Blood of the Earth (30 page)

They spent several minutes searching before Jack found a small stone in one wall that moved with pressure. When he pushed on it, Alexander saw the light of the aura fade away. Once they were all across the spelled section of floor, Alexander marked the spot by scraping a line on the floor.

They continued down the passage until it came to a tee. Hector looked around the corner and pulled his head back quickly. They heard shouting from down the hall.

“Looks like we found them,” he said, drawing his twin short swords.

“How many?” Alexander asked.

“I saw four, but I suspect they’re just the first line.”

Alexander sent his all around sight down the hall to survey the enemy. Four men lined up at the entrance to a large room. All of them were armed with crossbows.

“Once they’ve fired their crossbows, we charge,” Alexander said. “Remember, as soon as we’re past these four, there will be more soldiers, plus a wizard and a wraithkin.”

Isabel started casting a shield spell, Jack tossed up the hood of his cloak, Horace drew his short swords. Alexander drew Mindbender and focused on the fight. He created the image his enemy most expected to see and sent it into the sword.

An illusion of him and his friends rounding the corner, weapons drawn and charging came into being, lifelike and real. The four soldiers loosed their crossbow bolts as one. What would have been a deadly attack fell on empty air.

“Go,” Alexander said as he slipped around the corner, racing toward the enemy. The four men drew swords and held their ground. Before Alexander could reach them, a shaft of brilliant white light lanced past him and burned a hole three inches in diameter through the chest of the man on the right.

Alexander reached them first. He knew his first opponent’s intention even as the man formed the thought. He slipped past the thrust to the right of the center man and drove the point of his sword through the soldier to his right as he shoved the center man into his companion on his left. Before they could recover, he had his blade free and stabbed one man in the throat as Hector reached the last man and dispatched him with two quick strokes.

Jack flickered back into view. “Not quite as dramatic as the Thinblade, but I think your new sword definitely has potential.”

Chloe buzzed into view. “Darkness is near, My Love, in the chamber below.”

“It’s a good bet they know we’re here,” Isabel said.

“Can you scout for us, Little One?” Alexander asked.

“Of course, My Love. Send me your mind and I will show you the room.”

“Be ready,” Alexander said as he sat down and closed his eyes.

Chloe buzzed into a ball of light and vanished into the aether. Alexander watched the world through her eyes as she drifted into the chamber below. It was a large cavern, one that Alexander had seen before. Nearly a dozen soldiers with weapons drawn were arrayed before the Nether Gate, with three more guarding the staircase leading into the chamber above.

A wizard and a wraithkin stood side by side in front of the soldiers, facing the Gate and Truss, who was still possessed by Jinzeri. They seemed to be arguing.

“You are of no consequence, Wizard,” Jinzeri said. “If you kill this body, I will simply take yours.”

“You won’t take mine,” the wraithkin said. “Mother won’t allow it.”

“Yes, how very clever of Phane,” Jinzeri said. “I am well acquainted with your mother. I’m quite sure she would much rather help me than Phane.”

The wraithkin twitched.

“We will have the keystone, Shade,” the wizard said.

“Come and take it,” Jinzeri said, holding the small stone pyramid out in Truss’s good hand. “I grow tired of this broken body and your magic would be useful, not to mention entertaining.”

In a blink the wraithkin vanished, leaving only wisps of blackness where he had been standing, and reappeared in front of Jinzeri. With a tormented smile, the wraithkin hit Jinzeri hard. He staggered back, dropping the keystone. The wraithkin snatched it up and vanished, only to reappear twenty feet closer to the staircase leading up to the room where Alexander and his friends were preparing for battle.

“Tell your master, I’ll take him for this,” Jinzeri shouted in rage as he regained his feet.

The wizard finished his spell just as Jinzeri stood, and a wave of magical force blew him onto his back without killing Truss.

The wraithkin vanished and reappeared on the other side of the three soldiers guarding the staircase.

“Flee!” the wizard commanded. The soldiers at the base of the stairs started up toward Alexander as the remaining soldiers and the wizard followed.

Alexander snapped back into his own body.

Chapter 24

“Here they come, wraithkin first,” he said. “Spread out.”

The wraithkin appeared at the top of the stairs and smiled. Alexander advanced toward the man mixed with darkness, listening through Mindbender for his thoughts. The wraithkin vanished and Alexander spun. The wraithkin reappeared ten feet past him, running fast.

Alexander flipped Mindbender to his off hand and hurled his throwing knife at the fleeing wraithkin, hoping to hit his head, but the blade drove into the creature’s back instead. The wraithkin shrieked and vanished, reappearing twenty feet down the hallway fully healed and running even faster.

Alexander was torn. There were more than a dozen soldiers, a wizard, and a shade coming up the stairs. It would be suicide to give chase to the wraithkin and leave themselves defenseless to the threat behind them and he dared not divide his force.

“Take the Regency soldiers first,” he said as he turned back to the staircase, advancing toward the three men who had just reached the landing.

The soldiers drew swords as Alexander advanced with Hector and Horace on either side of him. He met the first soldier with a quick parry, deflecting his blade to one side and following with a thrust to the heart, followed by a kick to drive him off Mindbender and send him toppling down the stairs into his companions.

Hector and Horace each engaged a soldier, wielding their twin short swords with the kind of fluid grace that only comes from the combination of long practice and too much real-world experience. Each of them used his leading blade to trap his opponent’s weapon while striking out with his following blade. Both men killed their opponents in a way that looked almost routine.

Alexander waited at the top of the stairs for the soldiers to come to him, not wanting to give up the high ground. Once they’d recovered from the corpse he’d cast into their midst, they began to advance again. The first one to reach him died quickly from a thrust to the eye.

The next was more wary, making a stab for Alexander’s legs. Through Mindbender, he saw the attack coming and jumped to avoid the blade, coming down with an overhead stroke that split the soldier’s helmet and skull.

A crossbow bolt broke against his armor shirt, then another whizzed past his head. Alexander held his ground, waiting for the next soldier to come close enough to kill, when he saw the wizard pull a man aside and stretch his hand out over another man’s shoulder. Alexander tried to duck, but he was a moment too late. The wave of magical force caught him full in the chest, tossing him backward ten feet. He landed hard on his back.

Hector and Horace took his place at the top of the stairs, but the remaining soldiers didn’t charge. Before Alexander could regain his feet, a shell of magical energy emerged from the top of the staircase and pushed out in a bubble, driving Hector and Horace back as the enemy soldiers filled the space within.

With his all around sight, he watched ten soldiers form a battle line at the top of the stairs while the wizard cast another force blast down the stairs at Jinzeri, followed by a spell that caused the stone of the staircase to rapidly grow like crystals until the entire passage was blocked behind him, trapping Jinzeri in the cave with the Nether Gate.

Alexander regained his feet just as the bubble of force protecting the soldiers dissipated. They fired a volley of crossbow bolts as one. Hector transformed into a vapor, saving himself from injury. Horace took a bolt in the leg and one in the shoulder. He went down to one knee.

The crossbow bolts meant for Isabel bounced harmlessly off her magical shield.

One bolt hit Alexander in the thigh, driving straight through but missing the bone. He remained standing, almost automatically retreating into the place within his mind where pain was less important. Two more bolts broke against his dragon-scale armor.

Jack was off to the side where the bubble of force met the wall, waiting for the chance to strike. The soldier at the end of the battle line died with a knife across his throat.

The remaining soldiers dropped their crossbows, drew swords and charged. The lead man fell back with a hole through his chest from Isabel’s light-lance spell. Alexander held his ground, waiting for the enemy to come to him rather than risk using his injured leg any more than he had to. Hector rematerialized in position to strike at two men at once. They both fell with stab wounds to the gut.

Another went down from Jack’s knife as the first three men reached Alexander—or where they thought he was. He had projected an illusion of himself several feet to one side while making his true position invisible to the advancing soldiers. As they committed their attacks to striking down his illusion, Alexander dispatched them one by one.

Mindbender’s power was becoming more accessible and more natural, flowing freely from his imaginative mind in the heat of the battle. He was learning to trust the power of deception and the foreknowledge that the sword gave him. It was a far more subtle weapon than the Thinblade, but its reach was greater and its potential was staggering.

Another man fell from Isabel’s light-lance spell. Alexander saw her colors swelling with rage as she fueled her anger to protect herself from the pull of the firmament.

The remaining two soldiers reached Alexander and Hector as the wizard stepped into the room. The two men fell quickly but the wizard had time to cast his spell. Six narrow wedges of blue magical force shot forth from his outstretched hand at Isabel, one after the next. Her shield absorbed most of them but failed when the fifth hit. The sixth magical blade drove hard into her stomach, penetrating her armor and driving into her gut. She went down with a shriek that made Alexander’s blood run cold.

A moment later, Jack slipped up behind the wizard and cut his throat. The look of surprised horror on his face was only matched by the horror Alexander felt at seeing Isabel fall to the ground.

“Hector, guard the door,” Alexander said as he limped toward Isabel. “Jack, see to Horace.”

He had to clench his teeth to keep from crying out in pain as he went to a knee next to Isabel. She was bleeding through her armor and breathing shallowly.

“This is going to hurt, but you have to let me get to the wound,” Alexander said, as he rolled her onto her back and fished around in his pouch for his jar of healing salve.

Her leather armor was rent as if she’d been stabbed by a blade. Alexander unbuckled it quickly and lifted her shirt to reveal a deep wound. She gasped in pain as he packed the wound with healing salve and she gritted her teeth as he wrapped her belly with a strip of cloth. Next, he unstoppered one of Lucky’s vials of healing draught and helped her drink the contents.

As she drifted off into a magically induced sleep, Alexander examined the crossbow bolt in his leg. With his brass-pommeled long knife he scored the bolt so he could snap it off several inches below the point. He nearly screamed as he pulled the shaft through his leg, feeling light-headed and nauseous the moment it came free.

He lay still, focusing on his breathing for a minute or so before he tore his pant leg open and applied healing salve to the wound on both sides of his leg. He knew the wound was too deep for the healing salve alone, so he reluctantly drank one of his healing draughts. Lucky had given them each three vials of the potent magical liquid, and Alexander knew they may need them all, given the dangers they faced. But he also knew that he wouldn’t heal completely with just the salve and he would need his full strength in the coming days and weeks.

Jack tended to Horace’s injuries and soon the wounded were sleeping soundly as the magic did its work. Alexander woke to Jack watching him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Much better,” Alexander said. “How’s Isabel?”

“Her wound is closed but she’s still sleeping,” Jack said. “The stone wall in the staircase is holding and everything’s quiet. Horace is mending as well but he isn’t awake yet either.”

Alexander stared at the ceiling as he played the battle over in his mind. He’d seen a similar battle unfold in the dream with Rentu. All of the people were the same and the place was identical, but the events had unfolded slightly differently. In the dream, Jinzeri had followed the wraithkin, and the battle had taken place in the chamber below.

“It’s strange,” Alexander said. “The vision I had of this battle was very similar, yet the details were quite different. I guess prophesy can only get the broad strokes right.”

“Still, the insight was invaluable,” Jack said. “Knowing that we would encounter the enemy allowed us to face them on our terms rather that stumbling into them, and it helped us find this chamber in the first place.”