Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “What?” said Morgant.

  Caina had to remember that not everyone else could hear the sardonic voice inside of her skull.

  “To the Golden Palace,” said Caina, glancing over her shoulder. The Sandstorm had turned around, heading for the open sea as fast as Murat’s oarsmen could row. The corsairs had elected to forgive the money owed them for escape. “Callatas is there. If we find him and kill him, we can keep this from becoming any worse.”

  “A pleasantly simple plan,” said Morgant.

  Annarah only nodded. She had seemed astonished when Caina had returned to the deck of the Sandstorm, which was a logical reaction. But now there was something else in her expression, something that Caina had never seen there before.

  Hope. A wild, desperate hope.

  She remembered what Kylon had told her, how Morgant claimed that Annarah and Nasser had a secret between them.

  Later. If they survived, if they stopped Callatas, Caina could worry about it later. Defeating Callatas was more important than anything else.

  “Come on,” said Caina, and she broke into a run, Annarah and Morgant following her.

  ###

  Kalgri soared over the city alongside Callatas’s pets, her eyes and the Voice’s senses sweeping the alleys and the streets below her.

  And there, a few hundred feet below, she spotted Caina and the assassin and the last loremaster of poor burned Iramis. The Voice could not sense Caina, of course, but it could sense Morgant the Razor and Annarah, and Kalgri’s eyes could see Caina’s form well enough, even through the mad chaos as the djinn and the nagataaru resumed their eternal war.

  That meant she could also see the smokeless fire burning in Caina’s eyes.

  “Of course,” she murmured, the great puzzle of Caina’s survival solved at last.

  If a djinni had entered her, Caina would be able to sense Kalgri, but there were thousands of nagataaru battling overhead, and one more wouldn’t make a difference. Nevertheless, Kalgri dropped from the sky and landed on the rooftop of a tavern as Caina and her friends ran along the street below.

  As they did, Kalgri reached into her belt and drew out the rolled shadow-cloak. She slung it over her shoulders, pulling up the cowl, the Voice hissing as she did so. With the cowl up, Kalgri could no longer sense the world around her, but she could still draw upon the Voice’s power.

  She used that power for speed, running in silence as she jumped from rooftop to rooftop, keeping an eye on Caina and the assassin and the loremaster as they headed for the Golden Palace. Kalgri changed direction, hastening towards a building in the Old Quarter that overlooked the Old Bazaar and the most direct path to the Golden Palace.

  It would make the best spot for an ambush.

  And then all the power of the djinn and all the cunning of Caina Amalas would not save her from the blade of the Red Huntress.

  Kalgri giggled with anticipation as she ran.

  Chapter 22: Reunions

  Madness ruled in the sky over Istarinmul, and madness raged through the city’s streets.

  Kylon cut down another of the winged hybrids, the creature collapsing to the street of the Old Quarter and thrashing as it shrank to the gaunt form of a wraithblood addict. Wave after wave of the winged creatures had attacked.

  Yet many of the creatures had withdrawn, flying east towards the massive storm of the djinn and wooden ship they carried. Kylon could not fathom why the Court of the Azure Sovereign had carried a ship with them as they came to war against the nagataaru.

  Nevertheless, the sight had set a flare of hope through him.

  The ship was an Alqaarin corsair vessel, sleek and deadly. The looked a lot like the Sandstorm, the ship that Nasser had hired to take them to Pyramid Isle before the disastrous attack upon the Desert Maiden. And if the ship really was the Sandstorm, did that mean Caina was on it?

  Kylon didn’t know, and he wanted to head towards the Alqaarin Harbor where the ship had disappeared, but he did not dare abandon the others.

  Because without the valikon and his abilities as a stormdancer, he feared that Prince Sulaman and his companions would have been slaughtered already.

  The bulk of the winged creatures had headed to the east, but the relentless attack had not stopped. Again and again, waves of the creatures attacked, even as the horsemen of storm battled the nagataaru overhead, lightning and fire flashing as the spirits struggled. The Imperial Guards and the Kaltari warriors fought with skill and ferocity, and Claudia cast banishment spells as often as she could, but the winged creatures were simply stronger and faster.

  Kylon, Mazyan, and Nasser made up the difference. Nasser’s crystal fist allowed him to crush the skulls of the winged creatures. Mazyan could move just as fast as could the creatures, his djinni lending him speed. Kylon had the abilities of a stormdancer, and he had the valikon. The wraithblood addicts, if anything remained of their minds after they had been overshadowed by the summoned nagataaru, might not have known to fear the valikon, but the nagataaru did, and they flinched away from the valikon’s white fire.

  Step by bloody step they fought their way down the main street of the Anshani Quarter, making their way to the mansions and the merchant halls of the Old Quarter. The Ghosts of Istarinmul made themselves useful as well. Damla and Nerina sent crossbow bolts at any winged creature that swooped too low, shooting it through the wings. When it crashed, either Azaces or Tomazain took off its head, or Malcolm stepped forward and crushed its skull with a single swing of his massive hammer.

  They left dead Kaltari warriors and Istarish soldiers behind with every skirmish, and Kylon feared that they would be unable to reach the Golden Palace, let alone the Old Quarter, before the creatures overwhelmed them.

  Yet the concerted attack Kylon feared did not appear. He could not understand why, but the answer came to him as he glanced upward in search of more enemies.

  The battle raging overhead held the attention of the nagataaru.

  They had been descending in waves, seeking out wraithblood addicts to possess. There had been tens of thousands of wraithblood addicts in Istarinmul. Based on the production capacity of the wraithblood laboratories she had destroyed, Caina had told Kylon she thought there might be as many as fifty thousand wraithblood addicts in Istarinmul. Fifty thousand of those winged creatures could have conquered the world. Certainly, they would have had no trouble slaughtering Tanzir’s army.

  But Kylon guessed there were no more than a thousand of the creatures circling overhead, and after a moment Kylon realized why.

  The djinn were keeping the nagataaru from reaching their victims.

  However they had been summoned, the djinn had delayed the nagataaru. Kylon did not think that would last for long, though. He sensed far more nagataaru overhead than djinn, and more nagataaru poured from the vast plume of shadow rising from the Golden Palace. The djinn of the Court of the Azure Sovereign had given Kylon and the others some time, but not much.

  They had to reach the Golden Palace and kill Callatas before it was too late.

  Another wave of winged shadows plummeted from the sky, dropping towards the Prince and his guards. Kylon shouted a warning, but Sulaman’s strange foresight allowed him to move in time, avoiding the slash of black claws as his scimitar carved a line across a creature’s flank. Mazyan leaped to the defense of his Prince, the sword of smokeless flame appearing in his hand as he cut the creature in half. Another creature swooped towards Tanzir, but one of Laertes’s javelins punched through the creature’s left wing, sending the creature crashing to the street. Nasser seized the opening and struck, taking off the creature’s head with a powerful blow from his scimitar.

  Two of the creatures dove towards Kylon, and instead of dodging, he sprinted into their attack, whipping the valikon before him. The nearest winged creature tried to change direction, but it was too late. Kylon’s sword crunched through its ribs and sank into its chest, white fire pouring from the blade to destroy the nagataaru. The second creature landed, spun, and stabbe
d at Kylon. He ducked, the claws blurring past his head, and brought up his left arm as he drew upon the power of water sorcery. White mist swirled around his forearm and hardened into blue-green glacial ice, and he parried the creature’s next blow with his arm. The force of the impact shattered the icy gauntlet into glittering shards, but Kylon stabbed, the valikon ripping between the creature’s ribs.

  The creature collapsed to the ground as the white fire destroyed the nagataaru, the winged shape shrinking to a wraithblood addict’s emaciated form.

  Kylon tugged his sword free from the dead man’s chest and looked around for more foes. The winged shadows of the new humanity circled overhead, the sky itself writhing with the chaos of the battle between the two kingdoms of spirits, but for a brief moment, none of the creatures were nearby.

  They had reached the heart of the Old Quarter. Ahead the Old Bazaar itself opened before them, the booths smashed and corpses lying here and there, the rich shops and halls damaged and torn open. It seemed the winged creatures had already passed through in search of prey.

  A flash of fire on the eastern side of the Old Bazaar caught his attention.

  It seemed there was a fight already underway.

  ###

  Kalgri crouched on the corner of the merchant hall, gazing into the Old Bazaar.

  She smiled within the shadow-cloak, watching the fight unfold, and the Voice snarled with glee.

  Yes. Any moment now.

  ###

  “Beware,” said Samnirdamnus inside of Caina’s head. “More of them come.”

  The djinni didn’t need to tell her that. Caina had already seen them coming.

  Morgant and Annarah stood on either side of her, weapons and spells ready. They had fought their way free from the Alqaarin Harbor and then had dodged into the alleyways and streets of the Alqaarin Quarter, keeping out of sight of the creatures circling overhead. They couldn’t sense Caina, even with Samnirdamnus lodged inside of her head, and Morgant still had his ring, and Annarah shifted her pyrikon back to its chained-bracelet form. Keeping out of sight, they avoided a confrontation with the creatures and made good progress through the maze of the Alqaarin Quarter’s back alleys.

  The Knight of Wind and Air might have been a powerful elemental spirit, but in the end, he was a still a spy, and so was Caina. Best to avoid fighting until they could strike decisively.

  She felt the air around her in a strange, alien away, aware of it as if it was somehow an extension of her own body. She sensed it filling the streets, and the houses and the shops, the currents of wind overhead as the nagataaru battled the djinn, the breath entering and leaving the lungs of Morgant and Annarah. The smokeless fire burned through Caina, and with that fire, she could have commanded the air to make her faster, to lift her aloft, to slow her enemies or even to erupt with the fury of lightning. The smokeless fire itself could come at her call, to shape as she desired.

  Samnirdamnus had given full control of his powers to her, to do with as she wished, and Caina found she did not like the sensation at all.

  Or maybe she liked it a little too much. She had spent her adult life fighting against sorcerers and worse things, against people and creatures that had this kind of power, and Caina shuddered to think what she might have done if Samnirdamnus had possessed her when she was younger. She might have gone on a rampage, killing the magi of the Magisterium and anyone else she deemed worthy of death.

  No one ought to have this kind of power.

  “Do you see now,” murmured Samnirdamnus, “why you were the one I sought?”

  Caina shook her head, focusing on the descending winged creatures.

  Samnirdamnus might have possessed power, but so did the creatures.

  A dozen of them landed in the street ahead, blocking the way forward. Their purple-burning eyes fixed upon Caina, their clawed fingers flexing. She wondered why they simply didn’t attack. They couldn’t sense Samnirdamnus, not while he was inside her head, but they could see the fire burning in her eyes and veins, and the nagataaru would recognize the threat.

  “Why don’t they attack?” said Annarah.

  “Most likely,” said Morgant, “they’re afraid of us, and so are distracting us while an attack comes from another direction.”

  “From above,” said Caina, lifting her face to the sky. “No one ever looks up.”

  And just as she had guessed, a dozen more creatures appeared overhead, their wings folding as they plummeted towards the street.

  Morgant dodged to the side, and Annarah cast a spell, her pyrikon unfolding into a slender bronze staff once more, and in that instant, Caina called to the wind.

  Once more, the wind answered.

  A gust of wind howled through the street, slamming into the descending creatures. The wind threw them off course, flinging some of the creatures into the walls of the surrounding houses, while others struck the street. Morgant stepped smoothly into their distraction, crimson scimitar and black dagger flashing. Annarah hit another creature with a shaft of white fire, and Morgant attacked the staggered creature, killing it with a swift stab of his scimitar.

  Caina called to the wind again, drawing her valikon, and she moved, the valikon trailing white fire from her fist.

  The wind moved with her.

  It was a strange sensation. She sped up as the wind drove her forward, but the rest of the world seemed to slow down. Samnirdamnus was altering her senses, slowing her perception of time as he had done previously when speaking with her. Caina wondered about the physical cost of that, wondered if a blood vessel would burst in her brain as when she had fought Callatas in the netherworld.

  But for now, there was no time to worry about the future.

  Caina shot into the creatures, stepping past their claws and fangs with ease, the valikon flashing back and forth in her grasp. She killed five of them in rapid succession, stabbing some through the heart and cutting others across the throat. The creatures reacted to the new threat, turning to encircle her, and Caina jumped. The wind carried her out of the encircling ring, and she kicked off the wall of a nearby house, spun, and came hammering down.

  The valikon sliced through the neck of a creature, white fire destroying the nagataaru, but Caina lost her grip on the weapon and stumbled, staggering as the creatures pursued her.

  “The smokeless fire!” said Samnirdamnus. “The smokeless fire of the djinn shall also come at your call!”

  She remembered Mazyan’s sword of fire, Kalgri’s blade of dark force, and held out her right hand.

  A scimitar of smokeless flame appeared in her right fist, throwing off a harsh light. That was well and good, but Caina had never been good with long blades, and…

  As if in response to her thought, the scimitar of smokeless flame shrank, and became a throwing knife.

  A tight smile went over Caina’s face. That was more like it.

  She might not have been very skilled with a sword, but she much more practice with throwing knives, and she flung the blade of smokeless flame at the nearest winged creature. Caina expected the thrown blade to bite into the creature, sinking into its throat.

  She did not expect it to burn a smoking hole through one side of its neck and out the other, causing it to collapse dead to the street.

  “Ah,” said Samnirdamnus. “I did not expect that.”

  Caina leaped back as the creatures pursued her, the wind carrying her a dozen yards, held out her hand, and called another throwing knife of smokeless flame into existence. She flung the weapon, and it burned a hole through the chest of the nearest creature. Caina killed four more creatures in as many heartbeats, and Morgant attacked, while Annarah cast spell after spell, her pyrikon blazing. After Caina had killed fifteen of the creatures with knives of smokeless flame, the survivors retreated, taking to the air and scattering. Likely they had gone to gather reinforcements.

  “Nice trick with the burning knives,” said Morgant, lowering his weapons as Caina retrieved her valikon. “The next time I need to open a cask of
wine, I’ll just have you do it.”

  “Thanks,” said Caina in a flat voice, looking at the dead wraithblood addicts she had left scattered around the street. Again she felt a flicker of guilt. Most of them would have been harmless, but Callatas had addicted them to wraithblood, and Callatas had summoned the nagataaru within their flesh.

  And he had driven them to their deaths at Caina’s hands.

  “That is what Callatas will work,” said Samnirdamnus. “Even if he knows it not. A world of the dead, empty save for ruins. More than these men will die if you do not stop him.”

  Caina looked up from the dead and forced aside her roiling emotions.

  They had reached the Old Bazaar at the heart of the Old Quarter, a vast square ringed by shops and merchant halls. The booths and stalls of the Bazaar had been smashed by the fighting, and she saw the bodies of robed merchants scattered across the ground, likely killed by the winged creatures. At the southern end of the Bazaar stood a mass of men, both Kaltari warriors, and Imperial Guards. Caina blinked in surprise. Imperial Guards? Did that mean Claudia and Martin had escaped? Callatas and Erghulan would have tried to kill them at once…

  And with a sudden shock, she saw Kylon staring at her.

  He stood next to a broken booth a few hundred yards away, the valikon that the Emissary had given Caina burning like a torch of white fire in his right hand. The light from the sword threw harsh shadows on his face, marked the blood and sweat and grime upon his features and his arms, though most of the blood didn’t look as if it had come from him.

  A little cry escaped Caina’s lips before she could stop herself, and she started towards him, her fear and her rage and even Samnirdamnus temporarily forgotten. Gods, gods, but he was alive and unhurt. He wasn’t safe, for no one in Istarinmul was safe, but he was still alive and uninjured and that made everything that had happened over the last few weeks endurable.

  He began to smile, and Caina broke into a run.

  Then his eyes widened in alarm, the valikon coming up, and he sprinted towards her.