The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [242]
Grace would not allow that. Countless runes carved into the stones that made up her body blazed to life with blue-white fire. A sound like the call of a thousand trumpets rang out, echoing off the cliffs, so that the warriors stopped what they were doing and looked up, while across the vale the river of darkness halted for a moment, the flood becoming a trickle.
The runes carved into her stones brightened, until a shining nimbus encapsulated Grace. A pillar of light shot up from the tower at her center, piercing the clouds like a glowing sword, so that the stars and moon shone through.
Inside the keep, creatures of evil died.
They writhed and shrieked as the touch of the keep's stones became like burning knives. They leaped from the floor, trying to escape the cruel bite, but there was nowhere they could flee, no surface they could touch that did not strike at them. The feydrim gnashed their teeth, clawed themselves and each other, and perished. Their bodies shriveled to charred husks, and the cinders blew away.
The wraithlings fared no better. Their mouthless keening ceased; their silvery light winked out. They dissolved into puffs of foul-smelling smoke. The men with hearts of iron died as well. The lumps of metal caught fire, turning molten, searing holes in their chests as they fell. The fires kept burning until their bodies were consumed.
Grace felt satisfaction as the slaves of the Pale King were destroyed. None of them could escape her power, granted to her by the Runelords of old. None who touched the stones of the keep could survive. None. . . .
Grace.
The voice was faint, but all the same it cut through the deafening chorus of trumpets. She felt herself shrinking inward, so that she was small again, not built of stone, but molded of flesh and bone.
Oh, Grace. . . .
She opened her eyes. Grace knelt on the floor of the hall, in the center of the rune of blood. Aryn knelt close by. Tears stained the young witch's cheeks. On the floor before her was a thin layer of ashes cast in the vague outline of a man. Amid the ashes lay an Embarran greatsword. There was something else as well—a silver star with six points.
A gust of wind rushed through the open doors. The ashes blew away, stinging Grace's eyes.
Aryn gazed down at the sword. “He's gone,” she said.
Grace forced her limbs to move, though it was effort. A moment ago she had been so massive, so strong—a fortress made of stone. Now she was simply a woman: bony, shaky. She crawled to Aryn, then laid her hand over the young woman's heart.
“No, Aryn. He's here.” She took Aryn's hand and pressed it to her own heart. “And he's here.”
Aryn said nothing, but she nodded.
“Your Majesty! Are you well?”
She looked up to see Sir Tarus rushing toward her, Commander Paladus on his heels. The other soldiers stared in wonder at the cinders that swirled on the air—all that remained of the feydrim they had fought a moment ago.
Was she well? It was a meaningless question. Durge was dead; she would never truly be well. However, she was alive, and she was far from ready to surrender.
“Help me up, Sir Tarus. This battle isn't over yet.”
“You're right about that, Your Majesty,” Aldeth said. He limped toward her as Paladus and Tarus hauled her to her feet, slinging his bow over his shoulder.
So it was the Spider who had shot Durge. But he couldn't have known. To Aldeth it had seemed Durge was trying to kill her with the knife. He couldn't have understood what she had finally realized—that Durge had saved them all.
Paladus gave the Spider a hard look. “What have you seen?”
Aldeth reeled, as if he might fall, but Paladus caught him. Blood trickled from a wound on the Spider's temple.
“Engines,” the Spider said. “The enemy has great siege engines, a hundred feet tall, built of iron