Centyr Dominance (13 page)

“There are men outside. I’ve looked out all the
windows. I think they’re in the back too. We’re trapped,” moaned the
ex-prisoner.

Moira expanded her awareness, letting her magesight
explore the area around the house. She didn’t like what she found. Not only
was Wat correct, but there were more coming, filtering into the neighborhood in
ones and twos. Possibly, the only reason they hadn’t attacked yet was the
simple fact that they hadn’t all arrived. There were already more than a
hundred people outside, and that number seemed likely to double in a few
minutes.

Worse, it wasn’t just men, as Wat had said, it was a
wide variety of people. A few were guardsmen, but they were outnumbered by the
plain citizens in the crowd. Men, women, and even a few children were
gathering outside. Careful inspection of them revealed that they all bore the
strange metal parasites within them, at least the four or five she took time to
examine did.

“I think we have overstayed our welcome,” noted
Moira. Oddly enough, she felt no fear. She wondered if she had used up her
capacity for it. She merely felt tired, and sore. Her arm had begun working
once more, but it ached terribly.

The sound of the front door caught her ears then,
followed by Mrs. Perkins’ strident voice, “I had nothing to do with it! They
said they’d kill me if I talked! Please don’t hurt me.”

Moira looked at Wat sadly, “Your mother is very
devoted to you.” It was hard for her to fathom a parent that would abandon her
child so easily. It ran counter to her own life experience thus far.

Wat merely shrugged, “I’d have done the same in the
past. Can’t really blame her. Don’t worry, though. I won’t leave your side,
no matter what happens.” His face wrinkled in thought as though he was trying
to figure something out. “I’ve been different lately—since I met you.”

She avoided meeting his gaze as a feeling of guilt
passed over her. She knew she had broken the rules when she had begun changing
people, but she hadn’t really had much of a choice.
I made him better. Can
that be so wrong?
She was distracted from that thought when her magesight
noticed something unusual outside.

The mob was ignoring Wat’s mother.

The old woman was still begging and crying, but the
people paid no heed to her. They let her pass through them without trying to
stop her.

This isn’t a human guard detail, acting on
the orders of a ruler. This is a collection of monsters, and all they want is
me,
she
realized. For some reason, that brought a sense of relief to her. “Wat, you can
go. They don’t want you. Just walk out, and you’ll be fine.”

The skinny man frowned, “I won’t abandon you.”

For the first time, she regretted instilling so much
loyalty in him. Now it would likely get him killed, adding another death to
her conscience. “You can’t help me in a fight like this, and you’ll just get
yourself killed. Escape now, and if you absolutely must, you can follow me
after I leave. It may be that you’ll find some opportunity to help me later.
Trying to protect me, you will only make things more difficult for me.”

Wat stared at her, conflicting emotions warring within
him, but eventually he nodded, “If that’s what you want, milady.”

“Good,” she replied, forcing a smile. “Go now, while
there’s time.”

Once he had left, she looked at what remained to her.
She had the Baron to worry about. He was still unconscious, otherwise she
might have had Wat try to help him leave. As things stood now he would have to
be carried by Stretch once more. If she left him behind he might not survive
unattended.
I should have given my helpers wings,
she realized, but
there was no time for that now.

She loaded Gerold onto Stretch and prepared to leave.
Moira couldn’t see any other options, they would have to walk out one of the
doors, and neither one seemed to offer any particular advantage.
They’re
just people, even if they’re being controlled. They can’t stop me.
Her
energy reserves had recovered significantly during her nap, although she was
definitely not fully herself yet.

Speaking softly to herself, she used her will to
summon a heavy mist, covering the area around the house in a thick fog, and
then she opened the door. No one moved as she and her companions exited.

Belatedly she realized there was one important
question she should have asked Wat.
Which way is the shortest route to the
city gate?
“Shit.”

Moira took a deep breath. She would just have to
stick to a straight course and trust that eventually she would find the city
wall.
If necessary, I’ll just go through the damn thing.
That thought
made her chuckle, although it came out as a shrill almost hysterical sound when
it exited her mouth. “Lenny, you take the left and Larry, you take the right.
Stay behind me and keep an eye on Stretch and Gerold. Match my speed, and try
not to hurt anyone unless it’s necessary.”

“How will we know what is necessary?” asked Lenny.

“Anything that threatens to stop me from getting the
Baron out of the city. That’s our goal. Got it?”

“Got it,” answered the spellbeast.

Moira began walking forward with Stretch and the
others following close behind. She kept a powerful shield around herself and
another over Gerold where he lay cradled on Stretch’s back. As she walked she
could sense the people in the fog moving. Those on the other side of the house
moved forward and those to the sides moved inward. Somehow they could sense
her movement despite being unable to see through the fog.

They can tell where I am,
noted
Moira clinically.
That shouldn’t be possible.
The parasitically controlled
crowd showed no signs of exceptional aythar or special ability. She doubted
any of them had magesight, and if they did, certainly not all of them.
How
are they doing that?

The crowd was moving, drawing inward to enclose them.

Moira released the fog since it didn’t seem to be
helping anyway. Immediately after, she began quick stepping and resorted to
one of her father’s favorite tricks—the flashbang,
“Lyet Bierek!”
The
air in front of her was torn by a massive crack and a blinding flash of light, neither
of which passed through her shield.

She repeated the words and sent her aythar outward in
rapid order, ripping the night into a chaos of noise and searing light. It was
a display that would have sent most armies into rout, and it clearly had an effect
here, but it was not nearly what she had expected. Men and women flinched and
closed their eyes, and some covered their ears, but none of them ran or fell
back. Blind and deaf, they showed no sign of fear.

She pushed forward nonetheless, expanding her shield
into a wedge-like shape as she forced a path through the crowd. The weight of
their bodies against it was considerable, but it was nothing she couldn’t
handle. The difficulty lay in trying not to injure them. It was tempting to
use her power to throw them violently backward. It would have been far easier,
but she couldn’t bring herself to do that to so many innocents.

Her magesight showed her a clear vision of her
spellbeasts behind her as they struggled with those who closed in from behind.
It was a weird slow contest, as normal humans grappled with them, trying to
pull them down or just separate them. As strong as her guardians were it was
impossible to ignore so many hands pulling at them, and eventually they were
forced to violence to free themselves from the mob.

Moira dipped her head, letting her hair fall over her
face as she continued onward. She pushed the press of bodies aside by sheer
force of will, but their weight kept increasing. In the back of her mind
desperation loomed, warning her of failure. She wasn’t strong enough to keep
it up indefinitely. Her choices lay between continuing until she was exhausted
or destroying those who sought to stop her.

There has to be a better way. What would
father do?

He would have made a “circle” and evacuated everyone
long before coming to this.
How many times did he try to get me to memorize
the circle keys?
She cursed herself for ignoring that advice. She had
often chided her brother for his lackadaisical attitude toward learning some of
the things their father had tried to drill into them, most notably healing, but
she knew he had memorized the location keys for all of the circles.

But not me, it was just too damn boring
for me. Fixing sheep, fine, but don’t ask me to memorize a bunch of
meaningless symbols and numbers.
Except they didn’t seem
so meaningless now, and people would probably die for her laziness.
If I
have to choose between saving Gerold and killing all these innocents, what will
it be?

A vision of fire filled her mind, and she knew the
answer. She would kill any number of strangers to save a friend—and then she
would hate herself for it afterward.

Would it be killing, though? Or would I really
be saving them from a fate worse than death?

A dark reply came to her,
Ask their families later.

Ignoring that thought, she drew on her anger to send
her shield surging outward once more, tossing the people against it violently
back. Then she contracted it and began running before the crowd could press in
again.

As she ran she began searching with her magesight, and
whenever she found something loose, a board, a lamppost, a watering trough,
anything bulky enough, she pulled it inward to land behind her companions as
they fled.

It tripped a number of their pursuers, and in some
cases the flying debris bludgeoned several of them off their feet, but it
wasn’t enough. The crowd surged behind them, heedless of the dangers. In the
distance Moira could detect more of them coming from every direction, heading
unerringly toward her location. She couldn’t afford to play nice any longer.

“Hurt them if you have to!” she yelled back to Lenny
and Larry. “Try to lame them if you can.”

Lenny roared and Larry simply nodded. Both of them
were glad to be allowed to act more freely. They began fighting with more
relish, knocking people aside and hamstringing some with teeth and claws.

We can do this,
thought
Moira, allowing herself to hope, but then she saw something strange in the road
a block away. She hadn’t noticed it before, not as she had the people closing
in on her. This had seemed to be inanimate, an object with no more aythar than
a stone or a building. At this distance though, she couldn’t help but notice
its movement, and that drew her attention.

It was a strange contraption, built entirely of metal,
but it moved as though it had a life of its own. Four legs lifted a squat
central ovoid body above them. Two arms and an odd box-like contraption
projected from the central portion. The center swiveled to track her as she
moved sideways in the street, and she could see that the strange rectangular
box had an opening of some sort that it kept pointed in her direction.

As unfamiliar as the thing was, Moira recognized a
weapon when she saw one. Years of practice with her brother made her response
almost purely instinctive, she ran closer to the building on her left and
contracted her shield, making it denser and angling it to deflect whatever
force was about to strike.

She never heard the weapon fire. For a split second
she saw a flash, and then her awareness vanished in a shock of agony and
burning pain.

Wake up!
Someone
was shouting inside Moira’s head.

It hurts.

Moira’s first impression was of something cold and
hard under her hands. Gradually she came to realize she was on the ground, but
where? After a moment she remembered the street, and her attempt to get Gerold
and Wat out of the city. She could feel something sharp pressing into her
cheek, and she started to raise her head.

“Oh!” She immediately regretted the movement. Pain
shot through her head and neck, making her want nothing more than to remain
very still.

You have to get up, or we will die here.
It’s coming. Let me help you!

She tried to open her eyes but was only partly
successful. Her right eye revealed a chaotic world of movement and confusion.
Her left eye didn’t open at all, though whether it was swollen shut or
something worse, she couldn’t be sure yet. She thought she might have fallen
into a puddle, for her face was wet. She wiped at it feebly with one hand. It
didn’t feel like water—it was far too sticky.
Who are you?
she asked,
addressing the voice in her head.

I’m you, the other you, the one you
created. You have to get up, it’s almost too late!

Oh.
She remembered
now. The spellmind that she had inadvertently created when she escaped from
the palace—when she had violated the rules her mother had taught her. As she
thought about that she began to see the world again with her magesight. Its
return created a terrible throbbing in her skull. It also showed her the
carnage around her.

Bodies were everywhere. Stretch, still carrying
Gerold, was standing over her, while Lenny and Larry seemed to have gone on a
rampage. They were twenty feet away now, and the torn and mangled remains of
the townsfolk that lay all about seemed to be primarily their handiwork.
People were still charging at them, but flesh and blood was a poor weapon
against spellbeasts. Her two guardians ripped and tore, shredding flesh and
breaking bone with mad abandon.

A sharp resounding click reached her ears. It was a
modest sound, as if someone had clapped two bricks together, but it heralded
something far more powerful than the sound indicated. The metal monster was
only thirty feet away, and it had pointed its boxy weapon at Lenny.

The lion shaped spellbeast was thrown back, a giant
hole appearing through its torso followed instantly by an explosion in the
building that stood behind him. Moira had felt it, but it had happened too
quickly for her to understand. It almost seemed as if a rock had been thrown
at unbelievable speed, tearing through Lenny and demolishing the wall of the
nearest house.

Is that what hit me?
she
wondered.

Lenny recovered quickly, and ignoring the gaping tear
through his magical body he sprang at the metal monster while Moira tried, and
failed, to stand. Apparently the thing couldn’t fire its strange weapon again
so soon, but a small metal door slid aside and a metal rod emerged. Light
flashed, and a thunderous roar shattered the night, far louder than the noise
made by its previous attack.

The sound didn’t stop. It went on, hammering at
Moira’s ears as something too fast for her to see shredded Lenny’s body. The
spellbeast’s great catlike body collapsed. Larry had charged from the opposite
side of the creature, but it swiveled with smooth precision and brought its
devastating weapon, still firing, to bear on her ape-like guardian.

The area around Moira was temporarily clear of living
people, but a man stepped out from an alley and began running toward her. It
took several seconds before she recognized him. It was Chad Grayson. A quick
order stopped Stretch from attacking him.

“Where have you been?” she asked numbly, still in
shock.

Kneeling, he slipped his arms under her and lifted.
The hunter was not a big man, average in height and build, he probably weighed no
more than hundred and sixty pounds, but as he stood she could feel the muscles
in his arms pulling taut with hidden strength. “Why does every woman ask me
that?” he replied before adding, “We have to go.”

Incredibly, he broke into a jog. The jarring movement
did nothing to improve the pain she already felt.

“How did you find me?” she managed.

Moira was slender, but even so the ranger was already
breathing hard as he answered, “I followed Gram. When I heard the commotion
and realized he was heading for you, I ran ahead.”

Larry had managed to reach the metal beast and landed
a heavy blow even as the thunderous weapon tore him apart. His fist hit the
strange weapon, bending it, and a loud explosion followed. It fell silent
then, but her guardian had taken too much damage, and he fell to one side, his
magical body beginning to disintegrate.

Smoke rose from the blackened opening that the rod had
emerged from, but the monster didn’t stop. Its legs began moving once more,
and it turned to follow them, swiveling its torso to bring the box back into
line with the fleeing humans.

Chad left the road, turning into a side alley when the
strange clack sound rang out once more, and the building they had turned in
front of shook. Seconds later the corner collapsed, spilling brick and masonry
across the alley behind them.

“You left Gram behind?” Moira could see the
four-legged monster struggling to climb over the rubble as Chad turned the next
corner into a new street.

The hunter was panting too hard to answer, and his
feet were slowing as he struggled to continue running with her, but a new voice
found her mind.
Moira!
It was Cassandra.

I’m in trouble,
she
replied, sending a stream of images and words to describe what had happened as
well as the metal monster that was following her.

I’m coming,
answered
her dragon,
Head to the left. I’m to the west of you. I can’t stop,
though. Grace is following me on foot, and she means to kill me.

“Turn left at the next corner,” Moira told her weary
savior.

Chad stumbled but kept moving. “Why?” he panted.

She kept her answer short, “Dragons.”

He nodded and headed toward the turn she had
indicated.

Why is Grace trying to kill you?
Moira
asked her dragon.

I believe Gram ordered it. Something is
controlling him,
the dragon answered.

Moira felt her jaw clench as she silently cursed. She
was tired, and fatigue had clouded her mind. In spite of herself, she felt the
fires of hatred beginning to kindle in her heart.
Not Gram, not
this—they’ve gone too far.

More people were closing around them, drawn inexorably
to her, like moths to a flame. Even before the metal monster caught up to them
they would be dragged down by a mob of lesser foes. Moira tried to create a
shield around them and was rewarded with a stabbing pain in her skull. It felt
as though someone had driven a knife between her eyes. Chad’s rapidly tiring
legs weren’t going to be able to escape the crowd.

The starlight above dimmed as a massive shadow passed
overhead and then the night was illuminated by a gout of searing flame.
Cassandra dipped low and scoured the street behind them with dragonfire.
Wooden buildings caught fire as if they were made of paper, and the people
following—the less said of them the better. They died silently, their bodies
enveloped by flames. The dragon beat her wings and began gaining height after
her deadly pass.

Chad kept moving, but even with the horrors behind him,
he could do no more than walk now. “This whole damn city is liable to catch
fire,” he panted.

“Put me down. I think I can walk,” Moira told him.

The hunter was too tired to argue. Gently, he lowered
her legs to the ground, and after she had tested them for a moment they moved
on. He kept a hand on her arm just in case she lost her balance. Stretch
followed, still carrying the unconscious baron on his back.

I’ll circle around and make another pass.
There’s something still following you,
said Cassandra in her
mind.

Careful. The weapon it uses is deadly,
warned
Moira.

So am I.

Her legs weren’t hurt, but her gait was unsteady. As
they went she tried once more to create a shield around them. This time she
succeeded, but the result was less than impressive, and the pain it caused made
it not worth the effort. With a sigh Moira let the shield fade.

Moira’s magesight was working properly, although it
made her head ache. She could easily sense the metal monster closing on them
from behind. It was still in the flames that covered the street, but it didn’t
show any signs of slowing. Another shape approached from the darkness ahead of
them, following the same course that Cassandra had flown. Moira recognized
Grace bounding along the street toward them.

She could only hope that Grace’s order only included
the other dragon, otherwise things would get worse very quickly.

The moment came and went almost before Chad could see
her. The smaller, horse-sized dragon ran past them with the speed of a hunting
cat. Moira caught a glimpse of Grace’s eyes as she passed, reflecting the
flames that lit the street behind them.

Be careful,
shouted
Moira mentally, but if Grace heard her she gave no sign. A ton and a half of
reptilian muscle, she passed the humans and threw herself at the metal beast
that was just emerging from the fire.

“Don’t stop,” urged Chad when she began to pause and
turn her head. “There’s nothing we can do against that thing.”

The metal monster failed to register her attack in time,
temporarily blinded perhaps by the intense heat it had just passed through.
Grace’s heavy body nearly bowled it over, but its four legs provided
exceptional stability. She grappled the thing with teeth and claws, although
they found little purchase against the hard metal.

Her greatest advantage was that the thing had only two
arms, and those were small, probably meant to serve functional purposes rather
than participate in melee combat. Scrabbling to hold on to a body with few places
to grasp, Grace latched onto the right arm. Metal screamed as she ripped it
free seconds later.

But its body was turning, twisting to bring the
box-like weapon to bear.

Grace! The box is a weapon, don’t let
it…!

Moira failed to finish the warning. Grace saw the
threat and caught the metal device in her powerful jaws, crushing it with teeth
that were stronger than any metal yet forged in Lothion. An odd clack rang out
as the monster tried to fire, and then Moira and Chad were picked up and thrown
by the force of a powerful explosion. Even Stretch was sent tumbling despite
his bulk and four legs.

Moira found herself face down in the street once more,
but she quickly levered herself upright with her arms. The world had gone
silent, but her mouth was open. She could feel herself screaming, but for some
reason she had lost the power to produce sound. The only thing she could hear
was Cassandra’s voice in her mind,
Noooooo!

The lower half of the metal beast still stood in the
street, weak flames guttering from the shell of its torn and broken upper section.
Moira’s one eye was unable to find the dragon, but her magesight discovered her
seconds later, Grace’s broken body hung limply, impaled on a heavy roof beam
that had been split by the force of the explosion.

This can’t be happening.
The
dragons her father had created were among the most powerful creatures left in
the world since his war with the gods. Grace had been the firstborn child of
her gift when she had come into her power. Losing her had never been among the
remotest possibilities in her mind.

Seconds passed like hours as she stood there. Her
logical mind told her that Grace could not die; the enchantment her father had
crafted made the dragons immortal, but once her heart stopped beating the
enchantment would reset. Grace’s mind would be wiped clean of all memories,
and the magic that was at the core of her life would create a new egg. The
bond she shared with Gram would end, and she would hatch anew once a new master
had claimed the egg. She would be reborn, but she wouldn’t be the Grace that
Moira had known.

Cassandra landed near them and lifted her head to the
sky. Moira imagined she must be venting her rage and pain in a scream to the
heavens, but it still could not pierce the silence that surrounded her.
My
ears aren’t working,
she realized. With a feeling of detachment she turned
her magesight inward, discovering that the force of the explosion had ruptured
both of her eardrums.

The larger dragon moved forward, reaching out to pull
Grace’s body from the massive timber that held her up, but Moira raised one
hand,
Stop. She’s still alive. Her aythar is there and the heart still
beats.

The heart still pumped, but the thick wood had pierced
her chest, ripping through one lung, several large arteries, and doing unimaginable
damage to the organs in her abdomen. Worse yet, the explosion had broken her
jaw and cracked her skull. It was a miracle that her lower jaw was even still
attached.