The Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal (Book 1)

by Joshua Hoyt

  Chapter 21:

  When they reached the balcony, Tom heard fighting coming from down the other hallway. He pulled his sword from its scabbard then gazed thoughtfully at the blade. Will I ever be able to remove the stain of blood? He shook his head to clear the thought and ran toward the fight. Kristiana stood at the end in front of open double doors. Tom stopped and stared at how graceful her body moved and flowed as the magic shot forth from her outstretched hands. She spun and extending her hands in one smooth motion and a ball of fire formed at her fingertips. The fireball burst from her hands and with explosive force screeched toward her enemies. A man screamed from within the room as another ball of fire shot from her hands.

  It seemed like a dream as Tom raced past Kristiana into the room. Tanya fought in the middle of the room surrounded by opponents, while John cut a path toward her. Arrows, shot from Xantar's bow, whizzed by Tom's head toward the group of enemies. Each arrow fatally struck its mark. Cody let out a battle cry and with a burst of speed shot in to the room just behind Tom. Tanya, desperately outnumbered, struggled to fend the attackers off. Even with her skill, the numbers overwhelmed her at times, and spots of blood showed on her green armor. Cody raged at the sight of the blood and cut his way toward her. Many of the enemy, seeing the blood rage in Cody's eyes, ran to the other side of the room to setup a more defensible position.

  Tom, with an inner smile, conjured the fire into his mind and picturing Cody’s sword unleashed his energy. Cody's sword burst into flame. Fear leapt into the dark elves eyes. Those who had been able to brave Cody’s first onslaught, dropped their weapons and ran. With the room cleared, Tanya put her sword down and leaned heavily on it. Cody bounded the last few yards to her side. His sword clang to the ground as he dropped it to wrap his arm around her waist, protecting her from falling to the ground. “I thought I lost you once today. I won't ever feel that again in this life.”

  Tanya looked up at Cody and smiled. “I had things under control.”

  Cody smiled. “I know.”

  The room they stood in looked like a throne room. Several chairs ran along the back of the room on a raised dais. The chairs all had a white tree inscribed into their backs while the center chair had a crown encircling the white tree.

  Cody, looking at Tom, said, “That was a nice trick. I didn’t know you could project fire.”

  Tom smiled. “I didn’t either until just a few minutes ago.”

  John walked up to the group. “Tanya, are you well enough to go on?”

  She cleaned her weapons on one of the nearby corpses. “I’m ready to go. The central chamber is through that exit and up the stairs. That’s also where the three towers connect to the palace.”

  John nodded at her then looked at the rest of the group. “We need to keep moving…” he looked at the exits then said, “…they’ll be back soon.”

  Xantar walked up to the group. “I’ll be going to find my brethren now. I don't think the dark queen will be able to reach us for some time. I recommend that you hurry though. It will not take her long to get through the webs that I've spun around our minds.” Xantar began to leave, then he turned and looked at Tom. “Thank you for your trust in me. We would have all been defeated if you had not.” Xantar then turned and ran through the double doors and down the hallway.

  Tanya headed toward an exit at the side of the room and the others followed. They came to a circular staircase wide enough to allow two people to walk abreast.

  Tom looked up the stairs. “These stairs go on forever.”

  Tanya looked down from a couple of stairs above and smiled at him. “Yea, I remember racing up them with Tiarra as a kid. We would always arrive at the top out of breath and unable to go on for some time.” She turned and took the stairs two at a time with little effort.

  Tom climbed the stairs behind Cody, beginning to breathe harder and harder as they continued higher and higher. When the group finally reached the top of the stairs he panted and leaned over resting his hands on his knees. He looked around at the others. Everyone was breathless. Tom smiled. At least I'm not the only one. Caspin reached the top of the stairs last. The look of despair was still etched in his face. Tom's heart ached as he beheld the broken man. He shook his head and looked away unable to bear his pain.

  Tom was surprised by its size of the room in which they stood panting. Three glass tunnels led out of the room in different directions, all made of the same glass that made up the rest of the building. The ceiling rose up high above them and they could see the morning sky through the clear glass. Cody whistled as he looked above them. “Wow! That’s quite the ceiling.”

  “How high is the ceiling?” Tom asked as he stared at the clouds that reflected oddly off the domed ceiling.

  Tanya followed his gaze. “I’m not sure. But I do know that it took many years to finish.”

  John cut the conversation short and as he pointed down one of the hallways, he said, “Cody, Tom and Aithnea that’s your tunnel.” He pointed down another tunnel. “Kristiana and I will go down that tunnel.” He then walked to Caspin. The two of them whispered for several minutes and Tom saw that both John and Caspin had tears in their eyes as they conversed. John turned from Caspin and pointed down the third tunnel. “Tanya, you and Caspin will take that one. Remember that we must deactivate the field on all three towers or we'll have no support from the outside once the sun stone is activated. Does everyone have their codes?” John asked speaking of the tower's deactivating codes. They all nodded in the affirmative and then John and Kristiana walked away down their tunnel. Cody gave one last look at Tanya and then gestured to Tom and Aithnea to follow and they headed down their own.

  It was unnerving walking over floors of glass. Tom stepped as lightly as possible, imagining great webs of cracking glass spreading out from each footfall. After a couple of tentative steps, Tom quickened his pace as he moved farther down the corridor gradually gaining confidence in the floors ability to hold him. He looked ahead. At the tunnel stretching before them and thought, I wonder what's in store for us at the end. He looked down through the glass to tops of buildings below and flinched. Aithnea must have noticed his fear because she said, “Tom, it’s easier if you don’t look down.” And she smiled.

  He smiled sheepishly. “The problem is, I’ve already looked down and now I can’t stop.”

  Cody looked back at him and said, “Well, whatever it takes, you need to hurry up. At this pace I’ll be a grandpa before we reach the tower.” Tom grinned and quickened his pace.

  After walking for some time, Tom saw shapes flickering down the tunnel. The three had walked several more yards when Cody held up his hand. “Do you see someone at the end of the tunnel?” Cody whispered.

  Tom squinting said, “I think so.”

  Aithnea wove her hands in the dance of magic and chanted eyes closed. After a few minutes she opened her eyes. “There are four men at the end of the hall. Three of them are like the ones that we fought getting into the palace and the fourth is wearing black robes. He's unarmed.”

  Almost immediately, Tom felt a tingling sensation around the edges of his mind. It felt like a finger poked at his brain, trying to find a way through a defensive barrier. He closed his eyes. “We need to hurry. The man in the robes must be a psyonicist, and he's trying to get through Xantar's defenses,” Tom said.

  Cody pulled his sword from its scabbard. “Well let’s get there before he gets through.” He charged with a yell.

  Tom pulled the sword and pistol from his belt and ran after Cody. Aithnea followed behind him. When they were within range, Tom squeezed the trigger on his pistol. The muzzle crack echoed through the glass hall, almost deafening him. A scream let him know that the bullet had found a mark. The wounded guard pulled his weapon from his scabbard. Blood trickled through the black armor and ran down to his hand finally dripping from his fingers. The drops of blood splattered on the glass floor causing the first stain it had seen for over a century. Tom pulled the trigger agai
n and this time the shot went wide hitting the glass wall without even leaving a scratch. The guards charged and closed the gap before Tom could get off another clear shot. He dropped the pistol and it clattered on the glass. Tom's jaw clenched as the foreign prodding of his mind strengthened. No longer a single finger but an entire hand prodded at his brain, searching for a way through the maze that protected it.

  Cody swung his sword toward the first guard and as metal hit metal the noise clanged from glass wall to glass wall. The force of the blow knocked the guard off balance and he backed up several paces. The next guard stepped into the vacant space and engaged Cody.

  The third guard stepped past Cody and struck at Tom. Tom attacked the guard, but the hand that surrounded his brain turned from a tingling to heat. He felt his brain start to warm and he struggled to focus on the guard. The guard feinted to the right and then swung left. Tom turned to avoid the blow and the sword glanced off his armor. The heat intensified in his brain just as the guard attacked again. Tom had to drop to the ground to avoid the blow, and found himself in a horrible position to fend off the next attack. The guard raised his sword above his head and started to bring it down toward Tom's back. Tom felt the heat of two magic missiles zip past him.

  The magic missiles slammed into the guard and then he heard a thump behind him. The guard in front of him dropped to the ground a second later. Tom turned to see Aithnea unconscious on the ground. Tom stood and turned back to the fight, trying to ignore the ever increasing heat that surrounded his mind and the sight of Aithnea lying on the ground. Tom charged past Cody and the guard he fought, toward the next guard in his way. The guard swung at him but Tom dove to the side of him and behind him, then slid on his back farther down the tunnel. The guard charged at him. He swung his sword down as Tom jumped to his feet and raised his own weapon to defend against the blow. The sword hit Tom’s sword hard. A shiver of pain shot through his arm, and he lost his grip on the sword. The guard lifted his sword for a killing blow but Tom kicked out, smashing the guards left knee.

  The guard groaned in pain as his leg buckled and he fell to the ground. Jumping to his feet Tom grabbed his sword and ran the rest of the way down the hall to where the black robed man stood. He yelled as he swung his sword toward the man. The man sidestepped the blow. Tom crashed into the wall behind him. Tom suddenly felt as if a weight had been lifted and his mind cleared with the easing pain. The pain returned. He felt as if he had just gone through a boxing match with a much bigger opponent. He crumpled to the floor as he felt his brain get smashed over and over again.

  He turned onto his back and looked at the black robed man laughing above him. The man’s smile suddenly turned to a grimace and Tom saw a sword point protruding from his gut. As the sword was pulled from his gut, he seemed to fall to the ground in slow motion then he huddled on the ground. Tom saw a bloodied Cody standing above the man, a grin on his face. “Here I am to save you once again,” he panted. Tom tried to smile back but his head pounded so hard that he could barely keep his eyes open. He felt Cody next to him right before he blacked out.

  Tom woke a moment later looking into the most beautiful face he had ever seen. “Tom, are you all right?” Aithnea asked.

  With the pain subsiding Tom gave a weak smile. “I think I’ll live ... regrettably.”

  Aithnea smiled at him and hit him softly in the shoulder. “You better. You’re the one that got us into this mess after all.”

  Tom sat up and Aithnea helped him stand. “I don’t want to ever go through that again. It was like I was getting hit in the head over and over,” Tom said.

  Cody patted Tom on the back. “I think when you distracted him he concentrated solely on you, which allowed me to concentrate on the guards.”

  Tom nodded and looked at the door set in the wall. “Do you think there will be more?”

  Cody rubbed his shoulder. “I hope not. I don’t think I have much left in me.”

  “I agree. My spells are growing weaker. It's getting harder to concentrate and form the spells in my mind,” Aithnea said.

  Tom looked at Cody and then the door. “Who’s first?”

  Cody stepped forward. “I’ll go first as long as you back me up with some fire.”

  Tom nodded with a smile. Cody kicked the door open and jumped into the room with his sword raised.

  Tom came through next. He lowered his weapon. “It looks as if our luck has finally changed.” The room was empty. The small room had a strange panel of lights and buttons on one side. Tom walked across the room and examined the panel. “I guess we'd better get this done quickly,” he said.

  Cody walked across the room and pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket. After a few minutes, he began pushing buttons. Lights, above the buttons, changed from green to red. “Well that’s that, we'd better get back.” Cody turned. Tom and Aithnea followed him back down the hall.

  “I hope that the others didn’t have any problems,” Aithnea said. Grabbing hands, Tom and Aithnea jogged across the glass floored passage toward the central chamber. Tanya and Caspin were there waiting when they arrived.

  Tanya pulled the sun stone from its box and prepared to detonate it. She looked up at them and relief washed across her face. Even Caspin’s mood seemed to brighten when the three entered the chamber. Tanya smiled and said, “We were worried about you. John and Kristiana have already descended the stairs. They are waiting to hold off anyone who tries to stop us from getting down.”

  “We met up with a few guards,” Cody said as he walked toward Tanya.

  Tanya finished the final preparations and pulled a mask from a pouch at her side. “It’s time. We’ll give you a good head start,” Tanya said. “Remember to keep your masks on until the light has died down.”

  Tom pulled out his mask and put it on as he headed toward the stairs.

  “Caspin,” Cody said, “I’ll wait with Tanya. You can go with the others.”

  “Thank you, Cody,” Caspin replied. He limped toward the stairs.

  “Caspin, you’re hurt,” Aithnea said walking over to him.

  “I got hit with an arrow as we engaged the enemy. I’ll be all right.” he said hesitantly. With the help of Aithnea and Tom Caspin made the descent down the stairs to where John and Kristiana waited. Within minutes of reaching the bottom Tom could hear Cody and Tanya running down the stairs. The light that exploded around them was excruciating. Tom put his hands to his face to try and block the light that burned his eyes. Thankfully the light lasted for only a few minutes. Tom could only imagine what happened to those who were not ready for it.

  “Let’s go,” John said. Tom followed John as he ran through the double doors and down the stairs that led to the entrance. Within minutes the group ran through the courtyard and Tom nearly ran into John when he suddenly stopped. John instantly had his sword and pistol out.

  “So we meet again,” a woman’s voice said.