Midrealm

  Nestor grabbed Greystone, trying to pull him off. “Greystone!” he shouted. “What in the world is wrong with you?”

  Terrence finished speaking, his final syllable echoing ominously in the air.

  There was a flash of light and a blast of sound from the Queen’s fist, and Greystone, Cara and Nestor were flung back as though by an explosion.

  I staggered back and stumbled to fall on my rear, momentarily blinded by the brightness. I blinked hard, trying to peer through the sudden spots in my vision.

  When my vision cleared, I wished it hadn’t.

  From the shattered remains of the amulet on the ground, a roiling, writhing mass of black tentacles grasped around at the empty air, searching like groping fingers in the dark. They were almost formless, looking like liquid smoke. They were something in between what the Shadows and the hellions were made of.

  “Greystone!” I cried. The wizard was lying senseless a few feet away. I crawled to him and flipped him onto his back. He was out cold.

  The tentacles slithered along the wall toward us. I screamed and tried to drag Greystone away, but he was too heavy. Elanor was on her back a few yards away, staring at the writhing mass of tentacles in horror. Cara, Melaine and Nora suddenly had their swords in hand, but they looked unsure.

  The writhing tendrils were getting closer.

  “Greystone!” I turned. “Miles! Help me!”

  Miles was on hands and knees, shaking his head as if trying to clear it. He stared at me as if through a fog. Then he saw the creature on the ground behind me, and his face blanched.

  He grabbed one of Greystone’s legs and helped me drag him further away. “What the hell is that?” he shouted.

  “I don’t know!” I said. “Don’t let it touch you!”

  Then I heard a groaning and looked back along the wall.

  Less than a yard away from where the tentacles flailed about, grasping, Nestor was coming to his knees. There was a deep gash on his forehead where it had struck the stone wall. He groaned and blinked hard, rubbing blood out of his eyes as he fought to look around him.

  The tendrils paused. They turned, pointing in his direction.

  They struck.

  A mass of roiling blackness enveloped Nestor’s head and chest, wrapping around him like an alien in a sci-fi film. Nestor tried to cry out, but his mouth was immediately filled by the liquid darkness, and all that came out was a moan.

  “Nestor!” I cried. I grabbed Greystone again and shook him harder. “Wake up!” I screamed. “Wake up, Greystone!”

  Nestor rose to his feet, staggering as he fought to scrape the darkness from his face. For a moment he teetered dangerously close to the edge of the wall. I reached out with my power, tilting the stones and causing him to tip over, falling back to the stone beneath him.

  “What do we do?” asked Tess, her voice quivering in terror.

  “I don’t know,” I said, trying to hide the fear in my own voice. “Greystone’s out. Can you do anything to wake him up?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t…I don’t even know what to do.”

  “Sarah!” said Miles.

  My head whipped around to find Nestor on his feet again. The blackness was sinking into his skin, and I could see his eyes again. They glowed with a pale green light, and everywhere I could see his skin it was yellowed and sickly. Black lines crawled under the skin like veins. Though he was staring right at me, his eyes were as sightless as though they belonged to a corpse.

  “Lady Sarah!” cried Cara. She leapt forward. “Get back!” With a cry of anger, she buried her blade up to the hilt in Nestor’s back.

  Nestor didn’t cry out, didn’t even grunt as I saw the tip of the sword jut out from the front of his rib cage. He barely even moved. No blood seeped from the wound.

  He grasped the tip of the sword, ignoring how it cut into his flesh. With terrible deliberation, he bent it until it snapped off in his hands. Then he turned on Cara.

  “Cara, look out!” I screamed, but it was too late. A single crushing blow from Nestor’s fist sent her flying ten feet to crash hard into the stone. She fell and lay still.

  “Guys, get him!” I shouted. “But don’t kill him!”

  I followed my own advice. I reached out, and the stone at Nestor’s feet turned liquid. I let him sink in up to his ankles before turning the stone hard again. Nestor flailed at the air, trying to move but immobilized.

  Miles gestured, and water seeped out of the air to become a mass hovering in the air. He brought it down to surround Nestor’s body, then froze it solid. Embedded up to his ankles and now bound by ice, Nestor flailed in a frenzy to break free.

  “Cara!” I shouted, running past him to go to her. Nora and Melaine were already kneeling over her, their wary eyes on Nestor. “Is she okay?”

  “She lives, my Lady,” said Nora. “The blow did not pierce her armor. But I fear she may have broken ribs.”

  “I’m fine,” choked Cara, trying to push herself up. “Let me up.”

  “No,” I commanded. “Cara, stay down. That’s an order. We’ll fetch a healer.”

  “Sarah!”

  Tess’ scream brought me around in an instant. As I watched in horror, Nestor struck out with his arms and the ice surrounding him shattered. As I watched, the chaos slithered down his body to sink into the stone at his feet. It tore it apart like some kind of demonic octopus, and Nestor took two hesitant steps forward.

  His burning eyes were fixed on mine, and I was frozen in terror of the baleful light of them. I nearly choked as I took a step backward. There was no emotion left, no life left in him at all. He wouldn’t stop until he killed me or —

  A gout of flame came from nowhere, enveloping Nestor’s body. His lifeless face contorted in a scream of pain. The fire grew brighter, hotter, burning through his clothing in an instant and charring his flesh. Nestor collapsed on the ground, curling and writhing like paper set alight.

  Behind him I saw the source of the flames: Greystone, on his feet again and with an inferno pouring forth from his outstretched hands. His face was grim and terrible, and he stepped forward as he drove the heat of the fire up again.

  Nestor jerked and spasmed in the flames, his head crashing into the stone floor over and over again. Then, just as I thought he was shuddering his final breath, the darkness leapt away from him. It slithered over the edge of the stone wall to drop into the street below, too fast for me to register what was happening. Too late, I reached out and tried to trap it with the street’s cobblestones. The darkness simply leapt over the stone as it rose up, darting away like a cat doused in water to vanish between the buildings down the street.

  All went silent on the wall. The heavy breathing of Cara at my feet and the dying crackles of the flames fading from Nestor’s body were all I could hear. The Queen was nowhere to be seen.

  Greystone was staring at the blackened body on the stone with no expression on his face. His shoulders slumped. I couldn’t see his eyes beneath his heavy brows. He gave a shuddering sigh.

  “What was that?” I asked him, adrenaline still surging through me.

  “Chaos,” he said simply. “It was the amber. Amber conceals it, rendering the barrier useless. It was planted on the Queen years ago. I should have seen it then. But I could not…I could not…”

  The barrier. I looked with sudden dread out across the fields before the wall.

  The barrier was gone.

  The gate still stood, proud and defiant. But on either side of it, the blue haze had disappeared. Chaos had penetrated the barrier’s defenses, and as it was designed to do, it had retreated. I turned to see it barely visible on the other side of Morrowdust, beyond the city walls.

  The perfect protection against Chaos. And now we were outside of it.

  I looked back to the barrier gate. It was surrounded. A black tide of bodies had enveloped it and were now engaged in a pitched battle against the men we’d had camped in the field behind the gate.

  “Greystone,�
� I said urgently. “The others. The others on the gate.”

  “We must save them, if we can,” he said mutedly. He gave a heavy sigh and seemed to compose himself. He stepped toward Nestor’s body and knelt at its side. He seemed about to reach out to put a hand on it, but he stopped himself.

  “Farewell Nestor, King of Athorn. Your rule was imperfect, and yet you led your subjects well. And you never failed them in kindness. Sleep well where all good souls go to rest.”

  And Greystone wept.

  CALVIN

  “CALVIN, WHAT DO YOU THINK he’s saying?” Blade asked beside me. He sounded more nervous than he probably would have cared to admit.

  “No idea,” I said, shaking my head. “But I’ll bet it’s nothing good.”

  Terrence hovered in the sky above us. He was speaking, but I couldn’t understand it. Just a minute ago, he’d been having a conversation with Greystone, but I could only hear Terrence’s half of the conversation. From what I could gather, he was asking Greystone to surrender and Greystone was telling him where he could stick it.

  But then he’d started speaking in this weird language that, even with the Realm Keeper magic that let me understand people, I couldn’t get a word of. He was going on and on, staring intently at the wall of Morrowdust miles away.

  “It’s Wyrdspeech,” said Darren, his voice anxious.

  “It’s what now?” said Blade.

  “Wyrdspeech,” said Barius, nodding. “He’s right. It’s like magic, sort of, but it’s older. More dangerous. It’s more accurate to say that it’s where magic comes from.”

  “Do you know what he’s saying?”

  Darren shook his head. “Hardly anyone knows it any more. Greystone is one, but I’ve never known another.”

  “Look at the Shadows,” Raven said. Her voice had an edge to it.

  I tore my gaze away from Terrence to look at the fields in front of the barrier gate. The Shadows, already formed up into ranks, were marching toward us. Hellions lumbered in their midst, and crows swooped overhead, their keening cries harsh on the wind. As always, Raven’s hawk Ella grew agitated at their calls. She ruffled her feathers and tossed her head angrily.

  “Easy, girl,” said Raven.

  “Okay,” Blade sighed, his voice tired and resigned. “Same drill as usual. We block them as best we can, give the ballistas as much time as possible. They’re going to replace the destroyed one tomorrow, but until then — ”

  “Wait,” I said. “Look.”

  I pointed out beyond the Shadows, to the hills that lined the horizon. In the dimming light of day, we could just see the greater part of Terrence’s force that had remained camped for the last week, just out of sight. Raven had done a few scouting runs to check them out. She said it was a big army. Much, much bigger than what had been sent against us so far.

  And now it was moving. The whole army was on the march towards us.

  “Holy crud,” I muttered.

  “Is this it?” Raven asked nervously. “Is this their big hit?”

  I turned to her. “Raven, you’ve got to fly to the city,” I said urgently. “Sarah and the others might not have gone to bed yet. We’re going to need — ”

  Then Terrence stopped speaking in the sky above us. I heard a great, rumbling shudder, like the sound of a world preparing to have an earthquake.

  CRACK!

  There was a blast like lightning, and the barrier vanished. It just disappeared, like it had never been there. One moment the blue haze surrounded the barrier gate, and the next it simply wasn’t there any more.

  Blade, Raven and I gawked for a moment. I was dumbstruck, unable to believe what I was seeing.

  “What…what the…”

  With a roar, the Shadows on the field charged. The ballistas fired, sending bolts hissing through the sky to land among their ranks, but the Shadows kept coming. Their screeching, roaring screams rang in my ears.

  “Blade,” I said shakily. “What do we do?”

  “I…” he stammered, eyes wide. “I…”

  I grabbed his arms and shook them. “Come on, man! We’re sitting ducks up here! What do we do?”

  Blade stared at the Shadows, almost looking like he was ignoring me. Then he swiveled to look at the soldiers on the ground behind the gate.

  “We need to get back to the city,” he said finally. “All of us. Everyone. The gate’s gone.”

  He turned to the men on the wall. “Retreat!” he shouted “All of you! Get out of here, go for the city! We’ll cover the escape!”

  I looked at Raven, my face horrified, then back at Blade. “We’ll cover the escape? Who’s gonna cover our escape?”

  “We’re going to have to figure that out as we go along,” said Blade. “But right now, we need to toast as many of those Shadows as we possibly can. If the army doesn’t make it back to the city, Morrowdust is gone.” He gave a morbid grin that raised the hackles on the back of my neck. “So what do you say, bro? You ready to show the Shadows what the Realm Keepers can do?”

  “You’re nuts. Totally, irrevocably nuts.” I shook my head. “But yeah. Let’s do this.”

  All three of us ran up and down the wall, shouting for the archers to run. Some of them refused, forcing us to practically manhandle them to the trapdoors that led into the towers. When the top was cleared, we met up again in the center.

  “Okay, boys and girls,” Blade said. He was still wearing that terrifying grin. “Hit’em with everything you’ve got. If you’ve been holding anything back for a special occasion, this is it.”

  Ella screamed and launched herself into the air, darting out from the barrier. She dodged and darted around the crows, swooping and swiping at them as they careened around each other in the sky. Raven helped where she could, blasting any crow that swung wide to try and get above Ella, then turning her attention to the ground to zap as many of the Shadows as she could out of existence.

  Blade set up small walls of flame to funnel the Shadows back and forth, forcing them to run into each other and slowing their march. When that didn’t work, he simply lit them on fire.

  I warded off arrows whenever they leapt up at us from the army below, then wrapped invisible cords around the crows to try and fling them to the ground.

  A crow slipped past my defenses and screamed as it swooped down on us. I barely had enough time to dive out of the way. The bird’s giant black body crashed into the stone, and its claws scrabbled as its beak snapped again and again, trying to reach me.

  With a shout, all three Runegard leapt upon it. Barius brought his shield down hard on its head, stunning it. Then three swords rose and fell. Black blood went spilling onto the rock at our feet, hissing where it touched the wall. As the thing slumped, twitching, Barius planted a great armored boot on its corpse and pitched it over the side.

  I laughed, not out of happiness, but out of sheer exhilaration. Minutes ago I’d been exhausted, but now I felt invincible. There was more adrenaline in my veins than blood, and it was the only thing keeping me on my feet. We were all beyond tired, and we were about to be surrounded. But if this was Terrence’s big push, we sure weren’t going to make it any easier on him.

  The Shadows were all around the base of the gate now. We drove them back from the edges as best we could, but more and more of them kept wrapping around. Worse yet, the hellions were slowly lumbering along behind their little brothers, and they’d be at the gate in seconds.

  I heard a sudden roar of many voices below and risked a glance down and backward. My heart sang in my chest. The majority of the soldiers from Morrowdust were on a forced march back to the gates, and they were about halfway back to the city. But the Runegard in the field had formed up and were counter-charging. They flew across the grass toward the Shadows, terrible battle cries pouring from their throats as they swept forward. Cries of pain and death echoed in the air as they met, hacking desperately at each other.

  “Okay, I think that’s our cue to go!” I shouted. “Let’s get out of here!” />
  “There’s no way they hold long enough for us to reach the bottom of the stairs,” Blade said, his face growing dark.

  “Raven,” I said. “Grab Ella and get down there. Help hold them off as best you can.”

  “What about you guys?” Raven said, eyeing me, Blade and the Runegard.

  “Take Barius with you. The rest of us will be fine.”

  She looked at me suspiciously.

  “Just go!” I shouted. “I’ve got a plan.”

  She turned and gave a high pitched whistle. I heard the steady beating of massive wings as she looked me in the eye one more time. “It had better be a good plan,” she said.

  Ella landed, and Raven climbed aboard, Barius behind her. Raven dug her heels into the hawk’s side and the three of them launched into the sky.

  Blade looked at me with a wry smirk. “You don’t have a plan, do you? You just sent her away so she didn’t go down with us.”

  I’d positioned him perfectly. I smiled regretfully and shrugged. “Actually, I do. But I didn’t think you’d like it.”

  Before he could react, I reached out and shoved him over the back of the wall. He went flying into empty space, his arms flailing, a look of shock on his face. Without giving them a chance to react, I grabbed Darren and Samuel.

  “Jump!”

  I pitched myself off the back of the wall, pulling them with me.

  We were all in the air, Blade, Darren and Samuel all screaming in terror, I reached out with my hands and stilled my mind. I felt the space between us and the ground, and then I brought the air in that space together. Not too hard, like when I was blocking arrows. Just enough to coagulate it, to coalesce the air, giving it the consistency of cotton candy.

  I felt it as soon as my body entered the cushion of air I’d created. It was like suddenly being mired down in molasses. And like molasses, it stuck and stung as I tried to breathe it into my lungs. I heard Blade, Darren and Samuel gasping desperately as they sank with me, enmeshed in the air as we sank slowly toward the ground.

  Strangely, I felt nothing, no desperate need to inhale as my lungs gave way. The others sounded like they were choking, but I was fine. It was my immunity. We were all immune to our element, and I couldn’t die from suffocation.