by Aaron Bunce
“We’re safe, Luca. I can feel it, I am me again. Does that mean that you are…?” she started to ask, but seemed to finally notice something. “You’ve changed!” she gasped, her hands crawling up over his arms, his neck, and finally to his face.
“They fixed me, just like Cassendyra promised,” he said, but knew definitively that the dalan had done far more. He could feel their gift working inside, growing and changing him, building his formerly damaged body into something altogether different.
He looked down into Emma’s eyes. They were brown and warm again, all traces of the manic, feral animal now gone. She dropped her hands to his chest and cringed, pulling away, blood covering her fingers and palm.
“Goddess!” she whispered, falling back. “You’re hurt.”
Luca tore his shirt open, exposing a deep cut just beneath his collarbone. Cassendyra appeared, a pulsing blue glow illuminating her hand.
“Weird, it doesn’t hurt,” he whispered, poking the wound. And stranger still, he could feel it already healing.
“A step slower and Luca skewered…dead!” Poe growled, appearing from the cave. He held up a gleaming short sword, a neatly severed hand still wrapped around the handle.
“Altair’s blade…you crippled him,” Cassendyra said, looking between Luca and the sword.
“It’s less than he deserves,” he mumbled, none arguing the point. Poe pulled the hand free and tossed it into the scraggly bushes, before extending the sword to Luca. He tentatively accepted the blade, holding it awkwardly before him.
Poe helped Juna from the ground, the silver-haired woman brushing off her cloak and tucking the flyaway hairs back in place.
“You risked your life for me, Luca,” she said, stepping forward into the light of the full moon.
“I owed you as much…and so much more,” he said, accepting her hand, and helped her out of the cave.
They joined Dune and Volo outside in the snow-covered sand, the two dalan staring out over the crashing, white topped waves, moonlight streaming down like silver threads.
“Where did you bring us?” Juna asked, looking out over the dark water.
“It was strange,” Luca said, quietly. “When I placed the yörspring onto the pedestal, I felt it deep inside. It was almost as if it asked me where I wanted to go.”
Juna nodded, watching him. It was dalan magic, now residing inside his body, changing him. She didn’t have to say it. He already knew.
“I thought of every one of you. How you risked yourselves for me, so I wanted to bring you some place safe. Do you see that bluff,” he said, pointing off to the left, a rocky peninsula jutting out into the lake, an expansive castle perched over the water. “That is Castle Astralen. Lord Thatcher lives there. My father talked of him often – that he is fair, just, and strong. He will listen. He will help us, I know it.”
“We trust you, Luca,” Juna said, and together, they set off along the beach, towards the glowing castle in the distance.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A Thread of lineage
Julian stepped up to the cage, Nightbreaker held loosely at his side.
…And what now? We cannot fight an army, Pera chimed in, the Nymradic’s voice filling his mind.
“We need only fight the enemy before us,” he muttered, fighting the urge to turn back to Tanea.
They know we are here. They can feel my presence, hear my voice. They will swarm us over with fodder, Pera countered.
“I have a plan,” Julian explained, the Nym flooding through his thoughts and ideas. A moment later, the Nym silently agreed.
Pera spun a thread of power, and the cage shook violently, knocking the wild folk clear and pealing the bars open once again. Julian charged out, running directly at the large faceless.
Boar surged forward, his clan of wild folk right behind him. Julian caught the big man’s falchion with a high guard, Pera already spinning the next thread. He doubled, forcing Boar back, cutting down the first of his mates, disemboweling the flanking warrior with a sweeping strike. Boar roared and chopped down, striking with enough force to crush a man, but Julian turned away from the strike and kicked, knocking him from his feet.
The faceless rolled, knocking several of his warriors to the ground. Julian glanced back once, the drakin catching a gnarl in its jaws as it appeared from the cave entrance, but the other beasts immediately retreated back into the deep fissure.
He turned back, breaking Pera’s next thread, the energy snapping from his hand in a crackling, white-hot flash. It struck the closest of Boar’s wild folk, a man with tufts of unruly hair, and exploded in a blinding flash, searing tentacles of lightning arcing out to strike the woman behind him. Julian watched the lightning chain from one warrior to another, scorching glowing holes clean through them, until a dozen smoking bodies collapsed to the ground. The rest abandoned their charge, their wild bloodlust and crazed battle cries dying away.
Enraged, Boar peeled himself off the ground, one of his tribe’s spears lodged in his side. He tore it loose, blood and bits of flesh caught on the jagged blade. The faceless lurched forward stabbing hard, the violence behind the action enough to skewer a score of horses. Julian felt Pera prepare, allowing the Nymradic to prize away a bit more control.
He tensed, and at the last moment, turned, the blade just missing. Boar staggered off balance, but corrected quickly and snapped the heavy weapon around with a backhand. Nightbreaker caught the heavier blade square, the two swords ringing violently.
“You shouldn’t have killed them,” Julian snarled, looping his sword over and around the falchion, using the leverage to snap it aside. Boar retreated, but Julian was too fast. He struck three times in rapid succession, the first two hitting the faceless’ weapon, but the third snuck in, raking against the larger man’s sword hand. The heavy falchion, and his fingers, fell to the ground.
“You tore down my home,” Julian grunted, kicking Boar’s left hand wide and chopping diagonally. The massive, thick chest plate swung free, its right shoulder strap cleanly cut.
A swarm of wild folk charged in, swarming around Boar, protecting him. Julian caught an axe and turned it aside, two swords stabbing in at the same time. One missed short, while the other thudded against his chest plate.
You cannot square off against an entire tribe, Pera scolded. More are coming, I need space and time!
Julian dodged back as five men came at him, their weapons clattering together. He hopped and lunged dropping his foot suddenly, trapping a spear against the ground, tearing it out of the man’s hand.
Space is an issue right now, Julian shot back, angrily, working Nightbreaker out and over two swords at the same time. He snapped the blade back, catching one of the men beneath the chin.
The Nym responded with a thread, the magic pulsing violently with potential. Julian broke it, a shower of freezing shards exploding from his free hand. The ice peppered the group of fighters, ripping and tearing at them like frozen daggers.
The magic had a cost, however, and Julian felt it already, tugging at his heartstrings. A quick double caught one of the flailing men in the chest and a chop parted another from his head.
Again! Julian urged, and Pera complied.
Stinging ice raked the oncoming warriors, blinding and battering them back and past the broken fence, piling them up in the arched entrance to the small sewer courtyard. Bodies surged behind them, men and women fighting to push past and join the fight.
“Now!” he growled, Pera weaving before he could form the word.
Julian lashed out, Pera’s magic latching onto the rock archway, and he pulled. Julian and Pera moved as one, the Nymradic’s strength flowing through him in a great rush. Stone cracked and heaved, and with a loud roar, the arch crashed down in a landslide, Boar’s tribe disappearing under the crushing deluge. Choking dust and debris filled the stone valley in a blinding cloud. Julian shrunk away, but it was too late. He coughed violently, his lungs burning.
An angry, mournful bellow fille
d the air. A shadow moved, Julian blinking against the grit, but everything was blurred by dust and tears.
Can you clear it?
Yes, but I must conserve strength. Unless you don’t want to ever leave this place,” Pera responded, sharply.
Your magic, can you spirit us away, to some place safe?” Julian thought, falling into another coughing fit.
That magic is dangerous and requires great sacrifice. I could only manage it if another…Pera cut off mid-thought.
What? Julian asked, just as Boar emerged from the dust, driving his bulk into him like a charging beast.
The big man swept him off the ground and ran. Pera spun a frantic thread, but the faceless cast all of his weight forward, smashing Julian against the cage. Iron groaned and shook, the force jarring his sensibilities. Boar reared back and battered him with ruined fists, but even with missing fingers and broken bones, the blows struck hard.
“You killed them. You killed them all,” Boar wailed, throwing his bloodied hands at him again and again. Bright colors splashed before his eyes with each strike. The barrage pushed him back, Pera augmenting his strength and keeping him from losing consciousness.
“No!” he yelled defiantly, kicking the large man in the midsection, Julian’s boot catching a crease in his armor. “You killed them, when you slaughtered those innocent people.”
Nightbreaker struck, singing its wicked song, cleaving through flesh and leather straps, mismatched armor falling away, exposing pale, heavily scarred flesh. Boar screamed and swung hard, but Julian ducked under the fist, images flashing through his mind – first of the old man being pulled from his house, the gnarls falling upon him savagely with spear and claw. Then, of those pathetic folk, chained to the wall, trembling and crying as they waited for their turn on the skinsmith’s table –and then Nirnan, his brave friend almost singlehandedly holding the gnarls off Tanea and others. Boar was responsible for all their deaths. Good, innocent people. Gone forever.
Pera fed on the emotions tied to the memories, his muscles coiling and hands flashing. Nightbreaker cut cleanly through the large man’s wrist. Boar flailed, blood spattering from the severed joint, but continued his brutish assault. He shoved in close, Nightbreaker cutting in hard against his side, the blade slicing into armor and flesh. Boar dropped his arm, pinning the blade against his body and rammed the severed stump into Julian’s breastplate, shoving him back.
“There is no stopping us. My masters will forge their army and march over every city and stronghold, grinding your people to dust. And there is nothing you…can…do…to…stop…it,” Bore hissed, wrenching Julian close, until his mask was practically smashed against his face.
Pera’s power surged inside, and Julian felt the Nymradic push for control. His left eye burned fiercely, the Nym’s voice issuing forth not in his mind, but for the first time from his lips.
“No, faceless one, you are blind. I will hunt and kill every one of you soulless slaves, spread your ashes to an uncaring wind, and run every one of my wretched kind back into the holes from which they crawled. It was my blood that forged the soul blades that struck the Nym from power once, and I will tear the very fabric of existence to see it done again!” Pera snarled, the Nym’s voice raking the air like a chorus of angry snakes.
Boar’s eyes went wide behind the mask, and then Nightbreaker ripped sideways, tearing free from his body and cutting his arm off above the elbow. Boar staggered back, the blade stabbing out again and again, peppering the large man’s chest with wounds, pushing him back, before driving clear through him and into the stone, pinning the faceless into place.
Julian released the sword, Pera’s will undeniable. He grasped Boar’s mask, his fingers digging into the gap between metal and flesh. He screamed and pulled, all of his hate for the wretched, indifferent metal face pouring forth at once, his pain and shame, the grief for Sky, Nirnan, and Tanea, mixing with Pera’s seething hatred for his own kind.
In that moment, Julian and Pera’s thoughts and ambitions joined, the two not working against one another, but as one being. Flesh tore, Boar’s mask breaking loose in his grasp, and with a final, violent rip, it broke free.
Julian staggered back, Boar’s anguished screams filling the rocky confines, the bloody, skinless mess of his face a truly gruesome sight. The magic of the mask pulsed, the etchings burning through the flesh and gore, the bits of tissue smoking and catching fire.
Green light erupted from Boar’s eyes, white flames quickly engulfing his body. Pera was moving in his mind, the Nymradic’s voice frantically spinning its strange magical threads. It was doing something profound, that much he understood, Julian’s entire body shaking with the effort.
He felt the mask grow heavier in his hands, Boar’s body now melting into smoke and running through his fingers before disappearing into the metal.
One of Pera’s threads broke, and Julian pitched forward into the mask. A flood of images flashed through his mind – he saw Boar, wrapped in skins and furs hunting and gathering in the mountains. He was just a boy. The large man grew before his eyes, the life flashing by in just a few heartbeats.
He saw family, a clan, and a village of crude, hide-covered homes. A much smaller man appeared, following Boar everywhere. They grew together. Then the memories changed. The two men looked haggard, hungry, and desperate, the smaller of the two a sickly, wretched looking thing. A shadowy figure appeared, their green eyes burning in the shadow. Julian watched through Boar’s eyes as the smaller man, his brother, was masked.
Boar’s memories, tightly bound by pulsing threads of energy, rushed into his body, Pera growing and swelling with strength. Julian moved, the efforts of kicking his legs forward almost insurmountable.
He tore Nightbreaker out of the wall, the silver blade sliding unblemished from the stone. The pieces moved within his mind, the puzzle finally sliding together. Boar and Spider were brothers, and the clan of wild folk was their people. They didn’t wear bracelets or collars because they had joined the Nym willingly, just as Spider had boasted. They were first among the faceless.
What is happening? he shouted into his mind, but the Nym was moving too frantically to respond. It spun threads together, building a complicated matrix of magical energies far too complicated for him to ever understand.
Julian staggered through the breach in the cage, the blood stained ground and scattered bodies awash in a sea of moving, shifting colors. Whatever Pera was doing, it was warping and twisting everything he saw, heard, and smelled. It was terrifying.
The weave of threads thickened, building a web throughout his mind. He felt the energy, Boar’s energy, flowing forth, infusing the magic with potential. His heart fluttered from the strain.
And then the Nymradic spun its final thread, this one different than the multitude that preceded it. Julian could feel the thread as if it were a living, breathing being – one the Nymradic was connected to somehow. And then it dawned on him. The thread wasn’t the being. It was tied to one, somewhere far away.
The final thread connected, and the web of magic exploded to life. Pera wove his hands through the air, his fingers burning like green torches. The air rippled and wavered, a complicated pattern appearing at waist-height, the shifting, spinning patterns flashing brightly and then opening with a rush of wet, silt-laden air.
Through the gateway, to safety…Pera said into his mind, the Nym weakened by the effort.
“Up!” Julian yelled, lurching forward and hefting Banner up, then together they pulled Tristan off the ground. He helped them to the swirling rift, the two archers stopping short, their faces drawn with fear.
“Go!” he urged, and pushed them bodily through. Julian jumped back and helped Asofel pull Gaston to his feet, the young spearman struggling with the half-blood’s bulk. The dark-haired young man limped forward, Tanea’s arm pulled over his shoulder. They moved together, painfully, every step a battle.
Asofel and Gaston disappeared through the rift, and then Tanea and the young man. Ju
lian moved to follow as a massive, powerful presence appeared behind him. He turned to find the drakin slinking back and forth, its feathers rippling from black, to gray, to white. It hissed fearfully, stepped closer, and then slunk back again.
“Go…” Julian yelled, “Be free!” When the predator didn’t move, he took two large steps forward and waved his arms. “Go!!!”
The drakin yowled catlike and jumped away, turning to regard him with its four, dark eyes. Live free, Julian pleaded, and turned, leaping through the rift.
He landed, the ground dropping off abruptly beneath him, and tumbled forward. Dry reedy plants slapped his hands and face, the ground squishy and cold. Julian rolled, pushing off and reclaiming his feet. It wasn’t mud, but sand.
Pera broke the web, and the magic abruptly dissipated. He caught a glimpse of granite and the rusty grate, and then it was gone, swept into the night air. Not far away, white-capped waves crashed onto a sandy, snow-covered beach, the air buffeting in surging, cold gusts. A heavy, damp gloom covered everything, thick, spattering flakes of snow falling from the foggy sky.
“Tanea!” Julian yelled, turning and stumbling, the rolling, grassy sand treacherous in the darkness. But it wasn’t just the lengthening shadows, or the cold, spongy sand. He was exhausted. Pera had utilized the lion’s share of their strength to spirit them to freedom. Where freedom was, he didn’t immediately know.
“Over here,” a soft voice answered, and he followed it a short distance away.
Tanea clambered painfully to her feet, and threw her arms around him as he approached. Julian squeezed her close, the moment of their reunion almost buckling his knees.
“I thought…I thought I’d lost you,” he stammered as she nuzzled into his neck. She cried softly, from pain, and joy, or perhaps both.
“Are you…real?” she asked, between sobs.
Julian nodded, unable to form the words. He was real, and so was she. He’d wished – no, prayed for this moment with every breath since charging out of Craymore. It felt more like a dream, a fantasy, as time dwindled on. And then he saw her stumble out from the dark cave, her body trampled, and the fantasy became a nightmare.