Authors: Jonathan Moeller
Claudia risked a glance to the side and saw the Huntress land upon one of the pillars and scramble up the wall.
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Kalgri leapt from the pillar and landed atop the rampart of the outer colonnade. Caina and Claudia whirled to face her, Caina wielding her ghostsilver dagger, and Claudia casting the spell of banishment.
Kalgri snarled behind her mask and shot forward. Claudia, with her spell of banishment, was by far the greater threat. Kalgri would stun Caina first and prevent her from interfering. Then she would kill Claudia, and the Balarigar and her allies would no longer have any means of doing lasting harm to Kalgri. She could kill them all at her leisure.
She saw the men laboring with the ballista and laughed with contempt. What fools these Ghosts were! Sending their women forward to fight while they tried to use a siege engine against her. No wonder the Teskilati had exterminated Istarinmul’s Ghost circle, and the Teskilati were almost as big as fools as Callatas himself.
Caina twisted aside, avoiding Kalgri’s slash, but Kalgri snapped her left arm up, her elbow smacking into Caina’s head. The Balarigar stumbled backward and fell with a grunt of pain, and only the low wall at the edge of the rampart kept her from tumbling to a messy death to the against the flagstones below.
That left Kalgri free to deal with Claudia.
The Voice sensed the power of the banishment spell nearing its climax, Claudia gesturing frantically, but the magus did not have time to complete her spell. Kalgri spun and drove both her blades at Claudia’s chest, noting that Martin was staring at her. That would make the killing all the sweeter, Claudia’s agony all the more powerful.
Kalgri’s weapons drove towards Claudia’s heart, and at the last instant rebounded in a spray of sparks.
A ward. Claudia had warded herself against steel, as the magi of the Magisterium often did.
No matter. Kalgri had killed Imperial magi before, and she knew how to deal with them.
She sheathed her dagger and raised her left hand, the Voice’s power blazing from her fingers and coalescing into the immaterial sword of the nagataaru. No magi of the Magisterium possessed spells capable of turning aside that blade of writhing shadow and swirling purple flame.
Kalgri flicked her wrist, sending the sword whistling towards Claudia’s neck. She hoped Martin enjoyed watching his wife’s head roll across the rampart.
The blade touched Claudia’s neck and shattered into a thousand pieces, dissolving into nothingness. Kalgri lost her balance and stumbled, and the Voice screamed in incoherent fury.
Annarah’s pyrikon. Caina had given the damned thing to Claudia.
###
Caina sprang to her feet, ignoring the throbbing ache in her skull from the Huntress’s blow, and slammed into Kalgri. The dissolution of the immaterial blade had left the assassin stunned, and Caina stabbed, the ghostsilver dagger flashing. She drove the weapon into Kalgri’s chest again and again, the wounds smoking and sizzling. Kalgri twisted aside with the speed of a striking serpent as the Voice’s power returned to her, and her boot caught Caina in the thigh. Again the force of the blow drove her back, and this time she fell into Claudia, disrupting her banishment spell. Claudia collapsed against the rampart with a grunt, and Caina hit the floor again.
The Huntress caught her breath and stalked forward. Claudia had warded herself against steel, and Annarah’s pyrikon would protect her from the immaterial blade. But Claudia had no way to keep the Huntress from simply ripping off her head, and neither did Caina.
A shape moved behind the Huntress, rippling and merging with the shadows cast by the moon overhead. Caina remained motionless, eyes fixed upon Kalgri, hoping to keep the Huntress’s attention.
Kalgri stopped, raising her sword to strike, but at the last moment she turned, some instinct warning her of the danger.
Certainly the Voice had not warned her, because the Voice could not detect a man wearing a shadow-cloak.
Nasser sprang forward as Kalgri turned, Caina’s shadow-cloak streaming behind him, the valikon grasped in both hands as he stabbed, the symbols upon the blade erupting into white flame.
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At the last instant Kalgri turned and saw Nasser Glasshand.
Much more importantly, she saw the valikon burning to life in his hands.
The Voice’s triumphant howls turned into a scream of panic.
Sheer blind terror flooded into Kalgri’s mind, which was the only thing that saved her life.
Kalgri twisted, and instead of going into her chest the valikon ripped a smoking gash down her right side. She shrieked in agony and threw herself into the air, landing behind Caina and Claudia, pain pulsing through her. She had long ago grown accustomed to physical pain, could keep functioning and fighting even with grievous wounds. But the ghostsilver in the valikon’s blade kept her wounds from healing properly without a considerable expenditure of power, and the spells wrapped around the weapon were designed to kill a mortal possessed by nagataaru.
But as much pain as the valikon did to her, it caused far more harm to the Voice.
The Voice shrieked and thrashed in her mind like a panicked dog caught upon a leash. The Voice often screamed in fury and hunger, but for the first time since she had faced Nasser all those years ago, the Voice shrieked with terror. The valikon could destroy it. The Voice had existed since the dawn of time itself, was older than the world, was immortal and invincible…but the valikon could end it.
That prospect filled the Voice with unreasoning terror.
Kalgri could not think through the fear, could not plan. Her only thought was to get away from the terrible shining sword in Nasser’s hand. She could shoot him from afar, and his damned valikon would do him no good then…
Claudia whirled, flinging out her hand, and the blue sparks of a banishment spell struck Kalgri.
The Voice’s terrified screams redoubled, and an instant later Kalgri felt the crossbow bolts slam into her back and leg.
###
The Huntress staggered beneath the impact of the quarrels from Martin and Laertes and Strabane, and Caina dashed past Claudia as the magus flung a volley of blue sparks at Kalgri. The assassin seemed stunned, disorientated, and started to raise her scimitar in a block. But the movement was too slow, and Caina stabbed the Huntress, her ghostsilver dagger sizzling. Kalgri rocked back, and Caina ripped the dagger free.
A wild, mad exultation filled her. They were going to win. All those men the Huntress had killed at the Golden Palace would be avenged, and the gods only knew how many others. Kalgri would not escape this time, would never kill another…
“Aid me!” screamed the Huntress, the Voice’s thunder filling her words.
Nasser sprinted to Caina’s side, and the Huntress threw herself sideways off the rampart.
Kalgri did not land gracefully. She struck the courtyard in an ungainly heap, and Caina heard the sounds of bones snapping. Kalgri rolled away and vanished behind one of the columns supporting the rampart.
“After her,” said Caina, spinning to face Nasser. “Go! It will take her a minute to heal, and if we can get to her first…”
A horrible metallic scream filled her ears.
Caina turned just as the first of the kadrataagu hurled itself over the ramparts and landed atop Claudia.
###
Kalgri slumped against the wall, her tattered armor wet with blood, her breathing coming hard and fast. The sounds of the kadrataagu fighting above came to her ears, but she barely noticed it.
For the first time in a century in a half, for the first time since she had joined with the Voice, Kalgri was frightened.
Even when she had faced Nasser the first time, she had not been this alarmed. It had been merely a matter of faking her death and going into hiding. She knew better than to face a man armed with a valikon, and Callatas could find some other fool to kill Nasser.
But this time Kalgri had walked right into the trap. If she had not turned at the last minute, Nasser would have driven that damned sword through her heart, and she would be dead and the Voice would be destroyed.
The Voice gibbered with fear at the thought.
Kalgri staggered to her feet, forcing the Voice to turn its attention to her injuries. Her bones shuddered as they knit back together, her wounds starting to shrink beneath the nagataaru’s power. Yet they did not heal as fast as they should have. The valikon had injured the Voice itself, and it would take the nagataaru time to recover.
The Voice screamed within her, demanding that she flee from danger, and Kalgri felt her lip curl with contempt.
“No,” she hissed.
She would not be frightened. Caina Amalas was a fraud, a trickster with a bag of clever tricks, a scared woman who dressed up in a shadow-cloak and deceived fools. She was clever, yes, but Kalgri would not run from such a woman. And she would rid herself of Nasser, Caina, and that damned valikon all at once.
Kalgri stepped away from the wall, ignoring the ache of her half-repaired wounds. The Voice felt…tattered, attenuated. The valikon had done severe damage to the nagataaru. Kalgri needed to pick off her foes one by one. But how?
She had to shape the battlefield to her advantage.
Kalgri extended her right hand and called the immaterial blade into existence.
###
The weight of the kadrataagu drove Claudia to the floor, its clawed hands settling upon her shoulders. The barbed tentacles whipped back and forth before her face, and its misshapen face moved closer, the fanged mouth opening to bite off her head.
She reacted on pure, panicked instinct, summoning all her power and flinging it into an unfocused burst of psychokinetic force. The blast drove into the creature’s chest and flipped it backwards. The kadrataagu landed upon its hind legs, its arms raking at the air to keep its balance.
She started summoning power again, though she did not think she could hit the damned creature hard enough to kill it or even hurt it. The strange, insect-like shell covering the kadrataagu shielded it from damage. Even if she managed to blast it off the rampart, the creature might well scramble right back up into the fight.
The kadrataagu raised its claws to finish her off, and then Martin was there, plunging his broadsword into the creature’s side. The thing loosed a furious, screeching wail, its attention turning towards him, and Martin yanked the broadsword free and stabbed again, black slime bubbling from the wound. Caina appeared on the creature’s other side, the ghostsilver dagger flashing as she struck. Martin had to drive his sword through the armor, but the ghostsilver blade sliced through the black chitin like paper, the wound snapping and sizzling. The kadrataagu shrieked again, and the side of its right arm slammed across Caina’s chest. She fell back with a gasp of pain, bouncing off the battlements and barely keeping her balance.
Claudia gathered power for another spell, hoping to perhaps blast the creature off the wall, but Nasser struck first. The Iramisian symbols written upon the silvery blade gleamed with molten white fire, power rolling off the weapon like heat from a blacksmith’s forge, and Nasser swung the sword with both hands. It cut through the kadrataagu’s neck like a twig, and the head rolled away in a burst of black slime, the tentacles whipping back and forth. There was a flash of purple flame, and the kadrataagu’s hulking carcass suddenly shrank into the headless form of a Kaltari warrior, the body toppling to the courtyard below.
“Claudia,” said Martin, stepping over the bleeding head of the Kaltari warrior, “you’re all right. When the Huntress hit you, I was sure…”
“The pyrikon shielded me,” said Claudia, looking at her hand. “It…”
The ring had vanished.
“Damn it,” said Claudia. “I lost it, I…”
“No, don’t worry,” said Caina, breathing hard, her free hand clenched to her side. “It came to my arm, turned back into a torque.” Her grin looked more like a pained rictus. “It seems fond of me.”
“Go!” said Nasser. “The others!”
The remaining three kadrataagu charged at Laertes and Strabane. The Legion veteran had his shield out to block their claws, and Strabane covered his flank, the sweeps and slashes of his massive greatsword keeping the creatures at bay. Yet the kadrataagu were tearing Laertes’s heavy shield to splinters, and their sheer size and strength drove the two men back.
“I can knock them from the wall,” said Claudia.
“Your banishment spell, Lady Claudia!” said Nasser, and then he, Caina, and Martin all attacked the kadrataagu.
Claudia had not been able to banish the Voice, despite trying three times. Yet the spell had distracted the nagataaru within the Huntress, and perhaps it would distract the nagataaru possessing the misshapen creatures. She summoned power and raised a hand, a volley of blue sparks striking the nearest kadrataagu.
It had more of an effect than she anticipated.
The Voice was mighty, but the nagataaru within the nearest creature was far weaker. Claudia’s will hammered into it, ripping the nagataaru from its flesh and driving it back into the netherworld. The kadrataagu shrank into the form of a Kaltari warrior. The warrior collapsed to his knees, blood pouring from his nose and eyes and mouth, and fell dead to the rampart.
Evidently bearing a nagataaru had a high cost.
The remaining kadrataagu turned to face the new threat. Laertes took that opportunity to attack, broadsword darting past his battered shield. The kadrataagu he struck screamed in pain and stumbled, and Strabane roared and whipped his greatsword around. Nasser wielded the valikon with the smooth grace of an acrobat. Strabane hacked through the kadrataagu’s neck with the raw power of a man who could fell a small tree with a single blow. The kadrataagu collapsed in a heap as its head toppled into the courtyard.
The final kadrataagu had the features of Aiovost, though horribly distorted. The creature charged at Nasser. Nasser sidestepped with fluid speed, whipping the valikon through an intricate attack. His blow severed both of Aiovost’s hands, and the kadrataagu reared back with a scream. The valikon found Aiovost’s heart, and the kadrataagu shuddered, shrank back to human shape, and collapsed to the rampart.