A pale torso spun in the current to Dante's right. He turned about, scanning the waters as the canoe passed through the bobbing carcasses. They passed Volo's black boat, which was dinged up but intact. It was empty. The canoe scraped to a soft halt in the grass and mud at the edge of the island.
Dante threw himself out, sandals squelching. Naran leaped out behind him. To Dante's right, a slim body lay on the shore. Volo's eyes were closed and her soaked hair clung to the side of her face. Her blood had trickled into the silt and he couldn't tell at a glance whether she was alive. He hesitated, aware that Naran was staring at him, then ran on toward the Knight of Odo Sein.
The man lay on his belly. His left arm was bent at the forearm, broken by his own shield when the blast of ether had knocked him over. Yet he showed only a few surface burns of the bluish variety caused by hostile exposure to the light. Somehow, Gladdic had managed to almost entirely avoid hitting the man with the ether straight on.
Even so, where his lacquered armor had been ripped away, the man's ragged jabat was stained red. Blood leaked from spear wounds and bites deep enough to have torn away flesh. More than one looked potentially fatal. Though the bites were more viscerally disturbing, Dante homed in on the nastiest of the spear wounds, a deep slit on his upper chest that had likely punctured a lung. Nether poured from his hands into the wound, sinking into its depths and sealing severed tissue back together. Pink, bubbly blood—the sign of lung trauma, though the nether had already confirmed that for Dante—was forced outward, dribbling down the man's chest like a clutch of frog's eggs.
As soon as that wound was treated, he moved to the next. Naran stood between him and the top of the low hill, wary for another attack. Dante finished the second wound and shifted to the third, a jab to the liver that would have killed the man in twenty minutes.
The knight gasped, eyes popping open.
"Warlock!" He grabbed the front of Dante's jabat. Golden sparks lit the man's face, spinning in tight patterns around his hands. The nether slammed closed. "Let me go!"
"You stop it with the Odo Sein! I'm trying to help you, you ass-brained moron!"
The man struggled to drag himself away. As he planted the palm of his broken arm against the ground, he gasped again. His eyes rolled back, face paling to nearly the same shade as the Eiden Rane. He collapsed.
The knight's power fell away, releasing the nether. Muttering curses, Dante drew the shadows back to him. The remaining stab wounds didn't look overly serious, so he turned to the bites taken from the flesh, which were gruesome and bleeding badly. Stilling his mind to an empty chamber, he waited for the ether to fill him, then directed it to the largest bite, which filled with a semi-opaque substance. It sealed over with new skin that was a perfect replacement of the old.
With that single action depleting almost half of the ether he could bring to bear, Dante opted to reserve the rest for the time being, patching the other bites with nether. Not as elegant, and it might leave scarring—Dante was rushing it—but the man would live.
That left a broken arm as the only serious wound. Sensing some serious triage in his future, Dante was tempted to leave it be. But with the White Lich close enough to fall upon the city in as little as a day, they'd need the knight at full strength. Dante knitted his bones back together, then closed all but the most superficial of his remaining cuts.
He shot to his feet and motioned to Naran. "Watch over him!"
Only then did he turn and sprint back to Volo, turf flying from his feet.
She lay in the same position as when he'd first seen her. She was still alive, but she had deep gouges in her back, the fringes of her skin blue with ether. The shallow angle of entry suggested she'd ducked as the light ripped over her, or even that she'd attempted to fling herself into the water.
She had bites taken out of her, too. Mostly the arms and shoulders. One had also been inflicted on the right side of her jaw, the skin dangling in a flap.
Dante placed the nether on the ethereal slices in her back. If you didn't know what you were doing, damage caused by ether could be hard to undo, but Dante had treated countless cases over the years. First, he used the nether to snuff out the light remaining in Volo's wounds, and only then closed them up.
He did the best he could to smooth out the skin on her jaw without leaving any marks behind. With the other bites, he filled in the flesh and covered them with new skin, but did little to deal with the cosmetics. She would have scars. Big and strange ones.
But she'd be all right. He wasn't yet sure the same could be said of Aris Osis.
He got to his feet and looked around him for the first time in several minutes. There was some skirmishing going on to the northwest, but it looked to mostly be an interference action.
The real battle was unfolding on the northern of the two islands Blays and Gladdic had gone to assault. There, shadows and light crashed together in storms of black and white motes. Men hurled spears back and forth. One of the Andrac was staggering back from the north shore, bleeding nether like a smoking chimney. For a moment, Dante was taken aback that the enemy had found a way to hurt the demons so quickly, yet it shouldn't have been much of a surprise. The demons had first been created in Tanar Atain. Its sorcerers would also know how to destroy them.
The battle looked far from decided and he itched to join it. Yet the first priority was to remove the knight from harm's way. Could send him deep into the peninsula, but he'd have to accompany them all the way to safeguard against ambushes such as the one sprung by the Blighted. That would prevent him from joining the battle for at least fifteen minutes.
He took a quick look around, confirming there were no enemies nearby, then reached out to the nether on all sides. Didn't seem to be anything lurking or spying. He picked Volo up and slung her over his shoulder, grateful that the Tanarians were lightly built, and brought her over to a chunk of broken wall close to the knight.
"Help me carry him." Dante grabbed the knight's feet while Naran took the shoulders. Dante guided them toward Volo and set the knight beside her.
Naran set his hand on his hip. "Have you forgotten that the canoe is over there? In the water?"
"No time." Dante sank the ground beneath the two wounded, hollowing out a pit, then liquefied the stone wall and drew it over them, concealing them within a space the size of a small room. He left an air hole open on one side, slanting it so that no one could see or shoot into the space. "There. That should do it until we get back."
"And if you die in the field?!"
"Then you'd better make sure you don't." Dante scratched an X in the dirt with his sandal. "You're a pirate, aren't you? This should be fun for you."
"I am an honest merchant. I am only a pirate when a dishonest government declares me one."
Dante was already running for the canoe. He got in and ordered the sailor to make for the southern shore of the northern island.
The crewman slung out his lower jaw. "You mean the island being smashed to bits by sorcery and demons?"
"Yes, that's the one."
"Just checking."
The man shoved off, cutting across the waterway. Dante probed the nether beneath the surface, hunting for Blighted, but he didn't feel anything bigger than fish. To the north, two fleets of canoes rammed into each other, the sailors stabbing at each other with spears.
Under normal circumstances, the peculiar naval action would have been exciting. On the northern island, however, the wounded Andrac had gone as translucent as mist. The nether in its body streamed toward the northern shore, gathering around the hands of a man dressed in a piece of clothing that was difficult to correctly identify, as it had recently been on fire. The nethermancer formed the shadows into slender spears and whipped them into the front line of the Arisian defenders. A low stone wall blew apart, five soldiers tumbling away in pieces.
Gladdic was watching the man from forty yards away, light and darkness orbiting his left hand. Yet he did nothing as the enemy nethermancer lashed out at the
Arisians a second time. The half-burned man raised his hands high in anger, sucking the last of the nether from the dying Andrac, and fired it at Gladdic in a shuddering wave. Gladdic met it with a torrent of shadows and a column of light, hazing the field with black and white sparks.
The air shimmered behind the nethermancer. Two rods of light blazed in the air, purple and black. The figure holding them coalesced the next instant. Blays drove one sword through the nethermancer's back and the other into the base of his neck, then yanked the upper blade to the right and the lower one to the left. The nethereal weapons shredded the man like wilted cabbage.
Arrows zipped toward Blays. He disappeared from sight. Gladdic strode forward, spraying nether into the Monsoon archers.
The canoe hit the shore. Dante vaulted over the prow and onto dry land with such skill he was annoyed that Naran and the crewman were the only ones to see it. He drew his Odo Sein blade, as did Naran, and ran up the low incline. With the nethermancer dead, the Arisians stood and charged. They hammered into the Monsoon lines with the clunk of spears on shields.
Dante was fifty feet from the front lines when Blays reappeared next to him, causing Dante to nearly dampen the front of his jabat.
"Did you find her?" Blays said.
"She's alive. But she's unconscious. She got hit hard."
"I saw. What about the knight?"
"Same with him."
"So everything's in order?"
"Hard as it is to believe, I'd say yes."
"Imagine that. Want to go win a battle, then?"
They joined the front lines, laying about with their Odo Sein weapons while Gladdic pounded at the attackers with both darkness and light. In less than a minute, the Monsoon began to fall back in an orderly retreat, taking to their canoes as others hunkered behind cover, loosing their remaining arrows to prevent the Arisians from overwhelming them. The surrendered field bore as many as three hundred bodies, a mix of dead from both sides.
Gladdic struck out at the archers only to be met by a wall of shadows cast from somewhere out in the water. At a command from an officer, half of the Arisian defenders got up and ran south. Dante was about to shout at them not to be cowards when he realized they were going for their own canoes.
Gladdic limped over to meet them, his face covered in sweat and ash. "We should join the pursuit."
"The Monsoon is broken," Naran said. "The city has already lost more people than it can afford. Perhaps it's better to let them run."
"They have taken hundreds of captives. If we do not reclaim them, the next time we face the lich, we'll be fighting them as Blighted instead."
"The Arisians can't do this themselves," Blays said. "Not as long as the Monsoon's got another sorcerer out there." He slammed his sword into its sheath. "We're bringing the prisoners home."
He turned and ran for the boats. At the shore, Naran grabbed two paddles left behind there. The four of them piled into the canoe that had brought Dante and Naran to the island and joined the swarm of Arisian vessels giving chase to the Monsoon. The three of them that still had two arms took up paddles and thrashed the water for all they were worth. Aided heavily by their crewman, who was fresh-armed while most of the others had recently been in battle, they slowly moved to the front of the chase.
Watching the enemy fleet, Naran counted under his breath, stopping after ten seconds. "We're not gaining quickly enough. They're leading us away from our defenses and toward their reserves. If we extend ourselves all the way to the gates, they will rejoin the remainder of their force and smash us."
Dante had lost track of his dragonfly during the intensity of the healing and fighting. Discovering that it was still flying in slow circles over the southern portion of the city, he brought it speeding forward. Through its eyes, he scouted the route ahead.
He tapped the sailor on the shoulder. "Get us as close as you can. Gladdic, watch for their nethermancer."
He sent a burst of nether into the crewman's muscles. The man grunted and paddled harder yet. They were outpacing the rest of the Arisians, entering the open gap of water between them and the Monsoon. A few arrows sailed toward them, splooshing into the water. Gladdic used a prong of ether to deflect one that appeared to be coming too close.
The Monsoon's armada had initially been strung out in a long line, but had condensed its formation on the move. They were presently streaming through a district of mixed islands and long public docks of merchant stalls. Dante watched closely as they skimmed past one of the docks and entered a watery square where two canals intersected. They paddled through it, entering a tight strait between two islands.
He felt down through the water and into the ground beneath it. A hearty layer of silt rested on top of a bed of clay. Dante moved into the clay, drawing it upwards in a great sweep. It broke the surface of the strait and rose to a height of four feet, cutting off the fraction of Monsoon vessels that had already cruised past it from the bulk of the boats behind them.
Canoes rammed into the wall with hollow thuds. Others back-paddled hard, showering the air with spray. Officers yelled out contradicting orders. One third of the fleet broke to starboard while the larger portion swerved to port. Dante reached into the clay again, ready to block the Monsoon a second time, but the city's defenders were already pouring into the intersection before the strait. They tore into the confused enemy before the Monsoon could escape.
The fight was short but brutal. Though the Monsoon were fellow countrymen—some of whom, most likely, had even grown up in this very city—the Arisians showed them no quarter, skewering them on spears and stabbing them over and over, faces contorted with an anger as red-hot as that of the Blighted. The crime the defenders were punishing them for was much more than rebellion against an emperor. Instead, it was for the treason of selling themselves to a conquerer who would not only take the land, but consume its people.
The handful of prisoners taken were beaten hard, tossed in the bottom of the war canoes, and hauled off for interrogation. The Arisian captives were shuttled south toward the peninsula. The defenders regrouped and headed for the gates. Dante and the others accompanied them, but the Monsoon had already departed north into the woods, taking with them hundreds of citizens and soldiers captured earlier in the fighting. A heated argument broke out between the defenders about whether to give chase.
Dante turned their canoe about and directed them back through the damaged city to the rubble-strewn island where he'd left Volo and the Odo Sein. Except for the dead, the island was deserted. Dante jogged to the smooth rock he'd shaped earlier. The nether was markedly slow to answer his call, lagging resentfully as he used it to open a passage in the side of the rock.
Volo was still unconscious, breathing deeply and slowly, twitching with occasional shudders. The knight moaned as they picked him up and carried him to the canoe. Rather than climbing in with the others, Blays got in Volo's black canoe, which had come to rest a short ways down the shore, and followed them to a tower made of bright orange bricks.
They were greeted by a gray-haired woman named Kina, who thanked them so profusely for their aid that she didn't even remember to insult them for being foreigners. Dante asked for and was granted three rooms, including one that would serve as a hospital. Staff helped put Volo and the knight to bed. Dante observed the two of them for a few minutes, using some of his dwindling supply of nether to heal three wounds that were worse than he'd initially assessed.
Done, he sat back, feeling a headache coming on. "Shall we retire to the other room?"
Gladdic quirked an eyebrow. "For what purpose?"
"To discuss what in the million hells we're going to do now that the White Lich knows we're in the city?"
"I do not question the discussion. I question us leaving this room. Until our task is complete, we should not leave the Knight of Odo Sein alone for a single second. We cannot allow him to come to harm under any circumstances."
"What a wonderful sentiment," Blays said. "Too bad you don't apply it to yo
ur own fucking friends!"
Gladdic looked him in the eye. "You are referring to young Volo."
"No, I'm referring to the fish we ate for breakfast. We're lucky she's alive, you son of a bitch! What were you thinking?"
"My thinking was very simple: that if I allowed the knight to perish, then I would doom everyone in the city. A state of being that would also include Volo."
Blays stalked forward, sandals landing heavily. "Go on and tell me how it had to be done because the greater good and also I'm not looking at the big picture and my head is so soft that you could spread it on a slice of bread. I've heard it all a million times before. You can go ahead and stroke yourself off for being such a decisive leader who's not afraid to make the hard decisions.
"You know what you can't do? Sacrifice your own people. When they're gone, they're gone. They don't get to come back. You don't get to betray them just because you're too fucking stupid and gutless to come up with a better solution. When someone's fought by your side all the way, and they've bled for you and you for them, that forges a sacred bond. When you break it, you forfeit your soul."
Gladdic smiled thinly. "You rage for the sake of poor Volo. Yet if I had slaughtered an innocent soldier to save the knight's life, you would congratulate me on my quickness of mind."
"Are you seriously trying to call me a hypocrite? Of course I don't care about a stranger! But Volo's no stranger, is she? She's one of us. If you're that ready to kill one of us, then you shouldn't be here!"
"I have explained this to you more than once. If that is what is required to dispense with the lich, I am ready to sacrifice any one of us. Including myself."
Blays gripped the hilt of his sword. "Would you like a hand with that? I promise it'll somehow slay the White Lich, too."
The old man narrowed his eyes to slits. "You do not argue this from the mind, as the Odo Sein would train us. Rather, you argue it from the guts, the angry spleen and the festering bowel. What lies at the core of this?"
The Light of Life Page 33
