Moragon felt a heaving on his body, and as precarious as his balance was he began to slip. He had one last attempt at smashing Amber with his metal arm but she ducked out of the way, and Moragon's blow instead took a bite out of the stone of the window frame.
He scrabbled and slid on the sloping wall, his eyes still on the bundle that perched against the lip of the gutter. Moragon reached the bundle and grabbed at it even as he tried to arrest his motion, his hands closing on nothing but cloth.
"You witch!" he screamed up at Amber.
He slipped down and over the gutter, catching onto the lip of stone with his fingertips. He looked up at Amber, where she looked at him from the window with cold eyes.
Moragon saw she held the baby in her arms.
"The child isn't yours," Amber said. "It never was. I was already with child before we met."
They were the last words Moragon heard, as he fell through the air, screaming as he went, until he hit the hard stone of an innocuous garden wall.
His back broke instantly, and his skull caved in. His arm of flesh and both legs were broken, the splinters of bone protruding from the skin.
The pain was excruciating, indescribable, beyond belief.
Moragon was conscious throughout; he knew exactly what had happened to him. The elixir coursing through his veins tried to rebuild his body even as his internal organs ruptured and he bled internally, even as bits of matter from his head were splattered on the street, and his blood welled in a pool around him.
Then his body gave up.
~
"THANK you, my sweet," Amber cooed to the babe. Tears ran down her cheeks as she rocked him in her arms, even the slightest thought of harm coming to him too much to bear. "Thank you for staying quiet. You knew, didn't you?"
There were shouts and the sounds of running boots outside Amber's chamber. Amber frowned and with the baby in the crook of her arm she bent down and picked up Moragon's sword. Nothing would stop her now.
A man appeared in the doorway. When Amber saw his scarred-face, dark hair lined with grey, and the zenblade in his hands, she breathed a sigh of relief.
"I've found her," Rogan Jarvish called over his shoulder. "Lord of the Sky, Amber, am I pleased to see you."
He walked past her and leaned out the window, looking down. "My men found him. Moragon?"
Amber nodded. "Is he dead?"
"He's dead." Rogan then turned his eyes on the baby.
"He's my son," Amber said.
"He's beautiful." Rogan smiled at her.
"Where's Miro?" Amber asked.
"He was coming in by way of the harbour."
"Please, Rogan, can you take me to him?"
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure."
63
DAIN Barden was angry, and when he was angry, men jumped when he told them to jump. With satisfaction he saw that the skiff he had commandeered was gaining on the Primate's slower vessel.
He wasn't sure if it was the bloodstained war hammer he held in his hands or the two draugar by his side, but the six men who rowed the boat pulled on their oars as if their lives depended on it, which, he supposed, they did.
Barden was in a foul mood. Not only had the Primate proven himself to be a man without honour, but the melding, Moragon, had betrayed his trust.
Sending only four meldings after the Dain had been foolish though. He was the ruler of the Akari. His race was the strongest of all the peoples of the world, and Barden was the strongest of his race.
When he'd killed Moragon's men — the first two with crushing blows to their skulls, the third smashed in the guts, the last with a hammer strike to the back that broke the melding nearly in two — he'd taken the time to get a message to his captains. The draugar were to withdraw immediately, leaving the Tingarans to their own devices, and all of the Akari were to return to the north.
Now Dain Barden was angry, and wanted revenge.
"Hurry," he muttered to the rowers. "Hurry!"
The rower in front of him whimpered. There was a slight increase in speed.
Both the Sentinel and the Primate's cruiser were growing larger as Barden's skiff grew closer. In the distance, Barden could see ships of the imperial fleet, but they were far away on the Sentinel's other side, looking for enemies coming in from the ocean. Barden saw with satisfaction that the Primate had no soldiers with him; he was accompanied by the ship's crew, but no one else.
Barden knew, though, that he would need to be careful. The Dain remembered the time the Primate had taken a revenant's sword thrusts in the chest without a hint of pain or being weakened in any way. Additionally, the Primate had the knowledge that Barden himself lacked.
Barden thought about the Primate's words; words that had been verified by the Dain's own necromancers when they had examined the Primate's damaged book of the Evermen.
The most powerful magic the world had ever seen was somewhere inside the ancient statue. A pool of essence was there for the taking.
No matter what, Dain Barden wasn't going to let the Primate have it all to himself.
64