Spirit's End

by A. R. Knight

  The spirits dove at the ghoul’s legs, biting and clawing at its metal skin. So far as I could tell, they weren’t doing any damage. At least, not physically. But they were wearing it down. The ghoul slowed, every step held back by the grasping arms. Spirits clinging to the legs; pulling and dragging. Trying to force the ghoul down. With both its arms holding me, the ghoul didn’t have much in the way of defense.

  But I did.

  I reached inside my coat, to the holster Nicholas had made for me after I’d found Inman’s pistol. I kept the weapon loaded, had more bullets inside my coat’s pockets. The guides had plenty of ammo, although the bullets were made from Riven scrap. Nothing compared to the quality you’d find on Earth.

  I drew the gun, it’s gold barrel seeming very out of place in the gray dark forest. Aimed it, and fired as the ghoul stepped forward.

  The bullet picked off a spirit on the ghoul’s left ankle. I cocked back the hammer, aimed, and fired again. Another spirit knocked off to the ground. The shots didn’t burn with blue fire, just hard metal. But every spirit I knocked away allowed the ghoul to speed up. Pulled us closer to that gate.

  I fired another four times until, with a click, the pistol told me it was empty. I’d have to reload with one working hand. Not exactly something I knew how to do.

  Maybe I wouldn’t have to.

  The ghoul crashed into the large clearing in front of the wall. Shouts and cries of guides and battle blew into my ears. I could see it; the mass chaos around the ruin where the west gate once stood. The guides that had come with us, along with reinforcements, manned the line of rubble. Held back a wave of spirits trying to claw their way through. Dolan’s idea; those burning orange rays, had given us an opening, had damned our defenses.

  “Anna,” I yelled as we came closer. I could see her, wielding her spiked flail and waving it back and forth, bashing and burning spirits as they charged towards the guides. “Let the ghoul through. It can hold the line for us!”

  The guides, whether they heard me or saw the golden beast, cleared a path for us to pound through. I had the ghoul set me down on top of some broken shards of the gate. Not exactly comfortable, but the sooner I was out of his hands, the sooner the ghoul could go back to doing what it did best: mashing spirits to a pulp.

  Like Inman’s pistol, the ghoul couldn’t wrangle the spirits. Couldn’t burn them in blue flame and send them running. But it could stamp them out. Knock them down and render them incapacitated so a guide following along could finish the spirit off.

  And the ghoul was tireless.

  I watched, crippled and useless, from my vantage as Mali’s monster tore through the spirits. Had there been the thousands from before, I had no doubt the ghoul would have been overwhelmed. Covered and simply borne into the dirt by the weight of the spirits. Now, with only dozens, the ghoul was free to wreak its destruction.

  “What happened to you?” Anna said, walking over. I could see the sweat shine on her face, the fatigue evident in how she held her weapon low. Breathing hard even though Riven had no air.

  “Outnumbered,” I said. “Turns out letting spirits tackle you is a bad idea.”

  “Thought you’d have learned that by now,” Anna said. “Selena? Dolan?”

  I told her where they were. Told her that the success of this whole mission stayed entirely with them.

  “If they can’t close more breaches, then we sacrificed the gate for nothing,” I finished.

  “Not for nothing,” Anna said. “We closed some, and we gave us hope. A chance that the guides might do something rather than die in alleys and dark rooms.”

  “That hope won’t last long,” I said.

  “That’s up to you. How long before you’re able to move again?”

  I could feel it; my bones, such as they were, knitting together. Feeling returning to my arms and legs. Slow, but it would get there. Before too long I would be back, as dangerous as ever. Such was the magic of being a spirit. Such was the benefit of being dead.

  “When Selena gets back,” I said. “I’ll be ready.”

  What I didn’t know is what I would be ready for. Either another raid deep into the woods, or a retreat to Nicholas and his desperate bomb.

  Chapter 42

  At first glance, they didn’t look good. The two of them, Dolan leaning on Selena as they emerged from the woods. The great sword dangling across Dolan’s back, held on by its sheath. They stumbled across the clearing, spirits bursting out after them. I heard Anna call for the guides to assist. Saw my friends and fellows break away from the line and guide Dolan and Selena home. And I saw in my love’s eyes that we had lost.

  “You’re still here?” I said to Selena as she came up to me. As she sat Dolan down alongside my shredded body. As she collapsed to the ground.

  “I shouldn’t be,” Selena said. “They should have torn us apart a thousand times. I should have died a thousand deaths, Carver.”

  “But you didn’t,” I replied. I glanced at Dolan. The spirit’s eyes were shut. He bore a number of nasty gashes and wounds. Perhaps, like me, he was waiting for them to heal. “Is Dolan alive?”

  “He’ll be okay,” Selena said. “No worse than you, I think.”

  “Cheo? His spirits?”

  Selena took a breath. How funny that instinct should live out past our lives. Past the point where our brains cease to be. Yet here we were, still taking a moment and inhaling nonexistent air before delivering bad news.

  “Five,” Selena said. “We’d been moving fast. Breaking in, Dolan sealing each breach with the sword, and then running. By the fifth one, though, we’d lost some. Too many.”

  “Lost?”

  “The ghouls,” Selena said. “They can’t kill a spirit, send it to the Cycle, but they can consume them.”

  I saw the fear in her eyes. Then remembered that it had happened to her. Devoured in the forest by an old ghoul, Selena had ceased to be. At least until Anna and I had rescued her. Ghouls were simply products of spirits, a mass of cold anger and hate. Confusion and loss. Brought together to spread ruin.

  “They caught up to you,” I said. It wasn’t a question. I knew from her look that Cheo and his spirits were still out there. Were now a part of some creature that would likely be making itself manifest before too long.

  “There were two more waiting,” Selena said. “Two more ghouls around the breach, attacking each other. Absorbing one spirit after another as they crawled through the breach. They were feeding, Carver.”

  “I suppose there’s enough for them to eat,” I said.

  “They stopped when we came in. I don’t know how to describe them to you, but they were shapeless things. Gluttons that had lost any limbs that they may once have had. They came for us,” Selena’s voice trembled here. Wandered up and down in pitch. Traumatized.

  Sometimes I forgot, with all the we had seen, that it was always possible things to get worse. You could happen upon some new terror that rendered you at a loss.

  “There wasn’t anything I could do,” Selena said. “Dolan tried. Made a charge into the center of the breach and stabbed the sword down. That’s when the first ghoul hit him away. Knocked him into the edge of the clearing. Both ghouls went after him. So I closed the breach. Went to the blade and twisted the hilt and sent the fire down.”

  “At least you closed it,” I said, the words sounded lame coming from my mouth. Not nearly enough to fill the void for emotion.

  “I didn’t realize it,” Selena continued. “Behind me, Cheo and the others, they attacked the ghouls. They were trying to save Dolan. In a way, they did. Distracted the ghouls long enough for me to pull the sword out, grab Dolan and run. I left them there, Carver.”

  “You did what you had to do,” I said. “Cheo wanted peace. Now he has it.”

  Selena laughed, a hopeless chuckle. “Peace? Inside of a ghoul? I don’t know, Carver. That’s not any peace I would want.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” I said. “Except to say that maybe it will be wor
th it.”

  Selena looked back out across the spirits. The guides. Fighting each other in an endless dance. More guides were arriving from the clock tower, from the city, while others backed away from the front lines. Wounded or exhausted. A rotation that would be carried out indefinitely.

  “We should use it,” Selena said. “Nicholas. His device. Let’s use it and end this madness.”

  “You know as well as I do that’s not a permanent solution,” I said. “You know as well as I do that if we leveled the city, the breaches would come back the same as before. We need something better. We need Bryce to succeed on the other side.”

  “Even if he does,” Dolan said, his voice creaking up from beside me. “Even if your man stops this war. Even if this disease ends. There will be more. There will always be more people, more souls flooding Riven. It will be impossible to hold.”

  “This, from the most optimistic spirit I’d seen in a long time?” I replied.

  “This, from a spirit that has seen the end. We have no other choice, Carver,” Dolan said. “We must go to Nara.”

  “Didn’t you say, not all that long ago, the Nara was the worst choice we could make?” I said.

  “She’s the only one that can create an army big enough to keep Riven safe,” Dolan said. “The only one who can save us from total annihilation.”

  “Then we failed?” I said.

  “We have,” Dolan replied. “There is no other way. We cannot close all the breaches, and if we cannot cut off the spirits, then we cannot survive.”

  Chapter 43

  As time went by, with us laying in the rubble knitting our souls ack together, the guides formed a more organized perimeter. Runners established routes, carrying ammunition, weapons to those who had broken theirs, and calling for reinforcements as needed. Injuries were carted away on makeshift stretchers. Crossing points close to the west gate were identified and communicated so guides on the other side could have an easier time of coming to the wall. To the ruins.

  But the swarm never ended. The spirits kept coming. Yes, they were mindless. Yes, they stood in each other’s way. Those that had been wrangled often waited around for some time, giving guides a moment of relief before they were shuffled out of the way by the next wave of attackers. It wasn’t easy. The repetitive boredom of the attack played into our human instincts. To where a guide might expect a moment after wrangling one spirit only to find the next one right behind, reaching for their throat.

  Eventually, I was able to stand. Leaning on Selena. Dolan, less hurt than me, went along in front of us. We set off, leaving Alec and Anna in charge of holding the wall. I’d never left a fight like that before. Walked away from the guides who needed me.

  I recalled my parents, in the bowels of the mountain, fighting Piotr and yelling at me to leave them. Those had been impossible odds like this one, so perhaps the fights weren’t so different after all. Or perhaps I was a coward.

  “You’ll do them no favors by staying,” Dolan said after I’d glanced back one too many times. “However many spirits you destroy, there will be double that coming after them. The best way for you to help your comrades now is this.”

  “And what is this?” I said, pouring my frustration in the my voice. “What are you expecting Nara can do? What you couldn’t?”

  “I told you,” Dolan said. “She will take the spirits, she will bind them together, and she will make an army that can cover Riven. Restore it to peace.”

  “Then why didn’t we go to her from the start?” Selena said.

  “Because it took both Mali and I to contain her ambition before,” Dolan said. “I’m not as confident in myself alone.”

  “We’ll be there,” I said. “And besides, if Riven falls, Nara falls too.”

  Dolan only nodded, then lapsed into silence. I remembered the paintings, Mali’s show. If Nara truly represented a terror greater than what was already happening, well, we’d have to risk it. Certain failure on the path we’d tried. With Nara, we had a slight chance of success.

  By the time we reached the clock tower courtyard both Dolan and I were walking normally. Our souls repaired. Bryce hadn’t yet returned from the other side, which I took as a positive sign. If he was making headway over there, then that might make up for the lack of it here. We didn’t stay long. I gave a quick update to the guides holding the command center, and then we were off. Marching east towards the grain field once again.

  The trek to Nara’s felt shorter this time. Perhaps because Dolan, as soon as he was able, pushed us to run. Claimed that because we could not get tired, we may as well travel as fast as we could. Lives were in the balance. I didn’t argue.

  Running without end felt strange. As though at any moment my muscles would wake up and realize that they shouldn’t be doing this. That sprinting down one block after another, through neighborhoods and towards the east wall, past the palace and out towards the green without a single pause for breath was wrong somehow. But I didn’t. My legs never protested. I didn’t drown in sweat, or fall apart as my body gave out. Eventually the strangeness of it all faded. I was living in a new normal. I had no body, not a real physical one anyway, and it was time I learned to use it.

  Nara stood outside her hut when we approach this time. Stared past us right at Dolan. Locked eyes with the spirit, but otherwise let no expression cross her face.

  “It’s been a long time,” Dolan said first.

  “I’d forgotten what it felt like,” Nara said. “To have you close enough to feel the binding. I don’t like it.”

  “If I could stay away, I would,” Dolan replied. The spirit then told Nara what had happened. Our failed defensive. The overwhelming numbers of any spirits flowing from the breaches. Not once did surprise cross Nara’s face. Not once did she show fear. Instead, that same straight gaze stared at Dolan the entirety of his tale.

  “So can you help us?” I asked when Dolan had finished.

  “Help you?” Nara said. “It sounds like you need a little bit more than help. You need a savior.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” Selena said.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Nara replied. She moved over to the ever burning stack of grain and poked it with a loose stalk. “Here I am, tending this fire for all eternity, until the three of you decide to pay me a visit after trying every possible way to avoid doing so. You tell me that all is lost. That your friends and families are suffering. That I am your only salvation. If I am not your savior, than who could ever be such?”

  “When I first came here,” I said, brushing over the argument. “You told me that I could help you. I’ve done that. Brought you who you asked. We need your end of the bargain.”

  “I cannot argue with that,” Nara said. “I believe I know how to repay you. I can do as you asked. I can reach out, once I’m close, pull the spirits in and drag them into my net. Save your friends. Your world.”

  Hesitation hung in the air as her voice trailed off.

  “But?” I said.

  Nara turned away from her burning grain pile and came towards me. Closed until she was barely a foot away. I stood my ground.

  “The problem with being a savior,” Nara said. “Is that everyone expects you to save them. Even from themselves.”

  “Explain,” I replied

  “Carver, back away from her,” Dolan said, a different edge to his voice. I heard the great sword being lifted from its sheath.

  And then I felt something alien. Nara reached out and touched my chest. Her hand pressing onto me, and then into me. I’ve binded spirits before, but this was different. Rather than joining, Nara’s technique felt more like theft. Nara took my will, my voice and my choice way. My senses were replaced with shadows of themselves, held by strings leading back to her.

  In a moment I went from knowing who and what and where I was to waiting for Nara to tell me, for her mind to inform me. I stood still, rigid. Stared into Nara’s eyes and knew what had happened, knew there was nothing I could do about it.

/>   Chapter 44

  “Carver, what’s going on?” Selena said. I wanted to turn my head to her. To warn her. But I was a prisoner in my own body. I couldn’t move. Until Nara gave me an order. The compulsion, Nara’s binding pushing my mind to take Selena and throw her to the ground. Less an outside command and more an irresistible urge.

  Knocking Selena to the ground was the right thing to do.

  I turned, looked at Selena and gave her smile. “It’s fine,” I said. “Nara is going to help us.”

  “What?” Selena said. As she squinted her eyes at me, I stepped forward, wrapped my arms around her shoulders, and pulled her over my leg and onto the ground. Nara bent over Selena while I watched, but before Nara’s hand could touch her, Dolan shoved his great sword in between. Pushed Nara back.

  “Dolan,” I said, drawing the lash in my right and the long knife in my left. “Nara is trying to help. This is how she does it. Stand aside.”

  Dolan glanced at me, then turned to Nara. “I had hoped the years had softened you. It appears I was wrong.”

  Nara slanted her head at him. “Softened me? I waited, trapped here in this field, for centuries. The only thing I had to nurse was my vengeance. Now I shall have it.”

  “Even if it costs you everything?”

  Nara laughed. “It won’t. After you, I will take Riven back and turn it into the paradise it was always meant to be.”

  “You don’t deserve to be a god,” Dolan replied, then lunged forward with the sword. Straight for Nara. Selena backpedaled away, while I stepped between Nara and Dolan’s strike. Deflected the spirit’s sword with my knife just enough for Nara to shift away.

  Dolan settled his eyes on mine. I gave him a nod. I respected his skills. I did not respect his stance.

  “Please,” I said. “You know this is our only choice. Do not sacrifice yourself for nothing.”

  “She speaks through your mouth now,” Dolan said. “I am sorry, Carver. You deserved a better end.”