C.E. Murphy - Truthseeker

Oisín’s voice danced through the music, whispering “Truth will seek the hardest path.” Lara, staring at the ripped hole in the world, thought she’d never seen a path that looked harder. She jolted forward, forcing her knees to unlock. Her ankle bent to the side, a reminder that she wore strappy sandals. She scrambled forward regardless, afraid that if she paused, the shredded earth would close again, and whatever answers lay on the road before her would be gone forever.

A nightwing screeched, the sound harsh against truth’s music. She swung with the staff, and the nightwing exploded on impact. Lara ducked as another flew in, and felts its claws snag at the back of her dress. She would have to start wearing sturdier clothes than her favored linens and silks if she was going to live under constant attack. Leather, at least, or perhaps Seelie armor, simply as a matter of course.

She recognized the calm, wry idea as panic’s close sister, something irrelevant to focus on so her fear seemed less important. She threw herself forward, feet clumsy as she tried to clamber up the path of light and music soaring into the sky.

Shock jolted her heart as hard as the ground jolted her foot as she slammed downward through the path. Lara tumbled forward through insubstantial light, catching herself on her hands and rolling to gape in offense at the shining road that wouldn’t support her weight. A nightwing backwinged above her, falling like a bird of prey, and brilliant gold from the sunrise glittered just at the top of her range of vision. At least she would die with the light in her eyes, if she had to die at all.

She was looking for a phrase, a way to shape truth, to save herself, when a black-clad warrior spilled down the path of light and eviscerated the nightwing as he passed.

Watching him, Lara knew she’d never really seen someone fight before. The battle with the Unseelie had been too busy, too crowded, for her to watch any one person, and her other encounters with violence—mercifully few, excepting the past week—had been either brief or laden with magic, neither of which allowed for a man with a sword to do what he did best.

He was Unseelie; he had to be, if the armor of hammered midnight meant anything. He wore a helm, obscuring his face even if his back hadn’t been to her, and the blade he used was liquid gold in the sunrise. The nightwings came to him like moth to flame, drawn by a likeness or by the path of light he’d entered on. They came to him, and they died.

There was no pattern, but there was grace and surety of movement to their dance. He seemed to know where they would strike from, always twisting or stepping away. Flame, weak in the morning light, washed off his armor when they spat it. At that, a handful of them scattered, screaming defiance, then rushed at each other, colliding in a spatter of dark above the ruined highway.

A single creature rose up where there had been many, and others retreated to dive into its blackness. It contorted as they crashed together, gaining strength and size until it became a sinuous black serpent, winged and fork-tongued and spitting fire. Clawed feet burst out of its chest, and it coiled its tail beneath itself and used it to spring forward. Lara screamed and skittered backward, but the Unseelie warrior met the creature with a leap of his own.

They came together in a clash, armor and cartilage rattling. Fire gouted over the knight’s head, the monster’s flesh absorbing his sword’s blow. Absorbing in part, at least: a howling nightwing fell away and the whole of the thing became fractionally smaller. Lara, wide-eyed, sought her crowbar and found it lying almost directly beneath the conflict, alongside Dafydd’s too-still body.

Sickness grabbed her belly, but she pushed onto her hands and knees, crawling forward as the battle fell to the side, both combatants requiring the earth for leverage. They struck again, metal shrieking as the giant nightwing’s claws dug into armor, but a second wounded nightwing fell away. Lara closed her fingers around her crowbar and edged closer to the fight, swinging with both it and the staff when one of the smaller monsters came close. Her hands were icy, so thick she could barely feel either weapon, but she would not leave their rescuer to fight the amalgamated nightwing by himself.

He was the answer to her determination. How, she didn’t know, but she had no doubt that she’d called him. That the staff had torn her world asunder and ripped open a road between the Barrow-lands and here because she had spoken truth. She’d promised their little army would find a way to defeat the nightwings without paying a cost in Dafydd’s life, and a chaos magic had responded. The earth still rattled and shook around them, and she no longer knew if it was the staff’s work, or the battle with the nightwings.

One came too close to her and she rose up on her knees, smashing it against the asphalt. Kelly, sounding miles away, let out a triumphant shout and tore toward the fight, joining Lara in crushing slices of midnight the warrior hacked off the larger beast.

They were mindless, Lara thought, driven only to destroy. They weren’t by nature cooperative, not from what she’d seen in the earlier battles, and yet they had twice now joined together to make a single creature more dangerous than they were individually. Something had to be guiding them, using creativity and cleverness to turn many small demons into a single vast one.

She whispered “Amazing grace” and turned her gaze from the falling bits of monster to the larger one still battling the Unseelie warrior. Song settled in her blood, focusing her power to know truth, to hear it, to see it, and their master came clear.

He rode the giant nightwing, ghostly expression full of the mixed concentration and glee of a bronco rider. His features were smooth, beautiful as all the Seelie were, but looking on him made her eyes hurt, as if she was looking at something that both was and wasn’t there. She dropped the crowbar and clawed her hands around the staff, trying to draw more of its strength into herself so she might see more clearly, but that, it seemed, was not one of its gifts. Only destruction, and perhaps healing. No amount of pouring herself into the song, seeking truth, would alter that.

The nightwing changed shape as she struggled to see its master more clearly. New heads sprang up as the knight cut pieces away, until it was a hydra, all heads and almost no body. Kelly still smashed the injured nightwings with her tire iron, and finally the warrior struck one head off and a new one didn’t arise. A second head fell, and the rider’s face contorted with rage. He glanced up, seeking escape. Lara bellowed, “No!” with all the energy she had left, and for an instant he met her eyes and froze.

Then the hydra leaped forward, striking directly at her. Lara fell back, swinging with the staff, but the black knight was there, skewering the hydra’s breast. Ichor sprayed out and another head fell before the thing dissolved into a handful of weak and broken nightwings. Kelly jumped on the closest ones, pounding them into the asphalt, and the Unseelie warrior dispatched the last two or three with less vigor, if no less thoroughly. Lara collapsed onto her elbows, wheezing with relief as their rescuer stood still a long moment, clearly searching for any further danger.

Then, breathing hard, he pulled his helm off and Ioan ap Annwn turned to offer Lara a hand up.

“What are you—” Lara fumbled the words, tongue too big for her mouth as she stared up at Ioan. He was gore-spattered, black smears across his golden skin, and he bared his teeth at her half-asked question, though his extended hand remained steady.

“I have been trying to follow you for hours. The worldwalking spell is difficult even for an adept, and I have very little practice with it. It was only when I heard your call for help that I was able to open a door at all. Will you stand?” He spoke with impatience so polite Lara hardly recognized it. She put her hand in his and he drew her up, then brought his sword to the ready as Kelly approached with the tire iron gripped in both hands.