A Prince Among Killers - By J. B. Redmond Page 0,132
toe to head.
So there was a way. Maybe a few ways. A few paths, at least, where Dari and their child and even her family survived. Or where Aron triumphed in the battle, and Eyrie didn’t plunge into endless bloodshed and destruction. His mother. Triune. The armies.
Dear gods and goddesses, any and all, known and unknown—how was he supposed to choose the fates of people he loved?
How could he pick between them, or select Eyrie’s welfare over the warmth of smiles and faces and heartbeats he knew almost as well as his own?
None of these possibilities worked out particularly well for Nic, and all of them would require new sorts of courage he wasn’t even sure he possessed.
But how—how could he?
How could anyone do this?
Nic let go of the images as he felt himself sinking down, down, back through the Veil and into the body that was even now rebelling and attempting to die without him.
He knew what came next, the fit, the long recovery—but he couldn’t allow it.
Help me, he said to Aron, and Aron did, this time costing himself so much of his own essence and energy that he slumped forward on Tek. They both slid in the saddle, and Nic’s fit sparked and fizzled in his mind, spreading, threatening to rise over every effort he and Aron were making.
Thunder ruptured the silence expanding through Nic’s brain, and lightning forced stars into the places where sparks had been.
He sat up straight, towing Aron with him, but Aron was already regaining his balance.
Beside them on the back of his bull talon, it was Stormbreaker who sagged now.
“No!” Aron’s shout broke through Nic’s stupor, and the two of them thought as one as they closed their eyes and joined their graal, seeking to return the essence Stormbreaker had loaned them.
A massive snake exploded into Nic’s awareness, blocking the energy he had released and sending it rushing back into his own body. Aron gave a cry as the same thing happened to him. As they both opened their eyes and turned to their left.
“It’s rude to reject gifts,” Snakekiller growled. She glared briefly at them, then returned her attention to the road. “Especially so close to our destination.”
Nic could have sworn he heard a hissing sound laced through each word. It took a moment for Snakekiller’s meaning to reach him—a moment, and the slowing of Aron’s talon, and the talons on either side of them.
The beasts came to a halt at the top of a hill, just off the main byway, and Nic gasped at the sight spreading beneath them like some terrible dream come to reality.
“Goddess be with us,” Snakekiller whispered, the hissing in her voice replaced with a flat, cold hopelessness.
Yellow sands, bare rock, and blue-gray mists framed a massive valley, Triune’s valley, but the ground below was so full of soldiers Nic could scarcely make out the patches of green grass so plentiful in the grounds around the Stone stronghold. Guardsmen wearing the steel and copper colors of Dyn Altar were moving to fill barrens and outlands, showing no fear of the mockers and predators they had battled most of their lives.
Soldiers with the blues and yellows of Dyn Brailing occupied the grassy sections of the valley, lighting huge pyres of fire that would set arrows ablaze, towing battering rams and catapults into place, and heaving ladders toward the tall walls that formed Triune’s main resistance. Small groups had breached the moat using boards to stretch across the mocker-filled waters, and they clustered along the bottom of the massive main gate and keep. Its twin towers rose high, high above these breakaway soldiers, who seemed to be digging.
Nic wondered if it was possible to tunnel under the castle’s walls.
“Where are the sheltered?” Aron murmured, and Nic felt him shift in the saddle for a better view of the village toward the back of Triune’s inner grounds. It did seem deserted, as did much of the castle, but Nic had supposed that was because of the number of Stone Brothers and Stone Sisters waiting in grim stillness along the thick battlements connecting the castle’s many towers. Here and there, colored garments stood out amongst the gray robes and weapons. These fighters had to be sheltered or other allies, come to fight alongside the guild.
Still, there were nowhere near enough guild members or people to account for the castle’s population. Grazing fields, paddocks, barns, woods, bridges, byways—even the House of the Judged—everything seemed to be standing open and completely deserted.