Blood of the Fold

Once her eyes had recognized the still, dark shapes, she was able to begin picking out soldiers. They were everywhere. Fires dotted the closer hills all about the harbor, and she knew that for every fire that managed to bum in the pouring rain, there were twenty or thirty that wouldn't catch flame. Without counting the fires she could see, she could easily tell there were hundreds.

The gangway rumbled across the deck as the sailors slid it out through the opening in the bulwark. With a dull thud, one end dropped on the dock. As soon as it touched down, sailors trotted down the plank with the Sisters' baggage and headed up the pier toward the coach.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Sister," Captain Blake lied. He fumbled with his hat as he waited for them to be on their way. He turned to the men on the lines. "Stand ready to slip the lines, lads! We don't want to lose the tide!"

No cheer went up, but only because they feared the result were they to show their happiness to be rid of their passengers. On their sea voyage back to the Old World it had been necessary to measure out a few more lessons in discipline — lessons not one of them would ever forget.

As they waited silently for the order to cast off, none of the sailors so much as glanced at the six women. At the end of the gangway four men stood in readiness, eyes fixed on the ground, each gripping a pole supporting the corner of a canvas tarp to hold over the Sisters' heads to keep them from being drenched.

With as much power as was crackling around Ulicia and her five companions, she could easily have used the Han to shield herself and her five Sisters from the rain, but she didn't want to use the link until it was lime; she didn't want to take a chance by giving Jagang any warning. Besides, it pleased her to make these insignificant worms carry the tarp over their heads. They were all lucky she didn't want to reveal the link, or she would have slaughtered the lot of them. Slowly.

As Ulicia started moving, she could feel each of her Sisters move, too. Each of them had not only the gift they were born with, the female Han, but each had been through the ritual, and each also possessed its opposite: the male Han they had appropriated from young wizards. Besides the Additive gift they were born with, each also possessed its opposite: Subtractive Magic.

And now it was all linked.

Ulicia had not been sure it would work; Sisters of the Dark, and beyond that Sisters of the Dark who had also succeeded in absorbing the male Han, had never before attempted to link their power. It had been a dangerous risk, but the alternative was unacceptable. That it worked had given them all a heady flush of relief. That it had worked beyond their wildest hopes left Ulicia intoxicated with the swift and violent flux of magic coursing through her.

She had never suspected such awesome power could be gathered. Short of the Creator or the Keeper, there was no power on the face of the earth that could approach what they now controlled.

Ulicia was the link's dominant node, and the one who would command and direct the force. It was all she could do to contain the inner blaze of Han. Wherever her gaze settled, it howled to be released. Soon enough, it would be.

Linked as they were, the female and male Han, the Additive and Subtractive Magic, they had enough destructive force to make wizard's fire seem a candle by comparison. With a mere thought, she could level the hill atop which sat the fortress. With a mere thought, she could instantly level everything in the range of her sight, and possibly beyond.

If she could be sure Jagang was in the fortress, she would have already unleashed the cataclysmic fury, but if he wasn't, and they failed to find and kill him before they fell asleep again, then he would have them. First they must face him, to be sure he was there, and then she would release such power as had never been seen in this world, and turn Jagang to dust before he could blink. Her Master would have his soul, then, and see to it that Jagang's punishment went on without end.

At the end of the gangway the four sailors moved around them, sheltering them from the rain. Ulicia could feel the muscles in each of her Sisters flex as they moved up the pier. Through the link, she could feel each little ache, or pain, or pleasure they felt. In her mind, they were one. In her mind, they were of one thought, one need: to rid themselves of this leech of a man.

Soon enough, Sisters, soon enough.

And then we go after the Seeker?

Yes, Sisters, and then we go after the Seeker.