Fortress Draconis (8 page)

Big, bloody murals covered the walls and ceiling of the chamber. They coiled like rainbow vipers around stalactites and stalagmites. Nothing hung in the air, but the hideous and apocalyptic nature of the images would have clawed themselves free from the paintings were they not anchored to the walls. Men and elves, urZrethi, Gyrkyme, and other races, bestial and otherwise, fought in pitched battles against each other. Bodies and pieces thereof filled holes in the riot of combatants, with some later images being painted over earlier ones.

In the midst of all this violent chaos, one small section of wall had nothing on it but a human silhouette outlined in gold. Oracle drifted through the room toward it, then tucked her hands in the opposite sleeves of her robe and bowed her head. “This, I believe, is your part in it. Yours is the face meant to be painted here. We do not know for certain if you are the one we seek or, as Resolute allowed, only a link to that person. Determining if you are or not could be dangerous, very dangerous.”

Will glanced back at where Resolute filled the only exit to the chamber. “I have no choice in the matter?”

Oracle’s head came up, her face expressionless. “You have choices, always. If this is your destiny, then the next step is crucial.”

“And if not?”

“Then your destiny is unknown to me, but I wish you well with it.” She closed her eyes. “It would be best if you were not compelled.”

Resolute cracked his knuckles.

Will sighed, mostly because that was the easiest defense against the shiver running up his spine. The magick in the place intrigued and scared him, but wonder washed over the top of his fear. The fact that Oracle, blind as she was, had been capable of doing all she had impressed him, because the only blind he knew were beggars. Beggars were as rats to wolves when measured against thieves, but Oracle would have astounded even the greatest thief Will knew.

Still, the fear lurked there. “I will ask you my question, Oracle. I know what Resolute will answer, since, for him, my death is never far away. What you will do is learn if I am the one you want, right? And this is going to be deadly dangerous?”

She smiled slowly. “Only if you are the one we seek. But if you are, we will do all we can to save you.”

No sigh came to quell the shiver this time. Will turned to look at Resolute. “If I am not, I’m not leaving this place, am I? You didn’t trust Amends. You can’t trust me.”

The large Vorquelf folded his arms over his chest and shrugged. “Spending the rest of your life here would be better than in the slums of Yslin.”

However long you’d let me live.Will wanted to feel angry or scared at the prospect of being trapped here or slain, but he could not. Just as he knew the leaf had wanted him to carry it away, somehow he knew his place was here. That almost made him laugh. Every orphan Marcus had taken in harbored the same fantasy. Someday someone would come and reveal to them who they really were, would show them to their rightful place in the world. For him it had been his mother who would have escaped the fire, survived and become Vionna, the pirate queen, with the Azure Spider as her consort.

Now I have what we all wished for, but it doesn’t come free.The way Resolute watched him told Will that the

Vorquelf expected him to try to run. Will put his chances at being able to escape the Vork as small, but part of him wanted to try anyway.

Another part of him, a larger part, balked. There was something in the way Oracle had said they would do all they could to save him that told him how important he was to them.If I am not the one they want, I would be a link in the chain. Suddenly he found for himself the theme of the saga of Will the Nimble. His story would be one of exploits strung like pearls, and now he had a string. He would help restore Vorquellyn—wherever that was—and he knew he would do it because everyone else had failed for a very long time.

He nodded and exhaled slowly. “What do we have to do?”

Relief painted a smile on Oracle’s face. “Come over here and stand in this basin, Wilburforce.”

Will complied as Resolute exited the chamber. The youth found an iron ring had been half-sunk into the center of a shallow depression in the rock, which was ten feet in diameter. Around the rim had been painted an uneven red line. He toed the rusty ring and found it both heavy and solidly affixed to the ground.

An angry bleat and the clicking of goat’s-hooves on the stone brought him around. Resolute reentered the room and stepped aside as Crow led a goat at the end of a stout length of chain into the chamber. The two warriors exchanged silent glances, then Crow smiled.

“I had no doubt Will would agree. I thought I would save time.” Crow led the goat over to the depression, then fastened its chain to the ring, leaving it six feet of play. The creature seemed docile enough, coming over to sniff at Will, then gently butting him.

Oracle entered the depression and the goat came to her. She stroked its neck, then brushed a thumb over its forehead. The Vorquelf drew a slender poniard and slashed a little cut above and between the goat’s eyes. The creature bleated and jumped back to the length of its chain, with blood welling in the wound. Its hooves scrabbled against the smooth stone, but gained little purchase, and the goat went down.

“Give me your left hand, your heart hand, Wilburforce.”

He complied and felt the sting of the blade being dragged over his palm.

Oracle pointed to the goat as it rose unsteadily to its feet. “We need to forge a link between you and it. Place your wound against its, let the blood comingle. Go, do it, there is little time to lose.”

Will trailed his right hand over the chain and closed with the goat. By the time he got to it and laid his hand on its forehead, Crow and Oracle had cleared the depression. Oracle and Resolute, standing together at circle’s edge, held hands and Resolute’s tattoos began to glow with a vibrant purple hue. A quarter circle away, Crow had strung a small horse-bow made of a silver-blond wood, and had nocked an arrow with a wide razored broadhead that had been washed in silver.

Will swallowed hard. “I’m ready.”

Crow winked. “You’ll do fine.”

Resolute’s argent eyes narrowed. “I think he will. I think we will succeed. The question is, how much will they make us pay for that success?”

Then Oracle began to speak.

The words trickled sibilant and lyrical from Oracle’s mouth. Some would ring high and clear, like the peal of a crystal bell, while others would rumble cart-heavy through a cobblestone street. Each word spilled into the air and seemed to hang there. Will thought he caught glimpses of them, illuminated in the glow of Resolute’s tattoos.

As the sounds floated in the air, they linked themselves into chains. Echoes reinforced them and drew them in, further, surrounding Will and the goat. The youth kept his hand pressed against the creature’s forehead, ignoring the warm wetness that connected them. His hand tingled, as if the echoes of words had funneled down into the wound and through it into the goat.

Oracle’s words began to speed up, building in intensity, too. The rhythm solidified, making sounds pulse with power. Will could feel the air tighten, grow into the hard-edged sensation of crisp winter nights. Something in it cut at him, drawing no blood but taking something of him with it anyway.

The goat suddenly twisted away from Will, severing their contact. Will spilled onto his buttocks and started scuttling away from the creature as it reared up on its hind hooves, feet scrambling for purchase. The chain pulled taut and the goat slipped, crashing down hard onto its side. It writhed there, its bleating becoming more urgent and shrill, then tightening down into a hideous croaking.

A rippling series of pops shook the creature. Its spine straightened, amplifying the twitching of the legs. Its muzzle shortened as the face flattened into something vaguely human. The hooves lengthened on the forelegs, becoming two fingers that grasped the chain tightly. The pelvis shifted and the legs became more human in construction.

Worse than the physical changes was the creature’s scent. The goat had not smelled particularly sweet, but the wretched miasma drifting out from it now choked Will. In it he caught hints of meat many days green and his flesh began to crawl as if maggots were burrowing beneath it.

The creature shook one last time, violently, then promptly scrabbled up into a squat with the chain tugged into a straight line. A purple light blazed in its eyes, and those eyes twitched, slowly focusing. Black lips peeled back from teeth that had taken on the jagged serrations of a carnivore’s bite.

The goat-thing looked left and right, then bowed its horned head toward Will. “Old friends I see, but I know not thee. Pray thee, tell me, who would you be?” The voice came softly, but full of ridicule and with an annoying hiss.

Will pulled himself into a crouch and jammed his cut palm against his thigh. “I’m Will.”

“Will, Will, one more to kill.” The beast cocked its head and looked at him sidelong. “He comes not without anticipation, this bastard who will save a nation.”

The youth shifted his shoulders as a shiver ran up his spine. “What are you?”

“Nefrai-laysh, at your beck and call.” The goat-man sketched a little bow. “I serve she who commands them all.”

“You’re a Dark Lancer!”

“That much is clear, but not why I’m here.” Thesullanciri pointed at Crow, Resolute, and Oracle in turn. “Beware these three, my little Will. They mean you harm, they mean you ill. A key to a lock is what they see, when they stop and look at thee.”

“He’s lying to you, Will. It’s his way now.” Crow took a step to the edge of the depression, his bow still at the ready. “He can’t be trusted.”

“Is this the pot calling the kettle black, you who stuck the knife in my back?” The beast’s eyes narrowed as it reached out and pinched a link of the chain, severing it. “I’ve never forgotten, never will. When the time comes, you’re mine to kill. I won’t forget, though the time’s not yet. Still, for you, something fun to do!”

Nefrai-laysh reached back with its right hand and inscribed an oval in the air, as high as the crouching beast could reach and as wide as a man’s shoulders. A thin purple line glowed in the air in his talon’s wake, then the beast jammed an elbow sharply back into the heart of the oval. The reality within it shattered as might have a looking glass, leaving a black hole hovering in the air.

Before the beast had a chance to leap into that hole, Crow’s arrow split its breastbone and pinned its heart to its spine. At the same time three creatures came boiling out of the hole. The two larger ones—their humanoid bodies covered with mottled fur—emerged with longknives drawn. They dove straight at Crow and Resolute. The third, a bit smaller and covered with brown fur, emerged from the hole and leaped at Will.

The nasty little poniard in its right hand had been raised for a killing thrust.

Without thinking, Will rolled onto his back, then kicked out with both feet, catching the creature full in the chest. Ribs cracked and the creature flew backward. It crashed down hard, but bounced up quickly. It flexed its hand, unsheathing claws even before it had regained its balance. It snarled and stumbled back a step, trying to get its feet beneath it.

Then it slipped on the chain.

Links rattled as they shot out from beneath its feet. The creature started to fall and reached out to steady itself, but missed the grab at the edge of the hole. At least, that was what Will thought had happened—but this was before he could see that the creature’s thumb had started to fall on the cave side of the hole.

The hole’s edge caught the creature midway between shoulder and hip, slicing up into its chest with the ease of a willow-whip slashing through air. The upper half of its torso, severed cleanly, disappeared into the hole while the lower half thrashed its legs, spraying blood and a twisted cord of guts into the depression.

To his right, Crow sidestepped a longknife thrust, then grabbed his attacker’s wrist and twisted, locking the arm. Crow’s left arm came down, cracking the silverwood bow on the joint. The elbow snapped wetly under the assault. Crow flung the howling creature aside and, in one fluid motion, bent and scooped up the longknife. He gutted his foe as it straightened up.

Oracle had reeled away from the creature rushing at Resolute. The tall Vorquelf drew a longknife with his right hand and parried the lunge coming at his belly. Then he struck lightning-fast with his left hand, slamming a fist into the creature’s throat. It gurgled and stumbled back, raising a hand to its crushed windpipe. Batting aside a weak slash, Resolute stabbed down with his longknife, sinking the blade deep between shoulder and throat. Blood spurted when he wrenched it free, and the creature collapsed.

Will had just started to turn and look at the portal when a heavy weight landed on him. The goat-thing straddled him, grabbing handfuls of his tunic, pulling his chest upright while its body trapped his thighs against the ground. It shoved its muzzle forward until they were nose to nose, and blood dripped from its mouth onto his face.

“Will, my Will, remember if you can, come after me, you’ll die not yet a man.” Blood sprayed with each word, flecking Will’s face. “Pain is all you’ll know, all you deserve, unless from this path you swerve. Come with me now, come and serve….”

“Not for all the sorrow in the Dimandowns!” Will snapped off the arrow in the creature’s chest and stabbed the broken end through its neck. The beast reared back, one hand raised to its throat, mouth working, but words just bubbling red. It raised a forelimb to strike him, but before the blow could fall, Resolute kicked the creature in the face, spilling it back off Will.

The youth crawled back behind Resolute’s legs and peered out at the goat-thing. It lay there, at the feet half of the other creature, its coat turning black and melting away. The overwhelming stench of rotten meat accompanied the effervescent decay of its flesh, leaving white bones rising from a black puddle like the skeleton of a ship beached on black sand.

A flicker of purple light leaped from the empty eye sockets and shot through the portal. The opening closed down tight, into a tiny dot, which then fell with a splash into the fetid puddle. The fluid boiled furiously for a second, then drained away through sharp cracks in what had previously been the depression’s smooth bowl.