by DAVID B. COE
The Weaver had thought to have the king of Eibithar murdered before this battle began, and his first thought now was to kill Kearney and thus deny the Eandi their leader. An instant later he reconsidered. By killing the king, he gave the man’s soldiers reason to fight and others reason to resist his advance across the land in subsequent days. Better to destroy the army and force Kearney’s surrender. He would ride at the head of Dusaan’s army a prisoner, stripped of his sword, his head bent, his hands bound. Let any others who might think to stand against the Qirsi see that.
He glanced at his warriors, gathering their power so as to strike at the enemy. The Qirsi were watching him. Fatigued, but expectant. They, too, knew that victory was near. He saw pride in their pale eyes, a desire to finish this, to realize the vision of which he had spoken so often.
The Eandi eyed him as well, terror and loathing on their faces. How long had he waited for this moment? It was all that he had imagined it would be, and more. He was as strong as a god, as indomitable as Qirsar himself. Power filled him-his own, and that of his servants. He had only to choose where to strike. He surveyed the battle plain for just an instant. Yes, there. A smile touched his lips, and he let the magic fly.
It was like fighting in a dream. He knew that others were nearby-the king, his father, Xaver-but he couldn’t see them and he hadn’t time to search for them in the mist. Qirsi horsemen appeared before him, and Tavis fought. Twice his clothes had been set ablaze. The first time, he had dropped to the ground, rolled back and forth until he extinguished the flames, and stood once more to fight on. The second time he didn’t bother with the fire on his shirt until after he had pulled the Qirsi from his saddle and killed him. He had burns on his neck and arm, but he didn’t care. He had been lucky to face Qirsi with fire magic. Shapers would have killed him.
The soldiers who saw what he had done cheered him, and after that they fought alongside him, guarding him from attacks, treating him as one of their own. At long last he had earned the trust of Kearney’s men-at-arms, perhaps even their respect. It was a shame that none of them would live out the day.
Even before the mist drifted away, borne on the sorcerer’s wind, Tavis sensed that the battle wasn’t going Grinsa’s way. It was intuition, nothing more-a cold, sour feeling in his stomach-but he took it as prophecy. He had often heard Grinsa speak with frustration of his gleaning power, of how uncertain it could be at times, and it occurred to him to wonder if this was what it was like: elusive, insubstantial glimpses of the future. When the air cleared, he wasn’t at all surprised.
The battle slowed, then ceased altogether, warriors on both sides staring up at the Weaver atop his mount, some of them with blades poised to strike. They remained that way for what seemed an eternity, though it was probably only a few moments. The young lord glanced to his left, saw Xaver standing motionless, his sword held loosely in his right hand, his eyes already fixed on Tavis. He opened his mouth and took a breath, as if intending to say something. And in that moment the Weaver struck.
Had Tavis been standing with his friend, he would have died as well, his entire body shattered as if some unseen fist had battered him to the earth. As it was, the Weaver’s magic reached only so far, stopping just a few fourspans from where Tavis was watching, helpless and aggrieved.
Heedless of all else, he bounded to his friend’s side, but it was already too late. Xaver lay lifeless on the grass, his body mangled, though there didn’t appear to be a mark on him. His eyes were closed, his face so utterly composed that one might well have thought him asleep and lost in a dream, had it not been for the small trickle of blood that seeped from his nose.
Tavis cradled the boy’s head in his lap, tears pouring down his cheeks and falling like rain on Xaver’s brow.
After a moment, he looked up, glaring at the Weaver. “You bastard!” he shouted. “You cowardly bastard!”
The Qirsi gazed back at him serenely, saying nothing. Then he turned toward Kearney.
“Surrender now, Your Majesty, and I’ll spare the rest of your men.”
Standing just a short distance from where Tavis knelt in the grass, Kearney gripped his sword and stood straight-backed, a gentle wind stirring his silver hair. “I’ll not surrender to you.”
The Weaver raised an eyebrow and gave a slight shrug. A moment later a sudden torrent of fire crashed into the other side of the Eandi army, searing flesh, hair, and clothing, scattering bodies as a gust of wind scatters seeds from a harvest flower.
The Weaver started to say something else, but Tavis heard none of it. At that moment Hagan MarCullet arrived, dropping to his knees beside his son’s shattered form, sobs racking his body, his voice breaking as he said the boy’s name again and again. Tavis laid the boy’s head in Hagan’s lap, drawing the swordmaster’s gaze.
“I’m so sorry, Hagan,” he managed to say. “If I hadn’t convinced you to let him fight-”
“Hush, boy. It wasn’t you or me. I know that; you should, too.”
Tavis nodded, wanting only to kill the Weaver, even if he died doing so. He heard more screams, reaching him as if from far off. Perhaps the Weaver had struck at them again.
The young lord hardly cared. He couldn’t take his eyes off Xaver, nor could he seem to stop crying.
“Lord Curgh,” a voice said from just behind him.
Tavis didn’t answer. This was the end. They’d die here on the Moorlands, or they’d be made slaves to the Qirsi. Either way, they had lost.
“Lord Curgh.” More insistent this time. Still Tavis refused to turn. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone?
“Tavis.”
It was his name that reached him. Turning, he saw Marston of Shanstead standing over him, a look of deepest concern on his youthful face.
“What do you want?”
“It’s your father. I think you’d better come quickly.”
Tavis glanced quickly at Hagan, his blood turning cold. “Stay here,” he said.
He stood and hurried after Marston, his apprehension mounting with every step, his legs trembling so badly he expected to stumble at any moment. The thane led him past living soldiers and then past dead ones. No one spoke, or if they did, Tavis didn’t hear them. He just walked, following the man to where his father lay.
The duke lived still, but only barely. Like Xaver, he was unmarked. Shaping. How did one fight such an enemy?
“Your son, my lord,” said a soldier who knelt by Javan.
The duke’s eyes fluttered open. “Tavis?” he said, the word coming out as a sigh.
Tavis’s tears were flowing once more. Had they even stopped?
“Yes, Father,” he said, kneeling as well and taking his father’s hand. The duke’s skin was as cold as stone. “I’m here.”
“Tell your mother … Tell her I’m sorry I didn’t make it home to her.”
“Father-”
“No. Listen. You lead our house now. No matter what. Curgh is yours. Even in defeat, you remain who you are. Never surrender.”
Tavis didn’t know what to say, and he couldn’t have spoken if he had.
“This last year, you’ve made me proud.”
“You should have been king.”
Javan shook his head, closing his eyes. “No. The gods know. This was … my fate.”
The duke’s mouth opened, as if he was going to speak again. But he moved no more.
He should have taken his sword and rushed at the Weaver. He would have died, of course, but perhaps he would have inspired others to do the same. Maybe he could have turned the tide of this battle. But Tavis could do nothing more than kneel beside his father, the duke of Curgh, and surrender all to grief.
“Lay down your sword!” he heard the Weaver say, steel in his voice. “Save the lives of those few who remain under your command!”
“We don’t fear death,” Kearney answered, his voice equally strong. “Indeed, if surrender means submitting to the rule of a tyrant, we would rather die than yield.”
There was
a brief silence. Then, “So be it. You bring this doom on yourself, Eandi.”
Wrenching himself out of his mourning, Tavis made himself watch. If this was to be the end of Eibithar, the end of the House of Curgh, he owed it to his father and Xaver to bear witness.
“Shapers,” the Weaver said, his eyes never leaving Kearney’s face.
She fought without purpose, without thought, without love or hate or fear. The Weaver drew upon her power as if it were ink in a well, using what he needed when he needed it. She offered neither resistance nor passion. Even when the mist surrounded her, and the Weaver no longer touched her mind, she didn’t grow afraid. Soldiers appeared before her, brandishing their blades, eyeing her with contempt, and she struck at them, using her magic to break their swords. But she didn’t kill. That she left to the other Qirsi. This was no attempt to embrace virtue. She knew that the Weaver used her magic to destroy Eandi warriors and that if Bian chose to judge her harshly when at last she died, he’d have ample reason for doing so. She simply didn’t care enough about any of this to take the lives of those she rendered unarmed.
Watching her do battle, one might have thought her resigned to the inevitability of her death, but that wasn’t right either. She didn’t want to die. Or more precisely, she didn’t want to face her dead in Bian’s Underrealm. Not like this.
Yet even that didn’t explain it.
It almost seemed that she was dead already. Nothing could be taken from her that she hadn’t already lost. Nothing could touch her. Not grief, though she would have welcomed tears; not rage, though anger might have brought with it courage and resolve; not even the cold calculation of ambition, though she knew that others around her fought for the glory promised them by the Weaver.
She was aware only of what she saw before her, of what the Weaver expected of her, of what she had to do to survive. That, and of the voice repeating itself in her mind, nudging her toward action.
Why did she resist? Was she afraid after all? Yes, it seemed she was. Not of death, but of failure which would bring pain and humiliation. Better to do nothing than to face those, for she would fail. She knew that as well.
Still, the voice remained with her, both gentle and insistent.
Don’t let him win.
She didn’t feel the Weaver’s touch for some time, and she began to think that perhaps he had been defeated, that none of this would fall to her. But then a wind whipped past her, driving off the mist, leaving her squinting in the bright sunlight. A moment later the Weaver touched her mind once more, dipping into the well, using her power to kill hundreds.
He’ll do this to everything. Fight him.
What could she do against such power? It would be a futile gesture, a sacrifice without meaning.
Again he took hold of her magic, crushing Eandi soldiers as if they were ants.
Don’t let him.
She had let Evanthya die. Her cowardice had cost her the one love she had ever known. Now it held her again, robbing her of her strength, her will.
My strength to you.
“Lay down your sword!”
Eibithar’s king stood defiant and regal, looking much as a king should. But Fetnalla knew that she didn’t do this for him, or for any of the Eandi. She harbored no love for them. Even here, at the end, she still found herself unable to forgive Brall for his suspicions, his betrayal of their friendship. No, whatever she did would be for Evanthya.
“So be it! You bring this doom on yourself, Eandi.”
The Weaver was already reaching for her power when he said, “Shapers.”
It made this easier in a way, for he strengthened her himself. He augmented her magic, blending it with his own and that of the others. She needed only to direct it, to turn it back on him.
It was not until she tried to do just this, however, that she realized how great a mistake she had made.
The Weaver hesitated, and then his eyes snapped toward her, blazing like ward fires.
“What are you doing?”
She struggled to fight him, to strike at him with her shaping power. But her magic was part of a far greater force now, an alloy forged from the power of so many. It was enormous, a weapon far beyond her abilities. She could no more wield it than a child could a soldier’s broadsword.
He glared at her, his eyes narrowing. Abruptly, she couldn’t breathe. “Why?” he demanded. “What could make you do this?”
Before she could answer a second mind touched her own, and she sensed that there was magic here as well. It was no match for the Weaver’s but still it was considerable, and it took hold of that great weapon, the one she hadn’t the power to master herself.
“No!” she heard the Weaver roar.
This second presence held fast, struggling to break the Weaver’s grip on her. She felt it growing more potent, as if feeding on the magic of the other Qirsi, until it equaled the Weaver’s might. And then it struck.
Dusaan struggled to wrest control of the magic from this other force-Fetnalla understood that she had become a battlefield, that somehow the fate of the Forelands would be determined by this fight for her power. And after a moment’s uncertainty, she chose.
Don’t let him win.
There was, of course, an explanation for all that was happening around her, one that made sense within the natural laws that governed Qirsi magic. She didn’t care. As far as Fetnalla was concerned, it was Evanthya fighting the Weaver, grappling with him for control of her magic, giving her the power to resist. My strength to you, her love had said.
Yes.
How many times had he surrendered to despair, thinking that he had lost this war, only to find that hope yet remained? But on this day, at last, Grinsa knew that he had lost, that with his body broken and his power exhausted, there was nothing more he could do to combat the Weaver and his army.
Yet when he heard those words-“What are you doing?”-he lifted his gaze to the Weaver’s face. And seeing doubt in the man’s eyes he dared hope that there might still be one last chance to save all that he held dear.
He reached forth with his mind and immediately found the woman. There were still many Qirsi in Dusaan’s army, but this one stood out like a gem among river stones. Bright, defiant, grieving, proud. He hadn’t time to wonder who she was, or why she did this. He reached for her magic, took hold of it with all the strength he had left.
Doing so he found himself in possession of all Dusaan’s servants, at least all those with shaping magic. For they were one, joined into a single force by the Weaver himself, ready to strike. He had only to seize them from the man, and they were his.
But he was weak, wounded, forlorn, and he would have failed had it not been for the woman. Her magic filled him, renewed him, restored his power and his spirit. Still, he hadn’t enough to overmaster the Weaver. Not without help.
And who else should come to his aid in that one last moment, than Tavis of Curgh, who despite all that he once had been, was now a man of courage and keenest insight. Grinsa heard the young lord’s voice cry out, saw him raise his sword and charge toward the Qirsi lines. His was a futile attack, an invitation to death, but it was also the last thing that Dusaan expected. The Weaver’s attention wavered. It was only for an instant, but it was enough. Taking hold of the magic, of this great, shining weapon the woman had offered him, Grinsa ripped it away from the Weaver, and smote him, drawing upon all the strength he had left, knowing that he would have only this one opportunity.
Dusaan flew off of his mount as if swatted by the hand of a god.
A shrill cry of disbelief and anguish and fury was ripped from the man’s throat as he tumbled through the air and landed in a heap just in front of his army. He stirred, reached one last time for his magic, shouting his rage. And Grinsa hammered at him again, crushing him, silencing him, ridding the Forelands of his malice and his terrifying magic.
For the span of a heartbeat, every man and woman on the battle plain was still. Qirsi, Eandi. None so much as took a breath. Grinsa heard
no sound save the rustling of the grasses in the soft wind.
Then all was tumult.
* * *
She heard the king shout out for his men to attack, and she saw several of her fellow warriors turn their mounts and flee rather than face Eandi steel without the guiding power of the Weaver.
But Nitara paid no heed to any of them. Dusaan was dead. Her heart had been rent in two. She couldn’t bring herself to fight, nor did she care enough about her own survival to retreat. Vengeance was all that was left to her, and she took it.
The woman who had turned on them sat motionless, staring at the Weaver’s crumpled body, oblivious of all that was happening around her. There may even have been a tear on her face.
Nitara cared not. Raising her sword, she kicked at the flanks of her mount and charged the woman.
“For my people!” she shouted, and swung her weapon.
The woman looked up in time to see Nitara riding toward her, but she made no effort to defend herself. The blade sliced into her side and she fell to the ground, making no sound at all.
Nitara reined her horse to a halt, threw herself off of the beast, and strode to the woman’s side. Blood poured from the wound, darkening the grasses and soil, but Nitara hardly noticed. She laid the tip of her blade at the base of the woman’s neck, staring down at her, hating her more than she had ever hated anything or anyone.
“Why?” she shouted, tears suddenly coursing down her face. “Why did you betray him?”
The woman just gazed up at the sky, a slight smile on her lips. “My love,” she whispered, and was still.
“Tell me!” Nitara cried, though she knew that the woman was beyond hearing. “Damn you!”
Aware once more of the battle raging around her, she looked up. Three Eandi soldiers were advancing on her, swords held ready. No doubt she should have retreated to fight another day, but as far as she was concerned there were no more days. The living world had become for her a wasteland. Grinning darkly, she raised her sword and awaited their assault.
