The Midnight Dunes (The Landkist Saga Book 3)

by Steven Kelliher

  Still, Sen could only delay, and the soldiers could only die against the Sentinels. Karin stood on wavering legs, his mind made up. He tore his shirt free and felt a fresh line of warm run down his side. He cleaned it as best he could with water from a nearly-empty skin and tied his shirt around him like a wrap. He closed his eyes and breathed in deep, smelling the ozone that still drifted from Creyath Mit’Ahn’s sacrifice and hearing the pops and cracks from the battle of Sages.

  He ran, sprinting fast as a drained body would allow toward the heart of the storm. He saw Iyana’s white hair picking up the light of the moon that was shining brighter now that the Dunes and their amber glow were gone. She looked like a herald the rest rallied around, standing undaunted in a hurricane of demons and flesh, reaching out with both hands as Sen did the same farther back.

  Iyana had never felt more useless, diving from body to body and healing those who could be healed only to have them fall once more, beyond her reach and beyond her help. She was locked into the Between, now, and it took nearly all she had to keep from flying away, drifting on those strange winds and following those winding dream-paths to distant ways. She wanted to seek out Linn and bring her stone back with her. She wanted to find Kole and beg his aid, or else tell them she loved them as her body was hacked apart in the far west. She wanted Mother Ninyeva to be here, standing brave in the midst of a Sage’s storm—one that raged behind her on and above the flats as the Eastern Dark and the Red Waste brought their names and all the power that went with them to bear.

  She could find nothing like threads coming from the Sentinels. Nothing to pull and nothing to control, while the bright and flickering threads of the desert nomads and her Valleyfolk swayed and danced around her like tall grass.

  Sen stood apart from the rest. Iyana thought him afraid until she saw the work he did. He pulled Ket out of the way as a Sentinel went past, and he flattened Jes to the ground as one carved the place her neck had been. He manipulated wills and the bodies that carried them, and for the first time Iyana swallowed the bile the act called up in her and bent to the task herself.

  One of the soldiers of the caravan was falling back under the lashing black talons of a Sentinel that had broken off from the pack. His sword was cracked and would break on the next exchange. She seized his tether—sky-blue and pulsing—and moved him enough to see him lose a bit of flesh and not the heart it held as his fellows came in to bear him up and beat the beast back.

  But these were clever things, these warriors from the World Apart. One saw her through the mess, focused on her as it tossed a nomad wearing a red sash to fall lifeless in the sand. Its walk became a run she couldn’t hope to outstrip, and just before it reached her it went down in a tangle beneath a quick and clumsy charge as Karin bore it into one of the shallow pits Ceth had made.

  Karin was launched back, but the Sentinel was set upon by Mial and one of the Northmen who were fighting with a rage Iyana felt but could not channel quite yet, the shock of it having yet to wear off. She felt a tug on her arm as Karin spun her around and dragged her from the fighting.

  “Iyana!” he yelled, desperate as he pulled her up the slope. She dug her feet into the soft sand when she recognized his path. “We must go! Iyana, we must! We cannot win! You’ll die!”

  He screamed with the desperation of a father, and though she was not his daughter, she was the closest thing out here in these barren wastes that were still somehow beautiful in spite of it all.

  “Stop,” she said, voice level as she fought to keep from drifting. “Stop.”

  He did not.

  “Stop!”

  She pressed him into the slope with his own will until she heard the breath being squeezed from his lungs. She released him. He rolled over, hacking, and she saw red spots in the outline of his form in the white sand. She knelt over him, hands roving until she found the hurt and poured her own fire in. Her head swam. She doubted if she’d feel the pain had a Sentinel chosen that moment to run her through, so caught was she in Karin’s.

  His breathing steadied as she finished, and she blinked, letting the green fall away. He looked as if he might seize her again and pull her away, kicking and screaming, but something in her look stopped him. He knew she would not go, and so together they turned and watched the fight on the slope. Shadows passed from soldier to soldier and scrum to scrum while the one who had summoned them fought against the man who had been named after these lands.

  Desperate as the fighting was between men and demons, it was nothing compared to the madness behind. Iyana shook her head. It was as if they fought everywhere at once and yet nowhere. She saw still images of the two locked in spitting embraces like tapestries or emblazoned reliefs. Here Pevah mounted the Eastern Dark in the shards of melted sand and there he soared high above the flats, black talons lashing.

  Below and between the still images, she saw the true fight joined. Pevah shimmered as if he trailed a cloak of the clearest water. He moved with a fury unbecoming of one so calm, and she realized then where Ceth’s strange style had been born and who had molded it.

  “He cannot win,” she heard Karin say behind her. He sounded tired, and she felt a pang for knowing Creyath was dead and another for not having time to feel it. Her heart thudded as she looked at Ceth, hair blowing over a still and forgotten form.

  “No,” she said with a nod. Pevah tore the Eastern Dark’s throat out and then bore the wound himself, the clear armor he wore that was time flashing like snow as it undid the damage. “Not alone.”

  “Iyana—”

  She pointed to silence him. She pointed up above the Eastern Dark, and Karin came up beside her and squinted. There, drifting and translucent, was a thread of lavender and blue and speckled red she had only barely glimpsed before, and with each blow Pevah landed that was turned back on him twofold, the thread brightened until there was little to distinguish it from any of the rest.

  “I know how to beat him, Karin,” she said, feeling it as the truth as the words escaped her. “I know how.” She looked to him, pleading, imploring. “I need to get closer.”

  Karin’s silence was telling. She saw him examine the melee below and thought again that he would drag her from the place then and there. Instead, his eyes darted, mind working. He was First Runner, and so he looked for a place to run. He came away with a sigh that told her they would both die if he tried it. Told her he would try anyway.

  And then a lone figure broke the middle distance, walking toward the battle with an easy gait that was smooth and tired. He held a sword at his side, and though he was marked from whatever fighting he had endured in the north, his path was forward.

  “Talmir Caru is the best sword I’ve ever seen,” Karin said in a tone that approached awe. “I’ve seen him best a champion from Center and the Blood Seers of the farthest north and driest west. He’s the best sword I’ve ever seen. But he can’t beat them.”

  “I don’t think he means to,” Iyana said. She thought to run to him and put some of her greenfire into him, but there was no way. They would catch her and tear her apart. As it was, one looked in their direction and Karin tensed to die, but Talmir’s cry broke the sky and drew it back.

  The Captain of Hearth entered the fray. He ran a Sentinel through and it fell, shockingly, dead. The bronze star that had slipped behind his torn shirt and leather gleamed as he struck. It marked him as something different from the rest. Something to be feared by beings that were not given to fear.

  One of the Sentinels fell on Talmir and pushed his sword arm down with impossible strength. Rather than deal a mortal blow, it locked his eyes and stared with those glowing reds, boring in, and Iyana knew what it attempted.

  “No!” she screamed as Talmir matched her. Amidst the chaos behind the struggling pair she saw the Sages pause in their spitting embrace long enough to look over.

  “Now, Yani!” Karin yelled, sprinting ahead. She followed, not sparing a moment to think. As she followed in the First Runner’s wake, a Sentinel that ha
d been worrying over the body of its fellow gave in and marked her next. Ket stood and blocked the charge, losing a hand in the process as it came up in a lashing rage. Two of the desert nomads took his place as one of the caravan snatched him and dragged him back to a rise where Sen worked over the wounded. Ket did not scream, but Iyana wanted him to.

  She looked ahead, always ahead, ignoring the growls and yips of the desert foxes, the men who fought for every inch against them and the animals that had ever called these dunes home. She fixed her eyes on Karin Reyna’s back and allowed his prow to bear her into the west.

  And then she was in the flats, far enough from the fight to be forgotten but close enough to fear it still. She turned, panting, and saw that Talmir had regained his feet and his blade. He had cut the head from the Sentinel that had tried to corrupt him and the four that remained had fallen back into a defensive formation, soldiers all around, red and gray sashes swishing as they pawed with their sharps and steel.

  It was only a matter of time.

  “Clever thing,” the Eastern Dark said. Iyana turned toward him, thinking he addressed her, and saw that he was staring at the glow of Talmir’s pendant and the silver sword he held. “Clever thing.”

  Pevah seized on his lack of attention and flung him back, and Iyana saw that his shimmering cloak was less striking now. He was panting, same as her. Worse. He looked more and more like one of the desert foxes with each passing exchange, and all around them the images of his clashes with the Eastern Dark faded like memories scrubbed clean against the backdrop of the desert sky. The flats picked up a bit of amber to go along with the white, and Iyana felt the first warmth of the sun rising in the east.

  She smiled as an errant ray touched the prone form of Creyath, who was not so far away, his face already dusted over with a smattering of sand that could have been snow. He had not died ugly, and looking toward the mountain of obsidian the Night Lord had become she knew his memory would outlive them all.

  “Your corruption won’t find a home in that one,” Iyana said, beaming at the Eastern Dark. She saw his tether clear now, and it was ugly, streaming up against the stars, pale and split and trailing darkness in its wake.

  The Eastern Dark did not smile. He looked, if anything, resolute as he nodded toward the eastern rise. She followed him as Pevah began to walk toward his adversary once more, breath catching, while Karin stood before her, unarmed yet undaunted.

  On the rise, the Sentinels tilted their heads as if called from afar. They glanced toward the west and then leapt as one. They landed in a square around Sen and finished the soldier he was attempting to heal. One leapt atop him and bore him down as the other three formed a pack before him. Talmir led those still able to fight and they met those three in a bloody, bitter chaos. They would surely win, and yet it didn’t matter in the least.

  When the third Sentinel fell, Talmir kicked the fourth off Sen. It rolled over, black eyes staring sightlessly up at the stars. And a fifth rose wearing the Faeykin’s skin. Sen stood, his green eyes shining, his pale skin showing spots and eels of black beneath the surface. These Sentinels were of a different breed to do the thing so quickly.

  Talmir stepped back, blade held before him and other hand held to ward off the rest. The Faeykin blinked at him twice as if clearing a memory. One of the red-sashes raised his bow and pulled a shaft on a taut string, but Sen lanced a hand out quick as a strike and the lot of them froze. Even Talmir, bronze star shining but inert.

  Iyana looked to Pevah, who was intent on the Eastern Dark. Karin ground his teeth, rooted in indecision.

  “It could be I’ve been looking at the wrong Landkist all along,” the Eastern Dark said, his voice leading.

  One by one, the soldiers of the Valley and the nomads of the desert—all the fighters who had come west to snuff out the nightmare here found themselves caught in it. They struggled and spat, chests heaving as they were betrayed by their own forms, pressed into the slope while the foxes threaded between them, confused and agitated.

  A few fought it, Talmir chief among them. He kept his feet, but his legs shook with the effort. He tried to bring his father’s sword forward, but even if it reached the Faeykin it would do little more than part a seam from his shirt. The archer was on one knee, but still he held the arrow nocked, his veins standing out with the effort.

  Sen looked on with dispassion and Iyana wondered if a part of him delighted in seeing his power brought to bear so suddenly, so widespread. So brutally. Her heart caught as she imagined them all bursting, insides turned out. She knew he could do it. Knew he could cut the threads.

  Why did he not?

  His face was screwed tight, and Iyana took a halting step toward him. She thought to reach out and make for his own tether, but it was coiled tight as ever, and she knew she was not strong enough. Still, he hesitated.

  The Eastern Dark made a sound of surprise, and Sen’s slow-closing fist opened of a sudden, the light fading from his eyes and clearing to reveal a look like relief. A look aimed at Iyana.

  Talmir and the rest found themselves unencumbered. They hit the sand and scrambled back to their feet in a wild confusion and the captain stayed his blow inches from the Faeykin’s neck. The red-sash, however, forgot his own, and Iyana heard the bowstring twang and saw the shaft bury itself in Sen’s chest to the fletches.

  The Faeykin stumbled and a red line leaked from his lips. He looked to Iyana again, and in the place of heartache and fear she saw triumph. He fell without a sound.

  “Pity,” the Eastern Dark said. “Pity all around. Still, the Sentinels are vanquished. Saves me the trouble.”

  “You let them in,” Pevah said. He spoke in a tone barely above a whisper. It was a tone of heartbreak, and it was tinged with the need to put things right. Or at least to end them.

  “All I have done,” the Eastern Dark said, standing his ground, “and all I will do is necessary, Pevah. If you cared for them like you claim, you would think on it long enough to know the truth. The Sages must die. The stuff that makes us up—our gifts, our power—it is drawing the World Apart here. I didn’t want to believe it.” A note of pleading entered his tone, and Iyana almost believed that he regretted it. “But I have learned its truth, Pevah. The Sages must die. You, Balon, the Witch and whatever’s left of that green beast at Center. Only then will the collision be slowed enough perhaps to stay.”

  “You hold yourself apart,” Pevah said, pausing. “Again, you hold yourself separate, now as you did then.”

  “I am separate,” he said. “I have severed my connection to the World Apart.” He shook his head. “Had we more time, I could do the same for you without killing. But your gifts don’t work the same as mine.” He held out his hands. “There is nothing to be done but to do it.”

  Pevah looked past Iyana and Karin, his eyes skipping over Sen and settling on Ceth, still kneeling like a statue out of legend. She had to squint to be sure, but as he turned back it was clear to Iyana the beads of clear that caught the soft yellow rays were tears.

  Seeing it, the Eastern Dark took a step back, and Iyana thought it was more in preparation than fear. “You could have saved him,” he said. “You could have used the time you’ve hoarded.”

  “This time is meant for you,” Pevah said, his voice flat as the land around them. He spread his arms and the glass cloak spilled out, expanding farther. Karin reached back and touched Iyana on the shoulder, pushing her away as he stepped back warily, but she shrugged him off.

  “I am no Night Lord,” the Eastern Dark said, as if it were a weak thing to be caught so easily. “Even if you managed to ensnare me, your doing so would doom the World and all in it. Look in my eyes, brother. You know it to be true.”

  Pevah shot both hands forward, palms facing out, and the shimmering curtain expanded faster than Iyana could react, enveloping the four in a globe. Everything was frozen. There were specks of sand caught drifting on a breeze that wouldn’t stir, and even the lazy beams of the rising sun seemed still, caught an
d beautiful.

  Iyana saw it all, and thought this was how she would die, or else live, caught in eternity until madness reigned.

  But something did move. As she looked, the Eastern Dark’s hands began to edge away from his sides. She saw his tether flare and the globe magnified the light like an exploding star that rendered her blind.

  When her vision cleared, Iyana fell to her knees and felt Karin do the same. She looked up and saw the Sages eyeing one another across the flat. Pevah seemed farther back than he had been, and the two regarded one another with quick recognition.

  She was confused. Judging by Karin’s look, he was putting together the pieces as well. The globe was gone. Everything was as it had been. Exactly as it had been moments before.

  “Will we truly play this game, Pevah?” the Eastern Dark asked, looking only mildly perturbed.

  They did, and Iyana could not have guessed how long they played.

  Pevah flared his conjured time and the Eastern Dark sent it back. The same moment, lived over and over and with no time to do anything different. Iyana’s thoughts became milk swirling like a vaporous cloud. It was like drifting in the Between, in a way, albeit with nowhere new to go. Karin made for the Sages every time, and every time, he got no closer than a step. Still he tried.

  Iyana did not know which time it was. Such a concept was less than meaningless. She only knew this time was different. Pevah reached out and the Eastern Dark tensed to send it back with his strange and opposite power, like a shield of unmaking, but the long fingers and black talons paused before their zenith.

  Iyana held her breath and sensed Karin itching to break into the charge that had become as much a part of him as anything else. He stopped, looking around in a strange remembering. Iyana remembered her fellows to the east and wondered if they had gone far away, returning to the quartz-laden caves beneath the sands or perhaps back to the Valley itself.