Anne Bishop - Tangled Webs

“Every time Craft is used,” he said softly. “Every time Craft is used.” Craft, not power. Had the little writer-mouse made that distinction deliberately? Had the man even realized there was a difference? Probably not.

Of course, it was a subtle distinction, one that hadn’t occurred to him when he’d heard the rules—and still wouldn’t have occurred to him if he hadn’t heard the gong confirm the use of Craft when he’d made the witchlight.

“My apologies, Bastard. I guess you could have played this game after all.”

Lucivar waited. Listened.

The house felt oddly empty, the way a house feels when you’ve had a big gathering and the last guest is gone.

Had Surreal and Rainier gotten out? Was the game ended?

No. The game hadn’t ended because he was still here. Which meant the little writer-mouse had been scurrying to herd all his predators to one particular spot.

But not in this house. And not in the first house. Pointless to drive Surreal and Rainier back to the starting point when there was one last possibility—the third house.

Lucivar opened his mouth and breathed in.

A taste in the air, coming from…that direction. Up there. In the third house.

He smiled and rolled his shoulders to loosen the muscles.

There was a killing field in this place after all.

They had followed the children into one of the rooms. The cildru dyathe had gathered in the adjoining bedroom, cutting off that possible escape. The Eyrien Warlord and the two Black Widows were standing in the doorway, savoring the moment when the fight began.

“So,” Surreal said as she shifted to stand on Rainier’s left and support his weak side as long as she could. “This is where we die.”

Rainier shifted slightly to defend against the cildru dyathe. “Yeah. This is where we die.”

«You have to shield again,» Surreal told Rainier, shifting her weight as the predators moved forward, savoring the moment of attack. She cut him off when he started to protest. «We’ll survive longer if you’re shielded. Maybe long enough for Lucivar to join the fight.»

«That may not work to our advantage,» Rainier said. But he created an Opal shield around himself.

She didn’t hear the gong. What did that mean? That it no longer made a difference if they used Craft? That the last exit had closed? That they were trapped in this house forever?

Forever meaning until Daemon unleashed the Black against this place and tore it all apart—and everyone still in it.

A sideways glance at Rainier. He was sweating heavily, his face tight with pain.

He was a dancer. And that leg…

The tight shield around his thigh was acting like a brace, which was the only reason he was still on his feet. She couldn’t think about what it was going to cost him to fight.

«Have you ever seen Lucivar on a killing field?» Rainier asked.

«I’ve seen him when he’s riding the killing edge. Hell’s fire, your caste of male rises to that edge as easy as you breathe. Maybe more so.»

«Not the same thing. I saw him, once, when he walked off a killing field.» Rainier swallowed hard. «May the Darkness have mercy on us if he sees us as an enemy.»

Not something she wanted to hear—especially when it was being said by one Warlord Prince about another.

A door suddenly appeared in the wall and swung open—and the demon-dead walked out. A dozen of them. None of them wore Jewels, but that didn’t matter. Not in this fight.

«Now I know why we couldn’t find any weapons,» Surreal said. «The demon-dead were hoarding them.»

Knives. Pokers. Clubs.

She spared one thought for the four children pressed into a corner behind her and Rainier. She hadn’t liked most of them, wouldn’t have spent an hour with any of them by choice except for…

She glanced at the children. Sage gave her a wobbly smile that seemed all the more brave because of the wobble.

Her chest ached.

She looked away.

Odds were good that the children would have been lured into the spooky house as fodder for the game, but she and Rainier had invited them in last night, and she felt the weight of their presence on her shoulders—and she would carry the weight of their deaths.

And his. Rainier, too, was here because of her.

I’m sorry.

Even more sorry because she knew the weapon that would kill her in the end. The cildru dyathe. She would do everything she could to destroy the adults, but not the demon-dead children. Memories of ghosts swam through her mind—and the night when she’d seen the truth about a place called Briarwood.

She couldn’t raise a weapon against a child.

Then all the demon-dead attacked, and there was no more time to think—or regret.

Damn hard to win a fight when you could die and the enemy couldn’t. No room to maneuver, no place to retreat.

The room swam and time became fluid as the poison inside her worked its deadly magic. Either blows came too fast or she made a defensive move for a blow that took too long to fall, giving another enemy an opening.

Her shields would fail soon, and the blows would start breaking bone, start breaking her down, start killing her for real.

A female grabbed her left wrist and jerked her arm up, throwing her off-balance and pulling the wound in her side.

A club came toward her head that she barely deflected with the poker.

Then something dark and fast and so damn big came toward her, shining in places where the sunlight caught metal and—

A hand shoved the female’s head against the wall.

Surreal ducked as brains splush ed out of the shattered skull.

A movement in front of her. A scream of fear.

She looked up just as he spun to meet another of the demon-dead, and she saw him—the glazed gold eyes, the face carved from implacable stone. Here in this place, his life was about slaughter; his world was made of death. He was power and grace, savagery and skill—and no mercy.

Now she understood what Rainier meant about seeing Lucivar on a killing field.

He was so damn fast. He didn’t bother to duck the blows from the demon-dead. He didn’t even try to parry them. Their blows hit his shields and never touched the man. And any of the demon-dead who were close enough to strike at him…

It wasn’t that large a room, and he seemed to fill it.

He severed heads, sliced through limbs. Or simply ripped off an arm and drove it into the next body.

And he was just as ruthlessly efficient when it came to eliminating the cildru dyathe from the fight.

Then there was only the sound of harsh breathing—hers and Rainier’s—and the children whimpering in the corner.

Lucivar stood in front of them, those cold glazed eyes just staring at them. He pointed the war blade at her, then shifted the tip to a spot on her right.

“Move,” he said.

She sidestepped to the right.

Lucivar pointed at the wall. The Ebon-gray ring flashed as a burst of power was unleashed.

The wall exploded, leaving a gaping hole.

An odd feeling, like netting tightening over bare skin.

Before she could cry out a warning, the spells around the house hit Lucivar with a vicious amount of power. Enough power that she felt his Ebon-gray shield break.

But he withstood the strike, never moving, and when that lash of power was done…

She could feel all the spells trying to close the gap in the wall, chewing on the Ebon-gray power shielding the hole, in an effort to cut off the possibility of escape.

Lucivar reached into the pouch hanging from his belt, pulled out a ball of clay, and tossed it to Rainier.

“Jaenelle made a slide. You need to rub blood on the clay to trigger the spell.” Lucivar’s eyes raked over Rainier. “That won’t be a problem.”