by Matthew Ward
She left the final thought unvoiced, but I knew what was in her mind. If the sentinels were defeated, the serathi would be free to launch their attack on Tregard, and the slaughter would begin.
We were six in all: myself, Adanika, Elspeth, Jamar and the two lion guardians, Jaspyr and Fredrik. These last two had come eagerly enough when I'd called, suggesting that they'd remained behind because Azyra had forbidden their presence, rather than because they could not pass through the stepping gate. This was just as well, as they were crucial to my plan. Azyra could have hidden Arianwyn anywhere on Skyhaven, and I'd little inclination to go searching, even if time allowed, which it didn't.
As the lions halted, I squatted down beside them. As ever, I felt slightly ridiculous addressing the creatures so directly, but now was hardly the time to let such things rule my actions. "Your mistress is in danger. Can you find her?"
Jaspyr and Fredrik stared blankly back at me. Then, as one, they padded out of the courtyard, following some spoor of magic invisible to me. I followed without a word, Jamar and Elspeth close behind. Adanika brought up the rear. Only when we could be sure that Arianwyn was safe would Adanika find Azyra, and challenge her for leadership. Of course, if the serathiel wasn't coordinating the defence of Skyhaven, she was as likely to be at Arianwyn's side as anywhere else, but we'd deal with that problem when we came to it.
The guardians led us unhesitatingly through the streets of Skyhaven. With every step, the sounds of battle grew louder, and every few paces brought new scars of the fighting that had swept before us; a discarded weapon, a shattered window or a door hanging on its hinges.
Too often, we found the smashed remains of sentinels, testament to the strength of the serathi – Jamar or I couldn't have harmed their stone bodies with anything short of a warhammer. Less frequently, we discovered a dead serathi or grace. The former were sometimes armed, sometimes not, and I wondered if in rousing the sentinels I'd loosed a force even more merciless than the evil I sought to defeat. But even if that was true, it was too late now.
After a time, we reached a crossroads. A fountain bubbled brightly at its centre, but that was the only note of cheer. Two serathi lay dead in the rippling water. A third slumped face-down on the roadway nearby, her wounds still gleaming dull amber. The remains of perhaps a dozen sentinels lay close by.
"We must hurry," I said. "The sentinels can't sustain these losses."
Elspeth stumbled and would have fallen had Jamar not reached out to catch her. "A foolish place to put my foot."
I glanced down at the road beneath Elspeth's feet, I saw nothing she could have tripped on. As Elspeth shook off Jamar's supporting arm, I stared closely at her. Was it my imagination, or was her luminescence lesser than before?
Elspeth caught me looking at her. "I told you saving your friend would leave me weakened."
"You didn't say it would leave you stumbling," I pointed out, torn between anger at her deception and concern at her plight.
"You didn't ask," she hissed. I realised how hard it was for her to admit to any weakness, especially after having the door to her home closed against her for so long.
"At least become a cat again. Jamar will carry you."
"It's too late for that," Elspeth told me, though I wasn't sure whether that was because she refused to make the transformation, or could not.
Jamar cleared his throat. "Jamar will carry you anyway."
She waved him away. "Jamar most certainly will not. I do have a small amount of pride left. It will pass."
That I didn't believe, but there wasn't time to argue. But, there was something else I could try. "Are you still hiding me from the revenants?"
Elspeth peered at me, suspicion in her eyes. "I am."
"Then stop. It must be a burden, so stop."
"You want to fight revenants as well as serathi?"
"No, but Constans told me that no part of Otherworld touches on Skyhaven. If that's true, they won't be able to reach me, with or without your efforts to hide me."
"Constans is an idiot!" said Elspeth vehemently. Jamar laughed. The Daughter of the Moon shot him a withering look before continuing. "Of course Otherworld touches on Skyhaven, otherwise nothing would ever die here. There could be scores, even hundreds of revenants seeking you – do you want to fight them as well as Azyra?"
"Edric is right," said Adanika. "Stop hiding him."
Elspeth gave her an affronted look, plainly unhappy at being lectured by a serathi, but said nothing.
"Do you not see?" Adanika asked. "We need you as capable as you can be, and the sentinels need help. My people..." She paused, pursed her lips, and pressed on. "My sisters will not abide the presence of revenants on Skyhaven. They will have to act against them, and I doubt that a revenant can break a sentinel's shell."
"And what about us?" Elspeth demanded. "What about Edric?"
"Place your faith in your mother, as I have in mine. In any event, we have a far higher chance of success facing revenants than my sisters."
"I suppose you're correct." Elspeth closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. "It is done. Let us be away while we still can."
I turned to Jaspyr and Fredrick, waiting patiently at the square's edge. I was about to join them when I heard a faint voice behind me.
"Adanika..." The serathi beside the fountain was not as dead as I'd supposed. She struggled to push herself upright, but her arms collapsed and she fell.
Adanika crouched beside her, and placed a hand upon her brow. "I am here, Ysella. I am here."
"Adanika..." Ysella's voice faded.
The ghost of some unrecognisable emotion flittered across Adanika's brow. "Rest now."
Her words only spurred the serathi to new effort. This time, she straightened one elbow, and fixed Adanika with a determined stare. "You're not my sister, not any longer." Her voice shook with effort. "For your actions today, for your betrayal, you are damned."
With a final sigh, Ysella fell back and was still. Amber light pulsed outwards from her body, rippling across the courtyard. Adanika didn't move, and stared sightlessly ahead.
"Adanika?" I asked.
Abruptly, the Speaker of Truth rose, her face unreadable. "We should go."
*******
Adanika set a brisk pace. The guardians, having the advantage of four legs apiece, managed to stay ahead of her, but the rest of us could never have done so. At least there was no need for Jamar to resort to his threat about carrying Elspeth. The Daughter of the Moon seemed stronger for abandoning her attempts at concealing me from the revenants – I only hoped it would last.
I'd never seen the Speaker of Truth's thoughts so plain, so vulnerable. In a way, it was reassuring to her so troubled, so mortal. Did she regret her actions? Was she thinking about going back on her decision? I began laying what plans I could against that occurrence. Then I chastened myself for even considering that she'd contemplate such a thing. Adanika had never lied to me, and I didn't think she'd start now. Her expression was one I'd often seen whilst gazing into the mirror. It spoke of bridges burned for the right reason, no matter the cost.
The guardians led us onto a straight flight of golden stairs. Before long, we were up dizzyingly high, and for once I was grateful I no longer had mortal legs, which would have become leaden long before we completed our ascent. Jamar nonetheless made the journey without so much as a laboured breath. I even saw him offer support to Elspeth, but I quickly looked away, lest pride force her to forsake aid she so clearly needed.
At last, we reached the head of the stairs, and emerging onto a broad stone and timber walkway that sat like a collar around a palatial tower. There were no bodies to despoil this golden span, no sign at all of battle, save for the sounds carried up from below.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"It is the aerie," Adanika said quietly. "I should have known."
"Should have known what?"
"There are three towers of this height on Skyhaven. One for each of the serathiels of old.
This is Azyra's. This is where we will find Arianwyn."
Elspeth pushed away from Jamar to stand tall on unsteady legs. "Do you think Azyra is here also?"
Adanika crossed to walkway's edge, and gestured below. "With all that occurs? I doubt it."
I peered over the edge. Thus I gained a grand view of the anarchy loosed upon Skyhaven – the anarchy I'd loosed on Skyhaven.
Bodies choked the streets, or lay motionless amongst the trees. I counted at least fifty dead serathi. Of the sentinels, it was harder to be sure. From that height, their shattered remains were difficult to spot, and harder still to tell from the bodies of the drudges caught between the two sides.
From that elevation, Zorya's strategy became clear to me. Rather than forming into one mass and marching directly on the Courts of Heavens, the sentinels had spread out in a great, widening arc across Skyhaven. This, in turn, had forced the serathi to defend a series of streets, rather than blockade one approach alone. The result was less an ordered battle than it was a brawl.
It was also a battle completely without quarter, and without mercy. This wasn't just a battle to save Arianwyn, or to halt Azyra's mad ambitions, it was the continuation of a war begun long ago. The sentinels had slumbered for centuries, their past and their betrayers forgotten. Memory had returned, and with it a blistering hatred.
In my younger days, when the war between the Empire and Republic had still burned bright, I'd marked the difference between troops who fought because they had been ordered into battle, and those who fought because, to them, no greater evil existed in all the corners of the world than the enemy who stood before them. That was what I now beheld, carried to horrific degrees by supernatural might.
Adanika turned sharply away from the edge. "This way."
She set off at that same brisk pace, no longer needing the guardians to act as guides. We followed, though my eye was drawn constantly back to the carnage below. I was driven more by curiosity than guilt, I think, and by the idea that someone should bear witness. Amber light flared, bright even in the sunlight. The flares were beautiful in their way, but each marked the passing of a serathi or a sentinel. Despite all that had occurred, I held no ill-will towards the serathi; that I reserved for Azyra and her graces. My brother had proven only too well the harm a bad ruler could wreak. But each dead serathi was one less for Azyra to unleash against my countrymen. I took solace in the fact that if we didn't wholly defeat the serathiel, we could at least reduce her ability to make war.
Some serathi dived from the skies, relying on speed to keep them from harm. Others fought toe to toe with the sentinels on the ground. These serathi wore golden breastplates, and I wondered what possible good mere metal could do against such opponents. That question was answered when I saw one deflect a blow that should have cut clean through both the armour and the serathi wearing it. The sentinels had no such protection. Their armour was of Tressian make – paper would have been no less effective against a serathi's blows. Again and again, swords and spears cracked against stone, or sever limbs. Even assuming that the serathi weaponry was as enchanted as their armour, those feats must have taken incredible strength. Emmeline had done well not to be cut in half at the stepping gate.
Metal glinted along the rooftops as serathi took aim with long, re-curved bows. Some arrows lodged in shields, others missed entirely, but wherever an arrow struck a sentinel, there was a flash of amber light as it punched deep into her body. Sentinels returned fire with weapons stolen from the dead. This contest at least, they sentinels won. It took a dozen such arrows to bring a sentinel down, but a serathi fell from but single well-aimed shaft.
One serathi swooped low across the gardens, cleaving clean through a sentinel's stone neck with a two-handed sword. Her blow delivered, she swept up and away, climbing for the skies. She was too slow. Stone hands locked around her ankles, dragging her down into sword-reach.
At the riverside, a sentinel fought on though desperately outnumbered. To her front were three armoured serathi, their golden spears darting. At her back were rushing waters. As the spears came forward again, the sentinel abandoned her weapon, seized hold of an attacker's forearms and flung herself into the river, dragging the serathi with her. Neither surfaced.
"This is what the future holds if the Reckoning comes to pass," Elspeth murmured. "Sister against sister and brother against brother, until there is no one left to kill."
I caught sight of Zorya several times. She was always at the forefront, her blue dress easily distinguishable from the garb of the other sentinels. I caught no glimpse of Azyra. Nor did I see any graces amongst the serathi. As the moments passed, I worried that the serathiel and all of her silent attendants waited ahead of us in ambush.
The double doors to the aerie opened easily at Adanika's touch, and we passed into a round chamber occupying the full width of the tower.
The room lay heavily in shadow, the only light coming from four windows set high above my head. There was no sign of Arianwyn, but a wide spiral staircase led from the centre of the room up to a bolted hatch, and thence, presumably, to a chamber above. Other than the rich scarlet curtains, there no furnishings within the room save for a large brass bell. This was suspended above the floor by a free-standing arch of polished wood. A drudge stood beneath, regarding us with expressionless interest as we drew nearer.
[[You are not permitted here.]] He reached for the bell rope.
Adanika caught the drudge's wrist. "We are here at the serathiel's request. There is no need to summon her graces."
The drudge stared at each of us in turn. We were such a motley group that Adanika's bluff wouldn't have worked on any genuinely reasoning creature, but I still wasn't sure just how perceptive drudges were.
Sadly, this one was just perceptive enough. [[I do not believe you,]] he said, and struck Adanika hard about the face with his free hand.
The serathi staggered, but didn't lose her grip. It didn't matter. In the brief moment Adanika was off-balance, the drudge grasped the bell rope, and hauled hard upon it.
The bell's clamour echoed around the chamber. Adanika screamed in frustration. She seized the drudge with both hands, span him round and flung him at the doorway. He skidded through the opening – narrowly missing Jamar – and vanished over the edge of the walkway.
"That wasn't necessary!" I shouted. "He'd no choice."
The serathi rounded on me, eyes ablaze. "I will not be lectured in this hour, Edric Saran, and I have little sympathy for a drudge when my sisters are dying in the streets."
Elspeth stared out through the open door. "Quiet! both of you! We've no time for quarrel."
I dashed to her side and followed the line of her gaze. In the middle distance, four winged silhouettes grew closer with each passing moment. "Everyone inside!"
Jamar drew his sword. "They'll have seen us by now."
"Would you rather fight them on this ledge, or inside, where their wings don't give them a ridiculous advantage?"
He smiled, and didn't point out that, inside or out, the serathi had a ridiculous advantage. "You make an excellent point, savir. Inside it is."
We crowded into the bell chamber. The windows above our heads exploded into thousands of shards of falling glass.
As I threw up my hands to ward away the falling shards, Adanika soared to challenge the graces. I saw her parry a grace's strike, her return thrust spilling amber light, but then I'd an opponent of my own to worry about. The grace came on without slowing, intent on skewering me to the floor with her blade. I twisted aside. The point of the sword went past me, but a blow from her wing knocked me sprawling.
I rolled away from another lunge and scrambled to my feet.
A grace knelt on Jamar's chest, her sword stabbing down. Ignoring my opponent, I ran to his side, even knowing I'd be too late. There was a blur of movement from somewhere off to my left. The serathi suddenly flew backwards off as Jaspyr's pounce bore her away. Over and over they tumbled. Amber light glinted as the guardian's fangs
lowered to the grace's throat.
Jamar seized my proffered arm and hauled himself upright. Without warning, he pulled me close. I stumbled forward. A grace's sword hissed overhead. Releasing me, Jamar threw his weight against the grace's outstretched sword arm. The grace should have used his momentum to spin around and away from his reach. Instead she fought him, losing her already precarious balance. Before she recovered, I thrust my sword deep into her side, the point angled to take her heart in a flash of amber light.
Overhead, Adanika's battle raged on. There was a sickening thud as she slammed the grace's masked face into the stone wall, and then her opponent tumbled to the ground. Another grace – having finally extricated herself from Jaspyr's mauling – took wing to confront the Speaker of Truth. I shouted a warning, but I wasn't concerned for Adanika – she'd proved several times she could see to her own survival.
Elspeth, on the other hand, could not. When we'd fought the graces at the stepping gate, she'd evaded her opponent's blows without effort. Now, her every movement was slow, clumsy. That she'd lasted this long without being skewered was less testament to her own ability than to Fredrik's determination. The guardian stood behind Elspeth's attacker, feet braced against the ground, and his bronze fangs sunk deep into the grace's calf. I could have sworn he growled as he dragged the serathi back from the beleaguered Daughter of the Moon.
With a wet sound of tearing flesh, the grace pulled free and lunged again, but Jamar and I had reached her now. As I dragged Elspeth clear, Jamar struck a two-handed blow that knocked the serathi to her knees. Before she recovered, Jamar's sword rose and fell, and the grace went still.
That left only Adanika's second opponent, but a flare of light from above told me that battle too was over. The grace's body thudded to the floor a few paces away. A moment later, Adanika landed at my side.
The Speaker of Truth had not come through this battle as unscathed as those she'd fought before. Light streamed from a livid cut running almost the length of her left forearm, and from another wound upon her brow. On the far side of the room, Jaspyr rolled to his feet and padded to join us, with perhaps the slightest suggestion of a limp.