CRUSADE #2
“It started after we took the Guard headquarters,” said Seth.
“Ged planned to launch attacks from there and from Sloane Ancarath’s storage buildings, so we’d take the palace and the Cathedral.
I thought it was odd we met so little resistance, but then the polyhedra moved in and .
. .” He trailed off. “Blasted every one of our bases to rubble. There’s nothing left.
It’s indiscriminate. I watched one disintegrate an old man, who’d just opened his door to see what the Source-spawned fuck was going on.
But when the building’s coming down around you, most people aren’t going to wait quietly indoors.
” He looked like he might be sick. “The only place they won’t target is the Cathedral.
The priests aren’t letting anyone inside, but the immediate vicinity seems safe enough.
Once I figured out we were going to lose, I did my best to get the word out. Then I came for you.”
“What about the others?” Jacen asked. “Saraida? Ged?”
“Alive, as far as I know. Saraida was leading a team to the docks. I’m meant to be with her. Ged . . . If he’s smart, he’ll have run for the deepriver to regroup what’s left of our forces. But—”
“He’s Ged,” Jacen finished for him, and Seth nodded with a grimace. Before the audience chamber, they faced the door carved with the frieze of the Six. It was cracked across the top, and this seemed to have destroyed whatever mechanism held it shut.
Jacen searched beyond the door. Only an amorphous picture materialized, but he detected at least four presences.
“Several people inside,” Nines said, as she did the same. “I can’t say exactly. They’re trained for defense. Could be a telepath.”
“Oh, good.” Seth drew his sword. “Stay back until we’ve cleared the room.” To Jacen, he offered a lopsided grin. “I’ll go ahead. You keep them off me. Just like back at school, right?”
Jacen tried to laugh. He managed a cough. “I’ve got you.”
With a nervous glance upward, Seth kicked the right side of the door open. He stepped back, arm at his side to keep Jacen from advancing until it was clear they wouldn’t be crushed.
Inside, half the ceiling was gone. It had begun to rain and the floor glistened with wetness. High Lord Avram Semira sheltered below what was left of his throne, with another figure cloaked in shadow.
Five knights of the City Guard met Jacen and Seth at a run.
Jacen targeted the woman with the lieutenant’s armband. He seized hold of her mind, and she froze, muscles rigid. Though she fought him, she could not put up nearly so much of a struggle as Lev. Blood trickled from her nose. She collapsed.
Seth’s thrown knife hit the knight to her left, embedding in his throat. Two more hands dropped to swords as he fell. The last knight stopped and raised a longbow. Jacen diverted his focus to her. The lieutenant, back in control of herself, scrambled up from the floor with a disoriented cry.
They proceeded in this manner. Each time a knight came too close to harming Seth, Jacen switched his target. When only two remained standing, the lieutenant ran at Jacen, forcing him to concentrate solely on her. Seth traded blows with the other.
Raindrops clung to Jacen’s lashes, blurred his vision. He didn’t dare move and risk losing focus, because the lieutenant was ready this time. She kept her feet as she threw up mental walls, pushing Jacen back to search for gaps in her defenses—
—when another presence entered the fray.
A sword rammed through the lieutenant from behind, splitting her unarmored throat.
The pain was so sudden, so extreme, Jacen wrenched himself out of her mind with a yell.
He landed flat on his back in a puddle, gasping, staring up at the falling rain.
Another armored knight, massive and wearing a hooded cloak, loomed over him.
“You useless drunk. You gave me up, forced my hand, and now look where we are.” Ged Semira flicked his sword, shaking loose a spray of blood and water. He pointed it at Jacen. “Get up. I want to look you in the eye when I kill you.”
Slowly, Jacen climbed to his feet. By the throne, the High Lord and his companion hadn’t moved. There was no sign of Nines.
Seth kicked his opponent in the chest, decapitated him as he fell, and shouted, “Ged!” He approached at a run. “He had no choice.”
Ged glanced at his brother. “You broke him out, didn’t you? You never did learn how to follow orders.”
Jacen tried to back away, out of Ged’s reach, while his focus was split.
But Ged pivoted, lightning-quick, and swung his sword down in an arc that would have taken off Jacen’s head.
Jacen barely sensed his intent in time to dodge.
Ged struck again—but Seth brought up his own sword, knocking Ged’s out of the way.
Metal clanged against metal. The brothers circled each other, blades in parallel. Ged’s eyes had gone wide with fury. “You don’t want to fight me.”
“Try it,” Seth snapped. He did not lower his sword. “Remember what happened last time we sparred?”
Though few would have dared say it to Ged’s face, Seth had always been the superior swordsman. Even tired, even out of prime fighting shape, he would prove a formidable opponent. Seth knew it. Ged knew it. A shadow fell over his face, and he lowered his sword.
Seth stood firmly between Ged and Jacen. “For gods’ sake, we are all on the same side.”
Jacen did not dare move. He had no right to make demands. He watched and held his breath, the only sound the patter of rain on stone.
“Stand down,” said Seth. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Avram Semira’s voice thundered across the shattered chamber. “Enough!”
The High Lord limped toward them, injured but furious. Trailing after him was Ogden. The old healer briefly met Jacen’s eyes but behaved as though they’d never met. He moved at a leisurely pace and said nothing as Avram demanded of his sons, “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“We’ve saved you,” Ged snarled.
Those knights, Jacen realized, had not been protecting Avram.
They had been keeping him—and Ogden—prisoner.
“My own honor guard—Captain Armias, all of them, following Church orders—” Avram almost lost his balance on the rain-slicked floor.
His clothing was torn, his face bruised, and blood crusted on his tattooed forehead.
“The inquisitors will be here soon. The gods have lost confidence in our family. We have held this city together since the Cataclysm, and you’ve ruined us.
” He stabbed a finger at Ged. “I should have known better. You were never worthy of this legacy. Of course you would be the one to destroy it. And you, Seth”—hurt emanated from the High Lord as he looked to his younger son—“I thought better of you.”
Ged’s face contorted—a desperate attempt to hold in a torrent of emotion for which they had no time. He spat at his father, “What legacy? Our power was never real. If you’d rather mourn that era than build a new one, perhaps you ought to die with it.”
“You don’t understand,” said the High Lord. “We’re all already dead.
Casandra and Damir are dead. I received word yesterday.” Seth’s grip on his sword trembled. “Oh, gods.”
Jacen had never known Ged to be a caring father, even to his legitimate children.
He’d left the work of raising them to his late wife Lilaya and only took an interest in the twins when they began their training for knighthood.
But now he was overcome with horror. He managed just one word, barely a croak: “How?”
“Your son died by the sword.” Avram’s voice carried the weight of grief, but he left no room for misinterpretation. “Your daughter was burned.”
“Oh, gods,” Seth said again. He reached toward his brother, only to be ignored. “That shouldn’t have happened.” To Avram, he said sharply, “And Neri?”
“You know perfectly well it’d be a miracle if he survived.”
He found the demon, Jacen realized. He searched Ogden’s face for a reaction, and this time, he saw one—the briefest flicker of triumph.
“You never found Neri,” Jacen asserted. “The Church doesn’t have him, do they?”
Avram said nothing.
“He’s with that woman,” said Ged. “When I find her—”
Avram held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. You sent your children to the canyon. You started this war. Their blood is on your hands.”
Above, a gap in the rainclouds let in the moonslight. The High Lord’s black metal ring glimmered, and something occurred to Jacen. He pointed at it. “You use that ring to control Zivora’s infrastructure, don’t you?” Ged had said as much. “What else does it do?”
Avram’s face betrayed no emotion, but he was in no state to lie to a telepath. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The polyhedra.” Jacen spoke slowly, puzzling it out. “Can you shut them down?”
“Of course not.”
But now, Jacen was certain. “He’s lying.”
“Shut them down?” Seth repeated. “The weapons?” He rounded on his father. “If you could stop this, why haven’t you?”
“You refuse to understand!” Avram threw his hands in the air. “It would be a temporary measure. We cannot fight them, you fools.”
That fear in him . . . Its bloody aura suffused the air. He sounded like Akkani.
With a sudden violence that made the old man stumble, Ged seized the High Lord by the wrist. He tore the black ring from Avram’s hand and held it up in front of his nose. “You’re a coward.”
Avram said to Seth, “I should have made you my heir. It might never have come to this.”
But Seth looked like he’d been slapped. Ged demanded, as if Avram hadn’t spoken, “How do I shut the polyhedra down?”
“The system will answer only to me,” Avram said wearily. “My blood. My voice. And I will not worsen my sentence, or yours, by defying the gods.” He glanced at Jacen. “Don’t bother trying to compel me. I can keep you out long enough that it won’t make a difference.”
“There must be a way to transfer control,” said Ged.
Ogden finally spoke. “There’s no time.” He tilted his head, as though straining to hear something. “If we’re going to escape, we have to go now.”