Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) (86 page)

"Storm-tossed fool," Amy growled, hefting up Magnus Alba in her steady grasp as she ran after him. "For Michael's sake, I'm not going to let you die like this. Jason, a spell at this point would be useful!"

Jason pointed his wand at the Voice, his words nearly slurring together as he spoke them faster than wings could speed them forth. "I call on Mithrok, Lord of Earth, shield of the faithful, embrace mine enemy and hold him fast!"

The Voice of Corona descended into the ground as if he had just been hammered down, his legs sinking into the earth as it closed about him like a fist, holding him fast.

Amy laughed aloud. "Well done, Prince Jason! Cut out his heart, Gideon!"

Gideon closed the distance with winged speed. He drew back Piety for a slaying stroke.

"Foolish!" the Voice of Corona snapped, and the earth cracked and burst with a great heaving as he leapt out of the pit in which he had been bound, the sunlight catching upon his deadly blade. "Did you imagine that such feeble arts could bind me up? I am Corona's very soul itself!"

Amy tried to pick up her pace, but she was too slow to reach Gideon before Corona's Voice was on him. The Voice's sword swept down, and though Gideon met the first stroke with Piety's black blade, the Voice of Corona was inexorable in his onslaught. He struck again and again, driving Gideon back as even he was unable to match the Voice's speed.

How can we match this creature? God be with us,
Amy prayed as her legs pounded inside her armour, the ground trembling underneath her as she rushed towards the battle as fast as she could. But compared to the Voice she might as well have been a lumbering elephant for all the good she was doing Gideon.

With a flick of his sword the Voice forced Piety from Gideon's hand, driving his flame-wreathed fist of bone towards him. Amy saw Gideon squirm like a salmon before she was blinded by a flash of blue light and her ears were assailed by an almighty bang. Gideon's cry was muffled by the louder sound, but she could make it out clear enough.

When she opened her eyes, saw him clutching at his side, which was beginning to bleed.

"Congratulations on avoiding the worst," the Voice said casually. "You really are a swift-footed soldier. Were you using spirit magic you might best me. You are a fool not to." With a deft movement of his foot he tripped Gideon, knocking him to the ground then stamping hard upon his knee. Gideon roared in pain as Amy heard the crack as his joint was knocked out of place.

The Voice raised his sword for a killing blow.

But Amy was on him by this time, descending upon the Voice with the inexorable weight of a tidal wave descending. She roared in anger as she closed the gap between them and brought down her sword upon him. He parried, and his sword shattered under the weight of Magnus Alba. Amy's blade descended hungrily towards his shoulder.

And then the Voice simply was not there.

"Where did he-" Amy began.

"Too slow," the Voice murmured from behind her, slamming his fiery skeletal palm into the small of her back.

Amy heard her armour crack as burning blue fissures began to crisscross the backplate. She felt something seeping through, slipping through the holes in her hauberk, burning through her scales. Then she howled in pain as she felt the fires themselves explode upon her skin, burrowing into her, scouring her bones. It hurt worse than any beating for laziness, worse than being knocked off her seahorse in the joust, worse even than the drubbing that caedan had given her in the melee when she had thought that she might die. It kept on burning as it blasted her forwards until she struck a tree so hard she felled it with a crack and a splintering sound.

Amy lay on the ground, a little dazed, her vision blurred as the vague form of the Voice of Corona advanced upon her.

"Physical strength is immaterial," the Voice said. "No body, no matter how strong, can equal up the power of a soul filled to the top with passionate devotion."

Wyrrin leapt upon his back, his claws scything down into the Voice's shoulders as the fire drake stood upon them, black blades out, edges placed against the Voice's neck.

In two smooth strokes he clove through the Voice's dead flesh, severing his head completely from his body.

And then Wyrrin hesitated, clearly waiting for the head to fall off and the headless trunk to collapse to the ground.

Neither happened.

The Voice raised his skeletal hand, but Wyrrin jumped from the Voice's back before he could lose his leg, landing gracefully on the ground between Jason and the Voice.

"I remember you," the Voice said. "The fire drake who slew my Rachael. Die now, alongside the Empire's cringing dogs!" the Voice threw his blade of steel aside and conjured up a blade of blue spiritual fire in his hand.

Wyrrin bared his teeth as he threw himself into the battle, blades weaving. The Voice held him off without difficulty for a few moments until, languidly, he broke through Wyrrin's guard and sliced open his chest.

Wyrrin cried out aloud as he fell to the ground, yellow blood ebbing from a wound like a gaping mouth.

Jason pointed his staff at the Voice as though it were a spear. "Mithrok, Lord of the Earth, Thanates, Mistress of the Air, Stratos, Lightning Lord, combine thy powers in me to form the shield that breaks the battle line!"

A shield of translucent light, crackling with power, appeared between him and his foe as the runes upon his staff glowed yellow. The shield surged forward, barrelling towards the Voice, trampling grass and undergrowth beneath it like a charge of cavalry.

"Pathetic," the Voice growled, raising up his bony hand to stop the onward rushing shield dead in its tracks. His hand glowed, and the shield was shattered as a burst of blue fire leapt towards Jason like a river rushing forth in spate.

Jason spoke desperately, conjuring another shield before himself which shattered before the Voice's attack, but seemed to have absorbed the worst of the damage, so that the fire which reached him only punched him off his feet instead of burning him alive.

Still, he hit the ground with a solid thump, and did not stir. Most likely he had been knocked out. There would be no more help from him either.

Have we so offended you, Lord Turo, that we must come to so ignominious a fate?
Amy asked.

"Now then," the Voice murmured to himself. "With so many helpless victims to choose from, who shall die first?"

"Not so helpless yet," Amy growled as she pushed herself up to her feet, leaning on Magnus Alba to steady her as she faced the Voice, who turned to face her once again. Slowly, he began to advance upon her.

"Do you really think that armies of Coronim patriots will follow a talking corpse whose head is not even attached to his body?" Amy asked, her breath steadying a little as she waited for him.

"I think they will follow anyone who promises to liberate them from the Empire's tyranny," the Voice replied. "And the more ties with the physical world I sever, the more power I have to see the Empire fall." He raised his skeletal, flesh-scoured hand and the flame within it blazed.

Amy raised Magnus Alba to block the blast, the ancient blade forged by fire drakes with spells long forgotten in the earliest age of the elder races catching the magical blast as it sped towards her. It took no hurt, no damage, deflecting the Voice's spirit magic around Amy to massacre the trees of the wood behind. Amy felt heat through her visor, felt the pressure on either side, but was not harmed.

              The fire died, the Voice's attack spent. She knew from Davidheyr that it would take him time before he could use it again. And in that time Amy planted her sword in the ground, prayed he did not attack with his spectral sword, picked up the tree she had shattered and threw it at him.

"Pointless!" the Voice spat, slicing the trunk in half with his spirit sword and batting both halves away.

But Amy, who had sprang for him even as the log soared through the air, was on him, Magnus Alba sweeping up, past his guard, to cleave him from crotch to shoulder. Congealing blood, dead blood, sprayed from his body to spatter upon Amy's breastplate. Flies, disturbed from the corpse, buzzed off into the blue sky. Grubs dropped to the ground.

              Amy waited for the two halves of the Crimson Rose's captain and champion to follow suit.

Then the Voice began to laugh. It was a hollow, eerie sound, that would have been eerie even had it not been coming from a man who had just been sliced into not-quite equal halves.

"Did you expect me to simply collapse into a heap of dead flesh?" the Voice demanded as his body began to glow with a visible blue aura, binding his severed corpse together. "Do you understand nothing? You could burn my mortal remains to ashes and so long as some true Coronim would pluck my heart from the fire I would pursue you still! At first I thought this was a last resort to stave off death but I was wrong. I have transcended life and death themselves to become the pure embodiment of Corona's desire for liberty!"

He slashed at her with his spirit blade. Amy parried, the force of his blow forcing her back. He drove his flaming, bony hand towards her stomach. Amy squirmed like an eel. The blow caught her on her side and Amy screamed as she was blown backwards, sections of breast and back plate torn apart, her side burning as she rolled along the ground, clutching her wound in agony.

She tried to rise, tried to reach for the sword that had been wrenched from her grasp, but the pain in her side was such that she couldn't even sit up, let alone stand.

The Voice's spectral weapon pointed downwards, towards her heart.

Gideon, Jason, I'm sorry I couldn't protect you.

Fia, I'm sorry, but it looks as though I won't be winning any great glory for either of us.

I'm sorry, mother. It seems I am not strong enough to avenge you.

The Voice drew back for a killing thrust. His spiritual blade struck forward like a blue serpent-

And rammed into Michael's open palm, coming to rest an inch from Amy's shoulder.

Amy gasped. "God under the ocean."

Michael stood between her and the Voice, his fingers closing around the Voice's hand, his face set in a determined scowl. A light breeze ruffled his long black hair.

"I swear to God," Michael said. "You shall not harm them."

Michael opened his eyes and sat up.

He was... he was not quite sure where he was, save that he was not where he had expected to be.

He was dead. That was a fact. Felix had stabbed him through the gut and he had died.

So why was he sitting in the middle of a grassy field, morning dew upon his fingertips, flowers growing around him, light mist and white clouds blocking out the sun? Where were the maelstrom's torments, where were the screams of the guilty and the jubilation of the innocent, where was God glowering down upon him, where was his judgement?

Admittedly, he probably hadn't been given a Turonim funeral yet, so that might explain why he did not yet stand in the sight of God, but then what was he doing here? Where was he? Should he not wait in the realm of spirits, the domain of death and dreams as Lady Silwa had named it, being hunted by monsters and ghouls until the gates of the ocean should be opened to him, if they ever were? Where was this place, and why was it so peaceful and empty?

"This place is of the spirit world, but it is not part of it," the soft, cultured voice of a young man said. Michael looked around, standing up at the sight of a brown haired, blue eyed boy in a pristine white toga looking down at him.

"As the house is of the town, yet separated from it by its walls, so is this place a part of the spiritual plane, but separated and maintained by the will of the Empress Aegea," he said. Michael noticed that he bore a golden herald's staff in his hand.

"Who are you?" Michael asked.

"I serve Aegea," the boy replied. "She has brought you here because she would have speech with you. Follow me, if you please, and I will bring you to her."

Aegea? Shes wishes to speak with me?
Michael had never been quite certain if Lord Gideon's tales of the Divine Empress were true. The thought of standing in her presence filled him with trepidation. He stepped backwards. "What does her Majesty want with me?"

The boy smiled. "Would it not be easier to listen with your own ears?"

Michael scowled. "It would be easier for you to tell me."

"I do not know. It is not my place to ask, but to obey. Come." The boy turned away. "We must make haste, Tanuk may already be hunting for you."

Michael followed, in absence of anything better to do. The youth led him through fields of long, overgrown grass and wildflowers, across a babbling stream of clear water which ran down from a low hill upon the horizon. A hill on which, Michael saw as they drew closer, a fortified camp had been erected; a palisade of wooden stakes surrounding the tents, and a ditch dug around the hillside to deter intruders.

He fancied he could see torches from within the palisade.

"This place is the more strange for being familiar," Michael murmured.

"This is the field of Eudora, site of my greatest victory," it was a woman who spoke, and as she spoke she galloped out of the mist upon the back of a white winged unicorn.. "Upon this place I met the combined armies of Argonia, the Daric League and the Tarquin Kingdom all arrayed against me. And I shattered them all in a single day, I and my brave and faithful children."