by Giles Carwyn
The stone on her chest pulsed softly when she reached that calm state. She pulled all of the energy out of her hands. She made her hands weak and small, insignificant. They were a baby’s hands.
She took all of that energy and sent it into her legs. They started trembling. Baelandra took a deep breath and launched herself backward, slamming her feet against the headboard. It cracked, and she screamed as she yanked her hands against the cuffs. Bones snapped, and both hands came free at once. She screamed and tumbled off the bed.
Baelandra gasped, tears welling in her eyes as she rolled to a sitting position. She cradled her ruined hands, biting back the pain. Both thumbs twisted toward the palm at an unnatural angle, and her wrists were smeared with blood.
She sat there for a moment, rocking back and forth. Using her heartstone, she stilled her mind again, sucking the pain into the stone, away from her hands.
When she opened her eyes and stood, her hands became dull, throbbing things. She flexed her fingers gently, but did not dare to move her thumbs. Gingerly opening the door to the room, she crept outside and down the hall.
Relf lay in a pool of his own blood. His glassy eyes stared unflinching at the ceiling.
Kneeling next to him, Baelandra gingerly undid his cloak. She banged her thumb against his brooch and curled over, gritting her teeth. When her head stopped swimming, she rose and draped the cloak over her shoulders.
She slipped out the door onto the landing. She hadn’t seen such rain in a decade. The storm had raged all night, but it was finally breaking up, fading to an intermittent drizzle. Her bare feet slapped down the wet steps, and she ran into the flooded street, heading for the Blue Lily. Rallying the loyal Ohndariens would begin with the Zelani. Loyalty spread like wildfire whenever the sorcerers were around. She was almost there when she ran into a crowd of people gathered in the mouth of an alley.
Approaching slowly, Baelandra tucked her hands protectively inside the cloak and wormed her way through the crowd. The Zelani stood there, along with soldiers and many civilians.
Baelandra’s heart skipped a beat, and a little gasp escaped her. Krellis’s body lay in the mud in the center of the alleyway, his great woolly beard stained with blood. He was missing his sword hand. Several cuts striped his arms. The wound that had killed him was in the center of his chest, a deep red hole just beneath his ribs, near his heartstone.
It had been so easy to imagine him dead, imagine him suffering for the things he had done. It was different to see it in the flesh. Krellis had not lied. Against all odds, Scythe had escaped.
She slowly descended to her knees next to him.
“Oh Scythe,” she murmured, bowing over Krellis’s bloody body. “You have ended it at last.”
Shaking her head, she threw back her cowl. A whisper went through the silent crowd as her long, auburn hair fell free, tumbling down her shoulders.
She pushed aside Krellis’s shirt with her bloody fingers. His heartstone had gone dark. She would never feel that jolt again. She would never—
Baelandra sat up straight. The stone was empty and lifeless, but she did not feel that loss she had felt when Brydeon died. Her brother had been miles away, and she had known of his death, had felt it like something ripped from her chest. Yet Krellis lay here, and she had felt nothing.
Baelandra touched her own stone and it thrummed with life, if anything with more vigor than before. And that meant—
“Brophy,” she murmured, standing up. She looked back at Krellis’s body. Was it Brophy who had killed Krellis?
No. She would recognize Scythe’s sword work anywhere. He always sliced off the weapon hand first. In Kherif it was a sign of contempt if a swordsman could take your hand before he took your life. But that meant Brophy was in the Heart. Had he taken the Test alone?
Someone grabbed her by the shoulder. “Sister, what should we—”
She shoved him aside, wincing as it jostled her tender hands. Dawn broke through the edge of the clouds, lighting the top of the Hall of Windows.
A signal horn split the silence.
Another horn followed, and another. Baelandra looked toward the sound.
“What is it?” someone asked.
“It’s the attack!” one of the soldiers shouted. “They’re attacking. Run!”
The crowd began to break up. Some soldiers started toward the water, others paused.
“No!” Baelandra shouted. “Stop!” Most of the crowd stopped, looked back at her. A few continued on, disappearing down the alleys or side streets.
“We stand!” Baelandra said. “Ohndarien is our home! Will we let them take her without a fight?”
“We can’t win,” one of the soldiers said.
She ripped her dress open, exposing the heartstone that blazed between her breasts. Pain lanced through her tortured thumbs, but she steeled herself. “Ohndarien belongs to us!” she shouted. “We built her stone by stone. I will not abandon this city to some bloodthirsty king from the south!”
Many drew closer. The red glow of the stone reflected off their wet faces.
A handsome young man with short brown hair and dark eyes came forward. She recognized Shara’s friend Caleb, one of the Zelani.
“Sister, Brother Krellis is dead. His soldiers are fleeing. We have no hope.”
“No hope?” she said, walking in front of the motley group, looking into every eye. “The attack has begun, yes, but we are still here to meet it. You say the Brother of Autumn is dead, and I tell you he has risen! No prince from Physendria, but a true Child of the Seasons has claimed the stone.”
A murmur ran through the soldiers and citizens alike. Baelandra listened for the one word that would complete her speech. Someone said, “Brophy?” and she jumped on it.
“Yes!” she shouted. “Brophy swore to return and put an end to Krellis, to put things to rights in Ohndarien, and I tell you he is here!”
“Is it true?” Caleb asked. “Has the Heir of Autumn returned?”
“Yes.”
“And Shara-lani?”
“Is with him,” she said, hoping it was true.
Caleb smiled. “Then we fight,” he said. “I will not be the one to tell Shara I fled when she left us to defend the city.”
“Nor I,” said another Zelani.
The two words were repeated a dozen times as all of the Zelani said them.
“Ohndarien has never fallen, and she never will!” Baelandra shouted. “We will rally at the Wheel. Abandon the Night Market! Fall back to the Wheel!”
“Yes!” A soldier said, thrusting his spear into the air. A cheer went up from the other soldiers and citizens alike. “To the Wheel!”
As they began to move off, Baelandra turned to the Zelani’s leader.
“Caleb,” she said.
“Yes, Sister.”
“Take your Zelani and spread out. Cover the island. Tell everyone. If they are running, let them run. If they are standing firm, get them up the stairs. Ohndariens defended the Wheel long before the walls were built. A few men can hold an army on that stairway if it is done properly. Get everyone there, and we will have a chance. Go now!”
Caleb turned to the other Zelani.
“Selese, you take the western tip of the Night Market. Gedge and Reela, southwestern. Bashtin and Baksin, go north…”
The young man glowed. Baelandra had to force herself not to be swept up by his words. One Zelani stayed to shepherd the crowd to the Wheel. The rest left to warn the other defenders.
In moments they were gone, and Baelandra stood alone in the middle of the muddy alley with Krellis sprawled at her feet. Horns sounded again in the distance, but when they ceased it was quiet. She looked down at Krellis, closed her eyes and said her last good-bye.
A footfall splashed behind her. She opened her eyes.
“I didn’t think you would go far,” she said, turning.
Scythe stood behind her, half of his cloak thrown open, exposing his sword arm. “You should take your own advice and get to
the Wheel.”
Silence fell between them.
His shoulder hidden under the cloak slumped a little lower than the other.
“Are you wounded?” she asked.
“I can fight,” he said.
“Of course,” she whispered, then cleared her throat and spoke louder. “You always could.”
“And you?” He nodded at her hands.
She brought them up for him to see. Her twisted thumbs were swollen and turning purple. “I will not hold a sword, if that’s what you’re asking. But I will fight to my last breath.”
A flicker of a smile lit his stern features.
She watched his face in the pale red glow of her heartstone.
“I should have let you kill him years ago.”
“Yes, you should.”
“But I couldn’t.”
“I know,” Scythe said. “I should have broken my oath years ago.”
She nodded.
“But I couldn’t,” he said softly.
“Scythe, you have already given so much without receiving anything in return. I’ve given you no reason to love me, no reason to give your life for this city, but Ohndarien will need you in the coming fight. Can you forgive a foolish woman?”
He reached out a hand, darkly tanned and striped with blood. The hand of a lifelong warrior. He cradled her ravaged fingers, and his smile returned.
“You deserve nothing less.”
24
SHARA RAN toward the Market Bridge in the uniform of a Physendrian
Falcon officer. Her feathered cape fluttered behind her, and any who saw her stepped aside. She dodged her way through the Croc pikemen, with their thick green shoulder armor and long pikes, through the Scorpion foot soldiers, with their short spears and pincer shields, through the Serpent soldiers, lightly plated in green-enameled armor, standing in perfect lines.
The Serpents were the best trained, the most deadly, and they seemed to go on forever. They fought like a moving wall, short swords slashing through the spaces between their line of shields. Shara’s glamour made her invisible to all of them. They saw an officer in a hurry and moved aside.
Lewlem’s men rowed her through the storm, and they reached the logjam in the Narrows just after dawn. They set her ashore, and she entered the city from the north, climbing an abandoned Farad siege tower. She had stolen the feathered cloak and scepter from a dead officer on Stoneside. Once she had them, it was easy to supplement the disguise with her glamour. She slipped through the Physendrian army all the way across the Long Market.
Phandir’s troops had lashed an emergency bridge made of heavy rope and wooden planking to the shattered remains of the Market Bridge. The Night Market lay undefended, completely overrun with Physendrians.
The foreign army bunched at the base of the Wheel, where the Ohndariens fought like badgers backed into a hole. The curving staircase was packed with attackers, trying to reach the top of the plateau, but the long line of soldiers was jammed. They could not move forward.
Squads of Jackals, poorly trained draftees, wearing nothing more than rags, threw ladder after ladder against the edge of the Wheel. The Jumping Rats, bearing bows decorated with dead rats, loosed arrows at the defenders on the lip of the Wheel. As Shara ran up, a defender screamed and fell from the plateau into the seething mass of Physendrians.
Dozens of Serpents and Crocs streamed up the ladders, and dozens died, falling with arrows sticking out of them. One lucky Serpent actually made it to the top. He was quickly cut down in a flash of swords and spears.
“You! Falcon!”
Shara looked to her right. A Lion general beckoned to her. Reluctantly, she went to him. He was flanked by two Ape guards, huge and stoic. Their long swords hung heavy at their hips, and they watched everything with a cold stare, as the battle raged around them.
“Take this lance of Crocs to the northern side,” he growled. “We need to draw some of those Ohndarien dogs away from the main assault.”
One of the Ape guards eyed her strangely. She returned his gaze and let her magic flow into him. He looked back at the carnage without a word.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Shara left the Lion, ignoring his orders and heading into the thick of the battle. She heard a voice rise above the din. She peered to the top of the wall. A thin woman with a bow in hand shouted commands to the Ohndarien defenders. Vallia wore a white leather vest cut low between her breasts, and a blinding light blazed forth from her chest.
Shara looked for the best way to get to the top of the Wheel, but that was what every Physendrian soldier wanted to do. The men trapped on the stairway jostled one another as defenders hurled rocks from above. As she watched, a rock the size of her head sailed over the edge of the plateau, crushing a Jackal’s skull and sweeping two Crocs over the edge of the stairway.
She could never make it up that way. Spinning around, she looked to the ladders.
A throng of Serpents clung to a ladder near her, trying to make the top. Vallia shouted again and a rain of arrows decimated the Serpents, who plummeted to the base of the Wheel. Two crested the plateau and fought valiantly for a few moments before three Ohndarien spearmen skewered them and sent them over the edge.
A cluster of Jackals carrying a dozen ladders over their heads shoved their way to the front of the battle.
“Let them through!” the general shouted.
The draftees charged the cliff and threw all the ladders up at once. Ohndarien defenders rushed forward with forked sticks, pushing at the ladders. The Lion commander bellowed again, and two ranks of Rat archers shot a volley of arrows at the defenders. A squad of Serpents scrambled for the ladders. Shara charged forward, grabbing one of their arms. The Serpent tried to shrug her off, but she caught his gaze.
“Let me go first,” she said.
The frightened young swordsman nodded and let her go ahead of him. Scrambling onto the wooden ladder, she flew up the rungs. The ladder next to her was pushed sideways and fell to the ground amidst shouts and screams. An Ohndarien defender plummeted past her, an arrow in his neck.
An arrow whistled past Shara’s ear. She clenched her teeth, kept her breathing steady, and continued climbing. She was almost to the top when a woman with a long, gray braid and a forked stick jammed it against the top rung of the ladder. It wobbled, teetering. Shara clung to the rungs. The defender shifted her grip on the stick and prepared to shove it over.
“Wait!” Shara shouted.
The gray-haired woman froze, gazing at her. Bile rose in Shara’s throat, but she forced it down. Her ladder thunked back against the edge of the cliff. Ladders to the left and right of her crashed to the ground. Only Shara’s remained upright. The Physendrians clambered up behind her.
“Stop!” she shouted. Her magic flowed into them, and they hesitated.
“Loose!” A Falcon officer boomed from below.
Suddenly the air was filled with Physendrian arrows.
“Duck!” Shara yelled at the gray-haired woman she had manipulated. The defender threw herself to the ground and shafts flew overhead to clatter against the plateau all around her.
Shara scrambled to the top of the ladder and leapt onto the Wheel. She and the woman faced one another on the ground, no more than a foot apart. The gray-haired woman was shaking and had tears in her eyes. She gripped her stick with white knuckles.
Shara breathed deeply, letting her attention flow into the frightened old woman. “You are brave. You are fast. You are stronger than you ever believed possible,” she murmured. A joyous tingle replaced the nausea.
The woman’s eyes glistened, and she set her jaw. With a scream, she launched herself at the ladder just as a Serpent’s head appeared. She smashed the forked stick straight into his face and pushed. The soldier clung to the ladder, sending it crashing to the ground far below. The gray-haired woman charged the next ladder, where three more Physendrians had already gained the plateau. A handful of uniformed soldiers shouted and rushed over, flanked by a
crowd of citizens wielding homemade spears and clubs. A potbellied butcher swung a cleaver into one of the Serpents.
Shara rolled to her feet and saw Vallia, still bellowing orders in an inhumanly loud voice, her heartstone shining like a star on her chest. The Sister of Winter picked up a Physendrian arrow, nocked it in her bow, and sent it flying back at the army. A spearman screamed and fell to one knee, clutching his thigh.
Stripping off her feather cloak, Shara rushed over.
“Vallia!”
The Sister of Winter turned. They both crouched underneath another volley of arrows. “Shara,” she said. “You have returned.” Her normal speaking voice was just the same as always, quiet and contained, though she panted as she spoke.
“Have you seen Brophy?” Shara asked.
Vallia shook her head, grabbed an arrow and nocked it. “At once,” she shouted to her archers. “Aim for the Falcon’s head!” She let loose. The officer below dove for cover behind his men.
“What about Baelandra?” Shara asked.
Quick as a breath, Vallia nocked and shot again, then crouched. She tipped her chin toward the other side of the Wheel. “She was on the stairs when I last saw her. With Scythe.” She stood, and yelled, “Again!” before letting her deadly arrow fly to its mark. This time the Falcon went down.
As Shara ran across the Wheel, her feet sank into the deep mud between the marble paths. She neared the Hall of Windows and saw more dead and wounded laid out at the base of the dome. Harried old women and young children attended to them. One man with a nasty head wound begged for water.
Shara passed a young man who shouted, thrashing on the ground as a woman in a blood-spattered apron tried to calm him down. “Get it off my leg!” he cried. There was nothing on the young soldier’s leg. It was missing from the knee down.
Shara reached the far side of the Wheel. Rocks had been piled along the rim by the stairs, and dozens of defenders lined the edge, flinging the stones down on the enemy. She rushed to them and looked over.
“By the Seasons,” she murmured. Hundreds of Physendrians were crammed onto the stairs. Scythe held them at bay, his sword hovering in front of them. The attackers held back, reluctant to engage him. Three bodies lay sprawled on the steps in front of the Kherish assassin and none of the Crocs, Scorpions, or Serpents seemed ready to leap over and be the first to face his bloody blade.