The Starless Crown, page 23
Rhaif drew it all in with a breath. For a moment, the brightness helped dispel the gloom inside him. Or maybe it was that the world below was now nothing but a rolling black sea, hiding all the fire and death beneath it.
He was not the only one affected by the change.
Movement drew his attention to the bronze figure of Shiya. Her face swiveled toward the radiance. She lifted her palms toward it, too. Her lips parted as if trying to inhale the potency in the sunlight. She took a stiff step toward the windows, then another. As she continued, her movement melted into a smoother stride. The bronze of her face and hands softened, their surfaces swimming in swirling patterns of crimson and copper.
Pratik retreated from her. Rhaif realized that the Chaaen had only witnessed her in a muted, stiffened state, never at her most glorious luminosity.
She reached a window and placed a palm against it. Her eyes—whether reflecting the brightness or fueled by it—turned to fire.
Rhaif drew next to her. He realized two things at that moment.
She was again facing west, as she had for days. And her gaze was fixed to the half-moon shining near the horizon, as if it beckoned her. Her expression turned pained, even anguished.
“Shiya,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
She finally found her voice, though it was only a whisper, like wind through crystals. “I must go there.”
Rhaif touched her arm. “Where? Why?”
She turned to him, her eyes still afire. “To save you all.”
SEVEN
BLOOD & FURY
I saw the grett beast flie ouer the quaggy clime. Ah! such was the terror that I barely ken the breadth of leather’d wing & mighty cry & how it wrought upon me such wondre. It is poison on the air, yet beautuous, too. How I wyssh I could read its heart as my own. But be warn’d most soundly. Its cry is death.
—From The Illuminated Bestiary, by Alkon hy Bast
22
NYX STRUGGLED TO convince her father about the storm of wings due to crash upon the town of Brayk and the Cloistery. “Dah, you must believe me.”
He stood before the hearth, where a thick stew bubbled in a kettle that hung above bright coals. He held a large wooden spoon in hand, ready to keep his late Eventoll meal from burning. During the telling of her tale about the coming danger to all, his eyes had narrowed, but the lines of his face remained etched with doubt.
“We must seek the stoutest cover.” She pointed to the roof. “Our thatch will not hold back the beasts.”
Jace stepped forward, adding his support. He still panted hard from their flight across Brayk to reach her homestead at the swamp’s edge. His cheeks were as ruddy as the hearth’s coals. “She’s right. You must listen to her.”
Her dah remained incredulous. He gave the kettle another stir. He had been preparing a late meal for Bastan, who had taken Gramblebuck to the top of the school, and Ablen, who was bedding down the herd in the back paddock. Her dah shook his head as he slowly scraped his spoon around the kettle. A tale of death and vengeance on the wing was clearly too fanciful for a man who had spent all of his days tied to the ageless tides of the wetlands, to the slow rhythms of a bullock pulling a sledge, and to the pace of one day bleeding into another. Even the aroma of bubbling potageroot and marsh hare in the kettle sought to squash her urgency with its promise of familiar comfort.
“Don’t see no need to get all fluttered,” her dah said. “This ol’ place has stood pat through spit and gristle. Going back near unto two centuries. It’ll weather any storm just fine.”
“Not this time,” Nyx stressed. Like a black shadow building in the back of her skull, she sensed the fury of the tempest about to break upon them all. “We could hole up in the winter bullock barn.” She pictured the thick-walled structure, where the calves and yearlings were housed. It had a stone roof, only slits for windows, and beams timbered from trees older than Brayk. “If we bar its doors, we can withstand any attack there.”
Jace nodded. “I don’t fully understand how your daughter knows what’s to come, but we should take heed. Especially with the king looking to steal Nyx away to Azantiia. Regardless of the strength of your home here, it might be better if we were elsewhere, and Nyx tells me the winter barn is buried deep in the fen.”
“Aye, lad, ’tis indeed. But I can’t see what King Toranth would e’er want with little Nyxie. You must’ve not heard it right.”
She shared an exasperated look with Jace. She wished Bastan and Ablen were here. She knew her dah’s stubbornness was as much a part of the old man as his bones. To move him from his ways often took many hands, like pulling a mired sledge free of sucking bog muck.
Jace tried one final gambit. “Trademan Polder, please trust your daughter. Even Prioress Ghyle believes her story.”
At the mention of the prioress, a crack appeared in her dah’s high walls. He turned to them both, looking both worried and stupefied. “She does, does she then?” He thought for a moment, then straightened, clearly coming to a decision. “Then, big lad, you best help me with the stewpot. We’ll want something warm in our bellies when we get to the old barn.”
Nyx sighed with relief.
Finally …
Before her dah could swing the pot from the coals, a resounding clatter from outside drew all their eyes. The door crashed open. Nyx cringed back, and Jace stepped in front of her.
Bastan burst inside. Red-faced and sweating, he cast a harried glance around the room. “We must go!” he blurted out between gulps of breath. “Now!”
Nyx struggled to understand her brother’s sudden appearance. Past his shoulder, the hulking silhouette of Gramblebuck chuffed and steamed out on the street. The great beast was tied to a teetering wagon that had no back wheels and a broken rear axle.
What had happened?
The answer came when two more figures barged in behind Bastan. She recognized the black robe and crimson sash of the alchymist from Kepenhill. He came with another: a slender young man with a dark complexion and gray eyes who wore a green hunter’s cloak clasped with a tiny silver arrow. He also carried a bow and quiver over his shoulders. Nyx recognized him from the procession up the school’s steps. He had been marching behind the wagon pulled by Gramblebuck.
“Bastan is right,” Frell gasped out. “It won’t be long before we’re overrun by knights and Vyrllian Guards.”
And that’s not all, Nyx thought. There’s far worse coming.
She could already hear the cries of the thousand bats sweeping toward the town. The edges of her vision had begun to frizz with their sharp whining. Still, from the lack of any reaction, the others appeared deaf to the rising chorus.
“Where’s the rest of the bullock herd?” Bastan asked her dah, breathing hard. “Saw the paddock was empty on my way here.”
“Aye, Ablen moved ’em to the back yoke for the eve.”
Bastan winced. “Then it’ll have to be Gramblebuck,” he said. “I’ll get the brute around to the marsh dock and switched over to a sledge. We must get deep into the swamps.”
With that, her brother dashed out the door and crossed to Gramblebuck’s side. He used a knife to slash the traces and free the old bullock from the wreckage of the wagon.
As he led Gramblebuck away, Nyx’s dah stepped forward and addressed the other two men. “What’s this all about?” Confusion and dread sharpened his voice. “Why be knights coming here? Are they meaning to take Nyxie?”
“Possibly,” Frell admitted. “But right now, the highmayor will demand satisfaction for the death of his sacrifice.” The alchymist glanced to the hunter with a forlorn look. “I understand why you dropped the beast with your arrow, Kanthe, but there will be blood to settle before it’s all over.”
Nyx stiffened. She remembered the searing pain in her left eye. Fury burned through her fears as she realized the source of that attack. She swung to the hunter. “You … it was you who killed the bat?”
The hunter stood his ground against the heat of her anger. His face hardened with a stony disdain, as if he had weathered far worse than her tirade.
Frell came to his defense. “Trust me, lass, it was not a cruel killing. Prince Kanthe acted out of mercy, to keep the beast from the agony of the flames.”
Nyx struggled to put this explanation in perspective, to quash the fire inside her. But shock made it difficult. She stared harder at the hunter.
He’s a prince?
Her dah gasped, looking near to dropping to a knee. “Prince Kanthe ry Massif, the king’s second son.”
As confusion and astonishment snuffed out the last of her anger, Nyx again heard the approaching cries of the winged horde. She squinted against the fiery buzzing in her head. It grew with every breath. Her sight narrowed toward a pained pinpoint. She pressed her palms against her ears, both to try to muffle the shrillness and to hold her skull together.
Frell frowned at her. His voice sounded far away. “What’s wrong?”
She gasped her answer. “They … They’re almost upon us.”
As if summoned by her words, a small shape dove low over the abandoned wagon and through the door. It swept the room, driving everyone down, except for Nyx. Then with a snap of its wings, it flipped through the air and vanished into the shadow of the rafters.
To her side, the prince had dropped to a knee. He had his bow out, with an arrow already nocked. Its steel point aimed at the thatched roof.
“Don’t!” Nyx warned.
Jace reached and pulled the prince’s bow down. “Listen to her.”
“He means us no harm,” she said, staring up. “It’s my lost brother.”
Prince Kanthe scowled. He relaxed his bow but kept the arrow tight to the string. He mumbled under his breath, “How many blasted brothers does she have?”
Nyx had no time to contemplate his odd words. Her skull still vibrated with a thousand cries of fury, but a sharper note cut through it all and arrowed deep inside her, taking the world with it. Two watery images, one lapping over the other, filled her vision.
First:
A dark body burns in flames. Wings smoke and curl. Flesh chars and splits, exposing bones. Through the black pall over the pyres, red eyes glow—at first several, then hundreds, then more. A moment later, the two pyres shatter under a blast of furious wings. Burning wood and embers cascade high, falling like fiery rain over the school, followed in turn by dark bodies diving everywhere.
Second:
A winged shape lies broken across the steps to the ninth tier, slowly being dragged by hooks and nets. Then it is freed, abandoned on the steps, the thorny nets yanked away. In the sky above, a pair of monstrous bodies circle once, then claws descend and gently dig into dead flesh. With a rush of air, the body is carried off the steps and lofted high. It wafts through the smoke of the pyres and is drawn even higher. It now sails through the clouds, on one last flight, toward the distant shadow of a mountain misted in steam, where it will find its final rest. Behind it, the dark storm follows in its wake, leaving the school unmolested.
Nyx dropped back into her body with a gasp, back into the warmth of her home. The aroma of bubbling stew replaced the terror of burnt flesh and the sulfurous steam of a distant mountain.
Jace caught her before she fell. “Nyx…”
She gulped a breath, then turned to the others. The bones of her skull still trembled with the energies buzzing inside. She squinted against it to speak.
“There is hope. Buried in a warning.” She searched the rafters for red eyes, but her winged brother remained hidden. She glanced over to the prince, who looked upon her with a measure of horror. “Maybe they sensed your merciful heart and now offer some mercy of their own. Yet, their forbearance only extends so far. If their brethren’s body is burned, they will still exact their vengeance upon us all. But if we let them recover its remains without interference, they will depart and leave us be.”
Frell gaped at her as much as the prince, but his gaze shone with fascination and wonder. Still, he understood. “Then we must stop the others from casting the bat’s corpse into the flames.”
“Is there enough time?” Jace asked.
“We must try.” The alchymist grabbed the prince’s shoulder. “Maybe you can convince them that the death of the bat is enough.”
Kanthe stared toward the open door and blew out a pained breath. “In other words, you want us to run all the way back up there? After coming all the way down?”
Jace reached to his tunic pocket and fumbled out a key. “Maybe this will help. It’s for the alchymists’ stair.” He offered it to the pair. “You’ll find swifter passage that way with fewer folks to block you.”
Frell took it. “Thank you. I know that path well from my time here at the school.” He faced Nyx and the others. “Whether we succeed or fail, you should all seek refuge in the deep swamp. Bats are not the only danger to Nyx or anyone else who aids her.”
“It will be done,” her dah said. “We can go to the winter barn on the shores of Fellfire Scour.”
“Perfect. I know that lake,” Frell said. “If we can, we will look for you there. But be wary. Be ready to flee farther if you must.”
“Aye,” her dah said. “You don’t survive the Mýr for long without being wary.” He glanced to the little altar in the room’s corner, aglow with a score of candles. He kissed a thumb and tapped it against his forehead in a silent plea to the Mother Below. Then he nodded to Frell. “Do what ya kin, and we’ll do the same.”
Frell firmed a fist around the key and waved to Kanthe. “You proved your marksmanship earlier. Maybe spared the school with your effort. We cannot lose this chance. We must get them to listen.”
“I’ll try.” The prince gave a small shrug. “But my tongue is not nearly as sharp as my arrows, nor its aim as true.”
Frell clapped him on the shoulder. “We shall see.”
As they headed out, the prince gave Nyx an appraising look, as if searching for something in her face—then he turned and dashed through the door.
Jace urged Nyx the other direction, toward the rear of the house that led out onto the length of the marsh dock. “Hurry. We must join your brother and put as much distance as possible between us and what comes—whether that be bats or the king’s legions.”
* * *
KANTHE HURRIED IN the wake of Frell’s swift passage through the streets of Brayk. Even this late, people crowded about, still celebrating the parade of the king’s knights and guards. Drunken singing echoed down alleyways, along with boisterous cheers and laughter. A few brawling fights tumbled across their way and had to be skirted past. Children ran hither and yon, waving tall sticks with paper bats fluttering from strings. Throughout the merriment, hundreds of braziers smoked with fish, broiled meats, and steaming bread.
The latter reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in half a day. Still, terror and worry knotted his stomach. As the Cloistery gates appeared ahead, he searched up the length of steps, expecting to see a clutch of knights or crimson-faced Vyrllians rushing down. But he spotted no armor-clad figures or raised swords. Apparently, with the dead bat in hand, the king’s legion had returned to their assigned task, determined to finish the sacrifice before directing their attention to a lawless prince.
Still, the stairs ahead were even more packed than the streets. The crowds had refilled them after the broken wagon had crashed downward from the heights. It appeared as if the entire town had come out to witness the burning of the winged terror.
The press of bodies on the steps made him appreciate the key in Frell’s hand. Hopefully the private stair would offer an easier climb to the top. Still, as he and Frell elbowed and wiggled through the school gate, Kanthe struggled for the words he would need to convince the others not to toss the dead bat into the flames. Especially Anskar and Goren. Presently, such an argument still escaped him.
Once clear of the archway, Kanthe divided his attention between Frell’s charge through the pack of onlookers and the twin pyres flaming and smoking high above. Then movement drew his eye to the left, where a commotion centered around a craggy mountain. It was the hulking figure of the Gyn. The beast of a man shouldered back the crowd. People retreated in a stumbling, elbowing rush—though, it was less due to the threat of the Gyn than the gaunt hooded shape he guarded over. Shrive Vythaas hobbled out of a door, likely exiting from the hieromonks’ secret stair on that side. The Shrive fell into the Gyn’s protective shadow, using his cane to ward off anyone who dared get too close. But the sight of such a holy man was ward enough. Everyone backed away a respectful distance.
As Kanthe stared, the tattooed band over the Shrive’s eyes swung unerringly toward his position. He shivered and ducked farther into the pack of people around him. Luckily, Vythaas seemed not to have spotted him. The Shrive turned and followed the Gyn as he forged a path to the gates. The pair were likely returning to the black livery sled that had carried them through the swamps.
Good riddance.
Kanthe turned in the other direction and hurried after Frell. He joined the alchymist at a stout door studded in iron—when a loud cheer resounded from on high. In moments, the triumphant cry swept down through the gathered onlookers, spreading like a flame through dry tinder. Kanthe retreated a few steps to get a better view to the top of the school.
He feared the worst—and was not disappointed.
His heart sank at the sight of a thick column of dark smoke rising from the twin pyres. Fiery embers, like a thousand furious eyes, spiraled through the heart of the black pall. Bright horns blew from on top of the school, sounding the victory, which raised more raucous shouts from those packed below.
Kanthe stumbled over to Frell. The alchymist had frozen with the key in the door’s lock. “We’re too late,” Kanthe warned.
Frell swore—something Kanthe could not recall the alchymist ever doing in his presence before—and yanked open the door. He stared hard at Kanthe. “I must warn Prioress Ghyle. You go after the others.”
