Kayna’s cursed.
Nara flared earth, and a wall of rock erupted from the ground in the monster’s path, but he flared strength and charged through it like it wasn’t even there. She summoned another wall, thicker, and it held his initial charge. But instead of going around, he just struck the wall with the hammer, the stone shattering under his awesome strength.
He ran for her again and she noticed that both the armor plates and the shield had runes on them. It was the variant of the protection rune that also decorated Mykel’s staff. Nara reached out to the armor, calling its magic to her as she did to the king’s armor so long before, but it did not respond, the protection runes blocking her. She tried again, commanding the magic to be hers, but it refused.
Nara flared speed and protection as the monster came close. Some of her infantry tried to intercept, but the beast sent them flying with a strike from his hammer and a bash from his shield. The rest broke and ran.
Three steps away from her, the beast screamed, and she dodged his initial blow easily, dancing to the left. He looked even bigger up close, towering over her. Easily eight feet tall, the monster dwarfed everything on the battlefield, its footsteps thundering as it moved. Arrows bounced off the enchanted armor, helm and shield, as did spears, swords, and axes.
She dodged another strike, and the beast screamed in frustration. As it pursued her, it engaged her infantry, crushing those who attempted to intercede. Nara retrieved a fallen sword and darted in, dodging the monster’s attempt to shield-bash her and stabbing between two armored plates, finding its ribs. The bellow of pain it gave nearly knocked her to the ground as she passed by, looking back to see it whirl, undeterred. It charged her again, and she saw it flare health. Health! A cursed with strength and health and bone armor she could not drain.
She flared speed again, hard, with all the strength she had, and launched forward at the beast, dodging another blow from his hammer and searching for a weakness in the beast’s armor. As she passed, she flared strength and sliced at a hook that held two of the back plates together. The plates came apart slightly, exposing the underlay of padding.
Just then, a body flew into the monster at full charge, knocking it to the ground. Nara dropped the speed rune and watched as Mykel engaged the creature, the staff now whirling and striking it but the blows having little effect against the armor. The beast howled in rage and charged Mykel, sweeping wide with both shield and hammer, missing repeatedly as it passed. Though his blows seemed to have little effect on the beast, Mykel had the sight rune and could dodge his enemy’s attacks.
They battled, trading blows as the monster swung in a wide, sweeping arc with its long arm, finally catching Mykel in the shoulder with the hammer at end of a lucky swing. Mykel tumbled a dozen yards before flaring health. He re-engaged, landing blows on the beast’s back where Nara had damaged his armor. But with both Mykel and Nara distracted by the monster, they were no longer pressing the attack against Kayna’s troops, and the enemy was now gaining ground.
Nara looked at the battle lines. Enemy cavalry were picking apart her left flank, easily outnumbering Jahmai and his heavy horses.
The beast bellowed again, slamming its shield to the ground. Mykel lost his footing momentarily, then took a shot from the giant hammer directly in his chest. The blow was incredible, sending Mykel flying straight back into a group of enemy soldiers, bowling them over. The beast turned again to Nara, anger in its eyes. She could feel the hatred rolling off the monster, directed squarely at her. It charged, snarling. Why did it loathe her so much?
She flared speed again, hard, knowing that to conserve her energy at this moment would mean failure; the creature was moving too fast. If Mykel could get his arm around the beast’s neck, maybe he could strangle it into unconsciousness. She would need to get that helmet off, first. Straight forward she ran, then leaped high, sweeping her sword at the monster’s neck where a strap secured the bone helmet to the breastplate. A somersault in the air carried her gracefully onto the earth behind him, then she turned again. It bellowed and spun, frustrated that it couldn’t get its hands on her. Nara flared earth with her failing strength, and the ground beneath the monster came up to encase it in a thick cylinder of rock, paralyzing it in place, encasing both its shield and hammer. The rock wouldn’t hold it long, but it might be enough for a moment or two.
Mykel sensed her intention and leaped in, landing on the shoulders of the monster to grab the helmet. Good. He pulled it free, falling onto the ground near Nara, and they both looked up at the monster’s face.
Recognition struck her in the breast like a physical blow. The monster’s features were misshapen, but the face was unmistakable. As if to confirm her suspicions, the beast looked around, scared for a moment, flaring strength to break one hand free. Then it scratched its chin. Exactly like a certain boy she knew. A beautiful friend she thought to be dead.
Dei, no.
The straight black hair, the big brown eyes, the high cheekbones. It was Sammy.
Nara looked at Mykel, who rose to his feet slowly, eyes focused hard on his brother. Then Mykel screamed and dropped the helmet he was holding.
The eight-foot-tall snarling, raging monster was an eleven-year-old boy. Sammy flared strength, screaming, and broke the stone that bound his other arm, then freed his legs. He charged at Nara again. Mykel was still frozen in place, shocked. Everything seemed to be in slow motion, confusion, fatigue and grief overwhelming Nara. She couldn’t move, so overwhelming was the shock of this. She flared protection just as Sammy grabbed her, his mammoth hand around both her ankles. He lifted her and smashed her to the ground, her head impacting the hard earth. She flared protection and strength, trying to wrest herself from his crushing grasp but was unable. He was just too strong.
“Sammy,” she said. “It’s me–”
He smashed her against the ground yet again, stunning her. Unable to move, she flared sight to get a picture of her surroundings and saw Mykel on Sammy’s shoulders. Mykel’s arm slipped around Sammy’s tree-trunk sized neck and squeezed. Sammy smashed Nara on the ground again, crushing her against the earth. Her head swam, her strength drained by the protection rune that was keeping her alive, and her thoughts faltered. But Mykel’s chokehold was having an effect, and Sammy’s grip loosened. She reached for the remaining cepp on her waist and absorbed the energy, flaring health as she did so, clarity returning.
The beast that was Sammy slumped forward on its knees, Mykel’s arms still around its neck. “Stop, Sammy. Stop. It’s Nara. And me!” Mykel cried in frustration as he strangled his brother. Sammy finally let go of Nara.
The battle raged around them, Kayna’s superior troops, in greater numbers, gaining ground fast as Nara rose to her feet. They were losing. Kayna had broken their hearts, and Nara hadn’t seen it coming.
She flared sight and imagined the attack on Dimmitt, concentrating on Sammy as she did so. The vision came quickly, aided by Sammy’s proximity. Nara saw children and adults gathered around the stage near the church. A man atop the platform pointed at a boy who fidgeted with a snare. The boy placed the snare in his pocket as he climbed the steps, but Nara couldn’t see his face. A harvester reached for the boy, holding a ceppit in the other hand. The harvester said something, then the boy began to suffer. She concentrated harder, focusing on the boy. For just a moment, she saw the face. It was Simon, Sammy’s friend. It wasn’t Sammy at all. Lina was wrong.
Nara’s heart sank. This monster was indeed Sammy. Kayna had captured him, altered him, turned him against his own family. The cruelty of it stabbed deep, sapping her of resolve, and revealing her own folly. She had been fooled, and her ill-advised anger had tainted every choice she had made since Dimmitt.
She stood and looked at the carnage that grew about her, soldiers running, screaming, and dying on spears and swords as the enemy advanced. It was all her fault. She’d had a sense of the mistake, back in Keetna, when building the cavern. She knew this path was wrong but hadn’t trusted he
rself. Instead, she’d plowed ahead, thinking violence was the only way to resolve this conflict. Another mistake on a huge pile of wrongs committed by her hand. But there was no turning back now.
Kayna’s archers rained arrows down on the rear lines. Jahmai called for a retreat, but there was no place to go except the pass. Nara turned to see Mykel tearing the plates of armor from his now-unconscious brother, snapping clasps, hooks, and tearing straps. He then hefted Sammy’s giant, unconscious body onto his back with one hand, holding the staff in his other, and strode toward the pass.
Nara turned to look at the advancing men. Far in the back, she saw a rolling platform being pulled by horses. On the platform was Kayna, seated on a throne. Behind the platform was a string of men, half-dressed and shackled to one another, arm to arm.
Nara was both exhausted and demoralized, but Kayna would soon rise, and there would be no way to match her strength.
35
Names
Nara ran up the slope, following her retreating forces toward the pass as arrows from Kayna’s advancing archers continued to come down. She flared protection and turned—the enemy infantry was in full advance. She flared motion to knock aside a dozen arrows, but she couldn’t stop them all. A nearby soldier fell with an enemy arrow shaft through his calf.
Nara flared motion and pushed at more than a dozen of the enemy that were almost upon them, forcing them back into the next line and giving her time to reach the fallen soldier. It was Kitt, the cook, and he was a bloody mess. She flared strength and picked him up, carrying him over her shoulders and running up the slope to join the others. More arrows came down, one narrowly missing them, but she was able to get Kitt into the hands of several others before turning to reassess the retreat.
Jahmai rode up to Nara’s side, giving the report.
“They still have almost three thousand fighting men,” he said. He looked haggard, and his cheek bled from a shallow cut, blood streaming down to his chin. “We’ve lost hundreds, probably half of ours, but we have captured their big cursed and killed maybe eight other gifted.”
Nara nodded, keeping an eye on the advancing troops, ready to delay them enough to ensure a successful retreat. “If we can escape through the pass, I’ll collapse it to bar the way.”
“Good idea,” Jahmai said. “Try to stall them long enough for us to get all the way to the—” An arrow pierced his throat.
“Ander!” Nara caught him as he fell from the horse, then looked behind them for the source of the arrow. More rained down now, cutting her fleeing troops apart. Then she saw them. Enemy archers were at the pass, high on the rocks above, dozens of them, blocking the escape. They were trapped.
She pulled the arrow from Jahmai’s neck, then put her hand over both sides the wound, flaring sight and knitting. The blood escaping the wound slowed, then stopped as the vessels and skin healed. She helped him back atop his horse, but the loss of blood had weakened him.
“Get to the pass,” she said, clapping his horse on the rump. “Get them all to the pass,” she yelled as the horse trotted away.
The arrows rained down by the hundreds, and Kayna’s troops slowed their advance, letting the archers do the work. Nara flared motion and pushed the archers, one at a time, off the cliffs, but her attention was split as she also tried to knock away arrows flying down on what remained of her army. She stumbled on a corpse as she strove to reach a fallen spearman. The corpse was Derik, his eyes open and staring at nothing, sticky blood pooled on his chest from a sword strike.
Grief struck her hard as she looked upon the young man who’d followed her despite great pain. Who followed her because he believed she would save them all. And because he wanted to atone for his wrongs. She had let him down. She had let them all down.
Nara bit her lip as anger boiled up inside. Not just at Kayna but at herself for leading these people into a bloodbath. There wasn’t much strength left in her, but she would use her remaining power the best she could.
She turned to the cliffs and flared speed, then raced through her army and through the arrows that rained down. She reached the entrance to the pass before the first of her retreating forces, just as an arrow impacted her shoulder and she stumbled, rolling in a heap of dust and pain. She rose to her feet, chiding herself for leaving protection down in the midst of an arrow storm. She needed her energy, however, and endured the pain, running until she was at the entrance to the pass.
Looking up, she flared earth and the high rocks shook. Eyes closed for better concentration, she flared earth even harder, commanding the earth to fall.
High on the east side of the pass, the rocks moved, shifted, then slid, becoming an avalanche. She could hear the screams of the remaining archers on their perches as the flood of soil and earth enveloped them, swept them off the cliffs, and ended their deadly assault. The rocks came down, thundering directly into the path of her retreating army. She flared sight and earth, sensing the footfalls of the few who’d escaped the avalanche as they climbed up and away. Retreating. Good. She didn’t have much strength left, and she needed it for one more thing.
She ran toward the fallen rocks that blocked the pass, the last of the rockfall settling as she arrived. Commanding the earth with her remaining strength, she willed the debris, stones and soil to flatten, to make a path again, clearing the way for her army’s escape.
“Come!” she shouted to the closest of her army. Tired, scared citizen-soldiers funneled into the pass, limping and stumbling. Mykel still carried Sammy on his back, and as she ran back toward the battlefield, Nara saw Gwyn and Yury helping injured soldiers into wagons for the retreat.
As Nara returned to the rearguard, Kayna’s forces surged forward again, in full advance, now that she had beaten their archers. It was over. There was no way Nara’s army could escape through the pass in time. As if to add to the despair of the moment, more than a hundred cavalry broke free of Kayna’s army, in full gallop toward the pass and only moments away.
Her cepps were empty, and the weakness in her legs made it clear she had little strength left. She looked about, desperately searching for energy she could make hers. There was nothing. She was alone, again, an army about to crush her, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Anne moved along on her cane, stumbling out of the woods on sore feet as she looked toward the slopes above. The battle raged ahead, and she heard the thundering hooves of horses and riders.
Nara hadn’t used the cup. It was all she needed to find victory, but Gwyn had failed to deliver it. Or worse, Nara had dismissed it, caught up in the drama of the confrontation. Without it, Nara could never win this fight, and the end was now near. Perhaps some lives could be saved. Perhaps Nara’s. Or maybe Anne could just buy them a little time.
She stopped in place, dropped her backpack, and fished through it. Upon finding the handle of the small ceppit, she pulled it from the pack until it rested on her palms. Smaller than most, but every bit as effective, this was the only chance to save Nara.
She gripped it in her right hand, took a deep breath, and thrust it into her left shoulder, burying it. She screamed with the sudden pain, enduring it as best she could, shuddering with the shock of it but waiting for the magic to do its work, looking for some new power or awareness to rise.
Nothing came. The patch held.
She pulled the ceppit out and stabbed her left thigh through the meat, even as blood from her shoulder made a growing stain on her old tunic. Again, she steeled her resolve to endure the pain, closing her eyes, waiting, looking, hoping to see something more. A moment passed, but no new magic showed its face.
The pain in her thigh grew, and she withdrew the ceppit and opened her eyes. Blood from her shoulder and thigh now pooled on the ground. She plunged the ceppit into her other thigh and fell to her knees with agony but held it in place.
She waited. It shouldn’t take this many, should it? She’d never done this before, and it was risky. So much blood lost now, and she was getting dizzy. Closi
ng her eyes again, she concentrated, the screams of advancing troops threatening to distract her. Focusing on her inner self, she saw something on the periphery of her vision.
“Come out, little rune,” she said. “Announce yourself. Who are you?”
It came closer, still blurry, indistinct, but slightly sharper. She removed the ceppit from her thigh and tossed it aside, then placed her hands on the ground, focusing with all her attention.
The design came into view. It was the earth rune.
Perfect.
She flared the rune with all her remaining strength and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Uf-fhal!”
And the earth rose.
Nara marveled as the ground beneath Kayna’s army shook, then exploded in a shower of rocks and dirt, pits and columns appearing, boulders emerging. The entire cavalry charge would have decimated Nara’s fleeing forces but, instead, now collapsed abruptly as horses crashed into one another, fell into pits, or stumbled with the shaking.
Who had done that? She looked around the battlefield, perplexed, not finding the source of that magic. Then she saw it—an old woman on the far side of the slope, collapsed.
Anne. How had she done that?
Nara flared speed and ran, using the earthquake’s distraction to cross the distance. As she arrived, she found Anne slumped over, her good eye closed, barely breathing. Blood around her soaked into the earth. So much blood.
Nara fought back a brief dizzy spell, then flared sight and knitting, closing wounds on Anne’s shoulder and thighs. It wouldn’t replace the lost blood but might keep her from getting worse. Perhaps she’d have a chance, now.
“Oh, dear Anne,” she said. “What do I do? I need you. Don’t die. Please. Tell me what to do. Should we retreat to Keetna, save who I can? Or keep fighting? Tell me, please. I don’t know what to do!”
The Godseeker Duet Page 52
