Chapter 36 Loyal to the End
Loyal to the End
He should have known she wouldn’t leave. Loyal to a fault, his lirai, and Nigel was going to carry the shame of having dragged her down into the grave.
The warm flood of instinctive power was at his back, a bright colorless spark popping from his signet, and her touch was clumsy but undeniable.
The flow was far more manageable than previously; at first, as he met the first two moonhounds and lopped one in half, the other screaming a high childlike cry as its sides were lashed with Flame-scorch, he thought she had learned how to regulate the current, fatigue teaching her what he could not.
Then he realized she was simply dividing her focus, providing her single, sealed close-guard with a truly amazing degree of force while also fighting the Mad God for the soul of another Son.
Edward—collapsed among a stinking mass of sarnaki, nthlei, jana-spiders, leng-spiders, kthul too young for rudimentary wing-stumps, and lunn’yie—was in full seizure, his choke screams of agony bouncing into the gorge with a flood of other, far less wholesome auditory chaos.
There were no goatmen or revenants, for while useful in sieges or assaults, neither did well during long hunts.
The last bit of anything approaching good news was that the spiders, both jana and leng, could not quite scuttle on the bridge’s rickety supports, creosote soaking downward from the ties proving a deterrent against their bristle-padded feet.
This was a natural chokepoint; Nigel had intended to hold them for as long as possible while she fled, buying his lirai’s freedom with his own life.
Now they would both die, along with his Elder, who had been captured and driven by the god, tracking a fellow Son. If by some miracle Edward survived this, the shame might well—
A sarnaki lunged, ivory spearpoint spattering clear caustic venom.
Nigel was forced to give ground, and squeezed off a shot to shatter the thing’s hissing, madly grinning head, the sorcery-guided bullet tumbling into a nest of tentacles beyond.
The baby kthul squealed, but the missile’s drift had not managed to find the nerve-cluster anchoring it to the physical world.
Smoke and effort burned his lungs. Overhand slash, a kick to help the rotting corpse of a nthlei along its already downward trajectory, tangling an attacking kthlei’s front paws in swiftly rotting sludge.
The swordblade left traceries of Flame-blessing like oil streaked on the air, the kiss of a Dreamer’s power roaring through him.
How much did she have left? Absolute insanity that she had not fled; he could not imagine the bravery it took for her to face this onslaught.
Pain, striping his left arm—two more sarnaki had darted onto the bridge, hiss-squeaking in the language of filthy sorcery they used to worship their hideous lord, and the neurotoxin on their spears was going to impair function.
He stamped hard, driving the blade laterally, and eviscerated the first one.
His sword lodged in the second; the creature forced itself forward, a jana-spider crowding on its other side.
If even one creature lunged past, his glowing, vulnerable Dreamer would be easy prey.
They would injure her first, feeding on her fear, and the sarnaki would take her to some noisome cavern.
Then would come slow torture, for nothing pleased the god more than a lirai drained and tormented in blasphemous rites until finally, irrevocably soul-broken.
Death afterward would be a release.
Why had she not listened, not fled? Such bravery, such utter trust, shaming him to the very depths—fighting blindly, determined, throwing her last reserves into a doomed battle. Was it any wonder the ancient Sons had changed sides, welcomed into a redemption they did not, could not deserve?
Another bullet, a jana-spider nearly exploding from the slug’s Flame-glaze, and he didn’t have nearly enough ammo.
Nor could he reload. It would have to be battle in the old way, rage and steel, the iron rails to either side now also picking up a faint golden glow, the edges coruscating with every color in the visible spectrum—and beyond.
No, don’t waste your energy, just go, turn around and run.
He knew it wouldn’t be long. There were simply too many of the unclean.
Again he was driven back, parrying a sarnaki’s sweep and stamping down with his back foot to break a slender, fallen ivory spear.
Even the shards were dangerous; his boots held, the splintering like dry matchwood and Edward’s voice rising to a throat-scouring roar.
He wanted to encourage, tell the lad to fight, but there was no point, no time, no breath, nothing. Teeth bared, limbs smoking with fury, heart hammering, Nigel could do nothing but prolong the inevitable.
Dead. He was already dead, and when they trampled his twitching corpse she would be next.