The infiltrator sneered and the two men reached for me.
Back the way I’d come, somebody cleared her throat.
“Die,” Cillian said.
All three men twitched, blood gushing from nose, ears and eyes as they crumpled to the mud. I winced, expecting to experience Cillian’s wrath myself.
“Skallgrim infiltrators,” I said, when her magic didn’t burst me like a rotten tomato. “How did you find me?” I eyed my prospective lead’s blood pooling in the mud and thought it wise not to rub her mistake in her face.
She gazed at the corpses, her face grim, and I wondered if she had ever before used her magic to kill – until now I’d only theorized her deadly potential. “I followed the trail of devastation,” she said. “It took me a while to work my way through the angry mob. After that I followed the tracking ward I had placed on your clothing.”
She’d done what? I started sweating, wondering if she’d placed some nasty surprise in me ready to explode on command.
She smiled thinly, glanced at the corpses by my feet. “It is war then.”
“We have been at war quite some time,” I said. “We’ve only just noticed.”
She gave a terse nod. “You are not the fool you pretend to be, Magus Edrin Walker, and I am only just starting to realize that.” Her eyes bored into me. “I am on to your game.”
I swallowed, smiled sickly. “Ah, that.”
She paced the cobbles. “The Arcanum had deemed it impossible for the Skallgrim to ever unite. Of the great powers, Setharis has been in economic decline for the last fifty years and our closest allies in Ahram and Esban consumed by infighting. We will receive no aid from them. It is an advantageous time for the Skallgrim to expand their territories.”
If she was being straightforward with an untrustworthy cur like me then things had to be truly bad. Either that or the blow to her head had been worse than I’d thought.
“It stinks, Edrin,” she said, “stinks of long and meticulous preparation for conquest, and patience is not something the Skallgrim have ever been noted for.” She was reinforcing my own disquieting suspicions. “Over the years far too many of our ships have gone missing, and our agents in other lands have been turning up dead with depressing frequency. They must also be involved with the Magash Mora in some manner, but again the Skallgrim tribes lack the knowledge necessary to create such a creature. I feel an unknown power behind all these events.” She chewed on her bottom lip, eyes widening, “Harailt was posted to our embassies bordering their lands ten years back. It cannot be coincidence this all happens here and now.”
“You believe me then?” I asked.
“It would seem to match up. We have no time to debate this. Their infiltrators will be all over the city trying to incite the masses and there is no knowing how many of their warriors are already inside our walls.
“You did well,” she said. “You played that angry mob as deftly as any minstrel ever plucked strings.” Her eyes narrowed. “Now, tell me how you managed it without touching them all?”
I grunted. “You saved those sailors from a fiery death quicker than I’d expected.”
“I sit on the Inner Circle for a reason. Don’t change the subject.”
We passed from the dark of the Warrens into a wider street, one lined with newer wood. It probably hadn’t existed for long enough to acquire a name yet. People were dashing to and fro, some holding bloody noses or makeshift weapons, all avoiding eye contact.
I could have lied to her, come up with some pretty story wittering on about body language, expression and posture, but events were already too dangerous and spiralling out of control. “Oh, that?” I said. “I don’t need to touch you to get into your head. I haven’t since I was a mere initiate.”
She lurched to a stop and a trace of fear seeped into her expression. “Just how strong are you?”
A woman ran down the street, toddler wailing in her arms. She hammered on a door, panting for breath. It creaked open, then swung wide. An older woman hugged her tight. “A mob is ransacking that fancy brothel,” the first woman said. “Best keep your girls indoors.”
Charra’s Place. Layla.
I felt the air stir – too late to do anything about it other than drop to the dirt. An arrow thudded into the wall behind me. I scrambled to my feet, wrenched my strained Gift open and searched for the bowman. Sudden waves of agony made my attention snap to Cillian, who was staring at another arrow jutting from her chest.
Pink froth bubbled from Cillian’s mouth and a dark stain spread across the front of her robes. She coughed, spattering my hand with blood, then slumped against the wall, a sickening sound of air wheezing from the wound. That sound, it… Blood gushed from my nose, head ringing like somebody had rammed a steel-shod boot into my face. Mental protections cracked and splintered, and bled out: the sound of a god’s agonized wheezing, my hands slick with hot blood so filled with magic that it sizzled against my skin. Artha’s heart spasmed as I cut deeper and pushed a hand into it…
Another arrow buried itself in the wall a hand span from my face. I didn’t have time to think, panic stamping the surge of memory back into its pit. I scanned the rooftops as my mind expanded into nearby buildings. Snarls of thought and emotion marked dozens of people out of sight inside the walls. There – two bowmen inside fourth floor windows, their killing intent searing my senses. It was infectious. My urge to kill swelled.
One of the attackers stepped forward to the edge of the window and lined up another shot. I stabbed into his mind, scattered his thoughts and planted the urge to step forward for a better aim, onto a wooden sill that wasn’t really there. I took grim satisfaction in the spike of confusion when his foot unexpectedly plunged down through air. It was much easier to fool somebody than go directly against their survival instincts. He fell screaming from the window, head hitting the cobbles with a sound like a burst melon.
His accomplice was no coward; after a quick glance at the mess on the cobbles he tried to take his own shot. His mind was calm and orderly, an experienced killer. He resisted mightily and was about to loose when his body exploded, painting the surrounding buildings red.
“Got… him,” Cillian wheezed.
I held onto her arm in case she fell. Her breathing came in rapid gulps and her robes were drenched with blood. I reached to pull out the arrow. She hissed, her eyes not filled with panic but with a warning to back the fuck away.
“Wait…” she said between gulps, concentrating hard. The blood stopped spreading. Being a hydromancer had perks I’d never thought of before but it seemed she couldn’t suck all that spilt blood back up after it had soaked into the muck under our feet. She groaned and clamped her hands around the base of the arrow. “Barbs… have to… break off… the shaft.”
I gingerly took it in two hands, and made to snap it off to leave a short stump, then paused and felt bloody stupid as I took Dissever to it instead. The arrowhead barely moved, but she still shrieked as steel grated against bone. “What now?” I said.
She gritted her teeth and held out bloodied hands for me to help her walk. I didn’t think it wise, but then I’d just been about to blindly rip an arrow out so what did I know. Somehow she stood on her own two feet. I didn’t think I would be up and about with an arrow through my lung. She took a few faltering steps clutching onto my arm. “Get me… Templarum Magestus. No… time to spare. Magash Mora…”
“I’ll get you there if I have to carve my way through,” I said, bending so she could put an arm around my neck. She panted with pain as I took her weight. Magus or not, there was a limit to human self-control.