webcrawl/APGTE/Book-4/out/Ch-014.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-11-ballon}{%
\chapter{Ballon}\label{chapter-11-ballon}}



\epigraph{``You might say that they'll never see me coming.''}{Dread Empress Malevolent II, announcing the raising of her invisible
army}



``\emph{Your Majesty}?'' the Deoraithe mage stuttered out.

I leaned down and gently touched his forehead with an armoured finger.

``Don't resist,'' I said. ``It'll be uncomfortable, but not painful.''

Unless he tried to fight me, but in this case the fear that trailed me
as much as my cape saw to the matter. The man went rigid as a board. I
breathed out mist and Winter crept through my veins. His soul wriggled
under the tight grip of my will, as I rifled through vague memories. He
had, I thought, a well-organized mind. Shame about the panic tinging it.
I found what I needed anyway, the locations of the officer tent's he'd
found as he'd been told.

``You were thorough,'' I said, withdrawing my finger. ``Well done.''

The fifty riders of the Hunt were too many for so small a tent, and one
of the fae casually blew it away with a flick of the wrist before it
could tangle the banners. Midnight was no bar to my sight, and what I
saw around us was the Watch responding to our sudden arrival with
flawless professionalism. Ah, the things I could do with an army's worth
of these. It was almost tempting to hollow out Kegan's soul, tie puppet
strings to the remnants and take them all for my own. I bit my lip until
it bled, the flare of pain helping me focus. I reached for my saddlebag,
taking out the seal of House Iarsmai I'd asked Kegan to send me months
ago. I tossed it into the mage's hands.

``Validate this,'' I ordered.

The man shivered, though I was unsure why. I'd been very polite so far.
Murmuring in the mage tongue he traced the tall dead oak on the seal
with his fingers, gasping when it glimmered green.

``It's real,'' he said.

Unsheathing my sword, I flicked the blade behind me after gauging the
surroundings. Creation folded unto itself, the fairy gate opening thirty
feet wide and just as tall. I tied off the threads, giving it a finite
lifespan. One of the newer Winter tricks in my arsenal.

``By the authority granted to me by Duchess Kegan Iarsmai, I order the
Watch to immediately withdraw,'' I called out. ``And quick about it, I
don't have the time to hold your hand. You have half an hour before the
gate closes.''

Zombie was chomping at the bit, which admittedly was better than
chomping at grass I'd probably need to have a goblin dig out of her
later. I took a moment to calm myself, then dug into the memories I'd
glimpsed. Reorienting myself was the hardest part of figuring it all
out, since none of the unconscious markers the mage had used were
markers I was familiar with. Masego and I had figured out a way around
that through the Observatory with the card I'd been keeping up my --
heavily armoured -- sleeve, but I was without the benefit of Hierophant
tonight. My mind struggled with the discrepancies, until I let through
another sliver of Winter and there was a sensation like a spike through
my forehead. No pain, though, only terrifyingly clear understanding.

``Riders of the Hunt,'' I called out.

All fifty of them turned to me as one with unnatural smoothness.

``Follow,'' I laughed. ``Tonight we ride.''

``\emph{Finally},'' Larat hissed, blade in hand. ``Sound the horns. Let
them hear us coming.''

Banners were raised, not of silk or cloth but crow's feathers and
shadow. Shining coldly like a raven's eye. A fae with hair like spun
gold touched the horn to her lips, and doom screamed across the night. I
spurred on Zombie, and felt her devour the distance easily as I guided
us by memories not my own. The Watch parted for us, already preparing to
retreat, and we fell unto the unprepared camp of the crusaders like
hungry wolves. Men shouted out in Chantant, known to me regardless of
sight. The heat of them could be felt on the tip of my tongue, the fear
that set their hearts aflutter thundering in my ears. It pleased me. It
was slaughter, wherever we rode. Men half-dressed and half-awake were
torn apart by sword and spear and darker things: hounds of air and
darkness, called forth by the horns. I wielded the monster like a knife
as my thoughts cooled. The Alamans army closest to us had kept the tents
of their officers together and I made them pay for that mistake. Before
the hounds even reached them the soldiers I raised my hand and choked
them with rings of ice and shade, a dozen dead in a heartbeat. Smiling,
I leaned forward.

``Up,'' I ordered. ``\emph{Kill}.''

Corpses with broken necks and ugly marks around their throats rose up as
the Hunt passed through. Screams followed in our wake. We would begin, I
decided, with the outer ring. Princess Malanza's own host was closer to
the centre, but I would let her people feel it coming. Know what was
prowling the night for them. We carved our way out of the Alamans army
camp, scything through the company of fantassins that tried to form up
in our way. Men and women were trampled by horses, terror blooming again
in the wake of death as the corpses rose and chaos spread.

``You will go no further,'' a man's voice announced calmly.

I cocked my head to the side. No fear in this one. And such
\emph{power}. Young but scarred, his voice had echoed of faraway Levant.
A large man with a war hammer hoisted over his shoulder, burdened with
heavy plate. I neither slowed nor ceased, Zombie galloping straight at
him. The hero hefted his war hammer and struck with impossible
swiftness, aiming to shatter the legs of my mount. With a cold laugh I
guided my horse and her wings unfolded, leaping tall above the man as
the Hunt streamed around him seamlessly. We rode even as the man
screamed of our cowardice, ever onwards. I had not come here to be
waylaid by petty sidekicks. The camps had come alive and our prey was
moving. It became slower work, picking off officers who'd joined their
companies. Frustratingly slow. The riders slaked their blood on those
that could be found instead. No surrender was offered and no mercy
granted.

Then the sky came down on our heads.

Instinct allowed me to guide Zombie away from the worst of it, but wet
earth sprayed over us as a massive gouge split the ground open. Even as
it began to rain mud, a woman walked out of the mess. Old, I thought.
Neither tall nor short, and she wore no armour aside from a cuirass over
long cloth robes. In her hand was a simple sword of oiled steel, and she
was rolling her wrists to limber them.

``Saint of Swords,'' I said, voice echoing with the howl of blizzards.

``Black Queen,'' the old woman said, light tapping the flat of the blade
against her shoulder. ``Nice of you to visit.''

My will spread, weaving glamour across the sky according to borrowed
memories.

``Go,'' I told the Hunt. ``Fulfil my purpose.''

``Stay,'' the Saint grinned. ``Die screaming.''

She swung again, and this time I grasped what was being wielded. Not an
aspect or a spell. Nothing like the Lone Swordsman's power or the
Gallant Brigand's. No, I'd only seen this once before: when Ranger had
considered killing me seriously enough I'd felt myself die. When the
Saint of Swords attacked, she did so with the sharpened intent to kill
us. She had hardened her willpower so much that Creation counted no
difference between her will and truth, the air howling as it cut itself
apart. I drew deep and laughed, ice crashing against the blow with a
gargantuan cracking sound. Shards sprayed everywhere as the Hunt obeyed,
hounds and riders streaming out in every direction but that of the
coming fight. I leapt off Zombie and set her aflight. Her wings made her
too valuable to risk here.

``Winter, is it?'' the Saint of Swords mused, strolling forward. ``Never
had that before. Try to make it entertaining.''

``You will make,'' I said, ``very useful artefacts.''

A quiet voice in the back of my mind howled, screaming that revealing
any unknown capacity to the enemy was sheer stupidity. I could not seem
to care. It had felt\ldots{} right to chastise her that way. We closed
the distance as one, swords bared. I feinted to the side but she slapped
it away contemptuously, a half-step bringing her into my guard and
without missing a beat she cut my throat. Red gushed out, but it was
more Winter than blood -- an exertion of will was all it took to heal
the wound. I spat out the blood in my mouth, making distance between us.

``Regenerators,'' the Saint sighed. ``You never bother to learn how to
fight properly, with a crutch like that. Sloppy.''

The nonchalance tasted fouler in my mouth than the blood, called for
\emph{utter destruction} in answer, but I breathed out and smoothed the
edges growing ragged. I attacked again, low and quick. Parry, but when
she closed in again I was ready: a spear of shadow formed out of my free
hand and tore towards her. Snorting, the heroine raked her bare fingers
down and tore through the darkness like wet parchment. In the heartbeat
where I hesitated, she struck quick as a viper -- aiming to cut off my
head in full, this time. I ducked under by the barest of margins but she
kicked me in the face, and as I rocked back she struck again. My parry
was effortlessly turned, blade twisting around to carve through my wrist
like it was butter. I pivoted, caught the hand still holding the blade
with my other pne and forced it back on even as I avoided a thrust that
would have gone through my eye if I'd been a moment slower. Winter
flared and the pieces reattached, my fingers twitching as the power
skittered through them.

``I can see it,'' the Saint mused. ``Take the crippling to avoid the
killing. There's a hint of Ranger in there, however diluted. A bastard's
bastard.''

I rolled my shoulders as she watched me indifferently.

``Again,'' I said.

``Change of plans,'' the old woman smiled.

The spell struck me from the side like than fist of an angry god. I felt
my flesh melt off, my blood boil -- until I opened the floodgates, and
shot out of the fire storm as my face peeled off flake by flake. That
had \emph{stung}.

``Reinforcements, my dear lady,'' a man's voice drawled. ``Though you
seem to need them not.''

My eyes flicked to the side. Three of them. Short man with a leather
coat and a casting rod must have been responsible for the flame. An
olive-skinned woman with two knives and a red-painted face started
walking towards me, while the last was unarmed. Priest, I decided,
looking at his ornate robes. Attrition was no longer feasible if they
had a healer. On the other hand, now it was four on one. My odds had
just gotten a lot better.

``Well,'' I grinned, my teeth grown sharp. ``Now it's a party. Have at
it, heroes.''

``How uncouth,'' the man in leather said, wrinkling his nose.

When the fire came again, erupting in a cone from the rod, I flicked
away. Two Knives closed in from the side as the Saint was forced to go
around the spell. Eyes following the arms, I let the knife-wielder
commit to a cut from the left before half-stepping out of the way, hand
snaking up to catch the extended wrist and \emph{snapping} it. There was
a scream, but I slapped her open mouth and filled with ice. She began
choking until Light bloomed and melted it. It even streaked down to
unsnap the wrist. No matter, I was already past her.

``Damnation,'' the spellcaster cursed, seeing me close the distance in
the blink of an eye.

A sphere of what looked like liquid flame formed around him, but what
was fire to me? I gathered power and struck at it, ripping off a chunk
of the protective sphere to get at the terrified man beneath. Instinct
warned me and I listened. Leaping above the flames, I narrowly avoided
being run through by the Saint -- though, twisting halfway up the arcing
jump, I shaped a spike of rime and sent it howling after Two Knives. The
heroine flickered, as if she'd been an illusion all this time, and what
should have torn through her abdomen instead put a hole in the ground
twenty feet behind her. Displacement? Useful trick. Too useful to be
anything but an aspect. I landed in a crouch.

``Keep away from her, kids,'' the Saint ordered. ``She's a few years
ahead of what you can handle.''

My eyes flicked to the sky. Of the five glamoured markers I had placed,
three were left. I'd have to play with these a little longer, lest they
pursue the Hunt. I grimaced. I'd drawn on Winter enough already that
anything more was going to starkly affect my judgement instead of just
reinforce bad instincts. \emph{Until the markers are gone}, I told
myself. \emph{Then retreat}. I drew deep, and this time when the Saint
struck at me I drowned the world in ice. Massive spinning blades tore
through the air and ground, though I felt them shatter within a
heartbeat. The hound had teeth. No matter. The creature with Two Knives
had retreated to protect the thing that wielded Light, but the
spellcaster was vulnerable. I wove around balls of flame effortlessly,
parted a burning wall with a flick of my sword and found the human
behind it staring back defiantly. It had gathered sorcery before it, a
hundred hanging needles that burned the very air around them.

``Dodge \emph{that},'' the human hissed, and they flew.

Laughing, I formed a gate that swallowed them into Arcadia and closed it
just as swiftly. The human was casting again, and I could feel death
coming. Light, from the side, and something more dangerous from the
hound. I shaped glamour with but a thought, mine own silhouette striving
for the spellacasrer as I leapt up shrouded in nothingness. The illusion
was broken by a beam of Light, but the hound had caught the scent: even
as I landed atop a ring of shade, she cut a wound into the air and ran
atop it towards me. I broke the ring and fell as the other humans
finally saw through the glamour, slow things that they were. Abandoning
the spellcaster, I made for the Light-bearer and its protector. The
knife-wielding thing shouted out a word in some foreign tongue that
tasted of spice and blood, charging me with blinding speed. Ah, the
arrogance of mortals. Gracefully, I stepped around the blow and simply
left my sword in her way. It carved through her shoulder, blood spraying
as the arm fell to the ground. I took a modified sharper from the
satchel and shoved it into the stump, triggering the mechanism inside
with a shard of ice. The detonation broke bone and tossed her away even
as the Light-wielder shot another brilliant beam at me. My free hand
caught it, fingers beginning to melt away, and I forced it to careen
aside.

It had slowed me. The gout of flame I avoided with a mere half-step even
as my fingers grew back, but the Saint struck harder. Holding the wound
she had carved in the sky like a massive blade, she scythed through the
side of me. I was quick enough it went through my shoulder instead of my
head. In a heartbeat, arm and leg and flank were pulped. Winter hissed
in fury, and they began to coalesce anew in ice.

``Not regeneration,'' the Saint frowned. ``Creationally fixed body. Just
pour power until it remakes itself. You've turned yourself into proper
abomination, girl. If there's still any of you left in there.''

``Irritating,'' I noted, voice echoing with the death of embers.

``Beat it, kids,'' the hound ordered. ``This one's going to take a
\emph{lot} of killing before she goes down.''

Already the Light-wielder was fixing the creature I had mangled. The
hound was an irritant, she must be dealt with before the rest was tended
to. I seized threads of glamour and sent them into her mind, but
they\ldots{} broke. That was no soul. It was a sword, and somehow more.

``You hold dominion,'' I said.

``Only over the one thing,'' the Saint grinned. ``But that's usually
enough.''

My eyes flicked to the sky. Another glamoured marker had vanished. Only
one left now. And when it did, I would\ldots{} I frowned. It was hard to
remember. The hound took advantage of my distraction, striking anew. I
let instinct guide me and steel rang against steel. She batted aside my
guard but the spike of frost I shot at her throat forced her to turn her
follow-through blow into a parry as I returned on the offensive. Cut
high, swept away, but I turned with it and lunged at her back. She
caught the tip between two fingers and \emph{twisted}, the steel
shattering. Frost filled the break as I withdrew, tasting her movements
in the air. The footing gave her away. Or so I had thought: what should
have been a strike at my arm was a slide forward instead, and when I
tried a head-butt she met me with her own. We hit halfway through,
neither hurt until she raked her fingers across my chest plate and cut
through still boiling-hot steel. I let Winter loose, screaming cold
winds blowing the both of us back. Some part of me insisted I look at
the sky. The rest wanted to carve open that insolent hound and add her
entrails to my cape. One was more pleasing than the other.

``Let us test it, then,'' I smiled. ``The mettle of our domains.''

Darkness fell, and came cold with it. The world fell away. Yet under an
ink-black sky stood the Saint of Swords, radiant and unruffled.
Unimpressed. I inhaled the scent of it, puzzled.

``Your dominion,'' I said. ``It is not projected. Only within.''

``Took me a decade of hard killing to get that down,'' the hound
replied. ``But there's always a fight to be found in Procer, if you know
where to look.''

My frown deepened and the cold focused on her, but all it did was cool
the blade. It had been forged of great fires, I thought. What coldness I
had to offer was insufficient.

``Gods, I'm going to feel this one in the joints,'' the Saint grunted.

She had no sword in hand, when she took her stance. I grit my teeth and
poured all of my domain into her, but slowed was not stopped. She swung,
and the light was blinding. Something\ldots{} not broke, but it was
wounded. Damaged. As I screamed the night fled, and I found myself
kneeling over grounds rent asunder by our fight. Returned to Creation.
The heroine was panting. \emph{Shit}, I thought. \emph{What the fuck was
that?} I was feeling like myself again, but I was also feeling my heart
beat. Like it actually mattered, like I was \emph{human} again. The last
marker was gone, I saw. And I sure as Hells wasn't sticking around to
take another of whatever in that'd been. Seizing reins gone frail, I
called back the Hunt. Fewer than anticipated answered my call, but I
realized with ugly surprise it was not rebellion I was dealing with. The
heroes must have killed some of them. At least ten were gone, maybe
more.

I legged it. No two ways about it, I made like a proper villain and fled
the field. The heroine tried to follow and almost caught me around the
corner behind a tent, scything straight through with another of those
not-blows, but Zombie answered my call and landed just behind. We took
flight even as the old woman cursed and carved another wound into the
air, immediately running on it after me. Yeah, fuck that. I wasn't
picking a second fight with a Named who could shrug off my full domain.
I opened the gate in the sky even higher, seeing the Hunt take flight
behind me, and went straight through into Arcadia. I didn't even stop
there, flying Zombie far from the entrance. The Saint, thank the Gods,
did not follow. I learned why when another four of the Hunt disappeared
from the back of my mind.

I could not help but be thankful she'd chosen to whittle away at my
trump card instead of trying to go after me. It might have been possible
to trap her in here, but that smelled of the Saint cutting her way back
out at the worst possible moment down the line. The Hunt gathered to me,
having lost a few feathers, but Headsman had been a success. Not without
losses, but I wasn't entirely opposed to the Hunt being thinned out
before they inevitably stabbed me in the back. Larat was the first to
address me after I landed, drenched in blood from head to toe. Someone
was in a good mood.

``A victory, my queen,'' he said.

I looked up at the Arcadian sky and smiled. Sure, it'd been that. But
more importantly, it had been a \emph{very} good distraction. After all,
the very moment I'd opened the gate for the Watch someone had come
through. And while we were busy being loud and visible?

Thief had been on the prowl.

``All right, saddle up,'' I called out. ``We need to find the Watch
contingent before retreating.''

We needed to hurry. The sooner we got back to camp, the sooner I could
ask Hierophant why my skin was capable of bruising again.