Sanook could sense every member of the raiding party. He felt their fear and the wild confusion of other emotions, heightened by the madness of battle. He soothed their fears and leant some of his strength to each member of the gang. He was their strength, he was their resolve.
One of the crossbowmen spied the robed figure on the ridge. The soldier was no weaver, didn’t even possess a soul other than his own – to his eyes, Sanook was just a strange man in robes standing in plain sight with his arms outstretched. He sighted carefully and fired; his aim was true, and the crossbow bolt flew straight for the Shadowman’s throat. A full three feet shy of its target, the shaft of wood and steel stopped dead in midair and disintegrated.
A moment later, lightning sliced down out of the clear sky and found the crossbowman. The soldier screamed as his flesh was seared.
Rez and Shel reached the carriage. The leader sprinted to a halt, turning to catch the still-running Shel in his arms and catapult her up on to the roof. Shel jumped into his arms, and Rez tossed her up high. She had to grab hold of the carriage roof and cling for purchase, but she made it. She glanced down at Rez.
“Get to it,” he shouted up at her. “Quick as you can. I'll deal with Thorne!” Then he was gone, running toward the second, smaller carriage in which the Archon himself traveled. Maul and Kal’s teams could handle the soldiers with Sanook providing cover, but Archon Thorne was a powerful weaver who could likely kill them all.
Shel watched Rez go for a moment, then shook herself. She had work to do. Kneeling atop the carriage, she closed her eyes and tried not to think about the battle raging all around her. She felt exposed and defenseless. She would have to trust the others to keep the soldiers at bay, and Sanook would keep watch over her and prevent any arrows from striking her. Shel took a deep breath, reached within herself, and began forming the complex weave necessary to extract the souls from the enchanted gemstones Thorne used to transport them.
Rez ducked a slashing sword and dodged around the out-thrust end of a pike. Gritting his teeth, he resisted the urge to turn and fight. He had to reach Thorne, or they’d all be lost.
Rez studied the small carriage. The Archon would be inside. Rez couldn’t understand why Thorne hadn’t come out yet, but he had long ago learned not to question strokes of fortune. He slowed his mad dash as he drew nearer, preparing his first combat weave.
Shel’s eyes flew open. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. According to Aemond’s memories – if she understood them correctly – she should be able to sense the souls trapped in gemstones. Rez had told her the jewels would be packed in chests, but that should make no difference. She couldn’t sense anything within the carriage. Nothing at all…
She looked up, casting her eyes around desperately. The pitched battle continued on all sides. Men screamed and died. Blood spilled on the earth, soaking into the layer of dust laying over the stone-paved highway. Steel rang on steel, interspersed with lightning bolts hurled down from the clear blue sky. Shel saw Rez, two paces from Thorne’s carriage with outstretched arms and curled fingers. The air around his hands was distorted as if from intense heat, the only sign of his weaving visible to her. The others wouldn’t see even that.
Shel was confused. Everything was going according to plan. From the corner of her eye, she saw Kal whirling in place, flinging daggers that flew true to their targets. With a maddened battle roar, Maul crashed his heavy club down on a soldier’s head, crushing helmet and skull both. Sanook still stood on the ridge. Everyone was in place. But the souls weren’t there.
“It’s a trap,” she realized. Feeling the blood drain from her face, Shel stood up and looked around frantically. “It’s a trap!” She shouted as loud as she could, but her friends couldn’t hear her over the deafening cacophony of the battlefield. Her words melted beneath the clatter of steel, the bellowed challenges and beseeching wails of pain.
The small carriage exploded without warning.
Roiling flame and thick, black smoke poured forth and rapidly spread over the raging battle. Rez was flung backwards by the force of the blast, flying through the air before slamming into the dirt beside the highway. Dazed, he shook his head and struggled to rise.
In the next instant, the soldiers appeared. They came from the far side of the King’s Road, where they had lain concealed in the tall grass. There were dozens of them, more than a hundred. More kept coming behind. Shel stopped trying to count, spinning away from the sight in a panic.
She was about to jump down, with no real plan after that, when the carriage roof buckled and splintered at her feet. Shel looked down, stupefied. A second blow from within, and the roof cracked open. A blur of motion shot upward, rising above the level of the roof to hover in mid-air right in front of her. She looked up in horror and saw it was a man.
Archon Thorne wasn’t young, but neither was he old. It was impossible to put an age to him, actually. In a certain light, he might appear aged and worn. Now, in the bright sun, he glowed with vibrance and youth. All except for his eyes: the eyes were black pits of ancient hate.
He was a tall, slender man with unruly brown hair that curled slightly as it fell around his aristocratic features. Thick, sensuous lips were curled back in a mocking sneer to reveal perfectly straight, even teeth that had been filed to sharp points. The Archon wore rich robes of velvet and silk, purple and jade with golden trim. Gold and silver rings glinted from every finger, and jewels sparkled from most. A heavy amulet hung from a thick golden chain around his neck; the amulet itself was a golden disk engraved with a sinuous-rayed sun, emblem of the Golden Empire.
Archon Thorne hung in the air, his feet dangling more than six inches above the shattered carriage roof. His out-flung arms crackled visibly with energy and the air all about him shimmered with the same heat-haze distortion Shel saw around Rez or Sanook when they used their weaving. The Archon glared down at her, and she could practically feel his palpable hatred rippling off of him in waves.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
“May the summer never end!” answered Thorne, and then he wove their destruction.
Chapter 9 - Murdrek Thorne
Sanook watched in horror as the plan fell to pieces.
Shel was atop the carriage, but something was wrong. The Shadowman saw her rise from her crouch and shout, but distance and the clamor of battle kept any sound from reaching him on his ridge. Sanook squinted behind his mask, trying to make out the words.
The roar of the explosion stunned him. Sanook whipped his head around, looking to the source of the cacophony. He saw Rez flung through the air like a boneless doll. In the same moment Sanook became aware of the others.
They hadn’t been there before, he was sure of it. He would have felt them.
On the far side of the road, heavily armed and armored soldiers rose up from the tall grass to advance on the King’s Road. Sanook couldn’t understand it. He had scanned the entire area, and he was sure he would have felt them. How could their souls have been hidden from him?
The first of the soldiers were almost to the road. The Shadowman shook himself and prepared to weave. His friends needed him more than ever. Grimly determined, Sanook struck out with his powerful soul and tickled the heavens for thunder. He was tired already, and this next weave would exhaust him. He needed to make it count.
High overhead, clouds pulled together in the previously clear sky. Ominous flickerings shone through breaks in the thick, roiling clouds Sanook had summoned. Still the Shadowman worked his magic, holding until the last moment to strike. He kept one eye to the road, for he needed to unleash the lightning before the impossible army reached his friends. He would destroy them all, or as nearly all of them as he could manage, in one stroke…
The rooftop of Shel’s carriage erupted upwards, shards of lacquered wood flying into the air. A form emerged. Sanook’s breath caught in his throat when he saw the Archon over the young girl with his arms outspread.
To the Shadowman’s eyes, everything became cle
ar in that instant.
He hadn’t understood how hundreds of soldiers could have been concealed from him. He was able to sense the presence of his comrades. He could feel every member of the Archon’s convoy. He was in tune with the small creatures who flitted through the grass, and the predator birds soaring high above searching the grass for tiny flickers of movement. No soul could be hidden from a Shadowman. It just wasn’t possible. But now he understood.
For Sanook could see the incredible power flowing out from Archon Thorne. In his eyes, the very special eyes of a Shadowman, Thorne shone with unearthly light. It formed a rippling nimbus about the Archon, shimmering and distorting the air. Tendrils of this power curled out from the powerful nobleman. These slender threads of magic extended into the field of grass, stretching and curling and crossing over one another in their multitude. Thorne hung in the air like a massive spider in the center of his web, a sinister web of soul-magic, and Sanook understood.
He hadn’t sensed the soldiers because they were Soulless. Thorne was controlling each and every man with his own bloated soul.
***
Kal buried her dagger in the soldier’s leg, slipping her blade through the gap in his armor at the groin. Blood sprayed powerfully from the artery and the man’s face turned white in an instant as he fell. The dagger’s hilt was torn from her grasp, but Kal had others. Spinning away, she pulled another knife from within her jacket.
A familiar voice cried out. Kal jerked her head toward the sound, and she saw another of her men go down with a trio of arrows sprouting from his throat. Kal frowned. That made four of her men down. What was wrong with Sanook?
A bellowed challenge from behind was Kal’s only warning. She threw herself down and to the side. Her shoulder slammed painfully against the paving but she rolled through and came up in a crouch. In the same smooth motion she flung her dagger. She was pleased to see the pikeman who had been charging her from behind go down with the dagger buried in one eye.
There was no time to retrieve the blade. She drew another – her last – and turned to find her next enemy. She spared a glance to the ridge, worried about the Shadowman.
A roar of sound and a blasting wave of heat. Kal blinked, spitting dust and grit from her mouth in confusion. She was looking at a dusty wall of stone, a warm splash of fresh blood staining the masonry. Kal blinked and realized she was on the ground, knocked flat by the explosion. The blood on the road was her own. More of it trickled over her lips.
She pushed herself up, fighting dizziness as she rose. She groaned, she knew she had, but she could hear nothing.
Kal rose shakily to her feet, turning toward the ridge. Sanook!
But the Shadowman was there, his arms moving in graceful, intricate patterns. The sun had dimmed. No, dark clouds had gathered. No, Sanook had summoned them.
Ringing in her ears. Distant sounds of battle. No, they were not distant. Kal shook her head, trying to clear her ears. There were bodies all around her, lying prone on the ground. Some moved. A pace away, she saw one of the Archon’s soldiers with one arm stretched toward her. His face was blacked on one side as if by fire, one eye melted to jelly that spilled over his blood-soaked cheek. His lips moved beseechingly, but she couldn’t hear him.
Kal turned away, looked back to the ridge. She was confused. Sanook’s hands were a blur of motion. As she watched, anticipating the sorcerer’s imminent master stroke, Sanook’s arms slowed and then halted. What was he doing?
A sound like splintering wood in the next room. Kal turned her head. Her neck was stiff. She moved as if in a dream. Too slow.
A shadow rose over Shel, atop the carriage. Oh, no. Shel. No.
Without quite knowing why, Kal looked back to the mage on the ridge. She saw the soldiers pouring out of the field but they hardly seemed important. So many of them. Nothing she could do about it anyway. Let them go. The Shadowman…
A blinding shaft of light and fire stabbed down from the boiling sky. Kal blinked, unable to see. Her vision cleared slowly. The ridge, where Sanook stood…
But Sanook was gone. The ridge was gone, or most of it. A smoking crater was all that was left. Sanook was gone. A tree, a young aspen, leaves burned away and bark scorched. Thin wisps of smoke rising. Clods of earth thrown into the sky to land a dozen paces away. Sanook was gone.
They were lost.
***
Rez didn’t know how long he lay dazed on the ground. It could have been hours. It could have been days. The stunned leader pushed himself up, staring open-mouthed at the blazing wreckage of Thorne’s gilded carriage.
His stinging eyes watered and blinked rapidly of their own accord. Rez felt his jaw working up and down but couldn’t tell if he was making sounds or not. He couldn’t hear anything.
Rez climbed shakily to his feet, turning from the blasted wreckage. What had Sanook done?
They had known people would probably die. Thorne’s armsmen would put up a fight. They wanted to minimize the dying, though. Blowing up the Archon in his carriage had certainly never been part of the plan. Rez whirled in place – too fast! His head spun and his vision swam. He slapped a hand to his head, squeezing his eyes shut. Swaying on his feet, he nearly went down again.
The leader forced his eyes open and searched the ridgeline for Sanook. But a blinding flash of light seared his eyes again and he staggered back with a soundless exclamation. When he looked again, the ridgeline had been blasted out of shape. All that was left were singed trees and a smoking crater.
The deafening thunder was the first sound Rez heard after the initial explosion. His ears still seemed stuffed with thick cotton, but the roar of the heavens was too loud to be denied. The ground shook beneath his feet in time with the pounding in the sky.
Stumbling, Rez fought to stay afoot. He looked around in confusion. What was going on?
And then he saw Thorne, suspended in the air. Malevolent joy shone on the Archon’s face, and a frightened girl cowered at his feet.
Shel!
Rez lurched forward, nearly falling with each uncertain step. The ground still seemed to quiver from the thunder. Sounds were coming back now. Screaming and dying. He paid no attention. He had to reach Shel. Thorne would destroy her if he didn’t stop it.
Buried beneath the urgency in his single-minded thought was a knowledge that he had done this. Rez knew it was his fault, and his alone. He’d gone against Thorne before. He’d gone against Thorne many, many times. The others had no idea. But he had blundered this time, and badly. He’d underestimated Thorne, and the cost would be tallied in the lives of his comrades.
He saw he wouldn’t make it in time. The Archon raised an arm. To Rez’s eyes, the crackling nimbus of power that danced around Thorne’s clenched fist was impossibly strong. Where had Thorne gotten such power?
It hit him then. The souls. They were not in the first carriage, not stored in jewels and baubles the way they had expected. Thorne carried them in himself. He had absorbed many, so very many. He seemed infinitely powerful. Faint lines of energy emanated from the Archon, spreading to every corner of the battle field. A hundred soldiers, two hundred, more…each was a puppet on a string, and the strings converged on Thorne.
Mighty Dunmir! Rez swore silently. How could Thorne have grown so powerful?
He drew up short. Twenty paces still separated him from the carriage, from Thorne and Shel. The Archon drew back his fist and readied to unleash his dark weaving. Shel was going to die.
Rez never stopped to think, never allowed himself to hesitate. Planting his feet wide apart on the stone road, he summoned his own power. He couldn’t hope to match Thorne – not anymore – but he could distract the Archon. He could give Shel the chance to get away.
Once Thorne saw him, Rez knew, the Archon wouldn’t be able to resist. This was the true battle, after all. The thought came unbidden and Rez tried to deny it, but he knew it was true. All the high talk with Sanook and Aemond, that’s all it was. High talk, and the Shadowmen were both dead now.
What of Maul? What of Kal?
Rez wanted to search the road for his lieutenants…his friends…but there was no time. He had to save Shel.
There. The weave was ready. It was ambitious, more power than he’d ever placed in a single weave. It might work. Then again, it might unravel and whip back on its weaver. It could very well kill him, or burn out his soul. Rez never hesitated.
He unleashed the weave.
***
Shel looked up into the hate-filled eyes of Archon Thorne and knew she was about to die.
Strangely, she wasn’t afraid. She hadn’t expected that. She kept waiting for the fear to wash over her like a spinner’s wave, sweeping her mind away on strong currents and leaving her gibbering with panic. But it didn’t happen.
Instead, Shel felt frozen in place. Helpless, yes. But somehow at peace. It was less as if she were frozen, more like time itself had ground to a halt. The moment was frozen, and she had eternity to contemplate what would come next.
But why bother? Why dwell on the ending which bore swiftly down on her? Shel didn’t want to think about dying. She didn’t want to think about failure. She had never wanted to think about those things before – and for the most part she never had – so why should she start now?
Curiously, she found herself looking back instead. Shel wanted to laugh.
Once, more than a year ago, one of her gang had been taken by the Suncloaks. Lorson, Rickon’s elder brother. He’d been nicked while trying to lift a bolt of silk from a merchant. He’d had some fool-brained notion of gifting it to a seamstress he fancied. Lorson. He was always soft in the head.
He’d come back, though. Weeks later, and hardly the same at all. The Suncloaks kept his hands.
West had made them abandon their hideout when Lorson was taken. West had always been the smart one; Lorson the fool. Everyone else in the gang was somewhere in between normally, but with his brother gone Rickon had taken on the role. He’d argued and whined and cried and pleaded, but West was adamant. Without a new lair, they’d all be taken.
Soul Weaver: A Fantasy Novel Page 7