As he searched for seams he could exploit, similar to the cracks in the earth he’d forced open earlier, Lakeo and Jhali stepped up beside him. The crack of a rifle came from behind them. Dak trying to keep the soldiers from running closer.
Yanko poured energy into a seam between one of the construct’s legs and torso, a faint crack where the rock had been joined. Unfortunately, it had been fused together by magic, and it resisted his attempt to drive the pieces apart. He bit his lip and willed more of his energy into the seam.
“At least stand behind something when you stop to throw spells,” Dak yelled.
A bullet whizzed past a foot away from Yanko’s ear, and he jumped. He heeded Dak’s advice, finding a boulder to block him from view of that path to the fortress.
Both constructs turned to face him. As if they shared a mind, they strode toward him on long legs thicker than tree trunks.
“Time to do something, Yanko,” Lakeo muttered.
Jhali didn’t say anything, but she did throw a concerned glance in his direction.
Yanko picked another seam in the blocky construct, this time between neck and chest. Maybe it would prove less durable.
Dak sprang around the boulder and joined them. He leaned out and fired back at soldiers trying to advance on them.
“Yanko, are you having any success?” He glanced at the soul constructs. They were only twenty meters away now.
“Trying,” Yanko bit out, not looking away from his target.
“Keep them busy.” Dak shoved his rifle into Lakeo’s hands, dropped his pack, ripped it open, and rummaged around.
A tendril of panic wormed its way into Yanko’s belly as the constructs drew within ten meters. Desperate, he flung a huge blast of wind at their forty-foot enemies. The gust tore Yanko’s topknot free, but it did nothing to slow the constructs’ advance.
“Not air,” he muttered. “Something bigger.”
He pushed wind under a nearby boulder and levitated it into the air. Then, with all the magical energy he could summon, he hurled it at the closest construct.
The boulder slammed into the creation’s shoulder and knocked it off its feet. Lakeo whooped, but then cursed and fired at someone trying to sneak up from behind them.
Unfortunately, the blow didn’t seem to harm the construct. It lumbered to its feet again.
Dak hurled some projectile of his own, targeting the farther construct.
“Take cover,” he warned.
“Aren’t we already taking cover?” Lakeo ran around the boulder, trying to find a spot that would shield her from the soldiers’ fire and Dak’s explosive.
Dak grabbed Yanko around the waist, lifting him and toting him to the same spot that Lakeo had claimed. Jhali also crouched there, a throwing star in hand.
Yanko focused on levitating the boulder he’d thrown before, hardly caring that Dak hadn’t let him go. He slammed it into the back of his chosen target as Dak’s explosive boomed into the other construct. Fire flared, briefly brightening the night, and the scent of burning gunpowder reached Yanko’s nose. Smoke wreathed the two constructs, but he could tell that the one he’d hit with the boulder had pitched to its knees.
The second construct continued on and reached their boulder. They all scurried back as it hefted the massive rock as if it weighed nothing. The construct hurled it at Yanko.
He dropped to his stomach an instant before it would have taken his head off. It slammed into the ground behind him, and shards of stone flew in all directions.
“I’ll lead this one off,” Dak yelled, throwing a small projectile at it. “Take care of the other one, Yanko.”
Yanko rolled to the side as the one he’d hit climbed to its feet again. Instead of stomping after him, it lifted its arm, preparing to fling a shrapnel attack.
“Take care of it, right.” Yanko threw up a barrier of compacted air, hoping that would be enough to protect him and Lakeo and Jhali.
They focused on the soldiers, men who’d used the cover of the rocky terrain to creep within twenty feet of their group. They were leaving the construct to him.
“Because you can handle this, Yanko,” he whispered to himself.
The shrapnel attack went off, dozens of razor-sharp shards whipping through the air. His barrier stopped them. As soon as he could, he lowered it and hefted the same boulder again. This time, instead of simply flinging it in the general direction of the construct, he hurled it at its face.
His magical enemy didn’t try to deflect it. The boulder smashed into its glowing eyes. Yanko channeled energy into the seam at its neck again, hoping it might be weakened now.
A boom distracted him, a smaller one this time. Dak’s explosive had gone off in front of the other construct, and it wobbled forward as a hole opened up where it had been about to step. It pitched in, but it was more agile than it appeared, and easily clambered out. The construct recovered and turned to chase Dak.
It was what Dak had wanted, but Yanko worried for him.
“Lakeo,” he yelled. “Watch him, please.”
He expected her to holler a sarcastic comment back at him, but a soldier had made it close enough for hand-to-hand combat. He was trying to rip her rifle from her grip. She snarled and kicked him in the groin.
A few feet beyond them, Jhali leaped out from behind a rock and landed on the back of a soldier who had been rushing to help. She sliced a dagger across his neck, taking him out of the battle. And out of life.
A clunk sounded over the din of the fight. The head of Yanko’s construct had come off, striking the ground and bouncing several times before coming to a stop. The glow of its eyes went out.
The rest of the body continued forward, so Yanko dared not celebrate yet. But he’d taken a piece of the thing away. If he could keep doing that, he could win.
He ran to the side to evade the headless body stomping toward him as he searched for the boulder, intending to hurl it again. But it had broken into pieces after connecting with that hard rock head. He spotted another one, this one twice the size of the last.
Levitating it was harder than the first had been, and sweat dripped down the side of Yanko’s face. He feared he couldn’t throw it with enough velocity to damage the construct again. Unless gravity could help him.
He willed his power into pushing the boulder higher into the air. Meanwhile, he heard Dak curse and saw him flatten himself to the ground as a round of magical shrapnel flew toward him.
Yanko hesitated, tempted to drop the boulder so he could help his friend, but if he could finish off this construct, it would be much easier to help.
Snarling with concentration and effort, Yanko pushed the boulder higher into the air, shifting it sideways slightly and hoping he could hit his target. It would be hard to line up the attack from below. Yanko should have brought Kei along after all, for his bird’s-eye view.
He was panting by the time he had the boulder floating eighty feet in the air. He stretched his hands toward it, as if that would help him aim, and nudged it sideways again, trying to compensate for the inexorable stride of the headless construct walking toward him again.
Shouts of warning came from the distance, prisoners pointing his way. They had all stopped to watch.
At first, he thought they were warning him that he was about to drop his own boulder on his head—a disturbingly real possibility—but then he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye.
A soldier lunged at him from mere steps away, a dagger raised to strike him down.
Jhali appeared behind the man. She flung herself at him, wrapping an arm around his waist and taking him down. They crashed to the ground inches from Yanko.
Somehow, he kept the boulder suspended in the air while this happened, while the construct continued its advance. When it was only five feet away, Yanko let the boulder fall.
He immediately sprang back, almost tripping over Jhali. She wrestled with the soldier on the ground, gripping his wrist to keep him from bringing that dagger to bear.
As the boulder slammed into the top of the construct, he once again channeled his energy into those seams, trying to blast them all at once, to rip the vile thing to shreds.
An explosion roared, not from Dak’s bombs but from the construct in front of Yanko. The force hurled him backward, trying to tear his robe from his body, his hair from his head.
Yanko flailed, too surprised for anything else, but when he realized he would land hard, he twisted in the air. He managed to get his feet under him, but he still came down hard. Pain blasted his soles, and he couldn’t keep from toppling to his knees, cracking them on the unforgiving rock.
Not sure if his enemy had marshaled some new attack, Yanko lifted his hands and formed a barrier around himself. But the construct had exploded. Yanko gaped as tiny pieces, which were all that remained of the massive creature, rained down for a hundred meters in all directions.
Jhali pushed herself to her feet, grimacing in pain and wiping blood from her face. Yanko winced—she wouldn’t have been injured if she hadn’t been defending him. She glowered down at the unmoving soldier at her feet, then at the rubble pile that had been the construct, and she nodded firmly.
Yanko started toward her, intending to thank her for saving his life, but another thunderous boom roared as light flashed. The ground shook under their feet.
Dak?
Yanko looked around the dark rocky field as the light from the explosion faded. He spotted a huge pile of boulders with the blocky feet of a construct sticking out from under it.
Ragged cheers and whoops went up from the prisoners, thousands of beleaguered people watching from a distance. Yanko started to whoop too—the construct under all that rubble wasn’t moving, and his senses no longer detected magic emanating from it—but then he spotted Dak.
His Turgonian friend lay on his back, his clothing and face covered with soot and blood, his eyes closed.
He wasn’t moving.
17
Yanko rushed to Dak’s side, barely aware of the people jumping and cheering in the distance. Helping them hadn’t even been Dak’s mission. If he’d died freeing Nurians, would his people even mourn his death? Or would they consider him a traitor?
“Dak?” Yanko touched his bare shoulder—half of his shirt was torn off, revealing skin blistered and scorched black.
Dak didn’t move. His eyelid didn’t even flutter.
Yanko hesitated to use his senses to check to see if he was alive. What if he wasn’t?
He swallowed and shifted his fingers to Dak’s throat. His pulse beat there, but it was weak, nothing like the powerful regular beats Yanko would expect from a Turgonian warrior. Surely, their heart muscles were as strong as their other muscles.
“Dak?” Yanko finally used his senses, but he couldn’t tell if Dak had merely been knocked unconscious or if his brain had been irreparably scrambled.
Irreparably? Have faith that a mind mage can repair a mind, Yanko.
Yanko looked up, surprised by Tynlee’s telepathic words and also that he’d been distracted enough to leave his mind open to be read.
Tynlee and Arayevo were striding down the path from the fortress, even as some of the haler prisoners ran past them in the opposite direction, all carrying makeshift weapons. Several appeared ready to club the soldiers into submission with rocks. Yanko hoped that meant nobody else would come out to attack his team.
Tynlee, eyes locked on Dak and her jaw set with determination, paid no attention to the prisoners streaming past.
Arayevo also looked with concern at Dak, then ran up to Lakeo and hugged her. Lakeo seemed surprised but patted Arayevo on the back.
Jhali stood off to the side, her weapons drooping. She didn’t seem to know what to do now that the battle had ended. She gazed around, perhaps looking for others in white mage-hunter garb.
Tynlee barely noticed them as she dropped to her knees beside Dak.
I hope you’re right, Yanko replied telepathically. His mind is complicated.
I think you mean complex.
No, complicated. Yanko smiled, though he was still worried. If anyone could fix a brain, he believed Tynlee was that person. As is his life, from what I’ve gathered.
Tynlee stroked the side of Dak’s head as she scrutinized him. He should retire from the Turgonian military and go off to sea to have adventures with interesting people.
Nurian diplomats, perhaps?
Perhaps. Tynlee shifted her hand to rest on Dak’s forehead. His eyelid still didn’t flutter. We should get him back to the yacht so I can concentrate fully, but if you’ll watch my back for a moment, I want to make sure he’s stable.
Of course.
Yanko checked more thoroughly to make sure there weren’t any soldiers around to ambush them. He sensed a few men in the fortress, but they were hiding or running from the mob of angry prisoners. The rest of the prisoners milled outside uncertainly, some watching Yanko’s group, some watching the fortress, and others looking out to sea.
He wished he could produce a fleet to carry them to safety—wherever that might be. With the Swift Wolves controlling so many of the coastal cities, even if Yanko had a fleet, he did not know where he could send people where they wouldn’t be captured again.
As he looked over the prisoners, lanterns highlighting faces here and there, he wondered if his family was among them. If so, wouldn’t they have come to see him by now? Maybe it would be some time before all the prisoners realized it was now safe to come near the fortress.
“Will he be all right?” Arayevo asked as she and Lakeo came to stand beside Yanko and look down at Dak.
“I hope so,” Yanko said quietly. “Consul Tynlee thinks she can help him.”
“I’m surprised he put himself at risk like that,” Arayevo said. “For Nurians.”
“You are? He’s a warrior, even if he’s an engineer and Intelligence officer too. I think Turgonians find it impossible not to throw themselves into battle when one is presented.”
“But I’m not even sure why he’s here. How did you talk him into coming?”
“It wasn’t that hard,” Yanko said. “I assumed he agreed with me that someone here might have knowledge of the prince’s whereabouts.”
Arayevo raised her eyebrows. “Someone not in a remote island prison guarded by magic and soldiers might have known too.”
Yanko lifted a shoulder, not able to argue. He’d wanted Dak to come along, so he hadn’t questioned his decision that much. Should he have?
“Yanko?” a distant weary voice called.
Yanko spun to look. He recognized that voice.
“Falcon?”
A grimy prisoner in ragged clothing lifted a hand, limping as he headed in their direction. That clothing was the same garb he’d had on the last time Yanko had seen him, back at their burning homestead. It seemed like it had happened years ago instead of a couple of months ago. Falcon’s face, hidden under a scruffy black beard, had grown gaunt. It was clear the soldiers hadn’t been feeding the prisoners enough.
“Falcon,” Yanko repeated, his throat tightening and turning the name into a rasp.
He spread his arms and started toward his brother but paused and looked back. He’d promised to watch Tynlee’s back while she was vulnerable concentrating on her magic.
“Go ahead.” Lakeo waved in Falcon’s direction. “We’ll keep an eye on her.”
Arayevo mouthed, “Falcon,” clearly recognizing him even though it had been years since they last met and he looked nothing like himself. She looked like she wanted to run forward and hug him, but she glanced at Lakeo and nodded in agreement.
“Thank you,” Yanko whispered and rushed forward, stumbling over rocks on the dimly lit trail.
“You can destroy a soul construct, but a tiny pebble in the path defeats you?” Falcon smiled, hugging Yanko as they came together.
“It was a large pebble, I
assure you,” Yanko said, his voice muffled since his face was jammed into his brother’s shoulder.
Falcon turned the hug into a fierce pounding on the back. “I can’t believe you did that. That was amazing.” He waved at the rubble heap that had been one of the soul constructs. “Did you know we were here? Did you come for us specifically, or were you looking for Prince Zirabo?”
“I heard you might be here. Who’s us? Father? Great Uncle Lao Zun? Our cousins? Teva and Ser Koh?”
“Father’s here, and so are most of our cousins and the field hands. Some people escaped into the woods and didn’t get caught so we’re not sure about them. I wouldn’t have been caught either if not for that injury.” Falcon grimaced and pounded a fist against his thigh. “It’s not healing well on the horrible rations here, and sleeping on the rocks under that constant light didn’t help.” He made a rude gesture overhead to where the dome had stretched.
“I’m sorry you didn’t receive proper medical care.” Yanko felt a twinge of regret that he hadn’t taken Falcon along with him, but it wasn’t as if he’d had a healer along on his trip.
“I’m just glad you got away. I know Zirabo was holding out hope that you would get back.”
“Wait.” Yanko gripped Falcon’s arm as his earlier words sank in. “He’s not here, is he?”
“You didn’t know? I assumed that was what brought you here.”
“No, I heard from a Jee Gold Hawk that you and a lot of other moksu families were imprisoned here.”
“You came just for us?” Falcon appeared stunned. Or maybe even touched? “I knew you had that quest and that it would be dangerous. None of us expected you to turn up here. I was afraid if you did, it would be as a prisoner. Oh, I’m sorry you weren’t here a couple of weeks ago. Great Uncle Lao Zun… I’m sorry, Yanko, but he didn’t make it. He did for a while, but it was rough here on all of us. The soldiers didn’t care if we lived or died. We had to take care of each other the best we could with no magic, no first-aid supplies.”
Yanko slumped. Even though he was pleased to have reunited with his brother, the news crushed him. He wasn’t completely surprised since their great uncle had been in his eighties, but he’d been Yanko’s favorite relative. So often when his father had been cold and disapproving, Great Uncle Lao Zun had been there to tell tales or share some of his wise sayings. He’d never seemed to care much if Yanko became a warrior mage and redeemed the family’s honor.
Assassin’s Bond: Chains of Honor, Book 3 Page 28
