XIX

  Sky Burial

  A drizzle of rain fell. The boy lifted his cup and motioned to an empty seat on the other side of the table. His voice echoed across the entire army, clear despite the distance and thunder. “Aurille Everfrost of the Snow Moon Divine Sect, in an effort to avoid wanton bloodshed, I invite you to a cup of tea. Let us barter like civilised people.”

  The conversation that followed wasn’t one the rest of us were privy to. But we all had our eyes glued to the table.

  “That is Vyke the Vile,” Duke whispered. Even his perpetual smile had vanished. “He shouldn’t be here.”

  Well, he was here now. Despite what I thought before, Vyke wasn’t alone. Behind the masts of impaled disciples, cultists crawled like worms. They wore deep black robes engraved with a single eye whose rims dripped with blood. A woman, a veil of black marbles covering her face, stood out from them, though I couldn’t identify her from this range.

  Kicking winds failed to move a single strand of Aurille’s hair. She was like a sculpture, a piece of quartz carefully cut out over centuries. Her head shook after something Vyke said and the man chuckled.

  ‘What’s making him so confident?’

  The cultists couldn’t number more than sixty, which wasn’t even half our force. It made sense too. We weren’t the sole group of disciples entering the mountain. Others would have come in from the west and north, so the cultists would need to spread out if they wanted to catch the most disciples. Stationing their entire cult near the south on a gamble that we’d come here? Unlikely.

  ‘Unless they knew we were coming…’

  Aurille left the negotiation table and approached the vanguard, where she spoke in hushed whispers with Garen. The boy turned our way, his gaze falling on Judith for an instant.

  Their discourse broke, then Aurille regarded the entire army. “He wanted me to hand over a fifth of our force. That is a proposition I cannot accept. Prepare for battle.”

  The words settled on our shoulders. Disciples shuffled in place underneath the weight and whispered amongst each other.

  “Why don’t we just hand over those below level 8?” someone asked after a while.

  “…they won’t survive this anyway,” another went.

  “Yeah!”

  Shouts rippled through the force. Multiple holes burned their way into the robes of Judith and I.

  “We are not sacrificing anyone.” Aurille’s voice was colder than the blizzard ravaging the lands. “Not only is it immoral, who is to say they will uphold their bargain? Reducing our force by a fifth will only make us easier prey.”

  That killed discussions around who to discard. Then, with nothing else to talk about, our armies squared off.

  On one end, a mass of black. The other, a rainbow of colours.

  A stray bolt of thunder made the air shiver. Rain clattered on my face. Red Fang’s sheathe dug into my palm. The world became a haze. Was this how the woman had felt facing down that army of charging beasts?

  …No. It couldn’t be exactly right. She stood at the helm. In this conflict, I was but a chess piece. A minor player not worth inviting to the table.

  I couldn’t tell who launched the first technique, but the beam of light hurled forwards and incinerated one of the cultists.

  Arts bloomed and lit up the dreary sky. Waves of light, bolts of thunder enhanced by the environment, columns of flame and barrages of ice. There was no order or rhythm to it. Everything fired all at once.

  Earthen barriers shot from the ground at the front. Garen and Ray had pulled back from the front to join Judith and I. Ray didn’t have a barrier technique, but Garen’s aura flared, and a shield with the crest in the form of a sword appeared in the air, wholly shaped from light. The clash of techniques rocked my ears. But I kept my eyes peeled.

  My hand shot out. The chick dove and raked its talons across a cultist’s throat. I sent it up just as others turned to save their comrade.

  ‘I’ve got to keep it weaving in and out.’

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  Beside me, Saber’s muscles rippled, the summon ready to prove itself in battle. I kept it where it was, for he and Ashwing were my sole contingencies.

  ‘But I may not need them.’

  Aurille stood on a platform of frost in the middle of the air. Near a dozen spikes formed beside her head—of the same kind David had shot at the drake, only twice as big and sharp. They launched into the cultists. Half killed their mark upon impact.

  The cultists fired back, but every spell they slung broke on her frost barrier. One of their members shouted something at Vyke.

  Metal-black wings pounded the air. The boy known as the Vile was covered head-to-toe in dark plate. Though the armour was thick, it wasn’t bulky and seemed an extension of his skin. Moreover, despite the beating of his wings, he appeared stationary. Like a leaf drifting on a breeze.

  A shadow darted by him faster than I could follow. The ground behind me quaked, lifting my feet off the floor. Saber rushed forward. Flames whirled within him, the tiger becoming a blur darting across the field. The veiled woman was still crouching when the beast’s claw slammed into her.

  She whirled, caught the hit on her arm, and flung the tiger to the side. Tears in her robe revealed a bracer hidden underneath.

  Though ineffective, Saber’s attack bought the shocked disciples the space they needed to put distance between themselves and the enemy.

  The woman pulled a two-handed morning star from her shoulders and bowed at the hip. “Aedan Bloodletter.” Her voice was smooth and gentle. “It’s my great pleasure to induct you into the Faith.”

  Saber landed and loosed with the speed of an arrow. Aedan pirouetted, letting him shoot past her. With the same momentum, she slammed her morning star into the ground. Spikes flew from the stubs on her weapon like darts and impaled those that were too slow.

  I was almost one of them but Garen’s shield snapped shut around us. I used the moment to search for Saber. Multiple of the darts were wedged into his flank. But he was fine.

  “Huh,” Aedan hummed. “It doesn’t have a soul? I could’ve sworn…” she ducked underneath a blade of light and leapt over a disciple’s lightning bolt.

  Wails rose around us. The disciple’s who’d been hit, even if superficially, dropped to their knees. Blood poured out of their eyes as if their bodies refuted their own ichor like a curse. Their mouths opened wide, their screams worsening, until a red haze bubbled out of their throat. It rose like flour until it was the size of a man, then pulled into the air, where it floated listlessly—

  A sharp current drew them towards the front of the battle, where Vyke still hovered, his hand stretched out. The red balls gathered in his palm and became a mass of writhing things.

  Aedan held her hand out in front of her. “Please take them, Vyke, so peace may be upon them.”

  Behind the boy, a shape reminiscent of a moon shimmered.

  “Was that…” Judith mouthed.

  My hands blurred. The clash of Saber’s claw with the morning star shook Judith from her stupor. Saber was fast. Faster than I could keep up with, so my motions lagged behind him.

  Spells barrelled into the ground around us, some cultists managing to make their way through the frontline because of the disruption Aedan caused.

  I called a chick into the battle with a swipe. I didn’t control it, could not, lest Saber became a sitting duck. But it joined the fight.

  My two beasts whipped around Aedan like a whirlwind. Red and orange darted over and under each other, the chick’s attacks beginning where Saber’s ended.

  But as the seconds passed, more blows were sailing wide; she was getting used to their rhythm.

  ‘Rhythm…’

  Duke’s tune lightened my limbs. I grabbed hold of the chick’s energy. The chick’s momentum ramped up. Its talons cut across the veil and took most of the ornament with them. A spray of blood followed in her wake.

  The smiling face underneath was pale. Too pale to be human—

  Aedan kicked off with so much force the ground burst.

  ‘Shit!’ I couldn’t dodge this—

  Garen screamed. His claymore slammed into the morning star. The big man threw her back.

  Judith had kept quiet during my flurry. Light spun over her staff. It was so sharp looking at it cut me. Yet it kept building. Until it could build no more.

  The column of light sliced a razor-thin path through the world. Aedan was still off-balance from Garen’s throw so was forced to take it head-on. There was but a flash. The beam passed over and through her, painting a line from the top of her skull to her privates.

  Aedan split in two.

  Judith fell to her knees. “You’re not…getting more out of me.”

  Relief tried to flood me as well, but I didn’t let it. Aedan’s spirit yet lingered in the air.

  Robes and flesh turned into blood and pooled on the ground. The puddle rippled as a head pushed its way through. What followed it was a bulbous mess vaguely reminiscent of a human silhouette. There was a pop, then Aedan was back, her clothes, veil, and everything else back in place.

  Aedan sighed audibly. “I told you to stop being so quick with jumping in.”

  I recalled Saber and the chick. They’d tried, so it was time for the bigger player.

  The woman’s head tilted at my portal. “You…what god do you serve?”

  “None.”

  She chuckled. “Secretive, are we?”

  The ground shuddered and an explosion of blinding light raced towards us from the side. Screams were hot on its heels.

  Dull scales trembled in the aftershock.

  “They’re finally here,” Aedan rested her morning star on her shoulder.

  I stilled my hammering heart.

  A drake carved through the sparse melee line we’d placed at our back. The gout of flame swallowed disciples whole. Seeing this, a flanking cultist near the drake cheered.

  The drake’s gaze narrowed.

  Rough laughter poured forth from behind it. A half-human, half-lizard creature leapt and landed in the circle of disciples that had formed around us. She wore a flimsy robe of golden silk, which revealed the scales hiding underneath her attire.

  Her slit eyes regarded the surroundings. “Huh. Didn’t expect you to do this well.”

  “You’re late, Erri,” Aedan said. “What took you so long?”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation, Bloodletter. And that’s Lady Erri for you. Did dying make you forget your manners?”

  Aedan scoffed.

  Erri turned towards us. Ashwing hovered at my side, her energy ready to explode at a moment’s notice. But the drake woman was powerful—a matter her hidden level couldn’t conceal.

  “We need to retreat towards Aurille,” Judith whispered.

  With the Dragonflight in our rear, our formation would collapse. Already, the disciples at the edges of our formation were fleeing the scene instead of fighting to regroup. From the drakes splitting off to chase them, they wouldn’t get far.

  We stepped back as one.

  The haze of heat bursting from Erri’s skin clashed with the air, forming dense clouds of steam. Fires rose and snaked around her like liquid tendrils.

  Reptilian teeth flashed.

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