Jakob jumped back to block them.
The groeliin moved quickly in their attack, little more than a blur. He had never seen groeliin move as these did. One raised a hairy arm to strike him from one side, while the other attacked from another angle.
Jakob swung with his sword, but the groeliin reacted, and he missed. He thought to step into a catah, but realized he would not be fast enough, and began to wonder if he could be fast enough. They moved faster than he could think, forcing him to spin from side to side, dizzyingly fast. Much longer, and he would fatigue simply from blocking their attack.
It was nothing like a swordfight, nothing like he had ever experienced. The groeliin attacked as in unison, arms of the same creature.
He could not defeat them.
With the moment of uncertainty came a feeling of hopelessness. It was different from how the Deshmahne influenced but somehow similar. He pressed the fears and dark thoughts away but still felt himself grow tired.
Then he caught sight of Anda.
They would destroy her if he failed.
Jakob pulled desperately on the pulsing in his head, pulled on the ahmaean from Neamiin, taking it inside him, holding it tightly, and pulled on the ahmaean of the Tower itself.
It triggered something in his mind, creating a shift, like a key revealing a hidden part of his mind. It was the same part he had felt in the garden facing the groeliin and the same as when he had battled the Deshmahne in the forest.
He pulled again on the ahmaean, drawing it into him.
Time slowed, as he had somehow known it would.
A dance, he decided, remembering how Endric always looked with the sword.
The movements of the groeliin were still fast, but not the blur they had been. He swung quickly, swinging and ducking in a deadly dance, trying to switch from defense to offense, but the groeliin only sped their attack.
He pulled at the ahmaean again, and a hard tearing sensation shot pain through his head. His vision wavered, and Jakob staggered, barely catching himself.
It seemed as if time stopped, the groeliin frozen with it. Muscles in their horrible arms twitched against what had been done. A dark light glowed from their eyes.
Their black ahmaean neared him, brushing against his, and he angrily swung his blade in a circle, beheading both groeliin in one motion.
Time jerked forward again, and their bodies dropped.
His heart was pounding, his body tired. His mind ached with the pain of what had happened, and he was unsure how he had managed what he had done. The sharp pain stabbed through his mind, clouding it.
Jakob ignored the pain as he staggered to Anda. She caught him as he fell, and he breathed out a sigh of relief. They had done it. They had saved Alyta. Now he would have answers.
Chapter Forty
When Jakob managed to stand, he noted the fallen groeliin near him. His body ached, and his mind pulsed, a steady throbbing pain that wasn’t eased by anything Anda did for him. He wiped his sword clean and sheathed it as Brohmin approached.
“Only you could have won here,” Brohmin told him. “Only the nemah.”
Jakob turned to look at Brohmin. “You”—he breathed heavily—“or Endric.”
“We would have been dead in a heartbeat.”
Jakob considered the compliment a moment. Months ago, such a comment would have been more than shocking. That had been before he’d rapidly advanced in sword skill, before he had met Endric. Now… now, he no longer knew what he should expect.
A weak cough caught his attention.
They ran to where Alyta lay on the table. The chains binding her were massive and pulled tight around her. Her ahmaean flowed from the wounds, pooling around the table and drifting slowly away without the groeliin to hold it in place. Brohmin grasped her feet, chanting silently to himself as he did something, and the flow from her wounds slowed.
“We were right to reward you,” Alyta whispered.
“If I could have been here sooner,” he said. Brohmin pointed toward Alyta’s ankles, then to her wrists, before looking to Jakob. “Can you do like you did with Anda?”
Jakob felt his heart sink. “I’m not really sure what I did,” he said. He remembered pulling at her ahmaean, returning it to her. Could he do the same with Alyta? If he didn’t, would it be his fault that she died?
“The key,” Alyta said, interrupting. She eyed the sheathed sword before glancing up to Jakob’s face. He could almost hear her voice whispering in his mind. Just memories of the dreams, he knew. “The trunk?”
Brohmin answered. “It is safe. Aruhn guards—”
A loud crash cut him off.
The door had flung open, and a figure stood in the doorway. Clad in a long black cloak with the hood pulled up over the face, only the eyes were visible within. They were like pools of fire, bright red and dancing as they looked upon everything.
Jakob knew the eyes. He knew the man.
The High Priest of the Deshmahne.
Raime.
He shivered and felt a moment of hopelessness wash over him but pushed it away as he had learned to do. It receded slowly, beating on his senses in a constant pressure, different but similar to how Alyta’s ahmaean pressed upon him.
The man strode into the room, the fire eyes taking everything in. “You!” Raime said, pointing at Brohmin. “You come to her?” His voice was rough, harsh, as if his throat scarred from the fire burning in his eyes.
He flowed across the room, his movement impossibly liquid, and around him swirled a dark oily ahmaean blending with the strange cloak he wore. The cloak was covered with markings, too small to make out, covering the entirety of it, and it, too, seemed as if it swirled with its own ahmaean. The flames of his eyes danced with any angry energy.
Jakob resisted the urge to hide.
Brohmin faced the High Priest. “It ends here, Raime.”
Raime laughed, the sound of a wolf baying at his prey. It filled Jakob’s ears and tore at his mind. “You? You think that you can stop me? The Hunter? You are nothing,” he sneered. “You were not even chosen according to custom!”
Brohmin smiled, surprising Jakob. “I was chosen. I passed the test.” Brohmin’s voice grew stronger as he spoke. “I was named Uniter and was rewarded for my service.”
The fire in Raime’s eyes seemed to dance faster.
“I am something you could never be. Chosen by the Conclave. A Uniter. Are you jealous, Raime sen’Rohn?”
Raime’s eyes widened, if it was possible for fire to widen.
“Oh, I know you, Raime,” Brohmin said, his voice powerful. “I know who you once were, and what you have become.”
Raime laughed again. “You know me, then? You? One who can barely crawl without your goddess to hold your hand? You could have been powerful with the gift you were given!” Raime roared. “Face me then, Hunter, and I will show you how little you know. I will show you what you could have become!”
Brohmin lunged forward then, faster than Jakob would have thought possible, leaping for Raime’s throat. He stopped suddenly in midair, an arm of dark ahmaean reaching at him, suspending him, and then was thrown back, slamming into the wall.
The thick stone cracked from the impact, and blood trickled from the corner of Brohmin’s mouth. It flowed down, running over his chin and dripping into his lap, yet Brohmin stood. He stared at Raime, and then all of a sudden, it was Raime who was forced backward, slamming into the wall. He was thrown, yet Brohmin had not moved.
The impact on the wall Raime hit was minor compared to where Brohmin had hit.
Raime stood and smiled. “They teach you Mage tricks, do they? Or did you steal some of mine?”
“Not Mage,” Brohmin answered, his voice still strong. He wiped a sleeve across his mouth, removing the blood. “And not stolen. I am nothing like you.”
“No,” Raime answered, sneering. “You are nothing like me!”
With the words, another arm of dark ahmaean reached Brohmin, and he was again lifted into the air and thrown ac
ross the room. It seemed as if Brohmin would be slammed headfirst into the other wall, but at the last moment, he slowed and dropped to the ground.
Brohmin stood and faced Raime, and then it was Raime who was cast backward, though he was thrown not more than two feet.
Raime was far stronger than Brohmin.
“Enough of this!” Raime snarled.
Alyta struggled weakly to sit up, but Raime turned, slapping at her with a tendril of his thick ahmaean, and she was thrown back. Just as quickly, he turned back to Brohmin.
Brohmin clutched his throat, then his head. Blood began to pour from the corners of his eyes and dripped from his ears. It came fast, rivers of it. Anda turned away, unable to watch.
It can’t end this way!
What could he do?
If he did nothing, Raime would kill Brohmin. He still might, but Jakob could try to intervene.
In a single motion, he unsheathed, and ran at Raime, trying to ignore the terror racing through him. His sword hummed, vibrating energy as he neared the High Priest.
The next thing he knew, he was pulling himself off the floor next to a wall, his head aching from the impact.
Jakob looked up slowly and saw Brohmin lying motionless in a heap, a growing pool of blood around him. His face was covered in it.
“You,” Brohmin whispered, his voice weak. “It rests with you.” Brohmin took one more breath and then stopped.
Jakob’s arms and legs did not want to work, ignoring his mind’s command. Somehow, he found the strength to stand; it was all that he could do.
Raime looked at him, his eyes piercing. Jakob shrank from the heat of his stare. “This boy? He is your hope?”
Alyta said nothing.
Jakob felt a moment of panic. Did she still live?
He watched and saw a slow rise and fall of her chest, but her eyes were closed. Alyta would be unable to stop the High Priest. And he couldn’t stop him. If Brohmin had failed, what hope did Jakob have?
“It cannot be this half-breed.” He pointed to Anda before facing Jakob again.
The heavy fire-filled eyes assessed him. There was a sense of being rifled through and then discarded. He shuddered, unable to resist.
“I have wondered why you wanted him,” he said, looking briefly at Alyta. Her eyes had opened, and she blinked a few times to clear them. “Do you foresee as I do?”
The High Priest had seen something of his future. What did he foresee?
Was that the reason Jakob had been taken? Was that the reason he spent long nights as a captive of the Deshmahne?
“Who is he that you would hang your hopes on him?” Raime asked Alyta.
Alyta shook her head then. It was her first movement since Raime had thrown her back upon the table. “More than you could ever become.” Her voice was quiet, yet the words were like a slap to Raime’s face.
“This boy? More than me?” he roared. “How can you expect this boy”— a black-robed arm stretched toward Jakob—“or this half-breed”—he sneered, pointing to Anda—“to stop me?”
Ahmaean swirled around Raime, his cloak, in a thick fog. Jakob could almost smell it, a foul, unnatural rot. The man shook and stalked to Alyta. “I will show you how little you know.” A thick arm of ahmaean stretched toward Anda, and her eyes widened.
Jakob reacted. The slow pulsing in his mind quickly hummed to a powerful buzzing.
He pulled at his ahmaean carelessly, a sharp yank, and felt his mind shift as he did. Jakob stifled a scream, ignoring the pain as a new awareness entered his consciousness. Anger roared through him, and he pulled at the ahmaean stored within Neamiin, held it within him.
The dark ahmaean nearly reached Anda. Visions of groeliin attacks on a beautiful pale city flashed through his head, Raime at the vanguard of the assault. Another memory flowed through him, a Deshmahne attack barely survived, Anda hiding in a tree chased by a terrible High Priest. Anger rushed into him with the memory. Raime would not attack Anda. Not again.
In anger, Jakob used his ahmaean and let his mind lash out.
It struck Raime, throwing him down. As suddenly as he had struck, Jakob was lifted into the air and thrown backward. He hit the wall hard before being pulled forward again, dragged across the stone, and then thrown back. His jaw snapped shut with the blow, and he barely moved his tongue to keep from biting it off. His body ached with the force of the impacts.
His vision began to fade, and only his hold on the ahmaean around him kept him alert, and it was tenuous.
“A Mage?” Raime laughed. “This boy is a Mage? I am more than a mere Mage and this half-breed combined.”
Suddenly, Anda was thrown toward him. Jakob lurched forward, lunging for her, reaching for her before she struck the wall.
As he caught her, Raime laughed again.
“Your hopes,” he started, pointing to where Jakob and Anda lay, “have failed. Now that I’ve secured the artifact you thought to hide in Vasha, you are lost, damahne. Your people are lost.”
Raime stepped to the table where Alyta lay and spoke once more. “It is time, damahne.”
He pulled his hood back, exposing a hairless head, wrinkled and burned. The skin was dark and scarred, pitted. His eyes were sunken, pools of red the only evidence of eyes at all, and his lips were pulled back in a snarl. It was a face of evil.
“Your time of power is over, and mine will begin. And you have nothing that can stop me. Does it hurt that the damahne will undo themselves?” he asked, pulling a long rod of silver metal from his sleeve. It reminded Jakob of what he’d seen when he’d been captured. Power pulsed from it, as dark as the ahmaean flowing around Raime.
Anda sat upon his lap, tangled up in him from how he had caught her. “You must save her, Jakob Nialsen. Only you can.”
“Even if I’m the nemah, I don’t know that I can.”
Anda touched a finger to his lips then. A wave of relaxation flowed through him. Her ahmaean brushed his, briefly. “You are more than you yet know.”
“I don’t know what I am.”
“You are more than a man. More than a Mage. And you must not let that man win,” Anda said.
“I’m not fast enough with the sword to stop him.”
“You have another weapon,” she said, tapping his forehead. His head pulsed in response. “Neamiin was your guide. You are the key.”
“The Cala maah, the vision of the sword. Neamiin is the key.”
Anda looked at him and held him with her soft eyes. “The time for doubting is over, Jakob Nialsen. You must believe.” She paused and touched his forehead again. The touch was soft and slow. “You are the answer.”
Visions jumped through his mind, flashes of dreams, Alyta, Sharna, Shoren. The scenes quickly blurred together, and a voice spoke to him. One often sees visions of their forefathers in the Cala maah.
“I don’t know what I am,” he said again.
“Then we must save her for answers,” Anda said. “She will guide you.”
“How?” he asked.
Anda looked to Alyta before turning back to him. “I will help.”
He wondered what the price of it would be this time and hoped he was willing to let her pay it. Jakob looked up. Raime stood near Alyta’s feet, one hand on her ankle, the strange rod held out.
Alyta’s eyes were wide. Her ahmaean now flowed from her, through the rod, and into Raime.
How powerful would he be if he stole her ahmaean?
Jakob rushed at him, sword extended.
Raime laughed, and Jakob slowed, like he was running in water. The sword flew from his hands to stick in the wall behind Raime, impaled all the way to the blade guard.
“You cannot stop this,” Raime hissed.
Anda snuck around the table and placed her hands upon Alyta’s chest. She poured out her ahmaean, like she had done outside the Tower wall, but somehow different. This time, she poured her ahmaean into Alyta before pulling it back, slowing the flow of Alyta’s ahmaean into Raime.
Raime smiled as A
nda worked, and she suddenly jerked her hands back. Anda staggered back from the table, eyes wide.
Raime’s eyes danced. “I have taken more of your kind than I can count, half-breed,” he snarled.
Anda moved back against the wall, shaking her head. “I can do nothing, Jakob. I had thought…” she began, and then hung her head in sadness.
“What is he doing?” he asked, but already knew the answer.
“This is how he steals her ahmaean.”
Alyta’s eyes were filled with pain, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“How do I stop it?” he asked.
Anda looked at Jakob, then at Alyta with a look of hopelessness. “I am unsure if it can be stopped.”
Raime laughed again. “It is almost complete, damahne. The end of your kind.” His lips tightened again in his strange smile, and the fire of his eyes danced madly. “Even as we speak, my men and my groeliin come to this city and fill it. The once proud city of Shoren Aimielen will be no longer.”
Jakob reached for Alyta, and Raime sneered at him, forcing him back.
He grabbed for a handhold, trying to stay near Alyta, and managed to grab her wrists, grasping the markings. The tattoos were cool to the touch and dented her flesh.
“You can do nothing to stop this, Mage. I have won.”
Jakob felt Alyta’s ahmaean flowing from her wounds and knew the High Priest was right. He couldn’t stop it, because he did not know what it was Raime did.
With his hands around her small wrists, Jakob felt her ahmaean flow over his, touching. It stretched up his arms, toward his head, before settling in his chest and flowing down his legs. It was like the ahmaean of Neamiin the way it added to his, strengthening him.
Alyta met his eyes, and a smile came to her face, followed by relief. “I can, though,” she whispered.
With her words, Jakob felt a surge from the ahmaean already flowing into him from Alyta’s wrist wounds. Like water, it flowed, and like a river, it came toward him in a rush. He could not believe the woman had so much left within her after what he had seen draining from her. It ripped through him, into him, touching and filling every part of his body as it added to his own ahmaean.
Tower of the Gods (The Lost Prophecy Book 3) Page 29
