This won’t be like last time, he realised as his momentum carried him towards them. I surprised them by dropping from the tree. He felt a flutter of fear; the men looked far too calm. This won’t be like that.
Tol veered towards the man on the right as the two mercenaries shuffled further apart. He was fast, bringing his blade up and swinging it in a downward arc as Tol entered the kill-zone, a scything blow that would split him from left shoulder to the opposite hip. Tol countered, swinging Illis’Andiev in a wide arc, carving a semi-circle in the air above his head. He felt the impact as the swords met with a discordant sound, but the curving arc of Tol’s blade diverted the strike wide, the edge of the mercenary’s blade grinding along the length of Illis’Andiev until both sword points neared the ground by Tol’s right foot. Tol flicked his wrist, the blade so light in his hands that it swept upwards so fast it was like a perfect dream, an inch of angel-forged steel slicing through the mercenary’s jugular and creating a crimson rainbow as Tol pivoted to the face the remaining man.
The magic left him as the first strike came at him, and Tol’s parry was hasty, leaving him off-balance. His opponent pressed, strong and sure. He struck again and again, dim shadows moving behind the mercenary, one figure already leaving the campfire to join the fray.
Where is she?
Tol parried and surged forwards. I have to end this. He pressed his opponent back with a flurry of powerful blows. One-two. Three-four. Five-six.
Tol held the seventh blow, awaiting the strike to break his pattern. It came as expected – Never more than six, the abbot had told his students, any more and the pattern’s done, and you with it. Tol parried the strike, diverting the blow to his right while stepping in the opposite direction and bringing Illis’Andiev round with him, the edge slicing across the mercenary’s torso. He was done, Tol knew, a mortal wound.
‘Klanvahdor!’
The shout came from the mercenary who’d left the campfire, and the name sent a chill down Tol’s spine. The demon’s name, he thought, remembering being cornered by the Band on the plateau. He lurched into motion. Three times he called the demon’s name. He sprang past the dying mercenary and sprinted towards the man. Fifteen yards but it felt like a mile, the mercenary’s lips already forming another word as Tol raced towards him.
‘Klanvahdor!’
And then she was there, dropping from the sky like a stone, her wings flaring out to break her fall at the last second. Sparks and embers burst outward from the fire as she thumped down at its edge, a hundred fiery stars storming into the air. She moved like water, flowing past one – his head tumbling from his shoulder – and flicking her wrist towards the next. Tol was almost there, a few yards more.
Another long stride, the mercenary calling the demon’s name only a few steps away. Tol saw his chest expand, drawing in another breath to shout anew. Past the mercenary, Tol saw a second figure fall to the angel’s sword, the third and final man stumbling backwards as he fumbled for his sword.
The mercenary’s mouth opened as Tol charged forwards. His hands were moving, trying to draw his sword as he shouted
‘Klanva—’
Tol lunged, the tip of Illis’Andiev penetrating the mercenary’s heart. He stood there for a moment, then collapsed to the ground, the way to the campfire now clear.
Something’s wrong.
The last man was still standing.
Tol ran towards him, and glimpsed Kalashadria a few feet away, the angel’s face pinched as she wobbled, her frame unsteady. Why isn’t she doing anything? Tol wondered as he raced towards them. He met the angel’s unfocused gaze as he neared the pair, a chill running down his spine as the mercenary raised his sword and the angel didn’t react.
No!
Tol leaped between them as the mercenary brought his blade down, a powerful down stroke straight towards her collarbone.
The impact jarred his shoulders, hammering Tol earthward as the mercenary’s blade met his own upraised sword. He stood between them, right shoulder and upper arm nearest the mercenary, while Kalashadria was inches from his left shoulder, the mercenary’s sword inches from her shoulder. Not a good position, Tol knew as he felt his legs slide further apart under the strain; weak defensively, poor balance – the posture of a dead man’s last moments. The mercenary held his sword down, muscles straining as he tried to force Tol’s own earthward. The edge was inches from Kalashadria’s neck as she shook her head, blinking as if dizzy. Down, slowly. Another quarter inch. His opponent had the angle, the height, the better stance.
And then Tol saw it. The one mad way out of this.
No other choice.
He groaned, forcing Illis’Andiev upwards in one last burst of effort as he hurled himself into the man, turning into him as they connected, Tol’s back striking the mercenary’s chest. He snapped his head back and sideways as they collided, felt something hard connect with his skull, and then he was falling, the mercenary tumbling to the ground underneath him.
Tol rolled away as he landed, scrabbling awkwardly up into a crouch and twisting round to face the mercenary. He lunged as the man raised his sword, Illis’Andiev piercing the mercenary’s heart just as he prepared to thrust at Tol’s throat.
It’s over, Tol thought as he staggered to his feet. He rubbed the back of his skull, a plum-sized bruise already welling. He blinked, and as he opened his eyes Kalashadria straightened up, shaking herself from whatever torpor had claimed her. Bright, vengeful eyes pinned him where he stood, a wild, feral look carved into the angel’s face. Tol felt his heart skip a beat as she spoke, her voice cold as winter.
‘What have you done?’
45.
‘What have you done?’
Tol froze at the angel’s words. Her glazed eyes focused on him, sword point slowly rising until the tip was a hair’s breadth from the end of his nose.
‘What was in that drink?’
She knew. Somehow, Kalashadria knew what he had done. Tol swallowed. ‘I saved you,’ he said, his own voice sounding tiny and frail.
‘Saved me?’ she snarled. ‘You have done much worse than that.’ The sword point wavered, her muscles tightly bunched.
She’s going to do it, Tol thought. He let his own weapon fall to his side. My family’s already killed the man who slew a demon, I cannot add an angel to our crimes.
‘Did you even think of the consequences of your actions? You stupid, stupid fool.’ The sword flashed across Tol’s vision, sliding back into its scabbard with a reptilian hiss. Kalashadria blinked, her face etched with pain. She glared at him and Tol felt his cheeks colouring in the cold evening wind. ‘Fool,’ she muttered again, turning on her heel and striding towards the dark shadows of the Maw.
What else was I to do? Tol thought. He didn’t understand how such well-intentioned deceit could have engendered such anger, such rage in the angel. But it’s more than that, he realised. Somehow, he had caused her pain – real physical pain, not just the disappointment of his treachery. He watched Kalashadria as she approached the pass, unsure what to do. Do I follow her, and hope she doesn’t kill me? Or is this the end of our time together?
She stopped at the threshold, the darkness seemingly afraid to touch her pale skin. Eyes brimming with fury sought him out as she looked over her shoulder.
‘Pittvankor may have heard their entreaties,’ she said. ‘Death is all that awaits you here.’
Pittvankor? The Pit? Tol shuddered. The Pit was real, and he realised it might just be as terrifying as people claimed. ‘It listens?’ he asked in a small voice. ‘Like Alimarcus?’
Kalashadria had already turned back to the pass, ignoring his question. ‘If it finds you,’ she said, ‘I shall not stand in its way.’
The darkness swallowed her up, and for a moment Tol wished it would do the same to him. He took a deep breath and hurried into the Maw after Kalashadria, but as he approached the angel her voice echoed off the towering walls of rock, cold and resolute as the stone itself.
‘Be
hind me. I cannot bear to look upon you.’
*
Tol felt more alone than ever, marching through the suffocating blackness of the Maw in the wake of Kalashadria. The sheer sides of the pass threatened to close in on him, sealing him in the stone forever. His companion, the tall, proudly arrogant angel, had – for some brief hours – called him friend, the first time he had earned that moniker since Vixen, and that had been in the days before he understood the depth of his ancestor’s betrayal. And now, even that small comfort of camaraderie had been withdrawn. His crime? To save her life. Had it not been for the glassy eyes, the taut scowl of genuine pain, Tol might have thought the angel merely annoyed at his abuse of their friendship. But I saw it. There was no denying it: somehow, in saving this creature he had caused her terrible pain, pain that still wracked her slender body as its drunkard’s walk ploughed through the Maw, the occasional spasm flicking loose a feather from her folded wings. What have I done?
He followed in silence. The naked hatred that had blazed in Kalashadria’s eyes as she had held her sword to his face was still there, bubbling underneath the surface. And now, with the angel in full, terrible fury, was not the time to apologise. A single misspoken word, Tol knew, might be all it would take to push her over the brink. And even if I could stop her, I shall not try. If what he had done really merited his death, then he would accept it. The last few days had been one bad decision after another, it seemed, and each time Tol escaped certain death he ran headlong into another mortal peril. Does any of it really matter? he thought. There is no Maker, the church teaches lies and the order of knights I longed to join are the very worst, propagating a lie so large I can scarcely believe the scale of their treason.
On and on they marched, Kalashadria spurred to a fast, rhythmic stride by her anger. Tol struggled with his thoughts, his feelings. She was so arrogant, so proud, but there had been moments when Tol had glimpsed a soft core, hidden behind those heavy layers of superiority and entitlement, moments when he had seen the angel’s doubts and sensed her aloofness for what it was: protection against a terrible loneliness. In those moments Tol had felt a kinship with her, two loners thrown together with only their isolation in common. And now I’ve ruined it all. But Tol knew, deep down, that he had done the right thing. If it saves her.
He sighed, and hurried after Kalashadria, the gloom ahead less pronounced, the end of the Maw in sight and a return to the wild, open lands of eastern Norve. It held little appeal now, and Tol realised that something inside him had finally been broken. Of all his treasons, this was the one that wounded him. They say it’s the knife you never expect that ends you, he thought sourly. He was just about to admit that, whatever he did, he was bound for the Pit. Belatedly, Tol realised there was no Pit – or Pittvankor, to give it the full name, as Kalashadria had – or, at least not in the way the church had taught. Yet it exists, he thought. The Pit truly is real, and whether or not the souls of the damned are bound for that place, I cannot believe that it is a place of beauty, nor happiness. The best lies always have some foundation in truth. The dark secret of the Knights Reve was one such example, but Tol had learned the lesson at an early age. When sent to the market by the abbot, the reasons for Tol’s delay were always based on truth: the old woman whose pig he had claimed to chase really had run through the streets of Findhel (though Tol never chased it, just stood and laughed with the rest, then visited an alehouse); the gaggle of Sudalrese traders that had delayed him another time had, in fact, been only three men. The abbot was always sceptical, but even he had heard about the pig running loose in the town, and so Tol had lived – unstrapped, unpunished – to lie another day. Could the Pit really be the same as Heaven? Tol didn’t think so, but then again he hadn’t thought Kalashadria would ever turn on him.
‘They are nothing alike.’
Tol started in surprise, and was about to ask what Kalashadria was talking about. He realised, though, that the last words he had spoken – a friendship ago, it now seemed – were a question about Heaven and the Pit. She did not look at him as they left the claustrophobic Maw behind, and her voice was cold, lecturing Tol as though he was the biggest fool in all the world. Better than the alternative, he decided, gritting his teeth and holding his silence.
‘It is nothing like Alimarcus,’ Kalashadria said, her voice heavy with disdain. ‘It is difficult to explain in terms you can understand, but the only similarity between the worldholmes is their capabilities. They are more clever than all the people of this world rolled into one, smarter than myself or any of my kin. Vast cities that once sped through the stars until they met in fire and destruction, with power enough to shake and shatter worlds.’ Her voice was still taut, an undercurrent of pain hardening its tone. ‘Whereas Alimarcus is a spirit of cool reason and flawless logic, Pittvankor is a screaming, seething mass of vengeful anger and wanton violence, a mirror to the foul creatures that live within its shell.’ She sighed. ‘Do not mistake them.’
Trees once again lined the road like silent guardians, the pale light of Ammerlac casting the sky in an eerie yellow-orange light. Tol stared up at the moon, trying to picture what it might be like. On cloudless nights, those with keen eyes could make out a silvery sparkle covering a tiny portion of the surface, like a massive diamond or tiny star. It was there, the church taught, that the kingdom of Heaven awaited the faithful. A city, Tol thought, recalling Kalashadria’s words, one that speaks and has a mind. The Names of Salvation also spoke of the Voice of Heaven, a power commanded by the angels that could shake the stars and rip their world asunder. The book, Tol realised, was describing Alimarcus, which according to Kalashadria was both Heaven, and the vast mind that controlled it. Is it watching me? he wondered. Would it strike him down for what he had done to Kalashadria?
Minutes passed, and Kalashadria said no more, never looking back but ploughing on at the same determined pace. Tol frowned. She’s walking faster, he realised. We haven’t maintained this speed since that first night. He gasped softly. It’s working, the blood is working!
She stopped abruptly, craning her neck to glare back at him, her brow scrunched in thought. ‘This is far enough.’ The angel didn’t elaborate, striding south from the path and leaving Tol staring at her feathered back until she was lost to the darkness. Is she dismissing me? he wondered. Or does she just mean to strike camp? He stared into the patch of darkness that had swallowed her, uncertain of his path. He waited a minute, sighed, and went in search of the angel, still unsure whether these would be his last moments on Korte.
He found her slumped against a tree, head in her hands. Tol’s approach was silent, but she spoke without raising her head.
‘Do you even know what you have done?’
Her voice was tired, brittle, yet still coloured with anger.
‘I saved you,’ Tol said, more sharply than he intended. ‘I did only what the Seven did to save Galandor.’
Her head snapped up. ‘What?’
‘The book,’ Tol explained. ‘Galandor was more badly injured than he appeared. The knights held him down, and forced their blood down his throat. It healed him.’
‘All seven of them?’ Kalashadria shook her head. ‘It is not possible. He would never allow it, never.’
‘It’s bloody true,’ Tol shouted, yanking the Angel’s Truth from his tunic. ‘It’s all there in the knight’s own damned words. You’re already moving better, you know it’s true. What have I done that’s so terrible?’
‘Bloody true,’ Kalashadria agreed quietly, her head bobbing. ‘That is the crux of it…’ Her face hardened and through gritted teeth she said, ‘Blood is memory.’
46.
I should never have trusted a human.
Kalashadria entered the pass, her head a miasmic swirl of jagged memories. The images were coming thick and fast, translucent watercolours of days and nights, words and deeds, undercut by a torrent of heavy emotion. The pictures overlaid themselves over her vision, but once within the darkness of the pass it became les
s disorientating, everything smeared across a black stone canvas. It had begun as she dropped from the sky and landed beside the mercenaries’ fire. The first two men fell to her sword in seconds, the tiny embers of the fire still floating around her as Kalashadria approached. The tiny lights suddenly coalesced into a picture of a distant town, her view from halfway up a mountain. She blinked, but the image remained in her vision, some of the town’s lights matching the fluttering embers, while others appeared near or next to them; the flickering lights left her dizzy. A voice like a whisper echoed through her mind: ‘Findhel. Nearest town.’ It was a voice Kalashadria hadn’t heard before, gruff and surly. The human in front of her took a step forward, sword coming up as the other view – the watery smudge of another night in another place - spun away from the town. ‘There it is,’ the rough voice told Kalashadria as she tried to keep her balance, ‘Icepeak Abbey. Your new home.’
The view whirled away from the town’s lights, settling on the snow-capped mountain which they were ascending. A narrow path led to a ledge a thousand or so feet from the pinnacle. The dark stone of the mountain had been worked by human hands, three hundred square feet of stone smoothed and puckered with windows – an abbey carved from the very stone of the mountain.
The view twisted again and as Tol Kraven darted between Kalashadria and the last mercenary, a bearded, weathered face appeared superimposed over Tol’s. A face that looked very much like her human companion.
‘You dare blubber, boy, and I swear I’ll throw you from the mountain myself,’ the bearded man growled. ‘You’ll come home a knight, or not at all.’
Kalashadria blinked, heard a dull roar as Kraven hurled himself at the mercenary and tumbled to the ground on top of him. The false imaged faded like a mirage, and Kalashadria watched as Kraven and the mercenary struggled to rise, the boy recovering quicker and delivering a killing stroke. Then he was there, standing in front of her. There was no doubt in her mind: the ghostly man she had seen in that faded memory had been his father.
Angel's Truth (Angelwar Book 1) Page 32