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49


Kyri had been about to thank the strange young man, but his exclamation drove all her manners out of her head. She pushed back the helm and stared. “You know Toron?”

He nodded, long black hair falling over his face for a moment. “Quite well now, I should say.” He blinked suddenly. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I haven’t introduced myself.”

“Neither have I,” she pointed out with a faint, tired smile. The strain and horrors of the day were starting to close in on her, and a part of her just wanted to sit down and cry, or fall unconscious. The other part of her, though, was actually eager to talk to someone who would understand.

He gave an elaborate bow, a flourish of arms and a knee to the ground. “Tobimar Silverun of the Silverun, Prince of Skysand in exile—and,” he indicated his shoulder with a grin “Guild Adventurer.” She could see the exhaustion in his eyes—and the same eagerness to understand. His face had the same darkness of some of her own family—like Urelle—and features not all that dissimilar, but with eyes a piercing, startling blue contrasting with the midnight hair.

He then bent down and picked up . . . a Toad. “And this,” he continued, proudly, “is Poplock Duckweed, who probably saved both our lives. He’s saved mine more than once.”

The little Toad gave a hop-bow that made her giggle—a sound that she would have blushed at, except it was so light that it made the whole grim scene feel better. “Pleased to meet you, Phoenix. And he’s saved my life a few times too, so I’m sure we’ll even things up.”

“Well, I am very pleased to meet you both,” she said, and did her best bow. “Kyri Victoria Vantage, the one true living Justiciar of Myrionar, the Phoenix . . . and,” she gave the same gesture as Tobimar, “Guild Adventurer.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” the Toad observed dryly.

She smiled again, but noticed how Poplock seemed to favor one side, and Tobimar showed multiple cuts, bleeding from his face, arms, and was not moving smoothly. “Here, let me help you.”

She touched both of her new-found companions. Myrionar, these two saved my life, perhaps my soul, and helped me on the path to Justice and Vengeance. Grant them back their full strength and health.

The golden light that sang now always within her somewhere emerged, sparkled along the little Toad and his Skysand friend, wiping away injury and pain in a way she remembered well . . . and one she now felt again, as Myrionar added the same blessing to her, for accomplishing one of the greater parts of her task.

Tobimar looked at her with respect and perhaps a touch of awe that made her uncomfortable. “My thanks, Lady Phoenix.”

She shook her head with a smile. “Please, just Kyri. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead, or much worse.”

“And if you hadn’t somehow got free from where he’d left you,” Poplock said, “we would’ve been buried right next to you, so we’re all even there. Why don’t we go inside? There’s lots to talk about, and looked to me like Thorny there had lots of valuable stuff.”

“You’re going to loot his . . .” Kyri trailed off, not sure what to think. Initially the idea was repellent, but given the prior owner . . .

But at that moment, she saw Tobimar stiffen.

“What is it?”

The twin blades whispered back out of their sheaths. “Something’s wrong.”

She turned, looking, listening.

Rustling. Sounds of movement. Vibrations in the ground.

The little Toad had bounced down, poking around the leaves, looking for something on his own; he suddenly scrambled back up Tobimar. “Back! Back now!

Kyri didn’t hesitate, but leapt backwards, backpedaling away—

And the ground where they had been standing suddenly collapsed down, sickly yellowish light emerging from below.

That wasn’t a cave-in, she realized, even as she saw shadows moving against the light, moving closer, That was something deliberate, something designed to happen. Even as she thought that, she was reaching over her shoulder, drawing Flamewing again, and remembering Thornfalcon’s last words: I am not alone . . . and you will not escape. She had thought he was referring to the other Justiciars, but . . .

A movement in the guttering fire-lit clearing, and something emerged from the hole, climbing up what must be a ramp leading down into the ground. Something that seemed humanoid in silhouette, but there was something wrong, wrong with the way it moved, wrong and very familiar, something that sent an instant chill down her back.

And then it emerged fully, with other shapes crowding up behind it, and she understood, seeing the high forehead, the caterpillar-like body, the lamprey mouth. Of course. The attack on Evanwyl could not have been an accident. He arranged it all. He controlled these things!

The monster charged, three more behind it; she saw Poplock, holding a tiny glittering blade in one hand, drop to the ground, disappearing into the underbrush. Good luck, little Toad, she thought, and then braced herself and swung.

Flamewing sheared through the entire upper torso of the creature charging her as though it were a tuft of grass and not something the size and toughness of a man. She felt a spurt of triumph and confidence. I’m not the scared girl that faced these things the first time. I’m the Phoenix Justiciar of Myrionar, wielding the weapon of the Spiritsmith, and these things are no more a threat to me than they would have been to Rion.

Tobimar Silverun’s blades flashed twice, and the next creature fell; the Skysand Prince leapt high, cut low; another collapsed, bleeding.

But there were more coming, a scuttling tide of hunger and death, and there were other things mixed with them. A hissing, chittering squeal came from a face of working mandibles and six glittering eyes, and the doomlock spider lashed out with metallic-edged talons the length of longswords on jointed, powerful forelegs. The claws rebounded from the Raiment of the Phoenix, but staggered her backwards, even as she cut and severed one claw from the body.

A bilarel suddenly loomed up over Tobimar, eight feet of gray-skinned humanoid rage made solid, club upraised to crush, but it roared and dropped the bludgeon, clutching at one of its lower legs; Tobimar thrust one sword through its eye, and a flicker of motion dashed away from the falling ogre, rippling grass the only trace of Poplock’s presence.

Too many! Myrionar—I call upon the power that is mine by right. She whirled her blade again. “FLAMEWING!

The red-gold flame flared outward in a deadly arc, flowing around and past Tobimar but washing in fearsome waves over the mob of monsters, who writhed, screamed, and died.

It was a momentary pause, but only momentary, for already she heard other sounds from below. Tobimar looked up at her. “Thanks for the assist. Shouldn’t we be running about now?”

She shook her head grimly. “We can’t. Gharis is only half a mile away; there’s other farms and houses not far away. We’re giving them a focus, they’re obviously directed to kill anyone they see. If we run, they’ll just spread out from here.” She took a better grip on Flamewing. “Every one we kill before we die is one less to kill someone else.”

Two more bilarel strode out, clad in thick armor, tugging it into place, and these two planted themselves on either side of the ramp. One of them . . . has armored claws for arms. The other . . . something wrong with his shape, too wide, twisted somehow.

“Sand and storm,” Tobimar muttered. “They’re getting organized.” Even as he spoke, she could see him focusing, bringing forth that unique speed and strength he’d shown in the earlier battle. “But how many of these things could he possibly have under that house? If he was feeding that many creatures, people would have noticed!”

She was having the same thoughts, but she had no answer. Obviously he did have that many, somehow. And we have to kill everything that comes up, or the rest of Evanwyl will be under attack.

She knew the Arms and Eyes would eventually sound the alarm and deal with such monsters . . . but how many people would die in the meantime? No, we can’t run. Here we stand, even if the ghost of Thornfalcon laughs at me for being caught in his final trap.

Yet with that decision, she couldn’t repress another shudder of horror. The new fires burning from Flamewing’s last strike showed the creatures clearly, and none of them were quite normal, each one distorted, showing some monstrous change even for creatures normally monstrous. A doomlock with four clawed arms instead of two, a sinuous draconic thing with the head of a flame ant, an oozing, shapeless blob that manifested human mouths and eyes at random, these and more were emerging, arranging themselves in abominable and unnatural formation at the roared exhortations of the ogre-things.

She glanced at Tobimar, and he nodded. No point in letting them choose the moment.

The Prince of Skysand and the Phoenix Justiciar charged directly for the center of the assembled ranks, Flamewing blazing anew and a pearlescent aura shimmering around Tobimar’s blades.

Shrieks and roars and hisses, the thudding wet sounds of blades on flesh, the jolt of striking bone, smell of scorched flesh, a shout of pain from herself or her ally, the occasional growl or grinding cry of shock from an enemy as Poplock’s blade Steelthorn found its mark. She whirled and cut and spun and blocked, severing legs, smashing the pommel into lamprey-mouths, kicking into vital areas, taking impacts that could have broken her before and shrugging them off. At her side, Tobimar Silverun carved a path of devastation through the monsters, twin swords dancing back and forth and leaving death in their wake.

Still, cuts appeared on his arms and face as if by malign magic, and she felt the dull fire-ache of poison trying to work past her defenses, knew the sun-bright shock of a broken rib that tried to blind her with pain, encircle her breath with agony. Won’t be . . . much longer . . . now . . .

She knew they had killed many, and perhaps would kill those around them now, but there were more, impossibly more, and she knew there was something else they had missed, some secret Thornfalcon had taken with him, and that Evanwyl would pay the price for her failure.

A monstrous thing loomed suddenly up before her, tall as a bilarel but more like an armored crab on two legs with the brown eyes of a faithful dog and the fanged mouth of a gigantic lizard. She was yanking Flamewing free of its last victim but slowly, too slowly, she’d never get it up in time—

Two leaf-green blades exploded from the thing’s chest and it gave a gurgling wail, collapsing, falling forward, inert.

A face was revealed, a face and figure of a young man standing behind the fallen body, a boy somehow familiar, with hair and dark-tinted skin the mirror of Tobimar’s, and eyes her own shade of steel-pearl gray.


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Framed