Suppressing the fear was an easy matter, yet it did not provide an answer on what to do next. Idly Stromgald walked through his thoughts. Time and again he stood defiant against an engine of destruction that had consumed and destroyed all that stood before it. His fire spread through the warriors at his back. It held the men together. Orson did the same now, raising the broadsword that was his family’s treasure, stepping back into a fighting stance. Behind him was the shuffling of boots raking across the dirt, kicking up a dust cloud that gave them the illusion of ghosts, hanging in their air with their phantom legs shrouded in the grime. From the bulbous black that choked the horizon, the rangers knew the fifteen feet separating them and the demons.
Closer now, closer.
Twelve feet. The air moaned with the Versi’s insane laughter.
Ten feet. Steel creaked as men firmed their grip on their steel. Idly Orson felt relief. Many men would flee when nightmare was given flesh and blood. Shiva’s home guard might as well be greenlings to the gathered against them, yet there was naught a flicker of fear from any of them. It almost gave Orson hope.
Eight feet. Six. Four.
The Versi spread over the dusty field like a plague.
Two feet. One.
Forgive me Father.
Involuntary Orson closed his eyes...and nothing happened. The Northborn ranger chanced a peek and gasped despite himself. Where there was a locust of versi a heartbeat before was naught but piles of ash, slipping away on the currents of a fresh wind.
“He did it.” Orson whispered. “He did it! That bastard! He actually killed the beasts’ mother!” For a time, the small army feared insanity in the face of such glee; given a word they too succumbed to the whooping call of celebration. The tale would grow during the passing years. Perhaps it would grow too much. Stories changed from hand to hand down the generations, until the tale was wrought in the opposite manner from which it began.
Orson cared little about this. He was alive, they were dead. Time for a drink.
Mykel could hardly tolerate himself. It was all the librarian could do not to march outside and bury the damned khatar under the snow. Off in the distance there was the faint echo of wails. The Versi. Caryl – she’s not Caryl – had her wish. All the versi born from her blood were dead. The fifteen ranks were no more.
He didn’t know the path he worked. He only knew Stromgald helping him. Tolrep looked as though he wanted to say something, but then his hand would flutter away, the words too flat to explain adequately. Then they were outside. Stromgald’s shiisaa flashed, and the cavern’s open mouth folded in on itself and shrank into the earth as though the dirt were quicksand.
“It’s done.” Stromgald’s hand lingered on the librarian’s shadow, acknowledging the other’s pain with a related experience.
“No. It is not.”
All three turned. Janos Shann. Still in the robes of his office, little more than a violet gown that flared and fell with the wind. His magnetic eyes seemed fixed with the fervor of the fanatic, hinting a danger just below the surface. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
It was then the three noticed the egg, cracked at the top and wet with newborn blood. Already transfixed, the eye followed upward, marking the dribble of purple foam from pursued lips. He drank the Myrrh’s blood, Mykel realized. Hence the power rippling from the holyman. Mykel didn’t need to trade glances to know the others were aware as well. A human empowered by demon blood. Oh, they were walking a fine line here. A very fine line.
Matt cocked his pistol. “Easy, old man. I ran myself sweaty after all that fighting. Be a shame to slip up now and you lose a head.”
“You have no idea what you have seen.” The pistol’s presence seemed to heighten the fervor. “A future like none other. We will sweep the land clean of sinners, and when the dust settles only the righteous will reclaim their seat as lords and masters of the Kingdom. We –”
“No.”
One word. One word from a crippled librarian, and Shann looked as though he denied Gospel itself. “How dare you –”
“No. You don’t get to talk. You don’t get to speak. Not after what you did.” Mykel shrugged off his compatriots’ hold and took an unsteady step forward. But it was a step. “You used that poor creature. You bound her up and mutilated her for your own agenda.”
“The plans of God are always murky to the uninitiated –”
“Shut up.” Another step, the anger building. “You take advantage of people because it’s part of the plan. All for the plan.” The librarian stopped a few inches before the corrupted holyman, proud and straight and true. “Here I am. One of your weak tools. I’m standing in your way. Hurt me. Go on! Hurt me!”
Shann didn’t disappoint. He was no scrapper, no pugilist, but then he didn’t have to be. He had demon blood in him. Myrrh blood. He was powerful, invincible, unbeatable. He took a swing that would knock the head clean off the shoulders –
Ifirit closed over the fist in mid-swing like it was nothing. Shann grunted in shock; grunted again when his hand refused to move. A wild desperation filled the priest’s eyes. His was the bigger fist, yet it was the gauntlet who squeezed tight. Joints began to pop in counterpoint with flares of pain.
“I had to kill her,” Mykel whispered. “She was in pain, and it broke her heart to see her children twisted to evil.” He laughed, a dry, empty echo. “That’s the second time I killed a woman with her face. Does that damn me? Once she was turned undead, twice to save her from pain.” Shann’s pride finally failed him as his knuckles shattered completely. Ifirit pulled back, forcing Shann to his knees. His free hand flailed blindly to support the prostrate arm, trying to find purchase on Ifirit’s vice-like grasp.
“Maybe I’m going to hell. Maybe we both are. But you know what?” He pulled Shann up and stared at the man with dark, hurting eyes. “You’re not worth finding out.”
Shann gasped as his arm swung free. The flesh around the hand was blue from lack of blood – the librarian’s hold had cinched the veins almost air-tight – and the limb wouldn’t see any action anytime soon, but the corrupted holyman still had his arm. Not a fate I was spared, Mykel thought with a glance to his own dead hand. But that’s what makes me different.
“Can you take care of him, Matt?”
“Sure, Myke. Sure.” His eyes had a strange sort of pride. Such a strange way to win loyalty. Especially when Mykel was unsure if murder was better than mercy.
A sound penetrated the haze, pulling the librarian’s attention. He went straight towards it like a bloodhound, with Stromgald following. They came upon the four strangest, shaggiest creatures Mykel had ever seen, though not as strange as Stromgald patting and cooing the lead beast like a favored horse. Then the realization came down like a hammer. “The Slayers.”
“Yes. They’re yeti-horses. Orson told me about them. Can ride through water like it was land. This is what the Slayers used to get here so quickly.”
“And we’re just going to ride them back?”
“All the way to Wyndei Darteria. We’ll beat Sylver and the others there.”
Well good. Mykel was glad that he wouldn’t be packed into that tiny canoe anymore. That wasn’t the problem. If he had such difficulty with a normal horse, what chance did he have of this shaggy behemoth? Still, a ride was a ride.
“Guys! We have a problem!”
What now? The librarian went to Tolrep’s crouched form, shielding Shann’s body from view. With lean legs Stromgald reached him first, and again he dropped to his knees, further obscuring the damned holyman. “What? What is it?”
Both men shifted aside, and Mykel let out a curse. Shann. His eyes were filmed, dull and blank. “He’s dead.” Mykel’s eyes went to
the foam at his mouth. “Poison?”
“In his teeth,” Tolrep picked up smoothly. “Suicide.”
“Coward.” Ice chilled his stomach, and not just for cowardice. Shann was the only link to the conspiracy and Omeros’ part in that conspiracy. Without him – and who were they to hold a dead witness to judgement – the whole affair might as well never have happened. “Dammit.”
“A conspiracy has many threads,” Stromgald said. “We will find another to unravel.”
“Yeah.” Mykel’s face twisted as though he chewed a bitter strawberry. “But in the meantime, Omeros gets away with it.”
“First, we have make sure we live to chase him down,” Tolrep said, clutching his cloak tighter. “Were those yeti-horses I heard?”
So that was it. Shann was dead, the creature was dead...and for what? Too much death swirled like tobacco smoke, and try as he might Mykel couldn’t sweep the biting, stinging feel from his flesh. Lazarus, though...he would have answers. He always did before; he’d do so now. Grim-faced the librarian followed the two Weirwynd. He was not going to be left with the smallest mount, that much was certain.
XIII
Wyndei Darteria defied words. The path leading to the manor was lined with stone statutes. The left side featured a procession of men who bore the same face of the manor’s master. The right side was the family familiars, an integral part of the Khatari’s legend, almost as much as the old man himself. The statutes themselves showed no joint of stonework, nor the chips born from a slipped chisel. It was as though the stone guardians were molded instead of shaped. To this day, Mykel swore the statute’s eyes followed him.
The manor grew more impressive with distance lessened. High marble walls were laced with symbols of hourglasses and clock-faces and Mobius strips. Crimson banners hung along the stone-toothed wall, topped every spike-bladed parapet and tower, decorated again with oddities like snakes eating their own tails, or twelve-spiked wheels. Time. It was an odd choice of a sigil, even odder for there to be no family motto as compliment. But that was Lazarus for you. He could do anything he damn well pleased.
The yeti-horses crossed the divide into the courtyard. Dimly Mykel noticed the guards heaving a wooden bar as big as a giant’s arm across the gilded double doors. Doors, he saw, that were gilded in chains of multi-colored wolves, connected tail to tail. He remembered it slightly fresher; the painter had just finished a new coat. In truth, it could be dressed thick in moss for all he cared. He was just glad to see it. Home. Strange that a night of horrors would bring the relief where years of solitude had not. It was that kind of ride.
Yet the chill seemed to affect others more. Mykel watched Stromgald reunite with his team – themselves descending from their own yeti-horses – and greet each other with militaristic precision. A stranger might think them cold indeed, but Mykel knew better. The frost between Stromgald and Sylver would melt behind closed doors, but until then responsibility and duty were the words of the day. If only everyone has such to come home to.
“Sir? If I may?” The page was a willowed boy by the name of Duncan. He had not yet entered the apprenticeship that would put a man’s worth of muscle on him, nor give him the skill that made nobles from all over seek his swords. Now he was just a stick with a mop of blonde hair and twiggy limbs. “Sir?” The librarian let Duncan help him from the carriage, absorbing the details both similar and different. Not much had changed. The youths keeping at their station were like the adults Mykel knew in his sojourn. To know the coin of man’s fate before it struck the ground was interesting. With John in tow the librarian followed the wall of people in the courtyard, echoing the clap of steel against steel.
Lazarus. Mykel fought the urge to screech. The image of the old man’s severed head, the constant hunter in his nightmares, finally began to fade. He’s alive. He’s actually alive. Relief burst within him. He’ll know what to do.
But for now, there was battle. Lazarus was at the center of a ring, calm and collected. The five men surrounding him were full into manhood, and yet the Khatari towered over them in both strength and skill. To him, they were mere boys toying with practice swords. Hushed whispers rippled through the crowd. We might as well not be here. Lazarus’s thoughts centered on the men circling in and out of his vision. The crowd was nothing, less than nothing. Only the men with their weapons. Nothing but them.
With a wordless growl, the Khatari charged. Wooden khatars flew open with a loud shirk just as he made within striking distance of the first man. Lazarus dropped as if he had no legs. The other man’s strike sailed just inches shy from his chocolate hair. The katas came from Lazarus’ blades even as he was spinning.
Desert Mirage. Vipers in The Grass. Dragon Rises from Slumber.
Twilight Descends. Fog of Smoke. Cascading River.
With a loud crack, Lazarus’ wooden khatar hammered against the other’s ribs, and he fell like a stone. Immediately Lazarus rolled, and the second man’s blade swung through air. Lazarus halted in mid-roll, reversed, and then sprang upward like a serpent. His legs blurred, and down went the second man.
Lazarus resumed his stance. Two were down, but the three that remained he knew to be a great challenge: a heavyset man who bore fat and muscle both, his blade moving as if an extension of the arm. A rugged young man with eyes the shade of smoke and a sword in each hand. A whip-thin man whom people whispered he never knew pain. Lazarus closed in on whip-man, his khatar flowing into the forms.
Moth Drawn to Flame. Salamander Rests at Pond. Arc of The Sun.
Coiled Serpent. Hypnotic Eyes. Cold Twilight.
The Arc led into the Million Needles. Heavy-set and whip-man charged together but suddenly found themselves bereft of a defense. Once, twice, three times the wooden claw kissed the men’s flesh, blurring as though the strikes really did number in the millions. Both heavy-set and whip-man went down almost immediately.
That left the young man with the twin swords. Instead of waiting twin-sword charged, both blades whirling in silver swaths in his hands. Lazarus blocked the swords and carried the boy’s momentum down. Now both combatants were crooked close to the floor, blades haphazardly locked. The young man looked as though victory had already been granted to him, but Lazarus had a trick in mind. A kick to the knee’s edge gave the old man ample opportunity to kick again in twin-sword’s stomach. Wheezing the young swordsman collapsed, his steel clinking on the pavement half a heartbeat after him. It was over, and in under a minute.
The chorus of clapping hands floated through the air. Lazarus half-bowed to the men and women responsible as a towel was brought to him. Lazarus grasped the towel and dismissed the servant who gave it with an eye-blink. The men and women were nobles, as one could see in their embrocated silk clothing. The old man nodded and waved to those who sought to curry his favor. Strange thing, Mykel thought. It was Lazarus’ manor, and yet he had these witless fops against his will. Odd, then, that he had to act and play for them so as naught lose their interest. Complex were the plans of mortal man, high-born or no.
Lazarus was heading towards a side corridor when he caught sight of the little company. They followed him until they were halfway into the adjourning courtyard. The old Khatari lost a little bit of patience at every step, until he thrust a hand forth to stop them. “Shit.”
Mykel realized the drilling augurs pierced something else. Something...behind them. A horse bearing two passengers. One of expensive silks and bangles, the other shrouded in heavy wool. When the pair reached close enough the librarian heard Raptor’s tongue rolling from his mouth. It would be a lie for the librarian could feel nothing, for he too felt the bewitching paralysis radiating from her generous charms. Wind-set hair made a banner of ever-shifting auburn curls. Brown eyes contained both the witch’s allure and the fiery arrogance of a noble. No, this woman
did not truckle to any man, not even when sating her appetites.
One appetite was plain as crystal. She wore a large black fedora like Mykel’s, save for the curved rim fleeced in white, and with a massive dryori’s feather bobbing back and forth in the wind. The dryoris are the rarest of Eluri’s predator birds. There are only a hundred left in existence. Not that the noblemen cared when they let loose their hunting dogs. Mykel schooled his face to stillness, hoping that the princess was too pampered to note the flash of rage. It was such a waste.
It was easier to notice the rest of the princess’ raiment. A purple vest tooled in expensive metals spread out into dark stocking sleeves and tight-fitting gloves. The vest ended just shy at the thighs and spun into a second set of black stockings, ending in heel-high shoes. It was obviously made to bring out the shade of her waist-length auburn hair and the chiseled set of her face. Not to mention overemphasizing her undersized bosom.
The servant was a mystery; though Mykel knew enough of a royalborn’s vanity to guess the servant was the ugliest girl from the ranks of servitude, to bear a constant comparison of her superior beauty.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
She was an angel. Short russet hair framed a heart-shaped face, her skin sunned bronze. A string of beads, blue and black and gray tied and bound by gold threads, ran down her left ear to hang just inches away from a fur-lined shoulder. Large doe eyes stared raptly, almost black if it weren’t for the hint of brown. Her lips were soft petals shining with the dew of melted snow. He wanted to stroke those lips. If I kissed her...
Chased By War Page 15
