Her pleas went unheeded. Magic flexed and slid through the air as their chant continued, the strength that they poured into the complex sound of it attesting to long hours of practice and an almost careless confidence. Their spells held her immobile as the wizard in the centre bent and began drawing symbols on her skin.
It was only when the blood flowed across her pale, scrubbed skin that I realised he was cutting the symbols into her with a fine bladed knife. She gasped, and had their magic not held her I knew her back would be arching. I could feel the urge to use that rising somewhere in the back of my mind.
‘Remember our deal, Beast,’ said Andros from behind me in a soft voice. ‘You move or protest, and I will take your eyes. The Master wants you alive, no more than that.’
He punctuated the threat by tapping a curved knife against my jaw. I wanted to rip free and grab him, but what if he wasn’t where I thought he was? What then?
The wizards kept chanting, and the knife kept cutting until her skin was more crimson than white. Her gaze met mine as the wizard knelt to carve his markings on her legs and I felt her press against my mind. It was an uncontrolled sending, and I doubt she even knew how or if she was doing it, but it was undeniably her.
I recognised the echo of my sorcery within it and felt the ghostly burn of his knife lighting up my flesh. I couldn’t help or offer any comfort though, not with their spell shackling my sorcery. Her mind bucked and screamed against mine, and I felt their magic sliding and pulsing its way into her, so cold that it burned more than the runes carved into her flesh. I could feel the power they were pouring into her shining out from those bloody cuts, and worse, I could feel something great and terrible responding to that light. Something that radiated a bottomless hunger than went far beyond the physical, the force of it so elemental that even she with no skill could sense and interpret its intention: to devour and destroy.
They had created the monster that had defeated me, and now they were seeking to create another, with her at the twisted centre of it. Tatyana had seen it being born, and the horror of that knowledge was close to breaking her mind.
In front of me the wizard with the knife stood and stepped back as if admiring his handiwork and gestured to four of the others. They moved in silently and lowered the table, giving me one last glimpse of Tatyana’s terror-stricken expression before they carried her away. Towards it.
‘It’s a shame you’re too heavy to move.’ Andros’ voice seemed loud and coarse after the sibilant chanting. ‘I would have liked you to witness her rebirth, but then you’ll still get to see her in her new glory soon enough. Wizards made the best anchors, so a natural sorcerer like her should be truly remarkable.’ He patted my chest as he walked away to watch. ‘Remind me to thank you for bringing her to our notice.’
I watched him without saying a word as the idea that they thought she was a sorcerer raced through my thoughts. It was because of this that they wanted to bind her into the monster that they were creating. As a soul anchor, something a wizard was suited to, most likely because they were attuned to the Songlines, and their flesh was used to the tidal flow of power that went with that. Except of course that she wasn’t the sorcerer. I was, and I was linked to her. And that channel was open, as she’d already proved by her clumsy projection of fear.
If her terror and pain could reach me, so too could whatever else they levied upon her. Assuming I was correct, and I almost certainly was, I couldn’t wait any longer. As soon as Andros was out of earshot I set about pulling the nails out of the table. The chanting and the noise from the other prisoners masked the squeak of the wood relinquishing its hold on the iron and with a grunt of effort and a few more drops of blood I finally pulled my wrist free. It was easier if no less painful after that and, by the time that one of the wizards noticed what I was doing I was already sitting up on the table and working the thick straps on my legs loose.
I was aware of them pointing at me, but, now that I could see around me, my attention was largely fixed on the abomination that hung from a series of platforms in the far corner of the cave. Four thick, pale appendages extended away from a central, oblong body that seemed largely composed of wet bone, and the horror of its appearance was only exceeded by the realisation that the scores of men that had been melted together to form that pulsating mass were still somehow alive.
Heavy footsteps dragged my gaze from it and I saw the ghouls lumbering towards me, their heavy armour rattling and chiming. With my sorcery still refusing to heed my call I would have expected them to hammer me with spells but even as I thought it I felt the answer press on my skin. The chamber had wonderful acoustics, something they had also clearly recognised, and everything they were doing was laid out and carefully staged to utilise that and amplify the effect of their spellcasting. The rising spell had even driven off the shoals of souls, masking the vitality that they sought.
And they weren’t going to risk casting another spell while the ritual was ongoing, not if it was so important to them. From the size of the monstrosity they had created it must have taken a long time to fuse the victims that comprised its body. Weeks, at least.
Which was all very encouraging and helpful, except that it still left me facing off against two very powerful and heavily armoured ghouls with nothing except a pair of baggy trousers and several still bleeding holes in my side.
But I was a dragon, not some bewildered farmboy. I let my real teeth slide from my palate, the pin sharp points filling my mouth with the taste of my own blood as they emerged. I gave the wizards a bloody smile as I extended my ebon talons, pushing them out to their full length, extending the reach of my arms by half again.
The ghouls didn’t care and didn’t pause in their advance. Their maces flashed out with the speed of Tatyana’s sword, belying their mass, and I felt my wounds tear as I jerked back. I drove my right arm out at the first of them but felt the tip of the talon rattle off the plate protecting its neck. I wasn’t expecting it to ram its shield forward, nor the fiery burst of pain as the spiked bit in the centre cut a new gash across my hip. I stumbled back, into the path of the second ghoul’s mace and could not stop the squawk that burst from me as the metal head clipped the side of my head and turned the world white.
I felt myself hit the ground, the wounds in my side flaring anew. I threw myself sideways, rolling desperately to avoid what I knew was coming. A mace crashed into the stone where my head had been a moment before and I swung my arm back. I couldn’t get the talon in the right angle to pierce anything, but I grabbed its arm and kicked back with the powerful muscles of my legs, pulling it off balance. It fell heavily, spoiling the second one’s blow, and I wasted no time in ramming a talon through the fallen one’s visor, leaning my weight onto it until I felt the tip touch the rock beneath before twisting it free.
I was still standing up when the enchantments that bound the ghoul failed catastrophically and detonated in a flash of purple-white light that transformed its helm and head into a thousand spinning fragments. This staggered the second ghoul and I launched myself at it, punching a talon through one of its unarmoured knees. It may have been immune to pain and fear, but the mechanics of its body were still unavoidably human. It caught me with a weak blow from the mace as it fell, but I stamped on its arm and ripped the weapon free.
It stared at me with its egg-like eyes as I lifted the mace and brought it crashing down, ending the parody of life that animated its flesh. Forewarned, I hurriedly backed away before its head exploded in a similar fashion. Andros and the two wizards who weren’t tied to the ritual were advancing on me and they didn’t look happy, which only set me to grinning despite the new streams of blood coating me like a second skin.
‘Time to die,’ I called, my predatory teeth giving the words an unwanted lisp.
Their advance stalled as I began walking towards them, the gore-streaked mace held in a two handed grip. There were on the cusp of fleeing when the dark magic surrounding the monster pulsed and rippled through the cave, the sound of it setting my teeth on edge as that foul magic coalesced into a silvery web of energy. For a moment they hung in the air and I hoped that it was only a precursor to the core of the spell, but then the strands of it merged and arced into the now screaming Tatyana.
She thrashed as the energy poured into her, energy she had no way of controlling. Her name died on my lips as the energy swelled and burst from her and raced towards me along the golden filament of sorcery that joined us.