The Light of All That Falls, page 60
The fight below was going well—better than it had any right to be—but it was still something of a stalemate, with none of Wirr’s detachments getting anywhere near the five Columns. The Desrielites had focused their defense around them, easily resisting any pushes by the Andarrans to get to them.
Not that it was entirely clear how they were going to destroy them anyway. Wirr had already observed that the long square pillars absorbed Essence. Traps had been activated in a wide perimeter around them, too, blocking even attempts to hurl other physical objects at them. Early on he had seen several Gil’shar soldiers dashing for the Columns, even a group that had managed to get one hoisted before being cut down by their fellow men. Erran, or Scyner, or both of them had clearly been doing all they could down there.
That had been a half hour ago, though. The lack of further attempts was ominous, to say the least.
And now, step-by-step, the Andarrans were being driven back. The element of surprise and the darkness had worked in their favor, but now the Desrielites were awake, organized, and had adapted to their losses.
Wirr and his people were losing.
Movement behind him made him spin, Essence glowing at his fingertips as he made ready to blast anyone sneaking up on him. He quickly let his hand drop as he saw Ishelle’s face emerging from the darkness, turning back to the scene below, scanning desperately for any important changes he might have missed in the intervening seconds.
“Prince Torin.” Ishelle sounded out of breath as she scrambled up beside him; he could almost hear the pause in her voice as she spotted Ithar’s corpse. “Fates. Are you…”
“I’m fine.” Wirr didn’t take his eyes from the scene below. “I could use someone to watch my back, but you should be down there fighting. Why are you here?”
“I didn’t know how else to get you a message.” Ishelle’s voice was full of dread. “The eletai are stirring.”
Wirr turned to face her this time, concentration broken.
Her eyes had turned a dark, cloudy gray.
“Fates,” he muttered, turning away again. “I’m sorry, Ishelle. How long do we have before they attack?”
“Not long.” Ishelle’s face was pale as she gazed down on the slaughter. This was probably the first time that she was fully aware of just how little progress they had made. “Is extra time even going to matter?”
“Probably not.” The eletai joining the battle would mean annihilation for the Andarran forces. “Nora, move a hundred feet toward the river and put your soldiers out front. Tell your team that there’s a detachment of Gil’shar trying to circle around in that direction, and that they likely have a Trap.”
Ishelle watched him pensively. “When do we retreat?”
Wirr rubbed his eyes, which were red and dry from staring so intently at the scene below. How long had it been, now? Hours, certainly. The lightening sky in the east told him that dawn was approaching. What little advantage they had left—the Gil’shar’s uncertainty surrounding their enemy’s numbers—would soon disappear, too.
“Now,” he said softly, despairingly. “If what you say is true, then it has to be now.”
They’d done miraculously well—killed ten of the enemy for every one of their people who had fallen, he thought—but it still hadn’t been enough. This had been their best chance. Now they would have to draw back, regroup, and try to figure out a way to fight along the path to the Cyrarium instead.
But the Desrielites would know that they were here. They would never again have the advantages they’d had tonight.
He began giving the orders, trying to implement all that he’d been taught, moving his forces methodically back so that they deliberately sagged away from the worst of the fighting, not exposing themselves to any hard counterattacks. As he’d expected, though, the Desrielites were content to let them withdraw. They knew as well as Wirr that they didn’t need to overextend themselves, and were likely also cautious of some kind of secondary trap. From their perspective, this attack would have appeared highly coordinated. They were hardly to know that it had been put together in a matter of a couple of hours.
He watched for a few minutes, making occasional adjustments but pleased to see that their losses during the withdrawal were minimal. Two of his first-choice communication recipients had been killed, along with one of his secondaries, but he had managed to divert others into those groups quickly enough that everyone had remained synchronized throughout.
Beside him, Ishelle gasped.
He turned to her, about to ask what was wrong but instead following her horrified gaze.
Dawn was brightening the mountains behind them, but across the river, it illuminated a cloud of dark specks swirling upward, rising from the forest in Desriel.
Wirr stared numbly, knowing what it meant but almost too tired to properly take it in.
“How many?” he whispered. There had to be at least two hundred eletai in the swarm, maybe more.
“All of them. All the ones who are left.” Ishelle’s voice was hollow. “They don’t want to, but they’ve been compelled.”
She looked at him, meeting his gaze. For the first time since he had met her, she seemed… at peace. Completely clear, in control.
“Tell Davian he missed out,” she said, the sadness in her eyes belying her lightness of tone. She hesitated. “And that I died a hero, of course. Don’t forget that part.”
“What are you talking about?” Wirr asked in bewilderment.
Ishelle closed her eyes, a tear leaking out of the left one. Her brow furrowed in concentration.
She crumpled to the ground.
For a second Wirr stood frozen. Then he threw himself forward, skidding to his knees beside Ishelle’s limp form, rolling her over onto her back. Sightless eyes gazed up at the steadily lightening sky, and her chest didn’t move. He funneled Essence—what little he could still afford—into her, but there was nothing to fix.
It was as if she had simply… given up.
He ran his hands through his hair as he knelt there, bent over her body, gazing despairingly. What had just happened?
A thundering, rippling cheer suddenly went up from the soldiers below as the Desrielites spotted what Ishelle had a minute earlier, eletai blackening the skies now as they streaked across the river. Wirr tore himself from his position and hurried back to the edge of the cliff, staring down at his retreating forces, which were still being harried by dar’gaithin. Whether that was due to orders or bloodlust, Wirr had no idea.
Men and women in Gil’shar uniform held up weapons in triumph as the eletai passed overhead, flying low and fast.
Wirr’s stomach twisted at the sight. The creatures were too fast. Even with the orderly retreat, he didn’t see how the Andarrans could possibly survive this.
He held an image of his officers in his mind. “Everyone, keep to the trees and watch the skies. Do your best to stay under cover…”
He trailed off.
Panicked screams had started intermingling with the cheers below.
He squinted, looking urgently for the source of the sound, and quickly spotted it.
Eletai had broken off from the main pack and were swooping hard at targets on the far side of the Desrielite camp—dar’gaithin, Wirr realized with bemused shock. The snakelike creatures themselves seemed equally confused, slithering around agitatedly and lashing out at any of the eletai that came near them, though the eletai seemed intent on attacking from a distance, their glistening spear-like limbs ejecting viciously from their bodies. To Wirr’s astonishment, those spears were penetrating the dar’gaithin’s armor. Many of the serpentine creatures already lay still.
His gaze traveled to the main group of eletai, heartbeat quickening as he spotted the creatures diving at the dar’gaithin pursuing his people, too, screeches of anger and confusion echoing up to him. These attacks were at a greater cost to the eletai as they swooped low beneath the trees, many of them not rising again after they disappeared beneath the leafy canopy.
Chaos reigned below as the Desrielites reacted to what was happening, their attacks stuttering to a stop, retreating hurriedly into more defensible positions. They didn’t seem to be under threat from the eletai—but, miraculously, nor did Wirr’s people.
He swallowed the knot in his throat, casting another glance at Ishelle’s body.
This had to have been her doing. Some final sacrifice that had allowed her to influence the creatures. He didn’t know much about the eletai—none of them did, really—but it was the only explanation he could come up with.
He quickly reassessed the battlefield below. The Gil’shar weren’t pressing anymore, intent on helping the dar’gaithin fight off the eletai now, though even with the humans joining the fray, the eletai seemed intent on killing only the other Banes.
The Columns still lay at the entrance to the castle, protected by a crowd of dar’gaithin and soldiers alike. The fighting was thickest there, a furious flurry of motion. Wirr had no way of telling who was winning.
He closed his eyes. His people were tired, hurt and depleted. The Gifted had expended the vast majority of their energy. It felt unfair to ask them to attack again… and yet, this might be their best remaining opportunity.
He opened his mouth to give the order.
Light blossomed from across the river.
Wirr’s heart plummeted as three broad lines of solid Essence began creeping outward over the gorge, the bridges inexorably reforming, soldiers marching onto them before they were even complete. He stared desperately, willing them to be extinguished again. Where were Erran and Scyner? Keeping those bridges down had been one of their primary jobs; all they’d had to do was keep out of sight and disrupt any attempts to remake them.
“Everyone, draw back.” There was no getting to the river’s edge to meet the soldiers there, and even if they did, there would be thousands flooding across now.
He watched for a while in silence, exhaustion battling with his need to figure out what happened next. The struggle between eletai and dar’gaithin slowly resolved itself; a significant number of the dar’gaithin appeared to have died in the clash, though the vast majority of the eletai had as well. The ground through the trees below was littered with mangled black bodies.
Finally the last of the eletai—a dozen, perhaps?—limped into the air, movements sluggish and erratic. A hail of arrows and spears chased them, bringing a couple of more to the ground before the rest retreated—northward, Wirr noted with vague concern, rather than back to Desriel. There wouldn’t be anyone for miles in that direction, but he still preferred that none of the creatures take refuge anywhere in Andarra.
The Desrielites showed no sign of trying to pursue the Andarrans, despite their reinforcements, once again content to simply surround the Columns. Wirr could sense their agitation even from this far away, but it was of little comfort to him.
He gave Ishelle’s body one last, grateful glance, and hurried away to rejoin what remained of Andarra’s forces.
Chapter 38
Asha drew in a deep lungful of fresh sea air, sitting on the edge of the cliff overlooking the pulsing Boundary, trying to adjust to her surroundings as Caeden worked at the Tributary behind her.
She was free. No more Shifts. No more feeling helpless whenever she remembered where she was, caught between wondering how things were going out here and trying not to think about it. It was a hard concept to grasp, even as she stared out over the sun-drenched island and beyond, across the gently undulating blue to the shining barrier that hid Talan Gol from view.
She absently touched her arm, feeling for wounds that had already disappeared. Would she heal as fast once Ilseth was connected to her? There was no way to measure exactly how much the Tributary had been taking from her Reserve, nor—as Caeden had warned her—how much Essence would be lost to decay in the transferal process. He was confident that she would still at least be a match for any Gifted, but to what degree she would be stronger was still to be seen.
She glanced behind her, stomach churning at the sight of Ilseth’s pallid, slack-jawed expression as he lay slumped inside the open, coffin-like Tributary, his round glasses gone, eyes staring blankly into nothing. Only the regular rise and fall of his chest indicated that there was any life in him at all. Behind him, though the needles had retracted, she could still glimpse dark-red smears marring the inside of the capsule.
They had a few hours’ grace, Caeden said, before Asha’s absence triggered any disruption to the Boundary—he’d assured her that the Essence already stored in the Cyrarium would provide enough of a buffer to keep it up for at least that long. He’d gone on for a while about flow and efficiency and support machinery, too, but that was more to himself as he’d verbalized his calculations, and there was no point in distracting him by asking him to explain further.
Her gaze slid to Caeden, who was inside the pavilion, bright flashes of light illuminating the interior as he worked at separating the dok’en from the machinery. As she watched he gave a grunt of satisfaction, pulling away a flat disc the size of his palm, staring at it before pocketing it.
He turned, seeing her watching, and gave a tight smile. “Done.” He squinted at her. “How are you feeling?”
“Still a little disoriented,” admitted Asha.
“That’s natural.” Caeden moved down the steps, picking up a pair of torcs from the ground as he did so.
Asha eyed them uneasily. Caeden had already examined the Vessels that the Lyth had created, confirming that they appeared to be as promised—and noting that it wasn’t in the Lyth’s interests for them to be otherwise, anyway. A helpful reminder, if not enough to entirely dispel her concerns.
Caeden paused, then proffered one of the torcs. Asha took it, examining it with a frown. It was simply made, rough in places and constructed from solid iron. On each point, a small cube of metal had tiny inscriptions on it in a language she didn’t recognize.
Asha turned the Vessel over in her hands. “Why torcs?”
Caeden rubbed his forehead. “The shape lends itself to a Vessel. Not much material necessary, but bigger than a bracelet or ring, and the space between allows for some complex kan with anchors on both sides. The Darecians were the first ones to figure that out, actually. They chose torcs, specifically, because they were a sign of status amongst their people. The old princes of Dareci used to wear them…” He trailed off.
Asha considered the information, vaguely surprised to find that she understood what Caeden was saying. She’d read enough about the nature of kan and its uses over the past year to follow the logic on at least a basic level, now.
“I suppose it’s a design that makes sense for anything you need to wear,” concluded Asha. She raised it to her arm. “So just like a Shackle?”
“No.” Caeden shook his head. “This one goes around the neck.” He smiled slightly at her expression. “Don’t worry. It won’t seal to you the way a Shackle would; Garadis didn’t bother building in anything so complex as changing its physical structure. You just wear it.”
Asha hesitated. “How will it feel?”
“I honestly don’t know. But it shouldn’t hurt,” Caeden said gently.
Asha nodded, then, at an encouraging gesture from Caeden, carefully slipped the iron around her neck.
It was cold against her skin, and she flinched at the contact, but nothing happened as she fastened it. Caeden watched her silently, and Asha realized with some discomfort that he was making sure there was no obvious danger in simply wearing it.
Then he walked back over to Ilseth. “Ready?”
Asha steeled herself. “Ready.”
Caeden pulled Ilseth’s limp form forward slightly and slipped the other torc around the man’s neck. Then he moved to the side, and pressed his hand against the steel edge of the Tributary.
The razor-thin needles ejected into Ilseth, pushing smoothly through his body and protruding, wicked hooks forming on their edges to hold the body in place. The grisly sight was quickly concealed from view as the opening melted closed, sealing Ilseth inside, accompanied by a low grinding as pieces of metal shifted and slid, gradually forming the massive image of the wolf’s head.
For a brief second, nothing happened.
Then Essence deliberately, smoothly began to drain away from her, and the Tributary began to glow an eerie blue.
Her breath caught, and she forced herself to calm, closing her eyes and studying the flow. It had started as a trickle but already, within ten seconds, had strengthened to a steady stream.
And then within the next ten, an unsettling torrent.
The ocean of Essence within her began to dim. Shrink.
She opened her eyes again, looking over at Caeden. “There’s a lot going out. My Reserve is getting smaller.” She couldn’t keep the concern from her tone.
“The Cyrarium is refilling. This is the equivalent of a Shift—it fills the buffer before easing off. It will take a few minutes to normalize,” Caeden said confidently.
Asha glanced up at the pavilion; inside, the Tributary was making periodic grinding sounds as pieces shifted and recalibrated, the eerie blue light pulsing bright one moment, then completely vanishing the next. She bit her lip, but conceded to herself that she had to trust the redheaded man. “If you’re sure.” She took another steadying breath. “How long to make a Gate to Wirr?”
“Another couple of hours.” Caeden was already at work. “I wouldn’t want to leave before making sure that everything was operating as it should, anyway.”
Asha acknowledged the statement, then walked back over to the edge of the cliff, peering down the path to the village below. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d leaped from here, dashing among the trees and flinging tek’ryl to their deaths wherever she could in defense of the Shadows. “Are they still down there?”
“I saw people walking around when I got here,” Caeden reassured her.
