Page 92 of Valdemar

The Adept was talking privately to Silvermoon, cradling his head. Even the gesture of a caress was somehow perverse coming from her, and she didn’t look up until the bright white light of the Companions illuminated her mutilated face.

The challenge calls of the entire herd of Companions rang out like trumpets.

“Go kill yourself, bitch!” Starbird shouted in fury.

And battle was joined. There was so much going on at once that Restil wasn’t certain he wanted to ever recall it all. There were flashes of green, of orange; sparks of purple smashing off of shields, and the sensation of falling. Companions fell, Heralds with them. His fists hurt from holding on so tightly, riding the incredible speed Darshay cut loose with. The sharp sound of hooves ringing from smashing at the Adept’s shields, and rain of blood—possibly not illusory—and more blades than he could have kept track of, stabbing, slashing, cutting into him. Bright red on white. Lightning. Lightning close. Darshay whinnying in shock, and falling backward with more than a dozen dagger-sized thorns in her belly and rump. Pounding headache threatening to make his skull burst. The disorienting struggle to stand.

Bleeding profusely, smeared with battlefield muck, Restil was only one horselength from the Adept, who was one horselength from the Tayledras Gate.

I can use this,he thought. :Darshay?:

:Down here,:came the reply, in a tone that suggested it was an attempt at humor she knew wouldn’t be funny. :Just having little lie-down.:

:Stay down. I need to finish this.:

Darshay essentially gave a mental sigh of resignation, and it wasn’t reassuring to Restil at all.

Nor was the appearance of the Adept suddenly in his face. “Sshould have sstayed down, hero,” the Adept hissed. She was much, much worse up close. The gouges and lines of her skin were acid burns, splitting and dividing, but also—added to in years past with deliberate knife cuts. And at the moment, at least, a palm-sized section of brow had been sheared off by a Herald’s sword, and the exposed bone did glow on its own.

She looked him up and down while arrows and levin-bolts struck her shields. Her sneer suddenly snapped into a smile. “Prrinssze! Ressztil. Hossztage.”

She lunged and grabbed Restil by the collar, and with her other hand reached down and picked up the hot metal ring popping and hissing in the filth. Her flesh steamed and sizzled, but she reacted like it might as well have been a massage. She glanced it over and cackled, seeing herself from above. “A viewport! Nisszce! I could ussze that. And hot enough to cook with.” She held its edge to Restil’s eyes. He felt its heat radiate strongly enough that he knew he’d be blinded if he played this wrong.

“Please. Please don’t kill me. I’m desperate. I don’t want to be here! I need to get out of here,” Restil blubbered, faking his plea—and stressing the concept of leaving.

“Surely you do!” The Adept laughed and dragged him along behind her, directly to the Tayledras Gate. “I’ll sszee you later,” she sneered at Silvermoon. “I’ll play with thissz one a while firsszt. You think up all the clever wayssz you’ll defeat me next time, sszweetie. Sszurprissze me.”

With that, the Adept turned away and dragged Restil to the Gate, the ring sizzling away in her other hand.

She stepped halfway into the shimmer of the Gate to k’Vesla.

And there she stopped.

And there she stayed, frozen in place, trapped by the interaction of Jonaton’s ring and her Gate.

Then the ring flared, and her Gate flared in turn for just a moment.

Restil pulled himself away from her grasp, and in doing so, peeled the Valdemar-side half of the Adept’s body away from the serene silver of the oscillating Gate, where it fell wetly to the ground, and half of the Wolf Crown with it.

Somewhere up on the wall, a whoop from Jonaton started the cheering.

• • •

A sennight after the Adept’s messy death, the city of Haven had repopulated itself, with few unhappy incidents. Some of the monsters attempted to burrow in among the residences, some took advantage of unattended livestock, and more had doubtlessly fled into the countryside. The Guard did a good job clearing the threats out, though there were rumors that the fearsome Hawkbrothers deployed their deadly scouts completely unseen.

The k’Vesla Gate restabilized instantly once the ring device melted itself into slag, and a force of mages, scouts, and hertasi came through to retrieve the downed Adepts. Silvermoon chose to stay in Haven, and would not look at the remains of whom he had known as Cloudfall. Squads of hertasi—sporting blue and white ribbons tied like scarves to distinguish them from monsters—dashed to the Palace and into the tunnels beneath it, and were not seen for two days. Once they surfaced, they took it upon themselves to clean out the extensive debris aboveground. Not a window in the Palace was intact after the punishment of the water hammer, the nearby lightning strikes, the storm draft, and more. The same was true of a third of the structures in Haven.

Monster viscera and corpses were dumped into the rapids, never to be seen again. Pets and livestock remained traumatized by the thunder, screams, and smells, and so did a great many people—the memories would not just disappear.

The dead were being mourned after their ceremonies, and honored, as Starbird put it, for “good deaths.” The living were tended to by Healers, but even when magic has stitched muscle and bone together again, pain and bruises remain. Heralds were in uniform but a quarter of their number were on crutches, and every one of them moved gingerly. The downed Companions lay in stalls freshened thrice daily, attended by the unattached Companions and the occasional hertasi visitor. The Old Men were looked after by their students, who in turn were tended to by Palace staff, who in turn were—well, anyone who did not have a family to work their stress through with found one.

Some of the mystery of the Wolf Crown was solved by the hertasi, who sorted out how the crate it was in—and more—had been stolen via their old tunnels. Apparently it had happened more than a year ago, and nobody had any reason to check on it until now. Plenty of valuables were missing, too.

• • •

Overall, things were returning to normal in Haven. Normal for Haven, that is.

And now it was back to the business of the Kingdom. There were still decisions to make, things to do, projects to finish.