Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-One
We Rise Because We Can
The day only darkened. Eventually, the worst of the wounded were patched up or stabilized. Bodies were moved deeper into the keep to account for the number, mostly to the dorm-rooms where they could be respectfully kept. Frost runes were placed on the doors of every room, keeping them cold to slow the rot.
The rain turned out to be a half-blessing, for the smell of burning hair, clotted blood, and decaying flesh was somewhat washed away, however, every step across the mangled forum was laboured as they dragged themselves through the mud.
Jack found Sylvia, the barkeep, leant up against one of the keep pillars. She looked smaller than before, curled around a short sliver of stone in her chest. He took her body to the Rageous cabin, his own, and laid her upon his bed. After covering the old woman with a sheet, the warrior slowly keeled over to the floor in his armour, sobbing as silently as he could, driving his fists into the floor and the walls. By the time he stopped, the Javen warrior let out a deep empty breath, and for a moment considered staying there, locking the door, and rotting alongside her.
Before he could decide, a sharp cry sounded beyond the door in a tone Jack scarcely recognised. He pushed himself up, and having left his mace on the battlefield, grabbed the dagger from the small of his back and went running through the halls, passing many confused Legacies as they hauled more dead.
Jack erupted from between the mangled doors of the keep, stumbling to a stop as light blared in his eyes.
The glare subsided as another agonised shout filled the air and Jack found Magnus in the forum with Nikereus in front of him. Magnus was walking the Obtrhaien commander forward by the flash of his dark Starfire, periodically searing the Soiltorn’s back with light every time they slowed down.
Nikereus seethed in pain, snarling each time they stumbled forward, but the moment they turned in rage or tried to stop, Magnus raised his hand again and a blood-red flash painted their spine, sending them staggering once more.
A small crowd of the surviving Legacies came ambling out from the med-bay and the keep, forming a loose semi-circle around the two of them.
As Nikereus roiled in pain from the last strike, Magnus kicked them in the back of the knee and Nikereus went buckling to the ground. Jack and Klaryah walked to the front of the crowd.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Magnus sneered at Nikereus and he approached the others with a sack of weapons slung over his shoulder. To Jack, he handed his mace inside his mutilated Javen-helm, and to Sarah he held out her curved sabre which he’d found by the main gate.
Sarah took her sword numbly from him, her face still black and swollen. “You’re always pickin’ up after us.”
The last of all, he moved up to Willem and held out Archie’s sword.
It was scraped and gnarled but the young blacksmith held it like a dried flower.
Jack held his possessions numbly as Nikereus glared up at the crowd, only to be met with a long, stunned silence while Magnus leant upon his scythe.
They stared at the Obthraie commander for some time, idly scanning their butchered physique. Nikereus only had two undamaged arms left while the others were either missing hands, forearms, or entire limbs up to the elbow. Their face was chiselled and fragmented and their cold eyes looked darkly from one Legacy to another.
“So, what now?” Nikereus asked tiredly, slumping down to their lowest. “Torture, surely. I have always wondered how Draendicans go about it.” They waited for a moment but no one spoke and a long sigh fell from their lips. “Surely something.”
Jack squinted groggily at them and rubbed his eye. He turned to Klaryah and said, “Are all the fallen in the chambers?”
The assassin swept her mass of hair over her shoulder and nodded. “Yes, and the worst of the wounded are in the med-bay.”
Jack looked to the mace still in his hand. He glanced to Nikereus and found all his anger so faded. Hollow. The maceman then squinted to the top of the walls to see the sun pulling down over them. He sighed and stowed Black Sun. “We’ll need to start burying bodies. Cold or otherwise, they’ll start to rot soon.”
Syon was stood on the edge of the circle, wearing an exhausted look of sorrow. “That’s nearly two hundred graves. Or a mass grave… or a pyre-”
Jack shook his head. “We’re not burning anyone. They gave their lives, least we can do is bury them.”
Nikereus snickered at his words.
Klaryah grabbed a crossbow off of Flinn, turned and shot the Obthraie low in the stomach, sending them screaming to the soil without so much as changing her face.
Jack scarcely seemed to notice. “Sid, if you’ve got it in you, can you set your Arcancy to work? Speed things up?”
Sidney had to raise her voice to be heard over Nikereus' wailing but she nodded, saying, “I’ll find some stone slabs and get shovelling.”
Syon winced, watching as Klaryah reloaded the weapon. Syon took Sidney by the hand and they led the small host of Legacies toward the harvest sheds, where they stored spades and shovels.
Nikereus gritted their teeth in anguish before shouting, “If just you’re going to kill me, get it over with!” clutching gingerly at the bolt protruding from their gut.
Jack shook his head, deep in thought. “Why did you come?”
Nikereus blinked, still wrapped in convulsing pain. “What?”
“Why did you come?” Jack looked down at his helmet, barely able see through the thoroughly bent visor after the destruction he put it through.
Nikereus breathed out the suffering pain in their stomach before looking up to Jack and the silent assassin. “You know little, Javen.”
Jack huffed, humourlessly, still looking at the helmet. “Why did you come?”
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“Because you were in the way.”
Klaryah frowned, and this time Jack looked over. “In the way of what?”
Nikereus tried to rise but shrieked as the bolt twisted in their gut and they bent back to their knees.
Jack sighed and without a single beat, swung his boot into the bolt, punching it further into Nikereus’ gut. The Obthraie writhed in pain and Jack looked at them like he couldn't distinguish the Soiltorn from the grass beneath them.
“Answer me.”
Nikereus snapped, “You are nothings! Walking shadows at the edge of dusk! You are moments begging to be over! Your world and everything you hold dear will fall through your fingers. It's already going. But you're so slow. You're so slow you haven't even noticed.”
Klaryah’s Arcancy tickled and she blinked uncertainly, glancing to Jack.
Jack frowned and vaguely gestured around himself. “You lost. We stopped you. The Location Tablets are still sealed away, and the other encampments will never get found.”
Nikereus bowed their head in smug, grimacing agony. “And for that, I must admit… I am impressed. You wear the name Shadiirageous, well. But don’t think for one minute, that this was a victory. Or do. It makes no difference to the end.”
Jack could feel the numbness falling away and his anger rising beneath it. “What end?”
Nikereus tsked. “That, I can’t say. Well, I can, but I won’t. Would hate to spoil the surprise, and I’m afraid not even this one's dark magic could bring it out of me,” they nodded to Magnus and effortlessly, Nikereus switched Low Garganii, muttering, “It’s refreshing to see a treasonous Konakiian. Good to know your loyalty is malleable, even if you are some malformed half-Draendi pup.”
And just as effortlessly in return, Magnus replied, “If you are chained by your blood, then I will weep for you, even as you fruitlessly choke on it.”
Nikereus looked him over and regarded the many open, unbleeding wounds. In Common they muttered, “Forget my kin, I should’ve taken the hearts of your people. This would’ve ended much quicker.”
Magnus smiled knowingly down at the broken commander. “Much quicker.”
Klaryah had her finger on the firing lever, and said, “Jack asked you a question. To what end?”
Nikereus chuckled and shook their head, flashing their pointed, pale teeth at the commanders. “Whose. Whose end. Her name is Artemia. You will come to know her quite well when she walks over your cold corpses because the measly string of Legacies you have left were be enough. You may have spared the rest, but you are mulch. Worm food. Even now, you rotting companions will soon sprout daisies-”
A crossbow bolt ripped through Nikereus’ head and plumed out the back in a thin streak of ashy gravel. Their body thumped to the ground, crumbling to dust as the world became silent once more.
Klaryah lowered the now empty crossbow.
Jack cleared his throat and dug into a pocket. He pulled out a dirty, Bronze Amel and handed it to Klaryah. “For services rendered.” Then he turned and limped toward the crop shacks.
Klaryah looked at the dull coin for a moment. Then she flipped it into the mud where the Soiltorn disintegrated and left without a word.
*****
Nichole, Aroha, Oliver, Rose, and Sarah waited quietly outside of the Defanin dorm room. No one spoke or attempted to break the hard, unending silence, for there felt no need. There was nothing to say. They were all leant up against the window-side of the corridor, staring at the wall ahead or the floor below.
The door clicked open again after some time and they looked up to see Carter and James step back out in the hallway, holding a thick, leather book, and Michael’s Kosadi as they sat down on the floor of the empty passage.
Nichole pulled Michael’s bow from her shoulder and set it down softly with his quiver beside it. “You two should take it, unless you think he’d prefer it be buried...”
James shook his head, numbly.
“He would’ve hated the idea of it going unused,” Carter said softly. “If you feel you can, one of you should take it.”
Oliver and Sarah both glanced at one another and agreed it would be wasted on them, as did Rose. Aroha shook her head, her eyes going glassy even at the thought. And at last, James looked up to Nichole.
“You should take it,” his voice was torn and hoarse, but firm.
Nichole held his gaze for so long and her lips began to tremble. “I killed him. How could I take it?”
The group fell into dejected silence as James rubbed his face tiredly let out a wounded sigh. After a minute of trying to speak, leaned into his hand as tears began to roll from his eyes. “You didn’t kill him, Nicky. He knew exactly what might happen,” James stopped and took a shaking breath, “which is why he went. And why you all went. If you hadn’t done what you did... none of us would be here.”
Nichole sat silently. James stopped speaking and the young man pulled himself to her side, taking her into a sincere hug. At last he said, “He’d be glad to know you have it.”
Oliver reached out and picked up Michael’s Kosadi. He ran his thumb across the sapphire-shaded gemstone and softly asked, “Can I take his Speaking-Stone? You have the other half, right?”
Carter nodded fondly. “I gave that to him on the first night we knew he was here. Well, the first night he wasn’t taking up the whole med-bay... talk about attention-seeking,” he said with a slight smile.
James and Nichole, still wrapped up in their hug, looked over to him in complete shock, as Sarah buried her face in her hands, stifling her laugh as she said, “I can’t believe you.”
Carter sat tears forming in his eyes as he failingly suppressed his chortling laughter.
James rested his head on Nichole’s shoulder, and before he knew it, he began chuckling softly too, “We’re going to Enthall. Anyone who laughs. Including me- The man is lying through the door behind you!”
“Yeah, in there slackin’ off, as usual-” Carter broke into tearful laughter and everyone shook their heads, shoving and tsking at him.
Rose laid on the floor, shaking her head in complete disbelief as Sarah, still nestled behind her hands, snorted so loudly that it sent everyone further into hysterics.
At some point in amongst the dark laughter Carter began to cry. He simply leant against the corridor wall and let the tears fall. It was like he’d swallowed poison ten years ago, the pain laid so deep. But in that moment there was laughter, even if only a little, and for all the terribleness, he was glad to have survived. The parts of him that did, at least.
For a moment, the dark shadows of that day eased, though they didn’t part. The weight on their souls was shared and it wouldn’t last forever but it was perhaps proof of something more important. That pain may go on, and depending on the wound, the grief, the damage done, it may do so forever, but not for one moment does that mean that pain is all there is. The moon forever drifts through the sky somewhere, but even so great a thing never blocks out all the stars. Try as it might.
They sorted through the rest of Michael’s few knick-knacks, wherein Nichole finally agreed to take his bow and quiver, and Rose took his copy of Creatures of the Deep: A Discussion on Fiends.
Soon after, they joined the rest of the survivors and began aiding with the long, mournful process of grave-digging. They spent long hours in patchy rain, hacking through mud, until an autumn sun came out and dried everything to misery and clay. Soon night came swiftly as the few dozen soldiers continued on in the dark.
Magic made it easier. Sidney was using plates of stone like telepathic hands, gutting grave sites all on her own, hour after hour, lifting mud and clay and dirt. Long after every one else had collapsed in an empty bed or fallen asleep on the grass, Sidney’s veins burned bronze and she kept digging.
Flinn eventually stumbled out sometime before the sun rose to find her sat on Ilo’s grave, her back against the tombstone, her head bowed, and eyes dripping with blood. She was breathing lightly and Flinn knelt down beside her. “Hey, little one,” he said softly.
She looked up drowsily and tried to smile but ended up shaking her head. Her eyes turned glassy and her tears mixed in the running lines of crimson. She pushed her forehead into Flinn’s chest and he held for a long a moment. Eventually, he picked her up, armour and all, and carried her back into the keep. He walked past all of the chambers of the dead, and found an empty bed. He set her in it, sat down on the floor, and they both fell into a deep, broken sleep.