CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Arrival
As Anne watched the knight advance on Cazio, something seemed to dim in her even as the purple moonlight seemed to brighten, as if the darkness the moon was displacing sought a hiding place in her soul.
“He’s going to kill Cazio,” Austra said. “Then he’ll kill us.”
“Yes,” Anne said. She realized that they should have been running while Cazio fought, but something had stayed her feet. There might still be time; the Vitellian was certainly losing the battle, but he might last a little longer, long enough for them to escape.
But no, she was horsewoman enough to know how quickly she and Austra would be run down. Their first hope had been in an unnoticed escape, and their second had been Cazio. Neither had proved out. She eyed the knight’s horse speculatively—but no, a warhorse would never let her mount. It would probably strike her dead if she drew near enough to try.
“Can’t we help him?” Austra asked.
“Against a knight?” But even as she said it, Anne suddenly felt a strange dislocation, as if she were two people—the Anne who had fearlessly ridden down the Sleeve, and the Anne who was starting to understand the consequences of life, who had just watched knights like this slaughter women as if they were barnyard beasts.
Once, she had imagined adventures in which, dressed as a knight herself, she had triumphed over evil foes. Now all she could see was blood, and all she could imagine was her own head lifting from her shoulders in a spray of it.
A few months ago she would have rushed to Cazio’s aid. Now her illusions were dying, and she was left with the world that was. And in that world, a woman did not stand against a knight.
Austra gave her an odd look, one Anne didn’t recognize, as if her friend was a stranger she had only just met.
The knight, meanwhile, lifted his sword over the fallen Cazio, who put up his own slender weapon in frail defense.
“No!” Austra shrieked. Before Anne could think of stopping her, the younger girl ran forward, snatched up a stone, and threw it. It glanced from the knight’s armor, distracting him for a second. Austra kept running toward him.
Anne grabbed a fallen branch, cursing. She couldn’t just watch Austra die.
Austra tried to grab the warrior’s sword arm, but he cuffed her hard on the side of the head with a mailed fist. Cazio wobbled back to his feet, a little out of range, as Anne drew up and stood over her friend, stick in hand. The knight’s visor turned toward her.
“Do not be foolish,” he said. Through the slits in his helm she saw contempt and moonlight reflected in his eyes, and a sudden dark fury raged through her. Her thoughts were whisper-winged owls, stooping on mice. How dare he, beneath the sickle moon? How dare he, in the very womb of night? He, who had violated the sacred soil of Cer and soaked it with the blood of her daughters?How dare he look at her in such a way?
“Man,” Anne husked. “Man, do not look at me.” She didn’t recognize her own voice, so inert it seemed, so devoid of life, as if the dimness in her spilled out with her words.
The light in the knight’s eyes vanished, though the moon was still there, though he had not turned his head. His breath caught, and rattled, and then he did turn his head, this way and that. He rubbed at those eyes, like two holes darker than moonshadow.
Men fight from the outside, with clumsy swords and arrows,Sister Casita had said,trying to pierce the layers of protections we bundle in. They are of the outside. We are of the inside. We can reach there in a thousand ways, slipping through the cracks of eye and ear, nostril and lip, through the very pores of the flesh. Here is your frontier, Sisters, and eventually your domain. Here is where your touch will bring the rise and fall of kingdoms.
Anne, confused and suddenly frightened again, stumbled back, shaking.
What had she done? How?
“Casnar!” Cazio shouted. Anne noticed he’d managed to stand, though not firmly. “Leave off your brave battle against unarmed women and address me.”
The knight ignored him, cutting wildly in the air.
“Haliurun! Waizeza! Hundan!”he shouted.“Meina auyos! Hwa . . . What have you done to my eyes?”
“Hanzish!” Anne said. “Austra, they’re from Hansa!” She turned to Cazio. “Kill him! Now, while he’s blind.”
Cazio had begun advancing, but now he stopped, puzzled.
“He cannot see? I can’t fight a man who cannot see.”
The knight lurched toward Cazio, but even in his injured state the Vitellian easily avoided him.
“How did you do that, by the by?” Cazio asked, watching his erstwhile opponent crash into a tree. “I’ve heard a dust ground from the nut of Lady Una’s frock—”
“He was going to killyou ,” Anne interrupted.
“He has no honor,” Cazio said. “I do.”
“Then let us flee!” Austra urged.
“Will honor allow that?” Anne asked sarcastically.
Cazio coughed and a look of pain wormed through his brow. “Honor discourages it,” he said.
Anne shook a remonstrative finger at him. “Listen to me well, Cazio Pachiomadio da Chiovattio,” she said, remembering how her mother sounded when she was giving orders. “There are many more knights than this one, and we are in danger from them. I require your protection for Austra and myself. I require your aid in removing us from harm’s way. Will your honor deny me that?”
Cazio scratched his head, then grinned sheepishly. The blinded knight stood with his back against a tree, sword out, facing no one in particular. “No, casnara,” he said. “I will accompany you.”
“Then let us go, andquickly ,” Austra said.
“A moment,” Anne told them. She raised her voice. “Knight of Hansa. Why have you and your companions sinned against Saint Cer? Why did you murder the sisters, and why do you pursue me? Answer me, or I shall wither the rest of you as I have darkened your eyes.”
The knight turned at the sound of her voice.
“I do not know the answer to that, lady,” he said. “I know only that what my prince tells me to do must be done.”
At that he charged her. Almost casually, Cazio stuck out his foot, which the knight tripped over. He went sprawling to the ground.
“Have you more questions for him?” the Vitellian asked.
“Let me think,” Anne replied.
“The night wanes, and she is our ally. The sun will not be as kind.”
Anne nodded. She didn’t think the Hanzish knight would tell her more even if he knew it. They would waste precious time.
“Very well,” Cazio said. “Follow me, fair casnaras. I know the countryside. I will guide you through it.” His brow wrinkled. “If you do not rob me of my sight, of course.”
Cazio’s ribs felt as if they were aflame, but his blood, at least, did not flow strongly. He was able to set a good pace but could not run for any length of time. That was just as well, he knew, for running would only wear them all out.
Of course, there was no reason to expect the knights attacking the coven would come after them. If it was women they wanted, they already had plenty.
Didn’t they?
“How many of these beetle-backed ruffians are there?” he asked.
“I’m not certain,” Anne answered. “Some thirty to begin with. Some were killed by the sisters of the coven.”
That was impressive. “And you’ve no idea why?” he asked.
It seemed to Cazio that Anne hesitated too long before answering.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I think they killed all of the sisters. The novitiates were hiding. I don’t know what happened to them. Austra and I fled through the fane of Saint Mefitis, a cave that emerges near where you found us. Where are we going?”
“Back to the triva of the countess Orchaevia.”
“Can she protect us? I saw no soldiers there.”
“True,” Cazio replied. “She sent them away for the Fiussanal. But why should these knights pursue us?”
“Why shouldn’t they?”
“Have they some especial grudge against you two? Did you endear them in some way?”
Again, Anne seemed to hesitate. “They will pursue us, Cazio.”
“Why?”
“I cannot tell you that. I’m not sure I know why myself. But it is a fact.”
She did know something then, but wasn’t willing to tell it. He looked at her again. Who was this girl, really? The daughter of some northern warlord? What had he gotten himself into?
“Very well, then,” he said. Whatever it was, he was deep in it now. He ought to see it through. Perhaps there would even be some reward in it for him.
Lady Ausa’s robe lay coral on the eastern horizon and the stars were vanishing above. They were out in open countryside, easy prey for horsemen. He tried to quicken his pace. If Anne was right, and they were followed, returning to Orchaevia’s triva would repay the countess in poor coin for the hospitality she had shown him. The place was defensible, but not by two swordsmen and a few serving women.
“There is an old estate nearby,” he considered aloud. Z’Acatto had dragged him to it one day in hopes of finding an unplundered wine cellar. They had found the cellar, but all of the wine had gone to vinegar. “It will make a good hiding place,” he decided. After all, if he couldn’t defeat one of the knights in single combat, what chance did he have against ten, or twenty? His father had made the mistake of choosing to face the wrong enemy for the wrong reasons. He would not make the same blunder.
Anne didn’t answer, but she was beginning to stumble. The sandals she and Austra wore were hardly fit for this sort of travel.
Lord Abullo’s horses were well in the sky, pulling a burnt orange sun free of the horizon, before Cazio made out the crumbling walls of the ancient triva. He wondered if the well was still good, for he was terribly thirsty. The vinegar was all gone, smashed by z’Acatto in a fit of disappointment.
They had almost reached the walls when he thought he heard hooves, and a glance back showed two horsemen approaching. There was little need to wonder who they were, for the gleam of the now-golden sun on their armor was evident.
“They may not have seen us yet,” Cazio hoped aloud, leading them behind a picket of cedars bordering the abandoned mansion. “Quickly.” The gate had long since crumbled, leaving only the columns of the pastato, and walls that were sometimes knee high and sometimes higher than his head. Weeds and small olive trees had cracked the stone of the courtyard and pushed it up as Lord Selvans sought to reclaim the place for his own. In the distance, he heard the approaching percussion.
“Just where I left it,” Cazio murmured, when they reached the vine-draped entrance to the cellar. The stairs still remained, albeit broken and covered in earth and moss. A cool breath seemed to sigh up from its depths.
“We’ll be trapped down there,” Anne protested.
“Better there than in the open,” Cazio pointed out. “See how narrow the way down is? They won’t get their horses in, and won’t be able to swing those pig-slaughtering blades. It will give me an advantage.”
“You can barely stand,” Anne said.
“Yes, but a da Chiovattio who can barely stand is worth six men hale and healthy. And here there are only two.”
“Don’t lie to me, Cazio. If we go down in there, can you win?”
Cazio shrugged. “I cannot say. But out in the open, I cannot.” The words sounded strange to him, though he had already thought them. He took Anne’s hand, and she didn’t protest. “On foot, outside, you will be run down before you can travel a cenpereci. We should not wish for choices we do not have.”
Reluctantly, the two girls followed him down.
“It smells like vinegar in here,” Austra observed.
“Indeed,” Cazio remarked. “Now remain below.”
For a moment the world seemed to turn strangely, and the next he was lying on the cold stone.
“Cazio!” Austra cried, coming to his side.
“It’s nothing,” Cazio murmured. “A dizziness. Perhaps another kiss might cure it.”
“He can’t fight them,” Austra said. “He’ll be killed.”
“They still may not know we’re here,” Cazio pointed out.
But they heard hooves on stone, and nearby.
“I’ll need that kiss,” Cazio whispered.
He couldn’t see her blush, but Austra leaned close and touched her lips to his. They tasted sweet, like wine and plums, and he lingered on it. It was likely the last kiss he would ever have. He thought of asking Anne for one, too, but she wouldn’t give it and time was dear, now.
“That will be my token,” Cazio said, clambering to his feet. “And now it will be my pleasure to defend you ladies.”
His legs shaking, Cazio climbed back up toward the sun, where shadows were moving.
For some reason, he remembered where he had heard of a purple moon. It was in a song his father used to sing when he was a boy.
And when will the clouds come down from the sky?
When the fogs down in the valley lie.
And when will the mountaintops meet the sea?
When the hard rains come, then shall it be.
And when will the sky have purple horns?
When the old man walks who calls the thorns.
He remembered the line because, unlike the other verses, it never made any sense to him.
It still didn’t.
In the distance, he thought he heard a cornet sounding.
To Muriele the world felt suddenly silent, as if all of the sounds of battle had retreated to an infinite distance. She looked at the dead face of her daughter, saw her as an infant, as a child of six spilling milk on the Galléan carpet in her sunroom, as a woman in a wedding gown. The silence gripped beneath her breast, waiting to become a scream.
Elseny must be dead, too. And Erren, and Charles . . .
But the silence was in her, not without. Steel still rang, and Neil’s fierce battle cries proved him still alive. And over all that the sound of a horn, growing steadily louder.
It had sounded far off, at first, as if shrilled from the ends of the earth. Now it called from much nearer, but with a prickling she realized that it wasn’t approaching, only growing louder. And the source of the sounding was quite close indeed.
But where? Muriele puzzled at it, used the mystery to cloak Fastia’s dead face and her own imaginings. It didn’t take her long to discover the sound came from the wickerwork feinglest Elseny had filled with flowers only the day before. And in her dazed sight, the feinglest was changing, as slowly and surely as the sunrise drowning the morning star in gray light.
Her gaze fastened and would not waver, and as the horn droned louder she saw the change quicken, the wickerwork drawing tighter and taller. The vague resemblance to human shape was more pronounced with each heartbeat. Muriele watched, unable to move or speak, her mind refusing the sight as anything more than a waking dream.
It grew on, and the wailing of the trumpet rose so loud that Muriele at last managed to pull her hands to her ears to try to stop the sound, but her palms held no power to diminish it. Nor could her brain arrest her eyes from seeing the feinglest shiver like a wasp-wing in flight, throw out arms and sprout proud antlers from its head, and open two almost-human eyes, leaf-green orbs in black almond slivers. A powerful animal musk penetrated her nostrils, overwhelming the sickly sweet scent of the flowers.
The Briar King towered the height of two men over her; his gaze connected with hers. He was naked, and his flesh was mottled bark. A beard of moss curled from his face, and long unshorn locks of the same dangled from his head. His eyes seemed to see nothing and everything, like those of a newborn. His nostrils quivered, and a sound came from his throat that carried no meaning for her, like the snuffling of a strange beast.
He leaned near her and sniffed again, and though his nose was of human shape, Muriele was reminded more of a horse or a stag than of a man. His breath was damp and cold, and smelled like a forest stream. Muriele’s flesh crawled as if covered with ants.
The Briar King turned to Fastia and blinked, slowly, then shifted his strange eyes back to Muriele, narrowing them as they came mere fingers from her own.
Her vision dissolved in those eyes. She saw strange, deep woods full of trees like giant mosses and trunked ferns. She saw beasts with the eyes of owls and the shapes of mastiffs.
He blinked again, slowly, and she saw Eslen fallen into ruins and swallowed by vines of black thorn with blooms like purple spiders. She saw Newland beneath the stars, covered by dark waters, and then those waters dancing with pale flame. She saw a vast hall of shadow and a throne of sooty stone, and on it a figure whose face could not be seen but for eyes that burned like green flame. She heard laughter that sounded almost like a hound baying.
And then, as if in a mirror of polished jet, she saw her own dead face. Then it was again the face of the Briar King, and her fear was gone, as if she really were dead and moved beyond all mortal thoughts. As in a dream, she reached to touch his beard.
His face contorted in a sudden expression of pain and rage, and he howled, a sound with nothing human and everything wild in it.
Aspar was too far from his bow. The greffyn would reach Winna and Ogre long before he could fit an arrow to string. He did the only thing he could do; he threw his ax. It struck the greffyn in the back of the head and bounced, leaving a gash and drawing a thin train of ruby droplets.
“So youcan bleed, you mikel rooster,” Aspar snarled in perverse satisfaction.
The greffyn turned slowly to face him, and Aspar felt the fever from its eyes strike straight through to his bones. But it wasn’t so bad as before; his knees trembled but did not betray him. He gripped his dirk as it came, but he did not watch it. Instead he focused on Winna, on her face, for he wanted to remember it.
He couldn’t quite remember Qerla’s face.
It was luck to find love twice in one lifetime, he decided, and luck always came with a price. It was time to pay it, he supposed.
Give me strength, Raver,he thought. He’d never asked Haergrim for anything before. Perhaps the Raver would take that into account.
The greffyn came, then, almost faster than sight could follow. Aspar turned just slightly, striking the beast above and between the eyes with the iron hilt of his dirk. He felt a terrible shock in his arm and knew he was already dead.
He heard Winna scream.
Incredibly, the greffyn stumbled at the blow, and Aspar took the only chance he had. He threw himself upon the scaled back and wrapped one arm beneath the hooked jaw. The creature screamed then, a shrill cacophony that almost overshadowed the rising sound of the horn.
He guessed where the heart might be and drove his dirk there, once, twice, again. The greffyn crashed into the courtyard wall, trying to dislodge him, but for the moment his arm was a steel band. Aspar felt larger, like one of the great tyrants of the forest, his roots sinking deep, pulling strength from stone and soil and deep hidden springs, and when his heart beat again he knew he was the forest itself, seeking vengeance.
Motion blurred everything. He caught a brief glimpse of Winna’s anguished face, of Ogre, proud and fearless, rushing to his aid. There was air, and then water, as they plunged into the canal beyond the gate.
Close the gate, Winna,he thought.Be the bright girl. He would have shouted it, but the water was wrapped too tightly about him.
All the while his dirk was cutting, as if the Grim had indeed taken Aspar’s hand for his own. The water of the canal burned like lye.
Cazio stood unsteadily at the entrance to the wine cellar, but when he raised Caspator, the weapon did not waver.
“Hello, my fine casnars,” he said to the two armored men. “Which of you do I have the honor of killing first?”
The knights had just dismounted. He noticed one of them had more ornate armor than the other, all gilded on the edges. That was the one who answered him.
“I know not who you are, sir,” the fellow said. “But there is no need for you to die. Leave here and return to a life that might be long and prosperous.”
Cazio looked down the length of Caspator. He wondered if his father had felt this way at the end. There was certainly no profit in this fight. No one would hear of it.
“I prefer to live an honorable life to a long one, casnar,” he said. “Can the same be said of you?”
The knight regarded him enigmatically for a moment, and Cazio felt a brief hope. Then the man in gilded armor turned his head toward his companion.
“Kill this one for me,” he said.
The other man nodded slightly and started forward.
He doesn’t have a shield, at least,Cazio remarked to himself.The eye slits. That’s my target.
The horn in the distance grew louder. More knights, probably.
The knight came hewing. Cazio calmly parried the blows, though Caspator shivered from them. He riposted at the steel visor, but the fellow stayed out of distance, and Cazio didn’t have the footing needed to lunge. They fought for several long phrases before the heavy broadsword finally smashed down onto Caspator’s hilt, shocking his already numbed arm enough that the weapon clattered to the ground.
It was then that a cascade of mortar and brick fell on the knight’s head. Dust and grit followed, stinging Cazio’s eyes. Masonry tumbled past him down the worn stairway, and he saw the knight collapse, his helm deeply dented.
The gilded knight—who hadn’t been beneath the fall of rubble—looked up in time to receive a brick in the face, and then another. Stunned, Cazio bent to retrieve Caspator as z’Acatto dropped down from above the arch of the cellar door.
“I told you, boy,” the swordmaster grunted. “You don’tfence knights.”
“Granted,” Cazio said, noticing that the gilded knight was regaining his feet. With what little remained of his strength, Cazio leapt forward. The broadsword came up and down, but he turned and avoided it, and this time Caspator drove true, through the slit in the helm and further, stopped only by the steel on the other side of the skull, or the skull itself. He withdrew the bloody point and watched the knight sink first to his knees, and then to a prone position.
“I’ll follow your advice more closely next time,” he promised the older swordsman.
“What have you gotten yourself into, lad?” z’Acatto asked. He looked past Cazio, then, and shook his head.
“Ah,” he said. “I see where the trouble is.”
Anne and Austra had come to the top of the stair and were staring at the tableau.
“There will be more,” Cazio said.
“More women?”
“More trouble.”
“The same thing,” z’Acatto remarked.
“More knights,” Cazio clarified. “Maybe many more.”
“I’ve two horses,” z’Acatto said. “We can ride double.”
Cazio crossed his arms and gave his swordmaster a dubious look. “It’s fortunate you brought horses,” he said. “Also very odd.”
“Don’t be an empty bottle, boy. The road to the coven goes near the well at the edge of Orchaevia’s estates. I saw them arrive.”
“What were you doing there?”
Z’Acatto grinned and drew a narrow bottle of green glass from beneath his doublet. He held it up to the light.
“I found it,” he said triumphantly. “The very best year. I knew I would smell it out.”
Cazio rolled his eyes. “At least we were saved by a good vintage,” he said.
“The best,” z’Acatto repeated happily.
Cazio made a weak bow to the two women.
“My casnaras Anne and Austra, I present to you my swordmaster, the learned z’Acatto.” He hesitated and caught the old man’s eyes. “My master and best friend.”
Z’Acatto held his gaze for an instant, and something glimmered there Cazio did not quite understand. Then he looked to Anne and Austra.
“My great pleasure, casnaras,” z’Acatto said. “I hope one of you will not mind my company on horse.”
Anne bowed. “You’ve saved us, sir,” she said. She looked at Cazio significantly. “The two of you. I’m in your debt.”
It was then Austra shrieked at something behind Cazio. Cazio sighed and turned, ready for anything.
Anything except for what he saw. Slowly, tremulously, the gilded knight was trying to rise. Blood ran from his visor like water from a fountain. Cazio raised his sword.
“No,” z’Acatto said. “No. He’s not alive.” Cazio couldn’t tell if it was a statement or a question, but z’Acatto drew his own sword and jabbed it through the other eye. The knight fell back again, but this time started to get up immediately.
“Diuvo’s wagging—” Z’Acatto didn’t finish the curse, but instead picked up the knight’s abandoned broadsword and hewed off the man’s head.
The fingers continued to claw at the dirt.
Z’Acatto watched that for a moment. “I advise rapid flight,” he told them. “And later, some wine.”
“We’re in agreement,” Cazio husked.
The rage had almost left Neil when the horz exploded. The Sefry archer on the point of his sword was gaping at the otherworld, and with no other enemies at hand, the red cloud was lifting, allowing reason back into his head.
He had heard of the rage before; his uncle Odcher had had that gift. In all of his years of battle, Neil had never experienced it before.
Watching the Sefry slowly relinquish his life, he stared at the carnage around him, trying to remember what he’d been doing when the lightning had entered his soul.
The sound of shattering stone turned him, and he saw what appeared to be turbid coils of black smoke billowing through the rent walls of the garden. He staggered toward the horz, remembering that he had left the queen and Fastia within. It was only when he actually plunged into what he’d believed to be smoke that focus came, though not comprehension.
Black tendrils groped past him, gripping at his limbs, fastening to the stone of the walkway. He cut at them, and they fell writhing to the ground, but they were merely the vanguard of the thicker vines they sprang from, wide as a man’s legs and growing larger with each moment. The sharp points of thorns tore at Neil’s armor. The briars pushed him back to the edge of the causeway, though he hacked at them with Crow. It had been a long while since he’d understood much of anything, and he no longer cared. He’d left the queen in the horz; he had to return for her.
So he pitched himself forward, sweat and blood sheening his face and stinging his eyes, slowly fighting through the impossible foliage, until his sword hit something it would not cut. He looked up and green eyes stared back down at him.
It was far taller than a man, the thing, entirely wrapped about in the black vines. They tugged at him, as if trying to pull him into the earth from which they sprang, but he ignored their grasping just as he ignored Neil after a single glance.
Neil smelled spring rain mingled with rotting wood.
The green-eyed thing strode past the young warrior, snapping the vines and tearing them from the stone as he went, but wherever his feet trod new growth sprang up. Neil watched him, gape-mouthed, as he stepped into the canal, the deepest waters of which came only to his waist.
He’d never seen a monster before, and now he’d seen two. Neil wondered if the world was coming to an end.
The queen, you fool.The end of the world was not his concern. Muriele Dare was.
He turned to what was left of the horz, slashing at the thick vines with Crow, weeping, for what could tear apart stone must be able to do much more to human flesh.
But he found the queen untouched upon the stone from which the largest of the vines had emerged, staring at where the dark briars had crept over Fastia’s form. Numb of all human feeling, Neil took the queen in his arms, stumbling through the path he had cut in the vines, through the courtyard full of corpses and out the front gates. He saw the thorn-giant again, striding up the canal where it bent around toward the front gate of Cal Azroth, where others stood watching. Neil lay the queen on the grass and fumbled for Crow; they were surely more of his enemies—
But Saint Oblivion beckoned, and he had no power to resist her.
The greffyn rolled and pitched beneath the water, and Aspar’s lungs would stay shut no longer. His hold loosened, and he was flung away. He struck toward the surface, the dirk still in his hand.
He came up near the edge of the canal and clambered at it, pulled himself from the water with little more than strength of will. He fought to stand, tremors running through his entire body, watching the roiling water for a quicker doom he felt certain would emerge.
Everything in him felt broken. He vomited, and saw that it was mostly blood. Far away he heard his name, but he hadn’t time for that, for the greffyn did come out of the water, sinuous and beautiful, like something a poet might sing made flesh. He marveled that he hadn’t seen it that way from the start. That he’d wounded it seemed almost a shame—except that of course it had to die.
“Come here,” Aspar told it. “There’s not much left of me, but come get what’s here, if you can.”
It seemed to him that it moved a little slower, this time, when it lashed at him with its great beak. It seemed he shouldn’t have had time to drive the dirk into its eye, but he did.
Just like Fend,he thought, wondering where the Sefry had gone. Then the greffyn hit him with a weight like a horse in full barding. Everything went white, but he kept hold of consciousness, flexing his now empty hands, knowing they would do him no good at all, but happy he could at least fight to the end.
But when he turned, he saw that the beast lay still. It had hit a stone piling, and its neck was crooked at an implausible angle.
Well. Easier than I thought. Grim, if that luck was sent by you, my thanks. It’s good to see your foe die before you. Now if Fend would be so good as to drop dead nearby . . .
Aspar lay there, coughing blood, the now familiar feel of poison deepening. He hoped Stephen would keep Winna away, but then she had enough sense not to touch his corpse anyway, didn’t she?
He turned his head and saw her there, standing beside Stephen, on the other side of the canal. She was weeping. He raised his hand weakly but didn’t have enough strength to call out. “Stay there, lass,” he whispered. “By Grim, stay there.” There must be poison every place the greffyn had spilled blood.
But now something else went across Winna’s face, and Stephen’s, as well.
A shadow fell over him, blocking the morning sun, and Aspar wearily raised his head to look once more upon the Briar King.
Stephen dropped Aspar’s bow from trembling hands. He’d been trying to shoot the greffyn, but he’d feared hitting Aspar, and now, incredibly, the beast was dead.
Winna, by his side, started forward, but he held her back.
“There’s nothing you can do for him,” he said. “If you go near, you’ll die, too.”
“I don’t care,” she said huskily. “I don’t care.”
“But he would,” Stephen told her. “I’ll not let you.”
She opened her mouth, probably to argue further, but then around the corner of the keep, wading up the canal, came what could only be the Briar King, dragging a train of thorns behind him. One great step brought him out of the water, and with large and purposeful strides he started toward the King’s Forest.
But then he paused and lifted his nose as if scenting something, and his antlered head turned to regard the fallen figures of Aspar and the greffyn. It moved toward them purposefully.
“It’s happened,” Stephen whispered. “Saints, but it’s happened.” He saw in his mind’s eye the scrifts and tomes he had pored over, the bits of time-shattered clues, the terrible prophecies. And he felt something, in the earth and sky, as if something were broken and sifting away, as if the world itself was bleeding.
As if the end had truly begun.
Which meant nothing much was worth doing, was it?
But he ought to try, he supposed.
He picked up the bow and shot the single remaining arrow. He didn’t know if he actually hit the monster or not, but it certainly didn’t notice. It stooped first upon Aspar, and vines writhed all about him. Then it left him there and moved on to the greffyn. Stephen saw him lift the slain beast in his arms, cradling it like a child, and then walk away, leaving a trail of black springlings in his footsteps.
Behind them, the stones of Cal Azroth began to slowly shatter as the vines pulled it down.