The starless crown, p.26
The Starless Crown, page 26
She struggles to beat back the savagery still raging inside her and across the sky. She begins to drown in that darkness, losing control. On the raft, her brother fights with four men. They stab and threaten with spear and hook. He bleeds from a score of cuts. As he falters, a man runs at his exposed back with a raised dagger.
She struggles to go to her brother’s aid, but bloodlust has burned away her control. Even her vision darkens.
No …
Then the attacker with the dagger falls to the side, an arrow impaled through his throat. Her gaze shifts as the predator inside senses another hunter. Kanthe, down on a knee, snaps arrow after arrow toward the raft, defending her brother.
Ablen breaks free. He rushes and dives headlong into the swamp. He vanishes under its black mirror and escapes. She sees herself reflected for a breath in those waters, a shimmering winged shadow that sweeps past overhead.
Shock loosens her control further.
Unable to stop, she rolls in the air, drawn by the blood and screams.
Her vision dims as she drowns in the otherness, in the vastness around her. Again, she senses ageless eyes staring back at her out of the depths of the darkness. The intensity of the gaze shoves her away, as if finding her unworthy, disapproving of her blind fury.
She is cast aside, a gnat before a gale.
Nyx tumbled back into her body with such force that she nearly toppled off the bench. But Jace caught her, pulled her back into the seat. He took her, held her close. She shook and trembled, balanced still between fury and grief, unable to settle. Tears blinded her, soaked her cheeks, filled her nose and mouth.
Jace squeezed her. “Nyx, I’ve got you.”
She sobbed a refrain, “Don’t let me go, don’t let me go…”
“I won’t.”
She felt his heat, the press of his muscles, took in his sweaty scent. She used his familiarity like a muck-anchor, to draw herself back into her own flesh. She sensed how close she had come to losing herself to the savage otherness, of being lost forever in that darkness.
As she came back into her own body, the grief inside her ached more sharply.
Dah … no …
Her anguish grew quickly, becoming too much to bear, to carry in a single heart. It seemed impossible she could survive it.
Then a quiet peeping reached her. Its plaintiveness drew her eyes open.
Over Gramblebuck’s rump, her winged brother hovered. She met those crimson eyes glowing nearly golden under the shadowed bower. As if drawn by her grief, wings tipped lower, and he glided toward her.
She straightened out of Jace’s arms. Her friend also caught sight of the bat’s approach and gasped. But she held her place and lifted a hand, her fingers trembling.
The bat drifted and sniffed at her fingertips. Whiskers tickled for a breath, then the little creature soared up her arm. He reached her shoulder, and tiny talons found a roost. Wings battered her head, then folded tight. Claws shifted and tucked the softness of his fur against her cheek and neck. His body was a furnace. His panting like tiny bellows. Tall ears rolled to touch their tips together.
She lifted her other hand, realized it was too much, and settled on a single finger. She slowly reached and rubbed under the tiny chin. The bat stiffened, wings shifting wider, wary and nervous—then with a final tremble, his body relaxed and leaned into her touch. She offered her palm, and he scooped his head against it, rolling one cheek, then another. A raspy tongue tested the salt on her skin.
Then he shifted even closer. He tucked his velvet ears and ducked his head under her chin, rubbing her as she had done to him a moment before. Finally, he settled against her. His gentle peeping softened to a note heard only in one ear.
For a moment, she flashed back to something similar.
Two figures snuggled together in the cradle of warm wings.
She knew this glimpse was not memory fired from any keening, but simply born out of his soft touch now, the shared heat, the quiet murmur of two who had known each other all their lives.
Nyx leaned a cheek closer, allowing her eyes to close again.
Grief still pained her, large and bottomless, but she no longer had to carry it in one heart. While she no longer had the breadth of a thousand hearts to disperse the agony, she sensed the truth.
For now, two is enough.
25
“OFF WITH YOU both,” Anskar ordered.
With the attack seemingly over, the Vyrllian herded Kanthe and Frell toward the swampers’ raft. The rocky shore was a charnel house of torn bodies, steaming bowels, and pools of black blood. The neat circle of the camp’s bonfires had been shattered into a hundred smoldering piles along the bank. Elsewhere, banners lay broken; the legion’s score of sledges and liveries were either smashed or burning.
Only a few of the latter still looked salvageable, though they were probably enough to handle the number of knights and guards who still breathed. Anskar had already sent one of the legion’s physiks running to the school. The plan was to leave the worst of the wounded here, while the rest of them headed back to Azantiia.
Anskar was taking no more chances with the horde above. After this last attack, it looked as if the mass was finally breaking up and starting to wing back toward their mountain home.
Kanthe stared up at the dark storm slowly blowing south.
It seems both sides had enough bloodshed for one day.
Anskar shoved him forward at the raft. “Quit your gawking and get your arses aboard.” He called over to the four vy-knights standing on the raft, two leaning on poles. “Mallik, get the prince and Alchymist Frell deep into the swamp, under as much cover as possible. In case those fanged bastards decide to attack again.”
Mallik nodded sharply. He was the detachment’s second in command, towering the same height as Anskar. While shaven-headed and crimson-skinned, like all Vyrllians, he kept a strip of black beard trimmed along his jawbone. His cold eyes appraised Kanthe as he approached. From the set to Mallik’s scowl, he did not like what he saw.
“Quick now,” Mallik growled. “Both of you.”
Frell hopped onto the raft. Kanthe had no choice but to follow. Not that he would’ve objected. He wanted away from the flies, bloody shite, and ripped bodies. After they left, Anskar would lag behind long enough to square away the rearguard for the trek back to Fiskur, then home.
There was nothing more Kanthe could do. The girl Nyx was still off in the swamps somewhere, and with her brother safely escaped, there was no one in town who knew where she went.
So, she’s safe.
Amidst all the horror and losses, he would take this as victory and be happy about it. Plus, the disappearance of the supposedly bless’d girl would irk his father. Kanthe could savor that. Still, the trek had not been an entire waste of life and limb. The legion would return to Highmount with one significant prize. Shrive Vythaas had managed to secure a batch of the bats’ poison.
Kanthe stared across the swamp to the Shrive’s black livery. Its outline could be seen in the distance. Prior to the onslaught, a pair of bullocks had dragged Vythaas’s sled away from shore where it took refuge under a thick protective canopy. Kanthe noted a thin iron chimney atop the livery puffing with black smoke and imagined the Shrive was already working on those stolen sacs of poison.
He gave a sad shake of his head as the raft poled away from the bloody wreckage along the shore. So much misery for so little gain.
He turned his back on Brayk, hoping to never set foot there again. He settled to a seat next to Frell. The breadth of the dark swamp stretched ahead of them. It buzzed and nattered. It squawked and croaked. Black branches draped to the sluggish currents or hung heavy under matts of yellow-green moss. Clouds of suckers and flies drifted like mist on the water.
As they were poled deeper, the Mýr closed around them. The cries and occasional screams soon faded behind them, muffled by the weight of the drowned forest. The boles of the trees thickened. The canopy stretched higher, even the waters blackened. As much as he hated this place, he had to respect its brutal beauty. It was forever changeable with each tide, but still ancient and eternal, its roots dug deep into these lands.
At the front of the raft, Mallik nicked out with his sword and sliced through the churning coils of a pit-adder that draped from a tree branch. The snake’s lengths loosened and dropped heavily to the raft, still twisting and twining in death. Jaws snapped at empty air. Kanthe felt a measure of pity for the creature. Another crimson knight kicked its remains into the water. The loops stirred atop the blackness—then the surface roiled, and the snake vanished into the depths, its flesh returning to nourish the swamp.
Kanthe shivered and stood, no longer able to sit.
Frell followed him up, but he stared behind the raft. “It seems we’ve left the others far behind.”
Kanthe glanced back, peering between the two vy-knights who manned the poles. A handful of skiffs and punts had followed them from shore, seeking the safety of the swamps. Farther back, even the bullocks had begun to haul sledges into the water. Now there was nothing but dark forest behind them.
Kanthe turned to the front. “Shouldn’t we wait for—”
Mallik stood a step away—and plunged his sword at the prince’s chest.
* * *
NYX DROPPED HEAVILY out of the sledge and onto the sandy banks of Fellfire Scour. Tiny crabs scurried from the impact of her sandals, clacking their irritation at the intrusion, heading toward the lake.
She stretched her limbs and stared leadenly across the flat expanse of the Scour. It stretched a full yoke around, and though its black waters looked like much of the briny swamplands, a sharper eye could note a cast of blue under the open sky. Fellfire was one of the few spring-fed lakes. Its waters were fresh, clean of any bitter salts. It was this feature that drew the family’s ancestors to build the winter bullock barn way out here.
Jace came around the back of the sledge to join her. “It looks like an ancient fortress,” he said, his back to the lake, craning up at the barn. “Yet, also like it grew straight out of the swamp.”
She turned to the barn, better appreciating it under the glow of Jace’s admiration. The stout stone barn, five centuries old, climbed twice the height of a bullock. Its walls were stacks of gray boulders, its roof plated in tiles of the same rock, all of it coated in layers of moss and lichens. It did look like the massive structure had been pushed forth from the swamps, a gift to their ancestors. The high doors were timbered in wood so ancient that they had turned to stone themselves. It took a bullock to pull them open and closed.
The barn had served generations of both Polders and bullocks. Countless calves had been born here and yearlings raised, safe from the savage storms that wailed through the Mýr in winter, tearing down trees, stripping thatch from roofs. There remained a stolid practicality to the construction of the place, but also a simple beauty.
She faced the lake again, her heart growing heavy. Their family had spent every winter here. Memories overlapped the view: hauling in woven traps full of tiny armored kryll or larger pincered siltclaws, fishing the depths for whiskered mudfins, or fighting to haul in the sleek karpbows. She remembered those autumns when the lake’s surface would be covered by winter geese, their honks deafening. Or those rare frigid snaps in the depths of winter that would rime the edge of the lake with ice.
Still, as familiar as this place was, she felt a distance from it now. She had always known in her heart what Fellfire Scour must look like. Over the years, she had filled in the blanks that her clouded eyes could not see. Only now her new eyes erased those spots and refilled them with details she had never imagined. What was once home now seemed both familiar and strange. She felt no longer a part of it, and it broke her heart even more.
Saddened at the loss, she closed her eyes and listened to the rising chorus of croaks instead. That had not changed. She picked out the different calls. Her dah had taught them to her. The pluck-crunk of emerald-green sprigfrogs, and the heavier gronking of platter-sized wartoads. Above that noise, as if scolding the chorus, the clacking of stiff reeds sounded all around as the rods swayed in the breeze.
She sighed and finally opened her eyes. Tears blurred her vision, which was just as well. The loss of detail brought her closer, to this place and to another.
“How my dah loved the Scour,” she whispered. “We all promised to bury him in the sands here.”
Jace pushed closer. “We can still do that. I’m sure the prioress will attend to his body until we can manage to return.”
Nyx wanted to scoff at his words but kept silent. She knew in her heart that would never happen. She turned from him and crossed to the front of the sledge. “I should see to Gramblebuck. Get him untethered so he can properly graze.”
Jace followed. “I think he’s doing fine on his own.”
Gramblebuck had his nose buried in a field of blooming honeyclotts, disturbing fat bees, which he flapped his ears at. He munched on the flowers and rooted his curled tusks in the sandy mulch, digging for the richer musty tubers. The vast fields that circled the lake and stretched a distance into the forest were another reason this site had been chosen for the barn.
She ran a hand over the old bullock’s flank, feeling each chew and grind under her palm. She checked the straps, bellybands, hame, and bridle. She searched for rub-sores at the bindings, but a century of hauling sledges had toughened those spots. A pang of guilt spiked through her, knowing her friend would never have been so calloused if not for his labors all these many years.
Gramblebuck noted her approach and turned his damp snout toward her. He snuffed and licked phlegm from his nostrils. He nosed and huffed at her. She noted the gray fogging in his eyes, marking his age. She took his horns and pressed her forehead to him. She inhaled his sweet musk.
“Thank you,” she whispered to him. Her words were too feeble to truly encompass her gratitude.
Still, he nudged her back, licked her hand, then with a final chuff, he returned to his grazing. She stepped back and started to free him from the sledge.
“Maybe you’d better keep him tied,” Jace said. “At least until Ablen and Bastan return. We don’t know if we may need to leave in a hurry.”
Nyx remembered her brother diving into the black waters. She straightened and nodded. Gramblebuck shifted a few steps, dragging the sledge behind him to reach a fresh patch of honeyclotts. He plainly had no problem grazing while hitched up.
A gentle whining reminded her that the old bullock was not the only one using this reprieve to fill his stomach. Her winged brother sped silently overhead, sweeping through the droning clouds of gnats and suckers. The bat had left her shoulder’s perch as soon as the Scour opened up, drawn by the steaming bounty that buzzed heavily over the water.
She watched his path until he vanished into the shadows.
“Perhaps we should eat, too,” Jace said. He had shifted to the back of the sledge. “No telling how long we might be waiting here.”
He lugged out a large black kettle that had been roped in place, his face reddening with the effort. He stumbled to the side and carried it a few steps and then lowered it to the sand.
She drifted over as he lifted the lid. The familiar aroma of stewed potageroot and marsh hare carried to her, stopping her. She trembled where she stood.
“It’s still warm,” Jace noted aloud. He tested with a fingertip, then licked it clean. “Oh my, that’s good.”
Overcome, Nyx fell to her knees. She pictured her dah stirring that pot, recognizing now it was the last stew he would ever make. The smell—which always meant home—now churned her stomach to a roil. She lurched over. Her belly clenched, and she heaved a stream of bile into the sand. She gasped and coughed, until finally all she could do was sob, bent in half, bitter bile on her tongue.
Jace was there, dropping beside her. “I’m sorry. I’m such a feckin’ mooncalf. I wasn’t thinking.”
She covered her face and straightened. “No,” she moaned, still quaking with sobs. “It’s not your fault.”
It’s all mine.
She lowered her hands. Jace had resealed the kettle, but the aroma still seasoned the air. She stared off into the swamp beyond the Scour. She needed Ablen and Bastan, maybe even the dark prince and the alchymist.
What is taking everyone so long?
* * *
KANTHE TWISTED TO the side as Mallik’s sword stabbed at him. If not for his thin form and his unexpected turn toward the vy-knight at the last moment, he would have taken the full length of the blade through his body. Still, the sword’s edge knifed through his tunic and sliced a fiery line across his chest.
Kanthe continued to spin away from the sword, only to fall into the arms of the second knight posted at the front of the raft. Before the man’s grip could tighten, Kanthe used panic to fuel a speed honed from his many years hunting. He snatched an arrow from his quiver and stabbed at his captor’s eye. The steel point struck soft flesh and hard bone. A sharp scream followed, freeing him.
He ducked, shoving his attacker back with his arse. Mallik came at him, swinging his sword in a double-fisted grip at Kanthe’s head. Already tucked, Kanthe leaped to the side and rolled over one shoulder. The sword struck the half-blinded vy-knight in the meat of his calf, nearly taking his leg off. With a cry, he toppled into the swamp.
As Kanthe finished his roll, he smoothly freed his bow and brought it to bear. He skidded on a knee, with his other foot planted. It was a skill taught to him by a Cloudreach scout, the revered hunters of the misty greenwood. He had practiced it over and over, hoping to one day traipse that dangerous forest on his own.
Mallik hollered his rage, clearly never expecting such a move from the Prince in the Cupboard, the drunken Tallywag. He rushed at Kanthe, who had an arrow in hand but struggled to fix it to the bowstring. Panic apparently only carried one so far.
Then a loud boom shook the raft, accompanied by a bright flash.
Mallik stumbled to a wary stop.
From a corner of an eye, Kanthe watched one of the two polemen go flying off the rear of the raft, his chest on fire. The other had already dropped his pole and lunged at Frell with a dagger. The alchymist flung a hand high, as if defending himself, but something shot free of his loose sleeve and into his palm. With a squeeze, a tiny flame spurted from one side. Frell flung the arcane object at the other’s face. A blinding blast blew the vy-knight’s head back, cracking bone and searing skin.
