Ethan grimaced at the absurdity of the situation. He had just witnessed perhaps the most awesome spectacle of power the world had seen in centuries, and a feeble old man with a simple weapon could still ruin everything. Ethan’s only defense was his own small, hand-sized crossbow he’d smuggled beneath his fake priestly regalia. The weapon was fitted with a poison-tipped bolt, but it only had one shot.
Propping Krystia up with one hand, Ethan reached into his robe and pulled free the crossbow with the other. Kaeldar was already lining up a shot…but to Ethan’s surprise, the other man wasn’t aiming at him. He was aiming at Krystia.
Ethan had only a heartbeat to react. He could have fired first—he should have fired first—but instead he rolled protectively in front of Krystia just as the High Priest pulled the trigger. The first shot pierced Ethan’s shoulder, and the second lodged in his lower back. The strength in his arms drained away, and Krystia’s body slipped from his fingers. He flopped down atop her, helpless.
With the last of the air in his lungs, Ethan cursed his own stupidity. He had no rational excuse for holding back. He certainly hadn’t been overcome with sudden chivalry or anything else so banal. No, the truth was far more insipid…and far more damning.
He had simply reacted, and it was always passion, not reason, that drove reactions. Somewhere deep inside his withered shell of a body, his guilt had boiled over. He had taken a young woman and twisted her life around to suit his needs because that was who he was. That was what he was. He had taken Elissa as a wife because he’d wanted a son, and now she was dead. He had taken Selvhara as a lover because he couldn’t bear to see her in the arms of a better man, and now she had been exiled from her own homeland.
Ethan had always been good at taking things and using them until they lost their value. Now, as his blood stained Krystia’s white robes, he doubted that any man on Obsidian deserved a pitiful death more than himself. General Ethan Moore, first among the Hands of Whitestone, a man who had survived dozens of battles in the Ash War, stood face-to-face with demons, and cheated death on numerous other occasions…and he had just been killed by an old, broken fop. It was as ironic and humiliating as it was appropriate.
And then Krystia twitched. Her hand clasped his arm, and Ethan felt a pulsing warmth surge inside him. For an instant, he wondered if she had just healed him with her magic…but then he realized it was so very much more than that.
I know how much you’ve longed for this, Krystia said into his mind. Take my power as your own and be reborn anew.
Ethan gasped as the world around him exploded in color. His once weary eyes could suddenly see as vividly as a young man’s. A mist-like cloud of energy swirled about the room and wreathed around his body as if welcoming him back to the world of the living. He channeled the power into himself, and in a single, euphoric moment, all of his weakness was abruptly swept away.
Ethan leaned up and stood. The bolts buried inside his body burned away like kindling, and his flesh closed over the wounds almost instantly. A glimmering mantle of power flashed around him protectively, and he turned and glared down at the old man meekly clutching at a crossbow on the floor. Kaeldar’s fear was tangible now, and Ethan smiled as he felt the emotions of another being wash over him for the first time in more than a decade.
Krystia tilted her head towards Ethan, gesturing down the corridor. “Our guests are coming soon.”
He heard the sound of booted footfalls racing desperately to save a king who was already dead. “This one needs to be dealt with.”
“Yes, he does,” Krystia said, turning back towards the Voice. “Kneel before your new queen.”
Kaeldar’s hysterical trembling was nearly as sickening as the stench of urine from under his robes. “No,” he managed. “No, I will never kneel before a monster!”
“Perhaps not,” she whispered. “But you will kneel before me.”
Ethan could feel her summon a fist of Aetheric force and pin Kaeldar to the ground. He whimpered pathetically as she mentally forced him to his knees in front of her.
“I could destroy you as easily as breathing, but I won’t,” Krystia said. “I will grant you the mercy you never showed my kind. But for now…it’s time for you to sleep.”
Kaeldar slouched over on the floor in a puddle of his own piss. Ethan smiled and glanced back to the new queen of Solaria.
“I’ll take his memories before he wakes,” she said. “I will convince him that we defeated the Crell but couldn’t save the king.”
“The word of the High Priest will go a long way towards sating the Council,” Ethan said, nodding. “Assuming they don’t realize what you did to him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Krystia said with a shrug. “Right now it’s time to greet out new guests and give them a glimpse of the future.”
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Ethan Moore laughed.
***
“They’re changing up their attack pattern,” Selvhara said as she squinted out at the scores of manticore diving down towards the fortress. “With the griffons back in the air, the Crell riders finally have to worry about their flank again.”
“Well, that’s something,” Tam muttered. “We should—look out!”
Selvhara’s head whipped around as one of the attacking chagari warriors snarled and vaulted up onto the platform next to them. Mangy and thin, the creature had obviously been starved as an incentive to fight harder, and she felt a twinge of pity even as she raised her hand and channeled Aether to her fingertips—
She needn’t have bothered. Before the chagari had regained its balance, Gor’s axe scythed through the air and nearly cleaved the other warrior in two. He then unceremoniously kicked the corpse back down onto the troops below.
“The Crell will attempt to punch another hole in the wall somewhere,” Gor said. “We have them contained here and they know it.”
“He’s right,” Tam agreed with a nod. He was breathing heavily; the constant exertion of channeling was starting to slow him down. “Their second wave of infantry is heading north. There’s not much left for defenses over there.”
“Then that’s where we’re going,” Selvhara declared, grabbing onto his arm. Her hand glowed as she accelerated his body’s recovery, and within a few seconds he looked much better.
“I know we’ve already abandoned all sense of reason just coming here in the first place,” Tam muttered, “but the three of us can’t stop a wing a manticore.”
“We don’t have to stop them—we just need to thin them out a bit.” She turned back towards Gor. “We’re going to need archer support. Try and get Talroy’s attention and see if he can spare some marksmen to follow us.”
Gor’s tail flicked back and forth. “You really believe he’ll listen to me?”
“You’re the scariest warrior here, so yes,” Tam said with a grunt. “Besides, you have the loudest voice. Come on.”
He and Selvhara hustled across the way, leaping over the bodies and chunks of stone blocking their path, and she tried not to think about the twelve year-old promise she had just broken today. After the siege at Fort Isen, she had told herself numerous times that she would never get involved in another Torsian war again. She had seen enough death for multiple lifetimes, and she was sick of burying the bodies of the young and the innocent.
But not sick enough to turn and walk away, apparently. Right now she wasn’t certain if that meant she was strong or weak.
A few minutes later, they reached the tower that unofficially marked the start of the northwestern wall. The structure itself was ruined; the base had been completely blasted apart, and everyone within had either been crushed or incinerated. A few sporadic defenders fired long-range shots at the columns of infantry now approaching their position, and she caught a glimpse of several other wounded men and women desperately trying to keep their comrades alive. She needed to get them organized, but a wing of manticores was already sweeping down to their position.
“Use the tower
as cover,” Selvhara instructed, conjuring up a whirlwind of air and lifting herself up off the ground. “Take out as many as you can.”
“Right,” Tam acknowledged, fire blazing in his palms. “But afterwards, you really need to show me how to fly.”
“Trade secret. Now pay attention.”
With another burst of air, she launched herself near the top of the ruined tower before firing off blasts of energy towards the encroaching manticore. Tam joined in the assault, and soon volleys of blue-white lightning and orange-white flame streaked across the sky. They struck down several of the red winged beasts, but the subsequent retaliation was swifter and stronger than she expected. The Crell Imperators unleashed several volleys of flaming death towards them, and Selvhara barely managed to erect a protective barrier before the streaking fireballs smashed into the tower. Her shield held…but only for an instant. Suddenly the stone at the base of the wall exploded, and a cloud of dust splashed across her eyes. Blinded by the debris, she was vaguely aware of Tam crying out beneath her even as several chunks of rock battered her from the side and knocked her from the air. She landed almost directly on top of him, and she desperately tried to conjure up another barrier before the entire tower collapsed atop them.
Too late. Her hands flashed with lightning as she tried to blast apart as many of the plummeting stones as possible…but she knew it wouldn’t be enough. She and Tam huddled beneath the barrier as the entire world seemed to crumble around them.
***
A week ago, Elade and the others had spent a quiet, comfortable night inside the Willow Vale inn. Now the building was little more than a smoldering pile of rubble. Corpses littered the common room, and she tried not to be sick as she crept over to the closest window and peered outside. The Crell patrol was still there, casually carving their way through the streets en route to the main cluster of Alliance troops.
Charging a group of six heavily-armed and armored soldiers would be insane even if her left arm weren’t mostly useless, Elade knew, and after her earlier stunt with the dragon she had probably already fulfilled her quota of suicidal maneuvers for one day. But if she allowed the Crell Breaker to reach the surviving Solarian priests, this battle would be over. She needed to do something.
“Nau ka'lith whol lil verin,” she shouted out the window. “Nau seil whol lil dusqup.”
The odds that these particular Crell understood a single word of the vaeyn tongue was likely somewhere between slim and none. But the foreign speech instantly got their attention, and they turned and unleashed a volley of crossbow bolts in her direction.
Her Aetheric shield flashed into existence on her right arm, but Elade hardly even needed it—between the rubble and the shattered windowsill, she had plenty of cover. Of course, the Crell Breaker leading the squad had far more than mere bolts at his disposal.
A coruscating blast of energy slammed into her shield just seconds later, and for an instant she feared it might actually be strong enough to break through. The shimmering, translucent disc started to flicker like a dying glowlamp, and it took every scrap of power she could muster to withstand the assault. This particular Breaker might have been an even more powerful channeler than Kroll, and that grim realization made her remember one of the last taunts he had hurled her way.
You don’t even know what you are capable of. You play with swords when you could dominate minds.
Elade grimaced. Kroll might have been right; her channeling ability might not have been as strong as other Unbound. But today she didn’t need to be a powerful sorceress.
Today she was a Knight of the Last Dawn, and that would be enough.
Just as the Breaker summoned another blast of energy to his palms, Elade teleported through the shadows to the half-buried window of another ruined building just across the street. One of the other Crell soldiers spotted her after a few seconds of searching, and he pointed her out to the other troops. This time they didn’t even bother firing their crossbows; they unsheathed their swords and stormed her position instead.
Elade kept her shield angled towards them, marveling at how awkward it felt in her right hand. The Crell didn’t charge recklessly—they had obviously been warned to take her seriously—and they slowed to a near crawl once they closed in on her cover. Gritting her teeth, she dove out through the window and rang her shield across the nearest man’s sword before hopping back into the long shadows cast by one off the still-standing buildings. This time, the soldiers took the bait: they lunged towards her nearly in unison, assuming they could overwhelm her defenses with a concerted attack.
They were probably right. But the instant they swung their swords, she teleported through the shadows again and reappeared underneath a stone overhang twenty feet behind the rest of their unit. Smiling thinly to herself, Elade dismissed her shield and drew her sword—
And then suddenly the Breaker appeared right next to her.
After over a century of fighting demons, mercenaries, and monsters, Elade wasn’t easily surprised. But this time she froze in place for at least a full second, and the Breaker took advantage of it. He backhanded her viciously with his gauntlet, and she barely managed to keep her balance as she staggered backwards. He pressed his attack hard and fast, trying to keep her on the defensive, and her inability to switch to a two-handed grip made it considerably more difficult to fend off his furious attacks. Worse, the rest of his squad had now turned back towards her, and despite her clever little distractions, she was about to face off against all six of them regardless.
Elade improvised. Rolling off one of the man’s attacks and twirling to his left, she deftly placed him between her and his men to provide her some cover. She split her concentration between her channeling and her swordplay, shuffling into a defensive stance while conjuring a brilliant burst of light at the center of the Crell formation. The soldiers reeled in temporary shock and blindness, but the spell cost her precious seconds. The Breaker slashed her left leg at her waist all the way to her knee, and she had to frantically roll away to avoid being cleaved in half with his backswing.
But she had bought herself a few precious seconds, and she intended to use them. After parrying another blow wide, Elade sprinted away from the Breaker straight into the rest of his still-reeling squad mates. She cut down two of the soldiers before they even knew she was there, and she hacked off the arm of a third just as he managed to blink away the afterimage of her radiant assault.
Then her time was up. The two remaining soldiers had recovered, and she danced between them in a blur of steel and sparks before she finally managed to roll out of their range and catch her breath. The battle for the Garos streets raged on down the hill behind her, and she was still outnumbered three-to-one here. The Breaker’s armor hadn’t even been scratched, and the two remaining soldiers were clearly incensed at the loss of their comrades.
“There’s nowhere else to run, elf,” the Breaker sneered. “I’m going to rip out those pretty eyes of yours and feed them to the groll.”
“How charming,” Elade murmured as she sized up the three men. Despite her wounds, she had no doubt that she could take out the two soldiers. She was even reasonably confident she could handle the Breaker. But all three of them at once…
With a bestial scream, the Breaker charged. Elade hefted up her blade, and the ring of clattering steel echoed across the streets.
***
Thrusting out his arm, Jason unleashed another jagged bolt of lightning at the pile of rubble. The blast shattered a four-foot wide chunk of rock, and one of the Crell soldiers who’d been using it as cover went soaring backwards like an insect flicked from a burning leaf. The soldiers with him, unfortunately, seemed perfectly fine, and Jason dropped back down behind his own cover just as a pair of arrows whistled past his head.
“This is a lot more draining than I imagined,” he muttered as he struggled to catch his breath. “How does Sel make this look so bloody easy?”
“Because she’s not a prissy little bard pretending t
o be a warrior,” Sarina growled, firing off another shot of her own before ducking back down.
“I’m not a bard,” Jason protested. “I’m a terrible singer and you know it.”
“I didn’t say you were a good bard.”
“I really hate you sometimes.”
“Just the way I like it. Now keep your head down.”
Jason frowned. “What are you—”
Sarina abruptly grabbed onto his shoulder and used him as leverage to vault over their cover. He winced in pain, then peeked up to see what was going on….and watched her drop the last Crell soldier with a perfectly-placed shot right through the visor of his helmet.
“We need to move again,” she called over her shoulder even as he lunged forward behind a different rocky outcropping. “I lost two of them; they’re circling around somewhere.”
Jason dove down behind her. “I’m open to suggestions.”
They had already bounced from cover three times, and each time they survived he considered it a new miracle. He was about ready to keel over from fatigue, and even his relentless partner was starting to slow down. He hadn’t seen her breathing this heavily since their all-night session on the forest floor just a few nights ago…
“I don’t see anywhere else to go,” Sarina commented. She already had another arrow knocked, but her quiver was running dangerously low at this point. “We’re effectively cut off.”
Jason risked a quick peek over the rubble. He felt like they had killed a hundred Crell by now, though in reality it was probably closer to a dozen. Unfortunately, they were now locked in something of a stalemate where each side tried to score a cheap kill past increasingly dense cover. Elade was nearby somewhere, at least in theory. It was always possible that she’d already gotten herself killed
“Can’t you wave your hands and deflect their attacks or something,” Sarina asked after a moment.
“Don’t you think I’d be doing that if I could?” he asked tartly. “Remind me to ask for more pointers when this is all over.”
The Godswar Saga (Omnibus) Page 84
