The lonesome crown, p.109
The Lonesome Crown, page 109
The oghuls lifted Lawri from the litter first and gently placed her into the blood-filled basin of the altar, letting her rotted body slowly sink beneath the thick scarlet. The Vallè then hefted Lindholf’s body, armor and all, laying him atop his sister in the altar’s cross-shaped hollow.
As Lindholf’s body settled down below the dark crimson surface, the pool of blood itself overflowed the stone. Like a red storm rising, blood oozed over the rim of the altar and down the rough sides, curling around the tiny carvings at the altar’s base—carvings of beasts of the underworld. And as the rivulets of red dripped and curled down the altar, those beastly carvings began to glow. Beneath that sinuous blood the carvings glowed with a silver light as dazzling and pure as fire. Tala felt her own veins pounding to the galloping of her heart.
The ten oghuls and ten Vallè backed away from the altar and knelt around the room, facing the altar. Yvoirè stood next. The Aalavarrè brought forth the five angel stones from the folds of her white cloak, all the stones now glowing more brightly than Tala had ever seen them glow before. They illuminated the red-hazed chamber in a rainbow of light. Yvoirè placed the stones into the altar. They also sank, their bright life swallowed up in blood.
Sweat sheathed Tala’s forehead as she felt something stirring within the altar, a hollow whispering melody, no more than a lonely breath and hiss.
“Who hears that pure cry of the human dead sail high and loud toward starshine and moonlight?” Icelyn the White asked. “For I hear it. I hear that cry. And it sails high toward Viper, the one who carved out the underworld, the one who sits upon the heights of the stars with the Dragon, our master. Together they shall bring forth the dead this day. Together they shall send us our Immortal Lord.”
Icelyn stood, then slipped the leather thong from off her shoulder, that ghastly thing strung with the severed ears of the human dead. Tala shuddered as Icelyn placed the strap of shriveled ears into the blood of the altar. And like Lawri and Lindholf and the five angel stones before, the ears were soon swallowed up.
Black Dugal still faced Tala. “You must sacrifice the sword and the shield.”
“What?” Tala’s voice cracked.
“Place Ethic Shroud over the altar first,” the Bloodwood instructed.
Icelyn was running one gauntleted hand over the crescent-moon design on her white armor. Aamari-Laada the Red was doing the same.
“The cross on the shield matches the cross of the altar,” Black Dugal said. “And once you have placed the shield over the altar, you must then take Afflicted Fire and lay it over the shield. The altar, the shield, and the sword are three crosses combined. Only then can Hragna’Ar be complete under the shape of the crescent moon.”
Icelyn beckoned Tala forward, saying, “ ’Tis the last part of the ritual. ’Tis your final part in this story, to call forth the scorch from above and set your dear cousins free.”
Final part in this story! Tala could only imagine Lawri alive once more. She felt herself shaking as she placed the pearly white shield over the center of the cross-shaped altar. Ethic Shroud settled over the stone rim like a capstone, almost creating a seal with the blood. Tala placed Afflicted Fire over Ethic Shroud, careful to align the crescent-moon hilt-guard of the long white sword with center of the cross engraved into the shield.
Once she was done, she stepped back, trembling in both anticipation and fear, for the low whispering song emanating from the blood-filled hollow of the altar seemed to deepen and grow into a low familiar rhythm: “Hragna’Ar, Hragna’Ar, Hragna’Ar.”
Black Dugal and Hans Rake looked at each other and smiled.
And then the ten oghuls began to chant to the bloody cadence. “Rogk Na Ark! Rogk Na Ark! Rogk Na Ark!” Their deep booming voices echoed sharp and harsh off the chamber walls. The ten Vallè noblemen and the four Aalavarrè Solas joined the chant, which went on for some time. “Rogk Na Ark! Rogk Na Ark! Rogk Na Ark!” before they all went silent and looked up toward the ceiling as one.
Tala looked up too. Scared.
But there was nothing above but a red-hazed blackness and the dying echoes of Rogk Na Ark! Rogk Na Ark!
And then she saw it. The silver. The shooting star falling from the dark.
As she watched the glittering silver star drop down straight toward the altar, Tala felt the tip of her own missing finger burn, remembering that this was where she had touched the deadly silver herself—the silver that could cut through flesh and armor like it was air.
And with that thought, she recalled something Seita had said right before her death. I will not have you steal my place in these events.
The maiden with the wrought-iron soul!
With a crack of thunder, the silver droplet splashed against the crescent-moon hilt-guard of the white sword, and the entire room fell dark.
Tala found herself in total blackness.
Silence.
Then a light appeared in the room, increasing in brightness until the chamber was lit up as if the midday sun were right there beside the altar. Tala recoiled, blinking back the painfully harsh brilliance. When her eyes adjusted to the light and she wiped away the tears, she saw the personage standing in the air before the altar, feet not touching the floor, a personage bearing both Afflicted Fire and Ethic Shroud in hand.
Lawri!
No…
Lindholf!
It was Lawri, just as pretty as ever, even more so. But it was Lindholf, too.
It was some monstrous, angelic construct of them both, and the radiance of their face was truly like lightning.
The altar-born personage that was both Lawri and Lindholf wore armor of the most exquisite whiteness—a whiteness and brilliance beyond anything Tala had ever before seen. The twins’ flat silver eyes were the only two things punching any sort of faint hollow in the vivid radiance and luster of their being.
“Our Immortal Lord,” Icelyn announced to the room.
The thing that was both Lawri and Lindholf set foot on the ground and the stone floor shook, then settled.
It was then that Tala saw the silver gauntlet on the left arm of the brilliant white monster was still there. And the fingers of the gauntlet were wrapped around the hilt of Afflicted Fire. And growing from the tips of those fingers were long white claws that looked as sharp as the teeth of a saber-toothed lion.
Then there was Ethic Shroud in the creature’s other hand. The five angel stones, now embedded into the cross-shaped surface of the shield, began to glow: red, green, blue, white, and black. The white stone was fixed at the top of the cross, the red stone at the bottom, the blue and green stones on either arm of the cross, and the black stone naught but a hollow pit at the cross’s gleaming center.
“You are not the maiden with the wrought-iron soul,” the glowing personage that was both Lawri and Lindholf said, creeping closer to Tala. “And you never were.”
“Lawri? Lindholf?” Tala uttered in disbelief. What dark sorcery is this? She couldn’t wrap her mind around what devilry she was seeing.
“You let your friends all live when you should have slain them for their belief,” the creature that was her twin cousins said. “You are weak, false, an imposter, and in time I shall hunt down all those that you let escape. I shall hunt their posterity too, lest their descendants once again rise against me, lest their kin once again thrust me and my kin down into the underworld.”
“Lawri?” Tala repeated, confused, trying to back away. “Lindholf?”
“Neither,” the altar-born creature answered, “and both.”
“But how—”
“You killed us, Tala,” they cut her off sharply, and Tala Bronachell felt the tip of Afflicted Fire pressing into her chest just above her heart, pricking the skin. She saw her own blood on the sword, fading into the brilliant white blade. It was as if the sleek, murderous weapon was drinking up her entire soul. The angel stones embedded in the shield still glowed with unnatural bright light.
“Please,” she whispered, “Lindholf, Lawri, please, no—”
A shadow covered the stained glass above, darkening the room, and all eyes flew to the window, including Tala’s.
With a shout, oghul and Vallè weapons were brought to bear. Silver whips uncoiled in both Aamari-Laada’s and Icelyn’s hands. Yvoirè and Ashure-Ikarii drew long marble-colored daggers of their own. Black Dugal and Hans Rake looked up, black daggers dropping into their hands. The bulldog eyed the window too, growling softly.
Even the creature that was both Lawri and Lindholf turned to see what had blocked the light, the pressure of Afflicted Fire easing against Tala’s chest.
A dark silhouette was perched menacingly on the ledge of the window. The mysterious figure was cloaked in a black hood, black leather armor glinting underneath, black daggers poised in both hands. Bright red light filtered around the faceless apparition, casting haunting shadows over the room.
“So everything has come to pass.” The newcomer’s voice was sensuous, liquid, and above all fearless. “So everything has all played out as Val-Draekin foresaw. In a way, it is a shame your one and only son is no longer here to see the fruits of his dark labors and various Vallè games, Black Dugal.”
Hearing that sensuous voice, shards of ice lanced up Tala’s spine. Could it be Seita somehow come back to life? Could it be that the Bloodwood continues to torment me in the secret ways, even now? It was beyond comprehension.
I saw her die with my own eyes.
“Looks as if the prophecies of The Book of the Betrayer have come to pass, Black Dugal,” the cloaked figure said. “Your Immortal Lord has been reborn, resurrected, a grotesque of Hragna’Ar, a Dark Lord born out of cauldrons of blood, a Dark Lord to rule the Five Isles for all time and all eternity, a Dark Lord to subjugate all of humanity, just as Dashiell Dugal, the patron god of all assassins, foresaw.”
The creature that was both Lawri and Lindholf hissed at the dark figure in the window. The tip of Afflicted Fire was no longer pointed at Tala’s chest, but up at the dark stranger.
“Reveal yourself!” Icelyn demanded, scorch whip uncoiling in her hand. “Who dares interrupt this ceremony? Who are you?”
“I dare. And I am your death,” the dark figure said, calmly pulling the hood back, revealing the familiar face underneath.
Hawkwood!
Tala’s mind reeled. She had also seen him die with her own eyes. She had seen the bell tower crush the man. He should be dead.
“You cannot fight the scorch, stranger,” Icelyn said, the silver whip hissing in her hand, impatience growing in her voice.
“I am a Bloodwood assassin,” Hawkwood said calmly. “And this Bloodwood does not die so easily. Your whip does not scare me, Cauldron Born, for I know its secrets.”
Icelyn snapped the silver weapon. The sinister crack of the whip echoed like thunder in the room.
Then Black Dugal laughed, harsh laughter that echoed through the chamber like a rasp of a dull and rusted saw blade. “Oh, my dear Hawkwood. We will kill you swiftly, for you are one man against many. This room is full of your enemies. And all of them stronger than you, my son.”
“That is where you are mistaken,” Hawkwood said. “For I am not your son, I am fatherless. And I am not alone.”
“I see no one with you.” Black Dugal looked around the room and shrugged.
“Oh, but the secret ways are a many-splendored thing,” Hawkwood said. “For as you know, they are the haunt of the Bloodwoods, and this room will soon be full of my friends. My real friends, that is. My friends from Gallows Haven and Wyn Darrè and Sør Sevier, who dug me out from under a pile of rubble not long ago.”
With a tremendous boom! the door to the chamber shattered open.
Cromm Cru’x stood in the entryway, roaring wild and savage, brutish face and eyes covered in bandages, huge war hammer in hand.
Nail, Liz Hen, Dokie, Jenko, Ava Shay, Krista Aulbrek, Mancellor and Bronwyn Allen, along with a snarling gray shepherd dog came rushing into the room from behind the huge oghul, weapons flashing.
The hilt of Hawkwood’s black dagger was suddenly growing out of Icelyn’s flat silver eye. The Aalavarrè fell dead, white armored body dropping with a crash, white cloak smoking as it came to rest over the snaking silver whip. Just as swiftly, a second black dagger pierced the left eye of Aamari-Laada. The dragon rider folded over his companion, silver whip disappearing under his red-armored body. The eerie weapon sizzled and sparked between the red and white scaled armor of the two dragon riders.
Four daggers sliced up through the red-hazed air toward Hawkwood, glimmering like four black flashes of lightning. Dugal’s and Hans Rake’s impeccable aim was immediate and true. But Hawkwood struck all four spinning blades aside with one flashing swipe of a dagger pulled from his cloak. All four of the Bloodwood blades rained down to the chamber floor with a clatter.
The stench of burning metal overtook the chaotic chamber, the silver whips still sizzling under the two dead dragon riders. The battle raged throughout the room as Nail’s group attacked the ten oghul warriors and ten Vallè noblemen. The creature that was both Lawri and Lindholf hissed and spat at all the sudden noise and fighting in the crowded chamber, weapons clashing and ringing, the loud barks of the two dogs echoing throughout the room.
Hawkwood dropped silently from the window ledge, black cloak billowing, twin black daggers in hand. Landing softly, he wasted no time, leaping over the stone altar, his first dagger stabbing straight out with a powerfully aimed thrust, thin blade piercing through Yvoirè’s chest. The Aalavarrè’s entire body clenched in pain as her sword slipped from fingers gone limp. With his free hand, Hawkwood blocked two more Bloodwood daggers thrown his way. At the same time he twisted his own blade roughly, ripping it free of Yvoirè’s chest in a wild swing that flung ropes of blood over the newly scrubbed walls. The Aalavarrè fell backward over the bodies of Icelyn and Aamari-Laada, blood bubbling from her mouth.
With a haunting shout, Ashure-Ikarii struck at Hawkwood with his marble-colored dagger. But Hawkwood was too fast; a second black dagger whipped out, opening the Aalavarrè’s throat. Ashure-Ikarii reeled backward against the cross-shaped altar, sword clattering to the floor.
“No!” the thing that was both Lawri and Lindholf howled as Hawkwood launched himself at Black Dugal and Hans Rake, engaging them in a battle, black daggers flying in the red-hazed light. Krista Aulbrek leaped to Hawkwood’s aid, and the fight between the Bloodwoods was on.
“No!” the thing that was both Lawri and Lindholf howled again, lurching toward the fray. Tala launched herself into the chest of the altar-born monster before it could reach the Bloodwoods. Together they fell to the floor hard, knocking the wind from Tala as both Afflicted Fire and Ethic Shroud tumbled from the creature’s grasp.
Tala kicked the shield away and grabbed for the hilt of the long white sword. The creature grasped the hilt at the same time, the powerful fingers of the silver gauntlet clamping painfully over Tala’s hand, the sharp white claws digging into her skin. They battled for the weapon as they rolled and careened across the floor, tripping several of the oghul and Vallè noblemen still engaged with Nail’s group.
The foreign light radiating from the altar-born monster nearly blinded Tala. Still she fought and rolled, until she found herself pressed against Icelyn’s smoking cloak, the glowing silver of the scorch whip mere inches from her eyes. The silver weapon gleamed and shivered, murderous to behold at such close range. Tala forced herself to roll in the other direction, hands still wrapped around the hilt of Afflicted Fire.
The altar-born creature rolled with her, the metal scales of the silver gauntlet cutting into the flesh of both her hands, the long white claws drawing blood too. Tala gritted her teeth to stave off the pain, clenching her eyes shut from the bright light radiating from the armor and skin of the creature that used to be her twin cousins. With a powerful jerk, Tala gained possession of the weapon and lurched to her feet, hands shredded and bloody. She aimed Afflicted Fire down at the altar-born fiend. The glowing personage rolled, snatching up Ethic Shroud, holding it over its chest protectively as it lay on its back, gazing up at her through flat silver eyes.
“Cousin, spare us,” the creature pleaded, blistering white light from the shield blazing up into Tala’s eyes. The beautiful hints of Lawri that had once existed within the demon’s features were now gone. Tala recoiled in horror, scarcely able to keep her eyes open from the pain of the light emanating from the shield. She could hear the sounds of fighting and dying in the chamber around her, but her attention was focused on the creature below her. “Spare us, cousin,” the demon cried again, trying to struggle from under the shield.
It was a pathetic plea in Tala’s ears, and she tried to end the ghastly creature’s life, aiming a swift downward stab toward the heart. But the tip of the sword sparked against the top edge of the blinding white shield, nearly knocking Tala to her knees.
She kept her balance, but the monster grabbed the blade with the silver gauntlet, claws scraping along the sword’s surface with a shriek. The beast tried to wrench the weapon from Tala’s grasp. With a shout, Tala twisted the sword free of the creature’s gauntleted hand and stabbed downward once more. The tip of Afflicted Fire glanced off the shield once again in a shower of sparks and white flame.
The creature still lived and fought, spitting and hissing in rage as it swung the gauntlet out wildly once more, claws raking past Tala’s eyes, barely missing the top of her head. Tala jerked backward out of harm’s way, gripping the long white sword tightly, breathing heavily, gathering strength, senses alert. Fighting raged around her. The shouts of oghuls and dogs. She had to ignore it all and concentrate on the danger before her.
The cauldron-born monster tossed Ethic Shroud aside, hauled itself up on hands and knees, and hissed at her once again, “Give us the sword.” The demon came at Tala, crawling forward, long white claws of the gauntlet dragging ominously against the stone.
