“Take care, girl,” Kole intoned, and the hound let out a low sound in her throat. Her tail was up and still, ears pointed. She began to match the female on the right, her paws making soft scraping sounds in the crunch.
Kole began to edge backward, keeping the twins in front of him. He saw the female begin to turn her hands over. He watched her palms, expecting to see something similar to the Nevermelt that the Blue Knights could make. Instead, he saw the skin shift along her forearms. She turned her palms up, smiling at him all the while, and Kole grimaced as he watched a pore on the underside of each snow-white wrist open, admitting a pearl of white bone that slid out into her waiting grip. The pore closed behind the objects, which were bleached white as bone and looked to be made of it. They were jagged clusters, like clumps of snow or frosted ice, and she clutched them as if she intended to throw.
The male, for his part, ceased his pacing and squared to meet Kole. He stood a stone’s throw away, and rather than turning his wrists up, he held his hands out to his sides and closed his eyes. Kole nearly took the opportunity to strike, but the female watched him closely. That, and curiosity got the better of him.
Where his sister’s slender arms had bunched and shifted, Kole saw a more dramatic version of the change in this one. The twins wore nothing but the armor they had likely been born with. It covered their chests and midsections, separated into segments. They wore jagged spurs of bone atop both shoulders, and the male even had a small ridge that began at the top of his nose and curled up on either side of his brow.
His sides began to shift, the ribs seeming to slide over one another like the scales in Kole’s black armor. The sight, which was already verging on surreal, passed by it in short order as the strange warrior lifted his chin and flexed every muscle he had. Two sharp spurs of bone emerged from his sides, bloodless. They might have been the bones of his ribcage, for all Kole knew, but they were long as scythes. He turned his hands in and grabbed hold of them, drew them out with a scraping sound that made Kole cringe.
When it was done, he stood facing Kole on bent knees, two arm-length cuts of his own bones resting in his palms—grisly blades that matched his own in length.
“Come on, then,” Kole said as another peal of thunder rumbled across the blue sky.
Shifa had the same idea. The hound exploded into motion as Kole did, cutting right, toward the female. Kole watched her from the corner of his eye, but his attention was forward. He shot toward the white swordsman with all the speed he could muster. He would have been lying if he said it didn’t impress him how calm the warrior remained. How still.
What beasts, Kole wondered, gave creatures like these pause?
But then, they had never faced an Ember. Kole meant to show them something to remember his kind by.
“Take this with you,” he said as he reached the swordsman.
Kole slid his left foot forward, kicking up a spray of shining white dust. He twisted to the right, bringing both of his blades down toward his back hip. As he reached the swordsman, he brought his left up and across at an angle that was meant to miss.
Instead, the swordsman did not dodge as Kole had expected, but rather brought his right blade down, meeting the Everwood with a crack that echoed off the sides of the rough-cut bowl. He was strong, and fast. Kole was only able to hold his blade still for a moment before the otherworldly Landkist began to press it down. Kole planted his rear foot and flared his right blade, lancing it in beneath the first and straight toward that armored midsection.
Kole nearly smirked as his Everwood came close to the mark, but the red-eyed warrior beat him to the look, his too-wide mouth turning up at the corners. Kole’s blade struck true, the impact creating a dull sound and the force jarring his arm up to the shoulder.
He spared a glance down and saw his burning red blade turned to the side, with nothing to signal its having struck other than a black mark in the center of the shell.
“Fair enough.”
The demon moved quicker than Kole had been expecting. He hooked his right blade over Kole’s lead and brought him closer. Kole twisted to avoid being spitted by the rear bone scythe, which screeched along the scales of his armor, ripping one link away completely. Kole tried to bring his low hand up, attempting to ram the butt of his blade into the chin of his opponent, but they were too close, and the demon had other plans.
As Kole planted his feet and shot his right hand up with all his might, he saw that white face screaming toward his own. When the boney brow collided with his, Kole saw a blinding flash. His heart poured heat into his body, flooding his veins and giving Kole the momentary burst he needed to disengage. He stepped back and slashed a backhand with his right blade. It was intercepted once more, but he brought his left screaming back in in an overhand. When the demon blocked this one, his grin shifted and grew strained. Kole was stronger, now, and he let the beast feel it, flaring his blade so hot it went past red and began to verge on blue.
Kole felt his head beginning to swim, partly from the impact—he could already feel the blood on his brow drying to a syrupy paste—and partly from the energy he used.
Mostly, from the anger he felt. Anger that began to verge closer to rage.
Kole heard Shifa howl. He broke off from the exchange and slid backward, settling into a low crouch, blades guttering. He drank some of the fire back from them and felt his palms thrumming.
To the right, Shifa raced in a wild circle around the female, who spun to meet her. Kole saw red staining the white paws of his ally. All around the dancing pair, he could see what looked to be a blanket of shards sticking up from the frost.
As Kole watched, Shifa leapt in, mouth agape, fangs threatening. Her aim was true, as was her speed, but the dancer simply tensed and sprang, going up over the hound with ease. She twisted in the air and let fly one of her jagged white darts. It sank into the frost with a thorny grip and Shifa came down just beyond it. The hound scrambled, verging on panic, and tried to race away from the cluster. Kole rose with a frown as the female landed, and caught her eye. She smiled at him and winked, and as she did, the cluster shattered into a hail of flying spikes. Kole raised his arm and felt the bolts ting off the metal. He felt a burning in his side and lowered his arm, feeling along the bare skin where the length of armor had been stripped away. He ripped the spur free, wincing, and tossed the bloody bit of bone to the side.
“Shifa …”
Kole turned as much as he could without exposing himself to the twins, who watched him closely. He saw his furred companion limping along the back edges of the bowl, her side slick. She growled, signaling her desire to return to the fight, but Kole held a hand up toward her.
“Lost the will, then, Ember?” the female taunted.
“Quite the opposite, actually.”
The male straightened and crossed his blades in front of him. He actually dipped into an approximation of a bow, and Kole could see the martial intent. Where had this one trained? Who was his master?
It was difficult to reconcile the images of the warriors before him with the chaotic storm of darkness he always imagined the World Apart to be, with its Dark Kind, Sentinels and Night Lords. A new thought occurred to him on the back of that one.
“You had help coming through,” he said.
The twins glanced sidelong at one another. When they faced forward, the male gave a slight nod.
“What’s happened to your world?” Kole asked. He felt his blood pumping, veins expanding and contracting. It was painful and exhilarating, and he took care to keep the colors of his blades from changing, lest he betray the reason for his delay.
“Darkness,” the female said.
“Darkness and death,” her brother followed.
Kole felt his heat reaching a crescendo. He would have to unleash it soon, but something gave him pause. These warriors from another realm, however strange and however lethal, did not feel like enemies. Not truly.
“Do you truly mean to stop it?”
The mal
e let his blades drop ever so slightly, and the female stepped in front of him, her grip tightening around the sharpened edges of her latest spur.
“Aye,” the male said. Kole watched him closely. Watched his eyes. They were bloody pink, but there was enough in them Kole could find common.
Kole gritted his teeth. He let out a growl that had the twins eyeing him as if he were a mad dog.
And then he let it go. The heat. The fire. He straightened and pulled it all back, allowing his blades to go black. The air shimmered around him, making the strangers look as if they watched him through a veil of water, or a portal to another world.
At first, they seemed to think it was some trick, and Kole thought the female might send that spur right for him, too quick for him to dodge or burn away. He thought the male might leap skyward and bring his blades down in a final judgment on a fool who chose to hope at the edge of the world, in lands far from his own.
But then they, too, relaxed. The sky grew darker as more clouds rushed in from the east and north, but the darkest came from the south, blanketing their bowl in long, blue shadows.
“You have seen reason, then,” the male said.
“Reason enough to listen, at least.” Kole pointed one of his black blades at him. “Whether or not I like what I hear is up to you.”
Another flash from the west, and Kole peered back down the tunnel. The uneven floor and warped ceiling made it impossible to see back into the hall of mirrors in which Jenk fought, but he could see bright reflections, like a hundred dancing candles.
“Let us go to your friend,” the female said. “And we will stop ours from ending him, before it is too late.”
“I could say the same,” Kole said. “I’m through with doubting that one.”
He turned and began to move in that direction, but a new voice froze him on the spot. This one was sonorous. Royal, even. It sounded like the voice of a prince, or a courtier.
“Stand, Ember. Stand, so that you may fall.”
Kole had only been familiar with the champions of the World Apart for a short time, and even then, only a few of their company. Already, he was beginning to see the differences between them.
Where the red beast Jenk fought in the icy depths was broad and sharp, the white twins were slender and agile. Where their bones glittered, reflecting the white of the land on which they fought, the newcomer’s were dull, taking on the pallor of death.
He was tall and well-muscled. His hair, though white, was not silky and flowing like the pair before him, but rather dry and tangled, like horsehair. His eyes were dark, almost black, though Kole could spot their centers, and his form—nude like the rest—was plated in thicker, coarser bone that reminded Kole of a mix of coral and ore from the underside of a mountain.
When he smiled, his teeth were razors, sharp as the sharks Bali Swell spoke of out in the gap that separated Last Lake from the open sea.
“Kill him.”
The words did not match his bearing nor his disposition. And his tone did not match the tenor of his voice.
Kole edged backward as Shifa moved up. He felt the hound’s muzzle against the back of his leg, felt her shaking through the contact.
The twins did not immediately respond. They looked at the newcomer with familiar gazes, though cautious, and Kole couldn’t begin to guess the long dynamics at play.
The male pointed at Kole with one of his blades. “He wishes to parlay.”
“It is a trick, I am sure,” the newcomer said. It seemed to Kole that he wasn’t trying so very hard to make them believe it. He said a thing and expected them to do it, and when the twins eyed one another a second time, his expression changed. It was subtle—a slight downturn to his boney brow and a smoothing of the smiling creases that marred his ash-gray face—but Kole felt a coldness come over him on seeing it.
“We are to kill the Witch’s champions only if they wish to fight,” the female said.
“And what have the lot of you been doing all this time, if not precisely that?”
The newcomer made a show of looking around. He stepped freely through the bowl, kicking over the loose, jagged spikes and glancing past Kole and toward the glittering tunnel beyond him. He made his way on a crooked path toward the twins, and Kole noticed the way the male shifted and squared to meet him, his hands tightening along the grips of his blades.
The female, apparently, was more trusting, or maybe she was just protective of her brother. Either way, she did not move, only watched the newcomer approach.
“Alistair,” she said. “Valour told us to take them, if we could. To take them alive.” She pointed at Kole without looking at him. “This one has questions. Questions we can answer. When he knows the truth, he will turn against the Frostfire Sage, and we will have our victory.”
“Will he?” Alistair asked, pausing for a brief moment to look askance at Kole. “Will you?”
Kole didn’t think he expected an answer, so he didn’t give one.
The ashen jester continued to look around, marking the edges of the bowl, the clouds roiling overhead, the position of all those feet in the vicinity that were not his own. Though he walked with a casual air, he did so with a grace that belied his poise. This man was trained in the ways of combat, and Kole had a feeling that he was formidable, if for no other reason than the healthy respect—if not outright fear—his younger brethren showed him.
When he was very close to the twins, both of whom froze in his presence like cats expecting at any moment to be struck, he heaved a heavy sigh that did not sink his chest or lower his shoulders.
“The Embers have been in the queen’s thrall for some time, now,” he said.
“Not so long,” Kole interjected. A shadow passed across Alistair’s face, but he didn’t respond directly.
“What do you think will happen as soon as you let your guard down with one such as he?” Alistair continued addressing the twins.
The female twitched an eye in Kole’s direction, and Alistair moved so fast Kole could barely register the motion. The female’s white head and flowing hair were parted neatly from her shoulders. The head struck the ice between Kole and the trio with a wet sound and did not roll.
Kole swallowed his shock and looked beyond the grisly sight, where Alistair now stood with a bone blade he had not held before. The white swordsman stood on shaking legs, staring in a mix of horror and disbelief at the crumpled form of his sister. When he followed the stray splatter to her discarded head, his face took on all the rage Kole would have wanted to see on one in such circumstances.
He leapt backward, and Alistair watched him go, giving the impression that he could have stopped him if he had wanted it. The male flipped in the air, struck the side of the bowl at a horizontal angle, and launched himself toward his gray ally-turned-adversary.
Kole watched Alistair take in the younger warrior’s approach. He stood with that bone blade held loosely, unmoving and unafraid. His mouth was not pulled into the savage grin it had been before, but was pursed tightly, his eyes dispassionate.
Alistair shifted his lead foot so slightly it took Kole a moment to register, and then he swung his blade up. Kole was ready for the speed this time, and so he saw the strike, albeit barely. It was too early. The gray blur for a blade passed in front of the newcomer’s chest before the hurtling warrior reached him, but Kole did not think Alistair looked like the picture of defeat.
Alistair allowed the momentum of his strike to pull him into a turn. He spun on his heel, exposing his back to his attacker. The twin could not alter his course, and Kole saw his hungry eyes go blank and his jaw slacken. The air distorted just in front of him, and Kole heard a sound like the sharp whistle of wind whipping mixed with parchment ripping.
The warrior’s path took him past Alistair, where he hit the ice and slid unceremoniously toward the eastern edge of the bowl. Kole did not see his back rise once with a last breath. That had been spent on the charge. He was still, and dead, and as Kole watched, a bright red line spli
t him from the back of his neck to the boney plate that ran the length of his spine.
Alistair stood over his victim, blade held loosely in his right hand. Kole saw his left tensing, opening and closing. He thought he saw that same strange distortion over the long gray nails that could have been called claws, but it was difficult to know for certain.
“Not a swordsman, then,” Kole said, trying to inject his voice with a measure of calm. In truth, he felt anger. Jenk was fighting a red demon just a short distance away, and Linn, Misha and Baas were battling the Eastern Dark himself just beyond that. The thought made him eager, but not angry.
What made him angry was seeing the way this man, this creature from another realm, this Alistair, discarded his own so quickly, so dispassionately, as if they were little more than clinging flies in the muck.
“Oh,” the man said, lifting his head with reluctance, black eyes meeting Kole’s amber ones. “I am that.” He squared his body to Kole, held the blade-bearing hand out while keeping the empty one down at his side, clawed fingers pointing downward. “And so much more. My fellows,” he smiled, “former fellows, I guess you could say, while young, are no doubt … enthusiastic.” He tossed his head nonchalantly at the split corpse of the male. Kole could see the line had grown thicker, blood leaking out to dry in the hollows of his natural armor. “Hathien was born with potential. I fought alongside his father in the Jhor Cataclysm—”
He paused as if he heard something on the wind, head tilting in an animal way. “Ah, but I’m forgetting myself. You wouldn’t know of that. You wouldn’t know anything of my world.” He looked around, outside of the frosted bowl, his eyes seeming to pierce the very fabric of the land. Kole did not think he did it for show. “Just as I know little of yours. Only what it is to become. Only what it must become.”
Kole’s head was spinning. His blood began to boil once more, and already the air was beginning to shimmer above his Everwood blades. If Alistair noticed, he did not seem concerned.
The Frostfire Sage (The Landkist Saga Book 4) Page 59