“Problem,” said Ardent. “Rallant is out of containment. No one can spot him. And we found what Lark reported—all sorts of insane shit.”
From close at hand, Mako felt a burst of anxiety pierce through the emotional consensus of concern. Linciard. She didn't have the time or attention necessary to smack him, but she made a note to do it later.
“What kind of 'insane shit'?” she heard him ask.
“Malformed creatures, crawling, shambling—all of them small enough to come through the vents. Looks like the metals and goblins met them on their way up, but there's...a lot. Goblins are running now. Structural damage in some of the stairwells, topside, first basement, second basement...”
Mako took a moment to check in on Lahngi's perspective. He was still alive up there, though covered in some kind of leather blanket; when he opened his eyes, he mainly saw that, with an occasional glimpse of the white barrier beyond. Debris blocked most of his view, but the magic shone through—closer with every moment as the buildings around him ruptured and the foundations buckled beneath their pressing panes. If he could hold out long enough for her to build this frame…
She grimaced, not wanting to entertain the alternative. She'd never felt a gestalted comrade die and didn't intend to allow it now.
Elsewhere, by the garrison, Regna rained steel and stone upon other abominations. Greater ones, to judge by the glimpses Mako got: huge ogre-sized things or worse, compounded of multiple bodies and with traces of snowbeast, draft-hog, bear, wolf, yhen, plus more demented mutations than she could wrap her mind around. There were man-sized ones as well, some almost man-shaped but never whole—never sane, their features twisted by the horrors of their rebirth.
She was shamefully glad to not be up there.
The last piece of her portal-frame clicked into place. She pushed it upright, pulled the hand-held scrying mirror from her sash, and removed the pin from its handle to insert it into the frame. The scry that the mirror had held transferred over in a ripple of connecting energies, giving her a view from just behind Lahngi. Rubble had partially covered but not harmed him, protective runes glowing brightly on the leather wrap; all the pain she sensed from him had been there since the crash. The ground beneath him was tilted and starting to crack. Directly ahead, two metal-folk battered at the white ward with arms like spears, to little apparent effect.
“Linciard, I need aid,” she snapped as she pulled portal stakes from her sash. Boots clomped in her direction, so she continued, “Two men. Grab Lahngi and bring him through as quick as possible. Be careful though, he's hurt.”
“Garrenson. Silverthorn,” he commanded, bringing more boots in. “You heard?”
“Yessir.”
“At your command, Scryer.”
She nodded and gave the frame the push that would transform it from a scry to a portal. A blast of brick-dust came through immediately, along with the smell of smoke and lightning, but she just ducked her head against it and leaned through to plant the stakes.
“Go, go,” she said as she lurched away.
The men scrambled through, their dark gear carving them like shadows against the white panes of the wraiths' wards. She forced herself to stay back—to not stare as they chucked debris aside then crouched around Lahngi's leather-wrapped form and hefted him. The movement sent shocks of queasy agony through him that echoed across the gestalt. From afar, she felt Regna falter, twinged by fear; the others radiated concern, anxiety, unease, none of it unexpected. Right now, she didn't have it in her to soothe them.
Then the men were coming back through, Garrenson first, stepping carefully over the edge of the frame. “Medic!” Mako called, but there was already one at hand: a young woman with a red-and-white striped Trifold healer's coat over her brown dress, dark hair drawn back in a tight bun. She scuttled after the two men as they carried Lahngi aside, giving Mako room to reach in and pull the stakes again.
'Ready at Rakut,' said Presh through the gestalt as the portal collapsed back into a scry, and Mako nodded to herself and removed the pin, exchanging it for one she'd threaded through her collar. A push to reactivate the frame, and it bloomed into an image of the Padrastan mage and his cohorts in Rakut Center, the market square behind them crowded with militiamen and civilian irregulars.
“Second frame's finished,” said Izelina at her side.
Another push opened the scry to a portal. “Linciard,” she prompted again, then moved to Zeli's frame to prime it with the pin for Voorkei's post at Lakeshore Center. Behind her, the lieutenant began ordering people through, Lahngi and his caretaker first and then the gathered civilians.
Mentally, she impressed on Zeli the trick to creating the scry, and they pushed together until their ogre-blooded comrade resolved into view. Another breach of dimension and distance and Lieutenant Sengith was at their backs, ordering his own men to aid the civilians through.
Time to go.
“Contact me if there's trouble,” she said, already moving toward the exit. Zeli followed in her wake, less like a puppy than a tiger-cub that had decided to stroll in the same direction. “Tanvolthene, keep the portals powered.”
A gauntleted hand caught her arm, drawing her up short. She rounded automatically on the man—Linciard, of course—but before she could snap, he said, “Where are you going?” The worry in his expression made her want to shriek.
“To the edge of the crush-zone,” she pushed through her teeth. Time ticked away in the back of her mind, drawing her nerves tighter. “I'm going to try to break one as it comes down. It will stretch out the Shadows' utility here.”
“Why you? Tanvolthene's the Warder. Shouldn't he—“
“I'm the gestalt leader. It's my responsibility.”
His brows drew down. “No. The captain wouldn't let you go, and neither will I. You hold the earhook network and the gestalt, you're the scryer and portal-maker—you have to stay here. Send Tanvolthene. I'll assign a section with him in case he runs into those things, but you are not going out there.”
“It's my—“
“It's our responsibility, Mako. We're the command staff. We can't be doing things just because we want to.”
“Says you,” she snarled.
His face tightened, and so did his grip. “Yeah, says me. Do you want to become my kind of idiot? All absorbed in my own woes? Light knows I want to rush out there and find Rallant—“
“That's why you're not supposed to be here!” Mako snapped. “Get your ass through a portal where you won't be influenced!”
“And let you run off to your own craziness? No.”
She yanked in his grip, seething. This is my company! My gestalt! If I don't fight to defend them, how can I call myself a Riddishwoman, a leader?
As if he'd read it on her face, Linciard said, “Listen to me, Mako. There's more at stake than our needs. I can't let my men down again, and you can't leave us—or take on any extra mage-work. That's what we get for ending up in these ranks. So do the right thing.”
She tore her arm from his grip but couldn't deny his point. Her head swarmed with feedback from the earhooks, gestalt, and all the spells she still maintained. Though anger tried to drive her forth, she couldn't judge how far she'd get.
“Fine,” she spat. “Edar, if you would.”
“Donethane, te'Kendrian, take your men and go with him,” Linciard ordered as the tall Warder nodded. Immediately a section of twelve men fell out of line to form up around Tanvolthene, who strode for the exit without a backward glance.
“Careful,” Ardent called after them. “Abominations swarming a few floors up, your path might not be clear. I'll keep you informed.”
Mako glared up at Linciard, who raised his hands in self-defense. “I'll remember this,” she told him coldly.
His answering smile was bland. “Good. Then maybe next time we won't argue about it.”
She made a concentrated effort to exhale her anger, then turned back to observe the portals. If she was stuck here with the drudge work, she'd
make sure it was done right.
*****
It had been too long since Rallant had stalked these halls. Not that he'd ever been free to do so—the Shadows hadn't let him out for exercise, just leaving him to atrophy in his cell—but he'd taken care to mark the twists and turns while he was being led from Blaze Company's complex to the detention block. More than a week of isolation had left the memories muddled, and he'd already taken several wrong turns.
The akarriden blade dripped its acid on the floor as he walked, leaving pocks in the concrete and stone. He wished his handler had passed a sheath through—or, better, a whole suit of clothes. Being stark naked was an annoyance. Still, anything was better than dying to a million tiny teeth, so he couldn't complain.
And if his state gave his enemies pause when they spotted him, so much the better.
Under orders, he was still Calling, though he didn't know why. Perhaps the Seethers had slipped a few specialist ringers into the ranks of those that Blaze had caught? Regardless, it was taxing, and the blade's aura didn't help. His throat felt raw, his mouth and stomach sour.
Pikers. They could have just pulled me through the portal.
But no, they'd had a mission for him. So here he was, padding naked through the empty halls, trying to remember the way to his old cell and the infirmary. Above, the ceiling creaked and grated, a constant reminder of the tonnage of stone and concrete just waiting to fall on him. Bad enough to be sneaking through enemy territory—no, there had to be a deadline as well.
Chin up. Not the worst mission you've ever had. Not yet, anyway.
Another corner, another near-identical hall, lit by murky globe-lights and labeled with unreadable bumps and lines. His own light kept back every shred of shadow, but it could only illuminate so far, and the space between his shoulder-blades tingled with the constant fear of a crossbow bolt finding it. As deadly as the akarriden sword might be, it wouldn't save him from that.
He was halfway down the hall, trying to judge whether he remembered this place or not, when a scrabbling sound caught his ears. Alarmed, he froze in place, imagining all the horrors he'd seen in these depths. Eiyets, shadowbloods, metal monsters, the gaping maw of the Dark…
Something rounded the corner he'd been approaching, low and scuttling. Ruddy as if sunburnt, but not human. Not any kind of flesh he'd ever known.
It had too many hands, too many eyes—was made of eyes, practically, dangling in a mass like clustered fruit beneath a single distorted face. Thick cords of optic nerve spilled from the vacant sockets like webbing, binding the eyes together and synchronizing their twitching gaze with those embedded in its emaciated torso and stub-like thighs. It had no arms, no lower legs, just hands that stretched along its flanks from shoulder to knee, fingers rippling like frills as the lowest pairs propelled it across the floor.
Rallant drew his sword back, prepared to flick its acid toward the monstrosity, but then realized it wasn't alone. Others emerged behind it: horrific amalgams of human and animal and giant insect, of Palace thread and clear ichor, of exposed muscle and bare yellow bone and stitched skin, reshuffled teeth, recombined anatomy. Some hissed through sewn-up lips as they approached, but most were silent, with only the scratch of nails or the erratic slap of flesh to herald them.
Those threads explained them. He'd never seen ahergriin before, but he'd heard stories. Heretics doomed by the Palace; corpses fed to it; weaklings rejected by conversion; unfortunates unsuited to its templates. All hashed up and molded together into mindless monsters, the hairballs of the conversion process.
He understood now the reason he'd been told to Call. Though these could never be called specialists, they were still sensitive to their chemical speech, and easily controlled by it. As they crowded around him, not touching, just quivering as more and more forced their way into the hall, he thought, I have a ghastly little army.
Good. That means I'm not completely hung out to dry.
The sickly-sweet stench of them—viscera, Palace fluids, blood, sweat and whatever they'd been fed, if they could actually feed—made the bile creep ever further up his throat, but painted a smirk on his face as well. This was what the Shadows would get if they moved on him. This was what Blaze—
My platoon. My men—Donethane, Shanland, Scormothe, te'Kendrian, Dysart, Hale, Hayfield, Bannerman—the ones who survived with me…
He tried to shake it off, but he could still see their faces in the depths of Potter's Row, terrified but trusting. Reliant on him, their sergeant, to find a way out of their Dark-bitten mess—to keep them steady among metal monstrosities and crossbow-shot while their comrades were naught but voices across the earhook link.
And Linciard. Erolan Linciard, with his sad eyes.
Let them go, he told himself. My life over theirs.
Still, he couldn't muster that smirk again. It didn't matter that they'd never visited him in detention; they were still his. To see them harmed by his actions…
My life over theirs. No other choice.
He held it in his mind like a mantra as he forged ahead, the tide of ahergriin roiling in his wake. Around the next corner, the landscape suddenly seemed familiar: a wider hall with big double-doors on each side, a curving ramp at the end. If he remembered right, that ramp led down two floors and along another corridor before connecting with the Blaze complex.
Trepidation tugged at his gut. The ranks of ahergriin stretched back down the fullness of the hall, most of them knee-high or less. He couldn't begin to count them, and shuddered to think of them in action. To send them against his former comrades...
But his survival depended on carrying out his mission, which required going through that place and any defenders. He had no other way to get out—not with the upper levels starting to come down.
So into the greater hall and toward the ramp he stalked, the ahergriin ranks swelling to fill the intervening space. The clatter of claws and nails and bone on stone eradicated any chance of stealth, making him grit his teeth and adjust his trajectory to cut close to the wall. He refused to be caught out in the midst of them.
He was nearly there when he heard a shout of warning from the ramp.
A pane of energy smacked the front-runners away from the opening and solidified across it. With a hiss of the Call, Rallant sent his horde against it, and watched in queasy fascination as the tide of flesh heaved forward to batter and scrabble against its arcane surface. Flares of light burst from every impact, bright at first but fading rapidly. He saw its strength refresh once, then twice, but with the back ranks continuing to compress forward, the contact ate at it all the faster.
Finally it collapsed, the sea of ahergriin surging through the opening like water through a burst dam. Human shouts came from beyond, and the sound of steel on flesh. Rallant waded toward the nearest edge, the ahergriin struggling to make way, but they were packed too tightly for him to get close—until an arcane force roared up the ramp and thrust them away en masse, sending handfuls tumbling through the air.
A new ward clamped in place, bulging outward to force the ahergriin away from the opening. They piled up on each other to batter against it, but this time it held, and through its shimmering surface Rallant glimpsed Blaze soldiers finishing off the ahergriin trapped inside. At the center of their formation stood a mage he vaguely knew—the one Colonel Wreth had sent them, Tanvolthene—but that man meant nothing to Rallant, and he couldn't see enough of the others to know whether they were of his platoon.
So he lifted his akarriden blade and sliced through the ward.
It shattered around the cut but didn't fail entirely, great panes of it still standing to either side. Nevertheless, a four-foot gap opened through which the ahergriin surged, slamming the nearest soldier off his feet and rolling over him like a tide of teeth. The next man went down much the same, screaming as a spider of bone and sinew clamped across his face; the third had a shield and a mace, and managed to whack a few away long enough for the mage to thrust a new ward into place.
/> For a moment, Rallant locked eyes with Tanvolthene, grey-faced behind his bright barrier. Then the mage made a motion he recognized as gathering energy, and Rallant bared his teeth and lunged through the writhing mass of monsters to bring his blade down in an overhand chop.
It sliced through spell, robe, and arm. The main ward-pane fractured as he struck it bodily, spilling him through. His second stab found Tanvolthene's chest and slid in with obscene ease, driving all the way until the hilt fetched up against his breastbone. For a moment, Rallant was privy to his horrified stare and the stink of burning cloth, boiling blood and meat. Then he wrenched the blade upward through the mage's chest and neck, and let him fall away beneath the ahergriin.
The men in the back tried to run, but there were too many monsters, the last panes of the ward flickering out beneath the press of their bodies. The sudden surge overwhelmed the few who'd tried to stand their ground, washing over them in a bloodied torrent that caught the others halfway down the ramp.
In the frenzy and chaos, Rallant had no way to count the fallen men, or be sure none had fled earlier. The scryer would have been keeping tabs on Tanvolthene too—which meant that if she didn't know about this already, she would soon. The moment she did, all of Blaze Company and likely the Shadow Folk would learn, and come for him.
The tide pushed him relentlessly down the ramp. His monsters were already spilling out of sight to fill the floor below; one more level and they would be right at Blaze's doorstep. No more element of surprise—but perhaps that was fine.
More shouts from below. More defenders.
'Attack freely,' he exhaled to the mass of monsters, the Call burning his throat. He had no further control—no fine-tuning he could do for such mindless creatures. But then he didn't actually need them to succeed in their assault, just keep the enemy busy.
The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4) Page 80