Silently urging Ragnar’k lower in the water, Sy-wen was able to reach her mother’s shoulder. Once close enough, a great black wing rose under her mother, scooping her limp form from the water. She struggled slightly, but her grief had made her weak as a babe. The dragon’s wing slid the woman closer into Sy-wen’s embrace.
Hugging tight, Sy-wen wrapped her arms around her mother and pulled her into the seat, cradling the crying woman in front of her. Sy-wen had not realized how small and light her mother was. It was as if the immense grief had not only broken the woman, but shrunk her also.
Sy-wen pressed her mother’s head against her chest and gently rocked. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she whispered as she stared at the dead and dying across the wide lake. “I’m sorry for everything.”
She urged Ragnar’k toward the lone boat drifting amidst the carnage. In the distance, the boat still fountained with spears of flame. Sy-wen’s brow crinkled with concern. What were they still fighting?
WITH THE BATTLE in the sky won, Elena fought to rein in her surge of stormfire. Upon the decks of the Pale Stallion, clashes still raged with the last handful of skal’tum who had crashed to the boat. Elena sensed her power and magick were no longer needed skyward, but here.
As Elena struggled to guide her magick, the wild energies began to break free of her control. When first she had unleashed stormfire, back in the swamps of the Landslip, she had had only the dregs of power at hand. The magick had expired almost as quickly as she had lit it. But now, almost at full strength, Elena found the magick had grown beyond her ability to control. It took both sides of her spirit, the light of the woman and the darkness of the wit’ch, just to keep the force of her raging energies directed upward.
Elena knew that even this meager control was about to be lost. With all her will, Elena fought the stormfire’s wild bucking and writhing. Still, she could not keep her palms from beginning to slip apart. The spread of her hands, instead of weakening her stormfire, widened the scope of her magick. The larger force became impossible to harness.
Concentrating fiercely, she ignored the cries of those around her. As the stormfire spread, one of the ship’s masts cracked near the top, caught by the edge of her gale of magick. It crashed near the stern and rolled into the sea, dragging two skal’tum with it, tangled in its ropes.
Elena’s cheeks ran with tears, and not just from the strain. She had spotted one of the zo’ol sailors dragged overboard along with the pair of skal’tum. Elena had glimpsed the man’s panicked eyes as he had rolled over the edge, a noose of rope around his neck.
Elena fell to her knees.
Grief weakened her control even more. Shouts of alarm rose from the deck as the others sensed that her magick was about to tear the ship apart.
Joach’s voice barked near her ear. “Elena, we’ve won! Stop!”
What did her brother think she was trying to do? She could not collapse the magick. It had grown too large. Her only hope was that her magick would burn out. Lost in the eye of the storm, Elena knew such a hope was futile. She sensed that her well of magick was still too deep. The ship would surely be demolished before the rage of stormfire ever blew itself out.
With her heart failing, Elena searched for guidance, for some means of chaining her magick. As if in answer, she suddenly sensed a presence nearby. She glanced over a shoulder. No one was there. But she caught a whiff of scent, a whisper of Standi loam. In her ears, she heard the rustle of leather. And from somewhere far off, someone called her name: Elena. It was Er’ril’s voice, and the tone was clearly scolding. Her heart clenched. Elena knew it was no ghost that visited her in this hopeless moment. It was only her own memory. With her guard so weakened, a corner of her heart had stirred. She had thought herself just wit’ch and woman, but she now realized she had grown into something more. Somewhere along this journey here, Er’ril had become a part of her, too. The iron he had gifted to Elena in the past had not died with the man. It still remained—in her own heart.
Elena shoved back to her feet. She must not die. She would not let this tiny spark of Er’ril expire forever because she was too frail. Only by living could she keep his memory alive. Standing once again, she fought the raging magick with a furious passion, part iron, part spirit.
Slowly, she began to pull the magick back into check, drawing her palms together. She screamed with the effort.
Above her, the fountain of energies died down to a savage spear. Finally, with a last wrench of her will, she clenched her hands together, entwining her fingers, stanching the flow. The stormfire blew itself out.
Sagging with sudden exhaustion, she fell to the deck. One of the zo’ol caught her, and Elena stared at the destruction around her.
Nearby, Joach leaned heavily on his staff among the wracked ruins of several skal’tum corpses, his eyes wide with concern for her. Flint limped upon a leg torn and bleeding. Tol’chuk helped support the man, but even the og’re was not unscathed. He bore deep scratches across his chest. Meric looked haggard and sunken, his spent magick wasting him.
A tiny call arose from the waters beside the boat. “Help us aboard!”
Joach leaned over the starboard rail. “It’s Sy-wen and Ragnar’k. They have an injured woman with them.” He waved the others to help.
Flint, though, ignored the commotion at the rails and stared up at the skies. The stars shone brightly. “It’s over.”
“No,” whispered the zo’ol at Elena’s side. His eyes were not on the skies, but on the dark forest around them. “It’s just beginning.”
20
FROM THE BOWER of a treetop, Rockingham watched the slaughter across the lake with dispassionate eyes. Perched on a neighboring branch, his skal’tum lieutenant was not as calm. It hissed and worked its claws into the tree’s bark, ripping at its rough surface with undisguised frustration. The beast quivered with rage, but it had its orders: Stay beside the golem. Do its bidding.
Rockingham glanced toward the beast, and it cowered back. Naked from the waist up, the wound in Rockingham’s chest steamed with wisps of black fog. The Dark Lord had come here, and none dared disobey.
Satisfied, Rockingham returned to studying the dying army. He discovered no emotion connected with the annihilation of the skal’tum host. Not that he cared for any of the beasts. In truth, he wished them all dead. Still, their brutal massacre should have shocked him; the bloody lake and cold corpses should have sickened him. But the presence of his master dulled any such feelings.
With the stone gateway open in his heart, the man who was Rockingham had dwindled to a tiny spark, lost in the enormity of the black spirit that had squirmed and rolled out from the ebon’stone. The golem had had no say in what had happened or in what was to come. The orders had all risen from the darkness inside his chest, from a being who nested far away in the volcanic crèches of Blackhall.
From his mist-shrouded wound, a voice whispered out. The sound was an oily poison that ate at his sanity. “Call them forth.”
Nodding, Rockingham raised an arm in the air. The Dark Lord could not be disobeyed. All around the lake’s edge, a rustling arose from the tree line. A full third of his skal’tum army remained yet unbloodied by the previous assault. The master had sent the main mass of his host to draw out the enemy’s fangs. It had succeeded. The wit’ch and her companions would be unprepared for the true attack.
“Now,” the voice ordered from his cracked rib cage.
Rockingham snapped his hand into a fist. From all across the lake, a pale force rose from the canopies, flocking into the air. Rockingham’s lieutenant crawled atop him and grasped the man by the shoulders. With a rattle of bony wings, the skal’tum took flight, carrying Rockingham clutched in the claws of its feet.
As Rockingham flew across the lake, his host flanked him, a pale sickness spreading over the water toward the lone boat. While leading this final surge, Rockingham should have felt some sense of victory or revenge. But he felt nothing as the mer people and their dragons stared at the pa
ssing horde with shock and dismay.
The attack was so sudden and unexpected that no resistance was tendered. With skal’tum again filling the skies, dragons and their riders fled under the lake. As Rockingham swooped toward the deck of the ship, he watched men scramble over tangled corpses, seeking to retreat belowdecks—as if that offered any protection.
Still, Rockingham felt no emotion.
His lieutenant dove at the ship, throwing its wings wide to slow its dive, and settled Rockingham roughly to the deck. All around, sails ripped and rigging tore free as his hosts settled into perches among the masts and across the deck. Only a small section of the deck was left free.
Rockingham recognized most of those clustered before the hatch to the lower decks: the wit’ch’s brother brandishing the darkmage’s staff, the og’re bearing a bloody hammer, the elv’in looking fierce but hard worn. Yet there were others who were strangers to Rockingham: a green-haired girl; the man beside her, a hulking, tattooed brute with a long black braid and an even longer sword; and a set of identical dark-skinned men who threatened with nothing more than broken oars.
Yet none of these mattered. His true target hid behind them, though in truth, Rockingham hardly recognized the woman. What strange magick had transformed the young girl into this comely lass of thick curled locks and hard countenance? Curiosity arose in Rockingham, but he sensed it was only because the same emotion welled in the Dark Lord. It was this oddity that gave his master pause.
“Come forth,” the darkness called to the wit’ch. “You cannot win here. Give yourself freely, and the others will be allowed their freedom.”
“We would rather die!” Joach called back.
Unbidden, Rockingham’s shoulders shrugged. “If my beasts must dig the wit’ch from this boat, you will all wish for death. I can wield punishments far worse.”
As the skal’tum hissed in delight, Rockingham felt the others’ eyes meet his own. He stood as an example of how much worse the Black Heart’s punishment could be. The wound in Rockingham’s chest spread wider. He saw the gathered faces blanch at whatever was revealed.
Elena, though, pushed boldly through the others, shaking off restraining hands. “You hide behind this flock of winged carrion,” she spat at him. “And skulk in the hollows of dead men. Come out and face me! Let us end our battle here!”
A sound that could only be crudely defined as laughter answered her challenge. A flow of black energies rolled forth from Rockingham’s cracked rib cage and pooled at his feet. From this dark well, screams echoed up. The voice spoke again. “Then let it be!”
Elena stepped forward, thrusting her arms out and bringing her hands together. A tempest of searing flames and ice swept toward where Rockingham stood. Normally, Rockingham would have cringed and ducked, but even this instinctual fear was denied him. Instead, faster than his eye could follow, the pool at his feet burst upward in a black shield, blocking the flow of wit’ch magick before it struck him.
In the center of this conflagration, Rockingham watched the flames of dire energies cast by the wit’ch dash against his shield. Ice and fire roiled like living serpents around his barrier, seeking a way through the blockage. But it proved vain. The black shield was impregnable.
A cry of frustration arose from the wit’ch, and the torrent of magick flared brighter. Laughter answered her renewed efforts.
Beyond the shield, a harsh voice suddenly intruded, demanding and panicked. “Elena! Pull back your magick! He only seeks to drain you!”
With these words, the flames instantly died away. In turn, the black shield dropped. Rockingham saw a gray, grizzled elder leaning on a crutch, his leg bandaged from ankle to thigh. A silver stud marked the man’s ear. Agony was drawn in deep lines upon his face, but not all of the pain, Rockingham suspected, was from the injured limb.
Elena stood before the others. Her hands, still raised, were pale and white. “It’s too late,” she whispered.
A coldness spread through Rockingham, a touch of hoarfrost and ancient ice. Even under his master’s control, Rockingham shivered. The black energies at his feet grew even darker. Rockingham knew more of the foul one’s spirit had pushed through the ebon’stone gate in his chest. It was drawn by the despair of those gathered here.
Elena glanced to the gibbous moon overhead.
The Black Heart whispered with malign mischief. “Renew, wit’ch. The moon’s magick will do you no good.”
Needing little urging, the wit’ch raised her left arm toward the night sky. Bathed in moonlight, her hand vanished. As she pulled down her arm, her fist returned, rich again with ruby energies. Elena faced Rockingham, her words fierce. “Useless or not, I will die fighting you with every scrap of iron and magick in my blood.”
From the black well, a hiss of amusement. “Submit, wit’ch, and I’ll still let the others live.”
Rockingham saw the girl hesitate, her staunch stance wavering.
The voice whispered now, trying to worm past the girl’s own shield. “There are none to save you.”
From beyond the others, a new figure shoved forth. A naked woman, eyes wild and hair tangled, burst free. The green-haired girl reached toward the clearly mad woman as she rushed past. “Mother! No!”
The woman shook off the girl and ran at Rockingham, hands raised in claws. “Y-you murdered Conch, you monster!”
Rockingham froze. The first image of the woman’s face, wild and tear streaked, seared his mind, obscuring all else. He gasped and clutched his chest.
Something broke deep inside him.
In response, a howl of rage echoed out from his chest. But Rockingham ignored it. Old memories swamped him, drowning him. Emotions flamed through his core, swiping away even the black chains that bound him. A black stone the size of a clenched fist tumbled from his open chest and clattered across the deck.
Rockingham stumbled from the sudden release. Raising his head, he moaned the name that had been imprisoned in his heart for too long, the name of the woman who had burst from the doorway. “Linora!”
Speaking aloud, Rockingham felt his legs give out. He crashed to his knees.
His outburst struck the woman just as deeply. She halted her lunge and fell to her hands on the deck. Her eyes rose from Rockingham’s wounded chest to his face. A look of recognition broke through her madness. She knelt back, covering her face with her palms. “No! It cannot be!”
The small girl danced forward. “Mother? You know this creature?”
Linora croaked, her voice lost. “He’s your father.”
SY-WEN DROPPED BACK in disbelief, her hand rising in horror. “No!” Kast gathered the distraught mer’ai girl within his arms. She sank gratefully into his embrace. “How could this be?” she cried. For so long, she had conjured pictures of her father in her mind’s eye. He was always as tall as Kast, even broader of shoulder, but bore none of Kast’s scars. She always pictured him with a perpetual grin and laughing eyes. Not . . . not this creature of nightmare dredged from the foulness of the Dark Lord’s dungeons.
The golem lifted an arm in supplication. “Linora?”
Before any further plea could be spoken, a screeching howl blew forth from the stone at the man’s feet. The noise tore at Sy-wen’s ears and shook the sails like a wind. The roosting skal’tum scattered from their perches into the night sky like a startled rookery of starlings. Pale leathery wings flapped and sailed away from the ship’s two masts.
Amid the chaos, Elena stepped forward, eyes on the retreating creatures, fist blazing with coldfire. Flint stopped the wit’ch with a touch and pointed down. “Look!”
Sy-wen’s gaze followed where the old Brother pointed. Upon the deck, the remaining pool of dark energies around the stone crackled with streaks of silver, matching the thin veins forking through the rock. It was as if the remaining splash of dark magick was in fact melted ebon’stone. As they all watched, the well of darkness drew back into the rock until only the chunk of ebon’stone remained. None dared draw near it.
Flint spoke. “Free of its host, the Dark Lord has fled.”
Glancing back to the golem, Sy-wen noticed that only Rockingham and Sy-wen’s mother seemed oblivious of the stone’s transformation. Instead, the couple’s eyes were locked on one another. “I’m sorry,” Rockingham moaned.
Elena stepped as if to intervene, but once again Flint restrained her. “Let them be. Though I might not be as rich in weaving magicks as your brother, I can sense when a flow of fate is best left undisturbed.”
Clenching her fist, Elena slowly backed away. Sy-wen could almost feel the hatred pulsing from the wit’ch. Sy-wen knew Elena’s story. This man, her father, had once played a role in the murder of Elena’s family.
Deaf to those around them, Linora and Rockingham knelt near one another. “What happened to you?” Sy-wen’s mother moaned. She reached to touch the man’s face, but her hand faltered.
He looked away. “You should have had me slain, like the others. I . . . I didn’t deserve your m-mercy.”
Linora touched his cheek tentatively. “I couldn’t live with that. I barely survived your banishment. If not for Conch and the babe . . . your baby . . .”
Sy-wen realized they were talking of her, when she was a child. Sy-wen’s heart roiled with emotions. Shock and anger, along with disbelief, confused her ability to sort out her feelings concerning this revelation. “He cannot be my father . . .” This was the man who had killed Conch. How could her mother touch the creature with affection?
Kast leaned and whispered in her ear, reading her thoughts. “We cannot always choose our blood. Ulster was my blood brother, but our hearts were different. Remember that. Even if this creature truly is your father in name, you do not have to take him to heart.”
Kast’s words gave Sy-wen the strength to push free of his arms and step beside the two kneeling figures. She deserved to hear the truth finally. “I don’t understand. What happened, Mother?” she asked sternly.