The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (128 page)

Then he pulled down his faceplate and strode toward the Field Marshal.

Confused, Weshker dogged his heels.  He'd never expected to see his camp-mates again, but Erevard made three—since he was sure he'd glimpsed Maevor.  It was almost enough to throw him from his anger.

Then Rackmar snapped, “You!  Why are you here?” and a shudder of hate went through Weshker.  He wasn't the target, though; the Field Marshal's eyes were on Erevard, the other White Flames shifting forward as he approached, for his body language made it clear he wasn't here to talk.  Weshker saw the black sword tilt across his back, the threads of his armor adjusting it to slide right into his hand.

With inhuman speed, Erevard launched himself into their ranks, black blade carving a path through the closest.  They had their own weapons—spears, swords—but deployed them like man-catchers, striking for his limbs and neck with the unraveling ends in an attempt to restrain.  Weshker couldn't tell if they did that preferentially or by necessity; perhaps their blades couldn't pierce his armor.

But he wasn't there to watch.

Skirting the fray, he advanced upon Rackmar with head bowed, hands loose at his sides.  Other White Flames stepped out to block him, and he halted obediently, affecting the slack-jawed expression he wore under Nerice's influence.  The Field Marshal's gaze passed right over him.

“Stop that maniac,” he heard Rackmar growl, and the White Flames moved out of his way.

It took all his self-control to drift closer instead of lunge.  No matter the entities inside of him, Rackmar was still larger, heavier, and coated in that white material all the way up to the jawline.  Even if he got his teeth around that thick neck, they might not sink through.

But he wore no helmet, too vain or distrustful to have the white substance over his face.

As he took another step, angled as if to fall into position at Rackmar's heels, the man glanced down at him, saying, “Your handlers, are they—“

Weshker stuck his thumb in Rackmar's eye.

He was, paradoxically, too quick; the Guardian's manifestation surged to the fore, but in that first instant, the nail that punctured the eyeball was human.  By the time the thorny claw extended, Rackmar was already reeling back, putting the rest of his eye-socket out of reach.  Weshker's grasping fingers scored his cheek, taking strips of skin and sideburn along with the ruptured orb, but no more.

The crows screamed at him to eat it, but he wanted no part of Rackmar's flesh and certainly not his visions.  In the moment it took him to force the urge away, his foe recovered, and his lunge for Rackmar's throat met a fist instead.  That was fine; his thick hide, though not as strong as Cob's elemental armor, could still take a beating, and he wrapped himself around Rackmar's extended arm in retaliation.  Claws tore away the bracer and ripped at the threads; pawed feet tamped against the ceremonial breastplate as if to pull the arm right off.  His jaws clamped on thin steel, biting through the gauntlet joints until he tasted blood.

Rackmar gave a pained bellow and tried to shake Weshker off, then punched him between the horns when he couldn't.  It didn't work; claws affixed, Weshker ignored the hit and the fiery needles of White Flame weaponry that jabbed at his back and shoulders.  In moments, a piece of gauntlet came off in his mouth and his finger-claws reached bone.

Then a rope-like stricture caught around his neck, forcing him to grab at the strands or be choked.  As the soldiers wrenched him from Rackmar, tendons snapped between his teeth, leaving his maw full of loose metal and fingers.  Despite the crows' urgings, he spat those out.

What came next was a blind fury of claws and tendrils and spears, torn helms and flicking tail.  Despite the Guardian's backing, he wasn't Cob—a sturdy pummeler who could take a pummeling himself.  He was an opportunist and a sneak.  Blades nicked his sides as he bit for wrists, throats, faces, and dug his claws into bellies and groins; spears rebounded from the floor as he dropped, scrambled, and surged up elsewhere, leaving severed hamstrings in his wake.

Few of his hits landed.  There were too many enemies on him, their armor too adaptive, and beyond their swarming forms he saw Rackmar stumbling toward the dais and the shelter of his god.  The anger that had propelled him this far wavered at the thought of chasing him there.

No.  I will never again be a coward.

He had just started to withdraw, thinking to take some distance then spring past his White Flame foes, when the detonations began.

*****

In halls, in chambers, on balconies, among the crowd—everywhere a fused blade had been planted—the mismatched crystals fumed and sparked.  In the hands of their metastatic wielders, they had drawn all the power they could contain, and still the sigils engraved upon them demanded more.

But the joins were bad, the energies unbalanced.  Green crystal from the wraith-spire Syllastria resonated in opposition to pink from Anlirindallora, blue from Tantaelastarr, orange from Noravar, gold from Lassaltir.  More and more power strained within the blades, fighting against the fusion points, until one join slipped and took the others with it in a catastrophic cascade.

The explosions tore through walls, floors, bystanders and the bodies of their wielders.  They produced no shrapnel—the strands of the Palace as harmless as spider-silk when severed—but spread gore in all directions.

Black gore, which, after a moment's paralysis, began to spread itself.

*****

A blast scythed down a circle of pilgrims to Geraad's right and flung a White Flame against him, nearly knocking them both down.  The soldier scrabbled at him fitfully then sagged, and Geraad saw the festering holes burned into his back.

Beyond, pilgrims in spattered garments writhed at the edges of the riven floor.  The blast had created a black-rimmed pit four feet deep, twelve wide—and growing, streaks of corrosion spreading out in all directions.  A priest, eyes ablaze, pressed his hands to the floor as if trying to pray the advance to a stop, but the dark threads burrowed into his arms like worms.

Then came another blast, and another, and another.  A balcony disintegrated into black-and-white smithereens; a hole gaped suddenly in a far wall, revealing a parallel hall; something behind him detonated to drop a rain of white threads and dark flecks over the crowd.

The pilgrims, already frantic, descended into pure panic.

Even with his empathy muted, the intensity of the crowd's emotions made Geraad's head swim.  He had to get away, but there was nowhere to go.  Tarren and Wydma had abandoned him for their task, and the Crown Prince's spiky prison blocked the way ahead; to his left and right were the seething seas of people.  Behind was—

He turned.  Through the screen of fleeing bodies, a clear space beckoned: the place where Enkhaelen had fallen.  Some instinct kept even the most unhinged pilgrims from nearing the corpse.

Geraad felt it too—an atavistic quake in the spine, a weakness in the knees—but his head was worse.  The more people battered against him, the more they punctured his mental barriers with their fear.  He couldn't waste a moment to ward himself.

Or to think.

Shoulder-first, he plunged into the flow, stumbling sideways until he broke through the main mass and entered the clearing.  It wasn't big; three steps took him nearly to the body, which lay with arms outspread as it had fallen.

Not much remained.  Skin and muscle had sloughed off in ashen flakes, baring bones that crumbled like soft charcoal.  Already the front of the skull had fallen in, the cavity beyond it full of smouldering teeth and black goo.  Even the layers of robe were rotting away.

But not their embroidery.  As his mind stabilized, Geraad saw the silver gibberish-runes twist free from the cadaver's back, then slot like clockwork into those of the robe below.  Deep blue energy kindled between them, then reached out spidery electric limbs to pull the sigils of the outer robe into alignment.  At the next cerulean pulse, the scattered teeth luminesced, cracked, and released crystal-grains that tumbled inward; the bones jerked, then crumbled to expose enchanted rods and pins, which fell into place among the interlocked circles as if drawn by wires.

Geraad's eyes widened as the combined sigils became clear.  He knew little about the design and construction of the great archaic battle-magics, but he recognized a demolition array when he saw one.

As the last pin locked in, the collected energy flared bright, then stamped itself onto the floor below.  Blue shapes and sigils unfurled from it in a rapidly-expanding ring.  Where they passed, the radiant floor dimmed, and in moments Geraad was trapped within their radius, the air suddenly freezing from the drag of the colossal enchantment.

He tried to step back, but the chill bit at his muscles and stole the breath from his lungs.  Beyond him, the sigils kept propagating outward with no regard for those they engulfed.  Frost-touched pilgrims staggered, coughing dryly; a priest dropped to one knee, blazing eyes extinguished.  Beneath his feet, the floor cracked like bad ice.

His legs unhinged.  The cold stole the energy from his wards and projections, breaking the mirage, but he couldn't look up to see the effect; his head was too heavy, his eyelids like lead.  Numbness stole across his face, his fingers, and crawled inward.

I'm going to die here.  Drained to power this spell.

Something flared on his belt, warm against the blue light.  He reached a nerveless hand to touch it and gasped as hot energy surged into him, snapping his mind from its fog and sending pins-and-needles through his limbs.  Staggering upright, he saw that the array had reached its limit at the side walls and now covered about half of the chamber, its territory littered with the fallen.  Gaps existed at both ends, encompassing the throne and the main doors.

He looked down at his lifeline: the knife Enkhaelen had given him, the amber in its hilt sparking fitfully.  All around, the pulse of the blue sigils quickened, threatening to steal away what strength he had regained.

Terrified, he pushed himself into a staggering run.

It wouldn't be enough.  Even with the infusion, he had started from the center of the circle, and it pulled at him like gravity.  His slippers slid on the smooth floor, exertion-sweat freezing on his skin, breath a white mist.  More than once he tumbled, catching himself only barely; should he go down further than one knee, he knew he was done.

No.  No, I refuse.

Beneath him, the speeding pulse became a constant.  He caught himself again and felt frost sting his palm.  Lurching up, he put all his will into his legs, blocking out the pain and fear.  Nothing mattered but escape.

The light of the white floor died in a wave that passed below him and out beyond the borders of the array.  At the same time, something yanked at his spine, dragging him backward.  Gritting his teeth, he snapped out a ward with what little free energy he had.  Just a few more steps, and—

A huge bright hand of force slapped him off his feet.

He flew past the edge of the array and slammed into the retreating pilgrims, ward shattering as he tumbled past the first few to land sprawled on someone's legs.  His ears rang, eyes swarming with afterimages, but mentalist discipline kept him together as he struggled to rise on limbs that felt like bags of water.

A moment later he realized that it wasn't him quivering uncontrollably, but the floor.

It subsided suddenly under his feet, dropping him flat.  Bodies slid by, unconscious or stunned; others scrambled to get away but their movements only increased the vibration.  He tried to dig his toes into the sagging floor, but it shredded beneath them; his knife stuck in the white material only to tear it up.  Options rattled through his head:
Wards underfoot!  Some kind of arcane grapple!
  But he was down to his dregs, too shaken to act.

Then a hand hooked under his arm and pulled, and he struggled to follow, fingers tearing away layers of papery fiber until finally he found a surface he could grip.  His savior slid him a few more feet, then released, and he glanced up in time to see Tarren's bloated face turning away.

Ahead, pilgrims and soldiers lay felled, groaning or clutching the ground as it continued its slow roll.  Parts of the walls had lost their light and others hosted patches of horrid dark growth, but they were nothing compared to the sight behind him.

Where Enkhaelen's corpse had been, there was only air.  A gaping hole cut the throne room in two, long fronds of white fiber dangling from its edges to dredge through the soupy mess below.  The structures down there—pillars, platforms and walls full of honeycomb cells—had been ruptured by the blast, and now floated in chunks or spilled their contents into the slurry of pulped bodies and translucent gel.  Further out, Geraad glimpsed channels and cul-de-sac hives where surviving converts struggled feebly from their confines, soft and pale as larvae.

Revulsion clutched him.  How many of those bodies belonged to the pilgrims he'd seen go below?  How far did the hives reach?  Into the rest of the Palace?  The city?  The shadowless circle?

Struggling up, he looked toward the throne.  The surviving pilgrims had been pushed toward the foot of it and were struggling to get away.  Above, the Emperor stood as if unable to comprehend what he was seeing, but then raised a hand that flooded rapidly with clear white radiance.  Directing it toward the dark spot nearest him, he unleashed a torrent of searing light that burned straight through the pilgrims in the way.