Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 49

Alarms summoned the ruling council in the dead of night. At the upper level of the plateau, Nicci and Nathan rushed out of the grand villa. Below them, the streets of Ildakar filled with frenetic activity, as if the city had been called to war.

Nicci had both of her daggers, expecting violence, wondering if Mirrormask had finally staged his all-out revolt, since he had not acted during the bloodworking that raised the shroud. Nathan retrieved his ornate sword from his room, ready to fight, though he didn’t know what enemies they might face.

“The combat beasts are loose!” called a humorless but reliable guard named Stuart, who had taken the place of High Captain Avery. Now wearing the red shoulder pauldron, he led a squad of armored guards, raising swords as they all ran down the streets. “We need every fighter. Call the archers and crossbowmen. The arena animals are on the rampage—the rebels set them free.”

Nicci said to Nathan, “Let’s join them, Wizard. This is something we can support—for the sake of those who cannot fight for themselves … the innocents.”

“You called me ‘Wizard,’” Nathan said, with a surprised smile.

“I have always considered you a wizard, even if you’re an ineffective one,” she said. “I know you can use your sword, even if you can’t use your magic.”

The city guards and the duma members were converging near the arena and the tunnels where the animals and fighter trainees were kept. Fleshmancer Andre, whose studio was near the area, had arrived first, perplexed. Sovrena Thora and Wizard Commander Maxim were also already there.

Nicci hurried forward, summoning her magic, while Nathan drew his sword and kept pace with her. They heard the shouts of frightened people in the streets, the growls and roars of rampaging animals. Arriving on their heels, the wizard Quentin looked only partially dressed, and Elsa bustled up from a side street, tugging to adjust her purple robe. Damon was the last to arrive.

“Where’s Ivan?” Thora bellowed. “He must get his creatures under control!”

Spotted leopards, spiny wolves, and scaled swamp dragons milled about, attacking anything that moved. A combat bear and a monstrous bull crashed forward, attracted by the screams of fleeing people. A woman chose the wrong direction to run, and the bull gored her with its split horns.

Spiny wolves bounded out, leaping at anyone they encountered, while Stuart’s city guards fought them with swords, clubs, and gauntleted fists. But the wild beasts were trained to kill, and more guards died than animals.

Among the city guard and the wizards who fought the unleashed animals, Nicci saw young Amos and his ever-present companions, all three young men carrying their iron-tipped wooden staffs, which they used to smash the rampaging animals. But Bannon wasn’t with them.

The three young men looked eager to assist in the fight—not to help the city but for the opportunity to shed blood. Amos darted in and swung his wooden staff to bash the skull of a writhing leopard that rolled bleeding on the street after its side had been slashed open by a sword. “Got one!”

Jed and Brock sought their own targets.

Nicci seized Amos’s half cape as he flitted by, dragging him to a halt. “Where is Bannon? I thought he would be with you.”

The young man shook off her grip. “Not now! We have important work to do.” He flicked his gaze away, not wanting to meet hers. “He’s fine. Don’t worry about him.” Amos dashed off with great exuberance, and Nicci was too busy to demand more of an answer.

The combat bear lumbered forward, a titanic mass of claws and fur. Maxim, Thora, and Damon stood together, releasing magic and hurling attacks, all of which slid harmlessly off the protective runes on the monster’s hide.

Elsa did not use her gift to attack the bear directly, but made the ground in front of it crackling cold, transferring temperature from the street; at the same time, a gush of heat flared up next to the charging bull, making the beast rampage in a different direction.

The combat bear stumbled across the bitterly frozen ground and came at Elsa. She attempted to work another spell, but Nathan tackled her to the side. The bear charged past, then turned back to come at them again.

Nathan held up his sword and braced himself. “I already fought your brother, monster! Now I’ll fight you!” He swung the blade, tracing a complex taunting pattern in the air. The bear swatted at him, but Nathan used the razor edge to split the bear’s paw to the middle of its forearm. The creature roared and yanked back its bloody arm.

Nicci dove in, jabbing hard with both daggers, stabbing opposite sides of the creature’s neck. She succeeded in cutting the bear’s throat. Pushing in close, Nathan plunged his blade into the beast’s side, working through the layers of muscle and fat, driving the steel all the way to the hilt. The titanic bear crashed to the ground.

Maxim and Thora continued their fight with magic, using secondary effects to divert or hamper the rampaging animals.

Emerging from the tunnels, two hooded figures shouted at the crowd, “For Mirrormask! Bring down the oppressors.”

Maxim’s face twisted in a disappointed scowl, and he flung his hand sideways, invoking his petrification spell. The two cheering rebels crackled, froze, and turned into white stone.

Quentin released magic that sent a tremor through the street, cracking the flagstones as the enhanced bull charged forward. Its left hoof fell into the widening crack, and the foreleg snapped as the bull was carried forward by its momentum. Trapped, the beast shook its head from side to side, trying to plunge its branched horns into soft flesh. The bull lurched ahead again, its broken foreleg upraised. People scattered out of its way.

The arena beasts reveled in their freedom, ready to attack any prey in their confusion. One of the swamp dragons grabbed a merchant out of his doorway and pulled him screaming into the street. A second giant lizard scuttled close and bit his head off.

Drenched in blood and shaking from their battle with the combat bear, Nicci and Nathan stood shoulder-to-shoulder and rallied as a pack of spiny wolves charged toward them. One wolf caught Nicci by surprise, driving her backward as she raised her daggers. Instinctively, she released a ball of wizard’s fire, but the heat rippled up and away from the enormous wolf, deflected by the protective runes branded on its hide.

Recovering, she stabbed her left dagger through its ribs and cut downward, slicing it open. Even though Nicci had delivered a mortal wound, the infuriated creature kept attacking. More wolves piled on her, but Nathan rushed in, decapitating one with a downstroke of his sword. Shouting, he hacked the spine of one, thrust the blade deep into the haunch of another. The maddened wolves did not retreat—but they did die, one by one.

As the wizard Quentin fought, he snarled at Andre, “How do we kill these things? You created them.”

“Yes, I did! Aren’t they magnificent?”

“Magnificent until they tear you apart,” Damon snapped. “Don’t they have any weaknesses?”

The fleshmancer snorted. “If I knew of any weaknesses, I would have removed them, hmmm?”

Elsa tried to work a spell, but was frustrated. “Our magic doesn’t work on them.”

“That is the way they are designed, to be better fighters in the arena. We’ll just have to be superior, hmmm?” Andre said, smiling. “And we are indeed superior.”

Finally, High Captain Stuart called in his archers. Dozens of crossbowmen climbed to the rooftops and balconies of the nearby buildings. They wound back their strings and loaded quarrels. “Aim carefully, but kill them all!” Stuart shouted.

A rain of sharp metal quarrels peppered the rampaging bull, leaving it looking like the pincushion of a greedy seamstress. The beast groaned and staggered, barely able to walk with its broken forelimb. It tottered, went down on the other leg, and crashed to the street.

“Reload!” Stuart yelled. Choosing their targets at a glance, the crossbowmen shot at the scattered animals, and another rain of crossbow bolts killed four spiny wolves and the two swamp dragons. The leopards fell alongside the dead combat bear.

A speckled boar the size of an ox stampeded out of the shadows, and more than twenty arrows barely slowed it. The boar slashed the air with its horrible tusks, and High Captain Stuart killed the thing himself by thrusting his sword through its chest again and again.

As the archers reloaded, Nicci saw the troka of sand panthers emerge from the dark tunnel, covered with blood. They looked much like Mrra, bound to one another from the time they were cubs—but not bonded to her. They loped forward, snarling.

Nicci and Nathan stood side by side, blades ready, as the sand panthers closed in. Their feline muscles bunched, their claws extended to attack.

Stuart shouted, and a storm of quarrels blanketed the troka of panthers, dozens of shafts killing them before they could even spring. The three magnificent cats lay dead on the ground, covered in blood. Nicci felt a sharp sympathetic pain, but she knew it was a mercy that all three sister panthers died simultaneously. She remembered the trauma and despair Mrra had felt after losing her spell-bonded sisters, left alone and alive.

Arrows still clattered on the streets, and the city guard ranged through nearby alleys, looking for stragglers. Dead animals lay everywhere, on doorsteps, in the gutters, out in the open.

“I believe they’re all slaughtered,” Damon said. “The city is saved.”

The ache in Nicci’s heart washed away the rush of energy from the fight.

“They’re all dead,” Elsa replied, shaking her head. “They were so desperate to get away.”

“They were driven to this by the chief handler,” Nicci said, turning to Thora. “What did you expect would happen if they got loose?”

“I did not expect them to get loose,” said the sovrena.

“The air stinks of blood,” Elsa said.

“Yes it does, my dear.” Nathan brushed at his own red-drenched robes. “We all need fresh garments.”

Thora’s face twisted in a rictus of hate. “This was caused by Mirrormask and his rebels. They mean to bring down our society, to cause harm to our way of life.” She gestured to the butchered animals and the dozen or more human bodies that lay strewn in the streets. “And this! If the rebels care so much about the lower classes, then perhaps they shouldn’t have unleashed these wild animals upon the city! Look at all the dead!”

“The people should have just gotten out of the way,” Maxim said. “Now half of our fighting specimens are dead. How disappointing.”

“They only did what they were born and trained to do,” Nicci said. “Chief Handler Ivan lost control.”

“Where is Ivan?” Sovrena Thora snapped. “We need to understand what went wrong.”

Fleshmancer Andre emerged from the tunnels, where he and several city guards had gone. Just behind him, Adessa and two morazeth came out, bloody and exhausted.

Rather than looking defeated or troubled, Andre had a gleam in his eyes. He stepped directly up to Nathan. “Good news for you, my friend. Good news indeed. We must take advantage of this.” He said the next two words with deliberate intent. “Wizard Nathan.”

“What happened?” Nathan asked.

“The sand panthers attacked and mauled Ivan.”

“He is dead,” Adessa announced. “The cats tore him to pieces. I saw it.”

“Nearly dead.” Andre raised a finger. “Thankfully, I used a spell to preserve him at the moment of infinite agony, on the edge of his death. He is suspended there, but the Keeper doesn’t have him yet. Still, we should hurry.”

Nicci was too exhausted and angry to play games. “Hurry to do what?”

“Why, this is your chance, Nathan! Chief Handler Ivan is dying … but his heart is intact. This is exactly what you’ve been waiting for since you arrived in Ildakar, hmmm? The heart of a wizard.”