He had managed to find their fold Standards and followed them here to this human village on the shores of the Bay of Thetis, where once again this blundering Inquisitor was trying to capture a butterfly with a two-handed club. The outer homes of the village were already blazing, the walls of several of them blown flat. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. He could see robed figures hovering at the edge of the town, the spells from their Matei staffs creating a wide clearing all around the village where no one could cross unnoticed. The path was closing toward the beach as he watched.
He had to put a stop to this.
“There!”
“I see them, Drakis,” the dwarf responded.
They had gathered a dozen men of the Sondau with them toward the western edge of the village. All of them were arrayed along a jagged, low ridge a few yards from the beach.
“They’re moving to the right.”
“Aye. Now, lad, there’s a few things you need to know about this particular enemy that in your experience you may not have considered before tonight.”
“What?”
“These are, if I may be so bold as to inform you, Quorums of the Iblisi Order-Keepers and Guardians of the Truth. They’re rather powerful, experienced users of the elven Aether magics and are superbly trained warriors. For someone like yourself, skilled warrior as you are, to attempt to best one of these in single combat would be an act of supreme foolishness and what I believe is commonly referred to as a ‘sucker bet.’ ”
“You’re telling me this now?” Drakis answered in a hoarse whisper. “What are you suggesting. . that we just surrender and get it over with?”
“I never counsel surrender, my friend, unless there is profit in it,” the dwarf chuckled back. “I only tell you this so that you will have no romantic notions about this combat. The Hak’kaarin were fine warriors despite their size: organized and efficient. There were only seven of these Iblisi, and the mud gnomes died by the thousands. In the end the gnomes won because their numbers-and the key help of RuuKag-overwhelmed the Iblisi.”
“So you want us to charge them in force?” Drakis asked, his voice skeptical. “I don’t think we’ve got quite the numbers that the mud gnomes had. .”
“Nonsense!” The dwarf winked. “This calls for subtlety and a large dose of legerdemain. I want you to keep an open mind. If nothing else, remember this: There are only seven in a Quorum. They are each powerful beyond belief, but with each one you kill they are diminished just as greatly. In such a contest there are no rules but one: He who lives, wins. You cannot take any of them in open combat. No one can. You have to be where he does not suspect you, attack from where he cannot see you, and kill him before he knows he’s dead.”
“Clever trick,” Drakis agreed, “but they’re almost to the beach. Their fires are burning a path before them, and anyone who tries to cross it is being burned to cinders before they reach the other side. We have no time for an elaborate defense.”
“Not elaborate,” the dwarf grinned. “Just subtle. I’ve been saving this one up.”
The dwarf reached inside his waistcoat.
In his hands he held the dwarven Heart of Aer.
The rocks shattered before Belag’s face, collapsing in front of him into a blue haze. The manticore instinctively fell back away from the powerful eye of the Iblisi staff that was searching him out among the rocks, and he tumbled down the seawall.
“Ouch! Get off!”
Belag rolled over, pushing up off the sand while throwing himself against the seawall. “Ethis! We need to get closer to them!”
“Closer?” the chimerian shouted over the roar of the fires burning from the shore to the heart of the village. The Iblisi were incinerating them from thirty yards away.
“We can’t hurt them if we’re not close enough for our weapons.”
“What about the Sondau?” the chimerian asked over the din. “Don’t they have archers?”
“Great ones, but their volleys aren’t hitting their marks,” the manticore answered, his face peering over the sands toward the advancing enemy. “Something is deflecting them.”
“I can only imagine what that might be,” Ethis groused.
“If we can get around their flank,” Belag said, licking his incisors. “Then we’d be close enough to taste their blood.”
“Around their flank?” Ethis drew himself up next to Belag. “Do you see a flank?”
“At the water’s edge,” Belag pointed. “We just need to draw them closer to the village. .”
Two small hands clapped them both on the back at the same time.
“Fellow warriors, take heart! The Wind-princess of Nordens has come to your aid!”
With that, the Lyric leaped blithely over the seawall and began running with all her might toward the burning village.
“NO!” Belag roared.
Drakis floated upside down in the night. He had to close his eyes from time to time to avoid being dizzy, but he clutched his sword in his right hand so hard he thought the grip might snap.
The fires spread by the Iblisi drifted below him. The heat from them was making him sweat, and this worried him as much as anything because he somehow knew that a single drop falling from his brow could easily call death upon him.
He twisted slightly as he opened his eyes. The dwarf was back behind the ridge of stone beyond the lane of fire. Trust the little fool not to mention that he had some skill in magic. Just when was he going to tell the rest of us, Drakis thought, at my funeral or after?
Beneath him he could see his target: a robed Iblisi just below him, his staff gushing fire across the landscape only three feet below him. Drakis opened his left hand, readying it for the plunge, his right hand coiled with the sword, ready to strike.
The dwarf had said they never look up.
He hoped this worked.
Suddenly, Drakis fell from the sky.
In a swift motion, Drakis grabbed the sharp chin of the elf beneath him and, using the Iblisi’s shoulders as leverage, swung his knees down his victim’s back. The tip of his sword connected at the base of the throat just above the collarbone and slid with satisfactory force into the rib cage and tore through the creature’s heart.
In the next moment, Drakis lay on the ground surrounded by the dense ground cover of the jungle with the dead elf lying on top of him.
That’s one, Drakis thought. But it’s not enough. They’re moving too fast.
In the next moment, he was yanked skyward by the dwarf’s magic once again.
“Wait! Look!” Ethis shouted.
The Lyric ran across the line of Iblisi, diving at the last moment behind a tree. The trunk exploded into a thousand splitters, toppling the tree-but she was no longer there.
The Iblisi saw her at once, their Matei staffs shifting to strike her with their full force. Blue and red rods of light arced toward her, waves of flame and sound engulfed her. .
. . But never reached her.
“She is the Wind-princess!” Belag said with shock.
“Wind-princess or not,” Ethis said with a smile as he pointed, “look what she’s doing!”
The Iblisi continued to train their power against her as she darted about the village ruins, drawing them inward and away from the beach.
“There’s your flank, Belag,” Ethis said. “But I’ve got something I have to tell you before you go. . something you have to do that can mean all the difference in the world to us all.”
The manticore looked quizzically at the chimerian.
“You must do this for Drakis,” he said, reaching into his pocket.
Drakis once again floated over the landscape. They were moving too fast, and this was taking far too long. Good plan or not, the end result would be the same.
Another of the Iblisi was below him now. He needed the dwarf to move him just a little more to the left.
The fires below were unbearable. The heat was making it hard for him to concentrate, and his eyes stung.
He opened his
left hand again and drew back his sword.
The dwarf was moving him slowly, carefully. .
A gust of wind drifted over the fires, carrying with it a wave of smoke just as Drakis drew in his breath.
He coughed.
The Iblisi looked up just as Drakis fell. He jumped sideways but not far enough. Drakis caught him on the way down, dragging him along, but the sword did not enter properly and plunged into the elf’s body at an angle.
The elf screamed.
Drakis tore the blade from the body of the elf just as Jugar’s magic dragged him into the air.
Two of the Iblisi leaped into the air to follow.
CHAPTER 45
Fall of the Inquisitor
Drakis flipped over in midair, turning toward the rustling sound behind him. Two of the Iblisi were rising into the sky in his wake, their dark reddish robes rustling as they rushed toward him. He gripped his sword and was suddenly aware of how useless it was; there was no place in the sky where he could plant his feet and get any leverage with which to strike a blow.
The dark spirits of death flew closer to him by the moment as he watched in helpless horror.
In that instant the two figures vanished in a roaring vortex of whirling sand. Drakis felt the magical power that supported him in his flight falter for a few, staggering moments and then vanish altogether as the cyclone tossed and tumbled the robed figures in its grasp. Drakis fell, his free hand clawing at the air. He glimpsed the beach rushing up toward him just before he closed his eyes. .
Something shoved him sideways, and in the next moment he was rolling across the sand.
ChuKang was yelling at him. “Standing still on the field of battle is an invitation for death to find you.”
Drakis pushed his feet under him, dragging his sword from the sand and taking a defensive stance though what he saw astonished him. The Sondau raiders were crouched down, prepared to meet the enemy, but it was Jugar who was commanding the cyclone.
The vortex was spinning along the shore, dancing before the short, upstretched arms of the dwarf. Jugar’s face was nearly beet-red with the effort as he stood with his feet pressed hard against the sand and the Heart of Aer in his left hand shining with a purplish light that made Drakis uneasy just to look at it. Jugar glanced at Drakis, saw that he was once more on his feet, and flicked the wrist of his extended right hand.
One of the Iblisi shot from the vortex, spinning with frightening speed directly toward Drakis. The human warrior’s trained muscles reacted before the thought entered his mind; he raised the blade over his head and stepped into the onrushing target. The whirling target did most of the work against the keen edge of the blade, nearly dividing the elf in two across the abdomen. As the target fell squealing to the ground, Drakis quickly reversed the blade in his hands and plunged it down directly into the creature’s heart.
“Three,” he counted. As he turned to stand, more movement caught his eye. “Jugar! More! On the ground!”
The dwarf shifted at once. The vortex collapsus, tossing the suddenly freed Iblisi into the jungle trees. Drakis heard with satisfaction the elf slamming into a tree trunk with the sound of a smashing melon. Instantly, this was followed by an enormous wave drawn up from the bay. Its sea-foam face rose higher and higher, shimmering in the light of the burning village as it arched over and crashed down upon the advancing reddish robes. The waters flowed on into the village and over the fires, snuffing out a wide swath of the flames and filling the air with dense smoke.
Through the smoke leaped four more of the robed horrors-one of them soaring directly toward the dwarf, its Matei staff pointed at his heart.
The dwarf turned toward his attacker, but the Sondau chose that instant to rise up. Three of them intercepted the Iblisi charging Jugar, physically knocking the magic-wielding elf down as he approached the ground. The Iblisi obliged them, countering with his staff in a blur of moves, killing the three of them where they stood around him nearly at once. More of the Sondau had joined in the fray but they, too, were faring no better.
Drakis ran to the dwarf. “Jugar!”
“I’m nearly done, boy,” the dwarf said as he tried desperately to catch his breath.
“Get up! We’ve got to keep moving!”
“We can’t hold them,” the dwarf grimaced. “Back, Drakis! We’ve got to get back to the boats!”
Drakis dragged the dwarf to his feet. The Sondau line of battle was literally evaporating into a bloody mist before the power of the Iblisi magic.
They turned toward the boats that were still hovering near the shore, still struggling to load people aboard.
They ran, knowing that the Iblisi would be right on their heels. They had tried to purchase enough time for the ships to get away, and they knew they had failed.
Soen strode through the village, a circle of frost crackling around him wherever he stepped. His footfalls froze the fires beneath them, snuffing them out in a swath behind him.
As he walked he became two. . walking side by side with a duplicate of himself.
Then he became four, then eight, sixteen, thirty-two.
Each laid frost in his wake, turning the fires of the village cold, their light extinguished with each step.
They broke ranks, dozens of Soens moving through the burning paths of the village, drawing cold darkness behind them.
Occasionally one of their number would happen upon an Assesia and beckon him to follow. Twice different Soens of their number came upon Codexia, all of whom were astonished to see him but followed as well. Slowly, the members of the Quorums were being drawn into the center of what remained of the village.
It was only a matter of minutes before one of them encountered the Inquisitor who was leading the raid.
“Drakis? What is it?”
The warrior stood looking down the beach and then along the line of the still burning homes nearer the water’s edge. “They’ve stopped! They’re moving back into the village.”
“We’ve beaten them?” the dwarf said doubtfully.
“No, they never give up,” Drakis said as he considered. “But ChuKang used to say if the gods are offering you gift in the middle of a battle, you take it! Everyone! Fall back to the boats! It’s time to leave!”
“Who here has countermanded my orders!” screamed the Inquisitor as he strode into the small village square, still burning brightly in places around what had once been a green but was now trampled and utterly spoiled. Around the square, ten red-robed Iblisi stood silently watching and listening. “The rebel Drakis is known to be harbored here. This village and everyone in it is an offense to the Imperial Will, and by decree its utter destruction is ordained! Who ordered this withdrawal? Who ordered you here?”
“I did,” a voice answered from atop the stairs that once led to the now burned-out lodge.
The Inquisitor looked up and then, through a tight smile, drew out the name as he spoke as though tasting blood in each syllable.
“Soen.”
“Yes,” Soen replied as he carefully descended the steps, his hood drawn back, his black eyes shining in the light of the fires. “I thought perhaps you and I should talk this out before you carelessly murder anyone else on your little crusade, Jukung. It is Jukung, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Jukung replied, pulling back his own hood. The burn-scarred tissue drew his lips back hideously from his teeth, and one of his eyes had gone a flat gray. “Sorry, I’ve no more time for you.”
“That always was your problem,” Soen continued, pushing past the robed Iblisi around the square. “Always in such a hurry, always wanting to smash things and get it over with so you could move one more step higher in the eyes of the Keeper.”
“And your problem,” Jukung sneered, “was always one of insufferable arrogance. Some of us, however, prefer action over talk.”
Jukung raised his hand. The robed elves around the square lowered their Matei staves, leveling them directly at Soen.
“Wait! There’s something you n
eed. .”
“Good-bye, Soen. I’ll convey your regrets to Keeper Ch’drei.”
“But you don’t know. .”
Jukung dropped his hand.
Instantly, the Matei staves of all ten of the surrounding Iblisi flashed rods of incredible blue, pulsing as they converged directly on the Inquisitor. Soen raised his own staff but too late; he was engulfed by the power of the magic. His flesh turned to ash on his bones, his black eyes ran momentarily as a black liquid down his crumbling cheeks. What once had been Soen, Inquisitor of the Keeper and Envoy to the Imperial Courts, collapsus into an unrecognizable pile of ash and bone smoldering in the center of Nothree’s village square.
Jukung grinned as he swaggered back to the center of the square. “How sad that you had to come to such an end, Soen. But take comfort that I have taken your place. . and that it was I who taught you the last lesson of all.”
He reached down to pick up the skull of his vanquished rival. .
. . and his hand passed through it.
“What. .”
Jukung’s own skull was suddenly pulled backward, pain overwhelming him as a blade slid across his exposed neck, cutting deeply across his windpipe and vocal cords. He gasped reflexively for breath, but his lungs were filling quickly with his own blood.
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