One of his arms hung limp, and the other was unarmed, having lost grip of the blade during the tussle.
The Ravens Talons had abandoned him and remained sealed within their sheaths. All of his newly inherited skills now amounted to nothing. He could curse at the beast in the voices of any he could recollect, though he was helpless to defend himself or attempt to fight back.
Hanging upside down in the grip of the colossal beast of ice, the man who always worked alone never felt so lonely. Clenching the muscles of his core, he bent just as the jagged, icy blade slashed the air. He’d barely avoided being cleaved in two. However, the maneuver did nothing to stop the serrated blade as it caught in the cape of his cloak and tugged himdownward as it passed.
The sudden pull wrenched him violently, and Risens screamed aloud as he felt a tear on his right side. Flesh ripped. Ribs broke. Blood poured from the deep incision. Inverted, hanging by his feet, the crimson ran across his face and dripped from his head to the floor below. His eyes, unfocused by the pain, stared up at the head of the icy beast that would be his demise. The irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d been saved from the grip of the frozen avalanche only to now die at the hands of its frozen creation. He wanted to curse at the abomination in frustration, to scream at it to end his misery, though he wasn’t willing to give in. Far overhead, circling in the clear blue gap in the crevice, a pair of tiny birds circled.
The dead eyes of the assassins who’d failed to kill him, who’d failed the King in not bringing about his end, were rejoicing in his destruction. As in life, he refused to allow them to succeed in death. He refused to give in, regardless of how hopeless or pointless the resistance was.
Risens, a bastard, one cursed never to receive a Brand, had been granted the powers of those which had been deemed forbidden. He had now gained more than any he’d heard of for a reason—albeit one that he was unprivvy to.
He couldn’t care less about the supposed effort that the ominous voice said had been spent on him. He cursed the similar words that had flowed from Fendri’s mouth as he set him on the quest that was to see to his death. The costs of his training and his Branding were his to bear and no one else’s.
Something wouldn’t stop nagging his mind, even in the face of certain death. Every test he’d accomplished had been directly correlated to the skill provided by a new Brand. He’d just received one, though the understanding of what its purpose was had been lost in confusion and pain.
The Raven.
It was the key to everything. The one thing that bound all of this together.
The minute circling shapes of the birds resolved into focus. They were silhouettes he would recognize anywhere. The ravens above were not there as merely spectators to the tragedy that was to befall him. How the connection blossomed in his addled mind was uncertain, yet he knew intrinsically that there was far more they had to offer.
Perhaps the Voice of the Raven hadn’t succeeded in stopping the beast, but he wasn’t out of tricks.
Straining to hold his head forward, he called out to the birds high above. The sounds that issued from his mouth resonatedthrough his entire form. They were a foreign, inhuman cackle, yet he understood the message clearly.
It was a call for help.
A plea for assistance.
It was only seconds before an answer floated down from above. The echoing call bounced off the stone walls, giving pause to the attack that was meant to end his life. Without warning, the beast released his hold on Risens’ legs, sending him crashing to the ground. There was no controlling his descent, no rolling to diffuse the weight of the impact. Tears formed in his eyes as he crashed down on his limp arm, landing on it at an impossible angle.
As if he no longer existed, the monstrosity had diverted its entire attention to above. Risens struggled to lever his body off the ground. His left arm was crooked and entirely useless. A deep gash poured blood from his side, and the shattered ribs made taking anything more than shallow breaths excruciating. Hanging upside down, the blood had soaked his upper body. Now it reversed course, oozing over his stomach and legs.
The pair of ravens screamed as they dove at the avalanche beast. Lithe enough to slip through the icy claws and nimble enough to avoid the wild slashes of the jagged blade, they went directly for the vulnerable portion of the beast with far more success than he had.
With precision, accuracy, and timing, they harried the monster in an impressive show of coordination and ferocity. One, using its beak, pecked brutally at the eyeholes of the creature before darting away. The other took its place, swooping in to strike again.
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In only a matter of moments, the abomination of ice and stone was blinded. The monster surely had no blood of its own; streaks of crimson leaked down over the ice, streaming from the disfigured faces of the assassins sent to kill him.
Where the blood drained over the ice, the effects were as immediate as they were dramatic. A violent hiss of steam filled the area. Like a pot left over a growing flame, it increased as the crimson spread.
Risens hobbled back a few steps as the beast fell to its hands and knees. The blade appendage snapped off as the force of its weight was too much for the makeshift structure of its arms to bear.
As it pressed down, the arms failed, splattering out like a rock dropped onto a pile of slush. The imposing figure that had nearly sealed his fate went limp, the snow melting into water and then steaming away before his eyes. In what seemed like only a matter of breaths since he’d been flung to the tiles, the deadly creature was reduced to nothing more than loose bits of flotsam, chunks of stone, and human remains that had been caught up in the avalanche.
With the monster defeated, Risens’ concern shifted to the next deadly implication. His clothing and much of his flesh werein tatters. His excess gear and supplies had been lost to the crashing ice. With his working arm, he patted at his breast pocket, relieved to feel the familiar weight and outline of the compact Raven’s Guide that he carried on his person. His pocket that usually carried a vial of Tandy’s healing salve had been torn open, its life-saving contents lost somewhere in the snow and ice.
With only one working arm, there was little he could do to cut the fabric of his tattered cloak and tie a section around hismidsection to staunch the flow of blood. He winced, merely resorting to pressing his right forearm against the wound as hard as possible. It was a pathetic effort, yet it was his only option at the moment.
The call of the ravens refocused his addled mind. The pair that had come to his aid circled a few meters above his head. One broke from the pair, flapping rapidly toward the narrowing end of the ravine. He felt the talons of the other as it gripped onto his right shoulder. It offered a few beats of its wings, a seemingly trivial action, yet Risens’ feet moved as if propelled by the force of its action.
The grip was startlingly familiar, though this time seemed more gentle than the memory seared into his mind.
It was unmistakable.
It had been talons of ravens that had gripped his shoulders and arms when the avalanche had pulled him from the pass. It was they who had brought him here. That they were leading him again, he was certain. His feet stumbled as they moved through the quickly drying stain where the monster had melted. The pressure on his shoulder increased as if the single bird was holding him aloft. The angry hissing of the ice turning to steam had all but ceased. Small tendrils of steam still curled away in places as he passed.
He’d only made it a few steps when the second raven rejoined the first. The sting of its talons on his shoulder was dizzying. The intensity of the agony that lanced through him nearly cost him his footing as it latched onto his opposite, injured arm. Like its partner at his opposite side, it flapped its wings a few times, dramatically lightening the load on his wavering steps.
Risens’ world grew cold as he was ushered along the tiles with the assistance of his avian companions. The farther they pushed, the less weight his feet could bear, yet still, they were determined to rescue him.
His vision was blurred, and pain had overwhelmed his senses by the time they reached the unpaved, charred, stone circle at the center of the ravine’s end. They gently lowered him into the middle of the blackened mark before hopping from his shoulders to the ring bordering the curiously unpaved section. With what looked like a bow, both dipped their bodies, theirlong beaks nearly touching the floor. Then, with a final call, each pumped its wings, circling as they climbed into the heights above.
Deposited in his knees, Risens could do nothing but focus on his shallow breaths while struggling to keep pressure on the gaping wound across his side. He was failing miserably at both. A wave of nausea rolled through him. Bending at the waist, he toppled forward. With one arm limp and useless and the other straining to staunch the flow of blood from his side, there was nothing to prevent him from sprawling out in the center of the burned stone.
With his right arm pinned under him and his left lying crooked and inert at his side, the pool of blood quickly spread out around him. He cursed his foolishness that had led him to this point. He never should have stopped to deal with the assassins that hunted him. Perhaps then it would have been they alone who perished in the avalanche. As quickly as the thought flashed into his mind, he wrote it off. He was meant to be here. He was meant to obtain the skills, the next Brand.
Though one thing haunted him. Had failed the test?
Would he die here, alone in a forgotten, hidden corner of the mountains?
You are alone no longer, fledgling. This has ever been a test of desperation. Always too soon. This is never more true than it is this day. You have survived and may now count yourself among the lucky. Your blood is now conjoined on this hallowed ground.
“Hallowed ground?” Risens knew he had spoken, but the words came out as a whisper.
The thundering voice reverberated through him, shaking every fiber as it passed. An unexpected weight had pinned him down as the words boomed in his ears. Through the fog of haze, at the farthest corner of his vision, a shape moved—nothing more than a shadow blotting out the light above, but one he fervently sought to witness.
He had no strength left. No resolve. The muscles in his arms had failed him. Even his neck refused to respond to his calls to rise.
One thing had changed. The chill had broken. Like rays of the sun clearing the mists of the morning, warmth showered him. Where the heat passed, the throbbing irritation from the fall ebbed. The wicked gash spilling his lifeblood burned a familiar burn. It felt like the healing salve.
With all his effort, he peered down. The wound had stitched itself together as if sewn by the hands of a master healer.
His breaths came again in deep gulps as his ribs mended. From where he lay awkwardly on his face, he could see his arm twist and pop as it set itself back into place. In the absence of pain, the confusion that had muddled his senses faded.
The shadow disappeared from the corner of his vision the moment he jolted himself upright.