“And that’s all we can ask,” Cadell gave an approving smile, clapping his hand firmly over Leyna’s shoulder. “I’m not about to let them take you from us.”
Cadell’s prediction of increased attacks proved accurate over the next few nights. Arcastus’s men came in waves, with still no sign of their leader. His absence on the battlefield left Leyna feeling uneasy. They were plotting something. The attacks were a distraction, though she could only guess what their actual plan was.
The enemy focus moved away from the surrounding countries, centering on Tanispa with a ferocity unlike anything seen before in the lifetime of the soldiers. Whatever Arcastus’s intentions were, he made no attempt to hide his interest in Sivaeria. Fewer armies marched on Carpaen and Siscal, leaving more of the neighboring militaries able to send reserve troops to aid the Vor’shai. But the Ven’shal numbers were growing. Strengthened by the ever rising corpses which fought on Arcastus’s side. Not even the Queen could have expected their power. It was disheartening to Leyna, her experience in the military having always been on the winning end, but now failing at every attempt against the Ven’shal.
She couldn’t allow herself to think on the negatives at that moment. They were under attack. Line after line of Arcastus’s men poured onto the field, straining the endurance of her soldiers, leaving them winded and in need of rest. It would only be so much longer before the Tanispan troops would start to fall back. The Sanarik fought from the shadows, cutting down Leyna’s men with relative ease, unpredictable in their attacks. Worse, the Namiren warriors were stronger now than before, second only to the power of the Ven’shal sorcerers leading the army forward.
Leyna’s arms and legs carried her on mechanically. Block, parry, thrust. It was unending. The Ven’shal kept coming. Persistent. Her eyes burned from lack of sleep, but she had no choice but to keep fighting. She longed for just a glimpse of the enemy leaders. They would be the weak point. Without Arcastus, the resurrection of the dead would cease. Their numbers would finally lessen. But was it too late? Were their own troops depleted too greatly to come back from the loss?
A figure stood ahead of her, dressed in armor different from the other Ven’shal soldiers. His hauberk gleamed silver in the light of the moon overhead, standing out amongst the blackened surfaces of the usual enemy uniform. He seemed to take notice of her, beckoning her forward. There was no time to guess at his motives. Get in and get out. Cut him down and move on to the next, the same as any other enemy. Sword drawn high, she prepared to lunge, finding the motion stopped by a pair of strong hands wrapping around her, arms pinned to her sides.
She struggled under the hold. Her movement came to an awestruck stop as the figure she’d been targeting removed his helmet, a pleased smile crossing over his lips to see her there. “Well, hello my darling little Eleni,” Oran’s voice exaggerated the sweetness in his tone. “Or what is it now? Leyna?”
Her efforts to free herself resumed, more desperate than before. Though she refused to let Oran see it, she feared what would happen if she couldn’t get away. There was no telling what Arcastus wanted with her. And knowing the nature of his ways, she didn’t want to risk finding out. She’d given Cadell her assurances that this wouldn’t happen. How could she have missed their approach?
“Going so soon? Ah, but there is someone who wants to see you.”
It wasn’t Oran who spoke. The whisper came from closer, pressed to her ear, sinister in its familiarity. Fear rushed through every corner of her being in recognition. Kyros.
A shadowy black veil crept over her eyes, disrupting her vision. Slowly she felt the tendrils of the perverted energy wrapping around her, squeezing tight over her arms and legs, restricting any movement she attempted. You are stronger than him. Just get away. Break his grip. It was one thing to think it, but a completely different matter in following through. Kyros was stronger than Kael twice over, if not more. Who was she fooling? She was blinded and helpless. Escape was futile.
This was no game, the way it had been when she first met Kyros, following Oksuva around like a puppy. He knew her weaknesses and was unfazed by her strengths. She could feel them dragging her along. Direction was lost to her under the blackened film which covered her eyes, leaving her unable to see anything. Her hands were empty. The weight of her sword no longer in her grasp. Cursing silently, she realized that it had fallen from her fingers when Kyros took hold of her. Even if she broke free, she would be defenseless.
Before she could gather the strength to fight the darkness, she felt them come to a stop, her hands bound tightly by something cold, yet soft. A creaking accompanied the sensation of her ankles being wrapped by a thick rope, the scent of bark filling her nostrils. Tree roots. Her assailants were using the earth against her, forcing the living base of the trees to uproot from the ground, bending to the will of their commands, acting as rough shackles to hold Leyna in place.
“I fail to see what good I am to you,” she scoffed, her eyes blinking as the veil of shadow slipped away, revealing Kyros and Arcastus standing only inches from where she was bound. They were in a thicket somewhere, dense trees blocking her view of the battlefield. A tangle of roots held fast to her legs, her wrists bound by a thin tendril of shadow extending out from Arcastus’s hand.
“You aren’t any good to us. You really would be much more useful dead, and you should’ve been, but someone failed me,” Arcastus rasped. His skeletal features hadn’t improved from the last time Leyna saw him. For the first time, she caught sight of his hands, the bony tips of his fingers clicking together while he manipulated the magic binding her. “This battle has gone on for too long. But now, I intend to finish things. However, not until I’ve done a bit of experimenting on you.”
The thought sent chills down her spine. Experiments? She failed to see what he could possibly want with her. Though she preferred not to die, it seemed most beneficial to Arcastus for her to be dead. Toying with her beyond a direct execution felt like a waste of time on his part.
Grabbing onto her bound hands, Arcastus dragged the blade of a knife along her right palm. It happened so fast. She barely had a chance to register the pain, watching the blood trickle from the wound. At the sight of it, Arcastus stepped away. “Collect the specimen, Kyros. You know I can’t touch it.”
“What exactly are you hoping to prove?” she snapped, attempting to jerk her hands away from Kyros, the bindings holding her in place.
Kyros laughed. He pulled a vial from inside a satchel wrapped around his waist. Holding it up to the light, he checked it for imperfections, satisfied with the smooth, clear glass. In a fluid motion he gathered some blood from her hand, flicking the outer surface of the cylinder with his fingernail.
She needed to know what they were doing. Whatever it was, it related to her intimately, far more so than she was comfortable with. Every minute they kept her was another she should be out with her troops.
There had to be some way of breaking free, the shadowy shackles still linked to Arcastus’s hands from where he stood at Kyros’s side, heads tilted together in contemplation over the vial. They were distracted. If she could just get her legs loose.
She needed to overcome the magic manipulating the roots. The shackles were draining her. Something in the link between her and Arcastus was drawing energy from her body. Invigorating him.
Fight it. You are stronger than he is. Another lie. An unconvincing one, at that. Arcastus was the epitome of the ancient Ven’shal. Powerful, strong – and evil. A part of him in life might have once shown compassion for Mescavis’s loss, but those days were far behind. His decaying form now only thought of death and destruction. Negotiating any compromise would be out of the question. Her only option was to outwit him.
Closing her eyes, she tried to ignore the murmuring conversations of the men. Maybe she could reverse the flow of energy, like with the grass that first night against Arcastus’s undead soldiers. It was her only chance at regaining enough strength to overpower them. She drew the la
st of her energy inside herself, holding it, centered in her core. The sensation of the connection with Arcastus was sickening. Her body rejected it, pushing much of the power away even as she drew more inward.
After several long moments of silence, a soft creak reached her ears from below. It was working. The roots budged, if only a little. She had to go slow, or risk being noticed. Bit by bit the tree receded. It was hard not to lose concentration in her excitement over the success. Her legs were mobile again. A single high step would set her free of the restraints. But not yet. Timing would be everything.
Her curiosity about what Kyros and Arcastus were doing grew with every passing moment. There was a small flame on the ground, Arcastus’s raspy voice chanting some ancient incantation. It was the blood they were concerned with. Her blood. Her body was nothing more than the vessel. It seemed to her advantage. The less attention they paid to her, the better.
Arcastus’s voice trailed off. Whatever ritual he performed was almost complete. They would return to her soon. She prepared to run. The shadows around her wrists might still pose an issue, but she didn’t fear them as much; though there was a definite difference between these bonds and those which Kael conjured. Focus was the key. She couldn’t let him tap into her own energy and use it against her.
“It will take a few moments,” Arcastus explained to Kyros nonchalantly. “This will tell us the extent of the connection. If I feel any adverse effects when her heart stops, we will know she must be kept alive. At least until we can devise a permanent solution.”
His tone grew more and more irritated as he spoke. There was a clear hatred over the predicament. Leyna couldn’t help but find the weakness in Arcastus’s plan to be convenient. It was almost as if it had been arranged for her benefit.
Could it be? Kael’s final words echoed in her mind. He wanted to die. The sorcery was too strong for him to overcome – and yet there were signs that it was wavering. Some fragment of the old Kael had been present in the moment of his death. Many times she’d witnessed flickers of it. An occasional internal struggle.
Arcastus was coming closer, the stench of death surrounding him, suffocating Leyna’s senses. She couldn’t focus on her own thoughts anymore. All she could see was his cadaverous form, flesh dangling from bones. The least grotesque parts of his body were the black pits of his eyes, tinted with their yellowish glow. They weren’t quite like Kyros’s. A swirl of shadow danced in the sockets, like some sliver of his tortured soul. “It will all be over soon, my dear,” he said with a skeletal grin. “Damir would’ve loved to see you in these final moments. You should consider yourself lucky. If he had his way, your death would be slow and painful, with days of torture. Unfortunately, I don’t have that kind of time.”
“Neither do I.” Leyna felt the sticky texture on her palm where the knife had opened the skin. Blood. Arcastus said he couldn’t touch it. He was close enough for her to reach, even in her bindings. She didn’t know what would happen, but it was her only available weapon, her sword long since abandoned on the battlefield.
Her palm shot out across Arcastus’s face, the blood smearing over his decaying flesh. The feeling was disgusting. It was all she could do to keep from retching at her fingers dragging over the slimy skin. Smoke erupted from him under her touch, pained wails echoing through the dense copse. His hands lifted to his face, his spectral hold on Leyna broken, releasing her from the shackles. She leapt from the roots, clashing into Kyros with her shoulder and sending him sprawling, his sword landing at Leyna’s feet.
That was too easy. Something isn’t right. She pushed the thoughts away in frustration as she scooped up Kyros’s fallen weapon. She needed to get back to the open where the troops could help her, but she had no inkling of where she was. All she knew was that she couldn’t remain with Arcastus and Kyros. Together they would be impossible to confront alone.
Running as fast as she could, she pushed through the thick trees blocking her path. In the distance the sounds of battle waged on. Follow the sound. She couldn’t be far. She was across enemy lines, without doubt. Getting through the mob would be a challenge if she had any hope of reaching her men. Don’t look back. Keep your eyes ahead. Kyros was right behind her. She could hear his breath with every step under the strain of their rapid pace. If she could just get into the thick of the fighting. It would be easier to hide on the battle field.
To her surprise, the armored soldiers of the Vor’shai came quickly into view. Either Kyros hadn’t taken her far, or her men were pushing them back. It would be easy to cut through them without Arcastus reviving the fallen Ven’shal. With his attention distracted, the enemy would not be replenished. And there she was – their brave Captain – running away.
Kyros was closing on her. The sensation of something cold and sharp pierced into her right shoulder, sending her to the ground, the weight of something heavy sprawled on top of her. It was the worst position for a fight with someone as skilled as Kyros. Never give your enemy your back. Cadell stressed it to her, repeatedly, and yet she did it. Unintentional, but still foolish. She was at his mercy.
The laughter filled the air around her. Haunting, evil. If it wasn’t going to be the last thing she heard in life, she might have feared the nightmares it would cause. Bracing herself for the impact, she closed her eyes, her breath held.
She heard someone shout. The weight lifted from her back, cutting the maniacal cackle short, replaced by an abrupt silence. Was she dead? Had he killed her?
She screamed at the feeling of a blade being tugged from her shoulder. Not dead. The pain was a good sign. If only she could move her right arm. Her attempts were excruciating, a searing fire coursing through every nerve, every tendon, every ligament, straight through the muscles down to her fingertips. Grasping the shoulder, she fought back the desire to panic. Shock was starting to set in. It clouded her mind, chest heaving. Now was not the time to hyperventilate. The enemy was still close. But where? What stopped him from taking her life?
Through hazy vision she saw an outline of Kyros in the darkness, his lithe form twisting and turning to evade the attacks coming at him, the opposing blade catching the light of the moon overhead. Arcastus preferred the nighttime charges despite the difficulty it lent in sight distance. She had to squint to focus on the figure confronting Kyros. There was no mistaking the Prince’s armor. He’d come to her rescue? It was her job to protect him, not the other way around…
With her mobile hand, she fumbled blindly over the ground to find Kyros’s sword. She needed to get to the Prince. Kyros would surely kill him, and it would be all her fault! It couldn’t have fallen far.
The scent of decay in the air caused her heart to race. Arcastus was coming. He must have seen them. “Damn it,” she breathed. How could she fight Arcastus without a weapon? Her magic would be child’s play in comparison to his. And the thought of touching him in hand-to-hand combat made her shudder. There must be another option.
Rising to her knees, her leg bumped against something hard on the ground. A blade. Someone had dropped a short sword. It was thinner than most military issue, but strong. Durable. The metal was covered in a dark liquid along the tip. Blood. Oh god, it’s my blood. She tried to reach for it, crying out in agony. She couldn’t grip it. Her right arm was useless.
There was no more time to waste. The stench was growing stronger, closer. In a fluid motion, she grabbed the weapon with her left hand, adjusting the grip awkwardly with her fingers. Of all the moments to fight off-handed, it had to be now?
As she spun on her knees to face Arcastus, her blade thrust outward, meeting resistance immediately. In awe, she watched Arcastus’s skeletal legs come out from under him. They cracked upon impact with the ground. Agile and swift, she rolled to her feet with the momentum.
The wails escaping Arcastus’s thin, rotting lips sent chills down her spine. Soldiers stopped to find the source of the sound, covering their ears from the shrillness of it. The blade protruded from his abdomen. It seemed a superfici
al wound for a lich, but something about it caused him great suffering. He was paralyzed on the ground, smoke rising from the wound, the metal burning into the sallow skin barely covering his bones.
He was vulnerable. It frustrated her to realize she was at a loss on how to kill something like him. Did he have a heart? Vital organs? There was nothing to him but skin and bones under a heavy cloak of black, velvety fabric. In her delirium from her own wound, she couldn’t help but laugh at the cliché of his appearance. All he needed was a wand and he would look like an evil wizard character straight out of one of the fairy tales she used to love when she was a child.
Snap out of it! The world around her spun in circles, out of control. Arcastus was recovering. Through her blurred vision, she could see him clutching at the sword, pulling it free with some effort. Leyna tried to stop him, but her limbs were uncoordinated. Arcastus lunged for her, their bodies toppling to the ground in a heap, the rancid scent of his corpse almost choking her with its pungent aroma.
Her blood. She needed to find a way to use it against him the way she had in the clearing. It had been on the blade which she’d picked up from the ground, causing the insufferable wails which had escaped Arcastus upon contact. The blow to his stomach wasn’t enough to kill him. He was already dead. Mortal wounds would do nothing to keep him down. Desperate, she pressed her hand against the laceration on her shoulder, feeling the blood coating her skin from the gash. Trying to keep Arcastus away from her, she extended her blood-covered palm over his face, her own cries mingling with Arcastus’s from the pain she felt, as if her skin was on fire. Tendrils of smoke rose from where his blood mixed with hers against his rotted cheeks.
A loud groan echoed from off to her right. The sound of clashing swords came to a sudden halt, leaving the field in near silence for the first time since nightfall. Looking up, she saw Kyros’s body slumped down on the ground, run through with a sword still clutched in the hands of the Prince. A bright light erupted from around Kyros, splitting off into three beams scattered in different directions across the field. One of them met with Arcastus, surrounding him in a brilliant glow, illuminating his form as well as something else which hung from his neck.
The Myatheira Chronicles: The Vor'shai: From the Ashes (Volume 1) Page 89
