ii. Angbar
Most everyone had to go to Colmon. He'd heard the King's orders. But since Isaic had become King, Angbar hadn't been tortured, stabbed, burned, or chewed on once. He had gotten used to it; the thought of going to a battle front filled him with dread.
He waited anxiously as Ben told the assembled students their fates—who was going to the front, and who wasn't ready. The old man wasn't as good at it as the King was. He kept asking questions instead of giving orders.
"Solon," he said. "Takra, Vitar, Carren—will you go to Colmon?" He sounded apologetic. A deep sadness lurked in his eyes. Takra and the others nodded. "Thank you. Take care of yourselves.
"Angbar," the old man said, and Angbar braced himself. "Can you stay here? We need someone to watch the students and take the blood fever cases."
What? he thought. Are you sure? He knew he should argue. He knew he should push back. "Shouldn't . . . I mean, can't you do that?"
"No. I'm going to start looking for the wardbook. That should just leave Kirkus," he said, moving on, and a flood of mingled relief and shame rushed over Angbar. He should be going, he knew. He knew too much to be wasted in the city. But he kept his mouth closed and let Ben continue. "You've advanced significantly. I'd like to put you in charge of the group at Colmon. Is that all right?"
The merchant's son tried to hide his pride, and failed miserably. "Of course. I won't let you down."
"Great. Everyone, remember to pack, then report to the barracks in . . ." He blinked and looked down at his paper, checking his notes. ". . . in Broadside. The General will meet you there." He trailed off, looking unsure of what he should say next. "Be careful. Please. Remember your mantras, and Descend! Please remember to Descend right away. The Pulse is still dangerous, even on the battlefield.
"All right. Go ahead."
"Takra," Angbar called after the dispersing crowd. The girl turned back. "Do you hate me?"
She gave him a sad smile. "No. You were a good choice to stay here. Keep the kids safe."
"I will." He wanted to give her a hug, but he knew how she hated it. "Be careful," he said. "And watch out for Kirk—don't let it go to his head."
A little laugh. "All right."
"M'sai." He didn't want her to go. She felt like the last friend he had. "Come back, all right?"
"I will," she said.
As he watched her disappear into the churning crowd of chanters, making their slow way back to the dorms, he wondered how many of them would.
24
i. Melakai
They saw the campfires of Tal'aden's army the night before they reached it, glowing under the eastern dusk like a rogue ember.
"They're forming up fast," Kai muttered. "Faster than we thought."
"Should we send word back to the King?" Torthan asked. "How many do you think there are?"
"Thousands," Kai answered. "Five, six thousand—maybe more. Impossible to know from here, but that kind of glow doesn't come from a few squads."
"We can't turn back," Iggy said.
"I'm not saying we do," Torthan protested. "Just . . . send word. Maybe only one of us."
"Who?" Iggy pressed. "Which of the four of us do you think we can spare?"
The young man had no answer. Melakai clapped him on the back. "The King has spies this way, Torth. Tavost knows his business. Isaic'll know about this."
"It wouldn't change his plans in any event," Elthur supplied. "He still needs to hold Colmon."
"Yes," Kai said, "but holding Colmon gets a whole lot harder if there's a massive Tal'aden force coming in from the east at the same time Jacobsford strikes from the west."
"True." Elthur considered. "But if they make Jacobsford wait until this force is ready to move, at least it gives Colmon more time to fortify—and the general more time to bring back those deserters." He scanned the eastern horizon, the lines around his eyes crinkling. "You're sure he'll know?"
"I'm sure of it. Probably already does."
"Well, it may not change his plans," Iggy said, "but it's sure going to change ours. The road is out. We'll have to cut through the wilds, go wide. Maybe even around to the city's east side. Hopefully they're not forming up there—I can scout it when we get closer. If the army's all around it, though . . ." He nodded at Torthan. "You may need to Vanish us before we even get over the wall. We can't just walk through Jan's army."
Torthan nodded. "It won't be a problem."
"It'll be a lot of chanting in one night. Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"All right, then," Kai said. "Let's push hard tomorrow—make this our last night of camping, if we can."
ii. Iggy
They set out an hour before dawn. Taking the wilds slowed them, but Iggy beseeched the earth for aid where he could—to firm up the ground for the travelers' feet and loosen it for the stones that might have hampered them, overall smoothing their progress. Shortly after highsun, Iggy became the hawk and flew off to scout. An hour later, he returned with a favorable report: the army was only staging up on the west side of the city. The eastern gates were clear.
They pressed on, cutting through one little village that splayed out along the southern road, then a second. They left the noise of the distant army behind and turned north. It was just past sunset when they reached the eastern road.
"All right, listen," Kai whispered as they drew up. "We've been lucky so far—no patrols, and we've made good time. I know we're tired from all the hiking, but we need to push on. Tonight's the night." He looked at Iggy. "Did we beat them here?"
"I can find out. Wait here."
He left the little group and retreated to the lee of a secluded hill. Then he sat, cross-legged, and gave himself to the wind.
It rushed up to greet him like an old friend, renewed and eager. It bore the scent of wet earth and newborn buds, a glorious awakening after the long winter, and for a time he gave himself to relishing it. Then he remembered why he'd come, and braced himself to reach into Tal'aden.
It was easier conceived than done. Dread of the Mal'shedaal boiled in his thoughts, and each time he made to extend his perception into the city, he quailed.
Come on, he berated himself. Pull yourself together, man. But his was the fear of a man who had faced death and been reduced by the experience; the skittish cowardice was written into his bones.
He tried self-persuasion. We need to know where they are. We can't avoid them if we don't know where they are. But that core of quivering fear was unyielding. The logic bounced off it.
Then a memory of the Waste seeped into him—its endless miles of death and shattered earth. He thought of what remained of Ordlan Green, and of Revenia returning to finish what She'd started. Finally, he found a fear greater than his reflexive revulsion, and let it drive his insight through the city walls, down its dead streets, and into the heart of Basica Sanctaria. He flinched, trembling, waiting for the awful presence of the Mal'shedaal to manifest.
It didn't.
Cautiously, he spread his perceptions wider—taking in the whole of the tower and then the square beyond. The crushed soul of the city lay bare before him, a macabre parody of the healthy rocks and singing hills in which he now knelt. But he had largely made his peace with such places, and was able to keep his awareness keen in the face of such simple atrocities.
The Mal'shedaal weren't there.
Not in Sanctaria, not in the square outside it nor the cellars beneath, not anywhere in the city.
They could have shrouded themselves, he thought. Like Faerloss did, when I chased him through the Valley. But his instincts told him they wouldn't. Neither Faerloss nor D'haan had bothered to hide themselves in weeks. And he'd always had the distinct impression that Faerloss had hidden originally to taunt him—to draw him north, string him along. Why would they hide now? They were on their home ground, on the cusp of achieving their millennia-old goal. It would serve no purpose.
He cast about one last time from an abundance of vigilance, and was about to ret
urn to himself when he caught a familiar scent on the wind, a scent that reminded him of friendship. The Pulse whispered to him of peace and transformation, a creature that he remembered even as he recognized how fundamentally it had changed.
He opened his eyes, pulled his hands from the dirt, and gained his feet. As he made his way back to the others Or'agaard's new moon crested the horizon behind him, tainting the eastern hills with a whisper of blue.
At camp Melakai lowered the spyglass he'd been using to scan the hills and waited expectantly, the sun's last sliver of bloody daylight fading against his leathers. Elthur looked on with resigned determination; Torthan's face bore dread and zeal in equal measure. None spoke the question that waited in their eyes.
"The Mal'shedaal aren't there," Iggy reported.
Torthan glanced to the ground, a confused relief flicking over his features. Kai answered at once: "Then where are they?"
"I don't know. Not for miles around."
Elthur jumped in. "Could it mean they're not back yet?"
"It could," Iggy agreed. "Or that they got back and left again . . . it's even possible they are there, but hiding from me. One of them did that once before. But there'd be nothing in it for them this time. I don't think that's happening. This is the perfect time. We got lucky."
"Good." Kai returned the spyglass to his belt and gestured to a nearby copse of trees. "We leave our packs and horses there. Bring the hammers, of course, but otherwise only the essentials. We can't be tromping around the crystal tower with a hundred pounds of gear—Vanished or no, the whole place will hear us." He unslung his bag from his shoulder. "Can you make sure the animals wait for us?"
Iggy nodded and explained the situation to the horses as they led them to the trees, but he added a caveat. If we're not back by the dawn after next, you're free. Don't wait for us any later than that.
You've been good to us. This from Torthan's mare, the one Iggy had healed after she broke her front leg. Be careful. Iggy patted her neck in gratitude, left them enough grain to last the morrow, and set out with the others.
It was full dark when they reached the northeast wall, the blue moon halved and shivering in the sky behind them. They hadn't been seen, and the plain beyond the wall stood empty.
"All right, Torthan," Kai whispered. "It's your turn."
"Wait for my signal," Iggy said. "I'll give a hoot from the top when it's clear. When you hear me, move fast."
Torthan gave a tight nod, but Iggy could see his hands trembling. Suddenly he realized the man wasn't Syntal, or even Angbar. He may be older than me, but he hasn't done what I've done—what any of us have done, he thought, the faces of his friends flashing through his mind.
"You scared?" he asked.
Torth hesitated, then gave a sharp shrug. Iggy wanted to encourage him—but when he reached for the words, they didn't come.
Melakai spoke for him.
"You should be. What we're doing is really dangerous. But I've been through worse, and come out of it in one piece. Harth wouldn't have sent you if he didn't think you could handle it. Just keep focused on the next thing. We're all going home from this. All of us. You understand?" He waited until Torth met his eyes, then nodded to Iggy.
He became the owl.
The night leapt into sudden clarity, the moon's thin blue light amplified to nearly the brilliance of the sun. Kai knelt and offered his arm. Iggy stepped on. When the man stood, raising his arm high, the owl jumped for the sky.
A pair of Scarlet Guards patrolled the wall. Iggy circled until they passed, then gave a gentle hoot.
The Pulse seized beneath him at once, contorting in the familiar agony of a chanter's spell—then a second, then a third. He's doing all three at once? Iggy banked and focused his sight on the three companions, now rising quickly along the side of the city wall. I hope he can handle it.
They crested the battlement and clambered over, then without hesitation ran to the far side and jumped. Iggy rounded his last patrol and soared over, descending to the city street and becoming the man again just as his companions' feet drifted to the ground.
"I didn't hear a shout," Kai said.
"They didn't see you," Iggy agreed.
Torthan released the spells; Iggy felt them vanish like a weight lifting from his shoulders. The man took several steadying breaths.
"You all right?" Iggy asked. "You did all three at once—I know it's hard."
"I'm fine," Torth said.
Elthur pointed up the street. "Sanctaria's at the heart of the city. There are a hundred ways to get there. Follow me."
"Wait," Iggy said. "We have to make one stop first."
Even without the owl's vision, he saw Kai scowl. "What are you talking about? You know we can't afford any―"
"We can afford this one," Iggy insisted, "because we need all the help we can get.
"Seth is here."
iii. Helix
He was in a jostling wagon, rumbling north with the rest of the army—and while the bonnet was closed tight, he could see every step of the path that had led him here.
After Syntal's murder—an event his mind still wouldn't let him think about, that left him reeling and panic-stricken every time it surfaced in his thoughts—the temple had grown too oppressive for him. Like Angbar, he'd been unable to stay. He couldn't speak to Lyseira, couldn't bear the looks of her followers. All of it suffocated him.
So he'd gone to the royal palace. The guards greeted him and handed him off to the servants, who had drawn him a hot bath. He'd received private quarters, the most luxurious room he'd ever seen. No one had asked him any questions about his decision. The King had sent a page to welcome him, but had never met with him in person—until the morning after the Storm, when he'd asked him to go north to Colmon.
The King had set a brutal timetable—by the morning after the winter broke, the army had to be on the road. Helix wasn't privy to all the planning sessions, but from snatches of worried conversation around the campfire he had gleaned a few pieces of gossip. The King's timetable had been met, but he was only sending 650 men: far fewer than the 1,000 strong they expected to meet at Oak Bridge. They had traded strength for speed, in hopes of getting to the bridge in time to repel the attackers from a defensible position, and were relying heavily on Lyseira's Kesprey—some 200, the rumors said—to carry them through.
Helix had never been with a group this size before. But even without the experience of a previous march, he could tell they were driving hard. Some of the men called it a forced march—those with the grimmest outlooks called it a death march. From the first crack of dawn until the final slip of sundown each day, they trudged through the slop and the slush.
He was an outsider to them, not just an untrained peasant but a cripple, and worse than those, a mystery. Hand-picked by the King, favored by General Brutus, his position cryptic and, to them, unearned. He kept to the wagon as they drove north. Showing his face would only give the grumbling footmen more reason to hate him, and it was what Brutus had told him to do during the battle anyway: stay in the wagon. Stay quiet. Come out only if he saw something the general needed to know.
They surrendered breaks and meals, pushed through terrain that cost them twisted ankles and downed horses, in order to reach Colmon just before sundown of their fourth day.
And they were still too late.
"The bridge!" one of the General's scouts shouted. His spyglass would dance around his neck as he sprinted back to the wagon. "They're at the bridge!"
"How many?" Brutus said.
"I couldn't see—a few dozen, maybe. The main force is still on the far side."
"Cavalry!" Brutus barked. "Get to the bridge and stem the tide!" The captain of the cavalry unit would nod and put a bugle to his lips; its blast was like a bucket of water to the face, waking Helix from a dream.
We're here, he realized. This is it. It's happening.
He fought his surge of trepidation, a wave that threatened to tear down the dam he'd built against the
churn of prophecy. If he lost himself now he was doomed.
The General shouted more commands, ordering up the main force on foot, which Helix saw would break into a clumsy charge through the mud behind the cavalry. Another bugle sounded—three sharp blasts—and the thunder of the footmen's charge caught up with his vision of it. Then the command wagon lurched into a gallop, and Helix sat down hard before he could fall over, clutching at the nearest rail.
I need your vision, Isaic had told him. Any warning you can give us; any surprises you can spare us. And Helix had argued it didn't work that way, that the visions didn't ask his permission or care what he wanted. All of that was still true, but now he was here, and he had to do the impossible.
The first cries of bloodshed echoed outside; the first crash of clanging swords; and then, with a reverberation like an earthquake, the first Detonation. He clung to the edge of his dam, assailed by the cacophony of battle on one side and the howling chaos of his visions on the other, and tried to cling to the present while dipping one hand into the churn. For a moment he caught a host of vague impressions—still portraits that he could browse like a buffet—and felt a surge of wild hope. He had done it. He had mastered his prophecies.
Then he slipped, and the churn devoured him.
iv. Seth
Just enough of winter's chill remained to justify the heavy cloaks he and the others wore, shrouding them in the gloom of night. They had jumped the wall from the north, where the outside population was thinnest, and now they waited in a Tal'aden graveyard as Retash knelt before a block of stone.
Kylea Tanner
3115—3168
Beloved Mother
Rest with Akir
"Too late," Retash whispered. "I delayed a lifetime, and in the end I was three summers late." He touched the grave, his fingers running down the stone like tears.
Seth's master's pain unnerved him. Oh, he knew the man had pain—that had become clear during their time in Hannah's Ridge—but this was deeper somehow. Secret. A glimpse of the man Retash might have been if he, too, had not been taken from his family as a boy.
Of Dark Things Waking (The Redemption Chronicle Book 3) Page 42