Midnight tides

They’d taken wounds – no, the remnant that was Udinaas corrected, I’ve taken wounds. I should be dead. I’m cut to pieces. Bitten, torn, gouged. But that damned Wyval won’t surrender. It needs me still… for a few moments longer.

Through a red haze, the old Azath tower and its yard came into view, and a surge of eagerness from the Wyval flooded him.

The Master needed help. All was not yet lost.

In a blur of motion, Udinaas was past the strange man sitting cross-legged on the street – he caught the sudden jerk of surprise from the man as they swept by. A moment later, plunging through the gateway.

Into the yard.

In time to see a mortal Tarthenal half-blood rushing to close on a fight where a lone swordsman was surrounded by the Toblakai gods, moments from buckling under a hail of blows.

Then, past them all.

To the barrow of the Master. The churned, steaming earth. Diving forward with a piercing, reptilian scream – and into the hot darkness, down, clawing, scraping – tearing clear from the mortal’s flesh, the body the Wyval had used for so long, the body it had hidden within – clambering free at last, massive, scaled and sleek-hided, talons plunging into the soil-

The child Kettle squealed as the creature, winged and as big as an ox, rushed past her on all fours. A thumping splash, water spraying in a broad fan that rose, and rose, then slapped down on the now churning pool. Foam, a snaking red-purple tail slithering down then vanishing in the swirling maelstrom.

She then heard a thud behind her and spun on the slick mud of the bank, the two swords still in her hands-

– to see a badly torn body, a man, lying face down. The shattered ends of long bones jutting from his arms and legs, blood pulsing slowly from ruptured veins. And, settling atop him, a wraith, descending like a shadow to match the contorted body beneath it. A shadowy face looking up at Kettle, the rasp of words-

‘Child, we need your help.’

She looked back over her shoulder – the surface of the pool was growing calm once more. ‘Oh, what do you want me to do? It’s all going wrong-’

‘Not as wrong as you think. This man, this Letherii. Help him, he’s dying. I cannot hold him together much longer. He is dying, and he does not deserve to die.’

She crawled closer. ‘What can I do?’

‘The blood within you, child. A drop or two, no more than that. The blood, child, that has returned you to life. Please…’

‘You are a ghost. Why would you have me do this for him – and not for you?’

The wraith’s red eyes thinned as it studied her. ‘Do not tempt me.’

Kettle looked down at the swords in her hands. Then she set one down and brought the freed hand to the gleaming blue edge of the one she still held. Slid her palm a bit along the edge, then lifted her hand to study the result. A long line of blood, a deep, perfect cut. ‘Oh, it’s sharp.’

‘Here, push him onto his back. Lay your wounded palm on his chest.’

Kettle moved forward.

A blow had broken his left arm, and the agony as Iron Bars dodged around and between the bellowing Seregahl sent white flashes through his brain. Half blinded, he wielded his battered, blunted sword on instinct alone, meeting blow after blow – he needed a moment free, a few heartbeats in which to recover, to clamp down on the pain-

But he’d run out of that time. Another blow got through, the strange wooden sword slicing as if glass-edged into his left hip. The leg on that side gave out beneath the biting wound. He looked up through sweat-stinging eyes, and saw the one-eyed Seregahl towering directly over him, teeth bared in triumph.

Then a tree branch struck the god in the head. Against its left temple, hard enough to snap the head right over to bounce from the opposite shoulder. The grin froze, and the Toblakai staggered. A second impact caught it, this time coming from behind, up into the back of the skull, the branch exploding into splinters. The god bent forward-

– as a knee drove up into its crotch – and forearms hammered its back, pushing it further down, the knee rising again, this time to crunch against the god’s face.

The grin, Iron Bars saw from where he crouched, was entirely gone now.

The Avowed rolled to one side a moment before the Toblakai landed atop him. Rolled, and rolled, stumbling to his feet finally to pivot round. And, rising to his name above the agony in his hip, straightening. Once more facing the Seregahl.