Heir of Pendel (A Pandoran Novel, #4) (50 page)

I ripped the dagger from my boot and threw it straight at his face. It spun end over end, fast and true, and sank to the hilt right between his eyes. His arms went slack, the bludgeon tumbled out of his hands, and he collapsed to the ground in a heap, face-first. I staggered to my feet and wiped my palms on my pants, then stepped around his thick arms to retrieve my sword. And that's when I noted the gargon above suddenly change course and dive.

Men yelled as the gargon sped into the city, raking and clawing at anything in its way, wings pummeling through towers, ripping off thatch and chimneys, and dropping bricks on the fighting while leaving a path of charred rubble in its wake. It rose back in the air and I caught sight of a rider, guiding the gargon around in a wide arc, preparing to dive down again. But this time it unleashed fire.

Flames hosed Nord and enemy guard alike, setting fire to rooftops and vendors and crates. Apparently, the gargon's rider no longer cared who it burned alive. The air burned and the streets filled with smoke, making it difficult to see and breathe. Men yelled and ran away from the fire, while others screamed, trying to put out the fire consuming their bodies. I scanned the street to where I'd left Thaddeus and Vera and sighed with relief. The fire hadn't touched them.

The fighting dragged on and on, interrupted by a deadly rain of fire. My arms felt like lead, and my movements turned sluggish and sloppy. With every blow I strained, fatigue burning through the muscles in my arms. I couldn't keep going like this much longer. I stole glances at the others. Theon and his men were heavy with exhaustion. There were just too many guards. For every one we killed, five more seemed to take their place. They were everywhere, swarming the streets, as if we'd suddenly kicked over a hornet's nest. The fire only seemed to make them multiply. We needed Lord Tosca. We needed the great lord's magic. It was the reason we'd rescued him first, but Lord Tosca was too weak.

A soft cry sounded directly behind me, and I spun around to see the shaft of a crossbow bolt sticking out of the head of a guard. I caught Theon's gaze. He nodded at me and lowered his crossbow. And then the point of a sword protruded from his chest.

"No!" I screamed, punching and stabbing my way toward him. Theon slumped to the ground and Denn pulled his sword—
my
sword, Flamebearer—free. Fury ripped through my body. Denn looked at me, a sick smile stretched across his face. I ran at him with a yell, and the clash of our swords cut through the air. He deflected, metal scraping upon metal, and he bent forward to punch me in the gut. I twisted away, and elbowed him hard in the back. He stumbled forward but caught himself and whirled on me.

"You look much better than last time I saw you," he sneered as I deflected his blow. "Thanks for bringing Theon back to me. I couldn't have caught him without your help."

"You bastard." He deflected my next blow, but this time I moved closer and punched him in the jaw.

Denn staggered back and licked the blood from the corner of his mouth. "I'm impressed, Del Conte, really…I am. You actually thought you could take this city."

Denn rushed at me, sword to the side, but I saw the feint coming and I was ready for the kick. I sidestepped and snapped my own sword on his hand that held Flamebearer. He cursed, but moved faster than I'd expected and punched me in the rib he'd cracked. I gasped as new pain exploded.

"You've lost, Del Conte," he said, goading me. "Surrender now, and maybe I'll convince King Eris to give you a quick death."

I growled, working through the pain as I spun behind him. He shoved my strike aside and came at me in a volley of powerful blows. I barely knocked each blow aside, struggling against the throbbing in my ribs,.

"I heard your princess escaped Orindor," he said. I'd been drawing my sword around, but hearing this, I faltered. Denn used my hesitation to shove me back. "Lord Tiernan notified us a few hours ago. Wants us to be on the lookout, and let me just say that as soon as we finish up here, I'm going to find her. And you won't be there to save her this time."

He saw my anger and his lips curled as he attacked me again. "And you think what I did to Meira was bad. Just wait until you see what I do to your—"

I screamed at him, pummeling him with blows. Blow after blow after blow—it was all Denn could do to stay on his feet. I no longer felt the pain in my ribs. My sword crashed against Flamebearer, again and again, each time sending Denn back farther and farther until he'd backed against a wall. And then I struck Flamebearer so hard, it fell out of his hands and clattered to the cobblestones. I held the tip of my sword to his throat, sweat burning my eyes as I snatched up Flamebearer. I held both swords at his throat. Denn held his hands out, glaring down the flats of my blades.

"Do it," he hissed. "I dare you."

My chest heaved with each breath, so many years of fury filling the edges of my vision with blood. My arms shook as the killer screamed for his blood—his death. He'd deserved it long before now. All I had to do was press the swords a little harder. I inhaled deeply and started pushing…

I looked into his eyes. Those pale blue eyes that taunted and dared, eyes I had hated for as long as I could remember. Eyes I had known for years because I had spent so much time training with him. Watching him torment the weak, bully the frail, always beneath the noses of our instructors. And then with what he'd tried to do to Daria, and to Vera, and however he was involved with Meira's death. I
wanted
to kill him. I wanted to see the blood pour from his neck and watch the life drain from his body, and that was precisely why I could not do it. Killing him like this made me no better than he was. I lessened the pressure at his neck.

"Coward," he spat. "This is why you'll lose—this is why you'll always lose! You don't have what it takes. You've never had what it takes to—"

I rammed the pummel of my sword into the side of his face. He slumped to the ground. I turned and started walking away when I heard a
thunk
, followed by a sharp cry behind me. I looked back to see Denn sagging against the wall with a throwing knife in his hand, but he would never throw that knife because of the spear sticking out of his chest. Blood gurgled through Denn's lips as he tried to say something, and then he collapsed on the ground, dead. I turned back around to see Thaddeus glaring at Denn's body.

"Thanks," I said.

"Anytime, Del Can't." He met my gaze. Thaddeus hadn’t just killed him for me. And then he jumped back into the melee to fight alongside Vera.

I staggered over to Theon. Blood oozed out of his chest, soaking the furs of his armor, and the skin on his face was ashen.

"Theon," I said, placing my bloodied hands on his forehead. The puncture had done too much damage and he'd already lost too much blood. Even if I had the strength and time to help heal him, he was too far gone.

His chest shook with ragged breaths as his lids fluttered open. When he saw me, he gave me a weak grin. "I'm not going to make it this time, am I?" A cough. Blood trickled out of his mouth.

My chest tightened and I grabbed his hand. "No."

He sighed and closed his eyes, but squeezed my hand. "Make them pay for this." Another cough, more blood. "Please."

I gripped his hand hard. "I will. I swear to you."

A shudder moved through Theon's body, and his hand went limp in mine. They would pay. For every life they'd taken, for every life they'd ruined, for every bit of suffering they'd caused. I released Theon's hand, picked up my sword and stood.

My anger moved like liquid fire in my veins. If Eris wanted to keep this city, he was going to pay dearly for it. I bounded back into battle, ignoring the pain in my side as I cut down anyone in my path, my fury fueling my strength. The gargon shrieked overhead again, and then fire consumed the building beside me. I sprinted out of the way as thatch and brick collapsed right on top of enemy guards and Nords alike. And then I saw the gargon arc back toward the town, aimed right for where Thaddeus and Vera fought.

Horror gripped me. The gargon's flight seemed to move in slow motion. I yelled at Thaddeus, but he couldn't hear over the din of battle. When he finally looked up, his horror mirrored my own. The gargon opened its jaws. Fire bloomed in the back of its throat. I was going to lose them, right here, right now.

And then suddenly the night came alive with ravens. Thousands upon thousands of them, all dropping from the clouds, attacking the gargon and its rider. The fire died and the pair abruptly changed course, trying to evade the swarm of ravens. Thaddeus and Vera were all right—startled, but alive—and the ravens kept attacking, diving into the city, pecking at the enemy guards while the rest surrounded the gargon. They had come. Theon hadn't known if they would, but they had. Theon was helping us even now. An alien cry filled the night, and in a whip of dark wool, the gargon's pykan rider fell from the skies.

The pykan landed in a pile of crates. I bolted toward it, but as I drew nearer, I slowed to a walk in case it wasn't dead. A fall like that would've killed a person on impact, but pykans weren't exactly human.

Flamebearer suddenly sprang to life, burning with that strange white fire, and the runes glittered just as they had before. And then I noticed the rider standing before the pile of crates. It was not a pykan at all.

His skin was chalky white and translucent, his eyes black as night with no whites to frame them. The shadows seemed to coalesce around him, obscuring him as though he were drawing them nearer—as though he were the stuff the shadows were made of. He took a step toward me, and I found myself taking a reflexive step back, adjusting my grip on Flamebearer.

His eyes narrowed on my sword. "You."

The one word shuddered through me. It was a voice from another world, a much darker world, malevolent and evil, and filled with an insurmountable amount of power. I'd seen a lot of things in my lifetime, but I'd never felt anything like this before. In that moment, I knew this man was the creature Lord Dommelier had warned me about—Lord Cethin Raoul.

I didn't wait another second. I charged him with Flamebearer, but Lord Cethin vanished in a cloud of black smoke only to reappear behind me. With a flick of his hand, an invisible wall of energy rammed into me, throwing me back. I flew through the air, landing on the ground on my back. Pain burst in my rib and the impact forced the breath from my lungs.

I rolled over, heaving, as those murky black robes approached in my periphery. I staggered on all fours, but another whip of energy rammed into my side, throwing me down again. The same force wrapped around me like a giant invisible hand, flipped me over on my back and pinned me to the ground. Flamebearer slid right out of my grip and landed on the ground behind Lord Cethin. And then the world changed.

I stood in a sea of faces—so many faces—piled infinitely in all directions, and I recognized every single one. They were the faces of the men and women I had killed through the years, and now they pleaded and begged for me to bring them back to the world to finish out the life I had stolen from them. Their hands clawed at me, tugging at my clothes, my hair—anything they could grab hold of as if I were their lifeline back to this world. They smothered me, enveloped me, and I was drowning in their despair and my own sorrow for having done what I'd done. The scene changed again.

Daria slept peacefully in a bed of red silk. One of her bare, slender shoulders peeked through the edge of the sheets, and as I watched her lying there, another figure sat up behind her. Danton. He leaned over her and kissed her bare shoulder. Her eyes fluttered awake and she smiled and they were kissing…

The scene changed again. I stood in the middle of a graveyard. The world was grey and cold, and a man who seemed oddly familiar to me stood nearby. I walked toward him, and the closer I came, I realized why the man had seemed so familiar. He was me. He wore his hair a little longer than mine, and I'd never let my beard grow so uncontrolled. His eyes made me stop. They knew a sorrow I didn't, and I followed his gaze to a patch of plaques on the ground. Alaric, Stefan, Thaddeus, Vera, my parents. They were all there, their entire lives represented by nothing more than a slab of rock. The man crouched before another one I hadn't noticed, lying off to the side. It was Daria's. His despair gutted me. Everyone I'd ever loved was gone. Never had I felt so alone. I no longer belonged in this world, because all the strings that had held me to it had been severed.

I was sucking down air when I realized I was back in Astor, still lying pinned to the ground with Lord Cethin standing over me. What kind of power did this man have to make me live my fears, to make me live the horrors of my past, and…was that my future? Or the future I feared? Whatever power Lord Cethin wielded, I didn't stand a chance against it. We weren't going to win this battle, not with him fighting against us.

Fire burst from somewhere behind me, casting gilded light over Lord Cethin's dark robes. Something glinted from inside his robes, drawing my attention there. It was Nightshade, Daria's dagger.

Denn hadn't been lying. She
had
fled Orindor, and she'd crossed paths with this demon. But she…she'd gotten away from him somehow. This knowledge gave me a sudden burst of hope, and it snapped me out of my despair like a splash of cold water in my face.

"You won't find her," I grunted.

Lord Cethin tilted his head.

"You and your pathetic
king
will…never find her." I struggled to speak from the vice pinching my lungs.

He crouched beside me and the vice tightened. I strained against the pressure, my lungs feeling as if they might burst.

"Where is she?" The sound was otherworldly.

I opened my mouth to answer and acted as if I couldn't speak.

"Tell me!" he snapped.

I gasped, pretending to choke on my words, though I didn't have to pretend very hard. Fuzzy halos dotted my vision, but I forced myself to be ready. I'd only have a split second.

The pressure around my body loosened just enough. I snatched Nightshade from his waist and stabbed upward. Lord Cethin realized what I'd done too late. The pressure returned to my body, willing my arm back down, but the damage had already been done. He staggered back and wailed, the sound like a hundred dying voices. His robes morphed into thick black smoke, and the screaming died as the smoke dissipated into the night, and then he was gone. Nightshade clattered on the cobblestones, right beside Flamebearer. The few guards nearby took one look at me and ran away.