Kathryn grabbed Tylar’s shoulder. “Get back.”
Tylar stumbled away with her. The others retreated in all directions.
Up from the wound in the soil, where the blade had been planted, a black snake of smoky darkness coiled upward.
“Gloom,” Tylar said, recognizing the steaming stack.
The naether bled into this world, substanceless but deadly. The stench worsened. Distantly, heard in the bones rather than the ear, a sound issued forth, not of this world. It keened with a piercing cry that threatened to shatter teeth.
Ears were covered. Feet fled.
But the font of darkness slowly dissipated. The land closed over the rent. The wound, free of the sword, healed.
Still no one spoke.
Tylar held the Godsword, feeling its oily embrace of his palm and fingers. He wanted to toss the sword and run . . . and keep running. Instead, he squeezed his fingers tighter. He was the sword.
“What was that?” Rogger finally asked, the first to find his tongue.
“The naether,” Gerrod mumbled. “The sword pierced clean through from our world to the other.”
Tylar pictured the blade doing the same to Meeryn. Had she been pierced, not just through the heart, but all the way down to the naether? If so, perhaps it was a stream of Gloom, rather than the sword, that burned away her heart.
Reaching up, Tylar placed a hand to his own chest. Had Meeryn used the last of her dying Grace to reach into that same naether and drag forth her naethryn undergod and bind it to Tylar? Was it all she could do? Some way to continue her own battle in this war? Had she marked Tylar as her avatar and set him loose with a piece of herself?
He gripped the sword. If so . . . so be it. He had seen what killed Meeryn. And at the point of an ordinary sword, he had witnessed the corruption that turned ordinary men and women into ilk-beasts, the humanity burned from them. He lifted the blade. He knew which side of the war he wished to lend his sword, this sword . . . and himself.
The Gloom faded away, swallowed by the greater shadows of the myrrwood. The pillars stood as before, only their encrusted brown vines had turned to ash, the yellow lichen blackened. A stench still clung to the glade.
The woods seemed somehow darker. A grumbling, felt in the soles of the feet, threatened, and the bower overhead shivered. More rain drizzled through the disturbed canopy.
“The myrrwood felt the passage of the Gloom,” Gerrod said. “Certainly Chrism will have, too. It is no longer safe here. He will know about the sword.”
Tylar nodded in the direction of the castillion. “Then let us return what is his.”
“How do you propose to get to him?” Kathryn asked.
“The subterranean route,” Yaellin said. “The entrance is over here.”
They all followed the knight out the dark glade and through a short section of forest. A stone door appeared in the side of a small hummock. Its surface bore an etching of tangled wyldroses. Littick symbols glowed through the thorns and petals.
“ ‘Blood and bone,’ ” Gerrod read. “Krys and ymm.”
“Warded with Chrism’s own name,” Kathryn said.
“And blood,” Yaellin said. He reached into a pocket of his cloak and removed a small crystal repostilary. “But the god’s own black bile will nullify the blessing.”
The knight removed the stopper. It had a small glass wand attached to its underside, like a woman’s sweetwater bottle, used to dab scent to throat and wrist. Only this was not so pleasant. Tylar whiffed the stench of black bile. It seemed even a god’s shite did not smell like roses.
Yaellin painted the bile along the lines of Littick lettering. The glow died under each stroke, smearing away the warding. Once done, a crack of stone sounded. Yaellin reached to draw the door open.
It slammed wide on its own.
A black snarl of roots burst forth, like the tentacles of a miiodon—and just as deadly. Yaellin was snatched and torn from his place, dragged into the tunnel’s entrance. Roots choked and tore. Blood spurted. His form disappeared without a sound. Even his scream was strangled away.
Other roots grabbed and tangled into the gathered party.
Dart fell to her backside, her ankle wrapped in vine. Tylar lunged at her, but she grabbed her dagger from its sheath and stabbed it into the root. The squirming vine blackened, cracking with flame. She tumbled away as the root fell to ash, releasing her.
Others fared worse. Dart’s friend Laurelle had been in Yaellin’s shadow. With the knight ripped from her side, she was seized at waist and leg.
Tylar twisted at the hip and swung his sword in a broad stroke. The shining blade cleaved through a mass of roots near the entrance. It passed as if through air. The severed roots writhed, spewing black blood. Laurelle fell free, as did Eylan, who had lunged to the girl’s aid and become entangled herself.
At the tunnel entrance, the stumped ends of the root, sliced by Rivenscryr, burst into flame, as if the blood inside were oil and the sword a tinder match. Coiling roots exploded from the inside, casting forth gouts of fiery debris. The flames raced deeper down the tunnel. More blasts echoed.
The party tumbled away.
“Yaellin . . .” Dart moaned.
He was gone.
Smoke and flames billowed out. The ground shook as the fires spread down the subterranean tunnel. A few roots writhed and twisted, but these also blew apart as the blood inside them torched.
“Away!” Tylar called with a pained expression.
He led them off through the myrrwood. He knew no path, but simply fled in the direction of the castillion.
A brilliant explosion lit the night behind them. Tylar turned in time to see one of the massive trunks of the myrrwood burst into flame, becoming a giant torch. Another, deeper in the forest, shattered with flames.
“The myrrwood is all one tree,” Gerrod said. “You’ve set its roots on fire. And it continues to spread, flaming through the channels of blood. From one tree to another.”
Tylar gaped.
“You lit the wick,” Rogger said. “Now all we can do is run!”
More trees exploded into living torches, all around them, behind and in front. The ground shook underfoot.
They fled as the forest continued its immolation. Trunks shattered, debris rained down. Smoke rolled and choked.
They had no choice but to keep fleeing—toward the castillion.
But they had no delusions for what awaited them.
“If Chrism didn’t know you were coming,” Rogger coughed out, “he does now. All of Chrismferry will be looking this way.”
Laurelle spoke, her face smeared with soot, tear tracks traced through the ash. “You . . . your sword.” She pointed.
Tylar raised the weapon, still gripping the warm hilt. Only that was all he held. In the mad flight, he hadn’t noticed.
The sword’s blade had vanished.
“One stroke,” Gerrod said as they paused in their flight, cowering in a dark section of forest momentarily free of flames. “That must be all the sword can bear before needing to be replenished.”
Kathryn watched Dart again lay her bloody hands upon the sword and draw them along its length. Smoke rose from between her pressed palms, and from that blood and smoke, the silver sword appeared once again, whetted by the girl’s Grace.
Tylar stepped back.
“You two are indeed sword and sheath,” Rogger mumbled. “Both of you had better keep close.”
More blasts echoed from the deeper forest behind them. Ahead lay patches of fire. The heat grew worse with each breath. They dared not tarry in the fiery woods any longer.
“Let’s go,” Tylar said.
Dart glanced back. Kathryn followed. She caught the haunted look in the young girl’s eyes. She had seen too much death for one day.
Kathryn recognized the sorrow. She placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “He did his duty,” she said softly. “There will be time to mourn Yaellin later.”
Dart nodded and turned, bu
t her eyes shone brighter with tears.
It was easy to say . . . harder to do.
Kathryn also glanced back. First the father and now the son. She prayed Ser Henri and Yaellin’s sacrifices had not been in vain. With the last strength of her arms, she would make it so.
The woods finally grew thinner around them. The eternal night of the heavy bower lightened to gray skies and stiff winds. Rain broke the canopy. After the heat and stifle of the deeper wood, its coolness was a relief.
Distantly, thunder rumbled.
They paused to rest one last time.
Ahead the towers of the castillion peeked between the weave of branches. It was afire with torches. At windows, along battlements. The castillion awaited them.
Kathryn sought any other path. She faced the fiery woods behind them. Despite the downpour, the woods glowed and flamed, steamed and smoked. There was no escape that way. There was not enough water across all of Myrillia to douse that fire. To Kathryn, it seemed all the elements had gathered for this coming night: loam, air, fire, and water.
A tree ahead of them burst, engulfed in a spiral of flame.
Tylar lifted the quickened blade and pointed his arm.
Though set by their own hand, the fires drove them forward.
They had no choice.
She remembered Eylan’s tale of prophecy and ordainment. Perhaps they never had a choice.
She stared at Tylar. Traitor, godslayer, sword-bearer. But all she could see was the man she once loved . . . perhaps still loved. She could not deny this last. The heart did not forget.
Still, she remembered the broken man, the smoky daemon. Tylar was no longer the knight she knew. He had been broken and re-formed. Who was he now? Did she have the strength to find out? Would they ever have the time?
The woods opened before them. More of the castillion appeared in bits and pieces. The rain fell harder.
Reaching the edge of the myrrwood, they saw what lay ahead of them. Torches sputtered throughout the Eldergarden, illuminating brighter pools in the stormy gloom and shivering shadows. The far side of the Eldergarden stirred with dark shapes. Some wore the livery of the castillion guard, but such finery was shredded and torn. Most were naked to the rain.
Ilk-beasts.
All of them.
“He’s transformed the entire guard,” Gerrod said. “Even the house staff.”
“An ilk legion,” Rogger mumbled.
Tylar faced them with his one sword. Kathryn read the despair in his eyes. His daemon was useless against the writhing throng that awaited them. His sword could strike only once before it vanished back to shadow and light. And in the thick of battle, there would be no chance to replenish the blade. How could Tylar even defend the god-child?
Still, behind the despair, a weary determination shone through.
Then the skies over the castillion opened, the clouds parted. A dark shape lowered from the storm, aglow with soft Grace. Then another appeared . . . and another. Flippercrafts. A half dozen dropped around the towers of castillion. Lightning crackled along the clouds, highlighting the flags mounted atop each ship.
Kathryn stared and knew all was lost.
The flags were black. Each emblem crimson.
The Fiery Cross.
Kathryn pictured the slain young knight on the stone floor. His heart cut out, his blood spilled. She smelled again the burned bones of the charnel pit.
Lit by the fires below, the belly of each flippercraft opened above the towers. Ropes tumbled out, uncoiling, snaking to battlements and terraces.
Figures flowed down the ropes, ravens in a storm.
“Tashijan must have been summoned,” Gerrod said.
Kathryn slowly nodded.
And the Fiery Cross answered.
24
FALL FROM ON HIGH
THE SIX FLIPPERCRAFTS EMPTIED OVER THE TOWERS AND battlements.Shadowknights flew down scores of ropes, dropping to stations throughout the castillion and grounds.
Tylar lost count of the number. Over two hundred.
“The Fiery Cross has come to defend Chrism,” Gerrod said.
Lightning crackled in a mighty arc across the belly of the clouds, threatening the airships. It was foolhardy to ride a lightning storm. But such was the determination of Tashijan.
The winds gusted harder. Rain pelted like hail. One flippercraft brushed too near a tower. Starboard skimmer paddles snapped, sheared away. The ship hove up on its side, fighting for balance.
The damaged flippercraft swung away from the castillion—toward them. It wobbled. A pair of unlucky knights fell from the dangling ropes, jostled loose by the sudden canting. The two plummeted into the gardens, wings of shadow billowing out. They disappeared, their fates unknown.
The ship fared no better, dropping swiftly. It belly crashed through an old garden wall. The cracking splinter of wood sounded like thunder.
“Seems a bad day for flippercrafts,” Rogger mumbled at Tylar’s side.
The ship skidded between their party and the castillion, rolled half on its side, port aeroskimmers high. Bluish fires spat up from the stern end. Rain turned to steam, shrouding the craft.
But not enough to hide the rush of knights and crew escaping the ship.
Behind Tylar, another of the myrrwood trees erupted, gouting flames high. The heat rolled over them. Too near. Fiery branches rained down around them and out into the main gardens.
They had to move or be burned.
“This way,” Tylar said and led them from the flaming forest. “Stay low.”
“Where are we going?” Rogger asked as they headed into the gardens.
“To the stoved ship,” Tylar said. “We’re too few. We need to convince those others to aid us.”
“And how are you going to do that?” the thief asked. “Your face isn’t that pretty.”
Tylar nodded to Kathryn. “She’s still castellan of Tashijan, second only to Argent. Shaken up, the few knights here may listen to her.” He lifted his sword. “And if they don’t, we have this.”
Rogger shrugged. “Don’t mind me if I hide behind you, then.”
Tylar took the thief’s words to heart. Their chances were poor.
The group marched through the gardens, trudging a direct route through bushes and flower patches. The rain continued to pour, turning dirt to mud. The crashed flippercraft towered ahead of them.
Tylar stopped by a low stone fence. There was no reason to risk all. “Everyone else stay hidden here. Kathryn and I will go forward alone.”
No one objected. Only Eylan met his gaze.
“Keep the others safe,” Tylar said to her, letting his concern for them ring clear. “That will serve us all best.”
Eylan glanced to the two girls, then nodded. The others had already sunk down and leaned against the wall, seeking some shelter from the wind and rain.
Tylar glanced to Kathryn. She nodded her readiness.
They set off down a gravel path, bordered by hedges and pocked with dancing pools of rainwater. They moved swiftly, falling into an easy rhythm, as if this were any rainy night and they were returning from some engagement together. Still, Kathryn fingered her diadem, the symbol of her station. It might be all that stood between them and a sword through the heart.
She glanced to Tylar, eyes shining with powers drawn from the shadows. There were words behind that gaze.
Tylar feared for them to be spoken aloud and turned away.
He gripped his sword. Its hilt remained warm, flowing to fit his fingers, throbbing slightly under his palm like a heartbeat. He stared down at it. What was he carrying? What was this Godsword?
Lightning crackled brilliantly, drawing his attention. The gardens flashed in stark silver. Darkness shifted. A shadowy shape rose, as if from the path itself, blocking them. A sword threatened.
“Hold!” Kathryn boomed out.
Tylar jumped, surprised at her firm authority.
The knight’s sword lowered slightly.
“I am Cas
tellan Vail,” she continued, not letting the other collect himself. “Take me to your foreknight or whoever’s in charge.”
The sword lowered farther.
But before more could be managed, a deep growl erupted from the left. Something huge ripped through a thorny tangle of elderwytch.
Ilk-beast.
Tylar flew back, sword ready.
It crashed through the neighboring hedgerow, thrusting right through it, hardly slowing. Nothing could be discerned but its dark muscled bulk.
Tylar lunged out with his sword. No matter its size, the Godsword would surely kill it. But before he could strike, a clang of steel knocked his sword high.
Caught by surprise, Tylar stumbled.
Lightning burst overhead, revealing the beast, limned in silver. It was a steaming, slavering monster—but a familiar monster.
“Barrin!” Kathryn called.
The bullhound skidded to a stop, paws sliding in the mud. Its tongue, as wide as a hearthside rug, lolled out. Its rear end wiggled with all the enthusiasm of its stumped tail.
The knight who had blocked Tylar’s sword shed his shadows. He reached to his masklin and let it drop.
“Krevan,” Tylar said, relieved.
The other knight on the path stepped nearer. It was Krevan’s right-hand man, the older knight, Corram.
Kathryn joined them. “I don’t understand.”
“Come see,” Krevan said.
He walked them through the ruined hedge. The view opened again. The smoking flippercraft was a mountain to the right, but an arrow’s shot ahead rose the castillion. Its battlements still glowed with torches, as did the terraces and windows. It blazed in the stormy gloom.
In the bright illumination, Shadowknights swept along parapets and flew from terraces down to the garden grounds. The dark wave struck the mass of ilk-beasts in the gardens. Wails and shrieks erupted. A pitched battle began.
“More knights still come by windmares,” Krevan assured them. He turned to Tylar. “We come to aid the godslayer.”
“How . . . the Warden . . . the Fiery Cross . . . ?” Kathryn seemed unable to rein in her thoughts. She waved at the other flippercrafts and their flags.
Tylar frowned, no less confused.