Rienne started down the hill at a run, focusing all her energy toward greater speed. She heard confused shouts behind her—her troops expected orders, she realized, not their leader tearing off alone.
Well, she thought, they chose to follow me. They had better get used to me.
The droning of the insects grew louder as she approached, as did the cries of their victims. The creatures formed a black cloud that surrounded the fleeing Reachers, swirling in giant eddies and clinging to exposed skin and hair. People in the front of the group ran with their arms over their faces, heads down, blindly seeking an escape from the horror as winged monsters the size of their hands bit into skin or sawed through leather with enormous mandibles.
Rienne drew Maelstrom as she ran, though it was hard for her to imagine even her legendary blade causing much harm to the swarm. She could kill hundreds of the insects and leave the swarm undiminished. Nevertheless, she drew the blade, and she felt the energy flowing through her body focus and extend through her blade, as if it were part of her.
Then she was in the midst of it. The droning of the insects’ wings surrounded her, and the creatures—as if smelling her unprotected skin—swarmed close around her. She didn’t give them a chance to approach. Maelstrom sprang to life in her hand, whirling around her, slicing through chitin and diaphanous wing and forming a barrier of swirling wind.
Inspired by her presence, a few of the nearby farmers pulled out battered swords—most of them probably handed down from a parent or grandparent who fought in the Last War—and tried to imitate her example. She saw one fall to his knees, screaming in pain, his sword clattering to the ground.
“No!” Rienne screamed. “Keep running!”
The breath and energy she spent shouting lowered her defenses for a moment, and one of the insects sank its mandibles into the back of her neck. The pain was excruciating, far worse than the bite alone as venom spread up and down her neck and back. She snatched the creature and wrenched it free, causing a fresh jolt of pain as it tore flesh away in its jaws, then crushed it in her hand. Violet blood oozed between her fingers, distinctly unnatural, and revulsion welled in her gut. She fought it down and continued Maelstrom’s whirling dance.
She drew a slow, deep breath as Maelstrom whirled, and the cloud of insects around her darkened, drawn into the vortex of wind she created. She held the breath, and flames burst from Maelstrom’s blade, trailing along behind the steel like a banner. She let her breath out slowly and the flames formed a curtain around her, then widened inch by inch to encompass more and more of the swarming horrors.
When her breath was expended, the flames faded, but the ground around her was littered with the charred bodies of the swarm. The air was still dark with them, though, as Maelstrom’s whirlwind drew them in toward its flashing blade. Rienne glanced toward the camp and saw perhaps a dozen people running clear of the swarm, almost to safety. More were still trapped within the cloud, though. For a moment she wondered whether rushing headlong into the midst of the swarm had been wise.
A burst of fire erupted in the air above her. She threw herself to the ground and rolled beneath the flames, springing to her feet as the flames died and a shower of blackened insect corpses fell to the earth. She looked around for the source of the flame and saw a dark figure standing outside the cloud, dressed in hide armor and a tattered green tabard. Kyaphar!
Another insect found its way to her arm and bit through her clothes, sending a lance of pain down to her hand. Her muscles convulsed as poison coursed through them, and Maelstrom fell to the ground. She faltered in her whirling dance, and more insects attached themselves to her flesh, wracking her body with their painful venom. She stooped to retrieve Maelstrom, but as she did an insect bit and her leg buckled beneath her, sending her sprawling. Before she could draw a breath her body was covered with writhing and biting insects, their wings still droning as they cut into her skin.
Another burst of fire erupted around her, washing over her with a strangely pleasant warmth. The insects around her shriveled and burned in the flame, but the fires only soothed her skin and eased the pain of the poison. Rienne grabbed Maelstrom’s hilt and sprang back to her feet, waving her thanks in Kyaphar’s direction. Maelstrom flew back into motion as Kyaphar hurled smaller bursts of fire into the diminishing remnants of the swarm.
Once again Maelstrom whirled around her until it formed a great funnel of wind—
But the Blasphemer’s end lies in the void, in the maelstrom that pulls him down to darkness.
For a moment she seemed to see the Blasphemer’s leering face form in the black cloud of insects before her, and the words from her dream echoed in her mind.
She was the center of a mighty storm, her own Storm Dragon even without Gaven at her side. She drew another slow breath, feeling the energy of it build inside her like an elation she could barely contain. Holding that energy in her belly, she tumbled out of the center of the storm, turned to put the mass of the cloud in front of her, and let her breath out as a tremendous blast of flame.
Blackened husks swirled in the wind like cinders over a mighty fire, their droning silenced. Rienne surveyed the plain as Maelstrom whirled around her. Insects still flew here and there, but they had lost any coherence as a swarm, and they seemed to have lost their aggressive instincts as well. Rienne let Maelstrom slow its dance, cutting through a few last insects before coming to rest at her side.
Two dozen or more survivors walked or ran in the direction of the camp, some limping, some carrying a fallen comrade, one she noticed crawling on hands and knees. Kyaphar walked among the fallen, looking for any who might still be within life’s reach. The fallen, Rienne was pleased to see, were few—at a quick count, only seven, and as she looked Kyaphar stooped over one of the seven and began tending the man’s wounds.
She slid Maelstrom into its sheath and fell to her knees. Blackened chitin crunched on the ground beneath her, and even the sound it made was somehow wrong—like the words of the Blasphemer that could not have been words. She gingerly lifted one of the charred husks and examined it. It looked like no insect she’d ever seen, its six thick legs more like a spider’s than the wasp it superficially resembled. It bore huge mandibles that pulsed with the poison inside, and the chitin plating its body had an unnatural purplish sheen.
“The Depravation,” Kyaphar said.
Rienne looked over her shoulder and saw him standing behind her, concern etched on his face. “What’s that?” she asked.
“We see it sometimes in areas where the influence of the daelkyr seeps into the earth from the Realm of Madness they call home. It happens when the seals of the Gatekeepers weaken, and madness leaks through, and in places where daelkyr or their brood that dwell in the depths of Khyber make their way closer to the surface. Usually its influence is slight, subtle, and slow.”
“But with the breaking of the seal it’s much worse,” Rienne said. “Bad enough to generate swarms like this in a few hours’ time.”
“Exactly.”
Rienne stood up and smiled at Kyaphar, even as tears welled in her eyes. “I’m glad you survived the battle, Sky Warden. I saw the airship go down.”
“I tried to save Jordhan, but there was nothing I could do. I’m sorry.”
“I understand. Thank you, Kyaphar.”
The Sky Warden put his arms around her and her resolve broke. Tears streamed down her face and she shook with sobs as she thought of Jordhan—the dear friend who had aided and abetted her and Gaven on so many of their adventures, the greatest of which was their grand expedition to Argonnessen—lying dead amid the wreckage of his airship. Kyaphar held her as she wept, and only released her as the tide of grief subsided.
Drying her eyes, she thanked Kyaphar again and hoped that no one at the camp had seen Lady Dragonslayer break down so completely.
* * * * *
Free.
Gaven turned the word over in his mind as he made his way back to Chalice Center, trying not to look like he was in any more of a hurry than would be normal for people in the busy capital city. Ossa had renounced her House’s claim on him, declared him free of Dreadhold. Free.
Don’t get too comfortable with that idea, he reminded himself.
Mauren had stressed the point that he was still a fugitive from justice, still subject to arrest for any number of crimes. He still didn’t have identification papers, let alone formal traveling papers, so he would have a hard time living anything like a normal life.
On the other hand, he was about to travel to Varna to face the Blasphemer. What kind of normal life was that? He had money in his pouch that would buy him a fast horse, he had Mauren’s letter that would get him across the river despite Aundair’s military presence there, and he had a sword on his back and the storm in his blood, even if his dragonmark was gone, off in the hands of House Thuranni somewhere. There was nothing normal about his life, and really never had been.
Still, somehow, it made a difference to know that he was free—in whatever limited, narrow sense of the word actually applied to him.
In Chalice Center, he haggled with a horse trader as he had done in the years before Dreadhold, no longer caring if he made a strong impression in the man’s memory that might help the authorities follow his trail—and he still spent entirely too much of Kelas’s money on a magebred horse. Haggling had always been Rienne’s specialty.
He thought of Rienne as he bought a saddle and bridle and other gear for his journey, and ended up paying far more than he should have because of his distraction. She’d been held in a jail in Thaliost—he didn’t even know why. Jordhan had paid her fines and taken her away, and he didn’t know where. Was she looking for him?
Or was she, as he was, drawn to the west by the call of her destiny? Aunn seemed to think he would find her, and the strange waking dream he’d had in Kelas’s house suggested it as well—
A demon in man’s shape stood before Rienne, lifting a curved sword as the sounds of the world’s unmaking spilled from his mouth …
“Are you ill, master?” The shop clerk peered at his face curiously.
“No, I’m fine. Sorry.” Gaven scratched at his neck—his skin was on fire.
“Strangest weather we’ve been having,” the clerk remarked, turning to look out the window. “Clear and cold one minute, then clouds and rain, the rumble of thunder like the drums of war. Can’t say I like it.”
“Sorry.”
“Well, that’s autumn in Fairhaven for you. You know what they say, ‘If you don’t like the weather, wait a bell and it’ll change.’ ” The clerk laughed.
Gaven paid for his supplies and hurried out to his horse. He bid Fairhaven and its mercurial weather farewell and rode out of the city, delighting in the wind on his face.
* * * * *
Kyaphar spent the night searching for more survivors of the battle and leading them, in groups of three to perhaps three dozen, to Rienne’s camp. Rienne tried to rest, but each time a new group approached the camp she rose to greet them, speak to their leaders, make sure the wounded found care, and offer what comfort and encouragement she could. Two other sergeants found their way to the camp, and even a lieutenant, but no one was interested in relieving Lady Dragonslayer of her command. Besides Kyaphar, Rienne discovered one more druid among the survivors, a white-bearded man named Fieran. By dawn, she was in command of an army of just over two hundred and fifty, according to Cressa’s enthusiastic report, and a council of two druids, four officers, and Rienne herself—with Cressa at her side as her aide—gathered in a large tent that someone had erected for Rienne’s use.
Rienne decided to dispense with any pleasantries or introduction. She waited until the elders and officers were gathered in the tent, entered with no introduction or fanfare, and asked, “Who can explain to me what happened yesterday?”
Kyaphar frowned. “The Gatekeepers’ seal was broken.”
Fieran snorted into his beard. “Obliterated would be more accurate.”
“What do you mean?” Rienne asked.
Fieran leaned back in his flimsy chair, steepled his fingers beneath his chin, and looked up at the roof of the tent. “Ordinarily, when we see one of the Gatekeepers’ seals break, we observe a gradual process by which the energies of the Realm of Madness slowly begin to eat away at the seal, break it down slowly, until it is weak enough that they can push it aside, as it were. This was different.”
“It was sudden, immediate,” Rienne said. “What else?”
“It was completely undone. There is nothing left, no residue or remnant we could hope to use to begin repairing it. It is as though the seal simply never existed.”
“And what happened when it broke, or vanished?”
“You saw it,” Sergeant Kallo said. “You were there. The land erupted.”
“Yes, that’s what I saw. But I want to know why it happened. Did something emerge from the ground, pushing the rock out before it? What came out?”
“From what I could see,” Kyaphar said, “what came out was madness and chaos. I didn’t see a daelkyr come forth, or any of their brood. But I have never seen the Depravation spread so quickly or so far.”
“So there is no horrible spawn of madness rampaging across the Reaches?”
Kyaphar shook his head. “Not as far as I could see from the air. But remember, I was dodging boulders spewed up from the earth. I could have missed much.”
Rienne nodded, her fingers idly toying with Maelstrom’s hilt. “Kyaphar, you told me before that the Blasphemer’s path took him across the Reaches from Gatekeeper seal to Gatekeeper seal. The seal he broke yesterday was not the first, just the largest seal he has undone. But was it the last? Was this great seal his goal, or is there a greater prize?”
“I don’t think—” Kyaphar began.
“There is a greater prize,” Fieran interrupted. “At the city by the lake of kings.”
“Varna?” Rienne asked. A sick feeling took root in her stomach, a gnawing dread. She seemed to hear the splash and rush of the river beneath the screams and shouts of battle.
“Indeed.”
“What is that prize? Was the city built over a seal?” That seemed like an unwise strategy, and it ran counter to her impression of the other seals, which she had thought were all far from cities or even villages of the Reaches.
“No,” Fieran said. “It’s far worse than that. At the city by the lake of kings, it is said, the Blasphemer will unmake the world.”