Long fangs grew in the canomorph's mouth, and he bared them. He hefted the mace at his side and stalked toward Quin. The chamber shook again, the storm's violence threatening to bring the tower down on their heads. Quin's bonds felt as strong as ever. Bedlam lay far out of reach, useless, and the game tumbled on in his mind. The only piece left, seemingly as useless as his sword, was the shield.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The canomorph's magic was insidious and subtle, leaving no scars or bloody wounds in its wake, only the memory of one pain and the continuous anticipation of the next. Quin's mind reeled, becoming more and more detached from the pain. He had been burned with invisible flames and sliced by blades that only his mind could give form and substance. Through it all, through pain and paralysis, he could not summon or even fathom the rage he'd expected. It seemed to him that Khaemil carried rage for them both. He had been the canomorph's failure in Morgynn's eyes, the reason for whatever punishment the blood-witch had in store. So Khaemil drew out Quin's pain, keeping him alive to exorcize his rage. Both of them expected death in one form or another, one sooner, the other later. The tower shook with each peal of thunder, rattling the bones and shaking dust from the ceiling. Only a blur of twisting wind, filled with lightning, could be seen through the small window. Whatever remained of the storm's power was just enough to keep it going. One by one, the game pieces fell away in Quin's thoughts. He fought the urge to retreat into those memories of childhood. He wanted to be aware, strengthening his will on the present. He had strained his muscles almost to exhaustion trying to break the bands of force that held him tight, to no avail. His only freedoms were to see and to speak, neither of which were useful under the circumstances. He had been at the mercy of boundless rage before on the long roads he'd traveled across Faer?n, and found it distasteful to witness such pursuits once more. Khaemil growled and snarled as he cast, flinging Quin's mind into illusory landscapes filled with keening phantoms, then dismissing the images to deliver more direct torments. In the brief respite between spells, Quin allowed himself to respect Khaemil's instinct for torture. A man could live for tendays, even months, in such intricate and carefully doled out pain. Only the occasional trembling of the tower, cracks widening along its walls, let them both know that such time would not be afforded to them. Khaemil would have to finish his games soon enough, lest the crumbling tower give in to the chaotic storm outside and crush them both. The canomorph circled the aasimar as he contemplated the theme of each spell. Quin watched his face each time, seeing the familiar visage of a fellow killer, an assassin hired on faith to deliver bloody sermons to one's enemies. Through the fog of pain, Quin contemplated scenarios of escape, miracles beyond hope by which he might slay this dark preacher of vile magic and follow Morgynn to Brookhollow. Occasionally his eyes drifted to Bedlam, still lying on the floor, so close to the strange shield beneath the bones. He focused on the dormant blade, the dull shine of its screaming steel.
Something stirred in his stomach, rising to pound in his heart and remind him of aching limbs still frozen in magic. Fresh pain surged as daggers of air pushed through his legs and knees. Nerves screamed in his brain for movement, a primal instinct to resist or flee, fight or run. He found anger again as he imagined his fingers closing on Bedlam's hilt. He longed to wield the blade and teach Khaemil his own form of vengeance, a lesson that, once dealt, could not be unlearned or ever put to use again. Khaemil crossed in front of him again and he studied the heavy black mace in the shadurakul's hands, gripped tightly and held close. The tower shook again, and only the canomorph's magic kept him standing. A gamble eased into his mind comfortably, the intricacies of the game spinning once again. He had little to lose, and only one piece of the pattern was left unplayed.
He listened carefully, counting the canomorph's rhythmic step, and summoned his voice through a raw and scratchy throat. "Dog," he said, coughing slightly with the effort, but not so much that he did not hear Khaemil stop to listen, just a stride away behind his left shoulder. "What's that, sweetblood? Some plea for mercy, perhaps?" He leaned closer, almost half a head taller than Quin, eagerly listening to catch the sweet sound of begging from his captive. Quin smiled slyly, choosing the words of his own spell, far more primitive than Khaemil's chanting or prayers, but just as effective. "Dead dog," he continued. "Nothing more pitiful than watching the kicking and scratching of a dying dog beaten by its own master. Least of all one like you, that doesn't even know it yet." Quin braced himself, daring to place hope in the rage that he attempted to evoke. It was a simple kind of magic, targeting pride, and he knew that even devils-especially devils-valued a certain amount of pride. The effect was immediate. Quin heard robes rustle and a deep breath being inhaled. He squeezed his eyes shut in the instant that the mace slammed into the backplate of his armor. The solid pain of the impact was refreshing as he was thrown to his right, a physical pain more easily accepted than that induced by magic. His legs fell across the flat of Bedlam's blade. His torso crashed into the heap of bones, shattering old skulls and rib cages. His right arm, outstretched and bound by the spell of paralysis, fell flat on the face of the hidden shield. Sudden and unmistakable warmth washed over his body. He flexed his fingers and gripped the shield's edge, careful to hide the movement from the seething Khaemil. Patterns of stones spiraled and flourished in his mind, the game restored by the simple Shield. Such was the Fate Fall, that even gods could not thwart the smallest details. A feral smile graced Quin's features as he quietly gave thanks to the foresight of long dead Shaaryan wizards and the legends they spawned. The grinning skull he'd dubbed Ossian lay nearby, and he was suddenly curious to observe the shield, to see the face of the fallen warrior's love, Zemaan. His left hand was only inches from Bedlam's hilt and once again, he counted the steps of Khaemil's familiar stride approaching from behind.
The hunters worked feverishly to man the walls and fight growing fires inside the city. Some covered themselves as best they could with their ironvine cloaks, protected from the falling flames but unable to see the enemy clearly. The sky was brilliantly lit, as if the stars themselves fell from the sky to burn and destroy the city. Puddles of water hissed and boiled as globs of fire landed in the streets. Steam filled the air, rain vaporizing before it reached the ground. Black smoke billowed from empty homes as they were set ablaze. Lesani was exhausted from fighting the flying devils and ducked beneath a slate overhang not touched by the flames. The devils reveled in the fiery rain, taking advantage of blind archers and crushing them in powerful claws or impaling them on their curved horns. The ravaged bodies of the fallen landed among their fellows with sickening splashes in the mud, broken harbingers of the horrifying fate that flew overhead. The magic of the Ghedia was cut to half, as many of the shamans turned to the wounded, leaving only handfuls of the druids to dispel the rain of fire. Their voices shouted words of magic above the noise of storm and battle, raising clouds of icy mist over the defending forces. The fires hissed and fizzled in the cold white fog, creating havens of safety for the hunters and oracles. Elisandrya ran from shadow to shadow, ducking as devils swooped by, the leathery beasts snatching up those too slow to avoid them. Their victims' screams trailed off into the sky then stopped abruptly. Eli ran to join Zakar, silently thanking the wisdom of the Ghedia for summoning the cold clouds over the wall. Zakar's face was grim when she reached the battlements, but he raised an eyebrow in surprise when he saw her alive. "Still kicking, are we?" "Just enough," she replied, and scanned the field below, glowing in the falling flames, her eyes stopping on the mass of undead, halted by some invisible line beyond the trees. "Should we summon the mounted warriors? Try to harry their flanks and stop these damnable spells?" "Not yet," Zakar answered. "They have no flanks to speak of, really. They'd pull back into the forest and leave our men exposed and vulnerable. Spells from within and those devils above-it'd be a massacre. There, look." He pointed to the southern fringe of the enemy line, where the spellcasting ranks were thickest. Though some wore robes, others were fully armed and armored, bearing strange symbols on breastplates or tabards. "Priests, most likely," he said.