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

by H. Anthe Davis

“What?” said the old man.

  “We expected him to have a contingency in case of our control, but to think he would violate one of the high holy nights...”

  “What is he talking about?” said Gwydren, glancing at Sarovy.

  Surprised to be included, Sarovy looked between them. Something Gwydren had mentioned came back to him, and he hazarded, “Enkhaelen?”

  Gwydren developed a long-suffering look.

  At Cortine's gesture, Tanvolthene began laying wards in midair like steps, and the priest descended them with the confidence of a sighted man. “You are his tool, heretic,” he declaimed. “You do his bidding in his absence, but more than that, you interfere in the rituals of the Imperial Light. You must be punished.”

  “Yours is a false Light,” said the old man calmly. “I remember when the true one reigned, before your empire was even a twinkle in the Outsider's eye. Come test my memory with your delusions if you wish.”

  Cortine snarled, and from his sleeve slid a white filament which wove itself into a sword. Like his eyes and the patches beneath his robes, it glowed with its own radiance. At the sight of it, Sarovy saw Gwydren's stance shift defensively.

  “Yes. Let us test our gods against each other,” said the priest.

  As they advanced upon each other, Sarovy looked to Tanvolthene—now at ground level, having followed the Messenger down. He stood at the lip of the damaged zone, weaving panes of white energy around himself, attention fixed on the priest.

  On the other side of the street, Yrsian and Voorkei and Presh appeared to be arguing amidst a crowd of cultists. Sarovy wanted to go to them, to demand why they had turned on him, but he already knew. He had turned as well; he just had not the strength to act on it.

  He wanted to go to his men too, but how could he face them after surrendering them into the hands of his wicked commanders? Cortine and Gwydren Greymark faced off in the space between him and the rest of the company, while the stables stood not far from his back, and he felt a sudden fierce pull that way. To grab Havoc and just escape.

  But Linciard was at his left hand, bleeding, and the citizens were all around—their approach slower now as the two powers clashed, but no less vengeful. And he could not deny that vengeance. He was tired of pretending to be in the right.

  Gwydren took the first swing. Sarovy could see that it was meant to take Cortine's measure, to make him dance back and show his mobility, his visual acuity with those radiant eyes. But Cortine did not retreat, instead taking the blow in the middle of his forearm, and white light flared beneath his sleeve to lance up as high as his shoulder. The hammer rebounded, leaving him utterly unmoved.

  “This is the measure of mine,” said Cortine. “Now yours.”

  He struck forward wildly, indifferent to style or technique: a raw amateur. Yet his fervor drove Gwydren a pace back, forcing him to block and divert with the hammer-haft as the white sword needled toward his face repeatedly. He managed to hook a swing in below Cortine's vicious offense which took the priest in the ribs, but again a flare of light crawled along his flank without moving Cortine an inch.

  The white blade scored a hit, drawing a long line across Gwydren's cheek. With a growl, the heretic shoved forward, forcing blade and arm up past his head with the hammer-haft, and slammed into Cortine bodily. Another white flare, yet the heretic's bulk forced the priest back a step—then another as Gwydren brought his heavy brow down into Cortine's face.

  The priest exclaimed as he reeled back, bleeding from the nose. Gwydren took the opportunity to heft his hammer for an overhand blow, but even as he did so, pale material like White Flame armor crawled up from Cortine's collar to coat his neck and scalp. The blow came down just past the crest of his head, sending a flare throughout the armor but barely adding to his stagger.

  He looked up, snarling, and lashed out with his free hand. All the power that had accumulated in his protective layers jetted out as a blazing line.

  Gwydren tried to interpose his hammer but he was too slow. The sunbeam struck him in the chest then flashed out the other side, carving a path far into the darkness before abruptly winking out. The air filled with the reek of molten metal, of burning flesh and fur, and the old man swayed, weapon sagging to reveal scorch-marks on both arms and a blackened hole in his breastplate, charred muscle and bone beneath. His eyelids fluttered under the edges of the lion's-maw hood.

  Then tawny fur closed the gap and turned his gauntlets to paws, and he jerked upright with the gasp of a man shocked from sleep.

  Cortine leapt for him again, shrieking, frenzied, oblivious to such things as defense or strategy, and though his strikes went astray almost constantly—as if he could not perceive the body beneath steel and fur—a few stung through. For his part, Gwydren played aggressive defense, pushing and slamming with the hammer-haft and sometimes the head, but seemed incapable of forcing Cortine back far enough for a proper strike.

  Abruptly, a pane of white light flared into existence between Cortine and Gwydren, only to be shattered by the hammer's blow. Sarovy glanced sidelong to Tanvolthene, who stood in a fog of his own protections, weaving energy in defense of the priest. His attention was fixed, face clenched with effort. It would not have been difficult to approach him.

  To do what? Make this treason real?

  Sarovy's fingers clenched around the hilt of his broken sword, but he couldn't bring himself to move. Even after all that his masters had done to him, he could not rebel. He didn't know how.

  Then a streak of orange crossed between him and the battling god-followers, slamming into Tanvolthene's wards with enough force to knock the man back. Sarovy looked the way it had come and saw his mages advancing: all three of them, Voorkei and Presh behind Scryer Yrsian who led with a dagger.

  He tried to step forward—to stop them? to question them?—but Presh made a sideways swiping gesture at him, and a gust of wind hit like a thousand battering wings. He stumbled back, cursing, arms raised defensively.

  By the time it dissipated, an orange barrier had sprung up between him and the scene.

  *****

  “Ve could still kill hin,” said Voorkei as they passed the captain, white-faced and wild-eyed on the wrong side of the barrier.

  “No,” said Mako. “It's not his fault. If he won't submit, I'll force him, but for now just leave him be.”

  The ogre-blood grunted, but she could feel his relief—and its surprising echo from Presh. She'd expected him to have turned fully against the Imperials, but when she and Voorkei had run over from the collapsing garrison, that Shadow bitch had still had him at knife-point. If Mako hadn't been restricted by the anti-magic collar and her shackles, she might have jumped on the woman in a rage.

  Or jumped on Presh with something decidedly not rage. She'd missed him.

  As it was, she'd restrained herself; she'd used too much mental energy to overcome her captors and couldn't afford to waste it on petty mind-slaps. And the woman had been reasonable. She'd given Mako a nod, released Presh, and pulled something black and squirming from thin air that had somehow worked like a key in the shackles. Then she'd vanished.

  Mako had taken the collar-sealing signet from the hand of their captor and used it to free herself and Voorkei. She had it and both collars in her pocket now, and her gaze set on Tanvolthene: poor hapless Warder, stuck now between her gestalt and the burning garrison.

  Presh's air and fire elementals flickered wildly as they swarmed the Warder, battering his protections and spitting ash and splinters everywhere. Behind her, Voorkei chanted softly, one hand rising now and then to make a crushing motion to implode another white ward. Within his self-made cage, Tanvolthene's hands were a blur, channeled energy coursing along his arms and shoulders as he rewove each broken pane.

  To the side, priest and legend fought, oblivious to the world.

  “You might as well give up, Edar,” she called to Tanvolthene. She didn't want to bend him, but like with the captain, she'd do it if she had to. “Your side's gone to shit, an
d I doubt you can call Sanctuary.”

  “Listen—you know I have no grudge against you!” said the man behind his wards, voice high with nerves. “It was just a job. I'm an employee, for pike's sake!”

  “Oh, I know. But at a certain point, 'just a job' no longer cuts it.” She slashed her long knife through the air for emphasis. She'd dearly wanted to use it on the two mentalists, but stabbing them with psychic knives had been sufficient. They shouldn't have detached her from the earhook network, or supplanted her in the wards; that had returned more than enough mental energy for her to strike back.

  “I've been useful! Your people couldn't have gotten out of Potter's Row without me!”

  “Who says the company is my people?”

  Tanvolthene's eyes widened. “You're a cultist?”

  Mako snorted. She and her men were closing the distance fast, and she wondered if she could put her dagger through his fracturing wards and into his face. No, no; he hadn't been bad enough for that. He'd had plenty of lewd thoughts at her while she was shackled, but that was true of three-quarters of the company, and he hadn't touched her.

  “I'm whatever I want to be,” she snapped, “and right now I'm your last chance.”

  Beneath the fracturing wards and swirling elementals, she could barely see his flinch, but it radiated from his mind in perfect clarity and she couldn't resist nudging it. After all, it wasn't mind-bending if he already felt that way, right?

  Watch it, Mako, she told herself, but she knew she wouldn't. She was bad at obedience.

  Tanvolthene's face fell. His fingers stilled, the tendrils of energy evaporating from them as Mako's men continued to crack his wards. “I'll lose my position, my rank,” he said weakly.

  “You can come with us.”

  “...Do I get paid?”

  Mako raised her brows and tapped her knife against the nearest ward. It crumbled like spun sugar. “You get to keep your balls.”

  “Can I get that in writing?”

  Voorkei and Presh both rippled with amusement, but Mako was done. So done. She beat a few more wards down and reached in to grab Tanvolthene by the neck of his robe, squelching his resistance as she dragged him down to her level. “You come with us now!” she barked. “You behave, you submit, and maybe—just maybe—we'll write you up a piking contract and have some bloody boring-as-shit meetings about it later. Later. All right?”

  “All right,” he squeaked.

  She nodded, released him, then clamped her knife in her teeth and drew out one of the collars. Without protest he let her latch it around his throat and seal it with the ring.

  She let go, stood back, and was about to declare victory when she felt a burst of crowd-fear at the edge of her perception. Glancing away, past the orange barrier and the captain to the previously gawking citizens, she found them scattering in all directions.

  From beyond came the roars of ruengriin, the clack of hooves, and a surge of white shapes and white mage-lights.

  Colonel Wreth's men.

  “Well shit,” she said.

  *****

  Sarovy watched in shock as the three mages dragged the fourth straight into the burning garrison. The flames seemed to peel out of their way, and then they were gone.

  Mages are crazy, he thought.

  The barrier that had held him back collapsed, and for a moment he just stared into the flames. Because of the gaps torn into the walls, the fire had already conquered the structure; there was little to see that had not been engulfed, with tarry smoke curling up to mar the midnight sky. Within, beams popped and cracked and multicolored sparks sometimes flew—perhaps from a perishing ward, or from a fallen man, or someone's possessions.

  He had not spent long in that building, and had mostly hated it. To see it burn, though, with all he owned still inside—all that any of them owned...

  Over a third of his men had died this past month, and one at his own hand. The ambushes, the disappearances, the murder and revelation—all of them pressed down on him now, in the glare of those flames. He was made from cinders and ash, from pieces of the fallen, from victims and volunteers. How could he allow this? How could he live, and move on, and submit to the forces that had caused this woe?

  How could he forgive himself? The Light meant nothing to him now.

  And there were hoofbeats at his back.

  From off to the side, someone yelled, “Greymark! Greymark!” Unwillingly, Sarovy turned to see the lion-armored heretic waver in mid-strike. He and Cortine had been at their vicious dance all this time, radiant filaments versus fur and steel, but when the cry came again, the heretic retreated, with Cortine darting after him like a shooting star. An orange ward sprang up in the priest's way and he ran right into it, rebounding just long enough for Gwydren to escape his radiance. Two steps into the shadows and the old man seemed to fall through the very street, darkness swallowing him up with all his allies.

  Cortine rushed to the spot, but the cobbles were whole again, leaving no means of pursuit. Sarovy saw his hands fist and a visible tremor run through his white cladding before it started to peel away like old skin.

  The clack of hooves drew near.

  Slowly, Sarovy turned to face his so-called commander.

  *****

  Among the flames, encircled by breath-giving air elementals and warded firmly against the heat, Mako and her men watched.

  “We could help,” said Presh.

  “I want to see what he does.”

  “Colonel vill kill hin,” opined Voorkei.

  “Maybe. Is that so bad?”

  “Thought hyou liked hin.”

  Mako made a face. She'd flirted with him a bit, and considered sleeping with him, but that was before she knew he was married—and way before she'd learned he was a monster. She didn't know what to think now, and by the slump of his shoulders as he awaited the colonel, neither did he.

  Blaze Company ruined us all, she thought, then shook her head and amended it. The army did. The Crimson and its leaders.

  All the way to the top.

  If only she'd known this months ago, she would have slapped some sense into Prince Kelturin while she was sleeping with him.

  “You could surrender,” said Tanvolthene. “Maybe the colonel will forgive—“ His words broke off muffledly and she gave Voorkei a thankful look. He grinned back, his hand over the warder's mouth.

  The cinder-pocked beams creaked below them, and she struggled to think up a plan. Voorkei's wards would hold for a while but not if the walls crashed in on them, and the colonel's mages had seen them run in here; already she could sense mentalists casting their nets, trying to corral the soldiers and find her gestalt. She slid an extra block over Tanvolthene's mind, just in case he started thinking hard at them. He didn't have any other psychic connections but it was smart to be safe.

  “Ve should find Shadow Folk. Escafe.”

  She looked to Presh, who shrugged. He seemed none the worse for his ordeal, so maybe... “No. We wait a little longer. We owe the company that much.”

  She expected more objections, but instead she felt a hand touch her sleeve, then slide down to link fingers with hers. She smiled sidelong at Presh, then at Voorkei as his much larger hand enclosed her other one and gave it a squeeze.

  Together, they watched and waited.

  *****

  “This is curious,” said Colonel Wreth in a dry, not-at-all pleasant tone. “I knew you were a problem, but I hadn't expected you to simply stand by while your comrades fought.”

  Sarovy did not answer. Ahorse, Wreth loomed over him, his Tasgard steed chewing at the bit and his cavalry sword gleaming with rune-light. The howls and shrieks of the hunting ruengriin had faded down the side-streets as they pursued the locals, a few White Flame handlers jogging after them. At Wreth's back, the main bulk of his escort remained: at least sixty soldiers, half of them mounted, split almost equally between Crimson and White Flame.

  Plus a good handful of mages.

  The Tasgard's clawed feet
clicked on the cobblestones as Wreth nudged it closer. His blade glided through the dark air almost playfully, the tip carving a half-circle around the side of Sarovy's face as he came within reach. “Who were your attackers?” he prompted.

  Sarovy stared straight ahead, not acknowledging the blade, not looking at the man. Between his fingers, the hilt of the broken sword felt cold, like some former vitality had been stripped from it.

  “Cultists,” he answered. “Shadow and Trifold. The lion-man was Gwydren Greymark.”

  “Really.” The flat of the blade brushed his cheek, and he strained not to react. Wreth's leg was just a shade too far to stab if he lunged, and the horse might bite at him. Tasgards tended to attack when startled. “Cultists and heretics and Gwydren Greymark within reach, and yet you do nothing.”

  Sarovy was silent.

  “Enlightened Messenger!” called the colonel. “My deepest apologies. If I had known that I'd put your safety in the hands of such a coward—“

  “Enough, colonel,” said the Messenger from close behind. A moment later, he passed Sarovy to stand third in their triangle. His white armor had receded beneath his robe, but his eyes still glowed faintly, even through his eyelids. “By now, the captain's inaction is no surprise.”

  A smile drew across Colonel Wreth's mouth like a razor gash, and he turned the edge of the sword to Sarovy's cheek. “Then we might as well execute him, hm?”

  “No. We have not expended this effort simply to hack him up. We proceed as before.”

  “With three days left in Midwinter? Not to mention the loss of their housing and my mages. If the controllers among them have failed or turned, then I should kill the lot of them.“

  “And waste our resources?”

  Sarovy closed his eyes and let them bicker. All the outcomes were the same. His men would be converted or die, and he would be punished by the Light that had changed him. His inability to obey his orders and his failure to follow his conscience had doomed them all.

  What now held him back?