The Prince of the Veil

by Hal Emerson

  “S-sir? What do you –?”

  “Fall back,” Autmaran said. “Ignore my last command – fall back! All Kindred, fall back to the Inner City, to the General’s command post. GO – NOW! FALL BACK!”

  The cry was repeated, and the Exiled men and women began to pull away from the barricades, but even as they did, the tide of battle changed again.

  The Imperial army, which had turned inward to fight the intruder in its ranks, suddenly broke and turned. Men threw themselves at the Kindred without the barest hint of sanity. Terror showed itself in the wide whites of their eyes, an image that put Autmaran in mind of spooked horses. It was an animal terror, the kind of fear that belies a predator that cannot be escaped. The Kindred stood on the barricades and cut them down in droves, but even when soldiers pushed through in large squads, they didn’t attack. They continued on, off into the city, followed by droves more. Imperial men died by the thousands, and hundreds more escaped to temporary safety in Banelyn City proper.

  “Form up the Rangers,” Autmaran said quickly to a captain nearby. “Any of them still with horses. Pull all the scouts, get everyone off that Wall that you can and send them into the city. We find every last one of those men. Capture who you can, kill who you can’t – understood?”

  The captain nodded, and Autmaran recognized her as Rahael, one of the women who’d taken Formaux with him and Raven. He could see fear in her eyes, and more so, exhaustion. She was just as tired as he was, but she would do her duty. She left, calling together the Rangers and sending runners for the Scouts, and another thought crossed Autmaran’s mind:

  Raven’s been in battle for almost three days straight.

  The battle changed again, and the remnants of the Imperial army that had not managed to make it past the Kindred simply gave up. Many fell to their knees, praying to the Empress, while others threw down their swords and begged for mercy from the Exiled Kindred. The rain had doused all the battlefield torches, and the only light now came from the protected oil lamps farther back in Banelyn City. The darkness made everything more confusing, and Autmaran could barely trust what he was seeing, but he still imagined he was seeing … seeing objects go flying through the air … vague forms far too large to be arrows. They were pale and shapeless – no, not shapeless: one was round, another oblong; a third was –

  Autmaran felt the blood drain from his face.

  “Get them all back,” he shouted, his voice hoarse but frantic, a panic of his own creeping into it despite his iron-fisted grip on his emotions. “Get them back.”

  The Kindred wouldn’t listen. They were headless now, uncaring, as they watched the Imperial army attack the terrible shadow at its center, even as they themselves laid about right and left and killed the last of the stragglers.

  “He’s not in control of himself,” Leah said quickly. “We’ve only got one shot at this – if we don’t clear the Kindred out, he’ll come for them next. He’s too far gone – he probably doesn’t even know who he is anymore!”

  “Yes,” Autmaran said, tearing his eyes away from the images below, sights that had already burned themselves into his mind. “You and Tomaz pass the word – whatever you have to do, get them back.”

  The giant and the girl ran to do just that.

  Autmaran took a step to follow them, and realized his breath was coming in wheezing pants. The ash he’d breathed on the first attack through the Outer City was taking its toll. As he spoke to the captains, the lieutenants, even the soldiers themselves, urging them to retreat, he felt as though he were moving through a fog. His body had begun to shut down, but he couldn’t let it. Not yet. He had to keep going until the battle was through. He was in charge of these men – he wouldn’t leave them without a leader.

  “FALL BACK!”

  His voice rolled out of him strong and steady, a crack of thunder in its own right. Men and women jerked around as the shout broke their trance. Roars and screams of terror continued to split the air as well, coming from base of the Wall, but they were fewer now. Slowly, the dam broke. At first it was only a trickle of soldiers, but then it became a river, and finally a flood. Thousands of Kindred fled the path of their Prince, not even knowing it was he they fled.

  The Commander turned back to see the roiling mass of the Imperial army lying strewn and broken across the field like a rough child’s playthings. The lights he’d ordered lit had never appeared – the rain was still coming down, though it had lessened. Autmaran wished briefly for another flash of lightning to let him know what was happening, but something deeper told him he didn’t want it, something connected to his sense of self-preservation.

  He felt Leah and Tomaz come up beside him, and they looked on in silence.

  The sounds of battle stopped. All sounds, in fact, stopped in a single instant. The rain dropped off, the clash of steel ceased, and the only remnants of the battle were the distant, reverberating cries of fighting in the far reaches of the city that sounded eerily like echoes of the preceding slaughter. The silence truly was deafening – it was its own noise, so encompassing it seemed the world itself had taken time to pause after what it had just witnessed.

  As one, the three companions peered closer at the center of the square, trying to pull aside the curtain of darkness. Shadows were layered one upon the other in such a thick, woven tapestry that no light seemed able to pierce it from any angle. All Kindred were gone from the spot, all except for a handful still manning the Wall, too wounded or exhausted to retreat.

  And then, in the center of the square, something moved; something breathed.

  “He’s alive,” whispered Autmaran. “How is that possible?”

  “Something is wrong,” rumbled Tomaz, speaking much closer to the truth of the matter. “Something is different.”

  Autmaran caught sight of an abandoned torch lying in a nearby building, wrapped to protect it from the damp. He crossed through what had been a ruined wall and caught it up in a single, smooth motion. With quick strike of flint and steel from his belt, he had it lit. He came back into the street, holding the torch high above him, and as they advanced and the blaze grew the darkness pulled back to either side like a theater curtain; a soft wind carrying the after-scent of lightning moved among them, whispering in their ears its own shock at the sight. Raven stood revealed, and they stared in horror at the thing he had become, at the monster that had been their friend.

  He stood in the center of a bloody mountain of ruined bodies, covered from head to toe in the gory remains of the battlefield. He stood towering above them far taller than he ever had before, far taller even than Tomaz, every sinew and vein on his body throbbing with unimaginable power. At some point during the battle his armor had been rent and torn so badly it was hanging off of him in tatters, the golden gilding signifying his office as Prince of the Veil now blood-smeared and cracked where it wasn’t ripped and torn to shreds by his new bulk. His back was nearly bare, and upon it was visible the outline of the Raven Talisman, the black lines of Bloodmagic power etched deep into his skin. As they watched, those markings seemed to glow and writhe, as if the wing-shaped patterns that they formed were more than just impressions.

  There was a noise to their left, and they turned to see a lone Defender some fifty yards away, clutching a bleeding arm with a broken hand, stand and run for his life.

  Almost before the thought could register in their minds, there was a terrible ripping sound, as if the fabric background onto which this scene was stitched had been ripped in twain, and Raven crossed the distance to the man in a single bound that swirled with dark shadows of blackest pitch, shadows that looked like enormous wings and seemed to propel him faster than the eye could follow. He landed on the man’s back and bore him to the ground, then reached down and removed the man’s head with the same quick twist with which one would pick an apple from a tree.

  He held the head aloft, still dripping blood, and turned to roar with an earth-shattering voice at the Black Wall; as he did, his eyes came to rest on his frie
nds, and they saw that he did not know them.

  For his eyes were not Raven’s; these eyes, black through and through with not a hint of white, were the eyes of the Lord of Death, the unleashed, true power of the Raven Talisman. Here stood the Prince of Imperial Prophecy, and Autmaran felt fear vibrate through him, fear that he had never felt before, not even when staring down a Daemon or the Prince of Oxen.

  The Raven smiled at them, revealing sharp, wicked teeth, somehow far too large for the twisted mouth, and it came at them, dropping the head as it readied for this new challenge.

  Tomaz drew his sword, the huge swath of steel named Malachi that had killed a thousand men a thousand ways, and yet looked now to be no more than a play thing in the darkness that came from the creature before them.

  “Run!” he shouted at the others, interposing himself between them and what had once been their Prince.

  But the Raven crossed the distance in the same time-defying leap as before, and Tomaz was on the ground, splayed out below him. He pulled back his hand, a clawed thing that spoke of ripping talons, and bellowed in joy.

  Leah came forward.

  “Raven!”

  The cry seemed to startle the creature. It looked up, and as its black eyes met her green ones, the creature froze.

  “Come back to us,” Leah said, her voice barely above a whisper, her tone pleading, something that Autmaran had never thought he’d hear from her. “Come back to me. I’m alive – I’m here. We’re safe now – you saved us. All of them – the enemy are dead. There’s nothing left to fear.”

  But the Raven didn’t move. She took another step forward and a darkness that had nothing to do with the night sky seemed to envelope him, and the world warped sideways; a snarl appeared on his face. He grew larger somehow, and the darkness spread from him, reaching out with searching tendrils.

  “Raven!” Leah cried again, and this time, as she reached the edge of the shadow surrounding the creature, he looked at her, and his breathing began to slow. His black eyes reflected her, and in their depths something human stirred once more.

  “No! Wait – DON’T SHOOT!”

  Autmaran spun and looked toward the voice of Elder Keri as it rang from behind them, slicing through the moment like a finely wrought blade. Arrows sprang from the Wall as the remaining Kindred fired at the creature. The shower of wooden shafts went wide, but two of the arrows pierced the creature’s skin, at the shoulder and hip, and a third almost struck Leah in the thigh.

  “STAND DOWN!” Autmaran roared, coming out of the shadow of the wall, his voice cracking out in a tone of absolute command, and immediately the bowmen faltered, and the under officer – Jallin, goddamn Jallin! – looked down with a face suddenly ashen gray.

  The creature threw back its head and roared into the sky, showing it’s wicked teeth, and launched itself at the nearest form, slashing at it, mangling it, tearing it.

  “No – ELDER KERI!”

  A flash of white flew from beneath the Wall, from where the Formaux Gate once had stood tall and strong. The broken head of a battle-axe hurtled, end over end, and buried itself in the creature’s back. The Raven threw its head back and howled like a wolf, the huge shapes emerging from his back – shadows and fire, they’re wings – spreading wide as the creature pulled back in pain.

  “Now!” cried a husky voice. Autmaran turned and saw it was Lorna, her blonde bowl-cut hair matted with blood, soot, and mud. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”

  Autmaran spun.

  “Leah!” he cried.

  She launched herself forward, running for the creature; Autmaran found himself standing over Elder Keri, who was no doubt here to seek out Raven herself.

  Elder Keri … please, oh gods, don’t let her be … no, he couldn’t have …

  Autmaran turned as the Raven managed to pull the axe from its back and fling it aside; the wound glowed a strange, burnished gray, and then began to move and pull itself together, the muscles knitting back into one, the spine bones repositioning themselves and receding back beneath the taut stretch of flesh. Autmaran watched as Leah unslung the bundle on her back and pulled off the wrapping. Fire blazed as the sword burned white, and she threw the Blade forward, just as the creature turned to face her, a contemptuous snarl on its face.

  The Blade twisted in midair, almost of its own accord, and struck the creature point first. The Raven threw back its head in agony, and the Blade once more lit up the world with a dazzling white light that blinded all those watching, and The creature shrieked in pain and lunged forward, swinging its huge, disproportionate arms out to strike at anything it could catch.

  Another huge form, this one wreathed in scarlet, came from nowhere and tackled the creature to the ground. The creature tried to throw the man off, but couldn’t – Tomaz held it to the ground with superhuman strength, and Aemon’s Blade continued to burn into its skin, trapped as it was between the beast and the ground. They all watched, entranced as the creature’s form began to writhe and shift. The dark shadow that covered it began to lighten, to fade, and the light of Aemon’s Blade shone through the Prince’s entire body. The creature’s form shrank, slowly folding in on itself, until it was only the body of an average-sized man. Tomaz pulled off of him, and stood staring with the others at the naked form of Raven, Prince of the Veil, lying in the middle of the battlefield, Aemon’s Blade held close against his chest.

  “Is he … is he alive?”

  No one answered him at first; they were all still too stunned to speak, focused on the transformed Prince and the pulsing black markings on his back and shoulders, and the steely gray on his hands, feet, and legs. Leah strode forward, threw her cloak over him, and checked his pulse, held her hand to his lips.

  “He’s breathing,” she said, and though the announcement was what they’d all been hoping for, the tension dissipated not one bit, and no one moved to help him.

  Autmaran turned back around to Elder Keri. He bent down, unbuckling his own red cloak off his shoulders and wrapping it around her. He checked her pulse, felt for her breath.

  He stood, and felt Leah and Tomaz approach him from behind.

  “Get him inside,” Autmaran said, finally finding his voice. “Bring Healers.”

  “What about Keri?”

  “Get her … get her inside as well.”

  “And bring the Healers, yes?”

  “She won’t need them.”

  He caught Leah’s gaze.

  “She’s dead.”

  Chapter Seven: Waking

  Nightmares lined the path of Raven’s sleep. He was moving on a road, going far and fast, and with each step new images broke through the barrier that separated his mind from the world around him, adding memories that weren’t his own. Shadowed forms chased him, and he was forced to break into a shambling run. He was running out of time, and his destination was far, far ahead of him.

  His breathing came in gasping pants, and every muscle in his body ached. He looked down and realized every stone in the road was made of a human face, one for every man and woman he’d killed. He continued on, unable to stop, forcing himself to continue as a voice from the deep memories of his childhood came at him from all sides.

  “There will be a seventh child, a child not worthy of your line - Keep him! Do not cast him out, but around his arms bind your power; raise him as your own until his seventeenth name day, in which year he shall be both key and lock to your ambition. Upon that day, and not till then, take his life, for if he lives, so fall the other six Princes of Strife; should he live, he will bring about the rise of Light, but should he die, the fall of Night. That living Seventh Child shall seek to inherit the Kingdom of the Veil, and should he claim his right, all your strength shall fail. But if, before the year is out, the child is dead beyond a doubt, you shall reign forever on,

  For all who might oppose you shall be gone.”

  Images of a chessboard and a tall, soaring tower with eagles nesting in the eaves came to him as the voice intoned t
he words.

  That prophecy is old, he thought to himself, not knowing where his certainty came from. And incomplete.

  As if on cue, the second half of the Prophecy began to roll in his head, spoken in hushed tones, whispered at him from all sides. A voice spoke to him of secrets Geofred had kept hidden from the Empress … and of the hidden details of the Prophecy surrounding his birth.

  If Mother kills me, she wins … what happens if I kill her?

  Someone laughed behind him as he raced down the road, a road he now knew would end when he reached the city of Lucien and stood before his Mother. The laughter increased, and Raven knew it was his brother, and more than that, knew he was lost in his brother’s memories.

  Fine, you want to leave? cackled the voice of Geofred. You can wake up – but the nightmare will continue.

  Raven woke.

  The first impression he had of his surroundings was warm light and birdsong. He ran his hands along the bedding beneath him, and felt cool linen against his skin. He blinked, and his eyesight cleared, revealing a hazy view of a distant door of polished mahogany, the frame carved at the corners into intricate spirals. The doorknob bore a Mage’s Knot, one of the clever locking puzzles the Most High used in place of keys.

  I suppose that tells me where I am.

  He shifted on the bed, only to realize his hands were trapped between layers of sheet and comforter. Wriggling awkwardly, he managed to extricate an arm and reached for the coverlet, trying to free the rest of him, but found himself unable. A dull pain throbbed in his forearm, and he couldn’t even grasp the edge of the comforter. He shifted his body further and managed to prop himself up and free his other arm. Sweat broke out along his brow, and the bird singing from the window behind him paused. Raven wondered if it was watching him.

  From his new vantage point, he saw the room was circular and bore an oaken vanity, a mahogany closet, and a heavily stocked bookshelf. There was also a second door, and this one was cracked, just enough to allow sound in, along with a thin sliver of vision.