“Do not presume to command the ghosts! We must have the White Witch!” The dragon was snarling, huffing a red glow in her direction, stamping its three remaining feet impotently. “Her powers -”
The Master turned angrily at the dragon and shouted. “She said no! Quiet down, or I’ll kill you and put you in a child. This isn’t the time to nurse your wounded pride.”
The dragon snarled, something red glowing behind its teeth, but it did nothing more except stare angrily at Ada. She really didn’t like the feeling of those eyes on her. Turning back to the Master, she pointed south. “That army is closing in, and I need you to distract it. Don’t get yourselves killed, obviously, but slow them down. Fight a running battle towards the ruins, lead them off, whatever you can do. Got it?”
The Master looked south. “You’d best head there now. We won’t be able to hold them for long - if we’re lucky, we can hold them off until this afternoon.”
Afternoon. That was far enough away that she could at least get a nap in - the extra thinking and coding earlier had been tiring, and she almost hadn’t slept in two nights. She really needed something. She nodded. “I need to sleep first, but yes, I’ll head there soon.”
The Master looked unhappy, and Sam still looked at him with some measure of distress. Apparently the Shadowslayer was a big deal, though Ada couldn’t see why. Clearly he hadn’t been all the hero they had thought he was, if this was what he turned to in his twilight years.
She heard the distant sounds of hunters and guns exchanging fire, and looked unsteadily over to her ship. “Cherry, get down here. Sam - you’ll be okay here?”
Sam nodded. “We’ll do our best.”
“I hope so.” The words from her own mouth almost caught Ada off guard. She shook her head and climbed into Cherry’s cockpit, rising up into the sky. She looked down at the ghosts and their dragons - how in the thousand worlds could the dragons be ghosts too? It didn’t matter, though, at least not now.
She leaned back against the pilot’s seat and sighed. “Cherry? I need to sleep, so just hover around those ruins and scan them, would you? Stay safe and see if you can figure out what’s in there, how it all works.”
Very well, Ada.
“And if Tanos or Zhilik call, tell them what’s going on. They should probably stay put.”
With that done and Cherry on her way, Ada settled into a nap.
When she woke up in the afternoon sun, with weaponfire sounding out below her, she realized she should have told Cherry to wake her up after just a few hours. Shit.
Chapter 11
Gunshots and shouting and dragonfire all woke Isavel up.
She was in camp, familiar faces watching over her with deep concern. Hail and Rodan were there, Sorn and Marea stood close to one another. What was going on? Why were they all here?
She looked up at Hail and tried to apologize again, but instead she found her mouth opening a sliver and then closing, silent. Hail looked stoic and shook her head, as though Isavel had done nothing wrong at all. There was a note of anger in her face, though, and it was gratifying for Isavel to see Hail was not completely hiding her emotions. She was right to be angry.
Then Isavel saw more of the shattered red-gold of dragonfire sliding across the sky outside, heard the heavy thrums and thumps of ancient weapons. Her senses were suddenly alive with colour and urgency and energy.
She spun around on the ground and pushed herself up, bumping into someone as she did. People around her reached out, as though to steady her or calm her, but she lashed out with her hands and swatted them away. She walked out of the tent and, without even needing to think about it, called up a shield across her back to prevent them from grabbing her again.
The night was cold and dark, but that was the very first thing in the world humanity had learned to change. Isavel reached into the air with both palms and let loose with bright, hot blasts that burst into shards of light in front of the nearest dragon. The dragon spun around in the air at the sudden attack, its massive wings contorting to turn and about to face her, and she pointed straight at its face.
“I am coming for you!”
The dragon roared something back, its threats weak enough to be swept away by the wind. Then it turned and fled, gliding towards another part of the battlefield, somewhere where it wasn’t in danger. It was afraid of her. It should be.
Sorn spoke behind her. “Isavel, please, you need to -”
She paused, turned around, and stared him in the face. The others were behind him, all looking at her with worry. Ill-played, unnecessary and disingenuous worry, as far as she was concerned. They were worried about the Herald, but probably not about Isavel. How could they be? She was an instrument to the gods first and foremost, and that might well be all she ever amounted to.
“Leave me.” She darted away from them, her hands blade-flat at her sides, looking for ghosts. They must be here too.
Those in the army were lucky to have their turquoise armbands - she might have shot anyone who surprised her or got in her way otherwise. Clever ghosts who had procured their own armbands might slip through, but at least she wouldn’t kill innocents. Running towards the woods, she saw two warriors job from the trees, no turquoise, and blasted them both from the side with her hands, careful, taut lances of light that cut them clean. They crumpled.
It was dark, but she saw clear. Isavel was a hunter; she didn’t need the light. The ghosts might think they were safer in the darkness, but they couldn’t be more wrong. There were people everywhere, and she looked at each one for a single, intense split second before her judgement fell. Turquoise was the only colour she didn’t light afire. One then another, buckler up to catch a shot, fire returned and forgotten. She flowed across the rocks and logs and they flowed under her, her unbroken and unstopped by all the ghosts could muster.
“Herald!”
She turned to see Hail. Still there, for whatever reason. Isavel couldn’t understand how loyalty could so quickly outweigh her own outburst.
“Hail, if you’re here to watch my back, watch yours.”
She darted into the forest. She didn’t flinch when dragonfire crackled through the canopy crushing lives, or when heavy weapons blindly firing felled foliage and scattered pines, a rain of needles and twigs that prickled skin but stopped not a thing.
Isavel was an instrument of the gods. One part of her that would not be denied.
Bodies dragged along by puppet strings held by evil spirits. They stood in the way of her reaching the shrine, toppling it, defending her people - but they did not have the backing of the gods. They couldn’t hope to compete.
The night was a chant of light and shadow, dragonfire roars that splashing off her shield, erratic yet steady drumbeats of light punctuating the darkness, flaming rumbles criss-crossed by silent human silhouettes. The ghosts recoiled from the cacophony, but they were slow to fall silent and truly exit the stage.
Isavel found herself fighting tree-to-tree. Warriors met her buckler or blade and thought they knew its nature, but whatever they thought they knew they didn’t. They died. She saw between their points of focus, moved between what drew their eyes, and broke them one after the other. Probing shots tried their luck and hit her more often than not, but she was shelled and moved and soon tracked down their hunters. They fell, or they fled. And all the while, on foot, she moved towards the dragons, trying to find one landing or getting too close for its own good.
The dragons, though, had long disappeared. They avoided her.
Then, so too did the ghosts.
All of a sudden, they were nowhere to be seen, save a few dying on the forest floor alongside fallen fighters from Glass Peaks and Hive. The rest were gone - there were not enough dead, so they must have fled.
When she finally realized they were gone, Isavel stood alone in the forest for several long moments, daring one last ghost to try to make a stand, one last dragon to drop down from the night to challenge her. She went unwitnessed, unless perhaps Hail was h
iding in the shadows. She didn’t know.
Returning to where the camp had been, she found the core of the army, those elders whose knowledge and skills might yet help her carry out the will of the gods. She might have seen familiar faces along the way, but she paid them no more heed. A sweat had built up on her brow, and something was sore, but whenever she tried to pin down that soreness it fled to other crevices in her mind.
Venshi, eternally uncanny steward of the temple, was the first to greet her. Something about Venshi and her warbling voice made her seem like had been waiting much longer than just this evening for Isavel to return.
“Saint Isavel.” Isavel waved the title off. It was the most she could do, and Venshi looked unfazed. “You do the gods proud, but there is danger ahead. The ghosts must not be allowed to reach the shrine.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Isavel glanced around. She saw Dendre Han the Bulwark, Mother Jera, and Elder Tan standing in a tight-knit but agitated triangle, glancing over at her occasionally. A drone floated nearby as well. Venshi always seemed to like to get to Isavel first. “I’m guessing you have something to tell me.”
“Only what you already know. That the shrine must be destroyed, and that the ghosts will be trying to protect it. They have relics at their disposal that they have yet to reveal, artifacts of great power. Be watchful.”
“What kind of relics?”
Venshi inched closer. “Great wings in the sky, invisible and unseen, bearing something far more fearsome than a dragon.”
Isavel arched an eyebrow. “Something that flies but isn’t a dragon? I didn’t see any wings.”
“You wouldn’t have. They were invisible.”
Wings in the sky, invisible. Isavel knew there was no point in asking Venshi how she knew about any such wings. Venshi was her elder and a servant of the gods; it would be needlessly disrespectful for Isavel to pry too closely. “I’ll keep an eye on the sky, then. More than usual.”
“And you will destroy the shrine.”
“Why do you think I’m here?” Isavel had no idea why Venshi kept stressing this point. “I’m here to protect the people of this world. I’ll do whatever is necessary to achieve that.”
Venshi’s glossy white face said little, but she said no more, instead maintaining her posture, straight-backed and head only slightly tilted. Isavel turned and walked to the others.
“Dendre.”
He looked up at her, a frown in his brow. “Isavel. You were -”
“Killing ghosts.” She didn’t want to talk about anything else. “What’s the situation? Did that slow us down?”
“Doesn’t seem like it.” Dendre shook his head, like he was loathe to admit something. “You ran off the dragons. Bastards are actually scared of you.”
“I do what I have to.”
The Bulwark nodded. “Something else, too - word from Hive. Remember the distraction on the night the Mayor was killed, that helped the ghost assassins get into the hall?”
Isavel nodded. “I remember.”
“Well apparently your young little Mayor found drone memories that told him who helped them. Some guy, must be a ghost - but there was an outer with the ghost. They’re working together.”
Isavel frowned. Outers were strange alien beings, reclusive and little involved in the affairs of the world. Or so it had seemed. “What? Why?”
“I wish I knew. The coders tell me ghosts can’t possess outers, so it’s more complicated than that.” Dendre looked troubled, but had nothing else to say beyond that.
“Okay - well, we’ll keep it in mind. Thanks, Dendre.”
The Bulwark shrugged, but he didn’t snark at her. Improvement, it seemed. Isavel turned away and went to speak to Elder Tan next.
“Elder Tan, I think we’re going to have to race them to the shrine. How do you feel about taking your best coders with me on a vehicle, and getting ahead?”
The old man looked at his shrivelled old palms and grinned. “We are not fighters, and I am not young. I fear danger should we move ahead, and with all due respect to your favour in the eyes of the gods, if all the ghosts were to fall on us at once, you may not be able to protect us.”
“You’d be surprised. The gods have given me a remarkably singular purpose.” Tan was obviously not comforted by that statement. “But, of course, I understand your concerns. In that case - Aren, we need more drones over here. Can you send all of them?”
The drone responded only with silence.
Dendre shook his head. “He’s a child, Isavel, and it’s nighttime. He’s probably asleep.”
She shook her head. Of course. How could she forget? Children slept every night. “Okay. That’s fine. We’re wasting time, then. We need to reach that shrine before they do, and if they’re regrouping now we may have just bought ourselves the time to do so. I will do whatever you need me to do, but most of all, the gods need me to get to that shrine myself.”
As the others left, and Isavel turned to march to the forefront of the army, Mother Jera’s hand grasped at her shoulder. “Is everything alright, child?” The priestess looked concerned, in a gentle sort of way. “You seem troubled.”
She bit her lip. What would Jera care for her own upsets? “I’m troubled whenever the will of the gods is not being followed. I do look forward to a day when this fighting is over, and the gods see fit to retire me. But for now, what matters is that we are not yet done.”
“The gods do not let their servants fall into disuse.” Mother Jera’s warning sounded sympathetic, so Isavel responded with a polite nod. This was not the time to be disagreeing with her elders. And it was true - rest and reprieve might well sooner be granted by death in battle than by the gods. The gods were inscrutable, and there was nothing Isavel could do about that besides follow the path they laid out for her and trust they would take care of her.
While the medics and their wounded stayed behind, the rest of the army was soon on the move. Isavel made sure to tell the medics to hurry; there was no good reason to be short of fighters at this point. As the train of people marched through the night energized from the fight, the ring shone clear through the night sky. There were no clouds anymore, and she saw that silvery, glimmering arc above her, the moon just to one side. It looked like an embrace of the gods, arms stretched out to welcome her. Or reaching down to grab her. It was all the same at this point.
“Isavel?”
She kept walking forward, but Rodan appeared and kept pace with her.
“Are you okay? Sorn has been looking for you.”
“I’m fine. Tell Sorn to stop looking, and to go back to Marea.”
Rodan’s expression turned grim. “I thought you already knew -”
“It’s fine. I never cared to ask - we made no promises. And of course I’m the Herald. I’m an agent of the gods. I can’t have petty human needs, and I can’t burden others with my desire to be normal. This is good - I’ve been distracted from my purpose, but now I can focus. I need to get ready for the battle on the other side of the dawn.”
She looked him over, wishing he would leave her alone. Wishing she could elicit something in people other than respect and pity.
“You too, Rodan. Go back to whatever giggling girls you spend your evenings with, and tell them we’re good friends. I hope it helps.”
“Isavel, I’m not -”
“Go.”
Cowed, Rodan slunk away.
Nobody else approached her until she reached the head of the column. As she walked further and further, the sounds of conversation behind her started to grow a bit fainter, and she realized they weren’t keeping pace. She turned to look at them.
Hail was walking just behind her, and her face froze as the Herald’s gaze fell on her again. Isavel felt a twinge of regret, and her face softened. “You’re still here.”
Hail nodded. “I have a duty.”
“You don’t need to -”
“You did nothing wrong, Saint Herald.”
Isavel wasn’t sure ho
w to respond to that. She turned around again, facing the darkness.
It was a long march before they reached the ruins, guided by Aren’s drones, and she marched it in silence. When they finally reached it in the early afternoon, it was unmistakable - a set of blocky concrete cubes that intersected in odd ways, vines hugging the sides and strange ancient markings overlooking the doors. The ravages of time had not been kind to this place, but they hadn’t been fatal either.
Isavel thought she saw shapes moving in the dark behind the windows here and there, but it was hard to tell, even with hunters’ eyes. Her gift didn’t draw her focus to any human shapes. Perhaps the shapes were tricks of the light, or of her mind. She was reminded of Venshi’s warning, and she looked up to the sky. There were no wings there. None that were visible, at least.
She set one foot too far, across an almost-invisible concrete rim in the ground, and suddenly something was shooting at her. She stepped back across the threshold, shield up and catching fire, and knocked Hail and herself over in the process. The shooting stopped, but she kept her shield raised, helping Hail up and getting her away from the line of fire. She saw the window the shots had come from, but still didn’t see a shooter. A drone, maybe?
She turned and looked Hail in the eyes. “Stay back. Tell Dendre to get everyone surrounding the facility, but not to cross that concrete line. I’ll go in alone and figure out what’s going on.”
“But -”
Isavel shook her head. “You can’t protect me here. I don’t want you dying on my account, not in here. The gods’ will is that I should go in there and destroy this shrine. They will protect me. It’s alright, Hail.”
Hail looked worried and hurt, but Isavel turned away from her. She didn’t want that woman’s death or despair on her shoulders any more than whatever hurt she had already inflicted. She just wanted to get her job done and get out of here. Escape. Disappear. She raised her shield, growing it to cover most of her silhouette, and darted across the ancient concrete towards the ruins. What the people behind her did was no longer her concern.
First Angels Page 19