Tobias was directing a group of soldiers and mages at the entrance to the tombs. ‘. . . hold here,’ he was saying. He glanced at us as we walked past, then turned back. ‘Remember, look out for humans. If they’re serious, that’s . . .’
I glanced back up at the looming castle. No sign of movement. ‘Come on,’ Ji-yeong said. She was staring at the tombs, keyed-up and eager.
‘Patience,’ I said. ‘You’ll get your chance to fight.’
The inside of the tombs was gloomy and cold. I led Luna and Ji-yeong up the stairs. No shadows or jann were left. We passed one soldier with a bloody arm, leaning against the wall while a medic bandaged the wound, but it looked as if there hadn’t been much resistance. That wouldn’t change until—
‘Mage contact!’ a soldier called over the comm. ‘Mage contact in the central chamber. Force magic attacks, one man down.’
‘Hold position,’ Landis replied instantly. ‘Second and third squads, converge on the central chamber.’
‘Go,’ I said.
We ran up the stairs, our footsteps echoing on the stone. Inside my head, I was counting off minutes. As soon as Anne – the marid – realised what we were doing, it’d send reinforcements. We had to do as much damage as possible before then.
And then we came out, and there was no more time for thinking about anything except the battle in front of us.
The main chamber of the tombs was a wide, flattened oval, coloured in browns and greys. Magelights glowed from holders spaced around the room. The walls were lined with sarcophagi, each set back into the stone, with walkways joining them in giant rings. There were rows and rows of sarcophagi, each stacked on top of another and set a little back, running all the way up to the ceiling. Hundreds and hundreds. I knew from Ji-yeong that each was the birthplace of a shadow.
Fully half of the sarcophagi were respawning their inhabitants. Inky darkness would gather around the stone, then slowly coalesce, taking the shape of a smoky humanoid with white eyes and wings. The process was slow, but there were a lot of sarcophagi, and a steady stream of shadows were forming, coming awake and flapping clumsily down from their balconies to fight.
Fight, and be destroyed. Landis’s men were spread throughout the first third of the room and they were destroying the shadows one after another with bullets and spells and charged blades. The stammer of gunfire and the flash of spells filled the room. Most of the shadows died before even reaching the floor.
But the real threat wasn’t the shadows. Halfway across the room were two figures, one bulky, one slim, engaging Landis’s mages with earth and force magic. Caldera and Barrayar.
I took it all in at a glance and broke into a run. The room was chaos, screams and shouts and flashes, fifty men and a hundred shadows all fighting at once. Somehow, though, it all made sense. Through the fateweaver I could sense the lines of the battle, the inflection points. The shadows weren’t important – Caldera and Barrayar were the obstacles. A shadow got in my way and I cut through it without slowing down. I could feel the sovnya pulling me towards Caldera and Barrayar. It didn’t want constructs; it wanted the jinn.
Caldera was fighting two mages at once: an ice mage called Hoarfrost, and an air mage I didn’t know. She was outnumbered, but shadows kept flapping down to distract the mages, splitting their attacks. A Council soldier lay crumpled against the wall.
Hoarfrost threw a volley of ice spikes. They shattered against Caldera’s skin: she threw out a hand towards the air mage and some spell knocked him backwards, then I was charging Caldera and she spun to face me.
Caldera’s eyes met mine for a second. I expected recognition, anger, but she might have been looking at a piece of furniture. She started some sort of ranged spell, realised at the last second that I was too close and swung a punch.
My armour wouldn’t do a thing against a blow like that. I turned my attack into a diving roll; Caldera’s punch passed over my head as I came up behind her. The sovnya slashed out, and Caldera batted it away with a clang.
She’s faster. I jumped out of range of Caldera’s counter. A shadow tried to grab me from behind; I skewered it and circled left to come at Caldera again. Caldera turned to face me – and Ji-yeong stabbed her in the back.
Caldera staggered. Ji-yeong had been shadowing me and had darted in as soon as Caldera had been distracted. Caldera started to turn, and Ji-yeong drove her short-sword into Caldera’s side, under her ribs.
Caldera barely seemed to notice. She finished her turn, wrenching the sword out of Ji-yeong’s hands, and drove a punch straight at Ji-yeong’s head.
And that would have been a dead Ji-yeong, if she’d been a normal human. But the Korean girl had the enhanced speed and strength of her life magic, and enough combat experience to not freeze up. She jumped away, Caldera’s blow just barely missing her, and Caldera started to turn back towards me.
I brought the sovnya around in a full-strength swing that cut Caldera nearly in half.
Caldera staggered again, losing her breath in an uff. The sovnya sang in triumph. The blade had cut upwards through her body, under her arm, and now red light ignited around it, burning away flesh and blood and—
—sand?
Caldera straightened. The sovnya was burning her up from the inside, but now that I looked, I could see that sand was flowing in to heal her wound. Grains blackened and charred under the sovnya’s flame, but they kept coming, sealing up what should have been a fatal strike. Caldera twisted around to stare at me. We were less than five feet away, linked by the shaft of the polearm.
Uh-oh.
Caldera punched, her right arm extending past human reach.
I shoved against the sovnya, using it as leverage to drop down. Pain flared in my fingers as the blow went overhead, then I yanked out the polearm and rolled out of range.
Caldera aimed her palm at me and a cone of sand and grit blasted out.
There was no room to dodge. I spun and hunched over as the blast struck with a howl, drowning out everything around me. Particles of sand slashed at my back, trying to tear through my armour, rip the clothes from my skin and the skin from my bones. Tiny streaks of fire cut across patches of exposed skin. I couldn’t see or hear; all I could do was trust my armour—
My armour held. All of a sudden, the blasting sand was gone and light and sound came rushing back.
I sprang away. Hoarfrost was hitting Caldera with ice blasts, one after another, and Caldera was forced to turn from me to shield her face with one bulky arm. I could see a burnt patch across her torso, but she was moving as though she wasn’t even injured.
How the hell do you fight someone who can turn into sand?
When you can’t solve one problem, work on another. I turned towards Barrayar.
Barrayar had been nearer to the entrance, and Landis’s mages had focused on him. A perimeter was holding back the shadows, shooting down any that came near, while four or five mages were hammering Barrayar from all sides. Barrayar’s business suit was slashed and tattered, and his shield was barely holding under the attacks. But at the same time, I was sensing the battle on another level, attacks curving through space and time to the point at which they’d intersect. I knew it would take only a few seconds more.
A blast of fire from Landis knocked Barrayar off his feet. As Barrayar rose, a death mage stepped in behind him and rammed a blade of crackling black energy through Barrayar’s shield and body and out the other side. It was a fatal strike.
‘Back!’ I shouted at the death mage. He glanced at me in confusion.