I pointed at two people, a young man leaning out from his doorway and his father with a hand around the boy’s chest. “Tell anyone skilled with a bow or a wand to meet me at the eastern edge of these villages.”
Nearly the same scenario repeated countless times as I rode on for a few miles, my heart never calming.
I had passed Crall’s guard a while back, though he was too far to my right for my voice to reach him. I looked behind me several times, only once finding a person following me. He was just a boy on foot, maybe twelve or thirteen, a short bow in his hand. He ignored his mother’s screams to stop.
I finally let my poor horse rest as I came to the last line of trees and left him untied in case the terrislaks broke through. I hoped he wouldn’t wander too far.
Running between the trees, I heard nothing from the other side. Good. I needed time to let the others I’d recruited get here.
But as I came through the trees, my stomach flipped. The first terrislak was no more than fifty yards from me, a line of them behind it at least a hundred long. Just because I’d killed one with Eizle and Shara didn’t mean the sight of the creatures was any less terrifying. The front terrislak saw me and broke into a run. It let out an aggressive screech, the one behind it joining in.
Soon the ground shook as all of them came at me, their gray and distended stomachs vacillating, their man-sized hands open and ready to grab. I had to remind myself that the creatures, being more than twice my height, made them easier targets.
You’re prepared for this. Go out and meet them before they get too close to the villages!
I ran into the open land, drawing my two short swords and wrapping two discrete clusters of pyforial energy around both handles. I extended my arms at the first terrislak and the sword hovering by my right hip cut through the air. The terrislak didn’t even have a chance to get its hands up before the entire blade embedded into its chest.
I pulled it free as I sent the second sword at the next beast. I missed low, impaling the creature’s stomach instead of its heart. The first had just fallen as I stabbed the second creature again, this time piercing its heart.
I ripped both swords free, then sent one into the massive thigh of the next closest terrislak. It tripped and crashed to the ground, screeching as I took down another beside it. I finished off yet another by piercing its chest, then drove my blade into the top of the first creature’s head before it could get up.
There were hundreds more still, but I was beginning to make a pile. They couldn’t get over the fallen bodies, their enormous black eyes nearly as wide as their mouths as they screeched with rage. Coming around from both sides of the pile, they were too far from each other for me to kill two at once anymore, and there were too many for me to stand my ground.
I used my mind to will my swords into my hands, then transferred the pyforial energy beneath my arms and took flight. Lacking precision, I used all focus to move through the air horizontally, going faster than I could run.
I created about thirty yards between us before I accidentally began moving the pyforial energy quicker beneath my right arm than my left, causing me to spin. Being not too high off the ground, I let it go.
Momentum forced me to roll. I jumped up and took both swords again with py. All the terrislaks had me as their target, as their prey. From the twitch of their screeching mouths, no doubt these creatures hungered for more than my flesh. They wanted vengeance.
I felled four of them with four strikes of my swords, my arms mimicking each motion I wanted the weapons to make. Backing up, I struck down two more. Fear of death should’ve sent the next three into retreat but they only charged harder. Were these creatures intrepid? Years of devouring every land animal in Sumar must’ve given them unrivaled confidence.
No, foolhardiness.
I would use it to my advantage.
But as quickly as I could kill them, others gained on me, even as I ran backward while slaying them. I made a turn to take them away from the trees bordering the villages.
The terrislaks didn’t seem to tire, maintaining the same speed as I drew shallow breaths.
They started to close the distance, but being nearer only made it easier for me to kill them quicker as my two swords whirled from one beast to another. I cut them down with single strikes to the chest. One tripped over another’s carcass and fell onto its gigantic hands as mud erupted. It still came at me on all fours until I drove a sword between its black eyes.
I seemed to be holding my ground. The pile of bodies grew, getting in the way. I’d lost track of how many had fallen; forty, maybe fifty littered the ground. But one creature finally became aware of my two swords. It batted one, the blade piercing its hand. It let out a howl of pain as it staggered. I ripped the sword free, but the beast swatted it down as I aimed for its chest. When the blade ended up in the monster’s leg, the terrislak grabbed it and yanked out as it shrieked. I moved the other sword between us and then shot it forward into its chest.
I pulled it out before the terrislak collapsed, but its dead hand covered my other sword. Still in touch with the pyforial energy around the faraway weapon, I focused and grunted to yank it free. The creature’s hand flopped like a fish on land but turned out to be too heavy to lift from my distance. I needed to get closer to free my sword.
I ran at the others while they screeched in premature victory at my approach. I let go of the energy wrapped around my trapped sword and made a new pyforial handle around my dagger’s hilt. My remaining sword still did its job, piercing hearts with carefully placed attacks. But the dagger was only good for jabbing their legs to slow them.
There was no brutality in my actions, no joy. These were slayings of strategy. I only had so much time before exhaustion would finish my task, no matter how many of them were left. I could feel my body edging closer to complete fatigue as the stabs of pain in my chest worsened.
The terrislaks began to surround me as I ran toward them. I sent my knife at the nearest one. It pricked the beast’s boulder of a knee but didn’t stick. I let go of my grasp on the py around the weapon.
Noticing something coming from my other side, I willed my sword first and turned to see what I’d done second. It had impaled a stomach.
Behind me now. I got the beast’s chest this time, but it didn’t fall. Closing in on my trapped sword, I noticed two terrislaks preparing the white claw on their first finger to pierce me. The damn things were as long as my torso, causing the first pinch of fear since this had begun.
I cut down one terrislak in my way and rolled forward to get through the legs of the next as it grabbed where I’d just been, pulling my free sword behind me with py. I was close enough to my other sword now that it only took a heartbeat to lift the hand covering it.
An instant after I got py around my weapon, I drove it into the calf of the terrislak I’d run beneath. Lightning struck as the creature started to collapse, blinding me for a blink. The beasts seemed even more disoriented, a few falling over and splashing up mud, the tone of their shrieks rising.
Thunder boomed as I ran to the terrislak I’d stabbed. I ripped the sword free from its calf and stuck both blades into their sheaths. Two white claws narrowly missed me while I ran up the creature’s back. It screeched from being impaled by its own kin. Another white claw came down just beside me, immediately slowing the thrashing of the terrislak below my feet.
I’d gotten py in place beneath my arms by then and hoisted myself high into the air. The terrislaks wailed and reached up, running after me as I flew past them to the west. Some jumped, others threw mud, but most followed me without letting me out of their sight. They collided with each other and began to fight, aggression getting the better of them.
Then I noticed a terrible sight. A terrislak on the far end of those remaining had entered the pines. It must’ve seen someone, and it would be within the first village in an instant. Two other terrislaks caught sight and followed. Even if I could get there in time, I would bring the rest with me. There was nothing I could do but slay those chasing me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
If my clothes weren’t already soaked from the rain, they would’ve been from sweat and terrislak blood. I felled the last two beasts from my knees, completely enervated. I didn’t even have the strength to pull my swords free before they collapsed, which took about the same amount of effort as standing.
I fell forward into the mud. I turned my head and sucked in air.
You have to get up. There are still terrislaks within the village.
Three had entered through the pines and nothing had come out. I rolled onto my back. The rain splattered against my face and into my mouth. I drew many more breaths before I could sit up, then even more before I could stand.
I staggered over to the last two fallen terrislaks, their carcasses on top of my short swords.
“Damn.” I wasn’t getting my weapons out until I regained more strength.
I listened but couldn’t hear any screams from the village over the sound of the storm. I put my hands over my head, my chest burning, my legs shaking.
Hurry up
, I demanded.
Finally I felt I had enough strength for my task. I got py beneath a beast’s shoulder, then hoisted it up and rolled it over so I could yank out the sword beneath it. Then I did the same for the other.
I’d just begun staggering toward the pines when I noticed a small crowd had gathered. They couldn’t have been there long. Most were gawking at the scene behind me, some looking straight at me as if I were just as otherworldly as the hundreds of bloody terrislaks that lay in the mud.
With great effort, I kept my back straight and walked until I was close enough to speak. “Are there any left?”
“We killed three of them,” answered a man with a bow, his weapon identical to twenty more in the hands of others. “Two of us died.”
I walked through the pines, acutely aware of the crowd following me. The shocking sight stole my breath. Every home for fifty yards in each direction was nothing but rubble. Three carcasses lay scattered, the fletching of countless arrows jutting out.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them,” I said.
The same man spoke as before. “You have no reason to apologize.”
“Are you human?” another asked me.
“That was pyforial energy you used to lift the corpses, wasn’t it?” someone else asked.
“Yes, I’m human. Yes, that was pyforial energy. I’m with King Quince’s army, sent here to help.” It wasn’t the exact truth but simpler than anything else I could’ve said.
“Thank the gods.”
“Thank the king,” I corrected. “But there’s still a threat out there—ten thousand Southerners. I need to check if they’re coming here. Have any of you seen my horse?”
A boy pointed, the same one I’d seen running out of his farmhouse with his bow while his mother yelled for him to return. “It ran off that way.” His shirt was torn open, stained by what had to be terrislak blood given that he was still standing.
I thanked him, but just before I left I noticed the guard Crall had sent arriving at the scene. His eyes gaped as he looked around. I left it to the villagers to explain.
I retrieved my horse and rode a mile north, emerging from the barrier of trees around the villages. I tied my mount to one and took to the air.
Evening has come
, I thought as the land shrunk beneath me.
It’ll be another dark night
.
I went high enough to find the hills that five thousand of our men had chosen to stand upon to defend our land. Those still standing were clad in black armor, human carcasses and blue shields scattered at their feet. The battle had come and gone.
I couldn’t tell how many enemies had survived, but it was at least a few thousand. I had no chance against that many.
I came back down, mounted, and rode. I worried about Rao, but I didn’t have time to go back for him yet. I needed to find out what Marteph’s army would do next.
It was night by the time I reached my destination, a tall tree upon a low hill north of the villages. It would give me the vantage point I needed to spy on my enemies with my seescope in the morning. I settled in and dreamt of killing terrislaks.
In the morning, I saw the Southerners had descended the hill to the west instead of south, continuing for a few miles before they’d made camp. Thank the gods, they would go around these villages.
So their target ultimately had been Quince’s men. It made sense; they would’ve lost the attack on Glaine, and flattening these villages would’ve been messy and pointless.
As much as I despised Marteph and his fire priests, I had to admit their strategies were smart. Now they would be returning to the South, presumably gathering for another strike, perhaps the capital this time.
Gods, this war was still just beginning. I rode back toward Maywair as I thought about how to fix that.
I wanted to march into their capital and end it myself. It was a childish fancy. Winning would take so much more: many small victories, elaborate strategies, time…so much time.
Say I did somehow get to the Southern capital and kill King Marteph. Would that end the war?
I’d read enough about the royal families by now to know King Marteph and Queen Wendi had a four-year-old son. The throne would go to him, though Marteph’s younger brother, Brimber, would be the one ruling until the boy came of age.
Brimber was certainly not a man who wanted to be involved in war. He enjoyed feasts, dancing, and playing the lute. He used to paint until Marteph disallowed it after seeing depictions of sacrifices with meticulous gore.
I’d seen my own share of paintings depicting a sacrifice. Women in white hovering in front of a waterfall with a celestial glow. Men standing on the precipice of a volcano, its lava reaching up, a light shining down onto the sacrifice from the sky. None of them were like Brimber’s work that showed a woman’s body breaking apart between the waterfall and the lake. Or a man in agony as he was about to hit the lava, his flesh already melting off his bones.