Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 85

The ravaged city reeled as the world itself cracked open. Misty veils rippled through the streets as the ancient warriors were swept away to where they should have gone centuries before. With howls of despair louder than the roar of battle, the soldiers collapsed in full armor, falling to dust. Tanimura became a literal city of the dead.

The D’Haran fighters, the city militia, the ragtag refugee army, and the everyday citizens were left amazed as the seemingly hopeless battle simply ended before their eyes. The overwhelming enemy was vanquished by an ally no one had expected—the Keeper himself.

Among his weary and wounded soldiers, General Zimmer stood wrung-out and shuddering. His hand trembled as he gripped the hilt of his sword. For hours he had lived in a mechanical process of defending himself, cutting down one opponent after another. They were all faceless to him. Surely he had slain more than a hundred by his own hand.

Lyesse, her bare skin painted red with blood, turned with angry disappointment at all the opponents who had dropped dead in front of her; she clearly wasn’t finished getting revenge for Thorn.

Sisters Arabella and Mab staggered up to General Zimmer, dragging with every step. Mab bled from a deep cut in her upper arm and another in her ribs, and Arabella held her up. Now that she had a moment when she wasn’t fighting for her life, Sister Arabella healed her companion’s injuries, strengthening Mab enough so that she could stand upright again.

Oliver, Peretta, and Amber joined them. All the rats they had summoned had fled back into the sewers and grates, gorged with fresh meat and matted with blood, but no one understood why the entire ancient army had just crumbled to dust in a hurricane of inexplicable magic.

“What do we do now, General?” Oliver looked around, but none of the others even spoke questions aloud.

At the far side of the blood-strewn square, where so many ancient soldiers had vanished into death, twenty fierce Norukai stood with their mouths wide, suddenly finding themselves alone and vastly outnumbered. Now that the tables were turned, they bellowed their defiance and raised their axes, clubs, and swords to keep fighting.

Though battered, the D’Haran soldiers were rejuvenated by the sudden reprieve, and their battle cry was ten times as loud as the scarred raiders’. General Zimmer led the charge. “Now we clear the streets of Tanimura, wipe out every last Norukai, and dump their bodies into the sea.”

Fueled by the prospect of certain victory, his army ran after the burly raiders, who turned to flee.

Bannon was horrified to watch the underworld open up and reclaim all the lost souls in a nightmarish storm. In the aftermath, it took him a long moment to realize that the defenders of Tanimura had somehow won.

After the astonishing play of lights, forms, and tangled lines, Nicci had collapsed in the rubble of the Palace of the Prophets. Nathan squatted next to the sorceress, cradling her in a tender gesture. “Dear spirits, I don’t know when I’ve ever endured the like. You saved us. You saved us all!”

Her voice was ragged. “Not just me. You all helped. I could not have done this without you.” Nicci looked at him, then at Bannon and Lila, nodding in gratitude. “But this was also Richard’s doing. He made that constructed spell and said it was all I needed. Even though I didn’t understand what he meant, I believed him. He had faith in me, and that faith made me stronger than I’ve ever been before.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over Halsband Island and extended throughout Tanimura. Now that General Utros had turned to dust, his gold mask lay facedown on the broken stones. Only a few bits of his horned helmet remained, mostly decayed, next to bone splinters. Of the escort soldiers, only a few scraps of metal, rusted buckles, and broken links of chain mail lay on the ground.

Diminished sounds of fighting came from the city as new skirmishes erupted. With his sharp vision, Bannon could see knots of Norukai warriors trying to fend off a surge from the overjoyed D’Haran defenders. Lila flashed an eager glance at Bannon. “Sounds like the fun isn’t over yet, boy. Would you like to join me? If we run, we might get there before someone else slays them all.”

Bannon looked at his ornate sword. The hilt now felt perfect in his hand, entirely his. The edge was notched from the recent fighting, but any good swordsmith could restore its razor edge. “I do want to see all the Norukai dead, but sweet Sea Mother, I have done enough killing for today.”

In the main city, the vengeful militia members, Tanimuran city guards, and D’Haran soldiers surrounded the last Norukai. A few raiders managed to get back to two of the grounded serpent ships and shoved off into the harbor, but they found no safety in the water either. The ships of the Tanimuran navy as well as the reinforcements from Serrimundi still remained to fight them. A rain of fire arrows dropped down on the serpent ships before they could get out of the harbor. Before long every last raider vessel was engulfed in flames and burned to the waterline.

A short while later, General Linden rode to Halsband Island with a handful of soldiers, followed by several Hidden People in bloodstained gray cloaks. Zimmer followed soon after with his own bedraggled escort. “We are mopping up throughout the city,” Zimmer said.

Linden added, “By standing together, we might have withstood the Norukai, but we had no chance against the army of General Utros.” He shook his head, looked at the dust and bone fragments scattered amid the rubble, the trivial remnants of so many ancient soldiers. “I can’t believe it.”

Nicci said, “With Richard’s help I found a power even greater than an invincible army—the power of life and death.”

Life to the living. Death to the dead.

“The power of destiny,” Nathan said, raising his eyebrows. “Never forget that she was indeed Death’s Mistress.”

More Sisters of the Light made their way to Halsband Island, their former home. During the battles in the city, Sisters Sharon, Lucia, and Heather had been slain, and now the remaining Sisters marked their passing. Sisters Rhoda, Eldine, Mab, and Arabella greeted Nicci and Nathan, relieved. “It seems fitting that the last battle took place on the very foundations of the Palace of the Prophets,” Rhoda said.

“So much magic was entwined through the structure of that building, maybe some of it remained,” Arabella said.

“I am glad the palace is no more,” Nathan said with sniff. “It no longer had a purpose.”

Nicci said, “With prophecy gone and gifted young men no longer suffering, your entire order has no purpose.”

“Prelate Verna wrestled with the same question,” said Eldine. “She tried to find a new reason because our old ways were gone. By helping at Cliffwall, the Sisters worked to understand and guide the use of magical lore.”

“But now Cliffwall is also gone,” Mab said, “buried in stone.”

Nathan mused, “The world still has many central sites filled with mysterious and dangerous books. Those archives have to be tended and watched—and protected. That could be your order’s new purpose.”

The Sisters looked at one another. Amber kicked a few broken pebbles at her feet. “We came to Tanimura because this is where the Palace of the Prophets was. That is why I joined the order in the first place. I want to do something significant. I need some important task. Prelate Verna told me not to give up hope. My parents are already proud of my brother, and they’ll be even happier after they learn how brave Norcross was today, how many Norukai ships he fought.” She sighed. “I wanted to be important too.”

“You will be,” said Sister Mab. “We’ll rebuild our order. Without the prelate, we have traveled together and fought together as equals, but as Sisters of the Light we must have a new leader. Who will be our prelate?”

Eldine looked at Mab, and Mab looked at Arabella, then slowly all of them turned to Nicci. “You were once a Sister of the Light,” said Rhoda. “You betrayed us by becoming a Sister of the Dark, but we know you have come back to the sacred cause. You are stronger now than ever, stronger than any of us.”

Mab said, “Stronger than any Sister of the Light that ever existed, stronger than any prelate we have had before.” Her eyes shone. “Working together with all the resources of Tanimura, we could rebuild the Palace of the Prophets!” She looked up to the skies as she imagined towers there.

Nicci scowled. “I’m no longer a Sister of the Dark, that is true, but neither am I a Sister of the Light. I am Nicci, a sorceress, companion to Lord Richard Rahl. He gave me a mission for the D’Haran Empire, and I do not intend to be sidetracked.”

Nathan felt more disturbed. “If you mean to rebuild the palace, if you raise even one foundation stone on top of another, I want nothing to do with that.” He shuddered. “I have things to accomplish in my life.”

Nicci actually smiled at him. “We all do.”