Crown of Crystal Flame (16 page)

Fey’cha flew. Most of the
fezaros
and their fierce cats fell quickly, but not before dozens of Fey and Celierians around them went strangely still, then turned on their brethren, crying, “Save the king!” and “For Celieria and King Dorian!”

«It’s a potion of some kind,»
Rain spun the news to Ellysetta and her quintet as his blades flew.
«Feraz are dispersing it, so their witches are most likely the makers. The potion appears to possess whomever it touches on contact.»

More fezaros
leapt through the openings, now protected by growing rings of ensorcelled allies. And behind them, staying to the center of the growing rings, came black-armored Elden archers, and blue-and red-robed Mages.
Sel’dor
arrows, invisible against the night sky, rained down upon the allies, and everywhere they fell, cries of “Save the king!” soon erupted. Possessed Fey turned on the unconscious infected warriors and began unweaving their bindings. Within scant chimes, the enemy numbers had mushroomed.

“Fey! Five-fold weaves! Get those portals closed and take those flaming archers out! Don’t let the arrows strike you!” Rain leapt into the air, Changing and diving for the closest portal. Though he hadn’t wanted to fire the field when the only enemy was ensorcelled friends, now that the Mages had made an appearance, it was a different story.

Tairen fire erupted from his muzzle, blasting a knot of Mages and searing the opening to the Well. The Mages threw up protective weaves to save themselves, but the magic of Rain’s flame enveloped the archers around them. Lit up like candle lamps and screaming in mindless agony, the archers ran in frantic circles until they dropped. The gaping black maw of the Well winked shut.

Roaring in triumph, he dove after a second knot of enemies.

“I’m fine,” Ellysetta assured her quintet who had dragged her away from the healing table and her bespelled patient.

“Ellysetta.” Gaelen’s voice was stern, but his eyes held only concern. The other four warriors of her quintet straightened from their attack stance and sheathed their bare red Fey’cha steel, but like Gaelen, their level of tension remained high.

“Nei,
really. Whatever it was, it’s already gone. I’m fine.” It was true. The ice-spider sensation had receded almost as rapidly as it had come. “It wasn’t the spell. The same thing used to happen to me in Celieria City all the time. Bel can tell you.”

“She’s right,” Bel confirmed. “We never found out what it was or where it came from, but it never seemed to hurt her.” “I don’t like it,” Gaelen said.

Abruptly irritated, Ellysetta scowled at him, and snapped, “I don’t either, but it’s the least of our worries at the moment. Our brothers are killing each other. Whatever this Feraz potion is, I need to figure out how to cure it. That’s what’s important.”

Gaelen instantly clamped his mouth shut, and Ellysetta turned her attention back to the ensorcelled man on her table.

Half a field away from the blazing hundred-fold weaves of the healing tents, Rowan vel Arquinas bared his teeth in a feral snarl. His Fey’cha flew like lightning. Scores of men had already fallen to his blades. Scores more yet would… and all of them clad in the colors of Great House Sebourne.

In Rowan’s mind, each man that gasped and fell with a shudder as tairen venom shut down his body wore Colum diSebourne’s face. He killed the arrogant, murdering
rultshart
again and again and again, as he had not done when it would have mattered, when it would have saved his brother and Talisa.

The memory of Adrial and the sound of his mother’s voice echoed in his mind, driving him with whips of Fire.
You must always look out for your brother, Rowan. Protect him.
But he had failed, and Adrial had died. And despite Ellysetta’s many kindnesses and her shared love and calming weaves, Rowan’s heart was a desert, cracked with pain and guilt and shattering grief.

He channeled that grief into Rage. All he lived for was vengeance. To kill every Sebourne, as he’d not been able to kill the one he hated most. He hated them even more than he hated the Mages. He fed on that hate, gorged on it, thrived on it.

His red Fey’cha flew, finding target after target. And when his Fey’cha harnesses were empty, he simply spoke his return word—which called each blade back to its sheath in pristine condition—and began again.

He didn’t even have to foul his hands with Sebourne blood.

*   *   *

Rain strafed the encampment, looking for knots of Mages and Eld, burning them where he could. Scores of
fezaros
were rampaging through the rows of tents, swinging their pots of mind-altering poison. Mages, secured in their protective rings of archers, sent globes of Mage Fire soaring across the possessed into the ranks of the uninfected.

Sel’dor
burned in his chest and wings. He’d developed a workable initial pattern of attack—dive for the knot of Mages, Change to avoid the barrage of arrows, then Change back to Fire the group—but they’d adapted. Now arrows and Mage Fire filled the air in a constant barrage. He’d given up the dodge-by-Changing technique and started taking the flights of arrows and Mage Fire head-on. Tairen fire consumed the bulk of what came at him, but he still took a few good hits.

One of the Water masters or the Celierians had opened the aqueducts to let the waters of the Heras pour into the field. The battlefield became a swamp of mud and blood. Worse, whatever the Feraz potion was, the waters of the Heras did not neutralize it. Instead, the madness seemed to be spreading more quickly.

«Rainier-Eras!»
In urgent tones, Steli sang an image of a bowcannon bolt racing at him from behind.

Rain tucked his wings and rolled right just as the bolt whooshed past. His spine curved, wings spread, and he emerged from the banking roll to wheel sharply about. Tairen eyes scanned the battlefield, where several bowcannon were emerging from portals across the field.

The Eld were getting down to business now. They’d brought in the artillery.

Feral magic flared in Rain’s body and he bared his fangs in a savage growl. Time for killing.

Why couldn’t she figure this out?

As Ellysetta worked on the body of the unconscious, ensor-celled man, she wished Gaelen’s sister Marissya were here. A powerful
shei’dalin,
with over a thousand years of healing—and combating enemy poisons and potions—Marissya would have a much better idea of what to do than Ellysetta did.

The bulk of Ellysetta’s training had come from those few short months with Venarra v’En Eilan in the Fading Lands, and none of what they’d covered included how potions worked—or how any non-Fey magic worked, for that matter. Give her a warrior suffering cuts, broken bones, bruises, even mortal wounds and missing limbs, and she could knit his broken body back together. Give her a dying warrior whose soul was halfway to the Veil, and she could hold him to the Light and call him back to the world of the living.

But this Feraz potion magic… she didn’t understand it. And she didn’t have the first clue how to stop it. She’d already done everything she knew how to do. Rain said the potion infected the person on contact, but a detailed scan of her test subject’s body revealed no traces of any suspicious liquid on his skin. Not, of course, that she would have been able to isolate it even if there
was
such a thing. The man was covered in blood and cuts and bruises and abrasions. His body looked like it had been used as a battering ram.

She’d spun a weave of Water and Air to wash and dry his skin, hoping that removal of the battle grime might shed some light on his condition, but to no avail. Desperate, she sent a probing weave of pure
shei’dalin’s
love into his body, healing everything she could find wrong with him, but when her quintet lifted their sedation weave, the man went wild.

Concentrating was becoming more difficult. The battle was worsening, and despite the efforts of her
lu’tan,
the pain of the wounded and the dying was trickling through their shields—as was Rain’s increasing battle Rage. Her head was aching, and her skin felt tight, making her short-tempered and snappish. She wove what peace she could on Rain while she worked, but that made it even harder to focus.

All the while, she was intensely aware that, with each passing moment, more Fey and Celierians fell to the Feraz potion or a possessed ally’s blade. And though no one would come right out and say it, everyone was looking to her for answers when she had none to give. She was terrified she was going to fail, and thousands would die because she couldn’t figure out a way to save them.

Rain swooped over the knot of Mages, fire roaring before him. He held the flame, heeling back to hover over the Mages and bathe them in fire. He wanted those shields down. Wanted those Mages to burn.

Savage satisfaction raced through him as their shields cracked. Mage screams rose, high-pitched and wild, then fell quickly silent in the incinerating heat.

Rain flung his head skyward and loosed a mighty roar of primal triumph.

Death to those who endangered the Fey! Death to those who injured his friends, his brothers! He was Rainier-Eras, Feyreisen, and he was winged vengeance.

«Rainier-Eras!»
Steli sang another warning. The images carried on her tairen speech showed a portal opening on his flank and firing a shot right at him.

Rain spun into a sharp roll, but not quite quickly enough. The bowcannon bolt ripped through his hide, slicing deep.

He roared in pain and wheeled around to spew fire at the closing portal, but as he turned his vision went blurry. He faltered. His wings folded, and he fell from the sky, landing on four paws and swaying dizzily.

«Ellysetta…»
The bolt had been poisoned. Potioned.
«Burns. It burns. Burns in the blood.»
He could feel the potion racing through his veins, merging with his blood, changing it.
«Vision dizzy. Smell… spice, like cinnamon growing stronger.»
He growled and shook off the dizziness as he tried to tell her everything, hoping that something he said would make the difference. He sang the sensations to her in tairen song so she could see them, feel them, taste and touch them for herself.

The burning had consumed him now; the potion had spread throughout his body. The haziness of his vision was clearing. The faces around him were changing. Some of the faces around him smelled of the faint spice. Others did not. And the faces of the others were changing the most… changing to monsters. He sang the changes, until he couldn’t remember why he was singing, who he was singing to, until he was surrounded by enemies. Enemies that must be stopped.

He was death, winged vengeance.

«For Celieria and King Dorian!»
He screamed, and he leapt into the air, flame boiling from his muzzle.

«Rain!»
Ellysetta cried his name as his tairen song broke off, but there was no response.
«Steli! Xisanna! Perahl! Rain has been infected by the potion. You must bring him down. We cannot let him fly!»

Confirmations roared across the sky in sparkling notes of tairen song as the three great cats raced across the darkened night to bring Rain down.

“Kaiven chakor.”
She spun to face her primary quintet. “Help the pride. The tairen will bring him down. You five keep him there until I can figure out how to neutralize this potion.”

When they hesitated, clearly torn by their
lute’asheiva
vow to guard her life above all others, she spun buffeting weaves of Air and Spirit and shoved them towards the exit. “Stop him. Nothing is more important. Stop him, or we all die.” She filled her voice with every ounce of compulsion she could muster. She wasn’t shy Ellie begging them to help her please. She was their queen, holder of their
lute’asheiva
bonds, commanding them to serve her. “Go!” she barked. They went.

Ellysetta closed her eyes for a brief moment. Gods help them all. Then she drew a deep breath, her eyes flashed open, and she turned the full force of her concentration and determination upon the ensorcelled man strapped to her table.

“Well, my friend,” she said grimly, “like it or not, you and I are going to figure out exactly what this is and exactly how to stop it.”

Rain howled and thrashed, fire blazing, jaws snapping. His tail lashed like a whip. If he’d been a female tairen, he would have impaled someone—preferably a great many someones—on his tail spike.

Three monsters held him pinned to the ground, their bodies perched on his wings, his back, his neck. Fangs had a grip on his throat and were squeezing just enough that his vision was starting to go dim.

A company of fiendish enemies approached, led by five foul wretches with ghoulish features and long, clawed hands. Ropes of poisonous green magic oozed from their gnarled fingertips. Something hard wrapped around his muzzle, sealing his mouth shut so he could not flame. A hideous miasma enveloped him in choking fog.

He struggled, fighting the monsters on his back, fighting the magic swirling around him. Fighting. Fighting.

But the magic and the press of the fangs against his throat were too much. His vision dimmed. Consciousness fled.

Ellysetta reexamined the images and sensory perceptions from Rain’s tairen speech, fixing a keen
shei’dalin’s
eye on every tiny detail as she went over the information again and again.
The poison got into the blood, and it burned,
he’d said. Based on the information he’d sung to her, the burning sensation was localized to start with, but spread rapidly as the blood carried the poison to every part of the victim’s body.

Whatever was in the blood, however, wasn’t something obvious. She’d already checked the test subject’s blood and found nothing. Now, with Rain’s information and sensory perceptions fresh in her mind, she reexamined her patient, looking at his blood more closely to see what she had missed.