Chainfire (29 page)

The man sent to announce her was ushered into the main tent by an attendant. A moment later he reappeared, followed by a tall man in flowing henna-dyed robes. His manner of dress stood out on the drab scene like clotted blood. Despite the heat and humidity the hood of his robe was draped regally over his head, a sign of pious authority.

He stalked to the edge of the rise, closer to her, and struck an arrogant pose. He took his time looking her over—inspecting the goods.

The man holding the reins to her horse bowed in his saddle.

“A humble gift from the people of Altur’Rang,” he explained with mock courtliness.

Men far and wide laughed quietly to themselves at that, commenting to one another on the specific pleasures Kronos was going to enjoy from his gift. Officers came out of nearby tents to see what was going on.

A lustful grin spread across Kronos’s face. “Bring her in. I will have to unwrap the gift and have a closer look.”

The men laughed all the louder. Kronos’s smile widened, pleased that they found his wit entertaining.

Nicci found the circumstances of her dress to be distracting, but that was the risk. She had judged the risk necessary. These men were brutes and they found her situation to their liking.

Brother Kronos took her in as he waited for her to be conveyed inside. His unflinching gaze was riveting. She found herself staring into his dark eyes.

Men closed in around her.

Nicci knew that she couldn’t allow them to get her off her horse. It had to be now.

There were a thousand things she wanted to say to Brother Kronos. She wanted to tell him what she thought of him, what she was going to do to him, what Richard was going to do to all the Imperial Order.

A simple death seemed too easy for Kronos. She wanted him to suffer
before he died. She wanted him to know full well what she had in store for him. She wanted him to feel it, to twist in pain and agony, to beg for mercy, to taste the bitter bile of defeat. She wanted him to suffer for the misery he spread in his wake. She wanted him to pay the price for everything he had ever done to innocent people.

She wanted him to know that his entire life had been a waste and that it was about to end.

But she knew that that was not her task. She would risk failure should she even attempt to accomplish any tiny part of it.

Instead, Nicci unceremoniously lifted her fists just a little toward the man as she willed forth her Han. Fearing to tip Kronos as to what was coming, she refrained from taking even an extra split second to conjure anything elaborate. She opened the floodgates, using nothing more complex than a blast of air directed at the man—but it was concentrated beyond anything he would expect even if he suspected she might be a sorceress.

In a blinding instant the late-afternoon camp was lit with a flash of crackling light—discharges created by the intense heat generated by a focused compression of air. Threads of light lashed around the convergent release of force.

Since even a slight slip could conceivably give him an opportunity to strike out before he died, Nicci didn’t even risk the satisfaction of smiling as the iron-hard spike of air shot for his head.

Before Brother Kronos ever realized that something was happening, Nicci’s sudden release of power blew a fist-sized hole through the center of his forehead. Blood and brain matter sprayed the lambskin wall of the tent behind him. He dropped like a sack of sand, his life already long gone. He never had a chance to respond in kind.

Nicci used a shard of power to at last sever the ropes binding her wrists. They hissed from the sting of heat as they were cut and then dropped away.

Without pause she fed a flow of her Han into a focused line of power that she swept around her like a blade wielded by a master swordsman. The officer who had led her horse and leered at her the whole way grunted as that hot edge ripped through him, cutting him in two below the rib cage. His mouth opened but no scream escaped as his upper half tumbled toward the ground, landing with a hard thud.

With a wet thump the second man could do no more than gasp as he was hit by the same power and torn in two. Coiled ropes of his intestines disgorged across his horse’s neck. Nicci twisted in her saddle as she whipped the conjured blade around in an arc. With frightening speed and a flash that lit the shimmering leaves of the nearby cottonwood trees, the edge of deadly power sizzled as it ripped through the air. Before anyone could begin to react, it cut down all the men on horses around her as they still sat in their saddles.

The air filled with the stench of burned flesh, blood, and the contents of ruptured viscera. Horses reared up or bucked, trying to rid themselves of the disembodied legs. Ordinarily, warhorses were used to the confusion of intense battle—but that was in large part because they had familiar riders to control and direct them. Now they were on their own and they were spooked. A number of men rushing in were knocked down and trampled by the panicked horses, further adding to the disorder.

As pandemonium began to erupt all around her, as men charged in toward her, Nicci gathered her inner will, preparing to unleash an onslaught of withering destruction.

Just as she was initiating the launch of that deadly assault, she pitched forward unexpectedly. At the same time she felt the stunning pain of something heavy clouting her across her back. It was propelled by such staggering force that it drove her breath out with a cry. She saw flying past her the shattered pieces of a heavy lance that had been swung like a club.

Dazed, Nicci realized that she had just hit the ground face-first. She tried desperately to gather her senses. Her face felt oddly numb. She tasted warm blood. She saw strings of it dripping from her chin as she pushed herself up on wobbly arms.

She realized then, when she couldn’t pull in a breath, that the wind had been violently knocked out of her. She frantically tried again, but, despite her desperate efforts, she couldn’t draw a breath.

The world swam in dizzy disarray around her. Sa’din was above her, dancing about but unable to move away. Even though Nicci feared that the horse might accidentally step on her, she couldn’t make herself move out of the way. Men all around finally muscled the horse aside. Other men dropped to their knees beside her. A knee in her back flattened her to the ground again. Powerful hands gripped her arms, her legs, her hair, holding her down—as if she could get up on her own.

These men apparently feared that if she got up she might conjure her power, as if the gifted needed to be standing and they had but to keep her on the ground to be safe. But the gifted did need to have their wits about them if they were to call upon their power, and she didn’t.

Some of the men pulled her over on her back. A boot at her throat kept her her pinned to the ground. Weapons all around pointed down at her.

And then a terrible thought came to her…dark eyes.

The wizard she had just killed had dark eyes.

Kronos didn’t have dark eyes.

Kronos was supposed to have blue eyes.

She was having difficulty sorting it all out in her mind. She had killed the high priest. It didn’t make sense.

Unless there had been more than one Brother.

The men holding her down backed away.

Grim blue eyes glared down at her. It was a man wearing long robes. The hood was pulled up. A high priest.

“Well, sorceress, you have just managed to kill Brother Byron, a loyal servant to the Fellowship of Order.”

She could tell by his tone that he had not yet begun to voice his building anger.

Through the shock, Nicci still couldn’t draw a breath. The pain in her back radiated out in paralyzing waves. She wondered if the man who had clubbed her had broken her ribs. She wondered if her back was broken. She supposed it didn’t matter, now.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” the red-faced man above her said. He pushed the hood of his robes back. “I am Brother Kronos. You belong to me, now. I intend to make you pay a long and painful price for the murder of a good man who was only doing the Creator’s noble work.”

Nicci couldn’t, simply couldn’t, pull in a breath to save her life, much less to say anything. The pain of not being able to breathe cloaked her in a tight shroud of panic that prevented her from thinking. The distress of needing air and not being able to get it grew more terrifying with every passing second.

She didn’t know what to do.

She remembered when Richard had been shot with the arrow and he couldn’t breathe. She remembered how his skin had turned ashen, and then had begun turning blue. She had been so afraid seeing him not being able to breathe. Now she couldn’t.

Kronos’s smile was as humorless and wicked as any she had ever seen, but it seemed not to matter to her.

“Quite an accomplishment—for a sorceress—killing a wizard. But then, you only accomplished such a feat by treachery, so it was no real accomplishment after all. It was nothing more than simple, underhanded deceit.”

He didn’t know. Nicci realized that he still didn’t know who she was…or what she was. She was no mere sorceress.

But she needed a breath to be anything.

Her vision was narrowing to a black tunnel with the face of the wizard Kronos twisting into rage at the far end. She tried with all her might to pull a breath. It felt like her body had forgotten how to breathe.

It surprised her that the lack of air made her ribs throb and ache. She wouldn’t have expected that. Despite her fading, frantic effort to get air into her lungs, the life-giving breath simply would not come into her. She could only assume that whoever had clubbed her had done some kind of serious damage, and she would never again draw a life-giving breath.

And then Kronos gritted his teeth and seized her breast in a vicious, viselike grip spiked with thorns of magic intended to inflict excruciating torment.

The sudden sharp shock of pain made her gasp a breath before she realized she was doing it.

The air felt hot with life as it flooded into her lungs. Without conscious thought, she instinctively struck out with her Han at the cause of the piercing pain.

Kronos cried out and staggered back, cradling the hand that had been on her and dealing out his revenge. Blood ran down his wrist and under the sleeve of his robe.

Although she had been able to get him to release her, and even to injure him, she was still too disoriented to muster the force necessary to get past the formidable defenses of a wizard in order to kill him. She panted, gulping air, even though each breath hurt. She knew, though, that it hurt far more not to be able to get a breath.

“You filthy bitch!” he yelled. “How dare you use your power against me! You cannot hope to match me with the gift. You will soon enough learn your place.”

His face flushed red with anger. With a thin thread of her Han Nicci could sense the powerful shields the man had erected before himself. Before he had, though, she had seared the flesh off his fingers. He held the trembling hand to his breast. She knew full well that his intent was to extract prolonged and gruesome retribution.

He ranted at her, cursing and calling her names, telling her what he intended to do with her and what would become of her once he was finished with her. The grins of the men watching widened at hearing the nature of those plans.

He thought she was a sorceress and that he could overpower her gift with his. He did not know that she was far more; she had become a Sister of the Dark. Even if he knew that much, Kronos might not have understood, as few people did, the full and terrible meaning behind that appellation. A Sister of the Dark wielded not only her own gift, but the Han of a wizard as well; his gift was taken before he passed through the veil into death.

As if the combined gift of a sorceress and wizard was not formidable enough, added into that powerful mix was Subtractive Magic gained while the veil was parted at the instant of the donor wizard’s death. His own Han acted as the conduit, and she held within herself that power as the Subtractive essence slipped through the veil.

There were few people who could command Subtractive Magic: Richard by birth, and the Sisters of the Dark by contrivance. All of the Sisters of the Dark were now captives of Jagang except for Nicci and four others—three of Richard’s former teachers from the Palace of the Prophets and their leader, Sister Ulicia.

Kronos shook his bloody fist at Nicci. “The people of Altur’Rang are traitors! They have defiled a holy place! In turning away from the ways of the Order they have turned away from the Creator Himself. Through our hands, the Creator will have His revenge and smite these sinful people. We will cleanse Altur’Rang not just of their flesh and bone but of their unenlightened ways! The Imperial Order will once again rule Altur’Rang and from there Jagang the Just will rule the world under the rightful ways of the Creator!”

Nicci almost laughed. Kronos had no idea that he was speaking to the person who had given Jagang the title of “Jagang the Just.” She had told the emperor that such pronouncements of justice under his rule would win over a great number of people without having to fight them. He had been willing to battle them all; she alone had been able to make him see that it was to his benefit to have them rally to his side of their own free will. She told Jagang that the name she had given him would bring the people to him.

She had been all too right. Many people equated intentions with the actual deed. The title she had given Jagang was now widely believed by people who didn’t know much at all about him or the Order. It never failed to amaze her how simply saying something, no matter how untrue, was all it took to convince a large number of people of what you wanted them to believe. She supposed that it was easier for them to let someone else do their thinking for them.

Kronos’s tirade had bought her time to recover. With her strength returning, Nicci couldn’t afford to wait another instant.

She straightened her arm, pointing her fist up toward him. She wanted to draw her force out the length of her arm to let it build and converge at a point just beyond her fist. While it wasn’t at all necessary, she wanted to do it that way simply because it pleased her to let Kronos see her overt threat.

Confident in his ability, and the shields of his power, her hostile posture only served to further enrage him. “How dare you threaten—”

She released a tight bolt of Additive and Subtractive Magic laced together in a fearsome cord of destruction that arced through the wizard’s shields like lightning through paper and blew a mellon-sized hole right through the center of his chest.

Kronos’s eyes snapped wide. His mouth hung open in mute shock as his mind registered the irredeemable.

Through that hole, Nicci could see the sky. Almost instantly the internal pressure forced what remained of his surrounding organs into the void and then out the opening as Kronos’s mortally wounded body toppled back.

The man hadn’t known that his power was no match for hers. He could only conjure shields of Additive Magic. Such shields were of limited use against Subtractive Magic.

All around her weapons were already being lifted. Powerful muscles drew bowstrings to cheeks. Arms with spears cocked back, the iron tips all pointing at her along with swords, axes, and pikes.

Without pause Nicci unleased a blast of opposing magic twined together in a shattering ignition that in ruinous fury leveled the officers’ tents and blasted through the men on the knoll. The devastating concussion radiated outward in a circle at breathtaking speed, stripping flesh from bone. The ground was made muddy by the sudden deluge of blood.

The heat that had been focused into the blast was so intense that nearby trees erupted in flame. The clothes of men in the surrounding camp who had been rushing to meet the threat also caught fire. The flesh of those a little closer ignited. Men closer yet were ripped apart by the thunderous discharge of Nicci’s power. The force of what she had unleashed dissipated with distance and men farther away were only sent sprawling.

Such an extreme effort was risky because it was so draining, but it had the desired effect. In an instant the situation had changed from arrogant brutes gloating over a captive woman to confusion and panic.

Fearing to lose the initiative, she focused intense heat into the trunks of trees along the creek bank behind the men. It was a method of getting a large return for a small investment of power. Superheated sap instantly boiled into steam and the massive cottonwood trunks exploded in thunderous blasts, sending heavy sections of splintered wood spiraling though the crowds of men, cutting them down by the dozens.

Nicci swiftly conjured a liquid fire and sent the inferno spilling out across the field and into the confusion, igniting men, horses, and equip
ment in the terrible fury of roaring flames. The screams of man and beast melted together into one, long, terrible cry. The air smelled of oily smoke as well as burning hair and flesh.

At last, men were no longer charging in at her. In the brief break, Nicci struggled to get up from the blood-soaked ground. She stumbled through the carnage. Sa’din raced forward through the thick haze and nudged her with his head, helping her to find her balance. She threw an arm over his neck, relieved that she had succeeded in directing her power around him and that he was all right.

She finally seized the reins and, grunting with effort, managed to pull herself up on the horse before men could spear him, or slash her, or send arrows at them. She spun Sa’din around, all the time casting boiling gouts of fire out among the men as they again began rushing in at her. As they caught on fire, they stumbled blindly, shrieking, flailing, crashing into other men or into tents, spreading the deadly conflagration.

A man on one of the big warhorses suddenly galloped out of the smoke. The soldier raised his sword as he screamed a battle cry. Before Nicci could do anything, Sa’din bellowed in rage and snapped, ripping the warhorse’s ear off. The wounded horse screamed in terror and pain as it spun and bucked. The soldier was sent flying into the burning bodies.

Nicci directed a web of power at men rushing in at her, each in turn—just for an instant, but long enough to stop their hearts. They stumbled, clutching their chests. In a way, it was more frightening for men to see their comrades gasp and drop from a mysterious cause than it was to see them rent by violence. From Nicci’s point of view it was just as effective and it didn’t take as much of her strength; even though it required specific targeting, stopping a heart was easier than conjuring flames or lightning. With so many men all around her and all rushing in at her, she knew she was going to need all her strength if she hoped to get out of the camp alive.

While the men in the immediate area knew what was happening, as of yet those in the outlying areas of the camp weren’t fully aware of what was specifically going on, although they now knew they were under some sort of attack. Being well trained, they all rallied.

From all directions, arrows zipped through the air. Spears began flying past. An arrow flicked through Nicci’s hair. Another clipped her shoulder just enough to cut her. Nicci drummed her heels against Sa’din’s
ribs and lay forward over his whithers. She was astonished at the power with which the horse leaped away. He fearlessly galloped right through men rushing in at them. The stallion’s hooves made a sickening sound as they struck bone. Men tumbled away. Sa’din jumped over tents and fires. The air was alive with terrible screams. As she raced through the camp Nicci took every opportunity to inflict yet more death and destruction.

But from behind her, a swelling, angry roar began to lift from thousands upon thousands of men all the way across the valley. The power of it, the ferocity, was frightening.

Nicci vividly recalled Richard’s warning that all it would take was one lucky arrow. Now there were thousands. Nicci diverted her power from attacking to shielding her and her horse.

As Sa’din carried her back through the men, horses, wagons, and tents, Nicci let go of her defenses and again focused a scythe of her gift to slice through anything living that was close enough. The intensely concentrated and compacted edge of air sliced through men as they ran in to intercept her. As her horse leaped some obstacles and dodged others, that deadly edge of her power cut some men off at the knees and decapitated others. Horses screamed as their legs were cleaved from under them and they crashed to the ground. Shrieks of horror and pain from wounded men followed in her wake. But there were growing cries of rage.

As she charged through the camp, Nicci could see men all around swiftly saddling their horses and mounting up. Spears and lances were snatched from those stacked everywhere throughout the encampment. Nicci wished she could destroy the weapons, but she had to concentrate just to hold on to Sa’din as he bounded over anything in his way, including an occasional wagon. The horse seemed possessed to get her out of the danger as swiftly as possible. Even so, men in gathering numbers were taking up the chase, whether on horse or foot.

As she cleared the last of the tents, Nicci looked back over her shoulder. The place was in an uproar. Flames still shot skyward. Billowing clouds of oily black smoke rose in several places. She didn’t have any idea how many men she had killed, but there were thousands of them coming after her. The pounding she was taking atop a galloping horse was making her back hurt something fierce.

At least she had eliminated Kronos. They had tried to trick her, but in the end it had cost them a second wizard that she hadn’t even known they had with them and would have been terrible trouble for the defenders back at Altur’Rang. It had turned out to be a bit of good fortune.

As long as they didn’t have three wizards.