Chapter 113: Creature of Darkness
From the top of Chambert’s wall, soldier Manó saw a horsewoman leave Henrique of Baynard’s campe toward the castle. He did not recognize the librarian, but he did recognize the other black figure that came from the East, from Tuen. The first time he had seen that woman, Debur fell into seven years of revolution and Manó went to Fabec.
This time, he didn’t wait for the woman to come closer. He called Neville.
‘It’s her,’ said Manó. He ran his finger over the scar on his face.
They both knew she was dead. They had spent enough time in the Mouth of War to have witnessed the pehnomenon: dead soldiers who killed. They had valors of ash, left ashen footprints anywhere they went, and you never knew who they were going to attack. To kill them was nearly impossible and Neville’s strategy was to close Fabec’s gates, never let them in, even if they had been his soldiers in life. Those soldiers stayed in the battlefield, sometimes doing nothing, sometimes joining the fight. When they fought, almost no-one survived. Then, a few weeks or months later, they crumbled and joined the tides of ash in the Mouth of War. Neville always told his warriors to stay away from those creatures. ‘If you see one of them, retreat.’
Chambert’s gates were closed but Henrique’s camp had no walls to keep away the creature of darkness. Erla had already left the road and moved to incercept the rider that came from the camp to Chambert.
Neville recognized her mother. Erla moved like a War finger going down to smash Maëlle. Not even Neville’s black bow could shoot far enough to slow down the woman of darkness. He ran to the base of the wall, aware that, before he reached the gorunt, Erla would have intercepted Maëlle. It was like running to Pierre when Pierre opened his arms to the dragon. Neville knew it was useless, but he couldn’t not do anything.
‘Fregósbor,’ he called, but the mage was still recovering from the effort he made the previous night in the dreams of Franária. He didn’t come.
Rederico saw Neville and ran to the red war train, but by the time he reached the locomotive with Old Woman and took off, Erla would have intercepted Maëlle. Neville shouted to the guards at the gate and they opened the small, side gate to him, so he ran outside.
From the top of the wall Manó saw a shadow. It looked like a cloud’s shadow, but the sky was clear. The shadow passed by Erla, who swayed like hay in wind and fell on one knee. The next moment, between Erla and her prey, there was a black tree with tiny, light green leaves. Erla gave up on Maëlle and, faster even than before, ran to the Baynardian camp.
Neville reached his mother in the shade of the black tree. She had dismounted and rested her hand on the black bark. The little leaves closer to Maëlle shimmered as though her touch tickled.
‘Who is that woman?’ asked Maëlle.
‘Something to be stopped.’
Maëlle took her son’s hand and held it in the space of a sigh. Then Neville went after Erla.
Vincent was the first one to see her.
‘Run,’ he shouted. ‘Now!’
Other soldiers from Fabec obeyed immediately, but the ones who had never been to the Mouth only moved when the ones from Fabec pushed them away from the camp. Vincent ran to Henrique’s tent.
‘What is that?’ asked Henrique.
‘It’s a kind of death,’ said Vincent. ‘We must run.’
King Henrique didn’t move and Vincent took him by the arm.
‘There is no use in running,’ said the king.
‘There is no use in sitting still either.’
‘You have seen a creature like this before,’ said the king.
‘In the Mouth of War.’
‘And you survived.’
‘There was a wall between us. The Captain made everyone retreat to Fabec. I would run to Chambert, but she is in the way.’
‘She doesn’t want to kill us,’ said Henrique.
‘Then what does she want?’
‘We will find out in a moment.’ The king sat down on the ground.
Erla didn’t know who the black woman rider was or why she should be stopped; all she knew was what War wanted, so she obeyed. When the black twig barrier appeared, War changed Erla’s route, bringing her down to the Baynardian camp, which looked like na anthill without the hill. Erla glanced with disgust to all those lives running away from her. It would be so easy to crush them, but that was not what War wanted.
The world was much clearer now that Erla had darkness instead of life. She knew, as soon as she saw him, that Henrique had communicated with War before, but he seemed deaf to War now. Soft pink petals sprouted from his years, keeping darkness from getting in.
‘I know you,’ Henrique told Erla. ‘I’ve seen you with Olivier.’
Erla closed her hands into fists and shook her head. Between dying and abandoning her death, Erla had forgotten Olivier. War tried to drown the memory, but Erla managed to keep Olivier on the surface.
‘He is here,’ saiddisse Henrique.
Gentle fingers touched Erla’s elbow. Her death was there, ready to pull her away from darkness. Loving Olivier didn’t go well with darkness, so Erla kept him just barely on the edge of forgetfullness, but didn’t try to pull him any closer.
Henrique’s petals disappeared, sprouted again, changed colors, as though several accelerated springs took place on the king’s blond mane. The man beside him, somber and covered in ash, gripped the hilt of his sword.
‘You must beseige Chambert,’ Erla told Henrique.
‘I can’t win.’
‘You know your role. You can hear War.’
‘Not anymore,’ he said.
Of course he couldn’t, otherwise Erla wouldn’t have been sent here to communicate War’s wishes to him. She took care not to lose Olivier.
‘Besiege Chambert now,’ she said.
‘Olivier is in that tent,’ Henrique pointed.
Against War’s orders, with her death still holding her elbow, Erla went to the other tent. Olivier’s ankle was chained to a pole, but the chain was long enough that he could move around the passably comfortale tent. He took a step toward her when she came in, then stopped ant took two steps back.
‘What happened to you?’
When Olivier stepped away from her, Erla wished to live. Her death’s fingers tickled her arm up to her shoulders and Erla slapped her neck like she was trying to get rid of a fly.
‘I’m here to set you free,’ she told Olivier.
He retreated as she approached, until the chain was taut. With a gesture of Erla’s finger, the chain became ashes. She offered her hand to Olivier, but he hugged himself and began to shake.
‘What are you?’
‘I am,’ said Erla. ‘I am,’ but she didn’t know how to finish.
‘What is that?’ Olivier pointed at her death standing behind her.
‘Olivier, my master, I came here to save you. I always come to save you. I gave my life to you, now I’ve given my death for you.’ She reached out again. ‘Come. I can give you the world.’
‘A world of darkness.’
‘Na entire world.’
‘I already live in darkness, Erla.’
‘No, you live in suffering. Darkness is not suffering, they annule the pain, the loss. Life needs not hurt, nor does death. Life and death don’t even need to be. Why won’t you accept War? It will welcome you.’
The ashes of Olivier’s chain snaked on the floor. Outside, War pulled Erla through the spine, like a hook.
‘Your War has never summoned me,’ said Olivier. ‘It summoned Henrique, but it didn’t want me.’
‘I want you.’
‘The women of my life, they all left me.’
‘I am not a woman, I am darkness, and darkness never leaves.’
Erla kept her hand out to him. After a few moments, Olivier took it.
War then sucked Erla out of the tent, demanding destruction. There was a red train and it was evacuating the Baynardian soldiers. A third of them was now safely behind Chambert’s walls.
Erla ran to the red train in super-human speed, but na arrow hit her leg and she stumbled. She removed the arrow and started running again, but thee more arrows hit her chest, thigh and head. Black arrows that pierced through darkness. Erla’s death slid in through thte clack arrow holes. When her death took the place of darkness, Erla rediscovered pain. She was blinded by it and War took possession of her body.
The creature of darkness stood up. Neville kept on shooting but a small hurricane of darkness puverized his arrows. The three arrows that had already hit her remained in her body. A wave of power began from the creature’s feet and hit the Eliana’s flank. The little dog yelped in pain and Rederico took her in his arms.
‘Old Woman, are you all right?’
The little dog lost consciousness for a moment and the Eliana’s engine died, but soon Old Woman opened her eyes again and Rederico raised the train into the air. Deburian soldiers kept on jumping up unto the wagons and one of them hung in the edge when the Eliana lef the ground. He was pulled in while Rederito, with Old Woman in his arms, steered the train to Chambert.
War turned to Henrique, who was at the entrance of the royal tent.
‘You think I betrayed you,’ said the king. ‘But you let my orchids die.’
King Henrique died on his feet. He didn’t fall nor did he get hurt, but merely stopped working and stood there like a broken mechanism. War then turned to the soldiers who were still on the field. It was going to do to them what it had done to Henrique, but Erla came from the depths of her death and resisted.
Because, if War did what it meant to do, Olivier would also die.
Erla’s resistence would mean nothing to War if it wasn’t at the same time still struggling to control the dragon. Ever since War invaded the dragon’s magic, lamost all its energy was spent fighting Chelag’Ren. War hadn’t expecetd it to be so difficult, the dragon to be so strong. War hadn’t expected Erla to resist. All those mages to be in its nest. And there he was, that ancient mage, standing on Chambert’s wall, leaning on two burnt men to stand up and face War.
War fled.
But it would be back.
With a dragon.