The Shield of Weeping Ghosts (31 page)

“Your king is dead, and your city is burning,” Serevan said. “This stand is less than noble and I’ll befits a man of your wisdom. Surrender the blade and the ring.”

Bastun’s hand drifted to the Breath, feeling the cold metal pulsing beneath his touch.

“The ring?” He stood, less of his own volition and more as a player’s puppet on strings of time. The strange ring did indeed play some part along with the Breath—a secret kept from him, possibly even from Keffrass.

His head slowly shook from side to side, the Magewarden refusing to yield. A catch formed in his throat, and Bastun choked down Athumrani’s reply. The rushing pace of history as it caught up with the present was overwhelming, but he managed to assert himself—control himself—long enough to ignore the well-tread paths of ghosts and memories.

The axe blade raised sparks as it scored the stone, swinging in a powerful arc at Serevan’s neck. It sang as it met the prince’s own blade, drawn and placed with a cruel precision. Denied the cut, Bastun drew back to swing again, the motion as reflexive as the spells that sprung to mind. The magic curled in his gut, spinning with the blade as the words crowded themselves on his tongue. He backstepped as Serevan advanced, the prince’s actions no longer following the paths of the past.

Their blades met again, the clash of metals matching the rhythm of his casting. Though Serevan snarled, his face a mask of confusion at the reenactment that refused to obey set course, his skill with the thin blade he carried was formidable and unhindered by the chaos he was experiencing. His white lips moved, mumbling and whispering words of magic that overlaid Bastun’s own intonations.

Power flowed from the vremyonni’s chest, gathering at his shoulder as he raised his arm to ditect the energy he had summoned. It danced through his muscles, slid along sinew and bone, through his wrist, and flared into a sparkling yellow light at his palm—and then died.

With a final syllable, the spark was reflected in the glassy eyes of the prince as he countered and dismissed Bastun’s attempt to harm him. Eyes widening in shock, Bastun fell back as Serevan’s blade came again—and faster. He swung the heavy axe against the quick and elegant thrusts of the smaller weapon. The axe-staff became more shield than weapon as the prince fell more out of step with his past and into the murderous fury of the sleeper awoken from a dark and terrible dream.

The proximity to the bleakborn was stifling. The numbing cold that froze anything else burned Bastun’s skin like a bonfire. Frost surrounded them, ice formed on the floor, yet melted wherever he set foot. The hunger in Serevan’s eyes took on a maddening gleam as his cheeks sank in upon themselves. The cracks and rot of a long-frozen death began to spread through the prince’s features.

“The ring!” the prince rasped, his semblance of life falling apart.

Pain lanced through his side as the bleakborn’s blade found an opening. He groaned as the sword was pulled free, blood spattering the floor. He doubled over and Serevan kicked him to the ground.

A scratchy sound like dried leaves escaped a throat that had fallen apart, exposing the lifeless gray tissue beneath. The sword

hovered high, its edge wavering in the drawn-out heartbeats that came when death neared. Clutching his wound, Bastun looked upon the blade and wondered if this too was a part that Athumrani had played. Pain and the sudden shock of mortality brought an unexpected clarity to his thoughts. He couldn’t raise his axe in time to stop the sword, but it didn’t seem to matter as much as he’d expected only moments before.

The blade fell, a silver stroke of lightning through the storm of darkness that threatened to overtake his vision. The room blurred, something shoved him out of the way, and he rolled onto his stomach. Steel sang like a stricken anvil as he glanced up and saw Duras standing in his place. Swords locked, the berserker and the prince tested one another’s strength.

Bastun watched in horror as telltale frost crawled over Duras’s gauntlet and the sunken pits of Serevan’s cheeks swelled slightly with a blush of renewed warmth.

+

tumbling toward the stairwell, Bastun leaned against the doorframe and gripped the wound in his side. In between pained breaths he reached inside his robes, just beneath the light armor he wore. Focusing on casting a spell and watching the duel between Duras and Serevan, he warded off the effects of shock. Blood ran between his fingers as he completed the spell. He cried out as a burning pain seared the wound shut, but he kept his eyes open, his mind alert, and used the pain as further reminder that he was still alive.

Duras’s blade gleamed as it blocked another of the prince’s thrusts. He hacked at the thin blade with his larger sword, threatening to snap the smaller weapon in two. It stubbornly held and kept coming.

Bastun carefully removed his palm from the sealed puncture. The smell of his own scorching flesh was slight compared to the scent of dying wraiths that hung on the air in a gray haze. Their numbers had thinned, but they’d taken more than their share of Rashemi along with them. Barely ten still stood alongside Syrolf and Thaena, blocked into a circle of swinging blades. Bastun could not help but wonder at the faces of such familiar strangers. Torchlight flashed over the battlefield, obscured intermittently as the howling spirits encircled those still alive.

Hefting his axe, Bastun pushed away from the wall. Hesitant to cast any magic for fear of striking Duras, he circled

Ir s_

and waited for an opening. Serevan’s features had reformed quickly in the presence of the big warrior, but Duras fought on despite the sickly pallor he now wore. His sword crashed against the prince’s shoulder, denting the elaborate armor and sending a shower of ice to the floor. Serevan ignored the hit and punched Duras in the chest. The force of the blow sent the warrior stumbling backward.

Bastun thrust his axe forward to fill the opening, only to have it deflected downward. The swift sword rose to slash at his side, and Bastun backstepped protectively. Too late he tealized his mistake, hearing the prince’s voice whispering arcane words. With a casual gesture Serevan sent magical force slamming into Bastun’s stomach. He flew through the air and crashed into the wall. Hitting the floor, he wheezed for breath as Duras resumed a furious attack.

Through the open door across the chamber, Bastun could see the dark splotches on the snow-covered wall. The sight of the bodies—Anilya’s body—drove him to keep moving. With a desperate determination he picked up his axe. Blinking away sweat and the tears from coughing for air, he turned to find Duras, his back facing Bastun as the berserker met the Cold Prince.

A sudden silence seized his attention. Two still forms stood face to face in an awkward embrace. Serevan’s visage pulsed with life, only his eyes held on to the hazy blue of ice. Duras’s head rolled to one side, his sword clattered to the stone, a scarlet-stained sliver of bright steel sprouting from his back. His legs continued to push, trying to stand, but failing in the task as his strength was drained by the wound and the bleakborn’s feeding.

With a shrug, the prince pulled his blade from the warrior’s chest. Duras fell backward, still fighting to keep his balance like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Bastun caught him beneath his shoulders and slumped under his weight. Blood gushed over his robes and stained his hands, his eyes only

just registering the dark crimson color that spilled over him. It streamed across the stone, filling cracks and melting frost, creating a sickening red slush. Duras shook in his arms, eyes rolling in their sockets.

The crunch of a boot startled Bastun out of his momentary shock. He did not look up. Instinct sent his hands into action. In a trance, words spilled forth from his mouth as he studied his blood-drenched hand. An old scar on his palm made him recall the last time he had touched his friend’s blood.

The last of the spell thundered down his arm, energy quaking through his wrist as his fist shot forward. Air parted at spell’s edge, a vacuum forming as the image of his fist grew and blurred into a massive battering ram. Serevan’s arms and legs flailed as he was struck and flung through the chamber. Wraiths parted and hissed as he fell through them and disappeared, his armor scraping against stone and crunching against the opposite wall.

Then Bastun breathed again, air rattling from his lungs as he shook in a barely controlled fury. That seething anger lessened a moment as he met Duras’s half-lidded eyes.

“Bas-Bastun…” he said, lips almost blue and stained with drops of blood. The vremyonni shook his head as if silence would keep his friend alive, somehow hold death at bay, but Duras continued, “No, I must… Ulsera, your sister…”

“Don’t,” Bastun said quietly, but his friend was beyond hearing, and the sound of his sister’s name quelled any further protest within him.

“I took her there… to the Urlingwood. They found us… the guardians. I hid”—a choking sob escaped him—”I ran away… but they—they killed her. We were just… children.”

His eyes stared off into nowhere, reliving the events in his mind. In the absence of the bleakborn’s presence, a chill had returned to Bastun, coldet now as Duras spoke. Feeling numb,

he sat motionless, his dying friend in his arms. A sudden fierce focus filled the warrior’s gaze.

“I should have died there. Not her. Too scared to tell anyone… just a child… and they blamed you.” The words cut deep, and the first stirrings of some emotion began to churn in Bastun, “I had no courage. So many… years.”

Bastun trembled, tears never spilled welled in his eyes and still he choked them back.

“I die… for her. Giving this… to you. Forgive me.”

“You are forgiven, Duras,” he said without hesitation as Duras’s eyes lost their focus. A final shuddering breath left his friend, his childhood blood-brother, lifeless and silent. Carefully he let Duras’s body slip from his arms, the last secrets of a shattered past sitting quietly in his heart—before returning his attention to the present and the Nar prince.

Bastun stood slowly, purposefully, the tip of his axe resting on the floor as he closed his eyes and breathed. He began to count backwards, matching his heartbeat and performing the old rituals.

Where is your breath?

He let go of the surrounding world, of memory and petty anger, of life and pain, and the sensation of his own presence. In that space lay a balance between living flesh and the Weave of magic—a cooperation of spell and primal thought.

Skin tingling, the familiar fever of Serevan’s presence washed over him. The Breath trembled, the bound spirit of the Magewarden reaching out in anger and sorrow. Bastun allowed the intrusion but kept it in check, maintaining an authority over Athumrani’s desires. The sounds of battle rose in volume, resonating with an order that wrapped itself around him.

Opening his eyes, he watched as Serevan appeared through the gloom of wraiths, ever hungering for the power of the Breath and the Word. The stain of his fallen friend’s last battle still darkened the prince’s blade. Bastun would give in to history, to all of Athumrani’s anger and his madness, but he

would give direction to that wild emotion. He would give the Magewarden what he truly needed. He would give him rage.

+ + + + +

Swords still lay in freezing hands. White faces stared in horror against the ground or looked sightlessly up into the clear, night sky. Dim stars reflected in eyes glazed over with death. Gaping wounds would fill with snow and ice over time, taking over their forms and cementing them against the stone like sttange sculptures of grim warning. The durthan’s sellswords, their unwitting souls soaked into the stone, pulled down by the Shield’s curse and Ilythiiri magic to haunt Shandaular till chance or mercy set them free.

Blood and ice encrusted Anilya’s hair. Dark cuts crisscrossed her skin, and powerful cuts had rent her robes. One of her arms was twisted, fingers crushed beneath the heel of the passing prince. Her mask lay askew, revealing her face.

A gentle snow began to fall. Still and silent, the quiet of the scene was broken only by the echoing sounds of battle and the phantom flames of Shandaular’s burning. Ghostly smoke intermingled with the ever-present mists that thickened as dawn cast the first faint glow of a distant sunrise.

An orphan of time, the Shield was a ghost of stone and ice suffering nightmares of history.

“I will free you,” a voice said wistfully.

The body of Anilya shimmered, the image rippling away to reveal the body of a fallen man. The sellsword had suffered many of the same injuries as the illusion that had obscured him, but he had fought with sword and shield before dying at the hands of wraiths and the time-worn prince. Anilya had fought with magic. She turned from the battlements, her form still invisible, to peer into the living darkness of the guard tower. Hidden from the eyes of the living and the dead, she watched and waited.

+ + + + +

Magic tingled through Bastun’s body, the room blurring for a moment as his eyes reacted to the unnatural speed that filled him. His axe swayed menacingly, lighter and faster to match Serevan’s quick sword. The fever returned in full, skin burning as if bare under a desert sun. The prince’s feeding cold could not touch him, caused him not the slightest chill. The ring on his hand had begun to burn as well, its metal hot to the touch. Whatever Ilythiiri magic had been woven into the simple band was somehow connected with Serevan’s goals and the Shield’s history. But Bastun had no time for history now. He was becoming a part of it.

Their blades met twice in the space of a blink, sparks flying. The prince’s mindless anger had faded, his reason now accepting the reenactment of his duel with Athumrani. No longer beset by unfamiliarity with history’s course, he settled back into the cruel and efficient stoicism of Nar royalty. His fighting stance was more open and arrogant than the mindless undead he had become.

Black light exploded from Bastun’s open palm, the beam searing through Serevan’s chest. The prince howled in pain and whirled away, ashes falling from where lifelike flesh and solid armor once had been. Bastun followed closely, slicing with the axe and adjusting his position to keep Serevan off balance. They exchanged blows again, and Bastun loosed the dark beam a second time, burning it into the prince’s leg. Icy skin and muscle fell away, exposing bone. Serevan cried out in pain and began casting a spell of his own.