Scourge

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Blackholt bolsters his own abilities through the blood he takes from his victims,” Aiden had told them. “Weaken the power in the blood, and Blackholt is left with his own magic, nothing more.”

  The poisons that Elinor had assembled thinned or tainted the blood, some of them deadly in even the smallest doses. She could afflict the poppet with her poisons and have Blackholt feel the effects, giving Rigan and Aiden a fighting chance.

  Rigan was still unhappy that Elinor insisted on joining them instead of remaining with Polly and the wagon. They had argued about that, but she had stood her ground.

  Rigan pulled himself out of his thoughts. He did not miss the worry in Elinor’s eyes as she prepared the items. This was the first time she had set out to use her abilities to kill. She wanted vengeance for Parah’s son just as surely as Rigan did for Kell, and Aiden did for the witches Damian had betrayed.

  “Sure you’re all right with this?” Rigan said. Elinor met his gaze.

  He saw the hesitation she tried to hide, felt it himself.

  “I’m not much of a fighter, but I can do this. Give us to the count of two hundred, then start the working. And be careful.” “You too.” He bent to kiss her, a brief, unspoken goodbye, and turned to join Aiden.

  Aiden and Rigan headed down the stairs, deeper into the dungeons.

  Both wore amulets to mask their magic, but that would only work at a distance. The closer they got to Blackholt, the less the amulets would deflect his attention.

  The coppery tang of blood mingled with the sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh.

  Is this how Corran and the hunters felt, going into a monster’s lair? He wondered whether Corran and the others had managed to reach Machison, and how they had fared. Eshtamon, if you’re listening, this is what we traded our souls for. I’m calling you on those ‘gifts’ you gave us. You’d damn well better have meant what you said, because we’re in the thick of it now.

  As they descended, the air grew thick with corrupt power, heavy with malice. Sweat beaded on Rigan’s forehead. A glance at Aiden told him that the healer was equally rattled.

  Neither man expected to survive the fight. Even Elinor did not know the lengths Rigan and Aiden had agreed to go to stop Blackholt, and Corran still less. I don’t imagine he’ll forgive me. I wish it could be different. Maybe we’ll get lucky. But I’m not counting on it.

  “They’re all dead,” Aiden’s said as they reached the cages where Blackholt held his victims. The stench was overpowering. Rigan fought to keep his stomach under control, and bile rose in the back of his throat. Aiden’s expression was grief-stricken, and Rigan knew that the healer could sense the torment of those who had perished here.

  “They were all killed recently,” the healer said. “He’s been preparing for our arrival.”

  Adrenaline thrummed through Rigan’s body; his blood sang and his taut muscles screamed for action. His magic strained at its constraints, so ready for release that he was sure his amulet could not hide the power that welled up, as if it would burst through his skin.

  Restless spirits crowded around them as they made their way deeper into Blackholt’s lair. The temperature plunged, dropping from suffocatingly close to frigidly cold, and Rigan could see his breath misting before him.

  The spirits did not speak, but their anger required no words. Hollow eyes followed the two witches, urging them to avenge their deaths, excoriating them for remaining among the living, coveting the warmth of their blood.

  “They’re all here, all the ones he’s killed. He’s siphoning their souls the way he drained their blood, and he’ll keep them here until they’re used up,” Aiden said.

  As the passageway opened into a workroom, they saw Blackholt standing in between two blood-soaked tables.

  A naked man lay spread-eagle on one of the tables. Deep cuts had opened the arteries in his neck, arms, groin, and legs, allowing the victim’s blood to drip into ceremonial bowls on the floor.

  “Valdis thought he could hide his treachery,” Blackholt greeted them with a twitch of his head toward the dying man. “He and Machison sided against me, thought they could undercut me. I saved him for last. He was a blood witch, and that makes his blood particularly potent. A fitting final sacrifice.”

  Blackholt’s gaze flickered from his victim to Rigan and Aiden. “You shouldn’t have come.” Rust red stains smudged Blackholt’s gray robes. He was a thin man in his middle years, unremarkable in appearance, with a high forehead and receding chin, someone Rigan might have mistaken for a worker at the counting house had he not been so utterly at home in this abattoir.

  A deep growl sounded from a corridor off the far side of the workroom. Of course he would have monsters at his beck and call, Rigan thought. That’s what he does.

  Crimson nearly hid the whites of Blackholt’s bloodshot eyes, and a thin line of blood ran from the man’s nose. Aiden’s right hand came up and Blackholt staggered, gasping for breath. The healer’s gaze fixed on the blood witch, focusing his power to still Blackholt’s heart and steal the air from his lungs. The blood witch fought for air, a terrible rasping sound, and he stumbled, one hand going to his chest.

  Rigan chanted the banishing ritual. If I can send the ghosts away, Blackholt can’t draw on them for power anymore, he thought. They’ll be free, and he’ll be weakened.

  Blackholt forced himself to straighten, eyes burning with rage. He brought his hands together and pushed out, sending a shockwave through the room. Rigan and Aiden hit the far wall, hard enough that Rigan’s vision blurred and pain exploded through his skull. He reached up and tore away the amulet, fearing that it might dampen his power now that the need for secrecy was gone. He struggled to his feet, as Aiden pushed himself up, ready to return to the fight.

  Four hancha scrabbled from the far corridor, their blood-black faces slowly turning to Aiden and Rigan.

  Hancha, Rigan thought. Useful to clean up the bodies.

  “Son of a bitch.” Rigan unsheathed his knife an instant before the first two hancha were on him, tearing at his skin with their icy fingers. Teeth snapped close to his neck, raising gooseflesh.

  A yelp let Rigan know that Aiden had gone down under the other two monsters, but at the moment, it was all he could do to keep his attackers away from his own throat. He tumbled across the floor in a tangle of bony arms and skeletal legs, biting back a cry as the hancha scored his skin with their sharp nails, drawing blood.

  The creatures were thin as famine victims, but unnaturally strong. One of them wrapped its arms around Rigan’s chest and squeezed. He struggled to breathe, bucking and twisting to free himself from the hold. The second hancha sank its teeth into Rigan’s thigh, and he cried out in pain as the monster tore at his flesh.

  Rigan slashed at the hancha by his leg, sinking his blade deep between the thing’s ribs. The creature reared up, almost ripping the knife from his grasp. Rigan held on, twisting the blade. The hancha gave an inhuman shriek as ichor flowed from the wound, soaking his hand. More foul-smelling black liquid bubbled from the monster’s mouth. Its teeth were red with Rigan’s blood. He ripped the knife from the hancha’s cold flesh and stabbed again, just below the creature’s ribs, close to the spine, pulling the blade down through dead flesh. The hancha trembled, clawing at air, and fell backward, still twitching and trembling.

  At the scent of blood, the first hancha’s attention shifted to the open wound on Rigan’s thigh. He seized the momentary distraction, grabbing the hancha by the throat with his left hand and squeezing hard. The hancha’s clawed hands dug at Rigan’s chest and arms, but he kept the creature pinned with one hand as he sank his blade into its heart. Syrupy ichor welled from the wound, spraying Rigan’s face and shoulders as the blade tore through the monster’s chest. His thumb dug into the hancha’s windpipe, crushing it. He tossed the body aside, desperate to help Aiden and get back to the fight against Blackholt.

  He dragged himself to his knees, and saw that while he’d been fighting the hancha, the spirits
of Blackholt’s victims had gathered. Dozens of ghosts stood against the walls. Controlled by Blackholt’s will, they watched the struggle with baleful eyes.

  A groan brought Rigan’s attention back to Aiden, though he dared not ignore the threat posed by the malevolent dead. The healer was buried beneath two hancha, his face tightened with pain and concentration, ignoring the creatures’ attacks in order to maintain his own assault on Blackholt and keep the blood witch from coming after his companion.

  Rigan ripped into the hancha feasting on Aiden’s leg, slashing the blade across the creature’s neck until the throat gaped. Blood and ichor fountained down the front of the hancha’s chest. He grabbed the creature’s forehead, forcing the nearly severed head away from his friend, wincing as the sharp teeth tore away from Aiden’s skin, leaving raw, bloody tracks.

  With a growl, Rigan turned his knife of the second hancha, and this time his swing had enough power to take the creature’s head clean off. Jaws clamped on Aiden’s shoulder, and Rigan sank his knife into the hancha’s cheek, forcing the blade back against the molars, prying the mouth open until he could kick the head away.

  Through it all, the healer’s eyes remained shut. Rigan knew that Aiden was focused on inverting his healing power, breaking his vows as he used the one ability he possessed in a desperate gamble against a far stronger opponent.

  Trickles of blood started from Blackholt’s ears, and his breath wheezed as Aiden’s magic froze the muscles of his chest. His skin glistened with sweat, and his cheeks reddened with fever. Elinor’s magic had poisoned Blackholt’s blood, and Aiden’s had ravaged the mage’s body. Boils rose on the blood witch’s arms and neck. The growing gush of blood from Blackholt’s mouth suggested organs cut or crushed, and the wet coughs gave Rigan to imagine lungs torn and inflamed.

  The effort to kill Blackholt took a deadly toll on Aiden. He lay, corpse-pale, breath coming in short, harsh panting gasps, eyes darting desperately beneath his closed eyelids.

  The ghosts surged closer, keening as they swept toward the two witches. Rigan took a step forward, putting himself between Aiden and the spirits. He gathered his magic, ignoring his injuries, and once more began to chant the banishing spell.

  The spirits washed over Rigan and he fought to keep on chanting, though the press of wraiths stole his breath, chilled his blood and threatened to freeze his heart. In all the times he and Corran had dispelled malicious revenants, he had never faced them without the barrier of a warded circle. This had better work. As his grave magic rose to his call, power flowed through him. Beneath his shirt, the sigil he had drawn in ochre on his abdomen began to glow, bright enough that the orange-red light shone through the fabric. The chalk sigil on his chest flared with brilliant white light. The angry ghosts drew back, shrieking as the stark light burned.

  Searing pain made Rigan gasp as the blue sigil on his throat glowed brightly, nearly cutting off his air. He staggered, but kept on chanting, his voice falling to a whisper. He’d had no idea whether marking himself with the sigils of the banishing spell—effectively making his body the quarters of a banishing circle—would work, but it was a decision made in desperation, knowing that they would not get the chance to lay down a true circle as the ritual required. He wondered whether the runes would tear his soul from his body, or whether he would forfeit his hold on the world of the living by virtue of the magic’s power. If so, he accepted his fate.

  His throat closed as the pain grew more intense, and he continued the chant inwardly, moving his lips though no sound came. Light bathed his body, radiating from the three marks of power. Blackholt’s horde of ghostly attackers dimmed and withdrew. He sensed that he and the blood witch were locked in a contest of wills to control the spirits, even as Aiden kept up his relentless assault against Blackholt’s failing body.

  Blackholt’s skin paled to translucence, eyes bloodied, lips stained with blood. Racking coughs alternated with harsh, raw gasps, and blue-black lesions mottled his face and stretched from his neck past the line of his tunic. Rigan wondered just how much damage Elinor and Aiden’s magic had inflicted; if he could banish the spirits from which Blackholt drew his reserve of power, he could destroy his last defense.

  Even as Rigan mustered the courage to draw on the final sigil, he knew his own body was also failing. Grave magic was never meant to be worked on the living. It would be a lesson bequeathed to survivors, a cautionary tale. A flash of sorrow constricted his heart, knowing that Corran would be left to deal with his body— assuming he ever learned his fate.

  Thumps and clatters sounded behind him, but Rigan was too far gone, too consumed by the spell to care. If this works, if Blackholt falls, it should take the hancha with him.

  He forced the words of the banishing spell past his burning lips, little more than a painful croak. The black sigil on his forehead took on a muted golden glow around its edges as a blinding headache staggered him. Rigan almost fell to his knees, but a hand closed on his arm, steadying him, and a familiar baritone voice joined his in the banishing chant.

  Corran stood beside him, battered and bleeding but alive. Rigan could see in his brother’s eyes that there would be hard questions to answer if they both survived, that Corran would take him to task for the risks he had taken, but for now, they stood shoulder to shoulder. And in that moment, Rigan imagined that he heard a third voice, Kell’s voice, joining in the chant, and he found the will to keep going, although his breath hitched and his heart stuttered and the pain behind his forehead felt as if it would blow his skull apart.

  Blackholt stumbled and swung toward Rigan, Corran, and Aiden. His lips drew back in a snarl, and he thrust out a splayed hand, summoning his waning power for a final, fatal strike.

  Before he could invoke the words of power, a dark shape swept behind Blackholt in a single, fluid movement and steel glinted in the torchlight. Trent’s blade swung with two-handed force, sending Blackholt’s head toppling from his shoulders as his ravaged body dropped to the floor.

  Freed from the blood witch’s will, the vengeful spirits could no longer hold out against the strength of the brothers’ grave magic, and the banishment spell rolled through the dungeon like a storm, casting the malevolent ghosts through the gates of Doharmu and into the After. Their screams echoed from the stone walls and the cold wind whipped into a maelstrom that guttered the torches and lanced across bare skin like shards of ice. Incorporeal fingernails dug into the hard floor, leaving gouges as the void beyond pulled them to eternity.

  Rigan heard Corran shouting at him, but the voice was far away, the words indistinct. He found himself on the floor and looked up, saw his brother’s panicked expression, but could only focus on how much blood was soaking through Corran’s shirt and that he should feel more worried about that, should feel... something, before sight and sound failed him and the darkness folded around him.

  Blackness receded. Rigan felt strong arms lifting him, dragging his unresponsive body up the stairs. Everything hurt, and if the banishment spell had not succeeded in ripping his soul from his body, then his spirit nonetheless felt tethered by a fragile thread.

  “Stay with us, Rigan,” Trent said. “We’ve still got to get out of here.”

  “Corran—”

  “Mir’s got him. Damn both of you for cutting it too fucking close.”

  “Aiden and Elinor?” Rigan managed.

  “Calfon’s got Aiden. Elinor’s still standing. You’re all crazy, brave, stupid, sons of bitches and I’ve just lost ten years off my life because you’ve scared me out of my wits, damn you,” Trent replied.

  Rigan tried to laugh, but it hurt too much to breathe. “Oh, shit,” Trent muttered as the witch’s legs buckled and the hunter took his full weight. Once again, Rigan’s world faded to black.

  “STAND UP, RIGAN. You’ve got to stand up.” Trent’s voice sounded close to his ear, barking an order that Rigan knew meant life or death. He grunted in response and forced his knees to lock, realizing that only the rough wall behind his ba
ck kept him upright.

  Memories ghosted through his mind, of the palace burning and of fighting their way through the scattered guards who had not already fled the flames. Although Rigan knew he had taken part in that fight, had fresh blood on his bruised knuckles to prove it, he could not remember the details.

  “We’re pinned down,” Trent said. “The city’s in chaos. Can’t get to the meeting point for Polly to pick us up.”

  “Corran—”

  “Behind you,” Trent replied. Rigan turned his head to see his brother propped against the same wall, just as bloodied and battered. As Rigan’s head cleared, he saw the rest of their group huddled in the shadows of a building a few blocks from the Lord Mayor’s palace. The palace itself had become an inferno.

  “Plan?”

  “Nothing yet,” Trent replied.

  Tomor came around the corner, eyes wide, hair sweat-soaked. “Everything between here and the harbor is blocked,” he reported breathlessly as the others gathered closer to hear. “Too many burning buildings, and between the falling timbers and the people trying to fight the fire, we’ll never get through.”

  Trent and Calfon cursed under their breaths. “Polly can’t keep circling for long,” Calfon said. “Someone will notice.”

  Ellis joined them a moment later from the other direction. “There’s a riot off to the right,” he said, pointing. “Couldn’t make out faces, but I’m guessing it’s at least a hundred people, maybe more, fighting with the guards. Good news is that it’s pulled guards away from the street in front of the palace. I think they’ve given up on fighting the fire.”

  “How about to the left?” Mir asked over his shoulder, keeping his gaze trained on the street, watching for threats.