Rise of the Storm

by Carrie Summers

  As we continued downhill and crossed into the Merchant’s Quarter, the mob finally parted completely, pressing against storefronts and into alleys to let us pass. The shouts continued, and a few young men hurled pebbles against us, but the small stones bounced harmlessly against the protectors’ armor. Beside me, the Prime clenched her jaw and allowed the behavior to pass unacknowledged. Another coil of tension slipped free from around my heart. We were already halfway to the Splits and Vaness, and nothing had gone wrong. Most likely, the worst was already over.

  “Your eminence,” one of the aurums said. She slipped to my side and pointed at the upper story of a tailor’s shop. Nearly obscured by a half-drawn curtain, a shadow lurked in the open window.

  I nodded. “Assure there’s no threat,” I said.

  As if flung by an unseen hand, the aurum was abruptly flying through the air. Her leap took her from my side to the window in a single, nearly silent bound. The hidden watcher grunted as the mage laid an elbow into the figure’s face and followed the motion by slipping inside the window. A faint scraping noise and two thumps drifted from the window. Moments later, the aurum mage leaped again and seemed to hover above our procession, a lithe shadow blotting the torch-lit smoke that hung over the city. With a sound no louder than a bird alighting on a fountain, she once again landed at my side. She handed over a small crossbow with a single bolt ready to fire.

  “The tailor’s wife, I believe,” she said. “Her children are huddled with her. She’ll have a black eye tomorrow, but nothing worse. I don’t believe she intended to hurt anyone. Defense only.”

  On my opposite side, the Prime scoffed. “Why put lampblack on the metal tip of the bolt then? If she wished to protect her children, wouldn’t she want a potential assailant to know she was armed?”

  “Well, she’s no threat to us now.” Shrugging, I handed the crossbow to the Prime who released tension from the firing mechanism and holstered it through one of the many loops on her belt.

  Block after block, we passed darkened buildings and silent alleys. In the distance, the sounds were ordinary, Jaliss citizens shouting while hammers pinged against anvils. Parents called children home for dinner. A few, slurred syllables gave the impression that someone had angered a neighborhood drunk. But where we crossed the city, anyone within a hundred paces hid. Except, of course, for the remaining mob members who had closed ranks behind us and now trailed our procession through the Merchant’s Quarter. Maybe they wished to tell the throne they weren’t beaten, but simply recognized the current situation for what it was. Unwinnable.

  A few minutes later, we crossed into the Splits and everything changed.

  The moment the lead protectors stepped onto the packed earth street of the Prov district, tension gripped their shoulders. Their eyes peered back and forth, searching for the threats they knew were there.

  I felt it too. From every darkened window and door hanging ajar, I sensed the Prov’s resentment. Hatred, even. This show of force represented everything they despised about the Empire.

  Marching forward, I straightened my shoulders. All day, the men and women to whom those watching eyes belonged had faced a choice. By banding together, the silent, resentful observers could have stood up to the mob and demanded Vaness be freed. An execution would not solve the problems in Jaliss. We needed to stand together. Rebuild. Address the Breaking.

  But if they wouldn’t meet my offers of peace with efforts of their own, I would make peace my own way.

  At the end of a sword.

  Our scouts had already mapped the most direct route to the crossroads where the rioters had shackled Vaness. Even so, the streets in the Splits were crooked and narrow, forcing us to zigzag through the district. As we marched along the serpentine path, a rumble started up from the mob at our rear. The Prime Protector stiffened when the low muttering was peppered by scattered shouts.

  “Our city!” someone yelled.

  “Freedom or the grave!”

  My aurum honor guard slid closer as the Prime drew a weapon. A cudgel, not her wickedly honed short sword. She’d chosen a weapon intended for disabling an opponent rather than slaying them. The Prime had heeded my words even if she disagreed with them. No one would die while we had another choice.

  But it wouldn’t come to that. The Provs were merely venting their anger. They’d lost tonight, and they knew it already.

  As we advanced, a crack sounded from one of the shacks on the right side of the street. All along the procession’s right flank, blades sang as protectors drew their swords. Moments later, they relaxed when a mother dashed to the open door of her home and snatched up her toddler who had banged a stone against a broken piece of slate that served as their doorstep.

  I swallowed and carried on, exhaling in relief. The smell of the Splits brought back memories I’d tried to bury over the last weeks. Somewhere in this crowded warren of streets, Fishel was probably wiping down tables in the common room of the Graybranch Inn. I remembered my first morning in the inn, opening the window of my tiny room in hopes of fresh air only to be assaulted by the stench of garbage and dirty laundry. It had shocked me at first, but all the unpleasantness had vanished when Savra had returned to the common room that evening.

  The memory of her green eyes danced through my thoughts, followed by my last glimpse of her on the night of my Ascension. She’d saved my life, and now the Prime believed Savra was enmeshed in the plot against me. Impossible.

  “Beware!” The shout came from somewhere within the front ranks of soldiers. At the same time, an innocent whistle echoed down an alley no more than three houses past the shack where the toddler had startled us. The unseen whistler produced a lively little scrap of a tune, so incongruous in the darkening streets I couldn’t help shaking my head in confusion.

  They fell on us from the rear. With feral yells, rusty knives sliced the air and thudded against armor that few of the blades had a hope of piercing. The remnants of the mob, around thirty men and women with makeshift weapons, had to have known they were plunging to their deaths. But they attacked anyway.

  Within a heartbeat, the aurums vanished from my side. Flying over the heads of the rear protectors, they landed among the Prov rabble like hunting raptors. Knives flashed in the torchlight, aurum bodies moving so fast they were nearly invisible. Few Provs had time to scream, much less fight back.

  “No!” a woman shouted from within the cottage where the toddler lived. I whirled to see a child no older than ten run through the doorway with his mother’s kitchen cleaver raised. He slammed into a protector just a few paces from me.

  “Don’t hurt him,” I yelled, drawing my scimitar. As my steel sang, I spared an instant to wonder what I thought I would do. Strike down my own protectors if they tried to harm the boy?

  As the last of the Provs at the rear of our band fell beneath the aurum’s attack, another whistle rose above the din. A different tune this time.

  Around me, heads whipped around in search of new assailants. My nerves sang with the knowledge that this was a trap, but I kept my eyes fixed on the boy. The adult Provs chose this fate. The child was too young to possibly understand what waited for him at the end of a protector’s blade.

  As I pushed toward him, determined to shelter him with my own body if necessary, more whistles rose from the streets around us. Hundreds of them. The very air seemed to wail with the discordant sound.

  And beneath that keening shriek, a whine so high it was nearly a hiss.

  “Shields!” The cry went up all around and moving in unison, the protectors closed ranks and hefted bucklers overhead. I struggled to understand until the thud, clatter and suck of hundreds of arrows striking wood, steel, and flesh filled the air.

  Ducking with hands over my head, I spun, searching the chaos for the Prov boy. Another chorus of whistles rose, and another whine followed. This time I heard the twanging of the bowstrings. They were everywhere. All around.

  I couldn’t see the boy.r />
  “We have to move!” the Prime yelled.

  Moments later, the aurums were among us again, dancing over the tops of the shields, light as feathers and snatching arrows from the air. The wall of armored flesh surrounding me parted for a moment as our force began a lurching march.

  That’s when I finally saw the child. He lay on the ground, eyes flitting in terror as his hands grasped weakly at the arrow piercing his breast.

  “Halt!” I threw every ounce of command I possessed into the word.

  Beside me, the Prime hesitated, pressed her lips together, and finally nodded.

  “Heed your liege, protectors!” she called, then turned to me with fire in her gaze. “What is it?”

  “The boy,” I said gesturing. “We’re taking him.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “He’s as good as dead.”

  “If the aurums can dodge and catch a falling arrow, they can heal this child. I will not leave without him.” As if to strengthen my point, I stood to my full height, presenting an irresistible target. Immediately, the nearest protectors stood as well, closing ranks and raising their shields in a cone to defend my head and shoulders.

  “Grab him,” the Prime yelled, her rage only barely contained. “Bring me the boy and MOVE!”

  The air hissed again as another volley of arrows took flight. Instantly, I ducked down, once again hiding behind the ranks of soldiers and mages. The Provs would have to kill all but a few of my defenders to even get a clear shot. As we marched forward, speeding quickly to a trot, I spotted a few fallen bodies. The Provs had lost more than a score of men and women tonight, and their arrows couldn’t touch me, but they’d still managed to slay a handful of protectors. In taverns across the city, the trap would be touted as a success. Even with the most elite guardsmen and mages marching through the city, the Provs had struck a blow.

  And all I’d wanted was to save my friend.

  A few crossroads after the arrows stopped falling, the Prime called a quick halt. In her arms, the Prov boy moaned, head lolling. In the limited light from the fading dusk and nearby torches, his face was ghostly pale. Blood soaked the front of his ragged tunic, and the arrow still jutted from between his ribs, fletching quivering with each of his shallow breaths.

  The Prime summoned a scout from among the front ranks of protectors.

  “What’s the most direct route back that avoids the archers?” she asked.

  The scout cast a skeptical glance toward the north where Steelhold rose black against the ragged skyline of the Icethorns, the torches on the wall a crown blazing in the night. “Left turn ahead.”

  “And Vaness?” I asked. “Where is she being held?”

  The scout swallowed, his gaze flicking nervously between my face and the Prime’s. “Right, your eminence. Another six blocks I’d say.”

  “Then we go right,” I said, my voice flat. “We can move as fast as you feel is safe, but I will not give them Vaness. Not after this.”

  The Prime took a deep breath to master her reaction. “Lead us to Scion Vaness,” she said. “But if we spot even the faintest hint of a threat—I don’t care if it’s a swineherd chasing down a hog with a pitchfork, we don’t hesitate. Any Prov that stands in our way dies.”

  I didn’t argue, not after what we’d just fought through. Right now, only the boy and Vaness mattered. The Prov agitators had chosen their doom, and if they pressed, it would come tonight.

  Despite the Prime’s fears, not even a rustle broke the silence as we covered the final blocks to where my friend was shackled. As the message had explained, she’d been chained to a post in the center of a crossroads.

  “You didn’t need to come,” she said the moment she saw me. In the hours she’d been bound, her hair had escaped its braids. Rotten fruit and garbage had been thrown at her and now caked her torso and legs. But her clothing wasn’t torn. She hadn’t been raped. And I saw no blood on her.

  “You’re right. I could have stayed in the Hold. But I’d rather not spend the rest of my life crushed by regret.”

  I nodded at the closest aurum who glided forward and took hold of the chain that had been padlocked to the post. As easily as if it had been a silken thread, the mage jerked the chain taut and snapped one of the heavy links. Tossing Vaness over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing, the mage dashed back to my side.

  “Now may we go home?” the Prime asked.

  I nodded, my heart a cold weight in my chest. “To Steelhold,” I said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Savra

  A ring of standing stones, Icethorn Mountains

  GREASY SMOKE ROSE in a thick column on the far side of the valley. The smell of burning flesh and wood mostly covered the fetid sweetness of the carcasses, but still, the scent of rotting fruit plastered the insides of my nostrils. Or maybe it was just the memory of that smell, lingering in my mind as much as my nose.

  I couldn’t look at the smoke’s source. Whenever I tried, my stomach clenched and my head swam. The auras of the beasts were still there, no longer separate, but a great, roiling mass in colors my mind had no words to describe. Earlier, I’d glimpsed the hunks of flesh piled atop the pyre. Far from lifeless, severed hands and paws had still clutched and clawed at the air. Mouths had opened, baring blackened fangs and forked tongues. I shuddered at the memory.

  Worse was my recollection of my last moments of contact with the man-thing that had attacked my father. Despite the festering rot that had infused its soul, its last plea seemed to reach across time to clutch my heart. Release me.

  I swallowed, dragging my attention back to the gathering before me. The conclave had once again convened, away from the citadel to allow the other Sharders space to recover and grieve for fallen friends. Now, the leaders stood in a loose knot inside a circle of rough-carved boulders planted vertically in the mountain soil. I’d been dragged to join them, a brute of a Sharder holding my arm in an ungentle grip. Falla had been asked to follow, probably because the conclave feared my power and wanted another spiritist near. She carried my collar with her, having successfully argued that more beasts might still lurk in the valley. Though my aura-sight told me each one had been chopped to bits, I didn’t argue.

  “What now?” I heard a man ask. Beside him, another Shard leader shrugged.

  “I say we continue as planned,” someone else said. “We don’t know what spawned those things or when more might arrive. If we huddle here like children, the next attack might be worse. We came here to prepare for war. Let’s bring the battle to Steelhold.”

  The speaker’s words raised a din of arguments and agreements, the voices sloshing between the standing stones. As the conclave argued, they shuffled booted feet over a flat granite disk in the center of the ring. When we’d arrived, I’d noticed faint designs in the stone, the ribs and channels softened by age and crusted with lichen. Similar markings decorated the upright pillars, but the lines were too muted to make out the pattern. Maybe they’d been carved by the builders of the keep, or maybe they’d already been old when those people arrived. As I listened to the Sharders argue, I wondered if the kin of the beasts burning below would extinguish the newest civilization to settle the Icethorns.

  As the argument waned, other voices rose in grim discussion of the battle itself. Around six hundred Sharders had arrived at the fortress over the last tenday. Sixty-eight had died in the attack. More would have been lost if I hadn’t helped my father hold the center long enough to support the archers’ retreat, but from the snatches of conversation I overheard, no one was ready to recognize my role. Perhaps they feared to align themselves with a betrayer.

  As they spoke, I pieced together parts of the battle I’d missed while passed out. Once Stormshard forces had pulled back to the keep, forcing the beasts to attack through the narrow entrance, the Sharders had finally gained the advantage. One beast at a time, they’d managed to slay the remaining monsters.

  We’d won. A miracle, really. C
ompared to the massacre at the village, we’d fared incredibly well.

  Small comfort to those who had lost dear friends.

  I shifted my weight between my feet while the conversation continued. My calves ached from standing for so long.

  At the near edge of the crowd, my father emerged long enough to catch my eye. He was locked in discussion with another Shard leader, a man I didn’t know. As I cocked my ear to listen, I realized he was steering the conversation toward their next steps in hopes they’d forget about my punishment.

  “It will be safer to risk the passes than to funnel our forces through the mouth of the valley,” my father said, gesturing toward the cirque of peaks cradling the upper end of the vale. “We won’t be able to hide our forces for long if recruitment goes as we hope. But the longer we avoid imperial scouts, the better our chances.”

  His choice of words caught my attention. Recruitment? Until now, I’d imagined the gathered forces at the stronghold represented the bulk of Stormshard’s ranks. It appeared I’d been wrong. For weeks, I’d hoped that something would persuade the Sharders to reconsider this war. But if this latest attack hadn’t convinced them that words were better than war, would anything give them pause?

  The man with my father shook his head. “The high routes are too slow. Treacherous. Why risk it? Whatever evil spawned those mongrel beasts, it did us the favor of wiping out the nearest protectors’ garrison. We might as well take advantage.”

  My father exhaled, arms across his chest. “That’s another point. We think we’ve eliminated those… things. But what if we’re wrong? The valley mouth is prone to ambush.”

  “Do you think those monsters have the foresight to set a trap?” the man countered. “As far as I could tell, they had no more capability of thought than rabid dogs.”