by DB King
Ella was beside him.
The faerie clutched at him. She was trying to speak but the rushing in his ears drowned her voice out. She grabbed him with her left hand and tore the glove from her right hand with her teeth, letting it spin away from them, a little black speck caught in the wind and whipped away.
Her bare hand was on his brow, and without warning an immense power flooded into him as a rush, like water bursting through a dam. He felt it flow from her into him, rushing through his body like heat and cold, sun and moon, ice and fire.
It was immense, it was painful, it was glorious.
He screamed.
As blackness swirled before his eyes, he understood that he was no longer falling. The wind still hissed past him, but it was not thundering in his ears as it had before. The ground still lay below, but it was no longer approaching. He stood, suspended in the air, as if held up by an invisible harness.
Before him, Ella smiled exultantly, hovering in place just in front of him.
“You did it!” she exclaimed. “You took the power of flight from me and made it your own!”
He looked down at himself. “You… you’re right!” he said. “It’s incredible! Look, I’m doing it! I’m flying!”
The power was like a limb, like an extension of his body. He felt buoyant, like a swimmer in water, but he did not have to move his arms or legs to keep afloat. Instead, it was his mind that he used to stay afloat.
“We need to get back up there,” he said. He craned his neck to look upward. High, high above, there was a dark structure, suspended in the air. It looked like the underside of a bridge, except that it began and ended in mid-air.
Ella took his hand, and Marcus found that it was not difficult to propel himself upward. Steadily, they gained height together, Marcus exulting in the feeling of flight. It was a great feeling, the most powerful magic he thought he’d ever experienced.
As they climbed, the wind grew stronger. It buffeted them, but their combined strength was enough to push through it.
The bridge-like structure above them grew closer and closer. As they flew toward it, the thought struck Marcus that he did not have to do this. He didn’t have to go back. If he chose to, he could turn and head back down into the dungeon world, into the wide, unexplored land below. He felt it drawing on him, like a magnet pulling a compass needle.
Ella seemed to sense his thought. To his surprise, he heard her voice. It flowed through her hand and into his body, ringing clearly in his head.
“We have to go back,” she said in his mind. “Amun and Isa need our help in the dungeon. They cannot run it alone.”
“How are you doing that?” he asked in amazement. “We can hear each other’s thoughts?”
“I don’t know how it works,” she replied, “but it does. Something has happened, Marcus, and our bond has deepened. Look up. We’re almost there.”
Marcus looked up. The stone structure was getting closer. It was long and thin, but solid and dark against the blue of the sky. There was the gap through which they had fallen. Marcus changed his course slightly to aim for the gap.
They closed the distance quickly. As quickly as they had fallen, they were through the gap. The sudden quieting of the wind in Marcus’s ears was almost deafening, but he could hear the clash of weapons from within the chamber.
“Come on!” he said out loud to Ella. “You’re right, they need our help!”
With a last, regretful glance down through the gap at the land below, Marcus flew straight into the thick of the dungeon battle with Ella at his side.
Chapter 23
“Amun!” Isa yelled over the din of the charging skeleton monsters. “Amun, look! Marcus and Ella are back!”
Marcus saw Amun throw a glance over his shoulder and cry out wordlessly in amazement. He smiled at Amun, but the Akhians were in the thick of a fierce battle and explanations would have to wait.
This dungeon chamber took the form of a wide, stone-flagged courtyard set in the midst of a ruined castle. Sections of the castle wall remained to border the courtyard, and the remains of old towers still stood at the corners, but it was mostly a ruin. The blue sky was above them and the air was warm. Everywhere nature was taking over the remains of the castle. In the center of the courtyard there was a statue of a woman pouring water from a jug on her shoulder, and around it, four young, graceful trees were planted in a square.
Behind him, Marcus saw the door he had just come from—it looked like the entrance to a cellar, a small, humble-looking wooden door placed in a section of crumbling wall. It had snapped shut as he and Ella had come through.
The flagstones of the courtyard were cracked, grass and bright meadow flowers growing up between them. The towers were cloaked in a thick growth of ivy, and from the side of one, halfway up, a tree was growing, curving up from where its roots were at work in the mortar of the tower.
Skeleton warriors rushed from the doors of the ruined towers in waves. Marcus hovered above the scene and turned his attention to the enemies. The skeleton warriors were like—and unlike—the skeleton duelists of the dungeon’s previous incarnation. They still carried longswords and shields, but they were dressed in chainmail, more like the armor of the Wasteland wights than the colorful clothes of the dockland duelists.
The courtyard was littered with the bodies of defeated skeleton warriors, but no matter how many were destroyed, more kept coming. They were pressing Amun and Isa back toward the trees and the central statue. In the middle of the courtyard and here, as in the old version of the Harpy dungeon, Marcus saw rings of runes expanding outward from the feet of the trees. When these runes were trodden on, he knew that a harpy would be spawned from the branches of the trees. There was a good chance that the trees themselves would also turn into tree-demons that the adventurers would have to fight as well.
Marcus was still airborne. Drawing his mace, he flew forward at speed and crashed into the flank of the skeleton warriors that were pressing Amun and Isa. The force of his charge scattered his enemies away from him on both sides, sending bones flying and armor crashing to the ground with every swing of his mace. The skeletons turned and broke formation, giving the Akhians a moment’s respite. They used this moment to charge again, pushing through the press of bony enemies to get toward Marcus and Ella.
Marcus landed feet first on the ground and laid waste to the enemies, feeling a rush of unstoppable power flowing through him with every blow he dealt. Above him, Ella had drawn her sword and was diving down to dispatch skeleton warriors with each stroke of her blade. She weaved into range, slammed her blade through an eye-socket or a gap in the armor at the neck, and flew out before the skeletons could retaliate.
Marcus noted that though these skeletons seemed to be made only of bones, a cut that would have killed a living man would kill these skeletons as well. When Ella stabbed them through the gaps in the neck of their armor, her blade passed down into the empty chest cavity of the skeletons. There was nothing in there as far as Marcus could tell—no blood or gore sprayed out of the wounds—but the skeletons crumpled and crashed to the ground all the same.
Encouraged by their arrival, the Akhians had redoubled their efforts. Amun bashed through the enemies to his left with the buckler shield strapped to his wrist and jabbed them in their bony faces with the flaming torch that he still carried in his left hand. Every time he touched them with the torch, the skeletons would go up like dry grass, dropping their weapons and spinning away from the crowd as the flames consumed them.
While using fire to deal destruction to his left, Amun used the short sword in his right hand to punch through the weak spots in the skeleton warriors’ armor, slashing their arms off at the elbows, stabbing them in the eye-sockets, or taking their heads off with short, twisting blows to their necks that snapped the vertebrae that held the skulls in place. He pressed forward, leaving a trail of destroyed skeletons in his wake.
Meanwhile, Isa’s spear skill was legendary. She used the whole weapon, not
just the blade. She would dive in and smash the leaf-shaped blade through a warrior’s eye socket. She’d spin the spear around her head like a quarter-staff and bring it down with deadly force on the back of a skeleton’s head, or smash through its bony neck, crunching vertebrae and armor all in the one fatal blow. Her footwork was slick and unpredictable, and Marcus was reminded of Anja’s katana footwork as he watched Isa dodge and weave her way through her crowded enemies.
For his own part, Marcus was using his mace like a hammer, smashing any skeleton who got within reach of him. He did not even need to cast any spells on himself—he felt power flowing through him, and out to his allies as well. Ella had retreated upward, holding back from the press for the moment, but the three humans on the ground moved as one, three fighters and three weapons making a devastating tsunami of flying shattered bone and broken armor.
Skeletons were still pouring from the tower doors, but the flow was lessening. As Marcus glanced up from his deadly work to survey the rest of the battlefield, he realized that they had been pushed too close to the trees.
“Look out for the runes on the floor!” he called. “They trigger—”
But his warning came too late. Isa’s foot slipped over the nearest rune circle. With a boom like rolling thunder and a flash of white light, the four trees transformed. They grew larger, their roots splitting the flagstones and their graceful leaves and upper branches turning into monstrous limbs. There was a rending sound as the flagstones shattered and flew up into the air.
“Tree-demons!” Marcus yelled to his companions. “Go for the eyes!”
The skeletons fell back momentarily as this monstrous transformation took place, and the fighters took advantage of this lapse to dash in and focus on the monstrous trees for the moment. As the nearest tree-demon finished its transformation, opening its two wide, staring eyes and its enormous, gaping mouth, Isa leaped through the air in a graceful arc toward it, her spear raised.
The tree-demon tried to counter, but it was only just awake and had not yet had time to fully survey the battlefield. Isa’s spear blade sank into the demon’s eye before the monster could respond, and it toppled backward, crashing to the ground as if it had been felled with an axe. Isa landed on its felled body and wrenched her spear free, turning as a trio of skeleton warriors who had regained their courage charged at her. From her high ground on top of the felled tree’s corpse, Isa swept the legs out from the first skeleton. She reached down and grabbed its curved and rusted sword up from the ground.
She flung it at point blank range into the face of the second skeleton, and it wedged there, quivering in the monster’s skull. Isa swung her spear up and jabbed the last skeleton in the ribs through the link in its armor plating.
While Isa was fighting her enemy, Marcus and Amun leaped up to attack another of the trees together, keeping it from hurling itself at Isa. They dodged the whipping wooden tentacles, but the rain of blows was enough to stop their advance momentarily. Marcus cast Hero’s Might and charged through the whipping tentacles, using sheer brute force to smash past the tentacles that tried to resist. Amun moved in Marcus’s wake, slashing at the tentacles that tried to grab at him from behind.
Spell: Hero’s Might Level 2
Level increase: 9%
Progress to next level: 71%
Together, they battered past the tree-demon’s resistance. The monster yawned its gaping jaws at them, but Marcus smashed it in the mouth with his mace. It roared in pain as splinters of wood flew up from the blow. It turned all its attention on Marcus—and that gave Amun the opportunity he needed. As Marcus fought off the tentacles that lashed at him, Amun leaped up from the other side, diving in and grabbing a hand hold on the hoary bark of the monster’s brow. He drew back his sword and stabbed the monster in the eye with his short, bright blade.
A third tree-demon lumbered in to attack Marcus and Amun, but it didn’t see Ella as she closed in from above. Ella dodged rapidly between the swinging tentacles of the third tree-demon, trying to get close enough to the eyes for a killing blow. As she dived, it became aware of her. The tree-demon dodged and weaved, flinging a rain of blows at her with its tentacles, but it couldn’t land a blow. She was too fast for it, and after a moment she got her opportunity. She dived forward and stabbed viciously at the monster’s eye, sinking her blade up to the hilt and wrenching it back out.
“Only one more to go!” Marcus yelled. All four of them turned to face the last tree demon. It waved its tentacles about and let out a terrifying roar, but it held back from them. Marcus led the charge, noticing as he did so that the remaining skeleton warriors were wavering, seeming unwilling to attack.
Marcus hit the tree-demon at full speed, bashing his way through the forest of tentacles that flew at him. They grabbed at his ankles and his arms, but he whacked them away with terrifying speed. Wood smashed and flew away as Amin and Isa came up behind him, backing him up with spear and sword.
A tentacle grabbed Marcus’s waist. It wrapped around him and hauled him backward, but Amun raised his torch and flung it full force into the monster’s gaping mouth.
Marcus bashed the tentacle that gripped him with his mace and felt its grip weaken, but it didn’t let go. Smoke billowed from the monster’s mouth. Marcus’s second blow smashed through the tentacle as if it had been dry firewood. He leaped away as flames poured from the tree demon. The fire roared up, turning the tree-demon into a bonfire.
The burning demon turned and crashed blindly away from them, smashing into the knot of skeleton warriors who were readying themselves for a charge. The fire spread from the tree-demon to the skeleton, and they all collapsed into a heap of burning wood and bone.
“We did it!” Amun yelled. “We—”
A creaking, groaning sound behind them cut him off. They whirled, weapons raised to face whatever new threat might appear.
The statue in the middle of the courtyard was changing. It had been a statue of a woman, gracefully sitting on top of her plinth with a jug of water raised on one shoulder. Now, the stone was falling away to reveal an evil shape. It was like a woman, at least it had the head and chest of a woman, but its body was that of a monstrous bird. As it was revealed by the falling stone, it took color, a grayish, unhealthy tone like the pallor of a dying person.
It moved, huge black talons gripping the side of the pillar, human arms outstretched. Leathery wings unfolded from behind the monster’s back, and it raised its head. The face was that of an ancient, evil crone, with sharp, yellowing teeth and eyes that glowed red like hot coals. Matted gray hair fell down across the monster’s bony shoulders.
With a wordless scream, it launched itself from the plinth, its long, ragged nails reaching out for the adventurers. But it didn’t attack them directly. It beat its wings and gained height, and then pointed its decrepit hands at them. With a malicious yell, a blast of orange flame swept the courtyard below it.
Amun and Isa both leaped backward to avoid the blast, and Ella dove through the air to get away from the monster’s attack. The harpy twisted in the air, yelled again, and blasted another scorching burst of fire at the adventurers.
Marcus grabbed the last of his javelins from his belt and flung both through the air in quick succession. Amun and Isa also had two javelins each, and they pulled them out, ready to throw.
“Aim for the wings!” Marcus called to them. “We have to try to bring it down!”
A sudden thought struck him. Do we really have to bring it down?
His power of flight was so new that he had almost forgotten it in the course of the fight. As the Akhians’ javelins flew, he leaped up in the air and pushed with his will against the ground. It worked. The javelins sailed through the air, but the harpy hurled a blast of fire at them, knocking them off course so they landed harmlessly on the ground.
Marcus dived to the left, cutting through the air as if he were a javelin himself. The thought made him smile as he saw the harpy register this new threat. I need to avoid the fire blasts,
he thought, but if I can get close enough…
The harpy did something unexpected. It raised a hand, but instead of blasting fire at him it flung something else. It took Marcus a moment to realize what it was—a net! It was a net like those used as the weapon of choice for many fighters in Kraken City, thick weighted cords that would entangle an opponent and stop them from being able to move or fight.
The net seemed to be made of thick cords of pure light. As it moved toward him, it expanded, so he had to fly back quickly to avoid being caught in it. A glance down showed his friends looking up helplessly, unable to assist him.
I need to get close enough to bring this monster down to earth, he thought.
With a surge forward, Marcus closed the gap between himself and the harpy as the net fell to the ground and lay on the flagstones below, glowing with an eerie magical light.
The harpy blasted fire at him, but at this range he was able to dodge easily. He clipped his mace back onto his belt and drew his sword, diving down to slash at the harpy’s wings.
The monster flew away from him, turning and leaning back so it could slash at him with the huge black talons on its feet. Marcus dodged one blow and knocked another back with his blade, but the harpy flapped its wings, buffeting him with a wave of putrid air from the great wings.
Marcus wobbled in the air and felt himself begin to fall. The harpy cawed like an evil crow and blasted fire at him. The blast passed a little too close for comfort, and Marcus was forced to let himself fall to the ground to avoid it.
He landed awkwardly, but dropped and rolled to recover.
The harpy cawed again and blasted fire toward Ella, who hovered in the air a short distance from Marcus.
She had to scoot backward through the air away from the flames. The harpy followed up with another net that hissed through the air toward Isa and Amun.