The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (58 page)

“Are we ready?” came Laskenay’s voice. Kora said she was. “On the count of three.”

And so the campaign began. Kora hardly glimpsed the courtyard on that first transport; Neslan and Lanokas, on either side, dropped her hands instantly, and she brought herself back to Wheatfield. Petroc and Laskenay trailed just a second behind. It fell to Kora to return a third time to the barn, for the last set of militiamen. The entire operation took less than a minute, which was lucky, because when she found herself, for the final time, standing on the flagged brown stone near the colonnade, more of Zalski’s men were already streaming from the Palace. She cursed, searching out Lanokas’s blond head in the melee. She found him quickly, took a steadying breath, and took off for the west side of the building, where Laskenay would be waiting.

The Palace’s west wall, a towering flat surface of polished stone, was set back from the fence but still visible from the street that ran parallel to it, one of Podrar’s major roads. Together, Kora and Laskenay cast a spell that Laskenay herself had written for the occasion: “
Crestus Royale Marcum.
”

Before their eye
s
the wall’s surface became a mural, depicting the royal family’s coat of arms in grandiose scale. The lion’s eyes were the size of Kora’s head, and the lamb was not life-size but four times as large. The sight nearly paralyzed her lungs.

“That should make an impact,” said Laskenay.

“Let’s go,” said Kora. The plan was for the two of them to slip inside the Palace and confront Zalski there. As Kora spun around, a guardsman with a bow collapsed on the cobblestone path that led to the courtyard proper and the Palace doors. Neslan stood above him, his face horrified, his blade dripping. He moved his eyes from his weapon to his compatriots. Only Laskenay was unphased, looking as pleased at her spell’s success as she did determined to triumph in every segment of the operation.

“He followed you,” said the noble.

Kora tried to thank him, but the words got stuck in her throat. Poor Neslan! His place was at the university, not a battlefield. He looked just as lost as Kora felt, which made her all the more grateful when he took the initiative to walk up and pull her forward, back toward the fight. She squeezed his hand; he squeezed hers back, and her nerve returned. Laskenay at their heels, they ran flat-out.

The courtyard was full of dueling bodies, living bodies. Zalski’s elite guard were true warriors, utilizing the colonnade’s pillars for defense, and Petroc performed his support role for the League with surprising skill, so that few had yet died, and none that Kora recognized—not that she had time to examine the scene. She and Laskenay bolted for the oaken doors, which someone had thrown wide open to allow Zalski’s men a quick exit. The two were four yards from their goal when out of nowhere, a bolt like black lightning struck Laskenay from point-blank range.

Laskenay grabbed at Kora as she went rigid, then collapsed. More from instinct than thought, Kora threw her arms in front of herself before a similar bolt, this one red, struck her. It bounced off her crimson shell and hit the Palace, shattering a statue and blackening the building’s white stone.

What would that spell have done to me? What happened to Laskenay? Good God….

The clang of metal had swallowed Zalski’s first incantations. Kora neither marked his third, but she knew it was
Desfazair
when he materialized three feet to her right. Laskenay began to stir, looking ill. Zalski cast a spell to bind her, but Kora blocked it with a silver shield. Another incantation from Zalski, and the shield evaporated with a puff of smoke; halfway risen, with a knee and hand still on the brick-laid ground, Laskenay tried to conjure her own golden barrier against her brother’s magic. Nothing happened. Zalski smirked as she spoke her spell again to no avail, and she fell back, astonished.

“Now you understand your fault against my nephew. How dare you deprive him….”

“Code black!”
Kora yelled.
“Code….”

Petroc transported to her side before she even repeated the phrase that signified one sorcerer was down. Zalski studied the newcomer with a disturbed look.

“Who the devil are you?”

Petroc’s features became canine. Kora half-expected him to growl; he did not, it so happened, but speaking through gritted teeth was close enough. “You murdered my brother,” he said.

“Ahhhh….”

Both men forgot Kora. They circled each other like vultures or wolves, eyes locked. Zalski smiled, intrigued by the thought of a challenge. He let Petroc attack first, and Petroc let fly the same type of red bolt that Kora had seen earlier. Zalski deflected it despite the close range, sending the spell in the direction of the Palace, where it blew one of the doors to pieces. Kora ducked to avoid being hit in the head by a burning strip of wood the size of her arm.

Zalski announced, “Hansrelto’s pain spell. They left the
Librette
with you, then.”

“That book is mine. My heritage. I
will
retrieve it.”

“You’ll never leave this courtyard,” said Zalski. He cast
Pulgaqua
. Petroc tried to make the water jet vanish, then redirected its course to one of the elite guard when that failed. Zalski broke off the spell, but not before a militiaman stabbed the guardsman through the armpit.

Meanwhile, Kora turned to Laskenay, who still looked shell-shocked, though she had risen from the ground. “I’m worthless,” Zalski’s sister warned her.

“You always were.”

Kora balled her fist at the silky, feminine voice. She whirled on her heel to face Malzin. “That’s cocky,” she said, “considering I can still blow you to kingdom come.”

“Of course you can. But you won’t. You haven’t the courage to truly use your magic.”

Malzin was slapping her sword against her palm. She advanced on Laskenay, Kansten’s amulet swinging on her neck, while Kora, thinking fast, used
Mudar
to arm her mentor with a blade, the sword of the guardsman Zalski unwittingly helped kill with
Pulgaqua
. Laskenay blocked the blow, her resolve renewed and her eyes cold. She was worthless no longer. “You will not interfere,” she told Kora, and dodged a second strike. “Under any circumstance.” Biting her lip, Kora turned her attention to Zalski and Petroc.

For two reasons Kora had hoped to fight Zalski indoors: to prevent his escape, or at least make it more difficult, and to keep him out of spell’s reach of the militia, the League, and its soldiers, who would be outnumbered by the guard without Zalski himself to offer his men support. She would never forget her father’s stories of how Hansrelto killed dozens with each incantation, and Zalski, with the
Librette
…. Kora did not want him emulating the ancient. Her fears, however, seemed unfounded at present. Zalski was absorbed mind and soul in his duel; the sorcerers cast incantations fast and with intensity. One side of Petroc’s robe had burned where a spell gone awry lit it aflame. A gash across Zalski’s upper chest was staining an increasing portion of his tunic. Unfortunately, the wound seemed superficial and did nothing to impede him. What did slow him down was Petroc shielding himself against a second attempt at drowning and, almost simultaneously, hitting his foe with a levitation spell, the one with which he struck Kansten at the Hall of Sorcery. Zalski’s feet flew up until he hovered, horizontal, his arms pasted to his side. Petroc conjured seven arrows and sent them, in a bundle, at the man who had cut out his brother’s tongue, but by the time they arrived Zalski had rotated upside down, where he could see his robed foe, and conjured his usual black shield, which also blocked Kora’s unmanned sword from harming him. He started casting even before his body was level; the spell took effect with milliseconds to spare.

Those milliseconds were all Zalski needed. His shield flickered, and he vanished Kora’s blade before it swiped at him again. Kora cast her blinding spell, but at a moment when the barrier was intact. Zalski hit the ground and evoked his shield again as she tried to render him harmless with
Estatua
; Petroc cast the pain spell a second time, and the scarlet bolt shattered Zalski’s defense as it rebounded to hit a militiaman in combat with a guard. That guard stabbed his opponent through the neck when he stumbled in agony.

The battle raging on all sides meant Kora still could not hear a syllable Zalski uttered. Somehow, she had overlooked that possibility—she never really planned to confront him in the thick of the struggle—and faux deafness’s added strain took its toll. When Zalski’s lips began to move before Kora was ready to respond, she could think of nothing but to conjure her shell for the umpteenth time. Had she been able to hear, she would have acted differently. Had she known his spell was the same she had used to demolish the Northeast Tower—that he would use it to pulverize the slabs of brick on which she and Petroc, who had transported to her side to coordinate attacks, were standing—she would have transported across the courtyard to avoid the accompanying explosion.
             

Neither Petroc’s white shield nor Kora’s protective shell could defend them from a spell cast on the earth. The ground beneath them erupted with such force it launched them fifty feet in the air. Kora’s limbs flailed. She tried to come up with a spell, any spell, that could help her, but the vertigo from the wind whipping past her face made thinking impossible. Just as she realized she was in a trajectory that would carry her over the gates and into a stone wall across the road, she felt herself jerked backward. Only when, contrary to all science and expectation, her body decelerated to some degree did she realize that Zalski was responsible. She had been falling fast enough to die on impact, so the sorcerer slowed her and manipulated her flight to have her land at his feet, on her side; to see where exactly she was caused a panic to numb the agony of half a body’s worth of broken bones. Petroc, for whom Zalski had no use, lay crumpled against a pillar of the colonnade into which he had careened. His skull had split, leaving a vertical smear of blood down the column’s side.

Lanokas yelled, Kora knew not what. His voice sounded in her ear as though he spoke through a wall. He ran to her, she could see him, while Zalski’s next incantation echoed distorted in her brain. The spell made a smoldering chunk of the Palace door that was soaring through the air, soaring toward Zalski’s head—Lanokas had aimed to kill with his own magic—land centimeters from Kora’s shoulder, splattering her with sparks. Kora cringed while Zalski cast a second time. Her voice shook with fright and pain, misspeaking the spell to evoke a shield before the rightful king. Familiar-looking purple bonds wrapped themselves around him, and he crashed face-forward two yards away. Zalski would not kill Lanokas either: at least, not yet.

445

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A New Ally

Kora heaved, though there was nothing in her stomach to throw up. The pressure on her broken ribs brought her to the point of passing out. Her vision went black, but she retained consciousness, and when her sight returned, she looked up to see Zalski peering down at her. She recast her spell to conjure an attacking sword, to buy precious time, to try to free Lanokas or to heal herself.

Zalski was too fast. He grabbed her weapon by the hilt and magically sealed Kora’s mouth before she could fully cast
Desfazair
on the prince. Zalski’s lips moved again, but Kora had no strength to lift a shattered arm to raise her shell. He bound her as he had Lanokas. She tried fruitlessly to scream as the cords pulled against her battered body and was lost to the world, this time completely.

When Kora came to, even before opening her eyes, the din of clashing swords and yells of fury, the stomps of heavy feet, every sound told her she had not been unconscious long. Her left side ached, but not with the sharpness of before. Zalski had healed the most serious of her wounds. On top of that, she could separate her lips again, but now her throat was throbbing like it never had in all her eighteen years.

Ignoring the pain that speaking was sure to intensify, Kora tried to free herself. Not even a croak came from her mouth. She tried again to cast the proper spell, but made no sound besides gasping noises. She squeezed her eyes shut in desperation.

He did something to my vocal cords. Something permanent. Son of a….

Kora overlooked the fact that permanent damage meant little when she would be dead before nightfall. As she struggled to swallow a mouthful of saliva, anger wrought of a profound sense of violation overwhelmed all her fears. She fought against her bonds, not caring that Zalski had taken her magic, determined to part him from each of his limbs with her bare hands. She did not know how long she writhed, the purple rope constraining her more with every movement; she gave up when a sudden sharp sound, like thunder, and a blinding blue light that flashed above the courtyard startled everyone into freezing.

Everyone, that is, except Malzin. She took advantage of Laskenay’s fluster to grab Kansten’s amulet with her left hand. With a flick of the stone she conjured a fleeting cyclonic wind, one strong enough to push the former sorceress back against a guardsman who stood ten feet behind her. He restrained her right arm, her sword arm, and Zalski’s wife, with nothing to stop her as the man and Laskenay tussled, ran four strides to stab her sister-in-law in the gut.

Kora screamed, or tried to. She only intensified her throat pain when the effort made her cough. Her legs were tied, and she still lay on the ground, but she lunged in Laskenay’s direction, moving an inch or two before Zalski clamped his foot on her back. The man who had taken hold of Laskenay released her, expecting her to crumple, but before she did so, her sword free, she summoned her last strength to strike Malzin a perfectly aimed blow in the upper-left quadrant of her chest.

The captain of Zalski’s guard could not react. Like Rankush, whose death Kora had described to Laskenay at least twice, Malzin collapsed instantly, hitting the ground even before her sister-in-law. The sword protruded from her torso, and her face still held its smug, victory-sure sneer. Her husband would be helpless to revive her.

Zalski did not even try. Kora forced herself to look up at him as the pressure of his leg left her. Sweating, his face blotchy, he walked up to where his sister lay bleeding out. Laskenay braced herself, one hand trying to stem the fluids flowing from her abdomen. Not even the birds made noise. There were no birds; Zalski’s last spell had frightened them off.

“I won’t finish you. I won’t take that honor from my wife.”

“Go to hell,” rasped Laskenay.

Zalski made a gesture of mock deference. “After you.”

“After you’re miserable for the rest of your life. Because
I
took her from you.
I
was the one….”

She groaned as Zalski kicked her in the side. Still, no one dared to move. Kora began reciting prayers in her head in a panic, over and over, breathing hard. When Laskenay died seconds later, Zalski kicked her again.

“You will stop that.”

Neslan’s voice cut through the courtyard like a shockwave. He stepped forward; Zalski sought him out. “You will leave her alone. You son of a bitch, she’s gone. Even trolls wouldn’t….”

That was as far as he got, marching to the sorcerer. Zalski said carelessly, “
Carapacio.”

Neslan stopped mid-step, one foot poised an inch off the ground. His skin took on a blackish tone instead of the usual grayness of
Estatua
. Lanokas struggled just as Kora had earlier to help Laskenay, and just as fruitlessly. Kora felt her eyes burn.

That’s the spell. That’s the one. Good Lord, he’ll die, he’ll suffocate….

Kora moved her lips. She strained to undo Zalski’s magic until she tasted blood in her mouth. She and Lanokas were the only souls present showing any signs of life; everyone else may just as well have been under the same spell as Neslan. Then Zalski spoke.

“I will stand for no more of this tomfoolery. You fought valiantly, and you have no sorcerer left for your defense. I destroyed all three’s access to their magic: two at once, if you found yourself too occupied to take note. Continue to resist, and I will strike down each of you, one by one, in a variety of manners you would cringe just to think about, had you imagination to rival my creativity. Frankly, I doubt you do. Surrender, and the state will make an example of you through the courts. You’ll be tried for treason and hanged. Though not pleasant, you can rest assured that specific death is preferable to the alternatives I have in mind.

“Personally, I could not care less how you meet your end, and won’t feign otherwise. Why should I? You may not care either, I understand that. Passion and desperation can cause such self-detachment. But I imagine your care about your parents, if they’re still living. Your brothers and sisters, wives and children. If you don’t drop your weapons when I finish speaking, I’ll assume you’re such a zealot your neuroses have infected those close to you. Such suspicions do not bode well for them
. Most of you are civilians, and
won’t be familiar with the state’s interrogation tactics. Trust me when I say you do not want your wives subjected to questioning, subjected entirely without need, when by displaying the sense to surrender I’ll accept that each of you as an individual is merely misguided or impulsive. Or suicidal, perhaps. As such, I will leave your families be. You have no chance of victory, not without a sorcerer. Do not be oafs. Do not destroy your families and closest friends along with yourselves. That is more than lunacy, it’s waste, and I loathe waste.”

When Zalski finished his address, he turned to Neslan, who still stood like a statue in mid-step. “
Desfazair
,” he barked, and the noble’s skin faded from its unnatural black to a corpse-like pallor. For a fraction of a second, the sun reflected off his sightless eyes; then he fell face-forward on the flagged brown stone, his raised leg hitting last.

The death of the one man brave enough to confront the sorcerer offered any evidence needed to support Zalski’s claims. One by one the rebels dropped their swords, some looking resigned, others horrified, as though they had no idea of what their self-proclaimed monarch was capable. The cacophony of fifteen weapons settling in the dirt and dust that now covered the courtyard reverberated in Kora’s chest. She could not bring herself to look at Lanokas.

We’re finished. If only he
would
hang me! God help us, God help us, he has that spell. It’s not over, it hasn’t even started, not for the League.

Zalski’s elite guard was restraining its opponents. The sorcerer made sure to examine each rebel before allowing his men to cart the lot of them to the jail. He paused when he reached Hayden, who had a shallow cut near his temple and another on his forearm. Hayden tried to pull away, but could not break his guard’s grip. “That one stays,” Zalski commanded. “And that one.” Bennie. Zalski bound the Leaguesmen’s arms.

Bennie gritted her teeth, her face contorted; someone had stabbed her in the side. Even Zalski seemed concerned she might die before interrogation, if one could call what he planned to do interrogation. He healed Bendelof despite her feeble protest, and her captor half-dragged her to join Hayden away from the other men. On Kora’s right, a familiar voice, colder than usual, said, “On your feet. Let’s go.”

Kora started. She had not marked Argint’s presence before he spoke. How long had he been there? The general looked older than when she last had seen him, his face more lined, but his vigor was undiminished. He prodded her with his good leg. “I said, let’s go.”

Kora rose halfway to her knees, surprised to manage even that with all her limbs bound. When she swayed, Argint yanked her up. Nearby, two elites did the same to Lanokas. Zalski, his general, and a handful of his guard then led the four remaining Leaguesmen through the gaping hole where the Palace door had stood. The going was slow, so slow that Zalski unbound Kora’s legs, and the prince’s, so they could move at a normal pace. From the circular vestibule they took the same velvet-carpeted, claustrophobia-inducing passage Kora had walked before, the one to Zalski’s parlor. Zalski threw the door open with an incantation, one of such force that it tore the top hinge from the frame.

The room’s single occupant scrambled to leave his chair, and Zalski swore beneath his breath to notice him. “I forgot I left you here.”

Zalski’s visitor was a noble, judging by his tunic’s emerald dye and silver embroidery. He looked to be in his early thirties. Even through his shock and his blustering, Kora sensed an attraction about him, one purely superficial. He stared at Lanokas, slack-jawed.

Zalski pulled the noble toward the door. “Listen carefully, Amison. When I escort you from the Palace you will exit this neighborhood without stopping to glance back. You’ll reveal to no one, not even Brianna, that the king’s son evaded me for three long years or I promise you won’t last the smallest fraction of that time. Am I clear?”

“Perfectly,” stammered Amison. Kora glanced toward the table, and saw that tea and bread (untouched yet) had been set out for Amison’s visit. Lanokas noticed as well—and realized the man had overcome any qualms about accepting the new order.

“Yes, go home to your wife,” he spat. “You deserve each other.”

Amison, in a daze from Zalski’s threats and the prince’s survival, said nothing, just followed the sorcerer out. Argint and six guardsmen herded Lanokas, Kora, Bendelof, and Hayden against the parlor’s far wall. The general shook the sorceress; he ignored Malzin’s men’s searching eyes, ignored them completely.

“This
is what you wanted my help with?
This
? Who the hell do you think I am?”

Lanokas spoke for her. “I think you’re as doomed as we are, that’s what I think. Zalski found the book he sought. He’ll learn you hid her.”

“He’ll discover I repaid a debt. A binding, personal debt.”

Lanokas scoffed. “You think Zalski understands a debt? The man killed his father in cold blood. To whom could he owe more, his mother? He paid his debt to her in poison.”

Argint answered, “I know Zalski. I know what he’d consider treason on my part.” But the lines in his forehead etched themselves deeper.

Kora studied Lanokas, whose eyes were locked with Argint’s. The prince had bluffed with conviction, with intensity, but Kora knew, without success. She was just as aware as Lanokas, and as the general, that Zalski would not consider Argint guilty of capital crime. Magic was Zalski’s mania, and what he considered its neglect or abuse, and Argint, on top of refusing to aid the League and betraying no information, was far from being a sorcerer. His decision to hide Kora had nothing to do with magic. Like he claimed, it was matter of personal honor, related to an encounter that took place before even Kora had known she was a sorceress.

No one else spoke before Zalski returned. He took little time to do so, and marched with nostrils flaring into the parlor. “Out,” he commanded the guardsmen. They filed into the corridor. Zalski slammed the door behind them, physically this time; the bottom hinge still held it, but only just. He detained himself a moment to seek calm, staring Kora down. Gradually his fists unclenched. Then he said, “That was exceedingly foolish, Miss Porteg. To deface my palace. Again.”

He had seen the royal family’s crest. Lanokas stepped in front of Kora. “I believe you mean
my
palace, you…. Incredible. I don’t even know what to call you. I’d say you’re a son of a bitch, but as your saint of a sister had the same mother….”

Zalski smiled mirthlessly. “I must correct you. This is not your palace, not for years has it been. One must learn to let go of the past, Rexson. One must also, in straits like yours, not expose affections through obvious attempts to divert danger to oneself. Step aside.” Lanokas held his ground. “Step aside, or I shall make you.” When the royal would not give in, Zalski flung him across the room with
Mudar
, slamming him into the hearth. Before Kora could curb her instincts, she had rushed two steps in his direction.