Chapter Ten #2
Panic seized her by the throat.
They were dead and she was sitting in a field of corpses.
But then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to find one of her lu’tan, his Fey skin shining faintly silver in the night, walking along the perimeter of the encampment.
He paused to speak with another warrior seated on a tree stump and whatever they were saying made them laugh softly.
Ellysetta blinked and the wash of red disappeared. She looked at Rain more closely and noted the faint glow of his skin and the rise and fall of his chest. The air left her lungs on a relieved breath. Not dead, thanks the gods. Only sleeping.
Gods save her. She scrubbed her hands over her face. She’d had so little sleep this last week, her mind was playing tricks on her. She could have sworn that when she first looked at them, she’d seen them all dead. She’d been sure of it.
Even now, she could still smell the bitter stench of death in the air, taste it with each breath she dragged into her lungs.
Evil crouched in the darkness, reeking of malevolence.
The sensation was so real, so vivid, every muscle in her body drew tight.
Her skin throbbed with revulsion and stabbing pain.
Ellysetta drew her hands slowly from her face and strained her eyes to pierce the darkness beyond the borders of the camp. Neither physical eyes nor Fey vision could detect anything amiss, but she knew something was wrong. Something was very wrong, and it wasn’t her imagination.
“Rain.” She reached for his shoulder, keeping her movements small. ?Shei’tan, wake up. I think we’re in trouble.?
His breathing stilled. He went motionless as stone; then his eyes opened.
?There’s something out there.? She touched her fingers to the skin of his neck so he could feel the sick horror coiling inside her.
?Demon.? His eyes glowed and their focus went slightly hazy. Around them, she sensed as much as saw the change in her quintet as each warrior woke, and their hands crept towards their steel.
A split second later, the two guards laughing softly by the perimeter of the camp fell abruptly silent. She turned to see them fall to the ground, bodies limp, throats gaping. There was no sign of whatever had killed them.
?Stay close to your quintet.? That was all Rain said to her before his shout ripped the stillness of the night. “Fey! Bote cha!” Blades at the ready! “Lu’tan, ti’Feyreisa!”
Warriors leapt to their feet, magic blazing. Fey’cha flew into the darkness. Her quintet closed ranks around her as Rain shot skyward on a jet of Air, summoning the great magic of the Change.
whatever was out there still did not show itself, but from all around them came a strange whirring thrum, like a thousand cats purring.
“Shields!” Gaelen cried.
“Air masters, deflect missiles!” Bel shouted alongside him.
Bowstrings, Ellysetta realized. The purring sound was bowstrings, hundreds of them, released in near-perfect unison from a close distance.
Her quintet ringed close, spinning a canopy of steel and magic over her head.
The rest of the lu’tan hefted steel war shields high while Air masters spun a whirlwind to disperse the incoming arrows.
The sel’dor missiles were too numerous. A dozen lu’tan fell to the enemy’s fire, and scores more flinched as barbed sel’dor shafts sank deep in their flesh.
Overhead, Rain’s vertical ascent ended abruptly as black shafts, far thicker than standard arrows, slammed into his golden war steel, piercing his chest, hip, and thigh.
“Rain!” she cried as he dropped from the sky. Instinctively, she lurched towards him.
?Stay with your quintet!? he commanded. His Spirit voice throbbed with pain.
He landed hard, but leapt to his feet in an instant.
With both hands, he griped the thick sel’dor shaft protruding from his chest and yanked it free.
Ellysetta cried out as pain seared her senses, but Rain just set his jaw and pulled the second missile free from his hip, then the third from his thigh.
He dropped them on the ground at his feet and spun a small weave of Earth and Fire to stop his wounds from bleeding.
Ellysetta wept. The need to go to him was overpowering, but he was already wading into battle, blades drawn, teeth bared in a snarl. Red Fey’cha flew from his hands into the darkness.
Something else rained down along with the arrows, and the cold, sickly sweet stench of Azrahn filled the air.
Black shadows rose up from within the circle of gathered Fey, as if night itself were attacking.
All around, lu’tan went gray, their glowing essence siphoned away in an instant.
Lifeless, their bodies dropped to the ground without a sound.
“Demons!” Warriors near the fallen men shouted the warning. “Five-fold weaves, Fey!” Powerful weaves flared to life, but between the demons, their invisible attackers, and the hail of sel’dor arrows raining down, Fey were dropping at alarming rates.
“Where are they?” someone cried. “Flames scorch it, I can’t see anything!”
“They’re using the Brotherhood’s invisibility weaves, like they did in Orest,” Gaelen shouted over the din. “If we can find the ones spinning the weaves, we can bring them down.”
“Fat lot of use that is,” Tajik snarled. “If we can’t find the rultsharts shooting those jaffing arrows, how the scorching Hells are we going to find the bogrots spinning those weaves?”
“Well, we’d better do something, and fast,” Bel snapped in reply. “Because they’re slaughtering us like sheep in a pen.”
On the west flank, a red Fey’cha struck the holder of one of the invisibility weaves in the throat. A body sprawled in the grass, Fey in appearance, except for the scar that ran from temple to the corner of his mouth.
“Dahl’reisen!” the lu’tan closest to the body cried. The dead dahl’reisen’s invisibility weave winked out, revealing a company of Elden archers and three blue-robed Primages. “Dahl’reisen are holding the invisibility weaves!”
The warrior who’d slain the dahl’reisen fell to his knees, shrieking as if his skin were being peeled off his body.
Fey could not kill other Fey—not even dahl’reisen—without losing their own soul in the process, but the lu’tan had bound their souls in service to Ellysetta.
They could not become dahl’reisen. Apparently, however, they still felt the agony of taking a life that had once been Fey.
“Blessed gods,” Ellysetta wept as an echo of his agony ripped across his lute’asheiva bond. Even protected by twenty-five-fold weaves, she could practically feel her soul being ripped asunder. She fell to her knees and pressed her hands to her temples.
“Ellysetta!” Bel cried.
?Shei’tani!?
She clenched her jaw and fought to keep from screaming. ?It’s not me. It’s Lathiel. He’s in such pain. Oh, gods, it hurts. It hurts.?
“Fey!” Rain shouted. “Sel cha! Unless you see your target, throw black, not red! They have dahl’reisen with them!”
Behind the slain dahl’reisen, the now-visible Elden archers fired a barrage of arrows towards the Fey, while two Primages loosed large, blue-white globes of Mage Fire as cover.
The third Primage spun Azrahn to open a portal to the Well of Souls.
Fey’cha rained down upon the Eld, but the Mages and most of the archers leapt to safety into the Well before the Fey daggers hit their marks.
At the sight of the Mages, hot anger sparked to life deep inside her, and a familiar voice hissed, Vengeance. Vengeance. Make them pay for what they’ve done. She clapped frantic hands over her ears and cried, “Stop it!”
Another demon spawned barely two man lengths from her, and two lu’tan died before her quintet vanquished the dark thing with blazing tenfold weaves.
“Flames scorch it,” Tajik swore. “If we don’t get rid of those archers and the Mages calling those demons, we’ll all be dead inside of half a bell.”
“If we can get rid of the dahl’reisen holding the invisibility weaves, the Eld won’t find it so easy to evade our blades.” Bel glanced at Ellysetta, then away. His eyes took on the faint lavender glow of Spirit.
A few moments later, Rain’s voice sounded urgently on a private Spirit weave.
?Ellysetta. Forgive me, shei’tani, but we need your help to locate the dahl’reisen.
None of us can sense them, but you can if we lower your shields.
And if you can find them, you can guide our aim so we can take them out and bring down their invisibility weaves. ?
She looked at the fallen lu’tan and the desperate battle raging around her. Once more, the familiar terrible rage rose up from within her and clawed for release. Kill them all. Shred their flesh from their bones.
Having just felt Lathiel’s torment after he’d slain that dahl’reisen, she knew what Rain was asking her to do.
Simply opening herself up enough to sense the dahl’reisen would cause her incredible pain.
But that would pale in comparison to the agony the lu’tan—and she, through their lute’asheiva bond—would feel when they killed the dahl’reisen holding the weaves.
But she also knew that if they didn’t do something soon, they were all dead. Or worse than dead. What choice was there?
?Do it,? she said. And the wild, angry thing inside her hissed its delight.
Rain sent the instruction to Bel on a grim private weave.
?Do it, Bel.? He stifled his protective shei’tan’s instincts and braced himself for a fierce surge of Rage.
Once those shields came down and Ellysetta could sense the dahl’reisen, her pain would drive him to the edge of madness.
He knew it. Bel knew it. He just hoped he had strength enough to keep the tairen in check.