by David Benem
A horrid shriek sounded—a Necrist dying.
“No!” screamed Fane. He turned, withdrawing his blade from Lannick’s throat and brandishing it toward the blazes beyond.
Lannick swooned from the deep wound in his belly, in his shoulder, near his hip. His eyes blurred and the thickening smoke seared and choked the lungs.
But he drew upon all the power of his Coda and all the depths of his grief.
And he rose.
Fane stood just before him, back turned as he seemed to search for his Necrist allies.
Lannick plunged his blade into the general’s back, just beneath the neck. The man tensed and twitched then sank to the floor, sliding off Lannick’s blade as he did.
Lannick looked upon Fane’s corpse, emotion welling within him. Tears filled his eyes and he fell again to his knees.
He coughed, pressed a hand to his abdomen, then slumped to the floorboards.
Lannick felt himself hoisted and jostled by ungentle hands. His head listed about and his toes dragged across the ground. He sensed sunlight upon him.
“Get clear!” shouted a gruff voice. “Get fucking clear!”
Lannick forced open his eyes. All the city burned and panicked soldiers ran everywhere. The streets were chaos.
“They’ve toppled the walls!” shouted one red-sashed soldier charging near. “The Arranese have breached the city!”
Lannick rolled his head from side to side. He saw Arleigh and Kaldare hefting him along, soot-covered faces scowling. Cudgen and Kaldare’s man Yurick flanked them.
“Og…” Lannick breathed. “Ogrund?”
“Head north!” barked Kaldare. “North! This city is lost!”
“Ogrund?” Lannick wheezed with scalded lungs.
Arleigh looked to him. “Ogrund died getting us free of that furnace. He died saving you.”
29
A NEW BEGINNING
Fencress Fallcrow flicked the reins of her horse, grimacing against the morning gloom. Riverweave appeared a mess of smoldering embers and steaming stink, and she didn’t fancy lingering any longer than necessary.
“Look all about, boys,” she said. “The whole city’s been burned to the ground, but this place always held plenty of riches. Thieves have far keener eyes than soldiers so I wager we’ll chance upon some overlooked loot. Perhaps more than enough to make a new beginning for ourselves when we return to Raven’s Roost.”
Drenj rubbed at his dark eyes and looked about the wreckage, lips trembling and nerves very clearly frayed. “You’re certain they’re gone?”
Fencress tugged at her cowl and stared northward. Dead bodies, hot ashes, and the burned-out bones of buildings seemed all that was left of Riverweave. “Long gone,” she nodded. “The Arranese are making quick work of Rune’s army, and I reckon all Rune’s nobles will be bending knees to that Spider King by the time this is over. Which is why we should grab what we can and get clear of here. Lickety-split, nice and quick.”
“Bending knees to the Spider King, unless…” said Paddyn, voice whistling though his missing tooth. “Unless Karnag defeated him. Like he said he would.”
Fencress frowned and thought on things. “Well, if Karnag’s bested that giant bastard then he’s likely leading the Arranese army or terrorizing it. Either way, he’ll not be prowling about all this rubbish and ruin.”
Drenj sniffed. “The place is a grave, Fencress. Just the sort of thing Karnag enjoys.”
“Karnag digs new graves,” she said. “He doesn’t loiter about old ones. Let’s move along.”
Many of the city’s bridges had been turned to ash, though there were still enough standing to allow them to work their way ahead. They moved farther into the city, slowly, and found the whole place a wasteland.
Fencress spied some signs of life—sad signs, but signs nonetheless—as they moved deeper into the devastation. Plenty of wounded soldiers struggling about or slumping against slain comrades. Grubby bandits hunching near the dead and picking them clean of their valuables. Desperate folk wandering wide-eyed like they’d lost everything and had no idea how to begin starting over.
And, in between, stinking canals crammed with corpses.
Fencress shook her head. “The glory of war, boys. Or rather, the shitty side of war the nobles pretend doesn’t exist. Folk left dead or destitute for riches and rewards they’ll never share.” She looked about and shook her head once more.
“There,” called Paddyn, slipping off his horse to move knee-deep in the scraps of a burned home. “Ah,” he said after a moment. “A purse with a few silver crowns is all.”
“A shame,” said Fencress. “That looked like a big house, and big houses usually mean big scores. How much have we found?”
Paddyn looked to the coins in his hand then began counting on his fingers. “Maybe thirty silver crowns? Give or take?”
“Get back on your horse,” Fencress said. “We should keep moving. We’ll get closer to the city’s center, where I recall the fat merchants have their fat mansions. I wager we’ll find something there.”
Someone screamed nearby. “My child!” a woman shrieked. “My child!”
“I don’t like this, Fencress,” said Drenj, eyes darting about. “We’ve found nothing of value beyond a handful of coin. We should head home now that we finally have a chance. We should leave this place.”
Fencress pulled away her cowl and shook black hair slicked with sweat. The air was steamy and smelled of death. She very nearly agreed to Drenj’s suggestion but felt certain they’d come upon something.
Perhaps something just ahead.
She pulled her cowl back over her head and stared to her companions. “I’ll not have our journey here be for naught. Just give it a bit longer. Then we’ll get clear.”
They moved onward, swaying as their mounts searched for footing amidst the carnage. The place felt a faint ghost of the bustling bazaar Fencress remembered from her last visit not too many years before. Now it seemed all filth and flotsam.
“I can’t manage this, Fencress,” said Drenj, shivering. “I can’t stomach all this death, not any longer and not any more.”
Fencress looked to the Khaldisian. The lad’s eyes twitched and he mumbled beneath his breath. She eased her horse closer and clasped his shoulder with a gloved hand. “Just a while longer, my friend,” she said. “Just endure this a while longer and we’ll leave.”
After a time, they came upon what appeared to have been a row of artisans’ shops, reduced now to broken frames littered with fineries turned to blackened rags. A dozen yards ahead a group of scavengers rummaged through the remains of a potter’s shop, inspecting and discarding vases and bowls, the clay shattering in the street beside them.
“There’s something,” whistled Paddyn. He leapt from his horse and ambled across ash and cinders toward the remnants of a tiny store. The Gilded Garments, read the cockeyed sign peeking from the wreckage. Paddyn reached into a pile and drew something upward, giggling with glee.
“There!” he said, holding an iron box with its lid open. The box was filled with perhaps two-dozen gold crowns. “Gold!”
Fencress straightened and beheld the scavengers with a narrow gaze, sliding her twin swords halfway from their scabbards. One looked to them with eyes agog until he spied Fencress’s weapons.
Paddyn handed over the gold, a silly smile splashed on his face.
“Well done, Paddyn,” Fencress said quietly, “but discretion is a thief’s best friend. Keep your mouth shut when you happen upon a real score.”
“Sorry, Fencress,” said Paddyn. “Excited is all.”
“It’s alright, lad,” she said, easing her weapons back inside their scabbards. “Just remember, the folk who come to the battlefield after the fighting are often worse than those who did the fighting in the first place.”
They rode past the scavengers and beyond the shops to an area of the city with broader streets and swaths of ruined timbers tucked within grounds of trampled grass. These seemed the g
reat husks of burned-out manors, perhaps the largest homes in the city.
“This, boys,” Fencress said with a smirk, “is where we’ll make this venture worth our while.”
Paddyn pointed a finger toward a massive stack of cinders and ash inside a fenced garden. “That seems the biggest one. And no bandits about it, either.”
“Let’s go,” said Fencress, tugging her gloves tight on her hands.
“P-please,” sputtered Drenj. “We should leave.” Again he seemed to talk to himself, mouth moving and head shaking.
“Not yet,” said Fencress firmly, looking toward the ruins. She forged ahead, nudging her horse along a wider street cluttered with fewer corpses and little debris.
They guided their mounts though an open gate of wrought iron then into the gardens, a mess of bent and broken flowers and flattened grass surrounding a mountain of blackened ruin.
Fencress slid off her horse. “Come on, boys,” she said with a wink. “We’ll loot this spot then leave for Raven’s Roost all the richer.”
Paddyn followed suit, Drenj a long moment after.
Paddyn rushed ahead. “A fallen chandelier! And all of it silver!”
“Remember, Paddyn,” said Fencress, pressing a gloved finger to her lips. “Discretion.”
“Right, right,” whispered the youth, admiring the tangle of metal.
Drenj tiptoed past Fencress toward the remains of a staircase, the boards toppled and burned. The Khaldisian looked down and rooted about, seeming to mumble all the while.
“Drenj, my friend?” Fencress called.
Drenj shooed a thin hand. “I… I can hear them,” he said, voice just above a whisper. He pulled something away from the rubble. Then he hunched over and wept. “I can hear them…”
Fencress looked to him, brow cocked and worry on her mind.
But then something drew her gaze.
Something near the center of the wreckage, just beside a pile of fallen bricks.
Something that called to her, something that did more than just catch the eye.
She pulled tight her cowl and stared. It appeared a trifle at this distance, a curved piece of black amidst a mess of burned things.
Yet call to her it did.
She walked closer, studying the object.
A bracelet of dark iron, unclasped and open. She stared upon it, and it beckoned.
She stood just before it and recognized it as the same sort of sorcerous instrument Merek wore, the same sort of thing Merek used to capture Karnag.
Yet, again, it called to her.
She sucked in a long breath, looking at the black metal and noticing how it seemed to reflect none of the light about. She stooped, pulled the glove off her hand, then retrieved it from the ashes.
The iron felt cool. Cold, even.
She drew it close to her other wrist, knowing somehow it was meant to fit there. Closer still, then the iron snapped shut about her arm.
A cataract of images and voices crashed within her head. She fell to a knee, hands bracing her skull and trying to keep it in a single piece.
“No!” she screamed.
Countless voices not her own, countless visions she’d never seen with her own eyes. A war between gods. Immortal warriors—Sentinels—defeating the vile god Yrghul as the gods fell to oblivion. A terrible betrayal, then a terrible sacrifice as a Sentinel poured his power and blood into the metal objects—the Codas.
And after, a tireless vigil against the ever-present dark.
Fencress wrapped a hand about the Coda, the object glowing a dull green. She heard the voices, beheld the visions.
And one thing above all troubled her.
“Karnag…” she whispered. “What have you done?”
NEXT IN THE SEQUENCE:
THE CONCLUSION OF THE TRILOGY
THE RUIN
OF HEROES
A REQUIEM FOR HEROES,
BOOK THREE
COMING SOON
