David Weber - Wind Rider's Oath

"I don't believe anything," the false Voice told her flatly. "You've been mine to do with as I chose from the instant you stepped into this chamber, you stupid bitch. Why do you think you haven't been able to so much as move your head, or shift your feet?"

"A good question," Kaeritha conceded. "But there's a better one."

"What ' better one'?" the false Voice sneered disdainfully.

"Why do you think I haven't been able to?" Kaeritha asked calmly, and both swords hissed from their sheaths as she catapulted towards the other woman.

The sudden eruption of movement took the false Voice completely by surprise. She'd never even suspected that Kaeritha had simply chosen not to move or speak when she became aware of the power crushing down upon her. Whoever-or whatever-the "Voice" might be, she'd never before tried to control a champion of Tomanâk. If she had, she would have realized that no coercion, no spell of control or compulsion, even backed by the power of another god's avatar, could hold the will or mind of one who had sworn herself to the War God's service and touched His soul as He had touched hers. And because the false Voice hadn't realized that, she was still staring at Kaeritha-gawking in disbelief-as two matched short swords wrapped in coronas of brilliant blue fire drove through her heart and lungs.

A scream of agony cored with fury ripped through the audience chamber as the creature masquerading as a Voice of Lillinara fell back in a scalding gush of blood. Kaeritha twisted her wrists before the swords slid free, and even as she did, she went forward on the ball of her left foot while her right foot flashed up behind her. The heel of her heavy riding boot smashed into the person she'd sensed charging up behind her. It wasn't the clean, central strike she'd hoped for, but it was enough to deflect the attack and send the attacker crashing to the floor with a whooping cry of anguish.

Kaeritha let the force of her kick pivot her on her left foot so that she faced Major Kharlan and the Voice's other servitors. The crackling blue aura of a champion of a God of Light roared up like a volcano of light, blasting through the audience chamber like a silent hurricane. It clung to her, flickering between her and the rest of the world like a thin canopy of lightning. But she could see through it clearly, and her eyes found Paratha with unerring speed. The major's sabre was still coming out of its scabbard, and at least half of the others seemed stunned into momentary paralysis. But that paralysis wouldn't hold them for long, and Kaeritha knew it.

Every champion of Tomanâk had his or her own preferred combat style. Kaeritha's was totally unlike Bahzell's, except for one thing; neither of them was ever prepared to stand on the defensive if they had any choice. And since there was no one to watch her back or coordinate with, Kaeritha Seldansdaughter decided to make a virtue of the fact that there was only one of her.

She charged.

There was no doubt in her mind that Paratha was the most dangerous of her remaining opponents. Unfortunately, Paratha seemed disinclined to face her in personal combat. The major dodged swiftly, darting behind one of the corrupted priestesses, who shook herself and then charged to meet Kaeritha with no weapon besides a dagger and the naked fury blazing in her eyes.

Kaeritha's right blade came down with lightning speed and all the elegance of a cleaver. It lopped off her opponent's right hand like a pruning hook removing a branch. The woman shrieked as blood spouted from the stump of her wrist, and then Kaeritha's left blade went through the front of her throat from right to left in a backhanded fan of blood. Some of the blood splashed across Kaeritha's face, painting it like a barbarian Wakuo raider's.

"Tomanâk! Tomanâk! "

Kaeritha's war cry echoed in the chamber as another dagger grated on her breastplate, and a short, vicious thrust put one of her swords through her attacker's belly. The mortally wounded priestess fell back, writhing and screaming, and Kaeritha's champion's healing sense cringed as she realized all of the daggers coming at her were coated in deadly poison.

She slashed a third priestess to the floor with her right hand even as her left sword darted out to engage and parry yet another dagger. She twisted between two opponents, killing one and wounding the other as she passed, and then she was behind them all and spun on her toes like a dancer to charge once more.

"Tomanâk!"

Her foes seemed less eager to engage her this time, and she smiled like a direcat, teeth white through the blood on her face, as she slammed into them once more. Two more priestesses went down, then another, and finally Kaeritha heard alarm bells ringing throughout the temple complex.

Her jaw tightened. She had no doubt at all that the Voice and Paratha had drawn upon their patron's power to make certain Quaysar's guard force was loyal to them, whether or not those guards knew what they truly served. And even if there'd been no tampering at all, any guardsman who entered this audience chamber and saw the Voice and half a dozen or more of her priestesses dead on the floor was unlikely to assume that the person who'd killed them was the intended victim of an ambush by the Dark. She had no more than seconds before a veritable flood of guardsmen and war maids came pouring in upon her, and her swords flashed like lethal scythes as she slashed her way through the dagger-armed priestesses towards Major Kharlan.

The bodies between them flew aside, screaming or already dead, and Paratha was no longer falling back. The major still declined to rush forward, watching with no more apparent emotion than a serpent as her allies fell like so much dead meat before Kaeritha's blades. But she made no effort to flee, either, and as Kaeritha looked at her, she Saw something she'd never Seen before.

A cable of vile yellow-green energy linked Paratha to the corpse of the false Voice, and even as Kaeritha watched, something flowed along that cable. Something coming from the dead Voice to the living Paratha. And there were other cables, reaching out to the fallen priestesses, as well. The web of sickening luminescence centered on Paratha, sucking greedily at whatever flowed along it. Kaeritha didn't know what it was, but the corona which had clung to Paratha from the outset suddenly blazed up, fierce and bright as a forest fire to Kaeritha's Vision. And as it did, Kaeritha knew at last which of the Dark Gods she faced, for a huge, hideous spider wrapped in flame arose behind Paratha.

The spider of Shigū, Queen of Hell and Mother of Madness. Wife of Phrobus and mother of all his dark children. Far more powerful than her son Sharnā , with a foul and twisted malice none of her offspring could equal, and Lillinara's most bitter enemy for the way in which her parody of womanhood perverted and fouled all that Lillinara stood for.

The flame-wrapped spider towered up, compound eyes ablaze with hatred and madness. Its mandibles clashed, dripping with venom that flamed and hissed, bubbling on the polished stone floor as it burned its way into it. Claws scraped and grated, and the vilest stench Kaeritha had ever imagined filled the audience chamber. The hideous apparition loomed over her, reaching for her with more than mere claws and pincers, and a black tide of terror lapped out before it.

Even as Kaeritha recognized the spider, Paratha seemed to grow taller. The false Voice hadn't been Shigū's true tool, Kaeritha realized; Paratha had. The Voice might even have believed that she was Shigū's chosen, but in truth, it had always been Paratha, and now the major no longer hid behind the camouflage of the Voice. She was drinking in the life energy-probably even the very souls-of her fallen followers, and something more was coming with it. Potent as all that energy might be, it was only a focus, a burning glass which reached out for something even stronger and more vile and focused it all upon the major.