CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Wolves at the Door
I can honestly say I was never more frightened in my life. It was not that I thought I might die—I knew I would. I knew it with the same certainty that I knew I was in love—all this and I was only sixteen.
—THE BOOK OF BRIN
Horns blew sometime past midnight.
Tesh had finally gotten used to the bell announcing attacks, but the bell had fallen along with everything else. Trumpets were the new heralds of doom, and they woke him from a nightmare-filled slumber where Brin was dying, trapped in the Kype. He couldn’t reach her. No matter how many Fhrey he killed, more always came.
He hadn’t planned to sleep, didn’t even think it would be possible. He promised himself he’d just close his eyes for a moment, but after sixteen hours of moving rocks to help build a makeshift wall, his body had betrayed him.
Now, Tesh ran across what remained of the courtyard. Jumping onto the collapsed remains of the old Frozen Tower, he looked down and saw seven bridges that hadn’t been there when he had gone to sleep. Across them, seven columns of soldiers flowed above the chasm. All around, men ran wildly, trying to find each other, trying to locate their leaders, trying to understand what to do.
“Has anyone seen Raithe?” Tesh shouted.
No one answered. No one knew. No one cared. Everyone had problems of their own.
He could join up with the men forming in the lower courtyard. He saw them from his perch, ragged lines coming together slowly. Both Harkon and Tegan were down there shouting. Raithe couldn’t stop him from fighting this time. Now, no one had a choice. Tesh looked back over his shoulder toward the dome and the Kype. The nightmare was fresh enough that he had to resist an urge to look for Brin.
My duty is to Raithe. “Raithe! Raithe!” he called, standing on the tips of his toes to see better.
“There you are!” Tesh heard a woman yell at him as she hauled a bucket of water. Her name was Tressa. All he knew about her was that most people spat on the ground after she walked by. “Raithe is in the smithy. He’s been wanting to talk to you.”
“Is that where you’re going?” Tesh asked.
The woman nodded.
“Let me help you with that, then.”
Tressa looked at him in shock, as he took the bucket from her hands.
The courtyard was an obstacle course of fallen rocks and rushing people, and he dodged his way across to the smithy. The furnace was going. He could see the firelight leaking out from under the door. Inside, he found Roan and the dwarfs working at the polishing table, while Suri and Raithe sat in opposite corners of the room. Malcolm stood near the door.
“They’re attacking,” he announced.
Heads came up, but no one moved.
“Raithe?” Tesh said.
“I know,” Raithe replied.
“They’re forming up in the lower courtyard. What do you want me to do?”
Raithe stood up and walked over. His movements, agonizingly slow, made Tesh want to scream. This was an emergency; seconds counted and his chieftain was meandering his way through the stacks of charcoal and iron.
“We need to talk,” Raithe told him.
“What? Now? The Rhist is under attack. They’ve got bridges. They’re coming over right now. Seven columns!”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You know?” Tesh couldn’t see how Raithe could possibly know if he’d been sitting in the smithy.
“This won’t take long.”
“What won’t?”
Raithe lifted his good arm and put a hand on Tesh’s shoulder. “I want you to know that I’m proud of you, and that you’re the closest thing I’ve had to a son. That if I had one, I would have wanted him to be like you.”
“You think we’re going to lose this fight.” Tesh saw the defeat in Raithe’s eyes. He’d already given up.
“No.” Raithe shook his head. “We’re going to be okay. I even think we might win the war.”
Tesh scrunched his face up. “You said this was a lost cause.”
“Changed my mind.”
“Odd time for that.”
Someone outside shouted for more arrows to be brought to the Verenthenon. Tesh looked out at the action of soldiers running and hoped Raithe would hurry up.
“The victory will come at a price.”
Outside, the trumpets blew again, and Tesh imagined that the Fhrey were fighting in the lower courtyard. “We can have this talk later, can’t we?”
“No, we can’t. Tesh, when—if anything happens to me, you’ll be the last Dureyan. You should make sure that our people don’t die with you. You like Brin, don’t you?”
“I really don’t think now is the time—look, I need to get down to the—”
“Now is the perfect time because I don’t want you anywhere near the fighting.”
“What? You can’t be serious! You stopped me last time—and I can help!”
“You can help more by living through this night.”
“What do you want me to do? Cower somewhere?” Tesh exploded. “You’re being stupid. I can—”
“I want you to go to the Kype and protect Brin.”
Tesh remembered his dream and lost some of his anger.
“And when this battle is over,” Raithe said. “I want you to start a family. Raise children, and live a good and happy life—someplace safe and green, like on a high bank overlooking the Urum River. I want you to do what I never could.”
Why is he telling me all this now?
Tesh noticed the others watching them, Suri and Malcolm especially. The tattooed girl had tears glistening on her cheeks. “Why are you—?”
“You have talents, and you’ve learned to use them, but don’t let that be your whole life. Dureyans have always been known as warriors, but you need to change that. Promise me you’ll do something good, that you’ll make your life worth something more than killing.”
“What’s this about?”
“Promise me.”
“But I don’t understand why—”
“Promise me.”
Tesh looked at Raithe. His eyes were desperate.
He thinks he’s going to die tonight. Maybe the mystic had foretold his death. Tesh heard she had magic powers, and Raithe’s eerie calm unnerved him. “Okay, I promise.”
Raithe smiled. “Good. Now go to Brin. Take care of her. Be a good man and a good father.”
Tesh, who had been eager to leave a moment before, lingered a moment longer. He was missing something. There was tension in the smithy, a strange silence.
“What’s going on?”
“You’ll find out,” Raithe said. “For now, your chieftain has given you an order. Get going.”
Tesh stared at him, trying to understand. But it was impossible, and memories of his nightmares pushed him out the door.
Brin couldn’t find Tesh. Minutes felt like hours, and hours turned into an eternity. With each passing second, her desperation grew. When the horns started blowing, she knew her time was up.
With that sound, every man stopped what he was doing and rushed down toward the lower courtyard, forming up. That’s where he’ll go, she realized. He wants to be at the front of the line. The lower courtyard was no place for a Keeper of Ways, but she desperately needed to see Tesh one last time.
“Brin!” Chieftain Harkon shouted. “Get out of here, lass. The enemy is upon us. Run back to the Kype! Do it now!”
Brin ignored sense and joined the ranks of men rushing down the steps. She was shocked by the devastation of everything below the upper courtyard. Collapsed buildings and towers had blocked access to the city streets, but the stairs and a pathway had been cleared all the way down to the lower courtyard. Walking down to where the front gates had been felt like swimming out too far; she was going too deep, getting over her head. When she reached the bottom—where men were forming in lines to replace the stone wall with one of flesh and blood—she still didn’t see Tesh. The sound of marching made her look east. The seven bridges were complete, and the elven army was crossing.
With no place left to look for Tesh, she headed back, but each step she took hurt. She just wanted to see him one last time, needed to say goodbye, share a final kiss. She didn’t think that was too much to ask. She didn’t think it would be so hard. As she ran back to the upper courtyard, she felt her heart breaking—her desire to say goodbye had become a genuine need. She had to see him once more before…before the end of the world.
It’s not fair!
Others had years. Padera had been blessed with decades. What did she and Tesh have? Not much, just a few days to love, to fight, to hold, and to cry. Brin wanted nothing more than to grow old with him, to live the life her mother had. She wanted to spend day after boring day in a tiny home and suffer endless nights listening to him snore. When he was sick, she would’ve brought him soup. On his birthday, she would’ve surprised him with a new pair of mittens she’d spent months knitting. Brin wanted to be cooped up through long winters beside him, the two of them curled up like a pair of chipmunks in a den. She wanted to give him children, watch them grow up, see them marry and have their own children. How would Tesh look with gray hair? How would it be to sip tea in front of their own home watching grandchildren play? She would never know.
I got one kiss, one lousy kiss!
“Brin!”
She whirled and saw Tesh running at her.
Brin flung her arms out and pulled him to her. Squeezing as hard as she could, she kissed him. Then she did it again and again. Her lips still against his, her hands making fists in his hair and shirt, she said, “I wanted to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?”
She let her cheek slide next to his and spoke in his ear. “You’re going to fight with the rest, and by morning, we’ll all be dead. I had to see you. I had to say goodbye. I had to—I have to tell you…I love you.”
She hadn’t planned on saying it. Brin hadn’t even thought it before. The words just came out, but the moment they left her lips, she knew it was true. That was the real reason she’d been so desperate to find him.
“I love you, too,” he said.
He loves me! She kissed him again.
Horns were blaring. She heard shouts and the clang of metal. She ignored it all. The world could fall apart, she no longer cared.
“Brin! What the Tet are you doing here?” Moya ran at them along with an onrush of swordsmen and archers. Her face was fierce, her bow strung. “The lower yard is overrun. They’re coming up the steps. Get to the Kype! Move!”
Padera was just making her way down when the whole world started coming up. She was on her way to find Raithe, and the best place to start looking was the barracks. That was across the corbel bridge, through the Verenthenon, and down the long, narrow stairs to the upper courtyard. She only got as far as the bridge.
“Don’t go out there,” Grygor said. The giant stood guard beside the bronze door, which, for the time being, was left open so he could look out.
“Persephone wants me to get a message to Raithe.”
Grygor shook his head. “Too late for that. The fane’s army is across the ford.”
The old woman stood with the giant in the doorway of the Kype, looking out at the end of the world. The sky was swirling again. Dark, unnatural clouds covered the stars, folding and unfolding, making threatening faces at the living. Lightning flashed between the shades of gray, brilliant bolts of white that cracked and boomed.
“I wish it would rain,” Grygor said.
Padera glanced at him. No matter how she tilted her head, or how tightly she squinted her one eye, she could never manage to fill her expression with enough incredulity. “Did you say you wished it would rain? Why in the world—”
“Because it’d only be a storm then, wouldn’t it? Just a spring rain. We could shutter the windows and bolt the doors, and it would blow over as all downpours do. But this isn’t one of those storms, is it?”
From beyond the dome, she saw streaks of red light coming from the far side of the ford. One struck the remaining forward tower and sheared off the top.
“No,” she said. “No, it’s not.”
Screams were carried on the wind. Cries of pain and horror rose up from the village and the lower yards. They were faint enough to be the wails of ghosts.
“My relatives have arrived.” Grygor pointed down at the seven bridges as huge Grenmorians lumbered across, wielding great clubs that they used to bash chunks out of anything still standing.
“Why aren’t you with them?”
“Don’t get along with my family.” He looked down at her.
“No one gets along with their family,” Padera replied.
“They tried to kill me—twice. Sheer luck saved me the first time. Second time it was Nyphron. Didn’t look back after that.”
The world shook, and both Grygor and Padera staggered, reaching for the door frame for support.
“They’re doing that again,” she said. “Treating this fortress like a dog treats a rabbit caught in its teeth.”
Another shake and the dome of the Verenthenon cracked like an egg. Just a tiny spidery line, but the fissure, jagged and terrible, declared a prophecy. A moment later, a horde of people spilled out from under the dome. A sprinting line of evacuees raced across the corbel bridge toward Grygor and Padera. Most were soldiers, including the chieftains Tegan and Harkon, but leading the pack were Moya, Brin, Tekchin, and Tesh.
The prophecy fulfilled itself as the dome fell. Dust of broken stone belched from the belly of the Verenthenon, a cloud that obscured the length of the span. Padera lost sight of everyone for a long awful moment. Then Moya appeared, slick with sweat, pumping her arms, her bow held high in one hand.
Grygor and Padera moved clear as dust-covered soldiers poured in.
“Seal the door!” Tegan shouted when the last survivor dove inside.
Grygor looked more than pleased to slam the bronze door shut and lay the metal brace.
“Everything on the other side of that door is lost to us.” Harkon wiped the dust and grime from his face.
“They crushed us at the front gate.” Bergin panted for air. “There’s no stopping them.”
Tegan placed a hand against the closed door as if willing it to hold. “There’s too many.”
“And then the light show started,” Harkon grumbled.
“And now they have giants,” Moya said, glancing at Grygor. “I’m going up to Persephone. I’ll die with her.”
The others didn’t say anything, but many nodded.
“I’ll stay here and hold this door,” Tegan declared. “I hate stairs.”
“Me, too.” Harkon pulled his sword and weighed it in his hands. “Stairs are the gods’ curse to men.”
“I’m going to stay,” Tesh told Brin, who took a step back as if she’d been pushed. “It’s the best way to protect you.”
“Why are you down here?” Moya asked Padera.
“I was sent to find Raithe.”
Moya shook her head and pointed at the door with her bow. “There’s nothing on the other side of that door now except bodies.”
In the smithy, heads jerked at the sound of another explosion, but Malcolm seemed unconcerned. Tressa and the dwarfs stared wide-eyed at the door as screams came from directly outside. Raithe knew those sounds would come back to them in nightmares for the rest of their lives, if they survived the night. There were other sounds, too: deep booms, clangs, and the howl of whirlwinds.
Something banged against the little wood door, eight vertical maple boards held together by a Z brace with a simple brass latch.
Roan worked a foot pedal similar to a spinning wheel, but this one rotated an arm of soft cloth. Then she stopped and, pulling a rag from the waist of her leather apron, wiped the sword in her hands. Turning, she held the weapon to the light of the forge and nodded to herself. Then, still chasing down smudges with the rag, she carried the blade across the room and handed it to Raithe. Holding it out with both hands, she used the cloth so that no part of her skin left a print.
“I did my best,” Roan said.
Long, shimmering, and with a rich black color, the sword was perfection. Roan’s skill at a forge and anvil had grown beyond imagining. The object she placed in his hands wasn’t a sword, wasn’t a weapon at all; it was a work of art.
Everyone in the room stared at him as he looked at it.
This isn’t a sword for me to wield. I’m looking at—I’m holding—my own death.
“I…” Roan’s voice cracked, then just stopped. She bit her lip and started to cry.
“It’s beautiful,” Raithe told her. “The most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Thank you.”
She began to sob, to collapse; she ran back to the worktable but pushed the stool aside and sat on the floor, drawing her knees up. That’s when Raithe realized the obvious. The sword had been her support, and not just the one he held. All the swords, the shields, and armor that Roan had made were the pillars she had lashed herself to in order to remain standing. The work had been her distraction, her world within the world, her retreat, but this blade was the last, and the war was finally knocking.
Raithe weighed the sword in his hands: heavy, well-balanced, and magnificent. He turned it, and the glow of the forge shone across its face.
More screams came from beyond the door. He heard a man cry, “Help me! Help me!”
Promise me, Raithe. He recalled his mother’s voice, shaking with the cold and coming out in puffs of frost. Promise me you’ll do something good, that you’ll make your life worth something.
He walked across the room to Suri. She was sitting on the floor in the same cross-legged manner she had in Dahl Rhen, only now her hair and skin were clean, and she wore a lavish asica after the fashion of the ranking Fhrey. She looked up at him as he held out the sword.
“I guess this means I’ll never learn to juggle.” He meant it as a joke, something to break the tension.
Suri started crying.
“Sorry,” he said and sighed. “So, how does this work? Will I remember who I am? Who I was? Will I have memories?”
“I don’t know,” Suri said, sniffling. “Minna…” She shook her head. “It really wasn’t Minna at all—and yet I felt that part of Minna was there.”
“And this sword.” He looked at it again. “This will be used to kill me after I get done fighting the Fhrey?”
“You’ll be killed in the making. I honestly don’t know how much of you may linger in the beast. Maybe none. It might just have been what I put into the conjuration that made it seem like Minna. The sword will break the weave. If any part of you is trapped, it will be set free by the sword.”
“So, what do I do now?”
She reached out and took the blade. “Just lie down,” she told him.
He did, and she placed the fabulous sword on his chest.
“Doesn’t it need my name on it?”
“Yes, but that…” Suri squeezed her lips together, turning the pink white, and her eyes tightened, squinting as if in agony. She took a deliberate breath. “When Minna died, I didn’t have a sword or anything, so her name was imprinted on my mind by her escaping spirit. When your spirit leaves your body, it will pass through the sword and leave your name there. It will be you who writes it, using the language of creation.”
Raithe nodded.
Something hit the door to the smithy again, something hard. The hinges rattled.
“We’re running out of time. They’re going to break in,” Flood burst out, his voice an octave higher than usual.
“No,” Suri said calmly, softly. “That door won’t open until I allow it.” She looked at Raithe. “And when it does…they’ll wish it hadn’t.” Suri ran her hands along the blade. “Such a beautiful thing to be created for such an awful purpose.” She shuddered and brought a hand to her face.
“I don’t know who this is going to hurt more,” Raithe said. “Me or you.”
Suri lifted her head to look at him, tears running down her face. “Me,” Suri told him without a hint of humor. “You—you won’t feel a thing. But I will.” A tear fell from her chin and splashed onto the shimmering blade. “I’ll feel it every day. Every. Single. Day. For the rest of my life, I’ll see your eyes as they are right now, the same way I still see Minna’s. She had blue eyes, bright blue eyes—so very, very bright.”
“Just so you know, I’m not leaving anything behind,” Raithe told her. “In many ways, you’re doing me a favor, if that makes this any easier.”
Suri placed her hand upon the black shimmering blade. “It doesn’t.”
Persephone sat up in her bed. Propped by a pillow against the carved headboard, she listened to the sounds of battle. Explosions rumbled the stone so hard that the canopy above the bed quivered. In Persephone’s right hand she held the little sword Roan had made; in her left, she squeezed the blanket. She held both so tightly her hands ached.
She was scared. It will be over soon. Everything will be over.
At any minute, a Fhrey would break in the chamber door, someone not unlike Nyphron. Her mind told her that. Her emotions imagined monsters: fangs, glowing eyes, claws, something similar to the raow—only bigger—much bigger.
Shouts, cries, the thunder of feet, then it finally happened. The door to the outer room of her suite burst in. Persephone flinched—almost screamed.
“They’ve crossed the corbel bridge,” Moya said, panting as she entered. Her face and arms were shiny from sweat, the longbow held in her left hand, the sack of arrows slung over her right shoulder. Brin and Padera followed her. The old woman shambled through the archway and around the end posts with her famous frown and squinty eyes. In contrast, Brin was terrified. She raced in, cheeks streaked with tears.
“Up on the bed!” Persephone shouted, waving for them. Brin leapt up and hugged her tight. The girl was shaking.
Padera sat herself on the other side of the bed, and, taking off one of her sandals, she rubbed her foot.
Moya stood in front of the door, her bow out, an arrow fitted to the string, four more in her draw hand in between her fingers, five bunched in her left along with the bow shaft.
“What’s going on?” Persephone asked them.
“The bridges are finished, and the elven army has crossed the ford,” Brin explained.
“They came with hardly a warning,” Moya said. “Hundreds pouring over the chasm, both beautiful and terrible, wearing shining gold and shimmering blue. With them came whirlwinds and giants. Nothing can stop them. They’re coming still.”
Boom!
“They’re here,” Moya said, looking out through the archway into the sitting room as if she could see them. “That would be them hitting the bronze door downstairs. Tegan and Harkon are trying to hold it with a handful of men.” She looked at Persephone. “Gavin Killian and Bergin are with them.”
Persephone didn’t know why Moya told her about Gavin and Bergin. Maybe she felt it would be comforting to know that men of Dahl Rhen were defending her. At the sound of their names, Persephone remembered her home of long ago and far away, a world of another time that was only a year lost. She saw the stone table and Mari between the braziers at the foot of the lodge steps. She recalled the summer fairs where Bergin served honey mead, barley ale, and strawberry wine and the dark winter nights when Gavin told his ghostly tales around the lodge’s fire, scaring Habet into adding more wood than was needed. That whole existence was gone. Even its memories were being hunted down and erased.
I came to tell the chieftain we’re going to die. Suri’s voice came back to her, eerily innocent, spoken in that detached-from-reality manner that had so confounded Persephone.
Who’s going to die?
All of us.
All of whom? You and I?
Yes—you, me, the funny man with the horn at the gate, everyone.
Persephone had thought the girl was merely looking for food. She also believed Suri was lying. Persephone had been wrong. The only thing Suri had lied about was the possibility of hope—that heeding the counsel of the trees could help. Persephone had done everything Magda had said, but none of it had saved them.
Suri had been right. We’re all going to die. You, me, the old woman. The young girl. The people outside. Everyone.
Raithe had been right. They couldn’t win, but he had been wrong, too. Even knowing how it turned out, Persephone would have still chosen to stay.
Death is inescapable. Everyone spends their days, buying unrealized dreams. I gambled mine on hope, not for myself, but for all those who would follow.
The Kype rocked as something powerful impacted its base. Dust fell from the rafters, and out in the sitting room, a golden cup fell from its seat on the stone molding and rang on the floor.
“I’m so scared.” Brin hugged Persephone tightly, pressing her head against Persephone’s side. “Will it hurt terribly, do you think?”
“No, child,” Padera answered for her. “The Fhrey are not ones for sport.”
“She’s right,” Persephone assured, although she had no idea if it was true, and she knew Padera didn’t either. “It will be quick, and we’ll all be together again. Your mother and father, Mahn, Reglan—”
“Melvin and my boys,” Padera added. “Been too long since I seen them.”
“Maeve?” Brin said hopefully.
Persephone nodded and brushed the hair from the girl’s eyes.
“Farmer Wedon, Holliman, the Killians…” Moya listed them as if making sure to invite everyone to the after-party.
“And Aria.” Persephone glanced at Padera, who managed to find a smile in those lips after all.
And Raithe, Persephone thought. Would they really all be there?
The door of the suite opened, and Moya’s bow stretched.
“Nyphron!” Brin shouted, warning her off.
The leader of the Galantians entered with a half-dozen men, as well as Vorath, Eres, Grygor, and Tekchin.
“Brace the door!” Persephone heard Nyphron shout.
Tegan and Tekchin carried Harkon into the bedroom. The Melen Clan chieftain was bleeding from several wounds, the most obvious being a gash in his skull that ran a stream of red into the man’s eyes. All of them were covered in blood. Even Tekchin.
“Did you…?” Moya asked him.
He threw an arm around Moya’s neck, pulled her to him, and gave her a long kiss. “No,” the Fhrey said with a pronounced tone of disappointment that bordered on self-disgust.
“They certainly helped.” Tegan jumped to the Galantian’s defense as he used his sword to cut into the foot of Persephone’s bed sheet. “Pardon, Madam Keenig.”
“Take the whole thing if you need it.” Persephone’s heart was pounding. Seeing the blood made the nightmare real.
“We have bandages on that table,” Padera pointed out. “Needle and thread, too.”
Tegan looked over.
“Give me that thing!” Harkon yelled and stole the cloth from Tegan’s hands and began to wipe his face.
“You can worry about seeing later,” Tegan growled and took the cloth back, pressing it against the wound. “Need to dam this bloody river you have flowing.”
At the bedroom door, Grygor peeked in.
“You made it,” Padera said.
The giant grinned at her.
“What happened to Tesh?” Brin left Persephone’s side, and took bandages from the table, and handed them to Tegan.
“Don’t know,” Tegan replied. “He was with us. But when the door was breached, we all ran. I was too busy worrying about myself to pay attention to where everyone went.”
“The Fhrey saved us,” Harkon said while helping to hold the new wad of cloth to his own head as Tegan and Brin worked to tie a bandage around it. “Threw themselves in the way. Blocked their attacks. Gave us time to—”
“Here they come!” Eres shouted from the sitting area.
Tekchin leapt out of the bedroom to join him, and Moya raced to the archway, stationing herself between the two rooms, Grygor to her left.
Persephone heard a thud, then a bang, and finally the sound of wood splintering as the door to the hallway broke open. Moya let her first arrow fly and had another nocked immediately. Shouts and cries filled the sitting room.
“Get me up! Get me up!” Harkon ordered. Tegan lifted the chieftain and put his sword back in his hand.
“Can’t see!” Harkon wavered. “Blood’s in my eyes!”
“Relax, I’ll tell you when to swing,” Tegan said.
Looking past her Shield, Persephone saw the Fhrey force their way into the sitting room. Just as Moya had described, they were both beautiful and terrible, wearing brilliant gold and shimmering blue. They killed Tanner Riggles in the blink of an eye. Three other men were cut down as the fane’s army forced its way in. Moya fired arrow after arrow. Many found their targets; gold-and-blue uniforms littered the floor.
“Get the little spear thrower!” someone shouted in Fhrey.
That’s when Tekchin rushed them, or tried to.
Grygor threw the Fhrey aside and stepped in the way. “You have an afterlife to go to. Grenmorians just turn to dust.” Grygor unleashed his massive sword, moving with surprising speed and not-so-surprising strength. The bronze armor prevented the Fhrey from being cut in half, but his strokes must have shattered bones. Whomever he hit didn’t get up.
For a moment, Persephone thought there might be hope. If the Galantians could hold them, and Moya could shoot—but then the wall to the hallway exploded and Fhrey poured into the sitting room. Grygor took a spear thrust to his shoulder and another to his side. He staggered. Vorath rushed to his aid and was the first to fall as three blades hit him from behind. Persephone didn’t see it, but she heard Eres cry his name.
Watching through the doorway that separated the bedroom from the sitting area, Persephone saw Grygor beaten back. The giant made a courageous charge into their ranks, disrupting the assault and clearing a swath, but more filled in the gaps. Valiant as he was, the flood was too great.
Are we all that’s left? Persephone wondered. Is everyone else in the fortress dead?
Grygor flew backward, and Persephone saw a Fhrey wearing an asica enter the sitting room.
Miralyith.
Moya saw him, too, and fired her next shot at his chest. The arrow evaporated in mid-flight.
The Miralyith fixed her with a terrible glare and thrust out his hands.
“Moya!” Persephone shouted as, like the giant, the Shield to the Keenig was thrown off.
Tesh was surprised to find Sebek alone. The Fhrey convalescing in the little room one floor down from the top of the Kype had no guard watching his door. While it was Sebek’s responsibility to protect Nyphron, the Galantian leader apparently felt no need to reciprocate. Not that it would matter. None of them would live through the next few hours. Still, he would have expected Nyphron to join his Shield, but maybe that wasn’t the Galantian way.
Sebek sat up in his bed, naked to the waist, his torso wrapped in white bandages. Lightning and Thunder lay on either side of him—a pair of guard dogs that would give pause to anyone who knew the Fhrey. Even as badly wounded as he was, Sebek was dangerous.
The fane’s army had found their goal, their prize. They had chased Nyphron up the stairs into the keenig’s room, into the Shrine. No one had thought to open this nondescript door—no one except Tesh. He regretted not being with Brin, but there wasn’t much he could do for her, or anyone. There was no winning that battle. But there was one victory Tesh could still achieve.
Sebek looked surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t expect enemies to be courteous and only attack when you’re prepared. Sometimes they catch you off guard in awkward places where you can’t retreat,” Tesh told him.
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember saying that on the bridge when you tried to kill me?” Tesh closed the door while Sebek intently watched.
“I did pretty good, didn’t I?”
Tesh slid the deadbolt. “I held my own there for a while. I think I surprised you.” Tesh offered a grin, then shrugged. “I’m still not as good as you. My wrists aren’t as strong, and your speed is superior. You would have beaten me, killed me, if Brin hadn’t interfered. But overall, I did surprise you, didn’t I? A Rhune like me—just a kid—going toe-to-toe with Sebek.” Tesh nodded. “I’ve learned a lot. Not enough to beat you—not enough to seriously challenge any of the Galantians, let alone the best of them—but eventually…well, now we’ll never know.”
Sebek didn’t move, didn’t speak, but he watched Tesh’s every movement.
“You know, when I first met Raithe, he taught me that the best way to learn how to kill someone is to discover everything you can about how they fight. ‘Determine their strengths and weaknesses. Uncover their secrets, and never let them see yours.’ That’s what he told me. Every night since then I’ve gone to sleep with those words running through my head. He was right, but I thought I’d have more time, you know?”
“You saw us,” Sebek said, his hands clasping the handles of his swords.
“When you and the rest of the Galantians came to my village?” Tesh nodded. “My mother was a wise and intelligent woman. At the first hint of your coming, she sent me into the cellar. We were poor—everyone was—and our storeroom was little more than a hole in the ground bordered by bricks. Didn’t even have the wood for a door. My father went out, buying my mother time. She put me in, covered the hole with a rug, and moved the bed over all of it. Then she left to join my dad. From the outside, the cellar was invisible. I removed a brick, and through the tiny gap I watched you kill my father. While she cried over his dead body, you cut my mother’s head off.” Tesh pointed at the left sword. “With Thunder, I believe. She was a woman, not worthy of Lightning, isn’t that right? And, yet, in a way, she’d bested you. You never found what she had hidden.”
Sebek struggled to pull himself more upright and winced at the effort.
“You Galantians are such heroes. I could tell that just watching you, the way you slaughtered everyone. All the unarmed men, the women as they clutched their babies, and the children—yes, nothing screams hero quite like butchering an innocent child. I used to think you burned everything just to be thorough, or because your fane ordered it, but he doesn’t even know, does he? He never ordered that attack, never ordered any assault. The war with the Fhrey didn’t exist until you started it. You murdered everyone in Dureya and Nadak to terrify the rest of the clans. You wanted us to think the fane was our enemy, that we had no choice but to fight back. This war was Nyphron’s idea, isn’t that right?”
Sebek didn’t reply, but his eyes were wide. Tesh took that as a sign of confirmation.
“Nyphron wants to be fane, but you can’t break the law of your god and still rule in his name, can you? Ferrol forbids Fhrey from killing Fhrey. So, Nyphron needed a Rhune army to do what he couldn’t.”
Sebek finally spoke. “You’re here to kill me.”
Tesh was pleased. He wanted to be sure Sebek understood everything. Tesh had waited a long time; he felt he deserved at least that much. “I’d kill you all, if I had the time.”
“So why save Nyphron from the raow?”
Tesh smiled as he slowly drew his swords. “I wanted to be the one to kill each of you.” He sighed. “But Nyphron is probably already dead, so I saved him for nothing. But of the two, I’d rather it be you. Nyphron only gave the order; you were the one who killed my family. Every day for nearly a year, I choked back vomit as I pretended to be your devoted student, waiting until I had the skills.”
“You think that because I’m wounded you can take me?”
“Yes.”
Sebek gritted his teeth, grabbed his swords, and swung his feet to the floor.
Tesh let him.
Tesh feinted with his left. Sebek met him. In that clash, everything was made clear. Sebek’s block was weak, without follow-through.
I’m doing him a favor. He wants me to kill him.
No better death for a warrior than in battle. But Tesh wasn’t there to merely kill Sebek. He wanted to hurt the Fhrey, let him know what loss felt like. Roan’s iron blade proved to be able to deliver on its promise. He struck Lightning with all his might and was rewarded when the bronze sword was severed at the hilt.
That is for my father.
He could have killed Sebek then, but Tesh wouldn’t grant the Fhrey any favors. His next blows weren’t aimed at flesh but at Thunder. Acting as giant scissors, Tesh’s sword caught Sebek’s remaining blade between two strong swings, and it, too, snapped.
That is for my mother.
Sebek staggered backward. He wasn’t looking at Tesh. His eyes were focused on the broken hilts, as if his hands had been cut off. Tesh paused to let the full weight of the pain sink in. Tears slipped down Sebek’s cheeks.
“Now you know,” Tesh said. “Now you understand.”
He let Sebek cry. The Fhrey dropped to his knees, and he wept over the broken blades. Tesh gave him a full minute before severing his head from his neck.
To Persephone’s surprise and relief, neither Moya nor Grygor were dead. Both got back to their feet, merely knocked down by a strong wind. Shock gave way to puzzlement.
Why are they still alive?
The answer was written all over Moya. After the first battle, she had painted runes on everything she had. But Grygor didn’t have any markings, and he didn’t wear armor. The Miralyith should have killed the giant at least. But since they couldn’t always tell who wore the Orinfar and who didn’t, he likely always attacked with air.
Grygor was up again. Recognizing the greatest threat and forsaking all others, he launched himself at the bald figure.
The Miralyith either noticed Grygor didn’t have armor, or the fear of a rampaging giant had caused the Fhrey to act out of reflex. In any case, his defense wasn’t another blast of air.
A brilliant white light struck the giant.
“Grygor!” Padera yelled. Her voice was louder than Persephone thought possible.
The giant died in an instant.
The Miralyith died a half-second later as Moya, having risen to a knee, held Audrey sideways and launched two arrows before Grygor hit the floor. The first entered the Miralyith’s throat; the second got him in the eye.
“In the name of Fane Lothian”—Persephone heard the shout from the other room—“face your punishment, Nyphron, son of Zephyron!”
Nyphron pushed Bergin through the threshold, and then he and Tekchin pulled a bleeding Eres into Persephone’s bedchamber. This would be their final stand.
Moya leapt up on the bed and resumed firing arrows, but Persephone noticed she was down to only the ones in her hands. Tegan, Bergin, and a blood-covered Harkon took positions around the bed where Brin and Persephone clutched swords and Padera prayed to Mari, rubbing a small polished-stone carving of their god.
Eres got back to his feet and made great use of his spear’s long reach. For a time, he forced the fane’s invaders to stay back where they were easy targets for Moya’s bow. She slew four but had only three arrows left.
Maybe because they finally realized the Galantians weren’t willing to kill fellow Fhrey, six invaders rushed forward, forcing their way into the bedroom. Harkon threw himself forward, swinging. A bronze sword entered his chest, and he fell. Bergin killed a Fhrey that Tekchin had distracted with a slash across the face. Moya killed another. Then Bergin went down; Persephone didn’t even see the blow that killed him.
Nyphron, Tekchin, Eres, and Tegan were all that remained between the fane’s Fhrey and the bed, and the other Fhrey seemed to know that the Galantians were harmless.
A spear slammed into the headboard five inches from Persephone’s head, and she screamed. Together, Padera and Brin jerked the spear free, and the old woman took it, aiming the point in defense of the bed.
Four more Fhrey pushed into the room, and Tekchin took a blade thrust to his chest. The stroke landed under his breastplate, and he cried out. Moya’s howl was even louder.
“No!” She straddled Persephone and fired her last two arrows one after another into the chests of the newcomers. Each fell, but they were instantly replaced.
Brin pulled Moya down to the mattress as another spear flew. Just missing her, the weapon sparked off the stonework.
“A curse on you, Lothian,” Nyphron shouted. “A curse on you and your entire Tetlin house!”
Brin raised her dagger as more Fhrey rushed into the bedroom. Persephone gritted her teeth against the pain and raised her blade. She muttered a prayer to Mari.
That’s when the roof came off the Kype.