Oathen (49 page)

Ahm created a huge cube of steel above the
Enforcer in front of him, crushing him with it. Salvor, on Geret’s
other side, was heavily engaged with two Enforcers, one of whom had
just knocked Narjin unconscious.

“That dank little bastard’s just going to bake
us when we kill enough Enforcers to give him a shot,” Geret
muttered, hacking the last fingers off the stone hand that gripped
his leg.

Rhona looked over at him after one last slice
of her blue-bright sword, dropping another Enforcer to the growing
pile. She sheathed her magical blade in the man’s body, drew a pair
of sharp daggers from the back of her belt, and tossed one to
Geret. With her other hand, she flicked the second dagger down the
corridor.

The cultist saw her missile approaching and
used a flare of yellow lightning to blast it into a hot blob of
melted metal that splattered onto the cool stone with a hiss. His
smug chuckle was fatally interrupted by Geret’s dagger as it
pierced his eyeball. With a final gasp of surprise, he toppled
backward onto the floor; one last flicker of electricity climbed
the dagger’s hilt before fading into nothingness. His companion
cried out and ducked around the corner of the corridor.

“Shiny,” Rhona sai, reaching to retrieve her
sword.

Geret nodded.
Whatever her personal issues,
she knows how to fight.

One of the last few Enforcers in the melee had
been waiting for Rhona to lose her focus; the woman’s blade lunged
toward the pirate captain’s heart. Ruel threw himself across in
front of her, though both his feet were still gripped by stone
hands. His blade deflected the woman’s sword, but he lost his
balance, falling onto his hands.

“Ruel, you clumsy swab,” Rhona began, swinging
her blade at the woman who had nearly impaled her, and who was
trying to do so again. But the Enforcer flipped her blade in
mid-swing, stabbing it down into Ruel’s back before he could regain
his feet.

The young pirate cried out, and Rhona’s eyes
widened in outrage. She stepped forward with her one mobile leg and
drove her blade straight through the woman’s chest, twisting it so
that the fiery blue blade scorched flesh all the way around. The
woman gurgled and sagged to the floor.

“I hope you’re prepared for merciless teasing,
Ruel,” Rhona said. “What Clansman worth his swag has a scar on his
back?”

Ruel didn’t answer, slumping to the floor. A
pool of blood leaked out past his limp arm.

Rhona paled. “
Ruel?
”

An empty mug sat cooling on the wooden table, its
recently-held tea now gurgling contentedly in the man’s stomach. He
sighed and looked around. The sudden fulfillment of his life’s
purpose left him feeling a bit bereft—

A beam of light slipped through the crack
between his window shutters, and a female figure appeared beside
his tri-legged stool. With a groan, she dropped into a fetal
position, writhing.

Or not
, Curzon finished, as he saw the
rippling colors of numerous churning spells that clung to Sanych’s
form.

He flicked his fingers, shooing away the
matrices that held the magic spells together. Their colors faded
and dissipated into nothingness. Even as he bent over her, he could
feel the transmogrified energy wafting above his head, hungry to be
used again.

“Lucky you’re an Oathen. What have you gotten
into now, girl?” he asked her, exasperated.

“Help,” she murmured, still shaking from the
flight through the barrier spells that surrounded the temple. Locks
of blonde hair had come loose from her ponytail and lay plastered
to her cheeks with sweat.

“I
have
helped you. Those spells would
have killed you before long, Oathbinding or no,” he
chided.

“Help Meena,” Sanych clarified, pushing
herself into a sitting position.

Curzon crossed his arms. “Our deal is
complete.”

Sanych grimaced and got to her feet, glaring
at her teacher. “You just saved me without a former agreement in
place,” she pointed out. “My friends are dying, my Oathen is in
danger, and Oolat has kidnapped Meena! You and I both know that’s
just the start of his reign of terror. Does that sound like
something you want to sit back and let happen?”

“Well,” Curzon said, his eyes searching the
room. His fine, quiet home. His magic pocket of
happiness.

“Master Curzon,” Sanych said with a breathless
air of desperation, “if the cause of the Scions ever needed a hero,
it’s now. You know what he’ll do to Shanal, to the world, now that
he has that book, don’t you? No more quiet little cave! No more
tea, no more stamp berries, and no more Scions to gripe at. Because
they’ll all be dead!”

Curzon gulped, and his expression firmed.
“Well,” he said again, meeting the girl’s eyes. “I do have a new
theory I want to try. And there is all this energy in the room.
Yes, I think I can get away with trying a theory.”

He stepped through the curtain into his
entryway, pulling it shut behind him. Settling down into a
comfortable position, he willed his magic to perform.

A moment later, Curzon stepped back through
the curtain. “Well? What are we still doing here?”

~~~

Salvor and Rhona hacked away at the stone
fingers around Ruel’s ankles until he slipped free and slumped to
the floor. In desperation, Ahm flung up a thick metal wall between
all of them and the remaining Enforcers. It was instantly hammered
and clawed at as the craven spellcaster around the far corner
created a few dozen arms on all sides of it. Their stone talons
ripped and tore at the metal as if it were paper.

Rhona dragged Ruel back from the broken stone
limbs, careful not to disturb the serrated blade that pierced his
torso clean through. Salvor hacked at the last few fingers of his
and Geret’s restraining stone grips, scattering sharp chips and
fragments with his fiery blade. He freed the others as well,
including Narjin, who was just returning to consciousness with a
large knot on her forehead.

A quick glance behind showed a pale Rhona
stanching the wounds in Ruel’s chest and back with the lacy sleeves
she’d cut from her blouse. “You die, and I will kill you so slowly,
Ruel,” she growled, “you’ll beg me to make you that whipping boy on
that leaky garbage scow of a ship.”

The Enforcers were nearly through the metal
wall. Ahm continued to shore it up with braces and new layers, but
they were quickly set upon by more stone arms.

Salvor looked at Geret and Ahm, nodding.
“Gentlemen.”

Geret met his eyes. “This time, I get to be in
front.”

Salvor opened his mouth to protest. The very
concept of letting his prince defend him was anathema, yet he had
seen with his own eyes how Geret had survived multiple sword
strikes with barely a scratch.

Then Ahm’s metal was falling to the floor in
twisted shards as the Enforcers battered their way through. Ahm let
it dissipate and replaced it with dozens of tiny spheres, but
numerous small hands extruded from the floor and grabbed the
silvery balls, pulling them down into the stone.

Ahm formed a block of steel over the distant
spellcaster’s head, but three stone arms stretched out from the
wall and caught it before it could crush him.

More arms grasped the Scions and their
companions, clasping them tightly. Even Ruel and Rhona were
embraced and pinned to the floor. Rhona screeched in rage and
frustration as her face was pressed into her cousin’s
side.

The first Enforcer raised his sword over an
immobile Geret, who gritted his teeth in anticipation.

“Folly, you bitch!” Salvor cursed, unable to
act.

The serrated blade sliced down.

Slender beams of white light shot down the
hallway, striking the stone-arm cultist and the Enforcers in the
head. As one, they crumpled to the floor.

“Sanych!” Geret called, showing no surprise at
her presence. The diminutive spellcaster ran toward him. Curzon
trailed behind her, looking uncomfortable.

“Sanych?” Salvor blurted, still stunned at the
sudden cessation of the enemies’ attacks.

The Archivist looked dismayed at the sight of
Ruel, still and pale, trapped to the floor with Rhona clasped atop
him. “Curzon, can you help?” she asked.

“Hm? Oh, yes.” With a dismissive wave of his
hand, the stone arms dissolved into nothingness.

Rhona rose up and checked Ruel’s wounds,
swearing under her breath. Her cheek was bright red with his
blood.

“We’re going to save Meena from Oolat,” Sanych
said.

“I’m coming with you,” Geret said, picking his
old sword up again.

Ahm looked at Narjin. She tipped her head
toward the cousins. He spoke to Sanych. “I’ll come as well. Narjin
will stay with Rhona and Ruel.”

Salvor met Rhona’s eyes; he gave her an
inquiring nod.

“I’m Clan, dirtwalker,” she replied, lifting
her chin. “Go find someone who actually needs help.”

He turned to Sanych. “Whenever you’re ready,
Archivist.”

They
blinked
.

~~~

Less than a moment later, Sanych stood several
levels further underground, outside the black barrier with Geret,
Salvor, Ahm and Curzon.

“I can’t hear a thing in there,” Geret said,
trying to stare through the blackness.

“How long has it been?” Salvor
asked.

“Hardly any time at all,” Sanych
said.

“You know I can’t destroy the
Tome
,
Sanych.” Curzon’s tone was hesitant.

“Just get us inside. We’ll save Meena and deal
with Oolat,” she replied.

“Then ready yourselves,” Curzon breathed. He
turned toward the deep blackness of the barrier.

The darkness ahead of them melted away at
Curzon’s will, revealing a set of stone-and-metal doors. The group
could now hear Meena’s anguished cries from the other side, her
voice ragged and raw. Sanych’s hands flared white. She sliced the
doors from their hinges, and the others pivoted them away from the
doorway. Sanych bolted through, and the others, save Curzon, rushed
in behind her, blades and magic at the ready.

The wide oval room was dark and sinister, its
green-tinged, herbed air toying with her nose. Oolat stood at the
far left, eyes closed, arms raised overhead in a beseeching pose.
The
Dire
Tome
itself rested near the doors on a black
stone lectern, its thick pages rustling of their own
accord.

Between the book and the man was Meena. Her
wrists were manacled to the floor, and her back arched in screaming
agony at the touch of the yellow magic that swirled around her like
a miasma. The floor beneath her was slick with her own
blood.

“—
is pointless, thief,” Oolat was
saying.

“Torturing me to surrender to your spell won’t
work,” Meena said through her teeth, as she swayed under the force
of his yellow magic. “I’d rather die; it’s what I came here
for.”

Sanych stumbled to a halt as she heard Meena’s
words. Salvor and Geret bolted past her.

“You will not die. You will serve—” Oolat
began, then belatedly noticed the intruders at the far end of the
room. “You!” The yellow mist around Meena dissipated.

“‘
You’ll serve you’,” Salvor said,
running. “I’m always getting accused of being self-serving. It’s so
unfair.” He brought his fiery blue sword down toward Oolat’s
neck.

A second later, he smacked against the wall
several paces away and slid to the floor. His sword skittered
across several gemstone circles before coming to a stop near
Sanych’s feet.

Geret, wary, stopped a short distance from
Oolat; Sanych could feel him trying to suss out a plan. Oolat
raised his hands toward him, and Sanych raised her hands toward
Oolat, but Ahm formed a thick metal cube over the cult lord,
encasing him in steel.

That works too
, Sanych
thought.

While Geret ran to help Salvor, Sanych scooped
up the nobleman’s sword and ran to Meena’s side, slicing through
the manacle chain with a thin beam of light.

“Meena, we’ve got you. Let’s get out of here.”
Sanych helped her up, trying not to step in the pool of
blood.

“Take the
Tome
!” the Shanallar grated,
her pained expression relaxing as her healing began to overcome
Oolat’s damage.

The pages of the book turned of their own
accord, seemingly in response to its name. Then the room went
black. But a moment later, the pale green light of the torches
returned.

“What a rude old man he is,” Curzon griped
from the rear of the room.

Oolat’s metallic cube exploded with fervent
heat, sending hot metal fragments plinking off the walls and floor.
Many of them also landed on Sanych and the others. Geret hissed and
slapped a hot metal sliver from his arm.

Ahm slammed another cube around Oolat and
added a shielding dome.

“See here, Ahm, you’re not doing much more
than irritating the man. Come here and help me with this,” Curzon
called.