My head began to hurt, and it wasn’t from the concussions. How did this happen? More importantly, how did I allow this to happen? How could I have not seen this coming? This was exactly the kind of thing I was supposed to be on guard for. Heavens knew that Alverd wasn’t capable of seeing this sort of thing coming, so such foresight fell to me. It was a blow to my ego that I hadn’t suspected this level of brazen and frankly predictable treachery from Marcus .
As I held my head in self-loathing, the Ishmarian soldiers began running down the corridor. I could hear their armor clanking as they moved and the sound was becoming louder with every passing second. It wouldn’t be long before they would be on top of us.
Alverd drew his sword, the steel sliding free of his sheath with a metallic ring and turned to face them. Alicia took up a position flanking him, her maul at the ready. But I knew we would stand no chance in conventional battle. We were surely outnumbered. Alverd had no replacement for his shield and the princess was a conflicted berserker who was still dealing with the ethical dilemma of killing for the first time. My mind raced as I put all the variables together. I knew Alverd would be fine under pressure, despite his shortcomings in the weapons department. On the other hand, I knew that Alicia, while heavily armed, might not be willing to raise her hand against other Ishmarians, at least not ones that were simply doing what they’d been ordered to do.
Once again, it would be up to me to save the day.
One of the hardest parts of magic is aim. Concentrating the myriad powers of the universe into a miniature ball of death? That was the easy part. Hitting a moving target with it? That was significantly harder. All the power in the world meant diddly-squat if you couldn’t hit your enemy when it counted. It was one of the reasons why mages didn’t fight on the front lines, but behind others where they could safely concentrate and aim their spells properly. Here, in the cave with its narrow passageways, there would be no shelter from my magical might.
I willed energy into my hand; a spark ignited, and it grew to the size of a rock as I fed it with the bioelectric impulses running through my body. I had long ago figured out that, for some reason or another, armor made lightning magic far more effective. Metal seemed to draw and amplify electrical energy, especially if it was close in proximity to such power, hence why people placed lightning rods atop their homes. Now, that knowledge was about to serve me well. I raised my hand towards the enemy and spoke my incantation.
“Oh gods of the infinite sky, hear my earnest plea! Cast your anger down upon these wicked souls and let there be none who remain in its wake! Answer me, oh lords on high! Smite my enemies now!”
A spirit of air trapped within the walls of the ancient fortress, answered my call. Its power surged through my staff and into the ball of lightning already gathering in my left hand.
A massive bolt of golden light shot from my left hand with the intensity of a sun. The bolt lanced toward the knight coming down the corridor. It slammed into the knight’s torso, but instead of simply electrocuting him, the bolt burned through his armor like a hot knife through butter. The bolt shot out his back into the next soldier. The bolt lost a bit of its power, though, but it did manage to shock the soldier, causing him to jerk like a rag doll.
The lightning continued to arc to several other soldiers, achieving similar results. In all, I managed to kill six men for the price of one spell. Granted, I had once again overdone it, but I had just increased our odds of survival significantly. Not bad. I bent over, struggling to regain my breath. Alicia gave an impressed whistle. “Not bad. For an apprentice, I guess.” I smirked back at her.
The last of the six men didn’t die right away; he screamed good and loud as the electricity coursed through his body, and his cries of pain carried up the corridor back to the cave mouth. After he finally ceased his screams and his body stopped twitching, there was a moment of dead silence while we waited for our enemy to make the next move.
Perhaps heeding the lesson learned from their prior mistake, the rest of the bastards started coming in one at a time. And one against three was definitely better odds for us.
The first soldier to come down the passage held his sword high, yelling incoherently. He was rewarded for his stupidity with a sideways slash from Alverd, which neatly managed to slip between the narrow space between the man’s breastplate and the bottom of his helmet, severing the man’s head. The dead body tumbled past Alverd, the head and helmet clattering down the hallway.
The second soldier fared no better; Alicia swung her maul at the man’s helmet. It connected with brutal force, and I could have sworn I heard the man’s neck breaking as he smashed into the wall, his sword falling from his lifeless hands. Alicia’s eyes were empty and steely, a sure sign she had tuned out any regret through her berserker training. Although she had dispatched her foe with ruthless efficiency, I had to wonder if she would feel remorse later.
The third soldier thrust an ornate spear at Alverd and he quickly sidestepped the attack. He swept his sword at the enemy, but the blade bounced off the soldier’s armored gauntlet. The revelation of Alverd’s useless blade came too late; the soldier pulled his spear back for another thrust. Alverd immediately lunged, his arm outstretched; the blade sank into the space between the man’s visor and the lower part of his helm. There wasn’t even a sound; the man simply sank to his knees, then keeled over backwards, the sword still protruding from what was left of his face. It was a one-in-a-million shot, and my friend had made it look easy, as per his idiom.
Our enemies would eventually run low on manpower, especially at the rate they were losing soldiers. I liked those odds, and they were getting better all the time.
Then the cowards who were left tried a new tactic.
A wave of fire shot down the corridor. The scorching heat swept down the stone passage like the flames of perdition itself, and only by backing up to the antechamber were we spared its wrath. The Ishmarians were most likely using their dragons to breathe fire down the narrow passage in an attempt to roast us alive. But that only gave me another idea.
As soon as the fire dissipated, I started screaming as though I were in pain. The others looked at me quizzically, but after a short bout of pantomime, I conveyed to my companions that I had a plan. They quickly caught on and started caterwauling. Alverd was quite convincing, Alicia was overselling hers a bit too much I thought. The four of us ceased our death rattles.
There was silence for a moment. Then, a voice.
“You two! Go down there and make sure they’re dead.” The sounds of clattering metal were soon heard. This was the best chance we would have. When the two men rounded the corner, I blasted them with some fire of my own, a simple mid-tier spell with no incantation behind it. Without the massive dragon-fighting shields from before, the men had no chance of surviving the magical flame I had conjured. The two men cooked like lobsters within their armor. Ignoring their screams, I turned to my companions.
“There has to be some other way out! We stay here and they’ll overwhelm us eventually!”
Alverd, quick thinking bastard he was, knew what to do. He immediately pulled his sword free of the soldier’s corpse and ran back the way we came. Like me, he knew that we had descended to get to the lab, so he located the only way that led upwards and scrambled along it in a mad dash. I struggled to keep up, but given that Alicia was behind me I was quite motivated not to slow her down.
We had to break through several obstructions to get through. Partial cave-ins of the ceiling had rendered the passage almost untraversable without stopping to move stones or wooden slats that had collapsed from old age. There was no way Edgar could’ve dug out this way on his own with his hobbled leg. But at this point, it was either take a shot or stand our ground.
The corridor eventually opened up to a larger room, and on the far side we saw a large door made of carved stone. Alverd and Alicia threw themselves into it, their shoulders straining against the heavy rock. While the two of them pushed against the door, I swept my staff back the way we came, ready to attack the first soldier to blunder into my sight.
But the walls of the room caught my eye. There were depictions of historical events on the dust-covered stone, crude images of humans kneeling before an immense dragon. Seated upon a grandiose throne was a woman dressed in a flowing robe of gold and crimson, a shining crown upon her head, holding a scepter in her right hand. A scepter that was wreathed in magical fire.
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The thing that made even less sense was that I could read the script flowing across the walls. As my eyes took in the full mural of the worshippers trekking across the volcanic wastes to pay homage to this woman, the unfamiliar writing began to shimmer and twist into letters I could understand, reacting to the presence of a mage. They told me the story I had heard in Edgar’s lab…but with a stunning new twist.
Alicia saw me gawking at the walls and shook my shoulder. “Kuro, the door! We could use your help…what are you staring at?” She was distracted by my unfaltering gaze and open gaping mouth and looked at the walls. “What does it say? Who is that woman?”
I moved forward and placed my hand against the mural, sweeping the thick coating of dust away from the image of the woman. The writing beneath, presumably the lost language of Ishratan, the precursor civilization of Ishmar, began to reform itself into the common script of the universal trade language of Selarune. My voice cracked as I read the words, one by one.
“All pay tribute to our lady eternal, our glorious beacon. We offer our lives, our fealty, to Evros, the King of Fire. May Ishrati bask in her glory for all time.” I turned my head slowly to Alicia. “She was a sorceress. The dragon your people worship was once a person. A mage.”
I think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Alicia. She stammered, unable to figure out what she wanted to say. Not that I blamed her. Today was proving to be quite a red letter day for her. It wasn’t every day that everything you knew for certain was proven to be built upon a complete lie, especially when that lie led you to accept certain atrocities as just the price of living.
The sound of soldiers coming through the corridor snapped her out of her own head. With a howl of truly impressive rage, she threw her shoulder into the door again. With a loud grinding sound, the door began to creak open, swinging outwards, allowing the sunlight outside to stream in. With a grunt of combined effort, Alverd and Alicia forced the door open all the way and stumbled outside…
And straight into the waiting arms and spears of more than a dozen Ishmarian soldiers.
Outside, we found that the door had opened out into the same place we’d made camp. The door was part of the cliff face, which explained why it had been so hard to open, and why we hadn’t noticed it before. As we tumbled out into the light, we saw that the entirety of the Princess’ escort were now on their knees, hands on their heads, surrounded by Ishmarian bodyguards clad in armor marked with the numerals of the First Prince.
One of the Princess’ bodyguards saw Alicia and her eyes widened. “My lady!” She cried out before rising up and yanking the spear from one of her captors, and rushing in our direction. She made it about three steps before someone turned and stabbed his sword right through her chest. The spear fell from her lifeless hands. The murderer-in-question turned around and we saw Marcus, with that same pretentious, smug little half-smile on his face.
Dropping the corpse of the bodyguard, Marcus waved his hand. Within moments, all three of us were relieved of our weapons. We too were forced on our knees, although the soldiers grabbed hold of our arms and bound our wrists behind our backs. Alicia’s bodyguards openly wept at watching their princess being treated in such a way.
Marcus wasn’t alone. His gold-clad soldiers were accompanied by a smaller squad of black-armored soldiers who were led by a knight in lighter armor. The armor was designed to allow ease of movement, yet afforded its wearer protection against weapons, covering the chest, hips, arms, legs and shoulders, with black mesh covering the unprotected areas. But when the knight removed the helm, I saw that mere rank wasn’t the only reason for its extravagance. Eliza was its bearer, and she fit the helm under her arm as she stepped into the clearing with her rapier in her other hand.
Seeing her in that armor struck a chord somewhere in my head again. The fog in my mind refused to lift, however, and no matter how much I tried to focus, I couldn’t place it. Before I could try any harder, though, I was distracted by Marcus, who began walking toward the three of us with a victorious look in his eyes.
Marcus chuckled ominously as he stopped in front of his helpless sister. He bent over slightly so his face was right in front of Alicia’s. “So, dear baby sister? Did you have fun? Out here trying to fix your own failures?”
I saw Alicia do something very unbecoming of a young woman, yet my opinion of her immediately soared. She spat in Marcus’s face. I had to resist the urge to break out into laughter. Marcus, on the other hand, was completely unamused. He immediately backhanded her with his gauntleted fist, though it did little to break the look of raw hatred on her face. He grabbed hold of her chin and forced her to look at him.
“That was very rude of you, sister. But hitting you won’t teach you the error of your ways. I have a much better way to teach you what happens when you disrespect me.” He gave a motion with his hand, and Eliza, who had moved over to where Alicia’s bodyguards were being detained, unsheathed her rapier. I turned my head reflexively away from them, but I could do nothing to stifle the cries of pain that soon followed.
Nineteen more cries. Nineteen more deaths. One after the other. I couldn’t even imagine how furious Alicia was at such a barbarous display of cruelty. I chanced a look in her direction. But she wasn’t furious. There were tears streaming down her face. Marcus waited until the last of his sister’s bodyguards was slain before releasing Alicia’s face.
A number of Marcus’ men emerged from the tunnel, carrying a half-conscious Edgar. Marcus sneered when he saw the bedraggled Edgar, still unable to stand, thrown before him.
“Well, long time no see. Your source back at the Castle was very talkative once I found him, you know. Turns out that being forced to send you disinformation in return for his life was quite motivational. He’s a loose end, though. And as you can see, I don’t much enjoy having those around.”
He grabbed Edgar by the collar and dragged him over to Alicia. “Untie her hands. But hold her. And kill her companions if she tries anything.” He pulled a dagger from Edgar’s belt. “Now look at me, Alicia. I only want to have to teach you this lesson once, so for your sake and Edgar’s you’d better listen to me.” Alicia glared at him defeatedly, but did not resist. When Alicia’s restraints were undone, he pressed the dagger into her hand. She made no effort to try and attack him.
Marcus continued. “Now. Edgar here, is a coward. And we Ishmarians just hate cowards. But Edgar can still serve a purpose, and if he serves that purpose, he’ll live. And that purpose is: to show exactly what we do with cowards in the coming kingdom.” He lifted Alicia’s hand up, placing the point of the dagger against Edgar’s forehead.
“Carve the mark of cowardice into his forehead, Alicia. You do that, and he’ll spend the rest of his days in a stockade in the city square. He’ll be fed and cared for simply so he can continue to serve this purpose. A bit of momentary pain to spare him from a lifetime of such. Because here’s the lesson you need to learn, Alicia. As a berserker, I could stab and cut and peel the skin from your bones, but you won’t feel that pain.”
The half-smile on his face turned into a full half moon of teeth. “But I can hurt others. And through their pain, you’ll feel pain. Because you’ll see that I can hurt as many people as I want, and you’ll be powerless to do anything about it. You can prevent that, all you have to do is admit that you are a failure. Inferior. Weak.” He let go of Alicia’s wrist, which was now shaking visibly, and waited.
I could see Alverd’s eyes tracking Alicia and Marcus. But he was just as powerless as I was. We both had six spears aimed at our throats. Our lives were completely in her hands now. Alicia looked at Edgar, her eyes now red. Her tears were still flowing like a river after a winter’s thaw. But with one swift motion, she took the dagger, and instead of doing what Marcus had commanded, she slit Edgar’s throat in one clean cut.
Edgar was dead before he even hit the ground. Blood was already pooling from the nasty, messy wound left behind by the dagger. Alicia, her eyes now filled with fury, looked at her brother in a way that could put fear into the heart of even a dragon.
“You of all people know Ishmarians hate traitors more than cowards, brother. It’s a lesson I’ll be teaching you personally.”
Marcus stood dumbfounded for a moment, then threw his head back and laughed. When he finished, he glared at his sister.
“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you really are an Ishmarian. You certainly know how to murder like one.” He lashed out with his boot and delivered a savage kick to Alicia’s face. The blow was enough to knock her unconscious, and she hit the dirt. One of Alverd’s guards reacted to my friend attempting to rise to his feet by slamming the shaft of his spear into the back of his head. Alverd’s eyes rolled upwards and he too lapsed into unconsciousness. I waited for my turn. Sure enough, a blow to the back of my head knocked me forward, but it wasn’t enough to knock me out. Before I could even wince in pain, an armored hand grabbed my collar and forcibly pulled me up.
I looked at my tormentor. It was Eliza. She had the same smug grin that I’d seen her with a long time ago, so full of herself and so detached from her actions. I watched as she lifted the narrow blade of her rapier up to her mouth, then licked the blood of Alicia’s bodyguards from it. And then it clicked. I knew why Eliza had invoked a long buried thought, why it had tickled my brain so. It was a memory, and it came flooding back into my mind with chilling clarity. When she saw my eyes widen, Eliza chuckled with childish glee.
“You…”
“So you do remember! Finally! I’ve been waiting to see if you would remember my face, spellslinger. Because now…” I was so busy staring into her crazed eyes that I didn’t notice that she’d placed her rapier’s blade against my face. She slid the tip of it across my cheek, all the way to the base of my ear, and although it was a shallow cut, I could feel something warm start to run down my cheek, and I would bet money it wasn’t sweat. Eliza then traced her tongue along the cut, lapping up my blood like a gods-be-damned vampire bat, until her mouth was right next to my ear. “…It will be even more satisfying when I kill you.”
Then, there was another sharp blow to my head. I didn’t know where it came from, or what had hit me. The blow was too solid, too sudden, for me to guess. I felt myself fall, then hit the ground, then my vision swam out of focus. I was… tired. I needed to close my eyes. Forget everything else… just… rest…
My last conscious thought was, that if I kept getting concussions at this rate, I would have to invest in a helmet or something. Seriously, I needed my skull intact in order to use magic. Or live, for that matter.
And then darkness took me. Again.