by Matthew Cook
I drop to my hands and knees and scramble underneath a thick wall of dead wild rose vines. A thorned branch drags across my cheek, but I barely feel my flesh tear. The thing barrels into the mass of vines with a clatter, and I feel the mass over my head shiver.
The rose is no match for the voud'hule's strength. I hear the vines parting as it flails its limbs. The thorns must be cruelly tearing at it, but I know it does not care. It cannot feel pain.
I scramble out the other side, then cut hard right, towards a dim glow. The rustling and snapping recedes behind me, and for a moment, I allow myself a satisfied smile. Even the voud'hule's strength, it seems, has limits.
For now, my sister warns me. Who knows how strong it will become if it is allowed to ... feed at will. You bought yourself moments only. Don't slow down.
I nod and press on, emerging moments later from the copse. The cemetery spreads out below me, the rows of ranked headstones shining palely beneath the fiery sky.
Behind me, I hear the voud'hule, moving once more through the tight mass of trees. Already it is free.
I dash out, across the manicured grass, sprinting with all the speed my legs can summon. I am less than thirty yards from the trees when I hear it emerge. Its taloned feet thump against the frozen ground.
Do not look back, my sister commands me, her voice oddly calm. If you fall, you're done for.
"Thank you ... for reminding me of what I already know,” I hiss back. Already my breath grows short; I am woefully out of condition. Too many soft nights in a feather bed. Too many bottles of wine.
The voud'hule is gaining on me, I can hear it. I look for cover, but the nearest patch of trees is nearly one hundred yards away. It will be on me in half that distance.
My searching eyes flicker over a shadow in the grass: a depression at the base of a rolling hill. I see a round shape there. The mouth of a drainage pipe, running back into the earth. It is not large, only a few feet tall, but maybe it is big enough.
I cut hard left, pivoting on the ball of my foot, and race towards the pipe. As I near it, my boots squelch through cold mud covered with a layer of ice, then splash into icy water.
The lip of the pipe is as high as my knee, crusted with icicles. The baked clay is covered with the corpses of fallen autumn leaves and countless blown-down twigs and branches. I claw aside the detritus and scramble into the opening.
It is barely wider than my shoulders. Something catches on the pipe's top edge. My arrows and quiver. They will not fit. I curse and slip the strap over my head, casting them behind me with a clatter of wood and iron.
The narrow pipe stinks of rotten things. The thin trickle of freezing water I crawl through numbs my hands and soaks my knees. Inside, it is absolutely black: what little light exists behind me is blocked by my body.
I hear splashings behind me. The thing is at the mouth of my bolt hole. Claws rake across the clay with a noise like children screaming, then the sound of cracking echoes down the shaft. I scramble deeper.
My groping hand slaps against cold, wet slime. The pipe ends at a wider spot; I feel the sides fall away from my shoulders. Desperate, I run my hands along the walls, ignoring the fetid clumps of dead leaves and other, unknowable things, searching for a way out.
I feel several other, smaller pipes, leading away from the narrow oubliette. None are large enough to admit me. The floor is covered with three inches of ice-cold water, above a layer of thick, oozing muck.
Behind me, I hear the voud'hule destroying the pipe, tearing it asunder with its claws. I turn around, and see its dim shadow, less than a dozen feet away. It has reached the point where the pipe enters the frozen earth of the hill, and its scrabblings slow as it has to cut away the rock-hard ice and soil.
"Kirin?” Rath calls out, from somewhere behind the creature. The scrabbling and scraping stop, and the shadow steps aside. “Are you really in there? It must be quite unpleasant. Why not stop this foolishness and come out? Please, milady, it does not have to be this way, I swear it. You will not be harmed; I need you."
"Come inside then, if you need me so badly,” I yell back, wincing as my voice echoes from the walls around me.
"Alas, I must decline. Who knows what ... surprises ... you may have in there?"
"Why not be a man and find out?” I taunt. I do not believe he will be foolish enough to come into the reach of my blood magic, but I can hope.
"Come now, do you really think that I'll—"
He stops speaking. Distantly, I hear a new sound, floating through the air, replacing the constant warbling of the siren atop the Arquis Vae. A harsh, bleating noise, a pulse of raw sound, repeating over and over.
It is the siren that has never been used, not in our entire history, but I recognize it all the same, thanks to my training. It is the sound of the breach alarm, something we were told we could never hear.
It means that the Lion's Mouth, the mighty gates that have resisted the Mor's invasion for centuries, are falling. It is too late to stop them. Soon the enemy will be inside, in the streets and amongst the city's defenders.
"Gods, no,” I whisper.
"Kirin, we have no time for this! Come out and join the fight!” Rath screams.
I think of Lia, standing before a wall of rampaging Mor. She must be there by now, despite my request to Savard to take her someplace safe. Once she was able to find someone to look after Napaula, she would have rushed straight there, ignoring their commands to stay out of the battle; I know her. Even with her elemental allies and those of her fellow mages at her side, I cannot imagine how they will stand for long.
It is tempting, so very tempting, to submit to the instinct that howls within my breast. To join my blood magic to Rath's power. Months ago, defending Lia and the refugees atop the walls of Dupree Manor, I proved that the Mor are vulnerable to my red talent. This time, I shelter no fragile life within my body, which might be harmed by its use. The risk, and sacrifice, are purely my own. I shift forward, ready to crawl out of my bolt hole.
Did your son's death teach you nothing after all? my sister whispers.
The words stop me like a noose around my neck. Unbidden, his face comes to me, recalled in perfect detail. I remember the way his shade's milk-white eyes stared into mine from the other side of the Vale, filled with love and a terrible, bottomless hunger. Remember the feeling of absolute certainty that what returned from his shattered body would truly be an abomination, damning me in some irredeemable way, forever cursed in the eyes of men and gods both.
I stop, gagging on tears, trying not to vomit.
"I ... cannot. I will not be a part of this,” I choke out, pulling myself deeper into the stinking hole. Sobs rip through me. What did I almost do?
Outside the pipe, I hear Rath curse under his breath, the words, if not the intent, clear.
"Then ... I will go. Someone must face them, since you will not,” he says, his voice filled with a fanatic's passion. “But I warn you: do not interfere in what will come, milady. When the Mor are gone, I will settle all of my old scores. If you are wise, you will leave the city now, before I can solidify my power. Before I can find you. When I see you again, I will certainly kill you."
"Do what you must; I will,” I whisper back, uncaring if he hears me or not.
The shadow moves away, the thumping footfalls receding swiftly. In my icy, stinking womb, I wrap my filth-smeared hands around myself, and weep for everything I have lost, and for what is to come.
I run through the abandoned streets, my breath a furnace in my chest. My legs are distant, aching things, numb from wet and cold. I stumble, almost falling, but somehow manage to keep my feet beneath me.
Ahead, in the distance, a sound reaches me. An unholy blending of the screams and war cries of countless men and women, mixed with an eerie, high-pitched warbling. It takes me a moment to identify the voices of the Mor, raised in a ululating chorus unlike anything I have ever heard them utter.
It sounds like ... exultation. Yes, that's it. A s
avage joy I did not know they could exhibit. The sound chills my bones, turning them into bars of frozen lead.
Overtop it all, the breach alarm atop the Arquis Vae calls out, again and again and again, splitting the night with its frantic, idiot scream.
Fires have broken out ahead of me, inside the walls now, I can tell. The light they cast is bright enough to read by; I can feel the heat on my face.
"Gods, we're too late,” I mumble.
Still, you must try, my sister replies. I nod, not needing her encouragement, but thankful for it nonetheless.
I am still a mile or more from the Lion's Mouth when I encounter the first refugees. They are a trickle at first, which soon swells to a mighty flood. I wade into the mob, moving against the press of bodies hurrying away from the mayhem. Rich and poor mingle freely, silk and satin pressed against tattered homespun and wool. At this moment, all are equal. All are victims. All are prey.
A flash draws my eye, dazzlingly bright, followed moments later by a peal of ear-splitting thunder. A second follows, then a third. The wind, already stiff, changes direction, rising to a gale in heartbeats.
The elemental mages are fighting back. Not for the first time, I wonder if Lia is amongst them, or if she has already fallen.
No. I cannot think of her, not like that. I push aside the vision of her in my imagination, torn limb from limb, her sky blue eyes wide and sightless, filled with accusation. Where were you when I needed you? they seem to shout. What were you doing while I laid down my life for you?
No. No. NO. I must not. I must think. Must be alert. I might only have one moment to act, when Rath is vulnerable. I must strike, as hard as I can, before he can command his creature to send me to the damnation I so richly deserve.
I push past the last of the fleeing people, and emerge into the suddenly-clear street. Bodies lie scattered on the cobblestones. They are ripped asunder, shrunken and diminished, the sad remnants of the sweetlings’ birth cocoons.
One of them is small, no larger than a child. A pale shape, a sad, dirt-stained doll, is clutched in her perfect, pale hand.
My scream fills the night, driving back, for just a moment, the cacophony all around me. It rises, higher and higher, until I fear my throat will burst asunder. I sag to the stones.
Get up! Get up! The bodies still steam; they are fresh. He was just here. He must still be nearby. Damn you, sister! Get on your feet and do something!
The words goad me to rise. I stumble forward once more, down the center of the street, as the skies above me are torn once more by wind, fire and lightning.
My hands grope at my belt, but my scabbard is empty. Somewhere, in the woods or scrambling through the fetid pipe, I lost even my knife. I am completely unarmed.
What good is a blade, or a bow, against such a thing? my sister reminds me. I shove aside my furious reply. She is only trying to help. Gods know I've made a mess of things in lack of her wisdom.
Hands empty, I move towards the sounds of the battle ahead.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The swollen bellies of the clouds overhead flash pale blue and white, painted by the restless flicker of lightning. Embers swarm upwards from countless fires, filling the ash-gray sky with orange stars, which rain down on my bent head as black cinders. The stink of burning wood and charred meat fills my nose as I hurry towards the cacophony ahead.
I emerge from the smoke-filled streets into the wide square at the head of the Gold Road between the palace gates and the smoking remains of the Lion's Mouth. I look up at the once-proud portal, and gape in amazement.
The mighty gates have been cast down, reduced to rubble. The strange, seamless stone that formed them has been rent asunder, burnt and blasted by the Mor's unearthly fury. Chunks of the shattered gates lie strewn across the cobblestones. Bars of ribbed, twisted metal jut from the blackened hunks like bones. Some still glow, fitfully, the air above them rippling with heat.
The square, almost a quarter of a mile across at its widest point, is filled with figures. Closer to the yawning portal are wave upon wave of hulking, gray forms, much larger than men. Their four-armed bodies are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, hundreds—no, thousands—of them, waving their powerful upper claws in a clacking display of might. The Mor are inside.
Facing them are the remains of the wall's defenders, countless thousands of armored men and women. I hear the shouts of the sergeants and captains as they struggle to form their warriors into orderly ranks.
I look up, to the top of the palace wall, and see rows and rows of defenders, all clad in Imperial maroon and purple. Their polished steel helmets and breast plates glitter, almost gaily, in the chaotic light. I know they will not open the gates and join the fight. They are tasked with one thing and one thing only: to defend the emperor at all costs, and to sell their lives, if they can, in exchange for his.
Ranked behind the warriors in the square stand the mages, their robes gleaming like jewels. There are so few of them, no more than five score. I suck my breath in. There should be more of them, three times that number, at least. Where are the rest?
A herald sounds the call for an ordered retreat on his horn, and the human fighters fall back just as a wedge of Mor surges into their ranks, splitting them as easily as a spade through soft earth.
A knot of red-clad pyromancers hurries forward, advancing on the Mor's left flank. The men guarding them are huddled close, their shields overlapping, spears bristling through the gaps like steel porcupine quills.
The elementalists raise their arms, calling out to their allies in the guttural language of the fire spirits. All around the square, I see the fires twisting, against the wind, bending themselves into strange shapes. They coalesce, concentrating into balls of white-hot flame, bright as tiny suns.
A moment later, a menagerie of fantastic beasts forms from the spheres. Each stands as tall as a house, their towering bodies comprised of living flame: an ox. A horse. A wolf. Something that looks like a bird with trailing tail feathers of dark vapor. And, even larger than all the rest, the lion, the symbol of the Empire, with teeth and claws of molten red and mane of sparks and smoke, roaring with the sound of a forest fire. It rears, and plunges into the mass of inhuman attackers.
Several of the pyromancers sag to the stones and are assisted by others. I see them, still gesturing to their creations, striving to control and direct them, even as the summoning they have just performed takes its toll.
With so much fire all around, the elemental spirits are mighty. Mighty. They crash into the Mor ranks like a burning hurricane, scattering the lumbering creatures like a child's tin soldiers.
The Mor fight back, with the power of their shaman-empowered blades and the might of their claws, rending the fire beasts asunder, ignoring their smoldering armor and burning harnesses. Some form into wedges behind the smaller shamans, claws outstretched to rest on the shoulders of the warrior before them, somehow focusing their power into the body of the Mor at the formation's tip.
The magic-workers strike with their ennobled weapons, staffs of iron, glowing sullen red in the darkness. When they do, there is a flash of light, and the fire creatures reel back, the flames of their bodies blasted apart.
I look all around the square, my eyes seeking Rath and his abomination. I do not see him. Where is he? He should have been here by now. I run towards a lamp post set into the stones at the square's perimeter. I need a higher vantage.
A rumble from the clouds overhead gives me pause. I look up, and see tendrils of azure lightning flashing from cloud to cloud, twisting like serpents. On the Mor's left flank, I see a line of white-clad aeromancers, hands upthrust, their voices raised in keening cries.
I feel a tickle, and see the hairs on my arms standing erect. The tang of summertime storms wafts across the battlefield, cutting through the stench of burning wood and flesh. A premonition warns me, and I drop to the stones, risking trampling, but knowing what is to come.
S
even mighty bolts, brighter than the noonday sun, lance down from the angry skies, striking simultaneously into the heart of the Mor. The boom that follows an instant later is louder than anything I have ever heard, anything I could have imagined, a noise beyond deafening. I feel the very air sucked from my chest as it rolls over me, crushing me down into the unyielding stones.
I blink past stinging tears, my vision sheeted with branching afterimages like leafless trees, and see that most of the human defenders, as well as many of the Mor, have been knocked flat. In the center of the Mor ranks are seven black craters, ringed with charred bodies. Those at the blast's center are clearly dead, their stone-hard flesh split and peeled, exposing the blue-tinged meat beneath. It smokes and steams, and a smell wafts over me, like cooked shellfish and brimstone.
The pyromancers’ beasts do not hesitate, and use the distraction to wreak fresh havoc on their unresisting foes, cuffing the hulking warriors with their burning paws and grabbing them up in their flaming mouths.
I scramble to my feet and sprint towards the white-robed mages. The men guarding them allow me to pass.
"Lia!” I scream, then again, “Lia!"
"Kirin!” The call is weak, muffled by my stunned ear drums, but as clear and welcome as a drink from a glacial stream.
Then I am in her arms, and she in mine, her body pressed against me almost painfully tight, thrumming like a plucked bow string. I bury my face in her chestnut hair, eyes screwed shut against stinging tears. She murmurs something in the sibilant language of the air spirits into my ear, her breath warm against the side of my neck.
"Thank the gods, you're alive,” I whisper back. I feel her nod.
"Kirin, where is Rath?” she demands a moment later, pulling back. She still wears the tattered, second-hand clothes and dark gray cloak from earlier in the night, a time that feels like a hundred years ago to me now. She has tied a strip of white cloth around her temples. It shines in the ruddy light, pale against her dark curls.