Master of restless shado.., p.57
Master of Restless Shadows Book Two, page 57
part #2 of Master of Restless Shadows Series
“Get the children away!” Fedeles shouted to Delfia.
She gave no response, only turned and rushed away. But from the corner of his eye, Fedeles glimpsed Delfia and Elenna race to the gathered children. Other figures—Berto and Timoteo, perhaps—staggered toward Sevanyo. At the same time bishop’s guardsmen surrounded Hierro, Remes and their loyalists, and mordwolves edged around them, making the divide between the two parties plain to anyone who cared to look.
Fedeles took it all in at a glance, but it was Ariz shearing through the air who commanded his focus.
Ariz dived for Sevanyo.
Fedeles hurled the black mass of his shadow up to block his descent. The impact jarred through Fedeles’s ribs like a horse’s kick, knocking the breath from his lungs. Ariz whirled through the air like a pinwheel. Then he fell. Fedeles gasped, wanting to catch him but unable to move for the pain in his own chest.
Ariz rolled as he struck the ground, reclaiming his human form in a fluid motion. If he felt any pain, he gave no sign. He rose to his feet, drawing a sword with his right hand and a dagger with his left. His face was expressionless, though the dark blood staining his mouth lent him a horrific air. He charged Sevanyo. The youngest Estaban brother attempted to block his way. Ariz parried the young man’s sword thrust, lunged into him and slit his throat with a flick of his dagger. The youngest Estaban staggered, looking confused then collapsed.
Ariz continued to advance on Sevanyo. He struck down two royal guards in blindingly fast thrusts and kicked a serving girl aside.
Fedeles had to act. He exerted his will, reaching into the blessings he’d placed on Ariz’s body. He twisted their names—their purposes—from Protect, Guard and Defend into shackles of Bind, Hold and Stop Ariz. The black masses of Fedeles’s altered blessings rose around Ariz’s limbs and body like ropes and chains. They bit into his skin and twisted around his throat, restraining him.
Ariz still struggled forward, inch by inch. He looked to Fedeles and for an instant a flicker of a smile seemed to lift his bloodied mouth.
“Kill me,” Ariz whispered. “Kill me now.”
Fedeles couldn’t bring himself to respond. He focused all his strength into holding Ariz where he stood. Just hold him. Just restrain him. He didn’t want to hurt him. But Ariz resisted with inhuman strength and determination. Bloody gashes opened up across Ariz’s chest and shoulders as he took a step forward and then another.
Fedeles actually felt his spells fraying against Ariz’s will.
“Kill me!” This time Ariz howled the command across the garden. His ragged voice carried over shouts and snarls. Even the mordwolves seemed startled by his cry. All attention fell on Ariz. Ariz swept his gaze across the people surrounding him. Fedeles felt tremors of pain shudder through his shadow—echoes of Ariz’s private agony reaching him. Molten iron seemed to burn through his chest and razors slashed his throat and tongue.
Ariz still roared, “Hierro Fueres enthralled me! Commanded me to kill the king.” He choked as the brand clenched his throat nearly closed. Fedeles tasted the blood filling Ariz’s mouth. Ariz looked to him and again gasped out, “Kill me . . . please.”
Fedeles was aware of nobles all around turning suspicious and accusing glances upon Hierro. He heard Remes shout protests, but none of that truly registered. All he saw was Ariz, fighting to retain his humanity; all he felt was his shadow fraying and ripping as Hierro’s brand flared through Ariz’s body.
For the first time Fedeles sensed the complete form and power of that brand. Radiant indigo filaments pervaded Ariz’s muscles, blood vessels and nerves. Hierro’s presence threaded through his bloodstream and infiltrated the very fibers of his hammering heart. Unbreakable and unbearable, it wasn’t a mere ornament placed upon him, but a poison that had grown into him—grown through him, over a decade.
In the midst of that seething indigo fire, only the faint gold wisp of Ariz’s soul remained untainted. Such a pure and beautiful light, Fedeles thought. He reached out to that warm spark and wrapped a veil of his shadow around it, sheltering it.
Then he forced himself to drive the blessings he’d wrapped around Ariz deep into his chest. Darkness shrouded Ariz’s pounding heart as Fedeles enveloped Hierro’s indigo spells as well as the living flesh supporting them. Ariz’s heart trembled in Fedeles’s grasp. Fedeles pressed more power into his blessings. Stop, he commanded. Ariz’s heart jerked and fluttered, fighting him. But Fedeles didn’t relent. Ariz’s heart slowed to a sluggish shudder and then went still.
Fedeles felt it, like the body of some tiny bird going limp and cold in his hand.
Ariz swayed. He looked to Fedeles. His expression might have been surprise or relief. Fedeles couldn’t make it out through the tears filling his eyes. Ariz collapsed to the ground.
Fedeles wanted to scream and howl—to race to Ariz, hold his body and weep. But enemies still surrounded him—still threatened his family and friends. He couldn’t fall apart now. A thin shroud of his shadow lay against Ariz’s cooling body, clinging to it as he released Ariz’s golden soul.
At the same moment Oasia abandoned her palace wards to create what protection she could around the harried crowd, retreating to the stables. Color and light drained from the garden. Hierro and Remes stood exposed amidst their supporters and surrounded by mordwolves. Nobles all around them looked suddenly terrified. But Hierro simply straightened and held out his arms.
“God defends the righteous!” Hierro called out, and immediately teal and indigo wards sprang up around him and his followers. While the drunk and stunned nobles might have believed that these wards shielded them from the sea of mordwolves, Fedeles recognized that the wards had been raised to deflect Fedeles’s attacks.
“Just as surely, he punishes the sinful,” Hierro pronounced, and the mordwolves charged Fedeles while vast flocks of birds swept from the sky to rip and tear at him with vicious, biting curses.
Fedeles fought them, washing the garden grounds in blood and dismembered bodies. His shadow eviscerated mordwolves and shredded birds. But for every one he killed, another three seemed to arise. And for every dozen curses that he dissipated, one shot through his shadow to cut into his body. Tiny wounds multiplied into long gashes as Fedeles’s fatigue and sorrow grew. The wet heat of his own blood soaked through Fedeles’s clothes. His hands shook.
And yet he remained standing before Ariz’s cold body, shrouding him in his shadow as if his desire alone could revive Ariz’s still heart.
Come back to me. Please. Please . . .
He knew he ought to retreat and join Oasia at the stables, then make for Crown Hill. Sparanzo was probably terrified. Sevanyo needed protection and support. Oasia couldn’t defend everyone by herself. No matter how furious and hopeless he felt, he was responsible for so many other people’s well-being. He knew all of that, and yet he didn’t seem able to leave Ariz. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—accept that he’d lost him. That he’d destroyed Ariz himself. How could he accept that? How could he live with what he’d done? Hot tears streamed down his cheeks.
Fedeles wrenched a mordwolf in two and staggered closer to Ariz’s body. He swayed, feeling light-headed and nauseated. He didn’t care. A part of him wanted to fall here, to lie down and die with Ariz. At least then he wouldn’t have to bear the loss of him. He wouldn’t have to feel this agony of sorrow and guilt.
The grounds seemed to almost tremble beneath Fedeles’s feet. Then the thunder of hooves sounded from behind him. Fedeles glanced up to see Firaj racing across the lawn. The warhorse’s eyes flashed white—terrified—and yet Firaj still charged through the mordwolves to reach him and defend him.
We need you, Fedeles. Oasia’s words drifted on the wind, sounding exhausted. Sparanzo needs you.
Sparanzo, Oasia, Delfia, her children, Timoteo, Sevanyo and so many other people. Ariz had allowed himself to be killed for their sakes. Fedeles owed it to him to keep them alive. He could berate himself later—lie down and fucking die if he wanted to—but now he couldn’t abandon everyone depending upon him. Ariz hadn’t suffered and died just so that he could give up. No, Ariz would never have done such a thing—would never have indulged in such self-pity.
Fedeles forced himself to move. He snatched up a fallen sword and then swung up onto Firaj’s back, wheeling the black warhorse around. Clara’s birds winged after him, striking wildly, hitting bushes and trees and bursting into flames. Soon a great fire surged across the garden grounds, giving chase like a living thing.
“She’s burning everything! Go!” Fedeles shouted. He raced from the garden, catching up with the fifty or more riders now charging behind Oasia and making for Crown Hill.
Their flight through the long lawns of fountains and into the wooded hunting grounds drew other frightened people, as well as more attacks. People on foot trailed the riders and Fedeles circled back, defending their retreat.
Overhead, Clara’s birds lit with teal spells chased them, slashing people and leaving curses clawing and biting them and their mounts. Fedeles swept the birds from the air while Oasia hurled others to the ground. The men and women between them slashed at the birds with knives, fans, pieces of costumes and even shoes. Horses snorted and kicked. Several riders were thrown, but other people took them up onto their own mounts. More then a few people running caught the riderless horses and mounted them. A groom seized a white mare and helped a child onto her back before Clara’s birds hurtled into him, engulfing him in flames.
Behind the songbirds, mordwolves and even armed men surged forth. But most terrifying were the relentless teal-tinged flames that rolled out from the garden grounds, consuming everything.
Riders and people racing on foot battled through the dark woods and up the rocky trail. Fedeles defended them as best he could. Exhaustion turned his sword work unwieldy and his spells ragged. Fortunately, gutting, beating and crushing out lives didn’t require great elegance. When Fedeles could no longer raise his sword, Firaj kicked and trampled his opponents to death.
Finally the last people staggered up the steep path to the top of Crown Hill. The dark sky paled to twilight blue. Clara’s birds circled but didn’t dare cross over the hill. But men and mordwolves climbed upward, while flames followed them.
Fedeles glared down. Smoke burned his eyes and choked his throat. Firaj snorted and tossed his head as waves of heat rolled up on the rising winds. Dozens of mordwolves charged the path. Fedeles could no longer drive his shadow more than a few feet. But he couldn’t allow any of them to come that close. Instead he turned his attention to the path itself. Frail wildflowers clung to huge, weathered boulders, reminding him of the ancient carved guardians that once protected the hill. Fedeles thrust his shadow down, digging out soil and clay, undermining the stones.
His hands shook and his back ached as he forced his will against grains of earth. He felt the ground tremble and quickly stepped back. All at once the hillside below him gave way. Boulders, stones and then an entire face of the hillside cascaded down, engulfing the beasts. The trail transformed into a wall of rock, dust and human carcasses. A sea of flames raged below the rockslides but couldn’t spread over the blood-drenched stones and damp, overturned dirt. Smoke drifted up to Fedeles as he stared down at the destruction he’d wrought.
There would be no easy way up the hill now, but neither would there be a simple escape. He turned Firaj away and urged him up the remaining path.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ariz soared through a pale gray expanse, feeling free. There was no anxiety or pain. The landscape beneath him appeared to be a city, wreathed in smoke and flames, but so far away that he could hardly discern any details. None of his concern. Ariz arched and rolled, then winged away. Gray fog swallowed the burning city, leaving Ariz to his effortless flight.
Sweeping low, he broke through a faint trail of bright blue mist. It swirled in his wake like a wind-tossed cloud.
How strange, Ariz thought. Blue clouds in a gray sky. Was he dreaming?
All at once he remembered standing before Fedeles, gripping a bloodied sword and begging Fedeles to end his life. His entire being had roiled with furious intent to murder. Incandescent rage had blazed through his muscles and turned his mind to an animal’s. But somehow just looking at Fedeles, he’d managed to grip a sliver of sanity, steal an instant of self-control. He’d whispered, “Kill me . . . please.”
Had he seen tears in Fedeles’s eyes then? He couldn’t be certain. But he did remember a sudden catch of his own breath and a perfect stillness spreading through his burning chest. His rage dulled and he collapsed to the ground. As he crumpled, Hierro’s oppressive presence released him—almost as if he was afraid that Ariz would drag him down too. Freed from Hierro’s Brand of Obedience, Ariz hadn’t noticed the bite of the pebble path crashing against his limp body. He’d only felt relief, and then nothing.
Thinking about it now, Ariz knew that only death could break the brand’s hold over him. So . . . he was dead.
Ariz contemplated the notion, felt the regrets of all those delights and joys that he would never know. Never again would he hold Fedeles in his arms or listen to his laughter. They wouldn’t dance again or lie amongst wildflowers and make love. He’d never see his nieces or Sparanzo grow up or spend an afternoon listening to his sister read aloud from some scandalous novel. But far more relief filled him than sorrow. He was no longer a mere weapon in the hands of a monster. He would never again threaten the people he loved. He’d finally escaped the humiliation of Hierro’s control. At last he could deprive Hierro of the pleasure of torturing him.
When death brought him those assurances, Ariz accepted it as a solace.
Blue mists curled past him, their masses evoking floating forms. Some reminded him of animals, some seemed like trees, while many others looked almost like people. Ariz couldn’t quite decide if the faces were familiar to him. They seemed soft, pliable and too mutable to represent any one person.
He felt the urge to chase one but then took pity on the hapless-looking clouds. Instead, he contented himself simply observing them swirl alongside him as he contemplated his situation.
If he was dead, then his soul now drifted in the Sorrowlands. From what he remembered of chapel sermons, devils should surround him. They would torture him with guilt and tempt him with his regrets, luring him from the path of paradise. A wrong step and he would be hurled into one of the three hells. But flying through this calm sky, he couldn’t make out any path, much less a horde of devils. Perhaps his soul had been so battered and worn down by Hierro that it wasn’t even of interest to the devils of the Sorrowlands.
Ariz supposed that he should be terrified, but instead he felt at ease. He’d endured so much at Hierro’s hands that he couldn’t summon much dread. As for the regrets of his lifetime, none was greater than serving Hierro. Now he was free of that.
The blue mists contorted and swept away from him as if tossed in powerful winds. Ariz observed them feeling calm, relaxed—as if he was again lying back beside Fedeles watching passing clouds form drifting pictures.
A ship . . . sails tattered, Ariz remembered. Rabbits leaping off into the horizon.
As he recollected, the blue mists appeared to take on those remembered shapes. How strange, but also soothing. He’d truly expected the Sorrowlands to hold more horror. Instead a quiet kind of peace filled him.
He rose, gliding between the streams of blue clouds. A ribbon of blue vapor whirled close to him and he gazed curiously into its depths. At first it seemed to reflect his own face, but slowly the countenance turned into an eagle’s. Ariz reached out. To his surprise, the blue mist fluttered and then darted away from him like a startled fish.
So the blue mists weren’t clouds after all. Ariz watched several of them waft beneath him. Were they other lost souls, like himself? Or could they be mythic creatures from Labaran lore? Ariz gazed after another, but it too fled before him.
Did it think he was going to harm it? Ariz wondered. The desire to follow after it rose in him, but he realized that would hardly seem reassuring. He let it go. He’d had enough of hunting and hurting others in his life. Now that the choice was his to make, he decided to leave the blue mists alone and simply enjoy the sight of them.
“It’s a rare soul that’s so comforted in death.” A young man’s voice rose from the endless gray surroundings.
Then a white light flared up, like the sun burning through the gray fog and blue mist alike. The light drew nearer, filling all of Ariz’s awareness. At its heart he made out faint shadows. A man’s figure striding toward him. For just an instant Ariz thought he resembled Fedeles when he’d been a youth. Then the man’s features grew more and more radiant until all Ariz saw was a searing white skull.
“You’re not an Old God, but not a simple mortal soul either.” The skeletal man spoke Cadeleonian with a distinctly noble accent, but wore the golden-orange robes of a Bahiim draped over his long white bones. “Who are you?”
Ariz didn’t know why, but he’d expected that the skeletal man would know his name—deities and spirits in chapel stories always seemed innately informed of mortal men’s identities. The figure’s ignorance took him aback.
“Who’s asking?” Ariz responded.
“I am the Guardian of the Old Road, Master of the Sorrowlands and Lord of the White Hell!” The brilliant light surrounding the figure surged and his golden robes billowed. “Now tell me, who are you?”
Ariz shrank back from the light. “I’m called Ariz. Ariz Plunado.”
The searing light softened to the cool glow of moonlight.
“Ariz.” The skeletal figure stood very still; even the winds lifting his robes appeared to stop, suspending the folds of golden cloth in the air as if frozen. “The innocent assassin. Yes, I remember your death. You refused to kill Fedeles . . . but you’re different this time.”
