Spellbound (24 page)

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Authors: Blake Charlton

BOOK: Spellbound
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“Don't say her name,” he said quickly. “Regarding the one you sent to me, what must I do?”
“Keep her safe,” Deirdre blurted. “With the Astrophell wizards now in the city, Typhon thinks he may not need her any more. She was to keep you alive when he captured you. But everything's changing so fast. Keep her with you. Listen to her. Typhon knows so much. He told me today that anyone who opposes him will become him. I don't know if he was talking about me or you … or maybe the dragon he claims is near completion. I don't know if that's the Walker or … or a second …” She twitched and drew her lips back. “My independence is slipping.”
“Keep fighting him.”
“Last thing,” she said. “The Savanna Walker. I've learned his name. He calls himself Ja Ambher. If you think or speak that name it will reduce his influence on your mind. I'm not sure how Typhon made that so, but …” She twitched again.
Nicodemus took a step toward her. “Deirdre, we'll escape whatever the demon and the half dragon can throw at us. We'll never stop trying to free you.”
She nodded stiffly.
“Deirdre, I think of you always.”
Her pained expression slipped then, relaxing first into one of relief and then one of sorrow. “I won't give up, Nico.” After another spastic arm jerk, she turned and marched back to the two watchmen who held up the lucerin lanterns.
The man who had been holding her sword tilted it toward her. She drew it from the mud and turned to face Nicodemus. Her expression had become blank, her arms and legs steady. “The parlay has failed,” she declared.
“Kill the monsters and the other spellwrights outright, save the half-naked man for questioning but do not let his bare skin touch yours.”
With that, she leveled her greatsword at Nicodemus and advanced. A chorus of war cries sounded from the other end of the alley as the spearmen behind them charged.
Cyrus looked down at his robes. Only a thin network of pale blue text covered his chest, barely enough to manipulate the cloth, not enough for a protective spell.
“Now!” Shannon commanded.
Cyrus glanced up. Francesca cocked her hand back and threw something at the lucerin lantern the hierophant was holding above them.
But as she did so, a furl of the hierophant's sailcloth—bright with blue text—shot down the pole, wrapping around it and then encasing the lantern. For an instant, the party stood in relative darkness. Another blast, likely from Nicodemus's dark magic, rocked through the alleyway. The resulting shockwave nearly knocked Cyrus over.
But then the protective cloth on the lantern's pole partially unwound to reveal the lantern's disspelling light. Francesca's wartext must have dashed against the protective cloth and been disspelled.
“Good,” Shannon yelled. “Nicodemus needs time in the dark. Quickly now, cast this.” The old man was holding out something to Francesca. She took it.
A metallic clang made Cyrus look back down the alley. Nicodemus and three of his kobolds were facing Deirdre. As he watched, the woman thrust her massive sword at the nearest kobold. The creature leapt back while another jumped in and slammed both of his hatchets into her back. The axe blades chirped against Deirdre's scale armor and forced her to stumble forward.
Deirdre recovered her feet and swung at the attacking kobold. The monster leapt up, spraying mud as he sailed over her blade.
Meanwhile, the first kobold tried to dart around Deirdre to reach the lantern bearers. But she changed her swing into a thrust. The kobold danced away but slammed into the alley wall. The last inch or so of her blade sank into its left side. The beast bellowed.
Suddenly Nicodemus rushed at her. Unarmed, he reached with his bare hand for the exposed skin on her face. With a shriek, she stumbled back and brought her sword around.
Nicodemus jumped back. Compared with the kobold, he seemed agonizingly slow. But the wounded kobold brought both his axes down on Deirdre's arm, deflecting the swing. Even so, the blade missed opening Nicodemus's thigh by an inch.
“Now,” Shannon said. Cyrus looked back and saw Francesca cast another spell with an overhand throw. Again the protective cloth wrapped around the overhead lantern and left them in dark. And again the hallway was filled with an earsplitting blast.
This time, the shockwave did knock Cyrus down. As he struggled to his feet, he saw that Deirdre was covered in mud, and a thin stream of blood ran down her face. Behind her, a lantern bearer had been knocked to his knees, but had held up his lantern on its pole.
Then the two kobolds renewed their attack on Deirdre—darting in and out as she swung at them with her massive sword.
Nicodemus barked a command and both kobolds jumped backward. With a rasping cry, one threw a hatchet. It whirled over Deirdre straight for a lucerin lantern.
The watchman jerked the lantern to his right, out of the axe's path. Cyrus didn't realize that the second kobold had also thrown an axe in anticipation of this move until the lantern shattered into a rain of glass and glowing liquid.
“Hurry!” Francesca yelled behind him. “We're losing ground.”
Cyrus turned around. Francesca was glancing between Shannon and the two kobolds facing the spearmen. The fight here was going poorly. No matter how quickly the kobolds darted in to strike, they could not touch the two spearmen or reach the lantern bearers behind them.
One of the kobolds wielded a single hatchet, apparently having thrown the other. As Cyrus watched, the other monster threw his axe, but the watchman deftly pulled his lantern out of the weapon's trajectory. The spearmen advanced.
“Hurry!” Francesca cried.
“A moment,” Shannon groaned. “We need a stronger disspell to get through that cloth.”
Apparently, the hierophant crouching on the roof heard this since he began moving his hands. The cloth on his pole glowed more brightly.
Cyrus sucked in a breath as he recognized the hierophant's prose style as simple, almost childlike. The pilot was either incompetent or an apprentice. Cyrus stepped closer to Shannon. “Magister, those spells were written by a master hierophant but are being edited by a novice.”
Shannon grimaced. “And?”
“Could you take a strip of my robe up to those spells?”
The old man frowned but then nodded. “Give me the strip.”
Cyrus touched his chest and edited one sentence into a “draw” command. Instantaneously, all other sentences in his robes encircled the command. It formed a patch of vivid blue text no wider than his hand.
As quickly as he could, Cyrus composed a siphon spell—a text with draw commands powerful enough to steal the text out of a hostile sail. Pilots rarely used such texts; in the air, it was difficult to access the enemy's canopy. Worse, any experienced pilot could edit out a siphon attack.
But with no other options left, Cyrus cut his right sleeve into a long and neatly folded ribbon, the end of which he connected to the swatch that held the siphon.
“Cyrus,” Francesca hissed, “hurry!”
“Here.” Cyrus slapped the swatch into Shannon's open hand. The old wizard pushed a knobby index finger against the swatch and began moving both hands rapidly. The swatch hung in the air, suspended by wizardly sentences. “Magistra, take it.”
Francesca grabbed the air above the swatch and flicked it up at the lantern. Cyrus watched as one end of his ribbon shot upward. But before Cyrus could see if the siphon worked, something knocked him into the mud.
He started to stand when a large blue foot—humanlike but for a black hind claw—splashed into the puddle next to him. He rolled over and saw an axe-wielding kobold standing over him. “Creator!” he swore and rolled away to stand.
The kobolds were in disorganized retreat as the spearmen attacked. The kobolds kept searching for a way past the spear points. But the watchmen were too skilled.
Just then one watchman thrust out and landed a glancing blow on a kobold's shoulder. The monster stumbled. Cyrus scrambled to get out of his way but then found himself staring at a blood-darkened spear point.
The watchman thrust at him. Cyrus jumped back but not fast enough; the tip of the weapon struck the folds of cloth at his waist. He cried out as the force of the blow turned him sideways. But he felt no steel sinking into this hip. He looked down and saw not only that the fold of sailcloth had stopped the spear point but also that the cloth shone with blue text.
He looked up. The ribbon Francesca had cast up now blazed with a torrent of blue light as it drained text from the sailcloth that had been protecting the lantern.
Looking down, Cyrus saw a spearman before him crouching as if to make a thrust. Cyrus stumbled backward, but the ribbon leading up to the
siphon spell was nearly taut. He couldn't chance pulling it free and denying himself any more text. “Give me time! I nearly have him.”
Faintly, he was aware of dark figures moving past him to attack the spearmen; he was too busy frantically forming new hostile commands in the hierophantic language. The old wizard yelled something, and a moment later one of the watchmen cried out. Cyrus looked over to see that one spearman's shield had been broken in half.
At last, Cyrus finished composing his textual attack. Using both his hands, he edited the siphon spell to stop it from drawing text. Then he began flicking hostile commands up the ribbon. Somebody backed into him, and he had to move quickly to keep from pulling his ribbon free of the cloth.
“Celeste, lend me your favor,” Cyrus whispered. The enemy pilot moved his hands rapidly, trying to maintain control of his cloth. For a moment, Cyrus thought that his attack commands would fail. But in the next instant, the cloth reached down the pole and wrapped tight around its lucerin lantern, snuffing out its light.
Two large swatches of cloth cut themselves free of the furl. With a blast of wind, they flew at the lanterns held by the watchmen. The men saw them coming and tried to hoist their lanterns out of the way. But Cyrus's spells had been written to seek light; with serpentine undulations, the sheets changed course. In a few moments, they had reached the lanterns and wrapped around them.
Suddenly, the alleyway near Cyrus fell into darkness. The watchmen cried out. For a moment, Cyrus was blind in the dark. He heard two small blasts and then screams.
Cyrus's eyes adjusted. One spearman was lying facedown in the mud; the other had lost his shield and was bent over a hatchet planted in his belly. Behind them, the two lantern bearers were fleeing.
Suddenly Nicodemus was standing beside Cyrus. With a backhand flick he cast something at the two fleeing men. In the next instant both of them fell to the ground and disappeared into blackness. Then Nicodemus looked up. Cyrus followed his gaze to the hierophant who was still struggling to retake control of the cloth Cyrus had possessed.
Nicodemus made another backhanded flick. The young enemy hierophant never saw it coming. The text within his robes winked out, and darkness covered him.
The lucerin lantern, the pole it was attached to, and the sailcloth that had been protecting it fell to the ground. Cyrus ran to it, and with a few edits drew all of its text into his robes.
“You killed them?” Francesca asked.
“Only spellbound them,” Nicodemus replied without looking at her. “They'll be freed in the morning when the light will burn my text away. But as for the spearmen …” He paused to frown at the motionless bodies in the mud. “Nothing we could have done.”
 
“WHAT HAPPENED TO that swordswoman,” Cyrus asked, “Deirdre?”
Nicodemus exhaled. “Fled when the lanterns went out. She looked relieved. But it won't be long before Typhon compels her to rejoin the lycanthrope hunt. We'd better move fast. Who's wounded?” The mud-splattered kobolds were gathering around him. One of the creatures pointed to a small laceration on his shoulder and said a few words in his language. He didn't seem concerned. Another kobold indicated a small wound on his left side and merely shrugged. No major wounds then.
Nicodemus nodded and then looked at Shannon. “Magister, how are you?”
“I wouldn't call myself spry,” the old wizard said. “But I'll live.”
“Then we run,” Nicodemus replied. “Jasp, you take the rear. Vein and Slag, you're with Magister and the cleric. Dross and Cyrus, run with me in front.” He turned and jogged down the alley.
Cyrus hurried to catch up with the man and was quickly joined by a kobold—Dross, Cyrus supposed, the one who had nearly opened his windpipe back in the temple. The monster and Nicodemus exchanged a few words. Then Nicodemus spoke to Cyrus: “Tell me if you see any hierophant in the sky or on the roofs.”
Cyrus nodded.
“I saw how you spellbound those lucerin lanterns with the other pilot's sailcloth. Impressive.”
“The pilot was incompetent, maybe a novice.”
Nicodemus turned them into another alley. Their feet made splashing and sucking noises in the mud. “Typhon recruits among the youngest wind mages. Many are natives of Avel, excited about Cala supposedly wanting independence from monotheism.”
Cyrus looked at him. “Cala doesn't?”
“It's not likely. Typhon can invest his soul into a deity's ark; that's how he took control of Deirdre and her goddess, Boann. He may have used the same tactic on the canonist.”
Cyrus thought about this as they ran down one alley and then another.
“You'd do best by your city if you join us in opposing Typhon,” Nicodemus said dispassionately.
Cyrus didn't reply.
They were now among the inhabited neighborhoods of the North Gate District, but the houses were dark and the streets empty. Word of a lycanthrope breach had spread through the district, and its people had fled to known houses that could be barricaded until the threat passed.
After a mile or so, Cyrus realized that Nicodemus was leading them north and east toward the city's outer wall.
Cyrus saw no pilots crouched on rooftops and only once spotted a distant lofting kite. The storm-washed sky was moonless, brilliant with stars. The empty city became surreal, almost dreamlike.
Then a kobold called out. Cyrus recognized the voice as belonging to the creature named Vein.
Nicodemus halted beside what appeared to be a store. Two kobolds approached; one had his arm around the other. Nicodemus examined the wounded monster. “Magistra,” he called.
“I'm here,” Francesca replied calmly. “The patient's name?”
“Vein.”
“Tell me everything he said.”
“Took a spear thrust to the left side. Painful but didn't penetrate too deeply. No more than a cupful of blood. But since we started to run, he can't breathe. His heart's racing. The spear wound still hurts, but it's the breathlessness that has him scared. It's getting worse.”

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