The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 8: Chapter 7 — The Cultists

Read chapter 8 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Chapter 7 — The Cultists She rose from her crouch. The right-hand door stood half-ajar, its face blistered and bowed. Yara set her shoulder against the left door and pushed. Wood screamed. The leaf swung wide and slammed into the stone. Echoes bouncing across the inner temple. The room lay revealed. A long central aisle ran straight to a dais of four shallow steps. Three ranks of pews flanked it, many cracked, some toppled. Neglect had worn away some of the temple; a recent fire had destroyed more. Six pillars held the ribs of the roof, three to a side, their capitals carved in old sun-signs now peeled and blackened. Beyond the altar, a slab split down the middle, light bleeding from the wound. The split held something alive. Indistinct but moving with the pulse. Five robed figures knelt around the split in a star pattern, spines bowed, hands splayed. They'd been the murmur on the stairs. Now they went silent as the doors hit and turned to face her, five hooded faces rimmed green. "Stop," Yara ordered, with more courage in her voice than she carried in her body, as she stepped over the threshold. The closest cultist stood near the front pews. His right palm lifted. Runes crawled up his wrist, branching, spreading; he looked to be summoning the same powers that the voice shared with her. A sheet of green leaped from his hand, slick, fast, and too bright. The green flash struck home. Her shield took it. The force hit bone-deep, the weight of the magic blast shaking her body. Her boots skidded on scorched marble. Copper flooded her tongue. Without the shield, she'd be dead. He blinked, startled that she was still standing. She raised her palm. Cold surged up her arm. She let it go. The bolt struck him square in the sternum. He flew backward over a pew, his body hugging the blast. He rolled closer to the altar, holding his chest, groaning. Two moved at once to flank her. Left: a figure slid between pews along the shadow of the pillars, staff low, runes blinking out of rhythm. Right: another loped down the side aisle, faster, using toppled benches as cover. The air between them bent under force. Crossfire. Yara dropped. Right's energy blast glanced her shoulder and cored a saint from a mural, paint turning to steam, stone hissing. Left's blast struck the right cultist in the face, removing his head as his body slumped to the ground. She rolled behind a fallen pew, came to one knee, and sighted left. The left-hand cultist dragged a shield up, too late. Her blast caught him in the center of his mass. He slammed into the second pillar shoulder-first. The pillar cracked. The cultist squished. Behind you. A third cultist had come through the center aisle while she'd been shooting. His staff swung down. She got the spear shaft up in time. Wood cracked against iron. The impact jolted through her arms, made her elbows scream. He started chanting, voice low and sharp. End him. She drove the spearpoint into his chest, releasing the same energy she used in her blasts through the spear. Power pulsed through the iron, erupting from the tip. He jerked once. Green light poured from his mouth. He dropped. Looking back at the dais, the first one had joined the leader. They stood shoulder to shoulder on the top step, one palm pressed to the split stone, the other raised toward her. Light crawled up their forearms, veins glowing beneath skin. They were weaving the seal into a weapon pointed at Yara. The fissure widened. The floor shook. Dust fell from the ceiling beams. "Stop," she said, and ran for the nearest cover. They struck together. Twin bolts shot from their palms and merged midair, green light spiraling tighter until it burned white-hot. The blast came straight down the aisle, wide as a doorframe, nowhere to go but down. She dropped and fired. Her shot skimmed the marble, a green blade at ankle height. It scythed through the wounded cultist's knees. His legs snapped backward. He fell, wrenching his hand off the fissure. The braid unraveled.