Orphan's Blade (28 page)

She opened her mouth to respond, and he pressed his finger to her lips. To any onlookers it might have looked as though he was consoling his love before battle. How wrong they would have been.

“There is a scroll on my desk in my study freeing you from any obligation. You may present it to the queen in the case of my death. And if I live, I will proclaim it as my burden only, so you will not disappoint your father. Let Ebonvale take the blame.”

Tears sprung to her eyes, even though his words were the most sensible notions she’d ever heard. “I have failed. We both have.”

“No, we haven’t. We’ve united Ebonvale and the House of Song in a just cause. If we triumph, let that be enough.”

Brax stood and placed his helmet back on his head. With a final wave, he jogged back toward the battlements, leaving Valoria in shock.

She did not have to marry Brax. He’d called off the wedding. So many consequences spouted from those two truths, but she didn’t have time to explore all of the options. If the undead broke through, there’d be no options for anyone.

Valoria pulled herself up and continued toward Sybil’s tower. The future was shaping up into something she could live with, now she had to claim it for herself.

Sybil’s Redemption

“Fire!” Nathaniel shouted and brought his hand down. Two soldiers cut the ropes holding down a rock the size of a boulder, and the catapult squeaked as it hurled the projectile over the wall.

“Another one!” Nathaniel ordered. “Keep them coming.”

Brax, along with three other soldiers, rolled the next boulder from the stockpile. Nathaniel sprinted up the steps to see where the boulder landed. They’d missed three times before they started hitting the front line of undead, and they only had so many boulders left to throw. The undead moved quicker than he’d estimated, and the boulder had hit a clump in the middle of the army. More bodies eddied around the stone, taking the place of the ones lost in an endless tide.

“Again!” Nathaniel refused to be deterred. This time they had solid rock blocking the gateway, so they could spread all the fire they wanted.

“Archers!” He gestured for everyone with a bow to climb the battlements and waited. Too soon, and the arrows would fall short of the front line. As the archers pulled back their bows, Nathaniel lit the end of each arrow. “On the count of three.”

He took his own bow from his back and lit his arrow with the flame before it flickered out. “One…two…three!”

They fired, and streaks of red flame cut through the air in an arc. The first few shots landed in the muck and sizzled out. But the undead moved forward without fear or logic. They stumbled right under the brunt of the force, and the front line burst into flames.

Cheers erupted as the soldiers hooted and pumped their fists in the air. It was a small victory, because another wave crawled over the first, and slowly the flames burned out.

Archers began to hit them as they came within reach of the wall. “Not too close!” Nathaniel shouted. “Do not let the bodies pile up.”

He turned back to the swamplands, and a distant black figure too tall and skinny to be a man caught his eye. The figure sucked light like a shadow, blinking in and out of existence in unpredictable places. On his head, he wore a crown of teeth. The necromancer.

Dread chilled Nathaniel’s bones and he prayed to Helena and Horred that Valoria would not use her magic. That horrid monstrosity of a man would not have her.

The figure raised its hands over its head, and a ball of lightning sparked between them. The necromancer hurled the lightning toward the walls. The rock shook underneath Nathaniel as a crack sprung between his feet.

Horred’s gambit. They had less time than he thought.

The bodies of undead were piling on top of each other despite the archers refraining from hitting any too close to the wall.

Nathaniel turned back to the courtyard. The time for hand-to-hand battle was upon them. He’d held them off as long as he could, a pitiful try. At this rate, Ebonvale would be taken by nightfall. “Swordsmen come forward.”

The army, along with the raiders marched in single lines and formed a barricade along the wall. They would not hold them back for long.

* * * *

Valoria emerged from the tallest tower facing the battlefield. Undead swarmed the battlements, toppling over the edge with the force of a tidal wave. They fell over the rock wall, then stumbled forward on broken feet and cracked limbs, uncaring of their own incapacities. Soldiers met them on the ground, but too many were dying too fast.

She strummed her harp, calming her racing thoughts. Ironically, when her future seemed limitless for the first time in her life, she wouldn’t live to see its fruition. Not if she wanted to keep those she loved alive. She spotted the necromancer holding lightning above his head. His face was gaunt, his cheeks sunken in. He hurled a lightning bolt at the wall, and an ominous cracking sound, like a mountain splitting in half, rumbled through her gut.

He’d have a hard time working his magic if someone else stole it away.

“Valoria, don’t!” Echo distracted her. He stood below her tower waving his arms. “It will be your undoing.”

“So be it!” She’d locked the door behind her. Even using his most potent song, Echo would need time to break through.

“You’ll turn, just like the undead.” Echo shouted in despair. “Please. We do not need two necromancers.”

Amok’s words came back to her.
The death of you, or your rebirth.
He might have been a madman, but he held some wisdom as well.

Below her, Sybil stood atop a white horse, approaching the wall in only her white nightgown and bare feet. She gazed at Valoria and held up a hand in salute. Her face was solemn and determined.

The time of reckoning had come.

The necromancer shot another bolt of lightning at the wall, and a hole burst from the lower battlements, spewing chunks of rock at the soldiers in the front line. Undead trickled in as soldiers raced to meet them.

Valoria closed her eyes and called up the dark magic. It swelled within her, lighting her limbs on fire. Sheer power seduced her, bringing her to another level of consciousness where she stood over the physical world as a god.

The necromancer sounded pleased. “Welcome, Valoria. My army is at your command.”

The urge to spread the plague overwhelmed her. So much anger, pain, resentment festered in the living. If only they knew the numbness of the plague, the world would squirm and be still. They would bow to her command.

Remember who you are.
Valoria fought against the tide.
You do not wish for power. You don’t even want to be queen of Ebonvale.
What did she want, truly?

The answer came from deep inside her. Nathaniel. She wanted Nathaniel. She always had since the first day she met him. If she allowed the undead to spread, she’d lose him to the horde.

No.

Valoria opened her eyes and spread her hands. The undead fell back in a line leading to the necromancer. Sybil kicked her horse, and galloped through the hole in the wall. Valoria fought to hold the undead from Sybil’s path even as the evil festered inside her, claiming her soul.

* * * *

Nathaniel tried not to look at the faces of the undead he slayed or think of how they were once people, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands, friends. He’d lost his army in the endless tide, and he felt like the lone survivor of the end of the world. His arms ached from slashing through the bodies, yet they came with fresh vengeance. They did not tire nor falter, not even when he cut off a limb.

A body of a woman in a red dress hurtled toward him. She blinked out of existence, then back in again five feet closer and snapped at his face. He fell back, raising his sword as she leapt on top of him. The blade cut through her stomach. She kept snapping as she slid down his blade toward him.

She would have been beautiful once, without the clumps of mold growing on her cheeks or the dark circles around her eyes.

An arrow hit her head with a thump and she dropped unmoving on top of him. Nathaniel glanced up to see Flip standing on a carriage above him. He offered his hand. “Get to higher ground.”

Undead swarmed the city, pounding and scraping on doors and breaking through windows. The army had retreated to the buildings around them, staunching the flow as it eddied around them. If he took the boy’s hand, they’d be stranded, but at least he’d be alive.

Nathaniel grabbed Flip’s hand, and he hauled him up to the top of the carriage. Undead climbed from all sides, and they scrambled to kick their hands off. The carriage rocked underneath them with the flow of the horde all around it.

Flip wiped sweat from his brow. “I only have three arrows left.”

“Save them.” Nathaniel didn’t have the heart to add
for ourselves
. Instead, he glanced at Flip and smiled with irony. “Are you still glad you chose to come?”

Flip shrugged and laughed. “At least I had a good meal.”

“Was it that delicious?” Nathaniel kicked at a man’s thick white fingers as he clung to the carriage top. He prayed Valoria had reached safety. If only he could have saved her. If only he could have saved them all.

Flip used the end of his bow to whack an undead from the back of the carriage. “’Til the last bite.”

* * * *

Valoria knelt on the side of a bed. Her mother lay before her unmoving. She cried, holding her mother’s hand against her cheek. The skin was warm and soft, smelling like freshly baked bread and lavender. Her mother’s eyes opened suddenly. They were violet, unlike her own silver eyes, or those of her father. She stared accusingly. “You left me here to die. You’re just like your father. You love him more.”

A whimper caught in Valoria’s throat. She’d always favored her father, and the guilt thickened on top of her like a blanket, suffocating her until she fought for tiny breaths.

Her mother smiled, but it was cruel. “You have failed him.”

One of the undead reached out to Sybil’s horse, and the beast tumbled to the ground. Sybil crawled from underneath the weight, her leg bent at a crippling angle. Undead closed in, snapping their teeth.

No. Valoria fought against the vision. Her mother had always scared her. She’d be kind, and then change in a heartbeat, throwing words like daggers. She’d resented Valoria because her father loved his daughter but not his wife. Valoria had buried that truth deep within her. But now she faced the spitefulness of it for what it was, and it did not have power over her anymore.

An undead man with an arm hanging by a few tendons snapped at Sybil, tearing flesh from her wrinkled hand and sealing her fate.

Valoria pushed the vision of her mother away and clapped her hands, sending the undead sprawling around Sybil as she crawled toward the necromancer.

Valoria turned all of her will on the necromancer. “Now you shall see.”

The necromancer dropped his hands at his sides as Sybil approached. The figure, black as night, bowed to the vison of pale white. All at once, he lost his hold on Valoria, and the evil trickled from her body, leaving her shattered and weak.

The old woman reached to her lost love with the hand bitten by the undead. Black spread through her fingers down her arm. They had seconds together, if that.

The necromancer reached down and took her hand, and all of the undead stilled as if they were puppets with no strings. Black met white, and Sybil and the necromancer melted into each other. With a flash of light, they blinked out of existence and were gone.

The horde crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

It was done.

Valoria collapsed to her knees and closed her eyes, praying to Lyric that Sybil and her love were finally together and free.

Aftermath

Pounding came from the door behind her. Valoria crawled to the door. It took all of her strength to stand and lift the lock from its hinges.

Echo burst in. “Lyric’s last breath!” Echo ran toward her and cupped her face in his hands. “You’re alive.”

“Mostly.” Exhaustion threatened to knock her to her knees, so she leaned against the old man and held him close. “The others?”

“Cadence sealed herself in the inner keep.” Echo smoothed over her hair. “I thought I’d lost you to the necromancer’s magic.”

“You almost did.” She pulled herself back to look in his eyes. “What about Brax and the queen?”

“Both are accounted for.” Echo hefted her toward the door. “Now we should get you to your bed for some rest.”

“And Nathaniel?” Her heart stopped.

“They are still looking.”

Panic surged inside her until she couldn’t breathe. “What do you mean?”

“He’d been separated from his squadron.”

She pulled away from him and straightened with new determination. “Where?”

“They last saw him at the back gate.”

“The back gate?” The last she’d seen, it had been swarming with undead.

Valoria pushed by her old music teacher. Her knees wobbled, and she ignored them, hurling herself at the door.

“Where are you headed?” Echo shouted after her.

She didn’t stay to answer.

Valoria had to climb over undead to reach the thoroughfare leading to the back gate. So many had died. How could she begin to hope the one man she cared for had been spared?

“Nathaniel!” She shouted, scanning the piles of bodies. She imagined his familiar head of brown hair among the debris. Horror knocked her over, and she had to pick herself back up again to continue. If he was here, she’d rather know. She’d rather find him and lay eyes on his face one last time.

She climbed her way to the back gate, where a single carriage stood amidst the bodies as if the horses had abandoned it mid-trip. Two pairs of boots lay on top.

Valoria climbed on top and fell to her knees when she saw him. Nathaniel lay with the red-haired young man from the raiders. Hope and fear intertwined, Valoria crawled beside him. She examined his arms and legs for bites, but could find nothing piercing the armor. She placed both of her hands on his face. “Nathaniel, Nathaniel wake up.”