“Quiet,” said a deep voice, and the Prince knew it was the Bloodmage speaking, for the voice had the raspy quality of all that cursed fellowship.
“Sorry, Shulmun,” the Defender said, with obsequious deference.
The Prince was thinking hard and fast. What could he do?
“Is the girl secured?” the Bloodmage asked.
“Yes, sir,” the Defender holding the sword to the Prince’s throat responded. “On her way to Formaux. Captain Toraine is seeing to it himself.”
Confusion and panic fought inside the Prince. Why had they taken Leah? Had the orders changed about him? Was he to be killed here, by the Bloodmage, and his soul harvested to feed the mage’s power? But no, that made no sense—if they wanted to kill him, why would they take Leah?
And then it came together, the pieces falling into place with almost audible clicks: They didn’t know who he was. They had no idea who they were holding. They had stumbled on the three of them and decided they only needed one of them for questioning, and the other two could be sacrificed.
His mind expanded, taking in every detail of their appearance. All had several weeks’ worth of beard growth on their cheeks, and all smelled so foul that it was clear they hadn’t bathed in at least as long. The Bloodmage, from what the Prince could see, looked gaunt, almost starving, which meant he had gone some time, perhaps weeks, without metaphysical sustenance. The Defenders all had caked layers of mud and grime on their boots and halfway uptheir thighs. Several also had large, angry boils on their necks and cheeks. Bug bites?
They’ve been in the swamps east of Lake Chartain, he realized.They’ve been looking for Exiles, like Leah and Tomaz, who use that way to get around the usual patrols.
Tomaz gave a small groan, and the Prince realized that he needed to do something—anything—to break the Bloodmage’s trance. If he didn’t, the big man would soon be beyond saving.
But what could he do? He couldn’t move, the Defender with the sword was staring very intently at his neck to discourage any such thoughts. Leah wasn’t anywhere around….
As the thought crossed his mind, he heard, almost at the edge of hearing, the sharp whistling sound that signaled one of her daggers flying through the air. The Defenders heard it as well, and they all turned to look into the forest, but they were too late.
The long, wicked length of steel flew through the clearing and pierced the Bloodmage in the back, where his heart would be. The black-robed man gave a small cry and fell to the ground.
For a long moment, no one moved, not the Defenders, not the Prince, not Tomaz as he came out of his trance. All of them simply stared, uncomprehending, at the fallen figure of Shulmun the Bloodmage.
And then all seven hells broke lose.
The Prince threw himself backward, away from the sword at his neck, as the Defender holding it drew back the deadly metal and sliced it clean through where the Prince’s head had been. The Prince struck out with both hands and both feet, whipping around in a circular motion. He connected with two pairs of ankles and swept both men to the ground. The remaining men, three all told still standing, drew their swords and stabbedat him.
An enormous figure came up behind them, casting a shadow over them as it blocked out the rising sun, and they turned to find a thoroughly enraged giant.
Seizing his chance, the Prince reached into his belt and pulled out the dagger Leah had given him. He flipped over, rolled into a crouch, and slammed the dagger’s hilt into the temples of the men he’d knocked to the ground. They stopped trying to regain their feet and went limp.
Three muffled cries followed by three heavy thumps signaled that Tomaz had dealt with the other Defenders in similar fashion.
The Prince spun to his feet, surveying the scene, pulse pounding in his ears.
The Bloodmage still lay on the ground, unconscious, but, as the Prince knew, not yet dead. He hurried over and grabbed the blood-red crystal that had been used to hypnotize Tomaz, breaking the leather cord that held it strung around the mage’s neck. He threw it on a nearby rock and scrabbled around for another. His hand closed over one and he pulled, prying it from the earth, as the Bloodmage began to stir.
He raised the second rock high in the air and brought it crashing down on the Soul Catcher. As rock met crystal, there was a terrifying moment where it felt as though the rock would be repulsed and the crystal would remain whole, but then came the sound of breaking glass, a sharp shattering as if a piece of reality had been fractured, and the crystal broke. The Bloodmage screamed, so loudly that the Prince flinched away, his ears ringing. The black-robed figure rose like a corpse marionette on tangled strings, twitched in the direction of the Prince, and then fell to the floor and moved no more.
The Prince whirled back around and saw that Tomaz had thrown all of the Defenders into a line against two adjacent oak trunks and was binding them with lengths of their own red-and-brown uniforms.
“How did they find us?” the giant asked. “What happened?”
“They must have scouting the swamps for Exiles—their clothes, their hair, they’re filthy, and see those bug bites? From what that one said, they werereturning to the roads when the Bloodmage sensed us, and they set an ambush as we slept.”
“Why didn’t you sense them?” he asked, looking at the Prince with an unnerving intensity.
“I… I haven’t been using the Talisman,” he said.
If he had listened to the girl and continued using it, he could have prevented this. But he’d let his pride and anger blind him.
“How did they take me? The Bloodmage?”
“Yes,” the Prince said. “He hypnotized you. Tried to feed off of you.”
