The Winter Vow

by Tim Akers

  Malcolm slowly pushed himself to his knees. The gheist’s leg was within reach, its torso rising up above the battlefield as it swung wildly at the Tenerran knights who were rushing to protect Malcolm. The black splinter of Malcolm’s sword wavered near the creature’s shoulder, buried deep in its stony flesh. Malcolm stood and stumbled back.

  “My lord, take my hand!” It was Sir Bourne, reaching for him, somehow still alive after the initial charge. Malcolm twisted to reach the massive knight, but as their hands got close, Bourne glanced up. He set his jaw and drew back, massive hands wrapping around his axe, raising it high and screaming.

  The twin fists of the gheist slammed down on Bourne, leaving only a crater where the valiant knight had just been. The force of the blow knocked Malcolm to his knees. He stared at where Bourne had been. Gone. Just gone. He started screaming.

  The gheist began to withdraw. Pieces of Bourne’s armor, dripping with blood and bone, clung to the demon’s fists. Beside the carnage, Malcolm’s sword lay point down in the mud. He ducked under the gheist’s arm, grabbed his blade, and whirled to face the beast. The gheist’s eyes were swirling points of broken light, nestled deep in sockets of crystal shards, set above that impossibly deep mouth.

  “He was a good man!” was all Malcolm could manage. He swung, cutting into the gheist’s arms, feyiron burying into stone, sizzling and spitting divine blood onto the grass. The gheist screamed in pain, rolling back onto its haunches, turning a confused eye on Malcolm. Malcolm struck again, this time lunging forward, driving the tip of the blade into the gheist’s knee. That mouth, lined with crystals and stretching into eternity, rippled open wider and wider until it looked as if the gheist were trying to swallow the sky.

  “Good men need to stop dying for this bullshit!” Malcolm shouted. He swung hard into the gheist’s belly, severing the rocky skin, opening it like a tent. His sword dragged through the scree that crumbled off the wound, moving slower and slower until Malcolm, with all the strength in his arms and all the fury in his heart, couldn’t move it. The blood that poured out was gritty and black.

  The gheist snapped its whole body forward, slamming its chest into Malcolm and knocking him flat. The howl that boomed from its mouth blew like a tornado, tearing up chunks of earth, sending them flying. Knights downwind tumbled from their mounts, and horses reared up and bolted, fleeing the storm of a dying god. Malcolm curled up around his blade, covering his head in an attempt to keep the screaming wind out of his ears. The sound turned his bones into tuning forks, humming through his skin.

  When the sound stopped, Malcolm cautiously looked up. The gheist lay still on the battlefield. The light in its eyes was gone. Slowly, cracks formed across its back, cracks that widened into fissures. Dust eroded off its skin, hissing as it streamed onto the ground. Pebbles bounced off it, adding to the growing pile of detritus that surrounded the gheist. Finally, an enormous snap shattered the air, and two final cracks crossed the gheist’s body. It crumbled into a low hill of dead boulders and spreading moss.

  “The hound!” someone shouted in the distance. That voice was answered by another, echoing the hound, before a chorus of, “The hallow!”

  Malcolm collapsed against the gheist’s body, his whole body shaking with exhaustion and sorrow. The stone was cold against his face.

  “They will not wait for our lamentation.” Sir Doone rode up, leading a dead man’s horse. There was blood all over the saddle, and the trappings were celestial. She handed him the reins. “Galleux rode out of that cloud and is handling the second gheist. But that one devastated our southern flank, and the ranks of spear opposite are pressing to engage. The celestial heavy horse is gathering for another charge, as well. Your soldiers need you.”

  “As the gods will,” Malcolm muttered. He pushed himself up and took the horse. “But I’ve had my fill of this.”

  “War does not ask when we are done with it,” Doone said. She flicked her reins and turned to face the coming celestial charge. “Bourne died well.”

  “No, he did not. None of us ever do,” Malcolm answered. “Squire! Horns to me! Lances form up, and prepare for the countercharge!” He didn’t give the horns time to answer, but the surviving Tenerran knights were already at his side, flocking to the banner of the Reaverbane, the god slayer, hero of a thousand battles. Malcolm glanced side to side, grimacing at their eager eyes, their ready smiles. He raised his sword and swept it down toward the celestial line.

  “Charge!”

  * * *

  Malcolm fell into a numb cycle of battle, of charge and countercharge, individual melees swirling together into an endless cloud of blades and dying soldiers. The growing ache in his body blotted out any other thought, pain layered upon pain, until there was nothing but the sword in his hands and the enemy dying at his feet.

  He lost two more horses, each time replaced by eager squires. Wherever he went, Malcolm was surrounded by knights, anxious to be a part of the legend of the Reaverbane, adding their blood to the endless toll of Malcolm’s debt. They rode with him, they died at his side, they were replaced by others. Only Doone remained.

  As night fell, Malcolm found himself sitting atop a small hillock, staring at the carnage. Men and women fought like children, arms and legs too tired to lift their blades, armor smeared in mud and the gore of lost comrades or defeated foes. Scattered horses wandered riderless across the plain, cropping at grass and flicking an ever-increasing swarm of flies away with their tails. The two dead gheists formed shallow hills in the middle of the field.

  Sir Galleux rode up next to him. Her golden armor was dented, many of the fine runes peeled free of their inlays, the icons of Strife broken or missing. She paused at his side, then sheathed her sword and smiled.

  “We will break them, my lord. The gods have granted us that.”

  “Not tonight,” Malcolm said. He raised his eyes and looked at the other end of the battlefield. Sophie’s armies were still fully engaged with the bulk of the celestial army. There was no sign of surrender on either side, no sign of imminent victory. “Sound the withdrawal. We will mend our wounds, adjust our plans, mourn our dead, and return to this in the morning.”

  “Houndhallow, no! Have you lost faith in the bright lady? Have you forgotten the promise of the winter vow?” Galleux grabbed his arm in a steely grip. “We will bring the sun into winter, summer into night, light into darkness. We can’t stop now!”

  “That’s a grand motto, and a decent way to live your life. But we cannot see at night. The soldiers are exhausted. Hell, I can hardly hold my sword. If we don’t fall back, more men will die from falling out of their saddle than to the enemy’s blades. Sound the withdrawal.”

  “I will not!” Galleux said. She held her hands out, palms up, and tilted her head to the sky. For a brief moment, Malcolm was reminded of the earth gheist, just before he had killed it. “I call on the fury of Strife! Goddess of war, bless us; lady of fire, light our way!”

  “Galleux, that is enough! We have—”

  An eerie flame flickered across Galleux’s palms. It licked up her arms, forming a nimbus of pale light across her chest. When it sheathed her face, Malcolm flinched away. Galleux’s eyes opened, wide and mad.

  “The goddess of war is upon me!” Galleux yelled. Her voice was a hollow bell, pealing across the battlefield. Weary knights turned curious eyes in her direction. “Receive her gift, and victory!”

  A wave of thin flame washed out from her. Malcolm felt a brief heat, then a lightness in his chest. The weariness lifted from his limbs. His back straightened, no longer weighed down by his armor. He raised his hand and flexed it. Pale flames covered his fingers, dancing back and forth across his palm like quicksilver. The fog of fatigue that clouded his mind lifted, to be replaced with murderous fury.

  All around, the knights of Tener and Suhdra turned bright with flame. Their flesh did not burn, their armor did not melt, and yet cloaks of flickering fire danced and warped around them. As one, their eyes turned bright and vi
olent.

  Malcolm did not need to call the charge. They lusted for war, and poured down the hill in a burning wave, screaming madness as they crashed into the celestial force.

  They burned like torches, only to be quenched in blood.

  27

  GWEN RODE HARD and fast, with the dead on her trail. Bruler was close behind her. As soon as they came around the corner and into sight of their scouts, Gwen started waving her hand frantically. As one, the scouting party started trotting in her direction.

  “Go back! Go back!” Gwen yelled. But it was hopeless. Her shouts only drew their concern. The scouts sped up, drawing weapons. “Gods in stone, don’t they know how to follow orders?” she muttered.

  The dead followed close behind. At first, they could be mistaken for any other war party; riding hard, banners furled, lances couched and shields set for impact. They charged in good order. But closer examination revealed their unnatural form.

  The knights following the headless Suhdrin knight were all in a similar state. One rode with his ribcage exposed, another’s head was half caved in, while his companion bristled with arrow shafts. Only one knight seemed whole, though his skin was bloated and a stream of dark water flowed from his mouth.

  They wore the collected colors of Suhdra: Marchand, LaGaere, Fabron, Halverdt. These were the houses that had ridden against the Fen Gate in the first siege, the remnants of which had been left in charge of the castle when the Orphanshield forced Malcolm out and gave the Sedgewind Throne over to the church. Whether these knights had died in the initial battle, during Malcolm’s flight, or during some later tragedy wasn’t clear. All that Gwen knew was that they were dead, and they were trying to add her to their ranks.

  “We need to decide, my lady,” Bruler said at her side. “Whether we are going to fight, or whether we are going to run.” He nodded to the scouting party, who were riding at them full tilt, weapons drawn. “Because this lot seems ready to fight.”

  “Now I wish they would take orders,” Gwen said. She reined in and turned to the approaching wraiths. “How does one fight the dead?”

  Bruler pulled to a stop next to her and drew his sword. “The way one fights anything. Hit it with something sharp.”

  The wraiths showed no sign of slowing, but neither did Gwen’s scouts. If she and Bruler stayed where they were, one or both of them would be trampled. “Into it, then,” she muttered, and spurred into a canter.

  As the former huntress of Adair, Gwen had never really trained to the sword. The spear, though, was like an extension of her arm. She pulled a hunting spear from its sheath and rose up in her saddle, using her knees to compensate for the horse’s gait. When she let fly, the spear sank halfway down the shaft in the lead wraith’s chest. The dead knight kept coming, seemingly oblivious to the injury.

  “In retrospect, it seems obvious that killing the dead won’t work,” Bruler said. “We’ll just try cutting them into pieces.” He snatched a hatchet from his saddle and tossed it to Gwen. “With my compliments, my lady.”

  The two sped up, finally meeting the wraiths as they thundered down the road. Gwen ducked beneath a clumsy sword, bringing her axe into the jaw of her attacker with a meaty thunk. Bits of skull and meat flew into the air, but then she was past the first wraith and fending off the sword of the next. Something sharp brushed her knee, and she looked down to see bony frills along the back of the wraith’s horse. Whatever grim fate had met the knights, the horses had not escaped.

  She was still tangling with the trailing wraith when her scouts met the front of their charge. The crash of steel and flesh echoed through the forest. A handful of her rangers galloped along the side of the road, firing arrows into the wraiths as they passed, flights whistling past Gwen’s head to thud loudly into dead flesh. After the charge was past and both sides were circling for a second run, Gwen could see that two of her cadre lay dead in the road. Their enemy’s ranks were untouched. Gwen and Bruler shared a look.

  “Smaller pieces,” Bruler said, then charged forward.

  “Kight!” Gwen shouted, straining to remember the ranger’s name from earlier. “Return to the main column. Let them know what is happening, and that we will need support.”

  “It is against my honor to leave the field of battle, my lady.”

  “The current situation asks for more than honor. Go, and quickly!”

  The ranger balked, but at a word from Bruler turned and rode off into the woods.

  By now the wraiths had turned and were bearing down on them. They cantered forward in a wide line, apparently hoping to sweep up the rangers beside the road as they passed. Their headless leader directed them with her blade, urging them forward.

  “I have iron in my blood!” Gwen yelled. She stood in her saddle and shook her axe, giving a high, piercing cry. The rangers took it up with enthusiasm, adding trilling shouts to her scream. Gwen charged.

  Her enthusiasm was short-lived. The wraiths attacked with purpose this time, pressing the advance rather than striking and passing through. Three of them surrounded Gwen, pushing her to the side of the road. Their blows were slow and purposeful, but when she blocked one with the bit of her axe, the force nearly wrenched her shoulder out of its socket. She was still recovering from that when the headless leader twisted around and laid her sword through the neck of Gwen’s horse. The beast went over with a scream, rolling and nearly crushing Gwen.

  Gwen hopped back to her feet, but was now at a severe disadvantage. The wraiths towered over her on their mounts. She tried the same strategy, burying the head of her axe in the neck of the leader’s horse, but got no reaction. Backing away, Gwen stumbled over her own dead mount, grabbing one of her spears as she flipped past the saddle. She was able to keep the wraiths at bay, pinning them in the shoulder or chest, shoving them back, then turning her attention to the next. It felt like a game of hammerjacks, without the ball.

  Bruler crashed into this dance, swinging hard with his sword and ignoring his own well-being. He crushed the arm of one of the wraiths, followed up by shouldering the corpse to the ground, then directing his horse to crush it with a series of quick steps that broke bones and shattered steel. When he was done, the wraith could only twitch helplessly in the mud. Bruler looked down at Gwen.

  “Smaller pieces,” he said, then charged back into the melee.

  The two remaining wraiths stared at their ruined companion for moment, then bolted after Bruler. Gwen knelt by her horse, offered it mercy, then unbuckled her spear sheath and threw it over her shoulder. She marched up to the crushed wraith and plunged a spear into its skull. The creature moaned without mouth or throat, creating a droning howl that shivered Gwen’s flesh.

  “Bloodwrought steel has no effect on them,” she mused. “What sort of monster has the inquisition created? And why is the Orphanshield raising his own dead to fight?” Gwen looked up at the distant towers of the Fen Gate. “That is, if the church still holds the walls, and hasn’t succumbed to Sacombre’s corruption.”

  Gwen was shaken from her reverie by the thunder of hooves. Kesthe and Kight turned a distant corner, leading the fastest elements of Gwen’s army. She couldn’t help but smile.

  “Honor might have frowned on Kight’s leaving, but it’s good to see it hastened him back. Scouts, clear the road! I don’t think Kesthe will be able to turn this charge aside!”

  Her rangers fell back to the side of the road, dragging Bruler with them, leaving the road to the wraiths. The demons seemed oblivious to their danger, but as Kesthe and the others approached, she slowed down.

  “Is this all it takes to frighten you, huntress?” Kesthe shouted. “Loose revenants? See how they answer to their elder’s call!”

  “Kesthe, wait!” Gwen shouted, but the elder of bones was already acting.

  Holding her staff above her head in both hands like a trophy, Kesthe started chanting in an ancient tongue. Something stirred in Gwen, tightening around her lungs and plucking the strands of her muscles. The wraiths, previously inatte
ntive to Kesthe, turned slowly and began to approach her. At the elder’s command, they dropped their weapons. Kesthe stopped chanting and swung down from her saddle.

  “You see, Gwen? The gods have no need of our fear. The celestials have removed themselves so far from death, tucking it neatly away in the quiet house, that even the simplest ghosts terrify them. These are nothing more than soldiers too stubborn to die. An old trick, and easily sent on to their rest.” She stretched out her staff, waving it above them, then slicing down. The wraiths fell like dropped puppets.

  “Nothing to it. If you wish to train with me, I could—” Kesthe sucked in her breath, then turned back to the dead.

  A web of black energy appeared on the ground around each of the wraiths, like ice suddenly cracking. It extended, racing forward until it touched Kesthe’s feet. The elder drew back, but she was not fast enough to outpace death. Her startled yelp became a horrified moan. Kesthe fell to her knees. Gwen knelt beside her.

  “Elder? What has happened?” Gwen looked back at the wraiths. They had not stirred, were rather decomposing in front of her eyes. A knight with the bloated features of a drowned man lay with open mouth, the stream of water coming out slowing to a trickle as his lungs were finally emptied of their burden. Gwen looked back at Kesthe. “If you are feeling well, we should press on to the castle. There’s no telling what will be waiting for us.”

  “Do not trifle with the dead,” Kesthe said. She looked up, and Gwen stumbled back. The elder’s face was changed, the lines of her eyes as black as ink, her lips curled back in a feral grin. Even her skin was different, as though she had slipped into the pallid flesh of the dead. When she stood, the rangers took a step back in horror. “Leave them in their graves, or be prepared to feed the grave yourself!”