Brent Weeks - Way of Shadows

Feir sat up and looked out at Curoch, twenty feet away, exposed. “I can use it,” he said. “I can save it.”

“No!” Solon said. “You’ll die.”

The soldiers and the meisters had paused, regrouping, advancing slowly now, cautious and orderly.

“I don’t matter, Solon. We can’t let them have it.”

“You wouldn’t even live long enough to use it, Feir. Not even if you were willing to trade your life for one second of power.”

“It’s right there!”

“And so is this,” Solon said, motioning to the edge of the bridge.

Feir looked. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Over the edge, a black silk rope had been tied to the underside of either end of the bridge. It only extended out below them when the wind blew. Feir was looking not at the rope but at the fall.

“Hey, it’s prophecy, right? It has to work,” Solon said. If only the world would stop flashing yellow.

“It never works out exactly like Dorian says!”

“If he told you that you were going to do this, would you have come?”

“Hell no. And don’t you nod knowingly to me. I get enough of that from Dorian.” Feir looked at the approaching soldiers and meisters. “Right. You first.”

He’s going to go after Curoch. The heroic idiot.

“I can’t,” Solon said. “I’m not strong enough to grab the rope. I’ll die if I go alone.”

Feir stood. “Just let me try—” he reached out with his Talent and grabbed the sword. Instantly, hands of vir crackled visibly over his magic and started climbing toward him. Solon slashed the magic loose with his own.

Spots exploded in front of Solon’s eyes. “Oh, don’t do that. Don’t do that, please. Oh.”

“Let me ride pony-back, Feir.” Solon didn’t have time to explain. The meisters were close.

“I’m crazy, and you’re fat,” Feir said. But he picked up Solon and put him on his back.

“Magically too. I’ve got a plan. And I am not fat.”

For all that he second-guessed plans when they were all safe, Feir knew to obey in battle. He opened himself quickly, and Solon dipped into Feir’s Talent. He lashed himself onto Feir’s back with magical bonds. Then he quickly readied five thin weaves. It still hurt, but not nearly as much as using his own Talent.

“Now,” he said. “Jump.”

Feir leaped over the side of the bridge. The rope was in the perfect place—not because of the wind or the power of prophecy, but because Solon pulled it there with magic. As Feir grabbed the rope, Solon activated the other weaves.

Holes were torn in the sides of each of the fire pots and air inside them suddenly compressed, jetting the oil in the pots out onto the bridge. The last weave dropped a little spark in middle of the oil.

There was a satisfying whoosh. The river suddenly lit orange and white and heat washed over the falling mages.

Then things were happening too rapidly to follow. Feir had caught the rope with both hands and a leg. He immediately flipped upside down. The sudden change in direction caught Solon’s arm across Feir’s shoulder and snapped it. If it weren’t for the magical bonds holding him, he would have dropped like a stone. The rope, anchored on both sides of the bridge, first stretched, bowing down toward the middle. Because Feir and Solon hadn’t made it to the middle of the bridge, that meant they zipped headfirst for fifteen paces. Then the rope tore loose at the castle end.

Solon was watching light explode over them, distantly aware that they were swinging with terrific speed toward the river. The bridge was engulfed in flames leaping merrily into the night. Or maybe that was pain exploding in his head. Then they slapped into something cold and hard.

He took a breath. It was bad timing. The cold hard stuff had become cold wet stuff. They were under water. He coughed as Feir came to the surface, and Solon thought dimly that the man was either a hell of a swimmer or something was dragging them out.

Feir was on his knees in the shallows, holding up his hands. From his perch on the man’s back, Solon saw that Feir’s hands had been torn to bloody pieces by the rope. He could see bone.

“Ah, you’re better off than I thought you’d be,” Dorian’s voice was saying as his magic hauled them out of the river. “Stop lollygagging, you two. We need to get going if we’re going to make it to Khalidor in time.”

“Lollygagging?” Solon asked, glad to find that he had strength to be outraged.

“Khalidor?” Feir said.

“Well, that is where my bride is waiting. I can’t wait to find out who she is. I think Curoch is going to find its way there, too.”

Feir cursed, but Solon—broken arm, purple vision, and all—just laughed.

As they came within the arc of his sword or the reach of his lashing feet or striking fists, men went down like grain in a summer storm. To Kylar, who had always been gifted at fighting, battle suddenly made sense. The chaos unfolded into beautifully intricate, interlocking, and logical patterns.

Just by looking at a man’s face, he could judge instantly: parry left, hesitate, lunge, clear. A man died and fell far enough away that he didn’t impede Kylar’s movements. Next, sweep right, roll in, bear fist to nose. Spin, hamstring, throat. Parry, riposte. Stab.

Parsed to the individual percussion of each chamber of his heart, battle had a rhythm, a music. Not a sound was out of place. The tenor of ringing steel layered over a bass of the fists and feet hammering flesh—soft to hard, hard to soft—and the baritone of men’s curses, punctuated by the staccato percussion of rending mail.

With his Talent singing, Kylar was a virtuoso. He fought in a fine frenzy, a dancer possessed. Time never slowed, but he found his body reacting to sights he didn’t consciously see—turning, dodging under blows his mind never registered, striking with the awesome speed and grace of that angel of death, the Night Angel.

The highlanders sought to overwhelm him by force of numbers. Their blades caught the air within an inch of Kylar’s ear, within half an inch of his stomach, a quarter of an inch from his thigh. He rode the front of each beat, cut the margins closer and closer, until the bodies he was killing were being pushed forward instead of falling back, and pressing in closer on him.

He sheathed Retribution and grabbed the hand holding a blade aimed at his belly and yanked a skinny highlander across the circle to stab his fellow. Reaching around his own back with a knife, he diverted a sword thrust while his other knife found an eye socket.

Two spears came for him and he dropped to the floor, yanking both forward. As each impaled a body, he swung up, destroying another highlander’s face with a kick.

But the situation was hopeless. Within a cage of tangled weapons and thrashing, dying men, he’d be trapped in moments.

Light as a cat, he sprang to the back of a man dying on his knees and vaulted off the shoulder of one of the impaled spear bearers.

As he flipped sideways through the air, a ball of green wytchfire the size of his fist streaked through the air at him. It caught his cloak and broke into pieces. He landed on his feet and ducked under a sword cut. His cloak burst into green flame. Kylar tore the cloak off as he dove between two spears.

Holding one edge of the cloak, he came to his feet and wrapped the cloak around another of his attackers. The green flame raced for the man’s skin, and there burned a fierce blue as he screamed.

Another ball of wytchfire sizzled through the air and Kylar dove behind one of the pillars supporting the high ceiling.

There were two beats of rest. Kylar had killed or disabled more than half the Khalidorans, but now the others played to their strengths. Point, counterpoint.