Up they went until the silence of the mountain grew more unnerving than the snarling wolves. The higher they climbed, the straighter the path became, no longer slicing back and forth but instead was carved around the entire circumference of the mountain. They passed the top entry to the glaruium mine and Torsten could see the glow of the rare element through the cracks. In its natural form, it glimmered in the darkness like stars compressed into stone.
Clouds rolled in, shrouding Pantego in shadow. The sun wasn’t yet covered, but the cold was brutal. Every breath was like a chain of icicles down Torsten’s throat. He could feel Oleander shivering and wrapped her tighter. The cold was unquestionably getting to her as she’d stopped speaking, and he was used to her sharp tongue no matter the situation. They circled once more around the mountain, and then her horse released a heart-wrenching cry before collapsing to the snow.
Torsten threw his leg over the side of the mare and yanked Oleander off before being crushed beneath the weight of it. He wiped the snow from his face. Off to the side, the horse labored to breathe. He was sure the beast hadn’t been in so high an altitude or such cold in all its life. There was good reason people climbed to the summit of Mount Lister earlier in the day or rode mules or stocky Quarter Horses intended for hauling.
“Sora!” Oleander cried out. She scrambled out of Torsten’s grip and lay her hand upon the horse’s head.
Torsten had seen the Queen be many things, but sympathetic wasn’t one of them. As she looked up at him, he swore a tear rolled down her cheek. It froze so quickly it could have easily been a snowflake. “We can’t leave her,” she shivered.
“We must.” Torsten lay his hand on Oleander’s shoulder. “Her place is in the Gate of Light now. We’re close.”
“Then you must end her suffering.”
Torsten moved Oleander aside and knelt before the horse.
“Sora,” Oleander whispered again.
“Sora,” Torsten repeated, the familiarity of the name finally striking him. “I didn’t realize that was your horse’s name.”
“You don’t know everything about me, knight.”
“It’s just a curious name.”
“Liam had already named her before she was gifted to me. He said she was as rare as I was. I never asked him the true story of where he got her. I never wanted to know.”
“Like I’ve told you. No matter what was said or done, he loved you, Oleander.”
“How could he not?” She stood and turned away. “Now hurry up and get on with it.”
“Your Grace?”
“I will not have her suffer. Do what you knights do.”
Torsten rubbed the horse's snout and drew Salvation. Of all the things Oleander was, he'd never pegged her for one who'd be unable to watch this mercy. But those Drav Cra warriors were right. She was far from one of them anymore. At that moment, she had more compassion in one of her blonde, nearly silver hairs, than all of them combined.
“Be in the light now,” he whispered as he drove the sword straight into Sora’s heart. “Suffer no more.” He thought he could hear Oleander whimpering, but he showed her the respect of keeping his sympathy to himself. He stood, wrapped his arm around her, and continued up the path.
“Why didn’t you carve the fur from those infernal wolves?” she asked.
Torsten smiled, glad to see she hadn’t lost all her venom. “My failures abound, Your Grace.”He kept her moving the rest of the climb. Oleander’s body resisted, but there was no time to rest. To stop under these conditions would mean death. The day had started warmer and brighter, but all that changed. Never in all his life could he remember such a harsh Dawning atop Mount Lister. He couldn’t help feeling it was an omen.
The icy wind, for him, was preferable to rotting in the dungeon, breathing in stale air that reeked of shog. His training had prepared him for this. Every Shieldsman was sworn in on the flat top of Mount Lister. He had knelt before Uriah Davies to take the vows as had so many countless others, forced to make the climb alone, with naught but his own two feet.
This was so similar. From a boy, counted out and growing up in squalor, to be raised by Liam Nothhelm to stand as one of his elite soldiers. Now he was an exiled Shieldsman, making the same climb thanks to Liam’s widow. It was as if he’d grown close with her, against all odds, just for this moment; for a chance to save the kingdom when so much hung in the balance.
He peered to the right, over Oleander’s head, through the fog and snow. She hunched over, breathing into her dress to stay warm, every step a struggle. The edges of the moons were passing across the sun now like a door closing, casting eerie darkness across the kingdom that grew deeper and deeper each second. Eyelids for Iam’s world.
Torsten stopped.
“What is it?” Oleander asked softly.
“We’re here.” Now that it grew darker, he could see the glow of torchlight a short distance above. Indistinguishable voices carried on the wind as he propped Oleander up within a nook that protected against the wind. “Let me go first.”
“And miss out on a chance to help end my detestable brother?” she bristled.
“I don’t know what’s waiting up there, but I do know what he did to you in my chambers. He’s been trying some mad ritual to bring his goddess back all this time, and he’ll stop at nothing. If I fail, you may be the only one left who can get close enough to him.”
Oleander pursed her lips in anger, then her features softened. “Is it wrong that a part of me wants you to fail so that I can have the satisfaction?”
“I would expect nothing less. Stay here.” He turned to leave, but she grabbed him.
“Torsten.”
“Yes, My Queen.”
“Don’t let anything happen to my son. Do you hear me? He’s all I have left, and after Redstar is gone, I know he’ll be fine.”
“On my life, the King will come to no harm.”
She leaned up to whisper into his ear. “I always knew I could trust you, my dear, loyal Torsten.” She pressed her ice-cold lips against his cheek. “I’m so sorry I didn’t stand by you after you returned.”
“I wouldn’t have either.” He held her at arm’s length, and for the first time in his life, stared into her eyes without a sense of trepidation bubbling up from within. “Liam built this great country for us and for your boy. Today we take it back.” He released her and slowly backed away. He’d had his doubts about her for a long time, but here she stood, braving deathly cold for the sake of the Glass. He knew it was likely a prayer, but he couldn’t help feeling that after all the madness was over, she might become the Queen Liam always knew she could be, and not the one her people had come to hate and fear.
He believed in her, always had. And as he turned away and their gazes broke, he could tell she believed in him too. That was enough. He drew Salvation and pushed his aching limbs to finish the climb.
XXXI
THE DESERTER
Rand stopped at the corner where Poplar and Newton Streets intersected in South Corner. He followed the spread of a shadow across the dirt, up the wall of an old plaster building, to the moons passing over the sun. A silver glow reflected off the castle’s glass spire and cast the city in an unnatural twilight.
The silence was unsettling. Most of Yarrington either sat before the base of Mount Lister, or they had returned home to be with their families to fast before the great feast that would occur when the sun rose the next morning. For a man of the Glass army, there was no more peaceful day, though Rand was usually with his sister by this time every year.
Rand closed his eyes and drew a deep, steadying breath. Remembering where he was and what he was doing, he let out the breath, and his heart plummeted. Torsten was free, and Rand and Codar had made it out of the Royal Crypt without a hitch. But he would never forget the bodies stuffed into graves by greedy dwarves, never to be found again. He’d recited a prayer for Childress and his family, and the others on his way up the construction lift, but he doubted Iam was listening.
Not to him. He’d done all he could to rescue Torsten, to finish what he'd started, and now he found himself hoping Iam had turned His Eye away.
“Come, Rand,” Codar said. “There is no time to waste.”
“I’m just wondering how I got here,” Rand said.
“Survival.”
Rand opened his eyes and looked upon the callous, mustached man from Brekliodad. Not even his childhood nightmares could’ve provided such an unexpected situation.
“I don’t give a rat’s shog about that,” Rand said.
“Not yours,” Codar replied.
“Buried not dead!” a crazed, masked cultist of Nesilia screamed suddenly as he emerged from seemingly nowhere and raced by. “Buried not dead. Buried not dead!”
Rand spun to watch him, whispering, “What in Iam’s name?”
The cultist danced around, continuing his chant, red robe sloshing through the snow, kicking up powder as he twirled and skipped.
A Glass soldier, wearing the mark of the city guard stepped to block the cultist’s path. “Off the streets, devil,” he ordered. “Just because we have to trust the Drav Cra means nothing for the likes of you.”
The cultist stopped, tilting his head, but didn’t respond.
“Did you hear me?” the guard questioned. He grabbed the cultist by the collar. “I said, get off the yigging streets. Show so resp—”
The cultist extended his arm, and a knife fell through his sleeve into his waiting hand. It all happened so fast the guard couldn’t have done anything. The cultist jammed the knife between the laces of the man’s armor. It sank deep into the man’s side. “Buried, not dead,” the cultist continued as if nothing happened, skipping, dancing, and cackling like a madman.
The guard folded over and clutched the wound. “Seize him!” he shouted to Rand, apparently noticing his armor.
Rand took a step toward the cultist—he couldn’t help himself—but Codar tugged him back onto their course toward the gate and their freedom.
“There is nothing you can do,” he said. “We must leave, now.”
“I’m helping you, aren’t I?” Rand bristled. “Valin said nothing about refusing to help othe—” Another cultist appeared from around a corner and drove a second knife into the back of the guard’s neck.
“Iam’s Light,” Rand gasped. He ignored Codar and started off toward the man when, from the opposite direction, two more cultists emerged from an alley and kicked through a door into a shanty-home. The shrill cries of terror of those within gave Rand goosebumps.
Rand didn’t think twice. He drew his sword, shoved by Codar, and stormed into the cottage. A cultist had a woman by the hair and dragged her across the floor directly in front of him. Her husband sat on a chair, head drooped back with his throat slit. Children huddled in the corner on the other side of the home, a second cultist bearing down on them.
“Unhand her!” Rand yelled.
The cultist turned his head. His hood was up, and his expressionless porcelain mask with a bloody tear beneath one eye and dark holes for seeing, shimmered with the hearth fire.
“Sacrifice for the Lady,” the man hissed, then after a shrill laugh, he raised his knife. Rand darted forward, slicing off the man’s arm before he could complete his attack. Rand’s own sword found a home, plunging into the cultist’s chest.
“My babies!” the woman shrieked.
Rand turned and saw that the other cultist had now cornered the children and was brandishing his dagger. Rand threw a chair out of the way and sprinted, but the cultist turned the dagger on himself and slit his own throat. Blood poured out onto the crying children, and the gargling corpse of the cultist thudded at Rand’s feet.
The sight gave Rand pause, but he remembered his training. He recovered quickly and grabbed the children. “Hide in the pantry,” he said. “All of you. Hide in there now and don’t come out!” He gave a gentle push to get the crying children past their dead father into the arms of their mother.
“Thank you, Shieldsman,” she whimpered, but she wasn’t looking at Rand. She showered her children with kisses. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Rand said. “Just keep them safe.”
Bedlam outside drew Rand back to the door where he found Codar already standing on the stack of boards they called a porch.
“You can’t help them all, Rand,” Codar said. He calmly wiped his dagger on his sleeve, staining it red. Another dead cultist lay a few meters away.
Rand looked past him. With the sun growing dimmer, cultists ran rampant throughout the district. Emboldened by the Drav Cra presence, or invited by Redstar himself, they sowed chaos in South Corner with so few on duty to protect its citizens. South Corner, Dockside, and the rest of Yarrington’s poor district were mostly wood and thatch. Thick billows of black smoke hovered over the homes and shops, and a soft, flickering, orange glow painted the abnormally dark sky. The constant snowfall kept the blaze from spreading as it had in Winde Port. The cultists raced around, dozens of them, using the smoke for cover and causing mayhem—flipping parked trading carts, raiding shops for supplies only to dump them all over the streets.
It took Rand a few moments to find his voice. “How could this happen?” he asked.
“How could it not?” Codar said. “You people let a child rule because of his blood and expect peace?”
“This has nothing to do with the King. This is Redstar. I... I told you we needed to stop him first!”
“Is it? Redstar was imprisoned when your King decided to condemn the Caleef. Because of him, the rebels took Winde Port, only to be driven out by Redstar and hand him all the leverage he needed.”
Rand didn’t have an answer.
“In freeing the Caleef, Mister Tehr will undo the mistake made by lesser men and children,” Codar said. “In Brek, it doesn’t matter what family you're born into, only what’s in here.” He pointed to his head.
“There have been many mistakes.”
Codar scoffed. “You Shieldsmen... you only ever see what’s right in front of you!” He whipped around and flung his dirk right by Rand’s head, so close it scraped his pauldron. Rand fell back against the wall of a building and was about to curse the Breklian, when the body of another cultist toppled over, bumping into him. The dirk sticking out from between his eyes caused his mask to crack in half upon impact, revealing the face of an adolescent boy.
“You asked why I’m here. I came to the Glass, sent by my father, to learn from the great Liam the Conqueror. Arrived to find him drooling on himself like a baby.” Codar tore the blade out of the boy's skull, his tone agitated.
“Instead, I found Valin, a cripple born from shog,” he went on. “And he’s more a man than any of your kings or you worthless knights. Now let’s go, and no more stopping to play hero. That’s not your life anymore. He’ll help you be better if you’d open your damn eyes.”
Codar hauled Rand to his feet then set off around the building without another word. Rand took one more look at the pandemonium before following. The Breklian was right about one thing—Rand couldn’t do anything about this. There was nobody to warn with so much of the city guard off duty, especially in South Corner. Eventually, someone would see the flames and rouse the city guards, but not before the devastation was exhaustive. And if Rand died fighting an unpredictable foe willing to kill themselves to sow terror, his sister would die with him.
He and Codar kept to the alleyways to avoid the brunt of the chaos. They stopped at an opening to a major avenue running along the city wall. “The southern gate is across the way,” he said.
“Then let’s get this over with.” Rand went to move, but Codar grabbed his wrist.
“No, this is where I leave you,” Codar said. “Your company awaits in a caravan by the gate. You’ll have no trouble getting through, even with the rioting.”
“I thought saving the Caleef was heroic since Valin wanted it? Now you run?”
“My face is known to the guards, and so I cannot come. Remember, V
alin’s role in this affair is one of ignorance. You know what happens to Sigrid should you do anything to change that, or should you fail.”
Rand bit back his initial response. He was eager to escape the watchful eye of the heartless Breklian, so willing to wield Rand’s sister’s name like a weapon. “Tell your boss not to worry. I won’t fail,” Rand said. “But I have to ask. All this insanity—was it Redstar who inspired it, or was it our mutual friend?”
Rand turned to face Codar, but the Breklian was gone. When he looked back, a cultist stood before the alley staring at him from behind his mask. Rand’s hand fell to the grip of his sword.
“Walk away,” he warned.
The cultist didn’t respond. Instead, he ran a rusty blade across his palm and attempted to use blood magic like a true warlock. The spell backfired, and he wound up setting himself ablaze. “One for the Lady, one for the Lord!” He screamed as he ran by Rand, flailing his arms. The snow would have easily extinguished him, but he merely let himself burn.
Poor, lost souls...
Rand cringed and averted his gaze. He stepped out of the alley and focused on the summit of Mount Lister where, above it, the two moons had nearly come into alignment in front of the sun. The Dawning had arrived.
“End this madness, Sir Unger,” Rand whispered, then set off for the southern gate at a brisk pace. He didn’t have to search far to find the men he was looking for. A trading caravan sat before the closed portcullis. A dwarf stood on the back of the cart with a long red beard and eyes which looked two ways at the same time. He had an axe in hand, swinging madly at a group of looters bent upon taking advantage of the riots. Two heavily-armored human mercenaries stood on the street on either side of him, swords at the ready.
“Back ye fiends!” the dwarf shouted. “Ye ain’t touchin a blood-soaked thing.”
One of the humans swiped at a looter, but they didn’t get close enough to attack.
“Do ye plan on helpin?” the dwarf shouted up to the guard tower above the arched gate. Two soldiers were on duty, aiming down over the ramparts with bows but not firing. Only the most inexperienced were put to work on the Dawning, and Rand could see the sweat glistening on their foreheads.
The Redstar Rising Trilogy: (Buried Goddess Saga Box Set 1: Books 1-3) Page 110