Chosen (The Warrior Chronicles, 1) (36 page)

“To the right, Cayan!” Shanti shouted, thrusting her sword through the gut of a red faced man, then stepping back as the body fell to the ground. “Cover me while I ta—“

Pain blossomed in her leg, cutting off her speech and momentarily
causing her to stumble. She ducked under her sword as a downward strike threatened to cleave her head in two, metal clashing. Ignoring the throbbing pain from the gash, she forced herself back up, realizing that time was running out. There were too many for just her and Cayan, and no one else could get close without the radiating pain from the cluster of Black Shirts dropping them to their knees.

A thick surge of gooey fear shot through the link from Cayan.
He turned to the right, rage now taking over logic. His eyes glowed like a beacon in the failing light. He put his hand on the back of Shanti’s neck, sweeping her mind and power toward him like dust toward a broom. He mentally wrapped around her, cushioning her in a protective embrace, threading into her, sinking deep, becoming one, power swirling in wide, broad bands, billowing out, arching up, and waiting for his command.

Then, unthinking, just reacting, he gave it.

A pure pulse of energy rocketed out from their two bodies, powers matched and equal, one specializing in finesse, the other now realizing he had something else. A raw, uncompromising punch of knock-down strength. He didn’t
crunch
or
twist
or
stab
. He
DESTROYED.

The cluster of minds couldn’t even scream out the pain. They were trapped in it. It thundered into their bodies, shaking and twisting them into gnarled things that could no longer be recognized as human. Other Inkna, standing with swords or knives,
trying to bring them down while they were caught in the mental bombardment sank, screaming. Those on the outskirts yelled until they were hoarse, bashing their heads into walls to escape it. Wave after wave of teeth chattering power surged out, pounding the Black Shirts and anyone unlucky enough to be in the way.

Shanti could imagine what people saw: Cayan standing
in the wake, a strong man clutching to him a fierce looking woman, pillars amid the destruction they wrought. The ground was littered with bodies in red uniforms, blood oozing from eyes or ears, faces screwed up in agony as their life blinked out, eyes staring blindly at the sky.  Behind a screen twenty spans away lay a pile of bodies wearing black uniforms, their minds dead.

It was then that Leilius stopped. His mind registered sorrow and hurt and panicked im
patience. He had found Sanders—or at least learned the location. Shanti still couldn’t get a reading on Sanders’ mind, which worried her.

“To me!” Cayan boomed.

Shanti stepped away but turned to him, a question in her eyes, her hand on Lucius’s shoulder, helping her Chance up.

“Go. I need to give direction, then I am right behind you,” Cayan said with a nod.

And she was gone.

“What was that?” Betty’s voice had a slight tremor to it.

The metal door to the cell was open. They had propped Sanders up on a chair, tied in so he didn’t fall off. Three Black Shirts stood around Betty. Littered on the ground were Steaphen and Jasan. They looked dead but their chests were rising and falling. They were breathing but it was shallow. Barely hanging on. Like him.

“There are two,” someone answered. “They can
Join
.”

“
We
can
Join
!” Betty shouted. “Take them down!”

“They took down all eighteen of the
Sarsher.
At one time. They are too powerful!”

“Eighteen… No one has that kind of power! There must be more. Where are the archers?”

“You sound worried,” Sanders mumbled. He couldn’t feel his body.

“How many?” Betty was in his face, pushing at his chest with a knife. It pricked his skin. He knew this because his chest was bare and small dots of blood welled up where the knife touched.

“Well, there’s the girl. And it seems she has trained the boy. So—” His body wracked in a cough. When he regained his breath he finished with: “So you’re fucked.”

“Stop laughing!” Betty screamed.

Shanti descended the stairs two at a time. She could feel Sanders now. Pain, misery, he was flirting with death, barely hanging on.

Anger so hot she couldn’t control it welled up from deep within her. All the pain from the last year was resurfacing, and she was about to put a face on the man responsible for killing her love. Not the
same man, surely, but it didn’t matter. They were all the same as far as she was concerned, and he would pay.

“T
wo running up. Kill them!” she hollered.

Sterling was in front, Lucius behind. She
had inherited another Chance. Sterling was thoroughly on her side because he trusted she was thoroughly on his. His loyalty now encompassed her, and it was a deep well of loyalty indeed. Cayan had picked some good officers. Not that that was a surprise.

“Lucius, three running after. Let me know if you can’t handle them. At the end of the stairs we go right.”

“Yes, S’am,” Lucius said.

Sterling didn’t understand the title so he just grunted.

They turned the corner; Shanti didn’t have to do anything with her Chances on the scene. Cayan was making his way down with five others. Sanders was dwindling further still. Two others were dying at his feet. Four enemy surrounded him that were the walking dead, they just didn’t know it yet. Sometimes she loved breaking the bad news.

“Sterling, two more headed your way. They will appear around the corner in three…two…one—“

The first got an arrow, the second a knife punched through the gut and ripped upwards.

“Turn left.”

The tunnels were well kept and scrubbed, but dark. It was below ground, so there were no windows. No natural light. Hopefully Sanders wasn’t half mad already.

Rage bubbled. S
he still had to make it out of here, so she couldn’t expend all her power. But oh Elders, she wanted to. She wanted to take the enemy’s sanity apart by threads and light each one on fire.

“Right,”
she barked. “Now peel away.”

Sterling did exactly that as she walked into the large room. There was a row of cells,
the low light getting trapped in the crannies of the stone walls. The smell of sweat and urine accosted her. She stopped in front of the first cell and felt a piercing in her shoulder, something glancing off bone. If she wasn’t so enraged it probably would’ve hurt.

Sanders was on a chair, completely naked, blood oozing down his chest from four different points. It looked fresh. He was filthy and covered in his own waste. His eyes were half open and unfocused, his mouth was turned up in a laughing grimace, and a wheeze that could have been soft laughter bubbled out of his mouth.

A man in a white shirt and gray slacks stood behind him holding a knife. To the left, a line of three men in black shirts battered up against her shields.

“Well, well, what have we here?”
Shanti’s voice was a sharpened blade, rage so white-hot it turned her stomach to fire. Her eyes devoured the cold eyes of the man in the white shirt. “A Master Executioner. I wondered if I would find one of you here.”

His eyes went
wide. “You lived.”

“Sanders, how are you doing?” Shanti asked seriously.

“Oh, swimmingly.” His voice was a thick, hoarse moan. “Thanks for coming. The party was just getting going.”

“Lovely, you still have your wit. That’s nice. Did you scream for them?”

“Not yet.”

“Would you like them to scream for you? Or is quicker better?”

“Black Shirts can die quick, but I would love to hear Betty’s singing voice before I die.”

Sterling
stepped to her right, doing something to her shoulder. She couldn’t feel it. The rest of her arm was going numb.

The guy who
Sanders called Betty stepped forward to stick the knife in his neck. Shanti grabbed his brain in a claw-like grip and held him, paralyzing him. He made a surprised gurgle. She tsk’ed. “Now, now. Don’t you want to see who is the better man? You or him? You couldn’t make him scream. Do you think you can hold out as well?”

She turned to the
Black Shirts, all with white, fear-drenched faces. They were still working at her shield. “There is no point in that.” Her voice was soft. Melodic. “Your power is nothing.”

She
stabbed
, ending them quickly, per Sanders’ request. They each gave a shriek before falling to the earth. Lucius stepped in and grabbed onto Sanders, laying him on his back and checking him over.

Shanti stepped in as well, careful not to step on the men lying at her feet, unconscious. She
slid a chair from the wall, its feet screeching against the stone floor. Her focus glued to her new little mouse.

“So,” she said, trying to force her anger back so she could focus.
She opened her shields for a taste of his unique power. What she felt rocked her.

He wasn’t strong by any means. Not even a quarter of her power. To be effective, he had to be extremely close or touching. But it was the nature of the
Gift
that was startling. It was why he held the position he did. He could feed a person their worst nightmare through emotion. It was an imprint of emotion from a memory. Regardless of whether the memory came from him, her, or someone else, it felt so real. But this horrible maggot had a real memory with which to torture her. He was replaying the intense joy at someone under his command slowly sticking a knife into Romie’s gut, and drawing it upwards as two people held him down. She felt the life crushing pain of that knife blade slowly working up his sternum, and incredible loss, knowing he’d never see the love of his life again.

He had been thinking of her as he died.

Grief so fresh it bled washed over her, threatened to drown her reason. “You were there.”

It was so quiet she could barely hear her own voice. “You must be Sturgane. I wondered if I’d ever meet you. How unlucky for you that our paths should cross.
And what a truly remarkable
Gift
you have. I am almost speechless with the pain. But you see, I have lived through a great deal of agony in my life, much caused by you, it is true, but I am excellent at tucking it away. Your disgusting little
Gift
will not cause insanity in me. At least, not before I end your life in the most painful way humanly possible.”

“He died whispering your name.”

“Pouring salt in the wound, as Xavier would say.” Shanti took a ragged breath, her mind trying to shut down. But not yet. She still had work to do. She had Sanders to avenge. She had to tend to the living before she could join the dead. “In order for your power to be effective, you need real memories. Otherwise, it is a generalized tool that weakens the spirit instead of crushing it. Interesting. You aren’t a little mouse at all, are you? You are a filthy rat. I wonder if I will hold up. I certainly don’t want to; I will be honest about it. That is very, very unlucky for you.”

She felt Cayan’s hand on the back of her bare neck. His voice was soft and full of shared sadness,
his presence still deeply entwined in her head, as he said, “We haven’t much time,
mesasha
.”

“Do you hear that, filthy rat? You will get a quick job.
It seems your circle of gods partially feel sorry for you. Or maybe they wish to punish you themselves. So, where shall we start?”

Sanders felt his body gently dabbed. Well, it might’ve been stabbed for all he could feel, but he liked to think Lucius was being careful. He saw the Captain above him, his hand on the girl’s neck, his body bent over her protectively. He was yelling at someone about a knife in her shoulder or some such thing.

Sterling was leaning over him, his eyes a worried mask. “What ails you, Commander? I see no serious wounds.”

Only Shanti would know how to fix him. If it were possible. So why ruin the moment? “
Ssshhhh,
I’ve been praying for this. Let me hear her revenge on him. I want to hear him scream. Don’t let the Captain restrain her.”

At that the Captain look
ed down at him, worry and grief in his eyes. When those glowing blue orbs met his, he saw a nod through the haze, then the Captain was looking straight ahead again.

“You see, filthy rat,
” Shanti said from somewhere close, “I am unimpressed with your brand of power, though I think I will use it on the Being Supreme before I kill him.”