New Grudges

  “Who’s there?” The arcanist whimpered.

  There was something in her eyes, something dark. She clawed at it with one hand. Her other hand crackled with magic. “Who’s there?” A burst of aquiline light shone from her fingers. It was harmless against Fenris’s hand, shading his face.

  Whiteeyes stalked forward. He wasn’t smiling, not this time. This was no hunt well earned. It was little more than a mercy killing, but it was either now, or on the battlefield. He’d sworn he’d have her blood, and Fenris Whiteeyes was a man of his word.

  “Steady.” It was Miertaz, of course. His gauntlet clamped on Fernis’s shoulder. “Not now, we could use an arcanist. Come morning, you can have each other’s blood, but for now, stay your blade.”

  Fenris could feel the warmth from Miertaz’s hand. He could hear the smooth notes that spun from the priest’s silver tongue. For a moment, there was calm, peace, then he remembered the screaming men covered in flames. He’d have her blood tonight.

  “What do you think, Karlin?” Fenris asked. “Death or no?”

  “Aye,” the big man grunted, pocketing his ward and gripping his axe. It was decided then.

  But Fenris couldn’t take another step. His feet were millstones, his legs slumping bags of grain. One of Meirtaz’s prayers, no doubt, a curse even. “Smashednose put you under my command. The arcanist stays----…”

  Bloody holy man. Fenris cracked the hilt of his sword against the priest’s head. The man howled, staggered back. Fenris’s feet were light again, and he shoved a boot into Miertaz’s chest, sending him arse over heels. Then, they rounded on the sorcerer. She was done with her whimpering now. She’d backed up, and her hands glowed again with some strange manipulation of the Balance.

  “Don’t come any closer!” But she was still squinting through the black murk that covered her eyes. There were two of them, and even then, she wouldn’t hit one.

  Fenris Whiteeyes advanced, blade dripping with rain. He clenched his jaw, steadied his breathing, and the world narrowed. Miertaz was wheezing something, “Karlin, Karlin… Fenris!” But there was only the woman. The sodding wet, blinded, whimpering arcanist. He swung, sword cracking against the air surrounding her. A spell of some kind, little bits of it began falling from the air like broken glass where it met his blade. She trembled, arms shuddering like she’d been holding up a shield.

  “Fenris!” It was Miertaz again, but the warrior could only see the arcanist, only hear her whimpering. It was like the rest of his vision was dark, a tunnel, and only the arcanist existed in its centre. Fenris swung again. The air around the mage shattered like a dropped vase. She fell to the earth, collapsing in a puddle. He’d make sure that she stayed there. Light again glowed from her fingers, but his boot came first, and the light flickered away as her breath was forced from her chest. He raised his sword.

  White heat flashed through Fenris’s shoulder, then through the rest of him. It didn’t hurt, but it was like being plunged into a river at the end of winter, every inch of skin, every limb suddenly alive and burning.

  “Whiteeyes!” The priest’s voice filled his head now, echoed between his ears. Miertaz was by his side, and Karlin was nowhere to be seen. The priest’s hand was outstretched, glowing brighter than a torch. Fenris had lowered his blade, hadn’t noticed when, but all around them, there was an ocean of darkness crashing against the light from Miertaz’s hand like they were the walls of Highvale during a siege. His mind was his again, and he had awoken from a dream to enter a nightmare.

  Miertaz was praying, muttering something under his breath, words Fenris couldn’t make out, couldn’t understand. The darkness roared around them, but there was a sound, a wailing coming from a star-like spec of light in the midnight ocean.

  “Karlin,” Fenris breathed. The hate in his belly was doused in an instant. His bloodlust against the arcanist was replaced by cold dread.

  While Fenris had been distracted, controlled by something pushing on his own emotions, though he didn’t dare think on it, the darkness had come upon them. It was the army on the other side of the hill that he had worried about, and it was surrounding them.

  He looked at the priest, still praying. Meirtaz’s face was old, lips dropping as he spoke. His arm was so heavy it was shaking, gauntleted fingers rattling together. He shook his head at Fenris, slowly, some great weight pressing down on him. “Stay,” he said.

  But no… Miertaz wasn’t the commander, and Smashednose wasn’t there. Old man be damned. Good luck, holy man. Fenris Whiteeyes let his torch drop to the ground. He pulled the Miertaz’s glowing ward out of his pouch, clenched it tight, clenched his sword tight too, then plunged into the blackness.

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  It thrashed around him like a storm at sea. It roared like men in battle, slaying and being slain. It weighed on his shoulders like a battering ram. And it was cold, bloody cold. He went numb, right down to the bone where it ached in his marrow. Numb feet pounded the hidden stones beneath them. Numb hands clutched his weapons. Numb lips yelled for Karlin.

  Could still see Miertaz behind him, and the arcanist on the ground, but it was like a signal fire in the mist, and with each step they faded until Miertaz was just one more star in the night.

  Fenris found Karlin. His ward was clutched in the hand of his shield arm. His matted hair and beard were slick with sweat. The big man roared, took a swing at the dark, then another. He nearly took Fenris’s head off. Fenris got his blade up on the third, stopping Karlin’s axe before the swing.

  “It’s me!”

  Karlin’s eyes were wide, shaking. “I’ve seen him, Fenris.”

  Then a blade cut through the golden light of their wards. It tore through Karlin’s shield, Karlin’s arm, bone and flesh and wood ripping apart in one grewsome moment. The world slowed down as the broken shield and severed forearm dropped to the ground, the ward clutched in Karlin’s severed hand spattered in blood. He howled. Fenris lurched back as the dark blade rose for a second strike. Its wielder was unseen in the darkness.

  Fenris’s gut dropped. He pissed himself. He lashed out with his sword, yelled, angry and desperate. Been close to death before, had Fenris Whiteeyes. More than once, he thought he’d caught it good. Hell, Karlin had nearly done him in. But this was more than death, it was the promise of a felling so final that not even an afterlife awaited him. His blade struck something. A brief golden cut was illuminated by his blessed sword. The dark blade quivered. There was a growl from the darkness, and then the blade plunged down.

  Fenris spun away, knocking into Karlin. They hit the ground together, sprawling in a mixture of dirt and blood and rainwater cold as ice. He’d lost his sword, lost the ward. It had gone dark. Whiteeyes scrambled forward, ripped the ward from Karlin’s severed hand, then found his sword in a puddle. He looked up. A wave of light crashed against the foe before him. The priest’s work? It illuminated a ten-foot-tall shadow of jagged armour holding a blade ready to come crashing down, now writhing in the light.

  Fenris leapt to his feet, took Karlin by the scruff of his shirt and dragged the man up. “Come on!” he roared. The light had faded now, and the darkness whipped around them. Couldn’t see Miertaz, neither. So, he hauled Karlin to his feet, and they stumbled away, running as fast as Karlin could manage. Fenris didn’t know where they were headed, but he ran all the same, all the while the only warmth he felt was coming from the ward he held, and Karlin’s blood as it drooled out the stump of his arm.

  ***

  Brother Miertaz let his ward drop and cast his Light into the darkness. It was a foolish thing to do. He could hear Ilas in the back of his head. The wicked are saved easier than the foolish, and if they’re both, they’ll put themselves down before you have to. But he’d done it anyway, given the two wicked fools an extra few seconds, didn’t quite understand why.

  As the last of it trickled out of his fingertip, he felt weak, sick. Bile fled into his mouth with a wave of nausea, overcame only by the sudden heat that flared across his body as the Scale of the Balance that he tilted, affected him in return. It was a feverish sensation.

  The Light found its mark and burst. For a second, he saw the creature, a towering pitch-black figure shrieking in the glow of his Light. A great sword slipped from its claws, and it took a knee, howling. He could feel the power emanating from the cathedral stagger, almost wince. Then the darkness, the cold, rushed in. The air became a thick black haze barely penetrated by the light of their fallen torches. There was a scraping sound, a groan.

  “What’s going on?” The arcanist hissed. She grabbed at his leg, pulled herself out of the water. She was shivering.

  Miertaz cast his light at the black knight a second time. It was weaker now, feeble, little more than a candle flame. It splashed against their enemy, outlining it as a vicious hand raked the hilt of its sword from off the ground. It began to rise. He could feel the darkness throbbing, pulsating, pressing against his head. It wanted to crush him, grind what little was left of him to sand. He would die here, tonight. He could feel it.

  He focused his Light, pooled as much as he had strength to summon in the palm of his hand and put his sword in its scabbard, drawing in its place a crystalline dagger of sun-scorched glass. These would be his weapons.

  They’d learned tales like this in the Seminary, of Sister Taneller ringing the bell of St Alfaerd until it slipped from her lifeless fingers, of Friar Boregon at the bridge Dunkirnum, holding the line against the hounds of night, of noble Thadious changing the tomb one last time… Somehow someone always survived to tell the story, but they never mentioned the mud, and sweat and grime, or the piss as it runs down your leg. Miertaz sighed, might as well be one survivor then.

  “Please,” the arcanist begged, “what’s going…”

  Miertaz pressed his hand over her eyes, burning away the darkness that blinded her, leaving him with little more than a spark. She was scared, black stands of hair plastered to her face, coated in a mixture of dirt and blood, a nasty cut across the forehead, oozing. She didn’t look like much of a storyteller, but mercy is its own virtue. Miertaz had been told so, so many times before.

  “Run if you can find a way out of here, far away from here.” He was tired, and it was hardly a command or a silver-tonged entreaty. It was barely even a suggestion. He turned, raised his shield against the darkness. “It’s all the same to me,” he muttered, “I couldn’t give a damn about this fucking war.”

  As the black knight drew nearer, he wondered what Sister Ilas would think. Would she tell the tale of the Ruins of Vannarbar, the raging battle, the vicious mercenaries, the damsel in distress, the ill-prepared priest? Miertaz supposed not. He’d be lucky to have his name on the Wall of Remembrance.