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Chapter Thirty
"No way," I say to her.
As if reading my mind, Karandras moves forward tugging along two riderless horses. Talen brushes his cuisses off and steps into the stirrup of the first, hauling himself into the saddle.
"I'm coming with you," he says.
"As am I," I say.
Angelaria smirks, and then says, "Well if anyone else wants to come along they can, but I can't guarantee your safety."
My raven-haired beauty puts spur to horse not even giving me a chance to mount this gray palfrey. Karandras, Talen, and Calvin ride up behind Angelaria; she's making her way toward the mouth of the ravine, hair streaming behind her like the black flag on a pirate ship.
"So this is how it's going to be, is it?" I say to no one in particular.
"She's a handful, that gal," Pink Hair answers.
I look to the gnome who's seated awkwardly on the back of a pony. I hadn't even noticed he joined me at the front of the column of men.
"She'll give some lucky man a great brood someday, provided he's got what it takes to put a few inside her." He finishes that sentiment with a snicker.
I make a clicking noise with my tongue and press my heels to the flanks of my horse; she responds by leaping into a full gallop. I catch up with them just as they round a corner and spy the Israfil of Zanda riding center in the cleft formed by the two cliffs.
I reign in my horse, nostrils flaring. The animal fights me a second wanting to continue with our charge but soon yields to my strong and steady hand. My eyes zoom in on every detail in the gorge, but I don't see the two hulking ork warriors.
Where are they?
Have they gone for Palker Ray or to retrieve Correldon's broken body only to defile it? I tighten my fist on the reins resolving myself to killing them slowly if they desecrate even a hair on the elf's corpse. We may have had our differences, but I respect Cory's right to be buried in honor.
In front of me, Angelaria slides off the stallion beneath her with the grace of a lady at court. Then she walks out onto the floor of the ravine. Dark elven warriors appear on the cliffs, leaping up from the ground with arrows notched on dozens of bows. They let fly with a score of them; I'm helpless to do anything against such an onslaught. At their peak, even the sun is dimmed by their fletching. I could catch maybe one or two...deflect another. But someone will die here.
Gods, how did it come to this?!
Angelaria raises her hand, palm upward, and the arrows collide with an invisible shield she's erected around herself. Runes carved into the magical ring wrapped around her third finger glow white hot.
"Tethyr's teeth," I whisper, eyes wide and jaw hanging open.
In her other hand, Angelaria raises the book that Calvin gifted her earlier, and she begins to read from its pages in a language beyond my comprehension. The air around her flickers: eight panes of glass rise to encase her in an octahedral formation. She points her free hand to the ground and the transparent cage rises before me as if carried on wings of air.
"By all the terrors in Hell I've never see such sorcery!" Calvin declares before making a sign to ward off evil.
The Israfil of Zanda spreads her palms wide and a sphere of blue-black energy appears between them, swirling like a vortex to another plane. With an arcane word and a gesture, she hurls a lightning bolt from the sphere; it strikes one of the transparent panes circling Angelaria. A shower of sparks explodes outward in a thunderclap that rattles boulders loose from the cliffs; our horses panic! I try desperately to hang on, gripping the reins and leaning forward in the stirrups.
Angelaria reads from the book and responds with a gesture that requires three of her fingers to bend awkwardly. Before us the Israfil begins to sink into the earth. Helpless to escape her fate, the creature hurls three more incandescent bolts from the sphere that floats between her fingertips. None, however, can penetrate the protection of the strange octahedral. Completely spent, the ground swallows the wretched creature whole, leaving only her hands raised above the surface. They clutch at the air for a few moments before freezing into misshapen claws. Resembling spiders, they are made all the more horrific perched on a pair of fleshy stumps.
But the slaughter doesn't end here.
Angelaria slaps one of the transparent panes with her open hand: it comes loose and floats like a kite, gleaming in the sunlight like molten glass. She points it at one of the kuanni warriors standing on the ridge. With speed matched only by the crack of a bull whip, it spins off to decapitate him, cutting through his upraised sword and armor like a hot knife through butter.
Two more seconds pass, and two more headless corpses fall down the ravine spewing blood; their owner's souls sent straight to Hell. Terrorized, the dark elves retreat as one host and flee into the forest.
I blink and finally shut my mouth, which has been hanging open this entire time. Behind us comes Karandras' main cavalry, riding up on hooves that create a dull roar that echoes off the walls.
The commander divides them up and orders them to skirt the cliff on either side looking for stragglers while he directs his main force down the road that lies at its center.
"Nicely done," Calvin commends Angelaria.
Distracted by the arrival of reinforcements and the end of the battle between Angelaria and the Israfil (that still has me awestruck) I neglect to notice that my beloved has canceled the marvelous sorcery that brought her so much power.
She walks toward us clutching that book of spells in her hands. I note that her ring has returned to its normal color.
"You're quite an accomplished witch," Calvin adds. "I knew I traveled in the shadow of greatness, but had no idea you were a goddess! And your beauty--"
"Save it," I tell him, putting a hand on his chest. "She loves me and doesn't love you, okay?"
"Kian," Angelaria says, eyes leveled at my chest. "That's quite enough!"
"Can't you see what he's trying to do." I make it a statement rather than a question.
"You're just jealous. Calvin gave me a wonderful present in this book, and I simply won't stand for it that you talk to him like this."
I bite my lip, hop down off my horse, and walk over to Talen. "Why do I put up with that?"
"You really want ME to answer that?" Talen responds.
I look into his eyes; I like looking there. I can see calm reflected in his soul, and I think...no, I hope that it'll spread to me somehow. "No, I-I suppose that I'm just talking out of anger."
"It's not anger. It's sexual frustration. I CAN help you with that, you know?" He winks at me.
"I wish you were enough, Talen," I say. "But I don't think you are. It's unexplainable. I love you so much and I should be satisfied with that."
"But you're not," Talen says.
I shrug.
"Look, not everything in your life is something that you can control. You can only train so much. There's always a little bit of chance thrown in there. Tethyr gave us trust to combat our fears. You're just gonna have to trust Angelaria...trust that she knows what she's doing, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised and a lot more secure about your relationship with her."
I kick the dirt and wander off to mull things over.
Meanwhile, Karandras sends Talen and two other men to go looking for Correldon. An hour later they return with the silver-haired elf. To my surprise, he's alive. They also found Palker Ray in the woods above the ravine, although he's bleeding badly from a deep wound on his left side. He's in too much pain to say much so Karandras loads him into the medicine wagon at the very back. That's where the dream healer, Koriandra, is tending to the wounded. Just before they part, Karandras lets Palker sip something from a flask he carries in his jacket. My eyes are drawn to its special designs. I overhear him say that it's "a brew designed to deaden the pain associated with wounds like yours."
Once Palker is gone, he makes a comment to me. "This stuff is strong medicine, but it also deadens your wits. It's 'strictly' medicinal, if you know what I mean."
"I think I do," I say, winking to him.
He winks back.
A few hours before sunset, our ragtag column crosses the ambush site with men walking above us on the cliffs, and with Talen, Angelaria, and I riding point. Karandras doesn't want to be flanked either so he and several of his trusted men take up the rear. Additionally, he directs ten soldiers to stay behind at the entrance to the gorge. Each has a horse and a horn of blasting. That way we can hear their signal from miles away if they're attacked.
Several hours pass, and the sky deepens in color.
Angelaria hasn't said a thing.
Is she really THAT pissed at me?
The little road we're following has become completely overgrown by huge elms and maples. Off the path to either side are groves of spruce periodically shot through with stands of birch that gleam white as new snow. Because the path's sheltered from the sun, rain water pools in every dip and rut; on all sides I hear the chitter of birds and forest animals, accompanied by the ominous "caw" from a murder of crows.
We crest a steep hill and arrive at the hollows that surround Wraith Watch. In the west, the last of the three suns just now begins to set.
The stones of the keep are overgrown with ivy; the meadow it occupies is choked with trampled-down weeds and thick, waist-high grass. After we halt, Karandras joins us. Wisps of smoke spew forth from chimneys. There are few tall and thin windows in the keep; when I stare carefully I can make out the shapes of armed men on the far sides of those dusty panes.
The last of the light fades behind a mountain peak, and the pale blue color of the sky deepens to the violet that always preludes night. That's when the doors to the keep fly open. and a kuanni horde emerges into the twilight. The towering form of the red-skinned ogre magi that nearly killed me marches in their midst. His black hair hangs straight across his back, his necklace of skulls clacks together. Eerily, that sound rises above all others that are made by the vast host of evil.
"Will they parlay?" I ask Talen.
Before he can answer, the ogre magi lets loose with a terrifying battle cry, and the kuanni swarm up the road with eyes overflowing in dark intent.
"Fuck me," Talen swears.
"Fight at my back," I tell him. "Angelaria, I'd like it better if you stayed back with the healer's wagon."
"It's a good thing that I don't follow your orders," she says.
Karandras lets fall his hand and the cavalry behind us charges past, spurred forward by the higher ground. As if one, they rush to meet the tide of dark elves, swinging blades and morning stars and hoping to trample many underfoot. Suddenly, in front of Karandras' host erupts a whirling barrier of slicing blades that completely cuts off the road ahead. The horses in the lead can't come to a stop quick enough. They plunge, rider and mount, into the barrier and are immediately cut to bits. Blood and flesh spray out in such amounts that it's like a fountain of pure suffering. For the first time today, true fear settles into my gut.
"Clerics of the Spider Queen!" Angelaria calls out.
The only clerics that I ever really got to know in my life were the ones that ministered in the Thieves' Guild of Clothol, but I'd no idea they could cast spells like this.
Both Talen and I dismount.
Standing at the top of the hollow that contains Wraith Watch, I note that there's a steep drop of about a hundred feet through wild rose bushes if I so much as depart (by a single step) from the shoulder of the road. Screams coming from the dozen or so men that ploughed into the blade barrier further set my teeth on edge.
"I don't want to die like that," I say to Talen.
"Do you hear it?" Talen asks. "Not the screams, but something else?"
I look up, feeling the hair on the back of my neck starting to burn. As if the gods themselves seek to destroy us, a roaring column of flame slams between Talen and me.
I'm thrown off the edge of the road; the next thing I feel are the rake of thorns ripping through my shirt and trousers as I tumble into the hollow like a stone cast from the edge of a cliff. Thorns and brambles scratch at my hands and my face; twice I bounce off a rock, making me cry out as I attempt to stay my body.
When I finally come to rest, I stand on shaky footing, blinking blood from my eyes. Everything's blurry and dark.
"Kian, look out!" Talen yells. He must've fallen down through the bushes too but the sound of his voice comes from higher up. He must have caught himself, no doubt aided by his killsuit.
I wish I still had mine.
I whirl but don't see a thing.
Footsteps close in on me from behind; I lean forward and kick my boot toward the sky in an attempt to catch my assailant with a heel. I slam into someone who collapses from the force of my blow. A gust of wind on my right side alerts me to something incoming; I jump back and a mace meant for my ribs misses me by a small margin. I step forward and catch my assailant's arm only to yank him about, effectively turning him into a meat shield to ward against further attacks.
An axe cleaves through his skull; bits of brain spatter my face.
That shield didn't last long.
I kick him off and tumble back a few paces. The world's so unfocused; there are opponents on nearly every side. I trip over an old stump. When I fall, I catch myself on my palms only to split them open on sharp rocks. Quickly, I tear my shirt loose and wipe my eyes. That helps a lot.
Night engulfs our battle in the hollows; all around me is the scream of the dead and dying. Torches held aloft by Karandras' men only serve as beacons for kuanni arrows.
"Tethyr, make swift and true my journey to the chapel, and I shall thank you for it every day of my life," I utter under my breath.
I rise up out of the grass, but can't see either Talen or Angelaria in all the confusion. So I run forward, leaping over the stump that tripped me and make straight for the open doors of Wraith Watch itself. In the field, a dark elven warrior on my left and on my right, engage me. The first swings at my head; I parry with my sword. He follows through with a second, shorter blade. I sidestep, gut kick him, and disembowel him afterward with his own blade. I grab a hold of his short sword and hurl it at the other dark elf, skewering him in the throat.
I turn and my blood almost freezes in my veins.
There but ten paces in front of me is a dark elf woman with night black skin and ivory white hair. Her bosom's held back by a fine garment spun from webs and bejeweled with shiny opals. She wears a cape of red velvet, and her hand's outstretched toward me as if to seize my throat in some phantom claw.
A ring of blades appears on top of me, and it forms a circle with her at its center. I feel a tingling and close my eyes, thinking that soon the bite of the spell will send me to my doom. But the bite never comes. I open my eyes and find myself standing in the middle of it. The blades are literally passing through me as if they can't affect me at all. The look of absolute power on the cleric's face changes to one of absolute horror as I realize she's unable to overcome my natural Atlantean spell resistance: a thing I thought was just a fable. I leap forward and punch her across the mouth, knocking out several teeth in the process. Then I run my sword through her stomach, dropping the elven cleric to the mud at my feet. I finish her by lopping off that foul head.
Overkill I know, but an assassin can never be too careful.
Afterward, I strut through her failed magic with feigned indifference.
Aside from being beautiful, Atlanteans have many cool traits!
Two hundred feet in front of me, and near the doors of Wraith Watch, Karandras appears out of the smoke and gloom. He chops through one kuanni warrior and fells another. A third takes a knife through to the chin; the other end pokes out through its skull. The mighty commander swings about with his sword and decapitates a fourth.
Damn.
An orc comes at him from the side; Karandras avoids the blow. He comes down with his blade on the orc's right arm, severing it at the elbow. Then, he kicks the maimed warrior to the dust, taking a haymaker swing at an orc corning at him from the roadside.
It's like he's transformed himself into a whirlwind, moving so powerfully and so swiftly that no one in his path can stop him.
No one, that is, except the ogre magi.
The brute appears, red skin awash with fresh blood and the glow of the fires that rage on the roadside burning in his eyes. Havrok roars at Karandras in defiance, standing like a titan before the gates of Wraith Watch. Each stride of his massive feet shakes the earth. He approaches dangling a hammer with a headpiece on it as large as my torso. The furious monster slams this pulverizer down on Karandras who's barely able to sidestep it in time.
Flaming motes erupt from the earth, and the hammer sinks into the clay. Before my eyes, the very earth begins to smoke as if it's on fire.
Karandras leaps in and draws his sword across the creature's arm; to my surprise it pulls blood. The ogre magi shouts; backhands Karandras who goes flying into the stone wall. Then he swings at him twice again with the hammer.
Twice more Karandras avoids the blow and twice more, the commander steps in just in time to slice up the ogre mage's muscular chest and stomach. Blood flows in rivulets down Havrok's front, but still the red-skinned monster presses on unfazed. I sense unparalleled rage bubbling up from within Havrok, and I know he's going to use the ice blast he once directed at me. Before I can warn him, Havrok unleashes the cone at Karandras: a withering blast of icy cold wind and piercing shards blow outward catching poor Karandras full in the chest.
He screams once before transforming into a solid block of ice.
Havrok's cackle fills the vale, and he strikes with a single earth-shattering blow. Just like that, the commander dies, shattering into a million chunks of frozen meat.
"No!" My assassin's reflexes jump in every muscle of my body.
I'm on top of Havrok before he realizes what's happening. In one dexterous moment, I slide beneath the ogre magi's legs, aided further by the ice and snow now covering the path. In one smooth movement, I stop and cast my weapon aside in favor of the fallen commander's incredible sword.
"Today, you meet whatever demon you worship, Havrok," I say, rolling to my feet. I reckon that this is how a mouse must feel when facing a mountain lion.
"Die puny man!" Havrok screams, swinging doom at my chest.
I bound forward, leap over the hammer quite easily, and plunge my newfound sword at the ogre's chest. I strike with such fury it goes through him, severing his spine, and forcing him to his knees. Clearly paralyzed by my blow, I take my time to pull the blade loose, blood swallowing up my hands. Once free, I stab him again in the vitals; his body goes limp. More warm sticky blood flows over my fingertips and with a simple nudge of my toe, I knock him over.
Having vanquished Havrok, it's time to get my bearings.
I'm standing literally in the shadow of Wraith Watch; around me men and dark elves continue to fight to the death. Screams and exploding spells occasionally light the area in brief flashes like electricity cast from a summer storm. I don't pause for long; sprinting toward the open doors of the old citadel.
I pause a moment at the entrance, taking note of its immensity. The doors of Wraith Watch stand three times my height; they're also a foot thick and made from varnished oak bound by steel struts. These in turn are pounded through with pins as thick as my thumb. From inside come the whispered voices of unseen kuanni. I pause long enough to allow my eyes to adjust to the gloom. Careful to avoid detection, I enter with practiced stealth and slip along the left wall, hiding behind a thick column made from the trunk of a single pine tree. It rises ominously into the rafters above.
Rising onto the balls of my feet, the muscles in my back flex in tension. My knuckles flare because I'm holding the handle of my weapon so tightly.
There's movement; many shadows pass by. Ten I think, and then they're gone as they slip out into the night to commit more carnage. Another open space to cross and yet another column just like the one I now leave behind.
"Focus, Kian," I say to myself.
I dart to it; the interior of the keep reveals a T -shaped area complete with a central altar made of stone. The gloom behind the altar is too thick for me to pick up any details, but the occasional sound of metal being drawn from scabbards and the low murmur of someone uttering what can only be magic floats my way.
I slip from my hiding place and keep myself low to the ground, speeding on silent footfalls to the edge of the altar, which is unoccupied as of the moment. On the far side, and about thirty feet further into the room are a score of dark elves. Amidst their number are at least three clerics. They're gathered in the back end of the church before a throne made of basalt. Seated on the throne's a skeleton so huge, it rises above the others in its immensity. The thing's skull's made of hammered gold, many jewels are mounted about its cranium, and each is the size of my big toe! Around him hangs a defiling aura of blackness. As I watch, it creeps outward to brush at the assembled dark elves. I swallow, trying to bolster my courage. But this is obviously NOT what I'm looking for.
Throwing my gaze about the room, I spot several doors. But none allude at all to their ultimate destination.
Where is the sacred chapel? Is that a stairwell?
The thing lies in the eastern end of the T -shaped room and it's surrounded by low stone walls adorned with leering faces.
They are stairs, and they descend into yet more darkness. However, the top step is well worn, so it's been traveled a lot in the years before these squatters took up residence.
That's where I must go.
Now I just hope the dark elves are involved enough that I'm beneath their notice.
Clinging only to the blackest of shadows, I duck into the lee of yet another pillar and tuck my sword carefully in the sheath between my shoulder blades. Then, I grasp hold of the smooth and polished wood and will the spikes to spring out from my boots. Finding handholds with my fingers, I pull myself up the outside of the pillar, climbing carefully so as not to make even the smallest sound. About halfway up, I push myself through a thick spider web and precariously walk out onto the first of many beams. Below me, things go on uninterrupted.
Good.
I inch my way across the chamber, leaping from support beam to support beam, doing so with the grace of a feather caught on the wind. I even avoid dropping any kind of dust on those gathered below.
When I'm above the east end of the building, the stairwell takes shape beneath me. Before I drop down, I spot what looks like a cluster of huge egg sacs and wonder what could have laid them here.
I remove a length of rope, tie one end to the rafter on which I perch, and let the other drop until the end is about twenty feet off the floor. I coil a length of it around my right calf and slip over the edge, playing out the rope as I descend. When I reach the end, I grab it in my right fist and drop the rest of the way. I land on one of the stone steps as silently as a cat falling on velvet.
Taking a moment, I peer into the gloom of the citadel's basement complex. Drawing my sword once more, I move swiftly to the bottom and use a mirror to peer around the corner. The hallway banks left and then right; the floor's sprinkled with patches of white bone chips.
"What the hell?" I whisper to myself. I move some of the bone chips with my toe, but nothing happens. Advancing along the left corridor, keeping my sword pointed low, and looking over my shoulder every couple of steps, I proceed. At last even my low light vision fails; to go further, I'll need to risk a little light. I fumble about in my pockets, but I've got nothing.
Some dungeoneer I turned out to be.
However, just then my sword begins to glow. It's a faint, almost pale blue.
"Karandras, wherever you are, may Tethyr keep you safe," I mutter in glee.
Once adjusted to the radiance, I continue around yet another comer and into a third passageway that's ten feet wide and banked at an odd angle. It also runs four times that length to an adjoining hall. I leave the bone chips behind, and my feet now stand firmly upon polished stone. I hesitate at the juncture of the new hall, feeling a doom (as it were) creep along the fine hairs of my neck.
The air's so chilly and I can't see any doors leading out of this place.
I can go left or right
What will it be, Kian?
Right.
Taking a path along the far wall and moving cautiously, a door materializes where I spotted none before. A small amount of light from underneath the door filters onto the path.
How did I miss this?
Curious, I press my ear against the boards and listen. There are four men on the other side, but I can't understand what they're saying. I test the handle carefully, first lifting on it and then pushing it down. As I suspect, it's locked.
Sheathing my sword, I fish out my lock picks and insert them into the curiously shaped keyhole and feel around for the tumblers. After a brief moment (and the flick of my wrist) the lock slides open. Putting my tools away, I draw my sword and cautiously crack it open to peer inside.
I shall post Chapter 31 next week.