“Caldan!” roared Kristof.
Caldan pulled Florian to her feet, and she leaned her weight on him. Kristof and Alasdair came barreling toward them, blood-covered apparitions, scarcely a patch of them unsullied by black gore and dirt. Even their hands and faces were spattered. Hot whiteness pulsed at their fingers and chests: their trinkets, perhaps the only things on them still clean. They skidded to a halt near him, and he cut the link to his shield. Alasdair grabbed Florian, and she smiled weakly. Deep gashes and bite marks covered her arms.
“You’ll make it!” whispered Alasdair feverishly.
“I know,” Florian said. “You won’t leave me.”
“Caldan,” Kristof commanded, “if you’re going to do something, do it now!”
Do something? I just saved Florian . . .
Caldan looked numbly around him. At least fifteen jukari lay dead and dying. Those remaining had backed away, hooting and snarling at them. They spread out in a circle surrounding them, jaws snapping and weapons waving. They were retreating, weren’t they?
Then he sensed them: Sorcerers. Vormag.
The jukari were keeping Caldan and the others from fleeing. They were waiting for their masters.
He drew a breath, fighting back fear, and stepped toward the oncoming wells. Caldan reached inside himself, as deep as he could go. He wrapped his mind around his well, immersing himself in its leashed vitriol. Was he not a trained sorcerer? He’d created craftings that journeymen, even masters, would be proud of. He’d fought Bells twice and come out alive. Survived even Joachim’s deception. But what tools did he have on him?
Bells’s and Mahsonn’s craftings—and he didn’t know what many of them did.
A shield crafting.
His beetle.
Hardly anything he could use—and certainly nothing to combat three vormag. Controlled destructive sorcery was still beyond him. What he was capable of, raw destructive sorcery, would be no match for the vormags’ shields.
Caldan realized they were hemmed in and trapped.
“We need to punch a hole through them!” Alasdair shouted to Kristof. “Now!”
Kristof glanced at Florian. “I . . .” He hesitated, eyes flicking left and right.
By the ancestors, he doesn’t know what to do. “We can’t run,” Caldan said. “Vormag are coming. They’ll cut us down.”
“Can’t you shield us?” Alasdair said.
Caldan shook his head. “Not if we’re running away. I need to maintain contact with all of you. And if we stay here, we’re done for. I’m no warlock. I can’t do what they can.”
The animal stench of the jukari was all around them, hanging heavily in the air. And the wells were coming closer. Soon they’d be right on top of them. Whatever vormag sorcery they’d use, Caldan was sure he didn’t want to wait and find out.
“Run and die, or stay and die,” muttered Kristof.
“We make a break for it and take our chances,” Alasdair said.
Shaking his head, Kristof urged them to retreat to a boulder ten paces behind them. They put their backs to it and kept an eye on either side, should some jukari try their luck. Florian pulled strips of cloth from a belt pouch and set to busily bandaging her ankle. Alasdair looked at her, worry in his expression. She wouldn’t be running anywhere for a while. Even with their regenerative powers.
“Give me your ring. You know which one.”
Caldan’s breath caught in his throat, and he looked at Kristof—only to find he’d spoken to Alasdair.
The brother glared at Kristof. “Why? It’s mine. I earned it.”
Kristof, never taking his eyes off Alasdair, held up his hand and removed one of his trinket rings. He offered it to Caldan. “For him,” he told Alasdair. “He’ll need them to get to the vormag. Otherwise, we’re all dead.”
Alasdair licked his lips. He glanced down at Florian, then to Caldan, then back again to Kristof. He cursed under his breath. “I . . .” He shook his head.
Florian tugged at Alasdair’s shirt with bloody hands, leaving red smears over black. “Don’t be a fool,” she hissed. “He can take mine. It won’t be much use to me now. But I’ll want it back.”
“Of course,” Kristof said.
She pulled a ring from her hand and held it out to Caldan. Her blood-soaked fingers trembled.
There were now two trinket rings being offered to him. Caldan met both of the Touched’s eyes. He knew what they were asking of him, but a small part of him was fearful of the result. What if he came to enjoy using his abilities? What if he decided to stay among the Touched, to earn more of these trinkets?
Stifling a curse, Kristof took Florian’s ring and shoved it into Caldan’s hand, along with his own. “Put them on,” the big man commanded. “Might work, might not. But you need to get to the vormag. We’ll hold off the jukari. Maybe try and clear you a path.”
“I’m not leaving Florian,” Alasdair said.
Kristof nodded grimly. “Stay with her, then.”
Florian struggled to her feet. “I’m not bloody staying here. We don’t split up.”
“Good,” Kristof said. He closed Caldan’s fingers around the rings. “Put them on. You need to kill the vormag. That’s your task.”
Caldan swallowed and nodded. He slid the rings on as quickly as he could. He waited for something to occur, to feel their effect.
Nothing happened.
Alasdair shouted in alarm, leaping to their left at an incoming jukari. He dodged and weaved around its axe. Uttering foul curses, he yelled as his spear pierced the beast’s hide. Gouts of black blood spurted from the wound. He backed away as a few jukari came at him, but they didn’t attack. Instead, they dragged their wounded fellow away into the dark.
Alasdair turned his back to them and spat into the dirt. “Abominations. Should never have been created. It’s a defilement, is what it is.”
“Enough of that!” Kristof said. “Caldan, where are the vormag?”
Caldan pulled his gaze from the three trinkets on his fingers and shook his head. The vormag would be upon them soon. “Close,” he said. “But the rings! They aren’t doing anything.”
Pain lanced his thigh. Florian jerked her spear back, tip red. Caldan pressed his palm to his leg, feeling warm blood leaking through his pants. Florian smirked at him. “A prick is sometimes all it takes.”
In an instant, one of the rings clamped into his finger. The metal grew hot, so much so that Caldan feared his skin would burn. Warmth spread from his finger, trailing through his palm and up his arm. As the wave passed through muscles, they seemed to shiver beneath his flesh. An unpleasant feeling, like something alive crawled under his skin.
Florian placed her palms on the side of his head and drew his face close to hers. “Feel it,” she whispered fiercely. “Breathe it. Follow it.”
Caldan’s blood drummed in his ears. It was as if molten metal pumped through his veins. He cried out, falling to his knees. Around him, the night grew lighter, as though dawn’s glow broke over them. His senses sharpened; he could almost taste what Florian had eaten recently on her breath. She and Kristof and Alasdair seemed both closer and yet farther away. Kristof stepped toward them, slowly . . . so slowly. Caldan couldn’t stand Florian’s touch on his face. He twisted his head away from her and staggered to one side. He squinted at the stars of light twinkling on his fingers. The trinkets sang to him, coaxing his awareness toward them. Each one pulsed with its own heartbeat. He let himself be drawn toward them.
A slap rocked his head to the side. Florian.
Caldan snarled at her, surprising himself that he reacted so violently. She pushed him in the chest and backed away.
“The vormag,” Kristof commanded.
“Yes,” Florian whispered. “Go now. Kill them.”
Yes. The vormag were coming. They had to be stopped. Sorcery was coming to kill Caldan and his companions, and he was the only one who could stop them. He bolted in the direction of the three wells coming toward them.
Behind him, Florian shouted at Kristof, “This had better work. I want my trinket back.”
Booted feet thudded on the ground as they followed. Caldan barely felt his other two trinkets biting deep into his fingers. More pain blossomed. More heat suffused him, bringing a surge of excitement and strength. His sword felt as light as a twig. There were other sources of power out there, impinging less on his senses: candles held to the bonfires of the trinkets. Craftings created by the vormag.
A rock clattered to his left. A jukari, peering into the night. It couldn’t see as well as him, realized Caldan. He sensed others close by, somehow. Three to his left, two more to his right. They moved toward him as if intending to cut him off. Ahead, between Caldan and the vormag, were two jukari lying in wait.
Teeth clenched, he rushed forward. The nearest jukari heard him coming and stood from a crouch.
Caldan sprang; his sword sliced clean through its neck. The decapitated head twisted in the air, falling with a thump and rolling to the side.
Caldan landed lightly on his feet and kept moving. Left now, another jukari. Boulders passed him in a blur. He caught the creature before it could raise its spiked club. A downward slash severed its leg halfway up its thigh, edge cutting and snapping the thighbone. Thick black blood sprayed across the ground. Orange eyes were wide with pain and fright. He heard a slavering snarl, then drove his sword into the beast’s chest as its injured leg buckled. It twisted to the dirt, and Caldan tore his blade free.
Behind him, as if from a vast distance, Kristof, Florian, and Alasdair were shouting. Steel clanged on steel. Jukari bayed and howled—one beast’s cries cut off abruptly. Caldan glanced over his shoulder. The other Touched had formed a knot, Kristof and Alasdair supporting Florian in her wounded state, as they followed his trail. A pack of seven jukari made sporadic attacks against them, falling short in most cases, as if they feared coming too close. Three came from the rear, with another two on both sides.
Caldan growled. The jukari were herding them. They’d lost many lives already and wanted the vormag to take care of these dangerous interlopers.
Well, let the vormag come, Caldan thought with excitement as the power coursed through him.
A brief thought flashed through his mind: How bad will the aftereffects be? But he tossed it aside. There was no time to dwell on the future; the here and now was all that mattered. Survival. Kill the jukari and vormag.
Caldan urged himself forward, aiming himself at the wells he sensed ahead—and noticed another oddity: his sorcerous senses were magnified as well. Though they were still far away, the nature of the vormags’ wells was in stark relief. Two of them small and rough, their edges felt jagged, almost as if they’d been hacked open with a blunt knife. Behind those two came the third, a smooth, wide borehole compared to its ragged companions. There was an ominous power to the third vormag’s well. It surged and receded like waves on a beach, as if straining to be released. Swirling and caustic, it set his teeth on edge. All three tasted unnatural to him. Wounds. Not a natural pairing, as his was, these were holes gouged out of minds and sewn to power.
He almost stumbled at the realization. Of course, they had to be. These creatures were unnatural. Created. It made sense, then, that if there were sorcerers among them, they had to be made into sorcerers.
Caldan shook his head to clear his thoughts. He had to concentrate. Sweat flew. He could hear it hit the ground, like fat drops of rain at the start of a storm.
“Caldan!”
He ignored Kristof’s shout. On his left, a jukari came for him, feet slapping, lips peeled back in a feral snarl. Almost without thinking, Caldan turned aside a chop from its massive sword. His own rang and quivered at the impact. He was no blade master, but he didn’t need to be. The jukari stumbled, its momentum too great to stop. Its sword thudded deep into the earth, shuddering as it hit a buried stone.
Leaving its head down, neck and shoulders exposed.
Caldan drew back his arm and cleaved through its shoulder. His blade drove deep into the jukari’s chest, slicing muscle and sinew and shearing bone.
He dragged his blade free, leaving the jukari twitching in the dirt. Black blood drained from the wound, pooling underneath the body.
Caldan looked around and saw that the jukari were pulling back. Not too far, but enough to give them space. In a moment, the other Touched caught up. A couple of jukari lunged toward them, only to quickly withdraw before coming too close. They growled and slavered, hooting and goading each other on. He looked back and estimated they’d traveled a hundred yards or so. It had felt like only twenty.
Florian was breathing heavily. She leaned on Alasdair and hopped a few steps. Not good. Whether it was her wound or the loss of her trinket, she was definitely weakened. If Caldan rushed ahead, she’d fall behind, and they’d be separated.
A shorter, stocky jukari began pelting them with rocks. Kristof and Alasdair swayed to avoid the improvised missiles, which clattered around them. A head-sized rock slammed into the ground next to Alasdair, and broken chips of stone sprayed him. One sliced a thin gash across his arm. Drawing his mouth into a tight line, Alasdair shrugged Florian’s weight to Kristof. Once sure she was safe, he stepped to his right and calmly hefted his short spear, transferring his hand from close to the point to the middle of the shaft. With a blur of movement, he launched it. The stocky jukari’s eyes widened. That was all the time it had before the spear buried deep into its chest. It fell backward, dead before it hit the ground.
Calmly, as if he did this every day, Alasdair walked over to the jukari and retrieved his weapon. The remaining jukari backed away, though they still stamped around and snarled with agitation. Alasdair turned his back on the creatures and rejoined Caldan and the others.
Caldan felt Alasdair’s trinkets, like thin threads tugging at his skin. They were shining brightly to his vision and drawing power from . . . somewhere within. He smelled the jukari’s putrid blood and sweat. He was light-headed but itching to do something.
Closer the vormag wells came. Caldan knew they would attack from a distance. He would be their target. A powerful surge of sorcery would descend on him, splashing and overflowing. The Touched would be on the edges, but they’d also be struck. It would be best if he weren’t close to them.
“Stay here,” he urged them. His words came out as a snarl. Whatever the trinkets were doing to him, they remained active. He spared them a glance and shielded his eyes from their terrible intensity—though most of their glare impacted only his sorcerous senses. Caldan caught an impression of a well to the north before it flitted away. He blinked, trying to catch it again but failing. Vormag, it had to be. He hesitated, torn between wanting to investigate further and needing to guard against the danger coming toward them.
No time. There’s no time to waste.
Though his back was now to the Touched, he could feel their eyes on him as he strode off into the night, aiming directly at the vormag.
Two jukari broke from the others and shadowed him, one on either side. He ignored them, but was conscious of their hate-filled eyes. Their crude leather and cloth coverings gave off a fetid stench, and one made sure to clang the head of its axe on every passing stone.
Caldan shrugged, loosening his shoulders. His fingers ached where the trinkets bit into them.
The jukari he dismissed. In his current state, they were no match for him. He still had his well open, ready to draw on its power, but so far it wasn’t needed. Vormag were the real threat to him. Or . . . perhaps they were secondary, too.
Because he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe this had all been contrived—that this really was a test, and one that had been planned from the outset. Even as he crept closer to the vormag, he wondered why else he would be out here. They wanted to see what he could do with the extra trinkets . . . and one way or another, they would have ended up on his hands tonight. Which is why it wasn’t a leap to think that if he survived this night, the Touched and warlocks would pose a great
er danger.
And if that was the case, then they needed to understand something about the danger Caldan posed.
He needed to send a message, one Kristof would deliver to Devenish without realizing its import: that Caldan wasn’t to be trifled with. They thought him weak and inexperienced, easily swayed to join them with unspoken promises of power and glory. Dangling trinkets in front of him like carrots, with his own deteriorating body acting as the stick.
They’d overplayed their hand, though. Because none of these Touched had ever really experienced anything but their mundane lives before joining, and their lives as slaves after.
But I have. I have worked with sorcerers. I have fought sorcerers. I have seen the deceit of warlocks and the weakness of Protectors. And because I have lived, they will find it’s not so easy to kill me.
And that’s when another plan came to Caldan. One that showed his strength, throwing the unexpected at those who tried to control him: break the vormag, not just using the trinkets, but also with sorcery. He glanced around him, thinking furiously on what he had in his pockets to work with. Craftings he had no idea how to use, his beetle, two pieces of paper, hastily shoved in and crumpled. Nothing else.
Paper it had to be, then. Time was draining away, but he stopped stalking the vormag for a moment; he’d have to work fast. He took out both sheets of paper, then drew his left palm across his blade. Clenching his fist to hold his blood in, he dropped his sword. The two jukari made angry, questioning sounds but didn’t edge closer.
Caldan loosened his fist slightly, letting his blood trickle down it like crimson ink. Using his right hand, he pressed the paper against his thigh and began scrawling with his index finger. Nothing fancy. Crude, misshapen runes, but drawn with the power of his trinket-infused, Touched blood.
A Shattered Empire Page 10