The door was locked, but only with metal and wood, neither of which resisted the sorcery I used to manipulate the primitive mechanism. I kicked it open in the same heartbeat, sending the man behind it sprawling. I pushed through into the room before he or anyone else who might have been lurking there could recover.
I really shouldn’t have been surprised to see six more soldiers within, seeing that it was a guardhouse, but I had begun to think we were the only living creatures in the city. Tatyana charged in behind me, providing enough of a distraction that I could step in and slam the door shut before the ghouls could scramble up the stairs.
Something flashed in my peripheral vision and I felt a sword bite as I threw my arm up into its path. It hurt, but the wound was shallow, unlike the slashes my raking claws opened across my attacker’s face. He staggered back, reaching for his scored face in shock, and so didn’t even see the punch that ended him coming.
The five remaining soldiers charged in and began hacking at us in something close to a frenzy. I shielded my face with one arm, my teeth set as their blades bit and gouged me, the strokes too many and too quick to counter. There was no space for fire, and barely enough for me to follow where Tatyana was. I extended both talons and threw myself at the closest of them, heedless of the swords that flashed out as I gave them an opening. The man I lunged at managed to knock one talon away, but the other found his throat and he fell to his knees, choking on his own blood.
I turned and the soldier on my left tried to punch me with a spiked gauntlet. I swayed to the side, then lunged forward and sank my teeth into the meat of his forearm before he could withdraw it. I jerked my head to the side like a terrier with a rat, tearing a fistful of meat away. He fell away screaming as the third man stabbed me in the back. I felt the sting of it piercing my stretched skin, then a dull rasp as the blade scraped across the malformed bone that had sprouted around my wing nubs.
I lashed out blindly as I spun and caught his helmet with the edge of my talon, ringing it like a bell. It wasn’t enough to really hurt him, but it was enough to distract him and Tatyana’s knife opened his throat a moment later.
He was the last of them. Five men were sprawled on the floor, the warmth and scent of their blood rich and welcome after the bland nothingness that hung outside. The sixth was holding the blade of the sword that Tatyana had pinned him to the door with, coughing blood and mewling ‘No, no, no’ as if it would change his fate.
I was bleeding from a dozen wounds myself, some of them deep enough that I had no choice but to set my sorcery to healing me before my vision greyed out even further. Tatyana picked up another sword from one of the fallen and was peering past the edge of the door that led into the rest of the guardhouse.
‘Are there more of them?’ I asked her, clenching and unclenching my left hand as a rather nasty gash across my back knitted together.
‘Can’t see any.’
I turned to the man she’d pinned to the door like an insect. Driving a sword entirely through a man in armour was an impressive feat in itself, but she had also done it hard enough that sufficient of the blade was buried in the wood to support his weight.
‘How many more of you are there?’ I asked.
His reply was to spit a mouthful of blood at me. In return, I kicked his feet away from under him, sending his full weight onto the sword. His scream was sudden and piteous, and I waited until he got his feet under him again.
‘How many?’ I asked.
‘A platoon,’ he gasped.
‘Penullin platoons are a score, so another fourteen on top of these,’ offered Tatyana. She poked him with the handle of her new sword. ‘Any mages?’
‘You ungodly bitch.’ He gave a strangled sob. ‘You’ve killed me.’
I slapped the handle of the sword and his words ended in a screech.
‘Focus,’ I said. ‘Tell the truth and I will spare you.’
He gave a wet sounding laugh. ‘I’m dying.’
‘You are, but it doesn’t have to be that way.’ I let a few arcs of raw sorcery flash across my fingers. ‘Are there any wizards?’
A bout of coughing wracked his body, and even though I thought him mere moments away from death, he fought to draw more breath, to cling to life however painful and terrible it was.
‘Two,’ he said between mouthfuls of blood.
‘My money says at least three then,’ said Tatyana.
‘Three is manageable,’ I said. I ripped the sword out of his chest, sending him crashing to the floor to die at his own pace.
‘So much for sparing him.’
‘He was already dead.’ I tossed the sword aside. ‘I am surprised he could even stand, let alone speak at the end.’
‘The power of hope,’ she said.
A grunt was my only reply to that as she led us out into the hall that would bring us to the stairs leading to the floors above. There were dungeons below us too apparently, several levels of them cut into the rock that the city had been built on, but she was convinced that a captured prince would not be held in such mean conditions, and the voices we could hear from the floors above supported her idea. The speakers sounded angry as they called out threats and warnings in guttural Penullin. We moved on as quietly as we could, and with my injuries knitting nicely I siphoned some of the energy away and set about preparing some defences against the wizards. Just in case.
The building was wider than it was tall, but fortunately most of the space was utilised by shelf upon shelf of books and scrolls, with whole rooms dedicated to them alongside chambers for the senior guardsmen and sheriffs appointed to pursue various crimes. It was amongst these chambers that we stumbled across more of the guards and both wizards.
The wizards had sensed our approach, but in turn I had felt the sudden pull of their magic as we rounded the corner. It was enough for me to push Tatyana out of the way a fleeting moment before a hissing ball of fire flashed through the space where her chest had just been. The fire ball obliterated a portrait on the wall with a sharp crack and flash of superheated air, and a second exploded across the shield I had just prepared. It felt like I’d been kicked by a large, burning mule, but the core of the spell was deflected and expended itself in the ceiling rather than me. Six guards rushed forward as the sound of the detonations faded, but they weren’t quick enough.
My sorcery didn’t require a staff or wand, and as such the first they knew that I had killed them was when the fire burst into being around them, scorching their skin blacker than mine and setting their hair, beards and clothing alight. Their screams were shrill before the fiery air cooked their lungs and throats, and within a few strides they had all fallen, their bodies convulsing as the fire burned ever deeper.
The wizards cast a wall of shimmering light behind them as they fled, their robes pulled high, but I used my sorcery like a knife and cut the filament of energy that powered their shimmering little wall, forcing it to collapse upon itself.
We pounded down the passage behind them, or at least Tatyana did. I followed as quickly as my leg allowed. I saw one of them turn and thrust his staff at her; a thunderclap sounded and she flew back past me, skidding and tumbling across the floor, wreathed in smoke and flame like a clumsy demon. This and the dismayed gasp that escaped me seemed to embolden them, for the second wizard stopped and turned towards me too.
I stepped over Tatyana’s groaning form and threw my own shield up around me as they released their spells. The first, a translucent pulse of kinetic power, careened off my shield and into the wall opposite, blasting a hole the size of a barrel through the wall. The second wizard thrust his staff towards me, giving me a moment’s warning of the angle of his attack, and I tilted the shield against it. The ball of white fire he’d launched at me struck it at a sharp angle and streaked back towards them, scorching the floorboards as it skipped along across the floor and promptly detonated at the feet of the first wizard. It wasn’t a direct hit, but it was enough to hurl him bodily into the wall and leave him laying there, insensate and smouldering.
I threw a knife at the second wizard as he tried to understand what had just happened. He tried to dodge it, and may have succeeded had I not put a pulse of sorcery behind the throw that both accelerated it and steered it into the centre of his chest. It punched through his breastbone with enough force that only the knob at the end of the handle was visible as he crashed to the floor, dead without another sound.
I looked up and down the passage. Their deflected spells had started two large fires, but fortunately the smoke had already begun to escape through the hole in the wall. I hurried back to Tatyana, who was alive and twitching as the healing construct repaired the damage. It was unfortunate that she’d been hurt enough to wake it so soon again, but there was no other choice at this point. I left her to it and hastened over to the wizard who’d been blown from his feet.
‘A blue robe,’ I said, squatting down next to him. Shards of bone were protruding from both of his legs, one of which was folded beneath him in a way that left little doubt that he’d never dance again. ‘Perfect.’
‘What are you?’ he groaned.
‘Where is the prince?’
‘Prince?’
I stuck a claw into one of the raw wounds and wiggled it about, which set him to howling.
‘Prince Lucien Stahrull.’ I leaned forward until my face was mere inches from his. ‘And do not pretend you have the courage to withstand what I will do to you if you lie to me.’
‘One floor up,’ he said between gasps.
‘Very good. Now, when does your Master arrive?’ It looked like he was going to laugh so I set the tip of my claw in his earhole and pushed it in until it met something solid, which quickly silenced him. ‘Why is that funny?’
‘Stratus Firesky,’ he said, baring his bloodied teeth at me.
‘You know my name?’
I felt a shiver in the air, as if something I could not hear was roaring nearby; it passed quickly enough that for a moment I thought I had imagined it, but then the wizard stiffened, his back arching violently.
‘In life and death, I serve.’ His words started as a whisper and ended as a scream.
My hand was still against his face, and I felt his skin shift under it, not so much tearing as dissolving. Behind me, the newly conscious Tatyana gasped as his skin and flesh sloughed off his bones, transforming him from a man to a gleaming skeleton quicker than the telling of it.
I moved back as the blood flowed back towards his bones, then rose into the air above his body and spun itself into a glistening globe that took on the aspect of a human face.
‘Stratus Firesky.’ A new voice bubbled from the bloody head, wet and gasping, but I recognised the cadence. ‘In the end, the Beast always returns to its master.’
‘I will be your death, wizard.’
Wet laughter bubbled from its lips. ‘I am death, you fool.’
I looked at the head through my sorcery and saw the hair-thin streams of bluish light that coursed through it like puppeteer’s strings, rising and stretching away towards the east. ‘I am waiting for you.’
The cords flashed once and, as they vanished, the head fell and exploded into a shower of blood, the ripples of it spreading and lapping around my feet. I stared as the ripples spread and settled. I had seen that before.
‘God above,’ Tatyana said from behind me in a hoarse voice. ‘Was that him?’
‘If you mean Navar Louw, then yes.’
‘Ow, fuck,’ she said, pulling herself to her feet. The padded coat she’d donned was blasted away across her chest, the edges of it still smouldering. I was impressed that she’d recovered so quickly, but I caught a glimpse of glittering blue light from within the mail shirt she wore beneath and smiled. I really liked that medallion.
‘At least you’re not cold anymore,’ I offered.
‘Piss off.’ She picked up her sword and came to stare at the steaming mound of flesh at my feet. ‘He’s really here, isn’t he?’
I nodded. ‘In the cathedral.’
‘Shit.’
‘Shall we go?’
‘Well sure. Let’s just go find the Worm Lord. And I’m fine, thank you for asking. It feels like I tried to catch a burning catapult shot with my tits, but really, I’m fine.’
‘Good.’ I helped myself to the knife on the wizard’s belt to replace the one I’d used. ‘Also, I can smell Lucien. Upstairs.’ My nose at least had benefited from the shifting of the enchantment.
She hurried off without another word, her heartbeat thumping and I again found myself trailing after her as she strode towards the stairs, her sword held in both hands. Footsteps sounded from the floor above us, but she didn’t slow until she was halfway up to the flat bit in the middle.
‘They know we’re coming,’ I said.
She carefully peered around the corner of the staircase but flung herself back as one of the fat arrows from a crossed bow smashed into the wall behind her, burying most of its length in the old wood.
‘Come on up,’ called a voice from above. ‘There’s plenty more where that came from.’
I was about to ask her to move out the way when another arrow buzzed past and slammed into the wall, close enough that it lifted several strands of her hair in its wake. With my back bent and twisted and my leg aching, crouching on the stairs was simply intolerable and what remained of my patience swiftly evaporated.
My sorcery filled the pattern for fire in my head, the familiar shape and heat of it a comforting certainty as I pushed her aside and edged higher until I could see over the top step. The archer was behind an overturned table but was still winding back the string of his bow, which gave me more than enough time to finalise the shape of the fire. I glimpsed five or six human faces staring at me from behind other furniture.
They disappeared from view as I released the construct. It caught the archer as he turned to run down the passage, flaying his back to the bone. The wind blew their barricade apart and the fire that followed rushed through the gaps before blossoming into a flame that raced across the walls and ceiling like floodwater. The men dove for cover, but the fire greedily pulled the air from their lungs. I extended my talons and moved in as the primary bloom of flame collapsed into smoke. Killing those that had survived was easy, and more of a mercy than a necessity. When the last of the screams fell silent I could hear more men coughing from behind each of the four doors that were set into the walls.
‘Lucien!’ shouted Tatyana, racing up the stairs, her scarf pressed to her face. ‘Lucien!’
The smoke made it impossible for me to find his scent, and as it was unlikely that I’d recognise him by sight I left her to investigate the rooms. I busied myself with the nearest of the charred soldiers, quickly gorging myself on the blackened meat, pausing only to spit out the tattered remnants of his clothing that threatened to choke me.
Tatyana found Lucien in the last cell, disturbing my impromptu meal with an urgent shout. I wiped my face on the soldier’s cloak and hurried over. I ran my nails across the wood and listened carefully as I tapped it.
‘Step away from the door,’ I said. Normally I would have simply kicked it open, but with only one good leg I opted to barge into it with my shoulder, letting my weight rather than my strength do the hard work. My estimation of its strength was accurate and on the second attempt I smashed through it, splitting the door from top to bottom and stumbling into a cell that was certainly more comfortable than anything he’d offered me in the palace. The floors were laid with wood, and there was a raised bed piled with blankets. I caught a glimpse of Lucien before Tatyana threw herself into his embrace, but he seemed healthy enough.
I dusted splintered wood from my shoulders and, ever curious, released a pulse of probing sorcery. I felt the wards hidden beneath the floorboards buzz and flicker, and since they were still embracing and paying me no attention, I used the distraction to explore the pattern hidden beneath. It was a series of wards, rather than a single complex creation, which was a blessing and a curse in that it was easier to break, but more likely to react badly if I broke it in the wrong place. It would take time to unravel and understand it, time that we no longer had. I couldn’t sense the stored energy that an offensive ward would normally carry, which was somewhat comforting, and the power it was drawing was minimal at best.
I raised a shield around me and, taking a deep breath, broke the chain of wards. The silver light shining out through the gaps in the floorboards stuttered and went dark, and a moment later Lucien cried out and staggered to the side as if struck, and may have fallen had Tatyana not caught him. She lowered him to the bed, where he clutched at his head and groaned through clenched teeth.
‘What did you do?’ she said over her shoulder.
I stepped closer and looked down at the prince, who was still groaning and holding his head.
‘Hold him,’ I said, and to her credit she did not protest. I put my hand on his forehead and sent a pulse of sorcery through him. I felt the resistance of bound enchantments slow the energies, and felt him shuddering under my hand as I increased the flow of power, overcoming their resistance. Tatyana leaned forward and kept his arms pinned against his chest.
I looked down at him through my sorcery, concentrating until all I could see was the glowing outline of his body and the red gold of life pulsing from his heart. I followed it through him, seeing the recently healed injuries from swords, knives and magic and, finally, the dark shape nestled within his head. The red glitter of his lifeblood dimmed to grey as it passed through the mass. The worm twitched as I watched, every movement eliciting a groan from Lucien. I pulled the energy back into myself and straightened. Tatyana sat back, not looking away from him.
‘Is it, you know...’ She gestured to his head.
‘Yes. It’s right about here.’ I tapped the left side of his head.
‘Can you do anything? Use your magic to remove it?’
I considered that. The ward under the floor had clearly been linked to the worm and not much else, which went some way to explaining the negligible power that it had been sending out. But why? The worm was a physical thing, and had only needed a glass of wine to find its way into him. It was feeding on his life, and yet now seemed to be struggling to survive even though his state of being had not altered.
‘Perhaps,’ I said to Tatyana. ‘It seems weak, like a newborn pup.’ I pinched Lucien’s nose until he stopped his groaning and focused on me. ‘Hello, Prince.’
‘Stratus? Is that you?’
‘Yes.’
‘By the gods, you look perfectly hideous.’
‘Perhaps you could paint my face later.’
His smile became a grimace as the worm flexed. ‘Not enough paint in Krandin,’ he managed through clenched teeth.
‘Perhaps.’ I knelt on the floor by the bed. ‘I need you to focus now. I want you to think about Fronsac. Do you remember him?’
‘I’m a prince, not a simpleton.’
‘Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Now, focus on him, and only him. Remember his voice. Keep him fixed in your mind and look into my eyes.’
I lit my eyes with a flicker of sorcery, drawing his gaze to them, and pushed my mind at his. When I tried something similar with his brother, the wards imposed by the court wizard had expelled me within moments, but now I found myself amongst Lucien’s thoughts with barely a token resistance. They were jumbled and confused, with fragments of dreams mixing with memories of myself and Tatyana and much more, the colours and sounds muted, in a similar way to what the mist had only recently visited on me. I gleaned enough to know that he hadn’t even heard the commotion outside the cells; whoever had broken through Fronsac’s outer wards had done so with no little cunning and subtlety and left him in an almost trance-like state, weakening his will.
I marshalled my concentration and pushed deeper, beyond the fitful dreams and fantasies that had driven coherent thought from his head.
Think of Fronsac, I pulsed at him, and around me his thoughts stirred sluggishly and darkened as half formed fragments touched and drifted apart again. Fronsac. I continued to pulse it at him, and slowly the fragments began to hold together for longer. Blurred suggestions of the wizard took form around me, dissolving back into mist before drawing together again, their lines a little sharper and the grey giving way to a little more colour with each attempt until even I recognised Fronsac. A tremor passed through the mind around me as the mists retreated, revealing a vista where Lucien sat sharing a mug of ale with him at an inn before melting away to them debating fiercely in the wizard’s chambers, then both of them arguing with Jean, and finally to Lucien and Fronsac sitting upon the palace roof as Fronsac instructed him in astronomy.
I felt his concentration growing, and with it the first strains of the ward that I was seeking. It was a powerful enchantment, set deep within the prince’s mind and not so easily eroded. Fronsac, Fronsac, I whispered at Lucien, and the images around me sharpened considerably. I saw Lucien step out of the palace, standing tall in his armour of war even though fear was eating at him like a cancer as he walked towards the paladins he was to lead from the city. I saw Fronsac beckon to him from a side door, and he made his way to the wizard, who grabbed him by the arms and stared into his eyes.
‘Be careful out there, Lucien. There’s something rotten in our midst.’
‘You’ll protect me, won’t you?’ asked Lucien, laying a gauntleted hand on the wizard’s shoulder.
‘You know I will. But spells can only do so much.’
‘I’ll be fine. There are still good men amongst them.’
‘Who’d hang us both if they knew the truth.’
‘I’ll come back,’ said the prince. ‘Look after Tata while I’m gone. Tell her I’m sorry.’
‘I think the mysterious Stratus will keep her safer than either of us.’
A paladin called Lucien’s name from the courtyard before he could reply to that.
‘Let us pray he remains our ally. I must go.’
‘Wait.’ The wizard placed his fingertips on Lucien’s forehead and spoke a word, and the memory cracked apart and began to fade. But I remembered the word and repeated it, filling his mind with echoes of it. I felt it reverberate deeper in his mind and settle into a steady pressure that began to rise and strengthen with every whisper of it.
I released his mind and sat back. Lucien blinked and rubbed at his face as if waking, then suddenly squeezed at his head. ‘Oh god, it hurts. Argh!’
‘What did you do?’ shouted Tatyana, rubbing ineffectively at his arms.
‘I woke Fronsac’s wards.’ I was fairly sure that was what I had done, but it wasn’t the time or place to try and explain the vagaries and dangers that came with toying with the spells of others. ‘Just give him time.’
Lucien groaned again as a thin stream of scarlet broke from his nose and snaked across his jaw.
‘Is that supposed to happen?’
‘It’s not unexpected.’ Which wasn’t entirely a lie. ‘The wards are suffocating the worm, and I fear it will not die without a struggle.’
‘Can’t you help him?’ The blanket she was holding to his nose was rapidly turning crimson. ‘Please?’ Her eyes glittered as the spent magic and strength of her emotions kindled the spark of sorcery within her.
Navar was here in the city, waiting for me, and given what was at stake, the power that I had should not be wasted on another meaningless human life. I opened my mouth to tell her just that, but the words would not pass my lips. Instead I found myself sitting next to the prince and laying my hands on either side of his head.
‘Are you sure you want me to do this?’
He looked up at me and I felt him give the slightest of nods.
‘As you wish,’ I said. I adjusted my hold on his head, aligning my fingers, then released my sorcery, sending arcs of energy springing from finger to finger, filling his skull with the golden light of the Songlines.