“You can still be a part of it, Jack,” Brach continued. “Youandyour friends. I can be a forgiving man when I want to be.”
I shook my head. “The Ward’s almost dead. All we have to do is fight you off long enough for her to go, then her song will go with her.”
“Stubborn to the last.” Brach chuckled. “Jack, even if your ward expires, we’ll search out her song in the ancient dark where it first began. It would, of course, be an unfortunate delay, but hardly insurmountable. In the meantime, you’re going to die, and most of your friends here will die with you, becoming ciphers. Or . . . join us, save yourself and your friends. The choice is yours.” Brach sauntered away as though giving me time to decide.
We were heavily outnumbered, and weary besides. I gathered my friends back near the Steps. “It might be a bluff,” I said. “We don’t know that Brach could actually find the song once the Ward dies. On the other hand, if we fight, and one of you gets your bindings cut, I might not be able to help you. My point is, if theyaregoing to get the song anyway, I’m not sure the Ward would want you to sacrifice yourselves in vain.”
“An honorable fight is never a vanity,” said Church. “While I have a choice,” Lady added, “I choose to fight.”
Kincaid clacked his metal rods together. “I’d like a chance at them just for what they did to the church above.”
“You’re my kind of priest.” Chuey brandished his macuahuitl, then turned to me. “We do it now, my man. Westmont strong.”
Lakshmi simply nodded. Ready.
These wonderful fools. They were likely cashing in their lives to buy a few minutes for a dying ward, giving whatever resistance might remain a few more days to prepare for invasion. Maybe I should just lead my friends back topside. Spare them. “You guys absolutely sure?”
Lady touched my cheek. “No matter the outcome, Henry would be proud.” “Quite right,” Church added.
Lakshmi pulled both her swords.
If I lived through this, I’d work twice as hard to be worthy of their friendship.
We formed a small semicircle with Loch and the others at the base of the Steps, facing Brach and his Shiguan in silence.
A few moments later I felt the thin, magnet-like force of the ward barrier retreat over us.
Brach waved his Shiguan forward. I pulled a quick bracing stroke on my lantern to strengthen my friends. Brach and several of the Shiguan thanatists did the same, filling the Roman Stratum amphitheater with beaming light and brassy tones.
Then we clashed, steel ringing, lamplight flaring. Lakshmi and Church battled on our flanks. Chuey and Lady led the others against the direct onslaught from the front, but our line began to collapse almost immediately under the massive assault. We had nowhere to go except down the Steps, but we had to give the Ward more time.
Loch took a sword to the chest. I dragged him inside the Ward’s protection to sing him onward, but my friends were being pushed back toward the amphitheater wall and the Shiguan were almost on top of us?—
Finally . . . I can let go.It was the Ward’s voice. I could feel my bond with her loosening.
“You held on for so long,” I told her. “You kept us safe. I’m grateful.
We all are.”
Thank you, Jack.
“The chancery wouldn’t intercede,” I said. “I guess we’re at the end.”No, she said.Not the end. In the Meadows there is one who sings my song.As the battle closed in around me, I called to mind the Meadows—the dark, endless skies above; the long fields of stone stretching away to the horizon; the wind rushing over me—and I was there again.
Something caught my eye. Several somethings.
A figure stood at the base of the mountain of fire, bracing against the wind, and gathering souls before they disappeared into the flames.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, visiting fellow, Thanaturgy and Existentialism Forum, 1946
With Cassius at the center,souls were joining hands, steadying themselves against the wind that pushed them toward the fire.
More souls approached, joining the line, and with each soul their collective light grew brighter and stronger. I saw Westy, Ella, the Parley twins, Darnell, Loch, Sherzer, Delain, and so many other Iron Horse folk—vestige friends I’d tried to send on and human friends whose souls had come to the Meadows naturally. Against the roar of the mountain flames I heard them singing “The Lays of Resolve.” And above all their beautiful, graceful voices was Cassius’s powerful bellow.
He sings it with a warrior’s cry, said the Ward, standing beside me, radiant again,but that may be a good thing.
