Awaken

By Vanessa MacLellan

Balin stands between two great Powers.  One will shatter his mind; the other will destroy his soul.  Only one of them can save his people.

 

Fort Resonbirg, a Norse stronghold in the New World, is besieged by the evil sorcerer Ursulard the Dreamspinner.  Though their fields are scorched and homes destroyed, the residents and refugees do not worry, because Fort Resonbirg is Awakened with the power to provide, protect, and grow.  But not all is as it seems when a wall of impenetrable mist surrounds the fort, and within the mist hunts the dragon, Nidhogg.  Nidhogg hungers for more than flesh and bone. It instills nightmares on its prey, feeding on fear and pain, inevitably taking lives.

 

Balin Tremore, a commoner bound for the militia but hoping to stay by his noble love's side, never expected to amount to grand things.  When the great power of Cradleweaving is awakened within him, Balin unknowingly becomes the one person with the power to pierce the wall of mist and banish the deadly beast within before it destroys them all—if he can master the new power in time.  But to master the power, he must sacrifice much.  The question is, will it be his position, his Lady, or his very soul?

 

The Mist meets Nightmare on Elm Street in this classic tale of personal sacrifice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vanessa MacLellan
• Release date: Jul 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201447113

Book preview

Chapter Two

The Cage of Forever

The sound of steel scraping on steel. An echo of water dripping. The sharp stench of mildew and urine. Dim light haloing everything in a cold magical glow. The ache in his skin and bones overshadowed by the acute heat in his thigh. A dry mouth full of day-old vomit. Those were the first things Balin noticed when he awoke in his cage.

The second was that he was not alone.

In a corner cowered Sir William Jeffries.

Wha— The word came out a squeak, pitiful through Balin’s raw throat.

William, facing the corner, turned his head by stiff degrees towards Balin. His light brown hair had darkened to the color of sludge and fell across his face in stringy lengths that failed to hide the bruises forming over his right eye and the bridge of his nose. That haughty sneer, that cold amusement in his eyes, were gone. Any elegant frock coat he was wearing before the Fallen had taken him was missing; his high-collared silken shirt and woolen trousers hung in tatters. Balin couldn’t believe this was the leader of the fort, Hauld Edmond Jeffries’, pampered son, the pompous Jack-boy that Balin had avoided for years on the keep grounds.

Now, William huddled in the corner, using his back as a shield and his shoulders as pathetic concealment.

In the illumination of magical light, Balin inspected himself. He wore a coating of filth to rival William’s. Bloodied. A casualty of war.

Consciousness arm-wrestled with the darkness; he was plagued by a headache that raged and screamed. A bump had risen above his right ear where he’d smacked it with that rock. A hot fire burned in his thigh from the ’Stoker spell he’d taken outside the sewers and the flesh released a rancid stink.

Feast time, boys, boomed a cruel voice.

Everything was hazy, a fog of memory flashes. Burning and bleeding and screaming. Cannon fire and the biting scent-taste of magic overuse, clogging his nose, clinging to the roof of his mouth. The horned soldiers of Ursulard.

The Lord’s son twisted back to face the corner, curling into an even tighter ball as metal scraped against metal and a rusty hinge squealed. The air was thick and damp.

Here you go, swabs. Enjoy. A tall man in sailor’s slops and jacket dropped two tins onto the stone floor. They must be near the sea, Balin thought. Or a great river. The man’s teeth flashed in a wicked smile, brown with tobacco and lack of simple hygiene. Balin closed his eyes. Laughter and that metallic screech and boot steps receding. Too many sounds, all mixed up with strips of the past from the external world.

Balin tried to roll over, but pain spiked through his thigh at the motion. The odor of the food sure as piss offered no temptation to rise: a close cousin to something found in the bottom of a pig trough ripening in the summer sun.

Eat up, Balin, William said in a quiet, urgent tone, so unnatural packaged in that aristocratic voice. There was more scraping, and then the loud slurping of a starving beast racing to feast before larger scavengers chased it away.

William stopped eating. Balin? Hey, Balin? William reached out and rocked him, the motion pressing Balin’s leg against the hard ground. Balin screamed. The sound ripped through his abused throat and that cruel, painful world sank down.

BALIN AWOKE, OR SURFACED, since he didn’t feel as if he’d actually slept, to the call of, Slop time. Time had turned into a formless mass, like the mudpots in the volcanic lands south of Glintnur.

Two plates holding moldy bread and fetid meat were pushed into the cage. Balin looked at William, who sniffed in disdain, but ate it anyway. William Jeffries was the only son of the Hauld of Fort Resonbirg. Balin would bet his best sabre, the one Elaine Dufey had given him, that William had eaten nothing less than venison cooked with orange glaze. But the young man, near enough to Balin’s own age of sixteen, had been missing for weeks, and Balin’s sabre probably now lay buried under the muck of the banks of the Brandon. Lord Edmund Jeffries had commanded men to scour the forests and farmlands for William, his commands increasingly frantic and cruel as the weeks stretched out. William’s carriage had been found, smashed, his servants’ broken bodies trampled into the sod beneath the rough tread of armored boots. The tread of the men of Ursulard the Dreamspinner’s army, the Fallen.

Lord Jeffries had once stood by his cousin Ursulard’s side. Now he swore the Dreamspinner’s demise.

How long have you been here? he asked William.

Forever, William said, his once-sharp eyes hollow. He grabbed his plate and held it close. I’ve been here forever.

Balin picked up his soft hunk of meat and bit into it.

WHAT LITTLE REPRIEVE he’d been offered met its end, and soon the same treatment William had garnered over his forever landed upon Balin.

Balin squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think himself to another land as the stick fell again and again. What’re Resonbirg’s defenses? Tell me, ya filth. Smack. Where you get a Dufey sabre? Smack. What’re they planning?

I don’t know!

He was somewhere else. Somewhere else. Not stuck in this cell being beaten by one of the Fallen.

William had urged him to tell the Fallen anything he wanted, didn’t matter if it was truth or lies. But Balin wouldn’t break under this beating, or the next, or the next. Fort Resonbirg would stand forever against Ursulard’s army. Anyway, Balin didn’t know a thing. He wasn’t nobility; the Dufey sabre he’d carried had been a gift, not a mark of his status. The commoners weren’t allowed any governance unless they were vilmeid, workers of magic. Balin was nothing, nothing but a boy whose father had died a traitor and whose mother had been shot down in the aftermath. This enemy expecting Balin knew any measure of Resonbirg’s defenses—except that the walls and doors were thick and sturdy—was just a pretext to beat him.

A spiral had long ago been painted across the floor, the white gone dingy and sepia in ages past, soaking up the anguish from its parade of tenants and the endless drip of blood. Balin had noticed that the Fallen didn’t stand on the symbol for any length of time. It was a Dreamspinner mark. The captives had no choice; they ate on the mark, huddled on the mark, slept on the mark in the quiet times between interrogations.

The Fallen, a man named Zebbens, kicked Balin’s ribs one last time. Somehow, Zebbens filled up the eight by eight cell that he and William had shared for what had to amount to days. No window in the encasing stone room announced the rise and fall of the sun. William had his back turned, facing the corner. Sorry, little prince, Zebbens said to him. But Pa’s given up on ya. We offered ya up, but he told us, ‘Keep the worthless brat. Or feed ’im to the pigs.’

William’s thin frame drew into itself.

How do ya like that, lad?

William said nothing.

No more smart mouth, eh, boy? I asked ya a question. Zebbens took a step towards William, and Balin scooted out of the way, trying to shield his encrusted thigh and avoid a wayward strike. A divot in the cement at the base of a bar caught his eye, the hole covered by a scattering of dust. Someone must have tried to escape; his focus darted to William.

Zebbens swung his leg and kicked William hard in the kidney. William cried out and glanced up at Zebbens, fear and surrender blatant and screaming from his wet eyes, the draw of his mouth.

Yer nothing but cow dung, ain’t that right? the Fallen asked, tapping the toe of his boot hard against the floor.

William nodded sharply, traces of defiance floating amidst his dread.

Tell me, Zebbens said.

William’s eyes flicked to Balin, and Zebbens kicked him again, right in the knee. William screamed and grabbed at his leg, tears welling up. Ye—Yes. I am cow dung. His voice cracked.

Good boy. Zebbens smiled. Then the big man’s hands went to his waist, and he yanked on one drawstring followed by the next. He dropped his stained trousers. A stream of piss splattered over William. As Zebbens barked out laughter, Balin looked away. With a fading chuckle, Zebbens left, the rusty door hinges ringing through the silence.

After, William refused to meet Balin’s eyes. Balin didn’t try to meet his.

A WARM BREEZE BRUSHED Balin’s face, and through his eyelids he could see pinking light. Blinking, he realized he lay on his back and faced a bright sky. A spread of white clouds distanced themselves from the clear blue directly above him. The air smelled clean: fresh grass and open space and freedom.

He stood. Fields extended endlessly around him. Growing green fields, where the grasses dipped and nodded in the wind. A bird of prey cried, drawing his attention. A pair of gray-backed hawks soared on the thermals. With a whoop, he sprinted through the waist-high grass, the thin stems whipping him as he raced across the flat plain. He felt no pain. No cold. Fresh air and warming sun. Free, he was free.

The sun burned high above as he ran and ran. Heart beating in his chest, breath gasping, he ran.

Stopping his race, Balin caught his breath. The thin layer of clouds still blanketed the eastern sky. He turned around, looking behind himself. Searching. Gaze landing left, right. Endless grasses, dancing in the breeze.

No trace affirmed he’d passed through the field. No sign within the grasses his body had been anywhere other than where it stood.

He picked a direction at random and ran again. Blood thundered in his ears, and he could see nothing but the grass before him. Grass, tall and green, bobbing in the wind. The sun above beat down upon him. Sweat dripped from his temples, sluiced along his shoulder blades. His thigh began to ache. He stank, smelling of unwashed body, urine, and shit. He smelled of panic.

The skin along his arm felt tight from the sun. Redness splashed across this flesh. The skin curled up and peeled away. Balin gasped, covered his arm with this hand. The sweet scent of charred meat tickled his nose. Flames burst from his fingers; flames shimmied up his arms. Drops of molten flesh splattered to the ground. Fire sparked in the grasses. The prairie fire roared with the power of Surt, charging towards the unseen edges.

Balin.

The world turned red as the fire ate out his eyes.

Wake up!

Balin bolted upright, gasping, desperate for air. A tinny whine filled the cage as he patted himself, beating at the fire. Within his gaze, everything was red. But he wasn’t burning. He wasn’t charred like the villagers. With the heels of his hands, he rubbed the red vision from his eyes and stopped whimpering. He was alive and trapped in a cage he shared with the Hauld’s son.

HE COULD NO LONGER sleep; Dreamspinner nightmares stole away his slumber. Had it been a week? A month? When would Ursulard be done toying with him? Grasslands and burning flesh hounded him when his eyes dipped closed. A lifetime?

If only he could dream of Elaine, her warmth, her laughter. Or laughing with Tristan around the bonfire at the start of harvest season. Planting seeds with Erik in the greenhouse. He’d even take memories of studying history under the strict gaze of his guardian.

At times when he forgot himself, gave into his exhaustion, he caught the grassy smell of wide, open fields, but that never turned out well. In his moments of staunch wakefulness, his eyes would trace the white spiral on the floor, and he’d curse himself for the habit. He couldn’t detect his own stink anymore.

Balin. The urgency of William’s words made him turn towards his fellow prisoner. Are you cold?

Of course, he was cold. Balin was always cold. They were surrounded by walls of stone—possibly quarried from Jötunheimr, the land of the ice giants, itself—in the open air of an animal cage with little clothing and no blankets. How could he not be freezing?

Aye, Balin said. His body had long ago forgone shivering. Maybe it was trying to commit suicide. Maybe today would be the day he wouldn’t eat the garbage laid out for him. Maybe today he would just die. He sighed, offering a last prayer for salvation.

Can I...? William leaned towards him, moving away from his corner. His eyes were wide, luminescent in the light of the overhead, glowing glass ball. Fueled by the bare magic of this place, its faint light never went out. Cradleweaver magic, this dismal, eternal light. Squatting on his hands and feet, William took a tentative hand-step in Balin’s direction.

Can you what? Balin asked, alarmed at the dullness of his own voice.

Never mind. William faced his corner, shivering.

Understanding dawned on Balin. William hadn’t given up. William still wanted to live.

Come here, Balin said.

William stared over his shoulder at Balin, then slowly turned his whole body and crawled over on all fours, all legs and arms, as he kept low to the ground. The two young men huddled back-to-back, lying one side on the cold, hard ground, arms wrapped around their middles. William burned like a little oven, and Balin was certain he won out on this deal. Jötuns’ breath be damned.

Warm, Balin mumbled and pressed closer to William.

Aye, William agreed.

Time had lost all cohesion. There were moments where he was fed; moments where he defecated in the corner they used as a pot; moments when he’d pick the aging scab on his spell wound, dragging forth hot, bloody pus; moments when he daydreamed of Elaine’s kisses; moments when blows fell upon him for knowledge he didn’t have. Everything else had turned soft, mutable, but now here he was, touching another person and this simple act made this moment solid, real. Balin didn’t know whether to hate William forever for this or thank him.

How did they get you? Balin finally asked. William was an excellent swordsman, second only to Elaine in fencing. All in all, they had talked little, even though they had only each other as companions. William no longer cursed Balin’s father and lack of nobility, and here, in this cage, he had no power to force menial tasks upon him at a whim.

I was in a caravan returning to Resonbirg. They killed my servants. Ungar and Thomas, too. I think they took me to assure my father’s loyalties. I don’t know. I struggled. I did, he murmured, but I was disarmed and...and you know how they are. Yes, Balin did know about the Fallen, about Zebbens and Roggar and Bruvissin and all the others. "And I’ve been here since. I’ve been here...since.

You?

Me? Balin stopped to think. I was in the village when the army came. On the first night of Vetrnaetr. Everyone had come to the keep for the feast. They had a roan from the Jorvik stables for sacrifice. The second of the holiest of days had been soiled by the Dreamspinner’s army. I tried to help the villagers. So many people.... So many were caught under the buildings, caught in the fires. It’d become too much. And so, he’d run.

William pressed closer to Balin’s back. He was still shivering.

Then they closed the field gate and some of us were cut off. A lot of us. I tried to get in through the sewer tunnel. But— he remembered the pain lancing his thigh from a Ragestoker’s spell, cracking his head on the stones, blacking out. His dearest Elaine calling to him from above. I was hit with a spell. Really, I don’t remember what happened. Balin sighed. It’s bad out there, William. Ragnarök’s a bedtime story compared.

William’s vertebrae pressed into his back, their shirts offering little cushioning between them. Balin could count them, one by one.

Was that you, who worked on the bar? he asked.

The bar...? William trailed off, and Balin nodded, feeling the grind of his head against William’s own.

The bar. Near the corner, looks like someone was digging on it.

Oh, that. Aye. I found it, already picked at a bit. I dug some more, with a spoon handle. Zebbens caught me.

Is it loose?

William shrugged. Won’t budge.

Perhaps with both of us.... He considered getting up to jerk against the metal rod. His body felt heavy, unmovable.

William made a dismissive noise. Without a pick.... It’s just not possible.

A pause. We’ll get out of here. We’ll think of something.

The glowing light overhead flickered but came back to its sickly glimmer. The lights of Resonbirg never faded, never gave the faintest hint of failure. Balin wished upon the light like the eye of the eagle, hoping for it to fly down and take them away.

Please, he pleaded to the eye, help us. Get us out of here. Odin, we don’t deserve this. He continued to stare at that ball, their only source of light, and he wished and wished and wished.

I should have trained to become a vilmeid. William’s voice nudged against the quiet. Then maybe I could have fought harder. I could have stopped them.

If Balin had been born with the power to work magic, or was of the lineages, he would have liked to have learned to make magic like the vilmeid. Why didn’t you? Your mother is a Dreamspinner.

Aye. But I don’t want to spin the dreams. I don’t want to be like him. And, he paused, I showed no potential.

The cousin to his own father did this to William. The greatest Dreamspinner of Glintnur in ages. What would you want to learn, then?

Ragestoker, came William’s confident reply. Like Saint Etne. You? If you could?

Balin thought about that. If he could work any of the five paths of magic, which would he want to wield? He didn’t think he’d want to be warring all the time, so Ragestoker was out. He held little interest in building things or manipulating the weather. And since Ursulard turned away from Odin’s path, new Dreamspinners were a rare breed. Earthwalker, he finally said.

Farmer, William said, with a touch of his old haughtiness.

Aye, I guess. I like the outdoors, the prairies and the rivers. He enjoyed helping in the greenhouses.

But he was not of the lineages and had not expressed any talent. He was bound for the militia, or, if he was lucky, he’d be forced into a fancy vest and trousers as a minor aide if Elaine kept him within the fort. Elaine would marry politically. All nobles did. Probably William, if the Hauld’s wife had her way. Balin couldn’t stick around and watch them together. It had been one of his countable reasons to detest William, but he couldn’t nurture any of those feelings for the beaten man now. He thought of Elaine, her sassy short hair no commoner would dare wear. He wondered what she and Tristan were up to, or Erik. Any of his friends. He didn’t want to think that they might be gone, dead, or taken by the Fallen.

Below him, power flowed through the cold stones, warming up the spiral as he dreamed about the far reach of vile green prairie. In the distance, at the edge of notice, a lone man passed through the grassland.

Chapter Three

The Sallaedi

Time passed for Balin trapped in the cage, trapped in his nightmares. He thought his heart would rupture each time he thrust himself from that scorched earth, that his nerves would fry up like a grasshopper in a hot pan.

He knew they were dreams; half his life seemed to hover between that fuzzy daze and demeaning wakefulness. In lecture, Mistress Ingrid Lyall had shown them all a rare tome on the meanings of dreams. Though a Winddancer, a master of the wind and weather, Cradleweaving and Dreamspinning ran through the Mistress’ ancestry, and the book had been a treasured heirloom, the script a flowing scrawl from the hand before the uniform lettering of the presses. From the book, he’d read that visitors could visit a dreamer in this quiescent state. They could take a single step and jaunt from one man’s nightmare to another’s daydream. It is with a focused mind that a dream master can travel the currents of sleep thought and intrude upon another’s under mind. So, he figured it was one of these jaunters who had displaced his dreams of fire and pain.

Another Dreamspinner.

Now, instead of a spring prairie full of abundance, a hard, black ribbon of asphalt split parched, gray land in two. Cracks splintered the soil, no longer supporting the devil grass that had whipped his arms and legs. His dream landscape had changed, and no fires threatened to swallow him whole.

An entirely different world had taken form that Balin didn’t think was dream at all.

This new Dreamspinner must have changed it, through his magic and his will. Balin hoped this man would help. Hoped it wasn’t another face of Ursulard.

Studying the man—dressed in a long, brown coat made of oiled wool or maybe canvas—Balin was certain they’d crossed dream paths before, though their past meetings had never been as clear or vivid as the one he engaged in now.

Legs straddling a wandering crack down the middle of the unending road, the tall man faced Balin, a beat-up wide-brimmed hat pulled low across his brow, the brim floppy with age. A thick, gray beard hung to the center of his chest. He looked like a frontier Odin, and Balin scanned the skies for ravens, only to see thin strips of purple clouds.

This man, he was different. New and different, and he rattled Balin even more than those cruel tortures Ursulard subjected him to every time his eyes dipped closed. Grasses and fire. Life and death. Promises. Balin refused to think about those nightmares, swept away to a corner of his brain where he filed the facts about the Westman wars and fencing score points.

At last, you walk this world.

Emptiness and silence settled over the black road.

Your eyes seize on the rotten fruits of your past restraint. Your pain smells like ancient sorrow. You called me.

It was impossible to tell if the words were spoken or thought. Maybe they just were, existing at this time, in this moment, and in the next, other words took their place.

Your time is now. Join me.

Though Balin stood dressed in shabby rags, he didn’t feel cold. His feet were bare, and the rough surface of the asphalt felt alien to them, so different from the smooth floor of his cell.

Who are you? he asked.

The words echoed across the endless plains: "Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?" until they faded into the stagnant air. Bordering the edge of his vision were foothills, maybe mountains. Everything looked dull, the colors eroded by wind and time. Nowhere did he see a speck of green.

I am he who brings the end. Some call me Enda, others call me Dust. I am known as the Sallaedi.

They faced each other. Time stretched out like a curse.

Are you going to take me? Like a Valkyrie?

Silent, the Sallaedi considered him.

Then a thought occurred to Balin; perhaps he was already dead, that he had died in that cell, abandoned William to Zebbens and his cruelty, and gone to Helheim. This must be that old trickster Loki, himself. Maybe he was doomed to haunt the lonely road with this apparition for all eternity, breeding nothing but fear and waste.

Then his eyes popped open and the cold, hard floor beneath him reminded him of his situation. The light above glowed steadily, and he wondered how long he’d been gone. What year it was. And in his bones, he felt ancient.

IT WAS ONE OF THOSE days Zebbens had insisted they each knew something. It had begun with Balin’s hand, pressed out flat against the ground, and Zebbens’ knife laying jagged tracks across the skin. Eyes squeezed shut, Balin considered it a mockery of the clean slice Elaine had given him years ago with her sword.

What of the magic workers in yer fort?

There’s the doctor, the Lady, and the Mistress has some skill, and— Balin screamed as Zebbens sliced off his words with a draw of his blade. Along the back of Balin’s hand, a line of red bubbled into a stream where Zebbens had cut deeply.

After that came the stick.

The stick, a thumb’s thickness, fell from one prisoner to the next. Balin babbled about fortifications, babbled about army strength, the numbers of horses and cattle. He told more stories of the strength of their sorcerers, the power of their magic. Anything, he’d tell Zebbens anything. A different story each time. William had long given up trying to appease the man and simply cowered. With one violent hack, the stick snapped against William’s shoulder. William’s pain flooded out through his eyes and nose and his split, chapped lips.

Zebbens halted his next lash, staring dumbly at the broken staff he still held. He snatched up the other half and abandoned his play with the squeak of rusty metal, the pounding of his boots.

William rocked on the floor, screaming. With Balin squatting beside him, cooing empty reassurances, it took an age before William smothered his cries behind tight lips. His flesh already showed signs of swelling; the blood from Balin’s vein painted William’s clothing in hues of crimson and pink.

We have to get out of here, Balin droned to himself, gently probing at William’s swelling wound to determine its extent, pressing the back of his own hand to his filthy shirt. Every touch caused his friend pain, so he stopped. He couldn’t stomach the whimpers and moans.

Aye? William said through snot and tears. Balin wasn’t sure if he was questioning Balin’s opinion or agreeing with the thought’s worth.

Aye. He decided he’d just agree.

How?

There lay the real question. The one that never earned an answer. Balin knew they couldn’t overpower Zebbens, and nobody else had come into their room. The space between the bars was too thin to squeeze through, even in their emaciated state. The one excavated bar was as solid as ever. Neither of them could wield magic. They had no weapons.

Together, we could trip him. I’ll hold him off, and you can run away.

Neither said a thing. Then William made a dismissive noise. I’m sure there are other Fallen. I couldn’t get by them all. And...I wouldn’t leave you.

Silence, then Balin muttered for what felt like the hundredth time, We’ll think of something.

The far door clicked open. Balin scooted over to his corner, worried that William couldn’t take another onslaught of abuse. Soft steps—not the quick clacking of Zebbens’ hard boots—approached the cell in a slow, measured pace. Then the same outer door banged against a wall.

You can’t be in here.... Zebbens protested to the new arrival.

I merely wanted to see what pets you had trapped down here on the permanent spiral, Zebbens, came a voice as rough as grating stone.

Balin snuck a peek over his shoulder. The new arrival stood tall, with a shaggy mane of brown hair around his face. He had the golden-brown skin of a southerner, not the typical pale complexion of the northmen. He wore a fine suit with a swallowtail coat and rich crimson vest, something William’s father would wear, and the twisted scar tissue of a man who’d faced death. The scar, a white contrast against his skin, slipped out from under his high cravat, around his throat and tapered into a dart below his ear.

Balin recognized him instantly, and his stomach dropped away: Roggar Ormond, a Ragestoker. Once a military sorcerer for the hird, he now sided with the Dreamspinner in this fight for dominance of the Land of Glintnur.

Briefly, for the sharpest moment, Balin was certain sorrow glimmered in those dark eyes, but it flittered off in such a manner that Balin was certain he’d see promise in Hel herself walking through that door to take him to the Corpse Shore.

"Ah. I understand now. These are the little pets you’ve been talking about. Beating starved young men into submission is quite manly of you. Ormond turned his back on the cage so swiftly his coat tails billowed around his waist. The Dreamspinner gave you such a prize, did he?"

Shut yer mouth. I’ve my orders. They ain’t dead, and the Dreamspinner wants ’em.... Zebbens began but did not finish as Ormond drew his sword and cleanly lopped off the Fallen’s head.

Balin and William were struck dumb by the casual action.

The head thumped against the ground, the glassy eyes of Zebbens peering off into unknown worlds. Blood streamed from the razor-fine cut.

Ormond wiped his sword against the dead man’s grubby slops, then took the keys from the lifeless body. He unlocked the cage—none of that rattling Zebbens had always affected—and swung the door open. The captives made no move.

Stop gawking and get out here, Ormond commanded, his voice rasping through his ruined throat. Filthy brats. William, we’ve been looking for you for months now; the least you could do is show some aptitude at self-preservation and follow me out of this room. His eyes landed on Balin, and his nose crinkled. I shall take you as well. Don’t lag, boy.

Ormond turned his back and strode towards the door.

What do you think? Balin whispered. Ormond had fled with Ursulard after that bastard betrayed them all. We should go, get out of here.

Agreed. William struggled to his feet, holding his other arm tight against his body.

They found the southman around a corner waiting by the phantom exit they’d heard open and close uncountable times but had never set eyes upon. The door to freedom.

Ormond held out a military sword to Balin, one of the Fallen’s. Balin gripped the hilt firmly, weighing the unfamiliar weapon. Ormond hefted his own sabre, the blade silver white and curved. Follow me.

There was something comforting and grounding in having Roggar Ormond order them around. The two young men followed Ormond through a series of wood-paneled hallways, passing closed doors that possibly held other captives like themselves, but Balin knew nothing of the secrets they might hold.

Footsteps tapped from around a corner. Ormond spun back to a door they’d passed and pushed it open; Balin dragged William inside. Mostly empty, the room had bags and barrels crowding one end. Together they held their breath, waited as the Fallen marched by, his footsteps receding into a faint scuff, then into nothing. The sword already felt like a cannonball in his hand.

Balin reached to open the door, but Ormond growled at him, a low threat. Balin yanked his hand back to his side. They waited. Balin’s heart didn’t take consolation in their rest but kept pounding out a beat to his fear and exhaustion. Finally, Ormond opened the door, angled his ear towards the crack and listened, then he continued their stealth march until they reached a long hallway papered in brown with a single door at the end.

Both of you stay behind me. The room at the end of the hallway leads to the stables; we can escape through there. However, it is guarded. Can you fight? Ormond asked in his choked whisper. This close, Balin could see the white scar tissue dance under the man’s speech.

William seemed three steps away from fainting and was propped against the wall, his face bone pale. Balin said, I can, sir. William’s a bit...run down.

Ormond examined William, his shoulder, the dazed glaze to his eyes. Stay out of the fight, he said.

William glowered, but nodded once, weakly.

Ready, boy? he asked Balin.

Balin, sir. My name, it’s Balin Tremore.

A momentary spark of recognition widened the southerner’s eyes, but then he scowled. I do not care who you are. Are you ready to fight for your life?

Balin nodded, hefted the sword, ignoring the pain in his thigh and hand.

Good. The Ragestoker turned to face the door.

They walked the last few yards down the hallway, quietly and with care, leaving William behind. Though his spirit and body had been ground to near dust, Balin gritted his teeth as Ormond grabbed the handle and yanked it open. Together they burst through.

For Odin, and the Saint! Falcon fast, Ormond’s sword, glittering sliver in the bright light of the room, came down across one man’s raised sword arm, slicing it clean through. A Fallen soldier threw himself to the ground, dagger in hand. Smooth and graceful, the man rolled towards Ormond, slicing upward towards the Ragestoker’s leg.

Ormond thrust out his sabre, deflecting the dagger with the length of his blade. The two warriors clashed, blade against blade. A cry from the left pulled Balin back to his own fight.

Weak, tired, Balin opened his lungs and cried out, voicing his anger and fear and desperate frustration as he charged a short man in fieldman’s clothes. His opponent’s eyes grew wide; his yellowed teeth bore down in a grimace as his sword arced towards Balin. Balin tilted his own blade, redirecting the enemy’s sword even as he sank his into the man’s side. It was a trick Elaine had taught him, so many summers ago. But Balin’s body flagged into shaking legs, and his stance was off. The man’s sword bit into Balin’s shoulder. A mere cut, the pain a near silent companion to the others.

To his side, Ormond hissed a call to Thor. Balin tracked the lance of lightning that zipped from Ormond’s fingers through the room, striking one man, then two, and sizzling a third before its strength faded. Such power. To have such power at hand meant never to be stolen and beaten by men like Zebbens.

Tremore! Ormond called, the word tearing Balin from his daze.

A man not much older than Balin lunged at him with a dagger. Balin lifted his sword and parried the thrust. His heart didn’t beat. His lungs wouldn’t breathe. The enemy’s weapon curved around and sliced again. The warrior gnashed his teeth like a mongrel dog. Balin feigned left, then ducked in beyond the man’s guard, slipping the blade into the soft flesh of his opponent’s belly. He twisted, flicked his wrist, and tore the blade free. The man fell with a violent scream.

It was quick, and when he surveyed the rest of the room, no more enemies stood. Men groaned, holding their various wounds. Ormond bared his teeth as he sliced a survivor’s throat. Balin’s heartbeat jumped to its regular duty. His hands had gone numb, and the sword tumbled from his fingers, destroying the eerie after-battle silence with a harsh metal ting.

Are you...

Balin turned and saw William standing in the doorway.

...all right? William finished. Relief warred with pain across his features. Balin understood such feelings.

This way, Ormond said, his fine suit splattered with blood. They followed him through the room of carnage and out another door that led to fresh air and the sweet scent of hay and horses with the distant brine of open ocean.

They were free.

Balin turned to William, smiled. Nearly laughed. He thought he’d never laugh again. Ormond pulled a black horse and a buckskin over to them, already saddled.

You’ve been looking for us?

Ormond sneered. Not you. But Sir Jeffries, yes. You’ll have to share.

William’s hurt. Can you do something for his arm?

Ormond didn’t even spare him a glance, only smoothly mounted the black horse. I’m no Dreamspinner. Leave now or wait for our exit to be discovered. I intend to leave.

He didn’t charge off directly, but Balin guessed this man’s patience was stretched enough to snap at any sign of insolence. Ormond’s horse took a few steps sideways, and Balin rushed to gather the buckskin. Leading the horse next to a tack box, Balin hoisted himself onto the lid, kicked away a bristled brush, and waved William up next to him. William swayed, gripping Balin’s shoulder, and stared at the horse. Balin wrapped William’s free hand around the saddle pommel, settled the young man’s foot into the stirrup, and, with a push to his rear, helped him mount. Exhausted himself, Balin climbed up behind him and gathered the reins.

He kicked his heels into the animal’s flanks, and they took off into the hills. From the hideout, a voice cried an alarm.

Chapter Four

Refuge of Stone Walls

The morning they arrived , a low mist concealed the defensive ditch, and as they rode by it, the brimstone stench of ’Stoker fire clung to the moist air, seeming to catch on the horses as they passed through. No siege beleaguered Fort Resonbirg. Instead of an army, the walls were surrounded by decimated farms and churned ground. Charred rubble sagged where houses once stood, the heat so intense the stones had splintered like aged maple. The once fertile gardens and land lined with corn, wheat, and legumes lay dead, a blackened mimic of the lava flow north of the Turl River. It had rained recently, and their mounts’ hooves slipped in the earth, the scorched fields stacked with lingering terror.

Balin scanned the ground for a Dreamspinner’s weave but couldn’t find a thing.

Halt, by the name of the Hauld!

Balin blinked, his eyes dry and crusted over. After they’d fled that cage of nightmares, they’d ridden for five days, going northwest. Ormond had spoken little, and William dodged in and out of consciousness with such regularity, they’d had to tie him to Balin to keep him mounted. Nothing had been familiar, until they crossed the Westward Railroad tracks and entered the forest south of the fort.

You. Roggar Ormond? Is that you! Damn you, traitor! Men, to arms!

Balin’s ears buzzed. He wondered if he was still trapped in one of his fever dreams.

Wait. To arms?

William. Balin nudged the Hauld’s son, who was slouched before him in the saddle. William, wake up or they’ll shoot us down. Balin waved one hand at the Resonbirg guards, hoping it would stall any eager shots from their flintlocks like armor of reasonability. Wait! Wait, we’ve got William Jeffries! He’s alive!

William stirred, a soft moan heralding his miserable rousing.

Tricks, the guard yelled. Akin to marmots from their holes, faces peeked over the stone fort walls. Not only guards, who were discernible by their uniforms, but regular folk, too. The crenelations appeared higher, and Balin wondered if Fort Resonbirg had modified herself in their defense or if his memory was just that muddled.

No, wait, William mumbled. He struggled against the rope and tried to slide off the horse’s back. Balin rushed to untie them, then offered support as William