The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [192]
“You all might want to hurry it up in there. They’ve been lying low for the last few minutes, but now it looks like we’ve got some strange company coming.”
The sound of a rifle being cocked followed Mitchell’s voice.
Travis turned, met Vani’s gaze. She nodded.
“Vani and I will go,” he said. “Grace, stay with the fairy and Beltan.”
The blond knight took a stumbling step forward. “I’m coming with you, Travis. I’m your protector.”
Travis paused, then reached out and laid his hand on Beltan’s chest. “No, Beltan,” he said gently. “Not now.”
The knight gaped, then staggered back and leaned against a crate. Sorrow etched Travis’s heart. He wanted to move to the knight, to hold him, but there wasn’t time.
“Travis!”
That was Davis’s voice. Together, Travis and Vani moved to the end of the truck and leaped out the doors.
It didn’t take long to spot the problem. Davis and Mitchell stood, rifles ready. A moment later the things appeared around the cab of the closest truck, long arms dragging the asphalt as they loped nearer. Travis counted three. Five. Then he stopped counting.
Thunder sounded as Mitchell squeezed the trigger of his rifle. A second report came as Davis followed suit. Two of the gorleths squealed and fell to the ground.
More continued to appear from around the truck. Davis and Mitchell cocked their rifles, fired again. Two more fell. It wasn’t enough; they were coming faster than the two men could drop them. Travis felt Vani tense beside him. Then his heart froze in his chest as another figure came into view.
He walked slowly, black robes billowing behind him. The light of the westering sun had broken through the clouds, and it gleamed off his mask of gold. Travis saw now that the expression on the mask was wrought into a lifeless smile, the eye slits thin and leering. The Scirathi raised a hand, and Travis’s heart shuddered in his chest.
Vani clutched him. “Travis!”
He tried to speak but could not.
Gunshots split the air. Only it didn’t come from Davis and Mitchell’s rifles. Another of the gorleths fell, screeching. But the second bullet missed its mark. Instead, there was a bright ping as it struck something metal.
The sorcerer halted, head bowed, as something sparked and skittered away across the pavement. The gorleths faltered, then ceased their advance. Travis drew in a ragged breath, his heart beating once more. What was happening?
The Scirathi lifted its head, and the black cowl slipped back. The gold mask was gone. The bullet must have struck it, knocking it off, exposing the sorcerer’s face.
Or what was left of his face. Two black eyes peered from a tangled mass of livid pink scars. The sorcerer’s mouth was a crooked gash, and his nose two pits amid the ruin of his face. Travis fought for understanding—
—then gained it. Vani had said the sorcerers used blood to work their magic. How many times had the Scirathi been forced to cut himself? How many times before his arms, his legs, his torso became too damaged to heal, too damaged to bear more wounds? How long until there was nowhere left to cut.…
A flash of gold. Light glinted off the sorcerer’s mask. He saw it at the same time as Travis, stopped against the tire of one of the trucks. The sorcerer lunged for it.
He was too slow. In a black, howling knot of fury, the gorleths sprang at the Scirathi. Davis and Mitchell lowered their rifles, horror on their faces. Travis took a step forward, but Vani’s strong hand held him back.
“So the old stories are true,” she said. “The masks truly are the focus for their power. Without it, the sorcerer cannot control the gorleths.”
Free from his will, they turned on him—their maker and their torturer. Travis felt his gorge rise in his throat, but he could not look away.
The monsters made quick work of their master. His screams ended as they tore his arms from their sockets. In moments all that remained were shards of bone, and shreds of meat and black cloth. Travis thought the gorleths would turn when they were finished and resume the attack, but they