Or he tried to stand, for a wave of dizziness overtook him, and he was seated again on his rear without being consciously aware of going down. He steeled himself for the inevitable, for the beast was bearing down and nearly on top of him.
An enraged bellow sounded, and a steel-clad form leaped into the air and collided with the beast head on. A gleaming axe split the demon’s head apart and didn’t stop until it was lodged firmly in the sternum. Fiend and dwarf went down together.
Kulnor blinked, recognizing Harbek. His friend slowly disentangled himself from the monster’s corpse.
“Harbek? I’m sorry—I was too late to save the lad.”
Belmyr lay crumpled a short distance away, eyes wide and staring.
“Ah, poor lad. He was me sister’s youngest.” Harbek tugged at the beast’s corpse then pulled Kulnor’s hand axe free. “Reckon ye’ll be needin’ this again.”
Harbek gave a groan as he slowly turned, and Kulnor saw a serrated spear tip slide free of his chest as he pulled away from the carcass. Harbek staggered and fell beside Kulnor.
“Ah, damn it,” Kulnor said. “Hold on, me friend… I’ll heal ye.”
“Just need a minute.” Harbek’s face was pale. A hole that would fit three of Kulnor’s stubby fingers steadily pumped blood—a great deal of it. “Here.” He handed the hand axe back.
Kulnor took the axe then reached for his holy symbol, but his arm wouldn’t respond. He remembered his own injury and set the hand axe aside and clutched the medallion in his left hand instead. “Here, let me heal ye.”
“Nay… too late for me.” Harbek put a bloody hand on Kulnor’s, which was gripping the medallion, his dark eyes intense as they held Kulnor’s own. “Send these bastards back… to… Abyss. Ye must see it—” He gave a wet cough, and blood ran down into his beard. “Through… see it through. Heal yerself. Don’t make… the q-q-queen mourn ye.”
Then Harbek was gone. He gave one final soft sigh as his grip loosened and fell away.
“Reiktir’s beard.” Kulnor sighed heavily, tears stinging his eyes.
The thought of Sioned gave him the determination he needed to concentrate, again calling upon Reiktir’s aid in that vile pit of evil. Weak from blood loss and near to sliding into a sleep from which he’d never awaken, he closed his eyes, feeling the warm disc in his hand. He chanted a prayer of healing, and in response, Reiktir’s blessing filled him. The power flowed into the terrible wound in his arm, mending torn blood vessels and muscle and sinew. He wasn’t able to get it fully healed at once, but it was sealed up at least, though still red and swollen.
Drained as he was, Kulnor fell back, and unconsciousness overtook him.
***
Fatigue was relentlessly dragging at Taren by the time he and the others neared the end of the great hall and the corridor leading to the portal. The rushing earth magic was even more potent there, like a river narrowing through a gorge, its power intensifying. The trembling underfoot was even more pronounced, and a network of cracks had torn across the stone floor. The entire Hall of the Artificers was reverberating from the magic.
Mira remained with Taren just at the edge of his sphere. She was cut and bruised from numerous wounds, none of which appeared serious, fortunately, but her willpower and sheer determination alone were awe-inspiring. He had offered to shield her, but she had declined, saying he should conserve his magic.
Creel hadn’t yet returned, and they had lost Kulnor at some point as well.
The fighting had taken a devastating toll. Ten men, three elves, and two dwarves were all who remained with Taren of the hundred and forty who had entered the hall with the companions, and none of them had survived uninjured. He still heard sounds of sporadic fighting behind them and assumed some of Harbek’s rearguard still survived. He hoped many more remained alive, perhaps simply wounded and unable to keep up, though he was doubtful and couldn’t afford to dwell on that thought.
The tide of foes had finally run dry, for no other horrors appeared to test them. The slog had been bloody and hard fought, but they were finally nearing their objective.
Because of the intensity of the earth magic, Taren didn’t detect the approaching red aura until the towering figure in soot-black plate armor stepped out of the shadows to bar his way.
Elyas stood before him, ensconced in the infernal suit of armor, Wyat’s longsword recognizable in hand.
Taren held up a hand to prevent the weary fighters from attacking, hoping to dissuade his cousin. “Elyas?”
His cousin regarded him silently a long moment before speaking. “I’m sorry, Taren, but I cannot let you go any further.”
“Let me help you, Elyas,” he urged. “I can undo whatever she’s done to you.”
The armor Elyas wore had a demonic aura to it, and it subsumed his own weak amber glow, as if devouring it like a parasite. Taren wondered how long his cousin would last before he was gone forever.
Elyas shook his head. “I gave her my oath, don’t you see? I’m damned… Nothing I can do now would change that.”
“You weren’t yourself—you were under Nesnys’s power.”
“That’s just it, Taren—I wasn’t. I was myself, and I knowingly submitted to her.”
Taren studied the complex enchantment binding the armor to Elyas. The two were intertwined so intricately that he didn’t know if undoing it would be possible without harming his cousin, but he had vowed to do what he could. But first, he had to convince Elyas to stand down and allow him to make the attempt.
He tried another tactic. “Cousin, you’re fighting on the wrong side. Can’t you see Nesnys means to destroy the entire plane with that machine? Everything and everyone on Easilon will die if we don’t stop her.”
Elyas might have shrugged—it was hard to tell with the armor. “She returns. You’d best leave here while you still can.”
“I can’t. You know that. Stand aside, Elyas.”
Elyas suddenly groaned as if in pain, one hand going to the ugly helm he wore. His shoulders hunched, and he remained like that for a moment, fighting some internal battle. When he straightened, he raised his sword, and his tone was cold, words strangely without inflection as Taren had experienced once before, during their encounter outside Carran.
“Then you choose death.”
Taren unleashed a burst of force to throw Elyas backward. The runes flared brightly on his armor, and his magic had no effect, for Elyas strode toward them, his sword lashing out at the fighters accompanying Taren.
One of the men tried to parry, but Elyas swept his sword aside with ease then chopped down between neck and shoulder, carving deep into the man’s torso. Without pause, Elyas cast him aside and with his free hand seized the elf standing beside him by the throat. Then he gutted him with a brutal stab.
The other warriors overcame their shock, stabbing and slashing at Elyas. The heavy armor thwarted their attacks, turning sword and axe alike. While his attention was diverted, the pair of dwarves ducked in low, and each grabbed one of his legs. They upended the big man, lifting him off his feet and throwing him onto his back. Elyas rolled over the moment he struck the ground, his sword sweeping out and severing one of the other fighter’s ankles. The man’s leg came apart, and he fell screaming as his stump spurted blood.
Elyas was on his hands and knees, about to regain his feet. Before he could, Mira leveled a powerful kick into his side that sent him tumbling across the floor. Taren tried to seize Elyas with bonds of force. He held him there for just a moment, but the armor’s glyphs flared again, and the magic broke around the armor as if he was binding him in shackles of straw.
“What do we do about him?” Mira asked Taren.
He shook his head. “I don’t know… Perhaps if we can subdue him and remove that helm, I can aid him somehow. I think that is the source of the armor’s power over him, but it might hurt him badly, if not kill him, if we do.”
Elyas surged back to his feet, surprisingly quick for his size and the bulk of the armor. The pair of dwarves
worked in tandem, again targeting his legs. Elyas slashed at one to keep him at bay, and when the second moved in behind him, he spun and seized the dwarf’s beard in his free hand. The dwarf bellowed indignantly until the pommel of Elyas’s sword dropped to smash his nose and fell him like a stone. The other dwarf struck a resounding blow to Elyas’s greave with his axe, but the heavy plate of armor held. Before Elyas could retaliate, he was distracted for an instant when an arrow splintered off the snarling fiend’s helm, fired by one of the remaining elven archers.
Mira stepped in and slammed an open palm into Elyas’s breastplate. He rocked back a step as her ki flared, but the armor seemed to absorb most of the impact. His hand shot out and grabbed Mira’s wrist. She chopped the back of his elbow, trying to break his grip, but her hand came away bloody from grazing a spike forged into the elbow piece. Elyas brought his knee up into Mira’s extended arm, and a sharp crack sounded as her arm broke.
Taren gasped, and his heart skipped a beat. Mira fell to her knees, her face tight with pain. Elyas raised his sword to finish her. Before the blow could fall, someone gave a sharp shout.
Elyas paused, glancing up just as Creel barreled into him. The two men reeled backward, breaking Elyas’s grip on Mira. Taren breathed a sigh of relief when the monk backed away, clutching her broken arm with her good hand.
Distracted as he was by the fight with Elyas, Taren was taken by surprise when something suddenly wrapped around his leg, constricting painfully. He was just as startled to realize his shield had been dispelled before getting yanked off his feet with great force. He landed awkwardly, spraining a wrist and barking his knee painfully. When he rolled over, Nesnys stood over him. His calf burned where her whip had ensnared his leg. As he watched, the whip uncoiled, and thousands of tiny teeth disassembled and reformed an instant later into a longsword.
The fall had caused Taren to lose his concentration. When he tried to muster his magic again, Nesnys kicked him hard in the chest, pinning him to the ground with her boot heel, the tip of her sword pricking his throat.
Nesnys’s silver eyes glimmered orange, reflecting the hall’s dim lighting as she looked down on him, a look of triumph on her face. “I’ll open your throat if I even sense you drawing on your magic. My lord no longer has any use for you, but that won’t prevent me from having some fun with you before you die.” And with that, she stomped her foot down on his right hand.
Bones crackled like dry twigs as fingers broke beneath her boot heel, sending a white-hot wave of pain roaring through him. Taren groaned and scrabbled at her foot with his free hand, but she kept her weight upon his hand, pinning it in place.
“That is but a taste of what is to come. A pity your mother isn’t here to suffer herself, but you’ll do in her stead.”
Sensing something, Nesnys turned her head suddenly but was too late. Bodies collided, then Nesnys was no longer there, the agonizing weight on his broken hand gone. Taren cradled his aching hand, noting his thumb and first two fingers were bent into unnatural angles, swiftly swelling and turning purple. Bones ground together when he tried to straighten the crooked digits, and the pain nearly made him black out.
He looked up to see Mira facing off with Nesnys, the monk with her left arm hanging limply at her side.
“Mira, no,” he called weakly. The possibility he might actually lose his friend suddenly seemed an awful likelihood.
Nesnys slashed at Mira, but the monk ducked beneath the sword. The fiend surged forward, first with a feint, then a stab. Mira chopped Nesnys’s forearm, sending her blow wide, but was forced to retreat when she whirled and flared her wings wide, the sharp tips shredding the sleeve of Mira’s tunic and drawing blood. Taren could see she was weakening after the hard fighting and was clearly at a disadvantage with the use of only one arm.
Mira narrowly sidestepped another thrust of Nesnys’s sword. The demoness slashed at her, but Mira deflected her sword arm downward then exploded into motion, leaping high right into Nesnys. Her takedown happened so quickly that Taren could scarcely make sense of it, but somehow Mira twisted and clamped her legs around Nesnys’s neck and let her body swing completely around, the momentum hurling Nesnys off her feet, going heels over head, and smacking down hard on her back with a clang of metal. The pair landed with Mira’s legs still clamped around Nesnys’s neck.
Snarling in rage, the fiend extended her wings, raising herself off the ground. Nesnys flipped over, striking swiftly with her sword. Mira released her grip and rolled away, but Nesnys’s sword was quicker. A spray of blood arced off her blade.
Taren seized hold of the tsunami of magic and lashed out at Nesnys with a desperate blast. She must have sensed it coming, for she whirled toward Taren, her free hand tapping a large red gemstone embedded in the broad belt she wore. The stone glowed like the heart of a forge, and Taren’s magic instantly snuffed out, along with all sense of it. The hall itself even went dark around him, as the spell also affected the orange crystals in the wall. He tried fruitlessly to hold at bay the cold grip of fear that stole into his chest and made it suddenly hard to breathe.
Nesnys’s smile gleamed white, displaying a mouthful of pointed shark’s teeth as she stalked toward him, her blade dripping Mira’s blood. Beyond her, the monk lay unmoving.
Oh, gods—Mira!
“Antimagic, dear nephew,” Nesnys said, her voice nearly a purr. “Very useful for fighting mages. Admittedly, it can prove a liability, yet it is a worthwhile gamble. Right now, you are about as helpless as a newborn fawn.”
Taren reached for Lightslicer at his waist, but a jolt of pain spiked through his broken fingers when they clumsily bumped against the hilt, useless for gripping the dagger.
“I warned you of attacking me with your magic. Did you think that an idle threat earlier, mageling?” Nesnys paused to lick some blood off the flat of her sword. “Trust me, I never make idle threats.” She casually let the sword dip down until its point touched the floor. It rasped loudly against the stone when she languidly stepped nearer. “How would you enjoy watching with me as your precious Easilon falls unto ruin around us? It shan’t take much longer now…”
Taren tried to scoot farther away from Nesnys, hoping to gain some distance to give himself an extra moment to come up with some desperate idea as to how to fight her. His second sight was blind, and he couldn’t access his magic, the same as when Irralith had poisoned him with charwort extract. He made it only a few paces before the wall brought him up short.
Sabyl, help me. This is the end.
Chapter 52
Sianna’s heart sank when she saw the gates of Llantry standing closed. A significant guard force manned the walls, observing the approach of her army.
“Oh, no… This wasn’t how I had hoped to find the city.” She dreaded the thought of being forced to fight her own people for control of Llantry.
As they drew nearer, the walls rising higher ahead, a faint sound grew louder, a low rumbling like thunder on the horizon, barely audible over the sound of hoofbeats and thousands of marching feet. Soon, she was able to distinguish individual guards atop the walls, many raising fists in the air and pounding pike shafts atop the ramparts, letting loose a raucous cheering.
They’re welcoming us? But what of Iris?
As the thought crossed Sianna’s mind, the city gates cracked open and swung wide. From within, a party of horsemen rode out to meet her army. The sight of her dear friend Iris in the lead brought a large grin to her face. At Iris’s side rode Lord Edward MacTaggert, one of the wealthiest nobles in the city and the usurper Mayor Calcote’s biggest adversary on the council.
“Welcome home, Your Majesty!” MacTaggert bellowed with a theatrical flourish toward the city as they reined in. He was a man large of girth and generally jovial in temperament save for matters of finance, for which he had a famously stingy and often bellicose reputation. A large grin split his red-bearded face. “Gods, but you’re a sight for sore eyes!”
Sianna beamed at the two of them,
her fears subsiding. “Thank you for the warm welcome, Lord MacTaggert. It is good to be home.”
“I reckon so,” the lord replied. “There just remains a small matter of housekeeping—there’s a nasty den of rats that must be rousted from your rightful home. I’ve got a number of loyal lads at your disposal, but seems you’ve fared quite well in gathering your own.” He whistled as he looked out on her army. “Are those elves and dwarves I see amongst your number?”
“Indeed they are. Valuable allies, all of them. I hope securing the gates didn’t result in any casualties.”
“Just a few louts who needed a good crack on the noggin to remind them where their loyalties ought to lie. Got a few hundred red cloaks locked up in a safe place, awaiting your justice. That king rat Calcote locked down the castle right quick once we started mopping up in the city. I’m glad Lady Iris here arrived when she did.”
“Well done, sir.” Sianna nudged her horse over to Iris, who was smiling, her eyes torn between Sianna and Rafe. She brought her horse up beside her friend then leaned over and hugged her. “You did well, Iris. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Sianna,” Iris whispered in her ear. “Thank you for entrusting me with this diplomatic mission.” Her eyes shone with pride.
“Go see your man now.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Iris winked at her and went to Rafe, exchanging a hug and kiss with the knight.
“I think it is time the hawk goes on the hunt for a change.” Sianna glanced at her fluttering Atreus hawk standard meaningfully, carried proudly by a young soldier by the name of Aurdo, who had been recruited as standard bearer.
“Just so, Your Majesty. I look forward to it.” MacTaggart rubbed his big hands together in anticipation of witnessing the downfall of his old foe.
“Give me a moment to consult with my advisors, if you please,” Sianna said.
“All according to plan, Your Majesty?” Lanthas asked when she approached, huddled with their commanders. Her cousin was recovering well from his wounds—a relief, for his survival had not been a sure thing.
Trial of the Thaumaturge (Scions of Nexus Book 3) Page 46
