Drache's voice rippled through his mind.
Without light, shadows are nothing more than darkness. Without shadows, one does not appreciate the light. Light and shadow, chaos and fate, life and death. I have told you many times, beloved, these things need each other. There must be balance. Schatten withers from the effects of too much fate. But chaos—
His words stopped at the sound of a distant, thundering roar. The echo of it had barely faded out when another came—then another. Friedrich ran back toward the front of the temple, vaguely aware of the thud of additional feet as other priests did the same.
At the top of the steps, he stared and looked down at the city below, the distant, ominous glow of violet eyes. Three sets and of a size that meant they could only be full grown Sentinels. More roaring, the sounds of destruction, people screaming.
What are Sentinels doing in Raven Knoll?
They are probably running out of food in the smaller towns and villages,
Drache replied.
The words made Friedrich shudder.
I have to do something, but I have no idea how to fight a Sentinel.
Magic.
I don't know that kind of magic!
But even as he said the words, he was racing down the steps, down the hill, and into the city itself. He ran down the center road that divided the city in half, cutting a straight line from the gate to the temple. A Sentinel stood in it, large enough to take it over completely, tail and claws decimating everything in easy reach.
Friedrich froze, horrified, as the Sentinel snatched up a young man, crushed him in its jaws, and began to devour him. Turning away, Friedrich threw up. Heard the Sentinel grab another person.
They need you. You have the power. Light of Truth—even the Sentinels cannot fight that when it is powerful enough.
Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Friedrich let his power flow through him. It was almost like falling into a trance, but rather than pouring that power into Seeing, he threw his hand in the air and willed the Light of Truth into being.
High above the city, light burst—bright, white, paralyzing and even painful to everyone who was touched by it. The Sentinels roared in fury, but could not move.
It will not last long, beloved. You have no sword to drive into its brain or to slit its throat open. A killing curse, then.
I don't know any curses. I'm a Seer, not a sorcerer.
Once, they were one and the same. The Seers of Schatten were the most powerful magic users in the world. Sentinels are as cursed as the rest of the children of Teufel. Show them mercy.
At Drache's words, the spell came to him, a memory dredged up from a previous life. Swallowing his terror at the enormous beast that loomed as large as the houses he stood between, Friedrich held his hands out palm up and fingertips tilted down, as though offering something—or urging the Sentinel to come to him.
"No creature of Licht was ever meant to suffer so dark and dreary a fate. Torture yourself no further, but find peace in the mercy of the light that loves you."
Brilliant golden light poured from Friedrich's hands and pooled over the road, falling across the enormous feet and legs of the Sentinel. It crawled up over the Sentinel, consumed him, and with a last, mournful roar the beast fell to lie in the road, dead.
Friedrich immediately ran down an alleyway, cutting through the city until he reached the next looming shape right as the light of truth began to fade. He killed it the same as the first, but the third one began to wreak havoc once more before he could reach it.
And by the time he finally killed it, the city was teeming with dozens upon dozens of smaller, younger Sentinels—from the babies still in serpent form, but the length of two or three men, to the adolescent and young adults who ranged in size similar to that of ponies.
What had drawn so many to Raven Knoll?
I thought you said they survived on magic and the odd snack.
That is only the Great Sentinels. These ordinary ones are just that—ordinary. They are as affected by the weather as the people. Sufficient food is scarce, the weather is brutal, and now with the barriers down …
But if they've all been driven here, what has become of the outlying villages? Surely they have not all been …
I don't know,
Drache said quietly, but that too-quiet tone only confirmed Friedrich's fears that the Sentinels had already killed too many people. If he failed to stop Teufel, so many more would die.
He cast another Light of Truth, giving people a chance to kill or flee the Sentinels around them. Ignoring the dizziness and exhaustion that washed over him, he pressed on. Everywhere he looked, there were people dead or dying. Soldiers, sorcerers, and priests all worked together to stop the influx of Sentinels, but in so large a city, overcrowded and still in the dead of night …
A priest caught his eye, one arm bleeding, a cut on his cheek, his robes ruined. Friedrich crouched down in front of him, resting a hand on his leg in reassurance. "You've been very brave."
The priest gave a shaky laugh, face wet with blood and tears. "I grew up in a village that was right in the middle of a favorite area for Sentinels. It's located near hot springs and all these caves that are kept warm by them. I used to brag that Sentinels didn't scare me as much because I saw so many as a child before I was brought here. That is my lesson learned, isn't it, High Seer?"
"You're out here fighting rather than off somewhere hiding," Friedrich said. "Do not belittle your own bravery. How is your arm?"
"It's bearable, not much more than a scratch and not enough venom in it to do more than make me really tired later," the man replied.
Friedrich nodded. "Well, go ahead and start helping people make it to Unheilvol. We'll put as many there as we possibly can, and then figure out what to do next. The city is no longer safe. Tell everyone you see who is not fighting to gather supplies and help people make it to the temple."
"Yes, High Seer," the man said, and he stood up, swayed a bit, then set his jaw and moved off to carry out Friedrich's orders.
Once he had vanished from sight, Friedrich pushed on, killing remaining Sentinels, helping people where he could, ordering anyone still able-bodied to help the others. By the time the city had quieted, there were far too many dead.
He stopped in one of the open squares and looked out over the people gathered there, each one battered and weary, some asleep and …
Some of them won't make it to morning. This isn't right. Life isn't fair, but this is beyond that. This is cruel.
This is Teufel,
Drache replied flatly.
This is him reminding everyone that their safety, their very lives, are in his hands and he can snuff them out whenever he so desires. He wants that child of chaos.
I hope someone brings him too me soon, then, or that he comes to me of his own volition.
If he is intent on destroying Teufel, then likely he is headed straight to the Great Wall.
He'll never get past the Great Sentinels.
A man who can call down the power of the gods themselves is not going to be impeded for long by the Great Sentinels. But he would be wiser to take you with him. I hope that one way or another, he comes to Unheilvol before he begins his direct assault.
I hope whatever he intends to do, he does it soon, before there is nothing left of Schatten to save.
Another scream rose up, and Friedrich mustered his flagging strength to help his people and get them within the relatively safe walls of Unheilvol.
"Boy, the caravan is getting ready to leave."
David turned from the window he'd been staring out of and retrieved his bags from the floor at his feet. "Thank you." The woman grunted, clearly long past done putting up with him, and stomped off. David made certain his bags were settled comfortably, then trudged downstairs and outside into the street and down to the square where the caravan was just finishing packing up.
He still could not believe that Sasha had left him, had gone on without him.
Sasha was the reason Reimund was dead, the reason the barriers were gone and everyone was dying and afraid to leave their houses. He was the reason everything was going wrong. David should have been glad they had parted ways, especially since he'd overheard the other day at dinner in the tavern that people were actively looking for him now—men like the sorcerers he'd knocked unconscious. What would happen if anyone of them caught Sasha?
He wasn't supposed to care, because Sasha was the source of the problem. Once he was caught and taken to Unheilvol to be dealt with there, everything would go back to the way it should be. But everything Sasha had ever said to him kept repeating in his head. He remembered all that Sasha had done for Black Hill. Everything he'd done for David.
He also remembered those kisses. For those few minutes, sitting in the campsite waiting for dinner, the world had seemed like a wonderful place to be. Then those stupid sorcerers had shown up and ruined everything.
"Ready to go?" A gruff voice asked, drawing David from his thoughts. He looked at the man, someone he vaguely recognized as having made the journey to Two Mill with him before, and nodded. "Up on your horse then, boy," the man said, and David obeyed. It was going to be slow travelling, but there were many like him who could not afford to wait any longer to journey to Unheilvol. The rest of the unusually large caravan were either desperate for supplies, or gambling that a city would be safer. Too many had already died in Oak Hill; David was sick with worry about the people in Black Hill. He wanted to go back, take his chances, but he knew he would be of no help to anyone there.
He kneed his horse into motion as the caravan headed out, keeping to the back of the group where he'd be mostly left alone. The falling snow coupled with the need to keep eyes alert for Sentinels made conversation impossible. David's thoughts drifted helplessly back to Sasha and that moment when the sorcerers ruined everything.
It wasn't the sorcerers' fault, however, as much he hated to admit it. He was the one who had ruined everything when he'd turned on Sasha. What was he supposed to have done, though? If not for Sasha, Reimund—and who knew how many others—would still be alive.
Sasha's words played over and over in his head.
"Does your life really make you happy? Locked in your village, unable to travel without permission lest you be hunted down by beasts? Whipped and left for dead because you accidently knocked into a man in a crowded street? Tell me what about your life you love, David."
He'd loved Reimund. He loved Killian. After that … David couldn't think of a single thing. The harder he tried to argue with himself about it, that he'd been right to be angry with Sasha, the more he realized he'd just been afraid and had acted stupidly.
He would never get the chance to tell Sasha that, however, because Sasha was long gone and David did not know where to find him. Realizing that Sasha being lost to him hurt more than anything else forced him to accept what he should have realized back at the campsite.
David looked out over the landscape, willing Sasha to suddenly appear. He had no idea what Sasha was going to do, or what else he would change and by how much. Light, a future where he had no idea what would happen next sounded so much better than the certainty of knowing he would live and die fetching and bartering supplies in Black Hill.
Where would Sasha go? What was he planning to do? Was he still going to head for Unheilvol? That seemed the only place he
could
go if he wanted to stop Teufel. Would he still be there when David finally reached it? Shadows, he wished he could just forge on alone. If he had, he might have caught up to Sasha. Unfortunately, it was far more likely that he would have encountered a Sentinel and he had no way of fighting them. It was better to travel with the caravan, and he would just have to hope that he somehow ran across Sasha again in Unheilvol. David wished he had kept his stupid mouth shut.
He heaved a sigh and tried to distract himself, because if he kept playing the same thoughts over and over, he would drive himself to madness. There was nothing else to do, however, as they pushed on along a road that was barely visible. The snow fell steadily, just shy of being too heavy for travel to be possible, though if the wind kicked up it
would
become impossible.
Eventually, his mind drifted to his fate, to what he would hear when he entered Unheilvol as a penitent. If Sasha was messing with fate, however, if he really was chaos—well, obviously he really was—then would he still have a fate to be foretold? Would he have several? What would happen to the Seers if they could no longer See? Hadn't there always been Seers, even back in the days before Licht was lost?
What it would be like to go his entire life not knowing his fate? It was what he had done so far, why did that have to change? Why did he have to know how the rest of his life would play out? Why did he have to know how he would die?
Reimund …
If not for Sasha, Reimund would be alive. But David did not want to imagine a life where he had never met Sasha. He'd lost Reimund and gained Sasha on the same day and some part of him was all right with that. He did not like it, but … if that was the price …
Just thinking it made him want to cry, made him feel ashamed. He wanted Sasha back, though, wanted to say he was sorry, wanted a chance to see what might have come of those kisses. He never would, though, because he'd panicked and acted like a boy instead of a man.
David sighed and looked out over the landscape again, trying to think about something—anything—else, because thinking about Sasha would not bring him back. It was impossible to see much beyond the snow though, only hints of trees and a shadow that might have been the distant mountains or a figment of his imagination.
The only thing that mattered was there was no movement, no crunch of heavy feet moving a ponderous body through the snow, no fetid smell. David fervently hoped that it remained that way. He dreaded an attack like those he had already heard so much about.