by Jenna Rhodes
• • •
Bistane raised his head, blinking as blood ran down into one eye, searching through the figures circling him, all his hope centered on the Andredia as he watched Lara sink below the surface. Did he see a glint of metal buried in her shoulder? Had he struck home, clear and clean? Such a small bit of metal, scarcely more than a hand’s length, his dart. Had he hit home, or had he finally lost her? Or would the River Andredia claim her as its right?
Her body floated limply as it was borne away by the river, drifted out of sight, turning over and over, her face above the surface and then under. Above. Under. Above . . . Surely she had stopped bleeding, although red ribbons laced the water behind her. He craned his neck to watch her still form.
A last boot toe to the side of his head smashed in torment, and blackness flashed through him, bearing him into the dark.
• • •
Bregan Oxfort lay, spent, as the bridge arched over him and he sobbed into his forearm at his failure to destroy the Way. When he raised his eyes, his blurred gaze fell on Rakka which had fallen back to earth not far from him. He began crawling to it, determined to raise it one last time, if his failing body allowed him, one last blow at the blasphemous doorway from other Gods to his Gods and nearly reached it when a boot planted itself in his back and held him flat. The sole and heel ground into his spine.
“Sorry,” Tressandre told him, as she bent past and picked up the war hammer. “No one denies me what I want anymore.”
Her smell, her Undead musty odor, filled his nostrils as he turned his head about, trying to catch her in his vision where he would pin her, Bregan hoped, like an unwary insect. But she would have none of it. He had no hold on her, the Gods skittering away from both of them. She hefted the hammer high. Her eyes of jade that were rimmed in black glinted. “When you see them, tell your Gods they have no heirs to this world. It is now mine.”
The Hammer fell and Bregan felt his elven brace jerk out as though it might save him yet, and that was the last he knew but for one last, agonizing spear of pain that tore him away.
• • •
Tressandre looked up to the bridge, uncertain if she wished to open the Way further or destroy it—if either was in her power. She gripped Rakka in her hands before shaking off a bit of the gore that had once been part of the mad Mageborn Bregan and strode to the base of the pathway. The slope was not considerable and yet enough that she could not see clearly through the portal, at what loomed behind Cerat. Two shady silhouettes struggled at the demon’s feet, two figures locked in combat, not with each other but with her new lord. What would happen if she attacked the bridge with Rakka? Would she open the gateway further or slam it shut? And which would give her the most advantage? She was no Returnist wanting to return to the unknown, but she might willingly welcome a powerful ally, someone else to worship at her feet.
Cold hells, indeed, Tressandre thought. She was no virgin to stand about bewailing her fate and whatever might await her. She drew the hammer up and dropped it as hard as she could, fueled with her Undead fury and power, upon the Way.
It sounded.
A note of the deepest, purest timbre came from the depths of the stone and bones of Kerith, rising and striking, with one clear and pure echo after it. Now that, she had time to think, was how Gods should call. As the bridge widened and firmed its approach upon Larandaril, Tressandre recognized the two who fought to hold Cerat back.
Lariel had only been the first and greatest of her enemies to fall. These two would be next. Tressandre threw her shoulders back, drew up the hammer, and began to climb the bridge after them.
• • •
She hurt. The Andredia lapped about Lara, over her body and occasionally over her face, cleansing her gently, but it did not take the pain from her. She hurt until death, and even that did not seem as if it could soothe her. The Cold Lady rejected her, pushing her back into agony, pain that she could not push away. The current of the river, slow and easy, barely moving, turned her over and her eyes came open, looking through the water to the stones at the river’s bottom. How polished and perfect they looked, even with small minnows swimming among them and waving bits of grass and reed. Daughter. A soft, even voice washed through her, one she thought she might have heard many decades ago but could not be sure. It eased her fears, took away the hurt, rocked her in its sincerity and serenity. If the Andredia had a voice, it must surely be this one until Lara remembered the river in its full flood and fury after heavy rains and snow melt, when nothing wise should stand in its way. Few things could exist in the face of that much power. The voice must be different in those times even as it spoke to her now. Daughter, the waters murmured again, this time with a faint shaming tone. She remembered she both loved and feared her great river.
But the pain thrummed back into her and Lara flipped face up again, unable to move, or even breathe, though it seemed as though she did because her ribs sent a lance of agony with every movement as she gasped for air. One prick hurt her more than all the others, deeper than the other wounds, blade still buried within her. She did not wish to move, only sleep, and let the Andredia carry her wherever it wished, even out of Larandaril and all the way to the sea. She would sleep wherever Tranta slept, dear lost friend, and even as she thought that, she thought of those she would leave behind.
If she slept that final sleep, she would lose Bistane. Evar and Merri. Nutmeg and all the other Farbranches. Dayne, Farlen, and her troopers. The names stretched on in her mind, all those she’d cared for, even if only as a commander of a great and demanding House. Too many to lose. She was not ready.
Lara wrenched an arm and hand out of complacency, reaching for that thorn buried deep in her shoulder, the thorn that kept her from dying and yet kept her from coming back to the life that the Andredia poured into her. With a tug that tore at her, she pulled the small dagger free and let it drop to the river’s bottom. Even as she did, she could feel the soothing touch of liquid cleansing her, restoring her, healing her. The river rushed in to embrace her fully.
Lara came wide awake, dreaming no more. Alive still. And fighting. She rolled over and began to swim, one slow stroke after another, her boots dragging at her ankles, her chain mail and leathers fighting to weigh her down, but she toed the shallows soon enough and stood at the river’s edge, soaking wet. Behind her the doorway and bridge to other lands gleamed and roared with the sound and smell of battle and fire, and the very rocks of the valley echoed with the great noise. She wished she had not dropped the dagger now, small as it was. She would have to pick up something useful on the way back.
As she walked, the trees lining the river bent close to shadow her figure, arching their branches over her, a roof of protection from all who might see her on the edge of the Andredia.
• • •
Evarton burst into the clearing ahead of them, Merri on his heels and Dayne had to rein back the mule hard before it jolted Rufus following them. He put a hand out and grasped Rufus by the shoulder firmly.
Rufus said nothing, but his eyes flew open and he pulled himself up in the saddle. “The river.”
“And more.” Dayne did not like the scene on the far side of the river, black and silver fighting with blue and gold. The eye in the sky stood wide open, unblinking save for the figures that barreled through on the arch it birthed, fighting men, with gaunt faces and little more than rags for clothes, guttural shouts uttered from their throats. “What manner of men are those?”
Rufus rolled a Bolger eye. “No manner,” he answered. “Fight or be killed.” He took the mule’s reins up in his gnarled hands, tearing the lead away from Verdayne, clamped his boot heel to his mount and charged across the river, spray flying. In dismay, Verdayne started after and halted in front of the two young riders. Merri stood in her stirrups, pointing.
“Mama! Just like I seen her!”
“Saw,” muttered Evar who also stood in his
saddle. Both their high-pitched voices raised in shouts. “Mama! Here! Over here!” Their hands waved wildly to catch her eye. Dayne kicked his horse in between them, saying, “Not now, not now!” his heart in his throat as he wheeled around, watching Tressandre ild Fallyn, a massive war hammer in her hand, close in on where Nutmeg stood, blocking the bottom of the portal’s bridge, a small, fluttering bit of white clutched firmly in her Dweller hand.
“Stay here.”
Both of them answered as one. “No.”
“You have to stay here!”
Merri closed her lips tightly and got that light in her eyes, the one he knew so well, an echo of her mother’s stubborn gleam. She shook her head. “No.”
“I’ve no time to argue!” He could see Rufus skidding the mule to a halt and his bailing out of the saddle, more a fall than a jump, his wounds hampering him.
“It’s just like I saw,” Merri added. “Except the general with the white hair and really blue eyes.”
Another chill went through Verdayne. “Who?”
“You know,” Evar told him. “You know.”
“You saw this. Merri did, I didn’t. I saw the River Lady, though. Several times.”
Dayne couldn’t think.
They’d been nonstop chattering at him since he rescued them. He’d freed Rufus stealthily, and the two of them had laid low the five ild Fallyn at the camp. Hard work, but Evar had used a bit of his Talent and Merri had turned her healing on Rufus though without much result. The old Bolger had taken mortal wounds, and she’d only put off the inevitable. The night and half day’s ride had filled Dayne’s ears—and his heart. He had been hard put to match the two children to the two toddlers who’d been taken, but it was them, aged beyond reason over a mere summer, and he knew them. They told him stories of labor and mistreatment and loneliness and fear and hope. And now Evar looked at him with the expression of a wise, old soul despite his seeming six years, and Dayne believed him. He knew who the man with the shock of snow-white hair had to be.
The ghost of his father who haunted Bistane’s footsteps was somewhere on the field, amid the chaos, amid the death, himself undeniably still a force among the living.
“Where?”
Merri and Evar scanned the havoc across the river. Then Evar pointed a grubby finger. “There! He’s sitting on something. He’s like . . . he’s like a boulder in the river. The fighting just parts around him as if no one can see or touch him.”
Dayne sighted along the gesture, and then caught the division in the pitched battle outside the squatters’ camp, a blur he could not distinguish above a fallen figure. He knew the leathers, though, or thought he did, on the body.
Bistane, lying face down in the trampled grass, as still as death itself.
Dayne’s thoughts went skittering as he saw Tressandre close on Nutmeg, and his love swing about, a small blade in one hand, white fluttering bit of something in her other, skip back even as Rakka swung through the air, just barely missing her. She slashed out, low even for a Dweller, catching Tressandre across the top of her knees, before falling back as the ild Fallyn struggled to regain her balance and pull the hammer back into position again.
A yodeling challenge split the air, a Bolger cry as primitive as the old chief could manage, as he charged Tressandre and Nutmeg.
Dayne could hold back no longer.
“Stay here!” he demanded as he put heels to his mount.
“No,” they answered again. “Rufus and the old Vaelinar will keep us safe.” And they set their horses at his heels, splashing through the Andredia after him.
• • •
Nutmeg saw Rivergrace and Sevryn as Cerat drove them backward along the arch.
Within the demon, she could see Quendius, dissolved and merged to Cerat’s flesh. He roared as Cerat did. As he lowered his head and bowed his shoulders, making ready to charge, his face changed, melting and re-forming, then melting again, as the maddened eyes of the demon Cerat looked down at her. The God sparks he shed were like a blacksmith’s when he hammered hot metal, rivers of malevolence flowing about him.
“Home!” he bellowed, and her ears rang with it, and her courage fled.
But not entirely. She looked up and heard her sister cry with resolve. “Hold him!” and the two, side by side, presented their flanks and raised their blades, and set their feet in determination. The Undead boiled at Cerat’s back, tumbling through the portal and falling from the arch, heedless, to the land below. Most got up, growling and ready to fight. A few lay too broken to move.
Nutmeg’s hands trembled so wildly she nearly dropped Bistel’s words. She looked down and curled her fingers tighter about the sentence that promised the Unmaking of a Way. She didn’t know if she could power them, but she could read and speak those words. Still grasping her knife, she scanned the Vaelinaran cursive, praying for justice. Justice that would undo all that Trevilara and Daravan had done. Justice that would protect Kerith and those she loved. A wind rose around her. She felt Tressandre and jumped in fear and reaction as Rakka swept past her. Those maddened ild Fallyn eyes, not so different from the demon raging above them, caught her. She slashed back in defense, low, where the wound would not be mortal unless she hit a major artery but where she could hurt and slow her opponent down. She stumbled backward again as Tressandre hissed wildly and regained her balance.
She heard the shout—Dayne, crying in alarm, “Nutmeg!”
But it was Rufus who tackled her and bounded up with a growl, throwing his body between hers and Tressandre ild Fallyn as the war hammer Rakka swung wildly through the air. It connected with a solid thud, cracking bone and splitting skin.
His body bowed at the hit and he staggered back with a low moan, but he stayed up and reached out, wrapping his leathery hands, hands strengthened and toughened by decades of work at a forge, and he held on.
Tressandre screamed as she tried to wrestle the hammer back, setting her heels and pulling. Nutmeg, still raw from the demon trying to turn her inside out, could feel Tressandre’s strength, mined from the dark magic that ran in her veins in the place of blood. Cerat leaned out of the portal to give a laugh of approval, and they locked eyes a moment. He bowled a handful of soldiers through the doorway, even as his bulk shuffled forward, pushing Rivergrace and Sevryn back. Their blows sliced him, his flesh healing before they even pulled back, and he howled in joy. Flames followed him.
Nutmeg felt herself pulled away from the fight, the hands on her firm but small and slender like her own and she looked up into Dayne’s face. Her smile that blossomed lasted but a second before she said, “Cover me.”
He did not ask why. He made certain she stood firm on her feet before he turned his back to her and prepared to take on all comers, even the Undead who had been thrown past Rivergrace and Sevryn and now came running down the bridge, brown and jagged teeth bared, rusted swords in their hands.
Rufus groaned from deep in his throat as the sinews stood out on his wiry arms and blood began to flow from wounds that had barely stopped bleeding, his leather apron going red and slippery as he hung on to the hammer. His foot slipped on the grass as he went down into a crouch and could not straighten again, and Tressandre’s face blazed in victory.
“It is mine.” And she clenched her jaw before giving one last, all-powerful tug to the hammer, all her attention and all her rage focused on the Bolger.
Rufus let go.
He did not want to, but two Undead lunged at him headfirst and he found himself impaled on a pair of blades that nailed him to the ground, his throat bared to their grinning faces. His body failed him as he struggled to free himself. He could smell that they were not men. He could smell the corrupted flesh and blood that surrounded them. He let out a last bellow of Bolger courage and tried to get up, fighting to the last, because he could not give up. A vision of light blond hair, adrift on the wind, and blue upon blue eyes, filled him as
he fell back one last time. He wanted it to be his Little Flower, his Rivergrace, but it was not.
• • •
“Die again, Tressandre ild Fallyn,” a soft, determined voice said behind her as Tress waved the hammer high.
Tressandre pivoted, bringing Rakka about, but Lara stood inside her swing, face-to-face, sword in hand. They grappled before Tressandre shoved her away and bent back to aim the hammer. She feinted with the effort, kicking up and out, catching Lara in the throat and driving her to her knees. Choking, Lara took the fall all the way to the ground, rolling and coming up to her feet even as Rakka thundered down where she had just been. Lara reached out, her hand skimming the hammer head as Tressandre began to pull it back. With a grimace and a smothered cry, she pulled something from the weapon, something not quite visible, something wily and spitting and oily smelling, swung it about and threw it into the Andredia where it hit with a smoking hiss. Ripples thrashed wildly in the river until something uncoiled and sank unseen. The hammer itself twisted in Tressandre’s hand as she nearly dropped it, the weight and balance upset. Tressandre’s eyes flashed coal-dark. She shook her head, dark-honey hair bouncing off her shoulders, and set her feet. She swung, much faster and quicker, catching Lara off guard. Lara plunged to her left, but not in time. The war hammer hit home, hard enough to stagger her back on her heels.
She tightened her grip on her sword. As Rakka raked across her, she made a noise through her teeth and swung about, turning even as the shaft bounced off her shoulder. Lara wrapped her other hand about her first, lunged forward, and buried her sword to the hilt in Tressandre’s throat. She made a great thrust and then a slice, taking off her head.
Tressandre’s head bounced to the ground, mouth opened in a soundless cry. Lara kicked it away from the body and picked up the war hammer. She pointed at Dayne as he caught up with her, Nutmeg across his horse’s flank.
