Word of Truth

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Torsten hurried to the flailing zhulong the giant had flipped. He mounted it, Sora still over his shoulder, and somehow knew how to control the thing like he’d ridden one before. He slashed down with his axe, carving a path to the buildings Uhlvark crashed through.

  “Go!” he yelled. “Go!”

  So, Whitney did what he did best. He didn’t think, and he took a shortcut. Sweeping his legs off the side of the horse, he grasped Dellbar by his pretty, white robes, looped his arm under his shoulder, and slid off the horse. Together, they ran. The priest could barely breathe.

  They scaled the rubble with the help of Whitney’s sure feet. Arrows raced by. Flame licked at his heels. He ignored it all, holding Dellbar tighter as they slid down a steep slope of broken wood. The giant was in a heap at the bottom level being hacked at by Shesaitju until his massive arms fell slack.

  With his one free hand, Whitney clutched the grip of his dagger. He’d been in worse scraps. They scaled a caved-in roof, then slid down at the warriors, landing upon the giant. He ducked under a strike, yanking Dellbar back out of the way with him. His dagger shot up and hit flesh.

  One down. Many more to go.

  They circled around him, Nesilia whispering, “You can’t win,” from her prison in the stone.

  “We can’t win,” Dellbar murmured as well, repeating it over and over. He was losing his control. The blood-red of the Brike Stone pulsed through his fingers, darkness draining the color from his skin.

  “We will,” Whitney said. He searched for the clearest opening when the giant gave him one last parting gift. He raised his arm and let it crash down like a fallen tree trunk, crushing Shesaitju and knocking the others down with the force of it.

  Whitney pushed off and hit the cobbles. They were near a small square behind the local church dedicated to King Autla on the docks level. Dellbar resisted his pull now, like he didn’t want Nesilia gone.

  “No,” he shrieked. “No, you can’t take me.”

  “Come. On!” Whitney pulled him along with all his might, racing down the street, over bodies and rubble. They reached the planks of the dock, where more fighting raged. The city drowned in it.

  Whitney spun to find an opening. Tentacles from surviving wianu dipped into the inlet all over, their dark figures vanishing below the surface. There had to be one left.

  Dellbar yanked him down. “It’s hopeless,” he said. “It’s always been hopeless.”

  “Whitney Fierstown!”

  A blade stabbed toward Dellbar, but Whitney quickly shifted in front. “No!” he blurted. The razor-sharp edge of a spear stopped just at his chest, the shaft in the hands of Caleef Mahraveh.

  She looked him in the eye, then down at the rambling priest. “Sorry, I thought he was possessed.” Her eyes widened upon viewing the infernal orb in Dellbar’s grip. “Is that… her?” she asked.

  Whitney nodded. “But the wianu… they’re all fleeing…”

  “I trapped one on its own. There.” She pointed with her spear, out into the water. The prow of a Shesaitju ship stuck up, and on it, he noticed the thrashing limbs of one of the beasts. Its roar was lost in the din of war, but it was moving. Alive.

  “Finally, I’ve been itching for more Glassmen!” A deep voice said, then chortled.

  Whitney looked left and saw a Shesaitju general so big he may have been a lesser giant. Black coloring oozed down his body, revealing spiky, white tattoos across his bulbous gut. He patted on a warhammer that made Tum Tum’s seem like it was made for a child, and a host of nearly three dozen Shesaitju warriors laughed with him.

  “And you, Mahraveh,” he said. “Finally, we can have our first dance. Maybe I’ll capture you instead of killing you. You’d make a fine wife yet.”

  Mahraveh brushed Whitney aside. “I’ve been waiting for this, Babrak,” she growled. She stepped toward him and flourished her spear, ready to take him and his honor-guard on all by herself.

  “My Caleef, get them to the beast!” someone shouted from behind.

  “Oh, shog in a yigging barrel. Who is it now!” Whitney groaned. He looked back, still fighting against Dellbar’s pulling, and saw Bit’rudam at the lead of a zhulong cavalry. Blood leaked down one side of his face from a gash across his left eye. Wounds covered his body, exposed by typical Shesaitju light armor, but he was still fighting.

  And they weren’t alone. Torsten charged with them, Sora seated behind him now, but resting her hands on the big man’s shoulders to stay upright, though barely.

  “Come here, you pis’truda!” Babrak barked. “Daddy can’t protect you now.”

  Mahraveh clenched her jaw. Her knuckles went white as she squeezed her spear. Then she whipped around.

  “Come on!” She clutched Whitney’s arm and pulled, surprisingly strong, considering her stature. Together, they towed Dellbar across the street to the docks. Sections of planks were upheaved. Others collapsed into mud and water.

  Shesaitju warriors were everywhere, and Mahraveh carved her way through them with speed and skill that was paled only by an upyr. She was a master with the spear. Whitney tried to get a few stabs in, but he was utterly useless—being helped by a Shesaitju. Shameful.

  Behind them, Bit’rudam and Torsten led their zhulong against Babrak’s men, protecting them from ambush.

  They reached a branch of the docks, the slip sticking out into the inlet to receive galleon-sized vessels. The end of it was utterly devastated, but it would get them halfway to the trapped wianu. They would have to swim the rest.

  Mahi stabbed her spear into the wood and used it to pole-vault herself ahead, bringing her leading foot down through a gray-skinned enemy to clear the way. She carved her route through attack after attack, and Whitney tried to keep pace, but Dellbar wasn’t having it.

  His heel caught a broken plank, and he fell. The Brike Stone didn’t slip free, but he hit his knees hard. His body hunched over the stone, enfolding it against his chest. Tendrils of shadow and light slithered around his body. Nesilia’s whispers grew louder, and he repeated them audibly. His eye-sockets were all black now. Lightless.

  “Whitney!” Mahraveh called. She was all the way down the dock, a body collapsing in front of her.

  “Buried, not dead. Buried, not dead,” Dellbar said, squeezing the stone hard. “Liars, braggarts, thieves, drunks, and murderers!”

  “Come on, you damn priest!” Whitney grasped the back of his robe and dragged him, but couldn’t get far. It was as if the stone wasn’t only absorbing all the light around them, but weighing them down now, too. His muscles burned.

  “Iam, if you’re with him, or anywhere. A hand here?”

  A few planks snapped and collapsed. The wood all around them creaked. Whitney pulled as hard as it could, but it only made it worse. A long swim awaited, and he needed his strength.

  Then, he felt a chill, heard a strange rasp, like wind through a canyon. He looked down, and a strip of the water turned to ice in a flash. He followed its path, to the edge of the docks where Torsten and Bit’rudam battled. Sora was on her knees at the coast, her hands upon the surface, using everything she had left.

  The ice had collapsed the part of the dock he and Dellbar were on, making it impossible for Mahraveh to reach him. But it continued, freezing a path all the way to the trapped wianu. Sora forced a beleaguered smile. Whitney returned the same.

  In the end, he knew it would be her and him saving the day. Not some Shesaitju princess. Not even Torsten. He rolled over to face Dellbar. The High Priest was on is back now, spine arched all the way up, writhing like he was in terrible pain.

  “Buried, not dead. Buried, not dead,” he continued to repeat, eyeholes blacker than the night sky.

  “Priests,” Whitney sighed.

  Again, he didn’t think twice. He reared back and kicked Dellbar across the face as hard as he could. Whitney pried the Brike Stone from unconscious fingers. The thing must have weighed a hundred pounds all on its own.

  And the thoughts. They were exponentially str
onger now, begging him to slit his own throat. To drown himself. It was like darkness made physical, seeping through his pores, taking control. Every temptation he’d ever received since leaving Elsewhere was nothing in comparison to this. Every time he blinked, he could see Nesilia’s hateful eyes like they were his own. He could hear her cackling, telling him how hopeless it was to resist.

  He pictured Sora’s smile and fought back the tide. He could barely see straight, but he knew the way. All he had to do was run straight and not slip. What better job for the World’s Greatest Thief?

  “You should have never left Elsewhere,” Nesilia said as he ran forward, her voice his entire world. Inside his head. Outside his head. Everywhere.

  “First, I’ll take you,” she continued. “They, you’ll watch through my eyes as I devour Sora. I’ll peel Torsten’s body open one layer at a time.”

  She laughed, and Whitney’s heart palpitated. He sucked in air and kept pushing. He could see the wianu’s dark eyes looking at him, its mouth stuck open and bleeding as it was pinned. Its roar became Nesilia’s, and hers its.

  “You will fail them all,” she said. “Just as you’ve failed everyone you’ve ever met. You are a cancer to this world. You are what destroys it, and I am the purging fire that will make Pantego all it was meant to be.”

  The weight of the stone became unbearable, pulling him to his knees at the end of the ice, right before the wianu. He could feel her taking over, like her fingers were within his veins, clawing their way up his arms.

  “No, all you’re going to do is die!” Whitney cried, his throat stinging. He fought with everything he had to raise the Brike Stone with both hands. He tried in desperation to chuck it into the wianu’s mouth, where Nesilia could forever join Kazimir in Nowhere, but he couldn’t.

  It was stuck, latched onto him like a parasite, its darkness threading his body.

  “It is hopeless,” Nesilia said. “The priest saw it. Your King saw it. So too, shall you. All you’ve done has been in vain. Why fight for this city? You hated its people all your life. Hero? You are far from it.”

  It took all his energy to turn his head and look back at the city she referred to. Yarrington, a place where nobles sit up high, and the rest are left to squabble for their scraps down below. Nowhere for a thief.

  It burned and collapsed from war. Soldiers everywhere, killing each other. Even though there were possessed left and Nesilia’s monsters, it was mostly men killing men, hatred, blinding them, and filling them with rage. Centuries of distrust and differing beliefs tearing them apart.

  Yet on its edge, a Shieldsman fought beside a Shesaitju, riding a zhulong. A Panpingese mystic knelt on the shore, arms trembling, giving her life-energy to save people who would have hanged her if they knew who she truly was. Whitney focused on her, head hanging, hair draped over her eyes as she struggled to stay conscious.

  “You’ll never understand, Nesilia,” he said, turning back to face the wianu. “And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry Iam left you. But if there was ever really love between you, He would have fought through anything to reach you; battled demons and mystics on His way to Elsewhere, like my Sora did.”

  “Iam was a coward!” she screamed. Whitney’s head felt like it was going to split open. “He’ll always be a coward. And all those people you decided to care about will die because He isn’t here. This is my world.”

  “You’re right,” Whitney said. “It is now. Iam’s gone.” He clutched the stone and pushed off to rise to his feet. The ice cracked beneath him. The stone’s power pulled against him like he was finally being racked by the Yarrington guards for his many crimes.

  He looked at Sora. Really looked at her. For her, he’d do anything.

  “I always said I had a plan for how I was going to die,” he said. In his mind’s eye, he saw her face. His Sora. “The greatest heist there ever was—robbing a goddess of her world!”

  Whitney pushed off, shattering the ice as he leaped at the wianu. It thrashed and tried to pull away, but Mahraveh had done her job well. Nesilia screamed as he soared through the air. His body twisted, and for the briefest moment, he got a glimpse back at Sora. He didn’t look away.

  The light of his world. His savior.

  Then the teeth of the beast closed in around him. He felt nothing, nothing at all, as he was swallowed by darkness. Then, Nesilia’s screaming stopped, the agonizing weight crushing his body disappeared, and his entire world went silent for once in his yigging life…

  LI

  The Knight

  Torsten braced himself upon the walls surrounding the Glass Castle. The battle was over, but the sight before him, the city he’d grown up in… it was barely recognizable anymore. The fires had stopped burning at least, but every district was in shambles. The Northern Mason’s District and the Central Markets were hit as severely as Dockside and were filled with so much rubble, they were still clearing it out.

  It’d been a week since Whitney Fierstown gave his life to deliver the Brike Stone and Nesilia to Nowhere. Some said that maybe the fool messed up his throw and got himself eaten, that it wasn’t a sacrifice. But those were whispers because the majority accepted him as the hero Torsten always wanted him to be. He knew in his heart it was true. Whitney wouldn’t have let himself die, leaving Sora behind unless there was no other choice.

  Or maybe he just wanted to steal the victory all for himself, Torsten thought, allowing himself a smile. That wouldn’t be a surprise.

  Regardless, the moment that Nesilia was defeated, the battle turned. The goblins and grimaurs wailed in terror and fled. The possessed did the same, running out through the walls and into greater Pantego, where they’d have to be hunted. It would be years before travel could be considered safe. The wianu, too, continued their retreat, and nothing had been heard about them since—not even from the fishing boats being used to clean Autla’s Inlet.

  The Drav Cra fought to their very last, but Brouben Cragrock’s reinforcements helped defeat them. Babrak and his Shesaitju kept at it as well, but once he was captured, they were forced, by his cowardly hand, into surrender. Now, Torsten had every dungeon and holding hall in the city filled with enemy warriors, and no idea what to do with them. He supposed it would be up to Mahraveh. She earned that much, at least.

  The dead were innumerable, from all sides, fighters and innocents alike. A constant flow of carts carried them beyond the city walls, piled by race or creed. Drav Cra were burned alongside monsters. Glassmen would be buried, if Torsten ever found enough land to dig thousands upon thousands of graves. The Shesaitju were brought to the coast. They were the easiest to get rid of. Luckily, the battle had left enough debris to drift them off on.

  Torsten knew it would be simpler to burn everybody. Some of the Royal Council had even suggested it, Lord Jolly among them. Still, it seemed wrong to deny anybody their beliefs. That was how all the wars started, after all. Even those who followed Nesilia so blindly… it was time to turn the page.

  Sighing, Torsten headed down from the wall. Two dwarves hauling a chunk of stone from the broken fortifications bumped him.

  “Excuse us, me Lord,” one said, more politely then Torsten usually got from dwarves.

  Maybe things really are changing.

  “No dawdling!” Brouben shouted over, standing atop a pile of boxes and ordering around his men. He offered Torsten a nod, and Torsten returned it before continuing on.

  Their presence had been a blessing. Not only in helping end the battle after Nesilia was defeated, but in the cleanup. They didn’t have to stay and help, but Brouben had insisted. And he didn’t even demand a bit of gold for it like his father would have—not that the Glass Kingdom had much left to give anyway.

  The dwarven Prince was King now, and the winged crown fit his head well. The way he told it, his father had abdicated the throne after three centuries, shamed after being tricked by the Buried Goddess. Brouben said that it was Whitney Fierstown who helped show him the way toward claiming the crown and jo
ining the fight for their world. One more gift to Pantego from its greatest thief.

  Torsten made it barely a few more steps across the courtyard before he was jarred by another worker. Then another. His days had gone from commanding men of war, to issue orders to the common folk, telling them where to put things, what to do next. Citizens from neighboring villages may have rushed back to their homes to make sure they still existed, but any who called Yarrington home extended their hand in service. Women, children, the elderly—it took everyone, and it would take so many more to make Yarrington a grand city once more.

  Stepping into the castle’s entry hall, Torsten spotted the Royal Physician rushing by.

  “Master Pymer,” Torsten called, hurrying to catch him.

  “Yes, Master Unger?” Abijah Pymer asked. He turned, his entire face sagging from exhaustion. He looked ten years older than he had just days before. Now that the battle was over, he was at war. So many were injured all over the city, filing any shelter that could be found. His hands and clothing were stained with blood—not usually an appearance befitting a member of the Royal Council, but who would scold him for it?

  “How is he?”

  “Still asleep.”

  “Did you try—“

  “Sir Unger, I have tried everything I was trained to try. Perhaps he will wake again, or perhaps it is not meant to be. Iam holds his fate now.” Pymer rubbed his hands over his face. “Please, with all due respect, there must be somebody else who can keep watch over him. I barely have time to sleep, let alone attend today’s Council meeting.”

  Torsten exhaled through his teeth. “You’re right. You’re doing a fine job, Master Pymer. Your predecessors would be very proud.”

  He forced a grin, then continued on his way. Torsten headed to climb the West Tower.

  “Lord Unger,” someone called up to him as he ascended the stairs. He stopped and looked down. Hovom climbed to greet him, face blackened by soot.