Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(203)

Destroy! Nightblood’s voice boomed in his head. The evil must be destroyed! Pain shot up Vasher’s arm, and he felt his Breath being leached away, sucked into the blade, fueling its hunger. Drawing the weapon had a terrible cost. At that moment, he didn’t really care. He spun toward the charging Lifeless and—enraged—attacked.

Each creature he struck with the blade immediately flashed and became smoke. A single scratch and the bodies dissolved like paper being consumed by an invisible fire, leaving behind only a large stain of blackness in the air. Vasher spun among them, striking with wrath, killing Lifeless after Lifeless. Black smoke churned around him, and his arm twisted with pain as veinlike tendrils climbed up the hilt and around his forearm—like black blood vessels that latched on to his skin, feeding off his Breath.

In a matter of minutes, the Breath Vivenna had given him had been reduced by half. Yet in those moments, he destroyed all fifty Lifeless. The soldiers outside pulled to a halt, watching the display. Vasher stood amidst a churning mass of deep ebony smoke. It slowly rose into the air, the only remnants of the fifty creatures he had destroyed.

The soldiers ran away.

Vasher screamed, charging toward the side of the room. He slammed Nightblood through a wall. The stone dissolved just as easily as flesh had, evaporating away before him. He burst through the dissipating black smoke, entering the next room. He didn’t bother with a stairwell. He simply jumped onto a table and rammed Nightblood into the ceiling.

A circle ten feet wide vanished. Dark, mistlike smoke fell around him like streaks of paint. He Awakened his rope again then tossed it up, using it to pull himself up onto the next floor. A moment later, he did it again, climbing onto the third floor.

He spun, slashing through walls, bellowing as he ran back toward Denth. The pain in his arm was incredible, and his Breath was draining away at an alarming rate. Once it was gone, Nightblood would kill him.

Everything was growing fuzzy. He slashed through a final wall, finding the room where he had been tortured.

It was empty.

He cried out, arm shaking. Destroy . . . evil . . . Nightblood said in his mind, all lightness gone from the tone, all familiarity. It boomed like a command. An awful, inhuman thing. The longer Vasher held the sword, the faster it drained his Breath.

Gasping, he threw the sword aside and fell to his knees. It skidded, tearing a rip in the floor that puffed away into smoke, but hit a wall with a pling and fell still. Smoke rose from the blade.

Vasher knelt, arm twitching. The black veins on his skin slowly evaporated. He was left with just barely enough Breath to reach the First Heightening. Another few seconds, and Nightblood would have sucked the rest away. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision.

Something fell to the tiled floor in front of him. A dueling blade. Vasher looked up.

“Stand up,” Denth said, eyes hard. “We’re going to finish what we started.”

57

Bluefingers led Siri—held by several Lifeless—up to the fourth floor of the palace. The top floor. They entered a room lavishly decorated with rich colors, even for Hallandren. Lifeless guards there let them pass, bowing their heads to Bluefingers.

All the Lifeless in the city are controlled by Bluefingers and his scribes, she thought. But even before that, the scribes had great power over the bureaucracy and workings of the kingdom. Did the Hallandren realize that they were dooming themselves by relegating the Pahn Kahl people to such lowly—yet important—positions?

“My people will not fall for this,” Siri found herself saying as she was pulled to the front of the room. “They won’t fight Hallandren. They’ll retreat through the passes. Take refuge in the highland valleys or one of the outer kingdoms.”

The front of the room held a black block of stone, shaped like an altar. Siri frowned. From behind, a group of Lifeless entered the room, carrying the corpses of several priests. She saw Treledees’s body among them.

What? Siri thought.

Bluefingers turned toward her. “We’ll make certain they’re angry,” he said. “Trust me. When this is through, Princess, Idris will fight until either it or Hallandren is destroyed.”
* * *

THEY TOSSED SOMEONE into the cell next to Lightsong. He looked up with weary eyes, uncaring. It was another Returned. Which of the gods had they taken captive now?

The God King, he thought. Interesting.

He looked down again. What did it matter? He’d failed Blushweaver. He’d failed everyone. The Lifeless armies were probably already marching on Idris. Hallandren and Idris would fight and the Pahn Kahl would have their revenge. It had been three hundred years coming.
* * *

VASHER STOOD UP WITH DIFFICULTY. He held the dueling sword in a weak hand, looking at Denth, still shaken by his use of Nightblood. The empty black hallway was now open around them. Vasher had destroyed several of the walls. It was amazing the roof hadn’t fallen in.

Corpses littered the floor, the result of the fights when Denth’s men had taken over the palace.

“I’ll let you die easily,” Denth said, raising his blade. “Just tell me the truth. You never beat Arsteel in a duel, did you?”

Vasher raised his own blade. The cuts, the pain in his arm, the exhaustion of being awake so long . . . it was all wearing on him. Adrenaline could only get him so far, and even his body could only take so much. He didn’t reply.

“Have it your way,” Denth said, attacking.