Heirs of the Fallen: Book 03 - Shadow and Steel Read online

  Ulmek stepped smoothly into a guarded stance, his sword held before him. “Halan … it is good to see you, old friend.”

  “He is a friend no more,” Adham warned, standing abreast Ulmek. “None of them are. Look at their eyes.”

  In the shade cloaking the alley, the Brothers’ eyes glinted silver.

  “I had hoped you were wrong,” Ulmek said with quiet regret.

  “Behind us!” came an alarmed shout.

  Belina spun to find that way blocked by horned Alon’mahk’lar. They advanced, fearless and cruel, their guttural murmurs rumbling within the tight space. They bore massive cudgels with spiked heads, huge and crudely forged swords, axes and mauls.

  “Where is your son, Izutarian?” a possessed Brother asked in a croaking voice that made Belina’s skin creep.

  Adham faced the demon-infested men with a brittle smirk. “You sound sick, Ke’uld. Perhaps you should lie down and rest?”

  Ke’uld stared at Adham with eyes as blank as a dead man’s. All the demon-possessed wore the same expressions. Yet, besides the flashes of dull silver, there was life in those eyes, an unholy life escaped from the deepest reaches of the Thousand Hells. Hunger and hate radiated from their stares.

  “Slaughter them all,” Ke’uld grated. “Spare only the Izutarian. The reward for his blood will be great.”

  Belina fired an arrow without thought, and it glanced off the man’s chest, as if striking stone. For a moment everyone, human and demon alike, stood stock-still.

  “The flesh of some demons are near invincible to mortal arms,” Adham cautioned. “We cannot know which can withstand us, until it is too late.”

  “Then we fight those we know can and will die,” Ulmek growled. Without warning, he whirled and charged the Alon’mahk’lar. Damoc joined him, then Adham and Belina, Nola and Sumahn, then all the rest.

  In heartbeats, enraged howls filled the alley, joined by the reverberating clamor of steel meeting steel.

  Under it all was another sound—one Belina would never forget, if she survived the hour—the sound of the dead striking the ground.

  Chapter 37

  “Do you know where you are going?” Robis called.

  After running a little farther, Leitos halted. He cocked his head, and took a few deep breaths to quiet the blood rushing in his ears. “Do you hear that?”

  Robis mimicked his posture. “What do you—”

  Leitos cut him off with a sharp gesture, and he slowly turned his head, listening. As his heartbeat smoothed, he heard it again. Shouting. A moment later, those shouts became a din of hellish screams.

  He was sprinting before he registered the racket of steel beating against steel. Behind him Robis protested, but Leitos kept on. There was only one reason this day for fighting in the black city of Armala.

  Down one wide street and up another he ran, each step faster than the last, his pace dictated by the nearing clamor of hard-fought battle. Inhuman roars told him the foes he would find, before he skidded around a corner.

  Alon’mahk’lar, five or six at the least, stood bunched together at the end of an alley. The muscles of their immense backs knotted, as they fought against a hidden foe. Whomever the Sons of the Fallen counted as enemies, Leitos counted as friends.

  Just as Robis caught up, Leitos loosed an arrow into the base of a demon-born’s skull. The creature straightened as if poleaxed, made a half turn, and fell into one of its companions. With a throaty growl, the second Alon’mahk’lar tripped and went down under the first creature’s weight.

  Before any others could react, Leitos quickly sent two more arrows into the throng. One more Alon’mahk’lar fell, but the other jerked the offending shaft from its shoulder with a deafening roar. The rest turned to face the new threat.

  “A little help?” Leitos said to Robis, drawing the fletching of another arrow to his cheek.

  Whatever Robis said was lost to the sharp twang of the bowstring slipping off Leitos’s fingertips. The shaft buried itself in the eye of the Alon’mahk’lar still clutching the arrow it had yanked from its shoulder.

  Before the creature toppled, the remaining demon-born charged. In their wake, scattered across the breadth of the alley, Leitos saw men and women, sprawled in death. Yatoans.

  Robis made a strangled sound at the approach of the demon-born. Leitos did not bother looking at him. The bow dropped from his fingers in favor of grasping his sword and dagger. Bracing his feet, he made ready.

  “Jump clear before they reach us,” he warned sharply, “or they will trample us under.”

  He had no chance to notice if Robis understood, before the Alon’mahk’lar fell on them, cudgels and swords and axes whipping the air where he had just been. Leitos tumbled over the paving stones, and hastily bounded to his feet. He swung his sword backhand at a flashing blur, felt the steel bite hard and deep, then he was rolling clear once more.

  Catlike, Leitos sprang up, and raked his sword across the Alon’mahk’lar’s blunt snout. Howling, the creature flung back its horned head. Scarlet droplets fell like a hot rain upon Leitos’s face. He swiped an arm across his eyes to clear them. The effort was wasted.

  Vision gone red, he tracked his foe’s movement. The bulky shape charged, and he threw himself out of reach. The demon-born closed again, growling. An instant later, Leitos heard a rush of wind. He ducked, just avoiding a spiked cudgel aimed to tear off his head. The Alon’mahk’lar swung again. Leitos leaped back, sucking in his belly. The beast pressed the attack, and this time Leitos’s evasion failed. A spike clawed into his scalp, and threw him. Leitos flayed at the air in a bid to right himself, but landed in a jumble.

  He lay gulping air. A ringing buzz filled his ears, muting the tumult of battle. He felt the thudding tread of the closing demon-born in the paving stones beneath him. Writhing like a slug, Leitos rolled to his side. Imagining that cudgel falling against his skull, he heaved himself up and staggered away, slashing his sword to keep the Alon’mahk’lar at bay.

  Stinging tears had cleansed most of the blood from his eyes, and the demon-born’s triumphant gaze battered Leitos’s confidence. He was weak, and his limbs refused to work right. The Alon’mahk’lar advanced, unscathed, save for the slash across its snout.

  The demon-born rushed in, face contorted, teeth bared. Lurching drunkenly, Leitos ducked under the beast’s swing, and ripped the tip of his dagger across the Alon’mahk’lar’s belly. His sword followed that raw scarlet line, plowing a deadly furrow that instantly sprouted a crop of coiled innards.

  Leitos spun past the Alon’mahk’lar, hamstrung it, and then chopped his blade into the back of the creature’s neck. The blow was weak, but the sword was sharp, his aim true. Silent and stiff, the demon-born fell limply to the ground.

  Before Leitos could savor his victory a voice, worse than even the heart-stilling tongue of the Alon’mahk’lar, filled the air. “Take the Izutarians!”

  Leitos turned sharply, taking in a tableau of butchery. All the demon-born were down, hacked to pieces by the few remaining Yatoans. Adham and Belina stood over a twitching Alon’mahk’lar a little way off; Nola and Sumahn, pressed back to back, held their swords at the ready; Damoc, his face bloodied by a cut running from his temple to his nose, was down on one knee, with Daris hovering protectively over him. Despite one arm hanging lifelessly at his side, and blood dripping off his fingertips, Robis went to Damoc, and helped him stand.

  Ulmek strode purposefully toward the alley, and the gathering of Brothers. Even had their eyes not flashed silver, Leitos would have known they were his brethren no more.

  Ke’uld and Halan hesitated only a moment before advancing to meet Ulmek, while the rest of the Brothers spread out in an expanding crescent at their backs. They noted Ulmek’s approach with disdainful glances, but ever their eyes rolled toward Leitos and Adham, their desire to take captive one of the last of the Valera line palpable.

  Every part of his being told Leitos to flee. But Ulmek was his leader now, and Ulmek showed n
othing of taking flight. They would either survive together by steel and blood, or they would die together.

  “For the Crimson Shield!” Leitos shouted abruptly. He raised his sword and dagger, and charged.

  Chapter 38

  “Give the command, Fauthian,” urged the Kelren shipmaster. The grotesque brands covering his shaven skull flushed in anger at Adu’lin’s reluctance to let his band join the fight. “The Alon’mahk’lar are down. Why do you wait?”

  When the time comes for you to enter the fray, Adu’lin thought, having already decided the fate of the sea-wolves, you will not be so eager. Neither did he waste a moment acknowledging the bow-legged brute at his side, or any of the Kelrens waiting on the flat rooftop at his back. Ever had they been unthinking weapons, crude and loathsome, barely worth keeping alive.

  The Faceless One’s reliance upon them and other humans had always troubled Adu’lin. He understood the reasoning behind his master’s strategy of using humans to rule over humankind, but did not agree with it. Of late, the making of kings and courts made less sense than ever, for even if they desired it, there were not enough humankind left in the world to mount a resistance against the Faceless One. Better to destroy the last of them, and be done with the age of men.

  Of course, that could not come about either, for the Faceless One had chosen to keep the race alive, at least for a time. Some few of them, like the Yatoans, carried within their bloodlines the ability to resist Mahk’lar. And where humans could never hope to rise against the Faceless One, there were those of the Fallen who had turned against their rightful master, and were using humans and other creatures in the building of secret armies, all across the face of the world. To counter those forces, the Faceless One sought the blood of those humans imbued with the Powers of Creation, in order to make stones of protection for his own armies. Since the Upheaval, Adu’lin concluded, the tiny remnant of humankind had become more of a problem than they ever were before.

  A smug grin touched his lips, though, as he counted the few remaining Yatoans and Brothers of the Crimson Shield. At least some of them would face his judgment. They had crushed his Alon’mahk’lar, true, but they had paid a dear cost to do so. Now they faced a wholly different foe, and their chances had markedly declined.

  “What are you waiting for?” the shipmaster demanded again, his fingers throttling the short haft of a double-bladed axe. “Are you afraid?”

  Adu’lin’s lips pressed into a bloodless line and he closed his eyes, struggling not to rip away the slaver’s life. Had he that option with the Yatoans, that of harvesting the energies of life from the spawn of his own ancestors—Adu’lin shied from this thought, not relishing the idea that he too, at one time, had been human—he would not have been forced to tolerate the sea-wolf and his lice-ridden crew. But there was nothing for it. For now, circumstances required that he rely on these base creatures—

  The shipmaster caught his arm. “Damn your skin, answer me!”

  Adu’lin shuddered, as he fought for control … and failed.

  He turned sharply, reaching as if to close his hand over the man’s face. He stopped short, with only a bare inch separating them. The shipmaster tried to flinch back, but invisible bonds held him fast. Adu’lin’s fingers curled and flexed, as he began to collect the threads of life spreading from the man in a gossamer shroud. The ability was unique to him among the Fauthians, a rare and precious gift bestowed upon him by the Faceless One, long ago.

  As living power filled him, the vibrancy of the world’s colors vanished to his sight, becoming shades of black and gray, overlaid with webs of glowing silver. He embraced that radiance, drew it into himself. The sea-wolves staggered with sudden weakness, their bodies robbed of strength that poured into Adu’lin.

  “Demand nothing of me,” Adu’lin said.

  “I … I.… Forgive me, I beg,” the Kelren stammered, choking on his tongue.

  Expressionless, Adu’lin curled his fingers. By fractions, the shipmaster’s skull began cracking. By the time Adu’lin’s hand became a fist, the bloodied sea-wolf was no longer recognizable. A few shattered teeth dribbled over his quivering lips. Still he tried to plead … until he made no more sounds at all.

  Adu’lin unclenched his fingers and took a precise step back, allowing the shipmaster to fall on his mutilated face. Enlivened as he was by the flood of life filling his veins, Adu’lin dispersed it back into the sea-wolves.

  To a man, they gasped in relief, and knelt before him. None looked to their fallen leader. They did not look anywhere, save at their bent knees.

  “You march at my command,” Adu’lin told them. “Not before, and not at your choosing. Are we in agreement?”

  The sea-wolves nodded in answer, but as with the shipmaster, it was their hands Adu’lin watched, the way their knuckles grew white as they gripped their weapons. At the first chance, they would seek to destroy him. He had always known the Kelrens were untrustworthy, loyal only to themselves. That had never been so true as now. That made his abrupt decision all the easier.

  Adu’lin glanced at the gathering darkness behind the men, summoned by his commanding thought. His next silent order to the coalescing Mahk’lar left no room for misunderstanding. Take them.

  As the wall of darkness separated into unspeakable shapes, Adu’lin turned back to the low wall encircling the rooftop. He heard the sea-wolves shifting in preparation to assault him, like the cowardly rats that they were.

  “Very good,” he announced, as if he had no inkling of their intentions.

  The sounds of possession came swiftly. A few startled shouts, grunts of surprise, and the ineffectual whooshes of swords hacking through demonic spirits. Next came fearful whimpers, shrieks, screams, and the running of feet, before the spectral host slipped into living flesh and gained control.

  Then silence.

  “Join me,” Adu’lin invited, after the flurry of resistance ended.

  His smile widened when the youngest of the Valara line suddenly cried his defiance in the distance. The Fauthian leader laughed aloud when Leitos ran to face the foes from which he should have fled. Men were not only fickle, they were stupid.

  Chapter 39

  Ulmek dragged Leitos to a stop before he could rush past. “This is not a fight for steel,” he said, voice pitched low.

  At their backs, the few remaining Yatoans had taken up Leitos’s battle cry, and the sound of their running feet told that they would pass by in heartbeats.

  “Hold!” Ulmek shouted over his shoulder, his command slowing but not halting the Yatoans.

  Unsure what to expect, Leitos watched Halan and Ke’uld stride closer. Neither mercy nor fear nor doubt shone in their dead eyes.

  Leitos’s sword and dagger wavered. “How do we defeat them?”

  In answer, Ulmek drew off his haversack and hurled it at those who had once been men. The sheer unexpectedness of his actions drew the Yatoans up short, and gave pause to Ke’uld, Halan, and the rest of the Brothers. In the sudden relative quiet, the muffled crunch of pottery breaking within the haversack was loud. The demon-wrought Brothers jerked at that sound, the memories of the men they had possessed as real to them as their own. Understanding dawned and Leitos cringed back, shielding his face.

  Silence held.

  Halan glanced warily at the rumpled haversack, and a mocking sneer flitted over Ke’uld’s face. “It seems the God of All has at long last chosen to favor the firstborn of this world—”

  Faster than thought, the haversack swelled into a bloated sphere, shafts of cruel purple-black light lancing from rupturing seams. The radiance expanded, disintegrating the haversack, becoming a blinding indigo flash of tremendous heat and pressure that knocked Leitos off his feet. Roiling fire engulfed the possessed Brothers. The agonized screams that followed came not from the throats of men, but from demons made flesh … flesh that perished as all flesh did, when steeped in the purifying heat of the Nectar of Judgment.

  Ke’uld alone burst through the flames, sca
ttering everyone. Charred meat rained down from his body, but still the Nectar of Judgment burned, freeing a horror that had made itself into a being of living flesh while locked inside Ke’uld. In three strides, it had grown twice the height of a man.

  A Yatoan ring formed around the whirling demon, intent on not letting it escape, but wary of the creature’s dozen lashing arms. One of those limbs flashed near Leitos, and he met it with his dagger, hacking off a trio of bony fingers tipped with scythe-like claws. Intense heat stiffened those ghastly fingers, blackened them. The demon fared no better. It faltered and collapsed with a breathless howl, its body of interlocking plates shattering like crystal upon the paving stones.

  “What did you do?” Leitos asked, staring at the smoking remains.

  “Daris thought it up,” Sumahn answered. “You place a wax-sealed vial of water into a jar filled with the Nectar of Judgment, throw it where you need fire, and…” Instead of finishing, he swept a hand over the blackened carnage. “On Witch’s Mole, we did the same thing against the Kelrens and their changeling wolves.”

  The Yatoans cried their approval, but Ulmek cut them off with a gesture. “The day is not won yet. We must still find and destroy Adu’lin, and any who stand with him.”

  “Once he knows that we have crushed the largest part of his forces,” Damoc advised, “he will flee.”

  “And we will follow,” Ulmek said. “There can be no rest until he is dead.”

  Chapter 40

  Adu’lin stared at the distant scene with a shock so deep he forgot to breathe. The demon-filled Brothers were supposed to have destroyed Damoc’s clan. There were other clans spread across the islands, but upon learning of Damoc’s death, they would have fled as far and fast as their boats would take them. In time, Adu’lin would have sent his Kelrens coursing after them, and they would have returned with holds filled with breeding stock.