The Light of Burning Shadows

TWENTY-FIVE

W hy are we risking our live bodies to try and save a dead one?” Zwitty asked. “If something really has Harkon’s body, which makes no sense at all if you ask me, I say let him keep it. Harkon’s got no more use for it.”

Alwyn was tired of arguing the point and kept his mouth shut. Zwitty was far too concerned with his own well-being to understand that it was much more than simply the body-this was a battle for Kester’s soul. Alwyn flexed his fingers around his musket and scanned the ground ahead of him.

The section was spread out in a line moving slowly toward the oasis. Palm trees and some figs grew up around a green area that Alwyn hoped contained a well or even a pond. His head pounded with the relentless heat, his eyes were on fire from the punishing sun. Then there was the sand, which was in everything and everywhere; all over his uniform, boots, and pack; in his eyes, up his nose, in his ears and mouth so that all he tasted was grit. It felt like being simultaneously slow-roasted and ground between scouring pads.

Alwyn narrowed his eyes and pulled his shako a little farther down over his forehead. A cluster of five single-story buildings sat off to one side of the oasis, indicating there might be inhabitants here…though there was no smoke from a fire and no sign of movement. A ridge of sand ran behind the oasis, blocking the view beyond, but until they searched the buildings and the oasis itself, whatever was beyond could wait.

The sun was now scorching the right side of Alwyn’s neck, and he twisted his head and hunched his shoulder to compensate. Alwyn tried to relax his grip on his musket and stay calm. The hammer was cocked, a musket ball and charge were loaded, and the bayonet was fixed. The same thought kept racing through his mind- they had Kester’s body.

“I cannot tell what, if anything, is in there,” Miss Tekoy said, indicating the oasis while walking a few paces to the left of Alwyn. Miss Red Owl was on the other side of Yimt and Miss Synjyn was standing on top of her wagon holding on to Jir. The bengar stared straight ahead, the fur on the back of his neck standing up. Definitely not a good sign.

It bothered Alwyn that the women were there-not that he didn’t appreciate their abilities, but it seemed wrong somehow for them to be putting themselves in such grave danger.

“There is no safe place out here, Alwyn of the Empire,” Miss Red Owl said, displaying her uncanny ability to respond to Alwyn’s thoughts.

“Maybe Jir’s just excited to see all those trees,” Hrem said, attempting some levity. He pointed with his musket toward the palms that lined the small watering hole. “Be a nice change of pace for him after only having Ally’s leg to water.”

They kept walking. Alwyn shivered and stomped his one good leg on the ground. Cold, as if he’d just taken a breath on a snowy night, filled his chest and then was gone.

“But how did they get his body all the way out here?” Scolly asked. “We buried him at sea, just like all the rest of them.”

“He didn’t become a shadow, did he?” Inkermon said. “His soul is lost. It is as I feared.”

“Do we have to talk about this?” Teeter asked, holding his head with one hand. “I’m hot, tired, and hung over, and talking about something out there waiting to steal our bodies and souls is not helping.”

“So stick your head in the sand if you don’t want to listen,” Zwitty said, pointing his musket toward Teeter. “See, this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Bet leavin’ the army don’t seem so crazy now, does it?”

For a while there was only the muffled sound of their footsteps as they plodded through the sand. The silence built until Alwyn felt the need to cough just to hear something, but Yimt spoke first.

“Ever notice wherever you go you can always find a mud hut? It’s true. You know, I’ve lost count of the number of countries I’ve been to,” he said, keeping his shatterbow ready at his hip. “But it doesn’t matter if it’s so far north you sneeze ice, or so far west you find yourself east, you can always find mud huts.”

“How’s that, Sergeant?” Hrem asked.

“Like those ahead,” Yimt said. “Clearly made out of mud bricks. Same with most of Nazalla, too.”

“I’d say they were more buildings than huts,” Teeter said, apparently deciding this was a conversation he approved of. “See how that one there has a window opening? Clearly a building.”

Alwyn looked to where Teeter was pointing. There was a window opening in the wall of one of the structures. He didn’t care, if it offered shade from this sun.

Yimt stared at Teeter for a moment before turning his head back to scan the buildings up ahead. “It’s just that it’s mud. Water and dirt mashed together. Oh, sure, sometimes they mix in some straw, or cattle manure, but in the end a mud hut is a mud hut is a mud hut. I don’t know, I guess I just was hoping we’d go someplace and be surprised for once.”

“I see something!” Scolly shouted, followed by the crack of his musket firing. The sreexes in Rallie’s wagon started screeching. Jir growled and leaped from the wagon, bounding across the sand and into the short vegetation growing around the oasis.

“I think we just got our surprise!” Alwyn shouted, as they all broke into a run.

Scolly crashed through the vegetation first, his caerna flying. Jir let out a piercing roar.

The air vibrated with an energy. Alwyn was sure he could hear a voice carried on it.

“An oath weapon!” Miss Red Owl shouted, running after Scolly. “Tyul is in there! Be careful!” Behind Alwyn, reins snapped and brindos brayed.

“Keep spread out! Inkermon, Hrem, watch the buildings!” Yimt ordered as he plunged through the brush with Alwyn right behind him.

As the entered the clearing, they saw three black-cloaked figures standing near a watering hole, a small rock-lined pond ten feet across. Each held a long, curved sword in its hand. A body lay facedown on the ground behind them. It was still sewn up in canvas sailcloth, but Alwyn knew it was Kester. A few feet away, Tyul Mountain Spring faced the figures with his dagger drawn. The voice Alwyn had heard was coming from Tyul’s weapon. Jurwan sat perched on Tyul’s shoulder, his tail bushed.

“Drop your weapons,” Yimt shouted, pointing his shatterbow at the nearest figure.

It motioned to the other two, which bent down and picked up the body. The first turned toward Yimt and raised its sword.

Scolly was furiously reloading his musket. “Kill them, kill them!”

“We’ve got this under control, everyone take a breath. Now,” Yimt said, taking a step closer to the mysterious figures, “drop your weapons and that body.”

Scolly slammed his ramrod down the barrel, cutting his hand on the bayonet. “Kill them! They don’t got no shadows!”

Alwyn glanced at the ground and realized Scolly was right.

Scolly paid Yimt’s orders no mind; he simply raised his musket, aimed, and fired with the ramrod still in the barrel. The ramrod and musket ball flew across the water and hit the first figure in the side of the head, tearing away the hood of its cloak.

A grinning skull with eyes of white fire stared back at them.

Yimt’s shatterbow fired at the same time as several muskets. A hail of musket balls pulverized the creature’s skull and two shatterbow darts blew the rest of it to pieces.

Alwyn didn’t join the attack. Bitter cold gripped his chest and his breath misted before him. He spun around to face the water as several beasts now surged out of the pond, their jaws of razor-sharp teeth snapping loudly. Water steamed off their scaly hides as they clambered onto the sand. Each appeared fifteen feet long, with a hide of scales gray-green in color. Their heads were long and pointed, like hinged wedges filled with flesh-rending teeth. They stayed just a few inches above the ground, scrabbling forward with four short, but very powerful legs splayed out to the sides. Great slashing scars covered their scales, as if they fought amongst themselves when there wasn’t something meatier to eat. Their eyes burned with white fire and their open maws held it like a foundry furnace.

Alwyn squeezed the trigger, his musket bucking in his hands. The musket ball punched a neat hole in the head of the closest creature, which sank back into the furiously bubbling water. A few of the pond monsters immediately began tearing chunks off the dead creature while the rest crawled forward. They opened their jaws wide, hide around their throats expanded, and they began convulsing. A moment later they spewed out pure white flame.

Shouts and screams echoed off the walls of the nearby buildings. With no time to reload, Alwyn called forth the frost fire, setting his bayonet aflame. He lunged forward to the water’s edge, skewering one of the beasts. White fire washed over Alwyn, the burning sensation he’d experienced on the island wracking him again.

His shadow was on fire.

“Get out of there, Ally!” Yimt shouted.

Alwyn ignored the order and waded into the water, stabbing down with his bayonet as more creatures emerged. He thrust again with his musket, piercing the jaws of one creature closed as it was about to spew more white fire. It tried to pull its jaws free, but Alwyn kept them pinned even as the white fire grew inside it. Finally, its neck tore apart violently as gouts of flame ripped through its scales and shot out across the water.

Black flame rose in response to the white, as each powerful fire roared higher and higher. The surface of the water began to alternate between boiling and freezing. Alwyn ignored everything except the creatures. He stabbed and burned until his mind went blank and all he was, all he would ever be, was a dispenser of death.

A third power tried to weave its way around Alwyn. He recognized Miss Tekoy’s magic and realized she was trying to protect him, but he didn’t need protection, not for this. He called up more of the frost fire and brushed her efforts aside.

A musket fired nearby, followed by the distinctive double blast of Yimt’s shatterbow. Water frothed around Alwyn until he could barely see, but he didn’t need to. He sensed where every creature was as his bayonet slashed down again and again, each time finding its mark. Still the white flame burned his shadow, and he felt the first threads of the Shadow Monarch’s grip part even as he burned. Yes. He could master this.

Another beast came at him. Alwyn threw aside his musket and dove forward, thrusting his right arm down the creature’s throat. Its teeth sank into his shoulder, but Alwyn didn’t care. He felt around with his hand until he grabbed something small and hard. It was bone, and it burned like the surface of the sun.

Alwyn squeezed as his whole body spasmed in pain, his vision going completely white. Somewhere impossibly deep inside Alwyn, the white fire seared through the black threads of the oath, burning away strands of it like cutting taut strings. More of the oath that bound Alwyn to the Iron Elves and the Shadow Monarch frayed and parted. The creature reared up in the water and tried to use the claws on its feet to tear at Alwyn, but its stubby legs made it impossible.

“He’s gone into the tunnel!”

Alwyn’s focus was broken and he looked up. Tyul was disappearing down the tunnel after the skeletons carrying Kester’s body. Miss Tekoy and several soldiers raced after the elf, though Alwyn couldn’t see who it was. More of the fire creatures lunged for the tunnel entrance, followed by the sound of Yimt’s shatterbow firing. There was a huge explosion and the tunnel entrance disappeared in a cloud of smoke, dust, and a blinding ball of white flame.

Alwyn stumbled and only barely kept himself upright. He brought his attention back to the creature he fought, and drew even more of the white fire into himself. The creature gave up trying to claw him and let itself fall back into the water, taking Alwyn down with it. As soon as they were submerged it began rolling about and thrashing, trying to twist Alwyn’s arm from his body.

The sound of the fighting grew muffled as Alwyn and the creature twisted and rolled under the water. Alwyn drew in a breath and water filled his lungs, only to vaporize in a flash. Muscles tore in Alwyn’s shoulder and a new, more understandable pain tried to render him unconscious, but still he held on.

The oath was breaking. The power of the white fire was cleansing him from the inside. That it also burned him until every nerve in his body quivered in pain was a price he was prepared to pay. Every twisted piece of the Shadow Monarch’s magic that was severed felt like claws raking his flesh from the inside. He knew he was close. One more squeeze would do it. Alwyn focused all his energy on his right hand and began to crush the bone in it. He was going to finally be fr-

Something hard and heavy hit him in the back of the head and color burst before his eyes as the muscles in his hands relaxed. He tried to regain his grip, but already he was being pulled up out of the water. Another musket fired and there was unintelligible shouting as he took a breath. He opened his eyes and realized his spectacles were gone. Water gurgled in his ears.

“-most idiotic th…ever seen!” Yimt shouted at Alwyn as he leaned over him. “-let that thing eat you…were you thinking?”

Alwyn closed his eyes and turned away. He had been so close.

Next time, he vowed, as the pain in his shoulder spread and the nerves in his body reacted to the violence of the last two minutes. He opened his mouth to scream as a new wave of pain washed over him, but he blacked out before he could.