Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (71 page)

RIveK watched from an alley, she was there
to make sure everything went according to her plan, but it was all
going wrong. SCorcH should have been dead by now, killed by the
forewarned Elizabeth.

The scene was not to her liking, SCorcH had
Elizabeth down and was about to finish the sorceress. RIveK made a
quick decision; she could not let her carefully constructed plans
go down so easily. Gathering her power she waited for the right
moment.

SCorcH concentrated his powers while
watching the Kirnath for any signs of resistance, but with the
throw of her dagger she seemed to have used her last strength, he
realized that she would now die without any further assistance.
Being thorough he decided to incinerate her completely. He gathered
every bit of power available to him to blast her to ashes.

RIveK had been waiting for that moment, she
saw him draw power from his shields to destroy the motionless
sorceress at his feet. In that unprotected
instant,
RIveK struck him with her prepared blast
straight into his back. Her bolt drove a hole through his body,
removing half his abdomen and most of his chest. The legs and upper
torso of SCorcH dropped to the ground in two pieces.

SCorcH’s head turned to look at his
attacker; his right arm came around to attempt a defense.

RIveK stepped forward and struck again,
enveloping him in a painful binding to keep him from
counterattacking
.

Any normal human would have been long dead,
he did not even have any organs left since all, including the
heart, had been cremated.

Still he glared hate from his dark eyes.

RIveK stepped up and pulled a knife from her
clothes; she leaned down and sawed his head loose from his
remaining upper body. Holding it by the ear, she concentrated on
what was left of his ruined body, burning it to complete ashes with
a gesture of her right hand. When she made a sweeping motion wind
blew the ashes away and there was no sign of his body, except the
burn marks deep into the cobblestone street.

The glaring head she held began to cuss at
her silently, the teeth clicking and grinding together were the
only sounds; there were no lungs to power the voice.

RIveK stepped up to Poison’s burned body and
noted that the woman was still clinging to
life
, though she
was
passed
the point where she could resist anything.

“So, my dear, we meet at last... as I
promised. Too bad you weren’t as good as we thought, or you might
have spent your last day more constructively. You were supposed to
take care of this moron for me,” she said, holding the slavering
head of SCorcH in front of Poison’s eyes.

“Now I had to take a personal hand, which
complicates things. You aren’t supposed to die until I kill you,
avenging my colleague here,” she continued, shaking SCorcH’s head
viciously. “I’d kill you now, but I’m not supposed to be here
yet!”

She gave Poison a kick in her wounded
side.

“Now I’ll have to make sure you survive for
a short time,” she continued, calmer now that she had a plan. She
set SCorcH’s decapitated head on the ground, gathered her taxed
powers and formed a blanketing cocoon of dark power around Poison’s
wounded body. It was a minor holding that would slow down Poison's
body processes and keep her from dying immediately.

“There, since you can’t help yourself, that
should keep you around until I can officially arrive, tomorrow,”
RIveK gloated. She picked up her trophy again and looked at the
glaring head. “As for you, my sad friend, I think I’ll keep you at
my castle for future pleasures.”

The little urchin girl had not run far from
the small courtyard. She was terrified, but the nice woman had
protected her from the evil man in the alley, so the urchin had
decided to try and get help. Running around the corner the girl saw
a hotel lobby with people moving around inside. She ran in and
called for help, claiming her mother was being attacked outside by
a bad man.

A group of men followed her outside and she
pointed them into the courtyard.

RIveK heard the group coming, so she quickly
left the courtyard out an alley, carrying SCorcH’s head by the
hair.

Hetark was just approaching the hotel when
he saw the group of men
run
into
the nearby courtyard. Curious, he trotted over to see the
disturbance. He caught sight of Poison’s huddled body and quickly
shoved his way through the press of men.

Her side was a ruin and in one glance Hetark
knew that Poison would not survive the wound. Pulling his cape from
his shoulder he carefully wrapped it around her wounded body. Her
eyes flickered open at his touch and he had to lean down to hear
her whisper.

“They thought I was Elizabeth, I didn’t tell
them... ” she said softly into his ear.

“Who?” he asked in a voice of contained
thunder.

“Necromancers, two of them, a man and a
woman,” she whispered again, then had to stop when she started
choking.

“Rest, I’ll get you to a healer, you’ll be
all right,” Hetark told Poison.

“We both know better than that, Hetark, it’s
not knightly to lie,” she chided him in a whisper. “I wish I’d been
a great lady like Elizabeth, a lady that could attract a true
knight who would love me and care for me, as you do for Elizabeth.
I wish I could’ve had the chance to be with a man like you. Thank
you for making the effort to treat me like a real lady, it was
nice,” she said softly, and even managed a small smile.

A tear rolled down Hetark’s cheek. “There
was no effort, I was only responding to the woman who was emerging,
a woman I found myself... liking,” Hetark replied honestly. “Is
there anything else I can do to make you more comfortable?” he
asked.

“Just hold me, I always wanted someone to
hold me,” she replied dreamily, as the pain dulled her senses. She
spoke a moment later in a whisper he could barely hear. “Warn
Elizabeth, and tell her she was right, these people have to be
stopped, someone has got to take a stand against them. I will be
with her in spirit. Tell her for me, Hetark.”

“I’ll tell her,” Hetark promised. He held
her closer to his chest, and in that
moment,
he remembered another time when he had known he
was dying, and Elizabeth had brought him back from certain death.
If only she were here now. Anger at his helplessness struck the
knight like a
thunderbolt
, he
wanted to save this brave girl from the inevitable death that
approached, but he was powerless to help. He was powerless, but…
and an impossible chance came to his thoughts.

He looked into Poison’s eyes, they were dull
from shock.

“Poison, listen to me, I want your promise,
you must fight to live for another day and I’ll promise to get you
healed.”

Poison didn’t believe him, but she didn’t
want to disappoint the knight. “And take me to dinner again?”

“You have my promise,” he said.

She nodded giving her promise, and said,
“All right, I’ll give it my best shot.”

Standing with Poison in his strong arms he
yelled for the crowd to move aside. He carried her into the lobby
of the hotel and called for help.

The thin bodied manager arrived and after
taking one look at Hetark’s bloody burden he started to tell him he
could not bring her into his hotel.

Hetark grabbed him by his clean shirt front
and pulled the man’s face closer. “You will make this woman
comfortable in your best room and hire ten men to stand guard until
I return. If she dies or
complains
in any way I will have you neutered. This will cover your trouble,”
he released the man and then slammed enough gold coins onto the
counter to rent the entire hotel a month.

“Yes sir, everything will be done as you
asked. Have no worries, she will be treated as a
Shaardess
!” He snapped his fingers and started
giving orders to his underlings.

Hetark was shown into the best room and he
gently laid Poison on the white bed, carefully pulling the covers
over her. “Hold on, Marinda,” he whispered into her ear.

A moment later he left the hotel heading
swiftly for the seedy part of town.

In Vorg’s
tomb,
the battle was still going on, but it had been a
quarter bell since the Tchulians had last tried to force their way
past the knights.

Becaris and Rasal stood guard while Lasar
rested a few feet away. Two of them could stop the rush long enough
for the third to enter the skirmish.

They had managed to kill or seriously wound
five Tchulian soldiers in the past two bells since G’Taklar and
Rachael had escaped. The Tchulians had pulled back after each short
battle. Then they would hit them again at varying intervals.

Becaris figured they were trying to wear
them down by rotating men in against them, without leaving time for
the knights to get serious rest. He had to admit that the strategy
was working, he was getting tired. They could not make a break for
the rope because the Tchulians would hear them climbing over the
bones.

If Becaris had been leading the Tchulians he
would have done it similarly, except for attacking more often to
wear them out faster. Somehow he had to buy enough time for
G’Taklar to escape with the signet ring. He considered sacrifice,
one man could not hold them while the other two escaped, but two
men could for a brief time. If he decided to go with that decision
he would have to do it soon or the two men would be too tired to
hold them long enough.

These damn bones,
he thought
,
maybe one of us could begin piling them up to make an aisle down
the middle.
He discarded the idea instantly, it would take too
long, but the thought of piling bones brought on another idea.

“Start making a large pile of bones to the
side of the corridor opening,” he whispered quietly to Rasal, “When
it’s large enough we’ll knock it over, blocking the passage for a
short time. Then we’ll make a break for the rope, escaping before
they can clear the way and follow us across the bones to the other
chamber.”

Rasal repeated the plan to his brother and
Lasar got up to stand guard with Becaris while his brother began to
make the tower of bones.

At the sound of the bones being moved the
Tchulians attacked again. Becaris dueled with his first opponent
while Lasar fought shield and sword with another soldier.

The passage was wide enough for a third
soldier to get close to his companions and thrust between them when
the opportunity presented itself.

The third Knight Protector had kept the
third soldier at bay, but now Lasar and Becaris had to take up the
slack.

Rasal piled up bones as fast as he could,
while his companion’s
swords
blurred in silvery arcs,
clashing
to a halt as an opponent parried, then blurring back into motion.
Each time they had to start their sword back into motion it took
more strength from their tiring muscles.

The Tchulians had a new strategy, every so
often they rotated in a different soldier causing Becaris and Lasar
to fight continuously while facing fresh fighters.

Lasar lunged suddenly, taking his current
opponent in the throat. The man fell to the ground, ineffectually
grabbing at the blood gushing wound.

Immediately the soldier to his right stepped
over him and continued the fight, from behind hands pulled the body
out of the way.

A fresh soldier stepped into the gap between
his battling companions.

Becaris’ arms felt like stones were tied to
them, his sword felt like it weighed four times more than when he
had started this bout. He saw an opening in his opponent’s defense,
parrying the man’s sword out of line to the right, Becaris stepped
in and with his left
hand,
he
impaled the man on his dagger’s point.

In that moment where he stepped forward, his
tired arm carried the man’s sword too high and the soldier next to
him came in underneath piercing Becaris between the ribs with his
sword thrust.

Becaris cried out in pain as he pulled back
and
parried
the
soldier’s
follow up thrust. The soldier stepped
into his dead partner’s position and continued to fight the now
wounded Becaris.

The wounded knight knew he could not last
much longer, the sword had penetrated his right lung; he could feel
the wetness in his mouth, blood from the sucking wound in his side.
Becaris doggedly continued to battle.

“Ready!” the voice of Rasal called out from
the right side of the hall opening.

Neither Becaris nor Lasar could afford a
moment to glance over, but they readied themselves.

“Now!” Rasal yelled.

The two battling knights
leaped
back as a large pile of bones collapsed
in a heap, blocking the hall opening
three-quarters
of the way to the top.

Becaris staggered and collapsed to one knee,
Rasal stepped forward and grasped his hands pulling them over his
strong shoulders. Then, with the wounded Becaris laying chest down
on Rasal’s back the knight crawled over the shifting bones, and
called to his brother, “Get up the rope ahead of me!”

“Leave me,” Becaris commanded.

“Shut up,” was Rasal’s immediate
response.

When they reached the next chamber, Rasal
tied a loop in the rope and placed it under Becaris’ arms, around
his chest. Then the twin swarmed up the rope, toward the hole in
the ceiling.

He came over the lip and yelled, “Pull him
up!” Together the twin brothers hauled their fellow knight up from
the chamber below. Their nearly identical upper body muscles
strained with the effort.

Becaris watched from his height of ten feet
and saw the Tchulians pouring into the chamber. They screamed in
rage when they saw the hole in the ceiling, and the dangling
knight, spinning on the rope as the other two hauled him up toward
safety.