by Matthew Ward
The knight shrugged. ‘I saw nothing. Not saying she didn’t.’
Yelen stared back through the window. She saw only snow and the dark silhouettes of eroded stone. Had she imagined it? Was she now so desperate that she’d summoned a hallucination of her own to vie with Azzanar’s? Certainly she was tired enough.
A stray memory clicked. What had Kain said? About lacking the strength to see things through? Did she have the choice to do what had to be done? Yelen took a deep breath, searching for the confidence that had led her into the barrow long hours before. To her surprise, it came at her call. ‘I’m not asking you to come with me, but I’m going on.’
Marcan shook his head. ‘You’re mad.’
‘She is.’ Magnis laughed under his breath. ‘I’m starting to think she fits in around here better than she imagines.’
‘That’s not funny, Cavril. You shouldn’t encourage her.’
‘Why not?’ He pushed away from the wall. ‘I’m going with her.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Think about it.’ Magnis drew up to his full height and squared his shoulders, the effect spoiled somewhat by his snow-cast and bedraggled appearance. ‘We all saw the remains of the Guttered Candle and what happened to the Green Widow. And now this storm, just as we’re catching up with her? Does anyone think it’s a coincidence?’
Serene offered a lopsided frown. ‘When you put it like that…’
‘You’re not considering this?’ interrupted Marcan.
‘It makes sense. What if Mirika’s covering her tracks? Using the storm to stop pursuit? If we hole up every time the weather turns sour, we’ll never catch up.’
‘Using the storm?’ Marcan rumbled. ‘She’s a time witch, not an elementalist.’
‘Mirika’s a time witch,’ said Magnis. ‘Who knows what Szarnos is capable of? And it’s Szarnos we’re following, not Mirika.’ He offered an apologetic shrug to Yelen.
Kain started for the door. ‘Then we should keep moving.’
Marcan shook his head. ‘Not you too.’
‘Just as long as he’s still paying.’ She stared at Magnis. ‘You are still paying?’
His chapped lips formed a grin. ‘Naturally.’
‘Then I’m going. The sooner we catch our stray lamb, the sooner I can get back to the warmth of civilization.’
Magnis nodded. ‘Serene?’
‘What the hells. I’ll come.’ She arched her back, joints snapping back into position with soft but audible clicks. ‘Yelen followed me. I’ll follow her.’
Yelen’s cheeks warmed, part pride, part guilt. ‘Thanks.’
‘Thank me by having a better sense of direction than I did, love.’
Magnis turned his attention to Marcan, a squat, sullen shape in the corner. ‘Leaves you, Marcan. What’s it to be?’
He scowled. ‘Better five together in a storm than one alone in the night, I guess. Besides, you run into a troll, you’ll be glad to have me around.’
* * *
Despite Marcan’s fears, no trolls came with dusk. Unfortunately, neither did the storm abate. But Yelen no longer felt the icy spray in her face, nor the knotted, dull tension from shoulders braced against the winds. Fierce as the storm was, it couldn’t hide the footprints. Staggered and uneven, they began less than two hundred paces from the sunken watchtower and ran along the snow-clogged cobbles, already half-filled by the unforgiving snows.
‘How far ahead is she?’ yelled Marcan, his basso rumble scarcely audible above the howl of the storm.
‘No idea,’ Serene replied. ‘Maybe Kas could have…’
She scowled, leaving the thought unfinished.
Yelen didn’t care. The footprints were the first proof she’d not imagined Mirika’s presence in the snows. After all, who else would be out here alone, in this weather? No one was that crazy. Mirika was alive! There was still hope, and Yelen sensed she wasn’t the only one who felt it. There was an energy to the company now, a vigour that lent pace to their journey. No one complained, not even when the drifted snow grew waist deep – not even Marcan. After the near-disaster of the barrows, every member of the Gilded Rose wanted something, anything to go their way.
But as time wore on, Yelen came to love and hate the footprints equally. Loved, because they showed that Mirika was still alive, hated because they proved she was still ahead, still beyond reach. But Yelen preferred the latter over the former. More than anything, she dreaded rounding a corner and finding Mirika lifeless in the snows.
They found plenty of other bodies, or remnants thereof. It seemed that not all the Broken Strand’s trolls had sought to ride out to storm – or at least had been sufficiently wracked with hunger to risk its icy teeth. As dusk slid into night, Yelen’s count reached an even dozen of the brutes, frozen solid as Mariast’s luckless toy soldiers, encased in glittering ice already half-hidden by the snows.
Yelen peered at the brutish faces in the lantern light, and tried not to think about the consequences for herself and the Gilded Rose. Magnis seemed to think she could reach Mirika, even through Szarnos’ control. What if she couldn’t? She’d certainly failed two nights ago on the banks of the Nereta. With an effort, she pushed the thought to the back of her mind. One step at a time. She’d not even laid eyes on Mirika since that brief glimpse back at the watchtower. There was no sense borrowing trouble from the future.
Half-blind, and wearier by the moment, Yelen led the Gilded Rose through the streets, eyes straining for a glimpse – anything – of Mirika. The infernoscapes came and went, but they’d lost their power now Yelen knew them to be mere trickery, another tool of Azzanar’s to batter her resolve. How close she’d come to giving up! Kain had been right. There was always another choice, another path.
The street opened out, the storm lessening in ferocity now it was no longer funnelled by crumbling buildings. A new shape loomed in the lantern light, dirty grey against a black and storm-cast sky. The Temple of Draconostra. They’d made it.
‘Well I’ll be…’ Marcan pointed at a slender figure, dark against the snows.
‘You already are.’ Serene shook her head in wonder.
‘Mirika!’ Yelen shouted. ‘Wait!’
The wind swallowed the words, but the figure turned all the same. Dark, empty eyes stared out from a face shot through with golden light, unbraided hair dancing like snakes in the wind. Had Yelen stumbled across her by chance, she’d not have recognized her sister. As it was, the apparition she’d become made her soul ache.
‘Mirika!’
The figure hunched away along the temple approach, the wings of the storm closing to hide her from sight.
‘Mirika!’ Yelen started forward down the hill.
‘Look out!’
Marcan’s cry of warning and the deep-throated bellow came as one. A mass of furs slammed into Yelen’s shoulder. The air above her head parted before a massive bunched fist, and then she plunged into a snow drift, lantern falling from her hand.
Marcan shouted again – this time equal parts pain and a whooph of expelled air. Propelled by the troll’s brutish strength, he flew back across the street. He rebounded off a column, and fell unmoving into the snows.
With a roar of victory, the troll knuckled towards Yelen, the twisted bough of its club scraping along the cobbles behind. She scrambled to her feet, already knowing she couldn’t escape the beast. Too slow, her numbed hands grasped at the hilt of Kas’ sword.
The blade was only halfway clear of the scabbard when the troll reached for her with a prehensile hand.
‘Die!’
Suddenly Serene was there, daggers flashing at the troll’s wrist. Blood sprayed across the snows. The troll jerked back its hand, roaring in pain.
Serene wasn’t done. Turning a pirouette as graceful as any dancer, she lunged at the beast’s belly, the two gleaming dagger-points slicing into furless flesh.
The troll reeled, roaring madly in its brutish tongue. Then, moving with a speed at odds with its bulk, it swung the
club in a massive arcing blow.
Serene twisted aside. It wasn’t enough – the bough struck her shoulder a glancing blow. She spiralled away and fell awkwardly to one knee. Her daggers, ripped from her grip, were still lodged in the beast’s belly.
Yelen forgotten, the troll lurched towards Serene. But Yelen hadn’t forgotten the troll. More importantly, she hadn’t forgotten the lesson in courage she’d learned amongst the barrows of the Lower Reach.
‘Get away from her!’
Yelen knew her blow was clumsy even as she swung – even before it skidded on the thick, greasy pelt of the troll’s arm. But harming the creature wasn’t the point. All she wanted was to distract the beast’s attention from Serene. And in that, she succeeded beyond her wildest nightmares.
The troll rounded on Yelen, the foul wind of its confused bellow thick in her face, and its hot spittle splashing her skin.
It swung blindly, the bough aimed by instinct, rather than sight. Yelen went backward before it, the gnarled timber passing inches from her nose, then darted inside the troll’s reach before it could reverse the swing.
This time, her blow possessed all the force she could have wished for it. The steel cut down through greasy fur, down through the leathery hide. Blood gushed. The troll flailed, but Yelen had learned from Serene’s mistake and had already dived beyond its grasp.
As her elbows and knees jarred against cobbles, the troll’s club-arm drooped, the weapon dropping from its fingers. For a moment, it stared dumbly at its hand, troglodyte brow furrowing in confusion, then rounded on Yelen.
She scrambled back on hands and heels, at last regaining her footing. The clawed hand reached out for her. The troll flinched away as Yelen struck, then lunged. Its fingers wrapped around the sword, the blade slicing deep as it ripped the weapon from her grasp.
‘No!’
The troll flung the sword away and advanced, a loathsome chuckle on its lips. Yelen darted aside. This time, she was too slow. A leathery hand closed around her throat, and dragged her towards the drooling maw.
‘Let me go!’
Yelen hammered and clawed at the troll’s hand, but its flesh was like wood.
‘Kain! Kain! Where the hells are you?’
But of the knight, or of Magnis, there was no sign through the raging snows.
She needed a weapon.
Yelen’s gaze dropped to the troll’s belly and Serene’s daggers. Abandoning her attempts to break the beast’s grip, she reached for the nearest hilt. Her fingertips brushed the polished steel, but no more.
The troll drew her closer, the acrid stink of its breath washing over her face. Yellowed fangs parted.
Again Yelen reached for the dagger. Again, her fingers found no purchase.
‘Hands off, you stinking brute!’
Marcan’s bellow sounded a heartbeat before the dull, wet thud of his sword thrust took the troll in the back. The creature roared in pain, the arm holding Yelen dipping.
At last, her fingers closed around the dagger’s hilt. With a wordless scream of triumph, Yelen ripped the blade free of its fleshy prison, reversed her grip, and rammed it, two-handed, into the troll’s bloodshot eye.
The creature bellowed one last time, went limp and toppled backwards like a felled tree.
Yelen fell with it, smothered by a face full of the beast’s stinking pelt. Coughing at the smell of it, but her blood racing, she rolled clear and lurched to her feet.
Marcan wiped his blade clean in the snows, the motion made oddly stiff by a limp he’d not possessed minutes before. ‘Smoothly done. If I didn’t know better, I might think you were getting a taste for this.’
Yelen shook her head. ‘Not me.’ But her blood was racing with more than fear, she knew that. Part of her had enjoyed the fight. Well, the winning of the fight, anyway.
Something sour dripped off her top lip and into her mouth. Suppressing a shudder, she grabbed a handful of clean snow and wiped her face clean. The sharp, scratchy needles of ice against her skin were a price gladly paid.
‘I don’t know,’ Serene ambled over, one hand massaging her abused shoulder. ‘A couple of dozen wights one night, now a troll. Cavril had better be careful. Might be that you’ll steal his legend out from under him.’ Crouching beside the dead troll, she reclaimed her daggers and set about cleaning them meticulously in the snows.
‘Where is Cavril, anyway?’ asked Yelen, reclaiming her sword. ‘Or Kain, for that matter?’
‘We’re here.’
Yelen turned to see Kain and Magnis approaching down the hillside. The former held a troll’s severed head by a hank of discoloured pelt and the faded gold and blue heraldry of her armour was caked in blood spatter. The latter, like Marcan, had picked up a fresh limp from somewhere.
‘Your troll had a hunting partner shadowing us,’ Kain went on. She let the head fall into the snows and prodded the corpse with a toe before turning her gaze on Yelen. ‘You do most of this? Fancy that.’
Her piece said, Kain strode off downhill towards the temple.
Yelen glanced at Magnis, who was making considerably heavier weather of walking. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Mostly my pride.’ He grimaced, the expression quickly turning into a wince. ‘A troll tried using my ribs as a punching bag. In my haste to retreat, I slipped on some ice. Would’ve been a most ignoble end if Kain hadn’t been around.’
‘Here, lean on me.’ Yelen slipped an arm around his waist. ‘Can’t have the great Cavril Magnis falling over a second time, can we?’
His eyes narrowed, but he sank against her shoulder all the same. ‘You’re disgustingly cheerful for someone who nearly had their face chewed off. Is that troll spittle in your hair?’
Yelen ignored him. ‘She’s here, Cavril. Minutes ahead of us, that’s all.’
* * *
Yelen couldn’t escape the sense of repeating history as she crept through the tunnels. She’d made the same journey less than a week ago, fretting about the preparations to open the vault, and the possibility of the Gilded Rose following hard on their heels. At the time, Mirika had cautioned her not to worry, just as she always did. And she’d been right, in a way. The Gilded Rose were never the danger – it had been Torik all along. They’d both been betrayed long before they’d even set foot in the tomb.
Once again, Marcan had the lead and Kain the rear. Magnis had declared he was fit to continue under his own power once they’d escaped the storm, and now hobbled a pace or two to Yelen’s front, just as Serene did a pace or two behind. Yelen found it strange to think that a week ago they’d been her rivals, if not her enemies. So much had changed.
Yelen couldn’t help but think what might have been had she and Mirika fallen in with the Gilded Rose, and not Endri Torik’s schemes of immortality. She shook the thought away. It was useless to speculate. If Magnis could help her, then all to the good. If not, she’d carry herself off into the snows before she let sleep take her. Kain had been right about that as well. Victory could always be won if you were prepared to sacrifice for it, and Yelen would gladly lay down her life to stop Azzanar from harming Mirika… or her friends.
Even now, she could feel the demon gloating – the warm, honeyed chuckle that spoke to a pleasure deferred, but not denied. The flashes of the burning world came more frequently now, keeping pace with Yelen’s growing tiredness. Each time, she girded what strength she had left and drove the visions away.
A little longer. That’s all she needed.
At last, they arrived in the tomb proper – the room in which Mirika had nearly died.
‘Is she here?’ hissed Serene.
‘She’s here.’ Kain pointed up to the head of the zigzag stairway. Soft golden light glimmered away between the colossal statues. ‘I’d be happier if I knew why.’
‘Just be glad we’ve found her at all.’ Magnis turned to Yelen. ‘Are you ready for this?’
She hesitated. The course of the coming minutes would make the horrors of recent days worthwhile, or douse
them deeper in tragedy. But what choice was there? ‘What do you need me to do?’
‘I’ll distract her. You talk to her. Get her attention. If there’s any part of Mirika left behind those eyes, she’ll listen to you.’
‘And if that doesn’t work?’ growled Marcan.
Magnis hesitated. ‘It’ll work.’
Marcan and Kain shared a bleak look behind Magnis’ back. Their paymaster didn’t see it, but Yelen did. ‘I have to do this. No one else needs to come.’
‘We’re here, aren’t we?’ said Marcan. ‘Shame to trudge all this way and not see how it ends.’
Serene nodded, but said nothing.
‘Thank you,’ said Yelen, the words feeling empty and useless on her tongue. Then she pushed past Marcan and began the long, slow climb up the stairs.
* * *
Harsh syllables danced on the air as Yelen ascended, the voice Mirika’s and yet not. As on that fateful night by the Nereta, a dry, dead screech underlaid every unfamiliar word, a sound so hateful it set Yelen’s nerves dancing anew. Though the words were strange, their sense was all too similar to those of the wights of the Lower Reach. But it didn’t matter. The sound of Mirika’s voice redoubled Yelen’s courage. She wasn’t lost. Not yet. She could still be reached.
‘You need to give this up, poppet.’
‘And you need to shut up,’ muttered Yelen. ‘I don’t care what you think.’
Azzanar laughed softly. ‘Your sister’s gone by now. That withered old soul has waited centuries. He’ll have smothered her without a second thought. All you can do is destroy him in return, and I doubt you’ve the strength for that.’
‘A few days ago, I might have agreed with you. Things are different now.’
‘They are indeed. Truly, poppet, I’m impressed, and it’s made me reconsider. You’ve enough life for us to share. I’ll take the nights, and you the days, how does that sound? All you need do is walk away.’
It was all Yelen could do not to laugh out loud. ‘You think I’ll fall for that? If I walk away, I’ll be yours night and day.’
Azzanar snorted. ‘Even if that were true, you go up and you’ll die.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. But at least I’ll know I did everything I could to help Mirika.’