by Matthew Ward
“Now that, I believe.” Kurkas sheathed his sword. “What do you want to do?”
As if there was any choice. “Viara? Do you have a spare bowstring?” Catching it cleanly, Altiris dragged Constans to his feet and bound his wrists tight. Every other moment, he shot pensive glance towards the battle. “I’m going after Sidara. I have to. Vladama, you’ll take the others to Lord Trelan.”
Kurkas brought his heels together. “Certainly bloody won’t, sah.”
“Vladama…” Altiris abandoned an attempt to meet his gaze. It wasn’t the darkness so much as the fact that Kurkas wouldn’t meet his in return. The drill sergeant’s recourse.
Jarrock grunted. “Lord Trelan said we should stay together.”
“And you know what he’d say if he were here,” put in Viara.
Altiris searched for help in Kelver and Beckon’s faces, and found none. “Sergeant Brass? Talk some sense into them, would you?”
“Like anyone ever listens to me.”
Kurkas grinned. “Looks like the matter’s settled, don’t it?”
With a last glance towards the lights of Essamere, Altiris admitted defeat. He prodded Constans towards Eskavord. “You want to make things right, now’s your chance.”
A final welter of blood – a ragged bellow – and Sidara drew the arrow free. She hissed as the bloody silvered head brushed a fingertip. Her shadow’s discomfort resonating with Viktor’s own, she cast the arrow angrily to the lychfield’s ash. Viktor slumped against the church wall, gasping as his shadow’s screams finally ceased.
Tzila looked silently on from amid a crowd of motionless Ocranza. Others laboured beside a cart, fashioning clay into bodies that would soon be needed. Drazina set to guard Sidara’s work stared outward into the ruins. Constans was nowhere to be seen, as was so often the case when there was work to be done.
Sidara leaned close, visage twisted in concern. “Better, Uncle?”
Viktor nodded. “Thank you.”
Pain remained, but pain was nothing to silver’s touch. Sensation flooded back, his resurgent shadow joining anew to the subservient slivers he’d sent elsewhere. He was disgusted at how poorly his Ocranza fared. Reflex had hurled them forth, unsupported and untrained, while silver had him blind. He’d treated them like soldiers, when they were not. Not yet. He’d still much to learn, but he’d do so. He had to, were the Republic to be saved.
He didn’t need to tell Sidara, of course. She already knew. She’d already seen, written in their shared shadow.
Standing tall, Viktor beheld the waiting Ocranza, the gathered Dark no obstacle to his sight for it was a part of him. A mere two hundred, but they’d serve now he was fit to lead them.
Sidara waved a hand towards the forms waiting to be roused. “Will you need more?”
She swayed, exhaustion of recent hours in lined features and lidded eyes. Viktor longed to grant her rest – she’d laboured so long and so diligently this past day – but he couldn’t afford reprieve. Not yet. He set his shadow billowing between them, buttressing her flagging spirit with his own.
“As many as you can, and soon.”
Her eyes snapped fully open, dark and lustrous. Lips formed a proud smile even as her cheeks grew a shade more wan. “Yes, Uncle.”
Satisfied, Viktor again turned his attention to the Ocranza.
“Come with me.”
The words were habit, for they read his intent in shadow more than sound. Viktor felt the anger seething beneath their shadow, the fury that he’d read as flaw in Tzila, when in truth it was a gift. Anger birthed strength. And strength was sorely needed.
But he’d other servants, too. Seeded when the 14th had made doomed assault on Eskavord.
Reaching forth with his shadow, he set them loose.
Sevaka was fighting from the second rank when the screams sounded. Not along the shield wall, but behind.
Even as she turned, the chime and grunt of desperate fighting broke out. Knights who’d thought themselves safe in the rear ranks found themselves assailed. Not by Ocranza, but by new enemies come howling out of the darkness.
The survivors of the 14th.
“Behind!” Sevaka shouted, her voice already hoarse. “Behind!”
Lanterns blinked out, shattered in their wielders’ hands or falling with their slain bodies. Darkness rushed in, sucking life and hope from the mists. Screams found new timbre. The darkness filled with the thunder of running feet. The shield wall, weakened from behind, shuffled back.
Ocranza surged through the gaps, quickening the slaughter. A clash of lines became a contest of individuals – a contest where numbers counted more than skill. It grew steadily more uneven as lanterns died beneath the smothering Dark.
“Essamere!” Sevaka snatched the banner from its bearer’s hand and hoisted it high in the failing light. “Rally to me! Essamere!”
She cast around, searching for sign of Josiri or Apara.
The western end of the Essamere line was already dark.
“Essamere!”
A few heeded her now, shields gathering to the banner’s lantern. Too few.
Zephan stumbled through the mists, helm gone, armour bloodied and sword dragging behind. He dropped to one knee and sprawled, eyes skyward.
“Zephan!”
As Sevaka started towards him, another figure slunk into the circle of light, her eyes drowning in darkness, tell-tale black spiderwebs creeping outward across her skin.
Bloodied sword still in her grip, Keldrov staggered and clapped her hands to the sides of her head. “Tried to tell you… warn you… He wouldn’t let me.” She screamed and fell to her knees. “All one in the Dark… All one… Help me!”
Sevaka stared, soul-sick and numb, remembering how Keldrov had spoken of soldiers of the 14th turning on their own. She’d thought the phrasing odd at the time, but had dismissed it as exhaustion. Viktor had them now – had held them for the moment his thralls would do the most damage.
“I’m sorry.”
Sevaka rammed her sword forward – the only help she had to offer. Pained features softening to gratitude, Keldrov slipped sideways into ash and did not rise.
“Zephan?”
The banner now more support than burden, Sevaka knelt beside the dying grandmaster. His eyes darted, sightless. Bloodied lips muttered half-formed words, breathy, faltering. As shields formed a protective ring about them, she let her sword fall and held his hand tight. Even in the face of disaster, some lives mattered more. Another friend slipping away, and she powerless to prevent it.
Above her, shields shuddered beneath fresh blows, the silent Ocranza joined by the corrupted soldiers of the 14th.
“Lunastra,” murmured Zephan, left hand tight about his moon pendant. “Blessed…”
The prayer faltered on his dying breath, and he was gone.
Leaden, Sevaka rose to her feet. She saw no lanterns beyond the score or so knights ringed about her, only the dead and the dying. Here and there, the fight continued, knots of Essamere with battered shields and bloodied tabards. And in the distance, away towards Eskavord’s mist-wreathed gate, a new line of Ocranza marched into view, a tall, shadow-cloaked figure striding at their head.
Viktor.
There’d never been much of a chance, she’d known that from the first. They’d all known. Defiance counted for something. Even to the last. If Viktor wanted her dead, he could do the deed himself.
Arm shaking, she raised the banner high. “Essamere…!”
Sevaka faltered, belatedly wondering why she could see Viktor at all if there were no lanterns to light the darkness. The mist was shining, no longer the greenish-white of invasive Otherworld, but pearlescent silver as a brilliant half-moon reclaimed the skies.
She didn’t know why she started to laugh, only that she did. Zephan hadn’t offered prayer. With his dying breath, he’d beheld a miracle.
A hunter’s horn rang out, sonorous and vibrant.
When it faded, there were riders among the mists. Riders c
lad in darkened scale and cloaks of fallen leaves, their faces hidden by sombre helms fashioned in the likeness of birds. All of them more smoke than substance, a dream roused on winter flame and drawn thither by a favourable wind. All save the two who rode at their head.
One rode a white stag, green fire blazing beneath his antlered helm, and his cloak swirling with the light of captive stars. Ashana’s demon, who’d cast down the gates of Ahrad with his starlight spear and set loose the horror of the Avitra Briganda.
Sevaka should have feared him, and perhaps would have done so, but for the woman at his side. A woman who sat astride a steed of shadow and moonlight, who wore an Empress’ golden scales and silken robes, but no Empress was she. White hair shone bright beneath the moon.
Sevaka gaped, forlorn laughter lost to wonder. “Rosa?”
Sixty-Five
The hunter’s horn rang out. The ground shook.
From Eskavord’s gate, Ocranza mustering behind him, Viktor watched with mounting fury as their scattered siblings of the first assault became the riders’ prey. Spears dipped and punched home, leaving trails of streaming shadow. Brittle clay shattered under spectral hooves. Essamere – broken and dismayed after the 14th’s intervention – gaped wide-eyed at salvation.
Hunter’s instinct was all, the riders splitting and reforming like a flock of birds. Where saddles emptied, the steeds dissipated into swirling autumn leaves. No words of exultation rang through the mists, no battle cries, no orders – only the thunder of hooves and the winding of that accursed horn, its antlered bearer dark behind a starlit spear. The Court of Eventide, set loose from myth to besiege the future. And riding at their head, a woman Viktor had once counted among his closest friends…
But then Rosa had been the first to betray him, hadn’t she?
Even awash in outrage, Viktor knew he should have been afraid. He knew the equerries from myth, and their Huntsman from reports of Ahrad’s fall, six years before. He’d faced others of the divine at the close of that war, and knew too well what perils such contests held for ephemeral men.
But instead, what few doubts he yet entertained vanished for ever at the sight.
That Ashana sent her lackeys to Essamere’s aid was final proof of Josiri’s treachery. But it also offered hope. Even at the height of the Avitra Briganda, Ashana had withheld the Court of Eventide from aiding the shadowthorns. That she loosed it now betrayed her fear. It proved that Viktor held within his hand the secret to casting down the faithless Empire sheltering beneath her skirts. In her desperation, Ashana offered Viktor certainty. She offered the Republic no mere survival, but a promise of pre-eminency.
All he need do was triumph. No mortal man could have done so, but he was Viktor Droshna, scion of the Dark and redeemer of Malatriant’s tainted legacy. There was little beyond him, if he set his shoulder to the wheel and his mind to purpose.
He hefted his claymore aloft. “Forward!”
The bobbing will-o’-the-wisp of the lantern turned sharply and headed south through the ruins. Crouched low behind the remnant of cottage walls, Kurkas beckoned back into the dark.
“Quickly,” he hissed.
Boronav’s hooded lantern roused to a dull glow. The rest of the Phoenixes gathered to the crossroads corner, Altiris in the lead, the bound Constans sandwiched between Brass and Kelver. All of them on edge, though Kurkas couldn’t blame them for that. The nostalgia-laden smell of the mist, the prickle of ash at the back of the throat, the screams of battle echoing from the north. Plenty to set a soul shivering, even without the darkness.
“More Drazina?” Altiris asked, his tone brittle. Again, no surprise. He’d more at stake than any of them.
Kurkas crooked a smile. “You know how it is. Turn over a rock…”
The attempt at humour fell flat. Truth was, he wasn’t feeling much for funny stuff himself. Every time he thought on what Lord Droshna had done, he wanted to scream.
For all that oath sworn to the Republic said otherwise, a soldier’s first loyalty was to his friends. To have your oldest betray so many others? That was hurt enough to match his barely healed wounds. Every step sent fire racing along his spine. More, Kurkas knew the clamminess at his back wasn’t sweat alone. The bandages hadn’t been meant to stand up to this. He’d not told Altiris. The lad would never have let him be part of if he’d known the truth. But you stood with your friends, or what were you? And now there was a damsel in need of rescue – not that Sidara had ever struck Kurkas as one susceptible to distress. You didn’t turn your back on that.
He snorted. Vladama Kurkas, the romantic. Who’d have thought?
“How far now?” he asked Constans.
The boy nodded west. “She’s in the old lychfield… or she was.”
Kurkas closed his eye, mapping years-old memories of Eskavord atop imperfect glimpses of its ruins. Reduced to Dark-haunted rubble, one building looked much like another. But they’d not crossed the Grelyt River, so they’d not passed the church. Couldn’t be far.
“Queen’s Ashes…” muttered Jarrock.
Kurkas snapped his eye open onto disaster.
Eskavord, drowning in the Dark until that moment, now shone. Moonlit mist gave shape to ashen wastes and crumbled buildings… to the foursome of a second Drazina patrol advancing down the eastern street.
Shouts and drawn swords betraying mutual recognition, they barrelled forward.
Altiris swore softly and strode into the street proper, midway between a cottage’s collapsed wall and a sharp drop into an ash-clogged drainage ditch.
“Phoenixes! To me!”
Kurkas nodded his approval. They had the numbers, and it was as good a spot as any… Or it would have been, but for shouts erupting from the direction of the first patrol. Others sounded away towards the northern wall.
No life for an honest soldier.
Jarrock and Kelver joined Altiris’ thin line.
“It’s about to get cosy.” Kurkas rolled his shoulder in fruitless attempt to banish its stiffness.
“We’re Phoenixes,” Altiris said stiffly. “We can handle this.”
“No!” said Boronav. “You and Kurkas keep going. We’ll draw these others off. Give you your chance.”
Brass scowled. “She’s got a point.”
Altiris rounded on him, furious. “What happened to Phoenixes standing together?”
Kurkas gripped Altiris’ shoulder. “They’re right, lad. We’ll not reach Sidara with this lot on our heels.”
Altiris screwed his eyes tight, but nodded. “Nothing reckless, Viara.”
She smiled. “From a Phoenix? Perish the thought.”
With a last glance at the approaching Drazina, Altiris struck out west, shoving Constans before him. Exchanging a nod with Brass, Kurkas followed. His last glimpse before following Altiris into the cover of the ruins was of a thin line in the glowing mist, swords drawn and shields steady.
“Come on, you dozy bastards!” Viara shouted towards the oncoming Drazina. “Scared, are you?”
“She didn’t have that mouth on her when she joined up,” said Kurkas. “You’re a bad influence, lad.”
Expression taut, Altiris slipped deeper into the ruins.
The moonlight mare knew its business better than any destrier Rosa had ever known. She lined up charge after charge to utter perfection, the strike of the unfamiliar sword and the crackle of shattered clay mere formality. Perhaps that was for the best, as Rosa had neither bridle nor spurs with which to offer command.
Rosa was grateful for the judder of hooves and the ache in her scarred shoulder – the weight of one sword in her hand, and rattle of another, still scabbarded, at her back. They offered proof that this was not a dream. And so much was dreamlike. Had been since the Huntsman appeared beneath her balcony. She barely recalled walking to meet him, much less mounting the moonlight steed. What had come after was hazier still. Mists and a garden of white trees. Lithe, silver women binding her in armour and tending with a touch wounds that should have taken d
ays to heal. Then the sound of the hunting horn had drawn her back to ashen fields and friends beset. A knight’s duty bright beneath the shining moon.
The mare veered left and picked up speed. Rosa hacked down. Felt brief resistance of clay beneath the steel. Then the mare was moving once more, galloping alone to relieve an embattled ring of green shields, heedless of the danger offered by spears levelled in her path.
An Ocranza crunched to broken shards beneath insubstantial hooves. A scraped parry. A plunging thrust and another collapsed, shadow bleeding from empty eyes. Rosa’s backswing scattered a third. The mare reared, a spear in its chest and its flailing hoof caving in a clay skull.
Rosa grabbed at a handful of mane. Her fingers closed on brittle leaves. Others swirled about her as she fell, the scent of old summers and fading seasons thick in her throat. She struck the ground winded, a cloud of ash rising about her. A crunch of broken clay, and an Ocranza collapsed alongside, shadow peeling into the mist. Then a gauntleted hand found hers.
It took Rosa a moment to recognise a face that didn’t belong above a knight’s torn cloak and battered armour. But only a moment. With a cry of joy, she flung her arms about Sevaka.
“What are you doing here?”
Sevaka pulled away and grinned, and the night grew brighter for it. “I might ask you the same. You’re hopeless. Even when I try to keep you from a fight, you still find a way.”
“An Empress’ gift. Her penance.”
The Ocranza driven off and respite earned, the shield ring reformed, a tattered banner above. Rosa glanced around at familiar faces. No more than a dozen. Knights she’d trained. Fought alongside. And one who was no knight at all. “Apara?” Seized of urgency, she gripped the thief’s arm. “Josiri? Have you seen him?”