Lorelle of the Dark, page 26
“Shall I take their weapons, Shadowmaster?” another Nox asked.
“Let’s talk instead,” Khyven said. “Perhaps you can help us.”
The Shadowmaster’s eyes became flinty and Vohn’s stomach clenched.
The Nox subordinate looked from his superior to Khyven and back, but the staring war continued. Finally, with no clear winner, the Shadowmaster said, “No.”
“No?” the Nox asked incredulously.
“This one wants to die with his sword in hand, and if he demands it, I’ll oblige him. Let’s talk about your choices, Human,” the Shadowmaster said.
“I love choices,” Khyven replied.
“You can die here or you can surrender, give us your weapons, keep your dignity, and, as long as you behave yourselves, your lives. Those are your two choices. That is all. Personally, I wouldn’t give you the second, but I have been ordered to extend that courtesy to any Humans we found wandering our perimeter. I assume you are friends of the Luminent Lorelle.”
Khyven glanced sharply at Slayter. The mage grinned like he’d somehow expected this. Vohn would swear Slayter looked like he was having the time of his life, as if witnessing a horde of Nox was absolutely worth the fact that he might, in a moment, die.
“You know Lorelle?” Khyven asked.
“No Luminent has set foot in Nox Arvak in centuries. Everyone knows the name Lorelle.”
“Is she safe?”
The Shadowmaster smiled cruelly again. “I will repeat your choices: you can die here, or you can be brought to a place and time where Aravelle will decide what is to be done with you. Have I somewhere mentioned a third choice that involves me answering your questions?”
“You remind me of a king I used to know,” Khyven said. “He thought he had everything in hand, too.”
“A threat,” the Shadowmaster said. “Amusing.” He held out his hand. “Last chance, Human. Death or capture?”
Vohn felt a grudging respect for this Nox. He wasn’t stupid. He didn’t have to phrase it like that. Apparently, he knew Khyven better than Vohn assumed, knew how the Ringer would respond to the word “capture,” and was spoiling for a fight. Khyven wasn’t going to give up his sword. To Khyven, letting go of his weapon and trusting an enemy was lunacy.
“Khyven,” Vohn warned. “Maybe Lorelle sent them. Maybe she’s made friends here. Maybe they’re here to escort us. Just—”
“I understand my choices,” Khyven said. “I don’t think he understands his.”
“Khyven!”
“Is that a dragon?” Slayter blurted, pointing up at the sky with his free hand.
It was such a bizarre statement that the Shadowmaster actually glanced in the indicated direction.
His eyes widened. He sucked in a breath to shout orders—
Khyven attacked like a bolt of lightning.
Everything seemed to happen at once. The Shadowmaster flew backward into the darkness. Something punched Vohn in the chest so hard he sat down.
And the forest exploded into flame.
Chapter Forty-one
Lorelle
The mushroom of natural fire was like a sunburst in the sky, and both Lorelle and Zaith shielded their eyes.
“What was that?” she asked. There were so many natural phenomena in the noktum that she wondered if this was something expected, something she simply hadn’t seen before. But one look at the alarm on Zaith’s face told her this was nothing he’d ever seen before.
“The dragon,” she murmured.
“Grina…” he whispered. “What did we do?” Zaith threw his wine glass to the ground and sprinted back up the path, moving with more speed than she’d ever seen. Lorelle hurried after him, but fell quickly behind. She’d never seen Zaith run at full speed with no care whether she could keep up or not.
Lorelle burst into the courtyard before Aravelle’s palace seconds after Zaith and skidded to a stop next to him. All the partygoers were frozen, looking to the north where the fire was fading, leaving a silhouette of smoke behind. The onlookers were fixed on where the fire had been, but Lorelle searched the skies around it…
And spotted the dragon. Its lithe, black silhouette moved against the indigo sky. It seemed like a bat at first, but it soon got bigger and bigger, and it was coming their way.
A scream rose from the group as the dragon’s shape became clear, far too large to be any normal animal.
Zaith stood with his mouth open, as if his mind couldn’t comprehend what he should do next to protect his people from the dragon.
“Aravelle,” Lorelle said, and that snapped Zaith out of it. He launched himself forward, leaping over the heads of the stunned Nox to land on the veranda. Lorelle leapt after him, barely clearing the crowd and almost kicking one of the former dancers in the head.
“Where is she?” Zaith demanded of the stunned attendant who had given them wine. The young man just stared at him. Zaith grabbed him, showing teeth. “Where is she?”
“Th-The library,” the attendant stuttered.
Zaith spun on Lorelle, a snarl on his face, his eyes flashing. For a breathless instant, she thought he would attack her.
“Get Aravelle,” he growled. “Find her. Get her into the shadows. If you ever had any care for us at all, get her out of here!”
Zaith jumped off the veranda, clearing the wall and landing on the courtyard below, before heading into the city.
“Where are you going?” she shouted.
“Get her! Protect her!” he yelled back, and then he was gone, vanished around the edge of a house.
She shot a glance to her right. The dragon was so close he seemed to swallow the horizon. She spun and sprinted up the steps into the palace. The screams rose behind them as the partygoers scattered.
“Aravelle!” she shouted. Doorways and windows flashed by as she ran for the library. She sprang onto the wall and ran across it in an arc before regaining the floor to keep her speed up. Her legs burned as she pounded down the hall toward the library.
“Aravelle!” she called again. The old Nox was just exiting the giant double doors on the right and she looked up when she heard her name. One of the old Nox’s attendants was further down the hall, as if Aravelle was about to go from the library deeper into the palace, probably to her rooms.
The Nox attendant’s eyes widened when he saw Lorelle bearing down on them. The attendant snarled as he drew a dagger. From the very beginning, most of the Nox had thought Lorelle was an assassin. She’d started to gain their trust, she’d thought, but no doubt the attendant was sure this was his worst nightmare coming true, that Lorelle was finally showing her true colors. Lorelle didn’t have time to explain, nor to tell the attendant that a far worse nightmare was almost upon them.
There was a window directly across from the library’s great double doors, and Lorelle’s plan came together in a second. Crooked, nonsensical shadows hovered on either side of the window and just beyond.
The attendant moved fast, drawing and flipping the dagger at Lorelle. Aravelle simply stood there, unafraid, a look of concentration on her face, as though she might understand why Lorelle was running at her, full tilt.
Lorelle let go of her control, let the darkness flow through her. She saw the dagger coming her way, but more than that, she felt it pass through the two irregular shadows near the wall.
She swayed, her left shoulder leaning back even as she reached for Aravelle. The dagger missed her by a hair as she caught hold of the old Nox.
“Lorelle—”
But Lorelle didn’t answer, didn’t say anything.
Get her into the shadows…
Aravelle’s mouth turned into an “O” as Lorelle spun, using the old Nox for a counterlever as she propelled them both in a tight three-quarter circle toward the shadows, toward the window. The attendant cursed and gave chase.
Lorelle felt the cool strength of the shadow envelope her. She felt the glass of the window shatter as her back hit it, her arms protectively around Aravelle.
The palace exploded in fire.
Chapter Forty-two
Khyven
Khyven saw the dragon half an instant after Slayter, and he knew what it meant. Not in terms of the dangers of dragons or what he might expect in the next few seconds from that quarter. He didn’t know anything about dragons. He knew even less about Nox.
But Khyven knew combat.
The dragon had grabbed everyone’s attention, which had been focused on Khyven up to that point, and that was an opportunity not to be missed.
He twisted, bringing all the speed of his pivot into the muscle of his shoulder and planted a palm in the center of the Shadowmaster’s chest. The man vanished into the foliage like Khyven had shot him from a catapult. That surprised even Khyven. The man was as light as a paper cutout!
He didn’t spend time thinking about his luck, though. He spun, drew a dagger, and slashed through Slayter’s sleeve, freeing him from the arrow pinning his arm to the tree.
He kept spinning, staying in motion. A moving fighter was far more difficult to hit, and already two lines of blue wind shot from the darkness. They’d loosed arrows: one for Slayter, one for Khyven. With a grunt, Khyven thrust his dagger precisely into the path of the blue line headed for Slayter even as he twisted his torso to avoid the one that would have punched into his belly.
The first arrow sparked on Khyven’s dagger as it was deflected. The second whistled past Khyven, the arrow’s feathers humming against his armor, and hit something behind him.
Khyven, still moving, drew his sword and spun toward the archers. Archers loved distance. It was easy to pick people off when they were twenty feet away. But they liked it a lot less when a swordsman leapt among them. Arrows made for horrible shields.
He charged—
—and the forest exploded in fire. The flames engulfed Khyven, blasting him backward. He tumbled through the tall grass and came to his feet, expecting to be charred and bloody.
He wasn’t.
Stunned, he looked back at the forest. The trees where they’d all been standing flared like an enormous torch. Nox screamed. Shadowy figures thrashed in the flames, trying to escape as their bodies burned.
Blinking, he looked down at himself again. He should be incinerated…
“Ha!” Slayter hopped toward Khyven on one leg, looking triumphant. Orange light surrounded his fist as bits of clay fell away.
Only then did Khyven see the nimbus of orange light around himself. It slowly faded, and he flinched, bringing up a hand to shield his eyes as he suddenly felt the heat of the flames.
“Slayter!” he exclaimed.
“Right? I knew I’d have reason for that spell some day!” the mage exclaimed. “They laughed at me, but I made it anyway. ‘When are you going to ever face dragon fire?’ they said. ‘You’re wasting your time’ they said. Who’s laughing now?”
Khyven shook his head. “Where’s Vohn?”
“I got him.” Slayter pointed into the tall grass. “He tripped over his feet in there, but I got him.”
Khyven spotted the white horns of the Shadowvar as he raised his head, looking dazed.
“What about the rest of them?”
“I was supposed to save them, too?” Slayter asked.
“Are they dead?”
“It’s dragon fire!” Slayter replied, as though that explained it all. He was still hopping on one leg.
“What’s wrong with your leg?”
“I’m not very graceful, is all.”
“Your prosthetic?”
“It got hung up. It’s sort of backward now. Stupid roots are everywhere in there. I’m sure you didn’t notice. Your feet seem to have eyes of their own, but not all of us can be Ringers. Although I have wondered what it would be like—”
“Slayter!”
Slayter’s eyes widened, as though he honestly didn’t realize that talking about his idle fantasies about being a Ringer while surrounded by dragon fire was out of place.
“Check on Vohn. I’m going to see if anyone survived,” Khyven said.
“Oh, right. Of course.”
“And tell me one thing, is that dragon coming back?” Khyven scanned the sky, but he couldn’t see anything.
“Uh,” Slayter said. “I don’t know. That’s not… How do I predict a dragon? I’m not a Lore Mage.”
“Fine. Don’t trip on anything else.”
“Don’t trip on anything else, he says,” Slayter murmured to himself. “Just be like me, he says. It’s easy, he says.” Slayter hobbled toward Vohn lying in the high grass.
Khyven approached the burning forest, squinting at the heat, and he tried to see if anyone had survived. It didn’t seem likely. It looked like the flames had struck exactly where the archers had been.
He spotted someone. To the right of the fire, a figure staggered at the edge of the woods. Khyven sprinted toward it, wincing at the heat, and reached the Nox.
It was the Shadowmaster. His right arm and the right side of his face were burned and bubbling. He stumbled, a surprised look on his face, like he wasn’t sure where he was.
“Come on,” Khyven said, putting the Nox’s good arm over his shoulder and half-carrying him away from the blaze.
The Nox slumped against him, his feet barely moving as Khyven took his entire weight and got them to the grass. He laid the man down.
The Nox’s right eye was burned blind, his teeth were exposed on the right side of his face, but still he tried to talk. “Nox…”
“They’re… They’re gone, I think,” Khyven said. He’d been prepared to kill this man, to fight to the death, but no one should have to suffer this.
“Nox… Arvak…” the Shadowmaster said. He reached awkwardly with his good arm across his body, toward the forest.
No, not toward the forest, toward the city beyond the forest.
“Nox Arvak is your city,” Khyven said.
“Family…” he said.
Something dark and immense blotted out the charcoal sky for an instant, and Khyven flinched. The dragon!
Its massive bulk flew low to the ground, flashing past them, circling the forest then straightening, heading for the city.
“Please…” the Shadowmaster said.
A piercing roar shook the air and another blast of fire erupted on the other side of the forest, where Slayter’s map had shown the city to be.
“Is that where Lorelle is?” Khyven shouted at the Shadowmaster over the continuing roar of the dragon. “Is Lorelle in the city?” he demanded.
The man let out a long sigh, his eyes went glassy, and he stopped breathing. He was gone.
The dragon’s roar finally stopped, only then did Khyven realize Slayter had been shouting for him.
“Khyven!” he called. “Khyven get over here.” He sounded panicked. Slayter was never panicked.
Khyven leapt from his crouch to a full sprint and made it to them in a heartbeat, sliding to his knees next to Vohn.
Vohn stared up at them, his eyes watering. “I knew… I knew if I… was friends with you long enough, Khyven… it would be the death of me.”
A black-feathered arrow was sticking up from the little Shadowvar’s chest.
Chapter Forty-three
Khyven
Khyven ran through the forest, carrying the unconscious Vohn in his arms. The little Shadowvar weighed practically nothing, but Khyven’s guilt dragged at him like an anchor.
The arrow stuck in Vohn’s chest had been meant for Khyven. He remembered dodging it, remembered hearing it strike something behind him. That something had been Vohn.
Khyven wanted to fight someone, wanted to kill an enemy, but all he could do was run pell-mell through these damned trees toward a burning city, hoping against hope that Lorelle would be there and, if she was, that she’d be able to help Vohn.
Every bit of this was Khyven’s fault.
The conversation he’d had with Vohn just before they’d gone to search for Rauvelos had been heated. Khyven hadn’t wanted Vohn on the trip. The mage, yes. Going deep into the Great Noktum, it made every kind of sense to take a Line Mage with him. For one thing, he knew every damned thing, and he could do things Khyven didn’t understand. Most importantly, he could find Lorelle with the little gadget he and Vohn had created.
But Vohn wasn’t a mage, and he sure as hell wasn’t a fighter. He was a scholar. He made trinkets. He was a voice of reason in the council meetings, a mediator between Slayter’s esoteric ramblings and Khyven’s emotional outbursts. That final moment, when Khyven had finally relented, played over and over in his mind:
* * *
“The last person who should go adventuring into the wild, into the uncharted noktum, into jaws of certain death, is you,” Khyven pointed out.
“Really?”
“Vohn, you could barely run five hundred yards through the noktum.” Khyven recalled his first trip into the noktum through the Night Ring. “I had to carry you.”
“I would say I have far more experience rescuing a friend than you,” Vohn replied calmly, referring to the time when he’d snuck into the Night Ring and freed Khyven and Shalure from Vamreth’s cages.
“That was different—”
“Who carried whom that time?” Vohn cut him off.
“Vohn…” Khyven said, but he could think of no rejoinder. Khyven would be dead if not for the little Shadowvar.
Vohn continued packing.
“This isn’t the same,” Khyven said. “This is likely the Great Noktum we’re talking about.”
“And for some reason you think this means you are better suited?”
“You’re not a fighter, Vohn.”
“Certainly not,” Vohn agreed.
“We’re going to need to fight.”
“Of course. And for that we have you. Who better to handle combat than Khyven the Unkillable? And what if you need information? Shall we rely on the giant hole in your education to sustain you?”
“I’ll have Slayter.”
“Who will undoubtedly abandon you the moment a glowing noktum frog catches his attention.”
