I noticed then that only seven of them remained. In a panic, I swept my eyes over their faces. Ivyla was missing. Debra was not the only one who had fallen.
I am letting them die
, I realized with horror.
I have to do something
. Climbing to my feet, I placed my back against the tree and held my palms against it. I pictured the men who had died at the Old Garden. I thought of Janelyn and Genna and Varrie and Wynne. I gathered all my fear and sorrow, all my guilt over every death I had ever caused. I could still feel the power of the First Tree tingling in my palms, and I poured everything I had into grasping it.
“Let me burn, let me die, just
hear me
,” I begged.
The Eldest remained silent. Fear had always sufficed before; now, nothing seemed to be enough.
In the corner of my eye, I saw a blur of brown and crimson, and I turned my head to see a dozen men of the King’s Army enter the clearing. For just a moment I hoped that they had come to help. Until I saw their wounds.
Where the men had come from, I could not say—perhaps they had been looking for us, sent by the scouts from the Timberhold. But one thing was certain: the Burnt had found them first. One man’s stomach had been rent open and his intestines dangled free; another had a ragged red hole in his throat. Every one of them bore horrible wounds that did not bleed. These were dead men, kept on their feet only by the spirits possessing them.
And behind them came the Beast.
That was the name that came to me, the moment I saw it. I might have called it a bear, but the word simply didn’t suffice—there was a sheer primal presence to the animal that defied classification. It reared up on its hind legs behind the men, monstrous and powerful, more than twelve feet of muscle and claws and teeth. Its forelegs were as thick as my torso; its claws were longer than knives, and undoubtedly deadlier. Huge puckered scars like mountain ridges rose from the forest of matted fur all over its body, and a great gash across its face had taken one eye. I had the distinct impression that this creature had survived battles I could not have dreamed of, that it was a warrior from the dawn of the world, full of the might of Earth and Sky.
The Beast loped forward, and the men parted to let it by. They advanced together, the men flanking the monster as though following their commander into battle. And as they came, two more figures joined their ranks.
No. Mother below, please not this.
Debra and Ivyla walked with the Burnt. Their wounds did not bleed.
Despair gripped me. Bryndine and her women could have held back the animals, even the possessed men for a time. But not the Beast. Not with every woman who fell turning against us. It was hopeless.
A thick mist rose from nowhere, filling the clearing and thickening with unnatural speed. In moments, everything further than a few yards from me was gone. Of the women, I could see only Orya and Deanyn nearby, and only as ghostly forms moving through the grey. I remembered the words of the Wyddin:
There are many things that they might turn the Wyd towards
.
The Burnt were doing this. And somewhere in the mist, they were still coming. I felt the footsteps of the Beast shaking the ground beneath my feet, and the sound of steel on steel rang from somewhere to my right as the dead crossed swords with the living.
“What in the ruttin’ depths?” I heard Orya curse, looked, and saw a giant shadow forming before her in the fog.
The Beast struck.
With astonishing speed, Orya ducked under the massive blow. She was pitifully small next to the Beast, but she did not retreat, did not even take a step back. Fearless as ever, she lunged forward, and her sword pierced the monster’s hide.
An instant later, a huge foreleg caught her in the chest and flung her against the First Tree. She slumped to the ground and moved no more.
Deanyn leapt at the Beast’s side with a two-handed strike that bit deep, but the creature hardly seemed to notice. She rolled under a sweep of its claws and came to her feet behind its back, swinging at its hind leg. Her blade struck flesh, but if it hurt, the Beast gave no indication. It turned and swung; she dodged to the side. She was too slow. The Beast’s claws tore into her calf, flaying down to the bone. Deanyn screamed, and I shouted her name, certain that I was about to watch her die.
But the circle was broken now. No one stood between me and the Beast, and I was the one it had come for. It turned to face me, bared its teeth, and charged.
Out of the mist, Bryndine Errynson stepped forward to meet it.
She swung her sword in a vicious arc, and the Beast halted and reared back just in time. The blade cleaved the air inches from its chest. The monster swung back. Bryndine caught the blow on her shield, and the Beast’s claws tore deep gouges in the metal, with all the force that had sent Orya flying through the air.
Bryndine kept her feet, undaunted and unmoved.
I looked at her, standing firm before that impossible creature like a hero out of legend, and for just an instant, everything else dropped away. All my life I had dreamed of moments like this. When I was a boy, discouraged by a world that seemed to celebrate mediocrity over all else, Illias’ stories had taken me to those moments in time when extraordinary people had done incredible things. The moments that were never forgotten. The moments that history was made of. And watching Bryndine stand before the Beast, I knew that this was one of those moments. Like Erryn and Rynd and Delwyn before her, Bryndine Errynson was forging history. And I was there to see it happen.
Something opened up inside of me then, and the power of the First Tree coursed through my veins. I felt the invisible eyes of the Burnt turn towards me, and heard their voices wailing through my mind, joining as one to speak that single, terrible word.
“
BURN
,” the voices ordered. And I did.
Fire danced across my flesh, and pain came with it. But I had found the Wyd, and I could not let this chance pass. I forced myself to push past the agony of melting flesh, to look beyond the flames. And there, I found something more. Something pure. Everything slowed, became sharp and clear. I could see
between
the mist in the air. I could see every creature, every movement in the clearing.
Then, suddenly, I was somewhere else.
A deep green forest, and in it stand two groups of humans dressed in crude clothing, tall and broad of shoulder, filled with the power of the Earth and Sky. They argue. We watch as one group leaves in anger, and we are saddened. We wanted only to give them guidance.
My senses returned to me, and I looked around, disoriented. I still stood before the First Tree; the fighting had not stopped. Flames devoured my body, but I ignored them, shoved the agony into the deepest recesses of my mind. The Eldest slept, but I could feel their dreams floating through the air around me. I just had to find the right words to wake them.
“We need you,” I called. “The Burnt need peace. Please!” But there was no power in the words.
The Beast struck again and again at Bryndine; her shield was a ragged mess of holes and claw marks. Sylla fought beside her now, holding back two men in Army browns who sought to reach her Captain. Deanyn limped on her ruined leg, but still managed to cleave through the skull of a boar as it lunged towards Bryndine.
The women closed in around me, surrounded on all sides by beasts and the dead. Ducking low, Leste avoided a wild stroke of Debra’s axe, then jabbed her saber up through the open mouth of the wildcat that leapt at her out of the fog. Selvi caught Ivyla’s sword on hers, and Elene stabbed their former comrade in the chest. Ivyla did not fall. She was already dead. It would take a worse wound than that to stop her.
Back to back and shoulder to shoulder, vision clouded by the mist, what was left of Bryndine’s company fought desperately for survival. If I did not reach the Eldest soon, it would be too late.
A shining city of arches and spires and gardens, but beyond the walls, war rages. A man with a crown atop his golden hair begs us for the power to defend his kingdom. We cannot refuse. We love these humans as our brothers and sisters. We tell the King of secrets we have hidden from humanity for thousands of years.
Fire and pain pulled me back to reality. It was not just my body burning; I could feel the flames eating at my mind. This was what the Wyddin had warned me of—I could not pull away, and soon my spirit would be consumed.
But I had seen what the Eldest dreamed of: Elovia. If the Plainstongue could not reach them, perhaps Old Elovian would. “
Evea
!” I cried. “
Ael
!”
Wake! Please!
It did no good; the words felt dead on my tongue.
Bryndine caught the Beast’s claws on her shield once more, then leaned away from a second blow and swung her sword. The huge blade cleaved into the Beast’s shoulder and caught there. Bryndine tried to pull it free, but the Beast jerked back and reared up to its full height. The violent motion sent the blade flying free of both the Beast’s body and Bryndine’s hand, and it fell to the ground several feet away.
A kingdom burning. Ash fills the Sky; molten rock spews from the Earth. The arches and spires and gardens are gone, burned away by a power we should have kept hidden. Bodies fill the streets, charred and black. Our brothers and sisters are dead. And it is because of us.
The vision faded, but the guilt remained, deep and eternal. The Eldest could not forgive themselves, and all those who might have given them forgiveness were dead and gone. In that moment, I knew exactly what they needed—the same thing I did. I opened my mouth to speak the word that would wake the Eldest.
But the word did not come.
Fire ate at my mind, reducing everything I had ever known to ash. My vision burned down until all I could see was Bryndine and the Beast, surrounded in flames. I heard a cry somewhere beyond sight, but I could not place the woman’s voice, and then a man’s scream that I faintly recognized as my own. I felt all that I was burning away, and could do nothing to stop it.
I watched helplessly as the Beast lashed out at Bryndine with both paws. She raised her shield, and claws like scythe blades lodged in the metal. With a violent heave, the Beast wrested the battered metal disc from her arm and threw it from her reach.
“Bryn!” Sylla threw herself in front of Bryndine, and her blade lashed out. The Beast knocked her aside with a single blow.
And still Bryndine stood. She had nothing left, no way to defend herself, but she stood between me and the Beast, and she did not flinch as it came for her.
“
Vengeance
,” the Burnt screamed, and with devastating strength, the Beast rammed five foot-long claws into Bryndine’s chest. Five claws pierced her armor and the flesh beneath. Five claws, red and dripping, erupted from her back.
“No!” Through the fire and pain that consumed me, some last spark of consciousness fought for control.
I can still save her!
Desperately, I shouted every Elovian word my fire-blackened mind had left. None of them were right. None of them were the word I wanted, the one that would echo through the Wyd to reach the ears of the Eldest.
The Beast’s claws ripped upwards through flesh and bone, lifting Bryndine from her feet. She struggled, gripped the monster’s foreleg, tried to pull herself free. The Beast obliged. With a savage jerk, it tore its claws from her chest. Thick ribbons of crimson colored the mist as she fell. She crumpled to the ground in front of me, still as death.
And now it was too late. There was no one left who could stop the Beast. It loomed over me, so close that I could smell the rank odor of its hide, see the tiny insects crawling in its fur. Its claws descended towards me, streaked with Bryndine’s blood.
And then something impossible happened.
Somehow, Bryndine pushed herself to her knees, and with one hand, she
caught
the Beast’s foreleg inches above my head. The Beast struck with its free claw, tearing deep furrows in her side; she grappled the limb under her arm, and held it there.
“No,” she said. “You will not have him.”
Somehow, bleeding and broken, she stood. With all her might, the might I had seen move boulders, she surged forward. The Beast towered over her by half her height again, and must have outweighed her by thousands of pounds, but when Bryndine pushed, it stumbled back.
Somehow, she found the strength to move. She took a staggering step, and another, leaving a crimson trail in the grass as she lurched towards her sword. The Beast fell forward onto four legs, found its footing once more, and lunged. A maw full of jagged yellow teeth gnashed towards my head.
Somehow, with her life’s blood flowing from a dozen wounds, Bryndine Errynson lifted her giant blade with both hands, and she brought it down on the Beast’s neck.
It was the last thing I saw. My sight dissolved into fire and blackness. My mind was nearly gone. But Bryndine had defied death itself to give me this last attempt; I could not waste it. As my spirit burned into nothingness, a single word rose in the dark, and I knew that it was right. I felt its power on my tongue as I threw back my head and shouted it into the Wyd for the Eldest to hear.
“
Caravei!
”
I forgive
.
In my last moments of awareness, I heard a voice, full of power and wisdom and sorrow.
“
Revea
,” it commanded.
Sleep.
And I did.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Though most shunned Bryndine Errynson when she sought their aid to fight the Burnt, there were those who answered the call. Master Illias Bront helped her to find Prince Fyrril’s journals. Korus Creven and Lieutenant Ralsten Torrylson preserved the capital under the leadership of Bryndine's father, Lord Elarryd Errynson, who would later be crowned King. And the women of Bryndine’s company followed their Captain to the very end, though many of them died along the way. Without any one of these people, the realm might have been lost.