A Dance of Chaos: Book 6 of Shadowdance

by David Dalglish

  For a moment Tarlak and Delysia remained silent and watched the battle, only Brug having joined in. Antonil’s men fought bravely, and they used the limited space to the utmost effectiveness. Brug did himself proud, for in such close quarters, and against such reckless foes, he could punch and slash with his thick daggers and rely on his armor to keep him alive. Antonil lorded over it all, shouting out orders, directing the reinforcements to wherever the line of soldiers began to bend, sometimes even physically yanking men back himself when he saw they were wounded and would not hold.

  And then the initial rush was past, the surge of fear and excitement replaced with the brutal, ugly cutting of throats and hacking of limbs. Rebuilding the wall with the dead had been no idle boast by Antonil, for as the orcs died at the broken entrance, their corpses became obstacles those behind had to stumble across, and with each one that fell, the wall grew higher, the footing more treacherous.

  Minutes passed, and still the fight went on, the orcs having to pause to drag away their dead so they might charge anew. So far the human soldiers had suffered drastically fewer deaths. They also had far fewer lives to give. Delysia wondered why her brother remained out of things, but before she could ask, he turned to her and ducked his head closer so she might hear him.

  “The necromancer’s so far staying out of things,” he said. “The moment I start flinging fireballs, I doubt that stays the same. But if we can be clever about this…”

  He pointed to the sky, hurrying through words of magic. At the spell’s completion, he flung down his hand, and from the storm clouds shot a thick bolt of lightning that crashed down into the center of the orc army. A grin on his face, Tarlak did it again, this time on the far corner of the battlefield. Delysia winced against the brightness, and she wondered about the efficiency of such a tactic.

  “It won’t be enough,” she told her brother after a third.

  “I know,” he said. “Just testing. He’s not shielding his army against magic, which means this might have a chance.”

  Tarlak rushed forward, pushing his way through the soldiers so he might reach Antonil’s side. Delysia followed, a gut instinct telling her she needed to stay with her brother at all times, for when the necromancer finally turned his attention on Tarlak, he would need her aid.

  “Let them through!” Tarlak shouted once he was close enough to grab Antonil’s pauldron and yank him around.

  “Are you mad?” Antonil asked, gesturing behind him to where his men were desperately fighting to keep the bottleneck going. “This is the only hope we have!”

  The wizard shook his head.

  “If it looks like you’ll hold, or seal the gap, that necromancer out there will just blow another hole through a different part of the wall. Let them inside, Antonil. Let them think they’ve won!”

  Antonil leaned down so he might lower his voice.

  “And then what?” he asked.

  Tarlak glanced Delysia’s way.

  “Leave that to us.”

  It was an incredible gamble, and Delysia did not think Antonil would accept the risk. It seemed, however, she had underestimated the trust the guard captain had in the wizard.

  “I’ll pull everyone back, forming a perimeter,” he said. “We won’t last long, not without aid, but we can keep several hundred pinned in at the least. Will that suffice?”

  Tarlak nodded.

  “It will.”

  Antonil jabbed the wizard in the chest.

  “Gods help me, I’m putting the lives of all my soldiers in your hands,” he said. “Don’t let me down.”

  “I give you permission to haunt me throughout all eternity if I fail,” Tarlak said, and despite the grim atmosphere, he grinned. Antonil shook his head, hardly sharing his humor.

  “Damn wizards,” the man muttered before lifting his sword above his head and shouting orders, screaming for his men to fall back into a defensive perimeter. As he did, Tarlak grabbed Delysia’s hand and pulled her along, running deeper into the city.

  “What are you planning?” she asked him as they ran.

  “It’s not much of a plan,” he said. “Get the orcs inside, out of sight from the necromancer, and then blow them to bits with the nastiest spells I’ve got until he catches on. Hopefully by the time he does, there won’t be much left of his army.”

  With the wall, the bodies, and the rain, it would indeed be tough to see anything from afar. That was assuming, of course, the necromancer watched with normal eyes, but she decided there was no point in voicing such a concern. The plan, what little of it there was, had already gone into motion. The city’s defenders steadily retreated, their deeper ranks spreading out. With each step they lashed at the orcs, slaying them by the dozens. With their little armor, all they had to rely on was their strength and their numbers, and so far they had not been given a chance to bring either fully to bear. Antonil’s men continued to spread out, forming a great ring of mail and blades, but it took longer for the orcs to fill the gap, having to stumble through the broken corpse-filled gate. Delysia lost sight of Brug, the shorter man hidden among the hundreds of others, and she prayed he would survive the night.

  At last the ring reached the farthest it could without breaking. Two men deep, the soldiers did their best to fight the orcs to a standstill, letting their enemies’ blows rain down upon their shields before retaliating. Delysia felt her breath catch in her throat, the bloody battle mere feet in front of her, but before she could join in, Tarlak grabbed her shoulders and turned her so she might look him in the eye.

  “I need your help on this,” he said. “Do you understand? I know you hate killing, but if any of us are to survive tonight, it has to be done.”

  The night she’d helped rescue Haern from the Stronghold flashed through her mind, immediately coupled with a sense of revulsion.

  “I don’t know if I can,” she said, softly enough she wondered if Tarlak would hear her amid the clashing of swords, the screams of the dying, and the constant fall of the rain.

  “Yes, you can,” Tarlak said, turning his attention back to the battle. “You’re stronger than you know.”

  Fire danced around his hands as he began his spell. Delysia watched, feet feeling as if they were made of stone. No, she did know her strength, perhaps far better than Tarlak could believe. She was not naïve enough to think this battle could be avoided, nor to believe there would be any reasoning with such a vile race. The power given to her, she wanted to use to heal, not to hurt, not to destroy. To let such a cruel world force her to kill, to turn her into what she’d sworn to Haern never to become again …

  The first spell leaped from Tarlak’s hands, a ball of flame that soared over the defenders’ heads before dropping down. It detonated, sending out a rolling ring of fire in all directions. The orcs it passed over screamed, the flesh from their necks to their knees charring, exposing pink muscle and inner organs that spilled across the ground. Pushing himself through two soldiers so he might have space, Tarlak followed it up with a blast of lightning that struck an orc mere feet away who was trying to decapitate him with an ax. It leaped five more times, tearing into the orcs, each leap accompanied by a loud crack.

  “Come on!” Tarlak shouted over the rain as he flung two smaller balls of flame, each one striking an orc in the chest and dropping him to the ground. “Come on!”

  Arcane power swirling around his hands, he lifted them above his head and then slammed them together. The ground rumbled, and then in a straight path between Tarlak and the broken entrance the ground rose and then dropped, cracking the stone and upending all combatants in the way. Over a hundred orcs found themselves on the ground, helpless as Antonil’s soldiers surged in, cutting them down before quickly retreating as the seemingly unending tide from beyond the wall rushed through to replace their numbers.

  Two more bolts of lightning followed, Tarlak firing them as fast as his fingers could manage. Delysia watched him, her guilt steadily increasing. Such a pace would exhaust her brother, but he di
d not slow. He couldn’t. Shards of ice flew from his palms, their tips razor-sharp, and they slashed through the attackers with ease. The space before the entrance had become a horrific mess of blood, bone, and gore, yet it seemed the tide would not relent. More ice, and then Tarlak switched back to fire, unleashing a torrent from his palms that shot out as if from the belly of a dragon, consuming a dozen of his foes. All around Tarlak the soldiers cheered him on, lifting their swords and shouting his name when he struck down a trio with a long lance of ice that impaled them together, even when they crumpled in death.

  “Too much,” Delysia whispered, watching him falter a spell and have to try a second time before summoning a bolt of lightning from the sky to strike the center of the penned-in orcs. “You’re doing too much.”

  At last he fell back, dropping to his knees and holding his forehead. Delysia wanted to go to him. She wanted to bring her healing magic to his aid, to banish his exhaustion, but their foes, despite the tremendous assault they had suffered, still poured inside undeterred. Her role in this battle, it wasn’t watching, and it wasn’t healing. Not yet.

  Something in her snapped, and she suddenly felt very cold. It was cowardice to leave it all in the hands of others, to let Tarlak and Brug and Haern and hundreds of soldiers be the ones to stain their hands with blood in an attempt to keep everyone safe. Not when she could help them. Not when she could share the burden, for no matter how heavy it was, she could bear it. After all, her brother was right. She was strong, and the army invading her city was about to find out just how strong she could be.

  Delysia broke into a run, feeling incredibly calm despite the carnage around her. Past her brother she ran, and when she reached the thin line of soldiers she moved them aside with a mere wave of her hand. Faster and faster she pumped her legs, racing toward the heart of her opponents’ formation, wanting every bit of momentum she could muster. They would not stop her. They would not defeat her. She barely felt the rain. She barely heard the battle cries, the wounded, the dying. Antonil’s men were trying to reseal the hole in the wall, smashing toward it with their shields while enduring the retaliation of their foes. They would not succeed, not without help. Her help. A group of six orcs saw the gap she’d opened and rushed toward her, weapons raised, mouths bellowing out a cry she did not hear. They did not scare her. They only made her run faster.

  Just before they could strike, she flung her arms wide and shouted Ashhur’s name. The ensuing shock wave blasted the nearest orcs to the ground as if they had been struck by the most tumultuous of winds. Her momentum halted as light shot out from her body in all directions. From her back spread a shimmering set of wings comprised of holy light, and controlling them was as natural as moving her hands. Delysia stepped forward, but her feet were no longer touching the ground. Her body moved ahead nonetheless, and her wings lashed out ahead of her, elongating, becoming blades that sliced through the orc bodies as if they were straw. The blood and gore could not stick to the light, and as the orcs howled, she surged forward, lashing them again with her wings.

  “You are not welcome here,” Delysia said, and she felt her voice was not her own. “Begone from this city.”

  She pointed a hand, and from her finger blasted a beam of light twice the size of a man. It tore through their ranks, disintegrating anything it touched. Many orcs flung themselves against the wall of soldiers, tearing at them with wild abandon instead of facing her. Others reacted like rabid dogs, rushing her no matter how reckless it might be. Delysia felt nothing as she struck them down, not even slowing the movements of her feet as she propelled herself toward the gate while hovering above the ground. Whips of light cracked from her hands, searing flesh and shattering bone. She was almost to the gate, and with a thought she sent a wing corkscrewing in, ripping apart the dozen who had tried, and failed, to flee in time. As the wings retracted, the stunned soldiers on either side regained their wits and rushed to seal the gap.

  Delysia turned, her wings becoming ethereal, their light rising up to the sky like shimmering smoke. The orcs still within the city were quickly cut down by the remaining soldiers, barring the scattered pockets that had broken through the ring and fled beyond. Delysia felt the ground touch her feet, and the sound of the rain grew in her ears. With a gasp she took in a breath, and it felt like she woke from a dream. All around her, soldiers gave her a wide berth as they moved to solidify their defenses, which was good, for it felt as if the slightest breeze could have toppled her.

  Tarlak caught her before she finally fell.

  “Easy there,” he said as she let him hold her. Her arms and legs felt intensely weak, her head filled with cotton.

  “Are we safe?” she asked.

  “Seems so,” he said. “It looks like the attack has stalled. I doubt the remaining orcs are excited about fighting after they’ve watched so many of their own slaughtered.”

  “And Brug?”

  “The idiot’s still on the frontlines, angry and kicking.”

  Delysia smiled.

  “Good,” she said. “Now let me go.”

  Just as quickly as the weakness had hit her, it was gone, her strength slowly returning to her body. Gently pulling herself free of her brother, she stood apart a few paces and ran a hand through her soaked hair, much of which stuck to her face and neck.

  “That’ll teach that bastard necromancer not to mess with the Eschaton,” Tarlak said, and he made a rude gesture with his arms toward the city entrance. “So what do you think, are we due for a reward, or a really large rew—”

  He never finished the sentence. Tarlak screamed as he dropped to his knees, fingers clutching at the sides of his face, fingernails digging into his skin so hard thin drops of blood dripped down his cheeks as he raked them up and down. The pain in his voice was terrible to hear. When she reached out for him, he slapped her hand away.

  “Don’t,” he said, crumpling, as if trying to shrivel down as small as possible. “Don’t … don’t touch me…”

  His entire body had begun to quiver. Fighting down her rising panic, Delysia closed her eyes and whispered a simple prayer. When she opened them, her vision was attuned to the realm of gods, the natural world turning shadowy and dark. Shimmering an alternating violet and crimson were a dozen snakes latched on to her brother’s body. Their eyes were rubies, their scales obsidian. They twisted and curled about him, sliding through his robes as if the cloth were made of air. Only their heads did not move, for they had sunk their ethereal teeth into Tarlak’s face and neck. At those spots Tarlak scratched, his hand passing through them like shadows. Every few moments Tarlak’s veins pulsed a bright red, the light visible even through his flesh and clothing.

  What curse is this? Delysia wondered, baffled by the sight of it. Some strange evil of Karak’s, she knew, but how could she break it? There was only one way she could think of, and that was simply to bathe her brother with Ashhur’s grace and pray the curse could not withstand it. Despite his resistance, she grabbed Tarlak by the front of his shirt and knelt down.

  “You will endure this, do you hear me?” she told her brother. “You’re stronger than this, now fight it!”

  There was no way to know if he heard her, so she trusted him to resist. Pleading to Ashhur, she summoned the strength within her, flooding her hands with light. With normal sight it would have appeared as a white glow, but to her god-sight it was a brilliant knife that she plunged into her brother’s chest. Tarlak gasped as her physical hands touched his body, and then the snakes released, slithering with stunning speed. Delysia felt pain spike up her body as they dug their fangs into her hands, quick jabs before slithering back into her brother’s flesh. From each one a trail of smoke floated through the night, traveling back to their master who gave them power and life. Delysia thought to cut the strands, but there was no guarantee it would end the curse. Even worse, she feared it might bring death to Tarlak instead of the mere agony the cursed snakes caused.

  “Begone from him,” she said, pulsing more of he
r power into her brother’s body. The snakes writhed, and she heard a dozen screeches, like those of wounded birds. Instead of the prayer’s exorcising them, the visible manifestations of the curse sank into him, burrowing their heads down into his flesh as their shimmering tails tightened their grasp. Delysia felt herself running short of breath as she continued to pray. Her words caused the horrible things to clench tight, dig deeper, bite harder. Tarlak screamed on his back, thrashing wildly against her touch.

  At last she was desperate enough to try cutting the threads. She reached out to the shadowy tendrils, clutching one with her hand. The moment she did, a flash of darkness passed over her eyes, and she heard a voice rumble deep within her mind.

  You are nothing, little girl, merely a feeble child playing in the realm of gods. It will cost you dearly.

  “A feeble child?” she hissed as she felt herself growing dizzy. “Then prove it, you fiend. I’m not scared of you.”

  At first laughter was her only response, so full of loathing and mockery she felt her neck flushing. The curse sank deeper into Tarlak, and it filled him with such pain he arced his back and flung aside his arms so far she feared he would break his own bones. The scream that tore out of him was unearthly in its power, terrifying in its agony, and then with a dozen raptor cries, the snakes leaped from his body and into hers.

  Delysia’s turn to scream. Even the little concentration it took to keep the god-sight enabled left her, and she found herself crumpled on the ground, trembling as she looked through tearstained eyes at her curled fists. The cursed vipers had been biting her there, but she saw only her own quivering hand. But the pain was real, so very real. Equally terrible was the presence of Karak, like a cold shadow cast across her body. It left her feeling isolated, alone, denied the comfort of her god as she writhed in agony.