Retribution, p.58
Retribution, page 58
Channeling mana into one of my runes, I conjured wind to push at my heels, speeding my flight as Wolfrum’s soulfire licked at my back.
I had no choice but to rush straight into the acidic cloud of water-attribute mana. It hissed and popped against the mana cladding my body. On the other side of the shield, standing atop the outcropping of rock in front of the tempus warp, the Caster waved his hands and the cloud condensed into viscous drops of rain, which immediately began burning through my protection.
Releasing the soulfire wreathing my blade so I could focus on both the wind-attribute spell and the orbitals, I aimed at the two mages beyond the shield. Twin lances of fire ripped through the barrier cast by their Shield, burning a large hole in each mage’s chest. The final orbital fired backward blindly as I hoped to disrupt Wolfrum’s concentration.
I felt his soulfire clash against mine as the inferno surged. Risking a glance behind me, I saw the full effect of his spell for the first time.
A huge smokey skull, its mouth wide and eyes empty as death, trailing a twenty-foot tail of pure soulfire, was closing in on me. The orbital’s attacks were vanishing into the skull’s open mouth, never reaching Wolfrum.
I aimed for the tempus warp. With the way clear, there was no reason to stand and fight. Not when a Scythe was closing in on me.
A bead of dark mana condensed in the air above the opening. Wild lines of void wind began reeling out of it, spiraling downward until they touched the ground to form a cyclone that blocked the way.
I sprinted straight at it while recalling the orbitals, wind-attribute mana pushing me forward faster with every stride. They snapped into place in the bracer, and I released the mana and concentration powering it just as my blade flared with soulfire once again.
Slashing at the air with my sword, I felt a thrill of success as soulfire carved through the artifact they’d installed to hold Seris’s barrier open. The metal melted away as if it were wogart butter, and the arch collapsed. The shield around it flexed, pushing inward.
In my periphery, I could see the darkness of the encroaching spell starting to surround me.
Wrapping myself with wind, I leapt, making myself as narrow and aerodynamic as possible, shooting forward like an arrow.
The shield closed around me.
I was immediately picked up by the void wind cyclone, which cut through my own wind mana effortlessly. My senses reeled for a moment as I was spun end over end, then the cyclone released me.
Catching my balance, I rotated my body to land crouched on both feet, one hand pressing into the sand for stability.
Fifty feet out in the ocean, the tempus warp splashed down into the water. It had been lifted by the cyclone, then tossed away as the wind’s momentum vanished. My stomach plunged with it.
“If it makes you feel any better, we didn’t program the tempus warp anyway, Lady Caera,” Wolfrum said from the other side of the shield. “You were never going to leave here.”
I spared him no words. He was no longer a threat to me. The approaching ship, however…
The boat was close enough now that I could sense the monstrous mana signature emanating from it. Even as I watched, a silhouette, somehow still looming large even from such a distance, floated up from the deck and hurtled toward me, onyx horns gleaming.
Focusing on the ripples still rolling away from where the tempus warp had sunk under the water, I sprinted out along the rocks toward it, stowing my blade as I ran. There was a surge of mana, and the rocks under my feet heaved, rolling away from me like the deck of a ship. I would have plunged face first into the jagged stone if not for the wind-attribute mana already imbued around my feet.
Pushing off against the air itself, I leapt out over the open water, pulling my body into a streamlined diving position. When I hit the water, I shot deep down below the constantly rolling waves. The frigid cold bit at my skin, and the drag of the water pulled at my hair and clothes, threatening to tow me away.
I scoured the seafloor for the tempus warp, but it sloped steeply away from the beach, growing darker and darker as it went deeper.
Strengthening my vision with mana, I peered through the gloom, searching for the roughly anvil-shaped artifact. A cloud of silt obscured the ground, but there was a subtle emanation of mana within the cloud. Focusing on it, I pushed harder, swimming as fast as I could, all too aware of the Scythe’s mana signature growing closer by the second.
Using wind-attribute mana to cause a current, I pushed away the floating silt. The tempus warp was sticking up from the soft soil, half sunk into the ground. Dozens of scratches had been scored into the surface from the void wind, matching the dozens of raised welts all over my body.
Please work, I thought, the Scythe’s shadow moving across the top of the water in my peripheral vision.
I was certain Wolfrum had been lying about not activating the tempus warp. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have kept talking. He was trying to engage with me and keep me there. They couldn’t spring their trap until Wolfrum arrived and the shield opened, and it would have raised suspicion to prevent the other mages from preparing the artifact.
Or so I hoped.
The ground around the tempus warp moved suddenly. Mana swelled through the soil, and a giant hand made of black iron formed with the artifact in its palm. A second hand punched up beneath me, slamming into me and sending me spinning off through the dark water. Bubbles burst from my lips as I gasped, every bone in my body aching from the force of the blow. As I reeled, the hand grabbed me, squeezing, and more bubbles rushed from my mouth as it crushed the air from my lungs.
Both hands began moving up toward the surface, but I could hardly see them through the stars sparkling behind my eyes.
Gathering the last of my strength, I pressed my own hands against the blood iron restraining me. My eyes drifted closed. I searched for the inborn confidence that always assured me I could do anything I attempted. Desperation kept it at bay. So I reached for my rage instead.
My mind went blank. Except for the mana—the soulfire that burned in my blood and my heart and my core. That, I embraced. I took hold of it with my entire being, gathered every ounce of my power, and pushed.
Black flames flooded out of my hands. The water began to boil wildly as it was destroyed. Soulfire ate into blood iron. The hand quaked beneath me. Metal began to dissolve. The grip lessened.
A funnel of wind whipped the ocean water into a frenzy, ripping me free of the giant hand’s clutches and shooting me straight at the other hand and the tempus warp held in its palm. I slammed against it, scrambling to reach the tempus warp pinned under thick metal fingers.
Spikes erupted from the surface of the hand. I felt the pain, saw the red trails in the water, but had no time to check the nature of my wounds. My fumbling fingers found the controls.
I felt, rather than heard, the splash from above. Drawn as if by gravity, my head turned so I could see above me.
The muscular form of Scythe Dragoth Vritra drove down through the water like a bullet. His eyes gleamed like rubies, and there was a white crest trailing from his horns due to his speed. One of his hands was curled into a tight fist, and the other pulled back as if to swat a fly. The crushing press of his aura was enough to make my heart stop, but it was the unfiltered rage in his expression that drained all the warmth from me.
The blood iron fist next to me clenched harder. Metal shrieked against metal as the surface of the tempus warp began to cave in.
Trembling, I activated the artifact.
The world was ripped away from me, or I from it. There was no air in my lungs. My entire body erupted in pain. I thought the process must have failed. It was taking far too long. Everything was dark.
My body splashed, wet and heavy, against stone, but I had no wind left to be knocked from me. Gasping, struggling and failing to bring in air, I dragged my eyes open, uncertain when I had closed them. I didn’t understand what I was seeing. My hands clutched my chest, my body desperate for oxygen. Finally, a breath came.
Dimly, I became aware of something hard and sharp pressed against my cheek. A spear. Without moving, my gaze followed the line of the spear’s long haft to the man holding it. I registered blond hair and green eyes, dark in the low light.
“Move, Vritra, and I’ll pin you to the floor,” he said, his voice carrying an edge of thunder.
The sound of his voice, the sight of him and his surroundings, melted together with pain and fatigue into a muddle. I blinked several times, my focus moving inward. Each breath came with a deep ache that suggested broken ribs, and I had been pierced by blood iron spikes in both legs, my side, and the inside of my left arm. But all these wounds were superficial and would heal with time.
I wouldn’t die.
Assuming, of course, this Dicathian didn’t follow through on his threat.
“I’m not your enemy,” I said, keeping my voice slow and steady as I met the man’s eye. Others had approached as well. Dwarves, by their stockiness, I guessed. Hopefully that meant I was in the right place. “My name is Caera of Highblood Denoir. I’ve come looking for—”
“You’re a Vritra,” the man snapped. “I can guess well enough why you’re here.” He frowned, focusing on my wounds. “Though you don’t look to be in any shape to attack us.”
I took a steadying breath, unable to keep the grimace off my face at the resulting pain in my chest and ribs. “Please. Bring the Lance, Arthur Leywin. He knows me. I assure you that—”
“Arthur isn’t here,” the blond man said. To my relief, however, he withdrew the spear, keeping it pointed at my core, but at least it was no longer digging into my skin. “Which would be a convenient time for a spy to attempt to slip into Vildorial, especially one who presented themselves as too weak and injured to be a threat to us.” He sneered. “Perhaps it would have been a wiser plan to send someone without demonic horns sprouting from their skull.”
Momentarily confused, I reached for the pendant that normally hung around my neck.
It was gone.
I started to sit up, but the spear pressed against the side of my neck. I held out both hands. “I really don’t intend you or anyone else here harm. Arthur is my friend. I—” I bit off my words. I’d nearly stated that I worked with Scythe Seris, but I couldn’t be sure how such information would be taken. “He spent time in Alacrya, you must know this. We met, traveled together. If you’ll—”
“As I said,” the man interrupted yet again, “Arthur isn’t here. Perhaps you are some friend of his. Perhaps you’re a lying demon. Until we know for certain, you’ll wait in the dungeon.” He stepped back and gestured with the spear.
Slowly, I stood up. A dozen sources of pain bloomed hot and bright across my body, and I sucked in a sharp breath between gritted teeth.
“Mana-suppression shackles!” the man ordered.
When a heavily armored dwarf clanked up with a pair, I nearly laughed at the irony. I held out my wrists, which were already bound with the broken manacles from Alacrya.
The dwarf eyed them curiously. “She’s…already wearing a pair, General Bairon. Not of Dicathian make, by the looks of it.”
The tip of the spear clanged against the broken cuffs as the blond man inspected them. General Bairon…
“You’re Lance Bairon Wykes,” I said as he indicated that the dwarf should shackle me anyway. As he slapped the cold metal around my wrists, I added, “Like I said, I’m a friend of Arthur’s.”
“As am I,” he replied, only redirecting the point of his spear when the dwarf nodded to confirm my shackles were firmly in place. “But I am also a protector of Dicathen, while you share the look of our enemies. In the event your words are proven true, I’ll offer you my apologies. Until then, you are a prisoner.”
Lance Bairon took hold of the shackles and inspected my wounds for a moment. “Send for an emitter. She looks likely to bleed out if we leave her manaless in a cell.”
One of the dwarves saluted, then hurried off. We went in the other direction, with the Lance leading me by the chains. A sea of dwarves parted to allow us through, some falling in line behind us, others watching as he led me up a curving road that ran around the edge of a truly enormous cavern.
“Can you send him a message?” I asked after a moment, trying to stay calm. “My reason for being here is an urgent one, and…” I trailed off as Lance Bairon stopped and turned to look down at me.
“Tell me why you’re in Dicathen.”
I hesitated, and his nostrils flared.
“I thought so. If you’ll only speak to Arthur, then I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait. I can’t send him a message.”
“But why?” The moment the words left my mouth, I knew why. “He’s in the Relictombs.”
This caused the Lance’s brows to rise. “I won’t be confirming any details. Know, however, that you haven’t found this city undefended. At this moment, you are only alive due to my goodwill. Attempt any sort of treachery, and that goodwill ends.”
I blinked. There was something about the straightforward bombast of the Dicathian mage that felt…refreshing. “Noted.”
I followed Lance Bairon up the long road, taking in the sights and people of Vildorial as I went. Among the dwarves I saw a smattering of humans and even a few people I thought must be elves. Despite being underground, there was nothing cramped or claustrophobic about the city. In fact, I was quite taken aback by its beauty. The way the buildings and homes were carved into the side of the cavern, how the rays of light, generated by large crystals affixed to stone pillars or hanging from long chains, reflected off the cavern walls to glint like stars in the night sky, even the rugged, fearless way the people of the city—most not even mages—looked at me, their gazes inevitably drawn to my horns…it was all so charming, while still being undeniably solid and strong.
I thought we were making for a sort of stone fortress that filled the highest level of the cavern, but before we reached its gates, he took me instead through a plain, if heavy, iron door inset into the wall, and suddenly the place lost its charm.
The hall beyond was narrow and cramped. It led through a guard post, where several dwarves snapped to attention as we passed, into a series of unadorned corridors. Cells lined both sides.
Lance Bairon led me through the prison to what seemed to be the deepest cell farthest from the entrance, opened the door, and waved me in. I went without complaint. It wasn’t ideal, but this would be exactly the wrong time to create hostility between us. With time, even if Arthur didn’t return immediately, I was certain I could convince this Lance, or perhaps the lords of the elves or dwarves, that I meant them no harm.
The door, which was heavy oak banded with iron, closed with a dull thunk. Although I couldn’t sense it due to the mana-suppression shackles, I was certain the cell was magically warded and locked.
The cell itself was plain. A straw-stuffed mattress on the floor with a single woolen blanket folded atop it. I grimaced at the bucket resting in the opposite corner.
“I understand these accommodations may not meet the standards of a highblood,” Lance Bairon said through the barred window inset in the door, “but I’m afraid the more comfortable cells normally reserved for nobles in the palace are occupied by families made homeless by the Vritra clan’s invasion.”
I clenched my jaw, working it back and forth in frustration. Before I turned around to face him, though, I smoothed out my features, presenting a stoic front. “It was exactly that: the Vritra clan’s invasion. My people have suffered under their rule for hundreds of years, yours for barely a single year. They are just as much my enemy as yours, I promise you that.”
The Lance’s brows wrinkled in a thoughtful frown. “We’ll see.”
419
BLACK DOORS
ARTHUR LEYWIN
As I watched the others vanish one by one through another portal—the fourth now since leaving the third djinn ruin—I considered the mental map left for me by Sylvia. Despite my confidence in isolating the proper zone, it was still strange. Unlike all the other pictures in my mind, which included a sense of what to expect in the zone, this one was empty, nothing but an intangible blank slate.
I cast a glance back at the zone we’d just cleared: a suffocatingly cramped castle full of traps and monsters. It had been dangerous but straightforward. The unknown beyond this next portal unsettled me.
It was the gentle swirling of the portal’s internal light that dragged me back into the moment. Whatever else might wait on the other side of the portal, my sister was already there without me. With this in mind, I stepped in after her.
I appeared surrounded by…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Void emptiness in every direction. And I was alone. When I tried to call out for my sister, no sound came. I tried to look down, but there was no down or up or me.
It felt like when I’d first appeared in the Relictombs. I didn’t relish the sensation.
‘At least you’ve still got me,’ Regis’s voice sounded in my head. ‘Wherever I am. Can I still be inside you if neither of us exist?”
Then, like a scene fading in at the beginning of an old Earth movie, the zone materialized in front of me.
I was looking across glassy black ground at Mica, Boo, and Ellie. Except something was wrong with them. They were flat, like reflections of themselves on dark glass, and their movements were stiff and unnatural.
“El,” I said, my voice sounding muffled and incomplete.
Her mouth moved in response, and I read my name on her lips, but I couldn’t hear her.
I need to get out of here, I thought. I felt myself drifting forward, and then my feet touched down on solid ground.
Turning around—I had a body again, I realized—I examined where I’d come from. Behind me, a smooth rectangle of mana about seven feet tall and three feet wide hovered just beyond the edge of the ground I now stood on. An identical shape stood a few feet to its left. Lyra was peering curiously out from its surface.
I heard my name spoken by Ellie’s voice like a pleading whisper coming from a great distance.
