Page 81 of HeartTorn

My unicorn meets the crash of an undead man’s sword with her horn then drives him back into the wall. He hits it hard, stunned, and she takes the moment to look back at me. I beckon. There’s a flash of resistance along our soul-tether; she hates to leave a fight. With a snort, she leaps to my side, once more kneeling so I can scramble onto her back.We’ve got to get Elydark,I sing.

She acknowledges this with another bugling cry as she surges back to her feet. I have just time enough to grab a fistful of mane before she leaps into motion, speeding back to the hinge-sagging door through which she just burst. We emerge into the glare of the setting sun, which casts long shadows across the courtyard.

Elydark sings out, drawing my attention to where he stands hobbled beneath a bare-branched tree. The four undead unicorns surround him, their hulking forms a terrible sight. They sway where they stand, unaware or uncaring of the fight taking place inside. Their lifeless eyes seem to stare off into realms and worlds far beyond this one, and un-song ripples beneath their flesh.

Elydark, by contrast, struggles against the evil black ropes binding his legs. He throws back his head, eyes rolling. “Quick, Diira,” I say out loud, pointing. She turns her head, takes three steps.

Suddenly the dead surround us. All those lifeless, spiritless forms which had stood by in the courtyard without interest when we rode through, are now in motion, as though someone spoke the command to awaken them. Swords and knives in hand, they throw themselves at Diira, slashing cruelly. She rears, taken by surprise, then swings her great head, knocking one dead maninto another so that they both fall to the ground. Another undead slashes at her neck while it’s bent. With a wordless cry, I swing as far as I can with my knife and manage to cut a rotten cheek.

The dead man turns his head sharply. His empty eyes cannot quite seem to fix on me, but he knows I am there. He knows I am his intended prey.

The next instant his hand latches onto my throat, and he yanks me from Diira’s back. I scrabble at his arm, trying to pry free of his grip, even as my feet kick and struggle to find the ground. Diira gallops on several paces before turning, head-down, ready to charge my captor. But five more undead throw themselves bodily at her, clambering on her back, her neck, tearing at her with nails and teeth. I reach for her with my mind, but then my whole vision is taken up with a dead man’s gaze.

He stares down at me, as though staring into my very soul. There’s no life in him, but there’s something else—something dark lurking behind the windows of his eyes. A spell or a spirit, I cannot say. Whatever it is, it isn’thimanymore, whoever he once was.

A face flashes across my mind’s eye:Ilanthor.

The fingers around my throat tighten. I don’t know if I can do what I must, not when I’m unable to breathe. But then my gods-gift was never about my voice, was it?

I open my mouth and let song pour forth. Not a song for the ears, but one of pure spirit. Instantly my connection with Diira flares, and a stream of power pours out from her soul into mine, strengthening the song. It’s like the one I sang with Elydark when we healed Taar. It’s like the one I sang for the dead Ilanthor on the brink of that cliff in the Wood Between. Most of all, it’s like the song Diira sang over my burnt body. A song without words, a song of pure force and spirit and life-giving energy.

The dead man blinks. For a moment I see only more death in his gaze. His fingers relax, tense again, tremble.

Then, to my relief, he releases me and staggers back five paces, shaking his head as though to ward off a swarm of bees. I keep singing, pouring that power straight from my heart, channeling everything Diira gives me. When I sang this song to Ilanthor, it was with my human voice, and the effect was brief and faulty. Now pure fire emerges from my throat, translating the music of celestial beings into a physical world. It becomes a whip of flame, which I lash around the undead man, wrapping him from head to toe, until the man himself is no longer visible.

Thenheis there—not the undead with his unseeing eyes and that sense of otherness peering through. No, this man is clear-eyed, his face bright with sudden life, despite the decay spread across his tortured features. He stares around, confused, his mouth opening and closing slowly. His gaze lands on the dead attacking Diira.

Everything in him, as a true man of Licorna, reacts. He leaps forward with a bellow of rage, grabs the nearest undead, and flings him to the ground.

Encouraged, I intensify my song, let it spread farther, from one man to the next. Once I find the knack of it, it’s easy enough—song always wants to fill whatever space it enters. One by one the undead stagger away from Diira, looking down at their hands before turning to each other in mingled wonder and horror.

Diira, shuddering from the assault, bleeding from several wounds, but otherwise whole, shakes her body and trots to my side.You’ve called up their spirits from where they were buried,she says, her voice admiring and a little surprised.I’ve never seen such a thing.

Neither have I. I don’t understand it; in this moment, I don’t particularly want to try.Will they help us?I ask.

I don’t know. It can’t hurt to ask.

So I sing a new variation on the song, adding a note of question. Immediately the undead—at least fifteen strong—turn and, still moving with the awkward strides of dead men and women, hasten to Elydark, as eager to set him free as they were to save Diira from each other. But the dead unicorns stand in their way. Massive and menacing, they form an impassable wall, complete with spike horns aimed forward in defense, between us and the bound Elydark.

Help him!I sing.

As though responding to a command, the undead throw themselves at those corpse beasts. The unicorns toss them aside with violent thrusts of their horns, and their hooves gash flesh and smash skulls. But the dead men and women rise again. Red-light of Miphates spellcraft mingles with the fire of my song in a bizarre glare of magic force.

I can’t wait for the dead to break through that defense, however. Turning, I mount Diira, using all my strength to heave myself up onto her back.Go!I urge, and she leaps forward, dodging and weaving through the battle. One of those awful horns tears at her shoulder, but she pushes on until we reach Elydark’s side. I leap to the ground and make short work of the binding ropes with my knife.

The blast of fire from Elydark’s soul is nearly equal to that explosion from Nyathri which so nearly killed me. I throw up my arms in defense, but this time, there is no need. Diira’s fire surrounds me in protection, and the heat of Elydark’s pent-up power rolls over me, harmless. It does, however, knock flat both the dead warriors and the dead unicorns. They sprawl across the courtyard, like so many autumn leaves sent tossed in a hurricane gale.

Roaring, Elydark does not pause for thanks. With a heave of powerful muscle, fire lashing from his mane and tail in longtongues of flame, he leaps over the fallen unicorns and races across the courtyard.

Before he can make it to the manor door, however, four figures tumble out into the fading daylight. Elydark skids to a halt. My heart jolts in my throat.Taar!

Two of the undead grip Taar by the arms, dragging him between them out the door. Shanaera follows. She grips a sword in her hand and trails the blade behind her so that metal screeches against stone. She looks out at the mayhem in the courtyard, at all her fallen people.

“Enough of this!” she cries. Hoisting the sword, she points the blade straight at me. “If you want your husband alive,” she snarls, “you’ll surrender at once.”

I stand frozen, feet braced, my voice momentarily silenced. The two undead gripping Taar’s arms force him to his knees. Shanaera raises her sword above her head, eyes meeting mine. One stroke, and his head will roll.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she says. “I want him whole. He’s useless to anyone chopped into little pieces. And I want you as well, little princess. Morthiel thinks your gift is the very key he’s been searching for to perfect his spell.”

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