Authors: Rachel Aaron
Unfortunately, Josef had bigger worries than the lava spirit. As more and more soldiers began to climb the storm wall, the Oserans were starting to fold. The fragile line he’d drawn as their last stand was cracking. Any second now it would break completely and he would fail his mother one last time.
The Heart jerked in his hands, bringing him back to the fight in front of him. He could feel the blade thrumming against his fingers, and Josef blinked as the Heart’s plan became clear in his mind. It was risky, but he trusted the Heart to know its own limits, and they had precious little else to call on. Decision made, Josef swung wide to scatter the enemy and then brought his sword back, holding the blade in front of him with both hands. Down the stairs, the Empress’s soldiers hesitated, watching for the strike. When it didn’t come, they surged into the opening, swords rising to cut him down. When they were a step away, Josef slammed the Heart into the stair. Iron hit stone with a resounding
gong
, and the weight of a mountain fell on the beach.
As far as he could see, the Empress’s soldiers collapsed, slammed to the ground by the pressure. The Heart’s force spread wider than Josef had ever seen. It filled the bay, sweeping the soldiers off the storm wall and crushing them into the hard sand below. Infantry boats sank into water pressed glassy by the enormous weight, and a
sudden, deafening stillness descended. Even the Oserans were silent, staring down the storm wall at the prone bodies of the Empress’s troops in dumb amazement.
Finally, a guardsman behind Josef snapped out of the trance, reaching out to press his shaking hand against the invisible wall of the Heart’s weight. “Are they dead, sire?” he whispered, eyes wide.
Josef raised his head, careful to keep his hands on the Heart’s hilt. “No,” he said. “The ones forced underwater may drown, but no one will die from the pressure. I don’t understand it myself, but my wizard friend says it’s impossible to kill a human with spirit pressure alone.”
The sailor blinked. “Spirit pressure?”
“Don’t ask me,” Josef said. “I don’t do that wizard stuff.” He looked over his shoulder, raising his voice. “Everyone!” he shouted. “Stop gawking! We’re falling back to the watchtower.”
“But we have no more bolts!” a sailor cried. “What are we going to do in the tower?”
“You want to stay out here?” Josef bellowed back.
The man didn’t answer, and Josef took the chance to push the guards behind him up the stairs. “Get the wounded to the tower. The rest of you, prepare to hold the road. We’ll fight these bastards for every inch!”
The men sprang into action, grabbing the wounded and dragging them back. They swarmed the watchtower, carrying their fallen comrades on their backs as they climbed the stairs. Those who could still fight gathered at the head of the road to the city and began piling barrels, empty arrow crates, anything they could find into a makeshift barricade.
Of the Oserans, Josef alone did not move. He watched his men climb the stairs, hands clenched around the Heart’s hilt. Down in the bay, nothing stirred, but as the minutes ticked by, the Heart
began to quiver against his palm. Josef gripped it harder and stood firm, trying to press his strength into the Heart as the sword had done for him so many times before. He didn’t know if it worked, but the Heart held. Five minutes. Seven minutes. At ten minutes Josef knew as surely as though the blade had shouted that time was up. It was just enough. The sailor’s retreat was finished. He was now alone on the stairs with the flattened invaders.
In one smooth motion, Josef ripped the Heart out of the step and turned to run, charging up the stairs toward the Oseran line. Behind him, the sword’s weight vanished like mist, and the silent air filled with the angry, confused roar of the Empress’s army as it got to its feet and began to give chase. Josef reached the top of the stairs and ran full-out toward the makeshift barricade. Yelling for his men to get out of the way, he jumped the piled barrels. The second his feet hit the dirt, he turned and took stock of their new position.
It was bad. Osera’s primary defense on this side had always been the sea and the cliffs. Here, behind those walls, they had precious little. The tower with its thick stone and reinforced doors was safe, but the road was another matter. The wall of junk the soldiers had cobbled together wouldn’t stop a charge, only delay it. After that…
Josef glanced over his shoulder. The road ran up the mountain behind him, through the shoddy neighborhoods of the eastern slope to the castle and the city beyond. A straight shot. Josef gritted his teeth. He could feel his men watching him, their eyes wide and terrified. Raising his sword, Josef forced himself to look confident. He wasn’t sure if it worked. The men didn’t look reassured, but they didn’t run away either. That would have to be good enough, Josef decided. He wasn’t his mother, after all.
“We hold here,” he said, planting his feet firmly on the sandy road. “Get ready.”
He felt the line tighten around him. The royal guardsmen moved
to take the road’s center, locking together in tight formation with their short swords ready. The sailors hovered at the edges, clutching their knives with wild-eyed intensity as the first enemy reached the top of the storm wall.
For a few seconds, it was just one man, and then the Empress’s army poured over the wall. They came in a black wave, armor rattling like an avalanche, their raised swords gleaming in the last rays of the evening sun. When they opened their mouths to shout, the air itself seemed to thicken with the rage of their battle cry.
“Hold!” Josef shouted, but the command was lost in the enemy’s roar. It didn’t matter. His men were frozen in place by fear. They couldn’t have moved now if they’d tried, not even to run. All they could do was bunker down and scream their last defiance as their death charged forward to crush them under a thousand booted feet.
Josef gripped the Heart. Even his sword couldn’t beat so many, but he would hold as long as he could. The Heart weighed heavy in his hands, echoing his resolve. They would go down as a swordsman should, in glorious battle surrounded by the bodies of their enemies. But even as he braced for his final stand, Josef heard a cry that stopped him cold. It was a high-pitched shout, not panicked or afraid, but commanding. A woman’s shout, and as it sounded, a great wave of water shot through the air above his head and landed on the charging army.
The wave swept the soldiers off their feet, washing them back over the storm wall and down to the beach in the space of a breath. Josef lowered his sword, staring dumbfounded at the now-clear storm wall. He was so shocked, he didn’t even flinch as the lithe, silvery, canine shape sailed through the air and landed right in front of him.
Gin landed neatly and turned to flash Josef the smuggest,
toothiest grin he’d ever seen, but the dog’s grin was nothing compared to the haughty smile on his rider’s face.
“Well, well,” Miranda said, looking down on him from her ghosthound’s back. “If it isn’t Josef Liechten.”
“Miranda,” Josef said, leaning on his sword. “Took you long enough.”
Miranda sniffed. “Is that any way to greet your savior?”
Josef shrugged. “Better late than never, I suppose.”
She shook her head and turned Gin back toward the city. Josef moved to follow her and stopped, eyes wide. The road from Osera, which had been empty not a minute before, was now filled with the strangest creatures he’d ever seen. There were cats made of living wood, birds shaped from clouds, and even what looked like a long, flat snake made of mud. There must have been a hundred at least, each different, and each carrying a rider whose hands flashed with enormous, gaudy rings.
“Powers,” Josef whispered. “What in the world is that?”
“
That
is your salvation,” Miranda said proudly. “The Spirit Court comes to face the Empress.”
“Lucky us,” Josef muttered, taking a step back as the lead rider, an intense man mounted on an enormous jade horse, came to a halt beside Miranda.
“Who is this?” the man asked, looking Josef up and down.
“A criminal, Master Banage,” Miranda answered. “But one on our side, for now at least.”
Josef looked the old man over. So this was the Rector Spiritualis she was always going on about. He’d have to remind Eli to change his alias.
Banage arched an eyebrow at Miranda’s introduction and then moved on to business.
“Miranda, with me,” he said, dismounting. “The rest of you”—he
looked over his shoulder at the waiting Spiritualists—“form a perimeter and wake the local spirits. This island is now under the Court’s protection.”
“Yes, Rector!” The shout rose from a hundred throats in unison, and the wizards began to dismount. One by one their creatures disappeared, flowing back to the rings on their riders’ fingers. Josef noted that the Rector’s own mount had vanished into the large oval of polished jade on his index finger. Banage didn’t even seem to notice. He and Miranda were already walking toward the sea wall.
“Hold it!” Josef shouted, leaving his poor, shocked sailors standing dumb on the road as he ran after the two wizards. “What are you, crazy? There are a thousand soldiers down there!”
“Shoo,” Miranda said. “Go back to the others. We’ve got it from here.”
“Got what?” Josef yelled.
“Young man,” Banage said calmly, not even looking at Josef as he walked. “A thousand soldiers are of little concern. Whom do you think you are dealing with?”
“A pair of suicidal idiots,” Josef snapped back.
“I see only one of those,” Miranda said, glaring at him.
Josef threw up his hands as Miranda and the Rector Spiritualis stepped out onto the edge of the storm wall. Gin sat down beside his mistress, tail lashing back and forth. Down on the beach, the enemy was regrouping. Soldiers from the boats were trading places with the men down the wall by Miranda’s wave. Meanwhile, a mass was gathering at the wall’s base with archers taking up position to cover the next push to retake the wall.
Josef cursed and reached to pull Miranda out of arrow shot at least, but she smacked his hands away.
“Just stand back,” she said, raising her voice over Gin’s growling.
Josef had a pretty nonkingly answer for that, but Miranda had already turned back to face the beach. She stood still a moment,
feet pressed against the storm wall’s edge, her red hair blowing in the sea wind like a painted archer target. Josef cursed, but before he could yank her down to safety, dog or no dog, Miranda held out her hand and a wave of water exploded into the air.
The torrent poured down the storm wall, sweeping it clean. It blasted the soldiers into the sand before turning like a snake and rushing down the beach until it reached the northern cliff. There it shot up again, defying gravity in a geyser of white spray to knock off the soldiers scaling the cliff face, shucking them from the stone like barnacles before turning back toward the beach, knocking those soldiers who’d tried to stand back onto their faces as it rushed to clear the southern cliff.
But while Miranda’s water was sweeping the beach, the soldiers in the boats were on the move. Archers brought up their bows while those with shields gave them cover, and the air filled with the snapping of bowstrings. A volley of arrows launched from the water, whistling toward the two wizards on the storm wall’s edge.
Josef moved on instinct, raising his sword. He couldn’t cut all the arrows down, but maybe he could stop enough to keep the idiot wizards from getting themselves killed. But as he stepped into position, the Rector Spiritualis raised his arms, the ruby on his thumb glowing like a furnace. That was the last thing Josef saw before a blast of light drowned his vision.
A wave of blistering hot air caught Josef in the face. He stumbled away, cursing as he blinked against the swimming shapes the light had left on his vision. As his eyes cleared, he looked up to see a great ball of fire hovering in the air before Banage. Its edges burned like liquid gold, and its center was so bright Josef couldn’t look at it. The fire roared and twisted like a living thing, the flames turning until they settled at last into the shape of a great, golden bird.
The bird opened its mouth, roaring like a furnace as it devoured the arrows. The shafts were consumed instantly, transformed into a
harmless rain of ash that pattered at the Spiritualists’ feet. When the last arrow had been consumed, the bird began to beat its wings. Each wing beat hammered Josef with a wall of heat, and with each flap, the bird grew larger until its fire filled the sky. The light was so intense now, Josef could barely see, but he could make out the shadow of Miranda crouching on the wall, her water surrounding her and her dog in a protective barrier against the heat. Banage, however, had no protection. He stood at the heart of the fire, a speck of black against the inferno. With a great sweeping motion, the Rector Spiritualis threw out his arms, shouting words that were instantly lost in the roar. The bird screamed in answer and fell, plunging down the storm wall in a river of fire.
For a moment the Empress’s army just stood there, staring at the blinding bird. And then, in unison, the invasion force turned and fled. The men on the beach threw themselves into the water, scrambling over each other to get their heads below the waves as Banage’s fire spirit swept over them. Everything the bird touched was consumed. Its heat was so intense it blackened the sand and boiled the surf. Those caught in its flames turned to ash in an instant while those who’d made it to the water began to scream as the bay itself became a scalding pot beneath the bird’s heat.
Out in the deep water, the landing boats rocked as the soldiers fought to turn them back to the crashed palace ships, but the ships’ men were pulling up the landing ramps in a desperate attempt to put anything they could between themselves and the fire. The men in the boats screamed curses, but their voices were drowned out by the roar of the bird as it flew low over the bay, sending the invaders leaping into the sea to avoid its fiery wings.
Josef stood on the wall, scarcely daring to believe his own eyes. Minutes ago he’d been prepared to die in Osera’s last stand; now he was watching from safety as the enemy fell over themselves in desperate retreat. He cast an almost sheepish glance at the
Spiritualists. Miranda was on her feet again, holding out her hand as her water spirit returned, the cold blue tide vanishing into her palm. Banage was standing beside her with his fingers pressed against the enormous ruby glowing on his thumb, eyes following his bird beneath brows furrowed in concentration.