by Mark Albany
Faye walked over to me, looking distinctively different than she had when I first laid eyes on her. She looked…more intense, somehow, like she radiated power. Her eyes glowed, but I couldn’t see any runes as she advanced on me.
I stepped back, but she was faster and grabbed my free hand, the one without a sword in it. To my surprise, she placed the sword that had been in the ice into my hand. I felt how cold it still was, despite being free of the block.
“Break…the hold,” Faye whispered to me, and for the first time, I realized that she was struggling with herself. I gripped the new sword tighter as I tried to comprehend what she was talking about. This was the first time she’d shown any outward interest in having Abarat’s control over her broken, and that was enough to throw me off balance.
That said, I still needed a moment to appreciate the blade in my hand. It was light, but still had a sort of weight to it that felt right in my hand. The haft was a hand-and-a-half long, making it a bastard sword, at least to my eyes, with the blade itself long and straight. What looked like runes were carved into the steel, but none that I had ever seen before. I had seen a couple in Elvish, when I looked at Braire’s runed stones, and they looked nothing like this. It didn’t seem to be in any language that I had ever encounterd before.
“What are you waiting for?” Faye asked, looking like she was holding on by a thread. It snapped me back to reality as I looked around to where Lyth stood, well aware of the sword still in Faye’s hand. I could feel the heat from it on my cheek.
“Well, we have the sword now,” I said to Lyth. “How do we use it? I assume that we’re looking for something a little more subtle than just running her through with it?”
“Obviously,” Lyth snapped and rushed to my side. “You need to command authority over her. Take the power away from whatever Abarat’s hold on her is.”
“I don’t have any authority over her,” I reminded Lyth and pushed the sword into her hands. “If any of us were to have any, it would be you, right?”
“Right,” Lyth said, looking like she hadn’t even thought of that. I didn’t see how it wasn’t obvious, considering that she was some kind of royalty. What was difficult about it? “You… Help me by keeping her down.”
Sure. Of course. That too, was obvious, and in my case, completely missed. It looked like Faye was returning to her old, Abarat-serving self, and that was not going to help. I came around behind her, dropped my sword, and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. I pulled her arms back and used my feet to knock her balance off and push her down to her knees. I felt the heat coming from the sword still in her hands, but I didn’t feel comfortable trying to disarm her. I had already been burned touching something that I shouldn’t have, and I wasn’t about to do it again.
Despite my physical size being enough to initially overpower her, I felt her start to fight back. In my drained state, I started to lose confidence in my ability to help with this.
“Keep her still!” Lyth shouted at me.
“I’m trying!” I roared back. Faye started to buck hard, trying to throw me off. It was all I could do to keep her right hand, the one with the sword in it, from breaking free. Her stabbing Lyth right now would echo poorly on the rest of our mission. “Just get it done!”
“I’ve never actually done this before,” Lyth replied, and let the blade come down to touch Faye’s shoulder. The woman jerked in my hands, hard enough to almost throw me clear of her as Lyth closed her eyes, lips moving quickly as she started the incantation.
Despite my sudden lack of faith in this plan, I saw a change starting to come over Faye as Lyth continued the incantation. I had no idea what she was saying, or why, but the fact that Faye seemed to calm down in my grip was encouraging, even if I was still only barely able to hold on.
Lyth raised the blade and Faye resumed her resistance with more vigor than before, like Abarat’s control over her knew what was happening and would be damned before it went quietly. Faye’s sudden and newfound strength dragged me clear of my spot behind her. All I could really do from my new spot, half-kneeling on the ground, was hold onto her sword hand as the other tried to wrench it free.
“Set me free!” Faye roared at me as I struggled to keep her in place.
“I’m…trying!” I growled back. I wasn’t sure which side of her made the demand, and honestly, I didn’t care. One way or another, she would get her wish, depending on when Lyth finished her incantation.
The blade dropped again, this time onto Faye’s left shoulder, and again, it had a bit of a calming effect on her—enough that I was able to regain my balance and grab hold of her again, pulling her close. Droplets of sweat formed on her temple as she seemed to struggle a bit with the spell.
I fortified myself for what I felt would be another sudden power struggle between Faye and myself as I watched the blade start to lift again, but this time, Faye let out a magically-enhanced cry that left my ears ringing before she suddenly went limp in my arms.
The silence that came next was rather deafening as I looked at Lyth and then Faye again, the latter apparently unconscious in my arms.
“Did it work?” I asked, suddenly out of breath as I glanced Lyth out of the corner of my eye. I still didn’t want to let Faye out of my sight.
“I finished the spell,” Lyth whispered, looking down at the sword that she still had in her hand. “Performed the rite correctly, or at least how it was spelled out in the book we found. Whether it worked or not… Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Lyth suddenly turned, and I saw the cold coming from the blade smoke up from it as she did. The odd runes lit up as she launched an attack at something near the door. I initially thought that she was trying the sword out, which felt right, I supposed, even if it might not be the right time for something like that.
But something dropped to the ground, and it wasn’t part of the gate. From the blackened, almost scorched skin of the creature, I easily recognized it as one of the monsters that we had so narrowly escaped not too long ago.
“They never come alone,” Lyth said to me, twirling the sword delicately in her hands. “Best prepare for a fight, I think.”
I wasn’t in any shape for that, but I did manage to stagger to my feet as more of the monsters piled through the gates and charged toward us. I wasn’t sure how the undead could get through the spell that protected this little pocket world we were in, but at this point, I wasn’t going to think too hard. I could barely stand, and putting up anything resembling a fight would take everything I had.
10
I didn’t know if I could put up much of a fight, but damned if I’d leave Lyth to fight the monsters off on her own. Each one of my muscles burned, some of which I hadn’t even been aware of until now, but there was no getting out of this.
At least if I failed, I would have all the time in the world to rest and recover. Assuming that I wasn’t turned into one of those monsters myself, which wasn’t something I wanted.
Just thinking about it made my blood run a little hotter as I quickly cleaned my sword of the snow that had collected on it while on the ground and prepared myself for the fight to come. I sucked in a deep breath, trying not to think about how my knees wobbled with each step.
“Are you going to pick up your bow?” I asked Lyth as the monsters paused at the brambles and thorns. They didn’t feel pain, but having the thorns tear into their flesh was problematic. They still needed to use their muscles if they wanted to move about.
“No…I think I have it handled with this sword,” Lyth said with a small smile. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel like I’ve waited for this weapon my whole life.”
“Consider me happy for you,” I grumbled. If she took the front line of the fight, all I could really do was help to keep her flanks clear, which seemed about all that I was capable of right now.
She grinned back at me, sensing my exhaustion. While I imagined that she was almost as tired, she looked like she’d have some fire in the b
attle to come. I couldn’t help a chuckle as we moved closer to the creatures. There was a path in the thicket that I had made. Considering that the monsters were struggling to move through the thorns proper, that would narrow their avenues of attack considerably. That was the one advantage we had.
They, of course, had the advantage of numbers, which would start to tell if we didn’t do something about it.
The bastard sword lit up, the runes glowing a deep blue as Lyth stepped forward and launched a magical blast at the monsters. She was careful to avoid widening the path through the brambles while still cutting through the five or six most advanced of the undead, but they were quickly pushed to the side as the dozens or so that were coming up behind them pressed forward again. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to stay conscious and focused as Lyth fired off another three or four blasts, trying to take the edge off their initial assault.
Just as the monsters started to get too close for comfort, Lyth took a step to the side and then back, letting me cut in. I roared to push some power into my limbs as I charged forward, throwing my full weight into a stab at the first creature’s stomach. It went in without too much effort, finding and impaling a second as more were pushed forward until I managed to pin a handful of those still alive onto the plants behind them. I pulled the blade back, flicking it out and around to almost effortlessly behead another creature that tried to push through me and toward Lyth. I wondered if they knew that she was the greater threat and were more focused on getting her out of the way before me.
Which I didn’t quite mind, as that meant I had more time to react to their attacks and get my sluggish limbs moving, hacking and cutting at whatever parts of their bodies I could reach. Heads were severed and fell onto the brambles, giving them something of an obscene and yet fitting fruit. I didn’t like that my mind went there, in all honesty. I had fallen into a rhythm where attacks and defense came without having to think about them. I didn’t know how long I could last like this, since I knew there was a limit to what I could do, but at the moment, I felt like I could go on forever.
The blasts kept coming from behind me. Lyth dealt a lot more damage to the creatures that were still coming, while all I really did was keep them away from her. They felt icy when they came closer to me. I’d never noticed any temperature changes from the blasts that originated from my blade, meaning that there probably weren’t any. I assumed that the ice had something to do with these shots of cold that cut through the creatures. I wondered if there was something similar with the fire in Faye’s sword.
That moment of distraction, as I thought to look back and see how Faye was doing, was all that was needed for two of the creatures to rush at me. They bowled me to the side as they clawed toward Lyth. Thorns dug into my back and tore at my clothes, but in my moment of panic, I didn’t care. I felt shots of pain as I pulled myself clear of the obnoxious and yet life-saving plants as I rushed forward, trying not to stumble with each step.
Lyth handled the one that was closest to her handily, effectively chopping its head off with a smooth slash. The second I had to handle, sliding the sword over its neck and screaming with effort as I pulled it off its attacking course and over into the brambles. I didn’t have time to finish it off, and instead had to deliver a kick to its midriff to firmly entangle it with the brambles before turning back around. I felt a rush of cold cut through the air just over my head, arcing up and down to slash at a line that was suddenly advancing on my vulnerable position.
The first that came at me fell back, a gaping hole in its chest, but I couldn’t stop the second or the third when they decided that they’d had enough of me standing in their way and pushed closer, now focused on me instead.
Three rushed at me while the rest moved toward Lyth, who was suddenly struggling to defend herself.
I ducked into a strike by one of the monsters, stabbed my blade into its chest by way of a riposte and pushed forward, trying and succeeding in throwing the one behind it off balance, and then turned to the third. It was too close to defend against—a mace arced up toward my unprotected head.
I needed to start wearing a helmet.
A flash of flame brushed across my face in sharp contrast to the cold that had been stinging it, cutting the head and some of the torso off the creature that was swinging at me. The swing itself went wide as the monster stumbled to the side and then dropped to the ground.
I turned enough to see Faye on her feet, the flaming sword in her hands as she grinned over at me.
“Miss me?” she asked, tilting her head and blowing me a kiss. I had nothing to say in response as she rushed in and took over as the striker of the group. That flaming sword of hers cut a smooth and deadly swathe into the undead, striking at them with swings of the blade proper followed by wave after wave of fireballs. I dropped back a couple of steps to stay out of the way of the attacks, caught my foot on a jutting cobble and dropped to the ground. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to pull myself back up, but I knew that I’d try, anyway.
Damn me and my stubbornness. Would I ever learn how to just give up and lay down and let others take care of the problems for me?
Nope. That wasn’t going to happen for a while. I growled and forced myself up, pulling my sword into a defensive position. I could see the red that I’d left behind on the snow, but I didn’t have time to think about that. Lyth and Faye were fighting alone, but they wouldn’t be for long.
Before I could push myself into the fight, though, I heard a horrifyingly loud roar from the other side of the walls. I looked up, trying to make out the origin, hoping that it wasn’t another terrifying creature that we would have to fight.
All my questions were answered, though, when I saw the powerful, burly form atop the walls. I remembered my conversation with Braire about the beast that I had never seen her summon before, a giant bear with a scar over its eye—an act that had filled her eyes with despair as she reached deep to bring it forth. I didn’t like that she had reached the emotional point where she was able to call the beast up, but damned if it wasn’t a welcome sight to my sore eyes.
Another ear-splitting roar and it jumped down from the walls, onto the horde of monsters that were gathered in front of the gate, tearing into them and the gate itself when it didn’t move quickly enough for its liking. I pulled my sword up, wondering if I still needed to join the fight, but the sight of a hawk and the sound of a wolf’s howl told me that the rest of our team had arrived. I heard lightning bolts strike outside the walls, and in a few minutes, after the bear had torn through most of the undead, I caught a glimpse of Aliana dancing her way through the monsters. She tore through them with ease, using her magic to help with her attacks instead of relying on it as her sole source of violence like Norel did.
The monsters seemed to understand that they were outclassed, especially when the bear and snake started to work in tandem—the latter wrapped around and trapped as many of the creatures with its sinuous body as it could, which allowed the bear to tear at them quickly and efficiently, smashing through groups at a time with its enormous paws.
I dropped to my knees and planted my sword in the ground, letting my head hang as the fight wound down. The sounds of the cries from the undead faded and moved further away as Braire’s beasts kept hunting, unwilling to leave any of them alive.
I heard boots crunching in the snow near me. When I looked up, I saw Faye, with that same knowing smile on her face. She still looked a little dazed, and a little different from what I could see. My eyes went immediately to the flaming sword in her hand and she chuckled, offering her free hand to me instead. I took it with a small smile and let her help me to my feet.
“You look exhausted, Grant,” she said, brushing something from my shoulder, which I realized was blood.
“Thank you for the obvious,” I grumbled, trying not to still see her as an enemy. There was something different about her that I couldn’t quite figure out.
“Get your hands off him,” I heard Norel growl, warning i
n her tone as she advanced on Faye through the bodies that were left behind. I wasn’t sure what she thought was happening, but just to be safe, Faye took a couple of steps away from me. She didn’t release her sword but she did point it at the ground. I sucked in a deep breath. With the fight over and what I hoped was our first mission here completed, I didn’t think there would be a problem if I just collapsed for a nap. They could handle it all from here, right?
Well, everyone else had to be just as tired as I was. I didn’t want to be the only one resting when everyone had to work. I used my sword for balance to stay on my feet as I watched Norel come closer to Faye.
She was understandably cautious in her approach, and Faye was understanding of that as well. She remained in place, allowing the woman to come closer and inspect her, visually at first, and then with what I could only assume was a magical screening of whether or not the woman was still under Abarat’s control as Lyth moved over to us.
“Well, that was surprisingly invasive,” Faye pointed out as Norel took a step back, looking genuinely surprised. “Any closer to my personal life and I would have been forced to leave a bright red handprint on your cheek.”
“She actually does have a surprising amount of strength in her hands,” I remembered aloud, rubbing where I knew there would be a bruise on my midsection, and maybe a couple more from when that mist-creature had hit me. I still wasn’t sure where that creature had gone, or if we would still need to fight it off. It had disappeared into Faye, but I hadn’t seen it go anywhere else. In fact, Faye had looked somewhat different since then. Which led to my next question of…
“What on earth are you?” Norel asked, stepping all over my train of thought. I looked over at her and narrowed my eyes.
“That’s not really important right now,” Faye said, shaking her head as the flames in her sword went out and she dropped it to the ground.
