Word of Truth

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “Rebuilt it? That’s impossible. It would take years to construct.”

  “I don’t know, but she did it.”

  “She doesn’t play by our rules,” Sora said, then swore. “They won’t be long then.”

  “No,” Mulliner agreed. “A couple of weeks at most. One if they push. Sir Unger has already been informed. Even the women are being called upon to help with preparations. These chains, they’re it. We need every blacksmith arming our people now.”

  Mahi surveyed the inlet, and the many things still left to do. Time was no longer on their side. Nesilia had made a seemingly impossible countermove, yet Mahi wasn’t surprised. Like she’d said to Sora, Muskigo wasn’t even a challenge for her, and he’d nearly brought the Glass Kingdom to its knees.

  She racked her mind, hundreds of years of history through the eyes of other Caleefs for ideas. A new strategy that might work. Some new weapon. None came, as no one had ever faced anything like this.

  This was it. The war of ages had arrived. And she wasn’t afraid, no. She was ready. Even after everything Nesilia had said to her, trying to tempt and taunt her, she had no doubt. This, right here, the tip of the spear, was where she belonged.

  “Then we’d better get to work,” Mahi said. “And fast.”

  XL

  The Knight

  “We all know the plan,” Torsten said.

  “Kill a goddess,” Whitney chimed in. “Easy peasy.”

  Mahi lifted an eyebrow his way. “You are a very strange man,” she said, earning a grin from the former dastardly thief.

  “You have no idea,” Sora said.

  “Sir Unger,” Sir Mulliner intoned, arriving at the Shield Hall’s entry, slightly short of breath. “They’re all here. The Drav Cra, the Shesaitju, and Her.”

  “Then it’s already begun,” Torsten said.

  “The end of an age,” Dellbar added. “Win or lose.”

  “Glory or grave,” Whitney said, voice chipper.

  Torsten looked around the Shield Hall; at the stone-hewn table built for the first King of Glass, and the statues of Wearers come and gone, men Torsten respected above all others. He turned to the large window and the view of Mount Lister, where he’d spent so much time ruminating. He could still picture Liam, Uriah, and other great knights standing around the table. Great and legendary men, who’d inspired the songs of bards across Pantego. The company was much different now, but it was all they had.

  He pointed at Mount Lister and the Royal Crypt. “It all started right there, just beneath that hill. Its where she was buried and where she possessed our late king. Let it end here as well.”

  “Hear, hear,” a few voices said.

  Mahraveh’s destruction of White Bridge had failed. Torsten could only hope that wouldn’t be a foretelling of what was to come. They had all the time they ever would. Yarrington was as ready to fall as it ever would be. Ready to fall, so that Pantego could live.

  “Hovom, bring them,” Torsten said. He waved to the door, and the Royal Blacksmith entered, carrying a cloth bundle that clattered as he moved. Laying it upon the table, he unfurled the end to reveal a cluster of swords and daggers, all beautifully fashioned with gold and gems. Royal weapons.

  “Iam’s golden shog, those are pretty,” Whitney said. He reached for one, but Torsten’s glower stopped him.

  Dellbar let out a soft chuckle at the comment but said nothing.

  “These,” Torsten said, “are the weapons of our buried kings.”

  “Those forged without glaruium, at least,” Hovom added.

  “You raided graves for these?” Whitney reeled his hand all the way back. “Even I don’t do that.”

  “Today, they will stand with us, here, in the city they built as a shrine to Iam beside the holy mountain.”

  “A little on the nose, don’t you think?” Whitney said.

  Sora nudged him.

  “A beautiful gesture,” Lucindur said, offering Torsten a warm smile.

  “We need all the help we can get,” Torsten replied.

  “The Caleefs are all with me,” Mahraveh said. “And my father. He fought to destroy this city and everything its people stood for. Now, we fight to save it.”

  “I grew up with stories of the evil of this place,” Bit’rudam said. “Today, it is an honor to be here with all of you.”

  “They ain’t so bad, huh?” Tum Tum said.

  “Indeed,” Mahraveh said.

  “Well, isn’t this adorable,” Whitney said as he strode around the table, hand hovering over the weapons as if he were a salesman flaunting his wares. “But how are a bunch of old swords going to help? I mean, they are sharp, sure… but will they kill an upyr goddess?”

  “Funny you should ask,” Hovom said, his voice soft but commanding. “Their blades have all been reforged using silver.”

  “Silver,” Sora said at the same time.

  “It’s true,” Torsten said, sliding Salvation, newly dusted with silver, out of his sheath and placing it on the table before them. “We don’t only fight Nesilia, but the body she inhabits. Our respective people fight for their very lives, but if we in this room fail, it’ll all be for naught. If the Buried Goddess is near, do whatever it takes to plunge the silver into her and slow her down. Give your lives if you must. Everyone, take one. I believe you will all find weapons comfortable for use.”

  All eyes fell upon Torsten, and he nodded them along. Whitney shrugged and dove in first, taking two matching daggers once owned by King Remy. Then, one by one, the others took from the pile. A dwarf, a Lightmancer, a Shesaitju—they grasped the weapons of Kings.

  This was Torsten’s last act as Wearer of White, to bring this hodgepodge group of strangers together and make them feel like a King’s Shield of their own.

  Hovom had left the room while everyone selected, then returned and approached Mahraveh.

  “My Lady,” he said. She turned to him. “Our kings never used spears, but Torsten tells me you are proficient with one of these?” he said. “I had one crafted for you, modeled after a historian’s text on the first Afhem of Ayerabi. It’s imbued with a silver tip.”

  Mahraveh received the spear and gave it a spin.

  “It’s perfect,” she said, looking to Torsten.

  Sora went last. Reaching for a small blade, she hesitated. Hovom moved up beside her. “A fine choice. Faith belonged to King Autla himself—the first king of Glass, and the first in the Nothhelm line. They say, he plunged it into the heart of the first Drad who attempted to conquer his lands.”

  Whitney blew a raspberry. “Look at the size of that thing. He probably just used it to open letters.”

  Sora slowly wrapped her fingers around the grip, then glanced up at Torsten. His breath caught for a moment. A mystic holding the legendary blade, Faith, was a sight he never believed he’d see. But if she genuinely was a Nothhelm by blood, it belonged with her. Though he hadn’t yet come to terms with that possibility, he couldn’t allow his feelings to get in the way. To win, they needed Sora. Perhaps, more than anybody there.

  She lifted the weapon to the light and turned it over. The pommel was an eye of Iam sculpted out of crystal. The grip, a map of Yarrington burned into the leather, detailing Yarrington’s origin at a scale only the finest artisans could achieve. And the blade, while recast in silver, curved like a dragon’s fang.

  Her wyvern leaned over from its perch on her shoulder, then chirped.

  “I guess it is pretty,” Whitney remarked, leaning likewise.

  Sora bit her lower lip, then looked up at Torsten. They nodded at one another before she looped its sheath around her waist. After that, nobody spoke a word. They all silently stared around the room from one pair of eyes to the next as the gravity of what was to come sank in.

  “May we all meet at the Gate of Light,” Dellbar said, breaking the eerie silence.

  “Or right back here,” Whitney said. “I’ve got a feeling Iam wouldn’t let me in even if I knocked and asked nicely.”

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nbsp; “He would,” Torsten said. “You are the greatest hero Pantego never wanted, Whitney Fierstown. All of you are. Today, the Buried Goddess falls for good.”

  “Aye!” Tum Tum chanted, alone.

  A few others followed, but no chorus of cheers came, as would fill the war camps before Liam’s great battles. The solemn silence returned, and after a handful of firm, knowing looks, Torsten said, “Prepare for battle.”

  He turned and headed for the exit. On his way by Sir Mulliner, he took him by the pauldron. “You held me to account when I didn’t deserve the White Helm. We may not have a King to shield, but it has been an honor and a privilege, my friend.”

  “I was right then. I’m honored now,” he said, returning the gesture. “If Liam is up there, looking down. His legacy is safe in your hands.” He closed his eyes and looked up. ‘We are the Armor of Your Holy Kingdom. Our lives are given freely under the sight of your Vigilant Eye, so Your children may thrive in this world You have blessed us with.”

  “’We are the right hand of Iam,” Torsten said. “The sword of His justice, and the Shield that guards the light of this world.’”

  “We finally fulfill our oaths,” Mulliner said.

  Torsten grinned. “Took us long enough.”

  There was no more to say. Torsten had been the enemy of nearly everyone in the Shield Hall, or their fathers. Only Sir Mulliner had tossed him into a dungeon cell and forced him to atone. And the hard, dour Shieldsman would never know how much that loyalty to what they stood for meant to Torsten.

  He glanced back one last time as the others bade farewell. Whitney held Sora in an embrace, not bothering to fight back his tears. She buried her face in his shoulder, Aquira tangled in her hair.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” Whitney said. “I don’t like this.”

  “It’s the way it has to be,” Sora replied.

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “Well, trust in me.” Sora pulled her head back and kissed him. It was an awfully effective way to keep the man quiet, but Torsten could tell every ounce of her being was poured into that kiss, which might be their last.

  The others bid farewell also, in their own ways. Even strangers embraced, showing love for former foes.

  Yes, they were ready. And so was Torsten. In fact, he was oddly calm as he moved through the castle, past all the defenses being established in order to protect Lucindur. Blocked doors. Spike traps. Layers of Serpent Guards and former Shieldsmen at choke points—all to buy her as much time as possible when they made their move.

  He was calm as he emerged into the entry courtyard, filled with archers and more barriers. Conscripts were still being armed. Commanders barked orders from on the walls, moving these untrained, terrified men into position. Most were shaking. But now that the armies of their enemies had arrived, nobody protested. They’d seen the hordes of death and knew it was time to fight or die.

  Shieldsmen saluted as Torsten passed through the castle gates. Carpenters still hammered at spikes along the wall’s base. Men atop the ramparts yanked on pulleys to heave barrels of arrows and rocks for catapults. And out on the streets, armored men marched in every direction. Their clothing and armor didn’t match like Liam had always insisted upon. These men wore anything that could be scrounged up. For every Glass soldier in shiny iron, there were others in furs pilfered from what Redstar’s Drav Cra had left behind, shoddily crafted leather hauberks—anything.

  To Torsten’s left, all the way down in Old Yarrington, mansions were shuttered and filled with women and children. They huddled on the streets, in the tents around the Cathedral, everywhere Torsten could see. They, too, were armed, mothers with pitchforks and children with hammers and the like. Priests walked among them, praying in clusters as they all made their way to the Eastern Gate to stand with Torsten against demons and worse.

  Whatever it took, it would be done.

  Torsten marched down the Royal Avenue toward the markets, desperate to remember things as they were and not how they would become. But it was already too late. Homes became abandoned outside Old Yarrington, sanctuaries for archers now. All the taverns and shops he’d passed countless times before—silent. As were so many things, it was eerie. Never in his life had this strip of the city been so quiet.

  Then, he reached the market square—the heart of their defense against Nesilia’s monsters. The catapults were all loaded, manned throughout the square. Thousands of archers filled every foot of space. Legions of soldiers waited behind the gates, no real idea of what was to come. The front line carried the heater shields of Torsten’s Order, though, they weren’t all Shieldsmen. The giant, Uhlvark, helped pin heavy wooden beams behind the gates as extra reinforcement.

  Making his way through the sea of iron and Glassmen, Torsten received shaky salutes from every direction. He could smell the terror in their blood. He could hear the muffled cries as they bid farewell to loved ones. And most of all, they could feel the cold.

  Even though it was summer, as Nesilia approached, her dark cloud from Panping spread. Snow flurries floated through the air on the brisk breeze kissing Torsten’s cheeks. But that was Nesilia. No need for stealth any longer. No hiding behind the faces of friends as Redstar had done. She’d announced her arrival with the very flourish they’d hoped would be her undoing.

  Torsten climbed the Eastern watchtower, up to the ramparts, and stepped out to the landing above the city’s main gates. His hands clasped the stone ledge, and he gazed out, his blessed vision allowing him to see despite the darkness Nesilia had drowned the city in.

  Nesilia’s army didn’t just stretch across the horizon, it was the horizon. From the southern woods to the lower slope of Mount Lister—a mass of blackness. Creatures and possessed men with no need for torches. Even from so far away, he could hear the otherworldly growls and cackling.

  Further north came a break in the army, then the Drav Cra. They seemed civilized compared to their allies, but equally terrifying. Torches lit the massive furry legs and long curved tusks of chekt. Dire wolves snarled, dancing at their feet. Berserker warriors, shaking with anticipation, finally had a chance to avenge their late Arch Warlock.

  Never, in all Torsten’s life, had Yarrington seemed so small. And while he wasn’t high enough to see all the way west to the harbor, Shesaitju horns rang out, signaling the approach of the enemy fleet.

  “By Iam,” Torsten whispered to himself, circling his eyes.

  He looked left, then right, at all the archers witnessing the same. Their fear was palpable. Even with so many present, the silence was thick and tangible. Torsten could hear the staggered breathing all around the city. Even those who proudly wore Glassmen armor—trained soldiers. Nobody prayed or cried. Instead, they were stunned into silence.

  Nesilia’s army marched at a slow pace, almost purposefully, as if she wanted to amplify the sense of terror. Knowing her, that was indeed the plan. With every minute, more of them flooded through the Haskwood Thicket and into the open farmland around Yarrington, the sea of blackness ever-expanding.

  “She sure knows how to make an entrance,” Dellbar said, using his cane to move up beside Torsten.

  “If only you could see it,” Torsten replied.

  “Don’t need to.”

  Turning to him, Torsten noticed priests taking up intermittent posts throughout his own army. “Are they ready?”

  “No,” Dellbar said. “But is anyone truly ever ready to die?”

  Torsten exhaled slowly, the supernatural coldness stinging against his teeth.

  “Are you?” Dellbar asked.

  “Close enough.” Torsten’s fingers squeezed the stone, then he leaned out over the wall and yelled, “Nesilia! Show yourself!”

  A wave of hissing and sinister laughter responded. They began to chant something in a language Torsten didn’t know. Beside him, and all over the city, soldiers shuddered at the sound. He could feel their fear. Hairs all over his body stood on end, but he bit back his terror and stood taller.
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  “Are you too cowardly to face me yourself?” he called out.

  The demonic refrain grew louder. He could hear it above him, behind him—all around. The soldiers whispered in dread and searched all around, hopeful, he thought, that someone might tell them to drop their weapons and surrender. Torsten didn’t take the bait. His gaze remained fixed until the dark army split at the middle.

  Nesilia strolled through the center, out into the open. In the darkness, he wasn’t sure if anybody else but he could see, but there she was. The mystic Sora and Whitney claimed to be Bliss floated at her side, the hem of her red robe whipping like tendrils of flame.

  The two stared directly at Torsten, only, they weren’t alone. To Nesilia’s left marched a man all-too-familiar. Rand Langley, decked out in full Shieldsman armor, as if he was all that remained of the Order Torsten had abandoned. Unlike the others, he looked to the ground, so Torsten couldn’t see his face, but he knew it was him.

  This man whom Torsten had trained, fought beside, trusted… somehow he had survived being on the brink of death in Latiapur.

  “Just because he is lost, doesn’t mean you must join him,” Dellbar said.

  “I should’ve made sure he was dead.” Torsten’s lip twitched as he withheld his rage.

  “Killing our King wasn’t enough for you, Rand?” Torsten shouted down.

  Nesilia, Bliss, and Rand stopped just out of range of arrows. Rand said nothing, simply continued staring at the earth.

  “Rand Langley has seen the truth of this world,” Nesilia replied, her voice echoing from all directions, just as the demons’ had. It was as booming as it was sultry, each syllable causing some of Torsten’s soldiers to wince. “He seeks to purge it of liars and thieves.”

  “He can’t speak for himself?” Torsten answered. “Or have you possessed him, too.”

  “Rand is here of his own free will.”

  “Just like the cursed army at your back?”

  Nesilia laughed. “They were, all of them, cast out and forgotten by your God. Just as you abandoned poor Rand.”