by ML Spencer
This was.
Emboldened, the Overseers renewed their attack. With the weight of his body, Esmir knocked Aram to the ground and hunkered over him. The old Warden screamed as streams of magic gushed toward him, enveloping him in a molten halo. Somehow, his body repulsed it all, leaving Aram unharmed beneath him.
Growling in pain, Esmir pushed himself to his feet, drawing Aram up after him, blocking the onslaught with his own body. Behind him, Aram wove rapidly, spinning a web of absorbent strands that he threw around them both. But the Overseers’ assault was too powerful, and the fibers melted as soon as he wove them. Panicked, he glanced about, searching for Agaroth but not finding him.
Blood coursed from multiple wounds on Esmir’s body, and his tunic smoldered from the heat coming off of him. Still, he held his sword in front of him, bearing the brunt of the assault.
But he could not stand forever.
The attack increased in force until it was a blazing blue fire that engulfed them both. Aram did the only thing he could do: he held onto Esmir as tight as he could and did his best to mitigate the damage they were taking. Pressing his face against Esmir’s back, he fought to infuse the old Warden with some of his own strength. But it was impossible; Esmir was as resistant to his own magic as he was to the Overseers’.
Esmir held on as long as he could, fighting the onslaught of magic until his body started smoking. Throwing his head back, he howled in pain, the tendons of his neck bulging like overstretched cords. Aram could feel the Warden’s skin heat until it was hot to the touch, like the handle of a pot left over an open flame. He hung onto him tighter and wove as fast as he could. But he couldn’t weave fast enough.
At last, the old man faltered.
He sank to one knee, dropping his sword. Aram clung on to him, following Esmir to the ground, struggling to hold him upright. With his ear pressed against Esmir’s back, he could hear the old man’s breath turn to wheezing. He struggled harder to defend him, but there was nothing he could do. Not against that.
“Hang on,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes closed as he hugged the dying Warden. “Please hang on.”
SURRENDER.
The finality of that word rocked Aram to the core. In his arms, Esmir was dying, and towering above them were two Overseers and whatever presence was bolstering them.
It was finished, Aram realized.
He had failed.
At that moment, the assault ceased.
Aram laid Esmir upon the ground, pressing a kiss against his brow. Then he looked up and stared into the nearest Overseer’s hell-dark eyes and climbed defiantly to his feet. His gaze swept past the sinister creatures, coming to rest on the dark form of the Archon, who stood waiting behind them across the field. And then his eyes fell on Agaroth, and he saw that the dragon had lost his own battle. Agaroth lay pinned and bleeding, black chains as thick as Aram’s thighs lashing him to the ground. An iron collar was fixed around his neck, and two other bands secured his legs. Over him, the black dragon stood guard, its dark eyes gloating.
The nearest Overseer reached for Aram. He swept out with his sword, but the glowing blade struck the air with a metallic clang, the impact jarring the hilt right out of his grip. The Overseer’s hand shot out like a snake and caught hold of his neck and, suddenly, the creature was strangling him.
Aram struggled, beating against it with his hands and feet, but nothing he could do remotely affected it. The hand throttling his neck was like a vice, and all his struggles just made it clamp harder. His lungs burned for air, and his vision was going dark quickly. He couldn’t see the strands. He could hear himself making pathetic strangling noises, but nothing he could do moved air past that iron grip.
Just when he felt his consciousness give, the steel-cold grip opened and released him. Aram dropped to the ground, where he lay choking and wheezing, his hands clutching his neck. He lay gasping for seconds, until he finally gained enough presence of mind to wonder why the creature had released him.
Raising his head, he looked behind him and was startled to find both creatures dead. Something had cut them down, sliced them clean in half. They lay in murky pools of dark blood, their monstrous eyes frozen like obsidian glass.
Aram scrambled to his hands and knees, looking to see what could have felled such monsters. He started to struggle to his feet, but as he did, something slammed into him from behind, knocking him back to the ground. He fell next to his sword and reached for it. But as soon as his hand closed around the hilt, the ground disappeared beneath him, and suddenly he was somewhere else.
Dazed, Aram looked up to find himself lying on the ground at the Archon’s feet, staring up into the slanting eye slits of a great helm adorned with long, spiraling horns, the head fixed to a black-armored body much larger than a mortal human’s. The shadows beneath the helm regarded him with cold consideration, and that gaze filled him with a terrible feeling of failure. Slow degrees of desperation crept over him, as he became aware of just how thoroughly he’d been beaten. He had faced this enemy before, and he knew what it was and what it could do to him. This was the Archon who had killed his father and imprisoned his soul.
Kathrax fixed him with a shadowy stare, but Aram refused to surrender to it. Summoning every last scrap of courage that he had, he pushed himself to his feet.
The Archon made no move. He stood with his Baelsword planted in the ground, his gauntleted hands resting upon its two-handed hilt. The sword itself was as tall as Aram. It blazed with shadowy flames that coruscated over the steel in a way that was hauntingly beautiful. Aram stared at those dark flames, mesmerized, for he knew now what they were. Kathrax’s sword drank the spirits of those it brought down, and the torment of those spirits was the source of its dark power. His own father’s soul was in there somewhere, fueling those black flames.
SURRENDER.
It was that same tremendous voice, shuddering through his head like a thousand thunderclaps.
“No,” Aram said, drawing his sword back over his shoulder and winding his arms.
The Archon didn’t move, despite the fact that Aram stood within striking distance. Just as when he’d faced this enemy within the Shadow Realm, Aram had the impression that Kathrax judged him too insignificant to be regarded as a threat.
Aram’s gaze fell upon the Baelsword, and his heart sank.
It wasn’t the Archon’s intent to take his life. Kathrax wasn’t interested in another corpse.
He wanted Aram’s soul.
Feeling suddenly sickened, Aram at last understood. With Sergan dead, Kathrax had only one way to defeat the wards of the Anchor, and that was with the pure essence of a Champion. With that, he could deliver a mortal blow to the Heart of the Mother and strike down the Veil that cleaved the earth. But it was more than that.
Luvana had told him the Archons had been feeding for centuries on the souls of the Gifted to ignite within them the spark of divinity. And Kathrax was so close to accomplishing that goal … Aram could physically feel the Archon’s thirst for him, for the potent soul of a Champion would all but assure his ascendance.
With that knowledge, Aram felt the rest of his strength leave him all at once. He had played right into the Archon’s hand, delivering to him exactly what Kathrax needed. Now, there was only one last choice to make, and that was whether to surrender or go down fighting. He had no chance against such a monster, not without a Warden. No matter what he chose, he would lose either way. And with the Anchor destroyed, the Auld would become the hunted, and the Exilari would fill their cellars with them.
A vision filled his mind, the kind Agaroth would send him. Only, his dragon would never afflict him with images so unbearable. In his mind, he looked out across the wasteland that had once been the Hills of Eranor. He saw his friends and allies being herded into lines and driven toward ruptures in the air. It took him a moment to understand what was happening to them, and when he did, it was all he could do to keep from vomiting.
They were being driven into the void. All of them.
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br /> “No…” Tears filled his eyes, and he shook his head. “Oh, gods, no…”
Through clouded eyes, he regarded the monster before him. He couldn’t let that fate come to pass. He had a decision to make. It was an easy decision. Easy, but hard, nevertheless.
He drew his dagger and angled it at his own throat.
“Aram! No!”
He froze, the familiar voice cutting his motion short.
A gust of wind buffeted him as a black dragon dropped out of the sky, landing right behind him. Markus slid from Siroth’s back and stood feebly, his left hand clutching his sword, his right arm bound in a sling. He was pale and weak and frail, but he was there, limping toward him. Aram gaped at him in shock, almost too stunned to react.
He resolved not to waste that split-second Markus had given him. Dropping the dagger, he lifted his sword and reached out with his mind, gathering every fiber within reach. Using the star-steel blade as a focus, he conjured a blazing ball of energy that he hurled at Kathrax. It impacted like a meteor, clinging to the Archon’s body like naptha, burning with savage, searing flames.
Kathrax raised his hands, and the flames extinguished. Immediately.
Before Aram could react, the Archon produced a fiery sphere of his own, flinging it toward him. It would have killed him, had Markus not intervened. He staggered into the path of the flames, letting the blaze envelop him. And as it did, it hissed and steamed and died as surely as if someone had drowned it.
The Archon howled in fury.
Emboldened, Aram conjured a lance of solid air and cast it as hard as he could, not at the Archon, but at his dragon. The beast roared in pain and shock as the lance of magic buried itself in its massive chest, piercing its heart. Its eyes blazed for an instant with a brilliant golden light as the shadows left them, but then that light faded forever. The dragon’s serpentine body went limp, the life gone from it.
Howling, Agaroth surged against the bonds that held him, straining against them with every muscle. Aram ran to him and, raising his star-steel blade, brought it down with all his strength on the band anchoring his dragon’s neck to the ground.
The massive band snapped. With a roar of fury, Agaroth shook off his bonds and vaulted into the sky, spewing roiling flames, then turned and descended upon Kathrax.
The Archon swept his hand around as if flinging something at the dragon, but before he could finish the gesture, Agaroth landed on him, toppling him backward and gushing broiling fire into his face.
Kathrax threw the dragon off him, and Agaroth tumbled through the air as though hurled by a giant. His enormous body slapped hard against the earth, sending up a wave of dust and showering debris. Before the dragon could rise, an invisible rope latched onto Aram and jerked him forward. The next thing he knew, his body was pressed against the Archon’s chest, being used as a shield against his own dragon. Ready to spring, Agaroth backed down, looking suddenly uncertain.
Kathrax’s hand snaked up, grasping Aram’s face and wrenching his head around until he was forced to stare into the shadows of the dark helm. Aram squeezed his eyes closed in panic. Markus stood only paces away from him, somehow still on his feet, yet neither his Warden nor his dragon could come to his aid. Reaching out with his mind, he tried desperately to weave a binding, but Kathrax simply unraveled it. Desperate, Aram tried again, with similar results.
He sagged helplessly, stung by the realization that Kathrax could dismantle any binding he wove.
Unless…
Unless he didn’t weave.
What if he un-wove?
Looking up at the Archon, Aram could see the strands of aether that anchored Kathrax in a complex pattern to the warp and weft of the world. Reaching out with his mind, he started plucking at those strands, picking them out of the tapestry of the world one thread at a time.
Realizing what he was about, the Archon howled, shoving him away. Aram landed on the ground and rolled, lurching to his feet. He stalked forward, his mind working furiously to sever the strands of the world faster than Kathrax could bind them back together again. He found himself locked in a contest of skill, and very quickly, it became clear that Aram could rip the strands that wove him far faster than Kathrax could repair the damage.
But Kathrax must have realized that also.
So he retaliated by doing the same to Aram.
Aram cried out in pain as his own tethers to the world were severed, but he couldn’t stop working. Instead, he plucked more furiously at the Archon’s tangled soul, unraveling Kathrax with the speed of a master butcher. The Archon shivered, becoming insubstantial. A few more tears and Kathrax fell to the ground with a mental howl of pain that shook both earth and heavens.
Kathrax was coming undone. Just as his spirit was unraveling, so was his body, his armor becoming worn and tattered, aging centuries in seconds, his motions faltering.
Thread by thread, Aram picked Kathrax out of the pattern of existence, until he reached a point where the rest of what was left started unravelling all on its own. The Archon’s mental thundering lessoned, until it was reduced to audible groans that faded as Kathrax himself faded from the world, leaving behind only a scorched hole in the fabric of the pattern.
As he watched his enemy perish, Aram felt his own soul unraveling. The last of the strength left him, and his body spilled to the dirt, where he lay twitching, his muscles and reflexes gone beyond his control.
But then a heavy weight fell atop him, crushing his belly against the earth, and he felt Markus’s strong arms encircling him, hugging him close.
“I won’t let you go, I won’t let you go…” Markus repeated over and over in ragged breaths wracked by sobs.
Markus’s voice faded, even as his Shielding presence tethered Aram’s spirit to the earth. Aram let exhaustion claim him. His eyes slid closed, and he collapsed into the fierce embrace of his friend. His Warden.
His champion.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Aram opened his eyes to the muted light of an oil lamp. Gradually, he became aware of the sounds of people moving around him, of hushed voices speaking in quiet conversations. The strong odor of blood mixed with herbs told him that he was in one of the hospital tents. His body hurt all over, especially his right side. He tried moving his arm but winced from the pain. It was like a thousand tiny claws digging into his skin all at once.
“Welcome back,” said a soft voice.
Aram turned to see Calise smiling down at him, her face the most beautiful sight he had ever beheld. She was sitting in a chair beside his bed, clutching his hand. Her soft fingers stroked his, and he squeezed them back.
“Hey.” He smiled up at her, the sight of her freckled face making him feel dizzy with relief, for it meant that he was still alive. He thought he remembered dying, but that couldn’t be right, for Calise was with him, holding his hand. Then he remembered Markus falling upon him, Shielding him from death, and an intense fear lanced through him, making him gasp.
“Markus—”
He tried to sit up, but Calise’s hands on him kept him down.
“Lay back. Markus is fine. He’s resting.”
Aram closed his eyes, euphoric with relief, his pulse hammering in his head. He didn’t understand how Markus could have survived all that. He had more grit and nerve than anyone else Aram had ever met.
“What about Esmir?” he whispered, though he dreaded to hear the answer.
“He’s going to be all right,” Calise smiled fondly. “It would seem you have two very tough Wardens.”
Aram could hardly believe it. The fact that any of them were still alive was nothing short of miraculous, far more than he dared hope for.
“I do,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. Without Esmir and Markus, he wouldn’t be alive. Both Wardens had kept him standing long after he should have fallen.
“What about the battle?” he asked.
“We won.” Calise ran her hand soothingly through his hair, smiling proudly. “We lost a lot of people,
and we lost a lot of dragons, but nowhere near as many as we would have lost without you and Markus and Esmir.”
At the mention of dragons, Aram was reminded of the other companion who had fought at his side. He knew that Agaroth still lived, for he wouldn’t have survived had his dragon fallen. Aram could sense him in the back of his mind, the same way he was aware of his own body parts. Just like him, Agaroth was in pain from many wounds, but also like him, he would heal in time.
“I want to see my dragon,” he said.
But Calise set a hand on his shoulder and wouldn’t let him up.
“Agaroth is fine. He got a little chewed up, but he’ll make a full recovery. I think he’s more worried about you than anything.”
“I’m fine,” Aram muttered absently.
“Really? Then why am I running out of burn salve?”
Burn salve? Startled, he glanced down at himself, for he didn’t remember getting burned in the fight. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his body was covered only by a light wool blanket. Tugging it down, he saw that the skin on the right side of his chest was covered in lacerations. The damage extended to his shoulder and down the length of his arm. Staring at the wounds, he couldn’t imagine what had caused them. The last thing he remembered was his spirit coming undone as Kathrax attempted to unravel him from the world. Perhaps this was the physical result of such a confrontation. The harder he stared at the small slices in his skin, the more they looked like fine brands seared into his flesh rather than cuts.
“It’s healing, but you’ll have scars,” Calise informed him.
Aram didn’t doubt it. “Scars are fine. They’re better than the alternative.”
Looking back at her, he noticed Calise was still wearing the twine necklace he had tied around her neck. Reaching up, he lifted it out of her collar and ran his thumb over the heart knot. The twine was dark and discolored from years of being worn, first by his mother and then himself … and now by the woman he loved.
“You’re still wearing it.”
“Of course I am.” She smiled affectionately. “You haven’t taken it off me yet.”
