Page 24

CHAPTER 24

The special unit Lieutenant Lonn selected rode at a gallop along the mountain path, past the curves of the glacial river until their mounts glistened with sweat.

There had been little time to talk as they made their way to the location the scouts had pinpointed as the priests’ camp.

Elva’s mind raced through all she knew about the murders, but there were too many thoughts in her head to make sense.

And when Lonn gave a short whistle and the horses slowed, it wasn’t thoughts of logic that warred in her head, but the lure of violence.

The ten soldiers – eleven, including Elva – jumped from their mounts and tied their reins to tree limbs, then crept quickly through the bush.

Lonn had given them an approximate layout of the camp, and they crept quietly in three groups, spreading out among the trees, circling the camp at a distance.

Elva followed Fyn’s broad shoulders through the brush, amazed such a big man could be so quiet.

She was used to fighting on horseback defending the plains, not in a dense crop of mountain trees that made visibility a nightmare.

She watched Fyn’s quiet movements and replicated them until her footfalls blended into the cacophony of life around her.

The wind tickled the canopy of leaves above.

They were such gentle sounds, so at odds with the roar in her head.

She could hear muffled voices, and through the scrub she saw movement as the priests packed down their camp.

Her blood pounded at the sight of the figures, nerves moving between anger and anticipation in rapid succession.

They wore the plum robes of the Seacht’s order, but there was a casualness to their pushed-back sleeves and muddy hems that made Elva think they were not, in fact, men of the cloth.

The scouts had relayed there were four men at the camp, but everything else was awash with unknown.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Fyn hold up a hand and signal the group to their left.

Lonn nodded, and his unit quickly dropped into position, their rustles quiet, blending into the forest soundscape.

She closed her eyes and plunged into the flow, ready to lose herself to instinct – but something didn’t feel right.

She shook off the worry; she was just unused to Clochain tactics, unused to the men around her, she reasoned.

But every time she tried to visualise the fight using her knowing, the images dissolved before she could see a resolution.

She clamped down on the panic rearing its head.

Stop freaking yourself out Elva, how many times have I told you to panic only when you have all the information?

Neve whispered.

Stay calm, stay the course.

A series of short, sharp birdcalls sounded, and from the other side of the clearing she saw Lonn and three soldiers fan out, then barrel straight into the priests’ camp.

Shouts arose, and her muscles roared with desire to join the fight – but she waited, pushing away the knot twisting in her stomach.

The Clochain unit was highly trained.

They might not be her warriors, but they were decent fighters, and she needed to let them do their job.

It was only when her prickle of Ever flared to life and a priest dived through the bush that she stepped out from behind a tree and swung her axe into the man’s neck.

She hadn’t expected the man to burst into a swirl of smoking wisps, sending her axe cleaving right through where his body was a moment ago, wedging into the tree behind.

She grunted in surprise, yanking her weapon out of the bark as the priest came charging at her, two long knives drawn.

She rolled to one side and flung her axe out, which splayed right through the priest’s mist again.

Holy gods —

She heard Fyn run towards her, and a series of clangs echoed as he engaged the man, his sword meeting the priest’s knives with precision.

Their bodies were a whirl, but as soon as Fyn got a clear shot, the man vanished in a warped Evert, and Fyn’s sword went spinning out of his hands.

She met his gaze and a charge flew between them, then he darted a look over her shoulder.

Before he could yell she ducked, the priest’s knife spinning over her.

Fyn pulled a blade from his belt and flung it above her head.

A thump and grunt echoed as it hit true, and she used the distraction to pivot on bent knees, thrusting her axe up in one clean movement, the blade shattering the priest’s jaw and lodging in his skull.

Hot liquid gushed onto her hands and face, and she gasped as the weight of the man fell on top of her; Fyn’s knife in his shoulder, her axe in his head.

She pushed the axe away and scrambled out.

‘What the fuck?’ she gasped, wiping the thick fluid from her palms and onto her pants.

She gagged as the tang of copper and something else hit her senses.

Fyn stumbled towards her, swallowing profusely as he smelled the viscous fluid gushing from the dead man.

She stared at the priest’s body, trying and failing to figure out what had happened.

‘Are they demigods? How the hell can they Evert like that?’

She reached for her axe and wrenched it out of the body with a sickly crunch, dismayed to find the blade nicked.

What the hell were their bones made of?

She drew it close, her frustration turning into curiosity when she saw it wasn’t a nick in her axe but a small, crushed, coin-like object crumpled around the blade.

It was gold, or it would have been if it wasn’t drenched in blood.

She pried it off, the metal splitting into two pieces in her hand.

A shout from the clearing echoed through the woods and her head snapped up.

Without speaking she and Fyn turned and ran towards the clearing, and she pocketed the broken object as she went.

Bodies lay scattered, flung around the clearing like confetti.

They were all Clochain men.

She centred herself, letting the calm clarity of battle fill her senses once more.

Two injured Clochain soldiers were kneeling in front of a bald priest, the hood of his robes rippling in the wind as he chanted something softly.

A moment later the priest lifted his hands and plunged a long knife into the first soldier’s neck, and then the second.

Their screams sputtered as they choked on their own blood.

She didn’t have time to comprehend the horror when a crash to her right had her spinning – Lonn and the remaining Clochain soldiers parrying with two priests.

How had they lost so many men so quickly?

She scanned the clearing, her mind discarding options as quickly as they arose until knowing washed over her.

She dropped to her knees and flung the leather-hilted knife Fyn had given her at the eye of the bald priest.

Her aim was true, but just as the knife was about to sink into his socket, the man disappeared into a puff of swirling mist, the knife falling to the ground with a dull thud.

She spun, her gaze snagging on the place where Fyn had joined the fight with Lonn, stepping in to replace one of the soldiers who had fallen.

She tore her attention from the scene as the bald priest reappeared in front of her, his features hazy as he vacillated from opaque to translucent.

She swung her axe at him, body arcing in movement.

Her weapon swung through him and she pivoted, finding her feet before swinging again.

Cold anger fuelled her movements.

Again and again she swung her blade, but it was as if he knew where she would strike, knew when to dissolve before she’d even moved.

The man’s features were hard; sharp lines and unforgiving eyes, but so bland she wondered if she’d be able to recognise him again.

She shook her head, and his face shifted as he dissolved and reappeared behind her.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, parrying a blow.

She knocked his sword aside easily and went to strike again.

He wasn’t a good fighter, but the strange Everting ability gave him the upper hand.

Where her axe should have carved through his ribs, there was only air.

‘Who do you serve?’ she spat, feigning a blow to his head while her left leg snaked out to kick him in the shins.

She was surprised when her foot made contact, and leaped upon him, axe at the ready when again , he vanished in a swirl of smoke.

She landed with a thud and turned, finding him on the other side of the clearing.

His figure was hazy behind Fyn, who towered over a priest.

The robed man lay on his stomach, Lonn’s knees in his back.

She didn’t have time to figure out why the fallen man wasn’t disappearing before Fyn thrust his sword into the second priest’s back, his body thrashing in the throes of the Ending.

They were so focused on the man on the ground, neither Fyn nor Lonn saw the bald priest behind them, a cold smile on his face as he raised a knife.

She didn’t have time to think; just bellowed an incoherent warning as she threw her weight behind the axe to fling the metal in a sweeping arc.

Fyn ducked and the wooden handle hit the priest in the thigh.

He crumpled, sword falling out of his hand and onto the body of a dead Clochain soldier.

Lonn turned, raising his sword but he was too late.

The priest vanished in a swirl of mist.

Seconds passed as she spun, trying to find where he was—

‘The horses!’ Elva shouted, as she caught a glimpse of plum robes in the woods.

The priest jumped onto the nearest horse, slashing the ties holding it to a tree and galloping away.

Lonn and the last standing soldier gave chase, the crash of the hooves fading as they disappeared into the forest.

‘Elva!’

She spun, her hand reaching for her a knife as she turned to face the remaining priest.

Where did he come from?

Her fingers curled around thin air where her knife usually sat and she took a step back, the first hint of real fear colouring her vision.

The man’s lips curled into a joyless smile as he approached, sword pointed directly at her heart.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, taking small steps back, trying to figure out where the nearest weapon was.

‘Who do you serve?’

Fyn stalked silently behind the priest, eyes flashing.

She circled away, trying to keep the man’s attention on her as Fyn prowled closer.

‘Why did you kill all those people?’

‘The window is near, the conditions as foretold for Him.’

‘Him? You mean Caius?’

The man spat in response, lunging at her, and she danced backwards.

‘Is the massacre a summoning for the Seacht?’ she tried again.

The priest laughed, his tone joyless.

‘We are not sheep, bleating after their master. The Seacht will fall, and we shall rise in its stead.’

She met Fyn’s gaze over the priest’s shoulder and understood his order as clearly as if he had spoken it.

She nodded almost imperceptibly and took another step back, angling the priest so Fyn was directly behind him.

‘I’m going to ask one more time, who do you serve?

’

The priest merely smiled and frustration thudded like lead in her stomach, but she didn’t give herself time to worry.

Sensing rather than seeing Fyn’s movement, she feinted left and dove to the ground, thumping into the priest’s legs.

He stumbled at the contact, and disappeared into smoke before reappearing, sword drawn high to drive through her neck.

But her faux offering had been right.

As soon as he reappeared, Fyn’s sword burst through his chest, sending a spray of the sickly sweet blood showering onto her head.

The man opened his mouth as if to say something, but Fyn thrust the sword in deeper, and the priest collapsed to the ground.

He wheezed a final time, pools of thick blood spreading out around him, onto Elva.

Fyn raised his sword again, and with a grunt, hacked the priest’s head clean off.