Demonbane (Book 4)

by Ben Cassidy

  Kendril pocketed the pistols and went for the hilt of his swords. “Wanara!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  The female Ghostwalker braced her crossbow against her shoulder.

  Joseph saw Kara’s prostrate form on the altar and gave a sharp cry. He pushed past Kendril, running across the icy stones towards the man-made island in the middle of the underground lake.

  The cultists moved, shouting and screaming obscenities as they drew daggers, clubs, and various other weapons from under their robes.

  Bronwyn grabbed a nearby cultist with a snarl. She jerked the startled man in front of her.

  Wanara’s crossbow sang out. The cultist fell back hard against the altar with a bolt through his right eye.

  Wanara ducked back to reload.

  Maklavir stepped up beside her, his blade out and ready. He saw Kara as well, and started to follow Joseph towards the altar.

  Kendril leapt into the midst of the cultists like a hurricane.

  His short swords hissed and swiped, cutting a swathe through the lightly-armed zealots. He ducked, parried, slashed and thrust like a madman, tearing his way into the heart of the enemy.

  Within seconds three cultists were dead on the slimy stones. Two others were bleeding badly.

  Bronwyn dodged back behind the altar.

  Mina stood stock still, either unable or unwilling to move.

  Joseph jumped up towards the altar.

  Two cultists leapt into his path to block him.

  The grizzled scout folded one arm behind his back, dropped into a fencing position, and cut forward with his long rapier. The stabbing blade shot forward and back like the flicks of a long steel tongue.

  Both cultists fell dead, run through by Joseph’s blade.

  “Mina!” Bronwyn shouted at the stunned woman. She grabbed the noblewoman by the back of her robe and bodily pulled her away from the altar.

  Kendril dodged another attack, then lunged forward with his sword and knocked the cultist into the chilly green water. He looked back up at Joseph.

  Joseph brought his rapier down on the ropes that held Kara in one swift stroke after another. The steel of his blade sparked as it rang against the stone of the altar.

  Kara wasn’t moving. Her eyes were closed, her red hair splayed out behind her head like dead rose. Blue tinged her lips and outstretched fingers.

  Joseph dropped his rapier and grabbed Kara’s face with both hands. He turned her head towards him.

  A cultist appeared suddenly behind the scout. He raised a club.

  Joseph didn’t even notice.

  Maklavir crashed sideways into the cultist.

  The man flew down the stone island and into the sludge of the lake.

  Maklavir spun around, his sword out and ready. “Watch your back, old chap!” he called back to his friend.

  “Kara!” Joseph shouted. He leaned in closer to the unconscious girl. “Kara!”

  Kendril took a step back and blocked a frantic blow from another attacking cultist. His blade rang from the impact.

  Maklavir looked to his left. “Kendril!”

  Kendril parried another blow, then killed his robed assailant with a thrust through the man’s unprotected chest. He snapped his head around in response to Maklavir’s warning.

  Bronwyn, Mina, and two other robed cultists were dashing down the stone path towards the chamber’s exit.

  Wanara was kneeling between the fleeing group and the doorway. She was still reloading her crossbow.

  Kendril snarled in rage and frustration as he pulled his sword out of the cultist, then kicked the body into the icy water.

  “Maklavir, help me!” Joseph roared. He tore away at the last ropes that bound Kara to the altar.

  Wanara dropped her half-loaded crossbow to the ground. She rose and drew a dagger from beneath her black cloak.

  Kendril tossed aside his sword, then snatched a third firearm, a small silver pistol from behind his back. He aimed it at the cultists. “Bronwyn!” he yelled.

  The witch hesitated, and so did Mina and the other two cultists.

  “She’s dying,” Joseph gasped to Maklavir. “Grab her feet.”

  Wanara stepped between Bronwyn and the exit.

  Bronwyn smiled coyly at Kendril. She nodded to one of the hooded cultists.

  The robed figure tossed back its cowl. A long brown ponytail uncurled from underneath. A half-white mask glistened in the half-light of the room.

  Nadine.

  Kendril shifted his pistol and aimed at the female assassin.

  Wanara took a step forward.

  Maklavir gaped over his shoulder at the scene on the causeway.

  “Her legs, Maklavir!” Joseph cried. “We’ve got to get her—”

  A cultist appeared out of the darkness on the other side of the altar, a dagger in his hand. “The goddess rises!” he screamed. The dagger in his hand flashed down.

  Straight towards Kara’s breast.

  Chapter 12

  Kendril fired.

  His pistol barked. The flash lit the darkness of the chamber for a moment, like a stray lightning bolt.

  The shot hit the cultist right above the heart.

  He flew back. The dagger that was in his hand a moment before clattered off into the darkness and skittered off the slick stones into the lake with a splash.

  Joseph and Maklavir stared at the dead cultist in shocked surprise.

  Kendril whirled back towards the causeway.

  Bronwyn and her companions were just escaping through the archway.

  Wanara lay in a crumpled heap on the ground.

  Kendril snatched up his sword and ran towards the fallen Ghostwalker.

  Maklavir and Joseph lifted Kara off the altar.

  The redheaded thief gave no sign of life. Her body was completely limp.

  Kendril threw himself next to Wanara. He rolled her over onto her back with his black-gloved hands.

  The woman’s chest was dark with blood, her vest torn by a vicious stab wound. Already a pool of red was spreading underneath her, running into the green slime of the lake.

  She blinked up at Kendril. Her face was pale, almost as white as her hair.

  “I’m sorry,” Kendril said. It was all he could think to say.

  Wanara closed her eyes. Her ragged breathing ceased.

  Kendril stood back up. His face was as hard as flint.

  “She’s freezing to death,” Joseph called out.

  Kendril turned his head.

  Joseph and Maklavir hurried up the causeway, carrying Kara’s unmoving form between them. “We have to warm her up,” the scout continued. Doubt and concern were plain on his face. “Fast.”

  Kendril didn’t answer. He stared down for a long moment at Wanara’s lifeless form.

  He could have shot Nadine. Why hadn’t he shot Nadine? For that matter, why not Lady Dutraad? She had been wearing the Soulbinder around her neck.

  But he hadn’t. He had saved Kara by killing the cultist.

  Madris was right, Kendril realized in a single blinding moment of clarity. He had put his friend over the safety of the entire city, over all of Zanthora.

  And now Wanara was dead, the first of many. All because of his own short-sightedness.

  And cowardice.

  Kendril spun towards the chamber’s exit, his face burning with shame and anger, anger at himself, at his own weakness and selfishness. He ran like a man possessed, ignoring the shouts of his friends behind him.

  He would catch Bronwyn before she got away. He would get that Soulbinder back.

  He would avenge Wanara.

  “It was him.” Lillette pushed back the cowl of her robe, her brown hair in disarray. “The Ghostwalker from Dutraad’s house.”

  Bronwyn smiled. She pushed her way past a prop tree leaning against the backstage wall. “Yes, it was. Dear, dear, Kendril. You really have to admire his persistence.”

  Lillette stared at Bronwyn in confusion. “He killed the others and disrupted the ceremony.
How can we summon the goddess now?”

  Bronwyn turned suddenly.

  Nadine stopped beside her.

  Mina, still trembling, stood nearby. She glanced nervously back down the row of unused sets that loomed in the darkness behind them.

  “Actually,” Bronwyn said, “we finished almost all of the ceremony.” She looked over at the assassin. “Nadine, the Ghostwalker and his friends will be coming after us. You know what you need to do.”

  Nadine clenched both hands over her heart. “Yes, mistress.” She vanished back into the shadows.

  Lillette glanced back behind them too, as if expecting to see the Ghostwalker at any moment. “But…the sacrifice? We still need blood to complete the ritual, don’t we?”

  “Actually,” Bronwyn chimed with her cloying voice, “we do. So sorry.”

  Lillette turned back around, a look of sudden alarm on her face.

  Bronwyn stabbed her dagger into Lillette’s chest.

  There was a round of thunderous applause from the stage. It was hard to imagine that in the main opera house there were a thousand audience members watching a performance, oblivious to the conflict that was happening right now backstage.

  Kendril pushed a stagehand out of his way with a bestial growl.

  The startled man stumbled and crashed into a pile of boxes.

  Kendril didn’t look. He didn’t care. Inwardly he cursed himself for being such a soft, sentimental fool. There was only one thought on his brain, and it burned like a hot coal.

  Stop Bronwyn. Get the Soulbinder. Nothing else mattered.

  Nothing.

  There were no tracks to follow, no trail to guide him. Kendril just ran on instinct and sheer gut, chasing after a foe that could be lurking anywhere in the shadows of the backstage. He dodged around piles of rope, leapt over crates, weaved through sets and sandbags. Every step was either taking him closer to his quarry or farther away from them. There was no way to be sure which.

  Out on the stage more singing erupted again in earnest. A whole chorus piece. Paletto sounded like it was reaching the end of the first half.

  Kendril turned a corner, running madly down a long space behind some dusty sets. He saw something ahead, on the ground.

  He slowed, out of breath from the run. He was surprised to realize that he had been reloading his pistol as he ran. It was such an ingrained habit that he did it without even thinking, a knee-jerk reaction. He snapped back the lock and kept the pistol out in his hand, then stepped forward cautiously.

  It was a body. Not a stagehand, but one of the cultists, wearing a robe. There was a large stain of blood on the floor underneath it.

  Kendril knelt down cautiously, watching the shadows around him warily. He grabbed the cultist’s body by the shoulder and flipped it over.

  It was Lilette. A stab wound to the chest was the obvious cause of death.

  Kendril felt an uneasy tingling up the small of his back. Something was wrong. Who had killed Lillette, and why? And how—?

  One of the shadows moved, just to Kendril’s left.

  He leapt up and back.

  A throwing blade hissed a finger’s width past his chest and struck into a nearby support beam.

  Kendril whipped up his pistol.

  Nadine was already on him. She twisted around and beside him with supernatural speed, then grabbed his gun arm and twisted it up.

  Kendril threw out a punch with his other arm.

  The assassin blocked it with the side of her free arm, then spun around and cracked Kendril’s arm hard against the side of the set.

  He grimaced in pain, but kept hold of the pistol. He whirled around the opposite direction and aimed an elbow strike at the back of her head.

  Nadine ducked under the blow and punched him hard in the lower part of his back.

  Kendril stumbled down to the ground.

  The pistol in his hand blasted out. The shot slammed into the side of the set.

  With a snarl Kendril stood and hurled the spent pistol at Nadine.

  She dodged it almost casually, then instantly produced two long knives in her hands. A smile appeared on the half of her face that was visible. “Miss me, handsome?”

  Kendril didn’t answer. He drew both his short swords.

  Nadine came at him.

  Joseph went for the first door in the hallway. He was still holding Kara with both hands, and didn’t waste time getting an arm free to open it. Instead, he leaned back and kicked it with all his might.

  The door swung inwards and cracked hard against the wall.

  Joseph and Maklavir bundled into the room, supporting the unconscious girl between them.

  A man sat in a chair in front of a large mirror. His face was almost white with applied makeup. He looked up in horror at the intruders, and half-rose from his seat. “Tuldor’s beard! What do you think—”

  Joseph turned his head towards the man. “We need blankets, now!”

  The man opened his mouth to answer, but stopped as his eyes fell on Kara.

  Joseph laid Kara’s unmoving form down on a thick carpet. He looked up frantically.

  There was a fireplace against one wall. It was unlit.

  The actor tried again. “What—?”

  Maklavir drew his sword.

  Joseph stared up at his companion in surprise.

  “She’s dying.” The diplomat’s voice was eerily calm. “Now stop talking and get us some blankets, or as Eru is my witness I’ll run you through.”

  The man stared at the naked blade in Maklavir’s hand. He put up his hands, then ran out of the room.

  Joseph leaned over Kara. He put one hand against her face.

  It was ice cold.

  He clapped her hard on the cheek. “Kara, it’s Joseph. Can you hear me?”

  She moaned. Her eyes didn’t open.

  There was a loud crack from by the desk.

  Joseph looked up.

  Maklavir lifted up two pieces of what had been the chair. “Firewood,” he said simply.

  Joseph nodded. He could feel his heart racing. His stomach was gripped with fear. “It’ll do. Can you get it going?”

  Maklavir snatched an oil lantern off the desktop and gave his trademark smile. “Got it covered.”

  Kendril didn’t have time for this. Every second he wasted here with Nadine was one more second that Bronwyn had to get away with the Soulbinder.

  And deep down, flickering dully to the surface of his mind in fits and starts, was a certain level of fear.

  He was beginning to think he couldn’t beat this assassin.

  Nadine flashed forward with a stab.

  Kendril blocked it with his sword.

  Was Nadine’s knife poisoned? Probably. One cut, then, and it was all over.

  Kendril swiped back with his own sword.

  Nadine danced effortlessly out of the way.

  Eru she was fast.

  Kendril jumped back and crashed into two stagehands.

  They shouted in surprise, then in fear as they saw the flashing blades and intense combat. They turned and ran off.

  Kendril ignored them. His focus was on the scything knives that lashed out at him again and again.

  She was fast. Crazy fast. This was his fourth time going up against her, and her speed and skill surprised him all over again. The way she moved just didn’t seem possible.

  There was a warbling of a single soprano from somewhere behind Kendril.

  The opera. Of course. It was still going.

  He tripped backwards, losing ground and fighting desperately.

  Someone shouted something.

  Kendril felt a hand pluck momentarily at his cloak. Furious, he tore away, barely blocking one of Nadine’s attacks in the process. His gaze stayed riveted on the long knives she held in each hand.

  She parried his blow, then twirled nimbly and kicked him hard in the center of his chest.

  Kendril stumbled backwards. He crashed through a thick curtain, then he was suddenly out in an open, blinding
ly lit space. Surprised, he raised a hand against the glare.

  There was a row of glow-globes immediately to his right, set into the edge of a platform. Beyond that, barely visible past the brilliant lights, was a sea of faces that stretched up and away as far as he could see.

  The singing suddenly stopped.

  “Ashes,” Kendril swore.

  Nadine swept past the curtain, then lunged at him again.

  Olan moved down the upper hall of the theater. He paused outside of the open entrance to each private box as he went, peering inside.

  Nothing. If it hadn’t been for their warm reception at the theater’s entrance, he would have thought they were on a wild goose-chase. As it was, he was beginning to think more and more that Kendril and Wanara were on the right track. The enemy undoubtedly lay somewhere backstage, amid the bowels of the theater.

  So why had he sent Kendril back there in the first place? A stupid mistake on his part. The Ghostwalker was so rash and foolish that he might well lose them their quarry. He didn’t know what Madris saw in Kendril, why she listened to him and kept defending him.

  Olan reached the end of the hall and turned with a scowl on his face. There were four levels of private boxes set above the level of seats on the ground floor of the opera house. He had seen nothing unusual in any of them.

  It was time to get backstage.

  He strode quickly down the carpeted hall, one hand on the hilt of his sword. At this point he didn’t know who in this theater to trust. It was obvious the cult had been operating out of here for quite some time, probably with the support of the theater’s owner.

  As much as he hated to admit it, Olan was beginning to think that Kendril’s suspicions about the cult were right. It had its tendrils throughout the city, probably allied with other mystery cults as well.

  There was no telling how much of Vorten had been turned to Seteru worship.

  Olan neared the top of the stairs. He motioned to Hamis. “Nothing here. Let’s get backstage. Kendril’s probably found the whole cult by now.”

  Hamis was staring down at the stage far below them. “You could say that again,” he rumbled. He pointed.

  The orchestral music continued, but the singing that had been filling the hall just moments before had abruptly stopped.