Page 33 of HeartTorn (WarBride #2)
ILSEVEL
An explosion of un-song assaults my senses.
It’s so abrupt, so extreme, for a moment I believe the vardimnar has fallen, and we somehow missed the warning signs of black lightning in the sky. I scream at the shock, stagger to a halt, and brace my legs. It’s all I can do, not to fall to my knees.
As though from a distance, other senses thrust at my awareness. Red cloaks flash before my eyes like blood spewing from a wound. A stench of rot in my nostrils, a taste of iron on my tongue, and somewhere, faraway, Taar’s voice shouting my name. But all of that seems to belong to a world quite apart from the one I inhabit. Here, in this world, there is only song and that dark intent which shreds it, disintegrates it, and renders it not.
Elydark’s furious bugle brings me back with a painful jolt. The pure power of licorneir song shoots like fire through my soul, momentarily purging the un-song. I gasp, my dizzy vision whirling around me. The world is upside down and inside out, a confusion of movement and violence I can make no sense of. Before me in the grass lies a net of those black fibers which I had seen binding Nyathri on the altar stone. It seems to writhe like a mass of living snakes, but after a series of blinks, I’m able to force my mind to see it for what it is: knotted rope, black and white. Pulsing faintly with more of that hideous un-song.
Another blink, and I’m able to drag my awareness into the present. I remember now the figures throwing back coverings of those woven nets, under which they had lain hidden while Taar, Elydark, and I approached. In the deep gloom of pre-dawn, I’d run past them without noticing, my attention consumed by the broken unicorn song I pursued. Tossing them aside, a host of crimson-cloaked figures had emerged, radiating an intense pulse of un-song. It’s like they are pieces of the vardimnar itself, clad in human shape.
I know who they are: the undead. The silent figures who accompanied Artoris to the Temple of Lamruil. He had brought only ten, but there are more now. In my stunned state, I cannot count them, but I think there might be thirty or more.
They ring us in: a circle of figures around me, another around Taar, and a third penning in Elydark, cutting us off from one another. Those who watch me make no move to attack. The others are more active, for Taar and Elydark both put up valiant fights. Taar is unarmed, his sword still sheathed to Elydark’s saddle. My heart twists at the realization, knowing he will soon be cut down.
The crimson cloaks don’t seem intent on killing him, however. They use their weapons to fend him off and keep him imprisoned in their ever-tightening circle, away from Elydark. I see no wounds on his flesh, though they could easily have sliced him to ribbons by now.
I reach for my own knife at my belt. It isn’t much, but the weight of it in my palm gives me comfort as I face those spectral beings. I spin in place, trying to get my eyes on all of them at once. Five crimson cloaks, all hooded so that their faces are hidden in shadow, surround me. There is no escape, no weakness in their defenses. The un-song pulses from each of them, an individualized horror of devolving. It seeks to drag me down into madness, pulling at my gods-gifted awareness. I shake my head harshly, then let out a furious scream, anything to block out that noise. I won’t let them frighten me. Brandishing my little blade, I charge the nearest figure, who simply lifts an arm, deflecting my blow. A hand reaches out from under red folds of cloak. I catch a glimpse of rotted flesh before it plants on my chest and, with a single push, knocks me off my feet.
I hit the ground, cushioned somewhat by the tall grass. I manage to keep my grip on the knife and yank it up, holding it before me. Gods, I hate how my hand trembles! Taar’s voice bursts in a wordless roar somewhere behind me, followed by renewed sounds of struggle. But my vision is wholly taken up in that towering form stepping toward me, bathed in the sickly pale light of the rising sun. That rotten hand reaches, slowly, inevitably, like the hand of death itself.
Then all the world seems to freeze as a cold, clear voice speaks somewhere behind me: “It is unbecoming for a man to pull a sword on his betrothed. Some would call it ungracious, particularly in a king.”
My stomach drops. That voice, though speaking out loud, carries in its every tone writhing and devouring un-song, which strips it of all that once may have been bright, even beautiful.
I twist around, push myself up, and throw hair out of my face. A figure appears through the morning mist. At first I cannot understand what I’m seeing, it’s so great, so large, so pulsing with devouring darkness. My mind tries to tell me it’s a demon, broken through the surging black from Ashtari to haunt this world.
Shutting my eyes, I force back the clamoring awareness of my gods-gift. Always such a useless gift, it’s certainly not helping right now! Mortal senses once more dominant, I look again, and this time, I am able to see that which approaches.
It’s a unicorn. Enormous, built like a bull rather than a horse, with mighty shoulders and massive hooves which send tremors to the core of the world at each step. It moves in a strange, unnatural gait, as though whatever animates its limbs doesn’t quite know what to do with them.
It’s dead. I know it the instant I set eyes on it. Not just by the rotten flesh hanging from exposed bones, not just by the hollowed-out eye sockets and the stench of decay. This deadness is so much worse. Whereas the unicorns I have seen up until now, whether whole or hearttorn, pulsed with living fire-song, this thing, this hulking carcass, seethes with un-song. It ripples through and around it, like liquid black ribbons, passing through the empty eye socket, out through the gaping nostril, in through exposed ribs, out through the gaping hole in the abdomen.
A woman rides this monstrosity. Her crimson hood is thrown back to reveal her dead face. Whatever color her skin might once have been is long lost, leaving behind bloodless gray flesh. Death-filmed eyes gaze out from sunken sockets, and rot eats away at her mouth and down an old wound along her jaw.
And yet one cannot deny her beauty, still clinging to her even after death. Or more than beauty—her power. The sheer force and energy which once simmered in her spirit and glowed out from the core of her being. It’s still there, still present enough that one can almost, almost hear the echo of what must have been a nearly overwhelming soul-song.
Now that song, like the song of the unicorn she rides, is unwound in coils, devoured and rendered nothing. Not broken—simply void.
Her dead eyes fix on Taar with such focus, I would almost believe she didn’t know I was present at all. Taar stares back, his face gone slack, his eyes wide with horror so absolute, it transforms his face into that of a stranger.
In that moment I know who this woman is. Shanaera. The one who was meant to be Taar’s wife. Looking at her now, even in death, I see how fate has robbed them both. She would have made a great queen. The force of her nature, the strength of her body and will, is evident even now amid ruin and decay. What must she have been like in life, before her song was corrupted?
She reins in her hellish mount. Her rotten mouth twists in a half-smile. Though we are still surrounded by tall crimson cloaks, it’s almost as though they’ve faded away, whatever threat they posed simply unimportant in the face of this woman and her menace. She tips her head slightly to one side, strands of lusterless black hair falling across her sunken cheek. “Well, beloved?”
she says, little spools of black un-song underscoring her words. “Have you nothing to say to me?”
Taar cannot speak. The muscles of his throat tighten, but I’m not sure he even draws breath. Elydark, however, utters a vicious roar, rearing and tearing at the air with his sharp hooves. Shanaera turns her head sharply, the movement not quite natural, and her smile grows, revealing blackened gums. “Ah! A pleasure to see you once more as well, dear Elydark. Have you no more kindly greeting for an old friend?”
Elydark roars again. Underneath that sound, his soul-song resonates deep sorrow and loss. But there’s aggression in that song as well. He will do anything to protect Taar from any foe, even one who was once dear to them both.
Shanaera lifts an eyebrow as though she’s been insulted. She turns to Taar once more. “You should keep your licorneir under better regulation, beloved. Such behavior is not a good reflection on you.”
“What are you doing here?”
Taar’s voice is a painful rasp of sound, like the words are clawing up from his chest.
“What? Here in this valley?”
Shanaera spreads an arm, gesturing around at the dead carcasses under nets, slowly becoming visible by the growing light of day. My stomach drops as I turn to take in the sight. There are so many dead unicorns pinned under those awful nets. Twenty, maybe more, all drained of blood, their manes and tails shorn. The wrongness of it rocks my soul. I wish suddenly that I had died last night. I wish that Taar had never rescued me, that he’d left me to that priest and his knife. Then I would not have had to live to see such evil.
“I should think it would be obvious,”
Shanaera continues mildly, un-song spooling from her tongue. “We’re harvesting.”
In an ungraceful surge of limbs, she dismounts, strides over to the nearest netted carcass, and nudges it with her foot. “It’s not as though they’re good for much else anymore, these velrhoar beasts.”
“Harvesting?”
Taar echoes. “Harvesting what?”
“Their blood of course.”
Shanaera lifts her dead gaze and smiles at Taar’s expression. “The blood of even a velrhoar licorneir brims with heavenly purity and light. A potent magic source. The Miphates find it indispensable for survival in this land of Cruor they’ve created. How else did you think they powered their mage-paths?”
She shrugs and looks down at the dead beast once more. “They used to struggle. Catching and killing unicorns for their blood is no easy task. That’s where my people come in.”
She kicks at a bit of the rope netting, still tangled around the dead unicorn’s limbs. “We’ve got our ways, haven’t we? For subduing wild unicorns. Chaeora rope was a revelation to the Miphates.”
Taar curses softly. Then: “You aren’t Shanaera.”
She looks up at him sharply. “What?”
“You aren’t her,”
he says again. “She would never work for the Miphates. Not in life, nor in death.”
Leaving the dead unicorn where it lies, she strides toward him. Crimson cloaks back away, making a path for her between them, and she walks right up and puts her face close to his. I can see now how they are well-matched in size. Though his breadth is nearly twice hers, she is muscular and strong, even in her partially decayed state. She is a creature of pure ferocity, not to be suppressed by a mere grave.
“Maybe,”
she says, her lips pulled back from her flashing teeth and rotten gums, “you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
I wonder why Taar doesn’t lunge at her, fight her with his bare hands. He’s unarmed, but I’ve seen him face greater foes. For gods’ sake, he just took on ten Licornyn guards together last night, didn’t he? But he seems petrified, like his very core has been turned to stone.
Shanaera tosses back her head and laughs. “Don’t worry!”
she says, patting his cheek with her lifeless fingers. “We don’t kill all of them. Not right away at least. Those who are not too far gone to velrhoar can be used for other purposes.”
She raises her hand and snaps her fingers. Immediately other dead unicorns appear, manifesting from the mist like they’re stepping out from another world. Three of them, all like the one she rode—songless beings, pulsing with un-song. Blackness ripples under their skin and drips from their empty eye sockets. It looks like the virulium madness I saw, first in the Noxaurians who attacked the temple, later in Taar, when he succumbed to that poisoned cut. I never would have believed such evil could take hold in unicorns. Surely their soulfire would simply burn it out! But these beasts have no souls, no fire.
Though I’ve managed to get to my feet, my knees buckle. The sight of such evil is almost more than I can bear, and the throb of un-song is louder by the moment. I want to scream and shout, want to tear myself out of this reality and escape to any other.
“This is a defilement,”
Taar says. His voice sounds very strange, like something in him has just died. “It’s a desecration of all Licorna holds most dear.”
“You’re one to talk,”
Shanaera snarls, rounding on him. “I heard rumor you took for yourself a human bride and shakhed her, no less. I didn’t believe it at first. My betrothed, forsaking all his vows and binding himself to one of our enemies?”
She turns to me then, for the first time acknowledging my presence. “Only here you are. Alone in the wilds with a human woman. And not just any human—Larongar’s own daughter.”
“What?”
The word bursts from Taar’s lips, but I can scarcely hear it over the sudden pulse of blood in my ears. The ground has dropped out from under me. My knees buckle, and I sway heavily, trying to keep my balance.
Shanaera’s dead eyes turn from Taar to me and back again. Then she throws back her head and laughs. “You didn’t know? Well this is an unexpected delight! Did you think Morthiel would send one of his most promising mages from the safety of the citadel for just any human bitch? The Miphates do nothing without purpose, Taar. Which is more than I can say for you. You’ve always been impulsive to a fault.”
Taar’s eyes are on me. It’s as though he’s forgotten we are surrounded by his own undead people. Forgotten that we are likely to be slaughtered any moment and will be lucky if our bodies are too hacked up to be used for necroliphon experiments. No, he’s looking at me as though I am the most horrific thing ever to set foot in this horrific realm.
“Taar—”
I start to say. But Shanaera strides toward me, dragging my attention to her. She circles me slowly, looks me up and down, then stops in front of me, narrowing her dead eyes as she studies my face.
“How did you like it, little princess?”
she asks. “How did you like shakhing my man? I wonder if his technique has improved. Not that I ever had cause to complain.”
She drops her gaze to my bosom, my loins, then up to my face again. A sneer lifts the rotten corner of her lip. “Something tells me he held back. A puny creature like you couldn’t stand the true force of a Licornyn king’s passion.”
She looks back over her shoulder. “Was it any fun for you, my love? Or were you too afraid you’d break her? Did you miss being able to unleash yourself with a woman your equal?”
Taar’s eyes are on me. I try to meet them, but it’s like staring into the burning face of the sun. I can feel the thoughts, the ideas spinning through his head as he puts together all the little pieces of my story I’ve dared to share with him.
Shanaera laughs again, a wild, manic sound. “Well,”
she says, “maybe the little princess is more entertaining than she looks. Artoris was keen on shakhing her too, said he had some unfinished business which he intended to resolve. But ultimately it’s the gods-gift she carries which interests Morthiel. That’s why he sent his best man to fetch her.”
She shakes her head then, looking at Taar. “Did you not know? All Larongar’s children are gods-gifted. It was the reward the gods bestowed on him for slaying the dragon on Mount Helesatra, if the stories are to be believed. It’s all a bit of a laughingstock, and most of the gifts aren’t worth anything. But hers”—she points a finger at my face—“might be made into something by a man who knows what he’s doing.”
Her dead eyes gaze into mine, as though she would penetrate my brain if she could. “Artoris will be delighted at the return of his lost prize.”
An inhuman sound erupts in the air. Shanaera whirls about, startled, and I look beyond her to see Taar suddenly in motion, his mouth open, bellowing in fury. He ducks the reaching hands of the crimson cloaks, eludes a swinging blade, grabs the arm of his nearest attacker, and, with a heave of muscle, throws him into two of the others. Elydark, responding to his rider’s soul, lashes out with his horn, skewers an undead and tosses it aside. It picks itself back up again, red mage-light gleaming in the wound, but a temporary path is cleared.
Elydark rushes to Taar, who whips his sword from its sheath and pivots just in time to slice the head off the nearest approaching undead, hood and all. Others swarm him, but he fights with his whole body, slashing with the sword, kicking, shouldering, even butting skulls. They fall to his blows, but rise again, save for those he manages to decapitate. But they know their own weakness and don’t give him opportunity for the killing stroke.
Shanaera gestures sharply toward the dead unicorns. One of them lurches into motion, plunging toward the fight. Immediately Elydark places himself between the hellish beast and his rider. He lowers his horn and meets the undead’s charge. They clash like stags before rearing up and tearing at each other with their hooves. My vision clouds as my gods-gift surges forward, overwhelmed by the force of Elydark’s soulfire song and that oozing un-song reaching out from the dead thing with hungry, grasping fingers.
I look down at the knife in my hand. It seems so small, so useless, and my understanding of how to use it next to nothing. But I can’t let Taar and Elydark fight alone. Shanaera’s attention is turned from me, watching the battle with grim glee. I can’t cut her head off with this small blade, but maybe I could—
A piercing burst of broken song fills my head.
Despite the mayhem, the horror, I whip around. Everything in my soul and essence fixates on that new song, that sad, broken dissonance. I know it. I recognize it at once. Coming from one of the netted bodies, lying not too many yards from my position.
“Nyathri,”
I whisper.
The next moment I’m running. The crimson cloaks are so busy throwing themselves at Taar, no one notices when I break from the throng and sprint through the tall grasses. I throw myself on my knees beside the net and am suddenly eye-to-eye with a burning, tortured gaze. It’s her—I freed her from the altar, and she fled back to Cruor and joined the wild unicorns, only to be hunted down, trapped once more under these awful, dark-woven ropes. Why did they not kill her like the others? Is it because she’s not as far gone to velrhoar? Do they intend to make her like one of those un-song monsters?
I set my teeth. It won’t happen. I won’t allow it to happen.
“I’m here, Nyathri,”
I say and set to work cutting at the net. My knife, which sliced through the ropes at the altar easily enough, struggles with this much thicker, knotted braid. The fibers give, but much too reluctantly.
“What the hells are you doing?”
Dead fingers latch hold of my shoulder, yank me off my feet. I scream as I rise, but don’t lose my grip on the knife. Even as I’m spun around, I lash out, driving the blade straight into a gray-filmed eye.
Shanaera stands over me, her mouth gaping in shock. Her fingers do not relax their grip on my shoulder, but her other hand rises slowly to touch the skin just under the socket from which my blade protrudes. “You’ve got a little spirit in you after all.”
Her other eye flicks to my face. “But you’re not the queen Taar needs.”
“Maybe not,”
I snarl and wrench the knife back out of her skull. “But at least I’m alive.”
I lunge for her throat without hesitation, driving all the force I possess into my arm. She blocks me easily and hurls me to the ground with a single backhand. Nyathri screams, struggling within the netting. Little spurts of flame erupt across her body. I turn to her, feel the heat of song against my flesh. Once again I’ve managed to keep a grip on my knife.
Shanaera steps toward me. “It would give me great pleasure to kill you, little one,”
she says. The words echo with the rasping hiss of un-song. “But Morthiel needs you. And we must keep the Miphates happy for the time being.”
Her withered hand reaches for my throat.
In a last desperate wrench, I roll toward Nyathri’s thrashing form, toward her song. Soulfire washes over me, burning. I scream with pain even as I slash at the net with a final, vicious stroke.
The unicorn surges up in an explosion of flame that knocks even Shanaera off her feet. I throw my arms over my head as her fire bursts free and consumes me, an inferno of broken, furious dissonance.