by J. C.
She knew he'd try to break inside her guard with his stilettos. She knew he would underestimate her strength.
This wasn't an undead she fought, but if she didn't kill him, he would kill her. Leesil would be alone against two of the Anmaglâhk. More than he could face himself or to save Darmouth.
Rage fed her strength and speed, and she needed both to keep up. The tall elf charged her from between the columns and the nearest stone coffin.
Magiere spun the falchion low, cutting upward in the narrow space. As she'd hoped, he leaped, stepping off the coffin to plant his other foot sideways at the column's top. He twisted aside as her blade passed before his face. Before he could come down on her, Magiere reversed her swing downward.
The falchion's tip sliced through his cloak's shoulder and his vestment, and she felt it go deeper and drag for an instant.
She spun around, following with a level swing across the coffin's top where he had to land. But he wasn't there.
Pain pierced through her left shoulder.
From the corner of Magiere's eye, she saw a dark hand wrapped around a stiletto hilt. Half its blade length was buried through her hauberk. He had ducked under the archway, landing around the column, and stabbed her before she'd spotted him.
Magiere flicked the falchion across at his arm. When he jerked his blade out and stepped away into plain sight, she threw herself into him. More pain flooded her left shoulder as she struck his chest, and they both collided into the next column.
Magiere rolled away, stumbling, and brought the falchion up again. A flash of gray passed in the dark beyond the archways. She lunged along the coffin's side and set herself in front of the next opening before he could reenter the room's center section.
How could she fight him if she couldn't keep him in sight? Her shoulder hurt but hunger slowly masked the pain. Somewhere behind her, steel scraped on stone, but she didn't dare take her eyes from her opponent to look for Leesil.
In the dark beyond the archway, she saw the elf face her in a half crouch. A dark stain was spreading through his tunic around a slash in the fabric over his collarbone. She had wounded him.
Magiere's jaws ached under the shift of her teeth. When she separated her lips to relieve the pressure, a flash of uncertainty passed across the elf's eyes.
"Dead thing!" he whispered.
He had seen her teeth, her eyes—both surrounded by her pale skin.
"No," Magiere answered with effort, "much worse."
He moved toward her, slower than before. As she raised the falchion to block his slash with one stiletto, he leaned back and kicked up. His boot caught her sword hand.
The falchion tore from Magiere's grip. Before it hit the floor, his foot came down and he staggered slightly. Blood loss or pain had made him falter.
Magiere jerked the dagger from her belt and made a lunging slash at his face. Like smoke in the dark, he simply wasn't there when the blade passed. Before she reversed her swing to follow, he struck.
His stiletto slipped inside her hauberk's right armhole.
She felt its slide, cutting her instead of piercing her chest. The pain was still sharp enough to make her buckle, and she dropped to one knee, losing hold of the dagger.
The hunger inside of her made his movements suddenly appear slow. She lashed out with her left fist into his midsection.
The movement cost her, as the pain in her wounded shoulder sharpened. She didn't even feel her strike hit, but his body snapped backward, and he tumbled into the space beyond the arch.
For a long moment they both knelt there, panting, bleeding, and glaring at each other.
Magiere saw faint lines of age around the elf's large eyes. Beneath her pain and hunger, she wondered what had just happened.
He'd found an opening, and she couldn't stop him. He could have stabbed into her chest. Had he failed? Had his grip slipped in the last instant? Or had he tried only to disable her dominant arm wielding the dagger?
His eyes suddenly widened with fright as he looked beyond her.
"Groyt'ashia… no!" he cried out from beneath his face wrap. "Mortajh wearthasej-na Léshil!"
Magiere turned in panic to follow his gaze.
* * * *
"Darmouth, stay back!" Leesil yelled again.
He raised his punching blade and pulled the second one as he rounded the coffin's far end. He still hoped the warlord would stay out of the fight. A foolish, stupid hope, like wishing a rabid dog wouldn't attack anything that moved.
The young elf switched one of his stilettos for a match of the bone knife Leesil still carried in his belt. His gaze traced Leesil's punching blades, studying them in a blink. Then his body became a blur of hands and feet as he charged, striking in short, controlled movements.
Leesil hadn't expected a straight-on attack. He scissored and slashed his blades to keep the elf at bay.
A flash of steel came at him from the side.
He ducked down against the coffin's end and heard metal grate on stone. To his side he saw heavy, thick legs. One booted foot lifted, about to crush down on him.
Darmouth had come at him as well. The man wanted him dead more than he wanted to preserve his own life. And still Leesil had to keep him alive.
From his crouch, Leesil lurched sharply sideways with his shoulder into the sole of Darmouth's boot. He then struck upward with the top of his arm into the back of Darmouth's knee and shoved against the man's foot with his whole body. Darmouth toppled back, his shoulders landing heavily on the stone floor.
The elf's bone knife came instantly for Leesil's face. He twisted his head, and the silvery blade passed through his hair near his ear.
Leesil braced both his blade points into the floor. He pivoted on his left knee away from the elf and whipped his right foot backward.
His heel sank into the elf's abdomen. Momentum spun Leesil the rest of the way around. The elf was bent over from the kick, and Leesil slashed out with his right winged blade.
The young elf leaned away, and the winged blade's tip tore through the side of his cowl, level with his throat.
Leesil rose up. He'd missed doing any serious injury, but the wrap across the man's face was cut through below his chin. A shallow line across the side of the elf's neck began to bleed. Leesil heard Darmouth struggling and glanced over at him.
The warlord rose on one knee, both war blades ready.
"True!" the elf shouted like a curse.
Leesil's eyes flicked back. The elf's hooked knife was gone, but there'd been no clatter of it dropping to the floor. Something glinted around his palm and between his narrow fingers.
"Groyt'ashia… no!" a lilting voice shouted out. "Mortajh wearthasejna Léshil!"
A name… and some command? These words had come from the other Anmaglâhk, but Leesil heard no one coming up behind him. Magiere must have found a way to hold the elder elf at bay.
The young elf's gaze lifted, looking beyond Leesil toward the room's far side. He shook off whatever he'd been told, and his smooth tan brow wrinkled as he glared back at Leesil.
"True!" he spit again, and rushed in.
Leesil slashed an upward arc with his left blade. The elf dodged, one foot rising to step lightly upon the coffin's end. Then he was gone from sight.
A flash of thin silver passed before Leesil's eyes.
Panic filled his chest as the wire tightened suddenly around his throat. He was jerked upward, and his back slammed against the coffin's end. Dannouth came at Leesil with both blades raised.
Leesil released his punching blades, reaching back for the elf's hands behind his head. And he kicked up between Darmouth's legs.
The warlord hunched over with a grunt. Leesil was stunned when he saw the elf's foot shoot out to strike Darmouth's face. The warlord flopped away out of sight as the wire pulled tighter.
The toolbox on Leesil's back grated across the coffin's edge. Before his feet were pulled off the floor, Leesil kicked off, throwing his legs over his head. He rolled back ove
r his opponent atop the stone slab and came up on top of the elf.
His knees pinned the elf's shoulders, and the man's amber eyes glared up with pure hatred from between Leesil's folded legs. The elf hadn't lost his grips and twisted the wire tighter.
Leesil couldn't breathe anymore, and he couldn't break free.
He fumbled for the bone knife tucked in his belt.
"Groyt'ashia, stop it!" the same voice shouted. "Léshil… do not kill one of your own!"
The room dimmed before Leesil's eyes. He slapped down between his knees, grabbing for the elf's face.
Only the bright spots of the braziers remained clear as he ground the elf's head to one side. He finally slipped the curved short knife from his belt and thrust downward to just beyond his other hand.
The blade sank into resistance, and he ripped it sideways.
The wire around his throat slackened instantly.
Leesil choked, not yet able to take in air through his bruised throat. The elf's body bucked beneath him. He heard a sound like someone drowning in water as he gasped in air. His hands felt wet and hot as if covered in warm oil. The room brightened bit by bit.
He sagged and his gaze dropped down. His hands and thighs were splattered in blood still gushing from the elf's slashed throat.
Leesil fell back, heaving air in gulps, and rolled off the stone coffin.
His legs buckled and his vision spun from too quick a movement. He dropped to his knees on the crypt floor.
Magiere knelt across the room before an archway. Blood soaked through the left shoulder and sleeve of her wool shirt. Another dark stain spread down her right sleeve from the armhole of her hauberk. Her face was covered in sweat, and her irises were full black. She simply stared at him, unmoving.
Beyond her and barely within Leesil's sightline was the elder Anmaglâhk. His tunic below his cowl's collar was stained with blood. He held his side as he looked at Leesil and at the body of his companion sprawled across the stone coffin.
Darmouth crawled to the back wall of dark cubbies. Still grunting and hunched, he clawed up to his feet, clutching one of his war daggers. Leesil pulled himself up and stumbled toward the warlord, but his eyes remained on the elder Anmaglâhk.
The elf lurched to his feet. When he skirted the far side of the archway to get around Magiere, she hurried to get up as well.
"Magiere, stay where you are," Leesil said.
The words came out as a hoarse rasp that hurt his throat. He sidestepped more toward the elf as he neared Darmouth at the back wall.
"Léshil!" the elf said, winded but harsh, and he turned his eyes briefly toward the warlord. "You spill the blood of your own for that?"
"How do you know me?" Leesil rasped. "Where did you learn my other name?"
Darmouth turned around to face them. War dagger held out, he appeared confused. "Get out of my way… both of you!"
The Anmaglâhk cast his gaze toward the back wall. He took a stumbling step forward and was silent for a moment. Then he turned to Leesil once more.
"Look to the wall," he whispered. "See if you find your own there as well."
Leesil didn't let down his guard. He turned his head enough to see the cubbies and still keep the elf well within his vision. He was close now, close enough to see what rested in the rows of cubbies lining the back wall.
Skulls.
These weren't the rotting heads of criminals or innocents stuck on spikes upon the city wall. These bones were boiled clean and polished, collected like trophies, and one double-wide edifice held a paired set.
The nearest was no different from the others, human in all ways, but the second nestled close to it was distinct. A touch oblong. Even with its flesh gone, his face was more triangular than its human comparion and ended in a narrow jaw and chin bone. Its eye sockets were disproportionate—larger, tear-shaped. It was slightly smaller than the first.
A human—male—and an elf—female. Paired together in death.
Leesil heard banging upon the crypt's door behind him. The room around him dimmed again, and all he saw clearly was the mated pair of skulls.
Two together… his parents… always together.
"I'll add your head, mongrel," Darmouth growled with effort. "Soon enough. Now step aside!"
"Was it worth the price?" the Anmaglâhk asked Leesil, a vicious and spiteful edge in his voice. "Is one human, or a thousand, worth what you have lost?"
Leesil had protected Darmouth—but for what? He looked at the man.
The warlord glared back at him. There must have been something in Leesil's face. Darmouth's expression turned coldly pleased, as if watching another of his supposed betrayers suffering before death.
"Leesil… no," Magiere whispered.
He looked at her. Her eyes were locked on him, no longer black but filled with apprehension. He remembered a time when she was all that mattered. Just her. He would have his life be so simple again.
In his mind he saw his mother, Cuirin'nen'a… Nein'a… sitting in the bedroom window seat of his parents' room as she combed her brilliant hair. Beneath her stoic expression there had always been a sadness Leesil couldn't take from her.
If he could now just cut out the pain from his head and his heart.
Leesil lunged at Darmouth.
The warlord thrust the wide war blade dead center at Leesil's chest.
Leesil saw it, seeming so slow and weak with age. He turned his torso sideways without stopping, and the dagger slid along the steel rings woven into his hauberk.
Leesil slammed the hooked knife into Darmouth's throat. From somewhere behind, Magiere screamed at him to stop.
* * * *
Magiere watched Darmouth fall.
Leesil stood silent over his victim like another cold stone column in the crypt.
Darmouth clutched at the blade as he hit the floor. It was in so deep that half the hilt was buried in his throat. It took so long for him to stop choking and become still. Leesil didn't move.
Magiere went numb. All feeling drained from her. Everything they'd done this night—the deaths of Faris and Ventina, injured or dying soldiers, abandoning the search for Wynn—had been to save this tyrant. All of it was lost.
Leesil had murdered Darmouth.
She wanted help. She wanted Chap. Her shoulder and side began to ache again.
And someone kept thudding against the crypt door.
Magiere made a stumbling run across the room. She jerked up the wooden bar and dropped it. The door swung sharply open.
Chap and Emêl stood there, the baron's hand still holding the door latch. No soldiers were in sight beyond them. Perhaps without their lord or Omasta they were still in confusion.
"Oh, merciless saints," Emêl whispered as he looked beyond Magiere to the room's far end; then he closed his eyes tightly. "We have failed."
Magiere turned back, leaning into one stone coffin as she passed between them and the dead body of the younger elf. She couldn't bring herself to go all the way to Leesil. He still faced the paired skulls in the one wide cubby in the wall.
There was strange satisfaction in the elder Anmaglâhk?, eyes and then he looked toward her.
"Touch her," Leesil said, "and I'll kill you and everything you love."
Magiere kept silent. She already believed this Anmaglâhk wouldn't try to kill any witnesses here. He hadn't tried to kill her, even when she refused to get out of his way. Why, was another matter.
"Do not think this changes what you have done," the elf spit back at Leesil. "You spilled the blood and life of one of your own. True… traitor!"
Chap lunged around Magiere toward Leesil, his attention fully upon the Anmaglâhk. His growl rolled into a hiss that Magiere had never heard from the dog before. Leesil shuffled to the back wall and the wide cubby.
"Liars and butchers," he whispered, "all of your kind… and that's all I share with the likes of you."
The elf's brows knitted at the sight of Chap, and his voice turned quiet. "Majay-hi… And we
are not such liars as you assume."
He edged around Leesil, and Chap circled to stay between them. The elf went to his fallen companion, rolling the body off the coffin and onto his shoulder. He gave no notice of the blood that soaked into the back of his cloak. Magiere wondered how he was still on his feet, much less bearing the weight.
Before he turned toward the door, Chap lunged to the top of the coffin, snarling at him. The elf backed away.
Chap's crystalline eyes locked onto the elf's amber ones. The dog went silent as his ears pricked up. The two remained in that stare for so long Magiere started to wonder what was happening. Chap's ears flattened, and a low rumble between his teeth started to rise in volume.
"Chap?" Magiere said.
The dog leaned toward the Anmaglâhk, jaws shuddering, as if he were about to tear the elf's face with his teeth. The sound pounded in Magiere's ears as it echoed through the chamber, a snarl half of rage and half like a yowl of mourning.
"Chap!" Magiere shouted over his din. "Leave him be!"
The dog flinched into silence. The elf shook his head and moved on, inching sideways toward the door to keep his eyes on all in the room.
Chap watched the Anmaglâhk until Emêl stepped aside to let the man out.
Emêl came in, behind Magiere, looking at Darmouth's body with a deep sigh. "I know you two did your best to stop this, but we are ruined. Within days the bloodshed will begin, and when word of this spreads to other provinces—"
"We have to go," Magiere whispered, then raised her voice with difficulty. "Now. We can't stay here."
"What of Hedí and Wynn?" Emêl asked.
"We hope they made it out," she answered, watching Leesil. "It won't be long before the soldiers spread their search into the lower levels. We can't fight anymore and there's no hope now of searching the upper levels."
Emêl was no longer listening. He watched Leesil as well.
Leesil pulled off his cloak. He picked up his mother's skull and placed it carefully in the wool cloth. He did did same with his father's.
Magiere silently willed Emêl not to ask what had happened or she wouldn't be able to answer. She didn't realize Chap was beside her until he licked her hand.