It must have been cold. Scal could see his breath frosting in the air. Thousands of little crystals forming and dancing and disappearing. At his side was Vatri, shivering. Chattering teeth loud in the still air. Gloved hands scraping against rough wool as she chafed her arms.
It must have been cold, but the cold did not touch Scal. He stood among the trees, and his hands were still at his sides. Waiting, patient. If his heart or his soul was uneasy, it did not show in the scar-marked stretch of his face, still as cut stone.
He heard footfalls, on the road that wound between the trees. They were expected. Six travelers, and they would not pass unnoticed through this wood. The forest was Scal’s, and he knew every breath that stirred its air, every arm that brushed its hanging branches, every foot that marred the lingering snow. They had been seen, and they had been marked.
Hands hanging still at his sides, Scal stepped from the trees. The moon made silver lines of the scars that scored his bare arms. His sword lived over his shoulder, its hilt reaching for the moon, but he did not draw it. He walked to the center of the road, and he turned to face the travelers. They had stopped, and though most of their faces had no eyes, he knew they saw him still. “You will leave this place,” Scal said. He would give them the chance, but only the one. “You are not welcome here.” He had argued long for it. They deserved the chance to leave. Everyone deserved one chance.
They never took it.
“Stand aside,” said the one man with eyes, pulling his sword free. He walked toward Scal, the sword held across his body, and there was a fight gleaming in his eyes. “We’ll not be commanded by anyone but the Twins themselves.”
Scal had given them their chance, and so the time for talking was done. There was only one way to end now. All that was left was the blood.
Scal raised his hand to his shoulder and drew his sword. His right hand, and so when the sword came free of its scabbard, it trailed fire along the line of the blade. Bright and burning, and he saw the fear in the other swordsman’s eyes. Too late. Scal had given him his chance, and there would not be another.
Feet steady upon the ground. Not fast. He did not need speed. There was fear in the swordsman’s eyes but he would not run. There was a way a man held himself, to show he would not run. Steady steps forward. Scal, closing the distance between them, the fire-sword lighting the air, lighting the fear in the swordsman’s eyes. Scal swung his sword and their blades met, and again, and again, and a feint put the fire into the soft unarmored place beneath the swordsman’s arm. The blade bit deep, but the fire bit deeper. For a moment the man’s eyes showed pain. Regret. And then the light left them, and he slid heavily off the blade and to the ground.
It seemed a painless enough thing, as deaths went.
The preachers reacted in different ways. One screamed, fell to his knees, howling. One turned and ran. One solemnly drew a dagger shorter than Scal’s hand. The other two simply stared with the puckered skin over their eyes, shocked or sad or scared. It was hard to tell, without the eyes.
Scal stepped forward again, toward the preachers. From the trees came an arrow, chasing after the running priest. It missed, but the second did not. Scal’s sword, trailing flame, took off the dagger-holding arm. Twisted back to take that preacher’s head. A step to the right and one of the silent staring preachers fell to the biting flame. The other staring one backed away, hands raised, mouth making useless movements. Scal stalked after him, and put the sword into his heart.
And then there was only the howling man. On his hands and knees, he had crawled to the swordsman’s side. Clutched his shoulder, empty sockets weeping. Scal walked to him slowly, steady as a falling storm, and he passed the sword to his left hand. The flames died. Ice in their place, shards of it along the fullers, crystals on the edge of the blade. Darkness fell, in the absence of flame, but the half-moon watched like a disapproving eye.
Scal set the ice-blade against the side of the man’s neck, breath-light. His sobs changed, but he did not lift his head where it was bent over the swordsman. It was a small thing, but brave.
They came from the trees. Yellow-wrapped Vatri, straight-backed and head high. A slim woman with a longbow as tall as she was, and a face sharp as an arrowhead. A young man wrapped heavy in armor that shone in the moonlight, his dark hair braided so that its tip brushed against the backs of his knees. Together they came to Scal and the preacher, and as they walked Deslan drew an arrow from the quiver at her back. Set it to the string, but did not draw it. Waited, patient, muscles ready.
Vatri reached out, her flesh rippled and warped, her fingers like claws, and filled her hand with the preacher’s hair. Pulled, so the man’s head raised and the puckered pits of his eyes met hers. Tears to fury. Scal raised his weapon with the movement, and Deslan’s grip shifted on her ready arrow.
Vatri, with her voice like lightning, twisted the preacher’s hair and demanded, “Where are they?”
The preacher tilted his chin higher. “They’ll come for you,” he said, and his voice was steady. There was hard iron in him.
“Where are they?” Vatri asked again. At her side, her other hand curled to a fist. Released. Curled again.
“They will come, and they will bring their judgment.” The words seemed to give him strength. To make him more brave. His back straightening, his breath coming faster. “The unworthy shall fall—”
Vatri’s hand cut the preacher’s words short. A sharp sound, flesh to flesh, and in the moonlight the preacher’s cheek shone red. “Where are the Twins?”
There was defiance on the preacher’s face, and his hand lifted. Scal pressed the blade harder against his neck. The ice and the steel drew blood, and the preacher flinched, but it didn’t stop his finger. Pointing, at the body of the man between himself and Vatri. The swordsman Scal had killed first. “Maybe he would have told you,” the preacher said, and he would say no more.
The young man with the long braid spit onto the ground before the preacher. “Useless,” he said, and put his boot into the preacher’s gut. The preacher doubled in half, the sudden movement scraping his neck against the sword and its icy spines. Not enough to slice, but enough to draw blood. Edro was thoughtless like that.
Scal put his sword away. Shards of ice chipping away against his scabbard, falling across his back. He left them—the gasping preacher, and Deslan, who drew her arrow to point at his eye, and Edro with his face set in fury, and Vatri glaring hatred. Scal began to collect the bodies. Five of them, the swordsman last. A sturdy rope to tie around their ankles, and the rope over his shoulder. A brace of preachers. They were heavy, hard to drag, but not so hard that he could not manage. Vatri prodded the remaining preacher to his feet, and there was less defiance in his face now. More fear, on top of the bravery. He marched behind Scal, behind the dragging bodies leaving a trail upon the ground. The blind preachers saw more than they should have, but if he saw that he walked upon the blood of his comrades, he did not mind it.
Vatri had chosen the place earlier. The perfect place, she had called it. An old oak, tall and broad and greedy. It had choked away all the other trees, making a wide clearing around itself. Wood sat in a neat pile nearby. The ends of each log fire-charred. Any weapon Scal held sprang with fire or with ice, even a simple woodsman’s ax. It had an edge, and could be used easily for killing. That was all that mattered to the magic of the Parents. That was all that mattered when Vatri was watching.
The preacher and the archer and the man and the merra waited. Silent, sullen. Scal pulled the bodies to the spreading oak, and he piled them around the trunk of the tree, and he piled the cut logs upon the bodies, and kindling atop the logs. And then he took the rope, fraying and bloodstained but sturdy, and he walked toward the preacher.
He saw Scal coming, in the strange way the blind preachers saw things. There was little bravery left on his face. Scal thought he would run. Readied himself to chase the preacher, so Deslan would not put an arrow through his leg.
The preacher swayed, but did not run. When he stood before the man, Scal bowed his head briefly. The most respect he could show. The most he was allowed. With the rope in one hand, he put his other around the preacher’s hand. The man’s fingers were cold, clammy, shaking. But he let himself be pulled. Forward, forward to the tree and the bodies and the piled wood. He let Scal guide his steps, let Scal lift him atop the pile. His back against the tree, his feet upon one black-clad body. It was the swordsman, Scal realized. The man whom the preacher had cried over. Scal had not intended that. Too late, now. He wound the rope, around the preacher, around the tree. Sturdy and steadfast, unshaking. The preacher’s face was pale, but it was as brave as could be.
Winter held hard to the northern part of Fiatera, keeping the air and the ground cold well after the rest of the country would have begun to see warm weather and grass and kind skies. Scal did not know if the weather to the south was as normal, or if it had been changed by the sun’s absence. But here, against the Highlands, close to the frozen North, it had stayed cold. There was little risk of a fire spreading.
Vatri stood before the tree, and her scarred face was as unyielding as a mountain. “I ask you once more,” she said. “One final time. Where are the Twins?”
The preacher turned his pucker-eyed gaze to Vatri. His voice shook, but the words came hard and ringing. “They will find you. They see into all shadows. Soon enough, they’ll come for you.”
“I look forward to it,” Vatri said. Iron in her voice, in her spine, in her face. Her hand motioned, and Scal drew his sword once more. The right hand, so that flame danced along the blade.
Followers of the Parents burned their dead. It had always been so. It was a small thing, that the ones Vatri gave to the flames were not yet dead. Enough time would make them so. A small thing, to cut the wick of their candle short. To let them burn, and sputter, and fade.
All things die, Vatri had told him, with flames bright on her flame-scarred skin. There’s no stopping death.
Scal touched the blade to a pile of kindling. Far to the south, he had walked through a sea of grass with the fire-blade drawn, and the flames had brushed against the grass without burning. His hands, one holding ice and the other fire, had touched others without freezing, without burning. He was not only death. There was more in him than that.
But he had been named Nightbreaker. There was not space for anything else in this world. Not while the sun was gone.
Fire, he thought. His name and his will, and the sword-fire ate eagerly at the kindling. Jumped to the wood, and flames danced along its edges. Swallowed the dead things they were given, and reached for more.
For as long as he could, the preacher stayed silent. But he was human, and pain could rob all bravery. Scal turned his back, so that he would not have to watch. So that he would not see the way the fire danced in Vatri’s eyes.
Edro’s boots crunched loud upon the ground. Heedless of deadfall, heedless of lingering snow. The man’s voice was louder still, and Scal did not know why Edro had been brought. No—that was not true. He knew. He had seen the way Vatri looked at him, when they bent over a map and Edro thumped his fist against the folding table so hard its legs threatened to give while he proclaimed bold strategies, described the fierce battles he would lead. Scal had seen the way Edro’s eyes shone back at her.
Little lordling, the others called Edro, but only when he did not stand before them. Fourth son of a nobleman, and little enough use to his family. “I have come to help restore the sun to its rightful place,” he had said when the scouts brought him in. One hand on his hip, the other pressed to his forehead, and the Parents’ fire emblem was carved into his breastplate. Scal had thought him foolish, had seen Deslan and some of the others making faces behind the little lordling’s back.
Vatri had smiled wider, though, and said help like his would be needed. Invaluable. Scal had not forgotten that word. It rang in his mind, when he saw Edro’s tilted smiles, when he saw the man brushing out his long hair where all the women could be sure to admire it. He thought of it each time Vatri called Edro to her side.
Little lordling, they called him to his back. But when Edro stood before them, they all smiled and bowed. He was a lord, and he was handsome, and he had a temper that flared like the Mother’s own fire.
“We must flush them out,” Edro said, punching his mailed fist into his palm. “Wherever the rats nest, we must burn them from their homes, and follow them where they flee. They’ll lead us to their masters, never doubt it. And once we’ve found their lair . . .” Another mailed punch.
Deslan, walking silent at Scal’s side, raised her bow. She held no arrow, but she drew the string back and aimed her lead hand at the back of Edro’s head. Twisted her face into a grimace, tongue thrust between her teeth. Scal turned his startled laugh to a cough, and when Vatri looked over her shoulder, he was smooth-faced once more and both of Deslan’s arms hung at her sides.
Their camp appeared sudden from the trees, well hidden by nature and by design. The tents were low as bushes or as thin as tree trunks, and painted with whites and browns. There were no visible fires to give them away—only thin threads of smoke, leaking from the pointed tips of some tents. Those moving within the camp were quiet, moving on skilled feet, speaking in low voices. Scal knew the scouts had marked their passage, would have alerted them if anything was wrong, would have stopped them if they were not familiar faces. Might have stopped them anyway to talk, if Edro was not already filling the night with his words. He was not the only reason, but certainly a large one, why there were always so many volunteers to take scout duty. That was, at least, what Scal told himself.
Deslan slipped away, her work for the night done. Went to find the others from her village, most likely—she was not so much older than them, and she was not a mother, but she acted as though she were theirs. They let her, with gentle teases and fond head shakes. There was a deeper bond among all of them than Scal could understand.
“We should move camp at moon-set,” Edro announced, squinting up through the overlapping tree branches. “We’ve stayed here long enough. That’s the third group we’ve caught from here. If anyone realizes how many preachers have gone missing on this stretch of road, they’ll start using a different road—or worse, come looking for what’s been disappearing their friends.”
Vatri nodded, and then she looked to Scal. There was still that, at least. You’re not alone, she had told him, far away in the waving-grass Plains. We’re together in this. Scal looked only to her, and not to Edro, when he said, “We should move.” Edro was right. They had been still too long.
Vatri nodded again, and smiled, and walked away. Edro smiled, too, and followed her.
Scal turned instead to face the camp. Almost five dozen tents, scattered among the snow and the trees, and they held all those who, in all the villages Scal and Vatri and their first followers had passed through, had heard Vatri’s heartful prayers. Had seen Scal with the ice-and-fire-sword held tight in his hands, and cheered, “Nightbreaker! Nightbreaker!” All those who had dug through cellars and barns for anything sharp or heavy to use as a weapon, had left behind their homes and their families to do what little they could in helping to end the Long Night. They all bowed to Vatri, pressing their fists to their brows, called her merrena, the highest title of honor given to any priestess. For Scal, they murmured when he passed, and he had not ever tried to hear the words they said.
“We’ll need as many as we can get,” Vatri had told him as they stared down at the map one of the villagers had given her, as though giving it into her hands was the greatest honor. It had been before Edro, when Vatri and Scal alone would look at the map, when Vatri alone would mutter plans and options and finally decisions. “Not knowing what the Fallen are up to, we’ll need to be prepared for anything when they do make their strike, and the two of us alone can’t possibly cover everything. And until we know what they’re doing,” and she had smiled at him, with no humor in her eyes, “we’ll continue making it harder for them to have a plan.” She never said the word “kill,” never talked of murder. Spoke only of balance, and how to return it to the world.
Soft unspoken truths made the doing easier. Scal was the will of the Parents, Vatri had made him so, and he would do what they asked of him. He was only what he had been made. What he had let himself become. Nightbreaker.
Others had come—those who followed them from the villages, and those, too, who heard whispered tales and went stumbling through the wilderness until Scal’s scouts found them, brought them to kneel before himself and Vatri. And they always stared, the new ones, stared at Vatri like a walking goddess, her deep-carved scars like a badge of the Parents’ attention. Stared at Scal like a man stepped from legend, like the hero of a tale they had been told since childhood. Stared at him like they already knew he would save them all.
Scal liked it better when they murmured. Liked it better still when he could walk among the trees, his hands hanging empty at his sides, and not think of worshiping eyes or preachers’ screams or the word “Nightbreaker” thrumming through his bones.
Scal went to his tent, to avoid the eyes, to avoid the murmurs. It was tall and small, only enough room to lie curled on his side. He could not count how many had offered him a bigger tent. Each time he refused, it put a glow in their eyes he did not intend. Once, when he had not closed his ears fast enough to the murmurs, he had heard, “. . . thinks he’s not any better than us,” and it had been said in a wondering tone.
There was a brass bowl at the center of his tent, and a small fire burning in it. It was not an everflame, for it was doused each time they moved camp, but it was close enough to one. Close enough to be comfort. Scal knelt before it, one hand wrapping around the two pendants, the fire and the ice.
The fire is always talking, Vatri had said, and she always told him to see its words. Told him, lately, with pride, to see how Edro stared deeply into the flames and proclaimed how he had seen their victory, had seen the sun rising once more and the Twins forever banished.
Scal stared at the flames, but he did not see anything. Only flames reaching fingerlike to brush the stars, grasping, and closing on nothing.