Half-Orcs: Book 06 - The Prison of Angels (42 page)

“It’s only five of us,” she shouted to them, a dark grin on her face. “Is this all you can do?”

She stood, her fingers dancing. Before the others could stop her she rushed out into the hall, twirling on her feet. Her first spell unleashed great flashes of light from her palms, blinding any unfortunate enough to be watching when it went off. All around her, Aurelia saw soldiers gathering, at least a hundred on either side. She felt a thrill surge through her, pride in the danger she represented. Gregory was under her protection, nearly half of Kevin’s forces coming to take him, but they could not surpass her. They couldn’t even begin to understand the raw power they faced.

Arms spread wide, she unleashed that power. From either hand arced lightning, bouncing from man to man, igniting their nerves, burning the flesh beneath their armor. Letting out a scream, Aurelia poured more strength into the spell. The lightning focused, became a beam that blasted through her enemies, punching holes in their armor and ripping men in twain. It continued down either side of the hall, the power of its shockwave knocking to the ground even those who the beam had missed.

And then the spell passed, and she stood alone before the survivors. Blowing them a kiss, she stumbled back into the room, collapsing in the arms of one of the soldiers.

“Buy me time,” she said, pushing herself off him.

The four stood side by side, swords ready. It seemed even they were afraid of the carnage she’d unleashed. It almost made her laugh. If only they’d seen her in Woodhaven, dueling the prophet. Now
that
had been a fight.

She stepped back, already feeling better. It felt like forever since she’d been forced to battle in such a way, pushed to her very limits to protect the lives of those she loved. She wouldn’t say she missed it, but she couldn’t deny the thrill it gave her. The four guards tensed, but it seemed like the remaining soldiers had no desire to challenge her…though she wasn’t certain just how many soldiers she’d even left out there to fight.

Just when she was thinking things might be easier than she hoped, she saw a small, painfully familiar sphere roll to a stop just before the soldiers’ feet.

“Get back!” she screamed, knowing it was already too late. Her magic useless, she could do nothing as a man and women wearing matching red and gray outfits vaulted into the room, twisting and turning to avoid the guard’s useless defenses. Their twin daggers lashed out, finding openings in their armor. Desperate, Aurelia ripped a chunk out of the wall and hurled it with her mind, the momentum continuing on despite coming into range of the voidsphere. One of the soldiers had his throat slit, and as he fell the stone slammed into him, knocking him into the hallway. The assassin before him tumbled aside at the last moment, avoiding the hit. Aurelia held in a swear as she readied her staff.

With the guards dead, the two assassins rolled a second voidsphere toward her, chasing after it with frightening speed. Aurelia twirled her staff, reminding herself that Harruq was faster. She’d fought him before, which meant she’d faced the deadliest there could be. With her elven grace she shifted and spun, her body like water as she avoiding a combination of thrusts and slashes. Her staff continued spinning, knocking aside the attacks she could not avoid. The exhaustion, the pressure of such intense focus, wore on Aurelia quickly, and it took all her willpower to fight down the panic she felt rising in her. There was no way she could win. Retreating with each step, she would soon have nowhere to go, no way to fight back. With such proximity to the voidsphere, she felt naked, deprived. Twice she tried to shift the fight toward it, so she could smash it with her staff, but the assassins seemed to be aware of her ploy.

At last she couldn’t keep up the necessary speed. She shifted her body left when it should have gone right, and with a cry she felt the tip of a dagger pierce her shoulder. A heel connected with her midsection, and then an elbow struck her across the face. When she fell to her knees, fists rained down upon her, knocking her to the ground and stealing the breath from her lungs. Fighting back tears, she pushed herself off the floor, only to be beaten again.

Defeated, she lay there, struggling for air. The stone cold against her cheek, she stared at the entrance to the room as one of the assassins sat atop her, binding her wrists together. Mere feet in front of her lay the voidsphere, glowing its soft, mocking rainbow of colors. As if from another world she heard Aubrienna and Gregory crying, and the helplessness, the inability to go to them, gave her far more pain than the bleeding wound in her shoulder. Through her tears she watched Lord Kevin Maryll stride into the room, dragging the queen along by the arm.

“Even knowing you’d be difficult, you still surprise me with your tenacity,” Kevin said, shaking his head and smiling at her.

The female assassin grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head up. As she let out a cry, the assassin scooped up the voidsphere and jammed it into her mouth. Her slender fingers pushed, overriding her gag reflex to shove the object farther down her throat. Her body heaved, followed by an unstoppable coughing fit as the assassin pulled away her fingers, but there was little Aurelia could do as she swallowed the voidsphere, bringing its accursed denial of magic down into her very stomach.

“Harruq will kill you,” Aurelia said as her face was shoved back to the floor.

“Will he now?”

Kevin moved aside, his grin spreading. Behind him were two more of his strange assassins. Into the room they stepped, and with a heave they dumped before her the unconscious body of her husband.

28

T
he first thing Harruq realized when he came to was that for some reason he was still alive. The second was a distant sound, like a wailing, that he couldn’t place. The third was that his chest hurt worse than any sword wound he’d ever suffered before. When he opened his mouth to cry out, he felt something hard strike him across the face.

“Stop your screaming,” he heard a voice say from the darkness. Harruq didn’t recognize it, but he knew it was the voice of someone he hated. Forcing his eyes wider, the darkness became a blur of gray, followed by color. Realizing where he was, and what was going on, the world suddenly came into focus with shocking clarity and speed.

Kevin Maryll stood before him, holding a sword in his hand. With his other hand he held his sister, whose wrists were roped together before her. All around Harruq were the strange assassins with the gray masks over their faces. More stunning to Harruq, besides being alive, was that he was unbound in any way. His temper flaring, he moved to attack Kevin, assassins be damned, but Kevin took a step back and pointed to the side.

“Now, now,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to do something we’d regret.”

Harruq hesitated just long enough to glance in the direction Kevin pointed. His heart froze when he saw Aurelia being held by one of the assassins. Her arms were behind her back, and the woman holding her kept a dagger pressed against his wife’s throat. Behind the gray mask the assassin’s eyes glinted, as if hoping he would make a move. He wondered why Aurelia made no attempt to free herself with a spell. Even with a dagger at her throat and rope around her wrists, he still trusted her to be resourceful enough to escape. Did one of them hold a voidsphere? That had to be it, despite the fact he didn’t see one anywhere.

“Fair enough,” Harruq said, remaining put. He felt his insides churn, the pain in his chest flaring up again, but he forced himself to ignore it. “I’m here, we’re all here. We can talk, right?”

“Yes, we can,” Kevin said. He shoved the door shut behind him, leaving him alone with his four assassins. “This is private, but you can trust my friends here to keep their mouths shut. As for you, Harruq, I’d ask you to keep quiet as well, difficult as it may be. For once, I need you to listen.”

Harruq nodded. He glanced around, trying to find his daughter, and he spotted a strange stone dome in the far corner of the room. Muffled crying came from within. As if following his gaze, Kevin let go of Susan and approached the magical creation.

“Clever, if a bit crude,” Kevin said, looking it over. “A good maul should break through in time. Your daughter is in there, isn’t she, Harruq?”

“Leave her out of this,” Harruq said.

“I will, if you do as I say. This is a historic day, a chance for humanity to save itself from its captors. But you’ll need to do something for me, you half-blood freak.”

Harruq shot a glance at his wife. Her eyes were glassed over, but when she met his gaze, he saw the helpless fury in them.

“What is that?” Harruq asked.

Kevin put his back to the stone dome and gestured to Susan.

“I need you to kill my sister.”

Susan flinched as if she’d been slapped, but she stood tall, glaring at her brother silently.

“Excuse me?” Harruq asked.

“You know you cannot leave this room alive,” Kevin said, stalking closer. “Antonil named you steward, and your false rule cannot be allowed to go on. But your wife, though, your daughter…they can live. Do as I say, and I’ll only exile them. They can go live in the forests with the elves, or the Wedge with the dogs for all I care. All you have to do is one simple little task.”

Harruq looked to Susan, trying to read her. She softly shook her head.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Harruq said. “The angels won’t let you…”

“Won’t
let
me?” Kevin interrupted. He shot forward, lashing out. His knuckles slammed against Harruq’s mouth, and it took all his self-control to not respond. “Won’t let me? That we require their permission for
anything
is proof enough I do what must be done. Don’t you get it, Harruq? You put so much faith in them, even when I warned you not to. Those angels will not be able to lay a hand on me. By the time they get here, the castle will be mine, with the crown upon my head. And I’ll offer to go before the entire kingdom, bearing witness that it was you, the lowborn half-orc, that killed my sister. And do you know what those angels will say then? They’ll tell all the world that I speak the truth.”

“The angels will know,” Aurelia said, wincing as the assassin holding her pressed the dagger tighter against her throat. “They’re not fools. They’ll figure out what you’ve done.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kevin said, shaking his head. “I’ve spent years telling the people of Mordan that a time would come when the angels would make a play for power. Years and years, insisting the angels would usurp our lords and kings. This city is a hair’s breadth away from riot, as is this entire nation. What do you think would happen if I, the rightful heir to the throne after Gregory and Susan’s death, were suddenly overthrown by our guardian angels? Can you imagine it, the glorious rebellion rising up against them? Even if they kill me, I’ll be a martyr for all mankind. We must be made free. We must escape the reach of their wings.”

Kevin gestured to his sister.

“Do it,” he said. “Do it, or watch your wife and daughter die.”

It all felt like a bad dream, one Harruq had no way to wake up from. Slowly he walked over to Susan, putting a hand on her face. She leaned against his touch, her eyes meeting his.

“My life is forfeit,” she whispered to him. “So do what you think is right. I won’t condemn you for that.”

Two of the assassins stood guard over Kevin. A third hovered by the door, holding Harruq’s two swords. The fourth kept hold of Aurelia, ensuring his wife made no move to escape. Harruq faced them all, took in a deep breath.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

Kevin smiled, then reached out a hand toward the assassin by the door. Instead of handing over one of his swords, the assassin gave Kevin his dagger.

“I’m not a fool,” he said, tossing the dagger at Harruq’s feet. “The last thing I’m giving you are the swords you killed a god with.”

Harruq grunted, and carefully he bent down and picked the dagger up by the handle. He didn’t want to make any sudden movements, for the one holding Aurelia looked ready to draw blood at a moment’s notice. The dagger felt tiny in his beefy hands. Turning to Susan, he slowly reached out, grabbing the ropes around her wrists and tugging them free.

“She dies with dignity,” Harruq said, glaring at Kevin before he might protest. “You owe your sister that, at least.”

The lord waved a hand to show he accepted. Harruq turned back to Susan, stepped closer.

“Do you trust me?” he asked her.

She nodded.

“Good.”

He lifted the dagger, pulled it back to thrust…and then turned and hurled it into the face of the assassin holding Aurelia. It punched through the cloth, burying into an eye. Flinging Susan to the ground, Harruq lunged for the assassin holding his swords. His foe dropped them. With one hand the assassin drew his remaining dagger, with the other he reached outward. Lighting circled around his palm, then streaked toward Harruq’s chest. But this time he was ready, and with a scream he crossed his arms and pushed onward, denying the magic, denying the pain.

Dipping his body as if to grab for his swords, he instead flung himself forward. His body smashed into the assassin’s, and together they collided with the door. The hinges shook but held. The same could not be said for the bones in the assassin’s chest as Harruq’s fists slammed into them. A vicious elbow dislocated the vertebrae in his neck, and down he dropped. Harruq turned, surveying the battle in an instant with training long since beaten into him by Haern.