by Sam Bowring
Iassia’s eyes flicked to his. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Look whose tongue’s worn smooth as a river stone. Thank you for your help, Throne Fahren, but I do not need you to put gloss on my words.’
Fahren felt tangible hatred from the bird then, and he realised that Iassia’s return to Arkus had not changed him a bit. Why did the Sun God not simply destroy him, and return his soul to the Great Well?
‘But,’ said Battu slowly, ‘in order to bind me to your will, you have to make a deal with me.’
‘Correct,’ said Iassia.
‘Which means you must do something for me.’
‘And so I will. Now, submit.’
‘But –’
‘Submit, Battu! Open your mind!’
Battu’s eyes snapped shut, and he snarled. ‘Do it, then.’
Iassia took off to hover before Battu a moment, then tapped his brow with his beak. Battu flinched. As the bird set down on the bridge before them, Battu slowly opened his eyes. Fahren noticed that, as the sun continued to rise, the bridge was growing less defined.
Not much time left, and I have not even asked what I came here to.
‘It seems we have an accord,’ chirped Iassia. ‘And as your favour to me, you will help the light achieve victory over the shadow until your dying day.’
‘Only that?’ said Battu. ‘And what favour will you do for me, not yet agreed on, and unasked for?’
‘I shall remove the foreign threads from your mind,’ said Iassia.
‘What?’
‘Did you not know? You spent too long with the sharks, Battu.’
Iassia spread his wings low, and Battu gave a jerk. From out of his forehead emerged shadowy lines, twitching like worms. They floated away, fading from the world. Battu blinked, and frowned.
Fahren wondered at the wisdom of the move – such a strong influence the sharks had been, on Battu’s single and bloody-mindedness, on the way he focused on his goals. There would be time to ponder it later, however, for more important was his question.
‘Oh Arkus!’ he called. ‘The bridge fades with the coming of day. I beg you to hear me.’
‘Speak, Throne Fahren,’ said Arkus. ‘The weaver’s work is done. Return, Iassia, to your cage.’
The bird gave an alarmed chirp, and disappeared instantly.
‘The shadow marches,’ began Fahren, ‘with a terrible creature, not of this world. A shadowmander, many times larger than any seen in nature. None can stand against it, lord, for its scales turn back all spells and blades.’
‘You were right,’ said Arkus, ‘when you guessed it was legacy magic.’
‘But how?’
‘Built from the souls of our departing dead, captured when Holdwith fell.’
So that was Losara’s reason for striking Holdwith – yet even in comprehending why, Fahren could not imagine how such defilement was even possible. But with the bridge fading quickly underfoot, he had to hurry.
‘How can we defeat it?’
‘The shadowmander is composed of many legacies,’ answered Arkus, ‘but it started with one – Elessa Lanclara’s, cast upon the First Slave Tyrellan as her final revenge.’
Elessa? thought Fahren. In a dream he had seen the very moment she had died, cursing Tyrellan with her legacy spell of a beautiful butterfly – which meant that if the shadowmander had been built on top of it, it was also attached to the goblin.
‘We must kill the First Slave?’ Fahren ventured. At his words Battu seemed to come back to himself, taking immediate interest.
‘No,’ said Arkus. ‘The creature would still be tied to his remains, and they could be moved wherever Losara desires.’
‘Then what, oh lord?’
‘The cornerstone on which the creature is built must be reclaimed.’
‘But legacy magic is impossible to affect.’
‘For all,’ said Arkus, ‘save the one who cast it. She could draw it back into her soul, where it belongs.’
Fahren’s jaw dropped open.
‘The bridge fades,’ said Arkus, his voice growing softer. ‘Make haste – there is no easy way out of the valley, should one fall into it.’
With Battu reeling from the changes wrought so swiftly on his mind, and Fahren’s own distress at what he thought he was being ordered to do, they now both stood stunned as the bridge disappeared beneath them. Forcing himself into action, Fahren took Battu by the shoulder and steered him back towards the cliff.
‘Hurry,’ he said. ‘Move those feet, up and down.’
‘Don’t mollycoddle me,’ spat Battu, and shifted from Fahren’s grip to stride ahead. He reached the end of the bridge, stepped off and spun around.
‘They may have taken away the sharks,’ he snarled, ‘but I was an angry man long before any boat ride across the Black Sea!’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Fahren, wondering what it was Battu tried to hang onto. As he put his front foot on solid ground, the bridge underneath vanished for good. His rear foot plunged suddenly into empty air, and Battu shot out a hand to grab his arm. For a moment the two of them stared at each other, Fahren half suspended over the drop, Battu’s expression somewhat surprised …and then he hauled Fahren up over the edge, safely onto the mountain.
‘Thank you,’ Fahren breathed.
‘It isn’t I you need to thank,’ said Battu.
Eyes of the Wood
Corlas trod carefully across moss-covered rocks towards the scrying pool. Vyasinth crouched by its edge, her twig-like fingers splayed over the still water. She raised her earthen face as he approached, dark and smooth save for the dead leaves of her eyelids, the green pinpricks of her eyes suspended deep in shadowy sockets.
‘My Lady,’ he said. She did not respond, merely turned her gaze down once more, the mane of sticks about her head rustling. He fell silent as he saw for himself what was reflected on the pool’s surface.
A crow circled downwards, following others of its kind. He tried to work out what it descended upon, being unfamiliar with the land from such a perspective. Then the grey square beneath him resolved, and he realised what he was looking at.
‘Harvest time for the skies,’ muttered Vyasinth.
There was damage along the walls, which were covered by a great many conspicuous stains. As the crow dropped further, he saw there were also multiple breaches at ground level, and abundant footsteps in the coagulating dust. No one moved in the fort’s interior. The once-bustling town was quiet and still, with roofs caved in and rubble everywhere, the dead bountiful. The crow landed, others nearby squawking and hopping aside, and yet there was plenty for all.
‘The shadow has been here?’ Corlas knew the answer even as he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Vyasinth.
It was strange and unsettling for him to see this, for years ago he had saved the Mines from ruin …yet it seemed that ruin had found them anyway. He could not help but feel a tinge of loss at the grisly sight, despite the fact that he was no longer allied to the light.
‘It is natural, what you feel,’ said Vyasinth. ‘Do not worry. It does not diminish your commitment to our people.’
‘I know that,’ said Corlas. ‘I will never enjoy seeing soldiers dead. You imply I consider this a weakness in myself? I do not.’
Vyasinth’s sparks flickered gently. A small brown beetle wandered out of her hair, waggled its antennae and whirred away into the wood.
‘My boy did this,’ said Corlas, gesturing at the pool.
‘Last night,’ said the Lady. ‘Losara commands great magic, and the Kainordans did not stand against him long. I fear what will happen if they cannot subdue him, as they will have to if they’re to merge him with Bel.’
Corlas frowned. ‘It is strange,’ he said.
‘What is?’
‘Shadowdreamers have always wanted the Mines for the precious ore they produce, and the strategic value of the fort. Yet Losara has left no troops behind.’
‘He intends to sweep on, perhaps,’ said Vyasinth. ‘Keep his forces together, main
tain his strength.’
She rose from her crouch and the water rippled, fragmenting the image.
‘I suppose,’ said Corlas, also rising, ‘we shall just have to pray that Bel finds a way to match him.’
Vyasinth laughed. ‘You pray then, Corlas, if it enlivens your spirit, and I shall hear,’ she said. ‘But who, I ask, can I pray to?’
•
As he made his way back to his clearing, Corlas began to pass the dwellings of his people – some opted to build their huts at ground level, and others preferred to be up in the trees. He came upon an enclave of makers going about their work – Sprites who were skilled at using the resources of the wood. One was pounding an animal hide with a rock, while behind him along branches hung the beginnings of tough leather jerkins that would soon go to outfit Corlas’s warriors. It was likely that the material all came from the same animal, for a maker could stretch a single skin over four or five garments, making the best use of the life that had been given. Two others, young women, chatted as they laid out leaves and bracken, which they would use to craft an odd and slightly lumpy brown–green cloth, the same kind that Corlas’s trousers were made from. When they saw him they ducked their heads shyly, and he nodded and smiled. It was a wonder that their old ways had been so easily recovered, he thought. When Vyasinth had awakened the Sprite blood in his veins, he’d remembered much of his people’s ancient past, and the scene before him was remarkably unchanged from how it might have appeared a thousand years ago.
He stilled as a familiar feeling stole over him, as if he had breathed a sweet scent that made him heady. A moment later her hand slipped around his waist.
‘There you are,’ she said. She held onto his belt and swung herself around in front of him, while he stood planted as firm as a tree trunk. He marvelled at the sight of her, as he so often did …her blond hair shining in a shaft of sunlight, her orange-flecked blue eyes as bright as jewels. They were the same eyes as those of his first wife, Mirrow, mother of his child – for Charla had been grown from a part of Mirrow’s soul reborn, though she did not remember her previous life.
‘Have you forgotten, my Lord of the Wood,’ she said, ‘that you requested your warriors assemble in the clearing at midday?’
‘Nay,’ said Corlas, and glanced at the sky. ‘Ah. Vyasinth summoned me. Evidently I have lost track of time.’
‘They are waiting.’ She leaned back further, increasing the pressure on his belt, and he chortled.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You may let go – I am no stubborn steer to be hauled about. I will come of my own accord.’
She released him with a grin, and together they went through the trees. Charla was energetic as usual, light on her feet, and hurled her spear ahead of them, into an approaching knothole. She was a warrior, that was for sure – something she did not have in common with Mirrow. Or maybe it was just that Mirrow had never needed to pick up arms.
‘Did the Lady have any important news?’ she asked.
‘It seems our …’ He bit his tongue, and cast her a sidelong glance. She plucked her spear from where it wavered, and inspected the tip. Our sons , he had been going to say. It was curious to think that, although his boys were actually older than her, in a way she was their mother. He knew they were not in agreement on that point, however, and had no wish to visit the argument again.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Naught to worry about,’ he said quickly.
Charla hefted the spear and flung it again. It missed the next knothole she’d been aiming at, sinking instead into the bark of the tree. She gave a small grimace.
‘They are not my sons,’ she said. ‘I never grew them in my belly, or suckled them at my breast, or even met them.’ She looked up at him with a hard expression.
‘No,’ he said.
‘I’m my own person,’ she told him sternly, just as Mirrow would have done, and he smiled.
‘What is that look for?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing.’
‘Likely,’ she said in a tone implying it was anything but.
‘At any rate,’ said Corlas, ‘from what the Lady has shown me, it seems Losara is on the march.’
The look in her eyes turned to interest. ‘Yes?’
‘Aye. And now he travels north …towards us.’
•
In the clearing outside his hut, Corlas walked along rows of Sprite warriors. They did not exactly stand to attention, like the more regimented soldiers of Kainordas, but that kind of conformity was not really the Sprite way. Perhaps he should have worried about it – without discipline, how could any commander hope to succeed? But he had learned that just because a warrior conversed with his neighbour, it did not mean he would not leap to obey orders once they were given.
Of the some five hundred Sprites who lived in the wood, he had selected an elite, mainly from the younger ones who had grown up never knowing any different way of life. Those chosen were strong in Old Magic, the lost magic, yet even with such power at their fingertips, there was little hope of tackling the enemy armies head-on. They were going to have to choose their moment well if they were to bring his son back to the wood, once he was remade. Quite how this would happen remained a worrying question, but the Lady Vyasinth did not seem overly concerned. She had a degree of faith in fate, it seemed, that Corlas was not sure he shared – awakened to his Sprite past he may be, but he still preferred plans. And yet she might be proven right, for Losara was now drawing closer to the wood, and where Losara went surely Bel would follow. Corlas needed them both nearby to have any chance of victory. The Sprites could carry their magic out of the wood for a short time only, and once they depleted all reserves there would be no way to replenish them except to return.
‘Look at you all,’ he announced, and to their credit all fell to hush. He let them wonder for a moment at the hard tone of his voice, let them think perhaps they’d displeased him, and stroked his green beard as if in deep consideration. Then he let a fierce grin break through.
‘I remember our people from the days of old,’ he said. ‘And we do not look so different. Our ancestors would be proud – you are Sprites through and through!’
Cheer replaced worry, and his warriors raised their spears. Several expulsions of magic flew skywards, violet spirals that expanded as they went.
Yes , he thought, nodding at beaming faces. We are right to reclaim our place in the world. And they will never see us coming.
Control
‘Here,’ said Bel, reining his horse to a stop – a mare he’d bought from the fisherman the previous day. The man had been understandably shocked to learn that an army of shadow was about to come calling, and had willingly offloaded the horse in exchange for gold, which he would no doubt need to build a new life – unless by some miracle Losara left his house intact.
Querrus drew up alongside on Taritha. Ahead was Jeddies, close enough to see the brightly coloured buildings of the sprawling river town, with smoke rising from many chimneys.
‘I’d say that’s about a league,’ Querrus agreed.
Bel surveyed their surrounds. To the west the Nyul’ya bustled by, twinkling between two lines of trees, which only broke for a stone bridge. On all sides were open fields, the grass waxy and thick underfoot. To the south …it was hard to be sure. A darkness on the horizon?
‘Can you make that out?’ asked Bel, for mages could see further than most.
Querrus followed his squint. ‘It’s them,’ he said. ‘Probably be here by this time tomorrow.’
Bel turned to the east, hoping that the flashing armour of Kainordan troops had somehow appeared there since he’d checked minutes before. ‘Still no sign of ours?’
Querrus narrowed his eyes in the same direction. ‘Not yet,’ he muttered. ‘Although …’
‘What is it?’
‘Hard to say, but a smudge in the air – perhaps a swarm of Zyvanix?’
‘Hovering over the ground forces,’ said Bel. ‘Good. They are not too
distant either.’
‘The shadow will arrive first,’ said Querrus.
‘So be it. Here I’ll stay. Losara will not sweep into Jeddies as easily as he wishes.’
Querrus had reservations, Bel knew, about what they were here to do – as should anyone, he supposed. He did not, however: if anything, he felt impatient, itching to swing a sword at those who came rolling so boldly across his land. He knew that fighting might not come tomorrow – tomorrow was about delay – but perhaps the day after that, or at least soon. In the meantime, the couple of cards he had up his sleeve made him feel empowered.
‘Blade Bel?’
Querrus had been speaking, but Bel hadn’t taken in the words.
‘Yes?’
‘I asked if there was anything in particular I should get from town?’
Bel shrugged. ‘I see no reason not to pass the time comfortably. Feel free to get some fine food for a picnic.’
Querrus grinned. ‘Best orders I’ve had in a while. You will remain here?’
‘Yes,’ said Bel. ‘I’m not in the mood for being stared at by townsfolk. I’m in the mood for being stared at by enemies.’
Querrus rode away towards Jeddies, and Bel dismounted. He didn’t know if the fisherman had named the horse, and certainly he hadn’t done so either. He did not think he’d bother with such sentiment. The beast would probably wander now, and although Bel could tie her to one of the lone trees that stood here and there, he didn’t see the point. The old thing wasn’t the fastest steed, and for the moment he had no need of her, since he intended to wait right here. Thus he left her to graze, free if she was smart enough to grasp such a concept.
‘So,’ he said to himself.
There was really nothing much to do. He took out his sword and gave a swipe. Maybe the approaching shadow army would send scouts or a vanguard this way, and he would soon have some skulls to bounce together.
Wishful thinking.
He tossed the sword high in the air, watched it spin upwards then scythe back to earth, and turned his hip to catch it neatly in its scabbard. Wishful thinking? Was that wrong, to wish for battle?
