SWNOVELS Soulblade: Chapter 34
SHADOW RUNS STRAIGHT for the crowd of several dozen adepts who are arguing furiously in the middle of the busy camp. From the fragments I catch between the swearwords, half of them want to follow orders and wait for the horses to be brought back, while the others are stridently impatient. They want to set off now on foot, never mind if the pace will be slower and more tiring before the battles to come. They think they can still destroy everything in their path on the way to Corinium.
My breath catches as I push myself to keep up with Shadow’s long stride, trying to stay within the concealing shadowy haze he weaves around us. Then I feel the jolt as he starts elbowing through the press of bodies. Our pace slows.
This is my chance. I stay in rhythm with Shadow’s steps, pausing only to crouch and stab at knees and ankles, one side and then the other, move forward, stab again. I can hear the screams of pain and anger breaking out behind me and my back prickles with the certainty that I have been spotted. If the furious invective of revenge I can hear turns into action against me, Shadow and I will be dead in seconds and the whole plan will have failed.
I keep going, taking advantage of the way all eyes are now directed at the fight behind me, and stab upward into necks and faces. Shadow twists and turns, varying his route while desperately trying to make it across the crowd to seek out the cover of rocks or trees on the far side. Then with luck he might be able to regain enough strength for a few more invisible minutes in this arena of clashing steel and cursing anger.
He fails to reach cover before his ability to maintain the cloaking runs out and the dark haze around us starts to fade. I see the look of horrified recognition on the face of the adept whose neck I have just slashed, as he watches his invisible assailant suddenly appear from nowhere. He lunges at me, catching me off guard and off balance. His blade burns, slicing through chainmail, leaving warm blood trickling down my left side. I duck under the next blow, pressing my hand to the wound and making a rapid judgement born of more fights than I care to remember.
Not serious enough to kill me. Allow for slower reactions.
I parry his next thrust, bringing my second blade up and into his eye. He sways on his feet, as if uncertain whether to fall or not. Shadow seizes the warrior’s arm and I watch the adept’s face grow cold and pale as the cloaking haze around us grows dark again. Even in the midst of my focus on survival I notice that Shadow has regained the reaping aspect of his power, no doubt because of what happened to me in Duhokan. He draws his hand back and I reach out, hoping to grab the last few whispers of the reaping to help heal the cut on my side.
Shadow grabs my wrist. “No! You do not want this, Ariel. It is poison.”
A whisper of toxic energy runs through my fingertips before he pulls my hand away, so like the life-force I stole in the palace when we killed Nagal. I had assumed Shadow either wanted that destructive energy or at least had no objection to it.
The look of disgust on his face tells me that however he might have felt back then, he feels very differently about it now.
There is no time to find out more as he turns and plunges back into the fighting crowd until we reach a section where these rampaging warriors are not yet engaged in trying to slaughter whoever is nearest to them. Soon we are once more dancing with death, staying within the dark mist and following each other’s movements to strike anger and vengeance into every adept we can find––until Shadow’s cloaking fails once more.
I find myself facing a furious adept who can see perfectly well that I am responsible for the slash across the back of his knee. He brings his two-handed broadsword down at my head again and again with such savage force as I have never experienced before. All I can do is to keep weaving and dodging, learning the hard way that if this monster were not already limping so badly I would have been dead at the first blow.
Pain and exhaustion are taking their toll by the time Shadow finishes his own adversary and steps up behind my attacker to take off his head. He grabs my arm and drags me away.
“Ariel, we have to move fast. The first arrows are starting to fall.”
My side is burning like fire and my feet feel as if they are bound with leaden shackles.
“Can we slow down? Marin said we would have one minute of warning before all the archers join the attack.”
“There are more obstacles in our path than we anticipated. One minute will not be enough to get clear.”
He has a point. Wounded adepts seem determined to keep hacking at each other long after any reasonable soldier would have simply fallen to the ground and given up. Instead of stepping over bodies, we are forced to keep weaving between groups of furiously clashing adversaries until the real hail of arrows starts hissing and whining past us in earnest.
The first thing Marin taught me about dealing with archers in battle is to resist the instinctive reaction to look round in hope of seeing where the arrows are coming from. Sure way to get an arrow in your eye. Even so, my shoulders twitch with apprehension as I try to convince myself that my Eldrin harness and quiver really are designed to protect my heart from an arrow in the back. I see two arrows splice into Shadow’s arm the instant before the sting in my shoulder tells me that we are well into the thick of it now.
“Shadow! Whatever that solution of yours is, now might be a good time to try it?” I grit my teeth and break off the shaft sprouting from my arm before it catches on something and pulls the wound open.
Shadow grabs me and pushes me to the ground. He rolls over, shielding me with his body, his great leathery wings forming a canopy arching over both of us. All I can do is lie still, looking over his shoulder as more and more arrows pierce his wings until the fletching catches and stops the arrowheads just short of his back. I can feel him shudder with each new stab of pain and only now understand his reluctance to use this last desperate defense.
It feels like an age before it is over. I can hear the battle-cries from the far side of the camp announcing the arrival of Marin with Deris and Brac, trying to sound as if the three of them are the advance guard of an approaching army. This should give Shadow and I a few minutes to get back on our feet before the truth is discovered.
“Shadow, let me up and I’ll break those arrow shafts.”
He moves with difficulty and I wriggle out from under him to survey the damage. He has more spikes in him than a pincushion. I’m amazed he could move at all. I break off one fletching after another on his arm and then his wings while he struggles to his knees and grips the arrowheads to pull each shaft through. Both wings are punctured and bleeding in more than a dozen places.
“Shadow? Can you still fight like that?”
He shrugs irritably. “Just don’t ask me to fly anywhere.”
I look across the open meadow. The camp has become a battleground and I can’t see my friends. I follow Shadow back toward our original lookout point, hoping to find the others. The pace of the fighting has eased a little and to my relief, most of the protagonists are Farang’s minions venting their frustration on each other. But one last knot of frenzied activity holds out, near the far side of the meadow.
When I get closer I can see Marin and the others fighting seven bulky warriors in false army uniforms and to my relief I can sense that these are not adepts. There is no shiver of vicious power coming from them as I get closer. One huge figure stands a little apart, simply watching the fight as if waiting for the outcome before engaging an exhausted victor. He wears no livery over his jet-black mailshirt and helmet and the way he moves is different from all the other adepts.
Calculating, experienced, wary.
Shadow halts, staring at him. “That is the one they call Gron. I can feel his malice from here.”
The effect of Maratic has changed Nagal’s adept into something far more formidable than the desperate prisoner I killed in Corinium’s dungeons. One look at Shadow tells me he is in no shape to take on this monster––but at the same time, I know he is the only one of us with any chance of prevailing. He starts to walk toward the huge warrior.
“Shadow, wait!” I run to him and grab his arm.
He turns to look down at me. “Do you really think waiting will make any difference?”
There is something in the way he says it that tells me he is steeling himself for a fight to the death, hoping he can bring his enemy down with him. I am not going to let him do that if I can help it.
“Just wait…” I glance across to where Marin and the others have defeated their adversaries and are moving their focus to Gron.
Shadow guesses what I’m thinking. “No, Ariel. This fight will be fast and savage. Perhaps when the binding was strong between us we could have worked together, but now we would simply get in each other’s way. As will your exhausted Eldrin friends. Tell them to stay back.”
I see Alina break ranks with the distant archers and start to run toward us. Shadow sees her too and tries to move away before she can try to join him. We both know only too well that her skills are not right for this battle.
There is one last thing I can try. I lay my hands over the arrow wounds in his arm and give him every ounce of healing and power that I can muster, until my whole body is almost too weak to stay upright.
I feel Shadow gently pushing me away. I look up.
To my amazement, Marin and Deris have their hands on his arm now and by the time they are done, Alina has joined their gifting of life-force as well.
I watch Shadow walk away from us through the dark mist closing in around my eyes. If any survivors of Farang’s army attack now, we are all defenseless except for our Elemental ally as he engages in what may be his last battle. It seems unreal when Brac and Jantian lead the Eldrin archers into defensive positions around us, poised to make the last few arrows count.
Their weapons are only needed for the last few of Farang’s disguised soldiers who launch one last attack. Gron’s adepts have shown even more savagery than I expected and have wiped each other out with grim efficiency. What is claiming all of my attention though, is that Gron’s head lies in a pool of blood a few feet away from his body––and Shadow lies nearby on the stained ground. He doesn’t move.
I walk unsteadily over to him and kneel at his side.
It can’t be… not now, not after all we have been through?
I reach out to the deep stab wound in his chest, even though instinct tells me I have nothing left to give.
Brac is pulling me to my feet.
“Ariel. He needs t’ be back in Maratic. The only thing that can save him now.”
I watch in a daze as Brac hauls the unconscious Elemental onto Jantian’s horse and the Eldrin commander holds him as he rides back toward the lonely rock pinnacle gleaming gold and white in the sun at the head of the valley.
Marin pushes the reins of my horse into my hand.
“Hawk-message from Kashia. Farang is in Corinium, waiting for his victorious army to sweep all before them. Our orders are to protect Sarinder from whatever last desperate strike the traitor may make when he discovers his army is destroyed.”
I lean against the animal’s warm flank for support.
“When do we get to the part where we can actually rest and sleep?”
“Not yet, evidently.”
The first stage of the ride is a blur of exhaustion. It is all I can do to simply stay on the horse, the pounding gallop thundering in my head. We take fresh horses from Blackthorn and make it as far as Yarkfold to spend the remainder of the night. Marin returns from the stables with the news that there will be fresh mounts again tomorrow morning. Whether I have simply had time to recover, or whether it is the reassurance of finally having some space and quiet with Marin, but my head has cleared enough to be thinking coherently again.
“Marin, I know I was halfway to passing out after going a bit too far with that last healing for Shadow, but did I really see you and Deris risking your lives to give your old enemy enough life-force to defeat Gron? Not to mention Jantian of all people actually taking him back to Maratic? Is this the end of centuries of conflict against the Elementals?”
His brow furrows as he answers. “I wish. But it’s not that simple, Ariel. Jantian knows we need Shadow to defeat Farang’s deep-rooted plots. But Shadow also still has his own agenda. He wants power, and now he has more power in this country than ever before.”
“I think he is starting to see that a return to hostilities would leave him Lord of a ruined nation even if he was victorious.”
“Perhaps. It will be down to you and your sister to maintain this delicate balance for the foreseeable future. I think you two are the only ones he really listens to.”
“Alina has far more skill at persuasion than I do.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Let’s hope so.”
It doesn’t surprise me that Marin has noticed my lack of diplomatic skills. I don’t care. All I want is the sensuous comfort of lying close in his arms once more. The world and its dangers can wait while we lose ourselves in lovemaking and laughter.