“Never! Again!” Senka sawed her dagger on, cutting through vertebrae, muscle, and tendons, just like how she’d done with the hogs. She gripped one of Dressna’s spiraling horns, leaned forward to work her dagger through the remaining flesh. She dropped her blade, her arms bloodied up to her elbows and gripped a pair of horns. “For my people,” she yelled as she tore Dressna’s head from her neck, listening to the strings of flesh twanging as they were torn free.
She raised herself up and stood, holding Dressna’s weeping head into the air. Blood pattered onto her boots. She screamed and screamed and screamed, tears filling her eyes. She screamed until she could scream no more and her voice cracked with the effort. Her stomach heaved and she dropped Dressna’s head, hissing into the sand. She fell to her knees, all her pains returned with a new and unrelenting fury.
She let her chin drop onto her chest, sobbing, staring at her red hands, red bracers, red dagger. Revenge was finally hers, but it did nothing to ease the pain of her loss. Nothing changed. She had hoped some of it would go away then, but it only seemed to grow worse.
She bit her lip. Pain traveled up her body like lava. She consoled herself with the fact that she had done well by her people, her father, and her acts would make them proud in the great beyond. She nodded at her hands, at Dressna’s ruined body. She flinched as something touched her shoulders.
“Isa.” She gazed up at him.
He smiled at her, the gesture weak. “Let’s go sit someplace… different.”
“I-I’m not sure I can move.”
He slid his arms under her armpits, dragged her about ten paces away from Dressna. Senka saw one of her horns was chipped at the end, wondered if the other piece still sat in the Black Furnaces where it had happened. “You should go. You need to meet Walter and Grimbald. Leave me, I’ll find a place to hide until…” she winced at the pain throbbing in her chest. She started working open buckles on the side of her armor. Her fingers slipped on the first few tries, wetting the buckles in thickening blood.
“Nonsense. Leave you like you’d leave me?”
She smiled at him, despite the pain, and nodded. She gently parted her chest piece, pried apart a pair of overlapping leather flaps. Her coarse shirt underneath was blotched with blood.
“Let me see.” Isa bent down next to her, his bright eyes focused. She saw the side of his head was blazing red against his white skin. Bits of sand were nestled in an abrasion going from his ear to the top of his head. Blood oozed from the top of his ear where a notch had been removed. He cut her shirt, peered at her chest and she watched one of his eyes twitch.
“How is it?” she breathed, each breath more painful than the last.
“You’ll be alright, but you shouldn’t move.”
“What do you see?” Senka asked, grinding her teeth. She didn’t want to look.
“You’re lucky. Three broken ribs.”
“Lucky?” Senka made a face.
“Lucky. Lucky your ribs punctured your skin, pushed out rather than through your lungs. You would not speak otherwise. Have to support the bones before we move, find Walter and get you healing.”
“Do you know how to do this, Isa?”
“Mhm. Tower taught us how to survive for long stretches alone.” He removed his cloak and spread it over her side where her armor parted. He tugged a pouch from the back of his belt, opened it, produced strips of creamy cotton. “Feel better at having your revenge?”
“Yes, lighter. The air tastes sweet,” she lied. She wasn’t sure why she lied. Perhaps if she said it enough times, she could convince herself it was true. Perhaps the memory her father’s death would one day be less painful.
Isa paused, brows wrinkled. He looked at her, and she knew he saw how she felt. But he left it alone and, very gently, continued to patch her up.
Chapter 22
The Gates
“Sometimes fire can only be put out by hotter fire.” -The Diaries of Nyset Camfield
“Down, Mistress!” Claw’s hand jerked her by the shoulder, pulling her behind his translucent shield. Arrows thudded from it, some soared back, others deflected into the roaring gorge and to their sides. A few screams followed from behind. Nyset looked to her left, saw a thorned arrow standing out from a man’s cheek. He ignored it, too busy clashing blades with a snarling Cerumal.
The bridge was about twice as wide as a cobbled road in Helm’s Reach, maybe forty paces across. There were so many snarling, growling, clawing, and spitting bodies it was impossible to see either side from the middle. Men and women rained down steely blows, threw gouts of fire, weaved glowing shields, and hurled bodies with telekinesis. Armor was coated in a shining mix of beading mist and speckled with blood.
More arrows came, chattering on wooden shields, flicking overhead. Someone cried as a shaft found a new home in their lung. Another arrow had pierced through a plump woman’s lower abdomen. She stumbled back into a soldier of the Midgaard Falcon, threw off his jabbing spear, collided with a Cerumal’s shoulder plate with a ring.
“Can I still have my baby? Will he be okay? Is it okay?” she frantically asked him, rubbing her stomach around the arrow, hands glistening red.
“Gods!” the man screamed. “Healer!” He gripped her under her breasts, dragged her to the back of the lines.
“I can still fight!” she protested and tossed a fireball into the mass of Death Spawn, sending a body burning and flying over the edge.
The Cerumal, the soldier had been attacking lunged, its razor-thin lips drawn back over a face riddled with weeping infections.
“No!” Nyset reached and closed one eye, the spear of fire blazing out from her palm. She was too slow. A second of hesitation. The Cerumal’s jagged sword ripped through the woman’s gut and the soldier’s, skewered them both, the bright red tip emerging through the man’s back. The Cerumal turned as Nyset’s spear tore a flaming hole through its head, showed the falls through the wound for an instant before it slumped over.
A pregnant woman, here. On the front lines. Nyset’s eyes trailed them, her world slowed and doubt pierced her chest. But why? What had she done? Because you asked for everyone who could fight, she answered herself. She started to scold herself for not building in the proper exceptions, rules, and conditions. Pregnancy for one, but she had to push the thought away.
A Cerumal, built like a bear and almost as hairy, lumbered at her. It grimaced with rows of stony teeth, its pitted axe drawn back and aimed for Nyset. She flicked her wrist. A red disc whizzed across his neck, and its head separated from his body with a wet click. His momentum brought him on a few steps before tripping and falling on one of his burning brethren, head rolling from the bridge’s rail and spinning through the misty air. It might have been a terrifying attack a year ago. Now, it was just another body preventing her from reaching her goal.
Men with spears crowded behind men with shields, and behind them were a mix of archers and Dragon casters. Farther back were archers and Phoenix users, mending wounds and giving soothing words. Those without shields would plug the gaps when those with shields fell. Countless men would die here today, but would their sacrifices go in vain?
“Arrows, Mistress!” Claw screeched and she saw them coming, the thorned lines sailing up, warbling on the wind. An arrow clattered down onto the stones near her feet, dark flights flickering. She wondered how much of a wind change it would have taken to place it squarely through her heart. She might have died here under this clear sky and never seen Walter again, or what remained of Breden, or what she had built. She wasn’t sure even someone as powerful as Walter could heal a ruptured heart. What she did know is that she did not want to find out.
Between shifting Death Spawn, she glanced at the patchwork of Milvorian steel making up the gates. How much longer until they got them open? Were they still alive? Her throat went dry and the gates were blotted out by dark armor and gibbering figures.
Nyset gasped at an impact, she and Claw staggered back a half-step, then leaned forwa
rds, driving all their weight into his glowing shield, boots scraping on wet stones. Claw’s sword darted over the top, nicked the edge of an ashen neck, enough to bring the beast down scrambling at the wound. Metal rang against metal, arrows against wood, fire against flesh and armor. A maelstrom of punishing sound.
Something dinged against the metal rim of the shield from the man next to her, and she saw him ducking out of the corner of her eye. A wide demon’s blade came crashing down, tore the shield from the man’s hand, sending splinters onto her face. The soldier let out a fiend’s broken voice, shrieking, half his jaw hanging by a strip of tattered flesh.
Nyset stepped around Claw’s shield and sent arcs of fire cutting down the Cerumal. A few more waded in behind it. Limbs burned and coiling intestines spilled from a body cavity. Partially digested meat splashed out from the end of one of those pink tubes, laid a stinking cloud of filth over the violent air. A black dagger, long hook for tearing down riders, and a fearsome scythe that Death himself would carry clattered onto the bridge from dead hands. More came to replace them. The horde seemed to stretch on without end, a shrieking mass of angry war cries.
“Hold the wall!” Nyset roared. She heard sounds wood and metal grating together, the wall of shields both magical and metal forming up.
Nyset’s force had made it about a half way down the winding bridge, charged the columns of Death Spawn that had spilled through the portals, thankfully closed now. Hopefully not opening again anytime soon.
One step at a time, she told herself. She hurled streaks of glowing of fire. Sweat and blood burned in her eyes. One step at a time, they had gained ground, slaying Death Spawn, claiming each square of stone as theirs. “Forward! Push! Do not let them claim ground! Take what is yours!” Nyset screamed, her voice raw. She almost slipped and fell onto her face mid-scream, boots slick on blood and offal.
There was a great push from the Death Spawn. They surged forward, hooks and spears collided and scraped against a wall of Phoenix and metal shields. The Black Wynches behind them were furiously stabbing with their lethal talons, spurring them on, coating stragglers with ruthless cuts. A hollow pit formed in her gut, remembering that, at one point, these were men. But no longer. Now they were only targets.
“You do not belong here! Ghostwalker welcomes you to his domain!” Claw shouted in a strange mix of a laugh and a scream. His gray hair was matted to the side of his face, a tangled mix of blood and sweat. His sword was poetry in motion, cuts swift and crippling. He rolled around the shield he left for her, the glowing blade swirling with blood.
He slipped his blade over the top of a bald headed Cerumal’s chestplate, driving it into the back of its neck. It gave a ragged gasp, desperately pawing at the blade. In one fluid motion, Claw extracted his sword and dropped low. Ghostwalker chopped through the knees of a Cerumal, falling forward, shouldered it over the edge before it hit the ground. He growled at his next victim, teeth drawn back. His strike hacked through a wooden spear haft, backswing splitting its ashen throat wide. Its neck squelched apart, head tipped back with the sound of a wet fart.
Nyset spread her arms and made a pair of flaming discs crisscross in flight, splitting a Cerumal wide as barrel into two diagonal sections, wicked blades dropping. The halves fell apart, sprayed any bit of unmarred stone with blood. Another one came after. Its eyes burned like coals and went wide with terror at meeting hers. With a cold thought, she took his sword arm. His blade spun free. Dark streaks cut the air. Next, she freed him from his legs, torso bisected across his hips, ruined sections flopping to the ground. The Dragon was a ferocious ally, fit for the darkest work.
Nyset ground her teeth as she fought on, slipped behind a tower shield. She saw a woman tumble screaming as a spear ricocheted around a Phoenix shield and ripped into her thigh. She kept on, throwing fireballs until she fainted. She heard the spitting growl of a Cerumal, so clear in her ear, the enemy the thickness of the shield away. She snapped up, stabbed down with a blade of fire again and again, heard a grunt and a gurgle. A sword squealed around the broad shield held by the man beside her and he howled. Nyset popped up, sent whips of fire cutting through a Cerumal with the bill of duck for a mouth.
“Die! You bastard devils! Die!” Nyset screamed.
Someone’s shoulder plate caught her on the chin. The taste of blood filled her mouth. Stone dust was flicked into her eye, half-blinding her, half-blinking away the stinging tears. She heard snarling and cursing and something shoved into her side. They were driving their enemies back, thinning them down by the handful now.
“Death comes for all!” Claw roared, cleaving into a shrieking beast.
A Cerumal was on the ground, biting through a man’s neck and tearing off strips of flesh. The man’s hands beat against its iron chest, weak as a new babe’s. Claw hacked through an arm, twisted around, dagger flashing in his other hand and stabbing another through the cheek. A Falcon soldier ducked low, dropped his shield and swept it through a pair of charging legs, sent the Cerumal tumbling into waiting spears behind the shield wall. The point of a Death Spawn blade came out the back of a woman’s robes, red tip almost perfectly matching. Something bounced off Nyset’s shoulder. She saw with a scowl that it was a severed human finger.
Who would die next? She knew it was only a roll of the dice. Who would live and who would die in the fray of battle was only a matter of luck. There was no skill. No dueling champions, but only whirling chaos. Calculating tricks, gambits, and courage were all but useless. The battle was a storm, carrying you where it pleased.
“Duck!” someone yelled. There was a screeching clamor of twisting bodies.
A spear whistled past her ear, and she cried out as pain bit into it. Lightning tore across the side of her head and down her jaw, vision narrowed. She stumbled back on numb legs. Nyset reached quivering fingers for her ear, jerked back at feeling the greater half of it had gone missing. A line of hot blood trickled down her jaw, slipped down her neck and under her armor.
Her head felt like it had been filled with sludge. She let out a wordless croak. The din of war grew quiet like someone had stuffed cotton in her ears. The world became a pinhole and she became weightless. Something grabbed at her sides.
“Got you, Mistress,” Claw hissed, arms wrapping her up tight. “I’ve got you.”
Claw had her. But why? “Wha-what happened?” She looked to the sky. Spears, arrows, and unidentifiable objects streaked past.
“Got a small cut, heal you up right, Mistress. Just getting us out of harm’s way.”
“Wait.” Her senses returned, muscles flexing with new found strength. She rose up and Claw released her. “Do it here. Don’t want to be too far. I need to get back.”
“Fine.” Claw sheathed his blade, ever obedient. She saw that he held something else in his blade hand. Something made of flesh and blood. The other half of her ear.
She winced, gritted her teeth, pain hammering away with every beat of her heart. He brought his hand holding her ear up, faintly glowing. She watched the sky, saw a crow violently flapping.
She looked below the bridge. Thalia and close to fifty of her best swimmers reached the embankment, the last man leaping from a rope ladder. She gestured for them to follow her, gave a whoop, then placed a long knife across her mouth, the edge padded with a strip of cloth. The others did the same, keeping their arms free. Thalia dove into the water first. She fiercely battled against the water’s rampaging force, swimming for the other side.
“Such courage,” Nyset said and sucked in a quick breath.
“That’s strange,” Claw muttered, gray brows furrowed.
She felt her ear knitting to the severed piece. It tickled and almost made her laugh. “What’s strange?” She let out a sigh of relief as the throbbing faded a bit. She shook her arms and legs, ensuring they were well under her control again.
“Your ear. I healed it, but—”
A shaft of terrified screams drowned out his voice. They came from the front lines. Claw’s bl
ade rasped out. Nyset touched his arm with her fingertips, watched as soldiers and wizards were bashed aside by some great rolling force.
She planted her feet, raised her chin, palms opened at her sides with hissing fireballs floating above them. A Cerumal at least twice as tall, twice as wide, and twice as fearsome in spiked plate swung a monstrous club. Its blow fell upon a cowering wizard, crushing him into a mess of shattered bones and scarlet. Arrows bounced harmlessly from his plate, fireballs ricocheted, and spears of fire went spinning off.
“Dragon forged,” Claw hissed.
“A Lord of Death?” She breathed and felt the blood drain from her cheeks.
“Just have to find the weak spot,” Claw said and charged.
“Right,” she said weakly, following after him.
Nyset willed two discs to cut at its club, drawn back for another attack. One ricocheted into the air, the other bounced at Claw.
Not like this. Not him. She pulled it up. He dropped, neck tilted and looking back at her. It skimmed over his arched chest, hissing through leather armor and leaving a line of amber in the air. Blue light flared from his chest. He grinned and gave her an upside down madman’s smile.
“Shit!” she hissed. Had to do something. She saw the Cerumal’s eyes were flat and red as blood behind its thick helm. A Blood Eater. She eyed a few chunks of stone big as a head, sent them for the Cerumal with the Dragon’s strength. She didn’t like using its grip on stone. She felt weakest with that dimension of its power and found it incredibly draining.
The hunks of stone smashed into its head in rapid succession, each resonating with a dull clank, sent it staggering back a step. It shifted its confident gaze from Claw to her. Blood Eaters can see magic, she remembered Juzo telling her. She growled, raised her clawed hands, sent a pair of stones simultaneously smashing it where its hooked nose protruded out.
Its nose vanished, replaced with a patch of blood and pinking bone. It screamed, swung its giant arm at Claw, who rolled past and behind it. The back of its spiked hand caught a soldier on the side of the head, caved in his gleaming helmet, body falling limp. It ran for her, giant legs pounding on the bridge.
A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5) Page 45