Iceblade

by Zenka Wistram

  Cur laughed, throwing back its head and braying. Still chortling, it leaned forward and closed its jaws on one of the iron bars of the portcullis. With a resounding snap, it broke the iron bar between its teeth. Its grin spreading, it spit a small piece of iron onto the tunnel floor.

  "Loose!" Daltorn shouted, and the archers obeyed. Crow soldiers fell back, several with arrows sticking from them. The arrows bounced off Cur's thick pelt. "Loose as you will," Daltorn cried again. Wyntan plowed through the crowd and grabbed me, dragging me back behind his company.

  "You stay here," he ordered, his tone inflexible, his eyes hard. "If you move forward into the battle I will have you hauled out of here if I must bind you myself to accomplish it." I glared mutinously at him, but gave a curt nod. We both knew he could not likely move me if I did not wish to be moved, though I had a feeling he'd find some way to do it.

  The grinding sounds of Cur chewing through the portcullis continued. The hail of arrows did not deter the beast. Finally Daltorn raised his hand, calling the archers to a halt. Better to save their arrows. He signaled them to stand on the stairs leading down into the warehouse room where they might have a better vantage when the battle was joined.

  I closed my eyes, calling up the energy, lending it to all my people in the room and waiting outside it. Cur was calling energy too, from the darkness of the night, from the absence of the moon. It tried to push the darkness farther into the room, to disorient us and conceal its warriors when they would enter. I fought the beast, fought the darkness back with all my might.

  "Be brave. Be cunning," I whispered to Galiena's army, speaking into their minds, every one of us in the village. "The Good Queen blesses you."

  Then the room filled with crow soldiers, shoving the remains of the last portcullis out of the way. Cur bounded into the room. I was surrounded stoutly by a group of Wyntan's company. The clash of metal on metal wailed into the room, and all the human sounds of battle. I heard shouts, screams and grunts, oaths and even Cur's growls.

  My eyes opened, I watched the battle. With a flick of my hand, I sent one crow soldier flying across the room. As one they turned their attention to me and heightened the fury of their fighting, trying to reach me. More of Galiena's soldiers closed ranks around me. I couldn't see what was happening any longer, so I closed my eyes again.

  A stool from one of the murder hole rooms flew down the stairs and into my hand. Standing on it, I lifted my head above my guards just in time to see Cur leap at Daltorn. The big warrior raised his great sword, using it to knock the beast to the side. Cur pivoted on its hind paws and leapt at Daltorn again, only to be blocked by the flamberge blade again. The beast managed to rake its claws across Daltorn's armor, scraping long holes across Daltorn's arms and chest. Grimacing, Daltorn lifted one foot and shoved Dagar's pet off of him, breaking the beast's hold.

  Cur rolled as it hit the ground, flipping back upright and coming at the warrior again. One of Daltorn's soldiers got in the way and Cur bit her nearly in half, armor and all. As the beast tossed its head to the side to get rid of the woman's body, Daltorn turned his sword in his grasp, bringing the massive weapon down point first into the back of Cur's neck with all his weight and might. There was an impressive, grinding crunch as the sword was shoved forcibly through bone and flesh, and the beast convulsed mightily, snapping Daltorn's blade off at the cross-guard. Cur howled, a sickening, otherworldly noise that sounded as if it had two voices, and collapsed onto the ground, blood pooling from its mouth as its tongue lolled out. As it expired, the darkness washed from the room, the torches once again casting their bright light. Daltorn dropped the hilt of his broken weapon. Crow soldiers leapt at him and he heaved them off, striking out with his immense fists. Throwing himself to the ground, the warrior was back on his feet with a war hammer in his grip, taken from the cooling grasp of the soldier bitten through by Cur.

  The death of their leader did nothing to stop the crow soldiers flooding into the room. If it had been one of my captains who had fallen, my soldiers would continue to fight in the name of their Goddess, it was no different for the crow soldiers and their God. I was jostled back up the manor stairs and into the village green by a few of Wyntan's people, where Declan's company surrounded me. Samar and her group were nowhere to be seen. I pulled up energy again, spreading it out to all my soldiers. I sensed Samar and Wyclif and their companies outside of the village, having gone over the walls, coming around to the river entrance to block any escape of the crow soldiers. With a succinct mental command, I told them to stand back and wait. Ceilan, summoned by a thought from me, came running out of the hospital.

  The two of us climbed up onto the walls overlooking the river, above the river entrance. "You can call the weather," I told him. "I need you to help me. I am going to raise the river and wash out all of the crow soldiers in the tunnel. Grab my hands."

  "I've never done anything like that," he cried out. "I don't know if I can."

  "We can," I said. "We can do it together. Trust in me. Call up the water!" He grasped my hands in his, staring into my eyes. His face was white with fear, so pale even his freckles seemed to fade, his eyes wild and raw, and I saw he bitterly feared disappointing his Goddess' Chosen. "We can," I told him again.

  He closed his eyes and began to sing, his voice cracking but carrying. His ancient song grew in force and volume, lifting into the building wind. I could feel the power of the river rising, and sent a message out to Samar and Wyclif again, reminding them to wait and stay back from the river. As the force of the river magnified, I took hold of it, forcing it into the the tunnel. It was like trying to control an angry otter with one hand, and I ground my teeth with effort. The river bucked and twisted within my grasp, threatening to break free, if it did, I feared for my soldiers and my friends waiting on the narrow road down the side of the bluff to the river entrance.

  "Stop," I whispered to Ceilan, and though my voice did not carry over the roar of the river, the song broke off as if cut with an axe. The power of the river ebbed, running stronger than normal still, but not dangerously so. We looked over the edge of the walls.

  Water was rushing out of the tunnel, carrying with it near one hundred of the crow soldiers. I saw Samar and Wyclif and their soldiers moving down to close off the tunnel and trap the rest of the crow soldiers between them and Daltorn and Wyntan's companies.

  Before I could call up any more energy to refresh myself, exhaustion hit me like a fist and I collapsed, unconscious. As I lay, out cold, the armor I wore drew from the energy pools around us and renewed me. I was awake again within the quarter hour, only to find myself in Fiona's hospital. One of the helpers handed me some cold water and a cloth, I drank some and splashed the rest on my face, wiping up with the cloth.

  I ran back out to the green. Deep within the manor the sounds of a furious battle continued. My honor guard were back at work hauling the injured out of the manor, whomever they could reach. Mark of Luckham told me that a good deal of the injured were simply being trampled, no one could get to them and the fighters below could not avoid them.

  I marched down to the manor, headed toward the warehouse room. The manor was packed with fighters waiting a turn down at the river entrance. A narrow pathway was kept open for the injured to be removed, and I used this path to get where I was going.

  I stood at the top of the stairs leading down into the warehouse room, with the archers. My right arm was still useless, indeed I felt blood running down my ribs again. Ignoring the warm wetness and the pain of my torn stitches, I set to helping as I could. With my left arm I shook off my shield, letting it fall off to the side, and pulled my mace from the loop at my waist. Concentrating, I pointed the head of my mace directly at a crow soldier. The mace shot from my hand, dealing a crushing blow to the crow soldier's chest. He dropped to the ground. With a nod of satisfaction, I called my mace back to me.

  One crow soldier after another, I pointed the mace and let it fly, watching them drop. I had a good vantage point a
t the top of the stairs, I could see clearly down into the room. The archers also put our view to skillful use.

  The room was scented heavily with blood, viscera and sweat, the smell turned my stomach. The crow soldiers, though they no longer seemed to have much chance of winning, gave no quarter. Once one spotted me on the stairs, they all turned their heads to look, reorienting themselves to fight towards me again. I redoubled my efforts with the mace.

  Daltorn and helmetless Wyntan stood in the middle of the room, battling in unison, side by side. Their companies were heartened by my return, their strength renewed by the energy I channeled to them. Even so, even with all the crow soldiers that had washed out of the tunnel, it seemed every time one crow soldier fell two took that one's place.

  The loss of blood from my arrow wound was making me dizzy. Teetering, I lost my balance and fell forward on the stairs. Two of the archers grabbed me and hauled me back upright, in a seated position on the top step. With all the fighting and all the soldiers in front of me, I could see nothing from this angle. I gave myself up completely to finding and channeling the energy. As the river settled back into its normal flow, after Ceilan's and my inciting of it, I became able to use that energy, the power of the water's movement as it tumbled and swirled past Oerlock and down to the sea. When it had still been wild from Ceilan's song, it had been beyond my grasp.

  The battle raged on, and even though I couldn't see it, by giving myself up to the energy, I could sense everything that happened. When one of my soldiers fell, I opened a path to him, guarded all along it by the force of my will. My honor guard was able to rush in and retrieve the injured this way, the dead we left where they fell. Among the fallen crow soldiers were those who were injured but not dead, these I left to die by trampling or at the hands of my own soldiers who noticed those fallen yet breathed. There was no mercy I could offer them, we had no way to keep prisoners and could not spare our medicines and healers for them. However cruel we may have been, it seemed likely they preferred death anyway. All along, the river provided unending energy.

  Time passed with no meaning to me. It could still have been the dark of night, or morning could have begun awakening the world without my knowledge. All of my awareness was spent on what was happening in the room and tunnel below me, and the ebb and flow of the energy in my grasp. Without Cur, the painted soldiers were becoming fatigued at last and were falling faster.

  At last I heard Daltorn shout, "Samar! You made it! I'd hate for you to miss the party!" In response I heard a triumphant trill of her horn. I released my grasp of the energy and lurched to my feet.

  We had won, without a doubt. Only about thirty crow soldiers remained, soon to be dispatched. I wasn't needed here anymore. I staggered back out of the manor and onto the green, hoping no one would notice the puddle of blood I left until after I had seen to everything that I needed to see to yet.

  I found a chair and waited. Selas would be brought to me soon. Nefen came to stand beside me.

  "Selas has betrayed us," I told him, my voice cold with the pain in those words.

  "I heard," he answered, his tone somber. He didn't know how to react to this devastating news, I knew he wanted to lay his hand on my shoulder, but did not want to upset me more than I already was. I could sense within him a hope there was some mistake and a dread there was none, as well as the pain he felt with me. His sharing of my pain almost brought out my tears, but I swallowed them back.

  Wyntan and Daltorn led a silent, still bound Selas out to the green and stood him before me. With everything I was still glad to see him walking, glad he was relatively uninjured by what I had done to him. The two brothers forced him to a kneel before me.

  "Selas, you have betrayed us," I said, my voice unwavering but aching. I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my legs. Sitting upright while he knelt before me felt as if I were announcing myself to be some kind of queen, and I hated it, but I could not stand for long without fear of falling. "I give you this opportunity to explain yourself and be given mercy."

  "You have nothing I want," Selas said coldly. "You can give me nothing I want. I can command great armies, you give me a band of homeless and lost. It is no matter. You are no matter. There is someone yet who can hand me what I merit."

  Every word he spoke assaulted my emotions.

  "Then I can offer you no mercy," I whispered. I stood carefully and placed my hand on his forehead, bowing my own head with grief at what I was about to do.

  But when I touched his head, I knew he wasn't Selas. Selas' spirit was in there, but someone else was holding his body captive, controlling his actions and his words. I followed the grip on Selas back to its source.

  Edwald, using Wandis' power. Between two fingers of one hand Edwald held a labeled braid of hair, brittle with age. The hair was light brown, short, and marked with the name Selas of Abbern. On the small table before him was a case with many such neatly labeled braids of hair. With a scream of rage, I attacked the High King's uncle. Calling up energy, freeing myself from my physical body, I hurled myself at the kidnapper of bodies. Looking at him I saw that he was mine to kill, that he had been Marked by my first attack and now had no defense against me even in spirit form. I reached into Edwald's body and tore him to pieces for every one of my people who had fallen, for what he had done to Selas, for what he had nearly caused me to do to Selas. I sensed others in the large tent with Edwald, knew they were horrified as the elder was ripped apart, screaming, before their eyes by nothing they could see.

  Except Iceblade. He saw me, watched me wordlessly, doing nothing to stop me. As Edwald died, Wandis fainted. I finished with Edwald, left his mangled remains all over the floor. Digging through the remains I found the part of Edwald's beard that contained a braid of Wandis' hair, and tossed the braid into the lit brazier, releasing the mage from her spirit's enslavement. The case of braids followed.

  "Well done," Iceblade said with approval. He was beaming at me with something like pride. When he saw how his praise horrified me, his beaming grin twisted, darkened, but lost no humor. "You are not so different from me after all." I shook my head wordlessly at him and fled, returning to my body.

  I was laying on the ground on the village green, my friends surrounding me. I could feel my own blood spreading on the ground beneath me and knew my arrow wound had begun to bleed yet again, perhaps jarred by my fall to the ground. Selas was alive but still bound.

  "Release him," I managed to spit out, feeling the world fading. "It was not him."

  I roused in my room in Fiona's hospital. Fiona saw me awaken from my faint and spared me a glare. She was re-bandaging my arrow wound. From the new scorched pain I could tell I'd been cauterized. The blood and grime of battle had been washed from my body, I was naked but covered to my waist by warm, rough bedclothes.

  "You have people waiting to visit with you. If you think you can visit with them without reopening your wound yet again," she said, her tone heavy with sarcasm.

  "It couldn't be helped," I said.

  "The only reason you are still alive is because you were wearing your armor. It slowed the bleeding enough so you didn't die. You should have told someone," she reproached.

  "It couldn't have been helped," I repeated wryly. "I was needed."

  She finished up, then helped me into the one-shouldered nightgown. "You're not going to manage a real tunic tonight," she said. "But several people have brought you tunics to wear, since the one I just cut from you was your last. I've cut a couple of them down the front to make them easier to put on when the time comes. One of my helpers is sewing ties on them as we speak."

  "That was kind of them, and kind as well of you and your helper," I said. "How is Selas?"

  "He's shaken, but he'll recover. He's first in line to see you, out in the hall. Want me to send him in?"

  "Please," I said. "And Fiona, thank you." She smiled and patted my cheek.

  "Rest properly, and for the sake of my old heart, heal! That's all the thanks I need from you,
" she said, bustling out of the door.

  Selas came in, almost hesitant. The old man pulled a chair around from in front of the hearth to sit next to my bed. We sat without speaking for some time. He couldn't find words to say what he wanted to say, and I couldn't find words to comfort him.

  "It's over," I said into the silence. "Edwald is dead. You are free, and so is Wandis, the mage." I blanched at the memory of Edwald's decimated remains, the horrific damage done by my own being.

  "I couldn't stop him," Selas said, his voice sore with anguish. "I felt him come in and I couldn't stop him. I saw and heard everything I did. You should have killed me, it would have been justice."

  "I killed the one who did those things, Selas," I said. I reached for his hand, and he gripped mine back. Painfully, I showed him the images of what I had done, let him hear Iceblade's words to me. When I was done, I released his hand, laying back on the bed.

  He sagged in the chair, his head in his hands.

  "I did that," I said, my voice little more than a ragged whisper, staring at the ceiling. "With my own hands. I did that terrible thing. I tore that man to pieces." Selas came to sit on the bed beside me, gathering me into his arms while I sobbed.

  "You are nothing like him," he muttered into my hair, hoarse and constricted. "Don't fear that." I couldn't stop crying. He rocked me, wordless, for a long time, until my tears eased.

  "I should be stronger," I said. "The Chosen shouldn't cry."

  "Your tears are no sign of weakness," he said. He released me, careful of jarring my shoulder, and stood beside my bed. "Your tears speak well of you. Iceblade has no tears for his victims."