Black wings folded, and the beast, the size of a horse, settled silently to the yard to meet the attack. Pikes plowed into it first, but they fared no better than the arrows, spiking out the back of the creature, flaming like torches and crumbling to ash.
The shadow daemon reared up, snarling a spit of bright flame, and slashed out with its forepaws, catching the two nearest pikemen. With its mere touch, the men tumbled back, collapsing in on themselves, boneless yet still alive, mewling like misshapen calves born sickly.
Other guards fled from the horror.
Tylar had seen such foul work before… in Punt, upon the Shadowknights guarding Meeryn.
So had others.
The captain shouted a retreat. By now, those under the house guards’ protection had fled the courtyard. The captain’s eyes found Tylar, still hiding behind the stump. “Godslayer!” he shouted. “You show your true form at last!”
Tylar had no words to defend himself, not after what had ripped from his body, not after what now lay dying in the yard.
The guards retreated to the keep, forming a protective shield for those who had fled inside. In the center of the yard, the shadowbeast stalked before Tylar. Eyes afire with lightning watched all, wary.
It’s protecting me, Tylar realized. He stared down at the snaking black umbilicus that still trailed from Meeryn’s mark to the beast. I didn’t ask for this.
He waved a hand, trying to sever the connection, to push it away, but his fingers passed harmlessly through the cord.
“Tylar!” a new voice shouted, closer at hand. It was Rogger. The thief had freed himself from his ropes with a loose dagger. He pulled a muddy cloak over his bare shoulders while waving his dagger toward the main gates. “Tether your dog, and let’s get our arses out of here!”
Moving on instinct, Tylar gained his legs, hobbled as they were, and stumbled away from the castillion’s central keep. He headed toward the open gates. The few defenders still at their posts noted his approach and fled wildly, panicked, abandoning the gate. They had no desire to keep the daemon and its supposed master here.
As Tylar worked across the yard, the shadowbeast kept pace with him, only steps away, tethered in shadow.
One of the gate’s defectors loosed a lone arrow at Tylar, but the shadowbeast’s wing snapped out and turned the bolt to ash before it could strike.
Tylar hurried his pace, limping and shuffling across the yard.
As he neared the gate, a lithe form fled from the shelter of a doorway. A woman, draped in black, one of the Hands. Rather than running away, she fled toward Tylar and his beast, blocking his path.
“Stand back!” Tylar shouted, fearful of harm coming to the young woman. With her veil missing, Tylar had no difficulty recognizing her. It was the handmaiden who had knelt beside him earlier.
She came to a stop under the very shadow of the daemon. The beast hunched menacingly. Ignoring this threat, she slipped out a small glass jar, dark ruby in the moonlight and glowing with soft effulgence.
Tylar knew what she held.
A sacred repostilary.
She poured the humour from the jar into one hand and held it out toward the beast.
The creature reared up, wings sweeping out.
“Meeryn,” she whispered. “It is you, is it not?”
With a shudder, the daemon settled back down, stretching its neck toward the woman, seeming to sniff.
Tylar caught the faint whiff of summer’s bloom and bright sunshine. It was the bouquet of Meeryn, distilled within the repostilary.
The daemon dropped, kneeling upon its forelimbs, head bowed.
Delia reached with a hand, bloody and aglow with Grace. As her fingers touched the darkness, light flared out, coursing over the black surface of the beast like fire across an oily sea. The brilliant cascade crested over its body.
Tylar watched in amazement as the beast’s form lost focus.
As the scintillating wave finished with the beast, it fed along the only channel left open to it: the snaking umbilicus that led to Tylar.
It spiraled down the tether toward him. He stumbled away, trying to flee the fiery attack. But he could not escape.
The Grace-fed flames leaped the distance and struck him square in the chest. It felt like a mule kick. He flew backward, landing arse down on the dirt.
He rolled immediately to his feet, crouched, ready for another attack.
Delia remained where she was, eyes wide.
The daemon had vanished, vanquished with a touch.
Tylar stared down at his body. He flexed his sword hand. What was crushed under iron was new again. He was healed. Entirely and wholly. As if he’d never been injured.
He fingered the mark on his chest.
Something stirred deep inside, something too large to be held in a cage of bone.
The daemon.
It had not been vanquished, but simply returned to the hale body that was its roost.
Rogger reached them, panting. “I’d say from the looks of you that you’re fit enough for a bit of running. Something I think we should be testing ’bout now.”
Tylar glanced back across the courtyard. With the shadowbeast gone, the guards would not wait. Already shouts rose from the castillion guard. Tylar turned. Ahead the gate lay open and, for the moment, unguarded.
He pointed. “Off with us then!”
As they ran, the woman followed.
Tylar waved her off. “Begone. This is none of your concern.”
“No! Where you go, I go!”
“Why? What madness is this?”
“I don’t know how or why,” she gasped at him as she ran, “but you carry Meeryn’s blood in you. I saw it shining from your lash marks. And in the eyes of the winged creature, the glow of Grace… It was Meeryn, too!”
“And you would go with the man accused of her slaying?”
She countered, but less surely, “No man can kill one of the Hundred.”
Tylar shook his head and mumbled, “You could’ve voiced that sentiment earlier.”
Rogger laughed as he reached the gate. “That’s a woman for you. A fickle lot, the bunch of ’em.”
They passed under the empty archway, Rogger leading the way. The moonlit streets of the high city opened ahead. The thief pointed. “I have a few friends in Lower Punt who-”
Before he could finish, a fold of shadow fluttered from the archway to Tylar’s left. He caught a flash of silver slashing down toward him. He leaped headlong, reacting with old instincts. He landed in a roll and jumped back to his feet. He twisted around, now crouched in the cobbled streets outside the archway.
Rogger fled to one side, Delia to the other.
From the gate, a figure of flowing shadows stepped into the moonlight, forsaking its hiding place. The Shadowknight held a length of silver in his grip. His blessed sword.
Rogger swore. “It seems we bottled that beastie of yours a natch too soon.”
Tylar kept to the brightness under the moon, praying the knight’s shadow-borne speed would be dulled in the light. He waved the others back, but kept his eyes focused on the Shadowknight.
“Godslayer,” Darjon hissed, stepping forward. “At last the hammer revealed the truth you hid so well. You are no man! But I’ve seen you bleed-and what bled once can bleed again!”
Before Tylar could answer, the knight leaped with a fury-driven speed, fast even in the moonlight.
Tylar spun from the stroke. The stabbing blade passed under his arm, grazing his side with a slice of fire. He ignored the pain, continued to twist, and brought himself under the knight’s guard. He slammed an elbow into the knight’s midriff, knocking him back a step.
Darjon used the force of Tylar’s blow to fall backward, rolling cleanly in his shadowcloak and back to his feet, sword at the ready.
Tylar knew this was a battle he could not win. Though his bones had been healed, he was still weak from blood loss and fatigued from all that had transpired.