Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 6

The strange, shadowy people in Orogang closed around Nicci with outstretched hands, as if they intended to overwhelm her by sheer force of numbers. They rustled as they moved, unnaturally quiet.

When she reached out for her gift, she struggled with a wave of unsettling nausea that lingered inside her from the abortive sliph journey. The silvery creature had damaged her somehow, maybe accidentally, maybe intentionally. Where was the sliph? Nicci needed to go!

As the strange, muttering people closed in, she drew her two daggers and held them out in a threatening gesture. “I have no quarrel with you, but I will defend myself.” She backed to the base of the towering Utros statue. “I don’t want to kill you.”

One of the hooded figures cried out in gibberish, some dialect Nicci didn’t understand. More voices joined in, sounding frantic. Another spoke in slurred, deeply accented words that sounded like, “Take her! Not much time.” The people carried no weapons, no swords or knives, not even sticks or clubs, but their numbers had doubled into an alarming force in just a few moments. They closed in on her.

A third voice was more agitated. “Sun is rising! Hide.”

Facing them, Nicci slashed the air with her daggers to ward them off. As dawn brightened over the mountain crags, the strange people grew desperate. Several more of the shadowy people emerged, waving antique-looking swords. They howled, a sound of deep alarm. As Death’s Mistress, Nicci would have had no qualms simply incinerating them all with a wash of wizard’s fire, but these gaunt, scuttling figures were obviously frightened of something. Right now her command of magic seemed uncertain, yet it was her best way to drive away so many without massacring them.

She thrust one dagger back into its sheath and extended her arm, palm outward. Despite the throbbing in her head, she called up her gift and formed a wall of air as a defense. The invisible battering ram knocked aside five encroaching strangers, and they tumbled back into their fellows, but the crowd closed in from opposite directions. Their voices became more understandable, though it remained a distorted dialect.

“Take her! Inside the buildings!”

“Hurry! The sunlight!”

Though she reeled, weak and dizzy, Nicci found enough strength to blast with air again, shoving more of the people away from her. Hands grabbed her shoulders from behind. Four of the silent strangers had climbed over the base of the Utros statue to attack her from an unexpected side. They jumped on her, tried to drag her down. The drab people fell upon her like wolves on a wounded deer.

She spun, used her gift to form a circular whirlwind that shoved them all away. “Stay back!” Lashing out, she stabbed her dagger between the ribs of a gaunt woman, who collapsed, bleeding onto the statue general’s feet. Others immediately whisked the injured victim away and took her to one of the buildings. The dark, open doorways looked like toothless mouths.

Her eyes flashed from target to target as the mob hesitated but pressed in, looking for any opening. Why did they want her so badly? Nicci decided the time for patience was over, and she couldn’t allow herself softness or sympathy. She concentrated on the hardness inside her, the heart of black ice that was Nicci’s strength when emotions were a vulnerability. It was her shield against love, although Richard had taught her that love itself could be a different kind of strength. Through him, Nicci had learned a new respect for helping people and fighting for a greater good, but she couldn’t forget her other strengths.

As the desperate hands reached out to grab her, she called up her gift, ready to release more destructive magic. “Leave me alone, or you will all die.”

“All die!” shouted a man in the crowd. “The zhiss can’t have her!” They pushed forward as if it were a rallying cry.

Nicci called a band of lightning from the sky to blast the flagstones of the plaza, a clear warning. It shattered a long furrow and hurled four of the gray-robed people aside. She whirled in her black dress, ready for the next foolish challenger. She would drive them all away. As the daylight brightened, she could see their expressions, which were oddly fearful and yearning, not bloodthirsty. That gave her pause again. Did she really need to kill them?

“Take her!” shouted one woman. “Hurry.”

The people surged forward as if they’d already forgotten the powers Nicci had just demonstrated, and she was forced to blast another dozen with a second bolt of lightning. But the hooded people didn’t seem to care; they only wanted to capture her.

Several surprised her by throwing a crudely woven net over her from behind. Weighted with stones, the net drove Nicci to her knees, but she hunched her back and released a burst of heat that incinerated the tangled strands. She rose back to her feet, brushing off strings of ashes.

Striking out with greater power, Nicci made the ground tremble, loosening the flagstones and shifting the earth. An ornamental pillar on the other side of the square toppled. She flung out her hand and pushed a wall of wind into the crowd, but they came at her from different sides. There were so many people. So many!

When Nicci had fought Sulachan’s swarms of half people, with their blank, bloodthirsty eyes, she never once felt a flicker of doubt, never saw them as anything but inhuman. But these gray-robed strangers had a different emotion in their eyes. It was not a hunger, but rather a need, a sadness.

“I don’t want to kill you. Why are you doing this?” She held her bloody dagger in one hand, her other palm outstretched as she called up more of her gift. She still had plenty of fight left within her, but she was definitely feeling weaker. She needed to rest and recuperate after the disruptive journey through the sliph.

A man tackled her from behind, but Nicci reached out to crush the man’s throat with her gift, then cast his heavy body aside. She could no longer use a velvet touch if they were attacking her. More and more of them swarmed all around her and crowded in, unafraid. Growing more angry, Nicci blasted them, hurling bodies in all directions. She had warned them many times, but it was as effective as standing on the seashore kicking at the waves.

Someone seized her wrist, making her drop the dagger. “We have to take you!” the shrouded man urged. “Stop fighting!”

Another attacker struck Nicci on the back of the head, and a red blur flashed through her skull. She heard shouts and excited whispers, terrified groans. Dozens of hands grabbed her arms, her legs, picking her up and carrying her away. Stunned, Nicci realized they were taking her toward the towering palace that loomed over the great plaza.

She struggled for consciousness, tried to reach for her gift, but her ears were ringing. With a cry, Nicci unleashed an instinctive, barely controlled surge of magic and seared two of her handlers. They stumbled back, their hands smoking, but others kept whisking her along. Nicci thrashed.

“The sun’s cleared the horizon,” someone yelled. “Hurry!”

Outside in the open square, as dawn washed away the gloom, the frenetic people disappeared like beetles scattering from beneath an overturned rock. They rushed to different buildings and ducked inside the dark interiors. As she fought to break free, she heard doors slam around the plaza, the heavy thunk of crossbars sealing them inside. The attacking mob dissipated like smoke in a heavy wind.

The grip on her arms and legs was like iron as her captors rushed her through the arched doorway into the building. She was engulfed by shadows. Forging her anger into strength, Nicci fought with renewed vigor, scratching, punching. “Don’t make me kill you!”

“Come with us!”

Feeling wet blood in her hair from where she’d been struck on the head, Nicci could no longer afford mercy. She crashed the people away with a surge of magic, and dropped to the floor in the enclosed foyer, free. Lurching to her feet, she called a more powerful weapon, a sphere of wizard’s fire, which she tossed into the crowded corridor just inside the entrance. She had to get these people away from her. Deadly flames carved through eight attackers, and she smelled roasting flesh and burning hair. The charred corpses slammed against the wall and crumpled onto the floor. Fires from burning bodies illuminated the shadows inside the palace entry.

Nicci tore herself free from the last clinging hands and turned to rush back into the open plaza, but one old woman in a gray robe scuttled forward, blocking her way. Her wrinkled face held a beseeching expression. Her words were heavily accented, but understandable. “Stop! We’re trying to save you!” Nicci’s blue eyes flared with angry questions, but the woman urged, “Don’t go out there. You’ll die. We’ll all die. Please!”

Outside, a golden sunrise lit the city of Orogang. Razor-edged shadows spread across the ground, and the distorted silhouette of the General Utros statue stretched over the flagstones. The ancient city again looked entirely abandoned. Nicci knew that if she got outside, these people couldn’t pursue her. For some reason, they were terrified of the sun.

She faced them by the door, breathing hard from the effort she had expended. “I don’t know who you are or what you mean to do. Why did you attack me?”

“We were saving you!” The old woman clutched her hands together. “It was for your own protection.”

Other drab figures staggered forward, ignoring the still-burning corpses of their fallen comrades. “The zhiss are coming! You have to stay inside.”

“We’ll kill you before we let them have you.”

“Who am I to you?” Nicci demanded. “What are you talking about?”

The old woman approached more guardedly. “Watch from the safe shadows, but we must bolt the door. If we let the zhiss have you, if we let them feed on fresh blood…” Her words trailed off, as if completing her sentence was too terrifying to imagine.

The pale people fell into quiet muttering, covered by a blanket of fear. Nicci realized they were not afraid of her, and she found that quite disturbing. She turned to face the brightening day, saw the empty city.

Outside, following the golden morning light as if summoned by the rising sun, an ominous black mist rolled in like a living thing. Hugging the ground, it was made of thousands of flecks, tiny shards of darkness, like a swarm of ebony locusts. The black miasma flickered and sparkled with inky shadows, extending tendrils and exploring as it crept into the ruins of Orogang.

Nicci felt an evil danger that vibrated to her bones. “By the Keeper, what is that?”

“The zhiss,” said the old woman.

The expanding black cloud crawled into Orogang like a deadly plague, and the hidden people shuddered in terror.