The shades rushed forward to flow around the girl in a tide of gray.
“Wall!” the Bishop ordered.
Seth lifted his shield and held it in line with the knights on either side of him.
Each knight sent fire through their shield. They lit, one by one, to make a blazing wall.
The spirits swirled around them, like their formation was a rock in the current of a cold river. The spirits broke against it, burning to ash. Flecks of their remains clouded the air. One landed, icy like a snowflake, on the bit of exposed neck beneath Seth’s helm.
He poured the fire through his shield, straining to keep it blazing but not so hot that it burned him.
He could not see through the flames but felt the tide pour on as the cold advanced. They must be burning hundreds of them away, but still they came.
There had to be an end to them. There had to be.
Next to Seth, the wall of flame faltered.
He pushed his fire further, to cover the gap and shield more of his fellow knights.
Father, grant me the will, he prayed. Grant me the control.
The flames closed the breach.
The knight beside him sighed in relief.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“Praise Hyperion,” Seth said.
Any other words, any more distraction, might cost him too much focus. He’d managed, so far, to not let the fire spill back onto himself.
Down the line, one of the knights tired. His fire flickered. Seth pushed himself, straining to cover that gap as well. The heat singed him through his gauntlet, but still he willed the flames onward. He had to push them, push himself, but not lose control. His flames would not hurt his fellow knights, but he could burn Pol to a cinder if he lost focus.
The flames did not make it in time.
Seth hadn’t even learned the knight’s name. He went down in a haze of red and gray mist as the spirits tore the blood from him. One of the hounds let out a wail. Seth didn’t think it was Argos, but he couldn’t turn to see.
The ghosts poured through the gap as more of the knights weakened.
Seth knew there were limits to faith, to the power a knight could wield.
“Close!” the Bishop yelled.
The knights stepped together, closing ranks. The Bishop had not summoned her fire yet.
And there was Pol, behind their shield wall. He did not deserve what the shades of Thiva would do to him. No one deserved that.
Guard him, Father, Seth prayed. Save us all.
Bolstered, Seth pushed back at the fire, made it flow outward. It wasn’t enough. He could smell burning flesh and knew it was his.
Still, he pushed as another knight faltered. A third. Holes opened along the shield wall. Those knights fell back before the spirits could take them.
Seth clenched his teeth until he thought they’d crack. Fire had filled his vision, and still the shades came on, pushing against his shield, against his faith. Their ashes fell like snow. They dusted the ground and chilled him, trying to douse his resolve.
How many were there? Why would they sacrifice themselves like this? He’d never seen ghosts show such will.
A wall of molten scarlet, the Bishop’s fire, rose between them and the tide of spirits.
“Contract!” she commanded.
Seth’s drills with her and Lathan had him obeying without pause. He felt a flicker of pride as they stepped back, closing ranks again.
Only the dead knight remained behind.
The tide of spirits finally broke, but Seth did not relax.
The girl stood on the path they’d taken to the hilltop. She and the Bishop eyed each other. The scene was silent save for the knights’ ragged breathing, and the constant, almost synchronized growls of the hounds.
The Bishop lifted her mace. A beam of pure sun split the night.
The girl moved, faster than possible, almost faster than the light.
The beam struck the side of her face.
The flesh burned and red roots wormed free, wriggling and searching.
The girl screamed, an inhuman shriek that could have shattered glass.
Slight chest heaving, she lifted her doll and twisted, breaking it in two. Red dust, pollen, filled the air.
Several shapes, the patchwork spirits bound in vines, crested the hilltop. Thorny vines trailed them like chains. The crimson flowers clothed their misty skin.
The girl, half her face burned to char, her remaining eye still red and gleaming, grinned.
Seth understood the rush now. That onslaught had weakened the cadre; it had cost them precious fire and one of their number.
The patchwork spirits halted their advance. He could see his breath, but the air behind him had warmed. They’d retreated to the hounds’ inner ring. Argos shifted closer, sharing some of his heat with his master. Seth’s heart lightened. He dared not look behind him. He’d trust the Bishop to keep Pol safe. Seth lifted his shield. He could, he would, endure.
Then he saw it, the thing. It was like the others, stitched together, like the one in the undercroft, but so much larger, a hulking giant. The girl swung her broken doll through the air like it was flying.
The giant’s dozens of faces opened as if to scream in rage. It made no sound, no noise as it lumbered forward, and that was so much worse. The dead sewn into it had no voice.
Some were large, adults. Others were tiny, the ghosts of children. All of their eyes stared forward, past the knights, toward Pol.
Of course they’d want him. He had no fire, no faith, no means of protecting himself.
But how could they be enough against this?
He saw the girl’s plan clearly then.
The knights’ power was tied to their faith. The giant cast doubt. Their wall of fire buckled even before it strode forward.
The Bishop’s prayer poured down, a column of flame. The other stitched spirits rose and swirled, sacrificing themselves to shield the giant.
It lumbered toward them, reached out with a face-lined arm, and struck the center of their wall.
Lathan.
His fire died as he fell backward, knocked to the ground. His shield clattered away.
“Close!” the Bishop shouted. “Close!”
Lathan lay sprawled, clearly too stunned to retreat.
The giant lifted its foot. Vines wriggled loose from its sole as it prepared to crush the fallen knight.
Twisting, Seth stepped to the right. He poured all of his fire into his sword, pointed it at the giant, and pushed everything he had, all of the flame, all of his faith, through the blade.
Light burst across the hilltop like the beacon of a lighthouse.
The giant burned.
Pain raced up Seth’s arm. The taste of his own singed flesh mixed with the sour blood and chalky ash.
The others had fallen back, obeyed the Bishop, leaving Seth and Lathan exposed.
Fire. All was fire. It filled his vision. The spirits glittered in it. He burned them away. He burned them all, set them free. It could all burn.
That would be good.
That would be right.
He was barely aware of Lathan scrambling backward.
“Seth!” Pol shouted. “Come on!”
The plea snapped him back to the moment, to the hilltop, and the now.
Seth retreated, covering Lathan as the knights parted for them.
The ashes of the burned spirits and the giant continued drifting down, but the night was warmer, heated by what he’d unleashed.
The battle was over.
The girl had vanished.
The cadre had survived, but they’d lost one of their own.
Seth took heaving breaths. He should have been stronger. He should have been able to save them all. And still there was the fire, that moment when he’d seen everything in gold and sparkling embers, like he’d stared into the sun with open eyes and not been blinded.
“You do not break formation!” the Bishop shouted.
Seth faced her and she struck him, her mailed gauntlet ringing against his helmet.
He blinked, then understood. He’d disobeyed. His training was imperfect. He was imperfect.
With a nod, Seth knelt, removed his helmet, and offered her his other, bared cheek. She slapped him again, the edge of her gauntlet cutting him.
“What are you doing?” Pol demanded, stepping between them.
“You do not break formation,” the Bishop repeated, her chest heaving from the night’s efforts. “You could have gotten us all killed.”
“He saved us!” Pol shouted. “He saved that knight!”
“Pol,” Seth snapped before gently adding, “she is right.”
Seth turned his face, offered his other cheek again. The Bishop seethed but she did not strike him a third time.
“Search in pairs,” she told the knights. “Take the hounds, but do not go far. Cry out if you see anything, any sign of her.”
The cadre obeyed. Pol remained at the Bishop’s side, shaking. Seth had the urge to put an arm around him, to comfort him. He looked stricken. He had to be terrified.
“What was she?” Seth asked the Bishop, though he thought he knew.
“Bring wood,” she said without answering. “We will burn Dion and build him a cairn.”
So that had been the dead knight’s name.
“Yes, Bishop.”
He blinked when Lathan stepped to his side, silently offering help. They moved down the hill, swords held high, watching every shadow. Seth skirted the thorns and black vines. They grew thicker toward the east.
“Father,” Seth prayed aloud. “Let us find our quarry. Let us leave this terrible place.”
A little voice, one he could not quite silence, wondered if the Hierarch had hoped they’d die here, if he hadn’t sent them to Thiva with the intention that they not return. Father Geldar had hinted at that, but no, the Oracle had said to send a cadre, that they would find their quarry on the eastern cliffs. Still, the Hierarch did not have to choose the Bishop’s cadre.
She had not answered his question, but Seth had seen it in her eyes.
Demons.
They’d been taught that the gods had killed them centuries ago.
It could not be completely true. If it were, then who had Phoebe’s priests consorted with?
The Hierarch could not be wrong, but there must be demons alive somewhere. One was on this island. Her influence might explain the spirits. Like the doll, she’d stitched them together to create abominations.
“How’s your arm?” Lathan asked as he bent to break a fallen branch into pieces that he could carry.
Seth looked to his sword arm. His gauntlet had protected his hand and wrist, but above that, his jerkin was burned. Blistered and red, the flesh beneath it had begun to ache.
“I can fight.”
“I saw that.” Lathan’s features narrowed in confusion. “You saved me.”
“Of course I did.”
“I wasn’t kind to you.”
“No, you were not,” Seth said, because it was true. He gathered his own logs.
“I was the opposite of kind.”
“So you deserve to die?”
“No, but . . . I think I misjudged you, Seth.”
Seth narrowed his eyes.
The Bishop had been right. He’d broken formation. He lacked the discipline of a true knight, but at the same time, he wouldn’t let anyone die if he could prevent it.
“No, you didn’t,” Seth said. “I’d do it again, save you, but I am what they say, Lathan. I’m not the knight I should be.”
“Maybe not,” Lathan said. “And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
Seth followed him back up the hill, his burned arm chafing against the wood he carried. They arranged it into a long pile, placed Dion atop it.
The Bishop said the blessing and lit the pyre.
Pol stepped away, his eyes full of fear.
Seth’s armor felt very heavy.
After, when the flames had cooled, when Dion was ash, they set a watch and settled down to sleep.
All were quiet, even Argos, who curled at Seth’s side. Pol continued to shiver.
“Here.” Seth took the dead knight’s bedroll from his pack. He handed over his own blanket as well.
Pol blinked. “Don’t you need it?”
“I will do without tonight. It can be part of my penance.”
Pol took the blanket, clutched it in his hand, needing it but wary of charity. Seth’s heart sank a little. The man clearly wasn’t used to kindness.
That was easier to accept than the idea that he was afraid of Seth, though why shouldn’t he be?
He’d tamped it down, banked it inside him, but still it burned. It whispered, telling him to light it all, to burn everyone, even Pol, away.