Serevan's step faltered, and his head shook in denial. A thin whisper of a voice tried to speak past a shriveled tongue and a lipless skull's grin. Bastun knew he could not truly slay the prince. The Shield would keep its tormented conqueror alive night after night, but the vremyonni only needed to make it through one night, slay the Nar prince this once, for Duras. Taking the advantage he raised his axe high and brought it down with all the strength he could muster.
The blade found only a thin sword awaiting it. The weapons shook violently, the force of the blow reverberating down the length of Bastun's arms as he stared into the maddened face of the undead prince. Serevan hissed, his nose now little more than a bit of tissue on the emerging skull beneath. Hunger drove the prince's furious attack, slashing and clawing such that the vremyonni was forced backward, trying to keep up with each blow.
Catching an opening he returned the assault, venting his anger and matching the bleakborn's madness. His blood burned, the pain of his wounds and his aching muscles long forgotten and ignored. Arcane speed made their battle a blur of flashing metal, a cacophony of unintelligible curses and chanting.
Blue light sparked from Bastun's hands, arcing through Serevan and spinning outward as it illuminated the spectral bodies of the wraiths. Shrill screams echoed throughout the tower, but despite the hole blasted through his stomach the prince fought on.
His sword hooked beneath Bastun's axe and tore it from his hands. It clanged against a wall obscured by shadows, and Serevan lunged. Bastun deflected the blade. The prince stared with dawning recognition at the wavy-bladed long sword wielded against him.
With heaving breaths, Bastun slashed Serevan back, having drawn the Breath on instinct and now finding himself fully locked in Athumrani's mindless battle for revenge. He gave the Magewarden his due and pressed upon Serevan with the vengeance of two men.
To him, the Breath now seemed the coldest object he had ever touched. It numbed his hand, froze his fingers in a vice around the leather-wrapped handle. Its blade served him as a weapon, but its purpose sent chills through his soul.
Serevan fell back, mesmerized by the artifact he had long sought but never truly seen in so many centuries. Only the ghost of the blade had been wielded by Athumrani. Only the memory of its ultimate use had washed over Serevan at the end of each long night. Absently he dropped his own sword and stared at his withered hands, a raspy breath of fear escaping him at the sight of his own death. Bastun swung the Breath wildly, scraping its tip across the bleakborn's breastplate.
They had neared the others. Bastun could see the silhouettes of Thaena and Syrolf through the haze of wraiths. Serevan noticed as well, sensing the warmth of the living and drawn to it. He dived through his undead servants to reach the Rashemi, leaving Bastun to the spirits.
Filmy garments of the dead clouded his vision as he stabbed and slashed through the fallen Creel. Cold claws reached through his robes, tearing at his spirit, but he shrugged them away. A whispered spell created a nimbus of gray light to surround him, the arcane aura shielding him against the hungry wraiths. The miasma of insubstantial bodies parted, and he found Serevan but a few strides away. Thaena had been knocked aside and she shivered, struggling to stand. Syrolf was bent on one knee, locked in a deadly embrace with the bleakborn who turned and smiled as his strength returned.
Bastun charged, tackling the prince from the side and sending them both rolling to the ground. Syrolf was knocked free, and Bastun tumbled with Serevan, followed by wraiths seeking to protect their prince.
He punched and kicked at the icy skin of the bleakborn, his knuckles bleeding from the effort. Darkness shrouded his eyes as wraiths tore at his robes and pulled at his hair. Though their claws scraped uselessly at the magic that protected his flesh, he was afforded no such protection against Serevan. Cold hands held him down, scratched at his mask, and pried at the fingers wrapped around the Breath. Bastun's strength could not hold. He felt his grasp loosen even as the prince's fist tightened around his neck. The sword fell away from his grip, thundering as it struck the floor.
They both scrambled for the weapon. Through the darkness, tiny white sparks filled Bastun's eyes as his lungs burned. Useful spells flitted elusively through his mind, his thoughts now scattered in a void once filled by Athumrani.
Steel skittered across stone, and he felt the weight of the prince lifted from his chest. He coughed and hacked as the wraiths fled. Syrolf stood over him, sword flashing in the torchlight as he cut down yet another of the ebony spirits.
Several feet away, Serevan lurched awkwardly toward the Breath on legs of bone and withered flesh. Bastun grasped upon the magic trapped in his mind. The Weave responded as he chanted, voice reed-thin and the words painful to speak. Whispering the name of the final rune, a tiny white mote of light appeared in the air and drifted toward the prince. Blue flames gathered around the light as it careened and swirled like a snowflake. Landing at the bleakborn's feet, it exploded upward, an azure bonfire of wintry chill.
Consumed by the cold lire, the prince collapsed, curling onto the floor as his last vestiges of warmth were burned away in the freezing flame. Bereft of their prince, the undead Creel moaned and howled, the vigor of their attack renewed.
Thaena summoned bright spheres of sparkling energy that danced and darted around them. Dragged by Syrolf to the wall, Bastun pushed himself up, still shaking the cobwebs from his mind, but aware enough that the sharp edge of steel on stone caught his attention.
Through the blackness of tattered garments and incorporeal shapes he could see her. She stood unharmed among the spirits, ignored by them as they screamed and clashed with the handful of Rashemi. At her feet lay the twitching, desiccated corpse of Serevan. For a moment he wondered at the image, thinking her a ghost. Despite the darkness and howling dead that separated them, he knew he looked into the durthans eyes-and he knew she was smiling. In Anilya's hand, its point resting on the floor, was the Breath.
With a casual grace she turned and left, stepping out into the winter night with all that he feared in her grasp.
Chapter Twenty-three
Newfallen snow crunched beneath Anilya's boots. The dead lay scattered around the wall-acceptable and well-planned losses in exchange for what she sought. Even the Nar had performed their duties well, buying into her tale of the risen prince and a newfound Narfell. Only the Creel had such ambition, and she had approached them fully confidant that they would believe her tale. They had followed her across plain and Cold Road to the gates of Shandaular, fearless zealots in search of destiny.
'Pity the entire tribe wasn't as foolish,' she muttered and recalled the destruction of the wychlaren wards, how well it had reminded the unwitting hathrans of the true nature of the city they had chosen to entrap themselves within. As Rashemi magic failed, the Shield resumed its nightly course with a vengeance through once protected halls. Outnumbered and unprepared for the curse within the walls, all had gone mostly as expected. Except for Ohriman. She sighed, missing the tiefling's company with a passing fondness. The Breath flashed pulses of cold up her arm as she neared the entrance to the northwest tower, making her forget the fallen assassin completely.
Howls and cries still reached her from within the guard tower-the actual battle unseen for the raving wraiths' dark forms. The vremyonni, exile or not, had resisted her far more than she had expected, but his presence, and the company that it had brought, had proven a boon beyond measure. Her foray into Rashemen, posing as a traveling hathran to infiltrate the Running Rocks, had yielded more than she had hoped for and yet far less than what she needed. Finding the Breath without one of the hathrans' pet wizards was not a task she had looked forward to, but then Bastun had appeared and performed admirably.
His voice and that of Thaena's could be heard above the din behind her, hurling spells at the restless dead. The Rashemi fervor for battle was curious to her in light of their inaction against the enemies that surrounded them. Only when faced by the threats they feared did they do something other than watch and wait for the next invasion of their precious homeland. Shaking her head, she ignored the end of her convenient allies and looked instead to the task at hand.
