But the Hungry Dark was bottomless.
Throw him to it, he thought. Bear him down.
He waited to feel some protest from the Guardian, but there was nothing—not a twinge or a whisper. Somehow it had finally meshed with him; his easy command over the elements was the spirit working in concert with his mind and flesh, no longer having to be filtered through proxies. Still, for its earlier warnings, he thought it would voice an opinion.
Silence means assent. I’m stronger now. I won’t be washed away.
The Hungry Dark reached toward him, its strange fingers tickling at his soles.
So he let it in.
The world went black-and-white, the shadowed sea surging up to embrace him. He breathed it in, tasting hollowness and a cold more absolute than Enkhaelen’s aura could ever be. It soothed something in him—some aching knot he could neither name nor understand—and as it buoyed him in its arms, he felt suddenly calm.
In control.
The Ravager slashed down at him in a frenzy, its bright claws carving through the darkness that shrouded him, but every gouge was instantly refilled, every kick and bite and strike by its radiant essence just a dim flash in the black. Dying stars straining against the inevitable.
Reaching out, he let the Dark flow through his hands, his eyes, his mouth, his very pores. It came easily, and as it engulfed the Ravager, he heard its roar change to a keen. Other sparks fizzled in the black waters nearby, but they could not hold his attention.
He wanted the light.
He wanted to quench it, to clasp its flame in his great cold fists and squeeze it to nothing. To extinguish that annoyance, that pest, that fleck of malice that had broken his dreamless sleep and forced him to hide behind debris in the shadows of stars, to lurk and rage and long for rest. For silence. For the empty singularity beyond ice, beyond cold, beyond darkness.
For the Void.
Dimly he sensed that he was falling, but it only mattered because the light had gone further away, glimmering beyond his hands like an insult that had to be blotted out. Slowly, ponderously, he closed his grip around it. The tiny light struggled and nearly flitted free.
Then there were other hands on his. Cool, smooth, dusky in the darkness, and a body supporting him from behind. Familiar. A scent of high-mountain flowers, of cold stone and warm hearth, of rain and thunder.
Fingers interlaced with his, pressing them together over the frantic thrash of the firefly light.
“Mother?” he whispered, and felt her smile against his cheek.
The shock returned him to his body for a moment, and he felt water on his eyelids and trickling into his mouth, his nostrils. But her hands were still there, clasping his tighter, and he tried to look back, desperate to see her again, no longer caring about the little light.
Black eyes in the black ocean…
Do not turn from me! screamed a voice of fire.
Agony pierced him, and he looked up as white feathers filled the world, white talons buried in his ribs and thighs, the tiny spark between his hands escaping in the form of a ringhawk as its much greater master heaved six heavy wings. Wiry muscle strained beneath stark white skin, cords of tension stood out in the white neck, then it tore him upward like a fish speared from a river while the black water poured through its blazing wings to scald his face and arms. His mother’s hands slipped from his like a skin of ice, and he cried in despair at their loss.
The wings flowed around him, banishing the last remnants of the Dark with searing light, and he felt himself start to burn.
And then—
He hit the ground hard, coughing up dirty water. His chest felt savaged, his face tight, eyes swimming with afterimages. Under his fingers was soft mud, and for a moment he clawed at it, trying to find strength in his limbs to get up, to face the threat Enkhaelen still presented, but his arms were like lead and his legs would not respond beyond a twitch.
A gloved hand cuffed him lightly upside the head. “Child,” said the necromancer. “Lay still. You’ve done enough to harm yourself without fighting me again. I’ll have this and be on my way.”
Boots squelched past him, and he grabbed after one awkwardly, fingers barely skimming the leather. Through wavery eyes he saw the black figure approach the sword—still thinly covered with ice—and reach for the hilt.
Black glove touched silver pommel, and a spark jumped between them. The necromancer recoiled as strands of energy peeled from his fingertips and began to unravel down his arm.
“No, no,” he said, taking a step back and clasping his other hand over the stricken arm. Despite his grip, the strands of blue-white energy continued to unwind along his wrist and elbow. As Cob stared blearily, he saw the affected hand sag, then the whole forearm start to wither.
Teeth bared, Enkhaelen made a cutting gesture toward his upper arm, and the sleeve and limb sheared away, leaving a bloodless stump. But that too began to unravel, and his wings—which had already receded to stubs—flickered away entirely on the disintegrating side. With an ogrish curse, he took an abortive step toward the sword, then seemed to change his mind as the fallen limb collapsed to ash within its glove and sleeve.
“Sanctuary,” he said, and vanished in a warp of air.
For a moment Cob stared at the place where he had been, uncomprehending. He wanted to close his eyes and fall back into that Darkness; it felt like his heart had been torn open, though when he looked to his chest he saw only a few rips in his shirt, and no blood. Everything was wet, and as he struggled to a sitting position he saw the courtyard full of puddles, the scorched earth swiftly turning to bog.
Not far away, Fiora coughed up a lungful of water and wedged herself onto an elbow. “You all right?” she rasped.
He stared at her. Glass covered the front of her shield and had adhered to her chainmail at chest and coif, the cloth burned away by the heat of first impact. A few spots of glass glittered on her cheek too, the skin ruddy. Yet even after being struck by the molten explosion, she had not run; she had come right back into the fray in time to be engulfed by the Dark water.
A rill of horror ran up his spine at what he could have done. Shaking, still incapable of coordinating his limbs enough to rise, he said, “What the pike were you tryin’ to do?”
She blinked, and he saw flecks of glass in her eyelashes. “Protect you.”
“Protect me?” The fear he had not felt during the fight took control of his voice. “Protect me from the Ravager? What made you think you could do that? Light curse it, woman, I told you to get back, why couldn’t y’ listen to me?”
“You didn’t say—“
“Don’t you have eyes? Couldn’t you see it was pikin’ deadly to get close?”
Her face firmed. “Look, Cob, I’m the one who saved you in Haaraka—“
“Because he forgot you were there!”
“He wasn’t paying me any attention this time either! It was the same thing!”
“No it wasn’t! He— He had wings! Fire! Y’ didn’t see the pikin’ fire?”
“I’m a Trifolder, I’m not afraid of—“
“You should be! All the Trifolders who came here, they all died! And you saw him! He was beatin’ the crap outta me, what made you think you could—“
“Well, if I snuck up on him—“
“You’d get pikin’ electrocuted!”
“So what, you want me to just stand aside?”
“Yeah, if you’re gonna get killed otherwise!”
“You didn’t yell at me for saving you in Haaraka!”
“I was pinned to the ground, you were the only one movin’! That made sense for you t’ fight! But this time—“
“Oh, just because you had the antlers up, that means you don’t need a little girl’s help, you can deal with it all on your own, you big manly stag.”
“Yeah, I—“
“Obviously you can’t! And what was that water thing! I nearly drowned!”
“You shoulda stayed away!”
“Pike yo
u, I’m your protector!”
“I’m the Guardian!”
“You’re completely blind! Or didn’t you know Dasira was working for Enkhaelen? She nearly killed me!”
Cob choked on his next spate of curses. “She what?”
“Tried. To. Kill. Me,” said Fiora through her teeth, struggling up from the mud. “With her evil dagger. She’s an abomination and she said you knew about it. And you didn’t tell me? Aren’t we supposed to be comrades? Aren’t we supposed to be working together, instead of the lot of us backing you up except when you can’t be bothered with us? Look, the only reason the Ravager even came down to your level is because Lark shot him, otherwise you’d still be sucking up lightning bolts from on high.”
“I— I know,” Cob said lamely, “but that doesn’t mean you should run right up t’ where he’s been imprisoned. You remember in Haaraka, the thorns had him, then he blasted out jus’ like that. You shoulda known better than to—“
“I was worried about you!” She glared at him, then added coldly, “Apparently you weren’t worried about us, because you did your magic water thing and suddenly we were all piking drowning.”
Blanching, Cob sought out Lark and Arik—still lingering by the hedge maze entrance. Even from this distance, they looked drenched. A worm of guilt curled tight in his stomach and he looked down to his hands, half-buried in the mud. Faint pale streaks showed on his dark skin. Frostbite in the shape of fingers.
Mother, he thought.
His heart clenched in his chest, and for a moment the Dark was there again, hollowing him out with its endless cold. He hunched over, shaking, hands fisting in the ooze. Can’t be her down there in the Dark. Has to be a delusion. A trick. It can’t have her.
But he knew better. He had seen that same hollowness in her eyes.
He felt like retching but there was nothing to come up, felt like running but was still too weak to gain his feet. As Fiora approached, her expression now concerned, he looked away, as if she might read the shame and fear in his eyes. He did not want to be here, doing this, fighting the Ravager and the Light. He wanted to be home in his mother’s arms.
He had thought her lost to him, but now he knew she was close. Too close.
“’M sorry,” he mumbled, letting Fiora take his arm and help him up. “Got confused. We should get outta here. Down to that town at least, but further if we can. Enkhaelen’ll be back, probably with help.”
“What about that sword?” said Fiora, nodding past him.
He looked to the silver blade still standing upright in the sod, slightly filmed with ice. His first instinct was to replace it in the tomb with its owner, but as he opened his mouth to say so, he remembered Enkhaelen’s magic unraveling.
“Comes with us,” he said. “We’re gonna need it.”
Fiora sheathed her own sword and stepped past him to pull it from the soil. After a moment of inspection, she slung it across her shoulder and said, “I’ll carry it. Metal isn’t good for you. But don’t think we’re done with our discussion.”
He grimaced as she stalked by. He wanted to stop her and brush away the flecks of glass, to extend the Guardian energy to make sure she was not harmed, but he restrained himself. She had her own Trifold powers, and obviously disdained any help or orders from him.
Together indeed, he thought darkly.
Slowly he managed to stumble after her, feeling like he had just risen from the dead. Arik and Lark fell in with him, apprehensive, neither speaking.
They made it through the hedge maze after a minimum of confusion, and as they approached the black gates Cob saw figures pacing out there. His heart lifted slightly; he had feared for Dasira and Ilshenrir, and after Fiora’s snappish remarks about Dasira trying to kill her, he had dared not ask more.
As they drew closer, though, his spine stiffened as he realized there were quite a lot of them. His antlers crackled into existence on his brow, wiping away the fatigue.
Pushing past Fiora despite her protests, he flung the gates wide and strode out to confront the strangers. They recoiled immediately, and he halted, surprised: the eight of them, both men and women, looked so much like the shaggy-haired half-feral folk he had seen in Enkhaelen’s nightmare that he almost thought he had stumbled back into it. Their faces were different though, and as they withdrew into a wary gathering, he spotted Ilshenrir sitting against the hedge wall with a half-sphere of faded wards around himself and Dasira. It hurt Cob to see the bodythief slumped like that, no matter what Fiora had said.
The wraith inclined his head marginally. His face looked strange. Scarred.
“Guardian,” said one of the rough men, his voice both hopeful and uneasy. Cob's attention snapped to him, but he avoided the gaze, staring instead at Cob's chin. The others did the same, their expressions deferential.
Cob took a step closer, watching as they jostled together restlessly. They were obviously wolf-folk; a few had tails tucked between their legs despite their clothes, and they hunched peculiarly, knees bent and chins up as if making themselves smaller. All were shorter and lighter of build than Arik, quill-less, in practical leather garb; some had weapons at their belts but none bore one in hand; nor did they wear shoes on their furry clawed feet. Beyond them, Cob saw tuck-eared wolf-faces peeking up from the notch of the stairs.
"Uh, hoi," he said.
A quiver went through the crowd, a few in the back bumping shoulders for encouragement. He recognized that, and realized they were not really cowering; they were nervous and excited and would probably bolt if he made an angry face.
With his mood, it was tempting.
He suppressed that and tilted his head instead, and as if recognizing his interest, the two in the front stopped hunching so much, their tails lifting. He took a moment to glance back at Arik. The big skinchanger—who had slipped into beastman form and now stood at the rear of their group with his ears laid back and tail stiff—gave him a nod.
Wonder if this is Haurah's influence, he thought as he beckoned the wolf-folk forward. They were small, both the man and the woman barely reaching his chin, which felt strange; he had always thought of predators as large and imposing. Creatures to fear.
The mob of them crept forward cautiously until the frontrunners paused just out of arm's reach. The man's tail lifted enough to swish behind him, while the woman looked up with large-eyed interest. Under her thick hair, her ears were mobile and pointed, far more wolfish than human.
"Why're you here?" said Cob, keeping his voice low and even.
“To see you, Guardian,” said the man. He had a narrow face with a dark scruff that looked more like overrun sideburns than a beard, his eyes yellowish, his skin weathered from a life outdoors. He took care not to show his teeth when he spoke. “We felt your touch through Raun, our father, and when you came to our territory, we followed you. No human or wraith has set foot here without bloodshed for many turns of the seasons, but for you and yours, we will make exceptions.”
Cob eyed the man, then glanced to Ilshenrir. “They didn't attack you?”
“No,” said the wraith. “I raised my ward when I saw them, but they have not tested it.”
“You chased away the bad dreamer,” said the feral man. “Brought the firebird back, if only briefly. Will you accept our hospitality, Guardian?”
You’re the Ravager’s people, he thought to say, but that was obvious. Except that they were his people now too, through both Haurah and Arik, and if they knew Enkhaelen as the firebird, perhaps there was more they could tell him.
What kind of hospitality wolves might offer, he could not imagine. But it could not be worse than waiting here for Enkhaelen to return.
“Fine,” he said. “For a time.”
The feral man smiled a broad but close-mouthed smile, and suddenly the rest of the pack surged around Cob, milling and sniffing and staring as the man and woman tried to bump them into some semblance of behavior. Cob tried to be aloof, guessing that this was how things went, but when they got too intim
ate he could not help but push them away. Most went cheerfully, either being corralled by their alphas or swooping in to sniff from another angle, but one man fell right over with his legs spread and whined for mercy.
"Oh, up before you piss yourself," said a woman, and half-dragged the man to his feet to send him wobbling toward the stairs as all the wolf-shaped wolves boiled up to join in the sniffing.
“Um, is this a good idea?” called Fiora.
As they surrounded him then flooded past to inspect his friends, Cob looked back and shrugged. “Is anythin’?”
Chapter 26 – The Crush
As the sun sank in the bleached sky, Captain Sarovy and his lancers rode in through the open gates of Bahlaer. He felt relief as they passed into the shadows of the walls; as troubled as he was by his mission, he was glad to be discharging it, for the woman at his back troubled him further.
During their ride toward Bahlaer, she had spoken in his ear. She was Ammala Cray, thirty-nine, a widow for several years. Her children were the demanding Izelina, thirteen; the boy Aedin, ten; the shy Jesalle, eight; and two in graves behind the abandoned cottage to add to dead Paol at the Riftwatch towers, nineteen. The old woman was Maegotha Cray, called Nana by the children, nearly seventy and Ammala’s mother-in-law.
Sarovy did not want to know these things. Initially he had rebuked her for speaking, but she had not stopped, and though he would have liked to rein his horse in and gag her, he resisted. There was no need to use force. He did consider it again when Lieutenant Linciard flagged them to a stop so that he could splint the old woman’s wrist—apparently Sarovy had broken it while disarming her—but consigned himself to ignoring her.
Sometimes it seemed she was speaking to herself rather than to him: trying to weave her life into some kind of a narrative, to see it before her as she approached her fate. See what it had been worth. He respected that, and she was calm otherwise, unlike the children who spent half the ride in tears. Surely she had the will to grab the utility knife from his belt and stab him, but she seemed too proud to try.
The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) Page 74