Iron and Blood (24 page)

Tyvian couldn't get very far before darkness and the pressure his broken rib put on his lungs was too much, even for the ring, to ignore. He skidded to a halt, propping himself up against a pillar, and turned to face Gallo.

The giant was ten paces away, a shard of illumite around his neck, his weapon at the ready. He walked toward Tyvian as though entering battle was as stimulating as strolling through a public park.

Tyvian's arms shook, his legs shook, the tip of his saber wavered in the pale light. There was no way he could fight a monster like Gallo, but he also couldn't outrun him. He would get one good hit, and that was all. It had to count. A spike through the heart wouldn't slow him, a stab through the leg wouldn't bleed the bastard out, and no amount of slashing or stabbing of his stomach or arms or shoulders would do much good. There was one thing that he could hit, though, that no amount of pain tolerance or sorcerous death-­warding would protect.

When Gallo was three paces away, Tyvian lunged for his eyes. The bulky warrior wasn't expecting this—­probably didn't think Tyvian had the speed left in him or the skill to pull it off—­and his guard was too slow. All it took were two precise thrusts, one to either side of the grotesque wolf's-­head helm Gallo wore, and Tyvian was pleased to see the armored juggernaut stumble a pace, groaning with what amounted to the biggest expression of pain Tyvian had ever heard from him.

It was then Tyvian's turn to be surprised—­nobody managed to counterattack immediately after being blinded. Nobody, of course, but Gallo. Tyvian was too slow with his own guard to stop Gallo's heavy-­bladed falchion from cutting deeply into his side. The aim was fouled a bit by his shirt of borrowed mail, otherwise it would have cleaved the smuggler clean in two. As it stood, Tyvian fell on the ground, blood pumping through his hands as he clutched them over the ragged wound.

Gallo swung again, this time blindly, and Tyvian rolled away. With reserves of energy he never knew he had, he managed to stumble to his feet and run. He didn't go more than ten paces before falling again, and then there was no getting up. It was dark save for the light coming off of Gallo, and Tyvian pushed himself toward the darkness, flopping and rolling as his life's blood spilled from his guts. Each of Gallo's heavy footsteps sounded like a death knell. He got me, Tyvian thought, the faceless son of a bitch got me . . .

Spots danced in his vision and the ring burned and throbbed with a kind of urgent, energetic power that kept his right hand pulling him along the uneven, icy floor. He wasn't dead. Not yet.
Not yet, dammit.

Tyvian slid down some kind of fissure in the floor and flopped onto his back in another hallway. He could hear Gallo's rasping breath above him and saw the tip of his falchion probing the mouth of the crevice through which Tyvian had slipped. “Too small, you ugly blind bastard,” Tyvian hissed, blood bubbling to his lips.

He heard Gallo move away, but knew for certain that Sahand's monstrous henchman wasn't going to give up that easily. He still needed to escape. He needed to find a way to heal his wounds. The pain was almost too much; he found he could scarcely think.

Tyvian kept crawling, though, his ring hand seemingly imbued with an endless strength drawn from reserves far beyond his understanding. Half-­baked theories about magecraft and Lumenal energy flitted in and out of his head, but didn't stay long.

It was then that he found Myreon's body.

The wheelbarrow she had been in was overturned, and she lay on her back, her face pale, almost blue, snowflakes frosting her eyelashes and hair. Moonlight poured in from somewhere, and Tyvian, practically nose-­to-­nose with the body of his old enemy, could see her clearly.

She was certainly dead. He felt something dreadful building in him—­something worse than the pain and the exhaustion, something sick and hollowing, as though his heart had been ripped out. He found himself blinking away tears. “Kroth. What . . . what a time to go soft . . .”

What was wrong with him? Myreon Alafarr was a devoted foe to everything he did or wanted to do. She had hounded him across every country in the West, ruined a half dozen of his most profitable plots, and now here they were, dying and dead, side by side—­the victims of the same madman.

Tyvian held up his blood-­slick ring hand and curled his lips at the humble little band. “You stupid trinket. Happy? You've killed me. You've killed us both.”

Wait . . .

Tyvian's overworked heart leapt with a sudden inspiration. The ring! Of course! The ring could heal! Why didn't he think about that before? Ah, yes—­the bleeding to death and all that had distracted him. All he needed to do was press the thing to the injury, probably, and sort of do what he had done with breaking the chains, right?

And then what?
A little voice in the back of Tyvian's mind, one that sounded suspiciously like his mother, tsked at him.
Just run away while Sahand blows up three of the greatest cities in the world?

“Why not?” he mumbled. It wasn't like he could stop Sahand—­he was no wizard. For all his knowledge, he didn't have the first idea of how to stop a ritual of that magnitude. The only mage who could have possibly helped was dead anyway. Unless . . .

He turned his head to Myreon, thinking. It was a terrible idea; even if it worked, it would just put him in a penitentiary garden for birds to defecate on for the rest of time. It would take the very last bit of his energy, he had no doubt. Better to cut his losses.

The ring weighed in with a mild pinch of displeasure, but Tyvian ignored it. What occupied his thoughts, instead, were the tens of thousands of ­people whose lives were about to end. The women, the children, the innocents . . .

He really didn't have a choice after all, did he?

Pulling himself to all fours, Tyvian placed his ring hand on Myreon's chest. “Myreon,” he said quietly, “I . . . I am very displeased with you for dying. Very irresponsible of you. I demand you wake up.
Wake up
, dammit.” He struck her chest; it was like hitting a block of ice. The ring tingled with something—­a glimmer of power—­but then it was gone. “Wake up! Myreon, I
need
you! Artus needs you! We
all
bloody need you!” The glimmer was there again, but then faded. Tyvian's voice cracked, his strength leaving him. He collapsed on Myreon's chest.

There needed to be something more. Some deeper connection—­Tyvian could feel the ring trying to grab hold of something, but he didn't know what. He looked up at Myreon's face, calm, pale, and serene. Beautiful, really. It was so rare that she wasn't scowling at him, that he hadn't had much opportunity to notice just how beautiful she was.

He took a long, ragged breath. “Oh . . . hell, why not?” He pressed his hand to Myreon's chest and whispered in her ear, “Wake up, Myreon. Duty calls.” He closed his eyes, and kissed her on the lips.

A torrent of heat and energy poured through his hand and mouth to the point where Tyvian thought he saw lightning bolts shooting across the space between him and Myreon's body. He felt her quake beneath his touch, back arching with the force of the ring's power. At the same time, he felt everything he had, everything that had been keeping him going this past day, siphon out of him and into her. He couldn't pull back from the kiss—­he didn't have the energy.

Then, finally, the power faded away. Myreon's eyes opened and shot wide. She pushed Tyvian off as though she were being attacked and scooted away from him on her back. He lay on the ground, so weak he could scarcely move his head.

“What . . . what the hell? Were you . . .
kissing
me? What is wrong with you?”

Tyvian felt unconsciousness coming for him, and soon. He pointed in the direction of Sahand and whispered. “Sah . . . Sahand . . . weapon . . . you've got to stop it. Please . . .”

Myreon was over him then, kneeling at his side. The last thing he heard before he dropped into darkness was her voice, saying softly, “I suppose I have to carry you, too?”

 

F
or Banric Sahand time seemed to flow in all directions at once. This much Fey energy—­the stuff of chaos itself—­confused the senses and confounded all attempts at solidity and logic. He had been talking to Reldamar a moment ago, that was certain, or perhaps he had yet to speak with him—­it was hard to say. In either event, it didn't really matter. The time of his triumph was at hand. He was intoning the final phrases—­the last part of the ritual that he had been practicing in secret for years, waiting for this moment. The power within the pool was so intense Sahand could scarcely believe it—­all of that anger, hate, rage, strength, wild aggression, every ounce of those creatures' beings that had been poured and trapped within its magical confines had been magnified a thousandfold. He was about to unleash a tidal wave that would change the world. Tomorrow, he would be King in the West, the North after that, and after that, the Kalsaaris, and on and on . . .

A world of his own, a world to remake according to his vision. All of it coming thanks to this moment, right here, right now. Were he not focused on placing the proper inflections on all of the incantatory phrases, he would have laughed.

H
ool snarled at the last of the Dellorans in her way, and they ran. The pile of bodies at her feet, the blood caked on her jaws—­all of this was more than enough to dissuade anyone else from getting in her way. She could smell Sahand now. His scent was buried beneath so much blood that her heart wept to think of the horrors Sahand had made to get it all. She could not understand why anyone would do something like that, even
humans
. She didn't need to understand, though. All she needed to know was where he was, and she could do the rest. She was stalking down a wide stair that was smoking and burning with heat up its center, as though the hottest of fires had burned there but moments ago—­that would have been the explosion, she guessed. She was very close.

At the foot of the stairs she saw the chamber and saw Sahand standing at the edge of the foul bloody pool as it seethed and roared with what she could only describe as anger. This was sorcery beyond Hool's wildest nightmares—­in the plumes of red water she could see the faces and hear the cries of a thousand slaughtered creatures. She could smell their anger and their need for blood, and it made every hair on her body stand on end. Her ears stood ramrod straight, and she tried to quell her every instinct, which told her to run.

A little, wizened bald man charged from an alcove, a wicked dagger in his hand and murder in his eyes. Hool saw him long before he struck, and his attack broke her from her reverie. She batted the knife away with a swipe of her arm and tackled him to the ground. His hatred turned to terror in an instant. “No!” he squealed. “No kill!”

She recognized this human—­he was a brother to the one that had tried to work magic on Tyvian's hand. In what she conceded was a very humanlike moment, she decided he might be useful. She wrapped her hands around his skinny throat and growled, “How do you stop the magic?”

The man spoke quickly. “The power, once collected, cannot be destroyed—­it must be released. There
is
no way to stop it! You are too late!”

Hool frowned. “That was a stupid thing for you to say.”

She tore out his throat, and decided to look for Reldamar—­she wanted Sahand dead, but she wanted nothing to do with that magic without an expert present.

A
rtus really wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now. He was thinking about escape, but he hadn't the presence of mind to follow the prisoners out. By the time he thought of it, he had spent too much time trying to retrieve his sword from the body of the Delloran he'd killed and vomiting over the outcome to possibly find them again. It was all so embarrassing, he had trouble thinking about it without blushing.

Currently, he had stopped to rest and was sitting on an ancient stone bench beside some kind of cistern. He cupped some frigid water into his hands and sipped, then sat back and stared into the darkness, trying to figure out what his next move should be.

A pale light gradually rose up from the depths of a stairwell. Whoever that was probably wasn't good for him, so he tried to stand up. He was immediately jerked back down, however, by the fact that his damp wrist had managed to get itself frozen to the lip of the cistern he had just drunk from. “Damn!” he hissed.

Heavy, mailed steps got closer and closer. Artus tugged at his wrist, trying to peel himself off the cistern, but his sleeve had frozen as well as his skin. He pulled harder and harder, but the shirt wouldn't rip. “Kroth!”

Coming up the stairs, he heard the rasping, gurgling breath he had heard once before in the dungeons of Arble Keep. “Kroth's bloody teeth!”

An eyeless, bloody-­faced Gallo came up the stairs and turned in his direction, sword drawn. “I hear you, boy,” Gallo rasped. “Come here.”

Artus grabbed his stolen broadsword off the ground and tried to somehow cut loose his sleeve without slicing off his arm. His fingers were numb and the blade was heavy, so he dropped it by accident. In the presence of the blind Gallo, the clang seemed the loudest thing Artus had ever heard.

Gallo was coming closer, tapping his falchion against the ground like a blind-­man's cane. “Here, boy. Here here, boy.”

Artus snatched up a rock and threw it to the opposite end of the hall. Gallo cocked his head in that direction for a moment, but then kept coming toward him. “No good, boy. Not fooled.”

Artus racked his brain for any tricks or plans and came up with nothing—­he was completely, totally over his head. There was really only one plan left. He yanked his arm loose with a painful tear, leaving flesh and fabric behind, and ran away as fast as he could.

The sound of his feet slapping against the stone floor was loud enough for Gallo to come roaring after him. Artus saw an orange light ahead and went straight for it, just glad to be able to see well enough not to trip. His legs felt like jellied hams, though, and he couldn't manage more than a wheezing job. Behind him, Gallo plowed along in pursuit, shouldering his way past piles of rubble and shattering packs of ice beneath his feet. Looking back, Artus felt his knees go weak. He felt like he was in the midst of one of those nightmares where the arahk slayer or the troll is chasing you and your feet can't get purchase on the ground. Run and run and run, and still you're going to be caught.

Gallo was practically on top of him, his wheezing, gurgling breath blowing spittle far enough to hit the back of Artus's neck. He sprinted through the door to the orange light—­inside was a huge chamber, full of magical crystals and orbs, and a giant lake of blood surging with power. The stench of death was overpowering and the roar of the fountain so intense, Artus didn't watch his step. He tripped over a focusing crystal and went sprawling on his face.

The sound of Artus's fall was apparently masked by the roar of Sahand's ritual, because Gallo tripped over him. The monstrous man went airborne, sailing a full two yards before landing, off-­balance, just at the edge of the bloody pool. Snarling and gargling, the warrior tried to regain equilibrium, and he would have, too . . .

. . . if Myreon Alafarr hadn't stepped past Artus just then and pushed Gallo with all her might.

With a guttural moan, Sahand's henchman pitched backward and dumped, headfirst, into the seething depths of the power sink. One hand, crimson with blood and smoking with heat, thrust up through the surface, flailing for something to grab, and then burst into flame. Slowly, it melted back into the boiling chaos of the power sink.

Myreon helped Artus up. “Are you all right?”

“Me?” Artus shouted, a smile breaking across his face. “You were
dead
!”

“I was
what?
”

Sahand's voice, barking its violent syllables over the roar of the pool, pitched itself an octave lower. The chamber shook with power; chunks of masonry falling from the ancient dome, crashing to the ground nearby. Myreon grabbed Artus by the collar and dragged him behind a chunk of rubble. “What the
hell
does that man think he's doing?”

“Bad magic, what else?” Hool was with them. She looked at Myreon with her copper eyes. “Why aren't you dead? What happened to Reldamar?”

Myreon frowned. “There are bound to be guards around. What happened to all the guards?”

Hool snorted. “I killed them or chased them away. They are regrouping at the entrance, but won't come down here. They are scared of the bad magic, too.”

Artus peered around the corner. He wasn't sure, but whatever Sahand was doing was getting serious. Streamers of multicolored fire were pouring out of the focusing apparatuses, cracks forming along the floor, and the pool had become more of a pillar of seething bloody liquid, somehow part fire and part demon. In the midst of it, Sahand stood within his protective veta, the magical energies roaring around him as he chanted faster and faster in some kind of non-­language that made Artus squirm just to hear it. “We've got to stop him somehow.”

Myreon looked at the gnoll and the boy and rolled her eyes. “That's the easy part. The hard part is escaping once we do. Get Tyvian and get ready to run.”

“I will get Reldamar,” Hool announced, and vanished into the dark corridors at a dead sprint.

Myreon said nothing, but simply retreated up the hall a few dozen yards until she came to a pack of snow and ice that had fallen in through one of the skylights. She knelt down, scooped up a big patch of snow, stuck a chunk of ice in the middle of it, and made a snowball.

Artus cocked an eyebrow. “What the . . .”

She took aim and threw the snowball at Sahand, but it vanished into the power sink with a sizzle. “Damn.”

“You're . . . you're going to stop him by throwing
snowballs?”

Myreon smirked. “Snow is full of the Dweomer, which is the antithesis of the Fey. This is basic sorcery, here.”

Artus's mouth fell open. “But . . .”

“Don't just stand there!” Myreon snapped, “Start making iceballs, kid!”

Artus dropped to the ground to obey, even as the whole chamber around them quaked with the fury of Sahand's terrible new weapon. He wondered what kind of world he lived in where hair-­pulling and snowball-­making were life-­saving talents. “You sure this will work?” He asked, slapping his singnature killer-­iceball-­supreme—­scourge of his childhood churchyard—­into the mage's hand.

“Miscasts can be rough,” Myreon said. She took a ­couple steps' head start, cocked her arm back and threw. Artus watched, open-­mouthed, as the white, snowy sphere arced gracefully across the chamber, in between the gouts of flame, and hit Sahand square in the mouth.

The Mad Prince, Dread Lord of Dellor and Scourge of the ­Peoples of the West, coughed and sputtered, totally failing to finish his incantation. The massive energies built up on the power sink were suddenly without direction and without control. A miscast.

The pool exploded.

A wave of crimson energy hit Artus with the force of a charging team of horses. He felt himself fly backward for what seemed like forever before he hit a wall, feet first. It hurt, but the fall to the ground afterward hurt more. His arm twisted behind him and his head cracked against the floor. Spots swam through his vision for a moment, but then Hool was there, picking him up. “Run!” she yelled, Tyvian draped across her shoulders, and then was gone.

Artus shook his head, trying to get his bearings. It seemed like everything around him was on fire or exploding. Pulsing waves of orange and crimson energy shot through the air, incinerating supports and vaporizing walls. Staggering to his feet, he saw Myreon likewise trying to stand, supporting herself against a pillar whose top was melting with volcanic heat. Artus charged up to her and pulled her aside before a great flood of liquid rock would have reduced her to ash.

Myreon grabbed him by both wrists and chanted some quick, precise words. Around them, the air cooled. “We have to get out of here!” she yelled.

“Not without Hortense!”

“Whoever that is, Artus, is as good as dead!”

Artus shook his head, shouting over the flames, “So was I when I went through the anygate, and you came after me!”

Myreon's mouth thinned into a narrow line. “Fine! Hold on!”

Then they were off, the worst of the flames and the Fey energy deflected by Myreon's wards. Artus was amazed at how vital she was—­hadn't she been dead a matter of hours ago? It didn't matter—­they were running through the burning labyrinth, hunting for Hortense. Artus, though, couldn't remember the way back to the dungeon, and the fortress was coming apart at the seams. Myreon jerked Artus's arm. “We
have
to leave—­my wards can't hold out much longer!”

“But—­”

Myreon put a hand on his cheek. “Look at me, Artus: I'm only going to let you run off and do something heroic once, okay?”

He looked into the Mage Defender's blue-­gray eyes and back at the conflagration that surrounded them. To their left, half the ceiling fell in, white-­hot with magical heat. He thought again of his mother, sending him away forever rather than letting him get chewed up by the same war that killed all his brothers. He saw the tears welling in her eyes as he asked to stay one last time, and remembered how hard she had shaken her head. She'd sent him to be safe from a violent death, and here he was, charging into it. Finally, he nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Together, arm-­in-­arm, Artus and Myreon fled through the burning air as the ancient ruins behind them seemed to be consumed by the breath of Kroth himself.