Heroes at Odds (41 page)

I could see it happening in my head. People with no real idea of the significance of what they were doing, shoving the tines into vulnerable flesh, killing their neighbors, dying at the hands of those with whom they’d had no argument less than a month before.

And because of what Fiona had threatened the casters with, I couldn’t avoid envisioning one of those steel prongs piercing someone’s eye.

Shields weren’t supposed to have that kind of imagination.

“You will cease this harassment,” Taro declared to Kent.

“What can you mean?” Kent asked in all innocence.

“You will not attack any more people.”

“I haven’t attacked anyone.”

“What do you think would happen,” Taro asked Fiona in a light tone, “if I eliminated his house?”

Fiona seemed confused. “He’d repair it.”

“I didn’t say damage. I said eliminate.”

“Are you going to try a cast?” Kent asked with a smile and obvious confidence.

So casts couldn’t get through the barrier.

Taro grinned. “I’m no caster. Casting isn’t the only way to get things done. How do you like your garden?”

Kent appeared puzzled.

“Get your people out of the house.”

I knew what he planned. I wasn’t even surprised. More like resigned.

Kent crossed his arms and tilted his chin in a gesture of defiance. He looked like an adolescent.

“Ready, Lee?”

“Really bad idea, Taro.” I just had to say it.

“Oh, no, it shouldn’t be difficult at all.”

That wasn’t what I meant and he knew it. He was going to do it anyway. Damn him. His shields went down, so of course mine went up.

Kent didn’t even deign to watch. He stood there, arms crossed, looking at Taro, amused. Well, at least there would be some entertainment in watching his alarm and astonishment.

Gasps all around as the whole manor sank into the ground by an arm’s length, stone cracking, the steps crumbling, the lowest windows shattering. I heard some shocked shouts from within. Kent’s eyes widened before he wheeled around to look at his home.

Heh.

“Get your people out, Kent,” Taro ordered.

Kent said nothing. He ran toward the manor, freezing as Taro let the building sink another arm’s length.

“Get your people out.”

Kent whirled around. “You won’t continue as long as there are people in there.”

Oh, that was just a whole other level of despicable. How was it that no one had killed this man in his sleep?

Taro did not let Kent’s behavior stop him. He had the building sink farther.

The dilemma was sorted for us as a cluster of people came out of the building.

“Damn you, get back in there!” Kent ordered.

He was loathsome.

Taro didn’t hesitate again. The manor continued to sink. The stone continued to crack. In moments, all of the windows had popped out of their casements. I could hear wooden beams twisting and collapsing. There were cries still coming from within. Two of the servants ran back into the house. I was pretty sure it wasn’t to sacrifice themselves. They exited a few moments later, each assisting an elderly person. They were followed by a handful of others.

Please let everyone get out.

“Stop this!” Kent shouted at Taro. “I order you to stop this immediately!”

“Stop what?” Taro asked disingenuously. “Say there, what’s happening to your house?”

“You’re doing this!”

“This is a startling, discrete event the likes of which no Source can possibly create. It’s simply a freak accident.”

“You’re lying!”

What an incredible accusation for him to make.

“I gave you an order!”

“I’m sorry,” said Taro. “Are you a member of the Triple S council?”

Kent threw himself at Taro, and bounced back off his own barrier. That was kind of hilarious.

The roof disintegrated into shards of tile. Fragments of glass glittered in the grass. Two more servants jumped out, this time from windows.

“Do something!” Kent roared at them.

One knelt, pouring a scrambled mess of items on the ground. He picked a small bag up and dumped something in his hand. He scattered small white pieces I couldn’t identify in the grass. His lips moved. Nothing happened.

The next servants to escape the building had to do so through third-story windows. Fortunately, the third floor was much closer to the ground than it had been originally.

“Everything is in there!” Kent screamed. “My coffers! My accounts! My seal!”

I didn’t care.

The manor was collapsing in on itself, the ground inflicting unnatural force on the walls. The noise was incredible. Soil was being pushed up into small hills, and all around the manor the ground was buckling. At this point, no one was doing anything other than watching a phenomenon that would no doubt be burned into their brains for the rest of their lives.

It was astonishing how quickly an entire building could be made to disappear. It wasn’t long at all before there was nothing left but a significant stretch of turned soil. The heavy silence pressed down on my shoulders.

Taro raised his shields. I lowered mine.

Movement in my peripheral view had me looking about. All of Fiona’s tenants had caught up with us. They were all staring with their mouths dropped open. Just . . . damn.

“There is no way we’re going to be able to hide this as anything other than you doing something unnatural,” I said to Taro.

“Aye.”

“This is going to come back and kick us in the teeth. Hard.” There were already so many rumors about Taro doing unnatural things. Healing. Hints that he could cause events. And now this, in front of a huge audience. This was going to tip suspicion into full-fledged belief.

“It is indeed.”

I sighed. Hell.

With a roar, Kent leapt at Taro. This time, he was not impeded by any barrier. It made me wonder if the spell had somehow been attached to the manor, and with the manor gone, so was the barrier. Interesting.

Fiona raised her head spade so the blunt end of it was pushed, by Kent’s momentum, into the Earl’s chest. He howled and drew back.

I couldn’t understand why she didn’t use the blade instead. That might have ended things right then.

But maybe she didn’t have it in her to actually kill him. As far as I knew, Fiona had never killed anyone before. That would be a difficult step to take.

“This is my game,” she said to him. She twirled her spade. She was more comfortable with it than she had been with the harpoon she’d handled in the court room.

“You would attack me while I’m unarmed?” he demanded with ridiculous affront.

She laughed. “Are you serious?”

After everything he had done, he had the nerve to cry foul? Smack him in the head with that thing, Fiona.

“Give your spade to him, Trader Pride, if you please.”

“I’m quite sure everyone who matters would be prepared to swear he already had one, my lady,” Marcus responded.

“I am better than this man in all things,” said Fiona. “Including honor.”

Rather than hand it to him, Marcus threw it at him. Kent jumped back to avoid being hit by it, then had to bend down to pick it up. As soon as he had it in his hands, Fiona swung at his head. He barely managed to block it.

“Do your damned job!” he shouted.

Who was he talking to?

But then a caster jerked into action, and spilled more ingredients onto the ground. Two others joined him.

“For Zaire’s sakes!” Browne muttered with disgust. “Jump on them!”

I saw Taro stiffen in his readiness to obey. I caught his arm and pulled hard. “You shouldn’t be distracted.” He may have to shift soil again. “There are others who can do this.”

Marcus and my brothers were the first to charge at the casters. One of the casters blew from his palm what looked like a shower of flour. Marcus’s horse stumbled and kind of shrieked and curled in on itself. My brothers stopped dead.

“Why did we come here if we’re just going to stand here and watch?” Taro hissed at me.

He had a point, but we’d already done something valuable. We’d pretty much destroyed Kent when we destroyed his manor. That wasn’t just his home. Even screwing every coin out of his tenants and rebuilding wouldn’t replace all that he’d lost.

Every scrap of evidence that Kent was a legitimate titleholder had been destroyed.

Interesting.

Kent jabbed at Fiona’s stomach and she awkwardly blocked it. These couldn’t be the best weapons to be fighting with. Though it seemed oddly appropriate, in a way. It was a whaling tool, after all. And Fiona seemed to handle it with greater dexterity than Kent.

Then again, he was considerably larger than her, with, by far, the greater reach.

I was tempted to sneak up behind him and crack him on the back of his head with my gaff. As far as I was concerned, he had abandoned all right to fair consideration with his past behavior. What stopped me was knowing how much Fiona would resent it. It would be significant if she conquered him alone, to her and to her tenants.

“You can’t really think you can overcome me,” Kent sneered. “I have height and muscle on you.”

Fiona didn’t say anything. She just swung again.

“My family has been protecting this land for generations. Unlike you.”

And yet, his manor had been demolished in a matter of moments. Hers was still standing.

“When the Emperor hears of this attack on my land, he will give your title to me.”

“The Emperor demanded Fiona pass the title over to me,” Taro whispered into my ear. “He offered the Kent estate as consolation.”

I was stunned. “How did you find that out?”

“Fiona told me. She showed me the letter.”

“Do you think Kent knows?”

“No idea.”

And then, out of nowhere, my eyes were bombarded with black smoke, followed by the sensations of long, thick needles piercing my pupils, my ears, my nose. It was all I could see, all I could feel, and then I drew in breath. Charcoal filled my mouth. I choked when I tried to talk.

For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was.

Just as suddenly, the cloud was gone. Browne was kneeling at my feet, crystals scattered in the grass about me. I had to blink a few times. I glanced about and saw that I seemed to have been the only one surrounded by the cloud. “Why the hell are they going after me?” I demanded. “You’re the one with all the skills and experience with casting. Don’t they know that?”

Don’t shriek, girl. Calm calm calm.

Browne shrugged.

I looked at the Kent caster and realized there was now a collection of them, all of them spilling spell components on the ground and muttering. Every person who tried to get too close winced away as Marcus had. They were protecting themselves, but I had no idea how.

I heard a strange kind of yip from Fiona. I looked over in time to see her jerk her left hand back quickly. Struck by Kent’s spade, I supposed. It didn’t stop her from striking out at Kent’s face. He ducked.

Then he hissed. “You fight as badly as you rule,” he said. “Such arrogance, thinking you can take over an estate of such depth and variety with no understanding of it. You condemned the tenants to fear and poverty. And you are either too stupid or too ignorant to see it. Or maybe you do see it and you just don’t care.”

He might want to stop talking. I could hear him wheezing a little. Unless he really thought he could dishearten Fiona with his accusations. He hadn’t managed to do that before.

Taro approached the Kent casters. “Taro!” I shouted uselessly.

He stopped well short of the area where Marcus and some of the others had encountered difficulty. He threw his gaff at the closest caster. It seemed to fly unimpeded by any barrier, which I found confusing. Then again, the flour had settled to the ground. I supposed the barrier existed only while the flour was suspended in the air.

The caster ducked, but Taro hadn’t been aiming at her head. It struck her solidly in the ribs. She shouted and curled in on herself before collapsing to the ground.

“Good shot!” I shouted at Taro. He grinned in response.

It looked like Fiona was getting frustrated with the time the fight was taking. She turned the spade in her hands and shoved the blade into Kent’s stomach, just off center. He grunted and jumped back, pressing a hand to his abdomen. I couldn’t see any injury, but Kent was wearing only a thin shirt. It would have offered no protection.

I heard horses. My eyes followed the noise. Some of Kent’s tenants, from the looks of it.

I watched them approach and split around us.

The mounted Westsea tenants charged at the mounted Kent tenants.

The mounted Kent tenants galloped away.

All right, then.

Browne ran closer to the Kent casters, pulling a handful of crystals from her purse and throwing them. Like the spades, they seemed to sail through whatever barrier the casters had erected, landing in the grass at their feet. I supposed the barrier was meant to stop spells and nothing else, unlike the first barrier. That was a serious vulnerability, but perhaps the first barrier had really relied on the manor for its strength, and the Kent casters simply couldn’t create a barrier of that sort of power on their own.

Just like everything else, spells had their limits.

I couldn’t hear what Browne did next. I could only see bright piercing flashes of blue and white that hurt to look at. It didn’t seem to harm the casters at all, but they stared in open-mouthed shock. Browne ran at them brandishing her own spade, and the barrier appeared to have been eliminated. At least, she was able to run right up to the casters, and they seemed too shocked to respond, because she was able to clock one in the face before they thought to move.