Page 142 of Deadly Maiden

The clamor of fighting drifts to my ears, barely audible over the wind whistling through the open door and the slim, arched windows. Since I landed from the rowboat, the windspeed has picked up by several knots.

The rail the cage is attached to stretches out from this top story. It’s six feet wide, at most, but there are guardrails. The ocean surges and flails at the jetties and the waterfront hundreds of feet below. From the size of the people fighting down there, a dive into the sea would turn me into jam—a very, very sloshy jam. I don’t have time to sneak out to Rorsyd, clutching the guardrail. I don’t have time to be scared.

I inhale, exhale, scrape some of the gore from my boots. Hurriedly, I say a prayer to all the gods. Then I run.

My heart thuds in time with the clang of my boots while vertigo threatens to take me, but I reach the fractured end of the footbridge, skid to a halt, and grab that guardrail. I peer over the edge.

The cage swings, squeaking. It’s a small drop to the roof.

The bars on the top are flat, making a ceiling, with a hatchway into the cage. Rorsyd has awakened, and he stares up at me, clutching his gut where the spear goes through. Rasping in air, I nod at him. The climb, the fighting, and the run have exhausted me.

“Getting you out now. First, though, I must remove what is inside you.”

“Okay.” He shakes his head as if to clear it. “Whatever you say. Be careful.”

I need calm to do this. I close my eyes and seek what is within Rorsyd, ready to plunge deep, when a noise wrenches me back to the world. Rorsyd is yelling.

Banging and crashing comes from the tower.

“Fuck.”

Someone has climbed the stairs, and my undead are gone. It’s a mage, from the staff he carries then a big soldier is there with him, sword drawn. He tosses aside a shield. They’ve seen me. I’ve no darkthing matter, and my sword and average dueling skills will be useless in this fight.

Calm.

I slam my eyes shut and plunge my mind deep into Rorsyd’s flesh. I know the way. I can be ruthless and speedy. I plotted this, did the calculations.

Theoretically, if I remove the dead matter, he should heal properly, replace what is gone with healthy tissue, and get back his shifting.

But only because he is immortal. Anyone else would probably die from this treatment. And the iron spear needs to be removed.

I find the dead flesh, grapple with it, wind all of it into an ethereal bundle. I rip, tear, ignore the pain I send pulsing through Rorsyd.

Do I have it all? I do. I hope. I unstick myself and swim to the surface, spilling my mind into real space in time to see the magesmiling from a few yards away and the soldier holding my wrist, ready to snap an iron manacle onto me, once he opens it. That would kill my powers.

Behind them, on the rail, many more soldiers have assembled.

And I’m clutching a writhing mass of darkmatter, recently harvested from an immortal.

“Hi there.” I grin at them both.

Startled by my cheerfulness, the warrior freezes for a second.

It’s enough. I fashion a storm of thousand sharp flechettes of darkthing matter and fling it at every enemy in sight, shredding them and blowing them off the rail. They fall and spin into the sea, silently, minds already dead, like confetti at a rather gruesome wedding.

“Nice.” Rorsyd is smiling up at me, looking tired but happier.

“I’ve had practice.” I drop onto the cage, open the hatch, and lay it flat. “I’ve just healed you properly, fully.”I hope.“All I have to do now is get that spear out of you.”

I study the thing and where it’s attached at both ends to the cage. At how they’ve welded it there, probably with magik. I expected locks and chains, not welds. Even Anathema cannot eat through metal. I have the pistol? I draw it and aim at one end of the spear, pull the trigger.

The weld ruptures loose, cracking off the cage as Rorsyd gasps and crumples to one knee. Which twists the spear inside him again. He winces and stays there. The shock of the bullet strike must have traveled along the spear.

I fumble to reload and cannot find the pouch of bullets that I tied to my belt. It’s gone. Of all this items to lose…

Considering the mayhem…I’m lucky I survived, let alone the pouch.

I swallow. We can do this.

---