by Simon Archer
“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got another idea.” I tightened my grip on Libritas. “I’m going to need all the heat you can give me,” I sent to the glowing Brand.
“I’ll do my best not to burn you, then.”
The shaft began to glow red, then to a dull yellow. I positioned myself on Amalthea’s left side, leaning over to see the dead crocasaur cradled by four lion paws like a crane machine. Libritas’ glow then surged from dull yellow to a bright, blindingly white. Even without the heat in the handle, I could feel the intense burning on my face just from the proximity of it.
Yeah, I was pretty sure this was hot enough.
I swung around, glowing brand out, and slammed it through the side of the crocasaur corpse, passing through it like a thick jelly. With my momentum, I pushed the rest of the way through the giant lizard’s wide frame, bringing the brand out the other side. Amalthea’s back paws instinctively let go of the crocasaur’s lower half as I swung onto Amalthea’s back once again. The giant chunk of meat dissolved into the thrashing mess of primal hunger below like it never existed.
“Thank you, my savior,” Amalthea said, beating her wings harder to elevate our flight. “We’re approaching the edge.”
I looked out to see the wetland cut off to the ground far below. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was at least fifteen stories to the next level, if not more. Perfect for dumping a horde of nuisances. Amalthea climbed higher and higher into the sky, with the conglomerate of crocasaurs not far behind. As we flew past the edge of the terrace, the crocasaurs gave chase, stretching themselves out farther and father, the pile thinning out as a few crocasaurs fell to their deaths and then were immediately consumed by their brethren.
Once we had made it far enough out, Amalthea threw the top half of the crocasaur carcass as far as she could. The pile of ravenous lizards followed the fresh scent of blood, dipping down to catch their meaty prize. The crocasaurs that made up the base, all latched onto each other with claws and teeth, lost their grip on the ground. That tipped the whole mass of them down to the depths of another terrace. They didn’t even have the sense to try to climb back to safety, all of them diving headfirst towards the allure of meat. Crazily, I could actually hear the consistent cracking of several thousand lizard bones as they finally crashed into the wetland floor below.
“Let us hope they do not find a way to crawl back up,” Amalthea hoped as she witnessed the carnage. “Their tenacity and willingness for death do not bode well for combat against them.” She began to fly back towards the upper terrace.
“I doubt it,” I assured her with a stroke to her neck. “They seem pretty crushed down there.”
“Well, it is true that larger objects experience far more force as they impact the ground. With any luck, most of them will be dead, and the others seem more than content to pick apart the corpses of their brothers.”
“Good thing, too,” I remarked, taking one last look at the smear of crocasaurs we helped create. “This qualifies as an infestation, to be sure, so the less of them left, the better.” I scratched the side of Amalthea’s neck, both hearing and feeling her purr at my touch. “You were a real trooper today.”
“I live to serve the clan, my savior.” She purred once more. “My exhaustion is a small price to pay in that service.”
“Don’t you start pushing yourself too hard,” I warned her as we coasted down to one of the dry strips of dirt. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my training back in the Upland, it’s the wasted energy of putting everything into one strike when there’s plenty of fight left. We still have a latopus to crush.”
“Of course, my savior.” Amalthea conceded as her paws touched the ground. I’m sure she would have bowed or looked down in her attempt to reconcile if she could. “I do not mean to go against your wishes. Please forgive me.”
“You know, I’m going to have a talk with you girls about this ‘over- apologizing’ thing you keep doing.”
“I would never willingly disrespect you, my savior.” Amalthea prostrated herself. “If you could find it in your heart not to be angry with--”
“Hey!” I stopped her. “Hey. We’re equals. We’re all partners in this together. If you agree with me, just agree and move on.”
Amalthea stammered a bit before she could get a word out. “Y-you’re right. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Amalthea,” I said back to her. “I like being treated like a person. You honor me when you do so. And I assume you like being treated equally, too.”
“I do find it quite pleasing,” She agreed, if a bit hesitantly.
“I’m glad.” I smiled at her. “Now call Shikun. We’re ready to face Atroclus.”
11
Khaba Va’Khem
“The arrogance!” Via’s Avatar, in its pure white metallic gleam, peered through the looking glass of Mada’s Eye. I had summoned it up while I sat upon my obsidian throne, stroking my chin as I contemplated William Tyler’s actions. “He grows more powerful by the day. As if he would dare challenge the might of the invincible Khem! Our sister’s pride knows no shame.” Her glistening form glided over to me where she prostrated herself at my feet.
Inside the Eye, William took to the skies of the western terraces of Solanna’s Marches. He was approaching the second of the Brand of Savagery’s thralls, already preparing to destroy it. And he was riding my former slave.
“We should kill him now.” Nethum slunk to my side, her black reflective fingers stroking the back of my hand. “We can’t let that upstart get any closer to accumulating enough power to fight you in this state.” She brushed her hands up my arm and my chest while resting her head on my shoulder. “You’ve worked too hard to let this boy challenge you now. Retrieve Libritas, and he will crumble to dust.”
“I considered this, my beautiful girls.” I beckoned them closer. Nethum placed her legs upon my lap, and Via came to sit upon the arm of the throne. They were both alluring, from a primal perspective. Perfect curves and smooth metal skin throughout, all things I desired a long time ago. Now, beauty was little more to me than the stagnant air within my dead lungs. “His power is alarming. In time, it will indeed rival my own as it is now. But that may work in my favor.”
“How can that be, Lord Khaba?” Via cooed into my ear. “He unravels your masterful work wherever he goes. The pall of resistance against you swells with every step he takes!”
“Yes, I had hoped to keep the forces I have collected over these many cycles.” I glared at the usurper through the Eye, his yellow hair fluttering about in the breeze of flight. This was the one who posed a threat to me. This boy. This chink in the armor of my machinations. He was a great force of change that I should have anticipated long before this, but that mattered little now. “But it matters not. They will be nothing compared to the power I shall have in due time.”
“The Necropolis is far from complete, Lord Khaba,” Nethum attempted to inform me. “The boy will be at your doorstep within the month at this rate! We have to kill him before he can interrupt our progress.”
“Nothing will interrupt my progress.” I glared at my concubine avatar, reminding her of where she stood in my presence. “Any attempt on the boy’s life that does not succeed will only serve as kindling for him to spark a greater rebellion against me. We need not kill him so hastily. We must merely slow his progress diving into our territories to a halt until everything can be set in motion.”
“When everything is in place,” Via said as she curled up against my chest, “will you punish the boy?”
“Oh, I bet you’ll make him one of your servants,” Nethum purred against me. “He’ll spend the rest of his unnatural life trapped within himself, licking your feet and thanking you for the opportunity!”
“Please, my loves.” I stroked Via’s back with my dried hand. “When all goes as planned, I will need no such frivolities.”
“Do the slaves we make not please you, my lord?” Via put a hand up to my face, pointing my gaze
towards her. “Are your loyal minions not enough for your desires? I can make them stronger if you would wish it.”
“And I would make them more loyal!” Nethum pushed my chin towards herself as they both vied for my attention. “I would make them crawl to the ends of the earth to please you, my master. Your wish is my command.”
“Do not embarrass yourselves, my concubines.” I clenched my hand in the air as if holding a heart in my palm. Via and Nethum both grasped their chests, right above their hearts before collapsing to the floor. Via clambered onto the robes around my feet in pathetic desperation.
“Please, my lord,” she pleaded with me. “Please do not be angry with us. We only wish to give everything of ourselves to you!”
And that was precisely why I despised them both. Neither of them was a challenge to break. When I began my conquest, their wielders resisted me, as all of the younger Brand’s wielders did. But as soon as they were dead, both Via and Nethum could not help but fall before me. Only one challenged me to be greater than I was. Only one set me on the path to greatness that this boy threatened to crash down upon me.
And now that boy had her in his grasp.
I unclenched my hand, and my girls breathed a deep gasp of fresh air. In their Avatar forms, they were far deadlier but also prone to the weaknesses of the material world. I would share no such weakness. This body meant nothing to me.
But as I released my hold on them, a deep pain rushed through my own chest. My powers were eroding my flesh. It was foolish of me to expend my magics so carelessly at this time, but this was all the more reminder of why William Tyler had to live.
So that I could take his body… and take back what was always mine.
12
Amalthea and I scouted the area, following the mental signal she gave off inside the Khalati Record. It was a fortunate thing we had access to the record because, without it, we would have been searching between these irrigation crevices for hours. There weren’t any giant swarms of crocasaurs to mark where Atroclus had placed himself. In fact, there were hardly any left, save for the couple that somehow didn’t make it into the giant crocasaur mound. We found where Shikun had sequestered herself and the others in a little shelf deep inside the irrigation crevice, and we both flew in to meet her. Thankfully, everyone seemed okay.
“How do you do it, Master William?” Sir Reginald said while he gripped the side of the wall that the shelf was built into. “I spent my fair share of time flying in planes into combat zones, and thanks to these damn scaled sorry-excuses-for-geckos,” Reginald kicked out against the edge without leaving the wall he pinned himself to, “I can’t stand to see more than a foot between me and the ground.”
“Well, it’s not like I wasn’t about to shit myself up there, too.” I walked up to my oldest friend and grabbed his shoulder. “But I had a job to do, and if I didn’t, people I loved would die. Simple as that.”
“Yes, well.” He scoffed at me. “I was decidedly jobless and useless in this recent encounter, so my mental occupations had the freedom to ingrain a primal fear of elevation.” He tried to take a step away from the wall but quickly snapped back to it. “Get it together, old boy.”
“Thankfully, there aren’t crocasaurs everywhere,” I assured him. “You can rest easy knowing that this is the only place infested with prehistoric crocodile demon creatures.”
“And it didn’t help that I was left out of the mental loop,” he replied, scanning the girls and stopping at Amalthea, “You needn’t keep me in the dark, madam.”
“You seemed preoccupied with fearing for your life, and I did not want to cloud the mindspace with that,” Amalthea stated matter-of-factly. “It would have been a deadly distraction. If you wish to be included, you’ll have to learn how to control yourself.”
“You,” Reginald glared at the sphinx, still riding the fearful high of this experience, “are a bad kitty.”
Amalthea gasped a little, as did the other girls. Her eyes started to glisten a bit as if she was going to shed a tear.
“You know what? Just for that…” I looked over at Shikun. “Would you be a dear and take us for a short glide?”
“What?” The terrified British explorer dug his fingers into the dirt wall. Shikun pulled him by the collar of his shirt, spinning him around. Before he could flinch, he was under her arm like a bundle of wood. I walked over to her as she took me by the waist. With one powerful beat of her wings, we launched upward. Reggie yelped as Shikun took us through every aerial maneuver. We looped, we barrel-rolled, we flew upside-down, we rose high into the sky, and finally, we dove straight down.
Reggie’s screams echoed throughout the whole crevice as we headed straight to what I’m sure he thought was our doom. At the last possible second, Shikun pulled up to a level glide as we slide deeper into the crevice. We were approaching the tunnel entrance when she slowed down to a gentle float, placing us gently in the calm waters.
“You are a right bastard, master William,” Sir Reginald said softly, shivering from the cold water on his feet and from the life-threatening terror.
“Now, Sir Reginald, this new experience should have taught you to be nicer with your words, even in stressful situations,” I said with a grin. “Especially to my girls. When Amalthea gets down here, you’re apologizing.”
“Oh, alright,” the noble Brit relented.
“And thank you, Shikun.” I kissed the draconian gently on the lips. “I can always count on you. I think our good knight has been thoroughly reminded of his manners, wouldn’t you say?”
“I will always catch you when you fall, William.” She kissed me back as we embraced, and she pressed her toned physique against me. “I hope he learned his lesson.”
“Believe me, I have.” Reggie sighed. “If I never have to leave the ground again, it will be far too soon.”
Amalthea came flying in, Petra and Silver on her back, and they landed beside us. Amalthea kept her stoic expression, but Petra seemed particularly steamed as she stared daggers into Reggie. The British soldier felt every stab as he came before his offendee.
“Let the Khalati Record show,” Reggie started his apology, “that I am dreadfully sorry for my hateful words. I spoke them in fear and anger, and I apologize.”
“What kind of kitty is she?” Petra demanded, stepping off of Amalthea’s back. She seemed as hungry for justice as a crocasaur for its own tail.
Sir Reginald sighed. “A very good kitty.”
“The best kitty.” Amalthea flipped her hair back and trotted regally deeper into the crevice towards our next target. Petra followed behind her, head raised and stance as proper as Amalthea’s. Shikun trailed behind them, followed by Reggie and me as I wrapped my arm around his opposite shoulder and pulled him in, kissing the head of the man who helped raise me.
Maybe I was a little too hard on him, but I knew we were both going to be safe. And he made Amalthea tear up. I didn’t care if someone was my father, my estranged mother, or my oldest friend. No one made my girls cry and got away with it.
The light of the two suns grew dimmer and dimmer as we slowly entered the crevice to the irrigation tunnels. As we sloshed our way through the pathway, the light eventually was too dim to see anything deeper in.
“Oh, I’ve got just the thing for this.” Sir Reginald pulled out his bag, and a red glowing piece of wyrm-fire out of that. “May I have a branch?”
Reggie held out his hand to Petra, and she placed a freshly grown stick into it. Taking the red wyrm-fire, he stuck it to the end of the stick, following that with the reveal of a lighter. I winced as he lit the wyrm-fire, afraid that it might explode and kill us, but instead, it glowed a dull white, then a brighter white, eventually becoming a little hard to look at. The tunnel illuminated, showing another tunnel cutting through perpendicular, forcing a right or a left turn about thirty feet down the path.
“I thought the wyrm-fire only created large fires or explosions,” I mused. “Glad to see we aren’t exploding or burning.”
“Since I’ve been cleaning up after Silver, I’ve had time to study the wyrm-fire up close.” Reggie began to showcase a few of the different chunks he had collected. “They come in different colors, and each color does something different. These red ones, for instance, have a slow burn, great for producing light. The yellow ones do the fiery explosions we usually see, and I think the purple ones are fairly more concussive than incendiary, but I’m rather cautious about trying them out.”
“Only you could find so many uses for crap, Reggie.” I patted him on the shoulder with a big grin. “Lead the way, huntsman.”
“Tallyho!” Reggie stomped deeper into the tunnel, and we followed.
When we came to the split path, Reggie kept towards the left, so we kept following his lead. The further in we went, the more the whole place smelled like a rundown sushi shop. If the latopi weren’t here, they definitely were at some point.
I straggled behind a bit, holding Libritas up. I channeled my focus into the head of the Brand until it glowed brightly. As I looked out into the tunnel, I saw a pathway turning left deeper into the terraced rock. Something dark and slimy slunk into the left pathway as soon as the light touched it.
I was not going to get ambushed in these tunnels, not today. I stayed in the back and kept Libritas handy, preparing for any latopi that planned on making a stupid mistake. While the danger was starting to rise, at least we were in the right area.
We continued down the tunnels for a while longer, and I became more and more unnerved with how few latopi we encountered. That is to say, none. Either we had missed the mark entirely on where the latopi were, or we were walking into some sort of trap. And that slithering thing I saw before suggested we had found the latopi.
“This is pure poppycock!” Reggie came across another intersection and stopped. He scratched his head, furrowed his brow, and swung his fire in all three new directions. “What manner of tunnel system is this? How in the blazes is a man supposed to find a damn latopus in this godforsaken place?”