City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (27 page)

She had been an idiot.

And now Simon and Indirial were paying the price.

Oh, Maker,
she thought.
Keep them alive.
Praying to the Maker wasn't a very Damascan thing to do; her grandfather, Zakareth the Fifth, had specifically banned the practice during his reign. But after two years with her aunt Nurita, she had picked up some villager habits.

Tightening her grip on the Lightning Spear, Leah amended her prayer.
At least keep them alive until I can get there.

A panicked
caw
sounded from directly overhead, and her head jerked up, the Spear at the ready.

It was Feiora's raven, Eugan. She hadn't realized that the bird had followed her through the Gate.

It let out another squawk and flew through the empty space where the Gate had been. Flapping its wings frantically, it banked for another pass and flew through the space again.

Trying to get back to Feiora.

The sight tore at her heart, but she didn't let herself react. The only way she could get back and help Simon, Indirial—and even Feiora, if necessary—was to get out of Avernus.

And she was no Avernus Traveler, so she needed a guide.

***

Lycus was out of breath and holding back tears by the time he found Erastes, fighting against Benson in the skeleton's basement. Torches blazed blue on the walls, all dim enough to allow an ocean of shadows, and twenty-four hulking forms rested on pedestals all down the room. They were suits of armor, Lycus knew, and they could come to life to fight challengers.

The huge block of stone at the far end of the room was a rough-hewn throne, and Benson usually lounged on it, one steel leg hanging over the armrest, foot idly kicking. Now, the steel skeleton was swinging an axe at Erastes' head.

His news was urgent, but Lycus knew he couldn't interrupt a fight like this. If he shouted something and distracted Erastes at the wrong time, the man could die. Lycus took his responsibilities very seriously; he kept his mouth shut and made not a sound, even though his message squirmed inside him, trying to get out.

The old soldier ducked, moving like a man half his age, and brought a gleaming infantry sword up into the skeleton's chin. Benson leaned back, holding his wide-brimmed hat on his head with one hand.

Erastes pressed his advantage, stepping forward and bringing his sword down on his opponent's steel rib cage. The two metals clashed, sending up sparks, but he didn't let up. Lycus had always thought that Erastes was the perfect image of a Damascan soldier: his hair was iron-gray and cut short, his face weathered, his eyes cold. He looked like a man from the stories, like someone who would stare death in the eyes without ever blinking.

Benson, on the other hand, looked like Death himself. He was a skeleton made entirely of some shining silvery metal, his bones glittering in the blue light of the basement. The same light as the torches blazed in his eye sockets, and he wore an old, tattered, wide-brimmed hat on his exposed skull. The axe he wielded should have been too big to lift—it looked like it was made for two-handed use by giants, which may have actually been the case—but Benson spun the weapon over his head like a staff, bringing the double-headed battle-axe's blade crashing down on Erastes' head.

The soldier raised his short sword and caught the blow. His blade shone mirror-bright, like one of the Dragon's Fangs, though he had owned this sword as long as Lycus could remember.

Erastes strained under the blow, pushing up with both arms. One of his sleeves slid down, and Lycus saw the black chains printed on his arm.

With a final heave, Erastes pushed the blade away.

Benson chuckled, reversing the axe and grinding its head against the basement floor. “You're a quick one, aren't ya? Not a month with the steel in you, and you're already giving me a close run.”

The soldier smiled, just a little, but Lycus saw his chance.

“We're under attack!” he yelled.

Erastes turned, his blade in one hand, his shirt soaked in sweat. “Where?” he asked. That was what Lycus liked most about Erastes; he took everyone seriously, even children. So many people thought of Lycus too lightly, but not him.

“Entry hall,” Lycus said, and the soldier ran up the steps, taking them two at a time.

Benson managed to raise an eyebrow, even though his face was nothing more than a skull. “It's been a long time since we've been under attack in the House, kid,” he said. He didn't go any further, but Lycus could hear the skepticism in his voice.

“Well, we are,” Lycus said firmly. He hesitated, then added, “It would help if I had the steel, too. You know, so I could fight.”

The skeleton grinned even more broadly than usual, tilting his hat down to cover one eye. “More than happy to. Come and challenge me whenever you're ready.”

Lycus ground his teeth in frustration and ran after Erastes. He had challenged the basement practically every day for weeks, but he lost every time. Once, he had been hurt so badly that he had lain bleeding on the basement floor for four hours, until Simon noticed he was missing and carried him up to the pool. Since then, he hadn't been back.

His own weakness grated on him, even though the adults all insisted that he would grow out of it. He didn't want to grow. He wanted to help
now
.

But as it stood, the only thing he could do was run for help.

A crash like a whole cart being smashed to splinters echoed through the upstairs room as he was halfway up the staircase, interrupting his thoughts. He froze for a moment, trying to figure out where the noise came from, until he heard Erastes and his sister shouting over one another, followed by the sounds of steel on steel.

Lycus leaped up the last few steps, his own small sword clutched tightly in his fist.

The Tartarus Incarnation stood with its armored back to Lycus, the red-and-black Ragnarus blade in its right hand. It stood over the broken remains of the door to the forge, which it had apparently knocked off its hinges. The steel giant strained forward, pressing against the combined might of three Nye.

Each of the Nye had a long black chain wrapped around some part of the Incarnation's body. One of them had a chain around each of the giant's arms, and the third had its black steel wrapping its thick neck. They pulled against their chains, trying to keep it from entering the forge, stopping it from moving forward, as Erastes and Andra did their best to kill it.

Andra poked the Incarnation's armor joints with her Dragon's Fang, its blade spattered with black spots like ink. Every time she stabbed it, her strikes were deflected, as if she had been attacking the strongest parts of the armor rather than the weakest.

On the other side, Erastes whirled and thrust his blade two-handed into the monster's open faceplate. Erastes heard a sound like the grinding of gears, though the Incarnation said nothing, and then the sword popped out like a spring, launching into the forge and spinning across the floor.

Without missing a beat, Erastes lifted a chair and slammed it against the giant's face. One leg snapped off, but nothing else happened that Lycus could see. He smashed it into the intruder, again and again, until the chair was little more than splinters.

Then he tossed the last bit of wood aside, disgusted. For all their effort, the Incarnation strained against the chains no less than before.

And he was starting to gain ground.

The Nye slid across the polished wooden floor, trying to set their stance, but they might as well have been standing on ice. Slow, unstoppable, the Incarnation of Tartarus took one step forward. And then another.

Lycus had never been more aware of his complete lack of Valinhall powers. His sword hung heavy in his hand, and Erastes and Andra both were hitting the Incarnation harder than he could possibly manage. His arms were short enough that he'd have to practically leap on the giant's back before he could do anything, and even a Dragon's Fang couldn't pierce the Incarnation's armor at its weakest point.

Simon would do something,
he thought. And if Simon could do it, Lycus had to prove that he was strong enough to do it too.

He ran toward the giant, not because he felt an outpouring of bravery, but because he was afraid that he needed his own momentum to keep going. If he hesitated, he might stop.

When he reached the Incarnation's metal legs, still braced against the House's polished wooden floor, he didn't hesitate.

He jumped.

Lycus didn't have Benson's steel running through his veins, so he didn't leap high enough to land on the giant's shoulders, as he had halfway intended. He managed to cling to the Incarnation's waist, which clicked and whirred beneath him as though he had grabbed on to a huge, living clock.

He scrambled up, finding more handholds than he expected, ignoring the horrified cries from his sister.

“Get down!” she yelled. “We can take care of this!”

Erastes ran into the forge to retrieve his sword. He didn't say a word, which encouraged Lycus enough that he found the strength to climb even higher. He didn't drop his sword, for which he felt a surge of pride.

The Incarnation's chest rumbled like an earthquake beneath Lycus' arms, and it twisted around, spinning at the hips until its upper body was facing backwards, and the gears it wore instead of a face stared at Lycus from inches away from his nose. The black chains of the Nye spun with the Giant as it turned, and out of the corner of his eye, Lycus spotted the three robed shadows gaining better footing on the wood, bracing themselves for a stronger pull.

They would be too late for him, though. The Incarnation seized him around the middle and lifted him up, inspecting him through the clicking clockwork inside its faceplate. Lycus tried to stab it, but the point of his sword scraped the side of the giant's steel helmet, doing nothing.

The giant didn't crush him, as he'd feared. It simply hefted him in one hand and threw him across the room.

***

Kai leaned against the edge of Valinhall’s healing pool, his elbows up against the surface, relaxing. Only the waters of this bath dulled the pain in his back, like a tent peg being hammered into his kidneys every second. The second he left the bath, the wound would start getting worse, steadily burning more and more until the pain became unbearable, but for now it subsided into a dull bruise.

Beneath the suds on the water’s surface, Kai felt something move. It was only the briefest of brushes, a soft current against his leg, but he had lived in this House for a long time. He lashed out with one foot, cupping the imp’s skull under his toes, and then pressed it down against the bottom of the pool.

The water-imp’s skin felt like rough, leathery bark, and its metallic nails scratched against his foot. He kept up the pressure on its head. Nothing it could do to him would hurt half as badly as the never-healing wound in his back, and the slices disappeared almost instantly inside the pool’s water.

After a few seconds of being pressed against the stone at the bottom of the tub, its skull at the edge of breaking, the imp stopped fighting and started struggling to get away.

Over the years, Kai had learned that it was best to set them free at this point. If you kept an imp unto the point of death, others would come to defend it, and then you ended up having to kill a dozen of them. Which would then wake their mother, and he wanted to avoid that. Kai lifted his foot and let it swim away.

He had never opened his eyes.

When he was as clean as he was going to get, and his stab wound didn’t hurt quite as badly as before, he climbed the stairs out of the bath.

As he did, his foot brushed Mithra’s hilt.

To his surprise, the blade’s emotions flowed into him. She felt determined, frustrated, and the sort of anticipation that prefaced a battle. So…she had been screaming to try and get his attention for minutes now, but he hadn’t noticed. Now that she finally had him listening, she wanted him to go into battle
right this instant.

Kai stepped away from the hilt, and the emotions stopped. Like Azura, Mithra rarely let him know what she was thinking. Unlike Azura, though, she was so insistent. Not nearly as polite, or graceful, or passionate as Azura.

He slipped into his clothes quickly, but not so fast as to make the sword think he was rushing because
she
wanted him to. When he finally picked Mithra off the ground, she smoldered with frustration.

He smiled. He never could stand passive ladies; he preferred his blades with a bit of a temper.

It only took him a second in the hallway before he realized what Mithra had been trying to tell him: a giant covered in Tartarus steel was marching in from the entry hall, an angry red Gate behind him. He had clearly torn his way into the House with a gatecrawler, and now he was locked in combat with the young girl Traveler, Andra. She was oblivious to his presence, her back to him as she swung Seijan in a futile effort to pierce the invader’s armor. Her brother was nowhere to be found, which surprised him; he had thought those two were practically joined at the hip.

Far be it from me to disturb her,
Kai thought, and he stopped at the seventh bedroom. Mithra practically shrieked in frustration.

He tried the doorknob, but it was locked. Only Azura’s bearer, or those he specifically permitted, could enter the seventh bedroom easily. Despair rose in Kai’s chest as he remembered how this used to be
his
room, but he put that aside. He had long thought about what he would do in this situation, when the desire to see his dear little ones became too much.

Calling steel, he pulled his foot back and stomped the door in.

The wood around the doorframe shattered, and the door swung open. The Nye would
not
be happy with him, but he was too happy to care.

His beautiful dear ones were talking.

I had a dream this would happen,
Lilia said sleepily, her purple eyes content.
Or was it a nightmare?

Delaine sighed.
I should have known it would be you.

You should be helping, you know,
Caela said, scowling from beneath her blue bonnet.