Jalist drew back a step. “No need to fight, friend. I’m just looking for answers.”
The brass warrior neither answered nor slowed his brisk, mechanical advance.
“Fair enough. Maybe you’re one of the bastards I’ve been looking for, anyway.” If so, let’s hope I fare better than my kinsmen! Jalist drew his shortsword with one hand and gripped his broken spear with the other. As the figure closed in, Jalist saw the ghastly smiling facemask. Like the rest of the man’s armor, the facemask was wrought of gleaming brass, though the eye holes looked hollow and wholly black.
In the back of his mind, Jalist guessed what he was facing, but he could not believe it. By then, the Jol was only twenty feet away. Jalist threw his sword. It struck the Jol squarely in the chest. The Jol rung like a hollow bell but did not slow.
“Gods…” Jalist picked up a rusted axe off the ground, but the Jol was on him before he could throw it.
The brassy demon made no sound but came at him with that ghastly smile fixed in place. Both hatchets blurred. Jalist dove to one side, narrowly missing them.
The Jol followed. The hatchets swung again. Jalist sidestepped and smashed the rusted axe down on the Jol’s left thigh, which was nearly level with Jalist’s chin. A jolt of pain swept up Jalist’s arm, as though he’d just tried to chop a stone in half. The axe blade cracked. The Jol brushed off the blow and swung at him again.
Jalist backpedaled desperately, discarding the broken axe, stabbing the Jol’s arm with his broken spear. The force of the blow jarred him, but again, the Jol did not slow. Jalist dove, came up, and thrust the spear between the Jol’s hip and thigh, where there should have been a gap in the armor. Instead of passing through flesh, the spearhead scraped off brass, sliding into nothing.
Gods, the damn thing’s hollow!
Jalist abandoned the spear and backpedaled, narrowly avoiding having his skull split open as the Jol turned and swung both hatchets at his face. As he retreated, Jalist got a better look at the Jol’s hands. His opponent was not holding the hatchets—they were literally part of its arm.
Well, at least he won’t be able to throw them at me. The hatchets were wrought of kingsteel, flecked with dried blood. Jalist retrieved his shortsword and tried to parry the Jol’s next strike. But the force of the blow shattered the blade and sent a shard of steel into his face, gashing his cheek. A kingsteel hatchet, unhindered, continued on and might have cleaved him between the eyes had the sight of the shard of metal flying at his face not already caused him to recoil.
Jalist fought the impulse to stanch the warm flow of blood down his face and neck and threw the useless hilt of his shortsword into the Jol’s grinning face, hoping to distract it. The quillons sparked off its nose, but the Jol charged without pause.
Cursing, Jalist drew both his stilettos and retreated again. He could tell that he was a bit quicker than his opponent was, and he thought about fleeing, but the memory of that body-filled gorge burned away all thoughts of retreat.
He continued to back up, trying to keep some distance between himself and his opponent, but the Jol was relentless. It was chillingly quiet, too, save for a slight grating sound when it moved. Its mechanical ferocity more than made up for what it lacked in skill. It followed him everywhere he went, always swinging, always grinning as it tried to hack open his skull like a ripe melon. Jalist thought to trick it, trying to lure it toward a corpse or a bit of wreckage so that it might trip, but it stepped around each obstacle as though it could see in every direction.
Jalist thought back to the legends, trying to remember some clue as to how to kill such a thing. But he had never paid much attention to those stories, convinced they were a waste of time.
Whatever gods are up there, I bet they’re laughing at me. Jalist risked a quick, spiteful glance at the sky. Savor it while you can. I’ll be with you soon enough. Then we’re going to have a little chat.
The next time the Jol came at him, Jalist tried to sidestep, but the hollow demon anticipated this and moved to block him. It swung, carving a divot in Jalist’s brigandine. Bits of leather and metal flew through the air. Jalist retreated, cursing.
I can’t keep this up much longer. He eyed the Jol’s sadistic grin and wondered what it was thinking. Even though its lips—if they could be called that—had not moved once, Jalist had the strange feeling that it was mocking him. Jalist slashed with his knives, leaving bright scratches on the Jol’s brass forearms, but it kept coming. Finally, one of its hatchets sliced into his brigandine, going deeper than the first had. Jalist felt warm blood running down his stomach.
Howling with fury, Jalist leapt forward. He slipped under the Jol’s blurring hatchets, stepped in close, and wrapped his arms around the Jol’s smooth, cold waist. Jalist’s arms flexed. His thighs buckled. Before the Jol could strike again, Jalist had lifted it clear off its feet and thrown it on the ground.
The Jol rolled and kicked, as awkward as a turtle flipped on its back. Jalist circled and kicked it in the head. It lifted its head to look at him. Jalist knelt and thrust both his daggers into its dark, hollow eyes.
He leapt backward, searching around for another weapon. His slashed cheek throbbed painfully as he tensed his jaw. He expected the Jol to rise, unhurt. Instead, it jerked wildly then went still. A faint hiss of smoke unfurled from its eye holes.
Jalist stared uncertainly, gasping for breath. He held one hand to his slashed brigandine, trying to stanch the flow of blood within. He picked up another rusted axe off the road, approached cautiously, and rained blows on the fallen Jol’s face until the grin was dented and unrecognizable. Still, the Jol did not move. Jalist shook his head, threw away the axe, and sank to the ground.
“So that’s how you kill them.”
Before he knew what he was doing, he laughed. It sounded mad to him, but once he’d started, he could not stop. He laughed and laughed until tears ran from his eyes. At some point, the laughter became sobbing, but he hardly noticed. He only stopped when he heard a great metallic racket coming from behind him. He turned.
“Gods…”
A great host of Jolym was coming up the road from the direction of Tarator. Some were wrought of brass or bronze, others of iron. A few seemed to be made of pewter or wood. Row upon row, each had a blade, an axe, or a pike fixed to each of its hands and a different, equally grim expression carved into its face.
The great host shambled to a halt, facing him. Exhaustion and despair became terror. Jalist rose shakily to his feet. He turned and ran. And the Jolym followed.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
THE KNIGHT OF THE LOTUS
Essidel, where are you? Seravin could not remember the last time he had prayed for his cousin’s well-being, but he did so as he watched the Olgrym pour out of the trees and throw themselves at the World Gate. Many of the bestial warriors had already smeared their hulking gray bodies with the entrails of their victims. Others had doused themselves in oil or tar and lit their bodies on fire, howling in a kind of raw, agonizing ecstasy as they charged the battlements. They came by the hundreds, by the thousands.
“Gods, we can’t stop them…” Seravin realized he’d vocalized the thought and cursed himself. Luckily, the din of battle seemed to have prevented his officers from hearing him. Seravin raised his hand, clenching his fingers in a fist to conceal their trembling, and brought his hand down to signal the attack.
All along the parapets of the World Gate, Sylvan bowstrings twanged in unison. Arrows flew in fat, dark gouts. Trebuchets hurled jagged boulders or smoldering clay jars, which shattered on impact, spreading even more fire. Olgish bodies toppled and were trampled by the brutish tide behind them. Olgrym fell by the dozens, many of them burning and bristling with arrows. Yet the tide did not slow.
Though the Shel’ai had not appeared yet, Seravin wondered for a moment if they would even be needed. He spotted greataxes, grappling irons, and siege ladders amid his charging foes. All along the parapets, squads of swordsmen already stood prepared to hack
down any scaling implement that successfully weathered the storm of arrows—as they had already been doing for hours, since dawn, turning back wave after wave.
But we can’t turn them back forever. We can’t—
Then, at last, he spotted cloaked and hooded figures pressing through the Olgish ranks toward the walls. Though the Olgrym towered over them, something in the sorcerers’ cloaks made them equally fearsome—as did the wytchfire billowing from their fists in snapping, violet tendrils.
“Shel’ai!” he called, pointing. “Archers, bring them down as soon as they’re within range!”
But even as Sylvan bows shifted, a wall of Olgrym closed in around the Shel’ai. Unlike the majority of the other Olgrym, who had been naked or dressed in crude furs, the Olgrym around the Shel’ai wore full armor and carried massive iron shields. They locked their shields, protecting their masters from the Sylvan arrows.
“Use the trebuchets!” Seravin swallowed a knot of panic. “I want more buckets readied over the gates. Water and sand, both. If the sorcerers try to burn them down…” Can anything extinguish wytchfire? With a pang of dread, he realized he did not know.
Then he spotted Fadarah at the heart of the advance. As big as an Olg and armored in black, he looked almost identical to his Olgrym bodyguards. But Seravin caught a glimpse of the Sorcerer-General’s telltale tattoos.
They serve power and madness. No wonder—
A trebuchet fired. A boulder the size of a man’s torso arced over the parapets, directed either by skill or sheer luck at Fadarah himself. Seravin had the impression that the entire roster of the World Gate’s defenders held their collective breath. He dared to hope.
But the Olgrym tightened formation, pressing shoulder to shoulder, shields raised. Seravin lost sight of Fadarah in a crush of metal and a wild spray of blood. At least three Olgrym fell, but Fadarah remained. Seravin thought he saw the Sorcerer-General laugh.
We won’t get a shot like that again.
Seravin glanced over his shoulder, up the Path of Crowns, toward the Moon Gate. A line of reserve archers manned the second gate, shifting restlessly beneath Sylvan banners. Seravin wondered if the king had arrived. Given the sour mood of Shaffrilon’s defenders, he doubted it. He did not see Briel, either. He wondered again what was happening in the city, what had caused those mad rumors of Dragonkin, and why the king wasn’t at his side.
The men need someone to inspire them. They need another Shigella. They need a king—or, at the very least, a great warrior. Instead, they get me. He almost laughed. He’d led the Sylvan armies on the Ash’bana Plains, but that role had been almost entirely ceremonial. Everyone had known that Essidel was in command. Seravin had resented him for that—but he had resented him from inside a fortified stronghold, safe behind the veil of Essidel’s tactical brilliance.
In the end, even Essidel had failed. Or perhaps it was Seravin’s fault for not listening. Either way, the fact remained: Shaffrilon was facing the greatest threat since the Shattering War, and Seravin had no idea how to stop it.
Gods, Essidel, where are you?
“Dead, probably,” he muttered. He touched his sword hilt and faced his officers. “All right, call down all the reserves. And send a message up the Path of Crowns. Anybody who can’t fight should flee. When the Shel’ai reach the gates, we’ll hold them as long as we can.”
His officers exchanged frightened, sheepish looks. Seravin guessed they were trying to decide which of them would deliver his message. That one, in so doing, might survive another day.
Whoever it is, it won’t be me. Seravin tightened his gloves and drew his sword. He gazed out over the parapets. The Shel’ai were closer. He tried to remember the slogan of the Isle Knights—something about courage blossoming in the presence of fear—but then he spotted Fadarah wading through the carnage toward the gates, his hands streaming wytchfire. Seravin’s mind went blank.
Briel’s eyes watered from the pain, but he fought through it and got his bearings. He saw Rowen, wide eyed and half mad, use Briel’s fallen sword to cut himself free then rush to Silwren’s side. She had fallen in front of the stone sarcophagus. The Knight pressed both hands to her wound, whispering to her. Though Briel had dealt Rowen two shallow cuts, the Knight did not seem to notice. As for Silwren, despite the obvious depth of her wound, she hardly bled. The white glow had faded from her body, though.
Briel fixed his eyes on the glass knife between her breasts. He saw it stir. But Silwren’s eyes were wide and staring, their white pupils and purple irises all the more disconcerting in the glow of the tomb’s luminstones. Briel had the odd feeling that the slight movement was just the knife—the freyd, the king had called it—laughing at them.
Meanwhile, the king had recovered enough to rush to Quivalen’s side near the entrance to the tomb. To Briel’s relief, the prince had stopped screaming. He lay in a blistered, blackened heap. He no longer burned, but a glance at the wreckage that had once been the man’s face told Briel that the prince was dead. Nevertheless, the king tried to rouse him, shaking him and calling for help.
The only one who might have saved him is the woman he just stabbed. Briel managed to force himself onto his feet, cradling his broken arm. With his good hand, he retrieved Knightswrath off the ground. He had never held such a sword before, and the feel of the dragonbone hilt almost startled him into dropping it. Why is it so damn warm?
He circled behind Rowen, sword ready. He considered stabbing the man in the back, but the king shouted for him to fetch the healers. Rowen turned, too, and snatched up Briel’s shortsword. Though tears of grief ran from the Knight’s eyes, mingling with the dried blood covering half his face, Rowen’s expression bristled with an altogether different emotion. The Knight stood, white-knuckling his sword.
Briel backed off. I have his sword, and he has mine. But I’m fighting with a broken arm. He’s fighting for vengeance. He’ll kill me in an instant. Briel cursed himself for not protesting the king’s order that the guards remain behind. If Rowen kills me, he’ll kill the king. And, gods, I wouldn’t blame him!
Briel backpedaled to the king’s side. “Get out of here, my king. I’ll hold him back.”
“No, we need a healer! The prince—”
“Your son’s dead. Get out, Sire. There are guards down below. Bring them.”
The king stared as though he had not understood, then he faced Silwren. Briel followed his stare and saw the glass knife stir again.
The king choked, “Chorlga can save my son. But first, we have to make sure she’s dead.”
Though the king spoke in Sylvan, Briel could tell that Rowen had understood. The Knight barred their path. He jabbed his sword—Briel’s sword—in the direction of the king’s face. “Try,” he spat back in Sylvan.
Briel said, “Let the king go, Knight. She’s dead anyway. Lay down the sword and—”
Rowen charged, steel flashing. Briel raised Knightswrath to meet him, trying to ignore the strange heat emanating from its hilt. Briel parried one blow and dodged a third before Rowen cut a fresh groove in the outside of his thigh. Biting back a curse, Briel kept himself between Rowen and the king, Knightswrath extended before him, counting on its greater reach to save him. “Sire, go!” he called over one shoulder.
But Rowen gave no quarter. Despite his fury, the Isle Knight moved with lethal quickness. He attacked one side then the other. While Briel was unaccustomed to the long, curved blade of an Isle Knight, he could tell that Rowen had fought with all manner of swords before. All Briel could do was try to keep him at bay until the guards arrived.
King Loslandril still had not fled the tomb. Though the Sylvan monarch seemed content to use Briel as a shield, he’d drawn a small dagger from his robes and appeared to be waiting for an opening.
Not to help me, though. He just wants to make sure Silwren’s dead! But even that probably had less to do with saving Sylvos than some wild hope that Chorlga would repay the deed by bringing Quivalen back to life.
Briel fo
ught back his rage and concentrated on fighting Rowen. Since the Knight was forced to use a shorter blade, he had to get closer to inflict a wound. Briel did his best to utilize that advantage, always turning to prevent Rowen from flanking him. Luckily, the king knew enough to move with him, thus preventing himself from being caught and used as a hostage. But Briel needed two hands to wield Knightswrath properly. Unless I can manage to—
Rowen dashed in, parried, tried to grab Knightswrath by the unsharpened side of the blade, and very nearly took off Briel’s head. Briel sidestepped and aimed a kick at Rowen’s kneecap. Rowen lifted his leg and took the kick on his ankle. But the engagement gave Loslandril the distraction he needed. He dodged around the combatants with surprising speed and made for Silwren.
At the same time, Briel moved sideways to close the gap. Though he understood his opponent’s rage, Sylvos needed its king. Briel could not let the Isle Knight kill him. “Me, Knight. You face me, not the king.”
Rowen’s expression changed as desperation replaced rage. With his back to Silwren and the king, Briel could not see what the king was doing. But Rowen could.
He’ll gamble, Briel thought, readying himself.
Rowen charged. At the last instant, the Isle Knight slid sideways, feigned for Briel’s wounded leg, then swung for his throat. Knightswrath met Rowen’s blade and held it long enough for Briel to drive his knee into Rowen’s side then elbow Rowen in the cheek.
Briel rammed the edge of his sword toward Rowen’s temple, intending to finish him. Rowen ducked and kicked the back of Briel’s knee. Rowen dove into Briel, but Briel answered with another knee. Rowen grunted. The shortsword swept down. Briel blocked it, then slammed Knightswrath’s dragonbone hilt into Rowen’s sternum. Rowen grabbed the hilt with his free hand, pinning it to his chest.
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