House of Blades (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (7 page)

Sergeant Yakir snorted and waved a hand, and his men relaxed. “Yeah, I throw shooting stars every time somebody pisses me off, too.” A few of his men chuckled nervously. “Make this easier on everyone, son, and come with me. If you come peaceful, we’ll pretend like none of this ever happened.”

Simon watched the thoughts on Alin’s face. Fear gave way to uncertainty, which hardened into determination and anger.

“If I come with you,” Alin said, “you release the captives. Everybody here goes free.” His anger had bled through into his voice, and in that moment he looked ten years older.

Yakir let out a breath and shook his head. “I can let everybody not in chains go, but anyone on a rope is a prisoner of war. They have to come with us. If you want to buy them from the Overlord in exchange for your loyalty, I think he’ll go for it. Travelers get whatever they want, in my experience. But until such time as that happens, they’re my prisoners.”

Alin matched stares with Sergeant Yakir for a long moment. The older man’s eyes never wavered. Some of the soldiers’ hands flexed on their swords. Leah looked like she was on the verge of calling out to Alin, but she said nothing. Simon wondered what she had meant to say.

“I agree,” Alin told the soldiers. “Move your men back.”

Sergeant Yakir nodded and opened his mouth to respond.

Then his head exploded. A lightning bolt blasted into the cave from outside, blowing Yakir’s head into a thousand pieces.

Blood and gore splattered villagers and soldiers alike, and Simon shouted as he felt warm drops splash on his skin. More shouts and screams, from both the Damascans and the Myrians, joined his.
 

Sergeant Yakir’s body fell much more slowly than Simon would have expected. It slumped to its knees, as though Yakir had just heard terrible news, then flopped over to one side. The air where his head used to be crackled and sparked visibly, and steam rose from his neck.

One of the soldiers yelled “He’ll kill us all!” and loosed an arrow in Alin’s direction. The lightning bolt had come from outside the cave, not from Alin, but the soldier must have panicked.

Alin didn’t so much dodge as collapse to one side, and the arrow shattered against rock. Some of the others took up bows or spears and advanced on Alin, faces cold. They formed a human wall, pushing into the cave side-by-side. Simon would have had no chance of slipping through the soldiers, and neither did Alin.

Cormac shouldered them aside.

He was covered in dirt and sand. His scalp had split open, leaking blood that sealed one eye shut, and he moved with a noticeable limp. His one open eye blazed with green fury, and the thunderstorm swirling in his right hand was twice the size of the one he had held earlier. The storm’s flashes did not come from hidden heat lightning this time, but from a roiling nest of lightning unleashed among its dark clouds.

Simon backed up until he stood over his mother’s unconscious form. He huddled over her, behind Alin. If Alin had a Traveler’s powers, then he should handle this. Besides, there was nothing Simon could do.

“There will be no deals,” Cormac hissed. “No agreements. I will scatter your ashes from here to Bel Calem.”

He thrust the storm forward, and lightning flared. An enormous serpent’s head, eyes glowing and fangs gleaming, pushed its way out of the center of the storm as if hatching from an egg. As it emerged, the snake hissed and bared its six-inch fangs. The inside of its mouth glowed blue, as though lit by lightning from within.

The serpent oozed from the thunderstorm, sliding out in foot after foot of deep green scales. It seemed to move slowly, but in only a handful of seconds it sat coiled on the cave floor. If it stretched out to its full length it might be five or six paces long, and it looked as big around as Simon’s waist.

Simon clutched his mother to his chest and looked at Alin. If he was going to do something with his newfound Traveler powers, now was the time. Every eye in and around the cave was locked on Alin, waiting for him to summon light and blast the snake into steaming pieces.

Alin raised his hand and pointed it at the serpent. Nothing happened. A panicked look crossed his face, and he shouted, gesturing as though throwing an invisible ball. Nothing.

Simon’s stomach dropped.

Cormac snarled a word, and the snake struck forward like a bolt of lightning.
 

It drove its head towards Orlina, Chaim’s daughter, who had been leaning against the wall between her parents. The creature snatched her up like a bird grabbing a mouse, driving its fangs deep into her torso.

Her scream was weak and wet, and the snake lifted her up in its jaws and shook her. There came a flash of blue light from the snake’s mouth and the girl’s body convulsed. One of her legs kicked wildly, flinging her sandal off and sending it sailing over Simon’s head.

Chaim yelled and slammed his fists down on the serpent’s head, again and again, but it didn’t seem to be particularly bothered. After a few seconds it flicked its tail, knocking Chaim onto his back.

The blood leaking from Orlina’s body steamed, and the cave once again filled with the smell of seared meat.

The Traveler growled and snapped another word, gesturing at Alin. The serpent’s head jerked back like it had reached the end of an invisible leash, and it dropped Orlina’s body from limp jaws. It slithered over to Alin and levered its shining blue eyes up to a level even with his.

To Alin’s credit, he only flinched once. Then he visibly steeled himself and stared back at the monstrous snake.

The serpent hissed, its eyes flared brighter, and its jaws cracked. Simon almost looked away to avoid seeing Alin’s head torn off, but he forced himself to look. Alin was man enough to look the serpent in the face, so Simon should at least have the courage to watch his friend die.

Instead, his blood froze as the serpent turned and looked straight at Simon.
 

Alin yelled and tried to grab the snake, but its head was already in Simon’s face. Cormac cursed, and Simon stumbled backwards, trying instinctively to put as much distance as possible between himself and the snake from another world.

“Get the Traveler!” Cormac yelled. His face was red and strained, like he was lifting a load too heavy for him. “Ignore the rest!”

The serpent yawned, displaying its blue-lit teeth inches from Simon’s mouth.

Then it shot towards Simon’s feet. He jerked his legs back before he realized the truth: it was going for his mother.
 

Simon screamed as the snake’s fangs stabbed into his mother’s body, crackling with lightning.

His mother convulsed like the others, but she remained silent. Simon drew his sword at last, knowing it was hopeless, slamming its edge against the scales again and again. It accomplished nothing except to dull his blade. He had to do something; every second brought his mother closer to death. Desperate, he stabbed at the snake’s eyes. Surely it had to be vulnerable there.
 

The blade skittered off the serpent’s head. It didn’t even notice. Another pulse of lightning flashed down its fangs, and Simon’s mother shook again.

A gold light poured forth from the center of the cave.

“Call it off,” Alin said, his voice once more grim and resonant. Simon didn’t turn, still hammering his blade against the creature. He had to protect her this time. He had to.

Cormac shouted and thrust both hands at the serpent, the storm boiling in his palm. His serpent turned and hissed at him, its mouth sticky and dark with blood.

“Fine,” Alin said. His hands were shrouded in misty white-gold light. “If you won’t do it, I will.”

He hurled golden light at the snake, not in a ball this time, but in a tight circle. The loop of light wrapped itself around the snake’s neck, just beneath the skull, in a shining golden collar. The serpent writhed and flapped below Simon, trying to escape the binding. Its heavy head smacked into Simon’s gut, knocking the breath from him and driving him to his knees. He barely managed to hang on to his sword.

Alin raised a glowing hand and clenched his fist. The collar tightened, and the snake had time to let out one inhuman shriek before the collar did what Simon’s blade couldn’t: it sliced the monster in half.

Two smoking pieces of snake fell to the cave floor and dissolved into rolling black clouds, which vanished instantly. Nothing was left of the serpent but corpses and wounds.

Cormac screamed, a sound of pure frustration, and thrust his hands in front of him as if he were trying to push down a tree. Lightning blasted forth from Cormac’s storm cloud, lighting the sandy cave like a newborn star. Thunder rocked Simon’s ears.

Halfway through the shallow cave, only a few feet in front of Cormac, the lightning slammed into a golden blast from Alin.
 

The lightning bolt shattered into pieces that turned back upon its summoner, scourging Cormac’s flesh and singeing the edges of his cloak. Some of the Damascan soldiers ran, and those remaining looked ready to flee at any time. Among them, the captives cowered helplessly, hoping to avoid the deadly bolts.

Cormac, breathing heavily, said something that Simon didn’t catch through the ringing in his ears.

Alin evidently did, though, because as Simon’s hearing returned he heard the young Traveler say, “...so it seems judgment is mine to pass.” Alin extended his right hand, and light gathered in it, resolving into the shining shape of a translucent sword. It looked like the golden ghost of a magnificent blade, and Alin swung it twice through the air as if it had no weight.

Cormac moved the storm toward the ground, and thorned vines spun up from it, crackling with blue sparks. Alin’s sword flashed down one, two, three, four times, rhythmically, as though he were chopping wood. The vines fell to the ground in pieces, and Alin advanced.

They had moved out of the cave entirely now, standing on the sandy earth beneath the stars. Cormac retreated into his soldiers and Alin steadily moved forward, driving the other man backwards. The Damascan soldiers clutched their weapons uncertainly, clearly not sure whether to interfere.

“Loose!” Cormac screamed, moving back and bringing the storm up. “Shoot him! Shoot him!”

One of the archers had his bow ready, and an arrow blurred towards Alin. His sword flashed out of existence, a ball of gold light blasted the arrow from the air. Cormac summoned up more vines around Alin’s feet as more arrows whizzed around him.

Simon saw the dilemma instantly. If Alin summoned the sword to destroy Cormac’s vines, he would be filled with arrows. If he continued to defend himself from the arrows, the vines would turn him into another burned-out corpse on the cave floor.

Alin struck arrows from the air with one glowing hand and moved the other down to point at the vines. His muscles tightened, as though he were gathering his strength.

Then the vines burst into flames.

At first Simon thought Alin had set the vines on fire himself, but he and Cormac both started and looked around at the interruption. Not in time.

A swirling white hole in the world, the size of a barn door, floated in the air outside of the cave. Two figures stepped out, both wearing heavy coats: a young man, barely older than Simon, and an older woman who looked as though she could chew nails and spit horseshoes. They were both covered in snowflakes, and Simon realized with a start that the portal led straight into a blizzard.

Two more Travelers had arrived.

Simon set his mother to one side and scrambled to his feet, snatching up his sword. His heart hammered in his chest, and his hands grew slick on the sword’s grip. He knew, with a sick feeling in his gut, that they were all about to die.

The young man stepped from the portal, his eyes squeezed shut. His hand had been moving the whole time, a red symbol on his palm leaving streaks of light in the air as it passed. It had been eight years since Simon had seen a mark like that, but the sight of it made his hands shake. This was how his father had died.

At least I won’t go out alone
, Simon thought. The thought shouldn’t have comforted him, but it did. His hands steadied. He moved forward.

Then the new Traveler thrust out his red-marked hand, and fire poured from the night sky down onto Cormac. Cormac threw up the storm in his hand as a shield, and wind met fire. The heat scorched Simon’s face, and savage air tore at his eyes.

A pair of Damascan soldiers charged at the new Travelers from behind, drawn steel in their hands. The woman flicked something small and silver into her hand—maybe a key?—and held it in front of her, twisting it as though unlocking a door.

A spinning silver disc the size of a cartwheel blasted out of thin air, rushing forward and slicing the two soldiers in two like an enormous razor. A splatter of red sprayed off into the night. The spinning razor blinked away a second later, vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared.

Her partner, the young man with the red palm, didn’t open his eyes or stop moving his right hand. He simply gestured with his left hand, as though shooing away a fly, and spoke a word Simon couldn’t hear.

Nothing happened for a second, and then a clump of snow leaped out of the blizzard and through the portal. To Simon, it looked like a poorly formed snowball the size of a barrel. The snow stuck to the ground, quivering and snarling like a horde of badgers. Simon was still trying to decide whether there was some living creature inside the snow or whether the snow itself was alive when the mound of snow jumped into the air and latched onto the next Damascan soldier in line.

The snow clung to the man, shaking back and forth as it worried at the soldier’s breastplate like a dog shaking a rabbit. Blood sprayed up from his chest, and he screamed wordlessly. Was the snow...eating him?

Simon shivered and lowered his sword, backing up a step. Maybe these two Travelers would take care of the Damascans on their own, and maybe they would decide that the villagers deserved the same treatment. Simon would wait to act until they had taken care of Cormac.

Not that he could really make a difference, anyway. He couldn’t shake the image of a spinning razor slicing two armored men in half in a blink, their bodies falling to the ground as just so many pieces of meat. How was his sword supposed to protect anyone?