Part 26 (2/2)

They fled the chamber. As they exited they encountered a bloodied, dust-covered Belamandris and a handful of his Anlki in the plaza of the Star Clock. Blood flowed from a cut on his son's cheek, and a long-shafted arrow protruded from the folds of his over-robe. His sword and armor were bloodied.

”Father!” he said. He looked nervously at the Spirit Casque slung across the apprentice's back. Corajidin saw his son suppress a shudder when he saw the grisly trophies in his father's hand. ”This place is compromised. I must escort you from here immediately.”

A cacophony of shouts, screams, and thunder rolled into the plaza. Corajidin could see figures in motion, arms swinging. Bodies ducked and wove. Light reflected from armor, from swords, from spears and s.h.i.+elds. He shook his head. ”We are not leaving until we can retrieve the remainder of the relics we have discovered.”

Belamandris looked over his shoulder at the melee, which drew closer with each moment. ”We'll be overrun. You'll need content yourself with what you've taken from this place already.”

”Who has done this?”

”It's Dragon-Eye!” one of Belamandris's Anlki said, voice rotten with fear. ”He has an army of Tau-se with him-”

”Father,” Belamandris urged, ”I can't guarantee your safety here.”

Corajidin's gaze fell to the pack with the Angothic Spirit Casque on Brede's back. At least it had not all been in vain. He nodded to his son to lead the way.

The sounds of combat followed them through the maze of lanes and streets. Once, as they rounded a corner, the Anlki to the fore were mowed down under a withering hail of Tau-se arrows. Belamandris leaped in front of his father. Tragedy was a humming blur in his hand as he cut down arrows in midflight, arrowheads ringing from the nearby walls and stones beneath their feet. Arrow shafts got snagged in his red over-robe, as well as his hauberk. They rattled like quills as he moved. Blood from a dozen or so wounds flowed over ruby scales or made wet red tracks down the furrows and ridges of muscle in his hands.

Tau-se bounded forward, towering bodies armored in blue and gold, manes bright with the metallic glitter of fortune coins. Their long-bladed spears and khopesh wreaked havoc among those who defended the ruins. Avn warriors trembled in the face of their deafening roars. What few Fenlings were present were cut down, their fallen bodies fought over by their cannibalistic brethren.

Brede sped forward. Her blade seemed to fly into her hand. She gestured once. Two of the Tau-se crumbled to their knees as blood erupted from their noses and mouths. She sprang, seemed to remain in the air for longer than was possible. As she landed her blade flickered like lightning. Blood geysered. Hands, feet, blade, and elbows dealt horrific damage when they struck. She shouted, and Tau-se were flung high into the air like stuffed toys. Everything she did killed. She became carnage incarnate.

Wolfram slammed the b.u.t.t of his stave into the ground. Dark words poured from between his lips. Pieces of broken masonry, dust, and gravel rose into the air. He pointed his stave in the direction of the Tau-se and his apprentice. The debris quivered, then flew down the alleyway like bolts from a hundred crossbows. Brede dropped to one knee, an angry red corona burning around her. Though the debris did not touch Brede, it scourged any of the Tau-se who did not take cover.

Brede rejoined her fellows as they plunged through dark laneways, across sheltered courtyard gardens, to where the wind-skiff was moored. Arrows fell. Bolts from a storm-rifle ricocheted from the stone. One gouged Corajidin's leg. He swore with pain as he limped forward. Corajidin looked back down the narrow lane they had traversed. Three of the Anlki urged Wolfram's ruined body to a greater speed, while Brede looked adoringly at her master.

They scrambled aboard. A rain of arrows fell. There came the sharp crack of impact, like hail on a metal roof, as more arrows and bolts struck the wind-skiff. The Anlki stood about Corajidin to make a wall of their scarred s.h.i.+elds.

Corajidin breathed a sigh of relief, breath stuttering from the pain in his leg. He extended his hands in an open gesture for Brede to hand him the casque, like a father who wanted to hold his child for the first time. Her expression was bland as she reached for the shoulder straps.

Just then, the wind-skiff careened sideways, as if slapped by a giant hand.

Eyes wide, Corajidin saw Indris leap, improbably high, over the rails. He swept two of the Anlki aside with a gesture of his hand. The armored men slid across the deck, bodies twitching. Indris's left eye burned with orange-and-yellow fire. Corajidin felt the heat of it even from the distance where he crouched.

Belamandris rose from the pilot's chair, Tragedy rasping from its sheath. He stepped toward Indris.

”No!” Corajidin yelled at his son. He pointed at the pilot's chair. ”You need to fly us away from here!”

Swearing, Belamandris returned to his seat, hands and feet manipulating the array of levers and pedals. The wind-skiff began to turn about.

Brede surged forward, sword low in a vicious cut. Indris parried, blade snarling. Wolfram bared his teeth in feral glee, hands white-knuckled around his staff. With disbelieving eyes Corajidin watched as Indris's blade changed. Both blade and hilt stretched within spiraling fractals of mother-of-pearl light. The weapon seemed to sing as it lengthened, its serpentine shape stretched into a pole arm more than two meters in length. Corajidin had read of such weapons used by the mightiest Sq Knights of the Awakened Empire, but had thought them lost to history.

Wolfram and his apprentice attacked Indris. The Sq sidestepped Wolfram, the heat from his eye causing the witch's hair and robe to singe. He slammed the ancient witch against the rail. Wolfram grunted with the pain as the rail bit into the small of his back. Brede's blade licked the air mere moments after Indris had pa.s.sed by, the b.u.t.t of his weapon slamming into the deck where her feet had been.

Serill shards buzzed through the air, taking some of the Anlki in the eye or the throat. Corajidin swore at Indris's Seethe comrade, balanced precariously on an outcropping of stone. Her hands moved rhythmically, the blue-tinted blades seeming to appear wherever her hands were at the time. At one point it seemed as if there were knives tumbling in the air about her. She would s.n.a.t.c.h one and hurl it with deadly accuracy. An elderly man in ta.s.seled deerskins knelt at her side, his storm-rifle peppering the Anlki with bolts.

Other Anlki tried to interfere, without success. Indris moved between them so they could not strike at him without possibly harming their own. Brede had no such consideration. If an Anlki got in her way, she cut the warrior down.

Wolfram steadied himself. Carnelian light spun like a tiny star in the cage of his fingers. The witch hurled it forward. Indris caught the ball of flame with his weapon, which pealed in protest. Sweat beaded the scholar's brow as he flung the fireball into the prow of the s.h.i.+p, where it exploded, igniting the wood in a gush of red flame and black smoke. Soldiers scrambled from the blaze, clothes smoldering.

Teeth bared in a snarl, Wolfram leaped forward. Corajidin was surprised to see the old witch so quick in his calipers. He twirled his staff about him as expertly as any warrior Corajidin had ever seen. Brede joined the attack on Indris, her own blade a blur humming through the air. Nacreous light flickered from all three weapons as they struck and parried. Indris danced back and forth, used both haft and blade to keep his a.s.sailants at bay. Despite his skill, Indris was driven, step by step, toward the burning prow.

Indris spun, kicked Wolfram hard in the face. The witch teetered, then fell into the incendiary ruin of the prow, shrieking in pain. Brede snarled. Her blade cascaded with arcs of black lighting, which she flung at Indris with a flick of her wrists. The lightning enveloped Indris. Lifted him from the deck and hurled him overboard amid spiraled pillars of smoke from below. Brede went to the rail.

Corajidin yelled with joy. He dashed forward to relieve Brede of the Spirit Casque. There was nothing more he wanted than to hold it in his arms. He reached out to Brede, who turned to face him.

He felt the warm, wet spray and spatter across his face. A salty tang on his tongue. Brede's expression went blank. A red hole marred her forehead.

She pitched overboard, the Spirit Casque still strapped to her back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

”Blow, wind, if it please you. Autumn is upon me, the tall flowers are gone, and I wait for winter.”-from The Long Walk of the Spirit's Path, by Nasarat fa Amonindris, 492nd Year of the Shranese Federation Day 325 of the 495th Year of the Shranese Federation Indris watched the wind-skiff careen away. Smoke trailed from its burning hull, though he had little doubt those on board would manage to douse the flames. Changeling murmured faint deprecations in his hand, frustrations and opinions more impressions than words.

”Sorry I couldn't shoot Brede earlier. I didn't want to hit you, and you was moving a mite quick over there,” Hayden murmured sadly. The old drover had scrambled down from his vantage point, storm-rifle clutched in bloodied hands. Shar joined them. A squad of Tau-se gathered, their weapons notched. Blood was spattered across their armor, clotted in their manes. ”That was quite a fall you took.”

Indris looked down at the scorch marks on his skin, courtesy of Brede's formulae. It was not something the Sq taught. His muscles still twitched, though the burns and abrasions of his most recent encounter had already started to vanish. He whispered to Changeling. She twisted in his hand as she shortened her shape back to a long-hilted sword. He was thankful to the blade for the trickle of disentropy she fed him, which offset the worst of the mindstorm and entropic fever he knew would otherwise have come from his heavy use of the ahmsah.

”Let's find the others.” Indris rested his hand on the rifleman's shoulder.

Around them the battle dwindled. With their finely tuned senses, it had not taken the Tau-se long to locate the Fenling nests where they wound, labyrinthine and fetid, beneath the Time Master ruins. The Tau-se had gone still when they had seen Fenlings wearing armor scavenged from Lion Guard bodies. Some of the rat-folk had worn Tau-see manes as headdresses or necklaces of fangs and claws. Lion-man skins had been strung on frames as a hunter would tan hides.

Their rage had been a silent, smoldering thing that made Indris very nervous. Yet they had acted like the elite soldiers they were. Ekko and Mauntro had led their forces in a devastating attack on those appointed to guard the ruins. Indris tried not to think about the fates of those who boasted a trophy from a fallen Tau-se. He had no doubt it would have proven to be a short-lived error in judgment.

Those Fenlings who fought had been cut down. The entrances to their nests were collapsed. Avn and Human prisoners had been taken, marched without further harm to holding areas. All the while Tau-se anger had simmered, seen in the widening of their eyes and the angling of their ears.

In the calm that followed, Indris led the way to where Brede's broken body lay among shattered debris. A quick check confirmed the woman was dead. A familiar sense of disentropic chop a.s.sailed his senses. His gorge rose along with a wave of revulsion.

”Hayden?” Indris asked as he stepped away from Brede's corpse.

”I know you don't approve of it, Indris, but salt-forged steel does have its uses.”

”What's done is done. Leave the bolt where it is, though. We want to make sure she stays dead. I've no idea what new tricks she learned at the knees of the Angothic Witches and am not inclined to take any chances.” He gestured to two of the Tau-se. ”Would you please bring her?”

The group waded through the dirty water of a flooded street. They climbed a small set of moss-covered stairs, then trekked through an untended park of wildflowers and jacarandas. After several minutes they came to the round building that held the plaza of the Star Clock.

Ekko and almost twenty Tau-se congregated there. Indris could tell by the way they knelt on the hard stone, the way they rubbed the fortune coins in their manes, something was wrong. He dashed forward to where Ekko knelt in the wide round doorway of a tall building. Indris could hear the sonorous tick, creak, and groan of gears and wheels from inside. The giant Tau-se bowed his head to Indris, his expression mournful.

Two bodies lay on the ground, covered by the blue-and-gold over-robes of Lion Guardsmen. Four of the Lion Guard stood over the bodies, weapons and s.h.i.+elds worn with much use.

With a trembling hand, Indris pulled back the robe covering the nearest corpse. He swallowed a curse when he saw the body had been beheaded. But he knew the lotus crest tattooed below the collarbone. Indris saw Daniush had been beaten before he died. He pulled the robe up to cover the body once more, then turned to the other. The breath stuttered out of him.

”I am sorry we could not arrive in time to save him, Amonindris,” Ekko rumbled. Indris craned his neck to look at the Tau-se champion, whose eyes were wide. ”I failed him, my friend.”

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