Her eyes fluttered. “No…”
“Yes!” He felt chunks of her hair disintegrating between his fingertips. The charred flesh spots where Willow had been burned were spreading. The sickness claimed her quickly. One scaly gray patch bled into another, until all of her shoulders and arms were covered. “Tell me.”
Willow closed her eyes, then nodded. “Come closer.”
She whispered the words three times, and Argus committed them to memory. He tried to clear his mind. “Wil ansa vor—”
“No,” she said, and grabbed his arm. “Not for me. For Eamon.”
“Fuck Eamon! Tell me what I can do to save you.”
“You… already have…” Willow smiled. Her body flopped like a grounded fish, though this time she made no effort to stop it. She kept smiling a little longer, bursting his heart with her tears.
Her face was gray and leathery now, with lips the color of ash.
“Tell me!” he screamed, shaking her until the rest of her hair was gone. A few strands of fiery red fell among the gray locks.
“Don't… worry. We will meet again, Argus of Leith.”
He pressed a finger to her lips. Their eyes met. He jerked away, unable to face them, and spilled hot tears onto her cheeks to join her own. “There has to be something…”
He turned to Siggi, who crouched beside him and bit his lip. Brenn shrugged his mighty shoulders as he tended Nasira's wound. She was conscious again, dazed as she thrust Brenn's waterskin aside and looked on.
Willow moaned. Her grip on his arm eased.
“No.”
“He… took the only thing I can't get back,” she whispered. “My soul. But there's still time to stop him. Remember those words, Argus of Leith.” She smiled. An instant later it fell away and became a grimace.
Argus leaned closer. “I…”
“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lied to you.”
“We all lie,” said Siggi. “Think nothing of it.”
“It was an honor,” she said, “to serve in the Legion of the Wind.” She opened her mouth and her stomach tensed. Coughed without making a sound. Every inch of her was gray—save for her eyes.
Willow turned them on Argus.
“One more thing, if you don't mind…”
Argus leaned down and planted a kiss on her lips. Despite their appearance, they tasted and felt just as he remembered him. They kissed for a long while, until he opened his eyes and found hers flickering.
“Thank you,” she said. Gasping. Shriveling into herself. “It… sounds foolish. But I wanted my… last kiss to be a good one. I… will treasure it always. That and our night under the oak boughs…”
Argus nodded, wiping the tears from her face.
“Goodbye,” she whispered. “Goodbye, Argus.”
The fire in her eyes flared one last time.
Then it went out.
Argus closed her eyelids gently, vaguely aware that he was screaming. No matter how much noise he made he couldn't shake her last words. They were hollow and breathless, just as the wind through the bare oak had been the night they lay together.
He would carry them with him the rest of his days.
Siggi's prayer brought him out of his daze. The priest of Blegga blessed her body, by old gods and new. Brenn laid a warm hand on the back of Argus's neck as Nasira draped her arms around him.
They didn't move until the blessing was done.
Then they got up, wobbly, and looked around the battlefield. Behind them, Calladonian soldiers fled just as the Night Wolves had done. Terrible screams came from up ahead. Argus spotted Deathmaidens swirling among armor and swords.
And a flame. It burned no larger than a candle from this distance, though Argus knew it would keep burning until they snuffed it out.
He looked back at Willow one last time.
He remembered the words she'd whispered.
He remembered them well.
CHAPTER FORTY
He put all of his grief into Reaver, and let her sing.
She cut through one Calladonian after another, making no discrimination between the ones who fled, surrendered, or fought back.
When the last men beside him fell, a single thought splintered his mind. I will never be rid of her, he thought. With Willow gone, Reaver will accompany me until the very end.
A part of him couldn't imagine it any other way. He grieved for the woman, not her unfulfilled promise. Perhaps none of them would get what they had bargained for in the end…
Heat and screams. Fluttering arrows and knives. The Deathmaidens had formed a rectangle, which broke apart when the fireball floated toward them. The battle crumbled into hundreds of skirmishes. Maidens and Calladonians crossed blades—and died—alone.
Nasira ducked behind a supply cart as an arrow whistled overhead.
“Hey! Why are they firing at us? We aren't wearing Calladon's colors.”
Argus opened his mouth to answer, but another volley pinned him behind the wagon wheel. More followed. One knife even stuck in the wagon and vibrated between them.
Siggi peeked over the edge. “By Blegga! No order, only chaos. No order, only chaos…”
“Stop speaking in riddles!” Brenn roared.
Argus waited for another arrow to sail by then looked over. The Deathmaidens fought as hard as ever, though they had forgotten who their enemies were. He saw two women with long braids circle each other; they shrieked until the black-haired one plunged her sword into the red-haired woman's chest.
What in the blazes?
The victor didn't celebrate for long. As she pulled the sword out of her sister's chest, she let out a whoop and fell. A pack of throwing knives jutted from her back like a mountain range.
“He's driving them mad,” Argus said. “Turning them against themselves. It's thought magic of the highest level.”
“Don't turn your back on anyone,” said Brenn.
Siggi nodded. “Even us.”
Argus led them into the chaos. They sprinted from one piece of cover to the next. Behind corpses and carts and barrels they hid, gradually closing in on the fireball.
Finally there was no cover left, and their only option was to charge through the open field.
“For the Legion!” cried Brenn.
For Harun and Willow, Argus thought. And all the others we've lost.
A wall of empire soldiers formed to meet them. The true believers. The ones who'd seen Eamon turn himself into an unquenchable fire and refused to be shaken. Their spearheads glinted in the moonlight and countless fires.
Brenn struck first. He hacked right through three of those spears with his ax and hopped aside, showering the ground with splintered wood. The soldiers cried out and stabbed at him with their jagged poles, but Brenn swung his ax right through them.
A fountain of blood spewed upward. Two of their spears found his chest. But that only made him angrier. He roared, beard whipping to and fro, and jerked a spear out and beat them with it.
Argus and Siggi flanked the Nalavacian, and cut down the men who tried to get at his legs. Nasira limped behind; when she wasn't staggering she was loosing arrows.
Soon that wall of flesh crumbled. They scrambled past it until they met another—this one made of Deathmaidens.
“Stop!” cried Nasira. “We're on the same side!”
The only effect her words had was to draw more arrows. The Maidens crawled over one another just for a chance to get in a few blows. They screamed, killing each other when their disputes went unresolved. Some even turned their swords on themselves.
Argus gritted his teeth and cut through them. One Maiden lunged for Nasira with a knife in each hand. Reaver whistled by, just out of range. So he reached for her braid, grabbed it and twisted it around his hand.
He pulled the woman down.
Nasira ran her through.
Onward they went. The air grew warmer, and just beyond the women, the fireball tantalized them.
At last they reached it.
It was too
busy igniting hapless mercenaries to notice them. If a man still lived inside there, he'd disappeared completely into the flames.
“Go on!” shouted Siggi. “Kill the bastard!” He shoved Argus forward and parried a slashing sword. The Legion of the Wind fought back to back, just a tight circle surrounded by women gone mad.
If they're mad, I'll soon join them…
Argus ran toward the flames. A blast of hot air buffeted him. He leaned forward and trudged on. Hotter. Hotter and hotter—until his eyes almost closed and it felt like a hot poker had been shoved down his throat.
Grab his shoulders, and repeat these words….
Argus worked his way blindly, hands shielding his face. Smoke filled his eyes and mouth and nostrils. Somewhere along the way Reaver fell—too hot to hold—as he plunged into the inferno.
He swore and reached into the fire.
A man wiggled inside there.
Argus's hands landed on a strong back. That back turned, and he nearly lost his footing and fell face-first into the flames.
His hands were dead and gone. Scalding. Sizzling. He screamed the words Willow had told him.
“Wil ansa vor maloch, wil ansa vol maloch!”
The flames died, and the unbearable heat died with them. Argus staggered forward, still clutching Eamon's shoulders like reins in a saddle, and fell right into him.
“Wil ansa vor mal—”
“What's that? I'm afraid I couldn't hear you.”
Just then, the sound of a thunder erupted above them. Argus looked up. The sky was clear, but he felt the rumble in his belly. One thunderclap rolled into another, each louder than the last.
He screamed the rest of the spell again and again. Eamon just smiled as Argus's words were swallowed up in the din. He lunged for the emperor, who stepped aside and shoved him onto the ground.
Argus floundered there, stubbornly repeating the spell despite his bleeding ears. Others crumpled around him—mercenaries and Calladonians both. Most of them had their mouths open, screaming.
He scrambled for Reaver, which lay just out of reach.
A longsword pierced the ground between them. Towering nearly as tall as a man, its black blade glared in the moonlight. Argus didn't need to look twice to know it was sealed with magic.
It made Reaver look like a boy's plaything.
Eamon pulled his weapon out of the ground, laughing. Another wave of thunder rolled in. As Argus covered his ears, the ruler of Calladon kicked Reaver away from him.
He bent down to examine his captive. His green eyes widened. He looked at Argus the same way a wealthy man in Azmar would look at Syrio's prized prisoners.
He was a curiosity. Nothing more.
Argus scrambled away on his back, keeping his gaze fixed on the man. All the while that blade prodded closer to his chest. He kicked until his legs refused to obey, then raised his burnt hands, skin sloughed off, and waited.
Eamon watched with a thin smile. “Strange. I expected to find my cousin here. But not another who studied the Five Branches.”
Strange, indeed, Argus thought. The thunder continued to rumble. Somehow the sorcerer's voice penetrated it all and settled in the bottom of his consciousness.
“Taking up arms against me is one thing, but defying me with magic is different. You must have learned that spell from my cousin. I can't say I'm surprised—she was always reckless. Anyhow, you mustn't utter it again…”
He kept the tip of his sword pinned to Argus's stomach. Just enough pressure so he stayed still while Eamon reached down, grabbed his lips and squeezed them together.
“Shaelbah katharis,” he whispered.
Argus's lips started to sting. It was a different kind of pain than the throbbing in his hands. This pain was icy. It burned, in its own way, until his mouth went numb. He tried to scream. No sound came out.
Some time later, after an eternity of rolling around in agony, Argus wondered why he still lived. Death would have been a blessing. The rolling thunder was gone, but the ringing in his ears continued.
Eamon studied him closely. “I feel the energy inside you.” His sword wavered. “Hmm. Perhaps you do have some potential yet.”
Argus's eyes widened. He tried to ask what the man meant. Silence.
“I'll consider it.” His face pulled tight. He turned away, and took his sword with him.
Argus rolled to the side and took his first deep breath in forever. That breath quickly abandoned him, though, when he saw why Eamon had gotten distracted.
The Legion of the Wind, he thought. Fools. Every single one of them.
In charged Siggi and Brenn with Nasira behind them. The Comet Tailer fired off a few arrows. Eamon slapped them aside with well-timed gusts of wind. His sword clashed against Brenn's ax, and Argus closed his eyes to avoid the shower of sparks.
When he opened them, the two were still fighting while Siggi and Nasira ran around Eamon's back. The mace came crashing down on his shoulder, and for a moment the sorcerer wavered.
Nasira slipped her sword into the small of his back. Eamon groaned. His head snapped backward and his torso went rigid. Nasira kept the blade buried there. Pushed it in deeper. Twisted.
With a vicious swing of his longsword, Eamon sent Brenn crashing to the ground. He popped up a second later. In his eyes lurked madness. Argus watched the Nalavacian circle around to join the rest of the company and wondered why Eamon let him…
Until he saw Brenn aim his ax at Siggi's back.
Argus screamed. Thought he screamed. The only sound that came out was a tiny whimper.
Brenn raised the ax and grimaced.
Argus crawled toward Siggi, moaning, failing to get his attention. The falling ax blade gleamed in the moonlight, blinding him. He lunged for the Rivannan, grabbed his foot and pulled.
“Ugh!”
Siggi crashed down on top of him. Brenn's ax lodged in the earth. Right next to Siggi's hand. Except it wasn't attached to his body anymore. He rolled around on the ground, and screamed when he looked down at the stump where his hand had been. Blood spurted onto his checkered robe. He wrapped his sleeve around the wound, and his face went pale.
“Argus! What in Blegga's name are you—my hand!”
Siggi crawled for it. A reflex. He crawled for it even though Brenn raised his ax again.
This time Argus was ready for him. He rolled to his side when the Nalavacian swung, dove for his ankles and pulled. Brenn crashed to the ground and moaned. His ax fell out of his grasp. Argus grabbed it, lifting with both hands, and tossed it toward the Maidens.
Brenn shoved him aside and ran for his weapon.
For the time being Siggi had reunited with his missing hand. He had it stacked on top of his chest, as if he'd tried to reattach it a few times before falling unconscious.
Argus ran over to him and checked the wound. Blood poured through the robe. He tied off the sleeve to staunch the bleeding. It would have been a mortal blow if he hadn't stepped in.
It still might be mortal if he loses too much blood. Blood… that's it!
Argus retraced his steps to where Brenn had attacked Siggi and found a nice puddle of it in the dirt. He looked for Nasira, but couldn't find her among the warring Maidens. He spotted Eamon's fair hair to the north, where he was rallying his soldiers.
Hurry, you fool!
Argus dipped his finger in the blood and began to write the words. Siggi stirred beside him, and he was vaguely aware of Brenn screaming as he battled the mad Maidens. He glanced around the battlefield and found Reaver lying in a clump of dead grass.
No. These words are my weapon now.
He finished writing Willow's words just as Brenn trampled back over to him. He'd lost most of his tunic. Linen hung from his shoulders in tatters. His torso was shiny, covered with blood and sweat. He grinned.
He leaped up, careful to not smudge the writing. You want me? I'm over here, you big oaf! He took off to the west. He made a quick detour to scoop up Reaver, stumbled, and barely avoided Brenn's grasp.
He forced himself to run faster, lungs burning and breathless.
Nasira! Where the blazes are you?
She couldn't hear him, of course. But there was something he could hear perfectly well: Brenn's pounding footsteps. He kept running. Slipped by a few Maidens reaching with daggers. On the way, he spotted a row of black armor pressing forward with Eamon in the center.
He had to be fast. As soon as those troops came back they'd be dead.
Reaver flashed before him. She found the belly of a pudgy woman who blocked his path westward. He pulled out the sword and leaped over her.
Nasira crouched behind the corpse.
She screamed, and almost put an arrow in him before Argus held up his arms. Her face was marred with dirt and blood, and an army of cuts ran down her arms. Behind her lay a dismantled trebuchet—one she looked like she'd been hiding under.
He grabbed her by the hand.
“Argus! Are you all right?” After he nodded she asked, “Where are we going?” He pulled her aside just before Brenn's ax smashed the trebuchet into ruins. The Nalavacian laughed as splinters showered all over him.
They hurried eastward, avoiding the fighting until they reached the message he had written.
Siggi groaned beside them. “My hand. My beautiful hand…” He crawled over to see what they were doing. Argus pointed out the words to Nasira, who read them a few times over.
“Wil ansa vor—”
Argus grabbed her and shook his head. He tapped his ear, then pointed at the approaching Eamon.
“I understand,” she said, laying a hand on her heart. “But how am I supposed to do it?”
Argus turned to Siggi, who nodded and picked up his mace. “It's only a hand. Order and chaos.” With that he slid the severed hand into his pocket and followed them toward the Calladonian soldiers. About a dozen of them readied their swords. They'd had ample time to recover.
Eamon stepped in front of his men and held up his hand. “I know the divine fire made some of you question your faith. Which is why I'm going to show you now just what you can do with the Sculptor's blessing.”
He lifted his longsword. “By chisel and hammer, we shape our destinies.”
Then he charged. He looked like a wolf coming at them, teeth bared, eyes wide.
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