Shattering the Ley (61 page)

Kara felt sweat break out against her skin, knew that it sheened her face, dripped from her chin. Her breathing altered, heightening with frustration, even as she clamped her jaw tight in determination. The distortion hitched beneath her touch and she gasped, but it didn’t quicken. The high-pitched whine escalated. Kara gave up trying to repair the damage with fine-tuned finesse. Reaching for the ley, reaching for her fellow Wielders, drawing up their strength, she attacked the distortion in broad waves, sweeping across its outer edges and pushing inward. Dylan grunted. Nathen began to pant, breaths hissing between his teeth. Kara felt Artras’ hand grip her arm, tightening as she murmured a warning, but Kara didn’t relent.

“It’s shrinking,” she announced, her voice strained with effort. “I need more power.”

At the same moment, Nathen cried out and collapsed. Kara felt Artras shove away from her, even as she sensed the loss of support up above. Her attack wavered, the distortion pushing outward again, but she dug in, pulled hard on her link to the ley, on Dylan and Artras. Distantly, she heard Artras exclaim, “He’s dead!” An ache shot through her core, but then Dylan faltered and pulled back. The foundation for her work began to crumble as the pressure from the distortion increased. She needed more strength, needed more power, or the distortion would quicken.

Dylan collapsed, the sudden cessation of support wrenching at Kara’s control. Desperate, she reached for the ley, reached for the seething power of the lines hidden deep within the earth. As she drew on their power, the ley rushing toward her, she sensed the reservoir of ley hidden deeper still. She had touched the ley lines of the Nexus and those constructed by the Primes during her testing then . . . but she’d known there was something deeper, something fundamentally stronger. The source of the power in Halliel’s Park, the source that the Primes and the Nexus drew upon.

With the Nexus destroyed, with the artificial lines obliterated, the ley had reverted to this primal source.

And now, her grasp on the distortion slipping, Kara lunged for it.

Power flooded through her, exploding across the link she’d forged with the remains of Erenthrall’s system deep beneath the earth. She heard Artras cry out, “It’s not working!” and realized the high-pitched whine they’d initially heard was now a full-fledged shriek, the sound raw. The ground began to shake—not the grumbles of a shifting earth, but a violent quaking that tossed Kara from her seat on the crystal slab. She couldn’t catch herself, felt her shoulder wrench, felt shards of glass cutting into her face, but she pushed all of it aside and focused on the surge of ley as it reached her.

She screamed as the ley roared from the pit to one side, using all of her strength to funnel it up toward the distortion. Tears squeezed from her eyes as she arched her back against the searing pain. The ley shot skyward, hitting the distortion and encircling it. Cords standing out in the sides of her neck, Kara poured the raw energy from the earth into repairing the damage, felt the distortion shrinking, its edges collapsing inward. Her control began to slip as Artras dropped out of the Tapestry, pulling away from the sheer intensity of the ley’s flow. Through the roaring of power in her ears, she heard Allan shouting questions, heard Artras answering, felt the earth jolting beneath her—

Then she could hold the ley no longer. She cried out as her grasp slid free, the ley fountaining upward a moment longer before it began to fall back, retreating into the depths of the pit. Kara sagged to the ground, unable to move, her entire body trembling with exhaustion. She swallowed, coughed, gasped in air, but her body was hollow, empty. There was nothing left.

And the distortion still remained. Lying flat against the floor of the Nexus, she could see it still pulsing above, the sky lit with its fire, harsher than the sun. It burned her eyes, but she could not look away. She’d failed. The ley had shrunk it down to a third of its former size, but the distortion remained.

She choked on a sob.

But then Artras shouted, “It’s going to quicken! Allan, grab Kara. Hoist her over your shoulder, or carry her in your arms, I don’t care. Ryant, grab Dylan. We have to get out of here.”

Kara heard people scrambling in the rubble, cursing as the earth kicked beneath them. Then someone snatched at her arm, picked her up. Her arms flailed, her body limp, even though she tried to help. She recognized Allan as he hefted her up into his arms with a grunt, holding her tight against his chest, and then he barked, “Stay close.”

He bolted toward the entrance to the chamber. Kara caught a glimpse of the others—Artras, Ryant with Dylan thrown over his shoulder, the other guards. Nathen had sacrificed himself, and still she’d failed. The pain engulfed her, but she did not have the strength for tears. Her body was numb, burnt out.

Allan ducked through the doorway, paused to catch his balance and shift her weight, and then they were sprinting, Kara jouncing in his grip. She could smell his sweat. His muscles strained, his skin laced with scars, old and new. His heartbeat raced, pounding in the crook of his arms, and his breath heaved in ragged gasps as they tore through the shadows of the inner rooms. Then they were outside, the sun beginning to lower. But everything was thrown in stark relief, blazing in the strange, harsh, white light of the distortion above. Kara caught sight of it as Allan raced up the stairs along the side of the depression. They would never make it. It would quicken long before they reached the edge of the city.

As if he’d heard her, Allan slowed. Kara rolled her head to one side, confused. They weren’t even halfway up the stairs yet.

And then she saw them. Wolves, standing at the lip of the bowl that housed the Nexus, at the top of the stairs. Their black bodies encircled the half man, half wolf she’d seen before, the man Allan had named Hagger.

Kara had no energy left for fear or shock. She was numb, on the verge of unconsciousness. Her head throbbed, the world strangely close and removed at the same time. But as the others drew to a gasping halt around her and Allan, Ryant summed up her reaction with one word:

“Shit.”

“Set him down and fan out,” Allan said to Ryant, even as he lowered Kara’s body gently to the ground. He could feel her trembling, but not in fear. She was trying to move, but she couldn’t. Her entire body had been dead weight. She’d be useless in a fight and she couldn’t run. “Protect them for as long as you can.”

He didn’t say that it was hopeless. He counted twenty wolves at least, suspected there were more on their way, circling around to their flank. Hagger wouldn’t have left them an escape route.

His chosen guardsmen spread out on the stairs as much as possible, blocking the path down to Kara and Dylan’s bodies. Artras knelt down over them both, one hand resting lightly on Kara’s upper arm. She glared at the wolves as Hagger motioned with one hand and they began pouring down the wide steps, most of them beginning to growl, teeth exposed.

As soon as they began to move, Allan shunted Artras, Kara, and Dylan from his thoughts, only keeping an awareness of their location in the back of his mind. He kept his gaze fixed on Hagger, hatred for the old Dog boiling up from inside. He tried to suppress the rage as well, but he could feel his body shuddering, could hear the pounding of his blood through his veins. He’d faced off with Hagger in the training pit in the Amber Tower too many times to count and the outcome had never been certain. And he knew he’d be facing off against him again, here, on the steps of the Nexus. His old partner wouldn’t let the wolves get him; he wanted Allan for himself.

Allan rolled his shoulders, fighting the tension there, feeling the cuts Hagger had inflicted that had barely begun to heal, and muttered, “Come get me, bastard.”

Hagger’s left ear twitched and his lip curled up into a smile, as if he’d heard. Then he drew his blade and began descending the stairs.

The wolves arrived first. Allan was waiting for them.

The front line, four abreast, split at the last moment, two surging to Allan’s left toward Ryant and Trace, one veering off toward Keith and Anthon.

The last leaped for Allan’s throat.

He froze for a moment in shock, and then years of training took over, his blade slashing across the wolf’s torso, cutting into flesh, jarring against bone. The wolf yelped, its growl cut short. Blood splashed against Allan’s shirt and hands, but the force of his blow wasn’t enough to halt the wolf’s momentum. It crashed into him, snapping its jaws even as its lifeblood soaked into Allan’s side. He cursed and thrust the animal away, rolling down three tiers of stairs before coming to a halt, the wolf landing hard a step away before sliding off to the curved stone of the depression to one side. He heard it howl as it fell and slid down the steep grade, but he’d already pushed himself onto his back, lurching upright as the second wave hit. Two wolves attacked him at once this time, the other guards fighting to either side. Allan thrust up with his blade, grunting as it punched through a wolf’s chest, the animal twisting and jerking his sword arm aside. He kicked savagely at the same time, connected hard enough to jar his hip, felt sharp toenails gouge into his thigh as the second wolf scrambled for purchase. Teeth grazed his stomach and he rolled away, yanking his blade free from the still dying wolf, and found himself in a crouch on the edge of the stairs.

He rounded on the second wolf a moment before its jaws would have snapped closed on his heel. He stabbed down, severing its spine, letting its own inertia carry it over the edge as he pulled his blade free and stepped to one side. A quick glance showed that Keith was down, body mangled near three wolf corpses, Anthon, Ryant, and Trace a few steps below fighting desperately against five more, Artras standing over Kara and Dylan behind them, a knife in one hand, waiting.

But then Allan’s attention locked onto Hagger, who reached Allan’s level with a vicious smile and a half-growled, “My turn.”

He swung even as he spoke, Allan anticipating the strike. But he didn’t expect Hagger’s speed. Either the old Dog had learned some new tricks after Allan left Erenthrall, or he was already adapting to his new form. Their blades clashed, edges scraping down to the hilts before Allan thrust it away, Hagger snarling as he swiped at Allan with his free hand. Hagger’s elongated nails tore through Allan’s shirt, scoring along his abdomen, drawing blood. The old Dog’s nostrils flared and Allan hissed at the pain, circling away from the stair’s edge. Beyond Hagger, three wolves paced the steps, trapping Allan between them and the wolves attacking the other guards.

Allan cursed, but Hagger gave him no time to think, coming at him viciously, blade flaring in the light of the distortion above, his free hand raking at Allan at every opportunity. Sweat slicked down Allan’s back, stinging in the wounds there as they reopened. Hagger drove him back toward the other edge, nicking his upper arm, his thigh, slicing his side, none of the cuts serious but deep enough to draw blood. Allan sensed his parries flagging, drew on his rage for the strength to thrust Hagger’s blade up so he could duck under his guard, away from the ledge to the safety of the central step, punching the old Dog hard in the kidney as he did so. Hagger grunted and doubled over, snarling as he recovered, lashing out as Allan retreated. He spun, faced Allan, who gasped and cradled his side.

When he’d ducked and twisted, his side felt as if it had torn apart. Perhaps the cut there had been more serious than he’d thought.

Hagger chuckled. “I can smell your death, Pup. I can scent your life seeping from you.”

Before Allan could respond, the whine from the distortion high above broke. Light flashed and flared. Hagger glanced up.

Allan didn’t.

Gripping the hilt of his sword in both hands, he pulled back and—using all of his remaining strength—drove the blade into Hagger’s chest.

Hagger staggered back, gaze locking with Allan’s in shock, mouth open, before he fell to the steps. Behind him, the wolves began to howl, muzzles lifted to the sky. Answering howls rose behind Allan and he turned to see more wolves pouring out of the Nexus, charging up the stairs toward Artras, Kara, and the still unconscious Dylan. The old Wielder spun, knife held out before her, then cursed.

All of Allan’s remaining strength fled. He collapsed to his knees, blood soaking his shirt, his breeches, not all of it his. Despair enfolded him.

He had done the best he could, but it wasn’t enough.

He lifted his gaze toward the sky, toward the white distortion and its twin, the sun, and muttered, “Sorry, Morrell.”