27.

  Hawkeye

  The crunching sound of someone eating bones made my hairs stand on edge. The sound crawling down my spine like a whisper from the grave. I like to think of myself as brave, someone who meets danger head-on without blinking. But in that moment? I was one breath away from shitting my pants. Every instinct screamed to turn and run, to let whatever thing was feeding around the corner finish its meal undisturbed. I turned to the others. There were eight of us. Five Black Hawks, me included and two of Orion’s necromancers. Weeks had passed since the brothers’ uneasy truce, and we’d been sent into Westray’s cold and ancient underbelly to close the rifts bleeding the Fiend’s corruption into our world.

  Above ground, the war still burned hot. The High King and Orion guarded the borders with their necromancers and soldiers, holding the line as best as they could. We’d lost much in the first wave, villages swallowed whole, land turned to ash, but when the elves of Caradsher?n and our kin from across the sea came to our aid, the tide shifted and we managed to reclaim the land till Dew. The south, though… the south was lost. Drakes hunted the open fields now, and the air itself reeked of ruin and death. The war had reached the Primordial Lands as well. The Fiend’s minions trying to overtake Faywood.

  Rumour said Eryndalis had pledged soldiers to our cause, while Sylvaeris turned inward, protecting their own kin in Faywood. Some claimed a band of centaurs had begun their march through the Sylverveil Mountains to reclaim the Temple of Veras, deep in the Fiend’s marshlands. I had never seen centaurs only heard of them in children fairytales. I wondered what they’d look like.

  Across the Andw?ne Mere, even the woods had turned against the invaders. An otherworldly being, the elves had said, had bound the forest itself to his will. If true, then perhaps the Fiend’s armies were trapped. Elves and centaurs pressing from the east, the haunted woods from the north and our blades from the west.

  But speculation was a dangerous indulgence down here. I had a more immediate problem at hand.

  The others waited behind me, pale and tight-lipped. Even the seasoned ones shifted uneasily on their feet. That awful crunching echoed again, wet and ominous. My gaze met the youngest among us, a boy barely grown, one of the guild’s rising shadows. Quick as a whip, gifted, and frighteningly calm under these circumstances.

  “Take a look,” I whispered.

  He nodded once and vanished into the dark.

  The silence that followed was unbearable. Only the sound of bone breaking filled it. Then, without warning, the boy was back. Appearing at my side as if conjured from nothing. My pulse jumped. That stealth, that precision… he might well be the next Basilisk someday.

  He leaned close, his voice a ghost against my ear.

  “Blood hound,” he murmured.

  A level two, then. Undead, wolf-like, crimson-eyes, forever starving. Dangerous to common folk, but to us, little more than sport. I gave the hand signal. Two fingers.

  We’d begun ranking the horrors spawned by the portals, new creatures reaching the ranking every day.

  Level one were the tormented spirits and the restless dead. Level two the blood hounds, three undead spell-weavers, four monks who wore borrowed flesh and could shapeshift into any creature, five the Black-widows, six were wraiths, seven were drakes, eight were devils, nine hags and ten…

  Ten was the Fiend himself. No one had seen him yet, but everyone whispered of his presence.

  I shoved the thought aside before it could take root. The air down here was already thick with fear. I didn’t need to add my own to it. We rounded the corner in silence. the stench hit first, copper and decay. I managed to avoid emptying my stomach on the side. The hound was crouched over its meal, a heap of bones and flesh no longer recognizable. It tore at the carcass with a wet snarl, oblivious to us.

  I drew three blades. In a blink, they sang through the air and struck home, embedding deep in the creature’s hind legs. It yelped, stumbling. Two Hawks darted forward, blades flashing silver in the darkness. The hound collapsed, its last breath bubbling dark across the stone.

  “Right,” I said, exhaling. “That was the last one from the portal, I think.”

  Relief rippled through the group, shoulders loosening, hands dropping from weapons. For a heartbeat, it almost felt like peace.

  “Time to go ho…”

  A sound cut through the tunnel. A laugh. Thin, cackling, cold enough to freeze the marrow in my bones. Every muscle in my body locked. Slowly, I turned toward the darkness from which it came.

  From the darkness, she emerged.

  An old woman, her face half-consumed by fungus, mushrooms blooming from her cheeks like parasitic flowers. Her hair hung in slick, grey ropes down her shoulders, wet with decay.

  Once, perhaps, she’d been beautiful. Now, corruption had claimed her body and soul.

  Behind her, a portal shimmered. Through it stepped a knight clad in blackened silver, his armour ringing hollow with each step. Two red eyes burned within his helm like dying coals.

  “Formation!” I barked, my voice cutting through the echoing drip of the tunnels. The young assassin melted into the shadows, vanishing from sight, while the rest of my thieves fell in around me, blades drawn, eyes hard. The necromancers lingered at our backs, their hands already twitching with the hunger of their dark magic.

  The hag smiled, a grin split across her rotten lips.

  “Looks like we’re outnumbered, Herbert,” she crooned. “No worries, dearie. I can fix that.”

  She lifted her hands. The air warped, prickling against my skin. Power rippled outward, and in a shimmer of foul light, five or more of her appeared before us. Each one identical, each one smiling the same cruel smile.

  “One for each,” they cackled in unison. My throat tightened. I drew my daggers and braced.

  Then the tunnel erupted into chaos.

  The hags moved as one, descending on us in a storm of claws and laughter. I barely had time to register who was where before one, real or illusion I couldn’t tell, lunged for me. Her cracked lips moved in a muttered spell. I rolled sideways, loosing a blade that whistled past her cheek. She hissed, breaking her chant, and I surged forward, twisting low to drive my dagger into her ribs. Her nails slashed across my arm, sharp as a new blade from the smith. Pain bloomed hot under my sleeve, but I didn’t stop. I drew my second dagger and plunged it into her shoulder.

  She screamed, a sound that scraped the walls, and backhanded me with inhuman strength.

  I staggered, barely ducking in time as the black knight’s sword crashed down beside me, splitting the stone floor. Sparks flew.

  Behind us, the necromancers were chanting, dark and ancient syllables that made the air hum in anticipation. One thrust out his hand, freezing a hag mid-air. She hung suspended, shrieking soundlessly, until the necromancer clenched his fist. Her throat burst. The body dissolved in a cloud of green mist.

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  A clone.

  I spun, searching for the real one, just as the young assassin dropped from above, landing on the knight’s back. His blade found the joint between the helm and breastplate, sinking deep. The knight didn’t flinch, but I saw one of the hags stumble, muttering something guttural to her puppet. That was her.

  The real one.

  I broke into a sprint, but another clone intercepted me.

  “Not so fast,” she giggled, flinging a glittering powder in my face. I coughed violently. The world warped. The tunnels swelled and shrank, twisting and turning as if I’d drank too much alcohol. My vision doubled. I slashed blindly and missed.

  “Fuck,” I spat, rubbing my eyes, trying to focus. The hag’s laughter slithered close. Then her hand fisted my tunic, dragging me toward her reeking breath.

  “You’re a handsome one, aren’t you, dearie?” she cooed. I rammed my dagger between her ribs. She shrieked and dissolved in smoke, her voice echoing from the walls: “You missed me…”

  I stumbled, threw water from my flask into my face, desperate to clear the haze. The sound of steel and screaming filled the air.

  “Man down!” Someone shouted.

  I turned. One of our thieves had crumpled against the wall. His partner froze, her eyes wide, as the hag tore his heart from his chest and devoured it whole. A scream ripped from her throat and anger pierced my soul. There was only one clone left. One clone, the real hag, and her knight. This was a fight we could win. The young assassin finished the last illusion with a clean strike. Now the true hag stood revealed, skin darkening from corpse-white to a rich, earthen hue as she absorbed the stolen life.

  “Very nice,” she hummed, licking her lips.

  “Focus on the hag only!” I roared, blinking hard to steady my vision.

  “Ooh, handsome,” she purred. “That’s hardly fair.”

  The necromancers began again, their voices rising in twisted harmony. One turned to our fallen comrade, the other aimed his will at the hag. She resisted, slowed but not stopped. The knight moved to defend her, blade raised high.

  “You and you. On me!” I ordered, signalling the assassin and another thief. We flanked the knight, darting in and out of range, forcing his attention away from the spellcasters. His sword was massive, better suited for open ground, and down here it made him clumsy. We danced around him, carving at every gap in his armour, slicing at shadows.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw movement, our fallen thief rising again. The necromancer’s doing. But when his dead eyes found the woman who’d loved him, she froze, horror carved into her face. Tears streamed as she loosed her crossbow, bolt after bolt finding the hag’s chest. Each hit spat black blood that hissed as it struck the floor, pooling with the water running down the tunnel.

  The dark knight faltered, then collapsed in a thunder of metal. The hag’s concentration had finally broken. She swayed, coughing, reaching for a pouch at her belt.

  “Don’t…!” I shouted, but too late.

  She flung it down. Glittering dust exploded around us, choking the air in a haze of darkness. My eyes burned. My lungs caught fire. I stumbled, covering my mouth.

  “You’ll…” she rasped through the black fog, “pay…for this…girl…”

  A shape moved to my right. I lunged, stabbing blindly, but my strike was deflected. A hand, cold and leathery struck my jaw and sent me sprawling. Then… nothing.

  The sound of her footsteps fading, the hiss of her magic swallowing her whole.

  I dropped low to the ground, where the powder was thinner, crawling until I broke free of the choking cloud. My throat burned raw. Around me, the others coughed and retched.

  Three members of the Black Hawks and one necromancer remained. The girl had perished.

  The young assassin, eyes sharp as ever, handed me his flask wordlessly. I poured the cool water over my face, scrubbing away the sting.

  “Has the portal closed?” I coughed.

  “Yes,” the necromancer croaked. “She sealed it behind her. We’ll need to report this. The hags… they don’t serve the Fiend.”

  I nodded grimly. “Fine. We’ll rest when we’re topside. I’ll send men for the bodies at first light. They deserve a burial.”

  We turned away from the stench of blood and smoke, moving through the dripping dark toward the faint shimmer of daylight that marked the way back to the castle.

  Behind us, the tunnel was quiet again.

  For now.

  ? ? ?

  The air in the throne room was tense. A silence that clung to the walls, humming with fear.

  The throne room had been stripped of its splendour and turned into a war chamber. A long oak table dominated the space, its surface buried beneath a map of the known world. Coloured pawns stood like soldiers upon it. Blue for the High King Edmund’s armies, green for the elves, red for the Fiend’s hordes. Along the coast, small clusters of purple marked Ethilor’s legions. Our brethren from across the sea. They’d come on ships to drive back the drakes ravaging the farmlands, but even they were faltering.

  Outside, beyond the castle gates, the fields had turned to graveyards and the roads to rivers of refugees. The slums at the base of the walls grew every day. Shacks rising from mud and despair.

  Around the map sat the remnants of power, above and below ground: Edmund, weary yet resolute; the Basilisk, his hood shadowing his face; elven and human advisors in whispered debate; and Orion, ever the ghost behind his brother’s throne these last few weeks.

  As we entered, I caught the young assassin staring at the Basilisk, eyes gleaming with something close to reverence. The resemblance was uncanny, and though I’d never pried into the Basilisk’s private life, a thought gnawed at me. Blood recognizes blood, even when hidden behind masks.

  We gave our report about the tunnels, the hag with her knight and the portal that she sealed.

  Edmund pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaustion bleeding into every gesture. “This is… problematic,” Orion muttered from behind him. “We need men at the front, but we can’t send them while these damned portals keep opening underground.”

  He wasn’t wrong.

  It was endless.

  Every hour, something crawled from the deep places of the Underworld. We closed one gate, another opened. A cycle without mercy.

  “Not as problematic,” a calm voice interrupted, “as the news I bring.”

  Elandor Reyzana, Lord of the elves of Caradsher?n, stepped forward. His presence filled the room, not loud, but commanding, carved from centuries of battles and grace. His white golden hair caught the torchlight like moonfire.

  “Faywood fell last night,” he said quietly, moving the small green pawns from the map’s southern edge. “No reinforcement will come at all from Sylvaeris or Lirandell. They are too busy defending their own lands.”

  I swore under my breath. Chances were already small they’d send reinforcement, given the small size of Lirandell. And Sylvaeris already defending Faywoods borders.

  “This was his plan all along, wasn’t it?”

  “Plan?” Elandor lifted a brow. “No, Hawkeye. The Fiend doesn’t plan. He hungers. He thrives on chaos, on imbalance. The curse that binds him weakens with every life lost. Soon, he will walk the Mid Realm freely again. The magic that restraints him is unravelling.”

  Edmund’s voice broke through, brittle and tired.

  “How do we stand against such evil? Such madness?”

  Elandor’s gaze softened, almost mournful.

  “We endure, my king. Resilience is the key. We do not surrender hope. Even when the night devours the light, we hold fast. All is not lost.”

  Edmund’s fist struck the table, rattling the pawns.

  “Not lost?! Look around you! We’re bleeding men every day. Our fields are ash, our trade gone silent, our people starving at the gates! If we don’t end this war soon, it will end us!”

  Across the table, Orion’s composure cracked.

  “Veridia has already fallen,” he said. “The Fiend’s armies tore through their borders weeks ago. Their king… slaughtered. Beheaded like an animal.” His eyes, for a heartbeat, betrayed the fear he tried to bury.

  Elandor inclined his head, calm amid the storm.

  “That’s why we cannot yield. The Runestones of Creation still exist. When we get them, we will have the power to end this war.”

  “If,” hissed a voice like steel drawn from a scabbard. All eyes turned to the Basilisk. He leaned back in his chair, hood shadowing his scarred mouth.

  “What’s that?” Elandor asked turning to the Basilisk as if he’d just appeared out of thin air.

  “If we get the Runestones of Creation. We have no idea where those… how did you call them? Companions? Anyway… we have no idea if they still live. ”

  Elandor’s eyes flashed. “They’re alive.”

  The Basilisk tilted his head, the faintest hint of mockery in his tone. “Are you certain? The last time you spoke to your precious daughter, she was dying. The runestones lost to three strangers and their wolf. Hardly comforting odds.”

  A flicker of pain crossed Elandor’s ageless face. His jaw tightened, but his voice remained steady.

  “Faith, Basilisk. That’s what remains to us. I trust them. The wolf, there is something… different about that creature. Something ancient, powerful, determined to defeat the Fiend. They will find their way back to us.”

  I stepped in before the Basilisk could press further.

  “Then we hold faith, shall we?” I said, catching his eye. It was a silent exchange, the kind only brothers-in-arms could share. He hissed softly, withdrawing his glare. The tension settled like dust.

  We’d built the Black Hawks together, he and I… and Deathrose, my love, before she passed away. There were few bonds forged stronger than ours, but even fewer as dangerous. A knock shattered the silence.

  “Enter,” Edmund called. The doors opened and revealed a general in Ethilor armour, dented and smeared with blood. He bowed deeply. “Your highness.”

  “Stand, general. We don’t have time for formalities,” Edmund responded calmly.

  The general raised again, swallowed and said: “Your highness, the drakes have overrun our lines. Dew is lost. We’ve fallen back to the second defence.”

  His words struck like a blade through bone.

  “There goes faith,” the Basilisk muttered under his breath.

  And as the echo of those words faded through the hall, I felt the last remnants of warmth drain from the room. Outside, the wind howled and rain pattered the walls like a warning.

  The Fiend’s shadow was moving ever closer.