by N. M. Howell
On she ran, until she ran out of hallway. The walls widened, the stone beneath her boots burning through the leather. Moving in a crouch beneath gathered smoke, she saw a wide natural chamber ahead.
Although she had seen it through another pair of eyes, she recognized the room. In the center stood a circle of jeweled pillars, surrounding an inclined rack—the rack Jax must have been secured to. No one occupied the space any longer. She hurried on toward the sound of voices—and the presence of Kraevek.
At the top of a crude staircase, Raina looked down on a rough, partially excavated cavity. She sucked in a deep breath.
Kraevek lay on a slab of stone, bound at the ankles and wrists with glowing chains. Merit Sharp stood over him, a triangle of obsidian in his hand. Standing in line at the edge of the slab, twelve men in silver armor with orange leather scales waited, short lances resting on their shoulders.
“Open him, Headmaster, and open the portal. I thirst for Light Fae blood,” the lead soldier said through his helmet. The armored men behind him muttered dark agreement.
Ernella stepped into view. “Jax has not sufficiently recovered for the strain of the journey.”
“Then he should have been less resistant,” the soldier shot back.
Sharp held his hands high, palms out. He cast the same, sparking spell that had quieted students in the auditorium. “We will give Jax a few moments. The ritual sacrifice won’t open the portal for long. We’ll need to send through as many as possible.”
Raina’s heart soared and plummeted at once. Open the portal? To these soldiers? How could Dark Fae pass the portal? How could Sharp open it?
Sharp bent and retrieved the flat triangle of rock. As he did, Raina’s hand throbbed in sudden pain. She looked down, the wound long healed. Now the scar was a thick line, as flat and as black as the stone shard.
“It took nearly a year of excavation to uncover this one single shard of the portal. Twice that to locate a breeding pair of nithedrakes. Five times that for this lowly wretch to reveal himself.” Sharp stared into Kraevek’s face, but the Lord Fae did not respond. “We can give ourselves a few more patient minutes.”
Activity bustled from the far end of the room. Men in flame resistant suits dragged huge, glowing eggs on long-handled carts, all of them heading for Sharp, Kraevek, and the soldiers.
The lead soldier pointed toward the laboring men and carts. “Our mounts are ready, Headmaster. The nithing is at hand. Let Jax catch up with us, if he can. We have plenty to destroy the realm, and the weak Fae who cower there.”
“Bleed him!” another soldier commanded.
“Open his flesh, and open the realm!”
“Kill him so that the killing may commence!”
Raina understood in a horrifying moment of clarity. The shard of the portal, once it released blood that mingled with Light magic, would throw open the gate to Oreálle. The armored soldiers had been through the ritual she had witnessed Jax undertaking. Whatever transformation they had undergone would allow them to pass into the other dimension.
And the eggs? Mounts? What could they be? Shadowy, reptilian forms squirmed within the heated shells.
Sharp nodded. “So be it. Prepare yourselves, my Slayers, for the nithing commences!”
The headmaster lifted the jagged rock overhead. Kraevek closed his eyes to meet the inevitable.
Raina was far too late.
27
“No!” she screamed.
Instinct overrode her thinking, and she cast a forceful Intent Transitive to knock the shard from Sharp’s hands. Too late she realized that the portal fragment was neither physical nor magical—spells could not affect it.
She’d summoned so much force that the energy bounded into Sharp as well, staggering him, driving him to his knees. Raina bounded down the stairs. She had seconds before Sharp could rise, before the soldiers could stop her.
Engulfing herself in a Panoply Rubicund, she sprinted across the uneven floor. Pelts, Strafes and Slashes flashed and sparked against her armor. The lead soldier cast a dense Targe Viridescent as he closed on her.
The armor they wore, Raina suspected, would protect them from direct Fray Spells. With a sweeping Impel Oblige, she forced the rubble of the room into a sideways blizzard of speeding rocks, a storm of stones so dense, she could not see the soldiers through it.
Shouting in pain, the line dispersed to find cover. Confused orders were shouted. Raina called all the energy she could muster. The orbs in the room dimmed, as did the enormous eggs. With a force of will beyond her imagining, Raina drove a Slash Bellow into the ceiling above the fleeing Slayers, as Sharp had called them. From the impact of the sonic cut, an enormous chunk of rock disintegrated, tons of falling rubble and dust burying the screaming men.
Raina reached Kraevek, huddling close to him. Her Panoply was losing its edges. Finding a calm center within her, she fortified it; expanded it to cover both Kraevek and herself.
Her father’s face was abraded, and some of his teeth were missing. Had they tortured him, as the Light Fae had long ago? Or had he fought them?
“You can’t attack if you keep us in the Panoply,” he whispered to her. “Save yourself, Daughter. Grab the shard and run for your life.”
The Slayer with the Targe threw his short lance at her Panoply. The impact sent stars across her vision. Still, the ruby force remained intact. With deft gesticulation and a precise cast, she expanded her armor at him. The ballooning force knocked him off his feet, splintering his shield.
Even as she knocked him down, a group of others dragged themselves from the rubble. Together, they chanted, right hands raised and twisting. The Stroke Flaxen, driven by the four soldiers, would quickly dissolve her armor. While armored, she could not strike. But she could still perform simple spells. Concentrating on the nearby fallen lance, she flung it at the group with a mighty Impel Oblige. The weapon cracked in pieces as it impacted the close group. Their spell failed as they fell or fled.
More men joined the attack. To her right, two soldiers struck together, their combined Bludgeon Typhotic reduced her Panoply to only inches surrounding her and Kraevek. To her left, three others joined together in an Impale Strident. When the screaming stab hit the armor, it flickered out of existence. The consequential psychic impact dropped Raina to the slab.
She was done for. Kraevek was done for. Eyes slits, she sought the final attack that would take her life.
“Bright Fae!” Merit Sharp limped toward her, hair disheveled, wrists at wrong angles—broken. Still he made his way toward her. “Your presence here will only make this easier. Ernella, the shard. Kill them both. Slayers, ready yourselves for victory!”
Raina gained her knees, her feet. Her body felt bruised, battered, exhausted, but it was only her overtaxed psyche relaying its agony. Ernella, the nurse and inquisitor, hesitantly walked to Sharp’s side. She bent, retrieving the jagged, stone-like splinter of the portal. In its current condition, it seemed to suck the light from the room, its color a darker black than vision could bear.
Wide eyes met Raina’s. Ernella turned them to Sharp.
“I’ve never killed anyone before.”
“Stab it through her thieving heart!” A soldier came forward. “Or give it to me. I’d honor the deed.”
Other Slayers joined the first. Their armor was dented, scraped, filthy. They limped and staggered forward. Still, they were ready for more violence. Eager for it. Raina could barely catch her breath. Yet these Slayers were once again ready for battle. Their hands glowed with harbingers of deadly Fray Spells.
“Kill her, Ernella, kill this Bright Fae interloper, and then the pathetic Lord Fae. Free the magic, Ernella, and free the Dark Fae,” Sharp intoned. His words seemed to hypnotize Ernella. Zombie-like, she paced toward Raina and raised the crude weapon.
Raina tried to draw a defensive spell, but even the thought of it sent an agony through her. She barely had the strength to stand, let alone wrestle the shard from the old inquisitor’s hands.
Backing from Ernella’s approach, she felt armored hands grip her arms and hold her fast.
“Free the blood magic, and free the Dark Fae,” Sharp said again.
The soldier holding her repeated it. “Free the blood magic, and free the Dark Fae.”
Too tired to act, too tired to even cry, Raina watched as Ernella stepped to within striking distance. It was over. Around her, the Slayers took up the chant.
“Free the blood magic, and free the Dark Fae.”
Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad. I did everything I could.
Raina closed her eyes.
The chant stopped, the room fell into utter silence. Then, Raina heard a distant thump, a whistle above, and the hands holding her clench and fall away.
“You’ll not commit this atrocity in our name, Sharp!”
Raina opened her eyes. At the top of the rough stairs, Melchior stood, a longbow still raised. The soldier holding her fell. Raina saw the arrow jutting from his neck. Saw the bloody point. A point made of iron.
Melchior charged down the steps, six men and women behind him. Arrows were nocked and released, hissing and whistling through the air. Adargo Dires sprouted from the soldiers. Iron arrowheads evaporated them, even as the missiles vanished themselves.
Drawing swords and daggers, the Egalitarian Confraternity, dressed in full metal armor, charged the Slayers. In response, the soldiers released a clamorous, explosive casting of offensive spells. Where magic and iron met, they cancelled each other out with steaming, fizzling obliteration.
Shouts and running feet filled the echoing chamber as the forces met in the middle.
Raina lurched at Ernella. The old nurse fell on her butt. Raina barely managed to keep hold of the portal fragment. Upon seeing this, Sharp held his injured arms close to his body and ran. Summoning all her might, Raina swung the heavy stone, clocking the headmaster in the head. He went down with a satisfying thud.
The initial battle quickly quieted as Slayer and Confraternity brother hunkered under cover, each side readying attacks. Raina didn’t have anything left. She found a few broken arrows near the slab. The metal points easily severed Kraevek’s bonds.
He nodded at her, gaining his feet. “I don’t have a lot of fight left in me.”
A flight of arrows whizzed by, dangerously close, followed by the charge of two armored humans. Shouts, clangs, flashes and curses ensued as men and Fae engaged in mortal combat behind a mound of dusty boulders.
Raina agreed. She picked up the shard. “I don’t have any. We have to get out of here.”
“I can manage a Testaceous Xanthic, but only for myself. You’ll have to keep me between yourself and an attack.”
Raina wearily eyed the stairs, viewed the piles of rubble and slabs that likely hid combatants. “Let’s go.”
Kraevek grunted a dull yellow shell around himself, Third Order Frey Armor at best, but it was better than nothing. Together, they moved to the stairs. As they headed up, a ricocheting Impale Strident knocked the armor spell out in a shower of embers. Recovering, Kraevek cast a lower order Cuirass Aeneous, a coward’s back armor for retreat.
Raina didn’t care. She wasn’t feeling all that brave.
Conversely, she felt herself growing less fatigued as they ran up the stairs. Still, before they reached the ritual chamber, another Fray Spell shredded the Cuirass to ashen tatters. Raina caught Kraevek before he tumbled down.
Another set of hands grabbed the man. Raina whirled to see Trini.
“Get out of here. I’ll cover you.”
“Derek?” Raina asked.
“Outside, I called 911. Get out of here!”
“The confraternity?”
“Cell phone. Duh.” Trini’s eyes went wide as she gesticulated. An Adargo Dire appeared a split second before a Static Lunge struck. She moaned with the effort. “Go!”
Hauling Kraevek by one arm, Raina struggled up the remaining stairs and through the chamber. To her nearly hysterical glee, her father recovered quickly.
“The Fray Spells, they’re draining the residual magic down there quickly. It won’t go well for the Slayers.”
“Good,” Raina spat through her teeth.
Kraevek glanced around. “A chamber of horrors. Those young men volunteering to become monsters.”
“What have they become?” They crossed the circle of gem pillars and the hideous rack.
“Forged. Their physical beings have taken on the essence of the most evil, hideous creatures to ever exist.”
“Nithedrake,” Raina whispered. Two of them still remained, guarding the winding stairs to the upper world.
“They allowed themselves to be burned to ash and reformed, Fae shaped with a fiend’s quintessence, the embodiment of hatred and evil.” Kraevek winced.
“And they can transverse the portal, even if they’re Dark Fae?”
“Nithedrake have always had that ability. Now, it is the Slayers’ ability as well.”
The walls narrowed into a rough hall. “There are two nithedrake guarding the exit.”
“The breeding pair.”
“I don’t have the magic to get by them again.”
“Again?”
Raina explained how she, Trini and Derek had subdued the dragons.
“Astounding.” Kraevek actually smiled. “Magic and physics—you’re acting like a Lord Fae, Raina.”
“Great. But after all that fighting, we’re stuck down here.”
“Silly child. Do you think The Armory is the only way down here?”
She wanted to smack herself in the head. “There’s another way out?”
“A number. Where do you want to go?”
“To the Lake in Central Park.”
“The academy?” Kraevek tilted his head. “I can think of safer places.”
“Me too,” Raina said. “Probably a couple thousand. But I can’t think of a more important place.”
28
Kraevek led Raina up a rickety wooden ladder that ended in an abandoned waterworks tunnel. “The city is honeycombed with abandoned tunnels. Waterworks, subway, sewer, maintenance.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
He sighed. “I probably volunteered too eagerly for dangerous work. I’ve been working around the academy, doing odd jobs, since before construction began. Over time, I earned their trust. Enough to get in on some of their more secretive projects. They thought I was human—what did a human care about any of this magic stuff?”
“No, really. How did they find out?”
“No sweat.” Kraevek cast a tiny orb to light the way.
“Come again?”
“Humans sweat. Dark Fae sweat. Light Fae and Lord Fae don’t. I can project a Phaze better than anyone. But I can’t project a Phaze that sweats. When you work around twenty-five hundred degree nithedrake eggs, well…”
“So it really was your arrogance that got you caught.”
His head angled back and forth. “Perhaps. Or maybe forgetfulness. I’m getting old. Your turn.”
They climbed a set of rungs to a roaring, functioning section of the city’s fresh water pipes. For a while, it let Raina off the hook. Less than ten minutes later, they moved sideways into a quieter maintenance access.
“My turn for what?”
“Why are we heading for the academy?”
“Because that’s where the portal is.”
Kraevek stopped and faced her. “Where the portal was, you mean.”
Raina didn’t say anything. With a resigned expression, Kraevek moved on.
Soon, they followed a familiar route, bypassing Pumping Apparatus Level 4 and moving upward into the academy sub-basement.
“Are you able to cast a Phaze yet?” Kraevek whispered.
Raina took a deep breath, centering herself. Gesticulation, mental sight and sound fell into place and she quickly drew on a Phaze of Disregard. Kraevek’s spell was so complete, Raina would have missed him if she didn’t know he was there.
“Good,” he nodded.
> They moved to the ground level, unhindered. Neither students, faculty or security wandered the public level. In a few minutes, they found themselves on the fractured portal threshold on the lake. Kraevek waited expectantly. It took her a moment to gather her thoughts.
“The portal is still here.”
Kraevek gazed toward the lake and back. He said nothing.
“Since I’ve been back in New York, I’ve heard the voices of the Light Fae. I’ve seen my father, or, Oliver Raeyelle, rather, in the water. I’ve spoken with my mother.”
“Spoken…” Kraevek caught himself and fell silent.
“It’s dragged me here, in my dreams. Physically. I know they’re all still alive over there. And I know they need my help. Our help. But more than that, they need to be warned. Prepared. If these Dark Fae extremists break through, it will be all over.”
Kraevek took this in, pondering. After a long while, he spoke. “If you say the portal is still here, I believe you. I can’t see it. I don’t sense it. How do you intend to warn your family, your people?”
“I don’t. You’re going to do it.”
“Me?”
“The first day I visited here, I cut myself. My blood went into the water. That’s when I first saw my—I first saw Oliver Raeyelle, and heard him call to me. Just a single drop of my blood.” She turned her right hand so that he could see the flat, black scar.
Kraevek raised cautious hands. “I don’t like where this is going. How much blood do you think it would take to reopen the gate?”
“Not very much, actually. Sharp thinks that killing you with a shard of the portal would open the gates enough to let his troops in. I think that’s extreme. After all, we both have Light Fae ties to Oreálle.”