by Lucy Hounsom
‘Have you forsaken civilized society to become a barbarian?’ she called. ‘How the mighty general falls.’
‘You wasted no time stepping into my shoes, Iresonté,’ Hagdon replied. He loosened his sword in its sheath. ‘I am not surprised to find you here.’
‘Very clever to use some of my own stealth force against me.’ Iresonté’s eyes flickered over those behind Hagdon. ‘It is a shame they will not live to serve you longer.’
‘Enough.’ The ranks of Sartyans parted to let five people through, four armoured, the fifth an old, robed man. Medavle found his gaze drawn to the figure in the centre. He was tall, bald and one-armed. The fat that padded his bones only made him more imposing. His red plate seemed grafted on, straps lengthened to accommodate his bulk and his greaves looked like little islands of metal surrounded by fleshy straits. As the man and his guards drew nearer, Medavle made out his face, deceptively soft. But his black eyes had no mercy in them. They were the eyes he remembered from the days of Kierik – the eyes of the first emperor, Davaratch.
Hagdon’s face had paled, his hand visibly tightening on the hilt of his sword. The emperor’s gaze moved from the former general to the temple where Medavle stood surrounded by dualakat. There was a hunger in his face, a triumph. ‘Khronosta,’ he said.
‘Your Imperial Majesty,’ the eldest replied, his mocking voice somehow filling the clearing. ‘We had planned to take the fight to you. Yet you come to us.’ His shrunken lips twitched. ‘If you seek death, death will find you.’ He signalled the dualakat and the warriors began to fan out.
‘Wait.’
The old man who’d accompanied the emperor stepped forward and Medavle was disturbed to find himself the object of his gaze. ‘You,’ the stranger said in a cracked voice. Uncaring of the dualakat, he hobbled towards Medavle, his squint deepening the creases in his face. Slowly, he extended a hand and splayed it and Medavle felt something he hadn’t felt in centuries: the urge to obey. When his knees began to fold, he railed at them, but they refused to straighten. He found himself bowed on the steps of the temple. The terrible compulsion bent his elbows too, pressed his stomach into the ground. Above him, the eldest hissed something.
It was the old Yadin duress, the sole province of the high Wielders of Solinaris, of those who’d created the Yadin. But the high Wielders were long dead. Terror washed through him; the old man could order him to tear out his own heart and Medavle would do it. ‘Who … are you?’ he croaked.
‘Shune!’ came a shout and Medavle was able to move again. The old man turned to regard the Davaratch. ‘What are you doing?’ the emperor demanded, a dangerous note in his voice. ‘Do you know this man?’
‘I know what he is,’ Shune said, ‘but not how he came to be here.’ He looked back at Medavle. ‘I thought your kind were dead.’
‘I thought yours were too.’
The old man paled with sudden fear. ‘Be silent,’ he snapped and Medavle found himself unable to speak.
‘You dare issue orders in my presence?’ the emperor said. ‘As usual, you forget your place.’
The old man’s fear spoke louder than words. Whatever he’d told the emperor about himself, it wasn’t the truth. Medavle fought harder against the compulsion sealing his lips shut. He’d been a free man for five hundred years; he wouldn’t serve again. ‘Wielder,’ he managed to say, Shune’s compulsion like a rope around his neck.
‘I told you to be silent!’ the old man shrieked, but the word had been heard, at least by Kyndra. She was staring at Shune and there was something distant in her eyes – the look she wore when Kierik’s memories spoke to her.
‘Traitor,’ she said in a tone unlike her own. ‘It was you who betrayed the citadel.’
Shune looked at her and whatever he saw made him stagger back.
‘You ignored my warnings, Realdon Shune,’ she said implacably, as if Kierik really were speaking through her. ‘You turned the Sentheon against me.’
The old man found his voice at last. ‘You are not Kierik.’
The distance abruptly left Kyndra’s eyes. ‘No,’ she agreed faintly. ‘Kierik is dead.’
‘Beware, Majesty,’ Shune said, whirling. ‘She is Starborn.’
The wind strengthened in the darkening sky, blowing in the vanguard of a storm. The sound of it in the leaves was a snake’s rattle.
‘We don’t need to fight,’ Kyndra said loudly, though her voice held a tremor. ‘We’ve come for Medavle.’ She looked from him to the eldest, her eyes guarded. ‘Let him go.’
‘Go then, Yadin, if you will.’
Medavle glanced at the eldest, felt the Khronostian’s will in his flesh, rifling through the memories he’d carried across the years. He closed his eyes as one of Isla arose – another fleeting time when he’d held her in his arms. They’d kissed and laughed, having lost themselves in the white corridors. The danger had become part of it; every snatched moment could have been their last. His arms had felt empty when she wasn’t in them. Five hundred years of emptiness.
Medavle opened his eyes. Kyndra was staring at him; he could see the realization beginning to dawn in her face. ‘Why?’ she asked quietly.
‘Because they can go back and save her,’ he said, hearing his voice catch. ‘They can save Isla.’
36
Samaya, Acre
Char
‘No,’ the old man said. ‘You will stop this, Yadin. I forbid it.’
‘Shune,’ the emperor barked. ‘Explain yourself.’
‘Do you recall what I told you of anchors, Majesty?’ Shune’s eyes did not leave Medavle. ‘If they use the Yadin, the last five centuries are at their fingertips. They could unravel the empire.’
‘Worse,’ Ma said, coming forward. ‘They could unravel the fabric of this world.’
‘We wondered whether we would see you, Mariana.’ The eldest spread his grey arms, welcoming. ‘Won’t you return to us – in the hour of our ascension?’
‘You are mad as well as blind.’ Ma’s fists clenched around her kali sticks. ‘What happened to the people I left? Gentle nomads who used my knowledge to preserve this –’ She stopped speaking abruptly.
‘Everything you learned, you learned from us,’ the eldest said. ‘Yet you turned your knowledge against us. You used it to hide the Kala.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered, looking down.
A whistle ripped through the clearing like the cry of a hunting hawk. Char had just enough time to see the woman called Iresonté lower her hand from her mouth before people stepped out of the air to seize his arms. They wore the armour of the stealth force. Four heavy cloaks lay discarded at their feet, blue light rippling over the material.
‘Ambertrix cloaks,’ Hagdon warned. ‘There may be more hiding among us.’
The blue light flickered and died, leaving the imbued cloaks no more than garments. Char couldn’t stop looking at them. For a moment it had seemed as if the rage would awaken, but the feeling was somehow outside him; it had lived in the bluish light. Then he felt a blade against his throat and all thoughts of the rage sharpened to terror.
‘One move,’ Iresonté said to the eldest, ‘and your Kala dies.’
The hand holding the blade to Char’s throat pressed harder and he felt a trickle run down his skin. His captor drew in a breath at the sight of his blood, but the knife remained where it was.
‘No!’ Ma cried at the same time as the eldest. She drew her weapons. Behind him, Char felt a surge of heat and thought of the Wielders and Kyndra, but he couldn’t turn his head to look.
‘One move,’ Iresonté repeated.
Ma stood torn; Char knew what she was thinking. Even she couldn’t reach him before the blade flashed across his throat. And even if she could, she wouldn’t risk it. He felt helpless as he met her eyes. You said I wasn’t the Kala.
‘Leave him,’ Ma shouted. ‘He is not the one you seek.’
‘Why would you protect him otherwise?’ Char heard fear in the eldest’s voice – the ancient
man had never sounded so human. Was the Kala really worth so much to Khronosta?
‘I protected him from you,’ Ma said, ‘when you imprisoned his people. He was just an infant, separated from his mother. You would have killed him.’
Char couldn’t speak, not with the knife pressed so closely against his throat. He stared at Ma. The story about finding him abandoned on a road – another lie?
Horrified realization was dawning on the eldest’s wizened face. ‘Pah –’ he spat – ‘you rescued one? You knew what they were. You knew they supplied Sartya with its greatest weapon.’ A sound came from off to Char’s left, as the emperor walked into his line of sight. A sword burned in his single hand, rippling with the same blue light as the stealth-force cloaks. Again Char felt the lure of the rage; he could sense it in the sword, in the flames that licked along its keen edge. The Davaratch looked from Char to Ma to the eldest. ‘If he is not the Kala, who is he?’
‘Forgive me, Boy,’ Ma said, her proud face anguished. ‘I was too afraid. I’d hidden for too many years. When they showed up in the Beaches, I thought they’d found out about you. Instead … they believed you the Kala.’ She bent her head. ‘I let them believe it. It was safer that way.’
The tension was palpable. Ma was the focus of all eyes. It began to rain and for a moment all that could be heard was the plink of drops on drawn weapons. Ma walked a little way towards the Khronostians and then she stopped and threw down her kali sticks.
Pulse pounding in his throat, Char watched her unlace her bracers. They joined the sticks on the ground. Then she began to peel off the gloves he had never once seen her without. Ma flung them down and held up her hands so all could see.
Intricate mandalas, white on brown skin, twined up her wrists. In the centre of each palm was a snake biting its tail. Char watched in horror as it came alive, surging in and out of her flesh as if it were water. ‘I am your Kala,’ Ma said. ‘I am Khronos.’
As one, the dualakat fell to their knees, but not the eldest. ‘It can’t be,’ he said, expression changing from shock to disgust. ‘We have spent blood in our search for you – the blood of your people. And you betrayed us.’
‘You betrayed yourselves,’ Ma said. ‘I … died.’ There was a remembered terror in her face. ‘I died to share my knowledge with you. You turned it to darkness. When I was born again, you raised me in violence, you made me forget myself and now we both bear the marks of it.’
Some of the dualakat touched their bandaged bodies; one cried out. ‘You left us at the mercy of Sartya,’ the eldest said. ‘We saw evil in its rule. The ways of peace and enlightenment you taught us could not take root in such a world.’ His hand tightened visibly on his staff. ‘It had to be cleansed.’
The blade disappeared from Char’s throat. The woman who’d held it slumped on the earth, a throwing knife buried in her neck. Ma held another two in her hands, ready to hurl – she’d used the distraction to free him.
‘Kill her,’ the emperor said and the Sartyans converged on Ma. Char watched his eyes sweep over the soldiers of the Republic, gathered behind Hagdon. ‘Kill them all.’
Iresonté whistled again and more stealth force stepped out of the air, right in the middle of Hagdon’s forces. They dropped their ambertrix cloaks, drew their daggers, and a dozen soldiers were down before Hagdon could begin to shout a warning.
A swarm of red-armoured Sartyans surrounded Ma, and the dualakat came to meet them. Char had no time to dwell on her revelations or what they meant – he found himself facing the remaining members of the stealth force who’d first captured him – two men and a woman, he thought. Black masks concealed much of their faces. He drew his kali sticks, a pair of ironwood ones Ma had given him only this morning. Three on one. He didn’t like the odds, not against stealth-force.
The men darted at him, one from each side. They attacked with assassin’s tools, stilettos, the metal slightly discoloured at the edge – poisoned, Char realized with dismay. The odds against him lengthened. He parried one blade and just managed to twist his body aside before the second scored his shoulder. The tip snagged in the fabric of his shirt, tearing it. They didn’t wait for him to recover, but moved in to flank him; Char turned a circle, trying to keep them in sight. Rain slicked the smooth sticks in his hands. Unlike his opponents, he was hoodless; water dripped into his eyes.
There was a flash and Kait appeared behind the woman. She thrust with a flaming scimitar and Char watched it burst from the woman’s chest. She cried out. Kait kicked her, pulled her blade free, whirling to face one of the men who’d been stalking Char. His odds improved, Char grinned. Spinning a kali stick in his hand, he lashed out, managed to catch the man across his forearm. Bone cracked, his opponent hissed and even Char was surprised. Ma had not been lying about the ironwood.
Kait’s blades half cauterized the wounds they made. Even the rain couldn’t dampen the stink of burned flesh. She was gradually whittling her opponent down; Char glimpsed a dozen gashes in his light armour. He parried a blow from his own adversary, slipping from form to form, as Ma had taught him. Offence, defence, offence, offence – his strikes grew faster and he knew the man was barely keeping up. Char found an open ing and he took it, jabbing the end of his kali stick at the man’s throat in the same move Ma had used on him so many weeks ago.
His opponent choked, automatically clapping a hand to his injured neck. Char brought the other stick up fast, knocked the poisoned blade aside, sent it spinning through the air. Then he cracked the man’s skull and the stealth-force agent crumpled.
He turned to help Kait and saw everything in a tableau, as if events were unfolding with agonizing slowness. The Wielder’s teeth were bared in a snarl of triumph, her opponent sprawled at her feet. The dropped stiletto had landed near the woman Kait had stabbed; she reached for it and – in a last surge of strength – slashed it across Kait’s knee.
It was a weak blow, just a scratch, and even as Char watched, the stealth-force woman fell back dead. Kait looked down at her knee, the grin sliding off her lips. Her scimitars hissed and faded, as if extinguished by the rain. She put out a hand to steady herself, but there was nothing to hold on to and she collapsed beside the dead woman.
‘Kait!’
Char could hear Nediah fighting his way through the melee to reach her. Kait’s breathing was laboured, her face very pale. ‘Aberration,’ came a voice and a Sartyan made for Kait, sword naked in his hand. Char threw himself at the Sartyan, caught the stroke as it fell and, with a flick of his wrist, disarmed him. The loss of his sword only stalled the man for a moment. He drew a pair of daggers from his belt … and a hand axe whistled past Char’s nose to take the soldier in the head. Char cursed and turned in time to see Hagdon give him a nod as he plunged back into the fight.
‘Kait.’ Nediah dropped down beside her. What with the fighting and the rain, the ground was swiftly turning to mud; it coated Char’s boots. ‘I’ll cover you,’ he said to Nediah as the Wielder knelt over Kait, his hands glowing.
The sky thundered and the rain grew heavier, throwing a curtain over the scene. Char looked for Kyndra and couldn’t find her. Sartyan bodies lay beside those of the Republic, comrades in death, if not in life. The battlefield was a patchwork of red and black, punctuated by grey figures. The dualakat scythed through the Sartyans, wind pulling their bandages loose, revealing the odd hand or face. Although the emperor had the greater numbers, he was pressed on both sides, caught between the dualakat and the Republic. Char could see him fighting not far away, that blue ambertrix blade drawing lines of fire in the air.
‘Nediah,’ Kait murmured.
‘Hush.’
‘I’m … glad you found me … before –’
‘You’re not going to die,’ Nediah said.
‘You would know,’ Kait breathed and she fainted.
Char stared at her. ‘Is she going to be all right?’
‘I hope so,’ the Wielder said. ‘I think I found all the poison in time.’ He made a disgu
sted gesture at the stiletto and it shattered.
‘Have you seen Kyndra?’
Nediah gave him a searching look and Char belatedly realized how fearful he sounded. Worried about a Starborn, he chided himself, but he was. In a battle, even the slightest hesitation could mean disaster. And Kyndra had hesitated before. Despite the death and dying around him, a memory of her lips on his returned to him in a rush and his insides twisted, as he scanned the battlefield and failed to find her.
Nediah bent to pick Kait up. ‘I’ll weave her a shield and come back.’
Char was searching through the ranks of the Republic, trying to spot Kyndra’s red hair amongst all the black-feathered cloaks. The clash of metal on metal filled his ears and the rain ran into his face. He wiped his eyes clear, looked again.
Nediah straightened, Kait’s limp form in his arms. His face blanched. ‘Char!’ he cried.
Char began to turn, but found he couldn’t. Something was stopping him and he looked down. A full foot of steel protruded from his chest, blue light flashing and flaring about it. Bemused, he blinked at it, wondering how it came to be there. The light hummed through his body. He glanced up … and saw Kyndra. Life had a cruel sense of humour. She was staring at him, wearing the horror he knew he ought to feel.
Someone shoved him; the metal disappeared from his chest in a gush of black blood. As Char fell to his knees, he heard an exclamation and managed to turn his head. The ruler of Sartya stood above him, studying his sword … which was now only a sword, its blue energy gone. Char could have told him where – he felt the ambertrix inside him. It was the rage, the same force he’d held off for three years. He raised a hand to his face, watching as his skin rippled and began to tear. Through his fingers, he saw Kyndra and, as the rage flung him into a dark place of pain, the last thing he knew was regret.
