Aster Wood and the Blackburn Son (26 page)

We would all be forgotten, the history lost. Only she would watch, and keep the record, forever.
 

No, I didn’t want to be hollow. I wanted to take in every tiny piece of this world until it was painted on the inside of my mind like a tattoo. I ran my hand down the crusty bark of the closest tree, reveling in the feeling of it beneath my palm. Without me here to see it, to take in the endless layers of wood that made up the trunk, to feel its hard skin, and smell the scent of the forest, who else would? Maybe only the Watcher, and nobody else.
 

Without realizing it, I began moving again. The disgust I had felt just moments before mingled now with a chorus of emotions that drove me onward. And with each thought, each feeling layered together like the paper-thin sheaths that made up the bark of that tree, I was renewed. I was made whole.

I dashed through the last of the trees and broke through the barrier to the field. Ahead, the scattered boulders loomed, and I slowed slightly, searching for Rhainn’s hiding body. To my right, the soldiers surged towards the city. People hung from the walls, going up or down I couldn’t tell. But then I forced my attention back to the search. My heart thudded as I got closer to the spot where I had left him. There was no sign of the Coyle. Could he still be down, rendered powerless in the depths of his tent? The thought lightened me as I scoured the dry grass for signs of Rhainn.

I ran and ran until I had passed all but the smallest of the boulders, but the boy still did not make himself visible.

“Rhainn!” I whispered, backtracking and searching beneath each rock I came across. When I came up empty, I stood in the field, confused, turning around on the spot. Had he moved to a different hiding place?
 

I scanned the horizon in every direction, slowly, methodically, searching for the boy I had left behind. I turned in the direction of the Coyle’s tent, not having looked that way at all since crossing out from the trees.

And my whole body reeled at the realization of what I saw. What I didn’t see.

It wasn’t just Rhainn that had vanished into the morning. Where the tent had stood not ten minutes before, now nothing but empty ground remained. Every sign that the tent of the Coyle had ever been posted in this field was gone.
 

I stood for several long moments that seemed to stretch into hours. Then, finally, the horrible truth floated down around me with suffocating force.
 

“Rhainn!” I wailed, no longer caring if I was discovered.

I ran to the spot where the tent had been. Not even the grass showed a trace that anything had ever occurred there. It swayed in the breeze, unflattened and straight. Along the tips of the blades, just the slightest hint of boiling power remained. All other traces of the Coyle and the boy I had promised to help were gone.

I kept turning around, kept looking, but it was some time before the sounds of metal clashing against metal penetrated the inner reaches of my brain.
 

I stared out over the army, still dazed. They were right up against the walls now. The men and women who had descended from the city to the field before it were fighting with a skill I hadn’t expected of them. Pink dresses and multi-colored bow ties dashed around the army men, who were weighted with armor and slow on their feet. Several of the armored warriors fall, the arms of the brightly clad people raised in victory each time one of their enemies met his end.

But they were too few. In mere minutes the army seemed to swallow these brave fighters who dared to leave the relative safety of the wall to fight. Finally they, too, were trampled beneath the feet of the approaching men, their bravery lost to the dirt, slick now with blood.
 

Slick like the staff in my hands.

I took off running, and as I did I let out a howl of fury so deep that I didn’t recognize my own voice. Only those men on the outskirts of the force turned their attention to me, but I moved so fast that I was upon them before they even thought to approach. My staff preceded me, held out in front of me with both of my shaking hands, my attacks already bursting from it like explosions from a cannon. The men in my way were tossed backwards to the ground as I plowed through them. I didn’t stop to see if they were dead or injured, or just stunned. All I knew was that I wanted every one of them to hit the dirt. I wanted this entire field to be laid out, flattened, until they admitted their defeat and left us. I wanted my message heard.

I was responsible for the people of this city. Not because I had chosen to be, but because I had the power to be. I was compelled to fight for them by the most basic of principles. There was no middle ground in this fight.
 

But there was one side that had an advantage. And it wasn’t mine.

As the men started to realize what was happening, that an attack was coming from another direction, they turned to meet it. Then, with an alarming suddenness, their actions shifted from defense to attack. They seemed drawn to me like a magnet, and wave upon wave kept coming at me, aiming all their efforts at taking my life. They fell against the barrier of the blasts created by the staff, but that didn’t stop them. Like bloodhounds ten feet from prey they couldn’t catch, they climbed over each others shoulders in a frenzy, beating each other bloody to be the one to get to me first.
 

It was as if they were drawn to my magic, like a siren’s call to the lonely, and they all sought to rip the song apart.
 

I started to become desperate as I blasted them again and again, waiting for my newfound powers to knock them back and keep them down. But as soon as one group faltered, the next wave was climbing over those on the ground, their teeth bared and a chorus of snarls breaking the peace of the morning.
 

As I realized the size of the horde that was on me now, the seemingly endless assault I would face on the field, I started looking for a way out. I moved through the crowd, inching towards the wall, shattering through each new surge of soldiers, hoping that those up top could see me. Men hit the ground with heavy grunts on every side. Shouts came from the top of the wall above, but the volume of the battle was so loud I couldn’t make out the words. Only the roar of war filled my ears, without explanation or reason.

I didn’t take my eyes off them, certain now that even a brief faltering of concentration would result in my death. And then, finally, my hand that ran against the wall behind me found what it was looking for, and I gripped my fingers around a thick, strong rope.
 

But I couldn’t climb. I could only clutch at the tightly woven fibers, hoping that someone up above had the strength to pull me up.
 

I stood still, the only movements I made were to aim the staff. The men fell. The others climbed over them. Again and again. Until a strange wall of human rage began to build itself right in front of me. Like heavy stones, the men at the bottom supported the rest, and up went the men, fighting madly to breach the invisible border the spells from the staff created. Up and up they went until they towered above me. It was only a matter of time before someone got through, before my blasts wouldn’t be wide enough to protect me.

And then, the thing I most desired to feel at that point made my heart leap with joy. The rope was pulled upwards towards the top of the wall. My hand lost its grip for a moment, then found it again, holding it so tight I was sure nothing would ever be able to pry my fingers from it. Slowly, painfully, I was raised up the wall. The men cried out in anger as their victim was whisked upward, out of their reach. I continued to hit them with jolts from the staff, and only when I was twenty feet up, well above the top tier of piled up soldiers, did I grip the staff in my teeth and turn my attention to holding onto the rope.
 

I was breathing hard, and I wrapped my legs around the bottom section of the dangling lifeline. Below, one man leapt from the top of the heap and grasped the rope hanging a few feet down from my feet. I looked down and was greeted by his snarling smile and gray teeth. But then his eyes grew wide as he lost his hold and fell awkwardly to the hard ground below. His body lay there, one leg stuck out at an odd angle, as the men swarmed on top of him, trying to reach up towards me.

But I was too high now. Their cries of frustration slowly faded as I was hauled upwards by unseen arms, replaced by the shouts of the men above. I closed my eyes and held onto the rope with everything I had. Finally, large hands gripped me beneath my arms and hoisted me over the top edge, where we all lay panting.
 

“Don’t stop,” I heard Finian’s voice. “Get him all the way over.”

More dragging, and I was lying splayed out on the top edge of the wall. I released the staff from my teeth, which ached from the effort of holding the heavy wood. Someone pulled me up to sitting, and when I opened my eyes, Kiron’s blue orbs stared back at me.

“What happened?” he asked gruffly. A long cut extended from his forehead down his nose.
 

“You were right,” I panted. “It was a trap. This whole thing, all of this,” I gestured to the men and women defending the wall. “It was all a trap. For me.”

Then, before we could speak again, or even think of what needed to be said next, a deafening
boom
came from the other side of the wall, shaking it and us. We both stood up automatically, peering over the edge.
 

At first, everything appeared as it had moments before. The men, scattered now with their prey out of sight, fell back to their original positions like dogs called home.
 

Then I saw them. Three distinct groups in the center and on two sides of the battlefield had formed platforms with their bodies, and atop them three different men stood tall.
 

At least, I thought they were men. But even at this distance I could see that something wasn’t right. Their skin seemed to glow an eerie green, even in the stark light of day. And they were so tall. Not tall like the giants of Riverstone, but long and thin, like skeletons stretched to twice the height of a normal man.
 

I stared as they raised their arms above their heads. Three long jets of power poured from them, combined in the center and then, all at once, were thrust towards the city as one.
 

The entire wall shook, this time breaking great chunks of rock from the edges, which hit the ground below with heavy thuds.
 

“They’re trying to take the wall!” Kiron shouted next to me. But it wasn’t me he was talking to. “Finian!” he yelled. “Get the others!”

I saw Finian twenty feet away turn, heard him yelling, but couldn’t make out his words.
 

Kiron was breathing hard, trickles of sweat running down his long hair and beard. He was fumbling with a little sack, trying to untie it.
 

“Kiron, what are you—” I started.
 

“Let us go first,” he interrupted. “Then, you join.”

From the sack he pulled out a fat, silver disk. He tossed the sack away and got to his feet, immediately mounting the highest edge of the wall. He stood tall, with all the confidence of a commander. And I saw along the edges of the wall several other pairs of feet jump to the edge.
 

Kiron raised his disk first, aiming the jet of power to his right. One by one, the men we had rescued from Stonemore’s curse raised their own, identical silver disks, and their streams of energy met with Kiron’s in the sky above. Soon, nine jets of light were writhing together above our heads. Every one of the men in the group sent their talents into the air to defend Stonemore. Only Owyn was missing from the original group.
 

“Aster,
now!
” Kiron shouted.
 

I shook my head, confused and not a little shocked by the display of power. And he had given me no instruction. I had no practice with this group, barely any practice using my own powers at all. But I raised Owyn’s staff and pointed it towards the place where the nine jets met in the sky, hoping that whatever these men had planned would somehow be remembered by the wood. Below, I could see the three skeletons on the battlefield, their own defensive streams nearly joined now. We had to strike
now
.

Light burst from the staff, instantly meeting the other streams in the sky. And the world beneath the wall exploded.
 

The wall shook as it had before, but didn’t crumble. On the ground below, huge swaths of soldiers were knocked backwards into the dirt. Aftershocks of power from the initial blast continued to radiate outward, tossing those who struggled to regain their footing back to the ground.
 

Everyone on the wall cheered. I turned to look at Kiron, who smiled broadly in my direction. His trick had worked, with or without my prior knowledge. My chest filled with air as though I had been underwater for a long time. We were not so defenseless as I had believed.
 

But as the dust settled below, the lightness I felt deflated in an instant. The skeletons still stood, unmoved, and their own blast was building now.
 

“Get down!” I shouted.
 

Too late.

This blast hit the city with more force than the first. Several men were knocked over the side of the wall, but I lay sprawled out on the stone, unable to see who had been lost. Had they been ours? Our men, the precious few who could combine their powers to make the only weapon our side had?
 

I felt dirt in my mouth and crunched it between my teeth as I rolled to one side, hoisting myself back upward. But I shouldn’t have bothered. Another blow came, knocking me back again. And another. How were they doing this? It seemed the three ghouls had gathered up their power, and now blast after blast hit us. Large pieces of stone began to break free from the wall again, and I found myself unable to move any faster than a crawl.