Sorcerer’s Waltz: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (Scions of Magic Book 6)

by TR Cameron

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I’ll run through and stop at the doors. If they attack me, you can jump into the fight.”

  Tanyith frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  The dwarf’s voice carried a certainty he envied. “Yep. The chances are they’ll aim high if they’re waiting and if they don’t, my axes will stop whatever they throw.”

  “Even magic?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well. Okay then.” He drew his Sai with a twirl and wished they were magical. Maybe there will be something in the treasure vault or whatever it is that Cali’s parents left her the clue about. He focused his mind, brought his magic to a ready state, and exhaled to set his nerves. “I’m good to go.”

  Zeb barreled through the intersection, invisible in the darkness. No attack came and after a moment, he said. “The door’s jammed. It looks like we have to turn back.”

  Tanyith sighed. “Awesome. Something tells me this will suck.”

  As she crept along the corridor behind Fyre, Cali had to grin at Tanyith’s complaints in her earpiece. “Tay says this will suck,” she sent to the Draksa and he returned a sense of amusement to her across their mental connection. Her words wouldn’t reach them unless she toggled her microphone, but she’d asked the others to leave theirs active so she’d know what was going on.

  Unexpectedly, he said, “I wish I could share my eyesight with you for this.”

  She frowned. “Is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know. But it would be helpful.”

  Cali chuckled. “You might as well wish for me to be able to change into a Draksa.”

  He chuffed a laugh. “That would be very useful. You should work on that.”

  “It’s exactly what I need. Curse of the Were-Draksa. No thanks.”

  “Corner ahead,” he hissed and she immediately stopped. They’d agreed he would be the scout, so she waited while he moved ahead. “Clear,” he said a moment later.

  She stepped forward to follow him again, sensed the space widening around her, and asked, “What do you see?”

  “Big room. Center desk area. Smaller rooms on the outside.”

  “It sounds like an intensive care setup or specialized ward or something. And it sounds dangerous. Can you see them if they’re in one of the side rooms?”

  His reply sounded irritated. “No. I’m not able to see through walls any more than you are.”

  “Well, what good are you, then?” She snorted softly in playful mockery.

  The quality of his voice changed as the volume dropped. “Good enough to know there’s at least one hiding in the back.”

  While she knew it wasn’t wise, she couldn’t help herself. The dread the darkness invoked had begun to fill her and she had to act against it. With a shout, she channeled her magic through her sticks, a skill she’d fought hard to master after Nylotte gave her the key to it. A small, controlled ball of flame erupted from the left one and made its way slowly across the room. Shadows skittered in all directions and she located the enemy Fyre had identified. Immediately, she launched a force blast through the other stick and the hospital bed near him lurched up and into the wall as he dodged.

  Cali raced ahead and only the sudden motion out of the corner of her eye gave her the chance to dodge the line of shadow that sliced through where her head had just been. Neither of them had seen the other enemy, who had waited for her to reveal herself. Fyre veered in that direction as she dove behind the central desk to avoid the second beam of coherent darkness. She tapped her earpiece and said, “We have two here.”

  “None here yet,” Zeb replied. While his vision was better than average, he still had difficulty making out all the shapes that appeared in his sight. Some were familiar like the wheelchairs and mobile cabinets he carefully avoided. Tanyith had gotten smart and put a hand on his shoulder after he’d banged into one of the latter—once he’d finished cursing about it.

  But he wasn’t able to recognize others at all such as the large cylindrical machines that resembled some kind of science fiction movie pods in the rooms they passed.

  It’s probably good the power’s not on. Who knows what kinds of trouble these idiots might be able to cause if it was. He grew more antsy with each passing moment that didn’t reveal a foe because that was one more moment in which a trap could be set for them.

  He had no warning that the floor would collapse beneath him, but the way no debris fell told him instantly it was because he’d stepped onto an illusion. He curled and protected his head as he landed, then uncoiled and darted to his feet in time to identify the glow of magic from three places in the room.

  “I have the other three,” he told Cali through the commlink and raised his axes to deal with the imminent ambush.

  Chapter Eleven

  The dwarf skittered to the left to avoid the blast from the first enemy to respond. A crackling beam of lightning struck a wooden cabinet full of fabric and set it ablaze. He caught the second and third beams on his axes, which drew the magic in and absorbed the power easily. His movements calm and deliberate, he continued to circle to put the nearest adversary in the way of the others before he attacked, glad to be done with the stalking portion of the challenge.

  He pointed the axes as he ran and returned the lightning to his foe. It wreathed him in blue and yellow energy that sparked and dissipated much more quickly than expected. The outline of the armor pieces glowed brightly before they faded to darkness again. He growled.

  “They have magic absorption of some kind in their armor,” he told his teammates. Which is fine by me.

  Zeb vaulted upward to avoid another bolt of electricity that was aimed too low—a common mistake that those who fought dwarves for the first time often made—and brought both axes in from the sides. They swung on a downward angle, aimed at the gap in the armor between helmet and shoulder. His adversary managed to spin away and draw a sword before he landed, which required him to dive forward to evade the slice the man dispatched a second later.

  His roll carried him to the next man, and he caught that one’s sword on crossed axes above his head, mere inches before the blade would have connected. He lashed out with a heavy boot and found his foe’s armored knee but couldn’t follow up on the man’s loss of balance as the first one struck from behind.

  The dwarf made his own pirouette, doubtless more agile than the armored man or woman expected, and delivered a wicked backhand. The ax caught the plate that covered his opponent’s thigh, which cracked with a loud snap. He fired lightning into the newly created seam and the piece shattered. Once again, he was forced to evade when the second assailant launched another onslaught.

  A heavy crash sounded and he dashed sideways to avoid it. He turned to where Tanyith battled the third and realized that the sound had apparently been his leap from the upper floor.

  He has more bravery than sense, that one. He grinned at the improved odds and darted in the direction of the nearest foe.

  The second line of shadow seared through the desk Cali hid behind like it was nothing more than paper. She’d had the sense to stay low, which was all that kept her head attached to her body. The emotions she associated with Fyre being in combat flowed to her, and she decided she could safely emerge as he’d engaged her attacker. She used a low-power force blast to launch up and over the counter and landed in a run toward where she’d seen the first enemy.

  He darted out from cover and launched lightning at her. She threw her left-hand stick at his head and summoned a force shield in a single motion to catch the attack. Her foe batted the stick aside with a hastily drawn sword and knocked it into the small room he’d occupied before he stepped out to swing the weapon at her.

  She circled her remaining stick from high to low, arrested his blade, and shoved it away. The move opened his ribs, and she was halfway through delivering a reflexive kick before her brain shouted that he wore armor and she was being stupid. Instead, she planted the leg, used it to jump away from him,
and barely avoided his backhand swipe.

  “Damn it,” Cali muttered and pointed her stick. She channeled fire into the weapon again and this time, launched a wide cone of flame at her opponent. It coated him, covered him, and vanished when the outlines of his armor glowed. “Double damn.”

  Zeb had just told her that and she’d already forgotten the warning in the heat of the moment. Get your head in the fight, Cali.

  While she couldn’t spare a glance to see how Fyre was doing, she trusted he was holding his own. The dance wouldn’t last, though, for either of them. There wasn’t enough room for proper evasion, and they’d be caught off balance eventually. The only way out was through. She pumped magic into her muscles to increase her speed, yelled, “Aspida,” to activate her shield charm, and surged toward the figure in front of her.

  Tanyith had planned his leap to fell the armored challenger, but the bastard had moved at the right moment to avoid the attack. Still, he’d managed to stab him in the armor plates that covered both shoulders, and the one on the right had allowed his blade through. His opponent now favored that arm but seemed adequately adept at wielding his sword one-handed.

  There’s not much chance to hit the shoulder with magic, so I guess it’s melee. Too bad Fyre’s not here. Claws from above would be perfect right now.

  He deflected the descending sword with his Sai and locked the weapon with a deft twist, which opened his foe to an attack. Lacking a better idea, he thrust forward and kicked with both heels, and his heavy boots smacked the chest plate. His enemy was forced back as Tanyith landed on his back and immediately rolled to his feet.

  A crack showed in the armor he’d struck, and an idea came to him. He lunged, stabbed his blade into the fracture, and accepted a strike on the head from the pommel of his foe’s sword as he was suddenly inside its effective range. With the blade planted securely, he darted away and raised both hands to deliver electricity into it.

  His foe’s armor bled some of it off but the vulnerability allowed the rest to penetrate and the figure staggered and fell. He rushed forward in a fury, unable to control his anger, and yanked the helmet off his adversary to reveal a woman’s face contorted in agony. In his rage, he barely registered that he’d been wrong about his opponent’s gender. He put one hand on the dagger, ready to release a second charge into the weapon to end her.

  A small voice tried to caution him but he could barely hear it through the raging blood that pounded in his ears.

  Zeb’s words broke through the interference. “Tanyith, there’s another one. Get back in the fight—now.” He shook his head, stood, and turned in time to be struck by a force bolt and hurled across the room. Thankfully, he managed to raise a force shield to absorb most of the impact with the wall that stopped his flight before he staggered forward to find the one who’d hit him.

  Fyre didn’t fare well against the armored opponent. His breath weapon was unable to get past whatever magical absorption his foe used, his claws had been insufficient to pierce the armor plates on the couple of times he’d connected, and the confined space hindered his ability to put his natural agility into use. Basically, he merely kept his enemy busy, which was not a situation he enjoyed at all.

  The only positive part was that his adversary was similarly unable to manage a decisive strike against him. His clumsy swings—he could sense it was a male under the armor based on smell alone—had little chance of connecting, and while a kick had landed, the blow had failed to even damage his scales, much less the flesh beneath. They were engaged in a classic standoff, and he could only hope the man found it as frustrating as he did.

  Cali’s thoughts escaped her control, as they often did in battle, which allowed him to experience the fight from her perspective as well. He wished he could share senses better, but despite his attempts to broaden and deepen the connection between them, he hadn’t been able to do so as yet. Somewhere deep in his memory, he knew more was possible but didn’t know the correct route to get there. It was something to investigate once the battle was over.

  He dodged another swipe of the man’s sword, bit his forearm, and closed his teeth on the armor there. It gave a little and he yanked at the shell with a growl. He was surprised when the piece came free. There was a pause as they both realized what had happened before he breathed frost at his foe. Most of it was absorbed, but the man’s hand and lower arm became trapped. With a hiss of pleasure at the discovery of his enemy’s weakness, Fyre darted in to attack the armor on his legs.

  Cali drove powerfully into her opponent and the magical momentum and the solidity of her arcane shield hurled the armored figure off its feet. She battered its helmet with her stick, then continued to do so until he stopped his attempts to recover. Quickly, she knelt beside her fallen opponent, pulled the helm off, and studied the young-looking man within. He was clearly unconscious. To be sure, she grasped his nose and yanked it, but he didn’t react.

  Okay, he’s really out. Good.

  She scrambled to her feet and took stock of the situation. Across the room, Fyre darted in to bite his opponent’s legs while he avoided both sword and magical attacks with apparent ease. She stepped into the room where her stick had flown and called it to her hand, then crept along the wall toward her partner, out of the enemy’s line of sight. The canny Draksa waited until she was close before he dodged with a small and deliberate stumble out of the small room he was in to entice the enemy to pursue him.

  When the armored figure emerged, she repeated the process she’d used with the first one and hammered the helmeted head with her sticks until he fell. She yanked the helmet off to reveal another man and tested his awareness in the same way.

  Together, she and Fyre removed the armor on the men’s arms and legs and it took only a moment to bind the limbs with ice and render their foes formally incapacitated. She shook her head in annoyance.

  “Buddy, I am so tired of this nonsense.” The Draksa nodded but didn’t offer any additional reply. With a sigh, she jogged in the direction from which they’d come to find the others as she announced, “Two down,” over the comm.

  Tanyith rushed to Zeb’s side as he sheathed one Sai and replaced the weapon with a small force buckler to deflect any potential attacks. The dwarf still whirled his hand axes to absorb incoming magic, while he used his magic to fling objects from around the room at their foes. A cabinet ripped free from the wall and careened into the one on the right. The man staggered and Tanyith darted forward and thrust to full extension to pierce his armor with the Sai. It didn’t go far enough to repeat the electrical trick, so he withdrew it and blocked the fire attack his enemy sent with the force buckler, which stretched and elongated to cover both him and his partner.

  The dwarf stepped out from behind the shield for an instant and threw both of his axes. They streaked fast and hard on a line toward the left one’s helmet, and his target’s frantic efforts at dodge and deflection only managed to negate one of them. The other thunked into it and lodged there, and he fell. The remaining figure launched another blast of fire and turned to run, but neither of them was interested in a footrace. Tanyith’s thrown Sai sank into the back of the runner’s knee, and the examination bed his teammate hurled crushed the fleeing enemy between it and the wall.

  Zeb wrenched his ax from the fallen man’s helmet and held the weapon up to the light. The blade was clean. He made a satisfied sound. “Hard enough to ring his bell but not hard enough to kill him. Let’s go find Cali.”

  She arrived moments before her two teammates and she nodded at them with a wide grin. Fyre sat on the floor and stared unblinkingly at Danna Cudon. She turned to the Atlantean leader and said, “A boon.”

  The woman slid from the table with a sigh. “Ask.”

  “A sit-down with you and your boss in neutral territory.”

  She shook her head. “That is not mine to grant.”

  “I understand. Take it back and find out. If not, I’ll ask something else. But this is a waste of time and effort for both
of us, and there are much bigger matters to worry about.”

  Cudon gave a sharp laugh. “Perhaps all we really want is to see you dead.”

  The girl shrugged. “If so, I suppose it will be a very short conversation. But my guess is that there are other things you desire and maybe we can find a way to put this garbage behind us.”

  The woman stared at her for several seconds and her gaze bored into Cali’s. Then, she turned and walked away. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Zeb stepped beside Cali and observed, “Cold one, her.”

  “Only on the surface. I bet there’s a lot going on under there.”

  He leaned closer and replied, “The same could be said for your friend over there.” Her gaze followed his small gesture to where Tanyith crouched in the corner of the room. “He seemed very keen to take things a little further than necessarily required.”

  She nodded because she’d noticed similar behavior. “We all have so many challenges at the moment, I think. But we’ve won again, and that means a respite. Maybe longer than usual if it takes them extra time to fulfill my request. So hopefully, we’ll have time to figure it out.”

  And if the stress of the Malniet situation is what’s causing Tanyith’s angst, I’ll do what I have to do to get him out from under it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cali deliberately slowed her pace as she descended the long staircase into the basin of the Kemana, knowing that Fyre and Tanyith would both marvel at the surrounding sights. The Lady’s palace glittered white at the far end of the enormous cavern, and the spoke-like streets stretched out from it like a child’s drawing of the sun. The purple light from above filtered over everything, less intense than the last time she’d been there. Twilight, maybe? Regardless of the reason, it lent a sleepy look to the city, and the reduced traffic in the thoroughfares reinforced the image.