Gerald patted Raker’s head. It was the most affection Aeryn had ever seen him show his favored hound. “Pups learn they have claws and suddenly they think they are fit to lead the pack,” he said. Straightening, his voice snapped back to its usually gruff tone. “We going to do this or stand around talking all day?”
Pulling out a canvas sack from the handcart, Aeryn unrolled the mass of rope. Tying a wide loop in one end, she slung it over her shoulder. Longbow in hand, Gerald had an even larger loop of rope across his shoulders, though his sported that thick, four-pronged iron hook at one end.
“Ready?” Aeryn asked. Gerald and Hedy knocked arrows. Katelyn and Ty, each holding quivers in one hand, arrows in the other, nodded. “Go.”
Gerald and Hedy sprung out into the street. Pausing only long enough to line up their shots, the arrows sprang from their bows. The steel-headed arrows blasted through the armor of those few soldiers manning the top of the Protector’s Wall. Handing over more, Katelyn and Ty kept Gerald and Hedy firing until the last soldier dropped.
“Clear,” Gerald said, dropping his bow.
As one, their group sprinted forward. Halfway to the wall, shouts rose from the soldiers at the gate. Hedy, Ty, Hale, Raker, Jynx and the dozen-odd hounds of Gerald’s still left split off and aimed for those shouts. Despite his nearly six-foot frame, Hedy looked positively tiny compared to Ty and Hale, the two huge, one former, one current, street boys. Filled out to his full size, Jynx likewise towered over Raker, Rusty, Mia, and the rest of the hounds.
Merek reached the wall and set a hastily made wood ladder against it. Gerald sprang up the ladder, Katelyn on his heels, Aeryn on hers. Merek brought up the rear.
At the top, Aeryn pulled the coil of rope from her shoulders. Looping one end around a merlon, she threw the other to the ground below. Crouching, she waited in tense silence.
The first scream hit her ears a few seconds later, followed quickly by a second and a third. Even from this distance, she could hear the sound of teeth snapping and claws raking over metal to find the flesh beneath.
She grabbed the rope and slid to the ground.
The rest landed as Aeryn took her first step towards the distant God’s Wall.
“Raker, no!” The anguish in Hedy’s shout carried across the distance. The snaps and snarls doubled in ferocity, even while they halved in volume.
Gerald twitched and jerked his head toward the sound, only to jerk it back an instant later as a growl escaped his throat. He picked up his speed towards the God’s Wall until Aeryn could no longer keep pace. His mouth opened, but all Aeryn heard over the wind rushing by her ears was, “hope you took those bastards with you.”
“Jynx—“ A resounding boom cut off Ty’s voice and whatever else he had been about to say. Aeryn slowed and looked over her shoulder as Gerald had a moment ago.
A hand grabbed her and dragged her along. “Use it,” Merek said, eyes alight in twin pillars of fire. “No one dies in vain.”
Aeryn shook off his arm and let the fading yells, the howls, and cries that replaced the snapping and gashing, wash over her, fanning her own embers into a roaring furnace.
A shout of command came. “Kill the big one!”
“But, sir, the dogs—“ came a reply, which was immediately drowned out by, “—the bow!” and, “Which big one? They’re all big!”
“The big one holding the gate shut with the chain! Forget the dogs; they’re dead or will be soon enough. As for the bows; I don’t care if they have ten bows; we were ordered to kill—“ The shout died midsentence.
Aeryn lost track of any replies as their little group rounded the Voice’s palace. A hundred paces on and they hit the God’s Wall itself. Gerald already had his grappling hook secured about the top when she arrived. Hanging down to the ground, the rope had been tied in thick foothold knots. They scrambled up. Thankfully the shortsightedness of the Voices had left this wall clear of soldiers. After all, why man a wall at your back? Especially one that protected a deserted castle.
At the top, Merek wasted no time in giving Gerald the clay pots strapped to his back. Aeryn hauled up the rope and similarly handed it over. Gerald ran off, pots now strapped to his back. Katelyn followed.
Watching them go, Aeryn could not shake the feeling that she was sending the small girl to her death. As a street urchin, Katelyn understood the risks better than most. That did not make it any easier to stomach. From here on out, the rest of their plan hinged on what Aeryn could recall from her earlier visit. That and quite literally a set of hinges.
“Aeryn,” Merek hissed. “What are you waiting for? Come on, we need to get in position. Where were the trees you mentioned?”
Aeryn shook her head to clear it. “Junipers,” she corrected and moved to join the Lord. “You can’t miss them. They spiral up together, stopping about,” she thought back to when she had been scaled the wall in the Voices’ garden, “ten feet shy of the top of the wall.”
“You sure they’ll hold us?” Merek asked.
“No,” she said. “But if they don’t, try to grab the vines that wind up the wall at their back. They stop another ten feet down. Asher,” a snarl escaped Merek’s lips as Aeryn leaned over the side to peer into the garden, “said they would be bloom—“
Aeryn gasped. Asher had not been lying. Tendrils shooting out from the vine’s trunk, they snaked across the wall like an interwoven fisherman’s net. Deep purple, bright pink, and every shade in between, blazed beneath the sun’s golden globe high above. Even if a Voice had been standing in the garden, they never would have been able to tear their eyes away from the perfectly manicured flower beds arranged before the vine’s spectacular backdrop to see them scurrying above.
“Come get me you bastards!” boomed Gerald’s voice. He lobbed one of the clay globes Merek had been carrying, now piled at his feet, at the main entrance to Nameless’ castle. Smashing apart as it hit, lamp oil oozed down the wall. A single drop hit the struggling flame of a fire made from dry, rotted wood and similarly dried weeds and grasses. Abandoned for so long, the castle had very little else to burn. Aeryn hoped the soldiers, Shades, and perhaps even a few of the Voices in the building below her did not know that. A bright orange tongue licked up the door. Another clay globe smashed apart and the fire roared to life.
“Get ready,” Aeryn whispered to Merek.
Feet spread wide, Gerald stood defiant, waving his long, fat knife before him in alternating arcs. It gleamed like a solitary steel fang in his hands.
“Watch your God burn you bloody curs.” He spat into the dirt.
“Kill that heathen!” came a shout from somewhere out of sight. “He desecrates Nameless’ castle.”
Aeryn watched as a stream of soldiers, Shades and perhaps even a few Voices rushed Gerald. At least Aeryn thought the latter were Shades and Voices. She could not differentiate the two from this distance; all she knew was that none would dare Drift a scant inch more than they absolutely had to beneath the beaming sun and cloudless sky.
The stream of attackers trickled off.
“Now!” Gerald shouted.
Aeryn jumped. Flying through the air, she heard the two massive iron gates clang shut. Crashing into the juniper, she felt the skin on her fingers tear and rip as she fought for a hold. Her shoulder and leg screamed despite the herbs, tinctures, and goblets of milk of the poppy she had ingested. Her foot hit a branch and sent a forceful shock reverberating up her leg to her head.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she slammed to a halt. And not just because she hadn’t fallen to her death. She had been right; the God’s Gate had been so meticulously maintained a child like Katelyn had been able to move them. Now Aeryn just had to hope that Gerald and Katelyn could keep their enemies busy, the former by fighting, the latter by leading them on a merry chase around the castle grounds.
“Down,” Aeryn said.
Above, Merek had somehow managed to straddle the junipers and the wall, one hand clutched precariously to the vine’s tendril
s, the other embedded in the bows of the evergreen.
Aeryn lowered herself to the garden floor, crushing the prettiest flower in the process. Only, it had not been pretty because of its petals, stalk, or leafs, but because its color matched her mood: dark red. At her side, Merek landed on one of the purest white. She tried not to read too much into that particular omen.
Merek sprung to the garden’s door and dropped a pair of men who had stepped out to see what all the noise was about. He dragged them outside and hid them in the flowers.
Aeryn stared at the men—the boys—servants both. “They were—“
“—here for a reason,” Merek finished for her.
She noticed the blades clenched in their fists. Though they were meat carving knives, doubtless the meat they had been meant for today were the intruders’ hearts. Merek was right. The Voices had kept them here for a reason. Loyal servants followed orders and were expendable. And with the vast bulk of the Shades and soldiers dead, and most of those left alive struggling to quell a blasphemous uprising, the Voices would want all the expendable fodder around them they could get.
“This way,” Aeryn said. She moved into the hall. As the door shut and blocked the sun’s rays from filtering in, the hallway fell into a deep dusk lit only by sporadic lanterns that lined the walls.
Merek and Aeryn Drifted.
Another pair of servants appeared and fell before she had rounded the first corner. They had to block the halls or risk being overrun from behind as they went after the Voices.
Aeryn knew the perfect place to do so: the golden double doors that separated the Voices from the rest of the “commoners.”
Merek peeked his head around the final corner and peered down the hall. Jerking it back an instant later, he turned to Aeryn and mouthed, “Shades.”
Aeryn nodded. “Drift further,” she mouthed silently back.
They Drifted all the way to the Etheric Plane, the culmination of all Aeryn’s hard work under Merek’s tutelage. Windowless marble halls, designed with those that could Drift in mind, the Voices’ secret egotism played right into their hands. Side by side, Aeryn and Merek strode out into the hall.
“How many Shades are left?” Merek asked without prelude. His voice brimmed with all the surety that came with being one of the wealthiest Lords in Maerilin.
The shorter of the Shades frowned as his comrade answered with a bowed head. “Nine, my lord,” he said.
“Where are they?” Merek asked, drawing closer.
“The three that returned from the Lord’s Gate after last night’s traitorous massacre are resting in their quarters. Frent and I are here, my lord, guarding the entrance to your wing as ordered.”
“And the other four?”
“Two went to investigate what looked like a fire at Nameless’ castle. The others are stationed just beyond—”
“Hey! You’re a woman!” exclaimed the second Shade. “There aren’t any women—“
Aeryn did not bother to curse her now filled-out body. Blood—vivid blue from being fully immersed—jumped out and stained the floors and walls as she flicked her knife out.
Merek’s blade followed. The Shades’ momentary confusion cost them their lives.
The doors began to open. Apparently the other pair were stationed just on the other side. Merek wasted no time and charged forward, slamming into the doors with all his weight. He snaked his sword in and out of the widening crack.
“The lantern!” he shouted. “Get the lantern!”
Aeryn did not argue or ask questions. She simply snatched the lantern from its peg on the wall. Spending no time examining its delicate gold filigree and etched glass bulb, Aeryn dashed back to Merek’s side, jumping into the door to help keep it from opening further. Her shoulder creaked, threatening to dislodge. Gritting her teeth, she planted her feet and pushed. The stitches in her thigh strained almost to the breaking point. Oil sloshed in the base of the lantern and the flame whooshed higher. Shifting his sword from one hand to the other, Merek grabbed the lantern.
With no steel sword to dodge, the Shades redoubled their effort on the other side. The golden doors widened inch by inch.
Aeryn slashed at a hand that appeared. It disappeared with a shout. The fury it spawned was enough for the Shades to force the crack wide enough for an arm. Then a leg. In seconds, it was wide enough for a torso. Tired, injured, one of them a girl, and the other an older man, they only had moment before the Shades burst through.
“Let go,” Merek said.
“What?” Let go? It was suicide. Servants and surprised Shades were one thing, but this time, Aeryn was not sure how long, or even if, they could hold out in a head on fight.
“Now!” Merek jumped back, releasing his hold on his side of the door. Aeryn was forced to do likewise or be gutted the moment the first Shade stepped through.
The doors crashed open, reverberating against the marble walls with a sound like a gong being struck. The lantern sailed past Aeryn’s eyes. It smashed into the ground right where the Shades were regaining their feet from the sudden disappearance in pressure. Like Gerald’s clay globes before it, the glass shattered on impact. Oil splattered over the Shades’ feet and simple wool trousers. Both Aeryn and Merek threw up arms and Drifted back to the Physical plane at the sudden influx of light. Heat followed as the wool went up in a blaze.
“Go,” Merek shouted. He slammed his shoulder once more into the golden doors, hurtling them into the Shades, now human torches, who fell screaming into the hall behind. Unlike Nameless’ castle, there was more than enough to burn here. The tapestries lining the hall whooshed up in a heartbeat.
Aeryn could not seem to move. Not only had Merek’s wound broken open, as evident from the spreading stain on his side, but his movements were slowing even as his breathing became increasingly labored. It would not be long before he was on his knees, unable to hold a sword. The first servant to come across him would find him an easy mark.
“Go,” Merek said again between grunted heaves. “I’ll hold here.” His face twisted up in pain, giving voice to the lie.
“But—“
“This day has been years in the making. I made peace with my fate the day the light went out of my life.” A piece of one of the silken tapestries floated down and scorched his sleeve. Aeryn thought she saw him cough out blood as he quickly swiped the burning ember away. “Go!” he shouted. “Finish it. Make their deaths mean something.”
Aeryn turned and ran. But she did not run for Asher, or even for Merek, the Lord that had taken her in all that time ago. Gritting her teeth against the sickening looseness in her shoulder and the flaming agony in her thigh, she ran for Jynx. She ran for Will, who would have sorely loved to be part of this day; if only for the stories he would tell and loot filch. It was time to cut the head off a thousand year old beast.
Just as Asher had described the night they had put their plans into motion, Aeryn found what she was looking for less than a minute later. Straight on, past riches meant to reinforce the Voice’s right to rule, she came to a set of looming, gem-studded doors. Beyond sat the audience chamber of the Voices. The chamber the Voices received the Shades and handed down the will of Nameless. Or rather, handed out edicts based on their own whims and wishes.
“Stop, traitor.”
Aeryn slid to a halt, knife flashing out. It was just a serving boy. He did not stand a chance against her. Especially not with the heated rage that coursed through her veins to wash away her pain and fatigue.
She pulled her strike at the last instant, just before it carved out the boy’s throat.
“Rickon?” she croaked.
“Traitor,” Rickon repeated. He swiped at her with a blade that would have had trouble carving a loaf of bread.
Though no longer slowed by his bulk—his work for the Voices had burned away his fat and left a tone frame in its place—Rickon had never been very fast. Aeryn danced aside easily.
“Rickon, it’s me. Aeryn.”
“I know
who you are,” Rickon said, grunting as he made another pass at her. “I always knew you were a Shadow.”
“Rickon, I’m not a—“ Aeryn jumped aside. “Fine. You know what? Maybe I am a Shadow,” she said.
She did not have time for this. Merek was back there dying, Gerald and Katelyn were probably already dead, Ty, Hedy and Hale may be alive, but it had not sounded like Raker and Jynx had made it. And those were just the ones today within the last ten minutes.
Jynx. Aeryn’s heart broke.
“You’ve got to listen to me,” Aeryn said. “The Voices are in charge and always have been. They have been ruling in secret for centuries, sending their Shades out to keep everyone huddling in fear and marching in line to their beat.”
Rickon shook his head. “I don’t believe you.” He jabbed this time and followed it up with a horizontal swipe, forcing Aeryn to drop to her stomach and roll away. It was either that or fight back and kill him. “The Voices would never betray Nameless.”
Nameless. It always came down to that, didn’t it?
“Rickon, Nameless isn’t real.”
Rickon laughed. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“How else do you explain why you’ve never seen him?”
“Because I’m not worthy yet. But I will be once I kill you.”
“Rickon—“
“Besides, do you think he’d just walk around for someone like you to see, plain as day?”
The way he sneered as he said “you” twisted Aeryn’s heart. “It’s called ‘Drifting’. There’s nothing special about it.” She Drifted just a little to show him when she meant. “That’s all the Shades and Voices do. It’s just an ability some of us have.”
Rickon kept shaking his head and stabbing at her as she backed away in a circle, just out of his reach. “The Voices explained that. Nameless sent you to test us; to ensure we’re worthy of him.”
“I thought Nameless protects Maerilin?” Aeryn asked. “Not spawns Shadows to attack it.”
Rickon shut his ears to the contradiction. “Nameless will reward my service after I kill you. The Voices told me so.”
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