The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (45 page)

“This duel will be fought on the Bridge of One Thread!” he announced. “Against Death’s own Henchman!”

Into the Pit he fell, as before. And yet not as before.

The leash had been broken. The bindings on Umbral’s aura had snapped. That made all the difference.

Before he even fell to the end of the rope, Umbral grabbed it and held fast, so that his weight would not again jerk on the hooks dug into his flesh. Next, he yanked the bone hooks out one by one, yowling from the agony of ripping the barbs out of his own flesh, but never losing himself to the pain so much that he let go of the rope. Then, hand over hand, he pulled himself up the rope. Only a sliver of light showed at the entrance. He pushed the stone away. He heaved himself up onto the floor of the Blood House. He wept the whole time, but when he stood up, he roared voicelessly through his tears.

His knees buckled, and he only caught himself from clattering to the floor by catching a wooden pillar. He hugged it, panting. His body was burned and broken, weak and useless. Snake Bites Twice had told him that if he were weak he would be left to die.

Umbral did not intend to die.

It was a test, another test by Obsidian Mountain, which meant there must be a way to pass, to survive. He drew upon his Penumbra for the first time in three days. Centuries of powers were woven into bones of the Blood House, and he seized them all. All of the torn threads and half-mad memories, all of the tortured fragments of leftover lives, every spider’s web of hate and scheming malice, he seized those, too; he absorbed it all.

He unwove the whole bloody mess and then rewove it again into his own darkness. His Penumbra billowed around him, but he drew it closer, closer than he ever had before, sucked it into his veins and arteries, absorbed it into the very pores of his flesh, until the energy pulsed under his skin.

His bones knit. Torn muscles stitched back together. Burnt skin sloughed off like a serpent’s old skin, revealing new puckered flesh beneath. His hair grew sleek, and even the dirt scurried away from him in fear. He throbbed with the muscles of a thousand madmen.

He tossed back his head and roared, and this time, he found his voice. This time, the whole mountain trembled at his cry. The Blood House shook and the skulls wagged in their slots. The flagstones of the floor shifted like leaves trembling on a pond. All at once, the pent up magic exploded in a fiery blaze and the whole edifice collapsed upon itself.

A torrent of skulls rolled all around him, the Pit opened up at his feet, and, to avoid tumbling, he had to tap-dance upon the rolling skulls. Thousands of skulls cascaded down, more than seemed possible, more than could have filled the walls, disappearing into the utter black of the Pit. Dust, soot, and a miasma of foul particulates choked him as he slid on the avalanche of skulls into the abyss.

Dindi—and everyone else—turned to the Bridge of One Thread, expecting Death’s Henchman to stroll into view, but the chasm looked empty. Even the Bridge itself could not be seen, except as a glint in certain light, gone the next blink.

Moments passed, yet no one dared challenge Xerpen. The Great One was unruffled. He waited with an air of leering expectation.

On the eastern summit, nothing moved. Without knowing quite why, Dindi found herself staring at the house of white stones, and a cold feeling, like spiders of ice, crawled down her back.

A lightning-bright blaze and a mushroom cloud of black smoke exploded, destroying the structure. People in the crowd screamed and drew back, and though the explosion was far away, the white stones of the house shot so far up into the air that some of them pelted the crowd. One landed near the bone cage where Dindi was imprisoned, and she stared into eye sockets and a toothy grin. It was a skull. The whole thing had been built from human crania…. She shuddered.

Where the Blood House had stood, the earth yawned and swallowed the rain of skulls. Out of the black cloud, Dindi could just discern the silhouette of a man. She would have sworn nothing could have survived that explosion, yet he climbed out of the crater with sure strides. He wore almost nothing, and emerged clean and pale, like a newborn, yet his body was powerfully built and every ripple of his muscles showed clearly.

Umbral.

Blindmutes, like albino rats, poured out of the other buildings on the eastern slope toward the smoking cavity. They tried to stop the man when he reached the top of the crater, but he swatted them aside. It made no difference if one came at him or half a dozen, he dispatched them without hesitation, or mercy, or even, it seemed, much interest. He armed himself with the weapons of his foes. Straps of black mist snaked across his back and thighs, dark belts where he sheathed the weapons without pausing. His eyes faced always forward, intent on the western slope.

Vylfae raced toward him next, flying with their spears and talons extended, but the man dispatched the fae even more easily than the blindmutes. He had but to hold up his hand and envelope them in lashes of darkness, and their light fell into the Penumbra that throbbed around him.

A wave of nausea overtook Dindi, and she vomited out the side of the cave.

The remaining Vyfae flew away as fast as their wings would bear them.

Now nothing stood between Umbral and the Bridge of One Thread.

And she had feared he would be too broken to fight? Despite the nausea she felt from his magic, even at this distance, her heart sang, for she knew he would obliterate any enemy Xerpen sent against him.

“And now,” cried Xerpen, “To destroy this fiend, or forfeit the lives of every slave here, I choose my Champion!”

Xerpen walked to the center of the Plaza of the Spider, held his hand out to Vessia.

Dindi gripped the bone bars of the cage so hard her knuckles turned white.
No
.
Refuse him, Vessia. You must refuse
.

A sardonic smile played over Vessia’s lips and she would have taken his hand to accept the role.

“I will fight on the White Lady’s behalf!” Dindi shouted. “
I
will do it!”

Vessia and Xerpen snapped their heads simultaneously in her direction. So did the crowd. Those who recognized her as the clown began to laugh. The Raptor Riders and Eagle Lords, however, did not laugh. Two guards unfastened the cords holding the door on the cage. A challenge or an offer to fight had to be accepted or declined in person.

“Dindi, what are you doing?” asked Tamio.

“Dindi, shut up!” begged Hadi.

“Dindi, for once in your life, stop playing the clown!” hissed Kemla.

Dindi stepped out of the cage. She shrugged away the guards who tried to hold her arms. When they saw she did not try to run, they let her be. She wiped the last remnant of black grease from her face, and threw off the outer garments of her costume, a mantle and an outer set of quilted legwals, though it left her with nothing but the last remnants of the outfit she had borrowed from Mrigana: tight bands of violet cloth around her breasts and legwals that hugged her legs. She strode to meet Vessia and Xerpen in the center of the plaza. The other Aelfae were there too, in a semi circle: Yastara, Lothlo, Hest, Gwidan and Kia. Mrigana had disappeared when she’d Travelled and not returned.

“I will fight on the White Lady’s behalf!” Dindi said again to Xerpen. She dared to look him in the face, though only for a moment. Then she turned to Vessia.

“Let me fight for you, my Lady.”

“Oh, my child, this is not a fight you can win.”

“It is not a fight
you
can win either,” Dindi said grimly.

Vessia glanced at Umbral, who advanced toward the Bridge wrapped in clouds of black smoke.

“I can vanquish him,” she said.

“Please, my Lady,” Dindi said, aware of Xerpen listening with a smirk to every word. “Do not fight that man. There is no winning or losing such a match for either of you. Victories bought at too dear a cost are kin to defeats. I am the only one who can fight him, for even if I fall forever, Faearth would suffer my loss better than your absence for even a day. You are needed for a greater purpose.”

Dindi’s eyes flickered toward Xerpen, and Vessia’s face tightened; she understood what Dindi was asking.

“And then there is the hex of Lady Death,” continued Dindi opaquely. “Which, as you know, Yastara used to kill the undead.”

Now Vessia’s eyes narrowed. She did not believe that Yastara had such a hex. The other Aelfae were hostile as well. Yastara glared openly, as well she might, given Dindi’s accusation during the night. Dindi could not explain herself with Xerpen soaking up every word.

“You’re no friend of ours,” said Kia furiously. “You spilled lies about my mother for your own benefit. You’re as selfish as you are useless. You’re a fool if you think we would trust you to represent Vessia in this duel!”

“Peace, Kia,” said Vessia. “She owes us nothing, certainly not this sacrifice.”

“I have not been all that I wish I were,” Dindi said, “But I have been all that I could. I ask you not to condemn humanity because of my failings. If you do not let me fight for you, my blood will still spill this day…” Dindi gestured to the cages, “along with hundreds of others. But if you let me fight for you, at least my blood will not spill in vain. I ask you a third time: do not refuse me: Let me be your champion.”

Dindi dared say no more, but bent down on one knee and kissed Vessia’s robe.

Vessia kissed her forehead, touched her shoulders, and helped her rise. “Dindi, I will not refuse you. You shall be my hero. I accept your sacrifice with a bitter heart.”

Xerpen wore a sour expression. “So be it. Let the girl chase her doom.”

The easternnmost cliff of the tribehold was perpendicular rock, which jutted out like a chin at the top. Vio squinted up at the overhang. Dawn was tender, and the mists were thick.  He could barely see the silhouettes of ropes dangling there, but the ends were far too high up to be reached by any man on the ground.

Hawk pointed to the ropes. “The bone cages used to hang here, but they have been moved to hang over the Black Well on the other side. There are fourteen ropes. I don’t know if that will be enough.”

“We have rope with us, but it is not as strong as spider silk ropes of Orange Canyon,” said Vio. “No rope in Faearth is so hardy as those, nor so light. It is a crime in itself that such a wondrous treasure is used by Xerpen for so foul a purpose.”

Hawk smiled grimly. “Shall we repurpose it?”

He stepped back from Vio and the other warriors, and rippled his flesh into the shape of an immense hawk, his namesake. Vio always felt a chill to see men change to birds or beasts, but he concealed his revulsion out of respect for his spy.

The huge hawk bent its head as low to the ground as it could. Vio repressed another shudder and climbed onto the neck. The feathers were scratchy and hard to hold, strange to him when he was used to the fur of milk-giving beasts. He would not ask another man to do what he feared, however, so he set his lips in a thin line and held on, two-fisted, as Hawk lifted into the air.

Lines of warriors crouched against the cliff, watching him ride the Raptor.
I brought all these men here
, Vio thought with a feeling of stone in his chest.
Perhaps to die for me
.
Hadn’t I promised my people and my own heart that I would lead men no more to war?
 

Vio had hoped this peak would be unguarded, for access was impossible to anyone without wings, and only the War Chief himself, and his slaves and captives, were allowed to visit the buildings there. But bright orange beings with heads like birds and talons for feet patrolled the promontory.

He did not relish fighting Vyfae, but they must have the rope.

However, just as Hawk soared over the top of the cliff, and the Vyfae should have seen him, shouted an alarm, and attacked, an explosion rocked the mountain. A black mushroom cloud billowed in the air and all the Vyfae, as one, shrieked and flew away toward the cloud. The edge of the cliff was left ungaurded.

Hawk landed next to a brace of rock, where the first of the fourteen ropes had been anchored. He shifted back to a man.

“A bit of luck,” said Hawk.

Vio grunted, already hacking the knots with his ax, to free the rope. “Do you know what it was?”

“It came from the Blood House, and nothing good comes from that place. So we cannot assume it bodes well for us, except to buy us time.”

Vio coiled the rope over his arm. Despite the rope’s tensile strength, it was shockingly light.
Fae magic
, he thought enviously.
Trust the fae to make even rope a thing of wonder
.

“Show me where the next rope is tied,” said Vio.

Hawk pointed to another rock some spans away. He didn’t change shape again. Both men jogged to the rock and Vio employed his ax again.

They freed thirteen of the fourteen ropes, moving as swiftly as the work allowed. They created one master rope by tying several ropes end to end. Not only was it long enough, there was more than needed, so he kept the excess. He fashioned a second master rope, tied to his waist, and knotted the other end about the rock, securing his own position in case of a fall. Then Vio leaned out as far as he could to shove the whole larger rope over the edge of the cliff.