by Paul S. Kemp
The nightwalker held its ground, dark, ominous, surrounded by an army of shadows.
Trewe blew another blast, and Regg shouted, turned, raised his blade and lowered it. The company lurched into motion.
The shadows keened at their approach. The nightwalker watched them for a moment, then met their charge with one of his own.
Abelar cursed.
Each of the creature’s strides covered a spearcast. The impact of its feet on the soft earth left deep pits in its wake, open graves waiting to be filled with Lathanderians.
“Turn, damn you!” Abelar said, striking the dragon with the hilt of his sword. “Faster, wyrm!”
The Lathanderians, a small island of light in the night of the Shadowstorm, charged to their doom. Regg led them, shield and blade blazing.
Trewe’s trumpet sang. The nightwalker closed, hit the company’s formation like a battering ram. Men and women screamed in pain, shouted in rage, light flared, winked out. The nightwalker crushed men and women under its feet or with its fists. Weapons slashed its huge form but seemed to do little. The company swirled around the nightwalker, surrounding it. The creature stood heedless in their midst, the black center of a whirlpool that drew into itself the light of the Lathanderians.
The dragon wheeled around at last and straightened. He roared and the beat of his wings propelled him toward the battle. The wind almost peeled Abelar from his harness.
He watched his companions, side-by-side, fighting, dying, aglow with Lathander’s light. The nightwalker reaped a life with each blow of its maul-like fists, yet none of the company around it broke, none ran—not one—and their courage chased the despair lurking around the edges of Abelar’s soul.
He understood them, then, in a way he had not before. They served Lathander, but fought and died for one another, for the men and women standing beside them. Abelar knew well the strength of feeling that bonded warrior to warrior, man to woman, father to son.
He thought of Elden, of Endren, recalled his father’s words to him—the light is in you—and realized, with perfect clarity, that his father was right.
The men and women of his company did not stand in the light. The light was in them. Lathander was merely the reagent that allowed them to shine. They were the light, not their god. And they, and he, had not burned as brightly as they might.
The shadows saw the dragon’s approach and a massive cluster of the undead peeled off from the assembled mass and streaked toward Abelar and Furlinastis.
Abelar readied his blade, and gasped when he saw the faint illumination that tinged its edges. Fallen from service, he should not have been able to light his blade. And yet he had. And he knew why. He knew, too, what he would do, what he must do, for Elden, for Jiriis, for Endren, for all those he loved.
“Ignore them, Furlinastis!” he shouted to the dragon. “Take me over the nightwalker.”
The dragon looked back, eyed him sidelong, but obeyed. With each beat of Furlinastis’s wings, the light in Abelar’s blade grew, the light in Abelar shone brighter. Abelar’s soul burned, fueled by epiphany.
He was the light. They all were the light.
Below, he saw more of his company fall, saw the nightwalker’s darkness growing, devouring Lathander’s light. The cloud of shadows, red eyes blazing, flew toward him.
Abelar watched the light in his blade spread to his hands, his forearms, his torso. It grew ever brighter in intensity. His light penetrated the shroud of shadows that wrapped the dragon.
The dragon turned to regard him, winced in the light, hissed with pain. “What are you doing, human?”
“Endure it for a time. We are soon to part ways.”
The dragon roared as Abelar’s luminescence flared and haloed them both in blazing, pure white light.
The shadows, heedless, swooped toward them, drawn to Abelar’s radiance. Darkness and light sped toward each other, collided, and the darkness of the shadows’ fallen souls was no match for the light of Abelar’s reborn spirit. In the fullness of his light he saw the fallen souls for the pathetic creatures they were, saw on some the wheel of Ordulin, and smiled that he had avenged Saerb.
His light consumed the shadows utterly, dissolved them, shrieking, into a formless cloud of vile smoke through which Furlinastis streaked, roaring.
Abelar looked down, saw the upturned faces and raised blades of his comrades, saw hundreds more shadows take wing from their foul mass and fly toward him, and saw the night-stalker’s featureless face turn its regard to the light in the sky.
The radiance bursting from his body shot beams of light in all direction, speared and destroyed dozens of onrushing shadows.
“The nightwalker,” he said.
He slipped out of his harness, sat unrestrained on the dragon’s neck, one hand griping the rope, as Furlinastsis swooped toward the nightwalker. Abelar’s body, armor, blade, and soul blazed.
“My gratitude for your service,” he shouted to the dragon. “Please forgive me my threats. For a time I lost my way. Now I am found.”
He held his blade in both hands and leaped off the dragon’s back.
White light veiled the world. He did not see things, he saw into them, through them, saw the nightwalker and shadows for the insubstantial entities they were. The souls of his comrades glowed, their light dimmed only by self-imposed restraints, restraints Abelar had shed.
As he fell, his body ignited with radiance, an apotheosis of light. For a moment, he felt himself motionless, suspended in space, as if he had become the light. He savored the time, thought of Elden, his innocent eyes, his trusting soul. He loved his son—forever.
The moment ended. He plummeted earthward toward the nightwalker.
The creature shielded its face with a forearm, cowered before Abelar.
Abelar’s soul swelled. No regrets plagued him or tortured his final thoughts. His mind turned to those he loved, his wife, his father, his son. He laughed, shouted Elden’s name as he descended, and his voice boomed over the rain, over the thunder, over the darkness.
The nightwalker melted in the heat of his radiance, disintegrated in the light, and Abelar, blazing, fell through the creature’s dissipating form toward the hard earth below.
The sun sets and rises, he thought, and knew he would feel no pain.
Abelar’s voice boomed out of the heavens and shook the battlefield with its force.
“Lathander!”
Regg lowered his blade as the battle stalled. He shielded his eyes and watched, awestruck, as his friend’s body transformed as it fell from glowing, to luminescent, to blazing, to a radiant dawn sun in miniature that chased away the darkness in the storm and in their souls. For a moment, the bleak, unending night of the Shadowstorm yielded fully to light. Beams of radiance shot in all directions from Abelar’s form and annihilated the living shadows.
“Gods,” Trewe breathed beside him.
The supernatural terror planted by the nightwalker in Regg’s spirit, in all of their spirits, vanished, replaced by a surge of hope. And before that hope, before that light, the nightwalker, immense and dark, cowered.
“Abelar,” Regg whispered.
The glowing form of his friend fell in and through the nightwalker like the sword of the Morninglord himself. The towering creature of darkness disintegrated in the luminescence, boiled away into harmless streamers of black mist, the groans of its dying a distant ache in Regg’s mind.
Abelar slammed into the earth and lay still. His radiance diminished, ended.
For a long moment, the field was quiet, almost worshipful. Only the patter of the rain could be heard, the sky crying on Abelar’s motionless form.
Jiriis’s voice rang out, thick and broken with tears. “Abelar!”
Above, a small window opened in the churning black clouds of the Shadowstorm, revealing a flash of sky beyond, painted in the reds, pinks, and oranges of sunrise. Through the window a single beam of rose-colored light shone, cut through the darkness, and fell on Abelar’s form. Bathed in t
he glow, Abelar’s body looked whole, his expression peaceful.
The keening of the shadows turned to a groan that Regg felt more than heard. The multitude that remained flitted about in agitation, as if pained.
Regg’s eyes welled and he fell to his knees, as did most of the men and women around him. The calm afforded by the light, the sense of hope, of awe, told him that the light was no mere light. It was a path to Lathander’s realm, or the hand of the Morninglord himself. His friend had returned to his faith, and had brought faith back to all of them.
Abelar was sanctified. Regg smiled, cried for his friend.
The rose-hued light spread from Abelar to the company and its touched chased off fatigue and fear, closed wounds, reknit bones, returned strength, and planted a seed of hope in all their breasts.
The men and women of the company laughed, cried, and praised their god. The sky closed, the beam of light vanished, and Regg came back to himself, once more noticing the rain and the thunder.
As one the company rushed forward around Abelar, led by Regg and Jiriis.
Abelar’s body looked unharmed, as if sleeping, despite the fall, but no breath stirred his breast. Jiriis stepped foward, crouched, stroked Abelar’s hair, his cheek. Soft sobs shook hear. Tears smeared the grime of battle on her face. She sank to the ground, took Abelar’s head in her lap.
“He smells of roses,” she said, and wept.
“He is sanctified,” Roen said. “His spirit will not rise in darkness.”
Regg found his own eyes welling but he would have to postpone his grief. Many enemies remained. He still had a battle to fight. Lathander, through Abelar, had given them hope. Now they must use it.
“See her from the field,” he said to Brend, indicating Jiriis. “Abelar as well. Roen, one of your priests lights their way.”
With the help of two others, Brend and Jiriis carried Abelar through the company and away from the battle.
Regg, as well as every other man and women in the company, touched him as they passed. Regg felt a surge upon contact, and the hope planted in his breast blossomed. The light in him, the light he felt usually as a distant, comforting warmth, flared.
It was a sign.
“You are my friend,” Regg said to Abelar, as Brend and Jiriis carried him away. A junior priest fell in with them, lighting his wand.
Then Abelar was gone. And darkness yet remained.
The silence over the battlefield ended with a roll of thunder. Lightning lit the sky. Rain fell anew. The keening of the remaining shadows—still a multitude—started once more. They swarmed in an enormous, whirling column.
“Form up,” Regg said to his company. “We have been given a sign and the light is in you all.”
“And in you,” they answered, readying weapons, readying spirits.
A boom of thunder like the breaking of the sky rolled, shook the ground, knocked the men and women of the company to the ground. Lightning ripped the sky, again and again, until the coal-black clouds birthed a coal-black form that descended from the clouds, trailing darkness.
In size and shape it looked much like a man. Membranous wings sprouted from its back but did not flap as it gently descended to the ground. A robe of scaled leather draped its ebon-skinned form. Curving white horns jutted from its brow. Power seeped from the creature in palpable waves.
As surely as Regg knew his god had been present on the battlefield to bless them through Abelar, he knew at that moment that another god had taken the field. He was looking upon the creature that was the provenance of the storm, the origin of the darkness.
The sky again fell silent, the thunder and lightning but a temporary herald for Kesson Rel’s arrival.
The column of shadows rendezvoused with their master in the sky, swirled around him as he descended. The moment he set foot on the ground, thunder rumbled and the earth shook anew.
Giant forms stepped out of the shadows to stand beside him, towering humanoids with pale skin and gangly limbs, encased in gray iron. They bore huge swords in their hands. Shadows clung to their flesh and their weapons. There were hundreds of them.
Regg knew the company could not defeat the shadow army and their master. But the hope Lathander had put in his breast would allow him no other course than to hold his ground. They had entered the storm to face the darkness. They would do so and they would die. Abelar was an example to them all.
Behind him he heard gasps from the men and women of the company, murmured astonishment. He turned to face them, to reassure them, and found that their surprise was not directed at Kesson Rel.
A clot of shadows had formed in their midst, a darkness the light of the priests did not illuminate, and Erevis Cale, Riven, and a Shadovar had stepped from it.
To Regg, Cale and Riven seemed weightier, somehow more defined than everyone else around them, save perhaps Kesson Rel himself. The men and women of the company seemed to sense the difference as well, for they parted around them.
All three looked past and through Regg, across the field to the shadow army and the dark god who commanded it. They strode forward and as they passed Erevis Cale put a hand on Regg’s shoulder.
“Kesson Rel is beyond you, Regg. This is our battle now.”
The growl of thunder broke the silence, low and dangerous.
Shadows poured from Erevis Cale, from his dark blade.
Regg could find no words. He turned to watch them walk without hesitation across the space that separated three men from thousands of shadows, hundreds of giants, and the god who ruled them.
Regg realized he was not breathing.
Trewe appeared beside him, eyeing the trio as they strode into battle.
“This does not seem a field for ordinary men,” said Trewe.
Regg nodded, thought of Abelar, and clasped Trewe by the shoulder. “It is well, then, that there are no ordinary men on it.” He turned to his company and shouted, “Form up! Await my orders. The Morninglord’s work is not yet done on this field.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
7 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms
Cale, Riven, and Rivalen spaced themselves a few strides apart. Ahead, the army of shadow giants assembled before and around Kesson Rel. Darkness bled from their pale flesh. The column of shadows—tens of thousands of the creatures—swirled in the sky over their master, their eyes like coals.
Looking upon Kesson, upon the power he held, the power he had stolen, Cale felt the void in him like an ache in his bones. The emptiness compelled him to fill it. He knew Riven must be feeling the same thing.
Mags, I am keeping my promise to you. Right now. Do you hear me, Mags?
No response.
Shadows swirled around Kesson. He held up a hand and silence fell. Cale, Riven, and Rivalen stopped, the world stopped.
“I see the memory of a dead world in your faces,” Kesson Rel said, his voice carrying across the field, filling the quiet. “The death of this world, too, is inevitable. Yet here you stand, a supposed servant of the Lady of Loss, and two servants of the God of Shadows.”
He looked to the sky, to Furlinastis, who was turning an arc to return to the battlefield. “And you bring the dragon who served me in my youth. Let us see who is the stronger, shadelings.”
“Let us see who serves the Lady in truth,” Rivalen said softly, and shadows poured from him.
Shadows bled from Cale, too. He held his mask in one hand, Weaveshear in the other. Beside him, Riven channeled Mask’s power and let it fill his blades. Thick, languid shadows dripped from the steel.
“We must waste nothing on his minions,” Rivalen said.
“Agreed,” Cale said.
“They will swarm to protect him,” Riven said.
“Not if they are protecting him from someone else,” Cale answered.
“Who?” Rivalen asked. “The dragon is not enough.”
“My minions,” Cale said, and quickly mouthed the words to a sending. The magic buzzed around him and he directed it to Nayan, back on the Wayro
ck.
I need you and yours here. Battle is joined. He paused, thought of Magadon. Ensure Magadon is all right first. Then come. Be quick.
The magic winged its way through the Weave for Nayan.
“Hold here,” he said to Rivalen and Riven.
“Hold?” Riven asked. The assassin bounced on the balls of his feet, his eye on Kesson.
Cale nodded, and started to intone the words to a spell that would even the odds.
I awaken, gasping, from another dream of my father.
Opening my eyes, I find myself slouched against the stone wall of a meditation chamber. Drool wets my cheek. The memory of my father and the Source and falling forever is fresh in my mind. Sweat drenches my body. I stink enough to offend my own nose. I have not bathed or changed my attire in days. The stubble of a tenday old beard causes my cheeks to itch. I feel eyes on me.
Nayan stands in the shadow of the doorway. His form is one with the darkness, the lines between shadow and man blurred. I sit up, put my forearms on my knees. I am appalled by how thin they have become.
“We must go,” Nayan says. He speaks in an even tone, but I see the urgency suggested by his stance, the clench of his fist.
“To Cale?”
He does not answer with words, but I read his face.
“Take me with you.”
“No.”
I expected the answer but still want to hollow out his head. I remember my father’s words—They will leave you here. I squeeze a smile through my evil thoughts.
“Journey safely.”
His eyebrows follow his thoughts downward. My words must have surprised him. I hold my smile and in the end he says nothing, nods, and melts back into the shadows.
The moment he disappears, I stand, find my mental focus. The exercise reminds me of the damage my father did, renews my desire to have vengeance. I avoid the broken mental connections, the sharp emotional shards, the gaps in cognition.
I reach out for one of the shadowwalkers I know by name. I put power into my words.
Vyrhas, when the others leave, you are to remain.
