Chapter Fourteen
An explosion sounded in the market square below. A windship screamed into view, nearly crashing into the docking spire as it made a hurried landing. Before the ’ship was properly docked, a small group of soldiers hustled out its door, led by a justicar in bright clothes and carrying a spiritblade of shining gold. As he descended, flames wreathed the justicar’s blade, and a pair of feathered wings sprouted from his shoulders. A lawbinder, come to enforce holy Order, whatever the cost. Rae recognized his face.
“That’s the one who came to the house,” he said, dumbstruck. “He’s still in the steading.”
“And that, I think, is my ride. Best of luck to you all.” Indrit laid the sword on the table and went to his lonely cupboard.
“I don’t understand. What was Father doing with a fiendbinder’s spiritblade?” La asked. Her voice carried an echo of shock. “Was Rassek a fiendbinder?”
“Someone on that estate opened a breach in the Ordered World. Why not Rassek?” Rae asked. “Explains why this diabolist is after us.”
“Or the justicars,” Indrit said.
“There are no fiendbinders in the service of the Iron College,” La said. “Are there?”
“So they claim,” Indrit said over his shoulder. “I have always wondered.”
“There’s no way,” La said. “It’s not possible.”
“You might consider the possibility that your father might not have told you the truth. About the sword, or why he fled Hadroy House when the justicars came.”
“What are you saying?” Rae asked.
“Just this: That he was a stormbinder, as was the owner of that sword. He ran when the justicars showed up, and hid at the edge of the world. That could have been his sword.”
“No, it couldn’t have. We have his sword, or what remains of it.”
“After the heresy your father might have banished his demon, breaking the spiritblade that linked them,” Indrit said. “It would have made it hard to track him.” His eyes went briefly to Rae. “As long as no one else tried to use the sword.”
Rae picked up the sword and stared at it in disbelief. “What else could he have hidden from us?”
“I won’t listen to this nonsense,” La snapped. “Rae, he was our father!”
“La, I think we have to consider—” Rae started.
“No!” La said sharply. “I won’t hear it. I won’t hear you say . . .” Her voice faltered as she choked back tears. “That was not our father. He wouldn’t do that!”
“Explains why he ran,” Mahk said quietly. La turned around and hit him square in the jaw, then again in the throat. Mahk coughed and brushed her aside. “You think this sort of thing happens to an innocent man?”
“You know nothing of him,” La said bitterly.
“And you knew less than you thought, apparently,” Mahk countered. Rae lunged between them before La could reach his throat. Once he had pried them apart, Rae stood panting, hands on his hips.
“We’re in more trouble than we thought,” Rae said. He was still numb. A fiendbinder . . . his father. He couldn’t believe it. At the very least, Tren knew a fiendbinder, and stole the sword from him, to hide it in Hammerwall. And now someone was looking for that sword. Not just someone. A high mage. He turned to Indrit. “Can we study the demon? Learn something about it, something that would help us?”
“No way in hell. Pardon the reference,” Indrit said. “The only thing you get from studying a demon is corrupted by that demon. Listen, I don’t want to sound callous, but you are becoming less and less welcome company by the minute. Please take your incriminating spiritblade and get out of my apartment. Quickly. If that lawbinder below catches wind of your corruption, he’ll tear his way straight through these walls. The children of a diabolist—”
“Stop saying that! You didn’t know anything about him! Nothing!” La snapped. “He was a good man, and a good stormbinder. My father did not deal with demons!”
“There was always something strange about the Kelthannis homestead,” Mahk said quietly. He was leaning against the windowsill, looking out on the riot unfolding below them, his face noncommittal. “Stories came and went about why Farmer Kelthannis came to Hammerwall. None of you acted like farmers. Pretty clear you were hiding from something. Guess you were running from more than just bad debts or noble intrigue.”
“You don’t believe him, do you?” La asked. Mahk shrugged massively. She turned back to Indrit. “You’re lying! You all are!”
Indrit turned away, opening drawers and adding their contents to his pack. “I have made my demand plain. Get out, or I will throw you out. The window or the door, it’s your choice.”
“You can’t just kick us out like this!” La said. Rae was dragging her away from the bondwright. “You have to help us!”
“I don’t have to do anything. What I have is a ticket on the last windship out of town. Admittance one,” Indrit said. “So if you’ll pardon me, there are a few things I’d like to finish up here before I go.”
“You think you’ll get through that mob just because you’ve got a ticket?” Mahk said with a sneer. “You’re crazy.”
“Leave that to me. So.” Indrit cracked his knuckles, his eyes not leaving Mahk. “I’ve said it before, but not again. Get out.”
“Shift us,” Mahk said. “If you can.”
Indrit put a hand on Mahk’s chest and pushed. Mahk stumbled back, clearly surprised by the bondwright’s strength, but he was not the kind to take pushing lightly. He came back, fists balled up, swinging hard for Indrit’s jaw. He connected, and there was a terrific crunching sound. Cracks ran through Indrit’s face, spiderwebbing out from where Mahk’s knuckles had landed. Mahk sat down and stared at his hand. Indrit didn’t move.
The bondwright rolled his shoulders, and somehow got bigger. Rae felt the twinge of resonance in his chest that he was learning meant spirits were being drawn into the material plane. On closer inspection, he saw that Indrit’s skin wasn’t just fractured. It was made of cracks, like the face of a cliff. And his skin was changing color, dulling into a deep gray, shot through with veins of marble. He reached over and picked up his massive canvas pack, slinging it over a shoulder, then stared down at Mahk.
“You seem like a good kid. A word of advice. Don’t punch the mountain.” He raised his eyes to Rae and La, who were standing around the table. “I’m serious. Get out. And take your cursed spiritblade with you. I don’t want to have to explain that demon to any justicars who come through.”
Rae hurriedly wrapped the sword and tucked it under his coat. He pulled La toward the door. Mahk slowly stood, shaking his fist and staring death at the bondwright.
Outside, a crackle of musket fire filled the air. La gasped and ran to the window. The justicars had formed a cordon around the windship gangway, and were pushing the crowd back. The gunfire had come from the citizens of Hammerwall. One of the guards lay on the ground, covered in his own blood.
“What is happening?” La whispered. “What’s wrong with people? This is the Ordered World. We should stand together against Chaos. Don’t they know what’s coming?”
“Coming? It’s already here,” Indrit growled. His voice had changed, echoing with the depths of the plane of Earth. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, child, but this is what Chaos does. Sows fear, tears children from parents. Makes us animals. There’s no shutting it out.” He sighed. “That’s what the Iron College will never understand. You can’t make a wall against Chaos. We are the heralds of our own destruction.”
“I’ve had enough of you,” Rae said. He stuffed the scroll into his coat pocket and pulled La away from the window. “Let’s go. Before he gets any more pretentious.”
Lalette didn’t resist, but she wouldn’t tear her eyes away from the window. The lawbinder was lunging at the crowd with his fiery sword, driving them back. The flickering wings of his bound angel hovered in the air over his shoulders.
“An angel. Rae, we can go to him. He can help us,” La said.
“He doesn’t seem the helping type,” Rae said. “Besides, we have to remember that Dad was hiding this from the justicars. We need to trust that. Until we know more.”
La swallowed hard and didn’t answer.
Mahk kept himself between the siblings and the transformed bulk of Bondwright Indrit. They backed out the door and down the stairs. Outside the building, true panic had taken hold. The market square was a sea of people—some farmers from outside the Bastion, some merchants, some officials, some guards. Everyone carried a weapon, whether it was a table leg or an ornate dueling pistol.
They were fighting. They were killing one another. The storm on the horizon had reached the protective bubble of the Bastion. The sky over the windship spire loomed close, boiling with destructive energy.
Rae pulled La into the shelter of a collapsed stall, tucking her between the wall and a pile of barrels. Mahk stood guard at the entrance of the space, scowling at anyone who got close. The crowd from the front gate had apparently fought its way through the barricades, and was making a final push for the center of the Bastion. Rae wasn’t sure what they were fighting for. As long as the wards held, the whole Bastion would be safe. Indrit’s words echoed through his head. We are the heralds of our own doom. Maybe nothing could keep Chaos out. The citizens were becoming the very destruction they were trying to escape.
“We have to get out of here. We have to do something,” Rae said. His voice was laced with panic. How was he supposed to protect his sister in the middle of this? How could this be happening?
“We can’t exactly punch our way to safety,” La said.
“Don’t know,” Mahk said. “He’s certainly going to try.”
The big man gestured to the door they had just exited. Bondwright Indrit ducked through the frame. He had fully drawn his earth elemental, and now towered chest and shoulders over the crowd. His spiritblade was a length of flinty stone as long as Rae was tall, shot through with veins of pewter and gold. As Indrit stood to his full height, a round of startled firelock shots from the justicars banged off him, but the searing bullets had no effect on his stony skin, and it wasn’t long before people were falling over themselves to get out of his way. At the gangway, the lawbinder was conferring with his guards, snapping orders and reorganizing picketlines.
“Follow him!” La shouted. She pushed past Rae and squirmed between Mahk and the wall. She fell into an easy jog, trailing in Indrit’s wake. Rae shook himself out of his stupor and followed his sister.
The once pristine grounds of the market square were transformed into a battlefield. Tents lay broken and trampled underfoot, along with the discarded merchandise of the shops sticking out of the mud. There were bodies, too, dressed in a wide variety of clothes. Fine silks lay bloody next to farmer’s roughspun. Some were naked, startled from their beds by the breach horn, then cut down before they could recover. They had died here, hopelessly, pointlessly.
The crowd was starting to get the idea of what Rae and La were trying to accomplish. A mob fell in behind them, the most desperate of the desperate: mothers clutching dead children to their breasts, fathers carrying their wives, old men shambling forward on canes that had recently served as cudgels, the tips still bloody. The line of guards watched them come with growing nervousness. The lawbinder stood behind the picket, flaming sword held casually in one hand. As they got close, the man flared his angel and beat burning wings, rising slowly into the air.
“Stonebinder! Turn aside, and you will be spared,” the lawbinder shouted. His voice carried like thunder through the square, echoing off buildings, filling the air. “This is the word of Fulcrum!”
“Screw your bloody treehouse,” Indrit answered. “I’m getting on that ’ship!”
The crowd let out a ragged cheer. The lawbinder grimaced, then nodded to the guards at his feet.
“Get down!” La shouted. She grabbed Rae and Mahk, pulling them to the earth. Rae’s face went into a puddle of muck. His sister had acted just in time. A hail of firelock stitched the air above them, hissing off Indrit’s skin, but even the ricochets were fatal to those following in the stonebinder’s wake. Flaming bullets burst into an inferno as they splattered off his bulk, flash-searing the desperate refugees trailing behind. Other shots went wide, cutting through the crowd like hail through wheat. A chorus of screams went up, replaced by the roar of exploding shot as lungs were turned to ash and tongues cracked under the blazing heat of the magically imbued bullets. A child tumbled from his mother’s arms, eyes boiling into pitch as the firelock opened a gate into the elemental plane of Fire inside his skull. The woman’s scream of horror was cut off when her blood turned to steam in her veins, bursting through her skin in hissing fissures.
“Do not oppose me, lawbinder!” Indrit bellowed. He paid no heed to the death around him. Neither did the justicar. “I’ve broken brighter wings than yours!”
The justicar smiled and flexed the fingers of his empty hand. Coils of flame crawled across his knuckles.
“Very well, heretic,” the lawbinder said. “We will do this the ancient way.”
In an instant, the justicar’s form shifted, flames turning to waves of golden light. He leapt into the air, spreading his wings and flying over the picket line, soaring high above the crowd. His skin turned the color of beaten bronze, and his clothes shimmered with silver light. It was difficult to look at the lawbinder directly without shielding your eyes. Screams of pain and panic turned to awe, as the angel’s true form was revealed. They couldn’t help themselves. Glory washed down from on high.
The justicar fell like a comet. He held his spiritblade over his head, both hands wrapped firmly around the hilt, the blade burning white-hot. Flecks of golden light trailed in his wake, singing in crystalline voices as they dropped. He landed on Indrit sword first, swinging straight for the man’s head.
Indrit was ready. He deflected the lawbinder’s blow with that massive sword. Sparks flew as the two spiritblades scraped across each other, the planes of Order and earth sending a shower of light and magma into the air. The force of the impact sent a shock wave across the square, flattening the few stragglers who had not been struck down or already thrown themselves into cover. The glass of every window facing the spire shattered, almost musically. Indrit shrugged it off. The angel came at him again, golden blade fast in the justicar’s hands. The earthbinder blocked the swing with one massive fist, a backhand swipe that deflected the blade and clipped the lawbinder’s arm. Indrit’s knuckles cratered the ground. Rae covered his head and pressed himself deeper into the muck. The sounds of battle battered his ears, the singing blade and the striking of stone, until Rae thought his skull would burst. Finally the cacophony subsided. When Rae looked up, the two spiritbinders had staggered back, watching each other warily.
Indrit’s skin was scored by a dozen deep ruts that glowed along the edges like fresh magma. The justicar’s bronze flesh was streaked with divine blood, and the fury burning in his eyes was as hot and bright as a furnace.
“You will have to do better, justicar,” Indrit growled.
“I shall,” the lawbinder answered. “I always do.”
Indrit rumbled forward, his massive feet sinking into the mud of the square, shaking the earth under Rae’s chest. He drew back his blade and swung it, cutting the air like a thunderclap, moving faster than something that large should be able to move. The lawbinder blocked, blocked again, his sword spattering golden cinders as it slid across Indrit’s blade. The justicar flitted into the air with a sweep of his wings, trying to fly free of Indrit’s persistent attacks. The stonebinder swatted him to the earth like a bug. The blow formed an angel-shaped hole in the mud, baking the earth into clay with his burning aura. Indrit reversed his grip and prepared to drive the lawbinder into a makeshift grave.
The justicar rolled away, baked earth shattering as he fled. He landed on his feet, spreading wings for stability as he faced off against Indrit. The few citizens around him who had survived the initial assault scrambled away, dragging broken loved ones with them through the mud. The justicar ignored them.
“I don’t know who you are, heretic, but whatever your plan, I will foil it,” the justicar growled. “Order shall return to this steading. Chaos will be defeated, today, by my hand!”
“Whatever,” Indrit said. He edged closer to the windship gangway. The picket line of soldiers shifted uneasily, unsure how they could stop this juggernaut, should the lawbinder fail. They hadn’t even reloaded their firelocks yet. Rae thought about making a run for it.
“I think we can make it!” Rae hissed to his sister. He pointed at the ragged line of soldiers. “They’re too caught up in the fight. If we rush them, we can—”
The justicar howled his righteous fury and charged forward. Indrit fell into a blocking stance, but the lawbinder didn’t seem to care. He hacked at Indrit’s stony blade, chipping off shards of rock with each blow. The air filled with splinters of glowing stone and the screaming howl of the lawbinder’s holy blade. Indrit struck back, punching wildly with his pommel at the lawbinder’s chest, but the justicar danced aside with a flap of his wings. He braced against the ground and hacked down at Indrit’s exposed shoulder. The sword sank into the fissured skin of the stonebinder’s neck, drawing a scream from Indrit’s throat. The lawbinder drew his sword free, pulling it through Indrit’s flesh like a saw through stubborn wood. Rocks cracked and tumbled free. Indrit drew back, protecting the wound as he glared at the lawbinder.
Another strike, this one aimed at Indrit’s head. The stonebinder ducked, lifting both arms over his head, putting the flat of the blade in the justicar’s path. At the last second, the lawbinder changed the direction of his blow, landing it heavily into Indrit’s side. Stones shattered, and even as Indrit flinched away, the lawbinder whirled his blade around, chopping down into the man’s opposite shoulder. The sword sang as it flew through the air. Indrit went to his knees. The impact of his fall shivered the buildings and shook tiles from a dozen roofs.
There was no mercy in the lawbinder’s eyes. He rained a series of blows down on Indrit’s shoulders, slicing stone and breaking flesh. Indrit began to fall apart. The stonebinder dropped his sword, and the blade shattered into a loose scree of steaming pebbles that rolled across the ground like dice. The stones around Indrit’s head tumbled free, starting an avalanche of splintered rock that traveled down his chest and spread across his limbs. Hundreds of fist-sized rocks spread out from him, forming a pile of loose gravel that steamed like hot coals in the light. Indrit’s mortal body slumped in the middle of the pile, buried from the waist down in the remnants of his broken elemental. The stonebinder tried to sit up, blinking swollen eyes against the brilliant light of the lawbinder. His face was a misshapen lump of bruises and matted blood.
The justicar stood in front of him, arms spread wide, the sword sizzling and trailing sparks into the mud. The burning mantle of his wings rose into the air. He stepped forward, placing a heavy foot on the pile of stones, as though he was going to ascend a mountain.
“Justice!” he bellowed, voice carrying to the far reaches of the Bastion. “Has been served!”
He drew the burning blade over his head and swept it down. Indrit’s head joined the stones, rolling down the pile to land wetly in the mud. A spurt of blood fountained from the severed trunk of his chest, once, twice, and then the stonebinder was still.
“Bravo, lawbinder!” A voice came down from on high, as though Heaven brought its praise to the performance. “Well executed. Well fought.”
Rae craned his head up to the sky. There, above the lone windship, dangling from the highest tier of the docking spire, stood the high mage in his isolation suit. He had one hand against the warding antenna. The antenna was the device that enforced the Bastion’s Order, amplifying the signal from the spinning wards on the wall. It held the steading together. It held the Bastion together. It was all that was keeping Chaos from the breach from washing over them all.
A gesture from the high mage, and the steel and bound stone of the antenna turned black. The darkness spread like ink on paper, rushing down the spire. There was a trembling moment. And then the whole structure twisted into nothingness, ash shuffling across the steel, dissolving into a cloud of smoke that lingered for the briefest time—a heartbeat, less. It fell apart.
Everything fell apart.