Page 112 of Silver & Gold
CHAPTER 35
TIME IN THE BOX was always unclear. Minutes? Hours? Days?
Raider lost all context. He lost himself. There was only the current jolting along his nerves. The fracturing of his thoughts.
Somehow, it made him into nothing.
He was nothing, then, when the Box’s lid slid away. He was nothing when the sides retracted into the table.
He wasn’t thinking when the restraints clicked open. He didn’t even know if the current still zipping along his nerves was actually happening or was just a physical memory. He barely even felt the collar still locked around his neck
“The Stone,” gasped the ashen-faced man with blood coating his throat but vanishing against the black of his robes. One hand gleamed with gold. “I … helped you. You must … help me. The Stone—”
The words cut off in a gargle of blood as a blade of quicksilver punched from Raider’s right hand into the arcanist’s throat.
CHAPTER 36
SETH CHARGED into the chaos of the battle, slashing brutally at any man not wearing the golden armor of the Hammer. He ducked blades, dodged around spears, narrowly missed several arrows.
He had no patience for this. He had to get through. So he hacked and stabbed in a frenzy. Blood sprayed across his face and torso. It ran down his arms. If any of it was his own, he didn’t yet know and certainly didn’t care as he fought his way to the edge of the room, trying to get to the empress.
He even forgot about the homunculus—until it emerged from the wall beside him. Head. Part of its torso. One arm. A clay hand clamped onto Seth’s throat as the homunculus drew itself fully from the wall. It lifted Seth from his feet.
Too close to use his sword, Seth dropped it and snatched his knife from its thigh sheath. He hacked at the clay wrist. Seth dropped to the floor with the severed clay hand still clenching his throat. He ripped it away and hurled it across the room, gasping in a desperate breath.
Seth snatched up his fallen sword as the homunculus reached for him with its other hand. Seth got his sword up in time to stab the homunculus through its torso, but of course that was of no consequence to the creature in its body of lifeless clay.
Then the end of Nasrin’s quicksilver whip wrapped around its throat. Even then the clay face was impassive. It was yanked back. Seth’s shoulder was nearly wrenched from its socket as he held onto sword. It pulled free with a spray of clay dust.
Seth leaped to his feet, watching as the homunculus crashed to the ground and shattered. But the fragments were already drawing together. Even the severed hand was creeping past the dancing feet of the combatants to rejoin the rest of itself.
Seth raced toward Nasrin as she snapped her quicksilver whip. It coiled itself, allowing her to keep her sword in her other hand. Zarina was huddled behind her, one hand over her rounded belly.
Seth shouted, “We found Kahzir in the catacombs! He got Raider! I have to get back there!”
“Help us get to the dais,” Nasrin replied, swinging her blade across the throat of one of Prince Rahim’s men. “From there, I’ll point you in the right direction.”
Seth nodded. Reaching the two women, he took position flanking the empress.
The homunculus had already reshaped itself. Triggering his arcane glove, Seth yanked his chakram from his utility belt and hurled it. The spinning circular blade sliced through the clay figure’s torso. The top half slid off and hit the floor.
The reprieve, of course, would be brief.
Seth caught the chakram on its return, then he, Nasrin, and Zarina worked their way toward the dais. Zarina held her heavy belly. Seth and Nasrin battled swords and spears.
At the dais steps, Nasrin shouted for Zarina to flee ahead of them as she and Seth dealt with a surge of combatants determined to stop the empress.
Seth hacked with furious speed. Nasrin was equally ruthless. They had just bought themselves the time to turn and flee when Zarina cried out and came backing away from the curtains at the rear of the dais. She stumbled down the steps toward Nasrin as Kahzir stepped into the light falling around the throne.
Seth readied his chakram, but a boom had his head whipping around to look out across the throne room. The doors, which someone had closed, exploded open, shattered by a quicksilver fist.
Even across the long space of the throne room, Seth could see Raider’s right eye blazing. He could also see the silver collar around his throat.
Barefooted, wearing only his dark blue shalvar pants and yellow sash, he came stalking into the throne room.
Seth tried to call Raider’s name, but Raider could not possibly have heard him over the clashing of swords.
As when he’d fought the sand serpent, quicksilver lashed out from his body, whips of it snaking out to strike and impale any who charged him. Some of the traitors. Some, too, of the Hammer. It wouldn’t take Raider long to fight his way across the room.