by Carol A Park
Mortals survived alongside the horrific creatures only because they didn’t attack in coordinated groups of thousands at a time, and many types stuck to their favorite haunts away from civilization.
He turned to Ivana.
“Ivana. You have the most important task. Find the corpse-thing.”
Thrax guffawed.
Vaughn frowned at him. “You have a comment?”
“‘Find the corpse-thing’? I mean, if you’re going for dramatic effect, that really kills it.”
“I’m not going for dramatic effect, firebrain. I’m telling her what she has to do.”
Ivana sighed. “Yes. I’m going to find that…strange humanlike intelligent bloodbane that seems to be able to control the other bloodbane—”
“‘Corpse-thing’ is more concise,” Danton whispered to Thrax.
Ivana glared at them both. “And I’m going to—”
“Kill it?” Danton put in.
“Disable it,” Thrax suggested.
“Neutralize it,” Ivana said.
“Oh, that’s good,” Thrax said. “She’s good.”
Dear gods, help me. But not you, Chati.
“People, get it together. We have about twenty minutes until we are the only thing standing between this city and the abyss,” Ivana snapped.
Danton seemed appropriately subdued, but it failed to sober Thrax up. “She’s way better at the dramatic one-liners than you,” he whispered to Vaughn.
Vaughn ignored him. He was beginning to suspect the more nervous Thrax became, the more jokes he made. “Once Ivana neutralizes the corpse-thing, I’m assuming the bloodbane will go rogue. That’s better than being guided by a semi-intelligent mind, but it’s still going to be chaos. Some of them will run off. Some will try to destroy the city anyway. I’ve divided the beastblood aether we had between you; don’t waste it.”
He drew a deep breath. “I’m going to be honest. The odds are not as good as I would like. We’ve done the best we can, but it may not be enough. You all know the damage a half-dozen bloodbane running amok in a city can do; there are a great many more than that accompanying two thousand soldiers intent on capturing this city, whatever it takes. We’re rightly focused on the small picture tonight, but we can’t lose sight of what happens if we fail to hold our position here—beyond the many innocent lives that will be lost. If we lose Ferehar, the Xambrians won’t sign the alliance. The Conclave will destroy Donia, Venetia, and Fuilyn. And if you thought rule under the old Setanan Empire was bad—”
Thrax clapped him on the back. “You know, you’re a great guy, Vaughn, but motivational speaking isn’t your thing. If we win here, you might want to have someone else write your speeches.”
Vaughn ran a hand back and forth through his hair. “My point is… We may have our quirks, but if anyone can pull this off, this team can. I know I can count on every one of you to try.” He didn’t look at Ivana as he said that. He thought he could count on her. He couldn’t see what advantage she had in copping out now, other than self-preservation. And if that were going to be the case, she could have left days ago.
“Nope,” Thrax said. “Still needs work.”
Vaughn sighed and stood up. It was much more fun being a pain in the ass to the one in charge than the other way around. “All right. Let’s get to it.”
Chapter Sixty
The Storm
Commander Gered had insisted Driskell march with the vanguard as they approached the barricade that had been erected across the bridge in front of Cohoxta. Driskell would have preferred to have been left behind in Acalli—not least so he could slip away when he had the chance.
A second reason might have had to do with the six bloodgiants that lumbered along in front of them, living siege weapons controlled by an intelligent mind.
Instead, here he was, even though he would fall back with Gered to Acalli once the fighting started—until it was his turn to do what he was supposed to do, anyway.
It was almost as if Gered were keeping an eye on him, which was rather disconcerting.
Driskell kept the tiniest bit of aether continuously burning to maintain his self-enhancement. The last thing he needed at this moment was Gered to realize he had been manipulating him all this time.
They crested the rise to the middle of the bridge, and Gered held up his hand to bring the train to a halt.
From what he could see between the bodies of the bloodgiants, the city looked, by all accounts, to be asleep. Which it ought to have been, at this time of night. Only the Watch tower at the gates had a light flickering in the window facing south.
Gered waved Driskell back. “I don’t want to chance anyone recognizing you.”
Then why did you bring me? he projected, hoping by some miracle the commander would order him back to Acalli.
No such luck.
Vaughn waited in the Watch tower, looking through the southern window. He held his qixli in one hand, ready to contact Danton, who was keeping watch on the bloodbane in particular—lest some of them sneak off, cross the river farther down, and circle to the north gate or another section of the wall—which a concerted effort by enough bloodgiants could make short work of.
And they could send bloodhawks across anywhere, which set Vaughn particularly on edge. They had little beastblood aether—enough to make only a few dozen tipped arrows divided among their best archers. A number in turn limited to those who would allow blood to be drawn and mixed with aether so they could use it; the inadequate amount of time they had to explain such a thing to people who’d previously thought aether was cursed made that task even more difficult.
Vaughn ran his hand over the silvery sheen of whatever otherworldly material his bow was made of. And despite all this, his job was to be useless.
The army had seized Acalli not even a half hour ago. Ivana had already begun her hunt for the corpse-thing while he waited for the army to make its move. They expected some sort of parley, after which he had to fall back to the palace.
So everyone told him, anyway.
You’re the reason this army is here, his mother had said to him when she had caught him stringing his bow. Rather than chancing your life on the walls, why not surrender and save us all the trouble?
Her sarcasm was not appreciated, but he took her point.
He cast his eyes toward Acalli, but it was too far for even his dark vision to tell him if the army was amassing in the shadows of its buildings.
He leaned forward. Wait.
Yes, there. Movement on the bridge.
Vaughn gripped the qixli and activated the aether. “I see them,” Vaughn said quietly.
“Yeah,” Danton said. “They’re definitely moving. Some bloodgiants at the front, and some near the back. The bloodspiders are right at the edge of the bridge, bloodhawks… Circling around. They’ve got the bloodwolves split into two groups; not sure what that portends.”
Vaughn stared out the window. He saw the bloodgiants at the front now; he didn’t like that they were holding some back. “I have to go. I need to give Thrax a heads-up, and after that…well.”
There was no acknowledgement. “Danton?”
“Temoth, there’s a lot of them, Vaughn,” Danton whispered.
Vaughn’s free hand tightened on his bow. “Remember, if we pull through this, and I’m the next Ri, you get to bask in my glory as one of my closest friends,” he said, keeping an eye on the group of soldiers that was now forming up beyond the barricade. The bloodgiants were spreading out along it. The hastily erected barrier wouldn’t last long against the brute strength of bloodgiants, but every minute was another minute Ivana had to find and eliminate that abomination that was controlling them. If she could do it before the walls were breeched, they’d be okay. Probably.
“You mean that?”
“Huh?” Vaughn asked, bringing his mind back to Danton. “Sure. What do you want? Wine? Feather beds? I’d offer women, but I’m too enlightened for that now, sorry.”
“No. That I�
��m one of your closest friends.”
“Oh.” Vaughn had the urge to reach out and ruffle Danton’s hair, but one could only do so much through a qixli. “Of course I mean it. And you’re going to be fine. Just keep your head about you and remember that you can literally make them all—even the bloodbane—look like they’re dressed in only their undergarments. Now, I need to contact Thrax—”
“I know. I’m out.”
Silence. Vaughn thought of a different contact. “Thrax,” he said. “You ready?”
Ivana lay on her stomach on the roof of the tallest building in Acalli, peering over the edge, burning moonblood aether to keep herself invisible.
Even so, she had to be careful. The corpse-thing at Gan Barton’s estate had been able to see through Vaughn’s invisibility, and that had been his own native aether.
Where was the damn thing? She had passed hundreds of soldiers and bloodbane streaming over the bridge, and Acalli was still swarming with them.
If the corpse-thing acted anything like how the other one had acted, it would stay back while directing the bloodbane, rather than wading into the fray. It could be in any of the buildings in the town, shielded from view, and nothing about the movements of men or bloodbane seemed to suggest to her which one. She just had to locate it.
Vaughn climbed down from the Watch tower and joined Thrax and his mother atop the wall.
Beyond the bloodgiants, soldiers stretched out the length of the bridge. They had lit lanterns along the way, and now he could plainly see the bloodspiders scurrying around near the back, and white, pupil-less eyes punctuated the darkness beyond, like tiny white orbs floating in the night.
Vaughn glanced down the wall. The archers were ready, but he saw more than one jaw clenched and knuckles tight around the bows. The light was a tactic to inspire fear, no doubt, since there was no other reason to give their archers well-lit targets.
A group of three soldiers moved to stand next to the bloodgiants.
The nearest one’s claws twitched, and for a moment Vaughn thought it would rip the soldier’s head off. But it controlled itself.
Or, rather, that thing controlled it. Was that a good sign? That Ivana was even now distracting the thing, perhaps? Or maybe it had its limits and had finally reached them.
Either way, the longer they could keep them talking, the better.
The center man, surely the commander, held up his hand, and the man on his right held up the flag of parley.
The commander eyed Vaughn, Thrax, and Askata. “We are emissaries of the Conclave in Weylyn City,” he shouted into a horn.
Vaughn made a point of looking at the soldiers arrayed behind him. “A rather odd-looking diplomatic party,” he shouted back.
“We’re not here on diplomacy,” the commander said. “This city is under judgment for harboring not one, but multiple Banebringers.”
Thrax snorted. “Well, that’s a load of crap,” he said. “Maybe the Conclave ought to be under judgment for being damn hypocrites.”
The commander pinned his gaze on Thrax. “Perhaps if you can take us to their ringleader, one Dal Vaughn, I’ll spare you.”
Thrax flashed him a toothy grin. “Sure. You heard him, Vaughn. He’s gonna spare me. That was easy.”
The commander’s eyes narrowed.
Vaughn smiled at him.
“I offer you terms, Dal Vaughn,” the commander said. “Your unconditional surrender in exchange for us sparing the city the slaughter that is sure to come.”
“Regent,” Vaughn said. “What do you say to those terms?”
“We will not surrender,” Askata said immediately, holding the commander with a cold stare. “We confess to no crime that the Conclave itself has not already committed, other than, apparently, that of following Setanan election law.”
Was it Vaughn’s imagination, or did some of the soldiers behind the commander look uncomfortable at Askata’s words?
The commander seemed uncertain of what to do, as if he hadn’t expected that answer. “Well enough. I didn’t want to negotiate with demonspawn or their allies anyway.”
Vaughn made a shooing motion with his hand, and his mother stepped away from the edge.
“All riiiiight.” Vaughn said, drawing out the words to allow her bodyguard time to take her arm and lead her down the stairs. “Well. I have a message for you to take back anyway.” He waved his arm expansively over the assembled army in front of them. “Take your troops and go back to Setana. Tell the Conclave they’re no longer welcome in Ferehar. You’re happy, I’m happy, no one needs to get hurt. Deal?”
The commander cast Vaughn a look of pure hatred and then stepped back into the ranks of the soldiers behind the bloodgiants.
Vaughn raised his bow, but Thrax took his arm. “Get back to the palace,” he said firmly. “Now.”
Vaughn gritted his teeth but acquiesced.
The thudding of bloodgiants pummeling the barricade began before Vaughn had even put his foot on the first step down. It took only until he had reached the bottom to hear the crash of the stone collapsing, followed by the plunks of the debris raining on the river below.
His last glance back before he disappeared—literally—down the street showed him bloodhawks bursting from the darkness and diving toward the archers on the wall.
Ivana, what are you doing?
Ivana crouched in a swath of overgrown weeds between two tall, narrow buildings and watched the town square through the leaves. She had found the corpse-thing, and only because it had finally emerged from, of all places, the tiny town shrine.
It stood now by the well, its hands clasped behind its back, staring toward Cohoxta and looking for all the world like some sort of military commander.
The effect was only enhanced by the hundreds of bloodbane that still surrounded it: mostly bloodwolves, at this point, as the bloodhawks had suddenly taken flight from their perches around the town and flown as one toward Cohoxta, and the bloodgiants, bloodspiders, and bloodcrabs had moved elsewhere.
The Conclave was improving. From the side, the corpse-thing looked almost human. Even the pallor of its skin had improved, as though the corpse had been to a mortician this time. She hoped that didn’t also mean it was even more intelligent.
It glanced her way for only a moment, and she cringed. It still had those white, pupil-less eyes.
Its white eyes turned in their sockets, scanning the area. A frown touched its colorless lips, as though it knew something was off, but finally it turned back to staring toward the city.
A hundred bloodwolves was quite the shield. Under normal circumstances, trying to reach that thing right now would be suicide.
Unless one could simply stop time, of course.
It might still be suicide, in more than one way. Should she wait for a more opportune moment to reveal itself? But every moment she wasted was another moment that the rest of those bloodbane could be breaking through the gates of the city and allowing the soldiers to pour in. Then again, it wouldn’t matter how much time she had saved if she struck at the wrong moment and failed.
Ivana fingered the hilt of her dagger in one hand and a sliver of moonblood aether in the other.
Before she could burn her own aether, the corpse-thing straightened up as if hearing or seeing something.
Its lips drew back tightly against its face in a satisfied smile, which made it look even more like a cadaver.
As one, the bloodwolves rose around it.
They congealed into a frenzied mass of black scales, sharp teeth, and white eyes, growing more and more frantic, as if building tension within themselves.
Then, with a crescendo of noise, the bloodwolves broke free of their leashes while the corpse-thing remained in place.
Ivana drew in a sharp breath. That didn’t bode well for the city, but it would make her task that much more likely to succeed.
She waited.
Driskell lingered near the middle of the unit while Gered was talking, continually projecting doubts ab
out the legitimacy of this mission to those around him. The soldiers shifted and looked around, especially when Thrax accused the Conclave of being hypocrites.
Hypocrites, Driskell thought at them, seizing on Thrax’s words. You’re following the lead of hypocrites and rebels. Usurpers. Warmongers. Powerful people who don’t give a damn about you.
A moment later, Gered strode back into view, flanked by two personal guards: Paran and a second Driskell couldn’t remember the name of.
Gered looked satisfied. “Come,” he said to Driskell, and Driskell had no choice but to follow him back along the lines of men. “Well,” he said as they walked, “they didn’t surrender, Driskell. Shall we return all the way to Acalli and wait for Cohoxta’s walls to fall, or do you want to wait by the bridge, as eager as you are to get into the city as soon as possible to ferret out the traitors?”
Driskell blinked. He didn’t need to burn aether to hear the sarcasm dripping from the commander’s voice.
Something was wrong about this. Gered’s eyes had taken on a glint Driskell had not seen there since the first time he’d met him.
Yet he didn’t move to apprehend Driskell. He still walked, his hands behind his back. As if waiting for something.
Gered and his guards stopped at the end of the bridge and waited. A terrific boom sounded from the direction of the city.
Driskell winced and swallowed.
Another boom. The column on the bridge started to move. Driskell couldn’t suppress a shudder as hundreds of bloodspiders and bloodcrabs scuttled by, followed by more soldiers.
The booms were coming at more regular intervals now. Like a giant pounding on a gate, demanding to be let in. Yes, yes, exactly like that, in fact.
A terrific crack split the air, and shouts turned to screams. Driskell’s stomach churned. He had to get out of here. He had to—he didn’t even know what. What could he do against this?
Gered glanced at him. “You seem unsettled, Driskell. Why would that be?”
