A single tear ran down Ijanna’s pale face, pushing its way over dust and dried blood. Kala wiped it away.
Sixty-Seven
Ijanna wanted so badly to wake from the nightmare, but she couldn’t. She’d marched blindly into the lion’s den, and now she and Kath were going to die. Everyone was going to die, all at the hands of this selfish and cruel girl who wanted to be a Goddess, who wanted to pay the world back for the cruelties she’d witnessed from the safety of her white tower.
This is your fault, Ijanna told herself. If only you’d done as you were supposed to and gone straight to Chul Gaerog, Kala never would have been given this opportunity. But it was too late.
They took Ijanna and Kath to the street. Corinth was on fire, or at least part of it was. Blazes had been set in a perimeter around the wide central district, a ring of red-black flames which thickened the air with smoke. Kala’s soldiers roamed the streets, ushering the slaves to their pens. Ijanna heard fighting in the distance, steel and shouts and the crackle of magic.
The massive pit loomed before them. There was nowhere to go. Running from her fate for so long had led her here, and her desire to escape her destiny and cheat death was about to doom not just herself but the entire world. Ijanna’s stomach filled with ice and her head throbbed with pain. Every muscle shook, every nerve was stretched to a razor’s point. She thought she was going to be sick.
She couldn’t talk, couldn’t Breathe. Kala had somehow suppressed her magic. Ijanna’s chest was tight, like something had latched onto her heart with smoking claws. The skin on her scalp felt as tight as a drum.
Even if by some miracle she and Kath escaped, the Phage were also there in the city, fighting for the right to take Ijanna and give her to that evil bitch Mez’zah Chorg. And if not them, the Jlantrians were closing in.
She and Kath and the Red Hand were marched to the edge of the massive hole. A number of Kala’s soldiers waited near the black pit, standing on a ridge of loose rock which circled the breach like the spines on a creature’s back. Each of the Scarstones had been positioned on its end, forming a perimeter around the crater. The black artifacts oozed shadows and ebon vapors.
Ijanna felt the chill of the void emanate from the pit. It pulled at her, and had always pulled at her, ever since she was a girl. In a way it felt like going home.
“Ijanna,” Kath said. “It’ll be all right. It’ll…”
The priest Gallaean struck Kath hard across the face with a spiked gauntlet. Blood seeped down the side of his head and drooled from his mouth.
I’m sorry, Kath, Ijanna thought as tears ran down her face. But you’re wrong. Things aren’t going to be all right. It’s over.
Sixty-Eight
Dane dodged through half-collapsed buildings and rubble-strewn lanes, carefully avoiding the soldiers who raced down the streets of the ruined city.
Chairos brought more troops than Dane had originally thought, and while the Phage were still outnumbered by the occupying mercenary force they’d managed to hold their own. He saw skirmishes up and down the roads, short and brutal exchanges fought with arrow and sword. The Phage moved fast and swift, and the Blood Knights took down five men for every one of their own they lost.
There were Bloodspeakers, doubtlessly members of the Red Hand. Dane spied them from a distance, blasting through enemies with beams of ice and fire shot from Veilcrafted rods.
He also saw Razorcats, deadly predators that roamed the outer streets. Dane hoped Kruje would be able to hold his own against them. He’d only seen a handful of the beasts, prowling the shadows and watching as each small skirmish erupted so they could pounce in and feast on the fallen.
Dane kept moving. He ducked into alleys and used the broken walls for cover. He followed the draw of the thar’koon with the Veil held tightly in his grip. The ground became a blur as he glided forward, climbing over piles of rubble and darting in and out of hollow buildings. Magic hung thick in the air, and the stench of burning copper was cloying and strong. Gallador had been known to hoard shards of the Stone of Pain and experiment with Veilcrafted weaponry, and as Dane navigated the ruins he’d thought that was what he’d detected until he finally came upon the central square.
Great gouts of Veilcrafted flame spat red-black smoke into the atmosphere, and the heat in the open city was so intense he thought he’d melt in his stolen leather armor. Dane backed away, circled the ruins and found a vantage point from the shell of a small house where he could clearly see into the center of Corinth.
An enormous cavity had been dug in the black earth in front of an old manor. The hole was the largest of many, and the ground was littered with tools, barrows, tents and crudely constructed cranes. Slaves were directed towards a number of pens on the far side of the central city square, and mercenary soldiers were busy securing the area, waiting for the Phage.
Nearly a dozen prisoners were tightly bound and held next to a circle of standing obsidian stones, smoothly carved discs of midnight rock positioned to form a primitive wall around the central pit. Silver runes dotted the surfaces of the monoliths. Dane only had to glance at the artifacts to sense the sheer and ancient power held within. The circle of stones leaked darkness.
He moved towards a gap in the perimeter fires, keeping low as he ran forward with his heart in his throat. He kept waiting for a cry of alarm to sound out, but none came, so once he made it to the other side of the flames he ducked behind a fallen statue. Sweat poured down his face.
The prisoners were maybe a hundred yards away. He laid flat and peered over piles of rubble, wondering if now was a good time to go back and get Kruje, or if he truly should. He wanted very badly for the giant to live.
And what about you? he asked himself. He had no answer.
Most of the prisoners were Red Hand, all of them tightly bound and gagged. Two of the captives caught his attention: an enormous Jlantrian youth who’d been badly beaten and an attractive blonde woman in stained black and red leather armor. It was Ijanna Taivorkan.
The prisoners were held by the mercenaries controlling the city, among them a man Dane recognized as Gallaean Stohrmshrike, a traitorous priest, rapist and murderer, and Crogas the Red, renegade Drage Veilwarden and likely the man providing the mad excavation’s magical expertise.
But it was sight of their leader that froze his hammering heart. He’d only met her once, back during his coronation into the ranks of the Dawn Knights, but he’d been so stricken by her beauty and presence he swore he’d never forget her, and he hadn’t.
Princess Kala Azaean was in command of these brutal mercenaries, and she’d captured the Dream Witch.
Sixty-Nine
Gallaean, who smelled of blood and beer, pushed Ijanna down to her knees.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered into her ear. His voice was like an eel’s touch. Ijanna’s eyes blurred, and her head was spinning. “You’re lucky it’s time to die. I’d have fun with a pretty little thing like you.” His dry lips pressed painfully against her cheek. “I’d brand you with the One Goddess’s sigil, like I do with all of my bitches.”
They forced Kath down and held a scimitar to his throat. His eyes were filled with fear.
Drazzek Ma’al silently directed the mercenaries to march the Bloodspeakers to the Scarstones, where chains were wrapped around their bodies, cutting into their skin and squeezing the air from their lungs. One Bloodspeaker was affixed to each stone, leaving four stones vacant.
Crogas the Red wiped sweat from his bald pate as he stepped up and balefully glared at Ijanna.
“So this is her?” the Drage said with a laugh. “This is the legendary Dream Witch?”
“In the flesh,” Kala said. “She’s the key to the power we seek.”
“If we can get the damn door open,” Crogas answered with a snarl. “We’re still missing four Bloodspeakers.”
“We’ll make due,” Kala said. She Breathed, and Ijanna watched soiled crimson energies flow from the woman’s mouth, a tide of blood ink. So
mething inside Ijanna’s body churned like she’d swallowed raw fish.
Kala floated up into the air, her hands down at her sides. Her dark hair rippled in the purple wind. Veil energies dripped like soiled rain from her fingertips and burned the dark earth.
Ijanna closed her eyes. It was time to die, but she didn’t want to see it coming. There was no stopping it, and never had been. She’d been doomed from the moment her father had set foot in Chul Gaerog.
Bone-chilling air formed an iron fog around Kala, the greatest of the Skullborn. Something chewed away at Ijanna’s insides. She heard gnashing teeth and saw golden eyes in the darkness.
Images of her son flooded through her mind, his smile, his curly hair, his ferocious giggle. She felt his soft little hands in hers, the weight of him in her arms and on her back. His blood on her body when they fell.
Her skin pulled taut over her bones and tears of blood drained from her eyes. Her nails bit into her hands and she screamed behind her gag, wishing the grinding blades in her skull would stop.
Seventy
Dane’s skin flushed with soiled heat. He felt blood pulse through the tendons in his neck.
A blazing sphere of power emanated from Kala Azaean as she hung suspended high above, a human star. Veins of blood-black lightning eclipsed the surrounding fires, and utterly cold air rolled away from her body like she was the core of a glacier.
Dane felt his breath frost. His skin went rigid and blue.
Four of the stones still lacked human shields. Each Bloodspeaker had been tied so they faced inwards, towards the pit. The air twisted and pulled, and as the bubble of energies grew he tasted frozen meat and smelled rancid oil, a musky animal scent.
The Red Hand watched the pit in terror. The circle of Bloodspeakers was about to be sacrificed.
Another circle, he thought.
The thrum of darkness and the beating of soiled hearts filled the sky with a booming rhythm. He crept forward, trying his best to stay concealed behind the piles of rubble and stone.
Kala rose higher. The sphere continued to expand, gilded coils and smears of bladed azure, an exploding rainbow of blood and smoke. Pale light emanated from the eyes of the Bloodspeakers. The atmosphere tensed, as if ready to rip apart.
Something happened to Ijanna. Dane watched her body go rigid as she convulsed and fell to her side. Darkness spilled from her mouth, a stream of oil and shadow.
Help her, he told himself. This is your purpose.
He Touched the Veil. He didn’t imagine he could have grown colder, but in that instant he did, and his flesh turned raw. He’d gotten as close as he could – it was still fifty yards to the edge of the pit, and before he could reach it he’d have to go through a score of mercenary soldiers and servants who kept their attention focused on Kala as she prepared to sacrifice the captives.
He took a deep and icy breath and raced forward with his vra’taar in hand.
One of the mercenaries saw him, but Dane closed the gap and hacked him down with a single stroke. Blood flashed in his vision. Cries of alarm rose, barely audible in the static storm. Two more armored men came at Dane, but he stepped into them with the trained precision of a Dawn Knight. They fell choking on their own blood.
The fight between Kala’s men and their Phage aggressors reached the edge of the clearing. Electric fire streamed across the ground and charred the soldiers and slaves, scorching their flesh dark and tearing across their hides like ice-blue lances. Smoldering bodies fell in heaps.
Kala’s summoned light persisted, a blinding orb at the center of the black field. Soldiers scrambled and pushed slaves out of the way. A mercenary ran at him with a broadsword, but Dane side-stepped the attack and hacked the man down with two quick swings. He ducked beneath another blade, swung back and hacked his attacker’s leg off at the knee before finishing him with the short end of the vra’taar.
A blast of electricity tore out of a nearby building. Dane couldn’t tell if it was Chairos and his Phage or the other Bloodspeakers. Bodies fell. Mercenaries and servants ran everywhere in a desperate bid to escape.
Ijanna was convulsing. She lay on the other side of the hole, still beyond Dane’s reach. The big Jlantrian youth tried to rise so he could help her, but he received a kick in the back for his trouble.
Arrows flew. A bolt of icy black energy appeared from another direction and set the ground in its path alight. Excavation equipment and tents caught ablaze. Dane smelled burning flesh and watched people melt and scream inside beds of flame.
A ball of red fire crashed down on a nearby building with a deafening boom. Stained magic like sepia ink swept up in a caustic cloud.
Frosted tentacles of white light exploded away from Kala’s floating body. Each bolt drove like a shining lance into the chest of one of the captive Bloodspeakers. Blazing arctic flames erupted from their bodies.
The air rippled. Dane’s stomach twisted. His boots lifted from the ground as the word seemed to tilt. He grabbed onto the Veil like a dying man clinging to the shore.
People fell to their knees, gripped with nausea and fear. Dane fought through the dizziness and kept his mind focused on the cold reality at the edge of his fingertips. Only a few others were still standing: Chairos, leading his men from the edge of the buildings, his face burned and his clothing torn; Crogas, his thick beard bristling with smoke; and Kala herself, her head thrown back in ecstasy as she floated above the pit, bound to the probing snakes of light as they bore into the captive Bloodspeakers.
Dane cast his vra’taar through the air, latched onto it with the Veil and guided it while it soared towards Kala. Crogas’ eyes widened in terror, and he gestured towards the spinning blade and shattered it moments before it would have reached the Princess. Broken shards fell into the pit.
Dane ran for Ijanna. Gallaean and a black-clad Allaji with a raak’ma moved to intercept him as the surviving mercenaries and servants slowly rose, the moment of stunning force passed. The Veil quickened Dane’s pulse. He fell into Gallaean and barreled them both into the Allaji, and all three men crashed to the ground.
Air blasted from Dane’s lungs. He was just a few feet from Ijanna.
A morningstar missed his head by scant inches. Dane grabbed Gallaean by the hair and dashed his head against the ground, then turned and kicked the pale-haired Allaji in the face before he could stand. Ijanna screamed in pain beneath her gag.
A blast of fire seared across the ground and scorched Crogas, who screamed and burned as he died. The attack came from Chairos, his hand outstretched while he cackled with glee. He and his Phage advanced across the field.
Ijanna’s gag fell away, but she kept screaming. Gallaean and the Allaji were on their feet, weapons drawn, and Dane was unarmed.
The big Jlantrian rammed his body full force into Gallaean’s back and crashed down on top of him. The Allaji came at Dane with the deadly double scimitar, blades flashing, and all Dane could do was keep out of his reach.
Ijanna threw her head back and howled into the sky. Veil energy erupted from her body with cyclonic force, drawn out by Kala’s magic. The Princess was using the Dream Witch, somehow, siphoning away her power as part of the ritual sacrifice. Edged crimson light cast out in a dark wave, scouring Dane’s flesh and throwing him back. The world spun, and he fell to the ground with a crash. His bones ached. Pain flashed through his skull.
He was at the bottom of the slope, dangling over the edge of the pit. His fingers clung to the sodden dirt and his legs dangled down into darkness ringed with teeth of light. He felt cold so deep it froze him from the inside out.
It was a cutgate, the largest and most powerful cutgate he’d ever seen. An absence waited on the other side, a vast and freezing void.
Muscles blazing and fingers about to break from the pressure, Dane hauled himself up the crumbling slope. He looked up, his face glazed with cold sweat. The Red Hand Bloodspeakers were all dead on the stones above, their eyes replaced with burned holes. Gallaean, the Allaji and Kala were dow
n there on the slope with him, struggling to climb out. The sky churned with blazing white light.
“You stupid bitch!” Gallaean shouted at Kala. “You weren’t supposed to activate the portal until we’d established a link with Ironclaw Keep! What if Crinn isn’t ready yet?!”
Crinn. Goddess, it can’t be.
Dane rose, unsteady. Hurt sliced through his body, and every breath was filled with glass. Gallaean was the closest, so Dane launched forward and grabbed the priest-captain from behind. The man was big and strong, but the angle was uncertain and the excavated sides of the pit were unstable, so Dane was able to pull them both down backwards. He found his footing and twisted sideways, casting Gallaean into the pit. The priest vanished from sight, his screams echoing through the darkness below.
The Allaji gripped his raak’ma and moved for Dane, sloughing through the dirt on the slope like he waded through ocean waters.
“Fool!” Kala shouted at Dane. “You’re too late. The door to Chul Gaerog has opened, and now you’re going to die!”
Seventy-One
Streams of acid and fire exploded across the sky. A blinding sphere of light issued from Corinth’s twisted network of ruined towers and crumbling sandstone structures. A pulse of orange and crimson exploded like a blazing star.
“Goddess,” Argus whispered. He felt like he’d swallowed a chunk of ice. “We’re too late!”
A column of ice-pale energies tore out of the heavens in a blinding pillar. The air was thick with soiled magic.
“Chul Gaerog,” Razel said with frightened awe.
“Yes,” Jar’rod said from behind them. “Kala opened the cutgate without waiting to establish contact with General Crinn’s armies. Now she will enter the Black Tower and steal Vlagoth’s power.”
“Or kill us all in the attempt,” Argus said.
Path of Bones Page 38
