Reaping the Aurora

by Joshua Palmatier

  Ley erupted from the ground in front of Marcus, surging forward from his position straight toward the gates. The men in front cried out in alarm, began to fling themselves out of the way, but the ley widened as it shot forward, growing taller, until it reached higher than the wall itself. It struck without a sound, engulfing the entire tower, the guards in front, and those above.

  “Marcus!” Kara gasped in horror.

  “Run!” he bellowed.

  Allan caught hold of Morrell and the nearest watchman’s arm and dragged them forward, the others jerking into motion, Janote rushing past, pushing the Matriarch in her wheeled chair. The Wolves streaked out ahead. They shied away from Marcus to either side, chasing after the billowing flames of ley, which receded before them. Allan and Lienta made certain everyone had sped past him, then came up behind, Allan tapping Marcus on the shoulder. The Wielder let his arms fall, the ley dying down. The ground before the gaping hole where the gate had stood was littered with swords and buckles, rings and pins. The wooden gates had been annihilated; only the metal braces and hinges remained, jutting out from the walls as if they still supported massive doors. No one fired at them from above as they funneled through the short stone archway and onto the arid plains beyond. No one dropped oil down through the murder holes or lowered the portcullis. There was no one left alive in the tower above.

  Shouts rose from the walls farther down, Allan glancing back to see men waving and pointing in their direction. “Head straight out onto the plains. Get over the ridge before they organize a group to follow us. We’ll circle back to the Temerite enclave on the other side of the chasm overnight.”

  Lienta seconded the orders, then fell back to trot alongside Allan. “My men will have taken full control of the entire section on the far side of the chasm, including the outer wall and gates before nightfall. We’d already secured most of that area as a precaution.”

  Before them, Hernande appeared on the verge of collapse, Kara not much better. Morrell and Cutter helped Marc trudge forward up the strange circular ridge that surrounded the Needle, Drayden close by Morrell’s side. Grant’s Wolves had ranged out farther ahead, already beyond the ridge, while Lienta’s watchmen had formed up around the group in a loose protective circle. The other Wielders—Artras, Okata, and Marcus—had clumped together near the Matriarch and Janote.

  When he reached the ridge, Allan stared off into the east, his shadow stretching out before him. The sky on the horizon seemed empty, as if there were a hole where the distortion over Tumbor had been. It pulled at him, as if it had its own gravity. He knew what the land where Tumbor had stood would look like; he’d seen it in the ring of devastation surrounding Erenthrall, where the distortion there had begun to collapse before Kara had healed it.

  Shouts echoed up from behind him, and Lienta, who’d halted with him, clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  “Time to disappear,” the Temerite said.

  “For now.”

  They slipped down off the ridge and rejoined the others as the sun began to sink into the western horizon.

  “What have you done?”

  Darius turned from the window in the orrery at the question as his enforcers led Father Dalton into the room. The man’s milky eyes bored into him and he lowered his head, gesturing toward the window. “I’ve secured the temple and the Needle for you, Father. My men have captured the Wielders that remained at the Nexus, as well as the mages and the traitor Commander Ty, along with some of the Hollowers that supported him. Kara Tremain eluded us, with Marcus’ help, along with the mentor Hernande, Allan Garrett, and a few others, including the Matriarch and the Wolves.”

  “The Matriarch? She’s here?”

  He’d forgotten that Dalton had been isolated during recent events. “Yes, Allan Garrett brought her back from Erenthrall. Devin and those from Haven have taken over the ruined city, or so they claim.”

  Dalton shifted forward, heading unerringly to Darius’ side. “And what of the Gorrani?”

  “We haven’t heard or seen the Gorrani for weeks now.”

  Dalton glared down at the stellae garden and the Needle. “They’re coming. We’ll have to deal with them ourselves now. Where are Iscivius and Irmona?”

  Darius sucked in a bitter breath. “Iscivius is in his rooms, unconscious. Irmona and Dierdre”—his breath caught in his throat, but he forced the words out—“they were both killed by Marcus.”

  Dalton faced him. “We’ll deal with Marcus, in time. We’ll need someone to control the Nexus, someone we trust.”

  “None of the Wielders we captured can be trusted completely. They’re either loyal to Kara, or aren’t powerful enough to manipulate the Nexus beyond mere stabilization.”

  “You said Iscivius is unconscious?”

  “He’s been in a coma for weeks now.”

  “Take me to him.”

  They made their way to Iscivius’ room, through halls littered with bodies, most of them servants or enforcers loyal to Ty. Father Dalton stepped over them all, as if his eyes weren’t occluded. The bodies of the guards Ty had set on Iscivius’ door still lay in their own pools of blood, but Dalton’s attention fixed on Iscivius immediately.

  Darius stood aside as Father walked to Iscivius’ bed. He stared down at Iscivius’ prone form, then reached down and touched Iscivius’ forehead.

  Iscivius gasped, back arched, and then collapsed back onto the bed. His eyes fluttered open, then focused on Dalton. “Father?”

  Dalton held out his hand, Iscivius reaching up to grasp it, as if it were a lifeline. “Get up. We have work to do.”

  PART II:

  Erenthrall

  Fourteen

  BRYCE’S LEG THROBBED like an unholy forge being beaten by the hammer of a god.

  He’d been in the barracks when the Kormanley attacked. At least a third of the men there “resting up” with him for the next watch on the wall had turned on the rest. The fight had been short but fierce, Bryce taking out at least twenty men and women, three of them barehanded before he’d managed to snag a sword. He’d have gotten at least a few more if an explosion hadn’t ripped through the barracks wall and thrown him across the room. When his vision had stopped blurring, he’d found himself choking on smoke, with a foot-long wooden shard jutting out of his thigh. Before he could recover, Trenton had emerged from the black smoke and the Kormanley had surrounded him.

  “You should have stayed in the Hollow,” the erstwhile enforcer said.

  “You should have stayed in hiding.”

  “Take him with the others to the temple.”

  Bryce had reached for the nearest Kormanley, intending to snap his neck, but one of the others jerked the wooden shard out of his leg and he’d screamed and passed out.

  They’d done a piss-poor job in patching it up, nothing but an old shirt wrapped around it and tied tight. Blood had already seeped through and trailed down one side, and it had begun to itch. Swollen and hot, he couldn’t stand, could barely move without his sight going blurry. He massaged the muscles above the wound and wondered where everyone else was. Captured? Dead? There were twelve others in the makeshift cell with him, sitting against the walls or lying flat on the bare stone, but he barely knew them.

  The door to the room groaned open and enforcers entered, swords drawn, but no one stood to oppose them. Most were wounded, although none as badly as Bryce, but he still suppressed a surge of contempt.

  When the guards lowered their swords and stepped to either side of the door, more prisoners were shoved inside. Enforcers at first, but then Cory, Jerrain, Sovaan, the mage students, and finally—

  “Ty!”

  Bryce attempted to stand as the commander stepped inside—rigid with contemptuous dignity, even though he’d obviously been beaten—but the agony was too intense. He collapsed back against the stone wall with gritted teeth and a fresh sheen of rank sweat.

 
“Bryce.” Cory knelt beside him, Jerrain and a few of the students joining them. Cory began inspecting his leg. “What happened?”

  “The damn Kormanley attacked the barracks. I got caught in one of the explosions.”

  At the doorway, Sovaan had halted a few steps behind Ty. “I demand to speak to whoever’s in charge!”

  Trenton stepped into the room. “Darius and Father are a little busy right now, calming the fearful citizens and subduing the rest.” His attention shifted to Ty. “I’m certain one of them will deal with you shortly. I wouldn’t get too comfortable.”

  Ty didn’t respond, and Trenton and the enforcers filed out, drawing the door closed behind them. It shut with a clang.

  Cory prodded Bryce’s leg, and he yelped, slapping the mage’s hand away. “What in hells do you think you’re doing?”

  Cory sat back. “It doesn’t look good. You need to have a healer look at it, or Morrell.”

  “I don’t see any healers here, and I suspect Darius isn’t all that inclined to provide one. There’d be no point.”

  “What do you mean?” Jerrain asked.

  “He means,” Ty said, coming closer, “that it’s unlikely we’ll survive the next few days.”

  The mages all shared a look, while the rest of the enforcers around the room drew closer, pulled by Ty’s presence.

  “You mean they’ll kill us?” Sovaan asked. “But why?”

  “Because as long as we’re alive, we’re a threat.” Ty scanned everyone. “At least some of us. I’m not certain about all of you.”

  “Why haven’t they slaughtered us already?” Jerrain asked. “Why keep us prisoner? They could have cut us down in the orrery, or even here.”

  Bryce shifted his weight, regretting the movement of his leg almost immediately. “Because they want witnesses. They want an execution. They’ll kill those of us recognizable—Ty, myself, perhaps some of you mages—publicly, to make certain the citizens know who’s in power. It’s what Baron Arent would have done.”

  “Yes, but it may be more than that.”

  “Why?”

  Ty waved a hand around the room. “Look who’s here . . . and who’s not.”

  Everyone glanced around. “The Wielders,” Jerrain said. “Kara, Artras, Okata. They’re missing.”

  “Allan and Morrell, Hernande and Cutter as well,” Bryce added.

  “Which means that either they’re being kept in a separate room, or they somehow managed to escape. I don’t think Darius could have prepared many rooms like this one, not without someone noticing. If they don’t have the Wielders or the others, then they’ll want to know where they went. They’re going to want information, especially from me.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because when the Kormanley first started showing themselves—with their staged riots and that snake-dog symbol—I started kidnapping some of their members. We still have them, unless they’ve managed to find the location where we’ve been interrogating them.”

  “Kara would never have condoned kidnapping,” Cory said.

  “No, she wouldn’t have.”

  “She didn’t know about it?”

  “Marcus didn’t think—”

  “Marcus! He doesn’t think, that’s the problem! He—”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Bryce interjected. “If they’ve been captured and are simply being held somewhere else, then we’re on our own. If they’re free, then they’ll likely try to free us if they can. In either case, I don’t feel like waiting here for Darius to decide to kill us. We need to find a way out of this room, and then the temple.”

  “We don’t have any weapons,” one of the enforcers said.

  Bryce pointed to the mages. “We have them.”

  “Lieutenant Boskell, close the gates and seal the enclave. We’re taking over this section of the Needle.”

  “Yes, Captain Lienta.” Boskell began shouting orders, watchmen already racing away toward the gate tower and deeper into the sector the Temerites had taken over as their own upon their arrival. As soon as he was satisfied his men were following orders, the lieutenant faced Lienta again. “What shall we do with them?”

  He jutted his chin out toward Kara, Marcus, Allan, and the others behind Lienta, all of them hanging back beneath the cracked arch of the gateway, Lienta’s men circling them, although they kept their distance from Grant and the Wolves.

  The Matriarch wheeled her way forward with Janote. “There’s been a coup at the Needle. We will hide them here for now. Pretend you never saw them.”

  Boskell bowed stiffly, a flash of relief crossing his face as the Matriarch motioned Lienta forward. Two months ago, he would have scowled. Allan and the others had grown on him.

  “Take them to the embassy. Make certain they’re seen to.”

  Allan stepped up. “We’ll need to speak about what’s happened. Soon.”

  “I know. But first we need to rest, and Lienta’s watchmen need to find out what’s happened at the Needle. We can’t make plans until we have information. Now go, follow Captain Lienta. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  Kara drew breath as if to protest, but Marcus caught her arm and whispered something in her ear. She subsided.

  “This way,” Lienta said, and the entire group passed through the gates into the section of the Needle that had been cut off by the chasm. Behind them, the portcullis lowered with a screech, its metal bent by the quakes months before and repaired by the Temerites. The gates groaned closed and metal braces were set across them.

  At intervals, through the darkness and the shadows cast by the buildings, snatches of fighting could still be heard from the main part of the Needle. Ley globes still lined the walls and temple, the buildings outside mostly lit with candlelight, but the white light that had veined the black spire of the Needle itself had died down. The ground shook and trembled at odd moments, unsteady, but overhead the hard glitter of the stars remained constant. The moon hung heavy and half-full on the horizon, for once not shadowed by the glow of a distortion.

  When they reached the mercantile that the Matriarch had transformed into their embassy, Lienta ushered Kara, Allan, and the rest into the inner rooms, Janote taking the Matriarch herself aside with an escort.

  “Will she be all right?” Kara asked. Lienta hadn’t heard her approach.

  “She’ll be fine. Janote will take care of her.”

  “If there’s anything we can do—”

  “I’ll let her know.” He halted at the end of the hallway, where it branched left and right, doorways opening off on either side. “Use these rooms for now. They’re secluded from the rest of the embassy. Stay here. The Matriarch doesn’t want the general populace to know you’re here, at least not for now.”

  “What does she intend to do about Father Dalton and Darius?”

  “I don’t know, but as she said at the temple, we’ll shelter you here until we figure out what to do. The Kormanley won’t get in. We’ve made certain we can hold this sector if necessary.”

  Marcus laid a hand on Kara’s shoulder. “There’s nothing we can do right now anyway.”

  “We could check on the stability of the Nexus and the ley—”

  “Kara! Let’s get some sleep first. We’re all exhausted.”

  They were, Lienta realized. Hernande looked ready to collapse at any moment, supported by Cutter and Morrell. Marcus’ eyes were hollows, and the enforcer Marc—someone Lienta barely knew—looked drained. Only Allan appeared ready and willing to face the Kormanley, but like Lienta and the rest of the guards, he’d done almost nothing in their escape.

  Marcus guided Kara to one of the rooms with Artras, the rest dividing up into pairs, Allan and Morrell together, Cutter taking Hernande’s weight. Drayden crouched down outside Morrell’s door. Marc joined the Wielders.

  Lienta turned to find Grant standing
immediately behind him.

  “We’ll need . . . other accommodations.” Behind him, one of the Wolves growled, a low ominous sound.

  “Right.”

  Darius found Father on the second tier, staring northward with his clouded eyes. The moonlight made the stone of the temple glow a lambent white, the Needle above nearly invisible except where it occluded the stars. A breeze cooled the sweat on Darius’ neck, making him feel the grit that had caught between his skin and armor. He strode directly to Father’s side.

  “We’ve secured the city.”

  “And the walls? They weren’t too severely damaged by the explosives?”

  “Nothing we can’t repair easily. However, the southeastern gates are completely destroyed.”

  Father’s lips pursed. “That presents a problem.”

  “Do we have time to repair it?”

  “I don’t think so.” Father’s gaze—which Darius realized had been fixated on the Three Sisters glittering far to the north—shifted toward the east. “Look at Erenthrall.”

  Darius stepped forward and squinted, but he didn’t need to search long. The horizon in the direction of their old home glowed a fervent piercing white. “What is it?”

  “It’s the Nexus.” The ground trembled beneath them, a low rumble. Father didn’t even pause. “It’s cracked. What you see is the ambient light of the ley being vomited up out of the earth. Or perhaps hemorrhaging is a better term. The destruction of Tumbor has finally violently wounded the ley, perhaps beyond repair. The signs of its collapse have already begun. Look to the north. The Sisters have been destabilized. They’ve begun to quicken. If you watch carefully, you can see them pulse. And there will be more signs in the coming days.”

  Darius stared at the Sisters, caught the faintest pulse of light, like a heartbeat, from all three, all at different intervals. He swallowed back bitter fear. “What does that mean for us?”