Page 236 of Of Empires and Dust
“I’m sorry.” Arden didn’t have to explain further. Lyrin knew why he was sorry. He’d charged off when he’d seen Valerys whirling towards a different roof. He’d separated from the others to help Calen, and in doing so, he’d left himself isolated. And now Lyrin was isolated with him.
“Not really the time for apologies,” Lyrin called back as he pulled his Soulblade from a Bloodspawn’s chest. “Later.” He opened an Urak navel to groin. “When it’s quieter.” He stomped down into a shin, bones splintering and blood flowing free. “Less blood.”
The Bloodspawn continued to flow over the parapet until Lyrin and Arden were back to back and surrounded on all sides. More than once his Sentinel armour saved him from a blow that would have killed any other man.
The four Chosen strode with slow purpose, a sense of inevitability about them.
Another Bloodspawn walked at their side, shorter but still bigger than the others – a Shaman. A glowing red gemstone topped the staff in its right hand, and a mixture of metal plates and stiff leather armoured its body, grey robes draped over its shoulders. But there was something else, something Arden had never seen before: barbed horns coiled around the Shaman’s head like some kind of bone-hewn crown.
A gust of wind swirled, and before Arden could react, a river of fire poured down over the rooftop, sweeping from right to left, illuminating the night in a blaze of light. The stoneshook and parts of the roof collapsed, cracks creeping outwards, Bloodspawn shrieking and howling.
He looked up to see Valerys tear through the sky overhead, spreading his wings and turning back for a second pass. The wounds on the dragon’s chest were blackened and raw, the scales scarred around them.
“I told you to go,” Arden hissed. He blocked a swing from an Urak blade, then carved open the beast’s chest.
Amidst the flames and chaos, the Shaman raised its staff and unleashed a maelstrom of black fire laced with lightning into the air, forcing Valerys to twist and turn before swooping behind the remnants of an old tower.
The four Chosen broke into a charge, the firelight glowing incandescent on their silver plate.
“Lyrin!” Arden gestured at the charging Chosen with his Soulblade before whipping it back across his body to deflect the swipe of a Bloodspawn sword, then back again to carve into its cheeks and the bridge of its nose, and once more to sever the creature’s head. Half the creatures had been caught in the dragonfire, but the other half had only been shaken and were now regaining themselves around Arden and Lyrin.
“I see them!” Lyrin howled back.
With a pulse of the Taint, one of the Chosen leapt over a collapsed section of roof, its legs carrying it further than should have been possible.
The creature swung its níthral for Arden’s head as two Bloodspawn lunged from the left and right. Arden swept his Soulblade around, parrying two strikes while planting his right foot in the third attacker’s chest and sending it screaming through one of the newly-made holes in the roof.
The Chosen caught Arden in the helmet with a monstrous backhand that sent him reeling, then followed up with a downward swing of its Soulblade. The strike would have carvedArden open from the gut down had Lyrin not launched himself into its chest. The creature grabbed Lyrin by the back of the helmet and made to run him through with its crimson blade, but Lyrin released and reignited his own Soulblade in quick succession, the green light bursting through the Chosen’s forearm and ripping it free as Lyrin fell away.
The Chosen unleashed a feral howl, pulses of the Taint flowing from it in waves.
A roar gave a second’s warning before Valerys appeared in Arden’s periphery and dropped atop the Chosen. The dragon lifted the creature into the air, one talon wrapped around its leg, the other around its arm. He held it there for a moment before slamming it down a few feet to the left, the roof shaking once more, Bloodspawn scrambling to make way.
Valerys’s tail whipped back and knocked a clutch of Bloodspawn from the roof while arcs of blue lightning streaked from Calen’s palms at the nape of the dragon’s neck.
Valerys lifted his head, rolled his neck, then unleashed a torrent of white-hot fire down over the Bloodspawn Chosen. The creature’s legs thrashed for a moment, then went still, the Bloodspawn around it shrieking as their flesh and leather burst into flames.
A surge of power rippled through Arden’s Sigil, and the Rift opened behind him, but still he found himself staring into the raging dragonfire. And when the flames ceased, only ash remained.
“Go!” Calen roared from Valerys’s back, pointing towards the Rift. The dragon tore a Bloodspawn to pieces with a swipe of its forelimb, then unleashed another pillar of fire across the rooftop. “Haem, go!”
Through the flames, the Shaman stood tall, its gaze moving from Haem to Calen and Valerys, and behind it more Chosenleapt from the other rooves, the runes in their silver armour glowing.
Lyrin grabbed Arden by the shoulders and threw him backwards towards the Rift as more Bloodspawn closed around them. One last look over Arden’s shoulder saw Valerys lifting into the air, and then Arden fell through the Rift.
Ice washed over him and flowed through his veins, time standing still, the world becoming nothing but blackness.
He emerged from the Rift’s embrace into the Heart Chamber, dropping to his knees, his heart thumping.
Watchers swarmed around him, the candlelight sending their shadows in all directions. They were shouting. Why were they shouting?
The Watchers and priests didn’t stop at Arden, they rushed around him, their voices dull in his ears.
Slowly, he stood and turned. His mouth went dry, his throat tight.
Lyrin lay on the ground behind him, a black blade jutting from his chest, the handle of a staff sticking from his back, sheared where the Rift had sliced it.
“It’s all right, brother.” Arden pushed the others out of the way and pulled Lyrin into his arms. “I’ll get you to Heraya’s Well.” Arden rushed across the Heart Chamber, shoving aside anyone in his way. “Move! Move!”
