Mage's Blood (88 page)

Got you
.

Elena stole control of Coin’s body from its owner just long enough to turn Coin’s right hand into a multi-taloned claw that she drove into the Inquisitor’s chest. He stared, goggle-eyed, into her face as the claw burst through skin and sinew between his ribs to grasp the pumping muscle beneath.

She wrenched
.

The still-beating heart came out in the gore-soaked talon as the Inquisitor crumpled, disbelief and horror etched into his face as his fingers clawed for life, his eyes turning molten as he tried to seize his own heart from Coin’s hands. Coin roared inside her own head, fighting for control with renewed intensity.

This time Elena didn’t resist …

She let go and in an eye-blink was back in her own pain-racked body, staring up from the floor as Fraxis Targon blasted lightning from one flailing hand into the unshielded face of Mater-Imperia’s freakish child. The hermaphrodite’s scream vanished beneath an explosive crack of blinding light.

The Grandmaster sought his squirming heart, but missed as the gore-soaked organ slid from Coin’s hands and flopped wetly to the floor. Targon struck the ground beside it, both hands going to the hole in his chest, and Coin fell beside him, spasming and jerking, writhing like a worm in water before falling still.

The Inquisitor’s face rolled sideways, the eyes staring glassily at Elena. She smiled grimly back. A mage could survive much, but not the loss of heart or head.

Got. You. Bastard
…

Then the awareness of her own battered body kicked in, the pain a wave of fiery darkness that rolled over her and pulled her down into oblivion.

Footsteps. She lifted her head, dimly aware.
Lorenzo
…
Thank God!

He hurried to her side, bending over her, and she reached out with her gnosis to caress his familiar mind.

And encountered someone else.

No!

‘By the Kore, you live!’ the mage in Lorenzo’s body said in Rondian, looking at the ruined bodies of Fraxis Targon and Coin. He exhaled in wonder. ‘Unbelievable!’

No – not after all I’ve endured!

‘Lorenzo’ drew his dagger. It flashed silver as he stroked it, right to left, cutting her throat. She flailed weakly, staring at the gushing blood that was spraying over his chest and face as he held her down. Her hands flew to her neck as her legs spasmed, her hips jerking uncontrollably, her mind screaming <
Cera – Cera!
>

‘Elena Anborn,’ laughed ‘Lorenzo’ cruelly, ‘you were so close and yet so wrong.’ He caressed her cheek. ‘We were waiting for your lover as he rode back from the Krak, Gurvon and I. Can you guess who I am?’ He laughed and opened his mouth, and the head of a necromantic scarab bulged from his mouth and vanished inside again. ‘Yes, it is I: Rutt Sordell.’

She threw all that remained to her into trying to stem the flow of blood from her open throat, to sucking air through the severed windpipe, but Sordell laughed and jerked her hands away from the wound, spraying fresh blood as she wheezed and bubbled her last breath away. ‘No, no healing allowed. It’s time to die, Ella. I’m sick of playing second fiddle to you. Gurvon made you his number two by dint of your whoring, but I was always the better mage.’

<
Gurvon!
>

‘No you don’t!’ Sordell scowled, his presence lending a hideous malice to Lorenzo’s face. ‘You’re not going to get the chance to beg his mercy. He’s going to find you dead, with no regrets.’

He wiped his blade on her thigh, stood up and stomped his foot down into her belly, and her healing-gnosis fell apart in another burst of pain.

‘Farewell, Elena. You can die now.’

Norostein, Noros, on the continent of Yuros
Junesse 928
1 month until the Moontide

Alaron bellowed in fright as Muhren lurched out of the torrent of fire, his shields flickering, Ramon convulsing in his arms. Langstrit raised his hands and shouted, and chains of emerald light flared around him, then shattered with a deafening roar that any mage would have felt ten miles away. Alaron staggered from the force of it, but he stumbled forward to try and reach Ramon, Cym beside him. Muhren sealed off the hatch with a warding of blue light, even as it started to shake from the blasts striking it.

Cym pulled Ramon, choking for breath, from Muhren’s arms and shouted at him to lie still, to
just hold on
. Alaron offered up his own gnosis-energy to Cym, to to aid her healing-gnosis, trying to let his power flow cleanly. Desperation lent him clarity, and he cradled Ramon, trying not to gag on the seared meat smell as he stared at
the feathered bolt jutting from his best friend’s belly, and the charred skin around it.
Breathe, Ramon, just breathe
. He felt Ramon convulsing faintly, his heartbeat erratic.

Muhren stood over them, straining to keep his barrier on the hatch intact. The pulsing light and flaring about the warding showed the forces he was fighting, but his strength was buying them precious seconds. Jarius Langstrit eased Alaron to one side. ‘Lad, let me.’ The old man gently laid Ramon on the stone and raised his hands, which began to drip pearls of liquid energy: Ascendant power, unchained: he’d broken from the Chain-rune that bound him. The bloody crossbow bolt disintegrated and liquid light poured into the wounds, soothing the seared skin. At last Ramon went limp, groaning, and Langstrit cocooned him in a web of gnosis, shields and wards.

The general turned to Alaron. ‘Lad, we have to go.’

‘Ramon’s still alive – we have to take him!’

Langstrit’s gaze was patient, despite the urgency. Behind him, Muhren was pulling Cym to her feet, his eyes on the warded hatch. ‘You can’t help him now. He will live, if he suffers no further harm, but I can do no more. But he cannot be moved, and we must go, or Vult will have us all. You can stay if you want, or you can come with us and fight. I’m sorry.’

Alaron flinched from that intense stare, looked helplessly at Ramon. ‘But we can’t leave him for Vult—’

‘If we all move, Vult will follow us. If we triumph, we will return for him. But if even one of us stays, both will be taken.’

‘My father said that you would never leave a wounded man on the field!’

Langstrit winced. ‘That’s just ballads and poetry, boy. In war, all choices are evil.’

Above them the ground shook and dust and small pebbles fell from the ceiling. ‘Sir, we
must
go,’ Muhren shouted from beneath the hatch. His voice was strained as his hands wove new shields. Coruscating light boiled above, casting garish hues about the cellar. ‘There are at least four magi up there.’

Cym grasped his hand. ‘Alaron,
come on
.’ Her face was as hard as diamonds. ‘Ramon is out. Are you with us or not?’

He snatched his hand away, feeling torn in two.
A true hero would know what to do: he would stay with his friend, if that was right
–
or he would see out this quest to the bitter end, if that was right. But he would
know. ‘I don’t know—’ he started.

‘
Rukka mio
, Alaron –
decide
,’ Cym shouted.

The floor shook again and Muhren cried out. Langstrit put a hand on Cym and Alaron’s shoulders. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to use Earth-gnosis to get out of here. I’ll draw Vult away to the south – he’ll believe that I’m making a break for where I’ve hidden the Scytale, and he’ll follow. You two stay with Jens and retrieve the Scytale. We’ll meet in Bossis next week, at the Blackwater Chapel. Don’t wait longer than a week, understood?’

Cym nodded, her eyes boring into Alaron. ‘Yes!’ she snapped, then to Alaron, ‘Let’s go!’

Alaron looked at the cocoons of light about Ramon and then met her ferocious gaze. ‘Okay,’ he said at last.

Langstrit looked at him sympathetically. ‘Go with Jens. Farewell!’

Then his face hardened and he gathered his powers. The air about him swirled until he was at the eye of a tiny storm. He looked at Muhren and grinned, then thrust his left hand upwards and his right hand sideways. A concussive force flew from either hand and the general drove upwards, soaring through the earth as if it were paper. The burst of energy as the ground ripped dizzied them, and they heard the screams of at least three men. Then the general was gone, his presence receding in a blaze of gnosis like a comet.

Muhren pointed to the northern wall, where Langstrit’s right hand had blasted a hole into another chamber beyond, and cried, ‘This way – come on!’

Cym gripped Alaron’s hand and yanked him after her, but he looked back at Ramon and whispered a prayer, he had no idea to whom:
Be safe. Be safe. Please, be safe
.

Muhren closed the hole behind them with a pained effort, in stark contrast to the Ascendant general’s effortless explosion of might. He
might be a Hero of the Revolt, but he was only a half-blood –
And we’re probably going up against pure-bloods
, Alaron thought fearfully.

Gnosis-light glowed in Muhren’s left hand, illuminating the chamber: a small cellar full of broken barrels, generously festooned with spider-webs. The captain spotted stairs in the corner and stormed up them. He burst the locks of the door at the top and they followed him into the house, ignoring the frightened cries of the owners as they thundered out the back door and into a yard.

Muhren spoke into their minds as they vaulted the low fence and sprinted down an alleyway. <
Vult won’t have too many with him, because he won’t want to share the prize. Let’s hope they all went after Jari. Come on!
>

Movement drew his eye and Alaron glanced over his shoulder, but it was gone before he could react. They ran down another alley and into a small square lit by the half-moon, their feet thudding on the cobbles as they flew across the open space. Then a crossbow sounded, and a bolt flew past Cym’s shoulder. Muhren threw a gnosis-bolt down the alley behind them and was rewarded with a shriek. He pointed towards a street opposite and cried, ‘Run!’

They ran.

When Norostein Council extended the reservoir at the western end of Lake Tucerle, they botched the job – or deliberately got it wrong, depending upon who you believed. One spring morning in 887, seventy rickety buildings on the northwest tip of the lake were swept away when the flood-banks gave way under the first flush of the thaw through the newest aqueduct. More than two hundred people lost their lives. An error in the peak-flow calculations was blamed, though the engineers were not fired, nor even reprimanded. It was just coincidence that the council had tried to evict those same tenants and had been blocked by the courts. Despite the rumours of conspiracy, the council finally had their extended reservoir, and new flood-banks were established to contain it. When the water was particularly clear, anyone standing on those flood-banks could see the decaying buildings below.

Alaron and Cym ran, panting, to the edge of the lake and almost collapsed. Their gasping breaths rose like clouds. Muhren joined them, far less distressed by the mile-long run. They had paused only once, when they ran into a Watch patrol, but Muhren had sent them off with a cock-and-bull story about robbers in Old Town.

Now the tenth bell of night chimed through the city. The half-moon was westering, its face beginning to turn pink, and the eastern sky was softening towards dawn. The flood-bank was capped by a promenade, complete with a bronze statue of Jarius Langstrit himself, posed as he’d been in the Revolt: shouting orders whilst pointing with his sword.

Cym patted it as if for luck. ‘Is this where we go in?’ she asked, peering at the black water. It radiated cold. Her face was all fierce purpose and she frightened Alaron right now; her almost callous dismissal of Ramon’s plight bothered him.
Only the prize matters to her now
.

‘It is as good a place as any,’ Muhren replied, looking up at the statue of Langstrit. Alaron wondered if the general still lived. He was an Ascendant, but he was old and outnumbered.

Cym touched Muhren’s arm: shadowy shapes as large as ponies had emerged from the alleys, dark things that reflected the moonlight as they stalked across the green towards them. Alaron gulped as their forms became clear.

There were five of them, moving with jerks and bounds. They were shaped like hounds, but with carapaced bodies, each with six legs. The heads seemed to be pure insect, except for the inches-long teeth in their maws. Instead of tails, some kind of stinger rose from their hindquarters and swayed like bobbing bulbs above their heads. The head of each was about chest-height. They had probably three times the bulk of a man.

‘Constructs,’ Muhren cursed, and Alaron scowled; animagus constructs were warped products of nature and you couldn’t banish them as you could a spirit. You had to kill them. ‘Fyrell’s work, I warrant,’ Muhren added, edging his blade with gnosis-light. ‘Get behind me.’

One had advanced much faster than the rest and Muhren strode forward to meet it. It emitted a shrieking sound, and the rest responded by surging into an awkward gait, rearing up so that their forelegs – long, jointed limbs with sharp, raking claws – were free to attack.

Alaron and Cym shivered and she whispered a prayer.

‘Go, you two,’ yelled Muhren, blurring into motion, ‘go – now!’

Alaron‘s jaw dropped as the watchman thrust out a hand and a curtain of fire rippled across the wet turf and engulfed the charging creatures. For a moment he thought it might have stopped them as two went down in the blaze, emitting a high-pitched squeal that tore at his eardrums, but one had managed to leap the fiery barrier and now it skidded towards them on the wet turf. It snapped at Muhren, but his form blurred with the shadows. The construct’s mandibles clashed on empty air and it wrenched its head about in frustrated fury. Then it spied Alaron and its eyes lit up.