Bone War (34 page)

“No!” Danr made himself lunge for her. Gwylph's fingers touched the grip just as Danr slammed into her. They rolled across the ground, spilling Gwylph's arrows as they went. Her armor ground into Danr's skin. He punched, but she caught his fist and shoved it aside. Vik, she was strong! It was like fighting an oak tree.

“Filthy Stane!” she shrieked. “Get your hands off me!”

Ranadar chose that moment to bolt forward. He crossed the boundary as well and snatched up the Bone Sword. Without looking back, he sprinted toward the tree with the Bone Sword held high over his head. Aisa's scarlet blood stained the edge.

“Ranadar!” Gwylph thrust her hand against Danr's chest. Something punched him with such force that he flew backward and landed hard several feet away. The wind burst from his chest and he gasped for air. The dreadful sounds of battle echoed all around him. Wounded Stane, elves, orcs, and wyrms lay on the ground in the trollwives' twilight. Dead giants made mountains of flesh at the riverbank. The Fae were winning, but barely.

“Ranadar, stop!” Gwylph had snatched up her bow and was aiming an arrow at her son's back. He was only a few paces from the trunk of the tree now, running like a deer. Danr tried to push himself upright, but he couldn't catch his breath. “Do not move!”

Ranadar ignored her. He reached the tree where Pendra was imprisoned and drew back the Bone Sword, exposing his side to Gwylph.

Gwylph whispered a word and fired. Time slowed again and Danr's blood thundered in his ears. The arrow flew in a slow, aching arc toward Ranadar. The Bone Sword descended toward the bark of the tree.

The arrow pierced Ranadar's side with a meaty thunk. It stuck there, quivering as if in joy at finding its target.

Ranadar stiffened. He turned. Scarlet blood poured from the wound in his ribs. Danr touched his side with a fist in numb disbelief. Ranadar looked at his mother.

“You really do hate me,” he managed.

The Bone Sword dropped from his nerveless fingers to the roots of the tree. Ranadar fell beside it.

*   *   *

Talfi wandered, everywhere and nowhere. This was like Twisting, but without the fear and potential for pain. His own blood and flesh called him, drew him in a hundred directions all at once. He walked a street in Balsia, where yet another earthquake had struck and the citizens wandered in both shock and fear. He limped through the Rookery, his face hidden under a ragged hood. He marched through the forest behind a grim-faced Lieutenant Sharyl. He punched wyrms and battled orcs and was crushed under the foot of a giant. His arms were chopped off, his heads rolled across bloody leaves, his legs broke. All these things, these incredible, impossible things, happened at once. He was a puzzle with thousands of pieces scattered across the world, and each bit thought it was the whole. But even though the big picture was broken and scattered, it still existed. Talfi saw the full picture now, though seeing everything made it difficult to concentrate on any one thing. He had thousands of hands and eyes, ten times that many fingers. Some of him froze and refused to move. Some of him continued with whatever task it had been given—fighting, hiding, walking.

Talfi backed up from himself, his whole self, and looked down.

“Well,” he whispered, and all the golems all across the continent paused in what they were doing to say the same thing. Thirteen golems were cut to pieces in the battle, but they felt no pain, and neither did they die.

Each piece contained memories. He touched them, and his past came rushing back at him. This part of him remembered nursing at his mother's breast. That part knew what it was to take tottering first steps. Another part recalled laughing on his father's shoulders. Talfi touched every part of his
past—sneaking a sour apple from a neighboring orchard, staring at the dark-haired boy who lived across the street, finding a dead owl with his sister and touching its soft feathers, discovering the shivering wonder of the hardness in his groin on a crisp fall morning, eating oatmeal with salt and butter while his parents argued in the next room, practicing his letters on a sand table while splinters dug into his backside—all the parts rushed back at him like a flock of birds fluttering back to their accustomed perches.

How had he ever forgotten any of it? It was walking down a familiar street and knowing every door, every window, every face and name. It was turning a key in an old lock and feeling it turn with the usual ease. It was smelling simple cheese, bread, milk, boiled eggs, wine, and potato soup in the kitchen.

It was coming home.

And there was more. Each piece from his other selves contained memories of Ranadar. Memories of
loving
him. It was a shared love among all his selves, and together it was more powerful than any of the parts. Love itself and love's memory were no different, and the second restored the first. Talfi's heart and soul swelled with both and he wanted to find Ranadar, tell him, let him know it would be all right, share in the relief that spilled across his face.

A sigh rippled through all the golems. All but one. One piece of Talfi—a big piece of him—lay motionless between two other parts of him, and this bothered him. It shouldn't be so. He focused in more deeply, entered the motionless piece, and inhaled. He opened his eyes and sat up.

It was dark. Twilight. How much time had passed? He was expecting Ranadar nearby, but the elf was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the elf queen. This was going to be a hell of a thing to explain. He tried to get to his feet, but the feeling of being in so many places at once washed over him, and he staggered dizzily. Automatically, he reached out for something to balance with, and the two parts of him, the two flesh golems, steadied him, which was also
like standing on his own. They weren't mere flesh golems. They were Talfi's own arms and legs and eyes and ears. They were
him.
Vik, this was hard to get used to.

The Fae were winning the war. The other Talfis were—Talfi himself was—helping them. He pulled back, and the Talfis stopped fighting. He thought about it again, and those that could walk left the battlefield. They walked and hopped and crawled toward him. Surprise and confusion broke out through the fighting.

But now Talfi noticed the scene beneath the tree. Gwylph was aiming an arrow. Talfi followed the line of fire and saw Ranadar with the Bone Sword under the tree just past Danr and a dead lion. What?

The arrow flicked across the intervening space and punched into Ranadar's body.

Everything stopped for Talfi. He couldn't understand what he was seeing. A spasm worse than any Twist wrenched every cell in his body. This couldn't be. It was some hallucination. Ranadar said something—Talfi and his other selves couldn't hear it—and then he dropped the Bone Sword and crumpled to the ground.

Talfi didn't remember getting to his feet. He didn't remember screaming. He didn't remember leaping over the dead lion. He only remembered holding the warm, bloody body of the one person who had meant anything in his life, who had given up everything he had ever known just to be with him.

Who had simply loved him. Talfi stroked his sunset red hair, and waves of memory washed over him—fingertips in the dark, thrilling laughter on a balcony, the frightening clink of coins, angry words across a blanket, confused footsteps in a forest. Tears rained from his eyes.

“He had to die,” called the elf queen, bow still in her hand. “It was sad, but inevitable. You humans are so weak. When one of you dies, you become utterly helpless.”

The Bone Sword flipped upward by itself to fly toward
her. Talfi lunged for it, but he was tangled in Ranadar's body and he missed.

“The rest of you will die now,” the queen said in the twilight. She dropped the bow and put out her hand to catch the blade. “None of you can—”

The Bone Sword smacked into the hand of one of the other Talfis. Talfi cocked his head, and the other Talfi swung. The Bone Sword sliced off the queen's left arm. There was no blood, but she screamed anyway. Yet another Talfi clapped a hand over her mouth. A third grabbed her bodily from behind. A fourth grabbed her ankles. Gwylph kicked and struggled. Her body glowed with golden light, and Talfi's other selves were flung backward, but yet more of them, dozens of them, hundreds of them, piled on top of her. She screamed and howled like a mad beast, but there were too many.

“The Nine!” Danr gasped by the dead lion.

Talfi's other self tossed Talfi the Bone Sword. He snatched it out of the air. When the heft touched his palm, his entire body quivered. Only the crushing sorrow kept him from crowing with delight. He leaped to his feet while the elf queen fought and spat under her burden of flesh.

“No!” she howled. “This is my kingdom! This is my world!”

“You didn't mention your son,” Talfi said hoarsely. He slashed the tree with the Bone Sword.

A
n explosion of white light and dreadful sound thundered across the river and crashed against the Lone Mountain. Talfi and everyone else flew backward and landed hard, flattened by the terrible force. Ranadar's limp body landed nearby. Blood continued to leak from the awful wound. The Bone Sword shattered into a thousand pieces. Everywhere across the battlefield, Talfi's other selves bowled over. Many painlessly broke bones.

The twilight vanished as the trollwives lost their concentration. The surviving dwarfs, trolls, and giants, already blinded by the explosion, shrieked in agony as the evening sunlight burst across the battlefield. Howling their pain, they ran, limped, and crawled back toward the cave. The earth shuddered beneath their heavy footsteps. The Fae were too dazed to do anything but stagger.

The tree was gone. Even the leaves on the ground had disappeared. Where it had all been was a crater several yards wide, surrounded by flattened grass, stunned Fae, fleeing Stane, and staggering Talfis.

Danr and the lion were utterly gone. Vanished.

Talfi didn't have time to think about this. Gwylph was already righting herself. She was missing a gauntlet and
her hair was blown wild. “No,” she groaned, and her voice came to Talfi from one of the nearby other Talfis.

From the crater rose the figure of a woman. Her features were both ancient and ageless. On her back she wore a cloak that looked woven of autumn leaves, and in her hand she bore a battered silver sickle. Scarlet blood streamed from her wrists. Power radiated from her in great waves, and Talfi found it hard to keep his feet in her presence.

“Pendra,” Talfi whispered.

Still hovering over the crater, Pendra turned toward Gwylph. Her expression was as flat and cold as a stone in a glacier above her sickle. The curved blade spat blue sparks, and the very air curled away from it. Terror overtook Gwylph's face, and Talfi almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

“Death did not come for you,” Pendra said in a hungry voice, “because I have.”

Gwylph suddenly straightened, missing arm and all. “You do not dare.”

Pendra slashed the air with the sickle. The front of Gwylph's mail shirt sprang open with a metallic tear and the linen shirt beneath it was slashed as if by an invisible knife, but the skin beneath remained unscathed.

“That can't be!” Talfi said.

“Not even fate can stop me.” Gwylph raised her remaining fist in triumph. “I am still immortal and I will rule this world!” Her voice, amplified by elven magic, spread across the battlefield. “Rise, my troops! Destroy the orcs. Grind the Stane to dust!”

Spurred by the queen's words, the Fae army roused itself. Commanders shouted orders. Elves and fairies scrounged for their swords. Sprites rose drunkenly back into the air. The orcs and wyrms, now vastly outnumbered because of the forced retreat of the Stane, tried to rally as well. Kalessa bellowed orders. Xanda exhorted her troops to pull together. But the orcs were tired and their morale was dropping.

A groan rose from the edge of the crater. It was Ranadar. Talfi spun like a startled cat. Ranadar blinked and touched the arrow in his side, as if he didn't understand what was happening. Then he pulled the arrow out with a small scream. Blood leaked from the wound. Talfi felt the world sliding out from underneath him. Ranadar wasn't dead. Only wounded. Talfi's heart leaped into his throat.

“Ran!” Talfi pulled off his shirt and shoved it against the bloody wound to stanch the flow. “You're alive! I thought I'd lost you.”

Still dazed, Ranadar reached up to touch Talfi's face. His fingertips rasped against Talfi's unshaven cheek. “You . . .”

The emotions of a thousand Talfis flooded him at the touch, and every flesh golem in the world wept with joy. “I remember, Ran. She couldn't stop it. I remember!”

And Ranadar was kissing him and the flesh golems shouted their ecstasy across the battlefield.

Pendra broke in. “The queen's heart was in the tree, but I cannot touch it. Perhaps you can put it back where it belongs.”

Talfi peered over the crater's edge. He found a simple wooden box the size of a human head just within reach and pulled it to himself. Queen Gwylph paled. “Leave that!” she shouted, running toward them. “Leave it!”

Ranadar, his hands shaking, snatched the box from Talfi and opened it while Pendra smiled above him within her cloak of leaves. Inside the box lay a red, pulsing elven heart. It was only just smaller than a human one. Ranadar plucked it from the box and held it up. Gwylph halted a dozen paces away.

“My son,” she said softly, all love and honey. “You know I would never—”

“Hurt me?” Ranadar clutched the bloody shirt to his side and staggered to his feet. Talfi helped him. On the battlefield, the Fae were destroying the orcs and wyrms and felling the fleeing Stane with arrows while the flesh
golems watched. “I know. Even after you shot me, Mother, I still hoped . . .” He swallowed. “You are not yourself. But you will be.”

“I will not take that back,” Gwylph said. “And you will not force me. You do not have the power. You are weak, and soft, and—”

Ranadar pointed the heart at her and squeezed. Gwylph went to her knees with a cry. “I have more power than you know, Mother.”

Ranadar gestured with the heart again, and Gwylph fell backward. Ranadar stumbled toward her, and Talfi knew what he intended. He looked at Pendra, who continued to hover over the crater. Blood streamed from her wrists, and a tiny part of him wondered desperately where Danr and Aisa had gone to.

“He can restore her heart.” Pendra was fading away. “All he must do is touch it to the original scar.”

“Will she love him again?” Talfi asked.

“Only those who loved before can love again,” Pendra murmured, and vanished.

Ranadar stood over his mother, one hand clutching her heart, the other clutching the bloody shirt pressed to his side. Gwylph was struggling to rise, but Ranadar's grip on her heart prevented her. The gap in her mail shirt showed the scar on her chest.

“You will be yourself again, Mother.” Ranadar moved the heart toward her chest. “And all this will end.”

Talfi took the bow from his back, the one Sharyl had failed to take from him. He cast about for ammunition, and his eye fell on the bloody arrow the queen had shot at Ranadar. With shaky fingers, he nocked it to the bow and aimed.

But should he? Once Ranadar gave her heart back, the queen might be restored to her old self.

A self that cared about her son, but didn't
want
to. Had wanted to be rid of caring so much that she had stolen the Bone Sword and started a war just so she could cut her own
heart out. Her original self was just as heartless as her current self. Only those who loved before could love again.

Talfi drew back the bowstring. Gwylph struggled on the ground, and Ranadar pressed the heart toward her breast. Talfi fired.

The arrow missed. It skidded across the ground. Ranadar looked up at Talfi with a startled look on his face. “
Talashka!
What—?”

Damn it!
“Ran, don't,” Talfi begged, limping toward him. “She'll only—”

Ranadar set his mouth and pressed the heart toward Gwylph's chest. There was a rush of air. Three arrows flicked in from nowhere and pierced the queen's heart.

A tiny moment passed. The queen looked at the pierced heart in horror. Then she looked at Ranadar. She gave a small gasp. Beyond them, three other Talfis lowered their bows.

“Fing!” one of them said.

Ranadar dropped the bloodless heart in shock. It fell, arrows and all, onto his mother's chest. Gwylph stiffened, arched her back with a scream that rent the air, and then exhaled. Her body stilled, and the queen of the Fae died.

Across the fields and the woods and the riverbank, every flesh golem faltered, stumbled, and collapsed. Talfi felt them all fade from his mind, but their memories, their thoughts remained with him, implanting themselves in him like birds coming home to roost. It was
knowing
and
seeing
and
remembering.
It was memory. It was self. It was
him.

“Mother!” Ranadar cried. “Mother!”

Talfi went to him and knelt at his side. Gwylph's green eyes were wide and sightless. “Ran, come away now. Call it the third favor.”

“You did this,” Ranadar choked. “It was you.”

“Yes,” Talfi replied quietly. “It had to be done. She was heartless, even before she lost her heart.”

Ranadar set his mouth again, and for a sick moment,
Talfi was afraid he would turn away. But Ranadar only touched Talfi's shoulder and nodded. “Third favor was that you did for me what I could not do for myself.”

Cries and screams rose from the field again. The war was still raging. The orcs and wyrms were being beaten back toward the river, and the mountainside was littered with dead Stane.

“The battle!” Talfi said. “We have to stop it! Can you take command? With your mother dead, you're king!”

Ranadar shook his head. “They will not listen. We can only—”

The water in the river stirred and foamed yet again. From it marched another army, a massive one. Talfi's mouth fell open. Thousands of soldiers poured dripping from the river. They wore shirts of scales that gleamed like diamonds and carried double-pronged pikes and razor-edged swords. Talfi made out that they were changing shape as they came. They started out in the river with tails that formed into legs as they came into shallower water. Some of the soldiers carried conch shells, which they blew in a booming call that rattled the remaining trees and echoed against the mountainside. Riding high in the middle of them on a giant crab came a woman in armor of her own.

“It's the merfolk!” Talfi cried.

“I am Imeld of the merfolk!” the queen shouted. “The Kin have come at last to defend their own!”

The merfolk soldiers charged into the battle. The Fae, caught off guard by this, retreated briefly and tried to regather, but it was difficult. The merfolk were fresh troops and relentless in their tactics. The orcs and wyrms used the breathing space to regroup themselves and come in beside the other Kin. Kalessa and Xanda climbed onto the crab's back, and Imeld welcomed them.

“Four queens,” Talfi said. “We have a war of four queens. Queen of the trolls, queen of the Fae, queen of the orcs, and queen of the merfolk.”

“Even if one is dead,” Ranadar said sadly.

The sound of the conch shells roused Grandfather Wyrm, asleep farther up the riverbank. He woke fully and rumbled up the bank to see what was going on.

“Ah!” His hiss rebounded from one end of the battlefield to the other. “This is much better, yes. Kin united once again. And they are defending the Stane, yes. It has been a long time since I have enjoyed a good fight.”

He also plunged into the melee, his mountainous body wreaking havoc everywhere he went. Entire regiments of Fae were crushed beneath his coils. Whole troops disappeared down his great gullet. That decided it. The Fae retreated and fled.

Ranadar sank to the ground next to his mother's body. Talfi crouched next to him. “We'll get you someone to help with that wound,” he said.

“Just stay,” Ranadar replied. His face was pale. “Please,
Talashka.
I will be all right for the moment, and could not bear to be alone right now. Besides, someone might think me a wounded enemy to be put down.”

Sudden exhaustion weakened Talfi's legs. He sat then and put an arm around Ranadar's shoulder. All around them, the long process of cleaning up the battle began. Soldiers and officers looked for the dead and wounded. The sun was setting now, allowing the Stane to reemerge from the mountain in the fading light to retrieve their own dead and wounded. Trolls and giants roared their pain. Grieving orcs beat their shields over the bodies of fallen comrades. The merfolk, who had taken few casualties, strode swiftly about, helping with injuries and comforting the dying. Flies buzzed and settled on the face of the elf queen. Talfi positioned himself between Ranadar and his mother's body. It was a very strange sort of place to hold Ranadar's hand and talk.

“The flesh golems died when your mother did,” Talfi said. “I felt them go. But . . . they're still here.” He tapped his head. “I remember now.”

Ranadar looked at him. “How much do you remember?”

“Everything.” Talfi ran his thumb over Ranadar's smooth forefinger, noting the way the skin fit over the joints and slipped around his flat fingernail. People expected elves to have long, slender hands, but Ranadar's were more like squares. “I remember how all the other Talfis—and Other Talfi—loved you. They did love you, because they were me.
Are
me. They're still here. Even Other Talfi. We're all one. We just didn't know it.”

“We are all one,” Ranadar repeated. “Yes. Look at this battlefield, and how many died.” He winced again. “Every time the Nine Races come together, it is for war. We must not do this again,
Talashka.
It must stop with us. With me.”

“What do you mean?” Talfi asked.

“I need to stay in Alfhame,” Ranadar said. “I must take her crown and change this. We will reach out to Balsia to give it help from the earthquake—labor if Karsten will accept it, treasure if he will not. And we will open talks with the Stane and the orcs. We must unite. And I will need your help.”

“Mine?”

“You are . . .” Ranadar winced again. “You are human, but you are long-lived, like the Fae. You can help bridge the gap between Kin and Fae as an emissary. I will rule, and you must help as a diplomat between Alfhame and the Kin. It will not be easy, but we have to start.”

At that moment, Kalessa darted over to them. Her eyes were shining. “Glorious battle!” she said. “Already we will live forever! No one will ever forget this!”