All Spell Breaks Loose

Chapter 11

Sarad Nukpana was the goblin king.

Sathrik Mal’Salin’s assassination had reduced our archvillain population by one. Sarad Nukpana had taken a crossbow bolt in the shoulder. That would slow a normal person down for a couple of days. Unfortunately for the population of the seven kingdoms, Nukpana wasn’t normal. I wasn’t even sure if he even qualified as a person anymore. Regardless, he had to slow down long enough to get that bolt dug out of his shoulder. Then maybe he might even spend an additional hour going through the motions of mourning his king.

We had no way of knowing for sure if the mortekal everyone was screaming about was Deidre. But Cyran’s scream told us that he’d seen his wife—and probably had seen her either captured or killed. As to why Deidre went for Sathrik first… it might have been as simple as take the target you know you can hit. Sarad Nukpana had made it easy for her. That didn’t explain how she’d been able to stick a bolt in Nukpana, or how he knew of her plans. All of that didn’t matter, at least not now.

Sathrik Mal’Salin hadn’t needed to tell us his evil master plan. By setting him up for an assassin’s bolt, Sarad Nukpana had told the world his intentions. He not only wanted to wipe out the Resistance, but the entire Mal’Salin dynasty. My mind reeled at the implications. With Sathrik dead, Nukpana would step in and take the king’s place with his mother, Sandrina Ghalfari, ruling and terrorizing at his side, ousting the Mal’Salins and creating a new ruling family dynasty. The Resistance would take the blame for the assassination. Sarad Nukpana would claim it was their fault the kingdom was in chaos on the eve of their triumph that was a thousand years in the making. The Resistance would be hunted down to the last man, woman, and child.

Execution Square was chaos, but right now, chaos was good.

The assassination had caused a virtual stampede, and no one paid any attention to anyone or anything other than themselves and getting the hell away from the square. We were going away from it as fast as our legs and need for concealment allowed. Tam knew ways through the city where we could pass unseen or at least the risk would be less.

We had to get to the temple, and we had to get there fast. Unfortunately, with Sathrik’s Resistance roundup being carried out in the city, Tam’s house was no longer safe. There might still be a chance that the Khrynsani hadn’t raided it yet. We had to warn them—and get Piaras, Talon, and Chigaru out of there. We would take them with us as far as the tunnels immediately beneath the temple. We’d go after the Saghred, and they would be safe until we returned.

If we returned.

We smelled the smoke from two blocks away.

The Resistance had worked to make Tam’s house look deserted.

It was definitely empty now.

Deidre may or may not have escaped after assassinating Sathrik; no one could have escaped this. Windows were knocked out, smoke as if from a recently extinguished or burnt-out fire was still smoldering.

The air stank of smoke—and magic.

Even without mine, I could sense that people had been fighting for their lives here and using every spell and blade in their arsenals. Fought and lost.

Tam and I lunged forward; Mychael and Kesyn Badru each grabbed an arm.

“You going off half-cocked isn’t going to help you or your boy get to the end of this night alive,” Badru told Tam. The old goblin took a flask out of a hidden pocket in his robes. “Let a professional stagger in there first.”

He pulled his hat down so that the brim hid at least half of his face, and then proceeded to stumble out of the bushes, muttering to himself and weaving his way down the edge of the street, occasionally stepping in the gutter and barely regaining his balance and blistering the air blue with a few choice—and highly creative—words, his voice again dropping to a drunken mutter.

He stopped and stood swaying in front of a royal edict tacked to a streetlamp post outside of Tam’s gates. We’d all seen and read it. It warned of imprisonment for defying the military curfew and defacing the signs they were written on.

Badru belched noisily and fumbled around inside his robes again.

This time he didn’t pull out a flask.

The old goblin proceeded to take a piss on the sign.

I think we all needed that. Defy authority and boost morale at the same time. It just went to show that wisdom didn’t always involve book learning. That was one gifted old man. It also proved that whoever had destroyed Tam’s house wasn’t there anymore. I’d never heard of a soldier who could have resisted taking the shot when a drunken citizen was taking a piss on a sign that basically ordered him not to piss on that sign.

The old goblin had established without a doubt that the coast was clear.

Not wanting to tempt Fate any more than we already had, we still kept to the shadows. Yeah, it was night, but anyone who might be watching was a goblin, and we weren’t in a mood to take chances.

Badru was coughing and waving his hand in front of his face. Dammit. I didn’t consider smoke from whatever fire was burning might keep us out. Though smoke or no smoke, I was going—

“Not smoke, girl,” Badru said. “Well, not entirely.”

“Navinem,” Tam spat.

“What?” Smelled like burnt tar to me.

“A drug.”

“It’s almost dissipated, but I wouldn’t suggest we go running in there yet.” Badru gestured to me and Mychael. “Though these two might benefit from a snoot full.”

I took an experimental sniff. “Of what?”

“The elven military occasionally uses navinem for some of their elite troops,” Mychael said, looking up at the second-floor windows. They looked empty and he knew that, but staying among the living meant staying on your toes. “Makes them feel impervious. It’s a powder, and can be swallowed, but when you want to use it on large numbers of goblins, heating it turns it into a gas.”

“Why would someone shoot Tam’s house full of ‘elf ego boost’?”

“Because it doesn’t boost goblins,” Imala said. “Exactly the opposite. Panic, terror, whatever you fear the most is what you’ll see with just some of the hallucinations; the rest are worse.”

Meaning Sarad Nukpana could have had the house surrounded, gassed, and could then stroll in and herd everyone inside out.

Everyone except the elves.

The only two elves in that house were Piaras—and Carnades Silvanus.

I felt the growl building in the back of my throat. I didn’t have magic, but I had knives. If Carnades had hurt Piaras, no spell, incantation, or curse would keep me from killing him.

“Tam and I will lead,” Mychael was saying. “We’ll do a room-to-room search. Quick, methodical, and safe.”

“Not safe for any Khrynsani bastards still inside,” I said.

Or an elven mirror mage.

Mychael’s smile was more like a baring of teeth. “No, not for them.” He turned to Tam. “Do you want me to go in first and see if it’s dissipated enough for—”

Tam answered by taking the lead.

The inside of the house hadn’t been in the best shape before; now it was completely demolished. It was apparent that magic had been used, the dark and nasty kind. Entire sections of walls were scorched black.

A flash of something pale appeared on the edge of my vision. I damned near jumped out of my boots and had a dagger quivering in each hand.

It was an outline of a man against a burnt section of wall. No blood, just a perfect outline of where the man was—and now wasn’t. The outline was too tall to be either Piaras or Talon.

“What the hell did that?” I breathed.

“He was Khrynsani,” Tam said. “Wearing full battle armor.” He indicated the broad reverse shadow showing the head. “Complete with helmet, probably equipped to filter out the navinem.”

Imala kicked at a mostly melted sword. It had been a broad, curved blade, about four feet long—until someone or something had turned it to melted steel in his hand. The outline of the man and sword was burned into the wall.

The sword was basically slag. The Khrynsani holding it had been vaporized.

“Any of your agents powerful enough to do something like that?” I asked Imala quietly.

“None that were here.”

Mychael’s hands glowed with restrained blue fire as he stepped forward to peer down the dark main hallway. “Carnades is.”

My second-worst enemy could be lurking in the shadows, watching us, tanked on elf ego boost. That was one ego—and power—that didn’t need boosting. If Carnades did that to a Khrynsani, what would he have done to Piaras?

What had been a massive iron chandelier in the ballroom ceiling was now a twisted pile of metal and shattered crystal on the ballroom floor. The ceiling where it had been now sported a hole almost as broad as the chandelier itself. There were people-sized holes in the walls, with some going all the way through into the next room. Others were body-shaped imprints in the plaster.

However, there were no bodies or people in sight.

A chunk of the chandelier shifted—and groaned.

Weapons came out, wards went up, and that moaning lump was immediately surrounded.

An arm fumbled its way clear of the rubble as a familiar head full of tousled brown curls emerged.

Piaras.

I reached him first. No one stood a chance of getting there before I did. He was pinned under four chandelier arms. He should have been crushed, but by some miracle he wasn’t.

“Ow.” Piaras blinked his eyes open and winced.

I tried to lift one of the iron arms; it didn’t budge. “Don’t try to move.”

Piaras snorted.

Snorted?

“Like I could,” he said.

Mychael and Tam lifted up one corner of the chandelier while Imala and I carefully dragged Piaras out.

“What happened, Cadet?” Mychael demanded.

“Ow.”

“Yes, I understand that part. Now what happened?”

“The son of a bitch dropped a chandelier on me.” Piaras shook his head to clear the broken crystal in his hair. “Oooh, bad idea.”

“Who?”

“Carnades.” Piaras gazed blearily around as Mychael and I helped him to his feet. His eyes found Tam and gave an apologetic grin. He indicated the nearby holes in the walls. “Sorry about the mess, sir.”

Tam blinked. “You did those?”

In response, Piaras gave him a lopsided grin. “Me and the son of a bitch.”

Mychael got a small chair that I swear was the only unbroken piece of furniture in the room and guided Piaras onto it.

“Thank you, sir,” Piaras said gratefully. “Carnades sold us out. Somebody had to pay him back.” He grinned again. “I’m somebody.” He nodded proudly toward the biggest hole in the wall. “And I did something.”

Mychael ignored everything that implied. “Where’s Carnades?”

“I don’t know, sir. The chandelier must have knocked me out.”

When it should have squashed and killed him.

Navinem.

“Piaras, look at me,” I said.

He did and I looked at his eyes. Piaras’s eyes were normally large and dark brown, but now his irises had opened to the maximum, but even direct light from Mychael’s lightglobe didn’t bother him.

Hell, it didn’t look like anything bothered him.

“Are you hurt?” Mychael asked.

Piaras quickly stood to show how completely non-injured he was. He smiled like a mischievous little boy. “Ready for more duty, sir. That was fun.”

Fun?

“I can see that.” Mychael gazed around. “Now, how did you end up throwing Carnades through a wall?”

Piaras told him, and I got angrier with every word.

Deidre had at least two traitors in her nest. With goblins’ love of intrigue and complex alliances, it’d have been a wonder if all of her people had been loyal to someone and something besides themselves and their purses. Unfortunately for us, one of Deidre’s traitors was one of Carnades’s guards. Ever the braggart, while Carnades had been hurling slabs of wall at Piaras, Carnades had told him that in exchange for his freedom, he’d told his guard that the all-powerful Raine Benares had been reduced to a magical null.

My stomach roiled at the news.

The Khrynsani had hacked their way through a few strategically placed boarded-up windows and thrown what were basically navinem grenades into the house. More Khrynsani followed with more grenades. The drug-laden smoke spread, leaving panic and then immobilizing despair in its wake. The masked Khrynsani barely broke a sweat rounding up the goblins of the Resistance.

“Talon and Nath? Where are my son and brother?” Tam’s face was stone, but his eyes promised murder.

“I didn’t see Nath,” Piaras said, “but Talon set fire to a pair of Khrynsani dragging Prince Chigaru out.”

Mychael and I exchanged a stunned glance. “Would that have been in the front hall?” I asked carefully.

“That’s the place. When Talon told them to drop the prince, they laughed at him.” Piaras gave a low whistle and shook his head. “That was a really big mistake. Then there was shouting, screaming, and a flash of bright light. Then I couldn’t watch anymore; Carnades was throwing chunks of wall at me.”

“It seems Talon is a little more elf than he appears,” Mychael noted.

“And a lot more talented,” I murmured.

“Since he’s only half-goblin,” Imala said, “the drug would also remove his inhibitions.”

Tam almost smiled. “Talon didn’t have any of those to begin with. Right now, I’m grateful for it.”

“Piaras, do you know where Talon and the prince went?” Imala asked. “Did they escape?”

“Sorry, ma’am. I was… occupied.”

Kesyn Badru sat in the chair Piaras had vacated and took a hit off of his flask. “So we’ve got your boy running around looking for trouble—”

“Nothing new there,” Imala said.

“And he may or may not have Prince Chigaru with him.” Badru turned to Mychael. “You think we need to search the house for this Carnades person?”

“To be on the safe side, yes,” Mychael said.

Piaras kicked at the chandelier. “If he was still here, wouldn’t he have made sure this thing had finished me off? And if it hadn’t, wouldn’t he have taken care of business himself?” He gave a half shrug. “I mean, it stands to reason.”

“Yes, Cadet, it stands to reason.” Mychael put a finger to his lips. I knew that gesture; he was keeping himself from smiling.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who found Piaras’s casual attitude about his own near death most un-Piaras-like. But unlike me, Mychael and even Tam found Piaras’s newfound badassness amusing.

Men.

Mychael saw my disapproving glance, but it only made him have to fight harder against that grin. “We’ll check the house just to be sure,” he told Piaras.

Piaras nodded in approval. “That would be prudent, sir. Should I check the basement or upstairs?”

“What you should do is sit down.”

Piaras opened his mouth to protest.

“That would be an order, Cadet Rivalin. If I know Carnades Silvanus, and I do, you’ll have other opportunities to settle your score.”

With a happy smile, Piaras plopped down on the floor, sitting cross-legged. “I’ll look forward to it, sir.”

“I’m sure you will,” Mychael muttered.

I followed Mychael out into the hall.

“How long will that navinem stuff last?” I asked.

“Depends on how much he inhaled. If he was exposed from the time the attack started until they left, it could be another whole day.”

I gave a low whistle. “That would be good.”

“That would be very good.”

“Though we can’t have him blasting his way into the temple.”

“No need to worry. Once we’re on the move, he’ll be all business.”

“The things Piaras did to Carnades,” I began uneasily. “He’s never done anything like that before. You said navinem makes elves feel impervious; you didn’t say anything about sprouting new talents.” That twist was way too close to what the Saghred had done to me for my comfort.

“Piaras is still young, just coming into this power,” Mychael explained. “One of the things navinem does for you is makes you willing to try things you’ve never done before. That or simply react on instinct—which is probably what happened with Piaras.”

“So Piaras and Carnades entertained themselves throwing each other through walls.”

“Looked that way.”

“If this stuff made Piaras feel all kick-ass, it did the same to Carnades.”

Mychael nodded, his blue eyes sparkling. “That’s precisely why I’m so impressed.”

“But Carnades is one of the most powerful mages—”

“In the top five percent.”

“That makes Piaras—”

“A diamond that won’t be in the rough for much longer.”