AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘They would have killed you,’ I said bluntly, because telling her everything was going to be okay would have been a lie, and that, at least, was a truth she might be able to live with.
‘What happens now?’ She looked around at the dead bodies and shuddered. ‘What do I do? Where do I go?’
Corrigan stomped into the tent, shaking a bleeding hand and carrying a bundle of angry fur by the scruff of its neck in the other. ‘Does this mutt belong to anyone? Because the little bastard just bit me—’
‘Mister Bones!’ Galass said, reaching for the jackal.
Then Corrigan caught sight of the blood mage barely six feet from him. The first purple and black sparks of impending calamity danced around his clenched right fist.
‘Don’t move!’ I shouted at him.
‘Wasn’t planning to,’ he said. More sparks drifted down, scorching the shockingly expensive handmade carpet beneath our feet. Corrigan was so intent on Galass that he hadn’t noticed the first crimson blush seeping through the pores of his face and neck. The blood from his wounded hand was already floating through the air towards her.
‘Kill the bitch, Cade,’ Corrigan ordered, with the calm assurance of one who fully expects such commands to be instantly obeyed. I guess he had a point; after all, he had just killed nearly a dozen of our compatriots for me.
‘Galass, stop,please,’ I begged.
But her eyes had gone glassy and I doubted she could hear me. Corrigan was struggling to summon his Tempestoral magic now, and inadvertently squeezing the jackal tighter, until the poor thing began to whine in fright.
I’ve found over the years that trying to prevent two wonderists from killing each other rarely turns out well. On the other hand, it’s terribly bad luck to let an innocent animal die in the process.
I tore open my shirt, revealing the twisted map of ebony sigils covering my chest and stomach. The spells I purchase from Tenebris have to be awakened by tracing the relevant markings with my fingertip before I can cast them. I’d roused a few in preparation for murdering Ascendant Lucien, but they’d gone dormant while I’d been dangling from my ankle in the tavern. I quickly woke the quickest and simplest of the spells.
The sigil for the nightmare bloom appeared in the air before me, a glistening black flower, petals squirming like tethered cockroaches. I snapped off a pair of the hideous little monstrosities, whispered my intent into them, then flicked one at Galass and the other at Corrigan. He recognised the spell, but he was too slow to get out of the way; it had burrowed into his skull before he could move. Galass was so entranced by her own blood magic that she didn’t even notice it entering her mind.
The useful thing about a nightmare bloom is that it conjures up the victim’s most paralysing fears. The unpleasant part is that I have to bear witness while the resultant emotional turmoil breaks their concentration, giving me time to do whatever’s necessary– usually, killing them. In this case, I just needed Corrigan and Galass to stop what they were doing. My command to the spell had been brief, just enough to bind whatever hellish vision was summoned by their fears to their magic. I’d hoped that would shock them both out of casting their spells before it was too late.
‘Gal?’ someone called, and we all turned to see Fidick, standing by the spell circle, looking more real than the corpse–hiscorpse– at her feet.
‘Fidick?’ she asked, her voice full of hope.
The boy smiled, but when he opened his mouth to speak, blood spewed forth– buckets of it, far more than could fit into such a small body. It showered over Galass like a torrent of crimson rain and she screamed. . .
And so did Corrigan.
What he was seeing, however, was a tall woman, a few years older than him, with dark skin and black hair. She was holding her belly and calling out, ‘Corry, my love, I felt another kick– I think the baby’s coming!’
‘No,’ Corrigan moaned, ‘no, please, don’t make me—’
‘Look, honey, here it comes—’
The woman took her hands away from her belly. The white wool shift she was wearing began to smoulder, then sparks burned through the fabric into the flesh beneath. When the skin was gone, a lightning storm inside the woman continued slowly eating away at her, even as she smiled up at Corrigan. ‘I think it’s a boy.’
I clamped my hand over the floating flower sigil, crushing it. Although it felt like squeezing empty air, the spell faded, taking the nightmarish visions with it.
‘Before you both kill me,’ I said, ‘try to remember that there’s a full court of Glorian Justiciars making for this camp, and while the mysterious death of an Ascendant Prince will give them plenty to occupy their time, the presence of a blood mage and two renegade wonderists cannot fail to attract their attention.’
Galass shook her head as if to clear her mind of the nightmare. She stared at Fidick’s body, lying dead in the spell circle where it had always been. Then she turned back towards Corrigan and raised both her hands.
‘Cade, you moron,’ he growled, trying once again to summon his Tempestoral magic, ‘I told you to kill the crazy bitch and instead yo—’
‘Trust me for once, you idiot!’ I pleaded with him. ‘She’s not trying to cast a blood binding on you– she just wants the damned jackal! Put the mutt down–gently.’
Corrigan’s eyes narrowed in that way he has that suggests he’s far too clever to risk his life overreacting to petty grievances against me when he’d much rather take his time concocting a suitable punishment for my various offences against him. On the other hand, he’d never told me he was married, so, you know, there was a debate to be had over which of us had committed the greater offence to our friendship.
No, I didn’t think that argument would hold much water, either.
Nonetheless, he set the squirming animal on the ground. It promptly nipped his hand again– the same one it had already bitten, I noticed– before racing to Galass and leaping into her arms. She started sobbing in desperate, manic relief that there was still one tiny part of her world that hasn’t been taken away from you.
