The Light That Binds

by Nathan Garrison

I don’t dwell about what I’ve done then, no, I lock it all away never to think about again, until . . .

  Now.

  And, as it turned out, it wasn’t time that had been standing still.

  It was her.

  The target now faced her, on his feet, fist flying towards her face.

  Instinct and training finally kicked in.

  But too late.

  Hard knuckles slammed into her jaw, a moment before her block struck home. Her head snapped back, white filling her vision.

  She staggered. Screamed.

  Energized.

  Fueled by rage and pain, both new and old, she cast aimless light in all directions. Screaming still, she blinded all around her—including herself—poured all the energy she had into that brightness that now filled, now saturated, now scalded every pore of flesh and stone and metal in the chamber.

  It lasted for beats or marks or tolls, consuming all sense as self-hatred overcame even hatred for her foe. Hatred for what she’d done, what she’d been about to do, hatred for hate itself and all the things it put people through.

  A cold, dark bubble began warring with her light, and she hated that too. She fought it, concentrating her power to smother it before it could grow, but it slipped away from her again and again, until a hand gripped her throat and pushed and slammed her head into something hard behind her.

  Power and light evaporated as the world seemed to spin. She fell to her knees, gasping for breath, and clawed away from the darkness creeping in, even though some part of her welcomed it.

  After a time, though she did not know how long, she finally felt as if she’d regained control of herself. Enough, at least, to try to make sense of what had happened.

  She lifted her head to examine the scene.

  Eleven ruvak bodies lay sprawled and bleeding and still, in a chamber where every surface yet shimmered with the heat that she’d poured out in her insensate fury. Charring scoured her nose as she inhaled.

  A darkly clad figure stood before her, breathing hard.

  “What the abyss was that!”

  A cold stone took hold of her chest as she peered up at Draevenus. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I . . . I don’t know what happened.”

  “You panicked, is what happened.”

  Lowering her face, she nodded.

  He bent down, sighing, and wiped orange blood from his blades on the sleeve of the nearest dead ruvak. The first she’d seen. Her target. Her failure. After replacing his own weapons, he reached down and plucked her two daggers from the metal floor. She didn’t even remember dropping them. Gently, he stretched around to both her hips and put them back in their sheaths.

  Before he could withdraw, she snapped her hands up and clutched him by the upper arms.

  “I know,” she began, struggling not to sob, “you want me to say that it won’t happen again. I do too. But I don’t like to make promises I’m not sure I can keep.”

  His brown eyes flickered up only briefly. “I understand.”

  “I’m sorry. I really wish—”

  “Don’t,” he said. “This is my fault, not yours. I should never have put you in this situation. Not everyone is cut out for this line of work. I should have seen that long before now.”

  He stood, pulling her up after him. She released him and stepped back, embarrassed at their proximity. Even so, she was glad for that embarrassment; something so normal, so innocent—or, perhaps, not so innocent—helped to bring her back to reality. A reality that the chaos around her had threatened to dislodge.

  “Come,” Draevenus said. “Our work is not yet done. But, at least, the hardest part is over. They didn’t get off an alarm, as far as I can tell. Do you feel up to freeing some innocent people from this abyss-taken hole?”

  She burst out laughing, uncontrollably, feeling hysteria rise even as tension seeped out. When at last she got herself under control, she felt much, much better.

  Tassariel nodded to Draevenus once. “Let’s go.”

  Arivana held the leather-bound stack of reports against her chest with one hand, and swept the other across the door chimes. Alone, she stepped back to wait, thankful for the heat rising from the silverstone streets. Every day brought them farther north, and one day closer to winter. And here, high above the surface in the domicile, with dawn half a toll away from breaking, the wind cut more sharply than ever. Her chills had only gotten worse.

  But not always from the cold.

  The door slid open at last, revealing a groggy-eyed Jasside, who leaned against the frame, barely contained in a rumpled shift. “Arivana?” she said, blinking eyelids that spent more time closed than open. “Is something wrong?”

  “You might say that,” Arivana said. “May I come in?”

  Jasside backed up into the dwelling the valynkar had gifted her, and waved inward. Stepping softly, Arivana entered after her.

  “Tea?” Jasside asked between yawns.

  “Since it looks like you could use some as well, I can’t possibly say no.”

  Jasside was already crushing leaves into a small, black kettle. She filled it with water from a spout running down the wall, then set her hand beneath it. Steam began rising within beats.

  “Make yourself comfortable, please,” the woman said, gesturing to a pair of cushioned seats. “This will be ready shortly.”

  Arivana smiled tightly, then nestled down into the chair nearest the door. As her host collected two porcelain cups and a silver tray to contain their repast, she studied the woman’s movements. Disheveled didn’t even begin to describe them.

  “Rough night?” Arivana asked.

  “You might say that.”

  “What happened?”

  “Are those the death reports you have there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s just say they’re now woefully incomplete.”

  Arivana cringed, outwardly at least. “How bad?”

  Jasside sat opposite her, laying the tray on a round table situated between them. “One of our units got caught out of position. Bad terrain. A new commander. Darkness. The ruvak swept in . . .”

  “Gods, how many soldiers did we lose?”

  “None.”

  “But I thought you said—?”

  “The ruvak passed through the gap that unit was supposed to protect . . . and came into the camp unmolested.”

  Jasside tipped over the kettle, pouring hot liquid through sieves placed atop each cup. “If you’re looking to count the lost in your reports, you might as well mark down an additional fifty thousand souls.”

  Arivana placed the ledger in her lap, then reached to accept the proffered cup. She blew, sipped, and wondered why she didn’t feel anything more than a faint twinge of regret for the fallen.

  New nightmares pile atop the old every day, so many now you could make of them a mountain. If horror has a limit, I have surely reached it.

  Still, she didn’t consider herself completely numb to suffering. It was, after all, why she was here.

  “Oh!” Jasside said. “I completely forgot to offer. Would you like some honey? Or some mint? I’ve not much of either, but I grow the latter here myself.”

  “No, thank you,” Arivana said. “But I’m glad you brought it up. It touches on my reason for coming.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. You see—” Arivana separated the leather covers, and pulled out the top sheet “—while I’m sure you’ve been monitoring combat-related casualties, I’ve kept careful track of those with no connection to ruvak activity. At least not directly. Fifty thousand in one night is terrible of course, but we lost just as many to other causes. Namely . . . starvation.”

  Arivana handed the page across to Jasside, who took it and began reading the tally marks.

  The cup in her hand soon started to shake.

  Setting down both report and tea, the woman hung her head with a sigh. “I should have seen this sooner.”

  “I didn’t come to cast blame,” Arivana said. “Abyss knows I’ve
failed every day at foreseeing what troubles the refugees might face. I only came, now, to ask for your help. I heard that you were more than competent at growing food.”

  “Oh, of course I can help. We’ll have to convert some of the transports to mobile fields, but I’ll have new crops ready in four days, then twice every week after that.”

  Arivana finally had her first real surprise of the day. “So quickly? I was told you had a way to speed up harvests, but that’s beyond anything I could have imagined.”

  Jasside nodded. “I just need soil, all the seeds you can find, a few thousand workers to get everything set up and maintained—” she leaned back, exhaling loudly “—and for the ruvak to let off their attacks for a day.”

  “I can help you with all requests but the last. As important as you are to our defense, you are just one woman. We may suffer temporarily for your absence from the front lines, but in the long run, I believe we’ll save more people than otherwise. Far more.”

  “You’re right. I know you’re right. I just wish we’d thought of this sooner.”

  “I wish a lot of things had happened differently. I wish my family hadn’t been murdered to spark a war. I wish my advisors had tried to resolve things peacefully, instead of working the conflict for their profit. I wish . . .”

  I wish Flumere had remained just Flumere.

  I wish I’d never heard the name Sem Aira Grusot.

  Arivana lowered her cup to her lap, sitting rigid to hide the tremble that threatened to overwhelm her. “May I ask you a personal question, Jasside?”

  “Feel free.”

  “Do you think it’s possible to love someone you have every right to hate?”

  Jasside sat forward, smiling, and reached out to place a hand over hers. “Oh, Arivana. Sweet, young Arivana. Love doesn’t always make sense. But then again, what would love even be if we could predict it? If it was governed by a set of rules anyone could follow?

  “Is it possible? Of course it is, my queen. Of course it is.”

  Chapter 10

  Mevon was careful to keep clear of the humming circles as he hung, one-handed, from a handle on the underside of the skyship. Those sorcerous engines were all that kept them airborne. The slightest touch from him, or any of the other Hardohl, who were dangling in a similar manner, would turn their already rapid descent into an uncontrolled spiral, one that would only be stopped upon impact with the ground.

  Not, in fact, the way I’d prefer to die.

  For the past week, his strike force had wreaked what havoc they could among the enemy. They had baited the ruvak into traps, sprang ambushes, raided camps, and met small enemy squadrons in open combat wherever they threatened groups of refugees. But with four of their five skyships away, they had been able to do little more than run from the largest enemy fleet operating in Sceptre.

  Now those skyships were back, with reinforcements enough to more than double their Imperial Guardsmen. And with the added mobility, they had the ability to launch complex attacks against a far superior number of foes.

  Wind rushing by as his skyship swooped down from the clouds, Mevon saw their two score vessels spring into view. And beyond them, twenty-five thousand ruvaki infantry raced down a broad yet steep ravine. They closed in on another mass of desperate, fleeing refugees, screeching in anticipation of an easy kill.

  Mevon gritted his teeth. Not today.

  His men had scouted thoroughly. Everyone knew the plan. It was only a matter of . . . execution.

  The enemy skyships grew in his sight with every passing beat, larger and larger, until the whole of the sky below him was filled with their scattered hulls. Still distant, as testament to their size, they finally began angling their noses up in response to the five tiny vessels that dared approach them. More than half began glowing in preparation for attack.

  Mevon smiled.

  Twelve beams shot upwards, connecting with his or one of the other four skyships.

  Twelve enemy vessels exploded.

  Impossibly, two more fired upon them a moment later, to the same result; either too late to pull back their attack, or they simply hadn’t seen what had befallen their comrades. Whichever it was, the reduced number of them meant he and his allies could change tactics.

  “Twenty-six left!” he yelled over the wind to Ilyem, who dangled at his side.

  “I saw!” she replied. “That means we go to three per, instead of two!”

  “Are you ready, then?”

  In answer, she bent her right arm until perpendicular to itself, then clenched her hand into a fist: the Imperial salute.

  He returned it.

  The remaining ruvaki skyships began maneuvering erratically in what he assumed was an attempt to evade. But their bulk made them slow, and his five transports were more than quick enough to catch them. A single Hardohl stood up top, directing the pilots. The enemy sorcery made it difficult for normal people to keep track of them, apparently, but voids seemed to suffer no such limitation.

  Darting like sparrows against the backs of lumbering beasts, the five skyships under his command scraped across the top of the ruvaki vessels, dropping a trio of Hardohl onto each one. They planted a red flag, to let others know it was already being taken care of, before cutting open a hole and plunging inside.

  Soon, it was only him and Ilyem left dangling. And only one enemy skyship as yet unmarked.

  “Ready to nail the last plank on this bridge?” he said.

  “Even when it’s burning,” she replied.

  “Good. Though, I’m not sure it counts when we’re the ones starting the fire!”

  They came above the last enemy vessel, their own slowing by a fraction.

  Mevon let go.

  He fell forty paces, thumping down onto the irregular hull. Ilyem landed at his side a half beat later with only the faintest sound. They each retrieved their Andun from their backs, located the nearest hatch, and began stabbing downward, grinding steadily through the stone. A hole was opened before them in less than a mark. Ilyem bent down and wrenched the remains out of the way, while Mevon made himself as thin as he could, holding Justice vertically against his chest, then dropped through into darkness.

  Two blades cut him even as he fell.

  The first punctured his left hamstring, then slashed up and away through his buttocks as he finished his descent. The second snagged between his lower two ribs, piercing his right lung.

  Pain washed through his body like magma.

  The storm within him broke.

  Mevon spun on his good leg. His Andun found his two assailants, separating the upper and lower halves of their bodies, and then two more who had been readying additional strikes. He spied more ruvak to either side in the cramped, dim hallway.

  He lunged in one direction, sucking in a breath.

  And collapsed.

  Between his deflated lung, and the severed muscles in his leg, his body did not respond as it should have. Clutching at the blade lodged in his chest as he knelt, Mevon could barely make out the figures converging from both directions, screeching in fury.

  Light feet touched down at his back.

  Unconcerned with those behind—even now he heard their death cries—Mevon focused on keeping those before him at bay.

  One-handed, he stabbed at the first to approach, then tugged free the metal from between his ribs and hurled it at the next. More of them rushed in. He aligned Justice horizontally and pushed. Between the slick blood and the corpses already covering the floor, the entire press tumbled backwards.

  Mevon struggled for breath.

  “Down!”

  Obeying instinctively, he ducked, feeling a slight breeze as Ilyem sailed overhead. He kept his face to the floor, allowing his blessings the time they needed to work as she engaged. The sounds of splashing blood and crumpling flesh soon overtook the shrill cries of their enemy, and in no time at all, the hallway fell silent and still.

  It was another mark before Mevon could stand or fill his lungs without ag
ony. Peering over a blanket of shredded bodies, he made eye contact with Ilyem, who was covered head-to-toe in blood. All of it orange, of course—the only red he saw was his own.

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  Mevon nodded.

  They ran through the twisting corridors, spiraling down towards the vessel’s center. Excluding the occasional unarmed crew member, whom they ignored, they encountered no resistance. All the guards aboard must have faced them at their insertion point, hoping to cut them off before they penetrated any deeper into the skyship. A good tactic, all things considered. Had Hardohl been lesser warriors, it likely would have worked.

  All paths eventually converged on the heart of the vessel, and they soon found themselves standing outside a half-oval door. Ilyem pressed the button, which should have opened it, but nothing happened. Mevon slammed his shoulder against it to no avail.

  One shared glance, and they both lifted their weapons towards the door.

  It took a bit longer than had the hatch, but they eventually loosened the stone surrounding and binding the frame in place. Reaching each to a side, they fitted fingers into the crevices they had created and pulled. Twenty beats of strain, of stone and metal grinding one against the other, and space enough had cleared for them to be able to slip inside.

  “You first, this time,” Mevon said.

  “What a gentleman,” Ilyem replied dryly. But she seemed more than eager to dash in ahead of him.

  He stepped in after her, then stopped short. She stood just inside the portal, tilting her head quizzically. Mevon glanced past her and saw why.

  Five crew members stood before them. They were taller than most that they’d seen, if not so bulky as the warriors, and on each of their right hands were coils of metal, wrapped up their forearms like a gauntlet.

  The ruvak in the middle lifted her arm towards him and Ilyem. A beam similar to the kind fired from the nose of their skyship shot forward, filling the air with acrid fumes as it made contact with Ilyem . . . then vanished. The metal glove on the ruvak woman’s hand shattered and its bearer screeched in pain.

  “They still haven’t learned,” Mevon said, shaking his head.

  “A stubborn race,” Ilyem said.