Chapter 48: Gathering of Warriors

Author's Note: Brace yourselves! After 15 years, the end is finally here...

Lucia stood facing east, hair whipping in the wind that swept the battlements, shielding her eyes against the rising sun. The light of the sun glittered on a sea of breastplates, helmets, and pikes. The Harmonian camp covered a mile-wide sprawl starting just out of bowshot from the castle's walls. Row upon row of white tents were pitched there—enough to house an army of tens of thousands of soldiers.

Lucia rubbed her arms for warmth. The chill that ran through her body was only partly due to the strong wind. "How long?" she said.

Caesar stood at her side, hands folded into the deep pockets of his coat. He shrugged, then remarked: "They're waiting for something."

"The Destroyers." Lucia clenched her jaw.

"Well. We can only hope—"

Lucia gave the boy a withering look of the sort she reserved for children who should know better. "There is no 'hope.' Believe, or don't believe. I choose to believe that our comrades will return." Caesar shrugged again, and put on a brave smile. He didn't look convinced. She couldn't blame him. Her own stomach was in knots with worry.

The whole situation was bizarre. The chieftain of the Karaya, standing upon the walls of Brass Castle? For all her life, the Zexen fortress had stood as a bulwark against the clans. To her father and grandfather, the fortress had represented the unbreakable tyranny of the Confederacy. As a child, she had looked upon the gray stone walls as if they were the boundary between the world of men and the world of monsters—the vile ironheads. Never had she thought she would stand upon these walls, and if she had imagined it, then she had always imagined herself the conquering hero who took the castle from the Zexens. The idea that she would one day stand on these walls to stare down at an invading army was the stuff of bad campfire stories.

Down in the courtyard, people started shouting. Some sort of commotion. Lucia was running before she knew it. Her legs couldn't carry her fast enough down the stairs. She picked her way through the crowds, trying to still her beating heart. Despite what she believed, knowing what something else entirely.

A crowd of hundreds had converged in the courtyard to get a look at the small party that had just passed through the western gates.

"They've returned!" a man shouted. "Praise the heroes!" another called.

Lucia pushed to the front of the crowd. Her eyes tracked the weary men and women who led their horses into the courtyard. In the lead of the group was the mercenary captain, Geddoe, his face hard as stone and twice as cold. He walked with a slight limp, and he looked exhausted. Nash followed a step behind. The Harmonian spy winced with each step. His blonde hair was matted with sweat, his rich green jacket torn and bloodied. He looked like he'd been wrestling with bears.

Geddoe and Nash each led a horse behind them. The horses' riders slumped in their saddles, barely able to hang on to their steeds. Relief flooded Lucia when she recognized the pale-faced woman on Geddoe's horse as Rina. On Nash's horse was the Kinese girl, Yumi. Both of the women looked like ghosts dragged from their graves, but they seemed alive and well, thank the spirits.

Two figures walked behind the horses. A man and a woman. Lucia had to elbow her way to the front to get a better look past the approaching procession. People gasped and muttered as she forced her way through the crowd, but she didn't care. The woman was Chris. The knight's traveling jacket more closely resembled a well-used rag, and the woman herself was bruised like a girl who'd fallen down a cliff. She walked with heavy steps. And yet, her face was filled with a triumphant glow as she glanced at the man walking beside her.

Lucia frowned. Five people had departed for the Ceremonial Site. Who was this sixth person who'd returned with them? Had they taken one of their enemies captive? But no, the man's hand was entwined in Chris's. He was tall, dressed in threadbare rags that looked like no more than a blanket wrapped around him. His skin was tanned, his hair a dirty blond. A Karayan? Then Chris saw Lucia. She said something to the man and then gestured at her. The man's head turned, and his eyes met Lucia's.

The world lurched beneath Lucia's feet. For a moment, she was certain she would faint. For that horrible moment, she could not believe her eyes. Then the man released Chris' hand and started towards her, stumbling at first, then running.

And everything inside Lucia broke.

Every hard-won triumph she'd had, every feeling of joy and fulfillment she'd experienced, every moment of passion she'd shared – it all paled next to this moment.

She wasn't aware she'd moved, but somehow she ended up in Hugo's arms. It was him. She'd know that goofy grin anywhere! She kissed his cheeks until he was laughing and trying to pull away. No chance of that. Spirits, her arms couldn't hug him hard enough!

"Mom, you're crushing me…"

Lucia pulled back to take his head in her hands. "Spirits… Is this real? Is it truly you?" As she took in his features, she realized why she hadn't recognized him the instant she saw him. He looked older. Spirits, he was older! His features were sharper, more mature, and his cheeks had shed the last traces of baby fat. Spirits, there was so much of his father in that face! He was taller too, by at least a few inches. She reached up to run her hands through his hair, oily and filthy as it was.

"What happened?" she said.

Hugo grimaced. "It's a long story. Actually…" He glanced over his shoulder, and nodded for Chris to approach. "Chris says I've only been missing for a week or two. But it seemed a lifetime on my end." A shiver ran through his body, and the light in his eyes waned for a moment before he pulled himself together and grinned. "Spirits! It's good to be back."

Chris came up beside him, an awkward, uncertain smile on her face.

Lucia crossed the distance between her and Chris in two quick steps. The knight gave a start, like a woman facing a charging boar. Before she could react, Lucia reached out and crushed Chris to her chest in a fierce embrace.

Behind her, Caesar cleared his throat, then said: "Well, well. I guess hope really is good for something after all!"

Hugo stood over the body on the funeral bier, staring down at the lifeless man's face.

It was a face he knew well, and yet how different it looked in death. The skin had a deathly pallor, as if stained by fallen ash. The cheeks were sunken, in the manner Hugo had sometimes seen in a starving man's face. The man's eyes were closed, as if he'd gone to sleep for a time, unaware of the fact that he would never again awaken.

Hugo touched two fingers to the man's forehead. "Jimba," he murmured. Spirits! All along, the man he'd thought of as an uncle or older brother had been a knight of Zexen. How was it possible? How could they not have seen it? The man who had looked after him as a child, had taught him to hunt and fight, was Chris's lost father!

Chris knelt beside her father, touching his arm. It was quiet here, in the cold, damp confines of the dungeons. They were in the depths of the castle, far beneath the courtyard and its noise of pikes being sharpened, armor being mended, iron ingots being pounded into sword blades. The noise of thousands of soldiers preparing themselves for battle.

The reunion had been sweet. That morning, Hugo had awoken in a soft bed with Chris's body nestled against his. Neither of them remembered falling asleep the night before, but he supposed they must have. Somewhere in the midst of that emotional whirlwind, shifting between talking and love-making and back again at the drop of a pin, exhaustion must have taken them.

He'd told her everything that had happened to him since they'd parted, and she'd listened patiently. She'd shared his anger, his hopelessness, and his fears. She'd wept with him, when tears were needed. Spirits, it had felt good to feel again. In his darkest moments, trapped in that emotionless void that was the World of Emptiness, Hugo had feared his heart would never again thaw. How wrong he'd been. Chris had shattered the ice and stirred awake the flame, and the passion that emerged in him over the last day or two had shocked him. It had made for a fine reunion, that was for sure, but now it was time to get back to reality. And there were other feelings to attend to as well.

Chris rose to her feet and embraced him. Mother was right. He was taller. He remembered a time when Chris wouldn't have had to tilt her head back to kiss him. Pesmerga had stolen years from him, but in his own world, only weeks had passed since that horrible night in Alma-Kinan. Still, a lot had happened while he'd been gone.

He couldn't bring himself to hate Pesmerga. After all, the dark knight had saved his life. But in his most fervent prayers, he hoped he would never, ever have to set foot in the World of Emptiness again. Since returning to his own world, he'd spent every waking moment worrying that all of this was just a dream, and that any moment now the dark knight would materialize from thin air and drag him back to that cold void.

But Pesmerga hadn't reappeared. Hugo had done his part. He'd broken the ward that sheltered Yuber from his nemesis, and driven the demon off. His debt to Pesmerga apparently paid, he hadn't heard as much as a sigh from the dark knight, since.

Bending to touch Jimba's arm, Hugo shook his head. "He was a warrior. He shouldn't be surrounded by all this stone. He should be buried on the plains, where the spirits can watch over him…"

Chris's body tensed. For a moment, she was quiet. Then she said: "He was Zexen before he was Karayan. This is what my mother would have wanted."

Hugo knew better than to argue. He couldn't say much to that, anyway. Spirits, to abandon wife and child… What sort of man could do that? So many questions left unanswered. "I wish he'd been here to explain," he said.

"In a way, he is." She held her hand up, and the emblem carved into the skin glowed faintly.

"The True Water Rune," Hugo said, realization dawning on him. "It showed you something?"

She looked surprised, then nodded. "You have experienced this, too?"

Hugo stared into the sigil of the True Fire Rune upon his hand. Spirits, he thought he'd never seen that emblem again. "I didn't understand it at first. Thought it was something the rune was trying to tell me. But it's not. They're memories, aren't they? Things the poor bastards who bore these runes before us saw, heard, and felt…" He shivered. Such rage he'd seen. Such destruction! Flames, consuming everything. Out of all the memories the True Fire Rune had deposited like silt in the river of his mind, all but a handful involved some sort of fiery devastation. Things didn't seem to turn out well for the rune's so-called masters. Spirits, it was as good as death's mark there on his hand.

He tore his eyes from the emblem and looked at Chris. We have each other, he told himself. We can figure it out together. "What did you see? If you don't mind me asking."

She shook her head in frustration. "It is all a jumble, thus far. The rune lacks structure. Memories are out of order or out of context… It is hard to make sense of it." Her eyes hardened as she found her resolve. "But I will make sense of it. Some day." She looked at him appraisingly. "Perhaps you can provide some part of the answer. You may have known my father better than I did."

"I might've," he agreed. "I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Chris smiled. Leaning in, she took his hand and clasped it in hers. Hugo tensed up, awkward at first. He still felt numb at times, as if he were still in the World of Emptiness. But this felt real. He squeezed Chris's hand, and smiled back at her weakly.

"I never knew my own father," he said. "So I think I get it. Wondering why he walked out. Or maybe why he wasn't there in the first place. But Jimba was there for me. Always. He taught me all the things my father should've taught me. How to behave. How to stand up for myself and others. How to be a man. He…"

Suddenly he was choking back tears. Staring at Jimba's lifeless face on the funeral bier, the void couldn't feel more distant. Chris pressed up against him. He wrapped his arms around her. They wept.

Together, in the quiet stone tomb beneath Brass Castle, they mourned a man they'd both loved.

After finishing his report, Nash remained kneeling on the cold stone floor, his hand pressed to his chest in salute. Bishop Sasarai leaned on the window. Through the parted curtain, the pale light fell upon the bishop's drawn cheeks. Nash averted his eyes in embarrassment. The bishop looked frail. Vulnerable.

Bishop Sasarai had awakened from his long slumber weak and emaciated. The harrowing experience had whittled down Nash's master. The loss of the True Earth Rune and the shock of the revelation about his own true nature bore heavier on him than his physical wounds ever could. He'd regained enough strength to be able to pace about the chambers provided for him by Captain Lightfellow. The living quarters were richly appointed and fit for a visiting king, but to Nash's mind, the rooms were nothing but a cage his master had been placed in. Now the bishop drifted through the room like a specter, filled with a restless energy that outsized his enfeebled body.

"What news of my… the Masked Bishop?" Sasarai asked. Nash's master had hesitated, almost giving the usurper by another appellation. My brother. Nash wondered at the bishop's state of mind. The things the Masked Bishop had told him could change everything, if Sasarai let it. Nash didn't pretend to understand what went on in the Bishop's head. Perpetuator's balls, he couldn't even guess at what his master would do when he returned to Crystal Valley.

"The Masked Bishop prepares his army for the assault on Brass Castle, my lord. This fortress will soon become a battlefield."

"He seeks the True Lightning Rune."

"Yes."

For the first time since Nash entered his chambers, Bishop Sasarai turned to face him directly. The bishop looked at him in silence for a time, then said, "Stand, Master Latkje." Nash obeyed. "It seems the final battle will take place here."

"There can be only two possible outcomes."

Bishop Sasarai nodded. "For the Masked Bishop, yes."

Nash hesitated. "May I ask what you intend, my lord?"

The bishop studied Nash with all the warmth of a fox watching the chicken coop. His grey eyes were inscrutable. "For us, Master Latkje, the possible outcomes are endless. I shall tell you what some of those outcomes might be."

Nash listened closely as his master laid out his plans. As the bishop spoke, he observed a remarkable brightening of his master's mood. By the time the bishop had explained his most cherished outcome, Nash's blood was boiling with anticipation. Suddenly, it all made sense.

The bishop would return to Crystal Valley in complete and utter triumph.

Soft candlelight warmed the faces of the men and women huddled around the map spread across the makeshift tabletop. Melted wax pooled over the edges of the map, tragically obscuring some of the borderlands' lesser known geographical features.

It was a primitive way to conduct a war council, but troubled times called for creative measures. Brass Castle's natural command post, the captain's quarters, was well known to the Chimera. To guard against a nasty surprise, they'd moved the proceedings into an emptied storeroom in the dungeons beneath the castle. The room reeked of onions.

Chris traced a finger across the crinkled paper of the map to the spot where the Trade Road intersected the Meray Chasm, and tapped the inked circle containing a sword crossed over a shield, beneath which the words 'Brass Castle' were penned. Across the chasm from Brass Castle, an iron figurine in the shape of a mounted knight served as a representation for the Harmonian army camped in that spot. Towering over the fortress, the giant knight seemed an apt depiction of the current state of affairs.

Chris looked up at the others. "We stand at the precipice, staring into the abyss." She turned to the man beside her. "Tell me, Master Silverberg. How do we win this battle?"

Caesar Silverberg, scion of the fabled Silverberg family of tacticians, hunched his shoulders and glared at the map as if it were a bottomless hole into which he'd just seen his life's savings vanish. His red hair was tousled and unkempt and his coat was crumpled. She wondered if the young man had found his way into bed looking like this and only recently dragged himself from the covers, coat and all. It would not surprise her.

Besides Chris and Caesar, the war council included Hugo, Geddoe, and the last remaining clan chieftain in Lucia. Rina had received healing but remained bed-ridden and in no shape to partake in the planning of a battle, much less in the battle itself. Also absent were Nash and Bishop Sasarai, who had requested to participate but had not been invited, due to the simple fact that no one here trusted them as far as they could throw them.

"We don't," Caesar finally said. "How do I put this. Where the Masked Bishop points, an army of thirty thousand men march like toy soldiers. And he happens to be pointing here, at Brass Castle. At us."

"The walls of Brass Castle are strong," Lucia said. "We of the clans know this better than anyone." The Karayan chieftain scowled, but it was a half-hearted effort. Since Hugo's return, the woman could stub her toe and it wouldn't stop her from smiling. Chris couldn't blame her.

Caesar rubbed at his cheek, scratching something crusty and food-like from the edge of his mouth with a frown. "Chief Lucia, the clans never had catapults. You never had five hundred battle-hardened rune bearers. Harmonian armies have seized fortresses stronger than Brass Castle in an afternoon. In the Siege of Yargen's Falls, Harmonian artillery and rune magic reduced one of the strongest keeps in the north to rubble in a matter of days. At Blue River, they—"

Hugo slapped a hand down on the map, startling everyone. Except Lucia. His mother had been watching him. Candlelight played over Hugo's cheeks but left his eyes in shadow. It made his features look oddly demonic. Now that he had their attention, he said: "Spirits! We have three True Runes. That's gotta count for something."

Caesar gave an exasperated sigh. He still had that reluctant, retreating look about him. Most likely he wished he were somewhere else. Anywhere but here, where he had to say these things that no one wanted to hear. "The Destroyers still have the True Runes of wind and earth. And the Masked Bishop's magic was powerful enough to defeat Bishop Sasarai. Besides, they have another advantage. They possess the second-best military mind of our generation." His words brought out a murmur of sidebar conversations among the assembled members of the war council.

This was getting them nowhere. Chris leaned in over the table and cleared her throat loudly. "Master Silverberg," she said, as all eyes turned to her. "We are all aware of these things. But my question stands. How do we win? Even if you do not believe this battle can be won, what strategy would give us the best chance at victory?"

The Silverberg boy stared back at her as if she were insane. "I don't know what to say. We cannot win this battle!"

Chris nodded soberly. She had expected him to say as much. "Then, forget the battle, Master Silverberg. How do we win the war?"

Caesar squinted at the map as if a thought had occurred to him. He leaned in over the table and rubbed his chin as he studied the map. She watched him closely, trying to imagine the gears turning in his head. The boy was good, that much was clear. She had seen what he could do first-hand, and heard more besides from voices who had witnessed his actions in the Chishan retreat, where his tactics had delayed the Harmonians for several crucial hours and saved countless lives. Was this the fabled Silverberg mind at work?

Finally, some flash of inspiration made Caesar look up from the map. "We have one thing in our favor. We know what the enemy wants." The tactician turned to Geddoe and slapped the taller man's shoulder affectionately. "The Masked Bishop will target the bearer of the True Lightning Rune. We can use this knowledge to our advantage."

"An ambush?" Hugo asked.

"Pretty much. We lure the Masked Bishop in. We wait for him to make his move, and then we counter attack." The tactician reached for the iron figurine of the mounted knight and flicked it with his finger. The figurine wobbled and then toppled onto its side with a dull thud. "It's textbook stuff. Strike the Masked Bishop down, and we'll save the Grasslands."

"It is a bold plan," Chris said. "However…" She turned to Geddoe. "Though you know our land perhaps as well as we do, you are an outsider. It is not right for us to ask you to fight our battles. Certainly not when we are asking you to place your life on the line for this gambit."

The Harmonian captain gave no sign that he was either relieved or insulted by her words. In fact, the man hardly ever gave any sign of what feelings might be boiling inside that head of his. After a moment, he said: "I've devoted my life to preventing the Elemental True Runes from falling into the wrong hands. I'm not about to back out now."

Chris nodded. "Very well. We shall stake our lives and the fate of our homes on this ambush." She didn't state the obvious: even if they removed the Masked Bishop, his army would keep moving without its severed head. They'd have to place Bishop Sasarai back in command of his army, and pray to the Goddess that he would honor his pact with them.

She glanced at Hugo, and they shared a look. He looked anxious, which made her wonder what her own face was looking like right now. It couldn't be much better.

It took hours to hash out the details of the ambush, but finally they were all in agreement. It was a good plan, she had to admit. As good as they could make it on such short notice. Now, they could only trust in the Goddess and the spirits to carry them through. Chris stared down at the map, imagining the movement of armies, the establishing of supply lines. She turned the possibilities over in her mind.

Her thoughts turned to Yun. It was still too raw. The girl had seen the future, or at least glimpses of different futures all tangled together. Had Yun seen this? What would she have said, had she been here? The pain of the loss overwhelmed her for a moment. It was still too raw. The Destroyers had much to answer for. They would answer for Yun, for her father, for Lulu, and for all the others whose lives they had destroyed in their mad quest. The Masked Bishop. The Chimera, with her endless tricks and schemes. Chris would make them answer for their crimes.

It all came back to Brass Castle, she reflected as she stared at the toppled iron figurine that now stretched across the fortress and the chasm. One way or another, it would all end here.

The wind had its own language, more ancient than any of man's tongues. The rustling of the morning breeze in tall grass. The sigh of branches swaying at sunset. The fury of the gale that dashed ships against the rocks. When you listened to the wind, the world held no mysteries.

And right now, a fell wind was blowing out of the gorge that surrounded Brass Castle.

The wind came howling from the chasm, swept over the cliff, and passed through the Harmonian camp like a banshee's wail. It whipped the pennants and slapped tent canvas. It made soldiers cling to their spears and hunch their shoulders against the chill.

Luc faced the wind on small hill overlooking the encampment. Brass Castle's crenelated battlements glinted in the dawn light. All his life, Luc had heard the wind's voice loud and clear. Singing, shrieking, murmuring. But never quiet. Never that. He'd been a babe when they'd plunged the True Wind Rune into his body, and like an invading parasite, it had remained there ever since, whispering night and day. The constant chatter was bearable in his waking hours, when the immortal rune's attention was locked up in conversation with the world around him. During the night, it harassed his unconscious senses with an unbearable cacophony of bitter memories. An endless procession of nightmares that always ended in violent, terrifying death. True Rune bearers could not die of old age. They died screaming, howling, clawing for another strand of life's weave. These were the memories Luc had inherited through the rune.

It had begun when he was a child. He would often wake up from nightmares in a cold sweat. They were distorted fragments back then, like memories half-forgotten. As he got older, it got worse. The recollections grew more coherent and less fragmented, and his maturing mind began to grasp the true nature of the scenes of torment that played out in his dreams. A normal person woke from nightmares with a feeling of relief, having found out that it was all a dream. But the True Wind Rune's visions were true, and that made them more horrifying than any nightmare.

Luc turned his face to the sun as it crested Brass Castle's inner keep. Zexen flags fluttered angrily on the wind. This morning, the wind answered his frustrations and his needs.

This morning, he would end it all.

The True Wind Rune flashed bright green as Luc awakened its power. He began the spell by calling the wind to his side. There was a brief hush, and then the wind picked stirred. He felt it surge through the camp and rush up the hillside from all directions. Tents wavered like reeds and soldiers cried out as they were buffeted back and forth. Strong winds gathered around Luc, tugging at his clothes. But not a strand of his hair moved.

Luc concentrated his will and let the world fall away before him. He focused inward until Brass Castle no longer so much as cast a shadow and the hillside had no substance beneath his feet. Until all he could see were the currents of air moving in its infinite pathways. Hidden from the eyes of others, this pattern blazed as brilliant as golden scrollwork to his eyes. It was as colorful as the rainbow and as complex as a thousand blacksmith's puzzles tangled up into one.

He began to twist the currents, tying complex knots of air into a pattern. So focused was he on his task that he did not feel the sweat running down his forehead or the cramping of his clawed fingers. All he could sense was the imaginary form that took shape in front of him – the form pulled from his mind. With each strand of air added to the pattern, the form grew larger and more substantial, swelling and building into something that shuddered and breathed. Something alive.

An incarnation of the True Wind Rune's power.