by Phil Tucker
“For the Black Wolf! For the Ascendant!” The cry was muffled and seemed to come from a mile away. Asho took deep, ragged breaths. Around him plunged warhorses, massive Ennoians, accompanied by the hack and slash of blades. He’d never believed the tales told by the bards, but this was even worse than he’d imagined. The enemy should have melted like mist before the Black Wolves’ charge. And magic! The Sin Casters were supposed to be centuries dead and gone.
Reeling, blinking away mud, Asho forced himself upright. There—the Black Wolf himself. His Lord stood, wounded, a space having opened about him, bodies at his feet. Only five knights yet stood by his side. Asho couldn’t understand that number. Only five?
Asho stood and scooped up his sword. He turned to join his Lord and then froze as the enemy ranks parted to admit a man who stepped to the fore. He was dressed in purple and yellow silks, his hatchet face thinly bearded, a grimace of distaste twisting his lips. The air around him seemed to crackle with barely suppressed energy. He was slight, yet the Agerastian soldiers pressed back from him as if in fear.
Asho knew he should move. Should yell a war cry and charge. Yet he stood rooted to the spot as the enemy placed a black rock in his mouth, swallowed, and then raised a hand. His nails suddenly writhed and grew longer and twisted like ancient roots. Lord Kyferin raised his ancient family blade and bellowed his defiance, Ser Haug and his four other knights charging right after him. They didn’t take more than three steps. The stranger whispered something beneath his breath, and black flame shot out from his fingertips. It scythed through the charging men, cutting through their armor and flesh like a heated knife through tallow.
Lord Kyferin and his remaining knights toppled to the ground. Asho stood there, stunned. The cacophony of battle faded away as he stared at Lord Kyferin’s fallen body. Hatred, resentment, loathing, disgust, fury—all those emotions were smoothed away by shock. It was impossible that Lord Kyferin should be dead. He was a force of nature, the hub around which Asho’s miserable life turned. To see him fall made no sense.
The strangely dressed Agerastian didn’t even pause to gloat, but stumbled, nearly collapsed, and then gathered himself and turned to walk away.
“For the Black Wolf!” Asho raised his sword, not understanding his grief, his outrage, his furious denial. Lord Kyferin was dead.
The stranger paused and looked over his shoulder at Asho. The Sin Caster’s eyes seemed to expand so as to swallow Asho whole, dark as the bottom of a well, and within them lay a single promise: Charge me and die.
“For the Black Wolf,” whispered Asho, his arms shaking. The Sin Caster strode away, and as he did so he placed another black rock in his mouth, cried out a fell string of words, and bolts of magic flew from both palms to arc up into the sky and lance down somewhere else on the battlefield.
Asho lowered his blade. He was shaking so hard he could barely stand. He turned to regard the battle and saw the impossible. The forces of the Empire lay wrecked and ruined upon the slope that led up to the Agerastian position. A few knights had managed to reach the summit and engage the enemy in combat, but most had foundered long before, and either lay dead or were retreating down the slope, back to where the second wave of the Ascendant’s great army was waiting to charge.
The wind stirred Asho’s white hair. His sword was a dead weight in his hand. Streaks of ebon fire erupted from the Agerastian line here and there to fall upon knots of resistance. How many of those strange men were there? A dozen? Screams drifted with the wind. Horror caused his skin to crawl. Sin Casters, emerging from the most dreadful legends to walk the earth once more.
The Agerastian line was beginning to move down the hill. One of the soldiers ran at him, followed by three others. I’m a coward, thought Asho as he raised his sword, tip angled obliquely at the ground. At the last moment he stepped aside, and the man’s downward chop slid down the length of his blade and buried itself in the dirt. His momentum carried the soldier on, and as he ran by Asho pivoted and brought his own sword up and around and down to cut through the man’s neck. I stood still as my liege Lord died. He felt numb. The second soldier stabbed his blade straight at Asho’s chest, but Asho parried and stepped forward, spinning up the length of the man’s outstretched arm to crack his elbow into the back of the man’s head and send him staggering to his knees. But why should I have died for that monster? The third man dropped his sword as Asho’s blade sliced open his forearm and died when Asho ducked under the fourth man’s swing, allowing it to catch the third full in the throat.
Shaya, I didn’t avenge you. Kyferin died without knowing my hate.
The fourth man screamed a curse as he wrenched his blade free and spat at Asho. “Bythian scum! I’ll send you back to the Black Gate!”
The numbness cracked and shattered. Asho blinked, seeing the man for the first time, and into the void of horror blossomed fury.
He stepped in, gripping his sword’s hilt with both hands so that he could place all his strength behind his blows. The Agerastian was taller than he, of course, lean and whipcord strong, but Asho’s fury was cold and total and he attacked the man’s very blade, smashing it aside again and again, driving the bigger man before him, causing him to stumble back on his heels. Each time the soldier tried to raise his sword Asho smacked it aside, until finally the man dropped it and Asho speared his sword through the man’s throat.
The man fell, gurgling and scrabbling at the wound. Asho stood over him, his rage sluicing away as quickly as it had come. Death was everywhere, given voice in hoarse screams and pleas for mercy. He thought of Shaya as he’d seen her last, her white hair plastered to her head, turning to smile brokenly at him before she rode through the castle gate and to Ennoia, to pass back once more into the depths of Bythos and a life of slavery. Asho shuddered and looked around him. He recognized one body after another. Ser Eckel. Ser Orban. Ser Merboth. Each as lethal and brutal a knight as could be found throughout Ennoia, and all cut down by a Sin Caster.
Asho looked up. They’d lost the battle. It was unheard of; the Ascendant Empire had lost. Around him as far as he could see, the flower of the Empire’s chivalry lay wasted and ruined. The greatest knights of the age had been massacred.
“Asho!” The cry was thin, almost inaudible over the chaos, but he turned and saw Ulein, squire to Ser Orban, weaving his way drunkenly around the fallen toward Asho. His left arm hung awkwardly by his side, the chainmail torn at his shoulder. “Asho!”
“Here,” he called back unnecessarily.
Back at Kyferin Castle, Ulein would rather have swum in the moat than talk to him. Now the other squire hurried to his side, expression a combination of relief and fear. Asho slipped his arm around Ulein’s waist as the other youth sagged, and then they both turned as they heard the high, pure clarion call of the trumpets from the far hill. Asho felt his heart sink. “They’ve sounded the second charge.”
Together they stood and watched as the second half of the Empire’s army began to move forward, riding down the gradual slope of the far hill. The line was orderly, and this time the knights did not break out into a gallop but continued up the enemy slope at a trot instead.
“But why?” Ulein’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Didn’t they see…?”
Asho watched as close to a thousand knights rode up toward them. They looked glorious, but their gallant bravery seemed nothing but cruel foolishness. The slope was strewn with the dead and dying. No orderly charge would be possible.
Ulein winced. “Maybe if they stay close together, maintain order..?”
Asho didn’t have the heart to answer. He surveyed the enemy line just above them, which had come to a halt at the sound of the trumpets. “We have to do something.”
Ulein hissed and shifted his weight. “But what?”
“Those bolts of fire. They’ll destroy the second wave. We have to kill their Sin Casters.”
“They can’t be Sin Casters,” said Ulein. “That’s not possible.”
As if they had been su
mmoned, twelve robed men and women stepped forth from the massed ranks of the Agerastian army. They were spaced out equally across the line, clad in the same flowing purple and yellow robes, and the regular soldiers seemed to accord them all the same mixture of fear and respect.
“Whatever they are,” said Asho, “we have to stop them.” He paused. “Somehow.”
Below, the knights had spurred their steeds from a trot to a steady canter. The great hooves caused the very ground to shiver. Their lances were still pointed at the sky, but Asho knew that soon they would lower their points, and that would be the signal to charge.
“Find me a sword,” said Ulein with some of his former arrogance. “Hurry!”
Asho stepped over to the fallen Ser Eckel and took the knight’s beautiful sword from his dead hand, then hurried back and gave it to Ulein. The other squire barely had the strength to lift it.
“There,” said Asho, pointing. “The one closest to us. He’s the one who killed Lord Kyferin.” While I stood aside and watched.
Ulein took a deep breath. “I’ll charge him from the front. You come ’round the side. Wait till he’s focused on me, then take him down.”
Asho stared at Ulein’s profile as the young man’s jaw clenched and unclenched. For the first time, he felt admiration for the squire.. It was almost possible to forget the years of insults and disdain. There was no hope of success. Each Sin Caster stood in clear sight of their army. For Asho to reach the mage’s side without being noticed was impossible. But what choice did they have?
“I’ll see you in the next life,” said Asho.
The dull rumble became furious thunder. The charge had been signaled.
“Don’t kid yourself,” said Ulein, voice thickening with contempt. “I’m bound for Nous. You’ll be lucky to be reborn an Agerastian. Now go!” With that he started to limp straight toward the Sin Caster.
Asho’s admiration curdled. He glanced at the charging army below. Already its ranks were breaking up as the soldiers rode around fallen knights.
“My soul to the White Gate,” Asho whispered fiercely, and he took off at a run, crouching low as he circled around to come in on the Sin Caster’s flank. He darted from fallen horse to fallen horse, pausing to check Ulein’s progress. The other squire was dragging the sword, his face pale and drawn, but Asho saw ragged determination on his face.
Asho ran to the fallen horse that lay closest to the mage and crouched behind it. He didn’t think he’d been noticed.
As one the twelve Sin Casters swallowed their black rocks and then raised their hands, palms toward the sun. As one they began to call out their incantations. They all looked sick, Asho thought, faces beaded with sweat, pale and fevered, spittle flecking their lips. They shuddered, and two of them stumbled and nearly fell.
Ulein screamed, somehow raised Ser Eckel’s blade with one arm, and broke out into a run. “For the Ascendant!” Asho heard him cry.
It was now or never. I’m a coward, he thought, his stomach a greasy knot, but then he sucked in a deep breath, gritted his teeth and burst out from his hiding place.
CHAPTER TWO
Eleven of the Sin Casters finished their incantations and black fire streaked out to arch out into the sky and fall upon the charging knights below. The twelfth mage—their mage—saw Ulein’s approach, and with annoyance lowered both arms so that his seamed palms were pointed directly at the charging squire. Ebon fire exploded from his hands and flew right at Ulein, who screamed and brought Eckel’s blade down as if to cut the bolts in twain, but still his back burst out behind him, clotted pieces of flesh spraying into the air.
Asho bit back a cry of rage, trying for every chance at surprising the Sin Caster. He ran hunched over, as if that might hide him from the army, sprinting across the torn ground toward the mage. Numerous voices called out, and the Sin Caster turned to stare at Asho.
I’m not going to make it, I’m not going to make it, I’m not—
The Sin Caster fought back what looked like a spasm of nausea and raised his palm again. Deep lines of exhaustion were carved into his face; his eyes were sunken and hooded. He whispered a word and that sizzling, lethal sound filled the air as a single bolt of flame flew at Asho with unerring accuracy.
Asho screamed. He closed his eyes and brought his blade around as if to slice the bolt in two. He saw falling rain, Shaya turning away from him, felt terror and regret and loss engulf him, and then his sword shattered in his hands. Flecks of metal raked across his hauberk and laid open needle-thin cuts across his face. Still screaming, Asho tripped and fell to his knees, catching himself with an outstretched hand as he threw his suddenly white-hot sword hilt away with the other hand.
His eyes snapped open. He was alive. Around him lay the glowing shards of his blade, each one cherry-red and darkening even as he watched. He looked up at the Sin Caster, whose face mirrored Asho’s shock.
“That’s not possible,” said the man. “Perhaps because you’re Bythian? But no. That makes no sense.”
Asho drew his dagger and threw it, a wild, underhand toss. It spun through the air and buried itself in the Sin Caster’s stomach.
The man grunted and stepped back. He looked down and touched the circular pommel, traced the Ascendant’s Triangle that was inscribed there and then let out a low hiss. “Kill him,” he said.
Asho looked from the Sin Caster to the Agerastian soldiers. Their battle line was twenty deep, with those at the front holding kite-shaped shields and stabbing short blades.
“Gate me,” said Asho as he rose to his feet.
The closest ten soldiers from the second line threw their spears. Asho threw himself into a dive, tumbled, heard spears thunking into the dirt around him, and felt one cut a line of fire down his back but not punch home. Then he was up and running, a score of soldiers at his heels.
From somewhere someone yelled, “Hold the line! Damn you, hold the line!” Glancing back, he saw his pursuers falter, curse, and return. Wild laughter erupted from his lips, a sense of euphoria and disbelief making him giddy, and then he tripped and fell hard onto the sod.
A whinny sounded above him. Asho raised his face to see Crook came cantering up as if he were at the paddock back home and hoping for an apple.
“Idiot horse!” Asho grabbed the hanging reins and pulled himself up, then threw them back over Crook’s head. “You should have run while you had the chance!”
Crook shoved his damp, soft nose against. Asho’s neck. Asho froze when he looked past the horse at the madness that was befalling the second wave just below. The black fire had reduced the glorious charge to a shambles. Still the Empire’s knights struggled on, driven by honor and outrage. Dusk was falling, and the ebon bolts of flame shot through with crimson glowed like witchfire in the gloom as they fell again and again. It was terrible, a punishment unceasing. Asho moaned in horror. Such death. Such a massacre. There was no glory here. Nothing but destruction.
And yet. The black fire was growing markedly weaker, with fewer bolts in each attack. Scanning the Agerastian lines, Asho saw a Sin Caster collapse to her knees, head lowered as she coughed up blood. Only three yet stood on their feet, one of whom was supported by a soldier. Even as Asho watched, that man hurled a single slender bolt and slid to the ground.
The Sin Casters were done.
The remnants of the Ascendant’s army screamed their defiance and urged their horses on. Lathered and foaming at the mouth, the mighty war mounts struggled up the last few blood-drenched yards. As they did so, the Agerastians sounded their own trumpets for the first time.
Asho swung up onto Crook’s back as the Agerastian infantry let out a roar and parted, allowing their own lightly armored knights to race forth from between the units and charge toward him and the struggling knights. Asho cursed and wheeled Crook around. “Go! Go!” He dug his heels in and Crook took off, racing downhill, the massed might of the enemy right behind him.
It was the most reckless gallop of his life. Asho tried to guide Crook but
quickly gave up and just tried to remain saddled. Crook leaped the dead and dying horses, veered sharply left and right, and nearly collided with a knot of obdurate knights who refused to turn. Behind him Asho heard the familiar crash of lance on shield, the ring of sword on plate. He thought of turning and fighting, but looking over his shoulder he saw the Agerastian charge overwhelming the remnants with ease. They kept coming, destroying everything in their path. Theirs was a charge to be envied. Racing downhill, faced with broken groups of soldiers who turned to run as much as stand and fight, the Agerastian knights were destroying all resistance with ease.
Crook stretched out his stride and hit the valley floor at full gallop. Evening was giving way to dusk, and the slumped-over kragh that lay beside butchered horses and the knights of the first wave looked like shadowed mounds. Right behind him came a dozen enemy knights. Ahead and up the opposite slope were the remnants of the Ascendant’s army. Large but disorganized regiments of foot soldiers, most of them barely arrived at the battlefield, were now panicking and melting away before the oncoming tide. With the setting of the sun Asho’s vision was improving, and his eyes widened as he made out the Ascendant’s Grace himself, resplendent before his pavilion in his white enameled armor, his cloak of the purest ivory. He was sitting astride the largest destrier Asho had ever seen, and ringed around him were the Seven Virtues, the greatest of knights from the floating city of Aletheia itself.
Somehow, despite the death that followed at Asho’s heels, the Grace and his Virtues weren’t retreating. Crook, slowing once more, struggled up the slope toward them.
