The Shadow King

by Alec Hutson

  The Chosen did not respond, but Alyanna saw one of its blackened fingers twitch. She pressed on, hoping her guess was correct.

  “His power over you is broken. You can be free again.”

  wan ying is only one of five. his hate is my hate.

  Alyanna kept her disappointment from showing. Instead, she sneered, drawing forth her flail. Strands of shadow coalesced from nothing, twisting and snapping in the air like living creatures. The flail strained against her will, pleading to be unleashed.

  “Let us make Wan Ying one of four.”

  With a thought, she let slip the restraints, and the tendrils of darkness leapt forward, rippling towards the Chosen. The strands crossed the distance between them in an eyeblink, but the child demon twisted out of the way, contorting its body unnaturally so that the ravenous arms of the flail slipped past it without sinking into its dead flesh. Alyanna grunted in frustration and swung the ebony hilt sharply, whipping the tendrils through the air. Again, the Chosen avoided most of the lashing tendrils, but one managed to sink into its arm. For a moment it was trapped, and the flail seized this chance to wrap a half-dozen more of its arms around where the first had fastened itself to the Chosen. Alyanna let loose with a cry of triumph. She gripped the handle tightly with both hands, pulling hard as she willed her sorcery to strengthen the tendrils. The Chosen leaned its body away from the flail as the weapon dragged it towards Alyanna, its heels skidding in the snow.

  Wisps of darkness were leaking from where the tendril’s barbed ends had punctured skin, the coils constricting as the flail crushed the Chosen’s arm.

  “Die, you bastard,” Alyanna hissed, straining to rip the limb away. The tension was swelling towards a breaking point, and she pulled harder.

  Then she was stumbling backwards, barely able to keep herself upright. Cold surprise washed over her. She still held the ebony hilt of the flail, but the dark tendrils had been uprooted like weeds; they squirmed wildly, leaking shadows that stained the air. With a growl, the Chosen ripped the coils away and tossed them aside, where they writhed in the snow.

  “By the dead gods . . .” she whispered, numb with shock. Then she jumped as her wards shuddered violently. The Chosen had leapt forward faster than she could see, slamming itself against her invisible shield. Its blackened fingers, tipped with long ragged nails, raked her wards; to anyone else it would look like the child demon was flailing against the air, but Alyanna could see the great gouges the creature was scooping from her sorcerous shield. Desperately, she poured more of her strength into the ward, reinforcing it. She still held the ebony handle, but the ancient soul that had infused the artifact had slipped into oblivion. Now she grasped nothing more than a hunk of cold dead wood. She hurled it to the snow, still having trouble comprehending what had just happened.

  The Chosen had been hurt, though. It was hurling itself again and again at her wards, scrabbling to break through, but Alyanna could see that the arm the flail had seized was hanging oddly, as if whatever passed for its bones had been crushed and only its flesh was keeping it attached to its shoulder. There was blackness leaking from the wound as well, curling in the air, but Alyanna wasn’t certain if that was the Chosen’s blood or the remnants of whatever had spilled from the broken tendrils.

  Her wards buckled again, and she was forced to channel more sorcery to keep them from collapsing.

  Alyanna struggled to control her rising fear.

  “What are you?” she murmured.

  Hroi lunged at Cho Lin, stabbing at her with his dark blade. She crossed her butterfly swords and caught the length of clouded amber, the strange metal ringing like a struck bell. The force of the strike drove her back a pace, and she feared for a moment that her swords might shatter, but the ancient steel held. The Skein king followed with a broad sweep of the longer silver blade, and she leapt away, feeling the tip graze the furs covering her stomach. She had barely found her footing before he was pressing her again, lashing out with both blades. Her butterfly swords swept up to meet and turn aside the king’s blows as they came in rapid succession. The other Skein had been sluggish, almost dazed by their time in the shadow of the mountain, but not Hroi.

  Cho Lin was driven backwards as she desperately warded away the flickering blades, and she had to keep some small measure of concentration on keeping her footing in the snow. She gritted her teeth as she barely caught the amber sword before it found her belly, her wrist aching as it absorbed the force of the cut. Cho Lin had never seen a warrior wield two long blades as well as the Skein king – usually swordsmen preferred a shorter, parrying dagger to accompany a longer blade for striking, though her own pairing of identical butterfly swords was not unheard of.

  Hroi’s skill was frightening; he lacked the precision and agility of a Red Fang master, but his strength and speed were almost unnatural. Craftiness, too – several times he nearly lulled her into a fatal mistake, pretending to overextend on a slash and offering her a tantalizing opening to rush forward, but she restrained herself, and then he snapped his swords back into their guard with no suggestion that he had ever truly lost his balance. At times she tried to steal the initiative, launching her own flurry of strikes, but his blades met her own with disconcerting ease.

  Her arms were tiring and her wrists burned. Without the strength of the Nothing flowing through her she would soon be exhausted. Despair crept into her heart, and her sword faltered, a heartbeat late. The tip of the silver sword grazed her thigh, opening a line of fire on her leg. She grunted in pain and hopped back a few steps, trying to buy herself a few moments to find her composure again, but the Skein king followed her with a vicious grin, his dark eyes exultant. Frantically, she turned away his eager slashes, avoiding a more serious injury by luck as much as skill.

  Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a man wrapped in blue flames stumbling through the snow. Skein or Dymorian, she couldn’t tell. His screams penetrated the fog in her head, and then she noticed more sounds, thunder grumbling loudly and the crack of ice shattering. She wanted to turn and see what was happening, but Hroi was coming at her again, swords whirling. He must have seen what she could not, as his mouth was set in a grim, determined line as he attacked. Her butterfly sword deflected the amber blade with a ringing clash, but her wounded leg gave out and she slipped to one knee in the snow with a pained cry. Hroi chopped down with his silver sword and she caught it with the guard of her own sword, but the force jarred the hilt from her hand. The Skein snarled something fierce and kicked out, his boot striking her in the chest. The breath was knocked from her as she went sprawling, and she lost her grip on her other sword.

  A lance of crimson sorcery struck the Skein king in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards. Cho Lin drew in a shuddering breath and rolled onto her side, wincing at the grating pain in her ribs. Seril stood a few dozen paces away, her slim hand upraised, her eyes wide with surprise. Behind her, the fighting still raged, but a quick glance told Cho Lin that the Skein were nearly finished – the few barbarians still standing were surrounded by several soldiers, and she saw a volley of flashing green darts flash from elsewhere and disappear into one of the warriors. He roared, dropping his great sword to slap at his furs like he had been stung by a swarm of bees, and the pair of soldiers that had been kept at bay by his huge blade closed on him with flashing steel.

  Cho Lin rolled to her feet and scooped one of her swords from the snow. She hobbled over to where the king of the Skein lay sprawled on his back; his dark eyes stared sightlessly at the blue sky, and a hole had been charred in the furs draped over his chest. Cho Lin stepped over him and saw that the red lance had also blasted a hole through the chain armor and flesh beneath.

  Seril’s strained voice came from just behind her. “I didn’t . . . that was the first . . . is he dead?”

  “Very dead,” Cho Lin said, turning to the ashen-faced magister. Seril was staring at the dead king in horror, as if she couldn’t
believe what she had done.

  Cho Lin took a step closer and wrapped her in an embrace.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him,” Seril whispered.

  “Thank the Four Winds you did,” Cho Lin told her. “Else I would be dead.”

  She pulled away. Seril tugged on a lock of her golden hair, staring at the dead king in dread fascination. They turned as a final rending crash signaled the end of the battle, the lone remaining Skein warrior felled by a crackling green bolt. Cho Lin looked around to find the magister Vhelan sauntering through the corpses, emerald fire limning his hands.

  He saw them and smiled broadly. “Victory!” He noticed Hroi’s prone body and his eyebrows rose. “And well done, Magister d’Kalla. We’ll make a battlemage of you yet.”

  “No,” Seril said softly with a shudder. “I am not that kind of sorceress.”

  Vhelan paused, glancing around. “Speaking of those kinds of sorceresses . . . where is Alyanna?”

  The demon stalked the perimeter of Alyanna’s wards, the oily black blood leaking from its ravaged arm uncoiling in the air like smoke. Despite its eyes having been gouged out, Alyanna could somehow sense its burning, hateful stare, and it made her skin prickle. The black veins beneath its corpse-skin writhed, and she shuddered. Whatever it had once been, this child was tainted by powers beyond this world.

  “What was your mother like?” Alyanna called out as it prowled around her.

  The Chosen ignored her taunt, its face blank, continuing its circuit. Suddenly it attacked, clawing at her wards. In her mind’s eye Alyanna saw the rent the creature’s fingers had left in the invisible barrier, and she poured sorcery into the gap to seal it as quickly as possible.

  Such strength! A dragon’s lashing tail would have done less damage to her wards – had, in fact. Either the Chosen was far stronger than it looked, or whatever Void essence had corrupted its body was helping to corrode her sorcery. It struck again, nearly breaking through. Alyanna let out a shuddering breath. It was only a matter of time before the demon succeeded, and once it was within her wards, she had no illusions about how long she’d last. She needed to attack.

  With the bulk of her strength devoted to maintaining her shield, she could only summon forth a lesser sorcery – dreadfire would have been her first choice, but that spell drained all Talents of their reserves, and if she missed or it proved ineffective the Chosen would be through her wards and tearing out her throat before the next moment had passed. Instead, she conjured a sphere of blue fire and thrust it crackling at the demon; it exploded when it struck the Chosen, gobbets of azure flame raining down, and the creature staggered back a step. Yet it appeared unharmed, and even its hair and ragged clothes failed to ignite. Alyanna honestly wasn’t certain if even dreadfire would have the slightest effect on this thing.

  The warlocks had been right – it would take a special weapon to slay the demons. Her hand slipped to the handle of the black knife and a cold thrill went through her. Please, by all the dead gods, let Niara’s genius be borne out this one last time.

  Alyanna’s heart quickened. She would have to drop her wards, and then stab it before it could tear her apart. Sweat slickened her grip on the handle.

  One chance.

  Her life spun on the end of a fraying rope.

  The Chosen raked her wards, slicing away another chunk. She could feel it pressing itself against the barrier, as cold as iron in winter.

  Three. Two. One.

  Alyanna dropped the ward, and she almost thought she saw surprise in the child’s sunken face as it stumbled forward a step. She surged forward, stabbing with the knife she’d drawn from her belt.

  The dark-threaded blade plunged towards the Chosen’s throat. She was too close; it couldn’t move in time, the edge was going to open whatever passed for an artery in its neck and spill its vile contents—

  She missed.

  The Chosen jerked its head away faster than she thought possible, then slapped at her hand. Alyanna screamed; it felt like a huge rock had struck her fingers. The knife was lost, spinning away through the air. Moaning, cradling her hand, Alyanna staggered backwards. For a moment the Chosen watched the knife where it had fallen, as if intrigued by something it saw, and then its lips pulled back from its blackened teeth as it lunged at her.

  Screaming in terror, Alyanna summoned a final, desperate ward, just as the Chosen struck her and bore her to the snow. It was a thin shell barely a span from her body, and so fragile she felt it tremble as the demon slashed at her again and again. It was so close she could smell it now – the Chosen stank of holes deep under the earth where things rotted in the dark. She gagged, her tenuous hold on her ward slipping through her fingers as the demon straddling her struck again and again.

  The last vestige of her ward turned to mist. “No!” she cried, throwing out her arms, expecting to feel the claws or fangs of the demon tearing at her flesh.

  The Chosen shuddered, arching its back and raising its face to the sky. Alyanna scrabbled for her sorcery, trying to grasp enough that she could reform her shattered defenses. A rattling hiss escaped from the Chosen as it slowly lowered its head to stare down at her. Black tears streaked its pallid cheeks, leaking from the gaping holes where once its eyes had been. The demon’s mouth opened, as if it was about to say something, and then it toppled off her.

  On the edge of panic, Alyanna pushed herself away from the slumped Chosen, slipping and falling as she tried to stand.

  Then she saw it – the hilt of the black knife protruding from between its bony shoulder blades.

  A dozen paces away, Nel stood with her arm still frozen in the act of throwing, her eyes wide as she stared at the sprawled child-demon.

  Alyanna fought back the terror that had nearly overwhelmed her. Taking a steadying breath she mastered herself again.

  “Is it dead?” Nel asked.

  “It was already dead,” Alyanna replied, trying to hide how close she had been to breaking. She edged closer to the motionless demon, finally finding the power to weave a fragile ward; the demon would likely tear her sorcery apart like steel through silk if it leapt at her again, but still it made her feel more confident knowing it was there.

  The Chosen was changing; it was lying face down, with one arm folded beneath its chest, but the other lay outstretched, half sunk in the snow. The color of the demon’s pallid flesh was subtly shifting, and Alyanna could no longer see the distended black veins. For the first time, the Chosen’s tangled hair was stirring in the breeze. Then its body and its ragged clothes began to blacken and shrivel, crumbling away. In the span of a few breaths there was nothing but the ashy outline of a small child upon the white snow. In its center, apparently untouched, lay the black knife.

  “Well done, Niara,” Alyanna whispered. She turned her attention to the magister’s servant. “And I’ve decided to forgive you for your earlier transgressions.”

  Nel snorted and looked away.

  Alyanna knelt beside the remains of the Chosen and gently lifted the black knife. The dark strands threading the metal might have lightened slightly, but perhaps that was her imagination.

  “Sorceress!”

  She glanced up from her examination of the dagger. The Shan girl was approaching, still holding her blood-streaked swords.

  “Where were you?” Cho Lin asked accusingly, her jaw clenched. She seemed to have been wounded, as she was favoring her right leg.

  “Finishing what we came here to do,” Alyanna replied with a sniff, pointing the tip of the dagger at the ash smeared across the snow.

  Cho Lin glared at her, and then comprehension slowly broke across her face. “Wait, that was—” She glanced at Nel, as if asking for confirmation. After the Lyrish thief nodded, Cho Lin sheathed her swords and hobbled over to the Chosen’s ashes, sinking to her knees.

  Cho Lin reached out, hesitated, and then scooped up a handful of the
black grit. She let it sift through her fingers, her uptilted eyes wide with wonder as some of it was carried away by the breeze.

  “It was just one?” she said softly.

  “The others are inside the Burrow.”

  Cho Lin glanced sharply at Alyanna. “How do you know this?”

  “The Chosen spoke with only one voice; it had been cut off from its brethren. The layers of sorcery separating the Burrow from the outside world must have severed their bond.”

  Cho Lin rose, wincing. “Truly, this weapon is a gift from the gods. How did you use it?”

  Nel cleared her throat. “I was the one who stabbed the demon.”

  Cho Lin narrowed her eyes. “So no sorcery is required to wield the knife.”

  “None. Shove the point in and the demon falls apart.”

  The Shan turned to Alyanna. “Let me have the knife. There is no one here more deadly with a blade.”

  Nel opened her mouth as if to argue this, then shrugged. “True,” she said grudgingly. “I saw her fighting the Skein.” Then she smirked at Alyanna. “And you’re useless. You looked like a butcher trying to hack up a piece of meat.” Nel pantomimed an awkward chop with an imaginary knife.

  Alyanna scowled, but she knew the idiot girl was right. She was no warrior.

  She measured the Shan girl carefully. Young and slight, but there was a hardness about her. Her family had hunted the Chosen for a thousand years. And she was a disciple of Red Fang, the crucible known for forging the finest warriors in the world.

  Alyanna drew the knife and offered it to the girl hilt first.

  Cho Lin accepted it with a bow of her head. She stared at the black-threaded metal for a long moment; then she said something in Shan, a rapid tumble of strange words, and slipped the knife away.