Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 08 - Ghost in the Mask

by Jonathan Moeller

  Maena laughed, high and wild, and Caina wondered if the death and rebirth in a new body had deranged her.

  “It was a surprise,” said Maena, “how much pleasure this body could experience. But watching the two of you die,” she pointed at Corvalis, “watching you as Claudia dies in front of you…that shall be the greatest pleasure of all.” She gestured to her guards. “Kill them both!”

  The four mercenaries charged, shields raised and swords extended, and Maena began casting a spell.

  ###

  Kylon parried, jumped far enough back at that his power returned to him, and launched another attack. Again Sicarion caught his thrust and parried, twisting around to launch a rapid flurry of swings. Kylon dodged and retreated far enough that his sorcery returned, and leaped out of the way. Yet Sicarion kept after him, showing no signs of tiring or slowing. Kylon had trained with the sword every day since he had been a child, but he suspected that Sicarion had done so as well.

  And Sicarion was centuries old.

  The guards around Maena attacked Caina and Corvalis, while the sorceress herself began working another spell. Kylon had to aid them.

  Yet he dared not turn his attention from Sicarion.

  The assassin pursued him.

  ###

  “We need to fall back!” said Martin.

  “No, my lord!” said Claudia. “They’ll be slaughtered.”

  Corvalis was in there. If the militiamen retreated to Calvarium with him still in the camp…

  “It is already a slaughter,” said Martin. “My men have no weapons that can harm that monster.” The earth elemental continued its rampage, flinging men left and right. Harkus and the other Venatorii unleashed silver pulses of light from their dispelling rods, but the elemental had not even noticed them. Talekhris could have banished the creature back to the netherworld, but Talekhris was dead.

  And he would not return to life in time to help them.

  “But if we do, Maena will take the bloodcrystal,” said Claudia.

  “I know that,” said Martin, “but if we stay here we’ll be slaughtered.”

  “I can dispel the elemental,” said Claudia.

  At least, she hoped so.

  “How?” said Martin.

  “I know a spell,” said Caina. “A master magus named Ranarius hunted me. He was skilled at commanding and summoning elementals, and I learned spells to protect myself. If I can get close enough, I can banish the elemental back to the netherworld.”

  Of course, she had thought she could protect herself against Ranarius, and he had turned her into a statue. If Corvalis had not rescued her with Caina’s help, then Claudia would still be a statue, standing as a decoration in the First Magus’s chambers for the next thousand years.

  “So be it,” said Martin. “Let’s go. Harkus!” The Venator hurried over, surrounded by his men. “We’re going after the elemental. Claudia can banish the thing. You, you, and you.” He pointed at some of the militiamen. “Form up. Get us to the elemental.”

  A centurion shouted commands, and the militiamen formed up around Claudia. Martin moved to the front, and Harkus and the Venatorii screened the flanks, crossbows loaded and ready.

  Those men were going to die around her, all to get her to the elemental. Claudia’s knees went weak at the thought, but she forced herself to continue. If she did not banish the elemental, more men were going to die.

  She steadied herself. She could not fail now. Too many lives were depending upon her. She could not fail them, and she did not want to fail Martin.

  Though if she failed this time, she would not have to live with her guilt for very long.

  “Forward!” said Martin, and they charged for the bridge.

  ###

  The mercenaries ran at Caina and Corvalis, weapons raised, their expressions filled with mindless fury. Caina wondered why they fought with such rage for Maena, a sorceress who obviously regarded them as little more than disposable tools, and saw the faint hint of glassiness in their eyes. Maena had altered their minds, using her sorcery to make them more ferocious and vicious in combat.

  Then the guards reached her.

  She flung a throwing knife at the first guard, and the mercenary raised his shield and caught the blade. Corvalis sprang to meet them, his sword a blur in his hands, and killed one of the mercenaries in the space between two heartbeats. Two of the remaining men wheeled to face him, shields raised, while the third stalked after Caina. Kylon and Sicarion continued their furious duel, and Maena raised her hands, summoning more arcane power.

  Caina flung another knife, and then another. The mercenary laughed and caught both blades on his shield. Caina drew back her arm to fling another knife, and the mercenary charged forward.

  So he did not expect it when Caina raced to meet him, dodging to his left to keep the shield between them. The mercenary started to turn, but Caina seized the shield’s edge with her right hand and twisted around him.

  The ghostsilver dagger glittered in her left hand, and she plunged the blade into his side. The mercenary wore only leather armor, and the blade punched through the thick material to sink into his flesh. Caina ripped the weapon free and slashed it across his throat.

  The mercenary fell, and Caina raced past his corpse to join Corvalis.

  He struck down another man as she approached, and the sole remaining mercenary fell back. Caina slipped a throwing knife from her sleeve and flung it, the blade sinking into the mercenary’s thigh. The guard staggered with a grunt of pain, and Corvalis’s sword plunged into the man’s chest, ending the fight.

  Corvalis ripped his bloody sword free, and Caina spun to face Maena.

  The sorceress grinned and finished her spell.

  Invisible force seized Caina and flung her into the air.

  ###

  Kylon landed hit after minor hit upon Sicarion, but the assassin barely noticed them.

  They were too evenly matched. Sicarion’s sorcery drained away Kylon’s strength and speed, but Kylon’s skill with the blade kept the assassin from gaining any advantage. And whenever Kylon stepped free from the swirling globe of shadows, his sorcery returned, refreshing him with new strength and speed.

  The first one to make a mistake would die.

  He felt the pulse of a potent spell. Caina and Corvalis floated into the air, caught in the grip of Maena’s sorcery. The sorceress would not let them draw closer enough to strike.

  Instead, she was simply going to use her sorcery to crush them. Unless Kylon came to their aid, they were going to die.

  But Sicarion continued his assault, and Kylon dared not turn his attention away.

  ###

  A dying man’s blood spattered across Claudia’s sleeve.

  Men screamed and died around her. She saw one of Maena’s mercenaries perish, his face ripped to bloody pulp by a sword’s blow, saw a militiaman fall with a spear through his chest. The noise was horrible, the smell of blood and loosed bowels was worse, and Claudia wanted to run back to Calvarium as fast as her legs would carry her.

  But if she fled, far more men would die.

  “Forward!” shouted Martin, laying about with his sword. A spear strike had torn most of the plume from his commander’s helm. “Get to the earth elemental! Get…”

  A mercenary lunged at him, and the sound of sword upon shield drowned out the rest of his words.

  The escort dissolved into chaos around Claudia, and she found herself alone in the mayhem of the battle. For a panicked instant she did not know where to go, or what to do.

  The elemental lumbered towards her.

  The huge creature moved with a deliberate, plodding step, golden flames shining in the black craters of its eyes. Blood glistened upon its massive fists, and its arms rose over its head as it prepared a massive blow.

  Claudia ran at the elemental, summoned all the power she could hold, and cast a spell. Blue light flared around her fingers, and she thrust her palms against the elemental’s leg. The stone and earth felt rough ben
eath her fingers, and she sensed the power of Maena’s spell surging through the creature.

  The spell her own sorcery now struggled against.

  The elemental looked at her, and Claudia screamed as she drew upon all her power. Arcane force surged through her, and she poured it into the elemental. Maena was strong, hideously strong, and Claudia’s power was not equal to the task. She felt her mind start to waver, felt herself start to buckle…

  She remembered the corpses lying in the Tower of Study in Catekharon, men and women dead because Claudia had been foolish enough to trust Mihaela.

  She remembered the dead in Calvarium, slain by Maena’s Dust Shades.

  Then men slain around her, killed by Maena’s mercenaries.

  Claudia heard herself screaming, pouring all her rage and terror into the spell. The elemental raised its hands to smash her to a pulp, the golden fires in its eyes blazing brighter.

  Maena’s spell flickered beneath Claudia’s onslaught.

  And the golden flames in the elemental’s eyes disappeared. The power beneath Claudia’s hands vanished as the earth elemental returned to the netherworld, driven from its host.

  Which meant that its body was now nothing but a pile of loose earth.

  Claudia threw herself backwards as the elemental’s body collapsed. A wall of dirt slammed into her waist, and she hit the ground and rolled, dust billowing around her. For an awful moment she thought she would be buried alive, entombed in the elemental’s collapse.

  But she felt strong hands close around her arms, pulling her up.

  Claudia regained her feet, and stumbled against a man’s armored chest.

  “Are you all right?” said Martin.

  Claudia tried to speak, spat out a mouthful of dirt. “I…I think so, my lord. The…the elemental…”

  “You destroyed it,” he said, a note of wonder in his voice. “And I think we’ve won the battle.”

  All around them the mercenaries fled, falling back beneath the onslaught of the enraged militiamen and the Venatorii. Claudia was no commander, but she saw that the fall of the earth elemental had demoralized the mercenaries.

  “It’s not over,” said Claudia, “until Maena is dead.”

  “You’re right,” said Martin. “Are you injured?”

  “I’m fine,” said Claudia, which was not true, “and I want to see this to the end.”

  Martin nodded and shouted orders to his men.

  ###

  Caina floated in the air, feeling Maena’s will close around her. She tried to struggle, tried to scream.

  But she could do neither. Maena’s will held her like a fist of iron, slowly squeezing the life from her. From the corner of her eye, she saw Corvalis floating a few feet off the ground, also suspended in the grip of Maena’s sorcery. She had not thought Maena powerful enough to bind an elemental and work such a potent spell at the same time.

  Death, it seemed, had strengthened Ranarius’s sorcery.

  “We’ve done this before, haven’t we?” purred Maena. “You pinned on the ground, powerless.” The force holding Caina tightened. “But this time, you don’t have the Defender to come to your rescue.”

  “You,” rasped Caina, “you still talk too much.”

  Maena laughed. “Fear not, Ghost. You won’t have to listen for much longer.”

  She pushed her hands together, as if squeezing a sponge, and the awful force tightened.

  Behind her, the earth elemental collapsed with a rumbling roar.

  Maena staggered, hands flying to her temples in pain. The force holding Caina vanished, and she fell in a heap to the ground. Talekhris must have shattered the spells upon the earth elemental, sending the broken sorcery ripping through Maena.

  It was Caina’s last chance.

  Her limbs trembling, her head throbbing, she threw herself at Maena. The sorceress shrieked a curse, and started to cast a spell, but Caina was faster. She struck Maena, driving her to the ground, and the ghostsilver dagger grew warm as it punched through Maena’s ward and sank into her belly.

  ###

  Sicarion stopped, a frown tightening his deformed features.

  Kylon saw Maena fall, sensed the backwash of power as the elemental collapsed. The battle was over, and Lord Martin’s men swept into the camp. Kylon might not be able to defeat Sicarion, but even Sicarion could not overcome so many foes.

  Yet Sicarion was not looking at Maena or Lord Martin’s men.

  Instead he looked at the ground outside of Maena’s tent.

  “So,” he murmured, “that’s what he intended. Very clever.” He took another step back and grinned. “We’ll see each other again, stormdancer. Very soon. If you survive.”

  He fled, vanishing before Kylon could pursue.

  Why had he been staring at the ground?

  ###

  Caina climbed to her feet, the ghostsilver dagger wet with Maena’s blood, and lifted the weapon for a killing blow.

  But there was no point.

  Maena’s face had gone gray, her green eyes wide with pain and fear, her gown darkening with blood. The dagger must have opened an artery or a vein inside her belly. In another few moments she would bleed to death.

  Corvalis stared down at the dying woman.

  “Gods,” he said. “Ranarius. I never would have guessed.”

  Maena hissed at him. “Aberon. I’ll see you dead. I’ll burn you, I’ll…”

  “Do nothing,” said Caina, “since you’re in too much pain to stand, let alone cast a spell.”

  Maena opened her mouth to respond…but instead coughed out a mouthful of blood.

  “Finish her off,” said Corvalis, voice grim. “She’ll work some mischief, otherwise. Or she’ll heal herself and we’ll have to do this all over again.”

  “Kill me,” hissed Maena, trembling, “kill me and the Moroaica will move my spirit to a new body.”

  “I know,” said Caina. “Then you can explain to her how you failed.”

  She lifted her ghostsilver dagger, and several things happened at once.

  Lord Martin strode towards them, Claudia and Harkus at his side. Claudia looked exhausted, her hair and clothing matted with dirt, but she was still alive. Behind them strode several militiamen, their eyes wary and hands on their weapons.

  “You have her, then?” said Martin. “Good. I…”

  “Ghost!”

  Kylon ran towards them.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said. “I can feel it. There’s a spell upon the ground. It’s waiting. I think…”

  “What?” said Maena.

  Caina turned to answer them, and then she felt the tingle of sorcery. Not from Maena, and not from Claudia or Kylon.

  But from the ground beneath her feet.

  She looked down, wondering if Maena had summoned another earth elemental.

  A curved line of blue light, perhaps six inches wide, flared to life across the trampled grass. Another line appeared, and another, and another, until a strange, elaborate sigil glowed upon the earth. Caina turned in a circle, the power of the thing washing over her, and saw that the sigil of blue light enclosed the central third of the camp.

  “What are you doing?” said Caina, looking at Maena. “What is this?”

  But Maena’s eyes were wide with terror, her limbs trembling as she tried to sit up.

  “I’m not,” she whispered. “I’m not doing…this isn’t mine.”

  “Go!” said Kylon. “It’s about to activate. Run!”

  The blue sigil flared, and force hammered into Caina.

  She gasped, and would have fallen, but invisible power held her fast. She heard Maena screaming in pain, heard the shouts and exclamations from the other men. Outside the boundary of the enormous sigil, the militiamen threw down their weapons and ran. Caina tried to move, found that she could not. But she still could turn her head, and saw Corvalis and Kylon frozen in the blue light, saw Martin and Harkus and Claudia also trapped.

  A trap. Someone had set an elaborate trap for th
em, and both the Ghosts and Maena had walked right into it.

  She turned her head again as men strode into the camp outside the boundaries of the great symbol. Hundreds of men, clad in fur and leather armor, their faces tattooed with Maatish hieroglyphs.

  The cultists of Anubankh.

  A tall man in ornate black and red robes walked through them, a smile on his bearded face, a hulking figure in a kilt and a gleaming bronze mask following after him.

  “Ah,” said Anashir. He came to a stop, his seset-kadahn looming behind him. “Good. You are all here. At last I can begin.”

  Chapter 22 - The High Priest

  “Anashir!” said Caina. She found that she could speak, even if she could not move her legs. “What is this?”

  Anashir peered at her, his face ghostly in the symbol’s blue glow. “Oh, yes, the young Ghost. I must say you are as clever as I thought. Do not blame yourself for your defeat and impending death. I arranged the facts as was necessary, and you had no choice but to follow them as you did.”

  “And what facts are those?” said Caina, hoping to gain time. Whatever spell Anashir had used to trap them was powerful, and surely he did not have the strength to maintain it for long. If Caina kept him talking, perhaps the sigil would start to unravel.

  But the blue light remained steady, and Anashir seemed unwearied.

  “Why, the reason I wanted you here, of course,” said Anashir, a paternal smile on his face. “You see, I have many enemies, and for all my power, even I do not wish to take foolish risks.” His smile faded. “I learned that lesson long ago. I knew the Moroaica would come for the Ascendant Bloodcrystal. It was inevitable. She could no more stop herself than a man dying of thirst could stop himself from drinking a cup of water.”

  “Stop herself from what?” said Caina.

  A flicker of motion caught her eye. She wanted to turn her head for a closer look, but dared not take her attention from Anashir