/Take it, or we’re both for toast./
As Hirianthial drew it in, Val added, /And don’t open that first channel again or he’ll take it all./
Was that true, he wondered? Could all he have learned about no longer relying on his own poor energy have come so quickly to naught? Could divine power be stolen?
Anything can be stolen, was the soft answer. And anything abused. The gift is made unconditionally. Otherwise, how would They know Their own?
Hirianthial made a shield out of Val’s offering and met the crashing wave, and the battle was well and truly joined.
The halls were gory. She hadn’t even known that was possible, but Reese was appalled at what the battle had done to them. The pirates had palmers, which tended to cauterize the wounds they made when set high enough to kill… but where they missed, they’d dug divots out of the wall and sent shards of stone flying like shrapnel. And the places where people had been reduced to fighting with swords or knives… the rich carpets had been ruined with blood and fouler things, and the walls were smeared with it. When she had to step over a shattered statue, something in her broke. She reached for someone’s hand, anyone’s, and got Irine’s. One squeeze steadied her and she dropped the tigraine’s fingers to resume being strong and lady-of-her-own-castle-ish. “There don’t seem to be many people left.”
“The fighting’s probably closer to where the pirates were staying,” Sascha said.
“Up the stairs, then.”
They took the nearest stairwell and then they could hear it: the yelling and squeak of palmers and the harder, wetter sounds of bodies falling.
“Shoot first, ask questions later?” Reese guessed.
“Kind of hard to bring back reinforcements if we do that,” Sascha said, peering down the hall. “Come on.”
Olthemiel had solved their problem by having his men tie the remains of the ropes that had bound them to their arms like sashes. They met up near a different stairwell, beside a window.
“Asaniefa’s guard have taken on the pirates,” he said in response to Reese’s question. “And mostly killed them, or been slain. There are some few left, from what I’ve seen. And yes, we can go to the Lord’s aid, and will do so directly. Only—”
“Only?” Reese asked, not liking the hesitation.
“We have not seen the shapechanger.”
“You might not,” Sascha said. “He might be masquerading as one of you.”
Reese thought of Surela and shook her chin once to rid herself of unwanted imaginings. “Where’s Baniel been staying? Have you been able to find out?”
“Up the stairs again. He has liked an aerie, that one, on the top floor overlooking the lake.”
“Right. Go bail out Hirianthial, please.”
“At your command, Lady.”
“And that leaves us to do what?” Sascha asked.
“We’re going to rescue Liolesa’s enemy.”
“Really?” Irine said, making a face.
“…and kill the Chatcaavan.”
“Okay, that I can get behind,” Irine said. “Lead the way.”
There was no question in Surela’s mind that she was dying. She was no apothecary to understand how, but the creature had bled her too many times, and she’d grown weak with it, so light-headed she sometimes thought she imagined her durance at his hands. But always, the alien reminded her.
He liked defiance. She’d had that from him through his skin the first few times he’d attacked her: how he’d relished her loathing and the revulsion she’d felt at his touch. How her indignation that an alien would dare use her in such a fashion excited his lust. And she’d managed to sustain those reactions for a while, letting her anger and incredulity carry her past the screaming despair that would otherwise prey on her… the despair she’d briefly let the human woman see in the cell.
But he had worn down her resistance, replaced her defiance with a dull exhaustion, and she could sense the arc of their interactions as he saw them playing: now that he had ruined her, he would kill her. As she’d lost more of her will, he’d become more violent, until she knew she could not have attacked him and won even with the alien’s borrowed tool.
…but then he’d had Araelis brought in, and his mind had clouded with plans, not of rapine, but of torture and infanticide.
Surela had ceased to care about the distinctions between Eldritch Houses. The politics that had once dominated her life had fallen away in significance beside the far greater menace that she had invited into their world in all her hubris. The only thing that mattered, seeing Araelis’s bloodless lips and wide eyes, was that the Chatcaavan intended to inflict himself on another Eldritch woman, and the only thing stopping him was the completion of his entertainment with her.
So she fought him. With nails on his borrowed Eldritch skin, with her teeth, with flailing limbs. She pushed past her lassitude and dizziness and forced him to re-evaluate just how far gone into meek death she was. And as she guessed, it enflamed him.
There would come a time, she prayed, that he was so certain that all she had to use against him were those nails and teeth… and then she’d have the opportunity to wield the needle. She could feel it against her back where he’d rolled her onto the dress he’d finally shredded to expose her.
“Second wind, eh?” the alien hissed into her ear. “I had no idea you would be such a fighter, false Queen.” He stroked her flank with fingers that felt too sharp, and when she looked down she saw talons, not fingers. Would he shift on her, then? she thought, terrified. In her? She tried desperately to push him off, only to see him toss his head and begin to pant. His talons became fingers again. For an instant, this puzzled him, but his emotions surged again through his skin: no, of course. This was the shape he wanted to use. Nothing else would do.
Surela stared up at him, paralyzed, like an animal in the sight of a predator. What was happening to him? And did it constitute an opportunity?
Goddess, she prayed. She shifted away from the ruins of her corset, giving herself some room to reach it. Let me have my chance!
“You’re saying you like her?” Irine asked, voice rising.
“No,” Reese growled as she vaulted the stairs. It felt good to be moving, to be able to move without hitting a wall and having to double back. “Yes. I don’t know. Hell, how did you know you liked me? I wasn’t a great find or anything.”
“I’d prefer to call younger Reese a work in progress.”
“Well, then, Surela’s a work in progress, she’s just got further to go.” Reese leaped onto the landing and would have darted into the corridor, but Bryer grabbed her.
“Me first.”
“Fine.”
Reese hung back to let the Phoenix precede them, but it was unnecessary… the silence on the top floor made it clear no one had come up this way, that in fact the battle soaking the carpets downstairs belonged to some other universe. “Great,” she said. “Now all we have to do is open every door until we find them? We might be here forever!”
“Might as well get started, then,” the new Harat-Shar said, and reached for the first.
Every door they tried spurred Reese’s heart faster. They had to find the alien; for him to not be with Baniel couldn’t mean anything good. She felt the time passing and her absence from Hirianthial’s side like a wound, one the borrowed knife in her hand made her frantic to fix. That desperation was driving her when she tried the door that dumped her into the right suite. The noises from the adjacent room turned her stomach, but she recognized them and didn’t wait for the others to come, didn’t call them, didn’t want to warn the Chatcaavan she was coming.
She appeared in the door, took in the scene, and forgot all of that in her rage. “STOP THAT! STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!”
The alien’s head jerked toward her, eyes round… and in that moment, Surela groped along the bed, hissed, and lunged.
Flicker of silver.
Gout of pale fluid.
The Chatcaavan howled and reared back, slidi
ng off the needle that had impaled the eye. He covered it, head turned away, and Surela fisted her hand on the metal and drove it into his neck. When no blood met her jab, she hauled it up through the flesh until she reached something—vein, artery? What did Reese know about it?—and then she tore the creature’s neck open with a scream that brought the others crowding in behind Reese.
“Quick!” Reese said, lunging for the dying alien. The Fleet Harat-Shar caught the Chatcaavan’s shoulders and pulled him away, leaving Reese to catch Surela before she slid off the bed.
“Oh, Goddess, oh, Goddess, is he dead, tell me he’s dead, tell me I killed him—”
“He’s dead all right,” Narain reported. “Battlehells, what did you stab him with?”
“Was that my pick?” Irine asked, incredulous. “You gave my pick to her!”
“She was the one getting raped every few hours,” Reese growled, and hunted through the layers of sheets on the bed until she found one that wasn’t stained. Dragging it around the naked woman, she said, “He’s dead, Surela. Really dead, he’s not going to touch you anymore.”
“Araelis! Baniel has her—”
“We know. Hirianthial’s gone after them. It’s all right, you’ve done everything you had to.”
Surela collapsed into her arms, sobbing, and Reese no longer thought it was strange to have the Queen’s enemy hiding her face against her vest. A work in progress. Maybe they were all works in progress.
“We’ve got to get back,” Sascha reminded her.
“I know. Narain, she needs a healer. Is there someone who can… do you know… she needs help, she’s bleeding….”
The Harat-Shar crouched alongside the Eldritch and squinted at her, then nodded. “There’s a Medplex in orbit we can use, though I’ve got to arrange the logistics if someone hasn’t already for the other wounded. I don’t know where our Pad is.”
“Can you find out? Quickly?”
“W-what?” Surela said, sniffling. “What do you discuss? Did you say healer? I want no healer!”
“You’re weak,” Reese said. “You need medical treatment.”
“I want to die here.”
Reese refrained from shaking her, but it was a near thing. “We had this discussion already. You’re not ruined!”
“The Queen will execute me anyway,” Surela said, wiping her eyes.
“Then at least you’ll die cleanly, on your own two feet, in a nice dress. Not torn apart by a Chatcaavan not five minutes after he’s raped you,” Reese hissed.
Surela flinched back, eyes wide. And then she laughed, reluctant, and if it was a little shrill at least it was a sign of life. “You know how to galvanize an Eldritch, human woman.”
“I’ve had some practice,” Reese said. Sourly, she finished, “A lot of practice by now.” To Narain, “You handle that, all right?”
“Time is wasting,” Bryer said.
“Yeah.” Reese glanced at the body of the Chatcaavan, still wearing the Eldritch façade. “But this had to be done.”
“I’ll take care of her, and the body,” Narain said.
“Let’s go, then.” Reese pushed herself to her feet. “God knows what that bastard is doing to Hirianthial.”
Surela’s voice stopped her. “Captain Eddings.” When Reese turned, the woman drew in a breath. “There, in the remains of my gown. There should be a centicore amulet. Take it and use it in my name; tell the people who still owe their allegiance to me to surrender. Show them the shield on the back and they will know it for mine.” She lifted her chin. “Save their lives. Please.”
Startled, Reese said. “I will.”
The other woman nodded and turned away, huddling into the blanket. It was Irine who retrieved the medallion, handing it over, because Reese couldn’t move; she stared at Surela, then shook herself when the tigraine tapped her shoulder. “Time to go.”
“Right.” And she did.
CHAPTER 21
In a people not given to intimacy or personal communion, Val knew how to throw wide the doors to his heart. He gave of his power unstintingly, seemingly without fear for the memories and attitudes that wound through it and all they revealed of him… and everything he gave, Hirianthial took and made a shield of it, because his brother had grown monstrous. The energy he’d stolen in blood and brotherhood a few moments past twined with the leeching of the Chatcaavan who, Hirianthial realized as he strove against that pressure, was him: his potential, his ability, the nerve-fire uniqueness of his own mind ripped from him by the alien shapechanger, and it was this pattern Baniel was using against him, his own strengths countered, his weaknesses magnified. That he could step toward his brother at all was victory, because the short distance Baniel had thrown him was nigh unto unsurmountable while beating that attack away, the one that wanted to writhe into him and make him give up, give in, die.
But he had to cross the distance. The sword in his hand was yearning to answer his need, hot against his palm. He had only to wield it, and they would be quit of this peril.
One step. Another. A third the distance.
One step. A next. Halfway there.
All of Baniel’s energy narrowed to him, and his limbs slowed. Grew weak. He forced them forward anyhow. His brother had not borne witness to the tribulations that had afflicted Hirianthial on his sojourns off-world. Did not know how they had tempered him, had made him insensible to pain and weakness. In what fight in his recent memory had he had the luxury of a healthy body, unfettered by wounds or sickness? His suffering had made him strong. He knew how to ignore it.
One step. Another.
Another.
Val collapsed, and the strength that had been bolstering Hirianthial vanished.
“Finally!” Baniel hissed, and the pressure crushed him. He fell to one knee. The sword’s tip hit the floor and gouged it. Liolesa would find that remarkable, he thought. Or irritating, depending on her mood.
“No more thoughts of her,” his brother said. “You won’t see her again. Now, let me see what you have left to give before I kill you.”
To deny him ingress would have taken power he did not have. His thoughts became a confusion as the invasion commenced: his personality, his brother’s, interwoven, melting. He retreated, hid himself behind a wall he’d learned to build from a Flitzbe who’d used it to safeguard his soul while he healed, but he knew the wall would not last.
O Lord and God, he whispered, head bent. O Lady and Goddess. Just one chance. One, I beseech you. Just one.
His memories began to dissipate. His spirit buckled. The onslaught was stripping him away, and still he held the sword, and braced his hand against the cold floor. His knees ached. His heart labored. But he held himself still, very still, praying for the moment.
Baniel was so deep in him that when the Chatcaavan died he felt the wound rip open, bright fountain of gore and golden hope. His brother staggered, and the attack wavered.
Hirianthial sprang from his crouch, lunged, redoubled. The sword sang as he swept it in an arc, and on that first cut it was barely visible as it passed through air and skin, but on the second it exploded from flesh in a mist of blood droplets that it flowed behind it in mist-draggled coils.
Baniel’s body toppled, the head rolling off the dais, leaving Hirianthial listing over it, breathing hard. Then he flicked the weapon off. Araelis was alive and breathing, but Val was fading. He ran to the priest and dove for that flickering spirit, and now he could open himself to the Divine and he did. He gathered the lax body into his arms, brought with it the failing soul… saw again that darkness wreathed in it and knew it for a clot of memories that had somehow adhered from history and myth. He thought to brush it away but a hand closed on his wrist.
“Leave it,” Val said, voice rough.
“And if I said to you that you were no Corel?” Hirianthial asked, gentle.
“I would still ask you to leave it.” Val managed a smile. “Call it my hair shirt.”
“Because you need one.”
The
man grinned, a foxish look for all the exhaustion sucking the vibrancy from his skin. “It’ll come in handy if your Queen ends up appointing me high priest. And I’m not about to bet against that happening.”
Since Hirianthial wouldn’t have either, he left off, but to say, quieter, “Thank you.”
“Thank me by telling me this is over. Or almost over. Please God.”
“It is. Briefly.”
“’Briefly.’ Figures,” Val muttered, before his head rolled into Hirianthial’s palm and he fainted.
“Hirianthial!”
And there, just on time, he thought with pleasure, was Reese, sprinting for him with every intent of knocking him over if she didn’t pull up, and she barely managed. Hovering, she said, “What happened to Val? Where’s Araelis? And where’s—”
“Um, Boss, I think you shouldn’t look—”
“Oh,” Reese finished, staring at the dais. She looked for longer than he would have thought necessary; her pulse had accelerated, something he could taste off her aura, feel almost as if his lips were on it, on her neck. Then she swallowed and squared her shoulders, shaking him from the reverie. “So that’s that, finally.”
“On that count, yes,” Hirianthial said. “But there is another matter left to address before my cousin arrives.”
“Two, actually—”
He frowned, looking up at her.
“Yours first,” she answered, sheepish. “I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about mine.”
“Athanesin has sacked my land.” To say it out loud… he could barely believe it. Such things were not done. “If at all possible we should find what survivors remain.”
“And then kill him, right?” Sascha said from behind Reese. “Because we kill people who torch towns.”
“And then it is my right and duty to call him to account for it,” Hirianthial said, quiet. “And I shall.”
Reese didn’t like the look in his eyes, but… how could she blame him for it? She was hoping there were survivors from whatever Athanesin had done, but knowing how things had gone so far….
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