Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

“Never,” she said in a low voice. “Never again will you torment me or any other woman.”

She advanced and struck. Galt managed to fend off the first strike. He was not so lucky with the second. Ilse feinted to one side, ducked under his blade, and struck him on the temple with the flat of her blade. He dropped to the floor.

Idiot, she thought. The temptation to run him through lasted only a moment. Then she sprinted after Raul.

She crossed a second parlor and through the next door, only to skid to a halt before a curtain of fire. The tapestries and curtains were ablaze, and smoke boiled up from the carpet. She could see nothing except a few vague shadows. Ilse dropped to her knees and crawled to the nearest one. It was Armand. His skull was crushed and he lay in a pool of drying blood. Farther on, Raul knelt on one knee, covered in blood from his face to his shirt. He still gripped a sword in one hand. Markus Khandarr was splayed against the farther wall, his staff abandoned.

Raul launched himself at Khandarr. There was an explosion of magic. Ilse staggered back and caught hold of the doorframe. Her vision was smeared. Where had Raul gone? Where had Khandarr gone? She blinked, blinked again. Two shadows suspended in the air, as if painted with smoke, and she knew she saw the echo of their bodies as they leapt into the plane of magic.

She leapt after them.

* * *

RAUL CROUCHED ON a thin ribbon of brightness, emptiness all around. He would have been terrified, except his whole attention was on the man before him. Markus Khandarr’s lips curled back. His face turned gray, blood smeared his cheek, and more blood trickled from the slash across his forehead. He looked as though he were close to fainting, but he glared in defiance. “If you kill me. You cannot return.”

“I knew that before I followed you,” Raul breathed.

He leapt forward and slashed Khandarr across the chest with his sword. A deep gash opened, down to the bone. Blood spurted out. Khandarr’s face locked in surprise.

Raul grinned. “You thought I was not willing to pay that price.”

“I did. Only … so quickly. No.”

Khandarr flung his head up and called aloud in Erythandran, a long stuttering string of syllables. Magic, though they had a surfeit already in the void, swirled around them. Raul stumbled forward. Only now could he feel all his injuries. His face burned from the magic; his ribs sent spasms through his chest. He shifted his hold on his sword so that the blade pointed down. Khandarr sank to his knees, grinning at him and the blade above. “My gift to you,” he said. “Remember me always.”

He cried out again in Erythandran, just as Raul drove the point down into his throat. One last syllable bubbled out. Then the magic wrapped itself tight around Raul Kosenmark.

His skin was on fire with magic. His guts twisted with the agony. He fell to his knees next to Khandarr’s body, jarring his cracked ribs. He pressed his hand against his side, gasping for breath as the magic coursed through his veins.

Magic. Was it possible he could bend Khandarr’s magic to his own purpose? He tried to remember what little he knew about magical healing, but the current was like a live thing, squirming against his will. “Heal me,” he whispered. “Heal me, dammit.”

I will, said a voice like Markus Khandarr’s.

Raul’s throat closed. His ski

n shuddered and crawled. A weight pressed against his chest, squeezed the flesh between his legs. He cried out, felt a rasping in his throat, as though the magic had scoured his flesh. He cried out again, a strange deep cracking shout that wavered up and down and finally boomed out in unfamiliar tones.

He bent over double. Pressed both hands against his eyes.

I know. I know what he’s done.

* * *

ILSE ARRIVED IN the void, her sword still gripped as if to parry another attack. All was dark. Empty. She saw nothing, not even the stream of souls on their journey from life to life. A true void, without scent or sound or any movement. Once more Anderswar defied her expectations.

I have lost him. Oh Lir, please show me where he has gone. If you love your children, have pity on us. Oh Toc …

She pressed a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes, shuddering in terror and grief. Two points of light flickered against her eyelids, then faded into a darkness more profound than before. Was this how blind Toc saw the world? He had sacrificed his eyes to create the sun and moon. In her grief over his death, Lir had wept, and her tears became the stars.

A silvery mist curled around the edges of her vision. She took a faltering step forward. The mist brightened and surged upward to bury her feet. The blackness overhead grew dimmer and she saw a pale stream of what might be the river of souls as they crossed the void. Her eyes still closed, she turned around to see the fog rising up in streamers. And there, just ahead, movement stirred.

She hurried forward a few steps. Stopped and sank to her knees in shock. Markus Khandarr lay sprawled at length, blood leaking from throat and chest, coloring the mist dark crimson, his eyes blank with death. Raul Kosenmark crouched next to the body, his sword forgotten by his side. Even as her pulse beat faster in joy that he lived, Raul gave a jerk and collapsed.

Ilse flung herself to standing and ran to his side. No, no, no. The gods could not be so cruel to let him die. She touched her fingers to Raul’s throat. His pulse beat steadily, but his shirt was sticky with blood, and his skin burned with fever.

He stared at her with golden eyes dimmed and cloudy. “Ilse?”

“My love. What happened?”