Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) (32 page)

Too late Kylon remembered that Nerina Strake had been addicted to wraithblood for years. 

He whirled as the nagataaru slammed into her, writhing around her head like a cloud of smoke and purple fire. Nerina screamed in pain and fell to her knees, hands flying to her head as she dropped her crossbow, while Malcolm shouted in alarm. The valikon began to blaze with harsh white fire in his hand as it reacted to the nagataaru entering her, and with grim horror, he realized that Nerina was about to transform, that Kylon might have to kill her to destroy the nagataaru within her.

Fortunately, Claudia acted first.

She stepped forward, palms leveled, and blue light flared around her fingers. A volley of blue sparks shot from her hands and struck Nerina, who shuddered back from the impact. Kylon had seen her use that spell in Caer Magia when she had banished a conjured earth elemental back to the netherworld. Fortunately, the spell proved just as effective against the nagataaru. A thin, tearing scream rose from the spirit writhing around Nerina’s head, and it vanished into nothingness. 

Claudia let out a long breath, and Malcolm helped Nerina to stand. 

“That was,” said Nerina, her voice a croak, “that was…so unpleasant it was mathematically impossible to describe.” 

“It couldn’t quite possess you, I think,” said Claudia, her voice slipping into the clinical tone she used when discussing either sorcery or medicine. “You’ve been off wraithblood for too long, and the natural defenses of your mind have partially rebuilt themselves. The attempted possession would likely have caused a fatal stroke.” She shook her head, blond hair slapping against her neck. “Hopefully, the nagataaru will not try again.”

“They won’t,” said Kylon, watching hundreds upon hundreds of nagataaru fall from the sky like rippling black banners. “Not when there are so many easier targets to claim.” 

The valikon’s white fire burned hotter in his hand, the hilt shivering. The last time the sword had done that had been when he and Caina had confronted the Red Huntress in the Alqaarin Bazaar. It reacted that way in the presence of powerful nagataaru…or in the presence of many weaker nagataaru. 

Around Kylon the horsemen gathered, preparing to charge to the Golden Palace. He decided to go with them. Alone, he might be able to kill Callatas and the Red Huntress, but he would more than likely be killed himself. If he stayed with Sulaman, he would have the aid of Mazyan and Nasser and Strabane and all the others. All of them were veterans of many fights, and Claudia had faced the Red Huntress with Caina at Silent Ash Temple and survived. The more allies he had in this fight, the better…

“Look above!” Kazravid’s voice rang over the Bazaar. Kylon looked back at him and saw the Anshani noble looking skyward. Even as he did, he saw dark shapes swooping overhead. For the first moment, Kylon thought that more nagataaru spirits had come, seeking to possess Nerina Strake.

Then he saw that they were not spirits but physical creatures of some kind, creatures unlike any that Kylon had ever seen before.

They were…beautiful, beautiful and terrible and alien. 

They looked vaguely like winged men and women of great height and sleek musculature, their skin like gleaming obsidian, jagged claws rising from their fingers and toes, fangs curling over their lips. Great black wings stretched from their shoulders, and their eyes burned with purple flames, the same fire throbbing through their veins with every beat of their hearts. 

Kylon had fought kadrataagu before, nagataaru-possessed men overwhelmed by the malevolent spirits, but they had been misshapen horrors. These creatures looked like the nagataaru made flesh, beautiful and aloof and horribly cruel. These things were what Callatas had intended to create, the perfect fusion of human flesh and nagataaru spirit, and he intended to wipe the world of humanity and replace mankind with these winged horrors. 

For a moment a dozen of the creatures hovered over the Bazaar, their wings flapping, their beautiful faces twisting into expressions of malicious glee. Kylon had seen that expression before on the face of the Red Huntress as she had held her sword of dark force over a helpless child. 

“Defend yourselves!” shouted Kylon, raising the glowing valikon. 

Even as he shouted, the creatures folded their wings and dove, plummeting into the Bazaar. 

The killing began after that.

The creatures were fast, as fast as the Huntress when she drew upon her nagataaru, and the hybrid creatures killed a score of horsemen and Kaltari warriors in the first confused instant, stabbing with their claws and ripping out throats with their fanged jaws. After the initial shock, the soldiers recovered, and began fighting back. Swords rose and fell, biting into the gleaming obsidian flesh of the creatures. Despite their speed and power, they were not invincible, and the blades drew thick black blood, identical to wraithblood. Yet the wounds began shrinking almost at once, and for every creature that fell, a dozen soldiers died. 

All that happened in the first two instants.

In the third, Kylon was moving, drawing all his power for speed and strength. 

One of the creatures stooped over a wounded soldier, the black wings draped around it like a cloak, jagged claws glittering. It started to turn as Kylon charged, drawing back its right hand to slash at him, but it was too late. A sweep of the burning valikon took off the hand at the wrist, and the creature staggered back with a tearing scream, wraithblood pumping from the wound. Before it could recover, Kylon drove the valikon halfway into the creature’s neck, and the blade blazed with white fire. The fire howled through the creature’s veins, burning away the purple fire, and as the valikon destroyed the nagataaru, the creature withered and shrank into the form of a gaunt, naked old man, his wide eyes the eerie blue of a wraithblood addict. 

Killing the creatures meant killing the poor wretches the nagataaru had inhabited. 

Yet Kylon had no choice. He tore the valikon free and charged to the aid of the others. 

After the first chaos, an organized defense took hold in the Bazaar. The Kaltari had dismounted, since the creatures terrified the horses, driving back the creatures as they tried to sweep upon them. Strabane, some of the Kaltari, and the Imperial Guards had formed up around Sulaman, and the mass of the creatures attacked them. Perhaps Callatas had sent them to murder the Prince and Tanzir out of sheer spite. 

One of the creatures lunged, taking down a Kaltari warrior, but Nasser moved, drawing back his gloved fist. His left hand slammed against the creature’s temple with enough force to snap its head back. Before it could recover, Kylon struck, sweeping off its head with a two-handed blow of the valikon. 

Its corpse had not even fallen to the flagstones before he sought another foe.

Mazyan dueled three of the creatures at once, blurring back and forth as he drew upon his djinni for speed. He always looked disgruntled, but now he looked furious, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a snarl. The djinn and the nagataaru were ancient enemies. Perhaps some of his djinni’s enmity for the nagataaru had colored Mazyan’s mind. His scimitar blurred back and forth, keeping the creatures from closing around him, but they leaped back and forth, using their wings to add height and distance to their jumps. 

Fortunately, Kylon could jump quite high himself.

He charged into the fray and leaped, using the sorcery of air to lift himself high, and unleashed a massive overhand blow with the valikon as he landed. The blade ripped into the left shoulder of the nearest creature, sliced down through its chest, and burst from its right side. The creature collapsed in a spreading pool of black wraithblood, its mangled body shrinking back to human form. Mazyan seized the opening, stepping into the gap left by the dead creature, and thrust his hand, slowing as he called forth his blade of smokeless flame. The sword of force took off a creature’s head with a single flick of his wrist, and Mazyan dismissed the sword and spun, resuming his superhuman speed just in time to avoid having the third creature rip his head off. 

Kylon attacked the third creature, thrusting and swinging the valikon. The creature retreated, using its claws and muscled forearms to parry the blade, but it flinched from the white fire of the sword. At last, it flinched a little too far, and Kylon saw his opening He drove the valikon forward, the blade sinking between the creature’s ribs and white fire pumped into the wound. The creature collapsed, shrinking back to the form of a dying, emaciated old man. 

A cry rose from the Kaltari warriors around Sulaman’s horse. Strabane led the warriors, his greatsword in hand, the blade stained with black blood. A dozen of the creatures circled and fluttered around them, leaving the dead in their wake. Kylon whirled and charged, bringing back the valikon to strike the nearest creature. His target noticed him, starting to turn its head, but by then it was too late. Kylon beheaded the creature and kept going before it even collapsed, throwing himself into the fray, the valikon writing trails of white fire through the air as he slashed and thrust and parried. A creature soared overhead, preparing to dive upon Kylon, but one of Laertes’s javelins punched through its wing. Superhuman strength or not, the creature could not remain aloft with just one functional wing, and it crashed to the flagstones, where two Imperial Guards cut it to pieces. Kylon stabbed another creature. It started to turn towards him, giving Strabane the opening he needed to take off its head with a massive two-handed swing. 

For a moment there was a clear spot around him, and Kylon stepped back, breathing hard, the wraithblood upon the valikon’s blade burning to ash. He did not see any more of the creatures nearby, though he glimpsed and sensed hundreds of them flying through the air over the streets and alleys of the Anshani Quarter. Screams and shouts rose from the tenements as the creatures went on rampages, screams that were no doubt repeated through the rest of the city. It reminded Kylon of the day of the golden dead, the day that the Moroaica had unleashed her creatures upon New Kyre. So many people had died on that day, and he knew countless people were dying now, right now, in Istarinmul, as Callatas’s new humanity went upon its murderous rampage. 

But for the moment, it looked as if the creatures had retreated from the Bazaar of the Southern Road and to other quarters of the city, perhaps daunted by the organized resistance here, or perhaps in simple fear of the valikon in Kylon’s hand. Fear of that weapon had kept the Red Huntress from confronting Kylon openly, and perhaps the other nagataaru held the same fear. 

A flicker of hope went through him and died almost at once. Hundreds of the creatures circled over the city already, and hundreds more nagataaru descended from the colossal black cloud overhead. Every single one of the creatures was faster and deadlier than any Kaltari warrior or Istarish soldier, and if the creatures organized themselves and started attacking systematically, the rebel army would be slaughtered in short order. 

Kylon scowled and ran to join the others gathered around Sulaman and Tanzir. Maybe they had already been defeated. Maybe Caina was dead on Pyramid Isle, and the Emissary had been wrong about everything. But if they were defeated, Kylon would try to kill Callatas and the Red Huntress before he was killed himself. 

“We will go on foot,” said Sulaman. “The horses are too frightened of the winged devils. We will make for the Tower Quarter, then the Old Quarter, and finally the Emirs’ Quarter, where we will assault the Golden Palace. That is the source of the spell, and if we find and kill Callatas, we will stop this madness.”

His tone was firm, his face unyielding, but Kylon sensed the growing despair in the Prince’s emotional aura. Sulaman, too, had recognized the truth, had recognized that Callatas had prevailed in his mad plans. 

“I will have the nomads carry word to the engineers at the Hellfire engines,” said Tanzir. “If we bombard the Golden Palace with enough Hellfire, perhaps we can destroy it and disrupt Callatas’s working.”

“Agreed,” said Sulaman, drawing his scimitar. “Mazyan, stay with Lord Kylon. Together the two of you are formidable fighters, and…Mazyan?”

The sudden surprise in Sulaman’s tone and emotional sense caught Kylon’s attention, and he felt that surprise spreading through the auras of the nearby men. He turned and saw Mazyan standing at the Prince’s side, but Mazyan was staring to the east, and his expression was almost comical with astonishment. 

Kylon followed his gaze and saw the storm coming from the east, and his own surprise matched Mazyan’s.

Even after half a lifetime spent aboard the ships of the Kyracian fleet, he had never seen a storm like this.

###

Damla realized that it was the end of the world. 

The day of the golden dead had been terrifying, but it had ended quickly. The Alchemists of the College had rallied to the defense of the city, holding back the golden dead, and then when the great spell had ended it had all been over. 

It had been nothing like this, and the golden dead had not been as terrifying as the winged nightmares circling over the city, purple fire burning in their eyes as they killed, the screams rising from the alleys around the Bazaar. 

By the Living Flame, had the winged creatures reached the Cyrican Quarter? Her sons were there, and though they were safe behind locked doors, she knew doors and barred windows would not be enough to stop the winged devils. 

It had all been for nothing, hadn’t it? They had opened the gates to the Prince’s army, but it had been too late. Damla wished she had never left the House of Agabyzus. At least then she could have died alongside her sons. Though Damla was not sure which was worse, to see her sons die in front of her, or to die in the Bazaar or the streets without ever seeing them again. 

“By the gods,” muttered Tomazain. 

His stunned voice cut through her grief, and Damla blinked and looked up, wiping the tears from her eyes. Around the Bazaar, murmurs of astonishment and shock were rising. Even the winged creatures overhead seemed to pause with trepidation, and the vast writhing cloud of nagataaru rippled as if alarmed.