Fatal Revenant

With Law and Earthpower and repudiation, she lit a deflagration in the Fall’s heart and watched while the tumult of sundered instants swallowed itself whole. Like the scoria of Kastenessen’s rage, the migraine tornado appeared to consume its own substance. Moments before the caesure caught the heels of the Harrow’s mount, the fabric of time was rewoven; restored where it had been rent.

Briefly Esmer’s storm became a stentorian wail of frustration and dismay. Then it started to fray as though intangible winds were pulling it apart. Swirling like the Fall, lightning and thunder dissipated, drifting away toward all of the horizons simultaneously.

The Harrow hauled at his horse’s reins; stopped short of a collision with Linden. At the same time, Esmer stepped out of the air behind the Insequent. Gales seething in his eyes, Cail’s son strode forward as if he meant to assail the Harrow as he had once attacked Stave.

In Esmer’s presence, Linden’s viscera squirmed with an almost metaphysical nausea. But she ignored the sensation. Turning her back on both men, she looked for her friends.

Fifteen or twenty paces away, in the middle of the caesure’s wide gall, Stave stood on the pane of slate, holding Anele upright and unconscious against his chest. On his knees near them, Liand cupped his quenched Sunstone in one hand and gazed at it in wonder, studying it as if he were amazed that the flesh had not been scalded from his fingers.

In the distance beyond them, the Masters and the Ramen continued herding the villagers into motion, a pitiful few on horseback, the rest walking. Frightened and distraught, men, women, and children trudged away from the wreckage of First Woodhelven in the general direction of Lord’s Keep. As a group, they radiated numbness and misery that ran too deep for utterance.

She could not help them: not with Esmer advancing on the Harrow behind her. In another moment, they might begin to lash at each other-or at her-with forces as lethal as the Fall’s.

Gritting her teeth, she returned her attention to Liand, Stave, and Anele.

When she had assured herself that Liand and Stave were unharmed, and that Anele was only asleep, apparently exhausted by mere moments of possession and imposed sanity, she asked unsteadily. “How did you do that? Why aren’t you hurt?”

Liand still stared at his hand and the Sunstone as though they astonished him. “I would not have credited it,” he breathed. “In my heart, I believed that my hand would be destroyed, and perhaps the orcrest with it. But when I touched the stone to Anele’s forehead, the conflagration within him ended. In some fashion that I do not comprehend, Kastenessen has been expelled.”

“I can’t explain it.” Liand’s success confounded Linden. She had hoped only that an imposed sanity might forestall Kastenessen’s violation. She had not expected Liand to exorcise the Elohim once Kastenessen had established his possession. Perhaps contact with orcrest enabled Anele to draw upon his inborn magic. “I’m just glad that you’re all right. All of you.”

“Chosen,” Stave said distinctly, warning her. “attend.”

Instinctively she looked to the Woodhelvennin again. They had stopped moving; stood crowded together on the near side of the brook. Most of them now faced in her direction.

Both the Humbled and the Ramen were galloping swiftly toward her.

Cursing, Linden wheeled Hyn to meet the threat of the Harrow and Esmer-and saw that a multitude of ur- viles had appeared as if they had risen suddenly out of the gouged dirt, accompanied by a much smaller number of Waynhim. Sunshine on the obsidian skin of the ur-viles made them look like avatars of midnight, stark as fuligin. The greyer flesh of the Waynhim had the colour of ash and exhaustion.

They were the last of their kind-

Shit, she thought. Of course. Ur-viles, Waynhim-and Esmer. It is their intent to serve you. They had come for her sake. They watch against me-

In spite of their distrust for each other, Cail’s son had brought several score of them out of the distant past. And they had earned her faith. Now she did not know whom Esmer was trying to betray.

United as if they had forgotten their long enmity, the ur-viles and Waynhim had formed themselves into two fighting wedges, one led by their only loremaster, the other by a small knot of Waynhim. Barking raucously to each other, the creatures in one wedge faced Esmer. The other formation confronted the Harrow.

The loremaster held an iron sceptre or jerrid that fumed with vitriol. The Waynhim brandished short curved daggers that looked like they had been forged of lucent blood.

Both men had stopped. Esmer stood with his fists clenched. His cymar billowed around him as if it were being tugged by winds which Linden could not feel. Spume rose like vapour from the dangerous seas of his eyes. His limbs seemed to quiver with suppressed outrage and alarm.

“Wildwielder,” he said in a voice like a blare of trumpets, “you do not know the harm that this Insequent desires. In another moment, the caesure would have taken him, and you would have been spared much. It was madness to redeem him.”

Closer to Linden, the Harrow sat his destrier with an air of deliberate nonchalance, although he was breathing heavily, and beads of sweat stood on his forehead. From the symbols on his boots to the beads in his leathern doublet, he was a figure of sculpted muscle and casual elegance. The ploughshare clasp which secured his chlamys emphasised the neatness of his hair and beard. And the hues of his raiment harmonised with the moisture-darkened shades of his destrier’s coat. Only the lightless depths of his eyes suggested that he had not accidentally wandered into the Land from some more courtly realm where a munificent king or queen presided sumptuously over lordlings and damsels bright with meretricious grace.

“Lady,” he said, inclining his head. “Your intervention was indeed timely.” His voice had not lost its loamy richness, in spite of his exertions. “I see with pleasure that you have elected to accept my companionship.”

His quirt had disappeared. He must have concealed it somewhere under his short cloak.

Tightening her grasp on the Staff, Linden forced herself to look away again. “Stave,” she said over her shoulder. “the Woodhelvennin need to keep moving. They have to get out of here.”

Kastenessen had touched Anele. He knew where to send the skurj.

Stave glanced toward the approaching riders, then met her gaze. Through the tumult of hooves, he replied. “The Masters comprehend this. They will not neglect their care for the folk of the Land. The villagers will be urged away. If any remain living when this peril has passed, they will be escorted to Revelstone.”

The ur-viles and Waynhim continued their rasping growls and coughs, cautioning Linden or threatening Esmer and the Harrow in a tongue as indecipherable to her as the language of crows.

“All right.” Slowly Linden faced Esmer and the Harrow once more. With both hands, she gripped the Staff, anchoring herself on Law and Earthpower, blackness and runes. “You’ve had your fun. Now it’s my turn. You both want something from me, but you aren’t going to get it this way.

“No,” she said to the Insequent. “I don’t accept your companionship. But you don’t care about that. If you did, you wouldn’t have led Esmer here,” where so many innocent and helpless people might have lost their lives-and might yet die if she did not find a way to defuse the danger. “In a minute, you can justify yourself by telling me why Esmer wants you dead.” As if she were fearless, she glared into the dark tunnels of his eyes. “Right now, you can keep your mouth shut.

“As for you,” she flung at Esmer. “if you think that you absolutely need to destroy the Harrow, you could have found some other way to do it. You didn’t have to drive him straight toward those poor Woodhelvennin. I don’t care how much he scares you. This is just another betrayal.”

Esmer’s face held a torrent of protests and indignation. But when she said the word, “betrayal,” he flinched visibly, and his anger collapsed into consternation, as if she had touched a hidden vulnerability; a concealed self- abhorrence.

“So tell me-” Linden was about to say, Tell me about this service that he claims he can perform. But then she changed her mind. Esmer feared the Harrow’s intentions; therefore he would refuse to explain them. Instead she finished, “Tell me what the ur-viles and Waynhim are saying.”

Amid a clatter of hooves, the Humbled and the Ramen drew near. Immediately Mahrtiir rode to her side, and Bhapa joined her opposite the Manethrall. Mahrtiir’s gaze was fierce, eager to repay First Woodhelven’s ruin, but the plight of the villagers lined Bhapa’s visage.

In a flash of brown limbs and grace, Pahni jumped down to help Liand and Stave boost Anele onto Hrama’s back. Then the three of them remounted their Ranyhyn; and Stave brought Hynyn forward to guard Linden with Mahrtiir and Bhapa.