Well of Sorrows

by Joshua Palmatier

  Even with eight guardsmen behind him, Aeren knew that Stephan posed the biggest threat. Each of the humans carried a sword, and they all radiated a cold, wary hostility.

  Harticur entered next, followed by Thaedoren, Garius, and two other clan chiefs. Three other Riders joined the two dwarren already present, as Thaedoren nodded at Harticur and moved around to the Alvritshai side. Stephan watched the interaction with a suspicious glare, his hands clenched where they rested on the arms of his chair, but Thaedoren ignored him. The rest of the clan chiefs moved to the edge of the table and sat, but Harticur remained standing.

  “Lord Aeren,” Thaedoren murmured in greeting. His gaze flicked toward Colin, brows rising in slight surprise. “Was bringing him here a wise choice?” He nodded minutely toward Stephan and the Legion. “We could have used one more of the Phalanx, if things go bad.”

  “One more member of the Phalanx would mean little.”

  “Perhaps. Or it could mean the difference between life and death.”

  Aeren was spared a response as Eraeth returned, holding the tent flap aside as the Tamaell, Khalaek, and the rest of the escort arrived. Khalaek seemed unnaturally nervous, his gaze darting about the room as if he were searching for something, his hand never far from his cattan. The casual smile he’d given Aeren outside had vanished, replaced by a hard expression, grim and apprehensive.

  The Tamaell appeared grim as well. He wore a simple red and white shirt over light armor, his cattan strapped to his side. He took his place at the eastern end of the table, the western edge remaining empty.

  Nodding formally to both Stephan and Harticur, he said, “I thank you both for coming—”

  Before he could finish, Aeren caught movement out of the corner of his eye, a flicker, a blur of shadow. He frowned, a coldness lancing into his gut, a frisson of warning. Behind him, he heard Colin shift forward, heard the human say, “Wait,” in startled confusion—

  And then something splattered across his face, across his chest, something hot and fluid, soaking instantly through his clothing to his skin.

  He jerked back, blinked, one hand already rising to touch whatever had struck his cheek—

  And then he froze in mid-motion, eyes locked on the blackcloaked figure that stood before the Tamaell, one gloved hand fisted in the Tamaell’s shirt over his chest, holding him upright and close, the other finishing the sweep of the blade across Fedorem’s neck. The figure’s face was hidden beneath a cowl, the hood drawn down, but Aeren caught the impression of human clothing beneath, a shirt styled like the Provinces, the glitter of a belt buckle, a sword’s sheath.

  He saw it all in the space of a heartbeat. Then the shadowed figure released the Tamaell, almost disdainfully, and with a smeared blur he vanished.

  In the shocked, confused silence that followed, there was no sound except the patter of blood as it flew from a blade that was no longer there, as it gushed from the Tamaell’s throat, coating the front of his shirt, his head thrown slightly back. It struck the table, hit the shallow bowl in the center, staining the sheaf of wheat, the eagle’s feathers, the fruit.

  Aeren felt his entire body go numb, his hands tingling, his heart stilled in his chest. He couldn’t breathe. A roar filled his ears, like the wind of the plains, harsh and hollow and constant, a howl that drowned out everything.

  And then the Tamaell dropped to his knees and toppled forward. His torso struck the table with a sickening, meaty thunk, his head cracking into the side of the wooden bowl. It flipped, the wheat and feathers and fruit scattering.

  The clatter of the bowl coming to rest broke the silence. Khalaek leaped forward, cattan sliding from its sheath in one smooth motion. “We’ve been betrayed!”

  His roar filled the tent and sent a shudder through Aeren’s chest, down into his gut. He heaved in a broken gasp even as the Phalanx who stood at the back of the tent surged forward with answering roars, charging onto the table toward the dwarren and the Legion. Blades snicked from sheaths as both the human guardsmen and the dwarren Riders sprang forward to protect their rulers. Aeren stepped back from the sudden din of shouts, of battle cries, of blades striking blades and hatred being unleashed.

  Then a hand latched onto his arm and jerked him around. He cursed, one hand going automatically to his cattan, half drawing it before he recognized Eraeth’s face. “Get back!” his Protector bellowed. He thrust Aeren against the side of the tent, where Colin stood, wide-eyed with horror, then stepped in front of them both, cattan already readied.

  The blur, the figure, the Tamaell . . .

  Aeren sucked in shocked breath and murmured, “A Wraith.” He reached forward and grabbed Eraeth’s arm. “Thaedoren! We have to protect Thaedoren!” But before he finished, he realized that neither he nor Eraeth could protect the Tamaell Presumptive. Not from what had killed Fedorem, not against a Wraith.

  Only one of them had a chance. He spun and yelled, “Colin!”

  The human caught his gaze, and Aeren saw the realization sink in through the shock, the same realization he’d come to.

  Then Colin blurred . . . And vanished.

  A moment before the Wraith appeared and slit the Tamaell’s throat, Colin had felt a disturbance in the air, like a breeze. The hairs on his arms had prickled and risen. Something stabbed into his left arm, where the black mark from the Well swirled beneath his skin, pain searing up from his wrist to his elbow. He’d hissed, clutched at the arm with his other hand, turned to the side—

  And then he’d smelled the Lifeblood: earth and leaves and snow.

  One of the Phalanx behind them met his gaze. He stood near the entrance to the inner room where the three races were meeting, one hand holding the flap of the tent to one side, and as their eyes met, Colin felt a shock of recognition pierce through him.

  Khalaek’s aide. The one who’d met Benedine in the courtyard. He heard the Tamaell begin to speak, heard his voice cut off. “Wait,” he muttered, as a stunned silence settled over the room, broken by another sound, the sound of rain, of droplets hitting wood and grass and cloth.

  He caught a glimpse of the Wraith . . . and then it vanished. His hand tightened on his staff, his eyes going wide.

  He’d known the Wraiths had left the forest, but the sight of the Wraith there, in the tent, cloaked in shadows—

  His chest squeezed tight, so tight he couldn’t breathe, a strange, queasy, fluid warmth settling in his gut, making his legs tremble with weakness.

  The Tamaell’s body fell. He heard Khalaek shout, felt the Phalanx around him charge forward, but everything was removed and muted. Eraeth pulled Aeren back from the escalating fray, blades and shouts filling the tent, and still the warm, tingling weakness filled him.

  And then he heard Aeren cry out, “Thaedoren! We have to protect Thaedoren!” The Lord of House Rhyssal paused, one hand still clutching Eraeth’s arm . . . and then he spun, eyes intense with fear, with determination. “Colin!”

  It wasn’t a question, it was an order.

  With a sickening sensation, Colin felt the numbness break. No one here had any hope of stopping the Wraith. No one could stop it.

  Except him.

  And Khalaek wanted to Ascend. He wanted the Evant. It wouldn’t be enough to kill the Tamaell. He’d need to kill the Tamaell Presumptive as well.

  Colin’s jaw clenched, and without even a nod in Aeren’s direction, he pushed.

  The world slowed instantly, so fast Colin gasped. He’d shoved harder than he’d intended, but he didn’t pause to steady himself, didn’t even twitch at the sharp pain that shot through his side like a runner’s cramp. The mark on his arm flared with pain again as he spun, centering on Thaedoren, the Tamaell Presumptive frozen in mid-motion, sword drawn, rising to strike at one of the Legion, the man’s face twisted with rage, Thaedoren’s face cold. The Wraith stood directly behind Thaedoren. Even as Colin watched, it brought its sword around to strike. A pressure built, prickling along Colin’s skin, as the Wraith prepared to slip back into real time, th
e tip of its sword angled now toward Thaedoren’s back.

  Colin reacted without thought. His staff swung in a wide arc, whirring through the tight confines of the tent and cracking into the Wraith’s neck.

  The Wraith staggered, lurched to one side, then spun, sword flicking out to parry Colin’s second swing. Metal met wood with a solid thwack, and a chunk of Colin’s staff broke free. It slowed as it lost contact with the heartwood of the staff, froze in midair, returning to real time, but the Wraith didn’t give Colin enough time to recover. It lashed out, sword nothing but a blur, going for his stomach.

  Colin sucked in a breath as he stumbled backward, his staff whipping around to shunt the Wraith’s blade aside. He cried out as he felt metal slicing through his clothing and into the skin at his side, but he ignored the flare of pain, bringing his staff up and around, trying to fling the sword from the Wraith’s grip so it would return to real time like the chunk torn from his staff, but the Wraith merely grunted and turned into the staff ’s motion. Shifting his grip, Colin brought the bottom down toward the Wraith’s feet.

  Heartwood shuddered as it struck flesh, and the Wraith shouted in pain as its leg folded and it fell to one knee, half-turned away. Colin threw himself backward as it pivoted, swinging its entire body around with a low growl, sword flashing through where Colin had stood a moment before, its cloak flaring.

  The two faced each other, both breathing heavily, Colin with the staff angled before him, the Wraith on one knee, sword leveled, the world stilled around them.

  And then the Wraith chuckled. A deep sound, unpleasant, rumbling from its chest, laced with hatred and contempt.

  “What’s the matter, Colin?” the Wraith sneered. “Don’t you recognize me?”

  Colin frowned, but before he had a chance to think, the Wraith swept the cowl from its face.

  It took Colin a moment. The thin forty-year-old face beneath the cowl was mottled with swirling blackness, like oil, the darkness beneath the man’s skin, like the mark that had slowly begun taking hold of Colin’s forearm. But this darkness, this shadow was more complete, had reached a point where there was more darkness than there was skin. The face was scarred because of that darkness, age lines marring the flesh, as if the man beneath had suffered for long years, had been forced to suffer. The hair was a dirty blond but streaked with gray—at the temples, on the sides—long and unruly, tangled and mussed, with leaves caught in it, small twigs. The mouth was twisted in a sardonic smile, edged with vicious anger. And the eyes . . .

  The eyes were not those of a forty-year-old man. They were the eyes of someone much older, someone who had experienced far more . . . and yet they were the eyes of a younger man as well, one who didn’t know his place in the world, who desperately wanted a place but, however hard he tried, could not find it. Gray-green, those eyes regarded him with heated, deep-seated anger.

  An anger Colin recognized.

  The eyes, the face, the hair, the rage— Colin sucked in a ragged breath. “Walter.”

  Walter’s smile broadened even as his eyes narrowed, and Colin could see the fifteen-year-old boy who had beaten him in the back alleys of Portstown, could see the slightly older boy who had pissed on him while he was locked into the pillory and had choked him against the side of the wagon on the plains. “So good to know I haven’t been forgotten,” Walter murmured.

  And now Colin recognized his voice, the younger Walter still hidden in the undertone, in the contempt. As all of the memories of his time in Portstown—the harassment and vicious bullying, the times that bullying had crossed over the line into something more deadly, more dangerous—as all of that and more returned, Colin found himself hardening. His chest tightened, the warmth of rage burning deep, sliding down into his gut, into his arms and legs. The coldness on seeing the Wraith vanished, subsumed by the anger, and he found himself slipping into a more solid stance, his jaw set in quiet resolve.

  “I thought you’d died with all of the others in the wagon train, there at the edge of the forest,” he said, his voice like stone. “I thought the Shadows got you.”

  Walter chuckled again. “Oh, the Shadows did. Only, unlike the rest, they didn’t kill me. They took me to the Well. They made me drink, and then they fed off of my soul. They made me into this.”

  Walter leaped forward. Colin hadn’t noticed him shifting his weight onto his bent leg, but he dodged to the left as Walter thrust upward. He brought the staff down hard toward Walter’s exposed back, but Walter rolled, the heartwood thudding into the earth. Colin bit out a curse, already moving, Walter doing the same. He swung at Walter’s retreating figure, the two dodging in and out among the static figures of the dwarren, the humans, and the Alvritshai. Blade met staff, both shoved aside as they parried, struck again, spun and twisted. Walter’s sword sliced through Colin’s shirt, nicked him in the arm, across the cheek, along the thigh, each cut stinging, blood flowing, soaking into his clothes, trailing down his leg. He hissed each time metal kissed flesh, but he struck back, using all the skills he’d mastered hunting the sukrael in the forests surrounding the Well, calling on everything he’d learned. The staff thudded into flesh with bruising force, catching Walter on the upper arm, the thigh, in a glancing blow across his back. Walter shouted with each touch, but he didn’t slow. His attacks grew less precise, more haphazard, as they both began to tire. Sweat ran down into Colin’s eyes, blurred his vision and stuck his clothes to his back, his sides. Weight settled into his arms, weariness and exhaustion setting in. He saw the same weariness lining Walter’s face with every swing, but Walter wasn’t tiring as fast. Colin thought about his time in the forest, fighting the sukrael, hunting the Wraiths, the Faelehgre at his side. He suddenly realized that nearly all the attacks he’d suffered from had come from one Wraith, from Walter. His hatred of Colin had never died, even after suffering at the hands of the Shadows. Walter had been the Wraith at the Well his last day in the forest, the bait for the trap that had lured him into the Shadows’ grasp. Walter had been the one to hunt him throughout the years, even as Colin hunted the Shadows.

  Which meant Walter had more practice with the power of the Well.

  Even as he thought it, Colin felt his grasp of time slipping, as it had when he’d dragged Moiran outside the reach of the occumaen. He realized Walter would win. The Wraith could hold himself suspended longer.

  And then Walter stumbled, tripped over the rough, trampled grass, falling to his side, his free hand reaching out to catch himself. He cried out, began scrambling away, sword clutched tight, feet digging into the earth. Colin slammed the staff into his back and he collapsed to the ground, sword arm beneath him; Colin struck him again as he tried to rise, and this time Walter stayed down, heaving, face pressed into the earth.

  Colin stood over him, rage burning in his chest, through his blood, pounding in his ears. He could hear it, a rush of wind that throbbed with every pulse, that filled his mind, that bled from his fingers and seeped from his skin like sweat. He trembled with it, felt the urge to strike Walter again and again and again, once for every kick that he’d landed in the alley of Portstown, for every blow he’d suffered, every time he’d been spat upon by the townspeople while in the pillory. He wanted to see Walter bleed—for his father, his mother, for Karen and all that they had suffered at the hands of Walter and his father. He wanted Walter to bleed for Benedine, for the Tamaell Fedorem and the shattered chance of peace, for all of those who’d died at the hands of the sukrael.

  He’d raised his staff to strike again when Walter rolled, a growl rumbling from his throat. His sword arm came free and he swung, even as Colin reacted, his shoulders tensing, the staff descending.

  Walter’s sword hit the staff between Colin’s hands, and with a sharp crack, the staff broke.

  Pain shivered up into his hands, numbed them. Colin gasped as he felt the shock tremble up through his arms, as he felt the power of the staff, gifted to him by the forest, release, a pulse that shuddered through him in a wave. The staff tumbl
ed from his grasp, the two pieces returning to real time.

  And then Walter’s foot drove into his stomach, shoving him up and back.

  He struck someone as he fell, tumbled over the immobile form, then struck the table where the Tamaell’s body lay. His breath exploded from him, and he felt his hold on time loosen. Gasping, he snatched at it, the world lurching for a moment with motion, a roar of sound swelling, then dropping as he firmed up his grip. He tasted blood in his mouth, realized he’d bitten down on his tongue as he fell—

  And then Walter loomed above him.

  He saw one of Walter’s booted feet rise and he rolled away.

  But not fast enough. Walter’s heel slammed into his side, dug into his back as he twisted, pinning him to the table. Something hard gouged into his stomach, trapped beneath him and the table and he hissed at the pain, Walter’s weight digging it in deeper as he leaned into his foot.

  And then he remembered what it was: the knife. The knife he’d used to try to kill himself in the forest. The knife Eraeth had begun training him with weeks before at the same time he started to teach him the Alvritshai language.

  “All those years,” Walter said, grinding his heal in harder, his teeth clenched with the effort. His breath came in haggard gasps. “All those years in the forest, near the Well, learning from the sukrael, learning how to speak to them, learning to manipulate them. All those years trying to hurt you, trying to catch you away from the Well, away from the cursed white stone of the city, so that I could make you suffer as I had suffered. All those years learning to live with myself! All because of you and your damned father, because of that stupid expedition.”

  The weight pressed into Colin’s back released, and he shifted, rocked far enough that his hand could scrabble in the loose folds of his shirt, reaching for the handle of the knife. The tip of Walter’s sword appeared in his line of vision, digging into the wood of the table a few inches in front of his face, and he stilled, fingers curled tight around the knife’s handle, hidden from Walter’s view by his body.