By Blood Hunted: Kingsblood Chronicles Part Two (The Kingsblood Chronicles Book 2)

by David J. Houpt

  “They’ve separated,” the skull stated. “One’s staying aloft while the other two are heading forward of us and descending.”

  Lian nodded. “They know the lightning can’t hurt us, so they’re going to do something else.” He startled as a new lightning bolt crashed down on the afterdeck, scorching the decking and leaping back up into the mizzenmast’s rigging, although its force was largely spent on the deck. Although the electricity couldn’t hurt him, he was blinded and deafened temporarily by the bolt. Almost immediately, a following bolt struck the same mast, and it fell over with a crash then slipped partway into the sea.

  Knowing Gem and Lord Grey would hear him even after the thunder, he yelled, “We have to stop Keven’s weather witching! He’s reaching down to us; we have to return fire before he thinks to shatter the hold hatch cover!” As the attackers were his siblings, Lian knew the weather magic had to be coming from his brother. It was continuing to break his heart to think of his siblings—especially Radiel—as his enemies, but he couldn’t do otherwise and live.

  Lord Grey said, “He’s using the same magic each time he strikes. I’ll try to have something ready to deal with that.” The skull began chanting. As he did so, he also spoke. “The two who went forward are moving toward us, but below the waterline.”

  Taking the skull’s ability to sing and speak at the same time in stride—Gem could do this, as well, after all—Lian asked, “Can wraiths cast spells underwater? They might be trying to break the hull.”

  The necromancer replied, “Yes, they can, but their magic would be difficult to push through the sea against the ship. I think they’re planning something else.” As he spoke, the spellsong completed, and the air around the four of them grew thick and greasy-feeling, much like it did before a lightning strike.

  As if on cue, the next bolt crashed down, again directed at the now-unmanned helm. Lord Grey sang new, higher and harsher notes, and the energy of the electrical bolt was drawn into the leather pouch at Lian’s side where the skull resided. Despite Lord Grey’s warding against the electricity, the hairs on Lian’s body stood on end and he felt the crackling pinpricks of thousands of small discharges. The skull uttered a final syllable and a blue/black lance shot upward from the pouch and into the sky, its dark luminescence lighting up the surroundings as it flew toward the enemy spellcaster. As it reached the wraith, it burst into a huge ball of dark blue light, then collapsed back down into a man-sized, writhing shape that fell down toward the afterdeck.

  “Act quickly, for it will not hold him long,” Lord Grey said, launching into a new spell.

  As Keven’s form fell to the deck, writhing in pain from the blue-black flames, Lian could see his brother’s wraith was tearing free of the spell, beginning his own magic to strike at Lian. Lian didn’t hesitate, slashing his blade down through the upturned arm and then the neck of the wraith. Keven’s dying scream was his younger brother’s name, cut short.

  Keven is gone, Darwyn observed as the ship passed into the space they occupied. She knew she didn’t need to say so, that Radiel would have felt it as well, but she didn’t care. The spellcaster’s obviously still with us.

  Radiel agreed, her angry face turning to a death’s head grin as the sisters emerged in the forward spaces of the ship. Sensing the life about them, the two wraiths split up, passing through sailor after sailor as they made their way aft. Most of the men didn’t even realize they were in danger as they fell, their soul energy drawn forth in a moment by the once-women’s greedy and deadly touch. Some, however, saw them coming, and screams began to sound from belowdecks, caught only by Gem and Lord Grey’s supernatural senses.

  “Oh gods, they’re killing the crew!” Gem exclaimed.

  Alan ran to the ship’s bell on the starboard rail at the stop of the stairway and sounded it with all his might. “All hands on deck!” he roared, ringing the bell again and again. The four men who stumbled out of the aft passageway, however, were all that responded to his summons, and one of them, Lian saw, fell to the deck, a slender pale arm reaching up through the deck to pass through his leg. As he fell screaming, another arm appeared through the man’s chest, and his cries were silenced.

  “Get your asses up here!” Alan snapped. “Lord Grey, ward the deck against them!” He didn’t know if they could keep the men alive, but at least the lightning wasn’t an issue any more.

  The necromancer’s chant frightened the men, but they clearly felt that it was better to brave the unknown spellsinger than the death stalking belowdeck behind them. They climbed to the poop deck and moved astern of Lian and Snog. As Lian was distracted with directing the men, Darwyn’s form rose, already singing a spell, from the deck, launching a dragon-shaped wave of fire, spitting and sizzling in the spray, toward Lian.

  Despite her renewed horror at being part of killing Keven’s wraith, Gem was not distracted and sang a counterspell. The winged form of the flaming wave vanished long before it reached them, although it scorched the already-damaged deck under its passing.

  Darwyn’s face contorted in even greater rage. Gem!!! she shrieked, her exclamation heard by everyone on the ship. Impossible! My Queen destroyed you! She launched another spell, sending an icy lance, like the one that had felled Quivell, at her brother.

  Gem unwove that one as well.

  Radiel’s form rose silently from the sea astern of the ship, but Snog cried out a warning. “Wraith astern!” he shouted. The sailors instantly fled the aft rail, huddling on the port side near the stair, nearly blind in the darkness and terrified of what was happening around them.

  Now the sisters sang in counterpoint, summoning magic to strike down their brother. Gem would have to choose which one to unravel, and then the other spell would strike him.

  “I’ll handle the aft spell,” Lord Grey said, faint enough that only Gem could hear him. “Break into chords as you sing yours.”

  To the wraiths’ shock and dismay, as their two spells rushed in to do Lian harm, both were unwoven before they could reach him; to Snog and Lian it almost seemed as if Gem had somehow managed to unweave them both. You can’t unweave two spells at once, you bitch! Radiel exclaimed, winding higher as she prepared another spell. I don’t know what you’ve got at your belt, there, Lian, but it’ll be mine, soon! She saw where the other counterspell had come from; Darwyn hadn’t figured out the ruse but quickly adapted as Radiel spoiled the trick.

  “Sisters!” cried out Lian, his voice full of misery. “Stop this! We don’t have to fight!”

  Oh, but we do, brother, Darwyn said cruelly before she unleashed another spell, this one exploding before it reached Lian, setting the main deck aflame as Gem directed its power away from her charge. It’s all your fault! You will die! It didn’t really matter to her that she didn’t know what she was actually blaming him for.

  Radiel’s spell flashed downward, a fiery rain of what looked like meteorites, and Gem unwove it, too. Quit taunting him and focus! she ordered her older sister, and the two of them began chanting spell after spell, seeking an advantage against the counterspells of the sword and skull. For long minutes, magics flew as the defenders unwove them, all four spellcasters summoning magic after magic to strike or protect.

  Flames, ice, and bolts of energy lit the skies above the merchant ship, joined by strange semi-real beasts with horrendous claws, disembodied heads, and even ghostly weapons. Gem and Lord Grey concentrated on their defense, unweaving spell after spell, but the wraith-sisters continued their onslaught.

  Radiel’s spells were tighter-woven, faster to cast than her sister’s, and this fact eventually gave Lord Grey the opening he had been waiting for. At the same time Darwyn began her spell, the skull began his own as Gem unwove Radiel’s current attack. Lord Grey’s magic created an inky amorphous blackness that engulfed Radiel despite her own defenses and hurled her far out to sea. As Darwyn finished her spell, only a moment later than Radiel’s, Gem was able to unweave it and the set of blinding blue-white viper-shaped spears disappeared.
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  Immediately afterward, before Darwyn could begin another attack, Gem and Lord Grey each launched a quick offensive spell. Gem’s was no more than an annoyance, deflected by the wraith’s standing defenses, but Lord Grey’s black bolt burned through the illusion of Darwyn’s chest, leaving a gaping wound there whose edges tattered and fluttered. The wraith screamed, pulling back away from the ship as quickly as she could. Before she could get out of range, Lord Grey released another black bolt like the first and struck her just above the neck, obliterating her head. Her ghostly form shredded into thousands of ghostly wisps as she disintegrated, destroyed by the necromancer’s spell.

  “The other one’s not coming back in,” Lord Grey reported after a moment. “She’s not leaving, either.”

  Lian nodded, letting Gem drop point-first into the deck again and leaning on her cross-guard. “She was always the smartest of us,” he said despondently, unable to suppress his emotions despite his best efforts. “I don’t know what she’s going to do next, but I can promise we won’t like it.”

  Snog said, “She can end us just by going back to Dunshor and telling the Usurper where we are. With most o’ the crew dead, we won’t be makin’ much time and a warship could intercept us pretty damned easily.”

  Lian shook his head. “She won’t go back to Jisa while I’m still alive,” he said, certain who’d created the four wraiths. “She’ll attack us again as soon as she figures out how to deal with Gem and Lord Grey.” He’d felt his siblings’ hot, burning hatred of him, their drive to end his existence, and he was sure Radiel wouldn’t just skulk back home to his aunt. She had to kill him, of that he was sure.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Who are we, but pawns in the gods’ cruel games?”

  -- Closing oratory of Ardento in “The Fall of Desad,” Act IV, Scene 5

  How in the dark gods’ names did Gem survive?!? Radiel raged to herself as she looked down on the distant merchant ship’s location. She was far enough away that she couldn’t really see it anymore, but her brother’s presence on board told her precisely where the crippled ship lay. Even with the intervention of whatever power had been in the bag, Lian would have fallen to their unified assault if she hadn’t been there. It had been a close thing several times even with the blade’s defensive magics countering the sisters’ spells.

  The wraith that was once a princess scoured her memory for every scrap of knowledge she possessed about the lashthirin blade, but the nature of what had been done to her made her recollection of her living days painful to her and hazy at best, so she gave up on trying to remember. Radiel had confidence in her own magical power and skill—that knowledge had not faded—but she knew that Gem could counter everything in her arsenal. She was also certain that the black-robe would sense her return in time to warn Gem.

  The nature of the necromancer puzzled her, for the magic he cast clearly originated from the leather satchel her brother hung from his belt. Whether he was actually in the bag somehow or was casting through it as a focal point was an important consideration but one that Radiel was unable to determine. The man’s beautiful singing voice had rung from all around Lian, but the spell effects had definitely come from the bag. Skilled necromancer or no, she and Darwyn would have overcome the defenses he was raising and slain their brother; it was Gem that had confounded them so badly, Radiel felt quite strongly.

  Gem! Gem! Gem! Radiel cursed, shrieking the sword’s name into the overcast skies. Her animosity toward Lian was undimmed, but her hatred of Gem was like a new, open wound. She’d always been a little jealous of Lian’s bond with the spellblade, and her unnatural, Undead psyche spun that jealousy into a blinding rage. Queen Jisa had been absolutely certain that Gem had fallen prey to the spell intended to destroy her, so certain that She’d allowed no discussion of ways to defeat the enchanted blade’s defenses. Consequently, if Gem had a particular weakness, Lian’s twin had no idea what it was.

  Radiel was excruciatingly aware that she had no teeth to gnash, for the situation called for gnashing. It was tremendously unsatisfying to grind her spectral teeth, for they were more illusion than real, and she certainly couldn’t feel them.

  The thunderstorm, fading back into nothingness after Keven’s release of his weather magic, still rumbled and distant lightning illuminated the dark clouds, but she lacked the weather affinity to bring even a smaller storm to torment Indigo Runner. The wraith longed to return to the ship and finish the job, but she knew that she stood no chance whatsoever on her own against her brother and his unexpected allies. Even against Gem alone, she’d have been challenged to find a way to hurt Lian; it had been what Gem was made for, to protect her twin’s life from magic.

  And spellcasting from on high wouldn’t work, either, she realized. Keven’s position had been high in the clouds and something the unknown spellsinger had done had caused his destruction. She couldn’t assume that she was safe to sing offensive spells even at the edge of her range.

  She briefly considered returning to the Queen to enlist Her aid. A brace of additional wraiths, for example, would be easy enough for Her to create, and even a skilled necromancer—as Lian’s ally appeared to be—would be hard-pressed to stop all of them from claiming Lian’s life, even if they weren’t Undead of the caliber she and her siblings were. Radiel felt deep shame, fear, and self-hatred at the thought, however, for to return to Her was to admit to failing Her. Worse, to do so would realize the unconscionable thought of disobeying Her direct order not to return while Lian lived. These feelings—Jisa’s conditioning at work, though the shade didn’t realize this—threatened to overwhelm her and she felt as if she were choking and drowning at the same time, despite the fact that she had neither lungs nor breath to fill them.

  The pain, fear, and agony, however, cooled her rage as if it had never been. All of the sibling wraiths had felt this sudden loss of passion at one time or another, their bodiless forms unable to sustain any feeling for long. In fact, the only emotions that ever stayed with them for any length of time at all was hatred for Lian and the craving to see him destroyed.

  Now looking down at the ailing merchantman with cold and analytical eyes, Radiel descended far enough to take the ship’s measure. Although she had little exposure to seacraft in her living days, she could tell that the ship was neither listing nor sinking. Too much to hope for there, she muttered to herself. Every mistake she, Keven, and Darwyn had made burned in her mind like acid as she recalled the battle.

  Overconfidence will not be my undoing again, she thought, but she knew that neither could she allow the opposite to forestall her hand. She must act boldly and decisively to enact her Queen’s will and fulfill Her dark purpose. But not foolishly. And gods, what fools we were to think it would be easy, she castigated herself, then shook it off. It was useless to torment herself over this. What was done was done.

  The strong easterly winds were blowing the ship west, far off its original course, so that was something. She had studied maps of the southern continent carefully before their departure, and the Southron cities where Lian might have found succor—and even more allies against her powers, curse him—were all on the eastern end of Vella. The western coastline was mostly wilderness, and Lian was more likely to be eaten by monsters than to find aid there. Still, Lian had apparently had time to learn seamanship during the months after his flight from Dunshor City, and some of the ship’s crew were still alive, as well. They might get the ship under control and headed back toward the Empire, but there was little she could do to interfere with that.

  It would take a dragon to crush the ship against the power of Lian’s casters, she thought, then brought herself up short. An evil smile spread upon her ghostly features as she began to plan. Lian wasn’t the only one who could obtain allies, now was he? All that she could do for now was to watch where the ship ended up, but then, the opportunity might be forged to destroy Lian once and for all.

  ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

  How much difference a day makes, Rishak thought a
s he stood upon the western watchtower of the castle gazing sightlessly over the western approach to Dunshor City. Despite the problems on the borders, everything had seemed under control that night. His mind cast back over the previous evening’s events, finding no solace or comfort in any of the recollection.

  ^ ^ ^

  Count Avrell’s gravelly voice continued, “We are fairly certain the raiders are from Dethiel, but of course King Torwell denies any knowledge of the incidents and pledges his undying support of Dunshor.” The three were dining in Rishak and Jisa’s bedchambers, which boasted a number of large heavy tables and comfortable chairs in addition to the bed, bath, and other more typical appointments. Usually, the tables were covered with maps, reports, and the like, but one of them had been cleared for the dinner and was covered with the remains of their meal and the glittering crystal wineglasses each of them sipped from occasionally as they talked.

  “From Dethiel?” Jisa asked, her beautiful soprano voice without its usual harsh edge in the relaxing atmosphere of this private dinner with the man the king and queen considered their closest friend. “I thought this was coming from Astasa or the Engeans.”

  The Count of Mourning shook his head. “I can’t discount the possibility of Astasan, Engean, or even elven involvement or support, but the few raiders we’ve managed to bring down up to now were all former Dethieli soldiers. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to take any alive yet, so our intelligence is suspect at best.”

  He smiled at the queen, giving her a polite nod. “I don’t have the kind of magics at my disposal that Your Majesty can command, of course,” he said by way of compliment, “but we’ve brought in a necromancer who’ll question the dead for us. I expect to have the situation resolved before midsummer.”

  A black-robe’s service would have been hard to come by before the coup, since raising of the dead was one of Evan’s particular hatreds, but since the return of many of the old Theocracy’s chief wizards, the restrictions against necromancy were significantly lightened. Not eliminated, though, for Rishak was always cautious how much leeway he allowed the old Theocracy mages who’d returned to support him during and after the coup. That was a policy with which the Count of Mourning agreed wholeheartedly.