King's Folly (Book 2) (46 page)

A guttural chant pricked the Rahuatl’s sensitive ears. Bloodmagic. Rashk hurled herself to the side as a wave of darkness washed over the courtyard. The earth continued to shake, the blind mammoth rampaged, and Rashk landed, coming up in a crouch, ears straining. A hunter did not need her eyes. Unfortunately, another hunter had his.

A lash of energy bit her arm, and Rashk rolled, summoning the Lore, pressing her palm to the earth, listening between strike of thunder and lashing runes, to the slight tremor of footsteps. She twisted, and threw her kukri. The enchanted blade spun end over end, a deadly swish of steel in the darkness. She heard a grunt, and followed in its wake, surging towards the noise, ducking beneath a sword’s edge. With a shout, her blade returned, slapping into her palm in time to bite flesh again.

The darkness lifted with the Bloodmagus’ death, and Rashk stood over the body of Victer. She sneered down at the traitor.

Thira was also off her horse, and Crumpet romped around the courtyard, charging anything that moved. The rail thin woman stepped over a corpse and joined Rashk. Thira finally had a scent: revulsion.

“If there is one thing I hate more than a Bloodmagus, it is a Wise One who turned towards the despicable practice,” Thira said, and then added, as if the grievance were worse than Bloodmagic, “Victer was an uninspiring apprentice.”

Rashk scanned the ravaged courtyard and the lights glowing from the manor house. When no apparent threats revealed themselves, she removed the skree from its pocket and opened her hand. The stone pointed down.

Thira eyed the ground around Victer, following the obvious footprints in the grass, leading to an unexceptional outhouse. The two women walked to the structure and Thira summoned the Lore, studying it with an arcane eye that revealed nothing more. She opened the door and they walked into a garden shed.

Something crashed outside, and Rashk looked out. Crumpet was applying himself to the manor house. She would never again think of that dog as useless.

Thira made a slow circuit of the shed, walking around its center, and then she stopped, tapping her foot. “Bloodmagi are clever. They leave elaborate temples for the Blessed Order, making them difficult, but not impossible to find. So the Blessed Order always looks for the grand, while the real enclaves are overlooked for their modesty.” Thira withdrew a thin stiletto, and pricked her finger, letting a single drop fall into the earth. A squarish void materialized at their feet.

Thira gathered up her skirts and stepped into the void. Rashk followed on her heels, tightening her claws around the kukri.

The air was cold, colder than the air above. Ice clung to the stone and steps, coating the underground lair with crystal brilliance. A creaking, rasping rhythm echoed off the stone, raising the Rahuatl’s hackles. Something fathomless and ancient drew a restless breath and Thira stopped, listening.

“What has he done,” the woman breathed at length. With the next breath, she summoned the Lore, weaving a powerful ward. Thira tapped Rashk. Needles prickled her skin, crawling under flesh, and the Rahuatl’s heart spasmed as if she had plunged into a frozen lake.

“It will pass.”

When Rashk found her breath, Thira moved forward into the tunnel, following the widening course. The ice flowed into a massive ritual chamber and a terror from time immortal. Rashk stepped back into the passage. A monstrous elemental creaked in the chamber’s center, pulsing with red and blue energy, straining against its runic chains.

Thira stiffened her spine, and stepped into the chamber, skirting the walkway and the elemental. The skree led them down a side passage, into cages and frozen corpses, and eventually, to a dungeon set apart from the rest.

A crossbow bolt zipped down the hallway, hitting Thira in the throat before bouncing harmlessly off her armor weave. In answer, Thira hurled a weave. The attacker clutched his throat, choking and gasping for air. Rashk stepped up and rescued him from suffocation with the blade of her kukri. He fell over dead. She retrieved a set of keys and the women moved forward into a dungeon lined with metal doors and thrumming wards.

“I see prison has been good for you,” Thira said to a set of bars in a door.

“Thira,” Morigan said from inside. “And Rashk.”

Rashk bared her teeth at the portly woman. She looked unharmed and well rested.

The keys deactivated the wards. The lock clicked, the door swung open, and Morigan stepped out, nodding to the two women. “I certainly didn’t expect you, Thira.”

“If you had not let yourself be captured, I wouldn’t have had to come.”

Morigan snorted, caught the bony woman in a hug, and set her back just as quickly, before moving to the cell opposite. Rashk handed Morigan the keys.

A dark little boy stepped out of the cage, throwing his arms around the motherly healer. “I told you we’d find a way out, now didn’t I, Zoshi?” she pressed her lips to the boy’s filthy hair, and spoke over his head. “The boy saw Tharios use Bloodmagic, and Isek and Victer were the ones who captured us.”

“As I thought.”

Morigan moved to another cell, looked inside, and with a tight-lipped grimace put key to lock, rushing inside.

A battered, redheaded Nuthaanian woman was chained to the wall. Morigan knelt beside her, unlocking the chains. The Nuthaanian’s wrists were raw and bleeding and her lips were cracked.

“Get the water from my cell,” Morigan ordered. Rashk jumped to retrieve the jug, and Morigan pressed it to the Nuthaanian’s lips. She stirred, and drank.

“Get on your feet, Priestess,” Thira urged. “We need to leave at once.”

Morigan shot Thira a withering glare, but the order roused the priestess to her senses. She gulped down the jug of water, and stood, swaying unsteadily on her feet. The ring finger and pinky of her right hand was a bloody bandaged stump. Morigan put a shoulder under her.

“What are we going to do?” Morigan asked. “Tharios will know we’re free soon enough—if he doesn’t already.”

Thira plucked the empty jug from the ground. “We’ll inform the High Inquisitor, but I’ll not wait for his incompetence. Let us hope the Lord General is loyal to the Order and not Tharios.”

“And if she’s not?”

Thira frowned at the jug in her hands. “Then we’ll make sure and take them all with us into the ol’River.”

❧

There was no moon, only the wind and an endless swirl. Thira, Rashk, Morigan, Brinehilde, and Zoshi rode through the main gate, into the inner bailey.

Thira dismounted, tossed her reins to a stableboy, and mounted the steps. Lord General Ielequithe was waiting in front of the Storm Gates with a company of Isle Guards.

A sleek crow swept from its perch on a guardian statue and settled on Thira’s shoulder. She hushed Crumpet’s demanding squawk with a word. He hated being a bird, but instead of transforming him, she shooed him back to his safe perch.

“Lord General, I see my message was delivered.” Thira held her breath, and the jug in her hand, fearing the Lord General was here to arrest rather than aid.

“Your charges are not light, Mistress Thira,” The Lord General said. Dark-haired, sharp-eyed, and stern as a crag, Ielequithe did not waste time with pleasantries. Thira always worked well with the soldier.

“I have a witness,” Thira gestured to Zoshi.

“You will need more than a boy.”

“Morigan and the priestess were taken prisoner by Isek Beirnuckle and Victer along with a number of your own guard.”

A muscle in the Lord General’s jaw twitched.

“Rashk and I rescued them from Tharios’ manor house,” Thira explained. “From a Bloodmagus ritual chamber beneath his property. I’ve sent a message to the High Inquisitor.”

Ielequithe looked to each in turn, who nodded confirmation. Decided, she placed her helm on her shaven head, and nodded to her soldiers. They moved into formation.

“The Nine are in Council.”

“An excellent place to lay charges against the Archlord.”

The Lord General nodded her agreement.

Morigan breathed with relief, turned to a soldier, and told him to guard Zoshi.

“But I want to come,” the boy protested.

Morigan pushed him into a guard’s hand and the group passed the Storm Gates into the outer sanctum of the main hall. Thedus, naked and sunburnt, stood in the center, beneath the dome, gazing at the cycle of constellations blazing on the ceiling. He did not glance at the new arrivals. They passed beneath Lispen’s Folly—the churning whirlpool of chaotic energy—and barged into the Council Chambers of the Nine.

Tharios sat in the Archlord’s chair. Shimei Al’eeth, Isek Beirnuckle, Eldred, Yasimina, Tulipin, Sidonie, Eiji, and Taal Greysparrow sat around the massive stone table.

All eyes turned on the intruders with varying degrees of surprise, save Tharios, who smiled in greeting. “I was expecting you, Thira.”

“Your eyes and ears, I’m sure, are everywhere.”

“And yet you came willingly?”

The Nuthaanians behind her bristled, and the combined glares from the priestess and Morigan nearly seared a hole in the Archlord’s head.

Thira ignored Tharios, turning to the assembled Nine. “We have been fooled. Marsais and Oenghus were betrayed by Isek Beirnuckle, who was working with Tharios.”

Eldred’s dwarven brow furrowed, and Tulipin sputtered.

“Tharios used Bloodmagic,” Morigan added. “A boy witnessed a Blood Portal being opened, and he escaped, fleeing to Brinehilde’s orphanage. I was called to heal him, and we were captured there—ambushed by Isek and Victer and taken to Tharios’ ritual chamber.”

“What do you say to these charges, Archlord?” Ielequithe inquired.

Tharios spread his hands. “I admit to everything.”

All the Wise Ones save Isek and Tharios stood, backing away from their chairs and the accused. “You are under arrest,” the Lord General said, drawing her sword. “I suggest you come quietly.”

The guards fanned out.

“As with all things, let us put it to the Nine.” Tharios looked at the assembled Wise Ones. “Cast your say—shall I be removed as Archlord? All in favor?”

“Absolutely not,” Tulipin bristled so badly with outrage that his levitation weave faltered.

Eldred crossed his massive arms. “Tie Tharios’ limbs to a horse.”

Rashk scanned the remaining six—all silent. The Rahuatl smelled approaching death, her own.

“Surely not all of you?” Morigan gasped. “Taal?”

“All opposed?”

All six raised their hands.

“You see, Lord General—I have the majority.”

“There is no room in this Order for Bloodmagi,” Ielequithe said, firmly.

Tharios stood, meeting her gaze across the expanse of stone. “We are not Bloodmagi, Lord General. We are Wise Ones who seek to restore this Order’s glory.”

Eiji smirked, a secretive little look.

“There is no glory at the end of your path,” Ielequithe said.

“Yours, I’m afraid, is at an end,” Tharios nodded to the soldiers, half of whom formed a protective ring around their Archlord. The other half took sides with their Lord General. “Most everyone has a weakness, Ielequithe, save you.”

Realization cracked her stony face. They were outnumbered and surrounded.

Tension lay heavy in the chamber. The guards were tense, the Wise Ones ready, but before Tharios could give the order, Thira pulled a trick from beneath her long coat.

“Here is your glory, Tharios,” she hissed. With a casual gesture, she hurled the clay jug onto the stone table. Pottery shattered, binding runes flared and swirled, and winter howled into the chamber.

Frost blasted the assembled, flinging them against the walls, stealing the air from their lungs and turning their veins to ice. Wise Ones and guards scrambled, fighting, one over the other to escape the frozen terror. Ice crawled over the great stone table of the Wise Ones Order. The elemental bellowed a freezing breath that cracked the stone beneath its foundations.

The timeless granite shattered, and the flowing words of the Order—
We protect the past to safeguard the future—
crumbled to frozen shards.

❧

The castle shuddered. Tharios slapped his palm against the stone and melted into the Archlord’s preparation chamber. He gasped, breathing warm air, and stumbled to the other side, pressing his palm against the marble.

“That crone,” he snarled.

The stone welcomed him, and he stepped outside, into the Hall of Judgement. The others ran out of the doors, ice creeping in their wake.

Runic energy surged, a battle of steel and word, as the Wise Ones and his Unspoken clashed in the main hall. Weaves went awry, slamming into stone pillars, arcing into the dome, disrupting the enchanted paintings. All his plans were in ruin.

Tharios’ eyes locked on the gates of Titan metal and the two statues who stood guard—the faithful hounds of the Archlord, warning off all those who entered with ill intent. However, Tharios was the Archlord, and he knew what would trigger their rampage.

He had no choice, save one.

Tharios sped over marble, robes billowing in his wake, as Thira raced on his heels, hurling weaves at his back. A weave blasted his shoulder, singeing his flesh. He summoned the Lore, mixing Bloodmagic, creating a Barrier for her weaves, shifting them as he ran. There was no time to deflect, only absorb.

The elemental surged into the Hall of Judgement with a tornado of icy shards. Needles pierced Tharios’ exposed skin, and he ran, pounding past the threshold, thrusting out his hand, closing the Titan gates and blocking the raging battle.

Tharios stood in a place of emptiness, a dimensionless universe of obsidian, all polished darkness and glossy reflection. He looked down. Shadows drifted in the stone’s reflection.

All had not gone to plan, but not all was lost—time had only moved forward. Tharios steeled himself with a breath, withdrew a slender ring, and slipped it over his finger. He stood in the center of the Nameless, extended his hand, unhinged the ring, and tipped it towards the floor.

A single drop of blood fell from the small container. It hit the stone, like a pebble hitting the water’s surface. The glassy reflection rippled beneath his feet, sending waves rolling outwards, up the walls, and over the ceilings. Darkness bled from the stone, bringing the mist and fear and a thousand trapped souls as the Fey returned to Fyrsta.