Chapter Sixteen
Rae didn’t like being alone in this strange place. Especially not since the voices had started.
One voice, to be honest. It started at night, narrating his dreams, turning even pleasant memories into nightmares. Rae had shaken it off at first. Nightmares were understandable, considering what they’d gone through. But now the voice came during the day. Barely words . . . just endless longing and regret. And anger. Such anger.
—destroy them all. their blood. i miss their blood.
“Wait up, sis!” Rae shouted, scrambling after his sister. She was standing over a stream, looking down into the water with distaste. Rae ran up next to her and peered into the murky depths.
The stream ran thick with gelatinous life. Bulbous, squid-like shapes tumbled over one another in the mossy current, stubby tentacles grabbing weakly at the passing rocks, their flesh milky and translucent, like cheap glass. Rae prodded one with the tip of his sword. It burst, filling the water with squirming strands of flesh. Its brethren sucked up the fibrous strings in a frenzy, stirring the water into turbulence.
“I don’t care if they almost look like fish. I’m not eating those,” La said quietly. She leaned over him, one hand on his shoulder. Her stomach rumbled. “I don’t eat things I can see through.”
“A sound philosophy. They look less like food than those flower things,” Rae said. The walking dandelions had been easy to catch but no amount of boiling had made them edible. It was mad to think they might starve to death in the middle of such a verdant wonderland. Everything here was alive. Alive, and aggressively indigestible. “We’ll keep foraging.”
It had been two weeks since they had fled Hammerwall. They had run south through the ruins of Dwehlling under the remnants of the chaosstorm, skirting the edges of the ravaged city in broad daylight. There had been no sign of human life in the streets, only swollen, chitinous things that had sprouted from the ground after the storm. Dwehlling looked almost peaceful in comparison to the ruin of Hammerwall Bastion. The storm had scoured away the refuse and exposed the glorious city it had once been. A day’s careful hike later brought them to the orderwall. The ruined spires had already been swallowed by the virulent growth of the disordered lands beyond. Other than a few broken pylons, choked with vines and melting into the bark of enormous trees, there was no sign of the barrier that once protected Hammerwall from the Chaos-infested wildlands. They slipped through the border and started the long march south to distant Anvilheim.
They had found an abandoned caravan just outside the orderwall, a line of three wagons, contents in perfect shape and leads smoothly cut. There had been no sign of the owners, other than a spray of blood on the lead wagon’s seat. Mahk had searched the surrounding woods while Rae and Lalette had plundered the supplies: a brace of flintlocks, basket-hilted short swords for Rae and Mahk, and a boar spear for La, along with enough food for a week. They had made it last two, but now they were forced to scavenge. And Rae still didn’t know how long it was to Anvilheim.
Their trip south was not in isolation. They saw distant groups of refugees fleeing Hammerwall, some in well-ordered columns, others traveling in twos and threes, skittish at the sight of other people. Rae didn’t blame them. There were stories of feral wanderers in the wastes, whole tribes of people dedicated to the old gods of the forest, or perhaps just driven mad by exposure to Chaos. None of those stories ended well. Rae and his companions kept to themselves, even when their supplies ran low. But for the last week, they’d seen no one, not even the signs of human passage. Everything was Chaos. Everything was wild.
The maddening thing was that everything here was green and living and hungry. It just seemed impossible to kill anything, and Rae wasn’t quite hungry enough to swallow something that could very well crawl its way back out.
“Rae, what are we doing out here?” La asked with a moan. “It feels like we’ve been walking forever. Shouldn’t we be to Anvilheim by now?”
“In due time, dear sister. In due time.” Rae stirred a mound of moss with his foot. The fluffy green lump wrapped itself around his toes, clinging to the leather of his boot like tar. He kicked until the thing spun free, to land with a splat against the chitin-plated tree. Grimacing, he tried to wipe the mound’s excretion off his shoe. “I’m sure we’ll be there in the next day or two.”
“And what then? What if that high mage is waiting for us there?”
“We stay low to the ground. We keep moving.” There was an uncomfortable silence, the kind of silence that let Rae know what his sister thought of his brilliant plan. He shrugged. “That’s the best I’ve got right now, La.”
“We can’t keep running forever, Rae. We have to go to the justicars with this.”
“And tell them what? Our father was a servant of Hadroy and hid a magic demon sword in our root cellar, and now a high mage has killed him and is chasing us?”
“Yes,” La said, nodding vigorously. “That’s exactly what we tell them!”
“What about what Indrit said? That it might have been Father’s spiritblade all this time. If that’s true—”
“Now you’re questioning Father?” La asked, exasperated. “I thought you at least would stand by him.”
Rae shook his head. “I’m not going to the justicars. Especially after all these years. Maybe Dad did have something to hide.”
“But—”
“Do you know what happens to the children of heretics, La?”
“Well for starters, they don’t get hunted down and killed by high mages!”
“They get seared, La. Their souls are knotted shut and burned to a crisp. And then they’re thrown away, like garbage,” Rae said angrily. “I won’t let that happen to me.”
“So you’re going to risk your life, my life, so you can pretend to be a spiritbinder? Rae, the Iron College is never going to agree to train you. Especially now.”
“Maybe I don’t need the Iron College!” he snapped. “Maybe I’m doing pretty well on my own!”
Lalette laughed, a sharp, short sound that cut Rae to the bone. “Pretty well? Pretty well! Rae, look around you. We’re in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Chaos, and hunted by a murdering high mage who just killed an entire steading to find us. That’s you doing pretty well.”
“I don’t hear you making any worthwhile suggestions,” Rae said. “What’s Lalette’s big, brilliant plan?”
“We figure out why that man killed our parents, and we destroy him,” she said simply. “If you won’t let us go to the justicars, then we just have to figure that out on our own.”
“Oh, that’s great! That’s just . . .” He paused. “That does sound pretty good. It all has something to do with the spiritblade, doesn’t it? Maybe if we could figure out whose sword this really is, we’d have something to take to the justicars.”
“Father would know. He’s the one who stole it, after all.” La sat down on a fallen log, her shoulders slumping. “Order and Ash, Rae. What are we going to do?”
Rae sat down next to his sister and put an arm over her shoulder. The log squirmed under him, but he tried to ignore it. They sat like that for a long time, their heads close together, their breathing quiet.
“We’ll figure it out,” Rae said finally.
“Sure,” La said, patting his knee. “Sure we will.”
“Stop playing around, you two,” Mahk called from just beyond the trees. He was packing up their camp in preparation for another day’s march. None of them had eaten since breakfast the previous morning, and the big man clearly wasn’t accustomed to that sort of deprivation. He stuffed a bedroll into his bag with unnecessary violence. La sighed and stood up.
“First things first. We need to find something to eat,” La said. She hopped across the creek and headed toward the tree line. “We can plot revenge later.”
The tract of land beyond the river was a wasteland. The trees were stubs of wood and ash. The fallen trunks melted into the forest floor, leaving wide, black stains in the ground. Banks of sickly mist scudded close to the earth, following unseen currents in the air, riding winds that Rae could neither feel nor hear, as though they moved of their own volition. The ground itself looked like shards of broken pottery, a jumble of sharp angles and deep cracks. It was a frightening place. At the far end of the wasted tract, the forest started up again, but it was different from the overgrown lands behind it. The narrow trunks of leaf-stripped trees allowed for long sightlines, though the general gloom made the distances tricky to judge. Somewhere beyond the ruin, the lush landscape started again. Cloud-peaked canopies stretched into the sky. But here, there was nothing but desolation.
“What did this?” Rae wondered aloud.
“I don’t know. But I’d rather not meet it,” La whispered. Wind blew through the woods, and the thin trunks on the other side of the waste swayed back and forth, their branches tapping together. The sound sent a shiver up Rae’s back. “This is what I expected of Chaos. Endless destruction.”
“Do we cross it?” Rae asked.
“We’re going to have to eventually,” La said. She took a step onto the broken ground. The pottery shards crumbled under her foot, crackling loudly. Rae followed reluctantly.
Whatever had taken the life from this barren strip of land had done a thorough job. Mingled in with the dust of the ground were bones and shattered stone, but nothing recently dead. Even the air felt empty. Rae realized he was holding his breath, and emptied his lungs. La startled at the sound, then shot Rae an angry look.
They reached the threadbare trees on the other end of the tract without incident, La in the lead, with her spear folded casually in her arms. Rae had claimed one of the flintlocks, though Mahk said that he wasn’t sure the powder would work this deep into Chaos. Rae simply felt better with the heavy weight of the pistol on his belt. He usually kept the sword wrapped in burlap and hidden in his pack. Something about the last time he had summoned the storm mote had unsettled him. The loss of control, even as the storm answered his every whim.
“How much farther is it, do you think? To Anvilheim?” La asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never walked it. No one has,” Rae answered.
“Not in a long time, at least. But we should be able to figure it out. How far is it by windship? Two days, maybe three if the skies are tricky?” She stepped over a fallen log. Anemone-like tendrils the color of pale mushrooms reached up to her feet as she crossed. Rae jumped high over the log. “And how fast does a windship travel?” La asked.
“It’s been ten years since we made that trip, La. All I remember is Mother crying in her bed, and Father trying to pretend we were on some kind of vacation cruise. I think he really believed we’d make something of ourselves out here.” Rae paused and looked around. That feeling had returned. Someone was watching them. The forest offered nothing but shadows. “Let’s go back.”
“To Hammerwall? Not a chance in Hell.”
“Aren’t we already in Hell?” Rae asked. “Formally speaking, of course. Certainly feels like it.”
“The sky holds true, and the stars,” La said, gesturing up. She was right. The sun rose and set as it always had, and they were able to navigate by familiar constellations. Whatever else had changed in the world, it was under the same sky. “We’re still in the Ordered World. Just an unordered part of it.”
“Hardly encouraging,” Rae said. “I still think we should—”
A shot rang out from the direction of the camp. They froze for a long heartbeat, listening for a warning shout, or any other sounds of fighting. There was nothing. The feeling of being watched sharpened. The mysterious voice reached into his mind.
—closer . . . closer . . . nearly there.
“I guess that settles the question of whether the flintlocks work,” La said. She turned and ran back to camp. Rae lingered for a second, wondering if his stalker would show itself, now that he was alone. The shadows watched, they waited, but nothing appeared. He shook off the feeling and followed his sister, running hard to keep up.
They crossed the crumbling ground of the desolation at a sprint, dove into the lush overgrowth, splashed through the river and bolted into the camp. Rae had the flintlock crossed across his chest, gasping for breath, his eyes watering.
Mahk stood over the corpse of a creature. Rae thought it was a wolf at first, though surprisingly bald and gray, with tufts of fur sticking out irregularly. That first impression didn’t last, though. He was right. It had been a wolf at some point, but a cage of wicker and vine had enveloped it, growing from the creature’s skull and twisting its way back across its body. Its snout was completely consumed by the woody growth, with jaws that bristled with thorns, and eyes as dull and brown as acorns. Mahk poked at the creature with his toe.
“There’s meat in there somewhere. Get cutting. At least we’ll have something to eat.”
Cutting the wolf from the wood was a difficult process. The vines burrowed into the creature’s body, melting into bone and replacing muscles with stringy roots. What little flesh remained was wasted and tough. This wolf, if that’s what it had truly been, was starved.
“Maybe it came from Hammerwall, like us,” La said as she cracked its rib cage open. “Fled into Chaos, and was consumed.”
“Cheery thought, sister,” Rae said. He picked a line of thorns from its spine, grimacing as the black barbs pulled out of the skin. “Is this how we’ll end up, then?”
“Demons are often described as barbed spirits,” La said. “So . . . maybe?”
“I always thought that was metaphorical. Once they have their hooks into you, there’s no escape. That sort of thing.” Rae peeled a strip of sizzling wolf-flesh away and tossed it to Mahk, who was preparing the fire. They didn’t have time to properly salt the meat, not while they were on the run. But they could smoke it, at least. “What do you think, Mahk?”
“Must be something literal to it,” Mahk mumbled. “The one we saw back in Hammerwall didn’t look anything like this, though.”
“I’ve been trying to forget that one,” Rae said. He sat back on his heels and looked around. A cloud of bat-winged creatures skittered across the horizon. “I think we have enough to hold us over. We should get moving.”
“Shouldn’t there be more demons out here?” La asked. “Two weeks in the wastelands, and plenty of weird stuff, but nothing that stinks of Hell.”
“Let’s not tempt our luck,” Mahk grumbled as he gathered the last of their kill. “I’ll be happy if I never see aught of that kind again.”
“I’m more worried about what’s following us. No way that high mage tore down the Bastion and then gave up,” Rae said. They had seen no trace of the ’binder since they entered the chaoslands, but that did little to calm Rae’s nerves.
With very little preamble, Mahk threw his pack over his shoulder and headed south. They were already hours late getting started, though they had no idea how far they needed to go, nor how long it would take to get there. Just that they had to keep going, no matter what.
The siblings scrambled to collect their last few possessions. Rae checked to make sure he had the sword a dozen times, touching the hilt poking out of his satchel over and over again as he packed his bag. When he finally stood up and settled the burden across his shoulder, La was staring at him.
“Do you believe what Indrit said?” La asked. “About the sword?”
“I have to,” Rae said. “The symbols were there. This sword was used to bind a demon.” Unconsciously, Rae brushed his fingers across the hilt and felt a thrill of electricity go up his arm. Is that where the voice is coming from? Is there a demon worming its way into my soul? Bile rose in the back of his throat.
“And do you think it really might have been Father’s blade?” La asked. “It couldn’t have been, could it? But, I mean, how did Dad know to run? Gods, Rae, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know. I can’t . . .” Rae shook his head. “I can’t square it with the father who raised me. All he wanted was to be left alone with his books. Mom liked the parties, and the high society.”
“And the dresses,” La said with a smile. “If any good came from leaving Hadroy’s service, it was that I didn’t have to suffer through the dresses any longer.”
“Gods, can you imagine going through Procession? You? Can you even dance?”
“I’m a fine dancer, Raelle.” La punched him in the shoulder. “You’re the one with four left feet and the grace of a drunken loon.”
“That’s only half accurate,” Rae said as he turned and started after Mahk. La fell into step beside him. “I’m certainly a better singer than you.”
“Yelling is not singing. You were a yeller. The matron was just too polite to correct you, and Father was too important.”
“I have a fine voice,” Rae said, folding his arms stubbornly. “You’re just jealous.”
La laughed at that, a sound Rae hadn’t heard in much, much too long. She punched him again, and he slapped her aside and gave her a shove. They were both laughing now. The sound of it echoed through the trees.
Chaos took their laughter and changed it. Their voices came back to them in shrill curls. The sound of it chilled Rae’s blood. La’s eyes went wide, her head whirling back and forth, trying to pin down the source of the echo. Rae put an arm around her shoulder. She was shivering.
“This place is terrible,” La whispered. “It takes everything good and turns it sour.”
“Chaos,” Rae said. “Everything falls apart.”
They stood silently, waiting until the mockery of their laughter trailed off and disappeared. Rae was afraid to break the quiet.
“I can’t believe they’re gone,” La said quietly. “I keep thinking that we’re going to go home at the end of this, and Mom will be on the porch, and Dad in his library, and dinner on the stove. I can almost smell it. I can almost . . .”
Her voice trailed off. Rae squeezed her shoulders, then straightened up and stepped back.
“I don’t care what Indrit said. Dad wasn’t that kind of man. He loved us. He took care of us.” Rae cleared his throat, swallowing against the unexpected knot in the back of his throat. “They didn’t deserve to die.”
“No, they didn’t. But they died, and they left us to pick up the pieces.” La took a deep, shuddering breath, wiping tears from her eyes. “Rae, what are we going to do?”
“Stay alive. For now, that’s all we can do. But then . . . then I’m going to set things right. I’m going to find out who killed them, and I’m going to fix it.”
“Fix it? Fix it. Oh, Rae,” La laughed sadly, putting a hand on Rae’s chest. “You were always an idiot. How are you going to fix it? Are you going to take it to the justicars, and bring the murderer to justice? He was a high mage! He probably had an edict.”
“Whatever I do, I’m not going to the justicars. Father was hiding for a reason. Hiding this.” His hand went to the sword again. Maybe he should just wear it on his belt. In case he had to summon the zephyr again, say, if they were attacked. Yes, it would be better on his belt. He locked eyes with La. His sister was staring at him with worry.
“Rae, I don’t like that sword. It got our parents killed, and our home destroyed.” La took a step back, her face growing hard. “Maybe you should lose it.”
La looped her pack over her shoulder and folded her spear into her arms, holding it like a child. Rae watched her back as she crossed the creek.
That settled it. Rae dropped his backpack to the ground and pulled the sword free. He admired it for a moment, then tucked it through the loop of his belt. It wasn’t a proper scabbard, but the blade itself wasn’t that sharp, and it was better than having to wrestle it from the pack should something happen. He practiced sheathing and unsheathing it a few times, admiring the way the sunlight crackled through the shattered glass. Drawing the storm mote a tiny bit, he fed power through the sword, sending bands of soft light dancing across the grass. It made a beautiful pattern, all the more beautiful for the power it held. He ran one hand down the flat edge of the fuller, admiring the way the light from the pattern played across his skin.
Music sang in his ears, as though the lines of the scrying were the strings of some finely tuned instrument. The weapon thrummed, and Rae’s soul reverberated with it, pitching higher and higher until he thought his skull was going to split with the cacophony. His back arched in pain, but Rae couldn’t pull his fingers off the scrying. The notes solidified into a voice. Harsh. Unyielding.
—help . . . help me. so dark. help . . . please!