Jon Sprunk - Shadow's master

She came to rest, partly curled up, on the ground. Josey opened her eyes to the lead-gray sky. She couldn't feel any part of her body for several long heartbeats. When sensation resumed, it was filled with jagged pains. It seemed to take hours for her hands to find her stomach, but she felt better when she touched the bump under her clothes. All her worries fell away, leaving her calm in the midst of the battlefield. She attempted to sit up and regretted it as everything hurt. Then she looked around.

All her men were down. Sorrow stabbed her heart until she saw them, friend and foe alike, getting up with blood running from their noses and ears. Yet there was no sign of Master Hirsch or the Thunder Lord. Josey had managed to rise to her knees when she saw part of a torso and a pair of legs clad in mutilated remnants of crimson armor, half buried in the mud. There was nothing left of his head and upper body. Josey looked away as fresh nausea ripped through her stomach. It's over. My people are saved.

Then she saw Hirsch's torn brown jacket and she crawled over to him, ignoring the fierce pains in her knees and hip. The adept had lost his hat. His eyes were closed. Half his beard and mustache had been singed away. Josey peeled back his jacket and almost cried. Ripping off his shirt, she shouted for help and then wrapped it around the stump of his right arm, but Hirsch reached up with his remaining hand to stay her.

“He's dead?” His voice was wan and labored.

Josey nodded as a tear ran down the side of her nose. “Your trick worked. Blew him straight to hell.”

“Not a…” Hirsch coughed, and his entire body quaked. The grimace of agony on his face made Josey want to wail. “Not a trick. Good, clean magic.”

She laughed through the tears. “Don't talk. We'll find a physician and you'll be back to your old self again in no time at all.”

“Don't lie to me, lass.” The next cough almost lifted him off the ground. When it left him, he sighed. “Done a lot of things I regret. I earned the name Red-Hand…a thousand times over. Death is the least I deserve.”

“Don't say that.” She couldn't swallow. “You saved me. You saved us all.”

He looked at her with a crooked smile. “I'm glad I came to your palace that day. Maybe that makes up for some of the other. Maybe.”

A rush of emotions ripped through Josey as she watched his chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. Rise and…

She willed herself not to cry. She wanted to be home, back in Othir, with her sorrows behind, but the fighting continued. Her soldiers made a human barricade around her, but how long could that last? A patch of blue on the ground caught her eye. Josey reached over Hirsch and pulled a sheet of fabric from the dirt. It was her imperial standard, the golden griffon on a cerulean field, attached to a broken pole. Josey stood up, trying not to groan as her hip protested, and raised the banner. With her other hand she drew her stiletto and brandished it to the sky. Then she shouted at the top of her lungs.

“Nimea!”

She screamed it again, pouring out all of her sorrow and frustration. Some of her troops glanced over their shoulders, and then they surged forward as if buoyed by her cries. A tall man pushed through their lines, and Josey pointed her knife at him until she recognized his face. Brian looked like a gift from heaven, despite the covering of dirt and blood. He lifted his visor, and Josey smiled, more relieved than she had any right to be. Then he took up her rallying cry and rejoined the fight.

Josey couldn't see much beyond the circle of her defenders, but later she would hear accounts that the invaders had lost the will to fight after their commander fell by her hand. Or possibly his sorcery held some sway over them that evaporated with his demise. Her army, bolstered by the light cavalry and Keegan's fighters, pushed the Uthenorians back to the stream. Small groups of invaders peeled off and tried to ford the channel to safety, many of them drowning. Others tried to scale the hills, and most of them were cut down by crossbow fire. Before long these defections triggered a full rout.

And so the second battle for the Valley of Seven Arrows ended.

As the sun touched the tops of the western hills, Josey and Brian stood among the dead and dying and looked out over the incredible carnage. Flocks of ravens and other carrion birds covered the valley floor, taking their due as soldiers and camp followers separated the living from the dead. To the north, her cavalry was pursuing the surviving invaders. She couldn't believe it was over.

“Majesty.”

Josey turned to see a soldier holding Lightning's reins. It was her bodyguard with the missing ear, his head now wrapped in a crude dressing.

“I found him wandering a ways back. He's yours, isn't he?”

She nodded, unable to stop the tears this time. “Yes, he is. Thank you…”

“Prett, Your Majesty. Sergeant Nikodemus Prett.”

“Thank you, Sergeant Prett.”

Josey hugged the stallion's neck, wanting to burrow into his soft mane. She looked around for something to use to mount up, and Brian went to one knee beside her. Settling into the saddle, Josey turned Lightning south and let him carry her back toward the camp. Brian walked by her side.

They exchanged no words, only an occasional glance. The sky threatened rain.

“You cannot fight the Shadow.”

The black eyes of the thing that inhabited Lord Malphas bore down on Caim. “We are everywhere. We see everything. We know your deepest fears. Submit or we will destroy you.”

Caim bent down to the floor, weighed down by the black tendrils and the awful truth of those words. He wasn't strong enough to win against this enemy. His knives were useless, and the shadows wouldn't hurt one of their own.

He has been corrupted by the Shadow.

Caim lifted his head as the words formed in his mind. The voice was soft and feminine, and after a moment he recognized its source. Mother?

Malphas has succumbed to the power of the Shadow, but he is not invulnerable, my son. You must seek the strength that dwells within.

Caim closed his eyes and shut out the pain. How could he kill the majordomo without his powers or his weapons? Then something glimmered in the darkness behind his eyelids. It glowed like a spark in his mind, growing brighter as he concentrated on it. He remembered the surge of energy Kit had given him with her kiss, and a soothing warmth suffused his chest, flowing outward to his limbs.

Caim shifted his arms under the coils. His first step was getting free. Focusing on the spark, he climbed to one knee, and then the other. The shadow tentacles constricted around his thighs and calves, making movement difficult, but he gathered his legs under him.

“You must submit,” Malphas hissed.

Caim strained with his arms, forcing them upward. The black tendrils squeezed tighter, digging deeper into his skin, but he didn't stop. He pushed back with his mind, and the coils stretched inch by painful inch. Malphas growled as the tentacles snapped apart. Caim gathered his strength and leapt, not for his weapons on the floor, but toward Malphas with his hands extended. He unleashed every iota of power he had left. The spark blazed like a tiny sun in his imagination. Caim squinted as shards of white light appeared in his hands. About the length of his forearm, they looked like nothing so much as knives carved from pure starlight. He plunged them both into the nobleman's chest.

Malphas's lips parted in a silent howl as oily smoke issued from the wounds. His hands clawed at Caim's back and shoulders. Caim held on and pushed to drive the blades of light deeper. The black of Malphas's eyes lightened to milky white as his throes lessened in their violence. Finally, without an utterance, Lord Malphas toppled over.