The Path of Destruction (Rune Breaker) (11 page)

“Will you be joining the airborne charge? General Cloudherd points out that our aerial forces are already depleted with so many of the officers killed at the Murderyard having been hailene.”

She had to glance back at him to be sure he was being serious. “I thought you were here to ask why I didn't smell right.”

Tal Eserin folded his arms into their opposite sleeves, concealing his claws. “Then you disrespect me, Miss. I wasn't going to bring it up.” He inclined his head back toward the soldiers. “Mercenaries; we don't question what you are or where you come from as long as you're on our side.”

Taylin blinked owlishly at this. It made sense, but she'd expected him to treat her like anathema or at least with some hostility. “I'm... not dragonsired, you know.” She said carefully, in case he was missing a point.

“Weren't we having this conversation because you know I can smell that?” He asked with a laugh.

Her face burned with embarrassment and she turned back to look at Ru. “Right.”

The captain coughed politely. “And your answer about the charge? I use a spellworking to improve everyone's speed and maneuverability, and it requires tailoring based on the number of participants in the area of effect.”

Something was happening to the symbols surrounding Ru; they were stopping, one by one in their orbits around him. Taylin was so drawn to the activity that she almost didn't hear the question. “What? Oh yes. I'll do whatever I can to help.”

They were both distracted by what happened next:

The last symbol stopped orbiting, falling into position among the others like the final tumbler on a lock. The moment it did, Ru straightened his legs and dropped down to the ground. It was a short fall, but he landed with enough force that he had to bend his legs until he was almost in a crouch. The impact sent a slight tremor into the ground around it.

Somewhere in that moment, he'd shifted subtly: now wearing simple homespun breeches and a rough woolen shirt along with heavy work boots of cracked leather, and a set of wrought iron manacles around his wrists, each trailing a piece of broken chain about a foot in length. The short, scholarly tail he kept his hair pulled back in had slipped its bonds so that his hair hung wild around his ears.

With a feral smile on his face, Ru straightened up like a puppet being drawn into a standing position on strings, head hanging down, yellow eyes staring at something no one else could see.

He took one step and then another, and when that second step carried him through the dome of floating patterns, they shattered like the most delicate crystal; bursting apart and coming tumbling down around him in a rain of gentle, blue sparks. The next step sent another tremor through the ground, and the trailing links on the manacles broke off, tumbling into the grass. Two more steps, both accompanied by tremors, and the ends of his sleeves and the cuffs of his breeches were starting to shred at the ends.

Taylin watched silently and wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her or if he really did look taller and broader in the shoulders with every step. Her suspicions were confirmed five steps later when the shirt strained and began to tear at his shoulder blades. Not only that, but his skin was shifting to a pale blue, dappled with white, and his hair was thinning in the front while growing in the back.

By the time he was a dozen steps away, each one was taking him farther and farther than the last and the soldiers were starting to take notice. Jaks returned from carrying out his duties and looked at Tal Eserin for an explanation. The captain replied in the native language of minotaurs, causing Jaks to roar out a boastful laugh and turn to the troops, bellowing the minotaur word '
gaosh-ua
'.

The hailene and half-elves mostly looked confused, but the word energized the minotaurs. Those that didn't have anything to attend to started stamping their hoofs in a practiced rhythm, chanting '
gaosh-ua rho
!' and beating on anything that could handle it with their fists.

Tal Eserin grinned, a threatening display in his draconic form, and turned to the half-dozen hailene assembling for the airborne charge and said, “
Ayet sul ashato. Nush ama kave ashato
.” Like the minotaurs before them, the hailene were affected by the words and took one,
ashato
, up as a chant.

'Ashato'
was a word Taylin did know. '
Hato'
was the word for 'giant' and an '
ashato'
, as she was familiar with it, was reserved for a class of flying warship during the war, one that carried more weaponry, mages and bombardment devices than any other called 'destroying giants'. But the word also meant the mythical giants said to have existed before the arrival of the Vishnari; the titans.

She turned to look at them. The sight of so many hailene all together and armed for war normally would have filled her with dread, but now she was left wondering what they were talking about. And all their eyes were on Ru.

Whirling, she turned back to look at him. He had topped eleven feet in height, his clothing, though it still grew with him, was in tatters, leaving his arms exposed to the shoulder and legs to the knee, revealing expanses of pale blue skin with what were now discernible as tattoos formed from frost; tribal patterns and unfamiliar script that covered every inch of skin. The crown of his head was bald, encircled by thin, black hair that hung down to the center of his back. His normally well-groomed beard was a thick wiry bush that brushed his chest and gathered frost that formed from his breath. White mist curled off his shoulders as the apparent cold of his body interacted with the warm, moist air.

He took another step and now he was fifteen feet tall. His boots and manacles disintegrated and fell to earth as snow. One more and he was half a mile from the army and thirty feet tall. There, he stopped and spread his arms in defiance, unleashing a wordless shout that echoed in the river valley.

In the gloom of dusk, it was hard to see, especially with the mist rising from Ru's titan form, but Taylin made out a shape appearing at the downed gates of the Idarian Homestead.

Bashurra the Crevasse looked small compared to the dominating grandeur of a titan, but he appeared utterly unafraid. There was no sign on his body to hint at the damage Raiteria's attack had done. His deep voice easily carried across the valley. “And what is this, I wonder? Could those ten-a-penny sellswords have a summoner?”

In response to his taunt, the minotaurs and hailene redoubled their chants and the humans and half elves joined in by banging shields in time.

“No.” said Bashurra. “And not an illusion either, I would guess. Then that only leaves a shapeshifting master, doesn't it, Rune Breaker?” He raised his ancient, bronze ax on guard. “Immurai has told me many tales of the man who was worth an army. The weapon all evil souls seek to grant their greatest wishes. Due respect, but as you are to those wretched and inconsequential mortals, as I am to my god.”

Icy lips split into a familiar, cruel grin. “Heh.” Ru raised his hand toward Bashurra, drawing on
ferif
and
flaer
. “More's the pity for your god then.”

Bashurra had, of course, warded himself against the typical attack spells. So Ru didn't attack him. A net of the two energies fell over his ax and constricted, working its way into it all the way down to the most basic level. First the old bronze keened like a kettle too long over a fire. Then it exploded. Shrapnel tore into Bashurra's arms, side and face, opening up great rents that wept thick, too-red blood.

The gigantic demon staggered from the force, catching himself on the wall before he fell. Once steady, he sneered at Ru, the sight made all the worse for the hanging tatters of what was left of his right cheek. A dark miasma of
nekras
began to crawl over his wounds, repairing them.

“Did you believe that would be enough? I've survived battle with Greater Beasts and dragons. I've laid waste to entire armies. That is why when his plan succeeds, Immurai has promised to make me God of War.”

“What kind of God of War...” Ru drew back his arm and combined
akua
and
ere-a
into a construct shaped like a massive mace made of ice, “wastes so much time with
talk
?” He snapped the mace forward and the spikes broke off, hurtling toward Bashurra as deadly projectiles.

Bashurra surged forward into the onslaught, tapping
flaer
to cover his fists in flame. He met the flying ice with gusto, dispatching it with punches, blocks and sweeps of his burning hands. He finished by bringing both hands together and sending a burst of
flaer
to dispel the
akua
arrays that made up the icicles, instantly converting them to glittering motes in the moonlight.

“You embarrass yourself.” He made a point of spitting on the ground. “War is many things and I am all of them. Not just striking and destruction, but defense.” He flexed his right fist and an array of
ferif, ere-a
and
vox
appeared in a circle above his arm, solidifying into a painted, copper and bronze shield, resembling the screaming face of a man stretched almost beyond recognition. The brow formed a thick ridge across the top. “And control.” He held out his left hand and a second array of the same formed, this one manifesting as a long, thick chain with a meat hook on the end.

Ru boomed out a contemptuous laugh. “This is what you use your magic for? Conjuring armor and weapons? Hasty defense and attack? At least Immurai understands the art and the craft of spellwork: in your hands it's just a tool. Any ape can use a tool—but allow me to show you how a
real
wizard does battle!” He raised both hands to the heavens and began an incantation while simultaneously drawing patterns in the air.

“Now who talks too much?” Bashurra stomped his left foot, causing the earth beneath him to buckle and crack until he was standing on a broken shelf of stone and grassy soil that tilted toward Ru. Then he brought his right foot back and twisted it at the heel, completing a pattern of his own in his mind. The platform leapt forward as the earth beneath rolled and reshaped itself to propel it and its passenger forward.

Ru noticed too late and brought an arm down to conjure a shield, only to have it wrapped by Bashurra's chain and pulled aside before he could even bring the pattern to mind.

In the next moment, Bashurra was inside Ru's guard, slamming the shield home into Ru's ribs. Then, when he buckled forward, the demon brought the shield's thick brow-ridge up into his chin. The force of the blow sent Ru stumbling back until the mage brought one hand down to the ground to steady himself.

Baring his tangled forest of teeth, Bashurra pressed his advantage.

And back at the front line, Taylin frowned in confusion. Because in her head, Ru never stopped his incantation.

***

The sounds of battle were muted by distance and the surrounding houses as Brin moved into Idarian Homestead's village center. Surrounded by demon corpses, and the predated remains of the untended dead, the
nekras
contamination turned the last moments of dusk pitch black. If not for Reflair, she would have been blind.

As she walked, she opened up her docent's senses. Through the swirling miasma, she could see the shades of the homestead's dead. Most weren't really spirits of the dead; their souls went to the Afterworld to eventually rejoin the Well of Souls unless they were taken by their god for other purposes. No, these were the impressions of those people's terror-maddened final moments, given shape and power by the ambient
anima
. It could happen with
vitae
as well, but
nekras
was more common because it was always present around death and entropy.

Left on their own, those shades would grow stronger and more violent, possibly merging into more dangerous creatures that could rival spirit beasts in the threat they posed. Even as they were at the moment though, they could and would attack and even destroy true spirits like Reflair.

They instinctively knew who and what she was, and drew away as she approached, taking much of the choking cloud of manifest
nekras
with them.

Identifying, removing, and preventing the formation of such creatures in the first place were a spirit docent's responsibilities and it made her ashamed that she'd left the place in such a state. She drew a shuttering breath as she saw the half-shadowed faces of the former villagers watching her.

Finally, she reached the very center of the homestead's houses and shops. Bashurra had dragged most of the demon corpses away, but he'd left the bodies of three villagers; two men and a woman, all armed with bill hooks and cheap pistols, probably purchased from traders out of Daire City. None of it had helped them, and their savaged bodies remained on the hard-packed dirt, untouched by rot thanks to the
nekras
.

She made herself stare at them. Those people deserved better. Even though she'd known she couldn't have saved them, she should have stayed to give them proper burial and protection. But Layaka had been so scared to stay and...

...And there had been no Layaka. At least not the one she'd known.

With those bitter thoughts in her head, she struck the butt of the Barratta against the ground, making the rings jangle, then dropped into a seated position, soles of her boots flush against each other, and the spear across her splayed knees.

Reflair wouldn't be powerful enough to cleanse the taint in the homestead and put the seal in place, but Brin was unusual for a docent and only had the one spirit companion at the moment. She would have to make contact with a local spirit for the job. And when dealing with strange spirits, one could not lie or dissemble with them in any way.

Glad the others weren't around, especially Kaiel, she brought her hands together. Her fingers touched a ring on her right hand that wasn't there, then slipped it off. In the darkness, it sparkled with stored magics that outlined its shape: a silver band with a pair of bat-like wings as the setting for a single oval-cut sapphire.

The world changed for her just as her body did; the succubus ring transformed the wearer completely, not just their appearances; old perceptions unavailable to her before came flooding back. The village leapt into view in her night vision, and the unnatural scents of the demons set her nose to twitching.