In quick bursts, they darted from one column to the next until there were no more pillars left. Breaths echoing into the night air, they hid behind the last few. Ahead, the twin barbicans loomed, dark and foreboding. The heavy gate and spiked portcullis they protected was closed.
Two Ashishin whispered to each other then stepped from behind their pillar at the same time. They raised their hands.
A faint buzz thrummed through the air. Soft, wet thuds followed. Choking sounds issued from the Matii as they folded over, clutching at their chests and necks where several dozen crossbow bolts protruded from their bodies. The men crumpled to the ground, blood pooling beneath them.
“Fools,” Ryne muttered.
“So what’s the plan to get inside?” Irmina asked. “A few archers can hold that gate against us indefinitely.”
“Against normal men or Ashishin, maybe, but not against me. Sakari, you take the left barbican, I’ll take the right. You Ashishin, on my signal illuminate those towers. Namazzi, your targets will be lit then.” Ryne nodded to the two dead Ashishin. “Use their blood if you must.”
“What will the signal be?” One of the Ashishin asked, a slim man whose uniform hung about him loosely.
“When we charge the wall.”
“You’re mad,” another Matii said.
Ryne smiled grimly and reached for the Forms. Below him, the earth provided more than enough fodder for what he intended. Flagstones cracked, rippled, and clacked against each other as he Forged four constructs of himself, keeping them hidden under the avenue. Sharp intakes of breath escaped from the other Matii.
At the same time, Ryne linked with Sakari. “When I send them, we Shimmer to the top of the towers.”
“As you wish.”
Making sure he was seated deep in the calm pool of his mind, Ryne touched his Scripts once more. Light surged up into him. In that moment, he summoned the constructs from the earth.
In a rumbling shower of stone and earth, the flagstones tore apart as the eight-foot replicas pulled themselves up. Scores of arrow bolts thrummed through the air, bouncing off the constructs’ cobblestone skin with sharp pings. Ryne sent the constructs careening toward the gate, their footsteps a deep rumble.
Light bloomed above the barbicans. Picking out the Streams, Ryne Shimmered, reappearing behind several dozen stunned men in black armor-Amuni’s Children. Or so he thought until he saw the painted faces.
Alzari.
It was a trap.
Ryne’s smile never touched his eyes as he danced among the men. Disconcerted by the light, and distracted by the constructs barreling into the gate with loud thuds and crashes, most of the mercenaries never saw when death took them. Ryne’s sword sheared through bone, sinew and armor as if slicing air. Blood and limbs flew, followed by the screams of the dying.
As the Alzari began to understand what was happening, Ryne delved into the Forms at his feet, deconstructing the mortar between the bricks. The substance came apart like sand.
The entire roof collapsed. Those who hadn’t been screaming yet, screamed then.
The soldiers in the rooms below tried to flee, but there was nowhere to go. Debris bombarded them, burying them under suffocating mounds of brick and pestle. Winding stairs led down, every few flights with a landing and murder holes manned by more soldiers. Brick and dirt rained down the hollow center of the building. Men leapt away from the opening.
Ryne sprang over the banister, his greatsword pointed down. The earlier shield he’d used formed around him, its blue tinge lighting the dark interior of the barbican. Swords and arrows bounced of its surface as he fell. He hit the floor among a milling mass of men still struggling to comprehend how the roof had fallen in. With the force of the fall behind it, the greatsword sunk into the ground as if the surface was mud instead of brick. The metallic clang of the silversteel penetrating stone echoed a death knell. Ryne triggered his Scripts.
The floor, walls, and pillar supports exploded, showering stone and mortar in a white smoky, mist. With a groan, then a thunderous rumble, the tower collapsed around Ryne, rubble bouncing off his shield.
Still linked with Sakari, Ryne saw the carnage the man waged as he’d fought his way from the roof and down the stairs. The steps ran red with rivulets of blood. It poured off onto the soldiers clamoring below. Those who rushed up the steps died. From somewhere, Sakari had gained a second sword and this he used to knock away any incoming bolts. The man fought more like a daemon than a man. Ryne frowned before his eyes shot open at a strange sound from Sakari.
He was laughing. A high, mad, cackle that rang out in peals.
Pushing the sound to the back of his mind, Ryne turned back to what he’d left in his wake. White smoke from the debris choked the air, moans and groans echoed, and here and there, rubble shifted. Men called for help, often followed by a hand reaching up from the stone and dirt. Covered in white residue and looking like an avenging spirit, Ryne found what remained of the main door and strode through the crumbled wall into the hall that held the winch for the portcullis and gate. No one attempted to stop him. He unhitched the chain and pulled.
Slowly, gears churning and clanging, the gate and portcullis rose.
“Mother!” Ancel screamed, his mind battering against the Forge that prevented him from touching the essences spilling about them in waves.
It was Shin Galiana’s Forge. The old woman, her silver hair hanging in wild wisps that stuck to her forehead and cheeks, leaned heavily on Guthrie, her hand held out before her, and her brow furrowed and slick with sweat. She’d stopped Ancel as soon as he tried to lash out at the dark-garbed man who held his mother prisoner.
His mother lay unmoving at the man’s feet. Swathed in shade and in clothing as black as a daemon’s maw, the man had responded to Galiana’s own attack without so much as a wave of his hand and now faced her. Mater battered whatever barrier Shin Galiana had erected between them. Essences slammed and sliced incessantly, but to no avail.
Ancel could see the man also maintained a complex Forge around his mother. Similar to the one Galiana used to keep him from touching the essences. Ancel’s chest burned with the need to help, the need to rush to his mother’s side, the need to find out if she still lived.
“Calm yourself, boy,” Guthrie instructed. “Seek the Eye. You can’t help here.”
Ancel had tried for calm several times, but every time, he’d failed. Now, he no longer wanted to be under control. He wanted to lash out with everything he had. A hand brushed his shoulder.
“I know how you feel. I have seen my loved ones taken. But this man and them,” Kachien nodded toward the shadelings at the other side of the field. “We cannot handle. Not now. Not like this.”
“I won’t leave my mother.” Ancel gritted his teeth against the tears streaming down his face and the pain that tore at his chest. “I won’t.” Mind racing, he sought a way to help her. Without the ability to reach the Eye, the voices he’d heard in his head before came alive.
“Our power is yours if you want it. Take it. Use it to crush all who stand in your way. None can stand before you. Not even him.” On and on the voices raged, but still Galiana prevented him from touching the essences.
Ancel reached for his sword. As he touched its hilt, Kachien’s hand stopped him. Scowling, he shrugged her off, and his hand closed around the handle.
The sword’s bond solidified. Whereas before he could feel it in his mind, now he felt the sword’s bond as if he and the sword were one and the same. He was the sword. Power rushed through the weapon into him. Glowing hot, it tore through him and his back arched.
He felt them then.
Hundreds of pinpoints of energy, of essences, one nearby, and the others spread far and near. He opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed and looked toward his mother.
Her gaze met his. She smiled.
The man in black shook his head, or the shadow representing his head. Red eyes glanced down at Ancel’s mother before his gaze locked on Ancel
and the now glowing sword. The eyes narrowed to slits.
Sword in hand, Irmina edged around the corpses and past the last pillars in the Audience Chamber. From the door to the dais at the room's center, bodies in the rigor of death lined the floor. Near the dais, the dead were piled in an oozing heap, their chests gaping holes of flesh and bone. The very air buzzed with power. Even without touching her Matersense, she felt the tingle of essences coursing around her in short bursts. Never before had she experienced such.
A man garbed in charcoal clothing sat upon a throne. Scars marred one side of his face and he had only one eye. On the same side of his body, his arm was nothing more than a stump. She recognized the man’s face.
Mayor Bertram.
Sitting on the mosaic floor tiles in front of the man were several Astocan nobles, their clothes dirty and disheveled. They stared with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
Around Bertram’s throne stood two ebony beasts standing on spindly legs with small, humming insect-like wings on their backs. Long hair twisted like rope hung down to their waists. The daemons made keening noises, their gazes locked on Ryne.
Wraithwolves and darkwraiths appeared around the room. The Matii stopped abruptly, hands raised toward the shadelings. Having long ago embraced her Matersense, Irmina waited. Beside her, Ryne’s face was a mottled mask of rage.
“You, Bertram? Or Voliny, or whatever your real name is. You sacrificed Carnas for this? For revenge?” Ryne’s quiet voice cut through the spacious hall.
Bertram threw his head back and laughed. A scornful, vile sound. He brought his one-eyed gaze to bear on Ryne. “You would think that way. Forever naive despite all you’ve done yourself. There was a time this was about revenge. About settling the score with the Tribunal, about what losing my family meant, about you costing me my son. But then, it became so much more. I realized Ilumni had failed us. I saw a way to recapture all Ostania had ever been and more. A way to make myself a god among men. A chance to succeed where you failed, Nerian.”
Ryne’s brows drew together in confusion. Irmina frowned. Why had he just called Ryne, Nerian?
“Ah,” Bertram said. “He still doesn’t know.” Around the room grunts and whispers rose from the shadelings that sounded too similar to laughter. “Let me ask you, Ryne Thanairen Waldron, why do you think they,” he nodded to the daemons, “didn’t attack you? Why has the shade always found you? Coincidence? No. And you must know by now it had nothing to do with your little Ashishin there.”
“What in Ilumni’s name are you talking about,” Ryne said. “You lie. Just like you lied in Carnas.”
“Do I? What about your dreams? Your lost memories? The killings you do remember? The voices that war within you? The reason you slayed so many innocents? The reason you hid in Carnas in the first place. The thousands of reasons you seek redemption.” Bertram made a circular gesture with his hand. “Here, let me help you past the fog clouding the memory you try to reach.”
The Astocans on the floor gasped and crumpled. In front of Bertram, a light blue globe at least six feet in diameter appeared. At the same time, Ryne groaned and dropped to his knees.
An image bloomed in the globe. It showed a giant man about Ryne’s height garbed in resplendent black armor that seemed to drink in any light. Another image displayed the same man in golden armor, slamming a Lightstorm standard into a pile of bones and bodies. She couldn’t see the tattoos but Irmina knew by the eyes and hair both men were Ryne. The first one was also a picture she’d seen in a Tome of the Chronicles.
A portrait of Nerian the Shadowbearer.
Tears streaming down his face, Ryne choked back a sob. “All this time, you fucking bastards. All this time…”
“Yes.” Bertram laughed scornfully. “All this time. You’ve always been my master’s tool. He uses you then wipes your memories. You’ve fought on every side, but always for us. Always for his purpose. And every time, I’ve gotten the pleasure of revealing this to you. It still brings a thrill you cannot begin to imagine.”
Irmina gaped. Here before her, on his knees and vulnerable, was the cause of her family’s pain, her people’s past, the death and suffering that haunted her in her dreams. The man who the Dorns served all those years ago when they began to wipe out her family, when with the final stroke, they had her parents killed. Here, she could exact ultimate revenge.
Jerem’s words came back to her then. “This mission will be your final test. This task will force you to make the most difficult choice you have ever had to make. It will define what path you take. Regardless of your choice, you will be scarred for the remainder of your days.”
Irmina reached out to the Mater coiling in the air. When she touched it, the power flooded her in too many individual strands to count. Behind it all, she sensed something familiar, something she knew. Realization dawned on her. The pinpoints were people and places all drawn together in one enormous Forging. For some reason a picture of Ancel came to her mind, his dark hair flying behind him, a glowing sword in his hand and Mater shooting up into the sky.
Irmina stabbed.
The world slowed to a standstill for Ancel. The essences around the man waxed and waned as he struggled against not only his mother’s Forge but Galiana’s and Kachien’s also. In Ancel’s hand, the sword vibrated, power surging through it. The first pinpricks now connected to too many tiny pockets of power for him to count. There were thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them.
The shadowy man’s other hand rose, and a long, silvery, horizontal slash appeared in the air. It snapped open in the shape of an eye. Beyond the opening, a night-black hall with red carpets and several torches burning with strange, black flames led to a throne.
The man snatched Ancel’s mother by the arm, stepped into the portal, and dragged her in behind him. The slash snapped close.
Ancel’s charm, the link that told him of his mother’s presence, cooled against his neck. Ancel screamed. In a desperate act, he snatched at the pinpricks of power. At all of them.
“Nooooo!” Galiana croaked.
Mater flooded Ancel in a burning white torrent. It flashed through the sword, struck a wall of the winery, and disintegrated the structure. Beyond was a tall spire of silversteel. The bar of Mater struck the spire and shot into the air in a thousand directions.
Ancel felt it then.
One by one, in every town or city, the power touched a temple. Religion made no difference, whether Streamean, Formist, or Flowic. It touched them all before ricocheting into the night sky, lighting the heavens like the noonday sun, connecting to other points in a wide band.
Ancel pictured the portal he’d seen the man use. He needed to follow. He had to follow. There was no choice if he was to save his mother. His need overpowered all else.
Charra roared. A bloodcurdling sound that drowned out everything.
Another slash appeared in the air, two times the size of the prior one. Like the other before it, the slash opened up into the shape of an eye. Inky darkness lay beyond the opening. Trembling with elation, his mouth a slit of a smile, Ancel took a step forward.
A black tentacle reached out from the portal. Then another. Dark mist billowed forth. It stretched up until it towered thirty feet into the air. Slowly, the blackness congealed like thick syrup poured into a mold and began to form a torso. From the back stretched gigantic, oval plates honed to a fine edge, each glinting with blackness. Armor of the same texture appeared to cover the chest. The tentacles split into four along the ribs, shortening and solidifying into arms with skin so shiny it glowed where it stretched over bone at the joints. Claws tipped each four digit hand. Slits opened where a head should be to reveal eight milky white eyes, and as Ancel watched, the face formed, jaw stretching out into a eel-like countenance but with fangs that never belonged to any eel Ancel knew. A horn stood out on the forehead, and two others stretched back where there should have been ears. Worm-like beings swarmed around the creature, floating in the air, each about five feet long, their facial
features matching their giant counterpart.
Voices whispered through Ancel’s head as he gaped.
“Your power, your need has summoned me, boy,” a guttural voice said from deep within the creature. “You have ascended as the seals have weakened. You have been found worthy of our gift.”
The voices in Ancel’s head whispered again. They told him what it was he faced.
Netherling.
From the corner of his eyes, on his knees, Ryne saw and felt a sword go through a chest. No. Not his chest. Sakari’s.
Eyes wide, Sakari looked down at Irmina’s weapon protruding from his chest and folded over. An aura appeared around Sakari then. Black as the pits of the Nether itself, shade circled Sakari in waves as he fell. Skin peeled from his human body to reveal black tentacles where there should be limbs.
An enormous torrent of power, of essences in hundreds of thousands of strands, shot through the air into Ryne’s body. The elements were as primordial and powerful as those in an Entosis.
Ryne stood; his link with Sakari broken. From somewhere else thousands of miles north and west, he felt another link to another person. The fog that once hid his memories burned away.
He knew who he was now. All of his other personas. Not just Nerian the Shadowbearer, Ryne Waldron, or Exalted Thanairen but the hundreds of others. All from legends and myths several thousand years old. He saw all his lives unravel before him.
From the pillars around the room, Bertram’s Royal Guards appeared. So did several hundred Alzari. The shadelings prepared to pounce, while the daemons, Bertram, and the Alzari all drew on Mater.
A thousand Forges bloomed around the room, all directed at Ryne.
In Ryne’s mind, a man appeared. At least a foot taller than Ryne, he had blonde hair done in a long braid with gold wire worked into it. Scripts covered his body and armor. His face reminded Ryne of himself.
“Brother,” the man said. “I see you lost your way again.”
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