She Who Has No Name (The Legacy Trilogy) (33 page)

He found himself
upon
one of the smaller towers that paralleled the main spire, still rising beside them like a great behemoth of slick stone.  Balten was standing in front of him, breathing hard, with spheres of magic boiling from his hands.  Ominously, Samuel realised he had come up facing the wrong way, for he could feel the magic of the Paatin arch-wizard behind him and he could almost feel the
man’s
hot breath on the back of his neck.  Slowly, he turned, to find a monstrous hulk of a man standing a few strides away.  He was
wrapped
in shrouds of black cloth and a long
,
black cape was whipping behind him in the whistling wind.  His features were indiscernible, for he was cloaked in shadow.  All Samuel could tell was that he was a giant of a man, like one-and-a-half General Ruardins, and there seemed to be great slabs of armour jutting out from beneath his cloth.  He was cowled in a hood, but his face was also hidden behind a veil of darkness and armour.  Only his eyes could be seen, glinting in the darkness
,
and the magic that emanated from him had the same vile stink as the winged desert-men. 

Doonan spr
a
ng up beside Samuel and, taking one look at the arch-wizard standing so near, he dived back down through the trapdoor like a rabbit back into its burrow.

‘Give the girl to me!’ Balten demanded, looking furious and ignoring Samuel altogether.

Samuel turned back to Om-rah, who drew one black-armoured hand out from beneath his cloak.  Hanging from his fist was the limp form of the Koian god-woman.  She was like a toy in his hands and he waved her around effortlessly.  Her eyes were open, but she did not seem aware of what was happening to her—if she was, she showed no sign of it at all.  At the same time, a hollow
,
echoing noise came stuttering out of Om-rah’s mask that could only have been some twisted form of laughter. 

In one movement, the arch-wizard tossed the Koian woman aside and she disappeared over the edge of the tower, while he bound
ed
backwards, clearing the space between the two towers and clamping onto the smooth stone of the greater citadel like a limpet.  Incredibly, there was barely a hint of magic in his movements; the man seemed to be using raw strength alone for such superhuman feats. 

Samuel gasped as the girl fell, but Balten had already gone after her, diving head first and trailing furious magic behind him.  Samuel was still standing dumbfounded when Balten came leaping up back onto the tower top with the girl cradled in his arms.

‘For goodness sake, Samuel!’ he said, shoving the girl towards him and looking highly annoyed.  ‘Must I do everything?  Get her to safety.’

And with that
,
he took off, springing across the tower top and vaulting the gap to the main tower, where he gripped on tightly with a Wall-walking spell.  Om-rah had already clambered up and around the edge of the tower out of view, and so Balten stood upright, like a hair jutting out of the wall, and began after him, running sideways along the stones.

Samuel looked at the woman in his arms.  She was looking back at him blankly and Samuel wondered if she was in some kind of shock.

‘Well,’ she said in her crackling voice, surprising him.  ‘What are you looking at?  Get me to safety, Magician.’

Samuel let go of her and she wobbled as she took her own weight.  ‘I think I liked it better when you didn’t talk to me,’ he told her.  ‘Come.  Let’s go.’

He led her through the trapdoor and back down the spiralling stairs.  He would have to forget General Mar and the others for now and get the Koian woman to safety.  He only hoped the
others
could hold out for some time longer. 

Doonan was nowhere to be seen, and so Samuel began descending the tower, pulling the woman behind him.  It took some time to find another route that did not use the half-demolished bridge, but they soon did, stepping out of the tower and into a smaller storage yard squeezed between the tower and the mountainside. 

Samuel paused a moment, trying to decide which way to go, when he felt a tug of magic at his senses.  It was Grand Master Tudor, not far off, and so he began away again in that direction
,
dragging the Koian woman limply behind.  Panting and puffing, Doonan caught up to them on his pudgy
.
little legs.

‘Where are you going now?’ he asked, eyeing the Koian woman suspiciously.

‘Grand Master Tudor is this way,’ Samuel replied
, still moving.
He
delv
ed
back into the buildings of the citadel, following his senses towards the magic of the old Grand Master. 

After crossing only a few more rooms, the old man’s presence seemed almost a
bove
them.  They passed through one broken and body-strewn room and the old man seemed just on the other side of a closed and bolted door.  Samuel burst from the chamber with Doonan at his side, dragging the Koian god-woman by the hand.

‘He’s there!’ the little man squeaked, for Grand Master Tudor was amongst a group of armed men, with Captain Ravenshood, defending the great courtyard from the Paatin, who were spilling in from the opposite side, snarling and bearing their swords.  The Grand Master’s magic had waned and was nearly at its end and he leaned on his staff heavily, directing the battle more than anything.

‘Samuel!’ he called wearily.  ‘How relieved I am to see you.  Quickly!  Help us plug this nest of accursed Paatin.’

Samuel dropped the woman’s hand and took a step forward, then realised what he would have to do.  Only with the Argum Stone on his finger could he tap the ether and gather magic for his bidding, but in this small room, the outcome could be disastrous.

‘What are you waiting for, Magician?’ Doonan cried from beside him, looking up with concern.

The Paatin were now filling the courtyard like sand spilling through a crack and the Turians began losing ground as they began to fall before the superior numbers of the savage caped desert-men.

‘Stand back,’ he told the two beside him and he took another step and drew the ring from his pocket, holding it before him with his other hand readied to receive it.  ‘I’m ready,’ he said softly, only to reassure himself. 

He was about to put the ring on his finger when something sharp struck him.  A stabbing pain crippled him in the back of the leg and Samuel tumbled over.
The ring!
It
was all he could think as he lost grip on the thing and it fell from his grasp.  Before he could struggle to his feet or determine what had felled him, a weight leapt upon his chest and another pain ripped between his ribs.  Doonan was there, sitting upon him, grinning savagely and holding up his bloodied dagger.

The pain was blinding and Samuel could not help but scream aloud.  It took him a few moments before he could gather his sense enough to subdue the feeling, cutting off all sensation that assaulted his mind, using his magician’s discipline.  He blinked his eyes and tried to refocus his watery vision.

‘Why?’ he asked of the dwarf who sat
on
him.  His lips felt numb and he almost felt as if he was floating behind his own face; such was the effect of subduing his senses to such a degree.

‘Another test for you, Magician,’ was all the horrid little man would say as he wiped his knife clean on Samuel’s cloak.  ‘Survive this, and you will be ready.  Die and you were never right in the first place.  All I can say is
,
I hope it’s the latter.  You really are a pain.’

‘Balten?’ he asked, groggily, oblivious to the fighting still going on all around him.

But Doonan only laughed.  ‘There are some things that even he is not aware of, Magician.  My orders come from Cang.  Perhaps you will live to take the matter up with him, someday.  Then again—perhaps not.’

The Koian woman stood stiffly near the doorway, holding her hands clasped to her chest.  She did not look so much afraid, as somehow revolted at the sight of Samuel’s blood.

‘Oh, I doubt she has the sense to help you, Magician, but she is welcome to try,’ the dwarf said.  ‘I’ve never seen such a sorry excuse for a human being.  I would stab her, too, but she looks hardly worth the effort.’

Doonan then got off him and trotted out of view, leaving Samuel writhing in his own blood upon the slippery floor.  The clanging of steel and shouts echoed in his ears and it was not until he heard his name being called that he arched his head and looked upside down towards the battle.  Grand Master Tudor was shouting his name desperately and trying to fight his way through the Paatin to reach him
,
swinging his staff wildly and imbuing it with mage-fire that sent Paatin warriors flying like flicked crumbs from a breakfast plate.  But the old man’s magic was already thin and the Paatin were thick about him like flies to a bloody sore.

Samuel managed to roll over onto his chest, but that was about as much effort as he could muster.  His lifeblood was spilling from him much too fast and he felt he would not survive much longer.  Without his magic, there was no way to heal himself.  There, just out of reach, his salvation lay in a slender silver ring.  He clawed his hand out towards it, but no matter how much he strained, his fingers only trembled on the stones, barely a nail’s length short.

‘Master—’ Samuel heard himself mutter, for he was trying to call someone, but he could not quite remember whom.  Boots jostled about him and several times he felt himself being kicked roughly and stomped upon.  Whether it was purposeful or just that the Turians and Paatin were heedless of his presence, Samuel was not in the mind to consider.  He could only lie with his chin on the stones and look blankly at the figures struggling all around him as they became dark and fuzzy shadows of themselves.

Time seemed to act strangely from that point on.  There was a flash of darkness and a flash of light and, in what seemed like only seconds later, Samuel opened his eyes to find himself standing upright in the middle of the courtyard.  Some time must have actually passed, for the courtyard was now empty.  The entire scene had changed dramatically, save for the god-woman still standing mute by the doorway.  There was no sign of the battle and all was quiet, bar the distant shouts of battle from elsewhere in the citadel.  Even the bodies of the battle had been cleared away as if everyone had cleaned up and moved on, ignoring him in his place on the floor. 

The Argum Stone was on his finger after all, arcing silver fire and his wounds were all healed.  Wearing the ring did have a way of disorienting him, so Samuel pulled it off and cast it back into its place in his pocket, wondering what could possibly have occurred.  His mind was still tingling and confused from the infusion of power.  All he could think was that he must have somehow reached the ring and healed himself.

‘What happened?’ he asked the Koian woman, but she only looked back at him blankly.

‘They are gone,’ was all she croaked.

Samuel scratched his head.  ‘Then we must find them.’  He scanned the room once more, now eyeing the swords and shields and abandoned armour scattered across the floor.  A length of wood was lying in the corner of the room, poking out from a pile of cloth, and he was about to have a look when Doonan came tiptoeing into the courtyard towards him, peering around the edge of the doorway. 

When the little man saw Samuel and the woman, he squeaked with fear.  ‘
Argh!
’ he cried and turned on the spot, darting away.

‘Why you little monster!’ Samuel swore and started after the dwarf, grabbing the god-woman’s hand as he passed and dragging her along with him.

‘A demon!  A monster!’ came the cries of Doonan from ahead, but the sounds abruptly stopped with a screech. 

Samuel only had to round the next corner to see what had happened.  A cluster of Paatin w
as
waiting there and one already had his boot on Doonan’s corpse
,
trying to pull his sword out of the little man’s chest with some difficulty.

‘Infernal savages!’ cried Balten, coming from the other way along the passage, and he cut the desert-men down with a storm of twisting sparks.