The Winter Vow

by Tim Akers

  The sound of impact deafened him. Malcolm broke through the first line of spears, only to stumble on the second, and was up on the third. The shattering spears of the celestials caught immediate flame, bursting into bright sparks that hung over the charge like constellations. Malcolm kept his saddle, but around him several of his companions tumbled to the ground, some rolling to their feet, some staying in the mud, their flames guttering in the snow.

  Malcolm laid into the spearmen pressed against his shins. Their formation was too tight, compacted by the crush of Malcolm’s charge. Malcolm’s sword became a constant arcing whirlwind of flame and black feyiron, the strange blade passing through steel and bone like loose burlap. Smoke rose from burning corpses, hanging like a banner over Malcolm’s head.

  It was glorious. This murder was everything he lived for, everything he would die for, the only true purpose in life. Malcolm lost himself in the slaughter. His heart sang, even as it burned too brightly, too fast, each breath taking years off Malcolm’s already fragile life. He could feel his skin sizzling against the hot steel of his armor. The thick linens turned to ash, but it didn’t matter. The flame would keep him.

  Suddenly he was alone on the field. A ring of dead bodies surrounded him, their broken bodies trampled into the mud. Several dozen of his knights remained, flame-maddened horses wheeling back and forth, chomping at the bit. Malcolm cast about, looking for something to kill. The need, the hunger, chewed at his bones. Finally he saw the enemy, black banners waving over their ranks. A flight of arrows arced out from behind them, falling on Malcolm and his cadre. One of the arrows buried itself in Malcolm’s shoulder. There was a moment of bright pain, then he tore it out, trailing ember-filled blood. The shaft of the arrow caught fire in his hands. He threw it aside and roared his fury.

  Wind grabbed him by the heart and pulled. Malcolm strained against it, but it had him by the bones, the flame, the blood. He urged his horse forward, but the beast was frozen in place. Strands of light twisted up out of his flesh, spinning through the air, joining a hundred other skeins, each one being drawn out of his other knights and tangling together, like wool knitting together.

  At the heart of this tapestry of burning light was Sir Elsa LaFey.

  Elsa stood in the middle of the coursing web of light, her chest heaving, eyes closed, hands stretched out before her. The light burrowed into her, digging channels in her armor, dancing through her hair, turning her skin into beaten bronze. The snow at her feet vaporized into mist, the mud beneath baking under her boots, cracking in the heat. A flash of light swallowed the sky, and the wind stopped. Malcolm lurched in his saddle. Peace settled over him. Madness drained from his blood.

  “What happened?” Malcolm muttered. He looked around. Those few dozen of his remaining knights teetered in their saddles, eyes wide in shock. He put a trembling hand to his shoulder, feeling the edge of his wound. The flesh was cauterized, the scar as hard as stone. He looked up at Elsa.

  “The flame has found a different home,” she said through gritted teeth. When she opened her eyes, lightning flashed across her cheeks, tracing the lines of her old scars. Her eyes glowed like forge-stoked coal, warm and bright. She took a precarious step forward, then another, slowly gathering her strength. “It was drawn through me. I simply closed the tap.”

  “How long can you hold that?” he asked.

  “Until I die,” she answered. “We have come too far, Houndhallow, for you to throw yourself away so easily.”

  Malcolm looked around the battlefield. Sophie’s column was in splinters to his right, and the remnants of the blocks of spear milled between them. The celestial line was shattered, but they held more in reserve than Malcolm could offer. Smoke obscured the battlefield to his left.

  “Where is Jaerdin? Where is my son? Have they taken the flank?” The pain in his shoulder flared. When he looked down, he was shocked to see burned blood across his chest, leaking into the rings of his mail. His arm was stiff and cold. “Can we fall back without being routed?”

  “We may not have a choice.” Sir Doone rode up, flames still tracing paths through her armor, blackened ash smeared across her eyes. “They are coming,”

  “The celestials?” Malcolm asked. She pointed.

  Out of a swirling fogbank, shapes loomed up, gaining speed as they approached. Malcolm turned his horse to face them, then thought better of it. Nightmare eyes glowed in the darkness, traced in lines of silver fire.

  “The gods,” Doone answered. “We make our stand, or we die!”

  47

  THE WIND RIPPED through Gwen’s hair. The closer she got to the Suhdrin camp, the warmer the air became, until her skin prickled uncomfortably, and sweat beaded on her brow. Gwen was reminded of another desperate charge, that time into the little village of Tallownere, with Sir Merret and Frair Lucas at her side. So many of that company were lost at the Fen Gate, the rest fled with Blakley’s army, or returned to their homes to hide their loyalty to the heretic Adair. She wondered if her father’s men blamed her for their shame, or their ghosts for their misery. She wouldn’t blame them if they did.

  These thoughts were driven from her mind as they reached the camp. The flames from the burning tree at the camp’s center turned the ranks of tents into brightly drawn waves, their shadows stark, the glow from their canvas sides as warm as firelight. Gwen was trying to pick out the figures she had seen earlier when one of them stepped out of a tent along the perimeter and drew his sword. Gwen swerved to intercept him. Bruler and Gilliam fell in behind her.

  The figure was in full plate, and wore a tattered red tabard. Rather than a helm, his head was surrounded by a glowing aurora of fire, the flames mingling with his orange hair, spitting curls of smoke into the air. He carried a double-handed sword. The blade was etched in golden runes, and glowing lines of power ran along the forte, flickering like lightning in his hands. The ground under his feet smoldered. His eyes were pits of burning coal. He raised his sword in their direction, then fell into an easy guard.

  Gwen bore down on him. She drew a spear and threw it, drawing another before the shaft found its mark. The thrown spear turned to splinters as it arced down toward the man, its ash shaft flaring into cinders. The bloodwrought spearhead tumbled on, striking the man’s armor before evaporating in a shower of sparks. The vow knight laughed. His voice sounded like the roaring of a forge.

  Gwen rose in her stirrups and drew her spear back to throw again. Her time with the pagans had taught her much about spirits and the forces that governed them, but she had no gheist to call on. What Gwen did have was the corruption she had siphoned off Kesthe and the god of memory, a darkness that now twined through her bones like cancer. She laced the tip of her spear with the corruption. A black ribbon of energy fluttered around the spear like a lady’s favor. She threw.

  The spear arced through the air, streaming lines of night sky as it fell on the vow knight. The shaft began to smoke, but the destruction of the physical bolt did nothing to the darkness that trailed it. Speartip and shadow twisted together. The vow knight noticed the change only at the last moment, swinging his flaming sword to block it. Steel met bloodwrought iron, and the tip burst into a blossom of flaming light. The shadows wrapped around the knight, clinging to him like tar. His armor sizzled at their touch, and soon he was swinging madly, cutting tendrils of deep night sky and shaking them loose. His wild face was twisted in concentration as Gwen drew near.

  She drew her sword, spinning it in her hand and then striking as she passed. Her blade glanced off the knight’s pauldron, skidded across the steel before slapping against his cheek. The flames in his hair scalded Gwen’s fingers, and she almost lost her grip. She thundered past, and turned her horse to attack again.

  Bruler and Gilliam bore down on the knight. Bruler rode high in his saddle, spear tipped forward, as perfect a form as you would see at the Allfire tournament. Beside him, the Orphanshield was wrapped in a nimbus of naetheric power. A veil of purple light wrapped around his shoulders,
and his swords crackled with black light. The vow knight whirled to face them.

  A wave of flame curled up out of the ground in front of the knight, rushing toward the charging Suhdrins. It widened, so that the nearby tents caught fire, growing taller as it roared forward, until it towered over Bruler’s head. Gwen lost sight of the pair of riders, and was desperately pulling another spear from her quiver when a line of shadow pierced the center of the wave. The curtain of flame split open, curling back just far enough to let Bruler dash through, then Gilliam. The vow knight gestured, and the flames dissipated like morning fog.

  Bruler reached the vow knight first. His spear shattered against the man’s chest, pitching the knight back, staggering him. In a normal man the blow would have pierced his heart and sent the corpse flying, but the vow knight kept his feet, swinging his massive sword as Bruler passed. Bruler blocked the attack with his shield, but the steel face hissed and bubbled, raising a cloud of black smoke into the air. Bruler yelped and threw the shield away.

  It was the Orphanshield whose blow struck true. The frair threw a scattering of darts from his swords, tiny shards of naetheric power that hammered into the vow knight, driving him back. The knight’s hysterical laughter echoed over the field. As Gilliam got closer, the knight spun his sword once and set it to strike, both hands gripping the hilt like a banner. The nearby flames from the burning tents, the tongues of light dancing around Bruler’s discarded shield, even the glowing leaves of the black tree at the camp’s center, hissed and drew toward the vow knight’s sword. The air roared as infernal light boiled around the blade, glowing into a tower of swirling flame. Gilliam rose in his stirrups, swords held high to strike, the veil of his naetheric armor peeling away before the vow knight’s aura.

  They came together, both swinging hard, the bright line of the vow knight’s sword cutting through the air like a lighthouse beam, the bulwark of Gilliam’s shadows clenching tight as the fire dashed against it. Blinding flames and guttering darkness filled the air, and then Gilliam was past and still riding.

  The vow knight reeled. The left half of his body had turned black, and the flame of his sword guttered along the blade, flickering out. He spun to face Gilliam, but when he planted his left foot, the leg shattered into ash. Cracks ran along the dark half of his body, the baked shell of his armor crumbling as he turned. He came apart in long splinters. When he struck the ground, the knight’s body was briefly limned in blinding light, lines of flame that disappeared a second later. A final flame crawled along his sword, reaching toward the black tree. Then it, too, died.

  Gilliam’s horse slowed to a trot. The inquisitor slumped forward in his saddle, chest heaving, eyes glazed. Gwen hurried to his side, afraid that the old man would fall to the ground. He was only winded, though. When she touched him, his skin was as cold as ice, and twice as hard.

  “Frostnight,” he said with a huff, still trying to catch his breath. “It has been decades since I drew that much power from the naether. And I barely tapped Cinder’s well. A dozen inquisitors could end this fight on a day like this.”

  “We don’t have a dozen. We have you,” Gwen said. “Can you continue?”

  “I must,” Gilliam said. Bruler rode up, concern etched across his face. His cheek was scalded on the left side, where he had been holding his shield, and he held his arm gingerly. “We must hurry. There are more of those damnable knights in this camp. They are only now becoming aware of our presence. To the tree!”

  They wheeled and started galloping toward the burning tree. Its black branches towered over the camp, the flaming leaves that surrounded it as bright and hot as forge coals. Their heat pressed down on the trio, a physical wall that they had to push through. Sweat soaked Gwen’s armor. Figures darted among the tents, most on foot, rushing to catch up with them.

  “Almost there,” Gwen promised, though it felt like the tree receded with each step, like a mirage.

  The roar of the tree was so loud that Gwen didn’t hear the other sound until it was too late. The first thing she noticed was a quiver among the distant tents on the far side of the tree. Howls and shouts finally reached her ears, then she noticed a wave of soldiers rushing toward them. At first she thought they were being charged. Then she understood, by their frantic screams, the way they trampled their own tents, their lack of weapons.

  “It’s a rout,” she shouted, pulling up short. Looking over the heads of Halverdt’s retreating army, she saw a line of black mist, and then faces, twisted and misshapen, their eyes burning silver: the celestial army in pursuit.

  The first of Halverdt’s broken army reached them. Men and women in light chain, their faces bloodied, eyes wild, ran screaming past. They ignored Gwen and her companions. A few became a dozen, became hundreds. They were pressed back. Gwen wheeled her horse, shouting over the panic.

  “Retreat to our line! We have to prepare for the celestials. We have to hold our own ranks together.”

  Bruler nodded, galloping back, but Gilliam lingered. He was staring at the tree.

  “We are so close…”

  “Not close enough. We’ll be trampled if we stay here, and those gheists will not wait for us to destroy that tree. If we can even do it alone in these conditions. We have to run!” Gwen shouted. Gilliam’s face fell, and he turned.

  Gwen gave the black tree, now burning even brighter than before, a final look. It was surrounded by fleeing soldiers and panicked horses. The dark line of the celestial forces was getting closer, their progress slowed only by the trampled bodies of their enemy. Malcolm was somewhere in all of this. She was sure of it.

  Finally, Gwen turned and galloped off, with the Orphanshield at her side. A hundred yards beyond the camp’s perimeter, she watched Sir Bruler reach the ranks, rallying them into a hard line of steel shields and long spears. These hundreds, versus the celestial gheists, and whatever troops supported them.

  They had to hold.

  48

  MISTS CLUNG TO the celestial ranks, rising from iron braziers among the lines and tangling with the spears like woolen floss. Where the two armies met, traces of light shone through the mists, giving the whole battle the look of a distant thunderhead, flickering with heat lightning.

  Lucas and Martin watched from the ramparts, their attention divided between the battle and Helenne Bassion, who had not moved from her grand pavilion, which was draped in silks the colors of House Bassion, with the crest of Galleydeep wrought in gold on the side. The doors of the litter opened wide, giving the duchess a full view of the fields below. She sat like a queen on her throne, swaddled in fine furs, still sipping her wine. Lucas could see Martin’s attention was on the cadre of knights of House Bassion who were nearby, their armor as bright as sunlight, their heraldry as sharp and precise as if they’d been on parade, rather than watching a battle unfold.

  “So,” Lucas said finally, to Martin. “Is this going well, or poorly?”

  “I can’t decide. I’ve seen nothing of the other priests, and those vow knights look a damn sight too comfortable with our condition. Still, we have our swords—”

  “No, no, the battle,” Lucas said. “I could never follow the movement of troops. It all looks like churned mud and screaming horses to me.”

  “Oh. Yes, well, it’s not that much different down there. Malcolm has broken deep into the enemy ranks, to my surprise. That charge should have failed an hour ago, but it keeps rolling on. Their horses must be nearly dead. Only thing keeping them from breaking the celestial line is the sheer numbers in opposition.” Martin narrowed his eyes, trying to see the far end of the battlefield. “There’s something happening over there. Too hard to see, though.”

  “When will they show themselves?” Lucas muttered. “When will their priests strike?”

  “You believe they will? I honestly think that the only thing keeping Bassion inside these walls is the simple fact that they’re fighting with conventional forces,” Martin said in a whisper. “If they show their true nature once again, she couldn�
��t possibly hold back.”

  “You would be surprised what sort of cowardice a lord of the realm can justify, when behind sturdy walls, surrounded by strong guards.” Lucas darted a look at the vow knights. “Though how those three remain silent is beyond me.”

  “Is the battle not keeping you entertained?” Bassion asked, her voice lilting. “Must I bring a bard to distract you, frair?”

  “I just wonder how long you will stay out of this fight, my lady. It seems that if you lent your strength to Lady Halverdt now, the day might be won.”

  “Or lost forever,” she answered. “They push too far. Blakley, especially, is overcommitted.”

  “We have both fought at Malcolm Blakley’s side, Galleydeep,” Martin said. “He does not overcommit. If he has won so much ground, it is only because he sees the advantage of it, which we cannot judge from here. I urge you—”

  “The time for this conversation has passed, gentlemen. My plans are laid.” Bassion took a drink. “But the urgency has passed. As you can see, the battle is going quite well. Whatever dream of heroism has been haunting you, it can pass into forgetfulness. The day may well already be won.”

  “And if you are wrong? If the battle is lost because you held back?” Lucas asked. He stood and strode forward, earning nervous stares from the vow knights. “What will you do then?”

  “I will still hold the Reaveholt,” Bassion purred. “As you know, this castle has never fallen to siege.”

  “You may want to ask Sir Bourne about that,” Lucas snapped.

  A chill passed through the audience. Helenne sipped her wine and studiously ignored Lucas. The three vow knights edged closer. Lucas held up his hands.