The Diamond Sphinx (The Lost Ancients Book 6)

by Marie Andreas

  “I adore you, Harlan.” I laughed and shook my head. “Come show us what you found.” I ignored Balith and the other knights and walked over to the pit. The faeries followed me.

  Harlan looked around, unsure if what he missed was more important than what he found. He shrugged and waved toward his find.

  I’d been impressed that he’d been allowed to dig something that deep—it would have taken hours. Then I saw the sides of a box trap. Relic thieves often had to stash their finds then come back for them later, so magic devices called box traps were a big market item. The person who used them did have to dig, but once set the box trap and everything inside of it would be completely buried. But if you knew where it was and could trigger it, you could get the treasure out fairly easily

  “You want us to take this with us?” Balith was not amused.

  “No, no, just the important finds,” Harlan said. “Most relic thieves grab what they can and run. They end up with a lot of junk. It will take me a little bit to go through it.”

  Balith scowled and opened his mouth to argue.

  “Or we can just load all of it into the wagon and sort it out later,” Orenda spoke before her brother could get a word in. “That should only take a few hours.” In other words, the same amount of time as allowing Harlan to play with his toys first, but with more hassle for the knights.

  Harlan had already dropped down and was fussing with a chest. I came around to where he stood to see better.

  He pried the lid up while Orenda and Balith played annoy the sibling.

  “Armor?” I saw dirty, but still gleaming in spots, armor piled inside. Not that exciting to me as say artwork, but you could tell about a people by the way they protected themselves.

  “Oh yes, and I’d say this looks far older than elven.” Harlan rubbed his paws together and started gingerly lifting out pieces. “Oh, yes. Most of this is from the Ancients’ era for certain. See these markings?” He tapped one shoulder guard with a claw. “Those are Ancient.” He flipped it over. “Too bad about the water damage. These must have been in heavily damp ground for a long time before they were liberated by whoever left this behind.”

  “Maybe the aqueducts?” Alric wasn’t officially a digger, but he was a relic thief. That he did it for the good of his people didn’t make him any less of a thief. And I think he’d be the first to agree.

  “Under Beccia? Have you been there? Well, you were when you rescued Taryn, of course.” He tilted his head. “Where are you coming from anyway?”

  “Beccia,” I said as I tried to reach one of the pieces without actually dropping into the hole. “And yes, we got a nice tour of the aqueducts.” I would have mentioned the dragon’s head, but not in front of Balith and his knights.

  “Can I see that piece right there?” I was stretching my arm as far as it could go, but I was just a little short. The piece in question was smaller than most of the others and a bit darker, with etchings.

  “Hmm?” Harlan noticed my reaching hand for the first time. “Of course, fellow digger after all.” He handed it to me.

  The metal was first bone chillingly cold, far more than the current weather would account for. In a flash it became hot, then it flung me across the clearing and into a tree.

  Luckily, I’d been slowing down in my flight, so I didn’t hit the tree with full force.

  “Ow.” I pulled myself up into a sitting position as Alric reached me. Orenda was right behind, and Harlan scrambled out of his pit.

  Balith and the knights had taken a few steps away from us.

  “Are you okay?” Alric dropped down next to me.

  “I think so. This little girl packs a punch though.” It was a woman’s shoulder piece. Lightweight, but solid and it was singing to me.

  At first I thought it was the smack from hitting the tree, but nope. There was an odd and somehow familiar melody coming from it.

  “Do you hear that?” Even though it had slammed me into a tree, I didn’t want to let go of the piece, but I held it up toward the others.

  Alric was the closest and his eyes narrowed at my words. “Hear what?” That wasn’t a good sign. His hearing, and that of pretty much everyone around me including the faeries, was far better than mine.

  I held the armor up to the faeries, and Leaf and Crusty flew over. “Girls, do you hear anything coming from this? Music?”

  Leaf and Crusty both came to the piece and reverently touched it. They both smiled and shook their heads. “No. You do.” That seemed to make Leaf far too happy. Crusty just did a few loops in the air.

  “What are you hearing?” Alric watched the faeries before turning back to me.

  I pulled the piece closer again. I thought about playing it off as the tree and my head, and then shrugged. “A melody. It’s faint, and somehow familiar, but I don’t know what it is.”

  Leaf and Crusty had taken the faeries and were sorting through the armor. Harlan was focused on me, so he didn’t see what they were doing behind his back.

  “Is this too!” Crusty chirped and she and five faeries came over and dropped a larger piece at my feet. It was also a shoulder guard, but lighter in color and far less decorated.

  I was afraid to touch it.

  Alric sat behind me and wrapped his arms around me to hold me down. “Now grab it.”

  I looked over my shoulder at him. If I flew he was probably going as well. At his nod, I picked up the piece. It was far heavier than its size indicated, and while I felt a shock run through me, and from Alric’s twitch he felt it too, we didn’t get flung anywhere. It was also singing to me.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Why and how did that piece of metal send you across the way? It didn’t explode.” Balith didn’t come any closer.

  Alric released me and then helped me to my feet. “Relics and Taryn have a unique relationship; we don’t question it.”

  I was going to hand the two pieces back to Harlan, but found I really didn’t want to. It wasn’t like with the emerald dragon, I didn’t feel compelled. It was more as if they were comforting to me. Ancient shoulder armor as a comfort was a bit odd, but with what had been going on the last few months, I’d take whatever I could get.

  “Harlan, do you mind if I keep these?” I wasn’t going to explain why, especially since no one else heard the singing.

  “Not at all,” he said with a gracious bow. “I am not sure we could remove them from you anyway. They are glowing where you’re touching them.”

  I looked down in surprise. He was right. It was subtle, but where my hand held them, a soft glow emitted.

  As I noticed it though, the glow faded. “Thank you.” I didn’t have my big pack with me but I did have a good sized pouch inside my cloak so I put them in there. They were a bit bulky, but not too awkward.

  “We have our own direction to go, but hopefully your king will do the right thing and join us,” Alric said, as we walked back to the forest. “Oh, and Orenda, when you’re there you’ll meet an elf named Nasif. Can you tell him we found the scroll in Beccia? He should know what it means.”

  She nodded, then ran forward and gave each of us a hug. “I missed both of you, but we’ll see you soon. I’m certain of that.”

  “Leaf? Do you want the rest of the faeries to stay with them?” I’d noticed that the ones who had been traveling with Orenda and Harlan hadn’t left. Yes, Garbage had set them to their task, but Leaf was her lieutenant.

  Leaf pulled the faeries into a tight circle and they all started jabbering in native faery. Finally, she and Crusty pulled back and came closer to Alric and I. “They stay. You no cage.” She glared at Balith and the rest of the knights.

  “I really would listen to her,” I said as I added my glare to hers. “We have ways of watching you now, and if anyone does anything to these faeries—or to Harlan or Orenda—you’ll find out how I managed to bury someone so far down.”

  Alric nodded to Harlan, who really wasn’t paying much attention, and we made our way back to the horses.r />
  Leaf and Crusty didn’t ride on our shoulders on the way back, but they did stay close to us.

  “So, do you really think these pieces are Ancient?” I patted my cloak where the pouch was. The pouch and cloak dampened the singing, but I heard it when I touched where they were.

  “Harlan rarely is wrong. For all his blustering, he is a good digger. And the brief look I had at the markings indicate they were Ancient.” He helped me up on my horse, and then went for his own. “You’re not hearing actual words are you? Just the music?” He turned his horse around and mine followed.

  “It’s hard to explain, I heard sounds, not just the music. And I think they are words. But I can’t understand them. There’s something about them that is soothing though.” Hopefully he wouldn’t think that was any weirder than the fact I heard something in the first place.

  He shrugged. “We’ve established that you and the relics have an odd relationship. Those aren’t relics, but they could be similar if they have magic attached to them. The way it threw you is probably a magical reaction from it. They might be responding to the manticore presence inside you. Honestly, that could be triggering these encounters.”

  That could be. Aside from protection, no one really knew what the manticore did. Besides taking up residence in unsuspecting people.

  We both stayed in our thoughts, and even the faeries were mostly quiet as we approached the cottage. I was so lost in my own thoughts about relics, armor, and whatnot that I almost rode past Alric and right into the clearing. I somehow missed the gang of goons right in front of us, but Alric stopped me.

  “Alric! Taryn! Stay back. There were ten but two are missing. Lorcan and Mathilda are barricaded in the cottage,” Covey yelled from in front of the cottage door.

  One of the thugs surrounding the cottage stepped forward and punched her hard enough to shut her up. She was tied up, along with Padraig. Unlike her though, he looked unconscious and had a nasty bruise already forming on his forehead. At first I didn’t see Lorcan or Mathilda, but then they both briefly appeared in the window of the cottage.

  The eight attacking the cottage looked like nothing more than common bandits. It was a sad state of one’s life when being attacked by a bunch of bandits was a better option than what usually happened. How they got the jump on fighters like Covey and Padraig was a damn good question.

  “We want your horses and your gear,” the leader, or at least the largest of them, yelled toward the cottage as he kept an eye on Alric and me. “And your coin. Toss the gear and coin out soon and we won’t hurt your pretty friends.”

  I personally didn’t mind being called pretty; I’d rather it wasn’t by someone who looked like he’d been beaten every day of his life with an ugly stick. Alric wasn’t as fond. Actually, from the look on his face, I don’t think he would have liked anything they said.

  I’d figured he’d use a spell or two and clean these people out of here. But instead he slid off his horse and drew his sword. “Don’t use magic, Taryn. They have a spell breaker.” He pointed to the trees behind the fighters where a small spell ball blinked.

  I’d heard of those. Similar to what Covey used to have in her kitchen; they could damper or mess up any spells within a set area. There went our advantage of being magic users.

  “Who wants to be first?” Alric loosened his shoulders and walked forward. The grin on his face was completely inappropriate for a battle, but maybe this would help him work out some tension.

  “Look, there’s ten of us and two of you. Your swords might be fancy, but there’s no chance for you here. Give us what we want, and we’ll be on our way.”

  I had gotten off my horse and also drawn my sword. No magic, but I’d wager Mathilda and Lorcan were holding the cottage with magic. That spell ball’s range couldn’t breach into the cottage.

  Leaf and Crusty flew forward but crashed to the ground after a few feet.

  “Yep, don’t like that much, do ya? Your friends didn’t either. Too bad they got back in that triple cursed cottage before we could grab them.”

  “Leaf, Crusty, run back here and stay with the horses.” They ran back and climbed onto the saddle of my horse, since it was the closest.

  Alric had kept moving forward and the leader nodded to two of his people, a tall woman and a shorter man, who looked like maybe he was part minotaur.

  He was such a strong magic user, I’d almost forgotten how well Alric fought with a sword. Unlike the two facing him all of his moves were graceful and practiced. They were also alarmingly fast. Both thugs were quickly dispatched.

  He raised his bloody sword and pointed to the rest of the bandits. “I can do this for a lot longer than it would take to kill all of you, even if the rest of you come at once. Call off your two people who are pathetically trying to steal our horses but can’t because magic is working back there, and leave.”

  “Not if we take her.” The voice came from behind me a moment before I felt the sword near my neck.

  I was nowhere as fast as Alric, nor did I have his skills, but anger far more reaching that just at these bandits flowed through me. I dropped down beneath the sword, spun, and ran the idiot behind me through with my sword. Then withdrew my sword from the body and spun back to the bandit leader. “Back. Off.” Maybe Leaf wasn’t the only one able to duplicate Garbage.

  Alric had been in the act of lowering his sword when the now dead idiot grabbed me, but he smiled and raised it again. “Seriously, we have shown you we can fight; I’d listen to the pretty lady and back off. Way off.”

  I mimicked his stance, a calm swordswoman who knew what she was doing. But inside I was trying to figure out where I learned that move and how I did it so well.

  The leader of the bandits clearly was weighing his options. Three of his people were dead, and he had nothing to show for it. Yet he was debating continuing the fight. He might look like a standard brigand, but he wasn’t acting like one. A thief of opportunity would have cut his losses and run.

  “We’ll let you go, if you just leave,” Alric said. He hadn’t put away his sword, but he was relaxing.

  “No, we won’t.” I stepped forward and took out one of my knives. There was something wrong here. “This isn’t a normal robbery, is it? You knew we were magic users. And those things are expensive as hell.”

  Before the bandit could respond, I threw the knife at the spell ball. It didn’t hit the ball directly, but it struck the branch it was hanging from with enough force to drop it. The ball shattered as it hit the ground, and if asked I was going to state that had been my plan all along. I spun to Alric. “We can’t let them go.” I couldn’t explain it, but there was an edgy feeling in the back of my head.

  The bandits tried to run, but Alric cast a spell and five of the ones in front of us froze in place. Actually, they were moving, but it was so slow they looked frozen.

  “Can you get the other two?” Alric tipped his head back toward the back of the cottage.

  I wanted to get Mathilda, Lorcan, and the faeries out of the cottage, but he was right. If I didn’t want these bandits free and loose, I didn’t want their friends in the back running around either. Even if it was just a feeling.

  The two in the back were focusing on trying to get the horses free. The animals appeared to be just tied to a post, but there was magic that kept them in place.

  “Seriously? Can’t even undo a few knots?” As I spoke, I cast a sleep spell, not as good as a freeze spell, but faster. It wouldn’t hold more than fifteen minutes or so, but should help.

  A fleet of faeries came zipping around the cottage. Alric must have told everyone they could come out. Garbage flew up and kicked both bandits. “Where put these?” As she spoke, the faery group split in half, each group surrounding one of the bandits.

  “Out front with the others.” I checked the spelled knots on the horses—they were still secure—and followed the faeries out front. Either they’d forgotten how to carry someone, or they were deliberately bumping them on the gro
und the entire way out.

  Alric and Lorcan were tying up the slowly moving bandits. Mathilda was untying Covey and Padraig and trying to get him to wake up.

  Covey shook off the remains of her ropes and ran for the bandit leader. She hit him hard, pounding him. “Fight back, damn you!”

  “Alric put a spell on them, we can’t let them go.” I walked over as the faeries dropped their prey over by Alric and Lorcan.

  “I want to fight him. They ambushed us.” She kicked him again, but her anger was slowing.

  The last of them were tied, gagged, and dragged to the far edge of the clearing.

  “Why didn’t we just let them go?” Lorcan looked around at us.

  “There’s something wrong about this Alric and I killed three of their people, there is no reason for them to think we have anything worth dying over, yet they were willing to risk it.” I looked around at my friends. “So why?”

  “She has a point. I was too busy trying to kill them to question it.” Alric nodded to Mathilda. “No offense, but aside from it being in the middle of a clearing with no other houses around, there’s nothing to indicate there are things of value.”

  “None taken. I think this might be a call for my magic.” Mathilda nodded and stalked over to the pile of bandits. Twenty-three faeries and two constructs trailed out behind her. “We have a problem, one I’m sure you heard. Some of us want you dead, very slowly and painfully. Some of us just want to let you go. I simply want the truth. Why did you come here?”

  She held up her hand and the nearest bandit rose in the air. “Now, I need to know why you were determined to get into my cottage, and what you were going to do with us.”

  The bandit twisted and squirmed to try and get away, but there was nothing to push off of since he was in the air. Mathilda gave a small wave of her hand and his gag dropped.

  “I don’t know. He hired us, gave instructions to Jahnuis, told us it would be worth more than we’d imagine.”