Grudgebearer

by J. F. Lewis

  Twelve mages looked at the prince with the same shock Kholster felt as Dolvek shouted clear and appropriate orders. “Twelve Gates. Twelve of you. I want one of you at the base of each set of stairs, holding those gates closed. From the base, you should still be close enough to affect the gate but far enough away that if it blows we won’t lose you. Go!” The mages ran to their positions as Dolvek ran toward the center of the room.

  Jolsit charged the incoming second Ghaiattri, screaming, “Move!” The armor parted, and the knight clad in demon armor tackled the stunned Ghaiattri back into the portal. Eyes of Vengeance caught the flying Oathbreaker by his ankle, pulling him back into the room just as Death Knell destroyed the final rune.

  *

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Wylant bellowed as she snatched Rae’en up off the ground, pulling them both up, over the treetops.

  “But how?” Rae’en gasped.

  “You’re immune to magic,” Wylant laughed. “But I’m not holding you up with magic. I’m holding ME up with magic. I’ll swing you around onto my back, and you hold on.”

  The speed almost took Rae’en’s breath away. The view succeeded. They rocketed over a canopy of green, the sunrise breaking over the horizon, blinding in its dazzling hues. Sweat, blood, and forest smells filled Rae’en nostrils, and she let loose an involuntary whoop.

  *

  “They closed the gate.” Kholster smiled up at his companions. If they noticed the pain in his voice, they didn’t let on. “I never would have thought Jolsit had it in him. He tackled the Ghaiattri back into the Demon World. It was too surprised to react.” The flesh on his palms was blistering, the searing pain creeping slowly up his forearm. He clasped his hands behind his back. It was nothing he wanted the Vael to get upset about. He’d had worse.

  “We will long remember him,” Grivek said, his head bowed.

  “I should think you will,” Kholster crowed. “Eyes of Vengeance caught him and pulled him back out again. He—” In mid-gloat, Kholster abruptly stopped speaking.

  “Are you all right?” Yavi asked.

  “No.” The pain spread. Wisps of smoke trailed off of his skin as the heat encompassed his arms then moved outward, leaving tissue bubbling in its wake. Lungs burning, Kholster gasped for breath, steam pouring out of his open mouth before his skin ignited.

  He did not scream, but in his mind, Bloodmane did. His vision blurring, Kholster ran for the water. Grudge fell from his back, hitting the black surface of the pier with a loud clack. Ignoring it, Kholster ran on, stripping off his mail, the pier vanishing from beneath him as he stepped wrong, tripped, and fell into the water below. Darkness closed in as his eyes boiled in their sockets. The last thing he heard before the water enveloped him was Rae’en’s voice, distant but clear.

  “Kholster!” she shouted. “Father, I’m—”

  He would have laughed if he could have drawn in breath to do it.

  Kill the Ghaiattri already, Bloodmane! Kholster shouted along their link.

  I’m trying, Maker. He’s very tenacious.

  In the water, the pain subsided, sensation drifting away. The fight continued in the Tower of Elementals, but it seemed distant. Bloodmane’s surface glowed red-hot, his gauntlets white, before the Ghaiattri finally fell, spitting lightning and magic as it died.

  Kholster, Bloodmane called urgently. Are you alive?

  You did well, Kholster thought softly. It was not Kholster’s first time to be burned by soul fire, but he’d never been burned so badly. Bloodmane had never allowed it. Maybe, having gone so long without being worn, the warsuit had forgotten what it was like to consider the fleshly worries of a wearer.

  What have I done?

  You beat the Ghaiattri, held it back . . . prevented another Demon War . . . did enough of your troops get through?

  Only four groups, but they can reach all six sites between them with only a slight timetable adjustment, Maker. Bloodmane’s voice echoed. How bad is it? Can you heal it? Show me your wounds. Kholster!

  There were more words. Some belonged to Vander, some to Bloodmane, but they all dissolved into unintelligible burbling as Kholster’s bones sank down, down, down, and his soul pulled free of them. Jerked like a taut cord toward his warsuit, his soul soared toward its anchor. He had lost bodies before, his soul taking refuge with Bloodmane inside the massive warsuit until his bones could be reclaimed, stripped, cleaned, and interred within Bloodmane. Vander usually did the honors, filling the armor with blood and immersing his bones. Cow blood. Enemy blood. It didn’t matter. Just so long as it was blood.

  It was so much calmer to be free of the flesh.

  Kholster saw the core of his warsuit in the approaching fog of the spirit world and understood the problem moments before he struck this splinter of his own soul, which had, over the centuries, grown into its own compete self, a self who cared for him deeply but whose wants, dreams, and desires were now separate from his own.

  Souls are not supposed to feel pain, but when Kholster struck the core of his warsuit, it was as if he’d fallen from a cliff top and landed on solid granite.

  Pain.

  Shock.

  And lastly heat. Bloodmane’s spirit reached out to him attempting to embrace him, to shelter him, but where the armor touched his soul, Kholster burned.

  CHAPTER 59

  IN DEATH ALL OATHS

  All know. Rae’en is First of One Hundred. If you don’t hear me again, Rae’en . . . Is . . . First.

  Kholster fell through a web of flashing lights. At its edges mad spiders chewed through the moorings as if to destroy the webs, while a single spider worked to repair it. He fell through the center, landing on a plane of endless gray. All pain had left him and he stood renewed, feeling stronger than he had ever felt.

  He did not see the Aern in bone armor before his gauntleted hand was on Kholster’s shoulder. But Kholster recognized the gauntlet.

  “I was burning as my soul collided with Bloodmane’s.” He shook free of the gauntleted hand, turning to face the armored figure. “You pushed us apart.”

  The being in bone armor nodded.

  “Where is this?”

  “I can’t replicate your thoughts of the afterlife, Kholster.” Kholster recognized the gentle voice of Torgrimm at once. “You never gave it any thought at all.”

  “Torgrimm,” Kholster mouthed. “Am I dead?”

  “That decision is yours alone. I am not required to collect you.” The Harvester’s voice was calm and reassuring. “Are you not an Aern? Firstborn of One Hundred? Fatherless? Motherless? Held by no womb? Is that not how you describe yourself?”

  “You don’t sound as imposing as I’d expected.”

  “No more so than when last we spoke. No soul has anything to fear from me,” Torgrimm replied. “I hold them when they are small and newly formed. I put them into the right body when it is time. And when they must leave, I take them safely to the next step on their journey.”

  “All things die.” Kholster felt his arms grow heavy, as if leaden weights had been attached to them, sunk into the skin with tiny hooks. But with the weight came a feeling of connection as if he were only now sensing other secondary connections between his soul and the world of flesh.

  “And life continues,” Torgrimm completed the quote. “Book of Torgrimm, chapter one, verse one. End of book.”

  “It’s a short book.”

  “I’m a simple god.”

  “If I’m not dying, then why are you here?” Kholster tried to move but couldn’t, as if the mass of new connections had webbed him into one spot. “This doesn’t feel like a strip and dip.”

  “Oh, you’d have to reconcile with Bloodmane for that. Or you could destroy him, retake the warsuit for your spirit, and when you are reborn, leave a new . . . more compatible splinter of yourself within.” Torgrimm said, “He is strong, but you are stronger and have the strength of all the Aern to empower your spirit should you call upon them. You were made first. Even without the warsuit, your body
will heal eventually if you choose to live.”

  “If I choose to live?” Kholster echoed, making the statement into a question.

  “Or you can die. If you choose to die, I’ll do what you wish with your spirit, spread it amongst your people or transfer it to your Incarna.”

  “No. Rae’en, not Irka, if it comes to that, but no. No dying,” Kholster growled. “I have oaths to keep.”

  “The choice is yours to make,” Torgrimm said with a knowing smile.

  “Why are we still talking then?”

  “Because,” the god said gently, “I have a favor to ask . . . and, in death, all oaths are redeemed.”

  CHAPTER 60

  MY FATHER,

  MY KHOLSTER

  Her father was not dead. He could not be dead. He could never die, never stay dead. For six thousand years or more, as long as there had been Aern, Kholster had been there to lead them. Rae’en crouched on the end of the obsidian pier staring into the dark water, her clothes soaked and briny from multiple dives.

  Testament lay on her left, Grudge to her right. Her mail and saddlebags lay where she’d dropped them in her initial dive to find her father.

  You have to be down there somewhere.

  Out on the water, a family of red mallards, crepuscular by nature and native to the bay, swam in formation, ducklings darting in and out amongst the crimson bay grass looking for glow minnows and spark carp. Instinct told the mother duck to keep the others in line, when to check on her little ones, how to protect them from predators.

  Where is my instinct?

  Kholster, Bloodmane’s hollow voice called as if from across a wide valley. Kholster Rae’en? We are ready to begin the battle. I know there could be no worse time, but may I know now whether I may ask the assistance of Coal?

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” she hissed aloud and mentally. Bloodmane could not be in her thoughts. Could not be. Could never be.

  A lone Bone Finder, Caz, wearing Silencer, strode toward her, his warsuit’s armored feet fell like hammer blows upon the stone announcing his arrival, even if she hadn’t been alerted to it by the map in her mind.

  “He’s gone, Rae’en.” Silencer, rather than Caz himself, whispered. “His bones are gone, too. We do not know how, but he is gone.”

  She rose gracefully, water from her last dive still drying on her skin. Tyree moved to stop her, but the attempt was half-hearted. “You’ve been diving for most of a day, you can’t keep—”

  “He’s down there,” she snapped, the anger in her eyes frightening him into silence. “I can swim deeper.”

  “I know you don’t like the idea,” Tyree told her, “but you have to consider the possibility that he has passed on.”

  “No,” she snarled. “I do not! His soul has not come to the Aern. We would have felt it! His knowledge, his essence would have come among us; I would be able to feel him! Kholster would be a part of each of us, or he would have passed his spirit on to me. He cannot have passed to Irka, or Irka would hear Bloodmane and I would not, therefore my father is not dead!”

  “Irka?” Tyree questioned, pursing his lips together.

  “My brother Irka,” Rae’en answered, “is our father’s Incarna.” It was clear that he did not understand. “The First One Hundred . . .” she broke off. This was not a human thing; he could not possibly know or be expected to know. “This time I’m not coming back without Kholster,” Rae’en barked, her jaws snapping like an angry dog’s. His kindness irked her even more.

  The Vael, Yavi, had been able to coax one of the water spirits, talk to it. Kholster had been in the water one heartbeat, and in the next . . .

  Find him, she berated herself. You are the only one who can. He is Aern, and only Aern can help him. He is of the One Hundred! He cannot just die. He’s down there somewhere gone to metal maybe, like the old days, waiting to rust if I don’t find him!

  She broke the water, vanishing beneath the waves even as her pupils widened, the Arvash’ae waited at the edge of mind to take her over. Would it make her dive deeper? She’d dived for hours into the bay, looking for her father’s body, with no luck.

  I will not return without Kholster! The phrase became a mantra in her mind. He was not here.

  Kholster Rae’en.

  She let herself drop, swam to speed her descent.

  I’m so sorry.

  He had to be here! He had to be. Casting about frantically, Rae’en found no sign of her father.

  Please talk to me.

  But she knew she wouldn’t find him. Deep down she knew Caz would have already sunk like a stone to the bottom to retrieve his bones if her father were truly down here. Her feet touched the bay bottom, and she screamed out all of her air . . . or tried to.

  Please.

  Rae’en screamed again and again, bubbles rushing up to the surface. I can’t drown.

  You are Armored.

  How dare you breathe for me?!

  In her mind’s eye, she looked at the map of Oot, at her father’s warpick, an opalescent mark against the black of the pier. Grudge. A Grudge she knew he would lay down only in death. Bubbles drifted up toward the surface. She closed her eyes.

  And saw through Bloodmane’s, saw the broken Port Gates, saw Oathbreakers and warsuits standing tired and exhausted.

  “Did you find the First of One Hundred?”

  Surprised to truly inhale air rather than water. Rae’en opened her eyes to see Wylant standing next to her, a look of pain in the Aiannai’s eyes as raw as the one Rae’en felt in her own. Walls of blue water rose up on either side of the Eldrennai, a wedge of air shoved forcefully into the bay by the Aeromancer. Wylant held out her hand.

  “He’s not . . .”

  “That’s not what I asked, Rae’en by Kholster out of Helg. Kholster is gone. In his place, he appointed a new kholster, a new First of One Hundred.” Wylant drew back her hand with a sneer. “A leader, a kholster must push aside her fears, her pain, and serve her people even if duty is the last thing she wants to think about, even if she is overwhelmed. Such is what it is to be kholster, to be First of One Hundred. Kholster would have arranged for such a person to take his place, would have allowed himself to die under no other circumstance. Did you find her? Was she down here?”

  A confused bay crab scuttled past Wylant’s boot. Bass and a few minnows flopped breathlessly in the mud closer to the pier. Spurning assistance, kholster Rae’en pushed herself to her feet.

  All know, Rae’en thought, I am kholster Rae’en, First of One Hundred. I do not know what happened to my father, but one thing I assure you. His scars are on my back.

  “I see that you did,” Wylant said with a smirk, adding in a whisper, “don’t feel bad, kholster Rae’en. A few hundred years ago, I would have done the same thing. He’s a hard Aern to lose.”

  Wylant summoned the wind, pulling herself up and kholster Rae’en out of the wedge to land safely on the pier above. The Aeromancer let the water flow back into place, the level of the bay returning slowly to normal.

  Tyree, looking particularly dashing in clothes provided by the Eldrennai, leaned over the edge of the pier to offer his hand. The frilly lace at the cuffs of his sleeves took confidence to pull off successfully, but Tyree was one human with confidence in full supply. She accepted his proffered assistance, measuring his strength as he struggled to pull her out.

  Grivek had retreated, fretting back and forth at the head of the pier, and the maddening swish of his fine silk robes made it hard to concentrate. Wylant laid a hand on his shoulder, and he stopped with a self-conscious apology. Roc was the only other Eldrennai present now. Hira had left to take news to Port Ammond and establish a perimeter around Oot, leaving the other two Eldrennai serving purportedly as added security, but the underlying assertion that they were really Grivek’s bodyguards rang through loud and clear.

  Kholster Rae’en, Bloodmane thought at her, I need a decision.

  “Fine,” she said aloud. “Tell Vander . . .” Letting out a long breat
h, Rae’en pushed back the anger which had begun to reassert itself; a familiar headache took its place. She was kholster. She would tell Vander.

  Unc . . . Vander, she thought, let the blasted warsuits borrow Coal if he’s amenable and only if, she continued internally, Coal will still consent to provide air cover to us in our upcoming fight against the Eldrennai.

  I’ll tell them, Vander answered, of course, but you could always tell Bloodmane yourself.

  I don’t think Bloodmane would like to hear the things I’d like to say right now. Do you?

  Vander didn’t answer that one.

  Any word from Kazan, M’jynn, Joose, and Arbokk?

  Malmung says they’ve stopped in Castleguard to view the Changing of the Gods, before they head back home.

  Back home?

  Well . . . given your new status—

  Have them watch the Changing of the Gods and then get their butts up here, Rae’en sent. I may be First, but they’re still my Overwatches.

  Vander didn’t reply to that one either. Rae’en wondered if he thought she was making mistakes or just knew it wasn’t the time to argue with her. Either way, she was glad for the silence.

  CHAPTER 61

  HONOR THY MAKER

  “Are . . . are you all right, kholster?”

  Bloodmane started when he realized the young Elementalist meant to address him. He remained where he was, gazing into the maw-like opening in the ground that had once been North Watch. So much death. Not more than he’d seen, but he found it disconcerting to enjoy watching the waves crashing below the cliffs. He felt the tragedy of those lost lives should have spoiled it, but the waves didn’t care. Queelay’s water ignored the destruction wrought by the Zaur. The unpleasant business at hand was beyond their notice. A Vael would have been able to see the elemental spirits at play in the water.

  Emotions he hadn’t been created to feel weighed heavily on the mighty warsuit’s mind.

  I was forged to fight and crush the Zaur. I want to do so, but when the Zaur are destroyed. . . . He glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the Eldrennai lieutenant. What was his name?