"You're hurt!" Dante ran toward him, waiting for his arm to blacken like all the others the demon had harmed.
Backing away from the creature, Blays touched the scratches on his arm. "That thing fights like a demon!"
"What happened? It looked wary of you!"
"I was hurting it. But it was healing too fast for me to take it down."
The demon rushed the nearest formation of soldiers. Archers fired, their arrows skidding off the Andrac's black skin. The front line fell before the Andrac's claws. The soldiers behind the dead broke, fleeing toward the buildings behind them.
Mallish soldiers poured from the road to the top of the butte. Seeing a target they could actually engage, the Colleners ran to meet them. Metal crashed on metal.
"Galand!" Jodd called. "Can you bring down the demon?"
Dante sprinted toward him, joined by Blays and Naran. "Do you have anyone here who can wield the ether?"
Jodd questioned his generals, but none of them had a warrior talented with the light.
"I've already burned through what little I can use," Dante said. "Blays, you just fought it. Is there any point in trying again?"
Around them, Collen's soldiers held their ground wherever they faced a mundane enemy. But before the Andrac, or the priests now taking the field, they fell back step after step.
"I can't kill that thing. Not by myself." Blays spun the grip of his left-hand sword. "But what if we kill the guy commanding it?"
Dante's eyebrows shot up. "That could work. If a nethermancer dies, so does any animations under his command."
Jodd glanced between them. "You're talking about removing Gladdic."
"We need your people to fall back. Let the Mallish get a short way into the city. Enough that Gladdic will feel safe enough to come up here."
"We have no choice but to fall back. That thing is ripping my soldiers to pieces!"
"What a prick," Blays said. "Don't worry, I'll keep him distracted."
"When Gladdic exposes himself, I'll engage him," Dante said. "Shadowalk up behind him as fast as you can. Whichever one of us he turns on, the other will cut him down."
Jodd and his generals left to relay orders. Naran went with them, saber in hand. The Collenese soldiers battling the Mallish began an orderly retreat. Blays jogged toward the Andrac, which had stopped killing for a minute in order to shred apart the bodies of its victims, an activity it appeared to relish.
Blays ran faster, hunched low, and vanished. The demon planted its foot on a corpse, grabbed its arm, and yanked it from the socket. It twirled the limb above its head and slung it twenty feet away. It bent down to grab a leg, then shot upright, whirling to slash at Blays somewhere within the shadows.
Keeping one eye on the duel, Dante backed away from the square. Dozens of bodies were strewn across the setts. Many wore the blackened wounds of the Star-Eater. Across from the demon, Blays flickered into being, rubbing a gash on his chest. He skipped backward. As the demon advanced, Blays lifted his blades and disappeared again.
"Come on," Dante muttered. "Your supposedly immortal pet is getting stabbed repeatedly. Get up here and give it a hand."
The duel carried on. Just as Dante was about to go to the cliff's edge for a look, Gladdic ascended the butte, accompanied by a few soldiers in blue. The ordon's eyes locked on the Andrac. Light glittered around his hands.
Dante jogged toward him, shadows flowing in dark storm clouds. Gladdic glanced his way and stopped on the dusty stones. The priest's mouth bent in a frown.
"Dante Galand." His tone was musing. "I thought this stank of your involvement. It is always nice to be proven correct."
"You're a liar and a hypocrite," Dante said. "You're the one who brought the demon here. And used the shadows to do so. What will your Eldor do with you when he hears that?"
Gladdic's face reddened. His words were clipped, precise. "He will support me against the latest of Collen's lies. My soldiers saw me turn the monster against its true master."
Dante glanced at the Andrac, which continued to duel its invisible foe. "That's what you'll write down as history, too. Assigning Mallon's crimes to Collen. Just as you always have."
"Why do you insist on endangering your own kingdom? You have fought so hard to restore Narashtovik to its former glory. I can't say that I approve—your beliefs sicken me—yet I'm confused why you'd cast everything aside for this barren desert."
"Because," Dante said. "I always win."
He hurled a wave of shadows at Gladdic. Gladdic spread his feet and opened his hands, deflecting the darkness with a deft thrust of light. Sparks faded around him. The priest's smile was almost benevolent. He unshouldered a bulky pack and flipped it over, dumping a pile of bones onto the ground. Light flashed from his hands. On the ground, a man's shadow appeared, but there was no one there to cast it.
A second Andrac collapsed in reverse, unfolding to a height of seven feet. It stared at Dante and flexed its limbs.
Dante felt the blood drain from his face. "Blays!"
The demon trotted toward him. Dante drew a globe of shadows around his fist and slammed it into the ground. The earth wrenched apart, the cracks shooting toward Gladdic's feet. Dust boiled into the air. Screams went up from around the plaza. Even the Andrac stopped to watch.
Mist glowed around Gladdic's hands and rained to the ground. Dante could feel the cracking stone suddenly yearning to retake the shape it had just lost. The advance of the crevice, once lightning-fast, slowed to a crawl.
Gladdic stepped aside, dust sifting onto his robe as he considered the cracks. "Are you proud to destroy? Is that why you are here? Not to help, but to start a war and watch everything burn?"
Dante turned and ran.
Gladdic splayed his hand. Light winged toward Dante's back. He batted it down with a clumsy lump of shadows. Across the plaza, Blays popped back into being, drenched with sweat and covered in cuts. His swords were spotted with black stains. He dovetailed to meet Dante.
"Well that didn't work," Blays said. "What now?"
Dante glanced over his shoulder. The new demon was sticking close to Gladdic. "I'm currently executing the only idea I've got left."
Across the square, the Colleners were being pushed back into the buildings. Jodd was near their front, calling them to hold against the swords and ether of their foes. As Dante watched, he fell, lost within the melee. The first Andrac loped to join the battle.
"The city's lost." A cold weight sat in Dante's stomach. "We have to get out."
He veered to his right, where a small group of wheelers and infantry were engaged in an all-out fight with a group of bluecoats. As Dante neared them, he brought the nether flocking to him like silent ravens. His fury forged the shadows into blades and spears which he hurled into the backs of the Mallish soldiers. Limbs and heads fell in piles.
The Colleners cried out in shock, scrambling back. Dante's hold on the shadows was now shaky, close to depleted. But striking down the Mallish was the first time he'd felt good that day. Among the wheelers, Cord looked up from the bleeding pieces to stare at Dante.
Sweaty strands of blond hair swayed across her face. "I thought it was my day to die."
"Not quite yet." Dante glanced back toward Gladdic, but the priest had stopped near the road to the butte and was engaged in a vigorous argument with a blue-clad officer. "Jodd's fallen. The city won't last much longer. We have to get out—but there's work for us to do first."
"I will die before I give my city over to the Mallish!"
She was taller than him and her shoulders were broader, but he stepped in her path, putting his face a foot from hers. "Collen is lost. Nothing you can do here will stop that. Die, if that's what you wish. But if you live and help me, we will return. And we will kill every last one of the invaders."
Cord planted the blunt ball of the wheel on the ground. "What do you need?"
"To get the Keeper of the Reborn Shrine out of here. We'll need a guide. A little extra muscle won't hurt, either."
"The Keeper." She gazed across the plaza. Her face and armor were spotted with blood. "He's real?"
"And we need to get them out of here. Send your friends to evacuate whoever else they can."
As Cord relayed orders to the other soldiers, a figure ran toward them from the cover of the buildings. Naran was limping, blood trickling down his left leg. Dante escorted him behind a row of shops.
"Gladdic lives," Naran said sadly.
"Time to ensure we do the same," Dante said. "Are you strong enough to walk?"
Naran didn't so much as glance at his leg. "I've suffered worse."
"I need to conserve what's left of my powers. But you tell me if you can't go on."
Blays and Cord came around the corner and jogged toward them. Cord's eyes smoldered like twin forges. "This way. Before I have the chance to remember my honor."
She broke into a loose run. The others followed. Blays glanced at Naran's leg, then turned to Dante. "This hasn't been our best day, has it?"
"One of my least favorite this year," he said. "But it's going to get a lot better as soon as we're away from the Andrac."
Screams echoed behind them, increasingly distant. Within a minute, the streets grew so quiet that two people standing at opposite ends of the block could have held a conversation without raising their voices.
"Cord," Dante said. "Is there another way out of here besides the road?"
She chuckled humorlessly. "Do you think this is the first time someone in the city has had to sneak past an invading army?"
When they were halfway to the shrine, boots pounded down the street. Their group took cover beneath a raised porch. A platoon of bluecoats ran through the intersection, swords drawn. As their steps receded, Cord rolled from beneath the porch.
Her jaw jutted forward. "There were only eight. We could have killed them in less time than it took to hide."
Blays glanced back. "Could we have killed them before their screams alerted the demons to our whereabouts?"
She went silent and led on. Dante's mind churned. After Gladdic had summoned the second Star-Eater to protect him, he should have sent the first after Dante. Instead, it had pursued its own aims, chasing after the Colleners, giving Dante and the others the chance to light out. Maybe Gladdic was so confident in his conquering of the city that he thought he'd be able to hunt Dante down at his leisure.
But maybe his command of the Andrac wasn't total. Maybe he couldn't point them at a specific target, but only in a general direction. Overall, it hadn't made a difference to the course of the battle, but it had absolutely saved their lives.
The Reborn Shrine was deserted. The bronze doors were locked. Dante pounded on them until his fists grew sore. Just as he was summoning the shadows to cut through the lock, the latch clicked and the door cracked open.
"Dante." Hodd's eyes darted between those who stood on the steps. "Er. Is the battle over so quickly?"
"And we lost," Dante said. "I have to see the Keeper before the Mallish get here."
Hodd shrank away from the door, as if he could deny the unwelcome news from getting inside. "But if they come here…will you protect the shrine?"
"If we could protect the shrine, we wouldn't have to, because we'd have already kicked their asses down the cliffs. Hodd, there's no time to waste."
The young monk nodded, then again, harder. He allowed them inside and brought them to the inner room where Dante had first met the Keeper. Hodd withdrew to send the message that there were visitors. Rather than being met by Treader to be escorted downstairs, the Keeper herself entered through the side door.
Her pale blue eyes moved between each of them. "You shouldn't be here."
Dante stepped toward her. "Neither should you. Mallon's taking the city. Their soldiers will be in this shrine by night's end."
"The Keeper stays. That's how it has always been. They destroy the shrine. And the Keeper lives on."
"Gladdic's going to rip this place to the ground. He's far too cunning to miss what's concealed beneath it—or who."
"I must stay. That is my vow. To renounce it is to renounce my people."
"I don't think they'll consider themselves renounced by your departure after you've helped to save them."
"How will I do that?"
"You might not know how to destroy the demons," Dante said. "But we can figure that out together. We'll break Gladdic's weapons and take back the city."
The Keeper drew back her lips, revealing gaps between her yellowed teeth. "The Keeper is supposed to stay outside of the events of the world. That is what allows her to remember those events clearly, without the distortions that arise from participating in them."
"And the High Priest of Narashtovik isn't supposed to involve his people in wars that have nothing to do with them. Yet here I am."
She closed her eyes. "I always promised myself that if they found my rooms and burned my books—our land's own history—then I would burn with them."
"That's an awful promise," Blays said. "Let's break it at once."
"Destroying the Andrac won't destroy the armies of Mallon. I see four people before me. I know the famed Dante Galand is a great sorcerer. But as today proves, even he can't defeat an army by himself."
"I can't." Dante glanced at Cord. "But I'm guessing the other towns in Collen will contribute to the cause."
Cord bared her teeth. "Any true Collener will drop their plows and take up the sword."
"While we pursue that, I expect to be in touch with my city any day now. I'll bring down more sorcerers. Troops, if we need them. Collen doesn't have to be alone."
The Keeper frowned at him, the skin sagging from her ancient neck. "Why would you do this for us?"
"Because I'll do whatever it takes to keep Narashtovik safe. After what's happened today, if Mallon takes Collen, they'll come for us next." Dante held her gaze. "But I don't think they'd ever reach our city. The real reason I'm here? Your people are in the same place mine were with Gask. I'll burn Bressel to ashes if that's what it takes to free you."
She stared back—then began to laugh, the frog-like sound bouncing off the stone walls. "You prey on people. Find their deepest wish and promise to make it come true, knowing they'll follow you off a cliff to pursue it." She tilted back her head to take in the high arched ceiling. "Wait here."
The Keeper shuffled through the door to the lower levels.
"So much for staying uninvolved," Blays muttered. "Promising to set Collen free from Mallish rule? I'm starting to think we should never leave home."
"I wanted to stay put," Dante said. "You're the one who convinced me I had to go see my father before he died. If we hadn't gone to the Plagued Islands, none of this would be happening."
"You're right. Once again, devotion to family has ruined everything."
Cord gave them an impressed look. "You were in the Plagued Islands?"
"That's what brought us here," Dante said. "We may have fought a sort of…war. Mallon had turned the locals against each other in order to extract the islands' treasures."
"That news wouldn't surprise a blind dog. Mallon's eyes are restless for whatever they can take."
"How do you know about the islands?" Blays said. "Last I checked, Collen was a little short on oceans."
"That is the point!" Cord grinned, throwing her arms wide. "The basin is landlocked, yet home to one of the most honored sea captains. Collen always finds a way."
Naran rolled his lower lip between his teeth. "Which captain is this?"
"Mariola Twill, captain of the Sword of the South. She's bedeviled the royal navy for years!" She glanced between them, grin fading away. "Something is wrong."
Naran lowered himself to one knee. "I served with Captain Twill on her ship. When she fell ill with the Weeping End, Dante saved her life. In exchange, she provided these men passage to the Plagued Islands. For this crime, Gladdic arrested her—and executed her with his own hand."
Cord's hands curled into fists, face darkening like t
he clouds above Arawn's Mill. "This filth is in our city and we're running from him? The gods will spit on our backs."
"We've pledged to kill him in revenge," Dante said. "That's what brought us here in the first place."
"Then I'm glad I didn't claim my deathright today. I can't die happy until I've seen Gladdic's corpse rotting in the sun." She drew a knife and cut her palm, allowing her blood to drip down her fingers to the ground. "As my blood waters the earth, this oath waters my soul. I will help you kill Gladdic—and if I reach him first, I'll kill him myself."
Blays clapped. "Excellent. It'll be a race, then. Except when one person wins, we all do."
After another minute, the side door reopened, revealing the Keeper. "My apprentices choose to remain here. Thus if I don't return, there will be a new Keeper." She headed toward the main doors, then glanced back at Dante. "What are you waiting for, promise-maker?"
Dante jogged to catch up with her. On their way through the main hall, Hodd wandered out from a cell, blinking at them. "Where are you going?"
"We're leaving the city," Dante said. "The invaders will come for this shrine tonight. We'll return when we're ready, but until then, you have to keep yourself safe."
"Ah. Safe. How do I do that?"
Dante hesitated mid-step. "I don't know."
Hodd was still staring as they exited the shrine. In the courtyard, the Keeper drew to a halt, lifting her face to the setting sun.
Dante glanced up. "Something the matter?"
Her nostrils flared. "I haven't felt the sun or smelled the open air since I made my vow to the Pastkeepers."
"You're a talented woman. Walk and smell at the same time."
She gave him a barbed look, then honked with laughter. "And I haven't had someone speak to me that way in almost as long."
She tottered forward. Cord took the lead, head swiveling to all sides. Naran's limp had worsened, but the Keeper was no faster.
Dante made himself match her pace. "Cord, how far are we from the other exit?"
"A long mile. It'll be even longer if we run into a patrol." She turned to the Keeper. "Are you one of those stuffy priests whose dignity is more important than doing what you need to do?"
The Silver Thief Page 23
