The Silver Tower (The Age of Dawn Book 3) (26 page)

Tears were hot in his eyes. He gagged on the pain, his body weight supported by the blades. What could he do? What was the defense against being impaled? Another chain wound around his neck, cold as a grave. Something wet tickled and scraped at his ear. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bastard’s tongue slithering out, afraid to turn his head and open his throat on the bladed chains.

“I can taste your fear,” Asebor laughed in his ear.

“Fuck yourself, bastard,” Walter said through sore teeth. The world was a blur of figures below, open mouths, shifting shapes. His fingers tried to work their way under the icy chains, cutting his fingers down to the bone, wriggling under.

The chain clinked, razors shearing through his skin, wet streaming down his neck. “You will never die. Pain will be your only ally, all you will ever know,” Asebor whispered.

Screaming and the clanging of blades rang up from below. Walter fell from the air, blood streaking from his back, the ground coming up fast, air expelled from his lungs at the impact. He coughed and heaved, sucking in grit. Asebor bellowed in what could only be pain. Walter opened an eye, watching as a blue portal winked out under his leg. His ankle bled a few violet drops, the shadows snapping shut, chains wildly hissing.

Walter rolled over onto his back, pushing onto his elbows. Baylan had replaced him in the air, Asebor’s chains encircling his shoulders and thighs. A human face full of blood streaked across his vision, his helmet lethally dented. Nyset ignited a group of iron-clad Cerumal, armor molten on their burning skin. She pressed herself into the archway, a spear meant for her slamming into a bush manipulated into the shape of a dog.

“Baylan!” Walter screamed, reaching to him with bloody fingers, one finger bent alarmingly sideways, skin pulsing with the light of the Phoenix underneath. Walter saw Juzo swing his sword into the shoulder of a Black Wynch, hacking it through its neck, blood spraying on his face.

Baylan screamed, arms and legs splaying out, head thrust back, veins standing out on his neck. Portals sprung open beside the chains around his arms, the edges not cutting but pushing the portals away. Asebor’s lips curled back into a mocking smirk.

“It will not work, you are weak. Your gods have left you to die,” Asebor laughed.

“You are
not
a god! You are nothing,” Baylan snarled.

“Let us see if your god deems your courage worthy of redemption.”

Baylan roared, blue light flashing as bright as the sun from his shoulders and hips. Asebor’s chains twinkled in the light as scarlet blooms formed under Baylan’s robes, blood rolling down his chest and thighs.

“No!” Walter screamed, fireballs flying from his palms, skittering off the chains and into the sky. Nyset tried to break them with red discs, cursing; her mouth opening with mounting horror.

Baylan shrieked, his blue robed arm thudding to the ground, blood spurting out of his mangled shoulder socket. The freed chain slashed down at Walter, who dove before it cracked into the stones. Something squelched onto the stone in front of him. A leg, Baylan’s leg. Walter’s eyebrows were forced together, lips drawing down, retching yellow onto his boots.

He looked up as Asebor’s chains whirled through Baylan’s remaining limbs, sawing through tendon, muscle and bone. Their eyes met, his vibrating and wide with panic. In that moment Walter felt his own arms and legs hewed off, felt Baylan’s misery and anguish. Baylan’s brutalized body drifted through the air, tears glistening on his cheeks, light smoking from his wounds. His back smacked into the stony ground, blood splashing out from the back of his skull.

Walter dashed towards him, his eyes locked on his broken friend, uncaring of the consequences. Walter dropped beside Baylan, skidding on his knees, pressing the healing light of Phoenix into his head wound.

“No, Walter. There’s no saving—” Baylan coughed and sputtered, dark blood rolling out of the corners of his lips, his eyes spinning around and around.

“Be still,” Walter hissed, drawing deeper from Phoenix’s essence. Exhaustion and adrenaline fought a vicious battle in his body, one inexorable, the latter rapidly waning. Baylan’s eyes regained focus.

“Walter, please. Do what must be done. You must save who you can, you must live for your parents, Nyset, and all the others that stand, fight, live.” His voice trailed off to a croaking whisper.

“What? What are you saying?”

He heard Juzo’s scream. Saw him on Asebor’s back, his hands clawing into his violet eyes and mouth latching onto his neck.

“Walter.” Baylan gasped. “This is the end for me. I am yours, dual-wielder.”

A sacrifice!
The Dragon and Phoenix, a roar of like thousands of tongues in his mind.

Baylan had said he would have to be hard as Milvorian steel. Once he thought saying goodbye to his dog was difficult. He would have to make terrible choices. Now he understood what that meant.

Take him, Baylan.
Walter said with closed eyes, sun warm on his face, breath seeping from his lips.

You must take him.
They replied. It was said the gods could be cruel, forever testing loyalty. This was beyond cruel. This was a torturer’s fantasy.

“No,” he whispered, tears leaking out of his eyes.

Baylan’s pale eyes relaxed, lips twitching into a smile, giving him an almost imperceptible nod. “It’s okay.”

Walter embraced the Dragon, fire raging in his eyes, channeling all the hatred in his soul for the demon a few strides away. A dagger of fire formed in his hands, raising it overhead. It seemed to fall with the lightness of a feather, flaming point slowly penetrating through Baylan’s robe, skin, muscle, ribs, and finally into his heart.

The hands holding the dagger were not his hands. They were hands of a monster, one capable of murdering his friends. The dagger plunged in and out, in and out with charring slits. The light left Baylan’s eyes, empty as the sky above.

“Is this what you want?” Walter raggedly screeched into the sky.

There was screaming all around. Walter dropped the dagger at his side, dissipating into black smoke, hands violently shaking. Juzo soared up and over his head, a slash of white hair and flapping coats. A bolt of lightning burned the air, colliding with Juzo’s arcing form. He crashed into the parapet, tendrils of smoke rising from his twitching body.

The sacrifice has been made,
the voices said.

Walter at first thought Asebor was only black shadows. Now he saw hints of purple light flitting through the depths of gray, blue, and black shadows always in motion. The exhaustion he felt earlier was eclipsed by red fury. His muscles trembled with energy, flexing with incredible pressure, veins standing out of his bloody arms.

Strings of gleaming jewels slashed down from above. Walter cast a shield of translucent blue, ringed in fire and burning with the shapes of tiny Dragons. Asebor’s chains collided with the shield, blades whooshing over his head and slamming into the ground behind. Walter gritted his teeth, forcing the chains down against the shield with telekinesis before Asebor retracted them. It was as if he’d done this before, did it without thinking.

The fire around the shield flared, Dragon fire stretching out as long as his arm. The Dragons in the fire screeched, mouths snapping open, blasting white fire onto the chains.

“The whelp has teeth, does it?” Asebor laughed. His grin spread wide, hundreds of mouths within mouths edged with blades, endlessly gaping apart. The gleaming metal of Asebor’s chains became white as the Dragon fire, the air around it shimmering with heat.

Walter felt him jerk the chains back, but they would not be freed. Not until he allowed it. Baylan’s sacrifice would not go in vain. The white of the fire spread up and down the chains, creeping out like spilled honey. Walter saw that Asebor’s chasm of teeth had fallen away, replaced by a mass of shadow. Walter let the chains go, shield fizzing out, chains snapping around Asebor’s arms and legs.

Asebor roared, voice echoing like hundreds down the walls. The shadows around his arms and legs quivered and smoked, the wonderful scent of Asebor’s flesh burning wafted into Walter’s nostrils.

“The god bleeds!” Walter screamed, red lightning flashing from his eyes.

“The whelp knows barroom tricks.” Asebor became gray mist, Walter’s bolts passing through his formless body, reforming a second later. “I grow bored of your tricks. It was refreshing to feel pain again, but I’m afraid our games have come to an end.”

Who did this bastard think he was? Arrogant until the moment of his death. Baylan had said he might have needed the Chains of the North to kill Asebor. Walter wanted to prove the histories wrong. He had to.

The chains darted in, stabbing and slashing. Walter ducked and countered one blow with a shield, another with a hurled rock, then he leapt back avoiding the backswing of the blood caked blade. Asebor’s eyes burst alight with the brilliance of the sun, twin beams of violet hissing holes the size of Walter’s fists through his gut.

No. Something was terribly wrong. Walter stared down at the wounds, blood rolling over his waist and down his thighs. He fell onto his back as incapacitating pain spread from his stomach to his legs and up his neck. It wasn’t the pain that set his heart to pounding with the boom of a steel drum. It was the abject lack of Phoenix light healing the wounds. It should’ve been there by now, piecing him back together.

“The false gods cannot heal you,” Asebor said.

He gurgled up blood, pressing his hands over the holes, terror working its insidious claws into his mind. He couldn’t die now, not like this. He was supposed to kill the demon god.

Asebor’s towering shadow blotted out the sun. He could hear Nyset screaming. Her discs were in the air, hovering beside Asebor, his open palm raised towards them. Asebor’s horrific mouth split apart, closing his palm, Nyset’s discs poofing into smoke.

A chain slinked under his neck, gentle as a new mother’s touch. “This is your last chance to bow to your god, dual-wielder,” Asebor hissed.

The world swam with colors, shapes he hoped were more human than Death Spawn. He stared up at the shadows, finding the demon’s head. He started to speak, sputtered on thickening blood, tried again. “Die, bastard,” Walter croaked.

Asebor’s chain pulled with savagery, hot pain ravaging Walter’s neck, warmth splashing into his eyes, down his neck, onto his chest. He shrieked until no more sound would come. The bruises, cuts, and pains faded. He lost the sensation of his fingers and toes, then his arms and legs, and finally his torso. He tried to wriggle his fingers, feeling at the emptiness. Why wasn’t his body responding?

The blurred world melted away, shadows creeping into his vision. The Dragon and Phoenix did not leave him. He could see them, feel them in the expanding void. The shadows around his fading world took shape. Claws, swords, gnashing mouths of all sizes snapped in the darkness. He felt his breath prickling in his sore throat, cracked and bleeding.

“No,” he thought and tried to make words, but no sounds came into his ears. The light in his eyes became a tiny circle, and within it he saw Nyset’s hazel eyes, thick with tears. He tried to say something to her, anything, but it was as if he were in another person’s body unresponsive to his thoughts. The circle became a pinhole and faded to black; demonic forms closing in.

“
W
alter
, no. No, why aren’t you healing? Wake up, wake up!” Nyset’s hands were on his softening shoulders, violently shaking him up and down. His head lolled over to the side, blood pumping out the deep gash encircling his neck. “Why is there so much blood?” she asked, his blood welling between her dirty fingers. His eyes left her face, rolling up towards his forehead, breath gurgling out his lips. “Not like this, not like this,” she sobbed, lips pressing into a tremulous frown.

Something collided with her shoulder, skin burning, falling back into strong arms grasping her under the stomach and dragging her back. Her hands burst alight with fire and the arms released. “It’s me, it’s Grim.” His calm voice said into her ear.

“Let me go, I’m not leaving without him,” she growled, legs spread and heels dragging in the ground.

Grimbald pushed her to her feet, his arms covered in a mix of blood, bits of stone, and a couple of broken arrow shafts through his armor. It was incredible that he was even able to stand. “Alright, let’s get him. Cover us!” Grimbald shouted towards three armsman, white armor bathed in red, halberds whirling and chopping through the endless horde.

Nyset wove lashes of fire in each hand, carving through the torso of a shrieking Cerumal, spear and shield split with a double strike. A Skin Flayer materialized from the wall, arcing blades chopping at Grimbald. She dropped the lashes, tens of darts hissing from her fingertips, passing just shy of Grim’s back, punching bright red holes through the gray skinned monster. The arcing of its blades followed, but with a fraction of the same ferocity, dinging from his shoulder plate.

Grimbald let out a quick breath. “Thanks, Ny.”

“We have to hurry,” she snapped.

Her right arm wasn’t working right, felt hard to move. There was a deep cut in her shoulder, white of bone showing through pink. She wished she hadn’t looked at it. She bit her tongue, pain radiating down her arm with each movement. The three armsmen knowingly charged to their deaths, distracting Asebor as Grimbald dragged Walter’s body over his shoulder.

He turned around, launching into a run, impressively fast for a man of his size. Nyset followed, watching his back and burning down the Death Spawn getting too close.

The armsmen were cut down in seconds, their lives giving them the seconds she and Grim needed to flee. They ran through the shattered gardens, death all around. A section of stone fell with a boom behind her, crumbling down from a wide hole in a spire. A Cerumal was slumped over the marble fountain, clear water now pinked with its blood, the fish oblivious of the destruction above their little world.

She thought in that moment should would have preferred to be the fish, everything still mostly right in the world. Bushes burned, exotic flowers chopped down and rolled over by uncaring boots. The grasses were smothered in bodies, jagged bricks, swathes of blood, jutting arrows, and dropped spears. She darted around a massive catapult stone, a single blue robed leg twisted out from under it. A spear dinged off the rock and skittered to the ground beside her. A bust of Bezda Lightwalker had been cracked in half down the middle, the emotionless eye meeting Nyset’s.

Juzo was at the back of the gardens beside a Falcon solider and an armsman, waving people through the archway. A child sat on the ground, eyes wet and hands brushing back and forth over her chin. Nyset scooped her into her arms as she ran, hoisting her in one arm, almost tripping on a brick. When she reached the archway, she handed her to an armsman. “Go! We’ll hold here,” she barked. The armsman nodded, running down the hallway. “You too,” she beckoned to the Falcon soldier. He hesitated for a moment, shook his head and ran.

Juzo was covered in broken arrow shafts, his skin blackened like he had caught the wasting disease. “Tried to save who I could while Walt fought him, tried to help him—”

“It’s alright, Juzo. We did the best we could,” she swallowed. The words felt like lies, but they were the right thing to say. “What did they find?” Nyset raised her clawed hands up, raining fire on the approaching mass, sweat streaming through stone dust along her temples.

“Tunnels. Arms Master Burtz knew of hidden tunnels in the back of the practice yard leading under the wall to the north.” Juzo had a pair of short axes in his hands, wide blades on one side and vicious pick on the other.

A wall of fire sprouted from the ground on either side of the catapult stone. The Death Spawn were barreling through it anyway, burning and stumbling towards the archway.

“What? Why did he wait so long?” Nyset said, wanting to scream it.

“Said he forgot they were there, never told anyone, for obvious reasons.”

“Dragons,” she hissed.

Juzo chopped into the gut of a burning Cerumal with one axe, sent the other through the back of its neck. “Go,” he breathed.

“I’m not leaving you,” she screamed, hands trembling to maintain the burning wall. She wanted to fall over, rest on the point of the spear sticking up beside her. Had to rest soon, but loyalty was stronger than exhaustion of the most heavy kind.

Walter, it can’t be. He can’t be dead. Her focus was breaking, the wall faltered, lowering to knee height. She dug into the Dragon, more of its energy boiling in her blood, wiping away exhaustion as if it were never there, for now.

Juzo slashed up with one axe, splitting through the mandible of a Black Wynch. He chopped down with the other, the pick dinging through its helm and blood bubbling out of the hole. He side kicked it in the gut, tearing his axe from its head. “You’ve done all you can. I can run, you can’t. I can probably stand for a minute then I’ll be right behind you,” he said, chest heaving. “Please,” he said, axe slashing through the neck of a bulky Cerumal. “Go!”

Damn it, he was right. “Alright, you’ll be behind?”

“Yes!” He chopped into a shoulder, hurled one axe into the face of a screaming Black Wynch, splitting it apart with a splash of gore.

She let the fiery wall fade, leaving a line of scorched stone and burning plant life. She ran, leaving Juzo to fight the horde of Death Spawn roaring with glee. Her footsteps were thunder in her ears, echoing in the cold hallway, leaving the nightmare behind. Juzo better come, better not be lying or she would—what? Slap him? She scoffed at the idea, wiping tears away.

The hall seemed to go on forever, bright light searing her eyes in the distance. She wanted to run faster and never stop until all of this went away. Until Walter was alive, and the Death Spawn never existed. He can’t be dead. He wasn’t, she knew. She could feel him, not here, but somewhere else. She could hear Juzo laughing, the sound more terrifying than the approaching horde, a laugh that seemed to find genuine joy in the dark work.

The light came up, opening wide, shielding her eyes as she stumbled through the exit. Burtz was at the back of the sandy expanse, waving his sinewy arm at her, the other propping up a door in the ground. The Falcon soldier she sent off dropped in, jettisoning his spear before the narrow door. She took a deep breath, getting her air back and continued running, heavy sand trying to keep her here in the nightmare, relief a moment away.

A shadow, a large bird maybe, darted behind her. She looked up—Shattered Wing. Flattening herself against the sand as its claws snapped at the empty air, inches from her shoulders. It screeched as it passed, its terrible cry piercing her ears, blowing sand into her eyes. She rolled over, hardly able to see, fireballs zooming out and going wide as the beast fell like an arrow towards Burtz.

“No,” she whispered. Burtz stood there, staring up at the Shattered Wing, unmoving. He let the door go, crashing down as it closed. The Shattered Wing’s bulbous claws were opened wide, wings spread out as it slowed its descent. “Run!” she screamed. Something glinted and blurred in the light; his arm flashing, sword cutting the Shattered Wing from neck to legs. It rolled over onto the sand, guts spilling out of its abdomen.

“Come!” he yelled, his face impassive as if nothing had happened, raising the tunnel’s door again.

“Shit,” she exhaled, legs heavy, unresponsive to commands to move faster. Footsteps pounded behind; Juzo’s speeding form.

“Let me help you,” Juzo said beside her, his white face speckled with blood, gray hair singed in spots. She nodded, sliding his shoulder under hers and dragging her along. They reached the tunnel’s entrance, a shadowy hole in the ground dappled by torchlight in the distance.

Burtz nodded at them. “The tunnel goes for about two miles well outside the Tower. Is there anyone else?”

“I don’t think so,” Nyset said.

“Get in then. I’ll cover the hatch so they don’t find you,” Burtz commanded, ornate sword dripping with dark blood at his side.

“But—”

“There’s no time. They’ll be here any second. Don’t make my death a waste,” Burtz snapped.

Juzo was already in, beckoning for her to join. She dropped down, boots thudding on stone, hatch slamming shut, light flitting through the wooden slits. She stared up, a line of light cutting across her face, fading as sand thumped onto the hatch above.

“The Tower has fallen,” Nyset breathed.

The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever, lit by Dragon fire torches, each spaced out just far enough to keep hope alive. The soil walls were supported by metal beams every few feet, some on the verge of collapse, rivets bulging, beams caving inward. All Nyset had to do was put one boot ahead of the other, each step a step further from the misery in the world of the living.

The tunnel groaned, dust shaking down from the roof into her hair, brushing it from her brow. She followed closely behind Juzo, her nostrils filled with a mix of blood and moldy earth. She couldn’t stop looking back, imagining that at any moment the Death Spawn would be on her, tearing her apart. She had to push the thoughts away, had to look forward. Had to hope Burtz’s idea worked.

She could occasionally hear the muffled steps of other survivors on a long stretch before another curve, thought she might have been able to see Grimbald carrying Walter. She saw the gleam of Corpsemaker on his back. The dull axehead was a comfort, to know he was still alive, still with Walt.

“Things will get better, we’ll figure out what to do,” Juzo said looking back at her, reading her thoughts. Maybe he was
actually
reading them, she didn’t much care at the moment.

Maybe when she was younger and still had her hopes intact she might have believed him. Things used to be easy. The world was a dark place when you walked through a grave. She kept her silence, meeting his eye was all the communication they needed. He forced a smile and trudged on.

White light was blinding in the distance, arms reaching down from it and pulling survivors up the bright hole. She couldn’t help but smile at that, the light of the sun was starting to feel like an old memory. Juzo vaulted from the ground, turning over at the top of the exit and offering his hands, flaking with dried blood. She gladly took them with one arm, shielding her eyes in the light with the other. Another door much like the one they had entered was flopped open, studded with grasses and tree saplings, roots slithering on the underside.

To the east was the Far Sea; the south the Tower. They were on the plains, scrubby and boiling with the mid-day heat. From the west came a cloud of dust, within it a group of horses flying the flag of Helm’s Reach. The insignia was visible even from here, a Phoenix dueling with a Dragon in brilliant blue and red.

Nyset fell to her knees, sagging over onto her hands with exhaustion. The Tower was engulfed in a cloud of gray smoke arcing towards the sea. The spires had lost all of their opulence, dotted with ugly holes. She and the voices of others gasped as a spire shifted, stones crumbling all around as if a child had just kicked its sandcastle.

“This cannot be,” said an armsman, slamming his sword into the ground and leaning on it.

Grimbald was beside Walter, wrapping cloth around the wound in his neck. She crawled over to them, resting a hand on his chest. She jerked her hand back like she had been bitten. He was cold as a stone. What would she tell his parents? She grimaced with pain, eyes wetting again, scoffing at the foolish thought.

“What—what do we do now?” she said, swallowing hard.

“We do what we do for all of the fallen,” Grimbald said softly, wiping the dirt off Walter’s forehead. He would be put in the ground, with the dead. But he couldn’t be dead, can’t be.

“Not here, though. In a proper place.” She had to be reasonable, how Walter always said.

“Of course.” Grimbald shifted towards the riders, drawing nearer with grim expressions and hands on weapons. In addition to her friends, there were three armsman, the child she saved, the apprentice Vesla, and two Falcon soldiers left standing, most with wounds in dire need of a surgeon’s knife. No one else had made it out alive it seemed.

What had she done to deserve such luck? The future would be hard, but she was glad to be alive, though the horizon dark. She felt anger welling, her resolve hardening. Someone had to build a new Tower. She would find new apprentices, gather a force to resist the Death Spawn. She would not die on her knees with demons roaming the lands.

Juzo moaned as he tore an arrow head from his arm, the skin flapping open and pulling together. His pain was an injected seed of doubt, shattering what she now saw as fragile thoughts. She had to be stronger, but Nyset wasn’t ready for this. She wondered what leaders ever were.

The sigil of Helm’s Reach flapped high in the air perched atop a long shaft of wood. The horses came to a stop, snorting and foaming. A stout man rode up, tiny eyes squinting down at her, his polished armor clinking together.

“The name’s Farly, you all from the Tower?”

“We are,” she said, croaking. Farly popped the cork on his water skin, handing it over to her. The cool water was soothing, muting the sting of the cracks in her throat.