What does it matter? What does any of it matter?
He could see the battle from where he was, so tantalizingly close. The queen had built her tower on the high ground, a great mound of stone, which she also must have made. That whole plain of shale rock was her sculpture, her putty laid over the bedrock of the world. Not far below, he saw the dragon drop down before the bridge. He couldn’t see Brin. He couldn’t see any single person. Below were thousands clashing and mingling in shadows like a vast beast with many heads. Fronts formed and fell away, pushes and retreats, pockets and currents. The dragon changed all that. Those nearest it pulled back. Fighting continued on the outskirts, but the dragon commanded attention in the center. Didn’t take long to discover why.
Fire exploded from its mouth, sweeping left to right, bathing all.
Is Brin in that? Is she—
He pushed up onto his one good leg to get a better view. His other not-broken leg made him wince, but he cared too little to give it attention.
What happens now? The queen will take the key, and then what? I’ll continue to exist here, and Brin . . . will she go to Rel?
He didn’t know how it worked. It might be that she would be escorted under armed guard; or perhaps she would just disappear, sucked from the realm and sent to her rightful reward. But no matter how it happened, the fact that she would be pulled away was a certainty.
I’ve lost her.
He felt pain—not in his leg, but a stabbing in his heart—so physical, so real, that he clutched at his chest. He expected to find a javelin or perhaps an arrow, but nothing was there, no weapon, no wound. And he was alone. Tesh understood then that shades were exposed nerves without the garment of bodies. Love, hate, fear, joy—these were the iron and steel of Nifrel and regret a form of suffocation.
You aren’t fixing anything. You’re breaking more things and calling it better! And you aren’t freeing the world of a monster. You’re taking its place, Brin had said.
And Raithe’s words again, I want you to start a family, raise children, and live a good and happy life—someplace safe and green.
Brin would have jumped at the chance to go somewhere—back to Rhen, maybe—and start a family. He could have done it. They could have had a home somewhere. She might have been seated at the spinning wheel inside, and he could have been out front chopping wood for a fire instead of watching this one—watching this flame burn the one person who . . .
If I let you go, I’ll never see you again.
Of course you will. If not in this life, then the next.
The pain in his chest ripped so hard he grunted, his hands making fists.
If I had one wish, it would have been that you had died with the rest of us that day. If that were the case, we’d still have you. Now she will.
It was as if his parents didn’t even want him to seek justice for their deaths.
The fire went out.
Before the bridge and under a torrent of flame, the crowd had scattered. Some burned. The rest fled. The area before the bridge lay empty. At the center, before the dragon, stood a small group—no more than ten or twelve.
Is that her? Is she among them?
Hope welled up. The agony in his chest changed to a different sort of ache; the pain in his leg faded. Without applying thought, Tesh was moving, running down the slope, dodging spearmen, axmen, dwarfs, and elves. He hopped rocks, cracks, and crevices, his sight struggling to stay fixed on those at the feet of the dragon who had managed to survive the fire.
Has to be them—has to be her.
Tesh ran faster, charging downhill. The weight was still with him, but he’d switched it from one sore shoulder to the other fresh one. He entered the thick ranks of the queen’s legions just as all the crowd took a step back and gasped. Not at him—a portion of the valley floor had just stood up.
Nothing was likely to impress Tesh anymore, and even as the stone giant grappled with the dragon, he focused on pushing through the crowd. Dodging his way through, exploiting the holes and gaps, or shoving when he had no choice. Tesh didn’t want to attract attention, but he had to get through.
The rock giant took hold and jerked the dragon off the bridge, hauling it to the side. Tesh was close enough to see the small group struggling to reach the bridge. At that moment, his hopes died.
It’s not them—not Brin.
What he saw were mighty heroes dressed in grand armor that glowed with power. These people were big, powerful, and impressive. Near the center was the brightest of them all, a beacon of brilliance in a suit of stunning armor.
“Now! Run!” someone in their number shouted. “Across the bridge! Go!”
Six of the heroes ran forward in a jostled line, madly winding their way through the legs of a dragon and a stone monster that kept the army at bay.
The brightest one of the six was also the fleetest, the fastest runner he’d ever seen, except for maybe—
Brin!
Tesh pressed forward.
Coming up behind the forces of the queen—who were now all standing still—he shouldered his way through their ranks, his eyes ever on the racing streak of armored light. Brin had reached the bridge ahead of everyone and kept going. She ran so fast that she got to the center of the span before looking back and finding she was alone. She stopped and waited for the rest to catch up.
Tesh lost sight of everything because he hit the densest portion of the front line. He was far from the tallest, and a forest of shoulders and heads blocked his view. He continued to shove through. Those around him spoke to one another by name, and he realized that to these warriors, who had fought in countless battles, Nifrel was a small village. They didn’t know him, but at that moment, they didn’t care.
Four defenders were effectively holding the entrance to the bridge: a giant dwarf with a crown and a massive ax, a wild man with a short sword and shield, another big man with a pair of hammers, and the Fhrey fane, Fenelyus. These four had already built up a hedge of slain bodies. No one was eager to challenge them, and that allowed Tesh to move ahead. Some—the closest—even helped push him forward into the fray that they wanted no part of.
When a sweep of the giant dwarf’s ax cleared a row of three men, Tesh broke through. He took a place in the front line, shoulder to shoulder with the rest of Ferrol’s bravest, struggling to find a means of taking down those guarding the entrance to the bridge.
Tesh hoped Fenelyus would recognize him, but the Fhrey wasn’t looking his way. “Fenelyus!”
The man behind Tesh shoved forward, pushing him into the killing ring. He waited his turn to die again.
The dwarven king swung at Tesh.
With no retreat possible and his swords in his belt, Tesh cringed as the massive glowing ax whistled down on him.
“Fen!” the dwarf shouted in anger as his ax froze mid-stroke.
“Sorry,” Fenelyus said, her hands outstretched, fingers pinched together. “This one is not the enemy. He’s one of them.” She jerked her head in the direction of the bridge where all the others had gone.
Before Tesh could react or respond, the big man with the hammers grabbed and jerked him through their wall of defense, tossing him onto the bridge like a sack of wool. Tesh fell, skidding across the stone, and rolled to a stop just before falling into the Abyss.
“Good to have you aboard, boy,” the king shouted after him, then resumed his attacks, cutting a charging Fhrey in half. The dwarf king laughed, but Tesh could see sweat on his brow and weakness in his eyes.