Debate played over her face only a moment, then she nodded and ran upstairs. He hoped she didn’t equate this to what happened with her brother, but he’d worry about that later. Right now, all that mattered was saving her.
His tattoos began to lift from his body, writhe and undulate in a black mass before spreading out. Some became loose formed mist across the floor, climbing the walls, skulking in corners. Another batch cemented together into black opaqueness and slid down his arms, anchoring themselves to his forearms and jutting out into black blades.
Across the room, ten figures materialized and in the next instant, attacked. As Merc fought, in the back of his mind, in the corner that remained calm and rational even during battle, he began cataloguing.
All were male. From the walls one of his shields grabbed up one of them just as he was muttering a spell, and his magic jerked away from the unnaturalness of the necromantic origin of the spell.
Reign’s acolytes then.
And another joined. And another.
As necromancers cared little for the death of their members, they tended to favor throwing large numbers of fighters into battles, uncaring of what the final body count might be.
The first wave had destroyed the cloaking spell around the grounds and now more came, in large numbers and faster than he could slice into them.
Some broke off from attacking him, searching for the Spellbook no doubt. Every time he moved to stop them, especially as they moved up the stairs, three more of their brethren would come before him, eager to fall before his sword if it gave their comrades time to grab the book.
Then within Merc, a pulling, a severing, and there was no doubt they had grabbed the Spellbook.
The next instant, all the acolytes disappeared, taking the bodies of the fallen, leaving behind wreckage and the certainty of his own death.
Chapter Thirty-Five
‡
It had been silent for several minutes – none of the screams or calls to comrades-at-arms that had been constant before.
She couldn’t stay in this room forever. Whatever had happened out there, it was time to go and face it.
Amana emerged, slow and steady, searching and listening as she moved with careful deliberation through the bedroom to look over the railing.
Merc stood statue-still in the middle of the room, bloodstains surrounding him, though no bodies were evident. Amana gave a hesitant, “Merc?”
His head tilted a bare inch, the only sign he heard her. Still, the pull of whatever had his attention now was stronger, and he remained its silent captive.
Even without any verbal confirmation, it was clear this battle was over, and Amana came down the stairs to put her hand on his back. “Are you okay?”
His back was solid stone, a fine tremor rolling through him, and his jaw was so tight it would be a miracle if his teeth hadn’t been ground down half an inch. No, he wasn’t. “They got the Spellbook.”
The words seemed to spur him into action. He pulled away from her, heading to another safe hidden in the wall, grabbing supplies – mostly weapons – and packing in quick, practiced movements.
She stayed quiet, letting him work through whatever was going on in his head as he got ready.
With a last shove of a final weapon into a bag, he zipped it up and grabbed it to go. “We need to move.”
“Of course,” she agreed, feeling him out during this strange mood.
He wasn’t looking at her. He was moving around her, his attention and energy in all directions. “We have to get you somewhere safe, and then I have to go after the Spellbook.”
“What?” That…that was insane. Going after the greatest necromancer of the realms was beyond a job description, beyond anything Hadrien could ever give him. “You’ll never survive going after a vampire. Is your pride really worth going after a necromancer for a scum like Hadrien? You’ll get more jobs even if you don’t succeed with this one.”
He was shaking his head, not looking at her as he moved around to pack a few more personal items. “We need to leave now. It’s no longer safe.”
Amana moved in front of him and held her ground, grabbing his wrist to keep him from moving away. “There isn’t any other reason to move. They’ve won. You no longer have the book.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.” She loosened her grip, gave his arm a little shake, moved in closer so she could look up into his face. “Please.”
He swallowed, and his shoulders dropped, as though the weight of everything that happened in the last hour was now being felt. “I don’t know how Hadrien did it, but he was able to put a spell on me called a bound. Bounds are what they sound like, a way to magically make a contract binding. The price for not fulfilling the contract is usually low-level, money or an item will automatically disappear if you don’t complete it, that kind of thing.”