The Shield of Weeping Ghosts

Chapter Twenty-two

Stumbling toward the stairwell, Bastun leaned against the doorframe and gripped the wound in his side. In between pained breaths he reached inside his robes, just beneath the light armor he wore. Focusing on casting a spell and watching the duel between Duras and Serevan, he warded off the effects of shock. Blood ran between his fingers as he completed the spell. He cried out as a burning pain seared the wound shut, but he kept his eyes open, his mind alert, and used the pain as further reminder that he was still alive.

Duras's blade gleamed as it blocked another of the prince's thrusts. He hacked at the thin blade with his larger sword, threatening to snap the smaller weapon in two. It stubbornly held and kept coming.

Bastun carefully removed his palm from the sealed puncture. The smell of his own scorching flesh was slight compared to the scent of dying wraiths that hung on the air in a gray haze. Their numbers had thinned, but they'd taken more than their share of Rashemi along with them. Barely ten still stood alongside Syrolf and Thaena, blocked into a circle of swinging blades. Bastun could not help but wonder at the faces of such familiar strangers. Torchlight flashed over the battlefield, obscured intermittently as the howling spirits encircled those still alive.

Hefting his axe, Bastun pushed away from the wall. Hesitant to cast any magic for fear of striking Duras, he circled

Ir s_ and waited for an opening. Serevan's features had reformed quickly in the presence of the big warrior, but Duras fought on despite the sickly pallor he now wore. His sword crashed against the prince's shoulder, denting the elaborate armor and sending a shower of ice to the floor. Serevan ignored the hit and punched Duras in the chest. The force of the blow sent the warrior stumbling backward.

Bastun thrust his axe forward to fill the opening, only to have it deflected downward. The swift sword rose to slash at his side, and Bastun backstepped protectively. Too late he tealized his mistake, hearing the prince's voice whispering arcane words. With a casual gesture Serevan sent magical force slamming into Bastun's stomach. He flew through the air and crashed into the wall. Hitting the floor, he wheezed for breath as Duras resumed a furious attack.

Through the open door across the chamber, Bastun could see the dark splotches on the snow-covered wall. The sight of the bodies-Anilya's body-drove him to keep moving. With a desperate determination he picked up his axe. Blinking away sweat and the tears from coughing for air, he turned to find Duras, his back facing Bastun as the berserker met the Cold Prince.

A sudden silence seized his attention. Two still forms stood face to face in an awkward embrace. Serevan's visage pulsed with life, only his eyes held on to the hazy blue of ice. Duras's head rolled to one side, his sword clattered to the stone, a scarlet-stained sliver of bright steel sprouting from his back. His legs continued to push, trying to stand, but failing in the task as his strength was drained by the wound and the bleakborn's feeding.

With a shrug, the prince pulled his blade from the warrior's chest. Duras fell backward, still fighting to keep his balance like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Bastun caught him beneath his shoulders and slumped under his weight. Blood gushed over his robes and stained his hands, his eyes only just registering the dark crimson color that spilled over him. It streamed across the stone, filling cracks and melting frost, creating a sickening red slush. Duras shook in his arms, eyes rolling in their sockets.

The crunch of a boot startled Bastun out of his momentary shock. He did not look up. Instinct sent his hands into action. In a trance, words spilled forth from his mouth as he studied his blood-drenched hand. An old scar on his palm made him recall the last time he had touched his friend's blood.

The last of the spell thundered down his arm, energy quaking through his wrist as his fist shot forward. Air parted at spell's edge, a vacuum forming as the image of his fist grew and blurred into a massive battering ram. Serevan's arms and legs flailed as he was struck and flung through the chamber. Wraiths parted and hissed as he fell through them and disappeared, his armor scraping against stone and crunching against the opposite wall.

Then Bastun breathed again, air rattling from his lungs as he shook in a barely controlled fury. That seething anger lessened a moment as he met Duras's half-lidded eyes.

"Bas-Bastun…" he said, lips almost blue and stained with drops of blood. The vremyonni shook his head as if silence would keep his friend alive, somehow hold death at bay, but Duras continued, "No, I must… Ulsera, your sister…"

"Don't," Bastun said quietly, but his friend was beyond hearing, and the sound of his sister's name quelled any further protest within him.

"I took her there… to the Urlingwood. They found us… the guardians. I hid"-a choking sob escaped him-"I ran away… but they-they killed her. We were just… children."

His eyes stared off into nowhere, reliving the events in his mind. In the absence of the bleakborn's presence, a chill had returned to Bastun, coldet now as Duras spoke. Feeling numb, he sat motionless, his dying friend in his arms. A sudden fierce focus filled the warrior's gaze.

"I should have died there. Not her. Too scared to tell anyone… just a child… and they blamed you." The words cut deep, and the first stirrings of some emotion began to churn in Bastun, "I had no courage. So many… years."

Bastun trembled, tears never spilled welled in his eyes and still he choked them back.

"I die… for her. Giving this… to you. Forgive me."

"You are forgiven, Duras," he said without hesitation as Duras's eyes lost their focus. A final shuddering breath left his friend, his childhood blood-brother, lifeless and silent. Carefully he let Duras's body slip from his arms, the last secrets of a shattered past sitting quietly in his heart-before returning his attention to the present and the Nar prince.

Bastun stood slowly, purposefully, the tip of his axe resting on the floor as he closed his eyes and breathed. He began to count backwards, matching his heartbeat and performing the old rituals.

Where is your breath?

He let go of the surrounding world, of memory and petty anger, of life and pain, and the sensation of his own presence. In that space lay a balance between living flesh and the Weave of magic-a cooperation of spell and primal thought.

Skin tingling, the familiar fever of Serevan's presence washed over him. The Breath trembled, the bound spirit of the Magewarden reaching out in anger and sorrow. Bastun allowed the intrusion but kept it in check, maintaining an authority over Athumrani's desires. The sounds of battle rose in volume, resonating with an order that wrapped itself around him.

Opening his eyes, he watched as Serevan appeared through the gloom of wraiths, ever hungering for the power of the Breath and the Word. The stain of his fallen friend's last battle still darkened the prince's blade. Bastun would give in to history, to all of Athumrani's anger and his madness, but he would give direction to that wild emotion. He would give the Magewarden what he truly needed. He would give him rage.

Swords still lay in freezing hands. White faces stared in horror against the ground or looked sightlessly up into the clear, night sky. Dim stars reflected in eyes glazed over with death. Gaping wounds would fill with snow and ice over time, taking over their forms and cementing them against the stone like sttange sculptures of grim warning. The durthan's sellswords, their unwitting souls soaked into the stone, pulled down by the Shield's curse and Ilythiiri magic to haunt Shandaular till chance or mercy set them free.

Blood and ice encrusted Anilya's hair. Dark cuts crisscrossed her skin, and powerful cuts had rent her robes. One of her arms was twisted, fingers crushed beneath the heel of the passing prince. Her mask lay askew, revealing her face.

A gentle snow began to fall. Still and silent, the quiet of the scene was broken only by the echoing sounds of battle and the phantom flames of Shandaular's burning. Ghostly smoke intermingled with the ever-present mists that thickened as dawn cast the first faint glow of a distant sunrise.

An orphan of time, the Shield was a ghost of stone and ice suffering nightmares of history.

"I will free you," a voice said wistfully.

The body of Anilya shimmered, the image rippling away to reveal the body of a fallen man. The sellsword had suffered many of the same injuries as the illusion that had obscured him, but he had fought with sword and shield before dying at the hands of wraiths and the time-worn prince. Anilya had fought with magic. She turned from the battlements, her form still invisible, to peer into the living darkness of the guard tower. Hidden from the eyes of the living and the dead, she watched and waited.

Magic tingled through Bastun's body, the room blurring for a moment as his eyes reacted to the unnatural speed that filled him. His axe swayed menacingly, lighter and faster to match Serevan's quick sword. The fever returned in full, skin burning as if bare under a desert sun. The prince's feeding cold could not touch him, caused him not the slightest chill. The ring on his hand had begun to burn as well, its metal hot to the touch. Whatever Ilythiiri magic had been woven into the simple band was somehow connected with Serevan's goals and the Shield's history. But Bastun had no time for history now. He was becoming a part of it.

Their blades met twice in the space of a blink, sparks flying. The prince's mindless anger had faded, his reason now accepting the re-enactment of his duel with Athumrani. No longer beset by unfamiliarity with history's course, he settled back into the cruel and efficient stoicism of Nar royalty. His fighting stance was more open and arrogant than the mindless undead he had become.

Black light exploded from Bastun's open palm, the beam searing through Serevan's chest. The prince howled in pain and whirled away, ashes falling from where lifelike flesh and solid armor once had been. Bastun followed closely, slicing with the axe and adjusting his position to keep Serevan off balance. They exchanged blows again, and Bastun loosed the dark beam a second time, burning it into the prince's leg. Icy skin and muscle fell away, exposing bone. Serevan cried out in pain and began casting a spell of his own.

Unleashing a torrent of attacks, Bastun spun and turned, keeping the prince's attention far too busy to complete the spell. The rhythm of the spell-rage felt good, settled within him calmly in contrast to the wild bloodlust of the berserkers. Athumrani did not struggle or assault him with commands or memories. In truth, Bastun was not sure the spirit could affect him as crudely as it had before. The Weave surged like waves around him. He matched its swells with magic and its troughs with steel.

The black light of his previous spell died away as he parried and struck, carrying his axe blade to his enemy's side. The wounds he had opened were already closing, healing as Serevan spent his stolen life replacing the illusion of living flesh. The prince could not accept the reality of his undead state, believing himself alive and on the cusp of victory each night. Bastun had counted on this denial and smiled grimly as the first shadows of sunken flesh began to plague his opponent's face.

The wraiths avoided the pair, flying around them as they dived and circled the struggling Rashemi. More of the spirits had been slain, but more than enough remained to threaten their thinning chances. Syrolf still fought at the ethran's side, but Thaena's voice had grown weak and hoarse.

Bastun backstepped, spreading his arms wide. With one hand he deflected the prince's blade and with the other waved over the dropped blades and weapons of his fallen countrymen. Magic drifted from his fingertips, and he reversed his spin, thrusting with his axe and battering at Serevan's sword. A moment's hesitation and a nicked wrist revealed the first sign of a sluggishness infecting the bleakborn nobleman's movements. With a final thrust Bastun stepped away, backing up and kneeling on the stone floor.

Eyes closed, he concentrated on the magic seeded in the items around him. Only the smallest of the blades responded. Hard-tipped short swords and daggers rattled as they rose on their points and spun into the air. He stood quickly and raised his axe, catching the prince's sword at the last moment. Tiny fractions of his focus floated in the small blades and he growled as he pushed back against Serevan's unnatural strength. Twisting to his right, he kicked at the prince's leg, setting Serevan off balance.

Bastun exhaled and released the swarm of blades. They flew unerringly at their target, a few parried and sent spinning to the ground before the others struck home. A look of shock crossed the bleakborn's face, lasting only a moment as his chest, legs, and arms were stabbed by the flying arsenal. The blades tore through the illusion of life which tried to replace itself with each new wound. Daggers clattered to the floor, pushed out by renewing flesh that looked less alive and more scarred each time. As the last shortsword slipped from his stomach, the prince seemed more the walking corpse he was than the man he thought himself to be.

Serevan's step faltered, and his head shook in denial. A thin whisper of a voice tried to speak past a shriveled tongue and a lipless skull's grin. Bastun knew he could not truly slay the prince. The Shield would keep its tormented conqueror alive night after night, but the vremyonni only needed to make it through one night, slay the Nar prince this once, for Duras. Taking the advantage he raised his axe high and brought it down with all the strength he could muster.

The blade found only a thin sword awaiting it. The weapons shook violently, the force of the blow reverberating down the length of Bastun's arms as he stared into the maddened face of the undead prince. Serevan hissed, his nose now little more than a bit of tissue on the emerging skull beneath. Hunger drove the prince's furious attack, slashing and clawing such that the vremyonni was forced backward, trying to keep up with each blow.

Catching an opening he returned the assault, venting his anger and matching the bleakborn's madness. His blood burned, the pain of his wounds and his aching muscles long forgotten and ignored. Arcane speed made their battle a blur of flashing metal, a cacophony of unintelligible curses and chanting.

Blue light sparked from Bastun's hands, arcing through Serevan and spinning outward as it illuminated the spectral bodies of the wraiths. Shrill screams echoed throughout the tower, but despite the hole blasted through his stomach the prince fought on.

His sword hooked beneath Bastun's axe and tore it from his hands. It clanged against a wall obscured by shadows, and Serevan lunged. Bastun deflected the blade. The prince stared with dawning recognition at the wavy-bladed long sword wielded against him.

With heaving breaths, Bastun slashed Serevan back, having drawn the Breath on instinct and now finding himself fully locked in Athumrani's mindless battle for revenge. He gave the Magewarden his due and pressed upon Serevan with the vengeance of two men.

To him, the Breath now seemed the coldest object he had ever touched. It numbed his hand, froze his fingers in a vice around the leather-wrapped handle. Its blade served him as a weapon, but its purpose sent chills through his soul.

Serevan fell back, mesmerized by the artifact he had long sought but never truly seen in so many centuries. Only the ghost of the blade had been wielded by Athumrani. Only the memory of its ultimate use had washed over Serevan at the end of each long night. Absently he dropped his own sword and stared at his withered hands, a raspy breath of fear escaping him at the sight of his own death. Bastun swung the Breath wildly, scraping its tip across the bleakborn's breastplate.

They had neared the others. Bastun could see the silhouettes of Thaena and Syrolf through the haze of wraiths. Serevan noticed as well, sensing the warmth of the living and drawn to it. He dived through his undead servants to reach the Rashemi, leaving Bastun to the spirits.

Filmy garments of the dead clouded his vision as he stabbed and slashed through the fallen Creel. Cold claws reached through his robes, tearing at his spirit, but he shrugged them away. A whispered spell created a nimbus of gray light to surround him, the arcane aura shielding him against the hungry wraiths. The miasma of insubstantial bodies parted, and he found Serevan but a few strides away. Thaena had been knocked aside and she shivered, struggling to stand. Syrolf was bent on one knee, locked in a deadly embrace with the bleakborn who turned and smiled as his strength returned.

Bastun charged, tackling the prince from the side and sending them both rolling to the ground. Syrolf was knocked free, and Bastun tumbled with Serevan, followed by wraiths seeking to protect their prince.

He punched and kicked at the icy skin of the bleakborn, his knuckles bleeding from the effort. Darkness shrouded his eyes as wraiths tore at his robes and pulled at his hair. Though their claws scraped uselessly at the magic that protected his flesh, he was afforded no such protection against Serevan. Cold hands held him down, scratched at his mask, and pried at the fingers wrapped around the Breath. Bastun's strength could not hold. He felt his grasp loosen even as the prince's fist tightened around his neck. The sword fell away from his grip, thundering as it struck the floor.

They both scrambled for the weapon. Through the darkness, tiny white sparks filled Bastun's eyes as his lungs burned. Useful spells flitted elusively through his mind, his thoughts now scattered in a void once filled by Athumrani.

Steel skittered across stone, and he felt the weight of the prince lifted from his chest. He coughed and hacked as the wraiths fled. Syrolf stood over him, sword flashing in the torchlight as he cut down yet another of the ebony spirits.

Several feet away, Serevan lurched awkwardly toward the Breath on legs of bone and withered flesh. Bastun grasped upon the magic trapped in his mind. The Weave responded as he chanted, voice reed-thin and the words painful to speak. Whispering the name of the final rune, a tiny white mote of light appeared in the air and drifted toward the prince. Blue flames gathered around the light as it careened and swirled like a snowflake. Landing at the bleakborn's feet, it exploded upward, an azure bonfire of wintry chill.

Consumed by the cold lire, the prince collapsed, curling onto the floor as his last vestiges of warmth were burned away in the freezing flame. Bereft of their prince, the undead Creel moaned and howled, the vigor of their attack renewed.

Thaena summoned bright spheres of sparkling energy that danced and darted around them. Dragged by Syrolf to the wall, Bastun pushed himself up, still shaking the cobwebs from his mind, but aware enough that the sharp edge of steel on stone caught his attention.

Through the blackness of tattered garments and incorporeal shapes he could see her. She stood unharmed among the spirits, ignored by them as they screamed and clashed with the handful of Rashemi. At her feet lay the twitching, desiccated corpse of Serevan. For a moment he wondered at the image, thinking her a ghost. Despite the darkness and howling dead that separated them, he knew he looked into the durthans eyes-and he knew she was smiling. In Anilya's hand, its point resting on the floor, was the Breath.

With a casual grace she turned and left, stepping out into the winter night with all that he feared in her grasp.