The Crimson Vault (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (23 page)

Indirial regarded Simon seriously, and a bit sadly. Involuntarily, Simon took a step back. The guilt returned, sick and heavy in his stomach. Was Indirial going to try and arrest him? Would Simon have to try and fight his way out.

"The King is aware of Simon's...situation," Indirial said. "He has yet to render judgment. I'll do everything in my power, Kai. You can trust me on that."

Kai stared from behind his white bangs for a long time. Then, to Simon's surprise, he nodded.

"Very well. You have a Naraka Traveler prepared for me, I assume?"

"I'll have someone take you there in a moment," Indirial said. "And Denner, the Asphodel quarters are only a few tents down from here, so I'll take you myself. There's one thing I need to know first. Where's your Dragon's Fang, Kai?"

He gave the question so much weight that Simon got the impression that there was more to that question than showed on the surface.

"In the Wanderer's hands," Kai responded.

Indirial nodded slowly, and then he grinned. "You may not believe me, Kai, but I'm glad to hear it. Maybe this whole thing can have a happy ending after all."

Ten minutes later, Kai and Denner were both gone, en route to their respective realms. Simon leaned back in a chair in Indirial's unoccupied command tent, deep in conversation with Angeline.

How did I end up helping Damasca?
Simon asked.

I wasn't aware you had ever sided with Enosh,
Angeline responded.
Alin just assumed so because of what happened with the sacrifice and the Overlord.

I never thought of myself as siding with Enosh,
Simon agreed.
But I
sure
never sided with Damasca. So what now?

Angeline was silent for a moment. Simon had noticed that she tended to be a little more thoughtful than his other dolls.

I wouldn't think of it as siding with or against Damasca,
she said.
You're not, really. What you're doing is opposing a violent and deadly Incarnation. After he's taken care of, your part here is done.

Simon wished he believed that.

Just a minute,
he sent.
You're part of Valinhall. Shouldn't you be on the Incarnation's side?

The doll didn't move, but Simon somehow got the impression that Angeline shrugged.
 

Some of us in the House would see it that way, I'm sure. For myself, though, I find his actions morally reprehensible. He needs to be stopped.

Simon considered that for a few minutes, until his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of trumpets, shattering the night. Instantly, soldiers boiled to life in the camp around him, arming themselves and shouting to one another. He heard them, even saw some of them through gaps in the tent's fabric. A few poked their head into the command tent, apparently looking for Indirial. Upon not seeing him there, they immediately ducked back out.

What's going on, do you think?
Simon asked. Then he heard the first screams.

And one of the Nye entered the tent.

The Nye, looking like a man in black clothes and a hooded black cloak, carried an iron chain in between its two gloves. It stopped for a moment when it saw Simon, apparently surprised.

"Well," Simon said. "It's been a while since I've seen one of you."

The Nye stepped forward, and Simon summoned Azura.

The sword was far too long for the cramped confines of the tent, so its point materialized a fraction of an inch from the Nye's chest. There was a brief blue-white flare of light within the cloaked figure's hood, and the Nye slid to one side, still rushing to get its chain around Simon's throat.

But Simon had experienced enough of that for one lifetime, and he had the speed of the Nye on his side.

Simon had called steel at the same time he summoned Azura, but now he called essence. His lungs were filled with ice-cold light, and time itself slowed before him. He gripped Azura's black-wrapped hilt in both hands and swung as hard as he could.

He sliced the entire tent in half, Nye included. He saw the black robes collapse and then squirm together, like a severed earthworm of shadows, cloth, and moonlight. It slithered together and began crawling off into the night.

Of course, that was all he saw before the tent collapsed on his face.

He struggled out from under the heavy canvas, flailing around with Azura in one hand, and with the other hand trying to get a handful of fabric and pull it off him. He had cut through the lines and poles holding the tent up, so the remainder of the fabric had just deflated on top of him. It took him several minutes before he finally managed to extract himself from the fallen tent.

Ahem,
Angeline said.

Simon whirled around for a moment, trying to figure out what the doll was warning him about. Then he realized he didn't have Angeline.

It took him another few minutes of searching through the tent's shredded remnants before he located the doll. Her straight blond hair and black dress were in perfect order, but her serious-looking face managed to express clear disapproval.

Cradling Angeline in one hand and carrying Azura in the other, Simon moved forward through the camp. He kept Azura's tip pointed at the sky, to avoid slicing open someone else's tent as he had done to Indirial's.

I thought Valin wasn’t supposed to wait around here,
Simon sent to the doll.
We weren’t supposed to fight him for another two days!

Apparently Valin decided to change the plan,
Angeline said.
Behind you.

Simon spun around. One of the Nye ducked behind his first swing, though he did manage to slice through a rack of spears, sending a handful of spearheads clattering to the ground. Simon whirled the sword around into an overhand strike, bringing Azura's blade down on the robed servant from above. He sliced off about a foot of fabric from the Nye's head, which apparently passed for a fatal wound, as the man-sized robes collapsed into a pile of shadow and light.

The essence faded from Simon's blood, and he didn't bother to hang on. It would regenerate in a few minutes, and he would need it if he had to fight Valin himself. For now, he could survive with just the steel. He had been defeating the Nye since before he had gained their speed, after all.

First, he had to find Indirial. Soldiers ran here and there, many of them engaged in combat with Nye, but this wasn't some random village full of civilians: very few of the Damascan troops needed any help fighting a single Nye. As a result, the soldiers maintained an orderly retreat more than a panicked flight. Most of them were running in the same direction, so Simon followed. Maybe they would lead him to Indirial.

Despite the fact that they were armed and trained, the soldiers
had
been caught unawares, so some of them found themselves overwhelmed. Simon helped these as best he could, but he rarely stopped moving. If Indirial expected to engage Valin, he should be there.

After what felt like most of an hour, but was probably more like ten minutes, the soldiers led Simon to the edge of camp. It was an open field on a high hill, overlooking the empty remnants of Harinfel village.

There, on the hill, Damasca had engaged Valinhall in pitched battle.

Light from the moon and stars turned the scene into a vision from a particularly strange and violent dream. Dozens of Nye ducked, leaped, and slithered their way around attacks, striking back with their chains. Some of them swung weighted chains in huge, deadly arcs, smashing through armor. Others used their chains more nimbly, like ropes or lassos, grabbing weapons out of the soldiers' hands and pulling them to the ground. Still others used the tactic that the Nye favored in the House: sneaking up to their victims and strangling from behind.

The Damascan soldiers, for their part, tried their best to form up in orderly ranks. Orders were shouted back and forth across the field, in contrast to the Nye, who fought in almost complete silence. As Simon arrived, one squad of fifteen or twenty men assembled in a circle, every man facing outward, spears and shields at the ready. In the first instant, their spears sent several of the Nye crawling back to the House.

Then the Nye noticed. Several melted down to pools of shadow and moonlight, crawling over to rest under and between the soldiers' feet. Simon wasn't sure what the tactic was supposed to accomplish until he saw one man in red-and-gold fall to the ground, then another. More black robes flooded in between the open gaps in the formation, black chains taking man after man down by the throat.

Travelers stood amidst the soldiers, standing out by virtue of their outfits and the forces they were calling. Tartarus Travelers stood, dressed head-to-toe in gleaming steel, keys in one hand, blades flashing through the air. Endross Travelers sent white lightning bolts blasting at the Nye. Naraka Travelers called burning insects out of thin air.

The Nye seemed to target the Travelers first. Simon caught a glimpse of one set of black robes sneaking a chain around the Endross Traveler’s throat, yanking him backwards into the shadows behind a tent.

But all of that paled in comparison to the battle taking place at the top of the hill.

Indirial pulled up the hood of his black cloak, and for a moment he looked as though he had stepped straight out of Simon’s childhood memories. Here, at last, was the hero that had once saved Simon’s life.

He had summoned his chipped and pitted Dragon's Fang, but he swung with such speed and fury that the sword itself was little more than a blur. He moved like the Nye, in a smooth flow of cloth like a rushing black river. Simon could see moonlight on Indirial's breath as he called heavily on the Nye essence to keep him moving at impossible speeds.
 

His opponent didn't
look
like a monster. He wore only a pair of patched and stained pants that looked like they had come off of a corpse. His chest, arms, and bald head were bare. Simon didn't think he even wore any shoes. Every inch of his skin was covered by the black chains of Valinhall. They covered his head like hair, twisted over his arm, covered his chest like a loose wrapping of bandages. This man—Valin—swung a sword that was longer than Indirial's, almost as long as Azura, but he didn't flail with it as Simon himself did, relying on speed and power to do most of the work for him. He whirled in graceful arcs, meeting every one of Indirial's lightning attacks. Valin didn't seem to be moving as furiously as the Overlord, but he continued to parry Indirial's strikes, and even launched a substantial offense of his own.

Except for those two, the hill was clear. None of the soldiers, none of the Travelers—not even any of the Nye—dared to step in the middle of such a fight. They would barely be able to see what was going on, much less interfere.

Eyes in front,
Angeline warned, and Simon levered Azura down to skewer a rushing Nye that barely stood as tall as his shoulder.
 

Angeline, what are the Nye doing here?
Simon asked, wading around the group of soldiers. Azura's blade was so long that he couldn't really fight side-by-side with them, not unless he wanted to use the sword like a spear and join in one of their formations, but if he could stay apart from the press of men then he could take care of any Nye that sought him out. And Simon knew the Nye well enough to realize that they would seek him out; they would attack anyone who wasn't helpless.

They follow whoever carries Mithra.

Mithra?
Simon asked, cutting down one of the Nye that had tried to slip up behind him.

The golden Dragon's Fang,
Angeline responded.
It's the original sword, the sword of the Wanderer, and the Nye respect its authority.

Simon pondered that as he stepped further away from the soldiers, keeping one eye on Indirial's fight and one eye on the group of hostile Nye. Indirial seemed to be slowing down, and suddenly Simon realized why. Even if the Overlord could draw on the Nye essence longer than Simon himself could, there was still a limit. Each of Valinhall's powers only lasted for a certain amount of time. He was either trying to keep his use of essence to a minimum, to conserve it...or he was running out.

What if we take Valin's sword away?
he asked.

You know better than that,
Angeline said. She sounded disapproving.
That's not how Valinhall works. If you snatched it away from him, he would just summon it back. To keep it away from him for good, you would have to earn it.

Simon nodded, absent-mindedly knocking a Nye to the ground with Azura's hilt, then reversing the blade and skewering the black-robed figure into the ground.

Then he let Azura vanish, and he released Benson's steel.

This is not the right time for that, Simon,
Angeline said.
Also? Behind you.

Simon spun around and barely managed to catch the Eldest Nye's sleeves before they wrapped a chain around his neck.

"I was wondering where you were in all this," Simon said, trying not to let the strain show in his voice.
 

Oh, Maker,
he thought.
I forgot how hard it is to fight these things on my own.

With the strength of steel, one of the Nye was nothing. Without it, Simon wondered how he had ever managed to defeat one.

"I go where my leader is," the Eldest rasped. He snapped his arms to the sides, effortlessly breaking Simon's hold. Then he began to glide circles around Simon, who turned warily to keep him in sight.

"Why?" Simon asked. "What do you get out of this?" He had used this tactic before, with Malachi, but he found that people tended to enjoy talking about themselves. They enjoyed it so much, in fact, that they were often willing to talk until his powers were restored.

The Eldest spun his black chain idly, hands—as always—hidden by the enormous sleeves that draped down at the end of his arms. "I seek the restoration of Valinhall, son of Kalman. I will follow any who joins me on that quest."