The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch, #3)(85)
Screaming, those soldiers dissolved before our very eyes as the tar ate their flesh, steam rising from their writhing bodies. “Water!” General Lode roared, and to my horror, Likh leaped forward, the wards around her gone as she sent cloudbursts onto the unfortunate victims, soaking them in a sudden flood. A Drychta lunged for her, but was beaten back by a determined Khalad, who had found himself a sword amid the chaos.
I reached out with my mind and compelled every suffering soldier I could reach, sending them into blissful unconsciousness. It was the only mercy I could afford them.
My grip on the indar slipped as I did, and I swore again through my tears, plunging back into its head and repeating the painstaking process all over again. You are weak, a voice whispered into my ear, confident enough to taunt rather than take advantage. Your compassion makes you weak, Lady Tea.
I focused my will and tried to attack, but, laughing, he slid out of my grasp once more.
The soldiers surrounding Kance were at full retreat, but the indar stubbornly raced after them, knocking other Odalians and Yadoshans out of the way. My azi stormed into its path, crashing deliberately into the other daeva just as the latter raised its hideous wings again. Kalen grabbed me, held me close as black rain spattered around us, making harsh sizzling noises as some of the Shield runes melted at the potency.
I located the indar’s core again, reached for it. There was another mind latching on, tightening its hold as it sensed me. I shoved against that presence, only to encounter resistance. I tried again.
The azi’s left head snapped forward. Heedless of the acid, its teeth latched onto the indar’s feathered neck, fangs sinking into its jugular. The daeva shrieked with pain for the first time since the fight started, but it was not enough to shake off Druj’s control. The azi cried out as well, and I felt the terrible sizzle of its hide as if it were my own skin. I screamed but wouldn’t, couldn’t, let go, even as the agony grew intolerable.
A blaze of lightning cut through the indar, separating it from the azi. “Asha!” Althy’s voice sounded over the din, strong and sure and safe. “To me! Aim for its eyes!”
New arcs of lightning filled the horizon, cutting into the other daeva. I turned and saw Althy surrounded by other Kion asha, linked and sending swaths of bright light, sharp and cutting, burrowing into the indar’s flesh. They did little to hurt the daeva, but the light dazzled it. Yowling, the indar twisted to and fro, its lidless eyes unable to turn away from the brightness filling its vision.
Tea, I heard, from far away and close at the same time. A sudden spasm of strength went through me, catching me by surprise. The energy trickled up to the part of me that continued to cling to the indar’s thoughts, which were still under Druj’s control. I seized it, pushed with all my might.
A blaze of light exploded into the abyss when my thoughts touched both the daeva’s and Druj’s, and it was enough to startle the Faceless into letting go. The indar’s mind fell into mine.
Die! I shouted. Die, die, die, die, die—
I don’t know how long I shrieked. It was only Kalen, shaking me gently, that brought me back to myself. “Tea,” he murmured. “It’s over.”
The indar lay on its side, surrounded by a pool of its own black acid. Druj’s mind was gone, retreating somewhere inside Mithra’s Wall. A subdued, shaken cheer rose among the soldiers as they watched the rest of the unaltered Drychta army run, leaving their dead comrades behind, while some of the Yadoshans persisted in chasing the stragglers. The Odalian banner flew over Kance’s location, flapping in the wind. The king was safe.
The door in my head that separated Fox from me remained closed, but I was sure Fox had gotten through somehow, that he had added his strength to mine to allow me to triumph over Druj. I reached for him, expecting to find my brother’s warm, comforting presence. But there was nothing. The barriers between us remained intact, and I was alone.
Still holding on to Kalen, I burst into tears.
The Drychta staggered out from the base of the mountains, many on fire. I watched others jump off higher peaks, screaming as the flames consumed them until they were but balls of light, falling like rain.
As they plunged down, I saw them change. Their bodies warped and shifted. They did not hit the ground with lifeless thuds, but with raspy chitterings and undulations as their midsections broke and re-formed and gave way to new segmented bodies, horrible insect-like mutations fused with mammalian limbs. Still burning, they skittered forward, shrugging off the fires like they had their humanity, creeping toward the stricken Odalians and Yadoshans who retreated from the sight. Nothing in their training had prepared them for such macabre alchemy.
It was the nanghait that saved them. Rushing forward with its trunk-like legs, the daeva scooped up the first of the grotesque insects. Its jaws unhinged, and it stuffed the creature into its gaping maw, its crunching curdling my blood. Another insect leaped forward, but the nanghait was ceaseless, simply shifting its head to present a second hungry face to consume a fresh meal, and then another, and another.
The taurvi lifted its head and sang a lullaby, a seductive melody that should not have been possible from those ruined mandibles, those protruding fangs. The blighted Drychta slowed, transfixed by the sound, as did other soldiers nearby—including me. It stole into my head, erasing all emotions in me but rapture. All thought of fleeing, or moving, slipped away. The aeshma lumbered close, ignoring us. It rolled itself into a ball and mowed down the immobile Drychta without pause, stampeding through the flock even as they sat and listened to its brother daeva’s deathsong.