Just like that, it was gone. The circle of symbols on Yerin's stomach had been blackened, as though they had been burned into her flesh.
She woke up only a second later, coughing. She groaned. “Somebody find the ox that trampled me.”
Lindon hurried over to her, but Eithan had returned his gaze to the south. “You'll feel worse in a moment,” he said. His scissors were still in his hand. “Battle is upon us.”
Lindon was going to ask what he was talking about, then he saw the wall of red had pressed against the edge of the mountain. His eyes widened.
Then red light swallowed them all.
Chapter 9
It was as though the sun had turned red.
Even in Lindon's Copper sight, everything was died crimson. His stomach heaved, and bile rose in his throat—this felt like being submerged in a pool of blood.
He closed his spiritual sight before he lost himself, but what he saw in reality was even more disturbing.
Where Cassias and Yerin had been lying on the stone, creatures rose from their blood like Remnants from corpses. They were only half the size of a person, with featureless faces, and their bodies had been formed from gelatinous blood.
There were six of them in an instant, turning their heads toward Lindon and the others as though they could smell living flesh.
They lurched forward, but Eithan blurred through their ranks, his scissors sweeping through the air.
Blood madra sprayed into the air and dissolved into essence, and all six of them deflated.
Fisher Gesha pointed a trembling finger at the sight. “That! What is that? Hm? Did you bring those back with you?”
“These are bloodspawn,” Eithan said, shaking the last stains off his scissors as the liquid madra evaporated. “They are the least of the Bleeding Phoenix's creations.”
Gesha seemed to shrink into herself even more, though she didn't have much size to lose. “The...the Bleeding Phoenix? Did you...are you saying...”
Cassias grasped at his hip as though feeling for a sword that wasn't there. He frowned at the space, then fumbled at his other hip. Of course, there was still no weapon. The crash had shaken him.
“What happened here, Eithan?” he asked, finally giving up on his saber.
“Jai Daishou opened a door he should not have,” Eithan said, moving his head as though watching something move through the air. Something that Lindon couldn't see. “Someone noticed.”
“Dreadgods,” Fisher Gesha repeated, shaking. “Dreadgods...”
“Bloodspawn rise from spilled blood,” Eithan said. “When it's still inside you, or on your skin, your madra still has control. The Phoenix's power can't do anything with it until it leaves the influence of your spirit.”
“Unless the Phoenix itself rises,” Cassias pointed out. He was leaning against the back of an upturned couch that had fallen from Sky's Mercy, and he still didn't look balanced.
Eithan nodded absently, still watching something in the air. “A Dreadgod doesn't care for the protection of your meager spirit. This isn't its full attention, just a side effect of its awakening.”
More bloodspawn formed from the drops spilling from Cassias and Yerin, but Eithan dispersed them with a couple of quick blasts of pure madra. Lindon needed to learn that technique.
“Forgiveness, but we should leave,” Lindon said at last. He felt like he was stating the obvious, but no one else had said it. If the red light was the extent of the Phoenix's influence, they had to escape it.
Eithan responded without turning. “I could take myself out of here. I could take Yerin with me, and perhaps Cassias. You, with your Thousand-Mile Cloud, could take Fisher Gesha. But what about Jai Long and Jai Chen.”
Lindon started. They were still here?
“And what if we have to fight our way out?” Eithan continued. “Do we abandon our charges? If we are to run, we first have to clear some space.”
Yerin rose unsteadily to her feet, clutching one arm as though it pained her. “Then let's stop jabbering and do it,” she said, hobbling over to her master's sword. Leaning over and picking it up was an agonizing production. “Better than sitting here.”
“Don't worry. They have come to us.”
A young man appeared beyond the edge of the cliff, his pale face framed by black hair that stretched down to his waist. He wore a dark, shapeless coat that covered his shoulders, and as he slowly rose up the side of the cliff, Lindon saw that the cloak covered even his feet.
He was standing on a rising tide of blood.
The newcomer stepped from his red platform onto the edge of the mountain without a word, his gaze locked on Eithan's. “Underlord,” he said, his voice a whisper. He sounded as though that single word pained him.
“An emissary of Redmoon Hall, if I'm not mistaken,” Eithan said. His voice was cheery, but he still wore no smile. His scissors were held ready in his right hand.
“I am Longhook,” the emissary said. A gleaming red hook appeared at the end of his right sleeve, as though it were made of crimson-dyed steel. In that light, everything looked red, so its color could have been nothing more than a trick of the eye.
Though he doubted it.
The hook slowly slid to the ground, revealing link after link of red chain. In a moment, the hook hit the ground with a clink.
Eithan looked from his enemy’s weapon to his own. “Longhook, is it? You can call me Tiny Scissors.”
Longhook didn’t seem to appreciate the joke. He stood like a statue carved from ice.
“What does your master want?” Eithan asked, casually strolling away from the other members of the Arelius family.
“North,” Longhook whispered. “He wants the treasure of the north.”
“By all means, go around us,” Eithan offered.
Lindon wondered what Eithan was doing. Why was he trying to make a deal with the enemy? Eithan often preferred to talk his way around problems, but he had already said they would have to fight. And he had dispersed the bloodspawn with no problems. Why didn't he knock this newcomer off the mountain?
Gingerly, feeling as though he were submerging his arm in sludge, Lindon extended his perception.
Only an instant later, he understood the truth.
Longhook blazed with the power of an Underlord.
“No,” the emissary responded. “A piece of the treasure...here.” His breath rasped, so many words apparently having been too much for him.
Eithan froze a moment, then his smile reappeared. “Well then, I think we can come to an—”
In the middle of his own sentence, he exploded into motion. The air clapped behind him when he moved, driving his scissors at his enemy.
Lindon couldn't follow what happened next, only the explosion of sound, a rush of wind, and a flash of red light.
A column of stone exploded under Longhook's weapon, the hook having missed Eithan and slammed into the building behind him. Eithan avoided even the chain as though it were red-hot, vaulting over it, and slamming his fist into Longhook's chest. A ripple of colorless power surged out, blasting past the Redmoon Hall emissary.
This exchange of blows was still too fast for Lindon to follow, but the emissary didn't seem slowed down by Eithan's attack at all. It ended in Eithan leaping backwards, and Longhook with one arm extended. It stuck out from his coat, and his arm was sheathed in solid red.
Was that his Goldsign? Or was he covered in one of those bloodspawn?
He'd hauled his hook back to himself, and now he whipped it at Eithan. It struck with an impact that hurt Lindon's ears, carrying the sound of steel-on-steel as Eithan blocked with his scissors.
The impact sent him flying back toward the building on the mountain, and Longhook was after him in an instant.