by Jon Sprunk
Caim took a step, hefting the black sword. “What have you done to my mother?”
The Shadow Lord lifted his hand, and a shudder went through the cavern. Shards of crystal and stone shattered on the floor. Caim thought he saw his mother's eyes shift, but it might have been a trick of the light.
The Shadow Lord sighed, or perhaps it was a stifled groan. “Isabeth was my last hope for a new chance for our people. My shining jewel. And look what this world has done to her.”
Caim ground his teeth together. “The world didn't do this to her. The world didn't send soldiers to my father's home to kill him and steal my mother away. You did those things.”
“All to ensure the survival of our people. When we crossed over into this world, the rift we created remained open.” The Shadow Lord shuffled a step closer to the void, and to Caim's mother. “At first this was desirable. Despite your brilliant sun, we grew in strength and power, strong enough to scorch the sky and begin to make this world more hospitable to our needs. But we also noticed changes in the Shadow. Minor incongruities at first, but they grew to the point where it became obvious the Shadow would not stop until it had devoured this entire world, just as it consumed our homeland.”
The Shadow Lord shook his head as if talking to someone else. “Once I realized the danger, I held the gateway sealed for as long as I could, but as the years passed it became more difficult, more insidious in its ways to defeat me. My daughter did not always agree with my methods, but even when she ran off with that…with the man who was to become your father, I always believed she would return. She understood that the gateway to the Other Side needed to be controlled.”
Caim gazed at his mother, trapped in the maw of the portal. The vibrancy had been leeched out of her. Even worse, she still lived. “You're trying to tell me she volunteered for this? Go to hell. Release her now. Undo whatever you've done.”
“That I cannot do.” The Shadow Lord, his grandfather, waved him back with a veiny hand. The tendons on the back of his neck stood out as if they could barely hold up his head. “Even if I wanted to, the rift will not release her now.”
“So you lured me north for what? To take my mother's place?”
“No, my son. I never wanted you to be a part of this. But I fear it no longer matters what either of us want. The choice is before us.”
The Shadow Lord reached out his hand toward the void, his fingers splayed as if they were plunging into a vat of filth. Lines of dark energy flowed from the Shadow Lord's hand, into the gateway, and the black void was pushed back. Just a few inches, but it allowed Caim to see more of his mother. She was hunched in her frozen pose. Her eyes stared at him with silent intensity.
Caim ran toward the Shadow Lord's turned back. He didn't care about choices or old myths. He was going to end this here and-
The shadows swarmed to him. At first he thought they were attacking, until they folded around him in a protective cocoon. A moment later the gateway expanded, pulsing like an open heart, and a tide of spectral energy burst through the cavern. Caim was batted across the floor to land against the wall where he had entered. His skin was ice-cold where the shadows bit into him; he felt them shivering.
As he struggled to his feet, Caim looked across the cavern. The Shadow Lord stood rigid, back arched, with the point of a black knife protruding from his back.
The Shadow Lord collapsed, and Lord Malphas appeared behind him in the wavering azure light, blood dripping from his belt dagger. Caim shook as a melange of emotions coursed through him. He had intended to kill his grandfather to save his mother, but to see another standing over the Shadow Lord's corpse, with a cool smile on his lips, fanned the flames of his rage. Caim called, and the shadows coalesced around Malphas in a swirling storm. The cacophony of a thousand chittering voices filled the cavern. Yet just as fast as the storm formed, it flew apart, the shadows shrieking as they were hurtled away to gouge deep ravines in the cavern's walls. Caim threw an arm over his face. Lord Malphas stood in the now-empty space. His eyes were flat black discs within their puckered lids.
“You'll forgive us,” the majordomo said, “if we disregard the speech making and proceed with killing you.”
Caim only had a moment to react before an avalanche of gleaming black shards flew at him. Without knowing what he was doing, he reached out with his powers, and the shards shattered in puffs of dust. But they came thicker and faster, until Caim felt his protection being chipped away. He braced himself and twisted the direction of his mental shield, pushing the torrent up and away toward the ceiling. Bits of rock and dust rained down on him, but Caim was moving, maintaining his barrier as he maneuvered around the flaming urn. If I can just get within reach of him…
A massive buffet sent him tumbling across the floor. His sheath of shadows fluttered, some of them peeling off and falling away. His entire torso felt like one big bruise. Caim didn't see the next attack coming, but he rolled away as an unseen force gathered above his head. He opened a portal and dove through. As he emerged, the air sizzled as Malphas hurled a bolt of black fire. Caim twisted away, but the dark flames followed him. The floor slipped out from under his feet. Falling, Caim raised his arms to protect his face, and his sword hand was enveloped in icy cold. The chill passed up his arm, numbing his burning flesh. When he lifted his hand, the fire was gone. His glove and the sleeve of his jacket on his right arm had been burned away-nothing but tattered black scraps remained. He'd lost some hair underneath, too, but the skin of his hand and arm were unharmed.
Lord Malphas stood beside the chromatic flames, ebon sparks raining from his fingers. A section of the cavern wall sloughed off and crumbled to the floor. The gateway writhed and wriggled as if agitated by the combat. Once again, Caim's mother had slipped deeper into its black embrace.
“Is that it?” Caim climbed to his feet. He grimaced as the words passed his lips, but he couldn't help himself. “I've crossed half the world to find this place, and this.” He used his suete to scrape some pieces of burned leather from his shoulder. “This is the best you can do?”
Lord Malphas turned to the gateway. The void pulsed again, and Caim braced himself for another burst of dark energy. Instead, something emerged from the blackness. It was a hand, as black as the gateway itself, followed by an arm and shoulder. Caim swallowed a curse as a man-shaped thing slunk out of the gateway, slipping past his mother, to stand on the cavern floor. Its face twisted into a visage that he remembered from a long time ago.
Dalros Vicencho.
With a whining growl, the merchant's doppelganger lurched toward Caim with a black dagger in its hand. Caim set himself to meet the threat, but more shapes were emerging from the gateway. Like the Dalros shade, they took on the resemblances of people he'd known. Duke Reinard of Ostergoth. Liram Kornfelsh. Even Edric Klapsur, one of the men he'd killed in Freehold when he was little more than a boy. A cold finger scratched down Caim's spine when he realized they weren't just men he'd known. They were men he had killed, all returned like revenants from the grave.
Caim was jarred from his horror by a sweeping strike from Dalros. Caim blocked the dagger with his sword and stepped in close to drive his suete knife into the creature's paunchy stomach. The knife sunk in easily, but the doppelganger didn't react like a man who'd been stabbed. Instead, it grabbed for his face with its other hand. Caim jumped back, and narrowly missed being spitted on Duke Reinard's black rapier. Caim knocked the thin sword aside, and ducked a clubbing from the duke's young, dead son. Robert?
The cavern drew dark as the murderous shades surrounded Caim. He tried to keep them at bay, deflecting their attacks and staying a step ahead of them, but they were so many. Sooner or later he would miss a block, and then it would be all over. Beyond their sooty shoulders, Lord Malphas watched with a look of cool satisfaction.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, Caim abandoned his defensive posture and lashed out. The shade of Melbin Westering, second-rate loan shark, paid no mind to the suete knife that stabbed into h
is thigh, but one slash of the black sword separated the moneylender's head from his shoulders and he collapsed in a pool of black ooze. A small tingle ran up the hilt of the sword, and Caim smiled.
The shades fell one by one, sloshing their liquefied remains on the cavern floor. When the last one had been dispatched, Caim stood alone. Panting and covered in ooze, but alive.
Standing before the gateway, Lord Malphas no longer smiled. His eyes bulged like he'd eaten something rotten. Caim shook the gore from his weapons and started to advance, but hesitated when the shadow noble staggered. A wet cracking sound echoed through the cave, and a drop of black ichor dripped from Malphas's left eye.
Caim imagined a spot beside the nobleman, but something went wrong when he tried to shadow-jump. The floor dropped out from under his feet. He landed hard on his tailbone and rolled over, biting back the pain. Malphas loomed over him, ribbons of shadow shooting out from his hands like long, black whips.
Caim lunged, though his tortured muscles cried out in agony. His black sword pierced Malphas's stomach and sunk half the length of the blade. Caim started to relax, until he looked into his enemy's eyes. They showed no pain or fear of death, only infinite contempt.
With a jerk of his arms, Lord Malphas looped his tentacles around Caim in an iron embrace. Caim shouted aloud as the ebon cords sliced through his protective layer of shadows and into his flesh. Blood poured down his legs.
A rapturous hiss echoed from Malphas's open mouth. Caim watched, horrified, as the skin peeled away from the noble's face and neck, revealing a rippling blackness underneath.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
A curtain of smoke swept over Josey, making her eyes water and filling her lungs when she tried to breathe. Coughing into her sleeve, she tried to find her battle standards. Harsh shouts and pain-filled cries echoed from all directions. A wobbling arrow flew perilously close as she looked around, reminding her that she wore no armor or helm.
This is foolish. I can't make any difference here. True, she had no weapons save for a pair of knives, and she wasn't likely to turn the tide with her skill at arms. But she had a voice.
“Nimea!” she shouted. “To me!”
Her voice was swallowed by the raucous din and the smoke, but Josey stood up in her stirrups. “Nimea to your empress! Nimea to me!”
There was no answering call. But then a soldier in Nimean livery limped toward her through the mists. Another pikeman stumbled after him, followed by a trio of crossbowmen in scale-mail hauberks. As more soldiers appeared, they formed a ring around her. One of her bodyguards emerged from the smoke, holding the side of his head where blood leaked down in a steady trickle. Josey leaned down as he clutched her stirrup strap. His ear had been torn away, along with a goodly portion of the skin along that side of his head.
Josey looked to the nearest men. “Help him!”
“Majesty,” the bodyguard said. He was having trouble catching his breath. “Captain…Drathan. Must get you…away!”
“No. My place is here with you. We'll fight.”
Lightning reared up as an explosion rocked the ground. Josey couldn't see where it landed, but chunks of sod rained down on her little squad. She started to tell the bodyguard to seek assistance for his ear when a horn sounded nearby. Foreign voices rose beyond the veil of smoke. As Josey pulled her steed under control, there was a sound like a stick striking a tree. Then a flood of enemies emerged from the haze, screaming like demons.
Josey fought to keep her seat as her ring of defenders was driven back. A volley of arrows peppered the front rank of pikemen, and Josey almost swallowed her tongue. Alone atop her steed, dressed in a sky-blue riding jacket, she couldn't have made a more obvious target. Yet she rejected the urge to hug Lightning's neck. Her soldiers fought like heroes. Invaders fell around them, their bodies piling up in the bloody mire. When one of her men collapsed, another stepped into the gap. They suffered horrible wounds and kept battling, returning blow for blow. Josey forced herself to watch the carnage while she shouted orders. The pikemen stayed at the front. Her crossbowmen fired point-blank into the sea of enemies, cocking and loading their heavy weapons as fast as they were able. Stenches of death and blood swirled above the battlefield. They crept into Josey's throat and brought tears to her eyes, but she clutched to the hope that they could hold out, that the invaders would exhaust themselves and draw back. She was turning to her right flank when a turbulent wave of air crashed over her. She spun around in the saddle as Lightning floundered. Josey clung to the stallion's mane with both hands as he righted himself.
The world had fallen silent. Men opened their mouths, apparently shouting as they fought and died, but she heard nothing. Through the haze and Lightning's flying mane, a huge warrior in black armor strode into view. His greatsword sliced into the side of a pikeman and almost cut the man in half. More black-armored fighters charged from out of the mist. Her soldiers struggled, but they were too few. And the northerners were too fierce, battering her soldiers with massive hammers, swords, and axes. Josey looked around for reinforcements to fill the gap, but her voice failed her as the enemy commander emerged from the horde on his tall black horse.
Talus. Keegan had called him the Thunder Lord. He looked even more fearsome up close. His crimson armor made him look like a primal god of war bathed in blood. Trails of shadowy smoke rose from his eyes, which burned like smoldering coals in their cavernous sockets. Her soldiers fell back as he crashed into their faltering lines. Some turned and tried to flee, but there was nowhere to go. They were cut down from behind as the warlord's steed trampled over their bodies.
Josey didn't know what to do. All of a sudden the will to resist seemed too much effort. Where were her defenders? Where was Captain Drathan? Where was Brian? I wanted him to be my savior. But he's gone, just like Caim.
The Thunder Lord drew a sword from a scabbard by his side. The blade was black as midnight. Etched designs ran up its sides like tongues of fire. Josey drew Brian's dagger and held it close to her breast as she imagined her head tumbling to the ground. Would it hurt much?
A Word resonated from the warlord's mouth. Josey felt Lightning thrash like he was trying to run in four different directions. Then she was falling. A sharp pain impaled her hip as she struck the ground. She had landed on a shield half-submerged in the mud. Its metal boss was wedged under her side. Josey found it hard to take a deep breath as agony like she'd never felt rippled through her pelvis. Lightning had bolted off, and she'd lost Brian's dagger. With one hand clutching her stomach, she looked up.
The Thunder Lord had cut a swathe through her soldiers. The iron-bound hooves of his warhorse pawed at the ground as if it wanted to crush her into the earth. His black sword rose up, blocking out the hazy sunlight. This was it. Her final moment. Josey tried to swallow, but her throat would not work. She braced herself to receive the blow, but then a flood of scintillating light burst before her eyes. She blinked through the radiance to see a man on a white horse plunge between her and the warlord. Josey almost choked on a joyful sob as Hirsch pushed the Thunder Lord back with beams of blazing light flung from his hands.
The adept's sudden appearance reminded Josey of what he had given her before the battle. She reached into her jacket pocket, but couldn't find it. Frantic, she tore off her cloak and the jacket and searched it again. Her fingers found a hard edge in a different pocket. Josey ripped the fabric open, and the box fell out. She opened it with trembling fingers. Her signet ring was nestled inside on a bed of white muslin. The carbuncle jewel shone like a miniature sun, too bright to look at directly. Hirsch had required a gemstone to fashion his magic, and the signet was the largest one she had. Josey reached for the ring, expecting it to be hot, but the smooth metal was cool to the touch.
Josey stood up on wobbly legs as Hirsch's hands flashed again. Maybe I won't have to use it if Master Hirsch can-
The earth shook, and a harsh wind crashed over her. Through squinting eyelids Josey saw Hirsch slumped over, holding up his
right arm. It took her a moment to realize his hand was gone, severed below the elbow, with a river of blood streaming from the raw stump. The adept swayed in his saddle. The Thunder Lord's sword smoked as it rose again. Josey bit her tongue and threw.
The glowing signet sailed like a leaf. Josey's chest was clenched too tight to breathe. Hirsch pitched forward as the black sword started to fall. Then the ring struck the Thunder Lord in his armored shoulder. An instant later, Josey was lifted off the ground and thrown back. Her hip shrieked at the rough treatment, and various hard surfaces battered her head, neck, and elbows as the world spun over and over. Tremendous heat surged over her and filled her nose with a choking, acrid stench.
She came to rest, partly curled up, on the ground. Josey opened her eyes to the lead-gray sky. She couldn't feel any part of her body for several long heartbeats. When sensation resumed, it was filled with jagged pains. It seemed to take hours for her hands to find her stomach, but she felt better when she touched the bump under her clothes. All her worries fell away, leaving her calm in the midst of the battlefield. She attempted to sit up and regretted it as everything hurt. Then she looked around.
All her men were down. Sorrow stabbed her heart until she saw them, friend and foe alike, getting up with blood running from their noses and ears. Yet there was no sign of Master Hirsch or the Thunder Lord. Josey had managed to rise to her knees when she saw part of a torso and a pair of legs clad in mutilated remnants of crimson armor, half buried in the mud. There was nothing left of his head and upper body. Josey looked away as fresh nausea ripped through her stomach. It's over. My people are saved.
Then she saw Hirsch's torn brown jacket and she crawled over to him, ignoring the fierce pains in her knees and hip. The adept had lost his hat. His eyes were closed. Half his beard and mustache had been singed away. Josey peeled back his jacket and almost cried. Ripping off his shirt, she shouted for help and then wrapped it around the stump of his right arm, but Hirsch reached up with his remaining hand to stay her.