Chapter 4 Lyra #2
Disbelieving, I turn my head. “Wait. Cindral—wait.”
But the Lightbringer unit, my unit, is already pushing forward through the trees, emerging from the forest around us. The woman, Iliria, has her palms lifted, the familiar glow already building. The others follow her lead, and my heart begins to beat faster as their hands illuminate.
Cries erupt from behind me. Tharn’s voice rises above the rest, and I turn my head. He stands where Cindral left him, his arms raised as he shouts, the broken common tongue laced with distress. “We are neutral—neutral!”
He says it again. And again, desperation cracking his words as his head swings wildly between the advancing group. His eyes lock on to my face. “Please. There are children—”
The strike slices through his neck.
Screams ring out across the camp, people erupting into panicked movement as Tharn’s eyes dull. Blood spatters the ground in a spray as he slowly drops. First to his knees, and then to the floor.
Neutral, he had said. Over and over again.
There are children here.
I don’t remember getting off my horse. My boots stop me from slipping as I race across the clearing. In a corner of my mind, I can hear Cindral, shouting my name. The scream claws its way up my throat and out of my mouth, wordless and shrill as I aim it in his direction.
Fuck your orders.
There are sixteen soldiers, but the shadows against the shelters make it look like dozens.
They swarm in every direction, so quickly that I can’t pick out a place to help, to stop it.
Ducking into those shelters, looming shadows against illuminated walls, facing screaming and begging that cuts off one by one as they flow across the camp like a disease. Wherever they move, silence follows.
Screaming villagers break cover and dart from their shelters, racing for the protection of the forest. I spot a gold-clad male Lightbringer following a boy, the high-pitched sobbing enough to identify his youth.
Glorious, glistening gold, darting through the trees. Beautiful. A lineage to be proud of. I always was, watching the military parades from my window. My father created a force that will soon annihilate the Darkwielder scourge for good.
A force that slaughters the people in this village without question or thought.
All I have to do is play my part.
I am a Lightbringer.
My hand raises.
I have a mission to complete. I have my orders.
But this—
The soldier is gaining on the boy.
It’s the father of the little girl. He has his own children waiting for him at home, safe and warm, yet he hunts someone else’s child in the cold and the dark and rips their safety from beneath their feet.
He’s a Sharder. They work with tactical bursts of light rather than delicately crafted weapons, not enough luminth to risk wasting it. Typical soldier level. The burst he levels at the boy strikes a tree above his head, just missing him.
The next one will not miss.
I force myself to stop. I’m too far away for my daggers to be useful. I need something else. Something faster. My fingers tremble when I lift them, sketching an outline in my mind and shifting my hands in rapid movements as the strands of luminth draw together.
The glow attracts the Lightbringer’s attention. My fellow soldier slows, pointing at the escaping boy and shouting something back that I don’t catch, though I get the gist.
Finish him.
I lift the bow, holding it lightly and resting it in the v between my thumb and index finger. Taking a breath, I nock the arrow and pull back.
A quick death.
The arrow meets his throat, just above the line of his breastplate. He staggers back, his mouth flopping, eyes wide with shock.
For his daughter.
The boy vanishes from sight as the Lightbringer falls, but I’m already turning back.
Carnage. It spreads out, blood and bodies and crying, although there’s far less of that now. Some of the bodies are small. Too small for this.
But others are still hiding, even as the shelters are set alight, the flames catching and entwining.
Some are fighting, a handful attempting to beat off a Lightbringer unit, and my chest aches as they’re cut down, too far for me to intercede.
My feet move swiftly, another arrow taking shape as I aim for the female, Iliria, where she stands over a crumpled woman.
She twists at the last moment, and the fleck of the arrow skims her cheekbone.
Iliria whips around fully to face me. The woman at her feet lies still, eyes open to the sky. Her eyes flicker against the firelight, widening before fury fills them. “Traitor.”
I taste the word on my tongue, weighing it. My next arrow releases, but she has skill. More than I expected. Not a Sharder, like most of the unit seem to be.
A Luminar, like me. Far more skill than blunt force.
The shimmering shield she casts between one moment and the next knocks my arrow aside as she races toward me.
A sword materialises in her hands, and I reform my daggers, extending them into longer twin swords to meet her swipe.
Pushing her back, I follow, my rage filling the air. “You’re killing children!”
“Traitors,” she hisses. “All of them, dealing with Darkwielder filth. And you. I’m going to stake you to the ground for this.”
My next hit lands. Iliria stumbles back, her armour dented over her left shoulder before she launches herself back at me.
We both collide with the shimmering wall of light at the same time. I pull the swords back just in time to avoid stabbing myself, stumbling back with a curse as Iliria hits the other side.
Twisting, I look for Cindral. I know his work well enough. I’ve seen it before.
When he steps into my line of sight, blood coats the gold crest of his rank carved into his own armor. I flinch back from the sight of it, my lip curling before I roar at him. “What the fuck was this? I will inform the Commander, Cindral.”
We came to gather information, and massacred innocents instead. Only silence echoes around us now. His face glows brighter from the fires as the rest of them set to work burning the remaining shelters at my back. “You killed one of our own, Lyra.”
I don’t deny it. “He was hunting an innocent child.”
And Cindral… laughs. Almost as if he’s surprised. “Vaelion was right about you.”
I shift as he approaches, lifting my blades in warning. “About what, exactly?”
His head tilts. “Why do you think we’re here, Lyra? Why are you here?”
Why am I here?
He stares as if waiting for me to catch up. Frowning, I flick my eyes to the rest of them. The other soldiers—fifteen, now—form a circle around us, and unease tightens my gut. “To travel on to Umbraxis.”
“You think they’ll let you walk right in?” Cindral laughs again, but there’s no humor in it. His eyes are like flints as he takes another step. “You think you can just walk into Umbraxis and ask to speak with Kaelen Duskbane? You think Vaelion would let you wander off without assurances?”
Does he think me a fool? “I would have assessed from a distance and planned accordingly. That was the plan.”
And the bastard smirks. “Well, we made a new plan, the Commander and I. The Darkwielders are sending a group to investigate the burning villages. They’re going to head straight for the smoke. And they’re going to find you.”
We made a new plan.
This… all of this… was a set-up. For me, and for whoever is coming. My breathing staggers. “You didn’t need to do this.”
“He said you were too soft.” Something like pity lingers in his eyes. “Too weak to do what needed to be done. It’s why I didn’t tell you. I suppose he was right.”
“There’s no strength in murdering children.”
“I did my duty.” His voice raises. “There is nothing I would not do to win this fucking war, Lyra. Nothing.”
And the evidence is burning around us. The scent of flesh fills my nose, and I force back a retch, swallowing the nausea down as I take in the rest of them. None look friendly, although Iliria is smiling.
They’re not just going to leave me here to wait around for the Darkwielders. Not unscathed.
I look around once more, assessing, words tumbling out to buy me time to think. “Did this plan come into play before or after you asked to keep me like a possession, and I told you I’d rather fuck the entire Darkwielder army?”
His lips press together. “You have a vile mouth.”
“Better a vile mouth than a vile soul.” I came dressed as a victim, as someone who needed sanctuary, and it’s about to bite me in the ass. No armor. Only my luminth to fight with.
I could take some of them. Not all at once, but maybe enough to buy me time to run. Cindral isn’t the only one who can create walls of pure light.
But they’ve chosen their positions well. I’m surrounded on every side, none of them leaving a gap big enough to attempt an escape.
Cindral doesn’t answer. But he nods. There’s movement behind me, and I turn—
The first dart pierces my right arm, above my elbow.
The second, my left thigh.
The third, my neck.
I stumble back, yanking the one from my arm and staring at it even as my vision wavers. My swords fade from view, and I can’t call them back.
I cannot cast. “What…”
Fucking dimmers. Or nulldusk quills, but either way, they’re not Lightbringer weapons. I’ve never known our side to carry the long, thin black darts that can dampen our ability to cast. Only Darkwielders use them in battle, and sparingly. “The fuck is this?”
Cindral doesn’t even meet my gaze. “This is the plan. Don’t fight it.”
They rush me as one. Five of them grab for me, Iliria among them, forcing my twisting body down to the ground as my legs kick out desperately.
Managing to pull my arm free, I swing my fist into her face, the satisfying crunch almost as good as her enraged scream when her nose breaks beneath my punch.