The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch, #3)(105)
Both familiars moved in unison; blades snapping, their feet quick and agile, they circled Aadil on either side, some unspoken strategy passing between them. Lord Kalen was the first to attack, worrying at the shinbones that kept the beast upright. The demon snapped at him, giving Lord Fox a chance to swipe at its rib cage. The former king staggered; the Deathseeker took out its right shoulder, and the Kion general cut through a hip bone.
Lady Zoya had been sidestepping the fracas, zigzagging as she ran from one section of sand to the other. Her actions confused me until the ground gave out underneath the Aadil-beast without warning, sending it scrabbling for a fresh hold. But it was a mere distraction for the beast, and the asha swore. “I can’t draw Water here or channel it with other runes,” she rasped. “There is something in this place that absorbs the spell before I can unleash it!” She cursed again. “And look!”
Her spell had uncovered corpses buried within the sand—not four of the Five Great Heroes I expected, but men in Drychta armor.
“This is blasphemy,” Lord Khalad hissed. “To bring them to this sacred place!”
“I have no need for courtesies, Forger.” The Faceless was clearly struggling, but she had enough strength to sketch a new symbol in the air. With low groans, the fallen warriors rose, staggered to their feet, sunken eyes fixed on us.
“Not today!” The Dark asha whipped out her own sword. Her heels dug into the rising sands as she fought her way toward the Faceless. The other woman raised both arms as if to ward herself, and several corpses rushed to her side. But the Dark asha was almost as quick as her familiars, and she mowed them down easily, driven by her anger. She employed a combination of blade and spells, chopping her way through the crowd as some of those corpses turned on each other without warning, egged on by her compulsion. She sliced a path through the masses of bodies and swung her sword at the Faceless before the other could muster more of the undead to shield herself.
Lord Fox’s blade sank into Aadil’s hollowed chest. Lord Kalen’s sword whirred through the air and neatly sliced off the blighted’s head. Lady Zoya kept the other fiends at bay, grunting as runes tore into them, one after another.
Druj was gasping for breath, her hand clasped over her now-bloody stomach. The Dark asha stood over her. “You will regret killing me, Tea,” she snarled, though the fear in her eyes was clear to all.
“I do not have the strength to engage you in direct confrontation.” Sweat beaded at the bone witch’s upper lip, and she was panting. “I presumed that you were sent word of my bard when I was still in Daanoris. You knew I planned to tell my story. How quickly did you meet my brother at Ankyo’s port, wondering if it was already too late—if I had told all? What relief that must have been to discover they had not yet read my letters. Did you perhaps compel some of them from reading the final pages, to keep your secret a little longer? Even from across a sea, you’ve always had a long reach.”
I gasped, remembering.
“You were meant to read them,” Tea of the Embers declared. “Even with my shadowglass, you are cleverer, craftier in the Dark. You will wreak havoc with or without magic. You will never again have the opportunity.”
She brought her sword down in a swift gesture.
The Faceless screamed, and her fingers moved one final time.
The blow should have killed her. It did not.
Druj’s features warped. Her transformation was swift and merciless. Her legs fused together to create a long, serpentlike tail. Her face was a terrifying specter; her hair lengthened and then darkened as brown sap dripped from it, acid hissing steam wherever the drops landed. She was almost as tall as a daeva, with insect-like eyes and incisors growing where her mouth once was. Unlike the other blighted, she retained some of her female features, a mother of some new species that no god should have ever brought to life.
The Dark asha reeled back, stunned, and the newly blighted Faceless wailed, a heartrending sound, and bounded for her throat.
25
Althy moved so quickly that I wasn’t aware of the thick bolt of lightning she sent arcing toward Kalen, but he was just as quick. The jolt sizzled against his Shield rune, glancing harmlessly against the barrier. With mounting horror, I realized they intended to see the last of the Stranger Peak’s trials fulfilled, which Kalen put together before I did. “I don’t die so easily, Altaecia.”
“I know.” Altaecia sounded so sad. “But you will die all the same. It hurts me to do this, Kalen. Dark asha were not permitted familiars until they presented themselves to the oracle. Dark asha were to be feared and hated to prevent them from forming attachments. My inability to prevent Tea from both shall be my shame and is a mistake I intend to rectify. I am sorry—more than you will ever know.”
She struck again, and Kalen parried. Druj’s eyes seemed to glow. She raised her hands and a new bezoar, the final stone not yet accounted for, beamed with an unearthly light. Somewhere in the empty shore lay the akvan’s burial mound, the beast doomed to slumber for two more years.
Why had Likh suggested we make our camp here, in the Sea of Skulls, when I should have known better? Had the idea been planted in her head when Altaecia had refreshed her stash of herbs? Why find refuge near the daeva whose bezoar I had not yet taken? The former oracle saw the question in my eyes and smiled, pleased at her culpability.