Skirmish: A House War Novel

by West, Michelle

  “You can, as I’ve said, be held responsible for any deaths you cause here.” He spoke to Lord Celleriant. Lord Celleriant did not appear to hear a word. This annoyed, but in its way, it was comforting.

  Celleriant gestured sharply; light seemed to come to his hands and glove them, glittering like shards of broken glass beneath a lamp that was held askew. He spoke a single word—a word that Devon could not repeat. His sword caught the same light, and as he raised his left arm, a shield formed across it. Devon didn’t even spare a glance at the wards of warning that now lit the halls. They were there to indicate magic and its possible use in Avantari, and only those trained to them might understand the information they conveyed, if they knew how to invoke them at all.

  But this magic, he knew, would tell him nothing of use for the conflict to follow, and what information the wards now contained, the magi would dissect without pause until Duvari was satisfied with their answers.

  Lord Celleriant entered the halls, and with him, a wind so strong Devon felt its tug as he followed. Avandar followed as well, unarmed and unarmored, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the empty halls. They did not remain empty for long; one turn, and the first of the bodies could be seen.

  There were three. One, Devon could not identify at all; the face and the chest had been shredded beyond recognition. From size, he thought it male, and a glance at the shape of the hands confirmed this. It confirmed, as well, one other suspicion: the left hand was callused but clean, the nails short; the right hand was scorched and blistered, the ring finger charred to broken bone. The second corpse was similarly mutilated, its hands smaller but no less callused, the right hand burned in the same way. The third corpse, however, belonged to one of the senior staff servants, one who both lived and worked within Avantari. She was—had been—a woman of middling years, and her neck had been cleanly—quickly—broken; there was very little sign of struggle.

  He rose. The din of fighting, magically amplified, carried the sounds of orders; he knew the stretched and thin veneer of command that asserted itself when the world had gone momentarily insane. Not fear, but close enough. He didn’t insert his voice into that mix; the orders told him what he needed to know.

  “The Princes are not—yet—dead,” he told his companions.

  “Viandaran, there are two.”

  Avandar nodded. “Do you recognize their voices?”

  “I recognize one. You?”

  “I will deal with the other.”

  Celleriant bowed. Devon stared at them for a long moment, but did not speak; Celleriant once again took the lead, and this time, the bodies that lay across the floors of the halls stopped no one, not even Devon. But as he ran, he wondered if Jewel had even a glimmer of understanding of what, exactly, Lord Celleriant was; she had claimed his service, and he had claimed to offer it—but did the earthquake or the tidal wave offer service, and if they did, could it ever be contained?

  4th of Henden, 427 A.A.

  Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  There wasn’t—there couldn’t be—that much damn water in a fount this small. Not if it were natural.

  Duvari said a nothing that was as cold and silent as a killing frost. Angel drew closer to Jewel, but not for comfort or protection—not his own, at any rate. He was waiting when the rain began to fall.

  Rain was wet. In and of itself, this wasn’t a significant fact—but the magi had labored for hours to erect a tangible barrier that would protect the guests of these funeral rites from its fall. Yet it fell. Jewel glanced up at the grim, gray-green skies, as lightning pierced their awful color. A cold Henden wind blew in its wake. “Sigurne?” she whispered, watching the wall of water as it continued to lift itself from the basin in which it surrounded the statuary.

  The guildmaster did not reply.

  She had no need; the rain that had begun its unexpected intrusion now flew at the behest of a wind that appeared to touch little else: the water gathered in beads, and joined what had once merely decorated a fountain.

  Jewel had seen the rivers rise from their beds in the distant South; she knew what the water could do. But there were no drummers, no demons—that she could see—nothing that controlled what was now clearly under someone’s control. Without those, she had no idea at all how to end it.

  4th of Henden, 427 A.A.

  Avantari, Averalaan Aramarelas

  The Kings’ Swords had fallen; Devon thought fully two thirds of their gathered number lay sprawled across the floor. He couldn’t be certain how many would remain that way until they were at last carried out and laid to rest, nor did he have time to ascertain this; those bodies formed the treacherous ground across which the battle lay. The Swords had fallen in defense of their future Kings; they should have been accorded more respect than they were. Devon attempted not to step on them as he moved, daggers in either hand, toward the enemies he could now clearly see.

  He had expected demons; of the Astari, he had the most experience in dealing with the kin. But the two who now occupied the center portion of the halls, surrounded by swords and long spears, were not the demons of his experience; they were tall, yes, and slender, and they were obviously powerful—but they were Winter white, and they were beautiful. Their robes—they wore robes, not armor—were dark, and they flowed like shadows cast by moving flags. The demons were graceful, elegant; they moved so quickly they avoided the simple, inelegant edges of sword and pike. Their hands were red and wet.

  Between them and the doors that listed in their frames, a dozen men stood, two deep, and it was behind these doors that the Princes now waited.

  Celleriant lifted sword and struck his shield with it three times in rapid succession.

  Both of the attackers turned, frowning, at the sound. It did not stop them from killing another man; nor did it make them vulnerable to those who sought any advantage at all that could be gained by their lack of attention.

  But one of the two looked—for a moment—astonished. His eyes widened, and his hair—ebon to Celleriant’s white—stilled in the air and fell across shoulders and back like a mantle.

  “Amaraelle,” Celleriant said.

  “Celleriant.” One of the Kings’ Swords attempted to bring his sword up—and under—his guard; he did not even kill the man, but instead swept him away with his left arm. He hadn’t once shifted his gaze. “It has been long indeed since you ventured from your Winter Caves to seek a battle worthy of you.”

  Celleriant began to move forward; Devon would have followed, but Avandar caught—and held—his arm. “If you can, ATerafin, have your Swords clear the area.”

  “Of what?”

  “The dead they can move; themselves if they do not wish to join them. Lord Celleriant’s arrival has changed the face of this battle.”

  “The Princes—”

  “Inasmuch as it is possible, they are safe for the moment; they will die if we fall.” Avandar smiled for the first time. He gestured, his hands rising and falling in a sharp, sweeping motion that suggested blade’s movement without requiring the blade itself. The doors that listed suddenly snapped into place, as if remade, and the two who had obviously been responsible for their damage now glanced at Avandar.

  Avandar did not draw a weapon. But the man to whom Celleriant directed the brunt of his attention did: it was a long sword, a great sword, and it was red to Celleriant’s blue. A shield joined it.

  “Amaraelle, do not speak to me of the Hidden Court when you are here killing mortals in a palace of dead stone and dead wood. I had not realized the Hells needed the equivalent of mortal rat-catchers. If your deeds here are now considered worthy of a Lord of the Kialli, the Kialli have indeed fallen far—but, please, continue; I will wait while I have the time.”

  On the face of the creature Lord Celleriant addressed was the slightest twitch of line around mouth and eyes, but the man by his side was not so composed; his eyes—clear, pale, the color of light on water—widened. He threw back his head, exposing the slender line of his neck as
he laughed. In so slender a man, the sound was surprising, unexpected; his voice was a low, thunderous rumble, yet laced with sheer delight.

  Were he not surrounded by the dead, the dying, the broken, he would have been beautiful. No, Devon thought, as the laughter faded into a sharp, cool smile, he was beautiful, framed by the destruction he had so casually wrought. “Lord Amaraelle,” he said, “if you care to accept the challenge offered, I will attend to the mice myself; it is rare to be afforded such an opportunity in this dull and diminished world.”

  Lord Amaraelle did not reply. He watched Celleriant in silence, impervious to the amusement that touched his companion, his sword raised, his shield steady.

  “I am afraid,” Avandar said, “I must frustrate your meager efforts to find amusement in such lesser work.” Devon turned to the domicis, drawn not by what he could see, but by what he had heard: the minute shift in the voice of a man who, domicis or no, defined the arrogance of power almost perfectly. Avandar stepped forward, and as he did, he seemed to shed shadow. Not the shadow that might enshroud the demons or the servants of Allasakar, but the shadow that softened light, diminishing what could be clearly seen.

  He drew no weapon—no dagger, no sword; nor did he gesture. The hall wards were sensitive to magic; Avandar appeared, at the moment, to be using none. But he walked toward the two, as uncaring of the fallen as those who had killed them, and as he did, both paused.

  The man who had laughed at Celleriant’s comment now roared again in delight. “Viandaran! You have still failed to escape the curse of the gods? Truly, I could not have imagined that I would meet you here on this day, in this place; I had heard word that you were in the South, harrying the ancient as you pleased!”

  “You oft faced death with delight. Of the Kialli, you alone seemed ill-suited to the worship of your Lord.”

  “My Lord?” was the smiling reply. “Look!” he gestured, stopped, frowned. “You have ruined my doors, Viandaran.”

  “Yes, although their arrangement was aesthetically pleasing. I, too, serve, and my Lord’s orders were quite explicit.”

  “And those?”

  “I feel, at the moment, they do not matter. You are here; I am here. If you will leave Amaraelle to his testing, you will not be beset by the merely mortal.”

  “Ah, no. I will, it appears, be beset by the desperately mortal. You are ever at a disadvantage, Viandaran; you want to die.”

  “It is true.”

  The smiling Lord tendered him the briefest of nods, and from air drew a red, red sword. No shield, however, came to his shield arm. Avandar noted it, and Devon saw him raise a brow.

  “We are what we are. And it is not in the nature of the Kialli to gift to strangers and enemies the things they desire. But I will cause you pain, Warlord.”

  Avandar shrugged, as if bored. He still did not draw weapon, and Devon had thought at this juncture, he might, for the demon—and the compelling, charismatic man could be nothing else—began his approach, sword in hand.

  Avandar smiled. It was slight. “We shall see.” He gestured, speaking a single phrase that Devon didn’t hear the whole of, for the floor beneath their feet shattered, cracks appearing in black and smoky marble almost as one piece, in a web that reached toward the supporting pillars—and beyond.

  4th of Henden, 427 A.A.

  Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  From the grounds came Matteos Corvel, and with him two of the magi Jewel recognized, although not by name. He wasn’t speaking, but whatever words failed to leave his lips were absorbed by Sigurne regardless. Duvari watched the column of rising water as it built itself into a wall that overflowed the basin of the fount and spread across the terrace. Sigurne said three sharp words and Jewel saw light, bright and almost golden, bisect the same terrace in a single, thin line; the guests were on one one side of it, the whole of the water on the other.

  “It will not hold,” she told Duvari, through slightly clenched teeth.

  “The rain barrier,” Jewel said starkly, turning not to Sigurne but Matteos. “The barrier is more important—Matteos, why did it fall?”

  Matteos, grim-faced, almost white-lipped said, “There has been a death at at least one of the anchor points.”

  Jewel blanched.

  “Two,” Sigurne interjected. “Two, at least. This is not where we thought attack would come, and the magi in charge of channeling power to the barrier are not men meant for war. Almost all of the magi who are have traveled South with the Kings’ armies, and they will not return today.”

  Not today, Jewel understood, not when needed.

  She turned almost wildly and Angel caught her shoulder, releasing her as she stiffened, but standing by her side. His signing was curt and minimal; hers was frenetic. She sucked in wet air as the rain that had breached the barrier meant to slough it carefully to one side of the manse or the other joined the water that waited beyond the protections Sigurne had set.

  They would not hold. Jewel knew it.

  “Send the Kings away,” she told Duvari, voice low.

  Duvari nodded. “If,” he added darkly, “it is possible, ATerafin. I will find Lord Sarcen—”

  “You’ll find his corpse, but not today,” she snapped back. As the words left her mouth, she realized they were also true. “What we could do, we did. I saw Sarcen briefly and he didn’t look like a demon, not to me. Go to the Kings.”

  “And what will you do?”

  “We’ll—we’ll deal with the water.”

  * * *

  There was no doubt at all in her voice; Angel knew all the variations of Jay’s voice; he knew her anger when it was buried deep; he knew her fear; he knew her joy, which she hid so completely it seemed to outsiders she had no experience of it at all. She spoke with certainty; she spoke as if every word was the truth.

  Duvari heard what Angel heard, and he hesitated for only a moment longer before he turned on heel and ran. It was the only time that Angel had ever seen Duvari move. He might have continued to watch, but the water was undulating in a way that suggested it was about to fall.

  “It’s just water—” he began, but one look at Jay’s face made clear that water could—and had—killed in her presence. She lowered her trembling arms, and the sleeves of the dress itself fell with them, trailing down her sides as if they were a white, white liquid that had captured some essence of the sunlight that storm clouds obscured.

  Tines grazed the space between Angel’s shoulder blades. He turned. The Winter King’s large, dark eyes gazed unblinking into his.

  “You cannot stand there, stupid boy,” Snow screeched from above.

  “I stand,” he declared, “where she stands.”

  “Then you will die, and she will be very angry.”

  The Winter King did not speak a word; nor did he look away. Angel understood what was being asked—or perhaps offered—but he hesitated anyway. “Find the others, Snow,” was his compromise.

  “Snow is stupid,” another voice said. “But I can find them.”

  “You’re supposed to be with Gabriel!” Angel shouted at Night. Wind tossed the words where the cat failed to hear them. Still air would probably have done the same. He hesitated and then cupped hands to either side of his mouth. “Find them. Keep them safe. Is Shadow—”

  “Shadow stays where she left him. He is trying to be obedient.”

  “Go!”

  “Yes, yes, yesssss.”

  Angel watched their wings cut sky as they wheeled and turned. Not even distance could make them look like birds. He turned to the Winter King and nodded. “Arann!”

  Arann sheathed sword. “It won’t cut water,” he said. The Winter King knelt, and both Angel and Arann mounted his ivory back.

  4th of Henden, 427 A.A.

  Avantari, Averalaan Aramarelas

  Devon had never cared to fight. Fighting was the last resort of the Astari; it generally implied a failure of planning, a failure of caution, or a failure of forethought. Watching the Lord, he knew
that Celleriant lived for—existed for—battle itself. He was no son of Cartanis; Cartanis was a god of War—but of Just War; the war that must be fought. There was no battle that Celleriant would not fight if he deemed the opponent worthy; no further cause was required.

  Avandar was not Celleriant, but in some ways, it was worse; when the floor shattered, Devon knew whose power had broken it. He had seen mages for most of his adult life, often covertly, and while he knew mages hoarded their power, he knew as well that they took pride in it. The magi of the First Circle would easily be capable of this limited and this deliberate an act of destruction—but only one of those magi could travel as Avandar had done—and Avandar had carried three.

  It was not the first time Devon wondered who Avandar was, or had been, before his service to Jewel ATerafin; it would not be the last. Duvari did not—and would never—completely trust the domicis, and the scant trust he had grudgingly developed was likely to be greatly diminished if Avandar succeeded on Jewel’s behalf.