Silverkin, page 29
Lantern fire blazed from the alley ahead of them, bathing them all in brilliance. Past the piercing light stood a wall of Bandit soldiers, crossbows leveled.
“Behind me!” Xenon snarled, shoving in front of Thealos. He whistled sharply, a battle cry. Blue light lit up the alley as the leaf-bladed swords came up.
The Bandits didn’t hesitate. “Loose!”
Thealos was faster than them all.
Knocking Xenon to the ground, he tugged Stasy behind him and charged the Bandits. The crossbow stocks shuddered as the bolts converged on him, but the Oath magic seethed inside and the bolts strayed to each side, clacking and spattering on the timber alley walls. He let go of Ticastasy’s hand so that he could surge even faster, whipping his blade around in a whirlwind. The magic swelled inside him.
How many soldiers were there? A dozen? More? He felt the razor edge cut through hauberk and skin, slashing, cutting, slicing as he whip-wheeled it through the maze of Bandit soldiers. The Silvan magic in it flared like a spike of sun. An officer in black and gold charged him, but Thealos caught the man’s hilt with his free hand and sheared his head off with a single stroke. Nausea rose up at the sight of his victim, but the wellspring swallowed the memory, taking his experience and adding it to the whole. Wolfsmen joined the fray, their leaf-blades slicing through the charge of bodies. Their howls filled the air and he felt part of them—as if their blades, in some small way, allowed them a feathery light touch on the wellspring itself. But their drink came in sips while his was a flood.
The wellspring gave it to him—all of it—the Way of Ice and Shadows. A fighting art that had existed since the Shae arrived on Safehome. As hard and impervious as a glacier crushing a mountain in its wake. As soft and subtle as autumn shadows beneath aspen trees. A combination of styles with a devastating effect. It would take years to practice all the motions, all the weapons, all the stances—to embed them all into his own mind without needing the wellspring. It could take a lifetime.
The wellspring warned him against the distraction of contemplating it too closely, and Thealos sidestepped a thrust towards his ribs and brought his elbow cocking into the man’s teeth, bringing him down to the cobbles and following with a strike that would leave him gasping for air.
The Bandits were dead, not a single Wolfsman lost.
Thealos felt the eddies of the Oath magic swirl and fade and his body shuddered from what it had just done. Muscles and joints screamed, his knuckles cut and bruised. He felt himself sway but managed to keep his feet. It took all his willpower not to vomit again. Too much magic. Too soon. Ban it, how am I going to get to the Crystal without using more?
Xenon stared at him, his eyes wide.
The secret was out.
A look of comprehension flooded the Wolfsman’s eyes. He recognized what he saw but it was incomprehensible to him.
“How?” His voice choked off. “How can you…fight like us? You are just a boy…you haven’t been trained. It’s not…it’s Forbidden. How can you know this?”
Thealos stared into his eyes, but he felt all of them looking at him. Even Stasy stared at him, mouth gaping.
What to tell them? What would they be able to understand? He was forbidden to discuss the Nine Oaths—even to mention them.
“It’s a different path than the one you’ve chosen, Xenon. But it came from the same source. You’ve only been taught a part of it.”
The Lor shook his head, his eyes clenching tight. “I have trained since before you were born! It is…unnatural.”
Thealos’ temper snapped. “Unnatural? I watched you fight, Xenon. If you only knew how much of your own Way has been lost because you’ve had to rely on someone’s memory to teach you. There is more of your Way than you will never know. Than all the grand Lors of your order can remember. It is more than memory, Xenon. You’ve tasted but the crust of it.”
The implications seemed to stagger the rest of them. Many looked at him with grudging respect.
He looked at Xenon, drained. “I can’t do this alone. If there are too many soldiers below, I won’t be able to defeat them all. No Sleepwalker can last forever. Our strength does fail in the end. I need you—I need you all. Let’s get down there before the Sorian destroy everything.”
Turning back, he watched a smile quirk Ticastasy’s mouth. Good job, Quickfellow, she seemed to say with her eyes. You put him in his place at long last.
He would have basked in that realization if his stomach weren’t churning so much. “When the dawn comes, we won’t be able to hide our movements. I don’t see a lick of fog this morning. There isn’t much time left.”
Another massive shudder jolted the city.
* * *
Exeres’ eyes burned with the spray of cinders. Smoke billowed through the tunnels and he coughed and gagged. Soldiers cried hoarsely to flee. Shouts of warning flitted through the gaps and tilting pathways of the tunnels.
Justin’s hands reached out and another spray of flames came wreathing from the orb, slicing through the fleeing soldiers, charring them to ash motes. The smell of it, the sickening flavor of crisp human flesh, along with the pulsing black odors of the magic itself, made him gag until he retched. Forbidden. It was Forbidden to kill so indiscriminately. The part of him that was a Zerite wept for the fallen, even though they were Bandit soldiers. He had been trained to heal, not destroy.
“Hurry, priest!”
The jerking strings tugged again and Exeres came after. The soldiers who had barred the way were gone, revealing Mage in his black robes. His face was gray with dust and fatigue, his mouth twisted with rage.
Seeing him ahead, Justin let out a cry and the Firekin swelled like a thousand candles, jetting gusts of impish flames down the length of the corridor, blackening the walls further. Mage absorbed the blow with a shrug and sent the flames careening back against them.
“Now, priest!”
Exeres held up the Bloodstone and it swallowed the fires, burning so hot in his hand that he yelped and nearly dropped it. But the stub of Everoot he clutched healed the blisters and sent soothing shocks through him.
It was close. They were close now. Mage hunched only a few dozen paces ahead of them, backing slowly away from them towards the prison cells. The walls shuddered and the forces of their wills bucked and rammed each other.
Then he remembered what the woman had told him. The woman with the golden hair—Altheas.
What memory would the door to Mage’s mind be hiding behind?
It struck him as insights often did—with a clarity that defied any attempt to explain it. It was the first memory that popped into his mind—the first time he had met with Mage and Tsyrke in the tunnels. Jaerod had told him to bring a message without telling him what it was. He had stood before them both, feeling like an utter fool before Mage had slammed him with magic and thought he could not hear.
Every detail of the room seemed to recall itself vividly. The desk with the mound of papers on it. The susurration of the floor rushes. Chests carved with sailor’s symbols. A red cloak that seemed threadbare in places. The whiskers on Tsyrke’s chin. The penetrating eyes of Mage, so clear and piercing.
I can make him remember anything.
Part of his mind opened like a door.
Mage’s voice rushed at him.
—The Key! How did you find it! —
Miestri shoved through Exeres and dragged him into Mage’s mind with her. He swayed and clutched his skull, for he believed it would burst like a melon. Laughter echoed inside him. He heard their voices ringing though the words that were not said.
—Our little game ends here, old man—
—You haven’t bested me yet—
—I don’t need to. The Shae boy is going to the Crystal. I just need to hold you here until he gets it—
—It will destroy you as well—
—I think not. I am still in the Shadows Wood—
—You think he will not use it on you next? —
—Don’t you understand, old man? This has all gone according to my plans—
Explosions rocked the tunnels as Justin sent wave after wave of energy at Mage. Rock fragments blasted loose, striking and spinning at odd angles through the smoke-filled corridor.
—I bested you in Castun—
—I let you. I can control three or four. You haven’t done it in so long it tires you—
—I stopped doing it because of what it does to them. You’re killing them both—
—Save your regrets for the dead of Sol-don-Orai—
—How many of us are left, little one? Are we the last?—
—Are you getting sentimental? —
—But how do you know you are far enough away? —
Justin spun from his feet and struck the wall, his face contorting with pain before he squeezed more Everoot and it healed him again.
—Because I took the records, old fool. I know what the Mages left here. I know what it does to the one who wields it. He won’t be able to use it again. He will destroy you and then it is mine—
Through the blur of words thudding in his mind, he saw Justin inching closer to Mage. They were only twelve paces apart now, so close their magic gusts blasted in the fringes.
—If I give my Firekin to you, will you let them live? —
—You don’t plead for yourself? I’m disappointed in you, brother—
—Will you let them live? —
—What does it matter? —
—Will you let them live? —
—You already know the answer to that, old man. They know far too much—
Exeres knew Mage’s thought before it whispered in his mind.
—Then I’ll kill them both for you! —
A wall of light and heat surged from Mage, white-hot in intensity, horrible in its weight. It went through the Bloodstone, through the rocks, through his seared soul. Blisters pocked on Exeres’ face, chest, legs, and arms. Justin screamed as the same happened to him. He felt his inner parts ravage loose and split. His eyes swelled with blood. He couldn’t see.
Except he could. Through his blind eye.
Something Mage had told him whispered back from the past—in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
From his blind eye, he could see Mage, struggling to keep his feet, to continue the attack that would destroy them as well as anyone else who visited the tunnels for years to come. It would cause a wasting sickness and death to anyone nearby.
If he could hold the Firekin for a few more seconds.
Exeres reached through Mage’s mind and forced him to drop it.
Chapter XXXI
Thealos dodged to the left and struck the soldier in the jawbone with the heel of his palm. Bringing his knee up into the man’s stomach, he dropped the scar-faced man and then glanced to the other side as a second soldier on the battlement wall rushed him with an axe. He ducked the blow and maneuvered his sword into the opening of the man’s hauberk and drove the point through until it emerged, gleaming with white-hot Silvan magic and blood, from the other side. The soldier stiffened with shock, his eyes and lips quivering with pain and fear, and he slumped over and bled.
“Rope’s secure! Down!” Xenon shouted.
Thealos motioned for Stasy to hurry up the inner wall steps. A Wolfsman had fallen, caught in the back by a crossbow, and his Life magic still throbbed in the air, linking all the warriors together with a bond of Silvan magic. The other quaere members lashed out in response, cutting and hacking through the battlement guard despite the rush of reinforcements coming from both sides.
Sweat streaked down Ticastasy’s face, her lips strained as she took the steps two at a time. He met her partway down, hearing the whir of bolts clatter and clack as the crossbowmen from the tower aimed down at them. Thealos grasped her hand and pulled her up the rest of the way and helped her to the first of three ropes. Two Wolfsmen shimmied down, hand over hand.
“This is madness!” Xenon said, his face contorted into an angry snarl. He ducked a blow and spun around, slashing through the hauberk and sending another Bandit soldier to his death. “Down! Get down!”
Ticastasy swung over the battlement wall and started down the length.
“Down, Quickfellow! You next!”
Thealos swiped another soldier as he slipped through the brunt of the quaere’s defenses. “No! I’m the last. Get down, all of you!”
The sun crested in the pale blue eastern sky, jabbing its light into the furthest reaches of the horizon. The shadows of the city still smothered their position, offering precious minutes before they would become the spectacle for all to see. Confusion reigned in Landmoor. Tremors rocked her heels. A tower on the southern wall had already crumbled, spitting up a plume of dust and smoke. He could hear the shudder and crunch of an army on the move, of horses screaming.
Xenon ordered three Wolfsmen down the ropes and closed ranks to protect the lines. “Get down there, you fool! Someone has to protect the ropes!”
Thealos whirled and glared at him, his skull aching with sharp needles of pain. The Oath magic protected him, but he felt weary of it. His arms and legs groaned against the exertions he had scarcely healed from.
“I don’t need the banned ropes! Get down there and I’ll watch the ends until you’re safe. Go! She’s almost down!”
Xenon’s eyes flickered with unspeakable hatred, but he bit off any retort and threw himself over the battlement walls, skidding down the ropes. Thealos saw other Bandits approach, warily, guardedly. He stared at them each way, his sword lowered but dripping blood. With the magic, he projected fear into their stomachs. You don’t want to face me. I am a Sleepwalker. You will die if you do. The wind stirred his black cloak.
The last of his group reached the base of the shortest battlement wall. He sliced the ropes with single stroke.
“Kill him! Kill the Shaden rook!”
Thealos jumped over the side and felt the wind rush as it met him. He focused on the Oath magic and felt it respond—sluggishly. The Earth magic strained and then swelled in the air around him, slowing his fall until he landed with a bone-jarring thump. He nearly blacked out.
“Sweet Hate, are you all right?” Stasy clutched at his clothes, her eyes wild with fear.
He nodded, knees screaming, and started down the side of the hill. The dawn touched the contours of the valley lowlands with touches of green and brown. Outside the city, the sound rose up from the earth and reverberated in his ears like distant thunder. Hoofbeats, a thousand strong. From the west rode an army—the army of the knights of Owen Draw—banners flapping with the gait of the mounts. The jangle of armor and harness, steel and spur, rose like a chorus to his ears. The Wolfsmen saw it as well, watching as waves of silver caught the glint of the morning sun.
“Hurry!” Thealos yelled and grabbed Ticastasy’s hand once again, pulling her down the slope of the hill. They bounded over rocks and loose creases of earth, the angle so steep he feared they’d both tumble.
They reached a sheer embankment of stone and had to scrabble to the side to find a path down. No army could assault from this side. Yet he knew about fifty paces lower he would find the entrance to the tunnels.
A sharp scree split the air from a half-dozen alerion, circling in the sea of blue above them. A thrill went through Thealos’ heart seeing the majestic creatures. Four of them hung poised in the air and then swooped down to the western slopes of the hill. Thealos recognized Allavin on one of them. A hail of arrows volleyed from the Shae riders, striking soldiers and horsemen at the base of the hill.
After bounding down the last of the slope, Thealos found four alerion waiting for them amidst the fallen corpses of Bandit soldiers left to guard the tunnel entrance. Allavin straightened in the stirrups of the riding harness and waved his longbow over head.
“Allavin!” Thealos shouted, running up with Ticastasy to the base of the brightly plumed alerion. A Shae rider twitched a crop and adjusted his knees to soothe the beast.
“Lad, mount up! You’re in danger here! Hurry!”
“What? What’s happening?”
“Ballinaire’s coming this way with two hundred Kiran Thall. Yes, ban it, Ballinaire himself!”
“What about the knights?”
“Too far! Ballinaire will get here first. Half his army is up the hill already. The rest of the Kiran Thall are forming a rearguard. The Shae army is on the other side, blind to what’s going on over here. Mount up, lad! Do you have it?”
Thealos hunched forward, gulping for air. No time. No time again. He clenched his jaw with frustration. Leave Landmoor again without the Silverkin? Leave Ballinaire in control of the city?
He looked up at Allavin. “I don’t have it yet. Warn the knights to fall back. The Kiran Thall have Deathbane. I’ve seen what it does to them, Allavin. Tell Shearmur to fall back.”
Allavin’s face tensed. “Ban it, boy! What are you doing here then?”
Thealos nodded. “Fly, Allavin Devers. Get those knights out of here. I’m counting on you.”
“Quickfellow!” Xenon barked in warning.
He turned as the forefront ranks of horsemen charged around the bend in the hill. The sickening reek of Forbidden magic struck him in a wave. The alerion didn’t need to be warned. With a deafening scree, they unfolded their wings and took to the skies again, startling the Bandit horses.
“Into the tunnels!” Thealos yelled.
Dozens of Kiran Thall struck the flanks of their mounts and lunged towards them.
Ballinaire’s voice rose thick and powerful. “Cut them down! Cut them all down!”
A crossbow twanged, striking one of the Wolfsmen in the shoulder. A scream ripped from his lips as the tainted tip snatched his life away, turning his flesh into ash. Six Wolfsmen charged into the tunnels.
