by M. R. Forbes
Silas and Eryn rested below the center wagon. The flames spread around them, but where they lay was cool and calm. Eryn's eyes were closed, her face peaceful and focused. He knew she wasn't aware of what was happening because she was so intent on holding back their enemy's power.
Forgive me for what I've done.
He had known how the soldiers would attack. He had known the Mediator would use his power against them; that's why he was there, after all. The perimeter guards of his mines knew the truth of the Mediators. They were the elite of his ranks, former Commanders who had grown too old to lead, but still held great value and esteem. It was the fate that would have awaited him, had he never learned the truth of Aren's death.
The merchants had also known. Davin told them they were walking to their death, but the promise of comfort for their families was all the reward they needed.
A dozen men, now charred and dead in a circle of ash.
The heat and flames vanished almost as quickly as they had risen. Silas reached over and squeezed Eryn's shoulder, hard enough to bring her from her trance. She took a deep breath in and opened her eyes. She saw the burnt devastation, and she looked to him for answers.
He held his finger to his lips. Hoofbeats again. Three horses now. They would come to ensure that everyone was dead. He reached up and grabbed the knife that had been stabbed into the bottom of the wagon and stuck it below his leg. Then he ran his fingers along the ground and wiped them on his face, smearing it with ash and dirt. Eryn watched, and then mimicked him.
"Have you ever seen anything like that?" one of the soldiers asked. The horses stopped at the front of the line, and all three riders dismounted.
"Suicide." This was a new voice. It had to be the Mediator. "Why would they do that?"
"They said Silas was coming. Do you think they were telling the truth?"
They started walking down the line.
"If he is, he's not here. He may be a liar, but from what I've heard he has a soft spot for mules like these. The so-called Hero of Elling wouldn't send a bunch of old peasants to their death."
They reached the wagon and stopped.
"These two tried to hide from it," the soldier said.
"Walston, I don't remember seeing a girl be-"
Before he could finish, there was a knife in his foot. On the opposite side of the wagon, Silas had thrown his own weapon, burying it deep into the other soldier's neck. He pushed himself out and to his feet, grabbing the hilt of the knife, wrenching it out and spinning in Eryn's direction. Her first attack had startled the soldier, but now he could see the crackling glow of blue energy arcing away from her hand and into his chest. He tumbled away, burning just as easily as the merchants had.
"Eryn!" Silas could hear the Mediator near the front of the charred caravan. He dove back under the wagon, rolling across at the same time a blast of flame raised a searing heat along his back. He saw a blue flash. He felt the second source of power. It was followed by the Mediator's screams.
He came up behind her, wasting no time leaning over into the wagon, pushing aside the ash and tattered remains of burlap sacks of grain. He found their ircidium blades at the bottom, undamaged, along with her wand. He also found a bow and a quiver of arrows, wrapped in leather and soaked in oils to help survive the flames.
"Come on," he said, handing Eryn her sword and wand. He belted the sword to his hip, slung the quiver over his back, and strung the bow as they ran towards the soldier's horses.
Hooves sounded out new enemies approaching, but the starry night wasn't bright enough to reveal them. Silas closed his eyes and tried to track the sound, notching an arrow to his bow and pulling back, ready to loose.
"A little light, if you please, my dear," he said. "Just for a moment."
"Ignus," Eryn said, holding her hand out, palm up. A light grew there, and shot ahead of them faster than an arrow. It grew as it moved, lighting up the incoming horses before vanishing into the night.
The whistle of an arrow reached her ears, and then another. The sound of horses remained, but the pace of their footfalls slowed to a stop.
"Well done," Silas said. He slung the bow and hopped up onto one of the destriers. Eryn took the reins of the other and pulled herself into the saddle. Together, they urged the horses to a gallop, straight towards the gates of the mine.
As Davin had said, what was visible of the mines was nothing more than a small hill of earth, with a large iron gate crossing an entrance that was big enough for an army to march through, and a small fortified guard station sitting at the mound's apex. The guards were gone and the station was deserted. All they had to do was go inside and crank the gate open.
More horses could be heard approaching in the short seconds it took them to near it, the alarm the Mediator had sent calling on all of the soldiers to return from their sorties.
"Get to the guardhouse and start cranking the gate," Silas shouted through pounding hooves and wind. "I'll hold them off."
"I can stop them," Eryn replied.
"No. Save your Curse. Open the gate, and then wait for me." He eased up on the reins. "Oh, and a little more light would be helpful."
He didn't wait for her to respond, rearing and spinning his warhorse back around. A spear of light rose into the sky, illuminating the ground around them. Four soldiers approached from his left, two from his right.
Silas took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He willed his nerves to calm, his muscles to relax, and his mind to remain clear. He felt the tension ease out of his limbs. He heard the wind against his head, smelled the smoke and ash and death.
I am Talon Rast. General of the Northern Armies. Champion of Ares-Nor.
Champion? Silas opened his eyes. He had never remembered that title before. Where had it come from? And what was Ares-Nor?
There was no time to waste on it. Silas urged the horse forward, towards the two soldiers on his right. He held his bow and notched another arrow, glancing up at the bright star of light that Eryn had left him. He looked forward again and jerked to the side, bringing his head down and over, hearing the whistle of an opposing arrow sail past.
He wasn't the only one who could use the light.
He drew back and let fly, not bothering to aim, and just as quickly drew another. The soldiers were coming on fast, and he would only have one more shot.
He decided not to take it. He clutched the naked arrow and let the bow fall to the earth. He put the arrow between his teeth and drew his sword. It shined brightly, reflecting the magic light on its polished surface. Silas' eyes narrowed as he angled the blade, catching more of the illumination and using it to blind the soldiers.
One died with an arrow in his neck. The other lost his head to the sword. Silas rode past and forced his destrier into a sharp reverse, turning it around and accelerating towards the larger group.
There was no fear. There was no doubt. Silas commanded his warhorse to full speed, bringing his sword up and holding it forward as thought it were a jousting pole, setting himself and signaling his intent to win the charge or die trying. The soldiers formed a horizontal line before him, and as he neared he could see them holding their bows, arrows notched and ready.
He spared only a single shifting gaze towards the guard station, where Eryn's horse waited for its rider to return. He gave the barest hint of a smile, clenched his teeth, and continued forward. He knew the arrows were going to come, and when they did he relaxed every muscle in his body and let himself roll backwards, straight off the rear of the horse.
The destrier cried, its chest pierced. Even as Silas landed on his shoulder in a controlled tumble he could hear the animal whine and crash to the ground. He slid on the grass, bouncing and rolling, keeping his body tucked and his muscles loose, letting himself drop the sword as he came to a stop; far enough away to look like an accident, close enough to be in reach. His singular hope was that they would come in on foot, and not pepper him with arrows while mounted.
He heard them approaching. Hoo
ves, not boots.
His luck had run out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Eryn
Eryn kept her head down and her charger at a hard gallop. In the back of her mind she could sense Silas moving further away, headed off to engage the soldiers before they could reach her. She took a shallow breath and fought back against the dizzying fatigue of the magic.
"Ignus," she said again, feeling the tingle run down her spine and watching a ball of light grow in her palm. She threw it backwards, directing it up and out over the field. The light would help both sides, but Silas was alone. He needed to be able to see more than they did.
The warhorse skirted around the large iron gate in the center of the mound and began to ascend the side of the hill. It was dusted in grass and bushes, sixty feet high or more. The guard station was at the top, a simple stone structure with a short parapet where an archer could loose arrows without fear of reprisal. The soldiers had been stupid to leave the station to check on the carnage. They had underestimated Silas' ability to be as cold and hard as their master was.
He has made us that way.
She had known the plan, and while it had turned her stomach, she had complete faith in her grandfather. She had seen the scar that ran across his chest. He was a man who knew how to survive against all odds. The merchants had known what was going to happen to them, and they had remained. They believed in their fight, they believed in the free Empire, and they loved their families enough to sacrifice themselves to protect them. Eryn knew her mother, her father, and her brother would all have done the same. She knew that Silas would have done the same, and that she would have done the same.
That's what she was worried about.
She nearly fell from the horse in her eagerness to dismount, tripping over her oversized dress and stumbling to the ground. She wrenched it over her head and off as she stood, happy for the freedom of movement the light leather armor provided. The motion pulled her wand from its loop on her belt, and she cursed while she bent to retrieve it.
She could hear the hoofbeats thundering towards one another, and then they stopped. She looked back, seeing Silas still on his horse, but the soldiers both off theirs. A quick survey found the other soldiers headed her way, and Silas turning to intercept.
She needed to be faster.
The heavy wooden door to the guard house was hanging open, and she ducked inside, bypassing the small table where a stack of black tiles rested in a strangely organized pattern, past the soldier's bunks in a small armory, and past the Mediator's more grand accommodations. In the rear of the station was a winch connected to a chain. The chain was yoked to a muscular workhorse, who at the moment had his head down and was picking at stalks of hay that had spilled onto the ground.
"Hey!" She shouted to startle the horse, but it didn't pay her any mind. She circled around and leaned down, putting her head below its chin. "Come on, its time to work."
It looked at her with indifferent eyes.
She could hear Silas telling her to conserve her energy.
There was no time for that.
She took a deep breath, calming herself and feeling the magic rise in her. She pushed it towards the blue stone on her finger. "Litsum," she said, directing the smallest amount of the power she could manage towards the stone, and from the stone to the horse.
A blue bolt struck its flank, and it's eyes widened. It jerked into motion, turning the winch in a desperate attempt to get away from any further shocks.
"Good horse," Eryn said. She ran from the room, finding the tight stone stairs that led to the parapet. Her heart pounded while she scaled them, terrified of what she would see when she arrived at the top.
Her light still hung in the air over the clearing. She swung her head to the right, to where Silas had been heading. She saw his horse on the ground, and the soldiers riding cautiously past it.
Then she found Silas.
He was on the ground. Hurt? Dead? She had no idea. The way the soldiers were moving towards him, she knew they didn't either. She took her wand from her belt and held it out of the small cut in the stone. She concentrated, calling on her Curse. She felt the tingle growing stronger.
"Algus," she said, pouring the extracted energy into the stone. It glowed a bright white, and the power released.
Out on the field, four soldiers reined their horses in over a fallen Silas. They looked down on him with cold stares, their arrows trained on him, waiting for him to move. In their glory over felling him, they had forgotten about his Whore. They had neglected to account for her Curse.
The wave of cold bit into them without warning. One moment they were prepared to end the life of General Talon Rast once and for all, and the next they were still, frozen so quickly that their hearts simply stopped and all of the moisture in the air glued them to their horses, and their horses to the ground.
Eryn saw them freeze. She let go of the magic and pitched forward, suddenly too weak to stand on her own. She caught the lip of the stone and held herself up, waiting to see Silas rise. She didn't know if she had killed him with the cold. She prayed to Amman that she hadn't.
A sudden pain in her thigh distracted her. It was flaming and intense, as though her skin were on fire. She looked down, afraid a second Mediator had been hiding somewhere, and had used the distraction to burn her alive. There was nothing there.
"I've used too much," she said. The world was growing fuzzy around her, but she forced her body to move to the stairs, She stumbled and rolled down them, landing at the bottom in a heap, cutting open her shoulder on the edge of a step.
She didn't cry out. She breathed through it as Silas had taught her, focusing on staying alert and getting back up. She didn't know how long it took. Everything felt slow and murky, but she managed to find her feet and start moving towards the door. She fell into Silas' arms as he entered.
"Eryn?" She could hear the concern in his voice.
"The gate?" she asked. She could smell the dirt and blood on his clothes, but he was here, which meant he was well enough.
Silas chuckled. "Open, thanks to you." He knelt down and held her out in front of him. "You should wait here."
"To Heden with that," Eryn said. "As long as I can stand, I can fight."
He didn't argue. There was no time to waste on that kind of breath.
They made their way back to Eryn's horse. Silas mounted and pulled her up.
"I don't know what's waiting inside," he said.
"I'm ready," she replied, drawing her sword. She would only use her Curse if there was no other choice. She was afraid the next time she did she wouldn't be able to stay conscious.
Silas ordered the horse back down the hill, and then turned him towards the open gate. Torches burned behind it, lighting up a huge room filled with supply wagons in various states of unloading amidst a number of wood and ircidium columns that prevented it from caving in. It was too dark to see beyond, but Eryn was sure they would find a number of branches of tunnels, all leading to different parts of the mine.
Three soldiers waited for them inside. They were guards, not soldiers, and they were armed with regular iron swords and barbed cane poles used to keep the prisoners in line. Bodies lay behind them, men and women in stained cotton rags, their bodies lean and muscled from hard labor. Seeing them coming, the soldiers... surrendered?
"Please," one of them said. "We didn't know it was you. Please don't kill us." They put their weapons on the ground at their feet. "We killed them. We shouldn't have, but those were the orders if anyone attacked, if anyone got in. Leave no survivors."
Eryn heard it now, the screams echoing from the shafts.
"They'll be killing as many as they can," a second soldier added, looking back towards the tunnels.
"How many," Silas screamed. "How many guards are there?" He jumped off the horse and walked towards them. Eryn could see the anger and tension in his movements. She knew the guards in front of them were already dead.
"Please. One hundred, my L
ord. One for every ten prisoners."
"Which tunnel leads to the most prisoners?"
He pointed back to the passage on the far left. "That one leads to the cell blocks. There are two shifts, so half will be there, and half will be spread throughout the rest of the mine." The soldier had tears in his eyes. Tears? He had killed those poor people in cold blood.
"For every one of them that dies, I'll kill ten of his soldiers. I swear it." His sword was a blur, digging and cutting through flesh, mixing their screams with those of the prisoners. "We can't trust that Saretta isn't in the mines."
"I'll go," Eryn said.
Silas shook his head. "No. Go to the cells. The soldiers will be more concentrated there. You can stop them with your magic. I'm skilled, but even I can't fight fifty guards at once."
Eryn dropped off the horse, fighting to steady herself without him noticing. She didn't know if she could use the power again and stay on her feet, but they didn't have a choice.
"Silas, be careful," she said. "I love you."
Everything in him softened, and in that moment Talon Rast became Silas Morningstar again. "I love you too, my dear. Stay safe."
Then he was gone, running down the center tunnel.
"Amman, keep him safe," Eryn said, rushing to the far passage, her sword at the ready.
The tunnel wound down and around, looping over itself more than once. Eryn moved as quickly as she could, at times leaning against the damp earth and wooden supports to catch her breath and clear some of the fuzziness from her vision. Her shoulder hurt where it was cut, and her thigh stung with inexplicable pain. The cries and screams had grown louder, and she winced every time a new pitch joined the chorus.
She reached her first body before she realized it, nearly tripping over the small woman laying dead on the ground, blood pooled around her. She felt her stomach churn at the sight, but she fought it back. More would suffer the same fate if she didn't keep moving. There was no time for sickness.