The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) (11 page)

Nyset let out a long exhale, arms crossed. There was a pregnant silence. “I don’t know about this. I just don’t know. This… this is all too much.”

Grimbald peered at Juzo, looking deep into his blood red eye. He wasn’t a bad person. He really did want to help, maybe a little misguided, maybe not. Grimbald had never felt so much perpetual doubt and uncertainty in his life until he had met Walter.

He wasn’t good at making friends or keeping them, especially male friends. He always seemed to do something to ruin things. He had friends now and it felt nice, even in the midst of all this chaos. “I agree with Juzo,” he blurted out.

“You do?” Juzo beamed up at him.

He didn’t. “But I think six will be enough. If they’re like you, making seven, they’ll give us quite an edge.” Grimbald forced a nod at him. “And if you create more, it becomes harder to keep them, eh fed, right? So I think seven will do fine.”

Nyset slowly shook her head. “It’s already done then. You can keep them under control? Now and in a battle? They’ll fight?” A lock of hair curled around her perfectly formed ear.

“Of course, of course,” Juzo said more confidently than Grim thought he should have. “They’ll do whatever I order them to do.”

“Just like you did with Terar?” Nyset said, her eyes sharp as a blade.

Juzo swallowed. “That won’t happen. That was different.” His face grew white as bone.

“Different.” Nyset scoffed. “They’re your responsibility.” She bobbed her brows at him, turned on her heels and slipped onto her gelding. “Regarding the marks, how many did you… acquire?”

“Enough that we should have plenty to finish the main structure of the building.” He winced.

“I appreciate the hard work you’ve put into the new Tower. I won’t forget it,” she said to Grimbald and then gave Juzo a cursory glance. She sat like an empress upon the horse, her back rigid and strong as a mountain. She had come into the role of Arch Wizard well, Grim thought. The two armsman followed behind, like dutiful bees protecting their queen.

There were two other figures on horseback lurking in the distance and staring at them, a mirage in the rising heat. One looked like a vagrant they had to remove from their plot earlier, another an oddly dark skinned woman. He had heard there were dark skinned people to the far east, but had never seen one in person. They seemed to be following along Nyset’s flank. Should he be worried?

“Thanks for backing me up, Grim. I wasn’t sure you would for a minute there.” Juzo said, climbing back into the trench and letting his coat fall from his shoulders.

“Yeah,” he said distantly. “You know those two?” He nodded towards them, like big shrubs in the distance.

“Nope. They seem to be friends from the looks of it.”

“Shit, forgot how damn good your vision was.”

“I can give you eagle-eyed vision, healing and strength. All it takes is a bite or two,” Juzo said, heaving a lump of mud from the trench.

Grimbald’s answer was a weary grunt.

N
yset sent the armsman
, Claw, and Senka away. She needed time to think, to be alone with her thoughts. A precious hour was all that she asked for. She knew Claw wouldn’t be far, but far enough that she couldn’t see him was acceptable. She sauntered on her gelding that she had yet to name, gently running a free hand through its mane. She felt an odd sense of calm pass over her chest, as it always did when she came here. Was this what death felt like?

She was about a quarter mile west of Helm’s Reach. The graveyard was marked by a low dilapidated fence, its wood seeming older than the oldest of bodies buried here. It stretched on for what seemed like miles.

Headstones were packed in tight as rows of good teeth. Trees marked the start of each row. They were almost as old as the realm itself, stretching their twisted limbs to the heavens, tipped with wide octagonal leaves. Choking vines wrapped around tree limbs, using their height to reach the sun. A breeze carried the sobs of mourners beyond. Towards the end of the small fence was an elderly couple kneeling before a grave, their backs to the sun and their fingers interlocked. She found herself clenching and opening her fists, holding nothing but the dank air.

She licked her dry lips. At what point did a graveyard decide to put a new body on top of an old? It had to eventually given the looks of this place. What did the poor do? She knew some cultures would burn the dead. It was a last resort in Breden, only done if there was a suspicion of transmissible disease. She owed a lot to the Earl. He’d helped her with securing a site for Walter after hearing of his valor at the Tower. She was none too pleased at all the personal debts that were starting to mount. All debts had to be paid eventually.

She threw a leg off the horse and dismounted, leading it down a narrow graveled path. At its edges, weeds reigned, their domain everywhere but the worn paths and headstones. Someone really should be cleaning that up, she thought, eying the weeds vying for resources. It was disrespectful to the fallen. The gelding’s hooves clomped and hissed through the loose gravel, a strange yet soothing sound in her ears.

She stopped, her breath catching at almost passing it. Upon the apex of a simple rectangular block of granite was a wreath of wilted, once scarlet, now pink flowers. The disturbed earth where Walter had been buried still hadn’t settled, an overfilled mound of dirt marking his remains. New weeds started sprouting and took advantage of the tilled earth. The headstone had been crudely engraved and read:
Here lies Walter Glade of Breden. Fallen while defending the Silver Tower from Death Spawn.
She’d have to get that fixed, maybe when marks were more plentiful.

“Don’t go running on me, alright?” she said to the gelding.

The gelding snorted and dropped its head to munch on a bright blue weed. She stepped away from it and released its reigns. She squatted down and sat on her knees. She placed her hands on her belly and took a deep breath, concentrating on the feeling of the air filling her up. “How I wish you were here, Walter.”

A crack split the air like thunder. Her eyes snapped open and the ground rumbled under her knees. “Now what,” she said with an annoyed breath. She rose up, taking tentative steps away from the headstone as the rumbling grew louder, intense as a volcano blowing. She looked up at it in the distance, a steady line of smoke puffing out from its great mouth. Couldn’t be that, could it?

Her horse whinnied and backed off, its eyes frantically wheeling around. “Shh” she placed a comforting hand on its neck and seized its reigns. She wished someone was there to comfort her. How long had it been since she felt the tender touch of another human? The Dragon was faithfully within and she gladly embraced it, her eyes growing warm from its internal glow.

The soil over Walter rumbled and cakes of dirt slid free from the mound. “What’s happening?” She stared at the dirt. There was a roar as if from a cave and the top of the mound exploded. She closed her eyes and dirt rained on her head, under her silks, down her chest and into her boots. She opened her eyes, straining to see, brushing dust from her brows and pebbles rolled from her hair.

There was a hand, a human hand weakly clawing at the air. It was matted with clumps of earth, sticking to what might have been blood. Undead? Here? No. It was Walter’s hand. She felt sweat prickle out from her eyebrows and upper lip. Hundreds of possibilities tore through her mind. Was it a trap? Had he been buried alive and just came to now?

She scrambled over the mound, straddling it. “Walter?” She peered around the graveyard, wondering if this was some sort of rouse by an unknown Death Spawn. Empty. Just her, the gelding, and weeds. She tentatively reached out, fingers trembling. Her hand stopped a finger’s width away. This was madness. A trick of her tired mind.

“Do it!” she snapped at herself. Her clammy hand wouldn’t bridge the final gap to his.

A muffled groan came from within and her eyes widened, her jaw falling slack. She snatched the hand in both of hers. It was Walter’s. By the gods, it was warm. His fingers clamped like a vice around her palm.

“By the Dragon, you’re alive.” She planted her boots and tugged, earth hardly shifting. She rose up, her torso bent over and clinging onto Walter’s hand. She jerked her head up to the sky, the sun blurring in her wet eyes. Air, she could free him with air.

She closed her eyes and directed the rage of the Dragon into the breeze. Gale-force winds abruptly cut through her silks, stung her eyes, and threw her tears across her cheeks. She closed her grimacing mouth as grit speckled her tongue. The gelding let out a nervy snort.

A tornado of dirt and weeds whirled around her, throwing great clods of earth around the graveyard. The gelding rose onto its hindquarters, whinnied, and vaulted into a gallop. She could find another horse. She forced more of the Dragon’s fury into the cone of air, directing it to dig into Walter’s grave.

Clods of earth the size of plates whirled up into the air, reaching up at least thirty feet. They were hurled from the apex of the twisting wind, crashing down onto graves and covering them like blankets. Heavy clods wrapped around tree branches, smothered proud weeds, tightly bound by a sea of roots.

She could see his head, his face, but it was all wrong. She let the Dragon go and it tried to bury her under its pressing exhaustion. She would not sleep now, could not. The whirling air faded, dropping its earthen payloads like a child who had grown bored of playing with the same toy.

There was blood all over him mixing with the dirt. But how? So much blood. Why was there so much blood?

She staggered over to him, sobbing, reaching under his arms and dragging him out from the collapsing hole. “Walter! Is it you?” One of her hands slipped on his arm, slicked with blood and grit. She gritted her teeth, pulled with all her strength and yanked him out of the hole. There was a long pause, horribly uncomfortable. She wanted him to say something, anything. There was a chasm between her mind and mouth that she could not see how to cross. “Please,” she whispered.

He groaned and rolled over onto his side, body convulsing. Blood trickled out from under the muddy bandage over his eye, crossed the bridge of his nose, and pattered into the dirt. There was too much blood for it to all be his. His right arm was poorly bandaged, soddened with scarlet and mud. His back was a canvas of long wound channels, clumps of mud sticking on oozing blood. It looked like he had been tortured by the vilest enemy. Maybe he had been punished by a public lashing. Maybe she just didn’t understand. Maybe she never would. It didn’t matter now.

“What happened? Is it really you? Shit!” She wiped a dusty hand down her lips.

“Nyset,” he whispered.

She hurriedly tried to get the waterskin off her shoulder, getting snagged in her ridiculous silks. She cursed, finally getting it untangled and popping the cork. She lowered it to his mouth and he started drinking. Down went the water, emptying all of it into his mouth.

“That’s all I have.” What to do? She wanted to hug him, protect him from everything, but she was afraid of hurting him. Afraid of further driving the dirt into his wounds. “We have to get you back. Have to find someone who can heal you.”

He grunted and a convulsion ran through his body as if assaulted by icy winds. Blood spurted out from his bandaged arm in a thin jet.

“No, Walter. No,” she breathed. She wanted to run, to wake up in her bed in Breden. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. Another rivulet of blood pulsed out from his mangled arm. She tore a length of silk free from her dress and wrapped it tightly around his arm to staunch the blood. It wasn’t just a wound. A great piece of his arm was gone, starting from the middle of his forearm

“Damn it, Walter. Why aren’t you healing?” she yelled at him. “What to do? What to do?” She stared at him and swallowed. Her body froze in place as her mind ran through possible ways of getting him to a surgeon.

His luminous eye stared up at her wide with panic. “Ny. Nyset. Father? Mother, no don’t make me go. Baylan, why? Oh, why?” He stammered before his voice settled into whisper. “I’ll kill you. You will all taste my vengeance,” he said to her, his eye slitting and then closing. His whisper became a sob, and tears welled through his blood and dirt matted eye.

Claw. Claw would be around. “Claw!” she screamed. “Claw, I need you!” The wind sighed and clouds tore across the sky. They hid the sun and painted the graveyard in shadows.

“Alright. I’ll get you out here.” She rolled Walter onto his back, his body limp as a scarecrow. She slid her arms under his armpits up to the crook of her elbow. She closed her eyes and infused her body with the fire of the Dragon. It filled her legs with vigor and the strength of a good night’s rest. “You can do this,” she told herself.

She started pulling and the muscles in her upper back strained to keep him up. His flaccid legs created twin furrows through the graveled path. The clouds parted and hammered her back with the sun’s radiance. On any other day, it would have been welcome, but not today. Her silks were a choking coffin, trapping every shred of heat seeking escape. She pulled and pulled, taking heaving breaths with each step. Her leg muscles felt like frayed bowstrings, muscles twanging with each pull and feeling that the next would leave her broken. She looked back towards his grave. She was making progress, just a few more steps from the main path.

Where was Claw? He was her shadow when he wasn’t wanted and nowhere to be found when she really needed him. It seemed she could only get through the most trying of times alone. She groaned and took another lurching step backwards. A root snared her heel and sent her sprawling onto her back. Now would be a fine time for a break. She stared up into the blinding sun. Sweat streamed down her temples and wound around the outside of her ear. Some sweat made its way into her ear canal and tickled it. She shook her head and extracted her feet from under Walter’s back.

“Walt? Are you still with me?”

He moaned, a horrible sound in her ears. It reminded her of her childhood pet cat, Bilbo before he died. He moaned for weeks before making his way to the garden and laying under a small table there. Nyset went to check on him after an hour to find he had passed. She wouldn’t let Walter die. She was the Arch Wizard, damn it.

“Get up,” she snarled at herself. She should have spent more time on physical conditioning. She had always thought her intelligence would be enough to fix any situation. She vowed to train with Juzo and Grimbald when she got back.

She got him moving again. She saw a smear of scarlet on her creamy silks and a gleaming jewel of blood in the dirt where she had stopped. “Damn it.” Where was everyone? Busy, like they should be, she answered herself. A pair of crows screamed at each other from a vine-infested tree. She looked up and met an obsidian eye, curiously staring at her.

Something caught her eye at the tree’s base. A face had edged from behind the trunk and eyes shrouded under a hood studied her. She gently lowered Walter and then flames sparked and burned in her hands. “Show yourself or I’ll turn you and this whole damn graveyard to ashes!” she shouted. The threat felt empty in her ears. She would die before someone would stop her from getting Walter back. She didn’t have time for this. She looked at Walter, took a shallow breath, then glanced back at the pale faced man.

“You’re the Arch Wizard?” he asked, his voice crisp. His eyes narrowed to lethal slits.

“I am. Who are you?” Her nails dug into her palms, the flames growing brighter.

The man took a deft step out from behind the wide trunk. Fiery discs materialized behind Nyset, hovering and awaiting her direction. He held up his hands and exposed his palms, dirt marking the creases. He opened his cloak in a gesture of innocence. Along his belt was a variety of grim weapons. He had a well-used hatchet, a dagger, and a short sword all painted in a flat black. She thought there was a sword or a bow over his shoulder under his cloak. He could’ve ambushed her, she told herself. He didn’t.

“How can you assure me you are who you say you are?” he asked. “These are tumultuous times.” He let out a breath of air, his arms slowly falling to his sides.

“I can’t. Still haven’t told me who you are. It’s common news now that the former Arch Wizard is presumed dead. I took her place… as one of the few survivors of the Tower’s siege.”

“The whispers are true then. My sword is yours.” The man kneeled and bowed his head.

“What… who are you?” Nyset should have expected something like this eventually.

The man rolled up his sleeve, exposing a black tattoo on his white forearm. It was the same symbol the armsman wore on their tabards, a faint outline of the Tower and its many spires.