DILAF reached around the princess to press his dagger against her neck. Eventeo’s eyes opened wide in horror.
Hrathen watched the dagger begin to slice Sarene’s skin. He thought of Fjorden. He thought of the work he had done, the people he had saved. He thought of a young boy, eager to prove his faith by entering the priesthood. Unity.
“No!” Spinning, Hrathen drove his fist into Dilaf’s face.
Dilaf stumbled for a moment, lowering his weapon in surprise. Then the monk looked up in rage and plunged the dagger at Hrathen’s breast.
The knife slid off Hrathen’s armor, scraping ineffectually along the painted steel. Dilaf regarded the breastplate with stunned eyes. “But that armor is just for show.…”
“You should know by now, Dilaf,” Hrathen said, bringing his armored forearm up and smashing it into the monk’s face. Though the unnatural bone had resisted Hrathen’s fist, it crunched with a satisfying sound beneath steel. “Nothing I do is just for show.”
Dilaf fell, and Hrathen pulled the monk’s sword free from its scabbard. “Launch your ships, Eventeo!” he yelled. “Fjorden’s armies come not to dominate, but to massacre. Move now if you want to save your people!”
“Rag Domi!” Eventeo cursed, yelling for his generals. Then he paused. “My daughter—”
“I will help the girl!” Hrathen snapped. “Save your kingdom, you fool!”
Though Dakhor bodies were unnaturally quick, their minds recovered from shock no more quickly than those of ordinary men. Their surprise bought Hrathen a few vital seconds. He brought his sword up, shoving Sarene toward an alleyway and backing up to block the entrance.
* * *
THE WATER HELD Raoden in a cool embrace. It was a thing alive; he could hear it calling in his mind. Come, it said, I give you release. It was a comforting parent. It wanted to take away his pain and sorrows, just as his mother had once done.
Come, it pled. You can finally give up.
No, Raoden thought. Not yet.
* * *
THE FJORDELLS FINISHED dousing the Elantrians with oil, then prepared their torches. During the entire process, Shuden moved his arms in restrained circular patterns, not increasing their speed as he had the time at the fencing class. Lukel began to wonder if Shuden wasn’t planning an assault at all, but simply preparing himself for the inevitable.
Then Shuden burst into motion. The young baron snapped forward, spinning like a dancer as he brought his fist around, driving it into the chest of a chanting warrior monk. There was an audible crack, and Shuden spun again, slapping the monk across the face. The demon’s head twisted completely around, his eyes bulging as his reinforced neck snapped.
And Shuden did it all with his eyes closed. Lukel couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw something else—a slight glow following Shuden’s movements in the dawn shadows.
Yelling a battle cry—more to motivate himself than frighten his foes—Lukel grabbed the table leg and swung it at a soldier. The wood bounced off the man’s helmet, but the blow was powerful enough to daze him, so Lukel followed it with a solid blow to the face. The soldier dropped and Lukel grabbed his weapon.
Now he had a sword. He only wished he knew how to use it.
* * *
THE DAKHOR WERE faster, stronger, and tougher, but Hrathen was more determined. For the first time in years, his heart and his mind agreed. He felt power—the same strength he had felt that first day when he had arrived in Arelon, confident in his ability to save its people.
He held them off, though just barely. Hrathen might not have been a Dakhor monk, but he was a master swordsman. What he lacked in comparative strength and speed he could compensate for in skill. He swung, thrusting his sword at a Dakhor chest, slamming it directly in between two bone ridges. The blade slid past enlarged ribs, piercing the heart. The Dakhor gasped, dropping as Hrathen whipped his sword free. The monk’s companions, however, forced Hrathen to retreat defensively into the alleyway.
He felt Sarene stumbling behind him, pulling off her gag. “There are too many!” she said. “You can’t fight them all.”
She was right. Fortunately, a wave moved through the crowd of warriors, and Hrathen heard the sounds of battle coming from the other side. Eventeo’s honor guard had joined the affray.
“Come on,” Sarene said, tugging his shoulder. Hrathen risked a glance behind him. The princess was pointing at a slightly ajar door in the building next to them. Hrathen nodded, battering away another attack, then turned to run.
* * *
RAODEN BURST FROM the water, gasping reflexively for breath. Galladon and Karata jumped back in surprise. Raoden felt the cool blue liquid streaming from his face. It wasn’t water, but something else. Something thicker. He paid it little heed as he crawled from the pool.
“Sule!” Galladon whispered in surprise.
Raoden shook his head, unable to respond. They had expected him to dissolve—they didn’t understand that the pool couldn’t take him unless he wanted it to.
“Come,” he finally rasped, stumbling to his feet.
* * *
DESPITE LUKEL’S ENERGETIC assault and Shuden’s powerful attack, the other townspeople simply stood and watched in dumb stupefaction. Lukel found himself desperately fighting three soldiers; the only reason he stayed alive was because he did more dodging and running than actual attacking. When aid finally did come, it was from an odd source: the women.
Several of Sarene’s fencers snatched up pieces of wood or fallen swords and fell in behind Lukel, thrusting with more control and ability than he could even feign to know. The brunt of their onslaught was pushed forward by surprise, and for a moment Lukel thought they might actually break free.
Then Shuden fell, crying out as a sword bit into his arm. As soon as the JinDo’s concentration broke, so did his war dance, and a simple club to the head knocked him from the battle. The old queen, Eshen, fell next, a sword rammed through her chest. Her horrible scream, and the sight of the blood streaming down her dress, unnerved the other women. They broke, dropping their weapons. Lukel took a long gash on the thigh as one of his foes realized he had no clue how to use his weapon.
Lukel yelled in pain and fell to the paving stones, holding his leg. The soldier didn’t even bother to finish him off.
* * *
RAODEN DASHED DOWN the side of the mountain at a horrifying pace. The prince leapt and scrambled, as if he hadn’t been practically comatose just a few minutes earlier. One slip at this pace, one wrong step, and he wouldn’t stop rolling until he hit the northwest foot of the mountain.
“Doloken!” Galladon said, trying his best to keep up. At this rate they would approach the southern wall of Elantris in a matter of minutes.
* * *
SARENE HID BESIDE her unlikely rescuer, holding perfectly still in the darkness.
Hrathen looked up through the floorboards. He had been the one to spot the cellar door, pulling it open and shoving her through. Underneath they had found a terrified family huddled in the blackness. They had all waited quietly, tense, as the Dakhor moved through the house, then left out the front door.
Eventually Hrathen nodded. “Let’s go,” he said, reaching over to lift the trapdoor.
“Stay down here,” Sarene told the family. “Don’t come up until you absolutely have to.”
The gyorn’s armor clinked as he climbed the steps, then peeked cautiously into the room. He motioned for Sarene to follow, then moved into the small kitchen at the back of the house. He began pulling off his armor, dropping its pieces to the floor. Though he gave no explanation, Sarene understood the action. The bloodred gyorn’s armor was far too distinctive to be worth its protective value.
As he worked, Sarene was surprised at the apparent weight of the metal. “You’ve been walking around all these months in real armor? Wasn’t that difficult?”
“The burden of my calling,” Hrathen said, pulling off his final greave. Its bloodred paint was now scratched and dented. “A calling I no longer deserve.” He dropped it with a clank.
He looked at the greave, then shook his head, pulling off his bulky cotton underclothing, meant to cushion the armor. He stood bare-chested, wearing only a pair of thin, knee-length trousers and a long cloth sleeve around his right arm.
Why the covered arm? Sarene wondered. Some piece of Derethi priest’s garb? Other questions were more pressing, however.
“Why did you do it, Hrathen?” she asked. “Why turn against your people?”
Hrathen hesitated. Then he looked away. “Dilaf’s actions are evil.”
“But your faith…”
“My faith is in Jaddeth, a God who wants the devotion of men. A massacre does not serve Him.”
“Wyrn seems to think differently.”
Hrathen did not respond, instead selecting a cloak from a nearby chest. He handed it to her, then took another for himself. “Let us go.”
* * *
RAODEN’S FEET WERE so covered with bumps, lacerations, and scrapes as he reached the bottom of the slope that he no longer related to them as pieces of flesh. They were simply lumps of pain burning at the end of his legs.
But still he ran on. He knew that if he stopped, the pain would claim him once again. He wasn’t truly free—his mind was on loan, returned from the void to perform a single task. When he was finished, the white nothingness would suck him down into its oblivion again.
He stumbled toward a spot between Elantris and the ruins of Toa, the city on its southern side, feeling as much as seeing his way.
* * *
LUKEL LAY DAZED as Jalla pulled him back toward the mass of terrified townspeople. His leg throbbed, and he could feel his body weakening as blood spilled from the long gash. His wife bound it as best she could, but Lukel knew that the action was pointless. Even if she did manage to stop the bleeding, the soldiers were only going to kill them in a few moments anyway.
He watched in despair as one of the bare-chested warriors tossed a torch onto the pile of Elantrians. The oil-soaked bodies burst into flames.
The demon-man nodded to several soldiers, who pulled out their weapons and grimly advanced on the huddled townspeople.
* * *
“WHAT IS HE doing?” Karata demanded as they passed south of the nearest corner of Elantris’s city wall. Raoden was still ahead of them, running in an unsteady gait pointed roughly toward the southern gate.
“I don’t know,” Galladon said. Ahead, Raoden grabbed a long stick from the ground, then he started to run, dragging the length of wood behind him.
What are you up to, sule? Galladon wondered. Yet he could feel stubborn hope rising again. “Whatever it is, Karata, it is important. We must see that he finishes.” He ran after Raoden, following the prince along his path.
After a few minutes, Karata pointed toward the west. “There!” A squad of six Fjordell guards, probably searching the ruins of Toa for refugees, walked along the inside of its border wall. The lead soldier noticed Raoden and raised a hand.
“Come on,” Galladon said, dashing after Raoden with sudden strength. “No matter what else happens, Karata, don’t let them stop him!”
* * *
RAODEN BARELY HEARD the men approaching, and he only briefly recognized Galladon and Karata running up behind him, desperately throwing themselves at the soldiers. His friends were unarmed; a voice in the back of his head warned that they would not be able to win him much time.
Raoden continued to run, the stick held in rigid fingers. He wasn’t sure how he knew he was in the right place, but he did. He felt it.
Only a little farther. Only a little farther.
A hand grabbed him; a voice yelled at him in Fjordell. Raoden tripped, falling to the ground—but he kept the stick steady, not letting it slip even an inch. A moment later there was a grunt, and the hand released him.
Only a little farther!
Men battled around him, Galladon and Karata keeping the soldiers’ attention. Raoden let out a primal sob of frustration, crawling like a child as he dug his line in the ground. Boots slammed into the earth next to Raoden’s hand, coming within inches of crushing his fingers. Still he kept moving.
He looked up as he neared the end. A soldier finished the swing that separated Karata’s beleaguered head from her body. Galladon fell with a pair of swords in his stomach. A soldier pointed at Raoden.
Raoden gritted his teeth, and finished his line in the dirt.
Galladon’s large bulk crashed to the earth. Karata’s head knocked against the stone of the road leading from Elantris’s southern gate. The soldier took a step.
Light exploded from the ground.
It burst from the dirt like a silver river, spraying into the air along the line Raoden had drawn. The light enveloped him—but it was more than just light. It was essential purity. Power refined. The Dor. It washed over him, covering him like a warm liquid.
And for the first time in two months, the pain went away.
* * *
THE LIGHT CONTINUED along Raoden’s line, which connected to the road. It followed the road southward, spurting from the ground, continuing in a circle until it completely surrounded the southern city, its rubble all but forgotten in the ten years since the Reod. It didn’t stop. The power shot northward along the road, spreading to coat the great Elantris city wall as well. From there it moved to Kae and the other two ruined outer cities. Soon all five cities were outlined with light—five resplendent pillars of energy.
The city complex was an enormous Aon—a focus for Elantrian power. All it had needed was the Chasm line to make it begin working again.
One square, four circles. Aon Rao. The Spirit of Elantris.
* * *
RAODEN STOOD IN the torrent of light, his clothing fluttering in its singular power. He felt his strength return, his pains evaporate like unimportant memories, and his wounds heal. He didn’t need to look to know that soft white hair had grown from his scalp, that his skin had discarded its sickly taint in favor of a delicate silver sheen.
Then he experienced the most joyful event of all. Like a thundering drum, his heart began to beat in his chest. The Shaod, the Transformation, had finally completed its work.
With a sigh of regret, Raoden stepped from the light, emerging into the world as a metamorphosed creature. Galladon, stunned, rose from the ground nearby, his skin a dark metallic silver.
The terrified soldiers stumbled away. Several made wards against evil, calling upon their god.
“You have one hour,” Raoden said, raising a glowing finger toward the docks to the northeast. “Go.”
* * *
LUKEL CLUTCHED HIS wife, watching the fire consume its living fuel. He whispered his love to her as the soldiers advanced to do their grisly work. Father Omin whispered behind Lukel, offering a quiet prayer to Domi for their souls, and for those of their executioners.
Then, like a lantern suddenly set aflame, Elantris erupted with light. The entire city shook, its walls seeming to stretch, distorted by some awesome power. The people inside were trapped in a vortex of energy, sudden winds ripping through the town.
All fell still. They stood at the eye of an enormous white storm, power raging in a wall of luster that surrounded the city. Townspeople cried out in fear and soldiers cursed, looking up at the shining walls in confusion. Lukel wasn’t watching the walls. His mouth opened in amazement as he stared at the pyre of corpses—and the shadows moving within it.
Slowly, their bodies glistening with a light both more luminous and more powerful than the flames around them, the Elantrians began to step from the blaze, unharmed by its heat.
The townspeople sat stunned. Only the two demon priests seemed capable of motion. One of them screamed in denial and dashed at the emerging Elantrians, his sword upraised.
A flash of power shot across the courtyard and struck the monk in the chest, immolating the creature in a puff of energy. The sword dropped to the paving stones with a clang, followed by a scattering of smoking bones and burnt flesh.
Lukel turned bewildered eyes toward the source of the attack. Raoden stood in the open gate of Elantris, his hand upraised. The king glowed like a specter returned from the grave, his skin silver, his hair a brilliant white, his face effulgent with triumph.
The remaining demon priest screamed at Raoden in Fjordell, cursing him as a Svrakiss. Raoden raised a hand, quietly sketching in the air, his fingers leaving gleaming white trails that shone with the same raging power that surrounded Elantris’s wall.
Raoden stopped, his hand poised next to the gleaming character—Aon Daa, the Aon for power. The king looked through the glowing symbol, his eyes lifted in a challenge to the lone Derethi warrior.
The monk cursed again, then slowly lowered his weapon.
“Take your men to the docks, monk,” Raoden said. “Board your ships and go. Anything Derethi, man or vessel, that remains in my country after the next hour’s chime will suffer the force of my rage. I dare you to leave me with a suitable target.”
The soldiers were already running, dashing past Raoden into the city. Their leader slunk behind them. Before Raoden’s glory, the monk’s horrible body seemed more pitiful than terrifying.
Raoden watched them go, then he turned toward Lukel and the others. “People of Arelon. Elantris is restored!”
Lukel blinked, dizzy. Briefly he wondered if the entire experience had been a vision concocted by his overtaxed mind. When the shouts of joy began to ring in his ears, however, he knew that it was all real. They had been saved.
“How totally unexpected,” he declared, then proceeded to faint from blood loss.
* * *
DILAF TENDERLY PRODDED at his shattered nose, resisting the urge to bellow in pain. His men, the Dakhor, waited beside him. They had easily slain the king’s guards, but in the combat they had somehow lost not only Eventeo and the princess, but the traitor Hrathen as well.
“Find them!” Dilaf demanded, rising to his feet. Passion. Anger. The voice of his dead wife called in his ears, begging for revenge. She would have it. Eventeo would never launch his ships in time. Besides, fifty Dakhor already roamed his capital. The monks themselves were an army, each one as powerful as a hundred normal men.
They would take Teod yet.