by Matthew Cook
I draw out a fresh shaft and look for a new target, but just in the few moments of distraction, I see the tide is already turning. The men, despite their exquisite skill, and discipline, are no match for that which cannot easily be killed. The sweetlings care not for any trifling wounds, no matter how damaging or hideous. They are dead, and cannot feel pain. Or fear.
Already, half of Savard's force is down, lying in pools of blood, or in the tangles of their own organs, moaning for succor or mercy. In another moment, even their iron discipline will falter. When that happens, and they turn away, as they must, then all will be killed. It was pure folly to think that men, even men as skilled as these, could stand against such creatures; I should have known better.
Only one thing will stem the tide, and give Savard and his force the time to pull back. To regroup and find a better place to fight, where archers can make a difference.
No! You cannot! You must not! You promised! my sister screams, all too aware of what I am about to do.
"I'm sorry,” I whisper, letting the bow slip from my fingers.
I open my secret eye and gaze across the slaughterhouse the graveyard has become. All around, I see the souls of those who have died, standing near their fallen flesh. The melee swirls around, and through, them, but they do not notice. All they can see is the ruins of their stolen lives.
I whisper to them, a song of revenge and desire. Slowly, they turn towards me, focusing their spectral eyes on me. They see me.
Inside, the tendrils of my magic caper and twist, responding to the blood that is all around. I ignore it. That red power is not required for what I am about to do. Still, I feel a familiar thrill, in my chest and between my legs, a sensation I have told myself on so many nights that I do not miss. I cannot endure the lie for a moment longer.
I call out to the shades of the dead, commanding them to lie down in their fallen flesh. To rise once more, and take revenge on their own brothers, the creatures who killed them. To do my bidding as a good and obedient child should, protecting me from the mortal danger that is so very close.
They respond, drifting towards their former shells and lying down, the misty substance of their ghostly bodies melding with the still-warm meat. Seeing it, I laugh, the sound oddly distant, yet so, so familiar.
"Kirin, what—?” Savard begins, turning towards the sound. When he sees my face, he freezes, his scowl becoming something else, something far more primitive and basic.
Fear. Fear shines out of his eyes. Fear, like a beacon to the blood magic, drawing it like a loadstone draws iron fillings.
All around us, the dead quiver and twitch, convulsing with the throes of their rebirth. The sound of something tearing, heavy and wet, fills the air, audible even over the screams of the dying and the clash of steel on bone.
"Kirin, no. You can't. No,” he says, his voice breaking for the first time.
I laugh again as my dark children rise, shaking off the last steaming shreds of their crimson-streaked birth cocoons, and move to do my bidding.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
With a thought, I fling my children into the fray. Horned, rope-muscled limbs lock with other, equally horrific appendages as the two groups of sweetlings grapple with one another. Moments after they come together, I stagger backwards. My sight dims and my mouth fills with the bitter taste of copper coins and bile as the summoning I have just worked takes its toll. The spirits animating the sweetlings’ dead flesh are the returned souls of their former inhabitants, but the terrible will that compels them, which forced them to return, is my own.
Only once before have I attempted such a mass summoning. It was at Fort Azure, on the same morning that I met Lia. The same morning that I called forth the souls of nearly a dozen men, and unleashed them against the Mor.
This summoning, if anything, is even larger, fifteen at least. Just as then, the world seems to recede from me, the feeble light pulling back, down a long, black tunnel, like a candle dropped down a well. I sag, my breath rasping in my throat.
"Kill them,” I croak. “Kill them all, and carve us a path to Rath Lan."
Beside me, I can sense Savard, standing in the grip of indecision. As my sight returns, the orange sky brightening slowly, I see him, shifting from foot to foot, watching with his sword in his hand as the two groups of undead warriors clash, ripping at each other with barbs and blades. I gag as nausea twists in my belly, dispelling the seductive slither of the blood magic, and force myself to see what is happening.
My children are outnumbered, at least three to one, but they have advantages. They are fresh, for one, recently summoned, much nimbler than their opponents. Some of Rath's creatures are weeks, possibly months, old, their tissues shrunken and desiccated, literally creaking as they shamble forward. Also, Rath's brood is packed into the stone mausoleum. Against unsuspecting men it was a terrifying and effective ambush. Now that same structure hinders them, forcing them to struggle through the narrow stone doorway and into the teeth of my sweetlings’ concentrated defense
The sweetlings are many things—fast, fearless, implacable—but whatever intelligence they possessed in life does not, as a rule, survive the journey back. I smile, a chill, bloodless thing, wooden on my lips, as I watch Rath's force bunched in the narrow portal, emerging in drips and drabs.
No sooner do they do so than my own children descend on them, bone blades scything through the air, reaping a terrible harvest of undead flesh, lopping off spiny limbs and slicing through gristle and bone with appalling efficiency. Their fury, and better position, negates Rath's sweetlings’ numeric superiority.
The count, despite his obvious revulsion, is no fool, and uses the opportunity to pull his remaining men back, yelling for them to regroup near the private gate. His assassins disengage smoothly, regaining their composure with admirable swiftness. They drag the wounded behind them, bundles of screaming, bleeding flesh.
Every eye turns to me as they pass, and I see many of them sketching warding gestures: the hooked sign of the Loran Lightbringer; the clenched fist of Ur, the Red Warrior; even the occasional open hand of Shanira, the Lady of Healing.
I ignore them all. If the genuflections of pious fools had the capacity to harm me, then I would already be long dead. Let them wave their hands at me if it makes them feel better.
I throw back my head and laugh then, equally thrilled and terrified as I watch my children struggling against their kin. Gods, what have I done? What will Lia think when she hears of my latest, most complete and total betrayal?
No. I cannot think of that now. Now I must fortify our position, and take advantage of the small respite I have created for us. Across the graveyard, dark shapes still scrabble, locking together like crazed animals.
"Archers, ready your shafts,” I command, putting actions to words and fitting my own missile to the string. “I fear Rath's force will prove triumphant in the end, but now his trap is sprung, and we know what we face. Remember to aim for the eyes."
All around me, the Gray Circle men draw their own arrows, filling the night with the soft creak of wood and sinew. Even Savard obeys, drawing his own borrowed bow to his cheek and sighting down a long black shaft.
The sounds of struggle die off. I see shapes moving in the orange-black darkness. “Steady. We fire as one, and keep firing as long as we can,” I say.
The first sweetling that staggers into the light is horribly savaged, its left arm completely missing. The ribs there are exposed, half of them severed, spilling the useless remains of its unliving organs across the snow-patched ground. Congealing blood sparkles on its exposed muscles and broken tusks.
"Hold!” I yell, dropping my bow and running forward. I reach the sweetling and crouch beside it, just as others, no more than three or four, follow behind.
They are mine, all of them, still wet with the blood of their birth. All have been brutally savaged, none left intact. One pulls itself along on its arms, dragging its upper body along th
e ground. The severed column of its spine trails along behind, leaving a bloody furrow in the frozen ground, like an exclamation point, or an arrow, pointed directly towards me.
There is only one explanation. “Rath has withdrawn his force. The mausoleum was a distraction; he was never here. He must be regrouping."
"Come on,” I yell, springing to my feet. Several of the men move to follow me, responding to the unconscious power of command that threads through my voice.
"Do not follow that order,” Savard says softly, and instantly the men all freeze.
"Count, please, we must hurry. Rath is—"
Savard strikes me, a tight, hooked punch to the point of my chin. Stars explode in my eyes as the blow connects, and I feel my knees unhinge, dropping me to the frozen ground. My knees scream as my weight drops onto them. A moment later, I feel the chill edge of his steel against my throat.
My sweetlings react as one, surging towards him, red murder tingeing their opaline eyes.
"No!” I gasp, knowing they cannot move fast enough to kill the count before he can open my throat. They freeze, claws flexing, hungry for his life.
"That's better,” Savard whispers. “Now command them to move back."
I obey, ordering them wordlessly to follow his instruction. I am not afraid. If he wanted me dead in punishment for what I just did, he would have already slit my throat. Or so I hope.
Keeping the blade against my neck, he hunkers down beside me. “You ... how could you? They were my men. They were good men,” he says, boldly looking into my eyes. Inside, my sister screams in wordless rage.
"If I hadn't called them, you would be choking on your own blood right this moment, and you know it,” I hiss back.
The count nods, but does not remove the blade. “Perhaps, madam, but some prices are simply too terrible to pay."
My memory summons the image of my newborn son. So tiny, born weeks early, but perfectly formed nonetheless. I remember watching his expression in the moments after birth, almost comically grave, as his brows drew down in discomfort. Remember the spread of black and red as the delicate blood vessels at the corners of his eyes broke, one by one, sheeting them with crimson. Remember the gout of blood rushing past his tiny mouth, the hot fluid thick with the smell of burning things and the inhuman odor of the Mor.
I killed him. While he was still in my womb, I took into myself the alien blood of my enemy, and somehow that power crossed over into him, ripping his delicate life asunder.
I remember now what I am. Months of happiness, living with Lia, almost made me forget, but now I recall the truth of my life. How could I have forgotten?
The sweetlings are not the monsters here; I am.
"Do not lecture me about prices, sir,” I say, the words laced not with the power of command but with something deeper, more primal. Rage. Grief. A sorrow so deep that an ocean of blood could not fill the void in my heart. “I have paid sums that would beggar your imagination. Kill me if your delicate sensibilities demand it, but get on with it. Your indecision disgusts me."
I hold his eyes with mine, readying myself for the kiss of razored steel. If he does it, if he slits my throat, I will only have moments to drive the blood magic into his body. The power of his life, if used fast enough, can save me before my own life essence spills across the barren ground. I remember all too clearly the structures and geography of the neck, back from when I healed a similar wound in Captain Garrett's injured flesh. All I need is the power to do so, power that Savard will handily provide.
A moment later, the steel is taken from my neck. Savard sags, a man defeated, and nods his head.
"Make their sacrifice worthwhile, witch, or I shall take my revenge in your own flesh and blood,” he whispers. I nod, unafraid. I know I should fear this man, fear the punishment I know all too well he is capable of, but right now, Savard is the least of my concerns.
Wordlessly, I command the sweetlings to array themselves before us, a tight wedge of bloody flesh and gristle. Their opal eyes shine in the dark.
I see that some are too badly damaged to keep up, and I order their brothers to dispatch them quickly, sending their souls to the Beyond on clouds of greasy ash. When they are done, nine are left who can still fight. Nine against gods only know how many of Rath's own servants.
I smile a grim, humorless smile. Soon enough there will be fresh bodies, I suspect, maybe enough to turn the tide in our favor. If I must, I will not hesitate to call forth more of my children, despite the count's warning and the bone-deep loathing their presence evokes in me. The stakes are simply too high.
"Here! There is a path!” one of the men calls out from behind the mausoleum. We hurry towards the voice. I pause long enough to scan the ground, reading the tracks impressed in the soft mud. Claws and horns, and what looks like two sets of boots.
"He came this way,” I confirm. “Hurry."
We file into the dark woods, the sweetlings breaking trail ahead of us. I lose sight of them almost immediately, but I can hear them, making their way through the densely packed, skeletal trees.
The copse is larger than I would have suspected, tangled and overgrown, the leafless branches above stark against the orange sky light. I move my eyes back and forth, looking for the path's opening in the chancy light, navigating by dead reckoning. Many times, cruel branches lash out, striking me in the face or chest, tangling in my hair. I put up my bow, hanging the weapon aslant across my back, lest it catch and snap the string.
I see a light ahead, the ruddy glow of a fire. The wind turns, bringing with it the smell of burning wood and something else, some sort of perfume, or incense. It is sweet, as sweet as the air from a grave, and as cloying. It rides above the unmistakable scent of death that always clings to the sweetlings.
Before I can open my mouth to whisper a message, I hear the sounds of renewed struggle ahead. The sound of blades impacting flesh and bone is clear in the still air. I hear no screams; it must be the sweetlings, coming together in voiceless fury, tearing at one another.
I hurtle down the path, ducking as tree limbs whip past my face and eyes. Behind me, I hear the sounds of hurrying feet, as the count and his men pace me. The fire's glow grows brighter.
I burst into a clearing, set into the heart of the wood. It is a shallow bowl, gentle, leaf-covered slopes leading down to a small creek or stream. Next to it, I see a large boulder, flat like a table and daubed with pale sigils. A fire burns merrily beside it, set in a deep brass platter. Someone has strung a cloth above the stone, an angled roof of canvas, its corners lashed to the branches overhead.
I see Rath and Eddard, standing beside the rock. A small shape, swaddled in a pale blanket, rests on the stone. Rath croons over it, speaking ancient and terrible words. They hang in the air like bloody runes, echoing unnaturally in my ears.
Between us stand the sweetlings, my paltry nine against over two score of his own. The flickering firelight turns the battle into pure nightmare, a macabre dance of skinless, cavorting bodies. They slash at each other, opening gaping, bloodless wounds.
Without hesitation, I pull the bow from my back and set an arrow to the string. The feathers brush my cheek, even as Savard and his men burst into the clearing behind me.
The motion catches Eddard's eye, and he moves towards us. He raises something, a tall, brass-clad tower shield, aiming its filigreed face our way. I let the arrow slip through my fingertips, the murderous broadhead aimed for Rath's pale neck.
Eddard grunts and raises the shield, catching the arrow on its gleaming face. It ricochets away, spinning into the darkness. I curse and draw a second missile, as the other men nock their own bows.
The sweetlings continue to rip at each other, their struggle blocking our path. As before, Rath's numeric superiority is balanced by my own children's freshness and alacrity. For every one of my own children that fall, I see three of his go down, crumbling instantly the moment the cords of their un-lives are finally severed.
I open my secret eye, gazing d
own at the tableaux before me. My blood runs cold as I spy the lands beyond the vale. Something is forming in the air in front of Rath; an absence of light, like a shadow, disembodied and floating. As I watch, Rath beckons, his hand curling back, beseeching something to come to him.
I feel the chill in the air deepen as it steps over the threshold. A shape, vague, but unmistakably human, slides from the black portal. Rath laughs, a delighted sound, and opens his arms as if to embrace it.
My mortal ears hear the sound of a flight of arrows: Savard's men, letting loose a volley. Eddard curses and interposes the polished brass once more, sheltering his master and himself from the storm of steel and wood. Rath gestures to the tiny swaddled shape lying on the stone before him, and the shadow figure slips down, merging itself with it.
"Rath, no! You mustn't!” I scream. Even as I do, I hear the echo of so many others who tried to warn me of the same. I did not listen to them, either; I'm not sure why I think Rath will listen to me now. But I have to try.
He turns and looks at me, a sad smile on his lips. He shakes his head, and whispers something, the wind bearing the word to me across the bowl.
"Sete."
The name of Rath's aunt. The necromancer, dead for so many years. Too many years. Now called back, as I called back my sister, from the lands beyond the vale.
The last of the shadow slips into the still bundle.
The sweetlings, all of them, Rath's and mine both, abruptly stop fighting. They turn, as one, swiveling their ruined faces towards the altar rock. Rath keeps muttering, whispering urgent words to the shape in front of him.
The chill in the air deepens, a cold that has nothing to do with the mortal winter. Even the men feel it, and pause in their reloading, arrows half-nocked. I feel a sensation of falling, my belly crawling inside of me, as I realize we are too late. Too late.