“I'm almost dead. You said so yourself. How can I fight for good if I'm dead?”
“The Primordials move in mysterious ways, child. I suspect that, even now, the others who have accepted their fates are finding a way to return you to the physical realm.”
That thought spurred a sudden panic in Tiadaria. She was so tired. She wasn't sure she wanted to go back. Here, the pain was over. There, more pain was a certainty. She'd hurt so much for so long.
“What if I don't go back? What if I stay here? I can do that, can't I?”
“Of course,” the Captain nodded. “There are few things that can compel a soul to act against its will. You've seen one of them. Powerful magic of the Dyr binds me to the rotting flesh that was my body. Those that love you won't turn to the Dyr. They'll do what they can to save you, but it is ultimately your decision. You can rejoin or abandon them as you will.”
Tiadaria winced. The Captain's spirit had the same direct, blunt way of putting things that cut directly to the heart of the matter. He was right. If she chose to stay, not only would she be abandoning her friends, but she'd be walking out on everyone who needed her help. She wanted to see Faxon and Wynn again. She wanted to stand beside them in battle again.
“I want to go back,” she declared.
The Captain chuckled.
“And here you were just complaining that you didn't have a choice. You don't have a choice in this either, little one. Your friends will either find a way to save you, or they won't. You can't just decide to go back and make it happen, any more than I could decide not to return to my body.”
“Oh.”
“Your friends are very resourceful. I'm sure they'll succeed.”
“What about you?”
“I'll stay here. What inhabits the construct is just a part of my spirit, not all of it. I'm stuck between worlds. Half in yours, half in this one. If you make it back out, I want you to promise me something.”
“What?”
“When you face my construct again, and you will, destroy it. Make sure there is nothing left. I have no desire to be imprisoned again against my will.”
Tiadaria shivered.
“I'm not sure I can, Sir. It's still you.”
“It's not. It is an empty vessel filled by a poisonous spirit. I need you to promise me, little one. Promise that you'll destroy it and free me.”
“Okay.”
“No, I need to hear the words.”
“I promise, Sir.”
Tiadaria swooned as a curious feeling overtook her. She looked up and found that she saw the Captain standing at the end of a dim tunnel. It felt as if she was being dragged backwards through the ether.
“Sir?”
“I suspect your friends have found a way,” the Captain said, smiling.
She realized that this might be the last time she ever got to talk to the Captain she knew. Their last few moments on the battlefield at Dragonfell had been fleeting. There were so many things she'd wished she had said in the years between.
“Sir!” she called. “I loved--I love you.”
“And I loved you, little one. Remember your promise.”
Before she could say anything else, she was tumbling through blackness. All sense of her body was gone, buffeted through all of time, space, and existence as she fell. And fell. And fell. She seemed to fall for days before she noticed a pinprick of light in the distance.
That singular dot was what she focused on, willing herself toward it, out of it. To emerge into the physical world where her friends needed her and she could fulfill her destiny.
Closer and closer she got to the light. It seemed to surround her. It lifted her on its back and carried her across the endless expanses of darkness she had fallen through. Faster and faster they went, until it seemed as if she and the light had merged, hurtling through the darkness.
With a gasp, her eyes snapped open and she looked into Adamon's pale, waxy face. With a groan, he collapsed beside her and she felt strong hands help her sit up. The hands went to her cheeks, turning her face toward someone she'd recognize anywhere.
“Faxon!”
“You're alive!” he cried, crushing her to him, threatening to force all the air out of her. “I can't believe you're alive.”
She managed a rusty laugh.
“I won't be for long, if you don't stop crushing me.”
Tiadaria slipped a hand inside her tunic, gingerly feeling the spot where the Captain's blade had entered her. There was nothing. No pain, no blood, no scar, no indication that she had sustained a wound that could have easily taken her life.
“How--” she began, but Faxon shook his head.
He was hunched over someone else on the floor. Tia didn't remember anyone else being there, so she skittered around Faxon's side to see who else was possibly injured.
The sleeves had been torn from the poor soul's robes. Maybe they'd bled him too, in the same way they'd taken her blood to reanimate the Captain. Her eyes flicked up to the face and what she saw brought everything rushing back.
It was Wynn. Of course, it was Wynn. He'd been there with her, he'd watched her execution. How could she have forgotten? The middle of his robes were drenched in blood. His skin was so white that it was a stark contrast to even his normally pallid complexion. A thin sheen of sweat coated his face.
“Oh no,” she gasped. “Wynn, no. Please, no.”
Faxon scooped the young man up in his arms, like a father would carry a sleeping child. He turned troubled, mournful eyes on Tiadaria.
“I need you, Tia. We need to get both of them back to the hospital and I can't do it alone. Then we have to figure out how we're going to save the city.”
Tiadaria took stock of Adamon's state for the first time since she had recovered. He seemed to be unconscious, his eyes shut tight. However, he was making a low, almost inaudible groan. Bending down, she drew on the power of the Sphere and hefted his body over her shoulder. He was much slighter than she would have expected. His frame was thin under his thick robes.
Faxon nodded to her as she lifted her burden and they slipped through a broken wall out into the night. It was easy to see in which direction her captors had fled. There was a trail of motionless bodies that bore the telltale wounds of claw and blade.
The gentle breeze blowing through Dragonfell brought the smell of smoke. The horizon was dotted with the orange glow of fires burning throughout the city. Though it was the middle of the night, people dashed through the streets, seeking solace from the panic that seemed to be infecting every living thing.
Tiadaria's eyes lingered on the trail of bodies and Faxon shook his head.
“Later,” he grunted curtly. “Hospital now.”
Faxon strode off without looking back. There was a small part of her that worried that if they left the trail now, it might be much harder to find later, but a larger part of her screamed that they had to save Wynn, no matter what it took to do so. The Captain was wrong. She needed Wynn and somehow, some way, she'd make it work. She could be loyal to Wynn and to herself. Destiny be damned.
Even as she thought those thoughts, her mind turned to the situation in the city. The Captain's lich was on the loose. It had his thoughts and his memories, the Captain had said, but it wasn't him. That meant that instead of protecting the people of Dragonfell, he'd be doing the opposite of what he'd done in life. He'd be trying to do as much damage as he could in as short a time as possible. He'd want to spread panic and demoralize.
The palace. He'd be heading for the palace. Tiadaria was sure of it. There were few things as recognizable or iconic as the palace of the One True King. If the Captain were to take the palace, the cost in panic among the citizens could be nigh insurmountable.
Tiadaria was so lost in her head that she almost didn't realize that she and Faxon had arrived at the hospital. All her tactical analysis and planning faded into the background as they carried Wynn and Adamon into the surging sea of hysterical bodies.
Cleric and healer alik
e were overwhelmed. It seemed as if there was someone wounded or dying everywhere they turned. They might have spent the rest of the night trying to find care for their charges if it weren't for Faxon's powerful bellow demanding instant obedience from the nearest cleric.
The very frazzled, white-haired woman who took Wynn from Faxon's arms promised him that they'd be well taken care of and disappeared behind a nearby curtain. A healer took Adamon from Tiadaria's shoulder and then she and Faxon were promptly forgotten. The flood of people ebbed and flowed around them, oblivious to who they were or what they were doing.
Tiadaria was glad to get back outside. Inside the hospital had been an oppressive wall of heat. At least outside, it was cooler and easier to breathe. Faxon stopped at a basin outside the door and used water from a jug to clean the worst of the blood from his hands. The worst of Wynn's blood. She looked at her own palms and found them remarkably clean for everything she'd been through. Even the cut where they'd bled her for the ritual was little more than a faint white line. Adamon had done well.
“Okay,” she said, proud that her voice didn't shake when she spoke. “So where do we go from here?”
#
Tionne wrenched her hand free of Nerillia's grasp. She planted her feet in the center of the street. She wasn't going to run. Not now.
“Come on,” Nerillia hissed. “We don't have much time.”
“I'm not leaving,” Tionne fired back. “Not now. We've come too far and done too much.”
“We aren't leaving,” Nerillia said, grabbing Tionne's hand and yanking her into the darkness. “We need to rejoin the others at the West Gate. Zarfensis and the lich will be there waiting for us by now.”
Tionne allowed Nerillia to lead her through the night toward the West Gate. Along the way, they saw many signs of the success of their labors. Blood wraiths were spreading across the city like wildfire. There were ravaged bodies strewn across the streets, many showing signs of having been used and discarded during the blood wraiths' growth.
When they arrived at the gate, Tionne was surprised to find it standing open. Dragonfell was known for the loyal and well-trained guards that watched over the city. To not see them at their customary posts was more indicative of the chaos gripping the capital than anything else she had seen.
True to Nerillia's word, the lich and the Xarundi were waiting just outside the gate. What the Lamiad hadn't mentioned was that there would be a huge white dragon waiting for them as well. She stopped at the threshold, trying to reconcile the enormity of the beast with the fact that she knew it was real.
“I remember you,” Tionne said slowly. “There was a white dragon in my dream. I saw you flying over the city.”
“Not so much a dream as a premonition, child.” The dragon turned its arrow shaped head toward her, speaking directly into Tionne's mind. There was something in the violet eyes that made her want to shrink away from them, to flee back into the city away from that intense regard. “Hasn't everything you saw in your dream come to pass?”
Tionne spun a slow circle, taking in the destruction around her. The smell of smoke was thick and the sky above Dragonfell was an angry red-orange from the many fires that burned unchecked in the city. It was true. Almost everything in her dream was now a reality. She'd been a part of it. In fact, she'd been instrumental in it. If it weren't for her command of the Quintessential Sphere, reanimating the Captain's lich would have been impossible.
“Yes, it has,” she agreed, turning again to look into the dragon's unsettling eyes. “But what's next?”
“What's next is that you finish what you've started.” The dragon's voice was much louder and Tionne sensed from the reaction of Nerillia and Zarfensis that he was speaking to all of them, not just into her mind alone.
“My Lord,” Nerillia began, her eyes cast downward. “Although we've managed a foothold, I fear that the blood wraiths and the lich alone will not guarantee our victory and allow us to take the city. Even now, the humans are likely rallying nearer the palace, hoping to fortify that position.”
“I planned for this eventuality, Nerillia. I have an alliance to call upon. High Priest?”
Zarfensis gave the dragon a measured look, as if he was considering an act of defiance. He thought better of it and threw his head back, producing a throaty howl that made Tionne wince at the sheer volume of the sound. No sooner had he finished his ear shattering summons than a mass of black shapes appeared at the edge of the light thrown off by the torches and lanterns along the city wall. A hundred Xarundi warriors and clerics had appeared, their eyes glowing like blue coals in the night. At the head of their company, a massive Xarundi warrior stood in battered armor.
Tionne recognized the armor. It was the armor of the Dragonfell City Guard. The pieces had been beaten into shapes that would conform more closely to the Xarundi's body. It took two breastplates joined together to cross the Warleader's chest. More formed a plate skirt and additional protection for his arms and legs. He carried no weapon, relying instead on the wicked four inch claws that extended from each finger and toe. A bit of the old fear that had begun to subside in Zarfensis's presence found its way into the pit of her stomach and Tionne found herself stepping nearer to Nerillia, as much for comfort as protection.
“Warleader!” Zarfensis bellowed, stepping up to the plate clad warrior. They grasped forearms and nodded to one another before stepping apart.
“It is good to see you alive and well, Your Holiness.” Xenir motioned to the leg the gnome had recreated. “And whole again. You've not been idle, I see.”
“No, dear brother. This time, the vermin will not prevail.”
“The swordmage is dead then?”
At the mention of the girl, the Captain's lich uttered a listless moan. Xenir glanced at the construct but paid it little attention.
“There were...complications.” Zarfensis's tongue snaked out, licking his maw from top to bottom before retreating. “No matter, with as many Chosen warriors as well as the lich and our spirit army, we will prevail.”
“With a dragon on our side, how can we lose?” Tionne asked.
The dragon snorted, blowing a cloud of dust across the clearing outside the gate.
“I will not be fighting, child. I am far too important to risk in your skirmishes against the humans.”
“But in my dream--”
“In your dream, you saw me leaving the city. This battle is yours to win or lose, but know this, if you lose, you'll have a far more dangerous enemy to face than the humans.”
The dragon spread his massive wings, causing some of the Xarundi warriors to jump out of the way. Powerful leg muscles bunched and the beast sprang skyward, its wings wafting acrid air down over those assembled outside the gate. Tionne, Nerillia, Xenir, and Zarfensis all looked skyward. Watching as Stryne turned on a wingtip, flew over the westernmost edge of the city, and disappeared into the night.
“Well, that could have gone better,” Tionne said under her breath.
Nerillia looked at her sharply, then burst into laughter. Zarfensis peered at them for a moment, then shook his head and turned to Xenir.
“Xenir, have you planned your attack?”
The Warleader nodded.
“I have, Your Holiness. If you will join us in our assault on the palace, the verm...the others can assist by maintaining the level of panic and disorder.”
“Of course, Warleader.”
At a barked order, the assembled Xarundi fell into groups and started making their way through the gate. Tionne looked on in fascination. She knew she was watching the beginning of the end of the Human Imperium. There was a part of her that knew she should be sad, or angry, or something, but all she felt was the growing exhilaration of battle. No matter what happened, she'd be able to take care of herself. She'd spawned an army and created a lich that was bound to do her bidding. Never again would she have to rely on anyone else and that alone was worth fighting for.
“Keep the vermin occupied,” Zarfensis said to Neril
lia as he passed her, on his way to join the last of the warriors passing through the gate.
The High Priest stopped and looked at Tionne. His glance flicked to the Captain's lich, then back to her.
“If you were my whelp, I'd tell you to die with honor.”
“I don't intend to die tonight, Zarfensis.”
“No. I don't expect you do. Fight well, little one, and die well when the time comes.”
Zarfensis and the Warleader passed through the gate, shoulder to shoulder, speaking in the harsh guttural language of the Xarundi. Nerillia laid a hand on her shoulder and Tionne looked over at her.
“Are you ready?” the Lamiad asked. “The swordmage and her friends will be coming. We must prevent them from reaching the palace.”
“I'm ready. Tiadaria may outmatch every other soldier in Dragonfell, but she can't outclass our friend here.”
Tionne patted the Captain's lich and again he gave a listless moan. She could feel his essence pulling against the magical tethers that held him in the rotting body, but it was a token resistance. She knew he wouldn't be able to throw off the spell. It was too powerful. She was too powerful.
Nerillia dropped the cloak she normally wore. She was clad in a wolf hide tunic and breeches, dyed dark as the night around them. A flick of each wrist unraveled a whip looped over each of her hips. As she started back toward the city, the metal tipped ends of the weapons dragged behind her like tails, etching parallel lines in the dust.
She stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Tionne, a wide smile parting her ruby lips. Her teeth shone bright white behind her smile.
“Come on, then. Let's put on a show.”
CHAPTER TEN
The steady stream of dead and wounded being brought to the hospital eroded any sense of respite Tiadaria had received from being outside. Time and again her mind tried to pull her back into the curtained room where Wynn was fighting for his life. So far, she'd been able to push her worry and fear to the very edge of her consciousness, but she wasn't sure how long she'd be able to do that. She only needed to make it through the night. Then she could fall apart for however long she needed.
The Swordmage Trilogy: Volume 03 - The Pegasus's Lament Page 16
