A Shard of Faith

  Smashednose saw himself atop the battlements of Vannarbar. As men fought and stabbed and pushed and shoved and screamed and yelled and bled, Smashednose saw himself. He went still, a lone island in the raging sea of blood and shadow around him. He looked not a day older. There was the same cut across his forearm that had happened just days ago, the bruising on his jaw from a shield cracking against his face as he’d fought on the mound, the same tired eyes. The reflection, the spectre that looked like Einar Smashednose stared back. It was tired, weary. The sight of it made the warrior quiver. Haggard old Smashednose, barely holding on. Foolish, cowardly Smashednose thinks he can fight Larker. There was a deep purple bruise around the spectre’s neck. It was almost black, and it snaked high, close to the jaw. It was the mark of a noose on a dead man’s skin. Smashednose had seen it before, made it happen even.

  “Chief!” Borke’s rough hand shook Smashednose out of it. The man raised his shield, and the spectre’s dark blade cracked against it. He pressed forward, ducking beneath the shield and before Smashednose could think about it, he was helping push. They reached the parapet, sent the shadow over the other side. And Smashednose watched the thing that was him tumble over the edge, vanish into the darkness below. Made him feel cold, bloody cold.

  Smashednose kept fighting, kept hacking, kept yelling. But he wasn’t in it anymore. He let Borke and Silker give the orders, of which most men didn’t need. Fighting for your life is a simple enough command. His mind was on the shadow, the bruise around his neck. It was hard to tell if the other men had seen a similar thing. There was panic and fear among them already. A little more would hardly go amiss.

  ***

  In the cathedral, the shadow did not stop. It did not falter. It did not need for rest. And those, Miertaz thought, could have been its Oaths, if is capable of containing such thoughts. He swung heart beat by heartbeat, answering the awful, Thud, thud. Thud, thud that echoed in his ears. The priest’s shoulder burned. Each time he went to raise his dagger, it felt heavier than before. And the gashes of light he made across its surface lasted for but a moment before being woven together as if by the hands of some invisible surgeon.

  I feel no fear. I tell no lie. I harbour no evil thing. Miertaz mumbled these things weakly to himself as he stepped aside and left the shadow exposed for Dasha to cast her light. A glowing bolt streaked across the room, forcing the shadow back against the wall. Miertaz closed in again, hacking the shadow’s arms before it could summon power of its own, but it was a futile effort because the darkness grew back.

  “We can’t fight forever, Miertaz,” Dasha called in between ragged breaths. She hit the shadow with another blast of light and quelled the thing for a moment.

  “What do you propose?” Miertaz grunted. He took a moment to grit his teeth and pour more light into his sun-scorched dagger. The priest’s body flashed hot and feverish.

  “All power comes from somewhere,” she said. “We destroy the source.”

  “And what source would that be?”

  The shadow started coalescing, reforming.

  “I studied mathematics, not miracles,” Dasha said. “I’ll leave that to you.”

  “Saints preserve us.”

  The shadow shed its humanoid shape and streaked towards the priest in the form of dark ribbons that battered against his shield, and the fight began anew. It was a strange sort of combat. The priest knew that between him and the arcanist, they could resist the onslaught, diminish their opponent, but for how long? The power here had lasted for hundreds of years. It could outlast them tenfold. Dasha was right. They would find the source.

  As Miertaz stabbed his dagger of sun scorched glass into the shadow, he let the shadow and its dark ichor flow across his hand. He inhaled and let the scent of its power flow through his nostrils. As a priest of Light, Miertaz couldn’t summon power from the Scale of Darkness, even if it wasn’t heretical to do so, but the direct opposition of both powers made the priest keenly sensitive to Light's absence. The effect was almost the same as using darkness to seek the power out. Thud thud. Thud thud.

  He had heard it the whole of their long walk through the city, but only listened in brief intervals. Was a bad thing to focus on such power, maddening, enticing, dangerous, but what choice did he have now? Thud thud. Thud thud.

  It rang in his ears, echoed through his bones, gave the priest goosebumps as he felt out the cathedral. Broken pillars, shattered windows. A butchered hoard. The defiled altar. Dead knight. The sword. Thud thud. Thud thud. Thud thud thud thud thud thud.

  The heartbeat became the shuddering clash of steel, of blade against blade, of weapon against shield and armour. It became a sword against flesh and bone. It was the massacre of a hundred lives echoing like the drum of a damned man. It was both repulsive and intoxicating. I feel no fear. I tell no lie. I harbour no evil thing.

  Miertaz was brought back to normal awareness by a blow to his chest. He tried to restore his footing, but couldn’t. There was no ground beneath his feet. He was airborne. His trance had only lasted a few seconds, but he would pay for it now. A second blow hit Miertaz’s back and head like a bull as he crashed into a stone pillar. He lost his shield, and his glowing dagger of sun scorched glass skittered across the flagstones. Through hazy eyes, the priest saw the shadow approaching. Saw death.

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  Then a flash of blue light. A robed silhouette stood between him and the oncoming shadow. Dasha, the arcanist, holding the shadow back with one of her barriers.

  “I found it,” Miertaz said. His head was pounding as he staggered to his feet. “It’s the sword. The sword by the altar.”

  “Can you get to it?” Dasha grunted. Her hands were shaking, fingers spasming as she held the shadow back with her barrier. “I can’t buy you much time.”

  “I need to get my dagger,” Miertaz said. “But I can help you buy us a little more.” He put his hand on the arcanist’s shoulder. It was surprisingly hot to the touch, but like Miertaz, Dasha had been much of the Scale of Light. They would have to use it once more and suffer the cost.

  “I am going to give you as much Light as I can,” Miertaz said. “When that shield breaks, I want you to cast it along with anything else you have at the shadow. I’ll run for the sword. I need you to get my dagger and throw it to me. Stab me with it if you have to.”

  Dasha didn’t look at the priest, but she nodded in acknowledgement. “Gladly.”

  Miertaz poured as much Light as he had strength to summon into the arcanist. Raging, itchy heat broke out across his arms and legs. His skin began to glow, and a dizziness that he had not felt since his completion of the Leorian Trials swayed his body. The priest’s head was painfully hot as his blood felt like it was boiling. If the arcanist was feeling the same effects, he didn’t know, but her pale skin began to glow.

  “Ready,” she said.

  “Now.”

  The shadow roared forth like a wave when the barrier broke. It threatened to bury the priest and arcanist beneath its tides, but that wouldn’t be so. The arcanist’s hand shone brighter than a noonday sun as Light blessed of Leorian engulfed the cathedral's great hall. There was no shadow or darkness or sight, only a white blinding brightness and consuming heat. And when the Light faded, the shadow was gone.

  Dasha fell, both hands to the floor as she vomited. Miertaz held his hand fast over his eyes, wincing at the pain, at his burning blood. He wouldn’t let himself fall like the arcanist. He wouldn’t be able to get up again.

  The priest opened his eyes. The room was dark, almost pitch black after the blinding light. He couldn’t see much, but he could see his holy dagger glowing by the leg of a corpse, the blade by the altar, and its perfect, mirror finish, and he could see the shadow, reforming as it had so many times before.

  “Dasha.” Miertaz picked the arcanist off the floor. “Run.”

  And she did. They both did.

  Miertaz ran for the altar, almost tripping over the long-dead corpses, but catching himself on a pew and carrying on. He didn’t dare look behind himself. He didn’t want to see the shadow. He didn’t want to see if the arcanist was dead. Would rather have to take it on faith that she wasn’t.

  The sword seemed to be waiting for him when Miertaz arrived at the altar. That strange figure that was not Miertaz stared back at him in the reflection of its blade. Thud thud. Thud thud.

  Quickly now, Sister Ilas had said to the quorum as they filled into the chapel for one last time before their anointing. You are about to become priests. It would be a shame to start your ministry by being tardy. Now, before the Bishop arrives, recite the Prayers.

  Miertaz took up the sword. It was cold and heavy in his hand, the hilt almost soothing the rest of the heat raging in his body. Thud thud. Thud thud. He turned, looked out over the hall, over the congregation of the dead. He couldn’t see Dasha, or the dagger of sun scorched glass. There was just the shadow. The violent wave.

  The shadow came toward the priest, wrecking its way through the debris of the cathedral. Miertaz held the sword aloft, began the prayer of cleansing. The words were quick, stunted, the practised preacher gone and, in his place, a battered warrior with no time for ceremony. The shadow broke over the final line of pews, scattering the dead and pieces of wood alike. Just when it was upon him, a single star broke the night. Miertaz’s dagger flickered as it tumbled over the wave of shadow, the blade embedding in the altar’s table.

  Miertaz grabbed it and held it up with the sword of Vannarbar. He remembered the Bishop as he entered the chapel, the power of his light. He remembered the hallowed old man pouring holy water across the runes in their glass blades. The proud look on Sister Ilas’s face. He would put the Darkness to the test this day, and it would lose. But as the priest finished his prayer, he tried to pour all his Light into the dagger, and he had none.

  The torrent broke over the priest, and he was engulfed in shadow and cold and death… Death did not come. He felt like he was drowning in a storm, but the hilt of the sword of Vannarbar was a tether, stopping his life from being washed away. He was buffeted, knocked and shaken. His mind flickered in and out of his body. Dying men fought on battlements, lost souls scampered through the city, and halls were filled with long-forgotten dead. He was being dragged deeper. His grip was loosening. He had to complete the rite.

  Then Miertaz felt it, the cooling balm that seemed to flow from the sword. Thud. Thud. While the rest of his body was burning, too weak to survive, summoning more Light, his hand was cool and steady. It travelled down his arm, dulling the pain. He wanted to resist, but couldn’t bring himself to stop it. Darkness flowed from the sword and washed over the priest’s body. The burning agony was gone, and he was quenched like a hot blade. His strength returned. Thud, thud.

  He had the will to summon more Light now, and he did. The Light mixed with the Darkness, crackling and popping inside of him as the forces clashed with each other, eliminating themselves. It settled into a strange dusky power, both brilliantly hot and cold at once.

  Miertaz poured the Light into his dagger and finished the prayer. He hit the blade of Light and the blade of Darkness together, like one of the great bell ringers of old. At the clashing, the storm of shadow was torn apart, evaporating into shreds. He shone and his light washed over the cathedral and all of Vannarbar as Miertaz unleashed a roar of victory, and the Darkness was no more.

  Fenris Whiteeyes, the archer, felt it as he dragged Karlin Onearmed. He felt the cold wash away. He felt the darkness thin. He felt the ground shudder. He felt the cleansing of the dead city of Vannarbar. Borke and Silker and Smashednose and all his men felt it too. They felt the walls tremble. They saw the wind that washed away the shadows, and left them yelling and fighting nothing. And across the field, and over the bridge, and sitting warm and fat and horny, the red-bearded Larker and his arcanists felt it, as it made his goblet tremble.

  Twinkling pieces of blade tumbled to the ground before Miertaz. He expected them to be clean and polished, expected it to be the broken sword of Vannarbar, but they were jagged and cracked. They were the pieces of his hallowed dagger.

  All went silent in the cathedral, except the clanging of the sword of Vannarbar as it slipped from Meirtaz’s hand. He doubled over and went down on his hands and knees. His stomach squeezed. Blood and spittle and vomit erupted from his mouth. His whole body shook. Suddenly, he was a weakling, shaking in the moonlight that now poured in through the holes in the roof, as his vision went black…