Kayna’s archers rained arrows down on the rear lines. Jahmai called for a retreat, but there was no place to go except the pass. Nara turned to see Mykel tearing the plates of armor from his now-unconscious brother, snapping clasps, hooks, and tearing straps. He then hefted Sammy’s giant, unconscious body onto his back with one hand, holding the staff in his other, and strode toward the pass.
Nara turned to look at the advancing men. Far in the back, she saw a rolling platform being pulled by horses. On the platform was Kayna, seated on a throne. Behind the platform was a string of men, half dressed and shackled to one another, arm to arm.
Nara was both exhausted and demoralized, but Kayna would soon rise, and there would be no way to match her strength.
35
Names
Nara ran up the slope, following her retreating forces toward the pass as arrows from Kayna’s advancing archers continued to come down. She flared protection and turned—the enemy infantry was in full advance. She flared motion to knock aside a dozen arrows, but she couldn’t stop them all. A nearby soldier fell with an enemy arrow shaft through his calf.
Nara flared motion and pushed at more than a dozen of the enemy that were almost upon them, forcing them back into the next line and giving her time to reach the fallen soldier. It was Kitt, the cook, and he was a bloody mess. She flared strength and picked him up, carrying him over her shoulders and running up the slope to join the others. More arrows came down, one narrowly missing them, but she was able to get Kitt into the hands of several others before turning to reassess the retreat.
Jahmai rode up to Nara’s side, giving the report.
“They still have almost three thousand fighting men,” he said. He looked haggard, and his cheek bled from a shallow cut, blood streaming down to his chin. “We’ve lost hundreds, probably half of ours, but we have captured their big cursed and killed maybe eight other gifted.”
Nara nodded, keeping an eye on the advancing troops, ready to delay them enough to ensure a successful retreat. “If we can escape through the pass, I’ll collapse it to bar the way.”
“Good idea,” Jahmai said. “Try to stall them long enough for us to get all the way to the—” An arrow pierced in his throat.
“Ander!” Nara caught him as he fell from the horse, then looked behind them for the source of the arrow. More rained down now, cutting her fleeing troops apart. Then she saw them. Enemy archers were at the pass, high on the rocks above, dozens of them, blocking the escape. They were trapped.
She pulled the arrow from Jahmai’s neck, then put her hand over both sides the wound, flaring sight and knitting. The blood escaping the wound slowed, then stopped as the vessels and skin healed. She helped him back atop his horse, but the loss of blood had weakened him.
“Get to the pass,” she said, clapping his horse on the rump. “Get them all to the pass,” she yelled as the horse trotted away.
The arrows rained down by the hundreds, and Kayna’s troops slowed their advance, letting the archers do the work. Nara flared motion and pushed the archers, one at a time, off the cliffs, but her attention was split as she also tried to knock away arrows flying down on what remained of her army. She stumbled on a corpse as she strove to reach a fallen spearman. The corpse was Derik, his eyes open and staring at nothing, sticky blood pooled on his chest from a sword strike.
Grief struck her hard as she looked upon the young man who’d followed her despite great pain. Who followed her because he believed she would save them all. And because he wanted to atone for his wrongs. She had let him down. She had let them all down.
Nara bit her lip as anger boiled up inside. Not just at Kayna but at herself for leading these people into a bloodbath. There wasn’t much strength left in her, but she would use her remaining power the best she could.
She turned to the cliffs and flared speed, then raced through her army and through the arrows that rained down. She reached the entrance to the pass before the first of her retreating forces, just as an arrow impacted her shoulder and she stumbled, rolling in a heap of dust and pain. She rose to her feet, chiding herself for leaving protection down in the midst of an arrow storm. She needed her energy, however, and endured the pain, running until she was at the entrance to the pass.
Looking up, she flared earth and the high rocks shook. Eyes closed for better concentration, she flared earth even harder, commanding the earth to fall.
High on the east side of the pass, the rocks moved, shifted, then slid, becoming an avalanche. She could hear the screams of the remaining archers on their perches as the flood of soil and earth enveloped them, swept them off the cliffs, and ended their deadly assault. The rocks came down, thundering directly into the path of her retreating army. She flared sight and earth, sensing the footfalls of the few who’d escaped the avalanche as they climbed up and away. Retreating. Good. She didn’t have much strength left, and she needed it for one more thing.
She ran toward the fallen rocks that blocked the pass, the last of the rockfall settling as she arrived. Commanding the earth with her remaining strength, she willed the debris, stones and soil to flatten, to make a path again, clearing the way for her army’s escape.
“Come!” she shouted to the closest of her army. Tired, scared citizen-soldiers funneled into the pass, limping and stumbling. Mykel still carried Sammy on his back, and as she ran back toward the battlefield, Nara saw Gwyn and Yury helping injured soldiers into wagons for the retreat.
As Nara returned to the rearguard, Kayna’s forces surged forward again, in full advance, now that she had beaten their archers. It was over. There was no way Nara’s army could escape through the pass in time. As if to add to the despair of the moment, more than a hundred cavalry broke free of Kayna’s army, in full gallop toward the pass and only moments away.
Her cepps were empty, and the weakness in her legs made it clear she had little strength left. She looked about, desperately searching for energy she could make hers. There was nothing. She was alone, again, an army about to crush her, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Anne moved along on her cane, stumbling out of the woods on sore feet as she looked toward the slopes above. The battle raged ahead, and she heard the thundering hooves of horses and riders.
Nara hadn’t used the cup. It was all she needed to find victory, but Gwyn had failed to deliver it. Or worse, Nara had dismissed it, caught up in the drama of the confrontation. Without it, Nara could never win this fight, and the end was now near. Perhaps some lives could be saved. Perhaps Nara’s. Or maybe Anne could just buy them a little time.
She stopped in place, dropped her backpack, and fished through it. Upon finding the handle of the small ceppit, she pulled it from the pack until it rested on her palms. Smaller than most, but every bit as effective, this was the only chance to save Nara.
She gripped it in her right hand, took a deep breath, and thrust it into her left shoulder, burying it. She screamed with the sudden pain, enduring it as best she could, shuddering with the shock of it but waiting for the magic to do its work, looking for some new power or awareness to rise.
Nothing came. The patch held.
She pulled the ceppit out and stabbed her left thigh through the meat, even as blood from her shoulder made a growing stain on her old tunic. Again, she steeled her resolve to endure the pain, closing her eyes, waiting, looking, hoping to see something more. A moment passed, but no new magic showed its face.
The pain in her thigh grew, and she withdrew the ceppit and opened her eyes. Blood from her shoulder and thigh now pooled on the ground. She plunged the ceppit into her other thigh and fell to her knees with agony but held it in place.
She waited. It shouldn’t take this many, should it? She’d never done this before, and it was risky. So much blood lost now, and she was getting dizzy. Closing her eyes again, she concentrated, the screams of advancing troops threatening to distract her. Focusing on her inner self, she saw something on the periphery of her vision.
“Come out, little rune,” she said. “Announce yourself. Who are you?”
It came closer, still blurry, indistinct, but slightly sharper. She removed the ceppit from her thigh and tossed it aside, then placed her hands on the ground, focusing with all her attention.
The design came into view. It was the earth rune.
Perfect.
She flared the rune with all her remaining strength and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Uf-fhal!”
And the earth rose.
Nara marveled as the ground beneath Kayna’s army shook, then exploded in a shower of rocks and dirt, pits and columns appearing, boulders emerging. The entire cavalry charge would have decimated Nara’s fleeing forces but, instead, now collapsed abruptly as horses crashed into one another, fell into pits, or stumbled with the shaking.
Who had done that? She looked around the battlefield, perplexed, not finding the source of that magic. Then she saw it—an old woman on the far side of the slope, collapsed.
Anne. How had she done that?
Nara flared speed and ran, using the earthquake’s distraction to cross the distance. As she arrived, she found Anne slumped over, her good eye closed, barely breathing. Blood around her soaked into the earth. So much blood.
Nara fought back a brief dizzy spell, then flared sight and knitting, closing wounds on Anne’s shoulder and thighs. It wouldn’t replace the lost blood but might keep her from getting worse. Perhaps she’d have a chance, now.
“Oh, dear Anne,” she said. “What do I do? I need you. Don’t die. Please. Tell me what to do. Should we retreat to Keetna, save who I can? Or keep fighting? Tell me, please. I don’t know what to do!”
Anne was mouthing a word, but no sound came out, her shallow breath rasping. Her hand squeezed Nara’s insistently, and she tried to say the word again. A single syllable. Nara couldn’t tell what it was.
Anne squeezed Nara’s hand again, gritting her teeth, then tried to speak, but Nara still couldn’t understand. Her lips were trying to form words, but no sound was coming out. Nara focused harder, and then she saw it.
Cup. She was trying to say cup. How foolish, she had forgotten about the cup Gwyn gave her. Nara pulled the cup out of her pack. Wear marks on it made the cup look ancient, and a strange rune was newly scratched upon its face, one she’d never seen before.
She placed it on the ground in front of her, then looked up to see Kayna’s forces reassembling. What remained of her cavalry was gathering and would charge again soon.
She looked at Anne, who rested her head on Nara’s lap. Anne reached up to touch Nara on the chest. She pushed. Twice. Her mouth moved.
Barely audible, she whispered, “Go,” then closed her eyes and fell unconscious on Nara’s lap, certainly on the edge of death. But there was nothing more Nara could do.
Oh, Anne, not like this!
She tenderly lifted Anne’s tiny form away from the bloody soil, then laid her gently on clean grass several feet away. The vibration of galloping horses got Nara’s attention and she looked up to see that Kayna’s cavalry had begun another charge.
The cup bore a rune—perhaps that would be useful. Nara raced back to the cup and sat on the ground, looking at the rune. Hands on the ground below to brace herself against another dizzy spell, she closed her eyes and pictured the rune in her mind. It came quickly. She flared it.
An odd feeling came over Nara as images flooded her vision. A boy, sitting on a slope, looking over a long valley and a river. He was eating a sandwich. There was a girl nearby — no, she was closer than that. The image became clearer. The girl was sitting right next to the boy on a blanket, having a picnic lunch together. Young lovers? It made little sense. How could a picnic help fight a battle?
Nara opened her eyes, eager to stall the charge somehow. She stood to her feet and took several steps forward. She couldn’t get there in time. She stooped to retrieve an arrow that was sticking out of the ground, preparing to throw it at the lead horse. Perhaps it would stumble and disrupt the charge.
The rune was important, however. Important enough for Anne to insist with what might have been her dying breath. It nagged at her. She was missing something. Summoning the image of the cup’s rune again, she flared it. The odd feeling returned, and images streamed through her mind, but they were different this time. A shop in Fairmont, a man sitting on a stool, working. He was a fletcher, shaping the shaft of an arrow with a whittling knife. The image changed, now that same man was polishing an arrowhead. She looked at the arrow in her hand.
Could it be?
She whirled, looking at the ground where she sat on the earth a moment earlier, her hands on the soil. Sloped ground, with a view of a valley below. A valley with a river. It was the perfect place for young lovers to have a picnic.
The rune read memories. Memories of places. Of things!
Her eyes darted toward the cavalry charge, hoping that it wouldn’t devastate her fleeing troops and that she’d have time to act, despite her lack of strength. She stooped to grab the cup, held it firmly in her hand, then flared the new rune again.
Images of a cavern came to her. Huge, bigger than the one near Eastway. Flowing water, fire weeds, birds, grass. And a classroom. Children at seats. A teacher with wavy auburn hair, drinking water from a cup as she moved about the room.
Come on, Anne, what are you trying to tell me? Teachers and caverns? How can this help?
She flared the rune harder, focusing on the cup in the teacher’s hand. It wasn’t just any cup, it was this cup, the very one Nara held now; the shapes were identical. The woman moved about the room, leading the class in a recitation. No, not a recitation. The teacher was saying single words as she pointed, the children repeating them. Nara focused on where the teacher was directing their attention, following her finger through the blurry image. High on the walls of the classroom were images. Symbols. She focused harder. They were runes!
Nara listened to the words as the teacher pointed. The runes were hard to make out, many designs she didn’t recognize. Then she saw the fire rune and heard the teacher.
“Aysh,” the woman said.
The children echoed. “Aysh.”
The teacher pointed toward the sound rune, “Ni-shma.”
“Ni-shma.”
She pointed at the earth rune. “Uf-fhal.”
“Uf-fhal,” said the class.
The runes have names!
Nara threw the cup down, flaring speed and running for the cavalry just as they approached the rearguard of her retreating army. As she ran, she screamed, “Uf-fhal” and flared earth as hard as she could. The ground shook with each of her footfalls as if she were a giant smashing the earth with a hammer. It was asking for orders, shouting obedience in time with her steps. Far greater power than she had ever felt before from the earth, and it asked for none of her energy, using only its own. Incredible! She commanded it, the ground rose, and she was upon a roiling pillar of rocks and dirt, racing toward the enemy riders. She called to the soil of the slope, and it collapsed under the cavalry, burying them, aborting the attack just before impact with her fleeing army.
Nara turned, looking down at Kayna’s still-approaching troops. One against almost three thousand. Weakness in her legs reminded her that most of her strength was gone, but now she wielded a new weapon, her favorite, and mastery of it requiring none of her own strength now that she knew its name.
She reached down and ordered the earth to yield some of its own power, to fill her spirit with the strength she knew it had, but it refused. It would go where she willed and change its shape as she commanded, but its spirit was its own and would not be shared.
It might be enough. Her friends needed to escape, and there was a Queen that needed to die.
She told the earth to carry her forward, and it obeyed.
36
Cataclysmos
Mykel dropped his staff and set Sammy down in the middle of the pass as several hundred men, soldiers, and horses galloped past him in full retreat.
Nara had cleared the way for their escape, but as he looked around, she was nowhere to be found. Was she leading the retreat or staying behind to stall the enemy?
Sammy breathed but still slept, a large red mark from Mykel’s strangulation still around his neck. As he examined his brother, it was clear that Kayna’s magic had twisted the boy. Not just making him grow, but altering his shape. His eyebrows weren’t even, and his jaw was now pronounced. Oddly, Mykel now realized how much Sammy looked like Pop. But Pop was never this big.
Sammy was supposed to be dead. They had been wrong, somehow, and finding him this way was a curse in itself. He lived, however, and Mykel was grateful. Thank Dei for that. But Sammy was changed in such a horrible way, no longer the delightful boy who ran about the woods and blushed when he was teased. He was a rampaging monster and had violently attacked Nara. He could have killed her, even though they had been friends. Kayna had changed more than his body, somehow teaching him a hatred for Nara. His mind had been twisted and when he awoke, that anger might resurface. Mykel couldn’t leave Sammy without first knowing where Nara was.
“Where is she?” he asked of soldiers that ran by. “Nara. Where is she?”
They continued their retreat.
He flagged down a mounted spearman. “Where is Nara?”
The man pointed back to the battlefield.
She was still fighting. Alone. Without her Guardian by her side.
He grabbed the staff and took a last look at his broken, twisted brother, angry at himself for not having been in Dimmitt to defend him. He then turned and broke into a full sprint for the battlefield.
Finding Kai Page 22