darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,63

down here. Not until you get those swords properly attuned. Of those remaining who have the weapons to match the dead, upside is Siri’s show for obvious reasons, and I’m a hell of a lot better brute-force swordsman than Jax, which is what matters most in going toe-to-toe with the dead.”

Faran’s face grew grimmer still and I put my hands on her shoulders. “The trail has to be held for this to work, and I’m the only logical choice. Tell me I’m wrong and why, if you can think of some other plan that works better. If not, you need to get climbing.”

She shook her head. “Dammit, Aral, that’s not fair.” Then, she leaned in to give me a quick kiss on the cheek and a punch on the shoulder before she started climbing.

She will not take it at all well if you allow yourself to get killed in the next few hours, Triss said into my mind.

I’ll see what I can do, I sent as dryly as I could manage. I’m not all that thrilled about the prospect myself.

I suppose that will have to do.

You’re welcome.

Kumi was right behind Faran. Then Jax, who gave me a kiss as well before heading up, though hers was on the lips.

“What’s that for?” I asked her.

“Luck.”

I raised an eyebrow at Siri then, but she shook her head and winked as she stepped aside to let the others go first. “I’ll kiss you after, and maybe even a bit more than kiss if we’ve the chance.”

“You sound pretty certain there’s going to be an after.”

“I am. If you do die here, I’m going to catch your ghost before it makes it to the wheel of rebirth and wedge it back into your body somehow, because I am not going to let them make me First Blade again so soon, if ever.”

“Thanks?”

“Any time.”

Kelos paused for a long moment then, like he wanted to argue with me, but he, too, finally sighed and started up the mountainside.

Altia pressed her right fist into her left palm—a Kvani warrior’s salute to her khan, and whispered to me as she passed on her way to follow Kelos, “Thank you for trusting me to do this.”

Javan went next, moving more slowly and carefully than Altia, and Siri brought up the rear. Then Triss and I were alone on the trail with the other goats. I led the agutes far enough down the path to get them out of the avalanche zone, loosened their packs, and tied them lightly to various spurs of rock. None of them would get free easily, but all of them could manage it given sufficient time and motivation. There was no sense in them dying, too, if we didn’t pull this off.

I loosened my swords in their sheathes and walked back up the trail to meet the army of the dead with only Triss at my back.

12

I have faced the imminent possibility of my own death many times. There is something freeing about the moment before the axe falls that I will always love, even though I no longer seek my ending as I did in the days right after the fall of the temple.

I do not wish to meet the lords of judgment before my time. Not anymore anyway, but with each passing year, the tower of weights on the balance against me climbs higher, and the stains on my soul grow darker. My passing will not be an easy one, but with every corpse I add to my tally I know that my final reckoning grows that much harder. Knowing that, I do not fear death when she comes the closest.

I will not embrace her, but I always blow her a kiss as she approaches.

When I saw the first of the risen come around a corner on the trail far above—their rotting flesh pale in the bright moon’s light—I did not flinch or blanch. I simply drew my swords, stretched my shoulders, and smiled. Even moving fast it would take them another quarter of an hour to reach me, but the waiting was almost over. One way or the other.

The risen hunt in silence, so I had no more warning that they were upon me than the time it took the first of them to cross the distance from coming around the last curve to lunging at my face. I had chosen my place carefully, and now I braced my back foot against the edge of a crack in the surface of the