He could still remember the sadness and anger emanating from her eyes. He had betrayed her and she would never forgive him.
“Stay with me,” she pleaded. “Here, beneath the stars. If not forever, then for just one last night.”
And he had. Even as thunder and lightning crackled around them.
He approached Ember. In the eerie blue light she looked as she had in the tower all those turns ago: strong, untamed, beautiful beyond measure.
He took her in his arms. “Come with me… tonight,” he whispered. “Just us.”
Ember stared at him, her eyes trembling. “You know I can’t.”
“Please, Ember.”
She ran a hand lovingly down his weatherworn cheek. “You remember that night in the tower?”
Haliden nodded. “Of course.”
“Stay with me, then. Here, where the world can’t touch us.”
She kissed him, her lips brushing across his as they shared the same breath. He felt alive for the first time in turns. Inspired.
I’m home, he thought as she pulled him down atop a pile of moldering tapestries. Moss Town, Ember… they were the missing pieces he had sought all these turns. He realized that now.
But like everything else in Alimane, they wouldn’t last. Nothing could anymore.
5
Haliden pulled the Tritan bowstring to his cheek, his arms trembling. When he reached full draw, the tension dispersed throughout the strange pulley system at either end, enabling his muscles to relax.
Men would kill for such a weapon, he thought as he pressed his eye to the brass scope mounted against the bow’s grip. Crosshairs had been etched onto its optics, and they fell on a tree several hundred yards downwind.
“Do you see it?” Ember whispered. “It’s on the tallest of the three pines beside the brook.”
“I see hundreds of pines. What am I looking for?” But then a patch of color flashed past the crosshairs and he stopped. It was Ember’s scarf, rough woven and bright red. As he locked onto it, the Tritan scope zoomed in and brought the object into perfect focus.
Absolutely amazing, he thought.
Ember stepped behind him. When she spoke, her lips brushed against his ear. “Now do you see the pin in its center, the brass heart?”
Haliden nodded. It was a rusted trinket of little value. Yet somehow it seemed familiar.
“Align it with the crosshairs.”
Haliden took a shallow breath and steadied his arms. He felt at one with the bow, locked and unwavering. It’s as if it knows my every move before I even make it, he thought as the crosshairs hovered over the scarf. “This is a wonder!” he blurted.
“It’s a Tritan grimwa,” Ember said. “Someone’s passage into adulthood on the metal island. There are no others of its kind in all of Retrac Daor.”
Haliden held his breath. His muscles were locked in place, the beating of his heart the only movement disturbing his body.
“See it,” she whispered. “Feel the target and let the bow do the rest.”
Haliden stared at the scarf, it’s faded fabric blowing in the ashy breeze.
“Ready?”
He nodded ever so slightly and released.
The arrow whipped through the air, slicing through both the scarf and pendant before vanishing into the tree.
“By the gods,” he breathed.
“No. Not the gods,” Ember said. “Tritan. And it’s yours now.”
“I can’t take this, Am. My talents are with brush and paint. Not a bow.”
“Well now you’ll learn a new talent.” She ran a hand down his cheek. “Paint your masterpiece, Haliden. With the blood of those who would watch your home burn.”
“My home will burn with or without me.”
She tore the bow from his grasp. “Go back to your little brushes then, if that’s what you want!”
“That’s not what I mea—”
“You’re a bastard, Stroke!” she shouted. “A spineless bastard.”
“Ember!” he cried after her. But she was already halfway to the wall.
He stood silent, staring at the crimson horizon. Such a damn stubborn woman, he thought. In their youth, it had been the same. No matter what they did, it was her way or nothing.
He shook his head and turned toward the forest. The scarf was still stuck to the tree, its tattered edges flickering in the breeze. He approached it. It was a pretty thing,; Algian silk dyed a deep crimson. Far too rare and expensive a gift to leave bound to a tree.
He knelt down and untied it. The arrow had cut a half-inch hole directly through it. He quickly pocketed it and circled the great pine. On the opposite side, there was a tiny exit hole. But no sign of the arrow.
That’s impossible, he thought. The draw couldn’t have been more than fifty pounds.
But when he approached the moss and lichen covered boulders lying a few hundred footfalls behind the great pine, his heart stopped.
“By the gods…”
For there, buried in a rock up to its fletching, was his arrow.
By noon, the sun had broken through the ash clouds, its golden rays washing across the basin like a warm tide.
Haliden sighed as he watched the sullen villagers sweep ash from their moss-covered hovels. Do they even realize what’s about to happen? he wondered.
The town’s four bands completely encircled the ancient watchtower. Each was four hundred footfalls wide with its own inns, hovels, and family history. The first band, closest to the wall, was known as Rinker’s Band. It was where the mayor and other wealthy Moss Town residents lived. Beneath that stood Calamane Way, named after the wife of Moss Town’s first watcher, Dresdin Ruck. This was the market district and the most crowded of the four levels. It had also been Haliden’s home. But much had changed over the turns. The blacksmith and two carpenters he remembered from his youth were long gone, and many of its shops and stalls were either boarded up or burnt out.
The third band was known as Mold Town, named for the limestone mushroom tunnels that branched off into the basin’s inner walls. The tiny caps and stems had been a Moss Town staple for generations. But now two of the three tunnels were sealed off.
The fourth and lowest level was simply known as the Band. None lived here, save for rats and the occasional beggar. It was where the basin’s runoff converged before vanishing into the Cistern, which was hidden deep beneath the tower.
When Haliden was a boy he had played there often, raising vast armies of stick men from the gathered detritus collected atop the cistern grate. But now it was choked with so much debris, water had flooded most of the level.
As the day dragged on, Haliden returned to Calamane Way and took a seat atop what remained of his home. He wanted to go to Ember, but she hadn’t spoken a word to him since the forest.
I must see Instar, he thought. She was his only friend now.
“Is it all you remembered, artist?”
Haliden looked up. Proust stood above him, his armor as dull and weatherworn as his bearded face.
“It’s a shade of what it once was,” Haliden replied.
Proust stared at him, his eyes cold and distant. “You are Ember’s now. She saw fit to throw that in my face. Yet she shuns you? Why?”
Haliden laughed. “Why does water flow? Why do birds fly? Because that is what women do, my steel-clad friend.”
“I’m not your friend, artist. You and your like are cowards. Bugs who’d sooner run before the Breath than embrace it. But I’ve need of such bugs now, so I ask you… how much sugar must I lay before the ant to get him to obey?”
Haliden laughed. “I’ve all the sugar I’ll ever need, knight.”
“Then what will it take? Gold? Steel? A woman? A boy?”
“A blade on my shoulder, perhaps,” Haliden joked. “Or lands beyond the basin. What could you offer me to willingly commit suicide?”
“I offer you our lives, Stroke. Our knowledge and achievements. Our history. I offer you nearly five generations of Moss Town, all
scrawled and stored in that metal box.”
“That is not a gift I want,” Haliden replied. “What of the others here? None will forsake burning death to save your souls?”
“It is a great honor, to gift oneself to the fire. To forsake it… well, for most, it’s unthinkable.”
Haliden looked at the knight curiously. “How about you, Proust? Are you a believer?”
“I believe in duty and honor. To most, such things are irrelevant, especially before the fire. But I am a man of the Watkarian. It’s not for me to believe or judge… only to protect.”
“Protect them then!” Haliden pleaded. “Tell them to flee this place for the Block.”
Proust shook his head. “This is my home as much as theirs, artist. If they wish to gift, then it is my duty to see them off. All of them.”
“You’re a fool then,” Haliden said.
“The fool is the one who turns from his home, Stroke. His love.” Proust stared across the basin, his tired eyes sad and trembling. “How I hated this place once. A distant outpost buried in an irrelevant forest a million leagues from nothing. But I had my duty… and my love for a woman. And eventually both turned that hate into passion.”
An eagle swooped down across the basin, its screech echoing across the moss-covered walls.
“I will die here, artist. What is ash returns to soil. And my Sansa lies in this soil. But go on… make your run on that old garron of yours, if it pleases you. Leave us to our gods and ashes.” He turned to leave, but not before glancing one last time at Haliden. ”Remember us well, artist. Remember all of it. Your memories will be all that remains of this place come the next moon.” And with that, the knight left Haliden alone atop his pile of rubble.
The rider came at dawn. His horse was frothing madly and three arrows protruded from its hind quarters like porcupine quills.
“Open the bloody gate!” the man cried.
Proust approached the man as he climbed off his injured horse.
“What news, Nathanial?”
The man clutched his knees, exhausted. “Firewalkers!” he gasped.
“How far?”
Nathaniel looked up at the knight, spittle still dripping from his lips. He pointed over Proust’s shoulder. “Does that answer your question?”
The knight turned. Behind him, a flaming arrow protruded from Rinker’s largest inn, the Mossy Cup.
Haliden ducked as more whistled overhead. Three hit Calamane Way’s rock floor and shattered in a shower of sparks while others plunged into the cistern.
Men raced about the basin, bows and quivers rattling in trembling hands. Some had castle forged steel, while others wielded homemade clubs and bone daggers.
Arrows smashed into the stone hovels, igniting some of the thatch and sod rooftops. One of the stables on Calamane Way was already ablaze, its thatch roof a swirling inferno.
Men and women ran past Haliden with buckets of water in hand. “To the wall, fool!” someone shouted at him. “They’re here!”
Haliden quickly followed them to Rinker’s band.
Proust and his men were at the main entrance, barricading it with barrels of wheat and grain scrounged from the surrounding storage sheds.
A young man standing behind a wagon spotted Haliden and waved him over. “Here!” he shouted. “Help me get this to the gate!”
Haliden slid down beside him as arrows peppered the area.
“We need to get this to the gate. On three, okay?”
Haliden nodded as he struggled to catch his breath.
The wagon moved fast, thundering over broken arrow shafts and tiny piles of burning cloth.
“You’re the artist, right?” the boy shouted as they ran.
Haliden nodded.
“And this was your home once, yes?”
Fires burned all around them now—rooftops, stables, people.
“Yes!” Haliden shouted.
The man locked eyes with him. “Then act like it, artist! Run if you must… but take the venermin. Take it to the Block so we may live on!” And with that, the wagon slammed against the gate.
Haliden stood gasping as smoke coiled around him. When he looked up, the man was already gone. But Proust and the others were only a few footfalls away, fortifying the gate with whatever they could find.
“Artist!” Proust shouted. He tossed him a bow and quiver. “Get up on the wall and paint me a masterpiece. In blood.”
Haliden looked at the bow. It was the one he’d bought from the fat man and his boy.
“Shoot anything that moves until you’re out of arrows or dead,” Proust ordered before rejoining the others at the barricade.
Haliden found an opening and looked at the forest. Tiny fires dotted the treetops, and every now and then shadows popped out from behind cover to loose arrows at the wall.
A hand pulled him down just as an arrow whipped past his head.
“Do that again without an arrow notched and I’ll shoot you myself,” an old man beside him said . He was at least eighty, his skin sagging and his back crooked and twisted.
As Haliden watched, the old man stood and drew back his bow. “Here’s a message from Florin!” he cried, releasing the arrow. Seconds later, a man fell over dead beside a fallen tree below.
“You’re no stranger to that thing,” Haliden commented as the old man crouched back down.
“Hunted these woods all my life,” the man said. “Not like you, though. I can tell by them trembling hands.”
Haliden swallowed. The man was right; he was terrified. He had never killed anything before, not even a deer.
“Kill or be killed, artist. It’s your choice.”
His breath held, Haliden stood and gazed at the forest. When he caught a flash of color to his left he quickly drew back the bowstring and fired.
“Get back down you fool!” the old man cried.
Haliden ducked just as an arrow exploded against the crenellation.
“They’re good shots,” the old man laughed. “Real good. Probably taught half of them myself.”
Haliden looked at him. “You know these people?”
The man laughed. “There’s firewalkers in us all, sonny. Probably half of them I trained on the bow, one time or another.”
Haliden shook his head. “They mean to burn the entire basin? Even those Gifting?”
“You. Me. The children… everything.” He stood and loosed another arrow. “You came up the road, sonny. You saw Ash Port and Ruth Town. Ash and bone. They mean to do the same with us. But I ain’t going out at their hands. Not after waiting eighty-four turns to Gift.” With that said, he stood again and fired, laughing as someone screamed below.
“Better shoot well, artist. They’ll burn you worse if they get you. A runner… shit, sonny, they’ll crucify you before they put you to the torch.”
With those words echoing in his head, Haliden stood and fired at the first man he saw.
By the gods!
The firewalker staggered out from behind a tree, Haliden’s arrow jutting from his throat.
“Now that’s more like it, artist!” the old man shouted.
Haliden slowly slid down behind the crenellation. What in the hells am I doing? he thought as his stomach turned. But then the old man kicked him.
“It’s us or them now. Got it?”
Haliden nodded. But inside he was drifting into darkness. A darkness there was no returning from.
6
The envoy approached the gate with arms open, a grin creasing his blackened, raw flesh.
“I seek a palaver, Moss Town!” the man shouted. He was young, twenty or twenty-five turns at best. Yet he moved with the calm grace of a seasoned dignitary. And as he drew closer, arms raised above his head, he seemed indifferent to the two dozen bowmen staring down at him with arrows fully drawn.
“Good day to the folks of Moss Town!” he shouted, his voice permeating every inch of the silent basin.
Haliden watched from between the crenulations. The reprieve was
welcome; his fingers were raw and blistered from firing the bow and his inner wrist was covered in throbbing bruises.
“That’s a fool’s fool right there, son,” the old man huffed beside him. “Brenam Crowt. Used to sing at nightfire with him. A real pious lout, that one. Should have known the embers would ignite his fire when the time came.”
Proust appeared a few hundred footfalls to Haliden’s left, where the wall rose above the gate. In his dull, weatherworn armor he looked like a statue, defiant and emotionless.
And exposed, Haliden thought as the knight began to speak.
“You preach to the choir here, Brenam. Not a soul in Moss Town will make a run.”
Haliden tensed. None, save for the craven artist crouching a few footfalls to your right.
“Then why fire upon my brothers?” Brenam shouted, gesturing toward the forest with a grand sweep of his arms. “You should embrace our gift of flame with thankful cries to Dracon. We are his royal vanguard, his watchdogs of mercy and light.”
The old coot laughed. “Piss poor shots is more like it!”
Brenam’s smile faded as laughter erupted across the wall. “Do I hear Florin the Fletcher in my midst? I thought those were your orange fletching dotting the forest floor.”
“Nay,” the old man replied. “Mine be crimson. You’ll find ’em lodged in your friends’ throats.”
More laughter atop the wall. This time even Proust betrayed a grin.
Brenam lowered his arms, his smile all but gone. “To your Watkarian… we offer no solace, no reprieve or deals. We are all born of Dracon’s breath and we shall all die in it. So cower and hide… in the end you will burn like all the others.”
“Try and alter our gift,” Proust shouted, “and you’ll drown in the Mirror. You and all of your brothers. See how you reach father Dracon then, with rock and chain dragging you into the depths.”
Brenam bowed and turned back to the forest. But not before shouting one last thing. “The Breath is four days away, knight. And none will forsake it. Especially those with a venermin.” And with that, another volley of flaming arrows erupted from the forest.
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