The First nodded. "What did you think of my demonstration?"
Chainer paused. "I think the ambassador either encouraged or enabled the raid. I think he still wants the Mirari. I think he intends to use it to take control of Mer, and then he will come for Otaria."
"He will try," the First agreed. "But there is value in an ally with no morals. If he will betray us to the Order, he will in turn betray the Order to us."
"The First is wise."
"Let us discuss the details of the casting you have planned for him. I may be able to… improve the overall result."
"As soon as I return, Pater."
"Outstanding. Now," he thrust his hands deep into the sleeves of his robe. "Let us attend to your barbarian friend."
CHAPTER 21
Thirty miles up the eastern road from Cabal City, the Samite sanctuary was filled to capacity. Nibahn the healer was on her third trip to the apothecary for clean bandages and sleeping herbs. The majority of her patients were expected to live through the night, but only if she and her staff worked round the clock. She believed utterly in the Order, but she despised the brutality of the crusat. The Samite way of universal tolerance was the only way she knew to bring about a better world.
Halfway back to the hospital, a whispered voice from the shadows hissed, "Healer." Nibahn adjusted the thick bundle of bandages and clay bottles under one arm and approached the sound. "Hello? Are you wounded? All are welcome. All are safe. Will you come forward?" She could make out two human figures in the darkness, two men of roughly equal size. One of them took a half step forward and spoke.
"Kindness for kindness, Samite. No one walks away from a Cabal debt." Nibahn felt something round and hard strike her forehead, and she fell back in a swoon. Though conscious, she was too stunned by the blow to see or move. Someone wrapped metal bonds around her hands, and dragged her roughly by the collar into the shadows.
"You understand why you're here?" the whispering voice said to something in the shadows. The only reply was an angry, ominous buzz.
"Then go," the voice said, and Nibahn heard no more.
Major Teroh made a brief obeisance to the angel guarding the door and entered the hospital. The Samites were deluded fools, but their healing arts had been handed down for thousands of years and were still unmatched.
Inside, the Major scowled as he took in the rows and rows of wounded troopers, aven and human alike. Teroh cursed Laquatus for giving him the idea for the raid, but he could not blame everything on the ambassador. The merman had gotten them into the heart of the city with some sort of water teleportation spell, just as he had promised. It was a risky plan from the start, and the Cabal had offered far more resistance than Teroh had expected.
Still, he thought, as he continued to tour the hospital, it might not be a complete loss. The Cabal still held the Mirari, but now that the crusat was open and declared, other Order commanders from all around Otaria were contacting Teroh, looking to join his army. It would be well worth the loss of a few hundred troopers if a few thousand rose up in righteous fury to avenge them.
There was a scuffle at the entrance, and Teroh turned to see what was causing it. A tall, thin man dressed in what appeared to be black paper was attempting to enter the hospital, and the angel had drawn her sword to block him. The man's face was featureless, hidden under a wide-brimmed hat.
"To arms," the angel cried. "Hostile on the ward." She couldn't take flight amid such close quarters, but she spread her wings anyway to keep the man from darting past her. Teroh still did not understand the concern in her voice. The intruder looked about as substantial as a scarecrow, and he wasn't even armed.
The angel struck first, something Teroh had never seen before. Usually they waited for their opponents to strike or threaten an innocent before they attacked. From his vantage point across the room, he could see the angel and the intruder in profile. She had driven her sword straight into his torso, where it met no resistance as it plunged through. The scarecrow didn't flinch.
The angel turned her head and screamed across the room, "Run! In Serra's name, run now!" The staff of the hospital looked to Teroh, and he shrugged. Most of the wounded were dozing, and few of them were fit enough to get out of bed anyway.
"Sister," Teroh raised his voice as he addressed the angel, "what are you-" He stopped when he saw a clinging gray smoke waft out of the scarecrow's chest wound. Teroh realized the intruder wasn't dressed in paper, his skin was made of paper-or something very much like it. His chest had not been cut by the angel's sword, it had been torn like parchment.
The mist floated in midair between the two figures for a moment longer, and then it rushed at the angel. The smoke began to bubble and boil as it touched her face, her neck, her arms, and she screamed, something else Teroh had never known an angel to do.
"Swords," he called as he drew his own, and two more angels and a handful of on-duty troopers responded.
As her comrades approached, and the mist churned and boiled across her flesh, the first angel flailed wildly with her sword. It passed harmlessly through the mist, but whenever the blade touched the scarecrow, his papery skin split, and more gray mist wafted out to join the assault. The angel was in agony, but she refused to abandon her post.
A second angel lunged forward with her sword. There was a swish and a rustle, and the intruder's head dropped backward, connected to his torso only by a few papery threads. His body still stood, however, and now the gray mist poured out of his neck to attack the second angel.
"Stop cutting him," Teroh barked, but it was too late. Whatever filled the scarecrow's body was caustic and was quickly stripping the exposed skin off the two angels. Teroh grabbed a nearby Samite by the shoulder and said, "Bring bed sheets. Towels. Anything that we can wrap him in to staunch that smoke and get him out of here."
The first angel dropped where she stood, her face stripped down to the bone, and the smoke was not dissipating. In fact, it seemed to be growing, larger and thicker as it consumed the rest of its first victim. Teroh stared in horror as he realized it wasn't smoke at all. It was insects. Millions of them, each no bigger than a pinpoint, stripping the flesh from the angels' bones by the mouthful. And with each mouthful, they were growing bigger. "Fire," Teroh yelled to a trembling trooper. "We need fire." The buzzing of the tiny swarm grew louder and more furious as the insects themselves grew larger and larger. The second angel fell, little more than a winged skeleton. The bugs on the first angel were now as big as wasps, and Teroh could see their savage mandibles working as they consumed their victims. The Samite he had ordered to fetch bed sheets came forward with them, but the healer's eyes were locked on the ever-increasing swarm that blocked the only exit.
"You," Teroh pointed at a trio of soldiers, "and you and you. That thing has to be driven outside. Charge." "Charge, sir?"
"It's going to kill us all! Gods damn it, I gave you an order! Now charge, troopers! Defend the Order!"
Two of the three soldiers rushed at the deflating hive man and were promptly engulfed in gray mist and voracious insects. The third stood frozen while his partners died screaming. Teroh stormed over to the man and ran him through where he stood.
"Coward," he snarled.
The bugs were now as big as carrier pigeons, and they started to spread out across the hospital. New cries of pain issued out from bandaged faces and cloth partitions. The last angel on the ward leaped in and slashed one of the larger insects in two. Both halves reformed into smaller versions of the original and promptly attacked the angel's face.