He was not asleep, though somewhere in the haze of his thoughts he was aware of a thin veil where wakefulness hid among blurry shadows. Between reality and dream he fought to rise, clinging to the ground, barely, as though it would escape him, leave him hanging as it spun away.
He pushed himself up, staggered by something, some injury he could not recall that caused his body to ache and creak. The crimson flashes came again, indistinct and familiar, arcing down from and through a cloudy sky. Voices cried out accompanied by horrid screams and shrieks.
“No,” he muttered in horror, squinting through bleary eyes at the storm overhead, searching for the beasts that had swam so gracefully and horribly through the skies over Caidris. “Not again,” he added breathlessly.
Alarmed, he rolled to one knee, slowly drawing his suddenly heavy sword, its tip falling to the ground. His men needed him. He would not let them face the terrible task alone, the work that needed to be done. He caught a glimpse of Brindani in the red lightning, and he followed as the half-elf disappeared beyond a low wall.
“Secure the left flank,” he mumbled, his voice hoarse and raspy. “Don’t let them get … Don’t let them get to … the farmhouse.”
Dark shapes flitted left and right, bright blades reflecting the red lightning and chasing shadows. He stumbled to the battle, a determined anger pushing each step. He tasted blood in the back of his throat and breathed its coppery scent through his nose. A shadow approached, crawling in the grass, hiding from the light. He reeled backward as it came closer, blinking and resisting what he saw, the veil separating him from reality lifting for a heartbeat before folding around him again.
Something was wrong.
“You’re already dead,” he said to the thing, his voice rising in defiance of the image before him. “Y-you can’t be real … You’re already dead!”
It rose into a crouch, the blank face wavering into the image of a small boy, twin mouths gaping with teeth from either side of its face. Various eyes blinked, but the one that struck the most was the remaining normal eye, peering at him beneath a crumpled brow in pain and confusion. A long black tentacle lashed at him, and he deflected it clumsily at first, but as it came again he swung back with more force.
“You’re already dead!” he screamed and bashed at its mass.
It shrieked and came again.
They traded blows, and with each one Uthalion tried to reconcile reality. But the line blurred, and he grew frustrated, though the fear for his men remained strong. He heard Brindani’s voice nearby, but the words were lost, a jumble of confusing sound that only served to strengthen his sword-arm. He landed a blow against the shadowy child’s chest and struck again as the twisted thing staggered.
“You’re already dead …” he muttered, wondering at the truth of the words as they echoed over and over again around him. The thing fell, trying to get up from the grass. He noted the tall grass curiously. The streets of Caidris had been hard dirt, trampled by crowds of people who had been broken by foul magic. They had come in hordes, shambling from the south, from Tohrepur. The thing leaped wildly from the ground, and he hacked through its gut, kicking it back to the dirt as a fountain of black erupted from the wound.
“You’re already …” he said as he stumbled sideways, shaking his head and trying to see clearly. From the wavy edges of his line of sight a figure slowly approached. Translucent and familiar, it wore the clothes of a farmer and held the simple bearing of an aging, hard-working man. Uthalion waved the man away weakly, recalling the face of Khault, the brave farmer who had helped a band of lost soldiers and brought doom to his little town. Khault looked at him pitifully and turned away, fading into the dark as Uthalion called out to him, his throat burning with the exertion, “You … You should be inside! Think … Think of your family!”
He fell to his knees, coughing again, choking on blood and clutching his chest in pain.
“End it …” he said, trying to convey orders to his men. “End it and burn what’s left … Give them naught but ash to defile … And watch … Watch the left flank …”
Someone called his name, a girl’s voice ringing out from the battle, and he wondered how his daughter had found him here. His head swam, and he could not form the words to send her away, to make her run from this place. Echoes of his own voice slipped through his mind, repeating and taunting him as he lost his balance.
Think of your family!
The world shifted, the ground rushed toward him and struck the side of his body with all the power of the wide realms. Weakly he lifted his sword and slapped at the dirt, its edge unable to cleave the world that held him fast and kept him from going on.
CHAPTER TWELVE
9 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One
(1479 DR)
The Akana, north of the Wash, Akanul
Uthalion!”
Ghaelya ran to the fallen human, diving at the shaedling that crawled through the grass toward him. She stabbed at its back, kicking it down until it stopped moving. Shadows curled through the grass, mingling with blood that soaked into the soil. Uthalion mumbled something, his eyes fluttering, but lay still.
She stood over him and turned in a circle, protecting him.
Brindani slashed madly, fighting two of the fey, his sword a blur as he taunted them through clenched teeth. Unable to leave Uthalion, Ghaelya breathed easier as Vaasurri appeared, pouncing like an animal from the vine-trees. The bone-sword became a glowing beacon as blood filled the blade’s runes. The curved light dipped down, disappearing in a mass of flesh, then returned brightly, trailing droplets of the doomed shaedling’s life behind it.
Instinct made her turn and duck as a shadowy chain swung over her head. As the weapon swung away, and the dark fey reversed its angle of attack, she jumped forward, rolling and rising to slash at the hand that swung the chain as she threw herself behind the bladed edge of the weapon. The chain fell away, and she drove her shoulder into the fey’s stomach, gripping its legs and dragging down its frantically beating wings.
They rolled in the grass, and she was blinded by shadows spewing from the writhing spinnerets in its abdomen. Ignoring the blows from the beast’s armored fists, she stabbed at it, its resistance growing weaker with each new wound, until she sat, straddling its stomach, her arms wet with blood and dissipating bits of darkness.
She stood over the corpse and looked back, feeling deaf in the sudden silence that had descended.
Brindani walked slowly back to the wall, collapsing against it and panting as he slid to the ground. Vaasurri watched as the surviving shaedlings retreated to find easier prey or to crawl back into their lairs and lick their wounds.
Uthalion breathed deeply, fluid rattling in his throat as he feebly tried to move. The killoren approached and laid a hand on the human’s chest, holding him still as he pried the sword from Uthalion’s weak hand. Ghaelya helped to drag the human back into the corner of the wall and laid him down, bundling his cloak for a pillow.
They gave him sips of water, and he drank a little easier, only coughing a little as he settled into his delirium again, his eyes rolling at the stars and the clouds. Brindani crawled around to their side of the wall and sat shivering in his cloak, still catching his breath from the battle.
Ghaelya and Vaasurri did not speak as they made a sparse camp of the little shelter. The wind grew stronger, and thunder rumbled as they made futile attempts to shield themselves from the rain. She chewed on dried fruit, letting the fiery tempest within her cool to a still surface of lapping waves and quiet depths. Her heart ached as the element of fire, the chosen element of her family, faded away. It was as if Tessaeril had been with her again, if only briefly. She felt very much alone.