A Promise of Iron by Brandon McCoy (the reading list .txt) 📕

opened; I was awake lying upon the ground. My arm was numb and cold, but it gripped to Nahdril’s handle with such ferocity the leather warped around my fingers. In my other hand, I held the shard of iron. I looked at my stomach, where the dart had pierced my flesh. Blood soaked my shirt all around the wound.

I climbed to my feet and a wave of nausea washed over me. I felt dizzy as the darkness lingered at the edge of my vision; it blurred, threatening to retake me, but I held. I regained my feet and placed them in a stance, one familiar yet forgotten. I let the shard of iron in my hand fall to the ground in front of me. I looked down at it, and the pool of blood beneath me, my blood. I knew I should be dead, lying in that pool, but I stood. I stood with sword in hand.

I breathed in and tasted something upon the air, metal and fire and ash, but something else. It invigorated me, and I found myself drawing another deep breath. I looked down at Nahdril and saw the blue sapphire, dancing with light. It was not a bright light, but an illumination that held within its crystalline borders, an unlight, like I saw in the dream.

“Hello,” I replied.

A pulsing came from my sword hand. An icy chill flowed with it. My arm grew cold and numb, but the sensation did not last; warmth followed as if that awakening flame was lit within my very blood. It coursed through me, traveling to my lungs, my heart, my leg, my wounds. It felt violent, like a raging river. My vision blurred again as my heart raced, beating, pounding faster and heavier than designed.

A knowing filled me as my heart pumped, moving with the power of a thousand souls, rushing, raging, healing with the quin of Nahdril, healing with the anchored soul of a lost age, healing with a power not seen since the Fall of Illyria. It mixed and flowed through me, adding to my own, becoming my own. I was of her now, and she was of me. We had become...something more.

I breathed in; the breath was cool and crisp, sharp, and focusing. I looked down at my wound, but it was closed, covered by a mass of blood. It was not hard and dry but thin and fragile, like cooling wax. I touched it gently, and though I did not feel pain, I could feel the flesh beneath to be far from healed. The wound was encased, sealed like a patched pair of trousers. It would hold. How? I did not know, but as my heart slowed and the torrent of blood within me calmed, I felt a quiet and a silence as if a voice that was listening was no longer there.

I stepped forward.

“Great gods above…” Ros called as he regained his footing just in time to parry a sweep of the long sword.

The prime turned from Ros towards me. I saw his yellow eyes darken, no, not darken, blacken, black as coal, black like the face of the Golmere killed in Windshear. His mouth curled into an unnatural smile.

I stepped quickly, footsteps familiar, quick, light, Nahdril was high above my head, angled toward him with my left arm held outstretched in a point. Sky stance I recalled from the day I sparred with Crylwin, but this was more, not half-remembered, but burned into my muscles as if it was the only stance I ever learned.

I swung Nahdril through the air, and I felt the words ring in my mind, old words, words of power, and meaning. I did not know them, but they flowed through me like a beacon pours light from a lighthouse. I charged towards him, singing the song of ruin.

Ros lunged at the prime in an effort to distract his attention so that I may land the killing blow. The prime turned as if sensing the strike. He parried, but Ros was as competent a swordsmen as he was a soldier; he expected the parry. He welcomed it, and even as he held a hand to his bleeding side, he smiled. Repent was swept away, as the longsword Sethelyn, buried into his chest, he died with that smile on his face. He died, knowing the truth. He died seeing something he never thought to see. He died, and his eyes dimmed just as I slashed through the creature’s wrist, severing it above the hand and leaving Ros to fall to the ground, blade and all.

The prime howled in pain as shouts erupted from where the beleaguered men of the 3rd still held ground. Only a handful remained standing, but they fought on. I could see Borton amongst them, a boy to his left and an old man to his right. They were only three now.

I turned to the prime. Slowly, he bent to where Ros lay to retrieve his sword and severed hand. I kicked his arm away. He sat silent, motionless, upon the red, watching me with cold black eyes. He still wore his smile, too wide ever to be human.

I rested my sword on his neck, letting the edge of Nahdril’s blade touch the soft of his flesh. The dagger lay next to him. I picked it up and leaned close. I watched his eyes as I pressed the dagger slowly into his chest and twisted.

“For Jaeron,” I whispered. Then I swung.

His head hit the ground and rolled. His smile was gone as was the blackness of his eyes, replaced now with an expression of fear and terror.

There was a thunderous crack as the scaffolding that held the granary bent under its own weight. It collapsed in a rain of sparks and embers. I looked to the men of the 3rd. The Golmere were in retreat, running in all directions. I raised my sword high into the air and roared, “Victory!”

A sound echoed my call. It was deep, deeper