The Stone Warriors: Nicodemus Read online

Steeling himself for what was to come, determined to keep any doubts to himself, he brought his big stallion onto its hind legs, waved his sword over his head with a flourish, and led his army into battle . . . alone.

  SOTIRIS SHOVED aside fighters—slamming his own men into the churned-up mud with the same disregard he showed his enemy—and strode forward to meet the only combatant who mattered. No matter how many others died during a battle, it always came down to this. One sorcerer against another, brutal magic sparking deadly and unforgiving, until one of them was dead. Or so close to it, that pride permitted a forfeit. Surrender would have been logical, and more likely to end in peace. But there’d never been any reasoning between them.

  Nicodemus was covered with as much blood and dirt as his peasant soldiers. For all that the blood of a king ran in his veins alongside his magic, he’d never bothered to maintain the appearance of a great leader to match his heritage or his victories. If asked, he would have spouted some drivel about being no better than those who marched into war at his back.

  What a load of shit. He didn’t live in a shack, did he? Didn’t eat food cooked in the same room where he slept, or marry some poor woman to birth child after child until she was worn out and died. No, Nicodemus and his four precious warriors lived like princes between wars, with the best food in their bellies, and the prettiest whores and noblewomen alike in their beds. And yet, Nicodemus’s people loved him and his damn warriors, too. That fed Sotiris’s temper even more than the asshole’s irreverent arrogance for social custom, or his foolish disregard for how their world had worked for eons . . . how it had to continue working, if they were to thrive as a society. Anything else would be chaos, and would drag men of nobility and accomplishment down into the filth and disease of the common man.

  Commoners served their purpose, not least that they filled the armies of powerful sorcerers like himself. Of course, there were no others like him in this world. That was one truth that Sotiris would prove once and for all when he finally killed Nicodemus.

  It vexed him, however, that despite the success of his preemptive attack against Nicodemus’s warriors, the battle had gone on longer and been much less decisive than he’d expected. He wondered if Nicodemus had yet figured out the key to the spell’s success. A chuckle at his own cleverness was cut off as an eerie silence settled over the battlefield. His steps faltered when he realized that everywhere he looked, soldiers were freezing in mid-thrust, only to sink to the ground in a virtual embrace with the enemy they’d been fighting seconds earlier.

  He scanned the strange tableau, seeking the source of what his senses told him was a spell of some sort. But from whom? He tilted his head to listen, searching for a sound, any sound that would give away the spellcaster. Though he already knew who it had to be. Only Nicodemus had the power to halt a full-scale battle.

  Drawn by inborn magical instinct, Sotiris’s gaze shot skyward to see a huge wave of magic sliding over the battlefield. It was multicolored, drifting and twisting like smoke, dipping down to skate over the ground, wrapping itself around the frozen fighters, slipping down throats and writhing around arms and legs as it swept steadily closer to where he stood waiting.

  A beastly growl rose from his throat, burning as Sotiris swallowed the irritation he felt at this show of power by his enemy. It wasn’t enough that this display of magic surpassed anything he could attempt in response this late in the battle. It was truly egregious that the bastard had enough magical reserves remaining to undertake such a massive spell after hours of battle against Sotiris . . . even without his damn warriors.

  “Fucker,” Sotiris cursed, and bared his teeth in a fierce grin. Let the princeling have his flashy lights in the sky. Pretty or ugly, only raw power mattered. And on this day, on this battlefield, Sotiris faced a Nicodemus who’d been weakened by a hard battle fought without his most powerful warriors, and now further drained by this useless display.

  Victory would finally be his. Nicodemus would die, and Sotiris would rule.

  NICO FOUGHT WITH everything he had, pouring power into his soldiers and commanders, bolstering their strength and shielding them where he could. Even so, he watched too many of his men die, their blood making the mud appear crimson as the sun rose higher. He fought with no emotion, no feeling, good or bad. His heart, already numbed by the disappearance of his brothers, had grown colder with every bloody wound, every senseless death, until true despair had begun to eat at his confidence, at the certainty that he’d done the right thing in refusing to walk away from Sotiris’s challenge, to surrender and end the bloodshed without a true victory. This, all of this—the death, the ruined lives of families left behind—what good was it? What had he gained for himself, for the people he claimed to care about?

  He knew the answer. Knew why he’d refused Sotiris’s demand, why he’d found the strength to fight on after the loss of his brothers. Antonia. If he’d surrendered to Sotiris, the faithless bastard would have taken his head while he knelt in submission. And if he died, Antonia’s life would be forfeit. Oh, Nico had left men behind in his tower to guard her, had given those men orders that should he fall, they were to take her and run to her mother’s estate before Sotiris had enough time to attempt a takeover of Nico’s castle. Not even Sotiris would attempt to seize Antonia from her mother. The political price he’d pay would be too great. And with Nico dead, Antonia was no threat to Sotiris.

  His reasoning made sense, but he found himself unable to take even that small chance with her life. In the short time he’d known her, she’d become the most important person in his life. The one person whose life he simply couldn’t risk. And so, he’d fought.

  But now, he knew only a desperate need to end it, to stop the blood and death. The moment the rightness of that need had set in his heart, his power had spewed forth without thought. Blanketing the violence and hatred, dropping fighters and beasts alike to the muddy ground, he’d brought perfect silence to a morning that had been drenched with howls of terror and death. The quiet had been so sudden, so unexpected, that Nico had fallen to his knees, his soul utterly empty. It had taken a moment for him to understand what he was feeling. It wasn’t only his soul that had shriveled to nothing. For the first time in his life, his magic was gone. Not dead, but drained to the tiniest, useless spark. And he didn’t know whether to feel despair or relief.

  Sinking back on his heels, he glanced up and caught sight of Sotiris still sitting on his horse, teeth gleaming white in the strange light of magic, as he grinned at the carnage all around him. Nico stared, then blinked several times, doubting the truth of his own eyes. Fucking Sotiris, who’d remained on a hill above the field for most of the battle, risking very little injury to himself, now appeared pleased by what he saw all around. Perhaps his pleasure was only that Nico had used up so much of his own strength. But Sotiris wouldn’t know that. Nico’s shields were so much a part of him that they demanded no additional power, and would block any attempt by Sotiris to read his energy levels.

  Did Sotiris simply assume that Nico had no magic left? That he could steer his mount around the bodies, whether dead or unconscious, and eliminate Nico with a wave of his hand? Hell, the bastard didn’t need to cross the field at all. Sotiris was powerful enough to kill from a distance much greater than what presently separated them. But as much as the coward might like to kill from safely across the field, his pride would never permit it. If Sotiris was going to kill Nico, he’d want to be close enough to see the realization of defeat in Nico’s eyes. The smug satisfaction of that moment would feed his black soul for years.

  An idea bloomed in Nico’s mind, sparking something hot and visceral to life in his gut. Too many men had suffered and died to serve Sotiris’s endless hatred for Nico. A hatred fed by jealousy not only for Nico’s greater power and youth, but for his noble birth, as well. Sotiris’s father was a landed aristocrat, far better off than the common men who farmed his fields and populated his
armies. But Nico . . . ah, he was the son of a king.

  And knowing that, Nico realized something he should have known long ago. There could never be a peaceful resolution to their conflict, because the jealousy that drove Sotiris was fixed in stone. But Nico could end it. It might well leave him a desiccated husk, without even a spark of power to rebuild, but at least the endless wars would finally be over.

  Fiery rage flooded his senses, destroying everything it touched like the lava that flowed from the mountain peaks in the far north. Every muscle and sinew flexed in renewed pain as his fury burned hotter and hotter, melting the icy despair that had driven him to his knees, and igniting the spark of magic that had lived in his soul from the moment of his conception. He was sorcerer-born. His magic would not be quenched. It could not be.

  He surged to his feet, filled with renewed purpose. Sotiris would never accept a stalemate, would never agree to a peace. He didn’t care about the cost in lives and livelihood, the constant fear that gnawed at the shreds of happiness and contentment that were all too many people had left after so many years of fighting. This war was slowly destroying everything left of their world.

  If Nico was to save his world, Sotiris had to die.

  His power surged, bursting upward in a torrent of magic that rose once more above the battlefield, creating a protective barrier over every fighter on the field—both those waking from their unnatural sleep and the others who were still alive, but too injured to respond. Even the dead were protected by a spell that covered the field like an umbrella used by fine ladies to shelter from the sun. But this was no bit of ladies’ frippery. This was the full might and power of a sorcerer in his prime, driven by loss and rage, fueled by hatred for the sorcerer sitting above the fray, his pale hands safe from the blood and guts stinking the battlefield, his grin an obscene comment on the blackness of his soul.

  Well . . . no more.

  With no warning to his enemy, Nico sent a deadly bolt of power arching over the field to where Sotiris was still reacting to the protective spell, fighting his horse who was bucking at the crackle of energy nipping its legs. Nico didn’t know how much time he had before Sotiris realized what was happening. He knew only that his one chance for a death blow was to take Sotiris by surprise.

  The bolt was perfectly calculated. Sotiris was such a bright beacon of power that he made for an excellent target. The ploy very nearly succeeded. Nico thought at first that it had, that the weapon had struck true. Ironically, it was the sheer power of the attack that saved Sotiris’s life. The concussive might of the blow was so great that it caused his horse to rear. The animal nearly fell backward, knocking Sotiris from the saddle and sending him rolling in the mud.

  When he regained his feet, muddied and furious, it was to send a jagged bolt of magical lightning arcing toward Nico. Unlike Sotiris, however, he was expecting the attack and deflected it automatically, while gathering power into himself for the inevitable duel that would follow.

  Nico was so eager for this fight that he wanted to howl like a great beast ready for the kill. But he didn’t waste the energy. “Challenge accepted, you fucking bastard,” he growled, and leaping back onto his stallion, spurred the animal to the only slice of bare ground left between the two armies. All around him, soldiers fell back, dragging their injured companions with them. This was no longer a war for men to fight. It was the battle they’d all known would end the day. The two most powerful sorcerers alive would now fight, one-on-one, to decide who would rule their world.

  As the distance closed between them, Nico drew energy from the protective spell and sucked it back into himself. Neither he nor Sotiris could risk a blanket attack at this point. In the heat of battle, they could well damage themselves while aiming at the other. This would be a duel of concentrated power, with close-range attacks of deadly force.

  “We meet again, little princeling,” Sotiris sneered.

  Nico ignored the taunt. He had neither time nor inclination to bandy words. “Defend yourself,” he said simply, and attacked.

  The ensuing battle was brutal, with each sorcerer arrowing powerful blows that would have reduced a regular human down to the smallest measure of being. The attacks flew back and forth between them, lighting the sky with such intensity that the watching fighters had to shield their eyes or be blinded. With each new attack, deflections filled the air with the sizzling stink of something burning. The occasional blow still managed to break through, striking not only the battling sorcerers, but their horses who, battle-trained though they were, screamed in pain along with their riders.

  Nico rode on the wave of his rage, fueled by the memory of his brothers shredded like ghosts and blown to . . . who the hell knew where? Sotiris was as clever as he was powerful, and lacking even the thinnest thread of compassion. What torment had he sent Nico’s warriors into? What agony were they suffering even now, as he fought not only to destroy Sotiris, but to free himself to go after them.

  Unfortunately, Sotiris was no weakling of an enemy. He’d lost every battle they’d fought thus far, but while his power would never match Nico’s, his jealousy and greed burned nearly as hot as Nico’s rage. The battle dragged on into the hottest part of the day, while the churned-up mud around them dried to a map of cracked earth, and their horses’ hooves raised a fog of dust to surround them.

  Nico was sweating blood beneath his leather armor and woolen tunic, his fingers slick inside the glove on his sword hand. He was struggling to keep his thoughts clear, his spells sharp. If he didn’t finish the battle soon, he’d be dead . . . or defeated, which was the same thing. And then, there would be no one to search for his warriors, to discover their fates and free them from certain torment. They would be lost, forever trapped in the hell of Sotiris’s making.

  Driven by love for his brothers and the desperate need to undo what had been done, Nico gathered everything he had left, every ounce of magic in his veins, all the strength remaining in his body. And struck a blow far more terrible than any he’d ever conceived. The spell sped over the space between them like a cannon fired at close range, powered by the weight of Nico’s hatred and desperation, and imbued with the magic of the most deadly sorcerer their world had ever known.

  It struck Sotiris with the authority of an iron cudgel to the head, searing his flesh like a fire-blade as it knocked him to the ground. He screamed in agony, writhing in the dust, blinded by pain and power both.

  Determined to end this, Nico leaped from his horse and strode the final few feet to his enemy’s thrashing form, power already building within him for the coup de grace, the final blow that would end the plague that was Sotiris’s existence once and for all. But his enemy wasn’t defeated yet.

  With a rush of displaced air, and before Nico could adapt his strike to the changing energies, a gaping tunnel opened behind Sotiris and swallowed him whole. Nico ran to follow, but both sorcerer and time portal—for that’s what it was—had disappeared, as if neither had ever existed.

  Nico threw back his head and roared at the heavens, furious at losing his prey, wondering what sort of gods would permit a monster like Sotiris to escape the justice he so richly deserved. Or maybe it was that the gods found amusement in the petty squabbles of such minor beings. Perhaps they were looking forward to the battles to come, knowing just as Nico did, that the war would never be over as long as both of them lived. No matter where, no matter when.

  HOURS LATER, Nicodemus sat half-naked, exhausted and alone in his victory while all around him stumbled human fighters. Victors—if there was such a thing after the terrible bloodshed of the day—helped the defeated as readily as their own, guiding them to the crowded tents where healers, both magical and mundane, struggled to keep up with the endless flow.

  Victory? Nico wasn’t sure it could be called such, not with Sotiris escaping in the end, and not with the price he’d paid—a price that was so much greater than anyone co
uld know. The brothers he loved more than any on this earth were gone. One moment, they’d stood, the four strongest, bravest, most loyal warriors a man could ask for, confident that this battle would finally bring the long sought-after peace to their world. That Sotiris Dellakos, an enemy Nico had been fighting for what seemed like his entire life, would finally be destroyed.

  But in the end, it wasn’t Sotiris who lost. It was the four warriors who’d traveled from the distant corners of the earth, who’d come at Nico’s call, to fight by his side against the evil that would enslave their world. Those courageous men had been lost before the final great battle had even begun. And they would remain lost, unless Nicodemus could somehow find them and free them.

  He swore that he would. That he would not rest—

  A woman’s scream soared over the battlefield, and he raised his head to listen. Had she been calling his name? What woman had the power to—?

  “Fuck!” Vaulting onto his horse, he raced across the battlefield, through his own lines, past bloodstained tents where his medics toiled, trying to save the lives and livelihoods of those they could, making heartbreaking judgments when faced with men and women who were too far gone. Medics and wounded alike watched with tired eyes when he tore past, his own gaze on the white peaks in the distance, where his estate rested in the foothills—where he’d left Antonia behind, thinking her safer there than anywhere else.

  But he’d been a fool. Sotiris had disposed of four great warriors with a single blow. Destroying one woman would be nothing to him.

  It was far too long before Nicodemus slid from the horse’s back while it was still loping through the gate. Too agitated to call down a spell that would let him reach her faster, to open a portal and appear by her side, he ran to his tower and climbed the stairs three at a time, shoving past staff and courtiers alike. He had no time for them or their endless questions about the battle. He had to get to her, to . . .