53. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Talyn
A couple hours later, Talyn flexed her grip on the handles of Samhail’s swords as they waited for Sandrian at the border of Rowe and Thasia. Something didn’t feel right, but she couldn’t put her finger on what.
Next to her in the clearing, Samhail knelt on the grass, his hands tied behind him with a slip knot. An unlocked caronium cuff was wrapped around his wrist, giving the illusion he was subdued.
“I seem to end up on my knees in front of you a lot,” Samhail said quietly. “I’m starting to think you like me this way.”
Talyn closed her eyes and vowed not to let him drag her into a conversation that would only distract them both. They needed to keep their wits about them until this was over.
“Hush,” she said, opening her eyes. “You’re supposed to be drugged.”
“Give me something good to put in my mouth, and I’ll be quiet,” he countered. “Although I can’t promise you will be.”
Talyn glared down at him, but he only licked his lips at her. She swore under her breath and turned away.
Gods damn him. The man was incorrigible.
Blue light flared in front of them, and Samhail dropped his head.
Talyn watched the portal open before them and looked through it to where the former King of Rowe stood on the other side. He didn’t move, though, and Talyn’s unease grew. She finally called to him when it looked like he had no intention of stepping through.
“I hear there’s a reward for this one,” Talyn said.
Sandrian frowned at her. “And who are you?”
Talyn blinked in surprise until the issue hit her. She shifted into the black-haired woman in her forties she’d been wearing when she first met him. She’d worn her own form for so long lately that she forgot no one else knew what she looked like.
“Better?” she said, and recognition hit him.
“Ah, a masque. Of course,” he said, smiling at her. “I’d despaired of ever hearing from you again, my dear assassin. I gave you an order, then you seemed to disappear. Did you accomplish your task?”
“No,” Talyn admitted as she shifted back into her own form. “I failed, and they discovered me. I had to run.”
All true. Talyn didn’t see Magdalene through the portal yet, but Cyra had warned her the woman might have truth seeing powers, so she needed to be as honest as possible. She’d had a bit of practice in this.
“They sent the gargoyle after me,” Talyn went on, “but luckily he’s easily distracted by anything with breasts and a firm ass.”
She just barely heard Samhail’s murmur of agreement next to her.
Still Sandrian didn’t step through, and Talyn’s mind raced. She needed to get him onto this side of the portal.
“How did you subdue him?” Sandrian asked. He eyed Samhail, and the gargoyle swayed slightly as if drunk.
“A little essence of horkaine root makes anyone who drinks it lethargic and docile for hours,” Talyn offered.
It was true. She just left out that she hadn’t actually given Samhail any.
Sandrian nodded. “He’s tied up?”
Talyn nearly smiled at the nervous edge to the man’s voice. He could wield lightning, but the idea of even an incapacitated Samhail worried him.
“And he’s wearing a caronium cuff,” she assured him.
“This doesn’t make up for your failure,” Sandrian said to her, still not moving, “but the gargoyle is a good consolation prize. Bring him here.”
Talyn hesitated. Did he suspect something, or was he just being overly cautious?
“I’ll need help,” she said. “He’s not easy to move.”
She hoped there was enough truth in her words to avoid suspicion.
Sandrian raised a brow. “How did you get him out here?”
“He was more cooperative earlier,” she said.
Samhail took that moment to fall forward onto the ground. The thud he made was loud enough that Talyn wondered for half a second if something had really happened to him. The man deserved a gods damned award for that performance.
“Nemesis take me,” she swore as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Estimating the dosage for a man his size is harder than it seems.”
Sandrian paused again, then grinned and finally stepped through the portal. Magdalene was behind him, and the woman stepped through as well. Talyn saw the cruel gleam in Sandrian’s eyes as he looked at Samhail’s prone form, and she stepped in front of his body.
“About the reward,” she said.
“You’ve already been paid for a job you didn’t do,” Sandrian said. “I’ll consider him compensation for that.”
Talyn was about to argue that she’d only been paid half of what she was owed, but the ground suddenly began to shake, and she had to catch herself as she stumbled forward.
Behind Sandrian and Magdalene, the earth split open as a wide chasm formed between them and the portal they’d come through.
At the same time, vines broke through the ground where they stood and wrapped around them so they were held in place.
“Magdalene, you and I have unfinished business,” Cyra snarled at the woman as she stepped forward, her obfuscation glamour lifting. She carried a shortsword in a sheath on her hip.
Samhail tugged at the slip knot of his bindings to release them and got to his feet as he dropped the caronium cuff on the ground.
The rest of their group – Bressen, Aidan, Maziren, and the twins – emerged from the woods as Bressen’s obfuscation glamour lifted from them all.
Bressen, Maziren, and the gargoyles were armed with longswords while Aidan bore a shortsword and a crossbow that he aimed toward Sandrian.
Magdalene only smiled as the vines holding her and Sandrian loosened and fell away. “Did you get that power from your auntie?” she scoffed to Cyra. “I’ve had that one for a while. You’ll have to do better than that.”
One of Serise’s containment fields appeared around Sandrian and Magdalene next, but Magdalene only sent her power into the ground and a shriek rent the air behind Talyn as the containment field disappeared.
Talyn turned to see Maziren pull Serise back up from a hole that had opened beneath the gargoyle woman.
Sandrian began to laugh. “You traitorous bitch,” he said to Talyn. “I knew I couldn’t trust you. I knew they’d get to you. Luckily I planned for just such an eventuality.”
Talyn was instantly on guard as she scanned the area around them. Then she saw it.
“Samhail, the grass next to them,” she said urgently.
Samhail was silent a moment as he looked where she indicated, then he swore violently. “Bressen!” he yelled. “There’s something behind them on the grass.”
Sure enough, the grass there was matted, as if dozens of invisible people, or more likely symbionts, were standing on it.
“You’re not the only one who can cast obfuscation glamours, Lord Bressen,” Magdalene purred to him.
“And you may have taken one of ours, but we’ve taken one of yours,” Sandrian said as his grin widened.
Movement in her periphery caught Talyn’s attention, and she saw Aidan pivot so his crossbow was aimed straight at Bressen.
He pulled the trigger, but Serise was right behind him.
As if she’d known what Aidan had planned, she slammed her arm down on the crossbow just in time so it loosed its bolt into the ground at the lord’s feet instead of into his head where it had been aimed.
Her other hand came around, and she punched Aidan, sending him sprawling to the ground.
Talyn’s mouth fell open. Samhail had hinted earlier they couldn’t trust Aidan, that the lord ‘wasn’t himself,’ but was he actually a traitor?
Talyn glanced at Maziren, Aidan’s personal guard. The woman looked as if she wanted to attack Serise, but she held back.
Another crossbow thwack sounded from somewhere across the field, and Bressen’s shoulder kicked back as a bolt lodged in it.
Cyra shouted just as Bressen swore, and a moment later, several crossbows came flying toward them from across the field to land at Surgeon’s feet, the gargoyle likely having summoned them out of the enemies’ hands.
The sound of feet pounding toward them caught Talyn’s ear, and she looked to see the matted grass closing in on them.
“They’re coming!” she shouted.
“Get behind me!” Samhail yelled to her as he grabbed his swords back.
Talyn cursed him under her breath and drew her daggers instead.
Samhail swiped blindly in front of him with the blades as the unseen horde reached them.
The swords met with the resistance of bodies, but a second later, three slash marks appeared across Samhail’s chest, and he yelled in pain.
Another set of slashes appeared across his side, and he spun to try and knock away his invisible attackers.
Fear shot through Talyn at the sight of Samhail’s open wounds, and she jumped forward to stab her daggers where she assumed his attackers would be. The blades hit something, but they glanced off it, and she swung again, desperate to keep the symbionts away so they couldn’t turn him.
Gods above, how were they supposed to fight what they couldn’t see?
As if in answer, a thick fog suddenly engulfed the clearing.
Talyn couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of her, but what she could see was the outline of bodies where they displaced the fog.
There were three of them on Samhail, and she surged forward to drive her dagger down into the base of one’s neck.
The thing screeched a high-pitched wail, then became visible as the dark blue substance dripped off it, leaving only its host’s body on the ground.
Next to her, Samhail’s body jerked as more slashes appeared across his torso. Gods, if one of the symbionts managed to turn him…
“You have to shift!” she yelled to him.
Samhail growled in anger as he swiped his blades in front of him to push any attackers back, but Talyn was relieved to see him begin to shift.
He drove his swords into the ground as his wings flared from his back and his body grew.
The layer of stone skin creeping over him covered the half dozen or so sets of slashes he’d taken so far as his claws and horns emerged, and he let out a roar that reverberated through the misty air.