Sorceress of Faith (58 page)

Shuddering,
she took a few seconds to scan the battleground. Most of the Scholars had fled
after Jaquar, who was organizing them. Several Circlets stood ready before him.

To
her surprise, Chalmon and Venetria had joined Bossgond. A ragged Song rose from
the three as they struggled to work as a unit, fighting a dreeth. Venetria used
her staff to coat the creature’s wings with ice, and it crashed. Bossgond and
Chalmon shot a thick sizzling stream into it, firing it.

Chevaliers
fought on foot or volaranback. Some had fallen, but their bravery and skill in
facing the monsters and dispatching them impressed Marian.

The
Marshalls were awesome to see—targeting a dreeth or a specific group of
horrors, swooping down, and dispatching them. Not one Marshall—Sword or
Shield—appeared to have a scratch.

Marian
limped to the Tower where Jaquar was forming the Scholars and Circlets into a
defensive semicircle. She couldn’t see Andrew but sensed he was behind the
line.

As
she walked, she swung her wand like a weapon, shooting fire at the
horrors—cutting two soul-suckers in half, setting a render afire. She learned
not to shut her eyes as the fire hit, not to flinch as death claimed a beast.
Her left foot that the sangvile had leeched onto was numb and dragging behind
her, slowing her.

A
scream of pain split the air above her. Marian looked up to see a small dreeth
flame a rider and volaran. The rider fell and hit the ground two feet from
Marian with a sickening
thud
. Marian pivoted, struggled to keep her
balance.

It
was Perlee.

“Nooo!”
an anguished man shouted in her ear. Koz jumped from his own volaran, flung
himself at Perlee, lifted her.

She
was dead.

“No,”
he whispered, rocking her. “It can’t be. This can’t be right. This isn’t fair.”

Even
Marian knew that life was rarely fair, and war never was, and this was her
first battle. She swallowed hard, averted her gaze from the burned and broken
Perlee. Setting a hand on Koz’s large, trembling shoulder, she cried, “Come.”

So
many monsters. How could they all have appeared? A black death ray straight
from the maw to here.

She
shivered, pulled on Koz’s arm. “Come! We aren’t safe here.”

He
lifted a pale face, blind eyes staring. “She’s my Pairling, we’re bonded. She
can’t die. Not without me. She can’t go away without me. She can’t abandon me.”
It was a chant of his own. A chant rejecting death. A futile Song.

Thudding
footfalls approached. Pascal, the head of Alexa’s Chevaliers, stopped near
them. “Perlee’s gone, Koz. We have a fight to finish.” His words were harsher
than his tone. “Come along.”

Koz
did nothing.

Pascal
stooped and pulled Perlee’s sword from her loose fingers. To Marian’s horror,
he yanked Perlee from Koz’s grasp, lifted her sword and plunged it into her
body, through it, into the ground. Marian choked.

Perlee’s
body sank into the ground until all that showed was a depression of darker
green grass, and her sword stood upright like a gravestone.

Koz
roared in despair and swung at Pascal, who ducked, grabbed the man’s arm and
snapped, “Let’s go. Horrors are advancing. Protect the Exotique!”

Looking
down at her with dull eyes, Koz moved between her and a group of monsters
rampaging toward them.

Adrenaline
shooting through her, Marian ran haltingly toward the Tower, the men at her
back. She plunged through the defensive line a moment before the horrors caught
up with them.

The
men joined the ranks and turned and fought. Jaquar stepped up with them as the
beasts hit the line.

The
battle had come to the Tower.

Jaquar,
Pascal and Koz cut down the first wave of six—three renders, a soul-sucker and
two slayers.

As
a slayer died, it flung its spines into the defenders. A female scholar fell.

So
did Andrew.

Marian
screamed, her cry resounding off the black stones of the Tower. She rushed to
his side, found the yellow spine sticking out of his shoulder. Without thought
she grabbed it—acid seared her palm. Pain scoured her. She kept her gaze locked
on Andrew.

His
face was pale, beaded with sweat. He tried to smile. “Guess…I’ve…had…it. Not
much of an…adventure.”

“Nooo!”
she moaned.

Jaquar
was there. “The jerir, do you have it?”

Marian
stared at him.

“The
jerir!” he repeated.

She
fumbled in her pocket where she’d put the bottle, dug it out. He ripped it from
her hand, unstoppered it and poured it into Andrew’s wound, then found the
energy stone in Andrew’s pocket and set it atop the injury.

Andrew
jerked in her arms. She thought she saw his soul rise from his body. “No!” she
cried. “Stay, stay with me.”

With
her own strong Song, Powered by physical and emotional pain, she encased him,
drew him close. Held him. His soul hovered, then slipped halfway back into him.

Jaquar
grabbed her hurt hand, took a vial from his pocket and upended fiery liquid
over her palm and fingers. Her vision darkened. She fought it back.

Battle
cries and roars came from the line. She turned her head to the protective rank
of Circlets fighting. She saw Marshalls—Alexa and Bastien—zooming down on the
monsters from behind.

Two
Circlets fell. Then a render’s powerful swipe hit Koz, swept him off balance,
and his head hit the stone wall.

As
Marian watched, the battle moved to the Tower, with all the monsters attacking,
then the Marshalls and Chevaliers cut the horrors to shreds.

A
shout of triumph rose. Soon all the survivors entered the Tower, which had
become a hospital zone.

Marian
stayed with Andrew, who struggled for life, laboring to breathe. She didn’t let
go of his Song, kept re-weaving the bond between them.

The
two Castle Medicas who had helped Summon Andrew and Marian arranged the wounded
around them, used their Power to heal. The Marshalls had consulted with the
Medicas regarding Andrew, and Marian hated that he’d heard their whispered conclusion.
He was an Exotique, too unknown and frail to be healed by a Marshalls’ Circle.
They could not help.

Would
not help.

The
Marshalls Healing Circle dealt only with the worst Chevalier casualties, slowly
and steadily. They fought death and won.

Nor
would the Marshalls help Koz. The Medicas frowned over the Chevalier. “He has a
concussion. We have healed it, yet he does not respond.” They shook their heads
over him, then went on to other wounded.

The
Scholars and Circlets had set up a Healing Circle, too, under Chalmon’s
direction, with Bossgond a part of it. Marian could sense from where she sat
that the Circle wasn’t as strong or as steady as the Marshalls’. Not as well
practiced.

Something
she’d definitely remedy in the future…

She
didn’t want to think of a future without Andrew. Had never wanted to imagine a
life without her brother. She wasn’t ready for his death so soon after the
triumph of arriving in Lladrana.

Jaquar
stayed with her, sitting beside her but not touching, keeping a low Song of
comfort running between them. Now and then he would leave to join the Healing
Circle. She missed him, then. He was only across the floor from her, but she
missed him.

She
prayed. The day crept by with agonizing slowness.

Finally
Andrew’s breath rattled in his chest. His eyes opened and his gaze fixed on
hers.

Marian
, he whispered
in her mind.

She
jerked, her fingers tightening on his hand.

Andrew
. She infused
her mental voice with all the love she felt for him.
I’m sorry
—

No!
I’m not
.
He managed a smile.
An adventure. Live, Marian. Live large
.

Andrew
—

No,
listen to me
.
A hoarse sound that might have been the beginning of a chuckle escaped his
lips.
Look, I have learned something new today. To mind-speak. Listen to me
.

He
rolled his eyes toward Koz, who moaned. Medicas gathered around him.
I want
his body
.

36

S
he flinched in
shock.
No!

Andrew
projected mentally,
I learned something else today, too. I can see souls.
His is leaving. He doesn’t want his body. He is abandoning it, following his
lady into death.

No!

Yes.
He is not fighting to survive, to live like we have. Like I am.

Andrew
was right. She and Andrew had always struggled—against their mother—to live as
individuals. Andrew had fought to live with his condition, sometimes from
moment to moment, as he fought to live now.

Koz
surrendered to death. His mind did not want to overcome the shock of his head
injury because he was devastated by the loss of his Pairling. Even now, as life
drained from his eyes, his etheric self, his soul, began to rise and separate
from his body.

It
is a big, strong, virile body, and I want it.

“No.”
But she whispered.

Yes.
Come on, sis. You and I have read enough science fiction and fantasy, enough
philosophy, watched enough flicks to know it can be done!

A
bubble of sheer incredulity caught in her throat.
I can’t
—

You
can! You have great Power here. You have friends and allies and people bonded
and indebted to you who will help. This is no time to lack faith in yourself!

But
deep inside something gibbered insidiously,
I can’t
.

You
must! Look, his spirit is leaving, and you have me. You’ll get all of me. Put
me inside his body!

She
had no time to prepare, no knowledge of how to do this thing. If it
could
be done. She wanted to deny that she could help. But Koz and Andrew were both
in the arms of death. With luck she could save one.
Andrew
.

Linking
Andrew’s limp hand with Koz’s, she put her hands around the men’s joined
fingers, felt the last pulsing energy of them both. She sensed how Koz was
bound to the tiny echo of Perlee’s Song and yearned to follow. Sensed how
Andrew craved to live. As she balanced the rhythmic Songs of them, sweat slid
down her face, her back, and her own true melody wavered.

Someone’s
hands curved over her shoulders. Jaquar. She should not be able to bear it, but
he sent her strength and she used it. A gray form lifted from Koz, sped to
where another shade—Perlee?—hovered. They merged and vanished. Pain speared
Marian’s head, her vision narrowed to Andrew’s face. She gulped breaths but
found no air.

Jaquar’s
grip dug into her shoulders. He was a rock she leaned on.

The
Medicas drew back from Koz’s body.

“No!
Stay!” Marian commanded. She forced her hand to drop Andrew’s limp fingers. “I
have my brother and he wants to live. He will take this body. Keep it alive!”

They
stared at her. One rubbed his forehead. “I have never seen a soul transfer. I
don’t know how it’s done.”

Marian
didn’t, either. She lifted her chin, kept Andrew close, wrapped tight in her
love. With a thick tongue, she said, “I am a Sorceress, a Circlet of the Fifth
Degree, I
will
do this.”

Enthralled,
the three Medicas stared at her. The leader nodded decisively. “We will keep
the body alive.”

She
glanced at Andrew. The minute thread of life connecting his soul broke. There
was a
snap
, an inner snap of Andrew separating from his body. The full
weight of him, his will, his soul, his character, his personality fell on her
and they spun into blackness, unconsciousness threatened. She gritted her
teeth, but barely felt the action. Shoulders hunched, she fell forward.

Send
me in, Marian, please, please, please
, begged Andrew, like the child he’d
been once.

She
couldn’t deny him then, and couldn’t deny him now.

Wearily,
lifting Andrew’s being like a weight too heavy to be borne, she fumbled for
Koz’s hand, sensed the emptiness of his shell, knew the shape of all the
crannies and caverns of him.

Someone
moaned—was it her? Straining, she poured Andrew’s essence into the body, tucked
him in as if into a bed. The body jerked, ripping Andrew and Koz’s hand from
her slippery grasp. She grabbed, but missed him.

Bossgond
was there, his hand linked to her right. Jaquar was on her other side, his
fingers encompassing her left hand. And they were connected to all the Circlets
on the field. Chalmon and Venetria poured energy into her.
Everyone
gave
her support. Power trickled into her from unrecognized sources.