“What? Do you have any idea who I am? And she tried to kill me, remember?” He protested, still glaring at the cobbles.
Cori’s lips parted with a triumphant smile. “Stupid bastard Phoenix worshipers,” she muttered.
“And you! Almost killing one of your own.” Nyset snapped at her and the smile dashed from Cori’s lips. “You dare to disgrace me, the Arch Wizard by trying to murder your own before my eyes?”
Cori scowled. “He’s not—”
“Have you not seen the heads piked upon your walls?” Nyset screamed in her face. She turned, regarding the crowd, murmurs carrying down the line. “Humanity, men, women—we need to work together,” she shouted. “The one enemy is over there, burning the Tower. Pour all of your hate into fortifying yourselves for the Death Spawn, for in time they will be at your gates.”
She remembered something she had read about leadership. It was better to be feared than liked. Her eyes found the darkest, angriest looking woman in the whole mob. She walked around close to her, eyes locked. “If you want to live to see your children grow old, do what I command!” She stood there, her eyes vibrating on her long enough to drive her point home. Her guts were twisting, but she had to appear fearless.
“I’m trying to keep everyone alive, but I can’t do it without you. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re at war with an enemy that wants to remove us from the realm. The Death Spawn do not take prisoners, they simply murder and torture. If you keep fighting amongst yourselves…” She paused and shook her head. “You’re just making the job easier for them.”
People murmured and feet shuffled. She had to win them over while she had their attention. Their petty squabbles would soon resume their positions at the forefront of their interests. She didn’t want to brag, but they needed to know who she was. “My name is Nyset Camfield. I’ve been embracing the Dragon for eleven years now, practiced every day for at least four hours. I’ve stood and fought against the most fearsome of Death Spawn, the Lord of Death at the battle of Dressna. Some of you may have heard it called a giant.” That got some heads nodding.
“I was there, saw her fight myself!” Someone from the back shouted. The crowd was swelling as more and more gathered around.
“The Death Spawn raided my village in Breden just over six months ago. Killed my first Black Wynch there, before ever becoming an apprentice at the Tower.” A few approving cheers burst out from the crowd. “Saw a lot of people I grew up cut down with Death Spawn blades. I fought Asebor himself at the Silver Tower, beside the giant slayer, Walter Glade.” That produced more cheers and nods. Her lips curled back. “Every battle you’ve heard about against Death Spawn in this age, will sing songs about, I was there. So you don’t have to question whether or not I’m up for the work.”
She thought she might piss herself at any minute, but her voice carried out strong, unbroken. Her voice may have been strong, but her guts were a coward’s, knots feeling like they were only getting tighter.
“I need you all to do the right thing. To fight against the real enemy!” she bellowed. “And before you start laughing and calling me insane, forcing me to throw you into a tornado…” She grinned at Cori and a few chuckles came from the crowd. “I’m not talking about tending to your business or feeding your Sand Buckeyes, or trying to be a hero. I’m talking about standing by the Tower! Fighting for humanity! Fight with the person beside you, not against him or her. And most of all, I’m talking about sticking together!”
She pointed out Claw standing beside her with a long finger. “Take a look at this man, his name is Claw.” Claw’s wretched mouth hung open as everyone turned to look at him. “A few days ago, he saved my life. He stuck by my side and killed the Death Spawn assassins whose heads are now perched upon your walls. He listens to me, most of the time.” She winked at him and for the first time she thought she saw him blush.
“You do me too much honor,” he mumbled.
“Some say he’s crazy, maybe he is, but he’s loyal to the end, loyal to humanity’s survival. He stood with his kind and kept himself focused when he was needed. Put his blade through a few Death Spawn. If you ever have any doubts about who the enemy is, go and take a hard look at the rotting heads before the vultures ruin them.” She might have embellished the truth a bit, wasn’t that the point of a speech? “He did the right thing. He fought against the Death Spawn, not against you, for whatever manner of transgression some of you likely inflicted upon a man like him. I think people of your experience and prowess with the god’s powers should have no issue with saving your strength for Death Spawn. An interesting note about the Death Spawn.” She tapped a finger on her lips, letting the silence weigh on them. “Some of them carry power-diamond marks, believing them to be a charm I’m told.” That got some more laughs. She had no shame about tugging on their strings of greed if that’s what it took to bind them together.
“That’s all now. Carry on with your day… remember who our enemy is!” Her knees felt wobbly and something in her ankle disconcertingly clicked. There was no whooping applause like these sorts of things went in the stories. The crowd murmured and started dispersing. She hoped she had at least won enough of them over that they wouldn’t try to burn each other to cinders. It seemed like it was the best she could hope for.
A man walked out of the crowd straight towards her, looking strangely familiar. The man’s head was cast down and his hair spiky, a frayed patch over one eye.
“Stop,” Senka hissed into his ear, her fist pressed into his side, surely something sharp under it. By the Dragon, she was keen.
He was missing his right hand starting at the forearm. Hanging from his shoulders was a cloak flapping in the wind. It had been patched one too many times and was clasped with a buckle of rubbed bronze. He wore light leather armor, plates overlapping around his shoulders. On his waist was a sword, the leather wrapping the hilt gouged from hard use.
His lips curled into a wicked smile and his eye drifted to Nyset. He looked up and she met Walter’s gleaming eye. “Is this how you treat all your lovers?”
“Walter.” She choked out the words. “You’re… you’re here!”
Senka lowered her fist from his side and tucked something into a bracer under her cloak.
She had been waiting for this moment for far too long. She open her arms, and he his. Their eyes met and in his eye, she saw other worlds. There was a darkness there, a hidden depth, something that bit at her soul. Their bodies pressed together. He was just like she remembered, like hugging a block of granite, but his fingers in her hair were soft, tender, protective. It took every ounce of her self-control to not collapse into a pool of sobs. There was so much she didn’t understand and so many unanswered questions. How had he been living in that grave? Was he ever dead? She pushed herself away from him, eyes wetting, before she embarrassed herself in public.
“Lovely speech.” He grinned. He raised his hand and wiped her cheek, apparently a tear had slipped free. The skin on his thumb was coarse as sand. She loved it.
She left her opened hands on his chest, squeezing him, confirming he was here and this wasn’t a dream. She laughed, dry lips trying to work out words. “You think?” She felt for a second like nothing had ever changed since they were in Breden. Harsh reality came rushing back though, filling her up with thoughts of all the tasks left undone. Her breath wavered from her lips, heart thudding in her ears.
“Not sure about the always doing the right thing part. Did you think that was necessary? You really believe in all that?”
She sniffed and tilted her head. “I think it was. We all need that reminder once in a while. Even if it’s not always possible.”
He tugged at the clasp around his cloak, shrugging as if its weight was too much to bear. “I see you’ve found some new friends.” He eyed Senka and Claw.
“This is Senka and Claw. Claw said he’s been wandering the realm searching for me for the last five years, He was told in a vision to watch over me.”
Walt
er raised an eyebrow at her, then attempted to shake Claw’s hand with his stump, but then switched to his hand at the last second. “Sorry, still not used to this.”
“Not a bother, not a bother at all. You trust him, Mistress? Has a look of danger to me.” Claw was at least a hand taller than Walter and peered down his nose at him.
“I do and yes, he is very dangerous.” She flashed her best playful grin at Walter.
“Senka,” she offered her hand and he took it, meeting her eye.
“Senka brings grave news from east, the far east.” Nyset frowned.
“The far east? You mean the Nether?” Walter asked.
Senka hissed, her black eyes narrowing. “We do not like that name.”
“We? You mean to say people live there?” Walter said. Clearly dying hadn’t done anything to sharpen his sense of tact.
Senka’s narrow jaw dropped open and her eyes widened. She seemed like she was trying to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Senka lost her family, her tribe from a Death Spawn raid,” Nyset said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Oh.” Walter shook his head and drummed his fingers on his leg. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” She shrugged. “The Scorpions, my sect, died with honor. I wish to join them in the great beyond, but must do so with honor by fighting the shadow ones, Death Spawn as you say.”
“You’re in luck. There’s no shortage of Death Spawn here.”
“This I have come to learn.” Senka nodded.
“What was it you pressed into my back Senka? I felt no blade.”
“A poison tipped needle. It would have left you temporarily paralyzed, had I pressed a little harder.” She shrugged.
“Really? I didn’t know there were such weapons. Could you teach me how to do that?”
Senka stared at him for a long minute, her narrow eyebrows drawn down. “I… I don’t know. I will have to consider your request.”
Nyset wrapped her arm around Walter’s. “Let’s walk. There’s so much I need to ask you.”
“It was nice meeting you two.” Walter waved.
He turned to her, staring at her as if not understanding. Nyset grabbed his hand and pulled him to her side and they started walking.
“Where do I begin?” He rubbed his stubbly jaw.
“How about the most glaring question. How are you here?”
He looked down at his boots, his lips pressed into a white line. A chicken squawked and darted around Walter.
A pair of Midgaard Falcon soldiers strode across their path. “Mistress,” one said and the other nodded at her. The golden sun on the face of their shields gleamed with the light of their counterpart bursting through the clouds.
“Grimbald’s men?” Walter asked.
She nodded. “Some of the few that made it out of the Tower.”
Walter coughed and rubbed his neck. “How many survivors were there?”
“Not many.” Why was he avoiding her question? Perhaps he just needed more time.
“Did Asebor…?” he trailed off and pawed at his neck again. Nyset noticed it was thick with scars. He tugged his cloak back up to cover them.
“We fled after you… and Baylan fell.” She felt like her silks were constricting, making her sweat and chafing her skin. The walls on either side of the street seemed too close now. She wanted to see a green pasture, maybe an elixir plantation.
He nodded, his eye narrowing and paused in the middle of the street. “You’re not going to believe what I have to tell you.”
“Hey! Out of the way you damn urchin, got a shipment to get through.” A fat man called out from atop a carriage loaded with sacks of elixir beans. “Ah… sorry Mistress, please move when you can,” he said, cheeks brightening, one hand squeezing the reigns.
Nyset nodded at the man and they sauntered beside a merchant selling honeyed candies, giving the carriage room to pass.
“Candy? How many?” the merchant beamed.
Walter waved him off. “What’s with all the Mistress, bowing and scraping? Wait—no.” He grinned, head jerking back. “You’re the Arch Wizard?”
“Afraid so.” It was nice to let the haughty image drop and be herself with him. It was a refreshing feeling, one she’d almost forgotten.
“Guess that explains the fancy clothes.” He ran his fingers along her side, passing through one of the folds and running along her ribs. “Very nice.” His touch was electric, goosebumps running up and down her skin.
“Yeah, not the easiest of jobs.” She pushed his hand away, but held it at her side.
Walter nodded gravely. “The world, the realm, all of this,” he spread his arms, letting her hand go. “Is not what it seems.” The warmth that had been building between their hands faded.
“What do you mean?” A tightness wound around her chest making her breath hard to get.
“The Shadow Realm is not a place of rest,” he croaked.
“What? No! What do you mean?”
“It is a place of pain, misery, blood, and anger. So much blood, by the Dragon so much blood.” He stared into the ground, then at his missing arm and shivered.
Nyset’s skin tingled and it felt like there were rocks in her stomach. She didn’t know what to say. She needed to sit down.
“Asebor was there. Baylan. My mother,” he continued. “The demons, they… they did things to her.” His eye was damp and he rubbed his face with his cloak’s sleeve. She knew what he meant by ‘things,’ the idea of it at least.
“Demons?” Nyset knew his words to be true, but they sounded foreign in her ears. “Isabelle,” she whispered, swallowed then sagged against the wall behind the merchant. She slid to the ground and wrapped her arms around her knees.
He squatted down and sat beside her, nodded a few times. “She was there, still is there.” The blood drained out of his face, now white as Juzo’s.
“Maybe it was just a nightmare, maybe you just imagined it.” No one in the city could heal his wounds; not even the most renowned healers.She had tried at least twenty different men, all gifted with the Phoenix’s touch, all unable to mend him.
“I fought them, think I killed some. The demons there are the Death Spawn here. It’s like a parallel sort of world.” Walter worked his shoulder around and winced as if in pain. “Asebor,” he laughed at the name. “Asebor is the brood of the Shadow god.”
“Shadow god? That was how you lost your arm, and your eye?”
He grunted. “And so much more. Even speaking of it sounds crazy to my own ears.”
“So the ancient texts were true, then.” Nyset shook her head and scrunched up her eyes. Nothing made sense anymore, but she knew this feeling well. The first time she touched the Dragon it took her weeks to grapple with the fact that fire could burn on her fingers without marring her skin. It defied everything she ever knew about life. It was just another adjustment, that was all. “But how did you get out?” she breathed.
Walter worked his jaw around, maybe biting something in his mouth. “Painfully. When… I died.” He started rubbing his stump with his other hand. “I still held the Dragon and Phoenix when I died and they were with me in the Shadow Realm. They saved me, freed me I think.”
“This changes everything we know about the fabric of life and death. But how? But your wounds.” Her mind spun out more questions than her mouth could ask.
He shivered, wrapped his cloak up tight around his body, though the afternoon heat was just starting to peak. “They did this to me, the Death Spawn. They are the shadow that lies in the hearts of all men, she said. All these years and so many lies. There is no rest in the Shadow Realm. It’s a nightmare, just a way to control people.”
“You’re not making any sense. She? She who?” Maybe they had broken him. Maybe he’d never be the same boy she fell in love with. She wouldn’t cry, not now.
“The Shadow god is a she. Their armor, the Death Spawn armor,” Walter scoffed. “Their armor binds men with the demons of the Shad
ow Realm. Baylan, the Tower, everyone was wrong. It doesn’t just corrupt their souls, the demons possess them, own them.”
“Dragons. So what happens when we kill Death Spawn?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I’m hoping it kills them on the other side, but I’m not sure.”
A long minute passed where they watched passersby in silence. Nyset felt a chasm forming between them in that narrow gap between their bodies, one she wanted to close but couldn’t. Would he close that distance?
“You couldn’t have possibly been the first person to die embracing the power of the gods though.” Nyset said, steepling her fingers. She could feel her thoughts sliding around, trying to sort out the puzzle pieces. She needed something she could work on, needed to get her mind directed at a task. That would make her feel better, allow her to stop worrying about why Walter hadn’t moved closer to her. Why couldn’t she just be happy he was alive?
“No, I’d guess not.”
“Then what was different?” She stared out across the street, watching legs pass like walking trees and wagon wheels like waterwheels, driven around and around by dust.
“Something—” Walter tilted his back against the dirt caked stone wall, dust flaking onto his shoulders. “They broke something in me, Ny.”
She knew what he meant without asking, but she asked anyway. “What do you mean?” She could feel it in his touch, in the hardness to his voice, the carelessness of his movements. He died and had returned. She imagined he didn’t have that sense of time being ever chiseled away. Could he come back again? What did death mean to him now? Did it mean anything?
“I feel nothing but hate and anger for what they did. It consumes me.” His head dropped between his knees. “All I see all around is blood, sheets of… a river running down this street.”
She rubbed his neck, like two cords pulled taut. “If you can feel hate, you can feel love.”
He raised his head and stared at her, his eye gleaming with luminous shades of green. The moment seemed to drag on forever and she struggled to hold his gaze. The color of his eye seemed to swirl as clouds drifted over the sun.
The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) Page 14