by Annie Bellet
I struggled to my feet, leaning heavily on Fade, who growled as a few of the skeletons to our right grew bolder and moved a few paces closer, ready to finish us off at a word from their master. I fit another arrow to my bow. I could do nothing against the Death Knight, but I could kill other things. Let them stand there waiting for orders. They’d die doing it. I blinked away hot tears and felt the tightness in my chest ease a little. This was no time for crying or lamentations. I was Killer now and I would go out killing.
As I took down another skeleton with a satisfying shot, I saw Makha and Azyrin attacking the Death Knight out of the corner of my eye. A mighty bash of the Death Knight’s shield swiped Azyrin aside and my keen ears caught the crunch of bone as he fell and did not rise.
Makha drove her sword into the Death Knight’s exposed side as the creature twisted away from her. She caught the heavy swipe of its blade on her own shield. The ironwood shattered and, from her scream, I guessed her arm did, as well. She sprang back, attacking again with a sword now nicked and marked from where it had scraped the Saliidruin plate armor, failing to find its way to the body beneath.
Knowing it was futile, knowing that I could do nothing, I ran toward them, shooting one of my last three arrows at the Knight. It paid me no more mind than I would a mosquito. The heavy sword swung with the speed and grace of Drake’s rapier, catching Makha off balance.
The flame-haired human warrior, a veteran of many battles, did not even scream as the blade sliced into her dark blue mail, cutting into her from shoulder to groin in a hot spray of blood. She dropped onto her face, her sword falling from her hand.
The Death Knight kicked her aside as though she were a rock in its path and turned its icy eyes onto me.
I raised Thorn as Fade moved up beside me, my second to last arrow nocked and ready.
How many deeds had I done, I wondered. Not the thousand I needed to get me home. The thousand I needed that would free me from this curse of silence and loneliness. That would give me back my voice, and with my voice the Word. With my voice would come my name, my blood, and my heritage, a princess of my people and one of our greatest living Singers.
Without my voice, I was an elf with a bow and arrow. I was only Killer, the one with no voice, an elf with no past, no people.
Except I did have people. They lay dead or dying around me now, fallen in their unending fight against the evils of the mortal realms. My first companion, my mist-lynx, would also be my final companion. It was not the end I would wish for. But it was an end I had not expected.
I would not die alone.
My world had narrowed to the grinning Death Knight, to the moans of Azyrin as he shuddered and tried to rise, falling back to the packed and now bloodsoaked earth. To the still bulk of Makha, kicked aside like trash, her blood turning the earth beneath her black. To Fade’s vibrating growl beside me, his silver eyes fixed on our doom.
Behind the Death Knight, I finally registered commotion. Skeletal bodies flew apart, burning to ash in midair as blue fire wreathed them. Rahiel, her broken wings burning with blue fire which filled the tears in her flesh, rose up from the chaos, her purple eyes ablaze with inner magics. She ripped the black pearl she had guarded so closely free from its chain around her neck and swung it into the air.
The Death Knight attacked me as I stared at Rahiel, distracted. Fade sprang low, dodging beneath the demonic shield. His teeth closed on the Death Knight’s leg and he yanked, throwing it off balance and then turning to mist and whirling away before the Knight could react.
He likely saved my life. The Death Knight’s blade caught my leg instead of my shoulder on its downward swing as I desperately threw myself backward, nearly losing my grip on Thorn and dropping my arrow. The blade bit into my leg, but was stopped by my elven leathers. My armor, along with Thorn, was one of the few things I had taken from my home. I did not have my power, but I was still an Elemental Elf and we know how to craft very good armor, armor that can stand against Saliidruin weapons.
My leg, however, was not so fortunate. Shards of white-hot pain lanced up into my hip as my femur splintered from the weight of the blow. I fell prone, kicking with my good leg to put more distance between the Knight and myself as I scrabbled for my final arrow.
Rahiel threw the pearl into the air. For a moment, time stopped. Not the perception of time, but I felt time itself grind to a halt with a deep knowledge in my bones.
Then the pixie-goblin sorceress cried a word that she should not have known. A word not meant for mortal minds or mortal throats. A command in the language of my people. A true Word.
Ever since we had wrested that damned pearl from the monsters and traps lurking in the cursed lakebed, she had guarded it like the world’s greatest treasure. Now I knew why. It was not just any pearl, but a gem of Unmaking. With the right Word, it would undo anything, would kill anything, even a god.
Or the avatar of Death itself.
Blood gushed from her mouth and she collapsed again, the blue fire flickering out, though none of the horde approached her even as time resumed. The pearl hovered above the Death Knight as it stared upward, looking as close to confusion as I had ever seen an undead skeletal face appear. The black pearl expanded, doubling in size with every ragged, pained breath I took.
I realized that Rahiel hadn’t finished the spell. There was a second word, the trigger. I knew the Word but could not speak. The pearl grew and shimmered overhead, our salvation so close and yet locked in stasis still.
In my mind I heard Drake’s joking voice telling me there was more than one way to skin a lion.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I forced myself to stand, using my bow as a crutch. The entire undead horde, including its master, was intent on the glittering dark pearl above them, and not one red eye turned toward me as I heaved to my feet. Bloody spots danced in my vision and I wanted to scream and scream and never stop, but I pushed all of that away.
I pulled my final arrow from my quiver and set my stance, putting all my weight onto my unbroken leg. I could only manage a half-pull of my bow, dragging the waxy string back to touch my lips, barely enough draw to properly use the arrow I nocked.
The pearl at this point was nearly the size of the side of one the pyramidal barns so favored in this region. Even I, exhausted, broken, bleeding, and standing on one leg, can hit the broad side of a barn. Insane laughter burbled and died silently in my throat and I didn’t even notice the curse if it tried to add to my already too long list of physical tortures.
My arrow hit the pearl and shattered.
Again, time froze, my heart freezing with it, a cold knot of desperate need inside my aching chest.
Then the pearl burst apart. Shimmering black dust rained down over the Death Knight and his horde, dust obeying the command that Rahiel had probably given her life to speak.
The horde unraveled first. It was as though I watched an intricate tapestry come apart. Every bone disconnected from the next, the armor dropping away as buckles undid themselves, weapons breaking into component pieces. Their bones melted away next, dissolving before my eyes. The hellhounds flew apart hair by oily hair, twisting and shrieking. I put my hands over my ears and fell to the ground, unable to look away even as spots of pain tried to take my vision.
The Death Knight went last, his shadowy powers trying to fight the Unmaking. Shadows turned to mist, the tentacles dissipating in the air as though a hidden breeze had blown them away. The Death Knight’s armor dropped off, revealing thick bones still strung with rotting sinew beneath. Its joints came apart but it still writhed and screamed, its voice like a great brass bell cracking again and again. Its bones melted from the feet upward, turning to vapor. Its head was last, the cold burning eyes still lashing out with angry fire until at last the unmaking took that, too.
Silence followed, the kind of deep silence that is found only among the dead or after a thick snowfall in the darkest days of the coldest winters.
Blissfully, mercifully, somewhere in th
at silence, I passed out.
* * *
I awoke to Drake’s handsome smile, his dark hand clasping my own. I had a split second to enjoy both of us being alive before my curse rose up and protested human contact. Bile rose in my throat as my head started to pound, and I jerked my hand out of his, feeling the immediate absence of his heat.
“Hey, Killer,” Drake said. “I forgot about the touching thing, sorry.”
I offered him a wan smile as I shifted on the cot, looking around. My head felt thick and my mouth tasted of bile and bitter herbs. I remembered my leg and reached beneath the wool blanket, finding a splint though I felt no pain. I must have been drugged with painkilling herbs.
The walls, granite covered in cloth hangings depicting rural farm life, were somehow familiar to me. I shook my head to clear it of the herbal fog and realized where I was. Still in Fallbarrow. Still in the temple.
I looked at Drake as he rose stiffly from his stool beside my cot, trying to question him with my eyes without seeming too obvious for my curse, tried to plead with him to tell me the fate of our friends.
He read my desire or guessed correctly, at any rate.
“Everyone is okay, don’t you worry, pretty,” Drake said with a grin. “I’ve got a few new scars, Makha has one big ass new scar, and I’m pretty sure Azy explained that Bill is really some kind of god or something, but we’ll catch you up on all that later. Rahiel can’t talk right now, which is a bonus if you ask me, but Azy says her throat will heal. I missed all the fun, apparently. Anyway, old Titor says you need to drink some broth if you can and then rest.”
I lay back meekly, unable to stop the giant grin that split my face, pulling on tired muscles. We had lived. Against all odds, mere mortals fighting the undead might of the Saliidruin hordes. I hoped that my people were watching that in their Hall of Windows. This should count for at least five heroic acts for all the trouble and pain.
I remembered Odyll’s final scream and Enil’s broken, bloody body staining Thunla’s statue and closed my eyes, the rush of triumph fading. Not everyone had made it.
Fade. I tried to remember what he had last done, where I had last seen him. I remembered him turning to mist before the Death Knight’s shield could throw him aside, but had he made it safely away? Had the pearl somehow destroyed him, too?
As if sensing my worried thoughts, Fade pushed his way past Drake. His pony-sized body filled the narrow chamber. I smiled again as he shoved his way in and licked my face, his rough cat’s tongue scraping along already sensitive skin. I didn’t care. Even the meaty scent of his breath reminded me that life went on and that I was there to enjoy it. Laying back, I shut my eyes and let the herbs pull me down again.
* * *
Rahiel, as soon as she had recovered her voice, which took about a week, flew to Clearbarrow for aid. In the two days she was gone, I made the painful overland trek on my healing leg with Alew and his aunt Emili to bury Alew’s father’s body. Between Titor’s healing, if bitter, potions and Azyrin’s shaman spells, my leg only twinged with weakness instead of holding me down for weeks. Makha wanted to make the trip with us, but her wound had damaged her ribs and lungs, taking longer to heal than just a simple break.
Of course, my elf blood didn’t hurt. I already healed more quickly than the average elf, and far faster than a human. I stood for a long while over the mounded grave of Alew’s father and said my goodbyes to him and his son Enil. I also apologized for failing to keep all his children safe. I hoped that no angry shade would haunt me for breaking that oath.
At the end of the second week after what would become known as the Fell Battles of Fallbarrow, we said farewell to Alew and his family. Carts had come from Clearbarrow, the Duke himself offering them a new home in the town there after Rahiel had worked her pixie-goblin charm on him and after his men had seen the carnage of the empty village themselves.
“You sure you don’t want us to stay until you are ready to go?” Emili asked.
“I’m sure,” Titor responded, clasping her in a tight embrace and only reluctantly letting her go. He smiled at the children as they waved to him from the back of one of the Duke’s carts. “These brave adventurers have offered to let me travel with them to Ramsport. I need to consult with the High Priestess there for my next assignment.” He glanced at Bill and Rahiel, awe glowing in his eyes. It was clear he would be relating the tale of the battle as well.
“Good luck, Alew,” Drake said, clasping the young man’s arm. “You should be proud of how you helped your family here.”
“I will miss you,” Alew said. His smile did not touch the sorrow in his eyes.
He had aged years in the last fortnight, and I wasn’t sure he would ever feel the carefree joys of youth again. It was a loss that stung my heart.
His haunted eyes turned to me and he gave a tiny bow. “Thank you,” he said, his voice dropping even softer. I wondered if he knew of his father’s final words, for in his thanks there was a tone of forgiveness. I risked the smallest nod, swallowing my nausea. I did not want him to go unacknowledged and I hoped he understood my relief at his lack of blame.
We all stood and watched as the carts pulled away, the children waving until we could no longer make out their shapes and the dust blocked them as they disappeared into the hills.
Our meal that night was quieter than usual without the bickering of the children or Emili’s soft lullabies. Spoons clacked against dishes as we slurped up mushrooms and mutton in thick gravy. My leg ached a little as I stretched it out straight on the floor, but it was minor now, something I could live with.
“Another week or so until you all can travel, I think,” Titor said.
“We will need must winter in Ramsport, I suppose,” Azyrin said with a small sigh. Our coffers were running low since we’d been detoured through the Barrows, and now we had lost weeks of time. Summer was sliding into autumn quickly, taking away the time we had left to find treasure or the sorts of work that people hired adventurers to do. The Barrows had provided a great deal of trouble and the opportunity for me to perform heroic acts, but it hadn’t been a lucrative trip so far.
“Another week for my armor to repair itself, too,” Makha said. She was thrilled her Saliidruin mail was rebuilding itself, the slice where the Death Knight’s sword had carved her open slowly sealing shut day by day.
“Glassnesse will have to wait,” Drake said, sending an almost apologetic look at Rahiel.
“Does not matter anyway,” the pixie-goblin said with a sigh that shook her whole body in its intensity. “Without the pearl, I have no way to repay my family. Glassnesse is now, again, the last place I should ever go.”
“To Ramsport, it is decided.” Azyrin stroked his wife’s hair.
My lips curved in a tiny smile. Life was almost back to normal, our bodies and our spirits healing slowly.
“So, dipwing,” Makha said to Rahiel, her voice carrying only the slightest hitch of pain as she shifted position, “Maybe time you tell us all about how you came to be traveling with the consort of a goddess?”
Bill, curled up next to Rahiel on a pillow, raised his head and snuffled-snorted, bumping his pink nose into the pixie-goblin’s thin shoulder.
“He says I can tell you,” Rahiel said. “But it is rather a long story.”
“Osh, according to our healers here, we got ourselves at least a week,” Drake said with an exaggerated wink.
“Tomorrow, then,” Rahiel said, another sigh shaking her body, which she shifted into a yawn. “I’m exhausted.”
I slipped out the open doors of the temple, searching out Fade and my usual evening solitude. Stars glittered above me, pinpricks of light dancing and winking in the darkness. Fade appeared beside me, his big head bumping into my healthy hip. It still caused me to stagger a little, sending a phantom jolt of pain through my hurt leg.
One more deed down. One more step closer to regaining my rightful power and going home.
I stood on the hill overlooking the village, my
eyes turning away from the stars and toward the fire-lit glow coming from the temple.
I wanted my voice back. I wanted my power back. And yet, a different kind of longing filled me now, pushing on the desire to go home. My heart was splitting, I realized. For although somewhere in those myriad stars above lay the world Between and my people, I also now felt a pull toward that tiny glow in the temple, toward the gentle laughter and murmur of familiar voices that drifted out through the still, warm air.
Where is home now? I wondered. Where, indeed.
* * * * *
Want to read more fantasy by Annie Bellet? Find additional exciting adventures following Killer and her friends.
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Also by Annie Bellet:
The Gryphonpike Chronicles:
Witch Hunt
Twice Drowned Dragon
A Stone’s Throw
The Barrows: Omnibus Volume One
The Twenty-Sided Sorceress:
Justice Calling
Murder of Crows
Pack of Lies
Chwedl Duology:
A Heart in Sun and Shadow
The Raven King