The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (72 page)

With a growl, he plunged the Sword through the flower’s throat, severing bud from stem. All at once, a chilling revulsion swept through him, as if Itz lar Thrakkon had been set free to lay stripping siege to his mind. Despite Maventhrowe’s earlier instruction, Torin nearly unleashed the Sword’s fires then and there in order to drive back the raping assault. He would not suffer that again. He would destroy himself and all else before falling victim again to that infernal madness.

But he was no longer dead, he assured himself. He was thus safe from Illysp possession. It was not Thrakkon’s intrusion he felt, but something else. A distant sense, perhaps, of the suffering still out there. A kinship with those enslaved as he had once been.

A mere taste of the hunger, the hatred, the horror he had set free, glimpsed through the eye of a living god.

That feeling crawled over him, through him…tugging, clawing, beetling beneath his flesh. An itch he could not scratch. A writhing pain that would not be soothed. He wanted it to stop. He
needed
it to stop. Their pleading voices filled his mind…a whisper, a roar…

He looked to Maventhrowe, but the Entient shook his head. Torin clenched his teeth. The Orb’s veins had already ignited, flashing crimson with the fire that burned along the buried length of the Sword’s blade. Torin ached, trembled, fighting to hold back the flames that roiled within, when all he could think of was bathing himself in their cleansing fury.

Without warning, a stroke of lightning touched down upon the Sword’s hilt. Though startled, Torin was wound too tight to let go. The bolt became a stream, dancing upon the pommel, growing stronger, brighter, as additional lightning threads descended…twined together…forming a tether between the Orb and the heavens’ boundless expanse. The connection drew taut—

And Torin summoned the fire.

In a blink, the center of the Dragon Orb filled with flame. Crimson tongues erupted from the Sword’s hilt, shooting skyward along the cascading river of lightning. The skies themselves seemed to ignite, with scattered streamers of fire-laden bolts spewing in every direction, as if to spread across the globe.

C
ORATHEL LOOKED WITH DISMAY AT
the widening breach in the southern line. That particular line was to have held throughout the night
and
the next day. Well, the new day had not yet dawned, and already it was time to order another critical displacement. Stay any longer, and the entire battalion might be hemmed in, making today’s struggle its last.

Does it matter?
an inner voice whispered insidiously. He had lost count of the number of holes in the coalition defenses—enough that only half of the ever-growing Illychar army still pressed them here upon the Kuurian highland. The rest had swept southward, to engage a staggered series of reinforcements deployed by Thelin. While battle was yet carefully orchestrated in specific areas, the war in whole had degenerated into chaotic melee. What good was holding this valley when the enemy had had time enough by now to reach the sea?

A glancing strike jerked the general’s attention into an enemy’s face. The larger picture was forgotten as he lost balance, tripped up by a mud-spattered corpse. One of his own, he thought, until he hit the earth and caught sight of its fire-blackened face. At some point, the dead man had been Parthan, yes. But he had fallen this day—and perhaps others before—as an Illychar.

If there was consolation to be had in that, Corathel didn’t know where. His own assailant stood over him, hefting a pole-axe for the killing stroke. Trapped by the jostling hordes and the awkwardness of his landing, winded by his ceaseless efforts and unsure in that moment why he had struggled even this long, the chief general simply peered into the eyes of the foe to which he had finally succumbed, congratulating the creature with a silent curse.

Where axe and curse met, however, the sky ripped wide in a scintillating burst. A moment later, when he realized that he was still alive, Corathel opened his eyes. Lightning. The clouds were filled with it, like a bloody web laid across the heavens. Strands were falling, as well. All around, bodies crumpled, as bolts rained in fiery flashes, striking men dead where they stood.

A hail of fire
, the chief general mused—dazed, blinded, thinking that perhaps he had perished and found the Abyss after all.

K
ING
T
HELIN LEANED UPON THE
tower parapet, clutching his wife’s hand. Together, they stared eastward, noting the sun’s attempt to rise. A ritual of theirs over the past few days, ever since a horde of Illychar had descended upon Stralk’s walls and it had become clear that any sunrise might be their last.

“My regiment awaits,” he said finally.

Loisse squeezed his hand. “Their numbers have increased during the night,” she observed.

The dispassion in her voice weighed heavily upon his heart. All their plans, all their struggles…all for naught. The storm they had sought to avoid had come, and it seemed now that there was nothing more but to delay the inevitable. “I regret, now, leaving Souaris.”

“The risk was worthwhile—necessary, even.”

“But to be fighting here, like this…” His hand swept out over the shadowed hillside at their feet. The majority of troops he’d held in reserve battled even now upon that shredded ground. With the city itself crammed full of refugees, there simply wasn’t room to place more than a token garrison inside. As of now, their defenders still outnumbered the enemy descended upon them, but it would not be long before those tides shifted irrevocably. “We should be home.”

“We are together,” Loisse said. “If this is to be the end, that is all that matters to me.”

Thelin gritted his teeth. Despite being rebuffed time and again, the Illychar armies reached forth incessantly, carving at the ranks of his men like surf upon the beach. He wondered if Wingport was still able to defend itself—if at least some of his people had managed to cast off and sail away. He wondered how long he had before the coalition fell completely and the rest of the Illychar
he’d heard reports about came swooping in. He wondered how much longer he would be forced to gaze upon this trampled, blood-soaked terrain, smell the piles of bloated and smoldering corpses, listen to the pitched clangor and the agonized screams of those claimed by the growing onslaught…

“I should go,” he said, and this time his wife only nodded, making no attempt to stall him.

Until he turned, and the heavens shattered.

Loisse’s hand clamped down hard, freezing him in place. He turned to find her crouched low, realizing only then that he had done the same. A spectacular, blood-red lightning storm raged overhead, highlighting the seams of the sky. But if that were so, then the very dome of the world had cracked, for wherever he looked—

Down it poured, then, in splintering streaks, hundreds at a time, so fast that his eyes could not keep pace. Many of these bolts stopped in midair—within the city and without—terminating in a puff of red fire. The rest flashed down upon the heads of individuals, killing with a touch. They forked through walls and windows, through timber and iron and stone. Their fury was everywhere, a fiery tempest that knifed across the land with indiscriminate frenzy.

Beside him, he felt his wife trying to rise.

“Stay down!” he yelled, fighting to shield her body with his own.

“Look!” she hollered right back. “It doesn’t touch us!”

Cringing against the incessant strikes, and still wrestling with his wife, Thelin nevertheless managed to peek between merlons long enough to glimpse the truth of her words. Though lightning flashed amid the tightly packed ring of Kuurian troops, its touch resulted only in those strange, fiery puffs. At the same time, the surrounding Illychar were dropping by the scores, as if some invisible hand were simply reaching out to snip their puppet strings.

“Ceilhigh,” Thelin breathed. “Could it be…?”

Amid the earth-rending thunder, the shrieks of the Illychar rose to a desperate, furious pitch, as they, too, recognized the disparity. Some turned that rage against their enemies, while others fled. It did not seem to matter which route they chose, for none moved swiftly enough to escape the unnatural storm.

Loisse stood. Thelin rose slowly beside her, still looking at the raging sky, still fretful. His queen gave a grim smile.

“Impossible,” she said, and grinned fearlessly as death’s fingers flashed down among them.

“W
E’RE TOO LATE,” THE SHIP’S
captain grumbled.

Nevik gripped the bow rail in frustration. Wingport’s harbor lay just ahead, across a dark expanse of coastal waters. Behind him sailed a small fleet of empty ships, brought round to the southern shore in answer to Thelin’s plea for help. Their passengers from Krynwall had been deposited onto islands off the western coast, agreeing to wait there while others were ferried from the mainland. With luck, these offshore staging grounds would provide safe haven from the Illychar until enough ships were available to bear all across the seas.

The best that could be done, under the circumstances, Nevik assured himself. But the ship’s captain was right. Wingport was already under siege. From the lookout’s reports, a defense force was doing its best to close off the highway north of the seaport and there waylay the bulk of the enemy tide. Battle was at its thickest there. Yet the struggle had spilled already into the city streets and onto the wharves themselves, where soldiers and civilians alike had been working to construct a fleet of their own. Any attempt to sail in now would be to leap headlong into the mounting slaughter.

“We cannot just leave them,” Nevik growled to the wind.

Many of these people were his, after all, refugees brought from southern Alson earlier in the conflict. The people of Drakmar, Palladur…
Ghellenay
. He had promised her he would return. When he’d ridden north from Souaris to warn Rogun of the Kuurian exodus, Palladur’s baroness had remained behind to tend the flocks. He could not abandon her now.

The captain spat. “We tie up there, we risk being overrun and losing our own ships. Stranding ourselves alongside won’t be helping them, and won’t be helping those trusting in our return.”

“I’m aware of the risks, Captain. I’m also aware—”

The sky flashed, and a booming roar rocked the decks. Nevik clenched in terror, staring inland as streaks of red-tinged lightning carved up the heavens and slashed across the earth.

A great wail arose from the shore. Even at a distance, in this unholy light, he could see men falling, their souls snatched away in fiery, quicksilver streams.

“Mother’s bounty,” the captain whispered breathlessly. “What hell is that?”

Nevik could scarcely tear his eyes from the knee-buckling display, but finally managed to do so. The sky above their heads, here upon the ocean, was veined with red streaks, like some great, bloodshot eye. And yet, their masts, their sails, their men—all were untouched by the flickering bolts that raked the ground ahead. Whatever unnatural force had spawned this squall, it seemed to be concentrated on the land, not on the sea.

“Your spyglass,” Nevik demanded, gripped with a sudden suspicion.

The captain, gaping, did not respond until Nevik seized the item from his hand. “Still wish to sail into that?”

Nevik’s fingers trembled as he drew focus upon the harbor, the inner quarter, the northern road. Elves, goblins, ogres—coils of the enemy—cut down in waves. But where the defenders hunkered…

He might have been wrong, misled by desperation, but neither would this be the first time he’d seen an entire army felled by mystical means.

“At full speed,” he said, handing back the spyglass. “While we have them on the run.”

T
HE FIRE RAGED, TAKING HIS
heart, taking his soul.

And still it wanted more.

Torin continued to feed it everything he had, determined not to falter. The strain was like nothing he could have fathomed, as if his every fiber were being pulled in opposing directions. He sensed now the outpouring of energy Maventhrowe had described. The lightning streams that bore the Sword’s fire skyward were only the beginning. Once overhead, they reached out across the land, into the depths of the nearby ruins—across the sea, even, to an unfamiliar, mountainous region of Yawacor. Wherever an Illysp hid, a fire-laden bolt flashed down—through stone cairns, earthen graves, and any other barrier—to immolate the fleshless creature forever. Thousands, millions, had already perished, ripped from the coils they had claimed, else obliterated before ever knowing the taste of mortal flesh. An ocean-spanning cataclysm, facilitated by the Dragon Orb, yet fueled now by his will alone.

His agony was matched only by his ecstasy. The ripping, scouring assault—upon the Illysp, and upon himself—was well deserved. As the power drained him, he let himself feel the weight of every life the Illysp had claimed. The deaths at Atharvan, the slaughter of Annleia’s people, his own possession…This was the closest he would ever come to atonement. The suffering he had caused would never be undone, but there was an inherent justice in being called upon to bear it once more before banishing it henceforth.

Even so, it felt already as if he had reached beyond some spiritual limit, and there was no telling how much longer he must endure. To maintain the assault, he had to dig ever deeper within himself…to where his emotions flared brightest. It was there that he found those who had sacrificed all for him: from his mother, to fish-eyed Cordan, to U’uyen and his Powaii clansmen. It was there that he found those who had raised him, instructed him, or befriended him in some way. There, where he was not just an individual, but the sum of all those who had meaningfully impacted his life.

As before, he found particular potency in the memories of those he had loved. The smiles, the surprises, the tenderness…but also the false hopes, the bitter farewells, the wrenching heartache of dreams unfulfilled. Whether by outright rejection or a chance not taken, it was the losses that drove him. And the closer he had been to happiness, the more those wounds bled.