Shadowborn

by Katie MacAlister

“I have quite reasonable rates for empty rooms,” a voice called out from a doorway to his left. “Slightly higher for one with either one of my ladies, or if your wife wished to have her own fun, one of the man minxes.”

  “—and pleasure you like you’ve never been pleasured,” he finished, trying hard not to glare at Red Eva.

  Allegria laughed, sliding her hand down to where his passion was indeed giving in to the urge to claim her. “I’ll hold you to that, my love, but let us first take care of these pesky attackers so that I can try a new technique Mayam told me about.”

  He blinked, unsure whether he’d heard her correctly. “You learned a new sexual position from Mayam? The Shadowborn woman who betrayed us to Nezu?”

  “Discussed, not learned, and yes. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “I’m willing to give you a discount on the rate if you don’t mind taking the room with the peephole,” Eva called when he, with much regret, released Allegria, and leaped off the well. “I’d also be interested in hearing about this new technique.”

  “Who—” Allegria started to ask, casting a quick glance back at the bawdy house.

  “Later,” he promised, and with an assessing glance at the south road, decided Allegria had the Askia under control. His attention was better focused on driving back Lyl and his army.

  And just in time. To his horror, he realized what he’d assumed was an army scattered by disarray and the attacks of Tygo and Aarav was in reality one that had spread its forces to breach numerous spots on the wooden wall that circled the village.

  “Fire! Fire on the north wall!” the headman yelled, emerging from behind the largest of the structures where he had been on guard. He yelled to others to join him, snatching up a bucket and plunging it into the well before dashing off; two other men and a woman did likewise.

  Hallow spun around to help them, but took only one step before a voice called from the east. “They’re taking down the trees!”

  “Why would—” Hallow started to ask, but just then a loud crack echoed off the cliff that rose to the north, followed by a tremendous crash when a tree was allowed to fall directly onto a section of the wall. “Bellias blast him, he’s smarter than I thought. Tygo! How many are out there?”

  “What’s going on?” Allegria asked, her hands full of light. She paused in the act of throwing balls of it at a growing group of women who had gathered at the slight curve of the south road. “Who is tearing down the wall?”

  “Lyl,” he said, more or less grinding the word through his teeth.

  “The magister?”

  “Arcanist,” he corrected and ran toward the front gate. To his horror, the men who had been trapped in the trench were now crawling out, assisted by rope and branches held out by their compatriots. “Tygo!”

  “He’s not here,” came a weak voice from a dense clump of foliage that grew through the wooden barricade of the village wall.

  “Aarav?” Hallow shoved aside a small stack of ale barrels, and found the arcanist covered in blood, his body slumped crookedly against the wall. “Kiriah’s nipples, man! What happened to you?”

  “Lyl,” he said, the word coming out slow and hesitant. Aarav closed his eyes, and for a moment Hallow thought he’d died, but he opened his eyes again, pinning Hallow back with a look that he knew would haunt him for years. “He’s not as stupid as we believed him to be.”

  “Stay here,” Hallow ordered when, with a groan that hurt to hear, Aarav tried to rise. “Rest. I’ll send a healer to you as soon as I’ve dealt with Lyl. Which direction did Tygo go? I’ll need him by my side to get rid of Lyl.”

  “Banishing spell?” Aarav asked, a spark of curiosity replacing, for a few seconds, the pain visible in his pale blue eyes.

  “Yes. Hopefully.” Hallow grimaced. “I’ve never done one on my own, but together with Tygo, I should be able—” He stopped when Aarav shook his head. “He’s dead?” he asked, dreading to hear the answer.

  “Worse.” Aarav coughed, blood speckling his lips. “He’s joined Lyl.”

  “What?” Rage coursed through Hallow, immediately firing his magic, all his magic. Chaos warred with the pull of arcany, while the symbols of blood magic danced in his mind, his fingers sketching the symbols even before he knew it.

  “Traitor, no doubt sent to spy on you. Us. Knew something was off about him,” Aarav said with another groan. “He didn’t feel right.”

  Hallow spun around, racing toward the gate, intending to find Tygo and show him how betrayers were dealt with, but at that moment, three things happened simultaneously. The first was a handful of dirgesingers breaching the village gate, charging in with strange, grating sounds emerging from their mouths. Their song seemed to scrape across the sky itself, and Hallow had a horrible feeling it was their form of magic. The second was an answering stream of bodies from the south road, where ten women rushed forward, headed straight for the well and Allegria. The third thing was a familiar bellow that rose along the road occupied by Lyl’s army.

  “Thorn?” Hallow called, pointing to the swell of men that suddenly ran forward, most of whom immediately fell down into the trench.

  The bird, who had been darting at the lead dirgesingers, his claws scratching their faces, wheeled around and raced over Hallow’s head, skimming over the swell of men who still charged forward, as if driven by madness.

  “Where? Hallow!” Allegria took one look at the Askia rushing her, and threw down a wall of light before leaping off the well and running directly toward him. “Thorn said—”

  A repeat of the bellow interrupted her, causing Hallow’s lips to curl even as he started weaving together binding spells that he flung out in a crescent before him. “Deo has excellent timing. Can you handle those Askia?”

  “Long enough, yes,” she said, turning her back to his. Little flashes of sunlight slamming down into the ground caught his peripheral vision.

  His lips moved silently while he spoke the words of binding to aid the blood magic, ignoring the screams of horses running mad, some mowing down Lyl’s own men while others, thoroughly spooked, burst into the dense foliage and disappeared into the woods.

  “Who—you!” Lyl’s voice, filled with rage, rose half an octave when he caught sight of Deo. Thorn returned as the rush of the Starborn army lessened. The trench was now almost filled with the bodies of those who had fallen in, tangled up amongst those who struggled to get out.

  Thorn perched on Hallow’s shoulder, clearly there to help focus his magic. With his eyes on the dirgesingers, Hallow lifted his hand to cast an arcane compression blast, but a strange silence filled the square for a few seconds.

  The lead dirgesinger stopped, staring at the Askia while they streamed around Allegria’s shafts of sunlight. The first couple of Askia stumbled to a halt as well, staring back at the dirgesingers.

  To Hallow’s amazement—and delight, and gratitude—the Askia, with a cry that raised the hairs on Hallow’s arms, threw themselves on the dirgesingers, who likewise lifted their voices in a horrible song, one made up of words that seemed to be made of granite grinding upon granite. The very act of hearing them seemed an abomination against nature.

  He stared at the battle that unfolded before him while the arcany gathered in his hands tingled his fingers. He shook it away, half-turning to face Allegria. “Er…”

  “Yes,” she said, lowering her hand as well. “It is odd. Just about the last thing I expected to see.”

  “Am I—I’m not hallucinating, am I?” Hallow asked, rubbing a hand over his head in case he’d been struck on it without his knowing. “I’m seeing this correctly?”

  “You are if you are seeing the Askia attacking your friends,” Allegria answered.

  “They most definitely are not my friends—they belong to Lyl. Speaking of which, I suppose I should help Deo, since that sounds very much like the sounds of a transmogrification spe
ll being spoken.” Hallow turned back to the gate, where a small cluster of people stood on the lip of the trench, their backs to him. Beyond, the dappled light of the road revealed a large man accompanied by a few smaller shapes, surrounded by golden-red chaos magic that glinted in the sun for a few seconds before it evaporated.

  “Do you think it’s safe to just leave them?” Allegria said, sidestepping quickly when one of the dirgesingers, who had been flung to the side by an Askia, skidded to an abrupt stop a few feet away. “They seem to be engrossed with each other, but I’m not sure who your lot is. Or, for that matter, why they are so angry with the Askia. Not that I object, since they’ve been chasing me for the better part of the day.”

  “The enemy of my father’s enemy is the truest friend I have.” Hallow quoted an old proverb as he considered the fighting. The Askia and dirgesingers appeared to be fairly matched, he was interested to note. Both wielded swords, and every time one of the men tried to sing a few words of their terrible song, the Askia responded by screaming and attacking the singer, effectively shutting him up and rendering his magic impotent. “So long as the villagers remain out of the way, I believe we could spare a few minutes to help Deo.”

  “Does he need it?” Allegria asked, a smile curving her delightful lips as she looked past him to where Lyl, surrounded by four guards, stomped out to confront Deo.

  His amusement faded when he thought of just what Lyl had cost him. “He may not, but I have a few things to impart to Lyl.” With a glance at the villagers who stood clustered on their rooftops and hidden in doorways, all of whom were engaged in watching the battle between the Askia and the dirgesingers, he wrapped an arm around Allegria, holding her tight against his body.

  Instantly, the chaos magic surged at her nearness, but after just a few a few highly erotic thoughts, he spoke the words of a protection bubble, sending them both flying forward ten yards until they stopped on the far side of the trench.

  “That will never get old,” Allegria told him with breathless delight, her eyes alight with pleasure.

  “It’s one of the perks of being an arcanist,” he told her, giving her a swift kiss before releasing her, lest the chaos magic—and his own emotions—demand he do more.

  “Do you come on the Queen’s order?” Lyl demanded of Deo, taking up a stance in the middle of the road, obviously intent on stopping Deo from proceeding further. “If so, you may take to her the message that I will no longer be a pawn in her games. The Starborn deserve a better monarch than one who would side with the very beings that almost destroyed us.”

  Deo marched up to Lyl, stopping to look him up and down. “Who are you?” he finally asked.

  Lyl looked outraged for a minute. “Who am I? Who am I? Who are you that you do not know who I am?”

  Deo’s eyebrows rose in mock surprise. “You don’t know who you are? Have you sought help for your befuddled mental condition? Is that why you’re out here in the middle of nowhere, apparently laying siege to a small village whose inhabitants dally in a trench?”

  Lyl’s face turned red as he sputtered out an incoherent response.

  Allegria’s breath touched Hallow’s ear as she gave a little giggle. “Deo does that so well.”

  “Annoy people, you mean?” he asked without moving his lips, feeling someone present had to maintain a dignified mien. “He is a master at it.”

  “I am Lyl!” the man responded, having worked the worst of his unintelligible oaths out of his system.

  “Who?” Deo asked, looking unimpressed.

  A burble of laughter rose in Hallow, but he quelled it with a firm hand.

  “Lyl of Kelos, late of Starfall.” Lyl drew himself up to his full height, which was a good head and a half shorter than Deo. “I was the queen’s chancellor for many years, until she sold the Starborn to the invaders.”

  “Oh, he did not just say that,” Allegria exclaimed with a little shake of her head, sliding her hand into the crook of Hallow’s arm and leaning on him in a way that made him feel like the happiest man on Alba despite the grave threat hanging over their respective heads. “Wait, did he say Kelos?”

  Hallow sighed. “He did.”

  She squinted at Lyl, who was telling Deo just how important a personage he had been in Dasa’s court. “He has Thorn. Or rather, the staff part of Thorn. Why does he have it instead of you?”

  “He seems to feel that he is Master of Kelos because he was Exodius’s apprentice back when he—Exodius—was alive,” Hallow answered.

  “And I would like to be named the smartest person on Alba, but declaring myself such does not make it so,” she snapped in return. She would have marched forward to confront Lyl if Hallow had not pulled her back against him.

  “We are of the same mind concerning that, my heart, but I’m interested to see what Deo does with him.”

  Allegria slid him a long look. “What Deo does with him? What’s this, Hallow? You’ve never been afraid of a fight before.”

  “Nor am I now, but there is such a thing as knowing when to fight and when to stand back and allow an enemy to wear himself out first. You see? He’s pricked Deo’s anger by telling him he has no right to be on Genora. And now Deo has angered Lyl by dismissing him as unimportant. Ah. That was a very foolish move on Lyl’s part.”

  “Shoving Deo just makes him mad,” she agreed. She watched with interest when Lyl was sent flying backward into the nearest tree. His guards rushed to his side at the same time Lyl slid down the tree trunk to disappear into the waist-high foliage. “Should we help this Lyl person up? I don’t want to if the man clings to the deluded belief that he is Master of Kelos when you hold that position, but I suppose Kiriah wouldn’t like it if I stood by and watched a man be smashed to a pulp against a tree, even if he deserved a little pulping. Oh, no.”

  Disgust sounded in her voice. Hallow smiled, wondering when she’d notice that one of the figures who had stood half-hidden behind Deo was that of Idril.

  “Deo,” Idril said, moving forward with a little frown between her brows when she gestured toward the spot where Hallow and Allegria stood. “I insist that you stop toying with Queen Dasa’s flunky, and attend to what is important. There is Hallow. There is his priestess. Please do whatever is needful with them so that you may banish the monster Racin, thus allowing us to sail to Aryia to deal with my father.”

  “Hello, Idril,” Allegria said, almost drawling the last word. “What are you doing here, out in the unsanitary world where you might soil one of the many gauzy layers of your gown?”

  “Envisioning death and destruction, for the most part,” she answered Allegria, giving Hallow a little nod of acknowledgement when he made his courtliest bow. “Also considering the best way to geld a man, and finally, wishing I could engage in sexual congress with Deo, but he refuses since the captain and his child are with us, and Deo claims he can’t perform to both our satisfaction knowing the child would be right on the other side of the tent.”

  Dexia smiled a sharp-toothed smile at Idril.

  “That didn’t seem to stop the captain and Ella from congressing in their tent whenever they weren’t bickering, but Deo, evidently, has finer feelings,” Idril added with a little sniff.

  Deo, who had been in the process of picking up Lyl with one hand clamped around his neck, turned back to glare at Idril. “Mayhap your latest husband would be able to stiffen his rod knowing that a vanth was lurking just a few feet away, listening to every grunt and moan, but I am not so made.”

  “Latest husband?” Allegria asked, her eyes wide.

  Idril waved away the question. “It’s nothing. The merest of nothings. A minor legal point that will be taken care of just as soon as I locate the appropriate campfire and my husband’s bed.”

  Hallow, while enjoying, as always, the interaction among Idril, Deo, and Allegria, had been keeping one eye on Lyl. Deo might have been under the impression that
the man was a bumbling fool, but Hallow knew better. He’d felt the power that crackled around Lyl when he claimed the position of Master, and he had no doubt that Exodius had trained his former apprentice well.

  Which was why just as Quinn, Ella, and Dexia were about to approach, Hallow’s fingers started drawing blood symbols.

  Allegria, feeling the movement of his hands, glanced down in surprise. “What—” she started to say at the same moment that Idril started forward toward Deo, but before more than a second passed, the air suddenly took on a charged, prickly feel.

  “Down!” Hallow ordered, yanking Allegria to the ground and covering her body with his after he flung the half-finished chain of symbols toward Deo and Idril. He hoped the others were far enough away that they wouldn’t be too badly injured.

  Allegria squawked, a noise that disappeared into a concussive blast that seemed to echo again and again from the rock walls that faced the north edge of the woods. Pain seared through Hallow’s head and shoulders as small bits of rock and wood rained down on them.

  He groaned and uncurled himself. The sharp sting of pain, accompanied by a suspicious wetness along his back, alerted him to the fact that some of the sharper bits of debris had pierced his leather jerkin. “My heart! Were you injured?”

  “No, not at all, although by Kiriah’s ten toes, I will roast that annoying Lyl alive for that. My ears are still ringing.”

  Allegria rose and started forward toward a now clear circle that held three figures. Around them, for a radius of twenty feet, everything that had been standing was now flattened.

  “No,” Hallow said, struggling to get to his feet. Pain struck so deep that it caused him to gasp, and black splotches ebbed and flowed in front of his eyes. “Do not…Allegria, he is too…”

  “Just a little smiting,” she said, stopping in front of Lyl and lifting her hands. “Just enough to teach him not to claim he’s master when you are, or to use an arcane concussive blast right on top of us, not to mention the fact that he’s just generally annoying.”

  “Hallow?” Another woman’s voice came as if from a great distance. Hallow staggered forward a few steps, intending to warn Allegria to keep away from Lyl, but the inky blotches that obscured his vision were just too pervasive, and he gave into their promise of respite.