Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(15)

I swayed forward as the last of the revenant’s power funneled out of my body. The ground pitched beneath my feet, and dark spots bloomed across my vision. I caught my weight on the sword, its point sunk into the nave’s carpet.

The evicted spirits roiled above the soldiers in a writhing, disoriented mass. Some of the men stirred and groaned. Alive, but in no condition to join the battle.

“They’re at their weakest now. Stop dawdling and destroy them before they regain their senses. Or is my power too much for you, nun?”

In answer, I stubbornly hefted the sword and staggered forward. A flash of startled approval came from the revenant. Strength surged into my limbs, quickening my steps to a run. My sword sang through the air, effortlessly cleaving the nearest spirit to ribbons just as it began to take shape.

“On your left!”

I swung around, intercepting a gaunt that had flickered into existence beside me. Its claws brushed my cheek, but the touch left only a faint chill in place of the searing cold of blight. A second stroke reduced it to tatters.

The revenant must have sensed my surprise. “I can protect you from blight, as long as I’m not trying to do too many other things at the same time. But that’s all. Swords, arrows, axes—anything that belongs to the physical world can still harm your pathetic flesh vessel.”

It was probably telling the truth, but I felt unstoppable. Spirits fell before me like wheat to a threshing. The exertion filled me with an awareness of every heartbeat, every breath that expanded my lungs, the charged smell of rain and stone from the storm outside. Even the sticky heat of the sword’s leather grip felt new and wondrous. I had never realized what a miracle it was simply to have a body—to be alive, to feel.

The revenant. This was the revenant’s pleasure coursing through me, sharing my human senses.

Motion flickered at the periphery of my vision. The sisters had joined the battle, their daggers flashing like quicksilver. Now that the soldiers had fallen, they were able to fight.

More thralls crowded the chapel’s doorway. I turned to face them. The revenant’s power welled up again in my outstretched hand, and this time I was prepared for the push, the twist, the emptying rush of its force flung outward. I barely stumbled as I pressed forward, weaving around the men’s unconscious bodies strewn across the floor.

A strange ripple in the air came as my only warning of something amiss. Then an unearthly wail filled the chapel, and pain split my skull. I doubled over, the sound grinding relentlessly in my ears. Through a haze of agony I saw the hangings on the walls billow in a ghostly wind. The flames of the candles blew sideways, and then they snuffed out. Sisters fell clutching their heads.

A pale shape rose from the muddle of spirits, veiled in silvery radiance. Diaphanous garments swirled around its slender form. Though it had a coldly beautiful face, its eyes were terrible, stark and staring with rage. The cry that poured from its lips stretched on and on without breath.

“A fury,” the revenant hissed, sounding as distressed as I felt. “Your head—I had forgotten—” Pained, it broke off. A whisper of numbing cold traveled up my spine. The throbbing in my head grew bearable, but my dread didn’t ease.

I had never expected to see a fury in my lifetime. They were Fourth Order spirits born from victims of murder. In our history lessons, we had read about a single fury decimating entire companies of soldiers during the War of Martyrs, incapacitating dozens of men at a time with their paralyzing scream.

The fury raised a delicate hand and pointed toward the back of the chapel. Faster than I could react, the mass of newly expelled spirits streamed past me, re-forming into recognizable shapes as they boiled over the pews. Gaunts flickered ahead of the pack, darting here and there as they sought paths between the curls of incense. I started after them, but my muscles locked. The revenant was straining against me.

“Leave them. The fury is their leader. It’s a more important target.”

“But—”

“Can you fight in a dozen places at once?” it snarled. “Destroy the fury, and the rest will follow.”

The revenant was right. The sisters wouldn’t be able to defend themselves until the fury’s cry ceased. But I physically couldn’t make myself turn my back on the novices. Only Sister Iris and the lay sisters remained close enough to the altar to defend them. Sophia had found a candlestick and was clutching it as a weapon, her face screwed up with pain. Any moment now the spirits would find a way through the incense, and there were so many—

I had forgotten Mother Katherine. Serenely, she rose from her position kneeling at the altar and touched her amber ring.

For a disorienting moment, it seemed that two figures occupied the space where she stood. There was Mother Katherine, white-haired and frail, and there was also a hulking, armored shape looming above her, its shoulders bristling with broken spears and arrows. It held a giant notched broadsword, which came swinging down like an executioner’s blade.

When the weapon struck the floor, a shock wave rippled outward from the point of impact, violently tearing through the first spirits it encountered and flinging back the rest. A gaunt shrieked as it struck a hanging censer and dissolved within the smoke.

“Have you seen your fill? Move!”

I was already turning, running. The fury took no notice of me until my sword whistled toward it. Then it pinned me with its wrathful gaze and shifted just enough that the blade harmlessly soared past, biting deep into the wood of a pew instead. I planted a boot on the armrest and wrenched the sword free.