Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle) (15 page)

In an eruption of blue light the dagger streaked across the
great hall, unerringly homing in on Elias in the span of a breath. Elias felt
like he had been struck in the chest with a sledge hammer. The dagger, however,
did not impale him, but rebounded off his duster and clattered to the floor.

Bryn, who followed through on the momentum of her kick, spun
behind Macallister and pressed a stiletto to his throat. “Stand down, you traitorous
swine!”

“One-thousand gold stags to whoever guts this bitch!”
Macallister screamed.

The promise of such riches spurned Macallister’s henchmen
into action, greed getting the better part of discretion. Bryn punched
Macallister in the back of the skull with the hilt of a dagger and the rancher
fell to his knees. The Vanguard dropped into a defensive posture. She held one
dagger inverted, the blade lying against her forearm, and the other pointed
toward the closest of her attackers. “Mayor, find a safe place,” she said, though
her eyes never left the men who circled toward her, “we need you in one piece.”

Meanwhile, Cormik intercepted Elias and drew his rapier. “Let’s
see how your father’s bauble holds up to Kveshian steel!”

“I don’t want to kill you Cormik,” Elias said, and he
discovered he meant it. Despite all Cormik had done to him in his twenty-five
years, he had bigger fish to catch. “Put up your sword.”

“You have dishonored my name, and for that I demand
satisfaction.”

Elias felt his badge cool. He could sense the rancher’s rage
radiating in red waves. Elias sighed, for while Cormik may well be ignorant of
this father’s machinations he realized the brash young noble could not be
reasoned with. He wrapped a hand around the hilt of his sword. “Lar, why don’t
you help Bryn. This one’s mine.”

He circled Cormik and while he kept his hand fast on the
hilt, he made no move to draw it. Elias heard his father’s voice echo in his
mind as he stepped within range of Cormik’s rapier:
Leave your enemy an
opening and so direct where he will strike.

The rancher circled him in kind, his posture tight, coiled
to strike. As Elias closed in on him, Cormik lunged. Elias sidestepped and spun,
easily dodging the overextended thrust, and instinctively caught Cormik’s
rapier in his left hand. The gloves he wore were crafted of the same enchanted
leather as his duster, and while the edges of Cormik’s rapier pressed into his
palm they cut neither glove nor hand.

Elias drew in a single, fluid motion, pulling Cormik toward
him, and crushed the hilt of his sword into his jaw. Bone crunched audibly as
Cormik went down, unconscious before he hit the floor.

Lar charged across the room giving Elias and Cormik a wide
berth. He bellowed like an enraged berserker from the North and, unable to come
up with a better tactic, leapt onto the opulent dining table that separated him
from the melee ensuing on the other side. He swung his axe over his head in
two-handed grip as if chopping wood.

The target of Lar’s unwieldy attack parried the blow with
ease, but it took his attention off Bryn. Taking advantage of the opportunity,
she kicked the other thug square in the chest, repelling him, spun back toward
the one Lar had engaged, and drove her dagger deep into the joint where
shoulder met torso. A fine spray of blood spurted from the wound as Bryn pulled
out the dagger and turned to block a slash from the swordsmen at her flank. Although
the wounded thug had dropped the blade from his useless arm, Lar followed up by
crushing a booted foot into his face, dropping the man.

Finding himself outnumbered and seeing his compatriot
bleeding like a stuck pig and with a ruined nose to boot, the remaining
hireling threw down his sword and surrendered.

Meanwhile, Macallister had recovered his senses and crawled
under the table, waiting for an opening. Once the behemoth Lar abandoned his
perch on the table, Macallister snuck from his hiding place and pitted the
entirety of his weight and strength against the very antique he had only minutes
before been dining on. He spat out a cantrip from his scant arcane repertoire. With
a groan of protest, and a silver burst of kinetic magic, the massive oak table
tipped onto two legs, teetered, then turned on its side.

Lar and Bryn didn’t realize their imminent predicament, until
they heard the ominous creaking, but before they could react the table slammed
into them, and they found themselves pinned beneath it. Lar, reacting with an agility
belied by his size, managed to get his hands on the edge of the table as he
fell. Lying flat on his back, he was able to mitigate the weight of the table
and keep it from crushing the life out himself and Bryn, but the question
remained for how long.

Macallister turned to confront Elias only to find that the
distiller had already dispatched his son. “So, you’ve come to kill me, and take
your revenge,” he said. “You’ll find it harder to take down a wizard than his retainers,
Duana.”

“Slade was twice the wizard you are, and I crushed his skull
with my bare hands,” Elias said blandly. “Sadly, I need you alive.”

Macallister’s face turned crimson. The trail of blood that
ran through his hairline dripped. He raised a fisted hand and thrust it at
Elias. “
Feora
!” A golden ring on his finger glowed the red of molten
iron, then spat a gout of red flame.

Elias, reacting purely out of instinct, raised his sword as
if the magic tempered steel could deflect the furnace of flames that threatened
to consume him, even as he heard the voices of onlookers crying out in alarm.

His sword did not turn back the spell—but nor did he feel
the bite of the flame.

Tongues of flame lapped all about him, sweeping past in an
infernal arc, before wheeling, as if caught in a tornado, and funneled into his
sword. The firestorm howled about him, but Elias held fast to his sword, as he
felt an electric thrum of power coursing up his arms and into his body. The
runes branded into his forearm throbbed and from beneath the sleeve of his
duster poured a blue glow.

A silence fell over the room as Elias disappeared, devoured
by the conflagration. The flame subsided with a derisive guffaw from
Macallister. Much to his confoundment, in the wake of the fiery paroxysm stood
a defiant Elias, drawn to his full height. He looked like nothing so much as a
man returned from hell: he held his sword aloft, in a high guard, as red flame
rolled along the length of the blade, and smoke snaked off him in writhing,
serpentine strands.

Elias leveled his flaming sword at Macallister. “You are
bound by law to stand down. I won’t ask again.” He took long, deliberate steps
toward Macallister, keeping his guard up.

Macallister shook his head. His bottom lip quivered, his
eyes went wide. “It cannot be.” The rancher retreated toward the turned table
and began to weave a spell together. Blue sparks began to coalesce in his hands
and Elias charged.

Bromstead, who had occupied himself with trying to lever the
table off Lar and Bryn, scrambled over the giant slab of oak with a felled
bottle of Duana Whiskey in hand. He wielded the improvised weapon like a club
and struck a glancing blow on Macallister’s head. The Rancher stumbled
awkwardly to one side and then sank to a knee.

“On your face,” Elias said as he grabbed the stunned man by
the collar and threw him onto the ground. He stepped on Macalliser’s right arm
and pulled the enchanted ring off his finger.

The defeated rancher complied without resistance. Elias
produced a length of leather cord and bound Macallister’s hands. Then he tied
his ankles together, hobbling the rancher so that he could walk but not run.

Elias scanned the room to locate Constable Oring. He found him
cowering in a corner on the far side of the table. He tossed the shamed man
another length of cord. “Tie him up,” Elias said, indicating Cormik with a wave
of his sword.

“What if he wakes up and resists?” asked the constable, terrified
at the prospect.

“Then stab him,” Elias growled. Elias hastily made his way
toward the dining table, and tried to keep the warble out of his voice as he
called, “Lar?”

“Little help here,” Lar cried.

“I don’t know, I’m rather comfortable,” Bryn said.

“I’m the one doing all the work here,” Lar protested. “This
thing is heavy!”

Elias’s head poked above the edge of the turned table and
smiled down at his two companions. “Glad to see you’re still with us.”

With Bromstead’s help and after enlisting the aid of some
few of Macallister’s guests that weren’t utterly thunderstruck, Elias freed Lar
and Bryn. Thankfully, neither seemed too worse for the wear—nothing a little
rest and another trip to Phinneas’s wouldn’t cure.

Upon being unpinned, Bryn climbed demurely to her feet,
smoothed her skirts, and saluted Elias with a wry grin. “Well done, Marshal.”

Lar, for his part, had no words. He fixed his slate-grey
eyes on Elias’s and nodded.

Elias, tipped his hat at Bryn and winked at Lar. Flaming
sword still in hand, he turned from his companions and looked out into the
chamber at the assemblage of folk from Knoll Creek and the surrounding counties.
He sheathed his sword, the scrape of enchanted steel on steel the only sound. “You
may all take your leave. Please do so in an orderly fashion.” At first no one
moved, but remained transfixed. “Now,” Elias said forcefully, but not unkindly.

Slowly they filed out, most casting furtive glances behind
at the distiller turned Marshal overnight. Those gathered there that day would
forever have the surreal events of the evening etched into their memories,
their small corner of the world having been irrevocably altered in the course
of minutes. Macallister’s reign over the town of Knoll Creek had come to end. Soon
word would spread of the whiskey distiller who took up blade and shield in remembrance
of a bygone era. The day of the Marshal had returned, and Elias Duana was its
herald.

Night Terrors

“Danica is gone.”

Elias winced as he pulled on his shirt. His fight with
Cormik had aggravated the wound to his left shoulder, and the ensorcelled
dagger he took to the chest, while not breaking any ribs had bruised a couple. “I
should have stayed with her like I did last night.”

“Elias,” Phinneas said, “you are in no condition to be
sleeping on the floor. You need a bed. No one could have foreseen something
like this.”

Elias sat down on his guest bed and pulled on his boots. “I
woke up and had this feeling something was wrong. I got up to check on her and
she’s nowhere to be found.” Elias shook his head. “She slipped out without me
even noticing.”

“But you did notice.”

Elias looked up to see Bryn leaning against the doorframe of
his guestroom in her nightclothes. “You sleep light.”

“You curse loudly,” Bryn said around a smile. She made room
in the doorway for Lar, who had just padded down the hall from his room.

“She can’t have gone far,” said the bleary-eyed Lar.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Elias said. “I’ve already checked
the grounds. She’s taken a horse.”

“What are we going to do?” Lar asked.

“We find her,” said Bryn. “That’s what we do.”

“She’s confused and scared,” Phinneas said. “She’s probably
gone home.”

Elias closes his eyes and took a steadying breath. “It’s the
best place to start,” he said. “Phinneas, you should stay here in case she
returns.” Elias eyed Bryn and Lar. “I suppose you two will insist on coming.”

His two companions only smiled.

†

They rode through the thick of night in silence, each
alone with their thoughts. Bryn provided them with light from a spell she cast
on a brand of wood.

“Useful trick, that,” Elias had commented.

“It is an elementary cantrip,” Bryn replied. “I could teach
it to you.”

“I’m no wizard,” Elias returned.

Bryn arched an eyebrow. “As you wish.”

“It’s just the sword,” Elias said a little hotly.

Bryn took a breath. “You know, Elias, eventually we’re going
to have to talk about what happened tonight at Macallister’s. You invoked the
authority of House Denar. There may well be ramifications.”

“I know,” Elias said. “We’ll discuss it later.”

The distiller urged his horse into the night, his behemoth
southern destrier easily outpacing her lithe palfrey. Bryn chased after him. Orange
ripples danced across the back of Elias’s duster, as he faded in and out of the
circle of light provided by her torch. It occurred to Bryn that he appeared
half ghost and half man, and she supposed in a way he was.

Much to their dismay, the trio discovered that the Duana
homestead was empty, save for the specters of memory. Elias suspected as much
when Phinneas’s missing draft horse was nowhere to be found, but they searched
the house and grounds nevertheless.

Lar watched Elias close the front door behind him. His
friend’s calm unsettled him. “What now?” he asked.

“I think I know where she’s gone,” Elias said.

“Out with it then,” said Bryn, who felt as unnerved as Lar.

“Mayfair Manor,” said Elias. “She’s gone back to the Manor.”

†

Danica ran a finger down the table, through the
combined, caked on grime of her blood, sweat, and fear. She still felt Slade
inside her. The gravity of his touch lingered on her skin, and in her mind.

The room, the house, felt alive—charged with a malevolent,
conscious energy. She couldn’t rationalize this perception, but in her bones
knew it to be true. The air in the subbasement dungeon was thick and heavy,
pregnant with a negative force that lay cold yet electric against her damp
skin.

Even as she fancied that this dark and hungry presence
slithered against her, she refused to succumb to it, or to flee the cursed
place. She had left a part of herself here in the dank and dark beneath the earth,
and she wanted it back.

She had passed the patch of earth where Slade had met his
end, but this gave her little comfort. The burn of his foul power had already
scarred her in ways she could not quite articulate. Her skin crawled on the
inside, as if his taint had seeped into her blood.

She took in hand one of the thick cords of rope that had
bound her. Stale brown blood and bits of skin soiled the course weave. One tip
of the rope ended in a hard, waxy, fist-sized knob. She yet felt it digging
into the soft flesh of her belly, like a persistent punch in the guts.

Flashes of memory returned to her then, black and white like
the etchings in her father’s books. Black lightning lanced from Slade’s
fingertips. He held her head in hands haloed by a corona of fell power. He drew
a glowing finger, burning like ice, across her naked body. His thoughts poured
into her like black snakes. He entered her with his fell magic.

She grew accustomed to the dark and she discovered she could
sense her surroundings clearly, despite the utter absence of light. Danica sat
on the table and waited, breathing in the darkness, lost in her own black
musings. Then she heard footsteps.

Slowly, Danica turned, half expecting to see Slade, returned
from hell to finish his grisly work. Instead she found Elias, peering at her
from the foot of the stairs. His source of light hurt her eyes. She squinted up
at him. “Hello little brother.”

Elias noted the befouled length of rope in her hand and her
placid look. “You gave us quite the scare.”

“Dad’s dead.”

“He purchased our lives by sacrificing his.”

“You killed Slade.”

“With Dad’s sword.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“For a hot second, so did I.”

“Asa?”

Elias shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

“In a way they are the lucky ones.”

“Maybe. But we honor them in how we choose to live.”

Danica locked eyes with her brother. “Do you really believe
that?”

Elias looked into her jade eyes, which were lent a
preternatural aspect in the light of the ensorcelled brand of wood. “Danica,
let’s go.”

She held his hand as they walked out of the Manor. In the
other she carried the rope with the knobby end. “You’re bleeding,” she said.

Elias checked himself. Danica was right. His shoulder had
begun to weep.