by Marc Turner
Tap, tap, swish, tap, slap.
“Where are we going?” Hex asked.
“Perhaps I’m going to find your body. Perhaps I’m going to wake you up.”
“I think you’ll find I am a sound sleeper. Hee hee!”
Romany took a right turn. The chamber where Hex had left Mazana was ahead somewhere, and a blast of bloodred light lit up the corridor to reveal two eviscerated Gray Cloaks thirty paces away. That blast told Romany the emira was still alive and fighting, and the executioner was too, judging by the roar that set the gloom quivering.
“You’re going to help your patron?” Hex said. That note of disappointment was back.
“She’s not my patron,” Romany said, turning into a passage on her left that led her away from Mazana. “I must say it was considerate of you to feed her strength with all that blood.”
The Augeran’s voice became thoughtful. “The emira a blood-mage. That much at least I did not anticipate.”
“And now it’s too late.”
“Please!” He waved a hand at the red-streaked walls. “If I wanted to, I could dispense with all this in a heartbeat, and thus rob her of her strength.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Because for now it amuses me to see her flail about. It amuses me to let her think she might still find a way out. When the time comes to disabuse her of that notion, crushing her will be a simple matter.”
“So simple you could do it in your sleep?”
Hex chuckled.
Romany’s step had quickened as she neared her destination, and she forced herself to slow. The stone-skin believed that he had her caged, let him think she was aimlessly pacing her prison’s confines. There was no way he could have guessed her goal, because if he had done he would have summoned up a firestorm or some other calamitous deluge to bring this to an end.
“Pick a corridor, any corridor,” the Augeran said. “If you look long enough, maybe you’ll find one I forgot to block.”
His tone was still good-humored, but something told Romany he had begun to tire of this game. How long before he returned to his business with the emperor? She needed something to hold his interest, but what? Ordinarily, giving a man a chance to brag would keep him talking until the stars were dust. But in Hex’s case she suspected he found flattery as tedious as she did.
Just a little farther. There was the turning ahead.
Tap, tap, swish, tap, slap.
“You made a mistake, you know,” Romany said.
“How so?”
She turned into the corridor she’d been looking for. Fifty paces in front was the portal she had opened yesterday.
“By allowing your sorcery to destroy my web.”
Hex was silent, thinking about that. Even if he was immune to flattery, he was still a man, and that meant he would be proud enough to want to work out the answer to Romany’s riddle. There was no answer, of course. By destroying the priestess’s web he had rendered her half blind, and at no cost to the Augeran. But every heartbeat it took him to figure that out brought Romany closer to her target.
Forty paces.
Tap, tap, swish, tap, slap. Tap, tap, swish, tap … slap.
That hesitation in Hex’s step told Romany she was in trouble. Since she was able to perceive the gateway through her web, there was every chance the Augeran could too. And while he wouldn’t know what he was sensing, he would know that Romany hadn’t chosen this corridor without a purpose.
Thirty paces.
Once again she considered driving her knife into Hex’s neck in an effort to slow him, but she suspected she’d lose more time delivering the blow than she would gain from it. She had tensed herself in readiness for this moment and now sprang forward.
Twenty paces.
If she’d caught the Augeran sufficiently by surprise …
A handful of armspans away, a portcullis slammed down across the corridor.
* * *
The tattooed stone-skin leapt at Senar, using Strike’s body as a stepping-stone across the puddle of the bodyguard’s blood. Senar lashed out with his Will at the corpse as the other man’s foot landed on it. The body shifted, and the Augeran’s jump turned into a stumble, his left boot twisting as it came down on the blood-slick tiles. Senar surged to the attack, cutting and thrusting while the stone-skin was off balance. An overhand blow from the Guardian—reinforced with his Will—burst through his enemy’s block, scoring a nick to the man’s forehead. The Augeran was slow to react to Senar’s next attack. Senar’s backhand cut passed over his foe’s attempted parry and swung unimpeded toward his chest.
As easy as that? The Guardian was almost disappointed.
Then his sword passed through the man’s body and emerged from the other side. It clipped a spark from the wall of the corridor.
Senar gaped, tottered backward.
The stone-skin’s blade came for his throat. No time to block or sway aside, so instead he threw up a Will-shield to halt the stroke.
The weapon hit the invisible barrier and bounced off.
The Augeran came roaring forward, lunging with his sword at Senar’s chest. The Guardian turned to let the weapon slide past. He could have tried to grab the blade, maybe aimed a counter at his opponent, but instead he backpedaled, hoping to buy himself time to think. He hadn’t just imagined it; his sword had passed through the stone-skin like he was a spirit. Yet the Augeran’s blade had been real enough moments later when it crashed into Senar’s Will-barrier. He seemed real enough now, too, as he pressed forward again, feinting low before swinging high. The Guardian ducked under the stroke, his mind still turning over. So the warrior had … dematerialized as Senar’s sword swept toward him, then rematerialized after it exited his body? All in the space of a heartbeat? How was that possible?
The Augeran attacked again. Senar’s sorcerous blade came round so fast it was in position before his opponent’s weapon reached it, forcing the Guardian to check his stroke.
The stone-skin’s sword ghosted through, whistling for Senar’s groin before cannoning off another hastily thrown-up Will-barrier.
Great, so the man could make his blade insubstantial as well as his body.
Senar tested his opponent’s low guard with a thrust. The Augeran blocked easily. Senar’s attack had been tentative, but how could he commit to a stroke when he didn’t know whether his foe would be there in body to meet it? His gaze flickered to the stone-skin’s face. There had been no tell in the man’s eyes when he went spectral, no change in the translucency of his flesh. There had to be some way, though, to read when he employed his power. Some way to anticipate which strokes were real and which illusory.
Through the windows to Senar’s right, the battle in the courtyard was a blur. The emperor shouted at the defenders to rally to him, but Senar paid him no mind. His enemy’s next attack was a cut at his chest, and the Guardian blocked it with his sword, allowed his foe’s weapon to slide along the blade to the hilt. He kicked out at the Augeran’s leg, landed a hit on the knee.
The blow might have hurt Senar more than it did his opponent, for all the expression he showed. The stone-skin heaved against their locked swords, hurling the Guardian back.
And came forward once more.
His lunges were his most dangerous attacks, because they gave Senar less time to react if they passed through his parry. The Guardian began employing his Will more and more as a first line of defense. A little extra in his next Will-block forced his opponent’s weapon wide, and the Augeran was late to recover it. Most likely his moment of vulnerability was merely bait for another trap, but Senar plunged in anyway, angling a cut at his enemy’s throat. His blade beat the stone-skin’s attempted block … only to meet no resistance as it entered the man’s neck.
The Augeran’s sword, meanwhile, had changed direction midparry. Now it swung for Senar’s midriff, ready to fillet the Guardian the instant Senar’s blade left his foe’s throat.
Which it did not.
Senar had sto
pped his stroke to leave his sword in his opponent’s insubstantial form. He’d been hoping that, when the stone-skin rematerialized, he would find himself choking on a handspan of steel.
The warrior did not re-form, though. Instead he held back his own stroke, his blade hovering short of Senar’s ribs.
They remained that way for a while, the Guardian unable to disengage for the threat to his midsection, the stone-skin unable to complete his attack because of the sword in his neck. The Augeran smiled, then cocked his head with a look that suggested they agree to break apart.
To hell with that.
Senar gathered his Will and unleashed it in a blow that sent his spiritual foe reeling backward.
* * *
Amerel ran her opponent through and looked for the next. The arrival of the dragons meant her plan to destroy the Augeran fleet had worked, but she would save her celebrations until the Fury was free of the stone-skin vessel. Assuming it hadn’t caught a dragon’s eye already, of course. Even now one of the archers in the tops was yelling something to Galantas. And judging by the panic in his voice, he wasn’t shouting down his lunch order.
Amerel needed to cut the lines holding the Fury to the stone-skin vessel, but before she could do so, there was the small matter of twenty enraged Augerans in her path. Apparently they hadn’t understood the archer’s warning, for they showed no signs of ceasing the attack. One leapt at the Guardian, only for the deck to tip beneath him. He was sent tottering back against the gunwale, and Amerel fell against him, her head beneath his chin, her nose in his armpit. He pushed her away, then drew his sword arm back. Hold! she commanded with her Will, and he checked his swing for the heartbeat she needed to sway clear. Her own blade traced a line of blood across his throat.
Someone bundled into her from behind. Might have been on her side, but Amerel wasn’t taking chances. She reversed her sword and stabbed out, felt the blade sink into flesh. The figure fell away. A Rubyholter teetered past, his face a crimson mask. There was blood in Amerel’s eyes too, and blood-dreams rattled around in her head, so sharp she couldn’t tell if her hurts were real or imagined. A few paces away, Noon and a stone-skin wrestled over a spear shaft. Amerel was about to strike at the Augeran when the deck pitched again. Matron’s mercy, enough with all the shaking! What was Barnick doing? Mixing up a cocktail?
Then there was a bump and a creak, a scraping noise from the hull, and Amerel realized it might not be the water-mage doing the jolting.
Noon and his opponent broke off their struggle. The stone-skins had finally deduced that something was wrong, because the latest warriors to gain the Fury’s deck paused at the rail. Even the demon figurehead had lost some of its bluster. A shadow danced back and forth across Amerel, and she looked up to see a dead archer swinging by one foot from the rigging, an arrow through his neck. A wave slapped the hull. The distant rumble of combat from Gilgamar floated over the sea.
Then the scraping noise returned, moving down the length of the devilship from stern to bow.
The boards trembled.
A dragon’s head reared up off the Fury’s starboard bow, streaming water. Its silver plates were scratched and tarnished like an old suit of armor, and atop its brow was a crown of scales from which hung strands of fireweed like tangles of hair. Up, up, it went, so high it put a crick in Amerel’s neck just tracking it. Its eyes were so large they could have taken in the world, yet they seemed to be looking straight at the Guardian. Its lips peeled back with a sound like a hundred swords being drawn from their scabbards, and it gave a roar that set the foresails shivering.
A Rubyholt archer was on the forecastle. He jumped to the main deck and crashed into a rack of boarding spikes. Around Amerel, the other Islanders stampeded toward the quarterdeck. “Dragon!” someone shouted, like she needed the clarification. One man dived down the companionway. Maybe he thought he would be safe belowdecks, but the truth was, there was nowhere safe while the Fury remained here. Their only hope was to flee this place and the dragon with it.
And that meant cutting the devilship free of the stone-skin vessel.
Amerel turned and dashed for the port rail. A pace ahead was a black-cloaked Augeran, running the same way. The Guardian was tempted to cut him down, but just because someone presented their back to her didn’t mean she had to plant a blade in it. Besides, the stone-skins were now withdrawing to their own ship. Little sense in continuing the fight, after all, when the only prize for the winner would be to get eaten alive by the dragon. Clearly the Augerans were hoping to flee just as Amerel was. Clearly they didn’t realize that their water-mage was dead.
“Cut the ropes!”
Amerel hurdled an Islander’s corpse, slipped on a patch of gore, and windmilled her arms. There was a shriek from behind, a horrible crunching, but she didn’t look round to see who the dragon had taken. It hardly mattered so long as it wasn’t her. As she reached the gunwale, the deck tilted and carried her into it. To either side, Augerans clambered over the rail. A boot swished her hair. There was a blood-soaked rope drawn taut next to her, and she swung her sword at it.
It parted.
A breeze chilled the back of her neck as if the dragon was breathing on it. When she glanced round, though, she saw the creature still loitering by the bow. A rumble sounded in its throat. It scanned the people on deck like it was choosing from a menu. Then its gaze fell on the Fury’s figurehead. With the combatants’ fighting zeal doused, the devilship’s voice had dropped to a whimper. Evidently that noise was still enough to grate on the dragon’s ears, though, for the creature raised a clawed foot and struck the figurehead. It shattered the wood and sent the painted demon sailing a dozen armspans to splash into the sea.
“Cut the ropes!” someone shouted again.
Three lines remained intact. At one, a man with a harelip held an ax above his head like he was chopping wood, while beside him a woman tried to slice through a second with a boarding pike. Tattoo pushed her aside and severed the cord with a swipe of his sword. Amerel scampered for the third rope, but she was beaten to it by a red-cloaked warrior on the Augeran ship. He slashed through the line with a knife, and suddenly the Fury was free.
The two vessels drifted apart.
“Barnick!” Galantas yelled.
A wave of water-magic burgeoned beneath the devilship. Barnick didn’t waste time turning the vessel, simply reversed it from the dragon. The beast snapped its teeth at the retreating bow.
Missed.
Beside Amerel, the last stone-skin on the Fury scrambled to the rail and tried to leap the gap between the two separating ships. His tired half dive, though, took him only half the distance, and he fell shrieking into the sea. The Fury pulled away, rising higher and higher as the wave beneath it grew. There were clear waters now between the ship and the dragon. The beast regarded the vessel with its huge golden eyes. There was no reason for it to follow the Fury. It was the stone-skin ship, not the devilship, that was marked with dragon blood. It was the stone-skin ship that bobbed helpless without a water-mage.
But follow the creature did. How unfair was that?
The dragon’s body gleamed in the water, half the length of the Fury, with spikes along its spine and a tail that snaked behind. It barely seemed to be moving at all, but in the blink of an eye it had quartered the distance to the devilship. Amerel swallowed against a dry throat. Someone shouted at Barnick to go faster—as if the water-mage might have been toying with the creature until now. Still he managed an extra burst of pace that sent Amerel staggering into Tattoo. The wind rushed in her ears.
The dragon drew nearer.
An archer shot an arrow that struck the beast’s snout. A second missile took it in the eye, but the dragon appeared not to notice. Just forty lengths away. To Amerel’s right, two Rubyholters lifted a stone-skin corpse and tossed it over the side in the hope it would draw the dragon. It didn’t. Amerel would have thrown some live meat to the beast if she’d thought that might work better, but there was a glint in the cr
eature’s eye that said it was enjoying the chase. If it had wanted easy prey, it would have stayed with the stone-skin ship.
Amerel roused herself. A sorcerous globe down the gullet would show the dragon the error of its ways. True, the beast was much closer than she would have liked, but with the Fury pulling away swiftly, perhaps the devilship would escape the brunt of the magic when the glass smashed. Where was Noon, though? Not with the sailors on the main deck. Not on the quarterdeck either. Damn the man. If he’d gotten himself killed, he could at least have had the courtesy to give her the globes first.
“Noon!” she shouted.
No response.
She pushed past Tattoo, making for the prow. A Will-blow wouldn’t inflict any lasting damage on the dragon, but it might persuade it to try its luck elsewhere. It wasn’t as if she was blessed with other options.
She gathered her power.
That was when she saw Noon at the starboard cathead. His shirt was ragged, the right sleeve torn clean off. He held something in his hand. Something that sparkled as he hurled it toward the pursuing dragon.
Uh-oh.
Amerel made to grab the rail.
An explosion of earth-magic cracked the air, and not for the first time today she found herself lying on the deck, staring up at the sky.
CHAPTER 22
BY THE time Ebon crossed the stepping-stones, the battlements were under the control of Twist and his allies. Half a dozen Erin Elalese had ignored the prince’s instruction to remain on the opposite tower and followed him over the stones. But no more were on their way now.
He released the rocks, and they fell into the waterway.
To Ebon’s left was a pile of Gilgamarian corpses. Seven motionless red-cloaked warriors were scattered about the tower, and an equal number of Revenants were laid out beside the catapult. Across from Ebon, one of the twins sat with her back to the parapet, her left leg cut to the bone, the skirt of her susha robe soaked with blood. The bearded Revenant healer was tending to her, and Ebon saw her wound close up to a red-beaded scar. Vale stood in the shade of the catapult’s arm holding a shield that looked like it had been trampled over by a herd of lederel. His frown conveyed his disapproval at Ebon’s presence, but he said nothing as the prince joined him.