Firemoon (24 page)

She turned to the armoured professionals of the north along with her comrades and attacked.

The northerners bore small shields and rather short-bladed swords, presumably so they could climb without difficulty and fight in tight quarters. The size of the shields didn’t matter when they were used skilfully, as the success to the south was fast proving, and they swung with strength and great dexterity.

At first Katja couldn’t get close enough to slash or stab, but when Valur took a blow to the torso and fell backwards, she filled the gap he left and thrust out. The northerner blocked with his shield and struck back. She evaded the attack and her next thrust hit him in the face. He fell down onto the walkway and off her sword, but a man jumped down from the battlements to replace him almost immediately.

What spears remained unbroken offered the defenders a certain advantage, but that was countered by the sheer ferocity of the invaders. Katja saw no fear in them. No-one hesitated up on the battlements in hopes of a better opportunity to leap down. No-one seemed interested in holding their ground and letting a large force gather before trying to take the wall. There were just fierce, immediate attacks.

There was a certain madness in their faces, visible in the firelight. Perhaps this was just how northerners fought. Perhaps it was normal in light of the danger they were in. Perhaps her own eyes looked like that. But she couldn’t help but connect this to the Brotherhood’s sorcery. She doubted they had been a positive influence on their ‘allies’.

They put all their strength into hemming in the northerners and Katja stood among her comrades and slashed, stabbed, parried, stabbed, parried, parried, slashed and stabbed. Blood coloured the walkway and the people and bodies piled up by their feet and got in the way. Katja stopped thinking and let instinct guide her. She felt neither pain nor fear or pity. Her senses gave a hyper-detailed picture of her immediate surroundings and her body reacted.

The latest man up the ladder had a short spear instead of a sword. Katja noticed that, along with everything else that was going on in that instance. The man threw the spear and she caught it, turned it around with one quick movement and threw it back. She hit him in the face, he fell back where he had come from, and hopefully knocked some of his comrades off the ladder.

A bloody northerner seized the opportunity, swung his shield around to make a bit of space and slashed at her. The sword hit her right shoulder. Her mail stopped the blade but the blow shook her arm. The sword dropped from her grasp but she immediately ripped the moonblade from its sheath with her left hand, swung against the man’s next attack and chopped through his hand. The short sword fell down along his fingers and the man screamed before Jons’s axe split his helmet and head.

The strength returned to her arm after two breaths, and after trying and failing to spot the sword among bodies and blood and legs she moved the knife to her right hand and threw herself into the crush.

She made it past shields and armoured bodies and slashed the knife into a man’s knee. She directed his fall into another man and slashed that one in the throat. Her comrades pressed the northerners even harder and made it difficult for them to use their swords, short though they were.

At least one man switched to a moonblade of his own, but Katja was quicker and slashed him in the shoulder. The blade penetrated the armour enough to cripple him, and Katja pressed up against another man so he couldn’t strike at her and cut the back of his knee.

She finally jumped back from a spear thrust from the battlements, and her comrades managed to finish off everyone on the wall and make it to the ladders.

The game changed after that. Keeping them from getting up on the wall became relatively easy, and there was time and room to break the hooks with hammers. Some of the soldiers ran to the southern siege tower to aid their comrades, and that scene began turning around as well.

Katja saw that Needle and another Eagle weren’t engaged in either fight at the moment, and seemed to be trying to decide what to do.

“Here!” she said, and slapped both of them on the arm to be sure of their attention. “Follow me!”

She ran into the gatehouse, past archers making use of the arrow slits, and out to the other tower.

Some of the demons had been slain, to the credit of the defenders of Pine City. But their own casualties were significant. The remaining monsters had driven the soldiers down to the stairs over a thick carpet of corpses and were covered in blood, full of arrows and utterly mad. The northerners could probably already have taken this part of the wall and proceeded down into the city, but Katja suspected they were no keener to get close to the wild monsters than anyone else.

One of them turned around as Katja approached and the sword carried the Sentinel Flame through its face and out the other side. She slashed another one through the middle rather than break her momentum, and destroyed that one as well, but then got backhanded by the third monster. It hit her on the side and threw her up against the battlements.

Needle and the other Eagle struck the demon and wounded it before it could pay further attention to Katja. She lit the Sentinel Flame behind that particular demon and so prevented its fellows from attacking them as well, making it shrink clumsily ahead in blind fear, into more powerful blows from the duo.

On the stairs a man with a big beard and a large axe led a counterattack on the demons as he saw them retreat from the Flame. A team of militia fighters, most wielding similar axes, ran with him before the monsters could recover and swung and swung.

Katja lost control of the Flame and it slipped back into her. She rose, despite having trouble breathing. She slashed the nearest monster in the back with plain steel. It turned around with a hiss and took an axe in the back. Katja strained her endurance even further by pushing the power back into the sword and dealing the killing blow.

In spite of their strength and endurance the remaining two demons were surrounded and cut apart, without Katja even making it close enough to participate.

She looked around for her comrades from the Eagles and found them both alive.

“What is your name?!” she asked the unknown one.

“Björn!” the man replied shrilly, his passions running high at being faced with the horror of the underworld.

The northern soldiers began to press harder on this part of the wall, but had now lost the support of the demons and the defenders had relatively little difficulty in repelling them. Archers lined up again now that the monsters were dealt with, and let arrows rain downwards. The tower was set ablaze and Jormundur’s officers fought to restore order.

Katja wasn’t sure what to do. The inner fatigue that came with heavy use of the Flame was making itself felt. That was no excuse for quitting, but this battle seemed to be winding down.

Needle looked at her with that one eye of his. He was winded and bloody but didn’t seem significantly injured.

“Are...” He took a breath. “Are there... more? Are, are there more monsters?”

Katja entered the gatehouse and the two Eagles followed.

“I think this is ending,” she said. Her voice was terribly raw. Just how much shouting had she done? How long had this battle lasted?

“You think?” Björn asked.

Katja stopped. She didn’t like doing so while the fighting was still going, but she did after all have a particular role to fulfil. The body fought against the mind’s concentration with pains, weariness and a certain intoxication after all that had happened. She tried and tried to stretch out her sixth sense and detect more demons. The winged monsters had probably not been completely wiped out, but their shrieks had ceased. She sensed no demons, just the black, sick aura that had hung in the air ever since the northern army appeared on the horizon.

Bowstrings twanged, stones hit the wall, steel met steel and men screamed. But there was something else. Something that gnawed at Katja, just beyond her sensitivity.

“But... perhaps not?” she admitted out loud.

“They retreat!” someone outside shouted, and a moment later the words were repeated here and there. The archers by the arrow slits shouted with joy.

“Yes! Yes!” one of them said, and wrapped the other one in a hug.

Bjorn smiled wearily, but Needle did not join in the cheer. He was watching Katja.

She walked briskly through the southern door. The occasional arrow was still loosed into the darkness as the northerners fled, but most were celebrating victory by shouting in unison and waving bloody weapons in the air. The heat from the burning tower was scorching, and the air had a heavy odour of blood.

“Let’s gather the team!” she said, and spotted Valur, who was taking part in the cheering.

Then she felt it. The gnawing little feeling became an explosion. As before, she sensed a familiar spell being woven far faster than should have been possible. Peter Savaren brought consciousnesses into this world and they found anchoring points in a few moments.

“The corpses rise!” she shouted, trying to get people’s attention. “The dead rise! To arms!”

A dead, armoured northerner make choked gasps. Katja hurried up to him and stabbed him right in the back of the head. It did the job, but the sound was heard again from an archer with an arrow in his upper chest, a northerner with a smashed face, a woman lying on her stomach in a pool of blood, an armoured defender with an axe wound in his face, and from many other corpses.

People began to notice what was going on, and many screamed as fallen comrades and enemies began to rise with angry groans on their lips and weapons in their hands. These were the more intact corpses, those whom evil spirits could force back into a semblance of life. The travesty from last spring was being repeated, except these ones had armour and weapons.

“Foulness!” shouted Borgo with a terrified look on his face, as a northerner whose jaw hung by a strip of flesh stood up in front of him with a sword and a shield.

Katja came up behind the corpse and beheaded it.

The dead ones attacked, up on the wall and down on the street, behind, in front and at people’s feet. Some were hesitant to strike at their comrades, and it cost them their lives. Katja lit the Sentinel Flame here and there to delay them a bit and give people a chance to react to the situation, but the corpses were not in organized formations or attacking from a single direction. The result was utter chaos.

They did not have the strength of demons, but swung their weapons with a similar ferocity and gave no heed to defence. Enough damage could drive them from the bodies, and people quickly learned the lesson that one or two blows did not necessarily suffice. The corpses often retaliated after being knocked down with deadly strikes.

Soon every downed body was brutally hacked by half-wild warriors with wide eyes.

Katja did what she could, but there was too much chaos for her to accomplish more than other capable fighters. She slashed and stabbed as it seemed she had been doing all night long, and walked into tightly packed fights and slashed at knees with the moonblade to make the defiled corpses easier to handle.

Most of these new foes were up on the wall, but some of the wounded, dead and dying had already been carried down and so there was fighting there as well.

The risen ones were not numerous enough to be victorious, but destroying them cost further casualties. When the last ones fell for a second time and Katja began to hear anguished screams and seeing the faces of her shocked allies, she wondered if perhaps the mental effects would prove the most debilitating.

The third assault was over. Katja leaned up against the battlements, closed her eyes and fell into a cloud of human horror and a certain ecstasy before the fatigue and soreness began to remind her of what she had put her body through. Little space remained for feelings.

She opened her eyes and spotted Needle.

“Now it’s over,” she said numbly. “For now.”

15.

Katja knocked softly on Linda and Brjann’s door for a while. She didn’t want to draw attention, and was starting to worry that she would have to climb in through a second floor window, when she blessedly heard footsteps.

“Who is there?” Brjann asked from behind the door.

“It’s me,” Katja said. “Your friend.”

The man opened the door a crack. He had a hatchet, and his wife stood behind him with a burning candle. Katja hurried inside and Brjann closed the door behind her.

She took off her hood and put what she had with her on a chest before Linda walked up and wrapped her up in a tight hug. It hurt after all the fighting, but Katja grit her teeth and refused to complain or groan. She needed this.

“Are you all right?” Brjann asked just before his wife stopped squeezing her.

“Mostly, yes,” Katja said wearily.

“Mostly?” Linda said and carefully put her hands on her shoulders. “Are you wounded?”

“Just scrapes and bruises. I don’t need stitches,” Katja said.

Linda examined her more closely.

“Where did you get that dress?” she asked.

Katja looked down at the oversized piece of clothing. She had thrown it on as a disguise. She would otherwise have been unable to justify coming here.

“I... pinched it,” she admitted. “In the castle. But I’ll return it as soon as I get back. I needed a disguise. Can we sit down?” she then asked.

“Oh yes, of course! I am sorry,” Linda said awkwardly, and carefully guided Katja as if she was a child learning to walk, as they headed to the fireplace. Katja felt immeasurable gratitude at getting to sit down in a comfortable chair. Linda sat down next to her.

“What happened?” asked Brjann. “The battle was lost on no-one and the city endures, but what exactly took place?”

Katja went over it in broad strokes, and sank ever deeper into the chair and let Linda push in closer.

Her friend stroked her hair as Katja went into the casualties, and the attack of the corpses, and the physical and mental consequences for all involved.

“It must have been terrible,” Linda said, so quietly that it was almost a whisper, and hugged her softly. Her voice had broken slightly, and Katja felt it stemmed from a mixture of fear, gratitude and sympathy.

“Yes,” she replied, and looked at a dark corner rather than at either of them. She took a deep breath and sank a bit deeper into relaxation as she exhaled. “And no.”

Katja hesitated before continuing.

“What’s human in me was aware of the horror,” she said slowly. “And felt for those who suffered and died. But the...
other
in me enjoyed it. Enjoyed seeing a real battle. Like last spring. I told you about that. It was terrible. It was the kind of event that damages people for life, or at least should. But a few days later I had recovered, and what remained was the satisfaction of victory.”

“Isn’t that... good?” Linda asked, but Katja thought she detected doubt in her friend’s voice.

“Is it?” Katja replied and closed her eyes. She had started to lean fully into Linda. “I have come to understand,
accept
, that I am not like other people. But it’s like I’m a monster.”

Silence reigned for a little while. Linda kept on stroking her and Katja timed her breaths in rhythm with the soothing touches.

“I suppose you just are what you need to be,” Linda then said.

Katja opened her heavy eyelids. Only then did she notice that Brjann had left. Had Linda signalled him to give them some privacy? If so, she appreciated that it hadn’t been discussed out loud.

“If you are a monster then you are
our
monster, if you understand me,” the young Shade continued. “You protect us, and have the gifts for it. Mental endurance for fighting seems to just be a part of that.”

“I had such strange dreams as a child,” Katja muttered into her friend’s bosom. “Always violence and darkness and monsters. My mother said I slept poorly as a little one. It pushed me into learning how to fight.”

“Yes. This is just your nature,” Linda said. “And given the circumstances I am very grateful for it.”

“Yes,” Katja said, for lack of anything better. She had gotten quite sleepy.

They sat there in silence and Katja lost her sense of time. The inner fire that came with fighting was good, but also wearying.

“So what’s next, darling?” Linda finally asked.

“I need to rest for the next assault,” Katja said.

“What are you expecting?”

“They are out of siege towers and have suffered great casualties. But I suppose that means they will use more powerful sorcery. And we too have many dead and wounded.”

Katja fell silent. She didn’t want to think about how short-lived this costly victory might prove to be.

“Won’t you just sleep here?” Linda asked and rocked her slightly with the arm around her shoulders. It was very sleep-inducing.

“I can’t, Linda,” Katja said softly.

“Sure you can.”

“Dawn is approaching, and I cannot be seen around you.”

“You can leave in the dress and the hood,” Linda said in a somewhat pleading tone. “It will be all right.”

“Jormundur might also want to talk to me,” Katja said, and got up. Linda was reluctant to let her go and Katja did not feel good about having to reject such tenderness, which she was so rarely offered.

“Katja...”

“I came to ask you a favour,” Katja said, and shook of the drowsiness, afraid that Linda might seduce her into resting.

“Oh, what?”

Katja stretched as she walked to the chest and pointed out the material she had brought along.

“It’s quite simple. I just want to ask you to sew something for me.”

She explained what she wanted and Linda gladly seized upon the chance to do something for her.

“I will pick it up when, and if, I get the chance. This is not hugely important, just something I want to do.”

She walked to the door and touched the handle.

“Katja,” Linda said, and Katja turned around.

The candle, which Linda had placed on a shelf, was the only light and Katja couldn’t see her face very clearly. But the young woman’s body language had plenty to say about worry. In fact, she looked quite vulnerable.

“It’s strange to see you in a dress,” Linda then said, and laughed with a need to release tension. Katja smiled at her.

Linda cleared her throat and hesitated.

“Good luck,” she then said. “Don’t die in this fight. If the city loses you can retreat and... and take part in guerilla warfare. Spy. Assassinate this Peter Savaren once he feels safe. We can help with that, as is our duty.”

Katja half-smiled. If the battle would be lost she did not expect to get away.

“I will try.” She nodded by way of farewell. “Thank you for everything.”

She opened the door and left before fear and affection could overpower her.

--------------------

Katja dreamt badly.

Something was chasing her. She fled along dark, winding corridors of the mind in search of a hiding place, but the rules were different in the realm of dreams. No cover sufficed, and her enemy always kept up with her. Still, some feeling told her not to turn around and face this opponent. It would be too dangerous.

It was the black cloud that had come with the northern army. Alien consciousnesses that formed a single whole. They, or it, or he, followed her through unconnected memories and images. She was back home in Baldur’s Coast, she was fighting up on the wall, she was running through a dark forest, she was swimming and she was climbing, but always this strange, inhuman force stayed on her heels.

Finally it began to encircle her, and Katja had no way of defending herself. She couldn’t breathe, felt like she was being crushed, and nothing she had learned in the world of flesh could save her.

“There you are,”
the darkness said. The voice was deafening, and pressed her down like a mouse in a cat’s claws.
“You who have caused so many setbacks. But I expected this. Just as herders must be alert to predators, so must those who wish to wield true power in this world clash with your kind.”

Katja groaned and tried to wake up, to find her body and move to some degree. But she was trapped. Being unable to speak was somehow the worst part.

“You believe you have won victories,”
her enemy went on.
“The little people you defend cheer and drink, in celebration of still being alive and able to believe that they control their lives. But all you have done is force me to use more extreme methods.”

Katja did not feel physical pain, but still had the sensation that something important was at the breaking point.

“This city will fall tomorrow night, no matter what.”
A certain fury had crept into the power that formed words much like a voice.
“The world will know that a new power has risen. Step up on the wall, as you have been doing. Fight, so you can lose, and baptise a new era with your blood.”

Katja began to feel intense heat. It hurt, but also gave her something to focus on as the power of the voice intensified along with the fury.

“Fight, and see your accomplishments reduced to nothing. And the better you fight, the more tragedy you will bring down on your allies. Prepare for fire!”

Katja smelled something burning and her skin hurt. It gave her the strength to scream, and she rolled out of the bed and hit the floor. The bed was on fire.

She frantically crawled away on palms slick with cold sweat, and tried to get her bearings with senses that were utterly confused. She seemed to be alone in the room and she no longer felt the overpowering presence, but its effects still echoed in her body and soul.

Her limbs were stiff and weak and didn’t seem to wake up at the same rate as her mind. Katja rose on shaking legs with great difficulty, and stared slack-jawed at the bed. The sheets were already engulfed in fire, and sparks licked the ceiling.

--------------------

Getting hold of Jormundur was easy. She had earned unrestricted access to the man and he had been injured when the corpses rose and, and so he was still in bed though it was near noon.

They were alone in the room as she explained what had happened.

“Never a dull moment around you,” Jormundur said slowly. “It is almost funny.”

He sat on the edge of his bed, clutching his left arm.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Are you fit for battle?”

Jormundur himself was not, to Katja’s eyes. This man had been under terrible pressure for the last few days, and had to take in many new and surprising things. Now what strength he had left seemed to still leak out of the cut that the city’s best doctor had stitched by candlelight. He had bags under his eyes, and his speech and movements were both rather lethargic.

“Sure, sure,” she said. “Just singed, not burned.”

She had muttered something about having dropped a candle when people came running to put out the fire, but told Jormundur most of the true story. But that was not why she had come. The incident had shaken her badly, but also cleared her vision. She knew what had to be done.

“Good,” the captain said. “But-”

“I need your help to get out of the city so I can assassinate Peter Savaren in his bed.”

Jormundur did not have the energy for a strong reaction, but did sit utterly still and quiet for a few moments.

“I see,” he then said.

“Yes,” Katja said, and didn’t break eye-contact. The determination and clarity the dream-attack had imbued in her gave her strength, and she wondered whether she was a bit similar to Serdra at this moment.

“The man is in an army camp,” the captain pointed out. “Presumably surrounded by bodyguards. And he is a sorcerer.”

“That is why I must be the one to go,” she said steadfastly. “I have been trained for stealth, and no-one in this city is better suited for dealing with sorcery.”

Jormundur hesitated again.

“We need you,” he then said. He took a wine carafe off a table and drank straight from it. “I didn’t like counting on a mysterious, foreign stranger, but you have proven yourself. I think I can safely say that these monsters our enemies have deployed would have beaten us back if not for you, and I will be eternally grateful for that. So we cannot afford you being absent tonight.”

“No,” Katja said, and continued staring. “I intend to leave while we still have daylight.”

This finally caused a visible reaction in the man’s face. It wasn’t much, but his jaw did drop.

“They only attack at night,” she continued. “So they must rest during the day. And the sorcerers will be less powerful. It will be the perfect time to strike.”

Jormundur closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. Then he opened them, and his mouth, but Katja interrupted him.

“This is our best chance,” she said. “They have pressed harder and harder with each attack. Let us not sit and wait to see what they think of next. Let us cut the head off the snake.”