Alyzza gave a shrill laugh and raised her hands as if she were welcoming the first rains of spring. Fire, not water, came at the call of her magic, striking amid the advancing figures. They avoided the lightning, but it did not deter them, nor did the white-hot bolts seem to instill any fear. Some of the beings stalked upright on two feet, while others slithered or crawled, an infernal bestiary of beings Tris might have said belonged to the fevered visions of a mystic or the terrors of a child. Their strange and frightening silhouettes were oddly familiar, and Tris realized with a start that he had glimpsed many of the same twisted visages and taloned profiles in an illuminated manuscript of
dimonns
and beings of the Underrealm.
“What are those things?” Fallon’s voice was an awestruck murmur.
Tris felt the ancient magic, and it chilled him to the bone. “Nachele,” he said. “We’d better hope the Dread are planning to show up, or this battle won’t be ending in our favor.”
Until now, Senne, Soterius, and the other generals had managed to keep their harried soldiers in position despite the onslaught of
dimonns
and hollowed spirits. The Margolan soldiers stayed at their posts, even when reinforcements came in the form of revenants. But at this new horror, men dropped their weapons and fled, although the advancing Nachele cut off any hope of retreat, pushing the terrified soldiers closer to the line of Temnottan attack.
Estan, Dagen, Vitya, we need your men here!
The ghost armies materialized amid the chaos of mortal troops that
scrambled to fend off the new attack. The dead commanders saw the Nachele and gave Tris a curt nod of acknowledgment, understanding their new orders. Three legions of the dead massed in front of the living troops as the Nachele closed the distance with long, predatory strides.
The Nachele stalked forward as if the mass of spirits and men meant nothing to them. Their long, clawed arms and lashing barbed tails swept through the spirit soldiers as if they were nothing but smoke. Yet everywhere the Nachele touched, their power burned, so that even the dead writhed. Linked by magic, Tris sensed the rending power that drew the essence from the revenant soldiers, until they winked out into nothing, their souls extinguished.
Senne’s soldiers were the front line of mortal fighters, and Tris guessed that Senne had left Soterius with the task of holding back Scaith’s soldiers. Archers launched flight upon flight of blazing arrows toward the approaching Nachele. Where the arrows hit, they stuck, still burning in the Nachele’s flesh, as if they represented nothing more than gnat bites. Tris had no illusions about Senne’s soldiers being able to hold off this new assault.
Around him, Alyzza rained down bolts of lightning and Fallon’s magic called to the winds, trying to hold the Nachele at bay. Tris mustered his magic and let a shadow of himself slip into the Plains of Spirit. He sensed the approach of the Dread.
When you called to me, I came and I met your challenge. Help us, as you aided Marlan the Gold. We can’t fight these things alone. Long ago, you also made a pact with Marlan, whose blood flows in my veins. Honor your blood bond
.
Power stirred the air. The hair on Tris’s arms stood up,
and the back of his neck prickled in warning. A sound like a hundred thunderclaps rolled across the battlefield as the ground at their feet tore open. Soldiers staggered back from a crevice that quickly widened to a chasm. From the maw of the chasm rose the massive, dark silhouettes of the Dread. Tris had seen the Dread in the spirit realm. Here among the living, their appearance was quite different. Swirling black shrouds covered the huge beings, but as Tris watched, he realized that the dark fringe was moving, a covering of tendrils that bent and reached.
Some of the Nachele had broken away from the others. Tris saw dark shapes moving to intercept, and he knew that Trefor and Kolja had interposed the
vayash moru
and
vyrkin
to slow the Nachele’s advance. Men screamed and scattered at the approach of a new horror. Even the
dimonns
and hollowed ghosts fled before the Nachele, or wilted beneath the Nachele’s deadly touch. The valor of the
vayash moru
and
vyrkin
, Tris feared, would not be enough. It did not seem to worry the Dread that some of their quarry had wandered free.
Time means nothing to the Dread. They may be confident that they can defeat the Nachele, but we may all be dead by the time their victory happens
.
“King Martris!” Tris turned at the unexpected voice. Coalan had hailed him, and the young man was breathing hard as he climbed the ridge. Coalan was covered in dirt and blood, as if he had fought his way to the hilltop.
“You’ve got to do something,” Coalan panted. “Uncle Ban’s troops can’t hold out much longer. It’s bad down there. Two of the catapult crews have been wiped out, mages and all. The camp is a shambles. If there’s anything you can do, now would be a good time to do it.”
Alyzza danced closer to Tris, her face alight with madness. “The blood of kings, a sacrifice. King Gustaven knew what you must learn.”
Tris met her mad gaze, and a memory clicked into place. The Obsidian King had written about Hadenrul and Gustaven, kings who died in battle. Tris had seen the mural in Hadenrul’s tomb that showed the Formless One requiring the king’s heart in exchange for victory. But now Tris realized where he had heard Gustaven’s name. A play at the Haunts feast day about a long-ago battle had told the tale of King Gustaven. And while it had been years since Tris had thought about that play, he remembered its ending clearly. Gustaven hadn’t fallen on his sword out of cowardice. He had invoked an ancient, powerful magic that required the most potent and precious ingredient for success: the life blood of a king.
Not all magic that involves blood is to be feared, my son. Blood can damn, and blood can redeem. It is the first magic, and the strongest
. Tris could hear the voice of Hadenrul’s ghost clearly in his mind, and with a growing sense of certainty, the words began to make sense.
“Go fetch Soterius,” Tris said to Coalan. “There’s no time to lose. Bring him here. There’s one more thing I can do, but I’ll need his help.”
The moments slipped by as Tris waited for Soterius to return. He refused to answer Fallon’s worried questions, even as he mustered his own courage for a desperate bid for victory. Alyzza hummed and sang to herself, paying no attention to them. Tris had learned in his first battles how to shield himself from the part of his magic that saw the souls of the battle dead rise from their corpses, but exhausted as he was, that shielding did not hold. He
looked out across the battlefield and saw a cloud of newly riven souls floating above their sundered bodies. With a flicker of his magic, he sent those that were willing back as revenant fighters, while the others he freed to pass over to the Lady, eliminating the possibility that Scaith might force their spirits back into their corpses to be used against their comrades.
A candlemark later, Coalan and Soterius returned to the knoll. “By the Whore, Tris. We’re in the thick of it. This is a bad time for a meeting.”
Tris met Soterius’s gaze. “We’re losing, aren’t we?”
Soterius took a deep breath. “It’s slaughter. Senne is dead. The troops are barely on their feet. There’s no strategy except individual units trying to stay alive. It’s a rout.” He shook his head. “We’ll fight to the last man, but we can’t hold off what Scaith’s thrown at us.”
“I believe Scaith has been drawing his power from the other battle fronts,” Tris said. Fallon and Esme listened in worried silence. Alyzza danced closer to hear. “I think that’s why he’s had the huge surge of magic to call the
dimonns
and the hollowed spirits. It’s what’s giving him the ability to draw the Nachele. We can’t win this unless I find the same kind of power.”
“What do you need from me?” Soterius replied. “Whatever it is, take it. Just find the power to keep Scaith from conquering Margolan.”
Tris paused and glanced at the
Telorhan
guards who surrounded them. “Captain,” he said. “Leave us.”
“But, Your Majesty—”
“Leave us.”
When the guards were gone, Tris looked back to Soterius and Fallon. Alyzza danced closer. “I know why the
Obsidian King was obsessed with Hadenrul and Gustaven,” he said quietly. “They both worked very old, very powerful magic to win their wars. Magic that has only one source. A king’s life blood.”
Soterius’s expression was a mixture of horror and disbelief. “You can’t possibly—”
Tris withdrew his sword from its scabbard. At his touch, the runes along Nexus’s blade flared into life, realigning themselves.
Heir of blood and power
, the runes read in a fiery, swirling script, just a flicker of the magic that thrummed within the sword. He offered the blade, hilt first, to Soterius.
“I don’t know if the magic will let me return. Neither Hadenrul nor Gustaven were summoners. I’m also sure that it has to be a mortal wound, willingly sustained. A blood sacrifice. That’s why the blood of combat doesn’t work, or blood shed from assassination, like Donelan. If the power requires blood but it doesn’t take my soul, I may be able to use my magic to come back. There isn’t anything in the legends about a summoner working this magic.”
“You’re asking us to murder the king,” Fallon said incredulously.
“Aye, that he is.” It was Alyzza who spoke, but in this moment, her eyes had lost their madness. “It’s old magic he speaks of, very powerful. He’s right that the Obsidian King lusted after it, but not enough to risk himself. Only a king’s blood can work the magic.”
“Drive the blade straight into my heart,” Tris said levelly, meeting Soterius’s eyes. “Leave Nexus in the wound. It holds a shadow of my soul; I saw that when I walked among the Dread. That may help me find my way home. Fallon and Esme can put a preservation spell on my body,
at least for a little while. With any luck, my magic and theirs will bring me back.”
“This is madness,” Soterius protested.
Tris saw fear and confusion in Soterius’s eyes. “Ban, we’ve been together since we were boys. I’m asking this as a friend. Please don’t make me order it as a king.” Reluctantly, Soterius accepted the sword.
Tris removed his helmet. Coalan stepped up to help Tris remove his cuirass. Tris could see that Coalan’s hands were shaking. Tris stripped off the chain-mail tunic and the linen shirt beneath it. Finally, he was naked to the waist, and he closed his eyes and then took a deep breath, centering his magic and forcing away his fear. He opened his eyes and met Soterius’s gaze.
“I’m ready.”
“Goddess, forgive me,” Soterius murmured, as he grasped the hilt and drove the sword between the ribs, deep into Tris’s heart.
Tris gasped at the pain and caught a ragged breath. Fallon and Esme were both chanting under their breath as each grabbed a shoulder and helped Tris fall gently onto his back with Nexus still impaled between his ribs. He caught a glimpse of Soterius’s ashen face and knew what loyalty had cost.
Blood poured from the wound, first with a gush as his heart tried to beat, and then more slowly as his heart quivered and went still. Breath ceased. Dimly, he heard Fallon and Esme finish their preservation spell, but by then, his spirit was seeping with his blood deep into the ground.
Unlike the many times he had left behind his body to travel in the Plains of Spirit, this time, Tris felt the blue-white strand of his life thread unravel, felt his body recede
from his reach. Yet the blood that seeped through the ground around him gave him warmth and held his power and his essence. But more than that, Tris could feel the power that emanated from the blood sacrifice, felt it swell like a wave out over the battlefield and knew that the mages and the Dread could turn that power to their advantage as Scaith had drawn on the carnage for his own purposes.
Sacred Lady of the Eight Faces, hear me. I have made the sacrifice of king’s blood. Grant me deliverance for my people
.
In the Nether, Tris could feel the energy of the men, monsters, and spirits that moved above, in the realm of the living. Nexus, able through its magic to be present in the world of the living and the places of the dead, felt solid and real in his hand. To his surprise, Marlan the Gold’s talisman had also followed him into the Nether, as did Talwyn’s amulet.
In the Nether, Tris’s summoner-magic seemed heightened as never before. The life energy of the soldiers, locked in mortal combat, pulsed around him, surging and vibrant in its desperate intensity. All around him, souls fled the mangled bodies of the dead, and Tris could sense the magic that fed on the energy of their death and the carnage of the battlefield.
The Nether flickered and glistened. Tris recognized the signature of power before the form could take its full shape. Scaith. He didn’t wait for the figure to solidify. Tris sent a blast of magic, disrupting the shimmering cloud. Tris felt Scaith’s power crackle around him, as the cold magic of the dark summoner slammed against Tris’s own shields. Scaith’s power had lost its iridescent shimmer.
Now, it roiled like storm clouds in the Nether. Tris readied for another strike, but before he could act, a tendril of power lashed toward him. It cut across him, an agonizing touch that staggered him. Though he possessed no physical form in the Nether, Tris had learned through bitter experience that injuries were no less real on the Plains of Spirit than in the world of the living. Where the tendril struck, it left a trail of pain and a momentary depletion of his magic.
Another tendril lashed toward him. Tris blocked it with Nexus, and the ghost sword flared as the blood-red tendril sought to wrap itself around the blade. Nexus grew brighter and brighter, until the tendril blackened and withered.