Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “And the Waverunners?” Marielle asked.

  “Are fools.” He spat. “Every one of them.”

  “But you are not from over the ocean,” Marielle said. “You are from the canals of the Dragonblood Plains.”

  His smile held no humor. “Correct. Which is why I know enough to hate their fanaticism. Satisfied now?”

  “I think I am,” Marielle said.

  She was watching the shadows, sucking in deep breaths of air and concentrating on every smell. Throughout Rajit’s story, she’d seen tiny flickers of movement in the shadows and faint hints of scent – on both sides. If she wasn’t mistaken – and her nose rarely was – then Liandari and Anglarok were listening. Tamerlan had been right that finding the right bait was better than hunting them down. And it turned out Rajit and his blasphemous story was also a kind of bait.

  “Tell me, Rajit, is that why the Waverunners call the Retribution dangerous?”

  “In part,” Rajit said. “The other part is that if they ever put their mark on you, they can call you to them.”

  “Their mark?” Marielle asked, her hand drifting up to the windrose above her heart.

  “A map of some kind, I think. And a way to read it. It’s magical. They add to it with tattoos, but it also adds to itself and they can use it to call you. They call it a gift, but it’s just a tie to bind you to their will. That’s why we – why the Waverunners – say never to accept gifts from them. They fear the mark. And they fear what it can do.”

  As if his words had triggered it, the Windrose above Marielle’s heart began to burn.

  8: From the Shadows

  Tamerlan

  Tamerlan paused for a moment beside a fully intact building. This whole street was still intact as if the fires had left one small corridor alone. Fallen masonry and scattered items on the street were the only signs that the street was part of a ruined city. The cobblestones still formed a whole street. Swirls of carefully wrought iron around the city braziers still imitated the flames the braziers would usually hold. Along the walls of the buildings, stone masonry was precision fit to perfect points and angles. Carved workings of iguanas and leaping fish decorated the mantles above the doors or graced the edges of stained-glass windows still flashing in place in the afternoon sun despite the ravages done to the rest of the city.

  The building beside him bore a copper plate that said, “Legend Bookbindery.”

  It looked older than anything else on the street – as if the rest of the buildings had been built around it.

  “I think we should try the Timeless Library first,” Etienne said but before Tamerlan could answer, he collapsed to the ground hands over his ears.

  “Etienne?” Tamerlan asked his heart suddenly racing as he reached toward him.

  A cry from Marielle stopped him before he touched the other man. He twisted to see what was caused her cry. She wrenched at her shirt, opening the front of it enough to show the Windrose tattoo on her chest burning bright as the sun.

  She gasped, swaying where she stood just a pace behind him. He took a step toward her, arms stretched out to help, but not sure what he could do. She looked at him, lips parting with a vulnerable tremble, pain and confusion filling her eyes.

  “Marielle? Are you hurt?”

  Why was that mark glowing on her chest and what did it have to do with Etienne’s –

  An arrow whistled through the air, clattering when it hit the stone just inches from Marielle’s head.

  Tamerlan grabbed her arm, pulling her toward him as he wrenched the door of the Bookbindery open and shoved her inside. A second arrow skittered across the cobbled street.

  “Help him get inside!” Tamerlan screamed to Rajit but though the boy’s lips moved, Tamerlan couldn’t hear what he was saying. The Legends were screaming in his head.

  Free us! NOW! Enough waiting! We will have you!

  Something battered against his self-control and for a moment his grip on himself was lost as Lila stole his body. She drew his sword, but before she could take a step, he shoved her aside, seizing himself back and pulling Etienne by the arm, practically throwing him and Rajit into the bookbindery. They both stumbled through the door, and Tamerlan hurried after them, closing and barring the door behind him.

  His breath was puffing out in wild bursts. Who could be attacking them? Was it Anglarok or Liandari?

  Free us! We will help! Don’t die like this!

  He had enough time to glance around the front room, his hands shaking as he fought off another assault by the Legends in his mind. There was a long wooden counter and the floor-to-ceiling shelves of books. It looked like a library – only the books clearly weren’t to be borrowed or for sale. They were being displayed – their spines chained to the shelves. He recognized the illuminated pages of Elroth’s Age of the Legends and Valgariath’s Dragonblooded. There would be more he recognized on those shelves, too. This was clearly a prized collection. Someone needed to save these books while they still could. What did it say about the people of the Dragonblood Plains that no one had come back for them?

  Tamerlan glanced around. Was the room secured?

  “Back,” Marielle gasped. Her forehead was damp with sweat and her eyes looked wild. She threw her fur cloak off and wrenched her shirt over her left shoulder. Spidering out from the Windrose was what looked like a map tattooing itself across her shoulder in golden light as Tamerlan watched. She bit her lip and red blood formed in droplets along her white teeth.

  Tamerlan gasped, taking one of her hands. “Hold on, Marielle!”

  Rajit ran to the back and ducked his head through a door. “Leather and snips and workbenches. That must be where they bind the books. There are barrels of supplies and sheets of vellum.”

  “Can you lock the door?” Tamerlan asked. His hands were twitching. He could feel the Legends trying to grab him again.

  Stop fighting us! We are your only hope!

  Rebellious child!

  “Not to the outside but maybe to this room,” Rajit replied.

  Smoke or we’ll take you by force! Lila threatened.

  Had he ever thought she was the nice Legend?

  Oh, I can be nice. I can be amazing. But not right now when we need you to do what you are told. If you don’t, everyone will die and the world will burn.

  He didn’t believe her. She was lying to him.

  “Lies,” Etienne moaned from where he lay on the floor with his hands over his ears. “All lies! I defy you, father of darkness!”

  Tamerlan shivered. Was he that insane?

  “There’s nothing to bar the door with!” Rajit called.

  “Try!” Tamerlan said. He sheathed his sword so he could use both hands.

  The sound of breaking glass pierced the air as one of the red windowpanes smashed and the stained glass fell to the floor around another arrow – or was it a crossbow quarrel? No time to check. There were shutters on the inside of the stained-glass windows. Tamerlan hurried to swing them shut and secure them. It left the room black as night except for the glow from Marielle’s magical tattoos.

  The light from them throbbed painfully as they spidered across her exposed neck, shoulder, and chest.

  There was the sound of steel striking flint. Again.

  Light flared from where Marielle stood, green-faced, her clothing ripped right off her shoulder and the skin an angry red around the tattoo. She lit a pair of lanterns on the long wood counter.

  Tamerlan swallowed. “It’s like they are attacking us from every side.”

  “Who?” Marielle asked.

  “The Legends.”

  There was a thunk from up above.

  “Stairs,” Tamerlan said, licking his lips. They were dry and parched. Drier now that fear filled his veins.

  “There were stairs in the back,” Rajit said.

  Tamerlan glanced toward the rear door. It didn’t look very strong. “We need to reinforce it.”

  He scrambled to behind the counter, searching for something, anything.
Hmm. An old sword was under the counter. Warily, he slotted it in a crack between the floorboards and heaved. There was a groan and a squeak as the nails moved in the wood of the floorboards.

  Again.

  A floorboard pulled up and he wrestled it free, shoving it to Rajit. “Here. Use it to reinforce the back door.”

  Something hit the front door hard. A shoulder perhaps. Sweating, Tamerlan turned back to his work, wrestling with the floorboards again. Another squeak. Another board freed. He heaved it aside and then paused. There was a small oilskin package placed under the floorboard. Tamerlan pulled aside the oilcloth to reveal a small leather-bound book. A strange place to put a book. Especially one that wasn’t chained down like the others.

  He shoved the second board at Rajit along with the rusty sword. “Take this. Use it if you have to.”

  The moment Rajit took it, Tamerlan fell to his knees as his mind was battered by Deathless Pirate, his hands limp and useless at his side. The book fell from his hands.

  Stop resisting! I’m boarding this ship!

  “Why couldn’t it just be Byron Bronzebow?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  Haven’t you noticed that he’s been missing lately?

  Missing? What was he talking about?

  Do you think that Queen Mer was the first avatar slain by the Grandfather?

  That couldn’t be true, could it?

  The door rang with blows from outside and something smashed the glass on the other side of the shutters.

  “They’re going to get in!” Rajit yelled frantically as the back door bowed against the boards he was frantically wedging in place.

  Marielle drew her sword.

  No! She shouldn’t have to fight alone. She swayed on his feet, her face pale and sweat forming on her brow.

  “It pulls,” she muttered. “It pulls at me. It demands a response.”

  Tamerlan gritted his teeth, forcing himself up to one knee only to be pushed back down to all fours.

  Surrender or die, city dweller!

  Tamerlan fought back, shoving himself to his feet and swaying there for a moment. His mind was wild as he fought for control of himself.

  You can’t fight forever. Eventually, you will grow distracted, or you will go to sleep, or you will realize we are right and then we will have you.

  “Why do you think Jingen flew again?” Etienne asked from where he thrashed on the floor. “That wasn’t for no reason.”

  To anyone else, it would have sounded like mad ravings, but Tamerlan knew Etienne was answering his question.

  “Because the avatar holding him was slain?” Was he hearing Tamerlan’s conversations with the Legends? Or maybe Tamerlan had spoken them aloud. He couldn’t remember if he had. “But then why take so long? Choan began to rise first! And Maid Chaos was the third one killed.” He was saying between gritted teeth as he fought a mental battle for his own mind.

  Deathless Pirate slipped through, slamming the book down on the wooden counter and drawing Tamerlan’s sword, raising it above his head.

  “The Eye,” Etienne gasped. “Your Eye must have held it for a while longer.”

  At least he’d done something – that one thing – and it had been enough to pin the dragon in place for a short while longer. It had been a ridiculous sacrifice for so small a victory, but at least he could point to one thing he’d done that actually helped people.

  It filled him with a burst of hope. A feeling like maybe there was still a way out if he chose the right sacrifices.

  It was enough.

  Tamerlan rallied, shoving Deathless Pirate out of control of his body and seizing it back. He lowered the sword in trembling hands. Why had Deathless Pirate wanted this book destroyed? He opened the cover of it with one hand while Etienne spoke. He was pulling himself to his feet now and drawing a sword in a trembling grip, his slow footsteps taking him to the window shutter as it rocked against steady blows. The last of the glass clattered and broke.

  “He must have killed Byron Bronzebow before he got to Choan. That’s how we caught up with him. We shouldn’t have been able to catch up, but we did,” Etienne said.

  Tamerlan wasn’t listening. He was staring at the first line scrawled across the page.

  “This is the Chronicle of Ram the Hunter. These are his vile deeds done for the sake of mankind. May he be accursed forever.”

  “It’s the Harbingers outside,” Marielle said. “I can smell them. Their call is impossible to resist.”

  As if to prove the point, she took a reluctant step toward the door.

  Tamerlan shoved the book inside his shirt and hurried to where she stood, sword held out, sweat pouring down the sides of her face. She was fighting an internal battle as difficult as his and Etienne’s. He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to give her support with just that touch. It was hard not to do more – not to lean down and kiss her precious lips. Not to tell her he’d spend the last drop of his life’s blood for her if only she asked for it. But he didn’t dare distract her. Not when this battle was for her life.

  “Resist them,” he said. “You have to resist. We can’t give in to them now. They are avatars of the Legends and the Legends are trying to destroy us all.”

  9: Trapped in a Bookbindery

  Marielle

  The swirl of smells turned her stomach and stole her breath away. Madness swirled in the air from every side – the madness of the Legends which seemed to burst with pungent urgency every time they attacked the doors and windows – for two people they seemed to be everywhere at once – and the madness swirling in streaks of scent from Etienne and Tamerlan as they battled the Legends in their own minds for control of their bodies.

  And pain made her feel faint as the burning of her tattoo intensified. Each time she took a step toward the door, the pain decreased, only to return when she refused to take another.

  There was a clatter from above them and the scent of elderflower was everywhere. Were the Harbingers on the floor above or had the dragon’s movements simply knocked something loose?

  Marielle’s windrose gave another flare of burning pain.

  “Seas send as you may, wind blow as you may, I am but a ship on the waters. I am but a vessel of justice and righteousness. Though many waters roll below me, though waves crash all around, still I am whole on the peak of chaos, still I climb to the top of the spray.”

  When she got that mark, that’s what they had her swear. She had sworn to help the Harbingers bring justice. She had sworn not to let the waves of life batter her to uselessness.

  Well, justice would be brought. Chaos would be quelled. And she was going to start with the Legends. And she was going to free the Harbingers if she could. They didn’t deserve this. They’d only been trying to save her when they were colonized by the Legends.

  Tamerlan was right that the Legends were the enemy now – an enemy intent on taking every one of her friends and allies from her one by one, stealing their wills, and forcing them to serve whatever grand purpose the Legends had. And she wasn’t convinced that they were all working separately. The way that they had knocked Etienne and Tamerlan down while convincing the Harbingers to ignite her tattoo and draw her to them, suggested a kind of coordination that could only come from a common sense of purpose.

  She gasped as the pain grew again. She knew she could relieve it at any moment. All she had to do was go to them.

  She was going to thwart that purpose. She was going to find some way to bring justice for the generations of people who had bent under the iron fists of the Legends and the powers of the dragons.

  She clenched her jaw and stole a quick glance at Rajit.

  “Be ready. If they break through, we will fight.”

  “What about them?” He asked, seeming to include Tamerlan and Etienne in his gaze.

  “Just worry about yourself,” Etienne snarled.

  “They’ll fight with us,” Marielle assured him, but Rajit looked skeptical.

  There was a pause in the battering a
t the door and then a squealing sound as if someone was trying to pry the door from its hinges.

  Marielle swore under her breath, but Etienne was already there, a hand on the door. He stood there for a moment and then the squealing stopped and for a moment all was silent.

  “Maybe they gave up when they realized we weren’t easy prey,” Rajit suggested.

  “Doubtful,” Etienne said. He seemed to have his mind back. His eyes were too-bright but focused.

  “They were testing us,” Marielle agreed as the pain of the windrose faded. That could only mean they were going to try something else. “But for what?”

  She glanced at Tamerlan, surprised by his silence, but his nose was deeply buried in a small leather-bound book. It smelled of long abandonment – not a hint of human scent left on it.

  She wiped cold sweat from her brow. Grateful for relief from the agony that had filled her before. Her tattoos ached but that was nothing compared to the former pain.

  Tamerlan flipped the pages with a singular focus she’d never seen in anyone else except for Jhinn, concentration pouring from him in waves of jasmine-scented slate. He was beautiful like that with his blue eyes so focused and every muscle of his face tensed as he flicked through the pages, absorbing their content more quickly than she thought she could ever read. This was his love, his passion. If he’d had the chance to choose his life, he’d have joined the guild of Librarians and had his nose buried in a book every day. It was bittersweet to get a glimpse of what his life should have been.

  He looked up, suddenly, giving her a quick smile before his eyes were drawn back to the page like iron to a lodestone. It was moments like this that his madness was far-off and the boy he had been shone through.

  “I can see why they won’t say his name,” he said, awe in his tone. “It’s all written here, though not clearly. A lot of this is spent cursing him.”

  “How did he trap them?” Etienne asked. One of his hands we clenched in a fist, fighting and jerking as he forced it under control.

  Marielle felt her chest tighten. How much control did the Grandfather have over him? The Grandfather’s aim had been slaying the other Legends and taking control. That, at least, was simple to understand. Power was always a likely motive in any crime.