by Marc Turner
The chamber spun.
Ripples of fire-magic rode the air, hot as a desert’s breath. All about he heard the clash of swords, bellowed curses, footfalls pounding the floor. None of those footfalls appeared to be getting closer, though. It was as if his arrival had gone unnoticed by the combatants present.
Maybe I should try that entrance again.
Through the wall of water opposite he saw the dragon retreating to the north, while to his right, within the chamber, two of the six thrones were aflame. The stones of the mosaic beneath them had melted to form a multicolored slurry. In front of the thrones stood Mazana, Jambar, and Imerle.
Senar blinked.
They were talking. Just … talking. Or rather, Jambar was talking, and the two women were listening. Imerle’s eyes were smoldering, but the look she directed at Mazana would have turned water to ice. Mazana was facing away from Senar, so he could not make out her expression. Her tension was evident, though, in the stiffness of her posture. The Guardian shook his head, bemused. Had he fought a dragon just to watch these three have a heart-to-heart? What did Mazana and Imerle have to talk about, anyway? The differences between them were hardly the sort that could be resolved by a few placatory words and a handshake.
To Senar’s left he glimpsed the belligerent Watchman from last night. The Watchman was fighting alongside two strangers against a single opponent—an opponent with gray skin that glittered in the half-light …
Senar’s breath hissed out.
No, it cannot be.
A crash of swords sounded behind, and he looked round. If Mazana and Imerle had agreed a truce, then clearly no one had told their bodyguards because the Everlord and the executioner were exchanging blows in the corner of the chamber behind and to the right of the thrones. As Senar watched, the giant batted aside Kiapa’s parrying sword and drove his own blade through the cuirass over the Everlord’s chest before lifting the weapon into the air with Kiapa impaled on it. Kiapa did not cry out. Instead he dropped his sword and wrapped his hands round the executioner’s blade as if he meant to pull himself off.
The giant was wearing his clawed metal glove on his left hand, and he reached out with it to seize the Everlord by the neck. The glove’s talons scored deep cuts in Kiapa’s flesh. Kiapa shifted his grip to the glove and tried to pry the giant’s fingers loose. Before he could free himself, though, the executioner hauled him forward into a head-butt. There was a crack of bone, and Kiapa rocked back, his face covered in blood.
Still he struggled.
The giant regarded him blankly. Then he drew back his lips in a snarl. Still holding Kiapa round the neck he tugged his sword from the man’s body and hurled him toward the wall of water on his left. The Everlord hit the ground short of the wall and rolled into the sea, where he was snatched down by the weight of his armor.
The giant turned.
Senar stood still. Like he was he going to escape the man’s notice that way. It didn’t work, unsurprisingly, and the executioner’s storm-cloud gaze fixed on him.
The Guardian clambered upright and drew his sword.
* * *
Agenta was relieved to see the Watchman disarmed and driven from the fray. It had become increasingly apparent his flailing blade was as likely to hit the kalisch as the stone-skin. Moreover, his absence allowed her to escape Warner’s shadow, for the trita, fighting to her right, was forever edging left in an effort to screen Agenta. Now that the Watchman was momentarily indisposed, she had space to bring her sword to bear.
She’d never faced an opponent of the stone-skin’s strength or speed before. As his broadsword came whistling down, she raised her blade two-handed to parry. The impact almost took her arms off. Warner countered with a blistering assault, and the stranger was driven back toward the wall of water.
A shout marked the Watchman’s return to the conflict. The stone-skin was forced onto the defensive once more. Agenta’s sword delivered a gash to his torso, and his shirt turned crimson-black. Well, well. It seemed you could get blood from a stone after all.
Another flash of sorcery lit up the throne room, searing the kalisch’s eyes. It was followed by a crackling hiss of warring fire- and water-magic that sent clouds of steam billowing about the throne room. Agenta smiled without humor—the ceasefire between Mazana and Imerle must have ended. And about time, too.
Then a wave of heat broke over her. A shriek came from her right. She looked across to see Warner’s sword arm and shoulder were engulfed in flames. The trita dropped his blade and hurled himself toward the wall of water. He plunged his arm into the sea. Had that volley of sorcerous fire been a stray blast from the confrontation between Imerle and Mazana? Or had the emira finally overwhelmed her opponent and shifted her attention to Agenta and her companions?
The stone-skin launched another attack. His sword moved so fast it seemed as if he were fighting with two blades instead of one.
Agenta retreated a step.
Only for her right foot to slip from under her. She fell to her knees. Her left hand came down to steady herself, and she found the ground was sticky cold. Ice? Perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised. In the Deeps two nights ago she’d seen Balen vaporize the sea, so why shouldn’t the stone-skin freeze the water on the floor?
Off balance, she raised her sword to block his next thrust, but there was no strength in the parry.
The stone-skin’s blade punched through her chest.
* * *
The executioner’s footsteps set the floor quivering as he bore down on Senar. He massed as large as a plains bear yet moved with disturbing grace, always in balance, poised on the balls of his feet. Light shimmered off the metal threads sewn into his skin. Over his stomach were a score of lighter strands where new threads had been woven to replace old. Had the armor there been breached by a weapon? Senar could only hope such a thing was possible. But then perhaps there was some other cause that had seen the executioner renew the strands. Hells, maybe he’d just put on weight.
The Guardian lashed out with his Will, thinking that if he could hurl his opponent through one of the walls of water, then the weight of the giant’s armor would seal his doom. There had been too little time for him to gather his power, though, and when his Will-blow struck it succeeded only in driving the executioner back a step.
He came on again.
Senar looked at the clawed glove on the giant’s left hand. Was there dragon blood on it, or was it only at executions that the talons were dipped in poison? He saw again the dragon’s blood spurting onto his right arm and shoulder. Beneath his wet shirt his skin felt tight, and he wanted to tear the sleeve away to see what damage the blood had caused. The giant wasn’t going to wait on him, though, and he covered the last few strides in a rush, his sword a whistling blur. Senar parried, adding a touch of his Will to bolster the block. His eyes watered as the blow landed. The power he’d used in maintaining his Will-shield against the dragon had left his head throbbing. As he fended off the next backhand cut, the impact resounded as loudly in his skull as it did on his sword.
Feinting low, he lunged with his blade for his opponent’s chest. The giant made no attempt to block, merely twisting his body so the Guardian’s sword glanced off the metal threads without parting them. The executioner countered with a decapitating cut, and Senar ducked beneath it before stepping back and raising his blade to parry a clubbing overhand strike. Rather than meet the blow full on, Senar angled his sword so his opponent’s weapon slid off his own. The giant’s blade followed through to hit the floor with a clang, throwing up sparks and sending mosaic tiles spinning into the air.
With his foe momentarily vulnerable, Senar dealt a Will-strengthened cut to the man’s thigh. The executioner grunted as the sword struck, but his armor held, and he retaliated by swiping at the Guardian with his clawed glove. Drops of the Everlord’s blood flicked off its talons.
Senar swayed out of its path.
His thoughts raced. He’d put nearly everything he had into that last
attack, but to no effect. If he scored a similar hit to a less fleshy part of the giant’s body—an ankle or a knee perhaps—he might break a bone, but he doubted it. What options did that leave? Conventional armor had weak spots. Even plate mail had gaps at the joints. The executioner’s armor, though, seemed to have no such holes in its coverage, for the only parts of the man’s body not shielded by the metal threads were his head, his hands and his groin. And since his head was out of reach without a ladder …
Senar used a nudge of his Will to foul the giant’s footsteps before thrusting with his sword for his foe’s groin.
The executioner was ready for him, of course. When you had so few vulnerable areas to defend, it was easy to anticipate your enemy’s strikes. He slapped Senar’s blade aside with his own before countering with a succession of hammer blows that, when parried, left the Guardian’s arms feeling numb. Senar backpedaled. He realized he must be drawing near to one of the walls of water. If he could reverse positions with the giant and hit him with every last scrap of his Will …
He’d gotten too far ahead of himself, though, for the executioner’s next attack proved to be a feint. Senar, with his mind elsewhere, was late in reading his intent. As the Guardian’s sword came up to block, the giant’s gloved hand snapped out and seized the weapon.
Senar’s blade was yanked from his grasp and went skating across the floor before coming to rest near the thrones.
The executioner brought his sword sweeping down.
* * *
Kempis watched Agenta’s sword slip from her hands. Her eyes lost their sharpness. Then her legs buckled, and she slumped to the floor. As quickly as that, Kempis had gone from having two allies to none. On the plus side, though, the stone-skin’s blade had got trapped in Agenta’s body as she fell, and it was pulled from the swordsman’s hands to leave the septia facing an unarmed enemy.
The kind he liked best.
He aimed a cut to his opponent’s neck. The stone-skin ducked under the blow and threw himself forward in a roll that took him past Agenta’s motionless body and through the puddle of black blood spreading out from the woman. When he rose once more, his face was smeared red.
And he was holding his broadsword in his hand. Kempis swore. How the hell had he managed that? Did he have the bloody thing on a string?
The stone-skin brought his blade scything round, and it landed plumb on Kempis’s sword. The weapons locked. Kempis came chest to chest with his enemy—or rather his chest came level with the other’s man’s stomach. Throwing his weight behind his blade, the septia strained to force his opponent back, growling and spitting.
The stone-skin might have been leaning into a gentle breeze for all the effort that showed in his face.
Then he dipped his shoulder and pushed. Kempis was thrown back, his feet skidding on the mosaic.
He could think of nothing to say that might slow his enemy down. Nor was there anything he could duck behind or throw in the stone-skin’s path—like one of his colleagues from the Watch, for instance. The man’s broadsword came sweeping round at waist-level, and Kempis raised his blade to block, but his sword arm might have been lifting the weight of the world, so slowly did it move …
Warner’s battered shield, flung like a disc from the edge of the throne room, thudded into the stone-skin’s side before deflecting away. A blow to the man’s head would have served Kempis better, but the distraction had at least spoiled his foe’s attack, and it was the flat of the stone-skin’s blade—not the edge—that thumped into Kempis’s left arm.
Just as the septia’s parrying stroke connected with his enemy’s sword a hairbreadth below the crosspiece. A dull crash sounded.
The stone-skin stepped back.
Only for his foot to come down on the same patch of ice Agenta had slipped on. Kempis might have said it was justice, if he thought such a thing existed. The stone-skin’s ankle went from under him. He fell to all fours, his head lolling forward.
In time to meet Kempis’s rising knee. There was a crack of bone, and the man’s head rocked back, his shattered nose pumping blood. He tried to raise his sword against the septia’s next attack, but Kempis batted the weapon aside and slashed at his opponent’s neck.
Blood threaded the air as the septia’s blade opened the stone-skin’s throat.
Kempis leaned in close. “Give my regards to Loop when you see him.”
The stone-skin gave a gurgled choke. Sounded like he might have been trying to say something, but it was drowned in a froth of blood. In any event, his scope for witty comebacks was limited. His eyes rolled back in their sockets, and he pitched forward onto his face with a satisfyingly meaty crunch. A leg twitched, then an arm.
His movements ceased.
Kempis wiped sweat from his eyes. He stared down at the stone-skin’s corpse, scarcely able to believe he’d beaten the man. Just to be sure, though, he kicked his foe’s sword from his hand and planted a boot in his side. It felt like kicking a wall.
No reaction.
His arm was bruised where the stone-skin’s sword had hit it. Gods, he felt tired. Flushed, too, though that might have had something to do with the heat coming off the sorcerous clash between Imerle and Mazana at his back. On instinct he started to check the stone-skin’s body for valuables, then stopped himself. Not like the warrior would be carrying his life savings with him, and besides, was any amount of gold worth the time looking when Kempis could have been running instead?
Warner approached, his clothes smoldering, his blackened right sleeve fused to the raw and weeping skin of his arm. Made Kempis’s own skin prickle just to look at it. The trita’s palm on that side was a ruin of red flesh, the imprint of his sword’s hilt branded into it. He was grinding his teeth against the agony. Kneeling beside Agenta he lowered an ear to her mouth.
“Is she all right?” Kempis said, regretting the question even as he spoke it. The woman had just taken a sword through the chest. Of course she wasn’t all right.
Warner ignored him. He placed his left hand on Agenta’s torso and pressed down in an effort to stem the flow of blood. Her chest labored in and out. Kempis suspected she had one foot through Shroud’s Gate already, because her eyes were glazed and her skin was as bloodless as Imerle’s.
Speaking of whom …
The septia looked round in time to see a thunderous blast of Mazana’s sorcery break against the interwoven layers of fire- and water-magic that made up the emira’s wards. Those glittering shields were cracked and frayed, and now they began to peel away under Mazana’s onslaught. And to think people said that Imerle was the powerful one.
To the right of the sorcerous confrontation, the executioner was fighting …
Kempis blinked. Senar Sol? Where had he come from?
The septia shook his head in disgust. Once again he was letting his curiosity get the better of him. He hadn’t forgotten Mazana’s talk of keeping secret Imerle’s part in the invasion, or what such a cover-up would mean for him. For the time being the bluebloods seemed oblivious to his presence. If he slipped away now they might forget he’d ever been here. True, he would have to swim back to the palace’s flooded corridors, but with the dragon having moved away …
He looked down at Agenta and Warner. The flint-eyed woman lay so still her spirit must have flown her body, but Red-Face continued to push on her chest, all the while urging her to hold on until help could be found. If Kempis did a runner it would mean abandoning his new allies, but so what? He still owed them for dropping that wave on him in the Shallows.
His mind made up, he took a step toward the rear of the throne room.
* * *
Senar dived to his left and felt the giant’s sword cut through the air where he’d been standing. An expectant hush had settled on the chamber as if the other combatants had halted their clashes to see the conclusion of his duel. He rose on one knee, then lashed out with his Will. The executioner’s head rocked back, and he was half swung round.
Senar flung out his rig
ht hand toward his sword and used the Will to summon the blade to him. As the weapon sped through the air, the giant surged forward. From the corner of Senar’s eye he saw his opponent’s sword flashing down, but he couldn’t take his gaze from his own blade because if he failed to grasp it at the first attempt …
Its hilt nestled in his palm. He pushed himself to his feet, raising the weapon to block the executioner’s attack.
But there hadn’t been time for Senar to use his Will to reinforce the parry. Without sorcery he couldn’t hope to match the giant’s strength. His foe’s sword punched through his defenses and chopped down onto the Guardian’s right collar bone.
A dull clang sounded, and the blade rebounded. The power behind the blow drove Senar to one knee again.
The executioner’s eyes widened.
His surprise was nothing compared to the Guardian’s. That strike should have taken his arm off. Instead all he felt was an ache. The giant’s sword had cut through his shirt, and through the tear Senar saw a ripple of overlapping scales like plates of fish-scale armor. He did a double take. The scales were the same copper color as those of the dragon from the roof terrace.
No time to think on it now, for the giant had lifted his sword above his head, evidently keen to try his luck with Senar’s other shoulder. The Guardian lurched upright.
A woman’s voice barked an order at the executioner, and he froze.
The voice had been Mazana’s. She limped to stand beside Senar. Her dress was scorched, her left leg flash-burned. She was barely half the size of the giant, yet when she met his gaze there was a note of steel in her eyes.
Her blood-red eyes, Senar noticed with unease.
“Put up your sword,” she said to the executioner.
The giant held her gaze a moment longer before looking at the emira. Imerle’s hair and eyebrows had been burned away, and chains of crackling blue energy bound her wrists. She did not return the giant’s look. Instead she stared directly ahead, her chin held high, apparently oblivious to the people around her.