The three remaining white-masked acolytes that Zhia had bought from the Jesters padded along nearby. She claimed they would remain completely loyal to her, even if she were fighting the Jesters themselves. Zhia’s disparate army was completed by Haipar, Legana, the necromancer’s servant Nai, and her own man, Panro, who carried a long canvas bag over one shoulder. Doranei guessed that the bag contained a tent, a last resort should dawn catch them still in the open. Both Nai and Panro were armed with brutal steel-tipped clubs, which they had already had occasion to use on the journey here. Despite the fires that had destroyed large tracts of southern Scree, driving the mobs north, there were still packs holed up all over the city.
Doranei thought the people they were encountering now were different to the mobs. They were still frenzied, but tonight he saw human emotions creeping back in. He recognised terror, because of a Land they no longer understood, a fear that was strong enough to drive them to terrible deeds. This horror had a human soul again, and that frightened Doranei more.
He knew roughly where his comrades were, but they were out of sight now. King Emin was circling around behind their target, while the remaining King’s Men had broken off to approach from the east.
The banks of cloud above were obscuring the stars, sliding over the city like a coffin lid. He kept his eyes on Mikiss, who’d been told to lead the way. He wondered whether he had sensed a threat, or just some tasty morsel on the breeze. These days either was possible.
A hand came from nowhere to touch him on the arm and Doranei flinched with shock, his sword rising of its own volition until the hand closed about his wrist and held it tight. He twisted to bring the axe in his left hand around, stopping dead when he saw Zhia’s sapphire eyes glittering in the darkness.
‘Do calm down,’ she said. ‘Are you always this jumpy before battle?’
‘Yes,’ Doranei hissed angrily. ‘I’m following a maniac through a city of madmen, hunting down a mage with a Crystal Skull. I’m bloody terrified. I bleed a lot more easily than you do, remember? ’
Zhia was silent at first as she stared at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually. ‘It is easy for me to forget that life is a precious thing. What you fear is the one thing I crave.’
Doranei felt a flush of shame as he saw the truth in Zhia’s expression, but he knew it wasn’t pity she was hoping for. As she released his wrist, Doranei leaned his sword against the fallen tree trunk and took her cold fingers in his hand. ‘I can’t even imagine it, but I don’t want to be the one who reminds you of that, not if it causes so much hurt.’
She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. ‘For all of my little problems, there’s still a part of me that remains human, and people need to be reminded of pain sometimes. Without it there cannot be joy.’
Doranei instinctively checked his companions. They were similarly crouched a short way away, carefully watching for dangers in the other direction. ‘Perhaps now is not the best time—’
‘And when would be better?’ Zhia asked sharply before her expression softened. Doranei realised how unused to letting her guard down Zhia was.
And how could she live any other way?
‘We’re safe enough at the moment, and once this is over it may be years before our paths cross again.’
‘I hope it will be sooner,’ Doranei said quietly.
‘So do I, sweetness,’ she replied with a soft laugh, patting the steel-covered back of his hand fondly, ‘but such things are not always so simple.’
‘I know. Whatever my feelings, there’s a war to fight here, and we may not always be on the same side.’
‘And that I know only too well,’ she said sadly. ‘It is when sides are taken that the greatest hurt is done.’
She leaned closer to him and lifted his helm from his head, then kissed him with surprising force, her desire almost palpable. She held him tight for half a dozen heartbeats, one hand entwined in his hair to bring him hard against her, the other pressed against his chest, as though touching his heart.
‘That’s why the present should always be savoured,’ she whispered when their lips parted. ‘Never forget to enjoy something special when it’s in front of you.’
Doranei nodded, unable to find the right words. As he looked at Zhia, he felt something on his lower lip. Raising a finger to it, he saw a single droplet of blood. His eyes widened.
Zhia gave him a coquettish smile. ‘Just a little reminder of me, and something for me to remember, too.’ Before he could say anything, she added, ‘Don’t worry, sweetness; a scar will be the only gift you get from that.’ She gestured. ‘I think someone is getting impatient to be off.’
Doranei saw Mikiss glaring at them. ‘Are we sure we can trust him?’ he asked.
Zhia waved a hand dismissively. ‘They’re always a little excitable in the first few days. Mikiss will be close to his old self soon enough.’ She pointed to his sword, still resting against the tree trunk. ‘Come on, sweetness, we’re not finished tonight yet.’
They set off again as a brisker pace, moving as silently as possible, Mikiss still in the lead. The vampires were the only ones with their weapons still sheathed. Doranei had yet to see Zhia draw her long-handled sword. The only person who’d managed to slip past the acolytes to reach her had received a casual backhand slap for his trouble. Afterwards, when none of the attackers had been left standing, Doranei had knelt with his knife to finish the boy off. He guessed his age at fifteen summers, but it was hard to tell as he flailed weakly on the ground, the left side of his face smashed beyond recognition.
The fires had raged unchecked, and Doranei could still feel heat stinging his exposed cheeks whenever the gusty air switched direction, which it did with treacherous frequency. King Emin had travelled in a wide circle to avoid still-blazing areas, and no doubt the ground he was moving over was as hot and cracked as the earth under Doranei’s own boots. He didn’t know how long it had been since the fires had burned out here, but there were still puffs of smoke here and there, and the stones scattered all around were blistering to touch, as Sebe discovered. He’d shared a nervous grin with Doranei at that, wryly acknowledging that his foolishness had been observed.
Sebe had kept his distance from Doranei since Zhia had joined them. Usually the two were to be found side by side; they’d grown up together, from the orphanage to the Brotherhood. They were brothers, in both senses. Now Sebe watched the lovers, trying to fathom exactly what was between them, and what it meant for the rest of the Brotherhood.
Doranei wasn’t worried; Sebe had instinctively moved into his lee at the last attack. They fought well as a pair, and whatever private thoughts Sebe had, they would be shared only with the king, and only if he asked.
Not even Beyn would take action, not unless evidence was produced, and Doranei knew he’d not be alive now if that had been the case. Usually a corrupt or traitor Brother was left thinking himself safe, until the day Coran appeared behind them in some deserted street . . . at which point the king’s justice would be done.
Only Ilumene had expected that moment, and only Ilumene had survived. Doranei sighed. Ilumene, the son King Emin had never had. He had been friends with Ilumene from before he first became a true member of the Brotherhood. The man had been easy to like; almost from the outset it had been clear to all that he was first among equals, yet even the veterans had not begrudged Ilumene that. With his easy smile and sharp mind, Ilumene had quickly become the heartbeat of the Brotherhood, the one man untouched by the requirements of his job.
Perhaps we should have thought harder about that.
Doranei grimaced; those had been Sebe’s words when Ilumene had betrayed them and gone on his killing spree, taking out the king’s allies in Narkang.
Charisma been replaced with contempt as Ilumene grew more and more resentful that he would only ever be a member of the Brotherhood. He’d never spoken it aloud, but there’d been no need: everyone knew he wanted the king to name him as his heir. He had refused to recognise that it was too late for such a thing. By the time the relationship between Ilumene and the king had collapsed, Ilumene had been twisted by his own anger. As king he would have been a despot; desperate to surpass his adopted father’s successes and uncaring of the suffering others would have to endure to achieve it.
A stone caught under his boot and he stumbled, earning reproachful looks from his companions for being so careless. The clatter had echoed as loud as a whip crack in the unnatural quiet of the empty street. Zhia gestured and they all stopped where they were.
‘Our goal is just down there,’ she said to Doranei softly, pointing to some burning remains about a hundred yards away.
‘Are you certain?’
‘No doubt. If you had any magical ability at all your head would be buzzing with the energy around that place.’
‘It looks like the building exploded.’
‘I suspect it did. Your king’s mages both felt the Skull’s use so clearly, and at such a distance that indicates a vast amount of magic unleashed in one moment.’
‘Enough to kill you?’ Doranei asked anxiously.
Zhia nodded. ‘With ease. Our biggest problem is that this abbot of yours has lost his mind. He was lucky not to burn up that first time, and as it is he will have only hours left to live. A human body cannot survive such recklessness, but if he does not care for his own survival, he can negate my own skill through sheer raw power.’
‘But you have a plan?’
She smiled, one long canine hooking her lip for a moment. ‘Of course, sweetness—’
Zhia stopped as a pile of rubble exploded on Doranei’s right and a figure burst out towards them. Axe raised, Doranei caught the impact before he’d even turned, but the force of the impact was enough to drive him back as he twisted his body to deflect the person. Something solid, a rock, maybe, caught him a blow on the back of the head, but it glanced off the steel band of his helm and in the next moment he’d come around to hammer the pommel of his sword into his attacker’s skull. There was a dull crack and his attacker crashed face-first to the ground and went still.
Doranei’s heart was still racing at the unexpected attack, but he straightened up and kicked the prone figure onto its back.
‘Damn, a woman,’ he muttered.
‘She’s still alive,’ Zhia said, staring intently.
‘How can you—’ Doranei began, then, ‘no, no I don’t think I want to know.’
He put the tip of his sword to her throat, but the sight of her face stayed his hand. She was tall, as tall as Doranei, with strong healthy limbs, but even covered in the grime of weeks living as an animal he could tell she was young. ‘Gods, she’s hardly more than a child,’ he muttered.
‘Hardly surprising. The young will be the strongest,’ Zhia commented, walking around him to look down at the woman. ‘But they’re mindless creatures now, however young they are.’ She looked up at him. ‘Shall I finish her off? It’s a kindness.’
Doranei stared back for a moment. ‘Can you be certain of that? No, she’s already unconscious. We’ll be gone by the time she comes around, and who knows? Perhaps after tonight her mind will return.’
‘She has lost her mind,’ Zhia said gently. ‘She has lost everything that made her a person. I’m certain of that.’
‘You said yourself that you have never seen this spell’s effects before,’ he said heatedly. ‘You can’t be sure. They’re innocents, all of them -as long as she’s no danger to us, what harm is there in a little hope?’
Zhia opened her mouth to argue, but the words died unsaid. She looked around at the blasted landscape. She could see no hope here; it was as ghastly as the battlefields she remembered from her youth. It had a dead air about it: this was a desolate twilight world halfway between the Land and the Dark Place.
But perhaps hope is all that remains? Without the hope burning still so fiercely in his eyes, perhaps he would be just like them, an empty vessel. I have been so long without my humanity it shocks me to see it undiluted in those around me
. Suddenly Zhia felt a stirring at the back of her mind, streams of magic shifting like some great beast lifting its head and testing the wind.
‘Oh Gods,’ she breathed, turning back to the fiery ruin up ahead just in time to see a sprawl of energy rise up in the air like tentacles spreading out from a nest in search of prey. ‘He’s discovered us,’ she shouted.
Without waiting for her companions, Zhia ran for the house.
Doranei stared after her for a moment and felt a fierce glow of heat as she drew deeply on the reserves within her own Crystal Skull. With a cry he set off after her, Haipar at his side and Sebe behind, headed for the rapidly growing storm up ahead. The light from the fires shrank back as whipping cords of spitting energy flooded the area with a greenish glare that made Doranei’s eyes water. He stumbled on, almost not seeing one of the bodies littering the ground lurch unexpectedly upwards, slashing wildly with a dagger. He checked his stride and fell sideways, out of the dagger’s reach, and caught a glimpse of Sebe at his back, axe raised.
Scrabbling to his feet, Doranei looked for Zhia. She was heading for the burning light of magic, running headlong into the centre of the wrecked house. She flashed from sight and something else caught Doranei’s attention, a creature of some sort, indistinct through the haze, although he could tell it was massive.
A blind fear rose inside Doranei, but from somewhere he found new reserves of strength. With a howl he too dived over the barrier of flames and surging magic, trusting Zhia to have chosen the safest path. He rolled as he landed and jumped up, swinging both weapons. From the corner of one eye he glimpsed a long limb snapping out at him and something connected with his axe shaft. He caught sight of a hooked talon snagged on the axe before it was driven back into his chest and he was swept off his feet.
As he fell backwards, one of the Jester acolytes breached the fire and flew past him towards the creature. Bone rang on steel as the acolyte parried with greater finesse than Doranei had shown, but in the next instant he heard the wet slap of flesh being cut open. All his senses were screaming out in panic, but Doranei forced himself upright and away from where he’d landed, just as Mikiss cleared the flames, closely followed by Sebe and another acolyte. The vampire had a savage look of glee on his face, and both axes held out wide. With a swift blow he severed an arm reaching out towards him.