Chapter 5 - A Crawl of Perseverance

Adam squeezed his eyes shut and screamed soundlessly. Every part of his body hurt as he lay between the bushes of Caine’s garden in a crumpled heap of limbs.

“Stay alive,” Adam’s left heart hissed, sending comforting heat all over his body. As much as he hated the sinister organ, he sighed in relief when the unnatural energy alleviated his pain. Gradually, slowly, his bruised and battered flesh mended. With a groan, Adam rolled himself over onto his belly and gasped when a sharp pain shot through his chest. Baring his teeth, Adam bit through the agony and stretched out his arms. Inch by bloody inch, he pulled himself forward to Caine’s house. Daddy’s coming, buddy, don’t you worry. He cracked his neck to the side, puffed out his cheeks and pushed himself up. His knees and arms trembled, practically screaming in protest, as he forced himself to get up. I’m coming for you.

An explosion rang out high above Adam, and Oliver flew through the same hole Adam had just been blasted through. Spinning around in mid-air, Oliver dodged two Marrow knives thrown at him and conjured linked chains of Ironglass. He whipped them out, wrapped them around the chimney, and swung down.

“WE MUST LEAVE!” he roared when he landed near Adam. “They’ve brought reinforcements, there’s no way we can fight all of them!”

Adam groaned, barely able to stand up straight due to the shiver in his legs. With trembling fingers, he tried to wipe the blood off his face. Up above, behind one of the windows of the beautiful house, Eric peeked down at them. When he saw Adam looking back, Eric widened his eyes as if he’d seen a monster and hastily pulled the curtains shut.

That was too much.

As if he’d just been punched in the stomach, Adam bent forward, closed his eyes and screamed. At least, before the deep coughs of his painful lungs interrupted him. “This can’t be happening!” he wheezed.

Oliver stepped in front of him and laid his hands on Adam’s shoulders. “We can’t save Catherine and Eric with just the two of us! They’ll never believe us now that they’ve been Tainted!”

Adam gritted his teeth and shook his head. Even though he knew, deep down, that Oliver was right.

“The Starwing Order must know of Caine’s betrayal,” Oliver continued mercilessly. “Especially the other Talons of Aves! What if he reaches people like Emily first, and tells her a different story? Or what if he Taints them as well?”

Soft sounds of many footsteps that stormed down stairways came out of the house.

With a reluctant groan, as if he had to rip his own arm off, Adam slowly turned around. “I’ll save them, Oliver, I swear it! I don’t care what vile sorcery Caine pulled off to do this!”

Oliver sighed in relief and hastily supported Adam with an arm around his back. Together, they stumbled out of the yard and into the streets.

Gradually, Adam’s rage made way for a hollow dread. Although it still felt unreal, impossible even, the realisation of all that had just happened began to set in. He remembered his day with Catherine and Eric at the beach. How he had held a giggling Eric on his shoulders as he ran through the shallow water. How Cath and Eric had ‘buried’ Adam in the soft, warm sand, and ran off to ‘steal’ his dry clothes afterwards. Bitter grief tore through him, like a cold, dark chasm of loss. He shivered. “I just… don’t want them to get hurt, you know?” he said softly. “Eric’s birthday is in just a few weeks…”

Oliver’s face was ashen pale. He swallowed and squeezed Adam’s shoulder. “I swear I’ll do anything in my power to get them back, my friend. What Caine did is… I’ve no words for it. But we’ll get that fell-handed bastard, by Aves, and I’ll be there every step of the way.” He nodded grimly. “But for now, we must hurry to the Starwing Grove and warn Emily, before he turns everyone against us!”

“You’re right,” Adam breathed. With an effort of will, he kept himself from looking back. Although the heat reserves of his heart seemed mostly depleted, the sinister organ still sent waves of comforting warmth to his legs. Ignoring the sharp pain in his wobbling knees, Adam picked up the pace.

Adam felt the deep, strong beats of his heart in his neck. Panting, with sweat beading on his forehead, he forced himself to keep moving through the winding streets.

Jeremiah will make his bannermen within the Royal Army move south. Which happens to be precisely what Caine and the Penduli forces are preparing for. I wonder how much Caine had to pay him. Or maybe the Taint was enough.

Like corpses that bobbed up in a bog, memories of all that just happened kept reappearing before his mind’s eye. The terrified look in Eric’s eyes, how Cath almost decapitated him, and Caine’s face before he had blasted Adam through the ceiling. Adam bared his teeth and shook his head in an attempt to push the memories away again.

Adam carefully scanned the faces around him as he and Oliver ran past the trusted stalls with street food. Now that he’d discarded his hat and cloak, people might recognize him. And since he’d always loved browsing the stalls and meeting the traders from all parts of the known world, familiar faces were everywhere.

Adam’s gaze darted over the crowd as he zig-zagged through the masses. Hastily, he took a turn to the left, before the twins with their stall of salted giraffid meat and marinated crocodile tails could see him. Scents like sharp spices, roasted hazelnuts, and smoked swordfish washed over him as he jumped over crates. People gasped and sprung away, although he wasn’t sure whether they recognized him or if they were startled by two idiots running past them. Up above on the wooden bridges that crisscrossed between the shops’ higher storeys, a group of shaggy veterans peered down. Smoking their long pipes, they eyed Adam and Oliver curiously and whispered something to each other.

Adam sighed, the urge to take a less conspicuous, longer route almost overwhelming. No, Emily needs to know about Caine as quickly as possible. He checked again if they were being followed but could only see Oliver lagging behind.

Oliver panted and wiped his reddened forehead. “By the night, how can you move so fast?! I know you’ve developed resistance against Invocations, but he just blasted you through the roof!”

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“Training and exercise, my friend,” Adam said, trying to ignore his guilt for lying. Who knows how he’ll react to my heart? I’ve already lost one friend too many today… “Remember what our old captain used to say?”

“ ‘Two-hundred push-ups a day keeps the enemy away,’ ” Oliver droned, mimicking the nasal voice of their old captain.

“Exactly,” Adam said, pushing back the nagging memories of how strong he used to be. How he physically was a miserable, clumsy shadow of the man who they used to call the Fist of Gotterburg. “Why isn’t Caine following us? Is he taking a different route?”

Oliver barely dodged a guy who tried to make his dog stop chomping down on a slow-roasted camel. The short stall owners angrily clicked their tongues in their southern accent.

“Ugh, I don’t know!” Oliver said. “Too bad none of us got the idea to leave sooner, you know, before we had to fight everyone in the hallway? Maybe then we wouldn’t have to run our asses off right now!”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Oh, here comes Mr. I-told-you-so. Yes, I should’ve stayed perfectly calm and stated my discontent at the unfurling events. The next time my family is Tainted by a homicidal maniac, I’ll be sure to give it a try,” he said, drenching his words in sarcasm.

After a while, they neared the Starwing Grove of Gotterburg. Like a separate walled town within the city, it was the religious organisation’s main base of operations in the region. After they had run through the open gates, Adam saw the many architectural jewels within the Grove, luckily unmarked by the Penduli’s control or the siege. He couldn’t resist peeking up at the Nest of Rebirth, high between the pearly white branches of the towering Trees of Ivory. Long ago, when Adam and his older brother Joshua were still in touch, they and Caine had unleashed piglets in there during the adulthood ceremony of some posh family. The hilarious chaos that ensued had even been worth his mom’s scolding. Simpler times, Adam thought bitterly.

He and Oliver ran towards a tall sky-blue structure built to resemble an upright owl’s wing, which towered over the rest of the Grove. Adam sighed in relief when he saw that two Myrmidons flanked the entrance. The twenty-foot-tall constructs of blue marble were immensely powerful military units of the Starwing Order. Their vaguely human-shaped bodies, covered in mosaics, holy symbols, and statues of saints, were powerful vessels of Novaseering. However, for some reason these Myrmidons weren’t animated at the moment, making them stand still as statues.

Adam frowned, worry growing in his gut. “Why is no one guarding this place?! And why is it so deserted here, is that normal?”

“No, it definitely isn’t!” Oliver panted, his voice echoing through the entrance hall. “Hurry, Emily should be at the Talon’s Circle!”

Adam and Oliver ran through a wide central courtyard. Built to resemble the mythical mountain valley of Aves, the lush courtyard made abundantly clear that the Starwing Order wasn’t shy of coin. Oak trees and silvered statues of the holy gestures decorated the inner ring of each floor. Small canals led to small waterfalls to the lower floors and ended up at the fish-filled pond at the centre. It never fails to impress, although that’s probably the point. I wonder how much taxpayers’ money was invested into this.

Adam focused on his hearing. Besides their footsteps and the soft hooting of owls, he heard the vague scraping of metal in the distance. He groaned and forced his tired legs to move even faster. “There’s fighting going on, move!”

Oliver burst into a sprint and led the way over the narrow stairways and bridges within the courtyard that connected the different floors. The sounds of combat grew clearer and clearer as they approached the silvered doors of the Talon’s Circle: the scrape of something sharp against a shield, the thud of a body hitting the ground, and a battle cry from Emily.

Adam and Oliver nodded to each other and the latter quickly formed six Marrow knives with Novaseering.

With a thundering boom, Adam kicked open the doors to the wide circular room. Armoured soldiers, dressed in the reds and blues of the Penduli, tried to take Emily down. Her chestnut hair waved around her pale face while she swung her Marrow halberd in well-practised manoeuvres. As soon as one of the Penduli glanced back at Adam and Oliver’s entrance, she capitalized on the man’s distraction and relieved him of his head. Several other Penduli lay still on the colourful carpet already.

Adam roared like a beast and charged. Before the Penduli archer in front of him could even nock his arrow, Adam twisted the man’s neck with a snap. Oliver jumped up and threw his daggers, hitting one of the soldiers in the chest and another in the throat.

“COWARDS!” Emily hissed. She deflected the swing of a heavy mace with her Marrow halberd although it shattered in the process. Before the last attacker standing could strike again, she grabbed one of the white shards from mid-air and jammed it into his temple.

“Nice move,” Adam managed to say between his panting. He puffed out his cheeks and laid his hands on his trembling legs. The heat from his heart seemed exhausted so there was no quick relief. How did the Penduli get into the heart of the Starwing Grove? Did they kill the guards and deactivate the Myrmidons? He glanced around. “Maybe we should—”

With a furious battle cry, Oliver finished off a Pendulum on the ground by flicking a knife at his forehead. The man limply dropped a spear and his eyes rolled back. All other Penduli were far beyond a state where they could be questioned.

“—keep one of them alive…” Adam continued slowly.

Oliver blinked. “Oh.”

“Might’ve been clever,” Emily said sheepishly, with a slight wheeze in her voice.

“Right. Anyway.” Adam looked up at her. “Nice to see you, how’ve you been?” His eyes darted towards the splashes of blood on her uniform of the Talons of Aves. “Are you hurt?” he asked in a more serious tone.

Emily chuckled. “Hiya, nice timing there.” With a gloved hand, she wiped a lock of hair from her heart-shaped face. Sadly, her olive brown skin still had its pale, unhealthy undertone. “I’m fine. The bastards snuck up on me, but I heard them coming.”

Adam sighed in sweet, sweet relief. He wanted to hug her, but remembered just in time she avoided physical contact as much as possible. “I’m so glad to see you.”

She smiled radiantly up at him. Her big orange eyes didn’t even flash towards his neck or wrists, which he greatly appreciated. “You really are alive.” She said with a hint of marvel. In a mischievous smile, she raised one corner of her mouth. “A tad on the quick side to be so out of breath, though.”

“Uhm…” Adam wanted to answer with a witty remark, but the words eluded him. How do I explain this?

Oliver cleared his throat. “Your brother is a traitor and could be here any minute. We were in his… I mean, your parents’ old mansion and heard him planning military operations for the Penduli. We barely survived when he and Catherine attacked together with other Penduli.”

Emily’s eyes widened and she looked back and forth between Oliver and Adam. “What… hold on, you guys fought?”

Adam nodded slowly. “He Tainted Catherine and Eric to believe Caine is their husband and father,” he said tonelessly, clenching his shaking fist. “They didn’t even recognize me anymore.”

Emily took a few steps back, her face became even paler than usual. “Guys, this better not be some kind of joke…”

Adam shook his head. “I wish—”

“CAINE’S NEAR THE CEILING!” Oliver yelled. He leapt back and hastily raised both hands in the Ironglass gesture.