by Tim Akers
* * *
Fianna changed, and the room changed with her. Sacombre fell back against the far wall of the room. The high inquisitor held up his hands, shielding his face from the creature. From the god.
The witch stood slowly. She held out her hands, still bound by Lucas’s bonds, the rope entwined with icons of silver and steel. They were glowing with the effort of restraining Fianna’s presence. Water poured from her wrists, soaking the strands of the binding until they dissolved. Slowly, what was left of the rope unraveled.
Fianna’s skin turned to quicksilver, parting at wrist and throat to bleed light. Her eyes changed to fog, the empty sockets filling with clear water that poured down her cheeks in small cascades, falling in slow motion, spreading out in a silver lace that covered her shoulders and continued down her chest. The water that fell from her body formed a pool at her feet, eating away the surface until Fianna stood over a bottomless well of dark liquid that churned with inky shapes.
“You will not frighten me, witch!” Sacombre snapped. He drew himself upright, gathering the pride he had so recently abandoned, his back stiff as a spear. “The powers of the north are considerable, but they are nothing in the face of true winter!”
“Call to your frozen god, priest,” Fianna said. “I have played your game long enough. Let’s be done with this charade.”
“Played my game? Ha! Without my help you and your damnable father would still be praying to mud and digging berries out of your hair! You lot are all the same.” Sacombre clenched his fists and tugged at his bonds, the skin of his wrists tearing open, blood running down his fingers. “It was a mistake trying to raise you up. Tener will never be Suhdra’s equal! The gods are wasted on you!”
“For a man of the church, there is so little you understand about divinity,” Fianna said. She lifted her right hand, touching fingers together, tapping her palm. The water beneath her stirred, then rose in thin ribbons, corkscrewing into the air to dance around the hand. She wove the strands of water as if on a loom, patterns emerging in the beaded light that flickered through the liquid.
“The gods are wasted on us?” she said. “No. They are not a resource to be mined, nor a gift to be squandered. You celestials have everything backwards. You measure Cinder and Strife in days and hours and weather, and think that all gods can be made to march to your calendar. You push, and the gods move, and so you blame us for not pushing.” She clenched her fist, and the pool of water rose up in a column that twisted around her like a cloak. “The gods move, and we move with them. The gods rise, and we rise at their side.”
“And when your gods fall at my hands, it will be your death!” Sacombre howled. He closed his eyes and the dim light from the door disappeared completely, leaving only Fianna’s silvery illumination. The shadows in the corners crawled along the floor, gathering at Sacombre’s feet, slowly crawling up his robes, turning the dirty gray linen black as midnight. Fragments of moonlight shone behind his eyelids. The darkness gathered in his flesh. Then it reached the bonds Lucas had tied. There it sputtered, and died.
Sacombre sagged against the wall, his energy spent. The icons on his bonds flickered quietly, the force they absorbed slowly cooking off into the air. He took a long, shuddering breath.
“Trouble, Sacombre?” Fianna said. Her voice came through the cloak of water, echoing in Sacombre’s skull like a dream. “The god of winter obeying the laws of winter, after all? How do you like feeling abandoned? Alone?” Sacombre didn’t answer, bleary eyes staring at the ropes around his wrists, lips mumbling wordless curses in the darkness. “Don’t fear, Tomas. It will be over soon enough.”
Fianna surged toward him, a flood wall of glowing water and fury. The floorboards beneath her creaked with the weight, the room twisting and wood shrieking as the building distorted. Still Sacombre didn’t move.
“Lord Inquisitor!” The woman’s voice came from the hallway. Someone was hammering on the door, trying to force open the twisted frame. “Sacombre! Can you hear me?”
“Abandoned?” Sacombre muttered, raising his eyes to Fianna’s shocked face. “This is my season, pagan. I am never alone.”
The door finally burst open, shattering into splinters. The hallway beyond was crowded with inquisitors. No, not inquisitors, their robes were too dark, the trim of their armor too fine. Silver chain mail and dark blades drawn, no naetheric armor or spells in the air around them. They were not of Cinder, but they answered to the high inquisitor.
And Fianna’s gheist answered to them.
The woman in the doorway raised her hands toward Fianna. Her palms were etched in dark runes, smeared with ash and blood. A wave of force washed out from the runes, clearing the shadows and striking the column of water like a hammer blow. The gheist ripped free of Fianna, tearing away from her and slamming into the far wall. It flattened in a rippling blanket of living liquid. Fianna dropped to the ground with a gasp. The light of her skin faded.
“Sir Horne,” Sacombre said as he dusted off his hands and straightened. “I thought we’d lost you on the moors.”
“Frair Lucas dampened your aura, my lord,” Horne said. She stood with arms outstretched, as though she were holding up the wall of water with her will. “We followed the obvious route, but sent riders to search elsewhere, just in case. We will recall them as quickly as possible.”
“Good. We will need their strength.” Sacombre strolled to Fianna’s side. With his toe he pushed the witch onto her back. “You see, my dear? A wolf is dangerous, but it is only an animal. It can be hunted, beaten, muzzled. It can be tamed. Your gods are no different.” He motioned to the figures in the hall. They flowed around Sir Horne’s extended arms and went to the gheist—who shimmered, pinned against the wall. At Sacombre’s signal, they drew dark blades and plunged them into the writhing spirit.
The gheist squealed as it died. Tattered rags of living water broke free from its body, floundering on the floor, spraying mist before losing shape and washing formlessly between the boards. Some of the water splashed onto Sacombre’s robes. He shook it off, grinning. Sir Horne lowered her hands, then drew a blade, went to Sacombre, and cut him free of his bonds. The high inquisitor nodded, rubbing his bloody wrists.
“And like a wolf, their throats can be cut,” he said. “Messy. Unfortunate, but sometimes necessary.”
Fianna stared at the dead gheist, now nothing more than damp wood and a quickly dissipating fog that clung to the air. Sacombre marched out of the room, followed by the rest. Only Horne stayed behind.
“Who are you?” Fianna asked finally, her tear-streaked eyes focusing on the Suhdrin knight. “And what have you done?”
“We are the inheritors of your wasted power, witch,” Horne said. “And we have ended you.” With that, Sir Horne bent down and drove her knife into Fianna’s heart. The witch’s last thoughts were of the dying god, and the silence that waited beyond.
* * *
Lucas wanted to be sure the conspirators were gathered at the inn before he struck. Martin stood impatiently in front of the tavern’s door, twisting his sword in his hands and generally making the other patrons nervous.
When the frair gave him the signal, Martin burst out the door, thinking to bull rush the lookout while Lucas hurried on to the inn to capture Sir Horne and whoever else had shown up to rescue Sacombre and the witch. He made it through the door and halfway across the street before he learned the error of this tactic.
The man watching them from across the street threw open his cloak, revealing a void, a yawning chasm, lined with teeth and stretching into an impossible distance. Martin slowed just long enough for a tongue to flick out from that chasm, bowling him over into the mud. While he scrambled to his feet the man threw off the cloak, dropping it to the ground and fleeing down an alleyway.
As it fell, the cloak unfolded and unfolded again, a gheist of teeth and hunger growing in the middle of the street. The crowd of priests—most of them book keepers and administrators of the prisons of the Black Isle—fli
nched away. That initial flinch quickly became a rout. Even the guards threw down their weapons as the gheist rose, towering above the buildings. Soon, Martin found himself alone in the street, staring up at the gheist.
“You will need to do something about that,” Lucas said from the shelter of the tavern. “Quickly, I would think.”
“Me?” Martin asked. He stood slowly. The gheist thrashed back and forth, unfocused, as though it was just waking from a long sleep. “What am I supposed to do?”
“You’re a hero,” Lucas answered. “Do something heroic.” He picked up one of the discarded swords and tossed it to Martin. It stuck in the mud at his side. The blade was black, runes along the runnel, the edge pitted with age. Feyiron.
“And you?” Martin asked. He grabbed the blade, testing its weight, cursing the poor quality of the hilt and the clear lack of maintenance in the pommel. The tang shifted under the wooden handle, biting into Martin’s skin. Still, it would have to do. “Is there a reason you can’t, you know, help me with this?”
“This is a distraction,” Lucas said. He slipped from the tavern and hurried down the road. “Sacombre will be getting away. Gods be with you!”
“Yeah,” Martin said. “A distraction. Great. Very distracting.”
The gheist shifted, settling into a body of teeth, the last scraps of the man’s cloak fluttering away from it like peeling dry skin. Its massive head swung back and forth, snuffling nostrils sucking dust off the slate roofs before it turned to Martin and grinned. Teeth, teeth, nothing but teeth and bright bone.
Martin dropped into a guard, holding the poor and ancient blade in both hands. The gheist roared, and the street shook.
52
CAHL WAS THE first to move. He drew a spear from his quiver and threw it at the voidfather. Gwen thought the aim was true, even hissed as the steel head of the spear passed through Folam’s cloak, seemingly headed for the man’s heart. But there was a flicker of motion, the slightest bending of light and air, and the spear fell to the ground in pieces.
“Always quick to violence,” Folam said. “You would have served us well, Cahl of stones. My daughter was right to take you as her shaman.”
“You wear Suhdrin clothes, and stand with Suhdrin thugs. I think you may have lost your way, voidfather,” Cahl answered. Gwen glanced at the dozen or so figures that surrounded them. He was right. Fair hair and fine features, Suhdrin men and women, all—and while the robes Folam wore looked like a priest’s vestments, there was something different about them.
The voidfather laughed. “We make sacrifices to the gods, Cahl. The company we keep, the clothes we wear.” Folam drew a blade of dark steel, tipping the point in Cahl’s direction. “The friends we murder.”
Noel spat and drew her gheist into the world. She stepped away from the tight group of Judoc and the others, to avoid burning anyone as the air around her flared into light. Flames wreathed her shoulders as she rose off the ground, a pillar of smoke and ash that screamed as it sucked the oxygen out of the air.
One of the dark-clad figures stepped forward and raised his hands. The skin of his palms split, blistering in strange patterns before a rune of ash emerged from the wound. The wave of force that followed knocked Noel to the ground, and snatched her gheist from her flesh. She knelt, gritting her teeth, hanging on to the burning spirit. Flames snapped from her skin as though they guttered in a strong breeze. The ground under her hands turned black. The Suhdrin pressed at the air, as if he were pushing a great weight up hill, blood flowing freely from his hands.
For a moment they were frozen in silent conflict. Then with a shriek, Noel slumped to the ground. The gheist disappeared, swirling up into the air, singeing leaves as it went. The witch lay there, eyes open, breathing shallowly. Judoc stepped over her, his hands held at the ready, darkness surrounding him.
“No more,” he said. “They have given enough.”
Cahl and Gwen froze, turning slowly to face the elder of bones.
“Judoc?” Cahl asked. “You are with the voidfather in this?”
“You accused me of leading the inquisition to the witches’ hallow,” Gwen said. “And Noel, as well. Then when the time came for answers, we sought you out. Why?”
“The calendar is turning,” Judoc said. “The buried potential of the witches’ hallow was lying fallow, and the north is ripe for harvest. It was time to do something.”
“Something?” Cahl echoed. “War with Suhdra, and another generation of children dead in battle. Is that what you mean by something?”
“All die,” Judoc said with a shrug. “Some die with meaning.”
“Godsdamned elders and their self-important…” Gwen trailed off, her rage too much for words. She whipped a knife out of her belt, grabbed Judoc by the collar, and brought the blade to his throat. They faced Folam.
“Let us go, or your damned ally gives his blood to your cause,” she said. Folam watched her with a bemused smile. He shook his head.
“Judoc knew the price of betrayal,” Folam said. He nodded to the elder of bones. “Do you still think they’ve given enough, Judoc?”
“We all have,” Judoc said. “This was meant to be clean, voidfather. Halverdt overthrown. Blakley raised, and the witches’ hallow tapped. The old gods brought back to Tenumbra, the domas leveled, and Suhdra returned to the ancient ways.”
“There was always going to be blood—or did you think House Adair would give up their secrets without a fight?” Folam stalked closer, sword in one hand, his other caressing the iron pendant of his station. He grinned at Gwen. “Your family is dead, Gwen. You are the last of your tribe. What more do you have to fight for? Surrender, and this will be over quickly.”
“You have a lot to learn about negotiation,” Gwen said, pressing the knife into Judoc’s throat, drawing the tiniest bead of blood. “The tribe of bones won’t bow to you without their elder’s command.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Judoc said quietly. “He has what he needed of me. Eldoreath is free, by my hand and his.”
“True, my friend, and thank you for that,” Folam said. Then he slid forward and drove his sword into the elder’s heart. Judoc went to his god without a sound, sliding bonelessly from Gwen’s grasp. “And now, Gwen Adair, we must settle things between us.”
Gwen released Judoc’s dead body, holding the bloodwrought knife in her hand at a guard position. This was the same knife she had used to raise Fomharra. It would certainly do to kill the voidfather.
“You never had a chance, Gwendolyn. If only you could have been brought—”
She lunged at him. Folam snapped his mouth shut with a clack, raising his sword to block her attack. He was inexperienced with the blade, though, and she easily brushed it aside. Out of the corner of her eye, Gwen saw Cahl try to help, but three of the shadowy forms pounced on him.
In front of her, Folam backed up. There was a long slash on his sleeve, and a trail of blood that wound between his fingers and dripped onto the ground.
“Very well,” he said, raising the iron pendant above his head. “The hard way.”
“I have no hidden god to be battered by your trickery, voidfather,” Gwen said. “This will be settled by steel and blood. Mostly your blood.”
“Anything can be made empty,” Folam said. The air around his clenched hand growled, churning around the pendant, and then a wind of mad power sprung out of nowhere, battering at her. Gwen fought against it, but through the rising gale she could hear Folam’s voice. “This is how it ends, Gwendolyn. Your tribe, your house, your name and your life. Wiped away by the void.”
The pressure against her face was grating. She pressed back, but quickly found that it was not something that could be fought. The air left her lungs. Her eyes dried in their sockets. Gwen’s blood sang beneath her skin and then, slowly, began to peel free of her body. Crimson lines trailed from her mouth, running languidly down her cheek, dripping past her ear. Tiny wounds opened on her skin, her arms, her hands, her back.
Iron in
the blood, Gwen thought morbidly. And the god of iron to be cleansed. She stumbled back, crying tears of blood, staring in horror as crimson wings unfolded from her back, hanging like molasses behind her, suspended in the wind of the void. Her fingers, numb, dropped the knife. It fell to the ground. She tried to reach it, but her body felt like it was moving in slow motion.
The hounds remembered her, and the debt they owed.
In a blur of motion, a tide of gray fur sprang from the forest, landing on Folam’s outstretched hand. The voidfather yelped loudly, and the sound of breaking bones split the air. At the sound of the crack his servants, hands full with Cahl, turned distracted heads.
The horrid fury of the pendant flickered out.
Gwen dropped to the ground.
Her blood, hanging above, fell with her. She was drenched in it, bright red against her pale skin, the slick-gore running down her face and fouling her shirt. Her fingers closed on the knife.
Folam threw off the dog that had attacked him. He searched the ground for the pendant. His injured hand hung backward, fingers curled in on themselves, bright bone peeking out from the sleeve of his robe.
Gwen stood and took a shaky step toward him. She had lost so much blood. A dark ring began closing around her vision, her brain shutting down.
“In steel,” she muttered. “And blood.”
A hound whipped out of the forest and knocked into her, its arm-length jaws closing gently over her belly. She tried to push it away, but the fetid smell of its breath overwhelmed her. She went limp. The hound craned its head and lay Gwen on its back. Without thought, her fingers twined into the creature’s fur. Her blood matted the blackened curls of its coat.
The last thing she saw before the hound leapt away was Cahl, throwing off the last of his attackers. He stared in horror at her…
And then she was gone, the forest moving past so quickly that the trees blurred, became gray, and then her exhausted, blood-weak mind drifted into nothing. Gwen did not feel the rivers of blood on her skin as they coiled tight against her flesh, crimson turning to rust, and then to iron.