Torrodil

by Luke Geraghty

  Ravens trailed Anna and reformed into Bale’s shattered self, the dregs of his humanity flailing in the gloom. Hearts shrivelled with his tread, every soul spellbound by those drifting eyes.

  ‘I suppose the most burning question is, “Did he suffer?” Was it long and drawn out or did he crumple as I drove my fist through him? Truth is Pa was a mighty wriggler. Offered everything for me to spare his life. Wife, sons, daughter that left without even saying goodbye. When the begging became distracting I was forced to—’

  A spray of fire from Anna’s hands surged over Bale’s snake-tongue and into his throat. ‘You shut your mouth,’ she said, rising with the wild spirits teeming inside her. ‘He was a good man and you killed him? Poisoned me with those lies?’

  ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little dead these days. Morality is not my biggest concern.’

  Howling with grief, Anna poured a torrent of black lightning out of her hands, veins throbbing, body trying to stop her hate from bursting out of her skin. The hundreds of men and women inside the keep’s walls watched on, cowed by the terrible spectacle. The torrent was not tearing Bale apart – it was strengthening him. The Black Aether looped around his hollow frame in a ring of elemental spite, vines crept out from under his feet, thorns poked through his torched flesh. All the while Anna pouring in the evil, hearing, ‘Love, love, you the girl not even a father could love.’

  Two arrows flew through the air into Bale’s side, breaking the link. Andres gave the creature a wave, then fled across the battlements with Tommy. Before Bale had time to react, vials misted his sight and daggers cut across his exposed neck, the lifeblood of the Aether seeping out. In a coordinated attack, Lysander landed his staff across Bale’s back and Mateo and Cesar drove their swords through his abdomen. Relief from the watching crowd as the man slumped. Quiet as he rose again, shimmying out of the blades.

  ‘Not good,’ said Mateo to his comrade, their eyes widening. Vines whipped the boys into the air and wrapped them in a stringy cocoon. Trickster and monk ran to the two Venecians, trying to free them. Kara reasoned that Lysander must have a plan. He was all-thinking, all-knowing, all white and stuff.

  Lysander furrowed his brow. ‘Stuff?’

  ‘A man with a chiselled-out face just pulled two swords out of his body and then walked away,’ said Kara fretfully. ‘This is not a time for eloquence!’

  Vines burst out of the ground and coiled round Lysander’s feet. The Trickster fled, dodged fragments of a broken wooden barricade she thought utterly inconvenient, tripped over a crouched high caste furbag and was dragged back, muttering to herself upside down.

  Bale paced towards a weakened Anna. He knew the girl was too blinded by hate to see the others. When she heard they were gone, spirits crawling beneath his skin just like ol’ Pa, she bit the air as if it could bleed, unleashing another torrent of black lightning to fuel his transformation. Bale’s head fell back in ecstasy. This was the making of him. Though he had been confused, the voices in the darkness had guided him when he didn’t have eyes to see, the knowledge of the daevan rituals passing into him. At Leitrim he had surrendered himself, starting the final manipulation. Now he was joining with the Black Aether at Danduin, reborn in its image.

  After the last spark passed into him, Anna fell to her knees and retched. Her sight was clear when she looked up, finding some of her friends bound, two others running on the battlements, searching for a quick way down. The new Bale gave Andres a fond wave before wind pulled the boy into his hand. Cheeks rosy to start, colour dimming as the nails dug in. ‘Hush,’ was the word when Andres rustled.

  A bullet bit into Bale’s skin and Andres dropped to the floor.

  ‘I don’t bloody think so,’ spat a Carric with a musket, capturing the attention of the hundreds of cowed men. ‘I've got a son his age. You're not taking him while I'm still breathing.’

  A ball of fire removes the man's chest.

  The cowed soldiers gauge one another's reaction, then bullets and arrows descend from every corner of the keep, a ripple of demonic pain fanning out from Bale. Andres gets up and hides in an alcove while Tommy slides with a falling battlement and lands on the ground.

  ‘Anna!’ Into the smoke, searching for the girl. ‘Where are you?’

  Soldiers pause, nothing left to fire. There is a glimmer of hope. Everything is new as the haze of the past day floats away and they don't know who they should fight next.

  The smoke clears. Eyes run over the ground and the debris and get to the black pool gathered at Bale's feet. Dents are pushed out with arrows and bullets, darkness crawling back inside. Letting wagging tongues soak up the anticipation, he traces round standing bodies. One, two, ten, fifty. His vision makes them appear gaunt and unnecessary, and he conducts a strand of sky-energy through big and small, mean and sunny, with no particular feeling.

  Tommy is allowed to see his friend lift dirt into Bale’s face. Made to watch as she takes a bolt and crumples against a wall, burnt and bleeding. Bale turns from the remaining soldiers, tracking Anna as she crawls through the mud.

  ‘It is done, I can feel it.’

  Anna tried to stand, pushing against her own weight, but could not.

  ‘There’s no reason for you to suffer further.’

  Tommy reached Anna's side. His shaking hands were on her chest, not knowing what to do. It was everywhere and it wouldn't stop no matter how much he tried. ‘Out of all the things you’ve done,’ he said, ‘this is by far the stupidest.’

  She gave him a lop-sided smirk. ‘You’ve got a terrible memory.’

  ‘Did you know all this was going to happen? That he was alive all this time?’ Her silence confirmed it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I deserved to know and now you’re like this and I can’t be angry at you and that’s not fair. You’re an awful stupid girl. Now get up. We’re going to fight this.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘I’m not going nowhere.’

  ‘I had my shot, you understand? Made a damn mess of it. I want something better for you.’ Anna wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘I’m not scared of moving on if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t know what’s waiting for me but if I get to be with Pa that’ll be just fine. Tell you what: I’ll find us a hill, yeah? Some place real green. And I’ll wait there every day for you.’

  Tommy closed his eyes to wish it away and when he came back the girl’s eyes were dimming, face softened into peace. He rocked gently to and fro, stroking the brown hair that he should’ve said he liked because that had been the truth but that wasn’t the type of friendship they had, was it? And it didn’t matter anyway because past all the fronts and the crap they threw at each other she knew. She must have ‘cause if he knew she cared then she knew he did. That’s how it works. You don’t have to say anything.

  A shadow fell over them. Something beyond the darkness beat for a moment and Bale saw his daughter lying on the ground.

  ‘Up.’

  Tommy clenched Anna’s hand tightly, praying for her to live. Blink, breathe, use anything you got leftover to shout at me, call me names. I’m here, okay? I’m not going nowhere.

  ‘Have a little dignity in your final moments.’

  The Leitrim boy let her go, rising with no tics and no weapons. ‘Was it worth it?’

  ‘I cannot spare you.’

  Louder now, ‘Was it worth it? Did you get what you wanted?’

  ‘She took my life. What I did to her is no different.’

  Tommy rounded on him, oblivious to the trickle of melted snow crawling along the floor. ‘You took her life out of choice. You took all these people’s lives because you could and worse still you enjoyed it. I remember you from Leitrim. I thought you were a good man who took care of his family. Then you hunted down Anna ‘cause you thought she was different? She was just a girl but you…you’re not even human anymore.’

  Bale pushed the boy and his words away, mind flaring with his former life, Black Aether extending for a memory of the daughter’s
birthday. That life was over. It had given him everything he had wanted and there was more to do. Tightening its stranglehold, the darkness summoned a ball of flame into his hand and set Bale’s eyes on the boy in front. The ball spat as it spun. The few soldiers spared from the creature’s wrath knew terror well but they did not feel it then, for when they breathed their bodies were made warm and their aches thin. A stream of white froth worked its way around their feet, strengthened by the light pulled out of each body. And the ball spun, and Tommy wanted it to stop, and Bale saw the seal of water douse its tail and the steam rise, and then they were standing, fireball extinguished.

  White broke from the stream in shoots of light, Bale disintegrating into ravens to escape its touch. Tommy’s eyes hurt to look but he had to. And when he did, it was like water pathing round the strongest rocks: the strength of the old to brave fresh indignity; the resolve to fight though, day by day, the palette of the world contracts.

  The light embraced Anna and healed her wounds, lifting her to her feet. In a state halfway between sleep and rapture, she sent out an aura that surely belonged to the halcyon dwellers of the Summerland, thawing out the cold and blinding those that still fought.

  Held within her, the White Aether of the Danduin fallen guided Anna’s hands to undo the vines that bound her friends. Bale reformed and let loose a salvo of fireballs at the boy, the friends, the soldiers. Each was sheathed in water and sent away. When he set upon Anna she did not harm him. The darkness was reflected until he was overcome by fatigue.

  ‘You should not be allowed!’

  The spirits within her split off to encircle the man. Words came in the very whispers he knew best, and whispers only he could hear.

  ‘I did you no harm,’ one said. ‘What future is there for my family now?’

  Fire and lightning went to strike and were sent back, ripping away the rings of spite. Ghosts and their whispers drew closer.

  ‘To die in war is one thing, but to die like I did – there is no honour in that.’

  ‘Get away from me!’

  The seven stood together, watching on. It was not a sight to be enjoyed. Hands gripped onto Bale, bringing the White Aether into his body, hardening the sightless eyes and filling the void with a weight he could not carry. One by one the spirits folded in. The will of hate caved quickly yet he was forced to stand and listen. He tried to block out their voices, covering his ears, and found they were coming from within. He wanted to flinch, scream, beg and found he could not act, all that he had once been coming back to him. With the reunion of the spirit halves complete, Bale fell into doves, taken with the fallen out into the midnight sky.

  Twenty Seven – A New Day

  Dawn broke over Danduin, pink and reluctant to recede. Dragonflies mingled their way across the ruins, discovering pockets and gaps, cleaning themselves on arrows embedded in soil. Often they lingered on the sleepers, falling when they fell, rising when they rose.

  With their leaders missing, feared dead, soldiers had no orders to follow. It did not seem fair that while they witnessed a fresh dawn, others stared blankly with dry eyes. Some tried to loot and succeeded. Others were taken home by their enemy while their friends screamed or wept. Yet for most sound was absent. They were thankful for the light of day and were going to sit and watch that sunrise and not move for anything.

  Tommy Bunton’s first thoughts were admittedly concerned with food. But after a brief spell munching on apples, and foraging from a raspberry bush, and staining his clothes with said raspberries, Tommy remembered that he didn’t normally go to sleep on a bed of thistles. Perplexed, he sat down on a tree stump and licked juice off his fingers. What had led up to this point? Well, let’s see… He’d been looking around for survivors, and then he was told to go into the forest, and then he was sleepy. What a mystery. That annoying girl could help. Name escapes him. Habits? Public belcher, private nose picker. Fights dirtier than a drunken barmaid. Has a body like a gingerbread man dipped in cottage cheese… ‘It’s that witch Anna Gray!’

  Boy started to run through the forest, slowing to a bouncy walk when the belly full of fruit groaned in protest. Lysander and his staff were spotted poking up on a small mound clear of the battlefield, but before Tommy got there he found Anna gathering broken stones and lavender. After he understood what she was doing, he crept behind a tree to give her the privacy she deserved.

  Anna collected her hair to one side and knelt to face the memorial. The flowers were too neat. She arranged the flowers, stopped arranging them, threw some away. The stones were tarnished, but they were all she could find.

  She stared, expectant of further pain. She had arrived at this moment without the right words and wished she could take her father’s place, though the way her wishes had gone lately she didn’t think that was a good idea.

  ‘You snap any more twigs, Tommy,’ said Anna, ‘even the dead will hear.’

  The boy came out from hiding. When he sought her eye she lent them both, red and puffy.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said before he had the chance to ask, and it almost sounded true. ‘How about last night, huh? Healing soul juice: what a perk.’

  ‘Anna…’

  ‘Please. You mean well – I get that – but don’t tell me how I’m supposed to behave. Do me a favour: stop thinking about me and start thinking about yourself. If anything were to happen—’

  ‘I know.’

  A flattening feeling passed. She swallowed the passion, thinking it typical that he would deprive her of a good argument when she needed it the most. The memorial was discussed, Tommy declaring it ‘touching’. The word sounded so bizarre coming out of his mouth he may as well have said it drinking from a tea cup with his pinkie finger extended. She was weighing up the pros and cons of burying herself under the stones when she realised a hand was clenching her own. She had not registered it, yet there it was, clammy against her skin.

  Afterwards they walked to the mound at a reflective pace, the fuzziness of Tommy’s sleep dismissed. The others were relieved to find them in one piece. Andres explained they’d helped those they could find escape the rubble, unearthing a pile of weapons and armour to boot. One of the pieces had been the Queen’s breastplate. Carrics had searched everywhere for her body and found nothing.

  Presently a rabble of survivors passed by, a man with teeth no mouth could hope to contain explaining last night’s events to soldiers who had not been inside the walls to see them.

  ‘Like I said: this thing with half a face was turned into doves by the spirits of the dead. What part of that is hard to grasp?’

  The rabble considered Anna’s cool-to-the-point-of-being frozen face and suddenly found the explanation perfectly reasonable.

  She waited for them to go by. The seven had not spoken about what had happened. Save Lysander, the others did not know what had led up to last night’s events and even he did not understand how Bale had manipulated Anna. Her first instinct was to brush them off, lie through her teeth. She did not want fifty questions and in her tired state any answers she could give would turn out garbled. She had to go on. Do this. Because if she stopped, sat down, thought about how her father was gone and how she would have to return one day, unpack the emotions, then she would not get up.

  ‘I’m not going to pretend that last night wasn’t horrible,’ she said, wanting them to know how hard it was to speak. ‘I realise you have questions and I’ll tell you what I know, given the chance. I also get that you might not want anything to do with me; that you might be afraid of what I’ll do next. If you want to leave then I’m not stopping you. But I can’t sit around and do nothing. Not after last night.’

  She waited for a response. To her surprise, the others didn’t say a thing, merely nodding in a really aggravating way. So Anna marched into the forest and the six followed, navigating around roots and fallen logs while trying to listen to what she had to say. Vowing to get rid of that unbodied feeling. To be entirely herself.

  Tommy walked behind the ot
hers, his friend’s words drifting in one ear and out the other. The red and brown fell against the backdrop of the dawn and he leant against a tree trunk, waiting for his breathing to settle. He didn’t understand why, in that moment of wishing, the white had poured out to heal her. All that mattered to him was that she was okay.

  The seven walked and the leaves danced behind them.

  Table of Contents

  One – The Pursuit of Happiness

  Two – Enter the Daeva

  Three – A Faint Crackle

  Four – The Reckoning

  Five – In Kelgard We Trust

  Six – That Old, Good Chase

  Seven – The Trickster

  Eight – So It Begins

  Nine – All Art Is Useless

  Ten – Chill

  Eleven – A Nine Year War

  Twelve – Twists and Turns

  Thirteen – What the Future Will Bring

  Fourteen – On the Fifth Day

  Fifteen – Blissful Interludes in Dangerous Waters

  Sixteen – To Touch the Divine

  Seventeen – The Sharing of Burdens

  Eighteen – An Awful Rumbling

  Nineteen – To War

  Twenty – The Gauntlet

  Twenty One – Life and Death

  Twenty Two – A Meeting of Minds

  Twenty Three – Unrequited Gifts

  Twenty Four – Where the Heart Is

  Twenty Five – The Siege of Danduin Keep

  Twenty Six – Release

  Twenty Seven – A New Day