Bloodwalk - James P. Davis [128]
"Be quiet!" a young woman on her right said. Shaking, she searched the blackness outside the circle for movement. She held a dagger, the traditional weapon of Savrathans, close to her breast. Sameska scowled and clenched her own hidden blade.
"Heed what she says, child," Morgynn said as she stepped into the boundary of the circle's glow. "There is a certain wisdom in madness that should not be dismissed so readily."
The oracles looked in horror upon the sorceress, her face like a portrait painted in blood on an ivory slate. Blood dripped from her fingertips, covering her arms up to her elbows. She noticed the oracles' attention to the mess dripping from her hands and held them forward, palms up.
"Fear not," she said mockingly, "it's not mine."
* * * * *
Quinsareth sheathed Bedlam and ran, avoiding the clash of forces in the streets and making his way toward the temple. He jumped off the wall before the gnolls spotted him. He had no time to relive his battle in Targris, and he struggled to keep Logfell from his thoughts as suffering wails and keening moans erupted from the undead, only blocks behind him. He focused on the rain, imagining himself weaving between the drops. He dashed between buildings like the lightning, becoming part of the storm and not the battle. The battle itself was beyond him now, beyond the works of a single warrior, and would play itself out as such.
"Their fates must be their own," he whispered under his breath. He slipped between darkened, undisturbed homes and past the smoldering, steaming remains of others. Inside himself, he could feel the lie even if he couldn't admit it, but it was familiar and necessary to his task. It was a half-truth he maintained to keep moving, to stay focused. Nobility, he thought, forges more martyrs than it does victories.
The malebranche passed overhead, intent on destruction and reveling in their play. Their nearness called to his blood. He buried deep his instinct for battle and wars fought long before the elven nations were born. He'd felt the same call in the High Forest near Hellgate Keep, the forests of Cormanthor near Myth Drannor, and in the snows and tundra of Narfell. This, too, he buried, though he absorbed that primal bloodlust for his own use, bending his celestial nature to his own ends and means.
Seeing his objective ahead, he entered the last stretch of flooded street and crouched behind an overturned merchant's chart, its single wheel turning lazily in the wind over loaves of sodden bread. The wide square before the Temple of the Hidden Circle was paved in cobblestones laid in concentric circles, their pattern highlighted by rivers of water that flowed between the cracks and reflected the lightning flashes.
He needed no lightning to see the five figures standing in a line across the center of those circles of stones. All save one wore hunters' armor and weapons. They did not move or blink; no puffs of breath steamed from their open mouths. Their bodies rippled and shimmered like mirages. What wounds they bore had ceased bleeding, open and empty.
Narrowing his eyes, Quinsareth strode from his hiding place, in full view and no longer concerned with stealth. The glazed and lifeless eyes of the sentries had found him with preternatural senses that reached beyond darkness, rain, and man-made obstacles.
The very fact that he lived had given him away.
* * * * *
"This is foolishness, High Oracle. You know that, don't you?" Morgynn asked while observing the translucent veil of force separating her from the oracles. "This barrier will not hold forever against me. Meanwhile, your people are dying as we speak."
Sameska did not answer. The other oracles stood ready to act, though Morgynn felt none of them were a