The seconds felt like hours, and every death a lifetime.
Rowanna fell next, half submerged in a puddle, an ax in her spine.
A hammer blow caved in Raymon North’s breastplate. The wet rasp of his dying breath rattled even over the battlefield. Edgar bent over him, his sword forgotten as he cradled his cousin’s head. Despite Sir Grandel’s best efforts, the creatures fell upon the kneeling knight with knives and teeth.
Andry had known the Norths since he was a boy. He’d never thought he’d watch them die—and die so poorly.
Sir Grandel was heavy, difficult to pull down, though the creatures tried. He looked up from the clearing, locking eyes with Andry, still on the rise. Andry watched his own hands move, gesturing without thought, beckoning for his lord to abandon the battle. With me. Stay alive. In another time, Sir Grandel would have scolded him for cowardice.
Now he obeyed, and he ran.
So did Andry, his sword suddenly in his fist. His body moved faster than his mind, his feet sliding over the mud. I am squire to Sir Grandel Tyr, a knight of the Lionguard. This is my duty. I must help him. All other thoughts faded, all fear forgotten. I must be brave.
“With me!” Andry howled.
Sir Grandel climbed, but the creatures followed, tearing at his limbs, pulling him backward. He raised a gauntleted hand, fingers splayed. Not reaching, not begging. Not asking for aid or protection. His eyes went wide.
“RUN, TRELLAND!” the knight bellowed. “RUN!”
Sir Grandel Tyr’s last command struck Andry through. He froze, looking into the red maw of the carnage below.
A corpse tore the knight’s sword away. He fought on, but the mud sucked at his boots and he slid, pitching forward against the slope, fingers clawing at the wet grass.
Tears pricked Andry’s eyes. “With me,” he whispered, his voice a flower dying in frost.
He could not watch as one sword fell, and then another. The world spotted before him, black dots spreading to eat up his vision. The smell of blood and rot and ash consumed everything. I must run, he thought, his legs like water.
“Move,” Andry hissed to himself, forcing a step back. He felt his father watching, and Sir Grandel too. Knights dead in battle, knights who had done their duty and not forsaken their honor. The sort of knight he would never be. Andry sheathed his sword, his fingers meeting the reins of his horse.
Nour was dead upon the temple steps, their long, lithe limbs splayed across the marble. They were lovely even in death. Marigon wept openly over Rowanna’s body but still fought with deadly rhythm. She howled, tossing her hair, not a fox but a wolf with red fur. Surim and Dom were still alive, trying to fight their way to Cortael.
Okran’s spear broke at his feet, but he was not without shield and sword. The white armor of Kasa turned crimson, the Eagle painted with a fresh kill.
Andry untied his reins, hands shaking. Then he turned to Okran’s horse. The squire set his jaw, willing his fingers into motion. They were numb with fear, clumsy, as he loosed the knight’s horse. I can do this, at least.
Cortael and Taristan fought in the eye of a bloody hurricane. The mud churned beneath their feet, torn up like a tournament ground. Cortael looked the same as his brother now, ragged and worn, far from a prince or an emperor. Both panted in exhaustion, swaying on their feet, each blow coming a little slower, a little weaker.
Ronin stood before the temple doors, the air swirling with ashes. He kept his arms spread, palms raised, in worship to no god Andry knew. He tipped his head and smiled up at the bell tower. It tolled in answer, as if a bell could do such a thing.
The Spindleblades met as lightning veined, each blade aglow for a moment, purple-white and blazing.
One of the horses screamed and reared, snapping the rope line. They all bolted, and Andry cursed. Leather slid through his fingers. Andry squeezed and braced himself, expecting to be dragged down the hill. Instead Dom’s white stallion whinnied, caught in his hands.
A cry, shouted in Kasan, broke Andry’s heart anew. Okran fell, his body skewered with blades. He died looking skyward, searching for the eagle, the wings that would take him home.
Across the clearing, Marigon lost a hand to an ax, and then her head.
Surim and Dom roared, unable to reach her, islands in the bloody sea. The waves closed around Surim first. He whistled for his horse, but the steppe pony was already in the fray, fighting to his side. She was torn apart before she could reach him. It was Surim’s ending too.
Andry had no voice left, no thought even to pray.
In the circle, Cortael screamed his rage, his blows coming fierce again. With a swing of his sword, he knocked away Taristan’s dagger, the blade falling deep into the mud. With another, he dismantled Taristan’s guard and drove the Spindleblade deep into his brother’s chest.
Andry froze, one foot in the stirrup, not daring to hope.
The corpse army stopped too, bloody jaws agape. On the steps, Ronin’s hands dropped, his scarlet eyes wide.
Taristan fell to his knees, the blade protruding from his body. He gaped in shock. Above him, Cortael watched without joy or triumph, his face still but for the rain washing him clean.
“You did this to yourself, Brother,” he said slowly. “But still I ask your forgiveness.”
His twin choked, the words difficult to form.
“It’s—it’s not your fault you were born first. It’s not—not your fault you were chosen,” Taristan stammered, staring at his wound. When he looked up, his black eyes were hard, resolute. “But you continue to underestimate me, and for that, you are to blame.”
With a sneer, he drew the sword from his own chest, the blade slick and red.
Andry could not believe his eyes.
“Those bells have not tolled for the gods in a thousand years,” Taristan said, rising back to his feet, a Spindleblade in each hand. All around him, the creatures made strange sounds, like chittering insect laughter. “And they do not toll for your gods today. They toll for mine. For Him. For What Waits.”
Cortael toppled back on his heels, terrified. He raised a hand between them, undefended, at the nonexistent mercy of a forgotten brother. “You will destroy the Ward for a crown!”
“A king of ashes is still a king,” Taristan crowed.
In the bog of bodies, Dom struggled, battering his way to his friend.
He won’t make it, Andry knew, his vision swimming. He is too far, still too far.
Taristan stabbed Cortael’s Spindleblade into the mud at his side, favoring his own sword. Cortael could do nothing to stop him as he raised it. There was nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. His face crumpled, a prince reduced to a beggar.
“Brother—”
The blade struck him true, shearing through plate armor and mail into Cortael’s heart. The heir to Old Cor fell to his knees, head lolling on his shoulders.
Taristan used one booted foot to draw the sword from Cortael’s chest, letting his body slump. “And a dead man is still dead,” he hissed, sneering over the corpse.
He raised his weapon again, ready to hack his brother’s body to pieces.
But his sword met another, a blade of Iona in the hand of the last Companion alive.
“Leave him,” Dom snarled, furious as a tiger. He shoved Taristan back with ease.
The Elder planted himself between Taristan and his friend’s body, feet set for another fight though he was torn apart, surrounded, and already beaten. Cortael’s sword, bloody and useless, still stood upright in the mud, a gravestone waiting for them both.