Ascension of Death

by Andy Peloquin

  Evren appreciated Hykos’ words, yet still he felt guilty over the death of Issa’s grandfather. “But her grandfather is dead. That’s on me.”

  “You were the one to end his life?” Hykos cocked his head. “You killed him?”

  “Of course not!” Evren retorted.

  “Then you’re not to blame.” Hykos held up a mailed hand before Evren could speak. “During our first few years of training in the Keeper’s Blades, they teach us about something called ‘warrior’s guilt’. It’s something warriors feel when they survive a battle. We feel guilty about failing to protect our comrades, or what we had to do to survive. Sometimes, we just feel guilty about living while others, maybe even those more deserving or better, died.”

  Evren swallowed the lump that rose to his throat. That described precisely how he felt: guilty that Issa’s grandfather had died in a battle that he’d failed to stop. Guilty that he hadn’t been there to knock aside the Ybrazhe blade that laid her grandfather low.

  “Everyone wrestles with that guilt,” Hykos said, shrugging his shoulders. “But giving in to or wallowing in it doesn’t do anyone any good. It doesn’t make your life better, and it’s definitely not good for those who died.” He gave Evren a small smile. “Dealing with the guilt and moving on is the only way we can honor them.”

  Hykos’ words stunned Evren. Such maturity and wisdom from someone only a little older than him. Yet the sorrow that gleamed in Hykos’ eyes spoke of personal experience.

  “Who did you lose?” Evren asked quietly.

  Hykos’ smile turned melancholy. “My older brother. An Indomitable. He died while I was still in my second year in the Keeper’s Blades. Skirmish with raiders on the East Highway.” An icy edge glittered in his eyes, one Evren recognized all too well: guilt. “I froze up the moment we clashed with the enemy, nearly lost my head because I was too scared to lift my sword. My Archateros saved me from dying that day. But Ander…” He shook his head. “He wasn’t so lucky. Every day since, I’ve known that if I had just moved, if I’d just fought, he’d still be here.”

  Evren found himself at a loss for words. It was odd to see Hykos in this new way—not only the proud, confident elite warrior of Shalandra, but a young man who wrestled with uncertainty, remorse, and regret just as he did.

  Hykos struggled to swallow his emotions. “But all I can do now is honor him by dealing with the guilt, by moving on.” He placed a heavy, mailed hand on Evren’s shoulder. “By making sure I’m there to save someone else when they need me.”

  “Issa’d be lucky to have you by her side.” Evren grinned up at the Blade. The burden hadn’t been fully lifted from his shoulders, but Hykos’ words had lightened the load.

  Hykos blushed once more. Yet another aspect to the Archateros. Such a fierce warrior, yet still shy when it came to Issa.

  Then again, Evren wasn’t one to speak. He still felt tongue-tied and awkward as a newborn foal around Briana. Seems like all the good ones have a tendency to make fools of us.

  “Come on,” Hykos said, turning and gesturing for Evren to follow him. “You look like you haven’t had a proper meal in a year. Or a night’s rest, for that matter.”

  “But Lady Callista—” Evren began.

  “She’ll understand.” Hykos shrugged. “Soldier’s fight on full bellies. Besides, we’re not going far.”

  True to his word, Hykos led Evren a few paces down the corridor, around a corner, and through a doorway that led to a small chamber. There, a simple yet abundant meal had been laid out on a wooden table: nuts, seeds, dates, flatbreads both sweet and savory, and an assortment of flaky cheeses, cured meats, olives, and dried fruits.

  “Grab something to eat while we wait,” Hykos told him. “The Keeper’s Council won’t be needing their midday snack any more. The rations that go to feed the Pharus’ prisoners tend to be a bit less…appetizing.”

  Grinning, Evren snatched dried apricots from a tray, pocketed a handful of nuts, and lifted a fragrant herb-and-cheese-stuffed flatbread. He and Hykos hurried back to their place as fast as the Archateros’ injured leg permitted.

  “How’s the knee?” Evren asked around a mouthful of almonds.

  “Feeling better.” Hykos glanced down at his right leg. “Had one of the servants help me change the bandages and apply a cooling salve. It’ll heal in a couple of days.”

  “Good thing you’ll have plenty of time to rest and recover, right?” Evren shot him a wry grin. “Nothing much needing your attention right now.”

  Hykos chuckled. “A battle with monsters is just what the healer ordered.”

  The door hadn’t opened in the two minutes they had been away from their post, and Lady Callista and Issa hadn’t yet emerged.

  Evren settled into a comfortable position sitting on the floor and, with only a small groan, Hykos lowered himself as well. The two of them shared their small meal in a companionable silence, broken only by the sound of Hykos’ loud chewing and Evren licking the sticky date syrup from his fingers. The world around them was chaos. The palace halls rang with the sound of activity: Indomitables shouting orders or hurrying to their posts, servants delivering messages or carrying food and water to the embattled army. Yet for a brief moment, he and Hykos had a moment of peace, two young men, fighters both, enjoying a respite from their battles and sharing a simple repast.

  The moment was shattered by a shout from down the hall. “Enemies in the palace!”

  Evren and Hykos were immediately on full alert. Evren leapt to his feet and whipped out his jambiyas. Hykos struggled to rise, and Evren offered him a hand up. Once standing, the Blade unslung his huge flammard. Side by side, they rushed down the corridor toward the echoing voice.

  “Enemies in the palace!”

  Evren recognized the voice the instant before he rounded the corner.

  Killian, still clad in full Shalandran steel plate mail, hobbled up the gold-and-silver-tiled hall. A cloth-wrapped bundle was slung over his left shoulder, and in his right hand he carried a bared two-handed sword. A white-haired woman raced at his heels, her face drawn and pale, stained with the blood of the thugs and rioters she’d killed that day.

  Before Evren could ask what the blacksmith and Issa’s grandmother were doing in the palace or how they’d gotten there, he caught sight of the rag-clad, filthy creatures behind him.

  A dozen Stumblers, with more pouring from the now-open secret passage into the Serenii tunnels.

  Chapter Twelve

  Aisha struggled to make sense of the realization.

  The Stumblers aren’t dead. It didn’t matter that the legends believed the creatures were corpses animated by dark magic. The legends were wrong.

  In the Keeper’s Crypts, the vast tombs carved into the mountain west of Shalandra, she had seen the spirits of hundreds of thousands of dead Shalandrans. A multitude of blue-white lights so numerous that they illuminated the dark underground caverns in all directions. Her gift as an Umoyahlebe, a Spirit Whisperer, enabled her to see the Kish’aa, to hear them, even speak with and control them.

  The black Shalandran steel flammards of the Keeper’s Blades had the ability to bind the souls of their victims. Imbuka, the Ghandian shaman living in the Foreign Quarter, had severed the connection and freed the Kish’aa, absorbing them into himself to control their power. If dark magic had been used to bind the spirits of the Stumblers to their bodies, she would have sensed them, seen the sparks of their snuffed-out lives, heard their pleas for justice and vengeance.

  Yet she found only flesh and bone arrayed against her.

  The Stumblers bled like living, breathing humans. Blood covered her hands, stained her face, slicked the handle and butt of her assegai. She’d never encountered undead creatures before—if such a thing truly existed—but she doubted that they would bleed crimson.

  A creature clambered onto the parapet directly in front of her, its white eyes fixed on her. Instead of cutting it down, Aisha slapped aside its clawed fingers, seized the threadbare rags c
overing its emaciated body, and hauled it over the wall. She struck it on the skull, once, twice, three times, hard enough to daze without crushing bone. The creature sagged, its arms going limp. It lay still, stunned, a low rasping, gurgling sound issuing from its gaping mouth.

  But there was no mistaking the steady rise and fall of its chest. The creature wasn’t dead, or undead as the legends insisted. It breathed, therefore it still lived.

  The Stumbler recovered at that moment, and Aisha grunted as its clawed fingertips raked across her face. Sorrow welled within Aisha as she drove her assegai into its chest. Dark heart blood bubbled from the wound and spilled over her hands. She watched in a mournful silence as the creature jerked once, twice, three times, then fell still, crimson forming an ever-widening halo around the body and turning the stone parapet slick.

  Somehow, the fact that it still lived only served to enhance Aisha’s revulsion. Not at the abomination dying at her feet, but at the twisted mind that had brought it into existence. Someone had taken breathing, thinking human beings and turned them into something far, far worse…monsters, driven by mindless rage or bloodlust. These creatures weren’t dead, but that didn’t stop them from trying to kill the living.

  The knowledge did little to help her in her current circumstances. Invictus Tannard and the Indomitables were fighting for their lives atop the wall. A still-living thing could kill them as surely as the undead monsters of legend. They had no choice but to keep cutting down their fellow Shalandrans, alive or dead.

  Yet a faint hope surged within Aisha. Something had turned the people of Shalandra into these…monsters. Not dark magic, or at least not in the way the Shalandran legends believed. Instead, they were living, breathing creatures, little more than husks of the people they’d been before...whatever had happened.

  But if something made them like this, maybe something can turn them back to normal!

  Her eyes snapped down the hill, toward the Artisan’s Tier. It, too, had been overrun by the creatures, yet she held out hope that Briana and Hailen were safely ensconced within the Temple of Whispers, surrounded by Secret Keepers. If she could somehow get down to the temple, talk to Ennolar and the Guardians, they might be able to offer answers—even if they had no solution, they might be able to point her in the direction of someone who did.

  She hesitated an instant. The battle atop the palace gate hadn’t diminished; if anything, it had intensified as the Stumblers clambered over the wall and assaulted the gate. She hated the idea of abandoning Invictus Tannard and the Indomitables to face the creatures alone.

  Yet if she was the only one who knew the truth, that the Stumblers weren’t truly dead, that placed on her shoulders the burden of necessity. She had to take action. At that moment, action meant leaving her place in the battle line and seeking answers among the Secret Keepers.

  “Invictus!” she shouted to get the Blade’s attention.

  “What?” he called back without turning away from the battle on the wall.

  “I need to go!” Even just saying the words felt like cowardice, retreating to save her own skin. Yet a part of her recognized that was simply her warrior’s hubris speaking. Falling back from the battle was the best way to end it. “There’s something I need to do!”

  The Invictus growled. “More important than keeping these bastards from getting into the palace?”

  “If my plan works, we might just be able to save everyone in Shalandra.”

  His huge black sword swung, shearing through two Stumblers’ necks, and he whirled toward her. “You’re sure?” Bloody bits of shattered bone and gore flecked his face, and his voice was hard, edged with the grim knowledge of the assault’s inevitable outcome. “We could use you here.”

  Aisha nodded. "I’m sure.” Sorrow welled within her as she thrust her spear into the emaciated chest of a Stumbler. The creature, once a woman, still wore her black Mahjuri headband, a simple piece of dyed cloth as rough as the tattered rags hanging off her bony frame. “It’s the best way.”

  “Go, then!” he growled. “We’ll hold them back, no matter what.”

  The response surprised Aisha. She’d half-expected him to curse her for a coward, to shout her back into line. Yet he hadn’t. Perhaps it was what he’d witnessed at the South Gate, confirmed here as she hurled the Stumblers back, that gave him a shred of hope that she could actually turn the tide of the impossible battle.

  Without hesitation, she turned and sprinted across the blood-slicked parapet toward the staircase. She took the stone steps two at a time, trusting her instincts and reflexes to keep her safe as she raced toward the black-and-white-tiled courtyard below.

  The distance to the palace entrance seemed endless—the plaza was easily a hundred paces across and three times as wide. Her heart hammered in her chest, blood rushing in her ears.

  Why does it feel like this is just what Kodyn would do? It was a desperate gamble, the sort of hare-brained, reckless scheme the Hawk apprentice would come up with on the fly. This sort of thing tended to work out for him—an astonishing combination of luck, skill, and brazen audacity that added up in his favor—but it had nearly gone fatally wrong on more than one occasion.

  Yet Aisha knew that she’d made the right choice. Perhaps not to rush down to the Temple of Whispers—that could still go terribly wrong for her—but to leave the fray in the faint hope of stopping the battle. If she could somehow find a way to restore the Stumblers to the people they had once been, it was a risk worth taking.

  There was just one problem: Aisha didn’t know her way around the passages like Kodyn and Evren did. She knew enough to find her way to the Artisan’s Tier, but not to locate the specific passage that would give her access to the Temple of Whispers. Kodyn had the experience skulking around the Praamian sewers; Aisha’s expertise tended more to fighting, tracking, and hunting.

  But the Lady of Blades might be able to help her, point her in the right direction. A guide to lead her through the Serenii tunnels. A Secret Keeper within the palace itself, or someone working for Lady Callista or the Pharus that could decipher the strange riddle of the Stumblers. Anything to try and prevent more bloodshed and death.

  So many Shalandrans had died over the last few days. The Mahjuri and Kabili slain by the Indomitables in the hunt for the murderers. The Indomitables murdered in the riots, and the rioters slain in the chaos. Now, the Dhukari and Alqati torn to shreds by the Stumblers on the Keeper’s Tier, and all of those suffering as the creatures roamed the city unchecked.

  Too many deaths to count. If Aisha could put an end to it, she had to try.

  She raced through the wide-open, unguarded double doors—the Indomitables and Blades within the palace had joined the desperate fight to hold the gate—and raced down the gold-and-silver-bedecked halls. Aisha scanned the empty corridors for anyone who could point her in Lady Callista’s direction, yet it seemed all of those not in the battle line were in hiding.

  Finally, she spotted a servant rushing past, a woman hauling an armload of fresh linens to be used as bandages by the Indomitables wounded in battle.

  Aisha raced toward the woman. “Where can I find the Lady of Blades?” she demanded.

  The servant jerked her head west. “In the Council Chamber.”

  “Where is that?”

  The servant mumbled hasty directions.

  “Thank you!” Aisha raced on, deeper into the palace, toward the northwest, following the servant’s instructions.

  An eerie silence hung in the corridors. The world seemed strangely muffled, devoid of sound after the tumult of battle on the wall. The clash of steel, the shouts and cries of men, the rasping, gurgling of the Stumblers—the sudden stillness made Aisha feel as if she’d somehow died.

  Yet in that all-encompassing quiet, Aisha heard a shout echoing from ahead. It was too faint to make out the words, but she recognized the unmistakable note of alarm in the cry. Seconds later, it came again, this time ringing through the halls clearly.

  “Enemies i
n the palace!”

  Blood turned to ice in Aisha’s veins. Had the Stumblers gotten past the gate somehow? Had they found another way into the palace? Or was this another attempt on the Pharus’ life by Hallar’s Warriors, taking advantage of the chaos?

  Anger burned within her. She instinctively reached for the power of the Kish’aa, only to remember that she’d unleashed it on the wall. For the first time since Thimara, she had nothing left. The Dy’nashia pendant around her neck was nothing but black stone, as inert as the dagger in her hands or the fabric of her clothing.

  Yet that didn’t stop her from racing on, seeking out the source of the sound. She could still fight with weapons of wood and steel, the strength of her arms.

  Rounding the corner, Aisha caught sight of the threat. A score of Stumblers lurched from the open passageway in the palace’s ornately tiled walls, being herded by men clad in splinted leather armor and carrying short swords, stolen Indomitable khopeshes, and the long-handled, flame-shaped swords of the Keeper’s Blades.

  Hallar’s Warriors!

  The fire of fury blazed bright in Aisha. The Stumblers could be innocent Shalandrans tainted and twisted by magic, alchemy, or some other dark power. But Hallar’s Warriors were men, men that had chosen the path of evil, to harm their fellows.

  These, Aisha could kill without hesitation.

  A Ghandian war cry burst from her lips and, raising her bloodstained weapons, she charged the enemy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A torrent of questions whirled in Issa’s mind, a chaotic maelstrom of doubts and uncertainties that assailed her from all sides. Yet they refused to form into words. She could do nothing but stare, silent and dazed, at Lady Callista.

  The Lady of Blades seemed to struggle with her own emotions. Her expression had gone as rigid as her spine, all blood draining from her cheeks. She clutched the back of a wooden chair in a white-knuckled grip, yet a visible tremor ran through her hands, set her lips quivering.