Angelslayer: The Winnowing War

by K. Michael Wright

  Rhywder leapt from the saddle as he passed, taking the beast’s head in his arms to bring it down. Rhywder hit the ground, wrenching the head to the side, cracking the neck. He also heard a wing-bone snap. But the minion was still alive, still able to reach back and grope clawed fingers for Rhywder’s throat. Rhywder’s short sword was already clear, and now he hacked out the creature’s neck. As the head lobbed to the side, the body started to thrash in spasms, and this close, kneeling over the beast, Rhywder saw a pale semblance of a man soar out of the chest cavity like smoke, to be sucked upward in the ascending heat.

  A huge oak fell with a crash, and its limbs exploded with a roar, scattering debris in a fiery rain about Rhywder like bolts from heaven. He turned. The boy was standing near the two bodies. One was a girl, and beside her another boy who lay on his stomach with his head twisted about to stare skyward. The Galaglean knelt to close the boy’s eyelids—ignoring the fury of the fires about them.

  As Rhywder approached, the youth pulled off his cloak and used it to cover the girl. Rhywder saw her tunic had been cast aside, shredded. The boy’s face was streaked with tears that left tracks through the soot.

  “She’s alive,” said the boy. “She is still alive. Help me, whoever you are; help me get her to safety!”

  Rhywder glanced down. He wanted to tell the boy she was too close to death, she could not possibly survive, but he did not. The horses had fled—Rhywder couldn’t blame them.

  Rhywder moved the boy aside and knelt to take the girl by an arm and a leg. He hoisted her onto his shoulders. He had seen her face briefly, and it had struck him—she was the very image of Asteria. This was a Lochlain, a Lake Woman, most probably a Water Bearer. Marcian had told him truth; this was the last queen of the Daath. And the child … the child was the Angelslayer of Enoch’s prophecy.

  A limb crashed down, burying the hard-bone body of the minion.

  “We will have to run for it!” Rhywder screamed, shifting the weight of the girl over his shoulders. He turned. “Boy!”

  The boy paid Rhywder no mind as he risked his life to retrieve his axe, which was lodged in the hard-wood armor of the minion. The boy reaching right through the flame of the tree limb to seize the hilt and wrench it out of the minion’s carcass.

  Rhywder ran, with the girl over his shoulder. Rivers of fire were spilling through the trees. Living tendrils swept out of the sky to lick him, white-hot, but Rhywder kept running, dodging waves of heat just before they burst into roaring billows. He could hardly breathe; the smoke was not overwhelming—the flames were too alive here—but the air was choked in heat. Beside him, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy run through a rolling wall of fire that left the edges of his tunic and his hair trailing smoke.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Nursemaid

  Satrina turned as a figure appeared in the doorway. She recognized him as the same that had bound her to the pillar, though his cloak and tunic were matted in dust and he wore no helm. His cuirass was gone, also, and his stomach and chest were wrapped in bandages. It was the captain of the city guard, Rainus.

  Satrina had been taken to a house in the city, and she had been waiting the entire day for Rhywder. The waiting had been so long, had so eaten into her, that she could hardly react to Rainus, or to what he held in his arms. “My lady,” Rainus said quietly. “What do you want? Did you bring your rope?” “Your husband has sent me.” “Husband! Hah!” “Your master?” “In a pig’s eye.”

  “Whatever he be to you, my lady, he has asked me to bring you something.” Rainus strode in. Without his bronze helmet, silvered hair fell to his shoulders in thick curls. His face was blunt and ugly with thick lips. He extended the bundle toward her carefully. Satrina stared for a moment, then looked over the edge of the blanket. It was a child! With one finger she carefully lifted the blanket aside for a view. Smooth, unblemished skin—a faint tint of blue. This was a Daath, his hair black as night; a perfect, sleeping child, as beautiful as anything she had ever seen.

  “He was nearly Unchurian plunder,” Rainus said. “I lost sixteen men for this child. I hope there was good reason.”

  Rainus waited a moment, then urged Satrina to take the bundle. She tried to lift it one way, then decided on another, settled for a third—she had never held a baby. She stepped back, cradled it against her.

  Rainus stepped to a round, oak table and laid a wineskin on it. “Milk,” he said. “I was told by a merchant on the docks that this was drawn from a mother’s breast. Possibly a mother goat, but it will have to do until we can find a wet female.” He lowered his head slightly. “My lady.” He started to turn.

  “But—what am I to do with a baby?”

  “You are a woman; you had ought to know,” the captain said, stepping out the door.

  Satrina hurried to the doorway. “What about Rhywder? Where is he?”

  “In the service of his king, I would guess,” Rainus said, now striding down the cobblestone roadway. They were in a housing district of Ishmia, and the sea was close.

  “But I want to see him!”

  Rainus was too far away to answer. He rounded a corner out of sight. Satrina was not alone, however; a tall Daathan guard was left near the side of the villa. He kept his eyes outward even though Satrina stared at him a moment.

  The streets were quiet, hushed. Word had reached them that Galaglea had fallen, burned. It was expected the enemy would reach the ford of the Ithen by morning, and lay siege to Ishmia soon thereafter. The Ishmians had relied for thirty years on the Daath; most of them were Daath, traders, tavern owners. But Ishmia was an unwalled, sprawling port city, and it had never drawn standing armies.

  The whole day people had been steadily leaving, north, for Terith-Aire, and Ishmia had begun to look deserted.

  Satrina stepped inside and closed the door. The cottage had a small room with simple furniture, a bed, a table. It was the cottage of a warrior, for the only personal items were two swords leaning against the wall in a corner and an old buckler that hung from the bedpost. Satrina sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at the child. A tiny fist was curled against one cheek. She carefully unwrapped the cloak. He wore a chitin of white cloth. “I suppose this is the best Rhywder can do, considering.”

  She noticed a glimmer from one ankle. She lifted and turned the leg to read the etchings in the bronze torque. “Seraphon,” she whispered. But that name had resonance; it meant something—Burning One. She tingled. No ordinary child, this. She reached down and let a small fist curl about her finger. “Whose child are you, Seraphon?” When the child suddenly opened his eyes, Satrina gasped. She had never seen eyes like this. They took her breath and for a moment she swore she could see stars through them.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Warlord

  Krysis was awakened by a sudden crash that echoed through the hallway. She sat up with a start, frightened. Suddenly she understood why Eryian had not wanted to dream, for her own dreams still swam, shadowed and cold. She was so cold she was shivering. Then she realized it was not without reason; she could see her breath as a mist, even though the embers of the hearth fire were still glowing. At first she wondered if it were still a dream, for the light of the fire seemed unable to clear its hearth. Something was coming, closing in on them.

  She found Eryian asleep beside her. He looked as though he had fallen unconscious, and she remembered his long hours of tossing, moaning. She could also remember the name he spoke. Cassium. He had spoken it with such pain it startled her. She knew that among the legendary lords of the Daath, in the days of the beginning after the angel wars, there had once lived a queen named Cassium—that she had learned from an angel the star knowledge, a Star Walker Queen. She wondered if Cassium was perhaps someone he had known when he was younger, someone from his past, but for some odd reason, perhaps the way he had spoken it, she believed he knew her. He knew the Star Walker Queen herself. Yet he had never spoken her name before.

  Krysis carefully slipped from t
he bed, leaving the white bearskin to cover Eryian. The room was pocketed in uneasy shadow. She started for the window, and then paused, hearing a low, guttural moan.

  Krysis backed away slowly, then caught movement—not from the door, but from the window. When she turned, a figure stood in the room with her, his skin painted, the flesh edged in ridges. His head was shaven and his face was ritually scarred down one side, the right eye melted away, the skin about it dark and mottled.

  “You can tell your warlord his time is marked,” the priest hissed, then pointed a long, curled, yellowed nail. “As is yours.”

  Krysis gasped, backing away. She started to turn for the door. If she opened them, four of Eryian’s guards were on the other side, but as she moved for it, a chest soundlessly moved to block the path.

  “No need to scream,” the priest added. “They cannot hear you.”

  Krysis turned, backed against the chest. “Who are you?”

  “I am the herald of the Salamander. He wanted to send greeting—to you actually—the mortal woman of the star jumper.”

  She glanced to Eryian, who hadn’t moved, his head still to the side. When she turned, the priest was suddenly in her face. His tongue flicked across her lips. She cried out, shoving him back, but found he was strong, weighted heavy in muscle.

  “Seeing you,” he whispered, “I amd disappointed to be only the herald.”

  His hand shot beneath her tunic to seize the inside of her thigh. She tried to scream, but he had drawn fingers over her mouth and with the movement had stolen her voice.

  His breath stank, an acid, bitter smell, and she saw between his teeth, which were filed to points, bits of tissue as though he had been shredding raw meat.

  He forced her back, bending her across the chest, and his hand now slid up her thigh. She swiped at the side of his face that was still human, leaving cuts from her nails, but the priest only smiled. He was holding her against the chest with one hand and his fingers curled about her bodice, but before he could tear it, a hand curled from behind about his face. Krysis briefly saw panic in his single eye. The hand tightened, then jerked. She heard the neck snap. But Eryian had not broken it; he had turned the priest about and now held him by the face, studying him.

  “If you have a message,” Eryian said, “you can give it to me.”

  “I will save that for when you have joined us, warlord.”

  Eryian studied him only a moment longer, then withdrew his hand and quickly brought it in a snap that cracked the priest’s windpipe. As the priest staggered, Eryian turned and withdrew a sword from a wall mount. He walked toward the priest almost calmly, then grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, shoved his face against the wall. Eryian now leaned close to his ear.

  “I don’t know if your master can hear me, but if he is listening, he should know that if he touches her again, and I will come for his flesh.”

  Krysis then screeched, turning away when Eryian shoved the sword into the priest’s buttocks, upward, piercing through to pin the body face forward against the wall. The priest thrashed for a moment, arms flailing.

  With the noise, the doors were forced open from behind, the chest shoved aside. Two of Eryian’s men stepped into the room, weapons drawn.

  Eryian stepped back, then turned to Krysis. He touched her cheek.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded, drawing a hand over her mouth against the foul taste of the priest’s tongue.

  Eryian glanced past her to one of the guards. “Bring my armor; prepare a mount for me.”

  The guard nodded and both left, closing the doors behind them. “I’ll have you taken somewhere safe,” Eryian said as he pulled on a leather tunic. “I’ll leave you with heavy guard—they will not get to you again.” “You are not leaving …” “I must. They are close.”

  “But Eryian … you almost died. You need more rest.” “No time. Once they cross the river, there is nothing to stop them from reaching even Terith-Aire. Where is Little Eryian?” “At home. I have left him well protected.”

  “I will send a maniple of my personal guard. It is time the Daath began to gather their children.” “For what?”

  “Escape. If one Angelslayer survives, the demon will have failed—he comes with numbers uncounted, he comes sure of his path, but he will trip, he will fall. I cannot say how, but I feel it in my blood.” Eryian latched his belt, then paused, seeing her eyes tear.

  “Demon? This is Endgame. Is it now, Eryian? That which you sometimes have spoken of?” she asked.

  He nodded. He reached forward to pull her into a tight embrace and a moment he held her, then turned, lifting his cloak from a peg.

  “Who … who is Cassium?”

  Eryian paused, turned, but didn’t answer at first.

  “You spoke her name.”

  “Someone I knew, Krysis. Once.”

  “Before me?”

  “Before you—before memory’s veil.” He stepped forward and touched her cheek. “In this flesh, there was no one but you.” He leaned to kiss her lips. “Take care, my love.”

  “Will I see you again?”

  He stared at her, his deep, ice eyes misted. He tightened his jaw, then lifted his hand to take hers, spreading her fingers in the sign of the word. He then turned and threw open the door.

  Alone, the darkness of the room seemed to close on her and Krysis broke into a sob.

  Tillantus rode at the head of the first legion of Argolis’s Shadow Warriors, the King’s Guard, the Daath’s prime. They spread out along the plains of Ishmia as they marched, slow and heavy. Behind them came the two legions of the Daath, the finest, deadliest warriors in all the Earth. They were arrayed in full armor, and the centuries of white horses rode at the fore, with broad, smoked cloaks.

  The aged first captain, Tillantus, was still broad-shouldered and firm in the saddle. He studied the sky as he rode. It was a hard gray, with a cold, south wind. Most of the men wore thick, silver-white fur about their necks and shoulders.

  The Daath had always taken breath on attack; there seemed almost a poetry of death in white steel. This time, however, Tillantus felt a dread, a knot in his gut. The air seemed unnaturally cruel.

  The captain suddenly drew up his reins, lifting his sword high. His commanders called halt. They were spread out along the western ridge of Ishmia; the smell of the sea was strong in the air. Tillantus watched a long figure on a roan horse riding toward them. The figure turned out along the shore, then came at full gallop up the grassy edge of the ridge near the river.

  Once he reached the head of his armies, Eryian rose in the stirrups, drawing his sword and lifting it high, rearing the mount. When he cried out to them, they answered, and a deafening roar, a cry of thousands as the legions of the Daath, the conquerors of the seven valleys, lifted their weapons in greeting to their warlord, the Eagle.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The Angelslayer’s Queen

  Loch watched the island carefully as they approached. It was first a far line upon the waters, a dark shadow. It was near dusk. The ship they traveled in was a long, sleek Etlantian warship, dark in the waters. But there was no crew, only Sandalaphon, his hand on the tilling oar. The ship’s oars were laid back, and it moved with unseen wind against a sail that glistened a gossamer mesh. The warship cut the sea so quickly, the island seemed to have the illusion it was growing as they approached.

  Beside him, Hyacinth watched, standing near the hull work, gripping the edge.

  “I wish to stop here, at this island,” Loch said quietly to Sandalaphon. Sandalaphon stared back, almost as though he hadn’t heard, but suddenly they had stopped. The keel rested against white sand. The horizon was a rust stain, and shadows were long, but the air was warm and windless. Loch studied the trees as birds called to him from the thick of a rainforest nestled in dark green and mist.

  Loch turned to stare at Hyacinth. She was surprised at how different he looked. The face seemed sharper, thinner, the eyes darker. He l
ooked to have aged years. He held out his hand and helped her over the gunwale.

  The sea was warm, and waves curled low and lazy against the sand as he led her up the beach. Hyacinth wondered why he had done it, why he had brought her back. The touch of his sword had whispered to her from death’s shadow and at first she didn’t turn. She hadn’t wanted to come back. The rest of them were dying all around; she could feel their lives wink out—Storan, Danwyar, and soon, she guessed, Darke, as well. But through the light of Loch’s aganon blade she had seen his eyes, and though she wasn’t certain he would ever love her, truly love her, she knew at least that he would need her and that his need was too strong to turn away.

  There was a green hue to the island forest mist. The ground was wet in moss. They stepped through the warm waters of a stream, and on the other side, Loch paused beneath the wide, thick canopy of a cedar. Loch cupped her chin. He took her hand and slowly knelt, urging her to kneel beside him. He watched her carefully.

  “Sandalaphon,” he said quietly.

  She was startled to realize the giant was just behind her. “My lord,” he answered.

  “Cleanse her—then bind us. Do it now; speak the covenant.”

  Hyacinth gasped. She watched Loch, frightened. The giant’s sunblade—the same severe crystal as Loch’s, cleared its sheath and the dark of the forest bled with quiet, blue light. The crystal blade first touched Loch’s right shoulder, then lifted and touched her left. She felt a quick pulse down her arm, though it did not burn as the touch of the blade had burned before. With the light came a knowing, a different knowing than any of her magicks, any of her spells, like nothing she had ever felt, and for a moment it took her breath. For a sliver of time she could see the stars open. She could see suns beyond the sun, and she felt a brush of power unlike anything she had ever tasted. As the sword lifted from her shoulder, it faded, but the taste of it remained, and Hyacinth knew that all she had just seen could be found again, for though the sting of power had faded its pathway remained. She turned, but the giant was gone; they were alone. She looked back to Loch.