his eyes so intensely that he felt her touch his soul ... then, with a tiny gasp, she was gone. Her bloodied body went limp in his arms, and Vesna screwed his eyes closed and set loose the scream that had been building, howling like the very damned. His entire body shook, and his cry filled his ears, but nothing could blank out the pain that was all-encompassing . . .
When his breath finally gave way and he stopped, he gasped, ‘Karkarn, do something!’
‘I am no healer,’ came the growling reply, ‘and Death’s die is cast.’ A wisp of light stroked her cheek, a last goodbye. ‘But she will be honoured in death. The Bringers of the Slain shall escort her on Ghain’s slopes and see her untroubled to the land of no time.’
Vesna looked around in desperation, but there was no one: the icons had been destroyed, the people brutalised beyond recognition. ‘You can do nothing?’
‘No more for her.’
Something in Karkarn’s voice made Vesna look up. He saw his sword lying discarded on the ground, the scabbard reduced to slivers of leather.
‘What was that?’
‘A weapon designed to bypass whatever first defence you offered. Had the shield remained, you would be dead.’
Vesna turned back to his bride. The pain was gone from Tila’s pale face; she looked peaceful, as if she were sleeping beside him. He bent and kissed her on her lips.
Then he reached for the sword.
‘Get me there,’ Vesna rasped, pointing to the other end of the street as he rose, ‘and keep out of my way.’
Karkarn did not reply, but Vesna felt a force close about his shoulders and wrench him from the ground. His vision blurred as he was moved through the magic-heavy air. Dark shapes flashed past, then he was tumbling forward. He landed heavily, driven to his knees by the impact, but he didn’t wait for his senses to return; his sword was up and ready to ward off a blow —
— that never came.
Vesna blinked, but the archer hadn’t moved. The man wore the uniform of a Ghost cavalryman, but there was something blank about his face that made Vesna realise it was unnatural. He narrowed his eyes, trying to focus, and his divine-touched senses cut through the illusion - but as he felt a terrible pressure built around his eyes, he barely registered the long, narrow features of a true Elf, let alone felt surprise. His legs threatened to give way for a moment before Karkarn’s divine touch dissipated the clouding grief.
It was pierced by the fierce white light of hate, as palpable and strong as a daemon rising from the Dark Place.
The Elf laughed and unhooked something from its throat. The illusion fell away, leaving a slender figure in dark, functional clothes, over which was draped one of the Ghosts’ black-and-white tabards. It had an unearthly beauty, as much female as male, but its body shape was clearly male, even if it lacked Vesna’s muscular bulk.
As Vesna watched it nonchalantly tore off the tabard, revealing dragons on its tunic and belt-buckle. The Elf’s cold regard reminded Vesna of Genedel’s unblinking stare after the dragon had won the battle of Chir Plains for the Farlan.
‘So this is what the Gods turn to?’ the Elf commented in its own tongue, sneering. ‘A magic-twisted ape?’
Vesna realised he was half-naked, and bleeding from a dozen small cuts, and his body was slick with sweat and blood - Tila’s blood. He advanced on the Elf without speaking. There was nothing he wished to say. It retreated casually, dropping its longbow and tugging a large sword from a loop at its hip. Something at the back of Vesna’s mind screamed danger at the sight of that copper blade, and he realised he’d seen the sword before - in the hands of the white-eye Chalat, former Lord of the Chetse.
The weapon was like Eolis, far more powerful than his own minor blade. Vesna had seen Isak use Eolis to shear right through other magic-hardened weapons. How well his armoured arm would fare against such a powerful artefact, Vesna had no way of knowing. Unbidden, Tila’s face swam before his eyes and Vesna felt his gut tighten. She had been murdered by someone - some thing - that neither knew her name nor cared . . . But he would whisper her name as he killed the creature; he would scream her name in his face as it choked on its own blood.