144: Wrath (27 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

"Wait, Master Kas Dorian!" Xandra yelled after him. She turned back to Kiff, glaring. "Kiff! What have you done?"

Vor pulled out a throwing axe. "He’s netted his goldflies."

"Wait." The Undlander was on his board, rising slowly into the air. "This isn’t my fault. I didn’t do this!"

Xandra clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking. "We’ve been following you around blindly this whole time only to be led into a room with no way out, and now we’re separated from Master Kas Dorian! You’ve done nothing but lie to us and mislead us, so you’ll have to excuse me if I doubt your loyalties!"

  "First of all," Kiff said, "Vor was the one who kicked the door in. And you’ve been following me around because I can see in the dark, and I know my way around this building. If there were an easier way, don’t you think I… you know what? The hells can take me, I actually tried this time."

With a curt salute, he rose into the air toward the balcony. Vor reached out to grab him, but the Undlander lifted up his knees and avoided capture.

"Run off to your masters, slave," Vor said.

Xandra started after him, but Flint laid a calm hand on Xandra’s shoulder. He pointed up into the terrace, past Kiff, near the open door. It took her a moment to register what he was pointing toward, but her heart iced over in fear when she saw them.

There was little to see but a small trick of light, as though it was bent irregularly at various points. For one trained to recognize concealing magic, it was a telltale sign of invisibility. Two, perhaps three, beings waited in the doorway. As Kiff approached on his board, they slinked back through the doorway and up the stairs.

Kiff turned before leaving the theatre room. "Xandra, watch the Butcher's left side for me."

"Kiff, wait!" Xandra yelled, but it was too late. The door closed, and he was gone.

As Polas ran down the dim passageway, the jade flashes grew in intensity and frequency. He was not sure what compelled him to seek the source of the light, but it at least gave him focus.

The lights were moving away from him, farther and farther down the long hallway until they met with a dull orange glow.

Polas slowed as he reached an open doorway. Heat billowed out of the room, and a vile smell like death bathed in animal filth offended even his all but destroyed olfactory.

A blast of green light smacked into his chest followed by another, and another. Each blast crackled and burned the air, but fizzled as it connected with him. He walked forward, shielding his eyes as the arcane assault continued.

The room he entered was a giant mess hall, large enough to fit the entire Sigil House within it. Rows of tables and benches filled the room from end to end, and a large fire pit with an open chimney lay in the far corner near a door that likely led to a kitchen or storeroom. The entrance he came through was in the exact middle of the room’s length and directly across from a small staircase that led to another exit.

Two Peltin mages stood inside the entrance. One was tall and thin with stretched ear lobes and a loose fitting robe. The other was short and squat and wore a large, golden sash around his oversized belly. Polas pulled out his pilfered longsword and one of the daggers.

Near the middle of the room, standing on top of a table, was a hunched and gangly Narculd. He had wispy black hair that haloed his knobby skull and tickled his shoulders. His robes were light and mesh, like thin, black netting, and held all sorts of bones, vials and unnamable miscellany. His waist was wrapped with a blood-red cloth, and his fingertips were worn down into garish, bony spikes.

Beside him was a Peltin man with dark robes and baggy eyes. He held a small, black globe in his hands and looked as if he were hypnotized by the roiling darkness within it.

"You fools," the Narculd hissed. "You were to lure one of the others here. Any of the others! Any but the Iron Blooded! Send for Calec."

A spark lit within Polas but was overshadowed by a roaring deluge of wrath.

The portly Peltin mage screamed something shrill that sounded like a frightened boar and re-doubled his assault. The blasts struck Polas repeatedly, but each one faded the instant they touched his chest.

Polas held his sword and dagger out wide, their blades shimmering with reflected light. He took a few steps toward the taller of his two opponents, taking the man’s measure. The man shrieked and tried to run, but Polas was already in range. He lashed out and pinned the mage’s foot to the floor with the dagger. The man shrieked and fell forward only to be met face-to-blade by the general’s sword.

Polas slowly removed his blade from the fallen man’s skull and stalked toward the overweight sorcerer. With a quick slash, the man breathed his last and fell crashing through the bench behind him.

The Narculd had not been idle. Ten small boiling pits dotted the floor, and one large fissure completely swallowed a table as it opened near the center of the room. The Narculd stood with his hands raised, large red eyes bulging.

"Kas Dorian, the Iron Butcher, your life-force will sustain me for ten lifetimes! I will show you why my mastery of necromancy and the summoning arts make me the greatest sorcerer of this age. You’re iron blooded resistance won’t save you from the power of Vrihnassk, the Rotted One!"

Vrihnassk nodded to the Peltin man standing next to him. The servant took a few steps forward and rolled his orb into the largest void. It sank away as though falling into thick tar, and the man hurried to the back of the room near the staircase.

Polas took a few steps back as skeletal hands clawed their way out of the smaller holes. Undead soldiers, bereft of flesh and sinew, stumbled from the pits. Their eye sockets were hollow voids of soulless hatred, and the emptiness within their ribcages coveted the life that flowed within Polas’s veins.

Polas had fought undead before, and he was not afraid. Granted, he had previously carried with him the Blade of Leindul, which could sever arcane bonds and prevent the skeletons from reforming, but he was confident in his skill.

His confidence wavered, however, as a massive hook and chain hurtled out of the larger pit and snagged on a ceiling rafter. A second chain followed it, and hands as large as a horse pulled the body of a giant fiend behind them. The creature was a gorachna, a ferocious, bipedal beast with the body of an oversized Mela gorilla. It had long, powerful front limbs that it used for climbing and ripping apart its prey, and its back legs were short but strong and swift. Its hide was a leathery black and hard as a rock. From its back, spikes the size of a Peltin man protruded, leaking great drops a dark ichor that produced tiny gouts of flame as they hit the ground.

The gorachna’s cry was deep and earth rumbling. Its mouth sprayed phlegm across the room, and its giant incisors gleamed in the low light. Polas had faced off against such a creature only once before, and that time he had had help. This being possessed the strength and ferocity of a normal gorachna, and as a summoned beast, lacked any of the hesitations brought by thoughts of self-preservation.

Vrihnassk lowered his hands and laughed. "Bring me his heart."

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The theatre swarmed with thieves. Flint had stopped trying to count after reaching fifty.

Each of the assassins bore the eight-point star that marked them as members of the House of Stars. They came in from the stage area, from hidden doors in the floor, and even appeared out of the very air. Upon realizing that there might not be an end to their numbers, Flint had turned his efforts to removing the bars that had locked them in the room in the first place. The Thieves’ Guild mercenaries seemed content to wait until their full number had arrived before attacking as individuals, and he was not about to lose the precious seconds dilly-dallying in nervous anticipation.

"Strangely," Flint said, "I do hope that the boy was betraying us."

Xandra turned hurt but curious eyes on him.

"If not, I’m afraid he might not be long for this world."

Xandra looked up into the balcony and across the room at one of the large banners. Flint followed her eyes, and he knew his pupil’s intention.

He nodded. "Go."

Xandra sprinted toward the banner closest to the balcony, and the House of Stars assassins took it as their cue to attack. She was forced to dodge sword thrusts and to weave through a flurry of strikes as she made her way across the large room. She dropped her heavy outer robes as she leaped across the last stretch, vaulting off the back of an assassin whose attack fell short.

Flint watched her until she was safely out of reach halfway up the banner. Amidst the chaos of the rapidly filling room, he had almost failed to notice the tremors that ran through Vor’s body. The Dorokti King knelt, and black fury clouded his eyes.

"It’d be best if you left too, Flint," Vor said through chattering teeth. "I have trouble knowing who I’m killing when it happens."

"Perhaps at least a parting shot to help even the odds." He pointed one finger toward the middle of the room, and a fountain of flame soaked the area.

"Go now, book-herder!"

Flint closed his eyes and chanted a few choice words. His body steamed, and a glowing wreath of fire erupted above his skin. A group of assassins awaited him on the other side of the barred door, so he lowered his shoulder and charged. The bars stopped him, but only for a moment as they soon melted to slag. The assassins pounced to attack, but the white-hot flames engulfed them. Flint did not look back when he heard Vor roar behind him. He knew he could not afford to stick around and risk seeing exactly how savage a true Dorokti Berserker became when enraged.

He ran as fast as his meaty legs could carry him, careful not to bump into any walls lest he set the whole building on fire. Once he felt he had covered enough distance, he slowed and chanced a glance back.

He had not been followed, and in his adrenaline-fueled flight, he had covered much more ground than he realized. He patted out the flames on his arms and shoulders and took a moment to catch his breath.

Farther down the hallway, he heard a crash and a monstrous bellow. The Faldred shook his head and began to run again. This time he only made it a few steps before he put his hands behind his head and slowed to a brisk walk.

"Not to worry, Master Kas Dorian," he said. "Flint is on his way."

Kiff reached the top of the short stairway and paused. He found himself in a room he had passed through many times before. It was a beautifully decorated waiting room meant to impress Guild guests before they spent an evening in the theatre. A small, clean bar stood empty in one corner. On the floor was a woven rug the length of three horses. It was silver and black and bore the emblem of the House of Suns. In fact, the mark was on every wall, over the entryways to the room, and woven into every drape. One thing was for certain, the Suns liked to mark their territory.

Kiff was tired of pretense and illusions. He was tired of always being the one that no one trusted. Unfortunately, walking away from a life like the one he had led was not such an easy task. He turned and took one last, hesitant glance at the door behind him. Across the room from him was a hallway that led to the office of Shirmattaa, the leader of the House of Suns. Kiff knew that he would hide the keys to the portal that could take the others to Waysmale somewhere in his office. He had brought them so close to their dreams only to have it all fall apart again.

Kiff was through living for others’ dreams. He still had a few of his own.

On the stairs behind him, two invisible figures tiptoed up with blades drawn. They were House of Stars stalkers, entry-level assassins that had passed their initial tests and been granted access to the House of Suns’ alchemy labs.

How they loved those invisibility tonics.

They lunged for him, but Kiff was already moving.

He kicked his board forward across the room and fell backward into a roll. When he stood, the stalkers were in front of him with their backs exposed. Years ago, he would have dispatched them with one blade in each hand. It would have taken less than a second. As it was, it took nearly two as he sliced the first assassin through the spine along the waistline and brought the blade up into the side of the second man’s skull. Both men fell forward in spasms. Their invisibility faded, and Kiff was left standing over the dying bodies of two young Peltin boys no older than sixteen.

"You should know better than to try that trick on an Undlander," Kiff said.

He heard footsteps entering the room, and he looked up to see at least twenty stalkers storming in from the sides. From the theatre behind him, he heard Vor roar.

"No turning back."

He dashed forward and leaped onto his board, his momentum whisking him swiftly down the hallway. A large, carved door with a golden handle awaited him at the end of the corridor. He spun as he reached it, throwing the door open wide then closing it just as quickly after he had entered. He slid a large, wooden post into place to prevent any further entry and activated the door’s arcane protections.

"You’re late," Shirmattaa said.