Tinkermage (Book 2) (32 page)

She stood up, beyond afraid. Still dazed, perhaps, though her head seemed cool and clear. Cold, even. Calculating. She saw details as if through crystal. Every drop of blood sent slinging by an edge of steel was a slowly expanding globule of red or black. Chunks of armor were hacked free and spun into the air along with someone’s arm. There through the air flew an orcish head, slinging black gout like a fountain of oil.

Arrows sped toward her, but flew harmlessly by. She felt the breath of their passing on her skin. She could have reached out and caught one. She smiled. “You’re horrible shots.” The words slipped from her mouth, thick and sappy.

A familiar sluggishness enveloped her. What was it? Some evil spell cast by an orcish shaman? Foul magick to make them all ripe for slaughter? And then she remembered. No, it was the same feeling she’d gotten as a gnomeling, just prior to one of her bad spells. The orc’s wayward arrows didn’t miss her because of poor aim. It was
her
. Niksabella. She was making them miss, pushing the hissing shafts away with hardly a thought.

Could it be the fiery-haired Prophetess? The one who called herself a goddess? Called herself her mother?

No, she was gone, at least for now. Niksabella knew it in her bones. She was herself, and this power was something inside that had been latent since childhood. Slowly re-awakened by what? The Prophetess said she’d been in Niksabella’s dreams her entire life, but only recently had Niksabella been able to meet the gnomestress on somewhat equal terms. Somehow, she’d grown in strength, at least in her dreams.

Perhaps it was true about her waking moments, too.

“Thrasperville! Thrasperville!” someone shrieked. Niksabella thought it might be Termund, perhaps bravely leading his folk in a last, desperate stand. Yes,
her
folk too. In the short time they’d all been together, she’d come to like Jess, Tomkin, Uncle Britt, and the rest. Even that joke they’d played on her. It was all too endearing now. And she’d gotten to know more about Fritzy, too. Friends all over again.

How many of them were already gone? How many cut to pieces or stuck, squealing like pigs? How many heads carried off to whatever dark, dank cave these orcs had slunk from? A wave of cold emotion swept through her, sealing her off from those possibilities, and she brought it to bear, holding it before her like a wall of ice.

A dozen orcs, driven back once already, charged again, eager to overtake the niner and have the rest of their heads. Another shout rose from her kin, much weaker this time, those left being weak and exhausted. Yet they too came on, leaping from beneath the legs of the niner and swinging steel.

Niksabella’s wellspring surged through her head. It left her eyes like a sunburst, so hot that she thought it would turn her to ash from the inside out. The ground shuddered like a giant rumbling in its sleep. It bucked and shifted. The orcs stopped in their tracks.

The power broke loose from within her, taking a shocking turn through her feet and into the earth. The ground beneath the orcs erupted in a spray of dust and heat. A fissure split the frozen soil. She fought for control, a brief moment of panic where she nearly forgot herself completely, the magick absorbing her even as she attempted to wield it. The acrid smell of seething energies burned her nostrils. The wind escaped her lungs as if she’d been punched. If she couldn’t maintain some kind of control, it would rip her to pieces.

She remembered a passage from Kaytzi Zeet’s book.
To truly control beings from the elemental world and, in fact, the elements themselves, one must become one with the elemental, one with the power.

It meant giving herself over, her stubborn, stubborn self, and accepting what was to come next, even if it burned her to a cinder. It meant giving herself up in order to find herself. It was not something Niksabella had ever been willing to do. But these past few months had taught her a great deal. She had come to know herself and also what she meant to others. And what
they
meant to her. What was life worth if she couldn’t share it with the ones she cared about, if she couldn’t feel their pain and experience their pleasure? To lean on them when she needed help, rather than carry all that weight on her shoulders? She didn’t fully understand this power, this elemental prowess she’d been blessed with—it shouldn’t be affecting her like this, not even with the Prophetess’s intervention—and she had never felt so full to bursting with pain and light.

But this was something more…

She would have to embrace it as an old friend, a father she’d never met, a mother who may or may not be a meddlesome, cruel goddess. Even as it seared her soul to do it, Niksabella pulled the light close, held the white-hot fire to her chest… and let it burn through her.

… the surge stopped.

She took a cold breath. Opened her eyes. The force of the upheaval had tossed the orcs in all directions. Those who fell on this side of the chasm were slaughtered without mercy, a sudden convergence of gnomish spear and sword and knife. Those on the other side were vanished into a cloud of dust and snow.

In the breath of time it took for Niksabella to regain her senses, a hail of black arrows streaked toward her. She nudged them aside, barely hearing their fletchings as they whistled through the winter air. But, somehow, one of them, a single arrow, penetrated whatever arcane winds protected her. It struck her shoulder, spun her around, and slammed her to the deck of the niner.

She struck the decking face first. Blood welled in her mouth. She pushed up to her knees, holding her hand against her jaw. Her tongue was a thick slab of numb encased by a dull pain. Only then did she realize she held the flag of Thrasperville in her grip, that torn crimson banner fluttering weakly in her hand. For some reason, the sight of that noble flag filled her with an unexpected pride. She’d never even been to Thrasperville, never been under the mountain, but she cared for the city and its gnomish people nonetheless.

Damn it, no!

Niksabella braced herself and turned, drawing on her wellspring, desperate to see if it would even come back to her… and then she was airborne, flying. Her stomach lurched at the speed of her ascent. What? By the strength of her own power? How? But no, something had her in a firm grasp. It was hard and gritty and smelled like bricks warmed in a hearth.

She was tossed onto a massive set of shoulders behind a stony head. She instinctively put her hands into the crags and grooves, clinging desperately as the weighty knot of stone turned this way and that.

“Hang on,” a gruff voice said. “Stay on my shoulders, little Nika, and you’ll be safe.”

“Jontuk?”

But there was no time for words as handful of flung spears drove her flat against the craggy head. “By Tick and Tock, I want to kill them all!”

“This wish I can grant you,” rumbled the stonekin. He swung his good arm in a wide arc, batting a handful of orcs, who hadn’t scrambled away quickly enough, to the ground. They squealed and grunted. Some died. Three attacked Jontuk’s open flank in a clash of steel against rock-hewn skin. Jontuk roared, sigils flaring, and spun on his attackers, smacking them aside.

Niksabella clung tightly to the rough crevices as Jontuk battled. Her fingers and elbows grew raw from his stone skin. She gazed down from her new vantage point and reveled as the orcs scattered and died. Jontuk was a vicious giant. He pounded and kicked and roared until the orcs slunk away, glaring at the stonekin with their black eyes.

But they were not cowed. Not yet.

In the tree line, a dozen or more gathered to charge, these some of the tallest and most brutal of their kind. And behind them, standing nearly hidden behind the tall forms, a diminutive but no less dangerous figure, hair tangled and twisting down over her shoulders, a wild look in her pitch-colored eyes: an orc shamaness. She held a staff topped with a decorated skull in one hand and gestured with her other, calling on whatever foul gods they followed.

Jontuk turned and stalked toward the tree line, each of his steps like an oak tree planting down on the cold-packed earth. They would be too late. Niksabella was sure of it. Whatever spell the priestess was in the midst of would have time to take shape and manifest.

For a brief, terrifying moment, Niksabella imagined her skin turning green as poison wracked her body, toppling from Jontuk’s shoulders.
No
.

Niksabella felt an urge. An itch. A spark in her mind. A flame. Could she do it? She held up her hand and called forth a whip of fire. She felt it warm against her skin, the same dancing shape she’d practiced with over the past weeks. A step further, opened herself up to it, became one with the heat, felt the wild nature of the flames.

Would a fire entity come to her as did the one made of earth? If not, she would have no alternative than to throw her small flame at the orcs among the trees, hoping to ignite a conflagration. But with very little practice and the wild nature of fire, she doubted it could be done. Still, she had to try.

The orc priestess swam in a nimbus of green, the sickness pouring from her nostrils and mouth like a corrupt mist. Another moment more…

Something slammed into Niksabella’s consciousness. The heat in her hand increased tenfold. She yelped and tore her eyes upward to see the flame had wrapped itself around her hand and wrist, a lick of it raised up and split where two eyes should be. An intelligence glared back at her. Malefic. Vicious. Wild. The delirious euphoria of her wellspring being drained to fuel this
creature
weighed as pleasantly on her as if she’d just polished off a flagon of wine. She did not share the flame with this entity, for its life force had filled up the space and shoved her out.

A high, thin voice rattled in her head.
I am Verslix. What does it bid?

But you are so small
, she told it, the orc priestess nearly forgotten now.

Fill me with your magick, give me the strength to fly. Cast me, and you shall see!

Part of her wanted to linger, to wonder at this marvel of a creature and how she’d managed to call this entity forth.
Ah, yes, the addictive qualities of magick. Your brother’s bane.
But she knew time was short. The burning kiss of the orcish poison might reach them at any moment.

Pulling her eyes away from Verslix, Niksabella locked onto the orcs. Before Jontuk could take two more steps, she threw the fire entity and shoved her wellspring energy after it. She gave it only one directive.
Destroy them!

Verslix leaped from her hand, traveling in a long arc toward the orcs. They threw themselves in all directions, stumbling over one another. Verslix blasted into them like a comet, batting them aside, clinging to flesh and armor like a fiery coat.

The orc priestess was consumed. Her shrieks rose above all the others, horrible, blood-curdling, animal sounds. Jontuk pulled up and together they watched Verslix leap from one orc to the next, twisting bodies, cooking them in their armor. The pungent scent of cooked hair and skin crashed into them and nearly caused Niksabella to vomit, but she made herself watch what she had done. A sound of glee sizzled from the trees as Verslix mercilessly consumed orc flesh. Just as Niksabella had asked.

She sat atop Jontuk and became lost in the orange and blue and gold. So hot. So infernally hot and, before long, the scent of orcs roasting no longer bothered her.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jontuk set Niksabella down amidst the milling survivors and began searching the field for others who may yet be alive. She turned in circles in the snowfall, then stumbled in the direction of the middle niner, the one hit hardest by the orc priestess. Thick wafts of smoke drifted across her vision. She nearly tripped over a curly-haired fellow lying face down on top of a long-limbed orc. Her heart sunk. Before another dreaded thought could pass through her head, she clutched his shoulder and turned him over.

Niksabella gasped as a pair of light green eyes stared up at her. It wasn’t Termund—
thank Tock!
—but any relief she felt was short-lived. This fellow was likely a friend of Termund’s with a family and gnomelings waiting for him back home. His name was lost on her, but she’d seen him plenty around the camp… an affable fellow. Once. Now cold and gone. She’d never been this close to death before, staring it in the eyes. She felt the realness of it in the pit of her soul.

“Termund! Fritzy!” She cried out, but others were making enough racket to drown her out: shouted orders, cries for help, moans. Screams of agony. She stood and ran to a tangle of orc and gnome bodies. She flipped through them, her nostrils bloated with the stench of blood and soot and orc. She found neither her friend nor her lover. Chilly flakes of snow kissed her cheeks as she craned her neck and surveyed the field.

Now that the orcs had been routed, gnomes were dispersing from beneath the shelter of the niners’ wood and steel chassis where they’d taken cover. The center machine was completely disabled. Whatever the orc priestess had unleashed had turned everything to rust and rot. Gnomes lay sprawled on the deck, two slouching in the crossbow firing chairs, their bare arms bloated a sickly shade of green.

Niksabella found Flay pulling a coughing survivor from beneath the corroded metal. She ran to him, bent low, and clutched his shoulder. He winced and reproached her with a killing look. When he saw who it was, he softened but not by much. Niksabella couldn’t blame him. His wound was horrible. A bone ax blade was sunk deep in his shoulder. Still, the tough young fellow was plenty alive. She couldn’t yet say the same for Termund or Fritzy.

“Have you seen Termund?”

The red-bearded gnome shook his head. “I was with him when we flanked the orcs, but as soon as the rock man came, we were separated.”

She went around to the back of the middle niner, ducking around wafts of acrid smoke rolling off the withered machine and beneath the collapsed legs, careful not to touch the melting metal. The creek trickled not a dozen feet away. One poor gnome had reached the water’s edge before collapsing, his hand dangling in the chilly flow. Otherwise, it seemed the space between the niner and creek was clear when a hand shot from beneath the partially collapsed chassis, grasping, reaching for help. Niksabella instinctively took the hand, fell to her knees, and pulled a young gnomestress free. A chill ran down her spine. The lass’ face was as green as pea soup, her throat swollen and tight. It was the cleric. Anderly.

“Wa… wat…” she gasped.

Niksabella didn’t need to be told twice. On hands and knees, she crawled to the creek’s edge, scooped up a handful of freezing water, and crawled back to the injured cleric. But the poor lass had drawn her last breath. Looking at her own quaking hand, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. She’d spilled all the water.

Tears welled in her eyes. She slapped her hand against the ground and sprung to her feet, shouting for Termund and Fritzy. Around the other side of the niner, a small group of gnomes had pulled four of five wounded into a line, propping them up against stones and other detritus, attempting to bind horrific wounds, trying in vain to save everyone they could.

There’s a cleric around, isn’t there? What was her name?

She moved around the circle of bustling gnomes, peering into blood-spattered, shouting faces. None were Termund. None were Fritzy.

“Nika!” Jontuk’s voice boomed from over near the third niner. She stumbled in that direction, tripping over a body, stubbing her foot against a huge, orcish war mace, arms wind milling as she plunged into a twisting gust of snow… and right into Termund Grundzest’s arms, nearly knocking them both to the ground.

She kissed his grimy face, clutched him with all her strength.

Termund laughed, hoarsely. “You’re going to crush me…”

“I don’t care. I’ll crush you, and you’ll like it.” And she
did
want to hold him forever and crush him and never let him go. Of all the frightening things that had happened, and even the strangely wonderful things, he felt good and familiar, warm against her.

She paused only long enough to ask after her friend. “Fritzy…”

Termund released her and stepped back, motioning toward a hulking, panting gnomestress who’d been standing off to the side, watching their affections. Her hair was wild and black about her head, her face painted with orc blood. Only the whites of her eyes shone through the muck. Her dress was tattered and torn. Her arms flexed. She seemed quite comfortable holding her bloody wrench, pieces of orc hair and mangled hide in the tool’s blood-red jaws.

“Fritzy… you look… you look…”

“Fritzy friend brained two orcs from behind, took a cudgel to the ribs, and then beat off another three to get to us. I never knew she was such a bruiser.”

Fritzy shrugged, imposing even in that simple gesture. Then she somehow turned humble and unsure again. “I’m sorry, Nika…” she sputtered, tears welling in those big violet eyes of hers, a little bit of the old Fritzy showing through.

“Why would you be sorry?”

Her eyes turned down. “I thought you were a coward. I thought we were
both
cowards. Until I stood on the field with this wrench in my hand. Until I saw those villains about to bear down on your fella. I thought, if he was mine, I’d want someone looking out for him. I… I hardly thought twice about it. I saw those orcs, and I lost my mind. Just swung as hard as I could and kept swinging.”

Niksabella smiled. “I’m glad you did, Fritzy. There’s no shame in what you thought about me. I thought it, too. If there’s anyone who should be ashamed, it’s me. For bringing us to this…”

Termund interrupted, giving the plump, no,
sturdy
gnomestress a hard pat on the back. “You swing that thing like a clockwork warrior, Fritzy Popoff. We need to get you training.”

At the same time he encouraged Fritzy, Termund shot Niksabella a worried glance, his eyes lingering on hers for a moment before turning his attention to the field around them. His quick grin vanished beneath the din of moaning wounded. He motioned for them to follow, his face set with a grim expression. “We’re not done yet. This reunion can wait. We’ve got our fallen to care for.”

Fritzy leaned in close as they walked behind Termund. “I saw you on
his
shoulders, Nika.” She nodded at Jontuk, who had diminished in size after the fight, yet still enormous enough to lift the damaged niner with his one good arm so the others could rescue another trapped gnome. “I saw you riding him
and destroying orcs. It was incredible, Nika. Where did you…?”

“I don’t know. I studied a book. I practiced.” She thought about it. “Something else. Someo
ne
else. I may have… I may have the magick in my blood…”

Fritzy took Niksabella’s hand with her own blood-crusted paw. “I should never have doubted you.”

Even though finding Fritzy and Termund had quelled Niksabella’s initial panic, their victory hardly seemed worth the loss. Hand-in-hand, she and Fritzy waded into the field. The smoke had almost all cleared. The snow fell harder as if to cover the brief but vicious fight. Would that it could. Bodies lay in heaps. Two dozen or more orcs had died in the initial rush, pierced by niner crossbows. Fierce fighting had taken place all around the left flank as it was nearest the forest cover. A handful of the limp, lanky orc forms lay not thirty yards from the lead niner’s shadow. Gnomish forms twisted by orcish maces and spears lay gutted, hacked apart, beaten to death against the cold ground.

The ground was bathed in blood. Snow and blood.

Niksabella shuddered. Tears sprung in her eyes.

Termund pulled a stinking orc corpse aside to reveal two of his fellows buried beneath. He slumped. “It was Bitbin’s first trip out. I hardly knew the lad.” Termund’s tone was cold. He’d lost good gnomes before, and this was just a part of the business to him but a hard part nonetheless.

The dreadful, nagging thought returned. These gnomes were here because of her.
Dead
because of her. She could have accepted Jontuk’s offer of transport in his flowert form and avoided this entire confrontation. But how could she have known what lay in wait for them here in the dangerous Utene Mountains? She’d never even been out of Hightower in her life. How could she have guessed?

Termund stunned her with his next words. “And this one… ah, Terrence.”

Wordlessly, Niksabella fell to her knees, taking the lifeless gnome’s hand in hers. He’d fallen a few feet from where he’d been struck, a great cleaving wound to his neck. His rosy cheeks had drained of life and color, now as white as the bed of snow in which he lay. She fell against Termund with a sob, all her strength gone.

And what from Termund? A word of love? Some hint of compassion?

“Come on. Let’s get him up,” he said. “We don’t have time to mourn.”

Growing more benumbed by the second, Niksabella complied, responding as an automaton might: short, furtive movements as her tears froze against her face.
All because of me
. Together, they lifted Terrence between them, Termund at the head, Niksabella at the feet, and placed him as neatly as they could with the rest of those who’d fallen.

“Termund Grundzest. We must speak.” It was Jontuk’s thunderous voice. Aside from a few new chip marks across his rune-etched skin, the stonekin seemed unaffected by the battle.

“Not now, friend.”

The stone man bowed his head. “With all stonekin respect to your dead, none of you will be left alive if you linger much longer. And I…” he nodded to Niksabella “…
we
won’t be able to help you.”

“What do you mean? More orcs?”

“No, not orcs.”

“Ultraworlders,” Niksabella finished for him.

“Yes. It was by sheer coincidence that these orcs attacked you. They were driven by the Baron’s minions. I was with one of your scouts when we spied the fight and then the flight of the orcs. I tried to turn them, had been trying to turn them for days, but they were incensed, furious, and frightened at having to give up the field.”

“That’s why you couldn’t get back to us.”

“I stayed and slew a dozen of the enemy. Wicker stags, vorax, bane archers. Not all of the blood on my hand is orcish.” He raised his one good arm. In the grooves and etchings of his roughhewn skin dripped crimson, black, and deep violet colors. Jontuk looked back up the hill. “They have a battle mage. I could have stayed and slew a hundred of them before they brought me down. My battle lust… it nearly overwhelmed me.” He turned his attention back to the gnomes. “But there is a greater cause. We must all see it.”

Termund nodded. “I’m sorry, friend. Truly, we are in your debt. What do you suggest?”

“Allow me to take little Nika to Grinding Tower, far to the south. There, we may be able to fashion a way to defeat this enemy. And if you and your gnomes go now, you should be able to make it to your mountain home and rally your kin to the aid of Hightower. Best you face them there before they arrive at your doorstep.”

“They won’t find us easy to defeat.”

“Nevertheless.”

Termund ground his jaw and cast a fierce look at the hill. Niksabella followed his eyes, imagining terrible things spilling over the top. Worse things than orcs. Wicker stags, vorax, and bane archers. They all sounded horrible.

Termund must have thought the same thing. “Do we have an hour?”

“Just.”

Termund sprang into action, clapping his hands and shouting orders to what remained of his crew. Always the consummate leader, his energy instantly spread to the others. The camp kicked into a higher gear, if that was even possible.

Niksabella, Jontuk, and Fritzy helped to finish moving the dead and wounded. They went about their tasks giving what honor they could to those who had fallen. Jontuk’s best skill seemed to be clearing orc corpses out of the way by hurling their limp bodies into the forest. Normally, Niksabella would have been horrified, but at this point, she took a grim satisfaction from watching the stonekin jettison orcs by slinging them into the trees.

Fritzy helped her with an older warrior who’d taken a severe blow to the chest. They hadn’t known he was still alive until they’d set him amongst the dead, where he lurched from unconsciousness, spitting up a gout a blood.

One more for the wounded pile.

The three remaining land crawlers roared to life, pistons pounding, steam venting. The lead machine began moving in a wide circle, rounding the entire caravan and crushing dead orcs beneath its scuttling legs. It would take up position before the others, which would carry the wounded, and together, they would make their way back through a secret mountain pass to Thrasperville.