Shadowborn

by Joseph DeVeau

  When all was silent and the survivors were safely secluded in another alley a dozen blocks distant, Aeryn looked up at the ominous, murky-red sky. She barely suppressed an urge to heave out her stomach again. She wanted nothing more than to sink into a tub of hot water and wash away the all too vivid memories of death, then collapse, exhausted, into her bed. There was only one way to do that, grim though it may be: keep moving forward.

  “Well?” Aeryn asked. “What are we waiting for?”

  “That,” Merek said between gasps for air. The crudely bandaged score across his abdomen kept him hunched over, unable to draw in a full breath. He pointed at the setting sun as though Aeryn was not already staring at it.

  “Yeah,” Aeryn said. She took a limping step forward in the direction of the Lord’s Gate, rolling her shoulder to make sure it still worked. “The sun is almost down. We need to move.”

  Asher grabbed Aeryn’s arm. Blood seeped from a dozen places and made his grip slick. It was a wonder he had enough strength to even do that much.

  “No,” Asher said. “Not yet.”

  Aeryn tore from his grasp and almost fainted from the pain that shot through her shoulder. “What are you talking about? We need to get to the gate.” She did not voice her fears that none of them may even make it that far. “You said it yourself: ‘The bulk of the Shades will wait for nightfall. That’s when they hold the advantage. That’s when they’ll make their push.’” Aeryn pointedly looked to the fast-falling sun. “The sun has almost set. We need to hurry.” She stepped forward once more.

  Asher tried to stop her again. His fingers slipped weakly off her arm. “We move now, we die,” he coughed. “They’ll cut us down like wheat chaff before a scythe.”

  “We don’t move now and we all die,” Aeryn said.

  Emeline, the gnarled old healer from the village by Merek’s country estate had come in at the same time as Gerald. She was their only hope at healing and returning to fight later. The only problem was that she was on the other side of the gate. Jynx too.

  “He’s right, Aeryn,” Merek said, casting a concerned glance to Asher, who was now having trouble standing.

  “But—“

  “No.” Merek shook his head, not releasing Aeryn’s arm. “We have to wait. If we move now,” he continued before Aeryn could get a word in edgewise, “we will be exposed and crushed beneath the gate like hammer meeting an anvil. None of us would survive.”

  “So what do we do?” Aeryn pulled her hand free and crossed her arms. “We sit here on our hands and wait for the end? I would rather take my chances out there, grim as they are.”

  Still Drifted—Aeryn did not know how they managed to concentrate enough for that task with their wounds—she caught Merek and Asher exchange a worried glance.

  “You said it yourself,” this time she turned Merek’s words on him instead of Asher’s, “‘battle plans only last until the first sword is drawn.’ Well the first sword was drawn a long time ago. We don’t adapt and we die.”

  She waved an arm at the square where a good two hundred soldiers and a small handful of Shades milled about before the gate. Things might had been different had they more men. But a handful of Lords and Ladies could only raise an army so large without arousing suspicions. Unfortunately, that still left them outnumbered five-to-one.

  “We’ve killed nearly three quarters of them,” Aeryn said, “but there are still plenty of them left to finish us. Just look at them. Its suicide to wait. We have to take our chances and run for the gate now, while we can. If I learned one thing from my years on the streets it’s this: move or die.”

  A few of the street urchins standing about nervously gave Aeryn a look that said, “Yeah, right. As if you, a Lady, have been down any street not wide enough for a carriage to roll though.”

  Asher began to object. Gods! The man was as bloody stubborn as Merek and Mareen combined.

  Merek held up a hand. “What do you suggest?”

  “Sneak around the square and come at it from the side,” she said. “We can be through it and have it shut behind us before the soldiers in the square realize we’ve made it around them.”

  “If they see us before then? We’ll have lost any advantage we may have had by waiting for night,” Merek said.

  “Then we fight,” Aeryn said, setting her jaw firmly. “We will need to no matter which choice we make. At least this plan has us fighting on one front, not two.” Asher had informed them that the Shades would hold back until they had the advantage. It was now or never. They were burning up the last rays of sunlight sitting around talking about it.

  “I don’t—“ Asher began.

  “Lady Aeryn, I can—“ Katelyn cut off with a squeak at interrupting who she thought was Nameless.

  “—like it,” Asher growled. He had to lean against the wall for support.

  The response from Katelyn and her group of Bigs and Littles was as varied as the crowd’s response at seeing the chests of gold and knives spill off the stage. A few looked mortified at having an angry God standing before them, a few dropped into poor bows, and yet a few others stared back defiantly, hands on the hilts of their various weapons.

  “Go on,” Aeryn urged the street girl.

  Katelyn cast a glance at Asher, then locked eyes with Aeryn, as if seeking protection by addressing her and not a God. “Lady Aeyrn,” she began again, “I know the streets like the back of my hand. If we split up now, we can lead your men to the gate through the back alleys.”

  “Thank you, Katelyn,” Aeryn said, wanting to slap herself for not thinking of the street urchins earlier. “I would appreciate that.” The girl beamed.

  Silence held for few long moments before Merek broke it. “It makes sense. I don’t see another way. Do you, Asher?” When Asher made no response, but to sag under his own weight, Merek clapped his hands together. “Lead on, Aeryn. You’re in charge.”

  22

  Man’s Best Friend

  Aeryn split them into five smaller groups of eight, each with a trio of street urchins at their fore, two Littles and a Big. The plan was exactly as she had laid out before: elude the soldiers and sneak around to the gate before the Shades poured through and wiped them from the city for good.

  It was beyond depressing seeing them separated. Before, she could almost have deluded herself into believing they had a force to be reckoned with. Now. . .

  All those sporadic losses, which at the time had hardly mattered—what was the death of one sellsword when you had hundreds others to replace him?—had added up to a small mountain. Their force looked decisively thin.

  They had planned—well, perhaps not exactly planned, but accounted—to suffer losses. But as heavy as this? Never. It would be a wonder if enough survived to affect the remainder of their plans.

  Hopefully, they would make it. Hopefully, the Lord’s Gate would hold, else they would be run down from behind. Hopefully, the soldiers would not find a way over the wall too quickly, or in too large a number. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. . .

  So many hopes, so few certainties.

  Was every war like this? Each side so certain theirs was the only true, righteous path? Each army dreaming that theirs would prevail? Each soldier clutching to whatever thin reed of hope he could find that he would not be the one to fall? Each bystander praying that he would not be swept up in the storm?

  The thought made Aeryn uncomfortable. That they chose now of all times to manifest themselves made her skin prickle. She was still convinced her side was in the right. Not that it mattered; it was too late to do anything about it now.

  The last group formed up. Aeryn shook away the thoughts and steeled herself. Merek had put her in charge. She had to be strong. If she could pretend to be a Lady, she could pretend not to be scared, pretend not to have doubts. Their force was too small for half-measures and second thoughts.

  Straightening her back and holding her head high, Aeryn surveyed those gathered. “This is it,” she said. “One charge and we’re t
hrough the gate.” Then we only have to face the Shades and take the fight to the Voices themselves, she added silently, suppressing an urge to sigh. “Wait for my signal when you arrive. We will have to move as one. Any stragglers unable to make it through are to regroup here. Their primary goal will be to, one, stay alive, and two, harry the soldiers we leave at our backs. Any questions?” When none came, she gave the order. “Alright, move out.”

  Flanking the Lord’s Gate behind buildings, hidden in the shadows of alleys, and behind wagons overturned in the earlier chaos, the five groups snuck into position without trouble. Thankfully the hundreds of soldiers milling about in the square did not bother the street urchins as they scampered back and forth, relaying the positions of their group. After all, what harm could a single street urchin do? The fast-fading light helped too, but it would help the Shades more.

  A hound bayed in the distance. It was time to go.

  Aeryn put two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. She ran with all the speed she could muster, using the sharp pain in her shoulder to drive her legs faster. Across the way, a double score of figures did likewise. All in all their force looked like a dying beehive broken open and swarming one last time.

  The street urchins made it to the gate before the vast majority of the exhausted men, threading between the soldiers with ease. They created enough confusion that the swords that followed were able to cut a path like a river through sand for those further behind.

  At the fore, Aeryn crashed headlong into a Shade who stood near the gate, knocking him from his feet before he had a chance to realize what was going on. Holding onto the knife she had planted into his ribs as he fell, she was whipped around and struck the ground with such force that her shoulder popped out of its socket. Her separated shoulder was the only thing that saved her collarbone from snapping in half.

  Aeryn screamed in pain and snapped out of her Drift. In the dying light, through eyes half shut in pain, vision hazy from tears, she saw a Shade opposite drop like a sack of grain as no fewer than a dozen Bigs and Littles swarmed him. Merek and Asher double teamed yet another, dropping him in an instant.

  “The traitors!”

  “Stop them!”

  “Kill them!”

  The confused jumble of shouts lasted mere moments before an officer took charge. “Form up on the gate,” boomed a low voice. “Hold tight; don’t let any through.”

  Merek reached Aeryn’s side and helped her up, grunting at his own throbbing wounds. “. . .gate,” he said.

  “What?” Aeryn asked, watching the scene unfold as tears streamed from her eyes. Bogged down in a vicious melee against men more rested and numerous than they, she saw a good quarter of their hired swords turn and flee. The lure of the nobles’ wagons of gold was simply not enough for them to fight against such unfavorable odds.

  “Come on,” Merek shouted in her ringing ears. “We have to get to the other side of the gate.”

  Aeryn saw the men and urchins that had made it were already swinging the massive steel gate shut. Leaning on one another, Merek and Aeryn were on the wrong side.

  She hobbled forward. Her left leg gave out. She would have sprawled to the ground if not for Merek’s steadying hand. Warm wetness matted her pants and soaked into her leather shoe. She looked down and saw the hilt of a dagger standing out from her thigh.

  Now where did that come from? Aeryn dizzily asked herself.

  Her feet began to leave the ground. In moments, she was floating. Jynx, her faithful companion for so many years, howled somewhere off in the distance. It brought a smile to her face that at least he would not die with her.

  She did not even feel any pain. Not the score of cuts adorning her body from head to toe, not her shoulder, her collarbone, not the knife, nothing. The pain had vanished as completely and thoroughly as if it had never been. In its place was a strange sensation of lightheaded euphoria.

  So this is what death feels like, she thought as her mind detached from her body.

  “Take her through,” said a hard voice.

  “But you—“

  “Do it!” came the gruff response. “I’ll buy you enough time. Now move!”

  A deafening clang of steel blocking steel scant inches from her ear jerked her mind back down into her body. Fighting all around, the gates closing fast, and Asher—it had to be him; still Drifted, and nearly all the way to the Etheric Plane, he was the only one besides Aeryn and Merek on their side that could Drift—Asher, swinging a pair of long swords with a bestial roar three paces behind. Despite his grievous wounds—or, perhaps, in spite of them—anger glowed in his eyes and fueled his blows.

  He dropped three men in as many seconds. Three more took their place. Heedless of the gashes on his chest and side pouring blood, he dropped them too. Ten tried to press forward but wading through the calf-deep pool of offal slowed them considerably. Asher roared and jumped to the side, swinging in a frenzy as flankers bore down on him.

  Merek stepped to the other side of the gate. Aeryn realized Asher was screaming, repeating the same phrase over and over again: “For Bethany!” He was a force of nature. For every cut he sustained, he doled out a dozen. For every step he took backwards, attempting to get clear of the slick cobbles underfoot, a pair of soldiers fell in its place.

  The gate slammed shut with concussive force that momentarily drowned out the baying of the hounds. Aeryn looked to the noise. When she turned back, Asher was gone. Merek claimed that Asher had been different before the death of his fiancé. Though Aeryn had only known the gruff, opinionated version, she nonetheless felt a stab of sorrow at his passing. He had given his life to see her and Merek clear the gate. You did not have to get along with someone to recognize their sacrifice.

  Merek let out a long sigh that Aeryn, felt more than heard.

  “Boy, that was bloody magnificent!” Merek exclaimed.

  Aeryn blinked rapidly to clear her eyes. She saw Asher slowly rise from the ground. He must have dove inside at the last instant. Behind him, soldiers shouted and cursed, barred beyond the Lord’s wall, the city’s own defenses used against them.

  Merek spoke again, this time his voice was cold. “But if you ever do anything like that again, I’ll kill you myself.”

  His rage extinguished, Asher barely had enough strength to nod, lips quirking into a mischievous grin as he staggered to his feet. “I did take a couple of those bastards with me, didn’t I? Still,” his face fell, “I’d trade it all for one more day with Bethany.”

  “Aye, lad,” Merek said. “As would I. Isabel would—“

  Merek froze in horror. He squinted at his one-time son-in-law-to-be. Aeryn sucked in a breath.

  Asher had not stopped talking, he had been cut off, quite literally. Neck slashed through, his head lolled to the side and toppled to the cobblestones below. His lifeless body followed.

  “Voices!” Merek shouted, just as Aeryn said, “Shades!”

  Blood-soaked carnage descended on them. Standing around watching the interaction, hands on their knees panting as they gathered their breath, man and boy alike fell in rapid succession. With the steel gate at their backs, and too exhausted to run after their last sprint, they were penned like sheep.

  Shades and Voices appeared from every side and moved in with ghostly swiftness. Slashing and stabbing, they fell men scores at a time, clear-cutting them like a forest of tender saplings.

  There was nothing Aeryn could do. She could not even stand on her own, much less Drift and fight them off. It was a slaughter.

  A gray mist appeared before her. Aeryn backed up instinctively and raised an arm to block the blow that she knew would follow. It did not register until her forearm was at head level that she no longer had a knife in her hand, much less her sword short.

  Only tripping on Merek’s feet and collapsing to the ground saved her from the steel edge that hissed through the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she vaguely saw Merek had fallen with her, which had saved him from yet another gray-bl
ack form.

  Hollow-eyed and staring numbly at the Asher’s headless body, Merek made no move to defend himself. Back pressed against the ground and the wind knocked from her lungs, Aeryn had no way to escape another strike, accidentally or otherwise.

  She let out a wheezing laugh. Here she was staring death in the face and all she could think about were the baying hounds in the distance. Was Jynx with them? Was he alright?

  A Shadow—a Shade? a Voice? Did it even matter anymore?—towered above her. She wondered if Will had laughed at the Shade that had killed him. A sword descended. It would have been just like Will; to laugh at death while boasting about how he would survive—nay, flourish—and come out stronger than ever.

  A black streak rocketed by Aeryn’s eyes. The Shade and its sword vanished.

  Aeryn blinked. The Shade, Voice, or whatever, had not Drifted. She would be dead whether or not she could see her attacker; Drifting made things no less real, just less visible. This had been different. One moment it had been there, the next, it had not.

  The sound of crunching bone cutting off a high-pitched scream, followed the distinctive gurgling of someone drowning on their own blood. Wiping back tears, she turned her head and saw a massive hound, blood-slicked fur standing on end, ripping away what was left of the Shade’s throat. It turned to face her. Her blood turned to a river of ice.

  Jynx growled, teeth flashing against the final rays of sunlight. Powerful muscles churning into action, finger-length claws gouging into the cobbles, he dashed at her, frenzied.

  “Jynx? What are you doing? It’s me—“

  The draven’s claws flicked down with such force they ground small craters into the stone cobbles even as they tore savagely through her cheek. Then Jynx was airborne, a two-hundred pound missile of fur and muscle, teeth and claws soaring over her. Drifted and moving so fast Aeryn could barely track his progress, he slammed into the Shade poised above Merek.