His lips curled. A good fight, then.
The first flash of alarm crossed Bachel’s face, but before she could act—
“Vindr!” Murtagh shouted, and stabbed the dagger toward the witch’s heart.
CHAPTER XXIII
Fire and Wind
The Draumar were warded against magic, but they were not warded against the effects of magic.
At Murtagh’s shouted command, a torrent of ferocious wind knocked the cultists and prisoners off their feet, and even sent a number of them tumbling across the flagstones. Behind him, the bonfire roared to sudden heights, the flames leaping twenty feet or more into the air, and a cloud of swirling embers filled the yard while writhing shadows stretched to the surrounding buildings.
Summoning so much wind ought to have been beyond Murtagh’s strength, but he drained the yellow diamond empty, and he drew upon Thorn and Uvek, and his might was more than that of any single man, even a Rider.
The tip of the black-bladed dagger bounced off Bachel’s breast, stopped by a spell, and the weapon flew from his hand.
Then the witch was shouting in a guttural, unfamiliar language as she jumped back. One of her onyx claws pointed at him.
“Skölir!” he shouted. Shield. It was a generic ward, so vague as to be dangerous, but it was all he had time for.
Gouts of inky darkness poured from her finger and flowed around Murtagh as water around a stubborn boulder, deflected by his counterspell.
Another word, and she could kill him. His makeshift ward could be bypassed in any number of ways. So he did what always ought to be the first thing in a duel between magicians: he attacked Bachel’s mind with his own. Now freed of the Breath and the vorgethan, he knew he had a chance of overcoming her, if he could just—
Bachel laughed, and there was no humor or levity in the sound, only cruel, scornful mocking.
She stepped back, and a cloud of flapping wings and clattering beaks and stark white eyes obscured her as the murder of crows descended into the yard and surrounded the witch. Then the birds darted forward, and Murtagh heard and felt them everywhere around him, and they blotted out the light.
In the distance, Uvek bellowed, and fear shaded his thoughts.
From within the storm of crows, Murtagh sensed the witch’s mind slipping away, like a wisp on the wind. He tried to find her again, but to no avail. The minds of the flitting birds confused his inner eye, and he felt himself lost and uncertain of his balance.
It was an untenable position. At any moment, a blade or spell might end him.
Desperate, Murtagh thought back to the compendium, and he uttered the simplest, and greatest, of the killing words: “Deyja.”
Die.
The crows fell as dark, heavy rain.
He stood alone beside the altar. The female prisoner had rolled off the block of basalt. Around him lay a rosette of slain crows, their feathers pressed flat against the flagstones, as so many green-black petals.
Bachel was gone. Vanished. As was Grieve, and half the guests at the long table.
Blast it. He needed to catch Bachel before she could work more evil. But first—
The cultists were massing at the side of the courtyard, warriors and common Draumar alike gathering themselves for a charging attack.
“Vindr!” Murtagh drove them back with word and wind as he strode to Thorn. Once more the dragon’s strength served as his own. With another arcane command—“Kverst!”—he struck the shackles and muzzle from Thorn, and then he took the blackstone charm from his boot, pressed it against Thorn’s snout, and again said, “Shûkva.”
The change in Thorn’s demeanor was instantaneous. He arched his neck and roared, and a glittering ripple flashed along his sinuous length. At last! he said. And the feel of his mind, once more whole and sound, filled Murtagh’s eyes with tears.
It was the work of seconds to effect a similar cure on Uvek and to free him of his fetters.
The Urgal rolled his massive, rounded shoulders and let out a roar to match Thorn’s. “Is good, Murtagh-man. Has been long time since I fought. This I think I enjoy.”
“No younglings,” said Murtagh in a hard tone as he handed the blackstone charm back to the Urgal.
A rippling sheet of flame shot from Thorn’s mouth, driving back the surging mass of cultists. The same goes for you, said Murtagh with his mind. Leave the younglings alone.
I will try.
Uvek lifted his horns to show his throat. “As you say, Murtagh-man. And I ask you not kill more crows. Is bad fortune.”
Murtagh nodded in return. “I promise. Now let’s—”
He stopped when he saw Alín appear deep among the shadowed pillars that fronted the temple, running toward them with Thorn’s saddle and bags piled in her arms. As she staggered beneath the weight, Grieve and two armored acolytes darted up from behind and seized her.
The saddle and bags fell, and Alín thrashed in a frantic attempt to free herself. But Grieve and the acolytes dragged her back into the depths of the temple, and they vanished from sight even as Murtagh readied a spell.
He shouted in anger and started after her.
After two steps, he swung back to Thorn and slapped him on the side. “Go! Break! Burn! Tear this place to the ground.”
Thorn’s jaws parted in a toothy snarl, and the tip of his tail twitched. I thought you would never ask. Then he roared again and leaped into the air with a thunderous sweep of his wings.
The backdraft sent swirls of embers through the air, each one a tiny whirling firestorm.
As Thorn cleared the buildings that edged the courtyard, he laid down a wall of fire between Murtagh and the massing mob. A clutch of arrows pierced the wall and streaked past his head, trailing pennants of flapping flames.
Murtagh sprinted toward the temple even as the flames died down and the cultists surged forward. Behind him, he heard Uvek loose a mighty bellow: a battle cry fit to make even the bravest man quail.
Then Murtagh was among the dark rows of faceted columns. He ran through the open doors of blackened oak, down the alcove-lined passage, and into the atrium with the nightmarish statue of dream.
A deafening crash sounded behind him, and an enormous thud vibrated the ground. He spun around to see a cloud of dust rising above the front of the temple. A dark shadow swept over him as Thorn swooped overhead.
There, said Thorn. None shall reach you from the entrance. I blocked the doors with stone. As he spoke, the dragon alit upon the Tower of Flint and began to tear at the slate shingles that roofed it. A twisting stream of angry, frightened, cawing crows flew up through the holes and dispersed into the smoke that darkened the valley.
Murtagh smiled tightly. Thanks. Be careful.
Thorn roared in response.
Then Murtagh turned left and started out of the atrium, heading toward the temple’s inner sanctum, where he was most likely to find Bachel, Grieve, and Alín.
Along the way, he ended his shielding spell. It was too broad to be truly effective, and although it was a ward, the way he had cast it was as an ongoing effect, which was costing him precious energy that he knew—or rather, feared—he would need to overcome Bachel. Better to start fresh with proper wards, which would only trigger when actually needed.
As he passed among the pillars along the southern edge of the atrium, he struggled to remember the exact wording of his earliest wards. It had been some time since he cast them, and it wouldn’t do to accidentally curse himself. Ah, that’s it, he thought, and opened his mouth to—