Ghost in the Winds (Ghost Exile #9) (2 page)

Within Kalgri’s rage, Caina thought she saw a hint of fear. 

The valikon could kill Kalgri and destroy the Voice. It could also pierce Callatas’s wards and kill the Grand Master. Caina could end this entire conflict if she could just close with Kalgri.

She just could not manage to do it. 

Caina was too tired, her limbs too heavy. Kalgri was just as tired and hurt far worse, but she still had more experience than Caina, and she kept ahead of Caina’s blows. Any other time, Caina would not have lasted more than a few second against the Red Huntress. Only Kalgri’s wounds let Caina match her, but unless Caina landed a decisive hit, Kalgri would prevail sooner or later. 

Arcane power shone before her eyes. 

Callatas had almost finished his spell.

Caina recognized the shape of the spell, the threads of power weaving together to form a blast of psychokinetic force. Kalgri leaped to the side, leaving a clear line of sight from Callatas to Caina. The Grand Master thrust out his free hand, his tattered white robes blowing around him, and the spell erupted from his fingers. The vision of the valikarion meant that Caina could see it coming, and she attempted to dodge, but the spell was too fast. 

Invisible force slammed into Caina.

It felt as if she had run full speed into a brick wall. At Callatas’s full strength, the spell would have turned her bones to dust and her flesh to paste. As it was, the spell sent her stumbling backward, blood flying from her nose and mouth, her body throbbing with pain.

Kalgri was right on top of her.

Countless hours spent practicing the unarmed forms of combat had transformed them into reflexes for Caina, and that alone saved her life. She jerked back, just avoiding the points of Kalgri’s scimitar and dagger, and struck back. The valikon raked across the side of Kalgri’s left arm, drawing blood as the ghostsilver blade pulsed with white fire, and Kalgri threw back her head and screamed, the cords in her neck bulging. 

She surged forward, dropping her scimitar and dagger, and seized Caina by the wrists, forcing her arms to the side. 

“Take her!” shouted Callatas, his hoarse voice ringing over the hilltop. “Take her and bring me the Seal!” 

Caina stumbled, trying to pull her wrists from Kalgri’s grip, but could not wrench her arms loose. Even wounded, Kalgri was still stronger than Caina. The Huntress’s lips pulled back from her white teeth in a snarl, and Caina kicked, driving her boot into Kalgri’s right knee over and over again. On the third kick, she heard something crack, and Kalgri hissed with pain.

She responded by driving her forehead into Caina’s face.

Pain exploded through Caina’s head, and she felt her head snap back. In that instant of dazed pain, Kalgri swept her foot to the side, catching Caina in the ankles, and Caina lost her balance. She stumbled, and Kalgri shoved, knocking her to the bone-strewn ground. 

Caina hit the ground hard. She scrambled away, trying to raise the valikon up to strike, and Kalgri grabbed her wrist, trying to wrench the weapon from her grasp.

She and Kalgri wrestled over the ground, rolling over each other, trying to get control of the valikon. 

Caina felt herself losing. 

###

“Morgant?”

The voice was faint, distant, but familiar. It was so familiar that sometimes Morgant’s own thoughts spoke to him in that voice. 

“Morgant!” The woman’s voice filled with alarm. 

The eyes of Morgant the Razor, legendary master assassin and the finest painter in all of Istarinmul (or anywhere else, really), twitched open. 

He saw a pale pink sky overhead, which was odd. He should have seen the cracked ceiling of his dilapidated house in Istarinmul’s Cyrican Quarter. For that matter, it felt like he was lying on the rocky ground. That was peculiar. Maybe one of his efforts to enter the Inferno and free Annarah had gone awry…

“Morgant!” 

He remembered that voice…and with that memory came a jagged series of recollections.

“Oh, hell,” muttered Morgant.

They were in a lot of trouble. 

He sat up and looked around. 

Annarah knelt next to him, her silver hair in disarray, her face and her clothing smudged with soot and ashes. Her green eyes were bloodshot, and she bled from a cut on the right side of her jaw. Her pyrikon had returned to its bracelet form, the bronze metal aesthetically pleasing against the brown shade of her skin…

Morgant put aside the thought. He could think about painting later, once the Grand Master and a nagataaru-infested madwoman were no longer trying to kill them.

“You’re alive,” said Annarah. “I thought the explosion had killed you.”

“You know me,” said Morgant, getting to his feet. He only wobbled a little. “It takes more than a cataclysmic explosion and a deranged sorcerer to kill me. Lived through a few of those by now.”

He helped Annarah to stand. They were on the edge of the hill, Pyramid Isle spread out beneath them. Another few feet and Morgant would have rolled right over the edge, bouncing down the steep, rocky slope to his death. His broken corpse would have fit right in with the dead jungle. Likely the wave of necromantic power released by the destruction of the Conjurant Bloodcrystal had killed every living thing on the island. 

Kharnaces had been destroyed with his creation. Morgant was still alive, and so was Annarah. Had Callatas and Kalgri survived as well?

“Where’s Caina?” said Morgant.

“I don’t know,” said Annarah. “I just woke up myself. It…”

There was a loud cracking sound, followed by a rushing noise, a man’s voice echoing over the hilltop. Morgant had fought enough sorcerers to recognize the sound of a spell of psychokinetic force. That meant Callatas had survived, and if he was casting spells at someone, that meant Caina had survived.

Pity the explosion hadn’t killed Callatas. 

After two hundred years, Morgant knew that life was rarely so convenient. 

“Time for some fighting,” said Morgant, reaching for his weapons. He had sheathed them to help Caina carry that damned stone box up the stairs, which was just as well since they hadn’t been thrown free by the explosion. His crimson scimitar gleamed in his right hand, the blade sharp and keen and reinforced by spells.

The black dagger in his right hand, a red pearl glinting in its pommel, was more dangerous by far. 

Annarah nodded, and as she did, the bracelet unfolded itself from her wrist, expanding and lengthening. In a heartbeat it had transformed into a slender bronze staff, white light glimmering up and down its length. Morgant had seen both Annarah’s and Caina’s pyrikons transform a hundred times by now, but it was still a strange sight. 

They hurried in silence along the edge of the hilltop, moving past the pile of boulders that framed the entrance to the stairwell sinking into the depths of the Tomb. The bone-strewn crest of the hilltop came into sight, and Morgant was pleased to see that the explosion had destroyed all the undead creatures and lesser nagataaru that Kharnaces had called to his side. 

He was less pleased to see Caina and Kalgri lying on the ground, struggling for leverage. Even as he watched, Kalgri flipped Caina upon her back with enough force that the back of her head bounced off the ground. Caina flinched, and Kalgri laughed, snatching up a dagger from the ground and raising it for the kill.

Morgant hurried towards them, and several things happened at once.

“Beware!” shouted Callatas, turning towards Morgant as he raised his hands in the beginnings of a spell. 

Kalgri’s head snapped around, her eyes narrowing as she saw Morgant, and purple fire writhed in the depths of her gaze like a flame behind blue glass. 

Annarah leveled her staff and shouted something in the Iramisian tongue, and a bolt of scintillating white fire leaped from her pyrikon and sped across the hilltop. It slammed into Kalgri’s chest and hurled the Huntress off Caina. Kalgri hit the ground and bounced, staggering to her feet, fresh red burns marking the side of her face and neck. A strange mixture of rage and glee twisted her damaged face, her eyes glittering like blue knives. 

Morgant liked to think that his sanity had weathered the centuries at least somewhat better than hers. 

It occurred to him that she was battered and injured, that she was at the limits of her endurance. He would not want to fight the nagataaru-infested Red Huntress at her full strength, but in her weakened state, this was his best chance to kill her.

Then he could figure out how to deal with Callatas. 

Kalgri spread her arms, grinning at him. In her left hand, she held a leather pouch. In her right hand, she carried one of Caina’s throwing knives, gripping the weapon by the blade. She must have taken them while she wrestled with Caina, and Morgant realized that the pouch likely held the Seal of Iramis. 

That was bad. 

Caina was still moving, but she couldn’t seem to get up. She had taken a bad hit or two to the head. 

“Old man,” hissed Kalgri, the purple fire brightening in her eyes. “Come and get me. Let’s see if you can still perform.” 

“Whatever you’re charging,” said Morgant, “the price is still too high.” 

Kalgri let out that demented giggle of hers. Morgant glanced back, saw Annarah move to the side. As he did, Kalgri surged forward. Morgant turned to face her, wondering why she was doing that. Did she plan to throw the knife at him? He could easily dodge it, and…

Callatas shouted again, flinging out his hands. 

Invisible force slammed into Morgant, throwing him from his feet. He tucked his shoulder and rolled, springing back to his feet in a single fluid motion. As he did, Annarah cast another spell, hitting Kalgri with a burst of white fire. The Huntress screamed in pain again, the crackle of burning flesh audible even over her scream, but she did not fall. 

She stepped forward, arm snapping, and hurled the throwing knife at Annarah. Morgant heard the thud as the blade sank into the side of Annarah’s neck. She fell to her knees with a strangled scream, blood dripping from her lips.

Morgant cursed and started towards Annarah, and Callatas hit him with another pulse of invisible force. 

He hit the ground just as he saw Caina push herself to one knee, breathing hard. 

###

Callatas drew on more sorcerous power. White spots danced across his vision, and Pyramid Isle felt as if it had started to spin around him. Too much more effort and he would collapse, and Caina and that damned assassin and Annarah could stroll over and cut his throat.

The surge of emotion that went through him when Annarah fell with the knife jutting from her neck was a surprise. She had hindered his plans for a century and a half with her cleverness. If not for her, the Apotheosis could have been achieved decades ago. 

Yet she had been his favorite student.

No matter. To work the Apotheosis, to sweep away the old humanity and bring the new, he would have to kill Annarah.

He was going to kill far more people than her before this was over.

Kalgri sprinted towards Callatas, giggling as she ran, the pouch holding the Seal clutched in her fist. Calculations flashed through Callatas’s mind. Annarah was down, bleeding to death. Caina was still trying to rise. Morgant was down as well, but once he regained his feet, he would attack.

For a moment, Callatas considered attacking and killing them all.

Then Kalgri came to his side, and he ripped the pouch containing the Seal from her hand, taking the ring and sliding it upon his finger. 

At last he had all three pieces of the regalia once carried by the Princes of Iramis, and this time, there was no self-destructive compulsion upon his mind. If he tried to press the attack now, if he tried to kill the Balarigar and her allies, he might succeed…but in his weakened state it was just as likely that he would perish. 

Callatas dared not gamble with his own life, not when ultimate victory was just within his grasp.

Fortunately, he had a way to escape the island and kill with the troublesome Balarigar with a single stroke. 

“Hear me!” roared Callatas as he lifted his hand, the Seal glinting upon his finger. The ring’s stone glowed brighter as it projected his will over the island. “By the power of the Seal, I call you. By the power of the Seal, I bind you! By the power of the Seal, I compel you! Come forth to the hilltop and slay the Balarigar. Come now and kill all those with her!” 

Power surged through the Seal, and Callatas felt his mind expand, his will reaching out to touch the entire island. Hundreds of Kharnaces’s undead creatures and nagataaru servants had been destroyed atop the hill, but hundreds, perhaps even thousands more, remained on the island. They had been vassals of the Harbinger, the nagataaru lord possessing Kharnaces, but the Harbinger had been banished back to the netherworld. 

Callatas felt the tug as thousands of alien, malevolent minds responded to the Seal’s power. There were still lesser nagataaru upon Pyramid Isle, and if they had been able to do so, the ferocious spirits would have slain Callatas and devoured his life force. But he was stronger than them, and with the power of the Seal, they had no choice but to obey him and kill Caina. 

Callatas would be long gone by then. 

“What now, father?” said Kalgri, her voice a harsh rasp. The fire unleashed by Annarah’s Words of Lore must have damaged her throat. “Shall we finish them?” 

“No,” said Callatas, focusing his will upon the Staff.

The ancient relic answered his call, gray light glimmering along its length.

Kalgri gave him a sharp look.

“Stay here and fight if you wish,” said Callatas, slashing the Staff through the air in a vertical line. A curtain of gray mist rose from the ground, shaping itself into a gateway, and Callatas glimpsed the bleak gray plains of the netherworld through the gate. “I am returning to Istarinmul to begin the Apotheosis. Stay here and kill them, and then starve to death on this wretched island. Or come with me, and watch the old world and the old humanity die.”

Kalgri shivered, her blue eyes widening, and the lustful smile that spread over her burned and bloody face made her look savage and insane.