Crown of Crystal Flame
Page 39
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“Nei, really. Whatever it was, it’s already gone. I’m fine.” It was true. The ice-spider sensation had receded almost as rapidly as it had come. “It wasn’t the spell. The same thing used to happen to me in Celieria City all the time. Bel can tell you.”
“She’s right,” Bel confirmed. “We never found out what it was or where it came from, but it never seemed to hurt her.” “I don’t like it,” Gaelen said.
Abruptly irritated, Ellysetta scowled at him, and snapped, “I don’t either, but it’s the least of our worries at the moment. Our brothers are killing each other. Whatever this Feraz potion is, I need to figure out how to cure it. That’s what’s important.”
Gaelen instantly clamped his mouth shut, and Ellysetta turned her attention back to the ensorcelled man on her table.
Half a field away from the blazing hundred-fold weaves of the healing tents, Rowan vel Arquinas bared his teeth in a feral snarl. His Fey’cha flew like lightning. Scores of men had already fallen to his blades. Scores more yet would… and all of them clad in the colors of Great House Sebourne.
In Rowan’s mind, each man that gasped and fell with a shudder as tairen venom shut down his body wore Colum diSebourne’s face. He killed the arrogant, murdering rultshart again and again and again, as he had not done when it would have mattered, when it would have saved his brother and Talisa.
The memory of Adrial and the sound of his mother’s voice echoed in his mind, driving him with whips of Fire. You must always look out for your brother, Rowan. Protect him. But he had failed, and Adrial had died. And despite Ellysetta’s many kindnesses and her shared love and calming weaves, Rowan’s heart was a desert, cracked with pain and guilt and shattering grief.
He channeled that grief into Rage. All he lived for was vengeance. To kill every Sebourne, as he’d not been able to kill the one he hated most. He hated them even more than he hated the Mages. He fed on that hate, gorged on it, thrived on it.
His red Fey’cha flew, finding target after target. And when his Fey’cha harnesses were empty, he simply spoke his return word—which called each blade back to its sheath in pristine condition—and began again.
He didn’t even have to foul his hands with Sebourne blood.
* * *
Rain strafed the encampment, looking for knots of Mages and Eld, burning them where he could. Scores of fezaros were rampaging through the rows of tents, swinging their pots of mind-altering poison. Mages, secured in their protective rings of archers, sent globes of Mage Fire soaring across the possessed into the ranks of the uninfected.
Sel’dor burned in his chest and wings. He’d developed a workable initial pattern of attack—dive for the knot of Mages, Change to avoid the barrage of arrows, then Change back to Fire the group—but they’d adapted. Now arrows and Mage Fire filled the air in a constant barrage. He’d given up the dodge-by-Changing technique and started taking the flights of arrows and Mage Fire head-on. Tairen fire consumed the bulk of what came at him, but he still took a few good hits.
One of the Water masters or the Celierians had opened the aqueducts to let the waters of the Heras pour into the field. The battlefield became a swamp of mud and blood. Worse, whatever the Feraz potion was, the waters of the Heras did not neutralize it. Instead, the madness seemed to be spreading more quickly.
«Rainier-Eras!» In urgent tones, Steli sang an image of a bowcannon bolt racing at him from behind.
Rain tucked his wings and rolled right just as the bolt whooshed past. His spine curved, wings spread, and he emerged from the banking roll to wheel sharply about. Tairen eyes scanned the battlefield, where several bowcannon were emerging from portals across the field.
The Eld were getting down to business now. They’d brought in the artillery.
Feral magic flared in Rain’s body and he bared his fangs in a savage growl. Time for killing.
Why couldn’t she figure this out?
As Ellysetta worked on the body of the unconscious, ensor-celled man, she wished Gaelen’s sister Marissya were here. A powerful shei’dalin, with over a thousand years of healing—and combating enemy poisons and potions—Marissya would have a much better idea of what to do than Ellysetta did.
The bulk of Ellysetta’s training had come from those few short months with Venarra v’En Eilan in the Fading Lands, and none of what they’d covered included how potions worked—or how any non-Fey magic worked, for that matter. Give her a warrior suffering cuts, broken bones, bruises, even mortal wounds and missing limbs, and she could knit his broken body back together. Give her a dying warrior whose soul was halfway to the Veil, and she could hold him to the Light and call him back to the world of the living.
But this Feraz potion magic… she didn’t understand it. And she didn’t have the first clue how to stop it. She’d already done everything she knew how to do. Rain said the potion infected the person on contact, but a detailed scan of her test subject’s body revealed no traces of any suspicious liquid on his skin. Not, of course, that she would have been able to isolate it even if there was such a thing. The man was covered in blood and cuts and bruises and abrasions. His body looked like it had been used as a battering ram.
She’d spun a weave of Water and Air to wash and dry his skin, hoping that removal of the battle grime might shed some light on his condition, but to no avail. Desperate, she sent a probing weave of pure shei’dalin’s love into his body, healing everything she could find wrong with him, but when her quintet lifted their sedation weave, the man went wild.
“She’s right,” Bel confirmed. “We never found out what it was or where it came from, but it never seemed to hurt her.” “I don’t like it,” Gaelen said.
Abruptly irritated, Ellysetta scowled at him, and snapped, “I don’t either, but it’s the least of our worries at the moment. Our brothers are killing each other. Whatever this Feraz potion is, I need to figure out how to cure it. That’s what’s important.”
Gaelen instantly clamped his mouth shut, and Ellysetta turned her attention back to the ensorcelled man on her table.
Half a field away from the blazing hundred-fold weaves of the healing tents, Rowan vel Arquinas bared his teeth in a feral snarl. His Fey’cha flew like lightning. Scores of men had already fallen to his blades. Scores more yet would… and all of them clad in the colors of Great House Sebourne.
In Rowan’s mind, each man that gasped and fell with a shudder as tairen venom shut down his body wore Colum diSebourne’s face. He killed the arrogant, murdering rultshart again and again and again, as he had not done when it would have mattered, when it would have saved his brother and Talisa.
The memory of Adrial and the sound of his mother’s voice echoed in his mind, driving him with whips of Fire. You must always look out for your brother, Rowan. Protect him. But he had failed, and Adrial had died. And despite Ellysetta’s many kindnesses and her shared love and calming weaves, Rowan’s heart was a desert, cracked with pain and guilt and shattering grief.
He channeled that grief into Rage. All he lived for was vengeance. To kill every Sebourne, as he’d not been able to kill the one he hated most. He hated them even more than he hated the Mages. He fed on that hate, gorged on it, thrived on it.
His red Fey’cha flew, finding target after target. And when his Fey’cha harnesses were empty, he simply spoke his return word—which called each blade back to its sheath in pristine condition—and began again.
He didn’t even have to foul his hands with Sebourne blood.
* * *
Rain strafed the encampment, looking for knots of Mages and Eld, burning them where he could. Scores of fezaros were rampaging through the rows of tents, swinging their pots of mind-altering poison. Mages, secured in their protective rings of archers, sent globes of Mage Fire soaring across the possessed into the ranks of the uninfected.
Sel’dor burned in his chest and wings. He’d developed a workable initial pattern of attack—dive for the knot of Mages, Change to avoid the barrage of arrows, then Change back to Fire the group—but they’d adapted. Now arrows and Mage Fire filled the air in a constant barrage. He’d given up the dodge-by-Changing technique and started taking the flights of arrows and Mage Fire head-on. Tairen fire consumed the bulk of what came at him, but he still took a few good hits.
One of the Water masters or the Celierians had opened the aqueducts to let the waters of the Heras pour into the field. The battlefield became a swamp of mud and blood. Worse, whatever the Feraz potion was, the waters of the Heras did not neutralize it. Instead, the madness seemed to be spreading more quickly.
«Rainier-Eras!» In urgent tones, Steli sang an image of a bowcannon bolt racing at him from behind.
Rain tucked his wings and rolled right just as the bolt whooshed past. His spine curved, wings spread, and he emerged from the banking roll to wheel sharply about. Tairen eyes scanned the battlefield, where several bowcannon were emerging from portals across the field.
The Eld were getting down to business now. They’d brought in the artillery.
Feral magic flared in Rain’s body and he bared his fangs in a savage growl. Time for killing.
Why couldn’t she figure this out?
As Ellysetta worked on the body of the unconscious, ensor-celled man, she wished Gaelen’s sister Marissya were here. A powerful shei’dalin, with over a thousand years of healing—and combating enemy poisons and potions—Marissya would have a much better idea of what to do than Ellysetta did.
The bulk of Ellysetta’s training had come from those few short months with Venarra v’En Eilan in the Fading Lands, and none of what they’d covered included how potions worked—or how any non-Fey magic worked, for that matter. Give her a warrior suffering cuts, broken bones, bruises, even mortal wounds and missing limbs, and she could knit his broken body back together. Give her a dying warrior whose soul was halfway to the Veil, and she could hold him to the Light and call him back to the world of the living.
But this Feraz potion magic… she didn’t understand it. And she didn’t have the first clue how to stop it. She’d already done everything she knew how to do. Rain said the potion infected the person on contact, but a detailed scan of her test subject’s body revealed no traces of any suspicious liquid on his skin. Not, of course, that she would have been able to isolate it even if there was such a thing. The man was covered in blood and cuts and bruises and abrasions. His body looked like it had been used as a battering ram.
She’d spun a weave of Water and Air to wash and dry his skin, hoping that removal of the battle grime might shed some light on his condition, but to no avail. Desperate, she sent a probing weave of pure shei’dalin’s love into his body, healing everything she could find wrong with him, but when her quintet lifted their sedation weave, the man went wild.
