The battle within the mountain ended with Neira.
Scal had not spared much attention for her as he stalked across the cavern, ready to do the last thing he needed to do. He did not even think to look to her until after the Twins lay at his feet, and the sword had gone dark in his hands.
Light filled the mountain, blinding. It cleared and Neira was gone—simply gone. Everything had stopped. Everyone blinking or rubbing their eyes. Even when sight cleared there was no rush to raise weapons once more. There were Fallen and Scal’s own fighters, many still standing close for combat, but instead they all stared.
Stared at Scal’s feet.
He looked down, and there was a third body at his feet. One he had not put there. A blue-robed witch, unmoving as all the witches whose powers and lives Neira had pulled. The witch’s hands rested on the Twins. And beneath his still hands, the Twins moved.
Scal held his sword before him. It was lifeless, or he was lifeless—no fire left, and no ice. He would face them alone, as he was. A final stand. One last thing, before his death took him.
Sororra rolled onto her stomach and vomited blood and bile, and then lay still. Fratarro sat slowly, his hand pressed to his eyes, and when he lowered his hand and saw the witch sprawled before him, tears welled in his eyes. He whispered, “Oh, Anddyr . . .”
Scal’s sword lowered by a length. This was not what he had expected, not at all.
Another voice said wonderingly, unbelievingly, “They’re gone.” Huddled at the back of the dais, a man with one harried eye and years piled upon his face. He started forward, paused. Started again and knelt next to the boy—who seemed, truly, to be just a boy and not the body worn by a god.
Scal’s sword dropped lower. The Twins were not here. He had done his part, he had done the one thing he needed to do. He had done the last thing.
And his death had not come for him.
“Look at me,” the one-eyed man said to the boy, gentle but firm. He knew some medicine, perhaps, or knew at least what wounds to look for. “How do you feel?”
The boy croaked, “You need to tell them.” His hand made a weak motion and, turning, Scal saw that the entire chamber stared. Both sides frozen in shock and wonder and horror, waiting to know, waiting to see.
Waiting to hear what had become of the world.
Scal heard the one-eyed man swallow, and he bowed his head. Whispered, “I can’t . . .”
There were footsteps, growing fainter, and Scal looked to see Deslan’s back. Down the tunnel they had come through, going to look at the world outside.
In the almost-dark of the cavern, it was hard to tell one side from another. Common clothes could look almost black. Black robes could be any color. They were only men and women who eyed each other warily, waiting to see if they needed to raise weapons once more, to draw lines once more. But for a few moments, they were united by uncertainty, and there was no telling one side from the other.
They stood among the dead and the dying and the changed, and they all waited.
The boy-twin dragged himself over to his sister, and when he moved, it jostled the witch who still sprawled over them. Scal got a glimpse of the witch’s face. He had thought that he had misheard the thing the boy had said. Even missing eyes, though, Scal knew the face.
He did not know how or why the witch Anddyr had come to be among the Fallen and in the mountain. But Scal knew that he had killed the children to drive the Twins from their bodies. He could see that the mortal wounds he had given them were gone. And he knew that witches had powers beyond telling.
Running footsteps, loud in the waiting silence. Deslan burst into the cavern once more, eyes wild, grabbing at arms whether they wore common clothes or black robes. “The sun!” she cried, and then raced away again.
There was a wild chase—all who had heard, streaming through the tunnel, hurrying to see what had changed in the world.
Soon it was only the dead, and Scal, and the one-eyed man, and the children. There was so much here Scal did not understand. The children should be dead. Scal should be dead—he had seen his death in Vatri’s fire. She had always told him the flames showed truth. He had been ready to die.
“You should leave,” the one-eyed man said urgently to the boy. “They’ll return soon, and they’ll . . .”
“They won’t do anything, Keiro,” the boy said. “They’re broken. They have no strength left.”
The man glanced to Scal and away. “I’m not talking about the Fallen.”
Scal wanted to say that his people would not kill children. He realized the lie before he said it. He had killed children—the same children. He did not doubt that most among his fighters had helped to drown twins at some point in their lives. They would all kill children, if it meant their safety.
Perhaps it would be for the best. These children had been the Twins. There was no telling what that had done to them, what they could still do. Perhaps they were still dangerous.
The girl lay weak and unmoving. The boy sat trembling at her side. They did not look a danger, and killing them once was as much as Scal could stomach. He had needed to, the last thing he needed to do. He could not do it again. He should be dead, and they should be dead. It was all wrong, and yet it seemed to have gone right. The sword fell from his hand, and clattered loudly to the stone at his feet.
“I will take them to safety,” he said. The words came from his mouth as he thought them, wrong and yet right. The last thing he had needed to do had not been the last thing. There was something that could keep a man going, even after he should have rightly stopped.
The one-eyed man stared. He might have been close to laughing, but he did not seem like a man who laughed. “You.”
“He will,” the boy said, and the man turned his stare. The boy gave a weak smile that shook so badly it looked ready to fall from his face. “Have faith, Keiro.”
The one-eyed man stared at Scal for a very long time, his face hard. Scal knew his face. A man who had seen too much. Done too much. A man who had been ready to die, and did not know what to do with the breath in his lungs or the life in his hands. He finally nodded. “Then we should go—”
“You can’t come with us,” the boy interrupted softly. In the empty cavern, full of the dead, even a whisper was loud. “You know that. There’s a different path for you.”
Scal had never seen the end of the world—even the sun’s leaving had not been the end. It had not taken everything, and smashed it to pieces too small to ever be put together again. But he watched the world end, for the one-eyed man. Pieces so small they turned to dust.
“I’m sorry,” the man whispered, tears streaming silent from both eyes. “For . . . I’m sorry I wasn’t . . .”
The boy reached out to hold the one-eyed man’s hand. “You’re a good man, Keiro. You always were, and you always will be. The gods ask so much of us, but they never ask more than what we can bear.”
The same words Vatri had said to Scal.
Releasing the man’s hand, the boy turned to Scal. “I think I can walk now. Will you carry my sister? I . . . she’s not well enough to walk.”
Scal nodded. A thing, finally, that he could do. He paused as he bent down toward the girl, paused over the sprawled witch whose half-turned face stared up sightlessly. Scal had known Anddyr so little. The witch had frightened him, for what he was and for his madness. Scal hoped he had found peace in death, finally. Words had never come easily to Scal, and they would not pass his lips now, but he thanked the witch. Perhaps the dead would hear a thought better than the words.
Scal lifted the girl, and she was motionless. Breathing, but asleep or unconscious or exhausted. He carried the slight weight of her gently as the boy rose shakily to his feet, took a few unsteady steps. Breathed, righted himself. Learning, perhaps, how to control his own body once more. He paused, too, over Anddyr’s body. Turned him gently, reached into his robe to retrieve something that he passed into the one-eyed man’s hands. A stuffed creature, lumpy and misshapen. The man clung to it as the boy turned away.
Scal walked at the boy’s side, through those who had fought and fallen. Two small armies had fought, but even a small battle could leave behind so many dead. A hand grabbed weakly at Scal’s ankle as he passed, but he did not pause, did not look to see the color of the clothes. With the boy he walked down the tunnel he had come through so recently, ready to kill one last time before he died.
All wrong, and yet.
Scal had to squint as he went farther down the tunnel, for light—true light—reached along the ground as he walked it. Blinding-bright, and he stepped blinking from the mountain and into sunlight.
Though it hurt, though he could hardly see through the watering of his eyes, he could not help but stare up at where the sun sat once more in the sky.
He stood, unbelieving. He had been ready to die. Had not thought that, if they did somehow win, he would ever see their triumph. Had thought he would go from the dark world to the dark of the afterlife, among the stars in the night sky.
“—see their power is gone,” a voice was shouting, and it was familiar: Edro. “They are gone. The Twins are no more. They have fallen, and they will not rise again. You have lost.” Scal blinked his eyes, and could make out Edro standing atop a pile of rocks, tall enough that all who had gone streaming from the mountain could see him. In the light of the sun, it was very easy to tell black robes from common clothes. Easy to see who had won and who had lost, and not only by the despair on some faces. “If you still wish to fight,” and Edro paused to draw his sword, holding it ready before him, “then we are ready to face you. But know that you’re fighting for nothing. Winning a single battle means nothing after you have already lost the war.”
Some of the black-clad mercenaries twitched for their swords, but did not draw. They had fought for the Fallen, might have even believed in the fighting, but they had only ever been hired blades. Looking for someone now to command them, they found no one. They did not draw. They would not fight.
The Fallen themselves had always been peaceful enough. They fought when they had to. Even against the makeshift weapons of Scal’s fighters, their chances of winning were low. They were wise enough to see it.
There were no witches left.
Silence was Edro’s answer, and he took it. He leveled his blade, swept it in a circle before him. “Kneel. Surrender to me, and I may let you keep your lives.”
They did, all among the gathered crowd who wore black. It was not all the Fallen; there would still be many within the mountain, and they would need to be rooted out. Seeing the looks on the faces of his people, Scal knew they would take to that task eagerly. He wondered, if Edro turned his back, would the others still tear their new prisoners to pieces faster than blinking? The looks on their faces said they might.
Scal did not share that fire. His limbs ached, and he should not have been alive, and there was still one last thing he needed to do.
As Edro supervised the Fallen being taken prisoner, Scal put his back to the scene. He walked from the mountain of the dead, toward the town of the dead. He did not know what he would find there, but waiting would not make the learning any easier.
You sound like a person who is waiting to die.
Rora, Aro, Vatri, Joros. He needed to know what had become of them.
He was not the only one who left Edro to his work. There were steps behind him, and a glance showed him a number of the pack, who had come to fight with and for Rora and Aro, who did not care for the fallout of the victory they had helped bring. There were some of Scal’s people, mostly the older ones who did not have the same hunger as the young ones. There was Deslan. He wondered if she followed for him, or for Joros.
She came to his side, and her eyes widened when she truly saw the boy at his side, the girl in his arms. She froze for a moment, Scal walking on without her, and then she rushed forward again, demanding a question she did not have the words to ask, a frantic and worried babble of sounds.
“It is done,” Scal said, silencing her confusion and her concern. “They are not what they were made.”
For a time she remained silent, and she remained at his side. She was studying the young twins. Intently, intensely. Scal waited, and finally she reached the same end he had. There had been enough killing. These children were not a danger. They had suffered enough. Deslan, for all that she did not have children of her own, had a mother’s heart. She pulled a waterskin from her belt and offered it to the boy; when he had had his fill, she made Scal stop so that she could work water down the girl’s throat as well. Gently she asked their names. Etarro and Avorra. Sensing the boy’s wish for silence, she asked nothing more.
The dead-town approached, roofs shining in the light of the sun. All the villagers laid out, given to the darkness, given needlessly, and now lying under the sun. It was obscene. Heartbreaking.
At the outskirts of the dead-town, Rora knelt weeping over her brother’s body.
Etarro rushed forward, still unsteady on his feet, but determined. Joros, standing nearby with his back to Rora, startled when he saw Etarro. Fumbled at his waist, had his shortsword half drawn before he noticed the others. Noticed that the boy did not charge with fury, did not charge to kill. Etarro dropped down next to Rora and flung his arms around her waist, and their heads pressed together, and new sobs tore out of Rora. The pack joined them, making a loose circle of grieving around their fallen member. Someone, he did not know who, had told him that their packs were closer than family.
Scal looked for a place to set Avorra down where it would not look like he was laying out another corpse. Deslan took her, kneeling down and cradling the girl half sitting, speaking softly to her of normal things though the girl still slept.
Only one of the pack had not joined the grieving circle, a woman he thought was called Harin, though there were tears clear in her eyes when she marched to stand before Joros. She was not angry at him—not yet. Scal knew, by the lines of her body, that she was looking for a reason not to be angry. “What happened?” she asked.
Joros, for once, seemed unwilling to meet her eyes. Unwilling to stand before a battle of words. “What happened was what was necessary.” All the leaders—Joros and Vatri and Neira and Edro, and Scal and Rora and Aro at the edges—had decided it was best not to tell their people of the deaths they knew would come from the battle. Everyone knew some would die—a war could not be fought without deaths. But the leaders had known that certain lives must be given to win. They had known from the start of this path that Rora and Aro would need to die for the Twins to die.
Only Rora had not died. Like Scal, like the one-eyed man in the mountain, she stood with breath in her lungs and life in her hands when she should not. She lived, and there was an emptiness beside her where her brother did not.
“He asked me,” Joros said, “made me promise. They didn’t both need to die, and he wanted—”
Rora had always moved so fast, when she wished to. Scal blinked, and she had borne Joros to the ground, screaming and tearing and choking. Scal was not alone in trying to pull her off, but she was strong for her size, and she had nothing to lose. She did not stop fighting him and them until Etarro said softly, “Rora, stop. It won’t change anything.”
The words reached her, somehow, and she slumped as though they had robbed her of the last of her energy. She let herself be returned to her brother’s side, and Joros was wise enough to say nothing more.
So much was wrong, for a day when everything had gone right.
And a last thing: Scal did not see Vatri. Among the four they had left behind in the dead-town, there was no sign of her. He knew, somehow, that he would not find her if he looked for her. He had asked her to shape him, and she had. Shaped him to her purposes, shaped him to something useful. Her purpose was complete, his usefulness done. There had never been anything more.
“There is nothing left here,” he said aloud. The words were for the others scattered around in their small and their large griefs, and the words were for himself as well. Words that would move past his lips, words that he could bear to speak. There was a breaking here. A fracture in a slab of ice, spidering slowly but unstoppably outward. There was an ending waiting for him, somewhere. He had done all that he had needed to do, all that he could do.
He watched them stand slowly. Watched them gather the dead, and gather the living. There was nothing left for them here. The others left at the mountain would follow. Some few began the long walk back to the looming shadow, to share the rest of what had happened, to help with what still needed to be done there. The rest went in the other direction, away from the mountain, away from the death. Rora helping to carry the body of her brother. Etarro beside Deslan, who carried his sister. The pack. Joros, lingering, and following.
They would be the first to share the story with the world. They will sing songs of us, and our names will be carved into the stone of history. People would ask, happy and unbelieving, and they would tell the tale, because they must. We will be remembered as the ones who brought back the sun.
Scal did not want to be remembered. He turned his eyes in a different direction, as all the others faded away.
He had always thought his death would be waiting for him among the snows of the North. That the snow and the ice would swallow him, and would not spit him out once more. Perhaps it was not his death that waited for him there, but something waited. Something called to him, strong and powerful. He would find it, or he would find his death there after all.