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He stared grimly into the woods, his eyes half-focused.
“I don’t think it’s possible to be ready for this,” he said slowly.
Charlie stood from the fire, tucking his parchment into the vest beneath his furred cloak. His eyes flickered between Dom and Sorasa, weighing them both. “You’ve seen these things, haven’t you? You’ve killed them before?”
“Only their shadows, Charlie,” Sorasa answered. With a single,graceful motion, she swung into the saddle and adjusted her reins. “But yes, they can be killed. And they will be.”
Corayne knew Charlie took little comfort in that. His face went slightly green, but he soldiered on anyway, trudging over to untie his horse. Corayne followed, again wishing time would both speed up and slow down. She wanted more of the morning. She wanted it to be nightfall. She wanted to close her eyes and skip a few hours into the future, when all was well and her friends safe, alive, and victorious.
But that was impossible. No magic in the world could manipulate time itself, not the Spindles. Not What Waits. The mountain before them had to be climbed. There was no way around it. They could only go forward.
Corayne climbed into the saddle without thought, the action long familiar to her now, almost second nature. The cold air bristled against her face but her blood flamed, hot with anticipation and dread. She swallowed, surveying the landscape of trees and rocky undergrowth. The war band moved among the branches and trunks, their faces gray as the dead trees, clad in battle-proven leathers and mud-stained cloaks. Some clutched shields and swords; others wore axes. Oscovko himself carried a longsword near to Dom’s in size, a grin on his face. Together the three hundred warriors rose, the ground itself seeming to rise with them.
Their horses stamped and snorted, blowing clouds of steaming breath. Chants went through them, small at first, but gaining in strength like a wave crashing toward shore.
First in Treckish. Then in Paramount, bellowed for all to hear.
“The wolves of Trec, the wolves of Trec,” they called, raising their steel and iron. A few men howled. “We feast on glory tonight!”
Among them, Sigil swung her ax, a manic smile on her face. “The iron bones of the Countless will never be broken!” she called, raising her battle cry with their own.
Corayne’s blood surged within her, driven by her thundering heart, the raucous cheers, and the call of the Spindle, the realms beyond the Ward. She felt her Corblood singing, reaching out to wherever her ancestors came from. It pulled in every direction, a siren’s song. The Spindleblade lashed to the saddle called too, the power within the steel rising like the hum of some unearthly chorus. Like her, it felt the Spindle, the fiery heart in which it had been forged. For a moment, Corayne forgot they rode toward doom, and let the magic flow through her, filling her up. The way it was meant to do, the way she was meant to feel. She tried to hold on to the sensation, to turn toward the Spindle’s light and not away. She gritted her teeth, the reins tight in hand.
She would cut this portal in two, as she had the one in the desert. She would make Taristan feel it. And she would make What Waits regret every dream He ever gave her.
Her heartbeat thundered, and the ground shook beneath the force of three hundred horses, all careening toward death itself.
24
The Death Bell
Domacridhan
Every pounding step of his horse was like a sword in his heart. Dom wondered if there would be any piece of him left by the time they reached the temple. Or would he be little more than a shadow then, an echo of an immortal lost? But as every inch cut him apart, it also made him numb, until the fear was only a buzz at the back of his mind. The memory of Cortael caused no pain. For Domacridhan felt nothing at all.
Only hunger. Anger. Vengeance.
Few are given the chance to right past wrongs. Perhaps this is mine,he thought as he urged his horse onward, the stocky stallion careening through the half-dead woods. Hundreds of horses surged into the trees, the army pounding over the earth.
And then the hill came.
His stomach dropped but he kept his seat, leaning forward over the horse’s neck. He did not remember drawing his greatsword,but he felt it in his hand, the leather grip worn by the decades. He knew the feel of it better than anything else upon the realm, even his own face. The sword was older than his scars; older than the men around him. The steel of it caught the sun, flashing like a manic smile. So did the rest, too many blades to count rising into the air. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sorasa with her bow, Sigil with her ax. Andry raised his sword high, the blue star on his chest a blazing sight. He was a knight in every inch.
And beyond the squire, to Dom’s great relief, was Corayne turning aside. Not by her own accord, but Charlie’s. The priest had her reins, forcibly pulling the both of them out of the fray and into the safety of the deeper trees. Neither would fight.
It was the last thing Dom saw before they topped the hill, a foaming wave of warriors and horses. He found himself at the crest, Oscovko alongside him, Sorasa to his right, her bowstring already singing. Sigil roared out the cry of the Countless, first in her own language, then in Paramount.
“The iron bones of the Countless will never be broken!”
Dom prayed she would not be proven wrong.
He prayed for them all, even himself. Even in a realm where no gods could hear him.
Oscovko howled like a wolf, and his men answered, taking up the battle cry.
Once more, Dom tried for a sending. He had no magic of his own, but he bent his thoughts to his aunt anyway, calling out for her across the many thousands of miles. He called for Ridha too, wherever she was. No answer came. There was nothing but the temple.
It loomed before them, the clearing laid bare at the base of thehill. Dom looked to the temple doors first, to the Spindle within and the Ashlands beyond. Still nothing came through, only embers and ashes blown on a hot wind. The corpse army churned around the white stone and smooth columns, like a whirlpool out at sea. For a moment they kept their strange formation, lurching along one after the other. Dom briefly wondered if they could break ranks without the command of their master.
