Reign of Ash

by Gail Z. Martin

  Blaine and Niklas exchanged a glance. “What do they say?” Blaine asked, watching the young man closely.

  “They don’t like you.” The wild man ran at them with a cry. Niklas pulled back on the reins and the horse reared, its front hooves kicking at the air around their attacker’s head.

  “Leave now, and we won’t hurt you,” Blaine shouted.

  The young man did not seem to hear. His eyes were wide, gripped by mania. He feared neither the horse’s hooves nor the swords and ran again at Niklas brandishing the tree branch in one hand and a large knife that he had snatched from his belt in the other.

  Niklas kicked at the man with his boot, trying to push him away so he could ride past, hoping to escape the situation without needing to harm the addled young man.

  The man gave a deep-throated bellow and charged once more, snagging Niklas with one of the knots on the branch. Alarmed that he might actually be able to throw Niklas from the horse, Blaine rode in from the other side, sword raised.

  Too bad I can’t get close enough to thump him on the head, Niklas thought, but their attacker’s single-mindedness and the frenzy of his attack made that impossible.

  Blaine brought his blade down on the man’s shoulder, slicing to the bone. The man howled, but madness won out over pain, and he gave a vicious jerk that nearly unseated Niklas.

  Blocked from a clean strike by the branch, Niklas kicked again and swung. His blow was not quite enough to cut through the wood, and the attacker shoved hard, throwing Niklas off balance. The branch came free, and the attacker swung high, landing a bone-crunching strike on Niklas’s shoulder.

  This time Niklas did lose his seat as his horse reared. Blaine dismounted as Niklas hit the ground. Niklas managed to keep his feet, but barely – as he tried to get his footing, the attacker came at Niklas with a two-handed foray, scything his wide-bladed knife and jabbing with the branch, which was just long enough to keep out of range of Niklas’s sword.

  Blaine came up behind their attacker, but just as he brought his sword down, the attacker turned, whipping the branch in Blaine’s direction and catching him on the side of the head. Blaine staggered, and the man came at him fast, angling the knife for Blaine’s chest.

  Blaine brought his sword up in time to parry the blow, and the blade skittered down the steel and bit into his arm. The wild man raked the branch at knee level, catching Blaine’s right leg so hard that it nearly folded under him. The man’s eyes were alight with madness, cheered on by ghostly voices only he could hear.

  Before the man could make another strike at Blaine, Niklas came at him from behind with a blow that severed his sword arm. Numbed by his frenzy, the man made a wild swing at Niklas with his makeshift club as blood flowed freely from the stump of his shoulder onto the rutted road.

  The branch slammed against Niklas’s side, but as Niklas staggered he saw a blur of movement as Blaine rushed the madman from behind. Blaine’s sword tore into the man’s back, sliding between his ribs, propelled by Blaine’s momentum until it sank hilt deep and the blade protruded from his chest.

  Only then, taken through the heart, did the man slow his attack. He staggered, eyes uncomprehending, and the branch fell from his hand. One more step and he sank to his knees, still in the grip of the madness that drove him past normal endurance.

  “They said I could not lose,” he whispered. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “They promised me.” His breath came in one last, rattling wheeze, and he fell forward onto the road.

  Winded and battered, Blaine and Niklas watched the man’s still form as they recovered from the attack.

  “So we just leave him here?” Niklas said as Blaine pulled his sword free of the body and wiped it clean on the dry grass along the road.

  Blaine looked up at him. “Do you fancy taking him back to the village and explaining to the blacksmith how two larger, older, heavily armed strangers were forced to defend themselves against his son?”

  Niklas grimaced. He knew Blaine was right, but it galled his sense of honor. “Not really,” he said. “Damn.”

  Blaine headed down the road to reclaim his horse. He was limping from the force of the blow he had taken to the knee. When they reached the horses, they saw that, despite the attack, the precious sacks of flour had managed to remain unscathed. “At least your men will have biscuits,” Blaine observed.

  “Saves us a fight or two over scarce rations,” Niklas replied. He swung up to his saddle, favoring his right arm.

  “Look at the bright side,” Blaine said. “Once we make camp, Kestel will insist on fussing over our injuries.”

  Niklas chuckled. “I know you say she’s only a good friend, but you might want to stake your claim. She’s pretty, smart, and knows how to fight. Hard to find that in a woman.” He grinned. “If you’re not going to make a move, I just might.”

  “Just remember that ‘assassin’ is one of her many talents,” Blaine replied. “I wouldn’t start something if you don’t mean to finish it.”

  Niklas grinned. “I always finish what I start,” he said, laughing.

  Blaine chuckled, but as they rode toward camp, something in his eyes gave Niklas to gather that Blaine did not find the comment funny at all.

  CHAPTER NINE

  B

  y the time they set out from camp the next day, Blaine found himself edgy and anxious to get back to Glenreith.

  “Another day, and we should be home,” Blaine said. The camp healer had done an admirable job binding up the gash on his forearm and applying a poultice to his bruised leg, but today, both were sore and made riding miserable. From the way Niklas sat his horse, it was clear he was also feeling the aftereffects of their fight with the madman.

  “We’ve been gone for a long time,” Niklas said. “I know your exile was much longer, but it’s been far too much time away from home for me.”

  Blaine looked out over the horizon. They had ridden for much of the day, and twilight had fallen before they found a suitable place to camp for the night. With the solstice not far off, the days were getting shorter. They were still riding through hill country, past the ramshackle mining villages and the deserted mines sunk like abandoned tombs into the sides of the mountains. There was no sign of life in the tumbledown villages, as if their former residents had abandoned them to the ravages of the Great Fire and the magic storms.

  “Just remember, you’re not the same man who left,” Blaine said quietly.

  Niklas gave him a glance that seemed to see too much. “Spoken from experience?”

  Blaine shrugged. “People move on. Things change. Even without the Great Fire, things would be different.”

  Just then, a strange whistling sound caught their attention. Blaine’s horse began to sidestep nervously, and Blaine felt sudden, blinding pain in his temples. He pulled on the reins, struggling to control his horse, and caught the pommel of his saddle to steady himself.

  “Magic storm coming,” he said in a hoarse voice.

  “We’ve got to get shelter,” Niklas said.

  Blaine glanced at his friend. Niklas’s face was ashen, his eyes wide with fear.

  “You never had any magic,” Blaine observed. “But you feel the storm?”

  Niklas shook his head. “I don’t feel it, but I’ve survived enough of them to know how dangerous they are. And even without magic, they always give me a nasty headache.”

  “Ride for the mines!” Blaine shouted. He turned in his saddle. Looking out over the contingent of men who rode with them, Blaine could see that some looked as if it took effort to remain on their horses. I’m betting they’re the ones who had a touch of magic.

  He did not have to urge twice. In the darkness, it was difficult to see the coming storm. But the high-pitched whistling was louder now, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once. Blaine turned his horse toward the hills, hoping they could reach the shelter of the mines before the storm tore them apart.

  Ahead he saw a man standing in the wide, empty mine road.
As his horse pounded closer, he recognized Geir.

  “Storm’s coming in from the south!” Geir shouted. “Moving fast. I’ve found an entrance that should shelter us. Follow me.”

  Blaine cast a glance toward Niklas, knowing that only the night before, Geir had led an assault on Niklas’s men. To Blaine’s relief, Niklas’s strong practical streak won out over any other feelings he might have had.

  “Follow him!” Niklas shouted to his soldiers. “We’ve got to get to the mines.”

  Blaine could feel a shift in the air. The storm was moving closer. Breathing was difficult, as if the air had become heavier. His headache threatened to make him black out, but Blaine held on to his horse as they closed on the hills. It was still impossible for him to separate the shadows from the entrances to the mines, but he could make out Geir’s form ahead of them, waving his arms to guide them.

  The wind had picked up, bitter cold as the temperature fell. The high-pitched whistle had grown to a dull roar that was disturbingly close.

  Blaine heard a crash as one of the sheds along the mine road blew apart, sending boards and stone fragments flying through the air. The next building sent a shower of stones and wood raining down on them and churned the dirt road into a blinding dust storm.

  Horses whinnied in fear, and men railed at the storm with curses or shouted prayers to the gods. Blaine and Piran were riding on either side of Kestel. She looked ghostly pale, but she held on to her saddle with a white-knuckled grip. Verran and Dawe were right behind, urging their horses on.

  They were close enough now that in the moonlight, Blaine could make out the entrance to which Geir was directing them.

  Two more storage buildings smashed to pieces as the magic storm howled louder behind them. A phosphorescent glow filled the air. Ahead, Blaine could see Geir waving them toward the entrance where torchlight streamed from the opening. Blaine rode toward him at full speed, reaching the mine entrance at the same time as Niklas.

  “Quickly now. Dismount and lead your horses inside,” Geir said. “There’s a broad ramp and a big antechamber. It’ll be tight with the horses, but I think we can all fit.”

  Piran helped Kestel safely inside, followed by Dawe and Verran. “Go toward the back,” Blaine said to Piran. “Make sure we’ve got an orderly process.”

  Piran gave a curt nod and led his and Kestel’s horses deeper into the cave. Geir also moved toward the back, and Blaine was completely confident that between the two of them, no one would get out of hand.

  Verran and Dawe began to light more torches, and within a few moments they could glimpse the scale of the mine’s antechamber. They were in a vast rock room that appeared to Blaine to be part natural cave and part dug-out rock. It was easily as large as the entire first floor of Glenreith, with a high ceiling that sloped lower toward the back of the room. From the rear of the cavern, tunnels led off into darkness. The air smelled of brackish water, soot, and pitch.

  “Keep it moving!” Niklas shouted to the constant stream of men who entered the mine, leading their skittish horses. Outside, Blaine glimpsed the whirlwind he knew to be the magic storm. The air in the whirlwind sparkled like snow in the sunlight, casting an eerie glow across the deserted ruins of the village.

  Two of the last men in line were struggling with their horses, trying to get them into the mine’s entrance. “Leave the horses!” Blaine shouted. “If they won’t come in, forget them and save yourselves!”

  One of the men cursed at his stubborn horse and ran for the mine. The spooked horse bolted. The other soldier continued to struggle with his stallion.

  “To Raka with that idea! I’m not losing a good horse!” he shouted, trying unsuccessfully to drag the frightened animal toward the mine entrance.

  “Get into the mine!” Blaine shouted. The magic storm was dangerously close, and Blaine winced as the pain in his temples grew blinding. His knees buckled, and then strong arms tightened around his chest like iron bands and whisked him into the depths of the mine.

  “Godsforsaken fool,” he heard Geir mutter, but whether the talishte was referring to the obstinate man with the horse, or to Blaine’s attempt to coax the man to safety, Blaine was not sure.

  A man’s bloodcurdling scream and the death cry of a horse echoed at the mine entrance. The magic storm howled outside, and its mass of swirling, coruscating particles lit the entranceway of the mining chamber with a supernatural glow. The wild visithara magic pounded the hills with the physical force of a tornado, while the unharnessed power seemed to ripple through the entire mountainside in waves as powerful as the sea.

  The horses gathered toward the back of the mine stood trembling as if finding themselves in the gaze of a predator. Whether the storm caused them pain, Blaine had no way of knowing, but the horses didn’t bolt, as if they understood how dire the danger.

  Blaine struggled to hold on to consciousness as he collapsed to the ground. He could hear Niklas shouting, but he could not make out the words. Kestel screamed. Others cried out, and Blaine could not say whether or not he had been among them. Pain ebbed and flowed with the storm’s power. Visions danced on the edge of consciousness, in the gray area between waking and nightmares. The shimmering light seemed to be inside his mind, behind his eyelids, and in that deadly glow, Blaine saw the faces of the dead. Prokief. Ian McFadden. His mother. Selane, and so many of those he had known and buried back in Edgeland.

  But the images the storm showed him were not of the dead at rest. In the visions of the visithara magic, the dead faces stared back at him as corpses, ashen, lifeless, their glassy eyes staring accusingly. Trapped in the grip of the storm, reason offered no escape. Like ghouls newly risen from old graves, their images stalked him, surrounded him, incoherent in their anger, relentless in their need.

  The rock walls amplified the roar of the storm so that it felt as if the mountain itself shook to its roots. Blaine feared that at any moment the mine would crash down upon them, but the storm kept him pinned against the floor, unable to move.

  Just when Blaine had become certain that the pressure on his chest and the pounding pain in his temples would kill him, the storm began to abate. Blaine felt the awful weight lift from his chest and gasped in lungfuls of sweet, cold air. The blinding headache faded next, receding from his forehead, his eyes, his temples, and finally from the nexus of pain at the base of his skull.

  By now, Blaine was familiar with the aftereffects: the full-body ache from convulsions and spasms he did not remember, the dry mouth, the raw throat from screams over which he had no control. He groaned and closed his eyes, surrendering for a moment to complete exhaustion.

  “Mick, can you hear me?” Piran bent over him, looking worried.

  Blaine groaned again and accepted Piran’s hand to help him sit up. “What about the others?” Blaine managed.

  Piran cursed. “Kestel, Dawe, and Verran are on their feet, although they were taken down like everyone else. Niklas says his men have lived through storms before, so they know what to expect.”

  Piran was looking at him strangely, and Blaine had the feeling his friend had not said everything he was thinking. “What?”

  Piran shrugged. “Just wonderin’ why you’re the last to get your wits about you. You’ve been out a good few minutes longer than everyone else, and there was no rousing you, even when I shouted in your ear.”

  “No idea,” Blaine said, mustering all his energy to stand. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “Glad to see you on your feet.” Niklas strode up. He looked worried and tired. “Was starting to wonder if we were going to have to throw you in the back of the wagon with the supplies.” His words were joking, but his tone made clear his concern.

  “I’ll be all right,” Blaine assured him with more confidence than he felt. “How about your men?”

  “They’re fine, except for the idiot who didn’t leave his horse,” Niklas replied.

  Geir joined them, and Blaine thought even the talishte looked haggard from the storm’s viol
ence. “Judging from the blood, the storm took them both.” He grimaced.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Niklas said, his expression hard. “I’m ready to go home.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  A

  day later, Glenreith loomed against the twilight sky. Blaine and Piran rode on ahead to warn the guards that the large force approaching the walls was not an invasion. A brief stop at Arengarte had made it plain that while Niklas’s family home could be repaired enough to billet his men, it was going to take some work. In the meantime, a winter storm was brewing, and rations were running thin. Pressing on to Glenreith had been the only real option, and Blaine wanted to prepare his aunt and Edward, the seneschal, for the new arrivals.

  “So that young bloke, the one with a chip on his shoulder, he’s your brother?” Piran asked as the Glenreith gates neared.