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

by H. Anthe Davis

  From the other direction, by the meeting room, emerged a band of cultists from a wide black hole. Down below, soldiers milled by the doors of their bunkrooms—at least one of which opened into nothing, the entire chamber torn away.

  At the banister stood Cortine, keening a wordless song; Tanvolthene, spellcasting; and the white-robed aides staring fixedly at Yrsian and Voorkei. Yrsian had torn her blindfold away with her thumb and now stared back with equal force.

  Then Lieutenant Linciard was there at the top of the stairs, armorless and weaponless and cutting between Sarovy and the approaching cultists as he made for his door. Sarovy saw their crossbows rise.

  “Drop down!” Sarovy snapped, moving forward like a broken marionette—his stabbed leg dragging, the other blade still hanging half-in him. Given the chance, he might have tried to slough off whatever toxin the cultists had hit him with, but this was not the time for experiments.

  To his credit, Linciard obeyed without question—without even looking. Bolts flew true only to clatter off the shield as Sarovy stepped over his lieutenant. In his wake, Linciard half-rose and shoved open his door, only to have someone grunt on the other side. Linciard cursed.

  “'Ware shadows,” said Sarovy.

  “No shit, sir.”

  Normally Sarovy was not one for sass but it was a welcome sign that the man was under his own control. Tucking his shield in, he grabbed the transfixing blade's hilt with that hand, yanked it out and dropped it at his feet, then kicked it back toward Linciard. “Sword,” he said, and heard the scrape as the lieutenant took it up.

  Another volley scattered off his shield, one bolt taking him in the knee. It felt the same as the other cuts: the burning and a sluggishness in the affected part but nothing worse, nothing that mattered. At his back, he sensed Linciard rise, and heard a door swing open.

  “Pikes,” swore the lieutenant.

  Blades clashed behind him, and Linciard cursed—once, twice, then rapid-fire, as if it was another weapon against the horde. He dared not step away and leave the man's back unguarded, but the crossbowmen were not approaching; they seemed happy to stand in that corner and shoot, their escape route right at hand.

  So Sarovy retreated, bumping against Linciard and turning his shield to guard the man's flank. The lieutenant made a sound of alarm but caught on quickly and shifted, letting Sarovy take his place at the doorway. Two cultists lurked there, faces black-streaked and aspects fierce, but as he filled the doorway with his shield they fell back a step in caution.

  Magic flashed: Tanvolthene, perhaps. Another set of quarrels peppered him, the shield no longer in line to save him. Down below, the sounds of confusion had become shouts and clashing steel, and the sweet-poison scent of controllers' power wafted up on the night wind, laced with the tang of blood.

  Cortine's song rose suddenly, like a clarion, and then—

  Light.

  A great flare cast his shadow before him and made all the crossbow-wielders flinch, their black portal vanishing at their backs. Others cried out, and he heard Linciard's exclamation of victory, heard steel in flesh. The cultists in Linciard's room recoiled, hands rising toward their eyes, and Sarovy almost pursued, but clamped down on his instincts and stepped back instead. If they wanted him, they would have to come out.

  The reprieve let him swing his shield forward to block the visibly frustrated crossbow-wielders. One had discarded her weapon and was advancing, two forearm-length blades at the ready. He recognized her: the one who had put a bolt in his face at Old Crown.

  Then the cultists from Linciard's room were on him again, leaving no time for thought.

  He had not fought in such close quarters in ages, nor ever been without armor in battle. Even his new advantages could not turn the tide against two—then three, then four and the woman—all pressing at him with blades just short enough to keep at bay. He would have liked to step forward, to push them back into the bottleneck of the hall; this balcony area was wider and it was all he could do to keep them from circling him, to keep their blades from his sword-arm and the very real possibility that they could slice it off. Already he burned in a dozen places, the bolts twitching inside him with every move.

  Linciard still swore up a storm. From the corner of his eye Sarovy glimpsed a second blade in the man's grip, another captured enemy weapon, but also saw the blood running out from his slashed sleeves. Beyond him, Cortine glowed like a manifestation of the Light, arms raised and head thrown back, white eyes blazing in their sockets and flesh somehow incandescent through his robe. But though his flare had pushed back the malevolent shadows, it did little more than make the cultists squint.

  And the enemies on the street were shooting in at him, their bolts skipping off a ward Tanvolthene strove to maintain. The other mages remained engaged.

  Heavy steps ascended the stairs. There was a cultist between Sarovy and that gap, so he could not see—until suddenly that cultist was yanked backward with a yelp and thrown over the banister.

  Grinning, Vrallek forced himself into the fray, and finally Sarovy had a moment to breathe.

  He didn't take it, turning to Linciard's aid instead. One of the cultists who had pursued him from his office was down, but there were three more in the hall now, and another shooting at Cortine from the doorway. Sarovy went for her first, heirloom sword coming up to dash the wooden stock from her hands then cut deeply into her arms, and the woman gasped and fell back. Stepping into the gap, Sarovy bumped Linciard into a side-on stance to give him some relief, and saw a grin flicker over the lieutenant's bloodied face.

  Just as he began fending off the next insurgent from his office, he saw a white-robe's head jerk back. Saw the man crumple, empty-eyed, to the ground.

  A plethora of wards went out.

  The floor beneath him shuddered.

  Something, somewhere, tore. He registered his opponent's backpedaling and lunged automatically only to find the planks beyond his threshold sagging, the doorway deforming like a trap trying to snap on him. He lurched back just fast enough to avoid going down the hole that opened in the floor, and watched in shock as his desk and chairs, maps and papers, footlocker and bed and armor-stand slid down into a widening black gullet.

  Then the rightward wall buckled and the ceiling pitched down, the lintel nearly clobbering him. He backed out and felt the hallway sag beneath his feet, heard the stairs popping from their moorings.

  “Out! OUT!” he shrieked, but could barely hear himself over the din.

  Then the whole world went wrong. The hallway bucked, dropping him to a knee and canting him sideways toward the gaping maw. He planted the hilt of his sword on the boards and tried to pull up but the burning in his limbs hampered him. Linciard was scrabbling for purchase at the banister, one sword gone, bloody hand gaining little grip; behind him, Vrallek roared like a maddened beast. Splinters filled the air as woodwork failed, the load-bearing walls bitten through by the essence of hunger and night. He caught sight of Yrsian and Voorkei fleeing toward the gap into the street, the other white-robe fallen beside the first, and Tanvolthene frantically building panes of light on which to stand.

  From down below came a host of screams. He dared not look.

  Instead he forced himself up, shaking loose from his shield so that he could use his good arm. Nothing near the stairs was stable except Tanvolthene's wards, and they already held him and Messenger Cortine. Further on, though, the gap into the street was not yet crumbling.

  On a sudden insight, Sarovy jammed his sword into himself in order to free up his other hand; there was no pain, and squeamishness didn't matter anymore. Digging fingers into the splintering wall, he grabbed Linciard by the belt and pulled them both toward the street.

  As they approached, he was heartened to see the fighting continuing out there, the ranks of crossbows already broken by the rush of escaping soldiers. Something else was happening, though: there weren't just black-clad enemies but others, in paler garments or gleaming metal, holding torches and chanting
. At the sound of those voices, the fire in his wounds burned hotter.

  “Messenger! Warder!” he shouted at the lingering pair. “Get out and aid the men!”

  Tanvolthene signaled his understanding but Cortine did not move: still radiant, keening enraptured somehow. Though damage kept eating away at the floorboards beneath them, Sarovy noted that no darkness replaced it—no black void, just catastrophic architectural failure.

  He was suddenly, horridly reminded of the crushing of the Shadowland.

  This is our comeuppance, is it? he thought as he hauled Linciard to the gap. The lieutenant was trying to help, but a glance showed dark stains on his chest and thighs and one forearm, his uniform stuck to his wounds. His eyes were glassy, footing unstable.

  Down below, striding across the street to join the enemy, were Yrsian and Voorkei.

  There were no words for how he felt, no time to think on it. The first bite had taken off the front of the building, exposing a trench of dirt between the foundation and the cobblestones. Pushing Linciard to one knee, he hissed, “Hang off the edge. Aim for the dirt.”

  The lieutenant stared at him with blank incomprehension, and he feared he'd have to throw the man out. But then Linciard blinked, and nodded, and began to move of his own volition.

  Sarovy rose, trying to get a view of the battle as Linciard began to swing down.

  An orange light flared.

  Something punched him in the chest.

  Voorkei, he thought as his legs failed and he crumpled forward into thin air. He heard Linciard shout, but then the pavement met him like a slap, and for what felt like an eternity he couldn't make anything move. Not his limbs, not his false flesh, not the sword still half-stuck in him—only his mind, skittering around in this messy shell like a panicked insect.

  Then his fingers remembered what they were, and his hands, the template re-syncing with his soul. As the sound of booted feet approached, he twitched his false muscles one after the other, willing them to coordinate.

  Closer, closer: heavy steps, steel on stone, and the rasp of metal against metal somewhere above. Armor. An enemy: he could tell that by the deliberate stride, the gravitas. Someone who knew him. Someone who wanted him to get up.

  Slowly, painfully, he rose to his hands and knees, then lifted his head.

  A stranger stared back at him. An older man, white-bearded, with green eyes like gemstones set deep in a grizzled face. His armor was plain steel, well-used but well-cared for, the solid plates of a heavy infantryman. Rather than a helm, he wore a lion's skin with its teeth at his brow, its paws clamped over the backs of his gauntlets. The great hammer in his grip looked like it could dash Sarovy to bits with little effort.

  Sarovy squinted. There was nothing familiar about the man, not the smallest hint as to why he was here. Cautiously, gaining his feet, he said, “Who are you?”

  The old man's brows rose. There was a hardness in his eyes that Sarovy recognized; no doubt it had shown in his own when he brought the executioner's sword down upon the necks of those men. “Gwydren Greymark. What are you?”

  “That's a good question.”

  A mirthless smile creased the old man's features. He gave Sarovy a slow look-over, brows quirking a shade higher as Sarovy drew the heirloom blade out from himself. “Enkhaelen's work,” he said. “This must not be allowed to continue.”

  “I agree.”

  “You agree?”

  Sarovy straightened as best he could. No armor, no shield, against a man whose name he vaguely recognized as a cultist myth: some kind of folk hero, a roving protector of the people and bringer of judgment. “Yes,” he said coldly. “I volunteered, but not for this. I never imagined this. If you want my life, then come for it, but get the piking Shadow Cult off my men.”

  “No deal,” said Gwydren.

  “Then kill me if you can.”

  With a sharp nod, the old man advanced, and it was all Sarovy could do to avoid the swing of that massive hammer. Gwydren was spry and dangerously fast, pacing him in his retreats, and though it seemed that the street had lightened, he had no moment to verify it. Streaks of orange and white cut through the air, and the sounds of steel had not ceased.

  Nor the singing. Cortine's voice was still there—harsher now—but women's voices opposed him. He did not know what that meant.

  The hammer-head skimmed his chest, tinking on a button. He lunged sidelong into the opening like a duelist and almost fitted the tip of the blade into the gap of Gwydren's armpit before the old man swiveled away. Blade shrieked against armor; hammer-haft hit him in the back, shoving him several paces further. Not a bad thing: it gave him the distance to turn again, to regain his balance and dodge the old man's next swing, move in fast and clip him in the cheek with the hilt.

  The hammer-haft smacked him in the jaw. His head rocked back but his consciousness did not, and he jabbed the pommel into the old man's eye with a satisfying crunch of gel and bone.

  Fur washed over Gwydren's cheek, over the eyelid, over the bridge of his nose. When his eye snapped open again, it was unharmed.

  Sarovy wanted to curse but couldn't muster anything virulent enough. He tried again but hit the man's brow-bone, and the glassy eyes in the lion-hide snapped their attention to him. The old man hunched, then drove forward, taking him across the chest with the haft of the hammer before jerking back, and Sarovy stumbled an extra step and just barely managed to move his sword in the way of the hammer-head.

  It hit dead center and snapped the steel.

  The blade-end whickered away but he could not follow it, for the hammer was not done. It slammed into his chest with a force that would have pulverized a human's innards, knocking him right off his feet and to the edge of the cobblestones. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed Linciard retreating, and couldn't blame him. If he could have sounded the withdrawal, he would have done it.

  The old man advanced, and Sarovy rose to meet him, fist clenched hard on the hilt. It felt poetic: to be the one to dishonor the family's blade as well as its legacy, to have a monstrous second life that achieved nothing. He was angry—had been angry for what felt like forever—but not toward this stranger. Toward himself and the tattered colors he wore. The broken promises, the lies, the failures.

  As the old man closed with him, he saw a flicker of red from the way Linciard had gone.

  So did Gwydren. The hammer changed trajectory.

  Suddenly there was an opening for Sarovy's truncated sword, but Linciard was coming in with the blade-end clutched in his fists, too committed to backpedal but not fast enough to strike. Not with the hammer coming around at shoulder-height, aiming to knock his head off his spine.

  Sarovy put himself in the way.

  The hammer took him between the shoulder-blades and slammed him into Linciard, who went down on the cobbles with a sound of pain. Sarovy just managed to brace his feet over his soldier, to reverse his sway and start to turn, when the hammer crunched again into his chest.

  This time, as his boots separated from the ground, he snapped a hand forward to latch on the hammer-head. His fingers caught like iron bands, and he let the backswing yank him inward, the broken blade angling for Gwydren's neck.

  Gwydren caught his wrist. For a moment they were deadlocked, the edge shivering two inches from the old man's throat. In his mind's eye, Sarovy saw the grey claylike thing looming over him. Deforming, attenuating. If he could do that—

  He pushed, and a burst of agony cascaded through his nerves. The template burned behind his eyes: a Sarovy-shaped prison, able to adapt and mend but not stretch beyond itself.

  Momentum arrested, he tried to wrench back, but the hammer-head shoved up under his chin and he found himself face-to-face with his looming foe. Brows lowered, gaze measuring.

  “What are you?” Gwydren repeated.

  “I am the piking captain.”

  Gwydren shoved him away, and he stagger-stepped a few paces back, his burning legs threatening to give way. He raised the half-blade again in
defense but the old man did not approach, just watched him, and after a moment he dared to glance toward Linciard. The lieutenant was on one knee, head bowed, hands tucked against his chest. In the street nearby lay the blood-edged shard of sword.

  “Linciard. Status?” he called.

  “...not good, sir.”

  That was an understatement. Just looking past him to the rest of the fray showed Sarovy how piked they were. Smoke coiled up from several places within the half-collapsed garrison, and the men on the street—in whites or uniform-red, not a single one in armor—fought with fists or improvised weapons, only a few with blades. Bodies covered the path from the broken doors to the current formation. The Shadow cultists, as always, were not engaging them directly; they stuck to the alleys or the windows of neighboring buildings and shot as the strangers in armor did their level best to mash Blaze Company into the pavement. Quite a few of the enemy fighters were female, braids flying and war-cries shrill against the counterpoint of the ruengriins' roars, and Sarovy caught a glimpse of Yrsian and Voorkei in an alley with that dark woman—and another figure, a man. Presh?

  Still, the ruengriin were holding their own, and the sweet toxic miasma of the controllers' power filled the air. He spotted a few Trivesteans and Riddish fighting with knives they should not have been wearing to a religious rite, but he could hardly blame them now, and the others had clumped into their practiced formations, shoulder to shoulder with their remaining comrades.

  The grand melee was ebbing, the two sides reforming themselves. Yet down the street Sarovy saw more enemies approaching: citizens with rocks, and bottles, and kitchen knives. A bad end on hundreds of oppressed feet.

  “You!”

  Cortine's voice cut cleanly through the conflict. Sarovy looked up to see him in the gap of the upper floor with Tanvolthene, the mage clearly agitated but the priest serene in his aura of light. He was pointing at Gwydren.

  “You, prime heretic!” he cried. “You, servant of the traitor! Have you come here at his behest?”