Gently he leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
“You’re not abandoned. Not forgotten. Not unloved. Never forget that, and never believe otherwise.”
Jessilynn broke down at his words, crying not out of sorrow, but from joy. The whole time she’d been dragged about the Wedge as a puppet for the wolf-men, she thought it had been her fault. She’d thought her faith too weak, her cowardice too great for her to deserve her god’s love. To know otherwise, to know every stupid failure had done nothing to ruin that love…
She looked up at Darius and laughed despite herself.
“Can I hug you?” she asked, still wiping away tears.
Darius grinned.
“Why not.”
She lurched to her feet and wrapped her arms around his waist. Touching him set her nerves alight, as if she hugged a bolt of lightning. Quickly she let go, stepped back, and blushed a fierce red. Darius shot her a wink, dropped his sword to the dirt, and faced the north.
“Wait,” she said as he began to walk away.
“Yes?” he asked, turning back.
“Why…why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be with Ashhur and his angels?”
Darius shrugged as if it were no big thing.
“I’m still waiting for someone,” he said. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Who?”
He smiled.
“Jerico. Tell that bastard to hurry up and die. There’s this spot by a lake I want to show him.”
A wolf howled, and instinctively she looked to the river. When she turned back, Darius was gone, and the sword had lost its glow. The night returned to darkness, lit only by the stars dotting the clear sky.
It was like stepping out of a dream. Jessilynn stood perfectly still, yet to catch her breath. When another howl came from the river, answered by several others in the hunting party, she closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry if this is stupid,” she prayed. “But I’m not running.”
She grabbed Darius’s sword and hurried to the Gihon. At its edge she jammed the blade downward, surprised by how easily it slid into the dirt. Once certain it was secure, she pulled her quiver of arrows off her shoulder and looped it around the handle of Darius’s sword. When she stepped forward, it put her arrows within easy reach of her hand. Her fingers rustling through the feathers, she counted them.
Nine arrows, nine wolf-men to put down. Grabbing one, she readied her bow, took a deep breath, and gazed beyond the river to the Vile Wedge. In the shadows she saw the yellow glint of hungry eyes. Those she dared not count. Closer and closer they ran, their outlines visible in the moonlight. In a single smooth motion she pulled back her first arrow, saw the blue-white hue surround the arrowhead. It was still weak, but it was there.
Let the arrow do its work, she thought, remembering Dieredon’s words. Just let it fly.
As the first wolf-man reached the river, she did just that. The arrow streaked through the night like a flash of thunder, blasting into the creature’s muscled chest. With a whimper it fell. Without thinking, without hesitating, she drew another arrow and sighted anew. More wolf-men were at the river’s edge, and one by one she shot them dead. They were many, and soon they splashed through the Gihon, swimming toward her while snarling with bared teeth.
She shot an arrow through the closest wolf’s mouth, dropping the creature into the water. Two more tried to swim beneath the surface, but when they came up gasping for air she loosed her arrows.
Six. Seven.
Still the bodies surged into the river. Still she held firm, grabbing for arrows and relying on instinct. They were reaching the other side now, the upper halves of their bodies emerging from the water dripping wet. They raked the air, they howled, but her arrows flew true. The shine on their arrowheads grew brighter and brighter, and when they struck the wolf-men it was like they were hit with a battering ram.
Ten. Eleven.
Her mind dared not think, she dared not look, as her routine continued. One after another she fired, her arrows gleams of deadly light, and after each one she’d feel soft feathers touch her fingers when she reached for just one more.
Fourteen. Fifteen.
Hairy bodies floated downstream, and from the other side roared several wolf-men that had come running at the tail end. She shot one dead, her arrow connecting with its jaw and hitting with such impact it tore off its head. Others dove in the water, howling, biting.
Seventeen. Eighteen.
Some tried to flee, but they died like the others. They’d have hunted her, and once they killed her they’d have continued on. Beyond the river were hundreds of farms, homes, innocents who would have felt the hatred of their claws. She wouldn’t let them. She couldn’t.
The monsters were all but dead. One last wolf-man emerged from the river, teeth bared with fury. She recognized his size, recognized the white circles about those hungry yellow eyes. Moonslayer was so strong, so fast, and it seemed even the river would not slow him as he rushed toward her. It’d take more than one arrow, she thought. Surely even she could not take him down with a single shot. Jessilynn looked down to her quiver, trance breaking, and she saw it empty. For the briefest moment she felt panic as she turned to face one of the Kings of the Vile.
Moonslayer’s muscles were taut, his legs curling in for a leap. Refusing to give in, refusing to let him win, she felt her instincts take over once more. Empty handed she reached for her string and began to pull it back.
Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t understand. How? How was it even possible?
Nocked in her bowstring shimmered an arrow of the purest light. She felt its feathers against her skin, impossibly soft. The head was slender, sharp. The wolf-man howled, lunged. The arrow flew, exploding with radiance. She heard bones crack as the creature’s momentum reversed with jarring speed. Into the river landed the corpse, vanishing beneath the dark waters.
In the sudden calm she stood holding her bow. And then she laughed. A grin spread across her face, huge and dumb, and she felt helpless to stop it. Taking her bow, she grabbed the string, aimed to the sky, and released anew. Arrow after shimmering arrow sailed high, continuing on as if they would escape the very world itself.
“I’m here!” she cried out to the stars. “I’m alive!”
After only a few minutes, and three more arrows, she saw the dark shape slicing through the blanket of stars, heard the heavy beating of Sonowin’s wings.
26
“I still don’t like it,” Tarlak said as the towers loomed ever closer. His head was heavily bandaged, and he looked unsteady atop his horse.
“We’re far past doing things we don’t like,” Antonil said, riding beside the wizard as the remnants of his army made their way north along the river. “Twice now I must return to Mordeina with my head hung low and my tail between my legs. And what will any say if I try for a third campaign? If thirty thousand is not enough, then what?”
“Perhaps we should give the land up for lost?” Tarlak suggested after a moment’s hesitation. He winced as if expecting an outburst, and Antonil understood why. The words stung, but there was too much wisdom, too much truth in the simple statement.
“I’d prefer it if you were wrong more often, wizard,” he said.
“Me too, honestly.”
They turned their attention to the towers. There were two of them, each standing on opposite sides of the Rigon River. The one on the western side had its bricks painted a sheer black, making it seem as if it were built out of obsidian. The eastern side was built like the other, tall and cylindrical, except with its stones colored a deep red that invoked a sense of blood and danger. Spanning the river, held up by what Antonil assumed to be magic, was a lengthy stone bridge connecting the tops of the two towers, its bricks a mixture of red and black.