Linstrom’s sorcerer held his shield steady. Next to Vane, Thad Greller made to rush at him, but the duke held him back, sending a binding spell at the same time. His magic accomplished nothing.
Kora’s arms, unsupported in the air above her, began to shake, and her shell flickered. She ached so badly…. All she had done since the battle began was tumble. The axe came flying at her a second time, and she vanished it before it careened into her defense, or right through it at a moment her shell was down.
To lose a favored weapon did not please Linstrom’s warrior. His shield never wavering—he was one of the most powerful sorcerers Kora had ever seen—he cast a second spell simultaneously. Bolts of searing white energy fizzled as they hit her shell, the unique defense her ruby gave her. The onslaught lasted a good thirty seconds, and Kora’s arms were burning, screaming protest as she struggled to hold them in position. One, cut by the glass, had streaks of blood running toward her elbow.
Vane broke the foe’s shield with an explosion spell just as Kora lost all strength in her arms and her barrier against Linstrom’s sorcerer collapsed. Luckily for her, that bolt spell had run its course, and while Linstrom’s man took the time to bring his shield up again behind him, judging Kora too weak to cast, the sorceress threw all her mental energy behind Desfazair. She hoped to return his eyes to normal and strip his unnatural strength.
Her magic succeeded. His enhanced bulk disappeared. Nonplussed, he let his shield drop again, and Vane hit him with a quick muting spell to further weaken him, preventing him access to his magic. Without an axe, without his incantations, he tried to fight back but was no match for Thad’s training. The nobleman sliced the arm his foe shot out to grab a sword hilt, then lopped off his head with one strong swing.
Outside the stall, the battle for the stables was ongoing. Linstrom’s last sorcerer, the red-eyed swordsman, was holding his own against Rexson’s soldiers, or whichever of them still lived. From their cries, their groans, they needed assistance. Magical assistance. Vane stood frozen, having noticed the king where he lay on the straw in front of Kora, who still felt too weak to stand. The duke’s jaw went slack. He shook his head in denial, lurched to check for a pulse. Kora crept toward Vane and stretched out a hand to stop him.
“He’s dead,” she whispered. “We can’t help him. Get that swordsman, go!”
Thad pulled Vane back, holding his dripping sword in one hand. The men rushed to the central aisle, left Kora’s view. Kora trembled to look at the headless body mere feet from her, still gushing blood on the wall. The archer who’d shot Rexson lay near as well. Beside that corpse, out of the spray, the king’s lifeless eyes made Kora’s heart wrench. She crawled to him, eased his lids shut with shaking fingers while she told herself he would never blame her for his death. That wound should never have taken his life. Never would have, if only he’d listened to her and kept still, kept away from the battle. Healing him would have taken at least three minutes, time neither she nor Vane could spare at the battle’s start. If he’d listened….
I’d be dead if he’d listened, dead or worse. He gave me a chance to kill Linstrom.
Well, Linstrom had one man standing, and a formidable one at that. Kora fought back the tears in her eyes, the sobs that threatened to rack her chest and make speech unintelligible. She needed her words, needed spells, for Vane might require her help: Vane, as much a son to Rexson as to Kora, though neither could claim a blood relation with the duke.
She stumbled to her feet and entered the stable proper just in time to see Linstrom’s swordsman yell with red-eyed rage. He could not shield himself both from Vane’s magic and the blades Thad and four soldiers swung at him. What magic the warrior cast he used to heal the worst of his injuries, for his arms, his chest, his thighs, they were peppered with wounds of varying depth and damage. Vane kept his distance because he held no sword, shouting incantation after incantation: making the man stumble, flinging his long hair before his face, and vanishing his sword. That last was enough; five blades impaled Linstrom’s sorcerer all at once. With a gurgling sound and a throaty shout he fell forward, not to rise again.
A sweat-covered, blood-soaked Vane then turned to Kora. None of the blood was his; his stumblings toward her were those of a grieving man, not an injured one. His eyes, always large, swallowed every inch of his face. Thad left his uniformed fellows to retrieve and clean their weapons, deserting his own, and rushed to offer his friend a shoulder to lean on. Vane took it.
“Rexson.” That was all the duke could say. Kora wrapped her arms around him, heedless of the gore that clung to them both, cursing the spell that made her look a stranger to him in the midst of such loss. “Rexson.”
Kora said, “He died saving me.” Vane should know that. He should know his surrogate father had not died in weakness, or as a coward. “He saved me from Linstrom. You were tied up, with that axeman. I couldn’t….”
Tears carved a path through the bits of straw, the dust, all the grime on the face that wasn’t Kora’s but nonetheless belonged to her. Thad said, “He can’t be gone. I won’t believe it. The king can’t be….”
Vane eased Kora away, placed a hand on Thad’s shoulder. “He’s dead. One of many.”
Kora said, “There’ll be more dead inside, if we don’t hurry there.”
One of the surviving soldiers, behind them, had Thad’s sword wiped and ready. The nobleman took his weapon, and Vane led a trot that quickly became a sprint to the manor.
* * *
Gertrude, Linstrom’s “seer,” left her comrades-in-arms at the manor in a sore position when their leader claimed her for the stables. She could give no warning that armed guards waited, and General Bruan’s troops cut down a number of men as they sneaked into both the door from the garden path and the side servants’ entrance.
Hayden Grissner and soldier archers, cloaked against the foe’s detection magic, perched in the closest trees to pick off the tail end of Linstrom’s army gathered at that servants’ door. From inside, on the uppermost landing of a spiral, wooden staircase, Hune and additional bowmen shot stragglers who clustered near the threshold. When a pair of sorcerers started shooting stray spells, Walten protected his allies with a shield the color of chestnut wood; his younger brother tripped the enemy casters, and Hune polished them off from afar, hitting both in the neck.
By then a number of Linstrom’s followers had gained the staircase, so Hune urged his dogs to meet the first line of attackers, though to do so broke his heart. Walt and Wilhem, like Hune and his archers, adjusted their aim to the advancing foe, firing not arrows but severing spells to break necks: so their uncle had instructed. Gratton and other uniformed men waited with swords at the ready to protect the prince and the sorcerers. Their blades already had killed three enemy casters who transported to the landing; they had thrown the bodies down, so they wouldn’t hinder movement.
Hune kept only one hound for himself, his Adage. The others would die, every one that descended to meet the foe, but he had no choice. The staircase was clogged with magicked men and women, perhaps with another sorcerer or two, though Hune hoped his arrows had picked those off. Each second, more and more people were entering from outside, were realizing the situation and rushing to the stairs. Despite heavy losses, Linstrom’s army advanced.
One woman flew up unassisted. From behind. Gratton saw her first, and he yelled to Walten, who broke her skull flinging her hard against the wall. She slid to the stone-floored foyer while Hune spotted red pupils on a woman at the foot of the stairs. This one had dark hair in a bun and wore a man’s leggings and vest over a cotton shirt. The clothing betrayed impressive muscle mass, and a sword swung at her side. She pushed her fellows out the way, to move faster to where she could do damage.
The prince launched an arrow at her, then threw himself down as she vanished the projectile and flung a ball of fire at him. It almost hit Gratton, but he spun from out its path, and it struck the wooden wall behind him with an explosion of heat and energy th
at launched the soldier and three other men in uniform, along with Wilhem Cason, through the carved oaken banister. Vane’s protective magic kept the manor from lighting, but Hune’s skin seared where he lay at the top of the stairs. He reached for his quiver while Walten used Mudar to stop his brother’s fall.
The saving gesture left Walten an open target to the red-eyed sorceress. She launched another fireball, this one blue, at Kansten’s brother’s chest. Hune watched in horror; he couldn’t take the hit to save the more valuable man. He was sprawled on the landing, prone….
Hune’s dogs were barking madly now, and people were screaming, jostling, jamming up the staircase as the animals mauled the first assailants they could hold between their jaws. The entire wooden structure threatened to collapse beneath them.
Adage, white with brown spots and a gray muzzle, had come to favor the young sorcerers. He stood, hackles raised, beside the prince, but at Hune’s command the dog leapt in front of Walten and took the blue fireball between his ribs. He did not catch flame; he did not seem to suffer. One second Hune saw him, jumping, a determined-sounding bark issuing from his throat, and the next he was gone, a pile of ash floating to the landing.
Thanks to Adage’s sacrifice Walten saved his brother, but Hune was fighting tears to think of his dog. Of Gratton, who had broken a leg when he hit the floor. Hune tried to protect him and struck one or two enemies, but Gratton was helpless and surrounded by Linstrom’s men. As Walten and Wilhem rained down spells upon that horrible, red-eyed sorceress who blocked them and blocked them again, Hune could only watch as a man stabbed Gratton through the heart and started his climb. At least the lifelong soldier died quickly, Hune told himself, and avenged him with an arrow.
Gratton was with Bennie again, after ten long years apart.
Finally, one of Wilhem’s spells struck. The incantation was one that girl Rexy had taught him, to stop a moving object. Hune had watched him practice it on Vane’s children’s balls, on a glass once when it slipped from Rexy’s hand. He used the spell now to stop the sorceress’s heart. She collapsed; her allies trampled her as they both rushed up from behind and backed away from the onslaught of the dogs. Two hounds were still alive, and the noise they made, coupled with the screams of Linstrom’s men, was incredible.
Walten threw himself flat beside Hune. “We’ve got to go,” he said. “They’ll trap us. We’ll go to the library, come on!”
The general had soldiers blocking the door through which Linstrom’s men had entered. None of the invaders crowding the stairs would escape the way they’d come in.
Wilhem transported to the library with the soldiers left on the landing, leaving Walten to follow with Hune. The prince blocked his ears to the howls of his last dogs as they cried out. He wasn’t sure how they met their ends, only that he was glad not to know the details.
Good boys. You’re good boys….
“Hune, this staircase is wooden. I can cut it.”
“Send them all falling?”
“Most will be too injured to resist the soldiers outside that door. Should I sever the stairs?”
Hune gulped. “You’re asking me…?”
“You’re the prince! Tell me, do I cut it?”
They could save numerous soldiers that way. They might save Jane Trand and Rexy, who were with that contingent guarding the exit. So many of Linstrom’s supporters were still rearing to attack….
“Cut it.”
The prince and the sorcerer were three floors up, but each second brought Linstrom’s troops closer now that the dogs were dead. Walten cried, “Sebera-tod,” and the staircase broke four steps down from their landing. Hune watched the structure teeter before it toppled and struck the wall. He heard the screams of panic, the groans of pain….
Then Walten grabbed Hune’s arm and cast another spell, a transport spell, and all that disappeared.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Battle at the Library
Oakdowns’s library was across the hall from the garden door, one of the entrances Linstrom’s troops were sure to utilize. It was also a large, open space, or made into one when the general decided he’d corral the battle there. Hune left his bow on the servants’ stairs, knowing it would be of little use in tight quarters, and drew his sword as soon as Walten transported him to the other site of carnage.
The library was utter chaos. Hune saw blood and bodies everywhere, including spatters on the bookshelves. Dueling soldiers and assailants filled the room. The general had set the twin sorcerers—Jane Trand’s students—to pick off the last of the enemy who entered from the garden, which left Zacry and Lottie assigned to the library itself. The sorcerers held their own, but Lottie’s conspirators weren’t happy to find her shooting spells against them. Zacry had his hands full trying to protect her; he noticed nothing when Hune and Walten appeared.
Wilhem was already helping his uncle. They fended off a sorcerer determined to get to Lottie through them, and had the upper hand as Linstrom’s man appeared nonplussed about something. He spoke words Hune recognized as a spell, but they had no effect. The prince smiled: must be one of the confounders. Bless Jane Trand! Zacry slew the confused foe without hesitation.
Lottie was firing spells in rapid succession, keeping three former allies at bay. That was all Hune had time to register. Walten ran to help the sorceress, and Hune, after that, barely dodged a strike from a long, sharpened staff. The force of the intended blow sent a rush of air past him strong enough to unset his balance.
The man who attacked had pupils redder than his bound, copper-colored hair: another sorcerer, one from Lottie’s band. Hune was in trouble. He gripped his sword, prepared to do what damage he could….
A hand from behind, on Hune’s shoulder, pushed him down as a firm voice yelled, “Abra Pechum!” The staff-wielding sorcerer screamed as his chest split open in the form of a dripping, spraying X. He swayed and collapsed, dead.
Hune peered over his shoulder and saw no one. Then the same voice to cast the spell, a familiar voice, muttered, “Desfazair,” and Vane appeared. He looked haggard, covered in browning blood and perhaps more things Hune didn’t want to identify. “Stay with me,” the duke instructed. “Stay with me, do you hear? Where’s Gratton? Kora said he’d be….”
“Gratton’s with his wife,” said Hune.
Thad Greller came trotting up, his sword at the ready. From the corner of his eye, the prince saw a raven-haired woman wearing a bandana station herself near Lottie, casting spells along with Walten.
* * *
Vane quailed to think what might have happened had he arrived at the library a minute later. Hune’s father was already dead; to think of losing Rexson’s son as well…. The prince had no idea of what had passed at the stables, couldn’t possibly. Vane would have to tell him.
But not now. Now was no moment for that. As Hune scrambled to his feet, reclaimed his sword, Vane scanned the room for any sign of a sorcerer. This was the last battle site, if the prince and Kora’s sons had moved here from the servants’ stairs. Kill Linstrom’s sorcerers, and what remained of his forces would surrender.
Near Vane’s bookshelves, a tall, gangly woman with a half-fallen bun of blonde hair made a guardsman keel over with a word. Vane slew her in kind. At his side, two swordsmen clashed weapons with Thad and Hune, so Vane tripped them both, allowing his fellow nobles to make short work of them. With Kora’s help, Lottie had cut her attackers down, and the combination of Zacry and his nephews proved too much for their scarlet-eyed foe. Linstrom’s sorcerers were dropping by the minute, but the losses only hardened their weaker companions.
That was not to say those companions had no magic, or failed to utilize it. Vane recognized two sisters in the melee, not yet middle-aged but neither young. He had seen them years before, at interviews for the Magic Council; they were telekinetic, like the king. They had been far too frivolous, or so they’d presented themselves, to deserve the appointment they sought, and apparently had not taken well to rejection. Vane made
to bind them, but before he shot off his purple cords they saw him, saw Thad and the prince each settled in a duel nearby. With a wave of their hands they ripped Thad’s sword from his grasp and sent it flying at Vane’s chest. The duke barely had time to evoke his ice blue shield, but the blade careened into a barrier of magic energy.
Thad was not so lucky, now unarmed and facing a burly opponent. The man sliced him across the bicep before the noble remembered his magic and vanished his attacker’s sword. Then Thad smacked him hard across the jaw with his good arm. Linstrom’s soldier went down, and when his sword popped back to existence it fell on top of him, lodging in his stomach.
The slice on Thad’s arm, his sword arm, was damaging. Blood was gushing from it, and he’d dropped his recovered weapon to collapse, trying to hold the wound closed until Vane could get to him. Vane felt sick to see Thad’s face drain of color, and his magic, a multitude of spells, left a seam in the form of a long, depressed scar where blood pooled.
“Aren’t you the artist,” Thad said. His voice was weak, but his jovial tone took away Vane’s fear. “I suppose I should tell Carlina it represents how deep our love runs.”
Vane prevented him standing with a firm hold on his shoulders. “Your wife won’t care about a scar,” he said. “Stay put! You’ll swoon from blood loss if you move…. Hune!”
Hune’s opponent had knocked his sword away, out of hand. The prince dodged the man, and Vane broke his attacker’s neck as he had so many necks that night, and opened human chests. So many others. So much death.
Rexson.
As Rexson’s son rearmed himself, four battered soldiers, with the help of Vane’s Mudar spell to strip the telekinetic sisters of their blades, worked together to add two to the corpse count. Then Vane saw Lottie battling that sorceress Agatha from the Hall, the one who had wanted to torture Francie further. Zacry was down, but his nephews were tending to him; he was alive, was trying to sit up, so Vane turned his attention to Agatha.
The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 33
