The Wounded Shadow

by Patrick W. Carr

  “And neither of them good,” Bolt added.

  “Rymark’s forces are so depleted he should have retreated,” I said. “He’s waited for us.”

  “Oh,” Rory said in a small voice.

  “How are we going to get into the city?” Erendella asked.

  Bolt sighed and then turned to look at me. “You’re really not going to like this.”

  I swallowed against a knot of panic in my throat. “I bet it has something to do with swimming.”

  “Why is that a problem?” Mirren asked.

  “He doesn’t swim so well,” Rory said.

  She frowned. “Doesn’t Bunard straddle the banks of a big river?”

  Rory nodded. “Oh yes. There’s water everywhere.”

  She shook her head. “How can someone—”

  “Stop,” I said. “Just stop. We can’t swim into the city anyway. They’ll spot us from the banks and fill us with arrows.” I looked at Bolt, expecting agreement. He disappointed me.

  “I said you weren’t going to like it,” he said. “They’re not going to see us.”

  I pointed to everyone in our group and then myself. Holding up seven fingers, I said, “They can’t help but see us.”

  “Not if we go in at night.”

  We traveled north until we were miles from the main siege and the heavy patrols of those who belonged to Cesla in both daylight and darkness. A few hours before sunset we found a burned-out farmstead and set our horses loose in the pasture. The ruins of the house and the barn we avoided entirely. I tried to keep from imagining unseen eyes watching us from their shadows as we made our way to an isolated copse of trees by the river.

  Bolt nodded in satisfaction. “We’ll wait here until dark.”

  Gael’s hand clamped on my arm, and I followed her point to the leafy canopy. The trees and river spun as I tried to draw breath. “Aer help us,” I breathed, searching for some prayer in the liturgy for the hopeless. “Bolt.”

  Everyone turned to look first at me, then at the black-spotted leaves overhead. “It’s here,” I said. “The Darkwater is here.”

  “Stop staring and move,” Bolt ordered.

  “What do we do?” Erendella asked.

  My guard looked at her, his face devoid of expression. “The basics,” Bolt said. “We don’t let the sun set on us while we’re in the Darkwater.” He turned and led us south along the bank of the river, but I could feel the evil of the forest creeping up on us from behind every time we stopped.

  After a few hundred yards we came to another stand of trees whose leaves were whole. The rest of us hid on the banks of the river while Rory and Gael went hunting, leaving Bolt to defend the four of us—still badly injured, but his gifted body was performing a miraculous recovery.

  I watched the leaves, each shift in the breeze conjuring images of black, but they were still green when Rory and Gael returned a couple of hours later wearing the uniforms of Caisel soldiers. They carried five more sets, along with several lengths of river reed.

  We marched along the river, pretending to be one of the patrols until the sun touched the horizon to the west.

  Bolt brought us to a stop. “We have to get into the water. In less than half an hour these fields are going to be crawling with Cesla’s troops.” He handed me a length of hollowed reed. “Gael will stay with you. Rory and I will safeguard the queens and Mirren.”

  “We’re too far away,” I said. “I’m going to drown.”

  Gael put her arm around my waist. “I will make sure you don’t. Just remember to stay below the water and breathe normally. You don’t have to swim. You just have to float.”

  There was no point in arguing. No one there understood that slipping beneath the dark surface of the water was too much like stepping into the darkness of the forest. I took my first step into the river, surprised at its warmth. I put the reed to my mouth and the water, murky with rain, slipped over me, blotting out the light. We stayed there for an hour until the sky turned black. Then Gael’s hand grabbed my belt and we drifted with the current, my feet slipping from the bottom, taking any sensation of motion away. I tried to focus on keeping everything still, as if I were a living piece of driftwood. Time stopped.

  Questions came at me in the dark, accusing. Would I be able to call the Fayit? I shoved the thought away.

  But even if I was able, would they consent to help? I didn’t know. Did they have to answer the summoning and give aid or did the calling only give them the opportunity? If the Fayit were anything like their human descendants, they might very well refuse. Worse, I might find myself summoning beings who’d long ago gone insane from their self-enforced isolation.

  I pushed that doubt away, but others took its place. Drifting like a piece of human detritus in the river, I had no distractions I could use to hide from them. Lulled by the water, random memories passed through my mind.

  Even in the depths, I could tell when the current took us beneath the city wall. The water chilled, lacking the memory of the sun that would have warmed it. Then I struck iron. Gael lifted me above the surface, and I found myself in a shallow air space created by the arc of the stone wall over the water. Black iron pitted by age and elements blocked our way into the city. A moment later the rest of our party surfaced, gasping and shaking the water from their eyes.

  “We’ve hit the water gate,” Gael said.

  Bolt’s eyes narrowed. “I was hoping they wouldn’t have one, but it’s probably just as well. The city would be impossible to defend without it. I’m going to see if there’s a way through.” He took a few deep breaths and dove.

  Bereft of light, I shivered. Time passed while my doubts returned to assail me. “It’s taking him too long,” I said. “How long can you hold your breath?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never tried it, but I’ve seen even ungifted swimmers stay under for three minutes or more.”

  I looked at the water. Despite my enforced familiarity, I still couldn’t see it as anything other than an enemy.

  Bolt surfaced, cutting my reflection short. “There’s no way through. We’re going to have to make a gap.”

  I looked at iron bars as thick as my wrist. “Even you can’t bend that.”

  Bolt nodded. “Not alone, but there are three gifted here and two more with partials. We just have to bend it enough to wiggle through.”

  Mirren and I moved to one side while Bolt gave instructions, positioning each person and telling them where to brace their hands and feet. By the time he was done, Erendella and Herregina faced each other like human spiders suspended sideways, clinging to the bars. Bolt, Rory, and Gael each took three deep breaths and dove to grab the bars beneath the queens.

  I didn’t see or hear any signal, but I saw Erendella and Herregina strain until veins corded in their necks. Still they pulled, working against the iron until their skin turned red. Then Bolt, Gael, and Rory surfaced, gulping air with shaky breaths.

  “It moved,” Bolt said, “but not enough.” He looked at me and Mirren. “We’re going to need your help. Can you take the surface positions?”

  I nodded, feeling like a boy lending his strength to the blacksmith, but I grasped the bar, determined to pull until my heart burst if I had to. Erendella and Herregina submerged beneath us. Bolt, Gael, and Rory went even deeper. One of them must have hit the bar of iron I held with their dagger. I felt it vibrate. I threw my weight against the pitiless metal, pushing with my feet against one bar while I pulled with my hands against the other until I thought my back would break.

  I didn’t stop until Bolt broke the surface, gasping for air on the far side of the gate. Hands gripped the bars as Gael and the rest broke free of the water, sucking air and trembling. One by one we slipped through, floating just beneath the surface with our reeds once more. It was only a moment before Gael’s hand tightened on my belt and I lurched, dragged toward the surface. Cool air kissed my face. I blinked away the water of the river and looked around. We were inside the city. A few paces away, five more
figures emerged from the water by torchlight, dirty, wet versions of some mythical sea creature rising from the deep.

  Sounds of fighting came from all around us, smoke heavy in the air from fires burning wherever the defenders could keep them lit. Cries went up and soldiers scrambled toward us from the street, their swords drawn.

  “Down!” Bolt ordered. The whine of arrows screamed past me as I dove for the mud.

  “Halt! Halt!” an unfamiliar voice screamed. Slowly, we rose, surrounded by bedraggled and bloody soldiers with arrows trained on our hearts.

  Erendella stepped forward, her hands above her head. “I am Erendella, queen of Caisel. King Rymark is expecting me.”

  No one moved. Treflow’s defenders were too scared and we were too tired.

  “They’re not putting their weapons down,” Rory said.

  Bolt sat on the bank of the river, favoring his injured leg. “They can hold them on us every step of the way to Rymark, for all I care—just so long as we get there.”

  Chapter 65

  They kept us on the bank of the river for an hour, until Rymark came to us, barking orders as runners brought reports from each section of the city. Memories of the last war threatened to break loose from the room in my mind where I’d locked them away. The screams of death and dying were too close, too loud. More than anything, I wanted to close my eyes and put my hands over my ears.

  “You’re early,” he said to Erendella.

  She nodded. “Errant Consto thought it best to sneak into the city before resistance could be organized against us.”

  Rymark nodded. “You’re referring to the traitor in our midst. He’s been dealt with.” He nodded toward the river. “That was quite a risk.”

  Erendella didn’t bother with accusations or criticism. “Under the circumstances, it was the best we could do.”

  The ride to Treflow and our entrance to the city had left me weak. I could have used the riverbank for a bed, but I pushed myself up to stand before half the kings and queens of the north. “We have to call the Fayit.”

  Rymark nodded, but doubt clouded his expression. A runner, his right arm hanging useless, ran up, not stopping until he came within reach of the king’s circle of guards. “We’re losing the west wall,” he said.

  Rymark barked an order that sent four dozen soldiers running into the night before turning back to us. “Whatever you wish to do, Lord Dura, will have to wait until morning. We’re holding for now.”

  “But we can call them now,” I said.

  The king’s face clouded. “Lord Dura, when dawn comes, I will be more than happy to entertain your fancy, but if I leave, more of my men will die, and I don’t like it when my men die. We’ll hold through the night.” Without waiting for a reply he barked an order and another injured soldier, this one on makeshift crutches, came forward to lead us away.

  The slow pace through the city afforded me the opportunity to see the extremity of Rymark’s defense. Rings of palisades and barriers had been set every hundred paces, lines of retreat made with whatever materials could be scavenged. More than one building had been razed to build barricades and clear lines of fire for archers.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Willet,” Bolt said. “Rymark’s gambling everything on buying you enough time to call Ealdor’s friends.”

  On our way to the center of the city, we passed a watchfire that threw the lines of his face into stark relief. “How do you know that?”

  He pointed south, but I couldn’t match his vision. “He’s left no avenue of escape, which means either he thinks he can win, or that you can.”

  “Where are we going?” Gael asked our escort.

  “The counting house,” he said. “It’s the closest thing this city has to a citadel.”

  “Any tunnels?” Bolt asked.

  He kicked a piece of rubble out of the way as he placed his crutches for another step. “No, and there’s only one entrance.”

  Bolt shook his head. “That’s not a defense—it’s a death trap.”

  Everything about the counting house fit our escort’s description, but he’d neglected to mention that Prince Maenelic’s head would be on a post out front. The prince somehow looked surprised, but his eyes were closed and I had no desire to speak with him.

  I caught Bolt’s attention. “That’s another sin we can place at Gehata’s feet.”

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  “A little compassion might have kept Maenelic from this,” I said. “For that matter, trusting me with one of the scrying stones might have as well.”

  “Water through the gate, Willet,” Bolt said.

  The doors to the moneylenders’ guild were high, but they lacked the arch at the top favored in the keeps and holds of the nobility. Heavy bands of iron gave their rectangular shape the look and feel of forbidding solidity. Rymark’s escort crutched his way past a heavy contingent of guards and rapped three times on the door, paused and struck twice more.

  “The code changes every day, in case the defenses fail,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want to fight my way free even in the daytime.”

  We entered into a grand hall, and the doors boomed shut behind us. Barrels of food and water lined the walls, and medical supplies filled the tables. “They’ll be near the holding room,” our guide said.

  We turned a corner, and I saw Toria and Fess standing near Cailin, queen regent of Collum. At her side the prince chewed on a chubby fist, his eyes wide, taking everything in. Brid Teorian stood on her other side. A tall woman I didn’t recognize—with dark eyebrows and hair so blond it was almost white—observed us from a few paces away.

  There was no sign of Pellin.

  “Welcome to Treflow, Lord Dura,” Toria Deel said.

  The blond woman turned to regard me with a lift of her dark brows. “That’s him? That’s the man who’s upended the Vigil and trapped us in this killing field?” She pursed her lips as her gaze took the leisurely route to my feet and back. “I expected someone more imposing.”

  “I think that’s his secret, Your Majesty,” Bolt said. “He looks so ordinary it never occurs to you that he could cause so much trouble.”

  The woman I assumed to be Queen Ulrezia nodded, her expression serious, as though my guard hadn’t been jesting. I looked around. Nobody smiled except Gael. I listened for the clamor of fighting, but the walls of the counting house, built to confound thieves and burglars, blocked all sound.

  I took the opportunity to introduce the newest member of the Vigil to Toria Deel and Fess. “This is Mirren, my apprentice.” Toria Deel jerked and I nodded. “One of the bishops in Cynestol had certain ambitions we needed to curtail. You can get the memories from her.” Toria Deel and Fess were removing their gloves as I turned away.

  Silence fell again, grating on me. I saw Herregina and Erendella making the acquaintance of their fellow rulers and decided to make my way to the street in front of the counting house. The sounds of battle set my nerves on edge, but the fear I might be taken unaware lessened. I stood behind the last barricade and waited for dawn with a desperation that surpassed any hunger. Bolt, Gael, and Rory flanked me.

  I stared east, willing the sun to rise. When the sky lightened from black to charcoal, the sounds of fighting stopped. “Thank Aer,” I breathed. I don’t know if I’d ever meant it more. Another hour passed before Rymark and Ellias approached the counting house, leaning toward each other with their heads bowed, the way men do when they’re in conference.

  Both kings were free of injury, but they wore the look of men who might drop at any moment. “Well, Lord Dura,” Rymark said, “you’ve got your gathering.” Without saying anything more, they walked into the counting house, and the rest of us followed.

  “Is there some sort of ceremony that comes with this calling, Lord Dura?” Ulrezia asked when we rejoined the rest of the monarchs.

  Maybe it was because she ruled a kingdom even farther north than Collum, but Ulrezia was as cold as her castle. “No,” I said. “All that�
�s required is the presence of six perfect gifts and the name of the one being called.” I didn’t tell them that the only Fayit whose name I had was dead. I prayed Toria Deel could help me.

  “And it’s your belief the gift of kings satisfies that requirement?” Ulrezia asked. I doubted whether snow would melt in her mouth.

  “Give over, Ulrezia,” Rymark said. “Of course he believes it, or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “I do,” I said. “The Fayit are our ancestors. They parceled out their gifts, talents, and temperaments among their descendants, among us.”

  “That’s probably as close to blasphemy as anyone has dared to come in my presence,” Brid Teorian said.

  I bowed in her direction. “It’s only blasphemy if it’s not true. Against the day we might need to call them, the Fayit created the gift of kings, a perfect alloy of all six gifts that couldn’t be divided.”

  Ulrezia had a way of raising one eyebrow without speaking that called my sanity into question. “And do you want us to hold hands and chant the children’s song?”

  “Maybe,” I shot back. “The fact that you’re here means you’ve given at least some credence to the idea.”

  Her expression turned colder, if that was possible. “Let’s try it without the singsong,” she said. “If that doesn’t work, you can strip us of the rest of our dignity.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Rymark said, “I’d like to get on with this. Lord Dura. We won’t last another night. I’ve sent messages to every commander along the outer cordon telling them to get here with all haste. None of them have replied.”

  Queen Ulrezia noticed my hesitation. “You can do what you’ve claimed, can’t you, Lord Dura?”

  I nodded, but inside I felt sick. “Toria Deel, I need the names of the other Fayit.”

  Her eyes widened. “I don’t have them, Lord Dura. That is not the task I was given.”

  I tried to smile but I couldn’t get my face to cooperate. I tapped my head. “They’re in here. Inside my vault. Ealdor told me.”

  She backed away from me. “I don’t know how to free you from your vault. We have to wait for Pellin. He’s still a day away.”