Looking at the growing flames, Aratill said, “And it’s trying to cut us off.”
Oblifell pointed to the soldiers who had fallen in at Aratill’s shoulder. “You two stick with the captain. The rest of you are on me. Elxaris, take rearguard.”
Elxaris was a woman of about thirty who had a slight dent in her helm. “What’s our mission?”
“We’re going to search the jungle below for a stand of trees that would make a suitable sailing galleon.”
She smiled ruefully and glanced at Kyrionik. “I understand.”
Kyrionik felt a sudden chill. “I don’t. Why are you splitting off? We need you.”
Oblifell only bowed. “It’s been an honor, your virtue. Please survive, so that our oaths to your noble mother will be upheld.”
He glanced at Aratill. They nodded to one another, making brief eye contact, then Oblifell peeled off, moving southward down the slope. The guard moved quickly, stamping their feet and thumping their shields against the trees to make the branches rattle.
When Aratill spoke, his voice was tight. “Let’s move double-time so we don’t get cut off by that fire.”
“Aratill, we can’t let him go off alone.”
The captain didn’t answer. No one seemed to be listening to Kyrionik now. To the soldiers, Aratill said, “If our young noble will not come on his own, you two will carry him.”
The two soldiers turned to Kyrionik, but he sprang up the hill between them. Aratill had already begun to climb again, now moving more slowly because they had to go straight up to avoid the growing fire.
“Aratill, this isn’t right. We can’t… I’ve known you two my whole life. I don’t want… You didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
“We said our goodbyes before the mission,” Aratill said, his voice strained and edging toward anger. “We say them before every mission, your virtue, in anticipation of this moment.”
“But your husband—”
“Others have already sacrificed more than a loved one, your virtue, and there may be more sacrifices to come.” Aratill began to move more quickly, his anger giving him strength. “We are men and women of honor, and we hold our oaths above all else. For the love of your noble mother—and for you, too, although you still don’t seem to understand that—we do what honor demands to see you reach home again, alive.”
Kyrionik’s immediate impulse was to apologize, but he stopped himself before the words escaped. An apology would be insulting, and he didn’t want to insult this man. “I didn’t want that.”
“And yet you have it, without asking. Will you swear to do what Oblifell has asked? In honor of those who have already given their lives, and those who may soon, will you swear to do everything you can to return safely to Koh-Salash?”
“I swear,” Kyrionik said, “on my family name, that I will do what I must to return safely to Koh-Salash.”
“Thank you, your virtue. If—”
There was a sudden crashing sound from behind. A column of dark smoke moved through the jungle, battering trees aside and setting the detritus on the forest floor alight. It moved almost due south, along the rim of the island.
It had to be chasing Oblifell and his soldiers.
The wind blew embers directly toward them. Soon, they would be fleeing an advancing wall of fire.
Aratill began to climb again.
“Captain.”
One of the soldiers had stopped and stood upright. He looked left, toward the center of the island, but in the twilight, Kyrionik was unsure what had alarmed him. There was a fallen tree, older and more substantial than most of the trees on the island, laid across the slope. Thickets grew nearby, as they did in any place where the canopy had a sudden gap, and there was a growing shadow in the trees beyond.
Then the darkness moved, and Kyrionik realized that it was not back among the trees but squatting right there on the log itself, a strange shape of glossy darkness that reflected the orange light of the darkening, firelit sky like polished obsidian. Kyrionik could not imagine what he was looking at.
It moved again, raising upright. Suddenly, Kyrionik could make out a head with a long beak, and a pair of arms, and a pair of legs.
But the proportions seemed all wrong. The limbs were too long and gangly, the torso too flat, the head…
“Selsarim Lost,” Aratill said. “Shadowkind.”
In that moment, as goosebumps ran down his back, Kyrionik realized he was not looking at some strange armor. It was flesh. Not flesh like his own dark skin, or even the darker skin of traders from the southern ends of the crumbling Harkan empire. This was like shadow made solid, except the twilight reflected off it like glass. This was a devourer of light and life straight out of myth.
It opened its mouth, and the same loud bird-like shrieking that they’d heard echoing through the jungle erupted from inside it. A moment later, dozens of answering cries resounded.
The shadowkind spread its arms, showing vestigial wings and outsized claws darker than the space between the stars, and charged at them, mouth gaping.
Without a moment’s thought, Kyrionik hurled his spear, piercing the creature’s belly as it leaped at the nearest guard. It stumbled against a tree, clutched at the shaft, then toppled down the hill, dead.
Aratill took Kyrionik’s arm and nudged him up the slope. “Well thrown, your virtue.”
“Thank you.” The young noble began to scramble up the hill. “I’m just glad we have found an enemy who dislikes being stabbed as much as I do.”
One of the soldiers guffawed, and Kyrionik experienced a strange, light-headed thrill. It was something Oblifell might have said, if he hadn’t given his life so Kyrionik could delay his own death by a quarter hour. Kyrionik didn’t feel courageous, but he knew how to pretend. All he had to do was mimic those around him.
The flames crackled and roared to the right and behind them. On the left, the shrieking of the shadowkind—by the fallen gods, who knew there were still such things in the world—grew louder.
“They’re driving us toward the flame!” one of the soldiers cried.
Aratill kept his voice low. “Don’t shout about it, you fool.”
They climbed. Kyrionik felt naked without his spear and shield, but he didn’t draw his sword. He needed both hands for climbing.
Glancing back, he saw Aratill and his two guards falling behind. Then he saw the shadowkind were moving from tree to tree, bounding up the slope with terrifying ease.
Kyrionik drew his sword. “Look to the north.” His voice sounded surprisingly calm. He slid down the hill, letting the three with spears form the front line, with Aratill at the highest point. There was no reason to climb farther when the shadowkind could outpace them so easily.
How many creatures there were, he could not be sure—their bodies seemed to meld together—but there had to be at least a dozen. The shadowkind shrieked as they came, their harsh, ugly voices making the hairs on the back of Kyrionik’s neck stand up. Someone shouted, “Koh-Salash!” and the others, Kyrionik included, joined in.
Then the spearpoints found their first marks, and the battle began.
The shadowkind were silent during the fight itself. Kyrionik could clearly hear the thump of body against shield, the sound of steel slicing into shadow-flesh, and the scrape of claws on steel armor.
He leaped forward, plunging the point of his sword into a creature that slipped between the spears, then hurried upslope to keep three more from circling Aratill’s flank.
He fought as he had been trained: to use the point where he could, to attack from a guard position—even though his shield had been lost—to make horizontal and diagonal cuts at the enemy’s face and belly, to grab the end of his blade with his left gauntlet and bear the enemy to the ground before skewering them.
He had to be careful not to get so excited that he swung too early. Wait for the right moment, then move hard and fast. Two came at him at once, and he managed a crosscut that struck them both. One died with its claws scra
bbling at his helm. It managed to prick his nose, but it was a tiny wound—meaningless—which the enemy purchased with its life.
When the creatures stopped trying to get around the soldiers, Kyrionik moved to the guard’s shoulders and stabbed over their shields. The shadowkind were not strong, but they were quick and numerous. They tried to dodge inside the range of the spears and push through, isolating the humans, but they could not score enough hits against their well-armored, well-trained foes.
Then the soldier at the bottom of the slope cried out, staggered, and slipped, falling onto his back. Three shadowkind leaped onto him, digging at his helm.
Kyrionik pivoted and, with a long downhill step, sent a sword thrust through one neck into a second ribcage. The soldier screamed, and the last creature leaped at Kyrionik.
Aratill’s spearpoint plunged through its collarbone, and it flopped onto the jungle floor. Ten enemies—perhaps more—lay strewn about them, and from the sound of the shrieking, more were coming.
“Fuck!” the wounded soldier shouted. Blood flowed from his helm. “My eyes! I’m blind.”
The other soldier wiped his spearpoint clean. “They tried to do the same to me.”
Kyrionik tasted blood from the cut on the end of his nose and shuddered.
“Help me to my feet,” the wounded man said. Aratill pulled him upright. Kyrionik could only stare at the bloody holes behind his face guard. He’d seen bodies gutted and beheaded, but this made his skin crawl.
The blind man cast aside his shivered spear and drew his sword. “It would be best if you moved away from me now. The enemy is coming, and I’ll be swinging at every footstep I hear.”
Aratill clapped him on the shoulder. “Strength to your arm. You’ll be remembered.”
“Captain, I go into the next world with shadowkind blood on the end of my blade. I’m content. Live a long life, your virtue.”
Aratill started up the slope, but Kyrionik quickly overtook him. Surely, the top of the slope was near. Surely.
The wind blew smoke into their lungs. Kyrionik could not help but cough—he was working too hard not to breathe deeply. Behind him, he could hear Aratill and the last soldier coughing, too. The fire was blazing.
Then, suddenly, Kyrionik saw clouds lit by the vanished sun. The jungle thinned ahead. He hurried up the slope, pleased that it was less steep here, and found himself at the top of the ridge. Finally.
But the other side of the ridge was not what he’d hoped. Instead of another long, tree-covered slope, hopefully with a few tumbled boulders that would protect his back while he made a stand, he found a sheer cliff.
The valley below looked like an endless void—he thought he could leap into it and fall forever—until he realized he was seeing the sky reflected in a still pool more than a hundred feet below. Even without his armor, a plunge from this height would hill him, no matter how deep it was.
Looking northward, toward the sound of the shadowkind cries, he saw that the ridge rose higher, curving to the right and dropping again well past the midpoint, long after the still waters ended and the valley floor rose again.
To the south, the ridge sank toward the ocean, and the valley floor rose to meet it. Perhaps three miles away, the ridge and the floor were close enough for him to jump, assuming the fire racing uphill didn’t cut him off first.
Then Kyrionik looked over the long, broad valley below—a few hundred square miles of it—and he saw something no one had could have expected.
There, in the valley below, was a massive skeleton made of pale white bone.
It wasn’t made of skywood like Yth, and it didn’t glow like Suloh did, but otherwise, the size and shape of the bones were very like the skeletons of Koh-Salash.
When the gods were killed a millennium before, their blasted skeletons fell in many places in the world. Suloh and Yth in the Straits of Timmer. Indib lay outside Selsarim. Asca fell in the far north, in the lands that the ghostkind have taken from the Katr tribes. Others were thought long lost, either at the bottom of the ocean or in remote lands where humankind never trod.
One lay here, in a place no humankind could settle.
Of course, the gods granted gifts.
What gift could this god offer, and could it save them?
Kyrionik heard a cry of pain and distress behind him. He turned, sword at the ready, and saw Aratill only a few yards down the slope. The second soldier was nowhere to be seen.
Dark shapes moved between the trees.
“Your virtue, make for the southern end of the ridge. Look to your belt pouch for—”
A sudden, screeching cry sounded out, followed by a noise like hail. The shadowkind were hurling stones against Aratill’s shield and armor, and while he protected his face, three more ascended the hill toward the ridge.
Kyrionik rushed to meet them. He couldn’t flee southward with the shadowkind right on his heels—they would overtake him in ten paces—but he could make use of the advantage the slope provided.
He cut downward at the shadowkind as they leaped up at him.
Aratill cursed as his spear shattered and he toppled onto his back. Dark shapes fell atop him.
“NO!” Forgetting his oath, Kyrionik rushed toward his teacher, but shadowkind immediately circled above him on the hill. Before he could take three steps, he was hard pressed from above, with no shield except the lower cannon on his injured left arm.
Aratill cried out, and Kyrionik dared a glance at him. His bodyguard’s shield was also gone, but his left gauntlet shielded his face. With his right hand, he slashed at shadowkind throats with his dagger.
Instinctively, Kyrionik felt an attack coming, and he jerked his head back. A slender claw slipped through his face guard and gouged his cheek to the bone.
He cried out in pain and frustration, then grabbed that arm and severed it, shoving the shrieking shadowkind back toward its fellows to trip them up.
It wasn’t enough. There were few shadowkind left, but they were close. Kyrionik gripped his sword point in his burned left hand and swung out like a quarterstaff, bashing the creatures with what strength remained in him. He maneuvered again toward the top of the hill, keeping his enemies bunched before him, their claws digging for gaps at his elbows, throat, and eyes.
Then Aratill was there, with a hoarse cry of “Koh-Salash!” His face was turned toward Kyrionik, but the streaks of blood flowing out of his helm showed that he could see nothing. His eyes were bloody holes. Arms outstretched, Aratill collided hard with the four remaining shadowkind, driving them to the edge of the precipice.
Then over it.
Aratill went with them, plummeting into the darkness without a sound.
Kyrionik stood beside the cliff, frozen with shock. Aratill was gone. He was all alone on this island, except for the ullrocts and the shadowkind and who knows what other enemies out of ancient myths.
He realized his sword was gone, and he had no idea what had happened to it.
More enemies were coming. The winds out of the west were blowing the fires uphill, and the fire to the south stood like a bright barrier.
Kyrionik sprinted southward along the top of the ridge. Tongues of windblown flame stretched toward the edge of the precipice, and he ran through them, his face turned away, with all the speed his aching legs could manage.
The blast of heat was oppressive, scorching his entire body through his plate. Once clear, he cast aside his helm to beat out the flames in his hair, but his clothes did not seem to have ignited. Unbuckling his breastplate, he cast it over the cliff, then the rest of his armor, piece by piece, as he hurried away from the flames and shadows.
A burning tree fell behind him, and Kyrionik could hear the frustrated cries of the shadowkind. They had been cut off by the fire.
There was barely any glow left in the sky, and barely any strength left in him. The burns on his left side and the deep cut on his face seemed to be stealing his life away. If the flames hadn’t been so close, he might have collapsed right ther
e.
What had Aratill said about a pouch at his belt?
There was a pouch there, made of calfskin. Kyrionik squinted at it in the firelight. It was Aratill’s change purse, something he’d carried for years. When had he hooked it to Kyrionik’s belt?
It contained no coin, but there was something round and soft inside. Kyrionik took it out.
It was a small bluish white nugget, no bigger than the last knuckle on Kyrionik’s thumb, and it glittered in the firelight.
Aratill had gone against his orders and cut a piece of glitterkind flesh for him. It was enough, with the prudent cutting tools of a Salashi bureaucrat, for a hundred transplants of skin, eye, or liver. Without healthy transplants, it might be enough to close his wounds.
A terrible wave of grief and bitterness came over him, and Kyrionik nearly threw himself on the ground and wept.
…the death of a single child is like the end of the world.
So many lost. All had been children once, and many had children of their own. Now they were gone.
But he had sworn an oath to Aratill, his bodyguard, teacher, and friend. He would not allow his own death to be added to that tally. He would survive and return to Koh-Salash.
The stars began to appear through the smoke.
Glancing down in the valley, Kyrionik could see the gigantic white bones against the dark valley floor, almost as if they were glowing. The skeleton had a thick barrel chest and huge hands. The back of its skull was long and tapering, like the bill of a bird.
Suddenly, Kyrionik knew whose bones they were. He’d seen that figure in many times in old manuscripts.
It was Morlin, the god of death.
Time to discover what gifts he might take from it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The Katr warrior’s life force flooded into Kyrioc like rainwater into parched earth.
The gift of Morlin, god of death, long forsworn, filled him.
With the stolen life force came the dizzying rush of the Katr’s memories: a quiet village on the calm Timmer Sea, training sessions with an older man that were little more than daily beatings, quietly eating salt pork beside a fire with his mother, the ritual clubbing of an oath-breaker before he was banished, riding a borrowed horse across the misty grasslands with the gigantic skeleton of Asca coming into view, bitter winds and punishing winters, the moment when he and his new bride shared their true names, the shock and grief of having his oath given to the Pails, the disgust he felt the first time he saw Koh-Salash from the water, the shame of doing the Pails’ dirty work…
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