Ghost in the Blood (The Ghosts)

by Moeller, Jonathan

  “No,” said Icaraeus. “When she enslaves the demon in the pit, her power will be magnified. And I have already named my reward. I will sit upon the Emperor’s throne, the throne that is rightfully mine. Perhaps I’ll make that wretched old man beg for his life first. And then I’ll kill the Ghosts. All of them. One by one. Starting with you, I think.”

  “She lied to you,” said Caina. “What guarantee do you have that she will keep her word?” Now all three of them circled, weapons ready.

  Icaraeus laughed. “And what shall I do instead? Throw in my lot with you? The Ghosts have harassed and chased me for years…”

  “Because you kidnapped innocent people and sold them to sorcerous butchers, first Maglarion and now Jadriga. So unjust of us to pursue you.”

  “Do not judge me, Ghost,” said Icaraeus, bringing his sword up with a flourish. “I did what I had to do. And you…”

  As before, his attack came with no warning. But this time Caina expected it. Icaraeus’s free hand blurred, a dagger hurtling at Caina. She dodged sideways, the dagger clanging against the black wall. An instant later Icaraeus rushed at her, his sword plunging and weaving. Caina backed away, trying to stay out of range, but Icaraeus was too strong, too fast, too skilled. Caina managed to block a blow with her dagger, and then her back slammed against the cold stone wall.

  Then Ark caught up to him, bringing the staff down in a massive two-handed blow. Icaraeus whirled, backhanded Caina across the face with his free hand as he did so, and beat aside Ark’s blow with a flick of his sword. Caina stumbled, her head ringing, and grabbed at the wall to keep her balance. Icaraeus came at Ark, driving the older man back with vigorous thrusts and slashes. The sword bit into the wood of Ark’s staff again and again. Then Ark overbalanced and stumbled. Icaraeus punched out, the pommel of his sword striking Ark on the cheek. Again Ark stumbled, and Icaraeus reversed his sword, drawing it back for the killing thrust.

  Caina raced at him, dagger raised. Icaraeus growled in frustration and turned on her. Caina jerked back, just avoiding Icaraeus’s sword as it whipped past her throat. Ark recovered his balance, thrusting at Icaraeus’s head. Icaraeus danced away, moving to a position between them, sword ready, his balance perfect. Caina snatched a throwing knife from her belt and flung it. It would do no damage, she knew, but she hoped the flash of its destruction would distract him.

  His sword snapped up, deflecting the knife into the wall.

  He was too strong, too skilled. Caina had not wanted to face him in a straight fight again. Mostly because she knew that she and Ark could not beat him. Sooner or later she or Ark would tire and make a mistake, and Icaraeus would have them.

  All right. Then she would have to make this something other than a straight fight.

  Caina backed away, her free hand clawing at her throat, and pulled her cloak loose. Hopefully Jadriga would be too occupied with the Opening of the Way to sense her presence. The cloak flowed over her free arm, billowing like a wing. Icaraeus lunged at her, and Caina leapt back, the sword plunging past her stomach.

  “A cloak?” he sneered. “You think to beat me with a cloak?” Ark swept his staff at him, and Icaraeus beat aside the blow, launching a riposte at Ark’s chest. He grunted and backed away, not before Icaraeus’s blade scraped his shoulder.

  “You should be careful,” said Caina. “Jadriga isn’t here. You can’t fall on your knees and beg until she heals your wounds, not this time.”

  Icaraeus snarled. “I am sick of spies. Always skulking in the shadows like rats. Well,” his sword came up, reflecting the green light, “there’s only one way to deal with rats.”

  He came at Caina in a rush, sword blurring. Caina flung her cloak at his face. It billowed out, and Icaraeus swung out with his free hand, pushing the cloak aside. It barely slowed him down at all.

  It did, however, give Caina more than enough time to pull a throwing knife from her belt and toss it into his face. The knife struck with a brilliant green flash, the blade twisting and splintering beneath the bracers’ power. Icaraeus growled and shook his head, missing a step.

  And that gave Caina enough time to step inside his guard, dagger raking for his chest.

  Icaraeus saw it coming and jerked away, but too late. Her ghostsilver blade slashed a long diagonal across his chest, the dagger grating against his ribs. Smoke rose from the wound in a black stream. Icaraeus screamed, but didn’t wrench away. He drove himself closer, and his forehead slammed into Caina’s face. She fell backwards, stunned, losing her grip on the dagger. Icaraeus loomed over her, sword drawn back for the kill.

  Then Ark came at him, staff blurring in a two-handed swing. Icaraeus twisted aside, the blow landing on his left arm instead of his temple. Caina heard the bone shatter, and Icaraeus staggered to the side. Ark pressed him back with a flurry of swings. Icaraeus retreated, breathing hard, face tight with pain. The runes on his bracers glowed brighter, and smoke still rose from the wound on his chest.

  Caina shook her head, snatched the dagger, and rolled back to her feet. Icaraeus broke free from Ark’s attacks, sword held in a shaking grip. His breath came in harsh rasps, his broken left arm hanging limp and useless.

  Caina reversed her grip on the dagger, getting ready to throw. They had him. For years this man had murdered and butchered and enslaved, and now they had him. He could block Caina’s throw. He could fend off Ark’s attacks.

  But he couldn’t do both at once.

  Then a woman appeared behind Icaraeus, running. Caina looked at her alarm, expecting Messana or Vorena or even Jadriga herself to emerge from the gloom.

  But it was Tanya. Grief and horror filled her face, and she ran, heedless of the duel before her. Ark’s eyes fell upon her, and he froze. His face was transformed. Caina had never seen him like that.

  “Tanya?” he whispered.

  She stopped, stared at him in wonder. “Arcion?”

  “Ark!” screamed Caina.

  But it was too late. Icaraeus sprang at him, all his weight behind his sword. Ark managed to raise his staff in guard, but the force of the blow split the staff in two. Icaraeus slashed again, his sword grating down Ark’s mail coat to rip along his leg. Ark tumbled with a groan, blood splashing from his wound. Icaraeus raised his sword high, drawing it back for the kill.

  Tanya screamed. Caina yelled and raced at Icaraeus, who managed to turn to meet her attack. But Caina ducked under his blow and drove her dagger into his left hip. Icaraeus screamed and backhanded her across her face. Caina fell back, ripping the dagger free from his side in a plume of black smoke.

  When Caina regained her feet, Icaraeus held Tanya pinned before him like a living shield, his sword resting at her throat.

  “Back off,” hissed Icaraeus. The sword pressed against the soft skin of Tanya’s neck. “Back off or you’ll watch her die.”

  “Let her go!” said Ark. He tried to stand, but his wounded leg folded beneath him.

  “Arcion,” said Tanya, pleading, “go, go, get out of here.” She looked at Caina. “You weren’t supposed to tell him, you weren’t…”

  “Shut up,” said Icaraeus, tugging her back.

  “Let her go!” said Ark.

  “Shut up, both of you!” said Icaraeus. He looked at Caina, glanced at Ark, and then laughed. “Wait…this woman is yours?” He laughed again. “What are the odds that you would actually find her? And just in time to watch her die in front you. How very tragic.”

  “Let her go and I won’t kill you,” said Caina.

  “No,” said Icaraeus. “You’ll both throw away your weapons, all of them. Then I might let her go. Or I might not. Understand?”

  Silence fell. Caina stared at Icaraeus, mind racing. She had a clear throw. With one of her steel knives she could have hit the murdering villain right in the throat. But the ghostsilver dagger had not been balanced for throwing. If she missed…

  And in the silence, something clicked.

  Caina stiffened. She had heard that click before, when Radast had loaded
the two quarrels into that double crossbow. How far away was the portcullis? Thirty yards? Maybe forty? Could Radast make a shot from that distance? Caina didn’t dare turn around, didn’t dare draw Icaraeus’s attention away from her…

  “All right,” said Caina, dropping the dagger. It clanged against the black floor.

  “No!” said Ark.

  “What is so special about her, anyway?” said Icaraeus to Ark. He rubbed the sword against Tanya’s neck. “Jadriga wanted her…and her brat, too. Come to think of it, she wanted that brat more than she wanted his mother. Can’t imagine why.”

  “It’s simple,” said Caina, taking a step to the side. Icaraeus glanced at her. “Tanya’s great-grandfather was Solmonari, one of the magus-priests of the ancient Szaldic tribes. Jadriga wants to free the fallen angel in the pit and enslave it to her will. Only the blood of a male descendant of the Solmonari can free it.” Another step. “So she’s going to slaughter the boy and use his blood to shatter the fallen angel’s chains. Except it won’t work that way. The fallen angel will destroy Jadriga, and the backlash from her spell will kill most of the people in Marsis.”

  Icaraeus stared at her. Caina took one final step to the left.

  “That,” he said, “is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

  Caina heard another click, and threw herself to the ground.

  Icaraeus frowned. “What…”

  A heartbeat later one ghostsilver-tipped crossbow bolt plunged into his right shoulder, another into his right forearm. Icaraeus shrieked and jerked backwards, the sword falling from his wounded arm. Tanya yelled and kicked, her foot slamming into Icaraeus’s knee. She twisted free as Icaraeus staggered, smoke rising from the crossbow quarrels buried in his flesh.

  Ark threw himself across the floor, his wounded leg leaving a trail of blood. He snatched Caina’s dagger and stabbed. The blade buried itself in Icaraeus’s stomach. Icaraeus screamed again, tried to fight back, but toppled to the floor with a groan.

  Ark fell onto his face, breathing hard.

  Icaraeus groaned again, tried to rise, failed.

  Tanya knelt besides Ark and began looking at his wounded leg.

  “Tanya,” said Ark, “Tanya, I…”

  “No, don’t talk,” she said, tearing a strip from his cloak, “you’ve been hurt.”

  Caina crossed the corridor, retrieved her own cloak, and pulled it back on. She had forgotten the tingling presence of Jadriga’s power during the fight with Icaraeus, but it seemed to have trebled. The spell was that much closer to completion…

  “Wait.”

  Icaraeus stared up at her, shivering and sweating. The bracers on his arms shone with a flickering green glow, and lazy coils of black smoke rose from the quarrels embedded in his arm.

  “You’ve got to get these bracers off me,” said Icaraeus, trying to lift his arms. His voice was thick with pain. “Too much longer and they’ll kill me.”

  “Suck the life right out of you,” said Caina. The runes glowed a little brighter. “Just like what happened to Tigrane.”

  “Get them off me,” said Icaraeus, a hint of panic in his voice. “The Emperor wants me alive, doesn’t he? You can’t take a corpse back to your Emperor. Take them off me.”

  “Their names,” said Caina.

  Icaraeus flinched. “What?”

  “Their names,” said Caina. “All the men, women, and children you’ve abducted over the years. All the people you’ve torn from their homes and sold into slavery. Tell me their names, and I’ll take the bracers off.”

  “That’s…that’s madness,” said Icaraeus. “There were…thousands, thousands of them, I can’t possibly remember them all. Take them off, take them off…”

  “Fine,” said Caina. “A dozen names. Just twelve. You took them from their homes. Surely you had the courtesy to remember their names?”

  “You cannot be serious!” said Icaraeus. “They were…they were nothing to me, they mean nothing…”

  The glow from the bracers stopped flickering and grew brighter.

  “Very well,” said Caina. “Five names. Five names, and I’ll take the bracers off.”

  “I can’t…I can’t…” Icaraeus looked back and forth. He was visibly aging as the light from the bracers brightened, lines appearing on his face, gray shooting through his hair. “Wait…Tanya, Nicolai…I…I…” He tried to lift his arms. “For the gods’ sake, take them off.”

  “Five names,” repeated Caina.

  Icaraeus screamed and fury and fear…and then he just screamed.

  The runes on the bracers burned with emerald flames, and Icaraeus aged and withered before Caina’s eyes. One moment he looked fifty years old. The next a hundred, and then even older. Still he screamed, and screamed, and his scream dissolved into a harsh rasp, then a faint wheezing.

  A desiccated, crumbling corpse slumped against the corridor wall. The bracers’ light flickered and went out. Caina stooped and wrenched her silver dagger free the corpse’s stomach with a puff of dust. The blade smoked, and the handle was hot to the touch.

  “The Emperor didn’t want you alive,” said Caina. “He wanted you stopped.”

  “Why did you come back?” said Tanya, bandaging Ark’s leg. “I begged you not to come back. You could have gotten away.”

  Ark barked out a laugh. “You don’t know her.”

  Tanya blinked in surprise. “Her?”

  “If death came in person for her, she would spit in his face,” said Ark. He reached up, grabbed Tanya’s hand. “And if I am to die, let it be with you. Five years I have looked for you, five years. No more.”

  Tanya started to cry.

  “Speaking of getting away,” said Caina, “how did you get here?”

  “The Moroaica took Nicolai,” said Tanya, rubbing the tears from her cheek, “and thrust me out of the pit chamber. I tried to fight her, but she forced me away. She wouldn’t even let me go back to the library for Peter. I ran, and I heard the sounds of fighting, and…”

  “Nightfighter!”

  Caina turned, saw Radast and the others standing at the portcullis. She turned and ran towards them, stopping before the iron bars. Chalk scrawls covered the stone floor around Radast’s boots. He had scribbled his calculations onto the floor.

  Icaraeus’s mercenaries had been beaten.

  She reached through the bars and grabbed Radast’s shoulder. “That was an amazing shot. I don’t know how I would have gotten out of that one.”

  “Bah,” said Radast, scratching his chin. “A simple calculation. Not even any wind to affect the variables. Though another five yards and you’d have been out of luck.”

  “You are too modest, man,” said Hiram. “Gods of the Empire! Twenty-five years I’ve been soldiering, and I’ve never seen anyone make a shot like that.”

  “Icaraeus?” said Halfdan.

  “Dead,” said Caina. “Like Tigrane.”

  “And Jadriga?” said Halfdan.

  Caina shook her head. “She’s casting the Opening of the Way. I’ve got to go.”

  “We’ll get through this portcullis,” said Halfdan. “Wait for us.”

  “You men!” roared Hiram. “I want this gate down, and I want it down now!” The surviving Legionaries went to work on the massive portcullis, prying and hammering.

  “There’s not enough time,” said Caina. The tingling had gotten worse. “The spell’s almost ready. She could finish at any moment. I’ve got to stop her, or you will all die anyway.”

  And her own life, she realized, didn’t matter. She didn’t even have to kill Jadriga. If she could just disrupt her, ruin the spell, that would be enough. If the Opening of the Way was stopped, then uncounted thousands in Marsis would live, and the fallen angels would stay imprisoned.

  She hoped Ark got to see his son.

  Halfdan gave a grim nod.

  “Wait!” Radast thrust his double crossbow through the iron bars. It had been loaded with two ghostsilver-tipped crossbows, the metal smeared with the black g
rease of Halfdan’s poison. “Take this. I calculate that you will need it.”

  “I’ll take all the help I can get,” said Caina. “Thanks.”

  “Good luck,” said Halfdan.

  Caina turned, crossbow in hand, and ran back to Tanya and Ark.

  “You’re really a woman?” said Tanya.

  “Aye,” said Caina. “My name is Caina. I was glad I got to meet you, if only for a little while. Ark told me about you.”

  “You can’t fight the Moroaica,” said Tanya. “She will kill you. She might do worse than kill you.”

  “Probably,” said Caina. “But I don’t have to kill her. I don’t even have to beat her. Just stop her. That will be enough. Ark. Farewell.”

  Ark gave a nod. “Thank you. For everything. I never thought I would see Tanya again.”

  Caina nodded and sprinted into green-glowing darkness to face Jadriga.

  For the last time. One way or the other.

  Chapter 25 - Blood of the Moroaica

  Caina stopped long enough to put a coat of Halfdan’s poison over her ghostsilver dagger. The she hurried into the slave chamber, crossbow ready in her arms. The slaves still sat motionless, slack-jawed and blank faced. And Jadriga hadn’t even needed their blood to weaken the chains upon the fallen angels. They had been kidnapped for nothing, and would die for nothing when Jadriga finished the Opening of the Way.

  The air crackled with sorcerous power. Caina forced herself to move slower, to let her footfalls make no sound against the black floor. The shadow-woven cloak might shield her thoughts from Jadriga, but that would do no good if Caina made too much noise.

  She crept into the pit chamber.

  Ribbons of green light writhed and twisted across the walls and domed ceiling. The ring of warding sigils around the pit itself blazed like frozen lightning, painting the pillars with their emerald glow. Nicolai lay upon the stone slab, face blank, a collar glittering around his neck. Jadriga faced the pit, her back to Caina, clad again in her ceremonial costume, her bare arms and legs swirled with intricate designs. She shouted incantations at the pit, her arms tracing elaborate gestures, her face tight with strain. The effort of the spell had to be enormous, even for a sorceress of Jadriga’s power.