When the Heavens Fall (73 page)

She hesitated. What now?

Twin pillars of fire erupted from the burning tree, streaking toward her. As they struck her wards she felt a burst of heat and was hurled backward. She hit the ground and slid through greasy puddles, took in a mouthful of muck, spat it out again. Through the water in her eyes she saw a blur of orange as the elderling took physical form again. It came rushing at her, and Parolla struggled to one knee, tried to raise her hands …

Mottle stepped in front of her.

A funnel of air closed around the tiktar, lifting it high and flinging it aside. The elderling twisted in the air, landed nimbly between two trees a short distance away. It raised one of its swords. Flames lanced from its end toward Mottle, only to be caught by the wind and directed harmlessly away. Parolla rose, caked in muck, and let loose another barrage of sorcery. The tiktar screamed as it struck, holding its shape for a moment before dissolving to blend with the flames devouring one of the trees beside it. Parolla blasted the trunk to ash, only for the fire to leap to the next tree. She destroyed that too, then the next and the next until the air was heavy with ash.

Mottle said, “The trees have done something to offend you, my girl?”

She let her breath out slowly, then lowered her arms. The tiktar had transferred to a fallen tree several score paces away. Within the fire that consumed the trunk Parolla could make out black spots that might have been the elderling's eyes. Other trees on the hilltop were ablaze, and the crackle of flames was loud all about. “The creature is restoring itself,” she said to Mottle. “Any damage we inflict to its physical form is burned away in the fire.”

“Fire feeds off earth,” the old man replied simply.

“Then what do you suggest? We can't kill it—the thing is dead already. How do we destroy something that can make itself anew in the flames?”

The
archmagus
grinned. “As ever the answer lies with Mottle.” His eyes were wide, his voice breathless. “Your humble servant has been making good use of the time afforded him to draw on the storm's energy. Observe, if you will.”

All at once the air was filled with water as if Parolla had stepped beneath a waterfall, and the hilltop disappeared beyond a few fuzzy armspans in each direction. She flinched, hunched her shoulders. Her clothes were plastered to her skin, her hair to her face, yet still she managed a half smile. Of course. You fought fire with water, and no flame could withstand such an onslaught. Parolla wondered why she hadn't thought of it before. Even if the tiktar's flames were extinguished, though, that didn't necessarily mean it would be left completely powerless …

A score of heartbeats passed, the rain roaring and hissing in her ears. Then the deluge abruptly petered out as if the clouds had been wrung dry. She blinked wet from her eyes and looked round. The ground was covered in water, and a fine mist hung in the air, a mist that was already being shredded by the wind. The black trunks about her were smoking …

Except one, which continued to burn—the fallen tree where the tiktar sheltered. The breeze felt suddenly cold against Parolla's skin.

An image came to her, then, of her first encounter with the elderling, its flaming form rising from the lake.
The lake …
Her stomach felt sour. Hells, how could she have thought water alone would be enough to destroy it? How could she have forgotten? And yet the rain must surely have sapped the tiktar's strength. Sodden wood would burn less easily, slowing the elderling's recovery. She should strike now while it was weakened. But how did one
destroy
fire?

The thread of death-magic holding it. It's the only way.

Mottle giggled and gestured with one hand. Lightning arced down from the storm clouds and struck the blazing tree, sending splinters of wood spinning into the air.

“What are you doing,
sirrah
?” Parolla snapped. “The lightning will feed the flames.”

Mottle's only response was another giggle. A gust of wind set his robe billowing, and he flapped his arms as if he were trying to fly. Parolla snorted her disgust. The old man was intoxicated on power. He'd drawn in too much of it when he called down the storm, and now it was oozing from every pore.

A new sound reached her suddenly: a faint drumming. It came from the north, and when she looked across she saw shapes taking form in the gloom beyond the tree where the tiktar waited. Parolla started. Riders, a dozen in all. More Fangalar? No, these horsemen wore not garishly colored robes but plate armor and full-face helms with antlers protruding from them …

Antlers.

She began laughing then, conscious of the hint of madness in the sound. She laughed until her chest ached and her eyes streamed and even Mottle had stopped his arm-flapping to stare at her.

The Hunt had found her.

*   *   *

The wound to Luker's wrist that he'd suffered in his duel with Kanon had opened again. Blood ran down his palm in a steady trickle, making his grip slick on the hilt of his longknife. He had scored a number of similar cuts to the arms and bodies of his opponents, but to no effect—the bastards didn't bleed, after all, and moral victories counted for little in a fight against undead adversaries. Luker searched his opponents' eyes for any sign they were battling against Mayot's hold in the same way Kanon had. There was nothing. But then neither of the Prime possessed his master's strength of will, nor would they have any interest in seeing Luker survive this encounter.

A strike from the Guardian's Will rocked Harelip's head back, but the undead warrior rolled with the blow. Meanwhile Poxface launched a blistering series of cuts and lunges at Luker's head and chest. He parried her first few efforts, then counterattacked with a Will-reinforced slash to her midsection. When she defended the blow with both of her weapons, Luker's second blade was already sweeping down with a cut to her right leg.

Harelip's sword flashed to block.

The Guardian disengaged, parrying Harelip's backswing before turning to meet Poxface's next attack. Close again, but still no breakthrough. Truth was, this tag-team thing was beginning to piss him off. The outcome of the clash would depend on who made the first mistake, and it was looking more and more like that would be Luker. He could not sustain this level of concentration for much longer, for he could feel the first tendrils of a headache taking root in his brain. Time to take a few more risks if he wanted to force an opening …

The thock of a crossbow sounded an instant before a quarrel buried itself in Poxface's right knee. The woman staggered.

Luker gave a dark smile. If the bolt had hit where Jenna intended, it was an inspired shot.

Mayot must have taken objection to the assassin crashing his party, for the dome lit up with flashes of sorcery. With luck the mage was shooting blind, but there was no time to worry about that now. Luker needed to press home his advantage before Mayot weighted the odds against him once more.

Poxface was hobbling, and Luker retreated, forcing her to come to him. As she shuffled forward, the Guardian lashed out with his Will, striking at the woman's knee just as her weight came down. A crack of bone, and she stumbled and fell.

Luker's gaze swung to Harelip.
You are mine.
A flurry of blows forced the undead warrior backward, then a strike with Luker's Will knocked him off balance. The Guardian followed up with a disguised attack, feinting with the longknife in his left hand before slashing with the sword in his right. The Prime read his intent late but still brought his weapon up to block.
Not this time.
Another flick of Luker's Will batted aside the parrying stroke, leaving his blade unimpeded as it swept down to sever his opponent's sword arm at the elbow. A backhand cut came next, aimed at Harelip's neck. As the undead warrior attempted to sway out of the way, he lost his footing and ducked into the blow. Luker's sword took him full in the face and caught there, just below the nose. The undead warrior went down, poleaxed, wrenching Luker's blade from his hand.

The Guardian looked at Poxface to see her struggling to regain her feet. No danger there.

He transferred his longknife to his right hand, then spun and threw in one motion. The blade flashed end-over-end through the gloom.

To impale one of Sickle Man's opponents through the neck.

A roar of sound was Luker's only warning. He raised a Will-barrier just before a wave of sorcery struck him, and it pitched him onto his back in a pile of leaves. Shaking his head, he rose to one knee. Another burst of power slammed into his defenses. He gritted his teeth as death-magic raged about him. A dozen figures were making their way round the dais toward him, and the stranger in the lead, a woman dressed in multicolored robes, raised her hands to send another wave of blackness thundering against his defenses. A second undead sorcerer added his strength to hers, then a third and a fourth. What, four on one now, was it? Seemed Mayot had had enough of sporting chances.

As each assault struck, the Guardian felt an answering flash of agony in his skull. Poxface was caught in the path of the attack, and her body disintegrated to ash.

Then a flicker of light caught Luker's eye—an arc of movement through the darkness. A glittering object—no, two—sailed through the air toward the undead sorceress and her coterie. Through his pain, it took Luker a heartbeat to recognize what the things were.

Merin's globes.

He recalled the two globes that had already been used: earth against the soulcaster, water in the forest. Assuming the tyrin had one of each element, that left …

Shroud's mercy!

Luker flung himself to the ground.

 

C
HAPTER
22

V
ALE SWEPT
through the undead, leaving a dozen broken bodies twitching in his wake. Ebon followed behind, his gaze searching the shadowy doorways to either side. A single Vamilian swordswoman had escaped Vale's initial pass, emerging from the darkness to his right. She sprang at the Endorian, her ivory-colored robes flapping about her.

There was no time for Ebon to shout a warning. Instinctively he struck out at the woman, and an invisible force hit her, sent her crashing into the wall of the house on her left. The wall groaned and collapsed, then the entire building folded in upon itself. Vale spun round, his eyes darting. Three quick steps brought him to the mound of debris that was all that remained of the house. His sword swung down, and the Vamilian woman, already making to rise, toppled back into blackness, her right leg severed.

Ebon lifted his hands and stared at them. Had that burst of sorcery been his? If so, why had there been no icy prickle when he'd lashed out? And why had Galea intervened to help one of his companions when thus far she'd been at best indifferent to their fate?
Unless …
He quested for the goddess, found her a distant presence at the back of his mind. Could he now draw on her magic without her agreement? Had he inherited some of her power through the link between them?

His questions would have to wait. From a street or two away came a clatter of stones and the sound of running feet. Gesturing for Vale to join him, Ebon ducked into shadow mere heartbeats before more Vamilians dashed past. As their footfalls faded, he slipped into their wake. Mayot's dome was just a stone's throw away, and he led Vale at a jog toward an arched entranceway.

They drew up in darkness beyond the threshold. A hissing noise filled the air like waves breaking against a shore. Within the gloom ahead he could make out nothing except shadows, but the clash of metal striking metal was unmistakable.

Looking back at the hill where he had left Mottle and Parolla, he saw a ring of trees ablaze. Galea had refused to let her power be used in the battle against the tiktar, insisting that Ebon make his way to Mayot's dome. At the time he'd been incensed, but now, following the death of one of the Kinevar gods, he understood the reason for her urgency.
A god …
He had felt its power through his link with Galea. There would be no defeating the immortal, the goddess had told him, if it reached this place, and this once Ebon had had no trouble believing her. His only hope was to cut its strings—to cut all the undead's strings—before it arrived.

Vale's face was pale. Blood leaked from a cut at the top of his left arm, and his shirt round the wound was torn and drenched crimson.

“How bad is it?” Ebon said.

“A scratch.”

“We should find somewhere quiet so I can stitch it.”

“Yeah right. And maybe one of the stiffs will lend you a needle and thread.”

Ebon hesitated, then took the Endorian's arm in his hands. Without the goddess to guide him he had no idea how this worked. To swat the Vamilian swordswoman aside he'd done no more than will it to happen. Was it the same with healing? Peeling back the blood-soaked cloth, he focused on the wound. Vale flinched as the flesh knitted together. An instant later, all that remained was a jagged scar.

“Not a work of art,” the Endorian said.

“Neither are you.”

“Have I got the goddess to thank for that?”

“No.”

Vale frowned, but said nothing more.

Another crash of blades sounded from inside the dome. Ebon shot a look at the Endorian. “The consel, do you think?”

“Maybe we should give it a while longer before going in.”

Ebon gave a half smile.

Suddenly a gust of wind hammered into him from behind, propelling him down the corridor. A deep-throated rumble sounded from within the dome, followed by an explosion that shook the walls of the passage. The ground beneath Ebon's feet heaved, and he stumbled into Vale.

A blast of cold signaled Galea's arrival in his mind. The goddess shouted a warning.

Then a wall of fire came rushing at him from inside.