Soul Weaver: A Fantasy Novel (9 page)

On the far side of the road, heavily armed and armored soldiers rose up from the tall grass to advance on the King’s Road. Sanook couldn’t understand it. He had scanned the entire area, and he was sure he would have felt them. How could their souls have been hidden from him?

The first of the soldiers were almost to the road. The Shadowman shook himself and prepared to weave. His friends needed him more than ever. Grimly determined, Sanook struck out with his powerful soul and tickled the heavens for thunder. He was tired already, and this next weave would exhaust him. He needed to make it count.

High overhead, clouds pulled together in the previously clear sky. Ominous flickerings shone through breaks in the thick, roiling clouds Sanook had summoned. Still the Shadowman worked his magic, holding until the last moment to strike. He kept one eye to the road, for he needed to unleash the lightning before the impossible army reached his friends. He would destroy them all, or as nearly all of them as he could manage, in one stroke…

The rooftop of Shel’s carriage erupted upwards, shards of lacquered wood flying into the air. A form emerged. Sanook’s breath caught in his throat when he saw the Archon over the young girl with his arms outspread.

To the Shadowman’s eyes, everything became clear in that instant.

He hadn’t understood how hundreds of soldiers could have been concealed from him. He was able to sense the presence of his comrades. He could feel every member of the Archon’s convoy. He was in tune with the small creatures who flitted through the grass, and the predator birds soaring high above searching the grass for tiny flickers of movement. No soul could be hidden from a Shadowman. It just wasn’t possible. But now he understood.

For Sanook could see the incredible power flowing out from Archon Thorne. In his eyes, the very special eyes of a Shadowman, Thorne shone with unearthly light. It formed a rippling nimbus about the Archon, shimmering and distorting the air. Tendrils of this power curled out from the powerful nobleman. These slender threads of magic extended into the field of grass, stretching and curling and crossing over one another in their multitude. Thorne hung in the air like a massive spider in the center of his web, a sinister web of soul-magic, and Sanook understood.

He hadn’t sensed the soldiers because they were Soulless. Thorne was controlling each and every man with his own bloated soul.

***

Kal buried her dagger in the soldier’s leg, slipping her blade through the gap in his armor at the groin. Blood sprayed powerfully from the artery and the man’s face turned white in an instant as he fell. The dagger’s hilt was torn from her grasp, but Kal had others. Spinning away, she pulled another knife from within her jacket.

A familiar voice cried out. Kal jerked her head toward the sound, and she saw another of her men go down with a trio of arrows sprouting from his throat. Kal frowned. That made four of her men down. What was wrong with Sanook?

A bellowed challenge from behind was Kal’s only warning. She threw herself down and to the side. Her shoulder slammed painfully against the paving but she rolled through and came up in a crouch. In the same smooth motion she flung her dagger. She was pleased to see the pikeman who had been charging her from behind go down with the dagger buried in one eye.

There was no time to retrieve the blade. She drew another – her last – and turned to find her next enemy. She spared a glance to the ridge, worried about the Shadowman.

A roar of sound and a blasting wave of heat. Kal blinked, spitting dust and grit from her mouth in confusion. She was looking at a dusty wall of stone, a warm splash of fresh blood staining the masonry. Kal blinked and realized she was on the ground, knocked flat by the explosion. The blood on the road was her own. More of it trickled over her lips.

She pushed herself up, fighting dizziness as she rose. She groaned, she knew she had, but she could hear nothing.

Kal rose shakily to her feet, turning toward the ridge. Sanook!

But the Shadowman was there, his arms moving in graceful, intricate patterns. The sun had dimmed. No, dark clouds had gathered. No, Sanook had summoned them.

Ringing in her ears. Distant sounds of battle. No, they were not distant. Kal shook her head, trying to clear her ears. There were bodies all around her, lying prone on the ground. Some moved. A pace away, she saw one of the Archon’s soldiers with one arm stretched toward her. His face was blacked on one side as if by fire, one eye melted to jelly that spilled over his blood-soaked cheek. His lips moved beseechingly, but she couldn’t hear him.

Kal turned away, looked back to the ridge. She was confused. Sanook’s hands were a blur of motion. As she watched, anticipating the sorcerer’s imminent master stroke, Sanook’s arms slowed and then halted. What was he doing?

A sound like splintering wood in the next room. Kal turned her head. Her neck was stiff. She moved as if in a dream. Too slow.

A shadow rose over Shel, atop the carriage. Oh, no. Shel. No.

Without quite knowing why, Kal looked back to the mage on the ridge. She saw the soldiers pouring out of the field but they hardly seemed important. So many of them. Nothing she could do about it anyway. Let them go. The Shadowman…

A blinding shaft of light and fire stabbed down from the boiling sky. Kal blinked, unable to see. Her vision cleared slowly. The ridge, where Sanook stood…

But Sanook was gone. The ridge was gone, or most of it. A smoking crater was all that was left. Sanook was gone. A tree, a young aspen, leaves burned away and bark scorched. Thin wisps of smoke rising. Clods of earth thrown into the sky to land a dozen paces away. Sanook was gone.

They were lost.

***

Rez didn’t know how long he lay dazed on the ground. It could have been hours. It could have been days. The stunned leader pushed himself up, staring open-mouthed at the blazing wreckage of Thorne’s gilded carriage.

His stinging eyes watered and blinked rapidly of their own accord. Rez felt his jaw working up and down but couldn’t tell if he was making sounds or not. He couldn’t hear anything.

Rez climbed shakily to his feet, turning from the blasted wreckage. What had Sanook done?

They had known people would probably die. Thorne’s armsmen would put up a fight. They wanted to minimize the dying, though. Blowing up the Archon in his carriage had certainly never been part of the plan. Rez whirled in place – too fast! His head spun and his vision swam. He slapped a hand to his head, squeezing his eyes shut. Swaying on his feet, he nearly went down again.

The leader forced his eyes open and searched the ridgeline for Sanook. But a blinding flash of light seared his eyes again and he staggered back with a soundless exclamation. When he looked again, the ridgeline had been blasted out of shape. All that was left were singed trees and a smoking crater.

The deafening thunder was the first sound Rez heard after the initial explosion. His ears still seemed stuffed with thick cotton, but the roar of the heavens was too loud to be denied. The ground shook beneath his feet in time with the pounding in the sky.

Stumbling, Rez fought to stay afoot. He looked around in confusion. What was going on?

And then he saw Thorne, suspended in the air. Malevolent joy shone on the Archon’s face, and a frightened girl cowered at his feet.

Shel!

Rez lurched forward, nearly falling with each uncertain step. The ground still seemed to quiver from the thunder. Sounds were coming back now. Screaming and dying. He paid no attention. He had to reach Shel. Thorne would destroy her if he didn’t stop it.

Buried beneath the urgency in his single-minded thought was a knowledge that
he
had done this. Rez knew it was his fault, and his alone. He’d gone against Thorne before. He’d gone against Thorne many, many times. The others had no idea. But he had blundered this time, and badly. He’d underestimated Thorne, and the cost would be tallied in the lives of his comrades.

He saw he wouldn’t make it in time. The Archon raised an arm. To Rez’s eyes, the crackling nimbus of power that danced around Thorne’s clenched fist was impossibly strong. Where had Thorne gotten such power?

It hit him then. The souls. They were not in the first carriage, not stored in jewels and baubles the way they had expected. Thorne carried them in himself. He had absorbed many, so very many. He seemed infinitely powerful. Faint lines of energy emanated from the Archon, spreading to every corner of the battle field. A hundred soldiers, two hundred, more…each was a puppet on a string, and the strings converged on Thorne.

Mighty Dunmir!
Rez swore silently. How could Thorne have grown so powerful?

He drew up short. Twenty paces still separated him from the carriage, from Thorne and Shel. The Archon drew back his fist and readied to unleash his dark weaving. Shel was going to die.

Rez never stopped to think, never allowed himself to hesitate. Planting his feet wide apart on the stone road, he summoned his own power. He couldn’t hope to match Thorne – not anymore – but he could distract the Archon. He could give Shel the chance to get away.

Once Thorne saw him, Rez knew, the Archon wouldn’t be able to resist. This was the true battle, after all. The thought came unbidden and Rez tried to deny it, but he knew it was true. All the high talk with Sanook and Aemond, that’s all it was. High talk, and the Shadowmen were both dead now.

What of Maul? What of Kal?

Rez wanted to search the road for his lieutenants…his friends…but there was no time. He had to save Shel.

There. The weave was ready. It was ambitious, more power than he’d ever placed in a single weave. It might work. Then again, it might unravel and whip back on its weaver. It could very well kill him, or burn out his soul. Rez never hesitated.

He unleashed the weave.

***

Shel looked up into the hate-filled eyes of Archon Thorne and knew she was about to die.

Strangely, she wasn’t afraid. She hadn’t expected that. She kept waiting for the fear to wash over her like a spinner’s wave, sweeping her mind away on strong currents and leaving her gibbering with panic. But it didn’t happen.

Instead, Shel felt frozen in place. Helpless, yes. But somehow at peace. It was less as if
she
were frozen, more like time itself had ground to a halt. The
moment
was frozen, and she had eternity to contemplate what would come next.

But why bother? Why dwell on the ending which bore swiftly down on her? Shel didn’t want to think about dying. She didn’t want to think about failure. She had never wanted to think about those things before – and for the most part she never had – so why should she start now?

Curiously, she found herself looking back instead. Shel wanted to laugh.

Once, more than a year ago, one of her gang had been taken by the Suncloaks. Lorson, Rickon’s elder brother. He’d been nicked while trying to lift a bolt of silk from a merchant. He’d had some fool-brained notion of gifting it to a seamstress he fancied. Lorson. He was always soft in the head.

He’d come back, though. Weeks later, and hardly the same at all. The Suncloaks kept his hands.

West had made them abandon their hideout when Lorson was taken. West had always been the smart one; Lorson the fool. Everyone else in the gang was somewhere in between normally, but with his brother gone Rickon had taken on the role. He’d argued and whined and cried and pleaded, but West was adamant. Without a new lair, they’d all be taken.

But Rickon had found his brother. Lorson was wandering the streets of the marketplace. His arms, now stumps, their ends wrapped in filthy cloth. Permanently pale, staggering around in a confusion that would never end. Rickon brought him to the new hideout. Lorson died two days later.

Before he went, he’d asked for Shel. She stayed away at first. Never think about failure; never think about dying. How could she not, if she went to speak with the dying boy?

But she’d gone at last. And Lorson had told her the truth. It was never the seamstress he was interested in. He’d wanted that silk to give the seamstress, true. But he planned to commission a dress, a fine silk dress. He’d give that dress to the girl who’d really stolen his heart.

Lorson was always a fool. Shel never thought of him that way, and she never would have. He was a fool and that was what killed him. In the end, he told her something very strange. He told her he could see it, his life. All of it, stretching off into the past like a frozen painting. Then he was gone.

She’d thought it was more of his foolishness, but now she wasn’t so sure. With death a heartbeat away and nothing she could do to stop it, Shel found herself thinking back. There was no more future to look forward to anyway, so where else could she look?

She saw Lorson again in her mind. Lorson, his brother Rickon, West…all the others. The fat merchant in the marketplace the day all this started. Each step in the path that led her from that moment to this. Every step that had brought her to that fat merchant in the first place. The day she stole her first trinket. The day she came to the city. The months before, wandering the countryside.

Vallen. Her parents. Her mother’s constant misery. With no release and no respite from the torment, the misery souring in her mother’s breast and turning to bitterness and spite. Her father. Reeking of the bottle, unshaven, unkempt. Stumbling around the house, knocking into walls and upsetting the furniture. His hands, gnarled hands from hard labor, thick with calluses and scars. His hands, clenched into fists.

Earlier, earlier. She didn’t want to see her parents. Never again, and certainly not now. Shel gritted her teeth and raged inside. She wouldn’t waste her final thoughts on them. Anything else.

A village. Not Vallen. Somewhere else. Somewhere dark and bitter cold. Colder than she had ever imagined. What was this place, this memory? Something forgotten? Fires in stone hearths, blazing against the cold and dark. Not so much dark, just dim. Weak light, gray light…wintry light. Surely she had never known winter.

But the ground was white. She’d heard of that magic. Fairy tales. No such thing as snow. No such thing as Shadowmen either, but she’d met them. They were everywhere, all around her. This village was theirs. Her parents – no, they weren’t
her
parents but she knew them as parents, and they whispered love to her, their little boy. Shel didn’t understand.