Malediction (Scars of the Sundering Book 1) (32 page)

The draks
cheered. Kali rolled off Kale and helped him to his feet. The other golem was
still, as well. He picked up his daggers off the ground as his eyes scanned the
room. Many draks, a third of their total number lay dead or bleeding. The tang
of blood mixed with the salty scent of the air and created an unpleasant, acrid
taste in Kale's mouth.

"Hey,
do you see Deli?" He stopped short, almost stepping in a ruined pile of
fiendling. Kale gagged and looked away, giving the mound of beaten flesh a wide
berth. He saw Delilah sitting against the wall, her head lolling.

"Deli!"
Kale ran over to his sister, skidding to a stop and falling to his knees at her
side. Although her eyes were closed, a smile spread across her face.

"Go
'way. Sleep now."

"Deli!
We did it! The golems stopped attacking! We won!" He shook Delilah in an
attempt to rouse her; yet, he knew she was probably weary from expending so
much power during the fight.

She pushed
him away and held up Volos's rod. "I did it. Go 'way."

Kale laughed
and stood up. Kali stood behind him, tears leaving dark trails on her cheeks.
She snatched him up in a bear hug, lifting him off the ground and spinning him
around. Her touch ignited a fire in him, a warmth he rarely felt. He returned
the hug, and they held their embrace until a drak behind them coughed.

The drak who
gave Kale his new daggers held Delilah's staff. One of the skull's teeth was
missing. "I believe your sister lost this."

Kale took
the staff from the drak. "She'll be thankful you found it."

"Paz."
Kali pulled the stout drak into a hug. "We did it."

He nodded.
"Perhaps." He held her arms and smiled at her, and then looked at
Kale. "We still must lead everyone out of the mines. Your sister, is
she…?"

Paz left the
question unspoken.

Kale glanced
over his shoulder at Delilah. "She just needs rest. I don't think she's
hurt."

"We'll
help her." Kali took Kale's hand. "There shouldn't be any more
guards, right?"

Paz rubbed
his arms and chewed his lip. "I think we took care of all of them, but
it's hard to say for certain. We shouldn't linger. I don't trust that the
crystal golems are truly dormant."

"Deli
said she stopped them." Kale pulled Kali over to Delilah's sleeping form.
He knelt and lifted her arm. "She has that fiendling's rod." He tried
to pull the rod out of her fingers, but even in her sleep, she kept a tight
hold on it.

"I do
not know how such wizardry works. We should leave quickly, at any rate."
Paz looked around the room as the draks bound their wounds and tended to their
dead and dying. "Our people's strength may fail if we give them a chance
to rest now." He rubbed his belly. "Though, perhaps if we could find
the food stores, we might be able to linger there long enough to restore some
strength, hmm?"

Kali
squeezed Kale's hand. "I'll scout around, see what I can find. If they
have the strength, see if they can climb up, back to the main chamber."

Kale nodded
and shook Delilah again. "I'll lead them up."

Paz picked
up Delilah and threw her over his shoulder. Kale took her staff, and they led
the surviving draks back to the stairs. The third golem was on its back,
crumpled up in the well at the center of the stairs. The draks cast furtive
glances at it as they passed. Kale's gaze returned to the draks they left
behind. Kale did not like the idea of abandoning the dead, but they didn't have
the resources to take them along for a proper burial.

The other
draks noticed Kale's lingering glances at the dead. One of the older females
laid her head on Kale's shoulder. "Grieve for them, but do not concern
yourself with their empty shells. They reside with Rannos now. This place is
their tomb, but not their final resting place."

Kali waited
for them at the top. She chewed on a strip of dried meat. "I found their
larder. No wonder these humans are fat. There's more than enough for all of
us." She showed the group the way, across the main cavern, underneath the
tunnel by which she and the drak twins entered the mine.

With Paz's
help, Kali distributed the contents of the larder, cautioning the draks against
eating too much, too fast. Kale forced himself not to wolf down his ration in
front of the other draks. After he ate, he roused Delilah.

"Time
to eat, Deli. You have to wake up enough to travel. You can sleep all you want
when we get back to the palace."

She glared
at him with half-closed eyes. "Can't we just stay here until morning?
Pancras won't miss us."

Kale pressed
a strip of dried meat into her hand. Despite her protests, Delilah ate it. Kale
made sure she ate a second piece and then helped her up and passed her staff to
her. She shoved the rod into her pouch, securing the cover as best she could to
keep it from falling out.

The journey
back up through the mine tunnels and corridors was devoid of excitement. The
weary draks followed Paz and Kali and left the tunnels of salt behind. Kale
recognized that they did not return by the same route they entered the mine.
Snippets of overheard conversation between Paz and Kali indicated this was the
route by which they were supposed to arrive, had they not been chased by the
ill-tempered apparition and his ghoul minions.

Kale dreaded
re-entering the catacombs for that very reason and hoped Kali would lead them
back some other way, even if it meant spending a few days away from the palace.
Deli can always send Pancras a message to let him know we're all right.

The upper
levels were noticeably cooler than the bottom of the mine. At a word from Paz,
small groups of draks split off from the main group. When the last group split
off to head for their safe house, Paz and Kali clasped arms.

"Thank
you, cousin. We'll have a few drinks soon."

Kali pulled
Paz into a hug. "We will, as soon as the streets are clear enough."
With a start, she pulled him around and pushed him away. Kale saw the
translucent form of the spectral knight pass through the tunnel wall. He
brandished his spear and advanced toward the draks.

Kale looked
at the daggers in his hands. They seemed woefully inadequate, and fire seemed
to have little effect on the apparition.

Delilah
groaned. "Not him again."

* * *

Delilah
hoped she possessed enough energy to create one last distraction so they could
flee the apparition. If nothing else, the evening's adventure taught her that
she possessed the power but not the diversity for the terrors of the wider
world. The most powerful destructive magic she knew barely scratched the
crystal golems, and apparently, the most she had accomplished against the
specter was to annoy it.

Paz
brandished a sword he took from the dead guards, but Delilah knew it would do
no good. He looked over his shoulder at her. "I hope you have some tricks
under your scales for this thing."

"This
foe is beyond me." Delilah hated admitting that. "Run."

"What?"

"Run!"

She grabbed
him by the arm and fled, trusting her brother and Kali would follow. The apparition
cursed in its ancient language and gave chase.

"Ahead,
to the left! We can get back into the catacombs that way!"

Delilah was
grateful for Kali's shouted instructions. She hoped no ghouls waited for them.
That
thing is probably herding us toward them.
She took the first left, grabbing
the corner to help keep her balance as her claws skidded on the ground.

"Run!
Faster! Look for—sloping passage—the right. It should—just ahead!" Kali's
instructions were disjointed, shouted in between gulps of breath.

Delilah saw
the passage to which Kali referred. The tunnel narrowed, and she saw piles of
rubble ahead. Beyond the rubble, the tunnel widened and was more structured.
Burial niches lines the sides of the corridor.

The
catacombs.

She jumped
over the first pile of rubble, but tripped on the second, falling nose first
into the ground. Fire erupted in her knees as the rough surface scraped away
some of her scales. Two pairs of hands pulled her up, Kale and Paz. She pushed
them away and turned to face the specter.

"Deli,
what are you doing?"

Drawing
threads of magic while exhausted was difficult, like pulling a rope through a
too-narrow hole. Delilah thought she could manage it once more and pointed her
staff at the ceiling junction between the old tunnels and the catacombs.

"
Ophayra!
"

The ball of
fire exploded against the ceiling, the backblast of heat knocking the draks to
the ground. The ceiling collapsed and filled the corridor with dust and rubble,
sealing the catacombs off from the tunnel.

Coughing,
Delilah pulled Kale to his feet. "What good will that do, Deli? It can
come through walls."

"Yeah,
but it's slower until it gets free."
I hope.
"Run!"

Her
supposition was correct as far as she could tell. The apparition screeched and
raged, but they increased the distance between it and them.
It might be
enough to let us evade it.

Kali took
the lead as they sprinted through the catacombs. The hallways looked familiar
to Delilah, but with as many twists and turns as they took, she was lost until
she spotted a familiar door ahead.

"Do you
think that thing will follow us into the palace?" Kale threw open the door
to the undercroft. It appeared undisturbed, just as they left it.

"It
didn't follow us into the mines." Delilah concluded it was either
unwilling or incapable of leaving the catacombs. She watched the corridor.

Paz
hesitated by the door. "We should go our own way, Kali. Get back to The
Assassin's Dagger."

"I'm
not certain we can evade—" A ghostly spear emerged from the wall, piercing
Kali's shoulder. Her strangled wail was cut short as the grim specter pushed
through the nearby wall, lifting her from the ground. She clutched at the
spear, her hands passing through it, unable to touch the spectral weapon. The
skin around the spear lost its shine and blackened.

Kale and Paz
cried out simultaneously. By reflex, Kale threw a dagger. The blade passed
through the specter’s head, embedding itself in the wall.

As soon as
Delilah attempted to reach for her power, the world went dark. Her blood rushed
in her ears like a river, and she felt her heartbeat in her chest like someone
hammering a piece of steel. Still, below that, she felt power.

Her blood.

She grabbed at
her skinned knees. Blood magic was forbidden by the Arcane University, but
Delilah was not a guild mage. She knew its power but never used it. It was
widely known to be vile, corruptible, and unpredictable. But, a mind on the
verge of unconsciousness often makes decisions the conscious mind would never
consider.

Delilah drew
upon the power of her own blood. Her vision cleared, and the world snapped into
sharp focus. She saw the tendrils connecting the spirit of the dead knight to
Aita's realm. Shouting, she pointed her staff at the specter.

A swirling
lance of crimson energy blasted forth from the end of her staff, power flowing
from the skull's eyes and twisting into a single ray. It smashed into the
specter and spread over it. The ghostly knight's mouth opened in a scream of
pure anguish, and in a flash of green and red, it exploded.

Ectoplasm
sprayed in every direction, coating the draks in gooey mucus. Kali dropped to
the floor, holding her hand over her ruined shoulder.

Delilah fell
to her knees. Her hands were shaking, and her whole body felt like electricity
coursed through it. She wiped the ectoplasm off her snout, flicking it into the
corner.

"Wow,
Deli. I didn't know you could do that!" Kale looked at his sister, eyes
wide in wonder as he knelt by Kali, who writhed on the ground, groaning in
pain.

"I
shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have done that." The power called to
Delilah. She felt it all around her, coursing through her veins, coursing
through the veins of those around her, Kale, Kali, Paz. She even felt it,
albeit faintly, coursing through the veins of all the humans in the palace
above. Pancras, the only other practitioner of the arcane arts in the palace,
stood out like a beacon, a beacon with a dark shadow.

"It is
destroyed?" Paz offered Delilah his hand. She shook her head, using her
staff to help her rise.

"I
guess? I don't know. I shouldn't have done that."

"Paz?
She's hurt bad."

Kali
screamed when Kale touched her shoulder. Paz picked her up and cradled her.
"I know a healer. I can get her there faster."

Kale touched
Kali's face and then looked at Delilah.

"Go.
Find us at The Assassin's Dagger when the streets are open." Paz shifted
Kali's weight in his arms. Kale looked from Kali to his sister and back again.