His Ancient Heart

by M. R. Forbes

  The sailor stopped at Talon's side.

  "Where's Curio?" he asked.

  "Dead."

  "What do we do?"

  "Fight."

  Talon found his knife and handed it to him. He took a slow, purposeful breath. All of the other thoughts that had whirled through his mind slowed to a stop, and then coalesced into a cold, dense point of focus. His eyes began to blur, and everything around him seemed to slow as well.

  I'm more than the First of Nine. I'm the champion of Ares' Nor.

  Something in his mind unlocked.

  Thrummm...

  With a thought, Talon fell from their time and into the Shifter's. He could see the invisible orcs here, a dozen coming up the gangway or climbing over the sides. He could see more beyond the dock, their bodies dark blurs moving through the town, appearing and disappearing as they found victims to attack.

  Some of the orcs noticed he was in their timeline. Six of them changed direction, coming at him directly, their bodies low and their claws out. They pounced at Talon as a whole, trying to bring him down.

  He felt the power of the ebocite heart. He felt his body pulsing, tingling. He decapitated the first orc to reach him, kicked another hard in the face, spun and dropped his blade to catch and throw a third. He picked it up again, disemboweling another in one smooth motion. The last managed to land on him, hitting him and knocking him backwards.

  Thrummm....

  He fell out of the timeline, bringing the orc with him. He wrestled on the ground with it, its jaws only inches from his face, hot spittle spraying his cheeks.

  It howled in pain and fell limp in his arms. He rolled it off him and looked up. Abeleth leaned over him, the knife bloody in his hands.

  "I got one," he said with a smile.

  His eyes went wide, and a claw appeared through his back. A heartbeat later a bolt of lightning lashed into the creature, and it screamed and smoked while it fell to the ground, bringing Abeleth's body with it.

  Talon got back to his feet and lifted his sword. Delia was standing with Wilem, the Mediator holding the staff up high, launching bolts of magic at any of the creatures he saw. Bodies of dead orcs littered the deck.

  "Come on," Talon said. He picked his knife from Abeleth's hand and ran for the gangway. "We have to save as many as we can."

  An orc appeared next to Wilem, its arm already raised to strike. Wilem saw it too late, and he cried out as he tried to back away. The claws slashed towards him, aiming to tear him apart.

  Delia stepped in front of him, grabbing the creature's forearm, twisting it and bringing it down on her knee. Talon heard the crack of its arm breaking, and then watched the girl slip under it, pivot, and flip it over onto its back. Wilem used the opportunity to slam the staff into it and use his magic, killing it in an instant.

  "Wilem," Talon said, getting his attention. The Mediator grabbed Delia's arm and pulled her towards Talon. "This way."

  He led them down from the barge and onto the dock. Dal's body was resting on the planks, bleeding out into the water below. Gerland's wagon was still there, the horses unharmed. He could only hope the brewer was safe. They ran along the dock to the shore, reaching it uncontested.

  "Help me," a voice cut through the night.

  Hugh was running towards them. His shoulder was bloody, his arm limp at his side. An orc appeared next to him, and he stumbled and fell away from it, rolling to his feet and putting his arms up to protect himself.

  Thrummm...

  Talon felt the power of the ebocite heart pulling him into the time distortion caused by the Shifters. He could see the orcs all around him, ignoring him in their efforts to catch and kill the townspeople. He charged at the one following Hugh.

  Thrummm...

  He appeared right next to Hugh, freezing the shocked orc in place, and using the surprise to remove its head. He held out his arm and helped Hugh back to his feet. "Where is your father?" he asked.

  Hugh stared at him, as shocked at what he had seen as the orc had been. "Dead, I think," he said. "We were on the dock, getting another pair of barrels when they attacked. We both ran. I heard him cry out, and then a splash. I think they pulled him into the water."

  "Your arm?"

  His shirt was soaked in blood.

  "I can't feel it."

  He had lost a lot of blood. Was still losing a lot of blood. There was no time to bandage him. He'd seen enough war to know the outcome.

  "Get under the wagon, and stay there. Lay flat, don't move, and they won't see you. I'll be back to tend your arm once the battle is over."

  "Battle?" Hugh said. His face was growing paler by the second. "What are they?"

  "Demons," Talon said. It was as much as the boy needed to know. "Go."

  Hugh clutched his arm and staggered past, headed for the wagon. The screams were beginning to lessen, one voice fallen from the masses at a time.

  "Talon, we should go," Wilem said. "Get out of here. This isn't our doing."

  Talon turned on him, his eyes the only attack he needed. "This is my doing," he cursed. "His doing. A thousand years in the making. I'm not leaving this town until every one of them is dead."

  Wilem nodded silently, dropping the argument. Delia was still at his side, her eyes darting back and forth in search of the creatures. If she knew her father was dead, she wasn't showing it.

  Talon ran from the edge of the docks, making a straight line for the Willow. Dozens of sailors and women had been in the building, making it an obvious place for the bulk of the Shifters to attack. Even now, he could hear cries of help from that direction, and he could see that both the inn and the brothel were on fire.

  Bodies lay on the ground around him, women and men in various states of dress. All were bloody and broken, run through by sharp claws or torn by sharp teeth. A few of the people were still alive, sobbing softly, making weak cries for help. An orc appeared over one of them to finish the job. Talon raised his sword, waiting in mercy for it to make its kill before slicing it open and continuing his advance.

  Orcs blinked into view around him, first alone, and then in growing numbers, trying to bring him down. He stood in front of the buildings, framed by the fires spilling from both, grabbing and cutting, ducking and stabbing. Bolts of lightning launched from Wilem's staff, catching the unsuspecting creatures and knocking them to the ground.

  There are so many.

  Without him and Wilem, the town would have been laid to waste in minutes. I was a scene that Talon knew had played itself out over and over again all of those years ago, when the Shifters had first appeared and before they had learned to fight them.

  Even with their intervention, the battle went badly.

  Talon led Wilem and Delia through the town, searching for survivors and cutting down any of the creatures that tried to stop them. Delia proved to be invaluable to Wilem, her impressive and unique hand combat skills able to neutralize any of the Shifters that tried to reach him, keeping them down long enough for the Mediator to finish the work.

  They rounded the corner of a makeshift smithy, a tall lean-to with a forge hastily constructed near the back. The smith was slumped over his anvil, his back torn open. An orc appeared in Talon's face. Talon jerked his head forward, slamming it against the creature's, knocking it back. Then he brought the sword up and through the bottom of its neck, skewering it. He growled as he lifted the Shifter from the ground and tossed it aside.

  As he did, he noticed a horse in the distance, near the back of the town. A soldier sat on it, looking back at him. It was the guard, Tiles. His hair was a mess, and he looked terrified. He whirled the horse, turning to ride for the gates.

  Talon watched him for a few seconds, making his decision. If he escaped, word would reach him of what happened here. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? He wasn't sure. How would Jeremiah react to knowing there were even more of the Shifters loose in the Empire? He wasn't sure of that either. It helped him make his choice.

  Let him learn what has ha
ppened here. Let us see if he has any soul left at all.

  He watched Tiles flee the town, and then continued the hunt.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Talon

  It took them three hours to hunt down the final Shifter.

  Three hours of wandering the remains of Fulton, navigating around flames and corpses, and killing not only the orcs, but also whoever they found whose wounds were too grievous to heal.

  Which amounted to the entire town.

  It was grisly, nasty work. It was dirty, sweaty and bloody, and by the end of it, Talon felt physically strong, and emotionally dead. His shoulders slumped at his sides, his bald head dripped sweat into his eyes, and he tried to remember if there had ever been a day as singularly violent as this one had been.

  I don't think so. Not even Ares'Nor was like this. Not once the General was dead.

  "That's the last of them?" Wilem asked, glancing down at the dead orc. He leaned into the staff so hard that it was obvious the ircidium pole was the only thing keeping him up. His hair was sweaty and matted to his face, and his sleeve was bloody from an orc that had gotten its claws into him before Delia kicked it away. If it hadn't been for the girl, he would have been dead ten times over.

  Thrummm....

  Talon tried to put himself into the alternate time. He couldn't.

  "Yes," he said. He dropped the sword onto the orc's body and took a heaving breath. Then he looked over at Delia. She was as sweaty and dirty as he was. "Are you well?"

  She nodded. "Thanks to you, General." Her face dipped, a wave of sadness washing over it. "My father is dead." She said it as fact.

  "I'm sorry," Talon said. He wasn't sure if he meant it. If it hadn't been for the merchant, the Shifters would never have been there in the first place.

  Wilem reached out and put his arm over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, as well," he said. She pushed herself into the crook of his arm, her body shaking as she sobbed. He ran his hand over her head, trying to console her.

  "Are you well?" Talon asked the Mediator.

  Wilem nodded, a guilty look on his face. "Tired, and a little dizzy. I'll recover. Do you think he'll send soldiers here?"

  "No. He knows how the Shifters work. He'll assume the town is lost and order that the barges pass on the far side of the river. Unless he finds out that I was seen here, fighting them. Either way, it will take a few days for word to reach Varrow or Edgewater. We'll be gone by then."

  "Gone?" Wilem asked. "How? The barges aren't going to move without oarsmen, and if we want to take the land route, we'll be right back to where we started."

  Talon rubbed his chin with his hand, feeling the stubble there. "We'll still take the river," he said. "First, let us do one more sweep of the town in search of survivors. Whatever condition they may be in, I don't want them to suffer."

  "Delia," Wilem said. He took her by the shoulders and gently pulled her away from him. "Can you walk?"

  She rubbed at her eyes with her forearm, only managing to smear more dirt across her face. "I can walk. I can fight if need be." The sadness was still there, but it was matched with strength.

  The three of them walked back through the town. The fire had consumed most of it, including the Willow and the Gullet, leaving the bulk of Fulton a smoldering husk. They could see charred flesh in the piles of wood and ash and debris, both human and Shifter alike. The only sound in the air was the crackling and popping of flames that had yet to recede.

  "How many people lived here?" Wilem said quietly as they walked. It wasn't a question as much as an expression of disbelief at the carnage.

  "A thousand, maybe more," Talon guessed. That wasn't counting the sailors from the three barges resting at the docks.

  Too many. Too much death.

  Murderer.

  They didn't find any survivors.

  Their grisly business done, Talon led them back to the docks. While the barges couldn't sail without a complement of oarsmen, they had survived the flames, and they were sure to have stores of food and sundries on board. That was important, but even more important to Talon was the farspeak stone Curio had in his hold.

  Hugh was still under Gerland's wagon when they returned to it. He was laying flat on the ground as Talon instructed, his hands at his sides, his eyes closed from the exhaustion the loss of blood had brought. As Talon had suspected, they were eyes that would never open again.

  "A shame," Wilem said.

  "All of it is," Talon replied.

  They passed Dal's corpse and climbed the gangway onto the barge. Delia found her father there, rushing over to his broken body and kneeling in front of it, pushing his eyes closed and whispering goodbyes.

  "Wait here with her," Talon said.

  "Where are you going?"

  "Curio has a farspeak stone in his collection. He told me it activates whenever any of the other stones do. I'm going to retrieve it, so we can bring it with us. I won't be long."

  "I can help you."

  Talon shook his head. "No. Stay with her. She needs someone right now."

  Wilem's face changed. He looked guilty again. "Talon, I... I don't want you to get the wrong idea."

  "About what?"

  "Delia. I mean, she's very, very pretty. I don't think anyone could say that isn't so. If I am friendly with her, I am only trying to help her. I love Eryn."

  Poor boy is trying so hard to convince himself. At his age, he'd have to be one of the dead not to take notice of a girl like her. Surviving it will either prove or break his love.

  "It is neither my business or my concern," Talon said. "The fate of this Empire is bigger than the whims of your heart, whichever direction it may turn."

  Wilem bowed his head and went to stand with Delia while Talon made his way forward.

  He smelled it before he saw it, the scent of fire and scorched earth. He reached the door of the hold and paused. The iridescent light had been dimmed, large patches of the vegetation turned to ash all along the length of the deck. Water three inches deep bathed the floor, spilling in from an unseen hole that had formed in the hull. Wooden crates that had once held parts of Curio's collection were strewn around the space. Some of them lay broken on the floor, their contents spilling out. Others burned, filling the hold with a light haze of smoke.

  The farspeak stone was gone.

  No, not gone. Talon found the empty pedestal, and then located the stone on the ground in front of it. He stepped down into the cold river water, feeling it soak right through his leather boots to his feet. He ignored it, splashing through it until he reached the artifact. He bent down and gripped it from the top, picking it up.

  His heart sank, and he let out a soft groan as he watched only the top half of the stone rise. It had broken in two, a ragged cut that left the lower portion of the stone poking up from the water like a miniature island. He clutched his portion in his arms for a moment, staring down at it as if he could will it back together. The value of the information he might have gained from the stone's possession was immeasurable. Its loss was painful.

  He sighed and dropped the stone, letting it splash into the water at his feet. He scanned the hold, only now searching for the source of the destruction. He found her on the floor behind her cage, her body twisted unnaturally, her face frozen in a cry of anguish. Her fingertips were burned nearly to nothing, her clothes melted away by the power of her Curse.

  A Curse she hadn't been able to control.

  Talon lowered his head. Two more lives lost. What had Curio been thinking? What had he been hoping to achieve? If the man weren't already dead, he might have been tempted to kill him for his cruel stupidity.

  "Perhaps there is something here we can use," he said to himself, turning away from the body and back to the damaged crates. He bent over the wreckage, pulling at broken planks and wads of hay. The first thing he found was a figurine of a girl in a wide, short skirt, the skirt flowing out from her hips, her posture suggesting she was dancing. It was made of white stone, the cut flawless.
r />   He tossed it aside.

  He rummaged through another box. Here he found a sphere of glass with white dust resting inside. As he picked it up, the dust was disturbed, and it twirled and floated inside the sphere, sparkling in the light of the dying flames.

  He dropped that one, too.

  Talon drew back when he dug out the contents of a third crate, and found himself holding a hand. Not a human hand. It was made of ircidium, polished and reflective, with smooth joints that curled the piece into a neutral position. He recovered from the shock and ran his fingers along it, tracing the shape of the metal, and letting himself remember.

  The juggernauts. He had made them. Designed and forged them. That was his talent, his job, he knew that now. He had made things for the wizards of Genesia. Whatever they had needed for their work, he had found a way to create it. He was no wizard, had no magic of his own. A keen mind, a steady hand. Patience. He laughed at that, turning the hand over, examining the insides. Patience.

  A Three Six?

  He could picture it now, the size and shape of the model.

  No, the Three Six had sharper edges, rougher grooves.

  He looked at the back of the hand. The inner mechanism had been removed at some point, making it harder to identify.

  It's more advanced than the Three Six. But the three six was the last model. Wasn't it?

  He considered keeping the hand, but what was the point? It would never fit Oz, and it was useless without the movement. He placed it back in the water, which he noticed had risen another half a foot. He knew the river wasn't that deep, but was it shallow enough to keep the barge from sinking?

  He decided to search two more of the crates, picking a pair that hadn't been damaged by the girl's magic. He grabbed at the sealed edges and pried one open, spilling out the hay and capturing his prize.

  A six inch shard of ebocite. He threw it from him, and it smacked off the far wall of the hold. Talon looked back at the Cursed girl in the corner. It was better that she was dead. Better for her and her unborn child.