Of Dark Things Waking (The Redemption Chronicle Book 3) Page 46

  The terror in his eyes sent a worm of cold fear down Seth's spine. Seth, too, put his back to the wall, prepared for the worst.

  "D'haan," one of the dark figures seethed, "to Baltazar. Vhesus, with me to the Queen."

  They surged past him—one to intercept Iggy and Kai, and two to Elthur.

  The Kesprey stood alone at the Altar, his hands outstretched in prayer as he worked to bring down whatever protection the Fatherlord had raised around Revenia's body. Seth left his master to handle the remaining Preserver and launched into a sprint, racing to help Elthur before the Mal'shedaal reached him.

  He was too late.

  The first shadow reared up in front of the Kesprey and, with a single brutal jerk of his sword, chopped off the man's left hand. Elthur fell to screaming, his prayers mangled—and the second Mal'shedaal's sword buried itself in his skull like an ax in a stump.

  Elthur's screams cut off; his eyes went blank. A savage kick sent his corpse hurtling through one of the stained glass windows, where it vanished into the darkness below as the wind howled.

  v. Melakai

  D'haan didn't run toward them so much as he glided, a blur of darkness against the marble floor. His hood perfectly shrouded his features, like a wraith in a Night story.

  Illusion, Kai realized. It must be. Iggy said—

  Then he was on them, and all thought fled.

  Iggy again became a panther, dashing away to the left to try and trap the Mal'shedaal between them. Kai read the strategy and darted right, sword raised. Lar'atul's weapon hummed in his hands, its azure glow suddenly igniting from a diffuse bloom to a wreath of wispy flame.

  The shadow made no move to avoid their maneuver. It fixed its empty gaze on Melakai and surged toward him, blade raised to strike. Behind it, Iggy took advantage of the opening and pounced, sinking his teeth into its leg. Kai, too, struck—diving into its open guard and plunging Lar'atul's sword straight through its heart.

  The attacks didn't even slow it.

  D'haan's weapon bit into Kai's shoulder, sending a scream of pain up his arm. Then the shadow wrenched sideways, yanking Kai's sword loose and sending it clattering to the floor. The weapon's wraithlike flames died.

  "You call yourself tei'shaar?" the shadow hissed. "Lars would be ashamed." Then it lunged, returning the heart strike Kai had delivered a second before.

  Kai staggered back, jerking his hands up to ward off the blow—which went wide as Iggy yanked again on D'haan's leg. The attack sank into Kai's other shoulder instead, largely blunted by his leathers.

  Three unkillable foes. A tower full of enemy support. An invincible altar. Kai glanced over to see if Elthur had been able to bring down its protection, and saw the splatters of blood telling a tale of butchery all the way to the shattered window.

  We can't do this, he realized.

  The two Mal'shedaal that had just killed Elthur swarmed toward Seth, twin premonitions of death.

  We can't do this.

  D'haan grabbed panther-Iggy with one hand, tore him from his leg, and hurled him away. Iggy snapped and growled, skidding across the marble before regaining his feet.

  Kai took the instant of reprieve to lunge for his weapon—which again ignited with blue flame—and spun back into a desperate defensive stance. But the shadow didn't come for him. It pounced on Iggy before he could regain his balance, plunging its black sword clean through the animal's ribs.

  The panther squealed in agony, thrashing. His claws flailed ineffectually at the shadow's legs. The Mal'shedaal kicked the animal's hind end, tore his weapon loose in a spray of gore—and the panther blinked into Iggy, sprawled listless on the floor, his abdomen a gory mess.

  With a single, dismissive wave of his sword, D'haan sent Iggy's body hurtling through a window. Kai caught a frozen instant of his body plunging into the darkness.

  Then D'haan turned lazily back to face him.

  "Fall back!" Kai screamed. He jerked his weapon into a ready position as white-hot panic threatened to seize him. "Fall back!" He kept the weapon up and stumbled backward, praying that Retash had cleared the Preservers at the door, hoping that the hall hadn't filled with Scarlet Guard by now. He didn't dare risk a glance backward to confirm.

  "It's good of you to bring the sword, at least," D'haan whispered, "even if you're not a tenth of the man he was. It'll be better with me." He rocked back on one foot, his weapon again flicking forward. Kai imagined the invisible force that had seized Iggy now taking him, hurling him backward into the far wall or maybe through the same broken window.

  His panic exploded. He brought Lar'atul's sword up in a parry—a block against nothing, against invisible air—and the weapon flashed. A curl of smoke drifted away from its blade. The tension that been building in the air vanished.

  D'haan hesitated. Cocked his head.

  Then he charged.

  Kai turned and ran.

  At the door, Retash dropped the Fatherlord's last Preserver with a precise strike to the throat. There were no other guards in the hallway beyond him—at least, not yet.

  "Run!" Kai shouted at Retash. To his right, Seth obeyed the order, pelting toward the door as the other two Mal'shedaal pursued. "Run!"

  The three men reached the wide doorway at the same time. Shoved through into the hallway.

  Retash pointed to the left. "Stairs!" Kai started down that hallway, and it filled with flame.

  Seth grabbed his arm, jerked him back. They started the other way, and it too billowed into fire. The only way left was the short hall leading to the little study room through which they'd entered: a dead end.

  With a sickening dread, Kai turned again to face their pursuers, Seth and Retash to either side of him. Unless they wanted to dive out a window from the thirteenth story, there would be no escape.

  "Vhesus," the middle shadow said from the doorway, "end the tei'shaar. D'haan—the boy. I'll handle the student of Jenseer." They fanned out, and the one in the center charged at Kai with an unearthly shriek.

  Its sword erupted in flame. Kai blocked the first strike but the fire still licked at his wrists, singed his bracers—and the shadow attacked again, pummeling him with blows from all sides. He fell back, parrying for his life. But the thing had the strength of a devil, and the constant screams of pain from the wound in his shoulder slowed him. Each ringing blow threatened to tear his grip loose. It could have killed me already, Kai realized. It was trying to get him to drop his sword—toying with him, like a cat with a mouse. He nearly threw the weapon down just to end it, a final act of refusal before his death.

  But a different kind of defiance rose up in him.

  In the heartbeat between onslaughts, he remembered his granddaughter and the passion that had driven him to save her. The lightning responded—leapt, snarling, from his brilliant blade and into his attacker. It caught Vhesus full in the chest, sent him staggering backward for a few precious seconds.

  Then Lar'atul's sword seized him. It dragged his arms up, then right, forced him to aim the blade true to the ceiling before plunging into a kneel. A memory of finding Syntal on the roof of the prison occurred to him like a premonition.

  Then his mind tore in half.

  A shriek of pain ripped out of him, every muscle crying out in agony. The hall around him splintered, then shattered like glass. Colors rushed in to replace it, a swirling cacophony of brilliance accompanied by a thunder like a heartbeat. The colors manifested into a marble floor, a wide room. Behind him, his stupefying pain became a cold wind; before him, the crushing heat of a glowing altar.

  He was back in the main chamber. On the Foundation Altar before him, a woman was taking form—her body beautiful and perfect, her midnight hair spreading past her shoulders and pooling into a halo around her face. Even the birthmark on her shoulder—twin crescents, divided by a line—enhanced her beauty. Only her eyes remained empty, sockets of blood in a face like porcelain. But not for long. A black mist flowed past him, seeping up from the altar and filling her eyes with life.
/>
  At the far end of the hall the Mal'shedaal burst back into the room, howling. Charging.

  He flipped Lar'atul's sword and drove it down, through divine wards and impossible heat, and into the woman's breast.

  Her fingers splayed apart as her breastbone shattered. She shrieked, an unearthly sound like a frozen wind. The mist that had been flowing into her eyes suddenly reversed, spraying out into the night in a vortex of darkness.

  And still he drove the weapon down, out through her back and into the altar itself, where the stone ruptured and screamed. Its heat died. The glow of its runes faded.

  The sword of Lar'atul died with it, its inexplicable azure radiance finally quenched.

  The Fatherlord's drone cut off; he blinked as if waking from a nightmare. D'haan dropped his sword and crashed to his knees. Faerloss stumbled to a halt, dumb and disbelieving. And Vhesus charged the altar, roaring.

  Kai staggered backward as the black wind continued howling around him. With every passing second the body on the altar receded: the flesh melted into the blood beneath, the muscles shriveled and retreated toward bone, the hair turned to ash. As Vhesus reached his mistress, the last of the black wind rendered even Her bones to dust.

  "Ahn'shalaa!" Vhesus screamed, hurling himself onto the altar as if he could catch the last of his Queen in his dead hands.

  And Kai, realizing he was somehow still alive, kicked his sore muscles into a mad run for the door.

  27

  i. Harth

  He stumbled toward the distant fight, the world spinning around him. He should have fled, he knew. Anyone with an ounce of sense would have. He was like a moth to a campfire, drawn to immolation for its own sake. But he had brought these people here, these chanters who were willing to call themselves Arwah. They were here because of him—and because of Syntal.

  He would see them through, or he would die with them.

  Hoarse shouts echoed in the darkness. He turned to see a squad of Jacobsford soldiers in a sea of bobbing torchlight, the God's Star just visible on their insignia. They saw him, too, and quailed: shouts of Witch! and Chanter! rippled through the group as they instinctively spread away from each other in case of a Detonation.

  "Back off," he barked. "I'll melt you all where you―" But his body betrayed him, hitching into a bloody cough before he could finish.

  "He's spent," one of the soldiers growled. "Just like the last one."

  "I'm on his right," another called, closing in from the far side.

  Harth used the last of his strength to dart forward and seize the first man's sword hand. He heard the second soldier break into a charge behind him; the rest of the squad shouted an alarm and started to close in, too. He ignored all of them, Ascended—

  —and chanted Syntal's forbidden healing spell.

  The inescapable agony in his head, the near-lethal price of a night of fevered chanting, moved. A tendril of it shot through his shoulders, down his arm, and into the enemy soldier. The man's eyes widened. He gasped in dawning horror and tried to jerk away, but Harth held him tight.

  With the channel established, the trickle became a rush. The pain poured out of him, running into the other man as easily as water into a glass. His enemy's mouth dropped open in a silent scream; blood ran from his eyes, his nose, his ears. When he died Harth shoved his body to the ground, Ascended, and demanded the universe grant him Ironflesh.

  He had no chant to form his will into the proper command; the cosmos sprawled before him like a chamber of riches to be plundered, with no map for where to begin. He nearly dove into it headfirst, inhaled the awesome power of the gods, but caught himself just in time. This, he commanded, remembering what Takra had done when she opened the sixth wardbook.

  A curtain painted with mundane reality slammed back down. Everything good in the universe vanished, leaving him bloodied and mortal in the heart of a battlefield. His enemy roared behind him, swept a sword at the soft flesh of his flank.

  With a tink, it bounced away.

  Harth spun to face his new attacker as the man's allies swarmed in. They, too, fell on him, swords and axes flailing.

  Tink. Tink-tink. Tink.

  The soldiers fell back, eyes bright with sudden dread. Harth glared and grabbed one of them, repeating the forbidden spell. He shoved the last of his pain into the man's head, expelling it all, and felt the channel shift. Now, instead of pouring his weakness into the man, it siphoned the man's strength and fed it to him, filling him with a heady rush of power. His victim died, choking on his own blood.

  The others ran.

  "I don't sehking think so." Harth hurled a Ves at the farthest, blasting him from his feet and killing him instantly. The next he trapped with a Slumber, a plan already forming in the back of his mind.

  The last three forgot to fan out. He caught them with a single arc of lightning that left their bodies in smoking ruins.

  He stalked to the sleeping soldier, knelt next to him, and chanted the forbidden spell one more time—force-fed him the ache that was already starting to accumulate in Harth's head from the rapid burst of chants, and when it was gone, drawing the man's vitality into himself. The soldier stiffened and exhaled his last breath into the mud.

  Harth felt as if he'd just woken from the best sleep of his life, as if he were a man twice as strong and hale as he actually was. Every bruise or scrape he'd gotten since the battle started was gone; the omens of lightning that had flickered in his veins were mere memories now.

  Syn, he thought. We shouldn't have shied away from it. It's the answer to everything.

  And he Farstepped back to the front.

  ii. Takra

  She staggered through a riotous haze of screams, clashing swords, the muted thunder of horse's hooves jockeying for position. Now and then a scene of brutality leaked out of the darkness: a Church squad butchering fleeing Keswick men, or a weirdly intimate faceoff between two soldiers in the heart of the chaos. She helped where she could, rattling off a quick Slumber at most before reeling away, but spared nothing that would betray her position or mark her as a chanter. Her headache was a thing alive, already feasting on the flesh inside her skull, and her face leaked blood. She had no strength for defenses. One unlucky turn, and she was dead.

  The Mal'shedaal's unstoppable carnage had infected the heart of the army with panic, and she had fled with the others. Now she suspected the shadows had left. She hadn't seen or heard them for some time. But the damage was done. While the darkness concealed the battle at large, the Church's troops had command over every scene she stumbled across. Brutus's horn still blared, signaling a regroup, but if it was working, she saw no sign of it.

  Now she had a vague notion of heading north, back toward the bridge. It had been this attack's chief objective, and they had pummeled it with tornadoes. Stone or not, it had to be close to falling.

  Finally, in the dim blue moonlight, she made out the silhouette of the bridge. Her heart sank. All effort to contain it had ceased. The enemy poured across unimpeded.

  How many? she wondered. A quick glance across the river revealed an empty bank; the mass of troops there that had been showering them with arrows earlier was gone. She had seen them flee—but had they regrouped? Were they coming across the bridge now? Or were most of them already over?

  Did bringing the bridge down even still matter?

  A soldier charged her, bore her down. Her teeth slapped together, adding to the ringing in her head as they wrestled in the mud. He was stronger and bigger, just like Shephatiah had always been. She screamed. He pulled a dagger and she bit his wrist, making him jerk back with a howl. Then she spat his own blood back at him in a single word: "Ves." The light punched him into a backwards somersault over the river bank, where the thrashing water devoured him.

  She felt a wail bubbling in her chest, a shriek of pure anguish. She hated this, hated all of it. She had never wanted to be here. Somehow, she swallowed it; crept to the riverbank and tried to get a better look at the bridge.

&
nbsp; A quick chanterlight showed her that one of the bridge's supports, anchoring it to the near shore, was loose. In fact, now that she was closer and had some light, she saw the bridge itself swaying beneath the weight of the charging soldiers.

  She braced herself, Ascended, and spoke her command to the night.

  Lightning ripped out of midair and shattered the mooring. Stone and dirt exploded from the riverbank. The bridge shivered once.

  Then it collapsed, bringing twoscore screaming soldiers with it.

  "The bridge is down!" someone screamed, and another, further into the darkness, echoed him: "The bridge is down!" Brutus's horn blared again, another attempt at a rally.

  And Takra sank to the ground and clutched her head in a desperate attempt to hold the throbbing bones of her skull together.

  iii. Lyseira

  The trampling cavalry left her a wreck of shattered bones and oozing bruises. Behind it came the ground troops, rushing after the charge into the streets of Colmon. She watched them go by without so much as a wheeze of defiance.

  Eventually she realized she couldn't walk. She couldn't move her left arm. Her crushed sternum left her barely able to breathe.

  But she could still whisper. And with her whisper, she called the fire.

  She knitted herself back together as divinity lashed her vision, leaving fresh scars on her sight, then grabbed her staff, still glaring with clericlight, and pushed to her feet. Harth was gone, and she saw the ruins of Xavier's unit all around her, some wounded and moaning, others lying still. Some of them were hers.

  Beyond them, the enemy was heading into town, toward the first battle. If they got there—if they caught the rest of Brutus's troops from behind—the fight would be over. The Church would take Colmon, and Keswick would be next.

  She looked again at the wounded. She could stay and try to help them, but she couldn't heal them all. Or she could leave them and chase the Jacobsford troops, try to prevent them from inflicting still more harm on the others.