As the thief placed a dagger in Tylar’s gnarled grip, he stared up. The whirl of two wyrms had become more heated as each tried to get the other to understand that which the other could not comprehend, so close but still sundered, the frustration building toward fury.
Tylar dragged the heel of his hand across the dagger’s fine edge. He felt the bite of steel. Blood ran down his arm as he lifted it. He snatched at the smoky tether, feeling the fleshy substance, igniting fire under his palm. Then as usual, the brilliance shot outward and back, consuming the tangle and pulling it back. It fell back to him with the weight of water, crushing him to the planks, knocking the air from him.
Then it was all gone.
A hand reached out and snatched a rock falling from the sky. Brant had captured back his stone as it fell back into this world.
Tylar sat up, inhaling a deep breath, his strength returned.
No pain in his side. He used Rogger’s dagger to cut the wraps from his hand. The soiled scraps fell away, revealing straight and strong fingers. He flexed his fist and rolled to his feet. His knee-both knees-lifted him smoothly.
The others stared at him.
Cured.
Off across the dark forest, a scream echoed.
Rogger glanced back. “Looks like we’ve waked another beast.”
Tylar bent down, retrieved the bladeless gold hilt, and held out a hand toward Brant. The boy passed him the stone. Dart had already freshened it back to a diamond with her blood.
Tylar stared at Brant, the echoes of the aethryn and naethryn still stirring through him. He remembered Brant’s words when he held Keorn’s skull. With the stone at his throat, he’d spoken in two different voices, as if in argument.
HELP THEM…
LET THEM ALL BURN…
FREE THEM…
LET THEM ALL BURN…
But they weren’t his own words. He knew that now.
Through skull and stone, Brant had spoken with the voice of Keorn’s naethryn and aethryn. Two sundered parts just as conflicted. One seeking salvation, the other ruination. Naethryn and aethryn. Two parts of a whole.
Tylar lifted sword and stone.
He felt no such conflict within himself.
He slammed pommel to diamond. The blade shimmered into substance. He heard the daemon’s cry echo away.
He answered silently- I’m coming -and turned to the group.
Though hale, Tylar was only one man against a host of ravening rogues and a wraithed daemon, leashed together for a common purpose-all set against him.
And even with Rivenscryr, the hope for victory was slim.
Still, Tylar remembered Dart’s earlier words, how a sword was only as strong as the man who wielded it. But what she had yet to learn was that a man was only as strong as those who stood by his side.
He stared at those here.
And he could imagine victory…against any odds.
All was lost.
Kathryn ran down the stairs as Stormwatch Tower quaked. The ice had reached their battlements. She had watched the outer towers fall, the wall tumbled and broken. Only one structure still stood.
But for how long?
Overhead, loud crashes echoed, glass shattered. Then an exceptionally loud boom rattled the stairs, deafening. But afterward, she heard a noise like a rumble of thunder, accompanied by a cacophony of rattling and smashing resounds. Something was coming, behind her, from on high.
Kathryn drank more shadows and sped down for the next landing. Flying around a corner, she spotted two figures hurrying upward, slinking along one wall. They glimpsed her in a wash of shadows. The girl raised a fist to her throat. The boy stepped forward with a sword, plainly borrowed, from the way it shook.
Raising an arm, Kathryn yelled, “Get off the stairs! NOW!”
Laurelle responded immediately, despite her momentary panic. She grabbed the young wyld tracker’s arm and hauled him up. They reached the landing at the same time and ducked off the stairs.
Not a moment too soon.
An avalanche of stone bricks tumbled past in a deadly chute, rattling away, bouncing a few stones down the hallway. Kathryn herded Laurelle and Kytt back, then swept around with her cloak.
“What are you still doing out?” she yelled, her ears ringing from the clatter of rocks. “Why didn’t you respond to the gong?”
Laurelle strode beside her. “We were down below with Master Orquell.”
Kathryn lifted a hand to her brow. “Yes…yes, Delia told me.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Where is the master?”
“Dead. Sacrificed himself to stifle the witch’s power.”
Kathryn remembered Mirra faltering, her staff’s green fire dying.
Laurelle continued, speaking in a rush. “Then there were groundshakes below. The Masterlevels crumbled, and large sections collapsed. We ran. If it hadn’t been for Kytt’s nose, we wouldn’t have found a way out, but a part of the lower level had collapsed into the cellars. We were able to climb up.”
Laurelle suddenly grabbed Kathryn’s sleeves. “We saw some of the black knights-but they ran from our torches.”
Kathryn hurried them toward one of the entrances to the Grand Court. “They’ve been routed. But we have larger concerns.”
Another tower-shaking boom echoed from above. It seemed Lord Ulf was tearing down Stormwatch, one level at a time, starting from the top.
“I thought the groundshakes below had stopped,” Laurelle said, ducking a bit as the thunder echoed away.
“They did. This is something even more dire.”
At last, the doors to the Grand Court arched ahead, framed in black obsidian, topped by a faceted chunk of rock that represented the diamond on their sword’s pommel. She hurried forward and pounded a fist on the closed door.
A commotion sounded and a voice called out. “Who goes there?”
“Castellan Vail!”
A moment later, a bar scraped, and the door swung open to a cavernous space, the tiered amphitheater of the Grand Court. Fires blazed. And the heart of Tashijan quaked with screams, shouts, crying, bustling. It was packed nearly shoulder to shoulder.
Kathryn bulled a path to the stairs that led down toward the bottom of the amphitheater. Laurelle and Kytt followed in her wake. It was slow going.
Then a pair of the knights joined them, shouting, “Make room for the castellan! Make room!”
The seas parted, and they made faster progress down the crowded stairs. Still, fingers touched her cloak as she descended, hopeful, fearful. She had no time to reassure them-and at the moment, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to lie to them, at least not well.
Below, Kathryn spotted Argent and Delia, along with the large mass of Hesharian and the bronze form of Gerrod. Several other Council masters gathered around the central pit. Hearthstone, the fiery core of Tashijan. The ancient pit dated back to the time of human kings, but it had come to represent Tashijan’s flaming heart. The pit danced high with a fresh pyre, smoke spiraling with alchemies.
“Make room for the castellan!”
The shout echoed below. Faces turned.
Gerrod spotted her first among the surging throng. He lifted an arm. She hurried down to him, leading Laurelle and Kytt.
Reaching the floor, Argent came with Delia.
“He comes,” Kathryn said, as more booming crashes echoed, like the footsteps of a god. “Keep the fires high. Our only hope lies in the heat of our alchemies bolstering this last picket, holding our fire against Ulf’s ice.”
Gerrod nodded. “We’ve added loam alchemies to strengthen the walls, too, but-” He shook his head.
She reached for his arm and squeezed, wishing it was not just armor that met her touch. “We will hold strong…and not just with our alchemies.”
A violent quake rattled, sounding as if all of the tower above had crashed atop them. Kathryn looked up, willing it all to hold. Just a little longer.
Large chunks of plaster and rock cracked from the roof and tumbled to sm
ashing ruin among the tiers. People scattered, amid screams and blood.
Overhead a massive block of stone broke free like a rotted tooth. It fell straight at them. Kathryn shouldered Gerrod to the side. Masters scattered. Argent grabbed Delia’s arm as she gaped upward. But she was still wobbly on her feet from the blow to her head.
As Argent pulled, she tripped down to a knee.
“Delia!”
The stone tumbled at her.
In a swirl of cloak, Argent clenched her arm in both of his hands and threw her bodily, wildly clear, spinning off a heel. He dove after her, but a moment too late. Even shadows were sometimes too slow.
Argent leaped, but the chunk of roof shattered across his legs, slamming him to the stone floor. He lay flat, unmoving.
“Father!” Delia cried and crawled over to him.
An arm shifted, a hand wiped rock dust from the floor. Blood welled and spread from beneath the rock. Shouts echoed. Masters hurried forward.
But it was his daughter that took his hand.
“Don’t leave me,” she said. “Not again…”
His chin shifted, and he moaned. “Never.”
Then he lay still.
“I wish I had more practice,” Rogger said.
“You’ll do fine,” Tylar assured him. He glanced back at the others.
The flitterskiff floated a quarter league from the island in the clear channel again, out of the clogged choke. The others crouched, hands firmly on the rail. Dart shared his bench, clutching a hand to his swordbelt. He felt the tremble in her arm.
Each had a duty this night. And though fear shone bright in all their eyes, so did determination. Satisfied, he twisted forward and squeezed Rogger’s arm, sharing friendship and certainty.
“Go.”
With a nod, Rogger twisted the flow of trickling alchemy to full. “Hold tight!”
The paddles to either side churned the waters into a boil. The flitterskiff leaped forward like a startled pony. It blew across the waters, rising, lifting its keel, winds whipping the hood from Tylar’s cloak.
He tugged it back up, ducking lower.
The skiff skimmed on its paddle tips, racing along the channel. Rogger hit the first bend around a hillock, but he was too gentle with the wheel. They swung wide, almost burying their bow in a tangle of knotted roots. He pulled harder, tilting the skiff up almost on one row of paddles, and then they were away.
The channel twisted and turned from there.
Rogger did his best, flying the skiff around fast turns, slowing, jogging, banking, and tilting. He took the last turn with a bit of a panic. The rearmost starboard paddle struck a stone and clipped off with a jolt of the boat. The bronze oar flew like an arrow back into the flooded woods.
Then they were in the boiling lake.
Steam rose in a fierce, bubbling roil. The waters glowed a fiery crimson. As they shot across the water toward the island, the heat swamped over them, dampened them with a stinging wash. The kiss of Takaminara. Behind them, steam swirled and churned in their wake.
A screech of fury erupted from the island. Green flames flickered off the rocky spars, fanned by the beat of rising wings.
Rogger shot toward the island, a flittering spear of wood and bronze. He aimed straight for one of the pinnacles, as if he intended to ram it. “Get ready!”
Tylar shifted up, drawing Dart under his cloak, one arm snaked under her shoulders. “Both hands,” he told her.
Two hands locked onto his swordbelt.
“Now!” Rogger yelled.
The thief yanked on the wheel, and twisted the nose to the left, banking high. Their thrust still carried them toward the island, broadside first now. They slowed.
But not Tylar.
With shadows heavy in his cloak and Dart under his arm, he leaped over the starboard rail and flew like a dark raven toward the sandy beach.
Behind him, Rogger burnt more alchemies and the flitterskiff flew off like a frightened sparrow, skimming out and away from the island.
Tylar landed in a rolling tumble, protecting Dart with his limbs until they fell into the shadows of the rocky spar. He buried them both in the darkness and some scrabbled bushes.
He watched the flitterskiff skim out into the cooler waters of the lake and vanish to the right, intending to circle the island and retreat back the way they’d come in.
But not alone.
A wailing cry of a hunter pierced the night. Tylar did not dare look. They had leaped from the boat into the shadows, and they needed to remain out of sight. Before flying here, Tylar had smeared his blood all over the boat’s railing. His scent would be ripe on the skiff, a bait trolled through these dark waters and away.
But had they hooked their big fish?
Another shriek and the green firelight flickered with fury. Tylar heard the beat of heavy wings, rising from the island. Distantly, he heard Rogger shout.
“If you want to bite this arse, you’re gonna have to catch it first!”
The flap of leather and bone followed Rogger’s call.
Tylar waited another two breaths. The goal had been for Rogger to lure the winged guard away. The daemon’s power came from the island. If Tylar could stamp out the flame here, then the wraithed ghawl would be easier to manage, stripped of much of its Dark Grace.
Still, what would they find here? There was only one way to find out.
“Let’s go, and remember if I say-”
“- run, I’m supposed to run and hide,” Dart mumbled. “I know.”
He hadn’t wanted to bring Dart, but he had no way of knowing if her blood might be needed for the sword. Too much was unknown still about the blade, and he had gods to set free. It would not do to find himself standing with a bladeless hilt in his hand.
A screech echoed over the waters.
And who was to say being on the boat was any safer?
Tylar stood up and slid Rivenscryr from its sheath. “Keep to my shadows. I’ll keep us cloaked as much as possible.”
Already at his hip, she shuffled closer still.
He set out around the rock. The island had fallen into a hushed silence. All he heard was a flicker of hungry flame, a few scrapes, and what sounded like rattled chains.
He crept another step when he realized something was missing here.
Seersong.
When they’d first spied upon the island from across the lake, he had heard a few faint chords. A lone woman singing softly, full of sorrow. But now nothing. What had happened?
Tylar feared what this might portend.
Leading the way, he stepped past the granite spar and into the green firelight. The pyre rose at the island’s center. It cast no warmth, only a sick feverish tint to the skin, oily and foul. It splattered its light against stone and rock.
Tylar lifted his cloak against it, sensing the immense well of power here. He kept back from it, edging around the central square. Low stone buildings, all stacked brick and slabbed roofs, ringed the edges. The doorways were open, no windows. He made sure they kept clear from those dark openings, too.
He heard stone scrape inside-and again a rattle of iron.
Once they were among the crown of pinnacles, the firelight revealed carvings on the inner surfaces of the spars: of men and women at work, tilling fields, leading beasts of burden by yoke. One spar held what appeared to be a great tangled battle with spear and ax, decorated with limbless bodies, and staked heads that were too painful a reminder of Saysh Mal. Another seemed to depict great acts of carnal passion: feasts, debauchery, rutting bodies in every pose.
He stepped between Dart and that view.
Crossing deeper, he searched around him. Here was an ancient human settlement, long before even the human kings rose, stretching to a more distant time. Here is where the human Cabalists had chosen to set up their wicked forge, believing the lies of the naethryn Cabal, to end the tyranny of the gods, to return to the majesty of human rule.
Tylar turned his eyes away, back to the ring of ston
e buildings. By now, he had circled to the far side of the fire. Here rose the largest of the buildings. Firelight glowed out its door. Not the green poison of this pyre, but a regular hearth.
He approached, but motioned Dart to one side of the door. He led with Rivenscryr in hand. The door was low, requiring him to duck in order to peer inside. A small pit in the room’s center glowed with a few wan flames. It illuminated six stone slabs, radiating out from the fire. A single small figure lay atop each bed, draped in a gray robe, stained and ragged.
Tylar smelled the blood.
It flowed over the slabs and pooled at their feet. A few trickles dribbled toward the fire in the room. A fresh large drop rolled along one of the rivulets and extended its reach by a tiny measure.
He entered but pointed back. “Stay near the door. Watch the square.”
Dart stepped within the shelter of the threshold, but she faced outward.
Tylar crossed to one of the beds. The figure was a girl, surely no more than fifteen, straight blond hair, long to the shoulder. She appeared no different than any young girl, except for two things about her neck. Under her chin, her throat bulged out, like a frog in mid-croak.
One of the songstresses.
He looked into her open eyes, such a sweet face for such a font of misery. But was she to blame? Such children were born of Dark Grace, against their will, tainted by black alchemies to become these sirens of Grace. Were they any freer than those they bound?
And then there was one last horror found at her throat.
A ragged slice drawn clean and deep. Its edges had peeled back as her lifeblood poured out. Tylar’s toe nudged one of the blades, a shard of obsidian in a bronze handle. It lay near the girl’s slack fingers.
She had cut her own throat.
He stepped to the next, and the next-all the same.
All the songstresses.
Dead.
He touched one cheek. Still warm. The deaths had occurred only moments before. He remembered the forlorn notes of song he had heard drifting over the lake. Maybe it hadn’t truly been seersong, only one last whisper into the night, a lone child knowing what she must do.
Tylar stared across the ruin here.
“Why?” he whispered to them.
The one word encompassed two questions.
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