James West - Lady Of Regret

Nesaea turned just as that harsh light and heat exploded, sending a rush of destruction thundering down the corridor. Nesaea skidded around a corner. The blast caught up and lifted her. Weightless, she soared, spinning through empty burning air. She clamped her eyes and mouth shut. Nesaea hit a hard flat surface, and the ravening fires followed her down into the black.

Sobbing, Wina knelt and cradled the severed hand to her chest. Seeing a queer light begin to fill her eyes, a faint glow flushing her skin and hair, Rathe snatched it away. She gave him an imploring look, but beneath her desperation played a face of wrath.

“Behind you!” Loro yelled, diving clear of a blast of green fire.

Rathe whirled to find a shadow stirring before him, the same he had first met and fought on the far side of the Gyntors, the same that had stalked him ever since.

It edged closer, real as all the mind-bending horror of Ravenhold. The swirling shade coalesced, firmed into the shape of a man. An errant blast of emerald fire raked over him, brightening his outline as would lightning striking within a cloud. For an instant, a hard-edged face regarded Rathe with open contempt. Fast as a blink, a blade of night slashed free of an obsidian scabbard. Rathe reeled backward, fell into the great hall. With an unhurried air, the shadow-man followed, his wispy body becoming more firm in the dim light of the hall. He paused, glanced around, and the few burning candles puffed out.

In the relative calm of the great hall, Rathe clambered to his feet, and flung Wina’s cooling hand aside. The grisly appendage skipped over the floor. The Wight Stone bounced free of clutching fingers, skated across embroidered carpets. Praying Wina would keep away, Rathe made ready.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The dark figure answered with a lazy flick of his blade. Rathe easily deflected the strike, then another, and recognized the testing of his defenses. He circled, wondering if shadows died as men did. His answering thought almost brought miserable laughter to his throat. Instead, he thrust without warning. The swordsman twisted, but not before the tip of Rathe’s sword pierced his arm, to no effect. Whatever the man’s flesh was made of, it seemed impervious to steel.

“Very good, Scorpion,” the shadow warrior said, thin voice dripping scorn. “Had you but another life to live, you might make a worthy foe.”

A reckless grin played over Rathe’s lips. “I’ve shit better than you on ground watered with the blood of my enemies.”

Emotion rippled across that shadowed face. The swordsman’s dark blade flashed in a blinding pattern. Rathe blocked a few strikes, before jumping back with a hiss, nicked in two places, and sliced clean across one forearm. He had faced deadly men before, but such speed was as unnatural as the man’s shadowy substance. “What skill is there in hiding behind magic?”

The swordsman’s shoulders flinched, and Rathe knew he was right. A pity that Yiri’s path no longer matched his own. Fighting magic with magic seemed a fairer game. He smiled ruefully. Little in his life had ever been fair.

A pained scream from the corridor reached into the great hall, turning the shadow warrior. A moment later, a howl of rage and a blinding emerald light poured through the doorway. Loro and Fira, Wina and Horge, braced by a handful of Wardens, rushed into the hall. Panic had engraved itself upon every face. Their fear raced ahead of them, a force unto itself.

Rathe’s study shifted to his distracted opponent, in an instant taking the measure of the man. In the harsh radiance, he had grown more substantial. Whip-thin, he stood taller than Rathe, with a head of short dark hair. Bedecked in fine leathers and a silver-embroidered wool cloak, he could have passed for a wealthy merchant. A long thin sword, fashioned to suit his build, was gripped in a strong hand that had become skin and bone, instead of shadow.

Shadows abhor light .

Ahnok, the god of war to which Rathe paid homage, demanded honor among warriors. For that reason alone, Rathe granted the treacherous whoreson the barest warning. “Your magic is fled, friend.” He laughed harshly at the man’s startlement, and ripped his blade across the swordsman’s back.

The man spun with a look of shock, a swatch of wool cut from his cloak fluttering down. A backhand stroke sliced the man’s chin. Pressing in hard, Rathe’s fist followed the arc of his blade, and collided with the man’s jaw. The swordsman’s head snapped back, and he stumbled into Loro.

Unhindered by gods or honor, the fat man judged the scene in an instant. His blade swept low, aimed to hamstring the swordsman-

A thunderous boom shook the fortress, blazing green light flashed bright, and quickly died. Loro’s steel passed through swirling shadow. The fat man spun in confusion, searching, but the swordsman had joined his ensorcelled flesh to the darkness, and fled.

Rathe picked up the swatch of wool, fingertips sliding through blood. He tucked the fabric into his belt. Some men found near-death disagreeable. Something told him this particular man would find a brush with mortality a challenge.

Such was a matter for another time, Rathe thought, looking into the now darkened doorway. Loro said something as Rathe passed him by. Everyone he cared about, save Nesaea, was present in the great hall. He was running before he reached the corridor.

Calling Nesaea’s name, Rathe ran in the direction he had last seen her. Smoke billowed orange-and-black off burning tapestries. The smell of scorched stone and meat hung in the air, quickening his pulse. Cracks riddled the walls, floor and ceiling-Yiri’s work, but he did not see her.

He leaped a wide crater in the floor, its tarry heart scrawled with molten red veins. Monstrous heat beat at him as he soared over. He crunched down on a hulking shape with charred limbs. His thumping heart skipped a beat, but the carcass was too large to be Nesaea. And then he recognized Mother Safi, frozen forever into a tough mass of charcoal before she could revert back into Samba the yak.

He kept going. Silence met his calls. He rounded a corner and ran on, the destruction dwindling with each step. The smoke thinned, until he was clear of the worst of it.

Up ahead, a motionless human shape lay on its side at the base of a wall. He quickened his pace. Nesaea’s name remained locked in his throat.

Rathe slowed a stride from the figure. “Nesaea?” He dropped down, gently eased her over. Tangled raven hair obscured her face. He pushed it back, fingers brushing cool, pale skin crusted with more blood than not.

Her eyes fluttered open, dazed, but alive and aware. She searched his face, confusion dwindling. A faint scowl pinched her brow. “You are not worth this much trouble,” she croaked.

Rathe held her face between gentle hands, kissed her with gentle lips. “You are.”

Her fingers brushed his cheek, tangled in his hair, drew him closer.

“Think he’ll come?” Nesaea asked Rathe. She sat her saddle gingerly, despite having spent a week abed under the care of Lady Mylene’s healers. Only time, they had told, would mend her sore ribs and fade bruises too numerous to count. Lucky it was, they had said, that she survived the magical blast of Yiri’s destruction, which had cracked the keep’s foundations.

“If good Brother Jathen wants the Wight Stone, the Keeper’s Box, and his seeing glass,” Rathe said, “he’ll be here by midday.” After all that had happened at Ravenhold, Rathe decided his honor had limits. Jathen and his fellow monks might have saved Rathe’s life, but they had also nearly led him to his doom by leaving out the true nature of the dangers that faced him and his friends. And so he had used the seeing glass to make new arrangements with Jathen. The Brother had protested the demands at first, then tried in vain to hold Rathe to his word. Rathe had ended the negotiation with the threat of finding a buyer of arcane devices, someone from Giliron perhaps, and someone Jathen would never find.