by James Wyatt
At the front of the Aundairian charge, a tattered green banner rode amid a ragtag group of what looked like Eldeen militia-like a herd of cattle driven to slaughter ahead of the regular troops. A figure draped in red near the banner caught Gaven's eye and made his heart leap in his chest. It was Rienne.
"For the Reaches!" Cressa screamed.
"For the Wood!" came the cry in answer, three hundred voices managing a ragged unison. That was Rienne's army-making up in fervent enthusiasm what they lacked in training and discipline. Rienne's heart swelled.
The blue dragon wheeled in the air and began another pass over the Blasphemer's forces, flying low and battering the barbarians with thunder and lightning. She didn't dare to hope-
But then she saw him, standing tall on the dragon's back, streaming bolts of lightning linking him to the sky and to the ground. Gaven was here after all, wreathed in storm like a vengeful god of thunder, smiting the Blasphemer with his wrath. She watched him fly overhead, tears filling her eyes.
The momentum of the charge carried her forward, and Maelstrom sprang to life as she reached the first ranks of the barbarian horde. The Blasphemer's forces were in disarray, still reeling from the assault of Gaven and his dragon. Maelstrom cut a swath through them, and the Readers behind her fought with surprising ferocity, inspired by her example.
Cressa still held the tattered banner in one hand, and she clutched a light sword in the other. She seemed to fight as much with her voice as with her weapon. She shouted encouragement to Rienne and the rest of the forces in earshot-her high, clear voice carried far over the din of battle-and occasionally she struck a telling blow with her little blade. But everyone around her, even Rienne, seemed to fight harder because of her.
Rienne let Maelstrom do its work, and the barbarians fell away before her. She scanned the battlefield for the Blasphemer, conserving her strength for that final confrontation. She saw Gaven's dragon alight on the ground, the storm still swirling around it, and took comfort in knowing that she would not be alone.
Aunn hurdled the balcony railing and tried to brace himself for the impact of hitting the ground. He landed clear of the guards below and let his forward momentum carry him into a roll. After turning several times on the hard stone floor, he got up running to where Vec still stood over the queen's body, fencing with two of the queen's failed protectors.
Blood pooled on the floor beneath the queen, spreading quickly across the smooth marble as her heart pumped its last beats. Aunn breathed a desperate prayer as he ran, imploring the Silver Flame to close her wound and preserve her life.
Vec grinned at him as he drew closer-which meant that the assassin didn't see the faint silver glow hovering over the queen, or the slight stirring of her head and hand that told Aunn she would survive the attack.
Still grinning, Vec dropped his unremarkable killer's face and took on the blank gray and white of his natural form-which was practically indistinguishable from Aunn's face, at least to the human eyes of the palace guards. He laughed, a high-pitched cackle, as his dagger slashed across the throat of one of the guards. Before the dead man could fall to the ground, Vec yanked his body into the path of the other soldier, who stumbled back. Vec's dagger flashed, blood spattered on the floor, and both guards fell lifeless to the ground.
The nearest guards dead, Vec just waited for Aunn to draw closer-close enough that the pursuing guards would have trouble distinguishing them. Of course, Aunn doubted that the guards would even care which changeling they killed.
Rather than get close enough to use his mace to wipe Vec's grin from his face, Aunn pulled the crossbow from his back, cocked a bolt, and traced a few quick sigils on the shaft with his finger. The steps of the guards pursuing him grew louder-they were almost upon him, despite the weight of their armor. He loosed the bolt with a whispered prayer that it would strike true.
Vec was ready for it, and nearly dodged out of the way. The bolt just grazed his shoulder, though, and it erupted with writhing tentacles of gleaming silver light that coiled around Vec and rooted him to the ground. Aunn sprang back into a run, and in a few seconds he was beside Vec, standing over the body of Queen Aurala.
"Aunn, my friend," Vec said, his mocking grin replaced with an exaggerated simper, "free me, and we can still escape these buffoons."
"Friend?" Aunn said. "I doubt you know the meaning of the word." He bent down to check on the queen, opened a knot of magic to send healing power into her wounds-and then remembered that he didn't have a wand in hand. He looked down at his hands, perplexed.
The pouch where he kept his wands was empty-they must have spilled out in his fall. He'd had one in his hand on the balcony, but that was gone as well. So how had he healed the queen?
"Brother!" Vec cried, his eyes suddenly wide with fear. "Don't do this!"
"I am not your brother." Yes, there was magic in his hands, magic unlike the knots of power in his wands. Perhaps it came from the torc around his neck, or maybe it came from the Silver Flame or Tira Miron, from Vor or Dania as their spirits added their brightness to the Flame. Kalok Shash burns brighter.
"But you are! Kelas told me we were born of the same mother. And he always demanded to know why I couldn't be as good a spy as you, my brother."
Aunn looked at Vec with loathing. Was he lying? Had Kelas lied to him? Or was it true, that the same blood flowed in Aunn's veins as in Vec's?
The queen's eyes fluttered open just as the palace guard finally reached him. Two soldiers grabbed Vec's arms while a third held a sword to his throat, and two more seized Aunn and dragged him away from the queen.
"Stop!" Aurala commanded, and the soldiers froze. "Help me to my feet."
Aunn watched as two soldiers took the queen's arms-far more gently than those still holding him-and lifted her up from the ground. She had a reputation for beauty, and Aunn could see why. Her skin was as smooth and white as alabaster, and her hair was like gold spun into gossamer thread. She wore a velvet gown of rich green, and jewelry of thin gold wire wrapped in exquisite patterns around emeralds. Once she was back on her feet, she was a commanding presence-her authority came from more than the crown on her high brow. Aunn could think of a dozen reasons to hate her, but he was glad he saved her, and he fell to his knees before her, surprising the soldiers who held his arms.
"Two changelings came uninvited this day into my audience hall," Aurala said. "One to kill, and one to save. All beneath a darkened sun, even as the barbarian forces reach my western border. What am I to make of these portentous events?"
"Your highness, you are not yet safe," Aunn said. "Mercenaries loyal to the conspirators are battling your palace guards in the courtyard outside. You should find a more secure refuge."
"Who are you?" the queen asked him.
He dared to look up and meet her questioning gaze. "I am Aunn."
CHAPTER 43
Gaven slid off the dragon's back, gripping his sword in one hand and the dragonshard in the other as thunder crashed and lightning struck the ground at his feet. With a syllable of power, his sword erupted with crackling lightning that drew a bolt down from the sky to course through him. Each step he took brought a rumble of thunder, and when he swung his sword at the nearest barbarian, steel and lightning and thunder combined to smite the man, hurling him back and killing him before he hit the ground.
"Rienne!" he shouted, but thunder drowned out his voice.
With a growl that shook the sky, he swung his sword in an arc that cut through three men and sent their bodies flying away from him. He whirled the sword over his head, and a funnel of wind swirled around him, expanding until it caught the nearest barbarians and tossed them off their feet. Lightning shot through the walls of swirling wind, coursing through the barbarians caught in the maelstrom.
"The maelstrom swirls around me," Gaven said in a voice of thunder. He spun in a circle, holding his sword at arm's length, and killed five more barbarians. "I am the storm and the eye of the storm." Forking branches of lightning shot
out from the dragonshard to engulf another half-dozen. "A storm such as the world has never seen," he added, echoing Shakravar's words.
A blast of fire erupted around Gaven, pouring down from the mouth of a red dragon hovering above him. Gaven's whirlwind caught the flames and drew them away from him, but the infernal heat seared his skin and burned his eyes. He blindly pointed the dragonshard at where he'd seen the dragon and sent more lightning hurtling in that direction. When his vision cleared, he saw the dragon on the ground, striding toward him through a mass of barbarians that parted like water before it. It was almost as large as Shakravar, and the scales on its belly were like polished rubies.
"I know you," the dragon rumbled in Draconic. "Storm Dragon. You destroyed the Dragon Forge."
Gaven remembered the three dragons flying up from the wreckage of the Dragon Forge. The first and smallest breathed its fire at him, but his lightning impaled it and his wind would not let it fly, and it crashed into the wreckage of the forge and lay still. The other two escaped, and the third was the largest, its belly gleaming brilliant red in the light of the storm as it flew off to the west.
He answered the dragon with a blast of lightning that danced over its scales and teeth but didn't slow its advance.
"Now the Blasphemer has come," the dragon continued, "to scour the earth."
"The Blasphemer has come to meet his doom," Gaven said in the Common tongue. "Just as you have met yours."
"My fate is immaterial. But the Blasphemer's time has not yet come. Yours are the words he unspeaks, yours the song he unsings."
"Enough of this. Have you come to fight me or taunt me with the Prophecy?"
"Both," the dragon said.
"Don't you want to let the Blasphemer unspeak my words before you kill me?"
"I am under no illusion that I will be the one to kill you, Storm Dragon." The dragon leaped at him, spewing fire from its mouth as it came-fire that bathed Gaven in searing agony. "But I do intend to hurt you," it added.
The tide of the battle seemed to conspire against Rienne. She tried to make her way to where she had seen Gaven's dragon alight on the ground, but Maelstrom's dance of death seemed to lead her in any direction but that one. She grew convinced that the blade was seeking the Blasphemer again and would tolerate no distraction.
Dragons flew overhead, raining fire and lightning down on the Aundairians as the full force of the army crashed against the barbarian horde. She saw one of the dragons-the largest she'd ever seen, except the one Gaven had ridden-loose a mighty blast of flame in the general area where she thought Gaven was, and her suspicion was confirmed by a tremendous blast of lightning erupting up from the ground. The red dragon landed, and Cressa shouted encouragement to Lady Dragonslayer as she started in that direction.
Rienne smiled to herself, glad that Cressa was beside her-against all likelihood. Somehow the girl had survived the battle at her side, enduring one barbarian attack after another, shouting encouragement until Rienne grew convinced that real magic flowed in Cressa's voice, healing and strengthening her for the battle. Rienne held little hope for the outcome of the battle, even after seeing Gaven, but she breathed a prayer to the nine Sovereigns, asking them to keep Cressa safe from harm.
Fire and thunder, lightning and howling wind testified to the battle raging out of Rienne's sight, behind apparently impenetrable walls of her barbarian foes. Maelstrom cut and killed in Gaven's direction, pulled her sideways to parry an attack and cut again, and the dance drew her in a new direction.
She saw a bone-white banner, whipped by the wind of Gaven's storm, marked by a twisted rune painted in blood. Maelstrom was drawing her toward that point, so at last she succumbed. Her blade wanted her to fight the Blasphemer, and her dream suggested that she was destined to slay him. So slay him she would.
Gaven spoke a hasty spell that bathed his body in cool flames, offering him some protection from the heat of the dragon's fire. Then the dragon was upon him, its claws slashing through the air toward him. He jabbed his sword between two claws, drawing a spurt of sizzling, steaming blood, but the blow still connected, cutting across Gaven's chest and sending him flying backward.
Gaven's pain erupted in a blast of thunder that threw the dragon back as well. His eyes flashed and lightning speared down through the roaring dragon. The winds around him picked up speed, howling as they tore at the dragon's wings.
Shakravar rode the whirlwind down and slammed into the other dragon, teeth and all four claws digging into its red-scaled hide. Gaven engulfed both dragons in a mighty burst of lightning streaming out from his hands and his mouth, and taking shape from the blood that welled in the wounds across his chest. Even Shakravar, whose breath was lightning and whose wings were thunder and wind, staggered back under the force of the assault, and the red dragon wailed in agony as wave after wave of lightning coursed over its body.
"Find the Blasphemer, Gaven!" Shakravar growled.
The red dragon folded its wings and rolled onto its back, bringing its claws around to scrabble against Shakravar's armored belly. Shakravar caught the red's mouth with one claw and wrenched its head back, then bit into its exposed neck and tore out its throat. Gaven stepped back, deciding to take the dragon's advice and continue looking for the Blasphemer-and Rienne.
The bulk of the Aundairian forces had closed the gap while Gaven faced the dragon, and bodies in Aundairian blue lay alongside those in the leather and fur of the Carrion Tribes, their blood flowing together on the gore-slick ground. As the wind whipped around him, he was a still point in the center of a raging tempest, the noise of battle swept away in the whirlwind. He was seized with the sudden sense that he'd been there before-witnessed this exact scene before. A crash of thunder shook the earth, and the wind fell.
An alien, incomprehensible sound replaced all the noise of battle and the howl of the wind-a string of syllables with no meaning, sounds that signified the unmaking of the world. They tore at his ears and ripped at his mind, defying him to form sense or reason.
All around him, soldiers and barbarians fell to the earth, hands pressed to their ears, mouths wide in silent howls of agony. They parted like a subsiding flood, leaving only two figures standing in their wake.
One was Rienne-so close, no more than ten yards away-her face wrenched in pain, both hands clutching Maelstrom's hilt. Her mouth moved, forming words Gaven couldn't understand, as though their structure and meaning were her only defense against the sound of the Blasphemy.
The other figure was a tall man in bloodstained plate armor, twisting ivory horns rising from the brick-red skin of his brow. Blasphemy streamed from his mouth as he raised a flaming sword to the sky. His burning eyes fell on Rienne and anger twisted his face, and he strode toward her to cut her down.
Rienne fought her way toward the banner as Gaven's blue dragon swept out of the sky to attack the gargantuan red dragon. Maelstrom spun around her like a steel whirlwind, cutting through armor and flesh, weapons and bones. Barbarians parted before her.
An eerie quiet fell over the battlefield and time seemed to slow. The only sound that reached her ears was the inhuman babbling of the Blasphemer she'd heard at the Mosswood-his unearthly chant, words defying language.
Aundairians, Reachers, and Carrion Tribe barbarians fell to the ground as one, agony written on their faces as the Blasphemer's chant tore through their minds.
Rienne clutched Maelstrom tightly and screamed words of the Prophecy again, the only remedy she had found for the pain. "The Blasphemer's end lies in the void, in the maelstrom that pulls him down to darkness!"
He stood before her, and her presence and her words seemed to infuriate him. Fury burned in his eyes as he took a step toward her.
"No!" Gaven screamed. Lightning crackled across his dragonmark, now fully formed on his skin again, and crackling bolts shot to the Blasphemer, stopping him in midstride.
But the lightning didn't strike him. It coiled in blazing rings of light encircling him, and a dazzling arc bound him
to Gaven's dragonmark. The fabric of creation began to unravel in the path of the lightning. The Blasphemer turned to look at Gaven, and a twisted smile formed on his face. The sounds issuing from his mouth changed, and Gaven felt a jolt of pain in his chest, not in his dragonmark but beneath it.
His are the words the Blasphemer unspeaks, his the song the Blasphemer unsings.
Words sprang to Gaven's lips unbidden-the words inscribed in his dragon-mark, words in no mortal language, words of his being and his destiny-and the Blasphemer's voice devoured his speech. Utter silence swallowed them, the complete absence of sound at the edge of the absence of being.
A rift formed in the world, a tear in the dimensions of time and space where a tempest of raw elemental forces stormed, like an echo of the chaos before creation, the world unshaped. Devastation swirled out from that breach and washed across the battlefield, fire and lightning like no storm Gaven had ever made, boulders of ice crashing into the ground, slabs of stone wrenched from the earth and set free to crash among the gathered armies.
Gaven and the Blasphemer hung together in a space that was outside of all space, no part of the created world, a space of pure annihilation that slowly spread out around them.
A crash of thunder drowned out the sound of his Blasphemy for a blissful moment, and lightning circled the demon's towering form. A coruscating arc of lightning linked him to Gaven, to her left. Rienne almost wept with relief, seeing him so close at the moment she least wanted to be alone.
The Blasphemer turned to face Gaven. Gaven's lips moved, and a total silence fell over the world. Rienne watched in mounting horror as the air before her seemed to part, the ground split open, and chaos raged in the void. A storm of fire and ice, lightning and stone swept silently out and across the battlefield, and Rienne spun around to find Cressa huddled on the ground behind her. She crouched down beside the girl, put an arm around her shoulders, and lifted her to her feet. Tears left streaks in the dirt that caked Cressa's face, and blood trickled from both her ears.
