Ghost in the Seal (Ghost Exile #6)

by Jonathan Moeller

  Assuming she was still alive to feel it.

  Strong hands seized her beneath the shoulders, and Morgant the Razor pulled her up. Caina caught her balance as Kylon dodged another blow from the cataphractus. Morgant had buttoned his black coat to the neck, as he usually did when there was trouble.

  “Now, now, Balarigar,” said Morgant. “Getting squished by a giant bag of rotting meat is no way for a hero to die. It would make an unappealing ending to the poem. Get the Kyracian and follow me.”

  “Can’t,” croaked Caina, watching as the cataphractus dueled Kylon. “It will follow us and destroy the ship. We’ve got to put the damned thing down.”

  “A fine suggestion!” said Morgant. “And just how the devil are we supposed to accomplish that?”

  “The bloodcrystal in the center of its chest,” said Caina. She felt the flows of necromantic power around the creature, and they centered around the shard of glowing crystal in its chest. “That’s what animates the cataphractus. Destroy that, and it’s just a pile of rotting meat and rusty steel.”

  “Kyracian!” shouted Morgant, drawing his red scimitar and his black dagger. “I’ll carve the way! You follow!”

  Kylon nodded, not taking his eyes from the hulking creature. Morgant darted forward, spinning his scimitar in his right hand, the black dagger steady in his left. He opened a shallow cut in the creature’s left leg with a quick slash of his scimitar, a cut that leaked a foul-smelling slime. The creature turned to face the new threat, and Morgant ducked under the blow of a fist and cut with his black dagger. The black blade sliced through one of the steel plates covering the creature’s knee, and Morgant ripped the dagger down. The weapon left a glowing, white-hot slash in the plate, and a section of it fell to the ground with a ringing clatter. The cataphractus let out another gurgling roar of fury and raised its leg to crush Morgant, but the black-clad assassin was already moving, and the stomping foot missed him by a few inches. He spun again, ripping his dagger across the steel plates on the creature’s legs, and another chunk of armor fell away, the edges glowing white-hot. Morgant danced away, and Kylon shot forward, bringing the valikon around to swing with both hands.

  He hit the joint of the cataphractus’s knee once, twice, three times, chunks of rotting meat and yellow slime bursting from the impacts. The cataphractus loosed a gurgling snarl and swung its massive fist down like a hammer. Kylon jumped backwards, the huge armored fist swinging in front of his face, and avoided the blow. Morgant carved another chunk of steel from the creature’s left leg, and Kylon darted into the gap, landing another hit with the valikon.

  Caina watched the furious battle, ghostsilver dagger in her right hand, cursing her uselessness. Her throwing knives couldn’t hurt the cataphractus, and her ghostsilver dagger would simply be a pinprick to the huge creature. If Kylon managed to take off one of its legs, perhaps that would slow the creature long enough for them to escape to the Eastern Fire. Though from what Caina had heard of the cataphracti, the only way to destroy one was to smash the bloodcrystal that powered it. Otherwise it would just reattach its severed limbs, or it might crawl after them with its arms.

  Morgant cut another section of armor from the creature’s knee, and Kylon struck again, the valikon’s blade sinking halfway into the meaty leg. He was hewing through it like a woodsman working his way through the trunk of a tree. Kylon ripped the valikon free, and his right foot came down onto one of the puddles of slime that had leaked from the cataphractus. He slipped and stumbled, and the edge of the creature’s fist clipped his shoulder. Even the glancing impact threw Kylon back a dozen paces, and he landed hard upon his back

  The cataphractus thundered after him, and Caina’s heart rose into her throat.

  “Hey!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, ignoring the pain in her right leg as ran at the undead monstrosity. The cataphractus ignored her, so Caina attacked its left leg, hammering her ghostsilver dagger into its corrupted, rotting flesh. The wounds sizzled and smoked, the dagger growing hot beneath her hand, the necromantic aura around the creature starting to flicker a little. “Come on! You’re looking for me, aren’t you?”

  The cataphractus whirled. She slashed again with the ghostsilver dagger, the wound hissing and sizzling. The cataphractus punched at her, and Caina dodged back as Kylon regained his feet.

  “Catch me already!” said Caina. “What are you waiting for? Do it!”

  A dark shape darted past her, and Morgant flung his black dagger at the creature’s wounded leg. The weapon sank into the cataphractus’s damaged left knee, and the creature ignored the blade, still lumbering after Caina.

  Then the heat stored in the black dagger, the heat created when it had sliced through the thick steel armor like paper, released.

  The explosion was rather impressive.

  A wave of hot air rushed past Caina, knocked her back a step, and chunks of burning meat rained in all directions. The smell was absolutely hideous. The cataphractus’s left leg dissolved in a ball of flame, and the creature’s enraged gurgle sounded more surprised than anything else. Morgant snapped his fingers, and the black dagger flew out of the fire and landed back in his hand, the aura of its powerful sorcery washing over Caina like a wave of needles. The cataphractus landed upon its belly with a loud clang, and crawled forward with alarming speed, jerking and shuddering towards Caina.

  Kylon sprang out of the reeking smoke and landed on the creature’s back. He squinted for a second, raised the sword high, and drove it into a gap between two of the armor plates. The blade sank to the hilt in the rotting flesh, accompanied by a sputtering sizzle and a plume of black smoke.

  Caina felt the shudder in the creature’s aura as the ghostsilver blade found the bloodcrystal embedded into the cataphractus’s chest, and another as the bloodcrystal collapsed into ash, its stolen power dissipating into nothingness. The cataphractus gurgled one more time, and then went limp, a pool of yellowish slime spreading beneath it. Kylon ripped the valikon free from the hulk, breathing hard.

  “Gods and devils, but that is a terrible stink,” said Morgant, waving the dagger in front of his face. “Do your enemies now congregate in the back room of a sausage maker’s shop?”

  “Cataphractus,” said Caina as Kylon hurried to her. “Undead animation. The Umbarians use them as two-legged siege engines.” She turned, looking down the street. The fighting had driven off most of the porter slaves, but more Umbarians would arrive at any moment. “We…”

  An explosion of fire erupted in front of her.

  Caina stumbled to a stop, Kylon grabbing her arm to stabilize her. A wall of fire roared in front of her, ten feet high, the heat washing over her face. Before she could react, the wall of fire bent and curved, the air thrumming with pyromantic power, and rolled around them. Suddenly Caina, Kylon, and Morgant stood within a ring of howling fire perhaps twenty feet across. Caina took a cautious step forward, then retreated at once. The fire was simply too hot to approach and too high to jump over. Even standing in the center of the ring, the heat was oppressive.

  Through the dancing flames she saw another troop of Adamant Guards marching along the piers. At their head walked a tall man in a long black coat, a golden medallion glittering against his chest. He had blond hair, strong features, and bright blue eyes, and a gauntlet of black metal covered his right hand, a red gem shining on its back.

  “Cassander Nilas,” spat Kylon.

  Cassander was too far away to hear them, and the roar of the flames would have drowned out Kylon’s voice. Yet Cassander’s eyes met Caina’s, and a cheery smile spread over his face.

  He closed his armored fist, and the ring of flames contracted.

  Chapter 9: Fire and Lore

  The plates of Cassander’s gauntlet rasped against each other as he focused the pyromantic fire, the ring shrinking around Caina and Kylon and the old man in the black coat. The fire was hot enough that it would leave only charred bones behind.

  And with that, Cassander was victorious.

&
nbsp; He had not expected it to be so easy. Granted, he had lost over a score of Adamant Guards in the fighting. Kylon carried a weapon that seemed able to disable the Guards with the lightest scratch, disrupting the spells that gave them superhuman strength. Unless Cassander missed his guess, Kylon carried one of the swords once borne by the ancient Iramisian valikarion, warriors sworn to defend Iramis from outlaw sorcerers and spirits of the netherworld. He wondered where Kylon had found the damned thing. Likely Caina had discovered it somewhere and given it to Kylon to wield in battle.

  Cassander also wondered why the Red Huntress had not bothered to inform him of this pertinent detail. A valikon could have sliced through both Cassander’s wards and his spell-armored coat as easily as cloth. For that matter, he wondered why Kalgri had not taken part in the fighting. The woman rejoiced in carnage the way a mother rejoiced in her children. Surely she would have joined in the killing.

  Or, more likely, she knew that Kylon carried a valikon, a sword forged as a bane to nagataaru, and had maneuvered Cassander into killing Caina and Kylon for her. Clever, he had to admit. Well, he could forgive the manipulation, since it had brought him victory.

  Also, Cassander’s fire would not destroy the valikon, which meant Cassander would carry the sword the next time he spoke with Kalgri. Perhaps that would put a respectful tongue in her head.

  The fire closed around his enemies, and suddenly Cassander felt a surge of power.

  A dome of white light flashed across the piers, and his ring of fire collapsed, its power draining away.

  ###

  Caina rocked back on her feet, taking a deep, gasping breath.

  One moment the fire had yawned up to swallow her, the heat filling her body, her clothes starting to smolder. The next moment the fire vanished as a surge of resonant power washed past Caina. She looked around, wondering what had happened. Had Cassander’s spell failed? Or had the Umbarian magus decided to spare them at the last moment?

  She looked and saw that Kylon was unharmed, if red-faced and sweating from the heat, and felt a wave of relief.

  “Damn it,” muttered Morgant. He seemed unfazed. “I told her to stay on the ship.”

  A woman in a brown dress walked past the piers, a delicate bronze staff in her right hand. It flashed and flickered with white light, the woman’s silver hair rippling in the hot breeze from the quenched fire.

  “Get ready,” said Morgant. “We’ll have to keep the Adamant Guards off her while she deals with that Umbarian. Probably a Silent Hunter or two trying to sneak around her, too.”

  Caina nodded, trying to clear her head as she took her ghostsilver dagger in her right hand and a throwing knife in her left. Kylon lifted the valikon, hilt in both hands. Morgant rolled his shoulders, black dagger and crimson scimitar ready.

  “Cassander Nilas!” called Annarah, her musical voice raised like the blast of a trumpet. “Hearken to me!”

  ###

  Cassander stared at Annarah, calling more pyromantic power.

  He knew a great deal about the loremasters of Iramis. Some of it he had learned during his studies as an initiate of the Imperial Magisterium. Then, after his initiation into the secret Umbarian Order, he had learned a great deal more. The loremasters had been among the chief enemies of the Order for centuries, opponents to the Umbarians’ plan to construct a world ruled by sorcerers, and the loremasters had disrupted the plans of the Umbarian magi again and again.

  If this woman was indeed the Annarah from the bounty decrees, if she was truly a loremaster of Iramis, then she was not a foe to take lightly.

  How was she even still alive? Callatas had destroyed Iramis a century and a half past, and the loremasters had never used life-extending necromancy. An irritated hiss came through Cassander’s clenched teeth. Another few heartbeats, and Caina and Kylon would have dead. Could she not have waited another minute before interrupting?

  Well. One problem at a time.

  “You are Annarah, loremaster of Iramis?” said Cassander, slipping the lightning rod from his belt with his left hand. The rod was about eighteen inches long, tipped with a two-tined fork. A blue-white spark flashed between the tines as the rod called sorcerous power. “Then speak.”

  Cassander would have preferred to take her alive, to rip the arcane secrets of ancient Iramis from her skull, but he was pressed for time, so instead of her secrets he would settle for her corpse.

  ###

  Kylon looked at the second architect of Thalastre’s death, hate pulsing through him.

  Cassander Nilas had not changed since the day he had come to the Assembly in New Kyre, his mouth full of lying words. Cassander had triumphed that day. Thalastre’s murder meant he would never be allowed to return to New Kyre, but New Kyre had not entered the war on the Empire’s side, ensuring that the Kyracian fleet would not fight against the Umbarian Order.

  Now Cassander was on the verge of another triumph. If he killed Caina, Callatas would open the Starfall Straits to the Umbarian fleet.

  Perhaps the best vengeance Kylon could take for Thalastre was to foil Cassander’s plans.

  Of course, the best way to foil Cassander’s plans was to split his lying, treacherous, murderous head in two with the valikon.

  “I am,” said Annarah, facing the Umbarian magus without flinching.

  “How remarkable,” said Cassander. “You should be dead. There are no loremasters left, since Callatas killed them all. I suppose Callatas himself was a loremaster once, but he forsook your order to become an Alchemist. You are quite a lovely young woman…which is something of a remarkable feat for a woman who should have died a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  Annarah’s face remained serene. Kylon couldn’t sense her emotions, but he couldn’t sense Cassander’s, either. Both were likely armored in so many wards that his senses could not reach them.

  “My past is not the question here,” said Annarah, white fire flashing up and down the length of her pyrikon staff.

  “Oh?” said Cassander. “What is, then? For I fail to see any question at all about the outcome.”

  “Your future,” said Annarah.

  Cassander laughed, deep and rich and full of good cheer. “Is that a threat?”

  “You conspired to arrange the murder of Kylon of House Kardamnos,” said Annarah. Cassander glanced at Kylon, once, and then turned his gaze back to Annarah. “You have wielded the forbidden sciences of pyromancy and necromancy, both of which wreak great harm. You have abused your powers of sorcery to kill and maim and destroy, and have more crimes heaped upon your name than I have time to recite.”

  “Ah,” said Cassander. “And you shall execute me, then?” His voice was light with amusement. “Repay me for all my horrendous crimes?”

  “No,” said Annarah. “I urge you to repent.”

  Cassander blinked as if she had started speaking gibberish. “Repent?”

  “Lay aside your quest for power and dominion,” said Annarah. “You have done nothing but harm, worked nothing good with your power. It need not be this way…”

  Cassander laughed again. “Truly? Were all the loremasters of Iramis so naïve? Little wonder Callatas burned you all. I have done nothing I regret. The world is in chaos, and needs a firm hand to bring it to order. Who better than Umbarians?”

  “A self-serving lie,” said Annarah, the light from her staff flashing brighter.

  “Then you fail to understand the nature of order,” said Cassander. “Order and obedience only come through fear. Virtue itself arises only from terror. I have done nothing a thousand other kings and emperors and princes have not done a thousand times before. The Umbarian Order is simply more efficient. We shall raise an empire of sorcery that shall endure for uncounted millennia, that shall elevate mankind to new heights of strength and wisdom and power…”

  “Lies,” said Caina, making no effort to disguise the hatred in her voice. Kylon sensed the molten rage at her core burn with fresh heat. “Blind, stupid lies. I’ve heard them again and again from
the magi, and every time they lead to only destruction and ruin.”

  “Because you ruined those plans, Caina Amalas,” said Cassander, his smile widening. “My prestige in the Order shall rise high once I claim your life. Perhaps enough to persuade some of the undecided magi still wavering with the Magisterium. Would that not be a fitting end to your miserable life?” His cold blue gaze turned back to Annarah. “One offer I make you, loremaster. Step aside, and give me the Balarigar and the stormdancer. Else you will see what the forbidden sciences of pyromancy can do to you.”

  “So be it,” said Annarah, and she drew herself up, somehow becoming stern and terrible. “Then hear the Words of Lore for yourself.”

  Cassander did not flinch. “Kill them all.”

  The Adamant Guards charged at Kylon and Caina and Morgant, while Annarah and Cassander both began casting spells.

  ###

  Cassander struck first.

  He knew perfectly well that Annarah would not surrender to him. Their parley had been nothing but a formality. Nonetheless, it had given the lightning rod in his left hand time to summon power. Likely Annarah had anticipated a pyromantic attack, a blast of fiery sorcery.

  He doubted she had prepared to defend against lightning, and that metal staff in her hand made an excellent target.

  Cassander thrust the fork, focusing his will, and a brilliant arc of blue-white lightning burst from the tines and snarled across the street, arcing for the bronze staff in Annarah’s hands. The loremaster thrust the staff before her, shouting in an unknown language, likely the tongue of lost Iramis. The staff’s end blazed with white fire, and Cassander’s lightning struck the shell of light and rebounded, blasting a row of bricks from the wall of a nearby warehouse.

  He was impressed. Many of the weaker members of the Order would not have been able to deflect that strike.

  Annarah swung her staff, its end blazing again, and a shaft of white fire howled towards him. Cassander crossed his arms over his chest, summoning power and shaping it into a warding spell.