The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3)

by H. Anthe Davis

  She twisted it.

  The flat of the wooden sword struck Fiora in the neck right under the jaw, and Dasira put all her muscle into it as the girl's fist glanced across her brow. Half-rising, forearm pressed to the blade, she shoved harder, and Fiora grappled at her then toppled away to avoid having her jaw sliced open. Dasira tried to rise but the dizziness hit again, limiting her to one knee, and she took a boot to the face before she even saw it.

  She saw the sword coming, though, and lurched aside to avoid being skewered through the eye.

  “Hoi!” she heard Cob shout from above, but she was already springing up to take Fiora in the gut with her shoulder. Hooking her sword-arm around the girl's thighs, she lifted with all the strength in her legs and heard Fiora yelp as she left the ground. Then Dasira flung her off backward.

  Metal and bone hit stone with an awful sound. Switching to a proper grip, Dasira turned, head still buzzing, to see Fiora dazedly trying to sit up. The girl's back was to her, and she pulled her foot back to give her a punt to the base of the skull.

  Something ropy yet firm caught her leg before she could.

  She hacked at it instinctively, the wooden sword cleaving the new-grown root, then looked up to see Fiora stagger to her feet and bring her own blade to bear. The Trifolder girl snarled, curly hair wild and dark eyes full of fire, then came on again.

  Dasira swept her blade up to smack the strike wide, then stepped inside Fiora's reach and nailed the girl in the throat with her elbow. Fiora choked and backstepped, raising her blade to guard against Dasira's follow-through thrust. For a few moments of sword-on-sword, the duel nearly stabilized, but then Dasira felt the tingle of sensation returning to her left arm and rushed her foe, raising the bracer to block Fiora's sword.

  Roots hooked both her legs and tripped her to the stone.

  “That's enough!” Cob shouted again. She glanced up through her loosed hair to find Fiora similarly entrapped, legs wrapped from ankle to knee in crackling brown roots. With teeth bared, the Trifolder tried to fit the tip of her sword between leg and root, but another reached up like a snake to bind the blade.

  Dasira started to swipe at her own vines, but another broke through the rock to strap down her forearm, and more quickly clamped on the sword and twisted from her grip.

  “Don't interfere!” rasped Fiora, hoarse from the throat-shot.

  “No. You're done,” came Cob's voice from not so far above. Dasira managed to turn her head enough to see him stalking down the hillside, face fixed like stone, hands fisted, the Guardian's armor coating him in bark. “I shouldn't've allowed this in the first place, but everyone seems to think fightin' fixes things. The two of you are never to pull a weapon on each other again, d'you get me?”

  “But what if she—“

  “But nothin'!” Cob roared in a deep, unnatural voice that shuddered the rock. Dasira cringed; even though he was not using the punishing aura, his demeanor when he went full Guardian frightened her. His eyes were flat black, the antlers beginning to branch from his brow; the ground radiated his anger like a pulse.

  “You two,” he went on in a growl, “are not gonna fight anymore. Not with weapons, not with fists, not with bitchy snipin' comments. D'you understand? If y'can't talk nice to each other, don't pikin' talk, because if I hear any more of this, I am leavin' you in the next town. Both of you.”

  “Cob, we were trying to—“

  “Shut it! Pikes, look at you bleedin', and you wanna get right back in the fight? I can't take it. I can not take it. Y'think I don't have enough to worry about that you can roll around punchin' each other and I won't get mad? You really wanna test me? Because some people been sayin' I ought to act more like a leader, and so far as I know, a leader looks at this kinda shit and says 'you all need to be whipped'. And I can make a pikin' whip.”

  “You wouldn't—“

  “You have no idea, Fiora. So put your blasted sword away or Light help me I will spank you with it.”

  Looking to Fiora, Dasira saw the girl's jaw clench pugnaciously, saw her hand fist on the hilt of her sword. “All right, do it,” she said, “because I won't stand down.”

  The roots around both of them tightened. The girl winced but didn't release her sword or take her eyes off Cob, who stood as if rooted, eyes somehow blacker than before.

  Shit, thought Dasira. We've finally pushed him too far.

  She'd seen it once, with the Crimson Army. They'd just extricated themselves from the riots in Fellen and made camp for the night, and she'd sought him out as always—only to find him methodically beating his old team-leader into the dirt.

  The man hadn't been conscious. Three others were laid out nearby, two covered in soot and burns from the smouldering log that had been used on them; the rest had withdrawn, happy to leave the situation to Darilan. Cob himself had been bloody-faced, broken-knuckled, yet still punching; he gave no response to Darilan's words and nearly flung him into the fire-pit when he tried to intervene. A tranquilizer to the neck via a bracer-strand was the only solution, leaving Darilan to drag his insensate self all the way to the infirmary tent.

  The look on his face now—flat, empty, uncaring—was the same as then.

  “Won't you,” he said, and the air congealed like ice.

  The sweat froze on Dasira's skin, and she immediately began shivering, teeth clacking together helplessly. It was like the life was being leached from her, and Fiora looked the same. She saw the girl swallow thickly, then release the sword.

  “Cob?” she said cautiously. “I— I'm sorry. It was the battle-joy. We're done.”

  Cob said nothing, but looked slowly to Dasira. Trapped as she was, she could not even nod, just say, “Yes. We're done.”

  For a moment he stood there, expression fixed, as the roots stayed punishingly tight and the warmth seeped from them. Then he turned and moved toward the cave, his viny feet tearing up from the ground with a sound like cracking stone.

  The roots sagged, the temperature stabilized. Dasira pushed up to her elbows as blood rushed back into her toes, sending pins-and-needles down both legs. On her arm, the bracer tightened as it sent chemicals into her veins to ward off the chill.

  To her surprise, Fiora shifted to sit beside her. “By the Goddess, what was that?” she hissed, flicking a wary look at Cob's back.

  Dasira rolled to one side and flexed her legs slowly, noting how their other three companions withdrew from Cob's path—Ilshenrir nearly into the trees. “You pissed him off,” she mumbled, then reluctantly amended, “We pissed him off.”

  “It was just a spar.”

  “Tell that to my bruises.”

  Fiora flicked her a grin, then winced as her own bruises caught up with her. Blood coated her upper lip from her nose, and as she rubbed her neck where the wooden sword had struck, Dasira saw the livid mark on her ruddy-tan skin. “Well, likewise. You don't pull punches. I appreciate that.”

  “Told you to wear the armor, didn't I?”

  “I think you've busted my ribs even with it.”

  “You wouldn't be able to back-talk if I had. So maybe I should've.”

  “He's not my master, he doesn't get to tell me what to do.”

  Dasira exhaled heavily and tried to rise, but between the disjointed feeling in her head and the tingling in her feet, it proved impossible. She slumped back down and glared at Fiora, who had pulled off her boots to massage her knit-socked toes. “Like he said, he's the piking leader. Just because he's fucking you doesn't mean you get to order him around.”

  With a reproving look, Fiora said, “He's the target. The one everyone's trying to get. We can't let him be the leader; we have to protect him. It doesn't work if he can just order us not to.”

  “So who'd you have as the leader, then? You?”

  “If no one else will—“

  “Fiora. I approve of your attitude. I do. You've got a spine, and fight like you mean it.”

  Fiora grinned again. “You too. None of the other girls at the temple would�
��“

  “But,” Dasira interrupted, “you're not the piking leader, and you have a better chance of digesting your own shield than convincing us to follow you. I'm here for Cob. Arik's here for Cob. Ilshenrir's here for the Guardian. Lark is here because she doesn't know where else to be. So stop sticking your foot down your own throat and accept that he's the boss.”

  Fiora's brows furrowed, as if she could not conceive that she might not bully her way to some advantage. And Dasira respected that, to her chagrin. She didn't want to feel akin to the Trifolder, but the girl had mettle.

  “Listen,” she said, feeling awkwardly like a teacher, “this has nothing to do with your strengths or your goals. It's about him, because he's the Guardian and he has the power—and he's still a piking kid. He gets hurt easily and he doesn't know how to handle it.

  “You, me—you saw the way he looked at us. I used to be his best friend, but then he learned what I am. You started off on his good side but you've been pissing all over it recently. We're closer to him than anyone's ever been, and if he was gonna choose between us, he would've done it by now. Since he can't, we have to stop. He's not someone you can toy with. I don't even say this as a protective bitch. He's dangerous, and he could kill us by accident if we push him.”

  Fiora stared at her, face locked in uncomprehending stubbornness. “You're overreacting.”

  “He already killed me once.”

  “He—what?”

  “Blade through the eye-socket.”

  “Is that supposed to put me off him? Because you probably deserved it.”

  “Asked for it, actually. But that's my point. If he thinks it needs to be done—even if he doesn't want to do it—he will, and he has more power now than he can control. So if he thinks you need to be stopped...”

  “He'll practically cut off your legs with vines,” said Fiora, eyeing their former shackles.

  “At the least.”

  The girl pursed her lips, then said, “I can work with that.”

  “Working with it isn't—“

  “Look, Dasira, I appreciate you trying to be helpful for once, but you're not my mother or my superior or even Cob's best friend anymore. It's sad that you two have problems but they don't affect me, and angry or not, I don't believe he can go through with anything drastic.”

  “I just said—“

  “What, that he'll lose his mind and mangle us? This is the worst he's ever done, and the rest of the time he treats us like we're part of his own skin. I'm not afraid of him, and I won't let you make me.”

  Dasira imagined herself atop the girl, bashing her head into the rock until that obstinate expression went blank. Then she heard the crunch of footsteps from above and looked up to see Cob descending again, no longer in armor but with the tectonic lever across his shoulders, face still stony.

  “Get y'stuff,” he said as he dropped down to their level.

  Fiora shot Dasira another look, then pulled her boots on, got up and moved to Cob's side to murmur something. He went from glowering at nothing to tilting his head at her, to shrugging the lever off and planting it blunt-end down as he leaned to respond, and Dasira's heart twinged as she watched his expression soften. A few more words, then Fiora flashed that smile and planted a quick kiss on his lips before moving away with a flirty hip-swish.

  The way he watched after her made Dasira want to throw her down the mountain.

  She wobbled up and turned away before he could look, not wanting to see his face change. Serindas still lay in the dirt, and as she picked it up she felt the throb of the blade's hunger. It was all she could do not to draw it and chase Fiora down.

  Instead she set the hilt to her bracer, ignoring its pulse of betrayal and recrimination as the threads locked around it to drain its dregs. Too much time had passed since their last kill; its red runes had faded to smudges, only a trickle of energy rising to the call. Serindas' core—the tormented soul from which it had been forged—could not be extinguished, but without an influx of lifeblood it was weak, and whiny.

  “Soon,” she muttered, but she could be sure of nothing. The idea was to avoid conflict, not seek it out to feed her dagger, and though the disorienting blow had set her mending back, she could tolerate it. She would not abandon the trek.

  “Let's get goin',” called Cob, and Dasira looked up to see the others kick out the fire and descend from the cave area. Lark waved her rucksack at her, and she forced a smile across her chilled face.

  With Cob and Fiora in the lead, they moved out.

  *****

  Evading patrols was easy with their plan. Up in the foothills, no wall demarcated the border, and the outposts stood in isolated spires, signaling each other with mirrors. Some had villages grown about their bases, but most were solitary, and by combining Cob's, Arik's and Ilshenrir's talents, they identified an ill-watched section and ghosted through like so much mist.

  The terrain descended slowly, and for half a day they walked under veil through ragged tree-cover, the rocks hulking around them in age-worn hummocks. More settlements nestled here, cutting into the earth for terraces and mines, and Cob steered them well clear.

  Finally, a few marks past noon, they came upon the end of the gradual decline and the advent of the quick. Cob halted them at the edge of the tree-cover, pointing to the cracks that laced the short plateau beyond. “Unstable,” he said, “all the way down and far to either side. Like something shattered it long ago and it's still crumbling.”

  “Feel any stable path?” said Dasira. “The desert should be just beyond this.”

  “No. But I can make one. Keep to the tree-line.”

  Dasira cringed like everyone else as Cob stepped onto the fractured plateau, the tectonic lever raised as if to strike. So far, he had only broken things with it, and as she watched him pace further out—barefoot and ragged like a beggar—she worried about what he'd become.

  But he picked his way to the edge with the unconcerned agility of a mountain goat, and stood there for a moment as if in contemplation. The pale sky beyond made it seem like the edge of the world. Then he raised the tectonic lever and struck it down between his feet.

  A rending, shearing cacophony arose from the plateau, and Dasira lurched up, dragging Lark backward as huge sections of the rock split into block-like chunks and dropped away. The others followed, scrambling deeper into the tree-cover as the plateau seemed to heave out and down in a horrid thunder of stone on stone. Dust plumed from the cracks, hazing the sky, and it was all Dasira could do to bite her tongue and hold onto a tree rather than plunge in to seek Cob.

  The shaking and the roar of rending rock continued for what seemed an eternity, dust thickening until they had to huddle within a bubble of Ilshenrir's magic or else be choked. Finally, slowly, the rumbling ebbed and the ground ceased its unsettling quaver. Ilshenrir parted the dust-cloud with a grey-gloved gesture, leaving a corridor of clean air from their vantage to the new, closer lip of the plateau.

  Cob stood there, lever over his shoulder. As the parting breeze whisked his ponytail, he glanced back and beckoned.

  Dasira eyed the rocky surface. Though still riddled with cracks, it seemed to have been compressed somehow, its gaps reduced from great gashes to hairline fractures. Several yards at the far end had fallen away completely, and she noted a notch at the new edge just beyond Cob, like the start of a staircase.

  Holy Light, he made a new Rift Climb.

  Fiora stepped out without concern. Gritting her teeth, Dasira forced herself after, towing a protesting Lark in her wake. She heard Arik whine and Ilshenrir say something soothing, then their voices faded behind her, all her attention on the edge.

  “If that's not a piking signal to our enemies—“ she started.

  Cob held up a hand for silence, not looking back. Dasira swallowed her words and released Lark as they came within a few yards. She heard the Shadow girl curse, then no further footsteps; Lark was obviously not interested in seeing Cob's work.

  Despite herself, Dasi
ra had to look.

  The edge of the cliff was ragged, irregular; she supposed Cob had been trying to make it look natural, and had succeeded except for the staircase notch. When she crept to the verge and peered over, she saw a vast incline of rubble stretching away and down to the flatlands below, dust hanging in veils in the still air. To either side, the Garnet Mountains continued in a half-crumbled curve, the wear on the cliff-sides telling her that the only recent collapse had been here.

  The notch was just that: a few rough steps that averted the need to swing oneself over the ledge, but which then opened at the pinnacle of the rock-slide, providing no more of a path.

  Blinking, she examined what she could through the dust. She had seen this place from the flatland-side many times, and knew that rockfalls along these cliffs were common. The ancient impact that had created the inner sea—now Riddian's salt flats—had also blasted great fissures into this part of the Garnet Mountains, causing them to crumble over the course of millennia rather than eons. Riddian considered this the advancement of their territorial claim, for the Empire permitted them residence in the mountains within a certain mileage of the cliffs' edges, so the continued collapse pushed their boundaries progressively into what had once belonged to Trivestes.

  Trivestes naturally opposed that rule, but as most Trivesteans refused to live on flat land, they did not fight hard over it.

  Far to the northeast, the cliffs merged into natural foothills as they left the ancient arc of destruction. Signs of inhabited buildings showed among the trees there, trailing faint ribbons of smoke into the sky. To the southwest, the cracked edges of the northernmost Trivestean plateaus showed distantly beyond the thinning trees. Directly north, the fresh rubble mixed with old rubble, which stretched onward in smaller and smaller chunks until it subsided into a flattish plane of pebbles, sand and salt. A pale haze obscured everything further.

  “What did you do?” she said, drawing back to look at Cob.

  “Started a path. Stabilized the rubble.”

  “That's it?”