Chapter 59 Faron
FARON
T he army of Leliel’s Protectorate marched upon the white walls of Racliffe, but Faron and Iris were not among them.
The pair kept back, at the entrance to what appeared to be little more than a wide gopher hole near the end of the yellow fields.
A trio of stones marked the slope, identifying it as Sariel’s prepared escape tunnel.
A trumpet sounded, the signal that the assault would begin in roughly half an hour. The time was now, but Faron did not crawl into the hole yet. Instead he knelt beside Iris and set his hands upon her.
“Listen to me, and listen well,” he told the coyote. “When you joined me, I promised to show you the world. I meant to travel with you as my companion. You were to visit wondrous falls, fields of flowers, and forests filled with game for you to hunt.”
He pressed his forehead against her snout.
“Instead, I dragged you into our war. I brought you to the horrors of Frostlash Forest. Instead of beautiful fields, you trotted alongside a tide of humanity as we marched from battlefield to battlefield. It is a betrayal of my promise, and so I release you from it.”
He leaned back and met Iris’s eyes.
“Leave me, Iris. Live your life as would best make you happy. Where I go now, it is dangerous, and there is a good chance I will die. I would not have you die with me.”
Faron did not know how she would respond, but he was caught off guard by her sudden snarl and baring of her teeth.
“Iris?” he asked, standing. The coyote leaped between him and the hole, her fur raised. Another snarl.
“Don’t be foolish,” he shouted at her. “This isn’t your war! Go on, be free somewhere!”
She hunkered down further, her growl hurt and unending.
Shocked by such a furious refusal, he closed his eyes and extended a hand.
Little slivers of radiance shot out between them, piercing unseen into her mind.
His thoughts mixed with hers for the first time since he designated her as his companion.
Again he swam amid a sea of emotions and senses, but her months spent with him, and the blessing he imparted upon her, added words to the thoughts.
They were rough and simple, but they struck Faron like arrows to the chest.
Not abandoning.
Not be abandoned.
Iris. Faron.
Together.
Faron opened his eyes, and his expression softened.
“Have it your way,” he whispered. “We do this together.”
Iris’s aggression immediately eased, and her growling halted. He offered her his hand, and she licked it as a sign of peace.
“I do not deserve you,” he said, and stroked the tawny fur along her face and neck. “Now, come. We have a queen to save.”
Faron extended his arms as if diving into water and then slid into the hole.
His sword was buckled securely to his side, but he left his shield behind, knowing it would snag during such a crawl.
The fit was tight, and dug for a man slender like Sariel rather than someone as bulky as Faron and his armor.
He had to wiggle and drag himself, relying on his strength to push through the dirt.
After a dozen feet or so, it thankfully widened, and he need not exert himself quite so much.
“You back there, Iris?” he asked, pausing after a few minutes of crawling. In answer, he felt a gentle nip at his toes.
“Just checking.”
Faron continued onward, sometimes more sliding than crawling when the tunnel shot downward for several feet.
As he moved through the dark, he wondered how the assault against Racliffe would go.
They had the numbers and all the proper siege machinery to both break open the gates and climb the walls.
Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Eder had put little effort into stopping the invasion.
From talks with prisoners taken after battle, it seemed even Isabelle’s minor loss at Twin Gates had been of General Sid’s plotting, not Eder’s.
Had they been baited into an attack on Racliffe?
Or was Eder’s focus solely upon whatever mysteries Calluna had alluded to within the Tower Majestic?
He didn’t know. All that truly mattered was that he managed to rescue Isabelle from his brother’s clutches before he sacrificed her in his mad plan to awaken the tower.
After what felt like a miserably long time of crawling, the tunnel expanded higher and Faron could walk.
He assumed this meant the exit neared. Sariel said it would emerge deep in the bowels of Underbridge, where the cliff met the collapsed portion of the tower.
Faron had been to Racliffe rarely, and he did his best to remember the layout from his visits.
There’d be stairs leading to Bridgetop all throughout Underbridge, slipping around the sides or up through what had once been windows.
If he could reach the surface, he could find his way toward the tower with ease.
Whether he could make it through whatever guards were stationed there was another matter.
One last steep pitch downward, and Faron reached the end of the tunnel.
Stones were stacked together before another hole, which he assumed was meant to hide the entrance.
He began piling them aside until uncovering a gap large enough for him and Iris to slide through, and then they exited into Underbridge.
The hole was a good six feet above the very bottom of the collapsed portion of the tower.
The smell hit him immediately. Generally in Underbridge, the farther you were from the surface, the poorer you were considered, and this seemed to be the absolute farthest one could be.
From what he could tell, he was within a dilapidated building that might have been a storefront years ago.
Broken shelves leaned unevenly throughout the space, and the cupboards on the walls were open and barren.
It smelled of piss and shit, and from what mess he saw on the floor, he suspected the destitute used it at night for refuge.
Faron dropped to the ground, then turned for Iris to catch her. Instead the enormous coyote leaped down on her own and then glared at him.
“Right,” he said, and laughed. “I forget how strong you’ve gotten.” He turned to the building’s exit. “To the surface, and the tower.”
A familiar voice halted him halfway across the room.
“I’ll take you there myself, Faron, but only if you surrender your sword.”
Faron froze. Beside him, Iris growled.
“Happy to see you, Aylah. You left so quickly after your last visit.”
His sister stepped around one of the broken shelves.
There was no light that deep within Underbridge, and no torches to shine within the building, so it was with the starlight of his blessed sight that he looked upon her brilliant silver armor, molded and carved with an impression of wings across her chest. Her shield bore the five stars of the Astral Kingdom painted in black.
Amethysts were encrusted on the hilt of her sword.
“You look nice,” he said. “Gifts from Eder for your betrayal?”
“Don’t be like this,” Aylah said, standing between him and the door. She raised her shield and braced her legs. “You were a fool to come here.”
Faron drew his sword and held it in both hands. Worry scratched at his mind, and he pushed it away. His armor might be inferior, and he lacked a shield, but he believed himself capable of holding his own against Aylah.
“And you think whatever madness Eder has planned is worth what you’ve done?” he asked, tightening his muscles for a thrust. “You need a mirror, Aylah, to see the true fool.”
Her attack came first, an overhead chop aimed at his shoulder.
Her shield was expertly placed, leaving no opening, and so he blocked the strike.
Steel hit steel, lighting up the darkness with a shower of sparks.
Twice more their weapons collided, and then she bodied him with her shield.
Faron dug his heels in, refusing to move, and with a defiant cry, he shoved her away.
Iris chose that moment to lunge, her teeth snapping for Aylah’s leg. The coyote badly underestimated his sister’s speed. Her sword lashed out, cutting across Iris’s shoulder and flinging her away.
“Stop!” Faron shouted, as if Aylah would listen.
He closed the distance between them, hacking and slashing to force his sister to go on the defensive instead of finishing off the coyote lying stunned and bleeding near her feet.
The ringing of their weapons grew in his ears, the sparks an unwelcome burst of light to his blessed eyes. With every hit, his trepidation grew.
This was not the broken woman he had rescued from a lightless cell. This was the Crownbreaker who had united all of Kaus through her sheer might.
Faron used that fear to give him strength.
He took the offensive, hammering into Aylah’s shield, forcing her back.
She stumbled over a broken plank of wood, lost her balance further from a bite from a revived Iris, and then faltered when Faron barreled into her.
The pair smashed through one of the broken shelves, scattering wood as they rolled.
He flailed to take advantage, but his sword struck her armor and failed to penetrate.
His own reward was a cut across his stomach, shallow but bleeding heavily.
He came up to his knees, slashed for her leg, and had it blocked at the last possible moment by the tip of her sword.
He retreated, the both of them springing to their feet.
Faron grimaced against the pain from his cuts, and he wished more than anything he had a shield so he could better go toe to toe against his sister.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said as Iris crouched beside him, preparing for another lunge. “Eder suffered at Sariel’s hands, but that does not mean we must bow to his madness.”
“Madness is us allowing Kaus to fester and rot,” Aylah said, standing firm before him.
“We’ve walked these lands for countless lives.
All our achievements are ephemeral, all our attempts at improvement doomed to fail.
Humanity is vile, Faron. Their souls are rotten to the last, so if Eder has found a way to wash them clean?
If the Tower Majestic can drag this spiraling world into becoming something better?
Then let him try. That hope is far better than the dreaded complacency we face now. ”
Faron slowly circled his sister, desperately searching for any opening in her perfect defenses.
“What happened to you was a tragedy, Aylah, but I will not condemn all of humanity for the actions of a few.”
Aylah lifted her sword.
“It was not a mere few who drank.”
She dashed into him with quick, efficient strikes, slowly guiding the movement of his sword as he parried. He added strength to his hits, trying to bash her away or catch her off guard, but her footing was forever firm and her shield ready to block whatever retaliation he attempted.
“Whole families toasted their health to my blood,” she shouted. Her sword slipped past his parry and nicked a cut across his forearm. He grimaced against the pain, kicked her away, his heel hitting her shield, and then immediately brought his sword back up to block an overhead chop.
“An entire city was ruined by my stolen radiance.”
Her rage gave her strength that Faron struggled to match.
Every slash of her sword was like a battering ram.
He staggered, pushed back toward the wall.
Iris recovered from her blow, and she lunged at Aylah, attempting surprise.
Aylah reacted without ever acknowledging the coyote’s return, her shield snapping sideways with brutal speed so that Iris slammed against it.
Blood shot from her nose, and she whined as she went tumbling away.
“Iris!” Faron shouted, thrusting for Aylah’s stomach. Her sword parried it, and then her shield snapped back in with blinding speed, the metal striking him across the chin. His head twisted hard, and he fought to maintain his balance.
“Years!” she screamed at him. “Years upon years, as their food, their pleasure, their goddess, and all they did was cut and drink, and drink, and drink!”
They collided, chest to chest, his sword locked out to the side, hers tucked underneath his armpit and her shield pinning his other arm to the wall. Her forehead pressed against his as he struggled to break free.
“I’m sorry, Faron, but I have seen humanity’s true face.”
Aylah sliced upward with her sword, cleaving through the bone and muscle of his arm.
Faron screamed at the overwhelming pain.
The limb dropped, his sword still clutched within its fingers.
He shoved her away with his other arm, though he suspected she let him, believing the fight over.
He put his heel upon the severed wrist, grabbed the sword with his lone hand, and wrenched it free.
“Still you fight?” she asked, watching him as he staggered unevenly. Blood poured down his side. “Do you even know why?”
Faron kept his weapon at the ready as he fought off dizziness from the loss of blood.
Iris was nearby, still bleeding from the cut on her side and the hit to her nose.
She was watching him, waiting for the right moment, and Faron swore to give it to her.
He leaned back, his rear leg tense as if he was about to attack, and then spun in place.
The hilt of his sword slammed the door, bashing it open.
“Run, Iris!” he shouted. “Hurry, be free, before…”
Aylah’s fist struck the back of his head. His vision swam, and he staggered several steps before collapsing to his knees. His sword clattered to the hardstone.
“A sentimental fool to the last,” Aylah said, boots clomping as she approached. “Never change, Faron.”
The last thing he saw was Iris in the distance, sprinting through the cramped streets of Underbridge, before Aylah’s boot crashed into his face and sent him into darkness.