Wan firestone light drowned Viktor’s vision, leaving him blind to all else.
A bony hand seized him by the chin, stronger than its appearance allowed. “Yes. You look more manageable now.”
“Where’s Calenne?” he croaked.
Elda’s wrinkled visage gathered from the shadows of his clearing vision. Behind her, a circle of thralls watched with blank stares.
“Perhaps she’s dead. Perhaps she died days ago, swallowed by the darkness of Skazit Maze, all the time wondering why you never came for her.”
“You forget. I’ve held her in my arms.”
“And she led you here? Are you sure that’s how it was? Perhaps what you thought Calenne was but a snare, set to draw you to this place. She belongs to your past. Leave her behind.”
The callousness was all the worse coming from the lips of the woman Calenne had considered her mother. A lie crafted to break him. Let her try. Viktor clung tight to the memory of Calenne’s embrace and met Elda’s abyssal gaze.
“Let her leave, and you may do as you wish with me.”
A lie, for he’d no intention of lasting cooperation. Whatever it might cost him.
She let her hand fall. “How reasonable of you.”
Strength returned, replenished by sated lungs. Viktor pulled at his bonds, but the lifeless jailers held him fast. “And what does the Tyrant Queen know of reason?”
“You might be surprised, if you permit yourself to listen.”
“What you’ve done here offers me little encouragement to do so.”
“I had to be certain of your attention.”
Distantly, Viktor acknowledged that he should have been terrified. That he was not . . . ? He told himself it was anger – his determination to see no harm come to Calenne. But there was something else. Something harder to parse. There was a likeness. A bond. Even . . . a kinship? His shadow certainly seemed to believe so. Sated on the darkness he’d earlier drawn from Calenne, it rumbled like a contented kitten.
“Why?”
“Because you are to be my heir.”
“Slow down some, plant pot. Have sympathy for a war hero.”
Anastacia halted. Ahead, the loose column of soldiers and servants pressed on along the road, beneath trees made golden by molten dawn. Branghall was but a memory, lost to murk. There was only the circle of light and a world lost to shadow.
[[What did you call me?]]
Kurkas fidgeted against her shoulders. “This goes on, you’ll pull my damn arm off and leave the rest of me behind.”
[[I can carry you?]] Sarcasm dripped like venom.
“Feel bloody ridiculous, wouldn’t I? Just . . . not so fast.”
[[Your Lieutenant Brask sets the pace.]]
“She’s not mine, and she won’t get ahead of you, will she? Not if she likes seeing where she’s going.”
Kurkas tried not to think on the consequences of Anastacia’s presence pushing back the Dark. It was as good as lighting a beacon. Pursuit would be coming. That it wasn’t on their heels already suggested that Malatriant had been distracted from claiming Anastacia, but Kurkas knew better than to trust to that lasting long. Being carried would soon become the least of his problems.
The gold-and-white head dipped. [[As you wish. But it’s Anastacia, or Milady Herald of the First Circle, not plant pot.]]
“My mistake.”
A new sound rumbled beneath the birdsong and the swish of leaves. Hoof-beats. Kurkas’ heart quickened. Sound travelled oddly in the Dark. Pursuit from Eskavord, or aid from the north? The way his luck had run of late . . .
“Close up!” Brask’s cry echoed back along the road. Three long strides took her up the root-woven embankment. “Shield ring! On me!”
Kurkas nodded approval. Maybe Brask wasn’t so useless. The slope and closeness of the trees didn’t offer much shelter against cavalry, but it was better than an open roadway.
He was about to say so when the world lurched and the ground rushed away. Anastacia struck a brisk walk, leaving his objections trailing on the crisp morning air. Fifty bone-rattling paces later, she set him down in the heart of the shield ring.
Brask’s eyes brimmed with amusement.
“Something funny, lieutenant?”
“No, sir.”
Kurkas shook his head, struck by the unmistakeable feeling that Halvor’s spirit was laughing at him from the mists.
The hoof-beats grew louder. Kurkas cast an eye about the make-shift formation. Twenty knackered soldiers, five terrified servants and Anastacia. It’d not be much of a stand.
A dozen riders peeled out of the northern darkness like oil separating from water. All carried naked swords and wore green surcoats blazoned with white stars. All save one, arrayed in the same black and silver uniform as Kurkas – if one far less worn.
[[Josiri?]]
Le
aving Kurkas grasping at a tree for support, Anastacia parted the misshapen shield ring and ran – actually ran – onto the road. Josiri hauled his steed to a halt and dismounted into an embrace so heartfelt it warmed even Kurkas’ sorry soul.
Brask’s shoulders slumped. The shield ring softened. The lead knight walked her horse around the oblivious couple and removed her helm. “Captain Kurkas?”
“Lady Orova.” Kurkas grinned. “Nice to see a familiar face.”
She nodded. “How long has it been? Two years since that squabble at Ardovo?”
“About that. This is worse.” He stared back along the empty road. “Tell me you’ve more coming.”
“Two regiments, and three brotherhoods. Plus every proctor, simarka and kraikon that could be spared. We saw the light and rode ahead.”
Kurkas grunted. “All that on the word of a hearthguard captain? Council must be going soft.”
Lady Orova’s lips tightened. “Let’s just say you’ve missed a lot.”
Words and tone practically screamed to be questioned. Instead, Kurkas stared at the remaining riders. “Lord Akadra not with you?”
Josiri disentangled himself from Anastacia. “He said he’d find his own way here. You’ve not seen him?”
“Not a whisker. Not that we’ve been looking.”
Josiri’s brow wrinkled in thought. “Maybe he never left Tressia.”
“No.” Lady Orova spoke with flat certainty. “He said he’d be here, and by a faster road. He’d not break that promise.”
[[Then where is he?]] asked Anastacia.
“I’ve seen him.”
A new shape emerged from the eastern trees, a dark-skinned young woman clad in Hadari travelling leathers. She had a bow slung across her shoulders, and a hand near to – but not touching – a scabbarded dagger. Kurkas had only ever seen her at a distance, and then in the full scale of an imperial Immortal, but there was no mistaking that combination of willowiness backed by steel.
“You’re looking for Lord Akadra?” said Princessa Melanna Saranal. “I know where he is.”
Viktor hung in the cage of hands, unsure whether to laugh or to weep. “Your heir? You’ve been dead too long. It’s rotted your wits.”
Elda regarded him with disdain, the lid of one glittering eye narrowing to a slit. “Is that so very strange? We all of us long to leave something of ourselves behind – a testament to our deeds when flesh and spirit fail.”
“You have that already. Your name is reviled.”
She shook her head angrily. “Myth. Rumour. Belenzo tore me from history’s pages and unmade my achievements. Now I’m nothing but a name.”
“Achievements? You enslaved thousands. You murdered thousands more. And for what? For power? For a throne from which to rule the world?”
Elda’s eyes blazed. “You see the world through a child’s eyes. We were falling into chaos, two-score petty kings and queens driven mad by the light and battling for supremacy. Those who fell in my cause did so to build something greater than themselves. You must see that.”
“I might, had they been given a choice.”
Her low, hollow chuckle swept over him. It was strange how readily the mannerisms of today matched those of the woman he’d met before. How much of that irascibility had actually been Elda’s? How close to the surface had Malatriant been that whole time? Had Elda ever truly existed?
“Do I hear the bleat of Belenzo’s democracy? Where foolishness is forgiven and suffering ignored, so long as principle is followed? What matter the means if the ends are the same? Or have you never taken action out of need, even while the world condemns you?”
Viktor’s shadow hissed. Faces rose out of memory, their souls long loosed into Otherworld. His father’s chief among them. “Only to save lives.”
“There. You do understand.” Elda gave a small shake of the head. “If only you’d seen the world I was born into. Strength was the only law, and I had little of my own. So I delved into the Dark and there found not only strength, but truth and purpose. Much as you have done.”
“You and I are nothing alike.”
She scowled. The pressure about Viktor’s limbs grew, as if the fingers were maggots determined to burrow clean through his bruised flesh. Pain trickled a sharp hiss across his lips. Elda nodded, and the dead relented.
“We possess the will to do what others cannot. We see things unshrouded by fickle morality. Where we differ is that I learned to tame the Dark. You, Viktor? You were born of it.”
“I was born to Hadon and Alika Akadra.” Strange that his sire was now a source of pride. Even tarnished metal shone in the Dark. “I’m mortal. Ephemeral.”
“Of course you are. But you’re also something else. Something blessed, as all the greatest witches ever were before madness took them. You carry the primal Dark, a sliver shattered by the light of First Dawn.” Withered lips cracked a faraway smile. “Once, all were one – equal and unchanging in the Dark’s embrace. But then selfish Lumestra brought her light, and parity was lost. Dark is equal. Eternal. Light never falls the same twice, even upon twins. It brings division. Jealousy. Uncounted minuscule differences that shatter order.”
“Lumestra freed us from the tyranny of the Dark.” The words, learned by rote under Makrov’s tutelage, came readily enough. “Her light gave us this world, and the will to tame it.”
“The second part, at least, is true,” said Elda. “The Dark is power. It is the foundation of everything. Lumestra and her siblings indulged their fancy. They created worlds over which to rule, and laws to govern every facet of life, from the first breath to last gasp. Evermoon. Astarria. Vaalon. Eventide. So many more. They sought a new order to replace the one they’d destroyed. But the gods too had been changed by the light. Now they had names, faces, forms – things they’d never needed in the Dark – and they grew every bit as jealous and divided as their worshippers. Such is the burden of light. Only in the Dark is there order. Only in the Dark is there peace.”
“Shadowthorn!”
The shield ring clashed tight. Three knights peeled from the road and spurred into the trees. Melanna stood stock still, ignoring the voice in her head that screamed at her to run, to draw a blade. She’d taken the light in the sky as a sign from Ashana. Too late, she realised it wasn’t so.
“Wait!”
The knights slowed at Josiri’s shout.
“I’m alone,” said Melanna, the unfamiliar Tressian falling harshly on her ears. “I’m not here as an enemy, but to discharge my debt.”
The horsewoman exchanged a glance with Josiri and nodded. “Test her words!”
The knights closing on Melanna spurred away east into trees where darkness yet held sway. Hands raised, Melanna drew closer to the road.
“I swear by the goddess and my father’s life, I come as a . . . friend.”
Only now did she recognise the knights’ leader – the same woman she’d laboured to save all those nights ago. But Melanna dared not rely on the woman’s memory of that time.
“Josiri.” She offered a bow of equals. One warrior to another. “I offer my help.”
Within the shield ring, the one-eyed man stirred. “Reckon your lot have done enough.”
“Enough, captain,” said Josiri.
Encouraged, Melanna stepped closer. The horsewoman’s eyes never strayed from her. Nor did the peculiar hollow-eyed mask of the woman at Josiri’s side.
“You’ve seen Lord Akadra?” asked Josiri.
“In the grounds of a ruined temple, out to the east. He had a woman with him.”
“Calenne?” Josiri started forward, restrained only by a tattered black glove on his arm. “Calenne was with him?”
The missing sister? “Perhaps. I didn’t see her. I only heard their conversation.”
Urgency overtook his voice. “Take me.”
Melanna shook her head. “There’d be no point. He entered the tunnels.”
He nodded. “I know them. So he’s inside Eskavord?”
[[
He’s confronting Malatriant.]]
The hollow voice dragged Melanna’s attention to the woman at Josiri’s side. If she was a woman. She was cloaked in light as Akadra was cloaked in shadow. It clung to her.
“Always the show-off,” muttered the one-eyed man. “Can’t leave him alone for five bloody minutes.”
“But he needn’t do it alone.” Josiri remounted and reached down for the masked woman. After a brief hesitation, she clambered up behind him. “How long ago?”
“I can’t be sure,” said Melanna. “Hours, certainly.”
“Then he might already be dead.” The horsewoman frowned and turned her attention to the one-eyed man. “Kurkas, how many blades does Malatriant have?”
“Hundreds,” he replied gloomily.
“And I’ve a dozen. We wait for the army.”
“And if matters were different, Lady Orova,” said Josiri, “would Viktor wait?”
She scowled. “Captain Kurkas?”
The scruffy soldier offered a sharper salute than Melanna could have imagined. “Milady?”
“When the vanguard arrives, have them surround the town. Nothing in, nothing out. If we don’t return, the command is yours.”
“Yes, lady.”
“And you?” Josiri asked, his eyes on Melanna. “What do you intend?”
She could leave. Debt discharged, she could head east to the safety of her own kind. Or could she? Was anything ever that simple? “I’ll ride with you, if you’ll have me.”
Lady Orova’s scowl deepened. “We don’t need a shadowthorn’s help.”
“We need all the help we can find.” Josiri spurred forward and put a hand on his sword. “Before I left Tressia, I had a dream, the kind that vanishes into mist as soon as you wake. I recall only two things. An owl, and ironclad certainty of a burden I should bear southwards. I told myself it was tiredness and brandy.”
He drew the sword. Silver gleamed in the sunshine as he reversed the blade and held it for Melanna to take. “This, I think, is meant to belong to you again.”
She closed a shaking hand about the grips. Her sword. Perhaps the light had been a sign after all.
