by David Estes
“What?” Gareth and Gwen said at the same time.
“It’s true,” Ennis said. “She was planning to experiment with it on you, but now…she’s going to release this plague directly into the waters of the Spear.”
Gareth said, “But half of the eastern water supply is connected to that river.” If the potion spread…
“Thousands will die,” Gwen said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Ennis nodded. “Which is why you need to stop it.”
Gareth nodded. This man was a true ally. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything.”
“Enough talk,” Gwen said. “There will be time for cuddling and planning later, once the city is well behind us.”
As if to add emphasis to her statement, shouts echoed from the stairwell, followed by the thunder of dozens of boots on stone.
A temple bell, which doubled as a castle alarm system, pealed in response, cracking open the silent night.
The guards at the base of the tower had been discovered.
“Now!” Gwen said, sprinting for the window and flinging herself over the sill. She hung from the edge, leaving enough room for Gareth and Ennis to descend first. Gareth positioned himself on the sill, grasping the rope with both hands; he turned to face the wall, planting both feet firmly on the stone.
“Use these,” Gwen said, handing him a pair of thick leather gloves. He quickly slipped them on one at a time, and then began to slide down the rope, clamping it between his feet and squeezing with the leather gloves to slow his speed.
Above him, Gwen said, “You next,” the volume of her voice fading away.
Before Gareth dropped out of range, he heard Ennis say, “I’ll be right behind you. I need to make certain none of the guards hack through the rope.”
Gareth could hear the lie in the man’s voice.
Ennis Loren was staying to protect them to the end. And, Gareth knew, it would finally, at long last, cost the man his life.
Twenty
The Western Kingdom, Knight’s End
Ennis Loren
This was his penance, Ennis knew. It wasn’t that he thought he’d been dishonorable. No, it was far worse. At least a dishonorable act was an act. Instead, he’d done nothing while his cousin had made rash decisions and destroyed so much of herself even as she was destroying everything he loved about the west. Yes, he’d argued with her and provided opposing counsel, but those were just words.
Action felt so much better, even if his every breath was treason.
They came in waves, rushing up the winding staircase with blood in their eyes. Ennis’s only advantages were maintaining the high ground and the fact that the stairs were so narrow only two men could attack at once.
He used these advantages for a time, slashing throats and kicking the corpses down the steps, where they crashed into the reinforcements just behind them. He fought not for Gwendolyn or Gareth, not for Rhea or the west, not even for his own life. No, he fought for something more difficult to describe. It was muddled hope and a hazy future and the fuzzy image of children running through the streets, laughing and playing and knowing nothing of war or violence.
He fought for those unnamed children, even as blood streamed down his arms, both his and his enemies’. He fought for those future children as, eventually, several guards broke through, forcing him back. He tripped over the rope, the rope that was still taut with the weight of Gwendolyn Storm and Gareth Ironclad, creaking slightly as they slid down it.
One of the guards spotted the cord, realization dawning in his eyes, and he swung his sword…
Ennis lunged, extending his weapon to the end of his reach, barely managing to deflect the guard’s blade. Rather than slicing through the rope, it slashed across the top of it, severing a half-dozen threads in the process.
The rope twisted, feeling the pressure of losing a portion of its strength, shuddering slightly as the weight on its end jerked violently.
And then the guard was swinging again and Ennis was finding his balance and blocking the blow, even as another guard sprang forward and aimed his own blade for the rope…
Clang! Clang! Clang! Ennis deflected three separate attempts from three separate guards, spinning and pivoting, a maelstrom of last-ditch effort.
One finally got through, and that was all it took.
The rope snapped, one end dropping harmlessly to the floor while the other whipped away, through the window, and out of sight.
Ennis, a prayer for his unexpected friends on his lips, dropped his sword, sank to his knees, and said, “I surrender.”
Gwendolyn Storm
Although what Ennis had told them about Darkspell’s potion was still ringing through Gwen’s mind, she pushed it away—there would be time to process it all later.
Now, she had to focus, because something was wrong.
As they dangled, still halfway up the side of the tower, the ground a distant nothing below, the rope shuddered and then began twisting.
And she knew.
She knew.
Ennis had saved their lives by staying behind. But that didn’t mean they were safe—not even close. “Go!” she screamed at Gareth, who, in his obvious humanness, seemed to move down the rope at a trickle while she was ready to be a cascading waterfall.
Gareth looked up, the fear clear in his eyes. This wasn’t the time for it, and yet Gwendolyn felt a shred of relief pass through her when she saw it. Because if he was scared of falling to his death, that meant he didn’t want to die anymore. She could use that.
“I’ll show you,” she said quickly, clambering past him. She hooked her feet around the rope for balance and then let the thick threads slide through, slowly at first and then faster and faster, her heromark flaring on her cheek, providing a supernatural level of strength, speed, and agility.
She glanced up and was buoyed to see Gareth following in her wake, barreling slightly out of control, his mouth open in a silent scream. When she looked back down, the ground grew larger and larger, like a giant black mouth yawning open.
Closer.
Closer.
With a jerk, the rope snapped, launching her downwards at double the speed. Her body, stretched tight as a bowstring, reacted instantly, changing position in the air so that she was horizontal rather than vertical, her feet churning beneath her as she sprinted down the wall.
When she neared the bottom, she leapt, throwing herself forward into a somersault, tumbling across the soft grass of the gardens, coming out of the roll in a crouch. Holy Orion, she thought, impressing even herself. Even after nine decades of learning about the abilities bestowed upon her by her fatemark, she could still be surprised by what she could do.
That thought, however, flashed past in less than a second, as she was already pushing off, charging back for the base of the tower, craning her head skyward, following the sound of Gareth’s scream to its source, a deadweight body plummeting for the ground like a bird clipped of its wings.
She caught him in both arms, swinging downwards in an arc to prevent breaking his spine upon impact. Still, the force of his momentum coupled with her swinging catch sent them both sprawling end over end, a tangle of arms and legs.
When they came to a halt, Gareth said, “Whoa,” as he released his breath.
And then the archers arrived on the garden walls.
Gareth Ironclad
Why can’t anything ever be easy? Gareth thought as the first arrow whizzed past, embedding itself in a tree.
He’d almost died from the fright of the fall and now he was about to be turned into a human pincushion. It wasn’t his best day, and the sun hadn’t even breached the horizon.
Of course, the damn Orian wasn’t about to let either of them stop to catch their breaths. She was up in an instant, grabbing his arm and hauling him to his feet, yanking him into a forced run.
He supposed he should be thankful to have such a capable warrior helping him, but right now he just felt doomed, which was slightly better than the b
oredom of being locked in the tower for days on end.
“Faster,” Gwen hissed, although Gareth was fairly certain he was already moving at maximum speed, arrows zipping past much too close for comfort.
And then she slammed to a stop and said another word he didn’t want to hear. “Up.”
It wasn’t a command so much as a preview of what was coming next. Because she picked him up with arms much stronger than they looked and threw him into the air, a place he really wasn’t keen to revisit after his last experience.
“Grab!” she said next, and Gareth did, wrapping his arms around a thick branch well off the ground. A moment later Gwen was beside him, although he wasn’t certain how—whether she’d jumped or simply run up the tree.
She grabbed him and threw him again, almost as if it had all become a game and he was naught but an object to be tossed about. At least this time he was ready for it, was already looking up to catch the next branch, which was nearly halfway to the top of the tree. This continued twice more, until the thin uppermost branches bent precariously under his weight as he caught them.
“Hell no,” he said when he realized what the only possible next move was. The top of the wall was an insane distance away, perhaps thrice his own height. And six or seven archers were already racing along the wall toward the closest spot, fitting bows to strings, preparing to stop, turn, and—
Gwen picked him up and stuffed him under her arm like a child, ran down the edge of the narrow branch like it was as broad as a road, and, the branch bowing under their combined weight, leapt.
The archers were so surprised by the move that they froze, only able to watch as the pair flew through the air, Gwen landing softly on both feet.
“Ready?” she asked as she set Gareth back on his feet.
Gareth thought she might be speaking a foreign language, but he nodded anyway, waiting to be jerked, yanked, or thrown into whatever the next step was in her plan.
To his surprise, however, she did none of those things, taking off along the wall at a sprint, right toward where three of the archers were kneeling, retracting their arrows…
She rolled and Gareth ducked and the darts flew past, stopping only when they slammed into the chests of the other three archers, who, screaming, toppled from the wall.
Ahead of him, Gwen came up in a full sprint, crashing into two of the archers, flinging them to the sides, where there was nothing but empty air. The third archer tried to run, but Gwen launched herself up and over him, twisting in midair so that when she landed she was facing him. He tried to draw a knife from his belt, but she was faster, landing three consecutive blows to his head. He wobbled on his feet and Gwen flicked him with a single finger.
Like the others, he toppled from the wall.
“You scare me sometimes,” Gareth said. That’s when he noticed an arrow protruding from a gap in the plate along her thigh. “What happened?”
“I’m getting slow in my old age,” she said. “Come on, I’ll deal with it later.”
They raced along the wall toward the back of the castle, where it would be quieter.
The peal of alarm bells from the temple faded away.
Twenty-One
The Hinterlands
Lisbeth Lorne
The single word, spoken deep in the core of Lisbeth’s soul, seemed to echo:
War war war war…
Though she was new to her body, new to this world and the actions of humans, Garzi, animals, and all the other creatures inhabiting this continent, Lisbeth knew what war meant. Violence. Destruction. Death. Spoils. Victors. Prisoners. Pain. Glory. Fear.
She didn’t know how she knew, only that the word made her want to race back out into the night, to run and run and run until her legs failed her, until her breaths came in rolling waves, until she was so utterly exhausted she couldn’t think couldn’t feel couldn’t hear anything but the beat of her own heart as she drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
A sleep without war.
“I don’t—I won’t—I’m not here for that,” she finally got out.
The pulsing souls spread through the enormous tower built of snow and ice—The Hall of War it is called, a fact she only now remembered—buzzed with confusion. And she finally understood what they were: souls, very much alive, trapped in sleeping bodies. Their sleep felt unnatural, just as the hollow voice ringing in her head felt unnatural. Then why have you come to us? Why has the sky spit you forth and planted you here, if not to awaken us, to call us to war?
She found her words. “Coincidence. Misfortune. A random turn of events.” She turned away, hearing their screams in her head, their anger at her abandonment, the pent-up violence twisting through their ancient souls.
The moment she stepped back out into the frozen night, the voices fell away, stolen by a blast of icy wind.
All was calm. All was quiet.
A figure stumbled through the snow, lurching toward her.
Zur crashed into her, his long, muscled arms slamming her to the hard-packed snow, his stringy hair bristling over her face.
She felt like screaming, but could only gasp as the air left her lungs.
She knew she could invade his mind again, could snuff out the last of his soul, that weak, barely-there pulse, throbbing like a dying heartbeat.
I can’t I can’t I can’t
She stole my soul…
And then she was there, in that faded place that Lisbeth was beginning to realize was many years ago, before she had even contemplated the idea of being more than a ribbon of light, inhabiting a body in this world of sound and color and beauty and pain. This time, she didn’t float above the memory like a gust of wind; rather, she was the memory—she was the girl in the white dress, understanding her hopes, her dreams, her fears, her thoughts. Her truths:
The current carried the young girl into the water, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t sink, but floated, her white dress heavy but not enough to drag her into the depths. No, it was her fear that was the true anchor, pulling, pulling…
She whipped around, and her father was but a lone shadow in the distance, still retreating, unwilling to watch what was to come next. The other Garzi remained, however, staring silently at her in the water. Her people. Familiar faces. Friends. Loved ones.
She could swim back to shore, but what was the point? They would only force her back in, and her life was forfeit anyway. She’d carried the disease for three long years, and it would consume her any day.
So she’d been chosen.
A sacrifice to son-son-Matho, great hunter of the warm waters of Venus.
She’d seen the lake monster before, once, during the last Time of Sacrifice. Then, her father had been by her side, holding her steady, explaining what was happening. Not so she could learn, but so she could be prepared for when it was her turn. On that day, it had been an old man, Nero, the bulk of his life long past, his face calm and steady and free of tears.
Why me? she wondered now. Why me, a girl who has barely seen life, much less lived it?
She didn’t have time to consider the mysteries of life and fate, however, because she felt it. It was surprisingly calm, gentle, the slightest displacement of water, a ripple uncoiling like a snake through the water, brushing against her. It almost tickled, the sensation like feathers on skin.
That sensation turned the buzz of fear into a spike up her spine.
Why me why me why me—
Son-son-Matho burst from the water, its sleek, scale-armored flesh beautiful in the light of the sun, changing color—red, green, yellow, blue…
She saw its red eye, and in it was contained a depth she hadn’t expected, an all-consuming understanding of the world around it. She could see the hunger in that look, but also the appreciation, that she would come to it, a willing sacrifice.
And though her fear refused to fade away, she thought: I can do this.
She remembered that old man, who’d eventually panicked, attempting to swim for shore as the monster’s f
in closed in from behind. She remembered how she’d watched breathlessly as he’d been taken in a single gulp, his body vanishing in a splash so large it had created breaking waves on the shoreline.
She didn’t want to be that man, running from reality.
I am going to die, she thought. Even if it wasn’t today, it would be tomorrow, or the day after that. Not years, but weeks. Months at best.
This is what I can do to make my life meaningful…I can sacrifice for my people, for those loved ones watching. She looked back once more—just once—and found her father standing in the distance, watching, his hands covering his mouth.
She did not scream, did not cry, did not panic. A warm calm set in and she raised her hand high to her father. Do not mourn me, the gesture said. Do not cry for me, for I am safe, Father, your little star is safe in the heavens.
She turned back, saw the humped, bone-hard skull of son-son-Matho as it closed in, slicing through the water like a knife through snow. She raised her hands above her head, whispering a prayer to Venus, to the god that gave her these years of life and would now reclaim her.
The monster opened its maw, its shining teeth like bone daggers set all in a row. It was darkness. It was light. It was truth.
“Take me,” she said, and then it did.
Why why why why why why why why why WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY
Why
Please. Please. Please. Lisbeth knew she was begging those who couldn’t hear her, who wouldn’t hear her. For begging to change the past was as pointless as trying to turn stone into gold.
Zur’s soul was fading, sliding away like the girl, his daughter, had drifted into darkness. Willingly and without regret.
I took everything from this man, Lisbeth thought. His memories, his dreams, his fears, his soul…
I am evil. I am death. I am—
An idea sprung forth, bursting through the contours of her mind like a green shoot through the dirt after a rainfall.