Then Bastun breathed again, air rattling from his lungs as he shook in a barely controlled fury. That seething anger lessened a moment as he met Duras's half-lidded eyes.
'Bas-Bastun…' he said, lips almost blue and stained with drops of blood. The vremyonni shook his head as if silence would keep his friend alive, somehow hold death at bay, but Duras continued, 'No, I must… Ulsera, your sister…'
'Don't,' Bastun said quietly, but his friend was beyond hearing, and the sound of his sister's name quelled any further protest within him.
'I took her there… to the Urlingwood. They found us… the guardians. I hid'-a choking sob escaped him-'I ran away… but they-they killed her. We were just… children.'
His eyes stared off into nowhere, reliving the events in his mind. In the absence of the bleakborn's presence, a chill had returned to Bastun, coldet now as Duras spoke. Feeling numb, he sat motionless, his dying friend in his arms. A sudden fierce focus filled the warrior's gaze.
'I should have died there. Not her. Too scared to tell anyone… just a child… and they blamed you.' The words cut deep, and the first stirrings of some emotion began to churn in Bastun, 'I had no courage. So many… years.'
Bastun trembled, tears never spilled welled in his eyes and still he choked them back.
'I die… for her. Giving this… to you. Forgive me.'
'You are forgiven, Duras,' he said without hesitation as Duras's eyes lost their focus. A final shuddering breath left his friend, his childhood blood-brother, lifeless and silent. Carefully he let Duras's body slip from his arms, the last secrets of a shattered past sitting quietly in his heart-before returning his attention to the present and the Nar prince.
Bastun stood slowly, purposefully, the tip of his axe resting on the floor as he closed his eyes and breathed. He began to count backwards, matching his heartbeat and performing the old rituals.
Where is your breath?
He let go of the surrounding world, of memory and petty anger, of life and pain, and the sensation of his own presence. In that space lay a balance between living flesh and the Weave of magic-a cooperation of spell and primal thought.
Skin tingling, the familiar fever of Serevan's presence washed over him. The Breath trembled, the bound spirit of the Magewarden reaching out in anger and sorrow. Bastun allowed the intrusion but kept it in check, maintaining an authority over Athumrani's desires. The sounds of battle rose in volume, resonating with an order that wrapped itself around him.
Opening his eyes, he watched as Serevan appeared through the gloom of wraiths, ever hungering for the power of the Breath and the Word. The stain of his fallen friend's last battle still darkened the prince's blade. Bastun would give in to history, to all of Athumrani's anger and his madness, but he would give direction to that wild emotion. He would give the Magewarden what he truly needed. He would give him rage.
Swords still lay in freezing hands. White faces stared in horror against the ground or looked sightlessly up into the clear, night sky. Dim stars reflected in eyes glazed over with death. Gaping wounds would fill with snow and ice over time, taking over their forms and cementing them against the stone like sttange sculptures of grim warning. The durthan's sellswords, their unwitting souls soaked into the stone, pulled down by the Shield's curse and Ilythiiri magic to haunt Shandaular till chance or mercy set them free.
Blood and ice encrusted Anilya's hair. Dark cuts crisscrossed her skin, and powerful cuts had rent her robes. One of her arms was twisted, fingers crushed beneath the heel of the passing prince. Her mask lay askew, revealing her face.
A gentle snow began to fall. Still and silent, the quiet of the scene was broken only by the echoing sounds of battle and the phantom flames of Shandaular's burning. Ghostly smoke intermingled with the ever-present mists that thickened as dawn cast the first faint glow of a distant sunrise.
An orphan of time, the Shield was a ghost of stone and ice suffering nightmares of history.
'I will free you,' a voice said wistfully.
The body of Anilya shimmered, the image rippling away to reveal the body of a fallen man. The sellsword had suffered many of the same injuries as the illusion that had obscured him, but he had fought with sword and shield before dying at the hands of wraiths and the time-worn prince. Anilya had fought with magic. She turned from the battlements, her form still invisible, to peer into the living darkness of the guard tower. Hidden from the eyes of the living and the dead, she watched and waited.
Magic tingled through Bastun's body, the room blurring for a moment as his eyes reacted to the unnatural speed that filled him. His axe swayed menacingly, lighter and faster to match Serevan's quick sword. The fever returned in full, skin burning as if bare under a desert sun. The prince's feeding cold could not touch him, caused him not the slightest chill. The ring on his hand had begun to burn as well, its metal hot to the touch. Whatever Ilythiiri magic had been woven into the simple band was somehow connected with Serevan's goals and the Shield's history. But Bastun had no time for history now. He was becoming a part of it.
Their blades met twice in the space of a blink, sparks flying. The prince's mindless anger had faded, his reason now accepting the re-enactment of his duel with Athumrani. No longer beset by unfamiliarity with history's course, he settled back into the cruel and efficient stoicism of Nar royalty. His fighting stance was more open and arrogant than the mindless undead he had become.
Black light exploded from Bastun's open palm, the beam searing through Serevan's chest. The prince howled in pain and whirled away, ashes falling from where lifelike flesh and solid armor once had been. Bastun followed closely, slicing with the axe and adjusting his position to keep Serevan off balance. They exchanged blows again, and Bastun loosed the dark beam a second time, burning it into the prince's leg. Icy skin and muscle fell away, exposing bone. Serevan cried out in pain and began casting a spell of his own.
Unleashing a torrent of attacks, Bastun spun and turned, keeping the prince's attention far too busy to complete the spell. The rhythm of the spell-rage felt good, settled within him calmly in contrast to the wild bloodlust of the berserkers. Athumrani did not struggle or assault him with commands or memories. In truth, Bastun was not sure the spirit could affect him as crudely as it had before. The Weave surged like waves around him. He matched its swells with magic and its troughs with steel.
The black light of his previous spell died away as he parried and struck, carrying his axe blade to his enemy's side. The wounds he had opened were already closing, healing as Serevan spent his stolen life replacing the illusion of living flesh. The prince could not accept the reality of his undead state, believing himself alive and on the cusp of victory each night. Bastun had counted on this denial and smiled grimly as the first shadows of sunken flesh began to plague his opponent's face.
The wraiths avoided the pair, flying around them as they dived and circled the struggling Rashemi. More of the spirits had been slain, but more than enough remained to threaten their thinning chances. Syrolf still fought at the ethran's side, but Thaena's voice had grown weak and hoarse.
Bastun backstepped, spreading his arms wide. With one hand he deflected the prince's blade and with the other waved over the dropped blades and weapons of his fallen countrymen. Magic drifted from his fingertips, and he reversed his spin, thrusting with his axe and battering at Serevan's sword. A moment's hesitation and a nicked wrist revealed the first sign of a sluggishness infecting the bleakborn nobleman's movements. With a final thrust Bastun stepped away, backing up and kneeling on the stone floor.
Eyes closed, he concentrated on the magic seeded in the items around him. Only the smallest of the blades responded. Hard-tipped short swords and daggers rattled as they rose on their points and spun into the air. He stood quickly and raised his axe, catching the prince's sword at the last moment. Tiny fractions of his focus floated in the small blades and he growled as he pushed back against Serevan's unnatural strength. Twisting to his right, he kicked at the prince's leg, setting Serevan off balance.
Bastun exhaled and released the swarm of blades. They flew unerringly at their target, a few parried and sent spinning to the ground before the others struck home. A look of shock crossed the bleakborn's face, lasting only a moment as his chest, legs, and arms were stabbed by the flying arsenal. The blades tore through the illusion of life which tried to replace itself with each new wound. Daggers clattered to the floor, pushed out by renewing flesh that looked less alive and more scarred each time. As the last shortsword slipped from his stomach, the prince seemed more the walking corpse he was than the man he thought himself to be.
