by Hal Emerson
The thought chilled him to the bone. He’d already killed one Elder. Would he really have even thought of killing another?
“What happened just now?” Crane asked.
And, surprising even himself, Raven spoke the truth:
“I started thinking about replacing my Mother. Not as a Prince, but as a King. As an Emperor. With the Aspects, I thought that I would be able to –”
He didn’t finish the sentence; he couldn’t put that thought out in the open. To acknowledge it to another person was to acknowledge it in himself, and he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t accept that he had thought such a thing – and if he kept it quiet, if he spoke of it in subtext, then he could deny it, even to himself.
Couldn’t he?
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said, looking at the Crown, glowing enticingly in the dirt and grass before him. “The Aspects are pure, they’re not like the Talismans, they’re meant to help people, they –”
“They are tools of power,” Crane interrupted, “and made to be separate.”
“But that shouldn’t mean anything – they’re pure now, I should be able to use them and be fine!”
“They were never pure – they were always tools of power.”
The sounds of fighting swelled again, and Raven heard the distant roar of Tomaz as he encouraged the Kindred. He needed to go to them – their time was up, every second he sat here was wasted.
But still he didn’t move.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked instead.
He tried to look at Crane, tried to pull his gaze away from the Crown, but found himself unable. He wanted it. The feeling it gave him … the way it freed him from fear and doubt and –
“I mean,” Crane said, stepping closer and breaking through the silence. “That the Aspects were never meant to be combined. These powers … they shouldn’t have been made. I think Aemon realized that in the end. He was never one of the others, that much has always been clear; he was the outsider in some way, and it gave him vision the others never had. The Aspects have a purer outcome, and a purer purpose, but they do not make the bearer pure any more than the Talismans make the bearer corrupt. Why did you throw down the Crown? What made you turn away from the power?”
Aemon. Whatever part of him was left tried to stop me from doing this.
“Raven! Elder Crane!”
The voice that called to them was distant, spread out and rounded, almost unintelligible. But it was deep, and Raven knew it was Tomaz coming back for them.
“Raven,” Crane said, closing the rest of the distance and seizing the Prince’s shoulders in a sudden, forceful jerk. The motion finally broke Raven’s forced concentration on the Crown and brought him around to look at the Elder.
“This was never a story about good or evil. It was never a story about a bad Empress and a good Hero. It’s a story about people. About everyday people, gifted with terrible power. And people are not good or bad. People, all of us, are both. We were never meant to hold the kind of power the Empress has; the kind of power you now possess.”
“But, I need to –”
“Raven! Crane!” The voice was closer.
“Yes,” Crane continued, his reedy tenor voice becoming quick and clipped. “Yes, you do need to wear it. You’re the only one who can – it’s tied to you through your father’s side. Your father’s side, the side that rejected that power, knowing there was no way to keep it from corrupting the one who wielded it.”
“But what if we did keep it? Think of what we could do!”
“No!” Crane exclaimed, bringing his face closer, so close that all he could see was the man’s burning gaze.
“You mustn’t start down that path. You are equally the son of both your mother and your father – you have inherited the best and the worst of both paths, and if you start down one you will lose the other forever.”
“Raven! Where are you?” The voice was not a hundred yards away – Tomaz was on the other side of the treeline.
“You will have the choice,” the Elder said fiercely, a frantic note creeping into him. “You have to hold strong. Don’t let this journey go to waste – don’t let it turn you into her!”
“But I have to wear it, it’s the only way to kill her – fire with fire.”
“And when you’re done, douse that flame before it consumes you.”
Raven realized what he was saying, but rejected it.
“We have little time,” Crane said quickly, looking over his shoulder toward the beckoning rumble of Tomaz. “All of us are called on, at some point in our lives, to do something far beyond what we believe we can. But the value of an action is not in the succeeding, it is in the striving. You know what you must do. Time does not stop, even for Elders and Princes. The only choice we have, the only choice anyone ever has, is how we choose to greet what is already on its way to meet us. To walk forward or to be pulled forward.
“You’ve done everything you can to win with anger and hate and resentment,” the Elder continued as Tomaz saw them and tried to hail them; neither responded. “Righteous fury, lent from the Kindred, has driven you here, but you have gone as far as you can go with that. It is time for you to move on; time to move on from doing this because of your father, because of Goldwyn’s death, because of your love for Leah. This fight cannot be won by you if you fight on behalf of someone else.”
“But I can only fight in one way – it doesn’t matter why I fight.”
“It certainly does matter why you fight. The reason changes everything.”
“I will not survive this battle,” he replied, his voice low, telling the Elder what he had firmly come to believe. “If I kill her, I save the Kindred, but she kills me. We live or die together. I can feel it – I can’t explain it, but I know it.”
Crane grabbed Raven’s head with clawed hands.
“The reason changes everything.”
“Elder, Prince,” Tomaz rumbled. He stood at the treeline bearing a torch that lit his well-groomed beard with a ruddy glow. “We need to go – now. We are out of time for talking.”
“Indeed,” Crane said, nodding to Raven. “Indeed we are.”
The Elder turned away in a swirl of gray robes as Tomaz beckoned them on, leaving Raven to sheath Aemon’s Blade, grab the Crown, and hurry along behind.
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Final Charge
They raced downhill toward the distant sounds of the army, all three of them moving as quickly as they could in what light was left to illuminate their way.
They burst through the trees at the bottom of the mountain slope, and Raven saw that the remnants of the Kindred army had formed up to face the Plains. The Imperials had beaten through the ambush points and were forming up for another attack. Raven saw scores of wounded being pulled to the back by their comrades, and noticed two shrouded, unmoving figures had been placed in a strange position of honor.
Elders. Two of them are dead.
He felt sick, but forced himself to move on. He reached for Aemon’s Blade at his side and found the weight of the hilt comforting.
“Raven!” shouted Leah. He turned to see her coming toward him with Melyngale’s reins. He mounted quickly, and turned the stallion to look down the Mountain. The Imperials had formed up and were advancing again, the remaining Visigony spaced in-between the regular soldiers, which would make it harder for the Elders to engage them.
Leah and Davydd rushed past him as they spurred their horses toward the front of the army, and Lorna and Tomaz followed close behind, both now mounted as well. Raven heeled Melyngale after them, and saw they were heading for the distant form of Autmaran in his red cape, the gangly form of Tym at his side.
He caught up to the others just as they reined in next to Autmaran, who was standing with General Dunhold, giving him final instructions in a makeshift command post that was really nothing more than a sheet pulled over a branch behind a convenient rock outcropping that kept them hidden from immediate harm and sheltered the maps an
d notes from stray gusts of wind.
“What’s our plan?” Raven asked Leah, dismounting to catch up with her as she moved toward Autmaran.
“We don’t need to defeat the army,” Autmaran said, disengaging from Dunhold and turning to face Raven, his eyes rimmed with dark circles. “We’ve been looking at this wrong the whole time. We need to break through, that’s the most important thing.”
“But the rest of the army will be slaughtered!”
“Unless we force them to follow us!” Tym said from the other side of the map table, looking gleeful.
“We couldn’t do that unless we took Lucien itself,” Raven protested.
“Our thoughts exactly,” Autmaran said.
“And I’m willing to bet they forgot lock the doors,” Davydd grinned.
“You think they left the gates undermanned?” Raven asked, incredulous.
“I think they meant to crush us,” Tomaz rumbled from where he stood in the corner, watching the proceedings and keeping another eye on the approaching Imperial army. “I think they know they’re out of time – they need to end this, just like we do. They need you.”
And then it all fell together in one bright, clear line, blazing through Raven’s mind.
“They’ll follow me back to the city,” he said in hushed tones.
“They’ll follow all of us!” Autmaran smiled. “They want you, but they want the rest of us just as badly. We’re what they’re looking for; without us, the whole plan falls to pieces.”
“Shadows and light, that’s brilliant!”
Leah flashed a dazzling smile at him.
“Then there are three things we need to do when we enter the city,” Raven said quickly. He moved to Tomaz’s vantage point and saw through a scrim of foliage that the Imperial army was moving up the mountain. He glanced at the maps on the table, mentally judging the logistics of the next leg of their journey: through the Imperial force, across the Plains, and straight for Lucien. “We need to stall the Visigony, we need to stop the Bloodmage ritual, and we need to engage the Empress.”
“You bloody well better be the one to volunteer for that last one,” Davydd said, eyeing him, “or else I’m going to tie you up and hand you over to the Visigony myself; maybe there’s a get-out-of-being-dead reward I could claim.”
“Yes,” Raven said, stopping a shiver from running up his back. “I go against her, no one else. But I will need help getting there – the city is not designed for easy access to the Fortress.”
“So how do we help?” Tym asked.
“We split up,” Raven said. “Between Leah and Tomaz, and Davydd and Lorna, we can hit three sides of the city simultaneously. Autmaran and Tym – you stay with the main force while the others break off into two smaller groups and attack the city’s east and west gates.”
“That’s three squads, but where are you?”
“I’m going straight for the Fortress,” he said, his voice grim. “We have until the sun rises; either I die, or she does.”
They all exchanged glances and then nodded. Once, he would have been angry they had felt the need to question him; now, he felt proud they trusted him enough to go through with it.
I barely trust myself anyway.
“Will we be able to use the Aspects?” Lorna asked, barely audible over the army falling into place behind them; the Kindred were forming up to repel the attacking force.
“Yes,” Raven said. “Distance should be no problem; it should work the same as the Talismans do with the Diamond Crown – we both have use of them.”
“Good,” Tym said, his thin voice rising above the din surprisingly well. “I think we’re all really going to need whatever we can use.”
“Just stick with the Commander, boy,” said Davydd, not unkindly. “I want to see you grow up – actually grow up – after this is done.“
Will there be an after?
“Stop,” he hissed to himself; the others didn’t hear him over the noise of the marching men.
“We spear through the formation,” Autmaran said, “with heavy horse in front, light infantry directly behind, and heavy infantry, archers, and the Scouts in the rear to keep whatever they can off our backs.”
“How effective will they be while moving?” Leah asked.
“The Empire should be so surprised they won’t focus on the rear anyway – my guess is they’ll break into two halves and run parallel to us while the Visigony try to deal with the Elders.”
“We’ll take the east side,” Davydd said, motioning to himself and Lorna.
“Then we’re the west,” Tomaz rumbled.
“Excellent, we’ll meet you in the middle. Where’s the cavern?”
“It should be under the Fortress,” Raven said immediately. “I think they simply expanded the existing Bloodmage caverns.”
“Great. Last one there buys the first drink back in Vale,” Davydd quipped.
“Get ready to pay,” Leah said with relish.
“I’m in front,” Autmaran said, ignoring the banter, his voice harsh and no-nonsense, “and I want Raven beside me. This plan works best if you are out front with that Crown blazing. The Kindred will see you and take heart, and the enemy will see you and run in the opposite direction. Once we’re through, you pick the most promising side and go straight for the Fortress. Your job is the Empress – you leave the rest to us.”
“Fine,” Raven said, hating that he would have to abandon the others to fend for themselves, but knowing it was necessary.
How many people will die? How many will fall once we’re inside the city and I’m not there to protect them?
“When we hit the city,” Autmaran continued, “we split like Raven said.”
As he said the name, it jarred in his head – it wasn’t the name that bound him to his Mother, the one that still held sway here so close to Her city.
Hold on to yourself – hold on to Raven.
“We’re running low on time,” Tomaz said, eyeing the approaching army. As if on cue, Dunhold bellowed a command and the archers released their first volley down the mountainside.
“To get to the caverns,” Raven said quickly, “find a way into the Fortress and go down.”
“Down?”
“Yes, there are ways the Bloodmages use: they look like servants’ pathways, but darker, and they’re lined with traps. The traps shouldn’t affect us – as long as you hold onto the Aspects and go first, the other Kindred should be fine. Touch any Bloodmagic runes you see; that should disarm the traps.”
They all nodded, and Raven realized there was nothing left to talk about. The time had arrived.
He balled his hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
Shadows and fire; we’re actually doing this.
“When we leave the trees,” the Commander said, his bald head glinting in the torchlight, “we do not stop. No matter what happens, no matter who falls, we go straight for the city.”
He turned to Raven, and pointed a thick, gauntleted finger at him, spear-like.
“And you don’t stop for man, beast, or Daemon,” he said. “You go for the Fortress, and you don’t stop until you find the Empress. Do – not – stop.”
Raven nodded, his throat terribly dry.
Shadows and light … shadows and bloody, goddamn light!
Autmaran mounted his horse in a swirl of red cape, his head suddenly outlined with a glowing white halo. Moving to the front of the army, he spoke to them, his voice rolling out in rich, beautiful tones.
“We stand at the edge of a precipice,” he said. “I see that you are tired – and I am here to tell you that I am tired too.”
The Kindred stood up straighter as his voice washed over them, even those so tired they were leaning on one another just to keep from falling down. Raven felt it too – a soaring feeling that began to build in his gut.
“I am tired of fighting to prolong the inevitable,” Autmaran continued. “I am tired of fighting not to lose. And so I tell you that I will do so no longer.�
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The intensity of the watching army increased, and many were shuffling to see him better, his words carrying to them all as they bounced off the high mountainsides. Raven looked down and saw the Imperial army halfway to them. Two Shadow Daemons led the charge, the Visigony riding them clad in their visor helmets and gold enameled armor. One of the creatures threw back its head and screeched a challenge that made Raven and half the Kindred army cringe.
“Yes!” Autmaran said, hearing the noise, seeing the reaction. “Yes! That is what we face – Daemons! And the general in me tells me to run. The tactician tells me to retreat and fight another day. But I DO NOT CARE!”
The shout truly sounded like a roar, and Raven felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He grabbed a tighter hold of the Crown, readying himself to put it on.
“I am tired of running,” Autmaran continued, “and I know you are too. I am tired of the knowledge the Empire has invaded Vale countless times, but we have never seen the inside of Lucien, not once! So I am riding for those gates.”
The Kindred listened, enraptured, and Raven saw many of them swell with emotion.
“I am riding for the gates of Lucien,” he continued, the white halo around his head glowing even brighter, “and I will pass through them if I have to break them with my own two hands! I will attack the city, and I will take it; and if it is the last thing I do on this earth, I will show the Empire that I did not run, that I, Autmaran of Marilen and the Exiled Kindred, brought the fight for my freedom to her doorstep and spat my defiance at her in blood and fire!”
Autmaran punched his fist in the air, holding aloft his simple, unadorned broadsword, and they roared back at him with a cheer so loud it left Raven’s ears ringing. Autmaran smiled, a snarling grimace, turned to Raven, and nodded.
Raven heeled Melyngale forward, and placed the Crown of Aspects on his head. Light broke out across the night like the light from a minor sun, forcing the Kindred to throw their arms in front of their faces even as they stared at him in awe. Raven kept a tight grip on the hilt of Aemon’s Blade as he spoke, forcing back his anxiety.