by Hal Emerson
And then gray light infused him, coming through his bond to the Blade, and he saw Lorna standing beside Tomaz and Leah. The fever died, the shaking stopped, and his vision cleared. Blue lines formed into the figure of Rikard in his mind’s eye, and Raven saw what he had to do next.
He fell to one knee, and heard his brother’s sword whistle over his head. Raven dropped to his left, turned, and thrust Malachi upward with all the strength he could pull from the Aspects. The huge swath of steel sunk into Rikard’s armored chest with barely any resistance, sparks flying as metal scraped against metal. In shock, Rikard locked eyes with Raven, and threw back his head and tried to speak a final word. All of those around him, including Raven, dropped to their knees immediately and rammed fingers into their ears, but in the end no sound came out. His voice was broken.
We did it.
Raven felt the arm holding Malachi begin to shake and bend at the elbow, and memories began to seep through the bond between them, pulled from his brother’s mind by the Raven Talisman. He pulled Malachi out of his brother’s chest, and Rikard fell to the ground. Raven turned and raced back to Tomaz, Leah, and Lorna; the latter two had let go of the hilt and turned around to help fight back the tide of encroaching Imperial soldiers.
Raven’s whole world narrowed in on Tomaz, who was holding out the hilt of Aemon’s Blade for him, presenting it and beckoning for him to run faster, even as the giant himself stood and made his way forward, closing the distance.
Raven felt the markings on his back begin to shift and pull, and suddenly the link to his Mother’s crown opened, and he could feel that black and evil creature, still a part of him, still lurking in the back of his mind, begin to stir and stretch its wings. The power of Rikard’s life, the power of the new Talisman, had awakened it, and brought it forward.
Raven bore down and dove forward, holding onto sanity with all his might. He reached out and caught the hilt of Aemon’s Blade just before his mind was submerged completely, and a blinding white light blazed through him and threw the creature back and away.
Tomaz caught him as he gasped for breath, and then they both looked around. The Imperials that had seen Rikard die had thrown down their weapons and begun to flee. The panic caught on, and when Leah, Tomaz, and Lorna, all glowing with the light of their Aspects, began to chase them, the rout began in earnest.
Raven grasped the hilt of Aemon’s Blade, holding it so tightly his hand began to cramp, but it worked. Whatever was special about the Blade was keeping him together, keeping him sane.
Rikard’s memories rolled through him, buffeting him like a raging storm, but he stood firm in the center of it, holding onto the bright white light of Aemon’s Blade. He saw a barely remembered childhood, saw the birth of each of the other Children, saw his visions for Tyne … and saw an enormous underground cavern, twice the size of what Raven and the others had found in Lerne.
Raven was able to detach himself from the flow of memories just long enough to realize this cavern must be in Tyne. No doubt it was the fate the Commons there had avoided when Davydd and Lorna had –
No … no, not Tyne. That’s Lucien.
And it was. He could see the streets, could see Rikard examining the underground cavern and ascending back to the industrial center of the city, leaving the Fortress and beginning his return to Tyne, already thinking of how to duplicate in his home Province the ritual he’d seen readied here. His Mother required it of him, for the Return.
The Return – what was it?
But Rikard didn’t know either. Raven sifted through the memories as quickly as he could, discarding whole years of life, seeing Rikard grow up, seeing him embrace his Mother’s ideals, fully embrace them, before setting off for Tyne to make a paradise that would be heaven on earth for the Empress and her Children. But Raven rushed past it all, pushing through hundreds of years of memories, blocking them out, trying to find the one crucial piece of information that would tell them what was going to happen next.
A memory came to him of a meeting of the Children, after Raven had been exiled. All of them were there, save Ramael, who’d just been killed, and Raven, who’d done the killing. He heard through Rikard’s ears the sound of Geofred’s voice as it recited the final lines of a prophecy:
The Sword shall be reclaimed,
The fruits of Empire sour,
But once the Lion shakes his mane,
So ends the Raven’s power.
But … that made no sense. They’d won.
Hadn’t they?
“Raven,” said Leah next to him, pulling from the memories. He shook the memories away as best he could and looked at her. She’d come back for him, after chasing the group of Imperials who’d routed in panic, and she was looking toward the distant city of Lucien. He turned and followed her gaze.
A dozen enormous shapes had left the main gate of the city and were running toward them across the Plains. Behind them roared a second army, smaller than that of Rikard, but fresh and charging. The huge shapes each bore on their back a slim, gangly figure that seemed to shine with reflected light that came from nowhere. As Raven saw them, the image and sound of gears came to his mind.
The Visigony.
Each of the dreaded Twelve sat astride a Daemon, and the Trium, the three leaders, Vynap, Sylva, and Marthinack, rode Daemons the Prince had never seen before: dark creatures that seemed to drink the light, with eyes a pale gray and slit like those of a snake. They were thinner than other Daemons, and their edges were strangely undefined. They were like nothing Raven had seen before – no Daemon looked like that. The Daemons were drawn from the five natural essences – ice, fire, earth, wind, and lightning. Those three creatures – they were none of the above.
But there was a sixth element … one that none had ever managed to capture. They had searched for it almost as long as the Empress had been in power, but in vain; it had always eluded them.
The essence of shadow; they found it. They finally captured it.
“We need to retreat,” Raven said, but no one heard him. He looked around aimlessly, trying to find Autmaran, looking for the Commander in his red cloak, but he was nowhere to be found.
With a shock, Raven remembered what had happened, and spun away from Leah, rushing back to the spot he remembered seeing the man fall. He looked around frantically for the body – there were so many – which one was he? He couldn’t find it – where had they left it? Had they taken him somewhere?
A scream like the screech of a thousand iron nails scrapped across granite rock filled the air, and Raven cried out in pain along with everyone around him. He turned to see the Visigony advancing, the three Shadow Daemons leading the charge, each of them with their huge, gapping maws open, revealing row after row of white teeth like lines of jagged, shattered glass.
Raven spun back around still trying to find Autmaran, and then Tomaz was by his side.
“Raven – we need to go!”
“Where’s Autmaran?”
“What?”
“WHERE’S AUTMARAN?!”
He could feel the memories in the back of his head – they were still there. That meant he still had a chance to bring him back, and with the Lion Talisman Autmaran could change the tide of battle, he could figure out someway, the only way to win –
“Raven!”
It was Leah’s voice. He spun, combing the crowd of rushing soldiers, soldiers who were wavering themselves now as the giants beasts attacked.
“Leah!” he called out as he saw her, waving her over. She ran to him, her whole left side covered in blood that he desperately hoped wasn’t hers.
“Where’s Autmaran?” he asked frantically.
“He’s there,” Leah said, pointing back toward the rear of the Kindred lines. “We took him back to the command post – Tym took him!”
“But we need him!” Raven cried frantically.
The Daemons screamed again, and then the Visigony on their Daemons were through the wavering line of the Exiled army, and the spine of
the Kindred was broken. In the blink of an eye, hundreds died, and Raven watched with incomprehension, the way one watches a tidal wave rush forward or a meteor fall, knowing that no action taken could change the outcome.
“Raven,” Leah was calling to him across a huge void of space, “Damnit, use the Talisman, princeling! Use the Lion Talisman! COMMAND THEM!”
Time caught up, the memories faded to a distant buzz, and power filled Raven’s voice.
“STAND!” he shouted.
The Kindred who heard him, wounded, exhausted, terrified, all stood as one and hefted their weapons.
“FIGHT UNTIL YOU HAVE NO STRENGTH LEFT IN YOU ARMS! FIGHT FOR GOLDWYN! FIGHT FOR VALE! FIGHT FOR THE EXILED KINDRED!”
They shouted back at him as one, in one voice, crying his name, shouting “Raven!” over and over again as they moved onto the field again, even as more of them died, even as the Visigony continued to advance.
“KILL THEM – BUT LEAVE THE DAEMONS TO ME!”
The wavering line coalesced once more, and Raven ran forward holding Aemon’s Blade high in the air, Leah running at his side. He went for the first of the Visigony, one of the ones riding the Shadow Daemons, and knew it was Marthinack, one of the Trium.
He reached through the Lion Talisman and opened his mouth.
“Die, Marthinack!”
The Daemon reared back as if the Command had been meant for it as well, and the creature staggered back, allowing the Kindred around it to retreat and shuffle the pikemen and spearmen forward to meet the attack. But the visor the machine-man wore covered his eyes, and, Raven realized, his ears. Commands were ineffective against him.
Pulling strength from the lives he’d taken, Raven ran forward and dove beneath the blow of the huge shadow-creature. It bore no weapon, but Raven realized it didn’t need one. Its flesh moved and shifted, and when it swung its fists the shadowy material altered itself and reached out, forming a razor-sharp edge that spread and cut through armor and flesh without distinguishment.
Raven swung Aemon’s Blade, and the Valerium metal sunk into the creature’s skin, biting deep into the joint. The creature screamed, once more sending all the soldiers nearby to their knees, and Raven ran past it, just as the huge thing began to stomp its feet, trying to crush him.
Raven spared a single glance at the rest of the field, and though couldn’t see the Visigony through their visors to distinguish them, he didn’t need to. The Daemons they rode drove back the Kindred; two of them engaged Tomaz, who was on fire with light, blood-red strength pouring through the cracks in his armor; another engaged Lorna, who was moving so fast she was a blur of motion.
The Shadow Daemon spun with frightening speed and knocked Raven into a waiting group of Imperial soldiers, who attacked him as one.
“Thou shalt die!”
The words were out of his mouth before he realized he’d said them, and as soon as the soldiers heard them, their eyes rolled back in their heads and all eight of them fell to the ground, unbreathing. Strength and vitality flooded Raven in a huge wave, and as he found his way back to his feet, he set his sights on Marthinack. He ran forward, taking long loping strides that increased in speed as he went, and launched himself through the air, up and over the Daemon’s shoulder, to crash into the Visigony’s back.
Marthinack pitched forward, but managed to hold onto the saddle of black-gray flesh that had molded itself from the creature’s body. The Daemon roared in confusion and reached up to swat at Raven, but before either the Visigony or the Daemon had time to react fully, Raven swung his sword down toward the neck of his former teacher, an action he’d wanted to do ever since that first lesson where Marthinack had had him beaten simply to show he could.
The man-machine’s head parted from its body, and as Aemon’s Blade passed through the flesh, it sparked and clanked against the Bloodmagic-powered gears inside the neck that had kept the man living long after his death.
And the life that should have gone to Raven, the life that should have been culled from the man’s dying body by the Raven Talisman, clanked and shook as well, like a gear forced into the socket of the wrong clock. The Daemon collapsed beneath him and exploded outward in a rush that threw him violently through the air, the shards of shadow slicing through the air like broken glass.
He crashed into the ground, the breath squeezed out of him, and lost control of both Talismans.
The white halo around him winked out, and the power of his Commands disappeared with it. Terror returned to the Kindred: the size of the army before them, their own disarray, and the sight of the Daemons, all struck panic into their hearts and they turned and fled. The remaining members of the Visigony went after them, the ones still standing, but two more went down, and Raven knew both Lorna and Tomaz had felled creatures of their own. The remnants of the Imperial army gave out a cry, proclaiming their victory as the broken, scattered pieces of the Kindred army fled.
The Daemons roared into the sky, but pulled up short, allowing the Kindred army to flee toward the Elmist Mountains in shambles as the Imperials reformed for a final charge. Raven didn’t know how long it would take; they might have ten minutes or a few hours before they gathered what was left of their scattered strength and followed the Kindred into the mountains, but one thing was certain:
The Army of the Exiled Kindred was broken, defeated before they’d even reached the city of Lucien, before they’d even managed to confront the Empress.
They had failed.
Chapter Eighteen: Why?
Raven didn’t know how he managed to find and mount Melyngale, but somehow he did. He galloped back to the Elmist Mountains, chasing the scattered Kindred, calling out in the tone of Command for them to slow and regroup in the trees. It worked, to some degree, but there was no turning them around completely. Archers had formed up again on the ridgeline, shooting arrows that whistled over Raven’s head into the enemy lines, providing a temporary deterrent to the Imperial army and securing a retreat as the Imperials tried to regroup their own half-fled forces for a final charge.
But Raven’s first concern wasn’t for the army: it was for his friend’s fading memories stored in the back of his mind.
He’ll know how to fix this. He’s the Commander – he’s the one who should be in charge, he’s the one who’ll know. He has to know.
He galloped through the Kindred infantry, shouting for them to move aside, combing the field with his mind for the telltale green-gold of Tym’s life. Finally he found it – on the same ridgeline where they’d started the battle, looking over the Plains. Raven spurred Melyngale onward with a jab of his heels, and they soon crested the rise.
Autmaran was lying there on the grass, wrapped in his red cape, and Tym was by his side. Raven dove off of Melyngale and ran to the commander, pushing Tym aside. He touched Autmaran’s ruined chest and dropped a hand to Aemon’s Blade, then sent his mind through the Raven Talisman. The markings on his back warmed beneath his armor, and he frantically collected every memory of Autmaran he could find from among the hundreds of others he’d gathered over the course of the battle. He bundled them in his mind, and forced them into his friend’s dead body.
The memories rebounded, and snapped back into Raven’s mind.
Raven made an unconscious sound of despair, somewhere between a moan and a sigh, and grabbed his friend’s hand, pulling back the gauntlet so he could touch his dark skin. His face was bloodied, and his red cape, wrapped around him in a tangled web, was ripped and torn in a dozen places. He looked smaller than he had in life – as if the weight of his memories had somehow added inches to his height.
“Come on,” Raven said, seizing hold of both the Lion and the Raven Talisman. He reached out again, throwing everything he could behind his friend’s memories. Aemon’s Blade warmed beneath his palm and his vision doubled as strength left him in a huge wave. Suddenly it was a feat of strength just to take a breath – his chest felt too heavy for his lungs to expand.
Autmaran’s eyes opened and whit
e light shot from them, blinding Raven as if he’d stared into the sun. He recoiled, pulling himself away from his friend’s body, and felt his sense of the Lion Talisman snap off and disappear. Autmaran’s memories left him in a rush, pulled out of him with inexorable force, and returned to their proper place.
A hacking cough; a huge, wheezing breath; the former corpse tensed and rolled over on his side, retching as air hit his lungs again after almost a full hour of death.
“What,” he began, his voice rasping with disuse, “what happened?”
“We had to retreat,” Raven said, hurrying back to his side, nearly tripping over his own shaking feet. He reached out and pulled Autmaran up, helping him sit, but his arms were so weak he couldn’t have managed it if Tym, eyes wide and staring, hadn’t come down on the Commander’s other side and done the same.
“We had to retreat,” Raven repeated. “We defeated Rikard, we did it – Leah, Tomaz, Lorna, and I – but the Visigony attacked from Lucien leading a fresh army. They have new Daemons – Shadow Daemons, a new kind no one has ever seen.”
As Autmaran listened, strength seemed to return to his limbs, and his breathing slowed. His eyes faded from white back to their accustomed brown, and he used Tym’s waiting shoulders to lever himself back to his feet. He looked over the edge of the ridgeline. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open.
Raven followed his gaze and saw the Imperial army reforming, still with seven Daemons at its head, two of them the other Shadow Daemons, ridden by Vynap and Sylva. The remnants of Rikard’s army along with the army that had been brought from Lucien looked to add up to at least three times the number the Kindred had left.
“What do we do?” Raven asked, trying and failing to keep the panic out of his voice. “What counterstrike can we make?”
“I … I don’t …”
Autmaran continued to stare out over the field, and Raven saw now that his eyes had been drawn to the thousands of bodies scattered across the Plains.
