Standing her ground, Shailiha knew what the monster would likely do next, for she had seen it happen dozens of times this terrible night. Rearing back, the viper would suddenly launch at her, its talons and incisors flashing as it came. Holding her ground, the Jin’Saiou summoned her courage and defiantly glared back.
But rather than charging, the Blood Viper opened its mouth wider, hissing again and exposing its forked tongue. Only too late did Shailiha sense the danger and swivel to one side. As the viper spat its venom, the shock of seeing the acidic poison fly through the air was so great that the danger seemed to come at her in slow motion. Even so, she could not move fast enough.
The green substance flew through the air and hit the left side of her face. Smoke immediately rose from her burning skin, and the pain ripping through her eye was unimaginable. Screaming wildly, she covered her stricken face with one hand while trying to hold onto her precious sword with the other. But the pain was too much and she fell to the bloody square, her sword slipping from her grasp to rattle down onto the bloody cobblestones. Sensing his chance, the viper moved in for the kill.
Slithering forward, the thing reared up alongside Shailiha’s prostrate body to hiss viciously and look down on its greatest victory. The liver of the Jin’Saiou would grant it inordinate power.
Bending closer, the thing curiously tilted its awful head back and forth as it luxuriated in the sight of its terrible handiwork. Despite the many dangers surrounding the viper, it knew that this woman of supremely endowed blood was the conquest of a lifetime, and he was determined to savor her. First he would kill her slowly by strangulation; only then would he rip her open and take her liver. Smiling, the thing spread wide its talons and reached down for Shailiha’s exposed neck.
He never saw the silver blur that killed him. Coming directly from behind, the Minion’s returning wheel sliced straight through the thing’s neck, severing its head from its body without stopping. Soaring on nearly unfettered, the wheel careened through the air in a perfect circle back toward its master.
Reaching up, Traax expertly caught the bloody wheel in the leaded glove covering his left hand, then quickly returned it to its resting place at one hip. Running with all his might, he abandoned any thought of his own safety and tore across the chaotic square to kneel beside the stricken princess. When he turned her over and looked at her face, the air rushed from his lungs.
Shailiha was near death, the left side of her face ravaged by the viper’s venom. Smoldering and hissing, the terrible venom was still doing its awful work and burning deep craters in her skin. Traax hurriedly removed a kerchief from beneath his armor, but when he tried to wipe away the venom, the cloth also started to hiss and steam, forcing him to stop.
Reaching down, he touched the side of her neck. He found a heartbeat, but its rhythm was weak and slow. Just then the Jin’Saiou started to regain consciousness, and her burned eyelids fluttered open. Screaming and writhing in exquisite pain, her one good eye beseechingly looked up at Traax. As she did, the Minion commander tried his best to hide his shock.
Shailiha’s left eye had been nearly destroyed.
The eyeball was pitted and glassy, and vitreous fluid ran from it, crazily tracing down her severely pockmarked cheek. Traax could easily tell that the eye was blinded, and he sadly guessed that it would never again see the light of day. As her good eye moved frantically about, her damaged one did not copy its movements, telling Traax that the muscles of the affected eye had also been damaged by the viper’s venom.
Screaming again, Shailiha madly reached out to grasp Traax’s shoulders. There was only one thing to do, he realized. Quickly overpowering her with his strong arms, he wrestled her back down atop the bloody cobblestones.
“Forgive me…” he said quietly.
Reaching out, he used two fingers of one hand to find the carotid artery on the right side of her neck, and he pressed hard. Eight seconds later the princess was again unconscious. Picking her up in his arms, Traax unfolded his strong wings and took to the air.
“IS SHE DEAD?” AEOLUS ASKED.
Faegan did his best to wipe the tears from his face, but even more came to take their places. “Yes,” he answered simply, his voice little more than a tremulous whisper. Taking his eyes from the shrouded body lying before him, he sadly looked around.
After much hard fighting, the battle had finally been won. The last of the Blood Vipers had been corralled, and incensed Minions were eagerly beheading them on Faegan’s orders. Khristos had not been among the dead, nor had anyone reported seeing him. That realization continued to deeply worry Faegan despite his overwhelming grief.
He and Aeolus had loosed azure bolts at the enemy until they had nearly collapsed with exhaustion, killing hundreds of vipers in the process. The acolytes and consuls who had also rushed here from the Redoubt had killed many more. Four loyal acolytes and seven worthy consuls lay dead, not to mention the still uncounted Minions who had also perished. Each surviving mystic had suffered venom burns and talon wounds, some of them serious.
Much of the stricken neighborhood remained aflame, but the Minions were battling the fires. Faegan watched as throngs of citizens wandered aimlessly through the bloody streets in search of loved ones. The sounds of crying children, neighing horses, wildly barking dogs, and groaning citizens and Minions still filled the air. Duvessa and her warrior-healers were doing everything they could to stem the suffering, but they too were exhausted and could only do so much. The gutters ran red with blood, bodies and body parts littered the shiny cobblestones, and hungry flies were already gathering atop the corpses. As the news of the singularly important death spread, all the surviving mystics and hundreds of spent Minion warriors had congregated to mourn the shrouded corpse lying in the street.
Faegan wearily moved his chair closer. Her courageous death will long be remembered, he realized, and her life’s story would resonate in everyone’s consciousness for longer still. How can we possibly tell Tristan and Wigg about our failure to protect her? he wondered. Will either of them ever trust us again? Still unable to believe, with a trembling hand he reached down and pulled back the makeshift shroud.
Abbey had died quickly, they told him. She was last seen fighting three vipers at once, and she had succumbed to their attacks before Minion warriors could reach her. She bled out quickly from the viper talons that had slashed at her throat, then she had fallen to the ground, where her innards were ravaged by the terrible beasts. Finally some frantically struggling warriors reached her and ensured that the vipers responsible for her death had suffered horribly before being killed.
Faegan looked down at her face with bleary eyes. The herbmistress and partial adept had been instrumental in defeating Wulfgar and Serena, and in ensuring that the Vigors had not perished from the earth. Many of the people gathered here owed their lives to her several times over. She had been a handsome woman, with long dark hair lightly streaked with gray, a strong jaw, and a shapely figure. The only partial adept on the Conclave, her specialized use of the craft would be sorely missed. Faegan had enhanced her time enchantments so that her body would not immediately fall to dust, even though she had been more than three centuries old. Raising his head, Faegan looked out across the carnage-ridden neighborhood.
Wigg will be inconsolable, he thought. Because I am his oldest friend, the grim burden of telling him should fall to me. But how does one do such a thing?
Just then Faegan saw a Minion warrior approaching in the night sky. As the warrior neared, the wizard saw that he carried someone, the victim’s arms and legs dangling lifelessly earthward. On finally recognizing the warrior and his charge, Faegan’s blood ran cold.
Traax landed before the crowd and quickly handed the princess over to Aeolus.
“You must help her!” he shouted urgently.
As Aeolus and Faegan stared in horror at Shailiha, the blood drained from their faces. “What happened to her?” Faegan demanded.
“She was struck by viper venom!”
Traax answered. “It continues to burn her even now! But I fear that her eye took the worst of it!”
“Hand her to me!” Faegan shouted.
As Aeolus quickly laid the princess in Faegan’s lap, Faegan looked at the burns and pockmarks on her face. Calling the craft straightaway, he induced a spell over the venom to try to stop it from doing further damage. He also called another spell to help control her pain and to keep her unconscious. Then he carefully lifted the damaged lid of her left eye. He closed his own eyes and bowed his head in sorrow.
“How bad is it?” Aeolus demanded.
“Very bad, I fear,” Faegan answered. “We might be able to help her, but to do so we must hurry back to the palace. There is no time to lose!”
Seeing Abbey’s corpse for the first time, Traax took a sharp breath. “Is she—?”
“Yes,” Faegan answered. “We can no longer help her. Shailiha is now our greatest worry. Summon a litter at once! Half of our forces will remain here and continue to quell the fires and help the wounded as best they can. The rest of our warriors will accompany us home. Duvessa and her group will remain here as well. Go and give the orders! We must leave now!”
As Traax hurried off, Faegan reached down and removed the gold medallion from Shailiha’s person and placed it around his neck. After doing so, he sadly rocked the princess in his arms, just as he might cradle a child who had been taken mortally ill.
“Why did you take her medallion?” Aeolus asked quietly.
“I did it for both Tristan’s and Shailiha’s sakes,” Faegan answered. “There is no telling when Tristan might again use his medallion to contact his sister. Do you want his next glimpse of her to be like this?”
“I understand,” Aeolus answered. “But doesn’t Shailiha need to be wearing the medallion for it to work?”
Faegan shook his head. “No,” he answered. “The needed spell is contained in the two medallions, not in their wearers’ blood. That is why the Ones cautioned Tristan so strongly about not letting the medallions fall into the wrong hands.”
“And you know how to call the spell?” Aeolus asked.
Before answering, Faegan cradled the stricken princess closer. “Yes,” he answered simply. “We can only hope that Tristan does not contact us before we have had some time to try and help her.”
Just then a litter arrived, its six stout warriors landing it quickly before the hushed crowd. With Shailiha still lying in his lap, Faegan levitated his chair up and over the litter’s sides. Aeolus joined him, and before they knew it they were soaring through the air toward the royal palace.
As the litter gained speed, Faegan looked down at the stricken princess’s face, then back toward the fires that were finally starting to come under control. Keeping pace alongside, Traax and half the exhausted Minion survivors accompanied the two wizards and their fallen leader. As they hurried on, Faegan sadly closed his eyes.
You have won this day, Khristos, he thought. We killed many of your vipers, but Abbey is dead and the Jin’Saiou will likely never be the same again. If it is the last thing I ever do, I will hunt you down and kill you, I swear it. But where were you this night, you bastard product of the Vagaries? If attacking Tammerland was so important, why weren’t you there, leading your vipers?
All at once the terrifying realization hit him, and Faegan took a sharp breath. Looking over at Traax, he barked out new orders as fast as he could.
THE MINION SENTRIES DIED QUIETLY. AFTER SLITHERING on their bellies up the banks of the Sippora, Khristos’ vipers had quietly flanked the camp. They then closed the circle to surprise and kill the unsuspecting sentries by first blinding them with their venom and then slitting their throats. Some of the warriors had seen them coming and fought back, but the several hundred Minions were no match for the thousands of Blood Vipers that commanded the element of surprise. Confident that the palace had not been alerted, Khristos again motioned for his vipers to slither their way through the dewy grass toward his next targets.
Watching from the safety of the camp, the Viper Lord wished he was going with them. But he would hold back where he could not be seen from the palace’s parapets. Nor could he use his silver staff to help his servants kill the Minions guarding the Black Ships, for that would certainly cause uproar among those warriors guarding the palace. While he stood alone among the Minion dead, his servants expertly went about his bidding.
Fifty warriors patrolled the area surrounding the two Black Ships, and they died as quickly and as quietly as had their more numerous brothers who had guarded the war camp. When one of his lead vipers slithered back to whisper news of their success, the Viper Lord rushed to where the others waited for him. As he looked up at the great ships, he knew that he must hurry in his mission, for once it started, those Minions left behind to guard the palace would surely see what was happening and attack him.
The Cavalon and the Illendium rested peacefully in their massive wooden cradles, their hulls and masts twinkling beautifully in the night. Deciding to steal the Illendium, Khristos ordered his vipers to stealthily board her in the darkness. Silently slithering their way up the cradle spars, the thousands of monsters took possession of the great ship.
Once they had all boarded, Khristos would remain on the ground as he empowered the ship into the air. Only after he had taken the Illendium a safe distance away from the palace grounds would he set fire to its mate, then fly through the air and land on the Illendium’s topside to spirit her away. Those vipers that had secretly left the battle in Tammerland to slink back into the Sippora had been ordered to travel submerged downriver. Only after they were well away from Tammerland would they again surface to meet and board the pirated Illendium. Satisfied that his vipers would soon be aboard his new flagship, Khristos turned his attention to the Cavalon.
She was equally beautiful, and in a strange way he almost regretted having to destroy her. Knowing that he must hurry, he looked back at the Illendium to see one of his lead vipers signal that all his servants had boarded, and he smiled when he saw their huge numbers crowding the gunwales and slithering quickly up the masts. With no time to lose, he raised his arms and called the craft.
At once the Illendium’s black and red dark sails tumbled free of their spars. Expertly manipulating the craft, Khristos then summoned the first of the powerful forces that would lift the great ship and send her skyward. Her hull groaning and her masts straining against the pull of the sails, she slowly left her cradle to rise into the night air. Moving his hands, he expertly guided her to a safe distance from the Cavalon, then set her hovering. With the Illendium airborne, he again gathered up his power to finish off the Cavalon.
Raising his silver staff, Khristos pointed it at the great ship. Because of the many enchantments used by her builders to protect her, setting her afire would not be a simple feat, but once she started burning, her ages-old timbers would become a raging inferno. Summoning all his remaining power while also causing the Illendium to hover, he loosed the first azure bolt from the tip of his staff.
AS FAEGAN AND AEOLUS NEARED THE PALACE AND SAW THE first of Khristos’ bolts strike the Cavalon, their worst fears were confirmed. How could we have been so blind? Faegan asked himself. Cursing the heavens, he pounded his fists against the sides of the litter.
Worse, Shailiha still lay unconscious in his lap, her fragile soul barely clinging to her wounded body. If she didn’t receive treatment soon, the venom coursing through her bloodstream would surely kill her. Even so, Faegan didn’t dare hurry her into the Redoubt for fear that the palace had also been overrun.
Then they saw the Illendium hovering in the air, and even from this distance they could see that it was filled with Blood Vipers. With one Black Ship taken and the other destroyed, the Conclave’s ability to defeat Khristos would be drastically weakened—perhaps to the point that the Viper Lord could savage all of Eutracia at will. The death and destruction that he could cause with even one Black Ship at his command, while the Conclave had none with which t
o counter him, would be unstoppable.
As Khristos’ next bolt struck the hull of the Cavalon, Faegan started to doubt his assumptions about what the Viper Lord was trying to accomplish. Trying to destroy a Black Ship with azure bolts could be done, but it would take a long time—more time than Khristos had available. And then Faegan understood fully. Khristos was trying to set the Cavalon ablaze. Shouting out to the Minions, he beseeched them to fly faster and take him within range of the Viper Lord.
Seeing the Minion forces cross before the three magenta moons, Khristos cursed, then loosed another bolt against the mighty ship. The first two had been largely ineffective, but the third highly concentrated beam sent against the same spot finally sent wood shards flying from the Cavalon’s starboard side, and smoke started drifting into the air from the jagged wound that had formed. Khristos had little time before the enemy would be on him, and he knew that he must work fast if he and his vipers were to escape in the Illendium. He quickly backed away from the ship to gain a different perspective.
Khristos pointed his staff directly at the Cavalon’s mainmast. At once her furled sails were set free and went tumbling down. Knowing that the sails were far more vulnerable to fire than were the ship’s timbers, he loosed a narrow bolt from his staff to thunder straight toward the exposed mainsail. At once it burst into flames, then started setting fire to the others around it.
Laughing into the night, Khristos caused all the other sails to come rolling down and quickly set fire to them as well. Returning his attention to the smoldering hole in the Cavalon’s starboard hull, he quickly loosed bolt after bolt against it, finally setting it ablaze. But just as he was about to join the Illendium and fly her away, the litter bearing Faegan and Aeolus appeared in the night sky. Soaring toward the Illendium, the Conclave wizards seemed determined to stop her from escaping before attacking Khristos or trying to save the burning Cavalon.
Rise of the Blood Royal Page 42
