Warrior Prime, page 31
part #1 of Ink Mage Legacy Series
And again.
He collapsed to his knees, blinked once, then fell over, hand coming open, the scepter skittering across the floor.
Venny stood over him, panting, stunned at what she’d done. She looked at the bloody stiletto in her hand for a moment, then tossed it away in disgust.
Zayda lifted her head. “What . . . just happened?”
“He was going to kill me, I think. Because of the map I was making. I think he killed his apprentice too.” She knelt next to Zayda. “I’m Venny. Can we be on the same side please?”
Zayda tried to tap into the spirit but couldn’t. She reached for it, stretched within herself, but it hovered just out of range. She was exhausted, she realized, body trembling. She needed to flop into a soft bed and sleep for a month.
But there was something to be done first.
She grabbed her collar, took a deep breath, and said, “I want . . . this damn thing . . . off.”
Venny helped her to her feet, and they staggered toward the chair. Zayda moved to sit in it, but Venny stopped her.
“Let’s see if it actually does what he claimed,” Venny said.
Zayda braced herself against one of the worktables, nodded. “Okay.”
Venny reached up with two hands, grabbed the first lever, and pulled down. It thunked into place. For a tense moment, nothing happened. They held their breaths.
Then the muted clunk clank of machinery awakening behind the walls. The floor vibrated beneath their feet. The rods hummed and began to spin, picking up speed, the copper wires now a glowing blur.
And then they saw it. A disturbance in the air between the two rods.
“Like heat waves coming off a hot road,” Venny said.
“Try the next lever,” Zayda told her.
A hesitation, but then Venny nodded, stepped forward, and pulled the second lever.
The big glass tank of liquid metal began to bubble. It flowed down the tubes, and a second later, the rods shifted toward each other, spitting the metal out, two halves forming a ring that hovered within the disturbance in midair.
Once the collar was formed, the rods shifted back, the second lever rising back to its upward position again. The fully formed collar fell, bouncing off the seat’s leather padding.
Zayda edged forward, tentatively plucked the collar from the chair as if half expecting it to burn her. It was cool. And solid.
“He said the final lever would reverse it.”
“You’re not really going to sit there,” Venny said. “Who knows what it’ll do to you?”
“Dead ink mages aren’t worth anything,” Zayda said. “It must be safe.”
She sat in the chair, leaned back against the headrest.
“Do it.”
Venny balked. “I don’t really want to be responsible for—”
“Please. Do it.”
Venny blew out a nervous sigh, took the final lever in both hands, and pulled.
The rods slowed their rotation gradually and then finally stopped altogether. Slowly, they began to spin the other way, picking up speed until they were again a copper blur. Zayda’s hair stood on end.
The rods shifted, moving toward her.
Zayda’s skin crawled. Her teeth vibrated, every bone in her body seeming to hum with the energy of the rods, not painful but strange and frightening.
Maybe this is a bad idea after all.
Bright light began to crowd her vision, becoming brighter and brighter as her sight narrowed, a noise in her mind growing to a roar until finally—
Somebody was helping her up. A voice coming from far away as if at the bottom of a deep well. Zayda blinked, looked up into Venny’s face.
“I said, are you okay?”
Zayda shook her head. “I . . . don’t know.” Had she fallen out of the chair? She looked back. The rods were still now, all the levers in their normal upright positions.
Something was on her hand, gooey and thick. She wiped it on her halter top. Like jelly but glinting metallic.
Zayda gasped.
“It just melted off,” Venny said.
Zayda’s hand went to her throat. When she didn’t feel the collar, her other hand came up reflexively, feeling all around her as if she couldn’t believe what had happened.
“It’s off,” Venny confirmed. “You’re free.”
Zayda stared at the other woman for a moment.
Then she broke down into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.
She fell into Venny’s arms, and the other woman patted her on the back. Zayda’s whole body shook, tears streaming down her face. At last, she pulled away, dragging her arm underneath her nose to wipe away snot, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.
Zayda sniffed. “Venny, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, Venny. I got carried away.”
Free. They said the damn thing would never come off, but I did it. I’m free.
“I’ve never been a slave,” Venny said. “But I imagine I might react the same way.”
Zayda looked around the room. Was the world any different? She wasn’t completely sure how to feel. Her eyes landed on the corpses of the wizard and the other ink mage.
“Are there others with you?” Zayda asked.
“Don’t worry. They didn’t come here,” Venny said. “They’re going to some water source.”
Zayda’s head snapped around. “What?”
“Somewhere else in the city,” Venny said. “The tracker said there was water, and the others—”
Zayda had already tapped into the spirit. It was easy now with the burden of the collar lifted. She was out the door at a dead run. Venny called after her. Zayda ignored the mapmaker.
Peyne!
Tapped into the spirit, Zayda remembered her path perfectly, running at full speed through the darkness, never putting a foot wrong.
She burst through the palace’s front door, flying past the statues, across the wide terrace, and down the steps, eyes turned toward the sky.
The moon was still there, barely. It would set soon, and then dawn would come.
But it’s enough, she thought. It has to be enough.
The moonlight filled her, the glow from her body gradually banishing the night.
She needed to get back to the aquifer dome, back to Peyne. And fast. She remembered how slow the going was crossing the city to get here in the first place, the narrow lanes too often blocked with wreckage. She had to think of something else. Zayda would never get back in time to make a difference if she returned by the same route.
Zayda craned her neck, looked up.
The roofs. They wouldn’t be blocked, would they?
She ran to the nearest building and climbed, the moonlight feeding her speed and strength. Where there were no foot- or handholds, she made her own, gouging into the stonework. Seconds later, she heaved herself up and over and onto the rooftop.
It was clear.
She became a perfect running machine, flashing across the roof, launching herself into the air and landing on the next roof, running and jumping again, a beacon of cold light blazing across the top of the city, the wind a roar in her ears.
The moon set. Her stored power began to fade. It’s enough, she kept telling herself. She was almost to the dome.
The pink-orange of dawn crept over the horizon.
It’s enough.
Maurizan didn’t like the feel of the little knife in her off hand. The balance was all wrong. Tapped into the spirit, she could easily compensate, but that wasn’t the point. She didn’t like it. Didn’t like the limitations, that it would force her to make alternate decisions when countering attacks or initiating her own.
She also didn’t like Hak’s smug face. At all.
They hadn’t fully had the chance to test each other when they’d last met. Zayda had intervened . . . which had been just fine with Maurizan. Hak was all too eager for the rematch.
Maurizan wasn’t.
Yet here we all are. Wonderful.
She spared Peyne a glance. The man watched but seemed to be making no move to help her. Which was for the best. He’d only get in the way, and he was obviously in pain. If she survived her encounter with Hak, she’d need to apologize. She hadn’t enjoyed keeping perfectly still and hiding while listening as Hak had broken Peyne’s fingers one at a time, but it had been necessary. Jaff had needed time to draw the other soldiers away, giving Maurizan a one-on-one chance with the other ink mage.
She hoped Jaff was still alive out there. Not that she could worry about it now.
“Let us make it a duel for the ages.” Hak’s smug grin never wavered. “Something the bards will sing about.”
“I don’t see any bards around,” Maurizan said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll fill them in on every detail,” he assured her.
“What if we just took a pass on the whole thing?” Maurizan suggested. “You go your way, and I’ll go mine.”
Hak’s grin slowly dissolved. “That’s disappointing. Truly.”
“What is it you want, Hak?” Maurizan asked. “To be the best. What would that prove? Who would be impressed? Do you have so little in your life that you feel the need to—”
Hak lunged, would have instantly killed any normal opponent.
His blade sliced through the center of Maurizan’s face.
Except it wasn’t her face.
Her image dissolved into smoke, swirling away as she appeared behind Hak, thrusting her dagger. Hak spun, parried the dagger, and sliced through smoke again on the back swing.
The Phantom Walker tattoo was one of the first she’d gotten after the Prime. She was always just a little ahead of her own image, the enemy constantly striking in the wrong place. In this manner, she danced around Hak, trying to hurt him from the back or sides.
But he was fast. His scimitar would slice through smoke but always return in time to block or parry her own blade.
And then he anticipated her.
He missed with the scimitar again, but when Maurizan reappeared, the Stone Fist was waiting for her. In the tiny fraction of a second between seeing the fist and the fist landing, she switched from Phantom Walker to the Turtle Shell tattoo, the skin all over her body hardening.
The ink was the only thing that saved her.
Instead of her head flying off her body and across the dome, the blow was merely brutally painful, sending her staggering back. She righted herself, blades up, and blinked the stars from her eyes. She felt along the inside of her mouth with her tongue. At least three teeth were loose. She spit blood.
Hak laughed. “Come now. Are you telling me this is not the best sport? That you do not feel alive?”
Maurizan tried to grin back at him and winced. The side of her face was already swelling badly. Her tongue felt thick. She composed herself and said, “There’s a place called the Purple Pirate near the docks in the Red City. The spices in the fish stew will make you feel so alive, you’ll wish you were dead.”
Hak laughed. “Noted. I’ll think of you when I have a bowl.”
Movement at the edge of her vision. Jaff, staggering back into the dome.
And he didn’t look good.
Not for an instant did it occur to Peyne to join the fray. If Maurizan couldn’t handle the big ink mage herself, then they were all screwed. She was apparently holding her own until she suddenly took a savage blow. Peyne had flinched at the sound.
There was a time when he’d have run. Let these two fight it out while he fled. The thought simultaneously appealed and appalled.
A groan and the sound of shuffling pulled him out of his thoughts.
Jaff stumbled into the dome. His right eye was swollen shut, tunic torn, blood down one arm and dripping from his left ear. He held his scimitar loosely, the blade dripping red.
“Jaff,” Peyne whispered.
Jaff looked at him, smiled weakly. “I . . . I got them. I got . . . both. Both of them.”
Peyne frowned. “Are you okay?”
“No.”
A huge shadow loomed behind Jaff, and Peyne shouted, “Jaff, look out!”
Klamud lurched into the dome, swinging his axe. Jaff turned just in time, stumbling backward, the axe passing within two inches of him. One side of the brute was smeared with blood, left arm hanging limp. Jaff brought his scimitar up, his hand shaking, barely able to lift the blade. He backed into Peyne, knocking him over, and kept going.
Klamud ignored Peyne, stepping over him, pressing his attack, lifting the axe one-handed over his head for a kill strike. Jaff was still stumbling back, the tip of his scimitar dragging along the ground. He didn’t have the strength to lift it.
The brute growled. “And now you die. Now Klamud makes an end of you.”
Peyne reached out with his good hand, grabbed one of Klamud’s ankles.
The brute went down, landing hard on Peyne, knocking the wind out of him.
Peyne grunted with the impact. Fucking . . . again.
Jaff threw himself at Klamud, grabbing the arm holding the axe, refused to let go, refused to let the man use the weapon.
Klamud head butted Jaff in the face, and Jaff’s nose flattened, both nostrils shooting blood. Jaff fell back, eyes rolling up.
Peyne reached up, grabbed a fistful of Klamud’s beard. Hang on. Don’t let him do anything. Just hang on.
The grunting brute covered Peyne’s ruined hand with an enormous paw. And squeezed. Already broken bones crunched like dry twigs. Peyne wailed.
“Now you die,” Klamud said. “Both you fuckers die.”
A flash of metal, and Klamud sat up stiff. A knife stuck out of his right eye. He twitched, tried to speak, making only awkward gagging sounds, twitched again, and fell dead across Peyne.
Peyne pushed the big man off him. That’s the last time you fall on me, you beefy son of a bitch.
Peyne looked down at his mangled hand, the broken fingers aiming in multiple directions, and fainted.
Even with all her skills, and tapped into the spirit, Maurizan had to admit it.
That was a damn good throw.
And yet at the same time, Maurizan fully realized that pausing to throw the knife and save Peyne’s life had left her open. She turned back to Hak.
Too late.
The Stone Fist caught her on the same side of the face, sent her staggering back. She pushed the pain aside, righted herself, brought her dagger around for—
Hak punched her again, and this time Maurizan went down. Her eyes crossed. She almost faded, but commanded herself to focus, then realized she was being lifted. Hak had her by the throat. He drew his Stone Fist back for a final blow.
“In the end, disappointing after all,” Hak said. “All too easy.”
Maurizan forced herself to remain conscious, clinging to the spirit. Maintaining the Turtle Shell was her only chance.
The Stone Fist connected with Maurizan’s forehead like a charging bull. The sound of the world breaking. Maurizan lifted, flew through the air and across the canal. She landed hard, rolling, and then briefly, lost consciousness.
When her eyes popped open again moments later, she’d lost the Turtle Shell. She looked around, barely able to move, wondering if there was anything that could save her. Peyne lay two feet away, looking too damaged to help himself.
This is it. This is how I die.
Orange light spilled into the dome. Dawn. Good, thought Maurizan absently. Somehow it’s better to die in daylight.
Hak chuckled. “Good all of you are together. We can make an end of it finally.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Hak squinted into the blooming dawn, at the silhouette of the girl standing there.
Zayda.
Hak frowned. The last time he’d faced Zayda, he hadn’t had the better end of it.
Zayda slipped into the canal, strode toward him through the water. Hak watched her come and stepped back when she climbed up into the aquifer chamber. He seemed unsure of himself, and after their battle in the Last Village, Maurizan couldn’t blame him.
They faced each other.
“Whatever you’ve planned for my friends, you can forget it,” Zayda said. “Because I’m here to stop you.”
Well, thank Dumo for that, Maurizan thought and passed out.
Zayda lifted both her scimitar and her chin, defiance in her eyes. “You can call off this nonsense. Or you can die.”
Hak was wary, but his eyes narrowed, and he said, “Something’s different.”
Light from the rising sun filled the dome. Zayda was lit with it from behind. She stood tall, legs apart, ready for anything.
“Walk away,” Zayda said. “Or I’ll be forced to destroy you.”
A pause. He considered.
Then a smile lit his eyes. “Where did your glow go, little girl?”
She said nothing, returned his gaze.
“You filled the night with your radiance in the Last Village,” Hak said. “Tell me your secret. Some tattoo of course, but where did you get it? Tell me, and I might let you walk away.”
Her smile was colder than his. What would Peyne say in this situation? “Fuck yourself sideways with a crooked stick.”
Hak charged.
His blade came down hard. She parried, thrust, stepped to the side as he took a backhanded swing at her. The interior of the dome rang with clashing steel. They circled each other, feigning, striking, blocking.
They both stepped back, panting and gleaming with sweat.
“I’ve been waiting to see your other tricks,” Hak said. “I’m guessing you don’t have any.”
Zayda refused to let her fear show. She took the fear and squashed it down into some inaccessible corner of herself. “I don’t need tricks.”
Hak nodded slowly, figuring it out. “Every tattoo has a power,” he said. “And every tattoo has a limitation.”
She said nothing.
“Last time, you made me . . . afraid,” Hak admitted. “It has been a very long time since anything made me afraid. So what’s different?”
His eyes shifted to the fresh daylight creeping across the floor of the dome.
“It was night in the Last Village when we first met, wasn’t it?”
