Wrayth

TWENTY-SIX Alliance and Victory

The Rossin ran, following the guards out of the building and out onto the cool grass. It didn’t matter where they were; he tore them apart with great relish. Human blood was so much more satisfying than anything the Wrayth could give him; primal and run through with fear.

Behind him the Devotional of the Order began to crumble in on itself, a great rumble of stone and masonry falling to ruin. That it was the Deacons tearing it apart was a delicious irony. He leapt clear of the dust cloud and with a bunch of his hind legs ran a literal circle around the guards. They saw at once that they could not outdistance him here. Instead they huddled around their Emperor, who had drawn his sword and waited, all foolish confidence, for the beast to approach. Many had made the mistake of thinking him some overgrown lion or tiger that they could battle easily enough. He was more than that.

The Rossin knew the time had come to reveal himself to this latest in a long line of foolish Emperors.

The guards took potshots at him, but the bullets had about the same effect as beestings would have. He kept relentlessly stalking toward them, his golden-flecked eyes locked on Kaleva, Emperor of Arkaym.

Yet he did not spring upon them, as he could have easily done. Instead the great cat sat down at the outer edge of their circle and waited. Eventually they ran out of ammunition. He could smell the salty tang of their fear on the breeze. The Emperor’s was no different than any of the other men’s.

That was when the Rossin chose to speak. “Do you know me?”

The surprise on the humans’ faces was almost comical. It had been an age since the great cat had spoken into the world. All thought him a dumb Beast, but like all geistlords he was more than capable of it. Before he had nothing to say. After all, why would a wolf talk to sheep.

Kaleva, perhaps not the total fool the Rossin had taken him for, straightened. “Yes,” his voice wavered more than a fraction. Good, a little fear was an appropriate response.

“Then are you prepared to beg for your life now?” The great cat could feel Raed trying desperately to understand what was going on, but the geistlord stuffed him down deeper, where he would be able to see nothing. This was secret business he would not yet have the Young Pretender aware of.

The Emperor’s eyes were wide and frightened—just like all prey. “Perhaps,” he said, taking a stumbling step back. “If there is anything you want from the Empire, maybe a—”

“I can take most everything I need,” the Rossin snarled, showing his vast expanse of teeth, “but I want something from you.”

The Emperor froze, perhaps sensing the scent of a deal in the air. His eyes darted to the crumbling Devotional, and the Rossin knew what his tiny thoughts were; there was now no Order to protect him from the geists. “What…” He stopped and coughed up some of the dust that was in the air. “What can I do for you?”

He was so weak, and this moment so easy, that the Rossin would have laughed, had he been in the mood. However seeing his old Tormentor had not put him in a good mood. That ancient foe was moving pawns on the table, so now it was time for the geistlord to do the same.

“It is what I can do for you,” he growled. “I will be willing to serve your new line of Emperors as I did the old one. I gave them power and prestige that was not questioned for nearly a thousand years. I will lay the family that bears my name low for you…for a price.”

The Emperor’s eyes gleamed. “What would that be?”

“There is an object, a trinket I gave the first of my line, that lies at the heart of the palace. It is the one place in this realm I cannot go. When the time is right you will fetch it for me.”

“Is that time now?” Kaleva swallowed hard.

The Rossin tilted his head up and examined the stars closely. “No, not just yet…but very, very soon.” He fixed his gaze on the human before him. “Do you agree? Have we a pact?”

The mortal did not even hesitate. The words were barely out of the Rossin’s fanged mouth before Kaleva, Emperor of Arkaym said, “I do.”

The essence of one was now bound to the other. It was not yet as strong as a Bond of the Order, but it would grow with time. They still had a little of that. The Rossin would have purred, if he could.

“However, if anyone finds out I made a deal with a geistlord—” Kaleva paused and stared pointedly at his half dozen men who were beginning to look at him with genuine horror. It was an easily fixed problem.

The Rossin unleashed himself upon the remaining guards and cut them down in bloody swathes where they stood. He was as swift as a desert wind, and just as unforgiving. When he turned back to Kaleva, his muzzle was covered in scarlet and gore.

“Do you see how things are with me in your service?” The Beast was, after so long in the human realm, a consummate liar.

The Emperor nodded, the look of befuddlement never leaving his face. He could not understand why this was happening or quite what it meant. Perhaps the Tormentor had done the Rossin a grand favor; messing with the Emperor’s mind and soul made him very easy to manipulate now.

“Then go,” he snarled, “and await my call.”

Kaleva, the Emperor of Arkaym, turned and ran like a child dismissed from school. The Rossin watched him, while licking the remains of the Imperial Guard from his mouth. The pieces were nearly all assembled, but for now he would feast.

The great cat dropped his head, and began to devour the soldiers who had given their life for a worthless leader.

The Mother Abbey was being reduced to rubble. The runes that had been unleashed were pulling it apart—everything that the Order of the Eye and the Fist had stood for was falling down around her.

The horror of that remained distant to Sorcha—put away for examination at another time. All she knew was that it was no longer the place she had loved and grown accustomed to; now it was merely an obstacle. She could feel the ends of her hair burning, and hear the scream of stone tumbling behind her as she ran up the nave in pursuit of del Rue—now revealed as Derodak. The structure, once punctured, could not hold itself upright, and the loss of the columns sealed the Devotional’s fate. The night sky was visible through the once soaring roof, and it was framed in green flames. In the screaming recesses of her mind, Sorcha knew the Order of the Eye and the Fist would never come here again, and for that she would make her enemy pay. She ran harder, pumping her arms, and leaping as best she could over broken pews and piles of still-sliding stone.

Dimly, Sorcha realized Merrick was trying to keep up with her, but she summoned Seym, and drew strength from the Rune of Flesh to power her pursuit ahead of him. Her partner would only try and stop her, and she would not let that happen. She scrambled after Derodak with the intensity of a lion on the chase, but this was no gazelle she was chasing.

Ahead, Derodak must have also summoned Seym because he was carrying Zofiya along with him. She was a limp bundle in his arms, and she was no lightweight, since she was no shrinking Court beauty, but a warrior in her own right.

They reached the edge of the devastation, and now she could see, through the smoke, Deacons riding out of the burst-open gate. The Breed horses, beloved by the Deacons, were carrying the last of them away from the destruction. She wished man and horse well. Perhaps equine grace would be all that would remain of her Order.

“Derodak!” Sorcha barely recognized her own voice, cobbled as it was out of human, Wrayth and rune. Whatever she was, and however she had got here, it no longer mattered. She was stripped bare and raw.

Her enemy heard that, sensed it, and despite everything, could not contain his curiosity. He turned around, and what he saw made him throw Zofiya to the ground as casually as a bundle of laundry. He actually ventured back a few steps and looked Sorcha up and down.

“Most incredible,” he said admiringly. “I did not think the Wrayth could do it—but here you are.”

“Sorcha!” Merrick, finally having caught up to her, appeared over the top of the rubble, covered in dust and bleeding from many small cuts. He glanced between the two of them and a frown creased his forehead. Even he, the Sensitive of all Sensitives, could not quite understand what was passing between them. Still, he held out his hand. Come back…

The yearning and love he put into that plea were heard by Sorcha, but did not move her to action. His kindness and good soul were very far off, and directed at some creature that she could never be again. Sorcha didn’t move. Derodak took up her whole vision.

“What am I?” she whispered and only he seemed to hear her question. Sorcha stepped nearer and circled the man as if they were dancing some strange alien steps.

Through her shared Center the man was an enigma, and yet as fascinating as the night sky above. She felt if she kept looking she might fall into him, and not be anything at all.

“You are…” He pursed his lips and stopped himself from continuing. Instead he said, “Why don’t you come with me and find out? It could be most interesting.”

Merrick had run to the Grand Duchess, and was crouching over her still form. What he found, Sorcha did not know, but he hauled her into his arms and backed away from the other man. “You can’t have either of them.”

Derodak laughed at him. “Have the girl, I am done with her. She served her purpose when she pointed the finger of accusation at your foolish Order. I have better things to occupy myself with now.” He tilted his head and regarded Sorcha with a small smile playing around his lips. “I don’t think I will even need Vashill’s machine for you.”

Sorcha felt herself the center of his attention, and in the state she now occupied she liked it.

When he opened his palm, she saw three gleaming weirstones rested in his fingers. He held out his hand again. “Come with me. I am the only one who can understand what it is to be you, and I can teach you many things.”

He threw the stones down on the ground and immediately the triangle they described began to shimmer. It was as if the earth herself grew soft at his touch. With awe, Sorcha realized he was making a tunnel before her very eyes. Not just redirecting the stones as she had done, but bending the Otherside to his will.

Sorcha moved toward him. His words made sense. She did not belong with human or Deacon. She was something else, and Derodak would show her what that was.

As she did so though, she felt the Bond with Merrick suddenly burn bright. She would have turned to tell him to let her go, but the young Deacon was faster than she would have thought possible.

He too was more than he seemed, and Derodak had failed to fully grasp that. As Merrick threw himself at Sorcha, he gathered up all the emotions around him. Every feeling of loss, despair and fear that hundreds of Deacons had felt that night. An accumulation of lost dreams, battered determination and the best of intentions, all brought to nothing. It was a terrible night, like few others in history, and Merrick was there to use those feelings for Sorcha’s benefit.

His wild talent channeled all of them, and directed them at Derodak. The man had many shields. Sorcha glimpsed how many years he had worked to protect himself against runes of all kinds, but this talent was not a rune, not hard-won from the geists. It was a totally human power, and consequently one Derodak was not fully prepared to repel.

Derodak howled, as those emotions poured over him like a tidal wave, battering at him in an almost physical fashion. He twisted back and forth, trying to escape them, but they were not runes and he had no defense. Sorcha knew he had grown chill living so long, insulated from his own mortality. These feelings cut to his core like the sharpest of knives. His own talents crumpled under their weight as he clawed at his own face.

At last, desperate to escape, he activated the weirstones and, stepping into the triangle, disappeared into the earth. It was the last thing Deacon Sorcha Faris saw for a little time.

When she finally came back to consciousness, it was to find herself cradled in Merrick’s arms. He was weeping, while Zofiya, completely unconscious, lay a few feet away.

Sorcha touched his face. “I certainly hope those tears are because of what you just did, and not for me.”

He brushed them away, and smiled crookedly at her. “Yes…that’s what it is…”

Together they clambered to their feet. Sorcha surveyed the devastation while Merrick went to tend the Grand Duchess. Fire had spread to the other buildings, and she knew that come morning the Mother Abbey would be but a smoldering memory.

Merrick returned, half carrying Zofiya. She looked pale but was coming around. When she found out what had happened here, Sorcha was sure there would be hell to pay.

“What now?” Merrick asked, though he could now see the seed of a plan she’d been mulling over since they found the Patternmaker.

“First we regroup at Vashill’s…then we go our own way.” Sorcha sighed and put her shoulder under Zofiya’s arm. She could already feel Raed in the city, back to himself and heading in that direction. They had much to do.

“We have work to do,” Merrick muttered. He probably didn’t even realize he had done it, but once again her young partner was stealing her thoughts from her head. Strangely now, it was a comfort.

The Bond held her together for now. Later would come soon enough.