Chapter 47 Dimas
FORTY-SEVEN
DIMAS
Dimas had been struggling against the cultist holding him when the grip on his arms went slack.
The cultist had dragged Dimas down one of the three sets of steps leading to the ritual platform, so that they now stood amongst at least another dozen robed heretics. They froze when the cultist restraining Dimas went down, his body hitting the stone with a sickening thud.
Dimas turned around just in time to see Casimir dropping down from a shadowed cliff, the hood of the cultist’s robes he wore pulled back to reveal his grinning face. “Sorry we’re late,” he said.
And then he lunged.
The cultists who weren’t on the raised platform with Lenora and Roston barely had time to reach for their weapons before Casimir’s daggers flew through the air. The blades embedded themselves into two of the Haestas’ chests.
The chanting of the cultists surrounding his Fateweaver faltered. “Do not stop!” Roston ordered. “Iska, ensure they do not reach the girl.”
Dimas hadn’t even noticed his cousin was present.
She’d been inside the circle of chanting cultists, her hood drawn over her face.
Something cold ran down his spine at the sight of her on the edge of the platform, her hood pulled back, her expression devoid of warmth as she ordered the cultists on the ground to attack.
The cultist nearest to Dimas raised her sword.
Instinct taking over, Dimas lunged for the nearest fallen weapon, raising it just in time to block an incoming attack. Metal clashed against metal, and Dimas barely had time to adjust his stance as the cultist feigned right and went in for another blow.
Dimas rolled out of the way just in time. He was back on his feet a second later, preparing to block another attack, when an arrow whistled past him and went straight through the cultist’s chest.
Maia appeared beside him a few seconds later, bow in hand. But Dimas had no time to be surprised; another half dozen cultists were heading toward them, and one of them was chanting.
Dimas’s focus homed in on the lithe female at the front of the group. With her palm held up before her, it was easy to see the symbol inked into her skin. The same one his uncle had shown Lena back in the church.
Not all of them have it, he noted. Only a handful of the cultists had their marked palms facing outward, whilst the rest seemed to be relying upon weapons of steel.
“Focus on the ones with symbols on their hands!” he shouted. And then he moved, diving toward the magic-wielding cultist just as the familiar sensation of shadows brushed against his mind.
Dimas lunged before the magic could take hold, forcing the cultist to dart out of the way of his attack.
Her concentration broke, and like wisps of smoke, the shadows receded.
Dimas didn’t give her a chance to regain it.
He lunged forward, sword slicing through the air in a slash that cut across the cultist’s body.
Her lips parted, blood welling between her teeth, before she slumped to the ground.
Dimas’s stomach churned at the sight. He’d never taken a life before. Never even injured someone outside of sparring. General Alraen had always warned him of how hard it was. Of how taking a human’s life took something from you, too.
The pounding of his heart was so loud that Dimas only heard the cultist coming up behind him a moment before his sword came down.
He lunged out of the way too late. The sword sliced through his side, cutting deep enough to steal the breath from Dimas’s lungs. Pain surged up his side as he blocked another attack, and then another, and another. Aggressive blow after aggressive blow. If Dimas could just find an opening—
There!
The Haesta member swung his sword in an arc above his head, preparing for another blow—and leaving his stomach completely unguarded.
Dimas didn’t try to block the attack. Instead, he waited until the cultist’s arms were completely raised before jabbing out with his sword, piercing straight through the cultist’s stomach in one clean strike.
The man’s movements came to a halting stop, his sword clattering to the ground. Dimas pulled his sword free a second later. Watched as the man fell, lifeless, to the ground.
This time, Dimas didn’t let the guilt in. He raised his weapon once more, preparing to fend off another attack.
But none came. All that was left of the half dozen cultists who had launched their attack were still, bloodied bodies.
Casimir and Maia were still standing. The latter had a nasty gash across her cheek that Finaen—now free of his bindings and standing at his sister’s side—seemed more concerned about than she did.
If the unconscious form of the cultist who had been watching over Finaen and Brother Dunstan was any indication, Finaen must have freed himself during the fight.
Now it was time to deal with Iska.
Dimas faced his cousin once more, sword raised. But she simply tilted her head and said, “It isn’t over yet, cousin. You aren’t the only one with reinforcements.”
A door crashed open somewhere behind them. The echo of multiple footsteps flooded the chamber.
“I take it there’s no sign of Yana and the general?” Dimas asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Not yet,” Casimir said. “Ioseph is still waiting on them, but I doubt he’ll wait much longer.” The unspoken warning behind the Verlondian’s words was clear: if reinforcements showed up after Ioseph left his post, they’d have no way of knowing where Dimas and the rest were.
Dimas’s fingers tightened around his sword. “It doesn’t matter; I’m in this until the end.”
He had to stop the Haesta’s ritual. Even if it cost him everything.
Even if it killed him.
Beside him, Maia drew another arrow. “So am I.”
“Me too.” Finaen nodded.
“I’ve never been one to leave a party early.
” Casimir drew another set of daggers from his coat.
“Heads up!” Casimir yelled, whirling just in time to dodge a blow from an axe-wielding assailant.
The smuggler used the time his dodge had given him to kick the cultist square in the stomach, sending her staggering backward far enough for Maia to shoot an arrow into her chest.
It wasn’t a fatal hit. The cultist recovered quickly, axe swinging above her.
And then she stumbled.
Her steps slowed before coming to a stop, her brow furrowing. With a grunt, she slumped to the floor.
“Well, at least we know your potion works when administered via the bloodstream,” Casimir commented, dodging another attack in a whirl of throwing knives. “Great job, Maia!”
They must have used the remaining potion to douse Maia’s arrows. “Maia,” Dimas yelled, pointing toward two assailants with sigils on their palms, “focus on the ones channeling magic!”
A fierce nod, and then Maia was moving, shooting her next arrow in their direction. A blast of magical energy knocked it aside, sending it snapping uselessly against the ground.
“Dammit!” Maia frowned.
“Go find a vantage point!” Dimas blocked another blow, his teeth gritting as the force of steel against steel vibrated through his bones.
Ears ringing, Dimas danced back and swung his sword out in an arch.
It made a clean slice through the cultist’s stomach.
“Korvus, distract the channelers; Finaen and I will cover you.”
As one, they moved, Maia rushing off behind one of the pillars and out of sight.
Casimir began zigzagging through the remaining cultists, heading straight for the channelers at the bottom of the dais, Finaen close at his heels.
Dimas didn’t let himself think as he ran after them, sword slashing to block incoming blows and deal ones of his own.
Blood coated his sword. His hands. Someone caught him just below the ribs with a dagger, the pain white-hot and blinding.
But he didn’t let himself falter. Arrows flew from somewhere above, hitting those Dimas did not have time to get to.
And then they were less than ten feet away from the channelers.
Dimas grunted as a wave of magical energy crashed into him, Finaen, and Casimir, sending them stumbling to their knees.
“We can’t win like this!” Finaen groaned. “We need to weaken them somehow.”
“The sigils on the pillars!” Casimir whispered sharply. “They’re the same as the ones on their palms; that must be how they’re channeling their magic!”
Dimas followed the Verlondian’s line of sight. There was a single symbol engraved into the stone pillar a few feet to their left, one that began to glow at the exact same time as the symbols on the cultist’s hands.
“You go for the channelers,” Dimas whispered back. “I’ll deal with the sigil!”
Casimir and Finaen didn’t respond. They simply forced themselves to their feet, weapons raised, and lunged.
The channeler’s attention fixed on them immediately, their hands ready for another blow.
Dimas used the distraction to run toward the body of the axe-wielding cultist. To pry his weapon from his hands and head for the pillar.
There were only two other cultists left now beside the channelers and the ones on the dais, and, thankfully, Maia’s arrows were keeping them at bay.
Dimas reached the pillar just as the symbol flared.
You better be right, Korvus, Dimas thought.
And then he swung the axe into the center of the sigil.
The stone cracked, splitting the sigil in half. The three cultists standing before Casimir and Finaen faltered, the lit symbols on their hands flickering.
“Now!”
An arrow flew past Dimas’s head. One of the cultists waved his hand, clearly expecting magic to knock the arrow aside.
The blast of energy that came from him was weak, barely stronger than a small gust of wind.
The arrow veered slightly off course, hitting the cultist in the shoulder instead of the head.
But it was enough to distract him so Casimir could throw one of his knives into his neck.
Finaen took on the female to the right, sliding the sword he’d picked up clean through her chest.
“Enough!”
Iska’s voice pierced through the cavern. The pillars around her and the cultists performing the ritual were still intact, the sigils carved into them glowing brightly. She lifted her own hand, smiling when Dimas’s gaze landed on the sigil inked upon her pale palm.
Dimas braced himself for a blow. For his body to seize up like it had in Naebya’s Church. But Iska wasn’t directing her magic toward him. She was staring at the same door the reinforcements had come through. At the Corrupted now creeping through it.
There were three of them. A wolf-like creature Dimas hadn’t seen before, flanked on either side by two of the monsters that had been in the lower city temple.
“They must not interrupt the ritual!” Iska spoke directly to the creatures. They paused for a moment, and then, in unison, moved to form a line before the dais, blocking Dimas’s path to his cousin. Dimas cursed silently. With Lenora unconscious, they stood no chance against them.
“Those are wrecen,” Maia spoke up, a fierce determination in her eyes. “In Lena’s stories, they were felled by a dagger through the heart.” She looked to Finaen. “And the one in the middle is the same kind we faced in Forvyrg. It’s called a wylfen.”
Something like pride shone on Finaen’s face. “Do you remember how we can kill them?” Finaen asked.
Maia gave a sharp nod. “I think the hero in Lena’s tale defeated it by cutting off its head.”
“Oh, so it should be easy, then,” Casimir remarked.
Dimas tried not to think about how close he’d need to get to the wylfen’s fangs in order to decapitate it.
Or about how low their odds were. If Lenora were awake, if she’d learned how to control her abilities properly, she’d be able to use her power to change the threads of fate in their favor.
Without her, there was only one person Dimas could put his faith into.
Himself.
Years of battle strategy lessons ran through Dimas’s mind. “Maia, Finaen, you take the one on the left. Casimir, the one on the right. I’ll take the wylfen. We go on three.” Dimas took a deep breath. “One, two … three!”