Chapter Ninety-Four
Honour Amongst Dead Men
Oliver watched in horror as his own cell opened in the darkness, and beasts of every terrible shape and stature poured into the corridor like a tidal wave of fangs and claws.
He shut his eyes and crammed himself against the back of the cell, unable to unleash the scream he felt in his throat as monstrous cackles and roars filled the ascending hall. Oliver’s heart thrashed in his chest and he felt himself slink to the floor with his shackled hands instinctively out before his face.
Suddenly light flooded in around him and Oliver opened his eyes instinctively to see the great Murk Gathering Field shatter. Darkness fled to the corners of the cells and blood red light poured in. Confusion swamped Oliver’s face.
There was an untold riot of roars and shouts further up the ramp. But it was only after a moment, that he recognised one of the voices amongst the chaos.
Jack?
Oliver watched the horde flood up the spiralling ramp and his heart erupted with disbelief as Jack exposed through the centre of their mass, landing on the other side as he clubbed monsters away and shield slammed others against the cell bars. Oliver felt a flush of fear leave him as he saw the Paladin, but as the hope tried to edge onto his face, the dark wave of nausea overcame him again.
“Jacobs!” Jack roared, alight with a red hue between the slits in his armour. He turned and saw the great troll barrelling down toward him. Jack ducked beneath its great, heaving strikes, backing further down the ramp and flushing his Arcancy every time a creature dared to come too close.
With his pulse of magic, the troll recoiled but its gnarled, dark eyes still stayed dead-focused on the warrior, far from repulsed.
Jack watched it inch forward as he called, “Oli! Damn-it, get up!”
The prisoner clamped his manacled hands over his ears, slumped against the wall as the drowsiness intoxicated him. He swayed left to right, hardly able to hear over the voice in his head.
Your task is done. Now that it is discovered, your voice shall be silent. Every action you take will be none that I have not commanded. You shall not make a face I have not authorised. You are but a tool within my grasp. Your task is done... and it repeated on and on.
Oliver collapsed fully onto the ground as the voice flooded his mind like a sickly fog, swimming behind his eyes and choking the words he wanted to scream. He could hear Jack calling for his help. He could hear the monsters’ screams echoing manically off the walls. He could feel the cold deep in the stone beneath his fingertips.
But it was all so far away.
The ogre caught Jack’s arm in the midst of a wild swing and drove its thick, fur-covered fist in his armoured chest, sending the maceman clattering to the ground with his legs blown out from beneath him.
Jack gritted through the pain and forced it out through his Arcancy-fired veins, filling the entire chamber with the shouts of terrified monsters as his Blood-Magic grew even fiercer. He pushed himself up to see the only creature which hadn’t fled, stalking cautiously towards him.
The dirty-blue Troll snarled, “When I first came to this place, you overthrew me and I respected it.”
“I feel respected…” Jack groaned.
“You are mortal. A mere fleshling. And I will not continue to bow.” It leapt forward, both fists raised and Jack ripped his shield up high, catching the blow with a hard metallic boom as he collapsed onto the floor, groaning in pain.
It knocked back his shield. “The Legacies of Old would be ashamed.” It kicked him square in the chest.
Jack went crashing to ground again and slamming up against the last cell in the Murk as his mace fell from his grip with a hard clatter. His veins flickered and faded and the man felt his pain more fully than ever as he grabbed the bars of the cell and hoisted himself into a sitting position.
The troll knelt down before the fallen warrior and snarled so deeply that Jack felt it through the floor. It took Jack by the throat and lifted him up against the bars, squeezing his armoured neck so tightly that the thin Brightsteel crinkled like dry parchment.
“How the Blood of Lighila has been watered down...” it sneered. “To think we ever feared you…”
Jack let out a single strangled breath and reached behind his back. “You should’ve trusted that instinct.”
Jack ripped out his heavy, unhorsing-dagger and punched it into the belly of the beast, sending it backward with ear-blistering screams of agony as it dropped him to the ground. Before it could so much as pull the thick knife out, Jack swiped up Black Sun and cracked it across the troll’s head, sending it back in wailing pain. Before it could rally, Jack slammed the creature in the kneecap, sending it the ground, and with a roaring final blow to the skull, sent it to the Dark Lands in a wave of ash and dust.
The shouts of Legacies up ahead kept the man from merely falling to the ground in sweaty exhaustion as he stumbled into Oliver’s cell and grabbed the young man.
“It’s time to go!”
Oliver tried to pull his gaze up from the ground but his body merely shook, and before long Jack sighed and clamped his strong hands around the young man’s waist and threw him onto his shoulder.
The sweat-covered warrior made his way slowly up the ramp, cautiously watching for stragglers as he put the twitching boy down beneath the torn ceiling and the ladder to the Arena stands.
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Jack took Oliver by his shoulder and pulled off his Javen-helm so the boy could see his face. “Kid, look at me.”
Oliver’s mind swam as he forced his head up. His eyes fell shut as he tried to face Jack, and in the thick, numbness of his head, he felt Jack’s strong hand ruffle shortly through his hair, as he muttered, “Stay here. Stay safe.”
Oliver felt his hand slip away and by the time he’d opened his eyes again, the maceman was gone, and all he could hear was the clashing of Legacies and monsters outside as his body finally loosened.
Jack landed in the mud as lightning struck a faraway hillside and he barrelled toward the main fray, where a hundred or so creatures were engaged against the roused Legacies. He saw Aroha and Nichole loosing arrows as quickly as they could nock them, ducking beneath hits and drawing daggers when enemies came too close. He watched as Sidney rattled three different Ash Atyons at once, snapping them across the skulls with her steel quarterstaff like she couldn’t keep the weapon off of them. Flinn was busy circling with a two-headed feline, no smaller than a lion, though in place of a mane, its head and neck were thick with yellow and red feathers like the plumage of a peacock.
Jack drew his mace and entered the mess, narrowly avoiding two Crimson Wings by diving to the soil. He struggled up in time to see a spindly, black wyvern slamming into Flinn’s back, knocking him down in from of the bright yellow Fallcat. Before the lion could pounce on the sprawling combatants, Jack scrambled and leapt forward, shoulder-slamming the beast from the side and they both went sprawling into the mud. As he shouted and shielded his face from both snapping jaws, Jack heard its kicking claws scraping against his armour plating. He whipped his mace across in a wild swipe and sent it to the Dark Lands.
Jack scrambled upright to see Flinn drive a heavy fist through the wyvern’s jaw before snatching up his spear and skewering it through the stomach.
Jack stumbled over to him as the battle raged.
“What on Enthall happened to the Murk cells?” Flinn shouted, impaling another incoming wyvern.
“Me! We needed a distraction!”
Flinn turned to the man in shock and his face darkened. “Do I want to know what for?”
“If we’re right, you’ll know soon enough!” Jack shouted, snatching an Auderah by the neck and smashing his wedged helm into it until the creature crumbed in his fist.
Flinn shrugged and summoned a scream’s worth of Starfire to his palm before pressing it the blade of his spear, edging the entire weapon in a glowing aura as he charged back into the thicket.
Through the crowd, Jack saw Willem wielding his hammers, and Lain levelling her enormous greatsword, as they ducked and weaved between the strikes of a thick-bodied serpents, white as bone with eyes like faded gold.
Karmine and Nydol were seen vanishing on the spot. Jack watched as random creatures were stabbed and smashed from out of nowhere, like they were being ambushed by poltergeists. When a dozen or more assorted Shanii were dusted, the older warriors appeared in a flash of shadow and silver light.
Lightning forked through the sky and Jack saw Archie stood with his forward-curving sword out in front of him as an enormous, one-eyed Enolician rounded on him. Jack tried to fight his way through the crowd as the giant stalked closer to the young, shaky-handed blacksmith, but the mass of warring bodies was too thick.
Archie ducked beneath its meaty fist and glanced its side with his blade, turning just in time for the creature to backhand him to across the face with a wet crunch. The blacksmith crumbled into the mud with a groaning sputter as the monster loomed over him.
Jack shouldered passed two other Legacies and raised his mace when a wyvern slammed into his helmet knocking him to the dirt as he screamed, “Archie!”
*****
Oliver’s eyes shot open, and he felt the nausea roll over him. He felt his teeth clamp hard together as Jack’s voice rang among the screams once more and clawed at his head, fighting the lurking magic ensnaring his heart. Oliver wrenched himself up from the floor, breathing out his pain as the dark enchantment snaked around his mind like tendrils of smoke. The chant grew louder and louder until Oliver couldn’t bear the sound, scraping his fingernails at the stone of the Murk floor.
Your task is done. Your task is done. Your task is done.
Oliver shook violently and his hands clamped his face. He needed to stop hearing it. He needed the voice gone. He needed to help his friend.
And before the cursed words could repeat again, Oliver slammed his head, ear-first, into the stone wall.
Everything went red and black. Oliver collapsed to the ground. He felt himself vomit. His right ear rung out and he knew it was bleeding. He couldn’t hear a thing as his brain panicked and shut off his ability to hear anything at all. And in the midst of all the pain, Oliver realised, the voice was actually quieter. And its hold on him was dazed, like it needed some part of Oliver’s mind to latch onto, and in that moment, Oliver’s mind was about as put together as the vomit on the floor.
The world’s noise began to fade back into his working ear, and with it, Amekot’s voice.
Your task is done. Your task is-
Oliver twisted, facing his other ear to the wall. Not yet, it’s not.
*****
On the battlefield, Archie tried to rise as the giant kicked him back over and planted its foot on his chest, snarling like a hurricane while the young blacksmith screamed, “Jack!”
The maceman wrestled the wyvern off of himself and drove his armoured fist into its skull before scrambling to his feet, but before he could make a grab for his weapon, the creature leapt on his back and knocked him back down. Jack through an elbow back, knocking the creature off. He charged forward, smashing the Enolician across its jaw, sending it back into a stumble.
Jack pushed forward, shouting, “Archie, get up!”
The giant roared with such base that Jack’s armour jostled and then without preamble, it kicked a thick patch of muddy grass, spraying Jack in the face.
Jack shouted out blindly for just long enough. When he got his vision back, the giant kicked him in the chest plate so hard he felt the heel through the Brightsteel and hit the ground like a meteor.
The dark, burly giant raised its gnarled foot above Archie’s head, and the freckled boy scarcely had time to scream.
The Enolician tried to stamp its foot down but instead, somebody leapt onto its back.
The giant stumbled forward, narrowly past Archie and it flailed its enormous arms when a pair of manacle chains were slung around its throat.
Archie turned as the giant and the fight stumbled around like a raging stallion on its hind legs and its rider bent on breaking it. And in the glow of the moonlight, Archie saw Oliver, shouting in rage with blood leaking from both ears. Archie pushed himself to his feet and grabbed his sword.
Using all his weight to wrench it down, Oliver twisted the manacles and leapt to the ground, toppling the giant down with him. It hit the soil like a chimney demolition, throwing up a sheet of muck and grime. The Enolician roared, unable to push itself up before Oliver planted his feet on its shoulders and ripped the iron chains up against its neck, drawing beads of blood from his wrist as he screamed.
The giant roared, scrambling and slamming at the mud, slowing turning purple in the face, until Archie leapt forward and his sword flashed with a deep crack and the colossus went still, melting into dark grain on the forum soil.
Oliver collapse into the muck and Archie dropped his sword to catch him. Even in the dark of the early morning and amidst a shower of gentle rain, his eyes were clear as stars.
Oliver smiled at him softly. He realised in that moment that it hadn’t been long, but the muscles in his face had missed the feeling so deeply. Tears formed in his eyes. In amongst the terrible chaos, he laughed sweetly just to hear its sound and found himself slowly weeping. After a moment of pure bliss, he said to Archie, “I remember.”
"Oli, you saved me-"
"Archie, I'm so sorry, I'm deaf as a post, right now," Oliver said, smiling helplessly.