Ean merely stared hatefully at him.
“You’re outnumbered,” Raine pressed. “Surely you don’t mean to resist?”
“My lord,” Franco replied, stepping forward as if to close the hundreds of feet between them with a simple step, his words crossing that same distance in peaceful entreaty, “I have been commissioned to speak for the Fifth Vestal in negotiating a resolution. He would see no blood shed this night and offers you a chance to avoid the needless sacrifice of your men.”
“My men?” Raine looked incredulous. “You three stand against three hundred!”
“Looks can be deceiving,” the Shade was heard to murmur.
“Even were it so,” Franco returned with a sideways glance at Creighton, “the First Lord offers his hand in treaty. If you would know his mind, his purpose, leave this place tonight as a measure of your troth. In so doing, he will unto you all knowledge of his intent.”
Ean knew it was a heady boon Franco offered. More than anything, Raine D’Lacourte wanted to know Björn van Gelderan’s purpose for returning to Alorin.
For a moment the Vestal seemed to be considering the offer, and Ean’s hopes lifted; their task that night would be easier without the burden of more lives lost. But then Raine shook his head. “No,” he growled. “It is too late for treaties. My oath-brother has many crimes to answer for. There can be no clemency, only restitution.”
Franco’s expression fell, and Ean’s hopes went with it.
“Ean val Lorian,” Raine warned, “if you would avoid the needless death of your friends, surrender yourself into my care. You know I mean to see no harm come to you. If you resist…” and here he opened palms to the sky, finishing resolutely, “their blood is on your hands.”
“No, my lord,” Franco corrected, “it is on yours.” He turned an inquiring look to Creighton.
The Shade shrugged. “What must be must be.”
Franco looked bleak. “Do it then.”
Creighton closed silver eyelids. Soon his body blurred and became two, then ten, each form separating out from a single center. Creighton had told Ean about the mind-bond—that a dozen Shades would stand with them this night—but Ean hadn’t known what he meant until that moment.
A great grumbling and shouting arose from the ranks of Raine’s men, who seemed less enthusiastic about battling twelve Shades than they had about facing one. Ean suppressed a shudder at the sight and tried to remind himself that the eerie specters were on his side.
Raine looked grim. “Take them.”
Seth shouted a battle cry and led the charge. In response, the waiting Shades drew their dark blades with a swirl that rippled down the line. They rushed as one to meet the advancing men.
“Raine’s wielders must be near,” Franco told Creighton as he also drew his blade, adding hurriedly, “They would have to concentrate on the pattern to keep it strong.”
“I have already found them,” the Shade replied with his obsidian gaze penetrating the ranks of approaching soldiers. “You know what to do.” Then he faded.
Franco placed himself in front of Ean. “Fear not, Ean. We won’t let them take you.”
“That’s reassuring,” Ean muttered. This battle was but an appetizer for the main course of their activities that night.
As he drew his own sword and felt his muscles tremble beneath its weight, he knew with grim certainty that he was in no condition to fight. Yet, as he readied to face the oncoming men both physically and mentally, a deep memory surfaced, floating to mind as if from the deepest depths of the sea. Ean pushed a palm to his aching head and—
He had it.
Just in time, for soldiers broke through the line of Shades and surged around them in a flood, coming to claim him in Raine’s name. Acting with instinct born of desperation, Ean poured his energy into the strange pattern imposing itself on his consciousness and pushed it outward, casting it beyond himself and Franco toward the approaching soldiers—the same pattern he’d unknowingly used to insert the barrier between his shoulder and a stabbing Jeshuelle.
The nearest man rammed into the field of solidified air and was repelled five paces backwards, taking several others down with him.
Franco shot him a tense look. “That’s a nice trick. How long can you hold it?”
“Not…long,” Ean grunted. It was costing him greatly to hold the pattern in place in his weakened condition.
“Don’t waste your strength then. We press for the node.” He looked to the gathering men and his gaze hardened. “Let them come.”
In part reluctant and part relieved, Ean released the pattern and let its energy dissipate on its own. It was immediately evident when the last of the pattern’s energy faded, for a man standing close to them who’d been pressing on the invisible wall suddenly pitched forward onto his knees. The others swarmed in, and Franco and Ean raised their blades to meet them. The clash of their swords joined in dissonant harmony with the ongoing battle.
With Franco close at his side, Ean deflected blade after blade, only praying that Fortune’s grace would remain upon him. His head was pounding, his breath coming raggedly into tormented lungs, but he held onto his weapon and stayed close to Franco as they pressed through the sea of men toward the node.
At least the first part of his task was done. The working of that pattern would certainly draw the malorin’athgul to them now. But where was Creighton?
***
Cloaked in deyjiin, Creighton swept among the advancing ranks of swordsmen with nary a whisper to mark his passing. Raine might have found a pattern that protected against a Shade’s ability to bind men to his will, but a Shade had other tricks, lesser known, and Creighton had all of the First Lord’s knowledge at his disposal.
Thus, as he passed as a shadow among the soldiers, his hand unerringly found each sword, each dagger, and placed a single caress, the slightest kiss of deyjiin upon the blades. ’Twas not enough to destroy the weapons—no, only to weaken their integrity, dull their edge. While he couldn’t touch all, enough would suffer a malady of blade to hopefully keep his companions from harm.
Creighton felt reasonably sure that his tiny working of power would be enough to shift the balance in the battle without disturbing the Balance of the game itself, but it was a dangerous wager. He understood now that such was always a dance; Balance was a capricious sprite that wooed one moment and bit the next. To skirt that line was a wielder’s greatest—and deadliest—challenge, for Balance governed all. Even a Shade was not immune to its laws.
Having done all he could to aid Ean and Franco for the moment, Creighton reached the end of the advancing ranks and flicked as a shadow across the distance toward the two wielders who stood apart in the rear. They would be casting the spell that worked against his power. Doubtless Raine would be protecting his wielders as they wove their pattern of protection over his army, but no spell could be so complete as to fully insulate a man from a Shade’s craft.
This was something the Vestal didn’t understand—much to his peril. Creighton acted then to instruct the Truthreader by taking away that which he most treasured, for this was the First Lord’s will.
The sounds of battle were fierce as Creighton neared the two black-robed wielders. They were foreign-looking men with pale hair and cold eyes, their gazes focused just then on the distant battle. With his particular enhanced vision, the Shade could see the outline of the pattern they worked among their auras, but their pattern didn’t concern him; it was the warped space around them—the Vestal’s spell of protection—that required his attention.
Creighton suspected the Vestal would be thorough in his working, and after a moment’s inspection of Raine’s pattern he determined that indeed he had been—the dome of warped space was in fact a sphere fully enclosing the two wielders. It would be impenetrable for a man, but for a Shade…
Creighton disapparated.
His consciousness spread to encircle the dome, surrounding and enfolding it even as it surrounded the wielders. Perceiving the
sphere in its fullness then, the Shade could sense both the pattern of its creation and the pattern being worked by the wielders within; he saw the intricacies of both patterns, and understood their intent.
But one was his singular focus. Looking to Raine’s sphere of protection, Creighton sought the finite division between shadow and light, those fractions of spaces between particles too small for the human eye to see.
There.
He poured his consciousness through the minute spaces then, seeping between the particles to slowly gather again inside the protection of Raine’s sphere. How simple it would be to claim both wielders in the First Lord’s name, to smite them unto death. But the First Lord believed every wielder would be needed, in the end.
As Creighton readied his consciousness for the moment of congregation, he understood that the Vestal’s pattern was not a working Raine could banish with an off-handed wave. It had taken time to craft the pattern into existence, and its energy must be fully expended, the pattern left to dissolve of its own. Even after Raine stopped concentrating elae into his pattern—which he would do instantly once he saw Creighton appear within his protective dome—the pattern’s accumulated energy would have to disperse before Raine would be able to reach those inside the sphere.
With great satisfaction then, Creighton contracted the molecules of his being in a swarming inward rush, a surge of invisible particles instantly imploding into one predesignated form.
He congregated.
In one moment there was nothing. In the next, a silver-faced Shade stood behind the two wielders, who were so focused on their own spellcraft that they perceived none of his arrival. Raine saw his appearance at once, of course, but the Vestal could do nothing to prevent Creighton’s action. He watched in helpless fury as Creighton searched again for that finite division of shadow and light and then channeled deyjiin into the parting, tearing the very fabric of the realm. In the span of a single breath, a silver-violet line speared down from on high and broadened to reveal a glossy black emptiness. The fabled dimension of Shadow.
The two wielders did notice him then, and they spun with shouts of alarm, but Creighton had the both of them in hand. His strength was that of fifty men when required; he merely channeled all of his force into those parts of his amorphous body which most needed the power. With a man in each hand, he spun and slung one and then the other through the parting, instantly releasing the portal, sealing off their screams.
Raine’s spell was fading, and Creighton made himself thin as he walked through the mottled dome, its power diminished now, its integrity lost. He turned and locked gazes with the Vestal, their eyes alone closing the distance between them.
Can you read my mind? Creighton wondered with his obsidian eyes fastened on the man. I hope that you can.
Raine’s gaze shifted and widened, and in the same moment Creighton heard a voice say accusingly behind him, “What manner of creature might you be?”
At last!
Creighton shifted the arrangement of his features from forward-facing to back, reassociating the necessary components in the opposite direction to see what was once behind. The man who faced him now was not unlike the First Lord’s drachwyr in coloring, though his cold eyes held nothing but malice.
Creighton knew him, but the knowing was not without fear. Yet for all his apprehensions—and they had been aplenty when receiving the assignment—in this the moment of their first meeting, Creighton knew all. The information was simply accessible, like a window opened in his mind. He knew how to fight this man. He knew how to do what must be done.
“I might ask the same of you,” he replied, readying himself.
“I am Rinokh,” announced the man as if his name alone should bespeak his nature. And in fact it did, to those who knew it. Rinokh’s gaze swept the room, noting the battle with disinterest…until his gaze fell upon Ean.
Creighton saw Ean as Rinokh did: a single dark ember amid a glowing golden aura, a veritable beacon among the undulating sea of black-clad soldiers.
“You…” hissed Rinokh, and his face became a mask of malevolence. “You should not be.” Then his rage exploded.
***
Ean knew the moment Rinokh approached. The sense of malice that preceded his actual presence was strong enough to elicit a visceral response, for his body recalled too strongly the malignant feel of the man’s power upon it.
Raine’s untimely arrival was a complication that Ean feared would prove fatal. He didn’t stand a chance against Rinokh without Creighton to protect him, and the Shade was nowhere in sight. As the sense of Rinokh grew stronger, all of Ean’s focus became on just reaching the node. In the end, that’s all that mattered; whether he lived or died, he had to reach that node.
Drenched in sweat and sick with fatigue, Ean channeled every ounce of will into keeping hold of his sword and repelling the attacks that came at him. Franco was clearing the way for them, but his efforts had not been without cost, and his tunic was bloody where his body had defended instead of blade.
Ean’s strength was being taxed so greatly that he was barely staying on his feet, and his breath came in painful gasps. Each time he swung he feared this time he would lose his balance, his footing, or his life; every blow of his sword reverberated into his bones. Had he been stronger, had his head been clearer—had he not just been resurrected from the dead several hours ago—the scene might’ve played differently.
Just then a wedge of men drove between Ean and Franco, separating them and sending Ean stumbling. Three split off to attack the Espial while two others turned their swords against the prince. And now Rinokh had arrived—the prince saw him two-hundred feet across the room as clearly as if he stood right before him—and Ean knew he was doomed.
Three bone-shattering blows from the man leading the assault against him demanded Ean’s attention in full, and two more blows sent him staggering. His vision went black and he stumbled into one of the fallen, so dizzy that he nearly fell. Someone caught him around the chest, and he struggled against powerful arms until he heard a deep voice murmur, “Be calm, my prince.”
Relief flooded Ean so palpably that his breath caught on it, and then Raine’s men were upon them. Phaedor released the prince onto his feet and turned to face the swordsmen. He took both down with two quick figure-eights of his Merdanti blade. “Come, Ean,” he said then, looking to the prince. “Your destiny awaits.”
Phaedor set his own course through the battle, and Ean followed in his wake. The zanthyr was a formidable force. In the time it had taken Franco to forge ten feet, Phaedor had crossed five times that distance. He cleared the path as a farmer scything through wheat, and all fell before him.
A press of six men snared the zanthyr’s attention but momentarily, giving Ean time to reach the tall marble block that was the Fifth Vestal’s pedestal. Another five soldiers met their end while Ean braced himself against the cool stone trying to clear his head. After that, no one risked coming near the zanthyr’s blade.
Trying to will the world to stop spinning, Ean looked to Phaedor. “You shouldn’t be here,” he gasped.
The zanthyr cast him a dubious look that spoke volumes.
“I mean…” Ean cast a grim glance across the room. “Rinokh is here, and Creighton told me—”
“It doesn’t matter what the Shade told you.”
“But Raine will think—”
Phaedor leveled him an implacable stare. “Let me worry about Raine.”
Overruled, Ean turned to lean back against the pedestal. He felt nauseated and weak, and his muscles shook at strange times.
“You have overtaxed yourself,” the zanthyr noted in disapproval. “Again.”
Ean shot him a vexed look.
Suddenly there was a flash, and Ean spun with his sword ready.
But it was only the Avieth materializing out of the form. “Easy, Northerner,” she cautioned, eying his blade dubiously.
Ean let out an explosive breath and lowered his weapon. His attention wen
t to the battling Shades, who were once again holding the line against Raine’s forces. Stunned by the needless loss, he gave the Avieth a hard look. “Gwynnleth…I saw you with the Vestal. Clearly you’ve chosen his side.”
Gwynnleth arched a ginger brow. “Is there a clear side in this?” She eyed the battle beyond them with her tawny eyes narrow and fierce. “The pirate brings men by the wagonload across a node to fight Shades who are dead already. I ask you: to what purpose serves this fight? It could go on forever, Shades slashing, men dying.”
“No,” murmured the zanthyr with his emerald eyes pinned intently across the sea of men. “Not forever. Rinokh—”
Abruptly he threw himself across Gwynnleth and Ean nary a second before the concussion hit. Soldiers toppled like matchsticks beneath the blast of thunder without sound as it washed across them. The force of the eruption slammed Ean against the pedestal, knocking the wind from his lungs even behind the zanthyr’s protective shield. Ean watched men being flattened to the stones and knew he and Gwynnleth would’ve been tossed like ragdolls to break against the far wall if not for the zanthyr’s protection.
As the gale faded, Ean slowly pushed away from the marble to find an ocean of unconscious men, and on the far side of the human sea…Rinokh—coming for him.
“Get the islander and attend the Vestal,” Phaedor hissed to Gwynnleth, who rushed to the task surprisingly without query.
“He comes,” Ean groaned, trying to control his rising panic.
Phaedor turned him a telling look, and the air was heavy with his unspoken censure. “You play a dangerous game tonight, my prince.”
Ean swallowed. “I know.”
Men were starting to recover from the blast, and the floor now seemed a mass of undulating bodies as what soldiers still lived pushed to hands and knees.
But Rinokh came unhindered. Waves of hatred preceded him, abrasive against Ean’s fragile mind, and he recoiled from the feel of the man’s power even as his tortured body trembled with its touch. What courage it took to remain there locked in the malorin’athgul’s sights! For he knew the man came with perilous intent, having felt the effects of his power already to his mortal end.
Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One Page 100