The Prince of the Veil

by Hal Emerson

  “In here,” Keri said quickly when he reached her. She glanced down at the two figures he carried in his arms and her face fell into lines of frustration and then reformed into an expression of renewed determination. “Tell me what happened – quickly.”

  They ducked through the entrance and went down a long hallway lined with torn tapestries and overturned tables as Tomaz told her of their confrontation with Geofred, Prince of Eagles.

  “He planned this,” he said to her, his voice vibrating in his chest even though he was trying to keep the words soft and barely audible to others. Luckily, everyone seemed focus on their own tasks and paid little heed to him and her. “The Prince of Eagles wanted us to find him, and he planned to have us kill him. He forced Raven to kill him with Leah’s Anchor, and because the Anchor has her blood in it, when Raven killed him, the Raven Talisman pulled the memories out of his mind and shared them with Leah. She passed out under the strain – he passed out when we escaped the cathedral.”

  “It transferred the memories,” she said quickly, breathlessly, as they turned a corner. “Did it transfer anything else?”

  He knew what she was asking, and he looked at Leah, looked more closely at the areas he hadn’t examined before.

  There were light blue markings at the very edge of her hairline, barely visible even under close scrutiny. He shifted her weight and rolled up her sleeve. His heart skipped a beat and then sank into his stomach with a sense of terrible foreboding. The backs of her hands had marks as well, and they were growing. It was if a blue tattoo were being slowly etched into her skin by an invisible hand; even as he watched, the lines thickened and moved, growing bolder and stronger as the Talisman worked its way into and through her.

  Talisman? Or Aspect? Did the transfer work the way it was intended?

  Tomaz looked up and caught Elder Keri’s gaze. She had seen it too; she nodded, and they discussed it no more.

  Finally, they reached their destination: the manor’s grand hall. It had been a place for dancing and feasting, with a huge fireplace and beautifully painted walls, but was now stripped bare of every last bit of finery, save the very molding of the ceiling. There were large, blank, off-white spaces on the walls where tapestries had been pulled down and cut to serve as everything from makeshift bandages to full-length partitions for the Healers who had to do the grisly work of field surgeons. The screams from behind those curtains struck Tomaz through the pit of his stomach; even after all his years in battle, he could not stop the sounds of the dying from affecting him. Men and women rushed past him going both ways, carrying in more wounded, some of them in the colors of the Kindred, but most in the simple homespun worn by the Commons of Banelyn.

  Dysuna would not have cared how many she killed in the initial attack – she must have struck immediately, hoping to kill as many Kindred as she could before we closed the gates; the Commons just got caught in the crossfire.

  Had they closed the gates? He couldn’t hear the distant sounds of battle here, but when he looked around at the number and type of wounded, he was able to quickly judge that the fighting was too intense for a simple siege. The attacking army must have a grip, however tenuous, on one the gates – likely only one, or else the city would have already been overrun.

  If the city isn’t secured, it doesn’t matter what happens to Leah or Raven – Dysuna will kill them without a second thought for what happened to her brother.

  He followed Keri as she crossed the room, carefully but quickly breaking through the encroaching crowd of wounded before stopping near the right-hand wall.

  “Lay them here,” she said quickly, motioning to a blank space near the front of the long hall, already covered with layers of blankets. Tomaz complied, and then stepped back.

  “Take care of them,” he rumbled down at Elder Keri, catching her eye. He realized distantly he was vaguely threatening an Elder, but in that moment he didn’t care.

  “You have my word, Tomaz,” she said, holding his gaze.

  He nodded and forced himself to turn away and re-cross the hall. He found himself running a hand through his dense, well-trimmed beard and then his thick mane of black hair. His agitation at leaving the two of them unprotected, even here in this makeshift hospital, could not be helped. He had been in too many battles to have illusions about the safety of any place within a hundred miles of drawn swords. But he knew the only chance he had of helping them survive was to man the Black Wall – to find the gate that had been taken, and bloody take it back.

  He burst from the house and went to his left, toward the gates that led from the Inner City to Banelyn City proper, where the fighting would be. Breathing deeply, he focused his mind, using the Path technique again, the one he’d learned so many years ago as a Blade Master in the service of the Empress he now fought.

  It is strange to see just how far the world turns.

  He relaxed his body into a simple, efficient stride, allowed his breathing to come in through his nose and out through his mouth, and focused his energy deep inside his broad chest. He flexed his hands, cracking his knuckles, rolled his neck, and re-set what was left of his armor. He had lost too much of it in the initial attack on the city and then the escape from the cathedral: holes had been ripped in his chain mail by falling debris, and his leather jerkin underneath was likely held on by nothing more than sweat and blood at this point. His breastplate had been sliced off entirely when a crafty Defender had cut the straps holding it on. But he still had his greatsword, Malachi, and with any luck that was all he would need.

  If what Geofred said about the Aspect of Strength is correct, armor should be only a formality for me. If I save people on the Wall, I’ll get stronger and that includes my skin.

  He hurried through the rushing crowds of Commons, refugees from the destitute Outer City of Banelyn that Dysuna had knifed through in her initial attack.

  There are too many to account for. Any of them might take umbrage against us – after all, we did invade them first.

  He watched them all carefully, or as many of them as he could. A knife in the back here could kill him just as easily as a sword on the Wall. But it looked as though they were all too concerned about keeping their families together and hauling what possessions they had out of harm’s way. Many of them held or led small children, who were weeping openly or staring in shock and horror as wounded men and women, some missing limbs, others cursing, and still more crying out in pain and terror, were carted past.

  He breached the last ring of Banelyn City proper, the second circle of the three-tier city, sandwiched between the poor Outer City and the affluent Inner City and bordered by the infamous Black Wall. The Wall itself reared up before him, made by the Empress’s first two sons, Geofred and Rikard, hundreds of years ago. It towered over him at an almost impossible height, and Tomaz wasn’t surprised it had never been taken until now. No doubt the blackstone marble that made it up was close to unbreakable – the only entry an invading army could attack were the three gates that led north to Lerne, east to Formaux, and south to Roarke. As it stood now, captured by the Kindred, it was lightly manned, showing Tomaz that the fighting was elsewhere. He concentrated on what he was hearing and realized the sounds of battle were coming from the direction of the Formaux Gate.

  Making his way around the perimeter of the city, the crowds of fleeing Commons grew thicker, and the sound of clashing swords grew louder. Soon he found the place where the fighting was – it was indeed the Formaux Gate, which had not been closed. The full sight was hidden from him, even though he towered over the surrounding soldiers; a huge crowd of Exiled Kindred were formed up in front of the opening, and there was fighting toward the front that made further details murky, and battle lines impossible to draw. He scanned the area and saw a long set of steps carved into the side of the Wall very close by, providing easy access to the high battlements. He went to it, moving through the gathered people, now mostly Kindred soldiers, with barely a comment. Some recognized him, and word soon passed in
a ripple behind him that he had arrived.

  He took the stairs five at a time, and reached the level of the battlements in a rush of movement that startled a number of soldiers. He strode past them, making his way closer to the section of wall above the fighting, passing between ranks of archers who were firing over the Wall into the gathered Imperial army.

  The commanding officer – a captain with a green cloak – was shouting orders and directing the flying arrows. A sixth sense must have told the man something was happening – he turned to look at who had broken his ranks, about to rebuke him, but then realized who Tomaz was and shut his mouth with a nearly audible snap. Tomaz ignored him, came to the edge, and looked down from his place on the Wall. What he saw before him was an army of thousands upon thousands marching through the teetering wooden structures of the Outer City in row upon row of tan and gray.

  Shadows and fire, it’s nearly the size of the Imperial Army itself! How did Dysuna manage to bring so many men into the field?

  And worse still were towering figures farther back, figures that could only be Daemons, malicious elementals trapped by the power of the Imperial Bloodmages. The mages themselves rode on the Daemons’ backs, their billowing black robes cloaking them in shadow as their Soul Catchers, the source of their power, flashed brightly even in the mounting light of day.

  A cheer went up among the Kindred, including the archers around him, and he shifted his view to the battle at the gate. The Imperial force was retreating, moving back as if they had lost heart.

  Those lines are too straight – they’re turning, not retreating.

  He shot a look back up at the force crouched amongst the buildings of the Outer City, and realized an alleyway ran down right of the gate, the mouth of which was large enough for a Daemon to just squeeze through.

  “STOP!” he roared to those around him as they began to shift, spreading out along the battlements in anticipation of the closing gate. He strode to the captain.

  “It’s a tactical maneuver,” he said quickly, looking down at the man with the same intense stare he’d used on Elder Keri. It was easy to be intimidating when you stood eight feet tall. “Keep shooting – and train all bows on that alley there, the next attack will come from that direction.”

  “But –”

  “Just do it!” he roared, and the man paled before he nodded and began to give out the orders. Tomaz turned and moved quickly to the tower that formed an edge with the gate down below – there was a door there, and it would lead him to the other side, where he could pass the message.

  The cheering continued from down below and he grimaced. This was going to be tight – he could only hope the Kindred weren’t fool enough to pursue.

  By the gods, I wish Autmaran were in control down there.

  He burst through the door with such force he almost knocked it off its hinges, and continued on through the dimly lit interior of the gatehouse battlements. Men and women were stationed there next to murder holes that could be used to stall the enemy as they attacked the gate below.

  “Stay sharp,” he told them as they passed. “This isn’t over yet – not by a long shot. Keep your eyes on them, and be ready!”

  They all straightened and saluted as he strode past. Just as his hand grasped hold of the metal handle, the cheering died, and a series of bestial roars resounded through the air.

  Damn.

  He forced his way through the door, and began shouting for everyone to shoot the Daemons, to do everything they could to hit the Bloodmages who rode them, but as he peered over the side he saw he was too late. The Imperial ruse had worked – whoever had command of the gate had ordered the Kindred to pursue the Imperial force. As he watched, huge forms made of animate stone and wood burst from the alleyway and began killing men and women in droves.

  He needed to get down there. He ran toward the back edge of the Wall and unsheathed his sword. The metal rang out with a sweet sound as it left the scabbard, and with the weight at the end of his arm he felt complete again. As much as he hated killing, he was born and bred for battle, and he could not deny his place was at the heart of it.

  The Kindred below were being forced back through the gate in a roiling tidal wave of panic. The stairs on this side were a hundred yards down the Wall, through a crowd of soldiers. He looked up and saw the rooftop of a supply depot, twenty feet away and fifteen feet below him.

  Shadows and fire, I’m going to have to jump that, aren’t I?

  The bestial sounds of the Daemons intruded on this thought, and all time for deliberation was over. He cradled Malachi against his side, took several steps back, and then ran forward, launching himself into the air.

  He landed with a crash that shook his whole body and sent burning cracks of pain up his legs, even as he rolled to lessen the impact. Coming to his feet as quickly as possible on the slippery roofing tiles, he spun and saw the gate before him.

  Just as his eyes landed on the sight, a huge rush of sound and air exploded through the gate, and the first of the Daemons was through. Reacting on instinct, he ran for the edge of the roof, and as he did he caught his first sight of the creature. It was an Earth Daemon, one of those most commonly used in sieges. The thing was huge, towering over fifteen feet tall, with legs made of tree trunks and a body and shoulders made of fused boulders. Vines swung about its head in imitation of hair, and its huge lumpy mouth gaped to reveal rows of gnashing stone teeth. In its hands swung a long, wicked scythe, one that looked as if it had been stolen from Death itself, and with each swing it sent half a dozen soldiers to their graves. It turned to swipe at the Kindred clustered by the Wall, and Tomaz saw his opening.

  He held Malachi up and out of the way, dashed the last several feet, and launched himself once more into the air, this time straight at the creature’s back.

  It’s invulnerable as long as it’s connected to the earth, but if I can get the Bloodmage –

  But the mage riding the creature saw him, even though the Daemon was turned away. On some silent command, the creature spun with uncanny speed, and the terrible scythe came up to bat him down. The only thing that saved him was the back-hand nature of the blow – the creature wasn’t fast enough to bring the blade to bear, and so instead caught him with the butt of the haft, crashing the hardened wood so hard into his chest that the air left his lungs in a whoosh of breath that left him weak and gasping as he slammed into the paved stone road.

  There was a ringing in his ears, and above that he heard cries of dismay. His hands were empty – Malachi was gone. His vision cleared just enough for him to see what was happening in front of him, and what he saw was the huge foot of the Daemon descending toward him. He rolled out of reach just as a dense leg of enchanted wood drove into the ground, creating a crater where he had been a second before. He kept rolling, used the momentum to come to his feet, and then ran for his life.

  “TOMAZ!”

  Along the periphery of his vision he caught movement of a figure too small to be a solider. He spared a glance, and saw the figure pulling an immense piece of metal through the crowd of shouting spearmen.

  Mother of – !

  He changed course and ran for the figure, just as the Daemon roared out a confused challenge as it searched for him.

  “TYM, MOVE!”

  The young blonde-haired boy that had come along as Davydd’s camp helper tossed the greatsword into the air and dove out of the way just as Tomaz was about to bowl him over. Reaching out as he passed, Tomaz caught Malachi by the hilt and kept running, circling a building to his right.

  Earth Daemon’s draw power from the ground. I have to get it off the ground, have to do something to break its power –

  He rounded the other side of the building and came out behind the Daemon, still sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him, heart pounding in his chest like a hammer. The Daemon had raised its scythe to take another swipe at the gathered Exiles, but spears had been brought forward now, and it was having a hard time reaching them. With a ro
ar, Tomaz ran forward and swung Malachi into the leg of the Daemon.

  Only one type of metal could break Daemon skin, and Malachi was not made of it. The blow, instead of slicing the skin, knocked the Daemon’s leg out from under it and sent the creature crashing to the ground.

  Tomaz turned and ran, not having any other idea at the moment besides getting the creature back outside the Wall.

  “Make sure it follows me!” he shouted wildly to other Exiles as he ran past. A score even ran out of the gate ahead of him, shouting and brandishing swords and spears as they cut down the Imperial soldiers who had begun to form back up on the other side of the Wall. Taken by surprise, the force retreated again, even as the other Daemons made their way forward with trumpeting bellows.

  Tomaz shot a glance over his back and saw the Daemon turning, the Bloodmage fuming and shouting curses at the beast to get it back under control, but for the moment the creature had the reins. It pursued Tomaz, a sight that sent a tremor through the big man’s heart.

  Time it right. Breathe in – one – two – NOW!

  He threw himself off to the side, and the Daemon went crashing past him in a huge sliding heap of broken paving stones and scattered Imperial soldiers. Tomaz turned and came back, hefting Malachi. He jumped to the fallen Daemon’s back and swung the sword at the Bloodmage. The man threw up an arm to block the blow, knowing that as long as he was connected to the beast his skin was hard as rock and impervious to such blows.

  Bad move.

  Tomaz pulled back the feint, slipped a hand beneath his armor, and pulled out his Anchor, the small piece of Valerium metal that made him a citizen of Vale and a member of the Exiled Kindred.

  Valerium – the metal that cut through enchanted flesh.

  The Bloodmage’s eyes went wide, and before he could even scream, the Anchor, formed into the shape of a small dagger that stayed unnaturally sharp, cut through the cowl of his robe, cutting for his neck –