The Light That Binds

by Nathan Garrison

  And what she had plenty of was cold.

  Close enough now to hear the screams of dying men, Jasside gathered the ambient chill, scooping up what she needed and forming it into rough balls. Amplifying it. She picked out the places where the ruvak had penetrated deepest, where her allies were in most desperate need of aid, and set to work.

  Compressed cold blasted into clusters of her enemy, crushing or hurtling entire companies at a time. Even those nearby that survived the initial attack were slowed to a snail’s pace as sudden, biting frost sapped their energy, and made each breath a labor.

  Jasside sent her castings down, again and again, killing thousands every mark. Yet against such a tide of flesh, it felt like she were a child on a beach, trying to protect her ill-placed sand castle from what anyone could see was inevitable. In the end, all she could achieve on her own was to buy her allies some time to retreat in orderly fashion, and even at her best, not much of it.

  Sweating now, she hazarded a glance back over her shoulder. Relief filled her as she saw that the domicile was nearly in range.

  Far past it, however, she saw something that should not have been.

  War engine projectiles filling the air.

  What idiot called for fire? The enemy is too close for that!

  But as the beats thrummed by, and she tracked the volley’s arc through the air, she realized what was happening. Too late and too far away to do anything to stop it, Jasside could only watch as the projectiles slammed into Fanilmyr, cracking the unprotected, unaware domicile like an egg.

  Rushing wind and the domicile surface growing distant made Gilshamed feel as if he were flying.

  Yet his wings were still tucked away.

  The two disparate facts throbbed against his skull like the pounding of a thousand hammers. No—that noise was real, stone and marble grinding against each other, rumbling with deafening noise as it all fell away beneath him.

  The only thing louder were the screams.

  Lashriel!

  Ignoring everything else, Gilshamed at last unfurled, bathed in golden glow as he dove through the falling, crumbling wreckage of yet another domicile, eyes searching for a face etched more firmly in his mind than any words in stone. All the valynkar and mierothi combatants had been gathering on the rim in preparation for the battle to come, but she had yet to arrive. If she’d been trapped indoors . . .

  No! That’s not possible. Not after all we’ve been through.

  He weaved through battered chunks of street and buildings, and innumerable everyday objects that had not been secured, catching flashes of fresh sunlight through the storm cloud of debris.

  Dawn. The attack had come at dawn.

  The enemy had no respect for light, it seemed. Further proof in his mind that whether or not they survived this war, the age of his people was over. Once the valynkar were gone, darkness and chaos would pick over the bones of the world, twin vultures fighting for every last scrap of flesh. Vashodia alone would ensure the ruvak would never rest easy in their victory, even if she were last living soul with strength left to oppose them.

  Cease dwelling on such thoughts, Gilshamed. This war is not yet over, and defeat is anything but certain.

  But without Lashriel, any victory would be a hollow one. Meaningless. Without her, the whole world might as well go up in flames.

  A flash of violet caught his eye. He angled towards it reflexively. Though haze and rubble made him momentarily lose sight of her, his path of flight remained fixed on the last place he’d seen her. Less than a score beats later, he found himself hovering next to his beloved, who cradled something in each arm.

  “Help me,” Lashriel cried over the cacophony all around them, peering up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “There are so many . . .”

  Gilshamed blinked. Her words tore his mind loose from its narrow focus. No longer concerned with finding her, he at last was able to take in his surroundings. What he’d dismissed as scattered blocks of lifeless stone were, in truth, falling people.

  Falling . . . children.

  For the briefest of moments, he wondered what the point would be in trying to save them. Those with the capacity for flight on the domicile were outnumbered hundreds to one. There was no way to prevent them all from descending to their deaths. And even if they could, the ruvak would still lay claim to them in the end. A quick death by falling might even be a mercy.

  “Gilshamed!”

  He shook himself, energizing, and put such thoughts aside. As always, he would do as much good as he was able.

  Thrusting his hands to each side, he sent forth tendrils of light. Dozens strong, he wrapped them gently around as many falling figures as he could, slowing their desperate descent. Locking the magical ropes into place, he summoned more.

  Lashriel followed his lead. And soon, others. Within half a mark, the sky was full of sorcerous nets, a mesh of dark and light, catching thousands of the falling. Yet this was only a fraction of the domicile’s current population, those unfortunate refugees who had been crammed into every available nook and cranny.

  The casters pulled up, slowing their descent, separating farther each beat from the falling wreckage. With soul-crushing finality, what had once been Fanilmyr, a thriving, floating city, crashed tumultuously into the ground.

  Mevon slashed and slashed again, dancing backwards in frantic retreat, and still the only thing that kept the ruvak from surrounding him were Orbrahn’s waves of crackling darkness, sweeping past him on either side.

  More of the enemy soldiers converged. Mevon chopped one head off, but the others nearby pulled back. Capes tied to every back were woven through with fallen leaves. Lying prone, they’d been indistinguishable from the ground itself. He and Orbahn had been practically standing on top of a company when the enemy chose to reveal themselves.

  Now, everywhere he could see, the ruvak were giving the pair of them wide berth. The forest was alive with nearly hidden infantry, only visible due to their motion, swarming like a sea of insects through the early-morning mist in every direction. Most of them were already farther south, closer to the defensive perimeter than he and Orbrahn.

  Soon, he realized, they would be cut off.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” Mevon called, slowing as he came alongside Orbrahn.

  “Oh, really?” the caster replied. “Here I thought we might just take a little stroll.”

  “Enough. Can’t you go any faster?”

  “I could be a league away in half a dozen dashes if I wanted.”

  “Jump ahead then and warn the perimeter.”

  “But what about you? I’m only still here to watch your back. Your wife would kill me if anything happened to you.”

  Mevon raised an eyebrow.

  “Right,” Orbrahn said. A beat later, he dashed away, leaving transient, inky stains in his wake.

  Alone now, Mevon hurried onward. He rushed between trees, up and down hills, and across creek beds, and still the enemy did not close. Sound and motion itched at the peripheral of his senses, but the space directly around him remained calm. Like all things that seemed too easy, he remained wary of a trap.

  As he broke through to the edge of the killing field, Mevon saw that it was already in place.

  The ruvak had shattered the first two fortifications and were gaining ground on the third. Few stood against them. Most of the humans he could see were falling back desperately, yet sluggishly. If the burning in his belly was any indication, he couldn’t exactly blame them. Combat was taxing enough in the best of conditions; attempting to fight while sick or poisoned was an exercise in futility.

  All this he took in at a glance, then dismissed in lieu of more pressing concerns. A half-circle of human steel awaited him, all of it held in ruvaki hands. Every unblinking eye tracked Mevon’s cautious approach. Without turning, he sensed the other half of the circle closing in behind him. Thousands now surrounded him, an impenetrable wall of spears and shields five layers thick.

  At the center of it all, thr
ee ruvak soldiers stood ready, faces crazed by unbridled bloodlust. The smallest of them was almost half a pace taller than himself. Where such giants among them had come from, he didn’t know, but it was yet another thing about the ruvak of which humanity was ignorant. The list had grown long.

  Looks like they want a show. I guess I’ll have to give them one they’ll never forget.

  Mevon stepped onto the killing field, twirling Justice absently as he gauged his three opponents.

  Jasside could feel herself growing tired.

  Spell after spell flew down from her fingertips, sending hundreds to icy graves with every breath, but her casting was not the source of her fatigue. Indeed, she’d fought longer and harder on many occasions. Yet no matter how grim things had seemed at the time, there had always been hope of both relief and victory, thin as it was.

  This time, she had neither.

  The noise from Fanilmyr’s fall still rumbled behind her, and soldiers—human and otherwise—screamed as they lay dying beneath her, yet these were not the most disturbing sounds she heard. Distant thumps announced the firing of more war engines, the projectiles all falling within the colony. Sorcery snapped, barely felt over the cold ocean of power she commanded, which signified a battle at the very heart of the colony, the place everyone had thought to be safe. The place she now ached to go.

  This sector is lost. No amount of effort on my part will change that. Not as long as I’m on my own. There are families back there. Innocents. Children. If I can save even one, isn’t that better than what I’m doing here?

  Hands trembling, she looked down at the Fasheshish army, whose annihilation now seemed inevitable. All she was doing was stalling it for a little while.

  A wave of horror washed over her, all the more revolting for how swiftly it passed, as she turned her back on tens of thousands of lives and began guiding her platforms towards the center of the colony.

  What she saw a moment later made her freeze in place.

  Flying free of the dust cloud risen from the fall of Fanilmyr came valynkar and mierothi by their hundreds, headed straight for her position.

  Relief had come at last.

  Jasside turned back around, settled on her course, and resumed her destruction of the ruvaki army.

  “The explosions seemed to have stopped for now, Your Majesty,” Richlen said.

  Arivana lifted her head. The four guardsmen standing in a protective shell around her—as if mere armor could stop a war engine attack—straightened at the words. Another resounding boom made them flinch back into their defensive posture.

  Richlen grimaced. “Well, more distant anyway. I haven’t heard one fall nearby in a few marks. It should be safe to move now.”

  It had all happened so fast. One moment they were strolling down a street not far from the voltensus. The next, fire was raining down on all sides.

  They were inside now. Somewhere. Though how they’d gotten there she couldn’t recall. She only had vague recollections of gauntleted hands gripping her arms, lifting her, muffled shouting, and a sense of surreality that even now had not fully dissipated. Richlen’s words made sense in only the simplest of ways.

  “If . . . if you think so,” Arivana said. “I suppose it wouldn’t be nice to keep her waiting.”

  Richlen’s eyes widened. “You can’t seriously still want to go there?”

  “Why not? You said it was safe to move.”

  “Only to get you to shelter. Real shelter, that is.”

  “But . . . but I have to build bridges. I need . . . need to . . . cut enough logs before the whole forest burns down.”

  “I’ll help you build a whole palace if you want, Your Majesty. Just not today.” He paused, looking out the window, then nodded to the other guardsmen. “Time to move.”

  Before she could protest further about the important things she had to do, she found herself being herded once more. They slipped out the door and into the street, only to plunge straight into a maelstrom of madness. Half the houses she saw were either crumbled heaps or raging infernos. Smoke and screams filled the air. People ran in every direction, most caught in the messy grip of hysteria and lacking any sense of purpose. Some actually seemed organized as they fought the flames and lent a hand to the wounded, but they were outnumbered by the frantic mob, their efforts undone by panic.

  All of it seemed muffled, somehow. Distant. Unreal. Like it was happening in another place, another time, and to someone other than herself. Arivana watched the chaos unfolding all around her and felt . . . nothing.

  What she saw next, however, shattered her preternatural calm.

  A child sat against the wall of a ruined building, bare feet splayed out before her. A charred doll rested in the girl’s lap. From deep within a face stained by soot and sweat and a splash of blood, hollow yet living eyes stared at nothing.

  Everything sharpened at once, and Arivana found her eyes watering, ears ringing, and her nose choked by ash. Breath and pulse began racing. Arivana spotted the girl again, reaching out between her guardsmen, but they marched on without yielding, sweeping her away from the child. They turned a corner, and the girl was lost to sight within moments.

  “Stop!” Arivana said. “Rich, please, we need to stop!”

  Richlen didn’t pause or even slow. “Too dangerous,” he said, eyes scanning before him as he marched onwards. “Our only priority right now is to get you somewhere safe.”

  “We’re in the middle of the settlement. This was supposed to be the safest place around.”

  Her guardian turned his head slightly, but said nothing.

  “There’s a little girl back there,” she continued, “who looked like she’d just lost everything and everyone she ever knew. She needs our help. It probably won’t mean much on the grand scale of things, but it might mean everything to her.”

  And I have too many dead children on my conscience already.

  After a long moment, where Richlen contemplated and she held her breath, he simply shook his head. “No.”

  Fury filled her instantly. What right did a lowly guard have to defy his queen? How dare he refuse her wishes! Even though a part of her knew the futility of her desires, and the danger still present at every step, she let her rage boil, silently glowering at Richlen’s armored back as he bobbed along before her.

  They continued on for several marks. As the signs of destruction slowly waned, and the permanent buildings became more spread out, she realized at last where they were heading.

  The voltensus. The heart of the colony.

  She wondered at both the relative peace around them and at Richlen’s choice of refuge. But only for a moment. Before she could even hazard a guess as to her guardian’s intentions, a cluster of buildings two hundred paces away erupted in fresh flames.

  Arivana was thrown to the ground, and the four guards covered her with their bodies in an instant. She peeked through a gap between them, spying Richlen, who crouched with sword drawn, staring in the direction of the inferno.

  “There was no volley,” he said quietly, narrowing his eyes. “That blast wasn’t from a war engine.”

  She followed his gaze. From between two nearby tenements, six figures emerged, dressed in cloaks and holding bows. Though they looked the part of normal scouts, they were running away from the raging flames and looked more like children caught snatching pastries than soldiers on the lookout for whoever had lit the fire.

  And there’s something about the way they move . . .

  It was subtle, gestures and mannerisms most wouldn’t even register as odd. But Arivana had spent over a year in close proximity to Flumere; when it came to impostors, she was something of an expert.

  “They’re ruvak!” she called.

  Without further prompting, Richlen lunged towards them.

  One of them raised his bow. And it was only then that she realized it was not a normal arrow fitted to the string.

  Wrath-bows? Abyss no . . .

  Richlen pounded ever nearer, rushing
to close the distance. But he could not span that final gap before the infiltrator loosed his arrow. That heavy, metal shaft, infused with virulent magic, arced through the air.

  It didn’t travel very far.

  Red and yellow flashed, scorching her eyes, but she could not look away. Horror filled her as all seven figures were consumed by flames.

  She had no time to grieve, for a second group of disguised ruvak appeared from around the corner of the next building over. Her heart froze in her chest, until she realized they hadn’t spotted her yet. Their attention was on something in the other direction.

  The only thing of interest beyond them was the voltensus itself.

  The infiltrators lined up, fitted arrows to strings, raised their bows . . .

  The air darkened.

  When light returned, Arivana searched for the ruvak, but could not see them. In the place they’d been was merely a greasy stain upon the grass and a quivering mass that reminded her of the leavings after an animal had been thoroughly butchered.

  A dark figure floated down from the sky, drawing Arivana’s gaze, and almost lazily touched down near where they’d been.

  Planting hands on her hips, Vashodia shook her head. “They just had to burn the grain storage, didn’t they? Well, I suppose I’ll have to activate yet another backup plan.”

  A wave of power erupted from the mierothi that Arivana felt in her bones. A moment later, the ground started to rumble.

  Mevon stopped, one breath away from flourishing his weapon in challenge. Only a dozen paces now separated him from his three huge opponents, each looking as eager as he felt for the contest ahead, but he realized he was now in a position he’d never been in before: close to the ruvak, but not in combat. Not yet, anyway. Each time he’d encountered them before, there had been no deliberation. No chance to speak.

  He knew from an earlier report by Draevenus that some among them were capable of learning human speech. Whether any here had seemed unlikely. Still, thinking of his friend made Mevon wonder what the assassin would do in this situation. Though the man insisted he was no role model, Mevon had always admired his ability to examine situations and those involved in them carefully, and to pick out the best of what he found.