“Yes, Lady Haral,” the rough-voiced angel said. Kitania suspected that he was the second-in-command, considering he’d been relaying the orders so far.
The two angels who had been dealing with Kitania so far roughly repositioned her, shoving her legs beneath Kitania to put her into a vaguely kneeling position, and she could hear others moving in the room as well. Kitania’s arms were bound behind her back, which was uncomfortable but tolerable.
“Oh, and gag the princess. I don’t want to have to deal with her inevitable threats or demands. It isn’t as though she’ll be able to do anything, but I’d rather not hear it,” Haral added, her voice calm as could be, which stoked Kitania’s anger higher. What had Niadra done to deserve any of this? The angel continued, almost as if answering Kitania’s unvoiced thoughts. “She consorted with a demon, and that’s more than enough to seal her fate.”
Kitania resisted the urge to retort, continuing to pretend to be unconscious. After a few moments, the rough-voiced man began to cast a spell, surprising Kitania slightly. She’d have thought he was a warrior from the sound of his voice. A few seconds later, a wave of warmth rushed through Kitania, easing the pain from the earlier mental assault, and she heard a muffled groan from in front of her. Since she thought that must be Niadra, Kitania shook her head and opened her eyes, blinking and raising her gaze to look at the princess and her captors.
Niadra’s eyes were open, and she looked around in confusion, then panic as she bit into the rough gag in her mouth, squirming in the restraints holding her in place. Next to her was a pretty angelic woman, one with blue eyes and blonde hair that flowed to the middle of her back, though she was wearing relatively normal leather armor and boots. Hanging from her belt was a golden whip, and Kitania could practically see magic wreathing it. The woman was staring at Kitania disdainfully, and around them were six more angels, half men and half women, all of them armed.
“Well, isn’t this a surprise? Angels in a hole in the ground, having kidnapped a descendant of Alserah?” Kitania said, her tone biting as she glanced around, twisting her arms to test the ropes restraining her. “Not that I’m surprised that your kind seems to prefer ambushes. It isn’t the first time I’ve run into them.”
Haral’s expression didn’t change, but Kitania saw her move. If it hadn’t been for the two angels holding her in place, she would’ve been able to flop to the side, but instead she had no choice but to take the angel’s kick in the stomach. Pain blasted through her as the air was driven from Kitania’s lungs, and the angel spoke flatly.
“Silence, hellspawn. You may speak when I ask questions, and at no other point. If you answer them, I’ll give you the solace of a relatively easy death. If not, I’m going to make even your afterlife a torment beyond measure,” Haral said, adjusting her stance as she stared at Kitania, her gaze merciless.
“Heh.” Kitania managed a faint laugh between gasping for breath, but that was all. She could see the panic in Niadra’s eyes, but there wasn’t anything she could do. Maybe she should have tried fighting earlier after all, even if it’d seemed like a bad idea. It was too late to wonder now, though.
“You mentioned others. How did you get sent to Alserah’s palace? What happened before that?” Haral demanded, glaring at Kitania.
Kitania took a breath, working up a bit of saliva, and then she spat on the angel, managing to hit her leg as she did so and grinned, replying angrily. “Why don’t you go find out yourself, if you’re so brave? Attacking a carriage full of those who’re entirely unaware of your presence, then questioning a helpless demon… how very noble of you.”
“Hm. I see we’re not going to get anywhere with this, but I really didn’t expect us to,” Haral said, grimacing as she looked down at the saliva in revulsion. “Ailla, deal with her.”
“Yes, Milady,” the woman to Kitania’s left said, taking a step back, and Kitania heard a sword clear its sheath.
As it did, Haral turned to face Niadra, and her voice was as pleasant as someone chatting with a friend at market. “Now, Princess, I suggest you watch the hellspawn closely, because this is the proper way to treat demons, rather than consorting with them. Besides, it’s the last you’ll ever see this one.”
Kitania braced herself, trying to give Niadra a smile as she heard the woman behind her grunt. There was a sharp impact, and then suddenly the world was spinning.
Kitania’s beheading had been much cleaner than the last time she’d experienced one, at least, and she saw blood spraying as her body toppled behind her. The pain was incredibly brief, and she heard Niadra’s muffled scream. At the same time, she felt something tug at her consciousness hard, but it wasn’t able to gain purchase on her. She almost sneered internally at it since she’d felt death magic before.
As her head bounced across the ground, Kitania’s mind began to darken, but she had enough time to hear Haral speak. “Excellent, now clean the sword and give it to me. I want four people to escort me back. The rest of you, dispose of this refuse, then make the princess regret her actions before killing her and the other elf. I expect you to leave before dusk.”
“Yes, Lady Haral,” the angels chorused.
As Kitania’s vision went black, she hoped that no one would notice her regenerating. The sooner that she recovered, the better her chances to rescue Niadra were.
Then she lost consciousness.
Waking up again wasn’t the most pleasant of sensations, especially with how horrible the area around Kitania smelled, even ignoring how her body had reacted to having her head cut off. It didn’t help that she was feeling rather light-headed, but her body would regenerate the blood quickly, if things hadn’t changed. She blinked a few times as her vision cleared, and Kitania was thankful that she rarely had issues remembering what had happened just before one of her near-death experiences, and she spat out some of the dirt that’d crept into her mouth, working up saliva again.
“At least they’re idiots who don’t know how to properly bind demons,” Kitania murmured, rolling her shoulders, then twisting her legs back as she slipped her cord-bound wrists past them. She quickly pulled her hands up to her mouth and used her fangs to cut through the cord, which had been soaked in blood recently. Obviously, it hadn’t been long since her beheading, which was a relief.
The chamber she was in was relatively small, and Kitania was fairly certain that a couple of trenches in the back had been used as privies. She was mostly thankful that they hadn’t dumped her body in those, but even as it stood, her body was covered in blood, and she was going to abandon her underwear as quickly as possible. The doorway was cordoned off by a curtain, and Kitania eyed it, straining her ears, then resisted the urge to swear loudly.
She could only barely hear the muffled sounds of screaming, and Kitania’s anger flared brightly. It pretty much destroyed all her pity for the angels, and she hadn’t had much to begin with. The sound of footsteps approaching caused her to stiffen, though. Taking stock of her situation, Kitania realized that her belt pouch was missing, as was her new bracelet, and she didn’t even have shoes.
“You’re sure you aren’t going to wait? The monster’s body is in there, you know,” a woman said from rather close by, and Kitania blinked, then realized it was the woman who’d beheaded her.
“We were waiting half the day for them to arrive, and I didn’t dare leave to deal with my business while we were in position,” a man retorted, sounding quite annoyed. “I can’t wait. Besides, it’s just a body. What does it care if I need to piss?”
“Suit yourself,” Ailla replied, and Kitania heard one pair of footsteps coming closer.
Kitania quickly moved to the wall and flexed her fingers, her thoughts going even colder as the man approached. It had been a while since she’d been in a situation like this, but if she remembered right, there were no more than a dozen angels, and Haral had said that she was taking four of them with her as an escort. That meant that there were probably seven or eight left at most, unless more had been here
initially. If she could take them a few at a time, she could deal with them easily enough. If she didn’t hold back, at least, and in her current mood, that was just fine with Kitania.
The curtain was brushed aside as an angel stooped to step inside, then straightened. Kitania took a smooth step behind him, thankful that her light-headedness had faded, and his gaze settled on where she’d been laying. He began speaking an instant later but reacted far too slowly. “What the—”
Kitania’s right hand clamped down over his mouth at that moment, and she put her left to the back of his head and snapped his neck in a single fluid movement. The body crumpled to the floor, and Kitania calmly unsheathed his sword and the dagger that’d been on the man’s belt.
“Collin? What was that?” Ailla called out, her footsteps pausing in the hallway.
Kitania hesitated only a moment, then stabbed the dagger into the angel’s body, creating a meaty sound as she stepped back to the side, holding the sword in both hands. It was a little large for her, but she could manage it for the moment.
“You just wanted to mutilate the demon’s body, didn’t you?” Ailla said accusingly, her voice growing louder as the angel approached. “I should kick your ass for lying about it, you know. Lord of Light, you’d almost think you were embarrassed about hating demons!”
The curtain swept aside again, and the instant that Kitania saw the brunette’s head, she swung the sword. Ailla’s eyes only had an instant to start widening at the sight of Collin before the sword hit her in the neck. It didn’t quite behead the woman as the blade struck bone, but Ailla staggered back a step, clutching at her throat as her mouth worked, her eyes filled with shock as she saw Kitania, and her left hand fumbled for the sword at her side.
“Surprise, the shoe is on the other foot now, isn’t it?” Kitania murmured softly, kicking the woman sideways, then finished her off with another stroke of the sword. The blade was a little long for the cramped confines of the room, but she didn’t need lots of precision at the moment.
The angel’s head dropped to the ground alongside her body, and Kitania let out a sigh, considering for a moment, then scowled as she saw both her bracelet and belt pouch on the angel’s belt, each mostly cleaned off, and with only faint signs of blood adorning them. Growling under her breath, Kitania removed the items and quickly cast a couple of defensive spells, then slipped off her underwear and tossed them toward the privies. Only then did she cast another spell, this time using telekinesis which extended from her hands in a purple mist that drew the weapons the angels had possessed aside from the sword Kitania was wielding. Two daggers, a rapier, and fifteen arrows hung in the air, surrounded by purple light.
Pausing, Kitania glanced down, then traded her sword for a dagger, which she used to cut her skirt short. Then she pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the hallway. The sounds of pain, likely from Niadra, led her down the hall, and she resisted the urge to rush as she paused to check the rooms along the way. One was a makeshift pantry, and another was empty, while a third was a barracks. She took a few more weapons from that room, then looked in the room that must be the kitchen.
Inside the room, which barely qualified as a kitchen in Kitania’s opinion, she saw a man crouched down, using tongs and gloves to turn over a couple of iron balls that were in the coals of the fireplace, each of the balls about an inch across and glowing. As she saw him, Kitania heard the man muttering.
“…seems a bit too cruel to me, but he’s the boss. I wondered why he threw these in this morning…” the angel said, then paused, looking toward Kitania. For her part, Kitania’s anger immediately blazed higher, as she realized just how cruel the angels were going to be. So she acted instantly, the purple tendrils of the telekinesis lashing out across the room.
She ripped the balls out of the coals, and one of them slammed into the man’s head like a sling bullet, just as she launched five arrows and the rapier at the angel. He might have had a chance to dodge if she hadn’t hit him with the ball, but that stunned him for long enough that the arrows and rapier slammed into the man mercilessly, silencing him with an arrow to the throat, then she retrieved the balls and rapier as she moved on, now rushing.
She turned a corner and saw the entrance, a woman standing guard as she faced the other direction, the room where Kitania had been killed and where the sounds of pain were coming from to the right. Kitania launched ten more arrows at the woman without pause, ripping the arrows from her quiver with telekinesis as replacements as she burned through still more mana, no longer worried about conserving it. It’d be plenty to deal with the angels here, and more besides. The woman managed a cry of pain, but Kitania doubted the people in the room would realize what it portended in time. She wasn’t going to let it stop her, either.
Thrusting aside the curtain and stepping inside, Kitania took in the room in an instant. The spot where she’d been beheaded was obvious, with the blood soaked into the dirt all around it, and even some on the ceiling. Three angels were in the room, and they were starting to turn toward her in surprise. One had plyers in hand, the one Kitania thought was their leader and a mage, and Kitania could see blood dripping from Niadra’s fingertips, how her fingernails were missing, and most of her fingerbones were broken. An angel was holding a tray of tools for the man as well, while another woman was holding Cecilia to the wall, looking as though she was about to hit her again. Both elves’ faces were bruised, but Cecilia looked like she was in far better condition, and both looked utterly terrified.
“Die,” Kitania said flatly. The weapons she’d acquired flew across the room almost as fast as loosed arrows at her command. A tiny part of her had considered trying to take prisoners, but she was simply too angry, and it was too dangerous.
The glowing iron balls targeted the mage, and Kitania took pleasure in shoving one down his throat, possibly breaking his teeth in the process, and a sword slammed into both of the angels in front of Niadra, spraying blood across the princess as the angels shuddered, then fell. She had to be more careful with the woman holding Cecilia, and the arrows circled slightly before slamming into the woman from the side, piercing her armor surprisingly easily. Kitania realized belatedly that she’d never bothered to see if the weapons were enchanted, but it really didn’t matter.
“H-how… you…” the angel next to the mage gasped, clutching at the rapier embedded in his chest in horror. “Your soul… she took it!”
“She may have tried, but unfortunately for Haral, my soul refuses to be claimed by anyone,” Kitania told him icily, stepping toward him quickly. “That’s good for me, since you dared to torture people for the crime of being my friends. You’re worse than most demons, and that takes effort.”
“Blasphemous—” the angel began, but Kitania had heard enough, and shoved a dagger into his throat.
“Shut up,” Kitania said almost idly, flinching as she checked on Niadra. The princess was looking at her in terrified pain, but Kitania could also see the relief in her eyes. Looking at her hands and arms, Kitania winced, then spoke quickly. “One moment and I’ll get you free, Niadra. Hopefully these bastards have a healing potion or two on them… we can get you to the palace and healed either way, but I’d like to mitigate your pain.”
Kitania quickly pulled a knife from the mage’s belt and cut the bindings on the chair, then untied the gag. Before she could react, Niadra lunged forward, wrapping her arms around Kitania as she hugged her and sobbed, her voice frantic.
“Goddess, they were going to… to kill me, like they did you! It hurts so much, and they were going to… to…” Niadra exclaimed, her voice breaking and Kitania could feel the princess’s blood seeping through the back of her dress, and the evidence of her injuries just made Kitania angrier.
“Shh… they’re not going to hurt you anymore.” Kitania tried to soothe the princess, hugging Niadra tightly as she did so. The situation was a disastrous mess, she knew, and she felt herself growing even grimmer as she glanced toward Cecilia, who was still restra
ined. “Calm down, Niadra. I need to free Cecilia, then we’re going to get out of here. We’ll get back to the palace, and Alserah is going to do everything in her power to hunt down the monsters who’re behind this.”
Niadra just began crying harder as she held Kitania, seeming to ignore the pain of her injuries to do so. Kitania let out a soft sigh, and looked over at Cecilia, who was trying to adjust her position on the floor, tears of relief tracking down the handmaiden’s face.
“I think it’ll take a minute before I can help you, Cecilia, but I’ll get you freed as soon as I can,” Kitania promised. The elf looked at her and nodded, and Kitania thought the elf was smiling at her gratefully, but it was hard to tell with the gag in place.
Kitania took a deep breath, then began trying to soothe the princess more, so they could get her out of the pit they were in and healed. Then… then she’d do whatever she could to help deal with Haral.
Chapter 34
“Your Grace, we have a major problem,” Commander Hanrith said, opening the door to her office without even pausing. The utter breach of protocol caused Alserah to freeze in place, and the smile on her face vanished even before she saw how pale Hanrith’s face was.
“What is it, Lord Commander?” Alserah asked, setting down her teacup carefully, worry rushing through her.
“A messenger just returned after leaving the palace. He found Princess Niadra’s carriage on the road halfway between here and Mist, all her guards and the mounts are dead, as are the servants. The princess, Lady Cecilia, and Lady Kitania are all missing,” Hanrith explained flatly. “I’ve dispatched scouts, so that’s all I know at the moment.”
Rage blasted through Alserah, and as it did so, she thought back to her conversation with Kitania, on how she’d ended up in the courtyard of Alserah’s palace. However, just as quickly, she pulled herself up short, intent on not jumping to conclusions. While it was possible that this had something to do with that, it was also possible that Niadra had been the target of bandits who wanted to ransom her. Suicidal bandits, but bandits weren’t necessarily noted for their forethought.
Mortal Gods (Mantles of Power Book 2) Page 28