Shadowheart (100 page)

Vansen was a soldier. He had often risked his life in combat with other men. In the past year he had fought both the legendary Qar and the autarch’s vast armies. He had stood before the monstrous Deep Ettins and even the demigod Jikuyin, the one-eyed giant. Each of them had been fearful, and Vansen had lost track of how many times he had given himself up for dead. This, though . . . this was different. Because what had stepped through into this cavern from somewhere else—someplace Vansen could not even imagine—was an actual god.

A mad god
, he thought in rising panic.
And he is going to kill everything I know.

The cavern was ablaze with Zosim’s fiery light. It echoed to his booming, exulting voice. The beautiful, giant youth still struggled with Yasammez, but now with every passing moment he tore away and burned great pieces of the black stuff that made her, and with each attack, she grew a little smaller, a little less tangible. Vansen was astounded that she had fought so long and so fiercely—as terrifying as he had always found her, he would never have guessed she had such power. She truly was the daughter of a god, that was indisputable. But she was matched against another god, and this one was too strong for her.

“CAN YOU FEEL THAT, LITTLE COUSIN?” Zosim bellowed at Yasammez. “CAN YOU FEEL YOUR ESSENCE BEING BOILED INSIDE YOU? THE SALAMANDROS IS FAR BEYOND YOU. I WOULD HAVE BURNED YOUR FATHER TO ASH IF HE HAD FOUGHT ME FAIRLY ... !”

From somewhere in the swirling, dark cloud Yasammez’s face swam up, deformed like melting wax, full of rage and agony.
“You are Liar by name and nature,”
she cried, her voice distant as a fading thunderstorm on the horizon. “
If you had not struck from hiding . . . you would never have wounded him ...”

“WOUNDED? KILLED HIM! WITH MY FATHER’S SPEAR!” Zosim’s fires blazed again, so that for a moment he became a pillar of white flame that seemed to stretch up through the roof of the great cavern. Hundreds of steps away, Vansen felt the hairs on his arms begin to smolder, his skin to dry and crack, until he stumbled and almost dropped the king’s limp body. “YOUR RIDICULOUS, LIMPING FATHER IS FINALLY DEAD,” Zosim bellowed, “AND IN A MOMENT, YOU WILL BE, TOO.”

“It . . . matters not ...”
Yasammez said, each word its own painful breath, each more faint than the one before. “
I have . . . held you back . . . long enough ...”

What does she mean?
Vansen wondered.
Long enough? What does she see—or has she lost her wits at the end? We are dying. We are utterly defeated . . .

The laughter of Zosim was so loud and so gleeful that this time Vansen did stumble. Overbalanced, he fell to the loose stones; Olin’s body tumbled from his arms and rolled away. Vansen could barely see through the tears that filled his eyes, tears of pain and exhaustion and the endless, blistering hot winds that raged through the cavern.

Zosim’s voice rattled Vansen’s skull. “AFTER YOU ARE DEAD, I WILL CLIMB OUT OF THIS STONY TOMB OF MY FATHER’S AND UP INTO THE AIR. EVERYTHING THAT LIVES WILL SERVE ME OR DIE!” Again came the laughter, gusting and crashing, as flame licked the walls all around Zosim’s head.

Vansen crawled as fast as he could across the loose stones, praying again not to be noticed. He could tell by the waxing of the fiery light all around him that Yasammez was fading. He reached Olin where he lay, still unmoving and lifeless, then wrapped his arms around the king’s chest and began to drag him. He reached the boat and tugged Olin clumsily over the side so that he rolled into the bottom beside the senseless dark-haired girl. The huge craft was mired in the loose stones of the shore; Vansen knew he would not have been able to drag it himself even if he had not been bruised and battered to within an inch of his life. Where was Barrick?

At last, as the great golden blade ripped the dark cloud that was Yasammez into tatters once more, Vansen spotted the blue gleam of the prince’s armor. Barrick was not moving. Vansen hobbled toward him as fast as he could.

To his great relief, he could feel the prince’s chest moving steadily up and down, though his armor was burned and blackened and the prince’s usually pale face was bright red as if he had been dragged through a Midsummer’s Bonfire.

Midsummer midnight,
Vansen thought.
Who would have thought the world would end on such a day, in such a place . . . in such a manner?
Yasammez was all but defeated, shrunk now to a shape less than half Zosim’s size, her great aspect curling further back on itself with each passing moment as the god in her was overwhelmed. Soon nothing would remain but what was mortal, and Zosim the Trickster would make short work of that.

“Prince Barrick! Can you hear me?” Vansen shook him again, but the prince did not wake. He began to drag him toward the boat, Barrick’s heels furrowing the stony ground. Halfway there, Vansen had to set him down, gasping in the hot air, never daring to look away for long from the pillar of fire at the center of the cavern as it steadily burned away the resistance of the woman who had been the greatest of all the Qar who ever lived.

As he finally reached the boat, something grabbed at the neck of his armor coat, yanking him backward so that he overbalanced and the prince fell from his arms. A long, curved Xixian blade fell across his neck as he lay on the ground, an edge so sharp that he could feel it cutting his skin merely by resting against his throat.

“Those are
my
prisoners, I think,” said the Autarch of Xis, showing all his teeth. Even as he spoke, the pressure grew on Vansen’s throat until he could feel blood trickling down his neck. “I will have them back, now, peasant.”

“Please, my lady!” Chert pulled at Briony’s sleeve again. He couldn’t help thinking that in other circumstances people might have their heads cut off for less. “Please, Princess, you can do nothing good for anyone by this course ...!”

Briony would not even slow. “Sir, I’m sure you are accounted a mighty warrior among your kind, but I am the princess of Southmarch and I am twice your size. If you tug at me again, I will throw you off this path!”

Chert withdrew his hand. He knew even better than she did what a long way down that would be. “But you will be killed!”

“No, everyone I know will be killed if I do nothing!”

With her determined stride and her manly armor, Briony had the look of something out of one of the ancient tapestries—Queen Lily riding at the front of her armies, perhaps, facing the Mantis and his mercenary legions. That the sweet-mannered girl who had run him down in the hills should have grown to this . . . ! Chert could not help admiring her, which made him all the more reluctant to see her throw her life away.

“My lady, please! See sense! I told you what will happen . . . !”

“But it has not happened yet. Perhaps it never will—perhaps you have miscalculated, or your gunflour has got wet.” She hurried down the path along the edge of the abyss, trotting when the way grew wide enough, slowing to a walk when it was narrow and the footing treacherous. “Then my family and my friends will need my help even more. No, you will not stop me, sir.”

“Unshored, stubborn . . . !” he muttered, but Chert of all people knew stubborn women well. They did not change their ways simply because a man told them to.

As if in answer, Chert heard the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. He stopped. After another step or two, Briony also stopped, staring into the darkness before them, but as the sound grew louder, it became clear that whatever approached was behind them, coming down from the surface.

“Who . . . ?” was all Briony had time to say when a young, dark-haired woman appeared in the circle of torch glow, running fast though she herself carried no light. She scarcely seemed to notice Chert or Briony as she dodged around them and hurried on; a moment later she had vanished into the darkness below them. For a few more moments they could hear her rapid footfalls, but then even those faded.

“What in the name of all the gods is happening here?” Briony said, staring wide-eyed. “How could she see? And why should she run that way, headlong into the dark?”

“I . . . I know her,” Chert said. “I know that girl.”

Briony was on the move again, hurrying down the path once more. “What do you mean? That was no Funderling—she was almost as tall as me!”

“I have met her—spoken to her. Her name is Willow. She is touched, I think, but she once led me to one of the Qar. ...”

“Willow? I know that girl, too. Captain Vansen brought her back from the western country—she had been lost behind the Shadowline, he said.” She sped her pace a little. “But why would she be hurrying down into the deeps without even a word? And how can she see to run in the darkness?”

Chert couldn’t answer. He didn’t know why the girl was there. He didn’t even know why he was still there himself.

 

This time they did not hear her until the last moment, when the girl called Willow burst out of the shadows in front of them, hurrying back toward Chert and the princess as though they had only now become visible to her. “Save him! They will hurt him! Please, they are too much for him!” She threw herself down in front of Briony without any care for her own body and wrapped her arms around the princess’ booted ankles. “Save him—my Kayyin!”

“Wh-what? Who..?” Briony stammered, but the girl was already scrambling back onto her feet. She grabbed the princess’ arm and tried to tug her forward.

“Come! Oh, come! The creatures of fire and wind will kill him!”

Briony allowed herself to be pulled forward into the dark. Chert hastened after them. He could hear the sound of voices before them, one more or less human but others that gusted and whistled like the wind.

They stumbled out into a place where the path widened and saw what at first looked like a tall, slender man in the grip of some terrible palsy, arms flailing above his head and body swaying like a sapling in a fierce breeze—but it was shadows he fought with, Chert saw a moment later, shadows who clutched at him with hands like torn, flapping curtains.

“Help him!” the girl screamed.

Briony only hesitated for a moment, then raced toward the strange struggle with a dagger in each hand. Chert could only stare, wondering again what had happened to the young girl he had seen at the funeral. When had she become this thing of rope and steel?

But it doesn’t matter—those dark things will kill her.
Then Chert, too, was running, waving his torch and trying to force a frightening bellow out of his pinched throat but not succeeding.

The half-elf was wrapped in a ragged mass of darkness that leaked light like a hooded lantern. As Briony approached, one of the creatures detached itself from Kayyin and floated toward her, billowing like a cloaked man in a high wind. Only its eyes had color, glinting like green garnets.

“Those are old blades you carry,”
it said as it neared her. The voice seemed to sigh from every corner of the darkness beyond Chert’s torch.
“Metal of a tumbled star. They have even wounded some of us in the past, and it is not easy to spite us.”
The eyes flared briefly.
“But wounding is not destroying—and you are no mighty warrior, girl.”

Briony had not stopped to listen, but was keeping her two blades before her as she moved in a broad arc, trying to draw the thing away from Kayyin and the other black shapes. “What you say is that you can be hurt, demon.” Her voice was tight but surprisingly steady. “That is all I needed to hear. I just killed my vilest enemy with my own hands, so come, then—let’s see who ends up the better!”

Briony crossed the knives in a quick flick as she lunged, like a single great pair of scissors. The apparition rippled away from her like smoke, then flowed back again and hooked at her with a ragged claw. Chert swung his torch at the thing’s arm, but the brand only passed through; the shapeless thing turned toward him and the darkness of its face seemed to fill his eyes. Chert was thrown backward. He cracked his head against the wall on one side of the path. The torch flew from his fingers and bounced toward the edge, landing a pace short; the flames rippled and nearly died, then flared up again.

Chert tried to rise, but it was not only the unsteady flames that made things before him tilt and spin. His head felt like it was full of bees, and his legs had no feeling at all.
Earth Elders
, he thought,
I can’t die, not like this, not at the edge of someone else’s fight and away from Opal
. . . .

The flapping, flickering thing that had spoken before swirled around Briony like mist, then slid just out of reach again when she swung her blades, as if it mocked her.