by Matthew Ward
Or perhaps it wasn’t hate at all, but love? Whatever else had occurred, Lord Droshna was no longer the man he’d been. Death was mercy as much as justice, and love roused death as readily as hate. What if roles were exchanged, and it wasn’t Lord Droshna framed in lantern light, but Josiri… or Sidara? What if their deaths would save thousands? Would love or hate accomplish the deed better?
Altiris didn’t know, and prayed to Lumestra that he’d never find out.
The creak of bowstrings married with effort’s exhalation. Silvered arrowheads glinted with reflected lantern light. The light and safety of the Essamere shield wall felt worlds away.
“Wait for it,” murmured Kurkas, his cautioning hand barely a shadow in the darkness. “Wait for the signal…”
Josiri stared at Viktor’s hand, not gauntleted, as he’d first thought, but armoured in ridged, writhing shadow. Beneath, he glimpsed charred skin, still molten with daylight. In the same moment, he felt a little of that daylight’s warmth. Its brightness. Not from Viktor, but from within. Only for a moment, but long enough to remember what had brought him back to unhappy Eskavord. The betrayal greater than all others. Weariness yielded to anger, and in turn drove the shadow from his soul.
He stepped away. “Why did you kill Ana?”
Viktor drew back his hand and sat high in the saddle once more. “She left me no choice.”
Josiri shook his head. “You see? There’s that sentiment again. Never you to blame, always someone else.”
“She meant to kill me!” He held out his hands, the shadow hissing away to reveal the full horror of his wounds. “I’m still burning, and you call her the victim?”
“And how many had you already murdered when Anastacia found you?” said Josiri. “I’ve been to Duskvigil Church, Viktor. I’ve seen your handiwork. Shalamoh warned me there was nothing left of you worth saving. Lumestra help me, but he was right!”
“Josiri—”
“You shouldn’t have killed her, Viktor. I might have listened otherwise.” Anger faded, leaving emptiness behind. “I’m not here as your friend, your brother, or on behalf of the Republic. I’m not here to talk you round, nor offer redemption. I made you a promise six years ago. I made another yesterday, on the cliff where Ana died. You’ve made me so many promises over the years, and kept none. This is me keeping mine. I’m here as your executioner, Viktor.”
He raised the lantern.
Arrows whistled through the mist.
One clattered off Viktor’s left pauldron and spiralled away. Another missed entirely, whipping past Josiri’s shoulder into the darkness. Staggered by the first arrow, Viktor twisted in his saddle, searching for the source.
Then came the third. Brass’ arrow, for certainty. A poacher cared not if the game was spooked, so long as he knew where it would run.
Viktor roared and slumped across his horse’s neck. A pale shaft protruded between armoured plates halfway between hip and left armpit. The steed sprang away towards Eskavord, Viktor barely half in the saddle, great clouds of ash rising behind.
“No!” yelled Josiri.
But Viktor was already gone from sight.
Disgusted, Josiri trudged back towards the Essamere lines. They’d never had much of a chance, but that didn’t ease his disquiet at the failure. Poor odds were better than none at all, and theirs were about to get a good deal worse.
Apara met him halfway, her face pinched and her voice wary. “I saw him fall. Is he dead?”
Josiri shook his head as the first footfalls sounded. The tremor of soldiers on the march. He stared back towards a gateway suddenly thick with activity.
“No. So now we do it the hard way.”
Sixty-Four
The Ocranza came forth in a line wider and deeper than the lantern-lit Essamere ranks. Neither the lockstep of a single mind, nor the shambling of witless thralls. Warriors with bodies of cracked stone floating on a sea of Dark, wearing no raiment but the embrace of shadow. Weapons were the harvest of old battlefields, swords alongside axes and war hammers, as many of foreign make as Tressian – testament to the Southshires’ troubled past. A few shields had the stylised sword and hill of long-abandoned Cragwatch. Most bore neither blazon nor crest, their rotting planks smeared with grave-loam. No banners. No pride. Just a dark tide come to drown a defiant shore.
But no Viktor. Not yet. Standing beneath the limp Essamere banner, a wall of locked shields reaching left and right and what remained of his friends beside him, Josiri clung to the hope that even now his oldest friend was bleeding his last into Eskavord’s ash.
“Blessed Lunastra,” said Zephan. “This is the future Lord Droshna would offer the Republic?”
Murmurs elsewhere in the Essamere ranks echoed their grandmaster’s disgust.
“Not the one he intended,” Josiri replied. “But Viktor’s intent never mattered much.”
Zephan grunted. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that they need lanterns to see?”
No lanterns dotted the Ocranza line, whereas every third knight in Essamere’s rear ranks held one high, their shields grounded at their feet.
“Viktor’s sensitive to the light,” said Josiri. “Maybe they are too.”
“I thought he’d have more,” said Sevaka.
There were still hundreds, more than the combined forces of Essamere and the 14th’s survivors, but not desperately so. “We can thank Arlanne for that.” He glanced behind, past the lanterns and grim faces of the second rank to where the knot of King’s Blue, Keldrov at their fore, waited among the trees with swords drawn. “But this can’t be everything.”
Apara, little more than a shadow with lanterns blazing about her, nodded. “No Drazina.”
“Maybe they’ve abandoned him?” asked Zephan.
Josiri shuddered, the memory of the shadow’s caress returning. He’d expected it, had armoured himself with blessed silver to thwart its influence, and still had almost been overcome. “He won’t let them. They’ll fight for him whether they want to or not.” Did that include Sidara? Her light offered advantages others didn’t possess. She’d have resisted, and even before his madness Viktor had shown little tolerance for defiance. “Either way, we hold to the plan. Master Tanor holds the east, I the west. We break the first wave, go in hard, and take the fight to Viktor.”
Easier said than done, but wasn’t that ever the way?
Bleak thoughts threatening to overwhelm him, Josiri pushed his way clear of the shield wall.
For a long moment, he beheld the advancing line, thicker and deeper than his own. The wall of expressionless faces. Then he turned to face those who’d followed him to Eskavord’s ashen field. So many faces so much younger than his own. All of them looking as Josiri had felt at Zanya, at Davenwood, in the Hayadra Grove with vranakin howling around him and the city falling into mist… as he felt right now. At Zanya, his mother’s confidence had fanned fear to flame. Viktor and Calenne had achieved the same at Davenwood. In the Hayadra Grove, Anastacia’s divine glory had promised victory where words could not.
But words were all Josiri had.
“I don’t want to make a big deal about this, but the future turns on what comes next.” He offered a wry smile, and took heart from the ripple of amusement. “Lord Droshna’s no longer our protector, our champion, our hero… our friend. He’s a rabid wolf, lost to the Dark. If we don’t stop him here, today, his madness will consume everything.”
He swept his gaze along the line, meeting every pair of eyes that would meet his.
“Yes, we’re outnumbered! But so was the last army to fight for the Southshires, and we sent the Hadari running for the border!” Sentiment that had come hard earlier now flowing free, Josiri thrust his sword towards the Ocranza line, the reflected confidence of Essamere feeding his own. “We know they can be sent back to the mists! We know it’s a mercy! So let’s remind Lord Droshna what it is to be Essamere! What it is to fight for the Southshires! For the Republic!”
“Until Death!” shouted Zeph
an.
“Until Death!” Hilts hammered against shields, the drumbeat marking the syllables.
“Until Death!”
Impossibly, the chant grew louder. “Until Death!”
Altiris lay prone on the hummock’s crest beside Kurkas, praying fervently that none of the Ocranza glanced his way. Most had already marched past, blocking the retreat to the Essamere shield wall, barely visible beyond.
“All right, sah,” murmured Kurkas. “You’re in charge… What do you want to do?”
Altiris glanced into the darkness that concealed the other Phoenixes. Between injuries and sheer bulk, neither Kurkas nor Brass was good for the sprint. The others might have made it, but Phoenixes stood together.
But that didn’t mean they were out of the fight. The Ocranza had passed, their shields towards Essamere, and their backs exposed. Brass, Kelver and Viara each had a full quiver. It’d call down trouble, sure as sunrise, but it was better than doing nothing.
“Brass, Kelver, Boronav,” Altiris hissed. “Get up here.”
Neither battle cry nor challenge heralded the Ocranza charge, neither clarion, nor drum. There was only the thunder of feet, and shadow thickening in the mists.
“Steady!” Zephan’s shout echoed from the east. “Steady!”
Josiri leaned into his shield, sword levelled across its rim, the press of bodies claustrophobic and comforting. Hungry strides devoured the ashen ground between. Lantern light gave shape to unfinished faces and smoky eyes. Clay platelets floating on seas of shadowy flesh.
Some Ocranza clasped swords in textbook guard, others whirled them high, or dragged blades behind to furrow the ash. For every shield braced and levelled, another hung by its straps. What had begun as a line grew ragged. This was no army, but a mob, untrained and untested. And no mob could beat the glory of Essamere – not without far greater numbers than Viktor brought to bear.
Hope, distant for days, rekindled.
“Death and honour!” shouted Josiri.
“Death and honour!”
The leading edge of the charge crashed home.
Josiri’s shield shook beneath an axe blow. He thrust, steel hissing over the upper rim. Brief resistance. A crunch of clay. His shield sagged under a body’s weight, and the Ocranza scraped clear. Its body fell at his feet, no longer a warrior of stone and shadow, but a shell of empty clay, cracked and soulless.
Then shadow blurred before Josiri’s shield, and he’d attention for nothing but survival.
He fell into old patterns. The thrust of the sword, the twist to free the blade. Trusting to one’s shield, and to the shield of one’s neighbours. Lessons drilled for long ago Zanya, and little atrophied by passing years. He fought on through the screams, through the grunt of effort and dull thump of blade finding flesh. He blotted out the rising stench of blood and sweat.
Brittle the Ocranza might have been, but they were strong. Tireless. Every blow set Josiri’s shield shuddering. Every block or parry jarred the bones at wrist and elbow, threatening to rip the sword clean from his hand. Every attack was a brutal flurry that ceased only when clay flesh was pierced, and the shadow hissed free.
But most unnerving of all was that the Ocranza made no sound. No cry of exultation to accompany triumph, nor pain to mark their passing.
The knight to Josiri’s right fell writhing, armour rent and an axe buried in her ribs. Ocranza hurled themselves at the breach. Another knight strode into the gap to remake the wall, shield braced and lantern discarded. He went down, blood beneath his helm and an Ocranza kneeling on his chest. The attacker’s sword stabbed down again and again, silencing the gurling cries.
Arrows hissed through the mist and thumped home into the press of backlit bodies. An Ocranza collapsed, shadow hissing away across the skies. Another staggered, easy meat for Grandmaster Tanor’s thrust. Altiris watched it all uneasy, desperate to act.
Brass grunted and reached for another arrow.
“This could be going worse,” said Beckon.
“Don’t say that out loud,” replied Kurkas. “You never know who might be listening.”
“Reckon the gods care?”
“Who’s talking about the gods? Plenty of nasties around here without them involved.”
Bowstrings hummed. Altiris, his nerves increasingly jarred, didn’t see arrows strike home. The others knew their business, and the darkness felt closer and more oppressive with every ash-laden breath. As if he were being watched, and didn’t know it. Just because he saw nothing didn’t mean there was nothing there. He could almost feel something, creeping closer.
“Quiver’s empty,” murmured Brass. “What now?”
Altiris dragged his attention back to the lights of Essamere.
What now indeed? Though the Ocranza were greatly thinned, they still outnumbered Essamere to overbearing degree. But still… the battle was turning, and for the better. And even if it weren’t, there wasn’t much they could achieve without arrows.
The sensation of being watched returned, stronger than ever.
“Group up,” Altiris murmured. “We’re heading back to the others.”
“No!” cried a familiar voice. “Wait!”
Darkness pulsed at Altiris’ shoulder. He twisted aside, blind grab closing about a throat. Pivoting at the waist, he heaved the interloper across his shoulder and dropped him in the ash. Before the other could move, he had the point of his sword against his throat and a foot on his chest.
“Jarrock?” breathed Altiris, eyes never leaving his captive. “I think we might risk a little light. Brass? Boronav? Let me know if anything comes our way.”
Light from a coaxed lantern spilled across the hummock. Just enough to give shape to the assembled Phoenixes and the spluttering bundle at Altiris’ feet.
“Stay your hand, dear Devn,” said Constans, his hands outspread. “A friend am I.”
“A friend?” Kurkas limped closer. “I ought to cut your bloody heart out!”
The shield wall buckled inwards. Ocranza flooded into the gap. A war hammer crashed against Josiri’s shield. The impact drove him back, arm numbed and footing treacherous.
“Close the line!” he bellowed. “Close up!”
His gut soured, knowing it was already too late. A gap two shields wide became three, became four. The Ocranza surged into the breach. Josiri heard screams behind, and knew knights in the second rank were dying.
And then Apara was in the gap, sword darting without thought to her own defence. An Ocranza collapsed, shadow hissing from a wound in its misshapen chest. She shouldered another aside and thrust down.
She shrieked as an axe thudded into her back. Flinched as a sword cut deep into her arm. Staggered beneath a war hammer’s merciless strike. But still Apara stood – still she fought – her garb torn, but her eternal flesh bloodless and unyielding. Only when the tide of Ocranza ebbed did she sink to her knees.
“Until Death!”
Hunter’s green shields pressed forward, sealing the gap. The assault ebbed, attackers’ numbers run thin in their attempt to breach the wall.
Gauntleted hands dragged Apara clear. As the wall rebuilt, Josiri gratefully yielded his place to an unwearied knight and pushed his way to her.
She knelt in the ash, limbs shaking but the wounds of the war hammer’s strike already healing. Bone crackled as her right hand twisted a lolling left back into place. Black blood trickled across her fingers and dissipated to silvered vapour.
Marking Josiri’s approach, she shook her head. “I’ll be all right.”
Dropping his useless shield, he helped her stand. “More than ‘all right’. You just saved us all.”
Constans squirmed and went still as Altiris’ sword point grazed his throat.
“What do you want?” said Altiris in a bitter whisper.
“To help.” Tone and expression pleaded.
Kurkas squatted and made meticulous search of lad’s clothing. He tossed two daggers onto the ash. “You believe that rot?”
&nb
sp; Altiris shook his head. Constans sounded genuine, but he’d done so before, all in service of a lie. “Not a word.”
Kurkas tugged a third dagger from Constans’ boot and tucked it into his own belt. “You want to do it, or shall I?”
No clue in Kurkas’ voice to tell whether he meant it. Could be he didn’t know himself. Constans’ betrayal remained too fresh for Altiris to untangle his own feelings, let alone another’s. And Kurkas had almost died.
“He’s all yours,” he said, his eyes on Constans.
Kurkas drew his sword.
“No!” yelped Constans, his eyes wide. “I know where Sidara is! She needs your help.”
The claim sent a jolt clean through Altiris’ spine and deep into his heart, just as Constans had surely meant it to. He exchanged a glance with Kurkas. “You believe him?”
“My aching back aside, he’s Droshna’s creature. Be fools to listen.”
“It’s—” Constans lowered his voice as Altiris gave a warning jab of his sword. “It’s true, I swear. Viktor shared his shadow with her as he did me, but it’s different. She looks the same, but it’s like there’s a piece of him behind her eyes.”
Altiris grimaced, awash with churning, helpless horror. But grisly memories of the Merrow’s lair held him back from believing. “Sidara suddenly matters to you? Enough to betray your father?”
“She’s my sister!”
“Like that’s mattered for years,” said Kurkas.
Altiris stepped away. “Make it quick, captain.”
“Yes, sah!”
“Viktor chose her over me,” said Constans, breathless. “I wanted us all to be a family, but as soon as he had her, I didn’t matter any longer. Even in the Dark, she outshines me.”
The boy swallowed, eyes bright with humiliation. A pitiful, selfish confession from a broken, jealous soul. It made so much sense of Constans’ contradictory behaviour. He so wanted to be loved, to be valued. Of course he’d found that under Droshna’s guardianship… or he’d thought he had. Even now, it wasn’t clear whether Constans wanted to help Sidara, or merely depose her from his rightful place in his father’s affections. Not that it mattered much.