19
Jess! Infernal strike! Beware!" Her familiar's cry was but an instant too late.
A wave of fire and blackest fury, washing away the pain.
Jess picked herself up, shaking, horrified by what she saw.
Her blade, a twisted mass of warped steel.
It had been struck and destroyed even as she had torn through the infernal spell launched toward her, and Jess hissed to see the remnants of a smoking black dagger, still glowing with runes that seared themselves upon Jess's mind.
She allowed herself only a moment's disbelief.
She wondered if even that spell had been but a diversion.
"Malek! Alex!" Jess cried out as she looked across the courtyard. Everyone around her had fallen.
She shook with horrified disbelief.
She had done everything she could to disrupt that awful spell before it boiled everyone alive.
She fell to her knees, trembling hands hovering just over her brother-in-arms.
Malek, groaning, picking himself up with a chuckle, ash and soot upon his smiling face.
Jess felt her heart lift with joy, wanting nothing so much as to race into his arms and hug him fiercely. “Malek, thank the gods!”
“Jess!” His gaze immediately hardened. Jess looked the way he pointed, peripherally sensing the men about them cough and groan and pick themselves up, grateful beyond words that somehow they had survived that horrific attack, even as the very cobblestones had been shattered and scorched.
Yet the moment Jess took in her foe she refused to look away, hand clenching furiously for a sword that was not there.
Mace. Strapped to her side.
It would have to do.
Flanges upon her mace. Scars to come as she grimaced with pain, hands shaking with too much fury to be graceful as she rubbed her cut face and bleeding lips against edges intended more for gripping armor than cutting flesh, finding a curious, dark satisfaction as the steel head began to bubble and smoke.
“Impressive,” said their robed enemy, negligently applauding. “All in all, a very impressive display this evening.” The man smiled coldly.
Jess felt her heart lurch a second time.
She knew that face.
It was a man whom she had liked and trusted the moment she had met him.
One from whom she had sensed absolutely no malice, not even now, as his jaded gaze flickered from fallen soldiers to the pair Delvers before him, his mask of geniality utterly stripped away. For his was the icy gaze of one who understood the virtues of utter ruthlessness and the nuances of command, blossoming into his powers from the time Jess had been an infant in her mother's arms.
It was none other than Seneschal Chelton.
Duke diOnni's right-hand man. Privy to all his secrets, smiling so coldly at Jess and the wheezing duke as well, as the man stumbled to his feet, helped by an oddly gentle Malek.
His once fawning obsequiousness had been replaced by an expression of bold arrogance, the seneschal moving with a vitality that showed the gentle, frail older servitor had been but a mask concealing a deadly serpent of a man, more than ready to strike those who had once trusted him completely.
"Chelton. By the gods, Chelton, what have you done?" The duke gazed at the man he had once so clearly admired and depended upon with a look of utter disbelief.
Chelton's cruel laughter rang through the courtyard.
“A very good question, my duke. Indeed, I was rather impressed to find that you had actually made good on your escape.” A negligent gesture. One Jess recognized all too well, immediately sending out a surge of her will, crying forth.
Answered in turn by a rain of carefully aimed crossbow bolts abruptly shattering in the air, wooden shafts falling harmlessly to the ground by their feet.
The screams of men nursing broken or bruised hands from crossbows suddenly snapping to pieces under the weight of their own strings could also be heard.
Chelton gave a coldly bemused smile.
And still Jess could sense no malice from him, at least not towards her. None at all. Her one trump card to spot those who would betray her, yet from him it was strangely absent.
He caught her shocked gaze and smiled.
“Very impressive, Jessica de Calenbry, beloved get of my ultimate mistress.” His low, throaty chuckle set Jess's teeth on edge. “My, how you do look like her, the way your eyes blaze with hate. Tell me, how many men have you slain in hot rage and cold blood this evening?”
Jess froze, despite herself.
“Ah, I see. Covered in it, are we? Tell me girl, how do you feel?” Her enemy taunted her with his smile. “We are not so very different, child, when you get down to the thick of it. Both of us trained for war and slaughter. Both of us masters of the killing arts.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Alas, my time here is limited, girl, and you have proven to be an exceptional thorn in my side. So I'm afraid we only have time for one final dance, you and I, and if you best me? By all means, come to Pomell. Someone very close to you is waiting for you there!”
Even as he said the words he raced to the attack, his blackened saber unsheathed with a master's grace. Possessing only the slightest of curves, it was a fencer's saber, his weapon as deadly in the thrust as the cut.
Jess felt time slow to a crawl with the terror and fury of mortal combat, knowing it would be a desperate struggle just to survive. Chelton's saber lashed out like a thing possessed, crackling with unholy fire, pummeling her with a dizzying Alexias of slashes, Jess desperately countering with poniard reflexively unsheathed, dreading it would shatter, for all that another hot sting told her how skilled she had become at marking her weapons with the fires of her own blood.
For the moment, the poniard held, but not before Jess hissed with a sting of pain, the vicious saber cut she had barely deflected with poniard having skittered off to nick her shin. Her leg burned with fire, for all that it was but the shallowest of cuts.
Chelton sprang back, blade in high guard, aimed for her throat. “I see I have first blood.” His laughter was low and cruel. “Fear not, Jessica de Calenbry. Even after you have been disemboweled, your friends dead at your feet, you will be permitted to live, as I drag your infernal body to Pomell myself!”
With that he roared and charged, though not before unleashing a hail of fire upon three of Velice's swordsmen, having regained their wits sufficient to charge.
“No!” Jess screamed, lashing out desperately with her mace to slice through the infernal chords of magic, but it was too late. Three strong, vital swordsmen were reduced to heaps of ash in a brilliant burst of white heat. Not even sufficient time to scream.
"By the gods!" Duke diOnni whispered, Chelton chuckling cruelly even as he launched a blistering offensive, lashing at Jess with a dizzying Alexias of crosscuts she tried desperately to parry with mace and dagger in tandem, keeping her weapons in line, desperately biding her time even as her foe utterly mastered the Vor.
She hardly registered his snapping kick, so focused she was on her blade, only her inhuman Delver's resiliency keeping her knee from collapsing. She hissed even as Chelton laughed, spinning about with supernatural grace, his blade streaking forth in a strike that would have disemboweled her, if her mithril hauberk had not been in play. Jess gasped and lurched, desperately fighting for balance and control as she rocked with sudden pain. For all her Delver's strength, Chelton's thrust to her gut had hit like a charging lance, his blade darting as fast as Jess's ever had. She knew even losing her focus for a second would be all the opening her foe would need to finish her off. No doubt sensing her momentary weakness, Chelton lashed out with frenetic intensity, eyes glimmering with darkest madness, lips stretched in a hideous parody of a smile.
Desperately Jess parried and countered, step-sliding back, even as her soldiers cried out, a score of spearmen charging out of the manor in unison.
“Jess!” Malek roared, and Jess could just feel her shieldbrother tearing through their enemies with savage fury, inhuman
skill alone allowing him to survive being overwhelmed by a score of enemies wielding polearms, Jess realizing only then that their foe had carefully maneuvered them apart so that her gifts could aid Malek little as she desperately fought for her own life.
“Divide and conquer, wench! Rule one of warfare!” And Jess gasped, lurching away, another searing cut telling her Chelton had scored her flesh yet again.
Jess smiled coldly then, understanding at last. Knowing that even with unwieldy mace in hand, lacking aught but a parrying dagger to counter as no shield would survive an infernally burning blade, Jess was still good enough to protect her head, but her lower legs were vulnerable.
If Chelton managed to cripple her and she collapsed, his goal of subduing her would be accomplished, whether or not he truly sought to disembowel her.
Jess could feel her Delver's strength begin to trickle away from the burning cuts and mounting bruises as she continued to give ground before this hellishly enhanced infernalist. His dark magics, at least, she could now sense, crackling about him with a fierce and terrible heat. Yet even that had been utterly veiled from her, until the moment his weapon had sipped her blood.
“Jess! You know what you must do!” Twilight shouted in the pause between beats, Jess and Chelton measuring each other once more.
Her foe smiled and Jess understood at once that delay only favored him, as her legs continued to bleed and Malek was overwhelmed by fanatic spearmen. Gods only knew if Alex or his brother or the other men were alive, or how long they would last.
“Surrender, Jessica de Calenbry, and I shall spare your friends.”
No malice, but a fair bit of cruel delight in her present pain. Did he know that she could now at least taste the edges of his gleeful little lie, his gaze locked onto her own?
Jess sighed, arms falling in exhaustion. “Very well, Chelton, I admit it. First blood is yours. What are your terms?”
Chelton's grin turned fierce, gloating.
Her foe had been blessed by hideous dark magics an unholy echo of her Delver's gifts. Powers that had been so perfectly cloaked from her until now. Yet the secret of his disguise was irrelevant in that moment. She couldn't hope to be able to parry and counter simultaneously with a mace meant for the fury of fully armed melee, not against an expert swordsman. Her opponent, light on his feet and with a Delver's speed, wielding an infernal blade able to cut through any protection save perhaps her mithril, held what was by far the superior weapon. She dueled against a man who had been training since before she had been born. Any cautious exchange would only delay the inevitable.
In that moment Jess screamed for all she was worth, charging into Chelton with a berserker's fury.
Desperate to seize the Vor.
She laughed in bittersweet triumph as she feinted with her dagger, though it was no feint at all, plunging for his heart in earnest, barely parried with his offhand, even she slammed into him as she had practiced scores of times before when sparring in full armor, pivoting before allowing her mace arm to wrap behind his back as she crashed into him, twisting her body so that the full force of her blow whipped along the length her arm, her mace head smashing with terrific force into the back of Chelton's skull.
His look of horrified disbelief was almost worth the agony of his deadly rebuttal, for Jess's only defense was crashing into her foe. The back of Chelton's head caved in even as his eyes ruptured from the pressure, splattering Jess with gore an instant after his infernally tainted blade had torn through her shin, cleaving her left leg off in a spray of blood.
Jess shrieked in unspeakable agony, feeling her life pour out in a searing gush of crimson fire, sensing the swirling blackness of shock and death gently come calling upon her soul's doorstep.
-It is not time yet, my mistress- A voice echoing with the roar of the fiery stars above, calling her, compelling her.
-Remember power newly awakened. The fierce hot taste of spirits cleaved free in nightmares just delivered from, the darkest of souls throbbing with power, even now struggling to free itself from your clutches-
Knowing she was somehow lost in dream, Jess looked down at her crumpled form, leg completely cleaved at the knee, spraying a fountain of blood upon the cobblestones. Chelton's corpse beside her, his skull crushed to a crimson paste by her terrible mace.
And his soul, squirming and screaming in her mind's grip.
She smiled coldly, knowing exactly what needed to be done.
For he had never cleaved her leg free. His blade had done no more than nick it, she told herself, even as she took the screaming thread of his soul, heeding her familiar's coldly clinical directions, sewing countless stitches in a fine webbing of flesh and bloodmagic -and darker magics still. Don't think about it, don't think about it.- Her enemy's very soul the thread of her restoration, her cleaved limb stitched together from the tiniest filaments tingling with life to the cleaved bone itself, restored once more, fragile, yet whole once more. No longer did she sink into death with her life's-blood shooting out upon the cobblestones.
It had been but a nick, after all.
A flesh wound, the vile Chelton not having quite connected, she told herself, even as the threads of his soul shrieked and throbbed. A curious ache that would heal in a number of days. She was sure.
And even as she felt herself drift off in heady waves of exhaustion, the annoying prick of her familiar's paw forcing her to hang on to bitter awareness awhile longer.
“Malek,” was all Twilight needed to say.
She opened herself to him, felt his fury and agony both, cruel spears having bruised his flesh under padded mail, none having punctured through, yet. She sensed his peril, even has he weaved and dodged with a master blademan's skill, bloodballs spinning and knocking aside shafts even as others pricked his form, his inhuman Delver's strength, only a fraction of what it was in the depths of Shadow, bled out by numerous shallow cuts to shin, feet, wherever the armor did not fully protect.
With a fierce act of will Jess heightened their connection, his gasp of surprise a terrible vulnerability, were it not coupled with every spear aimed toward him suddenly twisting themselves madly away, the infernally aligned soldiers gazing in horror at their own treacherous spears even as Malek whooped in triumph, understanding at once what it meant, rallying the surviving men fighting at their side with a roar even as he spearheaded the charge into them, seizing the Vor and butchering them with savage glee before they could drop shafts that would not strike, their foes struggling to draw swords even as Malek and his men tore through them without quarter or mercy, pulling victory from the clutches of bitterest sorrow.
Jess smiled then as she sensed the last of their enemies fall, praying in her mind that Alex and his brother and cousin were safe, even as she suddenly looked up into Duke diOnni's gentle countenance, features gazing so tenderly into her own, before roaring blackness claimed her at last.
20
Jess dreamt strange dreams, then. A young girl, leading her friends through dark caverns, searching in vain for the telltale signs of daylight, two of the boys crying that they would never get home, so alike they were, near identical, for all that they were father and son. Her brother Malek grinned. “We can always fight in the Shadows, sister. No need to muck about in the day.”
The young girl Jess knew to be Josie pouted at that. “We're not all built like you and Jess, Malek. Some of us are fragile souls, even if you two are something else entirely.”
Jess sighed and nodded, well aware of just how delicate her friends were.
“It's because they pulled us where we didn't belong,” Raphael nodded, his father smiling his agreement. Jess had the curious urge to rub their tousled curls, so adorable they looked as little boys.
“But wasn't it exciting, guys?” Malek enthused, “we got to Delve in places dark and terrible, find monsters in the guise of people and slay them!”
Josie sighed. “You enjoy hunting and killing, Malek, for you are like the wolf, eternally hunting for prey. The rest of us
are different. We blossom not under the light of the Hunter's Moon, but rather the gentle rays of the morning sun.”
Malek pouted at this before at last nodding his understanding. “Jess is always making such fragile friends.”
“Yet they are your friends no less for that,” counseled Twilight, just at that moment showing up, rubbing his cheek against Malek's side.
“Silly cat.” The boy grinned, gently scratching a purring Twilight.
“Not such a bad shape you have taken, Malek, for all that you tease. Fingers are rather useful, after all.”
Malek nodded his agreement, and for a curious moment Jess saw her friend as a great wolf, fierce and terrible, even as her other friends appeared as gentle dear, liquid brown eyes gazing at her so peacefully as they searched for the light of day and gentle forest glades to rest within once more.
Twilight turned his gaze to Jess then, fierce sapphire eyes all seriousness once more. “It's time for you to awaken, Jess. Your friends have been on the outskirts for too long. Pull them free and awaken. We don't have much time.”
Jess frowned. “But my leg still hurts. That stupid man cut it clean off.”
Twilight grinned. "Are you sure of that, my mistress?"
Jess looked down at her leg, as whole as the day she was born, for all that she felt poor Chelton screaming still. “He's stuck in there, isn't he?”
Twilight sighed and nodded. “The price he paid, crossing you. You embraced the darkest of all arts as you hovered by death's door, and soon he shall be utterly consumed by your hideous hunger, never to be reborn again.”
Oblivion's Queen Page 24
