by K. Gorman
He moved like someone who had all the time in the world—as if he controlled every facet of the confrontation and could bat them aside like flies. His power quickened the air, made it shift and flex, to thicken like syrup.
But he also moved like a predator.
She pinned it down, watching him advance. It was subtle, but it underlaid nearly everything he did, from the smooth glide of his gait to the casual way he flexed his clawed fingers.
Very deliberately, she let herself shudder.
His gaze snapped to the weakness. The air thickened, energy spiking as the movement attracted him. He pierced her with a sharp, narrow focus.
She let out a slow breath, her mind racing. She could use that—but how? They needed to start the fight before that gate opened, then distract him from noticing the fey, which meant they needed to start the fight soon.
But they couldn’t attack him yet. He was too smart. Would likely suspect something.
Plus, she didn’t want to get her ass kicked too quickly.
He paused, ten paces out. His arms folded across his chest, one finger tapping at the bottom of his bicep.
“True coincidences are rare things,” he mused aloud, his voice light and even. His considering gaze flicked over them again. It settled on her. She was closer, a greater unknown. He’d already beaten Nales. “Did you let the ancient one out?”
Did he mean the bird? Franas?
She grunted. “It was a joint effort.”
Hopefully, he wouldn’t think too hard about his other escaped prisoner. Hopefully, he didn’t yet know that they’d escaped—though she highly doubted it. He’d already said he didn’t believe in coincidences.
“I see.” Once again, his gaze flickered over Nales. It lingered this time. “Where is the orb?”
“Not here,” she said.
Technically not a lie. She didn’t have it on her person. And if he couldn’t sense that, he wouldn’t sense it on Yena around the corner, either.
If he had, this conversation would already be over.
Nales spoke, his tone lilting and ambient. Light. “If you hurry, you might be able to catch it before it walks out your front door.”
The demon stilled. Suddenly, Nales had his full attention. She felt it in the air, like a fire. Every atom of air seemed to stop at once.
Silently, she rejoiced.
Thank the gods he can lie better than I can.
“Ah,” the demon said, realization sinking in. “You mean to challenge me.”
“Oh, yes.” Nales swung his sword, light and nimble, a simple rotation. “I have a few hits to repay you for.”
His voice was ready. Eager.
The demon chuckled. “You have no magic to speak of. This won’t be much of a fight.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Her gait slid forward in the slow, smooth stalk of an assassin. She shifted her grip on her blades and allowed a slow smile to tighten the edges of her lips. “Give me five years, and I could grow a nice little line of dogwoods for your front lobby.”
She grimaced inwardly at the awkward line, but she had other things to think about. In her head, she calculated. Long legs, long arms—he’d have a large reach. She didn’t see a blade on him, but his clawed fingers had mean-looking business ends. He’d attack like a bear, or an upright mountain lion. Quick, fast lunges, try to grab her. Pound into her with his magic.
She breathed out, a shivery feeling running through her, aware of Nales to her left. Everything sharpened around her as years of rnari training kicked in.
Slowly, she lifted her blade, never taking her eyes from his. “I’ve been wondering—is there an actual eye behind that mask, or will my blades just sink into shadow when I break your skull?”
He growled, took a step forward—an instinctual movement, a predatory urge to answer a challenge, and one she had been counting on. His growl ripped through the air.
“Why don’t you come here and find out, rnari?”
Magic crackled to life, hot and raging, thick as a blade. Her instincts screamed. She jumped, landed in a roll, just as her training had taught her, and lunged straight at his face.
The rnari valued speed and strength, in that order. Accuracy was second nature. She had one lucid, satisfying moment when the snarl under his mask switched to a start of shock and surprise.
Then, magic crushed her.
Pain assaulted her skin. The whole world flipped. She smashed hard into the floor, gasping for breath, and immediately shoved her body to the side. The mercari on her armor flared briefly before a second wave of magic slammed her into the wall.
Gods, they were useless. The first chance she got, she was going to find something that actually defended against magic.
She landed on her feet, barely. Then the demon grabbed her and threw her down.
The entire world went white for one long, stunned second.
When it came back, the edges of her vision seemed to blur. Grobitzsnak stood above her, looming and dark, a small knife in his hands. Blood dripped from its blade. Vaguely, she became aware of a sharp pain from her gut.
Okay, so he did use blades.
He reached for her. Clawed fingers caught the light, aiming for her throat.
A fire spell burst over his back.
He snarled, turned. Metal met metal. There was a quick glimpse of Nales fiercely defending himself, almost tripping at the speed Grobitzsnak chased him with, the faint outline of a shield formed in front of him. Magic snapped through the air.
She gritted her teeth and shoved back to her feet.
Come on, Yena. Anytime now.
In a textbook, scroll, or battleboard, battles were laid out in steps. Moves and counters. Strategies. Calculations of strength and speed, magic, resistance.
In an actual fight, it was rarely that neat. Even in her placement tests, the spars had been brutal, bloody affairs.
When you had a team of healers, you could do that sort of thing.
Plus, it was good for conditioning.
She shoved the pain back and sprinted. Grobitzsnak’s back was open, and she wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to stab him in it.
Two paces out, he spun and lunged for her.
She jerked back, beating a quick, fast-stepping retreat. Claws slashed down on her bicep. Pain seared. She snatched her head back as another clawed hand raked the air inches from her face. The wound in her abdomen screamed. A dense magic, low and jangling at her senses, built in the air.
She shoved in and engaged him.
He blocked her first strike, but her elbow thudded hard into his sternum, and her backhand skidded off his shoulder. Claws swiped across her chest plate.
She twisted, stepped in, and stabbed a blade toward his face.
Like most living things, he flinched back.
Magic pulsed.
She had one sublime moment where the shadows under his mask seemed to shift—where she could see the skin of his mouth, feel his breath on her arm.
Then white-hot pain seared through her mind.
Her mercari snapped up with a hiss, flashing gold. Vaguely, she was aware of herself stumbling back. She slashed at the air. Clawed hands blocked her with a quickness that drove a stake of fear straight into her heart.
When the pain lessened, a bony mask was towering over her.
He held her in a hard grasp.
Nales stabbed him from behind.
The prince’s sword went straight through the side of his abdomen, coming out on Catrin’s side.
Bless him.
Grobitzsnak stumbled forward. She attempted to shove her blade in his face.
He threw her back with a snarl.
She slammed into the wall hard enough that the entire scene flashed white for a solid second.
When she came back, everything was ringing.
Pain lanced through her arm. He was still holding onto her, she realized, dragging her like a rag-doll. Her arm must be broken. It felt loose, and painful. Not moving in the proper wa
y. From this angle, it looked a bit off, too.
She blinked, trying to clear the hair from her eyes. Blood kept dripping down, stinging into her sclera.
Nales was fighting. She could see him, fire and steel. Furious. Skilled.
The scene began to swim, as if her head were loose. She was losing consciousness again.
Then, cold touched her arm.
For a second, everything seemed to slam to a halt. The demon was still moving, his claws still dancing with blood, his breath a roar in the air, and Nales was still charging, his blade leading, fire in his hands—but it slowed down.
White bloomed behind her, coming from farther down the hall, outlining every gap and break in the two doors at the far end, and the cold deepened in her runes.
Then, the power connected.
Time sped up again, back to normal, and Kodanh’s touch whispered through her like frost.
Slowly, her mind picked up the pieces.
The nice thing about Kodanh was that he was a wholly practical summon. He saw a problem, and he fixed it where he could. His cold lanced through her mind with more efficiency than any rnari tonic could claim. Within seconds, she went from barely conscious to awake and violent.
Her gaze slid up to where Grobitzsnak gripped her arm, and her teeth bared in a grin.
With the gate open and the fey theoretically under glamour, sneaking their way around the edge of the battle to the gate, Matteo had joined the fight with Doneil close to his side in defense. Grobitzsnak snarled in their direction, the faint outline of a hasty shield clasped in the air like a flimsy umbrella as he defended against the firing weapon.
He’d turned his back to her again.
She braced herself, reached for her power, and slammed it into him.
She put her entire body into the blow. Ice smashed like a tidal wave, chunks and plates of it shoving into his back, spears slicing through the air.
She thought he would let go. Instead, his grip tightened. Pain screamed through her arm.
He jerked her up and threw her back into the wall.
But she was awake now. And fast.
She twisted, braced the landing with her left arm, and scrambled up, a keen grip on her remaining blade. Spears of ice materialized in the air behind her and floated in place, lethally sharp.
Her face twisted. She bared her teeth and snarled.
“Let’s see how you bleed.”
Her ice slammed in. Magic crashed. Spears shattered like glass, snapping and crackling. Several sliced him. She lunged and slashed with a snarl—one, two, a third aimed for his knee. Ice and cold followed her. She pressed him as he stumbled back, shoving when she got the chance, cutting a quick slash at every opportunity she found. Blood splattered on the stones, both her own and Grobitzsnak’s. He stumbled back, almost crashing into Nales. The prince took the opportunity to stab his sword through the demon’s abdomen. Again.
She was getting more respect for him every minute.
Grobitzsnak roared. Nales’ kimbic fire lit up with a burst of heat.
Then, a wall of magic crashed down on top of them.
It was like the inside of a thunderstorm. Pressure surrounded her head, thick, active, screaming, beating at her with a thousand hands. She felt Kodanh deflect most of it, felt the burn and flare of her armor’s useless mercari try to keep up against the overwhelming power. Stinging pain snapped through her wrist. She staggered, yelling as the pain passed into her muscles.
He punched her, and she went down. A second wave of magic followed, frying her from the inside. Pain crashed through her bones like molten lead. Her muscles jerked, screamed. Every nerve felt like it was doused in acid. For one whole second, her vision went pure white, spots of pain crackling like filaments of lightning. Nales cried out somewhere close.
When her vision returned, Grobitzsnak came into her sight. She struggled to move as he bent over her. She felt her body lift.
He slammed her into the wall hard, a clawed hand around her throat. His other hand slashed at her arm—she must have tried to cut him. Agony ripped through her wrist.
He threw her again.
When she landed, she was slumped against the floor ten paces from where she’d started, and the demon was advancing on her.
Magic shifted through him, smooth and dark. She felt her stomach drop out from under her at the touch of his power. His one hand lifted, palm upward, claws curling inward, the glow of his eyes intent and predatory—and angry. Very angry.
Oh, goodie. She’d managed to piss him off.
Matteo continued to fire. The demon didn’t care. His shots snapped into the demon’s back shield, faster and more insistent, desperate. On the far right by the other wall, Nales was attempting to rise, having obviously been flattened. One of his arms was loose at his side, likely broken.
She struggled back as Grobitzsnak approached. Pain screamed through her arm. Its bone slid loose, stabbed into her flesh. She was bleeding from a head wound. Tasted blood in her mouth. Her hand still gripped her blade, trapped under her hip. She’d lost the other one by the wall somewhere.
The magic in his hands whispered, a deathless, subtle noise that crawled straight into her head. Her mouth went dry as a vision of the Death Veils came to her, of souls reaching out to her from beyond.
Her stomach dropped.
Necromancy. He was planning to turn her.
He’d stopped playing.
Sheer panic shot through her. She kicked off, desperation fueling her retreat as she scrambled against the floor.
He smiled.
Kodanh’s power pulled through her numbed lips. She tasted ice and blood. Pain and cold shook through her. She dragged it, desperate, kicking her heels at the floor to scramble back. He smashed through the flimsy ice wall she’d managed to construct, batted her spears away with a power that flashed like lightning.
He lunged. She rolled. Agony ripped through her shattered arm. The air shook, columns of broken ice shattering as she defended herself. She felt a breath on her and ripped to the side again blindly. Frost blanketed the floor in her wake. Blood came from her nose.
His spell missed, flying over her head in a caustic hiss.
Relief flooded her. She sank to the ground, gasping for breath.
Then, she realized that he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking past her.
Three paces from her head, the foot of the dead forest lord twitched.
Oh, no.
She gasped for breath. Every single one of her muscles shook. It felt like his magic had pounded every inch of her, inside and out—as if he had, personally and with sharp claws, punched every cell in her body. Sharp pains at the side of her chest told her there was at least one broken rib. The throb of her arm was blinding. She was down to one knife, somehow still gripped in her good arm.
And the ancient forest lord was moving.
Grobitzsnak strode toward her.
Shaking, she pressed a fist to the ground, hissed through the bite of cold, and froze a wall between them.
He looked at her flimsy wall with something resembling disdain. It was less than an inch thick.
“You are broken and weak.”
He shattered it with a strike of his arm. Shards of ice rained down on her, making her flinch. She couldn’t move as he stepped alongside her, a foot landing close to her abdomen.
“I will enjoy taking you.” His voice curled with the promise, tone bloodthirsty and triumphant. “I will make it last. I will wring every last scream from you until your mouth is silenced and I own every inch of your body.”
She shivered. He loomed over her space, the hunger in his eyes taking in the shake and shudder of her battered body—the way she struggled, gasped for breath.
His power made the air shudder like a roll of thunder.
Where are the others? She was vaguely aware of them, some ways to the right. The clash of weapons, snarled swears, shouted orders. The darting light of Matteo’s gun. A large amount of movement caught her attention. Her hea
d slumped over, following it.
Grobitzsnak’s army had arrived.
The hallway seemed to undulate. Tens upon tens of soldiers, all running toward them. Her team, all bundled together, Nales out front, slicing through the ranks with his sword, Doneil behind, defending Matteo with a loose, magical shield as the soldier aimed his shots, one after the other, slowly moving backward.
“They can’t help you,” Grobitzsnak told her. She felt him kneel beside her. Clawed fingers slid around her throat. In his other hand, the Death Veils began whispering again. “Your turn now, rnari.”
Fear and anger bottled up in one panicked, disjointed bundle. Ice gathered in her runes, hard and cold. Kodanh’s gaze slid through her like a knife.
She was about to let it all out at once, to blast him like she’d done before, when another spell smashed straight into his chest and knocked him away.
To her left, the rising forest lord gave a horrific, rattling cry and fell to the ground like a load of unmanaged bricks.
She snapped her head around just in time to watch Caracel rise like a fallen god through the creature’s thrashing body and slice through the rest of the bird’s neck. Gore splattered across his robes and face. He looked across the distance to where Grobitzsnak had fallen and flicked the blood off his sword, his intent clear.
Yena stood several paces back, runes blazing, limned from the glowing light of the door behind her.
The fey had made it to the other side of the hall, between Grobitzsnak and the gate, and had joined the fight.
Chapter 29
The priestess yelled. Runes burned in the air, barely forming a spell before it came launching at Grobitzsnak, the power of the orb of Cnixe as obvious as a lightning strike. He growled, defending, backing up. Magic cracked together like a thunderbolt. It throbbed in her skin, pulsed against Kodanh’s ice.
Caracel turned and leapt, his own power blazing within him. With a single strike, he shattered through the ornate doors holding the gate within. Power boomed, wood cracking and splintering. White light flooded the hall.
The gate’s power washed over her. Ice flooded her veins. Her connection to Kodanh strengthened. She felt the ice lizard move, closer to her than he’d ever been—as if she were both here on Gaia and standing in his great ice cavern in Tir Na n’Og.