A. Hartley - Will Power

I moved quickly. There was a narrow flight of steps up the dark stone, and I headed for it, blinking away the lingering slowness which still gripped my legs, focusing on the stairs and running up them. I broke out from the top as Aliana was leaning over the low, carved rail to shoot.

She spun to face me, her eyes cold and narrow as they brought the heavy crossbow in line with my chest, her full mouth pursed into a crack of concentration. I shouted desperately, but it was a cry of rage as much as of panic, and as I did so I threw myself at her, arms outstretched. At the same instant her finger tightened on the crossbow trigger. I felt the bolt tear through my jerkin under one arm, grazing my side with a rush of heat, and I thought I was dead. For that briefest of moments, I didn’t care.

I suppose she had been entirely focused on her shot, and not on planting her feet properly. I don’t know. In any case, I caught her off balance somehow, and before I knew it, she was falling. She didn’t even cry out as she toppled over the balcony and dropped the twenty or so feet to the stone floor below. I drew myself up in shocked horror and looked down.

Lisha and Renthrette stood paralyzed a matter of yards from the figure that had called itself the Soul of the Arak Drül. Lisha’s eyes were closed and her mouth set tight as if her mind was trying to wrestle free, but Renthrette’s eyes were open and in them was pain, fear, and burning anger. Sorrail and the cavalry had dismounted, and the soldiers were slowly approaching the two women, their weapons drawn. I stood watching, powerless. Aliana’s crossbow had fallen with her, and there was nothing I could do to prevent the slaughter which would inevitably follow. I focused my thoughts on the cloaked entity below, whose back was to me, struggling to grapple with him and set the others free to defend themselves, but his mind was like a wall of ice and though I could sense it, I could not penetrate its defenses.

Sorrail took a step toward Renthrette. His spear burned white at the tip so that its light reflected in her wide, upturned eyes. Then he turned to the soldier by his side, and I noticed for the first time the sharp emerald green of the Arak Drül officer’s eyes beneath his silver helm: It was Garnet.

“Wait,” Sorrail commanded the soldiers. “We two will strike together. I will deal with the traitor, Captain Garnet with the she-goblin.”

A hush fell upon the chamber as the soldiers stepped clear, leaving room for the two officers to complete their task.

“Garnet,” I screamed. “It’s Lisha and your sister, for God’s sake!”

He turned sharply and looked up at me. “Take that traitor,” Sorrail said, and a pair of soldiers broke from the rest and began to climb the narrow steps to the balcony.

“It’s all lies, Garnet,” I called down. “They have lied to you. They are not what you think they are.”

“How dare you, of all people, accuse them of such a thing?” he replied, scornfully.

“It’s true,” gasped a voice.

I looked back to where Orgos, still stuck against the wall, struggled to speak. “Will’s right,” he managed, before the soldiers moved to silence him.

“Is this your idea of honor, Garnet?” I shouted desperately. “To stab them while they stand paralyzed by a sideshow magician?”

“The creatures of darkness are beyond honor,” said Sorrail.

“The creature of darkness you are about to hack to death is Lisha,” I yelled at Garnet. “Look at her! Look. .”

And then the soldiers were on me. One of them punched me hard in the stomach. I doubled up, but my eyes stayed fixed on what was happening below us as if my life depended upon it. Garnet was looking at Lisha, axe in hand, but his back was to me and I could not see his face.

“Strike,” said Sorrail, raising his weapon over his shoulder like a javelin, his deathly cape of fur rippling with the movement, “Strike as I do.”

Lisha stirred, twisting free of the mind grip for the briefest moment, and her eyes opened and fell on Garnet. Her mouth moved and I thought she said his name, but her voice was a mere breath and I could not be sure.

Kill the goblins , commanded the voice in my head. Kill them all.

Sorrail pulled back his spear to strike and Garnet took two sudden steps backward, spun around, and brought his axe down heavily on the hooded man. You could hear the steel bite into flesh and bone, but then the robes folded in on themselves and the body vanished. The mind, or soul, or whatever it was, became an absence that stood out like a sudden silence after the unnoticed drumming of rain on the roof. Renthrette’s sword arm came to life. She struck at Sorrail’s spear as he lunged, deflecting the glowing tip from her breast. Then there was a blur from the chamber door and the great pale wolf, flashing like silver, streaked toward them and leaped, jaws wide, at Sorrail’s chest. He staggered under the weight of the great beast, but did not fall. It snapped at him, and its guttural growl slid into a menacing hard-edged bark. Sorrail jabbed with his spear and the wolf scuttered back, biding its time. Then the man froze. For a long moment he seemed to just stop as if lost in thought, then he turned his head fractionally so he could see Renthrette pulling her sword from his bleeding side. He stared at her as if amazed before slumping to his knees. Then the wolf was at his throat. I averted my eyes.

The other soldiers turned toward Renthrette, but Lisha’s spear spun in her hands and she warded them off as if with a charm, and in truth it was no longer clear that they meant to attack. A slow confusion was settling on the enemy and the library felt as if a great cloud bank which had obscured the sun had unexpectedly stirred and melted away. The soldiers’ grips on my arms relaxed, and they peered at me as if unsure of who I was or what they were supposed to do with me. Around the room, fallen Stehnites were cautiously picking themselves up. Toth, bruised but otherwise unharmed, moved quickly to where Orgos lay and began to tend his wounds, then-bizarrely-one of the blond men who had been conjuring fire for the Arak Drül archers joined him and held his hands over Orgos’s belly as if warming his hands at a flame. Orgos’s eyes flickered under their lids, then opened, and he smiled weakly at Toth.

All around us things were changing, and not just the people. Horses were waking up and moving like animals again, shifting and breaking ranks in casual disinterest. The Arak Drül troops looked at each other, their faces bewildered, and many of them laid down their weapons as if they were unsure of what they were or where they had gotten them.

Garnet embraced his sister, then Lisha, but his face was serious. I wondered what he was thinking and, more importantly, what had changed his mind so completely. That Garnet could act decisively when he was clear on what he thought was right had never been in question; the problem was that I had not seen enough to account for a change. Had it all been a ploy, a cleverly staged ruse in which he lulled them into vulnerability and then struck? I doubted it. He had come in as one of them, and then he had changed and cut them down. I couldn’t explain it beyond proffering the woolly and inadequately obvious: that the sight of his sister and his friends about to be slain by his new comrades had forced an instant and dramatic reappraisal of his values and allegiances. Or perhaps Sorrail’s attempt to make him see Lisha as a goblin had backfired, forcing an altogether different conclusion. But I remembered how Orgos had once come running to greet me and I had seen him as a goblin bent on murdering me where I stood. I just didn’t know what to think.

I turned and found the huge wolf, its face streaked with Sorrail’s blood, looking thoughtfully at me. I swallowed hard and reached out uneasily to pat its head. But as I did so, a low rumble came from its throat, and I snatched back my hand as if bitten. I opened my mouth to say something, but could not think of suitable words, so I closed it. At that moment, something came across the wolf’s face and it took a step toward me, briefly brushing its thick fur against my thigh. I gasped, but stayed quite still. The animal, if that’s the right word, looked up into my face once, its deep yellow eyes fixing me as before, and then slipped away into the crowd.