The earth shook as Kamath’s rune slowly activated, although not as much as it had in Shadewood. An eldritch glow lit the valley as the blood-filled trenches behind Kamath gradually gathered power, shining a crimson radiance that made the whole place feel drenched with blood. My roadwalker squealed in fear, prancing and snorting, and I fought to keep my seat. Beside me, Chomai struggled equally as her mount kicked the dirt and tossed its head.
“Looks like you all failed!” Kamath laughed gleefully as the bloody light washed over him and the cloud of flies covering him. “Tonight, I become the greatest handler who ever lived!”
“Boy, you know runes in a way neither of us do,” the sheriff said tersely. “Can you stop this thing?”
“Yes,” I said confidently. “I don’t want to yet, though.”
“What?” Chomai asked in a mystified voice. “What do you mean, not yet?”
I turned and looked at the woman, gazing directly into her eyes. “Do you trust me, Chomai?” I asked simply.
“What? What’s that got to do with…?”
“Do you trust me?” I repeated.
She grimaced, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. I trust you, Naasi.”
“John,” I corrected her.
“What?”
“John. That’s my name.” I turned my roadwalker back to face Kamath. “We just have to hold him until the rune fully activates, Sheriff. Then, I’ll shut it down.”
“Hold me?” Kamath laughed. “How about you all just die?” He gestured, and the swarm of bloodflies streaked forth, racing toward us. As they left the shield, Parri rose up to her four hind feet, her front claws pawing at the air. Her wings swept forward, and a blast of air slammed into the insects, knocking them into the shield. Tiny bodies popped and snapped as the force of the wind overcame their bonds, crushing them against Kamath’s barrier. Most of the creatures recovered, though, and rushed forth, lancing toward our pets.
I reactivated my rune cards and sent orders to my pets, but the flies zipped past my pets and surrounded Parri, the sheriff, and Chomai in a thickly buzzing cloud. I looked sharply at Kamath, and he chuckled.
“Let them deal with the bugs,” he said grandly. “In just a moment, you and I are gonna have a little duel.” He looked back over his shoulder. “In fact, I think that’ll be just about…now.”
A woman’s scream drew my attention, and I looked past Kamath to see one of his marshals crouched beside the auburn-hued trench, her hand stuck inside it so she could channel power into the awakening rune. The rest of the marshals were in a similar position, scattered about the field, all with a hand in the glowing ditch as they channeled magic into the earth. The woman’s eyes were wide and panicky, and as smoke began to rise from the trench before her, she began tugging at her arm, trying to pull it free of the ditch. More smoke began to rise from her clothing, and her light pink hair smoldered and curled up around her head. She shrieked in pain and terror as her coat burst into flames, and she collapsed to her knees, beating at the fire with her good hand as it spread along her body.
Hoarse cries rose around the field as marshals lit up like pyres. Smoke rose thickly from the trench as men and women struggled vainly to free themselves. Flames burst up and threatened to consume Kamath’s followers one by one. Beyond them, the light from the ditches spread out and bathed the monsters we hadn’t liberated, and the beasts roared, shrieked, and bellowed in terror as they withered and shrunk, slowly dwindling as the rune drew power from them to activate.
“That’s one thing you got right,” Kamath told me conversationally, almost shouting to be heard over the cacophony. “Like you said, the rune takes power to run, but it also takes power to activate–too much power for any person to handle, even me.” He gestured toward the screaming marshals. “This is what happens when you try to channel too much power at once.”
“You set your own people up to be sacrificed,” I said flatly. “And you call someone like Chomai a traitor?”
“This isn’t betrayal, son. This is justice. These people are the worst that the Service has to offer. The whole world’s better off without them.” The man’s voice grew somber as he spoke, and my eyes widened in realization.
“You chose them deliberately, didn’t you? You chose the worst sort of people you could and brought them here to die!”
“Of course, I did. I wasn’t about to take the best from the Service and leave it crippled. I may have lost my loyalty to the damn Empire, but I still have it to the Service, despite what anyone thinks.” He shook his head, and I saw regret flash across his face. “I brought them here and gave them free rein. I let them do what they wanted, and they condemned themselves with their actions. Torture, murder, rape – they became the criminals they were supposed to stop. The good ones left and headed to Ohr–or got severed by the ones who didn’t like them telling them to stop.” He shrugged. “The ones I wanted to live, the ones I judged worth saving, I left down in the Gistal, where I thought they’d be safe.”
“You severed them!” I snapped angrily.
“I had to. It was the only way to make sure they’d survive today.”
“Survive today? What do you mean?” I asked suspiciously.
“You said it yourself: this isn’t just a Calling rune, son. It’s a Severing rune, and a Mythic one, at that.” He laughed darkly. “Who knows how far the effect will spread? Could be a hundred miles; could be all of Mukkal; could be the whole, damn world.” He shrugged. “The ones I severed, they were protected–once you’re severed, it can’t happen again, although it hurts like hell if someone tries. They’d be the only handlers left, the ones worthy of being called handlers and marshals. They were gonna be the start of a new Service, one that enforced the Code without worrying about corrupt magistrates or self-serving sheriffs. The rest would find themselves severed, helpless, facing beasts that have reason to hate them.”
He turned back to me, and his eyes flashed angrily. “And then, a damn upstart from nowhere appeared and started killing them off, left and right! You slaughtered the good with the bad, killed the ones I wanted to live and the ones I wanted to die!” He shook his head. “I meant to do the Service a favor, doing what it didn’t have the stomach for by getting rid of those marshals that don’t belong there, and you went through and purged the whole thing! You set the Service back a decade, at least!”
Behind him, the woman who’d first screamed collapsed to the ground, her skin blackened and cracked as flames surged across her now bare flesh. Her hair was gone; her eyeholes gaped emptily, lacking the orbs that normally filled them; smoke poured from her open mouth. Beyond her, marshals tottered and fell as the fires consumed their flesh and left them nothing but roasted, burnt meat. As they fell, their freed pets lunged for them, savaging their bodies and ripping off chunks of ashen flesh.
Kamath moved, and I blinked as he seemed to almost blur across the ground, appearing beside a pair of creatures hastily shredding a man’s corpse, a grasshopper-like beast with iridescent wings and a spider with fangs that dripped liquid flame. He lifted a card, and a surge of power poured out, washing over the beasts. The monsters stilled and turned to stare at him as the rune’s energy touched them, and a moment later, they scuttled over to his side. He moved again, to another corpse, and collected a rat-like beast with sand-colored fur and rows of spines running along its back.
He turned back to me, and suddenly, he appeared before me, thirty feet away, still ensconced in his shield. “That Severing rune’s gonna kick off in a couple minutes,” he said as the ground lurched again beneath our feet and magic rose more thickly in the air. “That means I’ve got that long to beat you.” He looked down at the creatures gathered before him. “I think these’ll manage it in time.”
He straightened. “Kaatla of Unknown Parts, I challenge you to a duel, to answer for the crime of murdering over twenty marshals. Do you accept, or do I have to kill you where you stand?”
I analyzed the creatures and grimaced at what I saw.
Prairieskipper (Lesser)
Type: Vermin
Bond: 11,817
Attack: 844 Defense: 663 Damage: 1,252
Speed: 920 Dodge: 868 Heal: 317
Special Attacks: Penetrating bite, Deafening Whistle
Weaknesses: Wood
Threat Level: Deadly
Burnbiter (Lesser)
Type: Biteflame
Bond: 12,084
Attack: 1,098 Defense: 471 Damage: 913
Speed: 924 Dodge: 625 Heal: 411
Special Attacks: Flame Toxin, Fire Web
Weaknesses: Wood, Water
Threat Level: Deadly
Sandtunneler (Lesser)
Type: Steelbite
Bond: 12,084
Attack: 701 Defense: 1,049 Damage: 824
Speed: 788 Dodge: 873 Heal: 636
Special: Enemy Attack -56
Special Attacks: Piercing Bite
Special Defenses: Spike Fur
Weaknesses: Wood, Lightning
Threat Level: Deadly
“I accept,” I called back, holding up my cards. “We’ll call this justice for all the sheriffs and innocents who died for this madness of yours.”
“Fair enough,” He nodded somberly. “Begin.” As he spoke, he pulled out several cards and charged them. I powered mine at the same time, and twin waves of energy rolled across the battlefield, colliding with each other. My cards quivered in my hands, and two burst into flame as the marshal’s magic overpowered mine. The ground beneath my pets softened, and their skin grew pale and ashen, but at the same time, the earth beneath the marshal’s pets turned sticky, and a freezing wind wrapped around them, sinking into their joints.
The prairieskipper leaped forward, its multihued wings buzzing as it soared through the air. The deepstriker scuttled forth to intercept it, belching a blast of murky water at the smaller creature. The grasshopper twisted in midair, slipping around the gout of slimy water, and landed on the ground before it. Its rearmost legs lifted and rubbed against its wings, and a deafening screech rang through the air, making my pets whine and causing my roadwalker to buck beneath me, distracting me for a moment. As I lost focus, the burnbiter slipped up and spun about, blasting a jet of webbing that burned with blue fire across the crayfish-eel, tangling my pet in the webbing. The sandtunneler suddenly erupted from the ground behind the beast and tore into it, gnawing and biting furiously at its legs and underside.
I kicked backwards off the panicked roadwalker and landed lightly on the ground, letting the beast gallop off in fright and allowing me to refocus on the battle. My mistfreezer unleashed a blast of cold that covered all three creatures, but a glowing shell appeared around each, shedding the Ice Storm and leaving them unharmed. My galestrider leaped forward, snapping at the burnbiter, while my moonstalker lunged at the prairieskipper, but both beasts slipped out of the way, evading my pets’ attacks. My terror eagle streaked down and unleashed a Sunderscream, but the powerful sonic blast again struck that glowing shield around the marshal’s pets and skittered into nothingness.
Stolen story; please report.
The skipper lunged forward, its mandibles ripping at my deepstriker, while the tunneler continued to savage it from behind. The burnbiter spun toward my galestrider, lifting its abdomen, but my snowbeast crashed into it, slashing and biting with its icy claws and fangs. The biter skittered back and lunged at the beast, but shimmering icicles erupted from the snowbeast’s body, intercepting the attack and hurling the creature backward. As it scrambled to recover, the mistfreezer lunged forward, snatching at its legs, only to receive a blast of flaming webbing in the face in return.
Pain flared in my skull as the tunneler’s fangs ripped into my deepstriker, tearing savagely into its underbelly. The rat leaped back as my sparksnake struck at it, its fangs narrowly missing the creature. The rodent leaped at the snake in return, and my pet twisted to the side, barely avoiding the smaller creature’s claws. As it whipped backward, though, the prairieskipper buzzed forth and landed on its tail, biting and clawing. The thunderwing swept down toward the skipper, its flared wings making a sonic boom that washed over the creature but again passed harmlessly across the glowing shell around it. The falcon continued its dive, plunging toward the grasshopper, but the agile creature leaped out of the way, letting the bird crash to the ground. The skipper and sandtunneler both lunged for it, biting and clawing at the bird, while a strand of webbing shot from the burnbiter and wrapped around the creature’s wings, grounding it.
My pets surged forward, trying to drive the marshal’s creatures off the falcon, but the smaller animals dodged and twisted around every attack, evading fangs and claws and ignoring blasts of electricity and ice. Another pain stabbed my head as the falcon fell, the spider’s fangs buried in its chest. The creature burst into flames as the fiery venom spread through its body, and the trio of monsters lunged for my sparksnake next.
I ground my teeth in frustration as the snake died to the trio of beasts. The marshal’s pets were too fast, too nimble for mine to catch them. His ridiculous stats made them almost impossible to damage, and while individually, they weren’t that powerful, together, they were a deadly force. I didn’t have to beat the creatures, though; I just had to hold them off long enough for the rune to activate. That meant fighting defensively–and sacrificing my creatures in the process.
The wave horror surged forward, its Acid Flower exploding from its crown. Unlike the other beasts’ special attacks, the acidic filaments slipped past the glowing shields protecting the beasts and wrapped around them. The creatures began ripping and tearing their way free of the restraints almost instantly, but while they struggled, I regained control of my pets and shifted them into new positions. The marshals’ beast tore free of the tendrils in seconds, and as they did, my cloudhunter swept down on them. The bird landed atop the burnbiter, clawing and pecking at the fiery spider, and the skipper and tunneler quickly turned on it. I blasted them with ice and lightning, sending the galestrider, snowbeast, and moonstalker charging in on their flanks, but they dodged the attacks and savaged the bird until, seconds later, I felt the bond with it yanked from my mind, leaving an empty hole where it had been.
As the bird died, the moonstalker darted in and seized the burnbiter, its fangs ripping and tearing at it. The spider spat webbing at the wolf in response, while the prairieskipper and sandtunneler began to attack its sides and legs. I again had my galestrider and stormbiter charge in, using the horror’s Acid Flower to restrain the skipper and tunneler for a few seconds and allowing my pets to tear at them without their being able to dodge. The moonstalker’s jaws finally crunched through the spider’s shell as the other pets tore free of their restraints and ripped at it, the grasshopper leaping onto its back and the rat gnawing at its rear legs. Blood spurted from the wolf-bear, and I again felt the loss of its bond sliding free as the two remaining creatures brought it down in a flurry of fangs and mandibles.
As the wolf fell, though, magic swelled behind the marshal as the rune fully activated. Power thrummed in the ground beneath my feet, and the earth rumbled and shook, threatening to knock me onto my ass. Kamath turned and looked back behind him, his face regretful.
“Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “Looks like the duel’s over. I’m honestly impressed you survived it.”
“I guess you should’ve gotten more pets,” I said loudly, almost shouting to be heard over the rumbling ground.
“I should’ve. I never guessed you’d sacrifice yours like that just to buy time. That’s the mark of a true handler: recognizing that your pets are tools, to be used and discarded as needed. Not many ever realize that.” He shrugged. “Too bad it doesn’t matter.”
Light and power exploded from the ground in a fountain that streaked upward, blasting toward the sky above. Magical energy ripped outward, tearing through the air in a curtain of white so bright I had to squeeze my eyes shut. Screams and bellows rose from the nearby cages as beasts died, their energy sucked into the spell to power it. The warmth of the light enveloped me, and I felt phantom talons scrabbling against my mind, clawing at my bonds. I tensed, ready to fight against them, but the ethereal claws slid off my soul like it was Teflon. Finding nothing they could seize, the claws faded away as the light blasted out of the valley. The clouds vanished as the curtain of magic sped into the distance, disappearing in an instant.
The air still hummed with energy as the rune’s power grew. The atmosphere felt thick and syrupy, and arcs of power jumped across my fingers as the magic swelled. Kamath stood behind his shield, laughing loudly.
“And it’s done,” he pronounced. “Who knows how much of the world was just severed?” He shook his head and drew a pistol from his belt, leveling it at my skull. “And unless you had Mythic protection, that includes you, Kaatla. Damn sorry it had to end this way.”
“Me too, Kamath,” I sighed, blinking the spots from my eyes. “See, you made three mistakes. First, you assumed that I was just severed.” I sent a command to my remaining pets, and they all gathered around me, facing eagerly toward Kamath. “As you can see, I’m not.”
The man’s eyes grew wide. “Holy shit,” he breathed. “How did you resist that? That was a Mythic rune!”
“It doesn’t matter,” I shrugged.
His shoulders slumped, but he quickly straightened. “You’re right. It doesn’t.” He reached out and laid a hand on the shield before him. “There’s no way you’re getting through this, not before my rune finishes. All you did was keep yourself alive a little longer.” He chuckled. “Once my beast arises, I’ll kill you quick, and your power will still be mine.”
“That’s not going to happen, I’m afraid,” I grinned at him. “See, that was your second mistake. I’m not severed, but you are–and I don’t have to get through your shield. I’m already there.”
The man’s eyes widened as the buzzfly I’d sent to hang from his back at the very beginning of the fight launched itself upward and landed on his face. Its fangs plunged down into his eye, and he screamed, his body contorting as electricity surged into his body. His legs crumpled as the lightning surging through him seared his nerves, and he fell, boneless and twitching, onto his side. His fingers spasmed, releasing the cards in his hand, and the shield winked out as he stopped powering its magic.
I jogged over to the fallen man and picked up the pistol he’d dropped, recalling the buzzfly to my shoulder as I did. I checked the cylinder to make sure it was loaded, then snapped it shut and leveled it at his chest.
“No!” he protested, his body still jerking and twitching. “You can’t do this!”
“Obviously, I can,” I said. “Goodbye, Marshal.”
“No! I was gonna be famous! I was gonna be a legend!”
“You still will be. I’ll make sure that the story of the marshal who tried to destroy the Empire gets passed around.” I smiled at him grimly. “No one is ever going to forget you, Marshal. You have my word.” I pulled the trigger, and the gun bucked slightly in my hand as the bullet punched into his chest. He jerked, and his face went slack as he looked up at me.
“Third…mistake…what?”
“Your third mistake? You fucked with an Inquisitor.” I slipped the pistol into my waistband and scooped up the fallen cards on the ground. I turned away as Lightning Hands Kamath, the Head Marshal and a legend in the Service, died drowning in his own blood, lying in the ashes of his greatest creation–soon to be his greatest failure, if I had anything to say about it.
I spun to look for the others and found them standing twenty feet away, watching me. Chomai only had one pet left, her frog, but she otherwise seemed fine. Parri and the sheriff, of course, were unruffled as always.
“You’ll need to explain what you just said, boy,” the old man said, then pointed to the rune behind me. “After you fix that, of course.”
“I already did,” I told him hurriedly. “Sheriff, we need to get away from here, now. This rune’s gonna blow.”
“What?” Chomai gasped.
“We need to get to the cages where the townsfolk are,” I said. “Can Parri carry us?”
“It won’t matter, boy,” the old man shook his head. “That ain’t nearly far enough to escape a Mythic rune going off.” He patted the dracodile. “At least we’ll go together, girl.”
“I have a plan,” I cut him off. “I think I can save all of us, and the townsfolk, too–but we need to hurry. We’ve got less than a minute!”
The old man stared at me, then nodded. He climbed onto Parri’s back, then reached a hand down to Chomai. “Come on up, girl.” Wonderingly, she let herself be pulled up behind him. He looked at me. “There ain’t room for three. This ain’t gonna be comfy, but you’ll live through it.”
I was about to ask what he meant when Parri leaped into the air directly above my head. Her claws lashed down and seized my shoulders, and I yelped as I was jerked painfully into the air. The wind rushed past me as the creature sped us over the battlefield. I looked down and triggered my See Magic ability, squinting at the brilliance I guessed would confront me. I was right; the entire field blazed with magical energy, but a single spot burned with the radiance of the sun, the glow blinding even with my eyes closed. That was what I wanted to see, the sign that my plan was working.
As we winged across the field, I summoned my pets, who raced after us. None could keep up with Parri, not even my eagle, but I hoped they’d make it in time for what I had planned. If not… Well, there was no point in worrying about that. If they didn’t, then it was the end of my Inquisitorial career, but at least I’d go out with a bang.
Parri dropped me, and I rolled as I hit the ground, grunting as I slammed hard against the cage bars. I shook my head and rose to my feet, glaring at the old man. “You did that on purpose!”
“Yep. Least you deserved after what I just heard.” He shook his head. “Now, what’s this plan of yours?”
“We need to get into the cage, first…” I paused as Parri’s jaws lashed out, grabbing the steel bars and pulling. The sound of tearing metal echoed in the gathering brilliance as the door tore free of the cell, and Parri flung it contemptuously to the side. “Yeah, like that. Good.”
Shouts rang out as the people in the cell surged forward, trying to escape, but I raised my hands shouting for them to get back. When they ignored me, Parri leaned forward and roared loudly, the sound blasting in my ear. I rubbed the ear that now rung loudly in the sudden silence and shot the old man a glare, getting a contented smirk in return.
“Everyone, to the back of the cage!” I ordered. “As close to the cliff wall as possible! Hurry!” The people murmured in confusion, but a woman I recognized as Kalpna stepped forward, raising her hands.
“Everybody, do as he says!” she shouted. “They’re here to help us, I promise! Get back!” Grumbling ensued, but the people moved back as far as they could, pressing against the rear of the cage.
“Now what?” Chomai demanded. “We still ain’t far enough!”
“No, we aren’t. We need a wall.” I summoned my terror eagle and had it stand before us, its wings outspread.
“Your bird’s tough, boy, but it ain’t…” The old man fell silent as Sara channeled some of my XP into the eagle, and it began belching pink fluid all over itself. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. He watched as the eagle spread the chrysalis fluid all over itself, smearing it on its wings. Instead of folding itself up as normal, though, the creature opened its wings wide, holding them there as the pink fluid crystallized and hardened.
“Well, damn. That’s a wall, all right,” Ramka shook his head. He looked around. “Still not enough, though.”
“I know. Hold on.” I lifted the cards and turned my thoughts desperately inward. “Sara, which of these…?”
“This one, John,” she cut in, making a card glow in my sight. “You need to hurry.”
I pulled out the card she’d indicated. “This is Kamath’s shield,” I told the old man, handing it to him. “If you can power it…”
He looked at the card, then shook his head with a grimace. “I can’t, boy. This is a Paragon rune, a strong one, at that. I can only handle the weakest Paragon runes.” He gave me a serious look. “Can you?”
“Can I?” I asked silently.
“Maybe, John. We can try.” She appeared before me, and an image of the rune hung in the air above her. “You can’t power this rune the way you usually do. You have to power it from multiple directions at once.” Glowing points appeared at the edges of the card. “And you’ll have to modulate the flow. The different parts have to unfold at different times, or it’ll explode.”
“If it does, it’ll just speed things up a bit,” I joked weakly. “Okay, let’s do this.”
I focused on the points Sara indicated and let my thoughts touch them. I did my best to split my focus, relaxing my vision and letting the power flow from me without concentrating on it too much.
“Slow down, John,” Sara instructed sharply. “Here.” One of the points glowed red suddenly, another shifted to green, and the other two burned yellow in my vision. “This should be instinctive for you, according to your memories. Green means speed up. Red, slow down. Yellow, within tolerances.”
I couldn’t spare her a thanks as I tried to shift the power flows, imagining the one to the red dot thinning while the green one thickened. The yellow dot at the top suddenly flared red, and I slowed it, as well, which made the one at the bottom burn green. I adapted as quickly as I could, shifting the flows, trying to keep them yellow but bouncing between red and green as often as not. Energy flowed through me, swirling into the rune, and I felt the first tugging of weariness on my mind as the demands of focusing and regulating the power wore at me. More energy surged from me, seeming to vanish into a bottomless pit, and my exhaustion swelled as I struggled to keep the flows regular.
“You’re losing it, John,” Sara said worriedly. “You need to throw it away before it explodes!”
“I’ve got it,” I growled grimly, pouring my focus into the rune.
“You don’t have enough power left, John.” She hesitated. “Or time. The big rune is about to blow.”
Power swelled around me, energy welling up from the earth. A pillar of darkness suddenly exploded from the ground and shot up into the sky, shadows that began to spread through the huge rune, burning along it in waves of black flame. The ground shook violently, and people screamed and sobbed as the soil lurched beneath them, bucking like an angry roadwalker. The darkness suddenly surged and blasted outward, rippling across us in a wave of icy cold energy. That power slid across my mind without harm, but I suddenly felt the presence of the stormbiter and snowbeast surge deeper into my mind, latching firmly onto my thoughts. The wave of darkness shot past me, moving as swiftly as the curtain of light had earlier, and I knew I should be happy. That part of my plan had worked at the very least. I couldn’t bring myself to celebrate.
I was going to die. Everyone was going to die, and all because I couldn’t handle a damn rune. I felt the energy in me petering out, and unthinkingly, I reached out and grabbed the power roaring and raging around me, the same way I would have channeled raju in Soluminos. I guided it into the rune, letting the ambient force power the card for me. Smoke rose from the edges of the card as power surged into it, more energy than the card was meant to handle, and I clenched my teeth as the card exploded in flames–just as a matrix of power erupted from it, wrapping around us all. The rune reached into me, tearing out the last bits of power I held, then drawing more as the power I’d tapped surged through me like liquid fire. I screamed as the energy burned into my body, seeming to shatter bone and boil blood. The power slammed into my skull, and mercifully, everything went dark.