The Steward looked up again, catching Arrow’s eyes. “Kill him,” he whispered, eyes returning to the messenger.
“I will,” Arrow promised through a tight throat, then moved on, continuing to follow the destruction, with a sense of inevitability, towards the Receiving Hall.
The sculpture that the Prime had so admired was broken into tiny fragments. Sharp cursing behind her told her exactly how the White Guard felt about that.
“Svegraen, battle wards,” Kallish’s voice was grim as she reminded her cadre. The wards, which had wavered slightly, strengthened again, coating the group in a reassuring sheen of amber. “Mestera ovail.”
Arrow almost stopped then, to tell them that she was not the one they needed. The rogue was too powerful for her. But there was no one else to deal with him. No war mages, who should be on their way here in response to the Academy’s emergency wards, and only a single cadre of White Guard, backed up by a small group of ‘kin. She cast a quick glance around, seeing the quiet resolve on the warriors’ faces, Orlis’ face reflecting that determination, his normal humour gone. The ‘kin were quiet. Too quiet, not even the sound of anger escaping. They returned her look with eyes shining with power, many of them close to change. There were too few of them, but they were not turning back, and she could not leave them. She tried to draw a breath, pulse thumping in her throat. Another breath and she managed to continue on, straightening her spine as they approached the slightly open doors of the Receiving Hall, wondering what carnage awaited inside.
In contrast to the disruption elsewhere, nothing in the room had been disturbed. There were Erith inside, seemingly uninjured. The ten warriors from the gate, still armed, eyes shadowed with taint, and a few other Erith in soft clothing. A pair of scribes, and a few of the Steward’s staff, eyes likewise shadowed. And threaded among them a handful of humans. A shocking enough presence in the room that they held her attention for a long moment, a dangerous distraction.
The humans were raggedly dressed, carrying automatic weapons, flat black metal as out of place here as the humans themselves. Among their number a medium-height human male watching the new arrivals with a hungry expression that made her shiver. Charon. He had escaped the Prime in Hallveran. She did not think Zachary would allow him to escape again.
The human killer was standing close to the figure at the centre of the room, weapon cradled in his arms, tension in his shoulders.
Free of shadows and disguise, the rogue stood straight, a tall Erith lord, dressed the part in floor-length deep crimson robes, pristine white shirt cuffs and collar lace, and a cloud of surjusi taint about him so thick that Arrow thought the lights had been dimmed. He had his back to her when they first came in, his head tilted up to examine the ceiling, Charon’s bleak stare keeping track of the newcomers.
“There you are, little runt.” A voice she remembered. Unease prickled up her spine. She had known he was powerful, but the creature before her outweighed her by several times, stronger here than in the shadow world. She wondered what, or who, he had sacrificed to bring himself more power for the day.
“What shall I call you?” she asked, taking a few steps forward, past Kallish’s watchful form. She made a quick motion with her hand when Kallish would have stepped forward, wanting nothing between her and the creature. None of the cadre had enough power, even collectively, to hold the rogue.
“Evellan did not give you my name?”
“He was barely alive, last I spoke with him.” Arrow stepped sideways, trying to see the lord’s face. He moved, keeping his back to her, a low, dark sound that could have been a laugh rippling the air. Her hair was standing on end, scalp prickling with the static in the room.
“But still breathing? Pity.”
“Lord Nuallan.” The voice was nearby. Arrow took a step back, not wanting to take her attention from the tainted lord, to find the youngest Halsfeld lord close enough to touch. She checked herself from waving him back.
“The unwanted scion of a fallen House.” The Erith lord turned. Arrow wondered for a moment whether he was speaking of himself or Kester, then drew a sharp breath as the full force of the lord’s power rippled across the room. There were shallow gasps around her as the warriors and ‘kin saw the lord’s ruined face for the first time, the bright amber of one perfect eye, the bottomless pitch of the other.
“The supposedly dead wastrel younger son of a much-respected House,” Kester returned in the same, even tone.
The creature before them laughed, a sound that scraped up her spine and made her want to run. Around them she was aware of the warriors’ battle wards rippling in response, and the tainted Erith taking a step forward, humans among them.
“What do you want, Lord Nuallan?” she asked, gathering what power she could. The tiniest spark compared to his darkness. His eyes turned to her, both suddenly black with no pupil, and she gasped. “You are melded,” she said before she could stop herself, “but that is supposed to be …”
“Impossible?” Another spine-grating laugh. “Along with the many other things my tradition-bound coward of a brother would have you believe.”
“How?” she asked, interested despite herself, but also needing to know.
“We share common goals.” The voice was wrong, as if two people were speaking in perfect unison. Perhaps they were.
“What do you want?”
“We were betrayed. We want revenge.”
“How were you betrayed?” Arrow moved sideways again, keeping the creature in front of her, trying to get some distance from the cadre, who were too close to her. He tracked her movement, faint smile on his lips. Apart from those impossible eyes and the ruin of his face, he was an Erith lord, resplendent in his power, a compelling draw for any eye, the inherent beauty of the Erith cut to a sharp edge by the distorted face.
“The House was burned.” The voice grated.
“When it had been tainted?” Arrow checked her movement.
“They burned us.” The growl would have made a ‘kin proud.
“The House was lost,” Kester put in unexpectedly. He was still beside her. Closer than the cadre. Arrow’s jaw clenched. She was too used to working alone. Having Kester there, and the cadre following her, was keeping her off balance as much as facing the rogue in the first world.
“The surjusi inhabiting your body tainted your House, Nuallan.” She dropped his title deliberately, knowing that would anger a full-blood Erith lord, brought up in the traditions and with all the arrogance of the House bloodline behind him. “It brought the fire to your house. It caused the burning.”
“Little runt.” The voice issuing from the lord’s mouth had lost any trace of Erith heritage, dropping to an impossible depth. “Did you tell them that I let you live? That you cannot defeat me?” Arrow heard a few sharp intakes of breath close by. She had tried to tell them she was broken. No one had listened. And he was baiting her for his own amusement, a prelude to whatever slaughter he had planned.
“And what do you call yourself, surjusi?” she asked, holding on to her power, the bright silver not enough to overwhelm the lord, but perhaps enough to do damage.
“As if we would give you that gift. Kill them.” The tone was almost bored, words meaning little to Arrow, too focused on the threat in front of her, until the quiet of the room was broken by the sharp cracks of gunfire as the humans started shooting, bullets fizzing against the cadre’s wards. The other Erith in the room had drawn weapons and were swarming forward, past the humans, to attack the White Guard, dark cloud of taint covering them, thick enough to see in the first world. The humans, apart from Charon, kept firing, faces blank, hitting the possessed Erith, a few of the tainted falling to the floor in silence, blood flowing.
Battle chaos ensued. The humans ran out of bullets and seemed unable to reload, moving forward, and swinging their weapons as clubs instead. She was bodily shoved aside as one of the Erith rushed forwards, Kester’s twin blades shivering above her as he blocked the heavy mace that had been
aimed for her head.
A heartbeat later the roar of a furious surjusi was joined with a more familiar but no less deadly sound, the low growls of shifkin rage. Lithe bodies danced around the room, some furred, some human, the Prime in their midst, wielding the huge broadsword with ease.
Charon moved, as swiftly as any Erith warrior, stepping aside from his master, bringing his weapon to his shoulder. She cried out a warning, but Zachary had already seen the danger. The ‘kin sprang across the heads of several Erith, in an impossible jump, landing on Charon and knocking his weapon aside. Zachary rolled, came to his feet, sword ready, even as Charon drew a sword of his own.
An Erith boot, one of Kallish’s cadre, narrowly missed Arrow’s head, where she was still huddled on the ground. She scrambled to her feet, personal wards flaring bright silver amid the taint, desperately trying to recall the spell she had used in the woodland to send her power out as a sheet. With no time to think properly, she simply pushed her power out, banishment spell laced into the ripple of silver.
A roar of fury had her huddling on the ground again, unreasoning, instinctive fear overriding her normal self-control.
The Erith who had been tainted and attacking the White Guard stumbled, disoriented, but only for a moment until the surjusi wearing Nuallan’s body did something that Arrow did not quite catch. The Erith righted themselves and surged forward again, attacking with renewed force. Kallish’s cadre and the ‘kin were struggling to keep the possessed Erith at bay, trying not to kill them.
“Kill him,” Kallish ground out, jaw clenched as she held off a determined, possessed Erith, “he is controlling these people.”
Arrow nodded, fingers scrabbling in her bag automatically before she stilled, realising she had absolutely no idea how to destroy or kill the possessed lord. Shadow fell over her. She had been still for too long.
“Little runt.” Hot, stinking breath washed over her face and she found herself lifted, one hand under her chin, the lord hauling her upright with no apparent effort until she was eye to eye with the lord, the bottomless black of his eyes a sinkhole drawing her in.
“Let them go,” she managed, voice choked.
“I will savour their deaths,” he contradicted, a too-pink tongue flicking across his lips.
“And Seivella?”
“Proved herself unworthy,” he said, but there had been something in his eyes.
“Is that why you gave her an inferior surjusi to host?” she asked, pressing any tiny advantage, and saw a deep, brief flare of amber amid the black.
“She was afraid.”
“Any sane person would be,” Arrow countered, dark spots appearing at the edges of her vision. She sent her power out again, and he did not flinch. Lips peeled back from his teeth in a semblance of a smile with no humour in it. He was winning. She was held above the ground, feet swinging in the air, pressure at her throat painful and deadly. And he was winning.
Around her she was dimly aware of the sounds and sights of battle, a spray of arterial blood catching her unawares, causing her to flinch back. The surjusi did not move. The arterial spray reminded her of Hustrai’s death, his blood still on her clothing along with the scent of his death. Hustrai had not deserved to die. None of them did.
A spark of anger lit. She scrabbled at the lord’s wrist, trying to free herself. Under his sleeve her fingers brushed against something. A kri-syang. Without thinking, she drew it from his sleeve and stabbed the lord’s arm with it, pouring her power in along with the blade. He shrieked, dropping her to the ground, silver blade sticking out of his arm. He drew back a boot and kicked, hard and fast. She barely had time to roll away from the worst of it, gaining another bruise for her collection.
Acting on impulse, and certainly not rational thought, she dove forward, wrapping her arms around his legs, and tore him to the floor, mostly due to surprise. She sat on his arm, forcing the bleeding wound to the floor, and somehow, despite his efforts to be free, managed to draw her own kri-syang, slicing open her palm and pressing it to the floor so their blood mixed.
“What are you doing?”
“You were taken before this place was built,” she told him, gritting her teeth as he tried to shake her off. The protection spells built into the room were ready, waiting to be triggered. The words were there in her mind, but they needed to be spoken and she was having to fight too hard to keep him still.
A moment later and his struggles dimmed. She glanced up, startled, to find the Preceptor, abdomen bound with a blood-soaked bandage, lying across his brother’s legs, grim determination on his face.
“Hold him,” she told her former teacher. He nodded once, beads of sweat on his forehead with the effort and the pain. With a moment’s peace, she hastily spoke the trigger spell for the room’s defences. Bright Erith power rose all around, slicing through the black, adding to the White Guard’s battle wards. Cries of pain, distorted with taint, sounded around the great room, possessed Erith struggling against the clean wash of Erith defensive wards.
Still struggling with the surjusi, Arrow barely noticed.
“I bind you, surjusi Nuallan and Nuallan vo Mystlan, to this place, to this time, to this will, to this power,” Arrow began the spell and felt the rage pouring off the surjusi in waves. Despite the room’s protections, it was drawing its minions to the space where she lay, holding her bleeding hand against the floor, air around growing dark with the press of bodies and the taint. The spell was a long one, another of Serran vo Liathius’ efforts, she thought, and the surjusi-possessed Erith was far stronger than her and the weakened Preceptor could hold.
Another pair of hands appeared by hers, holding the bloody arm to the floor, and she glanced up to find Zachary’s face set and determined even as the tip of a sword appeared through his shoulder from a possessed Erith warrior behind him. Another body slammed to the ground on her other side and she saw Kester, thin slice above one eye bleeding freely, bodily pinning Nuallan to the floor. Behind Kester and Zachary stood Kallish, her blade a mere flicker of steel as she defended their position, Xeveran and another pair of warriors struggling to reach her side. Orlis was holding his own position nearby, a pair of Kallish’s cadre keeping the tainted at bay as he sent out sharp bolts of mage fire, knocking the tainted from their feet.
The spell formed in the air around them, crackling with power, the brilliant silver of her power battling with the taint. Almost there. Almost.
With an effort that nothing natural could make, the tainted Erith writhed under their combined weight and a crack of dark power slammed against his captors. They tumbled away from him, sliding across the blood-slick floor.
Arrow scrambled back to her feet, calling mage fire to her hand, moving back towards the tainted lord.
“Runt.” The lord’s lips curled back to reveal shockingly white teeth, incisors curving, cloud of dark power around him.
“Surjusi,” she replied. She had power enough for one final throw. Just one. She needed to be closer. She kept walking forwards. He stood and waited, power gathering in his hands.
Close enough that she could smell the taint, mouth coated with it, and she still needed to be closer.
But the lord had had enough. With a single word command, he set the magic in his hands into a spear and heading towards her. She did not stop. There was one chance. One chance.
A heavy body slammed into her side, tearing her out of the path of the spear. She hit the ground, hard, weighted by another, and pinned.
“Let me go.”
“He will kill you.” Kester’s voice.
“He will kill everyone!” Arrow wriggled out from his grasp and ran forward, gathering power.
Nuallan waited, laughing, twisted bit of dark mage fire in one hand.
“Come on, then, little thing. Let us-”
Arrow did not stop. She ran straight into the rogue, grabbed his bloody arm with her bloody hand and screamed the last of the spell as he shoved the dark mage fire into her ribs. Her wards flared, and she cried
in pain, the agony of another magician’s power scorching her skin, her wards failing as her power drained.
The howl of rage burst her ears, hot liquid coursing down the sides of her neck, silver eyes blind so she did not see the lord’s body crack, twist into impossible shapes as it collapsed to the floor, surjusi gone.
Vision cleared enough to see the ruined body of Nuallan, face turned towards her, both eyes shading back to amber.
Cracked and bleeding lips formed a phrase in Erith before life faded from the lord’s body and the sweet scent of death cut through the surjusi taint.
Rough hands grabbed her, turned her on her back, and Orlis’ face, pinched with concern, came into view. He was saying something that she could not hear, then put his hands on her ears, a wave of healing power making her hiss as the damaged bits of her ears came back together.
Her ears popped with a loud crack that made her wince.
“You are not dead,” Orlis was saying, over and over.
“No, I am not.” She sat up, wincing. Ribs. Yet again. There must be some kind of spell she could use to stop that. Or perhaps ask her opponents not to hit her in the ribs. Her hand came away covered in ash from the unclean mage fire. Which had somehow not burned her to death.
“You are alright,” Orlis said in relief.
“Probably,” she agreed, and managed to get to her feet, looking down at the body nearby. Another death at her hands.
She took a few steps away, knowing she could not outrun her action but still wanting distance, and swayed a little, light headed. Kester gripped her shoulders, tight enough to bruise and gave her a little shake. Startled, she looked up at him, finding him tense, mouth set in a flat line.
“I have never seen anything so foolish. You could have been killed.”
Temper coursed through her, scorching and welcome, stiffening her back, lifting her chin so she met his gaze without hesitation.
“It was my task to see him killed. The risk was worth it.”
“Idiot,” Kester muttered, then dragged her forward and pressed a hard, brief kiss on her mouth.
Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set Page 54