darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,132
sleepwalking my way through this fight, killing this woman and dodging that man without truly seeing any of them, as I tried to make sense of what I should do.
Twice, I might have died if it were not for Kelos and his dark fire, but I simply couldn’t make myself care. Kelos should have reached the Son of Heaven long before I did, but he chose not to, moving in parallel with me instead. Before I really knew what was happening, I stood at the foot of the throne’s dais, vaguely aware of Kelos standing in a second’s place behind and to my right.
“Today is the day you die, Corik.” Kelos dropped his shroud as he spoke. He stood sideways to the throne, pointing one sword up at the Son of Heaven’s throat and the other out toward the remaining risen—an obvious distraction to allow me to do the deed.
I wanted to, but still I dreaded the result—on my hands the blood of kingdoms. I moved forward and to the side still sleepwalking, taking the first step on the dais to the throne.
The Son’s eyes passed across my shroud as though I weren’t there. “Ah, Kelos,” said the Son of Heaven, “I knew that you would return someday. That your arrogance would not allow you to acknowledge your final defeat. You have lost. You know that, right?”
“I don’t think so.” Dark light rolled down the length of Kelos’s lower sword, striking the nearest of the dead in the chest, blowing its heart and lungs apart in a messy spray. “Keep them back.”
“Or what?” asked the Son of Heaven. “You’ll kill me? I don’t think so. I think that if you could kill me, I would already be dead. But you can’t, can you? The geas still holds that far, even if it no longer protects my followers.”
Was that true? If so, any hopes that Kelos might solve my dilemma for me were in vain. This was my decision and my show, as I had always known it must be. So why couldn’t I choose? I forced myself up another step. One more and I would be close enough to strike. One more and I would have to make the choice. Surely, when I got there, I would know the right answer.
“It does,” continued the Son of Heaven. “The geas still binds your hands where it comes to me. If that’s true, you’re going to die here, Kelos. I have thousands more where these come from.” He nodded toward the dozen or so dead closing in on the throne. “Though I don’t think I’ll need them. If these all rush you at once, you will not be able to stop them, will you? Especially not if: Sithnish Kasht Keenim!”
The unknown words came out as a command, and Kelos went rigid—every muscle in his body straining as if against some invisible barrier. Then his hands opened and his swords fell ringing to the floor in the same moment that the remaining risen rushed the dais. This, then, was my true moment.
And, when it finally came, the choice was easy, though not for the reasons I had expected. I turned and dropped my shroud, releasing Triss as I drove my swords straight through the Son of Heaven’s heart and throat, pinning him to his throne.
I stared into his eyes as he died, expecting I don’t know what. A mighty explosion perhaps? Years to fall on him like a great weight, aging him away to nothing? A black fog that would take him straight to hell? What I got instead was death as it might have taken any man—a slumping and relaxing of muscles that had lost their driving will, as the Son of Heaven’s soul departed for a long overdue appointment with the lords of judgment.
I had just started to relax when I heard a chorus of shrieks and the sound of ripping flesh from behind me. In that same instant Triss cried into my mind, Ware, Aral! Your swords!
I ripped them free of the Son of Heaven’s corpse, spinning just in time to take the head off a madly flailing knight of the Sword. The next few seconds passed in chaos as I fought off the mindless attack of a half dozen of the risen who—impossibly—had not died with their bond-partner and master.
For some time I was too busy staying alive to think, though I came more and more to suspect that something was horribly wrong with the risen as we fought.