“What must I do?” Rowen cried.
Kayden faced him, anguished. “Set me free...”
Rowen blanched. Then, slowly, he nodded. He thought back to all the battles they’d fought together, the countless times they’d sparred. Kayden was better now, but Rowen still knew his brother’s style, his weaknesses. He raised Knightswrath overhead. Fire glinted off its ancient blade. They met.
Again and again, swords clattered. The men fought with dreadful calmness now.
Kayden charged. His shortswords flashed. But he held one too low, the other too high. Knightswrath sang a deadly arc. Kayden stiffened. He made no move to staunch the blood swelling from his throat. Instead, he dropped his shortswords with a heavy clatter and started to fall. Rowen threw down his own sword and caught him. “Kayden...”
Rowen stumbled from his brother’s weight but managed to keep his head cradled as he knelt. Kayden opened his mouth to answer but instead coughed on his own blood. Then he died, his eyes overflowing with gratitude.
Night darkened the Simurgh Plains for the first time since the Battle of Lyos. There, miles from the city, Fadarah held the lean, cowering figure of Brahasti el Tarq by the scruff of his cloak and shook him. Dirt and blood smudged the Dhargot’s face. His extravagant robes hung in tatters. Fadarah flashed back to the sickening sight of Brahasti brutalizing the whore in his tent.
The Dhargot knew better than to resist. Even without magic, the half-Olg could rip him limb from limb. Fadarah glared down with blazing violet eyes, his tattooed face contorted in rage. Still holding the Dhargot with one gauntleted fist, Fadarah splayed the fingers of his other hand before Brahasti’s face. Violet flames crackled to life at his fingertips.
Brahasti’s face went pale. “General, please...”
Fadarah hoisted the man off the ground and tossed him like a child’s toy. Fadarah did not have to look at the faces of the other Shel’ai to know they disapproved—but only because they wanted Brahasti dead. He could not blame them. Fadarah narrowed his eyes, flames still sparking from his fingertips. “Speak.”
For once, Brahasti’s expression conveyed no arrogance. “Forgive me, General. It wasn’t my fault. That Dwarr man-lover, Jalist. He signaled the revolt!”
Fadarah took a menacing step toward the Dhargot as the latter struggled to rise. “Am I to believe that they revolted, even after you ordered otherwise?”
Brahasti nodded quickly. “I swear it!”
“And you did all you could to stop them?”
“Yes, General!”
Fadarah countered, “Then why are you still alive?”
Brahasti hesitated, visibly unsure how to answer. One of the Shel’ai standing behind Fadarah moved quietly to the towering sorcerer’s side. She threw back her hood, the light of Armahg’s Eye shining through her short, flaxen hair. “Let me kill him, General.” She lifted one delicate wrist, her hand awash in flames.
“No, Avesha.”
“General, this man betrayed you! He cost the lives of twenty-three Shel’ai!”
“You can read his mind as well as I can. There was no profit in betraying us.” Fadarah remembered Brahasti’s chests of gold coins, the wealth the man had pilfered from the conquered cities of the Simurgh Plains. All of that had been left in his tent when the Throng disbanded. Once again, Brahasti was penniless. That, at least, was a pleasing thought.
Brahasti nodded emphatically. “General, I sought you out myself! When the revolt began, I could have joined them or fled—”
“I would have found you,” Fadarah interrupted. “There is no place in the world where you can hide from me.” Even as he spoke, Fadarah thought that Avesha was right: he should kill him. But he had other tasks for which Brahasti might still be of use. “Go.”
Brahasti bowed. “Thank you, General.” He tried to look dignified as he hurried into the nearest tent.
“Keep an eye on him,” Fadarah said to Avesha. “If he strays from the camp, burn one of his ears off.”
Avesha nodded. “Yes, General.”
Fadarah pushed the Dhargot from his mind and turned to survey the remainder of his once-great host. The mighty Throng was no more. Less than a dozen Unseen remained, faces as grim and murderous as ever, for they knew how close they had been to release. But that did not trouble him.
Fadarah thought of old friends not among those assembled, brave men and women he himself had rescued after they were driven from the Wytchforest: Que’ann with her gentleness, Aerios with his quick wit, Cierrath with his tireless, unflappable loyalty. He realized with a chill that he would never see them again. They were lost, at best cast back into the Light.
He thought of Namundvar’s Well, of the magic they had leeched. The abomination of the Nightmare. So much death. What must the Light think of us now?
Fadarah moved away from the others, to the edge of their makeshift camp, and began to strip off his heavy plate armor. His servants had all either fled or been killed, so he stripped off his armor himself, casting it piece by piece onto the darkened plains. He flexed his great muscles, trying to fight off the awful numbness he felt. No. I must not give in. So much has already been gained.
Someone approached and knelt before him.
“You need not worry, Kith’el. I am alive and unhurt.” Fadarah added, “Though I am surprised to see that Silwren let you live.”
Shade flinched. “As am I, General.”
“Did you encounter resistance on the plains?”
“No. The Isle Knights follow the false trail left by Avesha’s magic.”
“And Silwren?”
Shade did not answer.
“She let you live for a reason,” Fadarah guessed.
“Yes, General. We fought. I was… not myself. I felt crazed… almost like I had when I was young and—”
“That would explain your disobedience,” Fadarah cut in. “When the Throng revolted, I ordered you to abandon Lyos. You stayed. Your anger cost ten Shel’ai their lives.”
Grief choked Shade’s voice as he said, “I know, General.” Shade paused. “I submit myself to your judgment. If you wish me dead—”
“Oh, I think you will punish yourself far more harshly than any of us ever could,” Fadarah said. “And Silwren’s message?”
Shade blinked. “She said the next time she saw you, she’d burn you to cinders.”
“I trust she meant that threat for you, too?”
Shade lowered his head, still kneeling, and stared at the dark earth.
“Yet she let us live. Silwren could have killed us, but she didn’t. There may yet be hope for her.” He sighed. “I sense there is more you wish to tell me.”
“I must ask... forgiveness for yet another transgression, General. This may be the worst of all.” Shade paused, trembling with shame. “I first saw it in the jailhouse at Lyos, but in my fury, I didn’t recognize it. Then I saw it again on the streets when I fought Silwren. I don’t know how she found it, but—”
Fadarah’s eyes narrowed. “What did you see?”
“The Sword of Fâyu Jinn. The last we heard, it had vanished from Sylvos. We searched everywhere but...” Shade hesitated. “General, they have it.”
For a long time, an ominous silence hung about the Sorcerer-General like a dreadful shawl. “I trust its full might remains unkindled, or else we would not be here.”
“But if Silwren should—”
“She won’t. She knows the price. No matter what side she has chosen, that will always be beyond her.” He paused. “Though if she knows, surely El’rash’lin did, too. Strange that neither of them took action. Perhaps we overestimated their resolve... and their courage.”
Shade opened his mouth to reply, but Fadarah dismissed him with a wave. The Sorcerer-General stood alone for a while, contemplating Shade’s words. Then he heard heavy footsteps as someone else approached. He stifled his irritation at the interruption, but then his eyes widened.
Fadarah made no effort to summon wytchfire, knowing a lone Human posed no threat. I
nstead, he scrutinized the man as he emerged from the shadows: tall and burly, dressed in midnight-blue silk, dark skinned like a Soroccan. “You are either the most foolish or the most unlucky Human who ever lived.”
“That’s hardly an appealing set of choices,” the man said. He wore a scimitar at his side but made no effort to draw it. He did not appear surprised or even troubled by the sight of Fadarah.
Fadarah considered using magic to wrench the man’s true intentions from his mind, but he guessed them easily enough. “You have come to kill me.”
“So much for the element of surprise.”
Fadarah said, “You never had a chance, anyway.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw several Shel’ai drawing near, alerted by the sound of voices. He used mindspeak to order them to stand back. “Tell me your name.”
“Hráthbam Nassir Adjrâ-al-Habas.” The Soroccan answered with a slight bow.
“And the reason a lone Soroccan is wandering the plains in search of a man who could kill him with a touch?”
“Repayment,” Hráthbam answered. “We Soroccans honor our debts.”
“And to whom are you indebted?”
“A man you used to know,” Hráthbam answered. “A good man. His name was El’rash’lin.”
For the first time in years, words eluded Fadarah.
“I met him on the plains,” Hráthbam continued. “He saved my life. Only it turns out that magic is a funny thing. In saving me, he created some kind of bond between us. I don’t know if that was his intention… but he did it nonetheless. I tried for weeks to deny it. I even tried to go home.” He laughed. “We Soroccans have a saying about trying to outrun your own shadow.” His gaze hardened. “El’rash’lin is dead.”
“So he is.” Fadarah was glad the darkness hid the spark of grief in his eyes. “I take it you came to avenge him?”
“Life is a matter of choices. There were others I hoped to place before that one.”
“How did you find me?”
Hráthbam surveyed their dark surroundings, especially a dense copse of trees in the distance. “This is where you met El’rash’lin for the first time. Some of his memories are mine now—no matter how I try to ignore them. Something told me you’d be here. Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was the gods. Either way, I came here to do what El’rash’lin would have done.”
“El’rash’lin would have killed me?”
“If he had to. But first, he would have embraced you as a friend, as a man he thought of as a father. He would have talked to you. He would have tried to make you see reason.”
Fadarah scrutinized the Soroccan again, studying the man’s dark, stoic expression. “You have courage, Human, but this argument is older than you are.”
“Of course. But a debt is a debt. I had to try.” Then Hráthbam blurred into motion. Instead of bothering with the heavy scimitar, one hand drew a little knife from his sleeve and flung it at Fadarah’s throat.
The Sorcerer-General caught the knife in his fist. His other hand lifted. Wytchfire crackled at his fingertips, but he did not unleash it.
Other Shel’ai raced toward them, but Fadarah ordered them back again. His gaze narrowed. The Human stared back, unafraid, not even trying to run.
Fadarah chuckled. “A fine effort, Human.” Fadarah tossed the knife at Hráthbam’s feet. His half-Olg skin, tough as leather, barely bled. “Go.”
The Soroccan hesitated a moment. He stooped, picked up the little knife and tucked it back into his sleeve. Then he turned and disappeared back into the night.
The other Shel’ai hurried to Fadarah’s side. Avesha glared after the Soroccan with murder in her eyes. “General—”
“Courage is courage,” Fadarah said. “Let him go.”
Avesha started to argue, but Shade touched her arm. The Shel’ai withdrew, leaving Fadarah to his thoughts.
The last of the Unseen formed a perimeter around the camp. The men looked more ragged than ever, nearly bestial. All hope for a quick death had been lost. They had accepted their fate, a curse from which they would never be freed.
Hours passed. The cloudy sky had cleared, letting starwash light the empty plains. At last, the rest of the Shel’ai had gone to sleep, surrendering themselves to dreams plagued by anguish. Fadarah, still wide awake, crept into the tent of the Nightmare.
He waved his hand, and a sphere of violet light formed out of thin air, hovering. Fadarah studied him—the demon who had single-handedly conquered most of the Simurgh Plains, now just a gaunt, twisted, naked figure decaying from the inside out. He refused the impulse to look away. “Forgive me, my friend...”
Doubly ravaged from extensive use of Dragonkin magic and the battle against El’rash’lin, Iventine’s body was more disfigured than ever, covered in sores, his chest unnaturally concave, limbs unnaturally twisted as though the bones had left the womb malformed. Neither time nor magic would heal him. What little remained in the man’s facial features that had been recognizable was gone, like his personality, never to return. Even in his deep sleep, Iventine twitched with madness and pain.
El’rash’lin’s torments weren’t much better. But at least El’rash’lin was free. Overwhelmed by Iventine on the road outside Lyos, El’rash’lin had been burned and burned until not even ashes remained. The wild expenditure of so much magic had left Iventine comatose, weak as a child, so that Avesha and a pair of Unseen bodyguards had had to carry him away.
Still, Iventine won. Again. But with each victory, Iventine only lost more and more of himself. Fadarah sighed with pity. He had no more tears left in him tonight. But he had, at least, this simple mercy.
He laid one great, tattooed hand on Iventine’s chest and felt a faint, haphazard heartbeat. “Sleep, Iventine. It’s done. Others will finish what we have started.”
Fadarah closed his eyes. For several long moments, he imagined Iventine’s heart beating nakedly against his palm, flouncing like a bloody fish. Then, slowly, Fadarah tightened his hand into a fist. He squeezed. The beating slowed, slowed, stopped.
Fadarah took a deep breath, held it, then let it go. Almost as an afterthought, he extended his consciousness until he felt the heartbeats of all the remaining Unseen warriors outside. To these, too, he granted release.
The tent was silent now. He opened his eyes. The stillness frightened him, but he waved his hand, dismissing the violet light. A chill swept through the open flap of the tent. Fadarah walked out into the night. He hoped Iventine’s face bore, at long last, a look of peace. But he refused to turn and see for himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“BY THE LIGHT’S GRACE...”
The people of Lyos buried their dead in the funeral fields east of Pallantine Hill. Rowen, harkening back to his younger employment as a gravedigger, toiled with them to bury the horrors along with all that raw hurt. Soldiers, slumdwellers, and nobles were laid side by side beneath the fresh-turned earth. Captain Ferocles lay among them, buried without eulogy by the grief-stricken survivors of his company. Epheus commanded now, though his appointment as the new Captain of the Red Watch brought little cause for celebration.
A pall hung over the city of Lyos. Prince Typherius, the only member of the royal family left alive, had already committed the bodies of King Pelleas, the queen, and the rest of his family to the grim vaults beneath the palace.
He was not alone in his grief. No one in Lyos or the Dark Quarter had escaped the bitter tang of loss. Nearly all of the Bloody Asps had been killed. Other gangs had sustained heavy losses, too, trying to purge the Shel’ai and the rampaging Unseen from the city. A quarter of Lyos had been burned—temples, gardens, and homes alike. Two thousand lay dead.
But the city still stood. The banner of the falcon flew proudly from the parapets as the ravaged streets were cleared. Soon, inns that had once been filled only with weeping and fearful whispers echoed with merriment. Men told stories of Aeko Shingawa, the valiant Knight of the Stag who had fought to save Lyos from ruin. They told stories of El’rash’lin and Silwren
, two Shel’ai who turned against the evils of their kind and saved them all from certain death.
El’rash’lin, the disfigured sorcerer who—in a final act of courage—met the Nightmare on King’s Bend and prevented the demon from tearing down the walls.
Silwren, who spoke in Dogbane Circle and united the frightened people of the Dark Quarter; who drove the enemies from the streets of Lyos then tirelessly visited each of the temples afterward, using her magic to heal the injured, her violet eyes and platinum tresses a common sight long after the clerics had succumbed to exhaustion. Her touch had saved many who would otherwise have died. In the aftermath of so much destruction, her unexpected gentleness gave the people hope. They no longer feared her.
But mostly, they told stories of him, despite all his attempts to discourage them: Rowen Locke, the slumdweller who joined the Red Watch, who briefly led the Bloody Asps of the Dark Quarter before returning command to Fen-Shea. Rowen Locke, who defended Silwren when others wanted her dead. Rowen Locke, one-time squire to Aeko Shingawa.
Rowen Locke, Knight of the Crane.
Word spread, despite Rowen refusing Aeko’s offer. For weeks after Kayden’s death, he remained inconsolable, spiteful toward all the Knighthood had come to represent. He was, Aeko said, the first squire in centuries who refused to be knighted. She claimed that was a good sign.
Silwren found him standing alone on Beggar’s Drop—the same place where, not long before, she had sought to end her own life though her innate magic had acted of its own accord to cushion her fall.
She smiled. So much had changed since then. Even her battle with Kith’el and the pain caused by El’rash’lin’s passing had been eased somewhat. She had gone among the people of Lyos, using her magic to heal. It felt good to use her gifts for something other than killing—even though the efforts strained her control, carving wrinkles into her face and leaving blisters on her hands.
Wytchfire (Book 1) Page 35
