Singer's Reward

by Hausladen, Blake;

  “Oh,” was all I managed to say as the violent tumble of white water became black as Hessier were blasted a thousand a second into the tempest. More and more of the Copper Quarter’s south wall fell outward as the ground beneath it gave way to the torrent of lake water, and I had to cover my ears as the crash of rock crew so loud I could not hear Dia’s song.

  The gap in the north wall quieted as the lake water surged along the wall, taking every Hessier with it, no matter their size or strength. The flood of water into the Bessradi was so great, that waves began to move upstream. Foxtail Harbor was swamped, boats and tall ships were tossed about like it was a bathtub, and the cutwaters beneath Tin Bridge’s were hit so had that I felt the mist upon my face.

  It felt for a moment, in the blazing light of Dia’s great song, that we had won.

  “Relay order,” I called instead. “All divisions east, retreat by the brigade, fast march.”

  The signal flags for it were complex, but every colonel on the far side of the river knew the order was coming. Every man in blue and green on the far side of the river turned toward us and began to move.

  “Signal Dia?” I asked Leger.

  “Not yet, we need to see them try to force a way across the water,” he said.

  I knew this, but the moments were stretching one to another and Dia’s song rolled on and on as though she was singing it for real.

  “Look there,” Leger said and I followed his finger to the smudge to the north. It has spread out as thought the beast there were moving in every direction.

  “He’s losing control,” I said, but began to worry. “What is he focused on that he has let them go?”

  A movement to my right drew my eyes, but the thing I saw did not make sense. On the far side of the river near the spillway, a black mass was forming. It was the size of the Deyalu and as I tried to understand what I was seeing, the thing began to move toward the river. It had the shape of a slug and pushed itself into the water.

  Geart had combined thousands—a hundred thousand beasts into one mass. The abomination would push its way across the rapid and quickly through the quarter and onto us. I could already feel its touch. We would not be able to stop it.

  “I think he is committed now,” Leger said.

  “Signal Dia to stop singing and for Sewin to release the fire ships. I am going down.”

  “The hell you are,” he said and grabbed hold of by the collar of my mail coat.

  “Leger, I must. We must hold it at the rivers edge and hope the fire ships are enough to set it on fire. Once it gets into the quarter, it will plant itself on top of Tin Bridge and the best of his Hessier will be at us.”

  “There are a thousand men who can lean the attack,” he said.

  The rolling blue song was in my ears and chest, I laughed for a moment, and turned back to him. “No. There is only one person here who can draw that beast’s attention. If I run before it, it will turn. Tell me if there is anyone else here who can confound that creature, and they can do this, because I do not want to.”

  “I will go with you,” he said.

  “No, damn you, signal Dia to stop singing and stand your post. I am counting on you to keep the children safe.”

  He called to the signalmen and I started down. Chaukai and Hemari flowed beneath the bridge and I did not know how I could possibly turn them or get them to make way. Every plan we’d made had them retreating back to the Warrens as the Copper Quarter’s walls were overwhelmed. A million traps waited for the Hessier, if only they would cross where they were supposed to.

  I could think of only one fool thing and cut the stump of my arm before my courage failed me. Bleeding, I got down and pressed it into a dusty patch of earth and grass. My blood caught fire and the stump became a blazing torch.

  “Make way,” I called and started through the gate.

  The hurried men were shocked back and I commandeered a captain’s horse and took his spear.

  “Rally,” I called and raced across the bridge as the stunned ranks made way. “Rally.”

  I had Evand’s safe routes in mind as I followed River Road, turned left up Copper Road, and made my way through an abandoned camp of Hemari. Some of those I’d passed had turned to follow me, and whatever their number, they would have to be enough.

  The rumble of the thing shook debris from buildings and I saw it moving above the wall. A hundred human and animal faces looked back at me and screamed.

  On I raced, the flames of my arm keeping back its dark touch. I felt I had gone mad. My charge was made of insanity, but still Dia’s song rolled on, torturing the monstrous beasts. For every par of eyes upon the bulbous wall of flesh that were tracking me, a thousand were looking toward Dia.

  I would kill this demon, and the Spirit of the Earth would worship my name. “Rally!”

  Down Glass Road I raced, my borrowed horse wheezing as I moved through the last of the building before the tumble of broken wall.

  The thing before me was too big, and the terror to great. I closed my eyes to its form, leapt from my struggling horse and continued on foot.

  “Rally!”

  The slope there was grim and broken, and below the water churned. Up the thing came. It was a wall of flesh, and upon it were a million faces. Children’s teeth and the arms of women reached toward me as the abomination was carried through the water on a thousand legs, tails, and reaching hands.

  * * *

  Up it lumbered out the water, its mass greater than a hundred Urnedi Manors, the sound of it a nightmare of pain of sorrow. The forest of legs struggled upon the mud at the edge of the water.

  Still Dia’s song cooked the sky, and in that light I saw the mass of men that had followed my call.

  “Charge,” I called and the flames upon my arm became a crimson lance. I started forward, calling them in with me. “Here, On me! There is no terror that can take you. Charge!”

  When I leapt down and started across, I was certain I was alone, and just as certain that the beast must be stopped before it got up out of the mud its churned. The wall of flesh I stuck was made of pig’s faces and hair, and my rapier stabbed deep. into flesh and caught against some structure of bones.

  The thump of ten thousand boots across the mud was the surest sound that day. Spears struck the mass all around me. The man next to me was collected in by a dozen arms and tore apart by the bit of many mouths. The terror took many, but its advance was halted.

  “One and heave!” I screamed and the men around me took up the call until with a single voice. “One and heave. One and heave.”

  Each set the thing back forth, until its straining limbs began to break beneath its weight.

  Again and again the division set is full weight into the seething wall until something inside the thing snapped like a clap of thunder. The screaming faces and grasping limbs went limp and flaccid, and the monstrous thing slid back into the river like a half eaten slug.

  * * *

  Cheering

  * * *

  Two more emurge further along the wall

  * * *

  Word arrives that a srong hessier, not geart, has frozen the river above the lake and beasts are racing around the top of the lake toward the city’s west side.

  * * *

  Barok retreats toward the center of the quarter as beast flood across the dead abomination after them

  * * *

  Barok recognizes the slope there, and spends many thousands to hold their posistion there.

  * * *

  The think comes over the ridge, and as it starts down toward them it rolls uncontrollably forward and to its left. Stuck upside down, they set fires beneath it.

  Barok had lost his sword during the second engagement and Hessier collection around it by the hundreds, dying to their longbows until the thing is buried beyond their ability to dig it out

  * * *

  They want my blood

  * * *

  Set fire to the pile, hurry

  * * *

>   We must withdraw, the third approaches, WE can get you north and out onto the lake.

  * * *

  I painted the man’s shirt with my blood

  * * *

  You go. Draw it into the lake an across to Deyalu Island. IT is big but not big enough to push it way through the ribbon. kill it there,

  * * *

  Evand is flank! They have entered the Warrens bheind us!

  * * *

  Dia was still singing.

  * * *

  She should have stopped by now

  86

  Marshal Evand Grano

  The Battle at White Wall

  A sane chapter. Slow. Careful. Preserve his force at all costs.

  * * *

  Guards Barok’s north flank, defending the tower homes and Talley Bridge and the river beneath the clock.

  The Hemari slaughter Hessier by the thousand

  Undead cross in huge numbers, but the Warrens is ready, and retreat into their fortress homes. Each one defends itself and keeps Geart from surrounding Barok.

  The Hessier are decimated by the living

  A Hessier crosses and began blasting tower homes apart

  Aden!

  Yarik is missing

  The toll begains to mount, and Evand reaches for pennants white plus rahan’s

  * * *

  Aden stops moving and the dark tang in the air fades. He falls flat on his face, a crossbow quarl sticking out of the back of his head

  * * *

  Yarik is there, along atop a tower

  * * *

  Beasts swarm up the side and he is torn apart

  * * *

  The close the gaps and the White Wall holds.

  * * *

  An abomination born of river fish slithers toward the dam

  87

  Admiral Soma O’Nropeel

  The Battle Beneath Talley Bridge

  They have forgotten about me, I think—those princes and their queens.

  I have not laid my hands upon Lilly since I first mended her atop Urnedi, but I know what would happen to her if I had hold of her while she was sang—while any of the druids were singing. The spirit has been trying to tell me for so long. We don’t need Emilia to power the song. We need my hands upon the druid to keep the Shadow from corrupting their song.

  “I will kill him today,” I said.

  No one was there.

  I blinked at the empty room, and then at the ropes that circled my hands and feet.

  “No, not

  * * *

  Must create space for the druids to sing. They hAVE doe their part but it will not be a fake attempt at the song

  They will attempt it whether Barok wishes it or not.

  Upon ship beside tin bridge. Ready to sail up river and out of the city once they have the children

  Evela and Fana have taken the children.

  “where is Dia?”

  “She was not with the children.”

  “She would not have left them. Where is she now?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Idiots. She will be coming for us. Where is Barok?”

  the poeple sent to fetch barok are late

  he went down to attack

  “What?”

  “There.”

  A thing smashes through the wall and keeps moving.

  Geart was moving too, down toward the river

  “We’ll do it without him. Get ready.”

  * * *

  Graves, time to go.

  * * *

  The ships swings around and the children are laid upon the black soil.

  * * *

  Another ship is headed right at them., two galleys flanking it

  * * *

  Dia is aboard, and her former crew.

  * * *

  “Never mind them.” get started

  * * *

  Tayler and her crew from the Whittle are there.

  * * *

  “No.”

  * * *

  “She knew. All of you. YOu played me.”

  * * *

  “You are not Soma. You are a smaller thing and simple. Step away now and get to your knees. I want my admiral back, and I will have her with or without your concent.

  * * *

  The river abomination sliteres over the dam on its way toward the ship

  * * *

  They are forced to abandon their arrest

  * * *

  galley balistas punish the thing, but on it comes toward the Kingfisher

  * * *

  It catches the ship and breaks it open

  * * *

  Soma leaps onto its back, and with her touch, kills it

  * * *

  where are the children?

  * * *

  What have I done?

  88

  Queen Dia Vesteal

  Soma O’Nropeel

  Ship to ship battle two galleys and a tall vs somas ships.

  They are losing as the abomination comes over he wall

  Soma kill the thing, and the Kingfisher breaks in two and begins to sink

  * * *

  Dia and the ship try to get around to it in time

  * * *

  She is certain the children are lost until all the river water freezes at one.

  * * *

  The wall of mud and debris tumbled over the thrashing horde and smash into Tim Bridge. Water and filth exploded up until with a great rending of stone, the ancient bridge Edonia bridge collapsed. All the vile beasts on the bridge and in the river vanished in the froth.

  * * *

  She runs across and find the children, and Soma’s broken body

  * * *

  The growl of beasts are all around them

  89

  Goddess Emilia Grano

  Games

  * * *

  Huge battle upon the river upon the frozen ice

  DIa is surrounded

  Leger and Clever ride in with the Soul iron and the hessier and ghosts decimate each other until they get close to the children.

  Burning hot, they get acorss to the foot of Talley Bridge and up into the Warrens.

  They are winning until Geart pulls the shadow from every man, rock, and branch of the Kaaryon and sings a song of forgiveness, the ghosts fade to nothing, leaving only Leger.

  Geart walks across the river, triled by Sikhek

  Leger tries to kill Geart, but loses and is taken.

  * * *

  “three down, three to go.”

  * * *

  Their fun is almost over

  * * *

  She does down to see the ending for herself

  90

  King Barok Vesteal

  Battle of Bessradi Day Three

  * * *

  Barok and Chaukai try to fight Geart and Leger along the river’s edge

  * * *

  Dia is wounded

  * * *

  One Chaukai after another falls holding away Geart’s touch

  “It is my turn now,” Avin said. “I brought Geart into the embrace of the Shadow. I will remove him”

  Barok attacks, Avin mades the attempt, and Geart burns but he is not destroyed. Avin blows away with the wind.

  Barok, covered by the last of the Chaukai, fights Geart and Leger with a sword and shield

  Leger exhausts himself and fades, his army dropping to the ground

  Geart defeats Barok alone upon the ice

  and all but kills each other

  * * *

  Emi is there, walking around behind Geart

  * * *

  Barok stands one last time to allow her time

  91

  Goddess Emilia Grano

  Alone

  Standing behind Geart next to Sikhek, and Dia

  “Sikhek, what are you? What are we, that you and I can touch and see the Vastness?”

  “I stole my way in with murder.”

  His connection with the Vastness trembled, and I was not cert
ain who controlled who.

  “You, I cannot judge. You are perfect, perhaps. Dancing with numbers you found your way to the endless sea.”

  “I do not want to be a god.”

  “I do. Help me. I can stop this and replace them all.”

  Geart stops moving looks at her, too much like a man.