Ravencaller

by David Dalglish

  “Only a few minutes,” Tesmarie said. “It’s been longer than that since you sealed the cut, let alone when he first took the wound.”

  Tommy was stricken with panic. His skin looked as pale as Malik’s, and he stuttered and fumbled for solutions.

  “Adria!” he nearly screamed. “She can heal him! We need to get to her church. She’ll make everything right.”

  Tesmarie thought of Tomas trying to carry Malik in such a condition and frowned. Goddesses and dragons help them, there was no way that Malik would live through such a journey. Unless…

  “I have an idea,” she said. She clenched her fist, summoning her moonlight blade. “Be quiet, all right? This won’t be easy.”

  Tesmarie cut Malik’s robe down the middle starting at the neckline, granting her access to his chest. She took the tip of the blade and carefully began carving into his skin. Unlike a lot of other magics, manipulating time was incredibly nuanced and risky. A little bit of extra fire was not a problem for those using Aethos magic. The world would not end if you read the thoughts of the wrong person with Gloam magic. But manipulating the essence of time? Dangerous, and fraught with unforeseen consequences.

  That was why she needed the runes. From what her mother had told her, they were based on the different scales that grew upon Chyron’s magnificent emerald body. They directed the magic, gave it strict order and meaning that mere words and thoughts could not. The rune she chose would encapsulate Malik’s entire body, locking it in a flow separate from the flow of the universe.

  Assuming she didn’t mess it up. If she did, the magic might not enact properly, or at all.

  “This should do it,” she said, once the intricate carving was finished. She dismissed her sword and placed both hands atop the angry red skin. Her dark hair fell across her face as she closed her eyes and spoke the words of the spell.

  “Chyron aliu gargos.”

  Strength pulled out of Tesmarie, draining an interior reservoir of power she didn’t fully understand. A rainbow of colors flashed in seemingly chaotic order across Malik’s body. His breathing halted. His body went rigid, almost as if he were a statue. Not a hair on his head shifted. Not a single pulse of blood moved within his body.

  “What did you do?” Tommy asked.

  “I’ve stopped his time completely,” she said. “It’s like what the gargoyles do during the day. The duration isn’t long, exactly twenty minutes, but I think that’s enough to get us to Adria’s church.”

  “That’s perfect,” Tommy said. He sniffed and rubbed at his face. “We got this, you and me.”

  “That’s right!” Tesmarie chirped. “You and I, the best of teams, we can take on anything the Cradle throws at us.”

  Tommy awkwardly stood beside the time-frozen body, turning and positioning his arms multiple times before finally picking Malik up. The older man’s body slumped over Tommy’s right shoulder, and for a brief, horrible moment, it seemed Tommy would lose his grip and send Malik tumbling face-first to the floor. Tommy caught himself at the last second, and he wrapped his arms in a vise grip about Malik’s legs.

  “Oof,” Tommy said. “He’s heavier than he looks. Maybe he needs to jog a few miles every morning.”

  “Or you could do a few push-ups yourself so your arms aren’t as skinny as grass blades,” Tesmarie said. They shared a nervous laugh. A quick word from Tommy dismissed the glowing orb of light he’d summoned, and then in darkness they returned to the broken window.

  “Oh Goddesses damn it,” he muttered. “I forgot about the window.”

  Tommy effectively dropped his friend to the street in the gentlest manner that he could. Tesmarie hovered outside, keeping watch for anyone who’d want to do the two Wise harm. With time’s flow slowed about her, she’d notice any human or dragon-sired coming long before they reached Tommy. At least, that’s what she thought.

  The flash of shadow darker than the night racing in at her right said otherwise.

  Tesmarie spun in place, dropped an inch while her wings halted, and then shot back upward with her moonlight blade out and blocking. A matching blade struck hers, and she flew back a full foot as her attacker tried to drive his weapon home. The shimmering weapon cut across her arm, and she bit her tongue to bury her cry of pain. She easily parried the next two attacks, her wings matching his, neither of them willing to give an inch. At last her attacker retreated a few feet, and when she did not chase, he hovered before her and glared.

  “This treachery is shocking, even for you, Tesmarie,” the faery said. He was onyx like her, but instead of a leaf-made dress, his clothes were stitched with thread and dyed black using the bark from the oaks surrounding their home. Only his face was uncovered, revealing a thin-lipped frown, green eyes, and dreadlocked hair tied behind his head.

  “What are you doing here, Gan?” she asked. “You’re making everything worse.”

  “The Matriarch sent me here as ambassador to the Forgotten Children,” Gan said. “Finding you is just an unwelcome surprise.”

  He made a quick burst toward Tommy. Tesmarie had the better angle, and she cut him off so he’d retreat. Twice more he tried, testing her, judging her reflexes. No doubt to Tommy they were a confusing blur. After a third attempt she turned and shouted at the young man at the top of her lungs.

  “Go! Get him to safety, before you run out of time!”

  “It doesn’t matter how fast he runs,” Gan said. His moonlight blade shimmered between his fingers. “I’ll catch up to him when I’m finished with you.”

  “Stop it,” she said. “You’re a bully, always have been, always will be.”

  “A bully?” Gan glared at her. “A bully? I am the Matriarch’s Chosen Blade. I fight for the honor of our village. What are you doing here, Tes? Befriending humans? Protecting them? How dim must you be to think yourself on the correct side. The battle’s still raging. Join the righteous before it’s too late.”

  “There’s nothing righteous about any of this! Everyone’s killing everyone and I hate all of it. I just want to keep my friends safe.”

  Gan tensed his upper body like a tightening coil.

  “I see you learned nothing from your exile.”

  He exploded toward her, his moonlight blade gripped in both hands. Tesmarie shot to her left, saw him curl to match, and then spun about to block just before he cut her through. Their blades connected with a shower of sparks. His momentum carried him past her, and as he shifted and buzzed his wings to slow down, she took the offensive. Her sword slammed into his in a series of cuts, beating him back.

  “Just leave me alone,” she cried. Her fourth hit missed entirely as Gan halted his wings and dropped low. A rotation of his waist curled his legs upward. His heel caught her waist. Tesmarie groaned out her pain as she flew sideways, needing space while she recovered.

  “You’re strong, Tes,” he said. “No doubt about that. You might not be living in a stinking, crowded city of humans if you’d stop thinking with your heart for two seconds.”

  Gan was trying to sting her with words, not just his blade. The worst part was that it was working. Little diamond tears collected at the corners of her eyes.

  “Better here than with you,” she said, and wondered if she believed it.

  Gan’s shimmering blade lifted in challenge.

  “Then prove it.”

  This time Tesmarie held firm when he charged, her wings countering the force of his arrival to keep her steady in the air. She blocked his overhead chop, batted aside a follow-up, and then parried his thrust for her chest. The two had dueled only a handful of times when she lived in the onyx village. There was no doubt he’d vastly improved since obtaining the title of Chosen Blade. Most faeries would have crumbled beneath the assault, but Tesmarie was not most faeries.

  She was the Matriarch’s daughter, and she had been trained to wield her starlight weapon the moment her wings could bear her weight.

  Gan tried to keep his offensive going, but the exertion from constantly slashing and
thrusting in midair cost him his balance. His next thrust lacked power, and Tesmarie took advantage of the opening. She grabbed his wrist with her left hand and pulled. His wings fought against hers, but he could not escape. Her snap-kick to the crotch stunned him, and her follow-up heel to his abdomen knocked the breath out of him. It’d have been easy to kill him, for his body was exposed and his wings outmatched, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead she cracked her fist into his nose, breaking it.

  “Just—just leave,” she told him. “None of this is right.”

  “No,” Gan said. Blood dripped down his face and into his mouth. He spat a blue glob of it toward her. It floated toward her at a crawl, and she realized both of them had been increasing their time to match the other’s. Her heart raced within her chest. Fighting too much longer like this was dangerous. She had to end it.

  “Fine,” she said. “Then I’ll make you.”

  Tesmarie angled her body into a dive, used gravity’s aid to gain speed, and then curled up and around toward him. Gan’s stubborn pride kept him still. He wanted to face her strength. He wanted to outmatch her skill. Such a damn fool. His pride had cost her a home and a life among her own kind. Now it would cost him a limb.

  The moonlight blades were a gift from the dragons, a weapon to battle the void in a time long forgotten. They could be summoned in either hand, though most faeries learned how to wield one only in their dominant hand. Tesmarie wasn’t most faeries. She feinted an attack with her right hand, then opened her palm. The weapon faded away, only to immediately reappear into the clenched fist of her left. Gan’s sword was out of position, and panic locked him in place. Tesmarie’s blade sliced through his wrist, severing the hand and sending it on a slow, slow drop to the ground.

  Out of kindness, she left him his dominant hand. He could still be the Chosen Blade if he desired. Why she showed him mercy, when he himself would never show her any, she didn’t know. That was just the faery she wanted to be.

  “You’re beaten,” Tesmarie said as she retreated away from the screaming faery. “Leave Londheim. You—you’re not needed here.”

  Gan clutched his bleeding stump of a wrist to his chest. Shock replaced his angry glare. A rainbow of color swam around him as he relented his grip on time, and Tesmarie did likewise. The blood that spilled from his wrist fell like a slow rain.

  “You’re a traitor to your people,” he told her. “Shame and dishonor upon you, Tesmarie Nagovisi. You break your mother’s heart yet again.”

  Finally he fled. Tesmarie didn’t give chase. Instead she wiped away the flecks of diamonds from her eyes and did her best to smile.

  “All right, Tommy,” she said. “Today is just the worst, so you better be fine when I find you, or so help me, I’ll make Devin botch your reaping ritual so I can yell at your ghost.”

  CHAPTER 20

  You spoiled our ambush,” the avenria said as he stalked Jacaranda upon the rooftop. “What madness would possess you to throw your life away in such a manner?”

  “I’m just trying to keep my friends alive,” she said. “Sorry if that offends you.”

  She’d watched the initial battle between dragon-sired and humans, but instead of leaping down to join them when it was apparent they needed help, she’d found herself ambushed by her current foe. If the roof’s warped slats hadn’t groaned from his landing, she might not have known he was there at all.

  The avenria wielded a lone blade, as long as a traditional soldier’s sword, but the steel was curved up and down in waves. Something about its unnatural shape was off-putting to watch, and it made blocking and parrying a tense affair, for it never behaved quite as she expected. Best to kill the avenria quickly, she knew, but the strange raven-like man was more than an equal match to her skill.

  “And we seek to reclaim a world stolen from us,” the avenria said. His beak barely moved when he spoke. Instead his throat constricted and tensed, resulting in a voice that was deep and gravelly. “You do not impress me with your wit.”

  She’d rather impress him with her blade work, but she struggled on that front as well. The avenria slashed, and when she parried, her short sword scraped along his curved blade. The avenria closed the distance, her entire vision filled with gray clothes and black wings. She kicked, he sidestepped it and cut again. It was so quick she barely registered the movements. Her only solution was to desperately fling both her swords in the way. The avenria bashed one sword out, stepped even closer, and then looped around his weapon so it hooked the other short sword. Her weapons pinned wide, the avenria slammed his head downward.

  The avenria’s beak struck her forehead, and she gasped at the cloudburst of white pain that filled her mind. Only finely honed instincts kept her moving. Even a momentary daze could be fatal against an opponent so skilled and savage. She danced closer to the rooftop’s edge, braced a foot on a chimney, and kicked back into a lunge. Her foe, having expected her to flee, was caught with his blade in an awkward position. One of her swords cut across his shoulder, exposing dark flesh. His blood shone violet in the moonlight.

  If she’d hoped the wound would slow him, she was quickly proven wrong. He retook the offensive, his curved blade looping and slicing through the air as she fought to regain her balance after her lunge. The sound of metal hitting metal rang out a steady song. In it she heard lyrics, and they spoke to her impending defeat.

  Rather than keep fighting, she turned and ran. The avenria followed, a mere half step behind her. She didn’t look back to confirm. She trusted his speed, and his anger to keep him chasing. Jacaranda crossed the rooftop and leapt the narrow gap between it and its neighbor’s home. This one bore a tall brick chimney, and she waited until the last possible moment to shift her angle. She hopped toward the chimney, landed lightly on both feet with her knees crouched, and then somersaulted into the air, her arms extended like a dancer’s.

  Their bodies collided, her weight on him. One short sword pierced through his wrist and pinned it to the rooftop’s thin wood slats. The other pressed against his throat, the edge just barely cutting. Jacaranda grit her teeth and pushed, shoving that edge in farther, farther, seeking the trachea underneath. The avenria repeatedly slammed his fist into her abdomen with strength born of impending death. Her innards heaved from a punch to the gut. One of her ribs cracked. Her breath came in ragged, uneven gasps.

  Deeper and deeper went the blade. Blood pooled across her hands. The punches slowed, then ceased altogether. Jacaranda slumped off him and pulled her swords free. A wave of nausea nearly caused her to vomit. Get up, she told herself. Get up now, before someone finds you.

  The chaotic ambush was a mere two streets over. If it spilled her way, she’d be helpless. Clenching her teeth, she forced her body to roll off the rooftop. She had to get on her feet. She had to recover her bearings. Except instead of landing lightly on the ground, she collided with a man directly beneath her.

  “Goddess damn it!” she muttered. She disentangled herself and staggered up. By some miracle she’d not cut the man with her swords upon landing, but he looked fairly woozy himself.

  “Get—get back!” a woman with him said. The two wore matching black robes, and by her guess, they were husband and wife. Both looked to be in their forties, and neither was in the finest physical shape. Why in the world would they be out and about Low Dock at this hour?

  “Anwyn of the Moon, hear me!” the man she’d struck said. His wife heard and quickly joined in. “Hold this serpent so its teeth find no purchase.”

  Jacaranda’s eyes widened. She crossed the distance between them in a single lunge, and she buried her dagger down the man’s throat before he might finish another syllable.

  “Turn flesh into lawful stone,” the woman continued. Jacaranda felt her muscles growing stiff, and her movements sluggish. She glared death at the woman, fury surging through her at the thought of becoming helpless in her own body. The woman returned that look with one of terror. “Turn willful impulse into—”

&nbs
p; Jacaranda pulled a slender throwing dagger at her thigh and flung it. Its aim was true, the sharp point puncturing the woman’s throat, ending the spell. Immediately she felt the invisible chains upon her body relent. Anger kept her moving. She pushed both her short swords into the woman’s chest and twisted. The woman toppled and died, her final cry a garbled moan.

  “Who are you?” she wondered aloud. Her swords had torn open her robe, revealing a pale gown that was certainly worth more than most in Londheim could afford. Large rings adorned both their hands. These two were wealthy, yet they came to Low Dock with dark magic on their lips. What could possess them so?

  “Jac!” a familiar voice called from afar. She looked up to see Devin hustling toward her, a tired smile on his face.

  “Hey, you,” she said, but her grin did not last long. An avenria followed Devin upon the uneven and slanted rooftops. Jacaranda readied her short swords and prepared for a charge.

  “Behind you!” she shouted.

  The avenria leapt to the street, but instead of attacking Devin, she landed just ahead of him and peered at Jacaranda with a bemused look on her strange, long face.

  “Stay calm,” Devin said. “It’s Evelyn. We’ve met her before, remember?”

  Jacaranda slowly eased out of her stance.

  “I do,” she said. “Forgive my panic. You are not the first avenria I’ve seen tonight.”

  Evelyn looked away.

  “Logarius leads them down a rotten path. Any who follow deserve their fate, even if it pains me to admit it.”

  Devin crossed the remaining space and wrapped his arms around Jacaranda for a quick embrace. She kissed the side of his neck and tasted sweat and blood on her tongue.

  “We need to quit separating on nights like this,” she said, and she smiled, because grim humor was the only emotion she felt capable of handling.

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” He turned to Evelyn. “We’ve spent enough time hunting these bastards. We must make our way to the church.”