The Black Tower (24 page)

The Sending took Argus unawares, and it distracted him just long enough that he was nearly killed.

He threw his hands up and released cold flames, but Dane’s own Veil energies shielded the Knight and kept him from catching on fire.  Muscles locked, they struggled over control of the
vra’taar
, with Dane on top and pressing his weight down.

The weapon’s short blade came closer to Argus’ face.  His heart pounded, engorged with blood.  A ribbon of red dripped down Dane’s nose and fell onto the steel.  Argus felt the stone under his back, the bubbling pool beneath him.  His body felt like it had been pelted with hammers.  He wasn’t sure how he was still alive, and felt he wouldn’t be for very long.

Argus drew a breath and pushed Dane back just enough to release a burst of light into his eyes.  The Dawn Knight fell away.  Argus’ ruined stomach burned as he clawed his way back across the ground.

The Sending was still there, lingering.  It was Razel, and she was in pain.

Argus’ breaths came in gasps as he rose to his feet.  He stumbled, blinking sweat and blood from his eyes.  Knees locked, he felt a surge of cold power race through him, and his teeth gnashed with the dread chill. 

He launched a spike of fire at Dane.  The Dawn Knight raised his
vra’taar
in time to deflect the blow, but the force of the blast sent the weapon spinning out of his hands.  Argus cried out and gathered his strength, felt it sputter.  He tried to summon another blast of Veilfire, but it was difficult to focus.  He teetered at the edge of consciousness.

The Dawn Knight tackled him.  Armor slammed against Argus’ stomach.  They fell into the pool.

Icy water flooded his vision.  Argus lost all direction.  Fluid pushed into his lungs, and he gasped, choked, flailed.  The murky waters were painted dark with blood. 

They floated in a void, thrashed and struggled.  Argus twisted and pulled away, kicked back.  He pushed with all of his effort, felt the Veil burn him.  A blade of pure blue energy formed in his hand and he jabbed forward, twisted it into Dane’s ribs, held it there even as a mailed fist connected with his jaw.  Blood ran as a tooth jarred loose. 

Vision fading, Argus sank deeper.  He passed chains and bones, bits of flayed skin dangling loose in the briny waters.  His lungs were ready to burst.  Dane grabbed hold of him and they twisted around each other in the dark, weighted by armor and cloak and surrounded by their own blood.

And then they fell out of the water and into an open chamber.  Gravity returned, and they tumbled from the pool in the ceiling.  For a moment Argus couldn’t be sure if they fell up or if they’d truly descended through some impossible dripping gate, a pool that had reflected at both ends like mirror realities.  He gasped as they plummeted through darkness, an enormous chamber of chain bridges and cobwebbed shadows.  The sky rattled.  They fell end over end. 

Metal slammed hard into Argus and halted his descent.  He caught hold of the barbed chains and found himself on a precarious diagonal bridge of wrapped links, a fly caught in a metal web.  Skin ripped along his hands, and it was all Argus could do to hold on.  He breathed deep, tried to find the Veil to stabilize him, but the sense of vertigo was overwhelming.  He saw no floor, no walls, just darkness, utterly black and cold, as if the chains stretched out to oblivion. 

Dane fell further down, similarly tangled at a separate intersection of hooks and links.  The chains were everywhere, a massive web of jangling steel.

Argus’ tattered cloak was soaked with blood and grime, and his fingers were numb.  Veins in his hand had opened, rendering his grip on the chains slick. 

The sense of emptiness all around threatened to swallow him whole.  He saw the pallor on his own flesh, yellow as if he’d caught frostbite, and his chest ached with fear.  His sense of balance was lost as he lay there, barely supported by the thin delta of chains, and he knew that if he shifted even an inch too far he’d fall. 

His body shook with fatigue.  Argus dimly registered his wounds. 

Dane was about thirty feet below in his torn armor, half of his face burned, exposed flesh ripped and oozing blood.  He was on his back, eyes open but not seeing.  Argus tried to summon the will and strength to summon a blast of flame to finish his opponent off, but all he could do was lie there, breathing and holding on, frozen in that moment of violent still. 

Argus’ skin cooled.  Deep within him, in the vessels that connected his mind to his heart, he felt the nearness of something he could only describe as evil. 

There was something on the chains below Dane, closer to what Argus took to be the nadir of the dark chamber.  A lithe blonde form in dark clothing, her body crumpled and bloodied and twisted where it had caught in the bladed webs.  Something dark and liquid like molten glass purled from the dark cavern of her mouth.

“No!” he shouted.

He somehow found strength then, and his chest filled with ice as he wrapped the Veil around himself and floated down.  He passed by Dane, who didn’t so much as look in his direction.  Shadows twisted, filled with bronzed forms like specks of dust in oil.

There wasn’t much of Razel left.  Her face had been half torn away, and broken ribs poked through torn flesh.  Her hair was mottled with the grease of her brains.  Argus settled onto the chains next to her, and her body pitched forward and nearly fell before he grabbed hold. 

He saw his own death reflected back in the dark pools of her eyes.  Loss wracked his body, and he didn’t even realize he was crying until the sound of his painful moans echoed back at him.

The wolf shape peeled from the shadows, a bulk of midnight muscles and dark bristling fur.  Deep growls shook Argus’ heart and rattled his bones.  The chain bridge bent in as the hulking figure loomed over him, a nightmare of dark flesh.  Fangs like dripping stakes, claws like razors.  Spiked talons wrapped around the chains as the creature hung there, a grim totem of primitive power. 

Argus moved to attack, but the wolf was faster.  Terrible pain seared across his chest as the claw struck.  He was thrown back into the darkness of the abyss.

Dane.

Dane, please stop

You must kill

No!

kill me

help me

Dane sat up, and nearly fell.  Everything pitched and buckled, and for a moment he felt utterly weightless, dangling in a sea of iron stars.  Blood flowed down his chest, and the network of chains rattled loud as he tried to right himself.

He shouldn’t have even been alive.  There was no way his body could take the sort of punishment he had, and the same went for Argus.  Something was keeping them going. 

His body burned, and it was all but impossible to find purchase on the chain web.  The exposed skin where his armor had been torn was tender and oozed burn-black blood and hot puss, and the wounds on his face felt like he was being held too close to a flame.  Waves of exhaustion rippled through his body.  All he wanted to do was lie down and

sleep

die

all die

kill me

His head spun.  A voice rang through his head, dissonant and hollow, not his own

it’s me

Ijanna, but not Ijanna.  It wasn’t the same voice that had been whispering in his ear those past few days, the voice of the woman he obeyed and loved, the woman he’d die for.  This new voice was different somehow, yet still hers.  Two voices, one creature, both speaking at once.

He gripped the chain.  His
vra’taar
was on the web with him, Goddess knew how

kill her

kill me

He clutched his head, tried to make them stop.  He’d meant to kill Ijanna once, to

stop her

stop

keep her from killing everyone, but it hadn’t been what he’d wanted, hadn’t been what he thought was right.  He’d wanted to help her find another way, a way out of this fate. 

It’s too late

He would die protecting her. 

Please

The voices crashed through his head, and it was all he could do to hold on and not plummet into the darkness.  Kill.  Love.  Serve.  Protect.  She was in danger, and he had to reach her before it was too late.

He turned, held tight to the chains with one hand and gripped the
vra’taar
with the other.  Cold currents from below rippled the sea of links and filled the air with metal song.  Comet trails of smoke wafted across his vision. 

Dane shivered when he saw the wolf.  Glassy eyes gleamed up at him.  Its muscular arms were covered with razor quills of grey-black fur, and its talons were as sharp and as smooth as the night.  Even from a distance he smelled its musk cut through the tower’s sepulcher air.  It was the same sort of creature Dane had been himself before the Veil had cured him of the malady.  The beast was eight-feet tall even hunched over, and its talons clutched tight to the chain mesh.  Dane’s heart hammered. 

Before his eyes the beast changed form, melted like fat in a flame.  Darkness slithered off the body and slid down the chains.  Dane saw the beast’s true form, and his sweat ran cold. 

He saw children dying, heard women being raped.  He smelled the fires, heard men reduced to a child’s state, crying and begging for their lives as the flesh was peeled from their bones.  He watched as everything good he’d ever loved burned along with all of those Bloodspeakers.  All of the hate and ugliness and cruelty and baser things about humanity were physically personified in that face, once painted black, now covered with other people’s blood.  A dark reflection of himself.

He saw Marros Slayne, standing bare-chested with his short blades in hand, and rage filled Dane’s heart.  One of them was about to die.

The Phage took Corinth, almost too easily.  They met little resistance outside the city, and the Wraiths and Blood Knights swept through the ruins with deadly speed.  Blood and screams echoed into the dead of night. 

This time their enemies were the mercenaries of the Black Guild.  The Jlantrians had retreated, but Kala’s allies had re-taken control of the ruins.  Rael and Saera followed Chairos’ lead and directed their men to quietly and quickly remove any sentries and guard patrols they encountered as they made their way towards Corinth’s crumbling epicenter, where the gate to Chul Gaerog awaited. 

They encountered a furious battle already in progress, and Chairos ordered the Phage mercenaries to hold.  He wanted to see how the conflict would play out.  Though of significant size, the reinforcements from Kaldrak Iyres were accustomed to keeping out of sight, and within a few minutes hundreds soldiers had spread out over several blocks and hid themselves in the shadows of collapsing structures. 

A sizable contingent of Red Hand had launched an attack on the Black Guild there in the central city, and while they’d slaughtered quite a few of the Iron Count’s mercenaries the tides had turned, and the battle was lost to them now.  Sulfur and ice smoke filled the air, which reeked of burning flesh and crackling ozone.  Dead lay scattered across the dust-addled ground, and moonlight reflected off the flesh of the fallen.

Chairos didn’t allow the Phage to wait long.  A glint of metal caught his eye, a massive armored man who fearlessly led the enemy soldiers.  The man in full-plate stood some eight-feet tall, and every motion was a creak of iron.  Chairos smelled thaumaturgy, and he could practically taste the costly enchantments of Vossian Veilcraft. 

Though he’d been sent to capture Ijanna and seize the gate to Chul Gaerog, Chairos had a bigger prize within his reach, and he couldn’t believe his good fortune.  That metal monster was none other than the Iron Count, and capturing or killing the leader of the Phage’s decades-old rival was an opportunity too rich to be passed up.  The fact that the Count’s men held the central square and had somehow secured the services of an Arkan gave Chairos pause, but he steeled himself and directed Rael and Saera to deploy the Wraiths and the Blood Knights.  He would not be denied, not in this.

The Phage flooded the square from every direction.  Battle cries rang through the night.  Blades and arrows flew, and blood spattered noisily to the ground. 

The Iron Count’s mercenaries were caught unawares, and his Tuscars had already been fighting for hours, leaving them unprepared for the ferocity of the Phage assault.  It was a slaughter.  Black Guild men were skewered and brought down by hails of arrows.  One Wraith was lost for every five of the Count’s soldiers, and no Blood Knights were lost at all. 

Chairos stayed back, carefully concealed behind the crumbling walls of what appeared to be an old church.  He waited for the Count to turn his attention to the battle, and when he did the Veilwarden launched a churning ball of dripping blue fire at the armored monstrosity.  The Count held one of his own people in his iron grip, a dark haired woman in a black cloak who thrashed about violently.

The ball of flame fell a few feet short and exploded across the dusty earth in an arctic corona.  Chairos cursed and launched another, wincing as the amount of power he extended sent needles of pain throughout his body.  The Count saw the attack coming this time and easily side-stepped the fiery sphere, dragging his captive along behind him. 

Chairos had one more chance.  He took a deep breath and Touched the Veil.  His heart seemed to crack, and he sensed something turn and blacken inside him as if his lungs had been scorched.  The fire flew through the air with a stream of dark smoke in its wake, a blazing missile.  The Iron Count waited until the last moment before moving aside with surprising speed, and the ball of flame screamed past him and collided with one of the dark stones around the open pit.

Chairos tasted explosive magic.  He reeled and shielded his eyes as the buckling arcane feedback shot out waves of destructive power.  The blast came instantly, a blaze of churning yellow-black light and thick bursts of cinder and ash.  The sound of metal and stone grated through his skull. 

The Count and his captive were thrown forward by the blast.  The Count’s cape burned away and parts of his dismal iron shell were on fire.

Chairos hoped he hadn’t damaged the
cutgate
.  He still had to apprehend Ijanna – even killing the Iron Count wouldn’t keep him safe from Mezz’ah Chorg’s wrath if he failed to acquire the Dream Witch, but at least it might buy him a quick and painless death.

The air shimmered, as if molten.  A strange tightness pulled at Chairos’ chest.  Cords of smoke rose from the bodies of the Wraiths next to him as they jerked and seized, and bloody spittle fell from their mouths.  Seams appeared on their skulls, splits where something had shook them open from the inside out.  Their bodies collapsed in heaps, fluid draining from their eyes. 

He turned and looked for more of the Phage men.  Two more Wraiths went down, followed in short order by a Blood Knight, felled as if they’d taken an invisible hammer blow to the head.

The Arkan.  Damn!

Chairos tried to find the beast, and after a moment his eyes fell upon its rancid and emaciated form floating inches above the shattered ground.  It had black-grey flesh and wide pale eyes, a shadow of a hanged man. 

The Veil flowed cold through his lungs as he targeted the creature.  He sensed the Arkan’s heart, withered and twisted like a dying fruit held within its leathery body.  Chairos breathed in, built power in his fingertips that filled his nostrils with the scent of frost and blood.  A bolt of electric ice launched from his hands, blinding blue and crackling like ozone.  The bolt slammed across the shadows and rippled up and down the Arkan’s levitating body, but didn’t seem to affect it at all.

The power danced around the Arkan before the air shimmered and tensed.  Chairos watched and waited.  He knew what was coming, yet felt powerless to stop it. 

The feedback slammed against him like a tide of burning water.  Fear iced his veins.  The bolt of power danced across the ground and burned the earth black.  Chairos tried to raise a shield, but his moment’s hesitation proved to be his undoing. 

The bolt blasted into his body.  His vision went white.  The flesh sheared from his bones.  He watched the world darken and crumble like black ice.

Chairos’ tattered corpse was blown against the wall of a nearby building, where it scattered into a cloud of dust.