Scream of Stone

73

10 Kythorn, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) The Canal Site

When the horse smashed into the twisted, freakish thing that once was Willem Korvan, Phyrea flew from the saddle, screaming. The horse went down, puffing out the air from both lungs. Willem was tossed underneath it, raking at the beast’s flanks as it slid over him, pushing him into the mud and driving shards of broken stone into his sandpaper skin.

Phyrea hit the ground hard but rolled with it, throwing one arm out to slow her fall then tucking it close to her side with the other as she rolled to a muddy, chilling stop on the rain-saturated ground.

The horse kicked and struggled, its sides quivering. Its mouth was open and its lips pulled back over its teeth. A twisted abomination of a man, which still shared enough of Willem’s features that Phyrea had no choice but to accept that it was indeed him, rose from behind it, lit by a flash of lightning.

Phyrea screamed.

Whatever she’d thought of Willem Korvan, and she’d changed her mind about him more than once in the years she’d known him, she’d always found him handsome. But whatever had happened to him to turn him into a vicious, monstrous, blindly violent killer, had disfigured him in ways that brought a tang of bile to the back of her throat.

Phyrea had to look away while Willem killed her horse. The animal didn’t have the air in its lungs to scream, but it kicked and rolled as Willem pounded it. The sound of its ribs breaking stung Phyrea’s ears. She clasped her palms against the sides of her head, but she could still hear it.

Someone touched her and she screamed and flinched away, striking out, but not hitting anyone.

“Phyrea,” Devorast said from right next to her. “Phyrea, it’s me.”

She tried to say his name, but her throat closed around it.

The sword, the voice said and something made Phyrea turn away from Devorast, even though at that moment she wanted nothing in the world more than just to look at his face.

Another ghostly figure stood in the pouring rain, a few paces from the dying horse. Phyrea blinked at first because she wasn’t sure it was really him, then she blinked away tears.

The sword, the ghost of her father said. Our family’s sword…It was the sword that made him this way.

“Phyrea,” Devorast said, pulling her to her feet. “What could possibly have brought you here?”

“Father?” Phyrea called, her voice squeaking.

And it’s the sword that will put him to rest, said Inthelph.

The man with the scar on his face screamed into Phyrea’s head with such a profound rage it made her knees fall out from under her. Devorast held her up, and began to pull her away.

“He’ll kill you,” she gasped when her head cleared and she saw the ruin of Willem Korvan, her horse’s blood washing off him under the relentless downpour, stalking toward them with so single-minded and burning a hatred she felt as though she was going to wither in the face of it. “He’ll kill you.”

“Run,” Devorast urged heralmost begged, if such a one as he could ever have begged. “Go, Phyrea. He’s here for me.”

He’s here for you both, Inthelph said.

Phyrea tore herself from Devorast’s arms and he pushed her away. She almost fell, but she slid a little and got her feet under her. Devorast ran in the opposite direction.

“Here!” he shouted, though Willem gave no indication that he even saw Phyrea. “It’s me you want.”

Willem opened his mouth and screamed. The sound was like metal scraping on metal. Phyrea’s hair stood on end and her breath caught in her chest. She scrambled for the horse.

Hurry, Phyrea, her father urged.

Phyrea fell facefirst into the warmth of the horse’s spilled blood. She dug into the soft earth with her fingers, clawing away at it, and her hand finally wrapped around something solid.

She heard a sound like a sack of grain dropped from a great height and sobbed. She couldn’t see. It was too dark and there were piles of rubble everywhere.

“Ivar!” she screamed into the storm, and pulled back with all her might.

The sword came loose from its scabbard and the undulating blade shone in a flash of lightning.

The ghosts whirled through the air, spinning wildly, drawing her attention up. It was as though they churned in agony. Their screams rattled in Phyrea’s head. She staggered back and fell, sitting in a puddle of water. She shivered, still looking up, blinking against the rain and another form was flung through the whirling ghosts, passing through two of them.

It was Devorast. Phyrea opened her mouth to scream at the sight of him hurtling through the air. She imagined he’d been thrown by the undead creature, but when he hit the ground, Devorast landed on his feet.

Of course, she remembered. The banelar’s ring.

He spun. While Phyrea stood, Devorast took three long strides to stand beside her.

And Willem was there, his ghastly visage lit by a blue-white blast of lightning. The hate and fury she’d seen in his face was gone, though. She couldn’t read his expression, his face was too disfigured for that, but something about the way he stood there, the way he looked at them, made her profoundly sad.

The flamberge slipped from her fingers and splashed into the mud. Willem looked down at it, then back up to her. Though it was dark, she could see his eyesblack, desperate pits in his horror of a face.

“I won’t,” Willem said, his voice grinding and harsh.

He was a good man, Inthelph said, and his voice in her head made Phyrea start to cry. Don’t let this go on. Whatever he’s done, or whatever he’s failed to do, this he doesn’t deserve.

Phyrea bent and picked up the sword. Willem’s head tilted up with it then turned to Devorast. Phyrea looked at him too and shook her head.

Devorast took the sword from her hand and Willem lurched forward.

“Willem,” Devorast said. “I’m sorry.”

Willem stepped forward again and Devorast thrust the flamberge into his withered chest, into the space where his heart once beat.

“No,” Willem grunted as Marek Rymut’s necromancy unwound inside him. “Don’t be sorry. It was my fault. It always was.”

Phyrea sobbed and fell to her knees. Willem slid off the blade and crumpled to the rain-soaked mud.