Oathkeeper (30 page)

Was this what Kholster had wanted her to see?

No. Kholster was cold when he needed to be, yes, but never cruel. He—

It is amazing, isn't it, Mother?
Vax thought to her.
No one could tear that down!

“Tell me what it means to you, Vax, please. If you don't mind.” Wylant added the last sentence quickly to rephrase everything as a request, not an order. She had performed the same verbal gymnastics during her entire courtship and marriage with Kholster, but she'd gotten rusty.

Wylant landed on the battlements, the bone metal cool rather than blindingly hot as it would have been if it were any other metal. Looking out from that vantage point, she could begin to see what it might have meant to the Aern. A gesture, maybe? A way of saying to the rest of Barrone, “This is ours. Anything of ours you destroy we can rebuild and make stronger. Whatever you take, we can reclaim.”

It means the Aern have returned
, Vax said.
My father's people abandoned their homeland once, but now they are back. Their bones no longer lie unused in silly useless piles. “Even when we die,” Fort Sunder tells the world, “the rest of us grow stronger. Nothing can long defeat the Aern.”

“Setbacks only,” Kholster had once told her, “never real defeat.”

“You truly aren't angry with me?” Wylant asked. “Even after what I did?”

Of course not
, Vax replied cheerily.
You are my mother and we have had many victories together. I love you. My father loves you. I told him I wanted to be with you, as your weapon, until he harvests you . . . and then one of my brother or sister Aern will awaken me fully. No child has ever been as lucky as me. I get to be with you all the time.

Tears flowing freely, Wylant patted Vax's hilt and floated down to the inner courtyard. It was so easy to forget how differently the Aern saw things, to accurately register the magnificent and terrifying diversity of their alien thought processes.

Father said you might prefer for me to be awakened sooner than that
, Vax sent as Wylant's feet touched the bone-steel cobbles. Were those kneecaps? Phalanges? An instinct sent Wylant soaring back up to the wall, curiosity about the exact construction of Fort Sunder abandoned. She felt . . . stalked. Peering out along broken plains, she spotted two Bone Finders. One was out past the ridge-like demarcation separating gnarled shrubland from myr grass. It was the same one Wylant had spotted diverting its path to follow her a few miles from Port Ammond. The flared crested helm of the warsuit narrowed the Bone Finder's identity down to either Alysaundra or Ravil. Its tapered waist gave her the final clue. The warsuit was Bone Harvest, which meant the Bone Finder within was Alysaundra.

“If you'd have asked me where I was going,” Wylant muttered, “I would have told you, kholster Rae'en.”

Wylant had no trouble understanding why kholster Rae'en (or perhaps Zhan) might want to keep track of her movements. Beloved as she seemed to be by the Aern, she had defeated them—given them serious . . . setbacks—once, and she had offered no oath she would not do so again. So . . . that explained Alysaundra's watchful presence.

Skull-helmed and with an unhurried, even gait, the second Bone Finder's presence sent a shiver up her spine. Caz, twin long knives hanging from Silencer's back, stared—even accounting for distance—directly at Wylant. First Oot, then Port Ammond, and now here at Fort Sunder. If Alysaundra was following her movements, then what was Caz doing?

Was Caz's observation related to what Kholster wanted her to see . . . or merely a sign that Caz was under different orders than Alysaundra? Whatever Kholster wanted her to discover, she was certain of one thing. . . .

“He's cheating.” Wylant smirked.

Who is cheating?
Vax asked.

“Your father,” Wylant answered. “Whatever he wants me to discover by sending me here is something he knows and we haven't figured out yet. That would be just like him.”

No
. Vax's thoughts, the sound of them, made Wylant wonder if that's how he would sound if he were a living, breathing Aern, instead of what she and Dienox had made him.
He would be cheating if he told you what he thought you needed to know directly. But giving you a gift in celebration of your acceptance of his scars and placing it somewhere that he thought might lead to the knowledge . . . there's no rule against that. He checked with Aldo, and Aldo said a precedent was set by Dienox when he courted Nomi. Physical gifts to love interests are allowed.

“Vax,” Wylant asked, “do you know what he wants me to find out?”

As they talked, Caz kept on walking closer, eyes still on her. She didn't like it or the protective feelings that watchful gaze stirred within her. Right now, there was only one bone-steel item on her person, and if, in some misguided, ill-timed Bone Finder madness, Caz had decided to come for those bones, he'd be stripped and dipped repeatedly until Kholster harvested Barrone itself at the end of things before he'd take Vax from her.

“Vax?” Wylant prodded.

Ye-es
, Vax answered, voice muted.
Was he not supposed to?

“I assume he made you promise not to tell me?”

He didn't make me promise
, Vax said.
I offered to promise in exchange for the information, but I am permitted to confirm it when you discover it for yourself.

“Please don't do anything to break your oath,” Wylant whispered. “I'll puzzle it out on my own.”

Warsuits returned warsuit salutes as she approached the main keep. An occasional clang of metal on metal, her own footsteps, and the creaking of leather were all that broke the silence. Guardians who moved only if they were needed elsewhere watched all approaches, the only outward sign of their actual natures the flickering of light within their red eyes or visor slits as they communed with their makers and each other.

Unchallenged, she reached the keep.

“Where from here?” she asked Vax.

Down deep
, Vax answered,
where the Life Forge stood.

“Of course it is.” Hugging her arms, Wylant stepped into the main hall only to hug the wall to avoid being trampled.

“Excuse us, kholster Wylant.” Scales, Cadimeer's warsuit, one of Bloodmane's command, ran past her followed by two dozen of his fellows. One of the warsuits, Scout—if she recalled the leafy pattern of his armor correctly—near the edge of the troop in a traditional Overwatch position, went limp and fell, clattering down the steps up which Wylant had just climbed. Bone Finder warsuits stepped in to collect the fallen warsuit as Scales's group kept moving.

“Is he okay . . .” The name escaped her . . . something that rhymed with Bricklayer, and his warsuit was . . . some kind of poem? Requiem! That was the warsuit! And the Aern was . . . Alton? No! “. . . Kaulton?” Where had she gotten the Bricklayer thing from? Oh well.

“He is ended,” another Aern answered. “But surely you know this.”

“How would I know it?” Wylant gasped. “What do you mean dead? You can't kill a warsuit.”

“You are correct.” Kaulton and the Bone Finder she didn't recognize looked at one another. The unknown warsuit was skull-helmed like most Bone Finders, but in this warsuit's case a skull lacking eyes, the red crystal with which the warsuit appeared to see located in the open jaws of the skull. “
I
cannot kill a warsuit.”

“And you think I am responsible for Scout's end?” Wylant shoved the armor, grateful that it yielded enough her hand was unharmed. “I'll make this simple. On my oath, if I've had anything to do with the death of any Aern or warsuit since the Sundering, it is unwitting. I destroyed the Life Forge. This Fortress is built with the bones of my victims. I have no idea what happened to Scout and I am sad to see him fall.”

“Truly?” The eyeless-skulled Bone Finder asked.

“Whose scars are on my back?” Her own heartbeat pounding in her ears, Wylant turned away from Scout and the two Bone Finders, heading quickly down for the area that had served as Uled's lab and the home for the Life Forge.

*

“We get the new armor and then get out of here as fast as the wind will carry us.” Vax didn't answer, but it hadn't been a question, and she cursed herself for the misstep. “Okay, Vax?”

Okay, Mother.

Oil, blood, and metallic scents choked the air, growing more potent as she started down a stair of skulls. Absent the ever-present smell of
jallek
root, each new odor hit Wylant harder than before, possessing a depth and nuance she'd missed without knowing.

Stairs gave way to corridor, hers the only footsteps.

Storage rooms that had once been filled to bursting with shelves of books and various alchemical solutions or artificer contraptions sat empty now. Clear glass plate lined the hallway at canted angles, making use of mirrors and exterior sunlight to illuminate the cold passageway. Where once glowing orbs had floated to fight off the night when the suns set or the sky was overcast, Dwarven rune lights, square and mounted the walls with sturdy brackets, now sat ready.

“How much farther?” Her heart pounded. There were no pleasant memories farther down this way.

You know the answer to that
, Vax sent.

Marshaling will, courage having never been something she lacked, Wylant walked toward the epicenter of her crime.

Victory
, Vax corrected.

“One and the same,” she whispered.

Her first look at the door to Uled's lab lit a fire in her mind.

“Bird squirt,” was all she managed to get out as the flashback took her. Eyes burning like she'd hurled a lightning bolt at point-blank range, Wylant screamed as she hurled Uled's skull down into the snow atop the Sri'Zauran Mountains. She'd wanted to smash it to pieces, but Sargus had been able, once Uled's tissues had been cleaned away, to point out web-thin lines of arcane symbols on the interior of his skull.

“I don't know what they do,” he had told her, “but I guarantee you it is part of a contingency plan. I don't know what sets it off, but we should probably put it far away.”

Mother?

Vax's voice sent her back further, to his forging. She'd never been able to recall it fully before, but now that whatever had blocked her mind's journals of the past had done its work, she could relive it all: Heating Vax's bone metal. Hammering him. Honing his blade there in the Smithy, which in its totality comprised the Life Forge.

Don't fear, girl.
Dienox's voice had played in her head when Vax was close to completion.
It will be a weapon worthy of my champion. Warpicks and warsuits! Ha! No Aern ever had a weapon as fine as this. Nor the other god's champions or justicars.

Kilke will be so jealous!
She felt the burning of his hand on the back of her head, his other on her wrist and connected that memory with the last time she'd seen Queen Kari in The Parliament of Ages.

“So, kholster Wylant,” Queen Kari had said, “How long do you suppose it will be before Dienox deigns to lift his fog of war to allow you to discern the location of your ancient foes?”

Kari's words echoed in Wylant's thoughts. “The shroud of the god hangs over your spirit so that it pains me to see it and not be able to help. Your soul struggles so valiantly to keep you free of him that he only manages to blur the edges. He does not control you, but he has in the past.”

“Control me?” Wylant had told her then. “The gods cannot control the living unless the living are willing. I'm not some foolish God Speaker.”

“But you have opened yourself to war, to the thrill of victory. The times Dienox has reached in and pushed you in one direction or the other have left his burning handprints on your living spirit, marks your soul cannot scour away in this life. I see a conflagration engulfing your right wrist . . . and one trailing fire from the back of your head as if he'd grasped your skull one-handed, forcing you to change direction . . . and . . .”

“Kari knew,” Wylant panted back in the present. “She tried to tell me and I discounted it as foolishness from some silly Flower Girl.”

With eyes opened to the depth of the war god's tampering, other times he had controlled her became clear. Heart pounding like a trip hammer, Wylant's lips and face went numb, left arm dropping to her side.

“Vax,” she tried to say his name, but something . . .

It's better this way
, said the familiar voice of Dienox in her mind.
We had such good times together, you and I. You can be with your husband. Won't that be nice? And Vax can be my new champion. Aern are forbidden, but after what we did to him, he isn't strictly an Aern—
Wylant dropped to her knees, and the god of war bent over her. She couldn't remember his name, but she didn't need to. All she needed to do was fight, and her muscles knew how to do that almost entirely on their own. Left side unresponsive, Wylant drew Vax with her right and stabbed the war god through his shining breastplate.

Screeching, the war god vanished, and, even as she thought his name, Kholster was there, helping her up. At his side, Aldo and Shidarva stood in flowing robes, their presence so luminous Wylant could no longer see the walls of the corridor.

“Dideye kilm?” Wylant leaned on Kholster, her words slurring unintelligibly. “Warged. Eversnam is.”

“Aldo . . . Shidarva,” Kholster said calmly, “I demand an amercement.”

“Where have we heard those words before?” Aldo looked knowingly at the queen of the gods.

“Very well, Kholster,” Shidarva answered, eyes blazing blue. “He tried to make her forget everything all over again and murder her in the process. What penalty do you suggest? I suppose you want permission to harvest him?”

“No,” Kholster answered. “The Harvester requires permission to reap no soul human or divine. This is about Wylant. She is the wronged party. I want her granted immunity. I want her healed. And then, I'd like you to grant
her
permission to kill him.”