Rogger returned to Tylar’s side and hauled him to his feet. His left side still burnt, but he found enough strength to stand and stumble alongside him.
“Now!” Tylar said. “Before they regroup.”
Obeying the desire in his heart, the naethryn drove through the door ahead of them, clearing a path. They followed, encircled by flames. But the legion appeared in full rout.
As they fled, his beast lunged out into the shadows and yanked something squirming in its jaws, like a waterstrider spearing a fish. The naethryn shook its catch and tossed it far down a side hall with a flip of its snaking neck. A keening scream marked its flight.
Tylar glanced to Rogger. “You saved us back there.”
“Actually, you did.”
Tylar frowned at the thief.
“Those were repostilaries of your own saliva. Delia gave them to me before we headed down. Thought we might be able to use them.”
“Why-?” Then Tylar understood. Each humour had its own effect on Grace. Saliva weakened an aspect.
“Wasn’t sure it would work against Dark Grace, but apparently Grace is Grace. Figured it might dull him, knock his legs out from him.”
It certainly had. If Perryl had finished his blow…followed through with Naethryn’s Folly…
Tylar rubbed the fiery slash across his ribs.
Before they knew it, they had reached the stairs.
Tylar reversed their roles. “Burn a path up!” he ordered the others.
He followed behind, leaning on Rogger. Below, the naethryn filled the lower stairs. It nabbed another shape out of the shadows and flung it back down the stairs.
Still, Tylar knew it hadn’t been Perryl. He could almost sense the ghawl’s malevolent attention, a burning hatred. Was there anything of his former friend left in that husk?
Round and round, they climbed up toward the warmth and flames above. Light again bathed around them.
A shout rose ahead. It came from the Oldenbrook captain. “They’re closing the gate!”
Krevan bellowed. “Wait! We’re coming!”
Tylar limped around a turn of the spiral. He watched the flaming eye of the gateway slowly winking shut.
They all began to shout.
The lowering eyelid stopped. They hurried forward, but Rogger slowed Tylar’s step.
“Perhaps you’d best rein in your dog first. Not the time to be piling out of the cellars tethered to a smoking daemon.”
Tylar nodded. He patted his cloak.
“Here,” Rogger said and passed him one of his daggers.
Tylar took it, sliced his palm, and allowed the blood to well. It was the only way to recall the naethryn once it had been set free. With his own blood. He reached the red palm to the smoky link between him and the naethryn.
It knew his intent and glanced back. Fiery eyes met his. Then Tylar’s bloody fingers closed on the tether of Gloom. With his touch, a fine scintillation washed out, cascading over the naethryn, erasing features-then all collapsed back toward him.
Tylar braced for the mule-kick of its impact. Still, it struck with more force than he had expected. This was the second time in one night he had summoned the beast. He prayed it would be the last. He welcomed the return of his hale form. After a year, what had once felt familiar-his broken body-now felt foreign, like the life of another man.
And that troubled him.
The hobbled form was his true form. What he wore the rest of the year had been the illusion, born of Grace to hold the naethryn. Releasing the beast only reminded him of the truth.
It was foolish to forget it.
The force struck his chest and knocked him back a full step. His arms cartwheeled and his legs tripped on the stairs. He stumbled to keep upright-and with limbs now straight and hale again, he succeeded, leaning one palm against the wall to stead himself.
As he lowered his arm, a twinge of pain flashed in his hand. He lifted it before his face. The smallest finger remained bent at a crooked angle. He had snapped the digit to free the demon. Always in the past, once he returned the naethryn to its roost, all would heal.
He stared at his palm. As usual, even the cut had vanished, as though it had never happened.
Rogger noted the broken finger. “That’s troubling…”
Tylar lowered his arm. He’d worry about it later. The others had already cleared the gateway.
“Tylar?” a voice called. Kathryn stood framed by the fires. “Is everything all right?”
He climbed back up into the warmth and brightness. Still, as his hand throbbed, he feared he carried a part of the darkness out with him.
Ducking under the half-lowered gate, he joined Kathryn.
“Lock it down,” he ordered.
The knights again wheeled the massive wyrmwood barrier into place. The heat of the hall, flames all around, should have warmed him. But they didn’t. It was not over.
A shout erupted down the hall.
All eyes swung to a pair of knights guarding the far gate, the one that led to the outer bailey of Stormwatch tower.
Even from here, Tylar noted ice and frost sweeping across the inner surface of the gate. Timbers cracked with echoing pops.
The two knights on guard at the gate retreated-but not fast enough.
The entire barrier blew away in an explosion of frozen wood and brittled iron. An ice fog rolled into the hall. Torches on either side of the hallway flickered, then died.
Through the fog, a shape formed, stepping out atop a sheen of ice that flooded across the stone. She stopped and stood naked to the world, rimed in frost.
A lost ally returned.
Tylar stared in horror. “Eylan…”
A WRAITH IN THE WIND
“Calla,”Krevan ordered, “Keep the boy safe!”
Still addled, Brant allowed himself to be shoved toward the stairs as the icy apparition stood within the fractured gate. The jostled climb up out of the cellars had revived Brant enough to stand on his own-though his legs remained numb, and there remained a hole in his memory. He remembered nothing beyond the old woman with the skull.
What had happened?
Calla, the ash-faced woman, took Brant’s shoulder and guided him toward the stairs. He climbed dully, trailed by Sten. The others remained below with the warden and a clutch of knights. Orders were shouted. Brant searched the milling group below, then the stairs above. Someone was conspicuously missing.
Where was the giant Dralmarfillneer? As huge as his name, his massive form should be easy to pick out.
Brant stopped midway toward the landing.
“Keep moving,” Calla ordered, giving him a slight shove.
Brant twisted away and stumbled down a step.
He bumped into Sten. “Where’s Dral?”
The captain mumbled, shared a glance with his gray-cloaked escort, then shook his head. He scooted past Brant, anxious to climb higher.
