The Blood Sigil (The Sigilord Chronicles Book 2) (32 page)

Lu grinned at him and he smiled back. Mist scampered off into a shadowy corner, hiding from the conflict she knew was coming.

A yellow light spilled into the chamber from an adjoining corridor. It bounced as though held by a person.
A torch, maybe?
Urus thought.
Is this the sigilord?
The light grew stronger as whoever carried it approached.

A moment later, the tall, bright yellow form of an avatar knight stepped into the room. It held a small sword made of sigilcraft energy in each hand. It took a few more steps then paused.

A man followed the knight. He carried two small swords with angled tips, long hilts, and wide, circular pommels. He wore a heavy fur-lined cloak fastened at his neck with a jeweled clasp. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but his most striking feature was dull gray metal helmet with a smooth, round top. The bottom angled down his upper chest, spreading wide below the nose to allow him to breathe. A piece of dark stained glass covered the man's eyes and nose.

Facing the group, he gave a slight bow.

"It fills an old man with joy to see a room filled with sigilords and radixes again," he said.
 

Urus struggled to watch his mouth move, and again the words did not match with his lips. Picking up the surface thoughts of other people was an awkward experience, especially when he knew what someone said without knowing what language they spoke.
 

"My name is Luse Lingxiu," said Lu. "This is Urus Noellor, and these radixes are the rest of our group."
 

The radixes each in turn introduced themselves, addressing the man at the head of the room as "lord," similar to the deference with which they treated Urus and Luse.

"Greetings and welcome," said the sigilord. "My name is Autar Kelus."

Chapter Twenty-One

Cailix stared up at the ceiling.
 

Sleep had been elusive, and she had spent most of the night coughing into her blankets and pillow to keep from awakening Colin, who slept in the next room over. Even in the darkness of the room—lit only by the faint glow of the moon trickling in through a narrow, dirty window—she could tell that the bed linens were covered with her blood.

Satisfied that it was late enough and that Colin was in a deep sleep, Cailix slipped out from under the covers and lowered herself to the floor, careful not to let any of the floorboards creak. It took just seconds for the chill air to bite against her skin, despite her heavy nightclothes. She missed the warm embrace of the blankets.
 

One of the dragon feeder players had recommended the hostel to her and Colin. The accommodations were dirty and cramped, but the price couldn't be beat, and Cailix didn't really care—it had a fire, smoked cheese, and hot rabbit stew.

She changed into her travel clothes and added her heavy cloak and an extra shirt the mistress of the hostel had given her. One lesson she had learned from her time in Naredis was that proper layering meant the difference between survival and freezing to death.

She had told Colin that Anderis would arrive in a few days. The farm boy would hopefully sleep peacefully through the night and stay as far away from her and Anderis as possible. She didn't like having to lie to him, but it was for his own good. The farther away from her he was, the safer he would be.

As silent as a mouse, she crept out of her room and down the hall away from Colin's door. Satisfied that she hadn't woken anyone up, she continued down the stairs, into the kitchen, and out the side door into the cold night.

At least I didn't cough
, she thought, counting her blessings. Of course, thinking about coughing made her want to cough, but she suppressed the urge and swallowed hard instead.

It didn't take long to make her way along the snow-dusted streets from the hostel to the feeder field. The light of the moon struck the soft coating of snow on the ground, illuminating the whole area in a pale blue.

Unable to contain it any longer, she ducked into her cloak and coughed into her shirt. At first it was just a quick cough, but it quickly grew into an uncontrollable fit that knocked her to her knees and emptied her lungs. When she finally stopped coughing, she had to take several deep breaths to feel as though she could breathe again.

She walked out into the feeder field, her toes and fingers numb with cold, feeling as though no matter how hard she breathed, she couldn't get enough air.
 

Anderis is more than a challenge when I'm fit and ready,
she thought.
The way I feel now, this is suicide. He'll kill me in seconds.

She should have killed him when she had a chance. So many terrible things could have been avoided had she just done what she knew needed to be done that night so many months ago. She had stood there, hovering over his sleeping form, with knife in hand. All it would have taken was one quick plunge into his neck, and none of the damage he had brought into the world would have happened. She was responsible for everything he'd done after that night.

"Aerlissa," called a voice from the far side of the field. She didn't need to look to see who it was.

Anderis stepped out of the shadows and onto the moonlit field, accompanied by the two henchmen she had been following since she left Aldsdowne. It gave her a little bit of satisfaction to know that she had been right about them all along.

"I told you not to call me that," she said. Her voice cracked as she spoke the last word.

I hope he didn't notice that
, she thought. She didn't care about the illness that was slowly eating away at her from the inside out. All she had to do was live long enough to win this next fight, and that would be enough.

"I must admit," he said, "this is really quite a surprise. After your little farmer boyfriend stabbed me with the pitchfork, I was sure that I would never see you again."

"He didn't finish the job," Cailix said.
 

"Clearly not." Anderis guffawed. "I haven't lived this long just to be undone by a shepherd with a pointy stick. The embarrassment alone would kill me a second time."

"Tell your goons to stand aside. This fight is just you and me," Cailix said, this time not trying to raise her voice. Thankfully, her voice held steady.

"Since you seem hell bent on challenging me face to face, then we should do it properly." Anderis waved to his men. They each took up a position in front of a dragon's mouth. "An old-fashioned blood mage duel. Do you know the rules?"

"I didn't know blood mages had rules."

"The rules are simple. Each of my men will spill a drop of their blood into a cup and set it on the ground before them. One of them will then lift and drop a feeder ball. When the ball hits the ground, we strike. Each of us must use the blood in the cup to our left. What you do with the blood is entirely up to you, but it must be consumed. We repeat this until one of us dies. Failure to follow these rules results in forfeiture, and thus the forfeiture of your life. Do you accept the terms of this challenge?"

"Why the change of heart, Anderis?" Cailix asked, stalling so she could plan her opening strike. "Why not just get one of your men to stab me in the back while I sleep?"

"You and I are more alike than you are willing to admit,
daughter
," Anderis said. "I will not be satisfied until I have beaten you in a truly fair match. That is why you didn't kill me when you left me in that inn that night. You cannot kill me while I sleep, nor could I do the same to you. It would be a hollow victory. I want you to know the extent of my power as you die."

"I accept your terms," said Cailix. On any given day she could easily outwit Anderis. But at full strength, Anderis could nearly match her power for power, and she was nowhere near full strength. In fact, she felt so weak she could barely stand.
 

"Excellent," said Anderis, eagerly rubbing his hands together. Each of the henchmen drew a blade and pulled a cup from inside their cloaks. They poked the blade into a fingertip and squeezed just a single drop of blood into the cup.

The henchmen took a few steps away from the cups while one plucked a feeder ball from the dragon's mouth and held it above his head.
 

He thinks he knows my moves
, Cailix thought.
He knows he taught me almost everything I know, so if I do something he taught me, he'll be ready for it.
I need to do something that I wouldn't normally do.

Calix had run out of time to think of her opening gambit. The thug to her right dropped the feeder ball. The moment it hit the ground, she reached out to the blood droplet in her bowl. She felt the connection with it and willed it toward her. She didn't have time to look up and see what Anderis might be doing.
 

As the bead of blood soared through the air, Cailix flattened and stretched and tugged on it, shaping it into something else. She bent to one knee and ducked just as the once tiny red globule arrived in the shape of a shield.

A raging ball of flame slammed into her blood shield. The flames diverted to either side and wrapped her in searing heat. She almost enjoyed the sudden rush of warmth pushing back some of the terrible cold of the night.

"Impressive," said Anderis. "I was convinced you were going to transmogrify the blood into the dart you used to kill that rabbit during your first test."

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think," Cailix said, using nearly all of her remaining strength just to stand up.
 

Don't cough
, she thought.
Don't cough!

"This is where it gets fun," said Anderis. "You opened defensively. Will you continue defending? I opened offensively; will I switch to something defensive? The possibilities are endless. Oh, how I have missed these duels."

Anderis's underlings each contributed another drop of blood. The man to her right picked up the feeder ball again.

"Ready," said Anderis.

"Ready," Cailix repeated. She had no idea what she was going to do. Her mind was clouded, her senses dulled. All she could feel was the cold and the infection in her blood, working its way through her system, eating her alive.

As the feeder ball hit the ground, Cailix dropped and rolled to her right, summoning the blood drop as she dodged. Her blood drop spun faster and faster as it hurtled toward Anderis. As it spun it stretched and spread, taking on the fine edge of a blade with no handle to interrupt the cutting surface.

Anderis stepped to one side and huddled behind his own blood shield. Cailix's summoned blade deflected harmlessly and slid across the field before reverting into a single drop of blood.

She got to her feet—barely—and smoothed out her cloak and pants, wiping off the snow powder. At this point she knew she was finished. There was no way Anderis hadn't noticed her struggle to stand up. Once he saw a weakness, she knew he would exploit it.

"Now it's getting exciting!" Anderis crowed, his face flushed red, his chest heaving.
 

He's enjoying this
, Cailix thought.
There's no way I can beat him
.

Again the men donated a drop of blood to the duel and stepped away from the bowls. Cailix panicked.

I should be able to figure something out,
she thought. Her mind was in such a haze from the sickness that she could scarcely concentrate on anything, let alone come up with a move to defeat Anderis's magic.

The feeder ball dropped, and Cailix summoned the globule of blood. Even her control of blood felt weak, and it took everything she had to shape it into a sharp, tiny dart and send it soaring toward Anderis.
 

Anderis's blood droplet buried itself deep in the earth before her and then exploded, the field erupting in a cascade of dirt and rocks. The impact sent her flying. She landed hard on her back, the wind knocked out of her.

She watched as Anderis dodged the dart with a smooth, deft movement.

Just a few more seconds
, she thought. If she didn't pull this off, she wasn't going to have any energy left to finish the fight.

"You missed," he said.

"Did I?" Cailix closed her eyes and felt the blood around her. The rapid, thumping heartbeats of the three men filled her head like a band pounding on drums. She focused on Anderis's heartbeat, spun her little dart around, and sent it screaming for the center of his heart.

His eyes widened. Without looking to see what was coming, he dove to the side. Her dart burst out of his shoulder, having just missed his heart. She sank back to the ground and sighed, knowing she wasn't going to survive the next round.

"Very clever," he said, standing up. He tore a piece of cloth from his robe and wrapped it around his shoulder to stop the bleeding. "You should have been able to kill me with that move."

He knows
, she thought.
He knows I'm weak.

She struggled to her knees, then had to press her palms against her knees to stand up again. She no longer had the energy to hide her weakness. As she stood up she noticed one of the henchmen was gone.

"Giving up so soon?" Cailix said, pointing to the bowl and feeder ball, the vacant spot left by the missing man.