A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5)

by Everet Martins

  “You can get us out of here?” Grimbald asked, licking his lips. “Can you? Can we leave?”

  “We don’t belong here, Mistress,” Senka muttered.

  Isa shot her an eager look, scanning around. “You have the Phoenix? Do you know the portal spell?”

  “I’m not sure.” She had seen it cast enough times to know, but seeing it and doing it were both entirely different things.

  She saw something strange standing out from the eye socket of a grinning skull. It was golden yellow at the top, a green stalk leading up to it. She would have recognized it in the land of the living, but here it had no context. “A flower,” she beamed. She bent down and felt herself starting to laugh and cry at the same time.

  “What? Impossible,” Juzo said, squinting.

  Nyset brushed her hand over it, confirming it was really there and not a dream. It swayed against her touch and a bit of orange pollen drifted from it, hanging and glittering on the air. “Oh my, it’s beautiful,” she laughed.

  Sprigs of green squirmed up all around, pushing out between skulls, their empty eyes and grimacing mouths.

  “What’s happening, Mistress?” Senka asked.

  “I don’t know.” Nyset wheeled around. The green sprigs went up and up, stopping at knee height. At their tops, small bulbs formed, opening into flowers white, purple, pink, red, and blue. Some had a few petals, some tens. Some petals were shaped like cups, others flat and pressed back against a bed of pollen.

  The bursting green spread like a wave from where they stood, where the Shadow god had fallen. The wave rolled, went up and over the mountains of skulls, dashing away the ruby reds and becoming a sea of pleasant greens.

  Streams of blue water rolled down the vast hills and started collecting where all the blood once was. Behind the water, the red skulls were scrubbed clean, leaving the dull white of bone. The moon faded and a sun rose on the horizon, bathing the world in smudges of reds, pinks, and blues. Something rumbled beneath Nyset’s feet and she leaped away with a gasp, embracing the Dragon. She soon saw that it was not needed.

  A mature oak pushed out of the ground, brown branches threading into the air and blooming with broad, verdant leaves. The tree went up and up, stretching golden boughs over the glittering pool of crystal clear water forming over what was the blood lake. Strange, bulbous flowers materialized from its limbs, petals closed and dripping down with beautiful strings of light. Water curled around Nyset’s boots, cool between her toes.

  “It’s incredible,” Isa said, bending down and inhaling with a grin.

  “Amazing,” Juzo gasped.

  “A miracle,” Senka breathed.

  “The most incredible magics,” Grimbald said. “Maybe magic’s not always bad after all.”

  Another tree rose up with a rumble about five paces away. Long translucent tubes containing hundreds of smaller flowers merrily swayed from its limbs. Mushrooms the size of legs sprang up around the pool, caps a camouflaged pattern of reds and whites and browns. There was a buzzing at her shoulder and she saw a fuzzy bee drifting on the air.

  “A bee!” she pointed. Then a butterfly fluttered onto Isa’s back, its wings scintillating in shades of blue and purple. Birds twittered and darted through the clear light, golden yellow, bright orange, and shining reds. Along the mountains beyond were winding paths dotted with narrow pines and trees of the strangest colors. One tree’s leaves were bright red, another a gradient of color from almost white to deep purple, crawling nearly fifty feet into the air, catching the light of the rising sun.

  Nyset exhaled with a great sigh of relief and her eyes settled onto the man she loved, still nestled in Juzo’s arms. Behind them, life blossomed with the blood of Walter’s sacrifice. His blood pattered onto a broad-faced flower and trickled onto its small leaves. They had their victory, but there was a cost. A cost that she would never forget. A price that would haunt her until the end of her days.

  Bright blue needle thin blades of grass burst around her feet, crawled around her ankles. “He wanted to do this and he succeeded. He wanted it to be a place where men would want to go to rest.” They turned to face her. She saw that there wasn’t an eye without tears in it. “He gave himself to them, for all of us. We need to remember him.”

  “For all of us,” Grimbald nodded and rubbed his eyes, Corpsemaker stowed along his back.

  Juzo stared down at him in his arms, his tears falling onto Walter’s chest. “Have something in my eye,” he sniffed. There was a long silence. “Glad to see this place has changed now, but we don’t belong here.”

  Senka was squatting, brushing her hands over blades of grass. “It’s beautiful. What Walter has done for us…”

  “A noble, courageous act to be remembered for all the ages to come,” Isa nodded.

  Nyset bit her lip. “There is no longer anything to fear here.” She knew how to do it, she realized. And with that, a portal of glowing blue split the air, showing the land of the living, showing their sun.

  “Wait,” Juzo said. “Someone else has to take him. I would if I could. Just not sure it’s wise.”

  Nyset nodded in grim understanding. “You’ll return to your body. You were buried in Shipton.”

  “Think so, if what happens to me happened to Walt.”

  “Likely,” Nyset said. “Glad you remembered.”

  Grimbald grunted, sniffed and held his scarred arms. “Give him here then,” he beckoned.

  Juzo audibly swallowed, lumbered over to Grimbald and placed him in his arms. “Take good care of him, will you?”

  “Like my own blood,” Grimbald said.

  Juzo clapped Grimbald’s shoulder. “I’ll make my way back soon as I can. Might take a day or so. I reckon I might not feel too well after so much time with the cold earth. Digging my way out shouldn’t be much of a problem with my strength.”

  “Took Walter a couple weeks to recover, though your bodies are different.” Nyset tried her best to regard him with a friendly eye, even forced out a smile.

  Juzo went to her, looking like he might try to hug her, one arm held awkwardly open, his face unsure.

  “Come here,” she said and opened her arms. “Not going to bite me, are you?” she said, only half in jest.

  “Very funny,” he muttered. He came into her arms, his body all bones and sharp angles. “I’m sorry, for everything,” he whispered in her ear.

  She could only nod and bite at her cheeks. She had already forgiven him but wasn’t feeling ready much for conversation now. “We’ll wait for you.”

  Juzo smiled, tears filling his gleaming ruby eye. “See you then.” He swept his eye over the others. He nodded before stepping through Nyset’s portal. They all followed, leaving the Shadow Realm behind.

  Chapter 25

  Day

  “Some voids can never be filled.” -The Diaries of Nyset Camfield

  Claw screamed, his sword hacking into the side of a Cerumal neck, spraying blood into the eyes of his neighbor. The neighboring Cerumal flinched, growled, then rammed Claw with his iron shoulder, sending him sprawling to the ground. Claw’s sword was thrown from his grip, tendons stretched and pushed to the point of breaking from the past hour of fighting. He couldn’t draw on any more of the Phoenix. If he did, he knew it would put him into an indefensible sleep. The Cerumal’s bearded axe drew back, blade glinting in a chink of light, studded buckler in its other hand.

  Grozul, the former Silver Tower’s Phoenix housemaster had summoned a portal shortly after Nyset departed. From that portal came a score of Black Wynches, chewing into their archers at the rear. Claw had made good progress in making his way towards the old housemaster, each step a step closer to bridging the twenty or so paces between them. Once he’d made it as close as ten paces, a handful of Cerumal stormed through the line of humans and charged for him. He’d killed most of them but this was the last, standing over him now.

  How had he missed the signs of an impending betrayal? His story never did make a lot of sense. A single wizard
escaping Asebor’s wrath on the Tower. It could have happened, but not likely. And why had he waited so long to come? That had somehow escaped his astute ability to detect shit slinging. It was foolhardy and the price of lives lost from Grozul’s actions were a heavy burden he would bear.

  He started to rise up, but something thudded into his chest, heaving the air from his lungs. He choked on his dry throat, tried and failed to shove off a heavily armored body. He gritted his teeth, tried to push it again, but it was too heavy, too dead. His muscles betrayed him, launching into a dehydrated spasm. The axe came down. He closed his eyes tight and waited for the end. He could’ve summoned a shield, but the power’s use would leave him unconscious. Better to die in defiance than napping, Claw thought. He waited for the light to go out, wondered what the Shadow Realm would be like.

  He had done well. He found the Arch Wizard as the Oracle had proclaimed he would. She had told him that by finding the Arch Wizard, he would help save humanity from a second dark age, one that would erase man from the tides of history. He could die with a peaceful heart, knowing he’d done his part on the god’s chessboard. He inhaled his last breath. He should’ve felt that hard iron biting through his by skin now. Had it already happened? Was this death?

  He opened his eyes with a gasp, not his last breath after all. The Cerumal had frozen mid-strike, its gaping maw hanging open and highlighting its wolfish teeth. A drop of thick saliva fell from its mouth and he heard the droplet patter onto the stone. He heard it. But how? The axe that would have been his great undoing slipped from its hand, hitting the ground with a clang. A second later, its body crumpled beside it.

  “What’s happening?” Claw stammered, muscles relenting in their furious spasm. He groaned, twisting his hips to the side, wriggled and rolled the fallen soldier off. He saw it was a Midgaard Falcon soldier with the side of his face bashed in. Splinters of bone stood out from his cheeks and jaw, the eyeball ruptured into a bloody, weeping mass. Claw frowned at the poor soldier. There was no amount of healing that could mend that magnitude of a wound. An ugly way to go, he reckoned.

  The clanging of dropped steel, slumping bodies, and screams of victory cried out. Claw stood, snatched up Ghostwalker, peered down at the fallen Cerumal with his bloody fists pressed on his bloody hips. The light was fading in its eyes as if the ever burning coals had, in fact, found an end. “Huh. Would you look at that? Must be the Mistresses doing.” Claw nodded and grinned with satisfaction.

  “They’re dying!” someone shouted.

  “Run ‘em through to be sure,” a man with a reedy voice said between heaving breaths.

  “Have to agree with that. Run em through to be sure!” Claw yelled. Claw brought Ghostwalker up and slammed it through the side of the Cerumal’s jagged armor. The sword however, did not react. It did not glow, did not praise him for another kill. He extracted his blade with a kick, heard the gurgling of air and blood escaping its lungs.

  Claw tried to speak to the weapon the way he always had, a conversation in his head between he and it. Are you… there? he asked Ghostwalker

  Ghostwalker did not reply. Claw furrowed his bushy eyebrows, beaded with shining droplets of blood. He reached for the Phoenix, and blew out his grizzled cheeks, at least finding that still intact.

  “Where is that damned wizard, Grozul?” he growled. He scanned around, didn’t see any sign of his billowy robes and absurdly long wizard’s beard. Cerumal fell like hewed trees, frozen like statues. Cheers and victorious whoops punctuated the air. Weapons hammered, plunged, and clanged against limp Death Spawn bodies. Grozul had likely fled to save his own skin, Claw thought. Maybe he ‘d recognized the signs of the faltering Death Spawn before anyone else had.

  A whimper and a groan came from the ground. He saw a young apprentice there, clutching her guts and supporting an arrow that had found its way between her ribs. Blood trickled between her fingers and pooled on the ground.

  He knelt down to her and she met his eyes, blazing blue, going frantically back and forth between the arrow and his face. “Can you help me?” she pleaded.

  He supposed if he fainted now it wouldn’t matter much. “Mhm, might have a little healing left in me. This will hurt.”

  “Please, just get it out. I’m ready!” she sobbed through streaks of ash on her cheeks.

  Claw jerked the arrow free, drew on the Phoenix and sent waves of healing into her wound. Something caught his eye then. A blue line of light split the air near the gates, about twenty paces away. It circled around and showed a strange world beyond. It was a world as lush as the North in summer. Towering trees surrounded what might have been a pool teeming with flowers of the brightest colors he’d ever seen. The water glittered like it had been filled with bits of polished metal. He thought he should have felt some sort of fear at seeing another portal open then, but he felt warmth. Thought he should’ve felt terror at the prospect of more Death Spawn, but somehow knew no more would come. He knew then that the Death Spawn were finished.

  “Thank you, master Claw,” the wizard croaked, but Claw didn’t hear her.

  “Sure, rest up, child,” he muttered. He rose up, his jaw hanging open. He started for the portal and the Mistress stepped through, her face blackened with smoke and streaked with tears. She appeared well enough from here. Had someone else fallen? He scanned her up and down for hidden wounds, hard to tell with all the strange wetness on her robes. It looked like blood, but there couldn’t possibly be that much.

  Senka strode through after her, head swiveling left and right, round cheeks shining with sheets of blood. She brandished daggers in either hand, legs bent and poised for combat. She shuffled to Nyset’s flank. Isa leaped through next, sword in one hand and hammer in the other, his jaw muscles flexing. He skirted to Nyset’s other flank, his black armor shining with wet and missing more than a few pieces on his arms and legs.

  Claw met Nyset’s eyes and flashed her a wry smile. He limped towards them, pain lancing through his thigh where a Cerumal had got him good with a spear. He twisted around a burning body, avoided tripping on a hunk of stone, stepped over a severed Cerumal’s leg. He felt heaps of gratitude at seeing her alive, standing, all her limbs intact. He was glad the burden of leadership would be put back onto its rightful owner. Glad he could go back to serving her. His leading days were long past. He thought of his former life in the North and his string of failures there. But that life was no more. This was his new life.

  Next came Grimbald, his fearsome giant’s axe stowed over his back. How he could wield a weapon of such size without tiring was a wonder to Claw. He had the look of a Northern warrior, big enough to put the fear into the lads. There was a familiar figure cradled in his arms.

  Claw stopped in his tracks, mouth parting as if to say something. It was Walter. Where had his armor and clothes gone? His head lolled back against Grimbald’s chest, his tongue sticking out the side of his lips like he was reaching for a stray crumb. Strips of blood coursed over his face in strange angles, almost like warpaint. It came from his nostrils, his ears, his mouth and tear ducts. Claw felt an icy chill spread through his legs, reaching up to his spine. He knew then that Walter was dead, made the last sacrifice. His bare legs flopped against Grimbald’s side as he walked. Grimbald stared up over the gathering throng, legs fighting for balance, eyes teary and shaking all over.

  Nyset put herself in front of Grimbald, parting the tide of soldiers and wizards starting to crowd in around them. When she came close to him, she put a strong hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you, Claw, you’ve done well,” she said, her voice raw with emotion.

  “Have I?” he asked. He supposed he had. He saw she was trying to fight it, to put on a strong face. She started on, but he grabbed her by the crook of her arm. “You don’t have to be strong today. Weep openly, show the world your love for him, for all of its beauty,” he said.

  She nodded a few times, her mouth pressed into a line. Her face started to break then, her lips curling into the frown
that only comes from misery of the most crippling kind. “You’re right,” she breathed, pulled away, and started on down the bridge, toward the ruined village.

  The others followed him, Claw included. He peered back over his shoulder, saw the portal had remained open. “Mistress, the portal. Who—” A dark shape dashed through the portal, all blood and shadows. Its face was pale, body covered in armor, shining like rubies. It shrieked like a dying animal, leaped from the edge of the bridge, and its enormous wings hissed out and buffeted the air. “Dragons!”

  Nyset whirled around. “No!” she screamed, eyes bulging, hands reaching. The portal winked out and fire burst alight in her eyes. “Kill it!” She pointed at the flying humanoid, already blurred behind a curtain of mist from the falls. It was fast as a hawk in flight, diving for unsuspecting prey.

  She hurled fiery discs and the creature darted straight up into the air with a surge of flapping wings, discs going wide. Claw ran for the edge. Kicked stones skittered between a section of intact balusters, soaring and spinning into the gorge. A few wizards came up beside him, hurling fireballs, but the creature twisted and spun, avoiding the attacks. It didn’t seem to take much effort on its part. It peered back at him with Amika’s face, the face of his deceased wife.

  Claw stared agape, his heart hammering, palms sweating against the hand rail. He watched helplessly as the figure flew into the twilight sky, shrouded in a band of pinking sun. Arrows twanged from longbows, falling far short of the target. How could it have Amika’s face? She had been killed during a raid almost ten years ago now. “Couldn’t have been her,” he said with disbelief. “It had to be someone else, had to be.” He knew that face, though. He never would’ve forgotten the face of his wife.

  Nyset slammed into the rail next to him. “No, no, no, no!” she screamed and pulled on her hair, dragging it around her face. “What have I done? What have I done?” She grabbed Claw’s shoulder, fingers crushing into his skin. He wanted to wince but stifled the urge.