Raven's Strike

CHAPTER 19

“No,” said Hennea. “I don’t feel anything. What’s wrong?”

“The Shadowed is here,” Hinnum said. “I know the magic of my apprentice.”

Tier’s hands tightened on Seraph’s shoulders. “Here? In Colossae?”

Hinnum nodded and looked at Hennea. “I am no match for the Destroyer’s power, not in a man who has had it for two hundred years. I can buy you time to run, my lady, but you must run far and fast. Find your six Ordered and destroy this monster I helped to make.”

“We can’t go without Rinnie and the boys,” said Seraph.

Hinnum looked at her and nodded toward the city where a group of low-lying clouds were forming. “He has them already,” he said gently. “There is nothing you can do. A Falcon and a Cormorant have no chance against him. No more do two Ravens, a Bard, and an Eagle. Even if one of you used to be a goddess, even if I give you all the help I can. I tell you that I have seen the power of the Shadowed before. If the Unnamed King had not been mad, Red Ernave and Kerine would never have been able to kill him. Our Shadowed is no Unnamed King. I’ll do my best to delay him, but you have to run.”

Seraph’s hand closed on the tigereye ring. “We need a Lark,” she said. “I have one here. My daughter or whoever this Order once belonged to would have given her life to destroy the Shadowed. If you can help my children, we can destroy him now.”

Phoran stood in helpless, hopeless anger. He had promised Seraph no harm would come to her daughter. An emperor should keep his promises—but Willon’s spell held him firmly.

Willon was an illusionist. What had he said? Tier could see through his illusions. Did he mean that this spell would not have held Tier? Could this spell be some form of illusion?

Phoran had grown up in a court littered with mages of one sort or another. The illusions he’d seen had been minor magic, when it wasn’t outright legerdemain and not magic at all. It was common knowledge that disbelief would break an illusion—one of the reasons that illusionists were considered second-rate mages.

Phoran tried to convince himself the spell was just an illusion, something he could break. Of course I can move—I’ve done so all my life. How can a magician stop me with one word?

The problem with disbelief was that Willon quite obviously had managed to stop him with one word—it was hard to disbelieve something true. This would be a story to tell his children—whose future existence was in serious doubt: The story of how the lowborn wizard overcame the Emperor with one word—because the Emperor was so weak-willed as to allow it.

Anger began to stir, and Phoran welcomed it. He was Emperor, no wizard had the right to force his will upon him. Phoran pushed aside his recent realizations of how little difference there was between a farmer and the Emperor. He wasn’t a Bard. This wasn’t about truth, it was about a peasant-born trader-illusionist who thought he had the right to command an emperor.

No one commanded him. Hadn’t he killed thirteen Septs who believed they had more power than the Emperor?

Phoran closed his eyes and took the deepest belief of the drunken sot he’d once been and held it to his heart. An emperor was superior to any wizard born. He was Emperor Phoran the Twenty-Seventh of that name. No one, no one commanded him!

He stepped forward, knowing with utter certainty, that his right foot would lift, and his weight would shift. He stumbled forward and opened his eyes. He’d done it.

He rolled Rufort over, but his body was limp, his eyes open and covered in the blood he was lying in. Phoran closed Rufort’s eyes.

“Sleep sweet, my friend,” he said, and went to tend Ielian’s other victims.

Kissel had the handle of a knife sticking out of his chest, which was covered in blood.

Phoran hurriedly drew his own knife. “Don’t worry,” he said as Kissel’s eyes widened. “I’m not putting you out of your misery. I’m just getting bandage material before I pull that knife out.”

He stripped off his own shirt and sliced it into strips. The fashion for sleeves was full that year and he thanked the tailors for it as he folded the sleeves up into a pad. A quick glance at Kissel’s back showed him there was no blood. The knife hadn’t gone through then, so he only had one wound to worry about. He tried not to think of internal damage as he tied pieces of his silk shirt together until he had a long strip of bandaging. He cut Kissel’s shirt so he could get a good look at the wound.

Stop the bleeding, he told himself. The others would have to see to the rest.

“I’m going to take the knife out,” he told Kissel. “Brace yourself.”

He did it from behind, so if he overbalanced Kissel, the captain would just fall against Phoran. He pulled it as fast as he could, and cringed at the sound of steel against bone. When it was out, he dropped Ielian’s knife to the ground and held the pad made of his sleeves as hard as he could against the wound as he wrapped Kissel’s chest with the strip of cloth.

When he had the bandaging tied as tightly as he could, he rocked Kissel back against him. Kissel was not a light man, but though he easily outweighed Phoran, Phoran managed to lay him on the ground without banging him up much.

As soon as he’d taken care of Kissel, he went to Gura. The big black dog was still breathing, but his eyes were closed, and there was too much blood on the cobbles.

“I have to get Rinnie,” he told the dog, hesitated, then took his knife to Toarsen. “I need your shirt.”

It took him too long to bandage the dog, but at last he was satisfied that he’d done what he could.

“Don’t come after me,” he told them. “I require your obedience as your emperor. If and when this spell wears off, go get Tier and Seraph and tell them what has happened. I’ll get Rinnie if I can. If not, I doubt that Willon will kill her, not if he wants Seraph to do anything for him.”

He started to go after Rinnie, then stopped and turned back. He couldn’t leave without telling them what he’d learned.

“The spell is an illusion,” he told them rapidly. “As soon as you believe, really believe you can move, then you can break the spell.”

He walked backward as he spoke. When he finished he turned and ran.

Phoran was not Lehr, but he didn’t need to be. He could see the tower Willon had pointed out; it rose from the top of the cliffs above them. Ielian had walked in Rufort’s or Gura’s blood, and though the blood trail didn’t last for more than three or four steps, it gave Phoran all the direction he needed. He headed for the alleyway that looked to be where Ielian had been heading.

The alley was narrow—only wide enough for two men walking abreast, and it ended against the cliff edge, where a steep, zigzagging stairway had been carved into the cliff face. He shielded his eyes and saw a small figure climbing near the top.

Phoran drew his sword and started up the cliff. There were no railings on the side of the stairway, which was narrower than that alley had been. By the time he’d passed the third flight, he was high enough to make misstep fatal. He kept his eyes on the steps before him and tried not to look over the edge.

The past few months had melted much of the self-indulgent fat from his body, but even in his best shape, Phoran would never be a great runner. His build was more like Kissel’s, good for power but not stamina; but with Rinnie’s life at stake, he made the best speed he could. Lack of air made him dizzy and forced him to slow his pace. Legs aching, a stitch in his side, focused on climbing, he might not have noticed the Memory if it had not grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop.

Its hand touched his mouth when he would have said something. The cold touch caused Phoran to jerk his head back with a reflexive shudder. But when he heard the scuffle of feet above him, he knew what the Memory had been trying to tell him. Someone was coming down the stairway.

Phoran waited, trying to catch his breath. As soon as he stopped, the Memory faded from sight.

Ielian’s clothing was bloody, his pant leg ripped over his thigh where Gura must have bitten him, but his smile was genuine. “My emperor,” he said, “you needn’t have bothered coming. The Master sent me to release the rest of you.” He held out an amulet with the hand that wasn’t holding his sword. “This will break the spell. I’ll give it to you, shall I? Then you can go release the others yourself.”

Phoran didn’t say anything. Their relative positions on the stairway gave Ielian the advantage. Phoran knew from the morning training sessions with the Emperor’s Own that Ielian was the better swordsman. Even as he acknowledged the advantages Ielian held, Phoran set those worries aside.

He had no intention of taking the amulet and meekly going back to the others. Even if Ielian was telling the truth, the others were adults and likely not to come to any immediate harm. He had given his word to protect Rinnie.

The Memory resolved itself a couple of steps behind Ielian.

“No,” said Phoran as he lunged. “This one is mine.”

He didn’t use his sword, as Ielian had been waiting for him to do. He just ducked under Ielian’s blade and thrust his shoulder into the side of Ielian’s knee, toppling the lighter man off the open side of the stairs. He screamed as he fell.

By the time Ielian died, Phoran was climbing again.

“The Shadowed is here,” said the Memory, climbing just behind him. “But I cannot kill him, he is too powerful.”

Phoran took a second to look back at it. “What good are you then?”

“The last time someone killed a Shadowed he did it with an army at his back, a Raven at his side, and a dead wizard’s power guarding him,” answered the Memory. “It will take more than a ghost and an emperor to kill the Shadowed. More than all of us combined.”

“Encouraging, aren’t you,” Phoran said dryly. “I agree with you, as it happens.” He’d hoped to catch up to Ielian before he’d delivered Rinnie, but it had taken Phoran too long to break Willon’s spell. “Maybe, just maybe, though, we can distract him long enough to allow Rinnie to escape.”

They came to the top of the cliffs at last. The watchtower was farther back from the edge than it had appeared from below. Stairs wound around the outside of the tower, but they were wider than the ones he’d just climbed. Even better, handrails edged either side of the stairs. The top of the tower was half-enclosed, with the open half looking out over the edge of the cliff, giving whoever was watching a clear view of the lower level of Colossae and most of the valley.

“He’s up there,” Phoran said.

“Yes,” agreed the Memory. “He is there.”

“I don’t suppose you could take a message to Tier,” asked Phoran, but he wasn’t surprised at its answer.

“No, that is not within the compass of my purpose. I am that I may destroy those who killed me.”

“You saved me from assassins,” said Phoran. He was beginning to get his breath back.

“You are my tie to life and without you I will cease to exist, my vengeance unsatisfied.”

“Bringing Tier and the Ravens here might save my life,” he suggested.

“Not directly,” answered the Memory. “If I could feel sorrow or regret, it would be for this. However, I will come with you and save you if it is possible for me to do so.”

“Better than nothing,” said Phoran. He put a hand on the rail that edged the stairway winding around the tower. “Let’s go.”

The tower was fifty or sixty feet tall, and when he was halfway up he slowed to a walk. He wanted to be rested when he reached the top. The Memory had not followed him up, but he trusted it would keep its word to help and give him another weapon against the Shadowed.

Near the top of the stairs, he slowed further, his sword in hand. Not that he expected his sword would do him much good against a wizard who could freeze him with a word, but the familiar grip felt reassuring.

He stopped before the guardroom came into view and crouched, listening. From where he stood, Phoran could see out over the city to the river they’d crossed to enter Colossae’s valley.

“Have some tea, child, you’ll feel better.”

“No, thank you,” said Rinnie in a polite but extremely firm voice.

Willon laughed. Phoran closed his eyes against that laughter because it reminded him of the affection he’d always had for the old man who came to Taela two or three times a year to visit Master Emtarig, for the man who always took time to share a story or two, who always had some exotic sweet for a lonely boy emperor. It had been Willon who had made his uncle’s funeral bearable for Phoran. He’d taken Phoran’s hand and said quietly, “Your uncle loved you, boy, for all that he wasn’t the sort of man to say so. He told me he thought you would be a great emperor.”

All the while it was Willon’s machinations that had caused Phoran’s uncle’s death—and Phoran’s father’s death, a man Phoran vaguely remembered as the smell of horse and fresh air, and as the feel of strong arms hoisting him onto a shoulder. There was a portrait of Phoran’s father hanging in the art gallery in the palace, but the painting was of a stranger with Phoran’s nose and fine, midbrown hair.

“My father will see you dead,” Rinnie said. It wasn’t the most wise thing she could have said, Phoran thought.

“You’ve said that before, and it becomes tedious. The fact of the matter is that Tier is a Bard. He is a fine Bard. Over the years I’ve heard many Bards sing, and none was as good as your father.” Willon’s voice lowered and became cruel. “But a Bard is no match for me. He can’t sing me to death, Rinnie. He can’t touch me. And as long as I have you, neither can your mother or the Raven.”

“People worry about my mother,” said Rinnie, sounding far more adult than a child of ten should be able to. “And they should worry. My mother says people underestimate my father. They see the entertainer, the singer, the cheerful, easy-tempered man; and they don’t realize that all of that hides something different. When my mother was a girl her whole clan died except for her and her brother. Then her brother died, too. She told me that after all of that, the only safety that she could find was in my father’s arms. Remember, remember that the Raven ran to my father for safety.”

The wind had picked up, Phoran noticed, as it blew chill and strong on the back of his neck.

“I remember,” said Willon, dismissively. “I was there, and I remember a woman little more than a child who looked to an adult man to take care of her. A Bard is a record keeper, child. His duty in the clan is to keep their secrets and to remind them of what they once were. Tier is a Bard.”

“My father is a Bard,” agreed Rinnie softly. “But he is not only a Bard.”

There was the sound of flesh on flesh that brought Phoran to his feet and moving.

“Do not play games with me child,” said Willon. “Sit and be quiet.”

Phoran moved as quietly as he could, and he was rewarded by the sight of Willon’s back not four feet from him. Rinnie was on the ground, her face already bruising from her treatment at Ielian’s hands. Blood dripped from what looked, to Phoran’s barroom-brawl-educated eye as a fresh split in her lip.

But Willon turned before Phoran could attack, and he smiled. “I thought it was about time for you to arrive. Tell me, where is my Ielian?”

If a lie would have won them anything, Phoran would have lied. “Dead,” he said.

Willon’s face hardened. “Pity. He was useful to me.”

“How did you hide him from Jes and Lehr?” Phoran asked. “They can feel the taint of shadow.” Keep him talking, Phoran thought, let Rinnie gather her storm. He didn’t look at Rinnie again after that first, anxious glance. He wanted to keep Willon’s attention on him.

“He wasn’t tainted,” said Willon. “I did not have to do anything to make him mine. He was one of those who is drawn to the power of the Stalker, the power of destruction. I have others, but he was a promising boy, deserving of the rewards I cannot give him now.”

Phoran snorted and walked toward the open half to look over the thigh-high stone wall that was all that stood between him and the bottom of the cliffs. “He was no proper servant for a man like me or even like you. He didn’t obey orders—he killed the dog and Rufort. If he hadn’t done that, likely I wouldn’t have been able to break your illusion.”

“Death always serves the Stalker,” said Willon, following Phoran’s movements. “He was a bit overzealous, perhaps, but he was loyal.”

Phoran allowed his lip to curl. “He liked to kill. That is all. He served you because you gave him people to kill. But if he had been given the opportunity, he’d have just as soon killed you.”

He had managed to turn Willon, so that the Shadowed was no longer between Rinnie and the stairs.

“But it is so much more interesting to work with tigers than with sheep, Phoran, don’t you think?”

“You are a peasant,” replied Phoran coolly, walking farther from the stairway as if he were not afraid of Willon at all. “We have not given you leave to address Us, familiarly. You are a peasant and a cheap illusionist—your spell couldn’t even hold Us—who have no magic at all. The Unnamed King ruled the world, Willon. It took the whole of humanity and the death of a great mage and a great warrior to defeat him. He was a king. You have had twice the amount of time that he had, and what do you rule? A crazy boy who lies dead at the bottom of these cliffs. A secret society of fools who serve themselves and fell to a Bard who was their prisoner.” And when Phoran saw the light of rage cover the Shadowed’s face he said, in the same tone of voice he’d been using. “Run, Rinnie.” Then he continued, “Where are the terrible beasts that answered the Unnamed King? You are a failure, a small mind with a little power.”

“You are emperor of nothing, Phoran. You are nothing but a drunken sot who thinks he should be ruler. You have no power, otherwise you would not be here.” He waved his hands eloquently.

Phoran didn’t hear Rinnie’s footsteps and he couldn’t afford to take his attention off Willon to see if she had taken advantage of the little distraction he could grant her.

“I think I tire of you, Emperor,” continued the Shadowed. “Die.”

When he said the last word, Phoran found that he couldn’t breathe.

“No!” shouted Rinnie. “Stop it!”

A gust of wind came from nowhere and hit the Shadowed, knocking him to the ground—and Phoran could breathe again.

He sprinted, grabbed Rinnie and pushed her toward the stairs. “Run!” he said, and headed back toward the distracted wizard.

Maybe if he hadn’t tried to push Rinnie toward safety he’d have made it, but he was only halfway across the distance he had to travel when the wizard stood up and made a gesture at him and said something that sounded dark and ugly.

Something hit Phoran in the chest with the force of a kicking war stallion. He stumbled back, and the half wall hit the backs of his legs. If the power the wizard had thrown at him had lost any of its force he might have still been all right, but it just kept pushing him until he tipped off the edge.

“We can’t run,” Tier told Hinnum, and was surprised at how calm he sounded. Seraph was stiff and shaking under his hands. He whistled, a clear, two-note sound he used for calling the children in for meals or work. Even if he were asleep, Jes would answer it.

“You can’t win,” Hinnum said. “That ring does not a Lark make, whether it was your daughter’s Order once or not.”

“Nevertheless,” said Tier collecting his sword and lute—a Bard needed a lute upon occasion. “My children need me.”

“You are the world’s only hope,” said Hinnum. “You cannot sacrifice the world for your children.” He paused. “I had grandchildren who died with Colossae.”

Seraph slipped the tigereye ring over her finger. “Sometimes sacrifice is necessary,” she said. “Sometimes. But everyone is not always asked to make the same sacrifice, Hinnum. Colossae’s death was the only way to save the world. Without your children’s death, everyone would have died. My children’s death would serve only to buy us time.” She turned to look where the storm clouds were dissipating. “You and Hennea think the only way to defeat the Shadowed is with the names of the Elder gods—and we don’t have those.”

The strain of yesterday showed on her face. Her cheeks were hollow, as if she had not been eating well for months, dark circles ringed her eyes, and her hair was mussed in its braids. Tier thought she was beautiful.

“The temptation in fighting,” Tier told Hinnum, “is to adopt the enemy’s successful tactics.” He opened the corral gate and took Skew out and began saddling him. “Willon could have faced us the night we destroyed the Path in Taela, but he chose to run and pick a time and place that better suited him. It seems to me he has been very careful to hide all these years—perhaps that is why he left. I don’t know. If we follow his tactics, we should abandon our soldiers in the field, pick up, and run until we are more ready for him.”

“Yes,” said Hinnum.

Seraph and Hennea let him talk while they saddled their own horses.

Tier shook his head at the wizard as he tightened Skew’s cinch. “We cannot win that way, Hinnum. There is no victory in playing to your enemy’s strengths. Willon doesn’t age: he can afford to wait. You tell me that he is here now. If we leave to ready ourselves, to prepare for certain victory—we’ll never find him. He’s hidden his presence for years, another fifty will make no difference to him.” He took in a breath. “It may not be for us to destroy him. Perhaps that chance died when Willon killed Mehalla all those years ago. Perhaps it was destroyed this morning when we let Lehr, Rinnie, and the others go off to find the names. But if we abandon our own, it will not be for victory over the Shadowed. You sacrificed your children for the world. I might be willing to do the same—but not for the mere chance of saving the world.”

Jes came. “Papa?” He stiffened, looked at Seraph, and the Guardian asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Willon is here,” said Tier. “It looks as though he might have taken Lehr and the rest.”

The Guardian drew a deep breath. “I want to go after them.”

“No,” said Hinnum. “You have no chance if you meet him alone.”

“Go,” said Tier, knowing full well that he might be sending his son to his death. “We’ll follow as fast as we can. We’ll head straight to the Owl’s temple.”

The Guardian flowed into wolf form, shook himself once, as if to get a feeling for the shape of the wolf, then ran.

Hinnum threw up his hands. “You would feed your children to the Shadowed one by one.”

“No,” said Seraph. The rage she felt was so strong her voice shook with it. “Jes is almost immune to magic. He’ll buy us the time we need to get there.”

“I’m ready,” said Hennea swinging onto her horse.

“Wait,” said Hinnum. He stared at his feet for a moment, then knelt before Hennea. “I failed you once, lady. I’ll not do it again. Like the Guardian, I’ll go to hold off the Shadowed until you get there, or die in the attempt. I think it foolish. I don’t believe it will work. But I will go.”

“You’ve never failed me,” said Hennea, her voice tender. “Never once.”

Hinnum stood and then, like Jes, he changed form. A magpie, ebony-winged and black-eyed, replaced the boyish form, and then took flight.

“Wizards can’t change form,” said Tier. “Not even Ravens.”

“Hinnum can,” Hennea said. “Hinnum can do a lot of things other wizards never dreamed of.”

Rinnie watched in shock as Phoran fell off the wall. She’d been so glad to see him, though she’d known, really, that he couldn’t rescue her from the Shadowed.

Something cold grabbed her by the shoulder and jerked her to her feet. “Fly, Cormorant,” hissed the Memory in her ear. “Fly!”

And he threw her off the tower as the Shadowed screamed his rage after her.

The winds that had been comforting her ever since Ielian had dumped her on the floor of the guard tower caught at her hands and feet.

Trust us, they said, and then, like Phoran’s Memory they said, fly, Cormorant, fly!

And she did.

“Help Phoran,” she demanded of her winds and they let her speed down the tower, down the cliff, all but falling so that she didn’t lose sight of him. She landed, overbalanced, and then tripped and stumbled, trying to keep her feet. She landed on her knees not ten feet from Phoran’s body. She didn’t bother to stand up, just crawled to where he lay.

There’s no blood, she thought, surely there would be blood if the winds hadn’t obeyed her fast enough. If he was dead there should be blood. But if he wasn’t dead, he should be breathing, shouldn’t he?

“Phoran?” she said.

His eyes popped open in an almost comic expression of surprise. He still didn’t seem to be breathing, but he rolled to a seated position. His eyes watering, he sucked in air shallowly—and Rinnie sagged with relief. She recognized the signs, having fallen out of the rafters of the barn a time or two.

“You’ve just had the breath knocked out of you,” she said. “You’ll be all right.”

“The Shadowed is coming,” said the Memory from somewhere just behind her.

Phoran, still not breathing quite right, got to his feet. Rinnie grabbed his hand hard when she saw what lay just beyond him.

Ielian wasn’t going to be stabbing anyone again.

She turned away, but was caught by Phoran’s hand briefly. “Wait. He had an amulet—no, don’t look.”

He left her for a moment and returned, shaking his head. “No use,” he said taking her hand again and setting off at a jog.

“What were you looking for?” Rinnie asked him.

“An amulet that was supposed to release the Shadowed’s spell.”

“How did you break free?”

He smiled at her, though his eyes were tired. “No one commands an emperor,” he said. “It is unbelievable, inconceivable.”

Rinnie tried to put his answer with her question, but she couldn’t see how they connected.

“His spell was an illusion,” said Phoran helpfully. “When I didn’t believe it anymore, I could move.”

“He hurt some people before he took me,” Rinnie said. “I remember blood and Gura barking.”

Phoran’s hands tightened on hers. “Rufort’s dead. Kissel, I think, will be all right. I bandaged Gura, but he’d lost a lot of blood.”

“Look, there’s Lehr,” said Phoran.

Rinnie looked ahead and saw her brother running toward them. Phoran straightened a little more and sped up until they were running. Lehr caught up to them and turned to run with them.

“The Shadowed is coming after us,” Phoran told her brother. “We need to get out of here.”

Being able to breathe again made Phoran more aware of his surroundings, so he saw Toarsen and Kissel before they saw him. Toarsen had managed a more professional bandage than Phoran had taken time for, and Kissel was on his feet.

Kissel didn’t look like a man about to die, which was terrific. On the other hand, he didn’t look as though he was going to be running back to camp either.

“Gura,” Rinnie ran to the shaggy, black beast, but it was ominously still.

The scream of a hawk echoed through the empty streets. Phoran looked up in the sky toward the tower, but couldn’t see the bird anywhere.

“On top of that building across the street,” said Lehr, sounding grim. “It’s him, isn’t it.”

“Yes. We’re going to go back anyway. Toarsen, watch Kissel,” said Phoran, not taking his eyes off the watching bird. “Is Gura still alive?”

“Yes,” said Lehr reluctantly because he knew, as Phoran did, that the right thing to do was slit the dog’s throat.

“Can you carry him?” asked Phoran.

Willon was playing with them. They were none of them a match for the Shadowed. Only Rinnie and Lehr had any magic at all. Lehr’s bow was back at camp—and a hunting knife, which was the only thing their Falcon was armed with, was no match for Willon.

“Yes, I can carry him,” said Lehr softly.

If we are going to die, thought Phoran, we’ll do it together. “The dog was hurt trying to defend Rinnie,” Phoran said aloud. “We’ll get him out if we can.”

“That’s the Shadowed, isn’t it?” asked Toarsen. “Why is he just watching us?”

“Maybe he’s waiting for us to kill the dog,” said Phoran.