Lisa Shearin - Armed & Magical

I had an idea. It was simple, which was just the way I liked it, and even better, I thought it would work. If Rudra Muralin was going to play hardball, the least I could do was throw him a curve.

I showed him my teeth. “You should already know what my Plan B is; you brought him here yourself. You might say you answered my call.” I spoke without turning. “Talon, I need you.”

“The words I’ve been waiting to hear, doll.”

“I need you to take me back to that cell block.”

Talon blanched.

Muralin barked with laughter. “We brought him in blindfolded, seeker. Or didn’t you notice even that?”

“Oh, I noticed. I don’t need his eyes.”

The laughing stopped.

“Talon, I need your memories.”

“But I was blindfolded.” He scowled at the dead Khrynsani around us. “And they let me fall down a couple of times. I can’t lead you anywhere.”

“I find people through objects that belong to them—or through psychic traces they leave behind wherever they go,” I explained. “They’re called remnants. Since the information that brought me this far may have been contaminated, I can use your remnant to trace your steps back to that cell.” I smiled sweetly at Rudra Muralin. “The same way I tracked Talon and your guards to that courtyard a couple of nights ago.”

“Will it hurt?” Talon asked quietly.

“No.”

He leered a little. “Will it feel good?”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “No, it won’t feel good. You won’t feel anything at all. Just come here.”

He stood in front of me and I placed my hands on either side of his head. “Close your eyes,” I told him.

He closed them, but not before he gave me a sly wink. I needed to get a sense of him, a psychic scent. I didn’t need his eyes closed for that, but looking into those gorgeous aqua eyes would be a distraction I didn’t need. I also didn’t need Talon knowing that I’d be distracted. I closed my own eyes and inhaled with all of my senses. In seconds I had what I needed. Clear and strong, with no Khrysnaniconcocted illusions between me and where I was going.

I opened my eyes and released Talon.

“Gentlemen, let’s go.”

My Plan Bs usually involved thinking fast and moving even faster. When you viewed it like that, everything right now was going perfectly to plan. The remnant Talon had left behind when he was brought up from that cell block was still relatively fresh and I followed it without trouble.

Trouble was what waited ahead for us. Tall, black, soul-slurping trouble.

Rudra Muralin claimed that the spellsingers were going to be fed to the Magh’Sceadu if he didn’t return. I knew for a fact that hadn’t happened yet. I remembered the Khrynsani with Sarad Nukpana last week in Mermeia. The moment the Saghred sucked their leader from the world of the living, every last one of them suddenly remembered somewhere else they had to be. A Khrynsani would take a prisoner; they’d take a life, but individual initiative? Forget it. Those shamans were probably shaking in sheer terror that the moment they fed the spellsingers to the Magh’Sceadu, Rudra Muralin would come waltzing back into that cell block. No one wanted to risk making a decision and taking the flack for any resulting screwups. It was the same in any organization, be it business, government, or a military brotherhood of sadistic goblins—everyone wants to take credit; no one lines up for blame.

Those spellsingers were still alive. I knew it.

I also knew there were Magh’Sceadu down there.

Last week, I’d used the Saghred’s power to destroy six of them. But that was when I’d worn the Saghred’s amulet around my neck. It was a beacon my father had had made nearly nine hundred years ago to let him guard the Saghred from a safe distance.

When the Saghred had helped me destroy those Magh’Sceadu, it was still imprisoned in the vault where my father had hidden it. The Saghred had wanted me to find it, and I couldn’t very well do that if the Magh’Sceadu had slurped me up. The Saghred had a vested interest in helping me then. Would it help me now? I snorted silently. No way. To the Saghred, those Magh’Sceadu and the shamans that controlled them were waiters about to serve it the biggest meal it’d had in centuries.

And Piaras and I were walking right into the middle of it.

I’d wanted him to stay near the back of our group, protected along with Talon, but Piaras had refused.

Yesterday, Ronan Cayle had worked with Piaras on his repelling spellsongs, using mirage Magh’Sceadu as subjects. Piaras had been given five chances to stop them. He’d failed all five times. He knew that and he still wanted to be on the front line with me.

And I’d said yes.

I was either leading Piaras to what had to be one of the worst deaths imaginable, or he was going to be our best hope of stopping those Magh’Sceadu. Piaras was scared, but he was determined. And since chances weren’t all that great that we were going to make it out of these tunnels alive, I owed it to him to let him choose for himself how he was going out.

I didn’t like his choice, but I respected it.

Tam and his dark-mage hit squad followed me, a gagged and manacled Rudra Muralin in tow. We didn’t want to bring him, but we could hardly leave him at our backs, even wearing magic-sucking manacles. Tam said he might be valuable as an incentive to get those shamans to release the spellsingers with a minimum of fuss. When we got closer to the cell block, one of Tam’s men would put Muralin’s lights out. An unconscious Rudra Muralin wouldn’t ruin a perfectly good plan by telling his shamans to attack. It’s been my experience that a bound and unconscious hostage inspired more enemy cooperation than a conscious and defiant one.

A girl screamed in pure terror. She was about to die and knew it.

“Katelyn!” Piaras bolted into the dark.

I swore and took off after him. Tam’s rough hands yanked me back. I twisted and elbowed him hard in the ribs, and the Saghred’s power seethed between us. I told the Saghred to shut the hell up, and glared at Tam the same way.

He turned without releasing me. “Kontar, Tau. Stop him!”

Two dark mages pushed past me and ran after Piaras.

Piaras couldn’t see where he was going. Any Khrynsani shamans would see him coming. Magh’Sceadu didn’t have eyes and they didn’t need them.

“Raine, stay here.” Tam tightened his grip—and the Saghred flared in response.

My response was to jerk away from him.

Tam and his goblins didn’t need light. I did. I muttered a pale lightglobe into existence.

“Keep him here,” Tam ordered the two mages guarding Rudra Muralin.

I ran after Piaras, Tam and his mages right on my heels. Any efforts at stealth had just gone down the crapper along with Plan B.

The bottom dropped out of the temperature; I could see Tam, my breath, and little else. The air thickened with Khrynsani magic of the blackest kind, the kind that created and controlled Magh’Sceadu. The air was hazy with it, disorienting my sense of direction even more.

From somewhere ahead of us came shouts in Goblin, curses, and spells.

Above it all was Piaras’s voice. Sharp, staccato, piercing. Paralyzing. I didn’t know if he was aiming at shamans or Magh’Sceadu, or both.

We ran into the cell block and straight into a nightmare.

Magh’Sceadu, Khrynsani shamans—and every last one of them focused on Piaras and Katelyn.

Piaras had his back to the bars of one of four cells, one arm around the girl. His voice had caught four Khrynsani shamans off guard, paralyzing them where they stood. Piaras repeated the song, reinforcing the spell, taking no chances that one of them could escape. He knew we were there, but he didn’t dare take his eyes from the immobile shamans. His eyes were wide with fear, but he controlled his voice and held the spellsong.