And then Kronos gritted his teeth and seized her breast in a vicious, viselike grip spiked with thorns of magic intended to inflict excruciating torment.
The sudden sharp shock of pain made her gasp a breath before she realized she was doing it.
The air felt hot with life as it flooded into her lungs. Without conscious thought, she instinctively struck out with her Han at the cause of the piercing pain.
Kronos cried out and staggered back, cradling the hand that had been on her and dealing out his revenge. Blood ran down his wrist and under the sleeve of his robe.
Although she had been able to get him to release her, and even to injure him, she was still too disoriented to muster the force necessary to get past the formidable defenses of a wizard in order to kill him. She panted, gulping air, even though each breath hurt. She knew, though, that it hurt far more not to be able to get a breath.
“You filthy bitch!” he yelled. “How dare you use your power against me! You cannot hope to match me with the gift. You will soon enough learn your place.”
His face flushed red with anger. With a thin thread of her Han Nicci could sense the powerful shields the man had erected before himself. Before he had, though, she had seared the flesh off his fingers. He held the trembling hand to his breast. She knew full well that his intent was to extract prolonged and gruesome retribution.
He ranted at her, cursing and calling her names, telling her what he intended to do with her and what would become of her once he was finished with her. The grins of the men watching widened at hearing the nature of those plans.
He thought she was a sorceress and that he could overpower her gift with his. He did not know that she was far more; she had become a Sister of the Dark. Even if he knew that much, Kronos might not have understood, as few people did, the full and terrible meaning behind that appellation. A Sister of the Dark wielded not only her own gift, but the Han of a wizard as well; his gift was taken before he passed through the veil into death.
As if the combined gift of a sorceress and wizard was not formidable enough, added into that powerful mix was Subtractive Magic gained while the veil was parted at the instant of the donor wizard’s death. His own Han acted as the conduit, and she held within herself that power as the Subtractive essence slipped through the veil.
There were few people who could command Subtractive Magic: Richard by birth, and the Sisters of the Dark by contrivance. All of the Sisters of the Dark were now captives of Jagang except for Nicci and four others—three of Richard’s former teachers from the Palace of the Prophets and their leader, Sister Ulicia.
Kronos shook his bloody fist at Nicci. “The people of Altur’Rang are traitors! They have defiled a holy place! In turning away from the ways of the Order they have turned away from the Creator Himself. Through our hands, the Creator will have His revenge and smite these sinful people. We will cleanse Altur’Rang not just of their flesh and bone but of their unenlightened ways! The Imperial Order will once again rule Altur’Rang and from there Jagang the Just will rule the world under the rightful ways of the Creator!”
Nicci almost laughed. Kronos had no idea that he was speaking to the person who had given Jagang the title of “Jagang the Just.” She had told the emperor that such pronouncements of justice under his rule would win over a great number of people without having to fight them. He had been willing to battle them all; she alone had been able to make him see that it was to his benefit to have them rally to his side of their own free will. She told Jagang that the name she had given him would bring the people to him.
She had been all too right. Many people equated intentions with the actual deed. The title she had given Jagang was now widely believed by people who didn’t know much at all about him or the Order. It never failed to amaze her how simply saying something, no matter how untrue, was all it took to convince a large number of people of what you wanted them to believe. She supposed that it was easier for them to let someone else do their thinking for them.
Kronos’s tirade had bought her time to recover. With her strength returning, Nicci couldn’t afford to wait another instant.
She straightened her arm, pointing her fist up toward him. She wanted to draw her force out the length of her arm to let it build and converge at a point just beyond her fist. While it wasn’t at all necessary, she wanted to do it that way simply because it pleased her to let Kronos see her overt threat.
Confident in his ability, and the shields of his power, her hostile posture only served to further enrage him. “How dare you threaten—”
She released a tight bolt of Additive and Subtractive Magic laced together in a fearsome cord of destruction that arced through the wizard’s shields like lightning through paper and blew a mellon-sized hole right through the center of his chest.
Kronos’s eyes snapped wide. His mouth hung open in mute shock as his mind registered the irredeemable.
Through that hole, Nicci could see the sky. Almost instantly the internal pressure forced what remained of his surrounding organs into the void and then out the opening as Kronos’s mortally wounded body toppled back.
The man hadn’t known that his power was no match for hers. He could only conjure shields of Additive Magic. Such shields were of limited use against Subtractive Magic.
All around her weapons were already being lifted. Powerful muscles drew bowstrings to cheeks. Arms with spears cocked back, the iron tips all pointing at her along with swords, axes, and pikes.
Without pause Nicci unleased a blast of opposing magic twined together in a shattering ignition that in ruinous fury leveled the officers’ tents and blasted through the men on the knoll. The devastating concussion radiated outward in a circle at breathtaking speed, stripping flesh from bone. The ground was made muddy by the sudden deluge of blood.
The heat that had been focused into the blast was so intense that nearby trees erupted in flame. The clothes of men in the surrounding camp who had been rushing to meet the threat also caught fire. The flesh of those a little closer ignited. Men closer yet were ripped apart by the thunderous discharge of Nicci’s power. The force of what she had unleashed dissipated with distance and men farther away were only sent sprawling.
Such an extreme effort was risky because it was so draining, but it had the desired effect. In an instant the situation had changed from arrogant brutes gloating over a captive woman to confusion and panic.
Fearing to lose the initiative, she focused intense heat into the trunks of trees along the creek bank behind the men. It was a method of getting a large return for a small investment of power. Superheated sap instantly boiled into steam and the massive cottonwood trunks exploded in thunderous blasts, sending heavy sections of splintered wood spiraling though the crowds of men, cutting them down by the dozens.
Nicci swiftly conjured a liquid fire and sent the inferno spilling out across the field and into the confusion, igniting men, horses, and equipment in the terrible fury of roaring flames. The screams of man and beast melted together into one, long, terrible cry. The air smelled of oily smoke as well as burning hair and flesh.
At last, men were no longer charging in at her. In the brief break, Nicci struggled to get up from the blood-soaked ground. She stumbled through the carnage. Sa’din raced forward through the thick haze and nudged her with his head, helping her to find her balance. She threw an arm over his neck, relieved that she had succeeded in directing her power around him and that he was all right.
She finally seized the reins and, grunting with effort, managed to pull herself up on the horse before men could spear him, or slash her, or send arrows at them. She spun Sa’din around, all the time casting boiling gouts of fire out among the men as they again began rushing in at her. As they caught on fire, they stumbled blindly, shrieking, flailing, crashing into other men or into tents, spreading the deadly conflagration.
A man on one of the big warhorses suddenly galloped out of the smoke. The soldier raised his sword as he screamed a battle cry. Befor
e Nicci could do anything, Sa’din bellowed in rage and snapped, ripping the warhorse’s ear off. The wounded horse screamed in terror and pain as it spun and bucked. The soldier was sent flying into the burning bodies.
Nicci directed a web of power at men rushing in at her, each in turn—just for an instant, but long enough to stop their hearts. They stumbled, clutching their chests. In a way, it was more frightening for men to see their comrades gasp and drop from a mysterious cause than it was to see them rent by violence. From Nicci’s point of view it was just as effective and it didn’t take as much of her strength; even though it required specific targeting, stopping a heart was easier than conjuring flames or lightning. With so many men all around her and all rushing in at her, she knew she was going to need all her strength if she hoped to get out of the camp alive.
While the men in the immediate area knew what was happening, as of yet those in the outlying areas of the camp weren’t fully aware of what was specifically going on, although they now knew they were under some sort of attack. Being well trained, they all rallied.
From all directions, arrows zipped through the air. Spears began flying past. An arrow flicked through Nicci’s hair. Another clipped her shoulder just enough to cut her. Nicci drummed her heels against Sa’din’s ribs and lay forward over his whithers. She was astonished at the power with which the horse leaped away. He fearlessly galloped right through men rushing in at them. The stallion’s hooves made a sickening sound as they struck bone. Men tumbled away. Sa’din jumped over tents and fires. The air was alive with terrible screams. As she raced through the camp Nicci took every opportunity to inflict yet more death and destruction.
But from behind her, a swelling, angry roar began to lift from thousands upon thousands of men all the way across the valley. The power of it, the ferocity, was frightening.
Nicci vividly recalled Richard’s warning that all it would take was one lucky arrow. Now there were thousands. Nicci diverted her power from attacking to shielding her and her horse.
As Sa’din carried her back through the men, horses, wagons, and tents, Nicci let go of her defenses and again focused a scythe of her gift to slice through anything living that was close enough. The intensely concentrated and compacted edge of air sliced through men as they ran in to intercept her. As her horse leaped some obstacles and dodged others, that deadly edge of her power cut some men off at the knees and decapitated others. Horses screamed as their legs were cleaved from under them and they crashed to the ground. Shrieks of horror and pain from wounded men followed in her wake. But there were growing cries of rage.
As she charged through the camp, Nicci could see men all around swiftly saddling their horses and mounting up. Spears and lances were snatched from those stacked everywhere throughout the encampment. Nicci wished she could destroy the weapons, but she had to concentrate just to hold on to Sa’din as he bounded over anything in his way, including an occasional wagon. The horse seemed possessed to get her out of the danger as swiftly as possible. Even so, men in gathering numbers were taking up the chase, whether on horse or foot.
As she cleared the last of the tents, Nicci looked back over her shoulder. The place was in an uproar. Flames still shot skyward. Billowing clouds of oily black smoke rose in several places. She didn’t have any idea how many men she had killed, but there were thousands of them coming after her. The pounding she was taking atop a galloping horse was making her back hurt something fierce.
At least she had eliminated Kronos. They had tried to trick her, but in the end it had cost them a second wizard that she hadn’t even known they had with them and would have been terrible trouble for the defenders back at Altur’Rang. It had turned out to be a bit of good fortune.
As long as they didn’t have three wizards.
Chapter 28
As Nicci crested a hill, the first glimpse of the vast city in the distance was a beautiful sight. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed the thundering cavalry right on her heels. Nicci was able to see the raised swords, axes, spears, and lances glinting in the light of the setting sun like steel quills of an immense porcupine. The cloud of dust boiling up behind them blotted out the darkening eastern sky. The bloodthirsty battle cries were terrifying.
And that was only the cavalry. She knew that farther back came the tide of foot soldiers.
Even if the sun wouldn’t have been in her eyes, Nicci didn’t think that she could have spotted anyone in the city. That was as it should be. She wanted people, for the most part, to stay hidden. Even so, it was not reassuring to feel all alone with an angry hornets’ nest chasing her.
She had told Victor and Ishaq the route she would try to take when returning so that they could concentrate their defenses to the best advantage. She hoped they were ready. There hadn’t been a great deal of time to prepare. They would get no more, though; time was up.
With the city looming closer, Nicci at last spared the effort to snake her right arm through the sleeve of her dress, then reached back and threaded her left arm through the other sleeve. Holding the reins in one hand, leaning forward over the galloping horse’s withers, she at last managed to blindly button her dress back up. She smiled at the small victory.
The first small buildings flashed by. Although there had been a cutoff from the main road that would have more quickly gotten her into the confines of the city, Nicci had kept to the main road down out of the hills. Entering Altur’Rang, the road turned into a broad boulevard, the main east-west thoroughfare. As the buildings grew closer together, they also rose up higher. In places along the road trees lined the way. She could see fastened on the bark of those trees the split-open, empty skins of cicadas that had molted. It gave Nicci a fleeting memory of lying in the shelter, in the warmth of Richard’s arm.
Sa’din was sweating into a lather and she knew that he had to be tiring, but he didn’t show any sign of wanting to slow. She had to urge him to ease up just a little anyway so that the cavalry would get closer to her. She wanted them to believe they were catching her. Once a predator chasing prey was closing in they tended to lose sight of everything else. The instinct to chase was as strong in soldiers as it was in wolves. Nicci wanted them to throw caution to the winds as they ran her down, so she leaned a little to the side, making it look as if she might be wounded and ready to fall.
Running down the center of the road, trailing a ribbon of dust, she began to recognize groups of buildings. She remembered patterns of windows. She saw a butter-colored clapboard building to the left and red shutters to the right that she recognized. In the shadows down an alleyway just beyond a row of closely packed buildings that she knew were homes because of the laundry hanging on lines between them, she spotted some of the men hiding. They all had bows. She knew she wasn’t far.
She suddenly came upon the three story brick building. In the late light she almost didn’t recognize it. The spikes lying across the road were covered with a thin layer of dirt to hide them from the soldiers. As she galloped past, she spotted men hiding just around the corner, ready to pull up the spikes once she was by.
“Wait until most are past!” she called out to the waiting men just loud enough for them to hear but not so loud that those following could hear.
She saw one of them nod to her. She hoped they understood. If the spikes were pulled up at the head of the cavalry, bottlenecking them all, then only those in the lead would be taken out and most of those in the rear would escape injury and regroup. If that happened then they would have lost their chance to break up the cavalry. Nicci needed the defenders manning the spikes to allow most to get past.
Nicci looked back over her shoulder to see the big men with their weapons raised thundering past the brick building. Most cleared the rear of the building, but then, there was a sudden howling boom as charging warhorses crashed headlong into the iron spikes. Horses behind weren’t able to stop and violently collided with the animals that had been impaled. Riders cried out as they were crushed. Other men tumbled over the he
ads of their horses.
From the windows, arrows rained down as soldiers now on foot tried to halt the tail of the cavalry still charging in. Men desperately slowed their mounts. As they did they were hit with arrows. Men and horses were hit with a withering flight of arrows from several directions. Most of the men put an arm up, only to then realize that they had neglected to take the time to get their shields.
As the last of the riders were still crashing into the sudden blockade, Nicci went right at the fork in the wide road. The cavalry was right on her heels and swept down the street after her.
“Wait until half are past!” she yelled at the men hiding around the corner of a tall stone wall as she raced past.
Again came the hard impacts and terrible noise of animals screaming in pain and terror as they were unexpectedly impaled or torn open. Soldiers cried out as they were violently unhorsed. Men carrying spears rushed out from behind the building, running the soldiers through before they had a chance to get to their feet and fight. Axes, swords, and flails belonging to fallen soldiers were swept up by men to be used against the Order.
Some of the cavalry, fooled a second time, didn’t intend to be fooled again and at a full gallop peeled off from the main column, some taking another street to the left. Others turned down a narrow road to the right.
The riders following her had gone hardly any distance at all and had not had a chance to fully consider if they should break off the charge, when Nicci cleared the third barrier of iron spikes as men yanked them up and jammed posts in place. The horses just behind her crashed into the spikes. From immediately behind came the most terrible noise of the immense weight of horseflesh thudding into the lead animals already caught up on the iron spikes and stopped cold in their tracks. A great cry lifted from the cavalrymen as they were ensnared in the violent debacle. Almost at the same time the riders who had taken roads to the right and left suddenly found themselves caught up in the same iron traps. The enemy found themselves in a box canyon of brick and iron, rather than rock.
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