by David Estes
They didn’t, she reminded herself. You stopped them. The enemy they faced now, however, were soulless. This she knew in the depths of her own soul. Her purpose had changed, for she wouldn’t be able to destroy them, not like that.
Despite her efforts, she also knew that the Garzi would be too late. The distance from the Hinterlands to the Southron Gates was simply too far. Even if they marched day and night without stopping to rest, it would take a week—perhaps more—for them to arrive on the battlefield. By then it would be over, one way or the other.
I must bring them here, like I drew Roan from the water, she thought. She closed her eyes, concentrating on those many souls. She was careful not to touch them directly, not to hurt them, only to pull at them across the distance. They recoiled from her as if burned. Even Zur flinched away, memories of anguish washing over him.
I’m sorry, she said to him. I’m trying to help.
You can’t help us, he said. Not like that.
The connection was severed as Lisbeth’s frustration boiled over. She stubbed her toe on a rock and cursed. It was uncharacteristically careless for her.
“Lisbeth?” Sir Dietrich said. “Are you injured?”
“Not physically,” she muttered.
“The Garzi?”
Her soul gazed upon his, which was as blue as the sky. Thousands of other souls of many colors marched around them, some weary, some determined, some happy, some scared. “They won’t come to me,” she said.
“I thought you said they’d left the Hinterlands.”
“Some of them, but on foot only. They won’t come to me.”
“Oh,” he said, his soul pulsing with understanding. “When we make camp, I will help you practice again.”
It was a kind offer, but what difference would it make? She couldn’t draw a rock to her, much less another person. Drawing an entire army that was many leagues away felt like climbing a mountain that rose all the way to the stars. “Thank you,” was all she said.
“Hey,” Dietrich said, his fingers grasping hers. “This isn’t all on you. We all have a role to play.”
She knew he was right, but it didn’t feel that way. She’d been the last of the fatemarked to enter the world, and something about that made her feel more responsible, not less.
A small, bright soul caught her attention just ahead. Its brightness was like the sun and the moon and the stars joining together. A tiny ball of bright white light.
She was not the last, she remembered, watching as Rhea Loren’s deep, crimson soul carried the pure white soul of her child.
The peacemarked came last.
And that had to count for something.
She just didn’t know what.
Ninety-Five
The Southern Empire, the Southron Gates
Roan Loren
Roan stood atop the wall, staring into the distance. There was a strange haze over the Forbidden Plains, somewhere beyond the western border city of Felix. It had been three days since they’d passed through the Bloody Canyons. They stopped only briefly in Sousa before making their way toward the wall.
Roan squinted as a dark mass moved slowly across the sky. It was heading their way. “Do you see that?” he asked.
Beside him, Gwen said, “Yes. A flock of birds.”
“Birds?”
“More specifically, crows. A lot of them. They’re scavengers. They’re following the death.”
Roan’s chest felt tight. Not from fear—from thinking about how many would still die, regardless of what they did. His lifemark provided no warmth, as cold as stone in the winter.
Next to Gwen, Siri growled low and long, the sound reverberating through the wall. Others had climbed the steps to the top of the wall too, but there was a large gap between them and the dragon.
The crows flew closer and Siri seemed to tense.
Gwen patted her scales and Roan sensed they were silently communicating. He snuck a look at the dragon’s second head, which now had a lidded eye and a portion of its nasal slits. If its head fully formed before they met their enemy on the battlefield…
I must trust Gwen, he thought. If she thought the dragon was a danger, she would not be here.
He could hear the beating of feathery wings now, a constant background noise to the series of caws. Are they going to attack us? he wondered.
He took a step back as the entire flock seemed to dive right toward him, screeching.
He drew his sword. A series of caws rang out as the crows swept overhead, pulling up just out of range, their calls a cacophony now. Several archers shot at the birds and a few fell, landing on the wall or tumbling to the ground far below. Siri released a gush of dragonfire, a wave of heat washing over Roan. He closed his eyes as ash fell like rain, the birds incinerated.
Those that were unscathed wheeled about, turning back toward the north. Through the ash and mist, Roan watched them go. Eventually, they vanished into the gray haze, as if they’d been swallowed whole. Roan frowned because he swore the fog had grown closer than before.
He bent down to inspect one of the dead crows, its breast pierced by a well-aimed arrow. Its beak and feathers were stained with blood. Some was its own, fresh. But most was not.
The crows were a warning.
The Horde was coming.
“We can do both,” Falcon said. The discussion had gone around in circles for almost an hour. The fog had almost reached Felix now, the city looking small and insignificant next to the mass of gray. They were trying to decide whether to march out to meet the Horde on the plains, or wait behind the wall. Falcon continued: “The Phanecians can sally out. Our warriors do not fight in lines and formations. We can harry them from all sides, using our speed and agility to pick them off. The rest of our force can hang back. The archers can fire from the wall. We will use the break in the wall as a place to bottleneck the barbarians.”
“The Black Tears will go too,” Sonika said. “We will cut them down.”
It made sense, though Roan was no battlefield general. Still… “That’s a suicide mission. None who go will survive.”
Falcon jutted out his jaw, but it was Sonika who spoke. “Battle isn’t about feeling, it’s about doing. We all must sacrifice on this day. We are not afraid of death.”
Roan shook his head. Why should they go and not the rest? How did one decide who to send to die? “We could all remain behind the wall,” he suggested.
Windy Sandes said, “Against a normal enemy that outnumbered your force, that would be the standard approach. But I think we can all agree this enemy is unlike any we have ever faced. We know little of their tactics, which are known to be ruthless and cunning. Even the great line of Crimean rulers, the very Conquerors of the World, were confounded by the barbarian hordes even when they were disparate tribes who hated each other as much as they hated all other species. United? They will swarm over the walls like ants. It might even give them the advantage. Not to mention we know next to nothing about their leader, save that he’s fatemarked and likely more powerful than any of us can imagine.”
Silence hung for a moment, until Noura made a cooing sound as Rhea rocked the babe in her arms. “Pessimistic much?” she muttered.
Roan heard his own words played back to him, along with Windy’s, and he knew something about them felt off. “Lisbeth?” he said. “What say you?”
Her soulmark flared, blue light shimmering. “I—” she started. Her milky eyes flitted back and forth, as if she was seeing something behind them. “Everything is gray. Forlorn. There is lightning and thunder. Blood. So much blood.”
“That’s helpful,” Rhea said, her mood seeming to grow darker by the second.
Lisbeth’s soulmark winked out and she said, “I’m sorry. That’s all I see.”
Roan felt a deep sense of foreboding. The leader of the Horde seemed to have the power to defend against other fatemarks. Roan wasn’t certain what that meant for the impending battle, but it couldn’t be good.
He tried not to t
hink about Bane’s absence, though that only made him think about it more. What if he was already dead?
No, he chided himself. The boy comes and goes as he pleases. If he were dead, I would feel it. After all, they were two sides of the same coin, linked in a way Roan was only just beginning to comprehend.
“Shae? Erric?” Roan said.
The halfmarked nodded and linked hands, light coursing through their palms, meeting in the middle, brightening. Their bodies began to shake, their eyes rolling back in their heads.
“That’s normal, right?” Falcon said, watching them with a frown.
“Normal might not be the right word for it,” Grey Arris said, taking Noura from Rhea. “But yes. This is what they do.”
Roan watched the halfmarked, hoping they would find the answer they sought. Suddenly Shae’s eyes burst open and she cried out. Their hands separated and they crashed to the ground, still shaking. Grey quickly handed Noura back to Rhea and went to his sister’s side while Roan dropped down to help Erric.
“Shae?” Grey said, trying to hold his sister still so she wouldn’t hit her head. “What’s happening? What’s happen—”
Her body stopped convulsing at the same moment as Erric’s. They gasped, lungs heaving as they fought for air. “He saw us,” Shae said. “The painmarked one. He saw us. There is no hiding behind wall or fortress. His power transcends the things of this world. His mist of nightmares cleaves stone and shatters bone.”
There was a grunting sound as someone stumbled into their circle. If anything, Ennis Loren looked even more haggard than before, his eyes as wild as those of a cornered beast. “It’sh true. If ee hide behin’ za wah, za battle will be over before ih beginsh.”
“You know this for certain?” Roan asked.
“Aye. I know.”
“Ennis. Tell us what happened in Knight’s End.” It was Rhea who spoke, her voice soothing.
Her eldest living cousin winced. “No,” he growled. “No. No. No.”
The mania was back, the moment of lucidity gone as quickly as it had arisen, and Ennis began pounding his own forehead with the heel of his palm, again and again and again—
Roan grabbed one of his arms while Falcon secured the other. Ennis began to scream, a deep-throated bellow that resembled how a man might sound as he was being tortured. Roan struggled to hold him as he fought them, feeling frantic, worrying that this man, who was once a proud, strong warrior, was a glimpse into the future of what they would all become if they faced the Horde. Instinctively, he willed his lifemark to life, a narrow beam of white light extending from his chest to Ennis’s temple. At first, he only bucked and fought harder, but then, abruptly, his cry was cut off and his body sagged.
Mercifully, unconsciousness took him.
Roan and Falcon laid him on the ground while Yela went to fetch a pillow.
“I will try to heal him,” Roan said. “His mind.”
“Have you ever tried such a thing?” Falcon asked.
He shook his head. “I expect it’s much the same as healing the body.”
Rhea had handed Noura back to Grey, and now she knelt beside him and said, “Brother. Please, be careful. He’s endured much already.”
Roan met her eyes, their normal cerulean blue almost navy as shadows crept across the harsh terrain. “I will,” he said. “I promise.”
He laid his hands on Ennis’s head and closed his eyes.
Ninety-Six
The Southern Empire, the Southron Gates
Ennis Loren
A light cut through the thick billows of gray mist.
Ennis stumbled, trying to push toward it but feeling bone-weary, every part of him wanting to lie down and rest. At the same time, he knew what waited for him in the dark quiet of sleep.
Don’t sleep, he commanded himself, taking another staggering step forward toward that spot of light. The beam turned away, as if searching for something.
It’s looking for me! he realized, suddenly frantic. It felt like his last hope for escape, one final chance to drag himself from the cold depths into which he’d sunk.
He ran, his knees bending too much as he struggled to remain on his feet. Each time he approached the light, it flitted away, searching, searching…
There! It was right before him now, just another step—
Something grabbed his leg from behind and his neck twisted to locate his foe but there was only mist, the tendrils of fog having shaped themselves into a hand complete with fingers and a thumb, clutching him with the strength of muscle and bone and flesh.
He tried to scream but could conjure no sound, his throat constricted, choking him.
His mouth open in horror, he watched the light fade away as he was dragged back, his fingers clawing at the ground until they bled from their tips, carving lines of scarlet in the dirt.
There is no escape, a voice said, seeming to thunder from all around him. Not for you and not for your friends.
Finally, his throat opened and he screamed.
Ninety-Seven
The Western Kingdom, Felix
Helmuth Gäric
He could see through Ennis’s eyes, could see the fatemarked gathered against him. Fools, he thought. They were arrogant types, like the boy stumbling along before him, muttering nonsense under his breath.
They thought they would kill him, because they were good and he was evil. Little did they know there was no good and evil, only those who conquered and those who fell. The world had tried to conquer him so many times, bringing him to his knees.
He’d been mocked and abused and berated. But he hadn’t fallen, not all the way. When he was forced to the ground, he crawled. When he was shoved further down, he’d wriggled like a snake in the dust.
And now he conquered.
His mist swirled around his Horde and he could feel their fear, but he didn’t touch them. No, he needed their minds clear and focused for what was to come. The final western city before the Southron Gates stood before him. The staunch defenders rang their bells, calling all able-bodied to their stations. Arrows flew shortly after that, but they could not aim through the mist and most fell harmlessly around them. Occasionally a lucky shot hit one of his many, but most were flesh wounds. One fell, pierced through the eye, but it was a small loss next to the thousands that lumbered forward, reaching the walls and beginning to climb.
The first of the screams rent the oncoming night in two.
This shall be a night of vengeance, Helmuth thought, watching as the Horde took the city.
That’s when he realized someone was missing.
The boy known as Bane.
Bane
Bane ceased his muttering, which had never been real, his madness faked. Yes, he had felt the madness coming on, but had held it off the way a beggar might use a cane to fend against a vagabond.
Through the mist he ran, no longer chained by the gray tendrils, his deathmark having flared just enough to break free. He concentrated, trying to go to another place—any other place—so he could rest and recover. He would return once he was strong enough to face the man forged by pain.
His deathmark was as cold as ice.
Dammit, he thought, trying to understand how he’d been stripped of his power. What am I without it? A weak, useless boy, that’s what.
Something launched itself at him from the side, a massive, muscled shape. The barbarian knocked him to the ground, its claws biting deep as it landed atop him, teeth gnashing as it tried to rip out his throat. Releasing an animalistic scream, he managed to shove it off, feeling his deathmark pulse slightly, lending strength to his arms and legs.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough for him to kick to his feet, going on the offensive, slamming a powerful fist into the creature’s face, hearing an audible crunch as bones shattered.
The barbarian howled, clutching at its mouth and nose, trying to roll away.
He leapt atop it, clamping his hands around its head and twisting with all his might. With a brutal snap, its neck
broke and it slumped to the ground.
He whirled about, searching for the next enemy.
Shadows crept in. Not from one side or another, but from all around. They growled, baring their teeth. A dozen. Two dozen. And then they attacked.
Roan
In the end, it was no decision.
As soon as they heard the screams from the city ensconced in mist—oh gods, there are people in there! Roan had thought—he knew they had to try to help.
Falcon and the Phanecians were first through the gate, roaming far to the west as planned. The masters of phen ru were strapped with blades on their wrists and ankles, their leather armor tight against their skin to give them the greatest possible range of motion. The Teran army sallied to the east, marching in that perfectly synchronized way of theirs. Roan hoped that by flanking the enemy they would gain an advantage. They needed any they could get.
“What would you have me do?” Gwen asked now. She had clambered onto Siri’s back and was looking down at him with an intense look.
Roan was torn. He feared for Rhea and her child, but the dragon could turn the battle in their favor. There is another who can protect Rhea, he thought. “Fly,” he said. “End them.”
Gwen nodded with clenched teeth and then whispered something to Siri. The dragon released a shriek and leapt into the sky, her wings buffeting the air around her.
Roan shielded his eyes and watched them go, hoping against hope it wasn’t the last time he would see either of them.
“Sir Dietrich,” Roan said, turning back to find the knight. He was the most capable warrior they had. “Protect Rhea at all costs.”
The knight’s eyes flitted to Lisbeth, who was staring into the distance. “Sir,” she said, not looking at him. “Do this thing. It is important. More important than me.”
Sir Dietrich pursed his lips, but then nodded, having come to some decision. “I will do what I can,” he said. It will have to be enough, Roan thought.