Amber nodded. “If Norcross could do it, then so can I. I miss my brother. Do you think we’ll ever see him again?”
Nathan gave her a reassuring smile. “Of course we will.”
“Provided we survive the next two days,” Verna corrected.
“Always the pessimist.” Nathan sniffed.
She was not amused. “As I’ve said many times before, I am a realist. For today, our main effort is to ensure that all of these people get to safety. Only the fighters—the soldiers and the gifted—shall remain behind.”
“We will make our best defense,” Nathan said. “Do you need to study your Weeping Stone spell, or are you confident you have every aspect memorized?”
“I am confident, and I have the sorcerer’s sand,” Verna said. “If your defenses do fail, then—and only then—I will use the spell to bring down the cliffside.” She gave him a hard smile. “I promise I will wait until the last moment, but if I do need to trigger the spell, I’ll also be sure to wipe out as many of those soldiers as I can.”
CHAPTER 47
The selka queen tore Chalk apart and discarded his body in a puddle of his internal organs.
King Grieve went berserk.
He became a glassy-eyed, rage-filled monster. He roared without words, a primal sound that would have made wolves shudder. Grieve swung his war axe in one hand and yanked out his gutting knife with the other. In one blow he cleaved the head of the nearest selka, and the queen sprang back like a graceful fish, splaying claws still dripping with Chalk’s blood. Her long hiss might have been taunting laughter.
She landed nimbly on soft webbed feet out of the weapon’s reach. Grieve charged at her like a mad bull, practically hurling the axe from side to side, but she dodged and slipped out of the way.
Bannon sometimes slipped into a red haze on the battlefield, which turned him into a fighting machine, a whirlwind of strength and sword. Afterward, he had no memory of what he had done, but when he did come back to himself he would see the bodies of his numerous victims, and he would be alive, although battered with a hundred injuries that he couldn’t recall.
Now Grieve was in the same kind of frenzy.
Three selka closed in on the king to take him down, but in a fury he chopped off their limbs or heads. Grieve flung his gutting knife directly at the queen, but she bent backward in a flash. The blade slipped past, barely nicking her scaled chest, and embedded itself in the broad back of a Norukai who was fighting another selka. The Norukai reached behind him, pawed at the dagger as if wondering how it could possibly have appeared there, and his selka opponent used the opportunity to tear out his throat.
Amid the shouts, screams, and clashing swords on the deck of the Norukai ship, Bannon now stood free, his wrists unbound and the leg-iron chain loose around his ankle. He was ready to fight to the death, knowing he would likely not survive this massacre.
Lila barely took a moment to catch her breath. Eager to fight, she snatched a curved sword from a severed arm on the deck, wrenching it free from clenched fingers. She kicked the flopping limb away and raised the blade. She snapped at Bannon, “Arm yourself, boy! Even if the selka queen doesn’t want to kill you, the Norukai do.”
With the chain scraping behind him on the deck boards, Bannon ran to another dead raider in a pool of blood and relieved him of his sword. He swung the weapon to get the feel of it. “It’s not Sturdy, but it’ll do.” He liked the weight of this steel in his hand, heard the swish of its edge cutting through the air.
Two hissing selka approached, ready to kill, but upon recognizing Bannon, they slunk away to attack different targets.
The other slaves whimpered, still tied to the deck and helpless. He made up his mind. “This isn’t our fight, Lila. Let the selka and Norukai slay each other. Guard me while I set the captives free so they can fight.”
She took up her position by the slaves, holding her sword ready to fight any enemy who came at them. Bannon bent down and used his blade to cut their wrists free. Lila handed the slaves stout knives she had retrieved from dead Norukai on the deck. “Use these to dig out the bolts. Chop at the wood if you need to.”
King Grieve’s jaw dropped open with a roar, and his tongue flapped about like a flag of meat. “Chalk! Chalk was my protector.” Even though the selka queen dodged among other fighters, Grieve closed in on her and raised his axe to hack down. “Chalk was my friend!” She dipped and dodged, and the axe blade only sliced her shoulder. The spotted frill on her head and back flared up like a saw blade, and blood oozed across her scaled skin.
He cornered the selka queen against the side of the serpent ship, but rather than let herself be trapped, she leaped over the side in a graceful arc down into the sea below, where the waves swallowed her. When the queen escaped, Grieve bellowed at the sky in a voice loud enough to crack the vault of heaven.
The sounds of fighting resonated from the other two ships nearby. Bannon knew that those slaves did not have his protection. As he swept his gaze across the deck, he guessed that at least fifty selka already lay dead, and many more hacked bodies had gone overboard along with Norukai victims. In the dark water below, countless selka swarmed in the waves. They feasted on the floating Norukai bodies, while others closed around the serpent ships and swarmed up the hull boards.
On the bloody deck, Lila turned from side to side, holding up her sword. Her face was drawn, not at all afraid, and Bannon thought she looked beautiful. Violence brought out the true nature of the morazeth. He said to her in a quiet, hoarse voice, “I’m glad you’re here.”
Several selka threw themselves upon Gara the shipwright, clawing at her ropy gray braids. She punched one with her massive fist, stabbed another with her sword, but two other creatures chomped on her shoulder and side, fastening their needle teeth like a vise. Gara kept fighting as they tore hunks of flesh from her body. She staggered backward over the rail, and all three fell into the water below, where more selka closed around them and stripped Gara to the bones. The bloody water looked like dark wine in the night.
Unexpectedly, the sea people began to thrash in terror. Their loud hissing became a frantic splashing. From the waves, the selka queen let out a grating cry of challenge.
Something huge moved beneath the surface, a shadow in the dark water. It curved from below, and a long jagged fin broke the surface between the two lagging serpent ships. It glided like a serrated blade through the swarming selka. Some darted away, and flashes of scaled bodies disappeared below.
“Sweet Sea Mother!” Bannon said.
A huge frilled serpent head rose up, snapping its jaws, blasting out water and steam. The sea serpent towered as high as the masts of the Norukai ships. Its gills flared, its spiny fins flashed. It let out a thunderous bellow, darted down like reptilian lightning, and snatched up four of the selka in the water.
“Serpent god!” The Norukai began to cheer. “Serpent god!”
On deck, the raiders redoubled their fighting with a sudden surge of enthusiasm, and the selka retreated in primal terror as the monster loomed above them. Bannon thought that all the spilled blood and froth in the water must have drawn the underwater predator. Or was the blood sacrifice of the slave at sunset responsible?
The serpent god thrashed after its prey like a fox in a henhouse, boiling through the selka. On deck, the raiders drove back the remaining sea people, hacking them to pieces with wild abandon. The selka could not escape by diving overboard, where the serpent god would devour them. The desperate creatures killed a few more Norukai before the last of them lay slain on the deck. In the sea, the other selka had scattered and streaked away in all directions, fleeing the outraged serpent god.
Still filled with their battle frenzy, the Norukai heaved selka bodies overboard, and the sea serpent feasted. The Norukai believed that their people were also part of the serpent god, and they shared their blood with the serpent’s blood. Without ceremony, they picked up their own dead and cast them into the waves to be devoured as well.
&
nbsp; At the bow of the ship, near the carved figurehead, King Grieve ignored the victory. He dropped to his knees and picked up the gutted body of Chalk, holding the albino man against him as he sobbed, rocking back and forth. The blood smeared his muscular chest. “My Chalk, my friend!”
Whispering, the Norukai backed away in awe as the huge sea serpent rose above the bow, its giant head dripping water and blood. Its huge eyes fixed down on King Grieve, and the monster dropped open its jaws to show swordlike fangs interspersed with scraps of flesh from the bodies it had just eaten. Recognizing the king’s despair, it made a clear offer.
Grieve clutched the dead shaman to his chest, torn with indecision. He looked up and met the eyes of the serpent god, then slowly nodded. “He is yours. Chalk is a part of you. Chalk is a part of us.”
He gently laid the dead albino on the deck and stepped away. The serpent god bowed its flexible neck and dipped down to snatch Chalk’s body in its jaws, as if in reverence. With a graceful motion, the serpent tossed the broken body in the air, caught it in a yawning mouth, and swallowed the albino whole.
After a long moment, during which the serpent lorded over the three Norukai ships, the huge monster dropped beneath the waves and glided away, deep under the surface.
The night held a collective sigh of relief as the Norukai counted their dead and tended their wounds. Down in the water where many bodies floated, sharks appeared, drawn by the blood to clean up the remains, now that the serpent god had departed.
Bannon and Lila still gripped their swords among the other captives, ready to defend themselves. The slaves huddled, numb with terror, though some were ready to fight with confiscated weapons. They clearly had no chance, however. As Bannon and Lila watched, the Norukai closed in on them, battered and in no mood for further resistance. King Grieve pushed the other raiders aside and glowered at Bannon and Lila. Something inside Grieve seemed to have broken. His face twisted as he spoke to Bannon. “Chalk liked you.”
“I don’t know why,” Bannon said. “He told me about visions, but not what he saw.”
Wrestling with his agony, Grieve squeezed the handle of his war axe. Bannon looked at Lila and knew she was calculating whether they would let themselves be captured again or fight to the death here and now with a handful of frightened slaves as their only allies. Even with so many raiders killed during the selka attack, the Norukai still outnumbered them many times over. Lila was ready to die to defend him, to kill King Grieve, but Bannon couldn’t bear to see her throw her life away. He said in a harsh whisper, “Not now.”
Grieve growled at her. “I am in no mood for more fighting, but I will kill you and be done with it, if you give me any reason.”
Still tense, Lila looked at Bannon, then laid down her sword but without showing any hint of defeat. “I don’t want them to kill you, boy. There will be another time.”
As he surrendered his sword next to hers, shuddering with exhaustion and fear, Bannon hoped she was right.
CHAPTER 48
To make her preparations before General Utros’s army arrived, Verna studied the sheer cliffs around the main alcove. She and Nathan had discussed the fine points of the Weeping Stone spell, interpreting the complex nuances of how to soften the rock and bury the entire archive like fossils in limestone. It was not surprising that the naive student Elbert had caused a disaster. Such magic was like a viper that could strike if not held properly.
“The knowledge here could change the world in countless ways.” Nathan sounded forlorn. “The wizards in ancient times knew so much more than we do, and they had such great powers. In the right hands, the lore in Cliffwall could make so many lives better, heal terrible diseases, prevent disasters, bring food to starving villages. If only the right person used it for benevolent reasons . . .” He stroked his chin. “That is always the catch, isn’t it? If General Utros and his sorceresses use the archive to dominate the world, the amount of suffering they would cause is inconceivable.”
Verna shared his deep concern. “I will use the spell only as a last resort, if all our other defenses collapse. But I am glad we have this option. Either way, General Utros will never possess this archive.”
Nathan awkwardly placed a paternal arm around her shoulder. “I couldn’t agree more, my dear, but I am worried about you.”
She responded with a defiant smile. “I am no bumbling novice, Nathan. I can cast a protective web, and we will verify that all spell-forms are properly connected within the walls and tunnels. There is enough sorcerer’s sand for us to lay down the boundaries and through-lines I will need.”
She let out a quiet sigh and let him keep his hand on her shoulder. “You and I have often been at odds, but trust me in this. I know you and the other gifted defenders will do your best to block that army, and I would never underestimate your abilities. But if you and the D’Haran soldiers have to retreat, I need to be here to trigger the spell. Just in case.”
Inside the great overhang, she and Nathan gazed out at the canyon below, which was now nearly empty except for Zimmer and his soldiers preparing their last stand. All the traps had been laid, the spells from the archive put in place; all the defenders had taken their positions.
Verna said, “I think I have the easy part.”
Dangling by ropes, agile acolytes added a few grains of the prismatic sand at appropriate places around the high, sheltered archive. They found niches in the cliff or chipped out special gouges that would hold the grains in the right place to anchor the complex lines of magic. Verna had specified the correct placement deep within the tunnels as well. They had envisioned the three-dimensional complicated connections of the spell-form that wove through the entire library complex. The teams used every last grain of sand that remained in the porcelain urn.
And now Verna was ready.
*
Astride his black stallion, General Utros stared ahead at the maze of high canyon walls that closed in around him and his army. The late-morning sun shone down through a dusty sky, driving the shadows against the cliffs. Next to him, Ruva smiled. Her body was covered with bright paint—black, crimson, white, all the significant markings she needed.
Following guidance from Ava’s spirit to find Cliffwall, the army moved through the labyrinth. The high walls amplified the sound of hooves on the rocky ground, the jingle of tack, the men adjusting their armor, shields, and weapons. The murmur of excited voices echoed around him. They were almost to their destination.
Utros shifted his heavy helmet. “They know we are coming.”
Ruva’s smile hardened. “Even my magic cannot hide an army of so many troops, beloved Utros.”
“Don’t even try. I want them to see us. I want them to fear us.”
Thanks to Ava, the general knew that they would find the hidden canyon, although Nathan Rahl or some other gifted person had cast enough distortion and confusion that even the spirit of the dead sorceress had not been able to learn as much as he had hoped. The details of the defenses were unknown to him.
Riding ahead, his scouts had located the secret entrance, the narrow stone bottleneck that led to the Cliffwall canyon and its towering archive. Six of the scouts had never returned, presumably captured or killed, but he had plenty of men to spare. Two intrepid scouts had returned with a report, and that was enough.
His vanguard marched forward in a wedge, the first thousand soldiers pressing down the canyon. They were prepared to fight through any defenses to reach the secret archive. No matter how many of them died, Utros could keep pouring in thousands more until they overwhelmed the cliff city. Even the most determined resistance could not stand up to that.
As they rode forward, Ava’s spirit shimmered in front of Utros. “When you conquer Cliffwall, we will possess all that powerful lore, spells that no one can resist, maybe not even the Keeper himself! We will be invincible.” She drifted close to her sister on the bay mare and overlapped Ruva with her insubstantial form. Again, the twins spoke in a harmonized double voice. “Togeth
er we will eradicate the last wizards of Ildakar, and then your army will sweep across the Old World with nothing to hinder us.”
“Tell me if you learn anything about their plans,” Utros said. Ava disappeared like a wisp of greenish steam.
The lead horses snorted and plodded along. Utros felt tense and excited, ready for what was sure to be a wholesale slaughter. Weapons ready, the first foot soldiers marched ahead in organized ranks. As the main canyon narrowed toward the bottleneck, the companies had to fall behind one another, becoming a human battering ram instead of a wave.
Ruva fidgeted in her saddle. “Let us go closer. We are almost at the entrance to the canyon.”
Utros urged his black stallion forward. When the front ranks approached the high, sheer wall that was really a hidden crack leading into the main canyon, the soldiers stumbled to a halt, milling about, not sure where to go.
The general waited as word came back down the line, passed from company commander to company commander. “The wall is solid, General. There is no opening as we were told. It’s a blind end to a box canyon.”
“Not possible,” he said.
Ruva interjected, “My sister saw the opening. It has to be there.”
He and the sorceress worked their way forward among the armored men. From what Utros could see, the smooth stone wall did indeed look impenetrable. “Have they sealed it somehow? Closed this canyon?”
“If so, then we will blast through it.” Ruva glared at the barrier. “But I sense something. . . .” She swept her gaze over the towering uneven surface, then extended a finger and traced lines through the air as she amplified her focus. “The people of Cliffwall are good at hiding. There is something here other than stone.” Then she laughed. “It is not a solid barrier, my general! Just an illusion, a camouflage field.”
She flung out both hands and released her gift, sending ripples through the air. A line of distortion washed across the cliff barricade as if a thousand spirit forms had been released. The curtain of imaginary rock buckled and faded under Ruva’s onslaught, no more than a simple mirage. “Now we can enter.”
Heart of Black Ice (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles Book 4) Page 28
