Crown (The Manhunters Book 3) Read online

  “You are going to teach us?” Gale asked.

  Grastion looked at him before looking back over his shoulder. He turned back and nodded. “I am your master now.”

  “So, if I cast, you could identify the spell?” Gale said.

  “I am versed in every spell known to exist. I know the words of power as they are uttered, and I can counter them seamlessly.”

  “So if I were to cast this,” Gale spoke a word and waved his hand in the air. Roth felt a deflection spell take hold of him and he grinned. “You would know what I had just cast?”

  The man nodded, though Roth knew it a lie. Gale had written that spell from board not a month ago.

  “I am aware of the spell you just cast, to be sure,” Grastion said.

  “Good, because I wouldn’t want you to be taken by surprise,” Gale said.

  “So you know this spell for certain?” Ithyryyn said as he took off his necklace. He waved his hand and cast a blurring spell on them all. The slightest movement they made now would send tracers in every direction. Within a few steps, it would be impossible for anyone watching to know where they were actually standing.

  “We have done enough casting for this afternoon, I say. Put your objects on the ground now and we will begin the audit and the diversification of the library.”

  “One more,” Roth said. He spoke a word and waved his hands above his head. An impossibly bright light filled the dome. It was blinding to anyone who did not wear the circlets the Collective had designed. No one else in the dome could see anything. It was as if the sun had descended on them.

  Gale ripped his rod free from the magical bag that held it. He pointed it at Grastion. Ithyryyn spoke and the necklace in his hand bubbled out into a glowing blue shield. He stepped in front of Thrak, who pulled his wands from his hips. Thrak spun them in his hands as the area broke out into chaos.

  Quill disappeared and reformed in front of Tate. Gale stepped up before Roth. Within a breath, the Callden Collective was bared for battle.

  Grastion spat out a lightning spell and Roth laughed.

  Thrak had told him long ago the wizard whose first spell in a duel is a physical attack is lazy. The bolt slammed into Gale and deflected. It bounced harmlessly left to slam into Tate. It rebounded off him to fire out into the crowd.

  One in the cadre of wizards was hit by it and he dropped to the ground.

  Thrak shot a bout of power at the ground and it opened like a mouth beneath the cadre. They were swallowed and the mouth closed. A few wizards were fast enough to lift into the air. They turned their staffs in the direction of the Collective and fired. The fire dart flew and slammed into Roth’s forehead. It made a slight vibrating sensation when it struck before bouncing off harmlessly into the chaotic confusion of the men and women before them.

  Roth gripped his sword and twisted it, breaking the spell off the tip of the blade and leaving the globe embedded in the ground. He cast on his feet and leapt over Gale and into the mix. The wizards at his feet screamed as he waded into them. They struggled to get away, but Thrak’s terrain mouth had closed. They were hopelessly trapped in the ground.

  Roth spun his sword in the air, extending the power from the tip, and he slashed it forward as if it were attacking a melee warrior. He screamed out the words of power as he swiped, and the auras of every wizard in its wake sliced open. The magic within the auras exploded in every direction, bouncing off Roth’s robe and breaking into chaotic patterns that could never be predicted.

  The explosions that ripped through the dome were constant. The pure magic from the severed auras ricocheted off the dome and the Collective. It ripped the ground to a crater. It popped wizards like bubbles, and it splashed hot gore in every direction.

  When the last of the enemy was down, Roth opened his aura and soaked up as much of the bouncing magic as he could. He felt the others of his College do the same, and soon the globe was safe to bring down.

  Roth commanded it down and Gale doused the blinding light. Looking at the carnage around them, Roth saw movement. He walked to a man bleeding violently on the ground and dropped to a knee. The sight of the man dying nearly brought Roth to tears, but he fought them back. The man looked up at him and worked to say words.

  Roth wiped blood from the man’s face and saw it was Decard, Victor’s useless mage. “I will scream your name in Hell until you are dropped there and I can strangle you with my own—” the man coughed blood and his eyes rolled back. Roth took the mage’s hand before realizing it was no longer attached to the body. “There are more,” Decard sputtered.

  “More of whom?” Thrak asked from behind Roth.

  “More of us. The word has been written about your Collective. You are criminals of the magic community until every one of you has been wiped out.” Decard spat on Roth’s hand, unable to get it to Roth’s face.

  “Your people know where to find us,” Gale said. “Tate.”

  Tate squeezed his gloved hands and the man’s head popped like a gourd.

  “We are going to have to be careful from now on,” Quill said.

  “War?” Ithyryyn asked.

  “War,” Tate answered.

  Jon Jon’s War

  “Are we in place?” Rayph said through his fetish.

  “In place,” Dran said. “Not happy about it.”

  “Neither am I, Dran. I swear to you, if any can be saved, they will be.” Rayph tried not to focus on her anger or disappointment. This all needed to go just right. “Smear?”

  “I’m here. He has a lot to say, but I’m not listening.”

  “Do not open that cage even to gag him. Your poisons won’t work on him and he is slippery.”

  “All of this I know, boss. I can take Artan’s insults. I took him, that is all we need to know.”

  “Fanhon, you in place?” Rayph looked at the massive warehouse on the far side of Dyer’s Alley and he frowned. Shiv’s street gang would walk right out of that building. Fanhon being there was tricky. It was the one part of all this Rayph didn’t like.

  “Me and Trysliana are ready for anything. Don’t worry about us. We are strong,” Fanhon said. Rayph decided to believe them.

  Rayph looked out over the snow-covered broken streets and his blood went cold, even through his warming spell. This ground would be colored red by the end of the afternoon. Rayph scowled and looked to the collection of buildings where Jon Jon’s men and women would be hiding by this point. He didn’t like it. Shiv was thousands of years old. Jon Jon, maybe sixteen.

  Silk walked across the roof Rayph stood on and smiled. He wore a large robe, red, with yellow fur that might have been a wolf skin, might have been some other animal. Rayph decided he didn’t need to know.

  “Is your brother in place?” Rayph asked.

  “He is. And he won’t fail you. Lyceanias has never met a man in battle that he cannot defeat. This little skirmish will be no different.”

  “Where is Tawny?” Rayph asked.

  “She is with Dirge. He wanted to be here and is sore at the fact you would not let him,” Silk said. “You’re making a powerful enemy. He holds the ear of The Pale. She is not a woman you want to trifle with.”

  “The Pale is not a woman at all. She is a goddess. She is a vengeful goddess, to be sure, but she has rules. He is breaking them.”

  “You are wrong.”

  “Yeah, we will see.”

  Rayph fell silent. Silk did as well. The whole of the city seemed to hush, excited and terrified at what would come next. Jon Jon was the first to come out of his hole. The massive door to the warehouse burst open and out the young man came. He wore a leather helmet tied to his chin, a chain mail shirt with holes in it, a scurvy set of leather pants and a pair of boots spiked on the toes. His elbows had metal cuffs on them that boasted sharp hooks, and his bat had been replaced with a different bat, this one bound in steel and spiked like a morning star. He walked proud and tall, and he looked like a god of the streets. An unstoppable force, bared and ready to destroy a
ny foe set before him. From behind and beside him walked a ragtag group of vagabonds that looked like a mix of real fighters and terrified men and women. Boys, no more than nine or twelve, rushed out to stand alongside Dyer’s Alley. They carried ropes and shields, and Rayph could not imagine what they were there for.

  Jon Jon stepped into the front of the line as it formed and shrugged his shoulders. He said not a word. He simply waited, his leg bouncing the only sign of nerves visible.

  Shiv rolled his huge door open and stepped out. He had traded his club in for a massive rusted sword. His face had been painted purple with red slashes drawn across it like claw marks. His face was square and thick and foreign to a human face.

  “What is he?” Silk said. Rayph did not know for sure. He looked at the man, seeing traits from a few different races.

  “If I had to guess, I would say that he is half-progetten, half-garq. That is all that would explain his size, his thickness, and his nose. He doesn’t have fangs, but he does have a hulking body and the mind of a garq.”

  “He has no chance here. Not against him,” Silk said. Rayph saw Lyceanias walking out of a side building. He carried his two swords in his hands and stepped up beside Jon Jon. “My brother is overkill. No way Jon Jon needs him to bring this man low. He is going to be wasted and Shiv will fall within moments.”

  Rayph knew Silk was underestimating Shiv, but the man’s brother was out there. No way Rayph would say as much. Shiv’s gang was more than an army. Jon Jon possessed maybe a thousand men, maybe eight hundred. Shiv’s was almost half again as large. Within his ranks, Rayph saw kids with battered weapons, rusted swords and tiny knives.

  “Rayph, they have kids out there,” Trysliana said. “We have to call this off.”

  Rayph gritted his teeth and shook his head. “We can’t. This has to happen. I can’t do Shiv any other way.”

  Silk turned to Rayph. “You can’t ask Jon Jon to kill children.”

  “Any other ideas?” Rayph snapped. “Anything at all will help. We walk away from this, I can’t get Shiv, if I can get him at all. Brody did this for one reason. He wants to break Jon Jon. All we can do is pray the children are only wounded. We will set a healing cult on them when this is over.”

  Jon Jon looked up at Silk, who looked at Rayph. “This is it. Once I give him the nod, I can’t bring him back from it. Think hard about what you want me to do here.”

  Rayph felt his stomach lurch as he looked at the boys and girls arrayed against them. He hated himself for the command, but he gave it. Silk nodded to Jon Jon and the young man grinned.

  “Thought you wouldn’t show,” Jon Jon said. “You guys have been taking hits these days. Thought you might sit this one out.”

  Shiv sneered a broken tooth smile. “Nothing to crushing you and your paltry band of fodder. You are about to see what happens when a squirt stands up to a giant. We have had enough of your fumblings at keeping the streets. After today, your gang belongs to me. They bow to me or they die. After today, the land you call yours is within my grasp. I will color your streets with blood, then I will claim them. Your syndicate will have nowhere to hide. Your women will be handed over to my boss. Your leader will be skinned alive and fed to our beast. The worst you can imagine will be done, and you will know that your weakness caused the fall of your people. I will let you think about that while you die slowly on the street.”

  Jon Jon nodded. “I haven’t been afraid of a man since I beat my father to death. You’re not going to scare me. You might be big, but you’re also dumb. You cannot hope to stand against a mind and a club. You also have nothing to fight for.”

  Rayph liked the boy.

  “See, you mutilated the woman I love. She will never be mine, but I still love her. I can’t let that stand. You fight for power and control. I fight for revenge and decimation. So let us start our dance. Let us see exactly what your greed will win you over my love and rage.”

  Shiv turned to his men and lifted his sword high. He roared, a sound that could not have come from anything human, and his group screamed back. Jon Jon held up his bat and pointed it at Shiv. The mass of fighters and desperates rushed into battle, and the dying began.

  Impact, hard and terrible. It was as if Rayph could feel every strike that landed, every terrible blade that entered flesh. Silk held a hand to his mouth as if he would be sick and watched with wide, horrified eyes. Men and women with no training, with no knowledge on how to swing a sword or thrust a blade, gripped and pounded their fellow man with rage and hate. Men and women who had, just the day before, walked past each other in peace now fought a battle for the streets they lived in, against one another.

  Blood was being spilled. The snow was colored red and turning more crimson with every blow. Rayph wept as children ran through the mix, too terrified to make a stand, too scared of Chaos to flee for their lives. Trysliana spoke over the fetish.

  “Can’t watch it go down like this. I have to try to get those children out of there. I can save at least some of them.” She was crying, near the point of panic. “What do you think, Rayph? Please, I’m begging you.”

  “Fanhon?”

  “I can do this alone, I’m sure. Send her out there, Rayph. It is the right thing to do,” Fanhon said.

  “Go ahead, Trys. Sisalyyon, can you help?” Rayph added.

  “I can,” she said.

  “Good. Rush in to the fray. Grab children. Get the wounded ones first. Carry them out. You have to be hard, girls. Don’t waste time on the ones that can’t make it. I know it’s terrible, but you have to do it.”

  “Thank you, Rayph.”

  “Can I help?” Smear said.

  “No. I need you with Artan. I won’t let him sit in that cell alone.”

  “Dammit,” Smear said. “Trysliana, you be careful, please.”

  “Silk, you need to send everyone you have into that fight and pull out children. I can’t leave them in there like that.”

  Silk nodded and walked to the other side of the roof. He whistled, and a band of men and women that worked for Silk as petty thieves called up from the street. He commanded them into the fight and returned to Rayph. He pulled a knotted rope from his pocket and spoke into the knot.

  “Ty, Cable, I need you here. You are going on a rescue mission. Get those kids out of there,” Silk said.

  Two forms leapt over fifty feet in the air from the roof behind Rayph and across the street. They landed in front of Rayph and leapt again, coming down in the middle of the fight.

  “Can you go help?” Rayph asked.

  “I’m not a fighter and I have no weapon. I go out there and I’m dead. No question to it. I run this battle from here. I’m not going in. How about you?” Silk said.

  Rayph wished he could, but he needed to wait for his moment. He needed to be ready when the time came. “Unfortunately, I cannot.”

  “Okay, then. We wait it out,” Silk said.

  Rayph watched the fighting with terror as he realized they were losing. Jon Jon’s men were losing ground. The young man and Lyceanias were striving against Shiv now. The warrior’s two swords and the thug’s bat were coming in from all directions at Shiv, but the worst of Shiv’s attacks seemed to be going to Jon Jon. Shiv, though focused on defending himself from Lyceanias, was sending his most devastating attacks against the young tough. This was a hate that went back years. This was a rivalry that had shaped the streets of Dragonsbane for a long time, and Shiv meant to end that struggle today.

  With a roar, the worst happened. Blade Silvertooth rushed in from the west. His forces were soldiers, all trained in battle, all ready to slice deep into the masses of Jon Jon’s gang and end them once and for all. Rayph touched his fetish.

  “Your men have arrived,” he said.

  Dran cursed. “They are not my men. They have abandoned their posts to run to their true masters.”

  “Think of them as yours when you are fighting them. Fear drove them to Brody. It will be loyalty that causes them to return.”
/>   Dran growled and Rayph heard a war cry lift into the air from the south. Dran rushed in headlong with her town guards running behind her. Soldier to soldier waged war against each other. Men, who days before stood side by side with each other, now vied to cut one another down as brother fought brother.

  Lyceanias held Shiv’s sword scissored to the ground with both of his, and in that split second, Jon Jon brought his bat down on the rusted sword and shattered it. Shiv roared, tossing the blade away. Rayph turned to Silk and nodded.

  “Time is here. Get ready to stop the fight,” Rayph said. He leapt into the air and flew straight for the three men fighting. He landed behind Jon Jon, grabbed his shoulder, and spun him away. Rayph cast a spell on himself rendering his skin into steel, and he winced as Jon Jon’s bat slammed into his flank. Rayph fought to ignore it as he shoved Lyceanias back.

  Shiv grinned a bloody smirk and stomped his foot as he leaned forward and roared in Rayph’s face. Rayph felt his sphincter tighten in fear. He summoned his spell, and with the power behind his strike, slammed Shiv in the chest with his palms.

  Shiv lifted into the air and flew. He flew back a hundred yards and hit the side of the building he had come out of. The wall came alive. What was plain stone turned out to be a great net painted to blend in with the wall perfectly. The net closed and Shiv roared.

  The net was jerked straight up and to the roof. When it hit the top, it took a hard left and snaked in that direction around a pole Fanhon had driven into the center of the building. It scooted left until he hit the barred cage the rope led to. The cage then slammed shut and tumbled off the left side of the roof. It fell forty feet and landed in the middle of a wagon.

  Fanhon sliced the rope clean in two with a shot from his bow. The rope, which had been threaded through the bottom of the wagon, was cut. Fanhon smacked the reins to the horse, and the wagon raced away.

  Shiv screamed and shouted as the wagon carried him off, but there was no stopping it. The second member of the Chaos Syndicate had been captured. Rayph turned back to the fight and grabbed his fetish.