Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) (37 page)

“Oh don’t scowl like that at me, Tyrissa. I only
suspected
you two were related on the caravan and by the time we crossed paths again you
had figured it out on your own.”

“But you knew of others like me?”

“Live three hundred years and you hear a little
bit about a lot of things. But I have no answers or revelations for you. I only
met Tsellien a few times. Enough to know to be wary around you in regards to my
own magick, though that was easily confirmed by seeing you in action.”

Tyrissa sat back down with a sigh, and tried not
to seem overly sullen about it. She suspected Hali knew more than she let on,
but would let it lie. For now.

“The Wind-Kissed is… elusive, Tyrissa,” Kronall
said. “She travels extensively, occasionally in service of the Hithian
remnants, but for the most part she follows her own agenda. She is something of
a living legend among our people, a counter point to Rhalienne here. Why, when
she and Vralin were born in New Inthai in the same year, and both eventually
blessed with such strong magicks, we thought they were heralds of a new era for
the Hithian people.”

“In that, we might have been premature, Kronall,”
Hali said. “I’m now convinced that Vralin was never a symbol of a shift in our fortunes.”

“Why would you say that?”

Hali gave Tyrissa a knowing look.

Leverage
, she thought with some
bitterness.

“Because he killed Tsellien,” Tyrissa said. “Months
ago. I have the same… presence as her because I’m her heir.”

Kronall visibly deflated upon hearing that news and
looked as if he regained a couple of his so recently erased years.

Hali nodded to her. “Now we come to the crux of
my visit,
rozil.
I need you to make an exception to your oath as a
priest and tell us what Vralin told you in confidence.”

“I can’t…”

“We don’t need too many details,” Hali pressed
on. “Just anything that may point toward what he’s been planning. What his Pact
is pressing him to accomplish. I know he’s been visiting you these past weeks.”

“He has. I suppose, if he truly killed Tsellien,
that would explain some of his personal torment. Though he never mentioned
that
.”

“He’s a threat, Kronall. He’s not like a pre-Fall
Windmage. He’s not an expression how things used to be, like you, free from the
influence of the Outer Powers. He’s Pactbound and driven by the demands of a
greater will.”

Kronall sighed and shifted uncomfortably. “Four
winds forgive me. Vralin spoke of Tsellien keeping him balanced. Perhaps, in
their last period apart, he permanently lost that balance. He spoke much of
rebirth, of a drive to raise our people up with his own hands. A wind of
desperation carries his words, but he believes what he’s doing is right and that
the blood on his hands is a small price to pay for a rebirth. I urged him to reconsider
his path, that if it requires so much blood, perhaps he is in error.”

“Rebirth,” Hali whispered. “Did he say what he
meant by that?”

“No. He said little of what exactly he planned,
only that the sacred winds demanded he act and act soon. We spoke at length a
few nights ago. He said he had the seed and wanted my blessing for his journey
to the grave and cradle.”

“The Crater,” Hali said with a resigned sigh.
“He’s going to the ruins of Hithia.”

The next four days were a restless blur of waiting.
Tyrissa passed the time with training, either with Settan or Kexal. She had
improved considerably since their sessions on the caravan, but the Weapon
Master always had another layer of expertise to unveil whenever she managed to
take a round or two off of him.

Then, not long after Tyrissa arrived at Kexal’s
house for another morning session, Wolef burst through the front door and
delivered the three words they all wanted to hear.

“I found him.”

“He alone?” Kexal asked.

“Yes.”

“Let’s get a move on, then.”

Within an hour the five of them stood at the
mouth of one of the countless tunnels in the under city that led into the depths.
They had a route to their target. They had the element of surprise. They had
him outnumbered five to one, three being Pactbound. They had the steeled
resolve to close out this deal. All that remained was to bring down the mark.

Easy.

Right?

“I know your kind, Shade! I know how you fear the
light!”

Vralin’s voice reverberated up the tunnel, his
taunts sprinkled with the shattering of glass. Tyrissa slid to a stop where the
tunnel was lit by a creeping, indirect light and emptied into a larger cavern.
She looked back, listening for the others. Their route into the depths below
Khalanheim had crossed a few places where the riftwinds flowed through and she
had absorbed earth magicks off them to hasten her steps. She had pulled ahead,
but Wolef had Slid even further in advance once they passed the final
intersection of caverns and had only one way forward.

“Time and again we sent your kind fleeing into
hiding, Shade!”

Tyrissa peered around the corner into the cavern.
It was a wide, roughly circular space, about twenty feet high at the center. A
number of tunnels fed into it, some too small for a man, others big enough to
drive a horse-drawn cart through with room to spare. A forest of straw-like
stalactites hung from the ceiling over a pool of water on the side of opposite
of Tyrissa. Nearer, along one wall and lit up by a string of steady elchemical
lights, was a partially enclosed space with all the trappings of a hide-out: a
pair of small work stables, empty crates, piles of discarded items, and a
bedroll. It looked disassembled, in chaos. They had caught him just in time.

“I knew you wouldn’t give up. You still want to
repay me for the Radiant Halls and Enshala and every other time Ellie and I
threw your kind back from whence you came!”

Vralin knelt at the center of the cavern surrounded
by a cluster of crates, all but one kicked over and empty. He reached into the
last one between shouts and tossed out handfuls of vials and jars, their
shattered pieces adding to a wide, circular layer of broken glass that covered
the floor of the cavern. Puddles of radiant white fluid from broken gloworbs
formed a near-complete ring of light shining within the glass shards. Vralin
was unassailable from the shadows, a glowing prize at the center of the cavern.

Tyrissa shot another glance back up the tunnel.
They needed to hurry.

Vralin finished sowing the remnant of his elchemy
production across the cavern floor and stood, shrugging his shoulders,
loosening up. He patted the brace of throwing knives at his waist. Tyrissa
counted six.

“You should have kept to the shadows and waited
for your friends. You ruined the surprise.”

He wasn’t wrong about missing the element of
surprise and it was a mistake for Wolef to get so far ahead of the rest of
them. But it was the confidence in Vralin’s voice and the neatly prepared arena
of light and glass made her stomach tighten in worry. The flows of air swirling
through the cavern shifted direction and Tyrissa caught a faint, pungent smell
in the air. Her mind went to tales of miners suffocating on bad gasses in the
depths or the air itself catching fire from a wayward spark. But the scent was
more organic than that, like the musk of an animal in heat.

“But this isn’t some point nationalistic pride. This
isn’t some extension of our
patrons’
eternal rivalry. No… this is
personal. I think this is about that last Shade we caught. He looked an
awful
lot like you.” Vralin’s gaze darted around the ceiling of the cavern where
the light of the shattered gloworbs was weaker. The winds around Tyrissa
shifted once more, now strongly flowing into the cavern towards Vralin. She
felt the core of earthen magick in her grow again.

“That one… he died slow.”

A sinuous flow of shadow slithered across the
ceiling and Wolef dived out of the stone, blackened knives out. His scream of
focused fury echoed through the cavern, the howl of a midnight hunter. Vralin coolly
stepped aside Wolef’s falling charge, one hand throwing up a knife to greet the
Shade. Wolef swung in mid-air and deflected the knife with a metallic ping. The
Shade landed and promptly rolled aside, dodging away from Vralin’s follow-up
throwing knife. Vralin drew his pair of slightly curved blades, twin hisses of
steel. The winds intensified and began to whistle and howl against the
countless nooks and tunnels that lined the cavern.

Tyrissa could hear the other three coming closer,
the light of their gloworbs throwing wild slashes of light down the tunnel as
they ran. Close enough. She jumped from her hiding place, pulled her staff free
from its magnetic harness, and darted across the cavern floor toward the
beginnings of the combat. Vralin and Wolef circled each other, waiting for the
other to make a move.

Vralin looked past Wolef at Tyrissa. He waved the
shorter of his blades with a flourish and she felt a spike in the wind magicks
coursing through the cavern. A cyclone erupted around Vralin, the winds
focusing into a single swirling flow that pulled the countless shards of glass into
the air. Illuminated by the gloworb fluid, the swarm of flying glass created a
scintillating, flesh-shredding storm of light.

Tyrissa came to a stop a few paces short of the
storm. She could feel the wind magicks fueling it, but they were tightly
embedded at the core of the flows. She felt only flickers of absorption from
the storm. Vralin knew better than anyone how to work around someone like her. Kexal,
Garth, and Hali soon joined her. The ground quivered beneath their feet, but
with the barrier before them, the fleeting tremor went unnoticed.

“As I live and breathe,” Kexal said.

A shadow danced with a zephyr at the eye of the
storm, their blades singing a lethal song above the roar of the winds. Tyrissa
saw that Wolef was outclassed when alone. She knew what it was like to have
wind magicks flowing through you, that slight extra beat of time to react.
Vralin was too quick and the winds that whipped through the cavern aided his strikes
and threw the Shade off balance. Fragments of glass spun inward from the storm,
slicing across Wolef’s back, leaving red gashes in his pitch black clothing. He
backpedaled in circles, deflecting Vralin’s attacks with increasingly frantic
motions.

Kexal shed the pack of climbing gear and other
supplies for the trip down. He pulled his shield off the pack and worked his
arm through the straps. He had to shout over the roar of the winds, “Need to
get in there and help him! Hali, you mind clearin’ this out?”

Hali nodded and rolled up the sleeve of her left
arm. Vines wormed out of her skin, their coils thickening into a shield of
greenery that was soon larger than the woman that held it. She calmly strode
into the cyclone of glass. The vine shield exploded in a thousand tiny bursts
of green fluid and particles. The shield was shredded in seconds but cleared
away much of the glass. Hali held her ground amidst the storm as the vines
withered away and let the remaining shards impact into her skin, tearing away strips
of flesh and clothing alike. Her left side was soon a mess of glass shards and
torn clothing, painted entirely by her strange amber blood.

Hali never even flinched.

The storm had been weakened, but there was still
enough glass flying around to forbid Kexal or Tyrissa from aiding Wolef.
Tyrissa seethed at feeling so full of earthen energy, but not having enough
confidence in using it to harden her skin to deflect the countless cuts
promised by crossing the storm. Garth’s crossbow barked three times. The bolts sailed
straight and true through the storm’s remnants only to careen wildly as they
drew near Vralin, snatched aside by invisible hands. Two flew by, harmless, but
the third was caught on a cyclical flow of its own, circling above the two men
like a bird of prey. Vralin took a step back and swept one sword though the air
between them. The crossbow bolt made one last circuit then slammed into Wolef’s
side. Vralin stepped back in and cut across the Shade’s chest, the tip of his
sword throwing an arc of blood into the air. Wolef cried out and stumbled back.

NO!

Vralin turned towards them. He drew in and
released a deep, slow breath. The storm withered and died in seconds, the
magick fueling it dismissed. The remaining glass shards fell to the floor like
a crystalline rain.

“Now!” Kexal yelled, jumping ahead of her,
charging with shield held high. Tyrissa sprinted after him. They passed around Hali,
the macabre sight of her only enhanced by her passive face. She stood still and
already some of the shards embedded in her skin were being forced out by her
preternatural healing. Two more bolts whistled by and both flew off course,
pushed away with little more than a casual flick of Vralin’s hand. He watched
them charge for a moment, assessing the situation as if it were pieces on a
game board.

“Apologies,
Lisindir
,” Vralin called out
across the cavern. He let his bloodied shorter blade fall to rest atop his foot
and reached for another pair of throwing daggers. His hand snapped up and
Tyrissa deftly threw herself into a roll guided by the balance of earth
magicks. The knives sliced through the air above her.

Hali screamed. Tyrissa looked back to see the Lifepact
falling to her knees, her hands clutching at two knives embedded in her eyes.

She’ll be fine,
Tyrissa reassured herself.

The clash of steel against steel brought her back
to their target. Kexal and Vralin exchanged blows, the Weapon Master showing that
his title was well-earned. He kept Vralin dodging and parry his precise strikes.
For once, Vralin looked pressed and Tyrissa knew first-hand how much weight
Kexal could throw behind a single motion. Even with the winds whipping around
and trying to throw his balance, Kexal managed to catch most of Vralin’s
counters with his shield.

Ignoring small collection of lacerations from the
scattered glass shards, Tyrissa jumped to her feet and joined the fray. She
kept to wide sweeps and big strikes that were easy for Vralin to dodge but kept
him fenced in and within reach of Kexal’s sword. Focused currents of air whipped
around them but avoided Tyrissa. Vralin knew it would be a waste and only aid
her. The flows of magick were close enough to be absorbed in small amounts and
enough to keep her filled with earthen magicks. Her training with Settan came
without thought, the earth magicks allowing her to slide out of reach of
Vralin’s occasional attacks, and acted as an anchor against the shifting air
and swirling fury of combat.

Wolef was thankfully still alive and he crawled away
from the melee, though his movements were weak. Garth ran up and dragged him
back towards Hali, a narrow trail of blood following them. Again the ground
quaked, and Tyrissa heard a deep warbling below the ring and crash of combat.

They kept up the pressure and Vralin began to let
in too many small grazes from Kexal’s attacks and she nearly tripped him with one
of her sweeps. Her store of earth flared as a blast of air hammered downward
and sent Vralin flying up and away from them, his head almost brushing the
high, dimly lit ceiling of the cavern. He landed thirty feet away without a
sound, like a coin against a pillow, his back to the pool of water.

She and Kexal started after him in unison. Vralin
reached down for another pair of throwing knives and Tyrissa tensed up to dodge,
earth coursing through her body. As she ran, Tyrissa felt the barest flicker
from the touch of air magicks, two thin conduits of wind between her and
Vralin, centered on her chest. These two knives were meant for her. She smiled
as she spun out of the way and felt the wake of the two knives as they missed
her by inches.

Vralin scowled as they resumed their melee. His
attacks were faster, more risky and desperate. The winds swirling around became
more violent and less precise in their motions. It was almost over. They had
him.

The ground quivered once more. A crash from one
of the tunnels forced a lull in the combat as a deep wurm slid into the cavern.
It was a monster, an oversized cousin to the wurms that burrowed beneath the
Morgwood, five feet tall and twenty-five long. Its granite colored skin was coated
in flexible plates, and two saucer-sized gray eyes gleamed from the white light
of the broken gloworbs and regarded the cavern with stupid, bestial intensity.

“Huh,” she heard Vralin say in the relative quiet
created by the wurm’s arrival, “The scent worked.”

The wurm slid further into the cavern, snorting
at the air and letting out a series of low warbles. The wurm caught the scent
of blood and surged toward Hali and Wolef. Garth loosed a series of bolts at the
beast, one lodging in its mouth, the rest deflecting harmlessly off its thick
skin.

“Ty, think you could help out with that critter?
I can handle him,” Kexal said without taking his eyes off Vralin.

Tyrissa pulled away from their melee and darted
across the cavern, boots crunching through broken glass. She looked around the
cavern, mind racing to figure out how to deal with the monstrous deep wurm. Hali
knelt above Wolef. Her eyes were scabbed over with rough golden patches of skin
and she blindly pressed her hands to Wolef’s collection of wounds. Garth had feathered
the wurm with a cluster of bolts, but only managed to gain the beast’s full
attention. The wurm lurched forward and battered Garth aside with its snout,
sending the Jalarni tumbling away.