Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light (67 page)

Shadow speech wasn’t
exactly mind speech and she asked the shadow if Shivan was badly
hurt. She waited anxiously.

‘No.’

‘Tell him, if he’s
able, to fly to the south of Cyrek. We’ll go to the
north.’

‘Take.’

She felt Farn’s panic
as they plunged into total blackness again but when the shadows let
them see, she found they were in the position she had wanted. She
peered down over Farn’s shoulder and saw Cyrek moving in a slow
gyre not far beneath her. Tika sensed his anger and his bafflement.
He knew no gateway had opened, so where could she have gone? Tika
drew power to her and began to weave the threads.

‘Other one more
hurt.’

‘What?’

‘Say not hurt.
Hurt.’

Tika swore. ‘Tell him
to go back down.’

But Shivan didn’t want
to obey that order and he struggled against the confining shadows.
He was visible long enough for Cyrek to give a bellow of triumph
and spit fire across the space between them. Then Shivan
disappeared again. But when Tika looked back, Cyrek too was
gone.

‘Down,’ she
screamed.

Farn wailed as they
plummeted earthwards but Tika gritted her teeth and hoped Cyrek’s
gateway had taken him elsewhere than to the island of
Skaratay.

‘Do you know where he
went?’

‘No.’

The shadows cleared and
Farn was greatly relieved to find himself safe on the grass. Tika
was already running towards Shivan’s crumpled body. He was in human
form but his clothes were burnt away from the nape of his neck to
the backs of his knees.

‘No.’ Khosa’s mind
voice was sharp. ‘You must not heal him now, Tika. Let Kija keep
him sleeping until this is done.’

Tika slowed and
stopped. Khosa was right. She might need every scrap of power she
could muster after using so much on the Splintered Kingdom. Kija
was already flying towards them and she settled beside
Shivan.

‘Don’t think of him now
child,’ she told Tika. ‘We will care for him.’

Brin and Storm landed
and Tika spun towards Brin.

‘Shield this area Brin,
like you did near Green Shade! Hide all of it.’

She hugged Farn. ‘Stay
here please my dearest. Cyrek will come here next and I want you
within the shield.’

She raced for
Darallax’s ruined house, finding Sket on her heels only when she
had to slow to climb round some of the massive fallen blocks. She
swore mightily and Sket grinned through every word. Tika had been
clambering on as she swore, but she reached a relatively clear
space. Straight ahead was another stretch of short grass and then
the battered trees at the beginning of the woodland. A laugh
shrieked at them and Tika jumped.

She saw one of those
gaudy birds they’d seen on their arrival here. Its orange chest and
throat swelled again as it laughed from its perch on a fallen tree
trunk. She glanced again at the rubble to her right and saw what
she wanted: a space large enough to conceal her where two grey
blocks tilted against each other. She couldn’t see over the debris
back to where her company remained.

‘Are they shielded?’
she demanded, tugging Sket to the hidey hole she’d
spotted.

‘I couldn’t see
anything except grass, so they must be.’ He pulled free of her grip
and drew his sword, joining her under the tilted stones. ‘Doesn’t
look too safe to me,’ he muttered doubtfully.

Tika ignored him, her
senses questing outwards. There! A gateway had opened. She
concentrated. By the river? No, beyond the other house, the one
with the great painting at its heart. Then she heard him. Tika
slammed her hand over Sket’s mouth.

‘You will stay here,’
she whispered. ‘If I can lure him near enough, take him in the
back.’

She glared at him until
he nodded. Tika pushed him further back then a thought occurred.
‘Shadow, hide this man but let him see and hear.’

Tika could still see
Sket, looking a bit puzzled, but hopefully no one else
would.

‘Hide me.’

She moved quickly away
from Sket, towards the edge of the woods. There she stood perfectly
still, a shield around her beneath the shadows. Cyrek was laughing
as he came round the corner of the tumbled building. Tika sensed
the shields wrapped close about him but she also sensed that if
they were the best he could raise, she should have no trouble
blasting them away.

Cyrek passed her and
took four, five, more paces. He stopped abruptly well short of
Sket’s hiding place and his back went rigid. He whirled, his hands
raised chest high, eyes blazing. His gaze swept past her then
slowly tracked back. Tika realised, too late, that Cyrek was
staring at the ground. She risked a glance down and saw her own,
real, shadow pointing almost directly towards Cyrek. Cold fire
flashed from his mind, shadow spoke. fingertips.

Tika flew backwards,
pummelled as by hundreds of invisible fists. The shadows were
scattered by the blast of power but regathered instantly. In Tika’s
spinning mind she heard: ‘Let us.’

Knowing she had made a
stupidly bad and perhaps costly mistake, she gave a grunt of
acquiescence. Black surrounded her then the tiny slit opened before
her eyes. Tika found herself on top of the rubble at about three
times Essa’s height. Cyrek was prowling below, his back to her,
kicking at the air where he had glimpsed her. Her pendant began to
feel warm and she tugged it out of her shirt. Drawing her sword,
she told the shadow to put her back on the ground, behind Cyrek.
She felt the shadow’s reluctance but it did as she
asked.

‘Reveal me.’

Cyrek spun, cold fire
streaming from his fingers again, but Tika’s blood metal blade was
up, across her face and chest. Cold fire hit the blade, and
vanished. Cyrek drew his sword, fire blazing around Tika. She
realised Cyrek was trying to cause the rubble to dislodge and fall
upon her, and she laughed, stepping forward to engage his
blade.

Blood metal recognised
blood metal, but Tika’s sword was ancient, forged by a Master
Armourer of the Dark’s earliest times. It guided Tika’s hand and
arm, moving faster than seemed possible. She heard stone grind
behind her and skipped to Cyrek’s right. His face was full of
hatred as she drew blood from his thigh. She sensed he was going to
shift to Dragon form and called power.

Tika felt a tremor of
nervousness, aware that her power was still far less than before.
She tangled a thread of confusion into Cyrek’s own power and saw a
momentary frown appear when he found he couldn’t shift into his
other shape. He snarled, raising his sword and something, like an
unseen hand, swatted him aside. He cart wheeled through the air,
over her head, to lie sprawled over the fallen blocks of Darallax’s
house.

Tika stood panting, her
chest and shoulders throbbing from that first pummelling of cold
fire against her shields. Cyrek didn’t move; his sword lay at her
feet. Tika kicked it further away and looked for Sket. But the
stones had shifted, she could see no cave like space.

‘Shadow, where is
he?’

‘Safe.’

A sound behind her
whirled her round, sword at the ready and power surging to her
call. Light shot from her pendant, a straight line of light which
hit Cyrek low in the belly. Tika took a step back, seeing the rage
which kept the Dark Lord on his feet and still coming at her. A
screaming cackle ripped through the air and a huge mass of black
feathers hit Cyrek’s chest, knocking him flat again.

Tika realised she was
trembling. She heard voices behind her but kept her eyes only on
the struggle in front. She refused to look away. Cyrek’s eyes were
gone already. He had pulled out handfuls of long black feathers
which swirled around in the dusty air, but Hag’s massive beak
hammered down, again, and again. Cyrek’s kicks and struggles
slowed, his arms fell limp to the sides, and Hag stood on his
chest. Tika saw the Raven’s talons had dug deep, were embedded in
Cyrek’s chest, and his head was merely a ball of flesh, bone and
blood.

Hag looked over her
shoulder, dark eyes rimmed with gold glittering with something Tika
couldn’t read. Her great beak gaped, dripping with gore.

‘I feared I would be
too late to help you. My dearest.’

Tika sank to her knees,
her sword clattering onto the stone beside her. ‘Where have you
been Hag?’ was all she could manage.

Tika could read the
glitter in Hag’s eyes now: an enormous anger. ‘This, this worm, he
snared me. Snared the Hag of Dark.’

Hag’s beak smashed down
again into the pulped flesh, and Tika toppled sideways.

When it was found that
Tika was only unaccountably bruised all down her front, her company
relaxed slightly. Sket was extricated from a pocket in the stone,
gibbering with rage and worry. He calmed down when he found that
Tika seemed relatively unharmed. He noticed at once that her
pendant lay outside her shirt, and was pulsing in time with her
heartbeat. He looked at Essa and Rhaki, and saw their pendants too
were exposed, rather than hidden under their shirts. A tiny light
flickered within both of them.

The company kept their
eyes away from the corpse sprawled on the rubble. Hag was still
busy. Only Khosa went closer and perched within a wing’s length of
the huge Raven. Essa lifted Tika, to take her to their makeshift
camp. Even green grass amid the rubble was preferable to where they
were just now. Sket watched Hag and Khosa for a moment before
turning to follow the others. But Shea was still there, tears
streaming though the dust on her face. Sket bent to put an arm
around her.

‘What is it child? It
looks like our Lady Tika’s won.’

Shea slid her hand
inside her shirt. When she withdrew it, Sket saw the gleam of
Dragon scale between her fingers. She opened her hand. An
opalescent scale lay on her palm, split cleanly in two
halves.

‘Oh my stars,’ Sket
whispered.

Shea leaned against
him, sobbing. ‘Lord Dabray is gone,’ she wailed.

Darallax and his
councillors had been with the companions. He had seen what was left
of the renegade Lord Cyrek. And he had watched Hag, plundering the
corpse. Hag had raised her head and stared at the Shadow Lord for a
long moment. Her beak gaped silently and she had turned back to her
feast. Khosa stayed with her, through the blood red sunset which
stained the whole sky this evening, and on through half the night.
Konya assured and reassured the company that Tika was just plain
exhausted. Her body was black and blue, from her chin to her feet,
although no one was sure what could have caused that. Onion merely
blinked, and told them to leave her alone, let her
sleep.

People were wary around
Onion now. He had ambled over to Shivan’s burnt body, laughed and
wandered off. Those nearby watched him indignantly, but when they
turned back to tend Shivan they found his burns were gone, only
slightly reddened skin suggesting he had been injured. No one
noticed Shivan’s absence during that night, but soon after day
break a gateway opened.

Lord Shivan stood
there, and beside him was Garrol, Shield Master and Armourer of the
Dark Realm. Those members of the company originally from that
Realm, saw something was different at once. Essa, Dog, Fedran and
Geffal came to attention, their eyes riveted to Garrol’s back. The
round black shield which denoted his rank, was missing, and he did
not wear the black uniform. He wore dark blue shirt and trousers, a
silver Dragon insignia on his upper left chest.

Garrol walked slowly
towards the company, Shivan a pace behind and set a large pack on
the ground by his feet.

‘I have been released
from my service to the First Daughter with the approval and
blessing of Mother Dark,’ he said quietly. ‘I ask permission to
join this company, in service to Lady Tika, for as long as she and
Mother Dark permits.’

It was left to Sket to
find an answer.

‘As you see, Lady Tika
sleeps. For myself you are welcome, but Lady Tika must confirm or
deny you when she rouses.’

Garrol nodded. ‘I also
bring an edict.’

Sket raked his hands
through his hair. ‘Oh do sit down Garrol. Formality kills me. Have
some tea and tell us what, in the name of the stars, is an
edict?’

Garrol smiled and
joined Sket by the fire, accepting a tea bowl from
Dromi.

‘It was brought to our
attention that Lady Tika made a wish, by the lake called Blue
Mirror.’ He sipped his tea, clearly enjoying the baffled looks he
was getting.

‘Lady Tika said that
she longed for a peaceful place, like the lands around Blue Mirror,
a place she could claim as her home.’

He held up a slender
scroll case. ‘This edict is, in fact, a Concession of Sovereignty.
There is a place that the First Daughter and Lord Dabray found,
soon after the Dark Realm withdrew behind the Barrier Mountains. It
was a place precious to them and now they offer it to Lady Tika. It
is a high valley, encircled by mountains, perhaps a hundred miles
west to east, between twenty and forty miles north to south. The
great ocean is twenty miles to the west. The First Daughter
suggests we go there immediately, so it might be the first thing
Lady Tika sees when she wakes.’