The heat hit Tel first, like stepping into a sauna, sweat immediately coating his exposed skin, but then his stomach took center stage. A bucket caught his eye as he put his hand to his mouth, and he stumbled over to heave into it without even checking its contents.
“I guess we won’t be using those nails,” Neela said, patting Tel on the back. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Tel said, wiping the back of his forearm across his mouth, and looked around the forge where they’d teleported to. The passage to the tunnels was open, and the fire was still burning strong, a piece of metal barely glowing from the heat on the anvil nearby, but it was just the two of them in the building. “Shara and the others?”
“Baiting the creatures to intercept the Tailcoats and Regulars,” Neela said.
“You’re going to get them to fight each other?” Tel asked, putting the pieces together.
“Yup. Shara’s plan,” Neela said. “Should buy us the time to get the last people out of here and seal the tunnels. Speaking of which, I need to get out there and act as a distraction. Any chance you can bring those big clocks back?”
Tel shook his head. “I’m lucky to even be awake,” Tel said, his hand finding his own ticking stopwatch in his pocket, and he reached with his mind out to the hill where he’d been. The stopwatches he’d borrowed, along with the grandfather clocks, were still generating chaos energy, though that energy was tethered to him. With him in the state he was, it wouldn’t do him any good, and he released his hold on the power. “You should be able to use what’s coming from the clocks on the hill… and your stopwatches.”
“Fair enough,” Neela said. “Count should already setting the tunnel on the far side of the portal room to blow. Sorry to say this, but you’re on your own getting there. It leads to another hidden entrance on one of the Lost Islands, and there should be a boat waiting for us.”
“We’re abandoning the portal?” Tel asked, pushing himself to his feet, though he wobbled unsteadily and needed to put a hand on the wall for support.
“We can’t hold out, not with the Tailcoats joining in. Best we can hope for is sealing the tunnels and keeping the portal room safe with what you set up,” Neela said, though the sound of fighting from outside grabbed her attention. “I’ve got to go. Get moving,” she said, then vanished in a burst of chaotic butterflies.
“Get moving, she says,” Tel mumbled, every part of his body aching from the overflowing chaos energy that had torn its way through him. It was honestly a miracle he was even still conscious, but his first step towards the tunnel entrance felt like sandpaper flowing in his veins. It was a long way to the portal room, and then another even longer tunnel after that from the sounds of things. Wonderful.
He forced his other foot to take its next step, gritting his teeth, then looked at the stopwatch still ticking in his hand. Even that small amount of chaos energy flowing into him was agony at this point. Turning it off meant he couldn’t protect himself, but really, who was he kidding? Even with the power, he couldn’t pull anything out of his space if he wanted to – he was just too drained.
With that in mind, Tel pushed the plunger to turn off the stopwatch – and promptly passed out.
*
Anad eased up on his hold over the Trance as he breached the treeline, legs pumping and the pounding in his head subsiding to a dull ache from the sledge-like pounding of before. How much longer can I keep pushing myself like this before I see black in my silver?
That long-term question quickly fled from his mind as more immediate problems played out on the field in front of him. In the short time it’d taken him to get from where he’d battled the Reaper, Tel and his machines had vanished from the hill, which left the Regulars and monsters pressing from either side on a collision course with each other.
Did the Reaper kill Tel already?
Even through the anger Anad felt at his old friend – at the blame he laid at Tel’s feet for his problems with the Mediators – a line of guilt ran through Anad’s chest. He’d finally found the power to protect – the power he’d been looking for after failing Tel while they were kids – and still it hadn’t been enough.
“Damnit,” he swore under his breath, charging at the central point where the two forces would meet – the crest of the hill where Tel had been standing. Except, what was he supposed to do when he got there? The Mediators and Regulars had abandoned him to deal with the Reaper by himself – likely at Gevar’s orders. Was he just supposed to rush back in and help them after that?
And what about the sorcerers? There were barely a dozen of them, and without Tel’s support, they’d quickly turned to fleeing from the horde of monsters crossing the river. The only chance they had of winning against that many was for the Mediators and sorcerers to work together – something that was never going to happen under Gevar.
It was unwinnable. Completely unwinnable.
Even as he ran in their direction, several of the sorcerers seemed to realize the same thing, and peeled off from the main group to run for the mouth of the waterfall. What could they hope to accomplish there? Was jumping over the cliff preferable to getting crushed between the Mediators and the monsters? The other sorcerers, meanwhile, continued rushing towards the Mediators like it was their only chance of survival, one in particular running through the air on brief flashes of pink.
Shara. Even after what happened in the tunnels, does she think the Mediators will put aside their prejudices to fight the greater evil?
Anad shook his head immediately. She’d have to be foolish to think that.
And Shara didn’t seem the type to be foolish. So, what’s really going on here? What is she up to? And, maybe the bigger question comes back to why are the monsters here in the first place?
Seeing the creatures swarm madly like that clearly reminded Anad of the bunker in the forest where he’d found Tel and Shara. There was a portal nearby. There had to be. Shara and the other sorcerers must’ve been there to seal it. The monsters were there to rip it open, while the Mediators had come here thinking it was a simple enclave. And now, from the Mediators’ perspective, it had to look like those sorcerers were leading a charge of the monsters straight at them.
What does this mean for me? Do I stay and try to stop the monsters? Work with the sorcerers and damn myself forever with the Mediators? Fight with Gevar and the others to kill the sorcerers and survive the monsters? Or, do I slink back to Bastion like Mediator Hulo did after Fork Valley? Survive to fight another day?
As that last thought passed through Anad’s mind, his eyes landed on the line of Regulars charging up the hill behind the Mediators. When things went bad – and they would – the Mediators could probably escape, but the Regulars would be left like lambs at the slaughter. They couldn’t hope to get away from the inhuman speed and power the monsters possessed.
That included Anad’s unit, Tory and the others who’d probably been ordered to charge with the others without even knowing Anad had been left alone to distract the Reaper. Anad had failed Tel, again, but he wouldn’t fail them. He wouldn’t leave them to die even if Gevar and the other Mediators decided to flee the field.
But, how could he get them away without everybody being branded a coward or traitor? A flash of pink in the doorway of one of the town’s buildings seemed like it could be his answer.
The town looks like it’s empty, but there’s laundry hung out to dry, and full carts in the streets. There were people here. People who evacuated when the sorcerers saw the monsters or the Mediators. Which means they had a way out.
If we ‘give chase’ to those running away, we might all be able to survive together.
Assuming they survived long enough to break away from the horde of monsters still alive.
Despite the pounding in his head, Anad pulled harder on the Trance again, slowing the world all around him, and tore ahead. He still wouldn’t get there before the two forces crashed together, multi-colored light already spilled out of the leading group of Mediators as they embraced their Trances. They’d cut Shara and the other sorcerers apart before…
The sorcerers cut hard to the side, bolting away from both forces as spikes of stone erupted from the ground like an earthen fence behind them. They’d timed their change in direction so perfectly the front-running Twitchers giving chase shot past where the sorcerers had turned to slam into the Mediators.
Spiked arms shot towards tuxedo-clad chests, only to be turned aside by color-laced blades at the last second, and the hill’s crest devolved into a furious melee. There had to be dozens of the creatures still alive, a paltry amount compared to the sheer number that had been on the other side of the river, but they easily outnumbered the Mediators. Even more so, given the small group of Mediators that had long since separated from the main force to head for the town.
That would be Gevar and her personal unit. Of course they would leave the brutal fighting to the rest of us.
Anad didn’t have any more time to consider that as he finally spotted Tory and the rest of his unit closing in behind the Mediators and engaging the monsters. Gevar could wait for later – for now, Anad had to put everything into killing as many chaos monsters as he could.
*
Shara glanced back at the escalating battle as she ran above the others. They’d cut it too close – staring down the glowing eyes of the very angry Tailcoats until she could’ve practically reached out and touched them. Getting that close was what had sold the charge though, and those same glowing eyes had followed Shara and the others as they’d bolted away, not looking back at the column of monsters behind until it was too late.
Except… not all the Tailcoats were on a collision course with the remaining monsters, a small group of them charging wide around the hill and towards the town. Damnit. And… was that Anad’s girlfriend leading the pack? Damnit again. Of course it was.
She’d almost killed Shara the last time they’d met, and Shara didn’t doubt she’d make a better effort of it if they met again. Still, the way they’d taken the long way around the hill to avoid Tel and his mechanical army meant it would take longer for them to reach the town, even with their Trance-enhanced speed.
But how much longer? Would they be on the sorcerers’ heels as they raced through the narrow tunnels and past the portal room? Or would they catch up, where the Tailcoat’s overwhelming speed and power would put them at a distinct advantage? Having already faced off against a Tailcoat in a cramped hallway, Shara couldn’t let that happen again.
“We’ve got company,” Shara called down to Lance, Born, and the other sorcerers running below her. Huh, where had Doctor Pain gone? Questions for later. “I’m going to try and slow them down. Keep going, and make sure Count has done his job! I have a feeling we won’t have a lot of time.”
“You want some help?” Born asked back, but didn’t slow his lumbering steps. Even though it didn’t look like he was moving very fast, his long legs were devouring distance.
“Definitely not,” Shara said. “I’m not going to fight them. Just see if I can distract them a little. Besides, if it comes to it, I can cross the water on my own. Neela mentioned you stink when you get wet. I don’t want her mad at me.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Haha, you make a good point,” Born said and gave a little wave of his huge hand. “If you’re the last one through, Count was instructed to set a passphrase as the trigger for his biggest bombs.”
“What’s the phrase?” Shara asked. A phrase was better for her than some random criteria Count may have set up.
“Explosion,” Born said. “Makes sense, huh?”
“Easy to remember, at least. Thanks,” Shara nodded.
“Don’t die,” Lance offered in her own short way, occasionally raising spikes of stone to delay anybody or anything that tried to give chase.
And then they were gone, and Shara slowed to look back at the group of Tailcoats running her way. Damnit, she really should learn how to count at some point soon. Maybe she could ask Tel to teach her after they were gone. He should at least be at the portal room by now, if not already in the tunnel beyond thanks to the head-start Neela had given him.
Would’ve been handy to have Neela with her now, but the occasional burst of butterflies over by the river signalled where the woman was stuttering their slower-moving folks into the other secret entrance.
Shara was on her own.
“No problem. I can do this,” she said out loud to motivate herself, chain-fist already spinning at her side. Killing the Tailcoats wasn’t the goal – she’d be lucky if she could even hurt them – so she didn’t bother building up a strong charge. Instead, picking where they were going, Shara snapped her arm forward and tossed the fist ahead of them.
Link after link formed as the fist rocketed forward, the speeding Tailcoats still a comfortable distance away, but colored light flared from their weapons as they noticed her action, and they blurred forward even faster.
Perfect!
Shara’s fist rebounded before it hit the ground, shooting up and to the right at an angle before rebounding again up and to the left. Like she’d thrown a rubber ball into a box, the fist bounced back and forth, around and around the Tailcoats, weaving a chain-net to hold them in.
But, it was an open field and the Tailcoats were inhumanely fast, ducking under the chains or vaulting over them without losing a step. Shara’s wide net wasn’t anywhere close to being sufficient to catch them. It was, however, good enough to corral them.
Despite the Trance-infused speed of the Tailcoats, they were only focused on what was directly in front of them. Shara forced their attention on the speeding fist that only grew faster with every rebound off her extended power. As they closed the distance between them and her, she tightened the sides of the net, limiting their easiest choices of evasion, while keeping a maze of sawing chains hanging in the air behind them.
Where they’d been able to run as a loosely-knit group before, the hallway of chains now limited to them moving in pairs at the most. The Tailcoats behind were forced to slow down by those in front, who suddenly had to move more carefully to avoid the ricocheting fist.
One who moved too slowly got clipped by the fist on his shoulder, his magic tuxedo absorbing the brunt of the hit, but it still knocked him off course. A sound like a high-speed saw accompanied a grunt of pain, and Shara focused her chains around that one, effectively boxing him in. The net whizzed around the trapped man, threatening further pain – or possibly even sawed-off limbs – but Shara didn’t have time to finish the job as the others pulled ahead, leaving their comrade on his own.
Satisfied that at least one Tailcoat was completely delayed, Shara pushed her fist forward again, racing past the lead Tailcoat – Anad’s girlfriend – to once again rebound around to form a delaying net. More cautious of the ways the chains moved, the Tailcoats slowed and methodically worked their way around the obstacle course.
By focusing on the one Tailcoat, she’d lost her chance to box them all in.
“Have to take the wins where I can get them,” she said, turning on her heel and sprinting towards the town. She still had a decent lead on the Tailcoats, but that wouldn’t last long, and she couldn’t afford to stand around while she tried to catch them in the chains. Instead, her chain fist rebounded twice more until it also shot towards the town, and ahead of Shara. As soon as it reached the edge of the town, Shara sent a wave of chaos through the weapon and ricocheted it off at a different angle. Then again. And again. And again.
She couldn’t trap the Tailcoats at this point, but she could delay them getting into the town with the most complicated web of chains she could manage. The fist bounced at wild angles in front of the buildings, high and low, near and far, faster than Shara’s eyes could keep up with. Similar to how the fist gained destructive force through rotations, it also built up speed and momentum through rebounding off of Shara’s magic. Whether it was an intended function of the magic, or a convenient coincidence didn’t matter, but Shara used it to the fullest.
By the time she reached the edge of the buildings – and ran above the sawing-web – the chains were dozens of feet deep and wrapped wide around the town. It wouldn’t stop the Tailcoats, but they weren’t going to be able to charge through it blindly.
A quick glance back and Shara met the furious, lemon-yellow eyes of Anad’s girlfriend glaring at her. Shara gave a single-fingered salute in response, then dropped out of the air, and dashed through the empty forge and into the passage beyond, her chain trailing the entire way.
*
Anad slipped under a swinging spike, not even bothering to counter, and instead swung his sword up and around to deflect another attack meant for the back of the nearby Regular. That blow redirected, he set his feet, parried another with his pock-marked cane, then one more, and pivoted on one heel while a monster lunged past.
This one he graced with a counter as he spun, his blade carving a long gouge on the monster’s back, and simultaneously snapped out the cane in his other hand to clothesline a second monster. Both creatures hit the ground at the same time, and then immediately started to push themselves back up.
“Don’t let them!” Tory’s voice shouted from nearby, and small groups of Regulars surrounded the creatures, their short spears going to work as they viciously stabbed at the downed monsters.
Those certainly weren’t the last of the monsters in the wild melee though, and Anad flashed past to engage the next closest one. Charging in, he leaned left to avoid the first spike coming his way, bobbed down and under the second like a boxer, and then kicked up and over a wild swing from another monster that had joined in. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he spun low, mimicking something he’d seen Shara do, and swept the legs out from the first creature.
Thanks to the magic of his shoes, he kept his rotation going without friction slowing him down and spiraled up like a corkscrew to drag his sword across the belly and then the face of the second monster. The beast staggered back more from the surprise than the injury, but it gave Anad the time to finish his spin, set his feet, and lunge back in from a more familiar position.
Silver light blurred as hole after hole appeared in the monster’s chest, and then Anad flared his hold on the Trance and swept his sword up, over, and down, leaving a hanging mirror-like ribbon between them. As soon as he was hidden by the silver light, Anad darted back over to the one he’d tripped, blade slashing down and up in a quick two-hit combination that left a bloody V on its chest.
“Mediator, behind you!” Tory’s voice shouted over the din of battle, and Anad spun just in time for the earlier creature to lunge through the hanging wall of silver. Dangerously accurate, the spike clipped Anad across his already injured shoulder, the magic of the tuxedo weakened, and pain exploded down his left arm while he cursed himself for forgetting that these things didn’t actually need to see.
It was everything he could do to keep his fingers wrapped around his cane, left arm stunned and hanging uselessly at his side, as he let the creature’s momentum carry it forward. With this sword out of position, Anad planted his back foot and lowered his other shoulder, leaning into the monster as it collided with him.
The impact rattled his teeth and sent both of them careening in opposite directions. Anad’s feet shuffled under him as he struggled to maintain his balance while the world spun, and the Trance strained against his hold on it. Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, he found the monster hadn’t fared as poorly as he had, and was already charging back in his direction.
Out of nowhere a Regular slid in between Anad and the charging creature, his spear angled to slide up and under the thing’s ribs as it impaled itself, while another Regular hacked at the back of its legs with her sabre as soon as it paused. The creature stumbled, but didn’t fall, and turned its attention from Anad to the two normal soldiers. Up came its left spike to skewer the Regular in front of it, far too fast for the man to avoid.
Anad’s sword struck like lightning, deflecting the spike, while he sidestepped around the man and went to work on the exposed side of the monster. A few quick slashes from his razor-sharp sword spilled its guts on the ground, and all three people around it backed away quickly to let it bleed out.
“Thanks,” Anad said to the two Regulars, the time they’d bought him just enough to get his senses together again, and noticed the brief pause around them. Mediators and monsters still fought ferociously, but he’d carved out a small pocket of calm, and took that moment to assess things.
“We’re not winning,” Tory said, like he was reading Anad’s mind, and came up beside him. “I see more of these things coming out of the woods on the other side of the river, along with one of those big ugly ones.”
“They’re all ugly,” the woman with the sabre said.
“Tory’s right,” Anad said. “We’re cutting our way out of here before things get worse.”
“Where we headed?” Tory asked. “Back the way we came?”
“No,” Anad said, already seeing faces balk at the idea of running away. “To the town,” he said, pointing with his sword and noticing the wall of sawing chains floating between him and his goal.
Well, we’ll deal with that when we get there.
In fact, even in that brief second he watched, Gevar and several of her Mediators worked their way between the chains.
If they can make it, so can we.
“Ready?” he asked the Regulars around him, and got several blood-covered nods in response. “Good, follow me!”
*
Tel struggled to open his eyelids, like each one had weights attached, and found the blurry face of a woman standing over him.
“Shara?” he asked, the hair of the image resolving into focus first, but blinked again and again when he noticed a nasty scar running down the side of her face. “Shara…?” he asked again, more quietly.
“Not quite,” a woman’s voice said, one that tickled at his memory, but didn’t jump out as familiar. Then the face resolved in front of him, and the Tailcoat he’d fought down in the tunnels under Bastion smiled at him. “I am so glad you’re awake,” she said, a finger running down the scar on the side of her face.
Tel’s mind scrambled to make sense of what was happening. Where was he? What happened after the Reaper? Right, Neela had brought him to the forge to escape through the tunnels and he’d… he’d passed out. Not good. He needed to get away, and his hand fumbled in his pocket until the Tailcoat held something metal up in front of his face.
His stopwatch.
“Looking for this?” she asked, almost sweetly, then actually moved her thumb over the plunger and pushed it down to turn the watch on.
Chaos butterflies burst to life as the first tick resounded in Tel’s ears, and without waiting to see why she would’ve just given him a weapon to use against her, he pulled on the energy. Icy pain flowed through his body, the pathways he used to channel the power already well beyond overworked, but he pushed past the…
The Tailcoat’s backhand tore away his grasp on the chaos and slammed him sideways from where he sat to topple into the legs of a nearby table. Darkness threatened to take him again, squeezing in from around the edges of his eyes, but something pushed it back, and he held onto consciousness. The throbbing in the side of his face almost made him wish he hadn’t. If his cheek wasn’t broken, it was damn close.
“Still awake?” the Tailcoat’s voice asked, piercing through the haze of pain. “Excellent. Now we can move on to the next step. Pick him up and bring him over here.”
Is she talking to me…?
Tel got his answer a few seconds later as rough hands lifted him from the corner of the forge where he weakly lay, and dragged him into the center of the room. Arms sleeved in black cloth held him under each armpit, the only things keeping him upright, and four other Tailcoats stood in front of him. Behind them, a single moving chain stretched up from the tunnel and out the forge door. Shara’s weapon?
“Imagine my surprise when we came chasing your friend through here only to find you passed out in the corner,” the female Tailcoat said. “Did she know you were in here? Did she leave you as a present for us, knowing how much I wanted to… see you again?” the woman asked, her finger again trailing down the scar on her cheek.
“Mediator,” one of the other Tailcoats behind the woman asked. “Should we be wasting time here? That other sorcerer could be getting away.”
“I’m tempted to let her, in thanks for such a generous gift,” the woman said, but then shook her head, face turning more serious. “But you have a point. You and Jolavi head down and secure the area. We will follow along in a few minutes. Kalesin, keep an eye on the door to make sure I’m not interrupted.”
Two of the Tailcoats behind the woman nodded and headed down into the tunnel, while a third walked over to the door and glanced out.
“We don’t have long,” the man by the door said. “The Regulars aren’t doing well, and it looks like units are already starting to split under the pressure.”
“That’s fine,” the woman responded. “The sorcerous rats wouldn’t be fleeing down here if there wasn’t a way out.”
“We could take this one with us,” the man by the door offered, pointing at Tel.
“No, not when there are such fun tools right here,” the woman said, picking up a large set of tongs and idly stroking them. Then she turned her full attention back to Tel. “It seems we only have a few minutes together, so I’m going to make this brief and poignant.
“You hurt me,” she said, hand back again to the scar on her face. “I’m going to hurt you back. More than you can imagine. And, this part I am sure you can appreciate, I’m going to conduct a bit of an experiment at the same time.
“You see,” she said, walking over to Tel and opening the mouth of the large tongs wide, then closing them around his left wrist. “I had one of your kind as a guest before, and I witnessed the most amazing thing. No matter how much pain I subjected them to, they just wouldn’t pass out… as long as they had a source of chaos energy,” she said, then turned a glance to where she must’ve put Tel’s stopwatch, the second hand still ticking.
And the icy pain still thrumming through Tel’s body.
Was that why he didn’t black out when she hit him? Why he didn’t pass out until after he turned off his stopwatch after the hill? Or how Shara stayed conscious most of the way through Bastion after the battle in the tunnels?
He looked up again to meet her eyes, and to see the cruel grin painting her face.
“I’ve been dying for an opportunity to see if that was unique to him, or if it was true for all sorcerers. Let’s find out, shall we?” the Tailcoat said, squeezing the tongs closed so they ground the bone of Tel’s wrist to the point they felt like they would crack.
But, while it hurt, it definitely wasn’t enough to make him pass out. What was she…?
“Bring him,” the Tailcoat said, pulling on the tongs to lead Tel and the two Tailcoats carrying him over to the forge.
Then she shoved his arm into the fire.