Plague Arcanist (Frith Chronicles Book 4)

by Shami Stovall

  None of them would take either of my current solutions.

  “Adelgis,” I muttered, my anger gone. “You’ve more than helped me.” I released my shadows on him and his eldrin. “You stayed by my side, even at the risk to yourself, and you did exactly what you said you would—you found me viable cures. You aren’t a failure if I decide to squander your aid. That’s on me.”

  Adelgis pushed himself to his feet, his eyes still unfocused. He said nothing, his breathing shallow.

  I inhaled and then exhaled. “Wake the others.”

  “What’re you planning?” he asked.

  “I want you all to leave. You should head back to the Frith Guild however you can and then warn Guildmaster Eventide that Akiva, the assassin from Thronehold, is after her. Then you should tell her that the leader of the Second Ascension is a man bonded to a gold kirin—and that your father is working for the enemy.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I’m going to free the Mother of Shapeshifters.” I gripped at my shirt, my fingers twisting into the fabric as I clenched my jaw. “And I’m going to destroy this dig site.”

  “There are plague-ridden arcanists guarding this whole area.”

  “I know,” I said, my voice strained. “But I’ll distract them so you all can get away.”

  Adelgis moved closer. “And you think we can escape?”

  “Pirates come here to off load supplies. I’m sure with Karna’s abilities, you’ll manage to find something.”

  “But you won’t be with us,” he said, his tone accusing.

  I didn’t reply.

  Could I handle five plague-ridden arcanists on my own? Maybe. I had the element of surprise on my side, and even if I didn’t manifest it correctly, I still had the option of using my eclipse aura to control the battle. But in all reality, I would probably only get a few of them, and then I’d eventually succumb to their attacks. It would be a big distraction. Enough for a handful of arcanists to escape the Excavation Site without notice.

  And hopefully enough to free the Mother of Shapeshifters.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Adelgis said. “You can escape with us. We can do it without a distraction—perhaps your eclipse aura will be enough.”

  “I’d still be carrying the plague.”

  “We can search for another solution.”

  I forced a sarcastic chuckle. “You said yourself, we don’t have enough time. And most people never find one cure—I’ve spit in destiny’s face by turning down two. She won’t provide me a third.”

  Perhaps Adelgis knew it was futile to fight me—or perhaps he understood now that he wasn’t a failure by allowing me to choose my own destiny. Either way, he walked over to Karna, Fain, Wraith, and Luthair and then released them from their sleep-prisons.

  Luthair melted into the darkness and reformed a moment later, standing upright. He turned his empty helmet from me to Adelgis and back again to me, no indication he suffered from lingering side effects.

  “Everything is fine now,” I said.

  “It’s good to see you, my arcanist.”

  Karna, Wraith, and Fain slid off their cots with less gusto. They staggered, as though hungover. Even Wraith, with all four of his wolf-like feet, almost toppled to one side. How long had they been sleeping? If it had been a few days, like me, then I suspected they’d be groggy for a little while longer.

  I placed a hand on everyone in the room, including Adelgis. Through the use of my augmentation, I gave everyone the ability to see in the dark. It would help with their escape, and if I managed to use my aura, then they wouldn’t be affected.

  “Adelgis,” I said. “You help them recover and then fill them in on the plan. I’m going to search around the dig site and find the Mother of Shapeshifters. Once you all are ready, I’ll…” I rubbed my sweaty palms on my shirt. “I’ll make sure the patrolling arcanists are distracted.”

  Fain pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re escaping?” He groaned. “If it’s not one problem, it’s another…”

  “I can help,” Karna said as she tried to straighten her posture.

  “Adelgis will fill you in on the details,” I said. “But I have to do this alone. Just make sure you’re ready to go.”

  Before anyone could say anything else, I stepped into the shadows and slid out of the arcanist barracks, and then moved around the side of the building. I emerged and gulped down air, my body shaking.

  Although I had articulated my plan to Adelgis without trouble, the reality of the situation now sank into my chest and tightened my throat.

  Luthair emerged from the shadows next to me. “My arcanist.”

  “You should go with the others,” I said.

  “You know I won’t do that.”

  I took in a ragged breath. “Luthair, I don’t know if…”

  “Whatever darkness you face, you won’t do it alone. I’ll be there until the end. Perhaps it’ll be my strength that makes the difference.”

  I rubbed at my neck and then hardened my determination. “Okay. First we need to locate the Mother of Shapeshifters.”

  48

  Atlas Tortoise

  The Excavation Site wasn’t a complicated place. There were less than twenty buildings in total. Theasin had commanded the Mother of Shapeshifters be placed into the storehouse, and by process of elimination, I figured out which building it had to be. It was the only one with a watchman, and occasionally bones were removed from the larger piles and brought straight to it. Mostly fangs or fragments of claws—pieces of the apoch dragon that would make for deadly trinkets and artifacts.

  I knelt down around the side of the storehouse, hidden from the watchman, and observed the workers going about their business. Even at night, with only lamplight to work by, they carried on.

  What was my plan?

  I wanted the Mother of Shapeshifters to escape without notice, but I feared that might be impossible. She was huge in Zelfree’s memories, even when she changed shape, and if the linen covering her body was any indication of her health, she was wounded.

  “My arcanist?” Luthair whispered from the darkness.

  “We’ll go in and free her,” I said. “Hopefully we can piece together more of a plan afterward.”

  “As you wish.”

  I heard the crunch of dirt and ash. In one fluid motion, I stood, whirled around, and drew my blade. To my surprise, I saw nothing, but I had dealt with invisibility long enough to know I wasn’t alone.

  “Volke,” Fain said, his disembodied voice quiet. “It’s me.”

  “What’re you doing here?” I asked.

  “I want to help.”

  “Wait with the others.”

  “I’m immune to the plague,” Fain said, his tone firm. “And I’ve done this all before.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “My brother left me—he said he would make everything right and then just took off. I get it. You’re being noble. You’re making a sacrifice. Well, let me be noble with you. This time, I don’t want to be left behind.”

  We didn’t have time to argue. I nodded and held out my hand. “We’re going inside.”

  “Wraith, wait here. Warn us if anyone nears.”

  Fain, still invisible, placed his hand on mine. In the next instant, I dragged us into the shadows, traveling with the darkness and slipping under the door of the storehouse, completely undetected by the watchman. When we emerged, my veins burned with the magic use, and my head spun from the drain of taking a second person.

  The inside of the building reminded me of a library. Shelves upon shelves had been constructed to house bone fragments and other disturbing “items.” Dead mystical creatures sat beside the fragments of the apoch dragon, most of the corpses still fresh. A few were still in cages, and I wondered if they had been brought here alive and then allowed to slowly starve, forgotten by the workers of the dig site.

  I didn’t need to search the room—the Mother of Shapeshifters was too large to miss.
She waited in the back, still wrapped tight in the white linen cloth. I jogged over to her and unsheathed Retribution. With a few quick strokes, I cut the ropes away, but my blade couldn’t break the nullstone chains.

  Fain’s invisibly dropped as he grabbed a couple and yanked them to the side. The harder he pulled, the more blood sprouted from under the linen. Although it concerned me, I knew we needed to remove the chains as quickly as possible. Perhaps the Mother of Shapeshifters could heal once we had removed her restraints.

  I sheathed my blade and grabbed the chains on the other side, working as quickly as possible. The nullstone clattered to the floor once removed, and I cringed, hoping beyond hope that if the watchman had heard, he thought it was nothing.

  With shaky hands, I grabbed the linen cloth and removed it.

  Fain grimaced, his eyes wide and his face paling.

  I staggered back, my breath held.

  In Zelfree’s memories, I hadn’t gotten a good look at the Mother of Shapeshifters, and at the time, I had been disappointed. Now I wished I could purge the image from my mind.

  She was a mass of flesh, shiny and jiggly. It was as if… a small whale had been turned inside out, and all its bones had been removed. Everything writhed and moved, and I couldn’t distinguish one organ from the next—they blended together like a plate of flesh-colored noodles.

  Goosebumps ran the length of my arms.

  Fain turned to me, his movements stiff. “This is what you wanted to save? You’re a better man than me…”

  I replied with a single forced chuckle.

  Why wasn’t she getting up?

  Although I loathed examining her further, I spotted the problem. Several obsidian thorns had been stabbed into her undulating body. Those thorns were torture tools with hollow interiors. People would fill the inside with poison, venom, or other types of liquid meant to slowly drip out into the injury of their victim. I had seen one before—Calisto had used one on Master Zelfree. He had filled it with manticore venom, which prevented Zelfree from healing.

  Had Calisto gotten his obsidian thorn from the Second Ascension? A piece of me wondered if he had been ordered to “bring in the Faceless.”

  I shook the thought from my head.

  Not wanting to climb over the Mother of Shapeshifters, I manipulated the shadows to grab the five thorns protruding from her body. I didn’t know what they were filled with, but I suspected they had to be the reason she wasn’t moving.

  A growl and bark caught my attention.

  Fain turned to me. “That was Wraith. Someone’s here.” A moment later, he vanished.

  Without needing to be told, Luthair merged with me, his shadows wrapping around my body and providing me a cold sense of vigor.

  Sure enough, the door to the storehouse flew open. A unicorn arcanist strode inside, his arcanist mark glowing red. He wore a mix of metal and heavy leather armor, and when he moved, he seemed restricted in some ways, the bulk of his clothing almost too much. His unicorn entered afterward, its white coat patchy and disgusting, its horn broken, its eyes red, and its stomach so distended it looked as though it would burst at any moment.

  When the unicorn arcanist caught sight of me, he withdrew a pistol.

  If he fired it, I was certain everyone would come running. I used my terrors, and while the man and his eldrin flinched from the forced fears, I manipulated the shadows to grab the weapon from the man’s hand.

  My terrors didn’t last as long as I would’ve liked, however. The unicorn arcanist shook away his dread and then evoked a powerful light. I squinted and stumbled back. The man withdrew a dagger from his belt and lunged for me, but as he rushed between shelves, an invisible Fain attacked. Fain had swung for his neck, but the blade of his dagger caught on the man’s armor. He sliced a small part of the shoulder, between metal plates. The unicorn arcanist jumped back and hit the shelf.

  The furniture toppled over, hitting the shelf next to it, which then fell and hit the next. Glass and bone fragments went everywhere. The hastily constructed shelves shattered upon impact with the floor, throwing wood splinters into the mix. The echoing crash and smash of metal on metal hurt my ears. There would be no hiding our current location.

  The unicorn grunted and titled back its head. Its bloated gut ripped open along the underbelly, spilling out hundreds of tiny worms. To my horror, the worms flipped and writhed and splattered everywhere—but they didn’t remain stationary. They wiggled and slithered with a frightening speed, rushing across the floor and heading straight for Fain.

  Wrapping himself in invisibility, Fain tried to hide from the worms, but they found him regardless. They jumped and clung to everything, seemingly sticking by using their blood-coated bodies. Then they tried to burrow their way into Fain’s flesh. He had to stop everything and swat them from his legs as he danced backward.

  Wraith leapt into the storeroom and bit the unicorn. His frost appeared over the monster’s legs and backside, hindering its movement.

  Shouting from outside the storehouse drew my attention. We had run out of time.

  I hadn’t paid attention to the Mother of Shapeshifters the entire fight, and when a skeletal claw the size of a person reached over me, I almost attacked it with Retribution, not realizing what it belonged to. The claw extended out of the blob of flesh—being created as it went, the bone and tendons woven from the shapeshifter’s body. Its reach was long and its arm gangly. With sword-like claws, the Mother of Shapeshifters swiped at the unicorn arcanist as the man was trying to free himself from the wreckage of the broken shelves.

  The claws tore through the arcanist in a single swipe, slicing his armor and bones without difficulty.

  “Wait,” I shouted, my double-voice haunting. “He’s plague ridden!”

  The unicorn arcanist—or what was left of him—splattered across the ruined shelves, his tainted blood mixing with everything here.

  Fain evoked ice and frosted the many worms, killing them in one swift burst of magic. Then, before the Mother of Shapeshifters could intervene, he and Wraith attacked the plague-ridden unicorn. The beast tried to kick and gore, but Fain and Wraith went invisible and tore at it with claws, fangs, and daggers. The monster attempted to scream, but a slash to its neck had severed its windpipe. It collapsed to the ground, unable to breathe.

  Both the unicorn and its arcanist were dead.

  There was still another unicorn and its arcanist somewhere around the dig site, however. I had to stay alert.

  The Mother of Shapeshifters pulled back her clawed hand, and before it was reabsorbed by the flesh, the blood-tainted claws fell off and melted across the floor.

  Three eyes on the blob of flesh flew open, their gold irises locked on me.

  “You’re a friend of many shapeshifters,” she said, her voice garbled, as though weak and waking from a long dream. “I can… smell them on you. My children.”

  “There isn’t much time,” I said. “You must escape now, while you still can.”

  The Mother of Shapeshifters closed her eyes and then shifted and lumped together. “Seek me out in the future, ally of shapeshifters. I will repay you.”

  Another clawed hand jutted out of her body, this one swiping at the ceiling. She tore a hole to the sky before pulling the clawed hand back into her nebulous shape.

  Then her body exploded.

  Not into fleshy chunks or blood, but into birds. Hundreds of crows, some with scarlet feathers on their underbelly, each with gold eyes and ebony wings. They flocked at terrifying speed, flapping their wings and swirling around before shooting for the hole. They poured out into the night, heading straight for the clouds, too fast to see properly.

  Once the last of the birds disappeared out of the storeroom, my mind returned to the present. The other plague-ridden arcanists hadn’t entered yet. Why? Were they waiting for us outside?

  “Volke,” Fain shouted while invisible, his voice near the door. “Look out!”

  A torrent of red flames rushed into the storehouse t
hrough the door. I shadow-stepped away, but just barely, the heat from the attack causing me to sweat. When I emerged, I had to gulp down breath. My heart hammered against my ribs as another wave of fire forced its way indoors. The ferocity of the fire threatened to burn down the whole building in a matter of minutes.

  Fain and Wraith got caught in the second wave, the flames licking across them and dispelling their invisibility. The front door was the only way in or out—but not for me.

  I slipped through the shadows, grabbed both Fain and Wraith, and then dove back into the darkness. As a shadow, I slithered up the wall and out the hole in the ceiling, my speed much faster than I had ever gone before. I exited on the roof, not because it was the best place, but because the pain of my magic became too unbearable.

  I crumpled onto the roof, my arms wrapped tightly around my gut, every inch of me hurting.

  My arcanist, Luthair spoke telepathically. Above us!

  I could sense it. Something plague-ridden.

  Wind blasted across the roof of the storehouse, the pressure enough that the damaged building began to wobble. It wouldn’t last.

  The crack of gunfire echoed into the night. A bullet slammed into the wood next to me. I wasn’t afraid of the gunshot, per se, but I feared the enemy’s bullets could be coated in something.

  Fain and Wraith couldn’t withstand the wind and balance on the roof at the same time. They leapt off.

  Although I still ached from my overuse of magic, I slipped into the shadows and emerged on the ground. With all my willpower, I brought Equalizer out of my shadow and turned my attention to the beast breathing flames into the storehouse.

  It was the three-headed dog—the plague-ridden cerberus. The creature creating the gale-force winds was an equally plagued pegasus. The winged horse circled overhead while the heads of the cerberus puked fire into the building.

  Fain lifted his hand and coated the ground in ice. The heads of the massive dog turned to us, its mouths dripping embers and pink saliva.

  I stuffed my pistol with a bullet and then fired, no need for gunpowder. It hit the cerberus, ending its use of magic for a short bit.