He rejoined Lane in Trasker’s room. The baron sat on the edge of his bed holding his head in his hands, a heavy dressing gown around his shoulders. “Marris is gone,” Damien said.
Trasker looked up. “Of course he is. Marris belonged to the bandits long before this most recent assault. We could never prove anything, but we all suspected he allowed the bandits to slip across the border in exchange for a cut of their loot and a promise not to raid in his territory.”
“It didn’t occur to you to mention this to someone in the capital?” Lane sounded as outraged as Damien felt.
“We had no proof!” Trasker ground his teeth. “Without something solid it would have been an empty accusation. Marris would have brushed it off as nothing but envy on our part.”
The man had a point, Damien had to concede that. Still, if the barons had at least mentioned their suspicions, agents of the crown could have kept an eye on Marris and tried to find proof.
The other barons gathered in the opening Damien had cut in the wall to listen in.
“Did you hire the assassin that tried to murder the king?” Damien asked.
“Yes.” Trasker’s head slumped into his hands again. “If I hadn’t done it someone else would have. That pale monster threatened to send me my daughter’s left foot if I refused.”
“I don’t suppose you know where your family is?” Damien asked.
Trasker gave a mute shake of his head.
“Marris might know,” one of the barons in the other room said. “Or Sloan, the head guard.”
Damien gestured and one of the bound guards floated upright. A quick search revealed the hellfire ward in the same place as the men that broke into their room. He neutralized the ward and caused the cocoon around the bandit’s head to vanish, revealing a terrified face.
“Where did Marris and the rest run off to?” Damien asked.
The bandit opened his mouth, but no sound emerged when he tried to lie. Damien conjured a pair of blades and set them spinning a few feet from the man’s head. “You’d better tell me or I’m going to slice your face off.”
The bandit trembled. “South, half a day or so’s ride there’s a farm where we stashed horses and supplies, just in case. That’s where they’ll go before they head for the badlands.”
“Thank you.” Damien flung the man up against the wall. His head bounced off the stone with a dull thud and he slumped to the ground.
Damien turned to Lane. “I need to go after them. If you don’t feel safe with the barons I can barricade you in your room until I return.”
Lane looked at the huddled, frightened men. “I’ll be okay here. Go.”
Damien ran out the door, pausing long enough to seal the barrier and pour enough power into it to make it last until he got back or a day passed. He’d swing by the suite he shared with Lane and renew the binding on the three would-be assassins and the servant girl. Lane would be safe enough as long as she could handle the barons. Judging from the looks on their faces they wouldn’t give her any trouble.
For their sakes they’d better not.
Chapter 39
The sun was just peeking over the horizon as Damien flew south, low over the trees, in the hopes of catching the bandits by surprise. He wasn’t optimistic. Sloan struck him as a clever man and he’d have to know Damien would be pursuing them. After leaving Lane and the barons Damien had run to the castle’s stables and found them empty.
A short ways ahead, the shingled roof of an old, weathered gray barn jutted up out of a clearing. That had to be the place. He hadn’t seen another sign of life since leaving the castle.
Damien strengthened his shield before he landed in a dusty yard fifty paces from the barn. Tracks covered the ground as far as he could see, leading to the barn. This was the place all right. To his left the burned-out husk of a farm house jutted out of its root cellar. Whatever had happened, it looked like it was a long time ago.
Amplifying his voice with soul force, Damien shouted. “Come out of there and I might let you live.”
Metal squeaked on metal as the barn door slid open. That had gone better than Damien hoped.
Ka-chunk!
A ballista bolt hurled out of the open door. He barely registered it before the iron-tipped bolt hammered into his chest. Damien flew back across the clearing, bounced twice when the bolt lost momentum, and skidded to a stop against the trunk of a twisted old oak.
He groaned and sat up, head spinning. Dizzy, but uninjured, Damien clambered to his feet and touched his chest. The bolt hadn’t penetrated his shield. Thank heaven for that.
He turned his furious gaze on the barn. In the dim light figures rushed around, cranking the winch, carrying another bolt over and sliding it into the slot.
Damien frowned and leapt into the air. He flew five hundred feet straight up, hovered a moment, and then accelerated toward the barn roof. Dry timbers shattered when he struck. Splinters the size of daggers bounced off his shield. He hit the dirt floor and flooded the barn with white light.
Eight men surrounded him, one warlord and the rest regular warriors, squinting against the glare. The ballista rested on a swivel mount in the back of a wagon. The operator wrestled the heavy siege weapon around to point it at Damien. He managed to turn the ballista halfway before a blast of raw soul force obliterated both man and weapon.
Six of the survivors charged him, waving a mixture of swords and axes. Lances of golden energy pierced the bandits from every direction.
Weaklings.
They’d have been better off surrendering. The men collapsed and the lances’ energy returned to Damien.
He turned to find the last man a foot from him, his iron-studded mace streaking for Damien’s head.
The mace bounced off his shield.
The bandit warlord’s eyes went wide. Damien wrapped him from the neck down in soul force bindings.
He’d done it enough times now that removing the hellfire ward and putting the truth barrier in place took only a moment. Damien crossed his arms and glared. “Where are Sloan and Marris?”
The bandit’s jaw clenched and he looked away. Damien conjured a golden blade and used it to force his prisoner to look at him. Since he had just one prisoner Damien didn’t dare try any of the fancy interrogation techniques he’d learned. “Talk or bleed.”
“Go to hell, sorcerer.”
Damien shook his head. Why were they all so stubborn?
He drove his conjured blade into the bandit’s shoulder. It sliced through the man’s weak iron-skin technique like it was nothing. The bandit growled and clenched his teeth against the pain.
“You’ll have to do better than that if you want to break me.”
Damien caused needles to grow from the blade in every direction.
The bandit screamed as the needles burrowed into flesh and bone. After a couple of seconds Damien stopped them. “It only gets worse from here. Those needles take a long time to burrow to your heart.”
His prisoner panted and tried to swallow. He didn’t talk.
Damien shrugged. “Have it your way.”
“Wait! They rode south, back to base. Marris is going to have the prisoners killed.”
That was no surprise. “Where is this base?”
“Across the border. Twenty miles south and a little east. You can’t miss it, it’s the only building in the area.”
“Tell me more about your base.”
“Can’t you take this thing out of my arm?”
Damien made the needles grow another inch, prompting a shout of pain. “The base.”
The bandit snarled. “It’s an old stone fortress built into a rock formation. The bosses found it years ago, before my time, cleared out the scruffs, and moved in.”
Damien raised an eyebrow. “Scruffs?”
“Big, ugly lizards, with frills around their necks. We call ‘em scruffs. Three hundred of us live there, though most of the time it’s just forty or fifty. There’s dungeons on the lowest level. That’s where they
took the women and kids.”
“What about the Bandit King?”
“That freak, him and his muscle. He showed up one day, maybe six months ago, and says we all work for him. That got a laugh. The way he killed the old chief didn’t. You’re an amateur compared to him. He made us all watch. When he finally finished he announced again that we all worked for him. No one argued. He hung around for a couple months then flew off. We haven’t seen him since.”
“Who’s in charge now?”
“Sloan and Janson handle the day-to-day stuff. That big armored bastard comes by once in a while to make sure we’re doing what we’re supposed to. Like we’d be stupid enough to do anything else.”
Damien nodded. He had a pretty good handle on things now. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
He sliced the bandit’s head off with a conjured blade. Now he had to catch Sloan and Marris before they could warn the others their plan had failed.
Chapter 40
Damien floated far above the ground, searching for signs of movement. Dealing with the bandits at the farm had taken less than an hour so the rest couldn’t be too far ahead of him. If Sloan and Marris kept to the forest he might miss them, but a mile or so from the border the thick hardwood gave way to scrub and eventually a mix of sand and gravel. He’d have no trouble spotting them when they emerged. The bandit he’d questioned told him everything he needed to know in order to rescue the hostages so there was no need to capture either the baron or Sloan.
Lane’s disapproving face appeared in his mind’s eye. No, she wouldn’t like it if he killed them out of hand. Contrariwise he felt like both men had earned a death sentence. As a high-ranking bandit Sloan had no doubt done many horrible things and Marris was a traitor to his country and his people. Damien considered that the worse crime.
He caught movement through a gap in the branches. Damien dove toward the opening, flashing through the leaves and shattering branches. On the ground he found two horses racing away, their saddles empty.
Damn it!
No way Marris was running for it. Either they had extra horses or—
Something heavy landed on Damien’s back, driving him to the ground.
A dagger pounded his ribs, trying with no success to penetrate his shield.
More annoyed than hurt Damien sent spikes of soul force out his shield and into whoever was on top of him.
The rain of blows stopped and he shrugged off his attacker.
Halfway to his feet someone kicked him in the back of the head.
He dropped back into the dirt.
Snarling, Damien conjured a whirlwind of blades around his body.
Bits of his attacker spattered him.
Satisfied that he wouldn’t be attacked again, Damien clambered to his feet. Eight bandits surrounded him, with Sloan in the center, a curved blade dripping black flames in his right hand. The weapon’s corruption made Damien nauseous.
Eager to end the fight Damien sent his barrier of blades flying toward the bandits. Most of them fell, pierced repeatedly. Sloan blurred and his horrific weapon sliced every golden blade that came close out of the air before it hit.
Damien grimaced. He was in for a fight now.
He sent more power to his shield an instant before Sloan appeared a couple feet away.
His sword snaked toward Damien’s face at warlord speed. The tip skipped off Damien’s shield.
Even though it didn’t penetrate, Damien’s skin burned under his barrier where the corrupt blade had touched it.
Sloan recovered from his failed attack in half a heartbeat.
The blade darted back in for another try.
Damien expanded his shield, pushing it out from his skin. Once again the corrupt blade skipped off. It sickened Damien, but didn’t burn him.
Like a tornado of steel Sloan slashed over and over again.
His sword couldn’t break through, but every blow drained a little of Damien’s power.
It wouldn’t happen fast, but eventually Sloan would wear him down.
He couldn’t let that happen.
Damien sent soul force into the ground. It burrowed under his shield and sprang up around Sloan’s ankles. Tentacles of golden energy wrapped around the bandit’s legs. Thorns shot out, piercing Sloan to the bone and locking him in place.
Sloan ripped his right sleeve back, revealing a black tattoo of a horned skull. He dragged his thumbnail across the skull. Blood welled and burst into dark flames.
The flames surged across Sloan’s body, burning the thorns and tentacles away and healing his wounds. The bandit threw his head back and howled like an animal.
Damien leapt for the sky. He needed to put some space between them. Sloan wouldn’t be able to channel that much corrupt soul force very long. The smart move was to wear him down from a distance, then when Sloan collapsed, finish him.
Sloan must have known it too. He leapt twenty feet up, kicked off a small maple with enough force to shatter the trunk, and arced over to an old oak. His boots landed on a gnarly branch. He kicked off again, sailing straight toward Damien.
Damien powered higher. There was no way a warlord, even augmented with demonic soul force, could leap as high as Damien could fly.
The burning sword swung toward Damien. Black flames streaked up. Damien dodged the first burst, but the stream twisted like a serpent.
Damien drew more power. Somehow he put enough energy between him and the flames that they didn’t consume him. They did drive him down into the ground with enough force that his body embedded six inches into the forest floor.
Sloan landed fifty paces away, panting. Veins had burst in his face and black blood dripped to the dirt, sizzling where it hit. He couldn’t keep this up much longer and Damien still had half his power left.
A quarter of Damien’s soul force went into a pair of golden griffins. The constructs rushed at Sloan. Gleaming claws slashed and curved beaks snapped.
With insane speed even Jen would have envied, Sloan blocked every attack and somehow found openings to carve chunks out of the griffins.
Another vein burst in the bandit’s forehead.
Blood ran down his face, but it didn’t seem to faze him.
Damien fired an energy blast.
If he could score a hit or even distract the warlord the griffins would tear him to shreds.
If someone asked, Damien would have had no way to describe how Sloan twisted his body to avoid the blast. Bones weren’t supposed to bend like that. However he managed it, the golden blast brushed past Sloan’s chest with a fraction of an inch to spare.
Sloan turned his twisting dodge into a pivot that brought the edge of his burning sword across the neck of a griffin. The construct’s head fell away and vanished, though that accomplished nothing beyond removing one of the beaks Sloan had to dodge.
When the bandit turned his attention to the more-intact griffin Damien sent a surge of power into the damaged construct. Ten blades of energy sprang from its severed neck to plunge at Sloan.
He dodged and deflected, but couldn’t avoid them all. Two swords scored deep slashes on his back and chest. Dark fire dripped from the wounds.
The injured bandit gasped for breath. His sword wavered.
The griffins lunged. With a final effort Sloan cut them in half with a single stroke of his corrupt blade. Three quarters of the way through the second griffin, the steel shattered. Sloan collapsed under the dissolving beasts.
Damien eased over to the dying bandit, cautious of any potential deception. When he stood over the unmoving bandit it became clear Sloan had nothing left. Thick, black blood covered him from his hairline to his waist. He stared up at Damien.
“I lost.” Sloan coughed up blood and spat to one side.
Damien nodded. “You put up a good fight.”
The bandit laughed, his voice hoarse and bitter. “Not good enough. My master promised the demon fire would defeat any opponent.”
“Did he tell you it would burn away your l
ife as well?”
“So what. Wining is all that matters. If you’re going to die, better to send your enemies to hell before you.”
Damien shook his head. It isn’t winning if everyone died. “Where’s Marris?”
“Dead. I gutted the pig and left him on the side of the path. He was slowing us down.”
So much corrupt energy swirled around Sloan’s head Damien couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. The part about slowing them down was certainly true.
“Finish me, boy. At least allow me the dignity of dying by the hand of my enemy rather than being consumed by these black flames.”
Damien raised a hand and drew deeply from his rapidly refilling core. He didn’t do it for the dignity of the fallen bandit or anything else so ridiculous. The corruption needed to be cleansed to eliminate the possibility of Sloan rising again as some undead horror that might threaten the area.
Golden flames roared from the air in front of Damien’s palm. Sloan’s body disintegrated in an instant and his shattered sword followed a few seconds later. Damien incinerated everything in the vicinity of Sloan’s body then hunted down every drop of black blood on the ground and burned those away too.
He didn’t stop until every trace of corruption was gone. Exhausted, but nowhere near finished, Damien turned his gaze southeast.
Chapter 41
Damien allowed himself an hour’s rest after the battle with Sloan. He wished he’d taken the time to bring his writing supplies so he could let his master know what had happened. He settled for tearing a relatively clean strip of cloth out of one of the dead bandits’ tunics. He conjured a pen and dipped it in the corpse’s fresh blood. A gruesome way to write, but Damien had limited options. He sent the message on its way and stood up.
Most of his power had returned and he figured the rest would regenerate during the short flight south. He leapt in the air and moved along at a modest pace. Below him the hardwood forest gradually gave way to patchy, twisted evergreens. Soon enough the vegetation went away altogether, save for the occasional clump of scraggly grass. Hot, dry wind struck his face.
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