Eni had come to expect silence at the end of all her stories, Tin lapsing into his own thoughts as his face remained impassive and unreadable. He stayed true to form even as the thundering hooves of their horses filled the air, his internal focus unwavering. Ahead of them Gwared Mountain was strangely dream-like, softened by distance and yet almost too sharp to look at as it serenely floated above the glistening waves of Lake Turgon.
It could have been fifty miles away or only five, and Eni's vision throbbed as she painfully bounced up and down atop the mare. Her trousers, which had always been so comfortable as she traveled across the Cradle, felt as though they were made of sandpaper; every movement made her fight back a wince. Eni was sure the insides of her thighs had been rubbed completely raw, and the muscles of her legs ached at the unfamiliar strain of riding.
She wished Tin would speak; anything he could say, no matter how dour, would have been a welcome relief. He held his tongue even as she studied him, his long and tattered cloak fluttering behind him and his eyes distant as he stared ahead. Tin sat astride the stallion as though he had been born to ride, the horse and wolf like two halves of one whole. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, Tin's balance as perfect as his mount's as they raced across the highway.
Neither horse had uttered a word, nor even given any sign of having paid Eni any attention as she spoke, but she could feel their purpose and urgency as they strained their legs to their very limits. The stallion and the mare gulped in great breaths of air, their sides heaving and lathered with sweat as they pushed for every ounce of speed in their powerful bodies.
"More," Tin said after a gap of hours, speaking in such a low voice that Eni could barely hear him.
She could make out a frustrated sort of curiosity to the word, which was equal parts statement and question, as his gaze turned further inwards. A faint sigh escaped his lips and Eni fumbled for an answer, searching for anything she could say but coming up short. He shook his shaggy head, the dullness leaving his eyes as he glanced over at her. "You did well," he said louder and more firmly, "Standing up to her."
Eni's ears flushed at the compliment even as they streamed behind her, the wind whistling past in a dull roar. "Have to do it again," he continued, "One more time."
His words were simple, but his tone was not. There was a cold grimness to his voice, his certainty as hard as stone. Eni opened her mouth to speak, but anything she might have said fled from her mind as their steeds rounded a smooth curve in the Highway and the reflection of the sun off the lake ahead shifted. The ground below the elevated highway was no longer hidden by a blinding glow; everything came into terrible focus at once.
They had caught up to the swarm.
Traces of their passage had been visible to the left of the road as they had crossed the distance to Vornstrom, the plains scarred by a wide gash of bare dirt and stone where the grass had been trampled away. The gouge was at least a quarter mile wide and perfectly straight, cutting toward their destination with mathematical precision unperturbed by any obstacles in their way. The end of their route was at last visible; the monsters had bunched together on the banks of Lake Turgon, a vast and awful horde that writhed and pulsed like a single vast creature. There was no telling how many there were, their bodies far too close together to distinguish; there might have been thousands or hundreds of thousands, the smallest of them still larger than even an elephant calf.
They chittered amongst themselves, the sound so deep that Eni could feel it in her lungs, and neither the hoof beats of their horses nor the distant cries of Avians circling overhead could blot it out. The monsters seemed almost to be considering the waters before them, and Eni saw Tin's face twist into a frown that she was sure her own face mirrored. She had expected the Begotten to either cut west, looping around the water, or simply swim through it as they had in Linra. The lake wasn't nearly as deep so close to Vornstrom as it was further east near Kennin's Folly; some of the larger beasts almost could have walked across the bottom without getting their bodies wet.
But none of them left the shore.
They swarmed over each other, their bodies seething like a disturbed anthill as their glistening eyes considered what lay between them and their destination, but Eni felt an ember of hope igniting in her chest. Perhaps the monsters were like a loom jammed by a torn punch card, the Visitor's thrall over them unable to overcome some unforeseen quirk of their nature. She shot a glance at Tin, but at the sight of his face her heart sank as quickly as it had risen.
There was no optimism in his features, his brow furrowed and his lips bared in a terrible grimace. "Why did they stop?" Eni asked, the words coming out much more quietly than she had meant them, “They aren’t… They aren’t afraid of artillery, are they?”
"Listen," he commanded, the word harsh and angry.
She knew his fury wasn't directed at her, but even her mare shied at the force of his order, the horse's steps faltering briefly. Eni clumsily squeezed her legs tighter, wincing at the pain as she tried to stay desperately upright, and the mare shifted her weight ever so slightly to help. She murmured a thanks acknowledged only by a chuffing breath, her steed clearly too focused for speech, and closed her eyes.
The jostling ride made it feel as though she were on the Mikuzuyka Mairu again, the deck rolling under her as the ship crossed the sea, and the crash of waves from the lake only added to the illusion. It wasn't quite the same; to Eni's ears the ocean was far too wild and strong for anything else to be more than a poor substitute. She set the idle thought aside, emptying her mind as she strained to make sense of the cacophony of the Begotten.
At first it was utter nonsense, their cries lacking any sort of meaning, but Eni could feel something, flashes of color flowing through her head like bursts of lightning. There was something she could dimly sense, some pattern to the noises like the alignment of iron shavings around a magnet, and Eni let out a gasp she barely heard.
Tin had been right; she could feel the Visitor's call, which was so grand that it could not be called a song. It wasn't anything so simple; there was music to it, but there were no words or instruments joined together in harmony. It was as though Aerodan itself was being played, and Eni almost wept at the terrible beauty of it. The notes were beyond anything her ears could comprehend, beyond anything that ever could have been transcribed and bound to a page. There was raw and galvanic power, the force of the Visitor expressing a single idea with preternatural elegance. Eni's belly felt as though it had been set aflame, burning tendrils radiating through her body as she grasped desperately for meaning and in a moment that stretched to eternity found it.
A Derkomai symbol etched itself into her mind, painfully sharp as it indelibly seared its way down to the very core of her memory. There was no equivalent in Circi or any other language Eni knew; it was both creation and destruction and yet without a paradox. The division between the two concepts was arbitrary and meaningless, an imposition of definition for the sake of a mortal mind. Eni could see clearly how both were aspects of the other, as surely as building a bridge consumed trees or stone it was the truth for everything no matter how small or vast.
It was an order with infinite nuance; Eni felt sure that if there had been nothing but darkness and void the alien syllables could have forged the world and sent it spinning. Anything could have been made or unmade, all based on the slightest changes in the formation of the symbol and the strength put behind it, and—
"Eni!"
Her stomach felt pressed into knots as she jerked upright, the dull sky overhead far too bright for her. Her head felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton, throbbing remorselessly, and her entire body felt numb and slack. She was still on the mare's back, but she didn't have the strength in her arms or legs to hold herself in place. Eni cried out in alarm, certain she was about to slip off, but her balance remained perfect.
She turned her head, utterly puzzled, and immediately realized why. Tin's tail was wrapped around her waist, holding her in place even as her limbs felt utterly boneless. Their horses were less than a foot apart, their legs moving in utter lockstep, and Tin himself barely wobbled as he kept her in position until she could grab the pommel of her saddle. He didn't let go even as she squeezed on tightly, his face a mask of concern as he looked at her. "You heard," he said quietly, and Eni nodded weakly, the strength to speak having left her.
She had no idea how much time had passed, but they were less than a mile from where the highway went from being suspended over the ground to over the lake. The Begotten were still where they had been, their hideous bodies moving against each other like grains of sand through an hourglass as they covered the rocky shore. On the far side of the lake, Eni could see Vornstrom's defenders atop the soaring walls, still too distant to make out as anything but smudges of color. None had left the safety of their citadel, but she supposed they had no reason to. After all, the monsters showed no sign of trying to swim, and as long as they ignored the highway it wasn't as though they had a—
"Bridge!" Eni gasped in horror, her eyes widening as she looked at Tin, "Her order… Bridge!"
She knew she was babbling, the words falling out of her mouth faster than her sluggish mind could keep up, but the sigil carved into her thoughts was painfully clear. Eni looked ahead to the teaming mass of Begotten, straining her eyes, and pointed with one trembling arm. "Look!"
Eni cursed herself for not realizing it sooner; she should have known that the beasts would have remained as still as statues if their movement hadn't served some greater purpose. The monsters were beginning to part, revealing their fellows that had been buried underneath the crushing army of the things, but what they exposed was barely recognizable. They had formed something enormous and indescribably monstrous, something larger than a city block that didn't bear the slightest resemblance to a mammal. The beast was roughly cylindrical, squat and teeming with grasping limbs and eyes and mouths. It was as though hundreds of Begotten had been fused together and their flesh reshaped into something new, and as Eni watched in horror the monster pulled itself into the lake on powerful thousands of legs and unraveled.
She had no other word for it; it was like watching the tendrils that formed Zathos's body coming apart and making a new form, but with something almost like elegance. The roving eyes and teeth protruding from the thing twisted and shifted as it oozed across the surface of the lake, making it cloudy with ichor. Eni tore her eyes away, looking to Vornstrom, but they were still far too short of the drawbridge linking the highway to the city.
Tin shouted something in Shurd, and their horses managed to go even faster, pulling on reserves Eni wouldn't have thought existed. Her gaze darted from their destination to the monsters below, her lips moving in a silent prayer to the Mother that they would only make it there first. The wind streaming past was bitterly cold, making Eni's entire body shiver, but although she was sore she grimly maintained her grip.
The horrible mass was reshaping itself into a bridge with the organic grace of a spider's web; it might have almost been beautiful had it not been made of strands of glistening monster flesh. It moved with unnerving speed; by the time that Eni's mare had reached the shoreline, the terrible form was almost halfway across the lake. Ahead, in the city, Eni could hear a wailing siren, the voices of the defenders an indecipherable babble of noise under the sound of their call to action.
The giant gates along the lower wall, running atop the thick levy at the water’s edge, swung open to invite Vornstrom's sentries into a hasty retreat. Even as Eni watched, she could tell that they would be far too slow.
The Begotten's bridge had reached the far shoreline, but the monsters hadn’t waited before beginning to cross. They had streamed over the structure even as it was forming, monsters the size of taverns moving with remarkable speed. A desperate rearguard of soldiers wheeled their artillery into position, trying to keep the horde at bay, and Eni instantly grasped their strategy even as she clung to her mare.
By forming a linkage, the Begotten had also made themselves a natural choke point; despite the size of the bizarre living thing, it wasn't wide enough for more than two or three of the monsters to cross at a time. If the City Guard could slow them their overwhelming numbers would be for nothing, but Eni was horribly certain that it was beyond their notice.
They didn’t even try evading as enormous boulders, covered in burning pitch, rained down upon the monsters in the lead. The creatures kept scuttling forward, clicking and calling to one another as they lost limbs and eyes to the projectiles, the defenders not letting up the onslaught for a minute. Eni felt the ground quaking even through the rapidly moving hooves of her horse, the frigid air reverberating with the shock of each impact. The monsters could only advance so quickly, even as they climbed over each other and across their living bridge, and the soldiers making their valiant stand came into view. There were elephants and rhinos, heaving massive trebuchets and catapults forward as they tried to get in range of the monstrous flesh spanning the river, and their shots got ever closer. Eni was nearly a quarter of the way across the lake, Tin and his stallion still at her side, when the knot of monsters suddenly loosened again.
At the center of their bridge, the flesh rippled and pulsed as some vast organ exposed itself. It was grotesquely misshapen, teeth and strands of what looked almost like fur protruding from it, but the thing was nearly as big as a cottage. Eni felt more than heard the sound it made, a sinister and low-pitched whine, and Tin gave a howl unlike anything Eni had ever heard him voice.
"Don't!" he cried, the word so loud that it hurt, but it was too late and they were much too far away for the soldiers to hear.
A flaming ballista bolt struck the tumorous mass at the center of the Begotten's bridge, setting the entire thing ablaze. It was an incredible shot; Eni thought the soldiers firing had to be almost six thousand yards away, and she could see them triumphantly waving their arms as they watched their target burn and wither with a sound that pierced Eni.
Then the sky grew dark.
The clouds overhead blurred, whirling furiously as they came together. Tin gasped like a mammal being caressed, his mouth falling open. The temperature dropped precipitously, Eni's breath suddenly visible before her, and the highway shook as if it had been grabbed by a giant. Sections of stone the size of banquet halls began falling away with a shriek of metal as their internal supports pulled apart, the path ahead disappearing at once.
By all rights, Eni knew she should have been thrown from her mare. She should have cracked her skull open against the unyielding stone of the road, a helpless victim of an instant stop from high speed. Instead, her mare somehow kept her footing, skittering and teetering but never topping until they came to a halt. At her side, Tin's stallion had managed the same, and Eni stared disbelievingly ahead.
The highway had partially collapsed; they were less than five feet away from a gap almost thirty feet across. There was one more such missing segment before the iron drawbridge into Vornstrom, which was suddenly tantalizingly close and impossibly far away. But below the highway, the reason for its movement was in full view. Lake Turgon had frozen over, heaving the highway's supports, but it was not smooth and glassy as Eni would have expected it to be in the winter. It was like a moment suspended in time, the ice rippling where water had been caught mid-wave.
The Begotten's bridge was dead, but they no longer had any need for it. The monsters spread out, crashing against the defenders caught in their retreat, and Eni couldn't bear to look. "Come on," Tin said, pulling her off her mare; she wanted to cling to him but Eni forced herself to stand, willing her knees not to buckle.
The wolf's face was solemn as he turned to the stallion and the mare, who were gaping at the destruction with wide eyes. Their sides were still heaving with exertion, but before them Tin was vital in some peculiar way. He seemed almost to glow with purpose and strength as he barked his orders for them. "Go," he commanded, pointing back the way they had come, "Rejoin the queen's regiment. We'll get the rest of the way from here."
His voice was firm and purposeful, without an ounce of hesitation. "We have failed you, Slayer," the stallion said mournfully, dipping his head and pressing his ears back, but Tin's answer was immediate.
"Done no such thing. Go with my blessing," he said, and Eni felt a flicker of awe as the two horses stared at him in wonder.
For a moment, she thought they might have seen a fraction of what she had known when she touched Tin's mind, but it was over almost instantly. The mare gulped hard as she nodded fervently, respectfully dipping her head. “Fortespeed,” the horses said, nearly in unison, and the mare turned and galloped away.
The stallion was behind her a second later, the two horses racing off as quickly as they could. Further away from the lake, the highway looked undamaged, their progress unimpeded.
"That thing's theurgy is gone now," Tin said, his voice hard, "Felt it. Its magic… Like at the tomb."
She understood what had happened, although he didn't say anything more. It had been a trap the defenders couldn't avoid; the Visitor obviously had the power to ensure a result far more useful to her forces than torrential rain and hail. Eni forced herself to turn back ahead toward the city, her heart sinking as she took in the view. There seemed to be no way forward; the gap to the next section of the highway was much too far to leap, and jumping down to the ice below would be just as impossible. It was much too long a distance; Eni felt sure that they would break all the bones in their legs before being beset by the monsters. The idea made her shiver almost as badly as the chilly air, which seemed to be worming its way through her fur.
Always cold.
Eni shook her head forcefully to clear it, her heart pounding in her chest. "No," she murmured, and Tin cocked his head at her quizzically.
"We have to keep going," she said more firmly, blinking grit out of her eyes, "But…"
She gestured helplessly at the drop before them. The next intact segment might as well have been on the moon it was so far away, but Tin gripped her paw in his. "But we'll get there," he said, and Eni could feel his quiet strength, "We can make the leap."
"You have to leave me behind," she said, "I— I'll just weigh you down."
A lump formed in Eni's throat as she imagined Tin jumping with her in his arms, the wolf coming short as they both plunged to the horde below. The wolf didn't smile; his lips didn't twitch the slightest fraction of an inch upwards. But there was still a warmth to his eyes as he gazed back at her, a sort of kindliness she hadn't expected. "You can make it too," he said, "Know you can."
Eni hesitated for a moment, common sense warring with her need to go on. The idea of a mammal clearing such a span was ridiculous. It was utterly impossible; it would be beyond foolhardy to try. And yet…
Her thoughts were interrupted by a great cry from the direction of the gaping east gate to Vornstrom, and Eni's ears shot up, swiveling toward the city as she raised her head. "Mortem Semper!" she heard, the words spoken by so many mammals that their voices all ran into one, "Mortem Semper!"
The beleaguered artillery of the city, caught outside the safety of the walls in their desperate gamble, suddenly had support. Too many pikes to count were visible as massive infantry rushed forward, formed into grids with machine-like precision as they bellowed the battle cry that had been Wordermund's own.
They were King Renald's forces.
Even from a distance, there was no mistaking the uniforms of the soldiers or the vast size of them, and they fell upon the Begotten like locusts. Their weapons were knitting needles compared to the collective bulk of the beasts, but they didn't yield an inch, pressing forward grimly as they covered the artillery's retreat. And, just like that, something on the battlefield changed.
Avians swooped down from the sky, flurries of wings as they dropped burning casks or the largest stones they could carry upon the monsters. Arrows filled the air in volleys, perfectly timed to avoid hitting the birds, and Renald's sally fought onwards even as their numbers dwindled. Eni swallowed hard as she watched, nodding firmly as she met Tin's eyes. "I can," she said, and Tin squeezed her paw before he let go.
He backed up perhaps forty paces from the crumbling edge of the highway, tearing off his cloak and letting it flutter carelessly aside. His shirt came with it, the tattered fabric yielding under his claws and coming free, but he paid it no mind as he stood still for a moment. The sounds of the raging battle filled the air, Tin's chest moving slightly with each breath, and then he began to run.
He looked almost as fast as a horse, reaching the edge and throwing himself forward in a graceful arc. Eni held her breath, willing him to make it but terribly afraid he wouldn't, and then his toes touched the road on the other side. The wolf rolled nimbly forward, smoothly halting his momentum and standing about four or five yards past where he had landed. He turned back and gestured for Eni, beckoning her toward him.
The fear filling her heart evaporated, the shouts of mammals and the shriek of monsters seeming suddenly distant and far away. Calmness washed over Eni as she strapped her trident across her back and considered the yawning gulf that separated her from Tin. Her doubts disappeared and certainty filled her even as her vision pulsed wildly. She would not be separated from him, not by something as mundane as empty space. It was not a belief; it was a fact.
Eni began running, her arms pistoning at her sides, and her timing was perfect. At the very instant her last stride on solid ground ended, her next one began, propelling her forward as she urged her tired legs to do as she commanded. She soared toward Tin, her stomach seeming to fall out as she looked down and saw the ice so far below, but her graceful arc hadn't reached its zenith.
She overshot Tin by eight or ten feet, hitting the highway a bit more clumsily than he had, but she managed to stumble to a stop instead of falling flat on her face. The wolf was already at her side, taking her paw in his and pulling her onward as they ran for the next break in the road. The drawbridge was getting ever closer, and on the ground below the progress of the Begotten had slowed to a crawl.
Eni caught a glimpse of Renald, his war hammer caving in the eye of a beast the size of a wagon before he picked up an ichor-stained Federation banner and urged his soldiers to hold. He was shouting something, but he was too far away to hear; the only words that Eni could make out were their battle cries.
Even running as fast as she could, Eni felt painfully slow after the speed of the mare, her lungs burning as she pressed herself for more. The next gap in the highway wasn't nearly as wide as the first, but the road had tilted at an angle, making Eni's feet scrabble for purchase to avoid sliding off the side. Tin's tail lashed out here and there, gently nudging her to help keep her balance even as it did the same for him, and they pressed forward as quickly as they could.
At long last, the drawbridge that provided the elevated access to Vornstrom was before them, the faces of the mammals standing guard at it close enough to make out. Nearly the instant she and Tin set foot on the wide iron beams, it began lifting slowly into the air, the guards clearly not willing to take any chances. Eni stumbled forward, panting for breath, and behind her came another cry.
"Children of Aerodan!" came bellowed Jarku words mixed with sonorous warhorns, "For the Jaws! For the Circle! For the Horns!"
Aza's barghests had arrived alongside Tormurghast's swiftest riders, emerging from the frigid mist as their canilry and cavalry slammed into the horde’s rear with all the might of the Mother’s wrath. They were the anvil to Renald's hammer, almost dancing across the ice of Lake Turgon as they gave the monsters no quarter.
"For kindred!"
Someone among Vornstrom's defenders took up the cry in Circi, and one voice was joined by thousands. "For kindred!" mammals and Avians alike shouted defiantly, the force of the words like a weapon as they pressed back against the Begotten, "Kindred!"
The drawbridge lifted too far for Eni to see anything more, but she was sure she had spotted a red-orange mammal leading the charge. Eni nearly collapsed as she staggered forward, struggling for air as she took in who was waiting to receive them. Fidelius was there, the eagle's eyes sharp and piercing and yet somehow welcoming as he stared at them. At the Avian's side was a ewe nearly as tall as Eni herself. The sheep wore the shining golden armor of the Emperor’s Guard, her flowing red cloak parted to reveal the rank insignia of a colonel at her wooly neck, and behind her were more than a dozen soldiers of lower rank.
"Welcome to Vornstrom, sir," the sheep said, her husky voice hiding a faint tremble as she and her soldiers bowed deeply, "It is our great honor to accompany you wherever your purpose takes you."
"The Faceless Kings," Eni said, still trying to catch her breath, "Quickly."
"At once, ma'am," the ewe replied crisply, and she gestured sharply at her troops.
Their faces were full of hope and wonder as they formed an honor guard around Eni and Tin, easily keeping pace as they began running again. They moved in silence for several minutes, disturbed only by the battle taking place outside the city's walls, and then a fresh-faced ensign spoke. "Bladeslinger," the young dingo asked shakily, "Are you here to save us?"
The colonel shot him a withering glare for his unprofessionalism, but Tin replied. "I'm here to slay," he said, his hackles raised, and that was enough of an answer.
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