The Last Canticle: Summoner's Dirge (2 page)

His vision cleared. The rain had slowed to a dreary drizzle. A few feet away the wreckage of
Fujin
burned, bits of debris scattered like bread crumbs across the ground.

Nausea clenched Balin’s stomach. He touched his side, which had been sliced open. The laceration was shallow, but without proper healing or attention, it would quickly become infected.

“Cythra’s tits, where am I?”

He recalled the damnable Captain Reincore riding into a storm and himself seizing the single-pilot aircraft, but the rest seemed to turn into a supernova that imploded inside his mind. Balin let out a struggled breath. Given the storm, he had no idea where he might be.

The sky had warmed into a pale gray as dawn approached. He could make out treetops and a ledge. Cautiously Balin approached the cliff side. It was a sheer drop, a good fifty miles down.

“I’ll be Cythra’s bitch. A bloody mountain. I landed on fucking Mount Helikon,” Balin said as he venomously spat on the ground.

If his judgment was right, they should have been close to Canaan. The only mountain in the area was the terrifying Mount Helikon, a slumbering stone giant.

Balin turned slowly to face the fiery
Fujin
. It was as if a great beast had disemboweled the aircraft. The magical aether ring had been shattered. There was nothing left to salvage.

It would have to do. He had to find a way off the mountain and into Canaan. From there he could find a medicus to heal his wounds, and take passage to Civitatem Aurum.

But first, he would need to find a way down from the ledge. In the distance, Balin heard the bay of Pheorian wolves.

Chapter Two

Race of the Wolves

There in the wilderness, at the mercy of nature, Balin dug his own grave. He had been hunted like game, herded deeper into the unknown. With nothing but the clothes on his back and a bloodstained dagger, he struggled to find shelter and salvation.

The acrid stench of hell—a collective odor of shit, blood, and decay—wafted off him like a beacon. If he didn’t find humanity soon, somewhere to seek protection, he was as good as gone. But Balin wasn’t ready to give up. Death may have been a shadow behind him, waiting to rise up and consume his soul, but he wouldn’t lie down without a fight.

Tree branches slapped his already mangled face. The sting went unnoticed as he sprinted through the forest. Behind him he could hear the howl of Pheorian wolves.

Speckles of sunlight flickered through the thick canopy overhead. Was it truly day? His sense of time had been banished along with the rest of his sanity.

The pain that coiled through his body became a second thought. His shoulder was stiff where one of the wolves had tried to take out his throat during a hairy run-in. If he didn’t die at the hands of the land, he would surely die of infection and blood loss. His knee, which had been banged up during a fall from a short cliff, made it hard to run. Each step faltered as he moved deeper into the woods, praying to a god he didn’t believe in that there was an outlet somewhere.

A warm wind whistled through the trees and cooled the sweat that poured down his body. He stumbled to a stop and leaned heavily against an oak. The cries seemed farther away, as if they had begun to recede like the tide.

“Have I finally escaped those damnable monsters?” Balin pondered as he squeezed his fist into a ball. The emotions that steeped inside him threatened to destroy his composure. An ache that had nothing to do with his wounds compressed his heart. Each breath he sucked in made his chest grow tighter and tighter.

He was a hardened man. Emotions were of no use to him. He lived his life bound by shadows. Even now, when he was finally ready to step into the light, he knew he could never truly leave the darkness. Once a person had danced with the shadows, made love with the night, there was no turning back.

I must try, though
. He gathered his breath, his strength. Trying meant surviving, meant making it out of the woods and completing the job he had been sent to do.

One more kill and he could be done with his life as an assassin, could return home after being gone for so long.

Balin pushed away from the tree and shook his head. “I can’t stop. Not yet.”

If he gave in to exhaustion now, he would never move on. He had to continue; he had to find someone to help him.

Around him the world moved and shifted; mosquitoes buzzed, squirrels skirted along the ground, and birds sang harmonically. Amid the normalness, he ran for his life, refusing to let it end by the teeth of hounds.

Three days. Three days he had pushed himself. Three days he had watched the sun rise and fall, and for three days, he had endlessly fled a nightmare.

Those damn fucking wolves.

“Shit,” he wheezed. How much farther?

His compass had been smashed to pieces during the crash. He was going on instinct and knowledge. If he was right (and his knowledge of Pheor’s landscape was fairly advanced), the city of Canaan was only a few miles out from the forest.

For all he knew, the storm might have thrown them way off course and there wasn’t a soul around for miles.

He shook his head. Thoughts like those wouldn’t keep him going. He had to push on, had to survive. This was what he’d been trained for.

I need to rest before I collapse.

So the wolves could find him? He angrily shook his head this time. No. Move. He had to keep moving.

He was hurt; his insides were killing him. His thighs burned from exertion. He could make out where the trees thinned. Despite the agony that wailed through his body, Balin pushed on and made a final dash. The wolves had long since fallen into the background, but he ran as if they still snapped at his heels.

Freedom.

He broke through the forest and out into a golden field. He didn’t stop to see what he ran through—barley or wheat perhaps. He just kept running, kept moving.

In the horizon, he could make out a farm. It was still far-off, a mile or two beyond the forest, but it was there, and it was all he needed. Balin ran toward it, the sun hot on his skin and the wind at his back.

The world grew bright. It burned like it was on fire. His vision went up in flames, engulfed by the inferno that was the sun. Blindly he ran, the field silkily gliding past him. He stumbled and spread his arms wide to embrace the sky, seeking to break his fall. A strangled breath escaped him. There was nothing to hold on to, and he fell.

Balin felt himself plummet into the shadows that had haunted him for the past three days, the oblivion soothing.

* * * *

The cage in his hand rattled slightly as Damir stepped out into the late afternoon sun. He pulled the door shut behind him and lifted the birdcage into view. The dove inside anxiously flapped her wings.

“In a few minutes you’ll be free, girl. Just hold on a little longer,” Damir said with a chuckle. For weeks he’d nursed the wounded bird back to health. Now that she was healthy, he would release her into the wild and to the freedom they both desired.

“Letting her go?” Elina asked from an open window.

Damir jumped and turned to look at his sister. The wind that cut across the farm rustled through his hair. He screwed his nose up. “Don’t do that. You scared the shit out of me.”

Elina laughed merrily, her young eyes bright with mirth. “That was the point. Make sure not to return with another stray, all right? We can barely take care of ourselves, let alone another animal.”

“Who’s the eldest here?”

Elina arched her brow and gave him a deadpan look. “Who has a bad habit of playing nursemaid to every wounded creature he stumbles upon?”

Touché.

Damir rolled his eyes and waved her off. “I think we’ll be fine. I highly doubt I’ll come across a wounded animal between here and the fields.”

“Somehow I doubt that. My luck, you’ll find an endangered field mouse and swoop in to save it.” Elina pushed away from the window and vanished into the house.

“That brat,” Damir groused good-naturedly. Even though there was a ten-year age gap between them, Elina paraded around as if she were the head of the household. He brushed off his sister’s warnings and headed out to the fields to properly release the rehabilitated bird.

Damir wished he had the luxury to sprout a pair of wings and fly away himself. Instead he was shackled to the ground, forced day in and day out to live in isolation from the rest of the world with only his younger sister as an ally. What he’d do to trade in his chains for a chance to reach the sky, to embrace freedom for all it was.

“At least you can do that. Enjoy it for the both of us,” Damir told the dove as he set the cage down along the edge of the wheat field. Beyond the field was the forest, which kept both him and Elina walled up from the rest of the world. No one passed through the forest to reach them.

He opened the door to the cage and reached in. The dove flapped her dusty gray wings until her feathers ruffled, but stilled as soon as Damir gingerly wrapped his fingers around her body. Carefully he pulled her out and held her up. With a smile, he whispered, “Be free.”

He simultaneously tossed her into the sky and let go, watching as she carried herself toward
nefl
. Despite the ache in his heart, his smile grew as he watched the dove fly away.

“One day,” he whispered dreamily, “one day, I’ll fly away.”

He reached down and closed the cage before picking it up. As he pivoted toward the farm, his eyes caught something just down the field line. It was a dark form collapsed on the ground. Damir sucked in a sharp breath and stared for a moment in surprise.

Someone had invaded their home.

Someone was hurt.

He snapped from his daze, dropped the cage, and sprinted across the yard to the body, praying the person was still alive. His gaze flitted over the figure as he skidded to a stop, taking in the assortment of wounds. He crouched and pressed his hand to the man’s back. Shallowly, it rose and fell.

“Thank the Child-God,” Damir whispered and began to gather the man up. Damir was in no way small. He stood at a solid six foot one with a body of lean muscle sculpted from days of toiling on the farm. But this man dominated him with a body made of bulkier, heavier muscle. With a grunt, Damir hoisted him up and struggled to get a good hold around his waist, which had been painfully sliced.

He hauled the man’s arm around his neck and began to half drag him across the yard to the farmhouse. By the time he pushed through the door, sweat poured down his body.

“Elina!” Damir shouted, dragging the unconscious man past the threshold. Elina rushed down from her room on the second level.

“What’s wrong?” She asked before her gaze settled on the man Damir was holding up. “Dear Lar, what happened?”

“I don’t know. I found him passed out by the field. Help me lay him down on my bed.” Damir began to maneuver around the small home to where his bed was tucked into a corner. The house was split into two levels. The second level was actually an attic that they had refurbished into a bedroom. The first was split between a kitchen, a small sitting space in front of the hearth, and a bedroom for Damir.

Damir laid the man down on his bed, which was in the far right corner of the house, just behind the stairs that led up to Elina’s room. He let out a grunt and swiped the back of his hand across his forehead as he stood.

“Is he alive?” Elina asked as she moved the man’s feet so they were stretched out, and stepped away.

“Yes, but for how long, I don’t know. We’ll have to work quickly if we want to keep him alive. Get me some water and a cloth, and open the window over there. I need some light,” Damir said. He quickly began to remove the man’s shoes. He needed to see all the damage before he could assess what he should do.

Elina didn’t argue at his orders. Hastily she threw open the window closest to Damir’s bed and let in the light. It pooled over the floor and bathed the bed in warmth. She scurried to their small kitchenette and found a large porcelain bowl. He heard her pour some water into it from the pitcher. When she returned to Damir’s side, he had already begun to work off the man’s shirt.

Carefully she moved the well-used candle and Scriptures off the makeshift nightstand beside Damir’s bed and set the bowl down. “What else can I do?”

Damir winced as he pried back the shirt and looked at the bite wound. Puss had already begun to form around the lacerations. Elina scrunched her nose.

“Oh God, he smells like death took a shit.”

“Elina!” Damir scolded. “Get me the scissors, and then go outside.”

“But Damir,” Elina began to argue but snapped her mouth closed when Damir sent her a scathing glare. She swallowed and nodded, tossing the stranger a final look. She found the scissors and passed them to him before vanishing outside.

With his sister gone, Damir began to cut the rest of the shirt away. He then worked the man’s pants down, stripping him until he was left wearing nothing. Damir gave the body a critical once over, inspecting every wound he could find. Blood and dirt caked the man’s skin, and his face was covered in a mask of scrapes and cuts. A gash bled across the man’s right brow. Damir lightly ran his thumb over it, brushing aside flakes of grime.

The most severe of the injuries he could see was the man’s shoulder, which looked like a wolf had gnawed on it. There was an infected gash in his side and mottled bruising from what appeared to be cracked ribs. His right knee was swollen up like a blowfish. Damir grabbed one of the cloths soaking in the bowl of water and squeezed it out. He began to carefully wipe away the dried blood and clean the wounds.

Damir dabbed at the bite wound, wincing as he cleaned the puss away. Lucky he had found the man when he did. Much longer out there and he might have died from infection. The man’s skin was hot with fever, and his lips were dried and cracked, no doubt from dehydration.

“You’ll be okay,” Damir whispered to the unconscious figure.

The water soon turned a murky brownish red. He changed the water and did a second cleansing until the man’s body was no longer caked in grime. Damir moved to sit on the edge of the bed. His breath hitched when he looked down and finally took in the chiseled features of the man he’d saved.