by Kenyon, Nate
But there was more immediate cause for worry. Shanar’s illusion had begun to fade like a ghost image disappearing into the distance, and the mortal forms of the Horadrim were beginning to show through.
Several angels had begun to move through the garden paths toward them. These were not soldiers, but they could raise an alarm. If Tyrael didn’t make it to the Council chamber before the Luminarei came for them, there was no hope at all.
“You.”
A female angel had stopped a short distance away, her aura pulsing gently, her wings undulating in waves. “You were accused of being a traitor. Imperius has instructed anyone who sees you to report it to the guard.”
“Whatever you have heard, you are mistaken. I have been on a secret mission to Sanctuary, the details of which do not concern you.”
“I—” Distracted, she looked at the others and seemed to recoil. “Their song . . . these are not Luminarei!”
Jacob stumbled back, his legs hitting the edge of a basin, and teetered there for a moment, trying to maintain his balance before toppling backward into the light pool.
The reflection in the pool was broken into multiple planes of color as he sank through the surface. It was not deep, but as the light covered him, he thrashed violently and screamed again, swinging at nothing Tyrael could see. Shanar rushed forward, clutching his arm and trying to pull him back, as more angels began to converge on their location. Jacob fought against her, but she got him upright again, holding on to the armor that encased his body.
An exclamation of shock and dismay came from one of the other angels, and the sound quickly spread through their ranks as they drew closer to the Horadrim.
Jacob’s wings had vanished.
The magic was breaking down faster now. Any semblance of order was swiftly dissolving into chaos, and they would have the real Luminarei at their throats at any moment.
Tyrael made a split-second decision.
“Run!” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Battle Begins
Zayl ducked farther behind the column. He had become skilled at hiding himself over the years. But it was a short-term solution to a much larger problem. It would not be long before Shanar’s magic faded completely.
A moment later, the huge door swung open again, and the two guards came out, nodding to the angel in the hall before stepping aside to stand motionless and at rigid attention.
The new angel emerged from the library.
Zayl had to admit that Gealith was breathtaking. Her aura was as bright and crisp as the morning sunshine on a clear spring day, her light golden garments magnificent with their intricate folds and gentle curves that lay upon her weightless shape. Her wings were wide and tapered and trailed behind her in the air, moving in rippling waves as if she might take flight at any moment.
But as she walked out into the hall, he caught a glimpse of something strange, a darker tint to her wingtips like a shadow clinging to their edges.
“Fate is your last adviser,” the angel at the door said. “I give you to the Defenders of the Arch. They shall guide you as you ascend to the ranks of Valor and pledge to serve this Aspect for the rest of your days, until you are struck down. Are you prepared?”
“I am,” Gealith said.
“Very well.” The angel stepped aside. “May you embrace your fate and find peace.”
The angel disappeared back through the door. The Luminarei guards marched forward with Gealith in between them. Zayl slipped from one column to the next, following as closely as he dared. His good fortune held for now. There were no shouts of alarm, no immediate reaction, as they marched steadily away from the library and down the echoing hall.
They were heading straight toward the Halls of Valor and an army of Luminarei.
The guards and Gealith remained silent as they approached an intersection with another massive, empty corridor and turned right. Far ahead, it ended in a courtyard open to the sky. Through the archways, the vast beauty of the gardens stretched out like shimmering jewels strewn across a meadow.
Zayl paused in shock. The Horadrim, their false wings gone, were running hard, pursued by angels in flight.
The guards had seen them, too. One let out an exclamation of surprise, breaking stride and crossing the corridor toward the open arches—and directly at the spot where Zayl hid.
He slipped his bone dagger from its sheath. The dagger was serpentine in shape, enchanted by the magic gifted to the necromancers by Trag’Oul, the great dragon. Necromancers relied on the spiritual energy of the dead. Zayl had used the dagger many times and in many different ways in his life, but he had not yet tried to call upon this power here, in the Heavens, and had no idea what it would do.
It was time to find out.
“You there,” the guard said. He had stopped short, staring at the shadows where Zayl crouched, and had drawn his Luminarei sword, a wicked, glowing blade that cast light rays so bright it made Zayl wince. “You are one of them.”
Zayl was fully exposed. There was no hope of hiding anymore. The necromancer muttered a spell under his breath, as quickly as he dared. He did not have the time to prepare in the way he normally would, casting runes upon the stone floor, but summoning spirits would not be likely to work, and he had other ideas.
Trag’Oul, he thought. Great dragon, hear me . . .
The guard attacked with a slashing blow, and Zayl raised his bone dagger. The dagger clashed against the holy blade, and a fierce burst of power and light threw itself outward between them. Zayl felt his legs begin to buckle, and he steadied himself against the searing pain that would surely come as the sword bit into his flesh.
But the blade did not continue its deadly arc; the tiny bone dagger had stopped it. The guard seemed perplexed, and he swung his weapon again, and again Zayl parried, taking a step backward toward the gardens. The Luminarei kept coming, and Zayl found himself tiring quickly, his muscles quivering with the strain of repelling each strong-armed thrust and slash. He heard the second guard shout from the corridor and resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder. Any distraction would mean certain death.
Until now, Zayl had remained on the defensive, blocking what the guard threw at him but nothing more. Any moment now, the second Luminarei would be upon him, and any faint hope he had of survival would be gone. If he was going to escape, he had to act quickly.
But Trag’Oul was silent, and the spirits of the dead did not exist here. There was no help coming. He had to do this on his own.
A face swam into his vision, fully formed and whole. Salene. In an instant, she had been gone. Zayl saw the dark-winged creatures carrying her away in the night, watched her body yanked into the black skies; he saw her ephemeral form flickering before him, brought back from the dead in a rare fit of grief. Yes, he had loved her, in spite of the training that had been intended to strike such feelings from his soul, and perhaps that had made him human.
The guard saw an opening and struck. Zayl brought up the dagger at the last possible moment and willed himself through the twisting bone, summoning energies that had coiled within his chest like a snake. At the same time, he remembered what Tyrael had told them about the nephalem and the blood of angel and demon that mingled and flowed within their veins. He was his own greatest weapon, and he intended to use that to his advantage now.
The sword struck the bone dagger with a deafening clap and an explosion of energy. Instead of forcing the energy away from him, Zayl spoke several words of power out loud. Immediately, the blade began absorbing everything the Luminarei could give, feeding on his essence like a bloodsucking fiend, drawing more and more of the guard’s light energy.
The dagger glowed fiercely as the guard collapsed onto the stone floor, nothing left of him but the armor he had worn. As the second guard reached him, Zayl released a focused bolt of energy that hit him in the chest. The guard flew across the corridor, crashing into the wall on the far side, where he lay motionless.
Zayl’s body tingled,
and he still felt the remaining essence coursing through him. The new angel, Gealith, stood a few feet away, but she did not move.
“Are you going to try to kill me, too?” Gealith said. Her tone was curious, her posture making her appear perplexed, nothing more. “I am unarmed. But you will find it impossible to get much farther than this.”
“We are not here to kill,” Zayl said. “We are here to save you all.”
“Then you are badly mistaken,” she said. Her form beneath the robes bulged and swelled. Darkness began to swirl more heavily, and her wings crackled with an energy that was not pure at all, but tainted with evil. It was as if she were shedding a skin of light and revealing a black core beneath.
Zayl felt the Balance tremble. This was an abomination, something that should not exist. Without a conscious thought, he threw every last ounce of the energy he had gathered through his blade as he thrust forward into the center of Gealith’s being.
The angel shrieked, a terrible sound full of rage. The blackness poured forth around Zayl’s blade, but he held it with a two-handed grip, gritting his teeth as he felt the darkness touch him with icy-cold fingers. The moment seemed to go on and on, until finally the darkness was gone, and he was alone.
Chapter Thirty-Four
A Deadly Encounter
Tyrael raced down the garden path after Thomas and Cullen. The others had almost reached the massive pillars that marked the Courts of Justice, but Cullen had quickly fallen behind, huffing and puffing as he went, and Thomas had slowed down to wait for him. There was a gap of perhaps fifty feet between them and the rest.
Tyrael’s breath burned in his lungs, his heart hammered in his chest, and he felt the world begin to swirl before his eyes. Normally, he would have had little trouble outrunning them all, but the wound across his torso and the large amount of blood he had lost were making him dangerously weak.
He glanced back once and saw that the nearest angel in flight was almost upon him. The angel was armed with a wicked-looking curved blade, the tip glowing white. Tyrael drew his sword once again, ready to engage the angel to give the Horadrim more time. But in his heart, he knew the effort was useless. Others were converging upon their position, far too many of them to fight.
So this was where it ended. A quest that had begun the moment he had ripped off his wings and chosen to plummet to Sanctuary as a mortal, aligning himself fully with the human race, an act intended to bring the Heavens and mankind together, to show each side the other’s strengths and weaknesses, to forge a lasting and eternal peace and an unbreakable union against the forces of darkness. Angels and men, ruling over all. It seemed to be a ridiculous vision now. The chalice had forsaken him; he had asked for wisdom and had received nothing but despair.
Or perhaps not, Tyrael thought. Chalad’ar had shown him death. Perhaps this end had been inevitable all along. If so, he would go toward it honorably and be cut down fighting.
But when he turned back, Cullen was standing firm in the garden path, an object clutched in both hands. The nephalem key. Thomas stood behind him, his sword ready. The look on Cullen’s face was of grim determination. He closed his eyes.
Power leaped from the key, a crackling band like lightning crisscrossing the space between the Horadrim. The band of energy met the angels coming from the right and swept them aside like a dinghy cast adrift in storm waves. Cullen released a second bolt from the key, this one directed over Tyrael’s shoulder. The angel who had been pursuing him was lifted and tossed into a bed of flowers twenty feet away.
I have underestimated him, Tyrael thought. The idea gave him strength. But there were more angels coming. The other Horadrim had reached the Courts of Justice now and disappeared inside, but it was of little comfort to him; surely they would be met by more guards.
A group of Luminarei in full armor emerged from the open archways that lined the far side of the gardens, racing toward them. Immediately after them came the Sicarai. The destroyer flew across the space between them like a vengeful god, his weapon shining in the bright light. Cullen turned toward him and tried to release a fresh bolt of energy, but his conviction appeared to falter, and the bolt was easily deflected by the huge warrior.
As the Sicarai reached them, Thomas stepped in front of Cullen. Tyrael tried to come to his aid, but it was too late; the destroyer fell upon the man, striking a blow that shattered Thomas’s sword into pieces and drove him to his knees.
Thomas raised one arm as if to try to ward off the Sicarai’s attack, and his forearm was neatly severed just above the wrist by the destroyer’s next strike. Blood fountained upward from the stump, splattering across the flower beds. He cried out once, his teeth grinding together, a look of surprise on his face.
The Sicarai was already swinging again, and this blow nearly cut Thomas in two.
Thomas slumped forward, already dead before he hit the crushed surface of the path, his blood staining the crystals red.
Cullen dropped to his knees beside his friend’s body as the Sicarai readied himself to swing again, and then something massive struck Tyrael from behind, and darkness mercifully descended upon him, and he sensed nothing more.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Courts of Justice
Mikulov paused for a moment inside the shadows of the columns that rose far above his head. It was cooler in here but no less magnificent than the Gardens of Hope; each new space was more remarkable than the next. This made the monastery in Ivgorod look like a child’s toy in the hands of giants, and he knew that the sheer size and majesty of the entryway was meant to intimidate, to lend respect and gravity to what went on inside the Courts of Justice themselves.
The gods do not speak here. He had stepped through the portal and into another world entirely, one that was governed by different rules and strange masters he did not recognize.
And Mikulov was alone.
As Jacob, Shanar, and Gynvir had raced toward the end of the gardens, he had paused a moment and started to circle back, meaning to give aid to Thomas, Cullen, and Tyrael, who had fallen behind. But a group of half a dozen angels had come onto the path between them, all brandishing weapons, and when the monk had turned again, he found several more on the path in front of him. So he had cut across the beds and between two large light trees, heading for an open archway some distance to the left of where the others had disappeared inside.
Mikulov had peered out into the gardens, and what he saw there chilled his blood. Thomas, Cullen, and Tyrael had been caught by a group of Luminarei guards led by the Sicarai. The huge warrior came at the Horadrim like a hurricane, pushing aside Cullen’s attempt to stop him and shattering Thomas’s sword as he tried to protect his brother. And then . . .
The monk had trained for many years to steel himself against both physical and emotional pain. The gods were there to support him when he fell, lift him up when he was weak. The Patriarchs preached serenity in the face of evil, to do what must be done without allowing oneself any sign of frailty. Even his own skin had been hardened through years of training, made nearly impenetrable to weapons or claws.
But what he saw cut through him as if he had been wounded. Mikulov bit on his cheek to keep from crying out as the sword whistled down, opening his friend’s belly, and Thomas’s blood wet the ground in a crimson gush.
All at once, his vision from the road to Bramwell came back to him: trapped inside the gates of the Heavens, Tyrael’s transformation into a hooded, faceless stranger, Thomas decapitated in front of them by Tyrael’s own sword . . .
More Luminarei soldiers had streamed out into the gardens. Tyrael and Cullen were lost under a swarm of them; the monk saw Cullen go to his knees under a sea of flashing swords and armor, and the archangel was knocked down from behind.
They are lost. Every ounce of Mikulov’s being screamed at him to rush back in, to avenge their deaths in whatever way he could. And yet he knew it was useless, that he could never hope to defeat so many alone.
The monk slipped to the floor,
his inner balance shaken. The columns before him seemed to bend and bulge, shadows lengthening. Shapes crept forward through the gloom, their dress eerily familiar. Ivgorod assassins, sent by the Patriarchs to kill me. Against their orders, he had left Floating Sky forever, and therefore he had been marked for death. They had pursued him to the edge of Sanctuary and beyond.
The forms dissolved into Luminarei guards taking up positions along the walls of the giant room that opened onto the Courts of Justice. Mikulov shook his head as if to clear the fog that had come over him. The Ivgorod assassins were not here in the Heavens, of course. But the threat was real.
Mikulov remembered the battle at Gea Kul so many years ago, when the demon horde was closing in on them, with little hope for escape. He had called upon an inner power that he did not know he possessed, an energy gathering at his core that exploded outward like a tiny sun, laying waste to his enemies and cracking the very ground beneath his feet.
It had been the beginning of his awakening to his birthright, he realized: his transformation into a nephalem warrior, able to tap into the true source of his power.
Bring me strength to do what must be done. The deaths of his friends would mean nothing if the Black Soulstone remained in place. He had to hope that Jacob, Shanar, and Gynvir were on their way to the Council room. He must act to draw attention away from them, and the mission must continue, whatever the cost.
Mikulov closed his eyes. Something was building inside, a fire that would turn everything to ash. He saw waves crashing against rock, torrential rains tearing at the sides of mountains. He saw hurricanes uprooting trees like twigs and cyclones spinning and ripping everything in their path. The gods were in all things, their power all-consuming, and within him he wielded that power like a struggling demon about to be set free. He held on as it began to burn, clenched his teeth, let it grow stronger and deeper.