“Wow. So, you’re beautiful and you have the capability to be logical, a rare quality in a woman.” Walter grinned.
She elbowed him in the shoulder.
“Ow! What was that for? Is that how you repay a compliment?”
Nyset raised a thin eyebrow at him, shaking her head with a smile. “What will I ever do with you?”
“Drop down on one knee and offer a marriage knot?” He winked at her.
She laughed with a note of desperation.
He continued, “We wild men. You do know you need to get your claws in us to hold us down, don’t you? You don’t have to do it now, though. Wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of everyone and all. Need to keep up the fearless leader, Arch Wizard appearance.”
She laughed harder as though she needed it, clutching one hand over her belly. “Oh, you’re ridiculous.”
“Me?” he scoffed.
“You.” She reached over and squeezed his thigh, her hand quickly running up and over his prick.
“Oh, hey alright. You should probably let me focus, someone has to protect you, prevent ambushes and other things like that.” He mumbled, finding words strangely difficult to put together.
“Of course.” She put her hands back on her reins, held them loosely. “On a serious note.” She frowned. “Please don’t do anything too reckless. I know you like your heroics. I’d like that we all came home much the same as we are now.”
He shrugged. “So would I. Could say the same about you.”
She snickered. “We’re partly insane, do you know that?”
Walter nodded and half-smiled. “I sure do.”
The wind finally relented once they drew nearer to the Tower, softening into a welcome breeze. They rode the rest of the way in quiet contemplation.
The afternoon sun became blinding, made the Far Sea twinkle in the distance. It made him think of the Abyssal Sea and that made him think of his former home.
The Silver Tower loomed into a full and unobstructed view. Clusters of black birds in flight quested back and forth around the tallest of spires, specks of grain against the cobalt sky. The sun began its lowering phase, casting the land in a warm light. At least six hours of sunlight remained, Walter guessed.
Thalia snapped orders, Stokes ushered soldiers into positions, and Nyset led apprentices into staggering lines.
Walter looked at the sinuous bridge, curving around jagged peaks of rock and passing under the Silver Tower’s main gates. It was a husk of its former beauty, a dilapidated shell and speckled with the remnants of war. Few of the bridge’s great stone baluster’s remained, side rails cracked and hundreds of hunks of stone were strewn about the path going over. A catapult stone split into ragged halves narrowed the bridge’s path about a hundred paces before the gates. It was a choke point, one that would have to be removed.
The path was littered with heaps of decaying bodies. Rot flies buzzed in a furious din of green masses. The carrion birds had already had their fill, most of the bodies picked clean. Wriggling maggots emerged from a crater that had been burned through a Cerumal’s chest, though the skin looked dry as boot leather. A pair of human legs protruded from a barrel, one arm sprouting out from between the legs, body folded in half like a doll’s.
Scores of Death Spawn were sprawled out every which way, over the rails, on top of one another, hacked off limbs functioning as garnishes between them. Around the bodies, discarded weapons dully glowed beneath a patina of rust and neglect. Spears, hooks, axes, and blades of all sort bristled between stony chunks. For every handful of Death Spawn bodies there was at least one form that was recognizably human, but most seemed to have been torn to pieces, clothing tossed aside, and likely finding their way into a Cerumal cook fire.
Closer toward the main gate were piles upon piles of charred forms, pushed into tangled heaps, glittering with what might have been pieces of Milvorian armor. Walter swallowed at the sight on the battlements, anger spiking up in his guts. With it came searing acid.
“Bastards,” Walter said through an iron jaw.
He had mentally prepared himself for the contents of the bridge, but not this. Hanging from the stretching parapet were hundreds of bodies, swaying from the ends of nooses. A grisly warning for anyone bold or foolish enough to tread near. Most had been stripped bare. Some still wore their robes, tattered and bright with the sun faded reds and blues of apprentices. Above the hanged wizards, behind the wall were spikes and upon them it was clear, even at this distance, they were studded with heads. Their limp hair hung on the wind coursing in from the Far Sea, mouths opened wide as if screaming.
The Silver Tower retained few smudges of its former glory. Great spires were reduced to stony spears, only the strongest of mortared bonds keeping the piled stones together. He remembered wandering those endless halls, exploring, finding himself in ancient spaces cloaked in dust. He found the tendril of smoke winding out from behind the wall. It was always burning, a constant reminder of their failure to prevent the Tower’s siege, always there for the realm to see. The silver infused stone making up the walls and the spires glittered in defiance, shining through the Shadow Realm’s hold.
He remembered when he’d first laid eyes upon this scene. That time he still had both eyes, both arms. He hadn’t yet murdered any of his friends. It had been a sight to behold, filling him with wonder and a fresh sense of adventure. The only thing that had remained the same was the near perfect weather, perfect for slaughtering Death Spawn.
The roaring falls crashed under the bridge, but it was a soft rumble at this distance. They washed out to deltas and into tributaries, fanning out to the Far Sea like a tree. He once thought the river a marvel when he was on the battlements of the Silver Tower and peering out. Things looked much different when you were the one doing the sieging. He stared down into the water, spouting out from between clefts carved in the stone below. It was a perilous torrent. White frothy tendrils reached out to choke and drown and smash your bloated body upon its rocky teeth.
The village south of the Tower had been reduced to ruins. It was nothing but a heap of gray coal, blackened timbers, and piles of ashes. Farms were burned, leaving the soil coated in blankets of ash. Brick chimneys stood alone like ancient sentinels, watching over burned out house frames. It was a wraith of a village, haunting the ashen grounds.
Some houses had miraculously stood, dodged the engulfing conflagration. The few survivors had windows shattered, shutters hanging from a single nail, as if their eyes had been gouged out. Black doors yawned open like mouths fixed to a permanent gape. If you searched long enough, you’d spot the remains of blackened ribs and stoved in skulls, the tiny skeletons of children wrapped in a timeless embrace. Death Spawn did not take prisoners. Death Spawn knew no mercy.
Something was wrong. Why were there no living Death Spawn to be found? Could they really be this thin on numbers? He squinted, saw no signs of life along the Tower’s walls. He spotted a cat with three legs and missing patches of hair. It awkwardly tottered along the bridge, fumbling at a mouse. A long muzzled dog emerged from behind a pile of rotting corpses, chased it off the bridge and into the ruined village.
Men and women were dismounting, stowing horses to charred trees, frantically arming themselves and tightening down armor buckles. Many were already prepared for battle, hands white-knuckled around hilts. Wizards adjusted robes, flared fire, and flashed shields. Some had discarded their robes for armor, others preferring the freedom of cloth.
There were about three, maybe four hundred Walter guessed. A formidable force, at least a third of those wizards. There were proud women with glittering short sword hilts hanging from their belts, smudged-faced men with spears shining with bright tips. There were veteran wizards with a lifetime of scars and newly minted apprentices who’d never spilled a drop of blood in all their lives.
Walter craned his neck, stood on his tiptoes and peered back down the snaking column. Metal shone in the sun. He caught the scent of someone smoking tobacco.
It was a sight the world hadn’t seen since before the first seal of the Age of Dawn had been cast. Soldiers of the Midgaard Falcon, Tree Folk, and wizards all standing together against the same foe. Walter wished it could’ve been for something more enjoyable. Perhaps a wedding or a banquet, rather than a war.
“The Arch Wizard speaks!” Claw shouted from the back of a jet black horse. He sent it galloping up and down the lines forming at the precipice, some peering down wide-eyed at the watery death far below.
Walter watched Nyset ride out before the group, a few bright patches of grass defying the Shadow Realm’s grip before the bridge, the familiar cedar spreading its wispy branches out over the canyon.
Soldiers of the Midgaard Falcon cheered, wizards whooped, and the Tree Folk let out an impressive roar.
Nyset raised her arm into the air, sleeve falling down to show the whites of the long scars along her forearms, marks left by a Black Wynch. The wind twitched at her blood-red sleeves. She had the look of a woman who knew neither fear or mercy for her enemies. Here was a leader that any wizard would be proud to follow to the grave.
The crowd became murmurous, quiet slipping over it. A sword of fire burst to life in her hand, flickering bright red, almost seeming to pierce through the gates from his perspective. “Who stands behind our walls?” she roared into the crowd. “The demon god Asebor, his Wretched, the Death Spawn have taken what is ours! We are the men and women of Zoria. This world is not for these creatures.”
Walter caught Thalia wince. She made her way up front, a few paces away.
That got another round of echoing roars, pounding feet and beating shields. She rode up and down the line. “The demon god murdered my parents, Walter Glade’s, the dual-wielder, wielder of Bonesnapper, murdered his parents too. Asebor sent him to the Shadow Realm, and here he stands before you again! Ready to lay waste to our enemies! If we don’t stop him today, who will be next? Whose parents? Whose babies? Which village will next be reduced to ashes? It’s time we become the wolf!” Her voice cracked as her eyes met Grimbald’s, red-rimmed and brow creased.
Shrieks and howls of anger rolled over the warriors. Thalia’s soldiers bared sharpened teeth, bodies bristling with blades and spiked armor. Walter couldn’t help but stare at their fearsome mouths with grim fascination, his jaw hanging open. Walter raised his arm, Chains of the North wrapped tight around Stormcaller and throwing out beams of light.
“In their arrogance, they have taken what is rightfully ours!” Nyset called. “We have the claim, we have the men, the numbers, to die in battle than in chains! How long will we let this scum stay in our lands, pillaging our farms, eating our children? Not a day longer!”
Their roars split the air with hungry anticipation. A wizard let a fireball loose into the air, burning up like a star. Nyset’s eyes and her sword flashed bright as the sun, so bright Walter had to look away for an instant. “Let us honor the Dragon and the Phoenix who have granted us their gifts, their strengths to make this a bloody day for Death Spawn! Time to take our walls back. Walk tall. Before the sunset, we’ll have the heads of our enemies above our gates!”
“Today is the day,” Grimbald said into Walter’s ear, his voice almost lost in the din of cheers.
The cheering slowly died down and Nyset rode up, stopping between him and Grimbald. “How did I do?”
“You’re incredible,” Walter said, beaming at her sweat-streaked face.
“Really?”
“Really,” Walter said. He meant it.
“Mhm,” Grimbald grunted in agreement.
There was a long, weighty silence. The falls thundered and seagulls called from the distance.
A disturbance swept from the back of the line, people shuffling off to the side of the path leading up to the bridge through the village. Spears were raised up, a few blades hissed from scabbards.
“What is it?” Grimbald asked, scratching his stubbly chin. Walter had been struck by how young he looked without a beard but found himself getting used to it.
“Children. What are they doing here?” someone muttered.
“How had they survived?” A wizard in blue asked. “Stow your blade,” he said to a Tree Folk warrior who responded by flashing his teeth and a machete.
There were close to twenty of them, dirt smeared, their clothing threadbare and soiled. Their small feet were bare and blackened. The column parted into a narrow channel giving them room to pass, the expressions of the soldiers awestruck. They went to men and women with open arms, eyes swimming with dirty tears, hugging them.
A boy stumbled over to Walter and Nyset, eyes sitting deep in his sockets, cheeks bright pink. His shirt was once white, now a mix of browns and blacks. He wore a belt fashioned of fraying rope.
Thalia’s blade was drawn, the arm relaxed, but her forearm rigid with tension. Her keen eyes tracked the child.
“Dragons. What are we going to do with them?” Walter asked.
“Get them to safety, obviously.” Nyset glared at him. She dismounted, spread an arm to sweep him up. “Come here, child.”
The child’s expression darkened, his shadowed eyes flickering with a mad touch. Screaming came from the back of the column; sounded as if from a dream. The child stumbled to Nyset as a soiled arm reached for his back to grasp a dagger, its sharp tip glinting.
Walter’s voice caught, but his hand snapped out and a shield split between the child and Nyset. The child stabbed anyway and Nyset gasped, fell back. The blade bounced harmlessly from the shield, and the child turned its feral rage on Walter.
It lunged with inhuman speed and sank its dagger into one of Kez’s front legs. The horse wildly bucked, hurling Walter from the saddle. Walter hit the ground with a thud, felt the air expelled from his lungs. He tried to suck in a breath and let out a ragged cough, grit in his mouth.
Something warm slapped across his face. He blinked away the burning. Blood. A blurred Tree Folk warrior held a child around the neck in one hand, ramming a blade through its belly with the other. The boy cried out, dropped his dagger, the hilt standing upright between cobbles. The warrior dropped him to the ground, collapsing into a scarlet heap. Ash puffed into the air.
Walter started to rise up, heard Kez squealing in pain, saw him clopping into the village of nightmares. Lost. The warrior peered down at him, head dotted with spike like feathers. “Are you well?” It was Thalia’s voice, her face obscured by the brightness of the sun, the tears clearing blood from his eye.
“Yeah,” Walter said, taking her hand and she pulled him up. She jerked him to his feet with surprising power. Rivulets of blood streamed from her wide blade, pattered into the ashen ground, streaked across her spiked armor. The boy lay on the ground, neck slit and stomach carved open.
Walter turned, saw Nyset bright with the Dragon. “Death Spawn!” she hissed and raised her arms as another child squirmed on a gust of air clutching a butcher’s knife. She cut her arms in a downward chop, dashing the girl’s head apart on the edge of an upturned battle axe, the other end wedged firmly in a moldy crate. There was sickening pop as its skull split, bits of brains spilling over the wood.
“Death Spawn? But—” Walter saw it now. The child Thalia had slain was changing, the guise melting away like a passing cloud. The figure had a metallic sphere for a head, body squat and wearing chainmail. It was a Metamorphose, a shapeshifter. “Shit!” Idiot.
Walter spotted a soldier of the Midgaard Falcon on the ground, sputtering, choking, and kicking. He had one bloody hand pressed against the side of his neck, red spurting between his fingers. His bright chestplate was streaked in shiny blood. A boy twitched, skewered through the mouth upon the end of the man’s spear, the point through the back of his neck. The carving knife he still held was madly slashing the air as if it had a brain of its own. Walter narrowed his eyes at the tears in the child’s eyes. It was a damned near perfect disguise.
Walter knelt beside the soldier, hand glowing with the icy touch of the Phoenix. He reached for the dying man. �
��I’ve got you.”
“Tell my wife—” he gurgled, eyes whirling into the empty sky. “Tell her—” And then nothing. His hand dropped from his neck. His breath wheezed out with a final rattling.
Walter growled back at the child. “Children! You use children?” He screamed at it. He flicked his fingers using the Phoenix, sent the Death Spawn body tumbling into blackened shrubs. The soldier’s spear was driven half-way down the haft into its mouth. He pulled on the Dragon, washed the writhing body in fire.
Walter slowly rose up, hunched. He felt sick, felt the world pushing down on him with waves of heat. He peered down the column and around the precipice, the last of the Metamorphoses cut down.
A few more soldiers writhed on the ground, tended to by those around them. The frantic whispers of the dying wasn’t something one grew accustomed to, no matter how many times you heard it. The stink of burning Death Spawn flesh reached his nose. He inhaled hard at it, sucked it in, savored the scent of his enemy burning. They would all come to know the taste of his fire.
“Time for you to go, Walter.” He started, saw Nyset’s narrow hand on his shoulder. He swallowed and turned to face her, Tower behind. He wiped his forearm down his face, streaking it with the deep red of the Death Spawn’s blood.
“In a bit. Let me just—”
He saw it before he heard it. She said something else, but it was as if his ears had stopped working. “Look!” was all he could manage.
Nyset swiveled on her feet. “Wizards! Archers!” she roared. Burning discs crackling with Dragon fire filled the air above her.
A great piercing shriek carried out from the Silver Tower, booming across the bridge. Walter’s heart was a smith’s hammer, smashing against his temples. Even the best-laid plans could be brought to ruins. Screams of terror passed over the warriors, heads turning up at the swimming shape.
A great beast crested through the air, its massive wings whooshing and buffeting. It was an enormous Shattered Wing, carrying something in its crab-like talons. It came into focus. A barrel. But why? There was an imperceptible sparking in the air below it. A wick. A wick leading to a barrel, Walter realized.
A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5) Page 42
