Twilight of Kerberos - [Shadowmage 01-03] - The Shadowmage Trilogy (Shadowmage; Night's Haunting; Legacy's Price) (88 page)

Lucius sank to his knees, breathing heavily. Wearily, he raised his hand to brandish the rod.

And then Adrianna winced as the strength left Lucius’ arm and the rod fell, striking the chamber floor hard.

“Careful,” she said as she grabbed him under the shoulder and helped him stand, though even she could not tell whether she was speaking of Lucius or the artefact.

Adrianna led Lucius to the foot of the stairs and helped him sit down.

“There is something wrong, Aidy,” he said, beginning to recover his breath.

“What do you mean?”

Hand on his chest to steady his breathing, Lucius began to tell her what he had seen, first in the great hall below them, and then the strange dream – he could think of no other way to describe it.

When he had finished, Adrianna sat back from him, contemplating his words and studying the Guardian Starlight.

“Well, there is obviously some connection between you and the artefact,” she said.

“How can that be?”

“I always said you were special!”

He looked up at her, a dour expression on his face. “Is that really the best explanation you can give me?”

“It is the best I can give you right now,” she said. “However, we will have time on the way back to deliver that thing to the baron. Time enough for us to do a little testing and perhaps get you some answers. You do... still intend giving it to the baron?”

“I said I would deliver it, Adrianna, and I will.”

“This is your commission, Lucius,” she said, trying to placate him. “I only wanted to come here to see how elven ruins might appear, to get a sense of the magic within. You want to fulfil your obligations, that is no business of mine.”

He continued to look at her, balefully. She felt obliged to continue speaking.

“If it turns out that thing has some value, I’ll make a deal with the baron. I am sure I possess things he wants for himself.”

“Right,” Lucius said after holding her eyes for a while longer.

“So,” Adrianna said as she stood, “we best get out of here. We have what you came for, and I have no wish to battle half the Vos army in trying to leave. Let’s get back to the city.”

As they retraced their steps down the long corridor leading out of the ruins, Adrianna’s mind whirled with possibilities. Just what was the connection between Lucius and the elves? It went far deeper than just the Guardian Starlight, that had been made clear when he had been able to pass the barrier below but she had not.

That was troubling, for whatever that connection was, it would likely prove necessary in unlocking the power of the Guardian Starlight, and she was not altogether sure Lucius would be a willing participant.

One thing was clear though. She had never, in her life, seen something she wanted to possess more than that artefact.

Whatever transpired, she vowed, it would be hers.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T
HE SERGEANT STOMPED
up the mud bank to Alhmanic, and the Preacher Divine did not need to see the expression on his face to sense dissent in the air.

“My Lord,” the sergeant said, and Alhmanic could hear the struggle in his voice to keep his words neutral. “My men have not been trained to perform this sort of labour.”

This mission had been a frustration. Even now, when they were within spitting distance of their goal, his efforts had been stymied by elven magic and a few tons of mud. Mud!

The interrogation of the Pontaine soldiers had pointed them in the right direction but Alhmanic had arrogantly assumed his divinely enchanted staff was superior to any protection a Pontaine wizard could give, and so he had marched a squad of his own men to the underground entrance of the elven outpost and ordered them to open the doors.

As it turned out, elven magic saw his arcane defences as no obstacle at all, and the sudden vaporisation of the soldiers had robbed the rest of his force of their high morale after the defeat of the Pontaine army.

He had even thought himself clever by trying to dig around the entrance, to break into some chamber beyond that point, deeper within the ruins, but despite having sunk two holes into the ground, both of which had rapidly filled with water to hamper the efforts of his men, Alhmanic had no luck. They had dug deep and had found nothing.

Alhmanic had considered it might be some cosmic joke, whereby nothing but rock lay behind those infernal doors, and the artefact he sought was nothing but a myth. More likely accursed elf magic was somehow interfering with his efforts...

Suddenly feeling old, Alhmanic leaned on his staff before he opened his eyes and looked at the sergeant.

“Sergeant,” he said, “your men will do as they are instructed or they can return to Scholten and explain to the Anointed Lord herself, blessed be her wisdom, just why we failed to succeed in our mission. Especially when we are but a few yards away from the artefact we seek!

“I realise this is not what they are trained to do, but we need men to dig, and they are the only men present. They fought admirably against Pontaine earlier, but the time for fighting is now over.”

“Yes, my Lord. I’ll instruct the men to continue.”

“Instruct them to work faster, or we’ll be here come winter.”

Alhmanic felt a peculiar vibration in his staff. He looked curiously at his weapon. The blue crystal mounted in its silver-clawed tip was flickering gently, like a faint candle flame caught in a breeze.

The sergeant looked quizzically at him, but Alhmanic ignored the man as he tried to recall his staff acting this way before. He could only think of it reacting to the presence of some of the relics kept in the deepest vaults of Scholten cathedral, those most precious possessions of saints long gone. Frowning, Alhmanic played a hunch and lifted his staff up high before slamming its butt down hard into the soft earth. Immediately, it almost leapt out of his hand as it strained to pull away from him, and it took a firm grip to hold it in place.

“Gather your men – quickly!” Alhmanic shouted at his sergeant.

So saying, Alhmanic stormed away from the fresh excavations, heading towards the ruins the Pontaine force had uncovered – where the staff had been pulling him. Behind him, he could hear the sergeant shouting to rouse his men but only those closest reacted fast enough to keep up with the Preacher Divine.

As he reached the top of the stairs that descended into the elven ruins, Alhmanic noted that only half a dozen of his soldiers had kept up with him.

“You two, get down there,” he ordered.

They hesitated and looked at one another.

“My Lord?” one asked, as if he might have misheard.

“For God’s sake, man, just go to the bottom of the stairs, you needn’t go anywhere near those blasted doors!” Alhmanic roared, and his anger was enough to make them lose their inhibitions and brave the darkness.

Impatiently, Alhmanic waited, resisting the impulse to start pacing. Moments passed, and the group of soldiers around the top of the stairs began to swell as more joined them. Finally, the sergeant brought up the rear with the rest of his men. Still, there had been no sign of the two Alhmanic had dispatched down the stairs.

The sergeant walked over to Alhmanic and, in a low voice, said, “What is it, Lord? What did you sense?”

Alhmanic just shook his head as he wondered whether he should send more men down or if he should go himself.

A bright flare of green light that lit up the lower reaches of the staircase, followed quickly by a loud crack, made them all jump. Alhmanic took a few steps back and brought his staff up in front of him in a defensive stance.

The blurred, shadowy form of a man leapt from the darkness of the staircase and sprinted toward the nearest group of soldiers. There was a ringing of steel and a soldier screamed, clutching his neck as blood spurted over one of his comrades. Chaos exploded among the Vos soldiers as they drew weapons and desperately sought to find a target in the darkness. Alhmanic tried to keep his eye on the shadowy form that was wading through his soldiers, flashing blades sneaking out to bury themselves in a chest or cut through an arm, but the illusion seemed to throw his sight to one side so he could only sense the presence of something very fast and very deadly from the corner of his eye.

All around, men were screaming and dying. Alhmanic pointed his staff, quite prepared to blast chunks out of his own men if it meant silencing their attacker, when a solid blast of air erupted from the staircase and bowled him over as if he were no more than a leaf. More movement caught his eye as he fell on his back, and he immediately scrambled to all fours. The figure before him had made no effort to conceal herself.

Rising out of the staircase and into the sky, as if borne by the wind itself, a fierce looking woman gazed vengefully down on Alhmanic and his prostrate soldiers. Her dark hair, tied into a pony tail, whipped behind her head but her face was baleful, dreadfully scarred and with black eyes that seemed hungry to consume them all.

She gestured to a group of soldiers who had struggled to their feet and casually flicked her hand. The men screamed in sheer terror as they were lifted and hurled over the fence, far into the night.

Alhmanic braced himself with his staff and the movement caught the eye of the woman. She hissed at him, and punched forward with both hands.

Alhmanic did not need to be a wizard to sense the bolt of energy she had sent his way and he desperately raised his staff, crying out as the woman’s spell smacked into it, the magic splintering against the spellshield.

Not waiting to see what she would do next, Alhmanic barked a single word of holy power as he pointed the staff at the woman. A bolt of energy hit her with a sound like stone splitting, and the spell flared a brilliant orange as it surrounded her. The woman fell out of sight.

With a grim smile, Alhmanic turned to search for the other attacker. He saw that a ring of soldiers had surrounded the shadowy form. Within the circle the sergeant madly parried each blade that sailed out from his blurred attacker, the clash of sword on sword ringing out clearly with every strike. He lunged once or twice, but never connected, his target just seeming to skip out of the way leaving only formless shadow behind.

Pushing through the ring of soldiers, Alhmanic resolved to end the combat quickly. He stamped his staff into the ground with another word of power and the earth rippled outwards, sending the sergeant reeling.

The sergeant looked up at him accusingly, but Alhmanic ignored him, his attention instead on the attacker. As had he hoped, the staff’s earthshaking power had broken the shadowy spell of concealment, and the man sprawled on the floor.

Dressed in dark leathers with a grey cloak, the man was close to middle age and bore a sword in his right hand and a long, wickedly sharp dagger in his left. His expression was one of almost comical surprise, but Alhmanic’s gaze was drawn to the object tucked into the man’s belt, a short rod capped with golden wings.

Not bothering to think about how this man had succeeded where he had – so far – failed, Alhmanic did not hesitate. He strode purposefully forward, raised his staff and drove the butt down into the man’s face. However, the man’s reactions proved equal to Alhmanic’s, and he threw himself to one side before kicking out with a boot.

The heel connected with Alhmanic’s knee, and he grunted in pain as he sank down to the ground. His attacker was already up and circling him, looking for an opening through which to drive a blade and end Alhmanic’s life.

Growling, as much in rage as pain, Alhmanic swung wildly with his staff, forcing the man to keep his distance.

“Get him, you bloody fools!” Alhmanic shouted to the soldiers who still ringed them.

That seemed to jerk them back to awareness and, as one, they levelled their spears and swords and took a pace inwards, drawing the ring tighter.

The man flicked a hand towards Alhmanic. A jet of flame erupted from his open palm, forcing Alhmanic to dive to the ground again to avoid having his face burned off. He looked up in time to see the man crouch briefly before leaping up with incredible agility, somersaulting through the air, over the heads of the soldiers.

One proved quicker than the rest, and a spear was thrust upwards, catching the flying man in the torso. Alhmanic grinned as he saw the escape curtailed, and the man fell to the ground a short distance away. Several soldiers started to move towards the fallen man, but Alhmanic got back on to his feet and pushed past them all, wanting to deliver the final blow and claim his prize at long last.

Groaning and spitting blood, the man was clearly hurt, and Alhmanic summoned his will, focussing the power of the staff.

Before the spell could be unleashed, there was another rush of air and the earth exploded around him, great clods of mud and rock thrown into the air as something very heavy and very dense smacked into it. Alhmanic stumbled under the assault, and he turned to see, floating high in the air behind him, the dark woman, her face a perfect picture of hate and vengeance.

She snarled as she reached up and seemed to grasp the air above her head with her right hand. Then she cast forward, as though throwing a stone. She repeated the gesture with her left hand, then back to her right, over and over.