Chapter Fifty
The sky burned, and the world burned with it. Rassek took a heavy step toward them. This footfall was a drumbeat of silence, a smothering quiet that even stole the sound of Rae’s heart in his chest. Rae remembered the sound of the fiendbinder’s approach in Hammerwall. Even through the numbing veil of the wraith, icy fear gripped Rae’s spine and shook his bones to the core.
“No matter where you run, I will chase you,” Caeris spat. She perched on an ashen stump, golden sword held high behind her, with the tip hovering at her cheek. Her eyes were pinpricks of Heaven. But a shower of sparks flowed over her with each breath. Her angel was struggling to manifest here. If this place was difficult for Rae, it must be nearly impossible for a lawbinder. Still, Caeris was defiant. “I will storm the very gates of Hell!”
“Yeah, what she said.” Rae shook the fear away, pouring his soul into the wraithblade. The spirit hung around his shoulders like a blizzard. “The gates of Hell!”
“That can be arranged,” Rassek said with a sneer. But instead of attacking, the fiendbinder circled warily. The wounds on his chest and shoulder spat viscous blood, and his wings twitched awkwardly.
He brought us here so he could heal, not to fight us! Rae realized. “Caeris, we have to strike! Quickly!”
“I’d rather wait for Predi,” the lawbinder whispered. She was weaving back and forth on her stump. Rae suspected the awkward pose was an attempt to enforce some Order on the place, a carefully practiced sword form that invoked discipline and law. The ground at her feet writhed in open revolt of her presence. “He will surely have felt a manifestation this drastic. Between us, we can bring this heretic to Fulcrum’s justice.”
“We don’t have that kind of time,” Rae said. “Besides, how would he reach us? As long as we’re pinned in Hell, Predi’s no use to us.”
“I urge caution, Raelle. You don’t understand what we’re—”
Rae answered with a wordless scream, throwing himself across the cracked plateau, his feet barely touching the ground as the wraith carried him through the air. Rassek batted him aside with the flat of his fiendish blade, the obsidian edge cutting into Rae’s shoulder as he bounced away. Rae landed in a gust of mist, bounced to his feet, and threw himself at Rassek again. The fiendbinder met this with a scything swing that would have cut Rae in half if he hadn’t answered it with his own spiritblade, catching the dark weapon with the moonlit forte of his sword. Sparks showered Rae’s face as the blades scraped down to the hilts, the demon’s barbed guard cutting Rae’s wrist as Rassek twisted to disengage. The fiendbinder tried to slice at Rae as they separated, but Rae caught it again, this time dipping the tip of his blade over Rassek’s guard and burying it in the broken man’s forearm. Steel skittered across chitinous armor, but the hiss of pain from Rassek told him the strike had been true. A backhand from Rassek’s thorny fist whistled over Rae’s head as he retreated.
Caeris joined the fight. Sweat glistened on her forehead, and her blond hair hung in damp ringlets across her face. Her angel was a bare glimmer in her face, wings less than gauze, eyes golden disks that squinted with the effort of simply existing. But she had her golden blade and the vows she had sworn as a justicar, and that was enough to face a threat like Rassek Brant. As Rassek whirled to follow Rae’s retreat, Caeris came in low and fast, boots slapping against the treacherous earth. She cut at Rassek’s knee, rolling as he spun around to slam his sword into the ground. He chopped and hacked, but each time she slithered out of the way. Her skin blistered wherever it touched the earth, and the glow in her cheeks was as much fever as effort. But she kept moving, until she and Rae stood side by side, her chest heaving, a dozen cuts and weeping sores across her skin. But she stood.
“Damned fools! A farmer’s son finds a sword and suddenly he thinks he can defeat anyone!” Rassek howled. Bubbling blood poured out of the new wound, splattering on the cracked earth. “I was a farmer’s son once. Do you know what happened to me?”
“You went to Hell?” Rae ventured.
“I was broken! Betrayed! Given hope, only to have it shattered by the woman who offered it!” Rassek slammed a cloven hoof into the ground, cratering the ground, raising a cloud of dust that roiled with the storm overhead. “For nothing! For a promise that she knew I would not keep!”
“Sounds personal,” Caeris said. She danced forward, but her feet tangled together, and Rae was forced to lunge at Rassek to keep him from cleaving the girl’s head clean off. She went to one knee as Rae fought past her. He kept Rassek at bay with a series of quick thrusts that the fiendbinder parried almost casually.
“Your father was a challenge,” Rassek growled. “You are a nuisance. And I am finished toying with you.”
One downward chop from that black blade and Rae was on his heels. Rassek swept and struck, slid to the side, struck again, each blow hammering into Rae’s defense. The thin steel of the wraithblade shivered in Rae’s hands, pain echoing through his bones, shuddering against his soul. Feebly, Rae tried to riposte, but Rassek met the strike with a contemptuous twist of his hilt. It was all Rae could do to get the wraithblade up, but Rassek swung again and again. The wraithblade was an anvil, then a bell, then it broke.
The silver length of Rae’s spiritblade shattered like glass, spraying sharp splinters across the dry, cracked earth. They cut into Rae’s face, sliced through his clothes, left his soul in tatters. The wraith howled in agony and simply . . . disappeared. Rae crumpled to the ground, curling in on himself to wait for the final blow.
“Pathetic,” Rassek spat. “The child will die like the father. Begging for mercy.”
“Enough!” Caeris shouted. She rose up from the ground, sword held in front of her like a totem, shimmering wings lifting her into the air. “We have been in this hellscape long enough! You cannot run from Heaven’s reach, Rassek Brant!”
A column of scintillating light speared out of the sword, punching through the roiling clouds like a battering ram. The pewter stormwall broke. Screaming, Caeris forced her angel deeper and deeper into the material plane, dragging herself out of the manifestation of Chaos. Under Rae’s hand, the ground healed, cracks melting together, dry earth bubbling with moss and trampled sunflowers. The ring of trees flickered into view. Their branches danced with cinders, and their score was scorched, but they grew. The sky started to clear, and the sun shone down, following that beam of golden light from Caeris’s spiritblade.
Rassek backhanded the girl. She screamed, flying across the field like a rag doll. The beam of light flickered and waned. Her sword dropped to the ground, to stick point down in the ruin of Rae’s house. The surrounding forest screamed as sap boiled through bark, shattering trunks down to the roots. Storm clouds scuttered from the far horizon. Caeris hit the ground and bounced. Rassek stalked to her limp body. The beam of light still dangled from the sky, clinging tenuously to Caeris’s soul.
“You have built your city in the branches of that dead tree and hung the world from it, to spin like a dead man on the gallows,” the fiendbinder growled. Caeris struggled to her feet, pouring all of herself into the angel. The spirit of Order flickered as it manifested, golden flesh outlining Caeris’s frail form, its impassive face pulled down like a mask over her features. It tried to stand, but Caeris’s body failed. Rassek laughed, laying his barbed spiritblade against the angel’s neck. “The day is coming when Fulcrum will burn, and the dry, withered corpse of the Ordered World will burn with it.”
“You will fail, and die, and all of Hell will die with you,” the angel said. Its voice was like delicate bells struck with a warhammer, shattering in the music. “So shall it be, Rassek.”
“Not today,” Rassek said. Without moving the sword, he reared back with his other fist, thorny knuckles curling into a battering ram. “Not ever.”
“No!” Rae shouted, struggling to his feet, taking a faltering step toward Caeris and the angel. The fiendbinder cast a dismissive glance in Rae’s direction, then brought his fist down. Caeris broke. The angel screamed. The fragile thread of light running from her heart to the sun finally snapped, and the world fell back into Hell. The forest burned into ash, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Blinking through tears, Rae reached for the wraith. He felt the spirit at a great distance, and realized that with the shattering of his spiritblade, he had lost control of the wraith. The void in his soul where the wraith had been throbbed like an open wound.
Don’t leave me!
—this battle is lost. but there will be another. The wraith floated through Rae’s soul, barely touching the edges. i am sorry.
No! You’re a coward! You deserved to die at Rassek’s hand. All these people have died because of you—my parents, all of Hammerwall Bastion, so many more . . . Rae choked on a silent sob. I will die without you.
—yes. are you afraid of dying?
Rae straightened his back. The fiendbinder still loomed over Caeris’s body. Through the wraith’s distant vision, Rae could see that Caeris still lived, her soul a shattered starfield of dim lights, woven through with the angel. The spirit of Order was holding her together, somehow, even at the footstep of Hell. She could still be saved.
No. And if you won’t help, I’ll just do it myself.
—very good. The wraith rushed into Rae’s soul like a lightning bolt, filling him with ghostly light. The shards of the broken wraithblade sparkled. Rae reached out to them, and a sword of glittering fog formed in his hand. His soul extended through the blade, bright threads that laced through the air, weaving themselves into the glowing shards of the weapon. He pulled, and the sword snapped back together. The fractures flashed, and dark energy sealed the gaps, like pottery repaired with gold.
—now, then. let’s show this fool the meaning of death.
Rae spun off the ground, taking just enough of the wraith to lighten his body. He wanted his blade in the material plane. He wanted the steel to sink into flesh. He wanted to teach Rassek pain. He planted one foot on the ground and put the full force of his spin into a double swinging strike at Rassek’s bleeding wound. The sword sunk into the blackened flesh, cracking the shell open like an egg. Moonlit blade, wrapped in the realm of death, deep into Rassek’s back.
Rassek’s scream shook the surrounding hellscape. He stood, growing as he got to his feet, and Rae dangled by the hilt of his blade. The fiendbinder lurched from side to side. Rae swung with him, feet scrambling to get a footing on Rassek’s back, his waist, the crook of his thorny arm. Barbs sprang out of Rassek’s flesh, and the demon manifested more and more, putting aside the mage’s mortal form. Its blunt face, crisscrossed with scars and deeper wounds, twisted on a muscular neck, trying to reach Rae. Teeth the color of midnight clapped shut inches away from Rae’s face, spraying him with caustic spittle. Black scales crawled across his body, and the charred remnants of his wings uncoiled from his shoulders to scrape the ceiling. There was no line between demon and man.
Rae hooked an arm over one wing, then brought his sword across the pitted membrane, slicing it open. Rassek finally shook him free, rolling his shoulders to send Rae flying into the ground. The wraith saved him, coiling Rae in mists and letting him hover, slowly bouncing against the crooked ruin of the chimney.
“Fool! You’re wasting your time! There’s nothing you can do to stop me! There’s nothing you can do to stop us!” Rassek howled. He came at Rae in a flurry of blows, sword and fist and cloven hoof. Rae danced away, dropping into the shadows whenever Rassek got too close, but even the shadowlands were far from this manifestation of Hell, and the effort quickly drained Rae’s soul. Rassek finally clipped Rae before he could reach the shadows, throwing him to the ground. With a shriek of victory, Rassek pounced. “Nothing! Noth—”
Golden steel erupted from Rassek’s chest. He stared in horror at the glistening blade, slick with his own gore, before it disappeared in a gout of black heart blood. He turned around. Caeris dropped her sword, then collapsed to the ground. Rassek crashed down beside her, cratering the hell-baked earth.
The fiendbinder lay on his back, staring at the roiling sky. His chest moved shallowly. The wound in Rassek’s chest was a blackened ruin, but he was still breathing, still alive.
Rae stood up. Pain shot through his legs, his chest—the deep pain of a soul half-burned. He had lost the wraithblade somewhere in the fight. No matter. Caeris’s sword lay near at hand. He picked it up. It was just a sword, he realized, chased in gold and etched with the runes of Order and the justicars. Just steel. But its edge was sharp. He limped to where Rassek lay and pressed the point against the man’s chest.
“You will die alone, and afraid,” Rae whispered. “You will die at my hand.”
He leaned on the pommel. The sword parted flesh, and bone, and heart. Rassek’s eyes went wide. He took one stiff breath, blood gurgling in his throat, and then was still.