Bachel stopped in front of Murtagh, and the staff-wielding acolytes closed in around him, forming a tight circle. Their chanting increased in volume again, a dozen voices drumming against his ears, a dozen minds battering against his consciousness.
“Why do you strive so?” Bachel said, her voice a low purr. “Surrender to me, my son. Join us. Join us in service to Azlagûr, and never again will you be tormented by doubt. Your place in the world will be secured, and your name will be sung for a thousand generations.”
Join us, the cultists’ thoughts chanted, a constant, maddening refrain.
Murtagh felt physically trapped, hemmed in too tightly to move or even to think. Bodies all about him and voices also, and every member of the group assaulting him in the same fashion until it seemed he was dealing with a single, massive creature determined to defeat and constrain him.
His hand trembled about Ithring’s hilt. Even the idea of standing and striking was enough for the cultists to gain purchase on his consciousness. The weight of their minds pressed him down, flattening his being until his identity thinned and nearly vanished, and it was difficult to tell whose thoughts belonged to whom.
Yet even then, he refused to surrender. He was sovereign to himself, and he would sooner die than be otherwise.
A sudden movement: Alín twisted and wrenched free of her captors. She tore something from the neck of the man to her right, and then she sprang toward Murtagh.
Bachel shouted and pointed at Alín. A spear of fire leaped from the witch’s clawed finger and struck Alín in the chest.
The fire passed harmlessly around her.
With a desperate cry, Alín collapsed against Murtagh with her arms around his shoulders. Her fingers fumbled against the back of his neck and—
Clarity. Sudden relief. The pressure upon his mind vanished, and he jumped to his feet.
A bird-skull amulet bounced against his chest.
Ithring sang through the air as he swung at the nearest cultist. The man had no wards to protect him; the sword’s crimson blade passed through him with hardly any resistance.
The chanting dissolved into panicked discord.
Murtagh quick-stepped to the next Draumar and clove head from body. The cultists were crowded close to him, and he moved with ruthless efficiency among them, chopping at arms and legs and stabbing where he could, determined to keep them so busy they could not again immobilize him.
Bachel snarled. A torrent of flame shot from her to Murtagh. As with Alín, the flames wrapped around him without harm. Nor did the arcane fire touch two of the three Draumar behind him. However, the third cultist was the man from whom Alín had stolen the amulet, and him the fire harrowed, and his skin cracked and his hair vanished in a flare of orange sparks. He ran away screaming as a blanket of flames enveloped him.
In his blindness, the man ran off the edge of the great hole in the center of the room and fell into the black void, the flames trailing like flapping flags from his body.
Murtagh did not pause to watch, but hurried about his butchery, eager to put down the rest of Bachel’s guards before they could regain the advantage.
Several of the cultists attempted to block or parry his attacks, and a few even struck at him in turn. But they were not trained warriors—not as he was—and he outfenced them with ease.
As he spun about, he saw Alín grappling with one of the cultists. The man struck her with his staff, and she fell to the stone, limp and unmoving.
The sight spurred Murtagh to even greater speed. By his hand, Ithring traced a fatal cutting line from body to body, a bloody blur too fast to follow. The Draumar toppled like scythed stalks of grass.
A grinding rumble passed through the floor of the cavern. More dust sifted downward, while shards broke loose from the crystals and landed in a tinkling cascade throughout.
Murtagh stumbled and paused, arms outstretched.
Before the shaking subsided, Bachel came flying toward him—a dark shape piercing the curtains of dust, the ancient lance held before her.
He was quick to respond, but the witch was faster still, for she had the reflexes of an elf. The tip of Niernen struck him in the side and, to Murtagh’s astonishment, punctured his shirt of mail and stabbed him between the ribs.
Bachel pulled the lance free, and he fell back, clutching his side. Fire burned in his chest, and blood spattered his lips as he coughed. Then he went cold with fear, and his thoughts grew hard and simple. The blade had touched a lung. It was a deadly wound, if not immediately fatal. He had seen such injuries on the battlefield. His lung would collapse or else fill with blood. Either way, he would die from lack of air unless he could heal himself.
The witch crowed. “You cannot triumph in this place, Kingkiller. Here I reign supreme, for I am Azlagûr’s champion.”
One of the acolytes charged at Murtagh from the side. He dodged a swing of the man’s staff and ran him through the neck.
The cultist fell, gurgling and kicking.
Murtagh glanced about, expecting another ambush. There was no one left standing in the chamber, save him and Bachel. Dark slicks of blood coated the stone surrounding the crumpled bodies of the eleven fallen cultists—the twelfth having cast himself into the hole.
The witch raised her left hand and made a crushing motion. The bird-skull amulet about his neck cracked and disintegrated in a pale powder that ran down the front of his mail. As it did, the amulet’s protection vanished, and he felt the witch launch a renewed assault upon his mind.
He steeled himself against the invasion.
A smile pulled Bachel’s mouth further askew. “Did you think mine own charms could withstand me, Kingkiller?” As she spoke, she stalked toward him, as a great cat walking down its prey.
Despite his pain, Murtagh kept his mind calm, clear—emotionless. Panic would not help him. The witch lunged again, and he parried. The wound in his side made it impossible to move smoothly; he hitched as he deflected the Dauthdaert, which provided Bachel with ample opportunity to evade his counterstrike.
“This resistance will bring you only death! Kneel before me!”
“No.”
Again the witch came at him, and Murtagh retreated around the gaping hole in the floor, attempting to maintain distance between the two of them while also drawing Bachel away from Alín’s motionless form. Bright spots of blood fell from his side, leaving a trail of splattered blotches, as a line of red coins strewn behind him.
Never before had Murtagh felt such a sense of desperate struggle. Not even during the fight against Galbatorix and Shruikan. At least then there had been others to help. Here he was alone, without even Thorn, and the slightest mistake would mean death.
He might already be dead.
His breath wheezed through his punctured lung. Even now it was difficult to get enough air.
Forward strode Bachel, and she jabbed at him with furious intent: a half-dozen quick stabs, which left Murtagh with a small cut on his calf, just above his greaves.
His wards couldn’t stop the Dauthdaert. No ward could. Galbatorix had claimed the lances were the only weapons dragons feared. Murtagh believed it. He had learned to fear them himself.
He feigned a stumble, and when Bachel moved to take advantage of the supposed opening…he sidestepped and slashed underneath her outstretched arm.
Ithring glanced off a protective spell. Even without her armor, Bachel would have been well shielded against his blade.
Murtagh reassessed. He wasn’t going to defeat the witch through force of arms, unless he could somehow break her magical defenses.
As Bachel twisted around to again face him, he drove his mind against the witch’s with every mote of strength he could muster. The invisible assault was so strong, it stopped Bachel in her tracks. Her face went rigid with strain as she struggled to repulse his intruding thoughts.