Witchsign

by Den Patrick

‘They were linked.’ Steiner eyed the destroyed masonry. ‘I knew it. The statue and the artefact were linked.’

  The statue was the binding part of the power, said Silverdust. The part that binds dead souls on Vladibogdan. The part that bound me from speaking of it.

  ‘And now it’s destroyed,’ said Steiner. ‘No more lost souls for the Empire.’

  Yes. Silverdust nodded and laid a gloved hand on Steiner’s shoulder. You have my gratitude.

  ‘This is impressive,’ said Taiga in a quiet voice. ‘But it doesn’t help your sister. What are we going to do now?’

  ‘We need to find a way off the island.’ Steiner eyed the fallen statue. ‘And there’s only one way left.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Kjellrunn

  Many more scholarly Vigilants wonder at the source of the arcane. Was it always the dragon’s intent to pass on their powers to more lowly humans? And if the dragons were truly exterminated, might the arcane also be lost from the world? So it is that Vladibogdan is not just a prison for dragons, but a place where we might safeguard them for the future.

  – Untainted Histories Volume 3: Serebryanyy Pyli

  Kjellrunn’s breathing was slow and steady; it was the rise and fall of someone asleep, surrendered to dreaming. There was much that was dreamlike in that moment: the way she drifted above the ground, the black-clad Okhrana moving slow through the dark forest, Bjørner’s expression of horrified awe. It was difficult to believe such things were happening. Most of the Okhrana came with swords, but a handful carried nets and crossbows.

  ‘Kjellrunn,’ said Marek, his face pale and full of reverence. ‘You’re levitating.’

  ‘Run back inside, Father, where it’s safe.’

  No sooner had she said the words than an Okhrana stood and fired his crossbow. Kjellrunn turned, a dismissive frown on her young face, a slow wave from her right hand. The crossbow bolt ricocheted away from the chalet.

  ‘Hoy!’ shouted Verner, falling onto his arse in the mud.

  Kjellrunn turned all her attention to the Okhrana with the crossbow, lifting him from the ground with a gesture. The man screamed as he ascended through the forest, hitting branches and speeding higher into the sky.

  The distraction almost cost Kjellrunn her life.

  ‘Kjell! Look out,’ shouted Verner, pointing to the other side of the clearing. A second crossbowman sighted down his weapon, a curse frozen on his lips. Kjellrunn slammed a hand across her body, turning slightly in the air with the force of it. The bolt changed direction, splintering tree bark. The Okhrana dropped to one knee, reloading the weapon, eyes wide with panic.

  The first shooter surrendered to gravity, bereft of Kjellrunn’s power. His scream during the descent rang out across the forest, a shrill wail that chilled the blood of all present. The cry was cut short and many of the Okhrana looked over their shoulders.

  Kjellrunn eyed the man she had killed, still lost to the dreamlike calm wrapped about her like mist. Two more Okhrana fired and Kjellrunn blinked, every muscle in her body clenched and taut. The first bolt exploded in mid-air, disintegrating silently. A stinging sensation followed, clipping her shoulder, spinning her round. The pain made her gasp and suddenly she was on the ground, hands slick with mud, head thundering with an angry heartbeat. The second bolt had not been so easily stopped. A glance at her shoulder confirmed the flimsy fabric of her tunic had ripped, the flesh beneath no different. A dark red halo soaked through her clothes.

  ‘Concentrate, foolish girl,’ said Kjellrunn in a daze.

  Verner and Marek surged forward, roaring like berserkers of old. Marek barely bothered with the knife, stepping inside his opponent’s reach, knocking aside the hasty thrust. The blacksmith slammed a shoulder into the man’s sternum, knocking him flat.

  ‘Father,’ screamed Kjellrunn as another attacker approached, but Marek ducked beneath the sword stroke and lashed out. He gripped the knife, point down, raking wide across the Okhrana’s vitals beneath the leather jack. The man fell back screaming, collapsed to his knees, eyes fixed with a dread certainty on the spreading stain at his guts.

  Verner was no less fierce, jabbing and ducking, weaving through a tangle of limbs. A sword flashed forward and both fisherman and Okhrana found their momentum stalled, too close for an attack of consequence. Verner turned his shoulder and wrestled his attacker’s sword from his grasp. A moment later and Verner had run the man through the chest, even as the Okhrana clutched at his face.

  Kjellrunn lurched to her feet, one hand pressed to her shoulder. Marek glanced over and opened his mouth to shout. That was when the net fell on him. The Okhrana beat him into submission with the flats of their swords.

  ‘Dammit, Marek!’ said the dark-haired Okhrana. ‘We’re not here for you. Only the Vigilant. Where is she?’

  Kjellrunn tried to marshal the icy resolve of her lessons, reached out for the the powers of earth and water, strained to hear the angry roar of the Spøkelsea. Nothing came, no sensation, no sound, just the awful dread of watching her father, knocked to his knees, face bloodied.

  ‘Where is Sharpbreath?’ shouted the Okhrana.

  The remaining Okhrana were almost upon Kjellrunn when Mistress Kamalov emerged from the chalet. Gone was the stooped, cantankerous woman of the woods. Tall and imperious, with a grave expression full of indignation, Mistress Kamalov reached out with one hand. Kjellrunn had failed to see the Okhrana with a net approaching but she saw him now. He fell to his knees screaming, clutching the sides of his head. The wind in the clearing whipped the bare trees and set the conifers to swaying.

  ‘You do not come to my house and capture me,’ said Mistress Kamalov. ‘You do not capture my student. It is I who capture you. Yes?’ She flung her arms above her head and let forth a birdlike shriek. The Okhrana, far from being unnerved by such a display, ignored all others and sped towards the old woman at a flat run.

  Birds of all descriptions swooped down, blackbirds and crows, gulls and cormorants. Kjellrunn thought she sighted a hawk in the confusion of feathered bodies and surging wings.

  The Okhrana dropped to the ground as one, scores of tiny cuts opening across their hands and faces, scalps left bloody by scoring talons. The birds drifted higher, above the reach of the trees, then circled about.

  Kjellrunn wasted no time. She ran towards her father, breath hot and fast in her lungs, wrenching the net from his crumpled form. Marek looked at her, not with the eyes of her father, always so steadfast, but with the eyes of a man knowing they were lost.

  ‘There are too many.’

  ‘Mistress Kamalov will save us,’ said Kjellrunn. ‘Look.’

  The rag-tag flock surged down through the trees, wings beating at the air in a fury. The Okhrana had barely recovered and cried out in dismay, all but one. The dark-haired horseman stood up, mocking smirk in place, as bright as the torch he carried in his hand. The birds descended and the horseman beat at them with the fire, singeing feathers. The air was filled with the smell of burning and angry calls of pain. Other Okhrana followed the horseman’s example, wrestling flint and torches from their packs. The birds wheeled about and Marek stumbled to his feet, one hand grasping Kjellrunn’s wrist.

  ‘I’m taking you away from this.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere safe,’ growled Marek.

  ‘Father.’ Marek stopped as if he’d been struck. ‘They came to Cinderfell for her, but they won’t stop until they have us too. Nowhere will ever be safe again.’

  The horseman continued to flail at Mistress Kamalov’s birds with the torch, buying time for his friends. Other torches were lit to help fend off Mistress Kamalov’s flock.

  ‘We have to help her,’ said Kjellrunn, but Marek only glanced towards the edge of the clearing, back towards home and Cinderfell.

  Mistress Kamalov remained at the chalet’s doorway, reaching into the skies again to summon the birds, who were now scattered and shrieking as more flaming torches appeared in the hands of the Okhrana. The ol
d woman bellowed words in Solska but the flock did not heed the call, cut short as it was.

  Kjellrunn called out as a lone Okhrana emerged from the chalet behind Mistress Kamalov and clubbed her in the head with the pommel of his sword. The old woman crumpled, the birds above fled in all directions.

  A cry went up from the Okhrana, short-lived as Verner appeared behind Mistress Kamalov’s attacker. Two short blades flashed in the weak light and the Okhrana was on his knees. The blades flashed again and the man was clutching his neck, eyes wide with shock, face pale as the snow in the clearing.

  The dark-haired Okhrana swore in Solska and threw down his torch before shouting at a comrade. Verner charged forward as a crossbow took him in the shoulder.

  ‘Verner? No!’ Kjellrunn screamed, feeling an awful chill that had nothing to do with the cruel wind.

  Verner stumbled on, lashing out at the nearest Okhrana and forcing back his weapon, slashing his opponent across the thigh. For a second the Okhrana stumbled and Verner shuddered, once, twice, as two more bolts took him in the chest and gut.

  Verner, Uncle Verner, the half-drunk fisherman and teller of tall tales, collapsed to the forest floor and didn’t move.

  ‘Verner!’ Marek’s cry signalled the end of the fight. The blacksmith hobbled to his fallen friend and clutched his body close, but Verner didn’t reply. Kjellrunn stared wordlessly from Verner to Mistress Kamalov, who lay still, dead or unconscious. The Okhrana circled the fallen, bright blades in eager hands.

  Kjellrunn couldn’t speak, shock stealing every word and every thought.

  ‘You Nordvlast girls all look the same to me,’ sneered the horseman, streaked with soot and bearing a trio of scratches. He had not lost his smirk during the fighting. ‘All thin as whips, with sour faces that don’t remember to smile when a man passes by.’

  ‘You want me to smile?’ whispered Kjellrunn, eyes burning with unshed tears. ‘You want me to smile?’ she said again, louder. The roar of the Spøkelsea was in her ears, in her veins, an irresistible susurrus. ‘You want me to smile?’ she was shouting, howling above the noise in her head. It was the sound of stone breaking and trees splintering, falling snapping.

  ‘Frøya save us,’ said Marek. He was not looking at the Okhrana, but Kjellrunn.

  Stones wrenched themselves free of the forest floor along with the weapons of the fallen. Old timber and shards of bone from animals long dead floated above the ground. A few of the Okhrana began to run but were caught in the vortex of debris as it swirled about the clearing. Men were pelted and beaten, bludgeoned in a storm that lifted them from their feet. The screams of the Okhrana stopped one by one as the men were smashed head first into trees, or collided with swords. The air was filled with a blur of violence and Kjellrunn drifted at the eye of the storm, teeth gritted, fists clenched so hard her nails drew blood from her palms. On and on the vortex whirled, until the shrieks of the dying were silenced and only the terrible voice of the wind remained.

  ‘Kjellrunn!’ came Marek’s voice amid the fury. ‘Kjellrunn, they’re all dead.’

  They had killed Verner. She would not stop until every bone was broken. Her power would not be dismissed so quickly.

  ‘Kjellrunn. Stop!’ Marek stood beneath her, pleading. ‘The chalet is coming apart!’

  Kjellrunn regarded the little house. Watched the thatch come free of the roof, whipped up into the sky, watching the walls and shutters pelted by rocks and the corpses of the Okhrana.

  ‘Kjellrunn, you have to stop or the whole forest will be destroyed.’

  The storm raged on, irresistible. How had she never tapped into this before? Such power. Always cowering from other children, from the stares of the townsfolk. Never again.

  ‘Kjell! You’re going to kill Mistress Kamalov. We’ve already lost Verner.’

  The clearing was filled with the sounds of debris crashing to ground. Kjellrunn floated down, feet alighting on bloodied snow. She closed her eyes and took a long steadying breath, trying to fight the feeling of sickness that grew within her.

  ‘You did it, Kjell. You saved us.’ Marek limped towards the shattered chalet, lifting a broken branch from where it had fallen on Mistress Kamalov. He slumped down by the chalet, sitting with his back to the wall, eyeing the devastation.

  All was silent in the forest, no clash of swords, no thump of stone on timber, no roars of the brave or dying whimpers. All was silent but for the terrible sobs that wracked Marek, hands pressed to his face, wordless with grief but for one name.

  ‘Verner.’

  It began to snow, and yet Kjellrunn had no desire to move. She stood frozen at the centre of the clearing, afraid a single step might spell her collapse. Her hands shook but not with cold. A terrible emptiness had taken the place of the fury in her head. Bjørner looked out from behind a tree and stared at Kjellrunn, either too stupid or too terrified to run away.

  ‘Kjell.’ Marek gestured to the far side of the clearing. A bundle of black rags rolled over and began crawling through the mud, shuffling past rocks and corpses. The man made no sound, save for the soft wheeze of someone badly hurt.

  Kjellrunn took a step forward, legs shaking beneath her as she went. The Okhrana stared over his shoulder, twisting onto his back and scrambling away on hands and feet, arse scuffing the ground. The storm of stone and wood had scoured the smirk from his face, leaving only disbelief and fear.

  ‘Please,’ said the dark-haired horseman.’Please.’ Gone was the swagger of the Okhrana who had chiding her for not smiling.

  Kjellrunn stepped forward, then took another step, feeling her strength return as the horseman’s fear grew. Her foot nudged a short blade in the mud and she stooped to retrieve it.

  ‘Please, I’m unarmed.’

  ‘There is only killing.’ Kjellrunn stalked over to the fallen Okhrana. ‘That’s what you said. And how many unarmed men and women have you killed?’

  The horseman fell silent.

  ‘How many in the name of your beloved Empire?’

  ‘No, wait. Please.’

  ‘You killed my uncle!’

  Kjellrunn raised the curved blade above her head, and then the horseman spoke no more.

  ‘Go home, Bjørner,’ said Kjellrunn, without looking up from the Okhrana’s corpse.

  The tavern keeper emerged from behind a tree, guilt and fear filling eyes that had seen too much. ‘Go home to your daughter.’

  Bjørner nodded.

  ‘And if you mistreat her …’ Kjellrunn indicated the horseman.

  Bjørner nodded again, and then he was gone, fleeing the devastated woodland. Kjellrunn’s stony gaze followed every step of his departure.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Steiner

  The darkest fear of any Imperial servant is a unification of a different kind. We would face a war on three fronts if the people of Shanisrond and the Scorched Republics were to enter into an alliance with the Yamal. But such an uprising would be hard-pressed to overcome the military might of the Emperor. I fear he must be taken down from within, and then the issue of succession hangs over the continent like a spectre.

  – Untainted Histories Volume 3: Serebryanyy Pyli

  ‘This is bad,’ grumbled Tief. Academy Square was a strange tableau; some soldiers remained standing, petrified by Sundra’s arcane gaze, while the bodies of others lay sprawled across the flagstones, suffocated by the cinderwraiths. The soldiers were not the only casualties. Charred corpses were among the dead, too small to be soldiers. Steiner guessed they were novices. Others had been bludgeoned to death.

  ‘At least they won’t become cinderwraiths now,’ whispered Steiner.

  ‘I meant Shirinov escaping. This is bad.’ Tief gestured to the destruction all around them. ‘But the damage Shirinov could do with twenty soldiers and no oversight …’

  ‘I know, don’t think I’ve forgotten.’ Steiner hefted his sledgehammer and wiped the grit from his eyes.

  Taiga supported her sister, who looked exhausted after petrif
ying so many soldiers. Silverdust remained at Steiner’s shoulder, his uniform curiously pristine despite the desolation. What will you do now?

  ‘Come on.’ Steiner glanced over his shoulder and headed back along the alley between Academy Vozdukha and Academy Voda. ‘I have an idea.’

  The cinderwraiths followed, all trace of malevolence now faded. The Ashen Court drifted behind, silent and obedient with Silverdust leading. Steiner raised the flickering amulet a little higher. Arcane light danced along the walls of the sloping corridor.

  You promised to free them. Silverdust loomed over Steiner, the aura of light and heat uncomfortable. Steiner frowned at the Vigilant.

  ‘I will free you, I promise,’ said Steiner, ‘but our work isn’t over yet.’

  It is not as they they have a choice, is it? replied Silverdust.

  ‘You’ve a remarkable talent for missing the boat,’ said Tief, rubbing his forehead. He had the decency to look abashed when Steiner glowered at him.

  ‘If I get this right I won’t need a boat,’ said Steiner as he ventured down the many steps to the forges.

  ‘Get what right?’ asked Tief as they descended yet deeper beneath the island.

  ‘You hate surprises, don’t you?’ said Steiner.

  ‘No good ever came of a surprise.’ Tief screwed up his face.

  ‘There is another way off Vladibogdan,’ said Sundra, ‘but it is no simple undertaking.’

  Steiner snorted a bitter laugh. ‘When is anything simple on Vladibogdan?’

  It is the only way. Steiner couldn’t be sure if Silverdust’s words were heard by everyone or him alone.

  ‘It stands to reason you’d know what I’m thinking,’ he said, hearing his own frustration.

  I have been doing this a long time. Decades in fact.

  In time they reached the wide stone balcony, overlooking furnaces left to cool. The usual din of industry was silent without the army of cinderwraiths to work their stations. Only one hammer rose and fell, one hammer ringing out like a watchtower bell, a warning that all was not well. Kimi was still at work near her huge furnace, still atop her dais working at weapons.