by Tony Daniel
“Evinthir!” she shouted.
She let go.
And her star found him, the elf inside Wuten. A place to hold. Memories to set in motion.
She clutched the draugar with talons of light.
The life began to trickle back into Abenweth Grevenstran, Pillar of the North. The scream frozen on his mouth became a real scream, the anguished cry of a living being. His eyes moistened, focused. They were green. Sea green. The lines on his face shrank. The furrows of his skin filled. Blood began to flow. Color returned to his features.
“No.” He began to sob. “I won’t! I will not!”
Saeunn Amberstone’s soulless body collapsed onto the stones of Allfather Square.
Why am I falling?
So darkly.
Abenweth Grevenstran whimpered. He was alive. He hated it.
X X X
The draugar screamed in pain.
Only it wasn’t the draugar at all.
It was a pale skinned elf with pure white hair and sea-green eyes. Wuten—now the elf—dug his fingers into the skin, seemingly trying to rip it away from his face.
The black was disappearing from his clothing. It leeched away to reveal him wearing a white cloak, lined with white fur.
He was definitely an elf. He was tall and thin with a gaunt face. It was a face that he was trying to rip away.
Wulf met Anya at the center of the square. He picked her up, turned around, and ran back the way he’d come. He found Albrec Tolas.
“Get her out of here, Tolas!” he said.
“Of course,” said the gnome. “Hello, my dear girl.”
Anya stared at Tolas for a moment. Then they hugged. Since they were both the same height, it was hard to tell who pulled whom into it.
Wulf spun around, facing back to the square.
“Archers,” he shouted. “Fire!”
Chapter Fifty-Three:
The Revenge
Arrows were flying. Men dropped as they were struck. The Hundred charged.
Things became bloody fast.
After the sides met, the centaurs threw their bows down and pulled swords. They had no armor besides a leather jerkin here and there and leather guards on their arms. Still they attacked.
Men and bears roared and grunted as they swung their weapons. Centaurs cried out, and when they were in pain, screamed like horses. Gnomes hacked at legs and tendons. Some were sliced by downward swinging swords. Others got stomped to death by the heavy boots of the Nesties.
Wulf headed for the elder elf.
He had forgotten that the bear men were guarding him, but they came to his rescue twice as Sandhaveners tried to intersect and cut him down.
“Let me though, curse you to cold hell,” he yelled at his guards.
Those beside him fell back. Two bear men pushed ahead. One was slain with a sword through the neck. This left the other bear man facing an unarmed opponent. He brought a halberd down into the man’s skull.
Wulf ran past them.
The elf was pulling himself back to his feet. His face was scratched and bleeding.
Almost there.
There was a shout of anger. Wulf turned almost too late to see Trigvi. The prince lunged at him with a sword.
“M’lord!”
One of the archers leaped between them. Trigvi’s sword sank into the shank where man shape turned into horse shape. Blood poured, and the centaur collapsed. It slid off the end of Trigvi’s sword.
Trigvi looked up triumphant.
Wulf lunged. The tip of his sword punched into Trigvi’s chest. The mail hauberk stopped the blade from cutting deeper, but Wulf felt something give.
He pulled back. Trigvi tried to raise his own sword, but Wulf plunged an elbow against the inside of Trigvi’s arm, and the sword flew from his grip. It clattered on the stones.
Prince Trigvi took a staggering step back. He raised a hand to feel whatever was causing the pain in his chest. He couldn’t catch his breath. Wulf’s stab had broken something.
Wulf drew back the bear-man sword with two hands. He hacked into the prince’s neck with a sweep. The blade sank in until it was stopped in the space between two vertebrae. Wulf twisted it to pull it free.
Trigvi’s head flopped to one side. A look of amazement stayed on the head’s face. But Trigvi von Krehennest was dead before he hit the ground.
Wulf’s spun around to find the elder elf.
The elf was headed toward the cathedral.
But then there was a flash as something brown and white crashed into the elf.
Nagel. The elf swatted, but missed. Nagel banked and flew at him again. This time the elf caught her with a mailed fist. The owl squawked in pain, and went tumbling to the cobblestones. She lay motionless.
“You,” Wulf shouted to the elf. “Turn around!”
The elf turned. He stood gazing at Wulf for an eyeblink. Then he pulled the curved sword from a scabbard. The sword was no longer black. It shone like bright, sharp steel.
Wulf raised his own sword to ready and moved in.
The elf screamed and charged. He swung his sword in a wicked downward arc at Wulf’s head. Wulf grabbed his sword by the tip and by the end and swung up into an overhead block.
The two swords connected and rang like an angry bell.
The elf pulled back and swung at Wulf’s side. Wulf smashed the blade down.
But the elf had lifetimes of experience. He recovered with lightning speed. He lunged and Wulf barely danced back in time. The elf had stepped in with the lunge. He swung the falcata’s hilt to the side and smashed the metal guard into Wulf’s head.
Agony. Wulf reeled away. He tried to stay on his feet.
The elf made a backhand slash at Wulf’s neck. Wulf reached for the blade by instinct and caught it in the palm of his gauntlet, barely stopping it in time.
But this left his side open, and the elf punched viciously into Wulf’s kidney. Wulf yelled in pain. He let go of the elf’s sword and staggered back.
He stumbled into the tree trunk.
His head ached, and his side throbbed with pain. His sword felt as heavy as lead.
This is it, Wulf thought. All I’ve got left.
The elf seemed to sense his weakness. His sea-green eyes danced.
Then something glinted on Wulf’s chest. The elf looked down, and so did Wulf.
The elf was staring at the star stone.
“Brenunn Temeldar?” said the elf. “Sister?”
Wulf lifted his sword up. It felt like he was trying to move it through honey. The elf slapped it out of the way.
“Where come’st thou this?” said the elf.
“Rot in cold hell,” Wulf replied.
The elf frowned. He looked into Wulf’s eyes once again. Then he drew back the curved sword to make the kill.
A shadow passed over Wulf’s shoulder. Boots crashed into the ancient elf’s chest.
The elf’s sword flew away, and it landed in a heap on the cobblestones.
Someone had jump from the tree trunk.
Whoever it was landed on his feet.
The elf scrambled upright. The two stood facing one another.
Instead of a weapon, the man had what looked like a lump of iron just out of the forge. It was brown-black. It had the shape of an ax or a hammer, but it wasn’t either one.
“Who art thou?” the elf said.
The man turned partially toward Wulf, and he could make out his face.
“Nobody,” said Rainer Stope.
Rainer swung the hammer from his shoulder as he might a sledge, arching down, aimed to crash into the skull of the elder elf.
The elf skittered out of the way, and the hammer slammed into the cobblestones, throwing stone chips in every direction.
Before Rainer could raise it again, the elf rushed him. His long fingers whipped around Rainer’s neck.
Have to help, Wulf thought.
His right hand closed around the handle of his old dagger.
He yanked on it.
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It wouldn’t budge.
Rainer moved his arms inside the elf’s grip. He tried to push upward and break the grasp, but the draugar brought a vicious knee into Rainer’s crotch. Rainer doubled over with the pain, and the draugar pushed him farther down by the shoulders. Rainer’s head slammed into the elf’s knee.
Rainer collapsed to the ground.
The elf kicked Rainer in the ribs. Rainer groaned. He kicked Rainer again.
Wulf dove for the Dragon Hammer.
Chapter Fifty-Four:
The Dragon Hammer
Wulf rolled over on his back, clutching the hammer. The sky above flared red and burned. He twisted his head and saw the stark black outline of the cathedral belltower against the burning sky. Streamers of fire whirled everywhere. Instead of the sun, there was a ragged hole in the sky like a hole in glass that a pebble has broken through. From this hole, more fire streamed, purple mixed with black.
The purple and black fire churned and swirled. It seemed to gather near the belltower, to spin around the belfry like a whirlwind. Faster and faster. Until the purple and black flames—
Came together.
Took shape.
It was a dragon. A winged dragon. Reptilian. It was perched at the very top of the belltower. Then it spread wings, huge wings that sparkled with a golden color. It pushed off and flew.
Movement like a soaring raptor, around the belltower once, twice. Then it turned its head toward the square below and toward Wulf. It changed course.
It was coming toward Wulf. Too fast to scramble away. Too fast to move at all.
Closer.
It swooped directly toward him.
He saw the dragon eyes, enormous. A man could step through the pupil slit as if it were a door.
Then he felt it.
The dragon saw him.
Closer.
It’s coming for me, Wulf thought.
The dragon opened its mouth. It whipped its head back, opened its maw.
Flame shot forth. A ball of liquid fire headed straight for Wulf.
The flame struck Wulf. Pain. Understanding. Transformation.
His mind burned away.
He was in the dragon.
He was the dragon.
Yet he was himself. He was Wulf.
This is what you were made for, he thought. For whatever reason or chance, this is the purpose of hearing the dragon-call. This is what the call, the trance, the visions were preparing you for.
Then a deeper, echoing voice within him spoke.
You have traveled through me. Now I travel through you.
No, it wasn’t a voice. He didn’t hear words, not really. It was understanding. A piece of understanding placed in his mind. There had been a dragon-shaped emptiness inside him before. Now it was filled with burning dragon essence.
Flowing through him
Into the Dragon Hammer.
What is it? What is the hammer for? What does it do?
Nothing.
Everything.
The hammer was a chip of the Never and Forever. A not-thing from before the beginning of all beginnings.
What is it for? How did it come to be here?
The answer came as understanding.
The hammer had the power of making and unmaking of all things.
When the time comes . . .
It is—
It will give us—
Flight.
Into the sky. Out of the world.
To the Never and Forever from which all souls spring.
Then Wulf was back in Allfather Square, the Dragon Hammer in his hands.
More understanding. Not words. Sudden, total comprehension of what he had to do.
Now is the time. While the emptiness of Ubel is dispelled and Abenweth Grevenstran is within creation once more. Now is the time to unmake the fallen Pillar of the North.
Wulf stood.
The smell brought Rainer back to consciousness. The maggoty death smell.
He looked up.
The elder elf stood over him.
Or was it the draugar?
The elf’s face began to extend. The beak was coming back. Tendrils of blackness spread like a night-crawling vine under the pale skin. The elf’s eyes were still green, but while Rainer looked, they clouded over, as if black shells were growing thickly over their surface.
“Rendrener drenlevantenteos!” the draugar shouted. “Die, star, die—”
The words twisted into a cry of pain. The cry of pain became a scream of agony.
Black fluid ooze seeped from the draugar’s mouth. Then the ooze turned from black to red, and it was blood that ran down one side of his chin. The coal blackness of the face disappeared.
The draugar was the elf again.
The elf pitched forward, facefirst. He landed on the cobblestones in front of Rainer.
Rainer looked up. Wulf stood over the elf with open palms, the deep scar on his right hand glowing an angry red.
Rainer looked down.
The Dragon Hammer was lodged into the elf’s back. The elf’s hauberk had parted. Blood was matting the links. It looked like the ax’s dull “blade” had punched through and pierced the ancient elf’s heart.
“Wuten, Rage of the North,” Wulf shouted. “Be unmade.”
The elder elf threw back his head as if to roar anger at the sky. No sound emerged from his throat.
“Abenweth Grevenstran, Pillar of the North!” shouted Wulf. “Be unmade!”
And it was so. The elder elf began to disintegrate.
Like a statue of gray ash crumbling away, Rainer thought.
Then the ash making up the remains of the elder elf collapsed. The grains that had formed him sparked like fireflies, flaming in all directions, then dying to nothing.
Gone.
The Dragon Hammer fell to the flagstones of Allfather Square with a dull thump.
“Merciful Tretz,” Rainer murmured. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Finally, he looked up at Wulf.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
Wulf shook his head. “It wasn’t me. The hammer did it.”
“Blood and bones,” Rainer said. “What does that even mean?”
“How the cold hell do I know, Rainer? It was like in the trance. Only the dragon was in me instead of me being in it.”
“So is the black thing gone? Do you at least know that for sure?”
Wulf nodded. “Gone. Like he never was in the first place. Gone for good. Gone forever.”
For a moment they both were still and silent. They gazed at the hammer.
It still looked like a lump of misshapen iron to Rainer. Almost natural. But also almost, but not quite, like it was forged by human hands to use as a tool.
Rainer’s body began to ache like it had taken a beating. He groaned softly.
“Give me a hand up?” he asked Wulf. His friend helped Rainer get to his feet.
They looked down at the hammer again. Rainer felt his strength returning. But the aching didn’t fade.
After a moment, Wulf bent down and picked it up. He looked it over.
“Don’t ask,” he said to Rainer. “I have no idea what it really is.”
There was a soft whirring sound, and something landed on Wulf’s shoulder.
Rainer stepped back.
It was a small owl. It gazed at him fiercely.
He was about to knock it away, but Wulf stopped him.
“No,” Wulf said. “She’s with me.”
Rainer looked around the square. The Sandhaveners had stopped fighting. In fact, they stood motionless. Some got ruthlessly chopped down in that pose. But then the mark forces, man and Tier alike, understood that the Hundred wasn’t fighting anymore. The soldiers weren’t moving at all.
“Ravenelle’s gotten hold of them,” Wulf said to Rainer. “Her captain must still be alive.”
All he really understood in Wulf’s words was a simple fact he’d been hoping to hear for days.
“Ravenel
le’s here?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that’s good,” Rainer said.
He was about to ask for more details, but the words died in his throat.
Wulf was gazing in horror at something he saw across the square.
“Saeunn,” his friend whispered.
Chapter Fifty-Five:
The Fallen Star
Wulf knelt beside Saeunn’s body, afraid to touch her. He still had the Dragon Hammer handle in one hand. He rested its head against the cobblestones.
Saeunn lay limp. Her eyes were open. They were unfocused and fixed on nothing. He took her hand in his and lifted it. Cold.
He sat for a long moment, trying to feel anything but numb inside. There were footsteps, small and quick. Anya was beside him, Tolas walking up.
“Saeunn?” she said.
Wulf shook his head.
He reached over to push Saeunn’s eyelids down.
When he did, the star stone on the chain around his neck brushed against Saeunn’s neck.
She blinked.
“Saeunn?” Wulf said. “Saeunn, can you hear me!”
“Gone.” Her voice was flat.
Wulf didn’t understand. He gazed around the square. It was strewn with bodies. Dead Tier, dead men. Although it was still early spring, what flies there were had found them. Crows were cackling, waiting for the pesky living to get out of their way so that they could begin the feast.
“Yeah, it turned into a fight,” Wulf said.
Saeunn sat up. Wulf tried to help her, but she did it quickly and firmly. She looked around. Deliberately. First one way and then the other.
“Wuten?”
“He’s dead, Saeunn.”
“Yes,” she said. “The star died.”
“Saeunn, are you going to be okay?”
She looked at Wulf, her face expressionless. “Saeunn Amberstone is not here. Only her memories.”
“Her…what?”
“Saeunn is not alive,” she said. She paused for a moment, a look of concentration on her face. “Not here,” she repeated.
“Who are you?”
“No one. Not a person.”
“But Wulf is talking to you,” Anya put in. “You’re talking back. You have to be Saeunn.”
Saeunn turned toward Anya, but there was not the warmth, the love, in her expression that Anya expected.