Rise of the Storm

by Carrie Summers

  “If we survive? Is it really that bad?”

  Father’s eyes were haunted as he glanced over his shoulder toward the balcony. “I wish we’d paid attention to the rumors about unnatural creatures in the mountains. There are other places we could have gathered. But then again, other people whispered of strange beasts stalking the grasslands and the marshes of Anisel. And the smell—it reminds me of something… In any case, how were we to know what was true?”

  “What are they?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. But these things may mean our deaths. They certainly had no problem slaying a contingent of protectors. You should get below, Savra. Hide in the catacombs, and if no one comes for you by nightfall, stay a day or two more. There’s a chance you can escape. Head for Cosmal Province. Find your mother and sister.”

  I shook my head. Even if I could abandon my father to cower in a cell, I had no experience surviving in the mountains alone. I grabbed his arm. “I’m a spiritist, Father. Stormshard can use my help.”

  His nostrils flared in frustration as he looked past me.

  “Besides, Papa, if they’re as terrible as you say, I doubt hiding in the catacombs will keep me safe. Don’t you think that the massacred villagers tried something similar?”

  Jaw clenched, he returned his gaze to mine then focused on my black-iron collar. “All right, fair enough,” he said as he turned back to the balcony. “Sirez,” he called.

  She turned, brows raised in question.

  My father gestured at my collar. “Use her.”

  Sirez shook her head. “Evrain, we’ve already—”

  “I know you aren’t a fool, Sirez. She submitted to the collar willingly—she won’t harm us once it’s removed. And when you see what’s coming, you’ll want every advantage you can get. Don’t let Joran and his lackeys get us killed.”

  The Jalisswoman turned narrowed eyes on me. I fought the urge to retreat from her glare and instead raised my chin.

  “Falla,” she said. “I need your expertise.”

  Falla moved away from the balcony’s rail, but before she could speak, Joran stepped forward, teeth bared. “It’s convenient, don’t you think? Evrain rushes back claiming we’re under threat, and shortly after asks to have his daughter freed?”

  Sirez whirled on the man. “I can tolerate much, but I won’t have you questioning Evrain’s honor. We voted. Your side won. Allowing her to help us through this won’t change that.”

  “Evrain’s as good as they come,” another Sharder said, a wiry man with hair pulled back in a tail. He and a few others had been preparing the balcony for archers. “If he said we need her abilities, I believe him.”

  As the remaining handful of Sharders nodded their agreement, Joran stepped back, his face going even darker. “I suppose we’ll see who had the right of it soon enough,” he muttered. “Someone better keep that collar close to the little wench for the moment she turns on us.”

  Sirez rolled her eyes as she freed a silk cord from beneath her tunic. Dangling from the necklace, the black-iron key to my collar twisted in the air.

  “Well?” she said to me, brow raised. “Or would you rather I come to you?”

  Swallowing, I hurried onto the terrace and tilted my jaw to expose the collar’s lock. As Sirez fit the key into the catch, I scanned the approach trail for signs of these approaching nightmares. Nothing yet. Aside from the Sharders scurrying through the fortress grounds, the surrounding area was deserted.

  With my magic clamped down, I’d forgotten to keep my aura-sight submerged. When the black iron left my neck, colors exploded in my vision, the auras of the Sharders alight with fear and anticipation. My head swam. I staggered forward and cracked my knee against the low railing at the balcony’s edge.

  The horizon tilted. Mountain scents of lichen and sun-warmed grass filled my nose as I began to fall.

  Fabric cinched around my neck as a hand seized the back of my tunic.

  “Storms,” Sirez muttered as she dragged me upright. “See what you can do with her, Falla. Can’t have her falling to her death before Joran has a chance to get his precious justice.”

  ***

  The fear I’d felt in times past had been sharp-edged, all rapid breath and panic blacking the edges of my vision. Weeks ago, near Dukket Waystation on the Cosmal Peninsula, a protector had nearly killed me with his fist. I remembered the taste of blood in my mouth. The thrashing of my heart as I struggled under his grip and tensed against the coming blow. Later, near Jaliss, Havialo’s acquaintance had ordered her guardsman to put a crossbow bolt through my spine. The snick of the trigger had filled me with white shock, a frozen moment spent waiting for my life’s end.

  When the horrors arrived in the vale, the fear that spilled through my veins was different, a cold, all-consuming dread. Every drop of my blood chilled at the sight of the beasts.

  They entered through the sharp cut where the stream left the valley. Grotesque things, not dark in themselves, but spreading dusk in a circle around their small band. There were no more than a dozen. Two of the creatures resembled humans, walking on two feet. Others loped and stumbled on three or four. Overhead, a bird flew in jags and spurts, one wing twice the size of the two on the opposite side of its body.

  At a distance, it was their motion that struck terror in my heart. Unnatural and jerky, and sometimes nearly impossible when one jumped from one point to another in a blur. The shadow that fell over the landscape was like a cloud dimming the sun, sucking the life from the earth.

  Closer, I smelled them. My stomach clenched when I recognized the sickly odor. Suddenly desperate, I scanned the balcony for my father, because he, too, must know the scent. Maelstrom-spawn. Back in Numintown, a carcass would occasionally wash ashore, deposited by the unpredictable tides. Always, they were twisted and wrong. Sick things with flippers attached in the wrong places. Missing eyes and rubbery flesh, tentacles on creatures otherwise built like fish. Only the smell had been the same, a scent like rotten fruit mixed with metal.

  Touching a Maelstrom-spawn brought sickness. Sometimes death.

  When the dead things had washed ashore, it had been the job of the strongest in town to bring a long pole down to the beach. We sent the rotten things back to the currents that spawned them, trusting the riptides to carry them away.

  Even so, no one in Numintown smiled on the days one of the beasts washed up. And those had been dead already.

  The horrors marching on our ruined fortress were very much alive. When they drew close, they began to wail and screech.

  A hundred paces from the outer wall, the bird-thing flew high, jerking and darting over the archers. Arrows flew, piercing its flesh and setting it spinning against the blue of the sky. After just a breath, the creature recovered its balance, and with arrows sprouting from all three wings and piercing both neck and chest, it screeched and dove.

  With a deep breath, I slipped my aura-sight over the world. At the sight of the monster plummeting toward an archer, my stomach seized. The aura within and surrounding the beast was too wrong to inhabit the world. Twisted and foul, it was as grotesque as the creature in which it dwelt. Rotted and roiling, the thing’s spirit writhed in an internal battle. Part of the diving creature’s aura held a shadow of a large raptor, yet other spirits were twined inside it. Bits and pieces of some furred predator and tattered remnants of a soul that might have once been human.

  Pierced by arrows, the beast ought to have died already, yet the aura pulsed strong. The creature slammed into the archer, and with horror, I realized that one of the grasping legs wasn’t a bird’s taloned foot, but rather a human arm, twice the size of a man’s. The hand palmed the archer’s face, muffling the Sharder’s scream, as the other leg, one with talons the length of my hand, tore into the man’s throat.

  Blood sprayed, visible even from the balcony where I waited for battle with Falla.

  I gagged and fell to my knees. Hefting the man’s body, the bird
flapped its misshapen wings and carried the limp figure aloft. With a wolf’s howl, it threw the body in a high arc over the grounds.

  The man died midair. I knew it when I saw his aura separate from his body like congealed skim pulled from a bowl of cold soup. The man’s spirit hung in the air, red-veined terror fading as calm infused the soul. For a moment, he hovered in the physical realm before dissolving before my eyes and passing through the veil.

  As the bird-thing climbed high for another attack, I spat bile on the stone of the balcony and staggered back to the solid stone of the keep.

  A few terrified Sharders broke from their defensive positions when the main attack force neared the gate in the outer wall. One sprinted for the keep only to fall to the bird’s attack. The beast struck him in the back, burying talons on either side of the man’s spine. He screamed and then died.

  “Stand and defend!” The call came from the outer wall. Sirez stood with a spear in one hand, short sword in the other. “Turn coward now, and no one survives!”

  With a yell, she heaved her spear at the bird, the shaft falling well short, but grabbing the thing’s attention. The oversized hand released the hunk of hair by which it held its latest victim. Talons pulled free from the man’s back, wet with blood. Flapping awkwardly, it wheeled on Sirez.

  Yelling, another woman leaped from the shelter of a ruined wall and slashed at the creature. Her sword bit into one of the two small wings, cutting to the bone. Black blood spilled. The monster screeched and barked and tried to fly. But the wing hung limp, and the powerful downdraft from the large wing sent it cartwheeling. Other Sharders jumped on the flailing creature, severing limbs and spearing the fur-covered head.

  The curved beak snapped. The hand grasped then made a fist and punched. A dozen Sharders hacked at the creature, standing in a puddle of black where it bled onto the courtyard stones. Finally, the monster could fight no more. The body lay in pieces.

  Yet the aura remained. Roiling and hate-filled, it clung to the shredded body. I shuddered.

  “Forward!” My father’s shout echoed from beneath the balcony as the attacking beasts stepped through the gate. Horrorstruck, I coughed as the monsters’ auras filled my vision.

  My heart seized as Father strode forward to meet the small horde. His shoulders were square. Thick hide patches armored his chest, thighs, and arms, while beneath, pliable leather creased over his joints. He rotated the hilt of his sword in his weapon hand. A small steel shield defended his other arm.

  As he advanced, my blood moved cold through my veins. What sort of armor could defend a person from the shrieking abominations that bore down on our encampment? That bird had taken more than ten fighters to subdue, and still it wasn’t dead. We should have run. Why stand to fight those who couldn’t be beaten?

  Loping on misshapen legs that bent the wrong way, a pair of dog-like monsters roared and charged. Father knocked one aside with his shield and slashed a deep gash in the other’s neck. The blow would have killed an ordinary beast, but the dog-thing wheeled and leaped. My father blocked just in time, earning a slice on the forearm of his heavy leather armor.

  Beside me, Falla sucked in a breath. She snatched a throwing dagger from her thigh holster, aimed, then shook her head. Too far. With the broken arm, she could add little to the fight.

  “If you have anything to add, now would be a good time,” she said.

  Swallowing, I nodded. We’d agreed she’d tell me when to act because I had little experience with battle. But as for how to act, I needed to decide that for myself. In the hasty moments before the battle, we’d determined that Falla’s magic differed too much from mine for her to advise me in this. Stepping forward, I focused my aura-sense on the dogs near my father. The other horrors were just entering the gate, peppered from above by arrows while those Sharders who hadn’t fled fought with blades and clubs. Another man and woman had fallen, their bodies lifeless beneath the glare of the mountain sun, their spirits already passed through the veil.

  But my father still lived. His aura held terror that his body hid. A pillar in the chaos, he anchored the Sharders near him, slashing grimly at the yipping, squealing beasts that leaped at him.

  I focused on a single monster’s tainted spirit and, as I had to gain control of the Steelhold guards, sent a spear of my aura into its core.

  The beast’s torment flooded my heart.

  Pinned by my aura-lance, it turned and stared at me. Many spirits writhed and fought for control within the prison built by its corruption. Deeper, agony radiated from the single dog that had once dwelt alone. With each breath, it struggled against a sucking void the likes I had never sensed.

  I gasped, paralyzed by the experience.

  With a roar, my father leaped at the creature in its moment of distraction. His sword sliced clean through the animal’s neck.

  Agony bolted across the link between the beast and my mind. Pain exploded in the depths of my bones. I staggered, nearly toppling before Falla caught me.

  “Talk to me,” she yelled, supporting me as I sagged.

  A low moan leaked from between my lips. How could I explain to her when I didn’t know what had just happened?

  At the front edge of the balcony, the archers took aim at the approaching beasts. From the grounds below, shouts of pain and horror joined fierce battle cries. Weapons struck flesh with wet thuds.

  “Fire!” one of the archers on our balcony yelled. Bowstrings twanged and arrows hissed.

  “Storms,” another of the bowmen cursed.

  Below, someone shrieked, a cry so agonized it had to be another death wail.

  Sucking deep of the mountain air now overripe with the sickly-sweet odor of the beasts, I clenched my fists. “Help me forward,” I said through clenched teeth.

  I steeled my resolve for an argument, but Falla offered none. Supporting me under the elbow, she steadied me as I stumbled forward.

  In the center of the grounds, my father stood with sword bared and black blood splattering his hide armor. Both dogs lay in pieces at his feet. Not dead—my aura-sight confirmed as much. But unable to fight.

  Though no more than ten monsters remained, the abominations pressed hard against the scores of Sharders defending the courtyard. The animal-like beasts were vicious, all snarls and teeth and frenzy. But the two that resembled humans seemed invincible. Though their limbs were wrong, sprouting in improper places and bending unnaturally, they moved with uncanny, terrifying speed and strength. A single, backhand blow sent a Sharder woman flying ten feet to lie in a limp heap.

  Yet still the Sharders held. The men and women had formed a ragged wedge, two and three fighters deep with my father at the point.

  “Why don’t they withdraw?” I asked, my chest aching at the sight of so many rebels already fallen. My father would surely be next. Before the attack, the Sharders had worked so hard to fortify the keep. Why fight on open ground?

  “Stormshard doesn’t abandon our own,” Falla said. She pointed at the archers and spearmen who had defended the outer wall. Around two dozen remained, and they were in full retreat, trying to reach the main Sharder force. “Evrain’s holding the center. It’s the only chance to bring the others to safety.”

  As she spoke, my father roared. A monster with the hooves and head of a horse yet swaddled in gray, furless flesh, lashed at him. Father slashed, slicing deep into the beast’s foreleg. The monster stumbled but struck again.

  My father’s dodge came too late. The hoof struck a glancing blow on his forehead, opening a gash. My father’s head snapped back as he fell into the Sharder behind him.

  A squeal pierced the din of battle as one of the human-things raised a thick arm and batted the horse away. A grin split the nightmare’s face. Black saliva dripped from jagged teeth. The thing stalked forward, towering over my father as he swayed, dizzy from the blow.

  The monster grabbed the hair atop my father’s scalp and lifted him from the earth. Around them, Sharders
yelled and pounded on the atrocity, chipping hunks from the flesh but unable to fell the beast.

  Mouth wide, the abomination leaned in to bite my father’s throat.

  “No!” I yelled, throwing myself into my aura-sight. I shoved the physical realm aside, banishing the fortress grounds and the thin mountain air, perceiving nothing but the dancing spirits of the Sharders as they faced down the corrupted souls.

  My father’s attacker was a roiling stain, black rot infested with swirls of auras desperate for escape. Dozens of souls were blended together and forced to madness by the irresistible corruption. Clutched in its grip, my father’s aura was stark terror, blood-red shot through with dark acceptance of his life’s end.

  I formed a lance of my aura, speared it into the monster’s roiling spirit.

  Torment arrowed through my aura weapon and shot straight for my heart. In the beast’s soul, I saw another realm. Featureless and infinite and swollen with a hunger that could never be satisfied.

  Somewhere in the distance, my body screamed. I focused on the sound, grabbing for it like a drowning sailor for a rope. The thread connecting me to myself stretched taut, a hair-thin hope for safety. Clutching tight, I felt as if the wire sawed at my grip, seeking to sever me from the world I’d known. I steeled myself and gripped harder, fighting the sucking hunger as I crawled back to awareness.

  Around me, auras faded into existence. My father’s spirit slumped in a heap, his body abandoned on the stony ground while the monster flailed against my impaling lance. Gathering all my will, I exploded my control into the beast and pressed my command into its tangled soul.

  Stop.

  Shouts of confusion penetrated my focus, the Sharders shocked by the sudden break in the abomination’s attack. And moments later, rallying cries filled the grounds. Swords thumped against the beast’s flesh, lines of pain that traveled the connection between us and laid slices of agony across my flesh. Still, I held firm.