Blades of Sorcery Read online

  Before the words had even gotten out of her mouth, she knew she’d made a mistake. She’d given him an advantage, he now knew that she was even less informed than he might have first surmised. Not to mention the fact that she should have started off with perhaps an easier question to answer. Give him a feeling of accomplishment, maybe even allow him to impress her with his knowledge.

  For his part, the Kade leader simply gave her a disparaging look and didn’t deign to answer.

  Sara growled a bit internally, but didn’t hit him—it was her mistake, after all. Her second question struck out as well, and Sara bitterly recalled why she was better at fighting than she was at diplomacy. Which this situation called for. But looking around, there was no one else. She was the most senior person here simply because no one else had risen to take on the responsibility. The one other person who might be eager to question the Kade was Karn, and she didn’t trust him not to kill out of sheer pigheadedness.

  So Sara did it herself, and she did the best she could, all the while ruing the day she was born. Her frustrations must have shown on her face after a while, because then the Kade leader spoke unprovoked.

  “You’re not very good at this, are you?” he said with mock sympathy. “First time leading a regiment?”

  Sara kept her counsel and didn’t bother telling him she wasn’t their actual leader at all. She’d just lucked into being the most competent fighter by dint of experience and magic…and sheer determination. But this? This was different. It didn’t require her fists. It didn’t require her blades. It required her intuition, smarts, and an ability to connect with people. All three of which she tended to avoid if she could, preferring the solace of her mind and fists to a punching bag over anything else.

  From off to the side Karn, said sarcastically, “Maybe you should ask him where to find the Kade encampment next?”

  Sara winced and didn’t bother responding to that. But he was right. A professional torturer and investigator she was not.

  Still, she was going to try. Sara Fairchild had never given up on anything in her life once she was determined to achieve it, and she wasn’t going to start now. Besides, she didn’t want to die of starvation in this damned shield, and as of right now, none of them had any idea of when it would come down…if at all. Maybe they were supposed to starve in here. Those that weren’t killed, anyway.

  That, at least, they might have common cause on, she and the Kade. He was stuck in here just as much as they were.

  Thinking quickly, Sara asked, “Can you get this shield wall down?”

  The Kade leader didn’t move, but his eyes lit up with wariness, and for once, Sara felt like she might have the upper hand. Something he might have to tell them. After all, like them, he would starve without food and water. And he too would die a horrible death after wasting away. He wasn’t a fool. He had to know that.

  Their captive said, “What makes you think I’d tell you something like that?”

  Sara leaned over him and said, “Because if you wanted to die, you would have found half a dozen reasons to kill yourself by now. And for someone who wants to live, who truly wants to survive, there’s nothing they wouldn’t do to avoid three days of slow, painful death.”

  “You don’t scare me, girl, and neither does death. I’ve faced far worse,” he said with a laugh.

  Sara gave him a smile and leaned close to whisper, “Oh, I never said you’d die just of starvation, and it should, because I won’t just let you waste away.”

  He eyed her as she continued merrily, “I’ll cut a small hole at your waist and pull your intestines out of it…gently, slowly, like a pretty necklace, and wait for you to writhe in pain. Then I’ll start cutting all across your body, because by then I’ll be starving too, and it’ll distract me from the hunger pains. Once you’re nearly dead, I’ll do my very best to patch you up and start again. I’m sure someone here has some healing skills, even if they’re haphazard.”

  Sara smiled to show him she meant just what she said—and what was more, if he died of gangrene from a haphazard healing job, she couldn’t care less. He knew it. She knew it.

  Still, he said, “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would,” she cooed while trailing a finger up his thigh. “I’ll even let you pick which limb I start cutting on first. That is, if you’re still lucid after the pain and infection of your disemboweling.”

  He jerked away and looked into her face with disgust. And he found the truth of her words in her eyes.

  Even if he didn’t want to live, no one wanted to die with her eyes looking into theirs.

  Reluctantly, he said, “Fine, fine. It can be done. But not by me.”

  Sara thought, Now we’re getting somewhere.

  She leaned over him. “You’ll tell us how or I’ll disembowel you right this minute.”

  Their captive leaned back and replied with a snarl, “You’ll never manage it. Your group is too small. You’re all too weak.”

  Sara winked at him. “Give us a try—you might be surprised at the depths of strength that you do find.”

  The Kade gave her a disbelieving look and cleared his throat. “All right, all right, but you’re not going to like it.”

  Ezekiel came over. “We like being stuck in this bubble with you less.”

  Looking back and forth, the Kade leader knew when he’d been cornered. Face set in a disdainful sulk, he looked up and around at the sight-and-sound shield wall then back at them. Sara knew she had him where she wanted him. He knew it too. He wanted to give her the answer just as much as she wanted to obtain it. If only to see what outcome would result.

  They weren’t just trapped in this damned bubble. They were bored of it, and there was only so long that his captors would be entertained by questioning him. Sooner or later, their methods would turn darker. Whether it was hours or half a day, it was immaterial.

  Sara could tell that not only did he want to live, he harbored the perhaps not-so-foolish hope of being rescued. She didn’t blame him for that.

  Every prisoner of war did. Or should.

  She would too.

  She only hoped that, were she in the same circumstance, she would have the same fervent look of hope in her eyes that spoke of faith in an unseen comrade and command that would go through hell or high water to retrieve her. Rather than abandon her, as she knew they currently would.

  It was a distant hope. It was a foolish one. But no more so than hoping she could defeat an invasion force with zero lead time and a ragtag group by her side.

  Hope was sometimes the only thing they had. And in this, she and the Kade leader had that in common.

  11

  Wasting no time, Sara asked their captive, “How? How do we get through the shield wall—all of us, not just one?”

  Karn sat up with interest then. “And don’t lie,” he said grimly. “We’ll know if you do.”

  Their captive gave Karn a dismissive glance and turned back to Sara.

  “It’ll take a broad range of mage gifts and lots of energy,” he said, looking around at her sleeping comrades. “More than you have. Of both.”

  Sara frowned. “What kind of energy? A release spell?”

  “No, a siphoning. You need to drain the magic itself from the walls around you. No magic, no wall. Got it?”

  “Just like that?” Karn said doubtfully.

  “There is nothing simple about this,” their captive said in a voice that dripped in condescension. “Stripping someone’s magic by siphon is a big task; doing it through a shield wall from far enough way is nearly impossible. Because that is what it would take: you must attack the mage wielding the magic from afar to make the siphon work.”

  Sara swallowed hard. Siphoning did not sound good…or easy.

  She exchanged a glance with Ezekiel, and he stepped forward to assume the next round of questioning. Which was perfectly all right with Sara; she knew when she was far out of her league.

  “Keep going, you have to know more,” Ezekiel said, an
eager gleam in his eye. There was nothing that he liked more than an intellectual challenge. Or a mystical object. Preferably an item that was both a mystical object and a conundrum to crack.

  “I know enough that this is a foolish proposition,” the Kade spat out.

  At their glares and Sara’s step forward with a knife suddenly appearing in her hand, he hastily said, “But! I suppose, with enough focus, you could slip between the defenses of the mage who is keyed to this particular shield and disable his connection while siphoning the magic.”

  Sara knelt in front of him and began slicing off the buttons on his shirt. With each pop, he grew paler, and more of his pallid belly was exposed.

  “I’m telling you what you want to hear!” he cried, suddenly more afraid for his life than before.

  Sara looked up at him and sliced off the last button. With a flick of her hand, she pushed the two sides of the previously buttoned shirt aside.

  “Tell it faster,” Sara said.

  He began to speak more rapidly. “You can do it with concentration. But the connection must be disabled before the magic is siphoned off, or you’ll just risk the mage in question repowering the shield.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Sara murmured as she slowed trailed the flat side of her knife down his chest in a loving manner.

  He couldn’t get any paler this time. He just started sweating.

  “There are at least twelve mages working this spell jointly. And maybe half that number in backups. Each shield is supposed to be linked to a separate mage.”

  Sara frowned. “And how does that help us?”

  “It’s just a rumor. I don’t have access to the true strategy of the mage cohorts, but I’ve heard that they link their powers together to strengthen their own gifts.”

  He looked anxiously between Sara and Ezekiel.

  Sara looked at Ezekiel. “What’s he talking about?”

  Ezekiel’s eyes were wide in surprise. “I think he means an infinity circle?”

  “Is that so?” Sara said with an edge on her voice as she turned back to the Kade.

  “Never heard of it!” he said while trying to inch back. But he found that he had nowhere to go with a firm pole behind him and hands securely tied behind that.

  “He wouldn’t have,” Ezekiel said. “But it could have ramifications for us in the future.”

  For now, though, Sara was far more interested in the present and how to get them out from inside this bubble.

  Slowly, she said to the captive, “You know, you’ve been very instructive so far.”

  “Thank you,” he said weakly.

  “However, you need to be useful now. Tell us something to get us out of here.”

  “I’ve told you everything I know!” he snapped, apparently perturbed that they didn’t appreciate his forthcoming nature.

  “And yet none of that explains exactly how to bring the walls down,” Sara said. “I’m a mage, one who deals more with physical manifestations of her magic than anything else, but even I know not to walk blindly into another mage’s construct.”

  “I’ve told you everything I could—”

  “But not everything there is to know, and I won’t be blindsided,” Sara interjected. “We need to be prepared with an idea of how to untangle it layer by layer, and you are not helping us with that. Just a lot of words about the end goal.” Then she turned the flat of her blade to the sharp edge just above his belly button.

  “I swear to all the gods, I don’t know how!” he howled as she pressed the blade down hard enough to make his flesh pink around the blade.

  Ezekiel said, “You know, I believe him. He’s not a mage after all.”

  “No, he’s not,” Sara said, but didn’t lift her blade. She was beginning to enjoy this threatening routine. Maybe she had found her calling. Not as a diplomatic questioner, not quite torturer, but as something in between.

  “What—what now?” the captive said while breathing slightly easier as she took away the blade over his gut.

  Sara eyed him. “Well, now we test your theory.”

  “How are you going to do that?” he asked while nervously twitching his hands.

  “Trial and error,” said Sara with a shrug. “Because if you can’t tell us the exact way to dismantle it, then we have no choice but to go forward in stages.”

  He dropped his head, sweaty, lanky locks drifting down over his forehead. “Okay, well then—that sounds good.”

  He sounded as relieved as a pig who had received reprieve from slaughter.

  Sara, however, wasn’t finished.

  She snatched his head back up and bared her teeth at him. “And you will stand there and be personally bound to the mage who is working on unraveling your colleagues’ ingenious work.”

  Ezekiel nodded. “It’s only fair—after all, you did give us this brilliant idea.”

  “But—” their captive said weakly.

  “No ‘buts,’” Sara said, waving her knife in his face. “No outs. That’s how it’s going to be.”

  Then she turned and yelled over her shoulder at Karn’s lounging form. “Hey, Karn—you a mage?”

  “Nope, but you knew that. Even that far-back drop on my grannie’s side can’t help you,” he replied lazily. “Try again.”

  Sara shrugged and raised her eyebrows at Marx.

  “Just enough to light some fires under some lazy butts,” he said. “I can distract your distant mages.”

  Sara laughed. “Well, I’m sure that you’ll lead them on a merry chase.”

  A stranger from the new recruits piped up, “I can help him. I may only have innate magic due to my heritage, but it’s strong. Strong enough to lure someone’s curiosity while the others do the real work involved.”

  Sara nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

  She then looked at Isabelle first who nodded and said, “I can do it with concentrated effort.”

  Turning to the others with a smile, particularly the stragglers who’d ended up with them by mistake, Sara waited to hear from them.

  Another volunteer spoke up—he’d had two years of magic at the famed imperial academy before dropping out—and it was then that the Kade leader could no longer keep silent.

  “You can’t be serious!” he said as he strained forward. “You can’t use rookies for this sort of delicate unraveling, and certainly you can’t bind me to one. This is serious magic and takes talented practitioners.”

  Ezekiel said with a smile, “We have to take what we’ve got—after all, we don’t have many.”

  Their captive started sweating again. “You can’t do this,” he whined. “It’s against all known mage laws to lock an unwilling non-mage or mage to another person working powerful magic. That’s enslavement.”

  They ignored him as Sara began sorting out who would be good for the mission and Ezekiel thought of the mechanics of what they needed to do.

  “There isn’t a spell that will just allow us to travel between two points and defeat a mage across the distances you’re estimating—not one I know of,” Ezekiel said while he tapped his finger to his chin, half talking to their captive, half to himself.

  Isabelle said from where she was sharpening her knives, “He’s right—we’ll have to go into the spell net itself. Each of us with magic will merge our minds to the shield wall and attack the creator from there.”

  “This won’t work,” the captive said while struggling violently against his bonds. “You have no idea what you’re doing and you’ll get me mentally fried in the process. That’s inhumane!”

  Sara scoffed. “Like you care about the humanity of the laws.”

  “I’ll die if one of your idiot bumblers messes this up,” he cried.

  Sara turned to him. “Just like our idiotic bumbler mage will. Are you sure that wasn’t what you were hoping for?”

  He pinned his lips in a firm line and refused to meet her gaze.

  Sara leaned back and said, “Last chance, Kade. Are you sure you just don’t have a key
to unlock it yourself? Remember, don’t lie—we’ll know.”

  The last sentence was said in a voice that dipped into darkness.

  The Kade shuddered miserably. “I would have given it to you by now. Just to get you out of my face. Besides, all the final shields were keyed in a specific way for a very good reason. It’s an extra layer of security.”

  “Go on,” Ezekiel said.

  The Kade continued, “They’re projected from within our own forces, far enough away that you’d need some time or some big magic to reach them.”

  “So where does that leave you?” Ezekiel asked. “Your forces would be stuck within this shield wall with us.”

  Their captive shook his head. “We thought of that, of course. That’s why we put so much energy in creating the portals—it’s how we got in and it’s how we relayed messages back. Once we’d overtaken your forces in each designated sector, we were ordered to send a messenger back through each portal to relay critical information to our leadership.”

  “And then what?” Sara asked, her arms crossed.

  “And then,” the Kade leader said with narrowed eyes, “we either sent our individual strike forces by portal to back up other strike forces that needed it in multiple sectors, or used the portal to be sent elsewhere in service of the Kades.”

  “They move you like chess pieces to wherever there is greatest need,” Sara said.

  The Kade smiled proudly. “And that is how we shall win this war. We are everywhere and nowhere. We can move like lightning and you will never see us coming.”

  “I wouldn’t say never,” said Ezekiel. “With our best mages on it, we’ll figure out your tricks. We’ll stop you.”

  The Kade laughed. “Like you stopped our strike on your people as they came up from Sandrin? We didn’t even have to send in troops for that.”

  Sara’s fist balled before she relaxed it. She couldn’t let him bait her, and there was no way for him to know she’d been in that deployment. To their captive, it was just another in a long line of Kade victories.

  Ezekiel, however, was incensed. “Good people died there. If you Kades would just stand and fight like real men, this skirmish would be over and done with. We wouldn’t be fighting like animals in the mud.”