The Shield of Weeping Ghosts - James P. Davis [108]
Bastun thrust his axe forward to fill the opening, only to have it deflected downward. The swift sword rose to slash at his side, and Bastun backstepped protectively. Too late he tealized his mistake, hearing the prince's voice whispering arcane words. With a casual gesture Serevan sent magical force slamming into Bastun's stomach. He flew through the air and crashed into the wall. Hitting the floor, he wheezed for breath as Duras resumed a furious attack.
Through the open door across the chamber, Bastun could see the dark splotches on the snow-covered wall. The sight of the bodies-Anilya's body-drove him to keep moving. With a desperate determination he picked up his axe. Blinking away sweat and the tears from coughing for air, he turned to find Duras, his back facing Bastun as the berserker met the Cold Prince.
A sudden silence seized his attention. Two still forms stood face to face in an awkward embrace. Serevan's visage pulsed with life, only his eyes held on to the hazy blue of ice. Duras's head rolled to one side, his sword clattered to the stone, a scarlet-stained sliver of bright steel sprouting from his back. His legs continued to push, trying to stand, but failing in the task as his strength was drained by the wound and the bleakborn's feeding.
With a shrug, the prince pulled his blade from the warrior's chest. Duras fell backward, still fighting to keep his balance like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Bastun caught him beneath his shoulders and slumped under his weight. Blood gushed over his robes and stained his hands, his eyes only just registering the dark crimson color that spilled over him. It streamed across the stone, filling cracks and melting frost, creating a sickening red slush. Duras shook in his arms, eyes rolling in their sockets.
The crunch of a boot startled Bastun out of his momentary shock. He did not look up. Instinct sent his hands into action. In a trance, words spilled forth from his mouth as he studied his blood-drenched hand. An old scar on his palm made him recall the last time he had touched his friend's blood.
The last of the spell thundered down his arm, energy quaking through his wrist as his fist shot forward. Air parted at spell's edge, a vacuum forming as the image of his fist grew and blurred into a massive battering ram. Serevan's arms and legs flailed as he was struck and flung through the chamber. Wraiths parted and hissed as he fell through them and disappeared, his armor scraping against stone and crunching against the opposite wall.
Then Bastun breathed again, air rattling from his lungs as he shook in a barely controlled fury. That seething anger lessened a moment as he met Duras's half-lidded eyes.
"Bas-Bastun…" he said, lips almost blue and stained with drops of blood. The vremyonni shook his head as if silence would keep his friend alive, somehow hold death at bay, but Duras continued, "No, I must… Ulsera, your sister…"
"Don't," Bastun said quietly, but his friend was beyond hearing, and the sound of his sister's name quelled any further protest within him.
"I took her there… to the Urlingwood. They found us… the guardians. I hid"-a choking sob escaped him-"I ran away… but they-they killed her. We were just… children."
His eyes stared off into nowhere, reliving the events in his mind. In the absence of the bleakborn's presence, a chill had returned to Bastun, coldet now as Duras spoke. Feeling numb, he sat motionless, his dying friend in his arms. A sudden fierce focus filled the warrior's gaze.
"I should have died there. Not her. Too scared to tell anyone… just a child… and they blamed you." The words cut deep, and the first stirrings of some emotion began to churn in Bastun, "I had no courage. So many… years."
Bastun trembled, tears never spilled welled in his eyes and still he choked them back.
"I die… for her. Giving this… to you. Forgive me."
"You are forgiven, Duras," he said without hesitation as Duras's eyes lost their focus.