Over the next five minutes, they advanced by inches. Bodies piled along the raised stone defenses. Dante's sword arm grew heavy, sluggish. Blays and Lira showed no signs of slowing down. Dante refreshed himself with a small burst of nether. Blood spattered Blays' face, Lira's empty hand. The redshirts began to give them a wide berth, clustering to engage the Citadel guardsmen instead.
A spear jabbed into the neck of the guardsman next to Blays. The defender fell, gurgling, collapsing into Blays' knee. Blays toppled. A blade followed him down, diving into his gut. He screamed. Before his attacker could withdraw, Lira hacked off the man's arm at the elbow. Blood fountained from the stump. Dante punched out his fist. Shadows slammed into the man's head, bursting it in a hot red shower of blood and stinging shards of bone.
"Get him out of here!" Dante yelled. "To the monks in the Citadel!"
Blood masked Lira's face. Dante moved past Blays, wreathing his hand in visible shadows. It discharged none of his strength, but was enough to drive back the line of attackers for a crucial second. Lira hoisted Blays on her hip and retreated through the ranks of defenders. Blays' hand was clamped to his gut, dark blood oozing between his fingers.
Someone shouted. A sword flashed for Dante's throat. He knocked it back with an awkward swipe and stumbled against a guardsman, who brought down his attacker. Another two minutes of fighting and Dante's arm was too heavy to lift. He withdrew, letting fresh troops cycle in for the fight to reach the staircases.
Wheels squeaked from the square. Below, a covered ram rolled forward, a pitched roof protecting the men pushing it along. The archers on the walls, still harried by those perched on the cathedral roof, concentrated fire. Arrows thwacked into the wooden cover. One of the men at the ram fell away, clutching at an arrow stuck straight through his leg. Two more dropped dead, leaving a trail of corpses behind the rolling ram. By the time it disappeared into the entry to the gates, it was reduced to a crawl. The remaining men wouldn't have the strength to lift it, let alone to batter down the doors.
Laughter echoed from within the gates.
The doors exploded inward in a roaring flash of ether. As splintered wood and warped metal spun into the courtyard, Cassinder dashed away from the ram toward the safety of the redshirts' lines. He'd been hiding somewhere inside the ram. Sneaking in until he was too close to stop. And now the gates were open. It was over.
Dante hurtled a lance of shadows at Cassinder's back. An instant before it would tear out his heart, it sprayed into sparks, deflected by a sorcerer somewhere in the enemy crowds. A thunderous cry rippled across the king's ranks. As one, thousands of men charged the fallen gates.
Dante stared, dazed. How many men massed outside the gates, stopped, however briefly, by the guardsmen plugging the gap? Five thousand? What now? Surrender? Flee? Fight to the last? They could attempt to retreat through the tunnels. Regroup in the Norren Territories with whatever clans were still alive to fight. Conduct a guerrilla resistance until their spirits or their lives at last gave out. But what would happen to the citizens who stayed in Narashtovik? And after all the blood spilled in the last few months, how could they hope to resist the next wave of the king's men?
His mind split, paralyzing him. Fight and die. Leave and lose hope. Two halves. Two worlds. Neither acceptable.
He screamed so loud the redshirts tipped back their sweat-streaked faces. He screamed until his sight turned red. As the scream faded from his ears and the red fell from his eyes, he knew what to do.
He ran down the steps, joggling the soreness in his back. Men snarled and slashed and bled for control of the gates. The redshirts had already pushed their way inside, an expanding bubble of men that would soon burst across the courtyard and flush away any remaining defenders. Along the walls, archers poured fire into the men still beyond the gates. Soldiers in black shirts ran down the steps as fast as they could.
"Get back!" Dante said. "Get to the keep! Get away from the gates!"
Some paused, confused to see a Council priest ordering them away from the battle. Others went on as if they hadn't noticed, pressing toward the gates in a last effort to repel the invaders. Dante wanted to scream again.
Olivander ran down the Citadel steps, sword in hand, his expression as hard and flat as his shield. Dante threw himself in the man's way.
"Pull back as many troops from the gates as you can!"
"They'd be on us in seconds!" Olivander said.
Dante met the older man's eyes. "That's what I'm counting on."
Olivander's gaze was weary, but there was still steel in it. "What do you have planned?"
"Leave just enough of our men to slow them down. Then get back and stay back."
Olivander's jaw worked, as if he were ready to spit out fresh arguments, but he laughed instead. "Good enough. If we're to die today, let it end with one last act of your madness."
He strode across the courtyard toward the crush of men. Dante turned and walked toward the keep. Olivander hollered orders in a ragged bass. Three-quarters of the way to the keep's steps, Dante knelt and faced the battle.
Olivander gave a final shout. Narashtovik's soldiers scattered from the fight, leaving a handful behind. Dante called out to the nether. He sang to it. He cursed at it. He pleaded with it and commanded it. Rivers of shadows flowed from the dead mounded around the gates. It pooled from the ground and came to him in huge gobs. It condensed from the air, clinging to his skin.
At the gates, knots of redshirts broke from the scrum to chase down the fleeing soldiers. Most raced straight ahead. Toward the keep. Toward Dante. Dante shaped the nether, reaching down into the stone floor, the dirt beneath it, the bedrock beneath the dirt. How old was it? As old as Arawn? Shadows circled him like a plague, so dense he could hardly see the army closing on him. He took the nether in his fist and drew it to the ground.
Ethereal white flashed from the coming crowd. Cassinder ran ahead of the soldiers, face locked in a fish's grin. So focused on the nether, Dante caught the bolt at the last second, knocking it away in a spray of twinkling sparks. The excess energy slammed into his ribs, flattening him into the cobbles.
"You were right to kneel!" Cassinder shouted. "You'll
all
kneel! Until you've forgotten how it felt to stand!"
Silver winked in the air. A knife slapped into Cassinder's chest, staggering him. Lira sprinted past Dante, sword in hand.
"No!" Dante screamed. "Lira, stop!"
The enemy soldiers hurtled forward. Cassinder raised a hand. Lira threw another knife. Another second, and the soldiers would be on him. In horror, Dante brought the nether back to him in an angry stormcloud, a swirling mass that blotted out the sky.
He touched his finger to the ground.
29
Beneath his finger, the stone was dusty. Still warm from a long day spent beneath the ceaseless sun. Beneath his finger, the stone cracked.
A black line raced toward the charging army. With a deafening roar, the soil wrenched apart, cobbles and dust spilling into the expanding crevice. A great rift opened in the earth, growing wider and wider as it tracked away from his finger, thundering ahead; nether surged through his body, far more than he'd ever channeled at once, perhaps more than he'd commanded across the course of his entire life, a searing, crackling, ice-cold force that yanked the bedrock apart at the seams.
The soldiers froze. Cassinder's face contorted in terror. Fear flashed across Lira's face. Then she met his eyes and smiled gently.
The rift swallowed them all.
In an instant, a thousand men tumbled away with a single scream. The crack hurtled outward. Huge slabs of stone creaked and fell into the bottomless depths. As it reached the gates, the devouring hole swallowed the king's men and Narashtovik's soldiers alike. It gobbled the ground beneath the gates. The wall splintered, crumbling, raining rubble into the gap. The rift swept past into the plaza. Thousands of soldiers in red shirts wailed and disappeared into nothing.
Dante collapsed. Cheers of disbelief surged from the norren and black-clad soldiers who'd fled the gates in time. Dante tried to rise, but his arms and legs lay still. He tried to blink against the dust sifting into his eyes, but his eyelids wouldn't twitch.
Swords rang on swords. Through the haze of dust and pain and nether, he watched, paralyzed, as the soldiers of Narashtovik closed on the few of the king's men who'd escaped plunging into the abyss. Steel clashed. Men in red ran for the gates, but found them obliterated, the way out demolished by a pit with no bottom. Some dropped their swords and threw up their hands. Others ran along the walls in confusion, searching for doors that weren't there. Others yet fought and died.
Crushing hands grasped Dante's shoulders. Mourn's face swam into view. One of his eyes was swollen shut, blood crusting his split eyebrow. He picked Dante up and set him gently on the steps of the Citadel.
"Are you all right?" Mourn said. "Dante?"
Dante's throat wouldn't work. Voiceless, he gazed back at Mourn. Mourn rose, knees cracking.
"I'm going for help. Stay here. And please don't die as you are staying."
The norren swung from sight. Dante knew that time was passing—people were moving in the courtyard, and people only moved over time—but had no sense of how much. After some more time, Olivander appeared with Somburr. They spoke his name. They tried to reach him with the nether, to soothe his wounds, but there were no wounds to soothe, and when the nether touched him it slid right off, hissing angrily, dispersing back to the cracks within the stones. Mourn stood a short ways off, watching. Blays staggered outside, holding a bloody bandage at his side. He grinned in naked disbelief at the hole punched through the world. When he saw Dante, he swallowed his grin as quickly as the earth had gulped down the soldiers.
"Dante?" he said. "You all right in there? Just stunned at your own magnificence, are you?" He slapped Dante's cheek lightly. "Hey. You all right? Where's Lira?"
Mourn moved in and pulled Blays aside. They spoke in low tones on the fringe of Dante's dotty vision. Mourn pointed to the rift. Blays' chin jerked. He shook his head like a wolf with a rabbit, like a dog that's been stung. Mourn reached for his shoulder.
"No!" Blays yanked himself away. He ran to Dante, leaning close to his face. "Where did she go? Dante, what did you do to her?"
Dante struggled to move. To blink. to speak.
"Did you take her?" Blays' voice went soft. "No one matters to you, do they? Not when they get in the way of something you want. Is that what happened? You saw your chance, so you took it, no matter the cost?" He turned to the rift. Lying on his back, Dante couldn't see it. Blays' eyes went bright. He swung back to Dante, face contorted. "What did you do to her? Did you kill her?
Answer me
!"
But he couldn't. He could barely think. Blays cocked his fist and swung. Dante's head snapped back, giving him an upside-down view of the keep's steep walls. He didn't feel a thing. His head lolled forward. Blays struck his face again.
"Did you kill her? Did you drop her down that hole? Did you even hesitate before you did it?" Tears streaked Blays' face. Sunset flashed from the blade in his hand. It angled toward Dante's neck, a silvery road to oblivion. Mourn loomed behind Blays' shoulder, eyes bulging above the thicket of his beard. The sword wavered.
Dante's throat clicked. "She—"
The world went black.
* * *
He saw stars.
Silver on black. Points against a field. A forever of stars. The most beautiful sight in the world. Some danced, some twitched, some swam in slow and mysterious circles. But there was a pattern to all of it, a cycle, and if you watched those swirls close enough and long enough, maybe you could understand...
Someone coughed.
He couldn't open his eyes. At first he thought he was still paralyzed, but his lids were gummed shut, crusty and dry. He picked at them with his right hand. His fingers were chilly. He pried the seal from his right eye. Light sliced his vision.
"You're awake!" a familiar voice said from beside his bed.
Dante's throat was too dry to reply. He swabbed awkwardly at his left eye. Sunlight glared from everything, dazzling him. He slitted his eyes. A plump, robed man stood over him.
"Nak," Dante said. "Do you have any water?"
"Let me check my pockets." The monk grinned, as much at seeing Dante conscious as at his own joke. He turned to a dresser where a pitcher of water stood ready. The water was as lukewarm as the room, but Dante drank it down without stopping. He belched, eyes trying and failing to water.
"Where am I?"
"The monastery. We've been tending to you since you fell unconscious."
"Fell unconscious?" Dante sat up dizzily. His bladder ached. He gestured toward his waist. "I need—"
Nak nodded, went for a pot, and turned his back. Dante shrieked. Nak rushed back to the bed. "What is it?"
"My hand!" Dante held up his right hand. The first two fingers, the tip of his thumb, and half his palm were as black as the space between the stars. "Was I burnt?"
"Sort of."
"What do you mean, sort of'? How can I be
sort
of burnt?"
"It's nethereal in nature. We think. We don't think it's harmful, but it may be permanent."
"Permanent?" Dante waved his hand around. "It looks like I've been eating coal with my bare hands!"
"With the amount of nether you channeled, you're lucky your whole body doesn't look that way." Nak pursed his lips. "You're lucky you
have
a body."
Dante turned his hand front to back and back to front. The stained skin was matte and abrupt, with no transition between the blackness and the normal skin around it. It felt slightly cool, like a rock left in the shade, but it otherwise felt normal to the touch. Still, he reached under the covers with his left hand. Nak turned his back. By the time Dante finished with the chamber pot, his memory had clarified. The battle. The rift. Something more.