“And yet you still wear the collar. Why is that? Still longing for someone to take care of you? Are you still too young and inexperienced to take care of yourself?”
She launched a series of lighting quick strikes, which he countered with ease. His bony hand flashed back and forth, knocking each of her blades away with no apparent effort.
“Two blades, and still no match for me,” the Captain taunted her. “I thought I taught you better.”
Tiadaria knew he was trying to get into her head, to make her doubt herself. Logically, she knew that, but the more he said, the more she started to wonder if there was a kernel of truth to his taunts and jibes. Maybe she hadn't learned enough to hold out against him. Maybe she really was too weak and too slow to win this fight.
“You're so tired. All you need to do is put down your weapons and let me end it. Quickly, painlessly. Your suffering will be over. You can join your little friend. The one who foolishly sacrificed himself so you might live.”
“He's not dead. We took him to the hospital. They'll save him.”
The Captain laughed. His hollow voice echoed deep in his rotted chest. He waved his free hand, the tattered flesh twitching back and forth with the motion.
“Of course he's dead. He was dead before you ever reached the hospital. Faxon knew. He had to have known.”
Tiadaria's eyes darted to the quintessentialist, who lowered his head. She wanted to scream at him. Wanted to demand that he deny the accusations. What the Captain said couldn't be true. It couldn't. She hadn't even had time to say goodbye. She hadn't had time to tell Wynn everything she needed to tell him. They were going to be married. They were going to spend the rest of their lives together. All of this would be over soon and they'd be able to start over and make it work the way they should have from the beginning.
“He isn't dead,” she said defiantly, her eyes blazing. “You can't know that. You're trying to get inside my head and it's not going to work.”
Once again the Captain laughed, the sound grating on Tiadaria's nerves and raising gooseflesh on her arms.
“Poor Tiadaria. Your friend is most assuredly dead, young Tiadaria. I am a part of the Dyr. Don't you think I felt it when he died? From a wound that I inflicted, no less. A wound that was meant for you. He sacrificed himself to allow you to live, for all the good it did.”
The seed of doubt found fertile soil in her soul, sending out black tendrils that burrowed into her heart and mind and made it feel as if her blood was freezing in her veins. Wynn was dead. Somehow, now that she'd heard the words, it was impossible to deny them. It was as if hearing them aloud had made them real. As if in speaking of the deed, the Captain had sealed the fate of the man she loved. Tears sprang to her eyes and she swiped them away, remembering to stay on guard against any attack the Captain might make.
“Poor Tiadaria,” he taunted her. “Everyone she's ever loved is either dead or has abandoned her. I'm dead. Her friend is dead. Faxon will soon be dead. How many others will die tonight because of your shortsightedness, Tiadaria? How many will pay the price for your inattention to your duty?”
Even as he spoke, Tiadaria's thoughts turned toward Valyn and the King. How many would die because she hadn't anticipated the threat? The currents and eddies in the Quintessential Sphere had to have been there for her to see. If she'd been closer to the capital, maybe she'd have seen or heard something that could have prevented the hundreds of deaths she'd seen tonight. Maybe the Captain was right. Maybe she had turned her back on her destiny. The people of Dragonfell, of the Imperium, deserved better. Her swords wavered in shaking hands.
“That's right, Tiadaria. Just lay down your weapons and you'll never be troubled by this again. I shouldn't have interfered that day on the executioner's platform. His blade would have been a kindness. You wouldn't have had to felt so much pain to get to where you are right now.”
She remembered that day as clearly as anything in her life. The sky a crisp blue and the sound of songbirds singing in the trees at the edge of King's Reach. Despair flooded through her. Perhaps she would have been better off on the chopping block. She'd at least have been free. No longer a slave to her destiny, her duty, or her honor.
“Tiadaria, don't...listen to him,” Faxon's voice was harsh and filled with agony.
She dared another short glance at him. His arm was mangled, the bloodstained ivory of bone showing through in some areas where the hellhounds' fangs had torn his flesh away. He was blistered and burned and far too pale for him to be conscious, much less alive.
“Faxon, please!” She pleaded with him, unsure of what she was asking him for, only that she needed him. If Wynn was truly gone, she needed him now more than ever.
The quintessentialist pushed himself slowly to his knees, then to his feet. The Captain's lich took a step toward him, but Tiadaria's blades crashed down on his, shoving him back away from the crippled mage.
“Don't listen to him, Tiadaria.” Faxon sounded stronger now, though he looked no better than he had a moment ago. “The Captain was proud of you. You've done nothing to tarnish his expectations of you. This...thing...is the twisted echo of every negative aspect of the man you loved. He's using the power of the Dyr to try and cloud your memories. Fight him. End this now and we might still have time to save the city.”
“Faxon always was an idyllic fool. You can't defeat me, little one. Your mentors are dead or dying, everyone else has abandoned you. You have nothing. Curl up and die. Why suffer more than you need to?”
“Pain is the fire in which resolve is tempered,” Tiadaria said quietly. “You told me that. Before they forced you to become this perverted wretch.”
“A badly tempered blade is worse than no blade at all,” the Captain snarled.
“My will and resolve are tempered by something you can't understand. There is no love without pain and no pain without love. You'll never know love again, Captain, and I'm sorry for you...but you will know pain.”
Channeling her memories of the Captain, of Faxon, of Wynn, of a hundred different moments in which her love had caused her pain, Tiadaria called on the power of the Quintessential Sphere. Its essence flowed into her, buoyed her, lifted her above the sickening miasma that the Captain had tried to use against her.
Tiadaria ran toward the lich, her blades held out in front of her like a pachyderm’s tusks. A condescending smile crossed the Captain's ruined face and he brought his blade around, meaning to sever her head from her shoulders. At the last moment, she leapt, clearing the sweep of his blade and coming down inches from him, too near for him to defend.
She thrust her scimitars up into his chest, tears streaming down her face. The blades entered the wound where the Xarundi had killed him so many years ago and grated against the spine. Tiadaria forced the blades together, severing the spine and tearing the rotted flesh and tendons that held the body together. Severed below the ribcage, the top half of the body collapsed to the floor, still clawing at her with one moldering hand.
Drawing back one of her blades, she buried it in the Captain's skull, splitting it down the center. The seat of the magic disrupted, the lich collapsed into a pile of broken bones and desiccated flesh. Whatever part of it had once been the Captain was gone, forever.
Tiadaria sank to her knees, tears streaming down her face. There were tears of relief mixed with tears of grief and pain, but she knew she had little time for any of them. They needed to get to the palace and save the king from the Xarundi menace that was almost on their doorstep, if they weren't there already.
A groan from behind her cut through the fog of emotion and she rushed to Faxon, deftly leaping the chasm that Tionne's magic had caused. The mage was in poor shape. He was covered in sweat and his eyes showed far too much white to be healthy or proper. He was going into shock and Tiadaria didn't know if there was anything she could do for him.
“I don't know how to help, Faxon.”
“Forget about me,” he countered gruffly. He motioned to the corner of the ro
om with his other hand. The chalice was resting in the corner. “Get me the Chalice of Souls. We don't have much time.”
“Faxon! You can't cast in this condition. You'll die.”
“We'll all die if I don't. We all have sacrifices to make.”
“Faxon! No! Please! I can't lose you too.”
“And you won't, if you help me, but we're running out of time. The chalice, swordmage, now.”
It was the first time that Faxon had ever called her that and the surprise spurred her into movement. She ran across the room, snagged the chalice, and brought it back to him. Faxon had sunk back to his knees, unable to remain standing.
“Hold it tightly. No matter what happens to me, don't let go. Just focus on sending the blood wraiths back from where they came.”
“Faxon--”
“No arguments, Tiadaria. Focus!”
Tiadaria screwed her eye shut and focused on the blood wraiths being tossed back into the abyss of the Deep Void. As she concentrated, her hands where she clutched the metal started to get cold. She felt the coolness of Faxon's hands over hers as he intoned a complicated spell. With each passing iteration, the metal seemed to grow colder and colder, until it was burning her flesh.
It felt as if the chalice were molten in her grasp. She screamed in pain, her eyes snapping open to see a stream of red wisps flowing into the safe house through the broken doors and windows and through the massive hole in the wall. They slipped into the chalice where they disappeared in a whirling vortex of blackness at the bottom.
Faxon's chant had reached a hysterical pitch and Tiadaria held on to the chalice with every ounce of willpower she could muster. Just when she thought she couldn't take any more, the last of the red wisps was sucked into the chalice and there was a brilliant flash at the bottom of the cup. They released it at almost the same time, nearly throwing it from them. It hit the floor, rolled toward the chasm, and tipped over the lip, disappearing from view into the darkness.
Tiadaria knelt by the quintessentialist, who lay on his back, his injured arm clutched to his chest. She prodded his shoulder with an experimental finger.
“I'm still here,” he said, from what seemed like a considerable distance. “Go to the palace. Now, before it's too late.”
“I can't leave you, Faxon. Please.”
“You can and you will. You need to stop the Xarundi. Go.”
Tia got to her feet, brushing her palms against her tattered breeches. She gathered her scimitars and turned toward the door.
“Tia?” Faxon called.
“Yes?”
“If you see a healer, I'm not too proud to be carried back to the hospital.”
Tiadaria couldn't help but chuckle. She promised to send help and slipped out into the night, heading north toward the palace and the Xarundi. Whether or not Tionne was there too, this was going to end and end now, before anyone else had to die.
#
As it turned out, finding a healer to attend to Faxon wasn't a problem. It appeared as if the ritual that he had invoked using the chalice had indeed rid Dragonfell of the last of the blood wraiths. Rotting husks dotted the streets, but none of them appeared to be moving. She checked on one or two as she passed, but finding nothing to be concerned with, hurried on. The city guards were returning to their posts, and with them a host of clerics and healers who were doing their best to attend to those who couldn't make it to the hospital or a healing house for treatment. Tiadaria paused long enough to give directions to where Faxon was and urge haste, then she continued on her way toward the palace cavern.
The nearer she got to the northern quarter, the more signs of combat she saw. Valyn's men might be outnumbered, but they were fighting for their lives and the lives of their King. The bodies of slain Xarundi warriors lay where they had fallen, indicating that the city guard was forcing them to stay on the move. Otherwise, the Xarundi would have reanimated the corpses for use in their attack. That much, at least, gave her heart. If the Xarundi couldn't use their fallen to their advantage, the guards might have a chance yet. She'd seen a few human casualties, but not as many as she would have expected from a surprise assault.
Tiadaria was near enough now that she could hear the unmistakable sounds of battle. The ring of metal against claw and the shouts of the engaged combatants was amplified by the echo bouncing back from inside the cavern. The Xarundi hadn't yet breached the line and the city guards were fighting valiantly to keep them out of the cavern and away from the palace proper.
Glancing up toward the battlements, Tiadaria was unsurprised to see King Greymalkin pacing the parapet between the largest turrets. Every now and again he'd pause in his rounds to shout something down to the fighters below. If she knew Greymalkin, he was probably yelling down encouragement or what he thought was the best tactical advice.
Quickly scanning the cluster of Xarundi warriors outside the cavern, Tiadaria decided that Zarfensis and the Warleader must be inside. Though fearsome in their own right, the warriors outside were all young, without the size or experience to make them truly intimidating. If this was all that was left of the Xarundi Combine, Tiadaria understood why there were so many dead lupines and so few of their own casualties.
None of the younger Xarundi were watching their flanks. They were so focused on pressing into the cavern that they were throwing themselves past each other toward the human lines. Archers, high atop the palace walls, were picking off those who strayed too far from the pack with deadly precision.
In no immediate danger, Tiadaria took a moment to take a deep breath and ready her weapons. She wished, for the umpteenth time that night, that she'd been in her customary armor. The witchmetal rings provided a sense of safety and security that she found soothing in combat. No sense in worrying about it now, however. She'd have to rely on her skill and speed to make it through without losing any more of her skin.
Tiadaria tightened the grip on the scimitars, feeling the familiar bite of the steel deep within her chest. The pain was a welcome reminder that things were as they had always been. She was a powerful warrior and would prevail with the unfaltering assistance of the Quintessential Sphere. She began to run.
Each pounding footstep brought her closer and closer to the writhing mass of Xarundi warriors. Her boots pounded out an equal rhythm to her heart as she closed the distance between them. She jumped, exploding upward with the assistance of the Sphere, and angled her blades down for the first strike.
Ten feet above a knot of Xarundi warriors, she picked her targets and ensured that none of the city guards were near enough to be struck down by her attack. Tiadaria dropped like a stone, her enchanted blades slicing easily through fur, flesh, and bone. Two warriors died instantly, divided in half from the tops of their head to their bellies. She yanked her blades free and struck out at two new targets.
Each arm acted independently of the other, seeking out and dispatching targets seemingly of their own accord. Tiadaria was only vaguely aware that she was making conscious decisions on where to strike and when. She had opened herself to the Sphere, making her body a conduit for the will of the Primordials who would see light and justice prevail over the darkness.
Claws raked down her back, rending flesh and spilling her blood on the cobblestones underfoot, making them treacherous to stand on, much less fight on. The pain knocked her out of her commune with the Quintessential Sphere and she was forced back into the here and now. She dodged away, trying to ignore the ribbons of fire that spread from her left shoulder to her right hip.
Pushing the pain to the back of her mind, Tiadaria waded back into the fray, dealing death to as many Xarundi as she could reach with her wicked blades. Claws tore at her, sometimes cutting narrow fissures in her flesh, but none of the injuries, save the one on her back, gave her much pause. After a time, she was covered with so much blood that it was difficult to see where theirs left off and hers began.
A change in the quality of sound cause Tiadaria to do a quick scan to reassess her surroundings. They
were inside the cavern now, in the sandstone courtyard that led up to the wide steps that entered the palace. The number of human casualties was much greater here. The bodies of fallen guards littered the courtyard and the steps leading up to the palace.
A peculiar glean on the stairs caught her eye and she turned in time to see Zarfensis kick out at Valyn with his mechanical leg. The Captain of the Guard was unfortunate enough to catch the blow directly in the chest. His breastplate buckled and he sailed down the stairs, crashing into the retaining wall that circled the fountain in the center of the courtyard. Even from this distance, Tiadaria could see the stamped impression of Zarfensis's foot in the breastplate. If Valyn were very lucky, he'd have only some interesting bruises to recount the tale. If he weren't so lucky, it could be much worse.
Zarfensis turned toward a quartet of city guards who were clustered by the doors to the palace. Tiadaria spied the Warleader, being harried by another group of loyalists not too far away. The High Priest was, without question, the greatest threat at the moment, so she set out to intercept him.
Dodging and weaving across the courtyard, Tiadaria deftly outmaneuvered the younger Xarundi warriors and killed the older ones who had more skill and experience. Forces on both sides of the conflict were thinning now, making it much easier to move without being penned in on all sides by flesh of one type or another.
Tiadaria reached the foot of the stairs just as Zarfensis plunged his claws into the stomach of the last guard standing between the High Priest and the door. He ripped out the man's entrails, lifting them up to the young man's line of sight before kicking the not-quite-dead body away from the door.
“You go no further, Zarfensis,” Tiadaria said as his massive hand wrapped around the handle.
The High Priest turned on her, his eye blazing. Saliva dripped from exposed fangs, his matte-black claws glistening with blood.
The Swordmage Trilogy Bundle, Volumes 1-3 Page 52
