Tristan peered over the bay’s back. He saw nothing unusual. The horses settled down, and everything was quiet once more. The meadow stretched innocently before him, its dewy grass shimmering in the moonlight. The only cover he could see was the woods that bordered the opposite side of the clearing. It would have been a very long shot with a bow from there, and only an expert archer could have accomplished it.
Hunching down behind the middle horse once more, he caught his breath and tried to decide what to do. His decision was made for him as another arrow sliced through the air and went through the horse’s eye.
The mare screamed wildly and died in an instant, tumbling to the ground and leaving Tristan exposed. He caught a glimmer of reflected moonlight streaking toward him. He twisted to avoid the impact, but he was too late. The arrow buried itself in his left shoulder. Had he been a fraction slower, it would have taken him in his heart.
Holding his bleeding shoulder, he leapt toward the nearest tree of the picket line. Landing hard on his knees, he turned and sat up against the tree trunk.
His chest heaving, Tristan looked down at his wound. The arrow was lodged just below the collarbone; he was bleeding profusely, his glowing azure blood bright in the darkness. He needed Wigg, but there was no way he could cross the open meadow and get back to camp without being killed. Closing his eyes for a moment, he tried to control the pain as best he could.
He broke the arrow shaft in two close to his body. The pain nearly made him faint. Gathering his strength, he pulled out one of his throwing knives and peered around the trunk of the tree.
There was still nothing to see. He retreated behind the tree again, and did his best to stand.
If he tried to run he would be killed, he knew, his azure blood making him an easy target for his assailant. And if he stayed where he was he would soon bleed to death. He cursed his foolishness for having come here alone.
“They told me that you were good,” a female voice shouted out unexpectedly. “But I have yet to see any evidence of that.”
Satine, he suddenly realized. It had to be.
Peering around the trunk of the tree, Tristan saw a woman standing about ten paces away in the moonlight. She held a bow in one hand, an arrow notched upon its string. She was dressed in black leather. Daggers were strapped to either thigh, and the hilt of a sword was visible just above her right shoulder.
“Come to me,” she said. “Your only other choice is to bleed to death. I promise that your death will be quick.”
Knowing that he had no choice but to face her, Tristan emerged unsteadily from behind the tree.
He threw the dirk at her with everything he had. But given his blood loss, he couldn’t put enough strength behind it. As he watched it go, he collapsed to his knees.
Satine saw the silvery blade flashing toward her in the moonlight and pivoted, her dark cloak swirling about her. The dirk twirled by, missing her cleanly. She dropped her bow, drew her sword, and approached the prince.
“If you still desire an easy death, do not try that again,” she said.
As he sat on his heels, his azure blood running down his arm and chest, she walked around him the same way that a cat might toy with a wounded mouse. She took in his strange-looking blood, and the ingenious method by which he carried his throwing knives. She came full circle, to face him once more.
Fighting through the pain, Tristan reached back with his good arm and drew his sword. He had never known it to feel so heavy. Satine simply watched him without protest. As the dreggan cleared its scabbard he could barely point it at her. He swayed woozily. Finally the point of his sword fell to the grass.
He would be unconscious soon, he realized. Then Satine would either leave him here to bleed to death or finish him with her sword. Either way, he would never see Celeste again. Worse yet, the Orb of the Vigors would never be healed, and Wulfgar would win. He stared at her with hatred.
“I thought you preferred blow darts to swords,” he said thickly.
Satine smiled. “My identity is no longer a secret,” she said. “So, you see, apparent suicide is no longer required. Given your present circumstances, my sword will do the job as well as anything else.”
“Why did you kill the gnome and the dwarf?” Tristan asked. Another surge of pain coursed through him and he shuddered. “I know why Wulfgar wants me dead, but why murder Geldon and Lionel? Surely they meant nothing to him.”
Satine took another step closer. “To see you all suffer,” she answered. “That is how your dear brother wants things done, you see. And I always follow my orders to the letter.” She smiled again. “After you are sent to the Afterlife, you will be joined by your sister and the two wizards of the Redoubt. It may take a bit longer, now that they know who I am. But I’m a patient woman.”
“I understand Wulfgar’s motives,” Tristan gasped. “But why are you doing this? Why do you serve…such a monster?”
“For the money,” she answered. “I need it, you see, to complete a lifelong mission of my own. We all have our own hopes, our own needs.”
“Don’t you care about anything other than yourself?” he asked. “You work for Wulfgar. You must have met him. Couldn’t you sense the rage and hatred within him? Is that who you want to rule Eutracia?”
Trying his best to remain conscious, Tristan looked up into her eyes.
“Don’t you care about your loved ones?” he pressed. “Do you really want to see them and your entire nation suffer forever beneath the yoke of his oppression? His will be a darkness that will know no equal. Your actions here this night will forever be a part of that.”
Something in her face changed. For a moment Tristan thought she looked conflicted. Then her face darkened again and she stepped closer.
“Enough of this,” she said. “It is time. Drop your sword.”
Tristan shook his head. “At least let me die with my dreggan in my hand.”
Satine thought for a moment. “I will grant that request because I understand it so well. If our positions were reversed, I would ask it of you. Besides, I doubt that you can even lift it anymore.”
She placed one hand atop Tristan’s head and pushed it down to expose his neck.
“No!” he growled. “If I must die, I want to see it coming!”
“Very well,” she answered. She kept her hand in place to steady his head.
Satine lifted her sword. The edge of her blade glinted in the moonlight.
At the apex of her swing, her eyes caught his. All of the contradictory thoughts that had been collecting within her suddenly collided. For a split second, the Gray Fox hesitated.
Sensing his chance, Tristan reached up with his left arm and grabbed the wrist of the hand that supported his head. He pulled her down to him and raised the dreggan with his other arm. As she understood what was happening, Satine brought down her sword, but the die had already been cast.
Tristan rolled to one side and narrowly avoided the edge of her blade. Using the momentum of her swing against her, he pulled her down toward him and shoved the point of the dreggan into her chest. With his final bit of strength, he pushed the hidden button on the sword’s hilt.
The dreggan’s blade shot forward, impaling her and exiting through her back. A look of surprise crossed her face. She collapsed, her body sliding down the blade of Tristan’s sword as she fell on him.
For the briefest of moments, Tristan thought he heard the flurry of Minion wings.
Then everything went black.
CHAPTER LXXIII
_____
JESSAMAY WRITHED IN PAIN.
Faegan strengthened the spell that would help her cope with her suffering. She’s being so brave, he thought. Then again, she always was.
Faegan finally stopped applying the craft and he sat back in his chair. He caused yet another drop of blood to rise from the open wound in Jessamay’s arm a
nd he guided it to land upon a parchment on a nearby table. It twisted itself into the sorceress’ blood signature, then slowly dried up, and died.
Smiling, he looked back at Jessamay. He used a damp cloth to gently wipe the perspiration from her forehead.
“Are you all right?” he asked. She gave him a brave smile, but he could see that she was near the end of her strength for the day.
“The pain can be intense,” she said. “This brings back such awful memories. At first I wasn’t sure whether I could go through it again. But at least this time it’s you, rather than Failee, trying to alter my blood signature. I feel safe with you.”
“Do you need more help with the pain?” Faegan asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think we should risk it. We cannot be sure that it won’t interfere with what we’re trying to accomplish. We must succeed no matter the cost, and I fear we are running out of time.”
“Very well,” Faegan answered. “Just try to rest while I check the latest result.”
Wheeling his chair over to the table, he positioned the signature scope over Jessamay’s fresh blood signature and examined it. He was not pleased with what he saw. He sighed and looked over at her.
“Another failure, I’m afraid,” he said glumly.
“I understand,” Jessamay said. “We’ll just have to keep trying.”
Faegan wheeled himself back over to Jessamay, raised one arm, and removed the wizard’s warp that enveloped her. Grateful to be free, Jessamay stood on unsteady legs. Faegan hadn’t wanted to use a warp on her, but it had seemed necessary to keep her from moving in response to the pain as he applied the various spells.
She shuffled stiffly to the table and poured herself a glass of wine. As Faegan watched her drink he saw that her robe was soaked through with sweat, and he winced. She sat down heavily beside him, and they delved into their work once more.
Tristan, Wigg, and Celeste had been gone for four days. Since then, Faegan and Jessamay had been prisoners of their own research in one of the many Redoubt laboratories. Piles of reference books sat on several nearby tables, along with various parchments, charts of esoteric symbols, jars of dried herbs, and bottles of precious oils. A network of tubing carried colored, bubbling fluids from beaker to beaker.
Failee’s red leather grimoire lay open on the table between Faegan and Jessamay. The Tome of the Paragon had been placed upon a pedestal in one corner of the room, the Scroll of the Vigors upon another. Sighing, the crippled wizard pulled the grimoire toward him to read more of Failee’s elegant Old Eutracian script.
When Faegan and his group had returned from the archery shop, the acolytes had informed them that Sister Vivian had been found dead in her quarters. She had bled out, just as Bratach had done.
An examination of her body had convinced Faegan and Jessamay that Wulfgar had placed the same death Forestallment into Vivian’s blood that Bratach’s had carried. As for Bratach, his identity had been confirmed by documents gleaned from the Hall of Blood Records.
Their assumption was that Vivian’s death Forestallment had been placed into her blood without her knowledge and that Bratach had been able to activate it at will—even from so far away as the archery shop. Faegan felt certain that when the consul activated his own Forestallment, he had activated Vivian’s as well.
Clever, Faegan thought, as he turned over another page of the grimoire. Imagine the ability to kill one’s enemy with a single thought and from such a distance. Wulfgar has been one step ahead of us—right from the moment we thought we defeated him that night on the palace roof. How little did we realize …
Faegan and Jessamay’s research centered upon reestablishing the proper lean of Jessamay’s blood signature. They did this not purely for Jessamay’s benefit—although under normal circumstances that alone would have been reason enough. Rather, they both thought that if they could accomplish this feat, it might help them in their fight against Wulfgar. If any of the Enseterat’s traitorous consuls could be taken alive, the Conclave could perhaps change their signatures and return them to the Vigors.
But so far there had been no progress, and the stress that their experimentation placed upon Jessamay tormented Faegan greatly.
All they had ascertained so far was that Failee had concocted a formula that could change the lean of a blood signature. The grimoire clearly outlined the formula, which combined both the craft and the science of herbmastery. But even Failee had been able only to force Jessamay’s signature to morph from right-leaning to neutral. The grimoire gave no evidence that she had accomplished the other half of her work—completing the shift all of the way to the left.
Faegan and Jessamay’s goal was to change the lean back to the right—returning Jessamay’s blood signature to its original state. But the research meant reversing the late First Mistress’ work step by agonizing step.
Faegan shook his head. Aside from Failee’s initial experiments, this work was entirely without precedent in the craft, he thought. It made him wonder whether this dark area of study was really the kind of thing into which the Ones Who Came Before wanted craft-users to delve. It was a true wizard’s conundrum. If they succeeded, the implications of the murky ethics of their accomplishment would be staggering. If they failed, they might never save the world from the Vagaries. They knew one thing: They had to forge ahead, regardless.
Jessamay pointed to a crooked symbol on one of the parchments. “Look at this,” she said. Faegan glanced over.
“This symbol is shown over and over again in both Failee’s writings and the Scroll of the Vigors,” she said with excitement. “I believe that—”
Suddenly there came an urgent pounding on the door. Angry at the interruption, the wizard scowled.
“Enter!” he called out.
The double doors parted briskly, and Abbey, Shailiha, and Tyranny tromped into the room. The privateer and the princess were dirty from head to foot. Faegan was grateful to see them alive, but he could also tell that they were in no mood for small talk.
They walked to the table, and Tyranny leaned her hands upon its shiny surface.
“I’ll make this simple,” she said. “At least one third of the fleet is gone, as is half of the Minion cohort that sailed with us. The Black Ships went through us like we were made of parchment. By now they have no doubt reached the coast.” She looked over at Jessamay.
“Wigg said that you once served aboard those vessels,” she added.
“During the battle, they did things we had no idea they could do, things we couldn’t begin to fight against! I think you have some explaining to do.”
Tyranny struck a match against one of her knee boots and lit a cigarillo. Given the immense value of the documents and dried herbs in the room, Faegan was about to protest, but when he caught the defiant gleam in her eyes, he decided against it.
Tyranny took the wine bottle from the table and she poured herself a glassful. She dropped unceremoniously into a chair, and threw a long leg up over one of its arms. Shailiha and Abbey sat down next to her.
“First, give me your report,” Faegan said to her.
Before beginning, Tyranny took a deep draft of smoke, followed by another gulp of wine. They seemed to calm her.
“As I just told you, we were defeated. I had sixty-two warships at my disposal—far more than enough, I thought, to deal with the enemy. But I was wrong. I have never seen anything like what happened out there in my life.”
For the next quarter hour, Tyranny described the sea battle. When she finished, Faegan looked over at Jessamay.
“When you served aboard the Black Ships three centuries ago, did they have these fantastic abilities?” he asked. “If so, why didn’t you and Wigg tell us about them?”
Jessamay shook her head. She seemed as stunned by Tyranny’s story as the wizard.
“No,” she insisted. “The Black Ships could soar above t
he waves, but never fly so high or as fast as Tyranny describes. Nor could they absorb bolts of the craft without suffering harm. Had we known, we would have certainly told you.” She thought to herself for a moment. “There can be only one answer.”
Faegan nodded. “Wulfgar has enhanced their capabilities,” he said. He looked at Shailiha. “Were you able to determine what cargo the Black Ships carry?”
Shailiha shook her head. “Other than the swarms of demonslavers aboard, there was no way to tell.”
“What about Sister Adrian and K’jarr?” Jessamay asked. “Did they survive?”
“Yes,” Tyranny answered, “but just barely. Adrian was in the crow’s nest of the Reprise when it came down. She was able to use the craft to break her fall. K’jarr was wounded in the arm, but he will recover. Duvessa survived, as well. But several acolytes of the Redoubt went down with their ships. Shailiha and I thought it best that we come ahead of the returning fleet by way of Minion litter, so as to make our report. Scars is bringing home what’s left. It’s not a pretty sight. They should be anchored off the Cavalon Delta by tomorrow morning.”
Faegan looked down at his hands. Sensing his distress, Shailiha put a hand on one of his. “How goes your research?” she asked.
The wizard sighed. “It does not go well,” he answered. “But we are hopeful.”
“What we are being forced to do is essentially reverse all of Failee’s original work,” Jessamay told them. She turned to Abbey. “We have discovered that the answer must be a complex combination of craft calculations and herbmastery,” she said. “We could use your help.”
Abbey smiled. “Of course,” she answered. “But tell me—has there been any word from Tristan and his group?”
“No,” Faegan answered. “But we mustn’t take that as a bad sign.”
“And what about the warriors who watch the pass through the Tolenkas and those who follow the orb?” the herbmistress went on.
“Have you heard from any of them?”
“No,” Faegan answered. “But that does not mean bad news, either. If those at the pass haven’t sent word, then that simply means that nothing has changed. And as for those who are trying to follow the orb—well, that was probably a wild-goose chase from the start.”
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