Shadowbane

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

26 KYTHORN (NIGHT)

Myrin was drunk. She couldn’t think clearly, Nor could she move with anything like coordination. When Toytere spoke, she almost laughed. When Sithe lunged across the chamber and sent Rhett flying, then turned to her, she saw it as a hazy dream. When Toytere leaped on Kalen, awareness shocked through her and she came to her senses.

Everything seemed to happen at once.

Myrin drew her wand-her hand seemed to move so slowly-but Sithe was there, her axe sweeping down. Somehow, she’d known the genasi was coming and snapped the words of her shielding spell. The black axe clanged off the shield.

“No point to fighting,” Sithe said. “Yield.”

“No,” Myrin replied. “I don’t think I will.” Her wand cracked and thunder surged forth.

The genasi sailed through the air, borne on a trail of darkness, to land on her feet five paces distant. She staggered, knocked partially off balance. She seemed genuinely surprised-and pleased. “You are not as weak as he thinks you are,” she said. “I will enjoy-”

Rhett slashed Vindicator at her from behind, but Sithe flowed out of the way and lunged at Myrin. The bolt of force Myrin had meant for Toytere turned on Sithe instead, but the dark warrior batted it aside with her axe. She pointed to Myrin and black chains sprung into being around the wizard, but they evaporated in the searing radiance of Vindicator.

Rhett stood on the other side of Sithe, his sword leveled in her direction. “Fight me, demon!” Silver light flowed from Vindicator and encircled the genasi like a halo.

“Demon?” Sithe touched the light and it flowed around her fingers, dissolving into her darkness. “I should have killed you before, boy, when first you proved the fool.”

Rhett lunged at Sithe, but he had to duck aside as a hurled dagger clanged off his breastplate. Myrin had forgotten all about the gathered Dead Rats, but now they stalked forward: an army of cruel faces and rusty blades. Rhett turned to face them, one man against twenty. They swarmed him, cutting and stabbing, and he vanished into the crowd. Without his attention, Vindicator’s halo around Sithe faded.

Wizard and genasi faced one another, alone and with no protectors.

“We only want you, Myrin Darkdance,” Sithe said. “You’re killing the others.”

Myrin spun her wand in a tight circle, conjuring a ball of fire in her open hand. This she hurled in Sithe’s direction, but the genasi dodged aside.

“You can end this at a word,” Sithe said. “Is your pride worth both their lives?”

Myrin spread her wand in an arc, stretching the fire after the fast-moving genasi. In a heartbeat, a wall of searing flame cut the battlefield in two. The Dead Rats stood on one side, quite removed from the fight. Sithe seemed a silhouette carved in sharp lines of darkness. Then she vanished in a burst of darkness.

Myrin felt a shocking warmth on her skin and glanced down at her left forearm. A new rune had appeared there-a new spell she had seen in Umbra’s visions. To her arcanist’s eye, it looked like a wall of fire.

Myrin looked up from this wonder and cast about for the genasi, but she might as well have ceased to exist. She cast about for-“Kalen!”

The halfling was perched over Kalen, striking him over and over again like an animal savaging its prey. Blood flew along with curses and roars of rage.

Had she been wrong, to think he could be better than he was? Could anyone?

Myrin summoned a bolt of force, picturing the halfling’s head as its target. She didn’t want to kill him-had never wanted to kill anyone-but to protect Kalen, she would.

The air at her back shivered, displacing around something that was suddenly there. Myrin threw herself forward and whirled, the way she had seen Kalen do a thousand times. Sithe’s axe passed within a hair’s breadth of her face. As she dodged, she swung her wand under her arm and cast blindly. Magic exploded into flesh. With a curse, the genasi staggered back. Sithe clutched at her stomach and a trickle of black blood came from her mouth.

Myrin couldn’t believe she had dodged or that she had actually struck Sithe. From her uncomprehending wince, the genasi couldn’t believe it either.

“Enough.” Sithe indicated her with a black finger and Myrin felt the full weight of her fury fall on her. “Lady of Sorrow,” she prayed, “guide my hand against your foe.”

The genasi charged.

Myrin slashed her wand at Sithe, spinning a scythe of fire, but the genasi ran right at the magic. It struck full force but vanished into the genasi as though she were made of nothing. So startled was Myrin by this that she barely remembered to dodge Sithe’s strike, and caught the butt of the axe dead center in her chest. She fell to the floor, gasping for breath.

Sithe stood over her, her eyes blazing. She was done with words now-she offered only death. She was no longer a woman, but wholly a demon.

Blearily, Myrin crawled backward. She coughed and blood spattered the ground.

“Kalen!” she screamed.

The knife reached its zenith and spun back down.

Startled by Myrin’s cry, Toytere shot out a hand and caught the blade within a thumb’s breadth of Kalen’s face. Kalen gazed up, panting and gasping.

“Gods,” the halfling said. He was looking back at the battle illumined by a ring of flame. Sithe stalked toward Myrin, her axe raised high. The darkness enveloped the genasi like a lover-it flowed from her like sweat. “Gods, I didn’t be think-”

“Look,” Kalen croaked. “Look what you’ve unleashed.”

When the halfling turned back to him, revulsion filled his face. “You,” he said. “You killed Cellica. You’ve ruined me-ruined everything! Feed …”

“Let me up,” Kalen said. “Let me save her.”

Toytere laughed in his face, his shark’s teeth clacking madly. “You? You can barely stand! What can you do?”

“Save her,” Kalen said. “Let me-”

The halfling looked at him, horror filling his face. The murderous haze in his eyes lifted, replaced by an understanding of the nightmare he had brought on them all.

“I’m sorry,” the halfling whispered.

Without further words, he leaped from Kalen and dashed across the room toward Myrin and Sithe. His broad knife flashed and sank through Sithe’s darkness into her leg.

Any mortal woman would have fallen or at least cried out in pain. The dark one stared down at the interfering halfling in mild surprise.

“Kill me instead!” Toytere cried, his voice almost lost in the animal within. “Kill-!”

She brought the axe around and buried it in Toytere’s chest. The halfling gagged. Sithe wrenched the blade free in a rain of blood, then calmly raised it over Myrin.

Myrin screamed-for Toy or for herself, Kalen couldn’t say.

None of this made any sense. Kalen didn’t know what was going on, but he saw Myrin in danger and he had to move. Yet he simply could not. He was so tired.

He heard a faint melody-a haunting siren’s song-leading him back from darkness. At first, he thought it Toytere, but the halfling was thrashing his way into death not five paces distant. Who …?

Strength flowed into Kalen and he could move again. It hurt, but he ignored the pain. Myrin needed him. Weaponless, spitting blood, he forced himself to his feet.

He lunged and raised his hand to stop the deadly blow even as it fell.

Sithe’s axe struck his arm. He expected searing pain as it cleaved his limb in two. Instead, the axe met resistance-a gray radiance that surrounded his forearm like a vambrace. The genasi looked as shocked as he felt.

Kalen had not won a thousand fights in a thousand stinking alleys by hesitating. He brought his other fist around with all his strength into Sithe’s face. The warrior staggered back, her deadly axe falling wide.

Instantly, he fell to the floor, groping for Myrin. “Gods,” he said. “Are you-?”

Myrin’s eyes glowed blue in the depths of her blood-smeared face. Toytere’s blood, he realized. Gods …

She looked up, past his shoulder, and he realized Sithe stood over them once again. “Destroyers destroy, Kalen Dren,” the genasi said.

Kalen had no strength left. He tried to put as much of himself as possible between that brutal axe and Myrin, hoping to buy her a heartbeat to escape.

Myrin, as it happened, had other plans.

“Give it to me!” From under Kalen, she grasped Sithe’s leg. Runes raced up her arms as she drew the genasi’s power into herself. “Give me your darkness! Give it all!”

Sithe’s mouth opened, but she could not speak. She fell to one knee, weakened by Myrin’s spellscar, and the wizard easily pulled her to floor and clambered atop her.

“This isn’t your fate,” Myrin said to the exhausted genasi. “You can change. You can-” The air sucked in and Myrin vanished as though she’d never existed.

Kalen’s heart stopped for two whole beats before he realized what had happened: Myrin had taken whatever power Sithe used to vanish and reappear.

Sithe lay unmoving, seemingly stunned. Kalen breathed again.

“Little Dren …”

Two paces distant, Toytere wheezed. The halfling lay in a spreading pool of blood, torn and broken. His face had elongated-his beard growing thicker. It was the infamous wererat blood he bore-that all leaders of the Dead Rats carried. His right arm, where before Kalen had seen a bandage, sprouted thick crystalline patches.

The Fury.

Now Kalen understood. Toytere had nearly lost himself in the depths of the plague, but he’d fought free. He’d saved Myrin, simply by demanding Sithe cut him down instead.

“Did I-” Toytere said, his eyes rolling. “Little Dren … did I do it?”

Kalen nodded.

“Fancy,” Toytere whispered. “Thief like me, passing up that much coin. Must be something the matter with me, no?”

“Who was it?” Kalen asked. “Who hunts her?”

“Eden.” Toytere shook his head. “But someone hired her. Don’t know who.”

“Of course.” Kalen had suspected as much. “What you did was very brave, Toytere-worthy of Cellica.”

“Pah,” the halfling said. “Me sister would have brained me as soon as let me consider it. But then, she be better than both of us, no?”

Kalen smiled weakly.

“Lady Darkdance?” Toytere said. “Where be she?”

“She’ll be back.” Even as he said it, Kalen felt the hint of fear clinging to his fingers-like a phantom sensation he wanted to ignore but could not.

If Myrin had taken Sithe’s power, shouldn’t she have returned by now?

“Hold, Toytere,” Kalen said. “Don’t expire just yet.”

“Easy to say for a body that don’t feel pain or fear.”

Kalen’s anxiety belied those words, however. Where was Myrin?

As if prompted by that thought, the wall of fire collapsed. On the other side, Vindicator burned a swath through the Dead Rats. Rhett, lathered in sweat, fought in a shrinking circle of the thieves. Distracted, they turned their attention to the middle of the room. The fighting died away.

Seeing Toytere in a pool of his own blood silenced the Rats. Seeing Kalen so grievously wounded brought Rhett running. He reached for Kalen, but the man waved him away. “Help Toytere,” he said. “He needs it more than I.”

Kalen looked to Sithe, who lay motionless on the floor. “Where is she?”

The genasi was staring blankly at the ceiling, but he saw her chest rising and falling regularly. “She is lost,” Sithe said.

“Lost where?” Kalen asked. “Bring her back.”

“The void.” Sithe shook her head. Tears leaked from her eyes. “I-”

Kalen grasped Sithe’s wrists. “Send me there,” he said. “I’ll bring her back.”

The genasi looked to him, as though noticing him for the first time. “You cannot.”

“Do it.” Kalen pulled Toytere’s jagged carving knife from Sithe’s leg and put it to her throat. “Or I’ll send you there myself.”

Sithe searched his face for a moment, then nodded. Silently, she pressed her hand to his chest. At first, he felt only a niggling tingle all along his skin. Then the world drew in upon itself and blackness fell.

Nothing.