Narrow-eyed, she said, “What? Purification? Absolution? Death? You piking idiot, this isn't the time for an emotional crisis. The Light lied to you. It's never been able to fulfill its promises. All it does is brainwash its servants into believing it's right.”
“Don't call me an idiot.”
“Oh, I'm sorry, I'll ignore the fact that you just proclaimed your allegiance to our enemy!”
He gritted his teeth, trying to hold back the anger. She was right; he'd been compromised by his old faith. The Guardian was right; its memories had scrambled him, made him sympathize too much with his quarry and question their goal. There was no denying that Enkhaelen had to die, that the Outsider needed to be expelled, or that the Empire would crash down in its wake.
But he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong with this. Their methods, their mission—all of it.
“I'm not changin' my tactics,” he muttered. “No matter what you say.”
Fiora's face hardened, but then she exhaled her anger with obvious effort. In its wake, all he could read in her expression was weariness. “Fine. Do what you will. But we know the risks, Cob. You're not the only one prepared to die. So if you put yourself out there alone again—“
“I can't talk about this,” he snapped, and turned to start down the hill.
Hands latched onto his robe, trying to drag him to a stop. He ignored them and kept going; Fiora wasn't nearly strong enough to keep him. “Arik, help me here,” he heard her say. “Cob, for pike's sake, we need to hash this out!”
“No we don't,” he said, confident the skinchanger wouldn't move against him. If he had to walk all the way to the Palace with her hanging onto him like a tantruming toddler, then—
A third hand gripped him by the collar and yanked him back with enough force to separate his feet from the soil. He tried to grapple at it but suddenly there were arms around him, pulling and pinning his own down, and a crush almost claustrophobic in its closeness.
Perhaps they had meant it as a hug, to provide comfort or just make him stay. But in that instant, all the pressure boiled over. Exhaustion, fear, confusion, guilt, fury, insult—he couldn't keep it down anymore, and they wouldn't listen. They never obeyed.
A throttled sound rose from his throat as, in their clinch, he planted his feet and bucked. The back of his head slammed into someone's face like whacking his skull against a rock, but the grip didn't break. Stars burst behind his eyes then died into blackness; there was a grunt, then a gust of hot breath on his neck.
—and he was in the quarry again, small, trapped—
He kicked backward with a hoof and felt something crack. The grip loosened and he twisted free, dropped. There was a stone in his hand, as there had been once before, and so he turned, knowing that the only way out of this dead-end was through his victimizer, through the—
—predator, the wolf—
And there it was, outlined in the darkness: First Murderer, schism-maker, all gaping maw and fiery eyes and sickle-sharp claws. The Great Enemy of the Stag. As his antlers came out, the terrified rage flamed hotter, and he struck fast, hard, repeatedly with the object in his fist. It was the only way to drive off the hunter, the only way to be safe.
Something crunched beneath his knuckles, the impact reverberating through the blackened air in waves. The Great Enemy recoiled, but that wasn't enough; it would be back. They always came back. He had to make it end.
He hit it again and felt the snap of bone, the spirit-tremor.
But then there was another body between them—one he couldn't hit. He grabbed her instead and tried to pull her away from the Enemy, but she resisted and called something. A single word over and over, its sound flat against his ears until finally the wolf-shape fled and the terror died away, grey daylight seeping back into his world.
“Cob!” she said, and he blinked heavily down at her shocked face, then at the skinchanger curled up on the ground.
Arik mewled faintly, his breath coming in tight sips. Bright new blood flecked his lips. The right side of his pilgrim robe was soaked with it, and as Cob watched, his form twisted between fur and skin but didn't mend, his eyes wild behind the defensive shield of his half-regrown, newly-broken arm. Through the Guardian's senses, Cob saw the escaping vestiges of the Wolf's presence—and the dent in its pattern.
I...I attacked him, Cob thought, a bubble of hysteria rising in his chest. And the Wolf came to him, and I injured it. I injured a piking beast-spirit.
He tried to speak, but no sound came out. His feet felt rooted to the earth, his hands clenching spasmodically—one empty, the other holding the blood-spattered lever. Fiora backed away, huge eyes flicking from him to the skinchanger, but he barely registered it; all he saw was Arik.
And as the skinchanger shifted onto his good arm and began to belly-crawl closer, head bowed, tail tucked in abject surrender, Cob's control failed. The fear overtook him, and he turned and ran.
*****
“Cob!” Fiora called after him. “Cob!” But he didn't slow, and in a matter of heartbeats his long strides took him from view.
Stunned, Fiora looked to Arik, who lay curled up once more, his good arm clamped against his side and his other hanging limp. His eyes, always pale, had gone snow-white with shock, his bloody lips moving soundlessly. As she crouched beside him, he roused just enough to meet her gaze, and in a tiny voice said, “Was I bad?”
“Oh goddess, no, not at all,” she replied, misting up. The blood from the skinchanger's side didn't seem to be stopping; even with his continual slight shifts, the underlying damage refused to mend.
“Goddess,” she reiterated, then reached under her robe for the holdout knife strapped to her thigh. It was all she had left of the gear she'd brought from Cantorin; even her prayer book was gone. “We're gonna have to bandage you up,” she told him, and started cutting at his robe.
“Cold,” he said, pallid gaze fixed on her.
She grimaced. With Cob's flight, the cold-tolerance he had provided was subsiding, and the chill nipped in at her ears and lips, her nose and fingers. She wore layers under her own robe but Arik did not; he could freeze to death like this, especially with such blood-loss.
“Can you become a wolf?” she said.
The skinchanger whined low in his throat, but then screwed up his face in concentration. By painful degrees, his physique changed: the fur pushed out through the skin, the hands crimped short and became clawed, the jaw flexed and deformed. His legs finished first, then his good arm and face, leaving the bad arm to jerk and twist in its change as he groaned through a mouthful of bloodied fangs.
Ribs and chest went last, and she was thankful they did not have to change much; Arik was as big a wolf as he was a man. As he lay there, struggling not to breathe too deeply, she cut the robe out from around him and folded it into padding, then pressed it to the seeping wound and started binding him up.
“I think you've got a punctured lung,” she told him as she worked. His fur was back to its natural pewter-grey but the quills had not regrown, letting her pack the cloth tight to the wound. “It doesn't sound that bad, though. I've heard it before; the soldiers always brought their wounded to us at the temple. Maybe you can just rest for a while, then shift the damage away when everything's calmed down?”
He didn't answer, and she bit her lip as she tied the padding down. She was no medic; all she could do was guess. There wasn't even anywhere to go for help.
“Goddess, Brigydde,” she started to pray, but then bit her tongue.
As a pregnant woman, Fiora belonged to Brigydde the Healer, and certainly the goddess would guide her hands if she asked—or even infuse her with holy power. But she dared not call out, not when she had heard Breana's voice in the fray. She had never wanted to be anything but a Breanan, never had any desire but to fight. If she squandered that brief blessing by calling upon another of the Trifold, she might never get it back.
“Oh goddess,” she murmured, “Brea Eranine, please. If you've
truly chosen me, you who walk the battlefields, can you not guide me? You must know how to help, at least a little. I don't want to give up on you or leave my sword behind. Broken or not, I... This is my life. Please.”
All stayed cold and silent. She tried again but choked on tears—as much for Arik as herself, that she could not be a good enough friend to him that she could give up her mission, and that her mission would not bend enough to allow her this gift.
She raised a hand to dash away the tears, and when she looked again, the whole bandage was red. Her heart leapt into her throat before she realized it wasn't blood but a change in the light, washing his fur and her robe and arms and the snowy hillside with a roseate radiance too bold and soon for sunset. Slowly, she turned toward its source.
There upon a frozen stream not ten strides away stood a woman as tall as an ogress, ringleted hair loose about her red-cloaked shoulders and each link in her chainmail radiating that ruby light. Her face was sharp, almost harsh, her jaw hash-marked with scars, and the blade in her hand bore the scuffs and chips of too much war, too little mending. Even from this distance, her eyes pierced into Fiora's heart, as stern as steel.
“Breana,” she whispered.
The vision flickered, the woman raising her head as if alerted. Then it vanished.
Fiora lunged to her feet. “No, wait!” she called, casting about for any glimpse of the red light, but it was gone, and all was white. “Breana! Goddess!”
Her voice echoed back at her uselessly, and she winced. In this icy stillness, any noise traveled far, and she had their pursuers to think of: that bastard with the black sword and the innumerable Imperials on their heels.
And I'm calling the wrong name. I'm a fool.
“Brea Eranine, my apologies. I beseech you.”
Red light painted the ice as the titanic woman reemerged from nothingness, as if she had simply been invisible. Slowly, regally she strode toward the hill, and Fiora's heart thundered in her throat, her fingers tightening on the knife as if it was her sword and not a sign of her failure. In reverence she knelt and pressed its hilt to her brow, the narrow blade frosting with her breath.
'Little sister,' said the vision, 'you need not kneel.' Her voice was like the tolling of a great bell, low and resonant, with echoes that hung in the air for long moments after. 'You are among my most favored, though you have crossed into the realm of my mistress.'
Rising, Fiora blushed as much from embarrassment as pride. “You honor me, Sword Maiden. I don't deserve—“
'You pursue my work with tireless foot and eager blade, unlike so many,' interjected the vision. 'And so you have been chosen to wield my quiet skills, to see my wartime face. Has this not been clear to you?'
Fiora struggled to keep her expression firm. She had called upon Brea Eranine's subtlety three times—at Erestoia By-The-Sea, to catch Dasira rummaging through her gear, and to assault Erevard—and had been answered. She shouldn't question the gift.
“Yes, goddess. Yes.”
'But what you ask now, for the knowledge of healing...' The vision shook her head, her ringlets moving stiffly, and Fiora realized they were streaked with blood. 'I am the Daughter of Battle. I can not grant you what I do not possess.'
Fiora's eyes stung. “Could you... Perhaps could you intervene with—“ She hesitated, not wanting to say Brigydde and invoke the Mother into this fragile meeting. “—The other on my behalf? I would not forsake you, goddess, but to save my friend...”
Again, the vision shook her head. 'She is the mistress, and I the servant. Once she has granted you her power, I shall have no more claim upon you.'
“But you're the Trifold Goddess! Surely there can be some agreement, some sharing?”
'Our power has its own will, its own laws. We can not go against them.'
Fiora wrung her hands around the knife's hilt, lip trembling. It felt like her heart was being torn in two. If I become a Brigyddian, she thought, then I must do as Cob said. I must flee to safety and let him and Arik face the Palace on their own.
No. No.
“I... Goddess,” she said, “I only ever wanted to serve you. If I can not heal my friend, then please help me hide him. Cob is...becoming erratic. I don't know if he'll return for us, and I can't give up. If I must, I'll go to fight the Emperor alone.”
A smile creased the vision's tight lips. 'I know you will. It is why I chose you. But my subtle blessing is for you and you alone; it can not shelter your friends. You are no longer the Shield, only the Sword.'
“Then lend me your sword-arm, goddess!” She caught up the silver sword, still wrapped tight, and raised it toward the radiant figure. “This is all that remains to me, and though I know it belongs to your eldest sister, I beg you, grant me the strength and skill to use it!”
That steely gaze turned to the sword and paused, as if seeing it for the first time. Then, slowly, the vision nodded. 'You shall wield it as my own right hand, when it is time. Until then, little sister, be brave, remain true, and know that I am watching over you.'
In the next breath, she was gone, only the remnants of her voice still ringing among the trees. Fiora sank down on suddenly watery knees, clutching the sword to her chest, and stared at nothing, hardly able to contain the terror and joy that filled her.
If Cob did not return, then she would serve.
*****
He ran and ran and ran, the black water eating at his heels. The world flashed by: white snow, dark sky; dark earth, white cloud; all broken. Unfixable, and him the cause.
It took a long time for the fear to abate. When his eyes finally cleared, he was not in the darkness through which he'd fled; instead, the sun shone low and dismal through the spindly grey-barked trees, late but not night. His hoofbeats slowed, faltered, then fell still amid slush and frigid water.
The land around him had changed. He felt instinctively that he had come northeast some distance, but the trees were bare-limbed, no icicles hanging. No snow showed, and only a lacework of ice trimmed the edges of the roots and hummocks that rose from the green water. Late leaves clung to some branches and shrubs, a baffling sight for the season.
Beneath his hooves, the earth had the same shallow feeling as in Keceirnden. He immediately banished the Guardian's manifestation; he could snap it back on at any time, but while he lingered, he feared alerting the subterranean tendrils to his presence.
The moment he let the power go, he remembered why he'd been running.
Ankle-deep in a cold stream, Cob hugged his arms around himself and struggled not to cry. He'd lashed out before, but never at someone he liked or trusted. Always it had been people like his original camp-mates—those bastards—or the man in the quarry.
Yet since the Guardian's arrival, he'd attacked others. Darilan, Lady Annia, Ilshenrir. Now Arik.
“You made me do it,” he hissed.
No answer came.
He didn't need one. He knew it was the Guardian. It had to be. The Stag-memories, that threatening flash of the Wolf-spirit—he couldn't see those things on his own. No matter that he'd been in the quarry too; it was the Guardian trying to split him from his friends again, trying to bend him to its views. It had warned him against Arik before, and now it had forced his hand.
He had to go back. Make the Guardian mend what it had done.
And then—
Renounce it. Leave. Let it find a different vessel—a stronger one, smarter, tougher. Less crippled inside. Cede the silver sword to it and escape. It knows where to find Enkhaelen now, and how to kill him. We've done enough.
But he'd come this far already. Could he trust another to do the deed—to enter the Palace and end the threat without being misled or consumed?
Can you trust yourself? Fiora wasn't wrong; you still love the Light and fear the Dark. Not without reason—but what will you do when you stand before the Emperor with that sword in your hands? Fight him? Or pledge your allegiance?
Neither. This wasn't about the Emperor.
It's not a
bout Enkhaelen either. It's about you, and what you can bring yourself to do in defense of others. If that answer isn't 'kill', then turn back now.
Cob grimaced. He knew Dasira too well to side with Fiora's kill-them-all perspective, and knew himself too well to think that all the Imperial Light-followers had a clue what they were doing. If it became necessary to butcher his way to the Throne, he didn't think he could do it—didn't even want to. Even the thought of calling the black water made his stomach curdle. If he did that, he hoped he'd drown himself with the rest of them.
But if there was still a chance of sneaking in, of getting to the wall...
Fiora would never turn back. Not even if he begged. So he couldn't let the Guardian go, couldn't flee. He had to finish this.
“Haurah,” he called softly.
The wolf-woman appeared on the mossy hummock before him, crouched and bristling, skin covered in deep-brown fur. Her ears were cocked oddly, one toward him and the other to the side, and crescents of white sclera gleamed around her bestial eyes.
Alarmed, he looked around the swampy terrain but saw nothing amiss, just pale trees and reeds, lumpish landforms, still water. A dark figure at his back made his heart leap but it was just his father standing among the bracken, seamed face a mask.
“Haurah, we can mend what we did, right?” said Cob, focusing on her even though it meant allowing his father to stay behind him. Ever since Enkhaelen's manor, when they had looked down on him as he hung from the broken boards, he'd known something was wrong with the Guardians, but Dernyel was the worst.
The wolf-woman nodded slowly, gaze on the swamp. 'If Raun will come, we can heal those wounds, but there are...tensions between us. The Wolf resents my presence within the Guardian and its treatment of me during my time as vessel, and the Guardian has never forgiven the Wolf's actions. If Raun refuses to attend...'
“But if I hurt the spirit, I hurt all wolves, right? Raun wouldn't stay away out of spite...”
She gave him a sad smile. 'We are family. We do much for spite.'
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 80
