The Shield of Weeping Ghosts - James P. Davis [83]
"She's not your sister," he mumbled, but he couldn't let go of the concern he had for the suffering spirit. "She's something else. Can't remember…"
Stone gave way beneath him and he slipped. He stopped as Duras's grip on his robes left him swinging over the edge. Pulled back onto solid ground, he nodded to his old friend and the pair ran for the tower door.
The tremors had slowed, but the shadows continued to flow toward them. Ducking inside, they found the tower mostly empty save for the last few members of the fang, who were descending through a trap door. Duras led the way, and Bastun kept watch on the spirits whose howls and whispers echoed as they entered the chamber, eclipsing the entrance.
Backing down the stairs, Bastun brought spells to mind, considering one after the other as he thought of a way to stop the maddened ghosts. Duras's footfalls could be heard below, joined by the shouted orders of Thaena and Anilya. Swords and axes cracked against old wood, creating an escape. Passing a small window, Bastun paused to observe the destruction of the wall.
Thaena meant to cross it, he realized. The ethran's intentions of reaching the northwest tower were as determined as the spirits' intention to stop them. Looking back to the stairs, the shadows crawled closer and grew louder in their pursuit. Thaena would never make it in time.
Steeling himself, he stopped, flexing his hand and steadying his thoughts.
"You want this?" he yelled at the shadows, pulling his cloak aside and revealing the Breath. They hissed in answer. "I give it to you! Take it!"
He gripped the handle and drew the blade from his belt, brandishing the weapon at the crowded darkness. Keening wails erupted from the mass, their chainlike tendrils drawing back into the stone. His vision once again was thrust into scenes of the past. Pain lanced through his skull. It was stronger now. The link forged by the Breath between himself and the Shield's history filled his ears with the sounds of soldiers shouting orders and boots pounding down the stairs. Ghostly warriors streamed past him like a cold wind raising gooseflesh on his arms and neck. The shadows became a blurry double image, existing in both the present and the past.
"Are they repeating the past," he whispered, "or are we?"
The Breath blurred as well, trailing behind itself as he continued down the stairs. A ghostly arm followed his own, wielding the artifacts counterpart in the haunting reenactment.
The blade itself is haunted, he thought, growing stronger the closer we get, the farther we run…
Mystified, he caught his own reflection in a sheet of ice along the wall. There, superimposed over his mask, lay the face of a stranger. An older man with a salt-and-pepper beard, wearing dark blue robes, regarded him with a look of mystified surprise.
Too shocked to examine the spirit, he turned and ran, following in the footsteps of the Shield's defenders, caught up in their battle as surely as if he were one of them. He suspected that somehow he might be one of them, the hem of his robes trailing a translucent edge as he neared a pale light below.
Tumbling into a room crowded with the images, he reached through them as if they were cobwebs. The nentyarch's soldiers appeared among them, and the battle continued. The shadowy children still approached from behind, but they would not near the Breath. The mass of shadows fell in among the ghostly fray, dispersing and joining with the persistent vision. They devoured without prejudice, enveloping defender and attacker alike, losing themselves in the ancient siege.
The strain of witnessing past and present pressed on Bastun's mind, increasing the pain behind his eyes. He moved toward the door, squinting through the spirits' flesh toward solid reality, trying to stay focused. A Nar blade slashed toward his throat, and reflexively he pulled back, returning