Oliver could sense scurrying feet, furry bodies rising up from the sewers, running through the gutters. The creatures swirled out of Tanimura’s underbelly, all claws and teeth, naked pink tails and red eyes.
The D’Haran captain’s sortie slowed, defeated by a horde of enemy soldiers that surrounded them. Blood sprayed as ten enemies fought against every defender, hacking them down one by one, until the brave captain himself was dragged to the ground.
As the defenders fell, though, the rats boiled up from the streets in a brown wave of death, just like all the scorpions that had erupted from the desert floor back at Cliffwall. They were dirty vermin that lived beneath the moist and noisome shadows of the streets, but they also defended their city.
The invaders howled and flailed as they suddenly faced this ravenous wave that fell upon them, thousands of furry bodies that crawled up their legs and gnawed their skin, tore through chinks in their armor. Though they thrashed their weapons and clawed with their gauntleted hands, the enemy soldiers could not fight against it. Their voices became a panicked outcry, and their disciplined, regimented advance across the square broke apart.
Oliver, Peretta, and Amber watched, shaking with fear and awe, as innumerable rats fed upon the enemy.
CHAPTER 82
Tanimura had already fallen. General Utros knew he had won.
From his high vantage above the city, he could watch the ebb and flow of the fighting. He had encountered setbacks, as in every war. One entire division led by Second Commander Halders had entered the thick forest in a flanking move, and had never emerged. Something in that dark woods had defeated them.
But Utros had more soldiers, many more. King Grieve’s Norukai had caused great carnage in the harbor and on the waterfront, but they were mostly broken. He had never relied on those brutish allies for this conquest, though he was happy to let them bear the brunt of so many casualties. He would mop up the rest of them as soon as he quelled the other fighting, but that wouldn’t take long.
First Commander Enoch had taken five thousand men in a central prong straight into Tanimura. Second Commander Arros drove another division of five thousand along the western hills and into the rich nobles’ district. More of his soldiers, tens of thousands, were still on the outskirts waiting to surge in and plunder. Tanimura could do nothing to stop his victory.
But he couldn’t understand what Nicci was up to. What did her brash message mean? She was in no position to make demands.
As Utros stood pondering, the pale young captive struggled in his grip. He squeezed his gauntleted hand around the girl’s throat and lifted her off the ground. Her small feet jittered and twitched, trying to touch the dirt, but Utros raised her higher, squeezed tighter. With minimal effort he could crush her larynx and snap her neck, but he needed the girl to speak first. “Tell me again what Nicci said. Every word.”
“Meet her,” the captive gurgled. “Nicci demands it. On Halsband Island.” The girl flailed her hand toward the barren island connected to the main city by new, rickety bridges.
Ruva chuckled. “Each of the messengers said the same words.”
“Why? What does she want?” Utros pressed his face closer to the dying girl, who showed no fear. Her mouth gaped like that of a fish left to bake in the sun, but she couldn’t speak any words. He paused, furrowing his brow. “I recognize your garments, your pale skin. You are one of the worms hiding in our sacred capital of Orogang. You attacked my men.”
The young woman clutched uselessly at his hand, trying to draw a breath. “You attacked us! Orogang has always been ours.”
“Orogang is mine—my capital.” Utros squeezed tighter, and her eyes bulged. “Why does Nicci want me to come to that island? Why?” Forgetting himself, he squeezed too hard, and her neck cracked. The girl fell limp.
Disgusted, Utros tossed her body to the ground, discarding her beside the other four Hidden People who had delivered exactly the same message. Through his golden half mask, he frowned at all the broken corpses, turned to Ruva, then to the open island. “Is it a trap?”
Ruva’s eyes carried an edge of madness. “It may be a trap, but it will not work. Never! We are stronger!” The sorceress had grown more violent, more volatile than he had seen her before. She claimed that the Keeper called to both her and her sister through the veil, but Utros would not release them to the underworld. Not yet.
Ruva suddenly calmed, considered, then shrugged. “How could Nicci possibly lay an ambush there? It is open, indefensible.” She smiled. “No, she wants to surrender, beloved Utros. There is no other explanation.”
Utros shook his head in consternation. “Why would she do that? Even if we come to terms, Nicci thinks that I can snap my fingers and stop the army? They’re starving, and now at last they have their victory. I can’t control them, nor would I want to. After today they will all eat well even if they have to pick Tanimura clean.” He swelled his chest. “Afterward, my army will be strong and ready to march again, the way they were meant to be.”
“If Nicci wants to surrender, let her do it,” Ruva said, sounding hungry. “Then we can kill her.”
Ava’s spirit shimmered before them, pale and insubstantial, more diluted than he had ever seen her. “Kill Nicci the way she killed me!” Ava folded herself on top of her twin sister, and they both laughed. “You must confront her. She creates her own doom.”
“Yes, beloved Utros. You must do this. We want her, my sister and I. And you want her. Nicci opens her arms to embrace death, and we will kill her.” Ruva was ready to explode with eagerness.
Utros remained wary, but he allowed himself to be convinced. He also wanted to crush the sorceress who had taken his precious Ava from him. “Yes, you deserve your revenge, and I will grant it. I wanted to face Nicci on the battleground, but this saves me the trouble of finding her.” He turned away from the dead messengers, thinking no more of them. “Bring a hundred troops as an escort. We will meet her on the island and put an end to this.” He bunched his fists. “She is a fool.”
*
The joy in Thorn’s voice was palpable, and she showed her exuberance by decapitating her opponent. “That’s seventy for me, sister.” The ancient warrior’s neck stump spouted blood, and the lumbering body took two staggering steps before it slumped forward. “Seventy! Can you beat that?”
“Only sixty-five for me,” Lyesse said. With greater intensity, she spun about and dove into two armored soldiers who closed in on her. She stabbed one in the stomach, whirled and kicked the other back, knocking him off balance so that the edge of his sword missed her. She withdrew her blade from the already dying man, stabbed again to kill him, and turned to dispatch the first man she had knocked off balance. “Sixty-six and sixty-seven! I will catch up with you.”
Thorn laughed. “You may try.” She turned, determined, leaping forward—
And ran directly into a serrated spear point.
A broad-shouldered man gritted his teeth and shoved the spear harder. He grinned as he skewered the lean morazeth on his weapon, pushing the spear all the way through her abdomen and out her back.
Thorn coughed blood. Her knees went weak, and she could barely stand, but the spear itself held her up. She grabbed the shaft, tried to hold on.
Lyesse screamed and hacked at another warrior in her way, wounding him. She didn’t bother to follow through as she leaped toward her sister morazeth.
The spear wielder wrenched his weapon, tried to yank the blade back so he could defend himself against Lyesse’s furious attack, but Thorn clutched the shaft and refused to let it go, even as she died. She prevented him from having his weapon back.
Lyesse screamed again and struck down with such fury that she amputated both of the warrior’s hands that gripped the weapon. Her blade splintered the shaft itself. The spear wielder stared in horror at his bleeding wrists, and she stabbed him in the throat. He had killed her companion, her sister morazeth!
Without the spear to hold her up, Thorn crumpled to the ground
.
Lyesse was deaf to all of the battlefield sounds. Thorn was breathing heavily. Her words came out in liquid, bubbly chokes. “Seventy killed in one day,” she gasped. “Seventy.” She reached out to clasp the hand of her sister.
Lyesse cradled the dying woman. “A good number, one that any morazeth would admire.”
Thorn gripped her with red, wet fingers. “My score . . . is yours. I grant you all my kills.”
“I accept them, and I will add many more in your name.”
Lyesse sensed the instant when the Keeper claimed Thorn’s spirit. Though time seemed to stop for an infinitely long moment, she held the other morazeth while the battle continued to rage. Lyesse gently set her sister’s body aside.
As she saw countless soldiers continuing to crash into Tanimura, she knew that she had more than enough targets to reach the greatest score any morazeth had ever achieved.
CHAPTER 83
Uneasy but trying not to second-guess Nicci’s plan, Nathan followed the sorceress as she made her way across the new wooden bridge that connected the lowtown to Halsband Island. The flattened expanse had served as a practice field for the Tanimuran soldiers and the refugee militia as they prepared for war, but the rubble gave the island a haunted, abandoned air. Nicci seemed to think it was perfect for her needs now.
If only General Utros would come. Nicci had no doubts at all.
Bannon and Lila walked in tandem as their small group made their way to the meeting point. The young man carried Nathan’s ornate sword, and it seemed a part of him now.
After killing King Grieve, Bannon was hardened and also restored. Even so, Nathan feared that the bright, hopeful young man would never get back his foolish optimism. For a long time he had clung to a positive façade as a defense against the cruelties he had experienced in life, but now Bannon was strong and whole, with an iron will. He was not a victim and he did not complain about all the times he’d been beaten down. Instead, he drew strength and built bonds where others would only have sought vengeance.
His surprising relationship with Lila, for example, was a partnership that made both of them stronger. Nathan didn’t know if he himself would have been so strong or so forgiving of a woman who had been his captor and harsh trainer.
He realized that for his own part, after the Sisters of the Light had locked him up in the palace for so long, Nathan had come to love Prelate Ann, and he had also respected and admired Prelate Verna. Those women had been his captors, yet he had managed to resolve his differences with them. In a way, he understood Bannon.
As they prepared for their desperate gambit, battles raged across the city, and hundreds if not thousands of Norukai continued to pillage and burn down the harbor district. Even if Nicci defeated General Utros here, the ancient army would keep devastating the city. He believed that Tanimura was doomed, no matter what happened here on Halsband Island.
But Nathan trusted Nicci, and he held on to hope. He saw her rigid back, the muscles that rippled beneath the black fabric of her dress. He could sense her building up her strength for a final confrontation. Mrra prowled alongside them, inseparable from Nicci.
They followed crushed pathways where military maneuvers had packed down the rubble. Nathan tried to make out the foundations of the fallen Palace of the Prophets, the remnants of the immense towers that had imprisoned him for ten centuries. “Once I escaped, I hoped never to return here,” he said aloud. “With the whole world to explore, why would I go back to a place with such sour memories?”
“You are here with us,” Bannon said.
“And we are about to face the commander of an army that intends to conquer the world,” Lila added.
Nathan stroked his chin. “For a reason like that, I can come back to Halsband Island one more time.”
Nicci found an acceptable spot and stopped. Nathan realized this was where the arched entrance of the palace had stood. Through the stones beneath his boots and the shimmering silence that resonated with power, he felt a calm like the eye of the storm.
Nicci stood silent with the big sand panther at her side. Mrra’s whiskers twitched with anticipation. Bannon and Lila held their swords and tried to look intimidating, as if they were Nicci’s elite guard. Nathan’s embroidered cape waved in the breeze.
Finally, they watched a large party of mounted soldiers come riding over the bridge toward them, led by a standard-bearer with the flame banner of the ancient empire. General Utros rode at the fore. The slender sorceress paced beside him on her horse. The general’s retinue consisted of more than a hundred soldiers, but Nicci did not seem intimidated by the numbers. Nathan had never seen her look so confident.
Nathan stood ready to fight for the sake of D’Hara. As the thought calmed him, centered him, he suddenly felt a surge of hot poison through his chest. His heart hammered as the dark spirit of Ivan tried to take over again, but Nathan grimaced, clenched his fists, and hissed in a harsh whisper, “Why won’t you die?” He pounded his sternum, and the dark presence swirled away.
Utros and his escort soldiers looked bloodied and weary, but their faces shone with anticipation. Nothing matched the madness of Ruva’s expression. Her eyes were like fractured gems that held remnants of lightning. Utros sat tall in his saddle like a predatory beast as he pulled his horse to a halt and glared at Nicci.
Nathan kept his voice low. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Sorceress.”
Nicci just smiled. “I am not worried.” She touched the pocket of her dress. “It is my job to take care of the entire enemy army.”
CHAPTER 84
Although she could see only half of his face, Nicci could tell that General Utros already believed he was victorious. Resplendent in his leather armor, he rode toward her like a supreme conqueror. His escort soldiers clustered close, ready to defend their general, and his standard-bearers raised Iron Fang’s ancient flame symbol, which he now claimed as his own.
Nicci faced him in only a bloodstained black dress. She lifted her soft chin, and her blond hair flowed freely around her head. She ignored the rest of the soldiers, didn’t even acknowledge the painted sorceress at his side. “I wasn’t certain you would be brave enough to face me, General Utros.”
The horses shifted on the broken stones, but the escort riders forced them into rigid ranks. The men looked gaunt, their skin pale except where it was streaked with blood, particularly around their mouths.
Utros tilted his horned helmet down at her, and she could see his eye blazing through the hole in the gold half mask. “It takes little courage to face the vanquished.” He gestured expansively behind him. “The city has already fallen. There is nothing you can do but surrender. I am glad you realize that.”
Nicci remained silent.
Mrra growled low in her throat. Nathan, Bannon, and Lila stood ready to protect Nicci, but they looked insignificant surrounded by Utros’s escort guard. Even in the isolation of Halsband Island, the sounds of continuing battles wafted from the main city, but Nicci heard only the blood rushing in her ears, felt her strength rising.
Ruva glared from her bay horse. Much of the pale sorceress’s carefully applied paint had flaked off, leaving only muddled messages. Her shoulders jerked with anticipation. “I want her, beloved Utros.”
A flitting spirit appeared in the air, Ava’s glowing shadow. “We want her!”
Ruva laughed. “Send her to the Keeper, and then maybe he will leave us alone! My sister can stay with me.”
Ava’s shimmering form swirled close, overlapping with her twin. “We will stay together. Always together.”
General Utros swung out of his saddle and dropped to the ground in front of Nicci. His boots crunched on the loose stones of the Palace of the Prophets. The escort guard sat motionless, as if they had turned to statues again.
Still she said nothing, merely faced him with a stony expression.
Utros loomed over Nicci. “Nothing you say will change the outcome of this day. No concessions you make will alter my vi
ctory. I came here to destroy you. There will be no surrender terms. My army will enslave any people still alive in Tanimura. We will rest in this city and rebuild, and when I have restored my army to its full strength with thousands of new recruits, we will march north and conquer all of D’Hara. I will achieve even more than what Emperor Kurgan demanded of me. I will rule both the Old World and the New.”
Nathan stepped closer to the implacable Nicci and defied the general. “Emperor Kurgan is long dead, just as you should be.”
Utros looked at the wizard as if he were an annoying distraction. “Iron Fang is the past. I am the new emperor.”
“Your allies are defeated,” Bannon blurted out. “Look out at the harbor! The Norukai navy is destroyed. King Grieve is dead—I killed him myself.”
Utros showed little surprise. “That saves me the trouble of doing it. Grieve was unruly and uncontrollable. I would have had to be rid of him sooner or later.”
Knowing that people were dying every moment, Nicci snapped, “Enough talk, Utros! I brought you here to end this.”
The general glared at her. “It is already ended. I will accept your surrender, but my army will continue to ransack Tanimura. You have lost, Sorceress. Your Old World has lost. There is nothing you can do.”
Still in the saddle, Ruva pulled her lips back to expose her teeth. “We must have Nicci. She needs to die. My sister and I will accept no other terms. She is ours!”
Ava’s mocking spirit flickered in an invisible wind. “You can rip out her heart, dear sister, and I will rip out her soul.”
Utros looked to the twin sorceresses, then back at Nicci, and he smiled with half a face. “Agreed. That is our only demand. Your life is forfeit, and if I watch you die with enough pain, then I might call off some of my troops. That is what true surrender looks like.” He nodded. “Are you a leader, Sorceress? Will you give your life to save all those people in the city? Choose now!”
Heart of Black Ice (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles Book 4) Page 49
