Throne Hunters Book 4, Chapter 32

“A carefully prepared team had an immense advantage over passive guards, even—even if those guards are Silver-ranked, or possibly even Gold.”

Sam put a hand on Nessa’s shoulder. “You doing all right?”

Nessa smiled a bright, brittle smile. She was definitely looking peaky, Vic thought. Somewhere between hung over and heart broken. A real pity they’d no Artifacts to gift her with an Ego boost.

“No? I don’t know. Perhaps. It’ll be better once we’re moving.” Nessa took a deep breath. “But please focus. We’re going to move quickly and not get bogged down as a group. If necessary, members of the crew will peel off to delay attackers while we focus on getting Anna into Melisende’s presence. Don’t lose track of that goal. If we don’t get Anna to Melisende within a minute or two of entering the manor grounds, we’re done for.”

Anna nodded soberly, her face pale.

“No pressure,” grinned Vic. “It’s all going to go great. As long as we don’t run into a handful of Gold rankers who crush us on sight, that is.”

Nessa didn’t even bother to shush him. “Anna, use the Rootheart Sigil as best you can while we’re outside. Just lock people down so we can keep moving. I’ll use the Compressed World if we run into someone truly challenging. We make for the back balcony where Harald and I dined with Melisende last time. Those doors are made of glass, so we can force an entry if needs be.”

Vic tuned out her words. Nessa was rattled, upset at her own forced revelations, and was over compensation by repeating their battle plan one time too many. Not that he blamed her. He’d been forced to deal with his own demons while, well, fornicating with a demon, but poor Nessa? She hadn’t even gotten a reach around for her deal. Just horrific revelations and then left to nurse her opened wounds without a mission, a goal, a purpose.

Vic manifested The Point and tapped its elegant needle length against his palm. Ah, but what a moment. You had to savor these occasions when the fate of just about everything hung in the balance. The evening felt extra fresh, the air sweet, the dulling colors smoldering as if burning with their own inner hues. No scent of roasting meat or harsh soap or piss in the Angelus Quarter, just the verdant scent of countless private gardens hidden behind cruel walls.

This was going to be delightful.

Nessa rose to her feet. “Everyone clear?”

“Yes,” the crew murmured.

Nessa sighted up the rear of the Celestara manor wall. Almost twenty feet in height and topped with shards of broken glass, it was supposed to be a formidable affair. “Then let’s do this.” She unslung the coil of rope with its grappling hook and stepped back to swing the curved iron tines around and around and then hurl it up into the dusky night air.

Everyone watched as it flew neatly over the top of the wall and clanked against the far side of the brickwork. Nessa pulled cautiously. The rope went taut. She gave an experimental yank, then nodded in satisfaction.

“Here,” said Sam, handing her the heavy blanket. “Sure you don’t want me to go instead?”

Nessa ignored her and began to climb. She practically swarmed up the rope, and when she reached the top held on with just one hand to throw the lead-lined blanket over the shards. It settled with a satisfying flomp. With a grunt Nessa pulled herself up, surveyed the grounds below, then wriggled over, dropped, and was gone.

Sam went next and made the climb look easy.

Then Anna, who, despite having spent life as a countess, didn’t look half bad climbing the rope. Actually, from this angle, she looked fucking great.

“Good luck, Vic,” said Kársek, patting his arm.

“If you don’t manage the climb, we’ll see you in the afterlife.” Vic winked at the dwarf and then leaped up to climb the rope. Still no shouts from the far side. Delightful. He tried to make it look as effortless as Sam, but he hated climbing ropes. He’d done his fair share of sneaking into manor bedrooms, but it was such a pain. It was only twenty feet, however; he threw an arm over the bumpy canvas and awkwardly wriggled up.

Ah, Celestara Manor. What madness to assault it. When last had a bunch of fools tried such an idiotic feat? The rear gardens spread out before him, pooled in shadows, while the manor itself rose elegantly in the near distance, a mass of balconies, well-lit yellow sandstone walls, the windows exorbitantly large, everything pristine and beautiful.

Still no shouts. Melisende was slipping—

Vicious barking sounded from the left, and three shapes coursed into view, streaming forth as they charged the three women below.

Well, shit.

Vic swung his legs over and dropped. He hit the mulch and fell to his side, taking them impact in a roll to rise up, The Point in hand.

But the barks had turned into yelps—the rose bushes had enmeshed the three hounds, binding them with thorny branches and dragging them to the ground. Anna stood with her hand on the Rootheart Sigil, which glowed a lovely green.

But there, human shouts.

“We’re rumbled,” said Vic, brushing pieces of mulch off his leggings. “Shall we admit defeat?”

Kársek dropped like a canon ball beside them, crashing to the ground with a grunt. Alarmed, Sam hurried to help him, but the dwarf grinned toothily, clearly unhurt.

“Run!” Nessa took off at a sprint toward the manor.

“Here we go,” muttered Vic, and ran after.

The grounds were very, very pretty, and Vic took pleasure in knocking over large stone vases, stomping through patches of carefully tended flowers, and kicking his way through shin-high hedges. They leaped over an ornamental pond, leaped over marble benches, and his heart pounded so that he could barely make out where the shouts were coming from.

Shouts that were spreading like a virus, leaping from guard to guard and causing each one to bark out warnings as if intent on showing they’d not been sleeping on the job.

Four figures burst out the back door, weapons drawn. Not regular house guards these, but individuals, little raiders, each distinct and puffed up with their self-importance.

“Halt!” barked their leader, a rotund man with his hair spiked up like a rooster’s comb. “You trespass on —”

“Khazadrok.”

Kársek’s rune flew forward, massive and ghostly in the gloaming, sweeping up the steps, over the porch, and through the four men and women.

The result was delightfully devastating. The four were lifted off their feet and flung back with overwhelming violence, two bouncing so forcefully off the stone walls that Vic couldn’t help but wince, the other two smashing through the broad doors to disappear back inside the house.

“Sam,” snapped Nessa.

“Behind us!” warned Kársek, turning to raise his runehammer.

House guards had been rushing in heroically, but the sight of the four raiders being hurled back had taken the wind out of their sails.

“Come on!” called Vic, voice rich with hilarity. “Come close enough so that we can use our Soul Stealer Artifact!”

The dozen guards blanched.

Sam unshouldered her coil of rope and hurled the grappling hook up to the second level.

A heavy shouldered man emerged from another rear door. He was clad in glimmering platinum armor, his helm shaped into the visage of a hawk complete with wings extending back from each temple. In his fist he held an improbably massive sword with troubling ease, which he pointed at their group.

“Watch out!” Vic dove into Anna, knocking her to the ground even as the world turned white.

Blinking, Vic bounced back to his feet. Nessa was done on one knee, her left arm reduced to ribbons, gasping for breath, while Sam lay on her back, her Shield of Valor seared to near fragments. Already the white glow of Guardian’s Mantle was glowing around Kársek and Nessa, while a bright pulse flared as Warden’s Pulse reknit the worst of Sam and Nessa’s wounds.

Nessa drew a small bronze sphere from the air and hurled it even as the platinum armored figure raised their blade. Lightning crackled down from the dark heavens, hitting the sword’s point and wreathing the armor in living lightning.

Not good.

But then the Compressed World hit, and the Masterwork Artifact bent the patio, the closest section of wall, and one column into an invisible curvature around the figure. They roared and unleashed a blast of lightning, but the warped space caused the dozen bolts to flare out erratically in all directions.

“Go!” Sam had rolled up onto her side. “Vic! Get Anna up there!”

“Khazadrok.”

The giant rune flew into the Compressed World, but Vic didn’t wait to see its effect. He leaped, caught the rope, and shimmied up quicker than before. Talk about motivation. He reached the balcony, swung over the stone balustrade, and just barely saw a shift in the shadows before he was struck.

But his Viridian Mantle burst into life, sending forth tendrils of barbed ivy to snag the dozen bolts of iron from the air, or try to. The projectiles cut through the fibrous ropes, and though most were knocked just enough away to miss him, one slashed through his shoulder while the second sank deep into his gut.

“Ow,” said Vic, looking down at the four inches of black steel emerging from his shirt. “That really hurts.”

“If you think that hurts, try this.” The voice was a whisper. A haunted-looking youth emerged from the shadows, eyes burning crimson. He looked like a plague victim, his lips cracked, his blonde hair so pale as to appear white. He raised a fist which began to glow the same red as his eyes.

“No thanks.” Vic extended The Point so that its tip took the kid in the eye and punched out the back of his head. The speed was vicious, the kid taken completely unawares, so that he stood there for a second, blinking his other eye in confusion, and then collapsed.

Anna was panting and climbing up, so Vic staggered forward to hit the large dining table with his hip. Damn. He had to be out of Sam’s Warden’s Pulse range. It was a bad wound. Grimacing, he pulled the bolt of iron out from his guts, which, predictably, caused blood and other fluids to begin gushing out over his hands.

“Never,” he admonished, turning to a horrified Anna, “remove a weapon from a gut wound. Just don’t do it.”

Anna’s eyes were wide, her hand over her mouth.

“Unless.” Vic summoned Ruby’s Hunger into his fist. “You have an utterly depraved and—” He winced as the pain throbbed through him, “wonderfully healing Artifact in your possession.”

He willed the dagger to unleash its healing magic, and a stream of blood flowed forth from the great ruby into his stomach. The weird, liquidy-washy feeling abated, the pain receded, and when the last of the ruby’s blood had flowed into him he felt right as rain.

“Ah, I love this little dagger.” He gave the blade a kiss. “Watch the door while I top it up?”

Anna gave a jerky nod. More fighting was going on below. She moved to the balcony doorway as Vic knelt by the dead youth and pressed the dagger’s tip through his jerkin, through muscle, and deep into the now-still heart.

“Drink deep, little pet,” he murmured. “Daddy’s gotta feeling he’s going to need you again soon.”

“Hurry, Vic.” Anna was peering into a large room beyond. “I can hear—”

“Let’s go.” He stepped past her, Point held lightly in one hand, dagger in the other, and glanced around. A large reception room of some kind, the usual kind of noble setup with an overly large fireplace, ancient furniture that would survive till the end of days, paintings, etc. “This way.”

He led her through the first door into a narrow hallway. Thick rug under foot, walls painted dark blue so as to appear nearly black in the gloom. Melisende would be on the third floor, having retreated to her suite immediately.

Servants’ corridors. That’s what they needed. Backstairs. From a lifetime of experience, Vic knew that meant some interstitial place, close to the back, probably over the kitchens. Given the layout of the patio and its doors below…

He ran lightly down the all, peered out into an intersection, took a left, followed another corridor along the manor’s back wall, the occasional window looking out over the gardens. Guest bedroom entrances on the right. Shouting from the distance. Where was—ah!

A narrow door, plain, meant to be overlooked. He cracked it open, peered inside, then burst in. A tiny landing, with an uncarpeted staircase running both up and down.

“How did you know?” whispered Anna, crowding in behind him.

“Feminine intuition,” he whispered back, and took the steps two at a time. “We’re probably going to have to talk our way through the next bit. You got the Crown handy?”

It felt like a bonfire had been lit behind him. Vic’s legs went weak, his breath caught in his throat, and it was all he could do to knot turn around to drink in the glory that was Anna. They’d debated the best combination of Artifacts, and had managed to elevate her Presence to a formidable 28 with a combination of the Twilight Crown, Rootheart Sigil, and Aureate Master.

Now they could only pray it was enough.

The third floor. Vic cracked open the door and peered out into a broad corridor. Ridiculous sumptuous carpeting, wall hangings, paintings, huge framed doors. “This way.” The carpets were wonderful for softening their footsteps.

They padded down the hall and paused where it opened to a huge landing into which debouched a grand staircase. Very open. Not good. Licking his lower lip, Vic retreated, broke into a run, clasped Anna’s hand to drag her refulgent glory behind him at a suitably quick pace, and found another corridor. An open door showed a music room with an archway beyond it.

More shouting, and then the entire house shivered as a BOOM sounded from the back garden.

“What was that?” whispered Anna.

“Karsy must have passed gas. How should I know? Through here.” He ran past a harp, paused at the far archway to peer into a small library. Another door on the far side, a big door leading to a hallway. “Little doors always lead to a lady’s heart,” he said, feeling manic, hilarious, seconds from death, and ran across the library to the small recessed door.

Which opened to a parlor. The house was a fucking maze. It had to be, what, five times bigger than Anna’s manse? A fire was crackling in the fireplace, and a letter was abandoned on a small desk, quill dropped and leaving a squiggle of fresh ink across the lower half.

“We’re close. I can smell it.” Vic rushed toward the far door only to halt and fall back as it opened to reveal a heavily armored dwarf who strode forth with ill intent.

“I love you armor,” breathed Vic. And assuredly, the plate was gorgeous, a matte black affair with curlicues of gold and a visor shaped like a dragon’s maw, the teeth forming bars before the one-eyed dwarf’s grim face.

“You dare—” began the dwarf, then stopped as Anna stepped forth.

“Kneel,” she demanded, and to Vic’s unending delight the dwarf rocked back and forth and then fell to one knee, his sole eye wide in shock.

Vic raised the Point and punched it through the one good eye, causing its tip to clang against the back of the dragon helm.

“Vic!” cried Anna, horrified.

“What? I didn’t go for the bad eye.” Vic pushed down the guilt Anna’s ridiculous Presence inculcated in his callous heart and rushed past the collapsing dwarf to the door.

Which opened to a large bedroom suite, complete with a four posted bed large enough in which to romp with twenty ladies, a huge white-furred bear rug, another fucking fireplace, mirrors, portraits, and Melisende Celestis.

She was a slender woman whose presence somehow still blazed despite Anna’s own overwhelming aura. Her white hair was bound back in an elegant bun, and she wore a severe dress of midnight blue embroidered with silver thread. Her brows were lowered as she glared at them both, not afraid, not yet, but imperious still, regal, and somehow utterly rich with disdain.

A second man with a striking familiar resemblance glared at them, wide-eyed, but Melisende snapped her fingers and he grimaced, retreated, and exited a side door.

Anna stepped forth, and oh glory, Vic wanted to drop to his knees before her. Chin raised, eyes flashing, her auburn hair bound back in a perfect crown braid, she seemed the queen to Melisende’s lordship, a figure stepped out of legend.

“Call of your guards,” Anna demanded. “And listen to our proposition. We both stand to benefit from an alliance.”

To Melisende’s credit she paled but didn’t back down. “You dare infiltrate my home, murder my people, and then offer an alliance?”

“I dare, and more. If you refuse me Lord Doran Blaze will benefit instead. He has already backed my plan and will gladly accept lordship over all of Flutic if you refuse to become its queen.”

“Queen?” Melisende’s dry swallow caused Vic to grin. Anna’s Presence was getting to her. “What are you talking about? You are a minor countess of no account. Who are you to offer such a title?”

Anna took a step forward, and Melisende tensed. “I am the one wearing the Twilight Crown. I am the one holding all the cards. I know you to be ambitious and intelligent. If you don’t agree to rule Flutic with only a few minor constraints, I shall offer the role of king to Lord Blaze. Your powers will be many.” And in quick succession Anna rattled off the terms they had agreed. “You will be a queen in every matter but that which could hurt the people of Flutic. The only question is whether you wish to seize the moment, or hesitate or let another rule?”

Melisende’s quick wits had deserted her. Not that Vic could find fault in her momentary speechlessness. Anna’s Presence of 28 was breathtaking, her authority overwhelming, her allure devastating.

But still the other Lady struggled. “Yseult Khan will recognize your trick and be back here in moments. Your friends are being overwhelmed right now outside in the gardens. You are in no position to dictate terms. Give me the Crown.”

“Try and take it,” purred Vic. “No, really. Try. I’d love to roll around on the carpet with you while you try to scratch my eyes out.”

Melisende’s eyes narrowed. “Your terms are absurd. A true queen of Flutic would rule with both an iron fist and a wise heart. To constrain my authority with an oversight council would be to make a mockery of my every edict.” Her lips curled into a sneer. “Oh, I see the appeal of what you offer, and I can appreciate your trying to ram it down my throat with a fist of enhanced Presence. But no.” Sweat was beading Melisende’s brow. Just how high was her Ego? “If we dispense with the oversight council, I’m willing to negotiate taxation rates and whatever else for the poorer districts. But I will rule fairly and in Flutic’s sole interest, not dance to your absurd tune.”

Anna was at a loss. “There is no other way. Don’t you understand? We have to unite the Houses. We have to bring justice to how we operate. The city’s rot must be cut out.”

“And I’ll do just that.” Melisende shuddered and averted her eyes, no longer able to meet Anna’s stare. Face waxen with effort, she glared at the carpet. “Nobody is as well positioned as me to rule. Nobody understand the city, its politics, its economics, as I do. You want to improve the city? Give me free reign to improve everything as I see fit, and I shall usher the city into a new golden age.”

Anna glanced at Vic in frustration, but he could only smile blandly back and shrug. Had she really expected this to go otherwise? Warmth was flowing up the back of his neck, and his chest had grown tight with excitement. “This is our final offer,” he said. “Work with us, be part of the team, and we can all prosper. Refuse? And it will go badly for you.”

Melisende sneered. “Go on, then. Crown Doran Blaze and see what a mockery he makes of everything. I’ll unite the other Houses against your tyranny. Unless you mean to coerce me by threatening my life?”

“No,” whispered Anna. “We’re not here to murder you if you refuse. But you’ll plunge Flutic into open civil war if you don’t see reason.”

“No,” said Melisende, and covered her mouth as her gorge suddenly rose. Her body was in revolt over having to deny Anna’s authority. “You—this is your doing. You’ll—” She pressed the back of her wrist to her lips and winced.

“Vic?” Anna gave him a helpless look. “We have to make this work. We have to negotiate. Find middle ground.”

“Negotiate? But of course. She gets to outright refuse, and we start caving, sacrificing whatever we need in order to get her paltry agreement.”

Melisende glared at Vic. “Whoever you are, shut your mouth in the presence of your betters.”

Anna stepped forward, palms raised. “Melisende. Lord Blaze is—”

“Damn Doran Blaze.” Melisende straightened. “The man is a fool. The whole lot of them are idiots. If you give him the Crown I’ll take it from his head after I have Yseult cut it off. I will be queen—of that much you were correct. I was always destined to rule this city, to restore it to glory—”

Vic raised The Point and willed it to extend into Melisende’s left eye. Its tip punched out the back of her head then retracted seamlessly.

Melisende stood stock still for a moment, her remaining eye wide in shock, then collapsed.

“Whoops,” said Vic, and frowned at The Point accusingly. “How did that happen?”

But within he was crowing with joy, with the savage satisfaction of having done something long overdue. Never had a moment felt more satisfying, more righteous, more correct.

And then, in sweet benediction, in delightful confirmation, Vic heard the sound of metallic stars ringing out against the void.

The Demon Seed Has Stirred

Your Ego has risen from 19 to 20