Part Three

In a northern valley of Nether, up near the World’s Rim, the war of rebellion that had been planned and plotted with such care and hope for months came to an end.

It began at dawn, with the blatting of horns and the yelled battle cries of men.  Five hundred rebels, trained and drilled to peak efficiency, were led by General Ilymir Volvn, formerly a prince before King Muncel declared him traitor and confiscated his lands and fortune. General Volvn was the greatest military strategist in the realm, and he took on two thousand of the king’s troops this day, his hawk face turned fearlessly toward his enemy, his courage and valor infecting his small force.

He should have won today, for his men were the best of the rebel fighters, better trained by far than the Gantese allies and sloppy conscripts of the king.  The rebels had justice on their side.

But King Muncel the Usurper had evil on his.

In the second hour of battle, when Volvn’s forces were beginning to prevail, a gateway to the second world was opened, and out poured demons of all descriptions. After that the tide of battle had shifted; then had come the slaughter.

Disbelieving, Princess Alexeika Volvn watched the massacre from her vantage point on the hillside. “No!” she cried. “No!”

But there was nothing she could do. Had her father suspected a trap waited for him here, he would not have led his men forth. Alexeika had watched the general pray, had watched him think and plan, had watched him devise strategies, study the ground, and rethink his positions. He had been prepared for everything except the Nonkind, and the scouts had not sighted them in the area before battle commenced.

Foul, dirty dishonor was this. Honorable men and armies did not wage war thus.  But then, Alexeika’s father was the epitome of an honorable man, while it seemed his foes had forgotten what honor was. It was one thing to go into battle against Gant, with all the demons and horrors Believers tried to unleash on their foes. In such situations, Netheran forces summoned special blessings for sword and armor. They positioned sorcerels strategically to help repel the Nonkind monsters. But when Netheran fought Netheran, they fought as men and adhered to the acknowledged rules of battle.

With growing horror, Alexeika watched the battle rage. Had her father’s men been less valiant, it would have ended almost as soon as it began. Instead, they fought on, impossibly brave, refusing to flee or surrender until there was only a small knot of men clustered around the banner in the center of the field. One by one they were hacked down; then the banner fell.  Seeing that vivid streamer plummet to the ground, Alexeika screamed. Beside her, the old defrocked priest Uzfan gripped her arm and began to mutter prayers. The boys and other women nearby cried out and wept.

“What can we do?” Shelena moaned. “Merciful Olas, what can we do?” There was nothing, of course. They were only watchers, too far away and helpless besides. Stricken with shock, Alexeika looked on with tears running down her cheeks.

Before midday, the victors galloped off, their banners streaming with pride under the hot sun. They left the gallant rebel forces of Nether lying strewn across the battlefield like abandoned toys.

Shelena and Larisa clutched each other, weeping. The boys stood white-faced with shock.

Alexeika’s heart was drumming. She had entered a frozen place where she could feel nothing. Jerking the reins of her pony untied, she mounted and stood up in the stirrups.

From her throat came a scream of rage and grief so loud and terrible it echoed off the surrounding hills and rolled down into the valley below. The king’s forces were just vanishing over the far hillside, but Alexeika waited no longer.  She spurred her short-legged pony forward down the long, sloping hill from their vantage point.

“Wait!” Shelena called after her. “Alexeika, it’s not yet safe!” Alexeika crouched low over her pony’s rough mane and went tearing down into the valley. She intended to ride straight to the center of the field, to the cluster of bodies lying around the broken banner pole, but her pony—no doubt frightened by the smells of carnage—plunged to a halt at the edge of the field. When she kicked him and lashed his neck with the end of the reins, he reared up and nearly threw her off.

Only then did she come to her senses. Down here in the bright, hot sunlight, she could see how trampled the meadow grass was. Bodies lay where they’d fallen.  Blood was splashed everywhere, so much blood. The smell of it in the heat flowed over her senses, suddenly unbearable.

She gagged and leaned over the saddle just in time.

When she righted herself, her pony was shifting and turning under her. The world spun a little. She felt light-headed and cold.

By then Shelena, Larisa, and the five boys had caught up with her. Old Uzfan came straggling behind them, beating his slow donkey with a stick. The beast waggled its long shaggy ears and brayed.

The sound echoed across the silent valley, shocking Alexeika. It seemed sacrilege to hear such a common, defiant sound in the presence of so much death.  “The gods protect us,” Shelena murmured, drawing rein beside Alexeika.

Larisa covered her mouth with her hand and began to whimper.  Alexeika herself could find no words. She stared in all directions at these hacked and broken bodies belonging to men who last night had been laughing and boasting round the camp-fires, working up their courage for today. Right now, she recognized none of their slack faces or dusty, staring eyes. They all looked like strangers, and she was grateful for that. Dazed, she knew that soon the real grief would hit her, and she would find herself crushed as though with a stone.

“All of them,” Larisa moaned, rocking herself back and forth in her saddle. “All our brave men.” Her broad face contorted, and she began to cry with ugly, gulping sobs. “Thornic! My Thornic! My Dragn. My Osmyl.” Shelena’s eyes filled with tears. She tipped back her head to utter the wailing, but Uzfan gripped her arm and shook her hard.

“Stop it!” he said fiercely. “Have you no sense? They will hear us.” Larisa went on sobbing, but Shelena glared back at the old priest. “Does it matter?” she retorted. “My man is dead. So is my heart.” Uzfan gestured at the boys, who had clustered together to stare. Their young faces showed how unprepared for this massacre they were. “Quick. You know what to do. Gather as many weapons as you can. We’ll load them on my donkey. Quickly!  Just as we planned last night.”

Hearing him, Alexeika closed her eyes. Last night, the boys who had been chosen for this task of plundering the dead had believed it would be the enemy’s weapons they would gather—not their own.

“Hurry!” Uzfan said, giving one of them a shake. “Would you let the Nonkind have their swords and bows?”

That got the boys moving. Tentatively at first, then with more resolve, they began to pick up the weapons.

While Uzfan got Shelena and Larisa to work, Alexeika’s head cleared. She remembered her father’s careful instructions, given to her in his final words last night. A lump rose in her throat. She swallowed it, refusing to think of him right now. She had her duty, and she must not shirk it. To do so would be to fail him, he who had never failed her.

Swiftly she dismounted and ground-tied her pony. “Uzfan,” she made herself ask, “are there any survivors?”

The old priest lifted his head and closed his eyes. His nostrils quivered, and she could feel the pressure of the power he summoned. Then he opened his eyes and shook his head. His brown eyes met hers and filled with compassion. She understood, and dropped her own gaze swiftly to hide her tears.  “Then we mustn’t waste time. The looters will be coming.” Both of the older women turned to stare at Alexeika in shock. “No,” Larisa whispered.

“The dead will bring them quicker than usual,” Alexeika said.  As she spoke she glanced toward the southeast, where the king’s forces had ridden. “Help Uzfan salt as many bodies as you can.” Larisa covered her mouth with her hands and began to cry again, but Shelena faced Alexeika. “There isn’t enough salt to go round. We can’t sprinkle them all.”

Alexeika met her eyes grimly. “Do what you can. Just hurry.” Leaving them standing there, rooted in place, Alexeika turned and hurried away, but she’d barely gone more than five strides before someone came puffing behind her and caught her by the back of her jerkin.

Unlike the other women, Alexeika wore male clothing, with leather leggings and a thin linsey tunic reaching nearly to her knees for modesty. Over it she wore a sleeveless jerkin belted by her twin daggers, with their sharp curved blades and ivory handles. Her long, unruly hair hung in a single thick braid down her back, in the way of the Agya soldiers. She was tall for a maiden, lean and surefooted.  She strode boylike. She could swagger and curse and spit and ride. She knew how to handle weapons. And she’d been taught to think like a man, coldly and fearlessly, but to keep her feminine cunning as well.

When the back of her jerkin was grabbed, Alexeika whirled around, her braid flying straight out behind her, and slapped the offending hand away. It belonged to Uzfan, and his bearded old face was scowling with disapproval.  “Where do you go?” he demanded. “We must stay together. This is an evil place.

Magic still crosses the air. There is no safety here among the dead.” “I’m going to my father,” Alexeika said, her voice as rigid as steel. She would not let herself feel, not now. “I must prepare him.”

A piece of her heart kept hoping that old Uzfan was wrong, that a few of these fallen warriors still lived. Her father could not be dead. He could not.  That’s what she hoped, although she knew the banner would not have fallen if her father lived. Ilymir Volvn, once a general of King Tobeszijian’s forces, and now leader of the rebellion, would be shouting orders at this moment if he still had any breath left in his body.

She could not think of it, not now. Her inner core had a crack across its surface, a crack that would let all her strength shatter inside if she did not take care. No, she must follow her orders. She must not fail him.  “Alexeika,” Uzfan said, his voice more gentle now, “the preparations are my task, not yours. Stay here close to the others. I will go to him.” Frowning, she turned her gaze away. Time was running out; she could feel it as though the slipping grains fell between her fingers. His protests only wasted the moments that remained.

“I’m going,” she said, and started off again. She walked quickly, picking her way over the fallen men.

It was eerie and quiet, this field of the dead. Her ears still echoed with the recent sounds of battle, the yells of ferocity, the screams of the dying. Foot soldiers vying against mounted cavalry. The odds evened by training and righteous determination. King Muncel was evil, weak, and half-mad. He had opened Nether to the Nonkind, bargained with the demons of Gant, and sold his soul into unholy alliances as a means of keeping his ill-gotten throne. He was a murderer, a liar, and a thief. He had confiscated lands and personal treasuries, plundered the old shrines, and forced the realm to accept the Reformed Church without exception. He had deposed some nobles and driven out officers, condemning to death any who defied him. Alexeika’s own mother, once lady-in-waiting to Queen Neaglis, Muncel’s foreign-born consort, had died twelve years past on the end of Muncel’s sword because she refused to say where her husband and a third of the standing army had fled to.

And so it had begun, the civil war that went on and on, a never-ending wound that bled the vitality from this realm.

Perhaps, with this defeat, this massacre, it had ended at last.  Alexeika walked faster, dragging her hand across her burning eyes. She would not accept that. Her father would never want her to think that way. A battle could be lost, but the war had to continue. That’s what he would say.  “Papa,” she whispered, her heart aching as she stumbled along. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she brushed them away.

She tripped over a man’s legs and fell, landing hard on her knees and crying out. For a moment, she crouched there, gasping for breath, her emotions raw beneath the control she barely held.

When she tried to rise to her feet, she looked at the face of the man she’d fallen over. It was Count Lanyl Otverya, her father’s squire, barely eighteen and still growing his first beard. The visor to his helmet had been torn away on one side. It hung twisted and bloody from the axe blow that had killed him.  Alexeika crawled closer and gripped his sleeve. His breastplate was dented and hacked open by the ferocious blows he’d taken. No shield lay near him; she supposed he dropped it in the charge. The blade of his sword had been shattered, and his dead hand gripped only the hilt.

Kneeling beside him, she bowed her head and wept. Lanyl had been fun, always laughing and playing pranks. His clear tenor voice could sing songs of old so sweetly that grown men wept. He should have led his own army, but his lands had been confiscated too. Deposed of his hold, his title officially stripped away, his parents and siblings imprisoned or dead, Lanyl had escaped the purge with only his father’s sword as his inheritance. He’d been so optimistic that one day King Muncel would be knocked from his throne and order restored to this weary land.

Lanyl had been like a brother to her. Gently, Alexeika closed his staring eyes, and in doing so stained her fingers with his blood.

When her tears stopped, she pulled the broken sword from his hand and with the tip of her dagger pried the square, thumb-sized ruby from its pommel. She pocketed the jewel, feeling like a thief. Yet they had to live. They had to eat.  They had to keep the fight going somehow.

A sob escaped her. She choked back the rest and pushed herself to her feet, turning away from him while she still could.

Puffing heavily, old Uzfan caught up with her. “Alexeika, wait!” he said, gasping between words. “For the love of Thod. please wait.” She slid her dagger back into its sheath and handed Uzfan the remnant of Lanyl’s shattered sword. “Take care of him, please.” Uzfan’s face blurred through her tears. “I must go to my father.”

“Child,” he said, “there is no more time. Look yon.”

She followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw movement atop the distant hills. She drew in a sharp breath, feeling ice in her veins despite the day’s heat. Queer little prickles ran through her skin.

“Soultakers,” Uzfan said, his old voice quavering with fear. His hand shook visibly as he lowered it. “They are riding with the looters. I feel them.” She nodded, her mouth too dry for talking. “I, too.”

“We must hurry. They must not catch us.”

“Lanyl,” she said. “Please.”

Uzfan sighed and nodded. Taking the broken sword, he murmured the words of protection, then peeled away Lanyl’s battered breastplate. He struck swift and hard, staking the boy.

Alexeika had already turned away, unable to watch. She heard the blow, and flinched as though the weapon had passed through her own heart. Now Lanyl was freed, his soul severed from his body. The soultakers would not possess him.  While Uzfan sprinkled salt over the body, Alexeika hurried on toward the center of the field.

“Alexeika, no!” Uzfan shouted. The old priest ran after her, caught her shoulder, and spun her around. “No! The risk is too great.” She glared at him. “And what will protect him? Would you leave him to those—” Her voice failed her. She gestured furiously, unable to say the words.  “I will make a spell and cast it over the entire field,” Uzfan said. “But come away. Now, child, while there is time.”

“I must give him rites,” she said raggedly, refusing to listen. “I must take his sword. The looters cannot have it.”

“His sword will lie where it lies,” Uzfan said fiercely. His old, dark eyes glared at her from beneath wrinkled lids. “Your father is dead, child. His sword is of no use now. The war is ended.”

Rage and protest and grief welled up inside her, building a force she could no longer contain. She slapped him with all her might, rocking him on his feet.  Spinning from him, she strode away.

He made no further attempt to stop her, and she was glad. Stumbling and half-running, she forced herself to climb over the mound of dead men entangled together at what had been the last stand. A corner of her mind felt shock that she had dared strike a priest, much less Uzfan himself. But the rest of her was too angry to care.

She shoved and shifted and pushed her way through to where the banner lay trampled, its bright colors now stained and coated with blood-splattered dirt.  Her father lay beneath the broken banner pole, his gloved hand still grasping part of it. The banner boy lay headless and disemboweled beside him.  There was a horrible stink in the air, the stink of Nonkind, a taint that burned her nostrils and made her want to retreat. Shaking her head, she knelt instead beside the man who had sired her, raised her, and loved her enough for two parents.

Prince Ilymir Volvn, general of the king’s army, protector of the south. His titles had once been prestigious and many. His victories, his decorations for valor, and his honor had all shone brightly until King Muncel declared him a traitor and stripped him of everything. For years now he had lived with a price on his head, a prince turned outlaw. But his dream of restoring the throne to its rightful king had never dimmed.

Her father had been a tall, lean man with a jutting beak of a nose, bushy gray eyebrows, and a harsh gash of mouth. He was gruff and plainspoken, relentless, and a perfectionist, yet this was the man who had taught her to swim in icy streams during childhood summers, holding her around the middle while she laughed and paddled. This was the man who had braided her hair for her, who refused to let her cut it, who had taught her to dance and given her secret deportment lessons suitable for a lady at court, mincing along in the privacy of the woods while he held up the train of an imaginary gown. This was the man who had given her the set of daggers, taken her to a man who taught her how to throw and handle them without cutting herself. Prince Volvn had trained and tempered her as best he could. Never had he been unkind or unfair, despite his high standards. He wanted her to grow up capable, strong, and able to think for herself.

She had loved him with all her heart. Never again would they walk together under the evening stars, plotting campaigns and strategy. Never again would she feel his strong arm across her shoulders. Never would she hear his gruff voice softened to that special tone spoken to her alone, while he murmured, “My pet, do not be so fierce against Lanyl. He is only a boy in love with you, and therefore a fool.”

“My pet,” he would say, “put aside your temper and think. What is your brain for, except to be used?”

“My pet,” he had said this morning just before he rode into battle, “I depend on you if anything goes wrong. Keep Severgard out of the hands of the enemy. Never has it been held by a dishonorable man. Protect it as you would your life, and someday give it to your son.”

“Don’t say such things!” she protested, full of courage then. Her blood was on fire to be with the men; her heart felt certain they would win. “You’ll have a victory today. I know it!”

“Follow your orders, daughter,” he said, his voice cracking like a whip.

“Promise me you’ll follow them.”

And now she would have to.

“Oh, Papa,” she said. Sinking to her knees beside him, she lifted his visor.  He had never known defeat in his long and distinguished career. His valiant name alone was enough to fill the hearts of men with courage. Five times in the past five years he had led the small rebel forces in skirmishes and battles, and each time they won. But today, he had faced the king’s real army, one supplemented with hard-bitten Gantese mercenaries and Nonkind, and he had lacked sorcerels to protect his men.

In the distance, the looters now came. She felt the thunder of their approaching hoofbeats shaking the valley floor, but she did not lift her gaze from her father’s face.

Although his eyes were shut, he looked stern. Already death had made his face a stranger’s. She touched his cheek, but it did not bring him closer or keep him with her. He was gone.

Weeping, she drew her hand back and curled her fingers into a fist. The noise of the galloping horses grew louder.

A hand gripped her shoulder. She jumped, screaming, and whirled around to attack, but it was only old Uzfan. Gasping with relief, she sagged down to her knees again.

“Swiftly, child,” Uzfan said. “Use the salt you brought. I have no more in my pouch.”

Frowning, she reached for the small, heavy pouch hanging at her belt.

He took it from her, sighing and plucking at his white beard.  “Your father’s presence is very strong. They will seek him for the power of his life.”

She shivered and swallowed hard, trying not to think of the horrors that awaited his body if she and Uzfan failed to protect him now.

Muttering incantations and prayers, Uzfan began sprinkling the salt across Prince Volvn’s body.

Alexeika reached down and pulled Severgard from her father’s hand. The great sword had been handed down through seven generations of her family. Long and heavy, it had been forged by a dwarf swordmaker who used magicked metal mined in the Mountains of the Gods. The blade was made of black steel, and runes were carved along it. The hilt and guard were wrapped in gold and silver wire, and a great flashing sapphire was set in the pommel. She struggled to lift it.  Gore was drying on the blade, and its stench was rank and tainted. She wrinkled her nose in revulsion. Nonkind had died today on this blade. She wiped it clean, knowing it would have to be scrubbed with both salt and sand and oiled later.  Tugging off her father’s belt, she choked back a fresh sob, but she slid into its scabbard and knotted the ends of the belt together before slinging it across her shoulder.

By now Uzfan had finished with the salt. He poured the last of it on Prince Volvn’s tongue.

“Is it enough?” Alexeika asked.

The looters were close enough to see them. In their sinister black cloaks, they yelled and cursed. She could smell their evil, a stink as foul as that which had been on . It made her want to run.

“Is there enough time for his soul to leave?” she asked.  Uzfan shook his head sorrowfully. “Nay, child. His presence is too strong. It does not want to accept failure.”

She felt sick to her stomach, but she was her father’s daughter. She knew what had to be done.