The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (20 page)

“What do you want the
Librette
for?”

Success; her demanding tone diverted Zalski from incantations. A pandemonium of clashing metal, of cries, grunts, pressed so hard against Kora she found it hard to think. She let her shell vanish, and Zalski took a step toward her, his ice blue eyes piercing, so that she felt their gaze shoot through her, but she stood firm.

“You admit you know of my search?”

“Your guards were missing a book after our raid, no?”

“What I wonder,” said Zalski, “is how the League wound up in Podrar so soon afterward. Either you have the spellbook yourselves, or you gave up the hunt.”

“Why do you want the
Librette
?” Kora repeated.

“I should have thought that obvious.”

Zalski moved his eyes to Bendelof. Kora had no idea what spell he cast at her; the sound of her own voice crying “
Adarg Reflayha
” drowned his. A jet of purple light shot at the redhead, struck a magic silver shield, and bounced back to hit one of Neslan and Lanokas’s three guards, who fell over as the ray of energy stretched to bind him. At the same time, another guard stabbed Neslan through the shoulder, into the chest, then swung at Lanokas. Neslan stumbled and fell; the prince could not aid him. He was occupied with two assailants, one of whom held a sword now dripping Neslan’s blood.

At the foot of the road a few yards away, Kansten and Bennie battled the League’s last uniformed male opponent. Repelling Kansten’s attempt to block him with her sword, dodging Kora’s shield, he brought the flat of his blade down on Bennie’s head. The girl tumbled not to rise, though the shield vanished and her dagger flew up with a word from Kora to plunge itself in the guardsman’s stomach. Kansten stabbed him in the side simultaneously.

“
Estatua
!” Kora cried at Zalski. He conjured a triangular black shield, remained sentient.

“That can’t be all Laskenay taught you.” The sorcerer made a cloud of dust pop at Kora’s feet, then pebbles throw themselves at her. She evoked her shell once more.

The battle had become a set of private duels. Lanokas and Kansten fought the two remaining guardsmen; Sedder and Malzin battled with an intensity unmatched by other pairs. Thank God Sedder had always loved swordplay! Zalski, his shield gaining him time, glanced from his encased opponent to the young man who dared cross swords with the head of his elite guard. With his wife. Then he looked at Kansten, as though aware of what would happen when he cast his
Pulgaqua
spell at her back.

Like Kora at the battle’s start, Kansten spun involuntarily to face Zalski. Sedder rushed at her, forced her out of the water jet’s path, and every semblance of combat ceased. Kora shrieked the incantation for her shield spell a second too late; her barrier could not break the line of water rushing now at Sedder, forcing itself in his mouth, down his windpipe. He gasped for breath, but the water kept coming, following him, arching downward as he fell to his knees. The back of Kora’s mind, the only part of her that would move, screamed she knew no spell to save him, nothing except possibly….

“
Desfazair
!” Her protective shell vanished. She ran toward Sedder. “
Desfa
….”

Nothing happened, except that Sedder keeled forward, on his face. Then and only then did the water jet disappear, and Kora, quaking, flipped Sedder right-side up. Ignoring the gloss to his eyes, she pushed liquid from his lungs. It bubbled in streams down his already drenched face, but he gave no sign of stirring.

My God, he’s dead. He drowned.

Kora glared at Zalski, her fists numbed by the purest hatred ever to make her blood ice over. She saw the sorcerer through a frosty haze; much clearer was the image of a page from the book of escape spells, the page with the incantation to blind an enemy scrawled in the bottom right corner.

“
Cegara
!”

Zalski’s long, black shield was up before Kora pronounced the last syllable. He responded so fast the spells seemed simultaneous.

“
Golpay Mayhia
!”

Kora’s head reeled, snapping around as an invisible force struck her cheek and made blood run from the corner of her mouth. Kansten took the spell as a personal insult; she sent a gust of wind at Zalski’s wife that blew her, tumbling feet over head, into the rubble of the cabin’s front wall. Malzin landed with an ominous thud, a sharp, solid sound inconsistent with the way she had risen and spun like a rag doll. Zalski ran to grab her by the upper arm, and her frame hung limp.

The sorcerer mumbled beneath his breath, and a fiery ball shot at Lanokas. Kora, still kneeling by Sedder, spoke mechanically, and the ball hit a silver shield that rose before the prince, exploding against it but harming no one.

Immediately, Zalski moved his lips again. The Landfill burst into flame before he and the unconscious Malzin disappeared. With no lapse in time they sprung up next to Kansten, whom Zalski grabbed with his free hand while he cried, “
Trasporte Palace
!” Lanokas’s magic pulled the blonde from his grip, and she fell a yard from the sorcerer as he and his wife vanished a second time. The two remaining uniforms barreled toward Kora, but she froze them with
Estatua
despite the lump in her throat, then did the same to the guard still struggling with the bonds meant for Bendelof. The battle was over.

Kora collapsed on Sedder’s chest, but recoiled at the drenching his tunic had taken. She heard the rush of feet, and Lanokas calling her. The enormity of her loss seared within her like the burning cabin’s heat against her skin, yet neither flame thawed her sluggish blood, restored sensation to her fingers.

She would never hear Sedder’s voice again. Not one more time, not ever. It was Kansten she heard.

“Kora, snap out of it!”

Kansten dragged the sorceress to her feet. Lanokas knelt by Bendelof, who had a bleeding welt on her head that almost made Kora vomit. She turned away, but Kansten pushed her forward.

“Kora, do something!”

Kora forced herself to look at Bendelof, to study the two clashing shades of red flowing from her skull. “
Kura
….
Kura-la
.”

Bendelof’s wound healed itself, but she had lost a lot of blood, most of which remained matted in her hair, and she neither returned to consciousness nor shed the distinct gray tinge her face had taken on. Lanokas grabbed her wrist as the roof of the cabin fell in behind them.

“That’s no ordinary fire,” Kansten whispered. “It should have spread by now.”

Kora looked back at Bendelof. “Is she….?”

“She’s alive,” said Lanokas. “Help Neslan.”

Neslan was fluttering between consciousness and oblivion. He too was pale, and in much pain, though he had staunched his wound and seemed in far better shape than Bendelof. He only collected his thoughts after Kora healed the gash on his shoulder.

“He’s gone?”

“He took Malzin away,” said Lanokas.

“What?” said Kora. Only moments later did she understand that Neslan spoke of Zalski;
he’s gone
meant only one thing to her. Kansten pulled a weak but strengthening Neslan to his feet.

“He could be back any second,” said Lanokas.

Kora’s voice was hard. “I’m not leaving Sedder. Not for guards to find his body.”

Neslan whipped his head around, not wanting to believe until he saw the corpse. Kora knelt once more by her oldest friend, struggled to steady her hand as she brushed the hair from his face. She nearly spoke, but “goodbye” refused to come, refused like a frightened child crouching in the corner. She mouthed the syllables before drawing back, staring at the ground, and Lanokas and Kansten pulled Sedder away. Kora tried to brace for the crash of his body in the flames, but the sound made every muscle in her own tense up with a painful rapidity. After what felt like years, Kansten helped her stand.

Only then did Kora notice them, the people. If the melee had not attracted nearby residents, the smoke had done it, or the flames: thirty witnesses. Half of them stared at the sorceress with horror in their eyes; the other half fled when they realized Kora watched them. She raised a hand to her forehead, to check her bandana, and found it was in place. 

The League had to move on. Lanokas led the way, carrying Bennie, while Kansten toted three sacks. Kora followed with the rest, unable to wonder or to care what happened next. She had hardly moved two feet when the crowd parted in one motion to let her through, as though to make clear they would not interfere with her. As though they had stumbled across a viper’s path. An old woman, bent but quick, used a walking stick to fight her way forward and grab everyone’s attention. Her skin was as wrinkled as an apple left to sit on a table for two weeks. Her voice was throaty, adenoidal.

“Go on,” she urged the crowd. “Go. There’s nothing left to see here.” Two or three adolescents took a step down the road. “I said to go!” she commanded.

The onlookers took off, obeying her tones. The woman, alone now with the League, threw a cheap locket to Neslan. He passed the trinket around. It held a boy’s portrait, the paint smeared across one cheek.

The child of the miniature looked to be thirteen, maybe fourteen; there was no way to tell how old he might be now. He had a look both disarming and covertly mischievous. By his sparkling gray eyes Kora imagined him to be a jokester, and proud of his gags. His hair was as black as Laskenay’s, its curls tamer than Neslan’s but his wild look no less distinct for that. Kora made to pass the locket on and found its owner at her shoulder.

“My grandson, he disappe
ared three months ago. Had to
when h
e freed a relative from prison. For his sake you shouldn’t fear me.”

The League had no choice but to trust this stranger, traitor or not. The grandmother hobbled along, the battered younger folk matching her pace. If anyone watched, they did so from behind closed doors.

445

CHAPTER TWELVE

Moving On

The woman with the walking stick lived in a cottage two streets away. Her home was larger than most of the cabins nearby, but not by much, and had not escaped the plague of chipped paint and random rotting boards that seemed to spread faster in the outskirts than in the city proper. The home’s interior displayed wear to the same degree as its owner, who swept away the knitting on her sofa and replaced it with clean rags before Lanokas set Bendelof on the ripped cushions. Neslan, shaky on his feet, sank without comment in a chair all scratched and decidedly lumpy. Kora stood in the corner farthest from the hearth but could not escape the crackle of burning wood, the mixed scent of sap and smoke that always made her think of home and now would only raise memories of Sedder’s cremation.

The fireplace was empty, even of ashes. When she noticed as much, Kora tried to clear her head by studying the room’s other occupants: they were all, excluding Neslan, crowding around the still and silent Bendelof while Lanokas checked her pulse for the umpteenth time. The League’s hostess snatched her locket back from Kansten, who had received it last, and left for the kitchen.

“Vital signs are strengthening,” said Lanokas.

Kansten said, “Thank God.”

Neslan muttered from his chair, “I was followed. I led them straight to us.”

Lanokas cut him off. “It was bound to happen to one of us. He was out of uniform, or there’s no way you would have missed him. He left for reinforcements when you reached the cabin, we gave him time enough.”

“I’m done,” said Kora. Her fellow Leaguesmen shifted their gaze to the corner, where she tore the necklace with Zalski’s mark from her neck, snapping the string. She squeezed the medallion in her fist. “I mean it, I’m through with the League. I’m no match for Za
lski. He let us live, he let us. H
e wanted to tend to Malzin. I’ll never be able to fight magic like his. I don’t understand why he even wants that damn book! Nothing in it’s worse than the spell he cast on…. On….”

Kora’s voice trailed away, not letting her pronounce Sedder’s name. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she turned to wipe them from her face in as much privacy as she could manage.

“What do you plan to do?” asked Lanokas.

“Hell if I know. Hide somewhere. Wait for Zalski to find me. I’ll live longer that way than fighting this losing battle.”

“Dying doesn’t mean you lose,” snapped the old woman. She had just returned with a fresh block of cheese and four water glasses, which she set on a rickety table. “You lose giving in to the fear. Zalski wants you to fear.”

Kora threw her pendant. “I don’t give a damn what Zalski wants.”

“What about Petroc?” said Kansten. Kora’s chest grew tight; she had forgotten all about the second sorcerer. “He’ll take you down, invincible, before Zalski lays a hand on you.”

“And that’s more of a suicide than going to face him? He’s as powerful as Zalski is. I have no earthly chance, not against either one, why in God’s name can’t you see that? I’d sooner save myself the journey.”

“Then make the journey for Sedder,” said Lanokas. “You loved him, am I right?”

It sounded ghastly admitting what she felt to these people, near strangers, and not to Sedder himself. She hid the romantic delusions that had kept her silent while he was alive, but said, “Always have.”

“A funny way to show it, letting his killer walk free. The road to Zalski leads through Petroc, we all know that, but you’re content to do nothing, to let your bloody cowardice rob Sedder’s death of meaning.”

Kora lunged at the prince, slapping his face with all the force she had before he pushed her magically back. She tried to scrape her way forward, wanted to tear his outstretched arm from its socket, but his telekinesis was as steady as his hand and kept her at bay.

There was nothing to do but stop struggling. Kora’s knees buckled and she fell, sobbing wildly on the dirt-streaked floor. Kansten came and sat beside her, Kora felt the soft pressure of a hand pressed to her back, and as though transmitted by touch some measure of sense, of control, returned to the sorceress. She tried once, then again to stop weeping, but each time she thought of Sedder, and what she had never told him; of what she must accomplish now without him, and how wretchedly she just had acted; of how Lanokas was right, curse him; and there was nothing for it but to sob with renewed vigor, to expend all her strength in tears and shaking.

“Let it out.” Kansten pulled Kora’s hair from where it stuck to the side of her face. “Let it go. Now’s as good a time as any.” Kora eventually stopped trembling, and found energy to stand, with Kansten’s help; to search for words to apologize to Lanokas, who understood what was at the root of Kora’s collapse without being told.

“Sedder knew. I promise you he knew, though you didn’t tell him. And he felt the same way. That would have been clear to a blind man. The fact is, it would only compound his loss to give up now.”

A faint moan from the couch was his response. Neslan got up from his chair for the first time since settling into it, rasping, “Bennie.” He rushed to the stirring figure, ignoring his own injuries. Though Lanokas followed, the old woman retreated to the kitchen.

Bendelof had come to, still pale, a hand raised to her aching head. She studied the faces around her, noticed who was missing, perhaps saw Kora’s red cheeks and puffy eyes. Neslan squeezed her five unoccupied fingers, and Bennie seemed to comprehend why Sedder was not there; she shut her eyes, her breath quickening. Then:

“We got away? Where are we?”

“We’re as safe as we could hope,” said Lanokas. “You should rest.”

Bendelof rolled over to her side, while the old woman came back with a fifth glass, this one filled with a dark, tea-scented liquid. “This brew’s good for pain and nerves,” she told the injured girl, and helped her sit up to drink. Kora realized how dry her own throat was. The rest of the League moved with her to the table, where their glasses and meager meal sat forgotten. Lanokas spoke for the group when he offered their hostess his thanks, and they drank in solemn silence. No one touched the food.

The tea restored some of Bendelof’s strength, and she went with the old woman to the washroom. Kansten spoke against Bennie exerting herself, but Neslan said now she was conscious they should keep her active and awake; head injuries were delicate. Besides, they couldn’t move unnoticed through Podrar with someone’s hair bloodied.

Kansten replied, “What about your clothes? How are we gonna get out of here?”

Lanokas sighed. “We’ll figure something out. More pressing is what we’ll do if Zalski or his guards show up. They might come looking, after what you did to Malzin.” Kansten threatened to explode, but Lanokas was in no mood. His voice cut over hers. “No one’s blaming you! If you hadn’t attacked her, Zalski would have killed us all.”

“We’ll be all right here,” offered Neslan. “Zalski thinks he killed three of us. That’s a solid day’s work, especially when he lost multiple guards. I don’t see him risking more. In any case, we can’t flee with Bendelof so weak, so we’re staying at this cottage until morning. If Zalski comes knocking before then, we fight back.”

Kora said, “I don’t think he’d be one to knock.”

Kansten too looked troubled. “I’ve been pondering what Kora said, that Zalski doesn’t need the
Librette
. Hang it all, she’s right. He doesn’t need it, but he’s never been so fixated.”

Kora said, “There has to be a reason. He pretends he just wants the spells, out of curiosity, or because they’re magic history, and I’m sure he does, but that doesn’t explain the obsession, not fully. Not when the search involves so many men.”

Lanokas looked skeptical, but Neslan, who had personally investigated the guard, knew how deep Zalski’s obsession ran. “What if Zalski wants one particular spell?” he suggested.

“For a particular purpose,” said Kansten, catching on.

Kora said, “I’ve looked through the book, and nothing caught my eye, or Laskenay’s. Some of those spells are gruesome, you wouldn’t believe…. But Zalski, he can torture with magic he knows already.” Kora forced back the image of Sedder gasping, gurgling. She remembered, with a pang in her chest, that Sedder’s stroke of genius had led them to the book in the first place. “How would Zalski even know what Hansrelto’s spells can do?”

Lanokas answered. “People saw Hansrelto cast them, that’s how. The incantations were lost, but not the stories. They’re exaggerated, but Zalski isn’t blind to the underlying facts. He’s done his research. If he found something written about the spells and their effects….”

Neslan said, “The more pressing question is why he tried to abduct Kansten. He could have killed her on the spot.”

“Payback,” said Lanokas. “Payback for what happened to Malzin.”

Kora said, “Is killing her not payback? Look, he sent a fireball at you.”

“Of course he’d try to kill me. I’m the king’s son. Zalski is a beast, Kora, and Kansten kicked the snot out of his wife. He wasn’t about to let her die as easily as Sedder.”

Neslan shot Lanokas a reproving glance, while Kora turned her head away at the unexpected blow.

“I didn’t mean….” said the prince.

“Forget it.”

“So,” said Kansten again, “how do we get out of here?”

Lanokas turned to Neslan. “We need Zalski’s plan to secure the city. The specifics.”

Neslan looked uncertain. “He’ll change things after today.”

“He’ll keep the basic structure, just tighten the net.”

And Neslan’s eyes turned bright. His voice came fast when he spoke, two signs of his brainwaves. “There’s a large group leaving on pilgrimage, tomorrow noon. They turned in their request for travel last week. The guard will take posts at the bridge, and the gate, to be sure we’re not with them. The net will be loose then.”

“Then that’s when we’ll act.”

They spent an hour hashing out plans. Bendelof joined them, slow on her feet but much improved from when she left. She spoke softer than usual but her thoughts were clear, her suggestions useful as they planned for the best and then formulated Plan B. Nonetheless, a stiffness lay over the proceedings that had nothing to do with their discussion; Sedder’s absence spoke as loudly as anyone present, and Kora took a strange sense of comfort in the tension. She appreciated knowing she was not alone in grieving.

They finalized their agenda and fell into a silence Kora had no time to judge: was it bristling? Empty? Studded with fear and doubt? Their hostess returned just as everyone ran out of things to say. She beckoned the sorceress, who followed her to the kitchen, a small room and clean, though pots and stacks of plates covered every visible surface. A meal of some kind simmered above the fire, and the air smelled of meat and onions.

“What’s your name?” asked the woman.

“What’s yours?”

“Prue Halt.”

“Kora Porteg.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, Kora Porteg, but a good thirty people watched you shooting off incantations out there.”

“Right,” said Kora. She had noticed, of course she noticed, and then forgot completely. Zalski had foreseen this, she told herself.
You are marked, and not by the ruby….

How could she have let those strangers see her?

Prue began chopping bell peppers, speaking over her shoulder. “Is that all you’re going to say?”

“I don’t know what you want from me. There’s no changing what happened, is there? No stopping their tongues. The whole city’ll know within two days. I’ll be feared as much as he is.”

Prue put down her knife. “You are one stupid girl.”

“Excuse me?”

“Why would people fear you? You’re in the League, aren’t you? We know what the League stands for. If you wanted power, you’d have joined the other side.”

“That’s not how Zalski will make things look. If anyone understands prejudice, he does. He’ll manipulate everything.”

“If people are fools enough to believe a word he says….”

“They are, Prue. Because they’re afraid, afraid of magic, of starving, of the surging violence. I’m just one more monster in the closet. And I can’t discuss this, not now, I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

“Self-pity won’t do a thing for you.”

Kora kept in mind this woman was hiding other Leaguesmen. The thought of Bennie contained her anger, though she felt like throwing every pan in the room. “Please, don’t pretend you know me. I know you mean well, but you don’t know a thing about me.”

The only person in Podrar who knew her was nothing but a memory now.

Kora swept from the kitchen, but the fire of her insult froze when she found her companions still in silence. Neslan stared at the corner; Kansten studied the floor as though it were a book she was half-attempting to read. Silent tears had gathered at the tip of Bendelof’s nose. Lanokas alone marked Kora’s entry, and he merely glanced up to register that she walked in. He lacked the energy to ask what Prue had wanted, his ever-vivid curiosity the second fatality of the day.

Kora should have died at that cabin, not Sedder. She was the one exposed as a sorceress, the one less than worthless to the League as a result. She was the one who could not cast a simple shield spell fast enough to prevent a death that never would have happened had Laskenay been at the battle in her place.