Debt of Bones (Sword of Truth 0.50)

The wizard, his arms raised, called forth more light, more shadows, more magic. The river roiled around him. The hissing thing in the air grew as it slowly slumped closer to the water. Shafts of light shot from the hot, rotating, bloom of power.

The sun was rising over the hills behind the D’Harans. This part of the river wasn’t as wide as elsewhere, and Abby could see the activity in the trees beyond. Men moved about, but the fog hanging on the far bank kept them wary, kept them in the trees.

Also across the river, at the edge of the tree-covered hills, another wizard appeared. He threw down a rock and then leaped atop it. He pushed up the sleeves of his robes and flung his arms skyward, launching sparkling light up into the air. Abby thought that the strong morning sun might outshine the conjured illuminations, but it didn’t.

Abby could stand it no longer. ‘Zedd!’ she called out across the river. ‘Zedd! Please, you promised! I found your daughter! What about mine? Please don’t do this until she is safe!’

Zedd turned and looked at her as if from a great distance, as if from another world. Arms of dark forms caressed him. Fingers of dark smoke dragged along his jaw, urging his attention back to them, but he gazed instead at Abby.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Despite the distance, Abby could clearly hear his whispered words. ‘I gave you time to try to find them. I can spare no more, or countless other mothers will weep for their children – mothers still living, and mothers in the spirit world.’

Abby cried out in an anguished wail as he turned back to the ensorcellment. The two women tried to comfort her, but Abby was not to be comforted in her grief.

Thunder rolled through the hills. A clacking clamour from the spell around Zedd rose to echo up and down the valley. Shafts of intense light shot upward. It was a disorienting sight, light shining up into sunlight.

Across the river, the counter to Zedd’s magic seemed to spring forth. Arms of light twisted like smoke, lowering to tangle with the light radiating up around Zedd. The fog along the riverbank diffused suddenly.

In answer, Zedd spread his arms wide. The glowing, tumbling furnace of molten light thundered. The water sluicing over it roared as it boiled and steamed. The air wailed as if in protest.

Behind the wizard across the river, the D’Haran soldiers poured out of the trees, driving their prisoners before them. People cried out in terror. They quailed at the wizard’s magic, only to be driven onward by the spears and swords at their backs.

Abby saw several who refused to move fall to the blades. At the mortal cries, the rest rushed onward, like sheep before wolves.

If whatever Zedd was doing failed, the army of the Midlands would then charge into this valley to confront the enemy. The prisoners would be caught in the middle.

A figure worked its way up along the opposite bank, dragging a child behind. Abby’s flesh flashed icy cold with sudden frigid sweat. It was Mariska. Abby shot a quick glance back over her shoulder. It was impossible. She squinted across the river.

‘Nooo!’ Zedd called out.

It was Zedd’s little girl that Mariska had by the hair.

Somehow, Mariska had followed and found the child sleeping in Abby’s home. With no one there to watch over her as she slept, Mariska had stolen the child back.

Mariska held the child out before herself, for Zedd to see. ‘Cease and surrender, Zorander, or she dies!’

Abby tore away from the arms holding her and charged into the water. She struggled to run against the current, to reach the wizard. Part way there, he turned to stare into her eyes.

Abby froze. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her own voice sounded to her like a plea before death. ‘I thought she was safe.’

Zedd nodded in resignation. It was out of his hands. He turned back to the enemy. His arms lifted to his sides. His fingers spread, as if commanding all to stop – magic and men alike.

‘Let the prisoners go!’ Zedd called across the water to the enemy wizard. ‘Let them go, Anargo, and I’ll give you all your lives!’

Anargo’s laugh rang out over the water.

‘Surrender,’ Mariska hissed, ‘or she dies.’

The old woman pulled out the knife she kept in the wrap around her waist. She pressed the blade to the child’s throat. The girl was screaming in terror, her arms reaching to her father, her little fingers clawing the air.

Abby struggled ahead into the water. She called out, begging Mariska to let Zedd’s daughter go free. The woman paid no more heed to Abby than to Zedd.

‘Last chance!’ Mariska called.

‘You heard her,’ Anargo growled out across the water. ‘Surrender now or she will die.’

‘You know I can’t put myself above my people!’ Zedd called back. ‘This is between us, Anargo! Let them all go!’

Anargo’s laugh echoed up and down the river. ‘You are a fool, Zorander! You had your chance!’ His expression twisted to rage. ‘Kill her!’ he screamed to Mariska.

Fists at his side, Zedd shrieked. The sound seemed to split the morning with its fury.

Mariska lifted the squealing child by her hair. Abby gasped in disbelief as the woman sliced the little girl’s throat.

The child flailed. Blood spurted across Mariska’s gnarly fingers as she viciously sawed the blade back and forth. She gave a final, mighty yank of the knife. The blood-soaked body dropped in a limp heap. Abby felt vomit welling up in the back of her throat. The silty dirt of the riverbank turned a wet red.

Mariska held the severed head high with a howl of victory. Strings of flesh and blood swung beneath it. The mouth hung in a slack, silent cry.

Abby threw her arms around Zedd’s legs. ‘Dear spirits, I’m sorry! Oh, Zedd, forgive me!’

She wailed in anguish, unable to gather her senses at witnessing a sight so grisly.

‘And now, child,’ Zedd asked in a hoarse voice from above, ‘what would you have me do? Would you have me let them win, to save your daughter from what they have done to mine? Tell me, child, what should I do?’

Abby couldn’t beg for the life of her family at a cost of such people rampaging unchecked across the land. Her sickened heart wouldn’t allow it. How could she sacrifice the lives and peace of everyone else just so her loved ones would live?

She would be no better than Mariska, killing innocent children.

‘Kill them all!’ Abby screamed up at the wizard. She threw her arm out, pointing at Mariska and the hateful wizard Anargo. ‘Kill the bastards! Kill them all!’

As if in obedience to her command, Zedd’s arms flung upward. The morning cracked with a peal of thunder. As if he had loosed it, the molten mass before him plunged into the water. The ground shook with a jolt. A huge geyser of water exploded forth. The air itself quaked. All around the most dreadful rumbling whipped the water into froth.

Abby, squatted down with the water to her waist, felt numb not only from the cold, but also from the cold knowledge that she’d been forsaken by the good spirits she had always thought would watch over her. Zedd turned and snatched her arm, dragging her up on the rock with him.

It was another world.

The shapes around them called to her, too. They reached out, bridging the distance between life and death. Searing pain, frightful joy, profound peace, spread through her at their touch. Light moved up through her body, filling her like air filled her lungs, and exploded in showers of sparks in her mind’s eye. The thick howl of the magic was deafening.

Green light ripped through the water. Across the river, Anargo had been thrown to the ground. The rock atop which he had stood had shattered into needle-like shards. The soldiers called out in fright as the air all about danced with swirling smoke and sparks of light.

‘Run!’ Mariska screamed. ‘While you have the chance! Run for your lives!’ Already she was racing towards the hills. ‘Leave the prisoners to die! Save yourselves! Run!’

The mood across the river suddenly galvanized with a single determination. The D’Harans dropped their weapons. They cast aside the ropes