02 - The Barbed Rose (24 page)

Its sail raised, it tacked in the down-mountain wind. As she watched, a face appeared over the gunwale, an arm moved, and a fat ball of fire flew, smashing into the building behind them. Flames licked greedily at the dry wood. This wasn’t a wealthy part of town, though it wasn’t the poorest. Fire would spread quickly here, and with the city so crowded, hundreds—maybe thousands—would die.

The firethrower’s face appeared again and, acting on pure instinct, Kallista called lightning. It hit some kind of protective wall around the little boat, crackling blue all around it without doing any damage. But it did stop the devil-naitan’s fireball.

How could a naitan ally with demons? Couldn’t he see what they were? Kallista threw lightning again, hoping to keep him distracted long enough to form a plan. The distraction didn’t work this time. A fireball lanced down from the other side of the air-sailing boat to bloom on the far side of the square.

She drew magic, pulling hard from all three of her marked ones, then more from Torchay’s bottomless well. The flying boat was not a natural magic. It had to be powered by the demon, therefore, if she destroyed the demon, the boat would fall.

As if sensing her intent, the demon skipped across the few people left in the square, heading for the boat. Kallista fought her magic, trying to shape the dark veil, the deadly magic she’d used before, but it was like trying to mould rocks rather than clay. She hurled it at the demon, hoping to bludgeon it with the rocklike magic. It squalled, hurt, but kept running.

“There are two of them!” Gweric cried, pointing.

Kallista squinted, folding aside her physical sight, and saw a shadow flow over the side of the boat, reaching toward the darkness on the ground. It flinched away, as if reluctant to accept the offered help. She sent more magic spearing toward it, shaping it into a point this time. The demon screamed as the magic pierced it. Kallista threw her hands wide, willing the magic to expand and rip it apart.

With an enraged, desperate shriek, the demon spun into a wisp of stinking darkness and leaped toward the descending shadow. Instantly, its substance was sucked into the other, leaving only a faint wail echoing in the square.

Joh shuddered against Kallista’s back, tucking his face into her hair. “It’s not destroyed, is it?”

“I fear not.” Her legs trembled with weariness, but she couldn’t rest. She needed more magic.

It came easier this time, as if now she’d got it moving, it would keep on. Kallista wove it tight, willing it into the shape of the veil, visualizing the demons she’d seen in the boat. Two more fireballs exploded while she struggled.

“It’s moving,” Viyelle said. “Do we follow?”

“Yes.”

Joh moved his arm from her waist, wound it with hers and clasped her hand before releasing her neck. Viyelle led the way this time, Torchay and Obed guarding Kallista with naked blades. She let Joh guide her, keep her upright and moving. The magic required all her attention.

Finally, she thought it was ready. She took a deep breath and
pushed
, sending the dark veil glittering toward the flying boat. It smashed into the same barrier magic as her lightning and melted away.

“Damn it!” Kallista’s temper evaporated and she threw bolt after bolt of lightning in an attempt to batter through the damned barrier. Until the devil-naitan threw lightning back at her, just missing, and setting the bakeshop behind her afire. It had collected her own lightning to use against her. Which wasn’t possible. Except he had done it.

Cackling with glee, the demon danced atop its mount, high enough she could see it above the boat’s sides. Then the boat leaned into a broad turn and sailed toward a new, fire-free sector of Arikon. All those who had fled in that direction turned and came back, running into the roaring flames.

“Goddess,
help them
.” Viyelle fell to her knees, knocked down by the panicked citizens crashing into her.

“Come, Courier. We’re not done yet.” Torchay lifted her back to her feet.

They couldn’t be done. Not while the demon and its pet naitan continued their attack. But Kallista had run out of things to try. She couldn’t quit, but couldn’t think what else she could do.

She stumbled. The street was uneven, rutted. Joh picked her up when she stumbled again, carrying her as they trailed behind the flying boat, weaving their way through narrow streets and tiny squares. “I can walk,” she protested.

“You can stagger,” Joh said. “Not at all the same thing.”

“It’s slowing,” Viyelle shouted back to them, pushing through the throngs running away.

“Put me down.” Kallista struggled to get free.

“You don’t have to stand to call magic.” Joh broke through into the clear, and apparently changed his mind, setting her on her feet beside Viyelle. He stationed himself behind her as before, an arm around her waist, other hand on her neck.

Kallista beckoned her other two close. “Maybe it will help if we touch, too.”

Torchay nodded. He sheathed one of his swords and slid his hand around her wrist. Obed took her other, and Kallista called their magic. Three skeins braided together, incomplete—she knew that. Three wells of magic were too far away for her to reach. But there was more magic present, needing to be added, woven in to the whole.

Kallista closed her eyes to see it better, gather it in, find its source. It was elusive, dancing close only to slide away again, but Kallista recognized it. It was meant for her. She needed it, and the magic needed to belong. But where did it come from?

“Viyelle,”
Gweric whispered, voice soft and awestruck. “I can see her.”

But Viyelle had no magic of her own. Unless she had been…

“Torchay take Viyelle’s hand.”

“I want my sword in my hand.”

“We’re the only ones left. Only demons against us. You think your sword will stop the demons? Take her hand.
Now
.” Kallista wasn’t sure what would happen, wasn’t sure she was right, but if she was…they needed that magic.

Grumbling, Torchay sheathed his second sword and caught Viyelle’s hand in his. Magic rushed through him into Kallista and beyond, into Joh and Obed. Kallista sensed a faint twisting, uncomfortable, but nowhere near as jarring as when Joh or Obed had been bound. Viyelle was marked. She was one of them.

The magic whirled out, touched the distant trio briefly, faintly, then returned. Kallista caught it, gathering it for a task rather than turning it to pleasure. She considered trying the dark veil again, but feared wasting this new-marked, new-joined magic against the barrier. She only had a taste of magic from Stone, Fox and Aisse, but already she could feel the eagerness, the obedience, the loyalty in the magic. And something else. Something new.

The boat was protected by magic, but it rode the winds. The boat could not be protected from the thing it needed to direct it, to buoy it up. And what could protect something so vast as the wind? But could Kallista direct winds with her magic?

She could only try. She hadn’t been able to heal or speak mind-to-mind either, until she tried and found she could.

Weaving in Viyelle’s just-marked magic, Kallista looked at the sky and struggled to see the winds. After a moment, though she couldn’t quite
see
anything, she sensed the currents, rather like currents in the rivers that ran through her childhood home, but with their own patterns. They churned, disturbed by the magic binding them to hold up the flying boat. If she could tug a bit just there…

Kallista
reached
, tugged. The boat shuddered and bucked against its cushion of air. She shoved
there
and the boat tipped, the yellow-clad naitan tumbling over the side. He screamed, catching hold of the gunwale to dangle in midair.

There were two in the boat, the fire-throwing naitan and a woman holding the lines and halyards to the sail. The demon sat on her shoulders. Had it skipped from one to the other? The thing was hard to watch.

The woman stretched a hand toward the man. He reached for it, straining to climb back into the slowly righting boat.

Kallista snipped one of the air bindings. Wind picked up, blowing the boat to the south. “Follow. Don’t let go.”

It wasn’t easy to walk with Joh wrapped around her back. Torchay twined his arm with Viyelle’s and drew her in until he held her the way Joh held Kallista. Somehow, though, they didn’t stumble, didn’t tangle their feet.

The firethrower was almost back in the boat, one leg hooked over the side to climb in. Kallista didn’t want that. She wanted someone to question.
There
. Another binding. Broken free, the winds drove the boat lower, skimming it just above rooftops. She yanked at a current, brushing the man against a temple dome, and he lost all he had gained, dangling once more.

“We’re nearing the city wall,” Torchay said. “If that matters.”

“I don’t want them to escape.” If she destroyed the demon’s mounts, would she destroy the demon? Or would it simply skip to a new victim and possess another? If she destroyed the boat, would she destroy the protections?

Kallista grasped hold of the winds and yanked, shaking the boat. The firethrower lost his grip, plunging to the street not far from the city wall. The boat surged higher with the loss of its burden.

“Gweric, go!” Kallista ordered. “Don’t let them kill him. The Reinine wants him alive for questioning.
Run.
”

The boy darted ahead and Kallista turned her attention back to the flying boat and its evil passenger. She ripped away magic almost as fast as the windcaller laid it. Almost.

The boat lurched and faltered, twirled in one direction and another, but always, it kept moving toward the city walls, rising higher and higher until it scraped over the parapet. Soldiers atop the wall jumped at the boat, tried to catch it, stop it. The demon screamed, rushed at them, and they fell back, save for one who caught a trailing rope. The boat dragged him over the wall, but he hung on.

He fought his way up the rope, Kallista doing her best to hold the boat steady now. Obed dragged her, Joh carried her up the stairs to the top of the wall where she could see, Torchay hauling Viyelle behind them.

When she reached the top, Kallista saw the soldier climbing over the side into the boat. Tying magic to his ankle, she managed to get it through the barrier with the courageous man. She rolled the magic up over him, hoping it would shield him from the demon he couldn’t see.

The boat tipped and wallowed as the windcaller drew her weapon and fought for her life. Even with the demon’s help, Kallista knew the woman wouldn’t last long. When she went down, the boat would, too. Kallista hadn’t the skills to keep it afloat. And there were rebels in the valley below.

Kallista had her major’s golds on her uniform now, along with the blue-striped silver of the Reinine’s personal command. She pulled part of her attention from the magic and called to one of the soldiers. “Captain!”

The patrol commander atop the wall dashed forward and saluted, trying very hard not to look directly at Kallista. They had to look strange, she realized, holding each other as they were, moving as a group. The strangeness couldn’t be helped.

“Send out a sortie,” she ordered. “Any man brave enough to do what that one has doesn’t deserve to wind up in the hands of the rebels. Pray the One he lives through the crash when the boat goes down. If he does, your men will bring him back.”

“Yes, Major.” The captain saluted, executed a perfect about-face and began shouting her orders.

Kallista turned all her attention back to the scene in the valley below. The boat shuddered. She bound a current back in and the shallow-keeled vessel hared off eastward, toward the road. A good thing or bad? She hauled on the magic, trying to slow it so the Reinine’s soldiers could reach it first. The winds kicked. The boat jumped.

Then it plummeted downward. The soldier had killed the windcaller. Kallista fought to control the boat’s descent, threw protection around the soldier to keep the demon off him, keep the crash from killing him. Adaran cavalry rode yelling out the city gate, not merely a single troop, but an entire regiment thundering down the road.

The boat slammed into the ground, breaking apart. The soldier still lived—she knew because her magic had an anchor. The demon shrieked. The sound drove spikes through her ears into her brain and blurred her vision with tears as she screamed. Kallista tightened her hold on the soldier, not willing to give him up. She sent magic lashing out at the demon, wanting only to silence it.

The distant sound of steel clashing on steel had her blinking her eyes clear. The cavalry surged around the boat, sweeping over the swarming rebels and driving them away. The demon’s black smear rode atop one of those fleeing the valley.

Kallista gathered magic one more time, shaped the veil, named it, threw it hurriedly after the evil, but it dissipated into a glittering emptiness before it passed the broken boat. She needed
all
her magic to fight demons, and half of it was hundreds of leagues away.

The cavalry rode in pursuit of the routed rebels, leaving bodies scattered across the valley floor, but the battle was over. A few soldiers brought their brave and battered comrade back to the city.

Behind her, residents and soldiers fought fires with water buckets and whatever magic could help. Kallista studied the air currents again, half-afraid to act. If she did the wrong thing, she could make matters worse, or cause problems elsewhere in Adara. But if she tugged just a bit
there
…

She
reached
and found magic there already. Another windcaller? No, more than that. Weather naitan, teacher at the North Academy. She recognized the touch. Kallista watched for a moment, until she understood what was being done. Then she carefully lent the strength of her magic, pushing and pulling at the air under the other naitan’s direction.

Clouds built higher. Lightning flashed—Kallista caught it and directed it over the wall, down the cliffs into the rocks. She held the clouds, pulled more moisture from the warmer plains until the first fat drops of rain began to fall. The instructor released the winds and Kallista let the strands of magic slide between her fingers and back home.