Veiled Empire (41 page)

He spared a glance for the Hardohl, feeling a stab of agony in his soul. They moved forward, towards death, even as shrapnel ripped their bodies to shreds. Blood spilled from each of a hundred wounds, spinning sickeningly through the air. And still, step by step, the two advanced.

They cannot take much more. When they die, the power will be free to resume its cataclysm. We will not last a beat past their final breaths.

A small part of him chuckled at the thought. Somehow, Voren and the power he wielded had become separate entities in his mind. The latter he hated, for no matter its source, it had taken a mind of its own. A mind with evil intent.

For the former, however, he had at last found the kinship that he had once felt, so long ago now it seemed a dream.

You did not kill her, old friend. You saved her. For that, I love you. For that, you will always be known as the greatest of our people’s heroes.

Gilshamed clung to the thought as both Hardohl stumbled to their knees.

A slight motion—barely discernible in the chaos swirling around the chamber—caught his attention. It was a figure, stepping through the side door. She stood barely up to Gilshamed’s waist and was dressed in dark, flowing robes. In her hands she held a pair of metal objects. They appeared to his eyes as spheres cut in half and splayed open with hollow centers.

Around her swirled a maelstrom of darkwisps.

Sorcery shot out from her, a shield across the face of the room, protecting the two Hardohl and everything behind them. The figure giggled, then looked over her shoulder at him.

“It’s been awhile, Gilshamed,” Vashodia said. “Did you miss me?”

Gilshamed, despite her aid, cringed in dread.

Vashodia turned back and began marching towards Voren. Somehow, impossibly, her sorcery began pushing back at the other.

And where the two powers met, even gods would fear to tread.

M
EVON
STUM
BLED
THROUGH
the palace, feeling as if gravity had shifted sideways. The abhorrent sorcery was now joined by another, point and counterpoint in a debate from which there could be no clear victor. No longer in waves, the twin powers pulled at him ceaselessly. Mevon did his best to ignore them both. He silenced his instinct and trudged away from the clash of magic.

I did it. I won. My justice is delivered, and my nemesis is no more.

The thought was supposed to bring him peace. It did not. Victory had always accompanied a surge of joy, but this time was different. He had known it would be but hoped otherwise. Hoped that he had changed enough that he would no longer crave blood and death inflicted by his own hands. Hoped that the justice he had served would stand in the gaping hole he had created himself.

What, now, is the point of me?

His mind ran through scenarios of an empire at peace. In none of them could he find a fitting place for himself. His kind existed, he now realized, for the sole purpose of keeping rampant sorcery in check. The purpose that the mierothi had subverted for the last nineteen hundred years.

The purpose that, even now, he resisted.

It is not enough. Such things will balance themselves out in the end.

Mevon did not bother to direct his feet, electing instead to let them wander where they willed. He was not surprised to find himself back in the chamber where he had faced the Blade Cabal, standing a step inside the doorway. He could still see bits of their armor sticking out of the rubble, flashes of dead skin, the glint of their weapons.

All the while, the palace writhed under the pressure of the competing powers.

Wind swept by his face, brushing back his hair. He looked up. A wound in the roof exposed the exterior of the palace, and through it streamed bright morning sunlight. Mevon closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, cherishing the taste of clean air and the warmth of the light on his face.

He thought of all he had lost. All he had gained. All the evil he had done, and undone. All the good he had destroyed and helped to flourish.

On the scales of his life, he judged himself.

His body went numb.

Justice fell from his limp fingertips, clattering onto the floor.

None, save the gods themselves, are more guilty of wrongdoing than I.

The clashing powers reached a crescendo, and a quake rocked his entire world to its foundation.

A stray beam of power scythed through a wall high above him, turning it molten. Mevon lifted his eyes as it exploded into countless white-hot fragments, falling down on the room like lava . . .

J
ASSIDE
OPENED
HER
eyes with a gasp, the gesture proving that she was, in fact, not dead.

Again.

Gods, I hope this doesn’t get to be a habit.

She sat up, groaning, and rubbed her forehead. A wave of dizziness warned her not to ascend another hand higher. She felt cramped and bloated. Itchiness pervaded everywhere, seeming to come from within her body, but even as she sat to clear her head, the sensation evaporated. A few marks later, she had finally composed herself enough and wobbled to her feet.

In a flood of panic, she recalled her last moments of consciousness.

Her heart sped up, and her breath came ragged. She stroked across her neck, feeling a line of uneven skin: scar tissue. She looked down, remembering the blood.

Her dress was clean, as were her hands. Not a spot of red. She looked to where she had lain. The expected blood pool was absent.

Did I imagine it all?

Her gaze shifted to the body of the emperor.

Jasside distinctly remembered the dark stain beneath his head when she had first come in. It, too, was gone. The corpse had changed as well. Pale, shriveled, features sunken, his wounds clean and dry, Rekaj appeared as though every last drop of fluid had been sucked out of his body.

Where it had all gone, though, Jasside could not say.

And now, just as her body’s senses came to in increments, another sense rushed to its renewal. The powers that raged seemed to slam into her like a hammer. Still quite disoriented, Jasside felt as though they were right on top of her. On instinct, she energized . . .

. . . and staggered as alien power flooded into her.

Jasside’s lips parted, a sigh of pleasure passing through the gap. She pulled in more power. As much as she could hold.

Her father had not been considered strong among the daeloth, and she’d inherited less than half of his capacity. The weakest of full mierothi possessed at least twenty times her natural strength.

What she held now was a hundredfold what she could before.

“Vashodia.”

The word came out not as a curse but as a whisper of adoration. Veneration, even. Jasside drew the line before worship, however. Such a sin, even in a moment such as this, would be unforgivable.

Jasside knew what Vashodia had done, and by that act she understood the mierothi girl better. Perhaps not fully—
can anyone but God ever truly know someone?
—but enough to know that she would follow her to the ends of the world. And beyond.

She remembered the promise she’d made to Yandumar as they entered the city. She skipped out of the room and began searching for Mevon.

D
RAE
VENUS
STUMBLED
FORWA
RD
as the power that held him at bay suddenly winked out of existence.

It can’t be over. Not so easily as that.

Rather than rush forward, he crept, wary for the trap he was sure would spring at any moment. He stalked in silence, not casting, not even energizing. Nothing to draw attention to himself. The perfect hunter. In two beats, he was within the sphere that had been pushing back at him.

No going back. . .

The power returned. Angry. Malicious. Blinding. Draevenus braced himself for the wave that would, at the least, knock him back. At worst, kill him.

It never came.

Draevenus felt the morph. The power no longer writhed outward in all directions. It was, instead, focused. Away from him.

Another power joined the first. This, if not quite its equal, was smarter. And familiar. Vashodia, at last joining the fray. It was exactly the distraction he needed. He resumed his advance.

Step by step, he approached. In half a mark, he rounded a surprisingly intact wall and came, at last, to view his target. The figure glowed like the sun. Draevenus could not even look directly at him for fear of losing his sight.

He paused, readying his daggers in both hands. Gilshamed’s attention, his power, were all focused forward. His back was completely exposed.

It was a mistake ever bringing you into this. A mistake to think we could rely on you. A mistake to believe we could control you.

A mistake that I will now remedy.

Draevenus energized. Stood upright. He kept his head down, not needing to see to pinpoint his target.

Daggers held rigid before him, Draevenus shadow-dashed forward.

Blades sank into flesh. They both tumbled forward, crashing to the ground in a tangled heap. The power sputtered. Died.

Draevenus looked over his target’s shoulder into his sister’s eyes as she withdrew her own sorcery. Beyond her, the two Hardohl, and . . .

No . . . !

. . . Gilshamed, standing protectively over a group of people. And if he were there, then . . .

The scream that erupted from Draevenus’s throat echoed the anguish of generations. And the sound held not a single raindrop before the storm of sorrow wracking his soul.

My friend . . . what could have driven you to this madness?

He quickly withdrew his daggers, knowing it to be pointless. Ever the perfect killer, his blades had struck true. The body slumped to the ground. Motionless.

Voren was dead.

Q
UAKE
’
S
HOOVES
THUNDERED
beneath him, tearing up soil as the horse galloped across the field. Yandumar was sure his mount had never moved faster.

He led all eighty-two Elite in a long, single line, dashing westward across the front of the advancing horde. His hope was that the monsters’ animal instinct would prevail over orders, and that they would pursue the nearest targets. It was a desperate move, but the only one he could think of. If it worked, it would allow the rest of his troops the time they needed to make it back to the wall, back to safety.

Yandumar peered over his shoulder.

All of Mevon’s men had gladly volunteered for this, a testament to their dedication. Captain Arozir Torn insisted on bringing up the rear. The fastest of the creatures had closed to within striking distance of him.

A dark lion’s paw swiped for Arozir’s head. He ducked, striking back with his sword. The blade plunged into his opponent’s eye, causing it to scream in fury as it staggered back.

Two more rushed in. Bear jaws closed upon the horse’s rear legs, and the mount crashed to the ground. Arozir leapt from the saddle, just avoiding the thrust of a boar’s tusks. He fell into the creature, slamming his sword home in its chest.

The boar-thing went limp, falling dead atop the captain, pinning him to the ground.

Three more monsters swooped in, devouring both Arozir and the creature he had killed in a flurry of snapping jaws.

Yandumar forced himself to watch, to witness their final moments, to honor their sacrifice, as another of Mevon’s Elite fell. And another. And another. Each man followed the example set by their captain, and took at least one monster with him into death.

Looking past them, Yandumar tingled with mixed dread and hope as the horde swung westward in its entirety. The tactic was working. His allies would live. For a little while longer, anyway.

An old saying came back to him, a favorite of Chant’s.
We couldn’t have asked for a better death than this.

Yandumar, now fully prepared to meet his maker, looked forward with a smile. He still remembered old Harridan’s face, could see it right now.

He could see it . . .
right now!

A shadow covered the grasses in front of him. Hundreds of figures in dark clothing. Standing foremost among them, Captain Harridan Chant himself.

With a woman—a mierothi—at his side.

His emotions and thoughts were too tangled to make any sense out of them. He slowed Quake and stupidly called out. “Chant?”

The man smiled and waved. Yandumar was sure he was hallucinating.

Then the mierothi woman pressed out a hand, and all other thoughts ceased. Energy crackled at her fingertips. Even Yandumar, who had no sensitivities to magic, withered before the conjuring. A storm cloud of darkness formed at the woman’s calling, then shot out, churning up dirt as it whizzed past him. Yandumar craned his neck to follow it.

The Elite saw it coming, and drove their horses south. The cloud writhed, spitting with vehemence, straight into the charging horde. Beastly screams erupted as darkness engulfed the monsters. Screams that were quickly stifled.

As the storm moved on, Yandumar could see the blood and bone and scattered hides. All that remained of his pursuers. The cloud pulsed, expanded, now covering nearly a klick-wide swath of land. The remaining monsters reeled in all directions to avoid it.

The cloud sought their flesh, and finding it, consumed.

Yandumar turned back as Quake slowed to a halt alongside his old comrade. This close, he could make out the age lines that hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen him. “You real?” Yandumar asked.

Chant smiled. “Real as ever, I’m afraid. Surprised to see me?”

“
Glad
to see you.
Surprised
to be alive.” He looked over the crowd. “How the Abyss did you come by this company?”

“Oh, just a deal with a devil. I’ve heard you’re familiar with the concept?”

“Aye.”

He turned back in time to witness the demise of the last of the monstrosities. The cloud, then, broke into pieces, the sections snaking along the ground toward each of the dozen mierothi who had fled in as many directions. Though they shadow-dashed away in spurts of incredible speed, the clouds moved faster, catching up in beats. Death came wherever they touched.