Embers of a Broken Throne (25 page)

C
hapter 35

W
inds swirled, each gust threatening to snatch Ryne from his perch. In a pass between two massive cliff faces, four Svenzar and several Sven commanded the Forms in Forges he could only dream of duplicating. He’d once thought himself a master at construct creation, but those below made him feel like a mere novice. Metal, wood, and earth essences had coalesced into intricate threads, the final product perfect down to the tiniest details. Any person would have a difficult time discerning the constructs from the real creatures.

Roaring, the constructs and the rest of the Svenzar forces engaged at least a dozen shadebanes, matching their enemies in number. The ground shook with their charge. Ryne followed the ebb and flow of combat, amazed at what the Sven were achieving. They’d come so far since the days of the Luminance Wars. Their constructs fought with an intelligence he would have once thought impossible. He could see their one flaw, but it mattered not. A quick burst of power directed by one of the real Sven or Svenzar among them, and the enemy would believe their foe had Forged.

Considering the battle was being fought on terrain pockmarked with rents, holes, and crevasses, some spouting steam that filled the air with sulfurous fumes, the advantage should have been the Sven’s with their ability to dissolve into stone and traverse the field. But time spent within the Broken Lands had taught the shadelings the value of Blurring. Wraithwolves, darkwraiths, and infected Alzari utilized the skill, launching themselves over any spaces to attack their enemies. They sought to overwhelm by sheer volume.

In the midst of the shadelings armies, the ground rumbled and shook, gouts of fire, steam, and rock fountaining into the air. From the rents, giant stoneform creatures appeared, splitting apart almost immediately into a few thousand gerde. They hamstrung and maimed before being absorbed into the ground once again. The attacks repeated, wreaking havoc on the shadelings and men alike.

But the Svenzar forces weren’t on the winning side of every such clash. Skittering grogs sped between legs and over bodies, tearing into enemy lines. A subtle shift in the battlefield’s heated haze followed. That haze became gurangars, titanic in size, massive swords shearing through five to ten Sven with each strike. Any foe still standing was met with a black wave of shade, all rot and filth and death.

The Harnan Stoneguard, who had remained out of the fray, engaged. Using their connection with the earth essences below them like a spring, they leaped over Sven to within a dozen feet of the gurangars. The moment they landed, they flung their long-hafted axes as one. End over end, the weapons spun sideways, slicing into gurangar legs, arms, and backs. With each strike the Stoneguard called upon the essences imbued into their weapons, weakening the shadelings’ ebon steel skin. Before the gurangars shifted into their invisible states, nearby Sven joined together, bodies enlarging. Bellowing, they pummeled the gurangars with Form-enhanced fists.

As ferocious and deadly as the Svenzar attack had been, they were still being forced to retreat. Foot by bloody foot they fell back, a litter of bodies in their wake.

Musical chimes sounded across the battlefield. For the bat of an eyelid, everything seemed to pause. The ground quaked, the sound like distant thunder.

A maelstrom of earth, stone, and lava exploded several hundred feet into the air at the heart of the shadeling army. It flung aside nearby beasts regardless of their size, but devoured any debris of a similar constitution as its own, continuing to build in volume. Chunks of rock as big as a house oscillated slowly while smaller pieces flew at a dizzying pace. They slammed together with an ear-splitting boom, the force of which blasted into shadelings dozens of feet away, and sent a shower of dust enveloping the ground and air.

A monolithic shape manifested within that choking cloud. A torso. Two arms, two legs. A head and face Ryne recognized.

Halvor.

The Svenzar released a roar that made the earth tremble, billowed the dust. His chest swelled as he sucked in a great breath, drawing in every dust particle into him, rendering the air clean and clear. Facing outward around his legs were five Sven perhaps thirty feet in height.

Fear had as much effect on humans as it did shadelings. They cowered at the sight of the massive Svenzar. A few brave enough attacked. Their Forges struck the Svenzar, chipping away stone, but he ignored them.

Halvor held out a fist, fingers uncurling slowly.

In his palm stood Ancel, Etchings aglow, their pure white light a beacon for foe and friend alike. From the ground a curving length of rock sprouted up to meet the Svenzar’s palm. Stairs formed. Ancel strode down them.

Before Ancel gained the bottom, a keening wail echoed across the battlefield. Ryne gazed beyond the immediate army to the forces well away from this conflict. Those shadebanes parted, daemons and archdaemons appearing, shade boiling from their bodies.

Diaphanous membranes spread on the back of the daemons as they took to the air. Leathery wings unfurled on the archdaemons. They headed directly toward Ancel and the Svenzar.

Ryne smiled a grim smile. “You have their attention. Now what?”

As if on cue, the daemons wailed once more. The temperament among the nearby shadelings changed. They attacked, launching shade like a rain of arrows and lances. Wraithwolves bounded forward and flung themselves across the distance. Darkwraiths flitted across the ground, black blades raised high.

Halvor’s other hand shot out. Rock, metal, and dirt sprayed upward, thudding together like a building constructed in an instant. A cocoon of debris swallowed him and his charges. The attacks died against the creation.

The Svenzar burst from the miniature mountain, and in a blur of motion that belied his girth, he flung Ancel at a particularly dense potion of shadelings. Ancel flew headfirst, a glowing arrow of flesh and leather armor, hands folded across his chest. Forges whipped in his direction, black against the skies bloody hues. Inches from him they struck a surface, illuminating an oval shield encircling him.

He crashed into a large wraithwolf, both of them disappearing into the dark masses of shadelings. They surged around their potential prey.

And almost as quickly, space began to clear. By ones or twos, darkwraiths, Alzari, and wraithwolves fell. Ancel appeared in their midst, a gale of blades, spinning and slicing, dancing between blows in various Stances and Styles. Ryne could almost hear the music of the carnage he wrought, a symphony attuned only to the best of swordsmen, to the masters.

“He is as good as his father,” Kalvor said from next to Ryne.

“Almost.”

“Does his skill not worry you?”

“How long have you been married, Kalvor?”

Down on the battlefield Ancel faced off against a daemon. Its score or more of tentacles flailed in too many directions to count. The beast Forged, trails of shade pitting the ground and darkening the air. Ancel surged forward, blocking, dodging, leaping, movements nimble enough for a Temtesa.

“A thousand years now,” the Svenzar king answered.

“Does your wife scare you?”

“Why should she? She is my wife?”

“And death is mine. She has chased me since birth as she does us all. I have courted her for millennia, embraced her a thousand times.” Ryne touched his sword hilt. “I’ve given her kiss to many a man and beast. If it’s my time to feel the sweet agony of her love, then it’s the will of the gods.”

The Svenzar’s expression crumpled. “You would go without a fight?”

Ryne smiled, watching Ancel make short work of foe after foe. “I didn’t say that now, did I?”

“Good.” Kalvor chuckled, his voice a mixture of vibrant tones. “For a moment I thought you had become soft.”

“Of all people, me?” Ryne paused to give the idea some thought. “Well, perhaps a little. I blame him.” He nodded down toward Ancel. “Do you think they will hold long enough?”

“They have no choice.” Kalvor’s attention drifted to the Svenzar and Sven hidden in the pass.

“Not exactly an answer, is it?” Ryne was used to the way the Svenzar could deflect a question.

“But it is answer enough.”

The Svenzar king was right. They had given their word. His people would fight to the last man to ensure they succeeded.

At the thought of more loss a sense of melancholy eased through Ryne before he shrugged it off. Life and death were ever acquaintances, lovers even. “Well, it’s time we played our part.”

Kalvor grunted his assent.

With a wave of his hand, Ryne opened a portal to the Everlast Mountains where Anton and the Stoneguard waited.

C
hapter 36

I
f not for the scarf tied around her head, Irmina was certain sweat would be trickling into her eyes. She also believed she would be retching if not for the cloth over her mouth and the Forge Ancel had taught them. Such was the thickness of the forest’s heat and filth. Wearing cotton hadn’t been her first choice, but the oppressive swelter within the Rotted Forest said it had been the correct one. The dank, dark trees conjured nightmares of Sakari, of him fighting lapras, entering her mind … she shook her head against the memory. The moment lingered, and she found herself glancing at a few Pathfinders. For once they’d given up their armor. But they had insisted on the headscarves that covered everything but their eyes. She wished she couldn’t see those also. Too many of them made her feel as if she peered into Sakari’s empty pits.

She stopped studying the Pathfinders to focus on what lay beyond the forest’s borders. Heat radiated across rocky wasteland before the land fell away or rose, hills and hollows repeating to the distant mountains. Simply looking at the wavy haze made her think of a meal slowly cooking over a fire. Worse than the Broken Land’s scalding temperature was the mass of black stretching north to south.

Shadelings by the hundreds of thousands.

Among them she made out the larger forms of winged daemons and archdaemons. Somewhere beyond her sight rose the din of battle. A release of power, a flash of light, and a hollow boom resonated from the same direction.

She sought her zyphyl’s mind. Through the pet’s eyes she watched daemons and archdaemons stream toward the Matersurge. The armies of Amuni’s Children and shadelings shifted, flowing tar against a backdrop of chasms and broken earth filled with reddish hues. She let out a relived sigh that the plan had worked thus far. Whether Ancel and the Svenzar would hold up against the enemy’s increased forces was another issue altogether. One she couldn’t allow to distract her. And yet she couldn’t help the longing to head in his direction.

She signaled to Mirza, Cantor, Trucida and the captains in charge of the five cohorts of Pathfinders and Dagodins arrayed to either side and behind her. Their mounts snorted and stomped as if they sensed the impending command, coats and flowing manes sullied by the forest’s mud and grime.

Charra growled, low and deep. Daggerpaws, lapras, and wolves around them responded in kind. Under Charra’s command the beasts had left carnage behind them, making short work of the Rotted Forest’s infected lapras, hounds, and a myriad of other creatures, before venturing into the Broken Lands. She and the Pathfinders had taken care of the Alzari, Cardians, Astocans, and even a few Felani, all dressed in the ebony and red of Amuni’s Children.

Still gazing through her zyphyl, she waited for the brunt of the shadeling army that had overrun a city moments ago. Only one major citadel remained between them and Kajeta. Ahead of the advancing forces the Desorin fell back like a school of fish before a predator.

Another keening wail issued from an archdaemon. Breath held, she prayed the additional fifteen or more shadebanes would alter their course.

They did not. They marched on, a relentless sea of black doom.

“We can’t wait any longer,” she said to Mirza and Cantor. “We go now. If we stay to the cliffs, there are sections between the slopes and the crevasses where we can remain hidden from their central army.”

“It could work,” Mirza said, stroking the red braid that extended from his chin, “but what of their scouts? Even if their leader pulled all the banes, he’d be stupid not to leave a few scouts.”

A series of whines and a low growl issued from Charra. Although she understood many communications between animals, including daggerpaws, Charra reinforced his suggestion with images. Each revealed scout locations in relation to the Netherwood’s animals that had replaced their infected cousins.

“Charra takes offense to you not trusting his group to do their jobs,” she said. “He says the rest is up to how well we ride.”

With a grin, Mirza patted his kenten. “I guess we get to see how fast you really are.” The creature mewled, its two horns twitching with a life of their own.

She still marveled at the creatures. She’d been confused when Ancel first brought her to the Entosis and pointed them out. Their beauty and color had taken her breath away, and she’d found the sentient protrusions on their heads to be more than a little disconcerting. Touching the creatures’ minds was the same as communicating with two separate entities that somehow thought so similarly it was difficult to tell them apart. One thing had become abundantly clear when she delved into the kenten: their unparalleled hate for shadelings. According to Charra, the loathing stemmed from wraithwolf creation. The process involved a combination of netherling blood, kenten, human, and wolf, Forged together by one of the gods.

The kentens’ aversion for shadelings had been a bonus, their ability to Shimmer, a boon. With her connection she’d relayed Ancel’s intentions. The kenten were enthusiastic at the chance to battle shadelings even if it meant they needed to carry men on their backs like horses, their distant, less esteemed cousins.

“Remember,” Irmina called out, “one yank for a Shimmer if your kenten doesn’t follow my lead.” She indicated the slim rope attached to the longest horn and entwined within the reins. The greatest risk in their current plan rested in the possibility of those who lagged behind or Shimmered too late.

She waited until all the captains passed on her instructions. Out on the field, another daemon detached from the main group, its shadebane trailing after it.

“The signal should arrive at any moment,” Cantor said.

The second surge of power would be different from the first. She kept her eyes focused on the Pathfinders to her right, while Mirza did the same for those on the left.

Within moments of the thought, the Primasurge occurred, a blaze of essences so strong she swore everyone across the battlefield must have felt it. However, the lone reactions came from the uneasy shuffling among certain Pathfinders. Two sat astride their mounts not far from her but out of earshot. Destille and Locracia. The kenten snorted and tossed their heads. A low whine escaped Charra’s throat.

A shaft of light so bright she had to snap her head away shot into the bleeding heavens. A deep rumble followed, and a blast of hot air that shook inky leaves from trees. Screams and cries ensued.

“Pathfinders Corbell, Mosan, and Desiana,” Mirza said under his breath.

She nodded to Cantor. He’d been watching the same group as her.

“Locracia, Destille, Corbell, Tesiana, and Mosan, to the northern flanks, immediately,” yelled the Pathfinder Overseer. After a word with Trucida he called out another group and sent them to join the first.

Although she was expecting the names, the confirmation still jarred her. Merinian had been right.

The assigned Pathfinders stared at Cantor for a moment but said nothing. They trotted to their assigned locations.

Irmina found herself easing her had away from her weapon and letting out a relieved sigh. The plan worked better than she expected. Certain the remainder of the enemy would be drawn to the painful keens and the light, she raised her hand, waited for one extra moment, and then dropped it.

One tug on the rope, a snap of the reins, and the kenten Shimmered. The speed with which they leaped was dizzying. It brought her stomach crawling into her mouth. In one Shimmer they’d burst from the forest, crossed a thousand feet of open ground, and had reappeared at the lip of a rock-strewn, bowl-shaped hollow. They sped down into the area.

The Broken Lands heat made the forest’s humidity seem paltry. It was as if she were standing too close to a furnace. Every jump over a chasm was that furnace’s door opening to let out a gush of superheated air. The one comfort was their speed, it brought a coolness she relished.

Ten more Shimmers and they neared the incline to ascend back onto the plains, the mounts avoiding obstacles either by instinct or by sight. Between each distance-eating leap they galloped perhaps twenty feet before the kenten were ready to Shimmer again. A quick glance revealed their small army had remained mostly together. A single Pathfinder lagged behind.

The connection to the zyphyl showed all was going as planned, the shadeling army distracted by the attack, and converging where a lone man, a Svenzar, and a few Sven fought, the land around them awash with bodies. To the flanks, formations of Svenzar, Sven, gerde, and Harnan Stoneguard battled for every inch of ground they surrendered.

As they rode up toward the crest, she released her connection with the zyphyl and locked onto Charra. He ran through the upper plains, alternating between Blurs and Shimmers, from shadow to light. At her request his mind spread to the Netherwood animals throughout the Broken Lands. A command, and their work began.

A choked cry echoed from a crag above the hollow. A lapra and a daggerpaw appeared, tearing at two leather-clad Alzari. The men plummeted to the ground. All across this side of the plains, similar ambushes would be repeating themselves. She smiled.

With the speed they traveled and the distance they covered, she made a swift decision. Stopping to be certain none of the major shadebanes spotted them would be pointless. In her estimation they were better served pushing the kenten to their full potential. She connected with her kenten, one of the males by its golden mane, and made her request.

The kenten released a series of twitters followed by what sounded eerily like a whoop. Before she could pass along her concerns for secrecy, several wraithwolves howled in reply. Darkwraiths added their screeching wails. She didn’t need to see them to tell they were heading in her direction.

Her mount swelled beneath her like it was drawing in a great breath. On its head the two protrusions snapped toward each other and entwined. The process repeated on every kenten around her. When her mount Shimmered, it jerked Irmina back. With a knuckle-white grip she clung to the reins, head tucked into the kenten’s neck. A jolt of exhilaration ran through her.

Sweating, heart thumping, both from the incredible speed at which they travelled and the knowledge that shadelings were giving chase, she again let her mind seek the zyphyl. She peered through its eyes, breath catching in her throat at a full shadebane that had broken off from the others. Another smaller group of the beasts was even closer, but they weren’t what made her swallow in fear.

A gigantic archdaemon Blurred ahead of the bane at speeds faster than the kentens, all scales and leathery wings, scores of the tentacles protruding from its head. She gaped at the dozens of wraithwolves, darkwraiths, and grogs that clung to its arms, shoulders, and legs. A greater sense of dread seeped into her as she realized that even if she adjusted her run to an angle, the archdaemon would intercept them long before they got within sight of Kajeta’s walls. She scanned the riders to her left. The five Pathfinders Cantor had named rode among the outermost group.

She muttered a brief prayer to Ilumni for Ancel’s strategy to work. Before she met Merinian, the plan had been a gamble with bad odds. With the knowledge he had provided it seemed less so now, but some doubts lingered. Identifying the enemy did not mean they would react as Ancel expected. If this failed, it was likely she and everyone else would die horribly.

By the archdaemon’s speed, she calculated it would intercept them in another ten miles or less. A small valley within the vicinity seemed to be the most likely location. She withdrew from her pet’s mind and mentally prepared herself for the onslaught.

When the kentens emerged from their next Shimmer she peered to her left flank past the Pathfinders. The archdaemon was an enormous black shape against the backdrop of the Riven Reaches. She removed a red scarf from the belt at her waist and waved it in the air.

A horn blew, a woeful note that cut through the sounds of the kentens’ hooves and the distant clash of battle. The lines of galloping animals drew tighter, a wave of white, gold, silver, tan, and blue.

“One,” she murmured under her breath, her heartbeat a drum in her ears.

Shimmer. The kenten leaped forward as one. The rocky, torn ground around them could have been a smooth road for all she felt.

Hooves pounding. Shimmer.

“Two.” She sucked in a breath.

Sweat prickled her forehead. Heat washed over her as they reappeared and leaped over a chasm with such grace it was as if the creatures grew wings.

Hooves once more. Shimmer.

The archdaemon blotted out all behind it.

By the time she counted to six she could hear a deeper rumble than that caused by the kentens. A roar echoed. Her mount tossed its head before Shimmering again.

On her left flank the soldiers had finally noticed the archdaemon’s massive form. The beast seemed to stretch to the sky. Not one of them veered off their path or shifted position. The orders had been to hold the lines no matter the circumstance.

At nine, the archdaemon was a miniature mountain of leathery wings and rancid flesh. It stopped, threw two massive arms to the air, roared a challenge, and stomped the ground. A ripple of earth shot out into a section of Pathfinders and Dagodins, decimating them. The beast snatched shadelings from its body and flung them toward her army.

The majority of the kentens Shimmered.

Irmina connected with her zyphyl once more to view the aftermath.

Some Dagodins and Pathfinders had managed to evade the attack or lessen its impact. They fought in pockets against wraithwolves, darkwraiths, and grogs. Outnumbered, they were making a good account of themselves, but the outcome was inevitable.

The archdaemon stood its ground, spikes of shade sweeping out every time it flung its hands out. A few Pathfinders were brave enough to lead a charge toward the creature, Shimmering to avoid its Forges. They landed on its arms and neck, stabbing and slicing with their swords. They had as much effect as if they beat their weapons against massive steel pillars.

A laugh resonated from the creature, deep and terrible. It snatched two of its assailants and bit them in half.