War of Shadows (52 page)

A soldier launched himself at Blaine, eyes narrowed with resolve. “We won’t die easily,” he muttered, coming at Blaine with a wild series of strikes and thrusts born of desperation. Blaine was certain that it was his battle magic that saved him, enabling him to anticipate the enemy’s blows just an instant before the motion was made. He gave himself over to it, knowing the price, too weary to turn any boon away.

After a few rounds, the soldier’s frantic press slowed, and Blaine held back, awaiting the next salvo, attuned to the heightened sense that saw the strike before it came. A heartbeat before
the attacker lunged to the left, Blaine thrust forward, inside the man’s guard, a blow that ripped his gut from side to side and spilled his entrails onto the ground. The soldier dropped his sword, pressing the edges of his opened belly together in vain, and as he sank to the ground, Blaine’s sword swung again, severing the man’s head from his neck.

Kestel and Piran had made short work of their attackers, while Geir had returned to the night sky, swooping down time and again to claw the throat from an unsuspecting soldier or snap a brittle neck. Shouts of panic echoed in the darkness, and Rostivan’s terrified men ran, duty forgotten.

A victory cry rose from the direction of Rinka Solveig’s troops. Blaine turned toward the commotion in time to see Rinka lift Torinth Rostivan’s head on a pike, holding it over her head while fresh blood streamed down the wooden pole, and a spray of crimson showered her in gore.

Blaine and Kestel pressed forward toward a small redoubt in the rear made of hastily dug dirt mounds. “That’s the mages,” he said to the others. “I’m certain. If Quintrel’s to be found, he’ll be there.”

“Then let’s get the bastard,” Kestel said, brandishing her swords.

They fought their way toward the mage’s shelter, defending themselves against panicked soldiers already resigned to losing the battle. Blaine searched the fray for Niklas, finally spotting him surrounded by soldiers, who stepped aside when he and Kestel and Piran shouldered their way to the group.

Niklas managed a tired, lopsided grin. “Glad you could join us,” he said. Three
talishte
stood with Niklas, clad in the uniform of the Knights of Esthrane. “You’ve got good timing. We’re just about to storm the mages.”

“I’m glad I didn’t miss the party,” Blaine said. Kestel gave
him a worried look but did not comment. He could guess what she wanted to say, and shared her concern. There was a very real chance that putting himself in the thick of the magic could kill him, despite the amulet’s protection. But he knew that he could not live with himself if he did not make the attempt.

“What’s the plan?” he asked.

Niklas nodded toward the earthworks redoubt. “Jascha and Serg have been holding a damper on Quintrel’s magic, while Gav strikes randomly, poking through with his magic to see where the weak points are.” He shrugged. “From time to time, they switch roles.”

“How’s it working?” Piran asked, eyeing the redoubt with suspicion.

“We haven’t been incinerated,” Niklas replied blandly. “So I’d say offhand, pretty well.” He grimaced. “On the other hand, we haven’t broken them, either.”

“Quintrel is sending most of the magic himself,” Gav said, never taking his gaze from the redoubt. “I recognize the signature of his power.”

“Is he alone? Surely he had other mages with him,” Kestel asked, peering through the darkness for a glimpse.

Gav frowned. “There are others present but not active… what I can read is limited by the shielding, but I’d say they were injured.”

Blaine narrowed his gaze, squinting to see. In the torchlight, it looked as if the dirt mounds had been scorched with fire and pockmarked with the impact of large, heavy objects. Yet the entire area seemed to be wreathed in a light mist, and Blaine could feel the magic of Quintrel’s protections like a buzzing in his ears.

“One man can’t be impossible to beat,” he muttered.

“One man wouldn’t be,” Gav replied. “But Quintrel is no longer exactly human.”

“The
divi
?” Blaine remembered the creature that had confronted Tormod Solveig on the battlefield, the monster that had stepped through a rift in the sky as if it were opening a door.
Thank the gods I didn’t know what it was really like, or I might not have had the balls to throw myself in front of it
.

Gav nodded. “Quintrel’s drawing on its magic, because no mortal should have been able to hold out against us this long.”

“Won’t it consume him, using that kind of power for so long?” Kestel asked.

Gav’s expression was grave. “Oh yes, eventually. But Quintrel’s already past the point of no return. Once a man commits himself to a
divi
, there’s no turning back, even if he wanted to. The
divi
controls him, and for as long as he serves the
divi
’s needs, he’ll continue to survive, as a useful tool.”

Gav met Blaine’s gaze. “It’s the
divi
we’re really fighting. Quintrel, as a mortal man, stopped existing quite a while ago, I would guess.”

Blaine remembered the mages who had trusted Quintrel to protect them from the Great Fire, and Carensa, who had looked to Quintrel as a mentor and savior.
He’s betrayed all of them
, Blaine thought, his anger flaring.
They depended on him, believed in him, and he sold them out to the
divi.

“What about the other mages?” Blaine asked. “Can you tell what injured—or killed—them?”

Anger glinted in Gav’s eyes. “We haven’t broken through his warding, so my guess is that whatever happened, Quintrel did it himself.”

“Why?” Kestel demanded.

“Because someone betrayed him,” Niklas replied. “I don’t
think the Lysander mercs ran for the hills on their own accord. I don’t think the ghosts brought their message about the
divi
to Tormod without being sent by someone. Someone Quintrel trusted didn’t trust him back.”

One possibility presented itself in Blaine’s mind, and he shied away from it, unwilling to even consider the thought.
There’s no way Carensa would have agreed to be a battle mage
, he thought. But he knew, even as he framed the thought, that she might have had no say in the matter. The likelihood made Gav’s suspicion about the mages’ fate all the more chilling.

“So how do we get in?” Piran asked, clearly tired of waiting.

“That’s where I come in.” Tormod Solveig looked like the Soul Reaper. His black leather armor was spattered with gore. His face was haggard, but his eyes blazed with purpose. Here and there on his armor, Blaine thought he saw the faint glow of runes and sigils, pulsing with inner fire and then going dark, only to appear elsewhere on the smooth black surface of the hardened leather.

“Rinka and Voss have the fighting well in hand,” he reported. “I figured I’d be the most help here.” He turned his attention toward the dirt mound and its warding. “Interesting,” he murmured. “That’s
divi
magic.”

“Which is why Quintrel’s still in there, and we’re out here,” Niklas replied ill-humoredly.

Tormod looked thoughtful. “Difficult, but not impossible.” He looked to the others. “I think I know how to beat this,” he said, a cold smile touching the corners of his lips, “but it’s going to take all of us working together.”

Half a candlemark later, everything was ready. Despite Tormod’s warning and Niklas’s urging, Blaine refused to leave, regardless of the effect the magic might have on him. Kestel
had not tried to persuade him to retreat, but he could see the worry in her eyes.

Piran looked ready for a fight. “Never did like Quintrel, from the time we laid eyes on him,” he muttered.

Tormod Solveig, Gav and the mages, and the three Knights of Esthrane took up positions at the four quarters around the redoubt. Niklas and twenty of his best soldiers formed a circle behind the mages, and Blaine, Piran, and Kestel stood back, watching and waiting. Blaine gripped his protective amulet, and Kestel laid a hand on his arm, supporting him with the null-magic charm she wore.

“Now!” Gav cried.

The air within the circle felt thick and heavy, like just before a storm. Blaine felt power coalescing around them, coursing through them, as if it descended from the sky and flowed upward from the depths. The magic-diverting amulet was protecting him, but even it had its limits, and fighting Quintrel might push it past its abilities. He gasped, but waved off any assistance from Piran. Kestel kept her distance from the mages, careful of her null charm.

The glowing thread that was Blaine’s
kruvgaldur
link to Penhallow grew brighter, a supernatural lifeline linked to his blood. Blaine clung to the
kruvgaldur
bond, holding tight to ride out the magic that was brewing around him.

Power crackled from the upraised hands of the four mages, meeting with a sickly greenish glow as their magic and Quintrel’s wardings collided. Tormod was chanting quietly, but although Blaine could not make out the words, the incantation sent a chill down his spine.

“The fog. It’s back.” Kestel’s uneasiness was clear in her voice. Blaine glanced down and saw that the white mist was
roiling around them, sweeping toward Tormod as if called to its master. The mist murmured like distant voices, and where it skimmed past Blaine’s bare skin, it felt as if he was touched by grave-cold flesh.

The fog rushed toward Tormod until it enveloped him, swallowing him up in its cloud. Then it rolled left and right, encircling the redoubt, a wall of fog as high as a man’s shoulders, gradually taking the ghostly shape of men.

Blaine felt a shift in the magic, and he had to struggle for a moment to catch his breath. Surrounded by the mist figures, Tormod’s power and the power of the Knights of Esthrane had grown stronger. The blue-white energy that assaulted the redoubt’s wardings and the green glow that countered it vied with growing tension, crackling and sparking like a lightning storm.

Tormod gave a sudden cry in a strange language, and the mages sent a pulse of blinding golden light at the green warding. Gav and the Knights added their power to his, and at the same time, the fog surged forward, straining against the green warding, unaffected by its snapping and spitting energy.

The green warding burst, shooting a spire of light upward, lighting the area bright as day. It struck Quintrel’s redoubt, throwing dirt high into the air and collapsing one side of the earthen structure, which opened part of its roof to the sky. Tormod threw open his arms, and shouted a declaration, and the light vanished. Blaine felt the magic strain against his deflection amulet, and he clenched his teeth to keep from crying out or staggering.

A lone figure climbed to the top of the earthen wall. It was Vigus Quintrel, but his appearance was so altered that at first Blaine did not recognize him. Just in the months since Blaine and his friends had left Valshoa, Quintrel looked as if he had aged decades. His clothing was ripped and bloodstained and
his eyes were bright with madness. Quintrel’s features twisted in a snarl. Around his neck, gleaming brilliantly against the darkness, was a small glass orb on a strap that pulsed with the rhythm of a heartbeat, his link with the
divi
. Clutched in one hand was a larger, more brightly glowing orb with a mummified, withered hand—the
divi
’s anchor relic.

“I will not surrender!” Quintrel shouted, and he sent a barrage of lightning against all those gathered below. A circle of light flared from where Gav and the mages stood, strengthened by the spirits who had come to join them. The circle trapped the burst of power, and its energy sizzled and snapped as the two opposing magics warred against each other. Blaine’s head throbbed, but the deflection amulet held.

Quintrel gave a howl of rage, descending closer, close enough that Blaine knew he could reach Quintrel in a few running steps.

Not yet
, he told himself, itching for the opportunity.
Not until the magic settles, or I’ll never make it to Quintrel. But soon…

Quintrel snapped his right arm forward, palm out, blasting energy toward the Knights of Esthrane. The warding wavered, rippling in a translucent curtain of light that reminded Blaine of the Spirit Lights of Edgeland. Blaine feared the warding would break, but the protective curtain surged back to its former strength.

“Look at his orb,” Kestel hissed. She and Piran had followed Blaine and stood just behind him.

Blaine stared at the rapidly pulsing light trapped in the large crystal globe. Just staring at the crimson light make the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Even the magic-diverting amulet could not completely shield him from the power the
divi
exuded, energy that triggered every primal warning deep in his brain, screaming for him to flee.

“Vigus Quintrel, you have lost. Surrender,” Niklas shouted.

Quintrel loosed a wave of fire in response, but the warding held, dissipating the wild energy as soon as it struck the shielding.

Quintrel staggered, stumbling a few more steps down the wall of the embankment, stopping just beyond the ghost mist. His entire form trembled, and his face twisted in excruciating pain and unrelenting rage. Quintrel raised his hands for one final salvo, and his entire body glowed, suffused with the
divi
’s energy. He sent a new fiery torrent, even stronger than the last, drawing on the
divi
’s magic along with his own.

The fire burned blue white, hot enough that it broke through the shielding of the mages at the forefront of Solveig’s line, incinerating them where they stood. Both the larger orb and the small orb glowed with a blinding blood-red light. Blaine glimpsed a visage in the light, something that was not human and never had been.

Tormod, the Knights, and the remaining mages held their position. Strain was clear in their faces, and sweat ran down Tormod’s brow. Quintrel alone would have been no match for the power arrayed against him, but the
divi
made it an unequal fight.

“If we could just break Quintrel’s concentration, I think Tormod and the other mages could take him,” Kestel said. Between her amulet and Blaine’s, they held off enough of the power to keep Blaine conscious and functioning, although his head ached enough to blur his vision. They edged as close as they dared, nearing the front line off to one side, away from the full blast of the magical onslaught.