Connor wasn’t sure what scared him more, the sight of those writhing, twisting sacks being loaded into the catapults, or Rolf’s determination to proceed into the unknown.
“There is death,” Alsibeth said, her gaze fixed on the water. “No matter what choice is made.”
Rolf began the chant. Caz and Connor took it up a moment later. Unlike the last time, the chant seemed rough and fast. Connor could feel the power welling up like a storm surge. Rolf was speaking quickly, and his low voice was like a pounding war drum. Connor could hear fear in Caz’s voice, and wondered if the others could hear the same in his. Alsibeth had left off scrying and raised her voice in the chant. Connor wondered if she feared that the power Rolf was raising might need the extra help to control.
Two catapults thudded, launching their squirming loads toward Westbain. Rolf raised the lantern, and spoke a word of command.
Fire blasted from the lantern, shattering the glass in the window, torching across the sky toward the enemy lines. The fire lanced through one of the burlap-bound sacks launched by the catapult. A nightmarish shriek echoed from the walls of the manor as the burning bundle tumbled to the ground.
“Rolf, let it go!” Connor urged.
Rolf had not moved. He held the lantern aloft, his hands like claws. His expression was resolute, and he stared unblinking toward his objective.
Alsibeth screamed. Connor chanced a look again toward the window. The stream of fire continued its blast, arcing to touch down where the catapults had sent their deadly missiles into the air. Flames burst across the flatlands, incinerating the mob that had not already dispersed. Rolf remained motionless, his gaze fixed on the lantern.
Then Connor realized that Rolf was no longer breathing.
“He’s dead.” Connor reached out to grab Caz’s arm. “Whatever that damned lantern did, it pulled the life out of him—and it’ll come for us next unless we do something!”
“Break the warding, Alsibeth,” Caz said, his eyes taking on a determined glint. “I’ll handle the lantern.”
Alsibeth shouted the words of power, and Connor felt the energy shift. He stepped backward, purposely kicking away the rope that had defined the workspace and smudging the protective line of salt.
“Stand clear!” Caz tackled Rolf, shoulder-slamming into the older, heavier man. The fiery blast went wild, and Caz screamed as it caught him on one side. Alsibeth dove for the floor. Caz brought one fist down hard against Rolf’s still-outstretched hands to dash the lantern to the floor. The lantern smashed and went dark. Caz and Rolf tumbled to the ground and lay still.
Connor ran to Caz, pulling him off of Rolf’s body. He dropped to his knees, checking Rolf for a pulse he did not expect to find. But when he rolled Caz over, Connor let out a low moan of despair. The lantern’s fire had seared one side of Caz’s body, burning away his hair, charring the skin on his face, chest, and arm. Caz groaned, a guttural sound that reminded Connor of a death rattle.
“Caz!” Alsibeth cried, crawling over to the injured mage. Alsibeth appeared unharmed, though her hair was wild and her skin was ashen.
“We’ve got to get him down to the healers,” Connor urged. “It’s too late to help Rolf.”
A feral growl rumbled down the hallway, and claws scratched against the stone floor.
Connor climbed to his feet, drawing his sword. Whatever was scratching its way down the corridor was getting closer.
“Go!” Alsibeth shouted. “I’ll stay with Caz.”
“I don’t even know what’s out there,” Connor retorted.
“Monsters,” Alsibeth said, gentling Caz’s unburned hand into her lap. “That’s what was in the last catapult assault. They restrained some of the magic beasts long enough to fire them toward us. It was the last thing I saw before the scrying went blank.”
Monsters. Connor had heard the tales that Blaine and the others told of having faced down the monsters that wild magic had unleashed across Donderath.
“Stay here. See what you can do for Caz.” Connor tightened his grip on his sword. If the beast had reached the manor house, then it had somehow gotten past the soldiers. Going to look for the monster was better than having it find them where they were.
Connor flattened himself against the wall next to the door, and chanced a look down the corridor. He could see something moving in the shadows, something the size of a large dog. He frowned. The sack that the catapult launched was much bigger than a dog. Could they have sent multiple monsters?
From outside, Connor heard men shouting and the clang of swords. A howl unlike anything Connor had ever heard before rose above the shouts, to be answered again and again.
The thing in the hallway scented the air, then raised its head and gave an answering cry that sent a shiver down Connor’s spine.
The sounds of fighting outside the manor told Connor that help was unlikely to come in time. Connor doubted Alsibeth had the strength left for a magical assault. It was still daytime, so there would be no assistance coming from Nidhud or his Knights, or from Penhallow. The Wraith Lord came and went on his own whims, not to be counted on.
I can buy us time, Connor thought. That’s worth something.
Connor pivoted out into the hallway at the same moment when the thing seemed to scent him. It rose crab-like on six spiny, jointed legs. The scratching Connor had heard was the beast’s hard carapace and its clawed feet. Its white shell gave it the look of bleached bones. The body of the thing was oval-shaped and thick. Altogether, the beast was the size of a full-grown mastiff, and when it scented Connor, he learned one more thing about it.
It was fast.
Connor saw the beast scuttling toward him, moving with a sideways, swaying motion all the more terrifying for its speed. Connor braced himself, sword held in both hands, positioning his body to keep the thing from getting to Caz and Alsibeth.
Now would have been a good time for some of Rolf’s fire, Connor thought. The thing was on him with the speed of a bounding wolf. Connor hacked at it with his sword, aiming for the joints.
His sword grated against the hard surface, and although Connor had brought down his blade with his full strength, it did not slice through the leg. Two large, faceted eyes watched him, unblinking like a spider, and the thing’s legs clicked as they lashed at him, slicing through his shirt with their sharp tips.
Connor set about himself with his sword, slashing with all his might. His blade bounced off the body of the thing, but found purchase in one of its forelegs, where the blade sliced into the joint that attached the leg to the body. One of the white, bone-like legs snapped off and fell to the floor in a jet of bluish ichor.
The beast screeched an earsplitting sound that echoed in the confines of the corridor. Connor was bleeding freely from a dozen gashes where the thing had cut him; the scent of his blood sent the creature into a frenzy. It came at him with its five clawed legs flailing, fast as whips and surprisingly strong. Like fighting a swordsman with extra arms, Connor could only parry part of each strike, and with every attack, the creature scored more deep cuts on his arms, chest, and thighs.
If its claws are poisoned, I’m a dead man, Connor thought. He grabbed a board that lay near the entrance to the mage’s room, using it as a makeshift shield. It spared him a few strikes, but it was impossible to block all of its legs at once.
Connor’s sword sliced off another of the creature’s legs. The beast shrieked and skittered backward, then launched itself at Connor once more. He angled his sword so that the tip struck the thing in its underbelly, hoping to find a weak spot. But the tip of his sword scratched down along its rigid exoskeleton without causing damage.
The beast was chattering wildly, a high-pitched, staccato noise. It reared back and its maw opened wide, a circular hole filled with rows of sharp teeth. It would take forever for that thing to eat me, Connor thought.
Despite his fear, Connor was tiring quickly. No one from downstairs had run to his aid, leaving him to assume that the soldiers were busy with
their own problems, and the servants had gone to the dungeons. Perhaps the creatures got to them first.
Alsibeth slipped out of the mage’s workroom and stood behind Connor. She held a lit oil lamp in one hand. “Caz needs more help than I can give him—but I might be able to help you,” she said. “I’ve got an idea.”
“I could use a good one.” Connor’s shirt and pants were soaked with blood. One of the creature’s sharp legs had sliced across one temple, barely missing his eye and sending a rivulet of blood down the side of his face. Blood trickled down both his arms, and his hands looked as if they had been sliced by knives.
“These things, the ranin, they don’t like fire,” Alsibeth whispered.
Connor dared not take his eyes off the creature long enough to spare her an incredulous glance. “Burning down the manor isn’t an option.”
“We won’t have to,” Alsibeth replied. “Just follow my lead.”
“Watch out—it moves fast,” Connor warned.
Alsibeth gave him a canny look. “I’m counting on it.”
The next time the ranin came at him, Connor dodged so that he had his back to the door of the room Alsibeth had indicated. It was another workroom, but rarely used, so that all that was in it was a small worktable and a few chairs. On one end was a large stone fireplace as tall as Connor’s shoulders and as wide across as his outstretched arms. The fireplace was dark, although someone had left wood stacked inside should a fire be needed.
The beast sprang at Connor, and he barely kept it from getting past him to Alsibeth. “Whatever you’re doing to do, do it quickly!” he shouted.
Alsibeth grabbed the table and flipped it on its side so that it was between them and the creature.
“That won’t hold it,” Connor cautioned.
“Doesn’t have to,” Alsibeth replied. “Here’s the plan. I draw that thing toward the fireplace. You be ready behind the table, and when the ranin is in place, shove that table as hard and as fast as you can to trap it inside the fireplace. I’ll throw the lamp in with it, and with luck, that thing will go up in flame without taking the rest of us with it.”
“It’s worth a try. I’ve got nothing better.”
“Get ready,” Alsibeth said, eyeing the way the creature bobbed back and forth like a duelist sizing up an opponent. “Go!”
Alsibeth dodged toward the fireplace, and the creature swiveled to follow her motion. Connor hurled himself against the table, putting his shoulder against the edge and pushing the flat surface of the upended tabletop toward the ranin and the fireplace as fast as he could move. At the last moment, Alsibeth dodged aside, and Connor slammed the table against the creature, knocking it into the stone firebox.
Alsibeth lobbed the oil lamp over the top of the table. It hit the back of the firebox and shattered, dousing the ranin with oil and flames. Connor kept the table shoved up against the opening.
“We did it!” Alsibeth shouted as the creature squealed, hissing and popping in the flames and trying to hurl itself against the table to get free.
Connor turned toward her to reply, but no words came. Three of the creature’s razor-sharp claws protruded through the wooden tabletop, lancing deep into his chest and belly. Connor stared down at the wounds in shock, and then tumbled backward into darkness.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
ARE YOU CERTAIN WE’RE IN THE RIGHT PLACE?” Ayers asked skeptically.
“This is Mirdalur,” Niklas replied. “And yes, I’m certain.”
Ayers cleared his throat. “It doesn’t exactly look the way I’d expected, that’s all.”
Niklas chuckled. “Maybe you just need to use your imagination.” It would require quite a stretch of anyone’s imagination to envision the ruined old manor and its tumbledown grounds as a hub of magical power. Despite Blaine’s stories of his first failed attempt there to restore the magic, and Dolan’s conviction that Mirdalur was the best site to anchor the magic, Niklas was having the same challenge as Ayers when it came to seeing the wreckage in a different light. But Blaine’s orders had been clear, that Niklas and his men were needed to help Dolan ready the site, and Niklas made those orders plain to his men as the commission of their commander and their lord.
Once, Mirdalur had been a grand and imposing manor. Four hundred years ago, the Lords of the Blood had convened here to bind magic to the will of men. Time had not been kind to the manor in the centuries since then. The high stone walls were shattered, and the keep was an overgrown pile of rubble. Weeds and brambles had taken over what remained of the ruined manor and its dependencies. Scorch marks blackened the cracked stone from the Great Fire. In the center of the bailey, a broken fountain and shattered statues lay half-submerged in murky water.
“Not much left, is there?” Ayers said.
Niklas shook his head. “No, there isn’t. Then again, the Great Fire only did part of the damage. From what the Knights of Esthrane say, the worst of this happened a hundred years before the Lords of the Blood anchored the magic, when they had their own version of the Cataclysm and magic went rogue.”
“And they went without harnessed magic for a century?” Ayers replied. “Damn. It’s been less than a year since the Cataclysm, and it feels like forever.” He stared at the blackened stone. “I can’t even imagine what that would have been like.”
Torches lit the perimeter of the main manor grounds, and dotted the inner courtyard. An orange ribbon along the horizon tinged with gold signaled sunset.
“A century of wild magic, wreaking havoc. Magicked beasts, dropped out of nowhere from the storms, hunting in the shadows.” Niklas’s voice held horror and awe. “It’s amazing anyone survived long enough to try to restore the magic.”
“I’d have felt better if Sir Dolan had chosen Quillarth Castle for the ritual,” Ayers said, turning his back to the wind as it gusted. “I felt relatively safe there. Here”—he gestured to the overgrown ruins—“it feels too exposed.”
Niklas clapped him on the shoulder. “And that, my good man, is why we’re here. We’re the day workers, making sure nothing interrupts the Knights of Esthrane, or attacks them while they sleep.”
Ayers gave him a sour look. “Can’t say I’m completely happy with the assignment, but we’ve had worse.”
“That we have.” Niklas shared Ayer’s apprehension about the talishte mages. Like most soldiers, neither Niklas nor Ayers had magic of their own, and that bred an innate suspicion of anyone with more than hedge-witch powers.
Niklas walked to a crumbling cistern and looked over the side. He could barely make out a ledge around the inside wall.
“That’s how Lord McFadden and them got in, down the well?” Ayers asked, leaning over for a good look.
“Yeah. They didn’t know about the other passageway, and it had collapsed, so they couldn’t have gotten in that way anyhow,” Niklas replied. “At least Dolan doesn’t have to go down the hard way.”
Ayers snorted. “Wouldn’t be bad for them. Talishte can fly.”
“Not all of us.” Geir’s voice behind them startled both men. He was tall and thin, with dark, shoulder-length hair that was caught back in a queue. Though he appeared to be in his early twenties, like his maker, Lanyon Penhallow, Geir was centuries old. “Some can only levitate.”
Niklas glared at him. “If you’re off the ground, it counts as flying.”
Geir chuckled. “Maybe so.” He looked to Ayers. “But the point is, we’ve cleared the passageway, and posted guards inside. We’ll just need your assistance during daylight hours.”
Niklas nodded. “We’ve got your back. How long do you think it will take your mages to figure out whether or not the presence-crystals will work here?”
Geir grimaced. “No idea. With luck, it will go easier than at Quillarth Castle.”
Ayers shuddered. An attempt by one of the talishte mages to work a binding spell with a crystal similar to the ones Dolan had stolen had gone horrifically wrong, flaying skin and tissue from the doomed mage as he wr
ithed in a circle of incinerating magical power.
“Anything would be easier than that, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Ayers muttered.
“Quite true,” Geir replied. “But we remain hopeful.”
Considering the circumstances, Niklas was quite happy not to have any magical abilities. He was about to reply when he heard a shout from the perimeter.
“Hey, Captain!” Carr’s voice echoed across the ruined courtyard.
Niklas looked up to see Carr hauling a large burlap sack behind him, the right size and shape to hold a body. Geir raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Ayers muttered a curse under his breath.
Carr looked worse for the wear. One eye was nearly swollen shut, and a nasty gash ran from the edge of his eyebrow to his chin on the right side of his face. The sleeves of his shirt were shredded, and stained with blood. Yet he wore a triumphant expression as he dragged the sack to Niklas. “I’ve got a report for you, sir.”
Niklas bit back several replies that came to mind. “What’s in the bag, and how many rules did you break to get it?”
Carr brandished a knife and slit the bag open. A monstrosity tumbled out. Its skin was the color of a corpse trapped underwater. Gelatinous, lidless eyes stared from a misshapen face that seemed to be largely snaggle-toothed maw. Wicked claws protruded from nightmarishly long, slender arms. Muscled legs, with taloned feet, suggested the monster had been fast. “Brought you a present, Cap’n.”
“Where did you get that thing?” Ayers asked, his voice caught between terror and wonder. He dared to peer closer, then drew back at the stench.
“About a day’s ride from here,” Carr reported. “Didn’t go down easily. Fortunately, they hunt alone.”
“You got lucky,” Geir observed coldly. Any retort Carr might have made died in his throat at the look on Geir’s face. “Normally, chrolutes like that hunt in packs. Lord Penhallow has talishte patrolling the forest to destroy these abominations. We knew one had escaped. Had it been with the six others our men killed, you would not have survived.”
War of Shadows: Book Three of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga Page 21
