The Seventh World Trilogy omnibus

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  “Order the hordes forward; trample the men,” said Morning Star. “Send them up the sides of the gorge.” The creature bowed again and took off, the other two flying after it, short swords in their hands. Morning Star turned to the hillside where the Ploughman and his riders battled in explosions of gold and black. His eyes narrowed.

  The fires were dying down.

  Morning Star closed his eyes and raised his hands, feeling the power of the covenant flame surge through him. On the mountainside, blue flame shot up again, undampened by the rain.

  “Come,” Morning Star called. “Come and fight!”

  And in the smoke and flame, creatures took shape and stepped through the Veil.

  * * *

  Above the pass, Jack O’Roarke shook his sandy head in frustration. “It won’t light!” he yelled. Lilac, rain running through her hair and down her neck, every inch of her clothing sodden, threw the fuse down in the mud. “There’s no use!” she shouted.

  Stocky called back from his position on the other side of the rock. “It has to work!” he cried.

  Lilac and Jack looked at each other and mutely shook their heads. There was nothing they could do. They were stationed in a carved-out shelter on the edge of the gorge, a shelter now flooding with the rain. Moments later Stocky appeared above them. “Cut it then,” he said.

  “Waste the fuse?” Jack said.

  “It’s no good regardless,” Stocky argued. “We can climb down—light the individual fuses. They won’t have flooded like this.”

  Lilac peered wide-eyed over the edge. Far below, she could see the soldiers swimming in the muck of the pass, water still pouring down over their heads. They were pushing logs and wreckage into the pass, making a way through—as the clann had known they would. Strapped to the sides of the pass where the soldiers could not see them were clusters of rockets, fire ready to rain down upon the invaders as soon as they had conquered the flooding.

  “It’s too treacherous,” she said. But Jack had already crawled out of the hollow and was lowering himself over the side, grasping the soaked ropes that formed netted ladders down to the rockets. “Good man!” Stocky said. “Where are the—”

  He was cut off when Jack loosed a surprised yell and lost one handhold. He was dangling from the netting. A creature clung to his ankle, raising a dagger. Stocky aimed and threw his own sword into the gorge, piercing the creature through the shoulder. It shrieked and let go, falling back. Jack swung himself back to the netting and grabbed ahold again, but now they could all see them, black creatures swarming up the sides of the pass.

  Lilac and Stocky grabbed Jack’s arms and hauled him back up, but before he was fully on land again, a slender shape shot past them all and jumped down to the netting. Straw-coloured hair was dark with rain.

  Archer.

  Nimble and fearless as a mountain goat, the boy leaped from handhold to handhold, lowering himself faster than seemed humanly possible. He held the netting with one hand only; there was a torch in the other hand, light bobbing through the damp as he jumped, and before they could gather their wits the fire had lit a fuse, and three rockets burst from the side of the pass. Two ricocheted off the lower rocks, knocking a handful of shrieking creatures loose to fall back to the bottom. Jack cheered, and they heard an answering whoop from Archer.

  Lilac shook her head. “Gifted boy,” she said with a smile.

  Stocky turned just as Lilac shoved a lit torch into his hand and pushed him lightly in the shoulder. Without a word he dropped over the side, following Archer’s example, if more slowly. Jack went next, and then Lilac herself, crossing the rope bridge over the chasm first to let herself down the other side. Archer lit another set of rockets, and they shrieked away from the walls and blasted another contingent of wall-climbers loose.

  Jack reached a cluster of rockets, and holding tightly to the netting with his knees, he used his other hand to jerk them free from their previous positions and aim them more advantageously at the enemy climbing the walls. His heart went into his throat when he looked down into huge black eyes so close he could see his reflection in them. He grabbed the netting and swung the torch down, wielding it like a sword. The creature screamed and covered its eyes, falling, but more were beneath it.

  Jack scrambled up higher, out of their reach, and lit the fuses as fast as he could. They were almost upon him—and then a volley of rocks showered down, hitting the creatures in the heads, in the shoulders, knocking them back, jarring them loose and sending them hurtling down. Jack looked up. Silhouetted against the sky, Cali and Jenna, his sisters, aimed and threw more rocks.

  Across the chasm, Jack could see Lilac struggling to light the fuses on a cluster of rockets that hadn’t been shielded as effectively from the rain. She cheered as they caught fire and launched themselves—and then the netting where she clung came loose, tearing away from the chasm wall and dropping her six feet down. She clung to the netting, struggling to pull herself back up, desperate to keep from slipping…

  And in the next instant the black creatures had reached her. Jack watched in unbelief as they tore her grip loose and she fell to the flooded, fiery chasm below.

  He heard himself crying out in grief and rage, felt himself climbing the netting to another rocket cluster, felt the power and the fire that loosed into the army below, bringing death and devastation. And then they were on him too, hands grabbing at his ankles and his legs and then his back and arms and neck, and Jack was torn off the side of the pass and flung into the open air.

  At the top of the gorge, Cali screamed. Her hands shook and dropped a rocky missile; she dropped to her knees and scrambled for it in the mud. Jenna was still throwing them, still fighting. Cali’s fingers closed around the rock, and she struggled to her feet, just in time to see the black shapes cresting the top of the chasm—many of them now, swarming over the sides, over their last hopes.

  * * *

  Over the sea, a storm was in full force. Pat, Nicolas, Maggie, and Miracle bailed with all their might, clinging to the boat. They could see nothing but swelling waves and a dark sky. Huss’s beard and eyes ran with rain, shadowy rain that seemed to enrage the water. The wind shrieked around them, whipping his wet hair into his face. Black clouds swirled overhead.

  “It’s no use!” he shouted. “This is no natural storm!”

  Pat bailed an armload of water over the side and coughed as another wave poured in, undoing all of her work and knocking her momentarily off her feet. She looked into Huss’s face. He had stopped working and was simply standing in the ship.

  “Well, then, what do you suggest we do?” she shouted.

  For a single moment the storm stilled to a duller roar, and Huss said, “I suggest we pray!”

  His eyes widened. Pat whipped her head around just in time to see the wave. It knocked the breath from her lungs even as the ship splintered beneath them, and in the next instant the world had dissolved beneath her feet and she was underwater, bone-cold, black.

  She kicked and beat the water with her arms, and a moment later her head was above the waves again, and she whipped dark hair out of her eyes and cried, “Maggie!”

  A wave wiped out the world once more, and when she came up again, coughing and spluttering, she could see Maggie only feet away. She struck out toward her. Maggie was bleeding from a cut over her eye, but her eyes were bright, and she was treading water as she looked around frantically.

  “Huss! Nicolas!” Maggie called.

  Pat grabbed a floating piece of the boat and shoved it in Maggie’s direction, reaching for another to buoy herself up.

  The storm would kill them.

  If the storm didn’t kill them, Morning Star was still waiting.

  And if the Gifted drowned, all hope of bringing the King back was gone.

  “Help us!” Pat screamed. Her eyes to the sky, she swept the black clouds and tried desperately to see beyond them. “Help us! King, power of good, power of right! Help us now! Hear us!”

  She heard M
aggie’s voice under hers, singing, somehow giving Pat’s voice greater power and carrying it up to the clouds.

  And suddenly, a break came in the clouds and sunlight poured through, striking the water just beyond them where Miracle and Nicolas were, clinging to a single plank and holding Huss by the collar of his robe.

  Maggie stopped singing. “There is something…” she said.

  Something in the water. Something making the sea itself tremble.

  The gap in the clouds widened, and the waves shot up in a whirling cone to meet the sunlight, a cyclone of water and light bursting up from below.

  Pat and Maggie had drifted just close enough to hear Huss’s awed words.

  “The Sea-Father!”

  And then came the rush of wings and the howling cries of the Blackness, and a swarm was flying toward them from the shore. The cyclone broke apart in the middle to reveal the shape of a great man, aged but strong, bearing a trident in his hand. He lifted it to meet the assault of Morning Star’s hordes, but even as he fought, Pat saw one of the winged creatures taking Miracle against her struggles, and another taking Maggie, and another wrestling with Nicolas, and the gap in the clouds closed as bone-shattering thunder sounded. Huss disappeared beneath the waves, and Pat struck out after him.

  * * *

  The Ploughman stood surrounded on a smoldering mountainside, the fire still battling to hold its own against the rain, smoke rising in pillars all around. The bodies of slain enemies lay at his feet, a hundred or more, heaped and broken, and sand blew around him—all that was left of his Golden Riders. He was wounded and bleeding, but still he stood, swords in both hands, daring one more enemy to come near.

  But they were hundreds strong, and they were all around him. He could not see beyond their ranks. Overhead the sky had turned black with clouds; the air was thick with rain; the world had closed in on every side and it was over now.

  Much of the blood soaking the ground beneath him was his own.

  The hordes broke ranks, and Morning Star stepped forward. The Ploughman lifted one sword. Morning Star lifted his hand as if in greeting. And the warrior collapsed.

  * * *

  Chapter 16: Woven

  The Usurper crossed the battleground and stood over the Ploughman.

  Morning Star could hear the victorious shrieking of his hordes as they poured through the pass, bringing the escapees back. Winged creatures flew over and dropped the struggling figures into the midst of the hordes. The creatures of the Blackness formed circles around them, keeping them separated, jabbing and taunting them. The gorge was abandoned; silence, smoke, and the bodies of the dead the only reminders of the clann’s last stand.

  Morning Star picked each one out with his eyes: the Singer, small and frightened. The Listener, foolish Gypsy with a sword in his hand, trying to fight with creatures that teased and taunted him. The Healer. Beautiful as the Nameless One remembered her.

  A cruel smile stretched across his face as memories of Miracle flooded through him, memories linked forever to the Nameless One’s body. He marched down into the throng, his creatures parting for him, until he stood across from the Healer. Her face went white at the sight of him, but she held her head high and said nothing.

  To the left, Nicolas fell under a blow.

  “They are all dead,” Morning Star said. “The Clann O’Roarke has fallen, and you are unprotected once again.” He drew a crooked knife from beneath his cloak and held its point toward Miracle. She did not flinch.

  He smiled. In one swift move he grasped the hilt in the palm of his hand and shoved the knife deep into Miracle’s ribs. She gasped and doubled over the blow, struggling for air or voice as her eyes lost focus. He clenched his fist in her hair and held her up for a moment before pulling the knife out and letting go. She fell to her knees in the dirt. All around, the Blackness shrieked with sadistic glee.

  Her breath still coming in short gasps, Miracle’s eyes refocused. She looked at Morning Star with an expression he could not read. He watched as her breathing slowly grew less laboured, as the blood that soaked her clothes and covered her hands ceased to flow.

  “I wonder how many times we can kill you,” he said. He lifted his foot, planted it against her shoulder, and shoved her into the dirt. She lay there, still looking up at him, her expression a mixture of triumph and pain. She was healing. She said, with all the breath she could gather, “It is the King’s might that heals. And it is not failing.”

  Beyond them, a song lifted over the ashy wind, into the torn sky. Maggie was singing in the midst of overwhelming darkness, singing like a fool. Morning Star looked away from Miracle toward the Singer.

  Behind Maggie, the air wavered. And then he saw them—and realized, with his own eyes widening, what he was seeing.

  Four figures coming out of the pass. A woman with the long hair of the Darkworld priests. A boy in whose footsteps plants grew.

  And a teenage boy with a dark-haired woman holding his arm.

  He knew the last two at once. The Six were gathered.

  As they stepped out of the gorge, energy like lightning tore through the valley and over the sides of the mountains, blasting back the Blackness like so many flies. It caught Morning Star in a whirlwind of power and swept him away, and as he fought the blast, he howled with rage. The energy was not lightning, nor was it anything created by the Gifted themselves. It might have been laughter, or hilarious joy, though the survivors in the valley could not feel it. And it said to the Blackness that the Gifted were woven together at last.

  * * *

  Chapter 17: Following

  Maggie’s voice carried over the bodies and the wrecked ground, through valley air shifting with dust and smoke. “Virginia,” she said.

  The hordes had vanished. Morning Star himself had vanished. The sides of the mountains still reverberated with a sense of power, of whatever had happened when the Six drew near each other for the first time. The mountains were still on fire, but even that was dying down.

  Virginia picked her way across the wreckage, guided carefully by Roland. Their companions had lingered at the entrance to the pass, two shadowy figures holding back from a scene at once sacred and horrific. Virginia reached Maggie and grasped her hand. Roland looked around the valley with tears in his eyes. He spotted Miracle, and with a sword still in one hand, he jumped over the torn ground and knelt beside her.

  “Healer?” he asked.

  She smiled up at him. Her hand was slick with blood, shaking as she took the hand he offered, but colour was coming back into her face, and her voice did not waver when she spoke. “Help me up,” she said.

  Kieran’s dark head appeared at Roland’s side, and Miracle gasped. “Kieran?”

  He hesitated a moment.

  “Kieran, do you not know me?” Miracle asked.

  “Where—” He stopped. He seemed to be struggling to remember, to put into words memories and questions still too vague for expression. But then, all at once, recognition came over him, and he paled. “Where is Michael?” he asked. “Grandmother? Everyone?”

  Tears running down her face, Miracle knelt with Roland’s help, and she opened her arms to the boy and embraced him. “We thought we had lost you,” she said.

  He shook as he clung to her. “Where are they?” he asked. “Are they all dead?”

  Miracle pushed him back a little and took his face between her hands. Her own face was streaming with tears, but still her voice was steady. “You are not,” she said. “The clann is not dead. You are changed, lost one, but still alive.” She whispered, “I don’t know about the others. The King knows, Kieran. The King knows.”

  Slowly, she pushed herself up to her feet, and her eyes fixed on the dark shape of the Ploughman’s body. With Kieran’s help, she reached him and rolled him onto his back. She seemed to be growing stronger by the moment. The Ploughman was bloodstained and filthy, wounded and torn so it was hard to see exactly where he was hurt. She knelt, rested her hands on his shoulders, and bowed he
r head.

  Great Light, Great King, let your healing flow through me.

  He groaned, and in a few minutes put his hand to his head and sat up, drawing his legs under him slowly as though he wasn’t sure he could trust them. He shook his head to clear confusion. Nicolas limped up, and Miracle took his hand and let him draw her back to her feet. When she was standing once again, the wound in Nicolas’s leg had closed.

  The others gathered around, slowly.

  “The Blackness is gone?” Maggie asked.

  Virginia shook her head. “It is only temporary. Our coming together drove them back somehow—but they will return, and stronger.”

  “And yet,” Nicolas said, looking around at the devastation, “and yet, how great is our power! It is as we knew it would be. Together, we are incredibly strong.”

  Miracle looked at him. She was pale, and her face was streaked with blood and dirt. “Strong, but too weak to do what matters most.” Her voice broke, and she drew Kieran to her side and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. She rested her chin on his head and looked out toward the hills. “If I have the power to heal, tell me why I cannot raise the dead.”

  There was silence. Then Roland spoke.

  “We will—we will help you bury them,” he said.

  It was the only thing to be said. The Ploughman and Nicolas nodded, and as one they turned toward the pass and the mountains on either side, where the bodies of the Clann O’Roarke would be found.

  Virginia stood alone. She did not tell anyone what she could see—the depth, the magnitude of Miracle’s unexpressed grief. Pain so raw and deep it was like the attack of the Spider, threatening to steal life and joy and every hope of a future.