Kingmaker's Sword (Rune Blades of Celi) (21 page)

Dergus stepped back, his face going an unpleasant shade of pasty white. “Of course, lord General,” he said hastily. “I was merely suggesting she could be persuaded into the truth.”

“Of course,” the General murmured. He looked at Drakon again. “Don’t underestimate the men,” he said coolly. “Tyran clansmen have a nasty habit of being far more clever than they look.”

Drakon shrugged again. “The older one may need care in taking, but the young one is nothing but a runaway slave.”

The General gave him a level look. “He carries a Celae Rune Blade, and by all accounts, it serves him well. You would be well advised to remember that, young cockerel.”

“We will find him for you, Lord Hakkar,” Mendor interjected smoothly. “Then the sword will be yours.”

“But the slave is mine.” Drakon’s voice grew harsh. “For this, I kill him.” He touched the scar at the side of his head. “For this, he surely dies.”

“If he has power, he is mine,” the General said. He smiled as Drakon started to protest. “He’s mine, and his death is mine, but you may play with him to your heart’s content before he dies. Will that serve?”

Drakon touched his deformed ear and laughed softly. “It will serve, my lord,” he replied. “It will afford me great pleasure.”

I didn’t realize I was shuddering in the chill shadow of the pillar until my teeth began to chatter. I clamped my jaw as Cullin’s hand came down on my shoulder. There was so much magic in the brightly lit room. It was almost overwhelming. A hard, black aura surrounded the General, blacker than a moonless night, black as the pits of Hellas. Not even all the light in the room could dispel the darkness around him. I was mildly amazed that neither he nor the warlock gave any indication of being aware of the quiet throbbing of the sword on my back.

But if the General could not detect that, how had they found out Kerri? Even I had not been able to sense the gentle masking spell she had used. And neither the General nor the warlock had perceived it at the market fair in Trevellin. I thought the stench of magic around the General was stronger now, but still, he showed no signs of curiosity about the alcove where Cullin and I stood hidden. Had Kerri made some mistake that gave her away?

The warlock raised his head suddenly and smiled. “They are ready for you now, Lord Hakkar,” he said softly.

The General put down the half-finished glass of wine. “You wish to observe this?” he said to the others in the room.

“If we may, my lord,” Mendor said, smiling.

“Then come.” He left the room, and the rest fell in behind him.

They left Kerri’s sword lying on the carpet where Drakon had dropped it. Cullin and I waited a moment or two to be sure they would not return, then stepped out into the room. Cullin went to the chair and stooped to pick up the Rune Blade.

“She’s going to want this, I think,” he said quietly. “Can we follow them?”

***

There was no sign of anyone in the corridor when we ventured out of the room, but the sword led us unerringly and certainly. I thought I detected an answering soft buzz from the Rune Blade Cullin had thrust through his belt, but I wasn’t sure. It might be only my own taut nerves, stretched like harp strings, vibrating in my anxiety.

I had been expecting the sword to lead us downward, to the dungeons. Instead, it guided us deeper toward the centre of the building, toward the place the Keep would be if this house were built like a Falian manor house.

We passed other pairs of guards patrolling the corridors as we strode through the halls, our footsteps ringing confidently on the polished tile of the floor. None spared us more than a brief nod of greeting. Several times, servants stepped aside respectfully to let us pass. No one questioned our right to be in the corridor.

Quivering, the sword halted me abruptly at a heavy door. Cullin and I stood for a moment to either side of it, looking at each other, both of us wondering what we would do if the door were locked. Finally, Cullin shrugged and reached for the latch. It lifted, but the door remained firmly shut.

“Any ideas?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

I shook my head helplessly. Behind my ear, the sword hummed a deep, low vibrato. I drew it and watched it for a moment, then experimentally placed the tip against the latch. The blade glowed with sudden, intense incandescence for a brief moment, then there was a soft click from the door. Cullin pushed gently against it, and it swung open noiselessly and smoothly on oiled hinges.

“Handy thing, that sword,” he commented in a breathless whisper. “But it takes some getting used to.”

I nodded in fervent agreement, then took a deep breath and peered into the room. It was blacker than a well bottom inside. No light at all showed. I sheathed the sword and stepped into the room. Two paces brought me face first into thick, dusty-smelling black velvet draperies. I managed to stifle my sneeze and reached out to warn Cullin. I heard a faint, muffled thud as he closed the door.

There was not enough light to see each other as we edged along between the draperies and the wall. I got the impression of a circular room. The hangings, stretching from ceiling to floor, left a space not more than an arm’s-length deep behind them. They muffled the sound in the room beyond them, but we heard something being dragged across the floor, then a moan. It sounded like a terrified animal.

We found a place where a faint gleam of light glimmered between two of the hangings that didn’t quite meet properly, leaving a thumbs breadth of space between them. I reached out and carefully parted the curtains until we could see into the room.

Light came only from two guttering torches standing in brackets to either side of a raised dais in the centre of the room. On the dais stood a small brazier, glowing sullen red against the dark, and a table holding a dagger with a wickedly curved blade. A man lay bound and gagged on the floor before the dais. The warlock knelt behind him, and the General sat on a low, carved stool in front of him. The whites of the bound man’s eyes gleamed in the flickering light cast by the torches as his glance darted in mortal fear around the room, and he whimpered through his gag. Balkan, Mendor, Drakon and Dergus stood behind the dais, alertly interested, but out of the way.

But where was Kerri? I looked quickly around the room, and finally found her only by the gleam of dark gold hair spilling out from a crumpled heap of black velvet against the wall hanging. I touched Cullin’s arm and pointed. He nodded. He had spotted her when I had.

The General reached for the curved dagger on the table above him. He tested the blade with his thumb and glanced at the warlock. “Remember,” he said softly. “At the right moment. At exactly the right moment, or it will be no good.”

“Yes, my lord,” the warlock murmured. He put his hands to either side of the captive’s head, and nodded at the General. The General plunged the dagger into the man’s abdomen and ripped it viciously upward. As the steaming entrails tumbled and spilled out onto the floor, the General thrust his hands into the man’s belly.

“Now!” he cried to the warlock.

The stench of magic clogged the air around me. Unable to move, unable to breathe, I stood frozen in horror, watching the scene in the room before me. The General, wrist deep in the entrails of the dying man, began to chant words I couldn’t understand, couldn’t quite hear. The voice of the warlock joined his as the warlock clamped his hands tighter around the man’s head.

A black mist rose from the tangle of guts around the General’s hands. Slowly, it circled his wrists, climbing inexorably along his blood-splashed arms. It began to shimmer, softly at first, with faint colours barely visible in the black vapour. As it reached his elbows, the colours became brighter—reds and oranges and yellows, swirling and pulsing with sullen light, like flames twisting through sooty smoke. The General cried out sharply as the mist enveloped his chest, reached higher for his head. His face stiffened and contorted into a mask of ecstasy behind the mist.

My skin crawled and my very flesh crept, trying to retreat from the overwhelming revulsion. Chills and fever both raged through my body, and I gagged and choked as the stench of the reeking mist reached me. I couldn’t stop it. I turned away and spewed bitter bile all over the stones of the floor behind me.

Never had it been that bad. Never before had I experience magic so vile, so incredibly evil. I knew now what Kerri meant when she spoke of blood magic. It was unspeakable terror, steeped in horror and pain, worse than any part of Hellas could possibly be, and for a moment, I thought I might die only through exposure to it. Weak and shaken, I pushed away from the wall and turned back to Cullin. He was not unaffected, but it was the sheer horror of the act itself that turned him pale, not the magic.

The light of anger flashed in his eyes. Slowly, he drew his sword. “Aye, well,” he said quietly and drew his sword. “That’s quite enough of that, I think.”  He stepped through the curtain.

For a
long, stunned moment, no one in the room moved. Then the warlock jerked away from the disembowelled corpse and staggered to his feet. The General, still on his knees, glazed and frozen within the swiftly dissipating black mist, howled in agony, but didn’t move. I saw the red globe of magical energy spring to life in the warlock’s hands and stepped between him and Cullin just as he hurled it.

Hissing and sizzling, leaving a streak of burning air behind it, the ball flew straight at my head. Instinctively, I raised the sword to ward it off. I had meant only to try to knock it away. I certainly had not counted on the polished surface of the blade acting as a mirror.

The small globe hit the blade squarely, then bounced. It was the only word that fit. It bounced, and flashed back through the fiery, smoking trail it had left in the air behind it, gathering the energy it lost in creating the trail. The warlock screamed as it hit him and erupted into flames that splashed in a fountain of liquid fire around him. The energy rebounded, spraying  a geyser of flame all around the room. Some of it caught the General and hurled him away from the body, sending him sprawling half way across the room. The air around him sizzled and spat as the last remnants of the black mist seemed to give more strength to the blaze.

The fire engulfed the body of the warlock and spread to the black carpet beneath him. Seconds later, the velvet wall hangings began to burn. Dergus was the first to come out of his shocked trance as the velvet hangings burst into flame behind him. He yelled in panic and broke for the door, flailing blindly at the heavy draperies over it. He thrust his way through and disappeared. Balkan was not far behind him, both of them lost in terror and panic.

Cullin sheathed his sword and leapt across the room to snatch up Kerri’s limp body just as the draperies around her began to burn. I moved quickly to cover him, watching Drakon and Mendor. I saw Drakon reach for the dagger at his belt, hesitate, then turn away. Dragging Mendor with him, he stepped back, away from the raging wildfire.

Cullin had pulled Kerri away from the burning velvet. He beat out the flames in her clothing with his hands and I watched in horror as the skin and flesh of his hands appeared to catch fire, too. He slapped out the flames, then rose and slung Kerri unceremoniously across his shoulder.

Choking smoke filled the room. Everything around us burned at once, even the floor beneath my boots. Cullin’s hand came down on my shoulder, and I realized I could not see Mendor or Drakon through the boiling smoke and flame. They were gone. Except for us and the charred bodies of the bound man and the warlock, the room was empty.

“Get us out of here,” Cullin shouted in my ear over the roar of the fire. “Before the whole place burns down around our ears.”

I grasped the sword firmly. “Lead!” I cried. It nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets as it complied.

The flames followed us out of the room. I thought the very stone and tile burned. I leaped over a smouldering chunk of white-hot, liquid stone and shuddered. Gods! Oh, gods! The rock
was
burning! It was wildfire born in Hellas the warlock had turned loose and it gave no indication of stopping until it levelled the whole manse.

The sword led us at a dead run through the labyrinthine corridors. I recognized nothing as we ran. Surely we had not come this way. But the sword never faltered. I had to trust it. We would never find our own way out of this.

There were other people running in the halls now—servants, guards, members of the household. None of them paid any attention to us, all of them intent upon their own escape. One young girl dressed only in a bedgown ran screaming down the way we had come. I reached out to grab her arm and drag her back.

“Not that way, child,” I shouted at her. “The fire’s back there. Follow us.”

For a moment, I was afraid she was too deep in panic to hear me. Then she gulped and reached up to push the mass of dark hair out of her eyes. She looked up at me and nodded. We ran again, and she gathered up the skirts of her bedgown and followed.

The obscene glare of the fire lit the whole house. Entire rooms exploded into flame to either side of us as we ran. In the passageway around us, the blood magic turned the rock molten and it dripped and flowed, its garish light flaring sullenly amid the smoke. I had never in my life seen anything like this, and I fervently hoped I never would again. Smoke thick as treacle swirled in the air, and the very air itself seemed afire. Blisters rose on the skin of my face and hands as I ran, following the sword. It was as if the flesh was stripping from my bones, like a fowl in an oven. I smelled the reek of my own singed hair and skin.