Blade and Bone

by Jon Sprunk

  As he stood back up, an old woman broke through the line. He tried to stab her through the eye, but the point of his knife slid past her temple, and they went down together. He landed on his injured shoulder, and the knife fell from his numbed fingers. As he held her at bay with his good arm, reaching for his weapon with the other—for just one more attack, one more spit in the eye of death—his calm shattered, and the awful realization of what was about to happen smashed down on him. Grimy fingernails tore at his clothing. A tall man fell beside him, and Three Moons found himself looking into Harunda’s soft brown eyes, now staring blankly. I’m sorry, son. I couldn’t save us this time.

  Suddenly, the clawing was gone, and the old woman’s corpse was flung away. Then Ino knelt down. “Moons, you all right?”

  Three Moons shivered as the big Isurani hauled him to his feet. The old woman lay a few paces away, with the back of her head split open. Her final expression was almost ecstatic, as if she had glimpsed something sublime before she died. It scared the shit out of him. The daylight cast long shadows across Omikur’s brick faces. Above them, the sky darkened into swirls of purple and black. More creatures emerged from the surrounding buildings. Three Moons couldn’t count them all. Some wore the once bright robes of temple priests.

  Three Moons tried to talk, but his chest felt as if he had inhaled a cloud of smoke.

  “What’s he saying?” Mesane asked.

  Ino shook his head. “I can’t make it—damn!”

  Ino reached down. Harunda was holding onto his leg with both hands and tearing into his calf with his bare teeth. Three Moons shuddered as the black eyes rolled in Harunda’s head, turning toward him.

  Ino brought his falchion down with savage chops, not stopping until their brother lay still once again, his dark eyes staring up in accusation. Somehow Ino stayed on his feet. Shaking off his horror, Three Moons pulled off his scarf and wrapped it around the wound.

  The rest of the company had formed a cordon to hold back the enemy. Yet, despite their efforts, the Blades were slowly being chewed up. The undead never stopped. Dharpa went down with a rotting Sun priest on his back. Mesane was pulled away and disappeared under a group of ravenous acolytes. Manchun’s squad got cut off from the unit.

  Captain Paranas took a step as if about to go after them, but then stopped. Three Moons saw him hesitate and understood. If we go in there, we don’t come out again. You have to let them go, Cap.

  “Fall back!” Captain Paranas shouted.

  Ino grasped their commander by the arm. “Captain, we can’t just leave them!”

  Paranas shoved the big man’s hand away. “Move out, soldier. Or stay and die. Your fucking choice.”

  Captain Paranas called to Niko. “We need a new way out of this hell. Avoid the most populated areas.”

  “But—”

  The captain cut him off. “The parts of town that used to be populated. There’s bound to be more of these things around, so think smart.”

  The scouts sprinted ahead. The rest of the company hurried along behind them. Everyone was battered and bloody. Ino limped on his own, defying anyone to help him. Three Moons smiled in spite of himself. His brothers’ and sisters’ faces may have been set in stony expressions, but he could read them as clear as sheep entrails. They were scared. So am I. But we’ve still got some fight left in us.

  The captain grabbed Three Moons by the shoulder as they retreated down the street. “We need to buy some time. What have you got left?”

  Three Moons searched his fetish bag until he came up with a large, bulging pouch. It was filled with dusty resin obtained from the sap of a torchwood tree. He closed his eyes to narrow slits as he concentrated. This was going to hurt. He hissed as he sliced away another portion of his life energy and fed it into the pouch. The leather grew warm in his hand. With every step, he pulled more power from inside him, gathering it slowly, cutting it away, and adding it to his creation. Numbness crept into him. With every siphoning, the world felt farther away. But he kept working as scenarios raced in his mind. He saw them all dying here, pulled down by packs of possessed corpses.

  Three Moons stopped. The resin-filled pouch was smoking. He had packed as much of his life into it as he could manage. Holding tight to the invisible tether of power connecting him to the small bag, he handed it over to Paranas. “Throw it. As far behind us as you can.”

  The captain tossed the pouch high. It landed in the midst of the oncoming wights. Three Moons grabbed the captain’s sleeve and turned him away as a fiery explosion detonated behind them. Three Moons fell, and his vision went dark. Then he felt people hovering over him. He heard voices, but had trouble placing them. He was falling away from the world, down into the cold arms of—

  A hard slap rocked his head. Three Moons blinked as the world returned in sharp focus. Pie-Eye stood over him, his hand ready for another strike. “Should I hit him again?”

  Captain Paranas put a hand on the mercenary’s arm. “Ease up. You all right, Moons?”

  Three Moons sat up. The cold had receded, though he still felt its effects lingering in his bones. The street behind them was engulfed in an inferno of bright red flames. Blackened body parts and half-exploded wights were strewn across the clay pavement, but the fires were too high to see anything on the other side.

  Pie-Eye propped him up and put a bottle to his lips. Three Moons drank, and then almost spat it out. “Bleh. Water. You trying to kill me?”

  “How long will that fire burn?” Paranas asked.

  “Hours, maybe. There was enough powder in that pouch to take down a stone keep. But they’ll find a way around it.” They won’t ever stop. Not until they’ve killed every last one of us.

  Paranas clapped him on the arm. “Don’t die on us yet, old man. Just relax. You did good.”

  Three Moons was too weary to complain when Pie-Eye hoisted him onto his shoulder and started to run. As he was carried away, he had a view of the scene behind. The tongues of flame reached toward the sky, writhing like living things. The street was blocked for the time being, but more creatures were climbing out of windows and leaping down from the nearby roofs. More than he could count.

  With a tight grip on his fetish bag, Three Moons prayed for Pie-Eye to run faster.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Horace walked the streets of Erugash once more in his dream. The clay pavement was warm under his bare soles as he strolled along familiar boulevards. Off to the north, the queen’s palace rose into the sky. Sunlight gleamed from its golden summit.

  There were no people here. He had the city all to himself. Not even a bird’s call marred the perfect quiet. Feeling nostalgic, he headed toward his old home. Yet, before he had found the right street, he heard them. Voices whispering in the distance, too soft to make out the words. Where were they? Horace stopped as one voice rose above the others.

  “He is coming, Horace.”

  He knew that voice. “Mulcibar?”

  “He is coming, Horace. You must learn to control your chaos before it consumes you.”

  “What does that mean? Mulcibar! What am I supposed to do?”

  Panic rose inside him as he looked down the streets, trying to find his friend. But the voice was fainter now, as if Mulcibar were moving away from him. “Follow the call.”

  “Mulcibar? Mulcibar! What call? I don’t know what to do!”

  Then another voice spoke behind him. It was Ubar. “You must stand fast, Horace. A great storm is coming. A storm of the ages.”

  Horace spun around, but there was no one there. Just the dusty avenue. The sunlight faltered as a bank of black storm clouds rolled across the sky. A cold wind blew down, whipping his thin robe about his legs and making him shiver. Horace looked for shelter, but all the doors along the avenue were closed. He knew without checking they would be locked and barred. He was alone.

  A sound like grinding rocks roared across the sky. He looked up as a great wave of water crashed over the city walls. Dark waters swirled with jetsam and g
reen foam. Cracks appeared in the walls, and then they toppled, allowing the flood to wash into the city.

  Horace turned to run, but the rising water caught him and picked him up in its frigid embrace. He kicked, trying to stay afloat, but a merciless current dragged him down, deep into the dark and icy waters. High above, he saw a point of bright light shining. He fought to reach the surface, but the current pulled him deeper and deeper. . . .

  A hand shook him awake. Horace gasped as he opened his eyes. He was out in the desert. The dream was gone.

  Jirom knelt beside him, holding a clay cup. “It’s time,” he said. His voice was low and toneless, as if he were the one who had just woken up.

  Horace sat up and accepted the cup. A sip of the spiced wine awakened his senses. He had been having a lot of dreams lately. Nightmares, actually. Almost every night. Most of them were about the things he had seen and done in Erugash. But some were like this one. Visions of apocalyptic disaster. “Are we ready to move?”

  The first indigo fingers of dawn painted the eastern sky. Sixty rebel fighters were breaking camp and preparing their gear. The air was cool, but it would warm soon once the sun came over the horizon.

  Jirom nodded, but Horace could see something was bothering him by the firm set of his jaw. “Worried?” he asked.

  “Always,” Jirom responded with his customary shrug.

  Jirom had taken over the leadership of the rebellion, with Emanon now serving as his second. Horace didn’t know the details, but he knew his friend was the right man for the job. Jirom took his responsibility for the lives of the men and women under his command very seriously. He often couldn’t sleep the night before a battle, and judging by the hollows under Jirom’s eyes, last night had been no different.

  “Don’t worry. Your plans always work.”

  Jirom grunted. “There are no plans once steel is drawn. But come on. I let you sleep a little later than the rest.”

  With the cobwebs of the dream still lingering in his mind, Horace almost said he wished Jirom hadn’t. But sleep was a luxury to an army in the field, so he kept quiet.

  As Jirom went to join his fighters, Horace checked his boots for unwanted guests before pulling them on. The rawhide laces ran across the scars on his palms and the undersides of his fingers. He made a silent prayer to the spirits of his departed wife and son, and then put them out of his mind as he stood up. He needed a clear head for what he had to do today.

  For the past three months, the rebels had been hiding out in the desert. And every week to ten days, they ventured forth to attack a different Akeshian outpost. They struck fast and slipped away before reinforcements could arrive. Horace had agreed to help with these attacks, mostly because he felt he owed something to these brave men and women who were risking their lives to make the empire a better place, something he had failed to do during his brief time as Byleth’s First Sword. But he didn’t like it. Killing and destroying. With every battle he felt more and more tarnished by the bloodshed. Yet, he couldn’t back out now. Too many lives depended on him.

  The rebels set off as the first rays of the new day arrived, across the rough tracts. The Iron Desert was as harsh an environment as Horace had ever seen, yet it had its variations. This far to the north, at the edge of the territory claimed by the Akeshian Empire, the dunes gave way to a flat plain of hard-baked earth and red clay. Worn boulders, sometimes in clusters but often standing alone, broke up the monotony. The only trees were the occasional scrub, clinging to life on the arid wastes. The sun, when it rose, would scorch the earth and anything else it could find.

  A brisk hike of two miles brought them to this day’s target. A dusty road cut through the desert to meet with a stone fort situated atop a low mesa. The stronghold was a crude affair of rough walls and two small towers protecting a cluster of inner buildings. It was a backwater post on the border of the empire, standing guard over a seldom-used trade route with Nemedia.

  The rebels spread out in teams amid the field of rocks and boulders strewn alongside the road, hunkering down into the natural contours of the land. Weapons were drawn and readied. Bows strung and arrows laid out. Swords and axes covered to keep the advancing sunlight from reflecting off their blades.

  Two men came over to hunker beside him behind a low boulder. Gurita and Jin—the last surviving members of his personal bodyguard from Erugash. They wore a mishmash of armor they had picked up from various battlefields and pieced together. Their weapons were simple and well-worn with use. Despite his protestations, these two had insisted on remaining with him, still performing the duties they had accepted back in the queen’s city. Finally, he had admitted defeat and just let them be. As Mezim once told him, everyone needed a purpose.

  “They’re coming,” Gurita said.

  A distant pounding of hooves rumbled up the road from the south. Four large, horse-drawn wagons approached at a swift pace, sending up plumes of dust behind them. A score of lancers in imperial uniforms rode escort.

  Horace studied them while keeping his head down. He tensed as two squads of rebel archers stood and released the first volley of arrows. Several lancers fell out of their saddles. The driver of the first wagon pitched sideways with three shafts puncturing his chest. The other teamster somehow escaped injury and grabbed for the reins, but a javelin caught him in the ribs before he could take control. The horses ran wild, pulling away from the wagons behind. The second flight of arrows raked the next wagon in line.

  Rebel fighters emerged from hiding on both sides of the road to converge on the caravan. The cavalrymen wheeled and made a countercharge with impressive poise. Sharp screams echoed above the battle as blades cut deep and hooves stamped down on flesh and bone.

  As the squad of rebel infantry in front of him charged into the melee, Horace waited. This was just the preamble. In quick order, the rest of the Akeshian cavalry were dragged down from their steeds and put to death. The rest of the wagon convoy tried to break through, but sharpshooters among the rocks took out their drivers. The heavy vehicles slowed to a stop, the last one swerving off the road to halt just a few yards from where Horace knelt. Its drivers slumped dead in their seat.

  Horns called out from the fortress. The outer portcullis lifted, and a column of war chariots rode out. The rebels formed a square on the road. Jirom stood at the forefront, sword raised above his head as he shouted orders. The enemy raced toward them. The thunder of the horses’ long strides and the rattle of iron-shod wheels shook the ground.

  Horace waved at his bodyguards. “Go. Join them.”

  Gurita chewed his bottom lip as he surveyed the impending battle. “Perhaps we should stick with you, sir.”

  “I’m perfectly safe here.”

  Gurita shrugged. “A couple more swords isn’t going to decide today’s outcome. We’ll stay with you.”

  Stifling a sigh, Horace watched the drama unfolding on the road. The chariots were fast approaching the rebel formation. When they got within two hundred paces, he stood up. It was his turn.

  He sent a questing probe down into the pit of his stomach to his qa. He found the doorway to his power pulsing as if about to explode, so strained he was afraid to reach for it. But he did, bracing himself as he pulled open the mystic aperture. The sweet flow of magic filled him in an instant, rushing through him like the embrace of a long-lost love. Seconds passed as he stood beside the boulder, eyes closed, until he realized he had been holding his breath. He let it out with a sigh.

  He delved down into the earth. The ground here was a deep layer of hard clay over a plate of underlying bedrock. He extended his sorcerous reach toward the road, and then sent a burst of intense zoana along that line. A heartbeat later, the ground in front of the enemy exploded in a shower of dust and gravel. Outcroppings of red stone thrust out of the ground under the Akeshians like massive fingers. Horses screamed as they were flung backward. Chariots swerved and flipped over, crushing their crews underneath. At the same time, the rebels launched a hail of arrows, arbalest bo
lts, and atlatl-flung javelins that carved up the enemy with brutal efficiency.

  Horace searched the battlefield until he spotted Jirom, passing out orders on the far side of the road. His fighters began their advance for the final assault. Up the road, sentries watched from the fortress walls. They had to know what was coming next.

  As he faced the fort, Horace could not help but think back to the night he had demolished the Chapter House of the Crimson Flame in Erugash. He still recalled the terrible rage that had fomented inside him and that pushed all rational thought from his mind until only the thirst for vengeance remained. This time he wasn’t driven by revenge. In fact, he held no particular animus for the Akeshians inside the fortress. But this was war. The sides had been drawn, and just like those soldiers, he had his part to play.

  Taking hold of his power, Horace formed two separate flows. One—a combination of fire and earth—reached for the main gate. Within seconds, the rusty iron was torn off its melting hinges. The second flow of pure Imuvar smashed into the southwest tower like a giant fist. Pieces of mason and mortar rained down until the entire tower collapsed. The second tower came down just as quickly.

  Horace’s heart beat harder as he flexed his power. When a flight of arrows came winging toward the advancing rebels, he flung them away with fierce gusts of wind and brought down the fort’s side walls with a shrug of the earth. The magic surged within him, more intoxicating than the finest liquor, burning away all his doubts and insecurities. With a deep sigh, he released it.

  The power went slowly, as if reluctant to leave him, and left a hollow absence in the center of his chest. That had been happening more often of late, the feeling that he wasn’t completely whole unless he was wielding the zoana. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat and heart thumping, from a dream where he had lost the power forever, and it took him a long while to get back to sleep. The magic was a part of him now, as familiar as his face in the mirror. More sometimes, actually.