“Do you really want to do that?” Koren waggled his sword at the six guards stationed around the room. “We will not be kind if you do. The time for knocking guards out is done. If you attack, you will die.”
“Did you hear that?” Sena said. “He threatens to kill the guards. It’s why I have always said that the Black should be eliminated. This is what happens. They think they are above rules and codes of conduct.”
“Please,” Kate said, appealing to the other council members. “There is more going on here than you know. Groups of men—and even some demons—just tried to destroy the large firestones in the fortress. They’re preparing for an all-out assault. You must listen to us.”
Sirakov locked his eyes on Field Marshal Sena but spoke to Kate. “How did you get this information? We received word of fighting in the streets, at the location of the stones, not two minutes ago.”
“I was there, at the library firestone and also at the east Parade Square stone. At the first, the guards themselves were trying to destroy the stone.”
“This is all nonsense,” Sena shouted. “Guards, you will cut these traitors down. There are things here that are unseen by any of you.”
Some of the Guiding Council members looked as if they disagreed with the decision, but not enough to put a stop to it. Kate tightened her grip on her shield and raised her sword.
The guards came at them in a rush, four toward Kate and two toward Koren.
The men didn’t stand a chance.
Kate met them with shield upraised and proceeded to carve through them as if they were standing still. When the short battle was done, all six were either lying on the floor or slumped over with serious injuries. Unfortunately, two had been killed, an unavoidable result of so many attacking at once.
The council sat silently, eyes wide.
Emelye Koler, the operations marshal, nervously tugged on her hair. She was the ideal for all women in the Order. Gorgeous and fit, even nearing fifty years old, she was one of the most powerful officers in the entire organization. She looked like a scared girl at the moment.
“What will you do now?” Royce Walton, the general of the Second Regiment, asked.
“We will discuss what is happening and what is about to happen,” Kate answered. “All of the human race is at risk. Today, the demons will mount a massive attack. We need to prepare.”
Antoni Sena leaned back in his chair and smiled. “No. There will be no discussion. There will be no preparation. I hadn’t planned on doing it so quickly, but I’m afraid all of you must be disposed of.”
He gave no outward sign, but Kate felt as if some command had been given. A slight scuffing sound to her left made her raise her shield out of instinct. Something clanged against it.
“The assassin demons, Koren.”
The Black legend swung his sword in an arc around him, trying to keep the unseen things from getting to him. As he did, Kate saw Royce Walton slump over in his chair, half his head ripped off.
“They’re attacking the council,” Kate said. “We have to protect them.”
Koren tore his mask off and took the glasses from his belt case, slapping them on his face. His eyes widened and he thrust his sword straight in front of him. He pulled it back with green blood on it.
He shouted over to her. “The glasses, Kate. Put them on.”
Kate whirled, extending her shield and sword to create a sharp steel barrier, then hurriedly donned her own glasses. Five glowing purples figures sprang into her vision, shapes that she had not seen without the glasses. She rushed toward the council table, mentally kicking herself for not figuring out to use the glasses earlier for the invisible demons.
Kate made it to the table just in time to meet a demon’s claw with her blade, shearing through the limb and causing it to spin visibly from the creature’s still-invisible arm. Halie Askona, the Secretary General of the Order, hunkered down in her chair when she realized Kate was not trying to kill her.
“Thank you,” the grandmotherly woman said to Kate, but the warrior was already moving to intercept the one-armed demon’s retreat.
Sirakov, the fortress commander, was on the other side of the table. Kate couldn’t reach him in time to stop the demon looming over him, preparing to strike. She opened her mouth to yell at Koren, but the Black legend had already seen what was happening. He slipped under the claws of another of the assassin demons and lunged for the one attacking Sirakov.
At the last moment, the demon saw Koren bearing down on it, and it slithered away from the sword thrust, twisting and slashing at the Black instead. Its claw struck a glancing blow off the mail on Koren’s arm but did not go through. Koren regained his balance and put his back to the moustached man trying to stand up from his chair.
“Stay there,” Koren roared at him, “if you don’t want one of these demons to skewer you.”
Sirakov opened his mouth to reply, but Koren shouldered the fortress commander out of the way of another claw descending upon him. Koren batted the claw away with his mailed forearm and slashed down, cutting off three of the claws from the demon’s hand. They dropped—suddenly visible—onto the table in front of Sirakov. The man wisely closed his mouth, hunched down in his chair, and looked frantically around him.
Meanwhile, Kate had cornered the one-clawed demon. It slashed at her with its other claw, but she caught it on her shield and pinned the limb against the wall. She thrust her sword straight into its chest and felt a hard resistance at first, but then her sword punched cleanly through the tough cartilage, and the beast itself, to stick several inches of the blade into the wooden wall.
She spun, kicking at the demon’s abdomen while tearing her sword out of it, spraying green blood that seemed to appear from nowhere all over Sirakov on the other side of the table. As quickly as the blood appeared in the air, the demon’s body did also. Halie gasped, getting her first look at one of the invisible demons, or at least at a whole body of one of them.
Four more of the creatures were still alive, though one was injured. Kate and Koren saw them clearly through the peeps, and they moved to maneuver the demons away from the surviving council members.
The demons were skittish, obviously not used to being seen. They darted to and fro, trying to escape the corner the two Black were forcing them into. Each time, they were met with blade or shield, and they retreated back to their comrades.
Kate nodded toward Koren and they charged.
Kate bashed one of the demons aside and turned the motion into a slash with the edge of her shield, scoring a cut in the chest of one of the unarmored creatures. At the same time, she raised her elbow and dropped the point of her sword to block a slash from the demon to her right. Dropping her elbow quickly and circling the blade around, she slashed downward and cut a deep gash along the side of the demon’s torso. Then she circled the sword around in a figure eight pattern and came down with a vicious diagonal downward strike that shattered the demon’s collar bone and cut halfway through its neck. It screamed and dropped to the ground.
Kate wasn’t finished. She circled her blade again and turned the momentum she had created into a thrust, punching through the neck of the demon she had slashed with her shield. This one died with no more than a gurgling sound.
Koren had taken the head of one of the demons, so there was one left between them. The Blacks rotated and jabbed their swords into the creature, Koren’s through its eye and Kate’s through its chest. The body convulsed as it became visible, and then dropped to the ground as the two warriors pulled their blades free.
They had defeated the invisible demons so quickly, the five remaining humans were unable to do anything but stare. Then, Kate produced her dagger and threw it.
Halie Askona gasped as the blade appeared in the eye of Yael Stone, the general of the First Regiment. As the others watched in horror, the rugged man they had worked with for most of their careers began to change, to melt.
It was while this was happening that Emelye Koler sneaked up besid
e Pello Sirakov and thrust a knife at the back of his neck.
But Sirakov was a veteran soldier and, though aged, he still maintained his warrior skills. He seemed to sense the beautiful woman behind him and turned enough to avoid the blade. He grabbed her wrist, twisted it until the knife dropped from her fingers, and unceremoniously punched her in the face. She collapsed bonelessly to the floor.
Koren wasn’t standing idle while this happened. He stepped up behind Antoni Sena, the field marshal for the Order, and drew his blade across the man’s throat.
The fortress commander and the secretary general both watched wide-eyed as the line of green appeared on Sena’s neck. As the man dropped to the ground, he too looked like he was melting.
In a moment, both Sena and Stone had been revealed for what they were.
Demons.
“What?” Koler said. “How?”
“Shapeshifters,” Koren said. “We could see them glowing through our glasses but couldn’t see their true form.”
“But her?” Sirakov asked.
“She’s human,” Kate answered. “A demon sympathizer. I think there are many in the Order right now. Like the guards who were trying to destroy the large firestones. I would suspect you two, also, were it not for the fact that their last acts were to try to kill you.”
“They might as well have,” Halie Koler said. “Only two of the seven Guiding Council members survive. And arguably, we are the two most expendable in the time of battle.”
Kate cleaned her sword on a guard’s cloak and went to fetch her knife from the eye of the demon who had masqueraded as Yael Stone. “Yet, you are who we have.”
Koren looked out the window. It was fully light outside, the morning already in full swing. “We have some things to tell you, and then we need to prepare.”
“Prepare?” Sirakov said. “Prepare for what?”
“You should probably sit down for this,” Kate said, and began to tell them what the day would hold.
34
“I would not have believed a word of this had you told me earlier,” Pello Sirakov said after things had been explained to him. But after what we have just seen, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. There is no time to waste. We must rally the Order.”
“Sir,” Kate said. “If I may, there are a few other things we need to take care of immediately. There may be more demons in the fortress, either shapeshifters or the invisible assassin demons. We have seven pairs of the spectral peeps made for us by Molara Grey. I would like to organize those who have them to search for any demons left hiding.”
“Soldier Courtenay,” Sirakov said, “you do whatever you see as necessary. As the ranking member of the council”—he shrugged slightly while looking at Halie Askona—“I give you command of the Black. Oh, and the Black is hereby reinstated by special executive order given during a time of extreme emergency.”
Kate saluted. “Thank you, sir. I would like the authority to make an arrest or two as well.”
“An arrest?”
“Yes, sir. I’m not sure if Aedmund Travada is a demon or just in league with them, but I know for a fact that he tried to have me murdered as I was trying to unravel their plot.”
Sirakov slumped in his chair. “I can believe it. The man has always wanted to do things his way, against all common sense. You have the authority to arrest any you think may be complicit in the conspiracy. Any demons you find, of whatever variety, you have the authority to put to death immediately. We’ll have none of their kind running rampant any longer.
“I am also granting you the authority to use whatever resources you feel necessary to prepare the Order for the attack.”
“Yes, sir. We will get to it, then.”
“Courtenay,” the secretary general said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Thank you. For saving our lives and for bringing this to our attention. It took heroism, the like of which we have not seen in many years, to stand up against the entire Order. I am glad you did, and I am proud to serve with you. I met your great grandfather once when he visited Gateskeep after his retirement and was able to chat for several minutes with him. I think he would be proud.”
Kate nodded, not trusting her voice. She and Koren left the council chambers at a run.
When they exited the building, both of the Blacks stopped in their tracks. What looked like the entire Infirium was lined up in an arc, keeping anyone from entering the building.
“Pretty Kate!” Aurel said, walking up to her and removing his death mask. “We did not want anyone to interrupt you in your work.”
“How did you know we’d be here?” she asked, eyeing the growing crowd of Order soldiers outside the protective ring.
“Koren told us you’d come here eventually,” Visimar said. “We didn’t hear a battle inside, so we figured you had completed your task. Did you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Koren growled. “We did. We’ll give you the whole story later. For now, all you need to know is that the Black has been reinstated—”
A cheer went up from the assembled Black. Kate wasn’t sure, but she thought some of the onlookers joined in.
“—and for now, Kate has the command.”
Another cheer washed over them, louder than before. As one, the Black—with Wilfred among them—snapped to attention and saluted.
Kate’s face burned, but she pretended her skin wasn’t on fire. She put her hand out and said, “Enough of that. We have work to do. Those with the peeps, please come with me. Aurel, Visimar, Benedict, please go and arrest Major Travada and bring him back here. Peiros, Casto, Amrit, please go and do the same with Captain Cornac Wills.”
Kate noted that Gallin Shuriss, the Blue sergeant of Envoy Squad—the one Wilfred belonged to and that Kate had served in for a brief time—was standing near the edge of the crowd, a small smile on his face.
“Sergeant Shuriss, could you please take command of not only your squad, but any other Blues present. The Guiding Council needs your help in the council chambers on the second floor. There has been a battle and, well, go see the fortress commander, and he will tell you what he needs.”
The man’s smile widened and he nodded, then turned and started gathering blue-clothed soldiers to do her bidding.
Kate soon had those with the glasses—she apologized to Shuriss for taking one of his squad members—systematically checking the fortress for more demons. She herself went to Molara’s area of the library and retrieved one of her black uniforms and her death mask. It felt good to be in uniform again. The right uniform.
While she was there, she used a few of Molara’s tools to remove the lenses from her peeps and put them in the eye holes of her mask. She would have the others do the same when she got a chance.
With that done, she returned to the Command Center.
“The prisoners you told us to get are in the other room, Commander Pretty Kate,” Aurel said, smiling widely.
“Thank you, Aurel.”
She entered the small interior room, probably a work area for some clerk since it had a desk and no window. Travada and Wills were sitting in chairs facing the doorway with Visimar, Benedict, and Peiros guarding them.
Kate put her mask on and inspected the prisoners. Neither was a demon, though they were covered with the demon stink.
“Do you think to scare us with your mask?” Travada said with his usual sneer. “Don’t be childish.”
“I need no tricks to deal with the likes of you, Travada.”
“Major Travada!” he shouted.
“Not for much longer,” she said.
“Are they demons?” Visimar asked, drawing his sword.
“No, just assholes. They are covered in demon stink, though. It’s obvious they have been working with the beasts.”
Travada’s mouth dropped open, but he didn’t say anything.
“Put them in a cell,” Kate said. “We don’t want them underfoot today, of all days. They can be tried and executed after the battle.”
; “Listen here,” Travada said. “You have no authority to put me anywhere. I will go to the Field Marshal about this, to the Supreme Commander.”
“You know as well as I do that you and your demon friends killed the supreme commander. We killed the field marshal this morning. That is, we killed the demon pretending to be him. Do yourself a favor, Travada, and shut your mouth. Your hanging will be task enough without listening to your whining.”
“You, you—”
He stopped speaking as he slumped forward, Benedict standing behind him with the hilt of a sheathed dagger clasped in his hand. He winked at Kate, and she was surprised that it didn’t look creepy at all.
“Thank you, Ben.”
Sergeant Shuriss and his squad had taken the bodies out of the council chambers and cleaned the room so one couldn’t even tell there had been a battle in it. It seemed like the place to use for planning the day’s defense. The demon bodies had been mounted in front of the Command Center.
She reported to Sirakov what she had found with Travada and Wills and that the others had found no more demons in the fortress. Apparently, they had few enough that they kept them all close to the upper echelon of the Order.
“The other Black are reporting that the fog over peoples’ minds seems to be lifting,” Kate told the two remaining council members.
“Yes,” Halie Askona said. “My thinking seems clearer as well. I can’t imagine going along with the changes Marshal Sena made. It’s ridiculous.”
Kate turned to the other woman. “It was a method of controlling everyone’s minds, like the way the demons try to push their thoughts into our heads, but stronger. I’m still not sure where the power came from. Maybe one of the shapeshifters had it, possibly the one pretending to be Sena himself. All I know is that the reports say people are acting more reasonably. The divisiveness that has been rampant for months is going away. Just in time, it seems.
“Councilmembers Sirakov and Askona, I believe it’s time to make an announcement. The Order needs to know where it stands. Any time now, the demons may open the gate and try to destroy us for good. It’s unclear if any of them know that they failed to destroy the firestones.”
Order of the Fire Box Set Page 70
