Grae pulled the dagger out and stared at it. Aramaesia’s dagger. He dropped it to the floor. Shanks pounded Grae in the jaw with the steel guard of Drissdie’s sword. Bone-crunching pain. Something cracked in his jaw. Lights flashed and the brig collapsed, felt the cool earthen floor against his cheek. He tried to look up, but when he moved his head everything left bright streamers of molten color. He noted vaguely the shape of Beldrun Shanks, a blur of black and silver streaks. The shape lunged and grabbed one of Ulrean’s feet as the boy attempted to escape through the pit.
The hall tilted sideways for Grae. He struggled to regain his feet, but he kept falling to one side. He could only watch as Shanks picked up Aramaesia’s dagger. The big infantryman stabbed the boy three times. In the side, the stomach and the chest. Ulrean cried out—a dreadful sound—no eight-year-old should ever make that sound—and fell backward, clawing at his chest.
Grae rose to his feet, stumbled against the wall, and vomited. He ran a hand along his back. When he brought the hand back in front of his eyes he noted the vast amount of blood that soaked it, the orange color of that blood.
Shanks left the boy writhing on the floor and turned to Grae. “You’re a tough goat. I’ll say that for you.” The infantryman recovered his sword. Grae held the wall with one hand, drew his dagger with the other. White dots sparkled in his vision.
Shanks raised the sword in a salute, then he swung the blade, aiming for the spot between bevor and chin. Grae leaned to one side and craned his neck. It was all he could do. The blade struck the bevor, shattering the hinge on one side. Grae tumbled backward, onto the earthen floor. The officer’s collar rattled to the ground beside him.
Shanks cursed. He stepped forward to finish the job but Ulrean dragged himself forward and tumbled into the escape pit. The infantryman spared a glance at the child, plunged the sword into Grae’s abdomen, and dove into the pit after Ulrean.
†††
The Black Spinster was coming for Grae. He could feel her cold breath on his face. And he welcomed it. A slow death was no less than what he deserved. A painful death. Penance for the wrongs he had committed. Not enough to make up for them, but a start.
Maybe you follow the wrong dream.
She had known all along. When had it happened? When had he strayed? He had done only what was asked of him. He knew now that he had been wrong, but he would never understand why.
Ulrean screamed outside. It was a foot in death’s door. A reminder. Grae thought of Beldrun Shanks hurting the boy. The flower of Lae Duernan nobility. His mind worked out one last solution. One last plan from Brig Grae Barragns. He took inventory to see if he had the strength for it, and surmised that he didn’t. But he would try.
He turned onto his stomach, pulled himself toward the pit in agony. Each inch of progress was paid for with what felt like a dram of searing magma dripped into his abdomen. He made it to the edge of the escape hole and rolled in. Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision but he fought against it. And began the long journey up the ramp.
†††
Ulrean dragged himself away from the hall, across the dry grass. The gem in his forehead pulsed brightly now, calling him out like a blue signal fire. He heard Beldrun Shanks climbing from the pit. The big man’s ragged, rasping breaths sounding not unlike the huffs of the Beast. Ulrean willed himself to move faster, tried to ignore the burning pain from his chest and belly. He knew he could not escape. His hand found a fist-sized stone. When Shanks grabbed him, Ulrean turned and smashed the infantryman in the face. The soldier howled and kicked the child. Ulrean rolled, gasped for breath, felt the strength leaving him. His life dribbling into the grass of CWNCR.
He listened for his parents voices. Perhaps they would let his manae call him in as they used to.
Aramaesia ran toward Shanks, her bow strung. The infantryman spotted the archer and picked up the boy. He held Drissdie’s sword against the child’s throat. Aramaesia raised the curled featherwood bow, a steel bodkin head glittering above her forefinger. Her last arrow.
Fitting that I should use it on this beast, she thought.
Beldrun backpedalled clumsily, nearly fell. His wounded thigh left a trail of blood along the soil of CWNCR. “Why don’t you put that stick-spitter down. Or I’ll make your boy shorter.” He touched the blade to Ulrean’s throat to demonstrate. The child moaned softly in response, his eyelids drooping.
Aramaesia watched Beldrun walk backward and she raged.
If he kills him, she thought. If he kills that boy...
But she couldn’t finish the thought. It wasn’t within her scope to imagine a punishment terrible enough.
Shanks backed away, hobbling on the bad leg, shifting his head from one side of the boy to the other. Aramaesia kept the bow trained on him, tracked the movements of his head with the arrow. She breathed deeply and calmed herself. If she tried this shot a thousand times, she might miss once. It would be a simple matter to bury the arrowhead in Shanks’s remaining eye. But there was the infinitesimal possibility—the one in one thousand chance—that she would miss.
She lowered the bow, let the arrow return to neutral. “You will kill him anyway!”
Shanks backed away slowly. “Since we’re at a bind, and since I don’t want to walk backward all the way outta this forest, I’ll make you an offer. I’ll bring the boy out of this village and take the fancy stone out of his clunker. Then I’ll leave him for you. He’ll probably live long enough for you to get him out.”
“He’s dying, Beldrun!” shouted Aramaesia. “He needs help!” She raised the bow again. No option remained. She would have to shoot.
“Alright,” said Shanks. “Alright.” He approached her, lowered the sword and extended the boy toward her.
“Set him down,” she said. “There, on the ground, and run away from here.”
Shanks lowered the child slowly, then, used both arms to toss the boy’s body toward her. Aramaesia cried out. She dropped her bow, caught the child in her arms and fell backward. Shanks lunged forward and stomped on the fallen arrow, breaking it in two
“See?” he said. “We spend our lives worrying about everyone else. We don’t understand we’re killing ourselves.” He hefted the sword. “Not me. Not anymore.”
Ulrean wrapped one arm around Aramaesia’s neck and nuzzled her shoulder.
He’s hardly breathing, she thought. And there is so much blood.
She pulled the shirt back and looked at his wounds. The blood was clotting already. She stared for a long moment. The blood was clotting already. His skin was hot to the touch, but she was certain it was not a fever, not this soon. She glanced at the blue glow reflecting off her shoulder, the light from the gem, and then back, at his wounds.
It does more than protect him against the shudders, she thought. Of course it does. We were fools not to realize it.
She set the boy down behind her and reached for a skinning knife at her hip. Shanks stepped forward and touched her hand with the tip of his sword.
“Let’s not go complicating things.” He raised the sword to her neck. “I’ll make it quick.”
Aramaesia threw herself backward, away from the sword, rolled to her feet and drew the knife in one motion.
Shanks laughed. “Your choice.” He lifted the sword high over one shoulder and stepped forward. Then he grunted. He jerked completely upright, straight as a spear and winced. His sword clanged to the grass. The big infantryman fell to his hands and knees, reached back with one hand and clawed at something above his right hip.
A crossbow bolt.
Aramaesia didn’t look to see where it came from. She leaped onto Shanks, howling with rage. She stabbed him in the shoulder, twice in the back, and in the arm as he raised one hand to ward off the blows. He rolled to one side. When she moved in to stab again he hammered her in the temple with a massive fist. The archer fell senseless to one side.
The big man rose onto one knee, stood slowly, bleeding from countless wounds. He yanked the enchanted
quarrel from his back with a groan and let it fall to the ground.
Grae Barragns stood swaying a few feet from the escape pit. “You’re a… tough goat… I’ll give you that,” he said. The brig cranked the hand crossbow again, nearly falling over in the process, then hung it on his belt when he remembered he had given the second bolt to Lokk Lurius. He drew his dagger, feeling the world rolling beneath his feet. Looked at Shanks, then Ulrean.
Slay the Beast and save Laraytia.
The big infantryman’s eyes were clouded. He swayed where he stood but his eyes glittered fiercely. He bent and picked up Drissdie’s sword.
“Let’s have it then,” said Shanks, and he stumbled toward Grae.
†††
It took two passes for Lokk Lurius to understand that Black Murrogar had been right. He wasn’t fast enough to kill the Beast. No one was.
The creature, alone with Lokk now and away from the scorched hall, seemed to relax. It was enjoying itself again.
On its first charge it battered Lokk to the ground, put a long gash in his battered breastplate. The Eridian tumbled to his feet, rolled his shoulders. He assumed his tornati stance again. The Beast streaked past once more, gashing the Eridian’s helmet and avoiding both of the theiyras. Lokk stood again, but more slowly. The Beast waited thirty paces away. It studied the Eridian silently. There was something horrifying in that lethal silence. The green phosphors grew bright then dim, bright then dim.
Lokk searched out a torch and found one on the edge of the village-center, fifteen paces away. He glanced at the Beast. The creature inched forward, like a cat on the prowl. Lokk took a breath. Then he ran.
He bolted toward the circle of the village center and the flickering torch. The creature hissed. Lokk heard its thudding footfalls behind him. He whirled when he reached the torch. The Beast had covered the distance far more quickly that Lokk thought it could have. Its mouth gaped. The fiery green slag in its gullet shone.
Lokk shouted and banged the back of a theiyra against the torch, causing sparks to flare. The Beast gave a short cry and tried to check its advance, sliding and scrabbling on the turf. It veered to one side and dashed away from the Eridian. Lokk watched the creature loop in a long circle until it came back around and stopped two dozen paces away. It huffed and the phosphors blazed. Lokk caught it stealing a glance at the scorched hall forty yards to its left.
Maybe it was Meedryk’s flames, after all. Another thought came to him. He recalled the way the maurg had howled at precisely the same time the Beast had. Thought about the maurg hordes that had burned outside the hall.
He looked at the hall, then back at the monster. “You felt it, didn’t you?” He set one theiyra on the ground. “Hurt you when all those beasties died, didn’t it? Never had so many of them die at once, have you?”
He ripped the guttering torch out of the soil and advanced on the creature. The Beast’s spines rose. It took a step forward. Lokk tapped the torch with the theiyra making the flames flare again. The Beast half turned to flee, then straightened and howled at Lokk Lurius.
“You scared?” He thrust the torch at the Beast and it backed away, looked to the hall again. Lokk ran at the creature waving the torch. The Beast took another step back but it didn’t retreat. It howled once more and charged the Eridian. They dashed toward one another, Lokk waving the torch in a circle, the creature’s head low, its oversized teeth glimmering in the moonlight, the vine-laced muscles rippling with each bound.
They met, barely slowing, before separating again.
Lokk Lurius stopped with his back to the creature. He held his theiyra out to one side, the torch extended toward the other. Green sludge dripped from the blade.
The Beast roared again and again from twenty paces away. Lokk turned slowly to face it. One of the monster’s mid-legs was cut nearly clean through, hallway up to the second joint. The creature tried to stand on the leg and the limb snapped. It lurched to one side and shrieked into the night air, its body convulsing and rolling.
Lokk spat and wiped at his mouth with an arm. “That’ll slow you down.”
The Beast stopped writhing at the sound of Lokk’s voice. It rose, using a foreleg to compensate for the severed limb. The phosphors grew brighter than Lokk had ever seen them. The spines trembled on the monster’s head. Lokk felt the wind of its next cry and took a step back.
†††
Aramaesia regained her senses in time to see the two men fall against one another clumsily. Grae grasped Shanks’s shoulder to keep from falling. Shanks drove his sword through Grae’s belly. Grae didn’t cry out as the blade pierced him again. His breath came quickly, his nostrils flared, but he said nothing. Instead, he pulled Shanks against him and drove his dagger into the man’s throat. Aramaesia heard the bubbling snarl from Shanks and was ashamed at the savage empathy she felt at Grae’s thrust. Her hands twitched as if it was she who held the dagger.
The big infantryman tried to pull away but he didn’t have the strength to break free. Grae withdrew the dagger and stabbed again. Shanks made gagging sounds, his body trembling. Grae stabbed again, sawing and twisting, ignoring the warm spray, pushing against Shank’s forehead until the head fell away.
The body of Beldrun Shanks fell to the soil of CWNCR in a gush of blood. Grae watched it tumble as his own legs gave out, as he crashed to the ground. Something sharp poked at his thigh. A crossbow bolt. It was the only sensation in his body. As if some incorporeal Grae Barragns inhabited a statue’s body. He heard a scream in the distance. It sounded distant. A woman’s scream. Aramaesia was leaning over him, her face crumpled into a sob. She repeated a nonsense sound. Nyt, nyt, nyt, nyt, she said. Nyt, tiu, nyt tiu. He realized it was Graci, but could not translate it. That part of his mind had already died.
The Beast screamed.
Aramaesia searched for her bow, then remembered she had no more arrows.
The monster approached warily, one foreleg missing. It walked tenderly, hesitantly. The spines on its head trembled. Lokk Lurius’s body lay in the grass. One of the Eridian’s arms was outstretched, as if he had tried to hold the creature back, before death or unconsciousness had claimed him.
Lord Aeren stumbled toward Aramaesia, finding her shoulder with his hand. She sat the noble down, reached across and picked up Ulrean, held him in her arms. She drew her other arm around Lord Aeren and huddled against Grae so that they formed one lump of humanity.
It got past Lokk Lurius. She thought, wiping at her eyes. Did she really think he would stop it?
The creature rose above them and howled. It was a sound of triumph, but a subdued one. As if making such a sound was an effort now. It came closer. Close enough for the archer to see their huddled shapes reflected in the shining teeth.
Aramaesia pulled the others close. Sent a prayer to Ja’Drei as the Beast reared onto its haunches again. Its jaws parted. The four squad mates were washed in the strange, green light. Grae touched the crossbow by his side and moaned. Aramaesia took his hand, then looked sadly upon Ulrean. She pulled his head against hers, but he broke from her grip. The boy drew the Nightjar Pendant from beneath his collar and held it high, the chain stretched out taught. His face was slick with sweat as he mumbled the magic words: Suhira Suenath.
Something throbbed in Aramaesia at that moment. Helplessness. Guilt at having lied to him. She ached at the betrayal he would feel as the claws tore into him.
But the claws did not fall.
She gazed up at the Beast. Her heart thundered. The creature had dropped back to five legs. It brought its terrible face to within an inch of the pendant. The massive tangle of teeth scraping the ground as it sniffed at the metal sigil, tilting its head to one side, then the other.
Grae Barragns, brig of the Laraytian Standards, willed his body into action one last time. He reached out with a trembling arm. Jjarnee Kruu’s hand crossbow glinted in the torchlight. He took a rattling breath, aimed, and fired Meedryk’s enchanted bolt into the Beast’s eye.
Just like
that.
Chapter 54
No kindness stronger than a sword blade has yet been forged.
—From “The Arms,” Book II of Lojenwyne’s Words
The Chamberlain had known.
The pendant was intended to protect Grae. To ensure that the brig would make it back and report the deaths of the Cobblethries.
He wants to be certain. He always wants to be certain.
The Duke of Nuldryn had known how to stop the Beast. The toppled stone door of the hall... had the pendant come from here? From CWNCR? Why had it stopped the Beast?
Grae let out another rattling breath. For ten years the Beast had roamed and slaughtered and transformed people into unholy monsters.
They could have killed it at will. My soldiers. Jastyn and Maribrae. All of them dead.
He turned his head and Ulrean met his gaze, the gem in the boy’s head blazed like the Western Star. Ulrean’s face crumpled. Tears rolled once more from his eyes. Grae tried to adjust his split tabard, to smooth it on his torso. Aramaesia helped him with it. She ran to Sage’s body and returned with Hammer’s shield. Grae took hold of it as she unslung her wineskin and trickled water across his face, washed away the blood and grime. He tried to stroke her face, couldn’t reach. Held a leather strip from her skirt instead. He looked into her eyes and smiled, a full smile.
She took his hand and smiled back at him, and he died there on the blood-soaked soil of CWNCR.
“He... he killed it,” said Ulrean.
Aramaesia stared at the hulking corpse of the Beast. Green foam frothed out from its eye, from its nostrils and mouth. “Yes,” she replied, her lips trembling, her voice breaking. “He’s... he’s a hero.”
Ulrean nodded. “A hero,” he repeated, as if hearing the word for the first time.
Chapter 55
Stars and Graves Page 28