Festival of Mourn (The Dark Sorcerer Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

She pushed more enchantments across the distance, making sure to hold on to their power so they were silenced, and rolling them toward the men on either side of Topher. When they reached their respective destinations, she focused on the first man, wrapping a tight spiral of power around him, then hurriedly began to pull on the dwaring after activating the enchantment.

  Having done so once, she was prepared for the fighting, and as that energy started to rise and fight against her, she constricted it even more tightly, binding it up within the enchantment. Then she started to drag it down, away from the poor injured man.

  She didn’t know if this was the tavern owner, one of the regulars who had visited the tavern, or someone different entirely, perhaps one of the three strangers who had also been attacked.

  It didn’t matter.

  All that mattered was that she had to use her energy, and she had to pull it deeper and deeper into the enchantment.

  This time, she tried a different approach, activating the enchantment with even more power. She sent a surge of power outward. More strength.

  The enchantment triggered, and it ensnared the dwaring, and it pulled down, collapsing the creature inside.

  Jayna sank down. That had been exhausting.

  And to think she still had five more of these to do.

  She pulled the enchantment back to her, tapped on it with a seal of power from the dragon stone, and stuffed it into her pocket with the other one.

  Five to go.

  She started to focus on the other enchantment when she noticed movement near her. She turned, but it was too late.

  It was a blast of power that struck her, unfocused, but pure.

  It threw her down to the cobblestones. She lost the staff.

  Jayna started to get up, but another blast of power struck her.

  She struggled against it, but it continued to collapse down, as if some film of energy worked to trap her.

  Suffocating her.

  She scrambled, twisting her hand so that her dragon stone ring was facing up, and she focused a blast through it, using both the energy of the dragon stone ring and sorcery in a starburst pattern.

  As the blast tore through the film of energy around her, Jayna scrambled to her feet and looked around.

  Gabranth turned toward her. She caught a glimpse of his face, though it was hidden in shadows. He was lean, with deep, hollow eyes that looked as if the night sank into them completely, and wore a jet-black, flowing cloak. His long, dark hair hung past his shoulders, and though his hands were pointed at the sky, he looked as if he could turn dark energy to her in a heartbeat.

  Power slammed into her again.

  Jayna was thrown off to the side, and she rolled over to see another one of the sorcerers coming toward her. She twisted, trying the snake spell she had learned from Gabranth, squeezing it around the sorcerer. She constricted it as tightly as she could, thankful the spell worked for her as well as it did.

  He collapsed.

  Jayna scrambled forward.

  It was too late to do so in secret. Now it was a matter of simply stopping the Gabranth.

  As she ran toward the captives, something grabbed at her, dragging her off her feet. She looked over to see the other sorcerer who had attacked her in the very first tavern. He had a whip of some dark energy stretching from his hand, and it wound along her ankles, holding her.

  She battered at it, trying to use magic from the dragon stone ring, but even that wasn’t enough. It forced her to try a different approach.

  Jayna attempted the blade of light. She was unsure if it would work, but it came to her quickly, and she honed the edge to a sharp blade as rapidly as she could, as Ceran had taught her, flicking it outward so the blade carved through the dark magic holding her ankles. It had worked.

  She was freed.

  Jayna staggered to her feet, spinning and sending another spiral of magic at him.

  He was better equipped to fight. He blocked her move, and her power was deflected up where it exploded into the sky.

  Distantly, she was aware of Eva fighting with someone else. She couldn’t see much of anything, only the haze of smoke that swirled around them. Eva, at least when she was sober, was a skilled fighter. She didn’t necessarily need magic. She had a pair of long-bladed knives she kept hidden under her dress, or cloak, depending on what she wore that day. She didn’t worry that Eva would be in any particular danger, but she also didn’t want to leave her struggling.

  She never learned how Eva knew how to fight, but then, Eva might not even know.

  Either way, Jayna needed her help.

  Jayna targeted the sorcerer Eva fought, sending a blast of magic at him, spiraling it in a rapid, tight fashion, and it wrapped itself up, catching him in the chest.

  He blocked it, but it still knocked him back.

  She darted forward, already beginning a starburst pattern, mixing her sorcery with the dragon stone ring. As she blasted outward, the combination was incredible. Far more powerful than she had expected. The magic carved through him.

  There was no blood—magical injuries never really bled—but it did slice through him, severing his connection to magic, and killing him in the process.

  The sorcerer collapsed.

  She tried to ignore what she’d done, but could not.

  She’d dealt with dark magic users before, and had killed dark creatures, but this was different. This was a person.

  A sorcerer—dark and dangerous—but now they were gone.

  Because of her.

  Jayna spun, turning her attention back to the clearing. There were still five injured men, five captives who still had dwaring within them, and as she watched, she could practically see the dark energy inside them starting to erupt.

  Would the five she hadn’t saved provide enough energy to free the power of Asymorn?

  Jayna didn’t know, but as she looked over, Eva battled with a pair of sorcerers and was forced backward. Eva had her hands raised, smoke swirling around her, but it wasn’t enough. Eva struggled.

  Jayna debated. If she went to Eva, she could help her, but she also needed to stop this sorcerer.

  She needed to do both.

  She attempted the starburst pattern, imbuing it with the energy of the dragon stone ring, and shooting it toward the Celebrant of Asymorn. The energy blasted him, yet he barely moved.

  At least it startled him.

  He lowered his hands just a little bit. Jayna used that opportunity to strike again, sending another tight spiral toward him, blasting him with a mix of power and sorcery.

  Then she moved on, racing to where she detected Eva.

  She found her in a cloud of smoke. Two others surrounded her, approaching, and as Jayna came up behind them, she flicked her wrist, using the blade of light spell, adding a bit of power from the dragon stone ring, and carving through the first man.

  He dropped.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Eva shouted.

  “He was going to—”

  “He was going to do nothing. I need you to stop the other sorcerer before he frees the other creatures.”

  Jayna looked to the other sorcerer attacking Eva, but realized that Eva was probably right. She did need to move on. She needed to focus on Gabranth.

  As she turned her attention back to the center of the clearing, Gabranth raised his hands again. Darkness began to bulge from the five other captives.

  24

  Jayna grabbed the staff off the ground and ran forward. She reached the edge of the circle, but could go no farther. There was some sort of barrier around them. She tried to hold out one of the enchantments, thinking that she might slip it underneath, but it was too late.

  Gabranth already knew how she had done it.

  She had to limit his power somehow, as it was building.

  She could see it, but she could also feel it. It continued to flow, growing outward, and the more it did, the easier it was for her to feel it as it exploded upward.

  Before long, the dwaring w
ould escape.

  Then the Celebrants of Asymorn would succeed. They would reach for Asymorn, and they would free him.

  Jayna had to try something else.

  She pressed her hand up against the barrier, which she could feel but couldn't see. She traced the blade of light pattern, blasting power through it. She added cold, burning magic from the dragon stone ring to the pattern, feeling it working up her arm, into her elbow, then beyond. There came a faint shimmering, a sizzling of electric energy along the barrier, but then her magic failed.

  Her magic wasn’t enough.

  Jayna called on additional power, letting it flow out from her, and she attacked, blasting the power outward. When it struck, it did the same thing. It left strange sizzling lines of orange and red swirling along the bubble of energy before dissipating altogether. There came a flutter of darkness, but nothing more than that.

  Gabranth turned to her. He kept his hands held up to the sky, grinning at her. “Do you really think you can stop this? I’ve been working for this moment far longer than you’ve been alive.”

  “I will stop it,” Jayna said.

  “You do not have enough power.”

  She tried again. She had to call upon her dragon stone magic even more intensely. She had to find some way of connecting through it, reaching for Ceran's power. She might not be able to summon him, but she could use his power, and if she called upon it enough, maybe he would realize that she needed him.

  She tried another starburst pattern, mixing it with dragon stone energy, and it failed. Then she tried the blade of light again, though doubted it would be strong enough.

  She pointed the staff, spilling a hint of her natural sorcery into it . . . and it did nothing. Had Raollet lied to her about the staff?

  Gabranth grinned at her. “Soon they will be released. Soon the dark power will emerge and we will have all we need.”

  “You don’t look like you ever have all that you need,” she snapped, taunting him.

  “You have already failed. I don’t need all of the dwaring for this to succeed.”

  She tried to move forward, dragging the staff with her. “Then why take seven dwaring?”

  “Because I need them.” His gaze drifted to the captives.

  Jayna’s heart skipped a beat.

  He needed the dwaring for whatever he was doing, regardless of what he said. That dark power mattered to him in some way, but she had no idea what it was or what it meant.

  The dark power was more than just the dwaring.

  That was what troubled her the most. Not only did he need the dwaring, but he needed the hosts. Sacrifices.

  Too often with the kind of dark magic she dealt with, there were sacrifices. It wasn’t always necessary, but there was something about blood, pain, and death that fed dark magic, fed these dark energies that existed in the world.

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  “You will be a witness. Then you will be used.”

  Jayna looked over. Eva still battled with the other sorcerer, though the smoke swirling around her provided some sort of barrier that prevented the sorcerer from getting too close. Jayna didn’t see any sign of any of the other sorcerers around herself. If they reached her, she would have to be ready to fight.

  First, though, she had to get through this barrier.

  She focused on the power within her. She tried to call upon the energy from the dragon stone ring again, this time placing both hands up against the barrier. She traced all of the spells Ceran had taught her, using the most destructive energies she could think of, using as much magic through the Toral ring as she could.

  There was a limit to how fast she could trace those patterns on the barrier, knowing that if she were to do so too quickly, she would fail in creating them. Still, if she had learned nothing else from her experience with sorcery over the last year, she had learned to create the sort of destructive and powerful magic that would allow her to unleash all of the energy within her.

  If she were to succeed, if she were to break through the barrier, Jayna worried that she still wouldn’t be able to defeat him if she reached him—or that his spell might be too far along already.

  She couldn’t fear that. Instead, she had to focus on what she could do.

  Dropping the staff—it hadn’t been useful anyway—she pressed her hands up against the barrier again.

  The power built inside her.

  Sorcery came from a place deep within the spellcaster. It was a mixture of the natural and the magical, a connection to some part of her that was tied to energy beyond her comprehension. Regardless of what Eva might claim, a sorcerer did have natural, intrinsic magic. It was the only way she would be able to use the kind of power she could summon. She could feel that energy within her, how it bubbled up, and she knew that all she needed to do was reach for it—then she could unleash it.

  Jayna focused on it.

  She had been mixing the power of sorcery with that of the dragon stone ring. There was some intrinsic magic to the ring itself, a residual energy from the enchantment that had gone into its making that she never really understood. Then there was what connected her to Ceran.

  But there was something else too.

  There was the darkness she had glimpsed.

  Power that could bubble up from within her.

  If she were willing to connect to it.

  She was afraid.

  She was afraid of the pain. Of the cold. And she was afraid of surrendering to the darkness. As the dark energy came through her, she connected the Toral magic with her sorcery.

  In her experience, the combination was enough that it could often be far more explosive and destructive than one alone.

  She didn’t have much time. She could feel that whatever this man was doing would happen soon. He kept his hands raised overhead, and she felt power build, but it was not just the power within him. It was the power he summoned, the energy of the dwaring that he used.

  “All this for me?” she asked.

  “There’s nothing you can do to stop this,” he said.

  He pressed his hands up.

  The dwaring started to emerge.

  Jayna had to act quickly.

  She called upon as much power as she could, attempting to draw some out of the ring, through her, but knowing it probably would not be enough. So far, nothing had been enough—not against Gabranth, a sorcerer who had far more knowledge than she did. Gabranth might’ve even been difficult for Ceran to defeat. He knew some way of limiting Ceran's influence, so he probably wouldn't be worried to face him.

  As another blade of light crashed into the barrier, she had a moment when she thought it was going to be enough.

  She could feel the barrier starting to part, some aspect of it fading, and she tried to stretch through it, but then it solidified again.

  It was the dark energy. It was the dwaring that formed the barrier itself.

  Gabranth turned to her, grinning. “Did you think it would be so easy? Did you think you were the first of your kind whom I have faced?”

  He was powerful. More powerful than anything she had ever handled before.

  This was the kind of thing that needed a Sul’toral, not a Toral; the situation needed somebody who could handle that kind of dark power.

  Where was Ceran?

  She was tired. She had already expended considerable power, and she worried that she wouldn’t have enough energy remaining even if she were able to break through this barrier.

  She pushed more energy through the dragon stone ring, sending a summons out to Ceran.

  He needed to know the risk.

  He needed to know he was needed.

  Hopefully Ceran realized she was using more power than she ever had before, even if he couldn't detect her summons.

  “Eva!”

  Eva was still surrounded by smoke, and she was far enough away that Jayna didn’t know if she was going to be able to help.

  “Finish your sorcerer, and get over here
!”

  Gabranth laughed. His hands shifted position.

  It occurred to her that they had been in a steady position all along, but as they shifted, it seemed as if they were turning as hands of a clock might, positioned in such a way so that he could summon the power coming from the new moon. Once the dwaring escaped into the night . . .

  She saw it.

  There was a strange rent in the sky. A dark streak that gradually started to tear.

  They didn’t have much time before Gabranth succeeded.

  The power he summoned was incredible. This was no simple dark sorcerer.

  She battered at the barrier, but she needed something more.

  There came an explosion of heat, and she looked back to see Eva striding toward her, smoke swirling around her more thickly than it ever had before. Blood trailed behind her as she walked, and as soon as it struck the stones, it started to smoke and swirl, spiraling around her.

  Her face glowed, but so too did her entire body. It was almost as if the heat and energy that created the smoke came from inside of her.

  Jayna wondered about Eva once again, but as with each time she questioned, she knew there wouldn’t be any answer. Eva wouldn’t tell her anything more, and for that matter, Jayna didn’t know that it even mattered. At this point, all that mattered was trying to find the key to breaking through the barrier.

  “What do you think? Any thoughts on getting stronger here?” Jayna asked Eva.

  “I won’t be able to help you with this.”

  She’d helped before, why not now?

  The faint glowing of her skin started to dissipate.

  That was why.

  Eva was spent too.

  “Looks we won’t be able to stop it,” Jayna said. Her gaze went to the rent in the sky, the tear that ripped through the fabric of night. The dwaring were pulsating, stretching away from their hosts.

  Asymorn would use the power they’d fed on. Then he’d be free.

  Once that power was unleashed, there would be too much dark energy for her.

  “You have another option,” Eva said softly.

  “What option is that?”

  “The ring,” Eva whispered.

  “I’ve been using the ring.”

  “You’ve been using it the way they taught you to, but now you need to use it the way I know you’re capable of using it. You can tap into that power.”