The Lore Of The Evermen (Book 4) (36 page)

She filled her mind with these thoughts; they were all that gave her the strength to go on.

Ella skirted around a huge Veldrin warship, fear momentarily cutting through her constant chant, but she gathered renewed strength as her training and experience reasserted itself. Black
figures
scurried on the decks, and the vessel quivered with each
broadside
of the rows of cannon. As she rounded the ship, Ella saw the
crumbling
wall around the Sentinel, with bits of stone
fragmented
all around the perimeter of the island. She looked for Sentar
Scythran
but couldn’t see him.

An inner ring of warships clustered around a central vessel. These ships had been left out of the fight, their purpose to instead provide protection to the center of the circle. Ella made each step carefully now, though the slower speed made it harder for her to keep her balance.

Looking down, she saw that the phosphorescent glow of the symbols on her slippers had dimmed. It was impossible for Ella to know whether her lore would last; she could only hope.

The figures on these ships didn’t scurry; they stood and watched, peering out at the night. Ella spotted necromancers in gray robes and revenants standing guard. As she passed under the side of a warship, she glanced up and saw the white face of a peering man as he scanned the sea.

He looked down, and Ella stopped moving, reducing her chant to a whisper.

The muscles in her legs ached with raw pain; first her left leg and then her right began to tremble.

If she fell, she would sink. They would see her splash, and she would fail.

Ella’s left leg gave way as she slipped.

50

At the same time that Ella slipped, a greater explosion than any before split the air, filling the air with thunder, and Ella heard a huge crash. The peering necromancer turned to look at the
Sentinel
, and Ella scrabbled and splashed at the water, finally righting herself.

Not looking to see whether she’d been spotted, she sped
forward
, passing under the warship’s prow and beyond before a chill struck her.

She’d forgotten to continue chanting. She was in the open, able to be seen with the most casual of glances.

Her heart hammering, Ella looked at the bright green sleeve of her dress in horror. The constant fire and resulting sparks on the walls shone from the glistening silk.

Ella calmed herself and started again. She forced down the ache in her limbs and the clutching pain in her belly. She fought the fatigue and the pounding headache in her temples that was even now shifting to the front of her head.

Ella gasped the runes in between breaths of air. She was between the protective circle and the hulk of the cargo ship in the center. She couldn’t stop now; she had to go on.

She reached the side of the cargo ship, wheezing, but she never stopped her constant chanting, and with a surge of relief, Ella realized she’d made it.

She tilted her head back, looking up to the ship’s rail, scanning for a way to climb up.

As she peered up from under her hood, Ella caught the gaze of a pale-skinned man with gray robes and a hooked nose.

The necromancer’s eyes widened with surprise as their eyes met. He opened his mouth to call out, and Ella’s hand darted into the pocket of her dress.

She moved faster than she’d ever had to before, pointed her wand, and interspersed a single word into her chant. Ella released a bolt of golden energy into the air, directly into the necromancer’s mouth.

He cried out and fell forward, tumbling through the air to hit the water with a splash, only a few paces to Ella’s left. Against the roar of the cannon and the shatter of stone, the sound might have been lost, but the attack on the wall around the Sentinel
was a
mixed blessing, for though it drowned out sound, it provided light.

Ella didn’t wait to find out.

She swiftly scanned the side of the cargo ship. Lord of the Sky, it was massive. Ella saw matrices of runes covering the beams on the sides, with not a single part of the surface left bare. The protective symbols gave Ella confidence. Sentar had expended a great deal of precious essence to give this ship the strength to endure cannon fire and the blasts of prismatic orbs.

She’d come to the right place.

Starting to wobble, Ella picked up pace once more, skirting the side of the ship as she tried to find a way up. As she sped along the huge vessel, Ella finally spotted a rope hanging down to the water. She ran now, each footstep sinking into the water. She saw that each splash her slipper made sank deeper than the one before it. The power was leaving the runes.

As she approached the rope, her footsteps were sinking several inches. She had to jump for the thick hemp and grab hold, just as she looked down and saw the runes she’d drawn on the slippers fade altogether.

Ella didn’t wonder how she’d get back to Seranthia. She was going to die anyway. The important thing was to complete her objective.

She was forced to abandon her chanting as she climbed the rope, pulling her body up with arms already weak. She groaned in agony, each exertion a supreme effort of will. The next moments passed in a blur as she reduced her concentration to this one task. She forgot about the fact that she would be visible once more, and about her own danger, even her fear.

Ella had to make it on board Sentar Scythran’s cargo ship.

She finally clutched onto the rail, grabbing hold with her other arm now, and threw her body over the edge to tumble down onto the deck.

Something heavy and metallic smashed down onto her enchantress’s dress, sending a fountain of sparks flying in all directions. Ella rolled onto her back and looked up into the white-eyed stare of a revenant. He was a tall barbarian, holding a double-bladed axe, with a horned helmet and ragged furs on his torso.

“Sahn!”
Ella called forth a bolt of energy from her wand. Her aim was awkward, but the yellow beam of light tore a head-sized hole in the revenant’s chest. The creature moaned and then fell.

Ella climbed to her feet and once more activated her dress’s shadow ability, chanting as she scanned the decks, looking for a hatch—anything that would lead her down into the vessel’s belly.

She heard shouts and cries but ignored them, ignoring even the shadowed figures dotting the deck as she spotted a closed hatch.

Ella sped to the hatch and yanked it hard.

It was locked.

She raised her wand and the metal lock vanished in a glow of fierce yellow light. Ella heaved again, and the hatch burst open. She threw herself down the opening, grabbing hold of the ladder at the last instant and narrowly avoiding a broken leg as she fell sprawling onto the deck below.

Essence. Ella had to find the essence.

There were barrels everywhere, all sealed tight with a metal clasp. Ella fumbled at a latch and opened the top of a barrel.

Black liquid greeted her. She sniffed, and it was odorless, the way essence was supposed to smell.

Ella reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out the destructive cube. She hesitated. The cargo ship was huge, and she had to be sure of success.

Ella left the barrels and found another hatchway leading down into the bowels of the cargo ship. As she descended she saw more barrels, stuffed into every crevice and filling every compartment.

Deeper. She still needed to be deeper. Gasping and panting, she ran along the corridors, heedless of the shouts she heard back the way she’d come, forced to sacrifice the shadow ability of her dress as her breath ran ragged.

Ella hauled open yet another hatchway, and then she was in the great hold. The entire length of the ship was filled with barrels, piled high, one on top of the other.

“Lot-har,”
Ella said, activating the cube and throwing it down in the vessel’s lowest point.

Ella began to count to ten.

One.

She climbed back up to the next deck above, tripping over the edge of the hatch in her haste. Ella sped along the corridors looking for the way up.

Two.

Ella wondered if she was lost; she’d been so consumed with finding the hold that she hadn’t been paying attention.

Three.

She finally found the next ladder and began to climb up, but fell away as a snarling face and white eyes peered down. A series of bolts from her wand flew into the creature’s head and torso, and it fell down the ladder to crumple at its base.

Four.

Ella’s heart raced and her blood roared in her ears as she ignored the fallen revenant and climbed the rungs, muscles
burning
as she raced up to the next deck. She smelled sea air and the burned tang of black powder. The last exit to the open deck wasn’t far.

Five.

Pain clutched at her stomach, overriding all thoughts of
counting
, consuming her consciousness as a thousand needles pierced every part of her body. She screamed against the agony and fought it down, running for the ladder to the open deck and
climbing
, feeling cool air against her skin.

Ella sent a series of bolts from her wand through the hatch, heedless of how much she drained the wand. She rolled out onto the open deck and crouched as she took stock, knowing she had to get far from the cargo ship as quickly as possible. How much time had passed? The danger wasn’t the detonation of the cube, as
powerful
as it was. The danger was in the essence itself. It would spill into the water, and though it would merge with the sea, anyone caught in the thick black liquid would die.

As Ella scanned the ship, looking for the fastest route to the side, her gaze flickered to the Sentinel. The wall was gone. The statue was exposed.

A black figure landed on the deck beside her.

Light suddenly bathed the ship, revealing the scene, and Ella saw a bright sphere rise from an outstretched hand.

For the first time, Ella met the ice-blue stare of the Lord of the Night. She couldn’t look away from his eyes; he didn’t scowl or glower, but simply looked at her with a dead gaze that made her feel insignificant. His blood-red hair was slicked back to his head, and faint silver swirls of runes decorated his hands, face, and neck. He was as tall as Killian, which meant he looked down his nose at Ella, and though his shoulders were broad, he was slim rather than muscular.

“I know you. Ella, you must be,” he murmured. “Ella of Altura, sister of Miro. Tell me, Ella, what are you doing on my ship?”
Sentar’s
eyes narrowed. “What have you done?”

Ella opened her mouth to speak her defiance or to activate the blinding power of her dress.

Ten.

The ship blew apart underneath their feet. Decks heaved upward with titanic force as the cube fed on the essence around it, adding to its destructive power. The explosion wracked the vessel, shattering the timbers, launching Ella and Sentar upward.

But the Lord of the Night wasn’t finished with her.

Even as the deck heaved, Ella felt a hand go around her neck, taking hold of her throat, robbing her of breath. The detonation of the cargo ship filled the sky with a cloud of smoke and flame, but Ella felt herself lifted higher still, and she realized her eyes were closed and opened them.

If Sentar Scythran’s face had been expressionless, it was now twisted with rage. He clutched Ella’s neck and rose high into the sky, above the circle of destruction, as high as the clouds and still ascending.

Ella saw him look down at what had once been his cargo ship, filled with the essence he needed to bring his brothers home. The power of the explosion surprised even Ella. Only beams of
blackened
timber would be left, for now it was all flame and destruction.
Sentar
screamed in rage and glared at Ella as he took them up while she gasped and choked, her lungs starved for air.

The city of Seranthia became a small circle of glowing lights, and still Sentar climbed higher, dangling Ella in his grip while her legs twitched and her feet scrabbled at nothing. Finally, just above the shifting clouds, he stopped. Even the harbor was now an expanse of black, ships indistinguishable, only the occasional tiny flash indicating the cannon blasts.

They were so high that wind tore at Ella’s hair.

“You’ve just delayed the inevitable,” Sentar spat. “Nothing will stop me from crushing your race, and everyone you hold dear will feed my vats. I will once again get the essence I need, and it
will b
e bought with the blood of all those humans seething in the city below. You think you’ve dealt me a blow? Then think again. Before I release you, I want to hear you beg for your life.”

The grip on Ella’s throat relaxed slightly. Ella gasped in a breath of air, filling her lungs as her chest heaved.

Ella met Sentar’s dead eyes with her own stare. “We’ll stop you,” she said. She looked down from the height. She was dead anyway. “Let me go.”

“With pleasure,” Sentar Scythran said.

He released his hand from Ella’s neck, and she fell.

Ella’s limbs twisted, clawing at the air as she rolled over and over, plummeting through the sky.

The great fall happened in heartbeats. Ella’s life flashed in front of her eyes. She saw the face of Brandon Goodwin, then Lady
Katherine
, and then her brother’s awkward movements from the bruises he’d taken at the Pens. Ilathor’s face swam in front of her, and Shani’s, and she remembered the mad charge into Tlaxor,
capital
of Petrya. The devastated world of Shar was more of a blur than a memory, but one face came to dominate her vision, clear above all. Ella saw Killian.

As the water came up to meet her Ella gasped a series of
activation
sequences. Her dress hardened around her, and rather than fiery heat, she projected a cushion of air.

Ella smashed into the water, directly in the midst of the cargo ship’s remains.

She immediately sank, her speed so great that even the pocket of air couldn’t prevent her plunging deep into the sea. Something inside her body broke with a crack.

Ella’s eyes shot open with the pain. Her vision became a series of flickering images. The light cast by the shining runes of her dress revealed the murky sea. Wooden beams and bits of metal and rope drifted downward. Sinking barrels were everywhere, many of them intact.

Many weren’t.

Black liquid clouded the depths, the essence meeting the salted seawater and rushing past in the swirls and currents.

In the midst of it all, Ella felt her vision close in, and she fell into darkness.