by Drew Wagar
Distracted, Charis was dealt a frightful blow to the face by Torin. She stumbled into Kiri, falling to the floor.
Kiri moved aside, raising her kai to strike.
‘Kiri! No!’
Kiri hesitated mid-swing. ‘But he killed …’
‘You were foolish in coming here, Priestess Charis,’ Torin sneered. ‘Your powers aren’t as strong as I recall. Perhaps only a few of you possess them?’
Kiri saw the worried look that passed briefly across Charis’ face, Torin saw it too and laughed.
‘Yes, just a few,’ he said. ‘Drayden is weak, isn’t it? Your powers are not what they once were, your time is running out, witches.’
Kiri went to move forward again.
‘Kiri, no.’ Charis’ voice was calm.
Charis turned to look at Torin, blood dripping from her mouth. She stayed where she had fallen. Kiri couldn’t tell if she’d been hurt badly or not.
‘Our strength is not in weapons …’
‘Yet ours now is,’ Torin interrupted. Two men stepped out, crossbows reloaded, one aimed at Charis the other at Kiri.
‘I know of how you use your thoughts to inflict pain,’ Torin was saying. ‘But I daresay you can’t stop us before one of us fires.’
‘I will not hurt you, Prince Torin. Please, even now, this need not end in conflict between our peoples.’
‘You threaten me in my own hall and then claim no conflict? Your arrogance is well known to us, witch.’
‘We …’
Torin cut across her. ‘My companions are well trained. A single hint of this gift of yours and your lives are at an end.’
‘We came here seeking a peaceful co-existence, but you would murder us?’
‘You will take a message to your people.’
‘And what message is that?’
Kiri saw Torin straighten and place his hands on his hips as he looked down at Charis.
‘Just this, witch of Drayden. Know this, Scallia will no longer be beholden to you. Our women are our own.’
‘The treaty …’
‘Signed by our forebears under duress and threat from Drayden; burnt and gone now. This tithe we will no longer pay. We will not permit this search of yours either. You will return to us all the women you have taken, or we will take them ourselves.’
‘You would risk the wrath of Lacaille …’
‘We would.’
Charis shook her head in dismay, tears in her eyes.
‘This message will change nothing. Whether we return or not, the response will be the same. Your gifted ones will join us, willingly or otherwise. This is the will of Lacaille. If you resist, it will go ill for you.’
Torin drew back.
‘Your tongue knows only threats and fearmongering. We do not share your belief. We care not about Lacaille, the sun shines whatever we do.’
‘You would deny the truth? Deny Lacaille?’ Charis’ voice was shocked.
‘Yes, we deny Lacaille! We care not for your religious zealotry, we have suffered under your false beliefs for too long.’
Kiri gasped at the same moment as she saw Charis do the same thing.
How dare they say such a thing? Hated Scallians!
Torin took one of his companion’s crossbows and turned it upon Charis.
Charis raised her head.
‘You will risk her displeasure, know you not of the danger? If you anger Lacaille, you will bring her wrath upon us all. The cold, the flames …?’
‘Your foolish myths have no currency here. One of you will take a message to your people, perhaps your apprentice would be best …’
They mean to …
‘No!’
Kiri burst forward, her kai raised. It seemed a pitiful defence against the ranged weapons of the guards, but she took them by surprise. Torin stumbled in surprise, his crossbow thrown across the room, as Kiri knocked him aside. A deft move pushed the other guard back. His crossbow fired, but pinged uselessly off the wall.
‘Kill her!’
Kiri raised her kai.
Kiri don’t … just run … save yourself!
Kiri looked at Torin, seeing him grin.
‘You’re outnumbered little witch,’ he said. ‘Your companions are already dead. Put down your weapon and we’ll let you live.’
‘I will not leave without my priestess!’
The second guard was reloading his crossbow, ratcheting back the mechanism. The first guard stepped towards her, sword raised.
Kiri was faster.
Her mind was already reaching out. She felt the guards pulse, the tension in his arm and wrist as he held the sword. It was easy, too easy.
A twist and a jerk …
The guard’s yell of pain was cut short as he slit his own throat with the sword. He fell backwards, knocking over one of the burning oil lamps. Liquid sprayed across the floor, igniting a moment later with a dull thump of heat.
Wooden building, wooden town!
Kiri didn’t waver. Ice cold metal subsumed her, another arm entered her consciousness, muscles, tendons, taut and tense …
Easy to bend to my will, easy to bend, easy to break …
The second guard yelled and dropped the crossbow before he was able to fire it. Kiri knocked him out with the kai.
Dimly Kiri saw Torin throwing himself across the room, reaching out to grab the crossbow amidst the rising flames. Kiri brought her kai around to deal him a vicious strike.
She was a faction too late. The crossbow fired as her kai snapped around, a blow that bruised rather than snapping his neck.
Kiri heard a short sharp gasp from behind her.
The bolt had caught Charis. Kiri saw the inevitable unfold before her in a moment of time.
‘Charis!’ she screamed.
Blood was seeping from a wound in her chest. Charis fell on to her back.
Torin pushed roughly past Kiri. She turned, trying to grasp hold of his mind as she stumbled away off balance. She caught a fleeting tenuous hold and applied pressure, but he moved beyond her line of sight and she lost him.
Her last glimpse showed he had the crossbow in his hand.
Torin saw the girl move after him and felt the unmistakeable brush of pain in his head. He ducked aside, behind the door way. The pain vanished.
Strange!
With his back to the wall he looked cautiously around the doorway. The girl was still there, cautiously getting to her feet. The instant she saw him he saw her extend her arm towards him. The pain jabbed across his forehead immediately. He ducked against the wall of the corridor.
She needs to be able to see me!
He fingered the crossbow in his hand, hastily reloading it. If she caught him in the corridor or out in the open he was a dead man. He took a series of deep breaths.
Let’s see how fast she is. Make it a good one, Torin …
Torin appeared in the doorway a second time, wreathed in smoke, his face flushed, eyes bright with the reflection of the fire. The crossbow was swinging around rapidly, ready to fire at her. Kiri saw the metal tip of the bolt glint in the firelight.
She reached out as she saw his fingers tighten on the trigger, bringing her left arm around in an instinctive defensive move, grabbing one of the supporting posts in the room as she tried to move aside.
Arm, fingers, squeezing … catch it! Twist him off balance!
She felt the trigger release as if she was holding it herself. She watched, as if in slow motion, as the tension was applied to the bolt.
Too late!
She couldn’t stop it. No time to make him move his shoulder, elbow or wrist.
Move!
The crossbow fired.
The bolt flew across the room, faster than the eye could follow.
Then there was nothing but the screaming.
Agonising, terrifying pain.
Pain like she’d never experienced before, searing from her hand up her arm like the fire that raged around her, pounding at her in throbbing waves. Shock cours
ed through her, scattering her thoughts, overwhelming her mind.
She forced herself to look, horrified to see the crossbow bolt had pinned her left hand to the post straight through the palm. She could feel the metal grate horrendously against her tendons and bones. Dizziness flooded across her, the pain scalding. Her vision tunnelled in around the edges of her vision as she struggled to stay upright.
She heard laughter and looked up to see Torin looking at her.
‘Scallian justice, witch,’ Torin sneered. ‘Never again will you darken our lands. Burn!’
She couldn’t answer, it was all she could do to stay on her feet.
He moved backwards as a wooden beam crashed down between them, scattering sparks and embers in all directions. The doors she had come through slammed shut. She heard the thump of something being used to bar the entrance.
Trapped!
She could feel the heat now. The flames had reached the roof, spreading rapidly around her.
Blood was slick over the fingers of her left hand. She was trembling violently and was unable to stop it, but it was only making the situation worse. Pain spurted from her pinned hand. She grasped the crossbow bolt with her right and pulled, but it was embedded too deeply for her to move.
No barb … only one choice …
Gritting her teeth she positioned her right hand around her left, took a series of deep breaths and pulled sharply up.
She screamed in torment at the movement, lights sparkling in her vision.
The pain doubled, tripled in intensity, excruciating. It was so shocking that she was unable to think for a moment, unable to see if she’d successfully freed herself. Her vision blurred and she was on her knees without knowing it. Part of her mind knew she was in mortal danger, but the pain drove even that priority from her mind for long moments of exquisite agony.
But she was free, the pain subsided enough for her to be able to think again. Blood was flowing freely from her ruined hand, coating her fingers in sticky hot redness. She gasped, trying to stop the world from whirling about her.
A rattling breathing sound brought her attention back to Charis. She crawled unsteadily across to her mentor, reaching out as she’d been taught, feeling veins, blood pulsing, feeling the mass of the bolt that had pierced her heart, fluids leaking … pain. More pain.
Charis’ mind touched hers.
Charis! How do I …
You can’t child. You must flee!
An astonishing acceptance of the situation flooded across the mental link between them. Kiri’s shook her head in dismay.
No! We’ve got to get back to Daine! You’ve got to let them know what happened here!
Charis shook her head. Kiri could already feel the link slipping away.
You must tell them, Kiri. You must get away … only you can save Drayden now …
I can’t! Don’t ask me to …
The link was becoming fuzzy. Tears rolled down Kiri’s cheeks, glittering in the flames that roared around her.
Charis, don’t leave me. I love you …
The link focussed for a moment. Peace and calm.
Kiri, listen to me. Don’t give into violence, don’t let it consume …
Kiri deflected the feelings, her anger and rage boiling within her, magnified by Charis’ pain and her own.
They deserved it! They murdered …
No. Find a way, a peaceful way, always, don’t … meet … violence … Lacaille …
Charis!
I love you, little Kiri …
With shocking abruptness, Charis mind disappeared. Kiri pushed, but felt only a vague receding echo of her friend and mentor.
No! Don’t! Charis!
But there was nothing. A void, shocking in its emptiness, darker than the deepest shadows. Kiri screamed at the fresh pain flooding her soul. Anguish beyond mere physical torture. The flames around her nothing compared to the fire in her soul.
So much for healing, so much for all I learnt! When the time came I couldn’t save the one dearest to me!
Something stirred behind her. Kiri turned to see the second guard rolling on to his side and getting to his feet, shaking his head. He looked around, seeing the flames rising, coughing on the thickening smoke. He stumbled to his feet and ran to door, bashing against it when he found it barred.
Kiri’s eyes hardened as she fastened her gaze on him, trembling. She reached out with her good hand and grasped her kai which still lay on the floor near Charis’ body.
She got unsteadily to her feet.
She watched as he backed away, pressed against the door.
‘I was just doing what I was told,’ he stuttered. ‘Just orders …’
Scallian justice? You will feel my justice!
Kiri advanced on him, not listening, her mind spinning with caustic vengeful thoughts.
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ he stuttered. ‘Otherwise we’ll both die … the fire!’
She ignored him and brought her kai around to strike with her good hand. He held up his hands in a futile gesture of defence, yelling as his outstretched arm was broken. Kiri didn’t relent, striking into his chin and lifting his head, making him stumble, his jaw broken and dislodged.
The next blow took his legs out from underneath him and he fell on to his back.
Still Kiri didn’t stop. The kai snapped down vertically, cracking ribs with each impact. He yelled and then coughed blood, desperately trying to hold her away, to no avail.
A blow to the head, cracking a cheekbone, blood. Screams of pain. Another blow. The screams became feral and animal-like. It felt delicious to her, but it was a mere aperitif to her incendiary wrath.
Kiri dealt a final blow, feeling her kai crunch through the guard’s nose and into his brain. The screams stopped, leaving just the body twitching beneath her.
Only then did she see what she had done, stumbling back. The guard’s body was gruesome, disfigured.
Blood was everywhere. Charis’ blood, the guard’s blood, her blood. Blood was always everywhere. It always ended in blood. Whenever you tried to reason with people, someone died. First Tia, then Choso, now Charis, the guard. Blood. Redness.
No more.
She wouldn’t let it happen again. If you were a threat, you had to be dealt with before you carried out your deed.
She looked at Charis’ body. The fire was close now, thick black smoke billowing around Kiri, causing her to cough. There was no time left.
‘You were wrong Charis!’ she cried out in anguish. ‘Peace is not the way. Kill or be killed. Fire, blood and death!’
She drew a deep breath and began kicking at the locked doors, using the techniques she’d learnt from Nerina, channelling her aggression into efficient blows. The doors buckled on their hinges and cracked outwards. Kiri scrambled through and out into the hall behind.
As she glanced backwards the room collapsed in a shower of sparks and burning debris.
Torin had retrieved a herg from the courtyard and brought the local garrison to order. He’d tried to prevent the fire from spreading, but supplies of water were few and panic was quickly taking the people of the town. He looked up as a crackling roar reached his ears. Fire was rising from many of the wooden buildings. The fire was spreading, fanned by a stiff breeze from the valley, nothing was going to stop it. Varda was lost.
People were running in fear, taking with them whatever they could grab before the flames consumed them. Smoke billowed, thick and grey, obscuring the remaining buildings. He frowned, there was something …
There! In the smoke.
He saw a figure step out of the swirling smoke and, in dismay, recognised it as the young witch he’d shot and locked inside the hall.
She escaped! But how?
People were fleeing from her in all directions. As he watched several of them stumbled and fell, clutching their heads in sudden agony and falling full length upon the ground. It didn’t matter who they were, young or old, men, women or children. All fell before the unholy power of
the young witch, writhing on the ground before lying still. Those that were close enough were struck by a brutal swing of the staff she carried.
‘Form up!’ he yelled. ‘Archers to the front!’
The garrison around him wrestled their unwilling hergs about, setting them slightly aside, so as to be able to shoot. The bows came up, along with a small number of crossbows.
‘Aim!’
He could see her now, the one the leader had called ‘Kiri’, marching outwards from the burning buildings, heedless of the carnage she had caused about her. She was looking up, looking towards him.
A screech of noise reached his ears. A rending shriek of anger and rage. He felt a wave of hatred wash over him and a sense of recognition swirled around like a noose.
Huge black wings swept through the smoke, beating, flapping. Whirls of dust blasting towards him, forcing him to blink and shield their eyes. Torin heard the down stroke of the creature before another gust of wind whipped the dust and smoke into another frenzy.
‘Fire! Scorch it, fire!’
But there was nothing to aim at, nothing to shoot. The dust settled, the smoke blew to one side. The men of the garrison looked about them in alarm. The young witch was gone, plucked away by the beast she had ridden on. Torin looked up and saw a black shape already high in the sky. A dach, with a rider aboard …
Words formed in his mind, unbidden. Anger and wrath rose about him like a black cape.
I know you Torin of Scallia. I will see you dead for what you have done.
The voice faded, the dach turning and flying swiftly sunwards.
Torin watched its departure with satisfaction.
‘Take that message back to your people, witch!’ he yelled into the sky.
I have defied them and lived. We have won this round. And I know their secrets, they are not invincible. Liana has her war!
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Coast of Scallia, Shadeward of Dynesia
Round 2306, Eleventh Pass
The Mobilis cruised slowly up the estuary which continued to narrow on either side of the ship as the speed of the current had increased. Meru, watching from the bow with the ’scope, wondered how much further they would be able to navigate upstream. The sea bed below was rising up underneath them and they’d spotted rocks hereabouts. They were running at little more than a crawl.
