“Only sixty-five for me,” Lyesse said. With greater intensity, she spun about and dove into two armored soldiers who closed in on her. She stabbed one in the stomach, whirled and kicked the other back, knocking him off balance so that the edge of his sword missed her. She withdrew her blade from the already dying man, stabbed again to kill him, and turned to dispatch the first man she had knocked off balance. “Sixty-six and sixty-seven! I will catch up with you.”
Thorn laughed. “You may try.” She turned, determined, leaping forward—
And ran directly into a serrated spear point.
A broad-shouldered man gritted his teeth and shoved the spear harder. He grinned as he skewered the lean morazeth on his weapon, pushing the spear all the way through her abdomen and out her back.
Thorn coughed blood. Her knees went weak, and she could barely stand, but the spear itself held her up. She grabbed the shaft, tried to hold on.
Lyesse screamed and hacked at another warrior in her way, wounding him. She didn’t bother to follow through as she leaped toward her sister morazeth.
The spear wielder wrenched his weapon, tried to yank the blade back so he could defend himself against Lyesse’s furious attack, but Thorn clutched the shaft and refused to let it go, even as she died. She prevented him from having his weapon back.
Lyesse screamed again and struck down with such fury that she amputated both of the warrior’s hands that gripped the weapon. Her blade splintered the shaft itself. The spear wielder stared in horror at his bleeding wrists, and she stabbed him in the throat. He had killed her companion, her sister morazeth!
Without the spear to hold her up, Thorn crumpled to the ground.
Lyesse was deaf to all of the battlefield sounds. Thorn was breathing heavily. Her words came out in liquid, bubbly chokes. “Seventy killed in one day,” she gasped. “Seventy.” She reached out to clasp the hand of her sister.
Lyesse cradled the dying woman. “A good number, one that any morazeth would admire.”
Thorn gripped her with red, wet fingers. “My score … is yours. I grant you all my kills.”
“I accept them, and I will add many more in your name.”
Lyesse sensed the instant when the Keeper claimed Thorn’s spirit. Though time seemed to stop for an infinitely long moment, she held the other morazeth while the battle continued to rage. Lyesse gently set her sister’s body aside.
As she saw countless soldiers continuing to crash into Tanimura, she knew that she had more than enough targets to reach the greatest score any morazeth had ever achieved.
CHAPTER 83
Uneasy but trying not to second-guess Nicci’s plan, Nathan followed the sorceress as she made her way across the new wooden bridge that connected the lowtown to Halsband Island. The flattened expanse had served as a practice field for the Tanimuran soldiers and the refugee militia as they prepared for war, but the rubble gave the island a haunted, abandoned air. Nicci seemed to think it was perfect for her needs now.
If only General Utros would come. Nicci had no doubts at all.
Bannon and Lila walked in tandem as their small group made their way to the meeting point. The young man carried Nathan’s ornate sword, and it seemed a part of him now.
After killing King Grieve, Bannon was hardened and also restored. Even so, Nathan feared that the bright, hopeful young man would never get back his foolish optimism. For a long time he had clung to a positive façade as a defense against the cruelties he had experienced in life, but now Bannon was strong and whole, with an iron will. He was not a victim and he did not complain about all the times he’d been beaten down. Instead, he drew strength and built bonds where others would only have sought vengeance.
His surprising relationship with Lila, for example, was a partnership that made both of them stronger. Nathan didn’t know if he himself would have been so strong or so forgiving of a woman who had been his captor and harsh trainer.
He realized that for his own part, after the Sisters of the Light had locked him up in the palace for so long, Nathan had come to love Prelate Ann, and he had also respected and admired Prelate Verna. Those women had been his captors, yet he had managed to resolve his differences with them. In a way, he understood Bannon.
As they prepared for their desperate gambit, battles raged across the city, and hundreds if not thousands of Norukai continued to pillage and burn down the harbor district. Even if Nicci defeated General Utros here, the ancient army would keep devastating the city. He believed that Tanimura was doomed, no matter what happened here on Halsband Island.
But Nathan trusted Nicci, and he held on to hope. He saw her rigid back, the muscles that rippled beneath the black fabric of her dress. He could sense her building up her strength for a final confrontation. Mrra prowled alongside them, inseparable from Nicci.
They followed crushed pathways where military maneuvers had packed down the rubble. Nathan tried to make out the foundations of the fallen Palace of the Prophets, the remnants of the immense towers that had imprisoned him for ten centuries. “Once I escaped, I hoped never to return here,” he said aloud. “With the whole world to explore, why would I go back to a place with such sour memories?”
“You are here with us,” Bannon said.
“And we are about to face the commander of an army that intends to conquer the world,” Lila added.
Nathan stroked his chin. “For a reason like that, I can come back to Halsband Island one more time.”
Nicci found an acceptable spot and stopped. Nathan realized this was where the arched entrance of the palace had stood. Through the stones beneath his boots and the shimmering silence that resonated with power, he felt a calm like the eye of the storm.
Nicci stood silent with the big sand panther at her side. Mrra’s whiskers twitched with anticipation. Bannon and Lila held their swords and tried to look intimidating, as if they were Nicci’s elite guard. Nathan’s embroidered cape waved in the breeze.
Finally, they watched a large party of mounted soldiers come riding over the bridge toward them, led by a standard-bearer with the flame banner of the ancient empire. General Utros rode at the fore. The slender sorceress paced beside him on her horse. The general’s retinue consisted of more than a hundred soldiers, but Nicci did not seem intimidated by the numbers. Nathan had never seen her look so confident.
Nathan stood ready to fight for the sake of D’Hara. As the thought calmed him, centered him, he suddenly felt a surge of hot poison through his chest. His heart hammered as the dark spirit of Ivan tried to take over again, but Nathan grimaced, clenched his fists, and hissed in a harsh whisper, “Why won’t you die?” He pounded his sternum, and the dark presence swirled away.
Utros and his escort soldiers looked bloodied and weary, but their faces shone with anticipation. Nothing matched the madness of Ruva’s expression. Her eyes were like fractured gems that held remnants of lightning. Utros sat tall in his saddle like a predatory beast as he pulled his horse to a halt and glared at Nicci.
Nathan kept his voice low. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Sorceress.”
Nicci just smiled. “I am not worried.” She touched the pocket of her dress. “It is my job to take care of the entire enemy army.”
CHAPTER 84
Although she could see only half of his face, Nicci could tell that General Utros already believed he was victorious. Resplendent in his leather armor, he rode toward her like a supreme conqueror. His escort soldiers clustered close, ready to defend their general, and his standard-bearers raised Iron Fang’s ancient flame symbol, which he now claimed as his own.