Kushiel's Avatar (Phedre's Trilogy #3)

It was the most pure and deadly thing I have ever seen.

With his sword in his two-handed grip, Joscelin moved gracefully through his Cassiline forms, his face as calm and focused as when he did his morning exercises in the garden. He was smiling, his summer- blue eyes wide with exaltation, and where his sword flowed, weaving a silver thread in the dark air, death followed. I daresay the mail shirt helped, turning a few glancing blows.

Most of them never landed.

He was nigh untouchable.

And they were drawn to him—drawn, like moths to the flame, Drujani and Tatar alike, abandoning the women and stumbling to the center of the festal hall to challenge him. Jagun, the Kereyit warlord, came at him with a cry of fury on his lips, half-stumbling and wild, only now realizing the scope of the prize that had slipped his fingers. With a single two-handed stroke, Joscelin cut him down; with a single stroke, Imriel's torment at the Tatar's hands was ended and avenged.

The Kereyit's corpse measured its length on the floor of the hall. And still others came, flinging themselves against him. It was madness, truly. The dark lord of Daršanga knew, too late, what was in his midst. And Joscelin, Cassiel's servant, my Perfect Companion, danced the blades with the minions of Angra Mainyu, amid a rising circle of corpses, the flagstones growing slick with blood.

"Imriel!" I cried, catching sight of him.

There he was, Melisande's son, brandishing a carving knife and snarling, retreating from a lunging Drujani soldier, scrambling onto a bench, a table. The Drujani, sword in hand, pursued him, clambering onto the bench. He had one knee on the table and was jabbing with his sword when I grabbed the bench with both hands and overturned it in a surge of pure terror, toppling it and its occupant with it.

The Drujani fell hard, the back of his head striking the flagstones. "Lady," he said in Persian, blinking at my face suspended above him, Elua knows how much opium coursing through his veins. "Lady."

"The Shahryar Mahrkagir is dead," I said gently. "My lord soldier, it is finished."

"Then . . . this is yours?" He gave me his sword, bemused, still laying on his back, proffering the hilt. Since I did not know what else to do, I took it, the sword awkward and heavy in my hands. He sighed and closed his eyes.

The uproar of battle was subsiding.

It was strange, the dawning silence. Everywhere, people moaned, bleeding and dying, but the clash of arms had begun to fade. Impossible as it seemed, it was ending, combatants slumping in wounded exhaustion, drug-addled and confused. The surviving women of the zenana huddled in groups. I saw Drucilla hobbling around the outskirts, clutch ing her belly where a dark stain was spreading, tending the injured. The festal hall was a bloody shambles, tables overturned, the trappings on the dais shredded, even the rubble filling the firepit scattered and strewn. ka-Magi and Magi alike wandered bereft and dazed, powerless. In the center of it all, Joscelin leaned on his sword, breathing hard, encircled by death.

There was no one left alive with the will to continue it.

Save one.

There was no outcry at his appearance, but a deepening silence. It seemed even the wounded held their breath, watching. Tahmuras' shadow darkened the hall. How not, as massive as he was? His shoulders seemed to fill the doorway. Even at a distance, I could see the marks of tears on his face. I daresay in that place, he alone grieved for the Mahrkagir, for the mortal death of a man he had loved. We had that in common, he and I—we alone shed tears. He entered the hall with slow, deliberate steps. No one moved to intercept him. Joscelin's head came up slowly, his weary gaze fixing on the giant warrior.

"You," Tahmuras said to him, his voice taut with pain, pointing with the rod end of his mace. It was as though a mountain had spoken. "You will die." He swung the morningstar, encompassing us all. "You will all die for what you have done!"

Too tired to speak, Joscelin merely nodded, the point of his sword rising from the flagstones as he set himself to meet this last challenge.

It is not a battle I care to remember.

It is not one of which the poets sing.

The morningstar is a deadly weapon, and a difficult one. Few war riors wield it well. Tahmuras of Drujan had a gift. Quicker on his feet than his size would suggest, he came on fast and low, picking his path amid the corpses, the spiked ball whipping at Joscelin's legs. In his left hand, he held a long dagger, using it to make slashing blows as Joscelin whirled in his efforts to evade the mace, disrupting all his careful Cassiline skill.

His patterns broken, Joscelin was forced on the defensive, stumbling backward, tripping over the bodies of his own dead. His parries grew wild, the unpredictable morningstar shattering his guard, the entangling chain threatening to rip the blade from his grasp. Retreating from Tahmuras' onslaught, he gained the dais, careful steps feeling for the edges as his opponent pressed him. I clutched the hilt of my Drujani sword, forgotten in my terror, and felt Imriel's hand close hard upon my upper arm as he knelt on the table behind me.

"Phèdre!" he whispered urgently.

"I know," I said, tears in my eyes, watching the struggle. "I know."

"No!" His voice rose. "Look!"

I followed his pointing finger over my shoulder to see the priest Gashtaham approaching.

"My lady," he said in a hideous parody of courtesy, holding his ebony rod like a club. His steps staggered, but his eyes, beneath the boar's-skull helm, were fixed and intent. "My lady Phèdre nó Delaunay of Terre d'Ange, we have unfinished business."

"Daeva Gashtaham." Remembering the sword, I raised it, gripping the hilt with both hands to keep it from wavering. "Put down your staff. It is over. The doorway is closed.”

The priest's smile was a dreadful rictus. "It may be, lady. It may be. But you were promised to Angra Mainyu, and he shall have you, if I must split your skull myself. And afterward, the boy's, and anyone left standing after him." He drew back his staff to swing, heedless of the blade I held, leveling it at my head. "Do you know what you have done?" he shouted, flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth. "Do you know what price I paid? Do you know what you have destroyed, damn your soul?"

"Yes, my lord," I said steadily, keeping the point of the sword trained on his heart, conscious of the weight of it, conscious of Imriel behind me, conscious of a stealthy movement in the shadows of the dark hall and not daring to look. "I do."

"Then die!" Gashtaham hissed, his muscles bunching for the blow.

I braced myself for the shock. It never fell.

A strong black hand seized his face from behind, fingers covering his mouth, wrenching his head backward to bare his throat, and I saw Kaneka's smile gleam in the shadows as her other hand rose, the blade of a dagger flashing in the gloom.

A bright spray of arterial blood jetted forth, and I flung myself sideways to avoid it, dragging Imriel with me.

"Well done, little one," Kaneka said complacently, watching the ka-Magus twitch and die, runnels of blood flowing across the floor and pooling in the spaces between the flagstones. "I was hoping to kill one of his kind."

Ignoring her, I rose to my feet and sought Joscelin.

It was not going well.

Scrambling, he retreated desperately, his sword angled in front of him, driven backward step by step, no longer on the dais, but forced the width of the hall. Tahmuras advanced relentlessly, his morningstar swinging. Each strike, Joscelin deflected more slowly, turning his shoul ders into the parry and retreating to resume his guard, his notched and bloodstained sword held ever lower. I could see his arms tremble with the effort of it, his feet seeking purchase on the slippery stones.

And Tahmuras pursued him with implacable vengeance, striking high, striking low, the spiked ball flailing, never losing momentum. It happened; it had to happen. The ball landed, a glancing blow to one knee. Joscelin staggered, dropping his guard, and the mace lashed out again, crushingly hard, against the upper part of his left arm.

I heard his cry of pain, saw his left hand slip nerveless from the hilt, and Tahmuras with his grief-reddened eyes gave a grim smile, swinging the morningstar. The spiked ball whipped around Joscelin's blade, and the chain caught and held.

The Drujani jerked hard on the haft of his weapon and Joscelin was disarmed, the sword clattering onto the floor. I shoved the knuckles of one hand into my mouth, stifling a cry. In a last-ditch effort, Joscelin spun, grabbing one of the hall's few torches from its sconce and brandishing it like a blade, right-handed. Step by step he retreated, thrusting the flames at Tahmuras' face as the giant stalked him, driving him back toward the center of the hall. His left arm hung, dangling and useless. He ignored it and parried one-handed, the torch weaving streaks of light against the darkness, fending off the inevitable final blow.

I had forgotten Imriel.

He was fast; so fast. By the time I thought to halt him, he was already in motion, darting across the corpse-strewn hall, pouncing on the hilt of the Cassiline sword.

''Joscelin!" he shouted, his voice high and ringing.

They paused, the combatants, turning. Imriel heaved the sword, and sparks flew as it skittered across the stones. Joscelin cast the torch from him, hurling it point-down like a warrior planting a spear . . .

. . . directly into the uncovered firepit.

With a sound that shook the very rafters, a column of fire ignited, the Sacred Fire of Ahura Mazda, a living, twisting thing of flame, gold and saffron and red, stretching toward the domed ceiling. Tahmuras was a vast shadow before it, stock-still in dismay, his mouth open to utter a cry of repentance or anguish. Joscelin never hesitated, snatching up his sword with his good right hand. With a single lunge, he ran the giant through.

It was ended.

FIFTY-SEVEN

NO ONE could have anticipated the aftermath.What I remember most, once the column of flame spent its initial fury and sank to a moderate blaze, is the old Chief Magus Arshaka, his rheumy eyes filled with tears, arms outstretched in blessing, his lips moving in prayer as he knelt before the Sacred Fire, bright flames illuming his filthy robes. I remember it because I had no time for it.