The Elder Blood Chronicles Book 2 Blood Honor and Dreams (47 page)

Shade swallowed heavily as the aura increased
over the city. “I asked for this,” he reminded himself as he flew
toward the stone walls. Tears were beginning to fill his eyes as
the oppressive cloud thickened around them. His heart was beating
so hard against his chest he found himself wondering if he could
actually fly through it.

“I hate you so much,” Charm whispered from
near the door. The rogue was tied into the ship with three ropes
that attached to various objects near him. After long consideration
they had decided that in a fit of panic he might cut one rope, but
surely not three. It had been Shade’s idea to add the chain around
the ankle just for good measure. As far as he saw it, that was a
twofold blessing. On one hand, it would prevent Charm from jumping
if the ropes failed, and on the other hand, Shade held the only
key. If Charm was too upset after this flight, he could wait until
he settled down to release him. The rogue could, of course, pick
the lock, but it would take time to do that, which gave Shade a
head start on running.

“Don’t feel bad. I’m not liking myself too
much at the moment, either,” Shade muttered as the aura of fear
increased again. The steady pulse was like a second heart beat now
as the magic coursed through him.
Run, run away, run
, it
chanted through his mind, relentless and cold. He swallowed heavily
and glanced back at Charm. The rogue was huddled by the door now
and no longer standing, but still had the bag of stones clutched
tightly in his gloved hands. His face was drained of all blood and
he seemed to be trembling, but as far as Shade could tell he was
still capable of thought and hopefully, of action. “We are just
about to the wall now, Charm. Are you ready?” He had to force the
words out through clenched teeth and hoped the rogue could
understand him.

“Yes, I’m ready, you crazy bastard. God, I
hate you and every insane plan you come up with. First you try to
blow me up and now this shit. You aren’t right in the head, Shade,
and after this you won’t get another chance to kill me, I promise
you that,” Charm said, his voice rising in hysteria.

“A simple, “yes,” would have sufficed,” Shade
replied and flicked the music crystal that rested on his dash. The
quick drum beats of the Firym music pounded through the ship and
Charm shrieked and nearly fell from the doorway. Shade scrambled
for the crystal. The drums were sending his already fragile nerves
over the edge. “Bad idea, bad, bad idea,” he said, finally managing
to grab the crystal once more. He deactivated the magic and threw
it back behind him into the ship and shuddered. “I won’t be able to
listen to drums for a month,” he mumbled to himself. The walls of
Eldagar were looming closer now, almost directly below them. The
pulse of fear increased again and Shade let out a nervous laugh in
response.

“I hate you, you crazy bastard. I hate you,
you crazy bastard,” Charm began chanting softly behind him and
Shade laughed louder in response.

“Oh, you are really going to hate me when I
pick up the pace here. We have to do this low and fast Charm or it
won’t work,” Shade said quietly but the rogue’s chanting didn’t
falter at his words.

Shade watched as the wall passed below them.
He took the ship down to the street level, scarcely high enough to
fly. “Now, Charm, start throwing them.” He thought he heard the
sound of crying or whimpering behind him but didn’t spare the time
to look. He had to trust that Charm would do as they had planned.
Right now, he needed all of his attention to fly through the
cramped city without crashing.

A startled howl of fear behind him made him
laugh again as he recognized a goblins voice. The rogue was still
chanting his new mantra, but he was doing his job. He pulled
carefully on the controls and maneuvered around an over-turned
wagon. Ideally, he needed to spread the goblins as thickly as he
could throughout the city. He needed them scattered, but he only
had a short time to do it.

He wasn’t sure how the Blights would react to
the goblins presence but guessed it would be violent. This plan
rested on the fact that the goblins and the Blights shared
instincts and would both run to the same hiding spots. He needed
them to reach the Blights, but he couldn’t give the creatures long
together. If the Blights killed the goblins and moved away from the
area it would be a failure.

More howls came from the back door as Charm
continued to cast the creatures from the ship and Shade began
making his way toward the Fortress at the far end of town. He
hadn’t told Charm about this part of the plan but judging from the
continued chanting of the words
crazy bastard
it wouldn’t
lower the rogue’s opinion of him any.

“Half-way done,” Charm called up to him, his
voice still frantic.

“Save about five,” Shade called back loudly
and turned down a trash strewn street to continue dropping their
living weapons.

“For what?” Charm asked. “I don’t want to
save five goblins. I want to get rid of the bastards and get the
hell out of this city.”

“Save them for the Fortress,” Shade replied
as he pulled the ship around a partially collapsed building. His
heart was racing so fast by now he was wondering if it was going to
burst. For covering as much ground as he was, Lutheron’s magic was
extremely effective. Charm had told him the man could handle the
task and Shade had doubted him. He no longer held any doubts.

“The Fortress is locked. We can’t get them
inside the Fortress. If you think I’m getting out of this ship you
are even crazier than I thought. Which I’m not sure is possible,”
Charm’s voice was rising again and Shade snickered at how it
blended with the goblin howls. They had nearly the same pitch to
his ears.

“Who said anything about getting out of the
ship to go inside?” Shade asked and broke into another wave of
laughter as Charm fell back to his mantra in more frantic
tones.

Shade made another of the city streets before
Charm spoke again. “We have five left,” he said in a choked voice
that sounded as though he was in tears.

“Got it, time to knock on the big doors,”
Shade replied and had to fight down the urge to laugh again. From
the description Lutheron had given on the effects of fear it seemed
he was one of the individuals that was struck by madness. The
thought gave him momentary pause as the thick Fortress doors loomed
ahead of him. If Charm thought he was mad before the fear, what did
that say about his judgment now.

A small voice in the back of his mind urged
him to forget about flying through the heavily warded fortress that
was made entirely of stone that was several feet thick. “Bugger
off,” he mumbled to the voice of reason as he prepared to fire. He
knew from Charm’s reports that the largest hive resided inside the
fortress. If they were going to do this right they had to take the
fortress down as well as the city.

With a muttered prayer he fired and watched
the liquid splatter against the doors. It was the same ammunition
that had taken down the transport ship. With luck it would do equal
damage to the Fortress doors. He was going far too fast to slow
down now, regardless, and had calculated the distance with just
enough time to allow the blast to go off. At best, his ship would
suffer minor damage from flying debris. That he could repair. At
worst, well, he didn’t have to worry about the worst case. No one
would walk away from a wreck like that.

“Why are we flying that fast toward closed
doors?” Charm asked, having apparently dared standing long enough
to see what was going on.

“Ten, nine, eight …,” Shade whispered
ignoring the rogue’s question entirely. Flames burst to life on the
door and he found himself biting his lower lip hard enough to draw
blood. It shouldn’t have taken that long to catch fire, but he
couldn’t turn aside now. There wasn’t room. If he tried, they would
broadside the unforgiving stone wall of the fortress. “Three, two,
oh, fucking, come on, blow..,” Shade yelled, but the last of his
words were drowned out by the concussive boom of the doors finally
exploding. His ship rocked violently as fire and splinters of wood
washed over it. He leaned forward in his seat, his eyes searching
the smoke frantically for the first glimpse of what lay ahead.

“Oh, shit, you flaming moron!” Charm screamed
from behind him as a massive stone wall loomed mere feet from the
view screen. Apparently, at some point the rogue had managed to get
the chain off of his ankle. Shade was impressed that the rogue had
accomplished that feat in the chaos of flight while scared witless
from Lutheron’s magic. He didn’t have time to dwell on it now,
though. At the moment, the wall held his full attention.

A sound half-way between a curse and a laugh
burst from Shade’s mouth as he strained against the controls,
trying to bring the ship around before they crashed. The sound of
squealing metal ripped through the corridor as the corner of the
wall crumbled against the belly of his ship. He heard a loud thump
and groan behind him and guessed the rogue had been knocked from
his feet at the impact. With a steady hand he brought
The
Shade
back under control and shot down the main hall.

“Throw a gobbie, Charm, don’t just sit there
on your ass,” Shade called back. The fear still lingered at the
back of his mind, but he no longer had time to focus on it. The
main hall of the fortress was barely wide enough for the spell
hawk, and it was taking all of his attention to keep the wings off
of the walls. It was getting back out that was going to be tricky.
For that, he would have to either make another hole in the back
wall or manage a high speed turn in the throne room.

“I hate you, you crazy bastard,” Charm
muttered, but the words were accompanied by the terrified squeal of
a goblin.

Shade counted the remaining squeals until
they had reached four and then increased the speed as they headed
for the throne room doors. There would no doubt be wards on these
doors as well, but they wouldn’t be the same as the outer door. The
outer door had been designed to hold against siege weapons. This
one was made more to hold against individuals. Against a full speed
spell hawk it stood no chance at all. As long as there wasn’t a
pillar directly on the other side of the door they should be fine.
“I probably should have studied the building plans better before
doing this,” he said quietly and silence fell behind him. He
wondered briefly if the rogue had jumped when the mantra
ceased.

“What did you just say, Shade?” Charm said in
a very serious voice, all trace of hysteria gone. “Did you just say
you didn’t look at the bloody floor plan of this gods-be-damned
fortress before you flew us in here?” he added, his voice rising
once more.

“The chanting had a nice rhythm to it, could
you switch back to that please?” Shade replied as the doors to the
throne room exploded from their impact. Shade leaned forward again
and had to turn the ship on its side to avoid the support pillars
that lined the center of the room. He scanned the area ahead
frantically and realized with a sinking feeling that he wouldn’t be
able to turn around with the way the pillars were lined up. There
simply was not enough room to maneuver. He let out a heavy breath
and fired the guns once more, praying the compound had time to
react and that it was strong enough to blow a hole through stone.
He had tested it on metal and wood before, but never stone. He
fired several more times for good measure and felt Charm move up
beside him.

The rogue sat down heavily in the co-pilot’s
seat and stared with a slack jawed look on his bloodless face as
the wall loomed closer. He was breathing heavier the closer they
got and Shade wondered if he was going to hyper-ventilate by the
time the impact came.

“Shouldn’t it have caught fire by now?” Charm
asked quietly.

“Yep,” Shade replied casually, his gaze
locked on the wall, willing the ammo to work.

“If it doesn’t soon can you turn around?” he
asked in the same quiet voice.

“Not a chance in hell,” Shade replied and
fished in his pocket frantically. With a slightly shaking hand he
pulled a bent cigarette out and lit it. Ahead of them the wall
burst into flames and Shade let out a nervous laugh. “The real
downside here is the rock debris could tear a hole in my ship or
damage a wing too much to fly,” he muttered around the cigarette
and inhaled deeply.

Charm nodded slightly and pulled a flask from
his pocket. “Amazing that when it truly looks like I’m about to die
I’m not nearly as scared,” he whispered and took a long pull from
the flask. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and started
to offer the flask to Shade, but seemed to realize at the last
moment that he didn’t have a spare hand to accept it.

“That’s the point past fear, Charm,” Shade
replied and felt his breath catch as the wall neared. “I’m not
quite there yet, but sure as hell wish I was,” he added, feeling
his stomach knot again. Another nervous laugh escaped his lips and
he thanked all of the Aspects that the former residents of Eldagar
had been vain enough to build a throne room this obscenely big. Had
this been the Morcaillo house they would have already been
splattered on the wall and gathering flies.

“I don’t really hate you, you know that,
right?” Charm whispered.

“Good to hear. You might soon enough though,
so I’d wait on adding anything sentimental to that statement,”
Shade replied. The flames on the wall rose again and the entire
fortress seemed to tremble before the world exploded into fire and
raining stones. Shade cringed as the first of the debris hit the
spell hawk hard and the ship shuddered in his grip. He tried to
swerve from the path of a large chunk of stone but there wasn’t
enough time or room. The impact resounded through the ship as the
view screen went dark. Shade swallowed heavily and tried
desperately to remember exactly where he had seen the brief glimpse
of daylight in the wall.