Sulaiman said that bold swift action is preferable to meticulous planning, Xander replied. Besides, we have our pick of targets.
Astlin wished she could be as optimistic as Xander. A hostile sea of humanity raged across the ground, while Anris dueled Shaiel’s Will in the sky above. The malakh’s hooked sword hacked at the giant kost, but Shaiel’s Will fought on unfazed while Anris grew ever more battered, bloody, and tired.
If only I could help him, Astlin thought. But the outnumbered Light Gen needed her even more.
Held aloft on its rotted wings, Shaiel’s Will clawed at Anris with its right foreleg. The malakh swooped aside—right into the descending left paw. Nails like scimitars shredded the back of Anris’ leather armor and the skin beneath. He had no time to recover before the massive tail connected with his midsection, batting him up toward the beast’s gaping maw.
At the last second Anris rolled in midair and thrust his left arm toward the monster’s decayed face. Avalon had no sun, but the ball of light that formed in the malakh’s hand blazed like a summer noon.
Shaiel’s Will turned its head away from the dazzling light. Anris used his upward momentum and spin, gripping his sword in both hands and bringing its heavy blade down on the monster’s long thin neck. The curved edge clove stony scales and rotten muscle.
The beast’s snakelike neck lolled down against its chest, dangling by a thread. Silence fell over the battlefield as all eyes looked skyward. Shaiel’s Will thrashed blindly. Its tail whipped empty air.
Anris struggled to right himself while trying to strike past the flailing talons. He must have seen an opening, because he held his sword like a batter expecting a perfect pitch. Before he could strike, the monster’s hind leg snagged Anris’ wing.
The malakh spun sideways, and Astlin held her breath, sure that Anris would fall. But he hooked his sword’s blade on one of the beast’s exposed ribs and hung from the hilt, clinging to his foe as its massive forelegs bludgeoned him.
Anris’ right hand released his sword’s hilt and grabbed the monster’s rib. He continued to hold on, supported by one arm, while wielding his blade left-handed. He chopped mercilessly at the wounded neck, and with a guttural cry his final blow sent the beast’s head tumbling like a grisly kite with no wind.
Astlin and Xander joined in the cheer that went up from the army of Avalon at their captain’s victory. But Anris fell away from the giant decayed body and pinwheeled toward the ground alongside it.
Xander stretched out his arms as if hoping to catch the falling malakh. And he did, thanks to his nexic gift and foes too distracted by their leader’s earthshaking fall to open fire. He laid Anris gently on the trampled grass, and only then did Astlin see the terrible wounds that Avalon’s captain had suffered.
The lavender skin of Anris’ face was swollen with bruises and streaked with blood. His left wing was a shredded ruin; the white feathers stained red. His arms and legs were crisscrossed with deep gashes and frostbitten from contact with Void. His right arm and shoulder bore puckered chemical burns.
Shaiel’s army came out of their trance and leveled a hundred weapons at their three worst foes. Unhindered by words, Xander asked Astlin to join her will to his, and she immediately consented. The wave of nexic force that burst outward from the Zadokim instantly cleared every foe from an arena-sized circle around them.
Over the groaning piles of her fallen enemies, Astlin saw green and gold banners approaching from the north and south. The standards of Avalon stood tall, rippling in the wind.
Astlin knelt beside Anris. “Help is coming,” she said softly.
Anris didn’t stir. His chest hardly rose and fell.
“It comes sooner than we thought,” said Xander.
Astlin looked up to see a brown wolf leap over the tangled mass of Shaiel’s soldiers. It landed in the circle on two legs that brought Jarsaal Malisar, Chosen of Faerda, to the malakh’s side. Jarsaal worked in silence as he knelt down and bathed Anris in the healing light of the Well.
“How long until he—” Astlin started to ask.
Anris sat up like a man waking from a bad dream. His chest heaved as his light brown eyes darted back and forth. Only old blood and several fresh scars remained of his once mortal wounds.
“Relax,” said Astlin. Both of her hands failed to cover one of the malakh’s. “You won. Shaiel’s Will is dead.”
Anris looked at her. His face was relieved but weary. “Forranach is a wily and ancient worm. False hope hides what you already know. A kost cannot die until his soul’s true house is destroyed.”
39
Even though they knew he was coming, Teg had never had an easier time breaking into a secure facility. Help from a nexist who could scout out enemy positions through walls more than made up for losing the element of surprise.
Not that there was much of an opposition to surprise. Besides the security teams sweeping the halls—always several steps behind their quarry, thanks to Celwen—Teg only saw scattered bureaucrats sprinting down bronze-paneled halls, their expensive shoes clicking on slate floors as stray papers fell from the bundles in their arms.
The House of Law brought up memory’s from Teg’s mercenary career. A Temilian dictator’s mansion on the eve of a coup, the offices of a Stranosi financial firm after a bank run, the campaign office of an indicted Salorien mayoral candidate—all had wallowed in the same manic despair.
After climbing several flights of stairs, sneaking through a dozen dark offices, and crawling through at least one bathroom window, Teg and Celwen reached a balcony surrounding the level under the iron spire. The wide ledge gave a commanding view of the city, and Teg watched scattered drifters flee between stern-faced towers from shafts of green-white light that slanted down into the city.
Though buildings shook and clouds of smoke rose into the air, the impact sites were free of the spectacular explosions that Teg would have expected. He voiced his puzzlement to Celwen.
“The Sinamarg is bombarding the city with translator-based weapons,” she explained. “They do not inflict damage with concussive force or heat, but by reverting targets to prana. Disintegrating a structure’s foundations can destabilize the ground, as we discovered down in the tunnels, but collateral damage is rather light.”
“Efficient,” Teg said as he looked to the black sky overhead. “And more precise than anything we’ve got.”
Sunlight glinted off the vast planes and edges of the Night Gen flagship, which continued its orbital strike while shooting at the smaller ships that swarmed it. The blocky Cadrys Navy corvettes chipped away at the huge dark gem with blue and red rays and torpedoes that Teg only discerned when they detonated on impact.
Teg fixed his eyes on Celwen’s ashen face. “Can you call in an orbital strike?”
Celwen gave a start. “I thought you did not want the House of Law destroyed.”
“I like to have backup plans,” said Teg. “Can you call in a strike or not?”
“I can contact the admiral over a dedicated telepathic link,” she admitted. “I could suggest a target, but the final decision would be his.”
“Just curious,” Teg said as he slid his knife between the panes of an office window and raised the sash. Foregoing the Formula irked him, but the sword hanging overhead called for speed over caution.
Still, a deadline wasn’t a license to rush in blind.
“Anything fun waiting for us in there?” he asked Celwen.
Celwen’s green eyes looked inward. At length she frowned and said, “This floor seems to have been evacuated, but one area of the northwest corner is blocked from my sight.”
Teg swung his leg over the windowsill. “They must be hiding something important there. Show me the way.”
Celwen led Teg through an abandoned, paper-strewn office to an empty hallway clad in yellow glazed brick. A tremor ran through the floor, and emergency sirens disturbed prevalent solemnity that Teg likened to a temple or a tomb.
“Which way?” Teg whispered.
Celwen pointed left to an ordinary-looking oak door at the end of the hall. As they stalked toward it, Teg felt a fascination with, and a fear of, the forbidden that only the door to his father’s workshop had ever inspired.
Teg made damn sure to apply the Formula this time. As he ran his hands over the door’s every panel and line, what had always been practical work slowly began to feel like a preparatory ritual for entering a sacred place.
“Hurry.” Celwen’s voice was barely audible. “The Sinamarg is taking heavy fire. They cannot delay a strike on the building much longer.”
Though the warning fanned the urgency that smoldered in the back of Teg’s mind, he wouldn’t be rushed. When the Formula was complete he stepped back from the door having found nothing. No alarms, no traps that he could see, and no sound on the other side.
Teg drew his ether metal pistol. Celwen held hers at the ready in both hands. With every precaution taken, Teg turned the bronze handle and pushed the door open.
The room beyond was a large, iron and bronze-paneled square with smaller square alcoves off the corners. The stench of blood and viscera hit Teg’s nose before his eyes caught the pale nude body splayed atop the black marble slab at the room’s center. Blood ran down a groove in the marble and through a brass grill set into a depression in the slate floor. The regular tap of its dripping was almost hypnotic.
Something long and wormlike swung down from above and whipped Teg’s right hand. His gun flew from his grip and skidded across the floor.
Shock snapped Teg out of his trance. He glanced upward and saw a twisted hybrid of man and rat wearing filthy grey robes crouched on a narrow ledge above the entrance—much as its image had adorned Bifron’s door.
“I know you,” said Teg, recalling their prior meeting at the top of a tower in hell.
The freak perched above the door hissed through chisel teeth. It and two other plague-bearers had ambushed Teg once before, infecting him with a pox that only a deal with the devil had cured.
But this time it was alone.
Teg went for the knife at his ankle, but the big rat pounced, knocking both of them to the floor. Teg’s head barely missed landing in the blood pooling around the drain.
Celwen’s scream was louder than the shots she fired. The first two rounds missed, spraying Teg’s face with flint chips blasted from the floor. He felt the rat’s hairy misshapen body jerk as one bullet hit home. Another passed through the rat and, thanks to Teg’s aura, merely burned into his right thigh instead of blowing a hole through it.
Teg cried out in pain, and Celwen held her fire. He’d have preferred her to keep shooting, but the huge rat’s weight pressing down on his chest kept him from putting the thought into words.
Crooked yellow claws gripped an ancient knife whose bloody blade descended toward Teg’s face. He gripped the rat-thing’s hairy wrists and struggled to push it back, but his foe’s twisted form concealed unexpected strength.
While Teg had his hands full keeping the rat from carving out his eyes, its dripping fetid mouth lunged forward. Teeth like a pair of leather shears pierced Teg’s aura and his shoulder. He cried out again; not just from the wrenching pain, but because he felt infectious heat spreading from the wound.
Celwen rushed toward the grisly wrestling match. She dodged the creature’s bald lashing tail and pressed the gun to its ribs.
Before Celwen could pull the trigger the rat’s hind leg struck out, driving a clawed foot into her midsection. She fell to the stone floor, doubled over in pain.
Teg felt his shoulder itch as the gnawed flesh knitted itself back together. The heat of the infection cooled.
This is not how I go out.
Kicking Celwen had thrown the rat off-balance. Teg heaved with all his strength, driving his enemy back as he rose to his feet. The slavering jaws snapped at Teg’s face, but he inclined his head to one side, suffering only a nipped ear.
“Keep your germs to yourself,” said Teg. “They don’t like me anymore.”
Teg pistoned his knee up into the rat’s lower jaw and heard its teeth crack. He pivoted, slamming his foe against the marble altar, which crashed to the floor along with the disemboweled victim lying upon it. The rat-thing collapsed onto the ruins in a foul heap.
Celwen was staggering to her feet, a pained grimace on her ashen face. Still holding the gun in one hand, she clutched her stomach with the other.
“You still fit for service?” Teg asked her.
Celwen nodded but failed to be entirely convincing.
“I doubt they were just hiding a big rat in here,” he said. “See if you’ve got a clearer view from the inside.”
Teg crossed the room and retrieved his gun. He was checking it for damage when Celwen spoke.
“The wall behind you!” she cried hoarsely, pointing at the left wall with a bloody hand. “There is a chamber beyond, clad in thick steel, with no way in. It is dark and empty, except for something…wrong.”
The description piqued Teg’s interest. “Can you describe what’s in there?”
Celwen closed her eyes and fought to slow her heavy breathing. “A golden stone,” she said at last. “Too large to hold in your palm.”
“A giant gold nugget?” Teg said in disbelief. “That seems a little tacky for Vaun.”
“Not gold,” said Celwen. “Amber. There are ancient things entombed inside; dead things—a spider the size of my hand feeding on a dragonfly.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide with horror. “Something came into the stone! It is alive and dead at the same time; hideous.”
What most people would have called mad rambling reminded Teg of stories Yato had told the Nesshin kids to make them behave. His mind wandered from there to the bowels of the Exodus, where Nakvin had called Fallon a name from those morbid tales.
“A kost,” Teg thought aloud. “It keeps its life in a vas, just like Thera’s. Fallon’s soul is hidden in here, and the rat was guarding it!”
Icy fingers dug into Teg’s soul. He tried to fight them, but all his strength couldn’t wrest his soul from their intangible clutches. Alien thoughts flooded his mind; memories terrifying in their inhumanity.
“Woe to the thief when the master returns to find him plundering his house,” a cold voice whispered to Teg. He realized it was his own and screamed.
“Teg!” Celwen cried from an impossible distance. Her form blurred as Teg’s vision faded to shades of grey and gold.
“I am deprived of flesh, owing to the vagrant malakh,” said the pitiless voice in Teg’s head. “Yours shall serve as recompense.”
The devouring cold leeched away Teg’s reason, but visceral revulsion moved his arm to press the white gun’ warm barrel to his head. An instant before he pressed the trigger, the invading presence left him.
“Call down a strike on the room!” Teg shouted to Celwen.
The rat leapt to its feet. It leered at Teg with empty black pits in place of eyes. He recognized the cold malice in its voice.
“You shall not slay yourself,” Fallon said through the rat demon he’d possessed. “That pleasure is my just due.”
Reflex moved Teg’s hand again; pointing the muzzle not at him, but at the rat-kost. He pumped the trigger, producing a series of subdued pops with such little recoil that all seven shots punctured the grey robe’s chest in a tight pattern. The monster that wore it lurched backward.
“Call in the strike!” Teg shouted again.
This time, Celwen bolted from the room. Teg turned to follow her, but before he’d taken three strides, the soles of his boots stuck to the floor like industrial magnets on an iron sheet.
“We both have outstayed our time,” the kost-rat said from behind him. “What matters our passing to the turnings of the world? Your soul and mine shall descend to the Void.”
Teg looked down and saw the floor under his feet glowing gold. He pulled a fresh magazine from his jacket and reloaded.
“You first,” said Teg. He twisted around and
aimed at the half-rat, half-human face. Worked bullets flew from the white gun in such rapid succession that the muted crack of each shot overlapped the echo of the last. The monster’s head disintegrated, and its twitching body fell for the last time.
The glow at Teg’s feet faded, leaving him free to run.
But he couldn’t run, as much as his sense of self-preservation begged him. Because with the rat dead, the only one who knew the location of Thera’s vas was brooding inside a chunk of amber in the next room.
Teg cast about the chamber. Besides the door he’d entered through, and the drain in the floor, the only other exit was a balcony off the upper right alcove with a fifty story drop beyond. He holstered his empty gun and walked toward the door, though every nerve in his body urged him to run.
Teg’s lifespan had been miniscule compared to Fallon’s, but Teg had been around long enough to know the kost’s type when he saw it. Anyone who willingly stuck his soul in a piece of rock clearly had trouble letting things go.
As expected, the ice-cold hands were pawing at Teg’s soul again before he reached the doorway. Teg didn’t waste time fighting. Instead he turned on his heel and ran all out for the balcony.
Fallon possessed Teg’s body just before they reached the balcony’s edge. But that was okay, because the momentum that Teg had built up carried them over the low stone railing.
Teg was vaguely aware of his body flipping end over end through the air as the plaza rushed up to meet it. Fallon’s mind had swallowed his, and was taunting him on the way down. But as before the mental connection was two-way.
Hey, the corner of Fallon’s soul that had been Teg said to rest of the kost. Don’t think about where Thera’s vas is.
Fallon wasn’t remotely human, but even his reptilian psychology wasn’t immune to the old cognitive trick. In their shared mind’s eye, Teg saw a deep chamber where Smith’s clockwork form labored over a red gem and a rod of clear crystal. Their real eyes—or the black pits that Teg supposed had taken the job—saw a pillar of green-white light streak down from the sky.
The Secret Kings Page 34