Lisa Shearin - Armed & Magical

For now.

Ten shamans either already had their shields up or got them there before Piaras nailed his first note. Good news was they were ignoring Piaras; bad news was we now had their undivided attention.

But those ten Khrynsani shamans were the least of our problems.

A Magh’Sceadu glided patiently not five feet in front of Piaras. His voice might be holding it off; maybe the thing was savoring the anticipation. It was tall and hulking, almost hobgoblin in shape, if hobgoblins were made of black ink. The cell next to Piaras had been thickly warded. Now those wards were open in a thin line from top to bottom.

Magh’Sceadu were oozing out of the cell one at a time, re-forming once they were out in all their soul-sucking horror. Two were already loose in the cell block; more shapes flowed restlessly in the shadows inside the cell, waiting their turn to escape.

A shaman in fancy robes chanted in a low, sibilant whisper, forcing a single Magh’Sceadu slowly back toward the cell. As he did, a third Magh’Sceadu oozed out of the slit in the ward, a fourth right behind him. Fancy Robes was doing his work way too slowly and far too late.

One of the paralyzed Khrynsani shamans couldn’t scream past frozen vocal cords as a Magh’Sceadu flowed into, through, and over him, leaving nothing behind. The other three paralyzed shamans were about to meet the same fate. The Magh’Sceadu would take the easy prey first, feeding and strengthening.

Then they’d be ready for a challenge. They’d come after us.

That ward had to close.

“We’ve got a minute, maybe less,” I told Tam, reaching behind his back and relieving him of a pair of daggers. They probably wouldn’t do me a damned bit of good, but being a Benares, I wanted steel in my hands.

Tam pulled a short, curved sword and tossed it to Talon. The kid expertly caught it and grinned.

“Protect yourself,” Tam told him.

Talon’s eyes narrowed and fixed on a Khrynsani shaman. “Yeah, that, too.”

One shaman on the far side of the cell block opted for self-preservation rather than staying to fight both us and starving Magh’Sceadu. He had a clear shot at a tunnel mouth on the other side of the cell block and he ran for it.

The shaman closest to Tam drew breath to spit a death curse, and Tam’s armored fist took out most of his teeth.

Tam’s hired help had fully engaged the Khrynsani, and I flung myself to the side to avoid a noxious green spray that sizzled when it hit the wall behind me, leaving it blackened and pitted with holes. What kind of crazed bastard summons acid?

A shaman launched a ball of blue light from the palm of his gloved hand, slamming it full force into the wards on the spellsingers’ cell. The wards blazed incandescent, sending white-hot needles of fiery light at the spellsingers.

Megan Jacobs screamed. I couldn’t hear it, but I could see it. Ronan pushed two of the kids down, shielding them with his body. One of Ronan’s silk sleeves caught fire and he fought his way free of the outer robe before it could spread. The kids whom Ronan couldn’t shield were bleeding in thin trails from where the fire needles had struck.

Tam swore. “Attack the ward, the ward attacks the prisoners.” He flung a particularly nasty orange blast that glanced off of the shaman’s shields.

The shaman smiled and tossed another blue fireball in his hand; this one was bigger and darker, cobalt flames writhing inside. “That was a warning. This one goes in the cell. Tell your men to surrender, or I’ll roast those songbirds alive.”

I could have said, “Behind you,” but I didn’t.

A Magh’Sceadu reared up and engulfed the shaman, wrapping itself around the goblin’s body like living black quicksand. The shaman managed a scream just before his head was absorbed. I thought I heard muffled screams coming from inside the Magh’Sceadu. Then they stopped. Maybe it was my exhausted imagination. If I survived, I was sure my imagination would replay it for me in my next nightmare.

The Magh’Sceadu came for us. Tam tried to get in front of me; I didn’t let him.

The creature stopped, floating there, not more than five feet away. Magh’Sceadu didn’t have minds, but this one was hesitating for a reason, and I think that reason was me—but mostly the Saghred. Last week in a Mermeian forest, the rock had used me as a conduit to destroy six Magh’Sceadu. I was just as scared now, but I didn’t think my shortness of breath was fear’s fault. I also didn’t know if that shaman had been the Magh’Sceadu’s first meal today—the Saghred didn’t care. It just hungered. I also didn’t know if some Magh’Sceadu were smarter than others, but it looked like this one might be.

Only one way to find out. I took a step toward it.

Tam sucked in his breath. “Raine!”

The Magh’Sceadu flowed back the same distance and stopped.

Nothing like a game of chicken with a soul-slurping monster. I think this one realized I was more than he wanted to bite off. Point for me.

“Can you open that ward?” I quietly asked Tam.

“Only the shaman who made it can open it.”

Damn. Tam’s boys were doing too good a job. Half the shamans lay dead or dying. With the way our luck was running, the ward builder was either dead or inside a Magh’Sceadu.

“But I can rip it,” he said with a fierce smile.

The cell block was huge; there was at least thirty feet of shaman/mage battle-infested floor between us and the spellsinger cell. Fists and steel were flying right along with spells and death curses. The Khrynsani started it; Tam’s boys were determined to finish it.

We were shielded, but I’d found out last week that Magh’Sceadu ate shields for appetizers. Control or destroy were our only options.

“Get that ward open,” I told Tam, never taking my eyes from the carnivorous inkblot in front of me. “I’ll worry about him.”

Piaras’s song abruptly changed. His warm, rich baritone turned dark and discordant, the notes booming and harsh. He was singing in Old Goblin, the language of black magic, the language of the dark spells used to create Magh’Sceadu. He wasn’t trying to repel them.

He was trying to unmake them.

Oh no.

Tam spat the exact word I was thinking.

Katelyn Valerian wrapped her arms tightly around Piaras’s waist, pressing her head against his chest. I actually saw Piaras’s shields strengthen. The girl was sharing her power. Piaras hesitated, then wrapped his arms tightly around Katelyn, and his song became a little stronger. The pair of Magh’Sceadu stalking them hesitated, wavering— and became slightly less substantial than before.

Tam said the same word again, this time in admiration.

I saw a flash of scarlet out of the corner of my eye. Ronan Cayle was gesturing and yelling. The wards kept any sound from getting out.

There was a Magh’Sceadu in the cell with them.

Crap.

The thing had come straight through the rock wall of the adjacent cell. A second Magh’Sceadu oozed through the same way. Ronan Cayle stood protectively in front of his students, pushing them back against the far wall. That was all he was doing. Why wasn’t he fighting, singing, whatever? I realized with dawning horror that those wards did more than keep sound in.

Ronan couldn’t use his magic.

We only had seconds before those Magh’Sceadu started feasting on Ronan and those kids.

Tam and I sliced, blasted, and beat our way across the cell block. I didn’t know if the Magh’Sceadu that had been in front of us was now behind me, and I didn’t have time to look or worry about it.

The boy spellsinger, Gustin Sorenson, held a sobbing Megan. He gently turned her head into his shoulder so she wouldn’t see what was about to happen to them.