Read Requiem for the Sun Online
Authors: Elizabeth Haydon
Requiem for the Sun (53 page)
But he didn't have it in him.
The endless green water closed over his head; the myriad vibrations that assailed his senses every waking moment suddenly went silent, replaced by the muted noise, the deep, murky thudding of the sea that now enclosed him like the sky.
The last hazy thought in Achmed's head before the breath was squeezed out of him was a memory from the old world. It was the recollection of a day when, on horseback and girded in full chain mail, a bridge had given way
beneath him, tossing him and his mount into the great river that bisected the Island, swollen and roaring with the rains of spring. It was the closest he had ever come to death that was not of his own choosing, and the panic, the helplessness as his body was flung about in a flood of confusion came rushing back to him now, closing the darkness in around him.
beneath him, tossing him and his mount into the great river that bisected the Island, swollen and roaring with the rains of spring. It was the closest he had ever come to death that was not of his own choosing, and the panic, the helplessness as his body was flung about in a flood of confusion came rushing back to him now, closing the darkness in around him.
He was losing consciousness when a firm, strong grip that seemed to grow ever more solid caught him by the neck and dragged him up out of the quiet green depths and into the cold, bright realm of the air again.
“Peace,” Ashe said, “I have you. Float now.”
T
he two men hovered for what seemed like forever, watching the cliff in the distance anxiously, bobbing in the rolling waves.
he two men hovered for what seemed like forever, watching the cliff in the distance anxiously, bobbing in the rolling waves.
Ashe stretched out his draconic senses, trying to find a likely place to make landfall. In dismay he watched, holding Achmed's head above the surface of the water, as an indelible image flashed into his mind's eye.
Two falling men were locked in mortal and immortal combat, a demonic shadow in the breech between them. Wedged together in body, bone impaling flesh, and locked in spirit, a bridge of black fire and evil from before the dawn of Time, the entity that had once been Michael was flailing desperately, struggling to separate himself from the grimly determined Kirsdarkenvar, whose ancient mien was set in an aspect of concentrated calm. As the bodies pitched off the cliff, just before they impacted the rocks below, Ashe was knocked momentarily senseless by the wave of elemental power that had entered the sea, merging wind and water and dark fire in a miasma too overwhelming for his dragon senses to bear. He struggled to hang on to consciousness and braced for the impact of the tidal wave that was rising from where the two had fallen.
A plume of steam and black fire shot into the sky; the sea at the foot of the cliff boiled to its depths, lighting the cliff face and covering the surface of the ocean with a rapidly approaching wave of froth.
“Hang on,” Ashe said to the Bolg king as the swell approached; it was half as high as the cliff, churning madly as it came.
Ahead of the wave a body tumbled, rolling along the crest of a foreswell, curled around something buoyant that kept dragging it up again.
“Gods,” Ashe whispered, treading water, clinging to Achmed as the wave approached. “Oh, gods. Take a breath.”
He dove, with Achmed in tow, swimming parallel to the current, knifing through the water as the first shock of waves swelled underneath them, then passed.
The dragon in his blood, primed by the blast of power, had caught a flash of golden hair in the wreckage that was being dragged out to sea.
Faced with a lack of free hands, and the need to hold up a drowning man, catch his wife, or lose the weapon to which his soul was tied, without hesitation Ashe let go of the sword he had carried as Kirsdarkenvar, allowing it slip into the spinning green depths. He reached out and snagged the ratty mass floating in the wake of the wave and turned it over quickly.
“Oh gods,” he gasped, shaking the stunned Dhracian's arm. “Rhapsody.”
A larger foreswell to the oncoming wall of water broke over them, death's harbinger. Awash in a buoyant green world that spun around him, Ashe dragged his wife's limp body against his chest, holding her in the crook of his arm, struggling to hang on to the Firbolg king, who was only semiconscious and trying not to flounder.
The sky above him roiled in green and black, as caustic steam blasted the air from the battle of the elements raging between MacQuieth and Michael, the ancient Kirsdarkenvar and the Wind of Fire. The cliff faces in the distance disappeared, swallowed by the churning seas and the smoke.
And in that moment Ashe knew he would not be able to hold on to either of the two people he was clutching when the wave reached them.
Their bodies rose on the last foreswell as the wave neared, blotting out the sun.
In the final seconds before the wave hit, Ashe recalled the look of certainty in MacQuieth's eyes, the eyes that in the morning were blind to the world of the sun.
He may command the wind, but I am the sword.
The waters touch us all.
Kirsdarke is our sword.
From the salt in his blood the answer came.
The waters touch us all.
Kirsdarke is our sword.
I am the sword as well
, he thought.
, he thought.
He opened his fingers of the hand that gripped the water-stunned Firbolg king and called on his bond to Kirsdarke.
He could feel its hilt, the only solid manifestation of the weapon when it was in the sea, brushing the tips of his fingers, at the edge of his grasp.
He clutched it, willing it to take a vaporous form, and, loosing the Bolg king for the space of a heartbeat, drove the sword into Achmed's chest, wrapping his arm around him once more.
“Hold on to the sword!” he shouted over the thunder of the roiling sea. “Breathe!”
Ashe turned to the unconscious Rhapsody in his other arm and snapped her head back, trying to find her face in the tangle of hair and seaweed. He
pressed his mouth against her blue lips, then gripped the hilt of Kirsdarke, sending all of the water in his body, all the power of the element he could summon from the raging sea around him, into the watery blade, hoping his air would transmute into Achmed as well. Drawing the water from Rhapsody's lungs, blasting the exhalations of air through the weapon into those of the Firbolg king.
pressed his mouth against her blue lips, then gripped the hilt of Kirsdarke, sending all of the water in his body, all the power of the element he could summon from the raging sea around him, into the watery blade, hoping his air would transmute into Achmed as well. Drawing the water from Rhapsody's lungs, blasting the exhalations of air through the weapon into those of the Firbolg king.
And, still clutching his wife and the impaled Firbolg king, kicked down to the depths of the sea.
The scream of the waves muted instantly into a deep rumbling thudding as he sank like the heaviest of stones, dragging the other two down with him.
Rhythmically he breathed into Rhapsody's lungs, feeling his breath spill out of her mouth as it rose in a swirl of bubbles that were instantly lost in the dark churning water above them. His hand still grasped the sword that pierced the Bolg king, but whether Achmed was alive or not he could not determine.
Around his ears the sea bellowed in rage at the affront, the violation of the elemental battle, screaming angrily as the black fire of the demon churned on its surface, spun into its depths. He could hear the ocean's anger, and its fear, felt in his mind its tale of the events as they unfolded, of the struggle between the two beings of flesh and element, the raging maelstrom of water against wind and an even more ancient and dark fire.
From the corner of his eye he could see the wave pass above them, felt the swells beneath it pass through his body, one with the water now, concentrating on keeping the breath in his wife's mouth, the sword hilt one with his hand.
F
rom the deck of the
Basquela,
Quinn saw the wall of water towering off the shoreline, felt the backswell, then watched in horror as, in direct controversy to nature, it began to rush toward them, into the open sea.
rom the deck of the
Basquela,
Quinn saw the wall of water towering off the shoreline, felt the backswell, then watched in horror as, in direct controversy to nature, it began to rush toward them, into the open sea.
“About!”
he screamed to the thunderstruck crew, who broke out of their rigid stares and scrambled aloft and to their posts, endeavoring to take the ship into the wind. Quinn himself could only stand at the rail, frozen, his keen sailor's eyes wide with horror, his mind calculating the impact and the inevitability of it.
he screamed to the thunderstruck crew, who broke out of their rigid stares and scrambled aloft and to their posts, endeavoring to take the ship into the wind. Quinn himself could only stand at the rail, frozen, his keen sailor's eyes wide with horror, his mind calculating the impact and the inevitability of it.
There was no escape.
“Turn her into it!” he shouted into the wind to the mate who was frantically trying to gain control of the wheel. “If it hits us amidship we're done for!”
The blast of wind that tore around the approaching monolith of water swallowed the mate's reply.
Quinn turned back one final time, riveted by the sight of lightning and blazing fire rolling within the tidal wave, swirling in dark colors of brimstone and blood.
In the moment before it hit the ship, Quinn could swear he saw the wave's yawning maw, a towering face in the vertical sea of sightless black eyes and a titanic mouth screaming in demonic madness, turning the very ocean against itself.
He whispered a prayer to the god of the Deep, a sailor's entreaty he had learned as a cabin boy, wondering dully as the deck rose into the air amid the sharp cracking and snapping of the ship being rent into pieces how the sky and the sea had become one.
W
hen the wave passed, Ashe could feel it, sweeping out to sea, contrary to nature, flattening as it went, dissipating into nothingness. The current steadied, then resumed rolling toward the shore, eternal.
hen the wave passed, Ashe could feel it, sweeping out to sea, contrary to nature, flattening as it went, dissipating into nothingness. The current steadied, then resumed rolling toward the shore, eternal.
As if nothing had happened.
Slowly he kicked up to the air, dragging the Bolg king, his wife still locked against his chest in a mad embrace of breath. They broke the surface, the sun stinging their eyes, the salt excoriating their nostrils.
Ashe tilted Rhapsody back so that her head pointed to the sky and pressed her against his chest, drawing the seawater from her lungs, willing her to breathe, then turned to Achmed, still impaled on the vaporous sword. He pulled the elemental weapon from the Bolg king's chest and slid it through his belt. He looked out to sea where the ship had been, and saw the rapidly sinking mains'l disappearing beneath the surface of the waves.
Suddenly exhausted, he lay back in the tide, holding tight to Rhapsody and Achmed, and let the eternal pull of the sea carry them to shore.
54
HAGUEFORT, NAVARNE
W
hen Caius entered Haguefort, there was no guard at the gate, no one in the foyer, no one in the corridors or on the stairs. It was as if the keep had been abandoned in the advent of a coming hurricane.
hen Caius entered Haguefort, there was no guard at the gate, no one in the foyer, no one in the corridors or on the stairs. It was as if the keep had been abandoned in the advent of a coming hurricane.
Which, in a way, it had been.
He crept quietly through the entranceway, taking pains to not allow his footsteps to echo on the polished stone floor.
The crossbowman was making his way through the enormous dining hall when a middle-aged woman in an apron appeared in the buttery doorway; Caius shot her through the forehead one-handed without breaking his stride, and without looking back.
Berthe crumpled to the floor without a sound, the blood that pooled beneath her forehead and into her open eyes whispering quietly as it bled.
Caius walked silently through the corridors, past the beautiful displays of armor and antiquities, looking for anyone who might have been the husband of his master's quarry, but finding nothing but empty silence.
Until he entered the Great Hall.
At the far end, beneath the tall windows, a man was sitting in a heavy wooden chair at a similarly heavy wooden table, sorting through parchment scrolls. When he looked up, their eyes met, and Caius froze.
It was the soldier he had seen in his dreams, the crippled man who rode in a high-backed saddle through the burning leaves swirling on the forest wind to rescue the woman his master sought.
The man who had killed his twin.
Caius could read the man's thoughts as he raised his crossbow and sighted it at the soldier's heart. The soldier's first glance had gone to the windows behind him, trying to determine if escape through them was possible, the thought immediately discarded because of the height. Next the soldier glanced around for another exit, but there was none between Caius and him. He could see the futility register as the last thought came into his head.
There was no escape.
Generally Caius never spoke to his victims, determining conversations with the imminent dead to be a waste of energy. But in this case, the look on the face of the man who sat behind the desk was so insolent, his expression so hard, that he made an exception.
“You killed my brother,” Caius said accusingly.
The soldier's expression did not change as he spoke a single word, likely to be his last.
“Good,” he said.
The anger of insult coupled with the grief of loss flooded through Caius. He raised the bow a fraction of an inch higher, taking the time to be deliberate, to enjoy this moment.
He cocked the crossbow.
There was a flash seemingly behind his eyes as his bolt whizzed harmlessly over the head of his brother's killer.
Impossible
, he thought.
, he thought.
It was his final musing as he fell sideways, a white-feathered arrow skewering his brain through the temples.
Anborn, who had been gritting his teeth and tensing his abdominal muscles in the hope of twitching as little as possible when the arrow pierced him, blinked and pushed himself up with his hands on the table. He stared down
at the body on the floor, then looked to his left where the arrow had originated.
at the body on the floor, then looked to his left where the arrow had originated.
Gwydion Navarne stood, still in his archer's stance, his hand holding the bow trembling slightly. His other hand was still frozen at the anchor point behind his ear.
After a long moment, he turned to meet the gaze of the Lord Marshal, who still remained behind the table, rigid in body and face. Gwydion regarded his mentor seriously.
“I believe you owe me, or rather, my bow, an acknowledgment of your misjudgment,” he said blandly. “I told you, as an archer I merely needed to be sufficiently proficient to penetrate a haybutt.” He walked over to the corpse and turned its head over with his toe, admiring the clean breach of the man's skull between the temples. “And as you can see, I can.”
Anborn only continued to stare at the crossbowman on the floor. Finally he shook his head and turned to the future Duke of Navarne.
“Are those the albatross arrows Rhapsody brought you from Yarim?”
“Yes.”
A reluctant smile broke over the General's face.
“I suppose we have to acknowledge a center shot for both you and my mad Auntie Manwyn. Two miracles have occurred today; you managed to pull off a fine shot, even with a silly longbow, when you weren't even supposed to be here, and she actually got a prediction correct. I do believe the world is coming to an end.”
Gwydion Navarne smiled. “Or perhaps it is just beginning.”
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