by Hal Emerson
Lorna went for them, but they both retreated as she lunged forward, backing away as they watched something behind her with awe and reverence. Lorna spun, and saw the final crystal, coated in the blood of thousands, begin to pulse and throb like the others; slowly, all three of them began to beat in time together, like a living heart.
That’s what they were chanting … they were trying to finish the ritual.
Lorna crossed the last few feet to the crystal, knowing that somehow she had to try to break it, but collapsed to the ground. She couldn’t even reach it – both the crystal and her axe lay just out of reach. She felt again the knife twisted in her neck, and recognized the debilitating rush of extreme blood loss weighing down her limbs, as the Aspect of Endurance was rendered useless.
She desperately arched her neck, feeling metal grind against bone, searching for Davydd over the lip of the platform. She found him far away on the top row of the sunken amphitheater, besieged on all sides by Guardians with two-handed blades and Death Watchmen with sickly green eyes full of corruption. The Kindred were retreating to cover the fleeing Commons, a number of Rangers pulling Davydd against his will, pulling him back to keep him from running for Lorna, where she lay fallen. His eyes met hers, and she was suddenly unimaginably sad.
Not even luck can do the impossible.
She faded away to the screams of her best friend.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Seeing
Leah realized only the dead surrounded her.
Her breath rang in her ears and rasped through the raw skin of her throat like fire. Heart beating a pained staccato against her ribs, she turned and looked around the rooftop onto which she had ascended. Bodies were littered one atop the other, most of them with bows and quivers close at hand. There had been nearly fifty archers strung out across this section of the city; none of them had presented a challenge.
She didn’t know when she had lost Tomaz, but it felt like years ago, lifetimes even. And then she’d felt the death of Tym – damn them! Damn them all! – and what was left of her composure had disappeared. She’d gone deeper into the city, all the time closer to the Fortress, seeking out archer after archer.
She forced herself to release her hold on the Aspect of Sight and the blue, splintered visions of the future that had allowed her to bring down so many soldiers disappeared in a shower of brilliant sparks that left afterimage streaks across her vision. She breathed in, the air rushing through her burning lungs and clearing more of the bloodlust that had consumed her.
The Fortress towered above her. She stood on the highest roof of a series of buildings that were only a few hundred yards from the base of the towering Imperial seat.
Where is Tomaz?
Now that the need for vengeance had been partly sated, she realized with mounting desperation that the one person she had always counted on, and the one person who had always counted on her, could be on the entire opposite side of the city by now. They’d never lost each other in a battle before, never been separated for this long. Her skin itched with the need to fight beside him; it was part of the oath she’d taken before the Elders that she would never leave his side when danger threatened. The longer they were apart the worse the itch would become, until she could barely think of anything besides getting back to him.
She leaned over the side of the building, and saw a way down to the ground through a series of balconies. She jumped, sheathing her daggers in one smooth motion as she did. Landing like a cat, she dashed forward again, launched herself into air, and landed on the next balcony down.
I’ll find him at the Fortress. I can’t spend time searching the city.
Her feet slammed into the ground on her final jump, sending shockwaves up her legs that should have crippled her, but were absorbed and dispelled by the Spellblade enchantment that bound her to her daggers and gave her some of their metal strength.
Breath hissed in through her nose, and with it the smell of soot, blood, and corruption. The city reminded her of nothing so much as a festering sore, a boil that had gone too long un-lanced.
She took off running, the leather of her boots thin enough to allow her to move naturally, but thick enough to cushion her against the hard stones beneath her feet. As she ran, she couldn’t help but look up in wonder.
How can those buildings stand?
That was where the fighting now raged, she realized. It looked as though the original forces had split into roving bands of Kindred and Imperials, and the battle had become a city-wide turf war. Soldiers fought for isolated blocks of the city, hoping to join up with other members of their army, killing as many who wore the wrong colors as they possibly could. It was what Leah had always feared would someday happen in Vale; except it was happening in Lucien, and the Kindred were the invaders.
If only my father had lived to see this, she thought as vicious pride clawed aside fear and uncertainty.
A man fell off one of the arching bridgeways and crashed through a wooden gate in front of her, splintering it to pieces. She kept moving: her emotions were doused, the flames put out. There’d be time to feel after the war, time to grieve. But until then, there was no place for sadness or regret. Feeling got you killed.
Two groups fought on the walkway high above her – she saw flashes of green and some of blood red.
Guardians.
She threw her daggers and kept running; when she felt the blades bite down into flesh, heard the Kindred cry in excitement, she pulled the daggers back to her, and they came, heavy with blood, but still gleaming silver in the chemical lights of the street. She caught them just as she turned a final corner and came to a halt.
The Fortress blocked out the sky in front of her, soaring higher than she’d ever thought possible. She craned her neck back to look at it, trying to take it all in, trying to grasp its size and dimensions. It was made of ring upon ring of stone, with what looked like ribbons of steel laced all throughout, steel that shone bright, without a single hint of tarnish or decay even though the structure had stood for a thousand years.
And then she realized something more important: There were no doors.
She looked quickly to her right, and then back to the left, and a sense of panic began to batter against the tight-fisted control she had over her emotions. Raven was up there, and Tomaz was down below. She had to get inside.
Frantic, Leah dug deep inside her mind, pushing out thoughts and memories that floated across her vision. The blue light of the Aspect of Sight was nowhere. Panic quickened her breath, but she battered it down and away with a vicious mental blow. Slowly, she took in the dank, soiled air of the city, trying not to care that it was rank with the smell of battle and spoiled humanity, trying not to care that the fate of everyone she knew and cared about might ride on her getting inside this Fortress.
She connected with the Aspect with a lurching, clunky motion that made her stagger and clutch at her head, but before she could do anything else visions were flashing before her eyes.
Tomaz was in a huge cavern, fighting a group of Bloodmages in black robes with glowing red hands, each falling before him one by one – When is that happening? Now? Soon? – the scene shifted and she saw the hulking barefoot form of Lorna and the burned and glowing shape of Davydd attack the same underground chamber at the head of an army of Kindred – they made it! – before the world shook and turned sideways and everything blacked out.
Gasping, Leah shook her head and continued forward, thinking the connection to the Aspect had been broken and that was why the world had gone dark, but the blue lines reformed out of nowhere and took her over again.
And this time she saw what she hadn’t been able to get a full grasp on: the chilling black eyes and long, black hair of Raven. He ran, striking down opposing soldiers with Aemon’s Blade, ascending the central Fortress tower. The vision shifted, and Leah felt as if she were being pulled along with it, as if the Crown he wore, sparkling against his white skin, was trying to show her something.
Time disappeared
and shifted, and Raven stood standing, silhouetted against the sky. Lucien lay in ruins beneath his feet, as the world shifted in ways that should have been impossible. Another form came from nowhere and met him, striking at him with eyes that burned, and the world unraveled into a thousand lines of brilliant blue light.
Leah came back to herself on the street, clutching her head in her hands, screaming as her entire body convulsed. When she became conscious of it, the scream cut off, and all she heard was the distant sound of battle.
And booted feet.
At the last second she turned to deflect the blow of the attacking Imperial soldier. His sword went wide as the girl he’d spotted turned out to be much more than he’d anticipated. She cut him down, snarling in his face.
She stood gasping over the body, pulled abruptly back to reality, with a sudden, sure knowledge that she wasn’t meant to meet up with Tomaz, that she had been separated from him because she was being pulled somewhere else. Her gaze flew up, and she saw a low balcony jutting from the Fortress wall mere feet above the top of the aristocratic mansion to her left.
Somewhere a clock struck the hour of one, and the gong of the chime was a fist in her stomach, pushing her onward, forcing her to choose.
We have until dawn – that can’t be much more than five hours away at most.
She thought of the height she’d have to climb in that time, how far she still had to go. She had no idea what she needed to do, no idea how to do it, and no sense of whether her life would be forfeit because of it. All she knew was that Tomaz would live, and Raven, the Raven she knew, would not.
I’m the only one that can bring him back.
Chapter Thirty: Immovable
Tomaz dodged, only just avoiding Valmok’s Jeremiah. He swung upward in the form of Morning Sun, but Valmok dodged as well, moving just as quickly as Tomaz if not a step faster.
“Your swing is still strong,” Valmok mocked him with a straight face and gleaming eyes, “but your speed has always been your weakness.”
The Blade Master feinted left, and reversed the blow, turning it into Leaves in the Wind, striking out with the blade in a series of lilting half-strikes. He reversed the blow again into a form Tomaz didn’t know, and spun the blade around entirely to strike him in the temple with the pommel.
Stars exploded across his vision, and Tomaz stumbled backward, holding Malachi between them both, trying to slow Valmok even the slightest bit. But the Blade Master came on, striking Jeremiah against Malachi with such force it should have slipped from Tomaz’s grip.
But red light flared and his grip tightened around the blade, keeping it in his hand, and even using the momentum of the blow to turn and bash his own pommel into Valmok’s chin. The other giant’s head snapped back, and he stumbled away. Tomaz felt a moment of elation rush through him.
“Well done,” the man sneered through a split lip. “Though it’s too bad you only became a match for me once you inherited a Talisman. I had such hopes for you as a child – and now you can’t even hold your own without help. Pathetic. If I die, it was not you that killed me – it was your stolen strength.”
“That’s not true,” Tomaz rumbled back at him, but the words had hit deep inside him. He knew it shouldn’t matter to him, but it did. He hated it, hated to admit that he couldn’t beat this man without the help of the Talisman. He had half a mind to let it go, to face him one on one …
He almost did it. He felt twenty years old again and invincible, and he wanted to prove both to himself and to Valmok that he could still perform the feats of his youth. He started to let go of it, to let the Aspect slide through his fingers …
And then he felt the life of a small, innocent boy, disappear.
It was as if a cord that had been tied to his heart was suddenly, inexplicably cut. He hadn’t been physically wounded, but the feeling was the same. Somehow he could feel Tym’s death, feel it as the boy fell, just outside the city. His vision momentarily faded and then returned, only to reveal Valmok rushing him, sensing the sudden weakness.
Malachi met Jeremiah in a flash of sparks, so hard did the two greatswords crash together. The haze of Tomaz’s vision cleared, and he felt fury rise up in him, directed both at himself and at the man across from him.
This is why I left them. This is why I left the Empire.
He shouted wordlessly at Valmok and attacked with a sudden ferocity that pushed him back. He pulled deeply from his Aspect, letting the red light wash over him, even as he felt tears of impotent rage build in his eyes and cloud his vision.
Tym – not Tym!
Valmok was struggling to keep up with him now. Each of Tomaz’s blows carried with it the force of multitudes, and even the Blade Master’s tree trunk arms could not hold off such an assault forever. Tomaz could see the muscles had begun to quiver and spasm with each new blow, and Malachi and Jeremiah were both notched despite their expert craftsmanship.
Tomaz reversed a blow, feinted left, and turned into Heron Cuts the Water a beat before Valmok could respond. His blade ducked the other, and sliced through his opponent’s exposed throat. Blood cascaded down in a huge rush, and then began to spurt at irregular intervals as Valmok stumbled away, crashed into a thick stone wall, and fell to the ground. The Blade Master stared dumbly up at Tomaz, unable to comprehend what was happening.
“I may not be able to kill you without help,” Tomaz growled as he knelt down and breathed into his former master’s face, “but guess what? You’re still dead.”
He pulled back and swung Malachi, decapitating the man.
The body slid to the side and lay propped against the stone wall of a house. Tomaz realized the two of them had been fighting in an alleyway down the street from the main battle. The sounds of crashing metal and ringing shouts echoed through to him. But he stayed where he was, knelt over, trying to retain his hold on himself.
Dammit, why didn’t the boy just stay where he was told?
He bit the inside of his lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. He couldn’t believe it. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised – this was war, and plenty would die. But he’d never thought it would be …
I cannot save him, but there are others I can.
He grabbed Malachi’s hilt so hard his knuckles cracked. He found himself moving before he’d even decided to do so, and his footsteps sounded far away. He had turned back toward the main street, and as soon as he emerged from the alleyway, he rejoined the battle with renewed savagery. He fought his way deeper into the city, toward where he heard more shouting – shouting that had to come from the Commons being forced underground.
The Bloodmage cavern. He’d never been there, but he knew where to look.
“Tehanyu!” he shouted. She whipped around to see him. “Follow me!”
He took off, running toward the distant screams, already guessing they were using the Guardian entrance on the far side of the lowest tower. The Guardians trained in each of the seven towers: the bottom levels were designed for their exclusive use. He had been assigned to the seventh tower, the one Raven would one day grow up in, and during his time he had seen passages that went underground, passages that even Guardians were not allowed to take without specific orders.
It must be there. It must be.
He rushed around a final turn and the Fortress rose up before him, towering into the sky. Before it was a final maze of multi-tiered mansion complexes, with walkways and arches going from one palatial building to the next. But beyond that, Tomaz could see a huge throng of Commons being forced into the seventh tower, the tower closest to the circular boulevard, just as he had suspected.
“Kindred – with me!”
His roar carried through the heavy air, and the Kindred force behind him, still nearly a thousand strong, ran for the distant group, all shouting their own battle cries. Tomaz ran out in front, his long legs carrying him in huge loping bounds, racing beneath the overhanging gardens and flowering vines that cultivated the Most High quarters; the last Guardians in the grou
p heard them and turned, with just enough time to draw their weapons before Tomaz slammed into them. He swung Malachi into and through the chest plate of one, and then simply backhanded another so hard he lost consciousness and collapsed.
The Kindred caught up with him then, and more Guardians turned to join the fight as a dozen Spellblade daggers and swords flew through the air, whistling as they found chinks in armor or exposed eyes.
But they weren’t moving fast enough. The rest of the Guardians had turned and were pushing the Commons through the doors, forcing them even as they cried and begged for mercy.
Tomaz gutted another man in red armor, and pushed forward, trying to reach them in time. Kindred followed in his footsteps, filling the space behind him and killing any Guardians he missed, the big hulking brutes unable to find a weak spot in the cunning Rangers and Rogues that made up the foremost line of attack.
Soon they were across the space between the last of the mansions and the seventh tower, and they had bit far enough into the Guardian force that Commons were rushing by them, temporarily forgotten as the hulking men had to turn and engage the Kindred or risk being overrun completely. They gelled into a solid line, and suddenly it was the Kindred who were being forced back.
“No,” Tomaz whispered.
He stepped forward, red light encompassing him, and kicked a man so hard in the chest he flew backwards a dozen feet. Another Guardian took his place and sliced for Tomaz’s head.
“No,” he said louder.
He caught the blade in his hand, and broke it in half.
“No!” he repeated over again.
He swung Malachi about him, and nothing could stop the blade. Guardians fell back in shock, distracted just enough to allow the Kindred an advantage as Tomaz continued forward right through their midst, bowing their line.
“NO!” he shouted.
He kicked another man to the side, grabbed the man’s blade, a second greatsword, and attacked his right side with both, spitting two men on the blades in a flash of red. All the Guardians nearby turned to him, the Commons forgotten. The freed men and women streamed into the city, some shouting to head for the main gate, others simply running in whatever direction they could go. There were thousands of them. Some of the Guardians turned to follow, bellowing for them to stop, grabbing those they could and throwing them back along the appointed path.
