Bloodwalk (18 page)

Regardless, he made good use of the memory, his hand resting on the first stone, ready to tumble it into its brethren. The rest would fall as they would, and he would not regret the sequence, whatever it might reveal. This determination above all others hovered in his mind, for regret belonged to the Ghost and the Ghost destroyed all patterns that touched it.

Just yards away, he spotted the shifting shadows of the nearing hounds, baring white teeth as they rounded the edge of the sanctuary and noticed him. Their growls rumbled like hungry thunder as they smelled his blood. Their approach had been stealthier than he’d anticipated.

Damn, he thought, the first stone goes to the dogs.

Two arrows hissed into the growling darkness near him. One arrow cracked uselessly against the wall and the other brought a yelp of pain, causing a hound to appear. The green glow of the orbs highlighted its dark coat. Quin hoped more arrows would even the odds, but the clop of nimble hooves on stone announced Elisandrya’s greater concern. She turned quickly to face the threat.

The winged creature leaped into the air, dodging Eli’s reflexive shot, and fired back. The fiend’s bow was now enveloped in an indigo flame, which it passed to the arrow it released. Eli ducked and the missile crumbled into a stone wing, leaving the lifelike feathers dusty and brittle in its wake.

Bedlam was half drawn as Quin observed the quick exchange between Elisandrya and some sort of devilish satyr. Moving swiftly, he pressed the stone abnormality in the floor, hearing a satisfying click that confirmed his suspicions. He rolled backward and unsheathed Bedlam as the mastiffs came at him, snarling and drooling. He leaped to his right, meeting their charge and screaming a warning, menacing with the great blade as he deftly spun among them, disrupting their organized attack.

Rusted pulleys spun among the rafters overhead, the ancient beams groaning under the weight of their descending burden. The whole building shook as its long-waiting task was demanded of it again. Two massive stone slabs lowered shakily on chains that snapped and popped. Dust shook from the ceiling as the entrance was sealed by the ancient device.

Squinting his eyes against a century’s worth of dust, Quin realized the played stone may have been pure Luck. Squaring off against the pack, he hoped he was wrong, not wanting Luck to be played out just yet.

He stabbed and slashed at the snapping hounds, wounding several but unable to land a solid blow among them. Frustrated, he edged the closing pack closer to the pews, keeping them at bay with the shrieking Bedlam. The blade’s pitch had lowered in an attempt to mimic the sounds of the surrounding beasts. It threatened them with their own growls and the sounds of gnashing teeth.

He cast a quick glance at Elisandrya’s battle against the pack’s leader. Another of her shots missed as the fiendish satyr twirled in the air, but Quin could tell it was having trouble flying in the cramped loft of the sanctuary. It flapped its black wings furiously to stay airborne. Reaching the nearest pew, Quin leaned hard and jumped to stand on the wide stone seat. Without thinking, he’d used his left arm. He almost slipped as the pain in his ribs stabbed through his chest. One mastiff tried to take advantage of the moment and lunged in, too close. It caught Bedlam’s blade through its neck as Quin slashed the curved blade outward. Before its body hit the ground, Quin was running along the pew’s seat. He circled toward the flying archer with the vicious pack snapping at his heels.

Finding cover in the wings of the statue, Eli ducked as another arrow hissed overhead. Quin ran at the satyr’s right, hoping to distract or injure it and afford Elisandrya a better shot. Seeing it more clearly, he could distinguish the fiendish qualities of the fey creature in great detail. It bore the curling ram’s horns of a satyr, but a second set sprouted behind the first. Black feathered wings held it aloft and glowing blue eyes aimed sorcerous arrows at Elisandrya. He’d faced devilish half-breeds before, but could only imagine this fey perversion as a child of rape.

Quin jumped across the narrow aisle between the pews, slicing at the satyr’s legs as he passed. The fiend dropped sideways behind the blade’s arc and kicked Quin in the small of the back. The blow sent the aasimar sprawling to the floor, soon to be at the mercy of the chasing pack. Before the satyr could harry Elisandrya, Quin saw an arrow strike the fiend in the shoulder. The satyr spun downward to land face first on the floor. Two more arrows pierced his back, one lodging in his left wing joint. He howled in pain as the feathered limb fell crookedly to his side.

The mastiffs scrambled and bit at one another as they fought for the prize of tearing into the fallen Hoarite first. Quin had rolled to a stop against the wall, enraged and in pain, but satisfied that his distraction had worked. Bedlam hummed on the floor just inches from his hand. Reaching for it, he felt the teeth of the lead mastiff seize his armored calf, squeezing so hard he feared the bone would break.

Arrows tore into the hound and two others, bringing them down with precise shots into the bases of their exposed necks, causing the others to turn and leap into the sheltering shadows nearby.

Quin took the satyr’s moment of pain to capitalize on Elisandrya’s well-timed barrage. Grabbing Bedlam, he thrust unmercifully into a hound nearby. He felt the pain of his aching ribs sharply as the stab landed. The skewered mastiff writhed a moment, biting at the growling metal in its side, then fell still.

Pulling the blade free, Quin rose on his uninjured right leg. He held Bedlam out before him, almost daring the four retreating mastiffs to finish their attack. Their ears were laid back against their squat skulls and low growls rumbled in their throats, but they were wary of the bow behind them. A savageness gleamed in their eyes and Quinsareth matched it.

Seeming to wait for their master’s next move, their ears suddenly rose, hearing a sound far above Quin’s range. Glancing up, he saw the satyr’s face glaring at him, a small whistle pinched between its sharp fangs.

The mastiffs could not ignore the piercing command and leaped for the aasimar. Their master rose and fired at Elisandrya, the indigo arrow sizzling into stone, crumbling it at its touch. Though Elisandrya tried to return the favor, the satyr’s arrow had loosened a joint between two of the statue’s wings and they crumbled under her steadying knee. Her bow caught against another wing as she scrambled to grab hold of something. The bow fractured along its upper curve, unable to support her weight and sending her tumbling to the stone floor.

Quinsareth roared in unison with Bedlam as he met the mastiffs, fighting against his pain and viciously cutting the hounds down. He summoned a reserve of strength he felt certain would be his last as he swung the arcane sword through heavy muscles and tough sinew. The spark of shadow within him felt pale and weak, at its limits. The last of the mastiffs broke through his attack and bore him down, landing with massive paws on his chest. The wind knocked out of him, Quin was still able to swing his shoulder and land Bedlam, shrieking, in the mastiff’s back before it could tear open his throat. His left hand pushed against the dog’s neck, holding back the snapping jaws as Bedlam did its work.

Over the mastiff’s shoulder, he could see the satyr grinning cruelly, arrows still embedded in its back. It walked calmly past the unconscious Elisandrya at the base of the column to stand over the aasimar, pinned beneath the dead weight of the mastiff.

Quinsareth watched dully as the satyr drew back the string of the black longbow and stared into his eyes down the arrow’s shaft. Nauseated, the aasimar contemplated the creature’s bright blue, almost human eyes, and would have laughed had he the strength for such cynicism. Those blue eyes widened in surprise, though, as the satyr’s bow arm went limp and he hissed a scream.

The satyr turned and Quin saw Elisandrya gripping the bloodied arrow jutting from the fiend’s wing joint. She yelled viciously as she plunged her curved blade through its chest. The satyr gazed at her in shock and fell to his knees, slumping back to stare sightlessly at the ceiling above.

Eli staggered over to Quin to shove the mastiff’s body from his torso, but he was already slipping away, unconscious, lost in the bittersweet memory of a child’s game.

The storm churned in the sky, growing wilder and more concentrated over the rune-covered tower. Those below ignored its fits and rages, oblivious to its lightning and waves of rain. Talmen and his followers carried out the commands of Morgynn in the name of Gargauth. The wizards and priests continued their labors, transforming the tower into the focal point of the tempest, while Morgynn retired above, as close to that chaos as possible.

Resting her head on her crossed arms on a cushioned divan, she was warmed by the dying embers of a brazier close by. She had brought with her across the Lake of Steam many of the luxuries she’d found in Innarlith. Apart from these amenities, the chamber remained unchanged, surprisingly intact and structurally sound despite the many years since it had last hosted guests.

The bones of Jhareat’s combatants lay unmoved save for those that had cluttered the center of the room. Those had simply been shoved aside, enlarging the piles that lined the walls. The chamber was unnaturally quiet—the sounds of the storm were allowed in only when Morgynn permitted. As she rested, only a comfortable breeze passed through her wards on the window. All was still except for a single dancing shadow that flitted across the floor and walls.

The dagger spun in the air, diving and rising again. Each graceful move sliced another red line across Morgynn’s lower back. She had been careless and angry in dispatching the hunters and chided herself for the brash attack. Her scars were nearly complete once more, cloaking her body in the Weave, which she wore more securely than clothing on her skin.

Slowing its macabre work, the dagger inscribed one last rune like a signature, connecting the lines of the spell in a seamless knot of dormant power. It descended to rest between her shoulder blades. Morgynn sighed as she released the dagger from her will.

The scent of cinnamon wafted from the cooling contents of the brazier, a spice she had grown fond of in Innarlith. Her eyelids fluttered as she stared at the tome in front of her, trying to put to memory those spells she would need in the coming days. Sleep came at unusually inopportune moments for her, stealing upon her waking mind and weary body after days of constant activity. She loathed that sleep and the dreams she relived over and over again.

Stones marked the edges where walls had once stood, a perimeter of ruin identifying the grounds of a nameless fortress. The herds did not approach the site, instinct carrying them far away from the ancient scents of magic and death. The Nar tribes typically ignored such places, leaving them to outsiders and adventurers foolhardy enough to enter. In the center of the ruin, a great pit stared like a black eye at the winter sky. The Well of Goorgian seemed unfavored by light, whether from sun or torches. It held the darkness of its own past in an ebon iris that would not fade, even in death.

Deep within, Morgynn traced loving hands across the inscriptions of Goorgian as the priests of the revived Order of Twilight excavated the tomes and secrets of their ancient progenitor.

“Twilight comes to wake us,” she whispered to herself. “Is it prophecy? Perhaps dogma?”

The questions echoed in her mind, making her hungry to understand all of Goorgian’s mysteries and madness. Hushed voices drew her attention to those behind her, laboring to shift a stone slab that had been carefully fitted in the wall.

Letting it crash to the floor, they stared in wonder at the artifacts buried in the rectangular hole. Morgynn knew these priests considered all that they found to be relics of an ancient order, sacred and holy. She saw naught but the magic and power she might wield and learn. Her eyes fell on a small wooden box carved with profane and cavorting figures. A wooden bowl bearing the same designs, stained with ancient blood, and a dagger sheathed in a scabbard of human skin also drew her attention.

Before she could even wonder what secrets these objects held, noises rang through the stones above, a deep pounding rumble as if an army passed overhead on the surface. She needed no spell of seeing to know what had come. Time had been against them, but Morgynn had never thought the day would come. It seemed shame and mercy had not stilled the spirit of her mother. Kaeless Sedras had arrived—with Lathander at her side and faith in her vengeful heart.

Artifacts were abandoned and secrets were left to collect dust as the Gargauthans assembled to dispel the disturbance. Morgynn calmly waited until the halls were cleared, collecting herself and her spells. Talmen walked ahead of her but far behind those more zealous to defend the pit with their lives.

The battle was joined in the upper courtyard as the Gargauthans rose from the depths of Goorgian’s Well to defend their sacred ground. Even the upper courtyard was far below the opening to the surface, such was the state of the ruin and the destructiveness of Goorgian’s last moments.

The Gargauthans acted quickly as the Sedras made their way down. Undead, controlled by the priests, slowed their enemies some, but the flames of dawn the Sedras brought with them reduced those shambling puppets to ashes. Morgynn’s mother fought at the forefront, wildly swinging a heavy mace that burned with a divine light inside the cavern.

Profane magic shriveled limbs and left tribesmen breathless and dying, fodder to be animated and sent back at their comrades. So, too, did the spells and prayers of the Sedras decimate those before them. All the while, between one kill and the next, Kaeless called her daughter’s name, searching for the doomed girl she had brought into the world, determined to erase the stain of guilt she bore with each day Morgynn still breathed.

Morgynn watched and listened from an alcove near the collapsed gate that led further into the ruined interior of the keep. She had no intention of satisfying her mother’s desire to confront her. She was no longer the young girl her mother had rescued from the savage Creel. She was a woman and would choose her battles. The conflict between the Gargauthans and the Lathanderians was of no consequence to her, so long as she survived their fervent clash. The priests of the banished archdevil had been helpful to her, but were by no means integral to her destiny. She would keep them so long as they were useful or leave their smoldering bodies to rot in the wake of her mother’s rage.