Shadow Of The Winter King (Book 1) (18 page)

“Villain!” came a cry from behind them, and Davargorn’s eyes darted to the side.

Regel twisted to let the knife drive past him. The jagged steel screeched against the dawnstone, trailing sparks of red that fell like embers to the floor. Davargorn cursed, and with all the strength left him, Regel shoved him away, right into Ovelia’s attack.

The slayer turned into a rushing shield. He tried to block with the dagger, but the shield blew through his defense and struck him full in the chest. He sailed back, borne aloft on his boots’ magic, to smash into a pillar. Dust rained around him as he fell to the floor awkwardly, though he quickly collected himself into a spider-like crouch. “There she is.”

Ovelia, who had bashed him away with her shield, took the moment to recover Draca from where it lay on the floor beside the dawnstone altar. Its magic sang to her, and Regel saw shadows flow up around her wrist. She assumed a low guard, sword and shield gleaming in the fading sunlight. “Tell us where your master hides, and you shall be spared.”

“The Bloodbreaker herself.” Davargorn chuckled. “I knew you wouldn’t throw away something so pretty, Lord of Tears.”

The slayer rose into his flamboyant dueling stance, sword high and pointing down, body tense like a fox ready to pounce. His limbs seemed inhumanly contorted, as though he took part in a farce, not a battle. He looked nothing if not confident.

“Ware his lunge,” Regel said to Ovelia. “His boots—”

Davargorn leaped at her, sword slashing, but rather than retreat, Ovelia stepped forward. The shadows had told her exactly how to move, and she tore through his lunge without effort. She caught his sword with Draca and smashed her buckler into his face with a wet crunch. In his arrogance, Davargorn had not expected such an aggressive defense, and could not dodge. He fell back, shrieking and clutching at his broken mask.

Ovelia stepped to Regel’s side, set Draca on the altar, and pulled him up by the arm. “See?” She raised her shield so Regel could see the blood from Davargorn’s nose. “Shields are useful after all.”

Regel coughed in agreement, then looked to Davargorn. Inhuman mewls burbling from his lips, the man scrabbled vainly at his shattered bone mask, which had bent into his face. Blood dripped from its edge. “That isn’t Mask,” Regel said.

“So I gathered.” Ovelia felt at Regel’s wounds. “I’ve bought us a moment. Are you well?”

Regel gritted his teeth. “You were to wait for Mask before you attacked. That was the plan.”

“Burn the plan.” Ovelia gestured toward Davargorn. The slayer reached back and unfastened the clasps of his mask. He was trying to pull it off, but every tiny tug wrenched a yelp of pain from his lips. “He would have killed you.”

“But he did not,” said Regel.

“No,” said another voice—this one cold and rasping. “He did not.”

* * *

Ovelia’s heart froze at the the voice, and from the recognition in Regel’s eyes, she knew who—
what
—had appeared. She turned, and saw the sorcerer emerging from the shadows.

Mask’s leather-wrapped arms and legs looked more like black bones than the limbs of a living being. It wore heavy battle gauntlets, one light and one dark, and they made its hands look grotesquely large. Its face hid behind stitched leather with only small slits for eyes and a mouth. Ovelia might have thought Mask a lifeless manikin, but for the way its fingers clicked together in a mocking sort of applause. Even at this distance, the sorcerer reeked of blood, as though its leather armor bound not living flesh but rotting meat.

“Your arrogance unmakes you, Davargorn.” Like a withered puppet on invisible strings, Mask turned to its student, who was still clawing at his faceplate. Mask’s silvery left gauntlet rippled as though distorted by massive heat. “And there are consequences for failure.”

Mask gestured, and Davargorn cried out in pain and fell to his knees. On his face, the broken bone mask seemed to twist of its own accord. Then Mask tightened its gloved fingers into a fist.

Blood streaming, Davargorn wailed, and Ovelia heard flesh rip. The broken bone mask dislodged from the man’s face and shot to Mask’s open right hand. Davargorn gasped and retched on the floor. His face had become a mess of hair, gore, and spit. With his right hand, he feebly pushed a flap of skin and flesh closed over his cheek, while he tried to rub blood from his eyes with his left.

“Invisible hand,” Regel murmured.

The sorcerer waved away the inky smoke that trailed from its left-hand gauntlet—the cast-off detritus of channeled magic. The glove itself was silver and steel, and might have come from a much finer suit of armor. It was a relic of another age, which meant the unseen force sprang from the gauntlet, rather than from Mask’s body. What other relics did the slayer bear?

“You have failed, broken squire,” Mask said in its icy voice. Steam rose from the cracked mask in the sorcerer’s hand. “You have served me ill, and I’ll have no more of you. Begone.”

Even without the blood, Davargorn’s face was a horror. Much of his cheek and nose were scarred and twisted as though by fire, the lip curled in a perpetual grimace. One eye was larger than the other, dead white in color where the other was a soft blue.

She thought dimly that his face seemed somehow familiar. But where had she seen him before?

“One day, whore of Dracaris,” he hissed, drizzling blood. “One day.”

Mask’s left hand gestured toward Davargorn, and his body went taut. He choked off a cry and flipped backward to sprawl on the ground. “Begone,” Mask repeated.

As Davargorn half-ran, half-hobbled away, the sorcerer looked down at the bone-mask in its right hand. The mask began to glow and crackle with heat. Greasy smoke rose from Mask’s black gauntlet—the same magical leavings that scorched the skies—and the reek of burning leather filled the temple.

Fire magic as well, then.

Ovelia felt Regel’s reassuring fingers on her spine and her muscles relaxed. Whatever came to pass, he was with her. Ovelia set her teeth and raised Draca.

Finally, Davargorn’s bone-mask gave a hissing whine like that of a wounded animal. Mask’s concentration wavered, and the remains of the mask quieted to a dull gray. The sorcerer tossed it aside and it crumbled to dust before it touched the floor.

“Now”—Mask’s silver-wrapped left hand rose—“to settle accounts.”

Ovelia heard a high-pitched keening in the air, and fiery warnings danced from Draca. She drew a circle around Regel and herself with the bloodsword, its edge gleaming with furious red light, just before Mask’s power struck like thunder and the world exploded in a brilliant flash of white. Dust stormed into the air, and the bricks of the floor splintered in all directions. The dawnstone altar broke into pieces, sending shards of red stone cascading.

Coughing in the gray smoke, Ovelia rose from where she had crouched and raised the sword anew. Outside the red shield she had drawn, the dais was blackened and blistered. Greasy smoke rose from it into the temple air. Mask stood a few paces away, hand still raised and ready. Ovelia could not see the sorcerer’s face, but she took some satisfaction in imagining a shocked expression there.

“Yield.” Ovelia raised the glowing blade to point at Mask.

In response, Mask leveled its right hand at her. Upon this hand, the sorcerer wore a fire-blasted war-gauntlet, the fingers of which ended in twisted metal talons. A bolt of flame danced toward Ovelia, only to melt into the devouring sword of Draca. The warding shadows boiled madly.

“You’ve a fine blade, Bloodbreaker.” The sorcerer thrust its left hand to the side, the movement mechanical and independent of its shoulder. The hand shimmered and smoke rose from the fingertips. “I’ve waited long, and ‘twould not please me if you died easily.”

Ovelia took a step, then staggered as Regel tackled her from behind. They went down in a tumble as half the dawnstone altar flew at her from the floor. It sheared over them, and Regel grunted as it clipped his shoulder and back. He sprawled away from her, blood flying.

“Regel!” Ovelia cried, reaching for him.

“Worry for yourself, Bloodbreaker.” Now, the sorcerer’s mask itself glowed with magic.

A bolt of sickly green light streaked toward Ovelia, and she barely parried with her sword. Her arms screeched in agony and her belly roiled. She knew little enough of the arts of sorcerers, but Ovelia recognized flesh-rending magic when she saw it—
felt
it—nearly strike her.

In the wake of its thwarted magic, Mask backed away from Ovelia, hands raised.

“Again—yield.” Ovelia stalked forward to interpose herself between Mask and the fallen Regel. “I shall give you the mercy of a quick death, should you yield.”

Mask coughed violently, then slashed its left hand at her again. A blow like that of a hammer struck Draca with a whine. Ovelia staggered back, her sword high, and the invisible force clashed into her defense again with numbing force. The sword drank it in, but Ovelia’s arms tingled with numbness.

“You are a mockery, Bloodbreaker,” Mask said. “With your blonde hair, like that of Semana—the child you betrayed. You proved no more loyal than those she thought her friends. Less.”

The invisible sword struck with such force it knocked Ovelia to one knee. Draca vibrated cruelly in her hands, numbing her arms and shoulders.

“Would it pain you to hear how she died?” Mask asked. “I will tell, but only if it will
hurt
you.”

Images of Semana danced before Ovelia’s eyes, and she fought back tears. Draca’s shadows confirmed what she already knew: this was the moment. Now—when her arms ached and her body nearly failed—now she had to strike.

“She never pleaded for her life, even as I bathed in the blood of those around her.” The chapped lips sneered through the slit in the leather mask. “Would you do the same?”

“Last chance!” Sword raised, Ovelia stepped toward the sorcerer. “Yield!”

Mask moved its smoking hands in a vicious downward chop, and the invisible sword struck harder than ever. Ovelia deflected it but fell to her belly. Her cheek smashed into the dusty stones, and she felt wetness creeping down the side of her face and over her chin. Draca’s red glow was fading. Even as she looked at the bloodsword, it shook free of her numb fingers and clattered to the floor before her.

She had come all this way only to fail.

“You disappoint me, Bloodbreaker.” Mask’s spindly fingers waved. “If you had followed through with your plan—waited to strike until I appeared—you might have won the day. But now—” The sorcerer raised its trembling hands. “Now you will die.”

Ovelia knelt, helpless but defiant. She would meet death with open eyes.

Then, even as the leather-wrapped hands came forward, a shadow blurred across Ovelia’s vision: Regel. With both hands, he swung his falcat at Mask’s head, and the steel screeched against a shimmering coat of azure energy that flared up around the sorcerer. The wintersteel shattered in Regel’s hand and did not bite into the leather beneath, much less the flesh, but the force snapped Mask’s head back. The magic around its hands evaporated.

Regel discarded his destroyed sword and punched Mask in the belly, then in the face as it doubled over. It must have felt like punching solid brick, but Regel struck anyway, and the shield shimmered and weakened with each blow. Finally, the thin creature fell to the floor like a puppet without strings and lay unmoving. Wisps of smoke rose from the armor’s midsection, where the shielding magic must reside.

Regel drew his second blade, but abruptly Mask’s hand rose, fingers twisted into claws, and green energy shot between them. The falcat tumbled from Regel’s limp fingers and he curled tightly, face contorted and body retching. Ovelia saw smoke distort Mask’s monstrous visage and realized this magic came from the sorcerer’s mask itself. Ovelia saw Regel’s vitality draining away.

“You are fortunate, Dracaris,” said Mask, its voice low. “That was meant for you.”

The world was falling apart. The temple ceiling shook, its broken pillars wavering, then started to collapse toward them. Mask raised the silver gauntlet and a dome of force appeared over them to catch the toppling bricks like drops of burning rain. The sorcerer exercised the peak of its powers, letting smoky exhaust bloom from its mask and gauntlet. The air grew thin as the magic corrupted the crumbling sanctity of Aertem’s temple.

At first, Ovelia wondered why Mask had shielded them from the collapsing ceiling: the three of them occupied an invisible globe of force that kept the stone out. Then she realized that she and Regel were close enough the sorcerer had to protect them as well as itself. If that magic stopped, all three of them would die.

Ovelia took a step forward, but Mask’s face shot to her. “Do not move, Bloodbreaker,” the sorcerer rasped. “Touch me, and the ward collapses. And—” Mask clutched its fist tighter, making Regel groan and paw at his chest. “Even if you are too noble to care for your own filthy life, your man will die. Is that what you want?”

Ovelia raised the sword. “Yield, and I will show you mercy.”

“Mercy?” Mask’s red eyes seemed almost bemused. “Mercy as you showed the king?”

Ovelia took another step, closing the distance between them to just over the sword’s reach.

“I warn you, Bloodbreaker!” Mask said, voice breaking. “You are killing him—and yourself.”

Blood trickled from Regel’s mouth and nose, but his expression showed fearful purpose. “For Lenalin,” he gasped. “And Semana.”

Ovelia nodded and turned toward Mask. Her fingers tightened on the hilt of her sword.

A ray of light cut through the collapsing temple, setting the swirling dust to dancing. The Solstice eclipse was passing. The light touched the sorcerer’s black mask, setting the reddish eyes alight. The sorcerer looked stunned—even fearful—as Ovelia stepped forward, blade raised.

“You are mad.” Mask coughed and fell to one knee. The effort of sustaining the protective magic was making its whole body shiver.

The temple was collapsing in earnest now, as great hunks of brick fell around them like rain into the dusty stones. Mask’s protective ward flared as it deflected brick after brick. Sheltered under the same protection, Ovelia stood untouched, holding her sword high. Draca drank at Mask’s magic, and the stones fell closer as the shield shrank around them. It had become a trap from which none of them would escape.