Shadowrealm (17 page)

"We go at him again," Cale said, and started to draw the darkness around them.

Kesson completed his spell before Cale could transport them and Cale felt the magic turn Weaveshear's hilt warm, felt the buckles on his armor and scabbard start to heat up, but the magic resistant shadowstuff that composed his form resisted the spell and the metal returned to normal temperature.

"We need to bring him out of the air," Riven said, sheathing his sabers. Thin streams of smoke issued from his belt, several places on his cloak, and his scabbard. He was not resistant to Kesson's spell and his metal gear was growing hot.

Cale took his point, and sheathed Weaveshear. He grabbed

hold of Riven's cloak and they stepped through the shadows to appear again beside Kesson Rel. Darkness met darkness.

Cale grabbed Kesson around the waist and tried to bring him down with his weight. He tried to get a hand on a wing, hold it still, but could not. Riven grabbed one of Kesson's arms, and wrapped one of Kesson's legs with his own.

"You have not the strength," Kesson said, wings beating rapidly as he incanted another spell.

"We'll see, bastard," Riven said, and freed one hand to retrieve one of his punch daggers. Meanwhile, Cale began his own spell.

Shadows whirled all around them, keening, reaching for them, into them, but Cale's ward held. Still, it would not resist the onslaught much longer.

Kesson finished his spell first and a blast of unholy energy went out from his body in all directions. As it passed through Cale, it tore open wounds in his flesh, hammered organs, loosened teeth. Cale tasted blood but endured the pain and kept the thread of his own spell.

Riven screamed, spraying spit, blood, and at least one tooth as the energy of Kesson's spell tore open his skin and ripped at his body. The assassin lost the grip of his legs on Kesson but swung them back into place before he fell. He pulled a punch dagger from a sheath at his back and drove it into Kesson's stomach, once, twice, again, again. The hilt of the dagger smoked in Riven's hand and the assassin screamed, but whether with rage or pain Cale could not tell.

Kesson winced, grunting with each blow Riven dealt him. The beat of his wings slowed and they started to descend. Hope rose in Cale and he finished his spell. Dark power gathered in his hands, already gripping Kesson's robes. He let it flow through him to Kesson but it was as if the spell had struck a wall. Kesson's body resisted magic, the same as Cale's.

Cale cursed and reached for a dagger as his regenerative flesh worked to heal the damage he had suffered, closing gashes, repairing organs. Kesson's flesh did the same where Riven had stabbed him.

The First Chosen of Mask steadied himself in flight, nearly shook Cale and Riven loose, and held his position in the air. They were not going to ground.

Kesson began another spell.

Riven, his clothes and armor smoking, stained dark with blood, reared back for another blow, but the punch dagger glowed red hot in his hand. He screamed and dropped it. His clothes caught fire where other metal implements on his peison reached almost to their melting point—buckles, snaps, knives, caltrops. Cale could see the teleportation ring on Riven's finger glowing orange, could see the flesh around it turning black and curling. Riven screamed, a prolonged, stubborn wail of agony, but refused to release his grip on Kesson.

Cale grabbed at Riven, put a hand on him, and rode the shadows to a nearby rooftop.

The moment they appeared, Riven, roaring with pain, tore off or cut off the metal buckles, clips, and other items burning on his person. A rain of implements pattered on the rooftop. He tried to get the teleportation ring off his finger but could not grip it to pull it.

"Cale," he said through the pain, and held out his ring finger.

Cale drew one of his daggers, pried the ring loose from a finger that looked like a burned sausage. Riven hissed with agony. The ring, made malleable by the spell, split from the force of Cale's dagger.

"Damn it," Riven said, cradling his hand.

Cale hurriedly intoned a spell of healing, put his hands over Riven's, and let the energy flow into the assassin.

Riven winced as the wounds closed. "I put that dagger in his gut four times, Cale. I don't think I hurt him."

"My spells did nothing either," Cale said, and turned to scan the sky.

Kesson was gone. The shadows, too, were not in sight and their keening had fallen silent. Lightning lit the city.

Both men drew their larger blades. Shadows boiled from Cale's flesh.

"Where is he?" Riven said.

"Here," Kesson answered from behind them. His spell of invisibility ended when he put a clawed hand on each of them, and a surge of magical energy poured through Cale's resistance and into his flesh. The magic pulled at the wards and other spells that enhanced Cale's size, strength, and speed, ripping all of them away, and to judge from the sudden increase in Kesson's size, transfered them all to Kesson. Meanwhile, Riven screamed as baleful energy poured into his body, searing his flesh from the inside out.

Cale twisted free of Kesson's grasp and stabbed low with Weaveshear while Riven knocked Kesson's hand from him and slashed high with his sabers. But Kesson bounded backward with frightful, magic enhanced speed. The holy symbol of Shat he wore on a chain at his throat bounced with each beat of his wings.

Cale and Riven stalked aftei him but he backed off and kept his distance.

The keening of the shadows broke the silence behind them and Cale whirled to see hundreds of the creatures swarming toward them up from the ground, red eyes aglow.

His wards were gone. So were Riven's.

"We leave," Cale said.

Magadon's voice screamed in his head. Do not leave, Cale. Do not. Kill him.

Riven threw three daggers in rapid succession at Kesson's chest. All struck an invisible field of force around him and fell to the rooftop.

"My ring is gone," Riven said.

"You will not be allowed to leave, shade," Kesson said, and emitted a green beam from his eyes. Cale could not dodge it. It struck him, warred with the magic resistant shadowstuff in his body, overcame it, and haloed him in a soft green glow.

"Such paltry vessels the Shadowlord has chosen in this age," Kesson said.

The shadows closed from behind and Kesson stopped retreating. He intoned words of power, and darkness gathered in his hands.

Cale drew the darkness around Riven and himself, and imagined the point along the Dawnpost where they had seen the road marker for Ordulin. They could regroup, plan another attack...

He did not feel the correspondence.

Shadows leaked from his flesh, and mingled with the green glow of Kesson's spell. He tried to use the darkness to step through to a nearby alley, but felt nothing.

The shadows shrieked. The power grew in Kesson's hands. He strode toward them, half again as tall as Cale, fire in his black eyes.

"Cale?" Riven said, and twirled his blades, his gaze moving between Kesson and the onrushing shadows.

Kill him, Cale, Magadon projected. You promised me!

Cale ignored Magadon's pleas, felt around the edges of Kesson's spell, probed for weakness, found a spot, and tried to slip around the interference. The green light shrouding him winked out and he rode the shadows to the Dawnpost.

But instead of the Dawnpost, they instead appeared in the middle of one of Ordulin's streets, a short distance from the building on which they had stood moments before. The green glow reappeared, flashing intermittently.

The shadows thronged the top of the building, whiiling around it in frustration. Kesson rose into their midst and eyed the area.

"What in the Hells, Cale?" Kesson's gaze fell on them.

Cale shook his head. "His spell is affecting my abilities."

The shadows turned like a flock of birds on the wing and darted toward them. Kesson followed them, a great dark bird of prey with holes for eyes. The power in Kesson's hands formed black flames around his fists.

Cale and Riven sptinted for a nearby doorway, leaping rubble, dodging corpses.

Black fire exploded behind them, blew them off their feet, turned the rubble into projectiles. The fire seared Cale's flesh; shards of stone knifed into him.

He pulled Riven to his feet, the shadows around him swirling, and ran for the building.

cannot let you leave, Cale, Magadon said. Cale felt a tingle in his limbs, suddenly felt separate from them.

Before he reached the building, Magadon stopped him, turned him around.

Fight, Cale. Gods damn you to the Hells. There may not be another chance. And I am out of time.

Riven grabbed Cale by the shoulder. "What are you doing? Come on!"

"It's Mags," Cale said through gritted teeth, and his body tried to shake free of Riven's grasp.

Riven cursed, kicked Cale behind his knee, knocked him down, and dragged him toward the nearby building.

"Let him go, Mags!" Riven shouted.

Stop, Mags, Cale said. Stop. We will try again.

He fought against Magadon's control, but the mindmage's hold was too strong.

Mags, if you don't release me, Riven and I will die here, now.

"Walls won't stop the shadows," Riven said, and plucked pieces of rock from the flesh of his face.

Help me, Erevis, Magadon said, and freed Cale's body.

will, Cale said, but the connection went dormant and he was not sure that Magadon heard him.

He put it out of his mind and worked to get around Kesson's binding spell again.

The building started to shake. Beams of wood and slabs of rock fell from the ceiling.

"Cale," Riven said.

Outside, the keening of the shadows grew louder. Through an opening in the building's front, they saw a multitude of red eyes in a cloud of black forms.

"Cale!"

The ceiling groaned, and started to fall.

Cale again slipped Kesson's binding spell and the green glow flashed out for a moment. Once more Cale pictured the spot on the Dawnpost and rode the shadows away.

CHAPTER NINE

4 Nightal, the Year ofLightning Storms

They materialized not along the Dawnpost but somewhere in the Shadowstorm. The echo of Magadon's rage and despair rang in Cale's mind like a temple bell. Rain thudded into their cloaks. Thunder rumbled. Flashes of green lightning illuminated the twisted landscape in ghastly glimpses. The Shadowstorm pawed at their unprotected souls, drained away their essence. Cale hurriedly intoned the words to the protective wards that shielded them from the life draining energy of the storm, touched a hand to himself, to Riven, and replaced what Kesson Rel had stolen.

"Dark and empty," Riven cursed. Smoke still rose from his charred armor. Blisters dotted the exposed skin of his seared arms and face. Slivers of rock were still embedded in the flesh of his cheeks and brow.

Cale shared the sentiment. The faint green glow of Kesson's spell flashed in and out, warring with the shadows that cloaked him. His regenerative flesh collected the darkness around him and filled his wounds with it. He winced as burns healed, gashes closed.

You failed me, Cale, Magadon said in his mind, and the calm pronouncement hit him as hard as a maul. Cale was too tired to argue.

Moving gingerly, Riven spun a hand in the air, wrapped his fingers in shadows, and patted them into his wounds, the way he might a healing loam. The magic pulled the slivers of stone from his flesh, healed some of his blisters, but did not heal his wounds entirely. Cale placed his palms on him and intoned a healing spell to Mask. The assassin breathed easier, and nodded thanks.

"Where are we?" Riven asked, looking around.

Cale shook his head. "Not where I intended. This—" he indicated the intermittently flashing green glow around him— "interferes with my abilities even when I'm able to slip it."

Riven paced a circle, his hands on the hilts of his sabers. "He's more powerful than the Sojourner."

"Maybe," Cale said.

Riven stared into Cale's face, a look in his eyes, then he resumed pacing.

"Something you want to say?" Cale asked.

Riven stopped pacing and looked off into the darkness. "I don't know, Cale. I don't."

The sense of Riven's sentence echoed in Cale's head: I don't know if we can stop Kesson Rel.

"There has to be a way," Cale said.

Oathbreaking bastard, Magadon said in his mind.

Cale shook his head, as if he could shake Magadon loose from his thoughts. In handcant, he said to Riven, Mags is almost gone.

Riven stared at Cale a long while before he signaled back, Then we keep our promise to him. "No." Cale shook his head. "No."

"You see another way?" Riven asked, then signed, He almost killed us both.

They stared at each other through the rain, the funeral of their friend suspended in the dark between them. What are you discussing? Magadon asked. It's a mercy killing, Riven signed.

Cale signed back, his gestures sharp and cutting. For who? And we are not there yet.

Not yet, Riven signed. But soon. Get your head around it. He's a risk. We've seen what he can do. He's in your head, Cale. He took control of you.

Cale could not deny it. Anger boiled up in him and he shouted it into the sky. "Dark!"

Go back, Cale, Magadon said in his mind. Please go back. Do what you promised.

The shadows around Cale boiled.

"Damn it, Mags, I will go back! I will kill Kesson! But we need another way."

I have no time for another way, Magadon said, the voice more his own. Before Cale could answer, the connection went quiescent. Cale still felt the uncomfortable itch of mental contact deep in his skull, but it was as though the door through which he and Magadon communicated had been left ajar only a sliver. Only Magadon could reopen it. Cale could not.

Riven exhaled a change of subject, shook the fatigue from his arms. He looked around, squinting in the rain. "Kesson will be coming. As long as we're in the Shadowstorm, he'll be coming."

"He will have to find us first," Cale said. He cast a series of wards to shield them against scrying and divinations, but had

his doubts they would work against Kesson. "I can try to get us out, back to Lake Veladon..."