94. Choices
Chapter 94
Choices
25 th Day of the Blood Moon
Achyron’s Keep – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Alina sat astride Rynvar, her breath misting in the cold air before her. All across the ledge and in the forest behind her, seven hundred Wyndarii awaited her signal.
In the plains below, Olivian, Savrin, and her Royal Guard stood amongst her warriors and the Andurii, four Narvonan Ilsildans waiting within their numbers. She had never seen these mighty Narvonan champions before, never seen their Atalus armour. But if it worked as the stories told and as Aeson Virandr said it would, those champions would be what turned this battle. The bulk of the Narvonan forces, including their monstrous beasts – the tharnas – and the scaled darvakin mounts, waited just out of eyeline, behind the bend of the hill. It was best to keep their existence hidden from Loren until the last moment.
“How long do we wait?” Amari asked from astride Syndel.
“Until my patience wears thin.” Alina sat forwards in her saddle, fingers tightening around the handles.
“Not long then,” Lukira said.
“Give Belina time.” Mera sat in Audin’s saddle with her arms resting in her lap, eyes staring down at the lanterns that burned across the keep’s walls. “This valley will run red this night, but the less of it that is ours the better.”
“Mmm.” Alina ran her fingers across Rynvar’s scales. She could not say it aloud, but she held fear in her heart. Not fear of dying. She had accepted that a long time ago. But fear of losing Dayne, of losing the brother she had already lost. The brother who had come back to her. She had been so blinded by her own anger and her own loss that she had treated him as though he had drawn the blade across Kal’s throat himself. She had pushed him away, and the thought of losing him before she could truly have him back tore her apart.
Baren could rot in the void for all she cared, but Dayne, Dayne she could not lose. She would not lose.
Belina kept her head down as she walked away from the gatehouse, the bridge of the Valtaran helmet scraping against her nose. She hated helmets. They made her feel claustrophobic. Though she didn’t mind the Koraklon armoured skirts. Blue had always been her colour.
She hefted the circular shield on her left arm, her fingers gripped tightly around the clay jar of Godfire, the liquid spilling in a careful stream onto the ground. She would never let Dayne live this one down. She could have bought half a fleet with the amount of gold she’d spent on all the Godfire, nevermind the favours she’d called in. And now she only had three jars left.
Lorian and Valtaran soldiers buzzed about her, shifting in columns in the main square and lining the walls. She had to admit, this place was impressive. It would almost be a shame to burn it down. Almost.
A shout rose from behind her.
“Fuck,” she muttered, not daring to glance over her shoulder. Someone knocked into her, sending her stumbling to the right.
“Watch where you’re going,” a man snapped, a heavy circular shield in one hand, a thick spear in the other.
“Suck my cock,” Belina snapped back.
“What did you just say?”
Belina took the jar of Godfire into her free hand, swigged it, then sprayed it over the man’s face.
He staggered backwards, rubbing at his eyes and shouting. Other soldiers turned and stared, moving towards them.
That had maybe not been her smartest move, but Belina never had been good at controlling her impulses. Well, she’d made her bed now. She might as well lie in it.
“Suck,” she repeated, her mouth still half-full of the noxious liquid that appeared to be burning her tongue and cheeks. “My. Cock.”
She reached over and snatched a flaming torch from a sconce. Her first instinct had been to spray the liquid through the flames over the man. She quickly realised that she wasn’t quite sure whether that would set her own face on fire. She liked her face, so she decided instead to swing the torch into the man’s hands as he rubbed his eyes while quickly spitting the rest of the Godfire on the ground behind her.
It didn’t take even a second for the Koraklon soldier to burst into flames, screaming and shrieking. He fell backwards, slamming against the stone, thrashing as he did. The flames caught on the trail of Godfire she had marked from there to the gatehouse.
She watched the fire tear across the stone as the other soldiers levelled their spears, and more looked down from the ramparts and about the yard at the sound of the dying man’s screams.
Belina decided she would leave this part out when she told Dayne about how she’d brought the gates down. He’d always said she made too much of a scene.
“Easy, easy,” she said, pointing the torch towards the man who now lay still in the flames. “He was like that when I got here.”
Three of the men raised their shields and strode forwards.
“Come now,” Belina said, backing away slowly, her eyes never leaving the three men. “This is all a misunderstanding.”
The three soldiers lunged in unison, pulling their spears back to skewer her like a fish. She glanced down to make sure her feet were clear, then dropped the torch.
The Godfire she’d spat on the ground erupted in flames, consuming all three of them. Half a second later, the entire keep shook and the Gatehouse exploded, flames pluming in all directions, chunks of stone crashing down all about the yard.
“Well,” Belina whispered to herself, staring up at the bonfire that was the gates. “That worked a lot better than I expected."
In the ensuing chaos, Belina dropped her shield and vanished into a nearby doorway.
A flash of light shone at the keep’s gatehouse, followed less than a second later by an eruption of flame and stone that shook the earth. A clap of thunder swept through the valley, and Alina watched in awe as the gates of Achyron’s Keep were torn asunder. Horns bellowed, and the defenders’ shouts carried across the plains below.
More horns answered, and below, her warriors and the Andurii swept into motion, the light of the red moon reflecting on their shields.
“Well,” Mera said, sitting up straight in Audin’s saddle. “She said she’d set something on fire.”
Beneath Alina, a rumble spread through Rynvar and turned to a roar as the wyvern reared and unfurled his wings, more wyverns answering through the forest at their back.
“Wyndarii of Valtara,” Alina shouted, unclipping a javelin from the side of the saddle. “Tonight is the night we burn the Lorians from our home. Tonight, we set Valtara free!”
A chorus of cheers rang out behind her.
She raised her javelin into the air. “By blade and by blood!”
As Rynvar surged forwards and leapt from the ledge, spreading his wings, Alina heard Amari, Lukira, and Mera all answer her call, rising above the roars of the wyverns. “By blade and by blood!”
Alina pressed herself tight to Rynvar’s neck as he plummeted down the cliffside, the buckles at her hip clinking, a weightless feeling in her stomach.
This was what she was born to do.
To her right, through watering eyes, she saw arcs of purple lightning tearing through the air towards her marching warriors. She watched with pain in her heart as some of the lightning tore holes into the ranks, shouts and screams rising. But most of the lightning swerved in the air, bending and twisting, funnelled towards four spots within the ranks before vanishing entirely.
In the purple glow, Alina just about made out the Narvonan Isildans, clad entirely in their gleaming Atalus-shell armour, riding astride their darvakin. The armour absorbed the lightning like a river did rain. If they’d had armour like that these past centuries, Valtara would already be free.
Alina squeezed her legs as Rynvar opened his wings and swept parallel to the ground some five or six hundred feet below them.
To her side, Mera’s white-gloved hand flashed signals: split. Four. Above. Below. Attack. Question.
Yes, Alina signalled back. Both Amari and Lukira acknowledged the command.
They held superiority in numbers over the traitor Wyndarii, but the mages and archers on the ramparts could even that out in the blink of an eye if they weren’t seen to.
“Take the walls!” Alina shouted to Rynvar, pressing herself to his neck so he could feel the vibrations above the wind. “Rip them from the ramparts.”
The wyvern answered with a roar and streaked downwards towards the walls. More roars answered, and Alina looked about to see her Wyndarii breaking into the four squadrons they had decided upon before the battle.
Alina’s blood burned with a fervour as the wyvern dropped lower, her fingers tightening around the wooden shaft of her javelin. Rynvar spun in the air, arrows skittering off his scales and whipping past Alina’s head.
“Steady,” she called, her face pressed to Rynvar’s neck. She pulled herself upright, feeling Rynvar’s movements beneath her. An arrow sliced past her head, the tip grazing her helmet. She could not hide now. A hunter needed to see their prey.
Alina drew a sharp breath and held it, feeling Rynvar do the same beneath her. Shrieks sounded overhead, letting her know that Mera and Amari had met the traitor Wyndarii in the air.
She tightened her grip on the left handle of the saddle until her knuckles went pale.
As Rynvar crashed down atop two Lorian soldiers on the ramparts, raking his talons through one and ripping the other’s arm free with his jaws, he spun and angled upwards. The world shifted about Alina as she looked down sideways onto the ramparts, time standing still for just a heartbeat. She picked her target, drew back her arm, and launched her javelin. The steel tip punched into the face of a Lorian mage, sinking into her eye and ripping her from the walls.
Alina snapped her javelin hand down onto the free handle and gripped with all her strength as Rynvar tore upwards. The buckles and chains would have kept her from falling from the wyvern’s back, but they didn’t stop her bones from breaking or body from flailing. She cast a glance over her shoulder as the rest of the Wyndarii swept down over the walls. Alina had known she would lose sisters this night, but her heart still ached as she watched wyverns burned from the sky with plumes of fire and arcs of lightning. Every wyvern that fell was paid for with the blood of fifty defenders. But her Wyndarii were worth a hundred.
On the plains below, her forces were almost at the gates, the white crests of the Andurii visible from up high, and behind them marched the Narvonan host, glittering in gold.
Rynvar let out a shriek, and two wyverns crashed into him from the side, snapping and tearing at him with tooth and talon. He ripped out the throat of the first, but the second stretched its neck forwards and came but a blade’s width from tearing Alina’s head free.
Alina reached back and released a second javelin from its clip, and when the wyvern’s head snaked forwards once more, she leaned back in the saddle and drove the javelin up through the soft flesh beneath its jaw. She pulled the tip free, then drove it back in again, blood sluicing from the wound and spraying over her face. The creature flapped and flailed before eventually going limp and dropping from the sky. The Wyndarii on its back screamed as they fell, and Alina watched her unbuckle herself from the saddle and drop like a stone to the courtyard below, her screams cutting short as she landed in the fire that blazed around the gatehouse.
“Rise!” Alina roared to Rynvar, and the wyvern swept upwards to where Mera’s and Amari’s Wyndarii battled in the sky.
Dayne lifted his head and winced at the blazing light that shone through the window. He tugged gently against his bonds, feeling the straps burn at the raw skin beneath. He tried to reach out to the Spark, probing the ward that shrouded him. Dayne had done the same every day but found the same result: the ward remained in place.
“Well,” Loren said, staring out at the city beyond. “It looks like your sister decided to forego negotiations.” He gave a downturn of his lip. “Disappointing. It seems as though you were expendable after all. The mighty Dayne Ateres, a casualty of his sister’s arrogance. That does seem to be a trait that runs in your family, doesn’t it? Arrogance, followed by death.”
“It’s not me who’ll be dying tonight,” Dayne answered, cracking his neck. He looked over at Baren, who was still strapped to the x-shaped stand, head drooping, mumbling but barely conscious. In the three nights Dayne had been there, Baren had barely opened his eyes, let alone spoken. His wounds were red and pussing, infection setting in. Loren had cleaned Dayne’s wounds but not Baren’s. He didn’t need Baren anymore. Baren had been bait for Dayne, and Dayne was bait for Alina.
“Is that so?” Loren walked from the window, stopping so he stood between Dayne and Baren. “That same Ateres arrogance. This is the night the bloodline of House Ateres dies. Your sister will lie broken against my walls, her wyvern food for the crows. You and your brother here will hang from these posts with your throats slit, and I will walk to young Arkin’s chambers and drive a sword through his heart.” He pursed his lips. “I’d rather not. He’s a good boy. But you Ateres are like weeds. Even one left alive will smother the whole garden.” He let out a long sigh. “Well, Dayne. I’ve enjoyed our time together, and I hope that, unlike your father, you have come to understand me a bit more.”
“I’m going to cut your fucking heart from your chest while you’re still breathing.”
“Said the lamb to the wolf.” Loren shook his head, smiling. He raised a finger, and a thin gash ripped open across Dayne’s chest, blood trickling.
Dayne glanced over at the corner of the room towards the man who sat in a rickety wooden chair, eyes fixed on Dayne. One of the four Lorian mages he had seen over the nights. Two always inside, the others at the door. He would have to deal with them before he got to Loren.
Loren turned to face Baren, resting his hand on the pommel of a knife at his belt. “No matter how this night ends, neither of you are of use any longer.” He glanced over his shoulder to Dayne. “What was it you said, Dayne? You would cut my heart from my chest while I was still breathing? That seems appropriate, seeing as you Ateres feel the need to mark where your heart is with that damn sigil.”
“Don’t touch him,” Dayne roared. “Don’t fucking touch him!”
“Stop me, Dayne.” Loren slid the knife from its scabbard, turning to Baren.
At the sight of the steel, Dayne slowed his breathing. He could feel the Lorian gemstone pulsing in his stomach after he’d swallowed it at Fort Lukaris along with enough Urlin Leaf to twist his gut. A trick Belina had taught him many years ago. An uncomfortable but useful trick.
Loren placed the tip of the blade against Baren’s chest.
Dayne had bided his time, waiting for Alina and the others to lay siege to the keep. Without them, there was no path by which Dayne could get both Baren and his nephew away from this place with their hearts still beating. Now that time had come, and Belina would be there shortly.
He honed in on that feeling of power that radiated from the gemstone and then opened himself to it.
Dayne let out a gasp as his veins filled with ice and his vision flashed black, nothing but the drum of his heart touching his ears. In an instant, the world came to life once more, light flooding into his eyes, sound crashing into his ears, and he felt stronger than he ever had.
Dayne wielded the Blood Magic as though it were the Spark, slicing threads of it through the leather bonds that held him.
A shout rang out behind him as Dayne fell forwards, his legs crumpling beneath him as they became reacquainted with his weight.
He could have snapped Loren’s neck there and then, twisted a coil of this dark magic around the man’s throat and pulled. But that would not be how he killed Loren Koraklon. He wanted to look the man in the eyes and do exactly as he had promised: cut out Loren’s heart while there was still breath in his lungs.
He made to leap forwards, his legs still fumbling beneath him.
Loren turned, surprise and fear in his eyes. “How?” The man shifted so he stood square to Dayne, brandishing his knife.
The power of the gemstone flowing through Dayne, he dug his foot in and hurled himself at Loren, only for something to smash into his side and send him hurtling to the ground.
As Dayne’s senses came back to him, his legs growing steadier, he hit the floor and rolled into a crouch. The two Lorian mages at the doors rushed into the room, while the two already within were charging towards him. Dayne sent a pulse of power rippling outwards from the gemstone. All he needed was a moment, just a fraction of a second – and he found it.
The pulse knocked the Lorian mages back a step, and their ward faltered. He tore through it with the savagery of a wyvern, the Spark flowing into him once more, the elemental strands pulsing in his mind.
“Do not hesitate.” Dayne whispered Marlin’s words as he wrapped threads of Air around one of the mage’s throats and snapped her neck.
He surged forwards, dropping below the swing of Lorian steel, only to rise and wrap his hand around the man’s throat. Dayne swung around the Lorian’s back, interlocked the fingers of his left hand with those of his right, then dropped to the ground with all his strength, dragging the mage with him. With the Blood Magic flowing through his veins, Dayne brought the mage down with enough power to crack his skull.
“Do not contemplate mercy.”
The gemstone called to him, urged him to breathe inwards, to capture the wisp of life that flowed from the dead Lorian. He pushed the voice down. I am stronger than you. He grabbed the Lorian’s dropped sword, hurled himself to his feet, and charged at Loren and the two remaining mages.
All three hacked and slashed, but Dayne moved like a man possessed. One mage stabbed at Dayne’s chest, the other at his leg. In the same motion, Dayne twisted at the hip and lifted his left leg. He brought his boot down, ripping the sword from one mage’s hand while gliding his own sword down that of the other mage, slicing through her thumb and half her hand.
The first mage fell downwards, the momentum of Dayne’s boot dragging him with it. Dayne twisted and drove his steel through the man’s skull, wrenching it free in a spray of blood.
The last mage screamed and backed away, stumbling as she did. The woman sent threads of Fire whirling at Dayne, who split them in half with his own threads and stepped through the empty space.
When the flames died and Dayne stood over the screaming mage, Loren spoke.
“How fast are you, Dayne?”
Dayne turned his head slowly, his heart sinking at the sight of Loren having cut Baren free, holding him up with one arm, the other pressing a knife to his throat.
Loren dragged Baren across the room slowly, the steel never leaving Baren’s flesh, blood trickling.
“Harm him, Loren, and I swear, I will kill every man, woman, and child that bears your name. I will burn every trace of your house from this world. I will cut out the tongues of bards who sing it and set fire to any books that dare record it. House Koraklon will not just die, it will never have existed.”
Loren gave a crooked smile, his cheekbone shattered from Dayne’s punch, blood dripping from two cuts. “And if I do nothing, you will what, let us live our lives in peace?”
“I’ll only kill you ,” Dayne said, taking a tentative step towards Loren. “I’ll make it quick.”
“You’ll make it quick,” Loren said with a laugh. “How very kind of you. Do you like choices, Dayne?”
Dayne took a step closer, glancing at the Lorian mage who still lay on the ground, blood pumping from her severed hand.
“Ah ah,” Loren hissed, lifting Baren’s chin with the hilt of the knife. He kept shifting towards the door, then stopped when he stood between the mage and the door. “Here is your choice.”
Loren dragged the knife across Baren’s throat, blood pouring from the open wound, tossed Baren to the ground, then turned and ran through the open doors.
Dayne stared after Loren for just half a second, the rage deep within him telling him to chase the man, to kill him while he had a chance. Dayne gave in to that rage. He reached out to the Spark and launched a whip of Air, his heart racing. But before he could wrap that whip around Loren’s legs, a thread of Spirit sliced through it. He looked down to see the Lorian mage staring at him.
Dayne tapped into the gemstone within him, his rage feeding it, and snapped the woman’s neck as he dropped to the ground beside Baren.
Baren convulsed, blood pumping from his throat, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
“Look at me.” Dayne placed one hand behind his brother’s head and the other over his throat, blood seeping through his fingers, panic trembling in his heart. “Baren, it’s going to be all right. Hold on.”
Baren choked, blood dripping from his open mouth and spilling over Dayne.
Dayne drew in sharp breaths, tears streaming. “I forgive you,” he said, desperately trying to press his hand tighter around the wound. “I should have come back sooner. I should have… Ahhhh, Baren, no, please…”
Baren stared up at Dayne, his eyes glassy, his head lolling. He tried to speak but just coughed and spluttered, the colour draining from his face.
Dayne looked down at his little brother, the one he’d once held in his arms as a newborn babe.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t better.” Dayne let go of Baren’s throat and pulled his brother close, warm blood spilling over his chest and arms. “I love you, and I will always love you. No matter what you did. You’re my little brother, and I should have protected you.”
Dayne squeezed Baren in his arms, holding him there for what felt like a lifetime before lowering him to the ground and looking into cold dead eyes.
“Dayne.”
Belina stood in the doorway, staring down at Dayne, who knelt with his brother in his arms, both of them covered in blood.
She was too late.
The shrivelled pieces of her black heart cracked a little more as she looked down at Dayne sobbing and shaking. Her Exile. Her family.
Dayne leaned over his brother’s lifeless body and planted a gentle kiss on Baren’s forehead.
“He’s gone…” Dayne whispered, looking up at Belina, his face smeared with blood, body covered in bruises and cuts.
Belina just stood there, staring down. She wasn’t good with death. She was good at killing, but not death – not death that mattered. Death that cut pieces from the ones she loved, and there weren’t many she loved. Just one. One flawed man whose entire life was built around others. One flawed man who had found a way through the armour she wore.
Dayne rose, stumbling forwards, his body weak. He looked past Belina to the doorway behind her. “I’m going to peel the skin from his bones,” he said, voice trembling. Dayne leaned down and picked up a sword resting in the pool of blood. “He’s taken everything, Belina… everything.”
“No,” Belina said, moving to force Dayne to look into her eyes. “He hasn’t.”
Dayne stared at her and through her, eyes raw and red.
“We will hunt him down, and we will make him understand the true meaning of pain. But not today, today?—”
“Today!” Dayne rounded on her, a rage in his eyes untamed like she’d never seen. Dayne held a fury in his heart, but he had always been in control. That was not the case now.
Belina held her ground before turning back towards the door and holding out a hand. “Come here. Don’t be shy, little one.”
Dayne dropped the sword, steel clanging against stone, and he fell to his knees, cupping his hands around the cheeks of the small child who came at Belina’s call.
“Arkin,” Dayne whispered, pulling the boy in.
“I’ve been keeping track of him across the days.”
“Where’s my father?” the boy asked, trembling.
Dayne only squeezed him harder, and when Dayne stood, Belina could see the pain in his eyes.
“It will take time,” Belina whispered. “For now, your sister needs you. I can get him somewhere safe.”
“I can’t just let Loren live.”
“You choose now,” she said, staring into his eyes. “Family or vengeance. You can’t have both today. We will cross that last name off your list, I swear it. But your sister needs you. Choose what matters, Dayne.”
Dayne clenched his jaw, then dropped to one knee in front of his nephew. “Belina will keep you safe, all right?” He kissed the boy’s forehead. “Are you brave? You look brave.”
The boy nodded, sniffling, tears staining his cheeks.
“Good, because I’m a little scared right now, and I need you to be brave for the both of us. Can you do that?”
The boy nodded again. “My father says you’re a bad man… Are you?”
Dayne gave Arkin a sad smile. “I’m trying not to be.”
“Come,” Belina said, taking the boy’s hand. She looked at Dayne. “I’ll get him to safety, and then I’ll come back. Don’t die in the meantime.”
“No promises.”
Alina stayed tight to Rynvar as the wyvern swooped and ripped two Lorians from the walls, dropping their bodies into the trenches on the other side. She had long used her last javelin, and the sword in her scabbard was bloody. She signalled her Wyndarii to rise – those that were left. Eighty or so in her squadron, almost half dead, slaughtered by the Lorian mages.
Amari’s and Mera’s squadrons still fought tooth and claw both in the air and on the ground. She’d seen Lukira and Urin fall, the wyvern pierced in the neck by a spear. The bulk of her army and the Narvonans fought on the walls in the yard, and they had already taken heavy losses. Even with the gates down, besieging a fortress of this scale took its toll. And so thick was the fighting that the Narvonan beasts were not yet through to the yard.
Rynvar let out a roar beneath her, his muscles twitching. She braced herself, and the wyvern rolled. A javelin whipped past her face, and a scream from behind let her know that one of her sisters had taken the steel meant for her.
“Down!” Alina shouted. Rynvar ignored her. Instead he cracked his wings and surged forwards towards the group of traitor Wyndarii that charged them in the sky. He twisted, raking his talons along a soft underbelly and spilling entrails onto the battle below.
“Down!” Alina roared again, but the wyvern had blood in his nostrils and a fury in his heart at seeing so many of his kin die. He tore three more from the sky, tearing out throats and snapping wings. As the wyvern spun, Alina pulled her sword free and sliced through the arm of a traitor Wyndarii, the world pulling at her as Rynvar dropped into a freefall.
Both Syndel and Audin swept in beside her, Amari and Mera on their backs.
“We need to break the lines!” Alina roared, the wind swallowing her voice. She looked down towards the main yard, where Loren’s forces had consolidated and were protecting Lorian mages behind a shield wall. Belina had smashed open the gates, but the trenches were slowing her forces and the traitors were holding fast. The walls were chaos, and archers rained death from the towers and murder holes in the keep.
A sound like a thunderclap erupted to Alina’s right, and she watched in horror as enormous boulders rolled down the side of the mountain at the Keep’s eastern wall. A score of the giant chunks of stone swept down the mountainside and smashed into her forces traversing the trenches.
As she watched this new destruction, Rynvar let out a horrific shriek, and Alina saw a spear jutting from his shoulder, buried deep. The wyvern flapped his wings and screamed, trying desperately to stay in the air, the world spinning.
They spiralled towards the ground, the wyvern thrashing to stay up, his wing failing him. Flames swept past Alina’s vision, and before they crashed down into the yard, everything jerked upwards. Alina looked up to see Mera and Audin, Rynvar’s harness in the other wyvern’s talons.
Audin could only hold on for a second before Rynvar dragged them both down.
Rynvar let out another shriek and then spun, turning himself with his good wing so that Alina sat upright in the saddle when the wyvern slammed to the ground.