A Heart of Blood and Ashes

by Milla Vane

  “It is Aezil,” she whispered, staring. “He is doing this.”

  In pale blue robes, one of his eyes nothing but a puckered scar. The movement of his body faintly echoed the movement of the Scourge, careful and slow. Guards surrounded him, bracing themselves as the head swayed.

  “Riders from the east!”

  A warrior called out the alert. Yvenne glanced east, squinting against the rising sun that was directly behind the approaching riders.

  “What do you see?” Banek asked.

  “I cannot . . .” Shielding her face, she tried to see through the glare of Enam’s eye. She could make out little. “Red linens at the front. Helms behind. They ride two abreast but I cannot see how many.”

  “Parsatheans leading southerners?” Banek squinted, too. “Perhaps the alliance council has arrived?”

  For they had heard at the camp that Gareth had reached the council and there was word of them coming north. “I cannot be certain.”

  A choked noise from Seri drew her gaze back to the south, where the Scourge was rising in full. In ruins, it had lain on its side. Her brother had managed to get its legs beneath it, and it rose ever higher.

  Tears standing in her eyes, Seri gave a sobbing breath. “My mother and brother are there.”

  Maddek, too. With her heart a burning lump in her throat, she watched Aezil take a slow step—and the Scourge did the same.

  “My lady,” Banek said in a low voice. “Wait for me in your tent. Seri, go with her. Make ready your bow and arrow, Yvenne.”

  “What is it?”

  The old man was watching the approach of the riders. “Parsatheans do not gallop in such close formation unless they are on a road.”

  As she’d learned while crossing these plains. Better to not have dirt clods flung into the face of those riding behind.

  Enam glared, so bright at their backs. Eyes watering, she shook her head. “I still cannot see.”

  “It matters not. We will know soon enough if they are friend or foe,” Banek said, and she realized all of the warriors had torn their attention from the Scourge. “Go now.”

  Heart thundering, Yvenne went.

  CHAPTER 39

  MADDEK

  I wish now that those songs told us how Ran Bantik killed the Scourge!” Kelir shouted over the thunder of galloping hooves.

  Maddek grinned, wind rushing his face as they raced alongside the enormous ruins. The Scourge was rising, but a slow and lumbering rise it was. “It matters not!” he yelled back.

  “Because we are united?” Kelir’s exasperation came clearly through his shout.

  “Because it is not the Scourge!”

  Not a demon. Only a puppet, controlled by the true monster—Aezil.

  Reaching the quaking mountain, Maddek swiftly climbed onto the second leg, still folded beneath the beast. The horses could not follow and with a slap to the rump, he sent his away again. The warriors scrambled after him, wolves nimbly racing up the rough surface of pitted volcanic rock and sharp obsidian.

  Maddek had no time for care as he ran toward the gaping canyon that had once been the Scourge’s stomach, until silver-fingered Rani had split it open to retrieve her dragon.

  “Into the belly,” Maddek called out.

  Fassad sent his wolves ahead. “Are we not climbing to the head?”

  “There is a better way to reach it,” Maddek told him.

  Danoh and Fassad exchanged glances—Fassad from the northern Storm tribe, Danoh from the central Fist. Neither had spent any time playing among these ruins as children.

  “The throat,” he said.

  A dark tunnel it was, of slick obsidian. Danoh flared a stick torch and the gleaming sides threw light far up the channel. Together they raced upward.

  With heaving breaths, his face dripping sweat, Kelir said, “Beginning tomorrow, I will run beside my mount more often. I am on fire.”

  “It is not only that,” Ardyl said grimly. “The air is hotter.”

  It was true. The air shimmered with heat.

  Toric’s face blanched. “Has Aezil reignited the furnace of the heart?”

  “In a Scourge that can spit fire?” Fassad said. “And we are headed for the mouth?”

  “Faster,” Maddek told them, and sprinted up the throat—which was at more of an upward angle now than when they had been younger and the beast was lying on its side. Thighs burning with effort, he climbed the last stretch to the top of the throat and reached back to help his warriors up.

  No time did they have to rest. They were in the back of the mouth, and the heat billowing upward from the Scourge’s heart was like standing too near a fire.

  Maddek ran across the pitted volcanic tongue, where wind whistled through the closed jaw. Aezil had not opened the cavernous mouth, but it was no cage. The huge teeth had gaps that even warriors of Maddek’s size could slip through.

  He looked out now, bracing himself against the slow swaying of the head. Below, the Parsathean army had regrouped against the brainless soldiers. The Scourge was not yet advancing on them, every movement it made ponderous, careful.

  He looked to Danoh. “Where was Aezil standing?”

  “Between the eyes.”

  Maddek looked up. Far above, in the ceiling of the mouth, a crevice opened up to the sky above—the nasal cavity, like a vent through the face.

  “Perhaps we might climb up the inside of the mouth to reach that, and up to the face,” Ardyl said, “but I do not think we want to linger here for long.”

  Maddek did not think so, either. An orange glow lit the back of the throat. “Kelir, Fassad, and I will climb up the cheek.” They rose like cliffs against the flat, broad nose. “Ardyl will lead Toric and Danoh around the back of the head and come down from the horns. We will approach Aezil and any guards he has from two directions.”

  Ardyl knew these ruins as well as Kelir and he. “It will take us longer.”

  “We will wait on the cheek.”

  Nodding, she headed for the teeth. Maddek followed, then the others. The wolves wriggled through, surefootedly making their way along the edge of the jaw and back to the hinge, where Maddek, Kelir, and Fassad would climb the slope of the cheek toward the eye, and Ardyl would lead the others behind.

  Wind buffeted the face of the Scourge, whipping at his linens. Still the sorcerer made no swift movements. Likely for the same reason Maddek feared that those swift movements would begin.

  Climbing beneath the eye socket, he glanced over at Kelir. “Aezil is afraid of falling off.”

  The other warrior grunted with amusement. “The whelp didn’t think this through.”

  “Maddek.” Fassad’s grim voice pulled his gaze farther down. “The teeth.”

  Molten rock dripped out between the gaps. The heat from within the mouth had not penetrated the rock they climbed, but the liquid fire steamed the air and fell to the ground, where flames sprang up amid the grasses.

  These plains would not burn again.

  Jaw set with determination, Maddek climbed higher. The bulge of the eye socket hid them from view of the face. A chirp nearby turned Maddek’s head. That sound he’d heard from Danoh countless times. Yet this one was not hers.

  An infant drepa.

  Maddek froze. Seeing the raptor, the other warriors followed suit. No fear did he have of the small reptile—but if that chirp became a squeal, an adult drepa would appear.

  It chirped again, turning its angular head back and forth, the thin feathers around its neck waving with the movement. A full set of those thin feathers it would have when it grew. Just as its little claws would become razor-sharp sickles to tear open a gut.

  The drepa hopped closer, then hopped away. Into the cavity of the eye socket it disappeared.

  The molten stone dripping from the jaw had become a thick stream. The mouth was filling up
with the fiery liquid. Steam poured from the vents above.

  They had to cross those vents to reach the broad plane of the face. Ardyl could not be in place yet, but no longer could they wait, or they might be cooked while leaping across.

  He gestured to Kelir, who nodded. Fassad and the wolves readied.

  “I will jump across first. Then follow.”

  During that jump, they would be exposed to any guards that Aezil might have waiting. So the others would cover while each one crossed.

  Drawing his sword, Maddek gave the signal. As one, they surged up over the edge of the cheek, onto the flat plane of the face. He heard the shouts from Aezil’s guards as he sprinted a short distance, then made a flying leap through a blistering wave of heat.

  He landed, then was pushed forward by an explosive burst of flames through vent.

  “Steel!” Fassad shouted from the other side of the curtain of fire.

  The wolf had jumped with Maddek. “He is here!” he shouted to the warrior, then met the charge of a Rugusian soldier with his sword. His curved blade was made for slicing through flesh when mounted, and Maddek had no frequent reason to use a sword against an armored man. Yet every armor had weaknesses and joints, and his blade swiftly tasted the soldier’s blood and flesh.

  He heard Kelir’s roar, and then the warrior’s axe flew through the flames, slamming into another guard’s armored chest. With a snarl, Steel leapt for another, teeth slashing open the softest part of any man. The soldier’s screams abruptly ended when he doubled over and the wolf ripped out his throat.

  Maddek grabbed up Kelir’s axe and raced to meet the next charge. Only a dozen guards. Those were fair enough odds. Snarling, he sliced open a gut, then met the next guard with silver claws through his neck. The heated glass stone beneath his boots grew slick with blood.

  The red haze of battle filled his vision. All the guards he seemed to see, knowing as they came close, when they would move past each other to strike. Well trained, they were, but trained they would always be. Against the untamed viciousness of Maddek and the wolf, they fell.

  The battle took them nearer the eye, the wolf at Maddek’s side when the guards’ dwindling numbers made them regroup and, instead of charging as one, join up into concerted attack. Chest heaving, Maddek defended against one sword and narrowly avoided the swing of another. With an upward slash, he split the guard’s arm from his body and kicked him back, then charged the next. The Rugusian died swiftly, and Maddek booted aside his head to meet the weakened swing from the guard’s remaining hand. Only one left, and Steel was on him.

  A pained yelp brought Maddek racing, where the wolf wrestled wildly with the soldier, teeth clamped on the guard’s arm—and both of them dangling over the eye socket. With an angry grunt, Maddek cut off the guard’s head and lurched forward to catch the wolf by the ruff before he fell into the drepa’s nest.

  He hauled back, and a streak of pain crossed his thigh. A crossbow bolt clattered against the stone. Teeth gritted, he dragged the wolf up, pivoting to face Aezil. The one-eyed sorcerer stood at a distance, watching Maddek with a curious gaze, and lowered his crossbow.

  Maddek gave him a feral grin. “You have not your sister’s aim.”

  “I have no need of it,” Aezil said.

  Adjusting his grip on the bloodied handle of his sword, Maddek advanced on him—and staggered on the first step.

  Aezil tilted his head. “It’s a quick poison.”

  Silac venom. Already leaching his strength. Grunting, Maddek fell to his knees. He could barely hold his sword.

  The sorcerer smiled. “If only my father could see this.”

  “Zhalen.” Maddek had promised Yvenne his head. And heart. He struggled to stand. “Where is he?”

  “He has gone to retrieve my wayward sister.”

  Maddek shook his head in denial. “He will not find her.”

  “No? You have a spy among your own. We know where you have hidden her.”

  Maddek’s heartbeat pounded in his ears. Again he struggled and his boots slipped in blood. He crashed backward, and this time it was Steel who saved him from tumbling into the eye socket, the wolf clamping his teeth around Maddek’s vambrace and pulling him from the edge. From below, he heard the drepa’s warning hisses.

  “You fight, but you will not win,” Aezil told him now, slowly coming closer. The Scourge swayed with each step, the wind whistling past Maddek’s face. “My sister thinks to build an alliance against the Destroyer. But when everyone sees the power I have, when they see how I have crushed the Parsathean army, they will unite instead under me.”

  “Crush the Parsathean army?” Maddek gave a hoarse laugh, then spit green foam before telling him, “You think this number is all we have? You will need a bigger monster.”

  “In time.” Amusement lit the sorcerer’s eye. “Are you still trying to come after me with that sword? A fine weapon you will be against my enemies. Revenants have minds filled with hunger. But the silac venom leaves nothing, and it is so much easier to fill those emptied brains with one thought. To stand. To attack. What thought will I put into your head?”

  “To slay you.” Difficult it was now to even sit up. “Monster.”

  “Then lift your sword against me, warrior.”

  Maddek shook his head. “Vela told me that a warrior relies too much on his sword.”

  “Did she?” Aezil laughed. “So you will not swing it at me in hope that the goddess will save you in reward for learning a lesson?”

  With this poison in him, nothing would save Maddek. “I expect nothing from a goddess. And so I will use my sword one last time.”

  Grinning, Aezil spread his hands. “If you can make it this far, I will give you one swing.”

  Maddek was not going anywhere. Rolling over onto his stomach and dragging himself to the edge of the eye socket took all his strength. As did shoving his sword across the slippery obsidian.

  He did rely on his sword. So he let it go.

  Like an arrow it fell downward, into the drepa nest—and speared one of the raptors in the haunches. A screech tore through the air, echoing from that cavern.

  Heaving himself back, Maddek reached for Steel. “Dead!” he commanded gruffly.

  Instantly the wolf lay against him. No effort it was for Maddek to remain still as the screeches rose in number. In a rush of clicking claws and racing feet, the reptiles poured out of the nest. Utterly still, Maddek didn’t look to see Aezil fleeing, but the jerk of the Scourge’s head and the whipping jolt of the rock beneath him joined the sorcerer’s screams. Then a harder jolt, as if the mountain suddenly fell again. The flames jetting through the vents abruptly went out.

  Longer Maddek waited, as the drepa tore into the body and then carried the pieces back to the nest. Happy chirps from the infants soon followed. Steel whined and moved slightly, licking Maddek’s face.

  Then Ardyl was rolling him over, tears streaming. She wiped the foam from his mouth. “Don’t sleep,” she begged him.

  Kelir was there, his face a mask of anguish. “Maddek.” He took his hand in a crushing grip. “It is done. Enox stopped the poisoned soldiers. And the Rugusians are on the run.”

  “I am not done,” he rasped. So little strength he had, even in his breath. “My bride. Take me to Yvenne.”

  He saw the look that passed between them. Knew they thought it was impossible. A day’s ride it was.

  Hoarsely he told them, “There are words left unsaid.”

  “We will tell her for you,” Ardyl vowed on sobbing breaths.

  Heart aching, Maddek shook his head. “No one can say these.”

  Not if they were to mean anything. To hear love from someone else’s lips only sounded like a platitude.

  “You fool,” Kelir snarled at him. “You didn’t tell her? You cockbrained fool.”

  As if in rage, the warrior haule
d him up, slung Maddek’s arm over his shoulder. Ardyl took the other side.

  “Don’t sleep,” she commanded. “Whatever it takes.”

  It would take all that was left of his strength. But it mattered not.

  Only Yvenne mattered now.

  CHAPTER 40

  YVENNE

  Seri raced ahead, collecting a sword and armor before catching up again with the slower Yvenne, and together they entered her tent.

  Forever they seemed to wait. With quiver on her shoulder and bow in hand, Yvenne stood surrounded by walls of mammoth hide, listening for any sounds from outside.

  The young warrior stood with her, breaths quick and sharp. “I hate this. I hate not knowing what is happening. I feel so helpless.”

  As did Yvenne. But she had more experience with it. “We’re not helpless. We are waiting for our opportunity to act.”

  Seri nodded. Some of the tension in her shoulders eased—then stiffened again as a shout sounded. A scream, a howl of rage. The clash of a sword.

  Banek slipped into the tent, carrying a bloodied blade. “Come, my lady. We must run—”

  The old warrior stopped abruptly, gaze dropping to her knee before rising again. For the longest moment, his eyes held hers, and she agreed with all that he said in that silent look.

  He turned to Seri. “You must be a mouse, do you hear? Find three horses, and meet us at the north end, by the pool. Be silent and swift, and if you cannot find three mounts, then one will do.”

  Face bloodbare, the girl nodded. Banek crossed the tent, his curved blade slashing the hide at the back. “Through here. Quickly.”

  Seri darted through and vanished. Banek followed. Yvenne slipped through the gash into a swirl of choking smoke, then notched an arrow. The warrior stopped to listen. So many sounds she heard, a confusing clash of shouts and blades.