by David Hair
he sent.
His finger tightened and he took a deep breath, beginning his inner mantra for an accurate shot: Exhale, await that perfect moment of stillness . . . then—
Suddenly a woman’s voice rang out: ‘ALARON! BEWARE! WATCH OUT—!’
Megradh cursed, his aim wavering as a newcomer burst into the courtyard. As heads turned towards her he recognised her instantly: the gypsy kutti!
Someone shouted ‘SHIELDS!’ and gnosis light flared below.
Megradh’s aim settled on the gypsy as she ran towards Mercer and he bellowed, both out loud and through the gnosis, even as he loosed his own bolt. It slammed straight into the gypsy’s chest and pinned her to a pillar.
A second later the air was filled with bolts and the gnosis.
*
CYM! Alaron recognised Cym’s voice the instant it rang out and her warning crystallised his anxiety about the ice breaking above. He shielded himself as he shouted a warning. Part of his training had included throwing in surprise commands, to test the novices’ reflexes and get them used to reacting instantly, so most of them did just that – but it was mostly luck who survived the next two seconds.
As blue light flared and clashed across the courtyard, the shutters on the walkway above crashed open and a hail of crossbow bolts lanced into the crowd of novices. Those at the sides took the brunt of the attack; one young man was struck in the back by two bolts and driven to his knees; beside him another was pierced through his neck, breaking it and killing him at once; he was dead before he fell. More bolts tipped in gnosis-light burst through the shields; though some were deflected, too many were deadly, and all around him Alaron saw limbs and torsos being impaled, while the young men howled in pain and shock.
He whirled back to where Cym’s voice had come from, his heart in his mouth as the scattering monks revealed her impaled on a pillar by a crossbow bolt. She was white as a sheet, but she was alive, just; he could see her trying desperately to breathe. He screamed her name and ran to her, calling his staff to his hands.
‘STAVES!’ he shouted, and the Zains went for their weapons as the shutters above crashed open and twenty or more black-clad shapes dropped from the gangways above, blades in hand.
‘Hadishah!’ someone shouted, sounding panic-stricken, and the air filled with cries of fear and fury.
‘Master!’ Sindar shouted, and Alaron turned to see the young man, staff in hand, looking bewildered, his training failing in the face of genuine combat. A black-clad figure landed behind him, his sword raised.
‘Watch out!’ Alaron cried, but it was already too late; even as Sindar turned the Hadishah drove his scimitar down, straight through Sindar’s weak shield and into his back. The young man fell forward, his face still uncomprehending.
Aprek shrieked and launched himself at the Hadishah. His normally placid face had gone white and he was frothing with rage. He began to rain blows down on the startled assassin, but even as he gave ground, another was darting in on his flank. Then Yash flew in, making a gesture that flung the Hadishah away and into the walls with backbreaking force.
Alaron darted through a gap, still making for Cym, when a black-clad attacker came at him. For a second he confronted a pair of dark eyes that flashed with mesmeric-gnosis, trying for a spell to fog his parry, but it was weak. Mesmerist, huh? Try this! Alaron spun his staff and lunged, blasting Ascendant-strength kinesis into the Hadishah’s shield, fusing and shattering it. The follow-up blow, a continuation of his original movement, saw him slamming the iron heel of his staff into the assassin’s temple, so hard his skull cracked. He went down, as Alaron flowed onwards.
All round him, the fight was taking shape. Many – too many – of the Zains were already down, and those still standing were trying to encircle the wounded and protect them, all the while fighting desperately to survive themselves. Master Puravai, the only non-mage, was in the middle of the press, protected by his novices while he bent over one of the wounded. But the Hadishah, trained to kill and with the advantage of surprise, were carving into them.
Even as he tried to reach Cym, Alaron could see the invaders were beginning to meet stronger resistance. At first most of the Zains had thought only of defence, with only a few, like Yash and Kedak, fighting aggressively. But that was changing: as the young men shielded themselves and the wounded from a storm of blades, mage-bolts and fire-bursts, Alaron sensed the realisation growing among them that they were holding their own; that their gnostic training really worked – and that their kon-staffs could be as damaging as a blade.
He reached Cym, to find Gateem – apparently oblivious to the mêlée around them – already had his hand on her chest, white healing-gnosis blooming in his hands.
Alaron begged her, but she didn’t respond.
Just in time, he sensed a blow coming and set his shields blazing as a mage-bolt struck. He darted into a gap between two of his trainees and blazed gnosis-fire at his attacker, which overwhelmed the Hadishah; as the assassin’s shields turned scarlet, he drove his staff into the man’s chest, using kinesis to cave in the ribcage. The nearest Zains, seeing what he’d done, followed his lead, and started bludgeoning their attackers backwards.
Then the fight changed again: someone – a Hadishah commander, Alaron assumed – shouted aloud and with his mind and the Hadishah darted backwards. As one, they raised their hands.
‘WARE!’ Alaron shouted, in unison with several others as a storm of flames and blue mage-bolts slammed into their shields.
But despite the number of attackers and their undoubted strength, they scarcely penetrated, and Alaron felt the confidence surge among his young charges, a new self-belief fusing with anger. Right you bastards, now it’s our turn! He waved an arm and shouted, ‘KHOJANI, ATTACK!’
He went straight for the Hadishah commander while his novices went for their nearest foe.
*
Ramita sensed a sudden eruption of the gnosis below, coming from the direction of the courtyard. She stiffened, dreadfully aware of Satravim’s knife resting beside her eye. But she couldn’t drag her gaze from Alyssa Dulayne, whose beautiful, sultry face was taut with tension.
‘Open the lock, Ramita!’ she snapped. ‘Last warning.’
Then at the far end of the corridor, Corinea’s door swung open and the old sorceress stepped out. ‘What’s—?’
The older Hadishah man stationed before her door didn’t hesitate. He’d positioned himself a few paces away so that he’d be behind whoever emerged, and even as Corinea spoke, he drove his dagger into the old woman’s back.
The blade broke.
Corinea didn’t gesture, or even glance in the man’s direction, but he shrieked and fell to one side, where he collapsed in a concussion of unseen gnosis. Ramita recalled the awe she’d first felt when the old woman had appeared before her in Teshwallabad, in the guise of Makheera-ji: a goddess come to life.
‘Who the Hel are you?’ Alyssa demanded hoarsely. Satravim, his breath suddenly shallow and hot, pulled Ramita against him. His knife-point, shaking alarmingly, filled her gaze.
‘I am Lillea Sorades, if that name means anything to you,’ Corinea replied mockingly. She twisted her fingers, her eyes flashed violet, and the next Hadishah, the one standing beside the nursery door, screamed and collapsed. The remaining two assassins standing behind Alyssa and Satravim squeaked with fright and backed away.
Alyssa was still reacting to the name. ‘Lillea Sorades? That’s impossible!’ She looked frantically at Satravim, then back at Corinea. ‘Stop there! Or the girl dies!’
It was time to act.
From the moment that Satravim had put his dagger against her face, part of Ramita had been trying to follow her training: to find the right spells for the situation. And now everyone was looking at Corinea . . .
With her left hand she shoved, using kinetic-gnosis to thrust the dagger violently up and awa
y. Satravim gasped as the bones in his wrist snapped, but that wasn’t her real blow; that came from her right elbow, which she drove backwards into the assassin’s midriff. She was already inside his shields so he couldn’t do anything to weaken the blow – but even if he had, it would have done no good, for her elbow wasn’t just an elbow any more. In the instant between preparing the blow and striking, a nine-inch spur of bone had erupted from the joint; it was that which speared into Satravim’s stomach.
Satravim gagged as hot blood erupted over her, and for a moment Ramita was aghast at herself – but that lasted less than a moment. They threatened my son! The assassin staggered, his eyes bulging, his scarred face stretched into the beginnings of a scream, but she caught his knife with her gnosis and stabbed it into his chest, pouring energy along the blade as it went into his heart and he collapsed, his mouth gaping silently. In the brief moment as their eyes connected, the image was burned onto her brain. She’d never deliberately killed before.
But why stop now?
She whirled and found Alyssa Dulayne staring at her as if she’d never seen her before. Well, she hasn’t . . .
Then gnosis flared behind her: Alyssa too had been preparing her spells, but hers were to find a way out, and that went through the walls: into the nursery . . .
*
It’s impossible! I refuse to be gulled, Alyssa told herself, but her mind was fixed on that dreadful name: Lillea Sorades? Corinea? No – it’s just a lie to scare me! But when Alyssa saw the look on Ramita’s face as she turned from Satravim, drenched in blood, fear took over.
She’d once been told that in peril, there were two gut responses: to fight, or to run. She’d always been one of the latter – in fact, she accounted it a virtue. Heroes fought and died; smart people ran, and lived to run again.
All the while she’d been threatening Ramita, she’d been working at that overpowered lock; it was strong, certainly, but also simple, and that meant a skilled counter-blow would break it. She thrust and the locking-spell came apart, the door swung open and she dashed through, feeling Ramita’s dagger scouring her shields as she sought an escape – a window to the outside. Someone moved in the dimly lit room and she loosed a mage-bolt, blasting the face off a young Lokistani woman. In the corner a baby boy sat up in bed, blearily opening his mouth—
A hostage! That’s what I need! She reached out with kinesis to draw him to her—
—when something picked her up and hurled her towards the far wall. She spun in the air, trying to protect herself, and saw Ramita Ankesharan in the doorway, shining like a small sun – then she struck the wooden shutters and smashed through, keeping her shields tight around her as the timber splintered – and then she was falling through darkness, plummeting into the ravine amidst wooden splinters and shards of ice . . .
*
‘NO—!’ Ramita roared. She ran to Dasra, to make sure he was unharmed, then glimpsed Corinea even as the ancient sorceress flashed past the door. Two Keshi voices cried out in terror, then there was silence and her eyes went back to the broken shutters, and the wind howling through. She’d not meant to throw Alyssa out; she’d wanted to keep her right here. The smell of blood was in her nostrils, as well as warm and sticky on her skin, and she wanted more; she wanted that Rondian kutti to suffer for threatening her son.
She ran to the window, rage coursing through her.
The goddess Parvasi, Sivraman’s wife, the mother, was Ramita’s patron – but Parvasi-ji had a wilder aspect: Darikha, the warrior-woman who rides the tiger, and it was Darikha-Ji who was in her mind as she roared in fury, flashing to the window in time to see the comet-trail of Alyssa’s aura as she fell away into the darkness.
She’s a pure-blood – that fall won’t kill her . . .
She threw herself out the window.
*
The novices fanned out in all directions, only a dozen or so still upright, but no one hesitated. Even thoughtful souls like Aprek tore into their foes. Yash was blazing with aggression, Fire-spells pouring from him with increasing intensity as his inhibitions fell away. They were all growing into the fight, taking confidence in their skills.
They were still outnumbered. Alaron found himself facing two of half-blood strength, judging by their spells, and though his power dwarfed theirs, facing two foes was always a deadly game. Then his fighting instincts rose.
Twice before in his life, in deadly situations, he’d reached the mental state that magi called ‘trance’, when instinct took over and utilising two or even three gnostic skills at once became possible. Though he’d tried to achieve it in training, he’d never managed to – but now, in the heat of the fight, it began to happen again.
He engaged divination, to see his enemies’ blows even as the intention formed; and with illusion he blurred his form to conceal his footwork, which any trained fighter could use to anticipate the next blow. And with kinesis, he locked and layered his shields to parry more than one blow. Raw energy blazed at both tips of his kon-staff and he glided between his foes, parrying two thrusts in successive moments before flowing into a flying kick aimed at one while simultaneously slashing the staff at the other, drawing them into his wake as he spiralled by and slammed his staff at the left-hand assassin’s skull. The concussion of his blow pierced the assassin’s shield and sent him staggering straight into Yash’s reach. Yash shoved his own assailant back, then smashed his staff on the off-balance Hadishah. Gnosis-fire exploded and the assassin flopped bonelessly, the back of his head blasted open and smouldering.
The second Hadishah spun and slashed back at Alaron, who parried effortlessly and launched a rapid-fire attack, striking in a succession of blows that a single blade could never hope to follow – but a knife appeared in the Hadishah’s left hand and he blocked deftly, kindling energy on the blade as he riposted. Alaron parried again as power throbbed through the dagger, scouring his staff – then the Hadishah’s dagger snapped.
The assassin staggered backwards and Alaron followed, divining a sweeping scimitar cut at his head and ducking under it, then hurled a burst of illusory darkness at the Hadishah’s eyes. The assassin bellowed in alarm, suddenly blind, and began flailing about desperately and seeking to flee – the wrong way. Alaron drove his staff into his chest, gnosis-energy concussed through his foe and he flew backwards, landing in a broken limp-limbed heap.
Alaron had already moved on. Now the Hadishah captain was before him: a burly, brutal man who very obviously knew his business. He attacked with ferocity and skill, his scimitar and dagger flowing in perfect unison, scouring Alaron’s shields and almost taking his fingers off when the scimitar scraped down the shaft of his kon-staff. The next instant he lashed out with his boots and drove his blade at Alaron’s face, an attack designed to skewer his skull while his shields were fused elsewhere.
But it didn’t happen; Alaron’s shields were too strong. Instead, he hurled the man away and threw mage-fire at him, then battered at him with kinesis before wading towards him again.
All round the courtyard, the Hadishah were beginning to die. Like young lions realising hitherto unknown strengths, the novices were flexing their muscles now. Some remembered their first lessons as a Zain, fighting with restraint yet still battering the weakest Hadishah into submission. But the young monks also made mistakes. Though the assassins were far weaker than them, half-bloods and quarter-bloods against Ascendants, they’d been trained since childhood not just to fight, but to survive. Rather than kill his foe, one young Zain tried to take a wounded Hadishah prisoner, only to suddenly stagger away with a knife in his chest. The assassin ran for the doors – and was immolated from three sides. Mercy was forgotten.
The fight had clearly turned, but Alaron knew he had to finish it quickly. Ramita was upstairs, and he’d heard nothing from her. Cym was now lying motionless on the ground. Others were wounded, needing attention before they died.
The captain saw him glance at the Rimoni girl and spat out words in broken Rondian, clearly trying to goad
Alaron into a false step. ‘Your woman? I fuck her! I shoot her!’ He grinned evilly.
It worked: Alaron saw red, all finesse vanished and he launched himself at the man, gripping the staff with both hands at one end and wielding it as if it were a broadsword, trying to belabour the Hadishah to death.
I’ll kill you I’ll kill you I’ll kill you—
The man parried, again then again, and though his gnosis was less, his power wasn’t being wastefully squandered. He blocked Alaron’s staff, hacked it in half, then riposted with a straight-armed drive that pierced Alaron’s shields. Suddenly Alaron was gasping at a foot of steel plunging through his right shoulder, straight into the joint and out the back. He staggered, his shields dissipating.
An old Arcanum lesson echoed in his brain: A good fighter remains calm . . .
Then someone rose behind the Hadishah captain and buried a dagger in his back amidst a scarlet starburst of shattered shields. The man’s brutish face went slack, his mouth fell open, then he collapsed, his scimitar torn from Alaron’s wound in an agonising wrench and clattering to the ground.
Behind him, Gateem stood staring aghast at his bloody knife. He dropped the weapon and stepped away as if trying to disassociate himself from it entirely.
Alaron gave him a grateful look, then the pain hit him. He shielded hard, lest he leave himself vulnerable, but those few Hadishah still standing, realising they were trapped, were dropping their weapons and holding up their hands in surrender. For a moment, carnage beckoned, then Mercy regained her grip on the minds of the young novices and they withheld their weapons.
Alaron’s eyes went back to Cym.
Oh no . . . He staggered to her, dropped to his knees. ‘Cym?’