Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4 (17 page)

Now he will tell the truth. He’s too scared to face Thanar’s magic
, she thought.

Thanar stopped moving a few paces before the still boy. His wings were upraised and practically brushing the top of the canopy. And that was his mistake. Because from one second to the next Thomas went from pitiful invalid to vengeful attacker. His power surged outward so fast that Ciardis didn’t even have time to drop into mage sight to see what he was doing. Like a wave of orange, it surged outward in a giant bubble to blast them all off their feet and throw Thanar into the hanging ivy above. The branches hanging from the thick dangling canopy impaled him through his wings. With vicious twists they knitted themselves into the leathery skin. His agonized howls echoed throughout the clearing.

Stumbling up with her forearm raised in front of her and her glaive at the ready, Ciardis squinted to see.

But she should have run. Because Thomas wasn’t done yet. His features began change at a pace almost too fast to track. He was dropping the concealment spell that kept his true nature hidden. The only thing that didn’t morph was the evil in his eyes. As she watched, his eyes turned a deep, dark orange with golden slits in their center and his face elongated into the sharp features of something inhuman, with a sharp pointed chin that had a pronged goatee on it. Then horns began to emerge from his forehead, cheeks, and chin, and she knew she was dealing with something inhuman – a
kith
.

“M
ay the darkness save us,” said Thanar from where he lay tangled in the vines above them. Even through the pained expression on Thanar’s face as he twitched and tried to dislodged his wings from their painful trap without damaging them further, Ciardis could see that he recognized Thomas’s new form. As Thomas strode forward his robes split open, his boots tore, cloven hooves emerged at the base of what had once been his feet, and a tail whipped from his back.

Ciardis kept backing away but soon there was nowhere to go. Sebastian and Caemon came up on either side of her. She turned around only to see their entrance rapidly closing in a wall of green.

Just before it could completely shut, a cloaked figure leapt through the diminishing hole to land in a crouch between Caemon and Ciardis. They both jumped back while she swiftly brought her glaive down on its head. The figure turned aside at the last moment and stood up to throw back the hood of their cloak.

“Stephanie?” said Ciardis in shock.

“No, it’s the ghost of your grandmothers past,” the woman shot back sarcastically. “Of course it’s me!” She pushed back the sides of her cloak impatiently and unsheathed the two swords at her side.

Stephanie faced the inhuman creature coming for them.

“Do you know what he is?” Stephanie said with a dark gaze.

“Don’t you?” Ciardis said desperate to figure out the answer.

“It wasn’t a trick question,” Stephanie said.

Vana backed up to stand next to Stephanie so that they now stood in a row to face the creature before them. Sebastian, Ciardis, Stephanie, Vana, and Caemon faced the creature down. Thanar was still trapped above them.

“He’s a satyr,” said Vana grimly.

“What can he do?” asked Sebastian.

“They’re nature demi-gods,” replied Vana. “Blessed with an affinity to flora and all beasts. It’s said that they can control the thoughts of both animals and
kith
. Including humans.”

“I guess that’s where that mental mage ability came from,” said Caemon.

“Unfortunately. It would have been far easier to kill him if he was just a human mind mage. ”

Thomas smiled. “Time for all of you to die.”

He gathered his power in his claws. As it condensed into an orb, the color slowly changed into the dusky glow of a setting sun. As he pushed the orb outward from his chest with a mighty shrug, his muscles trembled and it became a wave of thick, noxious orange sulfur, creeping ever closer as they eased back uncertainly.

“Get out!” shouted Thanar frantically from above. He was still tussling with the vines, but his blood was dripping heavily into the grass below. If he didn’t stop soon, his wings would be ripped to shreds. But he had a point. There was nothing they could do for him, not trapped as he was.

Vana stepped forward determinedly. Stephanie stood behind her as an advance guard.

The noxious orange wave hit Vana first, despite her attempts to combat it with a protective shield. It oozed onto the shield like slime and corroded her shield’s exterior like the acidic lakes of the swamps in the far west. With a curse and a cry, she threw her knives at Thomas in a last-ditch effort to pierce his chest. With a mocking laugh, he whipped his tail out and deflected her knives with ease.

When the noxious cloud reached Vana, it poured down her throat and her body quickly grew rigid with the strain. Vana’s head jerked back of its own accord and her arms and legs snapped outward like those of a puppet on a string. She rose in midair a few inches and then landed unsteadily on the ground.

The mist had dissipated. For a second everyone in the garden was breathless. What had he done?

They soon found out.

Vana turned around and her eyes were the same creepy orbs that had greeted Ciardis when she had first seen Inga as a guest in the emperor’s ballroom. The orange rust color had taken over her pupil while the black round iris of her eye had enlarged.

“Vana?” asked Caemon.

Stephanie shifted her attention to Vana. Thomas had stopped to mockingly laugh at them anyway. Sebastian moved to stand in front of them with sword in hand and feet planted steadily as he crouched, ready to move. Gripping her glaive she took up a defensive position next to Caemon. She could feel that Sebastian wasn’t sure of which foe to target first—their friend or their enemy. And she wasn’t entirely sure, either.

In the blink of an eye, Vana ran toward them as she pulled her extra knives from their cleverly concealed thigh sheaths. Stephanie met her with her own swords raised. They met in a mighty clash of swords, knives and wills. Stephanie had the advantage with the longer reach of swords. But she had to know, as they all did, that if Vana managed to get inside her guard, she would be dead. As Stephanie tried to wound Vana by coming in low from the right, Vana jumped back with bared teeth and circled around Stephanie like prey. Vana was as swift as a gazelle on her feet. But Stephanie had a slight advantage in the fact that she didn’t have to move much while Vana circled continuously around her. The trick was keeping Vana always within her eyesight while not turning her back on the satyr. A difficult feat, but Stephanie managed it.

Soon Stephanie began weaving back and forth. Back towards the group and away from the satyr. Sebastian raised his sword and tried to go to Stephanie but something stopped him. Ciardis felt him startle so badly that she nearly twisted herself in half to see who had attacked him. Only to see no one else there.

Sebastian stood with lines of strain on his face. He wasn’t moving.

Tautly, he said, “Let me go.”

His voice was strangled. Not as if an invisible force was choking him, but as if he was fighting back the urge to disembowel someone where they stood. With anxiousness she wondered if the satyr could control a human from so far a distance away. She glanced back at Thomas. He wasn’t paying attention to their little group; instead he feasted his glutinous eyes on the combat between Vana and Stephanie.

A voice appeared from out of nowhere and whispered aloud in a low tone, “Stephanie’s trying to lure Vana away from the mind mastering satyr. As long as Vana is protecting him, we can’t get to Thomas.”

“Christian?” hissed Ciardis incredulously as she recognized the voice.

“Yes!”

“How?” said Sebastian and Ciardis incredulously.

“It doesn’t matter right now,” said Christian.

Sebastian said, “The satyr can protect himself. Stephanie is going to get us and herself killed.”

“No,” hissed Christian, “Satyrs were infamous during the wars for being lazy bastards that conned, tricked, or mind controlled others into doing their work for them. They’re horrible fighters and pretty inefficient runners, as well, despite those hooves. Or perhaps because of them.”

“So you’re saying he’s defenseless?” Ciardis said.

“As long as his protectors are taken out he is,” agreed Christian. “But we don’t have time to discuss this. Stephanie can only keep up this dance of swords and knives for so long. I can already tell she’s tiring. Sebastian, you have to free Thanar. I’ll heal him.”

“And then?” said Ciardis.

“You help Stephanie take down Vana,” whispered Christian.

She shifted warily on feet as she eyed the battling duo.
Finally, I can do something
, she thought.

“Good luck,” she whispered to Christian and Sebastian behind her.

Sprinting off towards Vana and Stephanie, she halted as a delighted expression appeared on Thomas’s face. It was good to be eager. But better to be wary. What else did the satyr have up his sleeves?

“I’m going to enjoy watching you cut to shreds, Weathervane,” he said.

She grimaced and focused on her task. But before she could take another step Stephanie faltered and Vana took the opportunity to drive her to ground. As she stumbled and fell under Vana’s charge, her swords fell to the ground by her side. Stephanie was defenseless, her pale white throat open for the kill.

And Vana didn’t hesitate as she dived down with an inhuman growl.

But before she could deliver the killing blow with her knives, Thanar dropped from the vine-covered canopy with a yell as the vines around him withered into dried husks.

He dropped straight on top of Vana. As they rolled around on the ground, tussling, each trying for the advantage of landing on top of the other, Stephanie scrambled back toward the larger group.

When she reached Ciardis, she and Caemon frantically helped haul Stephanie to her exhausted feet. Ciardis had time to wonder what had happened to Christian, but the out-and-out wrestling match between Vana and Thanar caught her attention. Thanar was at the advantage at the moment because he’d managed to get on top of Vana while holding her arms down fiercely. That didn’t mean he could keep the advantage, particularly with the pain of his torn wings clouding his mind.

After a tense few seconds had passed, Ciardis had sense enough to ask, “What the hell happened? I thought Thanar was trapped.”

“He was,” murmured Christian’s invisible voice.

Stephanie looked to the left, where the sound had come from.

And so did Thomas. He snorted through large round nostrils while his orange eyes flashed in irritation.

“Christian, take off that damn invisibility collar. I’m pretty sure the satyr knows you’re here now,” she snapped.

They heard a rustle as Christian suddenly appeared with a grim face. “It was running low on power anyway.” He tossed the brace to the side and faced the two opponents locked in a death match.

“It worked.” Ciardis said.

“Partly,” said Christian as he watched Thanar anxiously.

“Well I’d say it’s time for you little bastards to die,” snarled Thomas.

They all turned to look at the satyr. With relief, Ciardis noticed Thanar was standing triumphantly over a stunned and comatose Vana on the ground. He was shuddering in pain as he knelt over her, but he was alive, and, she hoped, so was Vana.

To Christian Ciardis said, “Go help, Thanar, we’ll need him.”

In the meantime, Ciardis felt Sebastian reaching out with his own powers to forge a stronger connection with the land. With that power he was able to put up a barrier between them and the rapidly angering satyr who released more noxious mist. But it wouldn’t last long and it wouldn’t get them out of here. She could feel his thoughts whirling around his head faster than lightning, which was how she knew he couldn’t call on more power from the land. As Sebastian assessed the gossamer layer of orange that lay just under the surface of the grass around them, she felt him realize that the satyr was somehow blocking him from reaching out for a deeper connection to the land below.

She bit the inside of her cheek. “This doesn’t look good.”

Then she noticed Christian was still with their group. “Sebastian is doing all he can, but it’s not enough, and I can’t use my powers to enhance what’s already been cut off. We need Thanar whole and well. You’re the only one who can heal him. If you need me, I can push you through the process of knitting the more grievous wounds.”

Christian narrowed his eyes as he took in the daemoni’s condition with a glance. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Sebastian asked tersely.

“I’m not just a healer, I’m a
koreschie
,” said Christian flatly.

Stephanie sucked in an astonished breath; apparently this was news to her.

Ciardis couldn’t take her eyes off of Christian.

Stumbling over her words, she said, “You can’t be. They are nothing but legends.”

More like nightmares
, she thought uncertainly. The tales of the
koreschie
, human-like
kith
with astonishing abilities, were tales that frightened everyone in the northern villages from which she hailed. They were worse than the shades of her dreams.

“A what?” said Sebastian with a furrowed brow.

Christian watched Ciardis, his eyes void of any emotion as he explained, “A
koreschie
. We may be legends to you, but my people and I are very real. We just prefer to practice our gifts in secret.”

“I don’t mean to rush this conversation,” said Stephanie, “but what exactly
are
these gifts?”

“They’re not gifts,” muttered Ciardis. The legend of the
koreschie
said that they were evil creatures that preferred to kill their victims through gruesome methods. The main myth surrounding them said that if they touched you, skin-to-skin, lesions would appear on your flesh within minutes. Large white boils filled with pus would appear across your body within hours. By the second day a fever would leave you delirious and unable to move while your flesh blistered in eruptions of pustules and emitted a foul odor. An odor that allowed them to track their victims from afar so that they could feast on the decaying flesh.