by Matthew Ward
“I don’t like the looks of that,” Armund muttered.
“Surprised Lavirn’s not turned tail,” said Anliss.
“He can’t. They’ll run him down. It’s head on or nothing.” He spat on the ground. “And when he’s gone, the cataphracts will finish what these buggers started.”
Calenne stared again at their foe. This was no longer mere battle. This was magic, and legend and all manner of things she didn’t come close to understanding. But it was also painfully simple. She couldn’t turn back. She’d made her moment. She had to seize it. She’d finish what Viktor had started.
Melanna rose up in her stirrups, moon-banner held high. “Ashanael Brigantim!”
She urged her horse to the charge. It leapt the narrow gorge without slowing and galloped down the hillside to the open plain. The uneven silhouette of Blackridge Farm loomed away to the south-west. Its swan-banner fell, replaced by Kos Devren’s serpent.
Melanna’s blood raced with the thrill of it all. She’d claimed the heights and broken the centre. The redoubts yet stood, islands in a sea of spears. Her spears. And beyond, not even an hour’s ride distant, the prize of Eskavord.
In all the years a Saran had ruled the Empire, a woman hadn’t led as she now led. Hadn’t inked her right to rule in the blood of her foes. The thought quickened her blood to fire. She felt no fear at the onset of the galloping knights. Was she not a Saran, blessed by the divine and destined to rule? The goddess would not let her die.
“Ashanael Brigantim!”
“Ashanal! Melanna Ashanal!” The bellowed reply echoed up and around her, voiced from two hundred throats and more. The song of the lunassera rose beneath. “Melanna Ashanal Brigantim!”
Melanna’s heart swelled. She was their warleader. Their battle cry. They begged her for victory.
But her fire dimmed as a new realisation struck home. They begged her for victory, not Ashana. She’d supplanted the goddess in their prayers. A goddess whose favour she’d falsely claimed.
Then the knights were but a spear’s-length away, and there was no time for doubts.
Melanna swerved her steed to avoid a lance-point and swept a vicious back-cut at the wielder’s head. Metal spat and seethed. A scream. A brief scent of seared flesh rose above the blood and sweat, and then the dying man was behind her.
“Ashanael Brigantim!”
“Melanna Ashanal!” roared the reply. “Brigantim! Brigantim!”
Choking back fresh unease, Melanna lost herself in the red fury of battle. There was only the fire in her hand, and the foe, and the one to be borne against the other.
She spurred towards the twin banners – the silver swan and the phoenix. Two Thrakkians, and a Tressian woman little older than herself.
White fire bit into chainmail, and the swan toppled with its bearer. Red hair splayed from beneath the woman’s helm as she struck the ground. Sightless eyes stared into the bright sun.
“Anliss!” The second Thrakkian howled and dug back his heels. “Brenæ væga tikyr!”
Melanna sent fire billowing into his face. His bellow rose in pitch, rage diluted by pain. His whirling axe split the moon-banner’s shaft and chimed Melanna’s armoured circlet like a hammer striking a bell. The world lurched. Black fog drowned her vision.
When it cleared, Melanna found herself on her knees beside the woman she’d slain. The second Thrakkian was gone, swept away by a tide of vengeful lunassera. His axe lay on the ground beside her, its haft split.
She clambered to her feet.
“Die, witch!”
Pain flared across her cheek. Steel shone like sunlight as the Tressian woman wheeled about. Melanna let the remnants of the moon-banner fall. She strove for balance on a field pitching beneath her feet.
The woman came about. Melanna’s vision cleared. She noted the slenderness of the Tressian’s sword. The poor fit of her armour. The pallor of skin from a life lived indoors. Was this Calenne Trelan? She’d heard Crovan speak of her as unfledged and flighty. Neither word suited the cold-eyed woman who dipped her sword to the kill.
Then again, Melanna knew the transformative power of bloodshed better than any.
The ground quivered. The slender sword thrust at Melanna’s throat. Numbed reflexes scraped a desperate parry. Knees buckled.
Was this the price of her hubris? The thought drove Melanna to unsteady feet as Calenne bore down a second time. Warm, sticky blood pooled at her collar. It trickled beneath armour to slick her chest and armpit. Her sword had grown too heavy for one hand alone, so she gripped it tight with both.
As the slender sword came forward again, Melanna struck at Calenne’s steed.
White flame roared. The horse screamed in sudden terror and shied up. Melanna flung herself back from the flailing hooves. Calenne’s cry of panic drowned Melanna’s own. Sword abandoned, she grabbed for the saddle’s pommel. Then the panicked horse fled, bearing her away towards the forest.
Melanna staggered drunkenly upright. She prayed to the goddess she’d disobeyed that no Tressian would come to finish what the Thrakkian had begun. She felt the whisper of movement at her shoulder and reeled about, her sword barely rising from its downward slant.
Sera, her white robes stained crimson by the day’s labours, reached down for her. “Come, Ashanal. Your time on this field is done.”
Melanna’s gullet soured with failure. But she knew that to stay was to die, or invite capture and all its myriad horrors. As a pair of Tressian knights at last thundered towards her, she seized Sera’s hand.
The chandirin came at a gallop, snout lowered and silvered horn aimed at Revekah’s chest. The pale-witch’s shard-spear hung loose in her hand, the rider content for her steed to deliver the deathblow.
Revekah rose on creaking limbs, the burden of years heavier in that moment than for many long days. But alongside that burden came experience. The knowledge that no battle was ever lost until you lacked the strength to fight.
She’d not yielded fifteen years before. She’d not do so now.
She let the chandirin come, counting down the moments of its approach. With the creature six paces distant, Revekah stooped. Her hands closed around a fallen spear. She drove the butt into the ground and planted a boot behind.
The point, angled sharply upward, pierced the dancing shadow of the chandirin’s chest. The creature hurtled on, unaware it had suffered a wound that would have slain an ephemeral steed. The spear-point burst clear of its back and skewered its rider through her heart.
The pale-witch slumped. The chandirin gave a shrill, echoing whinny and reared up. Revekah fell, the spear released in an instinctive attempt to ward off flailing hooves.
She struck the ground at the same time as the pale-witch. Of the chandirin, no sign remained save a dissipating haze.
Revekah rose on trembling legs and grabbed her sword.
Her gaze fell on the dead pale-witch, on robes already awash in crimson. The half-mask had come free in her fall. A dark, young face stared sightlessly out from beneath the hooded robe. Sixteen years old. If that. But then Tarn had been all of what? Nineteen?
Feeling older than ever, Revekah stared across a battlefield of which she no longer felt a part. The centre was a ragged mess of corpses and stray horses; the space between the redoubts choked with panicked men and women. To the west, the walls of the crumbling farm swarmed with Hadari. Kurkas’ swan banner was nowhere to be seen. Gold glinted on the northern heights. The ruin of kraikons smouldered where Akadra’s shield wall had died. And the owl-banner of Kai Saran still flew.
Clutching her shoulder, she stumbled south towards the forest. One foot in front of the other beneath Lumestra’s unremitting gaze. The dull, throbbing pain of her wound grew with every lurching step. Her vision swam. But still Revekah forged on across the corpsehaunted plain.
She barely made it beneath the eaves before darkness took her.
Vorn spun through the air, arms and legs thrashing. He struck one of the stone dancers with a fleshy thud a
nd lay still, his head lolling awkwardly.
Anastacia stood motionless in the circle. She held the blade of Vorn’s dagger between finger and thumb. Her shawl’s hood lay flat across her shoulders. Black smoke curled up from porcelain eye sockets.
“What . . . What are you?”
Crovan stared at her, his eyes wide and his face suddenly pale. Drenn, her own expression only fractionally less shocked, ceased struggling against his grip.
They weren’t alone. Anastacia had the attention of everyone in Maiden’s Hollow. Not that she seemed pleased. Sloped shoulders and tilted head conveyed the sneer her frozen lips could not express.
[[Maybe I’m the one who turned these fools . . .]] She flicked the nearest dancer. The clink of stone on stone was unmistakeable. [[ . . . into statues. They chose the wrong side. How about the rest of you?]]
“Shoot her!” snapped Crovan, his voice still strained by disbelief. “Someone . . .”
Josiri’s shoulder took him in the gut. The dell exploded with vying voices as they fell.
Josiri blotted it out, concentrated on Crovan. He struck the other man in the face, felt something give under his hand. Crovan thrashed, sending them rolling away into the briars. Shards of daylight spiralled above. Brambles tugged at Josiri’s clothes. A tree-root cracked against his spine. And then Crovan was astride him, face bloodied. Madness gleamed in his eyes, and a dagger in his hand.
“Shouldn’t have come back, Josiri.”
A blur of motion. A hollow thud and gasped exhalation. Crovan and Gavamor rolled away, the older man pounding at the younger with a vigour Josiri hadn’t suspected he’d possessed.
Drenn leaned over, blotting out branch-webbed sky. Her hand reached for Josiri’s. “Can’t lie there all day, your grace.”
Josiri clasped her hand and lurched upright. A few paces distant, Gavamor had Crovan pinned amid the thorns, a knife at his throat.
On the slopes, Crovan’s and Drenn’s followers regarded each other with uneasy eyes and drawn blades.
Calenne’s steed crashed into the forest, resisting her every attempt to bring it under control. She alternated between sawing madly on its reins and clinging on for dear life. Uneven ground and the press of undergrowth transformed headlong flight into jolting, jarring torment.
At last, she could hold on no longer. The reins ripped from her hands, and she crashed into the underbrush. The hillside claimed her. She rolled over and over, the world a blur of light, muted colour and skinned knees. Branches tore her skin. Ravens cawed and took wing, disturbed from their roosts.
Her back struck something solid. With a heartfelt groan, she propped herself upright. Her whole body felt like one vast bruise.
“The Trelan luck’s holding true to form,” she muttered.
Then she remembered that Anliss was dead – Armund too, most likely – and felt ashamed. The Trelan luck had kept her alive. She should be thankful for that.
Hadari voices sounded beyond the ridge. Calenne pressed close to the statue that had broken her fall. She cursed her missing sword and shield, lost in the hillside descent. She counted to ten before standing. She clutched herself tight and wondered why she shivered so. It was only natural for it to be cool beneath the trees, even when the sun blazed beyond. But this . . . ? This was different.
She took a step away from the statue. Ice crunched beneath her boot, plunging her foot into the stream. She pressed a wrist to her mouth too late. Her yelp of surprise echoed up, deafeningly loud to her own ears. There were no cries of discovery, nor even the straining wings of panicked birds. Everything remained quiet and still. Even the ongoing roar of battle sounded like something raging on distant fields, rather than less than a mile away.
She caught her breath and took another step, this time onto the rocky stream-bank. Remnants of fluted columns and walls reached back through the brambles to a cave mouth buried in the hillside. And as for the statue itself . . .
It had once been a woman of stately build with a preference for figure-hugging dresses. The head was long gone and the body so overgrown with white-flowering briar that she could make no guess as to identity. Lumestra? Ashana? Some other divine presence?
There was something about the statue – headless and enswathed though it was – that seemed familiar. It called to her. She felt . . . She felt like she had the night Viktor used his magic on Anastacia. As if there was another skin beneath the one that puckered in the cold. It wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t anything. It simply . . . was.
Breath misting the air, she reached out. A raven alighted on the ruin of the marble shoulder with an indignant caw. Calenne snatched back her hand and glared at the bird. It peered back, glassy eyes curious but unconcerned.
“Do I have the pleasure of greeting Calenne Trelan?”
Calenne spun around. Fingers tightened about a missing sword. A black-robed, swarthy Hadari stood a dozen paces away. His arms were folded, though she’d no doubt he could draw his weapons soon enough if called.
“I don’t know that name.” Calenne edged away upstream.
He shook his head. “Please. A phoenix should not conceal her light. Especially when it might yet save her followers. My name is Haldrane. I have the honour to serve his majesty Kai Saran. I offer you his . . . hospitality.”
“Really.” Calenne offered the reply in a flat, level tone. “I’ll have to refuse.”
She feinted left. When Haldrane drew a sword and moved to intercept, she turned heel and ran headlong for the dell’s far slope. Black cloaks appeared among the trees.
With no other choice remaining, Calenne drove hard for the cave. She charged across the threshold and into the gloom, risking uncertain footing and injury in her bid to escape. Alas, the hoped-for warren of tunnels didn’t materialise. Only bare rock walls, and a floor eaten away by the long centuries of the stream’s passage.
“I admire your spirit, Lady Trelan, but this serves no purpose.”
Calenne turned. Haldrane and two of his companions stood silhouetted against the cave mouth.
He made no attempt to advance. Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, or wary of a trap? Biting back a snarl of frustration, Calenne examined the cave once more.
She’d been wrong. There was another opening deeper in. Wide enough to climb through, and better than nothing. She’d take uncertain darkness over the certainty of capture.
She scrambled back into the darkness, pebbles skittering away from her boots. Behind her, Haldrane issued a snapped command to his companions. Footfalls echoed out.
Rock lurched beneath Calenne’s feet. Stones splashed into the streambed. Others cracked away into the darkness. She picked up her pace, clutching at stalagmites for purchase.
A hand closed around hers. Spinning around, she yanked free. Balance lost, Calenne went to brace feet against stone, only to find there was none to be had.
With a last startled cry, she fell into darkness.
Silence reigned. Anastacia rearranged her shawl across her shoulders. She plucked free a quarrel that had snagged amid the weave.
Josiri felt as though he were back atop the shifting stones of Branghall’s observatory. One false move, and there’d be no recovering from the fall. Crovan’s reluctance to fight the invaders he deemed selfishness in disguise: ambition, clouding conscience. For the rest? Even those in wolf-garb? Fear. Uncertainty. Maybe even disappointment. He could work with those.
“I don’t want to fight alongside Akadra,” he said. “I hate everything he represents. Were this a just world, we wouldn’t need him. But it isn’t, and we do.”
No one spoke. Sword-points remained undipped. Josiri took a deep breath and pressed on.
“You want to stay here and fight one another? I can’t stop you. I can’t promise anything will change if you come with me. I can’t promise that we’ll finally have the freedom we deserve. All I can offer is a chance to make a difference. How will you look back on this day, knowing you let that chance slip by?”
Nervous gla
nces were exchanged. Swords sheathed. The silence remained, but held the first glimmer of determination. Of hope.
A low, bitter chuckle split the air.
“You’re all going to die,” said Crovan.
Josiri nodded at Gavamor. The older man scowled, but rose to his feet, setting Crovan loose.
“It’s a risk,” said Josiri. “But one worth taking. You can still be part of it.”
Crovan sneered and clambered upright. “A duke’s generosity?”
Josiri shook his head, wondering what had happened to the man. Crovan had always been opinionated and ambitious, but somewhere along the line those traits had soured. He knew better than anyone that disappointment was sometimes the hardest burden.
“The promise of a comrade.” He extended his hand. “You’ve been part of this fight in a manner forbidden to me. Be part of it again now.”
Crovan stared off into the distance, then gave a reluctant nod. “It seems I’ve no other option.”
His right hand closed around Josiri’s. The thoughtful expression melted into a snarl and his eyes darkened in sudden malice. His hand jerked. Josiri, off-balance, stumbled forward. Crovan’s left hand came about, the dagger’s blade angled upwards.
[[Josiri!]]
Josiri caught Crovan’s wrist. Bracing his feet in the soil, he tried to pull free. He succeeded only in drawing them together at greater speed. The two men collided in a macabre embrace. The ridged metal of Crovan’s armour dug into Josiri’s belly. Crovan shuddered. When his lips parted, the laughter was little more than a ragged gasp.
“Congratulations, your grace.” Flecks of blood spattered Josiri’s face. They felt cold as ice. “You’ve killed the first of those you once called friends. How many will follow?”
His grip slackened. Josiri released his own. The shadow passed from Crovan’s eyes and he fell back into the dell, the dagger lodged deep beneath his breastbone.
Pain woke Calenne into darkness. Hot, sharp and urgent, it ran the length of her right forearm and spiked when she tried to flex her fingers. Once again, the Trelan luck had failed her. Or perhaps not. Judging by the huddled and motionless form of the Hadari at her side, she was fortunate to have fetched only a broken wrist. Give or take a handful of other knocks and bruises.