Shadow's Edge
Page 122
A fireball arced up from a meister and ricocheted off its skin harmlessly. Ten more followed and did nothing. Lightning hit an instant later and barely left a black mark on its skin. The ferali crouched and flexed every muscle in its body. All the arms and armor that Garoth had incorporated in the beast exploded from its body in all directions, breastplates and mail shirts and spears and swords and war hammers and daggers and hundreds of arrows rattling to the ground in a great circle.
A glowing white homunculus streaked out of the Khalidoran lines and stuck to the ferali. In a line between the Vürdmeister and the homunculus, the air seemed to distort as if anything viewed through it were being seen in a bent mirror. The air bubbled in a streak toward the ferali.
Ten paces from the ferali, the distortion in the air ripped open with red fire. The pit wyrm struck. But its lamprey mouth closed on nothing. The ferali was unbelievably fast. The pit wyrm twisted, black and red fiery skin lurching further into reality, forty feet, sixty, with no sign of its body tapering.
Logan heard weapons rattle to the ground, dropped from nerveless fingers as the titans warred.
But the battle lasted only one strike more. The pit wyrm missed again, and the ferali didn’t. An enormous fist crushed the wyrm’s head and snapped its body like a whip onto the Khalidoran lines beneath it. It broke apart in bloodless black and red clumps that sizzled on the ground like water drops on a hot skillet, hissing into green smoke and disappearing.
The ferali turned to the Khalidoran lines and a dozen arms sprang from its body. It began snatching up soldiers like a greedy child snatching sweetmeats.
Then the men on both sides remembered the battle. The Cenarians remembered their weapons and the Khalidorans remembered their heels. They cast away weapons and shields to run faster.
A shout went up as the Khalidorans around the ferali broke. Logan couldn’t believe it. The impossibility of it was too much to accept.
“Who do you want to go after them?” General Agon asked. He and a bloodied Duke Wesseros had appeared out of nowhere.
“No one,” Logan said. “She can’t tell friend from foe. Our fighting’s done.”
“She?” Duke Wesseros asked.
“Don’t ask.”
Agon rode off shouting orders, and Logan turned to the man who’d tackled him from his horse. He didn’t recognize him. “You saved my life. Who are you?” Logan asked.
The Sethi woman who’d been stuck to his side for the entire battle, Kaldrosa Wyn, stepped up. “My lord, this is my husband Tomman,” she said, fiercely proud.
“You’re a brave man, Tomman, and no mean shot. What boon would you ask?”
Tomman looked up, and inexplicably, his eyes shone. “You already gave me back more than I deserve. You gave me back my love, my lord. What’s more precious than that?” He extended his hand, and his wife took it.
The Cenarian ranks reformed in the tightest square the generals could manage and just watched as the Khalidorans were massacred. There was no retreat. It was a rout. The rest of the circle broke, men running in every direction. The ferali tore through them. It became a snake and rolled over whole sections of the line, men sticking to its body, screaming. Then it was a dragon. Always it had dozens of hands. Always it was quick and terrible. Piteous screams rose on every side and men tore at each other in their panic. Some crouched behind the sheep fences, some huddled in the lee of boulders, some climbed trees at the edges of the field, but the creature was meticulous in its savagery. It picked up men everywhere—whether alive or dead or wounded or feigning death or hiding or fighting—and devoured them.
Not all the Khalidorans fled. Some turned and fought. Some rallied their fellows and attacked with more courage than the Cenarians would have believed possible, perhaps more courage than they would have shown themselves. But in the face of that horror, courage was irrelevant. The brave and the cowardly, the high and the low, the good and the bad died alike. And the Cenarians watched open-mouthed, not one forgetting that the massacre should have been their own. The few times that a Cenarian here or there cheered, no one took up the cry. The ferali tore this way and that, not catching every group of Khalidorans, but getting most of them, and always, always veering far from the Cenarian ranks, as if it feared the temptation of going too near them.
Finally, having devoured the last group large enough to be worth its time, the ferali fled toward the mountains. Cenaria was either blessed or lucky or Lilly was in better control than Logan had hoped, because it headed in a direction where there were no villages for a hundred miles.
In the silence, someone let out a whoop. For a moment, it hung alone in the air. Logan had been given a new horse and, mounted, he turned and was again aware of thousands of eyes on him. Why were they all looking at him?
Then someone cheered again and the thought wormed its way into Logan’s consciousness: They had won. Somehow, against everything, they had won.
For the first time in months, Logan felt his mouth curl into a grin. That let loose a flood and suddenly, no one could stop smiling, or stop yelling, or stop pounding each other on the back. Which noble’s flag they had fought under no longer mattered. Agon’s Dogs embraced Cenaria City levies: former thieves and former guards standing together as friends. Nobles stood arm in arm with peasants, shouting together. The shattered links binding the country together seemed to be reforming even as Logan looked over the tight-packed army. They had won. The costs had been grievous, but they had stood against the might of a monster and the magic of a god, and they had won.
A cry began to emerge over the sound of swords and spears pounding rhythmically against shields.
“What are they saying?” Logan shouted to Agon, but even as he asked, Logan made out the words, shouted in time with each crash of sword on shield: “KING GYRE! KING GYRE! KING GYRE!” It was audacious; it was treasonous; it was beautiful. Logan looked through the throng for Terah Graesin. She was nowhere to be found. And then he did smile.
72
The dead god fell like a sack of wheat. Vi was trembling, but she didn’t seem to have been harmed by the vir that had wrapped around her. Kylar stared at Garoth Ursuul’s corpse, disbelieving.
Kylar’s destiny was dead on the floor and Kylar hadn’t killed him.
The Wolf had kept his part of the deal: Kylar was alive. But something felt different. Vi was staring at him, still shaking with emotion, tears still wet and hot on her cheeks. He glanced up and read shock and fear in every line of her body—along with a tinge of hope?
What the hell? Since when can I see what a woman feels?
Vi was spattered with the Godking’s blood. It was invisible against the background of her dark wetboy grays, but there was something terrible about seeing flecks of red wetness splattered in her cleavage.
As Kylar looked at her, she was so distraught he wanted to take her in his arms. She needed him to love her, to lead her out of the valley of death that was the way of shadows. He knew the way out, now. It was love. They’d go find Uly, and he and Vi would walk that path together—
Me and Vi?
Her eyes went wide with fear and remorse. She was weeping. For a split second he wanted to understand, but then his fingers went slowly up to his ear. There was an earring there, a perfect hoop with no opening, and it was swimming with magic so potent he could feel it in his fingertips.
A glowing white homunculus streaked out of the Khalidoran lines and stuck to the ferali. In a line between the Vürdmeister and the homunculus, the air seemed to distort as if anything viewed through it were being seen in a bent mirror. The air bubbled in a streak toward the ferali.
Ten paces from the ferali, the distortion in the air ripped open with red fire. The pit wyrm struck. But its lamprey mouth closed on nothing. The ferali was unbelievably fast. The pit wyrm twisted, black and red fiery skin lurching further into reality, forty feet, sixty, with no sign of its body tapering.
Logan heard weapons rattle to the ground, dropped from nerveless fingers as the titans warred.
But the battle lasted only one strike more. The pit wyrm missed again, and the ferali didn’t. An enormous fist crushed the wyrm’s head and snapped its body like a whip onto the Khalidoran lines beneath it. It broke apart in bloodless black and red clumps that sizzled on the ground like water drops on a hot skillet, hissing into green smoke and disappearing.
The ferali turned to the Khalidoran lines and a dozen arms sprang from its body. It began snatching up soldiers like a greedy child snatching sweetmeats.
Then the men on both sides remembered the battle. The Cenarians remembered their weapons and the Khalidorans remembered their heels. They cast away weapons and shields to run faster.
A shout went up as the Khalidorans around the ferali broke. Logan couldn’t believe it. The impossibility of it was too much to accept.
“Who do you want to go after them?” General Agon asked. He and a bloodied Duke Wesseros had appeared out of nowhere.
“No one,” Logan said. “She can’t tell friend from foe. Our fighting’s done.”
“She?” Duke Wesseros asked.
“Don’t ask.”
Agon rode off shouting orders, and Logan turned to the man who’d tackled him from his horse. He didn’t recognize him. “You saved my life. Who are you?” Logan asked.
The Sethi woman who’d been stuck to his side for the entire battle, Kaldrosa Wyn, stepped up. “My lord, this is my husband Tomman,” she said, fiercely proud.
“You’re a brave man, Tomman, and no mean shot. What boon would you ask?”
Tomman looked up, and inexplicably, his eyes shone. “You already gave me back more than I deserve. You gave me back my love, my lord. What’s more precious than that?” He extended his hand, and his wife took it.
The Cenarian ranks reformed in the tightest square the generals could manage and just watched as the Khalidorans were massacred. There was no retreat. It was a rout. The rest of the circle broke, men running in every direction. The ferali tore through them. It became a snake and rolled over whole sections of the line, men sticking to its body, screaming. Then it was a dragon. Always it had dozens of hands. Always it was quick and terrible. Piteous screams rose on every side and men tore at each other in their panic. Some crouched behind the sheep fences, some huddled in the lee of boulders, some climbed trees at the edges of the field, but the creature was meticulous in its savagery. It picked up men everywhere—whether alive or dead or wounded or feigning death or hiding or fighting—and devoured them.
Not all the Khalidorans fled. Some turned and fought. Some rallied their fellows and attacked with more courage than the Cenarians would have believed possible, perhaps more courage than they would have shown themselves. But in the face of that horror, courage was irrelevant. The brave and the cowardly, the high and the low, the good and the bad died alike. And the Cenarians watched open-mouthed, not one forgetting that the massacre should have been their own. The few times that a Cenarian here or there cheered, no one took up the cry. The ferali tore this way and that, not catching every group of Khalidorans, but getting most of them, and always, always veering far from the Cenarian ranks, as if it feared the temptation of going too near them.
Finally, having devoured the last group large enough to be worth its time, the ferali fled toward the mountains. Cenaria was either blessed or lucky or Lilly was in better control than Logan had hoped, because it headed in a direction where there were no villages for a hundred miles.
In the silence, someone let out a whoop. For a moment, it hung alone in the air. Logan had been given a new horse and, mounted, he turned and was again aware of thousands of eyes on him. Why were they all looking at him?
Then someone cheered again and the thought wormed its way into Logan’s consciousness: They had won. Somehow, against everything, they had won.
For the first time in months, Logan felt his mouth curl into a grin. That let loose a flood and suddenly, no one could stop smiling, or stop yelling, or stop pounding each other on the back. Which noble’s flag they had fought under no longer mattered. Agon’s Dogs embraced Cenaria City levies: former thieves and former guards standing together as friends. Nobles stood arm in arm with peasants, shouting together. The shattered links binding the country together seemed to be reforming even as Logan looked over the tight-packed army. They had won. The costs had been grievous, but they had stood against the might of a monster and the magic of a god, and they had won.
A cry began to emerge over the sound of swords and spears pounding rhythmically against shields.
“What are they saying?” Logan shouted to Agon, but even as he asked, Logan made out the words, shouted in time with each crash of sword on shield: “KING GYRE! KING GYRE! KING GYRE!” It was audacious; it was treasonous; it was beautiful. Logan looked through the throng for Terah Graesin. She was nowhere to be found. And then he did smile.
72
The dead god fell like a sack of wheat. Vi was trembling, but she didn’t seem to have been harmed by the vir that had wrapped around her. Kylar stared at Garoth Ursuul’s corpse, disbelieving.
Kylar’s destiny was dead on the floor and Kylar hadn’t killed him.
The Wolf had kept his part of the deal: Kylar was alive. But something felt different. Vi was staring at him, still shaking with emotion, tears still wet and hot on her cheeks. He glanced up and read shock and fear in every line of her body—along with a tinge of hope?
What the hell? Since when can I see what a woman feels?
Vi was spattered with the Godking’s blood. It was invisible against the background of her dark wetboy grays, but there was something terrible about seeing flecks of red wetness splattered in her cleavage.
As Kylar looked at her, she was so distraught he wanted to take her in his arms. She needed him to love her, to lead her out of the valley of death that was the way of shadows. He knew the way out, now. It was love. They’d go find Uly, and he and Vi would walk that path together—
Me and Vi?
Her eyes went wide with fear and remorse. She was weeping. For a split second he wanted to understand, but then his fingers went slowly up to his ear. There was an earring there, a perfect hoop with no opening, and it was swimming with magic so potent he could feel it in his fingertips.
