The Barbed Coil

by J. V. Jones

  “What is it?” hissed Izgard.

  The words made Ederius flinch. He had forgotten his king was at his side. “Nothing, sire,” he said quickly, bringing his left hand up to his forehead. The greater, duller pain of the slowly mending bone in his shoulder canceled out the pain in his brow. “A muscle cramp, that is all.”

  “What is happening in the Valley of Broken Stones?” Izgard’s breath fell like cold mist on Ederius’ ear. His fingertips hovered a moth’s wing above Ederius’ face, not touching the skin itself, only the raised hairs. Oh, he wanted to touch more—Ederius knew just how much his king loved to touch those he considered his—yet even he dared not interrupt an Anointed-trained scribe at his work. Even now, five hundred years past the golden age of the isle and its scribes, the stories and rumors still retained a power all their own.

  People had died, they said.

  Men had burned.

  Ederius smiled, but even though it was his first in twenty-one days, there was no joy in it. People were right to be afraid. There was power. Not in the ink, or the parchment, or the designs, but in the act of creation itself. When the ink burned into the vellum in a well-practiced curve, when a scribe’s vision of a pattern took form upon a page, and when a thousand years of tradition gave rise to something new, a summons was sent out into the overworld. Power was demanded. And those scribes who had the ability to sense and accept it could shape themselves a weapon, or a shield, or an ivory tower from its fabric. They could bring their weight to bear on lives that were not their own.

  Ederius never questioned where the power came from. He had stopped asking himself hard questions the day Izgard slaughtered Gamberon on the hillside east of Sirabayus. It was how he survived from day to day. It was how he lived with the choices he had made.

  Another spasm clawed across his temples. Vision blurred by many different types of pain, Ederius looked down at the design he had created. He didn’t see the page itself as much as a fine tapestry of meshing, vibrating lines. Something wasn’t right. The pattern was being interfered with in some way: a faint tremor resonated in the background like an irritant. A fly in the ink. Aware that Izgard’s gaze was upon him, Ederius tried to give nothing away.

  He didn’t succeed, for Izgard’s breath plumed cold across his neck once more. “What is it, Ederius? Tell me what is wrong.”

  Ederius shook his head. “I don’t know, sire.” As he spoke he cleaned his brush of gray ink, then reached for the deepest, blackest pigment in his palette: pulverized jet and obsidian in a binding of mineral pitch. Dense, gleaming, and razor edged; minute slivers of volcanic glass were suspended in the mix.

  “I don’t want anything going wrong this time,” Izgard whispered into Ederius’ ear. His breath smelled of sweet things turning sour in an absence of light. “This trap has been planned for too long. The town was taken for one purpose alone: to lure Camron of Thorn and his latest hireling here for a fight. I want both of them dead now—both of them. Thorn was given a warning and he chose not to heed it, and that wasn’t only his mistake, it was mine. I should have had him killed the same night as his father.

  “And as for Ravis of Burano—” Izgard’s hand shot from Ederius’ face down toward his desk. By the time it slammed into the wood, it was a fist. “That man will find himself well received in hell.”

  Izgard’s voice was a distant murmur. Ederius heard the hate but little else. His mind was smoldering with the ink. Borne inward and downward, his thoughts raced along a well-worn trail to the valley and the battle to the east. Izgard kept speaking, and as his emotions suited Ederius’ purpose well enough, the scribe let him be. Something wasn’t right and his job was to fix it, and if that meant destroying whatever was interfering with his design, then so be it. A master scribe had to master so much more than mixing pigments and drawing lines.

  Blood pounded through Camron’s veins. His chest was pumping so hard, it pushed against the metal plate above his heart. Sweat poured down his neck and his chest, running in rivulets beneath his armor before hissing, then turning to steam. Wounds in his legs, side, arms, and neck blistered with white-hot pain. Every breath he took scorched his lungs. His sword was glued to his palm by dried blood, and as he wielded it before the harras, his grip had never been surer, and strike after strike landed true.

  Broc of Lomis, the knight he had pulled free from the pack of harras, was at his back. Not only had the man managed to stand, but he’d also found the strength to lift his blade. His right arm was unusable, but he could do enough with his left arm to keep the harras at bay.

  Just knowing he was there, behind him, his torn shoulder plates brushing against his own, gave Camron a feeling of well-being. He wasn’t alone in this.

  The sun was working for them. Oblique morning light shone directly onto the harras’ faces. Camron could see the gold filaments in their pupils and the fine saliva strands between their teeth. Their jaws worked furiously as they fought: palates grinding, lips spreading, tongues lashing in mouths that seemed too small for the fist of gums and teeth they contained.

  Camron’s sword never stopped—it couldn’t. The constantly moving edge was the only thing that stopped the harras from tearing him limb from limb. He and Broc stood a head above them on a smooth shoulder of rock. All torches had burned out now, and the smoke had long dispersed. The spoiled-meat stench of the harras was the only thing that marred the air.

  The other knights were nowhere to be seen. As he fought, Camron tried to pick out their forms amid the dark, milling mob. He hadn’t spotted them yet, but it didn’t stop him looking or hoping. Perhaps somehow they had managed to escape.

  Whether it was the effect of being dazzled by the light or something else, Camron couldn’t tell, but for some reason the harras were beginning to slow. They were becoming more wary of his blade, giving it a wider berth on the thrusts, and hesitating before springing forward after withdrawals. Even their features seemed to be shifting. As Camron looked on, the gold light in their eyes wavered and their lips fell slack over their gums. They began to look more like men.

  A breeze suddenly picked up from the west, and Camron got his first whiff of fresh air since dawn. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he locked gazes with Broc of Lomis. Broc didn’t smile—events were too far gone for that—but his hazel eyes were no longer filled with fear.

  He sensed it, too. The harras were beginning to fail.

  Grasping the hilt of his sword in both hands, Camron hefted it high above his head, ignoring the ripping, straining muscles in his arms and chest. Even though he knew hope was a reckless luxury he couldn’t afford, he couldn’t stop himself from being filled with it. Perhaps somehow, by the grace of God, they just might get out of this.

  Tessa painted with a mad, intense fury. She didn’t know what she was doing, or how she was doing it; she just knew she had to keep pigment pumping onto the page at all costs. Everything depended on it.

  Her head ached. The muscles in her arm felt as if they were being clawed by some invisible sharp-nailed beast. Her left hand was numb from supporting the weight of her chin for so long. Behind her, Emith mixed up pigments she knew she would never use, and his mother sat ticking away in her chair.

  Time no longer had meaning. Tessa couldn’t tell if ten seconds or ten hours had passed since she’d first dipped her brush into the gold. The only way she had of keeping track of the world was the developing pattern on the page. It was not turning out as she had imagined. Somehow it had taken on a life of its own. Thick branches of color swerved across the vellum. Thin-limbed, many-jointed creatures crawled through spirals and under knotwork, their tongues and tails curling around fretwork borders like vines suffocating a tree.

  Tessa felt as if she were swimming in the dark. She had no idea where she was heading or what she might encounter next. Her only guide was herself. She could only do what felt right. The gold ink was right—that much she knew. And when she sent gold lines slashing across the sulfur-tinted forms of the harras, tying them up in
knots, she felt sure it was having some effect on the battle amid the broken stones. The pads of flesh on her fingertips tingled as she worked, and she took that to be a good sign.

  Mostly she relied on willpower. It pushed every brushstroke she made, gave momentum to curves, and kept keywork and knotwork in line. She was going to help Camron of Thorn. She had to. Deveric had brought her here for something, and as the brushstrokes built up on the page in increasingly tangled layers, and as forms emerged from the ink like landmarks from lifting mist, she began to realize that he had brought her here for this. To work against the harras.

  They were unnatural beings—aberrations. She could feel their wrongness burning away in her stomach like acid. When her mind showed her visions of the writhing, baying pack, the hairs on her scalp bristled. From above they looked like cockroaches teeming over a carcass. Eyes and teeth flashed amid the winged darkness of their cloaks.

  Then, as she looked on, paintbrush dancing beneath her hand, one of the creatures looked her way.

  One moment it was just another harrar in the pack, head thrashing in time with the rest. Abruptly it stopped moving, held still for a moment, then turned its streamlined maw toward her in a slow liquid arc. Sulfur eyes focused through a haze of light and shadow, their gaze finding, then resting, on her face. Without blinking, the creature regarded Tessa with the narrow-eyed leer of a predator. After a moment its lips stretched to a unhurried smile and its jaws sprang open like a trap.

  Tessa jerked back. The legs of her chair skittered across the stone floor. The paintbrush jumped in her hand, sending the line running askew.

  “Tessa! Tessa! Are you all right?” Emith, using her proper name for the first time since she had met him. “Come away now. Let the pattern be.”

  Tessa’s heart was racing. Her body felt hot and cold all at once. “I’m fine, Emith,” she said, trying hard to make her voice sound level. “It was nothing. Just . . .” Words failed her. “Nothing.”

  “I think you should stop right now, miss. Right now.”

  “I can’t, Emith.” She wanted to say more, to explain that she couldn’t leave Camron alone and helpless surrounded by harras and that she had to carry on no matter what, but instinct told her it was best not to speak. Anything she said would only turn to hysterical nonsense in her mouth.

  Adjusting her grip on the brush, she dipped it once more into the ink. Already her mind was working to calm her: how could anything she saw through a pattern cause her harm? She was far away from the battle, here, in Mother Emith’s kitchen, safe and sound. The harras weren’t about to come bursting through the vellum. It wasn’t possible. Telling herself she was foolish to feel frightened, she brought the gold ink down onto the page. Her hand shook, and the curve she drew wasn’t as smooth as she would have liked, but it was enough to push her back toward the battle.

  Sounds of grunting and metal whistling against metal greeted her. The stench of animal waste caught in her throat. There’s nothing to be afraid of, she told herself as she began painting over the dark, snaking forms of the harras.

  Gold ink skimmed across black. Colors bled. Pigment smoked. Tessa’s hand wouldn’t stop shaking, and sable hairs began to work their way free of the brush, catching on the vellum like splinters. She thought of the harras, imagining them fleeing, gone, dead. Not knowing what to do, she hemmed them in with strips of gold, fettered them with a manacle of knots.

  It was working. She could feel them slowing down.

  Wanting to do more, she struck through a row of harras with a single, slashing line. As the gold soaked into the parchment, Tessa caught a whiff of something else.

  Another pigment, freshly applied.

  And even as she realized it was not her own, a splitting pain seared across her forehead. Her vision blurred, then dimmed. Gold-cast eyes glowed from the darkness, seeing her, knowing her, gloating. A second wave of pain tore through head. It felt like ground glass was being rubbed into her flesh. Tessa tried to take a breath and couldn’t. Her eyes burned. Falling forward against the tabletop, she felt another spasm rack her skull. The pain blinded. She couldn’t see anything except the gold eyes. Brush still in hand, she stabbed at the vellum. A blast of heat scorched her palm, but she couldn’t let go of the brush.

  Pain stopped her from thinking, breathing, acting. Tears streamed from her eyes. Razors raked along her temples.

  She couldn’t bear it.

  Breath wouldn’t come. Darkness opened up before her: cold and infinitely deep.

  Something tugged at her hand. Fingers prying her palm open. A terrible cleaving pain as the brush was stripped away from her flesh. Arms tugging her away from the chair. Sobs, hysterical sobs.

  The gold eyes winked closed, and then everything went black.

  The harras turned. It happened in the space of an instant. One moment they were sluggish, wary, their features shifting gradually inward, revealing them to be nothing more than men. The next they were like rabid dogs. Baying, clawing, thrashing: they pressed forward in a continuous black wave.

  Breath caught in Camron’s throat. His stomach clenched shut, leaving a sickening vacuum between his ribs. There were too many harras. They were coming too fast. His sword arm ached with a deep bone weariness. He could feel himself slowing, see his blade tip dipping as he drew protective rings around his chest. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up.

  Behind him, Broc of Lomis was struggling for breath. Blood and spittle rasped in his throat. His sword wasn’t down yet—it hovered in increasingly slack circles around his lower abdomen—but it wouldn’t be long before it fell by his side. The man was losing a lot of blood. The soles of Camron’s boots stamped footprints entirely in red.

  “Pull closer,” Camron cried, reaching back with his left hand to touch the young, dark-haired knight. “Draw to my back so I can shield both our flanks.”

  A second passed, and then Camron felt Broc’s shoulders knock against his. He let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t much, but it was all he could do. Broc only had to worry about the harras directly ahead of him now. Camron would take care of those to either side. It meant hefting his sword in broader, deeper circles, exerting further pressure on muscles already ripped to shreds, but there was no other choice. They had to keep fighting.

  Although his throat felt as though it were on fire, Camron forced himself to take long, deep breaths. He may have ridden here to perish, to fight against his father’s killers until they hooked him with their long knives and sent his soul spiraling to heaven or plunging down hell. But as every minute passed he realized he didn’t want to die.

  Not here. Not now.

  He wanted to live.

  Dying wouldn’t bring his father back. It wouldn’t change the course of events that night in Castle Bess. Nothing could or ever would change that: not this fight or a thousand others like it, and certainly not his death. His death would mark the end of Thorn the town, its people, and the family who had shared that name. It would mark the end of everything his father had known and loved.

  Glancing out over the wet and snapping jaws of the harras, Camron tried not to feel afraid, tried not to think anymore about dying. All that was left now was to fight.

  A thin cry sounded behind him. Metal screeched. Caught in the middle of a deflective blow, with three harras’ blades raking against his sword and more on the way to meet it, Camron couldn’t look round. Another cry sounded. A sharp, desperate breath followed, then Camron felt Broc fall against his back. Bringing a foot forward to steady himself, pulling in his sword close to his ribs, Camron turned toward the knight. His left hand shot out. Harras blades stabbed against the punctured gauntlet. Something sharp pierced his undefended right flank.

  Broc was on his knees. His sword was gone. Harras clawed away at legs, feet, and arms. Broc saw Camron’s outstretched hand but didn’t have the strength to reach for it. A muscle pumped in his forearm, but the arm itself didn’t move.

  Camron felt a blade slash the back of his head.
A second later another slashed his ear. Pain came in sharp waves. Tears flooded his eyes. Bending down, he reached for Broc’s arm. Even as his armor creaked at the joints, he felt a salvo of knife stabs at his back. The metal plates fell from his chest and back. His mouth filled with blood. He looked into Broc’s hazel eyes and saw a reflection of his own. Fear made his mouth go dry.

  The harras closed in. Dog maws grinding, knives hacking downward, they filled the remaining space like tar poured into a ditch.

  Camron braced himself. Pain scorched his body in a dozen places as he raised his sword high above his head. One harrar broke from the path and made a lunge for him with his knife. Camron mouthed the words “Forgive me.” Whether it was to his God, his father, or Broc of Lomis, he didn’t know. Perhaps it was to all three.

  His sword rang against the harrar’s blade. He didn’t have the strength to match the attacker’s blow, and the hilt went spinning from his grasp. Even as the sword left his hand, it was snatched away by a black-gloved grip. The first harrar’s lips curled to a sneer as it tilted its blade to an angle fit for slipping between ribs.

  Defenseless, Camron could do nothing but cross his arms over his chest. Bracing himself for the impact, he tensed the muscles in his right leg: he would go down kicking.

  A soft thuc sounded. It was so soft that Camron doubted he heard it.

  The harras’ gold eyes widened. A hiss of breath puffed from his lips and he fell forward against Camron’s chest. An arrow jutted from his spine, shaft still humming.

  As Camron stepped back, something soft whirred past his ear. Another thuc sounded, then another, then another after that. Before Camron’s foot fell flat against the rock, the air was filled with a hailstorm of arrows. Wooden shafts skimmed past Camron’s cheeks and shoulders. Flight feathers grazed his temples. Steel heads exploded into harrar flesh, finding muscle and ligament and bone. Harras dropped to the ground, eyes bulging, hands clawing at the oak and ashwood shafts. The pack began to break up. Some scattered, others crouched low or crawled behind rocks.