Fellanni and Delaron joined their voices. “We march together.”
“There are not many outside the Delcessians who know our words,” Fellanni said.
“You will not be forgotten.” Delaron’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. He turned and made for his horse. “Come, Mortlebee.”
Mortlebee knelt in the dirt of the trail, unable to move. Fellanni’s fingers twitched, beckoning him forward. Mortlebee dragged one knee toward her then the other.
“I ask a last gift,” she said.
“Anything.”
“Don’t let my death be in vain. Now go.”
Chapter 35
Sheeting drops of rain sparkled in the moonlight before falling to wash the city clean. Little streams of water ran between the cobblestones of the streets.
Suma sheltered in a doorway, crouching behind Carew. The gray-haired old man was watching them both from farther down the street, though she wasn’t supposed to be aware of that.
It was nice having Carew around and not being alone, though Suma hadn’t fallen madly in love with him the way she had expected to—not yet, anyway. Her feelings for him were warm rather than hot. He was good looking and charming and well mannered, but Suma had just realized she wasn’t sure what color his eyes were. They were surely forest green or azure, but she just hadn’t gotten around to checking yet. Something I should have noticed.
“You ready?” Carew whispered to her.
“Yes, of course.” She shook the distracting thoughts from her mind, realizing that love would come in its own time. At the moment, their planned rescue was more important. She wanted to know why the axe had become bonded to her. If a similar thing had happened to the phantom, she might get answers.
“Are you sure you can break it down?” Carew asked.
“Absolutely certain.” She wasn’t.
Carew had discovered the headquarters of the crime boss, Rawls. The front entrance, on Emere Street, was heavily guarded. Across from where they waited, though, two back entrances were boarded up. They’d decided it likely that prisoners would be kept nearer the back than the front. If Suma could break through quickly, and if they didn’t run into too many of Rawls’s men, and if... Too many ifs.
“We don’t have to do this,” Carew said as if he was reading her thoughts.
“I do. You don’t.” Suma remembered the last time she’d come up with a rash plan and decided to fight her brothers in the training paddock. That hadn’t gone as she’d expected. After discovering she had to leave her home, she wanted to leave the axe behind with Lucii. He didn’t let her, and at that moment, she realized she had become tied to the axe. She hadn’t known what that really meant until that moment.
“Why do you have to?” Carew asked.
“I don’t even know the color of your eyes,” she said.
Carew smiled uncertainly. “Brown. What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means my path lies in that building.” She hefted her axe. I’m not the heroine of the story anymore. I’m the hero. “And I’m not going to let any walls stand in my way.”
“I don’t understand.”
She reached up to him and touched his cheek. He froze, uncertain.
She let her thumb trail down the side of her cheek, a small smile playing across her lips. “Let’s do this.”
She splashed through the rivulets of water running down the street. Her hair and shoulders became instantly drenched by the falling rain. She set her feet, swung her axe back, and struck the boards. They exploded inward.
She stepped into the corridor beyond. It was pitch black.
“Lantern,” she called behind her.
Carew uncovered the lantern. His sword was in his other hand. “Mezziall,” he said. “You weren’t kidding about not having any trouble breaking through.”
The power of the axe had surprised Suma, too, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. She had never applied full force when using it before.
“Left or right?” she asked, then chose the left without waiting for an answer.
She picked up one of the broken boards as she ran. She turned the first corner then waited for Carew to catch up with his light.
A man darted out of a room, froze in shock for an instant, then drew his sword. “Intruders!” he roared. “Intruders!”
Suma threw the wooden board at him. It hit him in the chest and sent him flying backward, the sword falling from his hand and clattering on the floor. Suma ran to him. He was still conscious, his eyes darting back and forth in fear. She curled her hand around the front of his tunic, lifted him into the air, and shoved him against the wall, the crown of his head smashing into the ceiling. “The prisoner. The phantom. Where is he?”
His gaze shifted to a point over Suma’s left shoulder. She turned around to see where he’d looked. It was the entrance to another corridor. She threw the man away from her. He crashed against a far wall and crumpled to the ground.
Distant footsteps rumbled farther inside the building. Those who hadn’t heard the noise of the back entrance being destroyed had surely been alerted by the shouts.
In the corridor the man had indicated, several doors had small holes in them at head height.
Suma turned to one side to let Carew past. “Check inside the rooms.”
He lifted the lantern at each door. At the third door, he shouted, “Here!” He wrenched at the handle, but the door was locked.
“Out of the way.” When Carew moved aside, Suma peeked in.
Lanterns lit up the inside, revealing a thin black-haired girl sitting up in a bed. She couldn’t be the phantom, could she? Though Suma was just as unlikely to be the possessor of a magic weapon. She stepped back and took hold of her axe with two hands.
“Wait!” Carew shouted, too late.
Suma’s axe smashed into the door, splitting it into two halves, both of which spun into the room.
A cloud of dust billowed up. Suma raised her arm over her eyes as she stepped inside. The dust fell away to reveal a large section of the door lying on top of the girl’s prone body. Mezziall. She rushed over and threw the door off then gripped the girl’s face, examining her. The girl was unconscious but alive.
She had to be alive—Suma wasn’t going to let her be dead.
“I’ll carry her.” Carew sheathed his sword and lifted the girl onto his shoulder. He started out.
“Wait.”
Suma stared at the far wall, where the corpse of a naked man hung. Congealed blood darkened his skin, and once Suma noticed him, she became aware of the stench of decomposing flesh. The man himself didn’t hold her attention, though. The sword sticking out of his chest did. Exactly the same color, and similarly elegant, it was clearly a sister weapon to her axe.
“We have to bring the sword too,” she told Carew.
He made a face. Then he put the lantern on the floor and carried the girl over to the corpse and yanked the sword free. Only a tiny dribble of extra blood flowed out of the man’s shoulder, though the stench worsened.
Suma picked up a section of door and made her way to the entrance. She raised it to throw then hesitated. Men crowded both sides of the corridor. Half a dozen men were coming down one side, and even more were arriving from the direction she had taken to get in.
“Summer,” Carew said from behind her. “Can your axe break through more than a door?”
He had his ear pressed against the stones beside the corpse.
“An outside wall?” Suma asked.
“I can hear the rain.”
“Stand back.” She threw the section of door toward the closest men but didn’t wait to see the aftermath, rushing over to Carew. Through the wall or through several dozen men—the choice was clear. Suma raised the blade of her axe in front of her face and kissed the blade. “Don’t let me down now.”
She picked out a stone at waist height, a pace left of the corpse’s knee, and rammed the spike of her axe against it. The shock of impact shuddered through her. The wall shook, and
crumbling dust fell from the ceiling.
“Your axe is as much danger to us as it is to our enemies,” Carew said. “Do I need to hide under the bed?”
“The bed won’t save you if the roof falls in.”
“Comforting. You’re sure you know what you’re doing?”
Suma rammed the axe against the same stone. That time the wall caved slightly.
“I know exactly what I’m doing. I just have no idea how stupid it is.” The dust that rained down this time had chunks of stone that hurt her head. They were getting out that way or not at all. “Prepare to run when the hole opens.”
She pulled back the axe again and the next time stepped into the blow, putting all her force into it. The stone she hit disappeared into the darkness, and several stones around it fell outward. The wall bulged. She stuck her axe into the hole she’d made and swept it back and forth and up and down, widening the hole. A stone fell from the ceiling and slammed down right beside her. The corpse fell off the wall, collapsing against her. She threw it away and stepped through the hole.
She turned back, and Carew handed the unconscious girl out to her. At the entrance, one man spilled into the room, but several others retreated backward as more stones fell from the ceiling.
Carew stepped out through the wall, bringing the sword with him.
Suma ran into the rain, hearing Carew’s footsteps splash through the puddles just behind her. The axe was cradled under the girl’s body, which felt light in Suma’s arms, barely slowing her. The girl’s head bobbed lifelessly from side to side.
She’s still alive, Suma assured herself. I didn’t kill her.
Chapter 36
1)
Simeon groaned as Lukin’s practice sword took him in the ribs, and he fell to one knee. He was becoming more black and blue than when his tribemates beat on him every day. Lukin stepped back, having barely worked up a sweat. Delaron chuckled to himself.
“What are you laughing at?” Tightening his fingers around his staff, Simeon pushed himself back to his feet.
“You still haven’t figured it out, have you?” Delaron asked.
“Figured out what?”
“Come on, you are smarter than this.”
The battle at Wellan’s Hollow had concentrated the minds of the bearers, giving them new focus. Lukin and Simeon sparred under Delaron’s tutelage while Mortlebee drove arrow after arrow in the direction of a nearby tree. Simeon used his staff rather than a sword. Even though it no longer really mattered, he still didn’t want to choose a bow, spear, axe, or sword, and Delaron had admitted a staff could be deadly in the right hands. Using it was similar to sparring with a spear, so he wasn’t a total beginner. Also, Lukin wasn’t all that impressive with the practice sword during individual drills or when sparring against Delaron. So how did Lukin beat Simeon so easily?
Simeon thought back to their bouts. The other boy was able to anticipate his moves ahead of time. Am I signaling my intentions with my eyes or a weight shift? No, I couldn’t be—my tribemates would have knocked bad habits out of me long ago. Unless...
Simeon’s eyes narrowed. “It’s the ring.”
“Of course it’s the renka ring,” Delaron said.
“What’s the ring?” Lukin asked.
“You read my thoughts and know where I’m going to strike ahead of time.”
“I don’t,” Lukin said. Then, “Do I?”
“Of course you do,” Delaron said. “When you fell at the feet of the redbirds at Wellan’s Hollow, you rolled one way to avoid one strike then rolled back to dodge another. There was no way you could see them coming.”
Lukin looked at his ring. “Nice!”
The thud of jealousy in Simeon’s gut was worse than the earlier blow in the ribs. Lukin’s weapon was more powerful than he’d realized, yet Simeon’s was just as useless as ever. For the present, Simeon had given up trying to discover magic within himself and learning to use the staff to create a portal. Sierre was convinced it would never happen, and their sessions had become more and more frustrating.
They were camped by a small brook near a village called Crilly. Though less than a day’s journey from Wellan’s Hollow, they had traveled three days on a circuitous route to make tracking them difficult. With no need to move quickly, they had stopped to camp often, which left plenty of time for Lukin to knock the stuffing out of Simeon and for Mortlebee to channel his dark grief into firing arrows.
“Thanks for letting me know earlier,” Simeon said to Delaron.
“It was good for him to practice against someone whose thoughts he could read,” Delaron said.
“You could at least have warned me.”
“Would you have continued to fight him?”
“Hey,” Lukin interrupted, addressing Delaron. “How come I can’t beat you?”
“You’ve figured out you can’t read my thoughts, right?” Delaron asked.
“I don’t know why, though,” Lukin said.
“There’s a mental meditation technique we can learn to protect the mind,” Delaron said. “It can take years to perfect. Those expecting to have contact with thought-mages learn the technique—wizards such as Sierre, some nobles.”
“An occasional beggar,” Lukin suggested.
“Very occasional.”
Simeon decided he could do with learning how to do that. Having his thoughts read was annoying.
“What else can people do to protect themselves from my ability?” Lukin asked. “Can they learn to lie?”
Delaron turned to Simeon. “Could you broadcast a thought that you know to be a lie?”
Lukin beat me fair and square.
Lukin smiled. “I can sense the wrongness in the thought,” he told Delaron, “as if it has a bad smell.”
Delaron nodded. “Many people can block thought-mages, but no one can deceive them.”
They all turned, startled, at a shout. Sierre ran out of the trees. “Quick, pack up. We have to go.”
Delaron immediately kicked out the campfire. “What is it?”
“A troop of redbirds sighted nearby.” She picked up her rolled-up bedroll.
Simeon ran to the horses and untied their lead ropes, rubbing their noses to calm them, while Delaron, Lukin, and Mortlebee helped Sierre pack up camp.
“What about the portal mage?” Simeon asked.
Sierre had been in contact with the Invisible Towers via her comstal. She had been supposed to meet the mage in the village and create a portal to Blackstone.
“He’s in Crilly. We have to move fast.”
Simeon handed the horses’ lead ropes to the others. Mortlebee was last to mount, delaying to collect several arrows.
“Stealth or speed?” Delaron asked.
“Speed!” Simeon shouted as he himself mounted. “Look.” He pointed toward the other side of the brook, where flashes of scarlet had appeared between the trees.
He dug his heels into his horse, and the five of them galloped alongside the brook toward the huddle of houses comprising Crilly.
Simeon glanced over his shoulder. The sixth horse, left behind in the panic, shied back as several dozen redbirds trudged across the brook. The soldiers, though obviously aware of the five of them galloping away, didn’t look particularly interested.
They galloped to the village green and stopped in front of one of the larger buildings. After getting a feel for its layout, Simeon figured it was the kiddie house, where all the young children of the village stayed, though it was surprisingly quiet. He glanced around. The green was surprisingly quiet. If the village was under attack, the men should have been preparing a defense.
The kiddie house always had the most beds in a village so was also used to host strangers, and the man leaning beside the door, sipping from a mug, could only be the wizard Sierre had sent for. He surely was no Pizarrian.
Sierre was first to dismount. “What are you still doing here? I told you we had to hurry.”
The wizard took another sip from his mug, not about to b
e rushed. “You shouted something at me then ran out. Was it important?” The man was in his sixties with a long, tapered white mustache. A queerly dressed fellow, his black leather boots were turned down at the knees, his breeches were a light shade of purple, and he wore his blue coat buttoned up to the neck with a stiff collar. His hat matched his coat in color and was shaped like an upside-down boat.
“You know exactly what I said, Bylanter,” Sierre said. “We need that portal now.”
Delaron drew his sword and touched its point to Bylanter’s neck. “Now, like she said. There’s a troop of redbirds just outside the village.”
Bylanter ignored Delaron and his sword, turning toward Sierre. “Who are these uncouth companions you have taken up with? I hope they realize that a mage works best with his head attached to the shoulders.”
“Put up your sword, Delaron,” Sierre said. “Bylanter doesn’t want to be captured by the clerics any more than the rest of us.”
“All this running around means that things take twice as long to get done,” Bylanter said. “If Sierre had taken her time to explain the situation the first time, perhaps we’d be in Blackstone by now. Now”—he waved his hand—“get all your swords and threats out of my way.”
Delaron lowered his sword.
Bylanter took another sip then threw the rest of the liquid to the ground. “I swear they brew mud in this part of the world and call it coffee.” He dropped the cup and strode across the green.
“Where’s he going?” Delaron asked.
Sierre pointed beyond the village. “See that old oak on its own, half dead from a lightning strike? That’s the point he arrived and knows best. He’ll create the portal there.”
Delaron looked around. “We can delay the redbirds here to give him time.”
“Where are all the men of the village?” Simeon asked.
“I talked to the women’s councilor about what has happened,” Sierre said. “Those at Wellan’s Hollow weren’t the main attack. Thousands of redbirds portaled behind the defenses at Newbridge and Rocksea and defeated the Pizarrians there.”
The Silver Portal (Weapons of Power Book 1) Page 26