A mile or two to the south, a brilliant pillar of light suddenly lit up the night, drawing startled gasps and oaths from his companions. The column ascended into the sky, shining on some thin clouds, and by the time Creel’s eyes began to adjust to the brilliance, it faded and was gone.
“Was that from Taren’s magic? Or Nesnys’s?” Sianna asked softly. “Oh, Sol, please grant him protection.”
Iris put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.
“I don’t think that was either of them,” Creel said, puzzled, for the light looked to be divine in nature, not a conjured light. Kulnor’s doing, perhaps? He watched the horizon intently, but whatever had caused the column of holy light didn’t repeat itself.
His attention was diverted back to Sianna and the others, who were shivering in the predawn cold, for none of them had cloaks, wearing only their travel clothes. And Creel’s bare feet were numb blocks of ice.
“Let’s find some cover where you three can wait and rest a bit. I’ll head back and try to recover our packs. We’ll be needing the provisions and warm clothes.”
Sianna nodded. “I trust your judgment, Master Creel—you’ve the most experience of any of us by far.”
He led them onward, circling farther to the north, slowing their pace to avoid exhausting the horses. They rode for perhaps fifteen minutes more until Creel could make out a small rise on the plain with a knot of scrubby trees and brush. They stopped on the lee side of the hill and dismounted, chilled and drained after the harrowing escape.
“If I’m not back by dawn, then continue north to Carran. If a patrol finds you before I get back, then give the horses their head and don’t slow down. The gods watch over you.”
“Sol guide you, Master Creel,” Sianna said. “I thank you for your courage.”
Her hopeful smile warmed his heart as he headed off on foot back toward the camp and the spot where he estimated they had first arrived by Sirath’s teleportation spell. The distance couldn’t have been more than a mile, but it felt much longer, with his pain flaring up. More than once, he stumbled or slipped and fell, his numb feet not helping matters any.
At one point, he was forced to drop to his belly in the wet grass to avoid a patrol of a dozen footmen. He was tempted to ambush them or at least try to pick one of them off to steal the man’s boots and cloak, but he wasn’t confident he could pull it off in his condition without an alarm being raised.
Eventually, he crossed a small stream and located the grove of stunted trees where they’d left their gear three nights past. He was relieved to uncover his pack and satchel of reagents. He rummaged inside and pulled on some warmer clothes and a spare cloak. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any spare boots though a long drink from the flask of spirits stowed in his pack did as much to warm him as the cloak did. He gathered what he thought were Rafe’s and Iris’s packs, took a spare cloak for Sianna from one of the other men’s packs, and started back. He left the other packs behind in the event Ferret, Kulnor, and the others escaped and managed to make it back there.
During his return, he stopped at the stream to fill a couple of the water skins that had been stowed with the gear. The cold water chilled him when he drank deeply, but it was refreshing and cleared his head.
As the sky lightened to gray, a number of mounted patrols could be seen scouring the grasslands, but the tall grass and darkness were his allies, and he made it back to the others uneventfully a short time before the sun crested the horizon. The three youths were huddled together by the horses, trying to conserve some warmth.
“Can we build a fire?” Rafe pleaded, his teeth chattering.
Creel nearly relented, seeing how cold the three were. He was tempted to brew his elixir, but with the sun up in mere minutes, their tracks would be easy to spot by the Nebaran scouts.
“Too many patrols about. Here.” He tossed Sianna the extra cloak, which she gratefully donned, and gave the other two their packs.
They took a few minutes to put on warmer clothes, drink water, and eat some rations.
Just then, a distant horn blew a shrill note that carried in the chill air. They froze for a moment before Creel climbed the low hill and peered over the top. A party of a dozen horsemen was riding directly for them, about a quarter mile distant. He hurriedly slid down the hill, falling on his backside once, then everyone was scrambling to mount up.
“We ride for Carran and don’t look back!” he called, urging his horse forward, the others at his heels.
Chapter 11
Nesnys dove away from Sirath’s flaming bolts, spinning and dodging as the erinys’s shots traced fiery streaks across the sky. Nesnys was momentarily reminded of the cataclysmic beauty of the assault on Enkhold during the Planar War. She and her allies had fallen suddenly upon a small haven providing succor to a group of the Architect’s allies. Her father had given her command of the raid, and her force descended from the sky like Shaol’s hammer of doom, raining hellfire onto the pastoral land below until the foliage was blackened and charred and rivulets of blood stained the blasted ground. That had been a truly glorious day.
And I shall do the same to this plane. I shall raze it with steel and fire. But first, I will eradicate my old foe.
As she sought to close the distance on Sirath, Nesnys was forced to hastily shield herself with a wing against a fiery bolt that nearly struck home. The erinys was crafty and knew she would be no match for Nesnys if it came to melee combat.
“Cast aside your weapons, and perhaps I shall grant you a merciful death,” Nesnys called.
“I think not,” Sirath replied. “I shall fight until I prevail or, failing that, throw myself upon Sol’s judgment.”
“Sol’s judgment?” Nesnys said incredulously. “It is much too late to hope for his mercy. The moment you allied yourself with my fool of a mother and rebelled, you condemned yourself. Your only chance is to hope Shaol shows you mercy.” She smiled gleefully at that, for she knew her master would likely sentence Sirath to an eternity of torment for this betrayal, perhaps even chained to the Wall of Lost Souls in Achronia, Nesnys’s own demesne.
Before Sirath is returned to the Abyss to face Shaol’s wrath, I shall enjoy tormenting her here.
She knew in the back of her mind that this fight was a diversion and Neratiri’s whelp and the little queen and the others were trying to escape her clutches. Why Sirath would ally herself with the mortals, she neither knew nor cared. The mortals would be dealt with very soon, while the long-awaited opportunity to slay her old foe was too tempting to pass up.
Nesnys teleported, suddenly appearing in the air behind Sirath. The erinys expected the move, spinning and diving away, wings tucked in close around her. Nesnys unleashed a spell she was already preparing, casting a wide net across Sirath’s path, the tendrils of power cinching tight to catch her in its grip. That, too, was evidently expected, for Sirath teleported away just as the net was near to closing.
While that was occurring, Nesnys focused her innate talent on the Abyssal iron forming one of Sirath’s wings, the same that had replaced the one Nesnys herself had hewn from her back during a past battle. She could sense the iron in the wing, cocooned in magic giving it form and function, and had to grudgingly admire her sister’s handiwork. She had always thought her own metallurgical affinity but a curiosity, one that she had never bothered to try to better develop.
Sirath reappeared a bowshot away, out over the plains to the south of her army encampment. The erinys sent a rapid trio of arrows in her direction, but Nesnys disdainfully avoided them.
With her metallurgical talent, she seized the iron particles arrayed in Sirath’s wing, drawing them toward her as a powerful lodestone might. The erinys thrashed as she tried to fight it, rotating around the pivot point of her held wing as she sought in vain to break the pull. Nesnys drew her foe to within range and then held her in place. Sirath would have teleported away again, but Nesnys expected the move and finished casting a teleportation-nullifying field over the area.
Sirath raised her guaxhokj-horn bow and drew the fiery string back, an arrow of pure fire forming. But again, Nesnys was the quicker. She flicked Willbreaker out, and the whip latched onto her opponent’s bowstave, disrupting the shot and sending it wide. Nesnys hauled on the whip and wrenched the bow free of Sirath’s grasp then cast the weapon aside. The flames snuffed out as the bow fell to earth.
The erinys seemed resigned to her defeat and instead drew a sword hilt from her hip. Hellfire bubbled up from the crossguard and formed the blade. Ages past, the sword had been forged of holy fire, but its very nature had been corrupted when its wielder, the then-seraph Arahne, Nesnys’s own mother, had been cast down to the Abyss. Thus had the nature of the celestials themselves been corrupted, the seraph and her virtue followers metamorphosed into erinys after their fall.
Nesnys relinquished her grip on Sirath’s wing, hungering for this test of arms. Sirath flew at her, the flaming sword lashing out. Willbreaker flowed back into a longsword, forming just in time to parry the blow. When the blades met, sparks and roiling tongues of flame entwined in a seething torrent of energy. The erinys hammered at Nesnys’s defenses, but she knew she was the superior warrior and was already savoring her victory. She was content to parry the attacks for a moment as she took the erinys’s measure, then she abruptly flared her own wings and caught her opponent with the sharp metal edges, carving a deep slash across Sirath’s feathered leg. Bloodied feathers flew as Sirath spun away. Nesnys caught her next strike in a high parry, the two striving against each other, wings pumping furiously. Sirath’s taloned feet lashed out, attempting to disembowel Nesnys, but her armor turned the attack. Sirath suddenly relented, tucking her wings and dropping away. Nesnys surged forward, and she barely raised her legs up before the hellfire blade swept past with only inches to spare.
She immediately tucked into a steep dive, pursuing her foe. Willbreaker clanged off Sirath’s iron wing then screeched across the blackened cuirass she wore. Nesnys snatched the collar of Sirath’s cuirass with her left hand and drove her knees into her back, letting all her weight fall onto her smaller opponent. The erinys plummeted rapidly, wings beating frantically as she tried to maintain altitude. She vocalized the words of a spell, but Nesnys struck Willbreaker’s pommel against her skull, hard—once, then twice. Bone cracked, and ichor welled from the wound, the rushing wind of their fall causing droplets to spatter Nesnys in the face. Sirath’s words slurred and choked off, her body going limp as she began a free-fall tumble to earth.
Nesnys leaped clear a few paces above the ground, letting her foe slam hard into the dirt, shattering bones, while she landed neatly a few paces away.
Sirath lay broken and motionless, her sword lost during the descent. Her Abyssal iron wing had stabbed deep into the soft loam and was propping up her upper body. Her legs were shattered and twisted, as was her natural wing. Nesnys delivered a powerful kick to the ribs, dropping Sirath flat onto her back, the iron wing wrenching free of the ground and throwing up clods of dirt.
Sirath’s gold-flecked eyes still held life in them, and she regarded her tormenter impassively. Nesnys was surprised and angered by the lack of fear she saw in those eyes. She stomped her boot onto a slick shard of bone protruding from Sirath’s ruined thigh. The erinys hissed in pain but otherwise remained silent.
“Nothing to say for yourself, harpy?” Nesnys asked, relishing the prospect of prolonging her hated rival’s suffering.
“You are little more than a beast ruled by base impulses. You lack the cunning to win this campaign you’ve launched. Taren and the young queen shall defeat you.”
Nesnys snarled in a sudden rage, dropping to her knees on top of Sirath, pinning her down by the shoulders. She seized Sirath by the head, her talons slicing through the patterns of branded scars in her skin. Ichor seeped from the wounds, and she slammed Sirath’s already concussed skull into the ground, the bone cracking and dark fluid cascading over her hands. Next, she grasped Sirath’s feathered wing and murmured a spell, igniting it into a burning torch, feathers and flesh searing away until it became a withered, twisted stump.
Sirath writhed weakly beneath her, face twisted in agony, and Nesnys was afraid her corporeal form would perish prematurely. But after a moment, Sirath’s gaze sharpened, and her battered countenance took on an expression of peace.
“O gracious and mighty Sol, please allow these words of your once servant to fall upon your ears.” Her voice was little more than a throaty murmur. “Many aeons past, I lost my way and would seek redemption for my acts with virtuous deeds performed. I throw myself upon your mercy.”
“No! I will not allow you to escape me so easily!” Nesnys snarled. “You are mine, Sirath, and I shall have my vengeance! Then, once you respawn in the Abyss, our lord Shaol shall torment you for all eternity.” Enraged, she battered the erinys with fists and talons, cursing her and tearing her flesh. She became lost in her brutality, furious and unnerved by her enemy’s acceptance of her fate. She suddenly froze in shock upon realizing Willbreaker was jutting from Sirath’s chest, buried deep into the ground with the crossguard pressing against Sirath’s ornate breastplate.
No! What have I done! Damn you… You’ve made my rage get the better of me.
“I am Lihanael the Sagacious, Virtue of Sol,” the dying creature whispered softly through swollen and bloodied lips. The spark in her gold-flecked eyes faded, and she had a beatific smile on her face.
Nesnys grew thoroughly unnerved and perplexed by Sirath’s response to her punishment. She rose, backing away from the tortured erinys. “Why do you smile? What is this euphoria? I do not understand.”
“Ah, the light… I had forgotten such beauty…” Rapture filled Sirath’s face, tears of gold leaking from her eyes, and Nesnys was struck by her sudden beauty, painful to look upon.
Sirath—Lihanael—was enveloped by an aura of warm radiance, intensifying to the point Nesnys was forced to turn her back. She cried out and staggered away, blinded and burned by the purity, and recalled how the wretched priest of Sol had blinded her when she had pursued Sianna the first time.
Lihanael had become a blazing sun, her warmth and goodness repellant to Nesnys. She sensed rather than saw the pillar of light that stretched up into the starry firmament, abruptly turning night to day, then moments later was gone as swiftly as it had appeared.
When Nesnys recovered her vision and her nerve some time later, she returned to find Willbreaker buried deep in the turf, with no corpse sheathing it. Where she expected scorched, blasted ground from both the fire she’d conjured to burn her foe and the searing sunburst that had enveloped Lihanael, the ground was instead covered with a dense patch of golden flowers, a type she’d neither seen nor imagined before. They radiated a soft, golden glow in the fading darkness at the edge of dawn, like luminescent lotus flowers dipped in gold.
Nesnys angrily trampled some of the flowers underfoot. The stems broke, and the delicate petals and leaves were crushed flat. When she lifted her foot, her boot was covered with a luminous powder, glowing faintly. She cursed and rubbed her boot in the grass, trying to cleanse it, agitated by the experience. The flowers unnerved her, much like the repellant effect of Lihanael’s dying glory. She withdrew Willbreaker from the ground and stepped away hastily.
The battle’s resolution had been anticlimactic and disquieting and put Nesnys in a pensive mood. Her unleashed rage and the destruction of her foe had been strangely unsatisfying. She had the lurking suspicion that she had provided Sirath exactly what she had desired, and that thought nettled her greatly.
As Nesnys took to the air, ready to return to camp and ruminate on what had occurred, she chanced to glance down. A golden patch of ground glowed softly beneath her, looking much like the silhouette of a celestial lying there with outspread wings.
Chapter 12
Taren’s strength gave out after a short time, perhaps only a couple of minutes, possibly as long as a quarter hour. Mira couldn’t say exactly, for gliding silently through
the night, she lost all sense of time.
Without warning, Taren suddenly crumpled against her, losing consciousness, then they were falling. Fortunately, he’d brought their floating globe within a few feet of the ground once they’d left the enemy camp behind, so the abrupt fall wasn’t too painful. Mira lost her hold on Taren and flew head over heels, tumbling through the cold, dewy grass. Fortunately, it provided a relatively soft landing. She hadn’t realized how swiftly they’d been moving in the darkness.
She picked herself up, every part of her body aching after the brutal fighting, and knelt over Taren as he lay sprawled on his back. The crossbow quarrel was still lodged in his thigh, and his robes were stained dark with sticky blood, an alarming amount from the puncture wound in the muscle a couple fingerbreadths below his collarbone. She didn’t think the wound in itself would be fatal, but blood loss, or later, infection, were the worst dangers. She tore a strip from the sleeve of his robes, balled it up, and pressed it tightly to the wound. His skin felt cool and clammy, and the pulse in his neck was faint.
I must lend him aid lest he die.
Mira had once seen Brother Cerador perform a seemingly miraculous feat, aiding a grievously injured monk who had fallen down a steep escarpment in the mountains by sharing his injuries, but she herself had never attempted such a feat. She focused on breathing deeply and steadily while repeating a calming mantra to herself. Then she grasped Taren’s arm with both hands and focused on the warmth of his body, trying to feel his spirit to establish a connection with him. Within her inner calm, she could sense Taren’s spirit and sought to join with him, focusing on guiding her own spirit through her hands and slipping out of the confines of her own body, much as she had done during the spirit walk. But this time, she slipped inside the shell of Taren’s body, experiencing a moment of intimate closeness beyond anything she’d ever imagined as their spirits merged.
He was unconscious, his mind sheltered from the sudden storm of agony that wracked his body and almost overwhelmed Mira, nearly ejecting her back to her own self. Instead, she fought through it, slowly mastering and controlling the pain as she had her own wounds. She neared the worst source—the hot blaze in his chest. She did her best to contain and soothe the ache, then tried to take it unto her own self. As she did, the pain in Taren diminished. Next, she turned her attention to the wound from the quarrel in his leg and other, lesser injuries. The combined pain nearly stopped her breath, but she smothered it as she would a stubborn fire, absorbing it until she couldn’t bear to take any more.
Trial of the Thaumaturge (Scions of Nexus Book 3) Page 9
