Cova ducked her head and marched, worried her troops would not arrive in time.
* * *
Knot, Cinzia, and Jane had only been able to find two horses quickly. They galloped up the path to Litori. Cinzia rode behind Knot, her arms wrapped tightly around his middle.
“Mind sharing with me what exactly it is you’re planning on doing once we get to the clifftop?” Knot asked, turning his head so Cinzia would hear him. He hoped they weren’t riding into the jaws of death for nothing.
“I just need to hold the gemstone, and it will take me into the Void.”
Knot frowned. ? How would Cinzia possibly get into the Void? She wasn’t a psimancer.
“The gemstone provides a connection to the Void for me,” Cinzia said, either sensing or anticipating his worry.
“And once in the Void?”
“Once in the Void, I’m going to kill the Nine Daemons.”
Knot spurred his horse onward, eyes narrow.
“I can tell you all about it,” Cinzia said, “after it’s done.”
Assuming we survive all this.
Cinzia’s arms tightened around his waist.
The nearest Outsiders turned their sleek heads, each one full of fangs and a pair of dull eyes, to take in the approaching riders.
Knot took the reins in one hand and drew his sword. The Outsiders would make quick work of the horses; he debated whether or not to tell them all to dismount when Jane rode out ahead of them.
“Jane!” Cinzia called out, but the Prophetess did not look back.
Jane’s blonde hair streamed behind her as she spurred her horse, one hand raised, palm forward. For a moment that was all there was: a woman riding toward a dozen monsters.
Then a hot, white light blasted forth from Jane’s palm. Knot remembered a similar beam of light at the Odenite camp outside Kirlan when Outsiders attacked; he had only seen the light from a distance, but the white heat was the same, and outside of Kirlan it had obliterated one of the Outsiders.
As it did here.
The beam cut directly through two Outsiders caught in its path; anything caught in the light disintegrated. The arm and tail of one Outsider evaporated, and it roared in pain, while the head and torso of another did the same, and the beast’s remaining parts fell lifelessly to the ground.
“How close do we need to get?” Jane shouted back at them.
“Canta Rising,” Knot whispered. For a moment, he had the tiniest hope that this might work.
* * *
“Eward! Now!”
Astrid pulled both claws from the Outsider’s back and flipped backwards into the air, clearing the monster just as a volley of three dozen arrows turned it into a pincushion.
She landed in a crouch, ready to pounce again, but the beast wavered, then tumbled to the ground. The earth shook with the impact. She grabbed the sword that Eward tossed her and drove it into the Outsider’s eye to be sure it wouldn’t get up again.
“Nice work!” She and the Prelates had become a decent team; this was the third Outsider they had taken down that night. Astrid provided a distraction—something she could do easily enough, given her enhanced speed at night—dealing what damage she could, while Eward’s Prelates stuck it with as many spears and arrows as possible.
“Wish there was time to celebrate it,” Eward said, looking east, “but we’ve got another one near the river.”
Astrid followed his gaze. Sure enough, another dark form rose, and she heard the low rumble of its roar, felt it in her chest.
“Shit,” she whispered. When would they stop?
She glanced up at the cliffs. The spiraling lights were no longer organized and symmetrical; they flickered, dancing around the clifftops. There was a fight going on up there. She needed to be a part of it.
But the people here needed her, too. She could not very well abandon them.
A large shape—far larger than any of the Outsiders she had seen thus far—dropped from the shimmering portal in the sky, falling toward the cliffs. When it finally struck the cliffs, the entire Sfaera seemed to shake.
She had seen one of these, once before. Beneath the dome in Izet, a massive Outsider, perhaps ten times the size of the others, had risen. Winter had pulled down the entire dome on the thing’s head to defeat it.
And now one stood atop the cliffs.
Another whistling sound, and another dark shape plummeted toward the cliffs. The Sfaera shook again, and another colossal form rose.
These huge Outsiders were slightly different in form than their smaller counterparts; while the Outsiders Astrid was used to fighting walked on two legs, using their fore claws as weapons, the huge ones rose on all fours like gargantuan lizards; jaws large enough to swallow the smaller Outsiders whole sat atop thick necks, and tails wove back and forth, covered in dark spikes.
One of them snaked its head up toward the sky and issued a bone-shaking roar, the likes of which Astrid had never heard. The Prelates around her clapped hands over their ears, cowering away from the sound.
“Shit,” she whispered again. They were barely holding their own against the Outsiders down here; there was no way they could do anything against those monsters.
Astrid attempted to summon Radiance, as she had many times already, but the blade still did not come.
Goddess, what good was the power if it took her a dozen more lifetimes to learn to control it?
“Astrid…” Eward stared up at the cliffs.
“We can’t do anything about them right now. Let’s get to the river. Take care of the Outsider there. Then we’ll see what we can do about…”
Astrid shook her head, a quake running down her spine as another beast roared.
“…then we’ll see what we can do about that.”
44
URSTADT FLINCHED AS ANOTHER horrific roar thundered through her, then spurred her spooked horse on. She caught glimpses of the bright colors of the Nine Daemons through the trees on occasion, heard the sounds of fighting, and was hungry to join it.
She rode at the head of fifteen hundred Rangers, with Rorie at her side. Winter had ordered them not to come back under any circumstances, but once they had seen the supernatural lights in the sky, Urstadt had said to Oblivion with circumstances. Rorie had quickly agreed. Loyal as they were to their queen, the Rangers were not a force to mindlessly follow orders, especially when it put their leader, who had done more than most to free them from tyranny, in danger.
A few hundred Rangers had chosen to stay behind; some under the pretense of holding their position, others stubbornly holding on to Winter’s orders, while a few admitted freely they had no desire to ride back into a battle where monsters roamed. Every single one of the Rangers present with their company had been there for the Battle of the Rihnemin. Every single one of them knew what they were facing.
When Urstadt broke through the forest onto the plains of Litori, she had no time to take in the battlefield. Three Outsiders snaked their heads around, sensing the movement from the forest. The moment they saw Urstadt and the Rangers, all three of them took a running leap toward the tiellan forces.
“Form squads!” Urstadt shouted. After the Battle of the Rihnemin, the Rangers had prepared almost daily for another fight with Outsiders. She hoped the training would hold up now.
Snow drifted down around her as she he spurred her horse forward, the Rangers fanning out behind. Urstadt gripped her glaive but even through her gauntlet she could feel the cold of the weapon. Such things did not bother her so much, but she worried how the tiellans would fare while fighting in the cold. Her horse whinnied, shaking its head, but she leaned forward and patted the animal, whispering soothing sounds, unsure whether the horse could even hear her through the cacophony. Tiellan clan horses were well trained, but even they could only handle so much.
Urstadt and Rorie, along with eight other Rangers, formed a squad, and Urstadt took point, rushing at the nearest Outsider that had just leapt in front of them. Urstadt leaned in the saddle
, spurring her horse to the side just as the creature clawed at her. She jabbed it with her glaive, and Rorie followed with her lance.
Outsiders swarmed around the clifftop, hundreds of them. At least two colossal monsters, far larger than any of the other beasts that swarmed around Litori, roamed the cliffs, towering above the others. To the east, something else was happening. A beam of white light, some kind of weapon, sliced through Outsiders as if they were paper; Urstadt could not discern much else than that. Near the edge of the cliff, a swirling battle of color raged. Eight colors, to be precise; for eight remaining Daemons.
Winter had to be there.
Urstadt spurred her horse forward and thrust her glaive into the closest Outsider’s ribs. Her squad had already stuck the thing a dozen times over; hot red blood dripped from a dozen wounds. Urstadt’s horse reared as the Outsider turned to face them. With a tug, Urstadt used the horse and the Outsider’s momentum combined to tear her glaive from the side of its chest in a wash of fresh gore. She struck again, this time where the neck met the jawline, and her glaive pierced deep. As she pulled it out, the Outsider stumbled, then toppled to the ground.
The other squads had made quick work of the other two Outsiders that had attacked them. They had also attracted the attention of half a dozen more.
Out of the corner of her eye, Urstadt saw movement toward the north. Movement that was not the shining, sinewy black bodies of Outsiders. Soldiers crested onto the cliffs from Litori’s Pass.
She doubted Triah would send troops by that route; if anything, they’d send another regiment up the wider pass to the east.
That had to be Cova.
The distance between the Rangers and the Rodenese was greater than the distance between the Rangers and the swirling battle of colors where Winter must be, but the Outsiders between the Rangers and Rodenese were far fewer and more spread out; no more than two dozen, all told, while they would have to fight their way through five or six dozen, including the two immense devils, to get to Winter. The beam of white light to the east still shone, and seemed to be on the move, but that was an unknown quantity.
Roden, at least, was Roden.
Another roar from one of the massive beasts shook the ground beneath Urstadt’s feet.
Oblivion, she would be deaf before this battle ended. If she didn’t die first.
“Fight to the west!” Urstadt shouted when the roar subsided. “Unite with those forces!”
As they rode toward the approaching soldiers, Rorie rode up beside Urstadt.
“Those are the Rodenese forces.”
“They are,” Urstadt said.
“They hate tiellans.”
“Not all of us do, Rorie.”
“But Winter—”
“We need help first,” Urstadt said, “if we want to help the queen. We will stand the best chance of reaching her if we unite with Roden. Even if they only sent a tenth of their soldiers, that more than doubles our numbers.”
And we’d better pray to whoever might listen that they sent more than a tenth.
Rorie nodded reluctantly.
As Urstadt spurred her horse onward—the animal, given the option, certainly seemed more optimistic about this trajectory than she had going toward Winter—she hoped she had made the right decision.
She patted the horse’s neck again. “Don’t worry, girl,” she said. “We’ll be heading to Winter soon enough. I hope you build up the courage by then.”
She hoped the same for herself.
* * *
Cinzia and Knot rode behind the Prophetess, Jane’s white light disintegrating any Outsider that dared cross their path.
Goddess, why hasn’t she used this power before? We could have destroyed the Outsiders easily, Cinzia thought.
But even Jane could only wield so much power for so long. Already the light was starting to fade.
“Jane, stop here!” Cinzia shouted. This would have to be close enough. She dismounted, and Knot followed, his sword drawn. He looked down at it, eyes wide. It was, perhaps, the first time Cinzia had seen him at a loss as to what to do.
“I don’t know what I can do to help,” he said.
Cinzia took his face gently in both her hands, and brought it to hers. They kissed, and a light, airy elation filled her, as if, for the briefest moment, the weight of all that happened around them, the doom and the death and the Outsiders and the Daemons, was lifted from her, and in their place she was filled with light, and with love.
When she pulled away from him, she could not stop the smile spreading wide across her face. The weight was already returning—the weight of what she was about to do, of what she had to do if they wanted the Sfaera to survive—but it was not as bad as it had been moments before.
“I’ve let Goddessguards protect me for most of my life,” Cinzia said, stroking his cheek as she stepped away from him. She reached for the gem in the pouch at her belt. When she withdrew it, a bright red glow burst from the stone, illuminating everything around them in a vibrant crimson.
“It is time I returned the favor.”
* * *
Urstadt and the Rangers made solid progress, driving their way west through the Outsiders toward Cova’s army. Cova—or whoever was leading the Rodenese—must have noticed what they were trying to do, or had the same idea, and Roden made headway toward them, too, the Reapers in dark blue tunics and dark gray lacquered armor leading the vanguard.
The Rangers cut through the monsters efficiently; they suffered inevitable casualties, but Urstadt would be surprised if they lost more than one tiellan for each monster taken down by a Ranger squad. Some squads, including her own, took down monster after monster repeatedly without losing a single Ranger. There were a few squads, however, who met with disaster, losing half a dozen or more Rangers in a confrontation, almost always because another Outsider blindsided them from the south.
Although their progress drew more beasts to them, hundreds of the monsters didn’t engage at all. Instead, they clumped together in great groups, some stalking about, others standing perfectly still. This included, thankfully, the two massive Outsiders.
A shape, much larger than the other Outsiders the Rangers had been fighting, fell from above. The more common, relatively smaller Outsiders fell from just a half dozen rods in the air or so, but the huge ones toppled down and down from at least a hundred rods, if not more. The enormous shapes had time to pick up speed, and gave everyone around time to notice, to hear the great whooshing whistle as it careened toward the ground, screaming with momentum. This one’s impact shook the very foundations of the Sfaera, and Urstadt’s horse stumbled, then almost immediately panicked, practically sending Urstadt flying. She calmed the animal, as did the Rangers all around her with their own horses to varying degrees of success, but they were all painfully aware of where the massive beast had landed: almost exactly between the Rangers and the Rodenese Reapers.
Their way was blocked.
The Outsiders that stalked the ground between the two armies were dwarfed by the rising shape that had just landed among them.
The new Outsider was different than the other two who had landed and now milled about farther south on the cliff; it was perhaps just a touch smaller than its two massive cousins, but instead it rose on its hind legs, and looked very much like one of the smaller Outsiders in appearance: long, muscled arms with a set of claws on each the size of spears; powerful hind legs, and a long, swinging, spiked tail, with an unspeakably large head at the end of a twisting, sinewy neck.
The dragon was Roden’s sigil, and Urstadt had seen many depictions of the legendary creatures from the Age of Marvels, in paintings, tapestries, sculpture, and more—serpentine winged beasts, with great claws and teeth, spouting flames from their mouths.
These massive Outsiders were not unlike dragons. Twisted, misshapen, perhaps—the Outsiders had none of the elegance of the artistic depictions she had seen, but instead were lopsided, malformed versions, without wings or the breath of fire. It seemed
physically impossible that the Outsider that had just landed should be able to lift a head of such size, even on a neck as large and powerful as that. And its teeth, which protruded at all angles, were absurdly long; perhaps twice as long as a man, and thicker at the base than a man at the shoulders.
Snaggletooth stood slowly, rising to its full height—taller than the other two behemoths because it stood on its hind legs— and issued forth a roar the likes of which Urstadt had never heard, or imagined she would hear, in her worst nightmares, let alone in her lifetime.
But, unlike the other two behemoths, this one wasted no time. It lowered its gaze at the tiellan forces and charged forward, sprinting toward them.
Urstadt felt a warm trickle run down her legs, wetting the underclothes she wore beneath her armor.
“Regroup!” she screamed, her instinct kicking in as she wheeled her horse around. “Form a line! Get ready to—”
But it was too late. Snaggletooth was upon them.
The monster roared again, a deafening ringing in Urstadt’s ears. As its jaws opened, Urstadt met the blackness inside.
* * *
One moment Cinzia was on the Sfaera, looking at Knot, gripping Canta’s Heart in both hands, and then with a puff of red smoke she was back in the starry Void.
Just as Canta had told her, the Nine Daemons did not appear anything like the other star-lights in the Void. Instead of tiny points of light, they were more like great burning suns, or multidimensional eclipses, more accurately: bright spheres of light whose outer edges burned with color, but inside were black, far blacker even than the Void itself. The closer Cinzia got to them, the more clearly they appeared. That was why Canta had told Cinzia to get as close to the Daemons as possible in the Sfaera before sinking into the Void.
Nine of those dark suns burned before her now. And there was a tenth: a dark burning star, different and larger than the others. Cinzia would have thought it more powerful if she did not already suspect what—or who—it was.
Chaos Queen--Fear the Stars (Chaos Queen 4) Page 41