“Exactly,” his father replied. “Now it’s time for us to prepare the troops and gather our people for exodus.”
Chapter 25
Ryne stood atop the tower next to two Dagodin with a clear vantage point of the northern expanses around the town. Snow fell in ever thickening swirls. Dark clouds hid Denestia’s twin moons, but they made no difference. The barrier around Eldanhill bled its own silvery blue glow onto the land for miles. Beyond the nebulous luminance, shadelings gathered, their forms turning the virginal white of the snowy fields and forest into seething black rot. A vasumbral wailed.
If Sakari was out there, what was he waiting for? The vasumbrals should already be devouring the shield while the shadelings convened. Along the lines, darkwraiths glided back and forth keeping wraithwolves in check. Evenly spaced between those ranks, Ryne picked out the blur of rapidly beating black wings, fleshy locks, mandibles, and the many-faceted eyes of four daemons, their matching legs and arms gesticulating wildly as they passed instructions. Despite their distance from the wall, the fetid stench of death and decay was palpable.
Four daemons meant four shadebanes, each bane divided into a herd controlled by a darkwraith. At four thousand per shadebane against less than five thousand men and women in Eldanhill, the numbers proved more than daunting. They were downright scary.
The sight of Amuni’s minions brought the voices of the essences rolling up into his head. His Etchings writhed, forcing the presences back down so he wouldn’t need to enter the Shunyata. With what he’d expended destroying the Chainin, relinquishing any of his sela to appease those greedy wretches might be too costly if he planned to help here and live.
The thought of life made him ponder Sakari’s possible survival. Contrary to what many believed, netherlings were not immortal. A powerful enough divya through the heart or brain could kill them as dead as any other. He could have sworn Irmina’s sword through Sakari’s chest had struck true. Sakari had opened a portal to the Kassite, but his doom should have been certain.
Tired of speculating, Ryne leaped from the tower and landed softly on the ground forty feet below. He wouldn’t find out more before the attack began. Until then, he intended to help while keeping an eye out for Irmina. The woman had made it plain she still intended to kill him, despite knowing her chances were less than slim. He let out a relieved sigh that she still kept his identity a secret. Ancel was too fragile right now to deal with such a revelation.
Irmina’s death would be the easiest solution to his dilemma. A slight smile touched his lips. Funny how his mind returned to what occupied it when he first met the woman. Even so, carrying out the act wasn’t an option. The stability she meant for Ancel was a thing he refused to disturb, much less sever.
“Feel like sharing?” Ancel said from next to him.
Carelessness will get a man killed, Ryne thought of his inattention. “Just wondering why they haven’t attacked yet and how much time before we leave,” he answered, as if aware of his ward’s presence the entire time.
“The other council members were bickering about staying, especially when my father decided Galiana would be leaving with us.”
“And?”
“My father took out his sword and dared any of them to leave. That pretty much settled it.”
Ryne chuckled. So many years later and Stefan was still the same. Whether it was his soldiers or citizens, he took full responsibility, refusing to risk lives foolishly and willing to sacrifice where necessary. Ryne recalled a time the man was different, when all that mattered was glory. Nerian and the Tribunal had killed that Stefan. They’d given birth to a better man.
“How do they plan to escape?”
“That’s what I’m here to discuss with you,” Ancel said.
“Let me guess … I’m the decoy.”
Lips pursed, Ancel gave a slow nod.
“Tell them I say that after I do this we’ll need to make a detour on our way to Torandil.”
“Are you sure you can manage? When we linked earlier, I could tell how weak you were. I’d rather take our chances, all of us together, than to lose you.”
As touching as Ancel’s sentiments were, Ryne understood the reality of the situation. Their escape route would be out across the Kelvore River where no wall existed. The shade hadn’t covered the area yet, but sooner or later they would. Unless they found something else to chase after first. “Whether I can manage is irrelevant. There’s no other way.”
Ancel kicked at a patch of snow.
“What they asked isn’t all that’s bothering you, is it?”
“No.” Ancel looked up to meet Ryne’s eyes. “Why does Irmina want you dead?”
“Did you ask her?”
“Yes. She said the reason was yours to tell.”
Ryne nodded. “So it is, but this is neither the time nor the place.”
“Two of the most important people to me want to kill each other, and I can’t get a straight answer from either. What’s worse is, both of you are risking your lives for me.”
“Who said I wanted to kill her?”
Ancel looked at him askance. “What if she attacks you?”
“Not even then.”
Tension drained from Ancel’s face. “I’ll go tell them you agreed.”
The vasumbrals released a keening wail, this time higher and longer.
Ryne tilted his head, judging their distance. “Tell them they only have a few minutes.” Snow crunching underfoot, he began to jog toward the northern gate. “The attack is commencing,” he called over his shoulder. When he reached the tower to the right of the gate, he shouted for the basket. A wealth of shaking and creaking later, he stood next to the two Dagodin guards.
Out beyond the barrier, a fountain of dirt and snow shot into the air with a dull rumble. The tower itself shook. A hole at least thirty feet across appeared in the snow.
Before the debris hit the ground, a form snaked up, black against the snowfall and tenuous light of the barrier. Rocks, dirt, and snow struck its ridged surface before falling to the wayside. A screech resonated from the silhouette, the sound crawling across Ryne’s skin. The dark, wormlike form split down the middle from the top to where it disappeared into the hole, revealing an opening to swallow the night itself. It was not just black; it was an absence of light, a devouring of shadow. The vasumbral made the mass of shadelings beyond it appear bright by comparison. Hundreds upon hundreds of feelers reached out from its interior, sampling the air.
Several thousand feet away, the process repeated. Then again, and again, and again, until Ryne counted a dozen. He understood now why the person controlling them waited. Stretching over a hundred feet into the air and at least a quarter of that distance wide, the creatures were still half-grown.
Ryne sensed a spike of power then. Someone Materializing, a portal opening. First one, two, and then so many at once he lost count. Mater surged from the northeast. The Tribunal’s Matii had arrived.
A few of the vasumbrals turned their eyeless forms toward the convergence of elements. The vertebrae joining each section of their bodies glinted where they humped into ridges. Together the beasts screeched, coiled back, and dived down, crashing into the earth with a rumble before their tails pulled out of one hole to disappear into the new ones their heads made. Snow bubbled up into a swell of white waves rolling across the ground in the portals’ direction.
Ryne waited, but only the equivalent of two shadebanes followed. The other vasumbrals continued to eat into the barrier. “Leave now,” he said to the two guards. “Tell Shin Galiana I said to take everyone with her.” He leapt from the tower over the wall.
A cold wind rushed by his face, sweeping snow in stinging swirls as he fell. Without the benefits of moonlight, he drew on the barrier’s luminescence instead and added that to the corresponding element within his Etchings.