by Matthew Ward
For the first time since its cowardice before the white flame, his shadow demanded freedom.
So much death, and born of his pride. Viktor Akadra, who didn’t lose. It was his responsibility. He was tired. But more than weariness of the body, he was sick of holding back, of hiding who he was and what he could do. If he’d drawn on his shadow from the first, the battle might have ended in victory long ago.
His boot brushed against steel. Stooping, Viktor reclaimed his claymore. The blade was battered and notched. The ribbon – Calenne’s ribbon – was still knotted tight about the pommel.
What had become of her? What fate had he led her to?
Again, Viktor’s shadow cried out.
Weary, sore and his heart heavy with rising anger, Viktor granted its wish. More than its wish. Even as he reached for the shadow, he touched something deeper, stronger. Buried deep not within himself, but in the soil – in the very bedrock of Southshires. It wasn’t the same as his shadow, but nor was it wholly different. Unfamiliar words sung to a tune memorised long ago.
He hesitated, wary of the hidden tides swirling inches from his grasp, but only for a moment. His pride had brought about enough death. No more hiding. No more fighting what he was. What he could do.
Viktor’s breath frosted in the air as the hidden power bent to his will. Ice crackled about his fists. The ground shook.
The cavern screamed. Stone split beneath Calenne’s feet. She hurled herself sideways. Her shoulder struck rock. The bones of her broken wrist ground together. Darkness pulsed within the ring of light. Dust spilled from fresh cracks in stone. One by one, the torches went out. A wordless cry echoed through the air – part longing, part triumph.
Calenne scrambled to her feet and backed away across the bucking floor. Darkness surged between the quenched torches.
Malatriant’s sharp-featured form coalesced a pace beyond the extinguished cage. No longer swamped in shadow, her flesh was pale as alabaster and shot through with spidery black veins. Her hair streamed behind like a dark, windblown flame. A hollow flame, bereft of texture and being. To stare upon it was to stare through the world itself, to whatever lay beyond.
“Child.” She reached out a hand. Hungry eyes glittered like coal. “Come to me.”
The sense of belonging returned, stronger than ever. Calenne stood paralysed as the chamber collapsed. She was content to be so, and hated herself for it.
Malatriant drifted closer. The skirts of a fibrous dress trailed behind her like smoke. Yowling faces formed in the cloth. They scattered as the threads contorted with fresh movement.
“You feel it, don’t you? Our bond.”
“No,” croaked Calenne. “I’m Calenne Trelan, daughter of the Phoenix. We’re nothing alike.”
A stone slab shattered against the floor to her left. Dust stung her throat.
“The Phoenix.” Malatriant chuckled. “I was there when Konor Belenzo first uttered that prophecy. He desired a legacy of light. But light flickers. It fades. Only the Dark is for ever. Only in darkness are we free. We are all one in the Dark. You feel it, don’t you? It’s part of you.”
The worst of it was, Calenne did. She longed to embrace the apparition, and to be held in return. But she clung to the memory of the Raven. His forlorn tone when she’d seen through his enchantment. And the legends. The scriptures. To embrace Malatriant was worse than death, to be severed for ever from Lumestra’s light and the promise of Third Dawn. Calenne had never truly believed, not until that moment.
Better to die, if it came to that.
“No!”
Dredging up the last of her fading will, Calenne jerked away. With Malatriant’s soft laughter on her heels, she fled into Skazit Maze. The darkness swallowed her up.
Josiri lost his footing as the tremor struck. He stumbled against the line of shields, only to discover it already breaking apart. Men and women staggered, designs of death thwarted by the bucking ground. The grunt and fury of battle fell away beneath cries of alarm.
A hand closed around his tattered collar and righted him. Anastacia, inevitably, stood solid as a rock amid the tremor.
A shadow fell across the sun, drowning the field in darkness.
With Anastacia’s help, Josiri regained firm footing. “Blessed Lumestra! What’s happening?”
His breath frosted as he spoke. His limbs trembled with cold as much as in sympathy with the shaking ground.
She stared skyward. [[Lumestra has no part of this.]]
Uneven shadows flickered across the ground. The drums fell silent. Hadari cried out in dismay. Others clutched their eyes and fell to their knees. A few fled, tearing madly at kin in their striving. Horses reared, hurling riders to the ground.
Josiri stared left and right along his own ranks, but saw none of that madness, only perplexion akin to his own.
The tremor faded. The shadow passed in a gust of wind. Sunlight beat down with renewed splendour, driving back the cold. The Hadari line, an unbreakable bulwark of shields only moments before, had cracked like weak-mortared brick in a gale. For the first time since Josiri had come to the field, the enemy were vulnerable.
“For the Southshires!”
Other voices took up his cry. The line came forward. Not as a shield wall drilled for battle, but a mob of vengeful men and women with the scent of victory.
Anastacia splintered a shield with a hammer-blow. Stepping into the gap, Josiri beat aside the Immortal’s flailing sword with his own. The man died in wide-eyed confusion, and Josiri pressed on. Two more perished to his blade before recognition dawned. The Hadari had been struck blind. Not all of them, but enough.
Masnar went howling past on his left, her cutlass a blur of bloody steel. A pack of marines followed on her heels, their short swords brutally efficient in the press of bodies. A proctor came with them, sun-stave flaring like fire as it struck shield and flesh.
A heavy shove sent Josiri sprawling. A war hammer whirled. Anastacia’s head cracked back. Her shawl’s hood fell open to reveal a jagged black line across her right cheek.
Josiri hacked at the hammer-wielder’s legs. With a cry, he fell to his knees. Anastacia’s return blow all but struck the man’s head from his shoulders.
Josiri clambered to his feet. “Are you all right?”
[[I’m fine. Be more careful.]]
The deeper they pressed into the Hadari formation, the stiffer the fight. The crowd heaved and bore him from Anastacia’s side. A shard-spear flashed to his left to down a moustachioed marine. The lunassera galloped on. Her ethereal steed shimmered as its straining limbs ghosted through Tressian and Hadari alike.
Josiri threw himself to the ground. A scream sounded as the spear flashed over his head.
The circle of Immortals pressed in. A wolf-cloak gurgled and died, his throat torn away by a spear. Masnar’s cutlass shattered beneath a hammer-blow. She died with her hands around an Immortal’s throat, screaming defiance at the faceless helm.
Josiri fought back-to-back in the shrinking knot of Tressians. He snarled as savagely as any as he fought to survive. But for every Hadari that fell, another came forward to take his place.
A war hammer battered at Josiri’s sword and drove him to his knees.
Steel screeched. The Immortal shuddered. He jerked aside as if struck by the flat of a colossal hand. The mighty claymore swung again. It clove a second Immortal and swept a lunassera from her dissipating steed. Viktor Akadra stood in the widening gap, his ragged surcoat gaping to reveal buckled armour beneath. The glower on his bruised face sent a chill shuddering along Josiri’s spine.
A bloody gauntlet reached forth. “Rise, brother. There is work yet to be done.”
After the briefest hesitation, Josiri took the hand of the man he’d hated half his life.
The wolf-cloak twisted away, his hair ablaze and his face blackening beneath the flame.
“Ashana! Ashanael Brigantim!”
Only a handful of voices echoed Melanna’s cry. Too many had died in the grip
of the shadow. Melanna had felt its coils about her, the light sucked from her eyes. But then her sword had blazed anew. The shadow had bled from her sight. But it had claimed too many others.
She stared across the sea of strife, her throat souring at how little green and gold remained. Frustration burned away the heavy throb in her brow. She hammered at shield and helm. Spat and cursed until her throat was raw. But with each blow, there was less and less of her in the wielding.
Melanna’s father reached her side. His cloak was torn. Uneven gait betrayed injuries concealed by gilded armour.
“Daughter, you must go. My guard will hold them long enough for your escape.”
“No!”
He removed his helm and set it aside. Earnest eyes bored into hers. “You must. The redoubts are emptying. Our warriors’ hearts are failing. The battle is lost. I will not lose you alongside.”
Our warriors. Not his. Theirs. If only she’d heard those words in happier times.
Melanna stared out to the west, to blue tabards lining up beneath the redoubts. At the familiar shadow gathering beyond the beleaguered shields. She could do as he asked. Sera’s chandirin would bear them both away. But . . . “And what of you?”
“My place is here, come what may.”
Death or capture. Which meant death now, or death later, his last dignity stripped away before baying crowds in the grey city. Melanna gritted her teeth against her tears.
“No! It won’t end like this! I won’t let it!”
Her father’s tone hardened. “It is not for you to choose. As your father – as your emperor – I command you to leave. To keep our family name alive.”
Thick, bitter laughter spilled from Melanna’s lips. “Oh, Father . . . When have I ever followed your commands?”
She pushed him away. The white flame blazed in her hand. “Saranael Brigantim!”
Tears hot on her cheeks, she ran for the shield wall.
Akadra cut a path towards the owl-banner, claymore a bloody blur. Josiri kept pace though there was little for him to do in that trail of carnage, save dispatch those the widow-making blade had merely stunned, not slain.
A line of golden shields split apart. White flame blazed, given purpose by a young woman’s hand.
And Akadra? Akadra did the very last thing Josiri had expected. He shrank back, hands upraised as if to shield his eyes from the piercing light. Seeing her victory, the woman screamed like a cyraeth claiming the damned. The white flame crackled and swung for Akadra’s head.
But then Josiri was there, between Akadra and the fire. His skin prickled with the heat. The edge of his blade ran molten beneath the alabaster flame. The woman screamed and ripped her sword away. The fire came again.
Again, Josiri parried. This time, he’d attention enough to note the woman’s youth. Younger than Calenne. Almost young enough to be his daughter. And yet there was something familiar about her. Not her face, but her manner. Josiri had seen it enough in his own reflection that past week. Frustration. Self-loathing. They could almost have been twins – if in spirit, rather than flesh.
But . . . a woman in the Hadari ranks? And not robed as a lunassera? Josiri recalled the details of his conversations after Crovan’s death. Was this Melanna Saranal, the would-be emperor’s daughter?
Melanna loosed a wild flurry of blows. Josiri parried each in turn. As the fourth scraped aside, he braced his feet and rammed his shield forward.
The impact lifted Melanna clean off her feet. She struck the ground with enough force to drive the breath from her body. The sword shuddered from her hand. Fire faded as it left her grip.
She clutched her belly and lay among the dead, eyes blazing with hatred. “Kill me!”
“Gladly.” Akadra pushed past Josiri and planted his foot on Melanna’s chest. All trace of his earlier weakness had fled. His breath steamed as he drew back his sword.
“No!”
Josiri wasn’t sure why he struck the claymore away. Was it the presumptive kinship with the beaten woman? Or perhaps he was tired of death. But whatever surprise he felt at his action, it was far eclipsed by astonishment at Akadra’s lack of protest. Instead, the giant stood in place, boot pinning the woman to the ground.
“Kai Saran!” Josiri shouted. “I have your daughter! Surrender, and she lives!”
Akadra grunted, his lip curling with what might have been approval. A ragged mix of wolf-cloaks, bandits and militia formed a ring around them to forestall an attempt at rescue.
“Kai Saran!” Josiri’s voice cracked. Was the prince even alive? “What is your daughter’s life worth?”
Golden ranks parted to reveal emerald armour. A shield crashed to the ground. A sword followed. In sudden silence broken only by Melanna’s anguished howl, Kai Saran knelt.
Forty-Three
Josiri arrived at camp long after nightfall. The perimeter guard – a mixture of wolf-cloaks and Tressian soldiers – let his horse canter past with barely a challenge. For the first time in fifteen years, north-and southwealders were as one. Not in the manner he would have chosen, and certainly not how his mother had foreseen, but did that matter? Josiri felt guilty for not appreciating it more, but his mind wandered distant fields.
[[I take it you’ve met without success?]]
Anastacia drew closer, a dark silhouette against leaping campfires.
“I can’t find her.” Josiri swung wearily down from the saddle. He hated the confession. It sounded like abandonment. “But I have to rest, otherwise I’ll fall from the saddle.”
The doll’s mask tilted. [[It would spoil things if you were trampled by your own horse. I don’t believe Calenne would want that.]]
“Given our last conversation, I’m not so sure.”
That had been when? Only a few days ago. It felt like a lifetime. In fifteen years, they’d never been apart so long.
[[She’s a Trelan. She’s stubborn.]]
He nodded, fighting a fresh flood of despair. “I can’t find Calenne, nor Revekah. What’s the point of victory if it feels like defeat?”
Anastacia took his hands in hers. Josiri stared away to the east, to the redoubts. No longer bastions of war, they served as prisons. The remaining Hadari had limped away behind the eastern hills, watched by a sentry line of wayfarers and the sleepless malice of Jesver Merrik’s band.
“Don’t wish away what you’ve achieved,” rumbled a new voice.
Josiri turned. Viktor Akadra stood a short distance away. One bandaged hand led a horse’s bridle. His other cast about the campfires, and the weary men and women who hunched near to the flames. At the closest, voices lifted in the strains of “Seca’s Lament”, the dour notes hastened along by a fiddle’s rasp. Bottles clinked. Wolf-cloaks and king’s blue around the same fire. Fancy that.
“They’re alive by your actions,” Akadra continued. “Don’t dishonour that.”
“Right now, all I care about is my sister,” Josiri replied. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Then you’re a fool.” Akadra’s bruised face twisted, as one who knew he’d overstepped. “I don’t blame you for feeling as a man, but you and I must be more than men. Especially now. We have to lead.”
Josiri felt his cheeks colour. “If that’s so, why are you sneaking off?”
“Because you’re not the only one who fears for your sister’s safety.”
For all his effort, Josiri found no glibness in the other’s tone, nor deception in his expression. Their lack irritated as much as their presence would have annoyed. “If you cared as much as you’d have me believe, you’d have been out there these past hours.”
Akadra’s eyes tightened. “As I said, I’ve had to lead. Lavirn is dead. So is Masnar. My list of subordinates runs thin. But you’ve returned, and so I’m free to be a man once more. In my absence, I’ve made it known that you are to be treated with the same respect owed to me. Rise to the challenge.”
Josiri winced at the rebuke. Shame coursed hot through his veins. So much had changed, an
d yet he’d fallen back into old patterns almost at once.
“Lord Akadra . . . Viktor . . .” The other halted in the act of clambering into his saddle. Josiri pressed on before the courage to do so failed completely. “Do you think that we could begin again, you and I?”
“The past is not for changing, not if we’re to learn from it.” The dark features broke into a broad smile. “But in the future, perhaps we could both think better of one another.”
He extended a hand. Josiri hesitated. Even now, Akadra sought equality. Only this time, it was of blame – a blame Josiri was certain was all his own. How had he misjudged this man so badly? Calenne had been right. Their mother’s legacy coloured everything.
Calenne . . .
He took Viktor’s hand. “We can surely try.”
Viktor felt it as soon as their fingers met, though he couldn’t quite describe exactly what he felt. It was like . . . Thunderheads on the horizon, the pressure building before a storm. Bleak. Hollow . . . Almost hungry. His shadow twitched in affinity. Josiri too had something dark slithering about his soul. But where Viktor’s shadow was a piece of him, the darkness in Josiri felt alien . . . like a seed.
He tightened his grip. His eyes bored into Josiri’s. “Are you wounded?”
“A few scrapes, and a cut from an Immortal’s sword. Nothing more. I’ve been lucky.” Suspicion bubbled to the surface. “Why?”
“You’ll allow me a little concern.”
Old tales of cursed blades and maledictions of spirit trickled into Viktor’s thoughts. He’d never given them much credence until now. They belonged to myth, but only in the same way that swords blazing like fire belonged to myth. A cut would be more than enough.
Viktor sent his shadow snaking between them, its coils lost in the dark.
It obeyed reluctantly, exhausted from the labours of the day and from tapping the now-vanished wellspring of magic that Viktor had sensed beneath soil and wielded to turn the tide of battle. Still, the pride remained. He’d harnessed the power of a Forbidden Place – he’d touched the face of the divine. Elzar would be hungry for the details.