Siege (The Warrior Chronicles, 5)

by K. F. Breene

  “Xavier says it does not taste good, but it works.”

  Sanders forced himself to take another bite. “Whatever helps me kill those pansy sons of bitches. I have a debt to settle with the Inkna.”

  Kallon took the remainder and moved on, aiming for all the best fighters first and letting other mental workers distribute to the rest. After he had given some to Lucius, who didn’t question nearly as much as he should, and moved away, the Graygual began to rise up again like weeds.

  “You couldn’t have just killed them?” Sanders asked in annoyance.

  Kallon replied, but by that time the grunts and cries of agony had turned into war cries. Sanders blocked a strike, and then slashed, feeling his stomach start to gurgle as he ripped his sword across exposed flesh.

  “Uh oh.” His stomach dropped and bubbled in that horrible way that warned he was about to shit his pants.

  He grabbed someone’s shoulder, stuck his sword through a gut, ripped the man to the side, and tried to move off to a corner. Another Graygual filled in. Then two more. He slashed and hacked, better and quicker, and way more experienced, but there were too many.

  Something feathered across his head. Like the dancing of fingers on his brain, something barely touched him. His stomach gurgled again. “Oh no.” One of the women, still climbing onto the roof not far away, froze and then convulsed into a ball. Her fingers went white on the ladder and her eyes squeezed shut.

  Inkna. Had to be.

  “Get that girl!” Two men on the roof sank to their knees, their bows falling out of their hands. Leilius rushed to the girl with the black bark while pointing at someone on the ground.

  “Mine!” Sanders yelled, barreling through Graygual as if they didn’t have swords. He slashed and hacked, getting sprayed with blood while completely ignoring what was going on with his own body. He shoved a larger man out of the way and yanked his blade from the man’s side, letting him die in peace. He sighted three Inkna sitting atop horses up the road. “Now you’re going to learn what it’s like to fight a fair fight, you good-for-nothing—”

  Sanders sprinted at them, his teeth bared. The horses started to prance and their ears flattened on their head. One whinnied and pawed at the ground.

  “That’s right, here comes danger!” Two of the Inkna were staring at him, frustrated expressions on their faces. A soft prodding touched Sanders’ mind, but he barely felt it. Ten feet away, close enough to still get them if their horses started to run, and suddenly hooves flashed in his face. The horse had been spooked, and bucked.

  Sanders dodged to the side, not deterred, and then froze. Another creature had bared its teeth, and it was much, much bigger.

  “Oh shit.” Sanders shrank back. Another horse reared, screaming. The Inkna fell off, nearly prone as he hit the ground. The back of his head smacked off the street and bounced. Blood splattered where his skull had hit.

  “No!” Sanders stabbed down through him as another horse threw its owner. The Shadow beast roared again, a sound that chattered Sanders’ teeth. The giant animal plowed into the final horse and swiped at the fallen man, scoring through his chest.

  “We’ll call that teamwork.” Sanders gave the animal a salute.

  The beast roared. Blood dropped from its large canines.

  Sanders backed slowly toward the nearest wall, wanting eyes on that beast all the time. They were supposed to be good in battle, mostly only going for the enemy. Sanders couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do if that mostly turned out to be his bad luck.

  Arrows flew through the crowd, sticking into the Graygual and lowering them to the ground. Another splash of fingertips raced across his forehead. A great few in the army groaned and sank as another rush of Graygual entered the square.

  “Get those men the root!” Sanders yelled, running parallel to the beast. It let out a ferocious growl before swiping at the back of a Graygual. Four lines of red parted the black. He arched and screamed before the beast’s head ripped into the back of his neck.

  Sanders looked around wildly, trying to find those Inkna. His men were standing now, though. Shanti’s kin must’ve been taking care of it, though he couldn’t tell to look at them. Unlike the Inkna, who hid away, the Shumas worked through the crowd, their movements slick and precise, and their sword strokes lethal.

  Sanders ran around the melee, slashing at enemy on the edges of the battle. He reached the drawbridge and saw the line of men anxious to get to the fight.

  “Damn it!” A black shirt ran at him. He ducked, stuck upward with his blade, and propelled himself to the right, ripping his sword out as he did so.

  “Clear this area of our men and I’ll blow the Graygual out!”

  Sanders followed the voice and saw Maggie with a round metal canister. Next to her, on the ground in a stone bowl, glowed a small fire. The flames barely reached out of their confinement. Out of the canister hung a white string.

  “Move!” Maggie yelled, waving her arm to the side.

  “Clear out,” Sanders yelled, grabbing the back of one of his men’s shirts and yanking him back. “Clear out!”

  Men dressed in blue ran where they could. A scream rose the hairs on Sanders’ arms away to the left, then the Graygual in the square shrank down in agony. The Inkna must’ve been taken care of.

  “Hurry!” Sanders yelled, shoving and pushing to take advantage of the mental workers. “Go!”

  Maggie lowered her contraption to the fire, and then quickly threw. The hollow metal sound when it bounced was quickly lost to the screaming of the Graygual. It rolled amongst them, bumping off someone’s boot as he crouched down, clutching his head in agony. For a moment, nothing happened.

  A loud explosion shook the ground. A spray of metal stuck in bodies like a deadly pincushion. Bodies flew up and out. A limb spiraled through the air.

  “Grisly.” Sanders grimaced. He wasted no time. “Get everyone in, hurry!”

  With a roar of fervor, Sanders’ men ran over the drawbridge. Their feet thumped as the surviving enemy scraped themselves up off the bloody street. One by one they finished the Graygual off, finally joining the battle after only watching.

  “More come!” Sayas ran past Sanders with his sword in his hand. He looked up at the roof and made sweeping signaling gestures with his arms.

  “I’m with you.” Sanders took off after the Shumas, noticing a few more running to catch up. “With me, men. With me!” he yelled, moving the battle forward.

  Around the corner spilled a sea of black. Like a tide during a storm, they crashed into the Westwood Lands men and Shumas rushing to meet them.

  “Fire!” Lucius yelled, his arm swinging downward.

  Arrows shot into the fray, downing Graygual by the dozens. It wasn’t enough. This city had far too many.

  The feathered pressure slid over his head. Damn Inkna again. The city was infested.

  Sanders turned back to check behind and noticed an opening off to the side. Within it, standing straight and stiff, stood one of the buggers.

  “Now I’ve got you.” Sanders stuck his sword through someone, nearly missed someone else, but luckily was able to slice off a limb instead, and elbowed a man fighting with a grim-faced Marc.

  “Thanks, sir,” Marc called as Sanders continued on.

  His eye on the prize, he ran at that Inkna with everything he had. A black shape zipped in from the side. Another came from the left. “No!”

  A cat lunged, its mouth fitting perfectly around the throat of the Inkna and chomping down. The other cat waited for the now-struggling man to fall before dodging in to finish the kill.

  “You filthy little— I need revenge!” Sanders shouted.

  A huge boom shook Sanders to the core. The air crackled around them, making some of their hair stand up as if lightning was about to strike.

  Sanders looked up at the sky, clear and blue, promising a chilly but beautiful day. The ground and surroundings rumbled, speaking of thunder. A flash of lightning.

  The cats
ran around him and then slunk into the shadows of the buildings, still hunting for outliers.

  The rumble sounded again before the air within the battle fizzed. Piercing screams frayed Sanders’ nerves for a second, the sound of agony so great a mortal man shouldn’t live through it. The screams ended in a horrible gurgle of death, amplified in a chorus of pain.

  “Help them!” Sanders called, running back into the fray. He raked his sword across a stomach and kicked someone in the nuts, before ramming the heel of his hand into someone’s nose. The man staggered backward as blood gushed down his face. Sanders ran him through.

  The air crackled again before a deep roll slammed into the enemy. More agonized screams echoed against the walls.

  “Take cover!” came a woman’s voice.

  Something dropped from the roof behind the enemy lines. Down the wall, something else fell right before someone took off in the other direction.

  “Get down!” Sanders screamed, running to the side.

  Two huge blasts in quick succession tore at the buildings and sent debris flying through the crowd. A head bounced on the roof off to the left. Someone threw up, unable to handle the carnage. Everyone and everything paused, including the mental power, as the dust settled.

  Sanders turned toward Lucius, hopefully still in earshot on the rooftops behind him. “Close that drawbridge. Don’t let anyone out. We need to keep this information in here.”

  Lucius cupped his mouth and yelled, “But what if we need to retreat?”

  “We won’t!” Not with the Captain in this kind of a mood, anyway. When the thunder started rolling on a clear day, he was not one to mess with.

  As if to punctuate Sanders’ thoughts, another rolling boom rocked the city, followed quickly by strikes of pain and torture that turned quickly to death. The Captain knocked them down, and Shanti killed them. Effective.

  “Okay, spread out. Let’s push deeper into the city and take them down. Do not kill any innocents!” Sanders yelled.

  24

  Shanti ran along the building, sensing someone ahead on the right. Their Gift flared and sparked, revealing a high-powered Inkna hiding from the battle. She bet there were a lot of those who would hide and try to sneak away.

  “We’ve got to prevent them from leaving,” Shanti yelled at Cayan as he rocked out another huge burst of power.

  As she slipped into the space between buildings she heard a disembodied “Mine!” The word fell away as she found the Inkna pressed against the wall. “Your sort should do yourselves a favor and learn to at least defend yourselves.” She grabbed his shirt front and jammed her blade into his throat.

  Stepping back, she cleaned her knife as he fell to the ground.

  Sanders jogged to a stop in the mouth of the alley with an incredulous expression on his face. “Did you not hear me say mine?”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize that was you. And that you meant this one.” No time to lose, she jogged around Sanders and met up with Cayan again, working toward the enemy. “If they take information about the explosives, and about the root, we lose two huge advantages.”

  “Xandre will already know about the explosions.” Cayan’s surge of power smashed into a line of Graygual. Shanti rained down shots of white-hot pain, piercing their brains before quickly moving on. Somewhere in the distance, another blast concussed the air.

  “What about the innocents?” Cayan yelled above the din, referring to the explosions.

  “They are only using those in primarily Inkna and Graygual areas. Except for here, which are not homes.” Shanti threw a knife, hitting a running Inkna in the middle of his back.

  “Damn it, Shanti!” Sanders growled, keeping pace with her. “You are making it impossible for me to finally get some vengeance on these vermin.”

  Shanti grimaced. “Sorry.”

  “Sanders, take some men to the front and tell the Shadow Lord to close the front drawbridge. We end this now. Kill them all.” Cayan slowed.

  Shanti felt it then. Ahead of them, filling an entire few blocks of the city, both Inkna and Graygual poured out. Shanti turned back toward Sanders, to yell at him to stop, but he was already on his way to trap them.

  “He made us think this would be easy. He lured us into the heart of the city, and then he unleashed the majority of his army.” Cayan shook his head as something close to wonder colored his thoughts. “Genius.”

  “That’s not a good thing, Cayan.”

  “Yes it is. We can learn from this. He is challenging us. When we rise to these challenges, we will grow. He has nothing to challenge him. He will stagnate.”

  “Not true.” The fighting around them died down. Shumas stepped up beside her before spreading out to the sides. The Shadow in their force followed suit a moment later, forming a thick blockade of power. Those who had taken the root fell to the back, and those who had not stayed in the middle, shielded on all sides by people who could fight the Inkna. “I keep beating him. He is the one that is growing.”

  “You keep beating his officers. A leader is only as good as the people under him.”

  Through her Gift, Shanti could feel the mass of people filling the streets. It had to be enemy—citizens wouldn’t be leaving their houses. Easily double their number, perhaps triple, and Shanti bet these men could fight. They would be excellent.

  A thick wall of power saturated the air like fog. It billowed out and surrounded them, pressing in on all sides.

  “Get your mother over here, Sonson,” Shanti said in a low voice, feeling the two dozen pokes and prods to her shields from extremely high-caliber Inkna. “Quickly.”

  Cayan ran his thumb along his blade as his brow lowered over unfocused eyes. Emotions flitted through him so fast that Shanti couldn’t pick up on them. His tongue came out and slowly licked along his bottom lip, something he did unconsciously when he was working out a particularly hard puzzle. He moved to the middle of the street, where his men parted around him. Shanti followed to stand by his side. The mental workers changed their position, covering the sides, and the army shifted accordingly.

  “They are mightier than our army,” Cayan said in a wispy voice. “They have more power, and they have more swords. They also know this city.” Cayan looked to the right, then left, pausing on a brick wall blocking off the entrance to an alleyway not far in front of them. “They have trapped us in like mice.”

  “This is not a good speech for your men, Cayan,” Shanti said as adrenaline spiked in her body. “We can’t quit now. We can’t run. We won’t make it.”

  “Xandre only thinks with his army. He thinks with might. He collects large cities, money, men…he collects all the things that would maintain his power. But he does not keep the faith of the people. He rules by fear; he does not rule by love. All he has is his army.”

  Shanti shook her head slowly, not understanding his point, as a shockingly large number of Graygual marched their way. And this was the host of Graygual that had been narrowed down by Alena’s efforts. By the weed slipped into the Inkna breakfast. They’d already slimmed the herd, yet still it was all encompassing…

  “The Wanderer will unite the people with her suffering, and lead them with her love.” Cayan’s clear blue eyes focused on her. “Only when you allow yourself freedom of thought can you obtain the freedom of mind.”

  “What are you talking about, Cayan?” Shanti asked, panic starting to increase the speed of her heart. “You sound like Burson. We don’t have time for this.”

  “Burson said those things. The Chosen will lead the people. But the Wanderer must unite them. We need you right now.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Shanti said through clenched teeth.

  His power pulled back in and wrapped around her. Like hands caressing her body, she felt his touch on the most intimate of places. Unexpectedly, the simmer within her rose and blossomed, filling her up and overflowing. It felt like a thousand kisses pressed on her bare skin before his lips slid across hers. He grabbed her power, something that
felt like a physical thing, and brought it into him to that deep place where only she was allowed to go. He forced himself deep into her, their bodies only a shell of their united beings. “Call to the people, mesasha. Unite them.”

  Any doubt that flitted through her was immediately wrapped up in Cayan’s confidence and carried away. She felt the rightness of this, because he did. She felt the path before her, because he was showing it to her. He had the deep well of power that she had to finesse and direct, and he had the vision that she had to realize. They were two halves melded into one. Her decisions and ideas had taken them to this point, and now he was directing them beyond it. That was truly what the Joining was.

  She closed her eyes, not having to block out the encroaching enemy or the thought of losing everything yet again—Cayan was already doing that. He was shielding her from reality while she tapped into that place deep inside. She thought of her family, who had given their lives for their people. Her grandfather, who had stayed behind in that first battle so that he might guide the next generation. The ghosts of her people drifted around her, clenching her heart and bringing tears to her eyes. She thought of her people, reunited at last. Of Rohnan, prepared to give his life for her, and traveling the land to find her again and give it all over again if need be. Then the boys and girls who trusted her with everything they had. Who allowed themselves to be beaten and battered, to be tricked and fooled, to be shoved into battle and then marched to unknowing places, all because of their love for her. And their belief in her cause.

  Tears came to her eyes as emotion rode everything. She felt the power rising up around her, carrying both her pain and hope, and then blasting out in all directions. It blanketed the city, sifted down into locked homes and wrapping around scared or angry citizens. She felt the people latch on, picking one emotion or more, and gripping with all they had.

  “Now it is my turn,” Cayan said softly. The blast of power sparkled. The hope turned into a tangible thing, injected with Cayan’s confidence. Urgency fueled the power, not pleading for aid, but appealing for people to fulfill their own destiny, to grab their freedom with both hands.