Shadow came up with a snarl and sighted the woman, who was already lining up her next shot. She looked around, frantic for a place with a bit of black in which she could blend, but there were no trees in the north. Nowhere to hide.
“So be it.”
She leapt and broke the crest of the ridge, sliding down toward the bottom. She heard another arrow thud into the ground above her head, sinking in up to the fletchings. As she thought of how best to make her approach, Shadow could not help but be impressed by the scene that awaited her at the bottom.
Alistair had done his work and he’d done it well. She heard fighting on the other side of the spire. In the front, strewn across the frozen yard, were half a dozen bodies covered in as much gore as fur. It looked like a herd had been massacred by a passing pack of wolves. Shadow supposed the reality was not so different as she skidded to a halt at the bottom.
One still moved. She approached him—an old man whose salt and pepper resolved into frost as she neared, revealing him to be young. No more than a boy, really. He had dragged himself an impressive distance on nothing but his elbows. Shadow grimaced as she bent over him, seeing the way his boot hung by a single pink thread.
She cast a shadow over him that made him freeze. He turned toward her, eyes wild and teeth red. Ending him was a mercy, and she made quick work of it.
Her pity nearly cost Shadow her life.
As she rose, she saw another shadow moving within the deep blue cast by the crystalline tower. She fell back with a yelp and saw the clear blade catch the distant rays of the embattled sun. Shadow conjured her own blade, seeing the Blue Knight’s nostrils twitch as he scented the rot that came with it. They circled one another and Shadow took him in as they stepped amidst the shadows and gore.
The Landkist, though male, was shorter and stockier than the one Valour had fought on the shelves to the west. His face was a mottled mass of burns on one side and glittering, glistening blue on the other. He wore that brilliant golden armor, and though Shadow could see his clear blade shifting and casting bright facets in the gloom, she saw no hint of that invisible armor the other had donned.
“Had a run-in with one of the Embers, have we?” Shadow purred, her heart bending to the task now that he had made a try for her. In the past, she never had to grow into the killing. Still, once she did, she found it came just as easy as it ever had before. Just as certain.
The Blue Knight was undoubtedly fast and doubly strong, but he was weak and wounded, and on his first charge, he stumbled. Shadow ducked a swing and could have stuck him on the spot. Instead, she dodged a counter that never came. He spun on her, snarling, and conjured a second blade to join the first. She could see this one more clearly, but those bright blue fists shook and quivered with the clear blades in their grasp, and she saw rivulets of melt streaming down the hilts.
“I don’t think that’s supposed to happen,” Shadow mocked, standing straight up and pointing her own wisping black-and-purple blade forward.
The knight snarled and thrust forward with one blade. Shadow dodged. He carved straight down with the other and she angled in, and before he could retract for another attack, she took off both his arms at the elbow and silenced his dying scream with a slash to the throat as he fell.
“I’m going soft,” she said to herself, kicking at him to see how long the Landkist here clung to their lives. “Oops. Maybe we needed that one alive.”
She saw another Blue Knight skid out onto the flats on the north side of the tower. This one was bleeding from a half-ruined jaw, but she didn’t so much as flinch as Shadow took her in her sights and began her deathly approach. The knight’s attention was fixed on the one who’d been at her like a dog on a carcass.
There was a blast of heat from behind, and Shadow turned back toward the western ridge. At the top, Valour stood like a picture of legend or nightmare. His fists were now steady comets wreathed in that orange-and-black storm, and she knew by the direction of his gaze that he would soon bring the tower down.
“Seems a waste to me,” Shadow said. She leapt back and squared herself to the other side of the tower as she imagined movement, then relaxed as she noticed four more soldiers strewn about that side. They were bleeding but undoubtedly alive, and she grimaced as she saw them struggling over the boney spurs—like rough gray iron—that pinned them by the shoulders to the base of the structure.
One of them noticed her and began to hurl insults. She ignored them and focused on the duel between the Landkist of two separate worlds, for surely that was what Alistair and his brethren must be. Something close, at least.
The Blue Knight cast a hurried look to the top of the tower behind Shadow, her gold-rimmed eyes widening as she took in the nightmarish orange glow Valour was making of the western sky. She looked to the north, and Shadow followed her gaze. In the distance, across the frozen sheets of salt, she thought she could see a small jewel clinging to the end of the mountain range—a ward at the end of the World. She thought it might be another of the towers, but the longer she stared, the image came clearer. She saw what looked to be spires and even the hint of banners flapping in the storm winds. A castle, then. The queen’s palace.
Of course, it was much too far to run to. To the Blue Knight’s credit, she recognized this and ceased her fruitless searching. No ally was wont to come streaking out of the mists. And the last of those around her were dead or caught. She set her feet and gritted her teeth, and as Alistair paused a few paces away, the knight closed her eyes, squeezing them shut tightly in concentration.
Shadow paid attention to her skin, watching the water and sweat mix atop the azure surface, like a frozen pond made of minerals. Again, no conjured armor, and the more of these Landkist they came across, the more certain Shadow became that the first one they had encountered had been of a special make.
Still, this one seemed determined to win the day. The translucent blade she held began to change, and Shadow could see motes of white snow dust swirling around its wielder. The sword’s hilt—a simple cross—began to grow, encasing her fist and snaking down her wrist. It looked terribly uncomfortable and terribly solid, with the edges of the blade itself frosting over, turning milky white and glittering despite the gloom.
Her muscles bunched, and in the opposite hand, just below those golden greaves, another weapon began to form as if out of thin air. This one, too, appeared composed of ice, or something like it. In the place of a second sword, the Blue Knight called a gauntlet with more spikes and serrated edges than Shadow could surmise. The effort seemed to pain the creature. She opened her eyes, and Shadow saw blood leaking from the corners.
Shadow felt her sword arm tensing in anticipation. She felt a thrill and thought to join in the fight herself before she remembered Alistair. The Shadow King, as he called himself, watched the Blue Knight ready herself like a hawk watches a dove from far overhead. It did not seem to be a matter of if the Landkist would die at his hand, but how.
The Blue Knight attacked, and Shadow was taken aback by her speed, and more so by her cunning. This one was fresher than the wounded male Shadow had just killed. She was faster, stronger. Most of all, she was more skilled.
Far more skilled.
Shadow took pleasure in seeing Alistair’s unsettling red-pink eyes widen as he dodged the first salvo. He barely managed to avoid the second, and a piece of his gray stone shell twisted away, landing with a clatter. Alistair forgot it immediately, and as he launched his counter, Shadow noticed that the rough patch on the chest plate it had left behind was already beginning to mend.
Living armor. Not so different from the Blue Knight Valour had faced on the shelves. Still, that was where the similarities ended.
The men and women at Shadow’s back had ceased their fruitless writhing and had turned their foolish, doomed minds to hope. They cheered on their champion and cursed her opponent. Soon enough, however, their voices quieted so much so that Shadow actually twisted round to ensure they had not been killed.
; Where the Blue Knight slashed and parried with anger and courage, Alistair moved like a jackal at a wounded bull. He was strong and vital, but he did not put himself in harm’s way. He seemed unwilling to take undue risk, and Shadow could not fault him for it, though her estimation of him was beginning to wane.
And then she saw his smile. It started as something close to a grimace at the corner of his mouth, but as he fought, it grew until it plastered his gray, wide-nosed face with a maniacal glee that shattered all that was left of the Blue Knight’s resolve. She fought on anyway, but Alistair switched from parrying to countering. He did not wield any weapons and chose instead to turn her frosted blade aside with the flats of his palms. Shadow could see white burns beginning to collect on the Shadow King’s skin, and so he changed tack.
Alistair leapt back as that spiked gauntlet made a resounding crack in the ice below his feet. He spread his arms out to his sides. At first, Shadow thought it a taunt. Perhaps it was, but it was also another reveal. Another trick. His gray armor began to grow, the plates forming together and elongating into two short, sharp and porous blades that extended beyond the tips of his fingers, which he closed into fists.
They clashed again, and this time, Alistair gave as good as he got. Far better. Despite the scores and gouges he had received throughout the fight, Shadow saw that not a single attack from the frosted blade or the swinging gauntlet had struck skin or drawn blood. Such was not the case for Alistair the Cordial. For him, each strike was meant to be a killing blow, and each drew enough red to make it so in a lesser being.
The Blue Knight stayed up longer than she had any right to, and Shadow marveled as she stumbled back, blood leaking from a dozen gashes. The knight took a halting step forward and her leg quaked. She fell to one knee, and when she tried to brace herself on her left hand, the gauntlet shattered. The atmosphere was warming about them, the skies seeming to grow darker in the east even as they brightened behind her.
What was Valour playing at? Testing his power? Displaying it for Alistair to see? He could have easily plucked the pesky archer from her perch and smote this Landkist from the spot. Instead, he seemed content to charge his fists, to see what he could bring out of the Ember King’s power.
“I applaud you,” Alistair said to the Blue Knight, who snarled at him like a beaten dog and spat a wad of bloody phlegm into the snow. He approached her and rewarded her insult with a hard kick that snapped her jaw and sent her tumbling, her crystal sword the latest casualty.
Shadow approached one of the shards that spun toward her, gliding across the surface of the waste. She bent to retrieve it and winced as the cold bit her fingertips. When she looked up to see the Blue Knight struggling to rise, she did so with a modicum more respect.
“A worthy contest,” Alistair said, speaking as if he were addressing a friend after an evening spar. The Blue Knight opened her mouth to speak and Alistair leaned forward on one knee to better hear her. Or so it seemed, for as soon as he was close enough, he parted her head from her body
Shadow felt an odd mix of emotions as she watched it tumble and then slide across the ice trailing a thick red ribbon of gore. The gold eyes were still as brilliant as the armor she had worn when they came to rest, staring in Shadow’s direction. Her last look was not one of defiance like the stories would have one think. More shock than anything, as if she had slipped and forgotten to break her fall.
Alistair wasted no more effort on the vanquished Landkist. He rose and turned on his heel, marking a path back toward the base of the tower. The soldiers there had recovered some of their former humor. They knew their deaths were at hand and it seemed they had saved their choicest insults for the occasion.
As Alistair passed her by, Shadow made sure to keep her wisping blade between them.
“I see why they call you ‘Cordial’, now,” she said, and the Shadow King stopped in his tracks. His eyes shifted her way before his head turned. It was an unnatural movement and one that betrayed him as something even farther from human than she was.
“Do you, Shadow girl?” he asked with that sick smile before continuing on.
Shadow watched him pass and hated the shiver that threatened her spine.
“Don’t we need them alive?” she asked, seeing the unerring purpose with which he walked.
It was difficult to concentrate on the image of the Shadow King and the struggling forms pinned to the base of the tower. Beyond it, the skies were bathed in crimson and gold, and Shadow walked north to get a view of the Sage and his machinations.
“Just need them to be warm,” Alistair said. He had sheathed one blade like a scorpion retracts its tail. He used the second to take the complaining throats of the soldiers at the bottom. “Help me,” he said, snatching two by the furs and dragging them out of the tower’s shadow.
“Curse you.”
Shadow frowned at the unfamiliar voice as she hooked the next pair, one under each arm, and followed Alistair’s path.
“Curse you unto the World’s ending, and curse you for it.”
It was the archer, standing there at the tower’s top. She looked like a figure of legend, and one that would not have an uplifting ending. Seeing the yellow-haired archer staring with such pure hate in her eyes toward the Eastern Dark—the tallest of all the World’s tales and one of the oldest; the subject of so much wrong, now a self-proclaimed champion of right—Shadow almost respected the woman.
Soft, indeed.
Shadow deposited the rest of Alistair’s catch in the modest pile of flesh, blood and fur and stood a short distance from the Shadow King, watching the Sage revel in his power. He was almost totally wreathed in flame, now. It danced around him like a shimmering veil with a black border. His eyes were the color of sunset, and she couldn’t see their black centers from here. He stood with those glowing globes of hell hanging by his sides. When he was certain she and Alistair were out of the way—or perhaps he’d have done it even if they were still standing in the shadow of the tower—he brought his palms together and Shadow’s sight was stolen.
She reeled, and when she heard the tower crack and begin to splinter, she thought the whole of the land beneath her was coming undone and feared being cast into the endless, suffocating depths beneath. When she opened her eyes, she saw that even Alistair seemed impressed at the sight before them.
The Eastern Dark poured a torrent of shadowfire into the tower that parted like a river around the white spur. The archer at the top was immolated, the last of her life winking out as a brighter nugget at the heart of the amber inferno. The beam was like a shaft of sunlight from a land of darkness, and Shadow wondered if it might be even more powerful than those Rane could call. Impressive as it was, she did not think it quite up to that one’s standards.
And then the tower fell, collapsing in on itself in a mix of shards and frosted spray. The western sky and the melting ridge were bathed in blue shadows as the torrent ended, and Shadow saw the Sage collapse onto his knees, his swarthy complexion going past pale and landing on white as his chest heaved and his palms looked for purchase in the melt.
“Testing our limits, are we?” Alistair said, more to himself than her. “It seems he’s found them.” What he thought of that, he did not say, and Shadow wasn’t about to ask.
The Sage, it appeared, was utterly spent. He looked so exhausted, she thought there was a chance he might actually die, then and there. Of course, she could not have been so lucky, and Valour called out to Alistair as he worked to regain his breath.
“Do you have all you need?” he asked, to which Alistair nodded.
“Fetch the one you slew,” Alistair said. Shadow felt as if she had been slapped, but when she looked to him, he did not react with the sneer or knowing grin she had expected. “The sooner you recognize that we’re on the same side,” he said, “the sooner you’ll come to appreciate what me and my brothers will bring with us to the Witch’s door.”
Shadow spat into the ice that was now covered with an inch of water from
the radiant heat of the Sage’s borrowed blast. If seen from a distance, Shadow guessed they would look as if they were standing on the surface of a shimmering lake.
“You’re not on my side, Alistair,” Shadow said neutrally. “No matter how Cordial you are.” They watched Valour make his way down the ridge that was now a melting slope. He looked old and hobbled, but he was regaining his former measure with each passing step and slide.
“I don’t care about you or your Sage,” Alistair said. His bluntness surprised her. “Nor do I care for your world. If it sank into the bottom of this frozen sea, it would not trouble me.” He switched his eyes to her, and beneath the red, she saw something else. Something that looked decidedly more human than his outward appearance would suggest. “But I have a world, Shadow. And I do love mine. So long as there is a chance to save it, I’ll do what needs to be done, even if it means allying myself with agents of darkness to do it.”
Shadow nearly choked on the absurdity of the claim.
“You call us dark?” she said, feeling a little foolish as his eyes roved over her unnatural black form. “You hail from the World Apart!” Her frustration mounted alongside her confusion.
“And do you think we call it the same?” Alistair asked. “Each world is separate from another. And there are many, Shadow. Many more than you could fathom.”
“You know much of the cosmos, then?” she said dryly.
“I know something of what haunts it, at least. The power that seeks to lay waste to it. To devour it.” He looked out over their shimmering patch of sea, his eyes picking up the pale yellow of the distant horizon. They stood in a pocket of stormy dusk, but it was still day out over the edges of the land. The rays seemed to be fighting their way back toward them, battling the clouds.
“My world was never a peaceful place,” Alistair said. “But it was not without its own beauty.” One of his gray fists clenched. “It was not without order.”
The Frostfire Sage (The Landkist Saga Book 4) Page 34
