Chapter 25
The Familiar alighted on Hirad’s right shoulder. He winced involuntarily and pressed his lips together in irritation.
‘How did they find us?’ he asked.
‘Someone has betrayed us. Someone powerful.’ Anger and surprise edged its tone. ‘You must leave for Triverne Lake. Evanson will guide you.’
‘I’m not running,’ said Hirad stiffly.
The Familiar ignored him. ‘I will distract them while you get away.’
‘Why don’t we just stay and take them out?’
The Familiar regarded him blankly. ‘You do not understand. They are too powerful for you. And for me. They will kill me.’
Hirad started, and frowned.
‘Good luck, Raven man. Look after my master.’ The Familiar flew from the open window, high into the night sky.
The Unknown juddered violently and his soul scorched along the DemonChain into his body. Laryon smiled but was totally unprepared for the backlash. He hadn’t seen the possibility at all. The returning soul negated the DemonChain’s fastening to The Unknown’s being and the result was violent severance.
With howls of triumph, the Chain whipped away from The Unknown’s body, slashing in a wide arc at the two mages. Laryon was caught on the side of the head and slammed against a wall, groaning as he slumped, a trickle of blood running from his mouth.
Younger and quicker, Denser ducked the Chain, feeling the mana slice above his head and the unmistakable sensation of a draught through his hair as the demons began to gain corporeal form.
Dragging his concentration to himself, he fought to close the end of the mana channel but knew, as he watched the head of the Chain tearing at the very fabric of the mana, that it was futile.
And, with the Chain coiling like a snake for its next strike, Denser felt something he had never truly felt before. Fear. Fear because he hadn’t the power to stop the DemonChain forming a corporeal state, and fear because he couldn’t stop it killing him. But mainly fear because he didn’t know how, and the gap in his knowledge was going to be fatal.
The Chain writhed, Denser’s mana channel was torn apart and the sound of their hate assaulted his ears. They promised him death. They promised him torment for eternity and they laughed at his weakness.
The Chain lunged at him, missing him by a whisker as he hurled himself to one side, landing heavily near the still form of Laryon. The mage was still alive. Denser shook him hard.
‘Help me,’ he said. Laryon groaned. ‘Help me!’ shouted Denser. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Chain whipping into a frenzy of speed and sound by The Unknown’s head. The warrior lay, breathing slowly, oblivious to the horror above him.
Laryon said something. It was a mumble Denser didn’t catch.
‘What?’
‘Lymimra,’ said Laryon.
‘I don’t understand.’
Laryon’s eyes opened and he looked past Denser before grabbing the mage’s head in both hands and pulling his ear close. ‘Light-Mirror, ’ he whispered before clutching Denser’s head hard to his chest. Above Denser, the DemonChain ploughed into Laryon’s face, his cry of pain cut off abruptly, his grip dropping.
Denser looked behind him. The DemonChain writhed, still attached through the floor of the chamber, its laughter echoing off the walls, its triumph all but complete. Scrabbling to his feet, Denser paused briefly to look at Laryon. He shuddered. Though the Master was unmarked, his eyes were open in death, and through them Denser could see into his soul. Only it wasn’t there.
He turned back to the DemonChain and formed the mana shape for the LightMirror. It was a simple rectangular structure and he had it in seconds. The Chain began to coil again, winding in on itself like paper in a whirlwind. Then it was still, poised, but the noise of its fury hammered ceaselessly on Denser’s ears.
As it moved to strike, he cast. A thin, horizontal beam of light about eight feet wide cut the candlelit room in front of Denser at floor level. The Chain flashed forwards and Denser brought his hands up sharply in front of him. The LightMirror deployed like a blind moving up a window to let in the sun.
A brilliant light flooded the room, gathering the pinpoints from the candles and casting them back a hundredfold brighter. The DemonChain shrieked in terror and tried to swing away, but its blue mana light was victim to the mirror.
Denser shielded his eyes as the light was stripped from the howling demons being dragged ever closer. The light speared into the mirror with increasing intensity and speed, the mana creatures howling as their life-force was ripped away, and then they were gone, leaving silence, the echo of violence and a gentle blue in the mana spectrum.
Denser refocused to normal light and saw The Unknown sitting upright.
They left the lights burning in the farmhouse. Hirad didn’t like it but it made sense. Triverne Lake was the only place of sanctuary for both The Raven and, more importantly perhaps, the two catalysts he held. With strong presence from all four Colleges, there should be no threat. And yet he was uneasy. He needed Ilkar. Ilkar would know what to say to smooth the passage of their arrival. Without him and his knowledge, Hirad felt exposed.
As they spurred their horses northward into the gathering gloom of evening, a confused but compliant Evanson leading the way, Hirad scanned the sky for the Familiar. He couldn’t see it, knew he wouldn’t, and felt a passing regret. It was not something you could ever like, but respect was something else. Unlike Ilkar, he couldn’t see the Familiar as inherently evil, and its assertion that it would die causing a diversion represented a sacrifice he couldn’t ignore.
Presumably Denser knew it too, and the knowledge that the mage was genuine in his determination to see Dawnthief used to save Balaia and not to further Xetesk made Hirad feel guilty he’d ever doubted him. He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and made up the ground to Evanson, wondering what their reception at the lake would be.
They hadn’t sensed him and he grinned. They were riding over open ground, still an hour from the farmhouse and keeping away from any trails. Twelve of them in cells of three, one mage and two Protectors, close formed against attack from the ground but completely exposed to anything from the air. High up in the darkening sky, he circled, pulsing his warning cry through the mana to his master as he selected the target that would produce the most mayhem.
There he was, and the sight sent a warm thrill of fear through his body. Nyer, the Xetesk Master. The man with whom his master had communed for so long. A traitor. And about to die.
He flew higher, a silent death about to unleash itself on an oblivious victim, and circled still unnoticed behind his target.
He dived, suppressing the urge to scream his laughter and gurgle his delight. Eyes fixed on the back of Nyer’s head, wings swept back, he tore through the air. At the last, he extended wings to brake his descent, swung his taloned feet in front of him and buried them in the Master’s unprotected neck.
Nyer grunted and pitched off his horse to tumble and sprawl in the dirt. The Protectors shouted warnings but were way too late. Even as they halted, wheeled and closed, the Familiar arched its back and slammed its fists into Nyer’s head, crushing his skull.
Now it laughed and turned for its next quarry. With a beat of its wings it took to the air and shot past a bewildered Protector, who swung his sword hopelessly wide.
Chittering in exultation, the Familiar arced back into the sky, scanning below as the enemy halted and the three remaining mages prepared spells to bring him down. But he knew he would be safe. His master had answered his call and was already on his way. A warmth stole over his heart, which beat faster with new energy, and he turned a lazy somersault.
The spell caught his left leg and seared along his tail.