A wicked wind, p.57
A Wicked Wind, page 57
“Can he talk?”
“No. He can’t even move, actually. Think of him like a statue. Just take care of the statue.”
“And he’ll be like that forever?”
“Yes,” Roux conceded.
The old man considered this for a long moment before grinning again, “I guess that’s even better than him being dead. Good job, son.”
Roux just stared as the old man clasped his shoulder, then turned and ambled away down the mud pathway these “Ri-Sul” used as a road.
Roux might as well have told the old man that the sun was going to rise in the morning for all the impact it seemed to have on him. Except for the glee. That was new.
He wondered if he ought to find someone to put in charge, but the sun was setting. He needed to get out of the Wood as quickly as possible before nightfall. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was going, and it would be much more difficult to Dart with only moonlight to guide him.
In a blink he was atop the nearest tree, scanning the Wood to the southeast. He Darted from tree to tree, moving so fast that his feet hardly even registered the impact of landing before he was gone again.
After a handful of minutes, Roux stood at the edge of the Wood, panting with the exertion of Darting so rapidly. He gave himself time to recover by walking towards the pass he’d spotted a few leagues back. The weather was colder outside the bounds of the Wood, and it was clear that winter held the land surrounding the Relvyn Wood in its frozen grip. That was doubly true for the pass and the mountains beyond it.
Before long, Roux was shivering. His coat was thin, and while his natural comfort with his surroundings was dampening the effects of the cold to some degree, it couldn’t cancel out the chill of winter completely. The sun was now dipping behind the mountains. He would need to move faster to reach the Drakleyn before sunset.
With a heavy sigh, Roux chose the farthest point he could visualize and Darted. He stood at a bend in the pass, his feet buried in the snow. He Darted again, gaining more ground.
After that first rise, the pass descended into a deep valley, surrounded by towering mountains. The Drakleyn had been actually built into one of them, or from one of them, before the Dominion Wars.
During the war with the Kholodym, a Magus named Elise had broken the adjoining mountain, crushing critical parts of the structure.
Roux wondered how the inside was still habitable after such an insult, but according to Andariana, half of the fortress was still in heavy use by Emelian Krasik and his forces. So where better to keep Tamara captive than a remote, heavily-fortified castle held by the enemy?
The sun had nearly set by the time the ruined castle came into full view. He had mere minutes to get to the structure, and from his vantage point he could tell that the valley floor was a shifting sea of rebel troops.
Their roads were well-formed and well-travelled. There were even some permanent structures that looked newly built.
Obviously, this camp had been here for quite a long time.
Looming over the camp was one of the oddest structures Roux had ever beheld. The architecture of the Drakleyn looked to have been designed by a madman. But here and there, he spotted balconies. And sentries.
Unless he was just going to walk in the front gate, Roux decided that a balcony would be his easiest entrance into the fortress. He would need to kill a few sentries to do it without being noticed, but he hardly considered that a deterrent.
He concentrated on the highest balcony he could see. At its ridiculous height, he would have to be very precise with his where he Darted. This might be worse than Darting through the bloody dark!
He took a deep breath and locked the image in his mind. He thought about Tamara, and how she could be one Dart away from being in his arms.
Blink.
Aleksei woke well before dawn. He’d bedded down in a barn, half a league from the Ul’Faa, for a steep fee. The gold ensured that the chicken-man didn’t report his suspicious presence. He’d made no promises about the man’s safety if Aleksei was found out.
We’re going to fix it. The Mantle whispered. We’re going to feed. We’ll protect him. We’ll find the girl, but first we find the boy. First we drink their nectar.
Aleksei knew exactly where Jonas was. Even if the bond had been silenced by the Ul’Brek, they could never mask the blood meridian.
That was far older magic, Wood magic, and while it was practically pulsing from the Ul’Faa, it didn’t seem to have any effect on his talents as a Hunter.
Feeling their reforged bond within him had filled Aleksei with more joy than he could possibly give voice to, but having it silenced again so quickly was miserable. Aleksei would cut down every Ul’Brek in Fanj if it meant having that connection, that sacred intimacy restored.
He pulled on a pair of dark gray cotton trousers and matching shirt, but left his boots behind in the shadows. He took a brace of throwing knives, strapping the nameless blade across his back, and a length of rope. He always seemed to need rope.
Aleksei had no real idea of how this was going to go, but it was better to face it head-on, as properly equipped as possible. At the same time, he was infiltrating a heavily-guarded fortress.
In the gloom of predawn, the gray would serve to hide him in the shadows far better than black.
It was a basic precaution, but the fewer people he had to kill this morning, the faster he could free Jonas and retrieve Tamara. Then they could be away from this cursed place.
He stepped out into the chill pre-dawn morning, leaving Agriphon well-hidden in the shadowed barn. Je’gud was still sleeping, it seemed. He didn’t see a single citizen as he made his way to the Ul’Faa.
When he finally reached the wall, Aleksei was genuinely surprised not to see more guards posted. There was a contingent of fifteen stationed at the southern gate, but approaching from the north, he didn’t spot a single sentry.
Aleksei climbed the northern wall, his hands and bare feet finding easy purchase in the uneven sandstone blocks. He sniffed the air and listened for alien heartbeats, reaching the wall-walk apparently unseen.
It was difficult to separate out the pulsing of anyone besides Jonas and Tamara in the thunder of the blood meridian, but after a few moments, Aleksei was sufficiently confident that there were no guards in his immediate proximity.
Aleksei trotted along the top of the wall towards the southwest tower, scattering a murmuration of starlings. He prayed to every god he could think of, and found himself concentrating on Perun and Volos; gods of thunder and death. Warring gods, yes, but gods he’d placed his faith in before. He expected quite a bit of both thunder and death in the coming dawn.
He stepped up to the southwest tower and searched for handholds. Unlike the wall, the tower was polished, almost smooth as glass. Aleksei cursed, searching for another point of access.
If he were to attempt to enter at the base of the fortress, that might give the elemental Scions a chance to prepare and defend. They’d almost certainly relocate Jonas. He wasn’t exactly sure what these elite Ul’Brek were capable of, but he was reasonably certain he wouldn’t be able to fight them all at once, not as a unified front.
Even the Mantle, powerful though it was, had its limitations.
Finally, he spotted a thin minaret within range of a window he had identified earlier as the location of twelve heartbeats. Eleven were steady, but Jonas’s stood out, a nervous throb against a sea of faint flutters. Tamara’s beat just as loud, but she was either still asleep or completely unaware of what was about to take place in the tower beneath her.
The minaret was constructed from intricately carved pieces of white marble, leaving it hollow in places. It served for a quick ascent, though the higher he got, the more precarious his handholds became. In its own way, the climb reminded him of being a boy, climbing trees to hunt squirrels.
Bit by bit, Aleksei pulled himself up. He knew his point of entry. He’d sighted it before he’d ridden through the Gates of Heaven. He hadn’t expected it to come to this, but the drumming in his head, the pulse that was now so familiar that it seemed a part of him, demanded satisfaction.
He reached the precipice. Before him stood a stained glass window, the highest entrance he could find.
Aleksei prayed that the violence he was about to commit would be enough to shield Jonas, to protect him from the trials he was about to endure.
Jonas had mentioned that most of the people in the Ul’Faa were Ul’Brek, and thus could nullify Jonas’s access to the Archanium. Without magic, Jonas was a far less formidable opponent on the battlefield, and was more likely to be a liability during the fight than an asset.
A gust of wind threatened his footing, and Aleksei snapped his attention back to the moment at hand. Sabra had told Jonas that he must complete the trial to even see Tamara. Aleksei saw it differently.
He saw a religious oligarchy that tore apart each precocious adept for the apparent sake of their combined personal enjoyment. But he was no adept.
Behind the stained-glass window, softer than the thundering heartbeat that had dominated his thoughts since arriving in Je’gud, beneath the throb of Jonas’s blood meridian, he could feel nine weaker hearts, confirming his earlier suspicions.
Aleksei had tried to work out how a religion devoted to extinguishing the Archanium was ruled by magic users, what Sabra had called Scions. At first it had seemed contradictory. But a disturbing theory had been tumbling around in his skull since he’d passed the Ul’Faa the day before.
There were nine people surrounding Jonas within the tower. Not a single one of them was touching the Archanium. Rather, an enormous well of Wood magic thrummed through the tower’s entirety. The majority of it surged up from beneath the ground, but within the tower it branched out, its power ending in nine brilliant flares.
These Scions were each imbued with heady amounts of Wood magic.
That alone made him question a great many things regarding what he was about to do, but in the end, he supposed the details didn’t matter. Whatever magic they commanded, the Scions were standing between him and Jonas. Between them and Tamara. Whatever purpose this trial served, it was irrelevant to Aleksei. He was not a Magus. He was something far more dangerous.
He was the Hunter.
Aleksei pulled the rope from his shoulder and tied a loose knot, searching for a place to land it. He winced when he finally caught sight of his only real option. It was a small horn of stone jutting out just above the window.
Aleksei whirled the knot around experimentally, getting a feel for the heft and balance of the rope. And then he released it with a gentle thrust, watching it glide across the span between the minaret and the tower.
The knot fell short.
Aleksei whispered a curse, pulling the rope back into a coil and launching the knot again. This time it caught on the horn of stone, though the grip appeared tenuous.
Aleksei took a deep breath, pulled on the rope to ensure it had caught, checking that his brace of knives and his swords were secure. And then he leapt from the minaret.
The knot tightened and he swung across the gap, bursting feet-first through the stained glass. He felt the sharp sting of the glass and solder a moment before he landed in the center of a large circle.
Next to Jonas.
The stunned look on the faces of the Scions was all Aleksei needed. He returned their shocked stares with a grim smile. He was not here to have a conversation with these men. He was here to kill them. They were about to tear his Magus to pieces, and he would not abide that.
The Mantle roared forward like a river, shredding Aleksei’s shirt as it plunged crimson claws into a wizened Scion’s chest. In the very next moment Aleksei’s chest burst apart in a fiery blaze, disintegrating a lung and exposing his beating heart.
The Mantle claimed another life, making him whole even as a lightning bolt obliterated his left leg. The Mantle consumed a third Scion, and even as Aleksei started to fall, his leg was there to catch him, restored. The pain of destruction and instant regeneration was indescribable, and yet there were still six men remaining.
As he turned to face the Scion directly behind him, a knot of air blasted off the right side of his face. He could feel the blood gushing from the opening in his skull, even as the Mantle struck, restoring him once again.
Five.
A geyser of flame swirled up from the floor and devoured one man, his agonized screams echoing through the chamber.
Even with the Mantle’s power, even with Jonas now aiding him, Aleksei knew he couldn’t hold out much longer. He saw the four remaining men group together. He reached out, but even as the Mantle sought one life, a conjured spike of ice pierced his chest.
Aleksei felt his heart stop as it was torn in two.
Jonas opened a pit in the chamber’s floor. The ice-casting Scion vanished with a cry. Jonas slammed the pieces of marble back together, cutting the man’s scream short.
As Aleksei dropped to his knees dying, the Mantle flowed from his hand, crawling through Jonas, plunging its tendrils into the nearest Scion and drinking him dry.
A heartbeat later the Mantle was feeding life into Aleksei through Jonas. Aleksei reached up and ripped the blood-slicked ice from his chest, his heart suddenly pounding in his ears.
The Mantle reached for the two remaining men, but when it bit into the first, searing pain shot back along the tendrils and into the Hunter. The Scion held a thick golden armband. At once, Aleksei knew that this was what the Mantle coveted. Coveted and feared.
Aleksei was perplexed, even as the towering stone column behind him shattered with an ear-piercing crack. A massive chunk of marble tumbled forward, slamming him to the ground. He felt his spine splinter, his legs go numb as the stone crushed him to the floor.
The Scion holding the band looked perplexed when Aleksei’s throwing knife suddenly sprouted from his belly. The man opened his mouth to cry out in pain, but before any sound escaped him, Jonas forced the man to ground, battering the back of the Scion’s head. The thin marble floor tiles and the Scion’s skull cracked in unison, freeing the Mantle to feed life into Aleksei’s shattered back. Jonas rose, hands bloody, and hefted the heavy gold band in triumph.
Aleksei worked to get out from under the crushing weight of the stone as the last remaining Scion held out a plain wooden staff. From his position, Aleksei knew that the man was out of the Mantle’s range. He had to get the stone off of his back if he was to survive the coming attack.
Summoning every ounce of strength he still possessed, Aleksei finally rolled the stone off of him, the muscles in his back ripping in the effort. He stood, finally free of his bondage. The last Scion’s staff shattered into several large, slender splinters, all of which flew towards Aleksei with incredible speed.
In a blinding flash, Jonas threw up a wall of liquid fire, burning the shards to ash in an instant. The liquid fire flowed forth as though alive, enveloping the last Scion. Consuming him.
As Aleksei crawled towards Jonas, his body slowly, sluggishly following his commands, he realized that the entire battle had occurred within the space of a few excruciating seconds.
A door on the far end of the chamber creaked open, and he was suddenly entranced by a dream-like vision. There she was, glorious golden hair sparkling in the dawn light streaming through the shattered window.
Aleksei managed a smile, “We found you. I told him we would.”
Behind the woman came an older man dressed in tattered Ilyari wool. Aleksei idly wondered who he was, even as he felt the all-too-familiar threat of oblivion press harder upon his mind and body.
“Yosef, get over here. Hurry!” the woman shouted.
And then Aleksei slowly realized something was wrong.
The man called Yosef knelt next to Aleksei, and he was suddenly plunged into the Archanium. Aleksei screamed at the intrusion of pain, but seconds later, the warmth of healing flooded his entire being.
As he gave into the agony and exhaustion, Aleksei was dimly aware of the woman looking at the man called Yosef. The man was clearly a Magus of some sort.
In a mental fog, a thought came swimming out of his unconscious; Gods, where was Jonas?
Aleksei noticed Yosef's troubled frown as he looked over to the blond woman, “Who is he?”
She looked deep into Aleksei’s golden eyes, frowning even as she whispered, “I have no idea.”
Roux crashed into the first sentry, his short knife cutting out the man’s throat before Roux’s appearance even registered on his face.
By the time the man hit the ground, the second sentry was already dropping, a torrent of his blood staining the snow.
The third sentry drew his sword and looked about wildly in confusion. Roux stood outside the firelight. The men had been watching their fire for too long, and were now blinded to the darkness.
The third sentry bent to look over the side of the railing. Roux wasn’t sure what he expected to find below him, but a heartbeat later he supposed the man would find out first-hand. The sentry’s terrified scream faded into the darkness. It terminated abruptly, and Roux smiled.
He peered over the railing to see if anyone had taken notice of the falling sentry. He knew he ought to be more careful and not draw attention to himself, but it had been all too tempting, just a quick shove and his job on the balcony was finished.
He dumped the other two bodies over the edge. The snow piled up under the Drakleyn was incredibly deep. Those bodies wouldn’t be found for months, if ever.
As he started to walk away, something in the far corner caught his eye. He stepped over to a stretch of snow, a few weeks old at the most. The snow had hardened into ice. From the looks of the railings and the balcony, it had been quite a while since the last snowfall.
But there were strange prints, and a dark patch that he recognized as old blood. It was too dark, too congealed in the snow to be from his recent massacre.
He prayed it didn’t belong to Tamara. But as he followed the tiny prints, impressions left not by boots, but irregular stripes he recognized as being from strips of cloth, he saw with relief that they continued beyond the blood. If she had been bleeding, there would have been a trail. And those prints…. He knew them, and he knew the woman who had left them.
