by Tim Akers
The gheist dropped from his arms. When it struck the ground, it fell apart, bursting into a column of loose stone shards, completely without life. A face slid from the wreckage, cracking in half as it fell. The shaman stood over the stones, wavering back and forth, staring as if in disbelief.
Cahl turned slowly, facing away from where Bruler was hiding, and another figure stepped out of the shadows, dressed in black robes. A void priest, Bruler thought. How long have they been there? Did they see me?
“Elder of stones,” the void priest said. “A pity it had to end like this.”
“What have you… what have you done?” Cahl gasped. The shaman’s voice was weak. He coughed wetly and lurched to the side, only keeping his balance by grabbing onto a tree. Bruler peered forward. There was a knife in the shaman’s back.
“I have done as the void commands,” the priest said. “As you should have done, if you wanted to stay true to the tribes.”
“You’re a traitor! A traitor to the tribes, and to your own people.”
“I have no people,” the priest said. “And soon, neither will you.”
Cahl fell backwards onto the shattered corpse of the gheist. His fall pushed the knife deeper into his back, until the tip of the blade erupted from his chest. The void priest leaned over, touching the shaman lightly on the forehead.
“It is done,” the priest said, and threw back her hood. She looked up at Bruler. “And as for you, heathen…”
Bruler turned and ran through the night. The shadows came for him.
7
THE LIGHTS FROM the inn were bright, and the sounds of music and laughter spilled out of the building. A pair of soldiers loitered at the doorway, passing a bottle back and forth, casting nervous eyes into the darkness. Every time a wave of laughter erupted from the building, the guards flinched. Other than the barn and a couple of outbuildings, there was nothing around but forest and the country road.
“Halverdt’s men,” Martin said, just a little too loudly. Elsa gave him a reproving look. He lowered his voice. “I didn’t think her army would have gotten this far north.” Their flight from Greenhall had taken them north, partly to get them away from Halverdt’s zealots and partly to join with Malcolm Blakley at the Fen Gate. Lucas wanted to warn Houndhallow about what was coming. Stories of Halverdt’s army, marching out of Greenhall days after Lucas’s escape, filled the countryside with fear.
“This is not her army,” Elsa said. Her legs and back hurt from days on the trail, trading saddle time with Martin and Lucas. “Only scouts. Though they scout in force.”
“They drink in force, too,” Martin said. “Every tavern between Greenhall and the Tallow must be filled with them.”
“Celebration and wine are both aspects of Lady Strife,” Lucas said. “They are perhaps a little overzealous.”
Lucas’s voice was terribly weak. Ever since she had picked the pair of them up in the ruins of Greenhall, Elsa had worried about the frair. Months in the saddle could not account for the shiver in his hands, or the tremble in his voice. Something had happened to him, but she couldn’t get him to talk about it.
“Their zeal will help us,” Martin said. “We need those horses.”
“We don’t have time to wait for them to drink themselves into oblivion.” Elsa shifted in the bushes, backing away from the inn. “Stay here. I will distract them. When their attention is turned, you go for the stables.”
“And what will you do once we are free?” Martin asked.
“Cease praying.”
It only took a few moments for Elsa to backtrack to the road and recover her horse. The poor dear was exhausted from the journey. Without a spare mount, they had been forced to keep her constantly saddled, and even though Frair Lucas was hardly a burden, the endless ride had worn her down. Elsa walked as far as she dared, until they were nearly in sight of the inn, before she mounted. Every moment of rest mattered.
The guards turned to her as she approached, straightening when they saw her tabard of the winter vow. Elsa slid smoothly from the saddle.
“Strife’s blessing,” she called. “What news?”
“The sun will rise,” the nearest guard said. “Do you come from Greenhall?”
“Points west. Word is spreading of an army of vow knights gathering under Halverdt’s banner. I came to see the will of Strife.” She looked down at their chests, and the sigils on their shields. Three tongues of flame, and the saltire. “I apologize, I mistook that for the sign of Greenhall. But I see it’s not the tri-acorn at all.”
“Oh, but it is!” the guard exclaimed, his drunken enthusiasm too much to hide. “Lady Halverdt has sworn to the lady bright. She is the chosen of Strife, and will work her will in the world.”
“Then I suppose my search is at an end. Who is your commander?” A wave of laughter rolled out of the inn, followed shortly by a cacophony of breaking plates, and another round of laughter. Elsa raised her brows. “If he’s fit to report, that is.”
“Reports can wait until morning, and the light of dawn. Come in! Drink! Enjoy the warmth of the hearth and the blessings of Strife!” The guard offered Elsa his bottle, shaking it back and forth. “Hold winter off for one more night.”
“Winter will not be denied with drink or hearth,” Elsa said. “Go find your commander and bring him here.”
The guard stared at her unhappily, then shrugged and went inside. His companion stayed, smiling idiotically at Elsa.
“You don’t seem very happy, for a vow knight,” the man said.
Elsa punched him solidly in the jaw, grabbing his jerkin to keep him from falling into the door. She laid him down and began waving frantically to the woods. Martin and Lucas appeared moments later.
“We don’t have long. Hopefully their commander is reluctant to leave his fire and his ale. Take five horses and cut the rest free.”
“None of them are saddled,” Martin said.
“We don’t have time for that. If we have to steal gear later, we will. For now we fly.”
They disappeared into the stables. The sounds of disturbed horses and shifting gear followed. Elsa turned to the door of the inn and waited. It was only a few minutes before Martin came out of the stables, leading three horses.
“Let’s go!” he called.
“They’ll follow. You have to do something about the other horses.”
Lucas muttered to himself, then closed his eyes and shifted his attention to the open barn door. The shadows inside coalesced. The sound of nervous horses followed. Seconds later, a dozen horses streamed out, rumbling into the forest.
“I hope you’re happy,” Lucas said. “They’ll have nightmares for weeks. Now come on!”
“The commander will be out any second. Can’t have him raising the alarm.”
“Who cares if he does? We’ve cut the rest of the horses loose. They’re halfway to Greenhall by now.”
“You do your thing, let me do mine.” The door to the inn rattled. Elsa tensed. “Here it is,” she whispered to herself.
The door opened. Half a dozen soldiers stood just inside the doorway, but the commander was the only one looking out. The rest were talking among themselves and laughing.
“Hey, what are you—?”
Elsa struck, punching the commander and bowling him into the others.
Stoked on the fires of Strife’s anger, the men grabbed their commander and threw him back out of the door. They came flooding after him.
Elsa waded into them with both fists, punching and strangling and throwing as best she could. But they were too drunk to understand how badly they were being hurt, and kept lumbering forward. Elsa slowly fell back. She looked over her shoulder at Lucas and Martin, who were just standing there, holding the reins of their stolen horses loosely in their hands.
“Get going!” she yelled. “I’ll do what I can until—”
“This is nonsense,” Lucas snapped. The old man raised one hand and breathed in the night’s darkness. The air grew taut around him. “Ge
t out of the way!”
Elsa grimaced, then rolled to one side. She was barely on her feet before a cone of black energy swirled out of Lucas’s fist, bowling the soldiers down. Elsa dusted herself off, then went to take Lucas by the elbow.
“That wasn’t necessary,” she said. His arm trembled under her hand, and his skin was even paler than usual. “I had that.”
“You did not. I expect that sort of nonsense from young Martin, but you should know better, Sir LaFey.”
“What’s that supposed to… Elsa!” Martin pointed at the door. More soldiers, scared sober and wielding swords, were pouring out of the inn. They stared down at the frost-skinned faces of their comrades, then looked up at Elsa and her friends with fury in their eyes.
“Okay, this I don’t have,” she said, then grabbed one of the horses and swung up onto its back, drawing her sword in the process. “Seriously, run!”
Martin helped Lucas onto another horse, then mounted the third. The old man hung over the courser’s back like a sack of rice, but when the horse bolted for the road, Lucas was at least able to hold on. As soon as they were gone, Elsa turned to face the angry mob.
“For the bright lady! Get her! Get the heretic!” they shouted. They charged forward, heedless of her sword. She wasn’t anxious to kill any of them, but when they rushed, she responded. Her new mount responded well to her commands, wheeling constantly, keeping its center still as it spun to keep from toppling its rider. Elsa slashed back and forth, trying desperately to stay mounted.
The soldiers fell back, bloodied and broken. Elsa stopped long enough to catch her breath. The light from the inn seemed wrong somehow. She calmed her mount and peered at the doorway.
Flames flickered inside. She could see nothing but fire, flickering across the tables and rushing up the rafters. The windows of the second floor turned red, and tendrils of smoke drifted through the roof.
“What in hell is going on in there?” she muttered.
“Strife has abandoned you, Elsa LaFey!” The voice came from the conflagration. A shadow stepped out of the doorway, pure blackness in the shape of a man. Smoke wreathed his head, and the tattered cover of his tabard was singed, but he wore the armor of a vow knight. “We wondered what happened to you, after Houndhallow. Now I see that you’ve fallen in with the heretics. It’s no wonder Strife’s flame has been snuffed from your soul.”
“Sir Hollier?” she asked. The man’s features were drawn tight, as though he were in constant pain, but his eyes glittered with joy. “What the hell has happened to you?”
“Revelation!” he shouted, then drew a sword of flame from his hip.
Elsa turned her horse and spurred it into the forest at a gallop. Wind and trees whipped her hair, and Hollier’s laughter chased her through the darkness.
The forest was black, cut with shades of flame, as the trees reflected Hollier’s bright blade. Elsa leaned close to her horse’s mane and urged it on. The light on the trees around her grew brighter. She chanced a glance back and saw that Hollier had captured one of the fleeing horses and was giving chase.
“Faster, faster, faster,” she whispered in her mount’s ear. “Strife’s wind, go!”
“Sir LaFey!” Hollier shouted. “You should not be running! Of all people, you know the futility of fleeing Strife’s merciful flame!”
“Gods, shut up.” The forest was ablaze with the man’s flame. Elsa could feel it itching across her back, like a sunburn. The scars on her cheeks burned with the salt of her tears. “Shut up!”
The forest started to open up. Elsa dashed through a clearing, diving between two enormous trees on the other side, then through a loose copse of bristlewood. As she passed, the leaves on the trees started to smolder, then burst into flames. Hollier was nearly on her. She had to make a decision. There was no sign of Lucas or Martin. It was just her, and Hollier, and the flame.
In the next clearing she turned too hard, lost her seat, and tumbled from her mount. Elsa hit the ground and rolled, stumbling to her feet just as her stolen horse disappeared into the brambles. Sir Hollier rode into the clearing a heartbeat later, swinging his flaming sword like a banner.
“It always comes to this, Sir LaFey. The righteous hunt down the wicked, and burn the evil out of them. I would not have marked you as fallen, Elsa, not in our days at the Lightfort, nor after your years of service against the gheist. But such things are not always clear.” He did a slow circuit of the clearing, his expanding aura setting the tops of the trees aflame, until Elsa stood in the middle of a ring of fire. “So here we are. At the end of your flight, and the beginning of your redemption.”
“I’m not the one who’s fallen, Hollier,” Elsa snapped. She drew her sword and settled into an easy guard, keeping the tip of her blade unwavering at the circling vow knight. “You’ve gone mad.”
“I am holy, and you once were holy, LaFey. If you call it madness, that only speaks to your fall.” Hollier slipped easily from his saddle, beckoning with open arms. “I will give you a choice. A peaceful death, and repentance. Or violence, and the mercy it requires.”
“I have never chosen peace,” Elsa said. She circled warily, trying to get between Hollier and his horse. If she could disable the man and steal his horse, she might still get out of this alive. “But I have no interest in hurting a brother in Strife.”
“I have no such compunction,” Hollier said. He swung his blade overhand, cutting a circle of flame in the air, spinning it down on Elsa. She blocked, and sparks of divine fire flew out from the contact. Elsa winced as the flames burned her face. Hollier spun, drew back, struck again and again. Each time Elsa retreated a few steps. A dozen lesser fires sprang up around the clearing.
“You will fight eventually,” Hollier said. “A grand champion like you never goes out without a fight.”
“I am fighting,” Elsa puffed. “This is fighting, you idiot.”
Hollier stepped back, sword casually in one hand, other hand held forward. “Come now, Elsa. We both know what you’re capable of. I’ve heard tales of you, ever since you went north with that heretic. What was his name? Lucius?”
Elsa gritted her teeth and charged. Holding her sword in both hands, she crashed down on Hollier, swinging hard for his head. His steel sang loud against her blade; the blow forced him back. The sting of contact echoed through her bones, but it shook the fear from her. Her back swing nearly cut him in half. The only thing that saved Hollier was a fortunate tumble that sent him sprawling, so that Elsa’s blade whistled over his head.
Hollier fell back, and Elsa pressed on. He scrambled to his knees, blocking her overhead swing with the forte of his blade, blow after blow until the sword skittered from his grasp. He rolled away, kicking at her knee, but Elsa sidestepped and buried her blade in the ground mere inches from his foot. Hollier’s back was nearly to the flaming wall that surrounded the clearing.
“That’s the legend I know,” Hollier said, smiling weakly. “You have Strife’s own gift with that blade. You seem to have bested me, sir.”
“Relent, and I will spare you. I don’t want holy blood on my hands.”
“Relent? No, I can’t. Strife does not teach surrender. But I wonder, Sir LaFey. Such skill with the blade, and yet you seem to be lacking a certain—” he held his hands out at his waist, palms up; light flared along the bloodwrought runes of his gauntlets, and tongues of flames arced up from his hands “—fire.”
Elsa grimaced, then drew her blade behind her head and charged forward. Hollier waited for her, drawing her closer, then slammed his hands together. The sound was deafening, blowing cinders from the trees and shivering the trunks of the clearing. A wall of scalding heat hit her. Elsa pushed against it, leaning in, taking the brunt on her pauldrons, shielding her face with her arm, but it was too much. The relentless wailing of scorched air sucked the breath from her lungs. She fell back, back, finally tumbling to the ground. A wave of fire followed, washing over her, turning the ground to ash.
When she looked up, Ho
llier was walking toward her, slowly, hands smeared with soot. He scooped up his sword and smiled.
“Strife has read the sentence, and it is death. The bright lady has abandoned you. You have walked with heretics.” Hollier raised his sword over his head, ready to cut Elsa down. “I claim your life, Sir Elsa LaFey. In the name of Strife’s chosen champion, Lady Halverdt, of Flamehall.”
“If you are what passes for holy in this age, then I will gladly name myself heretic,” Elsa said. She stood, weary but unbroken. “Sophie is mad, and you with her. Kill me, if you must. Where I go, only the gods can judge me.”
“As you will,” Hollier said with a grim smile.
The ground under Elsa’s feet turned black. With ash, she thought, but then frost chased the edge further out, and fell mists swirled up from the earth. At the border of the blight, strands of darkness twisted up, corkscrewing into the air. When Hollier stepped into it, his face turned red.
“Heretic!” he screamed. “Heretic! Winter shall die to summer’s flame!”
The dark tendrils washed over him, latching onto his arms, seizing his waist, pulling him toward the ground. Hollier fought, severing the shadow vines, channeling flame that turned the frost into charred flakes, spinning around as the darkness surrounded him. His words tumbled into an incoherent scream of rage.
“I can’t hold him forever, you know,” Lucas said from the edge of the clearing. Elsa spun around, saw that the frair was cowering under the boughs of a flaming tree, Martin at his side, holding a cloak up to shield them both from the embers that rained down. Lucas held his staff to the ground, and was channeling the naether through the earth. She turned back to Hollier.
“You were holy once,” Elsa said. “I will find what demon corrupted you, and see your name justified.”