All Spell Breaks Loose

Chapter 14

Kesyn’s plan would either get us into the Khrynsani temple, or be an incredibly messy way to get ourselves killed.

Pretty much every ritual the Khrynsani conducted began and ended with some poor sot taking a dagger through the heart. That made for a lot of dead bodies. For the past thousand years, the Saghred hadn’t been around to clean up after them, so the Khrynsani had to do their own housekeeping.

Like Magh’Sceadu, sea dragons didn’t leave leftovers.

Just south of Regor’s harbor was a sheer cliff. I didn’t know how high it was because I couldn’t see the top from where we stood at the base of the thing. The six of us were on a stretch of rocky beach that was just big enough for us to stand on without getting wet. The height of the cliff didn’t matter because our destination was an opening about twenty feet over our heads. There were enough hand- and footholds that we could reach it. At high tide, the sea water could reach it, too. But our concern wasn’t that we’d get caught in a flooded tunnel at high tide. We were worried about getting caught by what lived in the cave and lake at the end of those tunnels.

A sea dragon. Definitely one, possibly more; serving the dual purpose of Khrynsani sentinel and undertaker. According to Kesyn, occasionally the Khrynsani would bypass their corpse-consuming sentinel and throw their dead out of the tunnel and into the sea. The tide would come in and take the bodies out. I’d noticed that a lot of the rock and gravel we were standing on was white and shaped suspiciously like bits of ground-up bone. I was making every effort not to notice it again.

I didn’t know about Piaras, but I felt like I was just along for the ride. If all spell broke loose, at least he had something to contribute. I felt about as worthless as tits on a bull, and I didn’t even have any navinem to fool me into thinking otherwise.

I needed to be worthwhile. I needed to know I was going to do something to help.

Tam, Imala, and Kesyn were climbing up to the cave entrance. Piaras would go next, followed by me and Mychael. I hadn’t moved in front of Mychael yet to get ready to climb. He was looking up at Kesyn, marking his progress, waiting until the old goblin was at least halfway up before having Piaras start his climb.

I laid my hand on Mychael’s shoulder, and stood on tiptoe, my lips next to his ear. “Mychael, I want to carry the Scythe of Nen into the temple. I need to be the one to use it.”

He half turned. “We decided that I—”

“No, you decided that you’d stab the Saghred; I never agreed. For all we know, I might have to be the one to stab it. We can’t afford to take any chances.” I didn’t think Piaras could hear me, but I still lowered my voice, my words coming fast. “I’m the one the rock latched onto. I’m the one who’s had that thing sharing my head, giving me nightmares while I try to sleep, and taking me over to kill people during the day.”

“Raine, for the last time, if you hadn’t killed those firemages, none of us would be standing here right now. You saved us and hundreds of others. Killing on a battlefield isn’t murder; and make no mistake, that street was a battlefield that day.”

“Soldiers don’t enjoy the killing. I did.”

“Raine, that wasn’t—”

I cut him off. “We can argue later. What it boils down to is that the Saghred chose me as its bond slave. Let’s call it what it is. I’m not a servant; I’m a slave. It’s used me, and because of me, people I love have been in mortal danger.” My next words came through clenched teeth. “I’ve earned the right to destroy that rock.”

“Raine, you don’t have any magic, no shields, no—”

“I could have Justinius Valerian’s shields against that rock and it wouldn’t do me any good, and you know it. I’ll be there with you in a Khrynsani cloak when you’re glamoured as Sarad Nukpana.” I took a breath and blew it out. “Mychael, please. I need to do this. I need to cut my own chains and free myself.”

Mychael’s eyes were on mine, searching, appraising. Without looking away from me, he reached into a pouch he carried on his belt and took out the Scythe of Nen. He expertly flipped the curved, silver dagger in his hand so that the pommel extended toward me.

I realized that I’d been holding my breath. I reached out and closed my hand around the grip. “Thank you,” I said simply.

He closed his big hand over mine. “Remember, we do this together,” he whispered. “If you need to be the one to use the Scythe…” He paused and squeezed my hand. “I need to be the one to be with you. That’s a deal I won’t let you talk me out of.”

I gave him a little smile, and stood on tiptoe again, kissing him gently. “I wasn’t going to try.”

We got into the tunnel without incident, and without finding ourselves face-to-face with a sea dragon welcoming committee.

We moved fast and kept quiet. Kesyn was in the lead and Tam brought up the rear. Once we got closer to the dungeons, Tam and Imala would move to the front. Piaras had conjured a lightglobe, but kept it as dim as he could. Sea dragons hunted mainly by sight, but just because hearing wasn’t top on their list didn’t mean we wanted to trip over something and announce our arrival.

Kesyn stopped, and because of the narrow tunnel, the rest of us had to do the same. Air was moving somewhere up ahead. Piaras directed the lightglobe’s glow toward the ceiling. About ten paces ahead was a hole that apparently led to another chamber or tunnel. The source of the air coming down through that hole wasn’t fresh: stagnant water and the unmistakable sickly sweetness of decaying flesh. We had to be near the lake Kesyn had told us about. Air wasn’t the only thing that was moving. Now that we’d stopped walking, I clearly heard water. Not the endless dripping we’d heard since we came into the tunnel, but waves slamming into rock. Only one thing could push water around with that much violence.

Something that felt like an explosion shook the floor, walls, and ceiling, pelting us with falling rock and dust. Something pounded the wall to our right, and a stench like nothing I’d ever smelled before came through the opening above us.

The stench roared, an enraged roar.

The dragon.

It sounded big. Not just big. Huge.

A voice rang out in challenge, so loud it sounded like it was in the tunnel with us. I shot a look back at Piaras. His eyes were wide and his mouth was shut. Then who was—

The voice called out again. The words were Goblin, the tone imperious, like it expected that dragon to obey.

Oh, freaking hell.

Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin.

I stood there for a few dumbfounded seconds trying to figure out what Chigaru was doing in a cave with a sea dragon. Did he annoy the Khrynsani so much that they chucked him down here?

“You know these caves,” Imala snapped at Kesyn. “How do we get out there?”

“Out there?” I thought the old goblin’s eyes were going to bug out of his head.

“Prince Chigaru’s safety is my responsibility,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’ve fought for years to keep him alive, and I’m not losing him to an overgrown lizard. I’m saving him.”

From himself.

Imala’s words came in a cool rush. “Kesyn, if Chigaru dies, we have no one to replace Nukpana. The old-blood families will slaughter each other to get to the throne. It’ll be a civil war bloodbath.”

Tam jerked his head at the ceiling. “Mychael, boost me up there.”

I was incredulous. “You’re going to stick your head through a hole into a dragon’s lair?”

Mychael made a stirrup with his armored hands and boosted Tam the extra foot he needed to see into the lair. Tam took a look and immediately popped back down.

“Sea dragons,” he said. “Adults.”

“Plural?” Piaras asked.

“You got it,” Tam confirmed. “Two, possibly more. We need to move. From what I saw, Chigaru only has a sword; he isn’t going to last long.”

“Follow me,” Kesyn growled. “One way to die isn’t enough for you. No, you have to have more.”

The roars became louder and even more pissed, if that was possible. Apparently Prince Chigaru didn’t limit his high-bred obnoxiousness to people; he was an equal opportunity offender. I completely understood why the dragons would want to bite his head off.

The tunnels distorted the roar’s echo and I had no clue which direction it was coming from. Kesyn seemed to know exactly where he was going, even though he was going there under extreme—and continuous verbal—protest.

“I don’t want a king who’s too stupid not to pick fights with sea dragons,” he snapped.

“If he gets eaten, we’ll have a worse problem,” Imala shot back.

The roaring stopped. Chigaru’s yelling stopped, and so did Kesyn and Imala’s bickering.

“Shit!” Imala hissed softly.

The beast obligingly roared again. Now it was Kesyn’s turn to swear. His string of good old Goblin profanity was a lot more colorful and descriptive.

“Sounds like The Pools, the deepest part of the tunnels,” he said.

We ran toward the roars. If the sea dragons didn’t kill Chigaru first, the noise would bring every Khrynsani that the dragons’ roar and Chigaru’s yelling hadn’t already alerted. Mychael stopped and I plowed into him from behind. Only his size kept us both from ending up in a heap on the floor.

I saw what had stopped him. We were at an intersection. Five tunnels radiated out from where we were. Piaras increased the globe’s glow. Two of the tunnels went down; the other three sloped upward. That meant nothing. The tunnels were natural, not man-made. Just because they went downhill now didn’t mean down was their ultimate direction.

“Which one?” Imala asked urgently.

Kesyn pointed. “It’s either that one or that one.” He was pointing in opposite directions. “The others go up. Eventually.”

Tam went over to the entrance to one of the tunnels Kesyn said led down to The Pools. He took a deep breath, and repeated the same in the opposite tunnel.

He drew an evil-looking wavy blade. “This way.”

I got a blade in my own hands. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. Old carrion and fresh blood. A goblin nose knows.”

The brightened lightglobe danced in front of Tam. He squinted and hissed in pain, his fangs bared. His pupils were enormous. “Dim that thing!”

Piaras looked at Tam like he’d lost his mind. I wasn’t sure I disagreed with him.

“All due respect, sir, but I’d like to see the dragons before they take my legs off,” Piaras told him.

“The boy’s right, Tam,” Kesyn said. “Chances are that second one you saw was its mate, and chances are even better that those two big ones have little ones—a lot of little ones. We’re down here a couple months on the wrong side of mating season. The little ones grow and eat a lot in the first few weeks.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“I can follow the blood,” Tam said. “But if I’m going to lead, I need it almost dark, not that thing blinding me.” Apparently the light bothered Tam more than the idea of hungry baby sea dragons.

Piaras complied.

The walls were glowing with a pale green luminescence.

“Dragon breath green,” Kesyn whispered. “Douse the globe,” he told Piaras. “We won’t need it.”

He did and we didn’t. The entire tunnel was speckled with the green light. Farther down the tunnel the glow increased, as did the stench. We were definitely going in the right direction.

Piaras looked around at the sickly glow. “What is it?”

“Some say residue from a dragon’s breath,” Kesyn said. “I’ve also heard it’s from scales scraping against rock. I don’t think anyone’s asked a dragon and found out.”

We were moving fast down a nearly dark, wet tunnel, toward a nest of dragons. Hungry little ones, overprotective big ones. All we needed now was someone running ahead of us ringing a dinner bell.

We hadn’t heard any roars in the past few minutes—or screams, either.

“We need to go faster,” Imala urged Tam.

In response, Tam tripped over something. It was a body. A goblin with eyes wide open and staring. Judging from his clothing and armor, he was Khrynsani. So much for where Chigaru had come by that sword.

“Did a dragon do this?” I asked.

Tam knelt and did a quick inspection. “Chigaru’s been putting that sword to good use. This one took a blade through the heart.”

Just a few feet farther down the tunnel was another crumpled figure. Also not Chigaru, likewise dead, same cause. It appeared that the sea dragon was only the latest of Chigaru’s problems that had just become ours.

Another roar blasted through the air around us—angrier and closer.

It meant Chigaru was still alive. Imala shoved Tam out of her way.

“Imala!” Tam bellowed.

She ignored him and bolted for the end of the tunnel. The green glow was brighter here, and I didn’t need a lightglobe to find my way.

The tunnel emptied into a vast chamber. Really vast. I skidded to a halt on something both slimy and crunchy. I didn’t look down to find out. The green glow illuminated black water and a soaring ceiling, with the green flecking scattered above us like sickly stars. The air was sea fresh and graveyard fetid at the same time. I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me, but I could sense the hugeness of the sea cave. I was on the edge of a vast lake. My boots hit something solid. I looked down. I wasn’t standing in gravel.

Eggshells. Dragon eggshells.

And the remains of more than a few recent meals.

I was standing in the middle of a freaking sea dragon nest. It was empty, but empty probably just meant that the kids were big enough to be out and about on their own.

Hunting for their own food.

Prince Chigaru was trapped on a narrow shelf of rock, the tip of his sword following the head and sinuous neck of a sea dragon weaving cobra-like within striking distance. Chigaru had nowhere to go and the dragon acted like it had all the time in the world. The sight of us didn’t even make it bat an eye, though maybe it didn’t have eyelids.

It was a young dragon, about half the size of the one that had flown over Phaelan’s ship. This one was old enough to mate, but too young for cunning. Rage had made it clumsy, and the cuts on its throat were evidence that Chigaru had taken advantage. If it’d been any older or craftier, the prince would have been dead.

“Spellsong?” I asked Mychael.

“Only works on things with a certain level of smarts. Sea dragons don’t rate that high.”

We could use a lightglobe to temporarily blind the dragon, but light would also blind us. The dragons knew these tunnels; we didn’t.

The solution grabbed me by the foot.

It was a baby sea dragon, about six feet long. Apparently my boot and the tasty morsel inside were irresistible.

My panic flared—and so did Piaras’s magic. In the next instant, the dragon juvenile delinquent was flying through the air, landing with a splash and an enraged squeal in the water on the far side of the cavern. Both parents took off in protective pursuit, the waves they left in their wake soaking us all from the knees down.

Tam’s eyes went from the airborne baby dragon to the landlocked goblin prince. “Thanks for the idea, Piaras.” He sheathed his blade and extended his arms to Prince Chigaru. “Jump!”

Chigaru looked at his chancellor like he’d lost his mind. “What?”

“Jump. I’ll catch you and pull you over. Magically, not physically.”

“He’s good at this,” Mychael called to the prince. “Just jump. Your feet won’t even get wet.”

Chigaru obviously saw several flaws with that plan.

“Dammit, Chigaru! Jump!” Tam roared.

The prince jumped.

Tam’s magic caught him in midair. Imala grimaced.

Tam shot a glance at her. “Not you, too.”

“I don’t doubt your—”

“Yes, you do!”

“Hurry up!” Chigaru shrieked.

We all looked up. When Tam had started talking, Chigaru had stopped moving. Now he was dangling with his boots about five feet from the water’s surface. The water was choppy. It was choppy for a reason. Something was moving just beneath the surface. Several somethings, actually. Looked like we’d just found the dragon kiddie pool.

Tam made a jerking motion with his arm, and Chigaru literally flew the rest of the way across. The prince’s feet had barely touched the ground, and Tam was pushing him toward the tunnel.

Mom and dad dragon were on the move, and so were we. It’s amazing how much noise water can make when it’s being pushed out of the way by several tons of enraged sea dragon parents. We ran and we didn’t stop running until the tunnels were no longer glowing green. Piaras reignited his lightglobe and we stopped to catch our breath.

Chigaru was leaning over, hands on knees, breathing heavily.

“Are you hurt?” Imala asked.

The prince opted for a head shake over words. After a few more breaths, he raised his head. “How did you find me?”

“You made enough noise for us,” she said testily.

“That and your breadcrumbs,” Tam said.

Chigaru looked puzzled. “What?”

“We found the dead Khrynsani you left in the tunnel back there,” Mychael said. “Nice breadcrumbs. Led us right to you.”

That triggered a creepy thought. “The bodies weren’t there just now.” I turned to Tam. “They were definitely dead. Weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

Kesyn shrugged. “Baby dragons probably got them. That or something else.”

I blinked. “Something else?”

The old goblin looked tired. “There’s all kinds of creepy-crawlies down here. There’s a good reason why these tunnels don’t get patrolled.”

“Any of those creepy-crawlies between us and the dungeons?”

“Yeah.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“The usual. Rats, spiders, salamanders—”

I just looked at him. “Anything unusually big and creepy-crawly?”

“They all grow big down here.”

Great. From what I had seen, food in the tunnels wasn’t exactly in abundance. We were food. There were only six of us, and now Chigaru made seven, but we had to be the most abundant thing to come around in some time.

“What happened, Your Highness?” Imala was asking.

“Make it quick, boy,” Kesyn said. “We got business upstairs.”

Tam didn’t give Chigaru time to have a royal hissy about being called “boy.” “Highness, this is my teacher, Magus Kesyn Badru.”

Chigaru regally inclined his head in acknowledgment.

“Yeah, pleasure for me, too,” Kesyn said gruffly. “So what the hell you doing down here?”

“I was captive and I escaped,” Chigaru said.

Kesyn clapped his hands together. “There you are,” he told Imala. “The boy escaped. Can we move our asses now?”

“I was taken into the temple itself, to the high altar,” Chigaru continued as if Kesyn wasn’t even there. “Sarad Nukpana was there with the Saghred, and he—”

“Wait,” Mychael interrupted. “Sarad Nukpana is in the temple? How long ago?”

“An hour, maybe two.”

A chill started at the base of my spine and scurried its way up to my neck. We had come into this mission with the assumption that Sarad Nukpana was going to be in the temple when we went after the Saghred. It’d been only a few hours ago, but I’d taken Nukpana’s shooting as a sign that Lady Luck had teamed up with Fate, and both had come over to our side. Sarad Nukpana was out of the temple. We were going to make it. We were going to destroy the Saghred, and we were going home alive. Deidre’s crossbow bolts had brought death to Sathrik and a world of hurt to Sarad Nukpana. He’d been taken to the palace, and while he was there, we would be coming here while the temple was a blessedly Nukpana-free zone. I knew he was going to recover quickly, but not this fast.

“Sarad was shot two hours ago while on the palace balcony with your brother,” Tam was saying.

“So it’s true,” Chigaru said. “He told me that my brother had been assassinated—by your mother. Is that also true?”

“Sarad dropped the shield around the king,” Tam said. “He knew my mother was there, waiting.”

“To kill my brother.”

“To kill them both.”

“When this is over, remind me to make her a duchess.” Chigaru paused and frowned. “Sarad may have been wounded then, but he’s not now. He was with the Saghred, with both hands on it. He was shirtless with blood on his chest and back, but I didn’t see any wounds.”

My mouth dropped open and I let it stay that way. Sarad Nukpana was covered in blood and the rock didn’t eat him—it healed him. It was like Kesyn said: the rock got a better offer. The Saghred officially considered me expendable, and I was on my way to stab the thing. I didn’t know if the rock had actual emotions, but I knew it wouldn’t like seeing me again. Then again, maybe it would; it’d get a chance to zap me into a goopy puddle on the floor.

“Sarad said that my brother had named him as his heir,” Chigaru said, “so he is the king now.” The muscle in his jaw clenched tightly. “He told me that he would wed Princess Mirabai tonight and he wanted me there to witness it as his special guest. Then I would be the first sacrifice of the evening—with Mirabai forced to watch.” Chigaru blew his breath out through his nose and I was reminded of a bull right before it charged. “Mirabai was standing in the open doorway, being held back by two guards. She heard everything that monster said. She started screaming. I tried to fight my way to her. I broke free, but one of the guards slammed into me and knocked me against a wall behind the altar. At least I thought it was a wall until it opened and I fell through.”

“There’s a door directly behind the high altar,” Kesyn said. “After a sacrifice has been made, they chuck the body through that door.” He took in Chigaru’s battered, scraped, and dinted armor. “A chute that goes all the way down here to The Pools.”

Chigaru nodded. “It was one hell of a ride.”

“I’ll bet it was.”

“I was fighting to get back up to the temple,” the prince said. “To find and free Mirabai.”

A prince trying to slay a dragon to save his beloved princess.

Death by cliché.

“Didn’t you get a snoot full of that navinem stuff back at Tam’s place?” Kesyn asked carefully.

“Yes, I did.”

“And you haven’t been running around scared shitless?”

“I must not have been exposed to very much of it.”

Kesyn looked closely at the prince. “Uh, yeah, that must be it.”

I looked at Piaras out of the corner of my eye. He shook his head once. That told me Chigaru did get a good hit of navinem, and he’d proceeded to take on Sarad Nukpana’s personal guards, and then attacked a pair of sea dragons to get back upstairs to have at those guards again.

I admit I didn’t know Chigaru all that well, because I didn’t like him all that well and didn’t want to make the effort. But he never struck me as the swashbuckling, save-the-princess type. If he’d gotten a snoot full of navinem and hadn’t been curled up in a corner having a good cry or scurrying around the temple with his figurative tail between his legs… that could mean only one thing.

Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin wasn’t nearly as much goblin as he thought he was, and Chigaru’s mom had been a very naughty girl at least once.

“That armor saved your life, Your Highness,” Imala said quickly.

Too quickly. I raised a quizzical eyebrow at her. She met my eyes for a brief instant, then looked away. Ditto for Tam. They knew. Chigaru was clueless. Well, that went way beyond interesting.

Chigaru’s black eyes were on me. “Carnades Silvanus was there.”

I swallowed. “At the altar?”

The prince nodded once, his eyes now glittering with barely contained rage. “He was with Sarad Nukpana.”