“W
hat in the Lady’s name was that?” Hew asked.
Croy had no answer. He’d heard that noise, like the sky had split open, seen the gout of baleful fire that lanced straight out from the breach in the wall. What could create such a tongue of deadly flame, he could not imagine.
What he did know was that it changed everything.
A melee battle like this was always a scene of chaos, of commanders shouting to know what was going on, of soldiers running back and forth, operating under orders that had been countermanded though they did not know it, of whole formations wheeling the wrong way because it was impossible, in the thick of things, to get a proper view on the proceedings. A good commander learned to take the temperature of a battle, to rely not on hard facts but on intuition, and respond accordingly. Croy had developed almost a sixth sense for such things.
A moment before, he was convinced that Skrae had already lost, that the Army of Free Men was about to break and rout. That he was helpless and should retreat himself, if honor would have allowed it.
Now there was a different smell in the air. A smell at once hopeful and terrifying. It seemed that he still had a chance.
Some great miracle of magic and fire had burst from the walls of Ness, some work of sorcery, perhaps, or witchcraft or . . . or divine favor or . . . it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he must, absolutely must, take advantage of the change before things settled and went back to how they’d been. “Press, and don’t let up,” he commanded. “Get our footmen over to the left—it’s mostly thralls over there. Thralls who will surrender quickly, and open a wedge. We can split the horde in half, let the Free Men take one part and—”
“Was that sorcery, do you think? A demon set loose?” Hew asked softly.
Croy trudged over to him across the frozen ground and smacked the knight’s greave with the flat of his blade. The impact seemed to shock Hew back to his senses.
“Press the fucking attack,” Croy said.
It was not a word he used often. It had the desired effect. Hew rode forward to relay the command. Croy stomped after him. The steel armor he wore weighed him down, made his movements sluggish. He longed to be out of it. He longed to go running into the fight, to lose himself in swordwork.
Yet suddenly the barbarians were all moving away from him. Running toward the city. Did they run to get inside the walls? Yet it looked like they were being pushed toward one of the intact sections of wall, not toward the gap they’d made. Whatever infernal force had been set loose in that gap had cast terror into the hearts of the barbarians. They were not alone in their fear. Even the Skilfinger knights seemed loath to get close to the fires that still burned near the city. Croy waved Ghostcutter at them. “Push them up against the wall so they have nowhere to retreat! Press the attack!”
He heard his command repeated in the Skilfinger tongue. His translators were still alive, then. Good.
“Onward!” he shouted, and a ragged cheer went up all around him. He ran as fast as he could toward the main force of barbarians, heedless of how many casualties he took, heedless of his own safety.
He arrived just in time to find Mörget coming toward him, leading a host of reavers. The giant barbarian had an axe in one hand and Dawnbringer in the other, and he showed no sign of fear at all.
Very good, Croy thought. Here, at last, was an enemy who wouldn’t run away.
Yet before he could reach Mörget, Sir Hew came riding past again, Chillbrand swinging low to touch as many barbarians as it could reach. Hew made no attempt to cut them, he just tapped his magic blade against their exposed skin wherever it presented itself. Their faces turned blue and they dropped their weapons to hug themselves for warmth as the Ancient Blade’s magic stole all the heat from their bodies. Chillbrand flashed down to touch Mörget, but the chieftain was too fast for Hew. He ducked low and rolled between the legs of Hew’s steed, disemboweling the beast before he rolled out the other side.
Hew was an old and seasoned warrior. He’d lost plenty of horses in his time, and knew how not to be thrown. Half sliding, half jumping, he landed on the frozen ground on one knee, his shield already coming up as Mörget advanced on him.
“You’re not the one,” Mörget growled.
Sir Hew started to rise, even as Mörget hammered at his shield with Dawnbringer. The Ancient Blade burst with light again, again, again.
Hew pushed forward with the shield, trying to knock Mörget down. He might as well have tried to bull his way through a hill. Mörget’s axe came down and split the side of Hew’s vambrace wide open. There was blood on the blade when it came back up, and Hew’s shield arm fell limp at his side. Croy raced forward to help his old friend, but he could only watch in horror as Mörget twisted around at the waist, all the strength of a rushing river in his axe arm.
Hew raised Chillbrand to ward off the blow. Axe and sword met with a horrible clang that made Croy’s teeth hurt, even from a half dozen yards away.
The axe cut through Chillbrand’s frost-rimed iron, barely slowing down as it shattered the Ancient Blade.
Mörget boomed out a gruesome laugh. “Another one!”
While Mörget exulted, Croy had closed the distance between them. “Try this one,” he screamed, and drove Ghostcutter deep into the barbarian’s side.
S
lag crowed and danced and shouted up to Malden where he stood on the wall, “Lad! Lad! Did you fucking see that?”
“I did,” Malden called back. He turned to the far side of the wall and peered down. The barbarians had surged away from the gap in the wall. Terror gripped them—many had even dropped their weapons. Yet behind them were thousands more, confused, perhaps even frightened by all the noise and smoke, but who had seen nothing of what Slag’s weapon could do. Still they pressed on toward Ness. Still they continued the attack.
He looked all around for Mörget, because he knew that once the huge barbarian had time to realize what had happened, he would instantly begin rallying his troops for another attack. Even fire and destruction would not stop that man.
This wasn’t over. This was just beginning.
Cold fright gripped Malden’s bowels and he worried he might soil himself. They’d driven back the first wave, that was true. Slag had made that happen. Yet now there was an enormous gaping hole in the wall. Malden had no way to fight an effective battle without the wall to protect them.
Ness had a hope in the opposing army—though not much of one. Who was it out there, fighting the barbarians from the rear? Was it the Burgrave and his Army of Free Men? There was no way that rabble could defeat Mörget once he regrouped. They might be making some small dent in the rearguard but could never hope to overcome the main force of easterners.
Malden rubbed at his face. It was bitterly cold up on the wall, where the wind stung every bit of exposed flesh, but still his face was wet. Greasy, sick-smelling sweat rolled down inside the collar of his tunic and pooled in the small of his back. He had to do something. Something!
He hurried down the wall and ran over to where Slag stood, still holding his snake-headed staff.
“Come to congratulate me?” the dwarf asked.
Balint was inspecting the broken wall, picking up chunks of masonry and debris and then casting them away again. Malden grabbed her arm and pulled her over to where Slag stood. “You two are the finest engineers this world has ever known, surely. And you deserve a grand reward already. But I must ask you to continue your labors. Get your weapon ready to be used once more. Once the barbarians have a chance to find their scattered wits, we’ll need to strike them again. And again.”
The two dwarves looked up at him with open mouths and wide eyes.
“I know I ask much of you, but—”
Malden stopped. He knew what they were going to say. So badly did he not want to hear it that he held up a hand to keep them from speaking.
He looked up at the weapon, the giant brass tube that Slag had made. It had rolled back into a house across the street, shattering the facade and half burying itself in fallen timbers and bricks.
It had also shattered itself. Long cracks ran up and down its length, and its mouth was splayed wide, the bright metal curled backward on itself like a flower of brass. Smoke dribbled from that opening still.
It was clear to anyone, even one of so little learning as Malden, that it would never work again. It had done what it could, but in the process it had destroyed itself.
“That . . . was it,” Malden said. “Wasn’t it? There was only one volley in it.”
“I did warn you, lad,” Slag said in a very small voice.
Malden closed his eyes. Was this the end? “Then we must all hope,” he said, “that Tarness is as great a general as he thinks he is.”
M
örget shouted in pain and for a moment froze in place, unable to continue his attack. It gave Hew time to scuttle away on his back like a crab, and that gave Croy room to dance around and face Mörget directly. He knew better than to think his blow had killed the barbarian, though he was certain he’d pierced vital organs.
It had not been a particularly virtuous attack. He’d struck out blindly to save Hew—but even Mörget deserved a better death than a sneak attack to his unprotected side. Croy stepped back, flicking blood away from Ghostcutter’s blade, while the giant barbarian bent around his wound and watched his blood drip on the ground.
There was a way these things should be done. When two great swordsmen met in single combat, it was called a conversation, because the swords ringing against each other could sound like they were arguing in something approaching human speech. But also because any such fight should properly begin with words.
Each side must state his case—explain, in detail, why he had the right to win the contest. Why fate should favor him. It was an old ritual, but it served one perfectly functional purpose as well. The banter before the exchange of blows could drive one man or the other to anger or fear or resignation to death. Many conversations ended before swords even met or blood was drawn. Croy was a master of every aspect of the swordsman’s art and he knew how to taunt and accuse just as well as he knew how to parry and feint and lunge.
“ ‘My sword is my soul,’ ” Croy said. The creed of the Ancient Blades. “You don’t have a soul, do you, Mountainslayer?” he asked. “You defile Dawnbringer by touching it.”
“A soul?” Mörget asked. He looked as if he would be happy to discuss fine points of philosophy rather than continue the fight. As if his wound didn’t pain him at all. Perhaps Mörget had learned something about dismissing pain while he had been a berserker. “Perhaps I do not. But I am possessed by a
wyrd
.”
Croy had no idea what that meant. He did know he was fighting one-armed against a giant of a man who could fight with two weapons at once. “Have you any honor?” he asked. “Face me, blade-to-blade. Like a knight. Prove to me you have the right to carry Dawnbringer. Or die, and let me take it from you. That’s one of the vows we take as Ancient Blades. If we fail to live up to the sword’s worth, it will be taken from us. Given to someone more virtuous.”
“Come and get it, then. For I have no virtue at all,” Mörget said. “I’m too honest for such lies as honor and valor. All I know is strength and glory.”
Croy tried to laugh. All that came out of his mouth was a dry rasping rattle. “To the end you are a barbarian. Uncultured, and unknowing of the ways of true honor. You never deserved to hold Dawnbringer. Look, even now you hold it the same way you hold your axe. Like a laborer holding a tool. A true warrior fights with sword alone.”
Mörget smiled, showing enormous teeth like the pegs on the neck of a lute. He bowed, slightly. Then he made a great show of dropping his axe.
Croy spared a quick look around him. Reavers surrounded him on all sides, but they were holding back—either because they knew Mörget would want to fight Croy alone, or because the Skilfinger knights were constantly harrying them to keep them away from the regent of Skrae.
Fate had conspired to bring the two of them together like this. At long last. From the moment Croy had realized Mörget still lived—when he struck down Sir Orne and broke Bloodquaffer, while Croy carried the sleeping king away from Helstrow—he had known this moment would come.
Justice, honor, and the Lady were all on his side.
Against them Mörget had an enormous reserve of strength and a shocking brutality of nature. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“I called you brother, once,” Croy said, taking a step sideways, toward Mörget’s less defensible left. “That was a mistake.”
“I took your hand in friendship, once,” Mörget replied, not bothering to follow Croy’s footwork. “It was the smartest thing I ever did. Look where it got me!”
“It’s about to get you killed,” Croy said.
Mörget looked as if he was framing a reply.
Croy didn’t wait to hear it. He leapt inward, striking low at Mörget’s thigh. Ghostcutter rang like a bell when Dawnbringer came down to block its cut. Light flashed up from Mörget’s blade.
“Fie!” Croy cursed, blinking furiously. The light had dazzled him momentarily—but even in that split second Mörget had plenty of time to counterattack.
Yet the barbarian did not take the advantage. “You could be the enemy I’ve sought,” Mörget said. “The man my
wyrd
has been chasing all this time. Yet I see you’ve been wounded, and have not yet had time to heal. Should we postpone this fight for another day?”
Croy spun around, Ghostcutter whistling over his head. Dawnbringer came up and batted it away with little effort. At least this time Croy kept enough of his wits about him not to look into the blade as it flared with light.
He tried to follow through with a slash down the center of Mörget’s chest, but Dawnbringer moved so quickly he couldn’t follow it and parried the strike. Croy took a half step backward, then spun Ghostcutter around and around in a series of quick, shallow cuts that would never kill Mörget but might make him bleed.
Dawnbringer rang and flared, rang and flared, rang and flared once more. Not once did Ghostcutter break through that flurry of iron.
Staggering backward, Croy sucked wildly for breath. He didn’t have the stamina for this. It was possible—just possible—that a man with boundless energy could wear Mörget down, given enough time. Croy’s limbs, though, were already gripped by fatigue and his armor had never felt heavier.
“You’ve made your choice, then,” Mörget said. “I’ll give you time to pray, if you like. Before I cut you in half. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps yours is not the strength my father spoke of either. Perhaps—”
With everything he had left, Croy brought Ghostcutter around in one unstoppable cut, the kind of furious strike that could carve a man like a goose. It was the most deadly attack he knew how to make, and desperation pushed it harder than any blow he’d ever swung before.
Dawnbringer came down hard and the two blades met with a sickening crunch.
Burning light erupted all along the length of Dawnbringer’s forte. Ghostcutter grew hot in Croy’s hands as the cold iron of its blade took the energy of the blow and lost its near-magical temper. Silver flaked away from the sword’s trailing edge.
Neither man could move. The swords had cut into each other, locking together as if they had fused into one piece of iron. For a moment everything was frozen, time itself having stopped to wait and see what happened next.
Then Mörget wrapped both hands around the hilt of Dawnbringer. He twisted from the hip, his massive arms flexing until the veins popped out on his forearms and Croy could see his pulse beating.
There was a noise like great mill wheels grinding against one another, and then a soul-sickening snap. Dawnbringer gave out one last feeble burst of light.
Both swords exploded into shards that spun and hung in the air and flashed with reflected sunlight when they hit the snow. Both men stood where they’d been, holding only the hilts of now useless weapons.
“My soul,” Croy whispered. “My sword—”
“I see now,” Mörget said. He raised his free hand high as if beseeching the heavens. His eyes weren’t looking at Croy but at a dead man. “I see it, Father.
This
is my
wyrd
. My destiny. To destroy not men, but their swords. To be the last of the Ancient Blades, and their ending. This is what drove me, and now—”
Croy threw himself forward. The hilt in his hand ended in a good inch and a half of broken metal, jagged and sharp. Ghostcutter would perform one last service in the name of Skrae.
He punched the inch and a half in through Mörget’s left eye. He ground it in until he felt bone split.
Mörget dropped the ruin of Dawnbringer and squealed in fury and pain. Then he brought up one massive fist and slammed Croy away from him, smashing the knight along the jaw so that Croy’s head spun around and up and white light burst in his head, white light that faded to black.
The blow laid Croy out on the iron-flecked snow, unable to stand, unable to focus his eyes. Skilfinger knights came and dragged him away, slapped his face and shouted his name until he could see again, see and hear the sounds of the battle. It raged still all around him.
“Mörget,” he said. “Mörget—does he still live? Did you see his body?”
But the Skilfingers didn’t know his language, and none of his translators were nearby.