by V. Holmes
"Arman, there's half a battalion out there." Bren leaned on the ridgepole of their tent. He was pale from blood loss.
"I thought you needed to rest." The venom in Arman's quip burned.
Bren paused, as if weighing the chance Arman would attack him with the blades he strapped on. "You should wait until the attack subsides. Adding more to the confusion will only get people killed. Besides, in this mess I doubt you'll be able to get through the Berrin to wherever they're keeping her."
"They'll panic and kill her before that." He held out his hand, "Give me that map you made out there, or let me go in blind. Either way, I leave now."
"Give me time to eat, get some water. I'll go with you."
Arman fingered the hilt of one of his throwing knives. "I'll meet you south of the barricades. I leave in a quarter of an hour, with or without you."
Arman glared up at the paling sky. They needed the cover of night. The river roiled before them, the water a mess of rocks and debris washed from upstream. "How did you cross before?"
"You don't want to know." Bren shuddered. "And I don't intend to repeat it."
Arman pointed to where a tangle of logs and cattle carcasses snagged on a submerged rock. "We can stand until there, or close to it." He glanced back. "How is your neck?"
"I'll be fine." Bren followed the smaller man into the river. Water lapped halfway up the barricade. It was icy and drove the breath from their lungs. "Toar!"
Arman kicked Bren after the second volley of curses. They were lucky that the attack provided a diversion, but Arman would not push their luck. If only we had time to do this properly. I'll regret it when I can never get warm and dry again! Behind him Bren lost his footing. He grabbed the lieutenant by the armor and thrust him forward. "Go, dammit!"
After too many bitterly cold minutes, they dragged their silt- and water-logged bodies onto the far bank.
"You could have told me you were planning to just walk across the damned river. Then I'd have known better than to come." Bren's breath was ragged and his hands shook.
Arman was too adrenalized for sympathy. He hauled himself upright and made for the undergrowth. "And you could have told me you were afraid of water!"
Φ
Dried blood stiffened Alea’s brow. She blinked, fabric scratching her face. More rough cloth was stuffed in her mouth. It tasted like dirt and old wine. She shifted carefully. Dull clanking told her the weight on her ankles was chains. Closing her mouth around the gag, she sniffed, hoping for anything that could tell her more about her surroundings. Burning cloth. Blood. Mud. She could have been anywhere in either camp.
The timid voice rose in her head. It had been months since she had felt this weak. Last I felt so vulnerable I was wishing I could die in Vielrona. Cold filled her mind. She was tired of being cold and wet. She was tired of being shuffled about like an unwanted younger sibling. She was tired of being weak. This time would be different.
She rolled her head on her neck. She hated feeling enclosed. The hood was loose and untied. She grimaced and began working the burlap from her face. If she could see, she could fight. With a last violent headshake, the fabric fell away. She spat the gag from her mouth. The dim room was circular and made of stone. The fort, then. There were others along the wall, bound as she was. Some had worked their hoods off too. She recognized only one of the men who had accompanied the scouts. She caught his eye.
He frowned, eyes narrowed on her hair, her face. Realization dawned and he blanched. “You should have stayed!”
She smiled. “Getting captured was not my plan, but I can attack just as well from here.”
Boots on stone heralded the Berrin officer who burst in a moment later. The sound of battle spilled through the door after him. His gaze traced the line of prisoners. He looked as tired as the Athrolani. He eyes barely paused on Alea.
For once she was glad that people expected her to be taller, older, or more beautiful. She dared not close her eyes, but she tugged at the chill that wrapped her veins. She pulled rope after rope into her hands.
The Berrin drew a knife and crouched beside the furthest prisoner. “I’m sorry. I have orders.” His slash was swift and deep. He moved to the next without watching the man’s death. Even soldiers had their limits.
Alea’s heart hammered and her hold on the power faltered. This was a test she was not prepared for. Shouts from below grew louder, heralding a new attack.
“Do something!” The Athrolani man next to her nudged his boot into hers.
Her focus plummeted when the Berrin man looked over. She could feel the cold tendrils of power that marbled her face. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to shout. The time for faltering was past. Cold flowed along her limbs and filled the chains. The metal binding her tarnished, rust blooming across the iron. Her power ate away at the stone, pitting it until her chains fell free of the masonry. She staggered to her feet, eyes never leaving the officer’s. “I know you have your duty, but so do I.” The power swelling in her body broke free. Black fog exploded from her open mouth and filled the room with churning darkness.
The power roiling from the fort was not obvious at first. It crept across the ground like rising floodwater. Cold soaked into hands and boots, halting adrenaline and rage. Despite the rain, thirst crept up the throats of the soldiers, faint but persistent. Those closer to the blast watched droplets of water burst from their skin to skitter across the ground. Water trickled, moving ever faster as it wound between the stones and swirled up Alea’s legs. The deaths were gradual, like falling into easy sleep. But even in sleep there is pain and horror. Alea knew, because each death burned through her mind.
Φ
Arman shouldered into the room, shivering with the ice growing in his hair as he crossed the threshold. Power curled up the stones, rattling the floors above. Arman eyed the ceiling nervously. Berrin soldier’s rushed down the stairs, shouting orders. “Milady, come on. We ought to go!”
If Alea heard him, she showed no sign. Her eyes swiveled to the new attackers. One hand reached to Arman. Blackness twisted around him. It dragged his knives from their sheaths and flung them towards the approaching Berrin.
Arman stumbled, distracted. It was only a moment, but the foremost soldier crashed into him. Arman shoving the man down the stairs behind him. He stood, panting, for a moment before rushing over to Alea.
Power writhed back into her body, water dripping from her limbs. The other prisoners were lifeless and still. Their parched bodies looked like they had lain in the desert for weeks. Nausea began its dance in her gut. Arman staggered as he reached her, catching himself on her still-outstretched arm.
His face paled and he crumpled to the floor. A dark stain spread across the front of his jerkin.
“Arman?” The daze lifted from her eyes and she fell to her knees beside him, hand fumbling against the wound.
“Bastard got me.”
She took his face in her hands. “You’ll be fine, you just need a surgeon.” She balled her discarded hood and pressed it against the welling blood.
Numbness crept through his body, death chasing the fire from his fingers. He thought of his last letters home. What will Ma say when she gets the news? I should have been more honest. He moaned low in his throat as his body descended into shock.
Alea pressed her hand to his chest, like she had in Vielrona. His skin dried and decayed at her touch. His limbs shook. His heart faltered under her palm.
“I chose this. It’s all right.” He had time, minutes maybe, but time enough. “Remember when I said you were in the wrong part of the story? I said you had to gather the pieces?”
She nodded. Her jaw clenched, hiding the tremble of fear.
He reached up and wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck. “This is when you’re reforged.” He willed himself to focus on her eyes, not to look away. He knew what was in his heart, what he wanted to say. Instead, he found three words that would give her courage, ease the guilt rooting in her chest. “It d
oesn’t hurt.”
It was not the time for declarations. It was not the time for honesty. He did not want his words to bring regret and confusion. Last words were not for the dying, but for those left behind.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The 26th Day of Llume, 1252
The Battlefield at Fort Shadow
BREN HATED WATER. THE sickly squelching under his boots as he crossed the battlefield did not help. The battle had lasted not more than an hour. As a soldier he knew it was often the strangest things that turned the tides of war. This outshone them all. The corpses surrounding the fort were something out of nightmares. Skin tanned into leather wrinkled around shrunken flesh. Eyes were hard marbles sunk into papered skulls. His sister had done this. Somehow she had ripped the water, the very lifeblood, from these people. Tripping over an outstretched arm, Bren glanced down. The uniform was Athrolani. Her power seemed indiscriminate.
Azirik’s a damn fool, the gods are fools. They can’t fight this. Nothing can. He shoved past the destroyed front gate of the fort. The bodies here were only worse. The stairs creaked under his boots sending rot tumbling after his steps. He paused in the doorway to the mess hall. It was dark inside, but he heard weeping.
“Alea?”
Surprise replaced grief for a moment when she looked up, “I thought you were dead.”
He shook his head and sat back on his heels beside her. Seeing Arman lifeless was strange. It looked wrong. A man so full of fire and ideas snuffed out in one move. “Alea, we need to get back. I’m not certain the building is sound.” She barely resisted when he pulled her into his arms.
Bren glanced up at the two Athrolani they passed on their way down the stairs. “Bring her guard back, will you?” He watched Alea as they wound through the destroyed camp. The aftermath of battle was often grim. The silence that followed their passage, however, was different. Alea’s eyes rested on the bodies she had desiccated. Her expression was knowing, but without remorse. It made his skin crawl.
Φ
Alea stood in the infirmary tent, arms wrapped around herself. She did not move, but energy raced through her. It was beyond anger, beyond grief. The bustle of surgeons and apprentices continued behind the hastily erected curtain. Bren shifted for the third time. It was obvious he had no idea what to say.
“Will you give me a minute?” Her voice sounded strange in her ears. “I’m sure they need help out there.”
“Alea—”
Her eyes flicked to him. They still swirled with darkness. “Now.” Finally alone, she turned back to Arman’s body. The apprentices had been careful when they cleaned him. Death was not a pretty thing, or a dignified moment. She pushed aside his shirt breast. The new wound was a purple blossom in the center of the handprint scar. Her tiny, practiced stitches mended the torn muscles and flesh. It doesn’t hurt. The lie rang in her ears. Even with his dying breath he tried to protect her. She had listened to Arman talk about forging often enough. The steel was heated, hammered, tempered, heated again, hammered again. Their entire journey had hammered her, burnt her, the pain quenched only briefly. She was ready for it to be over. This is where you’re reforged.
She contemplated the mark on his chest, smooth silver marred by purple flesh. She caused this. Arman would have disagreed, but Bren knew. Your actions are yours alone. If she claimed the credit for the men without foot rot and for the wounds that did not fester, she must also claim the fault for the punctured lungs, the torn ventricles, and the stilled muscles.
Her hand was warm, normal. Healing a dying man was not easy. It was impossible when Destruction iced her veins. I have another side. The cold was different now. It was a cool drink in the desert heat. It slid through her body like dew. She crawled onto the bed beside him and tucked herself under his arm. Her brow pressed to his. Her mind crept through his body. Cold filled the still muscles and chased the sickly smell of death away. She traced the glowing white that overlaid the gold veins of his soulblood. She closed her eyes and sunk into herself. A tiny thread still led from his body through her, the footprints of his soul. That was the path she followed. Outside the rain began anew.
Φ
Blackness surrounded her. Occasionally silver flashed through, lightning far above clouds. Before she had stood on the shore of this ocean of power and drawn from it. Now she waded in. Trails of red wove through the fog, like game trails in snow. This was the unseen aftermath of battle—line of souls winding their way to death. She found Arman’s straight path, the gold glimmering up at her through the darkness. She did not think about what she was doing. She did not glance back to see the blue-black prints her bare feet left behind. She did not think about the pain creeping into her physical chest so far away.
It seemed like hours before the pillowy fog under her feet became coarse, black sand. Gray cliffs rose before her. She did not need her eyes to recognize the place. Her power knew. I crossed into Le’yan. Her eyes lingered on the spires topping the cliffs. Someday soon that would be her home. She shook the feeling of dread away and stepped into the crevice. She followed the light reflected on the wet walls. The floor was damp and cold. It did not smell of earth and mildew the way she thought a cave should. It smelled of rock and salt. It smelled of eternity.
Finally the tunnel ended in a vast cavern. If her physical body had been there she was certain frostbite would have set in. The ceiling was too distant to see, as were the far walls. A great sphere floated in the center. Pulsing red swirls moved beneath its silver surface. The air in the room crackled with energy, like the sky just before a storm arrived. Alea reached out and pressed her hand to the surface. The icy light seared her palm and she stepped back with a hiss of pain. She cradled her injured hand against her chest.
You cannot do this. The voice thundered from all around her, mighty and ancient.
Alea peered up at the sphere, “Who are you?”
I am all the Laen that have passed. Our souls hold those of every being that once lived. We are the shell that keeps them safe. The light pulsed faster. What you ask is too great. Each time you bring someone back, a piece of you will be left behind until you are an empty husk. You will cripple yourself and thus the world.
Alea stared at the swirling surface. A month ago she would have hung her head in shame and fear. She would have fled at her ancestor’s words. Instead her voice was thunder, “The world is already crippled! You are bound to the minute controlled laws of balance. I am the greatest balance.”
This is a dangerous path you walk.
Alea ignored the warning and pressed her hands again to the surface. The pain ripped through her hands, knifing up her arms. Her vision burst into lights like shattered glass. She drew more power and forced her eyes open. The surface writhed now as if in violence. Or in pain. It thinned under her hands. Wetness trickled from her palms, trickled between her fingers and down the backs of her hands. Screaming filled her ears, but she did not know if it came from the sphere. Perhaps it was hers.
Stop.
Alea forced herself past the pain in her head, the distant pain in her heart. She roared and ripped a hole in the veins of her soulblood, bleeding herself to add to her power. The agony made her mind go blank.
The stone under her shoulder was sharp. She blinked, her mind clearing. An ugly gash marred the silver surface of souls. Sickly black liquid bled from the raw edges. It would haunt her sleep, it would make her sick, but that would be later. “Arman?” She dragged herself up and thrust a hand through the sphere’s wound. She called again.
A glint of gold approached through the swirling crimson. It emerged, standing on the brink of the opening. It was a man made of white-gold fire. Its head tilted.
“Arman?”
The figure reached out, his hand brushing hers.
“Will you come back with me? You gave me your life. I am giving it back. I don’t know if I’ll live through this war, if I’m even meant to. I want you to go home, to live, to have children. Tell them these stories.”
He took her hand and climbed free. Neither looked back at the bleeding sphere. She led him back through the tunnel, her steps stumbling as her power weakened. She tripped and Arman’s gold hand caught her. She did not pause at the ocean of her power. She did not have time. She plunged through, unable to keep them above the surface. She swam through the twisting fog, Arman’s burning hand clutched in hers. Her hold on her power guttered. The thunder of her heartbeat was now a faltering patter. She thrust Arman’s soul through. The thudding of his mended heart echoed as waves closed over her head.
Φ
Bren wandered aimlessly through the tents. There was plenty to do, surely, but many hands complicated most tasks. At the edge of camp Eras perched on a barricade. The general’s hard eyes watched the Berrin and Miriken prisoners being processed across the river. Bren leaned on the wood beside her. “They’ll be questioned?”
Eras nodded. “Her Majesty has the Royal Inquest. They’ll do the unpleasantries.” Her eyes flicked to him, though her head did not turn. “The Rakos?”
“Dead.”
Her lips thinned, “I was hoping he would be a boon in the war to come. Perhaps I’ve read too many tales, but I had the image of fire and crumbling mountains.”
“I fear I read the same tale, ma’am.”
“I saw the bodies out there, the ones near the fort. That’s something I didn’t expect. I thought she couldn’t control her power.”
“She can’t. Not well, at least. If she could, I think none of those bodies would be wearing Athrolani tabards.”
“Did she kill him?”
Bren shook his head. “Berrin sword, from what I saw.” He ran a hand through his hair, wincing as his fingers caught on a matt of blood. “She’ll need time after this. She needs peace, safety. I’ll take her back to Athrolan myself. When the time comes she’ll be ready, I promise.”