Nobody spoke as the man disappeared. His body was absorbed by something inexplainable. As his frail frame faded, Sam let out a sigh, and seemed to sag against a light pole.
“Do neither of you know what was on his staff?”
“It looked familiar,” Sarah commented.
Sam nodded, straightening himself up, “That was a phoenix,”
Sarah stiffened, and I looked at the both of them, confused, Sarah was the one to elaborate, “Even if you kill a phoenix, they tend to burst into ash. To get the skull of a fully matured one…”
“You have to use the sort of magic that should either kill you, or make you insane enough to do it yourself,” Sam finished.
“So, he survived the ordeal, I don’t ge-”
“You don’t survive an ordeal like that, Warren,” Sarah interrupted, frantic, “No one does. The Phoenix Fires latch onto your soul, and burn you until there’s nothing left. Even if you survive that, you survive it without a soul, and you kill yourself through repetition,”
I opened my mouth to say something else when a roar sounded, and all three of us simultaneously remembered that we were in a dangerous situation. We rushed towards the car, each jumping into our places. Sarah jammed the key into the ignition and turned and… And nothing. The car pattered and something popped.
“Uhh…” Sam provided.
She turned the key again, but the car didn’t even deign to make a sound this time. A collective realization ran through us, and we all rushed from the car, straight into an army. There were seven people clad in that horrid armor standing before us, and more standing around them. In the distance on the streets stood what looked to be more than fifty men and women clad in regalia, a seal crest upon their arm.
“What… is this?” Sam choked out.
I noticed then what must’ve been hiding within the underbelly of their underground city. Men and women in chains, their mouths clamped shut. They stood in circles around the perimeter, and I was almost certain I knew what they were for. With how fast this had been setup, I couldn’t help but question how many times this army had been used, and what the different circumstances had been. Our breaths were held as they stepped closer.
“You will stand down. This is the last warning we will give you,”
I stretched my arms in-front of Sarah and Sam, trying to formulate some sort of plan. Sam was panting, and I could only assume that was a bad sign, Sarah was shaking, either from the run or the climb I couldn’t tell, and I was bleeding, neither the wound on my chest nor leg being healed. That upheaval towards the top of the elevator had left us all exhausted, and none of us were in any shape to fight. We needed something to help us get away from this.
Without knowing what my animal transformation was, I wouldn’t be able to use that; they’d only bothered to tell me that I could do it. Which meant I needed to rely on what I knew, which was still infuriatingly limited. I didn’t know what the Knights could do, only that they could survive a drop that would’ve splattered me against the ground, and probably held a lot of power. I did know what Lords could do, which meant the few surrounding the Knights were likely to act as support. As for the Nobles in the back? My best guess is that they supplied ranged support, and considering the number of them, likely healed their allies as well. Which meant we were going up against a fully-functioning army, seemingly at a height of its power.
There was almost nothing that we could do, almost. I’d gotten to the limit of my ability in the rush out of the Vampire Colony, but feeding could bring my power back. Sarah wasn’t exactly in the state where feeding would go over well, but…
“Sam?” I whispered as impatience finally started to rise upon the Lord’s face.
“Yeah?” His body was quivering, but he was still standing tall.
“I need you to let me feed off of you,”
He looked at me for a moment, before nodding, “Okay,”
As Sam reached out and let me grab his wrist, I looked over at Sarah, “Is there any sort of spell, like a wind spell or something, that lets you push something away from you?”
“There is a non-structured one, but it requires a lot of power. Just push your will forwards,”
That didn’t make sense, but it didn’t matter, I had to try. I felt the energy siphoning from Sam and into me and let go before I took too much. His soul felt like a beacon, a bright and burning light that seemed without end; but I knew the danger incurred from slipping into that feeling.
Just as the Lord opened his mouth, I stretched out my arms and pushed. There was a buildup in my arms, like I was holding the bridge to a hurricane, before the world exploded. They became ragdolls pushed by a leaf-blower, tumbling backwards. Only the Knights seemed to hold their ground within the brick wall of wind that slammed outwards.
Our victory didn’t last long. A serpent of some impossibly dark liquid surged forwards. I managed to push Sarah out of the way as it writhed into the ground beside us. Like acid it destroyed an entire section of the street before rising back up into the air. No one needed to be told what to do, and we started running.
I could almost feel the snake on our backs, and the Earth felt like it was shaking with each footfall of the Knights behind us. A blinding ball of flame slammed into a car to my left, and I skidded desperately onto a side street. Sam tripped into the alley with me, but Sarah zoomed past. I made a promise to find her after we got out of the current predicament, and ran through the alley with Sam. More than once, the acidic monster slipped through a building, leaving pockmarks in its place, and we just barely dodged under or around it. It didn’t stop within its pursuit even when we emerged on the street.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A team of Lords and Ladies met us head on, five of them in unison. I brandished the knife as we dashed towards them. A spitfire of floating orbs exploded into the air before us, and we ran right through them. I felt them grasp onto my skin, and in an instant my momentum was halted.
Sam was smarter, burning the strange creatures off of his skin and running forwards. He slammed his hand into the mouth of the person maintaining the power and their jaw exploded. I grimaced as the effect left, and rushed forwards myself.
My knife slipped into the throat of a vampire before they could even say a word, and I rushed to my right. A hand swung for my jaw, and I ducked as fast as I could; judging from the horrid crackling that sounded above that duck saved my life. My knife swung forwards, piercing through their rib, and I rushed to wrench it out. The knife had jammed. One mere second was what it took to realize that, and what mere second was all that they needed.
I felt the hand slam into my stomach. Eyes widening I did the only thing I could think of; I swung for their jaw. Too late. Pain erupted, the sort that couldn’t possibly be described in words, and I was flung downwards. They followed me down, hand still pushed flat.
From the corner of my vision I saw Sam, currently fighting off two of the vampires on his own. No one was going to save me from this. Desperately, I latched onto my power and lurched upwards. I went too far, flying into the air before I materialized. As I fell toward the Earth and crushed the vampire underneath me, I flipped around on them and moved for their head. Either I was too strong, or they too weak, but their neck snapped in record speeds.
I choked for a moment as I lifted myself up; blood was freely pouring from the newest wound, and the acidic snake had finally reared its ugly head. I ran towards Sam, kicking the chest of one of the vampires hounding him and latching onto his arm. Shoving him forwards, we both just barely managed to dodge the strike of that flying viper. The person behind us, however, was hit head-on.
As we lurched forwards and down the street, a body fell from above. It slammed into the concrete in-front of us. The armor made it obvious, and we desperately turned to run in the opposite direction. Another slammed into the ground, and then another, and another, and another…
Our acidic friend began to circle through the air, a watchdog designed to end us. Sam’s hands were clenched in fists as more of the vampires arrived. I took a deep breath and studied the scene; we were now surrounded on both sides, but they weren’t accounting for the ally that we’d ran through. Or maybe they were, and we’d run into a trap once we got there, but that still sounded better than this.
“On my signal,” I whispered.
If they were being smart about this, they’d guard the perimeter and let the acidic thing take us out. But if they were being smart about this, we’d run into an ambush when we got to the meat of my plan. The snake swelled in the sky for a long moment, before rushing down.
“NOW,” We ran towards the alleyway, missing the snake by a hairsbreadth, and came face-to-face with the Nobles.
Magic surged towards us like a thousand volts of electricity, and we didn’t waste any time reacting. I turned into mist immediately, rushing forwards in that form as I slammed straight into them. I didn’t have a weapon anymore, so my legs were the first thing to meet them. My knee slammed into the face of some middle-aged woman, and Sam’s fire burnt half of that to a crisp. An idea surged forwards and I leapt backwards.
“Sam! Burn them to a fucking crisp!”
His eyes widened as he understood what I did; they’d backed themselves into a tightly packed bunch. When it came to fire, they had nowhere to go. Immediately, he burned brighter than I’d ever seen him go before, and the flames surged straight through our captive audience. As the screaming commenced, we wasted no time jumping on top of their heads and crushing our way through the crowd.
Spells still came out from the most levelheaded of the bunch, and I felt a few slam into me. My body began to slug forwards, and on multiple occasions my vision went entirely black; but somehow, we managed to fall through the other side of the alleyway. We didn’t stop running as we got there, encountering Sarah in her own fight against a singular Knight; she wasn’t holding up well.
I heard the snake coming up from behind us, and only had one idea flash through my mind. I motioned at Sam to run to the side, and rushed towards the Knight. Sarah saw me coming, and from the panic flashing through my eyes knew to move to the side. The Knight’s attention immediately shifted as I got closer; the order was to kill me, she was secondary.
In that moment, as an axe almost double the size of my chest was lifted into the air, I felt like laughing. Just as the axe swung down, the snake surged for the kill. I didn’t let either of them hit, jumping behind the Knight. The snake’s momentum wouldn’t let it slow down, and it surged straight through the Knight, burning him alive. Perhaps the most disturbing thing was the fact that he didn’t make a sound.
There wasn’t any time to marvel, and I surged back onto my feet. I could feel the exhaustion starting to wane through my veins; not just from the fight, but from the sun and its steady rise.
“We need to find a car,” I managed to pant out, “Can magic…” I had to concentrate to remember what I wanted to say, “Does magic let you hotwire a car?”
“No,” Sarah replied as we slicked around a corner, “But if we get enough distance, I might be able to do it myself,”
With the speed of the Knights, that might not be possible; especially considering the fucking acid snake, which didn’t seem to care about Range Limits. But we needed to try, if we didn’t we were dead.
The first car we saw when the sound of movement was reduced to a minimum, was the one that we chose. There wasn’t time to be nice about it, so we broke the glass, and Sarah rushed in. I felt my body sagging as the light of the sun rose overhead, and my eyes threatened to close. I was almost asleep when the first one rushed around the corner. As credit to my luck, it wasn’t a Knight, it was a Lord.
Unlike me, he stood tall, blood upon his arms and twin blades held in each palm. They were made of the same bone-like substance as the knife I’d lost. He walked forwards calmly, free of any worry.
“The sun has leeched from you your strength,” He said with an almost arrogant smile, “And Death now reigns supreme,” With that, he rushed forwards.
Maybe earlier, my eyes would’ve followed his movements with ease. Now as the sun took from me, I could barely keep track of him. It was only Sam pushing me down that allowed me to dodge the blow. But the Lord wasn’t done; he knocked Sam to the side with an almost contemptuous ease before rushing towards me.
I did the only thing I could do, and tried to turn to mist. My body revolted and a gut-churning pain took place, but I pushed as much of my energy as I could into it. I felt one of the blades pierce my flesh before I dissipated. Quickly, I moved to the left, and rushed upwards. Landing in a standing position, I moved as fast as my body would allow. His blade slammed across my hairline, and a thin trickle of blood began to rush down.
“You killed my brother,” His words were startlingly calm, “Before he could do a thing you stabbed through his throat,” Two eyes practically glowing in their hatred bore down upon me, “You who are born of power that does not belong to you,”
He rushed forwards, and using the last of my energy I met his speed. It took every amount of willpower to dodge the blow that went straight towards my chest, and I punched through his stomach. His body lifted off of the ground with the strength of the blow, and the two blades rushed free from his hands.
Just as he dropped, three things happened in unison. The car started, the thunder of five Knights landing could be heard, and Sam rushed forwards, grabbing the blades and jumping into the car. I turned from the vampire and ran for the vehicle.