XIV

THIS MOMENT

“‘SWEET REDEEMER,’ I whispered.

“‘What did you s-see?’ Charlotte demanded.

“Baptiste lowered his glass and spoke soft. ‘They are c-coming.’

“‘How many?’ Astrid asked.

“I swallowed hard, meeting her eyes. ‘Many.’

“‘And we are two dozen.’ Baptiste turned to Aaron. ‘Two dozen against thousands.’

“I looked among our company. They were afeared, all of them. And I realized they were looking to me, who’d brought them here. All knew how thin the ice we stood upon was. How like it was we were facing our deaths. I learned a lesson there on that frozen slope, sheltered beneath an angel’s wings. About leading men. About leading anyone.”

“And that was?” Jean-François asked.

“When your whole world is going to hell, all you need is someone who sounds like he knows the way.

“‘In the Trial of the Blood,’ I called, ‘Seraph Talon told me that the greatest horrors forge the greatest heroes. But Frère Greyhand always said it’s foolish to be a hero. That they die unpleasant deaths, far from home and hearth.’ I raised my voice above the winds, trying to light a fire that might burn away this chill. ‘I think the truth lies in between. One or two moments of heroism—that’s what the wise seek. One or two heartbeats that last a lifetime. And this is one. A moment to bring a smile to your face on your deathbed. A moment that others will rue they were not here to share. A moment of which you will say, many years and miles from here, that then, if never again, I stood among heroes. And I was one.’

“I looked among them, fangs bared in a fierce smile.

“‘This moment.’

“Aaron nodded. ‘This moment.’

“‘Prioress Charlotte,’ I called. ‘Form your ’lock line along this ridge, from tower to bluff. Half firing, the other half reloading. Keep them off me best you can.’

“‘What do you intend to do?’ Charlotte asked.

“‘Hold them off long enough for our brother blackthumbs to save our backsides.’ I turned to Baptiste and his fellow smiths, thumping a fist upon the barrels of black ignis we’d dragged from San Michon. ‘The snowpack is heaviest along the north ridge. Up there, beneath Gabriel’s tower. A few barrels should bring the whole damned lot of it down on these bastards. Hundreds of thousands of tons. Just make sure you run your matchlines long enough to be clear when it all comes down.’ I swallowed hard. ‘And try to give me warning before you blow it. It’s going to be bloody down there.’

“‘There are thousands of them,’ Charlotte frowned. ‘It’s going to be slaughter.’

“‘Maybe.’ I nodded, looking about the group. ‘But my friends are the hill I die on.’

“Aaron checked the silverbombs in his bandolier. ‘I’m coming with you.’

“‘And I.’ Baptiste hefted a mighty silversteel warhammer. ‘Sunlight here is thirsty. Brother Noam and Brother Clement can handle the setting of the charges.’

“Aaron frowned. ‘Baptiste, you’re a blacksmith, not a—’

“The big lad pressed his lips to Aaron’s. ‘Shut up, love.’

“I reached into my greatcoat, produced a silver pipe. Aaron’s breath quickened as I packed it with the sanctus Charlotte had given me—a deeper dose than either of us had dared before. Astrid watched as I struck my flintbox, breathing down, her dark eyes on mine as it crashed into my lungs and out through my veins; that monstrous perfume, that divine madness, lifting me up into the frozen heavens.

“I packed another dose for Aaron, looking on as he drew down the entire bowl in one draught. De Coste’s whole body tensed, canines growing long and sharp. He breathed a plume of scarlet smoke into the freezing air, tendons in his throat stretched taut. And when he opened his eyes, I saw them washed scarlet, pupils so dilated his irises were almost gone.

“‘Oh, God,’ he breathed, red as blood. ‘Oh, God.’

“Aaron stabbed his silversteel blade into the snow, unbuckled his greatcoat and sloughed his tunic off his shoulders. I did the same, both of us silverclad amid the grey. The smiths hefted the ignis barrels and charged up toward the snowpack under Gabriel’s tower. Charlotte, Astrid, and the other sisters formed their line along the ridge, Keeper Logan and Micah set to defend them. As I met Astrid’s gaze, all the words I wished I could say were held behind my sharpening teeth. The memory of her lips burning brighter than the sacrament in my veins. And she smiled at me then. One of her thousand smiles—a smile that caught me up and held me tight, banishing anything remaining of the fear inside me.

“‘This moment, Gabriel de León.’

“The whole world was trembling as Aaron, Baptiste, and I ran down the slope toward the Dead. I didn’t remember drawing it, but Lionclaw was in my hand, a burning brand in the other. There was no terror in me then. No memory of friend or famille or even Astrid’s smile. There was only the bloodhymn. Pounding so fierce I found myself laughing—actually fucking laughing as we charged together to our deaths.

“I saw shapes in the darkness, heard running feet in grey snow. The Dead had seen our light, and they were coming, oh God, they were coming, and my fingers were wrapped about Lionclaw’s hilt and my heart crashing against my ribs as I looked to my fellows and saw their shining eyes on mine.

“‘Now,’ Baptiste hissed. ‘Now you can slay me something monstrous.’

“The air was freezing, but we felt no cold, goosebumps rising instead at the sight of the designs upon our skins: roses and serpents, the Redeemer on his wheel, angels singing and lions roaring, throat to wrist to waist in silver ink.

“And they were glowing.

“Mild at first. But as the footsteps rushed closer, our light grew stronger, a circle of illumination twenty, thirty, forty feet about us. I felt my left hand growing hot, and I saw the sevenstar on my palm and the silver angel up my arm, the lion on my chest—all burning with that same fierce and terrible light.

“‘God stands with us, brothers,’ Baptiste breathed. ‘We cannot fall.’

“‘No fear,’ I whispered.

“Aaron nodded. ‘Only fury.’

“And then, they hit us.

“Out of the dark, hissing and clawing. A swarm, dead eyes full of hunger, fangs glinting as lightning split the sky. The wretched of Talhost wore the clothes they were murdered in—courtly dresses or peasant rags, frockcoats or threadbare tunics, acres of pale and bloodless skin. There was no form to their ranks, just numbers and teeth and sheer, unholy strength, set to drain all the world to dust and bones.

“But mighty fucking Redeemer, we were untouchable. That rotted host came on like a flood, and as they reached our light, they broke like water on stone. Our inkwork blinded them, our silversteel cut them like scythe to wheat. The air was ashes and blood as we fought, snows drenched red. Looking to the northern ridge as lightning cracked the sky, I spied the tiny figures of Brother Noam and the other blackthumbs burying their barrels of black ignis at the snowpack’s base. Silvershot whizzed past our heads from the sisters above, and at the edge of our light, I saw wretched fall, skulls shattered, bones splintering.

“Everyone knows war is hell, coldblood. But there’s a heaven in it too. A savage joy in standing on the ground where your enemy wants you to fall. I couldn’t feel my body. I might have known the scrape of a claw or the brief twinge of a cracking bone. But pain? Pain was for the enemy. Pain and silver.

“And then, I felt him.

“The kiss of serpent’s fangs to my skin. The bleak infinity of countless years, the dust on the tombs of forgotten kings. The weight of a presence impossible, a mind unknowable, pressing in on mine out of the long and lonely black.

“The mind of a Forever King.

“I saw him, as if he stood before me. His skin, hair, eyes—all bleached snow-pale by years beyond counting and sins past reckoning. A youth, fey and eternal, beautiful and terrible, wreathed in an unlight so cold and bitter-bleak my heart felt frozen in my chest. And I heard him speak in my head then, across the blood-drenched snow between us, and his words were the song that would unmake the world.

“‘I see thee.’

“‘Great Redeemer…’ I whispered.

“‘I feel him too,’ Aaron gasped.

“The wretched came on, and our silversteel gleamed, blood-red and holy-bright. But they were nothing, I realized, nothing compared to what walked behind them with steady tread, implacable, inescapable, no impulse so base as haste to ruin the portrait as he strode toward us, surrounded by his children, his grandchildren, his brood entire—a dread court of the Blood, with all the time in creation upon their side.

“And then I heard screams. Behind.

“‘Gabriel!’

“Astrid …

“‘GABRIEL!’

“Heart dropping into my belly, I looked back up the slope, saw torches burning against pale grey—Brother Noam and the other smiths dancing in the dark. And by their light, I saw a figure, familiar, weaving among them like a shadow and cutting them down into the snow.

“A shadow wrapped in red.

“‘Laure…’”