Drogoya: Book 3 Circles of Light series (16 page)

Babach was listening so
intently he could himself feel the chill of ice where Kadi’s body
rested, feel her sense of terror and loss.

‘I knew I would die in
the cold lands I had reached, so I flew once more until, after I
don’t know how long, I felt the minds here in the Stronghold. I was
so very cold that I flew to the south for a while, over the
Wilderness. Then I heard a Dragon’s challenge. I thought perhaps I
had somehow encroached on the Silver One’s territory, but it was
Nula, the Forsaken.’

Babach saw the dark
green Dragon storming towards the exhausted Kadi, saw the fire
jetting from the gaping jaws, felt agony in his wings, and knew he
was experiencing exactly what Kadi had suffered.

Kadi hesitated. ‘I am
not entirely sure, and I have not asked her, but I think Gremara
was aware and somehow present. I fell out of the air and was
fortunate to land where I did. I would have tried to rise, to fight
back, but Gremara ordered me to lie still. I believe she made Nula
think that I was dead, and made her leave me there.’

A huge sigh gusted from
the massive blue Dragon. She turned her face to the
Observer.

‘I believe it is my
task to fetch back the child Mena. It was your land of Drogoya that
I took her to, was it not?’ She rattled her wings. ‘I remember pain
and fire, fire and pain, flying over your land, Babach. And
although I am sore afraid, I will have to go back
there.’

‘Know that I too am
afraid, Kadi. But I will go with you when you return for the
child.’

Chapter
Ten

As soon as Thryssa had
brought the Lady Emla and the first group of her Guards through the
circle to the room high in the Asataria, she ordered them to move
out to stand against the walls. Several Guards looked a little pale
and dizzy, but they obeyed the order as promptly as those
unaffected by their method of travel. A few moments passed in tense
silence, then there was a soft explosion of air and Elyssa stood in
the centre of the room with the second group of Guards.

Soran, in the first
group, had placed himself by the door and was pressed to it,
listening for any sound from without. Jilla and Lashek had
fashioned a dozen glow stones, which gave a considerable amount of
light. Small enough to fit in to the palm of a hand, the light was
extinguished by the simple expedient of closing the fingers over
it. Jilla told them that the lights would last for three days, then
they would revert to being the plain round pebbles they had been
before.

Many of the Guards
chosen by Soran knew the Asataria building reasonably well, having
escorted the Lady between her House and the City on numerous
occasions. Discipline Seniors in their houses in the City were
ready to shield three other forces of Guards who were to attempt
entry by way of the places Ryla had remembered. The third force was
clearly visible in front of the building’s main gates. In all, two
hundred Guards were deployed outside and Soran tried to be
confident of the mere thirty two here under his command inside the
Asataria.

Emla whispered her
thanks to High Speaker Thryssa and moved to join Soran, Shan at her
left shoulder. Soran eased open the door and strained to hear any
sound from below. The room they were in was at an upper corner of
the building: there could be no attack from behind them until they
reached the first stairway. Shan twitched Emla’s sleeve and the
Lady turned her head, frowning. Her eyes widened seeing Thryssa and
Bagri directly behind her. Glancing back into the room, Emla saw
Kwanzi and Elyssa sitting calmly at the worktable. This was
certainly not the moment to indulge in even a whispered argument so
Emla could only shrug and follow Soran.

Only three glow stones
were in use, just enough to see where they were walking. Reaching
the first flight of stairs, Soran halted them. He motioned half the
Guards up to him and murmured into Emla’s ear.

‘It is too quiet. They
know we are here Lady. They probably wait for us directly below,
assuming that we will take the quickest route to the Chamber of
Gathering.’

Thryssa had pressed
closer to hear Soran and she nodded.

‘Is there another, less
used way, Emla?’

Emla thought rapidly.
‘The servants’ stairs, about fifty paces further on the right,
concealed by a door.’

One of the Guards
ghosted away, returning almost at once to nod to the Captain. Two
Guards remained by the door while the rest of the party crept down
a narrow and steep flight of stairs. Soran recognised where they
were as soon as they emerged from a second door at the foot of the
stairs. He was signalling Guards forward as Emla and Thryssa
reached the lower door. Light flared from the junior students’
dining hall opposite and City Guards fell upon the Lady’s
men.

Bagri pushed past Emla
until he was close to Soran who was defending himself against two
swords. A strange quiet hung over the passageway, broken by the
grunts and clatter of metal on metal, a quiet that seemed to
expand. Bagri raised his left hand, the fingers slightly curled,
and Soran’s opponents reeled away clutching their faces. Emla
blocked a side swinging sword, pushing it up and away as Shan
darted forward, thrusting economically directly into the belly thus
exposed. The rebel Guard gasped and fell, almost pulling Shan with
him.

Emla grabbed the back
of Shan’s jacket, jerking her upright even as a spear of green
flame whisked past her head. A group of City Guards, advancing from
the left corridor, screamed as the green fire hit the first man and
then bloomed out to engulf several others. Shouts could be heard
from a lower level to Emla’s left. Soran let out a bellowing shout
in response and glanced quickly to the Lady, pulling his blade free
of a body.

‘Our men,’ he gasped.
‘From the first entrance.’

Emla nodded, ducking as
a blade hissed over her head.

The fighting was swift
and brutal: Thryssa and Bagri did not dare use their magic too much
in the melee for fear of hurting their own side. Suddenly Soran’s
men found they had no more to fight, the few City Guards on their
feet fled along the corridor towards the main chambers.

Three of the Lady’s
Guards were dead, and four had serious wounds. Soran detailed men
to get the wounded back up to Kera’s room as quickly as they could.
Several others had taken minor cuts and everyone would no doubt
have bruises, but Soran had twenty five Guards still fit for
action, and more approaching he hoped. Sure enough, around fifty
men came from the left hand corridor, and their officer saluted
Soran with a grim nod.

‘Sir, they are fighting
strangely. Almost as if they are sleep walking. Oh they still fight
hard, but there is something amiss.’

Soran leaned on his
sword to regain some breath.

‘I noticed that too.
And the ones here all ran back in that direction. Bait I would
guess.’

‘And do we take the
bait Captain?’ Emla asked.

Soran straightened and
wiped blood from his blade onto a body near his feet.

‘I think we have to
Lady. You said you believed they would make the Chamber of
Gathering the place they would try to hold against us.’ He
shrugged. ‘That is in the direction we are being invited to
follow.’

The party moved quickly
through the corridors towards the great Chamber of Gathering, glow
stones illuminating their way as none of the lamps were lit in
their high brackets. The quiet that filled the usually bustling
Asataria was affecting them all and as they crossed the last hall
in front of the massive doors to the Gathering Chamber, the lack of
sound felt smothering. They came to a halt half a dozen paces from
the doors.

‘This is the only
entrance Emla?’ Thryssa asked softly.

Emla nodded. Bagri
moved closer to the two women.

‘There is power being
used in there,’ he told them. ‘Can you feel it Thryssa? And it is
all around and through those doors.’

Thryssa narrowed her
eyes. ‘But extraordinarily primitive wardings, wouldn’t you
say?’

Emla studied the door,
remembering the wardings in Rhaki’s rooms in the Stronghold. What
she could discern here was indeed much less complicated than had
been Rhaki’s.

‘But there is something
else I feel,’ she said slowly. ‘A mind whose type I do not
recognise. Nearly human or Asatarian, but not quite.’

‘Shall I remove the
wards and let your Guards rush the room Emla? I can distract those
within with some effective displays if you wish?’ Bagri looked
hopefully from Thryssa to Emla.

‘It is your command
Soran,’ Emla said.

‘Are we quite sure they
cannot use the circle?’ the Captain asked.

‘Yes.’ Thryssa’s tone
brooked no disagreement. ‘This circle has been somewhat – tampered
with, but there is no one here who has been able to use it properly
in the last days at least.’

‘In that case, the
sooner we have control here the better.’ Soran saluted Thryssa and
Emla and turned to form his men up before the doors.

‘Bagri.’ Thryssa held
him back when he would have followed Soran. ‘Be ready to shield at
all times. There is something very unpleasant here.’

‘I can only sense
something unfamiliar,’ Emla said.

‘Our knowledge has so
long been confined within Vagrantia and we have had only our own
histories to study and learn from. But this presence recalls
something of that past to me. I sincerely hope I am wrong Emla, but
I suspect I am not. Can you hold a shield for Shan and myself too?
I will need all my energy focused on one thing.’

There was no time to
ask Thryssa questions: Bagri and Soran were looking towards the
women for the signal to begin the attack. Much as she hated her
ignorance of Thryssa’s fears, Emla nodded sharply to her Captain of
Guards. She formed a mental shield around herself, Shan and Thryssa
as Bagri raised a hand. Lines of light zigzagged across the huge
doors and they seemed to shiver on their hinges, but they remained
closed.

Soran reached for the
handle of one half of the doors and Bagri for the other. Soran
kicked at his side of the door, sending it swinging inwards.
Officer Nomis plunged past Bagri to kick the other half of the
door. Soran raised his sword, and a squad of the City Guards
trotted silently into the hall behind, three of the rebel
Discipline Seniors with them.

Soran snapped orders.
Nomis and half the Lady’s men moved carefully towards the deep
blackness within the Gathering Chamber while a dozen others raced
to surround the Lady Emla and the High Speaker Thryssa. Bagri
remained by the doors, sending a ball of multicoloured fire over
Nomis’s head to lighten their advance. He looked back towards
Thryssa in time to see a Discipline Senior beginning to lift his
hand. Another spear of green fire shot from Bagri’s fingers to
lance through the Discipline Senior and the men near
him.

But then separate red
flames, man high, danced across the hall, catching one of Soran’s
men in a hideous embrace. The Guard fell, writhing and screaming as
the flame engulfed him. Emla watched in horror, still concentrating
on keeping a shield about the High Speaker and Shan. Thryssa’s face
was expressionless and turned only to the open doorway to the
Chamber of Gathering.

Within the Chamber, the
creature that was using Fayet’s body shuddered with anger. These
useless fools! Millennia he had waited to be summoned again by Cho
Petak. Millennia had passed since those promises were first made
and look at this shambles. Those animals looked human, looked
intelligent, but he was convinced now that they were neither. This
body he was using: it became breathless at the least exertion,
which had certainly put paid to some of the diversions he had
dreamed of in his long imprisonment. He had destroyed Fayet’s mind
extremely quickly, if mind it could be called. Twittering and
fearful, yet believing he was a genius. Oh no, that mind had to go
at once.

He who had once been
Rashpil, friend of Grek, allowed a tiny piece of his rage and
frustration to escape and the tiered ranks of seats around the
Chamber burst into flame. He watched a group of these pathetic
beings scramble back from the doorway while he reviewed his
options. Clearly this body was of no use to him. How had D’Lah
found that tall intelligent body the very day he reached this
world? Rashpil fumed: he was going to have to unbody and then spend
some while in serious consideration of his next move. He had been
too hasty and eager when released from the Void

The only part of his
thousands of plans that he had fulfilled was to reach this side of
the world. His fellow prisoners also planned vengeance on Cho Petak
but only he, Rashpil, had thought of distancing himself this way.
Cho Petak was too clever. He would know those who wished him harm
and would protect himself accordingly. Rashpil was craftier. By
putting the world between himself and that accursed Cho Petak, he
had thought to gain time to form the perfect plan for Cho Petak’s
utter destruction.

Only he had found
himself here, in a place with appalling inhabitants, set in a
grotesquely inconvenient land. Abruptly, Rashpil unbodied and what
had been Fayet, slumped to the floor. The flames roaring round the
sides of the Chamber vanished, the City Guards still fighting in
the hall faltered, their faces becoming confused and
uncertain.