Ink Mage

by Victor Gischler

  A panicked shout drew his attention and he ran toward it. He rounded the corner, saw one of his officers on the floor in a bloody heap, three women with swords standing over him.

  The one closest to him charged, a thin girl with mousy brown hair, her sword up, thrusting confidently but slowly. Chen blocked it past him and sliced her throat open on a sweeping backswing.

  She dropped the sword and spun away, blood spraying through her fingers as she uselessly tried to staunch the flow.

  Chen brought his sword up in a ready stance.

  The other two came more slowly, spreading apart a few feet to give each other room to move. A short, graceful blonde and a fierce-looking brunette with a hawkish face. A brief hesitation and then they came, one high and one low—not a bad maneuver, one he guessed they’d practiced.

  Chen swung fast, one blade to another, batting both of their swords aside. He kicked the brunette in the knee and she stumbled back, cursing. He brought his blade back just in time to parry another thrust from the blonde, and Chen immediately stepped in and thrust the sword through her belly. He turned to face the other girl, but couldn’t move his sword. He looked down at the blonde.

  Instead of wilting and sliding off his blade to the floor, the blonde had reached up to grab his wrist, holding the sword fast inside her.

  “Prinn!” When the blonde shouted, flecks of blood dotted her bottom lip. “Prinn!”

  The brunette limped forward, bringing the sword to bear. Chen realized too late he’d have to let go of his sword to defend himself.

  Before he could do that, she thrust upward, underneath his ribs. It was a good strike, slicing through a number of vital organs, and Chen knew he was finished before he hit the floor.

  * * *

  This was madness. And Tosh was lost. He’d never been inside the castle before.

  Halfway up from the dungeons they’d encountered the changing of the guard, a half-dozen Perranese soldiers, easily dispatched, but not before they could raise the alarm. They were almost out of the castle when three squads of Perranese soldiers hit them from two directions.

  The fighting had been confused, loud and bloody. They’d been fractured into a few different groups, forced down different hallways. He thought he saw Duchess Veraiin and a group of the gypsies heading for the way out, but he couldn’t be sure.

  He turned down another hall, hoping to find any of his girls.

  There!

  Prinn knelt in the middle of the hallway near two dead Perranese soldiers. The fighting had apparently spread throughout the entire castle. He wondered if they were winning or losing.

  Prinn turned to look at him, her face smeared with tears and blood. It looked like something was in her lap. Tosh took a step toward her—

  Tosh dropped his sword.

  Tenni was so white, waxen and unreal. Prinn stroked her hair, sobbing quietly.

  No, that not right. That’s not her because … because, see if … because …

  The hallway tilted, and Tosh threw out his arms to balance himself and suddenly he was on the floor. He rolled over, got to his hands and knees.

  And then he was heaving his guts out.

  * * *

  The Ink Mage sat cross-legged in front of the open window, letting the cool air wash over him. It did little good. His skin was slick with sweat. The power was burning him up from the inside. He boiled with a destruction eager to be unleashed.

  Ankar tapped into the spirit.

  His every sense was alive, and Ankar sensed … something. Like he could feel it in the floor, vibrating up through his body.

  He reached out with his hearing, his sense of smell. A battle.

  Ankar grinned. It’s started.

  He stood and stretched, muscles bunching.

  Ankar chose no weapon.

  He donned no armor.

  He left his room and descended the stairs into the chaos below.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  The streets in front of the castle were utter chaos. The dead lay everywhere. She’d made it out of the castle with about twenty of the gypsies, including Gino and Maurizan.

  A disheveled, unkempt man in rags stopped suddenly in front of her, a sword in his dirty hand. “Who are you?”

  I’m your duchess. “I’m on your side. What’s going on here?”

  “There’s a bunch of us. We were with the labor gangs, but they busted us out and gave us swords,” the man said. “We’ve been killing Perranese wherever we can find them.”

  “The front gates,” Rina said. “They’ve got to be closed or we’re all dead.”

  “To the gates!” he screamed like a madman. “To the gates for Klaar!”

  The man and two dozen of his ragged comrades ran toward the gates, waving blades and shouting hoarse war cries.

  Rina turned to Gino and Maurizan. “Follow as fast as you can.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, tapped into the spirit and ran. Her feet barely touched the cobblestones as she flew down the street, past the ragged warriors and toward the gates.

  The square in front of the gates was a flurry of activity. It was like watching the battle at the temple gate all over again, but the sides had changed. The huge bars had already been slid back from the gates, and soldiers pulled on the chains to swing them open.

  Rina could see through the open gates, down the Long Bridge to the other side where Perranese troops were already forming up to make the crossing.

  She’d killed three of the men at the gate before they realized she was among them. They charged and fell, Rina’s two-handed sword rising and falling, a trail of gore following the blade wherever she swung.

  She gave two men The Hand of Death and drained their spirit, then waded back into them, leaving writhing bodies in her wake, the limbs of her foes bleeding and scattered.

  And then the others were there, ragged warriors and gypsies, crashing into the Perranese.

  Rina grabbed Gino by the shoulder. “Get these gates closed.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She pointed down the long bridge at the advancing army. “There.”

  Rina ran through the gates, fifty yards down the bridge, stopped and planted herself. She stood with the two-handed sword point down, leaning on the hilt. She waited.

  I don’t have to kill a whole army. I just have to keep them back until the gates are closed.

  The sounds of battle rose and fell behind her, and then stopped. She glanced back at the sounds of the gate clanking shut and the bars sliding back into place.

  She grinned at the approaching army. You’re too late.

  The army stopped suddenly, stood there looking down the length of the bridge at her.

  Obviously, I’m so intimidating, they don’t dare—

  A huge shadow passed over her, jerking her attention upward.

  The hulking man landed hard twenty yards in front of her, cracking the stones beneath his feet and shaking the entire bridge.

  Rina stepped back, bringing the sword up. She looked behind her at the gate, back at the enormous man in front of her. Did he jump from the city wall? He wore only a loincloth and ankle boots. Steam rose from his skin.

  And he was covered head to foot in tattoos.

  Oh … shit.

  He advanced. “Well. So you’re the other one.”

  Rina remembered what Krell had told her back at the Temple of Mordis. Two champions.

  “Show us what you’ve got, then.”

  He leapt at her, almost like he was flying, and she barely had time to drop to the ground and roll out of the way. Both of his feet came down hard where she’d been a moment before, cracking stone again.

  Rina bounced up, swung the sword, thrust, swung again. He was never where she aimed her strike, always seeming to melt away like a ghost.

  “How many do you have?” He asked. “Speak up. How many?”

  She shook her head. “Not as many as you.”

  Rina ran in quickly, feeling the lightning bolts on her ankl
es hum with energy, and was in front of him within an eye blink. He still managed to evade the one-handed sword thrust, but she put all of the bull strength into her other fist and caught him with an uppercut just under his chin. His head snapped back and he grunted in pain and surprise.

  And then he backhanded her across the face, and she flew twenty yards, landing roughly on the stone. Something had cracked in her jaw. Already she felt the healing begin.

  Rina stood, panting, and brought the sword up.

  “You get up?” he said. “The little girl is made of stern stuff. Good, I like a challenge.”

  She worked the jaw. It was already better.

  “I am Ankar,” he said. “Some want to know the name of their demise when they meet it”

  “I’m not telling you my name,” she said. “So you can die curious.”

  Ankar laughed. He held his right hand up and flexed it. It turned gray and rough.

  Rina launched, swung the two-handed blade. He caught it with the gray hand and the blade clanked in his palm.

  Stone! He’s turned his arm to stone.

  Ankar squeezed, and the blade shattered. He swiveled and kicked her in the ribs, and she stumbled back, wincing in pain. At least two of her ribs were cracked. She backed away slowly to give the ribs time to heal. Her sword was gone. She considered the rapier at her side.

  No. A sword won’t do it. Not with this one.

  She looked down at the palm of her hand, the outline of the skeletal fingers. The Hand of Death. Krell had told her only one of them could have it. Only one.

  And Rina Veraiin was that one.

  She ran at Ankar as fast as the lightning bolts would let her.

  Halfway to him, the Ink Mage grinned, and everything slowed down.

  It’s him. He’s slowing down time.

  She strained to go faster, drawing nearer, reaching out. If she could just lay her hand on the man … if she could just reach …

  Ankar opened his mouth. His long, wet tongue flopped out.

  There was a tattoo on it.

  Of a dragon.

  Rina’s eyes went wide.

  Oh no.

  Fire roared from Ankar’s gaping maw, and the wave of flames swatted Rina out of the air, engulfed her. The inferno reduced her world to an ongoing, searing pain, hair and clothing singing, skin going crisp and black.

  She faded, maybe just for a second, and when she came to again, she lay face down in the middle of the stone bridge. Her entire body was cracked and black; the flesh beneath the outer crust of baked skin oozed like molten liquid. The skin of her face had melted over one eye. With the other eye she saw Ankar laughing and walking slowly toward her.

  A tattoo on a tongue. A dragon. Talbun would be amused.

  “You should see yourself,” taunted Ankar. “Just a disgusting scorched blob. After I finish you, I’ll knock down those gates, and we’ll be back where we started.”

  He walked toward her as he boasted. Rina’s hand trembled badly, but she was still able to reach into the singed satchel at her side. Her hand closed around something, came out with it.

  She tried to fling it at Ankar, but her hand barely flopped forward, the little glass ball rolling and bumping along the bridge and finally coming to a stop ten yards away in a crack between the bridge stones.

  Ankar didn’t even see it. He was full of his own voice. “It’s a shame, really.”

  He kept striding forward …

  “I was especially curious about the ones around your eyes. Gave you an interesting tribal look, too.”

  … and stepped on the last of the three glass fire balls that Talbun had given to Rina.

  The explosion lifted Ankar twenty feet into the air. His right foot separated from his right leg which had been blown from his body, leg and foot flying in two different directions in a spray of blood and smoke and dust. He came down again and kept right on falling into the deep chasm along with the rocky debris of the bridge.

  When the dust cleared, Rina saw there was now a two-hundred-foot gap in the bridge. The Perranese army had bunched up on the other side, looking across the empty space at her with disbelief. She lay with one arm dangling over the edge.

  With the last of her strength she rolled over, facing back toward the gates. They were open now, and a small group of people ran toward her.

  Alem was in the lead.

  He knelt next to her, saying something, but Rina’s hearing had given over to a fierce ringing. Alem’s strained smile was so obviously meant to comfort her that she wanted to cry.

  But instead she let the darkness take her, and that was some comfort too.

  EPILOGUE

  The tiniest pinprick of light in a vast implacable darkness.

  She swam toward it for a long time, but it never got closer, or at least it didn’t seem to. She became more aware of things. Realized she was hanging on to the thinnest most fragile thread of the spirit possible. She pulled herself along by it, pulled herself toward the light. But she had to be patient. Pull too hard or too fast and it would snap.

  But eventually the light grew brighter, and she reached for it, grabbing the edges like some hole in the night. She pulled herself up … and through.

  Rina’s eyes flickered open. She looked up at Brasley’s smirking face.

  “I like your new hairstyle,” he said.

  Her hand went to her head. A thin layer of fuzz. She remembered. She was burned all over and—

  “I need a mirror.”

  Brasley laughed and brought her a small hand mirror. She sat up in bed, anxiously examined her reflection. Her skin was perfectly smooth and healthy. Her hair, on the other hand, was only an inch of fresh growth. She was hideous.

  “You like very nice,” Brasley said. “And anyway, it’ll grow back.”

  She looked around. She was in her father’s old bedroom. The bedroom of a duke.

  Of a duchess.

  “Have you been here the whole time?” she asked.

  “Me? No. I only arrived two days ago.”

  “Two days? How long …?”

  “You were out for nine days,” Brasley said. “At first there was a lot of talk of burials and somber ceremonies, but evidently duchesses don’t die like they’re supposed to when massively burned over their entire body.”

  Her head drooped and she rubbed her eyes. She felt whole but fatigued. For nine days Rina had clung to a thread of the spirit while the healing rune had done its job.

  “Anyway,” Brasley said. “It’s Alem who’s been by your bedside almost every hour.”

  Rina looked up. “Where is he?”

  Brasley smiled. “Let me step out a moment while you get dressed. Then I think I might know where he is.”

  * * *

  She wore a simple dress and shoes. Someone had laundered Kork’s cloak. She wrapped it around herself. She wore thin gloves. Rina thought about the skeletal tattoo on her palm and thought she might always wear gloves from now on.

  Brasley was patient enough to answer her questions on the carriage ride to the front gates.

  Giffen was nowhere to be found, but they’d discovered a dead woman in his room and a vast quantity of blood on the floor and bedding.

  The Perranese had retreated to the coast, where they were presumably waiting for their fleet to pick them up, at which time they would flee back across the sea to lick their wounds.

  The gypsies had left and had carried their dead away with them.

  They arrived at the front gates, which had been left open. Brasley and Rina passed through them and walked to the edge of the ruined bridge where a man sat with his legs dangling over the side, drinking from a fat, earthen jug.

  As they approached, Rina saw it wasn’t Alem but one of the men who’d been with him in the dungeon.

  He turned and saw her and made as if to rise. “Duchess.”

  “Please don’t,” she said. “I’m not in the mood to be duchess just yet. Let me join you.”

  She sat and let her legs dangle next
to his.

  Brasley sighed. “I’m sure it would be terribly comic to somebody somewhere for the three of us to come through so many adventures only to be blown into a chasm by a stiff gust of wind. Well, why not?” He sat alongside the other two.

  “I’m sorry,” Rina said. “I don’t know your name.”

  “Tosh.”

  “Thank you, Tosh. For all you did.”

  “How’s the little girl?” Brasley asked. “Emmon, is it?”

  “She’s with her Auntie Prinn. She’s …” Tosh sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “She’s made of stern stuff. She’ll be fine.”

  Rina wanted to ask but didn’t know how.

  “Well, it looks like the gang is back together again,” came a voice behind them.

  Rina turned, her face breaking into a huge smile at the sight of Alem walking toward them. Inexplicably, he carried a lit oil lantern in the broad daylight. She didn’t care.

  “It’s good to see you awake,” he said.

  “Don’t look at me.” She ran a hand over her head.

  “It’ll probably start a whole new fashion.” Alem sat next to her.

  The four of them kicked their legs. The wind blew cold. Tosh passed the jug to Rina, who drank and passed it down the line.

  “Gentlemen, I’m going to have to be a duchess soon, and I don’t know how.”

  “I’ll help if I’m able, milady,” Tosh said.

  “You’re a duchess in your own duchy,” Brasley said. “Whatever you say or do is by definition the correct thing.”

  “Here,” Alem said. “Maybe this will help. I brought you a present.” He handed her a chuma stick.

  Rina laughed and took it. Stuck it in her mouth. She understood why he had the lantern now. She leaned in to light it, puffed the stick to life. Her eyes went up to his face. She didn’t know what would happen between them. Rina was a duchess, and Alem was a stable boy—head stable boy—and she couldn’t imagine what anyone might think about such a pairing. Maybe nobody would care at all.

  One thing she knew for sure was that she wouldn’t worry about it today. Or tomorrow. Not until she had to.