Reaver's Wail

by Corey Pemberton

  Those men were gathering quickly, though. Drawing together shoulder to shoulder to reinforce the center. They moved with the discipline their false Sculptor god—and the emperor himself—demanded.

  Brenn led them smashing through their tents. He lopped off heads as soon as they appeared through the tent flaps as if playing a game with himself. Argus watched the shadows and stabbed right through the canvas; when he pulled Reaver out, he left the tent with slits and blood.

  They kept on to the east, where a quartet of Sculptor zealots had gathered in a dusty clearing.

  “By hammer and chisel!”

  They lunged forward with real hammers and chisels, shrieking all the while. Siggi dodged the two women who came for him and swung his mace in a vicious arc.

  It slammed right into one woman's face, sending teeth and spittle into the air. She kept chanting along with others. Willow stabbed a gray-haired woman in the shoulder, but was overwhelmed when she skirted the blade and bowled her over. Nasira held her own against the fourth zealot, a man with a narrow face and huge nose, parrying with her sword but gradually losing ground.

  Argus slashed a man's throat—the last of the living from the tents they'd cleared—and was just about to run over there when the zealots let out a different kind of scream.

  They were on fire.

  Red around the edges, but blue in the center. Hotter than hot. They shrieked for the Sculptor to save them as the Legion of the Wind scrambled away, but no divine intervention came.

  “Enough!” yelled Willow. “Your god is false!” Her eyes had changed; they burned the same color as the flames that consumed them. Their hair singed, their skin sloughed off, and no matter how hard they tried—and failed—to put out the fires, the zealots praised the Sculptor to the bitter end.

  Willow turned back and waved for them to follow. No one moved. Everyone stared at her eyes, which smoldered and flickered them into a trance.

  It was Reaver who brought Argus out of it. She thirsted for more blood, and he planned to give it to her, but the dozen or so soldiers who had gathered behind the Sculptor zealots took one look at the sorceress and fled.

  She could have killed them another way, he thought. She chose the fire to create a spectacle. Something to make them question their faith…

  They pressed east. The Night Wolves trailed far behind them. They moved slower now. They'd sustained heavy losses; of their original numbers, maybe half remained. The survivors left gray cloaks and mangled comrades in their wake.

  Yet for the moment, the end of the Calladonian line had collapsed.

  “We're getting close,” Willow said. “I feel him.”

  Brenn grinned. “Good.”

  The Nalavacian lunged for a pair of empire squires who ducked behind some barrels. Their eyes widened and they sprang up to flee until Brenn knocked the barrels on top of them and crushed their legs.

  He called them cowards and moved on. “Just tell me where the bastard is, Willow. It's time to meet my dear cousin.”

  “Let me go in front,” she said. Her eyes burned more intensely than the stray fires around them. They sparked—a blinding burst of white—before they were lit again with the same reddish blue smolder as before.

  Word traveled through the empire camp quickly. Most of the nearby soldiers turned and ran. Argus and Siggi cut them down while Brenn slaughtered anyone foolish enough to fight back. His battle cry echoed. It vibrated in Argus's chest, where it lived on well after the Nalavacian had made corpses out of all the empire men.

  Nasira grabbed his arm and pointed up ahead to Willow, who disappeared into a pack of fleeing horses.

  She'll do it alone if she has to, Argus thought. Crazy woman.

  He wondered what they made him, then, being foolish enough to run in after her with the rest of the Legion. They dodged horses and trampled bodies, bedrolls and shattered wine bottles. All the tents had been knocked over. The canvas, once used to shelter from wind and rain, was soggy with blood.

  Argus looked back. What was left of the Night Wolves still followed. Danielle was gone. One of the gray-bearded veterans had stepped in to command in her stead. His eyes met Argus's eyes, asking a single, desperate question:

  Are we really going to do this?

  “Damn it all,” Argus said, then added his own scream to Brenn's booming battle cry. Siggi and Nasira screamed too, he on his left and she on his right, as the Legion of the Wind flew into the next battle.

  On their way to Willow, they wove through more horses and found themselves in a nightmare. Argus dove to the ground and shoved Siggi and Nasira down with them. A volley of arrows sailed overhead. Muddy water splashed into his mouth as they wriggled through puddles and horseshit.

  They hopped up and killed the archers before they could fire again. Plenty more arrows flew, crisscrossing the battlefield with no rhyme nor reason. Argus held his breath as they sprinted past them, until finally they met Brenn and Willow among the Calladonians.

  Reaver danced. Argus simply moved where she commanded. Slashing and thrusting, spilling blood with beautiful movements. She kissed spears and ax blades, and plenty other swords inferior to herself. The end result was always the same: one more death.

  Argus felt it then, the fire of battle. His sword hand felt like he'd just removed it from a blacksmith's bellows. His vision tunneled. Blades poked at him from the periphery, harmless when matched against his quick reflexes. He danced for Reaver—and killed on her command.

  “Argus!”

  Willow's voice broke him out of his trance. His mouth hung open, mid-scream, and a man whose arm he must have hacked off—though had no memory of doing it—writhed beneath him.

  “Over there!” she yelled, pointing east. Of the small cluster of tents that remained near the front lines, one loomed larger than all the others.

  He plunged Reaver through the one-armed man's chest then fought his way over to the others, who had gathered in a tight ball. As conscious thought returned, Argus found that he'd laid a bloody path some thirty yards beyond the others.

  Sometimes you lose yourself in the dance, he thought.

  The Reapers and the Silent Company had done good work up here. The siege line was ravaged. Supply carts burned. Catapults lay strewn about in a hundred pieces.

  Unfortunately, the mercenary companies were in just as bad a shape. Only a tiny fraction still breathed. Nine out of ten men gone—maybe more. Whoever still lived fought next to the Legion, dismounted and exhausted.

  The situation to the east didn't look any better. Argus heard the Maidens still screaming, though their voices were few and distant.

  “That's his tent!” Willow said.

  Argus nodded. Soon the broken siege line would re-form into something far more dangerous: a circle with them in the middle. Calladon had the numbers and discipline to fight in tight ranks. An ambush was the mercenaries' only chance—and it was quickly turning into a pitched battle.

  No longer willing to wait for the Wolves, the Legion of the Wind charged for the emperor's tent. Argus maimed and killed on the way, but he kept his eyes fixed on the hammer and chisel fluttering on the canvas.

  Slowly, steadily they worked their way closer. The path was clogged with armored soldiers and a contingent of zealots, everyone chanting as they protected their ruler.

  “By us, for us, within us… we use the hammer and chisel to sculpt our fate!”

  Willow's eyes burned, brightened, smoldered so hot Argus couldn't look at them. She turned those eyes on the emperor's guards, and soon their chants turned into screams.

  Some men combusted into flames. Others simply began to smoke until molten flesh seeped out of their armor. Wherever the soldiers screamed and died, Willow's fire spread.

  One zealot cracked a whip at him. It landed on Argus's torso, bringing searing pain and blood. He screamed. Lunged for her. Prepared himself to suffer a few more lashes…

  But none came. He ran up and slashed the woman. She broke apart like a dry twig. Someone had s
ucked the life out of her before he attacked. When he pulled out Reaver, the woman didn't bleed.

  Argus looked at Willow and shuddered.

  She fought in the middle of them, disappearing for longer and longer stints before he'd catch a glimpse of her auburn hair. “False gods!” she screamed. “False gods crumble!”

  And crumble they did. Soldiers and zealots both turned into pools of molten flesh. Black smoke billowed through the camp. It settled in their lungs. Their eyes. Those who still lived doubled over, coughing and unable to distinguish friend from foe.

  Brenn planted his ax in one zealot's skull and used the handle to stun another. He had Nasira draped over his shoulder. She nocked her arrows and fired into the crowd, bleeding onto Brenn's back. Siggi battled beside them. He was so exhausted he could barely lift his mace over his round belly, so he settled for striking kneecaps and ankles.

  Argus staggered over to them. Just then, a wave of screams erupted from behind. He turned. Beyond the billows of smoke, he spotted gray cloaks scurrying away from the battle.

  “Cowards!” Brenn shouted, just before ripping a man's shoulder from the socket and stomping him to death. “A pox on you Night Wolves! Justice my arse!”

  There's no justice here, Argus thought. Only death.

  He took a mace to the calf and groaned. It was only a glancing blow, and he killed the soldier who delivered it. But he was slowing down. Just a matter of time before one smashed a rib.

  “Look!” Nasira screamed. She shot an arrow into the crowd of soldiers guarding the emperor's tent.

  It wasn't the arrow that got Argus's attention, but what lay beyond it.

  The tent was on fire.

  Blue flames licked the corners and raced toward the center. They chewed through the canvas quickly. The men around it were showered with debris. The crowd trembled, but not a single soldier strayed from his post.

  Willow, who stood in front of them with her arms held high, threw back her head and screamed, “Here I am, cousin! Come out and face me!”

  The fire leaped higher, spurred on by her words. It wasn't long before the flames converged on the pole holding the tent up in the center. The canvas there disappeared. The flames kissed the pole, burning like a funeral pyre.

  Nasira gasped.

  The flaming pole collapsed, and the entire tent came down with it. It buried half a dozen soldiers too stubborn to get out of the way. The flames spread to the others nearby, and the scent of burnt hair blanketed the clearing.

  “Where is he?” Siggi asked.

  “Maybe he's hiding somewhere,” said Brenn.

  Argus closed his eyes. His mind settled on the Hearing Branch. Chanting the right words in his head, his focus settled on the collapsed tent.

  You shouldn't have come here, Willow. But perhaps it is your fate to die today. So be it…

  His eyes flew open.

  He staggered backward, dizzy, until he crashed into Brenn.

  “What is it?” the Nalavacian asked.

  “Eamon's in there,” Argus said. “I hear him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Willow scorched a few more soldiers before the survivors fled. She let them go, eyes still burning, and edged closer to the charred earth where the tent had been.

  “Look out!” Argus screamed.

  She turned. Her eyes flickered. For an instant she looked almost confused—like one of the powder fiends who begged in the alleys of Azmar…

  Before the flames claimed her.

  It had only been an instant, but an instant was all Eamon needed. He sprang out of the burning tent and tackled her. He looked nothing like the man Argus had seen at Syrio's feast. This wasn't a man at all, but a tumultuous ball of fire.

  Willow tangled with it on the ground. It pinned her down, man-like enough, and when Argus squinted hard he could make out limbs and a torso. The flames fed on him just as they'd fed on the tent and all his soldiers.

  And still the man was unburnt.

  “Praise to the Sculptor!”

  The surviving Calladonians stood a safe distance away and joined the chant, though their faces were taut with fear.

  “What now?” Nasira asked.

  They edged closer despite the intense heat. Willow wrestled with that flame, sometimes pinning it, sometimes being pinned. Her face was bruised and bloody. The fire in her eyes had dimmed.

  “He'll kill her if we don't do something,” Siggi said.

  He's right, thought Argus. But what?

  He racked his brain for the right spell and found none. He ran right toward them, into the furnace. Reaver led the way. She had spotted blond hair and green eyes within those flames, and she sang for a slice.

  “What are you doing?!” Brenn screamed.

  His voice was lost in the hissing flames. When the emperor was on top of Willow, Argus plunged Reaver into his back then screamed. His sword fell to the ground, the steel turned black. A layer of skin peeled off his hand and settled on the hilt.

  His hand sizzled. The pain crumpled him, and he nearly landed on the pile before rolling away. Argus held up his hand and tried to examine it under the moonlight, but there were Calladonian swords on him.

  “How dare you?” said one man.

  “Heretic,” said another. “Infidel.”

  Argus kicked at them blindly. His foolish charge had brought them back over here, and now they would end him. He closed his eyes as those swords came…

  A slash on his forearm jolted him back to life. The cut was shallow; compared to the burn on his other hand the pain was downright pleasurable. He opened his eyes, expecting more, and found Brenn towering over him.

  The soldiers who'd surrounded him were no more. One lay dismembered, and the other burned in Eamon and Willow's fire. Brenn kicked one last man into those flames, his mouth twisted in disgust.

  “Foolish, Argus of Leith.”

  Before Argus could answer, he was jerked off the ground and slung over his friend's shoulder. He looked at Nasira, who hung over the other, and shrugged.

  “For the Sculp—argh!”

  Beneath them, empire soldiers disappeared in the fire. Once the screams died down, they left behind nothing at all. Not even ashes.

  Maybe I did something after all, Argus thought.

  Calladonian men screamed—and died—but new ones crowded in to replace them just as quickly. At the bottom of the pile, Willow's hair had gone from auburn to black. A good chunk of it had fallen out. Burn marks marred her cheeks.

  Eamon was overpowering her. If he keeps it up for much longer…

  Then those flames died down and revealed the same hungry-looking man he'd seen at Syrio's feast. He sat on top of Willow and scowled. “Away, you fools! You'll die in the Sculptor's divine fire!”

  What was left of his forces backed away, dazed. The Legion of the Wind had done well to give him no choice but to extinguish those flames or destroy his own men. But once they got far enough away, those flames would burn again.

  Argus checked the emperor's back where he'd stabbed him. Blood oozed out of his simple brown tunic, but his wound had been cauterized by the flames.

  So he does bleed.

  He slid off Brenn's back, picked up Reaver with his left hand, and rushed forward.

  Eamon leaned close to Willow. She lay limp. Smoke gathered above her, and she moaned softly, twitching. Still burning even after the fire had gone out.

  Argus lifted Reaver and aimed it at the emperor's neck. Siggi and Brenn trampled beside him, Nasira flopping against the Nalavacian's back. She'd fallen unconscious from her leg wound, which still bled and showed no signs of slowing down.

  We'll have to make a bandage for her. After we kill this bastard…

  Eamon rolled aside just as Reaver whistled over his ear. Siggi's mace swung for him next—but not before he bent down and laid a kiss on Willow's lips. The blow, which would have crumpled anyone except maybe Brenn, glanced uselessly off his shoulder.

  Eamon drew away from Willow with a grimace
. He acknowledged the pain, though he refused to acknowledge them. All of his attention was on his cousin. He laid a hand on her forehead, whispered something, then said, “I wish you would understand.”

  He jumped up and dodged Brenn's falling ax. Argus stabbed and Siggi swung, but they found only fire where the man had been. Their weapons clattered to the ground. Argus's left hand burned, though he managed to pull it out faster this time than the last.

  “Come back here and fight!” Brenn yelled. “Craven!”

  Eamon paused. The flames flared up around him and made a strange hissing sound that Argus sensed was laughter. Then he was completely gone, swallowed up in the fireball.

  The fireball drifted east, where the Calladonian forces were holding off the last of the Deathmaidens. Many of the soldiers scattered after seeing their ruler devoured by the flames.

  “Hold fast, you fools! You're witnessing a miracle. I've been blessed by the Sculptor's divine fire!”

  His voice sound like that of an elderly man who'd feasted on smoke and pebbles. It just made them run even faster.

  “Argus,” said Siggi, nudging him between the ribs, “what are we supposed to do with her?”

  He looked down. Recoiled. Willow flopped on the ground. Half of her hair had fallen out, and the other half was gray and brittle. Eyes flickering, she reached for him, fingers angled like talons of a swooping hawk.

  Argus knelt and took her hand.

  “A-Argus…”

  A seizure claimed her then, and she dug her fingernails into him as her limbs flailed violently against the earth.

  “What is it, Willow? What did he do to you?” His heart skidded and stopped, skidded and stopped. A sheen of cold sweat covered him.

  “There's nothing you can—just finish what we started. Kill him, Argus! Before it's too late.” With that she collapsed into the dirt and sighed.

  “No,” he said, squeezing her hand tighter. “There has to be something—”

  “A spell,” said Siggi. “Something that will heal her.”

  “Yes!” He let go of Willow's hand and slipped his fingers behind the back of her head, cradling it. “Just tell me the words. I'll say them.”