King's Folly (Book 2) (44 page)

“Behind you!” Isiilde screamed.

Marsais stepped aside with unnatural speed. A curved sword met air. There was no time for weaving. The Ardmoor had caught him by surprise. Too close, with nowhere to run, Marsais drove his bony shoulder into the thick warrior.

The two men went down, and the barbarian came out on top, driving the haft of his axe into Marsais’ face. The seer’s head snapped back, and the Ardmoor pressed the attack, raising the blade to strike again. Forgoing her fire in the slush, Isiilde wove a bolt, hurling it at the barbarian’s face. The blow hit him square, blinding and searing, and knocking his axe from numb fingertips.

Marsais choked out a half-formed weave as the rest of the Ardmoor converged, but it was sloppy and incomplete. The unraveling was violent. Raw energy rebounded in the air, booming from Marsais like thunder. Ardmoor and Lome were thrown into the air and the impact washed over Isiilde, plucking her from the earth.

The edge of a rock stopped her flight. Head pounding, vision dancing, she struggled to regain her senses. She was slipping. Instinct screamed. She clawed at the snow, at the ice, and the rough rock underneath. Her boot caught a slippery wedge and she clung to the side, afraid to move as the battle raged on the mountainside.

A chant rose in the air, coins chimed, and a blast of energy shot from high ground, blasting Marsais as he struggled to stand. He crumpled into the snow. Paladins charged with steel and shields, and Lome fled, risking Ardmoor and Reapers for the cover of trees.

The nymph could not feel her Bonded, only a dark cold pit. She summoned the Lore, tempting death, tracing with a trembling hand as she slipped. Her levitation weave caught, pushed her upwards, and she scrambled forward, slipping and sliding on ice towards Marsais.

A rush of bodies clashed, wild men and furred defenders. A hand gripped her arm, and yanked her upright. Instead of chalky flesh, her eyes met a golden sunburst. Rivan pushed her behind him, catching a spear on his armored ribs. He chopped his sword, and sliced the haft, ramming the edge of his shield against the barbarian’s thigh. Captain Mael leapt to his side, fighting an onslaught of Ardmoor.

Lucas stood over Marsais, defending the fallen seer. Isiilde scrambled over to her Bonded’s side. He was breathing and stirring and trying to rise.

A savage roar crushed the carnage of sound. Cold wind battered their faces, and ice swirled to life. A massive, dark shape swooped down from the falls, tearing into the knot of fighters with a monstrous growl. Jaws descended, Isiilde screamed, and a maw of teeth clamped down on a painted warrior, devouring him in three crunching gulps.

A wyvern.

Marsais pulled her onto the trampled snow as the beast raged over their heads. Clawed feet pounded the earth beside their cowering bodies, and a whipping tail impaled a Lome warrior.

An answering roar challenged the wyvern. The monster twisted and lunged at the charging berserker. Oenghus met the beast with hammer and shield and crackling energy, pounding the wyvern’s snout to the side with a bone-splitting strike.

Marsais pulled Isiilde along as they slithered from beneath the beast, emerging near the tree lined slope. He turned, fingers weaving, thrusting out his arms. Searing white light blasted the creature’s side. The wyvern arched its neck and bellowed, lashing its tail to crush the pest. Marsais ducked beneath barbed death, and Isiilde scrambled forward, taking cover behind a tree.

All was chaos, all was death; Ardmoor and paladins fought, and Reapers waited in shadows.

The wyvern lunged at the hammer-wielding flea. Oenghus caught the jaws on his shield, but the force sent him reeling, pushing against a rock face and chomping jaws. His hammer battered the beast’s skull, but fangs continued to gnash. Marsais sent another searing stream of heat burning into the creature’s side, but the attack only angered it. Oenghus’ shield crumpled, crashing into splintered wood and steel. He swung his hammer against the wyvern’s nose, but it persisted, pinning him to the rock, forcing him to abandon his weapon. He gripped the beast’s chomping jaws. Man and wyvern struggled against unyielding strength.

A sound caught the nymph’s attention. Nearby in the trees, on the snowy slope, stood a cowled, chanting figure. Coins chimed, Marsais spun, throwing up a Barrier. He caught the weave with deft hands and hurled it back at the sender. The robed figure stepped to the side, and an Ardmoor blind-sided the seer, ramming him against a tree.

Bluish energy crackled from the robed figure’s fingers, illuminating the copper-hued visage of N’Jalss. The charge slammed into the combatants, charring the Ardmoor, and Marsais pushed the heavy man to the side.

Isiilde scrambled to her feet, climbing the slope, using the trees as cover, moving swiftly over the slush towards N’Jalss.

A clash of power crackled between the Wise Ones, of shifting runes and ill effects, shredding the nearby trees with force. Isiilde’s fingers flashed, mixing earth and stone and fiery death. With a final breath, she hurled a bind at the Rahuatl. A wave of molten stone flew through the air. He gestured sharply, deflecting the weave. It slammed into the mountainside. And he countered with one of his own.

The weave worked its way past her lips and crawled down her throat, paralyzing her tongue. Before Isiilde could react, an arm caught her up, carrying her swiftly through the trees. She struggled against the Ardmoor’s strength. Marsais raced in her wake. An ethereal hand appeared in front of N’Jalss, knocking him off his feet with a bone crunching blow. But the Rahuatl had a shield of his own, and he recovered, sending a weave spiraling at Marsais’ feet. Ice erupted from the earth, as sharp and lethal as spears.

The Ardmoor ran towards a near naked woman covered in scars. She raised a curved dagger, finished her ritual with a twisting word and slashed the neck of a captive. Blood spilled into the snow. An inky window opened over the body.

“No!” Marsais’ shout was the last she heard. He thrust out his hand, a moment before the Ardmoor dove into the Blood Portal. A tingling sensation sped down Isiilde’s throat.

The world went silent, and still. But the hands on her were real. The Ardmoor dropped her onto solid stone. A figure stepped into view, and the last thing she saw was the snarling mask of N’Jalss, followed by a fist.

THE
PORTAL
SNAPPED
shut. Marsais blinked at the empty space. Chaos reigned, and its winged manifestation thrashed, trying to dislodge Oenghus, who had its jaws locked shut with bulging arms. He could not risk letting go.

Marsais sent another bolt ricocheting into the Ardmoor, dropping eight men, leaving a trail of seared flesh, before the energy slammed into the scaled monstrosity. The wyvern’s tail slashed, felling trees and ice with a thunderous smack. It reared, ripping the Nuthaanian off the ground. Oenghus held fast. The wyvern rammed its unwanted rider into the rocks. And Oenghus’ grip loosened. He fell to the snow, utterly exposed. As the wyvern tensed for the kill, Oenghus twisted, driving his fist into the stone cliff with a word.

The mountain shifted, snow slid, and Nature descended on their heads.

With rumbling irritation, the world cracked, and Oenghus threw himself to the side, as an avalanche tumbled down the mountain, burying the beast. But he continued to slide, clawing at the ice.

The Nuthaanian disappeared over the edge.

Silence throbbed in Marsais’ ears. He rushed to the edge, weaving with trembling fingers. He slid to a stop on his stomach, hanging over the edge of nothingness. And breathed with relief when he caught sight of the battered Nuthaanian dangling from a ledge over mist and air.

The ice cracked, Oenghus looked up at his old friend. “Find her.” A heartbeat later the cliff side gave way. The giant plummeted, and then stopped, as the seer plucked him from the air with a levitation weave.

The ancients grinned at each other. And the rock exploded.

A bloodied, burnt, and angry wyvern rose from the rubble, shaking loose the churned earth with a warning roar. A wave of stone pelted the seer, his concentration wavered, his hold slipped. The Nuthaanian disappeared beneath the mists.

A
WINGED
MONSTROSITY
hatched from the snow. Acacia Mael plunged her sword through her surprised opponent’s gut, and spun him around, putting the giant between her and the wyvern. Bloodied, burnt, and enraged, the wyvern snatched the Ardmoor off her blade like meat from the bone. Wings beat, stirring a blizzard to life, as it leapt into the air with its prize.

Acacia exhaled, scanning the remains of the battlefield.

A knot of Lome continued to fight, battling the last of the Ardmoor who had not taken flight. Lucas was in the thick of pushing them down the trail. Her eyes fell on Rivan who rushed to the edge of the cliff with Elam on his heels. They began digging in the snow and stone.

Acacia staggered over, in time to see a slash of darkness on white. The seer. A gash marred his noble brow. Grey eyes rolled with confusion and pain. Together they dug him out. Marsais was broken and bleeding and Acacia gripped his shoulders.

“Where is your nymph?”

“Who?” he rasped, fighting to rise.

“Isiilde. Where is Isiilde?”

“Gone. All gone.”

“And Oenghus?”

At this he laughed, a maniacal, spine-crawling sound. “I won,” he wheezed. “I won the wager.” Laughter turned to silent tears as he gazed at the falls.

The three pulled him to his feet, and the rangy seer swayed like wheat in the wind.

She gripped his head in her gauntleted hands and caught his darting eyes with her own. “Where is Isiilde, Marsais?”

“Who are you?”

Acacia grit her teeth. “Where is
your
nymph?”

“Nymph?”

The paladin shook the seer, but instead of shaking loose memory, she shook out the last of his strength. Marsais’ knees buckled.

With a curse, Acacia ripped off her gauntlet, unlaced his jerkin, and slipped her dagger from its sheath. “Light, Rivan.”

The paladin chanted a prayer, bathing the seer in warmth. Rivan turned him onto his side, and she probed the arrow wound on his shoulder, around the broken shaft. Moving with skill, she slipped her knife into the muscle and freed the arrowhead from its nest. Marsais groaned.

Acacia placed her hand on his chest, over his scar, bowed her head and prayed to the Sylph. Warmth spread from her heart, to her palm, and into the unconscious ancient. She inhaled sharply, sensing the vastness of Marsais’ spirit and the maze that was his mind. She lurched forward, dizzy and reeling in confusion, before scrambling back to her own body for safety. The Knight Captain tore her hand away from the ancient’s flesh, and fell back into the snow, staring at the madman in shock.

The blood gushing from Marsais’ brow dried, and his breathing evened.

When she raised her eyes, Elam was gesturing towards the wreckage of fallen trees. The boy rattled on in a language she could not comprehend, but the Knight Captain of the Blessed Order had children, and she had played this game before.

The boy drew a knife from Rivan’s belt, held it aloft, poised grandly over his head, and plunged it into a nonexistent form. He gestured at the blood staining the snow. And then drew a circle, mimed two big ears, and pretended to dive into the circle.

“A Blood Portal,” Rivan guessed with a snap of fingers. It had been on the tip of Acacia’s tongue. Rivan beamed with triumph, and then his own words sunk in. “Oh.”

“And Oenghus?” she asked.

Elam’s lip quivered. He pointed down.

“Are you fit, Rivan?”

The young man nodded. “Thanks to Marsais’ armor weave.”

Acacia glanced at the white-haired man at her feet. Another wave of dizziness rushed over her, and she shoved the memory of Marsais’ spirit aside.

“You’re hurt, Captain.”

She shook her head, slung her shield over a shoulder, and bent to hoist the lanky seer to his feet. Rivan hurried to help.

“They’ll be back, Captain!” Lucas shouted as the last invader’s head dropped at his feet. She nodded, and between the two of them, they dragged the seer down the treacherous path with a knot of surviving Lome carrying their own wounded.

Lucas limped and bled from more gashes than she cared to count. When they joined him, he said, “The Ardmoor scattered when the wyvern came, but there’s plenty left, and as long as the Ethervenom is running through their veins, they’ll be back.”

“Did you see a Bloodmagus?”

Lucas shook his head, and they joined the remaining Lome.

“Where is the nymph and Oenghus?” Lucas’ voice was quiet, as he scanned the path ahead.

“I lost sight of them in the battle. According to Elam, she was taken through a Blood Portal, and as for Oenghus—I fear he fell.”

“Oenghus said the seer knew of the attack. Why the Void did he wait?”

“Would you have preferred meeting this army on open ground—after escaping from the Lome?”

Scarred lips twisted downwards. “You have a point, but he could have warned us.”

“Remember his explanation. If he prepared us for the attack, then everything would have changed.”

“That doesn’t make a lick of sense,” Rivan pointed out.

“That’s because he’s a fool.”

Acacia stopped, fixing a severe eye on her lieutenant. “Marsais may be mad and broken, but he’s no fool—trust me.”

The tone of her voice silenced his retort.

“But how did the Ardmoor track us?” Rivan asked. “We don’t even know where we are.”

“A traitor,” Lucas growled.

Acacia frowned, turning over possibilities. A traitor in the tribe was certainly a possibility. What of Kasja? Strangely absent on the day of the attack. Marsais’ words swirled in her head, shifting like the pile of stone runes. He had clarified nothing, only sowed confusion, and headaches.

“A traitor, or a scryer,” she realized aloud.

“What is that?” Rivan asked.

“Seers, soothsayers, and oracles,” Acacia explained.

“Nothing more than raving madmen,” Lucas spat.

“Not all of them, Lucas. Wars have been lost because of a scryer’s sight.”