Chapter 4: Part 10 - Fury and Despair

Oska’s world had slowed to a crawl. He saw the arrow drop out of the sky and strike Erin in the chest. He saw her stagger backwards, unharmed, and brush the arrow away as though it was nothing more than a biting insect. He saw, through the thickening snow flurries, weapons being drawn and spells prepared.

Not one bit of it seemed to matter. He didn’t know what illusion Marissa had used to conceal Auri, but Erin’s exhortation had allowed him to break through it. He could feel his sister’s presence as though she was standing beside him, fixing him with one of her piercing stares. She was close, so painfully close ‒ but now an army stood between them.

“You fools,” Marissa spat, even as she wove a net of mesmer magic around herself. “You’ve brought Artair down on our heads.”

“He must have been tracking someone,” Erin said. “There’s every chance you led him here yourself.”

“Or Oska and I might have done,” Jean said guiltily, shrugging when Oska shot him a dagger-filled look. “Sorry cousin, but we left in a hurry. If Artair tracked us, would we even have noticed?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Erin said, cutting off an argument before it could begin. Figures were appearing on the hilltop, almost hidden behind the veils of swirling snow. Some of them might well be Artair’s guild, but it was clear he’d also found reinforcements. “Taria, we’re ready for your commands.”

“And I would be honoured to give them,” Taria replied, but she sounded strangled. There was a thud as she sat down in the snow. “But I’m afraid I may not be of much use.”

“She’s bleeding,” Ruby snapped, before rattling off a string of expletives. Oska could see blood spreading across the pristine carpet of snow around Taria ‒ and the arrow jutting from her ribs. They’d all been so transfixed by the first arrow heading towards Erin that they hadn’t seen another one fall.

“It’s nothing but a flesh wound,” Taria said, but it was clear her legs would no longer take her weight. “Stop fussing, Ruby.”

Oska found himself twitching from foot to foot, as tense as a drawn bowstring. He needed to go after Auri more badly than he’d ever needed anything in his life, but he couldn’t leave without an order from Erin. His loyalty to her, once given, couldn’t be so easily taken back.

For just a moment, she looked utterly dumbfounded, all the colour drained from her face ‒ but then she pulled her shoulders back and drew her greatsword with a flourish. “Ruby, get her out of here. Amber and Ivar, you’re going to circle north and south. Amber, you’ll rendezvous with Caolinn. Roan, you’re going with her. Marissa, you’re with Ivar. Understood?”

For several heartbeats, Oska thought his cousin would vanish without a word, but she nodded sharply. “Fine. We’ll try things your way.”

“Good. I’m going through the middle of the camp. Jean and Oska, you’re with me. Oska, where are we heading?”

“North-east,” he replied, just as Marissa said the same. They locked eyes for a moment and hers narrowed. He was never going to forgive her. She’d taken Auri without a word of warning. She’d ripped out his heart and trampled it into the ground. She’d…

Erin’s hand touched Oska’s shoulder, giving him a little nudge. “Later, Oska,” she murmured. “There’ll be time for apologies, I promise.”

Oska had no intention of accepting any apology Marissa gave him, but it no longer mattered. There had to be twenty figures crowding the hilltop, arranged to both the south and east. The one at the front, a sword propped on his shoulder, was obviously Artair.

“Give her up, Marissa,” he called down, “and no one needs to get hurt.”

Oska almost laughed aloud in anticipation of Marissa’s response. She didn’t disappoint.

“You’re the one who’s going to bleed, you bastard,” she shouted back. “I’m going to rip out your lying tongue and tie it around your throat.”

At least, Oska thought, he and Marissa could agree on something.

Artair didn’t bother to negotiate. He raised his sword into the air, there was the blast of a hunting horn, and the attack began.

Light’s Memory was outnumbered; Oska could tell that from a glance. He could also tell that none of them were going to let it matter. Erin plunged forwards, straight through the centre of the makeshift camp, and Oska fell into her wake.

The first attacker came at them from the east and was flung aside with a single swing of Erin’s sword. The next launched themselves at Oska in a flurry of whirling blades. Oska dived into a mass of shadow and struck at his attacker’s hamstring, which sent the man sprawling in the snow. A swarm of chattering minions came scrabbling towards Erin, barely denting the surface of the snow, but a wave of churning earth from Jean spun them into a cloud of dust.

Still, Erin didn’t slow down. She was past the tent, her greatsword carving a path through anyone who tried to stand in her way.

Anyone but Vasha.

The engineer materialised out of nowhere. She looked far too small to slow Erin down, but she carried a rifle as big as she was and the ground around her was seeded with sputtering turrets. Erin didn’t look back at Jean, but she did come to a stop.

“Please don’t do this.” Vasha’s voice was low and urgent. “You have to turn around.”

Oska let out a strangled laugh before he could stop himself. “I’m not going to let Artair have my sister.”

“It’s for her own good,” Vasha said beseechingly. “Artair isn’t the only one after Auri. But you heard him, Oska. He wants to protect her.”

“We heard him,” Jean said hoarsely. “That doesn’t mean we believe him.”

Oska heard the unspoken accusation in Jean’s words. That doesn’t mean we believe you, either.

“Stand aside, Vasha,” Erin said, her voice filled with command. “We won’t go easy on you otherwise.”

Vasha just looked pained as she lifted her rifle onto her shoulder.

She didn’t get chance to use it. Another flurry of arrows descended out of the storm, whistling through the air as they came. Jean waved his sceptre, tossing the arrows backwards, just as Gullveig threw herself into the fight.

There was no time for Vasha to play at being their ally now. With Gull there, axes whirling, Vasha was forced to attack. Oska threw himself out of the path of a screeching rocket, which thumped into the snow behind him in a shower of sparks.

For a moment, the clamour of battle threatened to overwhelm him. There were skirmishes all around, magic and missiles flashing through the air. It didn’t matter how determined Erin was. Artair had assembled an army that was going to flatten them.

The earth shook beneath Oska and a hand clamped around his arm, hauling him upright. Erin was shaking the snow off him, whilst Jean stood between them and the Talons, a shield of rocks deflecting their attacks.

“We’re going to be hard pressed to win this,” Erin said, but the lack of fear in her voice steadied Oska’s nerves. “You need to get ahead of the battle and find Auri.”

“And then come back for you,” Oska said.

Erin hesitated, as though considering telling him to flee, but then she nodded. “If that’s what feels right for you to do. Just make sure Auri is safe.”

Oska needed no more urging. He cloaked himself in shadow and shot off through the snow.

The fight still raged on all sides. Up the hill to the north-east, he found Roan with his feet planted in a circle of churned earth, throwing attackers aside with easy swings of his mace. Amber and Caolinn stood to either side of him, appearing and disappearing in bursts of shadow, daggers flashing in the heart of the storm. Oska managed a nod in their direction as he passed, before the snow enveloped them.

It was colder on the other side of the hill. As the sounds of battle fell away, the storm closed in instead. The flurries were full of ice crystals, stinging Oska’s exposed face and making a rime of frost form on his gloves. But he could feel Auri’s presence as insistently as his own heartbeat, drawing him on.

Until, quite suddenly, he couldn’t.

He was moving too quickly to fall over in a heap this time. Three hills had come and gone since the battlefield, until Oska felt like he might be the only one left alive in this howling storm. And Auri… Auri was no longer there.

Oska put on a burst of speed, flying over the crest of one last hill. When he came to a stop, he could see a twisted thorn tree below him, arching over the mouth of a cave. He scrambled down the last hill and skidded to a stop in the opening.

There was no point shouting Auri’s name. Oska could feel, with a growing sense of fury and despair, that she was gone.

A haze of red descended over his vision. He’d been so close… But the anger quickly faded. He was alone, in the middle of a rampaging storm. If he didn’t think clearly, Auri’s trail could be lost forever.

The cave, Oska could see at a glance, was empty. Only the scorched remains of a fire marred its smooth floor. But the snow outside it… There were footprints, rapidly filling with each new gust of wind and ice, but still visible yet ‒ and Oska knew, with perfect certainty, who they belonged to.