“Lady,” said Turha, “what are you—?”
Tears were filling Amira’s eyes. “If I take off most of these damned clothes and the boots, maybe I can make it.”
“The cold will kill you,” said Turha. “Even the Vil Adanrath would not attempt this.”
“I’m not one of the damned Vil Ad—”
A great commotion behind them cut her off. Elves shouting and wolves growling. Amira turned, fearing that more Frost Folk or winter wolves had found them. Three elves, their wolves milling about, were trying to restrain a huge figure, covered head to heels in thick, dark blood so that his eyes shone bright from his feral visage. The elves were armed, and their shouts and enraged faces showed their fury, but they did not attack the figure. They seemed to be trying to restrain him and were cursing him in their native tongue. But they were unable to slow him.
Amira’s hammering heart skipped a beat and she held her breath, for as the figure drew close she recognized him. It was Gyaidun, his shirt hanging off him in tatters, his pants ripped, his hair unbound and sticky with blood, his iron club in one hand and his knife bare in the other, both thick with gore. From the scratches and cuts lining his torso, Amira knew that at least some of the blood was his. He stopped before her, panting, and the stench hit her—the salty tang of blood, the acidic bite of darker heart’s blood, and wafting through it all the scent of spring blossoms. The smell caused a memory to hit her like a club: Hro’nyewachu. No other odor matched it—the stench of death and the fragrance of new life.
Amira blinked. “Gyaidun? How …? What hap—?”
Turha looked as if she were ready to stab Gyaidun with her spear, and three of the surrounding elves grabbed at his arms and tried to drag him away, one of them shouting, “Hrayek! You have no place here!”
“Stop!” Amira shouted. “Let him be! Gyaidun how did you get h—?”
“He is hrayek!” said Turha. “He cannot be in our presence!”
Amira glared at the lady omah. “Then leave, damn you.”
Turha turned to the Vil Adanrath warriors and said, “Get him out of here. Drag him if you must.”
But Gyaidun held them off with his knife and club. “No time!” he said. “That bastard out there has some sort of link with Jalan. He knows everything you’ve planned.”
This renewed Amira’s panic, and she finally managed to tear loose the knot of her cloak and throw it to the ground.
“What are you doing?” Gyaidun said.
“I have to get out there!”
“Swimming? You’ll never make it. The cold will kill you.”
“What choice do I have?”
“Your magic,” he said. “It brought you here last night. Use it to get us out there.”
“Us? But Erun—”
“I know how to stop this!” he said. “But I have to get out there before it’s too late.”
The words of the oracle came back to her. She hadn’t heard them, had been lost in some dark dream forced on her by the oracle. But the belkagen had asked the oracle, face to face, if the staff she’d given would save Jalan, and she had replied, No. That task is for another.
Hope and despair tore at her heart.
“Amira!” Gyaidun said. “Get us out there. Now!”
“I can’t!” she shrieked. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? Something is blocking the magic. Some counterspell—”
“Can you get us above it—out of range?” asked Gyaidun.
“In the water? But … the cold. You said—”
“Not the water!” He pointed to the sky above the distant island. “The air!”
“The fall will kill us!”
“You’re a wizard, aren’t you?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Isle of Witness
Lendri was still down. Not dead, but in such agony he could scarcely move.
The belkagen looked up to the pinnacle where the five sorcerers stood beneath the Witness Tree. The old elf’s hands trembled, and his knees felt weak. The burden he had carried down the long years, the knowledge no living being should ever have, had come to him at last. Here it was. The fear hit him as it always did when he recalled the vision of Hro’nyewachu, but this time he did not let it weaken him. The fulfillment of his vision, the consummation of his mission, was here. The final reward. But as he’d told Hro’nyewachu, it could come only through pain.
“As are all things worth having,” he said, remembering her words. “So be it.”
The belkagen raised his staff, knowing the futility of what he was about to do. But instead of letting it weaken him, he accepted the knowledge and embraced it. Knowing the ending—or at least part of it—was oddly liberating.
“Jalan!” he shouted. “Hold on to something!”
The five sorcerers looked down upon him, and two of them began to weave their hands in their own summoning, but the belkagen was quicker. He raised his staff and said, “U werekh kye wu!”
The galeforce wind at his back switched directions and hit him from the left with a force beyond any hurricane. Waves broke against the side of the island, and the great mist tossed upward froze to ice and shot across the island like millions of tiny arrows. The wind caught in the cloaks and robes of the five sorcerers and they tumbled off the pinnacle. Four splashed into the water while Erun clung to the rocks like a barnacle.
The wind died off, then resumed its normal course. The belkagen spared a glance upward to make sure Jalan was unharmed. The boy clung to the twisted roots of the Witness Tree and looked down on him with wide eyes. Sweeping his staff down toward the water, the belkagen said, “Kaharenharik ket!”
Five bolts of lightning cracked the sky and hit the water. For the belkagen, all sound ceased and the world went white. His hair stood on end and flickers of blue electric light danced around his outstretched arms. Sound returned to the world as a great clap of thunder rattled the sky and shook the rocks beneath his feet.
The belkagen blinked, and when his eyes opened he saw Erun scrambling up the rocks like a spider, but upon reaching a small outcropping he jumped into the wind, which caught in his robes, causing them to billow like a great bat. He flew into the air and landed on the stone stairway halfway between the belkagen and Jalan.
A great cracking hit the belkagen’s ears, and his first thought was that the rock had been split by the lightning, but then he saw the ice. The very waters of Yal Tengri were freezing in a column at the base of the island, and riding atop it were the other four sorcerers. The robes and cloaks were sodden, and the belkagen could see bits of flesh hanging off the hands of the nearest, but they otherwise seemed unharmed.
The column of ice twisted and turned at the command of one of the sorcerers until it reached the side of the island. The four sorcerers stepped off the ice. One of them, the one whose flesh hung off the bones of his right hand, shambled as if weighed down by sickness or great age. It was to him that Erun pointed.
“Take Gerghul to the boy,” he said. “I will deal with this meddler.”
“No!” said the tallest of the four, and the belkagen cowered at the sound of his voice. This one had no cloak and cowl like the others, but his robes were of the same ash-gray color, and it was as if the heart of winter had taken form inside those robes. The voice sounded of the darkest, emptiest places the belkagen had ever imagined. “I will deal with this one. You will see to Gerghul before it is too late.”
“Jalan!” shouted the belkagen, ashamed at the quiver he heard in his voice. “Run, boy! Run!”
But Erun was too swift—far beyond any natural ability—and he shot up the steps. Jalan made it no more than two steps before he was caught. The other three took their time, two helping their weaker companion ascend the hill.
The tallest came at the belkagen, not hurrying but keeping a slow, deliberate pace, his corpse-pale hands weaving the motions of a spell. The belkagen could feel a sudden brittleness taking the air, and a coldness began to grow in his heart, as if a small hole had opened in him and was s
wallowing all the warmth and life in his body. He clutched at his chest and fell to his knees. His staff clattered on the ground beside him.
The sorcerer grabbed the belkagen under the jaw and lifted him until the old elf was staring into the impenetrable darkness of the cowl. Somewhere he could hear a boy screaming.
“My children have spoken of you,” said the sorcerer. “In the north, they fear you, you and your mongrels. I am unimpressed.”
The grip tightened, and the belkagen felt a tooth snap loose. Blood filled his mouth, but it held no warmth. The coldness inside him seemed to have filled his entire chest, and he could no longer move his limbs.
A snarling silver shadow hit the sorcerer, and the belkagen fell. He dropped in a heap and struggled to breathe. Each breath sent lances of pain through his head, but with it came warmth.
The belkagen looked up. The sorcerer was on the ground, his mass of robes tangled round a snarling, biting silver-white form. Lendri!
The sorcerer hit the smaller elf, and Lendri went flying. But he hit the ground running, and the belkagen saw that the elf’s eyes had turned gold, his teeth grown long and sharp, prominent in his elongated, beastlike jaw. He shrieked—a sound that was half battle-cry, half beast, and all fury—and charged, his knife in one hand.
Hot courage building in his heart, the belkagen scrambled for his staff.
The sorcerer’s grip on his shoulder was so cold that it stung, even through the layers of clothes. Screaming, Jalan kicked and hit at the ash-gray robes, but he might as well have been striking the petrified tree. Desperate, he bent his neck and bit as hard as he could, but the taste was so foul that his throat closed and he gagged.
“Yes!” said the sorcerer as he pulled Jalan close. “Struggle. Scream! Your pain will make this all the sweeter.”
Still trying to breathe and spit the foul taste out of his mouth, Jalan looked up. Two other sorcerers, much like the one he’d known for days save that their robes were drenched, stood over him, seemingly tall as towers. Another hunched between them, and even Jalan could see he was trembling and shaking.
“Hurry,” said the cowering sorcerer. “I can … feel this husk dying.”
The sorcerer holding Jalan thrust him toward the trunk of the long-dead tree, and the one who’d spoken half-stepped and half-fell forward. He was between Jalan and the wind, and the smell of tombs hit Jalan full in the face.
Jalan screamed.
“Yesss,” said the weakened one. He pawed at Jalan, almost like an old crone stroking her favorite pet. “Oh, I like this one. I can … c-can taste him.”
Lendri leaped, one hand extended in sharp claws and the other bringing his knife forward in an arc that hissed as it cut the air.
The sorcerer caught his forearm in one hand, his long arm gripping the bestial elf in an iron hold. Choking and spitting, Lendri stabbed and cut at the arm again and again, but the grip did not weaken. The sorcerer’s arm did not even tremble.
The dark cowl turned to the belkagen. “I grow tired of your mongrel pets.”
He pulled Lendri in close as his grip tightened. The belkagen heard bone snap, and he raised his staff, a spell forming on his lips.
Lendri dropped his knife and screamed, but it was not wholly in pain. “Lamathris!” he shouted.
Flames swirled out of the ring on his finger—the ring Amira had given to him—and with his fist wreathed in flame, he punched the sorcerer in the stomach. Wet and stiff with ice though the robes were, the magic fire caught in them and blazed upward.
The sorcerer screamed—
Vyaidelon! Jalan prayed. Help me! Help me, please!
But no answer came, and the power that had awakened in him that night on the steppes was beyond him. He could sense it, feel it growing in him, but it was as if an unbreakable barrier—one made of ice—separated him from the the light.
“Help!” Jalan screamed, his voice breaking. “Somebody help me!”
“There is no help for you now,” said the sorcerer—the shambling one who reeked of death and decay. He pulled Jalan close to him. “Tonight you will dream in endless darkness, the utter cold of—”
A scream, so loud and piercing that it was almost beyond sound, broke the air, and the four sorcerers over him staggered. The one holding Jalan lost his grip altogether and fell on his hands.
The shriek died away and one of the sorcerers—the one who had kidnapped Jalan and dragged him across the Wastes—looked down the hill.
“Go … to h-him,” said the one near Jalan, and he crawled forward and grabbed him once more. “I will deal with this one.”
The three other sorcerers swept away, like clouds blown by the wind, and Jalan looked up into the cowl of the one remaining. He could feel the cold emanating off the sorcerer in waves, and behind it all was an insatiable hunger.
Jalan kicked at him. Bits of skin and flesh flew off the bones of the sorcerer’s arm. Some of it, greasy and sticky with decay, stuck to Jalan, but the grip did not lessen.
The sorcerer struggled to his feet, but only made it halfway, standing hunched over and weaving in the wind like an old man. With his free hand, he reached into the folds of his robes and drew forth an ornate blade. It seemed part steel and part ice. Sharp, jagged runes covered the blade, and they glowed with a cold, blue light. Jalan could feel it pulling all warmth and life from his body.
Jalan cringed, a whimper escaping his throat.
The sorcerer laughed, a rasp like dust sliding down gravestones, and said, “This blade cuts more than flesh, boy. You’re right … to fear it. To fear me.”
He raised the blade.
Jalan continued to kick and punch, but to no avail. He thrashed and turned, hoping against hope to be able to avoid the dagger.
“Don’t struggle, boy,” said the sorcerer. “Soon all will be … over. For you. Darkness. Cold. But for me … tonight I’ll wear your … s-skin when I find your mother. When I … eat her heart.”
Unable to look away, Jalan watched as the decaying muscles tightened in preparation for the downstroke—
A dark shape fell out of the sky and struck the sorcerer in the back, smashing him into the rocks. Jalan screamed. A demon! The sorcerer had summoned a demon to take his soul!
But the figure that struggled to his feet was no demon. He was a man—tall and thick with hard muscle, dressed in torn bits of leather that might once have been clothes, and every inch of him coated in dried blood. From the near-black blood, the man’s eyes seemed to shine forth with both fury and pain. In one hand the man held a single-edge knife, the blade of which was almost as long as his forearm, and in the other he held a black iron club.
The sorcerer stood. His robes and much of his cloak had been torn away, and in the rents Jalan saw bits of ribs broken through the emaciated, gray skin. But even as he watched, the bones sank back into the flesh, mending with a sickening popping and crunching.
The man brought his club down in a fierce strike aimed for the ash-gray cowl, but the sorcerer caught the club in his hand. Bone cracked and tiny bits of flesh flew away, but the sorcerer did not weaken his grip. He twisted the club out of the man’s hand and brought the club back around, striking the man with his own weapon. The club caught the man in the gut and he folded in half as he tumbled off the hill.
The sorcerer turned back to Jalan, but the boy was too frozen with shock and fear to move. Where had the man come from? Who was he?
Dropping the club, the sorcerer snarled and shambled forward, but he made only two steps when another figure dropped out of the sky, more gently than the man had, and landed between them. The clothes and cloak were strange, but Jalan recognized her at once.
“Mother!”
She kept her back to him and turned to the sorcerer. “Get away from my son, you bastard!” she roared. She thrust forward a strange golden-red staff and shouted, “Keljan saulé!”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Isle of Witness
The sorcerer screamed and flung Lendri away. He thrashed,
his shriek rising in pitch until it passed beyond hearing. Still, the belkagen could sense it rattling inside his skull. The flames caught in the sorcerer’s sleeves and lower robes, then ran down as if he were dipped in pitch.
Three shadows fell out of the storm sky and landed around the burning sorcerer. The tallest of the newcomers flung his palms out in an arcane gesture and screamed the words of a spell. A channel of wind filled with snow and sleet hit the gathered sorcerers, and so great was its force that the flames sputtered and died.
Most of the sorcerer’s robes had gaping holes. His face was that of a cadaver kept alive by dark magics, his skin withered, gray, and stretched over a hairless skull. His nose was long gone, leaving only a desiccated hole. His eyes were deep pits rimmed in cold frostfire, and they bore down on the belkagen, who still lay prostrate on the rocks. The sorcerer raised his hand and pointed even as he spoke the words of his incantation.
The belkagen was halfway to his feet when the air around the sorcerer’s hand coalesced and froze into a blue-white light and shot forth. The belkagen spoke his own spell and raised his staff just in time. The light struck the staff—
—a sharp crack, followed by a flash of darkness that the belkagen saw behind his eyes—
And the staff shattered, splinters and tiny shards of ice flying into the old elf’s hand and face.
The belkagen screamed but kept moving. He turned his cry of pain into words of power and spread his arms wide as he leaped. The wind caught in his cloak, and as the hide billowed it rippled with magic, forming wings even as the elf’s form shrank, his legs shortening and his feet stretching into claws, feathers covering his body. In a breath’s time he transformed into an eagle and caught the wind current.
Too late.
Fierce channels of wind, twisting like tentacles and filled with ice, roared from above at the sorcerer’s behest and struck the great bird from the sky. The belkagen lost his eagle form a dozen feet above the rocks and fell. He struck the rocks, bones shattering, not far from where Lendri was just now stirring. All breath left the belkagen’s body, and dark clouds swam before his eyes.
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