Or more accurately, it tucked its tail between its legs and scurried off. There was no great explosion, no twisting and collapsing ether that made the air vibrate and the walls shift. Just a whimper.
Black carpet, trimmed with gold, lay beneath my feet. And an overpowering scent of pine that one only finds deep in the forest or within the keep of Edenvaile wafted through the air. It was a much more pleasant smell than the acrid jelly-blood-infested repulsiveness that fouled my blade. Speaking of which, I wondered if it had disappeared, or…
I’d have to check on that later, thanks to a little thumping that sounded quite similar to panicked feet hurrying down steps.
More noises: some voices echoing off the walls, shouting naughty words, and the clangor of angry steel.
“Fuck off!”
Something crashed above me, shaking the ceiling.
“He said fuck off!”
My Rots. I looked up and followed the muddled sounds of their racing footsteps with my eyes. They trailed off, toward a staircase that wound around and emptied out into the hallway I stood in. It was on those stairs where the urgent pattering of feet from moments ago had now blossomed into a slim figure who turned the corner and ran.
Someone chased her. No, someone followed her.
Faces flashed in my mind. There was my brother’s face, flat and empty as I rent his throat with a rusted dagger. There was my father’s face, mouth agape, eyes shinier than marbles as I cried and cried and stabbed and stabbed, sucking the blood from his rotten heart. There were the faces of my Rots, pale and still as the stench of death emanated from their spoiled organs.
A profound anger pulsed inside me. The tingles and shivers climbed across my shoulders and down my spine. My arms were pimpled and my teeth were clenched. I didn’t go through all of the shit in my life to sit here and play the role of a dazzled spectator.
My predatory instincts — the kind of savageness that idealists and do-gooders like to think men have cast aside for intelligence and morality — propelled me forward. I was a wolf, and these gals were my prey.
Ebon blade in hand, I hunted them down, eyes fixed on the dragging hems of their white cloaks like a jackal pursuing the swaying tail of a fleeing fox through the dark of night.
Sybil Tath’s mess of black hair flung to one side of her shoulder as her head swiveled around. The fear… oh, it percolated in her eyes like beads of sweat through pores. I was faster, stronger, hungrier. And she knew it. Magic wouldn’t save her now.
She turned back around, shoulders bobbing, arms flinging.
I readied my blade, lowering it to my side.
The royal Verdan carpet beneath my feet became a blur. The torches affixed to the walls coalesced into a canvas of bleary sunsets. I wasn’t running, I was soaring. Felt like I wasn’t even touching the ground.
With another stride, I drew back my sword.
A second stride, and I held my breath.
With a third, I swung.
With a fourth, there was a yelp, and my arm shuddered. Serrated ebon sunk its teeth into the soft tissue of Sybil’s calf. I leaned away and dragged the blade across the muscles and tendons, careful to avoid bone. I wanted her in disrepair, not to bleed out. Not yet.
Her ankle twisted, and her knee bent in disturbing fashion. She crumbled to the ground and rolled onto her back, clutching her leg, beating the air into submission with her squeals.
I went on, not missing a stride. Had to keep running, keep hunting, because the true prey was still trying to get away.
Amielle curled her fingers around the edge of a wall, and then she disappeared, down another flight of stairs.
Sybil’s howling faded behind me as I turned the corner. I bounded down the steps, skipping every other three.
Amielle’s auburn curls bounced springily on her shoulders as she raced away from a wicked grin. She was being chased by a cold-blooded killer, she thought, one who wouldn’t hesitate to chop those pretty little lips right off her face. Let her think what she wanted. Better for fear to push her on.
She jumped from the fifth step and landed stiffly on the floor below. She said something, and then darted to the left. Had she made it all the way down that narrow hallway, she could have pushed open the doors and been greeted by the frosty air of the rear courtyard. Maybe she could have hidden, signaled a stray guard, something to bide her time while she searched for a pair of wings in the sky to pervert into a submissive beast of flame.
Could have — those are the two great words of finality.
I leaned my shoulder down and brutally drove Amielle into the wall, shielding her head so body parts of lesser importance would take the brunt of the force. The wall met us with the same kindness of a fifty-foot wave. We fell backward and rolled in each other’s arms, till the thick carpet beneath slowed us.
My arm had caught a few rugged ridges of rock along the wall, splitting the skin. And my shoulder… boy, felt like a party of gremlins inside there, taking turns at gnawing on my tendons.
But no amount of pain could stop me now.
I fisted Amielle’s hair and yanked the bitch to her feet. Her once-baleful eyes that had looked as frightening as the center of a maelstrom were now dull and marred with the fogginess of defeat. She shied away from me, until I pinched her thin chin and wrenched her sandy face toward mine.
“You know, I’ve never been big on words when someone’s going to die. But you and I,” I said, tapping the center of her head with my finger, “we need to talk.”
“Shepherd,” Kale called out from down the hallway. “Got her.” He heaved a wounded Sybil Tath onto his shoulder.
“And him,” said Slenna, who appeared from the stairs holding a dagger to the throat of one Chachant Verdan.
“This one too,” said Ervin, pushing Vileoux Verdan along. He slapped the old man’s face and said, “Come on now, look alive.”
“Can I cut the tongue out of this one?” another Rot asked, tracing the tip of his dagger along the gaunt mouth of Edmund Tath. “He fuckin’ spit on me.”
A few more Rots followed down the stairs, dragging conjurers who appeared a few hours away from death, and some northern lords who apparently weren’t eager to take to the battlefield.
“I told you to kill them,” I said.
Kale shrugged. “Once you up and vanished, Slenna said you were talkin’ out your ass, passion and all that.”
I counted the number of Rots silently. And again. Two were missing. “Where’s Flint and Treddle?”
Kale pointed his thumb toward the ceiling. “Bled out. Royal guards are tough bastards, you weren’t lying. Got me on the shoulder and I think Ervin is missin’ some skin from his back.”
“Whoever’s not holding a prisoner,” I said, “go retrieve them. They may have died here, but they will not rest here.”
I twisted Amielle’s head around. “You on the other hand, dear…”
She shook her head, as if out of pity, and said, “You can kill me. But you cannot kill an idea.”
We’d see about that.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We emerged onto the balcony under a sad sky, but the sight on the battlefield was one of joy and victory. Stray battlements of conjurer reinforcements were fleeing the field, and the small number of bannermen who had taken to Vileoux’s side sat in a heap of snow as prisoners in the face of Patrick Verdan and his mighty army, which had a few curious colorings mingled within.
Pastel green colorings, those made famous by various shaman sects of Hoarvous. Interesting.
The plume of dust and snow had finally settled back into the earth. Swords from the field aimed toward me, and then a small contingent of horses trotted toward what used to be the gate of Edenvaile. Dercy Daniser, Patrick Verdan and my commander were among them.
I turned to the Rots. “Escort the captured downstairs, into the throne room. And open the doors for our friends. I’ll be down there shortly — a former queen and I have a few things to discuss.” Once the Rots departed, I inhale
d nature’s glacier breath deep into my nostrils. “Colder here than you imagined?”
Amielle watched the contingent trot inside the walls her conjurers had evulsed. Her shoulders slumped, and her head hung. She said nothing. Had her head not been a little bloody, and had the exhaustion of this battle not beaten her down, I might've been wary of a one-on-one confrontation, given our last meeting hadn't ended in my favor. But she was too weak now. Too feeble.
“You don’t particularly seem dressed for the occasion,” I said, noting the thin linens her cloak was pinned to. Her hands were clenched into fists inside the sleeves of her shirt.
“Are you attempting to woo me?” she asked. “If you are, I would suggest starting off with a bang, not mindless chatter.”
“I’m afraid not. I’ve always been of the mind that you shouldn’t romance a woman who won’t be around to see the sun rise tomorrow.” After some time, I added, “How’s that for a bang?”
“Better,” she said blankly, moving to the edge of the balcony. “Shall I lean my head over?” Catching the queer look on my face, she added, “For the clean cut, of course. Or do you intend to make a mess of me?”
I unsheathed my blade. “Eager to die, are we?”
She watched the contingent move closer. Or perhaps she was dredging the depths of her ruined dreams, as people who look mindlessly into the horizon are wont to do.
“This isn’t about me, shepherd of assassins.” She turned. “You’re the one who’s eager for death, always.”
I chuckled.
“Did I miss a joke?” she asked.
“It’s just that… look at us. You’re dressed all prim and proper, and I’m a mangy mutt with a beard that needed trimming six months ago. You have your fancy spells, and I swing a sword like a dumb-fuck ogre. You’re a bloody queen! And me? I shepherd a bunch of misfits and outcasts. Isn’t it funny, then, that we’re driven by an identical passion?”
“What drives me,” she said, “is—”
“Absolute power,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “My people—”
I interrupted her with a dismissive wave of my hand. “Oh, fuck off with all the savior shit. Maybe a little part of you wanted to save your people. Rescue them from the droughts and whatever else plagues your world. That’s not what drove you to this, though. You got a whiff of power, and you loved it. You’d do anything to keep it, right?”
“I’d do anything to keep my people alive.”
“Of course you would. Because if you didn’t, you’d have a revolt on your hands.”
Amielle shunned me, offering me the view of her cloak as she paced down the balcony.
“Look,” I said empathetically, “I understand.”
“I was eight when I learned the ways. By fifteen, I could conjure phoenixes. I snuck away from the domiciles at night to ride them and visit my friends hundreds of miles away.” Her chin rolled across her shoulder as she peered back at me with a grim smile that faded like a good memory long lost. “By eighteen, most of my friends were dead. Famine and drought hit the northern provinces first. I decided then I would use everything power would grant me never to let another girl or boy go through the hardships I did.”
Three horses walked abreast beneath the balcony. My commander glanced at me for a moment before proceeding into the keep with the others.
“You made some hard choices to get to where you are, didn’t you?” I asked. “Did some things that maybe the ten-year-old you wouldn’t be proud of?”
“I don’t think you understand,” she said.
I traced my nail up the snaking rivulets of steely blue that adorned my sword. The markings had been with me since the beginning, one of the few constant reminders of my past — a place where I do not like to go, but one where I often visit to remind myself.
“I have my own lust for power,” I said. “It masquerades as a lust for freedom. I committed unspeakable acts of terror when I was a young man. Killed, maimed, tortured, kidnapped, brutalized, pillaged — all of my own accord, mind you. I set my own contracts in those days.
“I would tell anyone that I did it in the name of freedom, to create a reputation and a band of assassins no one would dare fuck with. Fat lords would swallow hard when we came by, and laws didn’t much apply to us, because goddammit, we were fearsome! We could do anything we pleased! That, I would say, was freedom.”
A ghastly wind blew through and strung wisps of auburn hair across Amielle’s eyes. She brushed them out of the way and leaned on the banister, listening attentively.
“Of course, that’s not freedom,” I said. “Freedom’s sleeping your nights far away from the confines of walls and uptight vassals. Freedom’s a jingle in your pocket, a skin of wine whenever you want it. Freedom’s spontaneity, a horse ride to the west and a stay on the beaches while you fish up some good food and tell some good tales.”
Amielle crossed her legs and rested her chin on her palm. “From what my spies told me, you’ve enjoyed your fair share of freedom.”
“Only recently,” I said. “My crusade for power turned me into a very foul thing, and make no mistake, I was a thing — not a person. If I had continued, who knows? I might have assassinated a king just to show the world that I commanded it. Would’ve started a great war, probably got all my Rots killed, and me? I’d be long gone, facedown in some ditch, fizzled out like a fast-burning flame.”
Amielle straightened herself and crossed her arms. “And look at you now,” she said impassively, clearly unimpressed.
I held my arms out and spun around, glimpsing into a panoramic world that I stood atop of. “Look at me now,” I said, smiling. “I parlayed my reputation and my deeds into contracts. And here I am today, a man whose blade lords call upon so they can quietly ascend the ranks, who’s hired to rectify miscarriages of justice, who families big and small alike need to stamp out competition and sniff out enemies. All for business, mind you, nothing personal. I have all the power I want and all the freedom I want, and I will do anything to preserve it.”
“Including killing your own brother,” Amielle said, drawing her lips tight in mock disapproval. “Murdering a king too, and butchering each and every one of his enlisted guardsmen. What was the final count, Astul? Two hundred?”
I strode over to her meaningfully. With an indolent brush of my hand, the edge of my ebon blade clacked up the buttons of her tunic and idled beneath her chin. With a subtle flick, the black tip lifted her head high into the air. She licked her lips and smiled wide.
“Sacrificed fifty of your dear Rots,” she said. “Marched how many mercenaries to their death upon these walls? I’m sure you didn’t inform them that their heroism would end with blood pouring from their necks, did you?”
I pressed the summit of the sword more firmly into her chin. Blood sprinkled out.
“My, my,” she said, “it sounds like the lust of power has claimed you yet again.”
The sword dug deeper into her flesh, lifting her onto the tips of her toes. She grinned like a skull.
“And that’s precisely why I won’t kill you,” I said, lowering the sword and sliding it inside its leather-bound home. “You’ve taken a lot from me. You’ve made me feel the familiarity of losing myself again. It ends now. I’ve preserved what I wanted, and I’ll take nothing more. Not your life, not Sybil’s. I’m done. But I do have a lingering question. What did you think forcing me to kill the mirage of Rivon Eyrie would do to me?”
Her head cocked. “I’ve never heard that name. And I did not conjure a mirage.”
I didn’t know why I bothered asking. Of course she’d play dumb. What would the truth get her now?
I hooked my arm around Amielle’s. “Let’s go. I’m sure you have some eager visitors downstairs.”
“You won’t ever eliminate the conjurers,” she said.
“I’m sure Dercy and Patrick and Braddock — wherever the hell he is — will draw up some plans and lay siege to whatever remnants you left behind in Lith.”
&
nbsp; I tugged her arm, and we walked.
“We’re like ants,” she said.
I stopped and attempted some mental acrobats so I could harmonize conjurers and ants, but the pieces weren’t fitting. “Ants?”
“Ants,” she reiterated. “Have you ever attempted to kill them? They keep coming back. Unless you snuff out and eradicate their colony, they march on endlessly, no matter how many you flick off your arm or stamp into the dirt.”
“Colonies aren’t difficult to locate. You just follow the trail.”
A conceited smile touched her lips, and her brows flicked upward.
I chuckled to myself. One last charade to evoke a mind-breaking fear within me, that’s all it was.
“Move,” I barked. “I’ve still got one last bit of business with this frozen kingdom before I leave.”
Chapter Thirty
With the collapsed wall of Edenvaile a good mile behind me, I crossed my arms and watched as forty mules dragged twenty wagons full of glittering gold through the snow. They slogged their way toward the Hole. A handful of Rots accompanied them.
A pair of feet crunched through the ice behind me.
“Have you spoken to Braddock?” Vayle asked.
“Briefly.”
Braddock, along with a small battery of Red Sentinels, had marched into Edenvaile a few nights ago, chasing those monstrosities of fire that burned the sky and dropped cocoons of conjurer reinforcements onto the battlefield. Apparently they were the remnants of an army that had fled his and Kane Calbid’s forces.
“He went on about his proposition,” Vayle said, “to unite the realm under one crown. I’ve heard Patrick is very interested.”
I locked my fingers behind my head. “Mark of a good king there, make you feel he’s interested in whatever you wish to talk about.”
“Only the king of Icerun at this moment. But I don’t imagine he won’t make a claim for the throne of Edenvaile.”
“Of course he will,” I said. “He’s got the support. And he doesn’t want a fractured, war-mongering North made up of ten different claims. Kane Calbid will claim the South, no opposition there. Eaglesclaw will be unstable — especially since the Rots managed to spur a rebellion of Edmund’s bannermen — but it’s good to have some instability. It’ll make the Rots a pretty coin.”
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